Sneaking Eijirou, Denki, and Hanta back into town unnoticed is... a chore, to say the least. People are still on edge, even after the helicopter has flown away seemingly without anything happening to their knowledge.
Ochako and I take them around a back way that's less populated, more secluded with better areas to shield us from prying eyes. It takes longer but it's effective, and we drop everything they brought—the crates full of food and medicine, mostly—off in the shed.
Unfortunately, they weren't exactly smart enough to bring disguises, and while I know Hanta and Denki won't be recognized, what with being simple palace guards, there's no way Eijirou will be able to waltz through town unnoticed. With the way the slum dwellers feel about him and his family while being in the dark that he's behind all of the clothes and food supplied to us over the past couple of months, it could start a fucking riot, and that's the last damn thing we need.
So while we're in the shed, we brainstorm—and interrogate.
"What the hell are you doing here all the sudden, anyway?!" I hiss at the damn prince. "And why'd you bring these two?" I jerk my chin in the general direction of his guards.
"I know it's out of nowhere, but I can explain," he tells me calmly. "Really."
"Then start talking! I thought your entire fucking family wanted nothing to do with me or The Outskirts. I thought they wanted to punish you... or send you to some stupid conversion therapy camp to undo whatever bullshit hypnosis they thought I put on you," I babble. "Why'd you show up all the sudden? How'd you manage to smuggle out a buncha food, and in a helicopter, no less?! And how—"
"Katsuki," he cuts in, one of his big, soft hands placing over the fist that's in my lap. It's warm, and something about that touch immediately relaxes me. "I can't explain if you keep firing questions at me, man."
"Then start talking," I repeat firmly.
He doesn't, though. His eyes instead slide to the left, to Ochako, who's sitting quietly beside me staring at him with those same, moon-like eyes she had earlier.
"How much do you know?" he asks her.
She blinks once, twice. "Oh, um..." Her hand slides up and down the opposite arm as her gaze tears away from him. It's pretty dark in this musty shed but I swear her round cheeks grow the slightest shade of pink and an intense stab of irritation shoots through me. "I know who you are, and that you're 'Suki's soulmate. That you're, uhm, the one who sent all the supplies that have been helping us all survive lately," she mumbles, refusing to look at him again.
"She knows pretty much everything," I quip. "And she's my best fucking friend, so you don't have to sugarcoat shit or skirt around the truth like she's not allowed to know." With that I yank my hand out from underneath his and cross my arms tightly (though I hate the loss of contact that I never even noticed I've been craving for so long, from him; ugh, soulmates are a fucking nuisance...).
"Okay." Eijirou pulls in a deep breath and then lets it out. "Well, I'm Eijirou," he murmurs, holding that same hand in Ochako's direction like some shitty gentleman. "I apologize for lying to you before. And these are my guards and, more importantly, my best friends—Denki and Hanta." He nods to each one of them as he says their names.
"It's okay," Ochako says, but she doesn't take his hand. Sure, she might've been blushing, but even she holds resentment for him and his family, so I can't blame her for not accepting the formality. Even still, she's showing him more respect than I know a good majority of our people would, even if they knew what she does.
A bit awkwardly, Eijirou draws his hand back and rests it on his lap, his eyes turning back to me. "So, it's kinda complicated..."
"I don't care," I tell him. "Just start explaining already."
As if to ground himself, Eijirou sucks in a deep breath before finally, he begins.
"Remember that time we were on the phone and I accidentally almost told you about my great uncle and the power he still has over my family, even though the throne was rightfully my mother's when her father died?"
I nod. Of course I remember, because the fucker cut himself off and left me hanging with about a thousand questions I could only come up with assumptions to answer.
"And you've heard of that whole... 'respect your elders' thing, yeah?"
Another nod.
"My family takes that seriously—like, to the next level seriously. Regardless of position, those of us who are older still pretty much hold the most power when it comes to family decisions, and it's hard for anyone younger to question the authority of the eldest among us. And my great uncle being the oldest remaining family member, he's got the most say in... everything pertaining to our family. Understand so far?"
I feel my eyes narrow. "So like... your mom has authority over the country or whatever, but your uncle has authority over the family?"
"Essentially, yeah, which... basically gives him authority over everything as a whole if you really think about it. My great uncle is heavily tied to old traditions. Seriously, my ancestors didn't exactly write a bible or whatever but if they had, we all know he'd take every single word of it straight to heart. What he does have, though, are what he learned as a young child, and he's stubborn. Seriously, I'm pretty sure the guy's got concrete for a skull and he won't budge. And since my ancestors firmly believed that people had to help themselves to make their lives work, even if they didn't have the means to do so like you all don't, my uncle has stuck to those ideals."
"And since he's an old bastard, he's refused to help," I mutter.
The slightest of grimaces spreads across his face. "Yeah. He and my grandfather were a lot alike in that sense. My grandfather was more easygoing, but not by much. Even my mother felt the same up until she met Miyako. Miyako changed her ideas a lot, especially because they're soulmates and Miyako is transgender. It opened her mind a lot, and since Miyako is already really open-minded, I guess that's the reason I'm the way I am." He shrugs slightly.
"'Kay, but what the fuck does this have to do with you being here?"
"I'm gettin' to that, man. My parents are open-minded, they just can't question the authority of my great uncle so much, so they agreed with me in secret. They believe in helping you, too, Katsuki. That's why I'm here."
"But what about your doucheface of an uncle?"
To my slight surprise, he grins at that, reminding me just how much I like his smile and those stupid dimples of his. "He doesn't know. After they brought you back here when discovering you're my soulmate, my parents were basically plotting. They needed to punish me, right? Because they believed I've been going against authority which... isn't totally wrong, but since they believe in my cause, too, they found a way to sort of... fake my punishment, at least to the eyes of my family members who are on my great uncle's side."
"So what, your parents said they sent you to some boot camp or whatever while they really sent you here?"
"Close. As far as everyone else knows, I went to visit a relatively distant family member way out west. They live on a farm so they think I'm being put to work over there, but obviously I'm here instead, and I'm gonna be helping you as much as I absolutely can."
My eyes narrow, skeptical. "How? Aren't you just as homeless as we are now that you're here?"
"I told you, man—my parents are on my side. Same with several other family members. I brought stuff and I have a somewhat secret bank account set up that they'll be transferring money into, and it won't raise suspicion because my parents have full control over it and if anyone notices, their story will be that they're sending me money to help out on the farm."
All I can seem to do is blink stupidly at him. With all this information my head feels like it's suddenly been swept up into a tornado, and while I get it, it all just feels unreal. I'm expecting to wake up.
"This seems too good to be true," Ochako murmurs. "You're just... going to help us with no strings attached? Just like that, and not expect anything back? Or make us your slaves?"
The light grin that'd held out on Eijirou's face fades into a frown. "Of course not," he says. "All my life I've been learning and training to run this whole country someday, and you all are part of it, too. Old customs are worn out and really, really screwed up."
"I'm sorry, it's just... a lot to take in," Ochako says. "All my life I've learned that the rest of the country doesn't care about us, much less the royal family and... and the prince. It's hard to believe you'd just want to do this for the hell of it."
"It's not for the hell of it," Eijirou responds. "I can get why you're skeptical, though. I'm sure it'll be hard for everyone else to accept it, too, but I'll be damned if I don't try."
"Jesus christ, you're gonna give me cavities," I mutter, rubbing my forehead. "Seems crazy, 'Chako, but he's not lying. Why'd the crown prince risk so much to help us if he was? He's just some pure fucker who wants to do this outta the kindness of his giant friggen heart, whether you believe it or not."
Ochako's quiet for a long minute, and in that quiet my ears begin to ache, but not even I break it. We let her sit with it—with everything she knows now, and in that time I let it sink in for myself.
"...okay," she murmurs before I've wrapped my head around the whole ordeal. "I guess we've kinda got nothing to lose, right? And you've already proven you wanna help, since you sent all that stuff before. I'll try to get my parents and other friends on board."
I expect the instantaneous smile of Eijirou's, and even the grins of Denki and Hanta, but I sure as fuck don't expect it to look like the sun breaking out from behind the relentless clouds of a weeks-long storm and spill light across everything in its path. If that shitty light was literal, I swear I'd have gone blind as my damn mother just looking at his stupid face.
"I promise I won't let you down," he tells her.
Ochako shifts a bit awkwardly, nodding with a slight smile on her face. Ugh.
"Well, guess our next order of business is figuring out how to sneak you to the heart of the freakin' slums without being noticed and starting a damn riot," I sigh.
"Actually..." Eijirou mumbles, suspiciously avoiding my gaze. "I was kinda hopin' you'd let me check out your back. I wanna make sure you're healing up okay."
"What? I'm fuckin' fine."
"I believe you," he says quickly, "but for my own peace of mind, please just—"
"Fine, whatever," I grumble, already in the midst of turning around. I'm not in the mood to argue about stupid shit. My mind is too full of all the shit he just told us, on top of the fact that he's fucking here and I'm having a hard time grasping onto that fact, and that I'd kissed him like an idiot right in front of Ochako. She hadn't really reacted, and when Eijirou was the one to tug out of it all he did was give me that damned crooked smile of his, but some small part of me wanted to just... hide for a while.
So I let him check out the healing wounds across my back, he asks for Hanta's supposedly 'expert' opinion, and when they decide I'm healing up well given my circumstances, I'm allowed to put my shirt back in place. The embarrassing shit isn't over once I turn around, though, because Eijirou's looking at me with such liquefied irises that it's like I share the relief he's feeling with him.
"I'm really glad you're okay, man. I worried about those wounds every day."
"...yeah, well, if you hadn't found me in that shitty alley when you did and patched me up I probably wouldn't be sitting here right now," I mumble.
"Aw man," Denki says almost dreamily. "I hope I find my soulmate soon."
"Shut up, man," Eijirou mumbles, sending an elbow in his direction.
"Hey, I'm serious!"
"Whatever!" I cut in. "Seriously—how the fuck are we gonna get you assholes into town?"
We spend the next half hour brainstorming and trying to manufacture some sort of plausible disguise out of the shit in the buckets they brought, but it's fruitless. Nothing in them will serve to make something inconspicuous enough but not too suspicious at the same time, especially with everyone being on edge from the random helicopter showing up.
"Let's just wait 'til night falls," Ochako says. "It'll be colder so everybody will be sheltered, and since it'll be dark it should be easier to sneak by."
I find myself stifling a sigh; I was afraid of that, but it doesn't seem like we have any other choice. I just hope my mother doesn't try to put a search party together for the two of us, considering how we left her...
———
Fortunately, Ochako's plan seems to work. We still elect to dress the three of them in different clothes that help mask who they are somewhat and leave the dark of the night to do the rest of the work, leaving the crates in the shed.
A few heads swivel our way as we head uptown, but in the end we make it back to my place without a hitch—thank fuck.
Mom's not asleep when we get back, but I don't expect her to be after my sudden departure. She doesn't seem too particularly worried, either, which leads me to decide that telling her the truth about everything was the best thing I could've done.
Now all I have to do is introduce her to Eijirou and his butt buddies or whatever, and hope she's on our side.
"I'm back, Mom," I say, cautious, as I push past the curtain, the others waiting outside.
"'Bout time," she says. "What happened?"
"It, uh, was definitely from the capital. The helicopter. The royal family, in fact."
In the dim light of the dying flame of the grill I can just make out her brows cocking upward. "Oh? Is it safe to assume it was your prince since the bombs haven't started raining down?"
I don't know what caused it but somehow I've gotten better at biting back snide remarks, as much as I want to spit one out at her. "...yeah," I mutter. "He's here. Brought some of his guard friends, and he wants to meet you. Officially, I mean."
She snorts. "Alright, then. Don't make them stand out in the cold any longer."
It's so typical of Eijirou, as he formally introduces himself to my mother, to act like she's the royal one rather than him. Even she decides to shake his hand, which surprises both Ochako and me.
"I knew there was something off about you when you were here a few months ago," she tells him. "If I still had my site, I'm sure I would've been able to figure it out from the moment I saw you."
Eijirou lets loose a sheepish laugh, scratching the back of his neck in an almost bashful way. Fucker. "Yeah, I'm not exactly the best actor," he says. "Thank you for accepting me into your home, though."
"Mm, not much of a home," Mom mutters. "But unless I'm mistaken and you've just come to snatch my son away again, I'd guess that's why you're here."
That's all the prompting Eijirou needs to start catching her up on everything, explaining to her what he explained to Ochako and I in the shed about his great uncle and all of the bullshit surrounding him. Having heard it once already it becomes easier to grasp, and merely watching him as he speaks to her, it's beginning to sink in that he's here. The ache in my body is gone, the longing that's been weighing me down for weeks is gone. All that's left is the urge to gravitate toward him, to be nearer to him and make sure he can't leave again.
By the end of his retelling, Mom looks surprisingly convinced, though the skepticism will probably never fade completely—at least not until he's proven his intentions to her. I can only imagine the reason she's humoring him is because he's my soulmate, but if that's what gets her to agree the way Ochako did and let him help us, so be it. God knows we fucking need it.
Mom's questions are similar to the ones I had, and Eijirou helpfully supplies the answers just as he had before. But then she comes up with something that hadn't even crossed my mind.
"Here's my question," she says. "Why can't your parents openly disagree with this geezer? What'll he do if they just decide to shut him down and go against all these bullshit beliefs he's got in his head?"
"She tried," Eijirou says solemnly. "He threatened to overthrow her."
A shocked silence falls over, just like that. Ochako is the one to break it.
"He can do that?" she whispers.
"I don't know," Eijirou says helplessly. "But my parents seem to believe it or they wouldn't have sent just the three of us here in secret, and they don't want to risk it because that could lead to unrest in the entire country. As much as they want to help you directly, they have to think of the entire population as a whole, and risking a civil war just isn't worth it."
"A civil war, huh? Guess there are enough idiots that'd back that geezer up in this country to risk one of those," says Mom.
Eijirou nods, seemingly forgetting that she can't see him. "And enough that would back up my mother, too. And I'm afraid The Outskirts would get caught in the crossfire, which would probably result in this whole city being wiped out."
A shudder runs down my spine but I refuse to let it show. We all sit with that information for a bit—because of course this place would probably be the first to go in the midst of a civil war, especially if in their eyes we're the ones to cause it...
Ochako, once again, breaks us out of it with another question.
"What about when people start to notice we're doing better? Won't your great uncle overthrow the queen as soon as he finds out?"
"My parents and the members of my family who are on their side will keep the rest of them in the dark as long as possible," Eijirou promises. "And my great uncle has been dealing with Multiple Sclerosis for years, so the odds of him living longer than a few more years are slim. Once he's gone, it won't much matter because my mother will have full power over the family after that. He's the last of a generation."
"That's kinda morbid... counting on your own uncle's death."
"And risky," I mumble. "In case someshit does slip up somewhere and he finds out."
"I know," Eijirou says so quietly I almost can't hear him. "We've got insurance, though. The distant family he thinks I'm with are on our side and they'll vouch for us. He's not in traveling condition so he won't be able to try and go see me, and the other few in my family who agree with him are too busy to, anyway. Besides, I'll be in contact with my mother or Miyako every day. I know it's risky, but we couldn't just sit by. I couldn't, after what I've seen down here and what I know."
"Welp!" Mom says, much louder now, cutting into the quiet and slapping her thighs. "You're here now, and you're willing to help. That's a hell of a lot better off than we were six hours ago. The living conditions we've endured for decades have been so shitty and no quality of life for most of us, so I think taking this risk is more than worth it. Either we succeed or we die—either way we won't have to live like this anymore."
"Hmph," I grunt. "Save your pep talk for when we have to convince the rest of this fuckin' city, 'cause that's our next step."
---
uh. so. there's only one chapter left after this. so. ye. heh.