Because of her closed-off emotions and stubborn wishes to prevent herself from getting near more harm, it is very rare of Anna to open herself to other people. She used to be a much more open person, back when she didn’t know just how far some people can go to use others to their advantage, gladly discarding anyone who has exceeded their initial use and cannot be drained for more. Nowadays, however, she’s the opposite: as long as someone hasn’t shown they’re worthy of her trust, she’ll never be herself around them, never take off the Empress’s jewel-incrusted mask.

It doesn’t mean there isn’t a few people she trusts. While none of them are part of her “court”, mostly because she believes they’ll abandon her as soon as they find someone better or closer to their interests, she still keeps them close. One of them is a long-time classmate of hers, Ootani, whom she only recently got to know through her position as a soccer team manager: someone earnest, unable to lie, heart on her sleeve and her emotions clear as day on her face. In short, Ootani is a real open book, one so free to be read by the first malevolent spirit that Anna can’t help but be far more transparent than she’d usually be comfortable being around her.

 People like Ootani are very rare, however, so most of the time, she ends up befriending people less honest but whom she can tell have similar scars to her. One of them just so happened to be the captain for a team hers was against. It’s ironic because Nosaka fits her mental image of who exactly she wouldn’t trust: haughty-looking, closed off to the world, a scheming look on an expressionless face and someone who seems to be at his very command.

His reputation preceded him, she must admit. As a team manager, she had to know who played for the enemy, so she knew they would cross paths eventually – just from far away, from opposite ends of the field, because he was a warrior commander and she was a ruler working on the sides. He was the Emperor of Tactics, she was the Empress, and their similar reputations were where everything was going to stop.

It didn’t.

 It didn’t and she fell into a rabbit hole like the naïve girl she once was.

 It started by speaking at the end of a match. They merely ended up getting a cup of coffee in the same shop on the way back from the stadium after watching a match that had nothing to do with their respective schools. Nosaka was the one to open the discussion, seemingly trying to pique her interest with whatever had just happened on the field. She kept most of her actual opinions to herself, that day, preferring to reply as vaguely as possible as not to leave a hint to a man whose scheming was rumoured to rival a computer’s.

They kept coming across each other and, after some time, their discussions started to revolve less and less about football. At first, it felt comfortable to just mention a couple things like the recent news, but it progressively became personal and… they exchanged phone numbers. She gave him the one way to contact her directly, gave it to the enemy, and in turn, gave his to her, his enemy. It felt wrong, tasting like betrayal, but with a sweet aftertaste, because there were things she wanted to tell him and they never had enough time.

That was when she realized liked his company, and by then, it was already too late: she had opened to someone else and, even if partially, even for a moment, put down her mask and showed parts of her real self.

 Even if neither brought it up, she could feel they had similar scars on their bodies. He spoke about people with natural distrust, preferring to assume the worst out of people so deception and disappointment couldn’t settle in, only leaving himself a little open to a couple persons (he never said she was part of them, but the way he looked into her eyes with a slight smile was enough to convince her she was now part of this group, and it comforted her – she wasn’t the only one vulnerable). His recounting of his experiences were always vague, yet the messages were clear.

She was the one who said that, despite their opposed sides and different roles, they were more alike than she thought. At first, he stared in silence, about to tell her she was wrong and they were different persons (and she cannot deny having feared such a reaction); but he ended up looking aside, eyes looking at the horizon, and replied she had a point. For a second, his fingers brushed against hers, and they remained silent for the rest of their short time together.

 They became friends, started talking to each other, trusted each other more and more as time went by. She told her about her reasons to distrust her own council, he told her about being unable to confide in most of his teammates no matter how much they trusted him back, because both of their lives had lead them to naturally distrust anyone. The only reason why they let their guard down around each other, she’d have guessed, was because they were both doing so: if both were vulnerable, then neither of them was because, in a sense, they both held a sword over the other’s head.

Mutual respect, mutual trust. They both knew the taste of betrayal and didn’t wish to inflict on the other. They may not have known what the other’s wounds were exactly, but they took care of them, patching closing cuts and persistent but mostly faded bruises. For a while, Anna thought that was it, she had found someone who was like her: play-pretend royalty who didn’t match their masks, fragilized egos hiding behind a façade of pride. He was the Emperor, she was the Empress: it was almost like a match made in heaven, that of songs and romance novels, and despite how weary she naturally was, she let herself get that spoonful of honey.

And she almost regretted it.

 For some time, they were in a situation where even the way they referred to each other was intimate, yet they weren’t doing the thing she started to hear rumours about. No, they weren’t dating, she was truthful in her words – but there was some lie in there, because as much as she refuted it, she refused to admit she’d have wanted it to be true. Still, the Empress would betray her people if she said she had grown feelings for the enemy’s leader and staying silent was the best thing she could do. Maybe, once that tournament ended, they could stop pretending they were the enemies they never managed to be…

Yuuma was protective of his intimacy, so while she could never know what exactly had happened, she still thought she could believe he was at least saying the truth and only hid the most intimate parts of his stories. They weren’t tales, to her, just like what she told him never were lies, but she hid the parts where she had cried or the dark thoughts she had had – erased the ugly and the weak parts of herself from her past self, gave her the strength she wishes she honestly had.

The thing is – he didn’t tell her everything. It was a given, of course, but what he hid were things she wishes she could’ve known, not because they were demonizing and would’ve given her reasons to be mad and to leave, to take back her intimacy and shield her true self away again, but because they explained a lot and… she thought he trusted her.

 Betrayal is the one feeling the Empress doesn’t stand: the entire school knows it. Traitors are the people she’s always treated with the least amounts of respect, those whom she’s shunned away despite knowing their reasons and being aware of what that reputation entails, because they pour salt into the wounds she refuses to show. Trust is an important component of the school, of the team she manages, of so much in the world of sports: her wrath with them has always seemed natural, to the council. If only they knew…

…but Yuuma knew. He knows she hates being kept in the dark and having to discover the hidden truth by herself. He’s aware of what it means to feel like your trust is only one-sided, especially if it has reached the point of intimacy. Of course, part of it is shame on her: she should’ve known a man known for his schemes on the field and his rhetoric would be able to manipulate her into a sense of easiness, just like people did in the past, as if she hadn’t learnt her lesson. Still, despite knowing this, she’s furious and dismayed, unable to think about the issue straight.

 It may be a minor thing, but it still stung like it was yesterday, reopening old wounds like a shell getting pried open as to steal its pearl. The rational part of her – the manager in her – knows it’s only a minor illness, is perfectly aware she’s getting worked up over a seasonal case of the flu; but the emotionally raw part of her who’s never moved on from the things that inflicted pain on her acted up immediately and tried to put the mask back on and run away from the situation.

Yet, despite that, Anna is still by his side, because she’s the one who was there when he fainted in public, and her house was the nearest and – she knew what she was doing. It’s not about practicality, because her family has the funds to make her every wish come true, it’s about following her feelings and being the better person (as much as she hates the idea, as much as she knows it’s not how she’s supposed to think, as much as the rational her is screaming at the other her) – or is it because, no matter how much her injuries bleed again, she knows what loneliness feels like and concern has bloomed in her chest?

Yuuma knows what it feels like to be alone in times of need, to feel helpless at the worst times, and if her wounds have been reopened, then she may as well not inflict the same on someone else. It eases her pain to at least know he’s got someone with him now, because the idea of a sick person fighting against themselves in times of physical and emotional vulnerability scares her, and the way he spoke about his missing parents horrified her – she couldn’t abandon him at a time like this.

He may have betrayed her, but she’ll show him how wrong he was not to trust her.

 They’re stuck in silence, neither wanting to speak, an unfamiliar tension rising between them. All she does is refresh the washcloth she’s stuck on his forehead, hands reddened by the cold water in the bucket, because she’s given him medicine already and she knows better than distrust a doctor’s orders: these things don’t rely on emotions, rather on rational observations and conclusions, it simply isn’t the same as the relationship dynamics she’s so weary of.

There are a lot of questions on her mind, but none of them make it outside of it. She wants to know why he didn’t tell her, why he thought it was okay to let himself wither away like that, how he thought she was going to feel when she’d have inevitably known – questions to which she can kind of answer, questions she doesn’t dare answer by herself because she could give herself false hopes and injure herself even further.

That is, until she muses too loudly, and he tilts his head when she laments about being kept in the dark.

 I didn’t think anyone would bother, is all he tells her; but the feelings are there, the undertones are clear, and she realizes it wasn’t about her.

 Her answer could be “you should’ve known”, “you should’ve told me anyway” or “what did you think that’d bring you?”; but she dislikes every one of these possibilities. His words ring a bell to her, a sad chime of a relatable feeling: would have she been in his place, she’d have figured people wouldn’t have cared for her, and if they did, then it wouldn’t be for her sake, but for their interests. Better be alone than ill-accompanied, as the saying says, a saying ringing true to him, to her –

She gets it. She gets it all now, and she feels stupid for doubting him, because she should’ve known earlier and better than that. Their wounds are the same – they both opened their own in this; but it means they can stitch them close back again together.

 You don’t bother me, she tells him, taking his hand in hers. He doesn’t bulge, doesn’t take it out from hers. Instead, they look at each other, still silent, and he gives her a slight smile.