sleeping

***

When Teru spots a mechanical owl mask again, it's much later and, more importantly, adorning a very much not red-haired, not suit wearing individual.

The lady behind is dark haired instead, long strands styled into twin loops, and wearing a white, sparkly gown. Just like his own, he remarks. Briefly, he wonders if that choice, that white signaling being on the market for suitors on that specific night, is her choice. Judging from the slight tightness to her smile and the older, clearly displeased, woman at her side scrutinizing her every move as she converses with two men, his bet is instead on that she's on the same boat as himself. Curiosity takes the best of him, and that intriguing mask as well as a slight sense of camaraderie propels him to excuse himself to the ladies at his side and strike up to the girl in white.

When he introduces himself, the predictable oos, aahs and sudden uplift in energy come as expected. The - he presumes - mother starts kissing up soon enough, while the daughter smiles politely and indulges in some compliments herself. Tense, half-hearted, detached. Unwilling. It's a nice mask she's putting on, and anyone would fall for the syrup-laced deception if not for personally practicing it themselves. He's not fooled in the least. From liar to liar, the interest is all fake, fake, fake. Even when he flaunts his status to test her. So not after power either. He can't say he's not pleasantly surprised. He can't say that he's not intrigued.

Only when he brings up a red-haired, short-tempered individual does the mask falter. Her body tenses up, clearly visible this time and - were her ears always this red? One things to say : the composure she's managed to keep all the Teru's been pushing around her buttons is nowhere to be seen. She quickly excuses herself and like that, she's gone.

And the mother's furious.

***

The search for the punch-giving redhead is severely delayed by the commotion one interaction with a certain owl-mask bearer is seemingly able to create. Apparently, being caught talking with an - he learns - Akane, and at that, Aoi, the only daughter of the current head of the house slash rumored prettiest face of the country is a scoop good enough to render even Teru unable to escape the crowds for over two hours. Apparently, she'd have melted his ice-cold, popular noble heart in the span of the few minutes they'd talked and now the Minamoto-Akane union was imminent. Bullshit. Frivolous, all of them. She'd bear his children well, someone says. He feels sick.

***

When the excitement finally dies down, Teru takes the first opportunity to flee. A swarm of clout-chasing "acquaintances" who keep in mind only his name. Chasing for the next big thing. If anything were to happen, they'd be the first to latch onto him and scream scandal. And that's exactly what they're looking for with that girl. Disgusting. He thinks of his mother. He needs fresh air.

The party is almost over by the time he comes back from the balcony, looking for a place away from prying eyes to wait until his carriage's arrival. After some scurrying, he manages to find a small hidden room in the back corridor.

Lucky him, it's unlocked.

He doesn't waste a second to enter.

***

The room - backup storage if he were to guess- is large but almost completely barren, so his options to pass time aren't ideal. He doesn't even know what time it is, himself be damned.

Or...maybe he does.

The left behind watch never quite left his hands all this time, huh.

Without anything better to do, he finds himself observing it. Clearly, a bit old but well taken care of. And seems like his guess was right : on the back of the case, a small, engraved; Aoi Akane. What a curious personality he met that night. A shame he didn't find him. Surely he wouldn't have minded getting back his watch, and Teru..well, feeling something akin to real one more time.

A soft clink pulls him out of his thoughts.

His eyes finds the door in the back of the storage he originally assumed was leading to another room as barren a the current one. Well, his speculations seem to be wrong this time.

As he stumbles into the small antichamber, voices start to make themselves heard to his ears. Soft, low mumbles he can't quite make out from the distance.

So, people.

Curious, for anyone else to stay in such a hidden place during such an event; one would think they'd all be busy chasing after connexions - influential, powerful ones. Maybe he found his match.

He discretely lifts the thick curtain separating him from the source of the voices.

***

The first thing he notices are the numerous fallen vases and candles on the table the girl is sitting on. How inconsiderate for the host. Exactly how he likes it.

Second, is that the rumors - for once- weren't exaggerating : the face Aoi Akane reveals by gently removing Akane Aoi's mask - flowery this time?- is simply candy for the eyes. But the guy kneeling before her isn't half bad himself. He doesn't really care, though. More intriguingly, the thought makes him realize how peculiar their names are; just each other's mirrored. How odd it is, saying them back to back.

Last, he recognizes what he's seeing as a mask exchange. Or rather, the returning part of it, but interrupted by the guy taking the originals off again to initiate another exchange.

God, are their eyes intense. Akane Aoi is clearly conflicted but her fluster is undeniable. Aoi Akane stares her earnestly like a knight who'd just swore her eternal fidelity. This feels too intimate for him. Genuine. Whatever the feelings are here, they are strong, and obviously real. This feels surreal. Never in his life did he expect to attribute this quality to any bond he'd see, save for his siblings. No, not in his circles. And especially not this kind of bond.

How intriguing.

Clearly he's of lesser class than her, so there's nothing she could possibly gain from this, if not problems. Yet she chooses to let her facade falter before him.

(Unfair, Teru could never get to do that.)

And him..from the glint in his eyes, he can tell his intentions are...genuine, again. He isn't hiding the intensity of his feelings in the slightest. Tender gaze, tender touch, tender words.

Hah, he wouldn't survive a day in his shoes. (Unfair, unfair.)

Clock hits one. He should go. Clearly these two have something going on and Minamoto Teru would be the last person on earth who should to have anything to do with it. He should go and not get himself involved any further. Leave them and their unfairly real feelings alone, and not look back. No, he's not interested.

Teru leaves.

If the watch is still in his hand as his face meets the cold night air, it's by pure omission. Nothing else, nothing more.

***

When Teru's eyes spot mirrored names on the guests list, it's pure coïncidence he starts getting ready a little earlier.

No, he's not getting involved.

(Spoiler : he's getting way too involved.)

---

Here are some additional thoughts on this!

Akane's family business is clockwork! With the rise of industry, they rapidly gained a lot of traction in the past decade, eventually acquiring the burgher status. Still, he's on the newer aristocracy side, so still a pretty long road away from the most powerful ones. Hence his manners not quite adapted to the circle yet. He swore he wouldn't ever, though, after seeing first hand how it affected his childhood friend.

Aoi expressed interest in Akane to her mother, just once, when she started telling her about marriage. Not only did he get immediately rejected, it earned her a scolding on her social rank and her "stupidity". Are you out of your mind wasting your influence on that? Was I not enough to make you see they're all the same? You're lucky for your pretty little face, so at least go get yourself a powerful one!

Aoi's relationship to the mondaine society is complex, too. She's seen how much the eyes were willing to ignore if one's rich enough, powerful enough. Her father's barely hidden infidelity never questioned, her mother tricked into marriage for her name, her despair silenced, turning her into an unforgiving, resentful woman who gets revenge on her life by controlling every bit of hers. Boy's harassment shoved under the rug for their future titles, girls' thinly veiled jealousy and insincere smiles. Eventually, she learned to bear her own, too, and, if she had to act anyways, become the best comedian of them all. If fakeness wears her off, at least it protects her. Her personal maid and rare friend, Nene, wouldn't understand. Her simple vision of life eventually made them drift into different wavelengths, making Aoi - while still liking her- pull in her facade, even with her.

Aoi met Akane when she was much, much younger, before Nene was ever assigned to her side, and she was much more alone. She'd fled the mansion after one of her parents' fights and gotten lost at the port. She'd hid behind goods and there, Akane found her. At the time much less prolific, his family personally held a stand at the port products exposition and he happened to be wandering off to explore other stands. The meeting quickly turned into a game of hide and seek, then some talking, some exploration of the market, food, shore walk. That day, she'd forgotten about her dad's affairs and her mom's yells. The boy's smile - a far cry from those of other children she'd talked to- made her feel safe, comfortable, normal. It was radiant and warmed her whole when he eventually deemed them friends. He'd walked her back to her mansion that day, and made her promise to come by the port whenever she'd feel lonely. His giggle was worth every bit of the yelling she'd gotten that night.

After that masquerade episode, Teru is left with a lingering interest in the Aoi Akanes. He can't help himself but try to get to know more, pry a little bit. When he sees them at events, he strikes up. Eventually, they grow more and more acquainted. More, and more.

Shit very much goes down when his interest in the duo gets taken as interest to get actually involved - as in, romantically- with Aoi. People don't even consider Akane her suitor biding by his - and her - status. Shit goes even downer when both the families actually get interested by the potential bond. Resultingly, things get sour with Aoi, and Akane. Resentment, and other feelings mixed into a snowballing mess each step further than families take. Aoi can't give up her feelings on Akane, yet she can't resolved herself to have an.. affair if it comes down to marriage with Teru. She can't help but feel anger towards him, despite him proving himself to be someone whose company she could actuallh appreciate and entertain freely. Teru is extremely conflicted, because while something akin to envy did grow as time went on, breaking Aoi and Akane's bond is the last thing he ever wanted to do. His guy sinking sometimes was tolerable, if it meant keeping them intact.

Minamotos are closer to the Far Shore than normal people after all. Not because 'they are born doomed' but because they have a mysterious sixth sense.

This sixth sense doesn't only makes them able to see supernaturals it gives them resistence to their influence. Even a supernatural as powerful as Mirai had trouble messing with Kou, who is not a trained exorcist.

We are told spiritual power is what give them this resistence but no other human have this: The Nagisa family, the Kannagis, they all have more spiritual energy than a normal person, and while that gives them the capacity to see supernaturals and use spiritual weapons, we get no sign anyone besides other supernaturals have resistence to a supernatural's influence.

Speaking of spiritual weapons:

It is heavily implied this lightning cannot hurt humans.

We never see a person be hurt by a spiritual weapons, even someone as unexperienced to exorcism tools as Aoi and Nene were able to use lightnings without hurting themselves.

There is no control to Nene's attack here, she probably wasn't even planning on using an attack, yet she wasn't bruised, there are no signs using that hurt her at all.

Meanwhile Kou zapped himself. The 'demon vanquishing' energy that his staff creates can hurts him if it hits him.

So it seems Minamotos are resistent because they have both high spiritual energy and some supernatural energy: The two powers that give other supernaturals trouble combined.

Notice how Kako say 'supernatural' as if any supernatural will have resistence to his power but spiritual energy needs to be 'excessovelly high' to count?

Teru could open a gate between boundaries with a few drops of his blood, no tools needed.

The closest we have seen to this sort of power was with Yako, who is a fox spirit born in a shrine, a mix of spiritual and supernatural power.

People may say Teru and Kou needing to eat a demon hand to reach the Far Shore train means they aren't supernatural but even full supernaturals have trouble crossing boundaries during a severance.

What this moment implies is "Trying to become closer to supernaturals is something people have been trying to do for a long time"

And I have reason to believe the Minamotos had far deeper supernatural ties in the old days.

Yorimitsu was able to form a contract with a demon.

A contract have always been a supernaturals tool to take advantages of humans, we see it with kako, the mermaid, tsukasa, hanako... So a Minamoto being able to do that th without needing to offer anything in return (akane got the watch, nene had her mermaid curse halfed by hanako eating a scale) is wild.

It makes sense though, Minamotos are less supernaturals then they once were: their fangs are shorter and despite still having a lot of powers and staying sharp with constant work, Hakubo calls them weak sauce compared to the Minamotos he knew while he was alive:

BONUS: There are some implications that Teru is affected by rumors.

This part is less airtight but hear me out.

Teru's introdution was not as his main role of exorcist, but as the prettiest boy in school, the well known school prince!

And his popularity is off the chart, he is treated as an idol! A prince! A pavillion was build for him, this pavillion is the most popular attraction of the festival, check out the line!

People bow down at his presence in valentine's day! He is the god of valentine's day!! Everybody loves him!!

Yet the second he is off school no one cares. We see zero admires, zero fans stopping him on his way to work, zero people commenting on how handsome he is. He is at most 'a pretty boy' the same level as natsuhiko when he is out, he is not an idol or a prince.

This becomes obvious when we compare him to Aoi.

Aoi had admires since she was a little kid, people have always noticed her beauty, to the point Akane had to build a habit of stalking her to make sure no one harrassed her.

Meanwhile, Teru was isolated. He couldn't spend time with people, but is not like people looked at him anyways. Teru is the only one interested in his classmates, watching them have fun when he reflects on his isolation.

But Aoi is always in the spotlight, even at her most isolated people will stares at 'the beauty queen', something they had done all her life. She can't catch a break.

There are no hints Teru used to have this attention as a child, and even as a teen, he loses it when he steps outside of school. His rumors of being the school prince is no longer applicable. Only Aoi's beauty keeps being treated as abnormal: