It couldn’t be. It was impossible. I wasn’t in love with him.

It wasn’t because of him. He was one of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest people that I had ever met. Yet he was a man.

He made me laugh. Who had ever wanted to see me laugh? Not the emperor... but me. He did. He loved me.

And I had hurt him. I knew he loved me, but I had ignored that. What was I supposed to do? Both of us knew that nothing could ever happen between us.

I was sitting outside the palace underneath a tree I knew he favored. I saw him sitting out here alone when he had nothing to do. Sometimes he was silent, sometimes he sung softly, sometimes he read. But it was here that he went when he needed to be alone.

I leaned my back against the tree, knowing he had done the same. It was, of course, foolish to even be here. What if he saw me here? What would he think?

I rose, the only sound accompanying me the brushing of my long robes swirling around me. My mind had been made up.

I loved Nuriko. He did not know it, but it was his presence that I cherished even more than my beloved Suzaku no Miko. I had noticed when he was gone those two days, out with Miaka and Tamahome to go visit Tamahome’s family. Up until that point, we had been together frequently, whether with Miaka trying to find the other seishi or him helping me plan the details of their trip to Hokkan koku.

I didn’t want him to go. Selfishly, I wanted him to stay with me, to make me laugh, to cheer me up, to keep me from getting too stressed by silly daily matters. But, like me, he was a seishi and had higher duties.

I knew exactly how much I was hurting the one I loved, the one I couldn't love. I never acknowledged his feelings for me, never gave him an answer. I think, even then, before I had known he was a man, there was something about him that intrigued me. He was so strong, so sure of himself. He had the bravery to survive in a world that would have cast him out and destroyed him had it known his secret.

Sometimes- well, often- I envied him. He was free to be himself. Once he was finished with his seishi duties, after we called Suzaku, then his life could be lived as he pleased.

I wanted to be part of that, to taste his wild freedom with my own lips. I needed him in more ways than he would ever know.

I had to tell him. I would go crazy, continually hurting him like this.

And... I wanted him. I wanted him beside me forever. I wanted to tell him how I felt.

I wanted to kiss him.

I had decided. I would tell him. I had to tell him.

The matter of an heir could come later. I would tell him and hopefully he would agree. Maybe... he would let me show him how much I loved him, let me give him my heart, let me kiss him...

Such simple pleasures that lovers enjoyed I longed for. I had never touched his hair. I had never embraced him. I had never even given him a hint of my feelings.

Stepping forward, moving towards my chambers in the palace, I determined to tell him everything- my heart, my desires, my wish that he become my empress. I would not force him to do anything, of course. Everything was completely his decision. I knew he loved me.

But I was still so afraid.

What if he said no?

Banishing that thought, and the thought of an heir, from my mind, I shut the door to my room and began to compose a letter.
 
 

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