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fic_ception2020-02-19 03:50 pm
chlorhexidine) wrote in fic_ception2020-02-19 03:50 pm
Collarverse - Noragami 3
“Did you hear about the Ebisu estate?”
Kazuma caught the words, and stopped before he rounded the doorway, listening for what came next. He had an armful of laundry from the master's bedroom, and he made sure to keep the bundle from peeking around the frame, too.
“It was in the morning paper, wasn't it? The old hag was trying to hide it from us but Mei got a look at the headline. I knew something was fishy when she was doing some work for once.”
“I bet they get some bodyguards around here soon.”
“Just so long as they get some good looking ones, we need a bit more eye candy around here.”
“Oh please, like old man Bishamon would put anything worth looking at within a hundred feet of the young miss.”
Kazuma felt the presence looming behind him before he heard the voice, and he startled, every hair standing up on the back of his neck. “Do you need some more work to do?”
He turned, seeing the wrinkled old face of Noriko glowering at him. She was a little shorter than him, now, but she still seemed to loom over him as much as she had when Kazuma was twelve and new to the household. He took a step back, the voices within the laundry room falling silent as other collars got on with being busy, and gave a polite nod. “No, ma'am,” he answered.
His every instinct told him to turn, to flee to the laundry with his workload and set to it, but that would be a fatal mistake. He daren't move now until he was dismissed. Noriko wasn't a master, but she wielded the master's power, and demanded the master's respect. He couldn't move now until she told him he could, no matter how much he wanted to.
She eyed him, carefully. Kazuma kept his head down, but he could see it anyway, in the shift of her shoulders and feet, and the way she crossed her arms.
“Gossip,” she said, her voice raised to carry into the laundry room, “is the sin of idle collars.” Her voice fell again, so that this time she was only addressing Kazuma. “I'm not going to catch you idle, am I?”
“No ma'am,” he confirmed, keeping his head down, and swallowing around a lump of nerves in his throat.
“Good,” she said, and Kazuma finally breathed when she turned away and left. He counted to three in his head before he darted inside the laundry. The room was silent but for the sound of the machines as he worked. After the head housecollar's warning, none of them dared speak.
When lunchtime arrived Kazuma collected his sandwich and drink from the kitchens and made his way out to the garden. The young miss had returned to the estate for the summer once more, and Kazuma had spent every afternoon under the shade of the willow tree by the lake, hoping she would come. He daren't seek her out; if she didn't wish to see him, or he was caught somewhere he shouldn't be he'd be in serious trouble.
It had been four days since young lady Bishamon had returned, and it had been four afternoons of disappointment for Kazuma. Perhaps it was stupid of him to hope that she might want to see him. She'd been away again for a whole year at school. Perhaps she'd forgotten him?
He was displeased, but unsurprised, to find his sandwich today contained a suspicious looking spread and nothing more. After being caught dithering in a doorway by Noriko, he was lucky to get anything at all. A tentative sniff opened up the possibility that it was carrot based, but the smell was pungent and unnatural, with hints of cabbage lurking at the edge of perception.
He took one bite, and grimaced. It tasted exactly as bad as it smelled, but he had nothing else and it was a long time until dinner so he made himself swallow it, and take another bite anyway. At the very least, the lake was peaceful and Noriko was unlikely to come and find him here. The wisened head housecollar had served the family all of her life, and she made sure repeatedly lazy or disobedient collars were sold.
Kazuma had been on the receiving end of her punishment before. When he'd been new, he'd cried at night, thinking he'd never be good enough and would end up sold for backbreaking fieldwork. He'd been afraid to go to the bedroom that he shared with half a dozen others, hungry after having his dinner denied so he could go back and clean the ballroom floor again, and tired after having spent hours polishing the floor on his hands and knees until his face reflected in it. He'd been curled up in a forgotten corner below the stairs, sniffling, when one of the kitchen collars had found him.
Touma was older than him, and she knew everything. She'd told him not to mind the old hag, that she was like that with everyone, and the best thing to do was treat her as if she was a master. If Kazuma always agreed with her, never looked her in the face, and did as he was told immediately, Noriko still wouldn't like him but she would, at least, ignore him.
Touma had brought him some of the masters' leftovers to eat, and then showed him how to get to the kitchens at night through the collar doors. Old big houses had them, she'd explained, so that collars could move around and do their work without a master ever having to see them. They weren't used much now; it was far too trendy for estates to have their collars visible so that everyone who visited could see just how many they owned, but the Bishamonten house was old enough to have been built with them. The entrances below stairs were usually blocked off by furniture now, and the exits above stairs blended into the walls. Some of them were blocked by furniture, or had been covered over in redecorating, but many of them weren't.
If Kazuma slipped through the entrance near the collar dormitories, and went up, taking a left, and a right, and another left, he came out just behind the ballroom. From there was another door, between the ballroom and the banquet hall. You had to feel along the wood panelling to find the seam and then give it a push at just the right spot to open it, and then you went down, and right, and left, and right again, and came out in the kitchen. The door pulled inwards, so you could slide the table aside to let yourself out, so long as you remembered to put it back into place.
Kitchen collars like Touma worked late, and started early. Earlier than Noriko, and later than her too, so, Touma told him, he could always get something to eat if he came along at the right time. The kitchen collars were no more fond of Noriko than the rest of them were, so every little way of defying her authority was up for grabs.
Unfortunately, when she was up and about, if they got caught defying her instructions they were in deep trouble. It was Noriko that told them what food was to be set aside for the collars, so the horrible paste sandwiches they'd been given today were probably her doing.
Kazuma pushed himself to eat them, trying to swallow them along with his fresh disappointment. He hadn't even seen the young miss since last year. They'd met nearly every day the previous summer, and Kazuma had kept the fact as a little secret down in his heart, buoying him through boring long days of menial work. She was pretty, and her laugh made him feel giddy.
He wondered what it would be like to be her collar. Just hers, not her parents. She'd be married, in time, and maybe she'd live in a wing of the big house, or maybe they'd build an annex on the estate, or maybe they'd take over one of the satellite properties the estate had. If she did that, maybe, if she liked Kazuma enough, she could take him with her to serve in her new household. He didn't need anything fancy. He didn't want to be her head housecollar. He just wanted to be her collar. Serving her would be enough.
He lost himself in wondering what it would be like to wake up every day and see her face. To set the table for her meals, and prepare her baths, and launder her clothes, to do all of that for someone he wanted to do that for. It sounded wonderful.
He gave up on his sandwiches when he'd got down to the crust, and made his way to the waterside. The ducks, and this years flock of ducklings, no longer fluffy and yellow but still following their mother everywhere, would appreciate them more. They came up to greet him, as they usually did now, and even the mother duck was getting used to him feeding her babies and floated back a bit while they clamoured in the water near his feet.
He tore the crust into pieces before throwing it in handfuls into the water. The young ducks went mad, snapping at the air for it before diving under the surface, tails in the air while they took pieces of bread crust and gobbled at them. Kazuma laughed, scattering the last few crumbs into the water and brushing his hands off. “There'll be more tomorrow,” he told them.
Then he turned around to collect his bottle of water, and spotted a piece of paper, rolled into a tube and stuffed into a knot in the tree. He pulled it out and unrolled it. There was writing on it, but Kazuma was only a housecollar and hadn't been taught to read. It looked like it was for someone, but who would be leaving notes out here?
A thought occurred to him. A thought he didn't dare hope was true, and he tucked the paper into the inside of his clothes so it wouldn't get lost.
That evening he found Touma, hard at work scrubbing pans until they shone. “Do you need some help?” Kazuma asked.
Touma turned sharply, and grinned at him. “Sure,” she said. “The old hag wants to see her reflection in these in the morning,” she added, gesturing to the pile of pots and pans. Some of them were set aside, sparkling silver on the counter. The others had blackened bottoms from the cooking fire. “The masters will be buying us all new pans if she does that, but who am I to argue?”
Kazuma smiled and began rolling up his sleeves. “It'll go faster with two of us.”
“Damn right,” Touma agreed. Her casual swearing forever sounded foreign and shocking to Kazuma's ears, but he knew that by now it was just Touma's way. Kitchen collars could swear if they wanted, Touma had said, because they were more expensive to replace. She tossed a scrubbing pad to Kazuma. “You can start on that one,” she told him, pointing to the big stew pot.
Four hours later Kazuma's arms felt like they were about to fall off. He couldn't feel his fingers any more, and his hair stuck to his scalp with sweat. Touma put a big glass of something bubbly and frothy in front of him. “You earned it,” she said. “I'd have been here 'til morning without you.”
“What is it?” Kazuma asked, finding the strength from somewhere to reach out and pick up the glass. It was cold against his fingers, and condensation was forming on the outside of the glass.
“Beer,” Touma answered. “Our little secret,” she added, with a wink.
Kazuma tried it. It tasted yeasty, and the froth stuck to his top lip, but it was cold and refreshing. He took a long drink before he rested back in the chair and sighed.
“Not bad, right?” Touma asked. She drank half her own glass in a few gulps and then dropped into a chair opposite him.
“No,” he agreed. Bubbles climbed the inside of the glass. Kazuma watched them, almost fascinated.
Touma laughed, quietly. She was a good few years older than Kazuma, with black hair that she kept short. It didn't get burned or tangled when she was cooking, that way. “So why'd you come?” she asked. “You didn't just know I needed a hand.”
Kazuma blinked. His mind felt fuzzy, probably from exhaustion he thought, but the rolled note he'd found in the tree seemed to burn a hole in his pocket. He pulled it out. “I found this,” he said.
Touma's hand reached across the table for it, and Kazuma handed it over. It could be nothing, he knew. It could be from one of the higher collars to another, and he'd simply stumbled on their secret spot, but he hoped.
“It's for you,” Touma said, after an agonising moment.
Kazuma's heart felt like it was going to explode. “What does it say?” he asked.
Touma's eyes went to the note, and then back to Kazuma's face. He felt like he was being examined. “It's from the young miss,” she said. “Why is she leaving you notes?”
Kazuma's throat dried out. How was he to answer that? He trusted Touma, but the way she asked sent a warning shock through his gut and made it knot and tighten. “Last year,” he explained, his voice coming out in a whisper, “when she was home for summer she caught me by the lake.” Touma's gaze didn't shift, her eyes boring into Kazuma's face. He felt his cheeks beginning to burn. “She made me meet her every day. I haven't seen her since.” He missed her. It was a strange feeling, like an ache in his chest. He wanted to see her, wanted to hear her laugh again, and watch as she dangled her legs in the water. He wanted to see her brush her long hair out of her lilac eyes and give that shy smile at him one more time.
“You need to be careful, Kazuma,” Touma warned. “If Noriko finds out she'll have you flogged and sold.”
“I know,” Kazuma replied, his stomach flipping at the thought. He bowed his head.
Touma sighed, and dropped his note in front of him. Kazuma picked it up carefully, cradling it in his hands as if he might damage it. “She says she wants you to meet her where you found that, after dark.”
Kazuma looked up, sharply. His heart beat heavily in his chest. It was after dark now, if he ran perhaps--
He scrambled off the chair and ran to the old table, tugging it aside in a hurry so he could squeeze through the forgotten collar door behind it. “Don't get caught!” Touma cried after him, as he slipped through the door.
He ran down the dark corridors, counting turns as he went. The old exit in the grand hall was blocked off, but the one in the ballroom was only covered by an old tapestry, and from there he could slip through the french doors and outside. If he ran, he might be able to make it.
His chest was going to explode, and his shins hurt with every pound of his feet on the floor. He slipped out through the ballroom, the warm air of a summer's night greeting him, and he continued to run. The lake was in sight, moonlit in the darkness.
Perhaps he'd taken too long? Perhaps she'd given up waiting for him. He didn't know how long it had been dark out. He couldn't see anyone by the lake. His footsteps slowed, dismay setting in. The moon reflected off the surface of the water, rippling with the movement of the ducks and the light breeze. He stopped, fighting to catch his breath, resting his hands on his knees as he bent and panted.
A quiet chuckle lit up his heart. “You didn't have to run,” a voice said.
Kazuma turned towards the sound. Her hair shone almost silver in the night, and her pale skin made her stand out against the shadowed landscape. “My lady--”
He was enveloped in the soft, flowery scent of her perfume, and the warmth of her arms as she hugged him. Kazuma didn't dare move. Her skin was soft against his cheek, and he could feel the curves of her body pressing against his chest. His cheeks flamed. “I missed you,” she said, simply.
Kazuma stammered. He knew he should protest, that this was inappropriate, that his desire to wrap his arms around the young miss and hold her in turn was an act so far beyond his station that the thought alone could get him whipped raw.
She held him tighter, and then her arms loosened and she stepped back, smiling at him. Kazuma's eyes and throat stung. Her smile faltered, and she moved in again, coiling her arms back around him. “What's wrong?” she asked, tugging him in against her body once more.
Kazuma tried to answer, and felt only a choked, strangled sound escape him. “It's all right,” she whispered, soothing him. “What's happened?”
His face was buried in her shoulder, her scent filling his nostrils. The soft cotton of her sleeve was wet against his cheek, and he realised why. “Nothing, my lady,” he fought to say, choking out the words. “I'm happy.”
Kazuma caught the words, and stopped before he rounded the doorway, listening for what came next. He had an armful of laundry from the master's bedroom, and he made sure to keep the bundle from peeking around the frame, too.
“It was in the morning paper, wasn't it? The old hag was trying to hide it from us but Mei got a look at the headline. I knew something was fishy when she was doing some work for once.”
“I bet they get some bodyguards around here soon.”
“Just so long as they get some good looking ones, we need a bit more eye candy around here.”
“Oh please, like old man Bishamon would put anything worth looking at within a hundred feet of the young miss.”
Kazuma felt the presence looming behind him before he heard the voice, and he startled, every hair standing up on the back of his neck. “Do you need some more work to do?”
He turned, seeing the wrinkled old face of Noriko glowering at him. She was a little shorter than him, now, but she still seemed to loom over him as much as she had when Kazuma was twelve and new to the household. He took a step back, the voices within the laundry room falling silent as other collars got on with being busy, and gave a polite nod. “No, ma'am,” he answered.
His every instinct told him to turn, to flee to the laundry with his workload and set to it, but that would be a fatal mistake. He daren't move now until he was dismissed. Noriko wasn't a master, but she wielded the master's power, and demanded the master's respect. He couldn't move now until she told him he could, no matter how much he wanted to.
She eyed him, carefully. Kazuma kept his head down, but he could see it anyway, in the shift of her shoulders and feet, and the way she crossed her arms.
“Gossip,” she said, her voice raised to carry into the laundry room, “is the sin of idle collars.” Her voice fell again, so that this time she was only addressing Kazuma. “I'm not going to catch you idle, am I?”
“No ma'am,” he confirmed, keeping his head down, and swallowing around a lump of nerves in his throat.
“Good,” she said, and Kazuma finally breathed when she turned away and left. He counted to three in his head before he darted inside the laundry. The room was silent but for the sound of the machines as he worked. After the head housecollar's warning, none of them dared speak.
When lunchtime arrived Kazuma collected his sandwich and drink from the kitchens and made his way out to the garden. The young miss had returned to the estate for the summer once more, and Kazuma had spent every afternoon under the shade of the willow tree by the lake, hoping she would come. He daren't seek her out; if she didn't wish to see him, or he was caught somewhere he shouldn't be he'd be in serious trouble.
It had been four days since young lady Bishamon had returned, and it had been four afternoons of disappointment for Kazuma. Perhaps it was stupid of him to hope that she might want to see him. She'd been away again for a whole year at school. Perhaps she'd forgotten him?
He was displeased, but unsurprised, to find his sandwich today contained a suspicious looking spread and nothing more. After being caught dithering in a doorway by Noriko, he was lucky to get anything at all. A tentative sniff opened up the possibility that it was carrot based, but the smell was pungent and unnatural, with hints of cabbage lurking at the edge of perception.
He took one bite, and grimaced. It tasted exactly as bad as it smelled, but he had nothing else and it was a long time until dinner so he made himself swallow it, and take another bite anyway. At the very least, the lake was peaceful and Noriko was unlikely to come and find him here. The wisened head housecollar had served the family all of her life, and she made sure repeatedly lazy or disobedient collars were sold.
Kazuma had been on the receiving end of her punishment before. When he'd been new, he'd cried at night, thinking he'd never be good enough and would end up sold for backbreaking fieldwork. He'd been afraid to go to the bedroom that he shared with half a dozen others, hungry after having his dinner denied so he could go back and clean the ballroom floor again, and tired after having spent hours polishing the floor on his hands and knees until his face reflected in it. He'd been curled up in a forgotten corner below the stairs, sniffling, when one of the kitchen collars had found him.
Touma was older than him, and she knew everything. She'd told him not to mind the old hag, that she was like that with everyone, and the best thing to do was treat her as if she was a master. If Kazuma always agreed with her, never looked her in the face, and did as he was told immediately, Noriko still wouldn't like him but she would, at least, ignore him.
Touma had brought him some of the masters' leftovers to eat, and then showed him how to get to the kitchens at night through the collar doors. Old big houses had them, she'd explained, so that collars could move around and do their work without a master ever having to see them. They weren't used much now; it was far too trendy for estates to have their collars visible so that everyone who visited could see just how many they owned, but the Bishamonten house was old enough to have been built with them. The entrances below stairs were usually blocked off by furniture now, and the exits above stairs blended into the walls. Some of them were blocked by furniture, or had been covered over in redecorating, but many of them weren't.
If Kazuma slipped through the entrance near the collar dormitories, and went up, taking a left, and a right, and another left, he came out just behind the ballroom. From there was another door, between the ballroom and the banquet hall. You had to feel along the wood panelling to find the seam and then give it a push at just the right spot to open it, and then you went down, and right, and left, and right again, and came out in the kitchen. The door pulled inwards, so you could slide the table aside to let yourself out, so long as you remembered to put it back into place.
Kitchen collars like Touma worked late, and started early. Earlier than Noriko, and later than her too, so, Touma told him, he could always get something to eat if he came along at the right time. The kitchen collars were no more fond of Noriko than the rest of them were, so every little way of defying her authority was up for grabs.
Unfortunately, when she was up and about, if they got caught defying her instructions they were in deep trouble. It was Noriko that told them what food was to be set aside for the collars, so the horrible paste sandwiches they'd been given today were probably her doing.
Kazuma pushed himself to eat them, trying to swallow them along with his fresh disappointment. He hadn't even seen the young miss since last year. They'd met nearly every day the previous summer, and Kazuma had kept the fact as a little secret down in his heart, buoying him through boring long days of menial work. She was pretty, and her laugh made him feel giddy.
He wondered what it would be like to be her collar. Just hers, not her parents. She'd be married, in time, and maybe she'd live in a wing of the big house, or maybe they'd build an annex on the estate, or maybe they'd take over one of the satellite properties the estate had. If she did that, maybe, if she liked Kazuma enough, she could take him with her to serve in her new household. He didn't need anything fancy. He didn't want to be her head housecollar. He just wanted to be her collar. Serving her would be enough.
He lost himself in wondering what it would be like to wake up every day and see her face. To set the table for her meals, and prepare her baths, and launder her clothes, to do all of that for someone he wanted to do that for. It sounded wonderful.
He gave up on his sandwiches when he'd got down to the crust, and made his way to the waterside. The ducks, and this years flock of ducklings, no longer fluffy and yellow but still following their mother everywhere, would appreciate them more. They came up to greet him, as they usually did now, and even the mother duck was getting used to him feeding her babies and floated back a bit while they clamoured in the water near his feet.
He tore the crust into pieces before throwing it in handfuls into the water. The young ducks went mad, snapping at the air for it before diving under the surface, tails in the air while they took pieces of bread crust and gobbled at them. Kazuma laughed, scattering the last few crumbs into the water and brushing his hands off. “There'll be more tomorrow,” he told them.
Then he turned around to collect his bottle of water, and spotted a piece of paper, rolled into a tube and stuffed into a knot in the tree. He pulled it out and unrolled it. There was writing on it, but Kazuma was only a housecollar and hadn't been taught to read. It looked like it was for someone, but who would be leaving notes out here?
A thought occurred to him. A thought he didn't dare hope was true, and he tucked the paper into the inside of his clothes so it wouldn't get lost.
That evening he found Touma, hard at work scrubbing pans until they shone. “Do you need some help?” Kazuma asked.
Touma turned sharply, and grinned at him. “Sure,” she said. “The old hag wants to see her reflection in these in the morning,” she added, gesturing to the pile of pots and pans. Some of them were set aside, sparkling silver on the counter. The others had blackened bottoms from the cooking fire. “The masters will be buying us all new pans if she does that, but who am I to argue?”
Kazuma smiled and began rolling up his sleeves. “It'll go faster with two of us.”
“Damn right,” Touma agreed. Her casual swearing forever sounded foreign and shocking to Kazuma's ears, but he knew that by now it was just Touma's way. Kitchen collars could swear if they wanted, Touma had said, because they were more expensive to replace. She tossed a scrubbing pad to Kazuma. “You can start on that one,” she told him, pointing to the big stew pot.
Four hours later Kazuma's arms felt like they were about to fall off. He couldn't feel his fingers any more, and his hair stuck to his scalp with sweat. Touma put a big glass of something bubbly and frothy in front of him. “You earned it,” she said. “I'd have been here 'til morning without you.”
“What is it?” Kazuma asked, finding the strength from somewhere to reach out and pick up the glass. It was cold against his fingers, and condensation was forming on the outside of the glass.
“Beer,” Touma answered. “Our little secret,” she added, with a wink.
Kazuma tried it. It tasted yeasty, and the froth stuck to his top lip, but it was cold and refreshing. He took a long drink before he rested back in the chair and sighed.
“Not bad, right?” Touma asked. She drank half her own glass in a few gulps and then dropped into a chair opposite him.
“No,” he agreed. Bubbles climbed the inside of the glass. Kazuma watched them, almost fascinated.
Touma laughed, quietly. She was a good few years older than Kazuma, with black hair that she kept short. It didn't get burned or tangled when she was cooking, that way. “So why'd you come?” she asked. “You didn't just know I needed a hand.”
Kazuma blinked. His mind felt fuzzy, probably from exhaustion he thought, but the rolled note he'd found in the tree seemed to burn a hole in his pocket. He pulled it out. “I found this,” he said.
Touma's hand reached across the table for it, and Kazuma handed it over. It could be nothing, he knew. It could be from one of the higher collars to another, and he'd simply stumbled on their secret spot, but he hoped.
“It's for you,” Touma said, after an agonising moment.
Kazuma's heart felt like it was going to explode. “What does it say?” he asked.
Touma's eyes went to the note, and then back to Kazuma's face. He felt like he was being examined. “It's from the young miss,” she said. “Why is she leaving you notes?”
Kazuma's throat dried out. How was he to answer that? He trusted Touma, but the way she asked sent a warning shock through his gut and made it knot and tighten. “Last year,” he explained, his voice coming out in a whisper, “when she was home for summer she caught me by the lake.” Touma's gaze didn't shift, her eyes boring into Kazuma's face. He felt his cheeks beginning to burn. “She made me meet her every day. I haven't seen her since.” He missed her. It was a strange feeling, like an ache in his chest. He wanted to see her, wanted to hear her laugh again, and watch as she dangled her legs in the water. He wanted to see her brush her long hair out of her lilac eyes and give that shy smile at him one more time.
“You need to be careful, Kazuma,” Touma warned. “If Noriko finds out she'll have you flogged and sold.”
“I know,” Kazuma replied, his stomach flipping at the thought. He bowed his head.
Touma sighed, and dropped his note in front of him. Kazuma picked it up carefully, cradling it in his hands as if he might damage it. “She says she wants you to meet her where you found that, after dark.”
Kazuma looked up, sharply. His heart beat heavily in his chest. It was after dark now, if he ran perhaps--
He scrambled off the chair and ran to the old table, tugging it aside in a hurry so he could squeeze through the forgotten collar door behind it. “Don't get caught!” Touma cried after him, as he slipped through the door.
He ran down the dark corridors, counting turns as he went. The old exit in the grand hall was blocked off, but the one in the ballroom was only covered by an old tapestry, and from there he could slip through the french doors and outside. If he ran, he might be able to make it.
His chest was going to explode, and his shins hurt with every pound of his feet on the floor. He slipped out through the ballroom, the warm air of a summer's night greeting him, and he continued to run. The lake was in sight, moonlit in the darkness.
Perhaps he'd taken too long? Perhaps she'd given up waiting for him. He didn't know how long it had been dark out. He couldn't see anyone by the lake. His footsteps slowed, dismay setting in. The moon reflected off the surface of the water, rippling with the movement of the ducks and the light breeze. He stopped, fighting to catch his breath, resting his hands on his knees as he bent and panted.
A quiet chuckle lit up his heart. “You didn't have to run,” a voice said.
Kazuma turned towards the sound. Her hair shone almost silver in the night, and her pale skin made her stand out against the shadowed landscape. “My lady--”
He was enveloped in the soft, flowery scent of her perfume, and the warmth of her arms as she hugged him. Kazuma didn't dare move. Her skin was soft against his cheek, and he could feel the curves of her body pressing against his chest. His cheeks flamed. “I missed you,” she said, simply.
Kazuma stammered. He knew he should protest, that this was inappropriate, that his desire to wrap his arms around the young miss and hold her in turn was an act so far beyond his station that the thought alone could get him whipped raw.
She held him tighter, and then her arms loosened and she stepped back, smiling at him. Kazuma's eyes and throat stung. Her smile faltered, and she moved in again, coiling her arms back around him. “What's wrong?” she asked, tugging him in against her body once more.
Kazuma tried to answer, and felt only a choked, strangled sound escape him. “It's all right,” she whispered, soothing him. “What's happened?”
His face was buried in her shoulder, her scent filling his nostrils. The soft cotton of her sleeve was wet against his cheek, and he realised why. “Nothing, my lady,” he fought to say, choking out the words. “I'm happy.”