Saiunkoku Monogatari (Reishin/Houju)

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

Title: Bad Habits
Author: Elwen Skye
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Word count: 328
Summary: Reishin always weighs advantages and disadvantages.
Prompt: Masks - What are you hiding?
A/N: Sorry for the suckiness. My muse abandoned me halfway through. v.v;;

Reishin and Houju taught each other how to hide.

It was generally a good thing: for the two high-ranking officials, the Imperial Palace was a place of constant observation and scrutiny, where the stray twitch of a facial muscle -- during the presentation of a new spending proposal, for example -- might be interpreted and analyzed in the backrooms of various departments for weeks.

Reishin got the idea after seeing the discomfiture caused by Houju's impassive voice and hidden face -- he liked keeping people off guard. He settled for a fan instead of a mask, since he didn't have Houju's unique considerations. Emotion rarely reached his ever-cold eyes anyway, but he sometimes had trouble controlling the disapproving downturn or satisfied curl of his lips. On the whole, he liked the results. It ensured that people treated him with awe and respect, separated by the distance that comes from not knowing, from not being able to read someone.

Sometimes, though, he wondered if they had gotten too used to hiding. More and more often they would speak to each other with mask and fan in place -- forgetting, or intentionally leaving up those barriers of not knowing. Sometimes he felt the distance between them growing, like the physical distance between them and Yuushun, who completed their trio. Unlike the two of them, Yuushun was away from the Imperial Palace, and, unlike the two of them, apparently he didn't need to hide. (Whether those two facts were related, and how, Reishin wasn't sure.)

Maybe hiding had become a bad habit, rather than an advantage. He thought about what Shouka was always telling him about how silly he was to keep hiding from Shuurei. And now he found himself hiding from one of the only people he had ever trusted. And being hidden from in turn. (Who had started that? he wondered.) Something had to change.

Maybe that was also something they could teach each other.

Comments

[thierrys.livejournal.com]

I liked this fic, it's such an interesting (and accurate) look at their masks. Speaking of hiding, this slipped under the radar, so I didn't even see it until today. ^_^

[wynter-z.livejournal.com]

This has to be one of my favorite pairings. Houju seems so lonely/angsty and has to be the only one who can talk sense into Reishin. I'm rather attracted to the idea that Reishin giving him masks is more possessive than merely friendly.