Late At Night - Tumblr Posts
"[...] feel sad and full of love."
Katherine Mansfield, from 'Late at Night', first published in 1917.
ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵒᵃᵈ ⁱⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ⁿⁱᵍʰᵗ ; ˣᵃⁿʳᵉⁱ ⁽ᵈʳᵈᵗ⁾
Summary: Xander Matthews and Arei Nageishi are trying to get home after spending the day with their classmates. Traffic, rain, and construction go against their wishes, and they're not making it home until a few more hours. Xander can deal with it, but when Arei's phone dies and she can't listen to music anymore, a conversation starts between them. It's not that bad. Word Count: 3,401 A/N: If I had a nickel for every Xanrei fic I made that happened during the night, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but isn't it weird how it happened twice? So, this fic was supposed to be Xanrei driving to some place, sitting on top of the car, looking at the night sky, and talking. (I have three nickels if you include ideas.) The moment I started writing this, my brain wondered about traffic, and the whole direction of the fic shifted before I even knew it. Writing is so weird. Faint traces remain, but you couldn't even tell what the original plan was unless I told you. I'm still proud of writing this entire one shot in one day, though, since the Xanrei fic I posted the other day did, in fact, give me motivation to write more Xanrei. Applaud me! (I'm imagining you, the reader, as a genderless being vaguely shaped like a human applauding for me right now.)
it isn't so bad being out here with you.
Xander Matthews enjoyed car rides. They were, most of the time, a nice experience that helped you get along with those around you. There were plenty of things you could do in the car, and the small stops through the trip, if it was a long one, gave you a short break from the others if you needed it. The question of where you were going was great as well! The possibilities were endless!
Today wasn't "most of the time."
Xander and his classmate, Arei Nageishi, were trying to go home after a long day of taking a break from school at a park five hours away from campus with the rest of their classmates. According to some of them—half, actually—Arei wasn't allowed to drive or even be in a car alone. Xander wasn't sure what the big deal was, but it wasn't like he spoke to Arei much. Whatever the case was, he found himself in his car willing to drive her home. It didn't seem like that bad of an idea, especially since Arei was busy with whatever music was playing in her headphones. The silence was a bit unnerving for Xander, especially considering who he was in the car with, but he was fine with it.
But then they got onto the highway and were stuck in traffic thanks to some construction. It was already getting late, and it just had to start raining too. They were barely moving a centimetre about every few minutes, and with how it was already nearing 11 P.M., he wasn't sure they were making it back home before midnight.
Xander's car was one of the more silent ones. He wasn't honking his horn obnoxiously like the other cars, and there wasn't any conversation going on either. The conversation part changed the moment Arei declared from the backseat, "This is the worst day ever!"
"It isn't that bad," Xander told her.
"Yes, it is. My phone died, and we're not even home yet, right?"
"You didn't realize we're stuck in traffic?"
"We're stuck in traffic?" From the rearview mirror, he could see Arei putting her headphones on her shoulders and looking out the windows. Her backpack rested on the ground in front of her. "Oh, we are. That sucks."
With his eyes still on the rearview mirror, Xander asked, "You actually didn't notice?"
"No," she answered. "I was going to listen to music until we got home so I wouldn't have to talk to you, but now my phone's dead."
"What's so bad about talking to me?"
"You're British."
Xander sighed. "You're not funny..."
"You're not funny," Arei repeated in a horrible attempt at a British accent.
Xander wasn't sure why he even attempted to talk to her. Arei pushed everyone's buttons almost too easily, and he was no exception. He wasn't sure what her deal was, but she could so annoying at times!
"How long until we're back home?" Arei asked.
"We're probably not getting back until after midnight," Xander answered.
"What time is it now?"
"11:48 P.M."
"I bet all the others are already home by now. I should've went with one of them instead of you."
"Too late now." In his mind, Xander repeated, Don't get annoyed. She's trying to make you annoyed, so giving her a reaction would be giving her what she wants. Don't get annoyed.
"It's Friday, right?" Arei leaned back against the backseat. "Nothing to do tomorrow. I'd be upset about the traffic if I had something important."
"You're not the one driving," Xander said.
"Hu Jing doesn't let me drive," she scoffed. "She says I'm not allowed to after what happened last time."
"What happened last time?"
"I don't feel like hearing a speech about being a good citizen or whatever you talk about, so I'll keep that a secret."
"I wasn't going to give you any speeches..."
"Better safe than sorry. By the way, you should really stop giving people speeches. David is right there. He gives better speeches than you. Stop."
The mention of his idol and classmate, David Chiem, put a smile on Xander's face. "Of course David can give better speeches than I can! He's amazing! You should've heard his speech the other day at—"
"Fanboy." Arei rolled her blue eyes. "Just get used to him already."
"I am used to him—"
"Doesn't look like it." She lowered her voice and put on her fake and terrible British accent. "Oh, David, be my partner for this project, love! David, look at these fish and chips I made for you! It'd be great if David could see me right now, innit? I need to give this bottle of water to David right now! David, David, David, David!"
All the reminders Xander had been giving himself to not get annoyed were immediately forgotten. "First, I don't sound like that! Second, your excuse of a British accent is just you not pronouncing the T's. Third, you know I've never said anything you think I say. I swear, you're the most annoying and selfish prick I've ever—"
A sniff interrupted his dialogue. Small teardrops started to flow from her eyes as Arei rubbed them away. "Y-You're so mean..."
Xander's heart shuddered. Her tears were fake. She always did that to get what she wanted. He knew that, but he still wanted her to stop. It was how he felt with everyone, but it was different with Arei. Instead of just the general "stop-crying", he had a more specific want. He wanted to comfort her, take back what he said in a hopefully more meaningful way—that probably wouldn't be the case, though—and possibly putting in some physical contact. He couldn't place why it was so different with her.
As usual, he had to ignore that want, mainly because his brain always went into panic-mode the second someone had tears start to show. "Arei, I didn't mean that..."
"Yes, you did. I get it. I'm the most annoying, selfish, pathetic, and ugly prick you've ever met. You never wanted to deal with me, but everyone else forced you to...!" She rubbed her nose against her sleeve, her blue nail polish looking darker than normal.
The car in front of them moved forward a couple of centimetres. Xander moved his car as far as he could, but the car behind them honked anyway. That made the other cars around them to start honking. Xander really couldn't deal with this plus Arei crying in the middle of the night.
He turned around in his seat to look at her from the front. He had to use the only card he had. "Arei, I promise I don't think of you like that. I won't ever call you that ever again. I won't even think about you like that."
She sniffed. Their eyes met in the rearview mirror. Something about the rain, the streetlights, and the surrounding headlights made her blue eyes with fake tears look bigger than normal. "Promise...?"
"I promise." His voice came out quieter than he expected it to. He figured it had to do with how quiet and soft her voice was. That, at the end of the day, was just another part of her tricks.
He turned back to the road as Arei immediately stopped crying and said, "Good. I'll remember this, Xander. If you break it—"
She was interrupted by a car near them honking their horn loud and long enough to probably be heard throughout the country.
She sighed. "Stupid drivers... We get it, it's late, you want to go home, now stop honking your horns and annoying everyone else! It's not doing anything to speed this up!"
Taking a peek at the rearview mirror, he noticed she was scowling. Normally, he didn't think people scowling was good as it showed they were annoyed at something that maybe they shouldn't be annoyed. True to it, he didn't like seeing her scowl, but a small part of him thought the flash of emotion in her eyes and the way her nose scrunched up was adorable.
He was probably tired. That was probably what it was.
Putting his eyes on anything else as the cars inches forward again, Xander asked, "Arei, do you get road rage?"
"Only when I'm the one driving," Arei answered. "Why?"
"You seem like someone who would."
"I'm taking that as an insult."
"It wasn't meant to be an insult."
"It sounded like one."
"Did your road rage make Hu Jing and everyone else decide you can't drive?" Xander asked to make her think about something else.
"I'm not telling you. What happened last time is a secret, Alexander." Arei pronounced his full name slowly like she was trying to make every letter of stick into his brain. He never told her what his full name was, and he always wondered if Teruko Tawaki had something to do with it. She was the only one in their class who knew his full name.
Xander turned his head to the window. Rain splattered onto it as he looked through the darkened windows to the car next to it. A man was asleep in the passenger seat as a woman drove the car. He wondered where they were going, where they came from, and why they were out so late. They, or at least the woman, could be wondering the same thing about him.
"What music do you listen to?" Xander almost jumped at the sound of Arei's voice. She had released herself out of her seatbelt's hold without turning on the sound of the alarm and was leaning over from the back. Her head was near his, her hair falling over the side her face as she searched through his glove box.
"Stop looking through my stuff!" Xander swatted her hand away. He was a second too late from her opening one and finding a charger.
She grabbed it before he could stop her and inspected it. "This one won't charge my phone. Useless." She dropped it in the passenger seat.
"You could at least put it back..." His grumbles went ignored, so he had to put it back.
"Where's your phone?" Arei asked. "Do you have, like, any streaming services? I wanna listen to something. Play some British song."
"I left my phone at home—"
"Who leaves their phone at home? What is this, the 2000's?"
"We're not listening to music," Xander said. "Sit down before someone sees you."
"We're going at one metre per hour. No one cares." As if she was trying to prove her point, she straightened her back while still sitting in between the passenger and driver seat. He had to tilt his head up to talk to her.
"What if we get into a car crash?"
"How bad are you at driving that we get in a car crash when we're barely moving? At that point, I'd take my chances with Ace driving while Levi does his scary stuff sitting in the passenger seat, Arturo sitting next to J in the backseat taking about J's mom, and Teruko's in the trunk here for her bad luck."
"Why is Teruko in the boot?"
"'Boot?'"
"Trunk," he quickly corrected. "Why is she in the trunk?"
"British people." Her nose scrunched to show disgust, but he knew she didn't actually feel that way. Maybe that knowledge was the reason why that simple act tugged on his heart. "There's no more room in the backseat, and Teruko has to be somewhere if I'd rather risk being in a car with her than you. Oh, yeah, if Arturo and J sit in the backseat with me, I don't have enough room to stretch my legs..."
"I was wondering why you sat in the backseat instead of the front."
He expected Arei to say something about her choices in car seating arrangements, but instead, she asked, "You have a tongue piercing?"
Xander was confused for a second before realizing she didn't know he had one. "Oh, yeah, I do. My old school had a strict rule that didn't allow any piercings, so I pierced my tongue. If a teacher walked by, all I have to do is close my mouth."
He stuck out his tongue so she could see his lip piercing better. The actual lip piercing wasn't anything special, but it was the act of getting one that was. To him, it was an act to fight against the rules that didn't make sense. That was his job! He pulled his tongue back into his mouth so he could explain what he was thinking back then when he noticed Arei expression.
It was oddly unreadable. She always kept the emotions she wanted others to see on the surface, so having a blank face was weird. Her eyes were trained onto his lips, and for a few seconds, silence took over. Then, her eyes lifted off his lips to his eye. He wasn't sure if it was just him or if she truly did stiffen ever so slightly, but he wasn't going to ask. The atmosphere between them felt...different. Like a blink alone could ruin whatever was going on between them. Not like he knew what was going on between them.
Xander wasn't sure how long they stayed like that. It felt like hours. It was probably no more than a few minutes, though, especially when the car behind them honked their horn. He turned to the road and realized he could move forward.
Arei slipped into the passenger seat when the car honked. After he moved the car as far as he could, he forced himself to expand the suddenly uncomfortable silence for a second to try to get used to it. He couldn't, so he asked, "I thought you didn't like sitting there."
She shrugged. "I like it. It's just that I like stretching my legs out more. There's not enough room here, and I can't even lay down."
"If you're sitting here now, put your seatbelt on."
Surprisingly, she listened. His surprise could only be held for a few seconds before she started rummaging around in his glove box again.
"I told you to stop looking through my stuff!" He swatted at her hands again.
"Why? Do you have something to hide, Xander Matthews? Do you have drugs in here? Porn magazines? Condoms? Were you planning—"
"I don't have any of those, and I wasn't planning anything!" Even though the streetlights and the headlights made it relatively easy to see, he hoped it was too hard for her to see how red his cheeks were.
"That's what they all say." She took a five-second break before going back to it.
To focus on something that wouldn't give him a headache, Xander looked out the window to see if he could see the man and the woman who were in the car next to them, but they were gone. A new car was there was two new people. They were a different man and woman. From what it looked like, they were having a lively conversation with each other, one filled with laughter and smiles. He couldn't make out what they were talking about, but they looked like they were enjoying each other's presence.
"Xander, say, 'Cheese!'"
"Huh?"
When Xander turned his head towards Arei, he found her holding his phone towards his face, unlocking it with facial I.D. Before he could stop her, she went back to the backseat and went through his phone, keeping it out of his reach. She readjusted her seatbelt to be around her again as she said, "Liar, liar, liar," each "liar" getting a shake of her head. "You said you kept your phone at home, but it's right here? I knew no one kept their phone at home nowadays! What kind of things are you hiding in here?"
"Nothing, now give me my phone back!" He tried to reach for it from the driver seat, but his seatbelt stopped him from getting too far.
"I'm only checking what music you listen to." She showed him the phone screen briefly as proof. When she turned it back to herself, she stayed silent as she scrolled through. He wasn't sure why he felt nervous about her knowing what he listened to, but he did. After a minute, she smiled and said, "You would listen to this."
The smile on her face and her voice were different than everything he got used to with her. It was small and gentle, and her voice was soft with no hint of teasing. They worked together to give her a look of sweet understanding. It was unusual, considering who it was coming from, but she looked so pretty that he couldn't look away.
He wished he had the photographic memory of their classmate, Rose Lacroix. Just remembering that look on her face would be enough, but if he also received her artistic skills, then it would be even better. Being able to paint how to the light from their surroundings hit her, how the screen reflected on her eyes, how her being in his car like it was the most natural thing in the world would be a dream. He could even frame it somewhere and show off the moment he realized—
No, he didn't realize anything.
Arei leaned down and opened her backpack. She shuffled through it until she pulled out earbuds. Despite already having headphones still resting on her shoulders, she plugged the earbuds into his phone and said, "I'm listening to your playlist now. How much time do we have left until we get home?"
Xander forced his eyes back to the road. The car in front of him moved farther than before, and even with the rain, he could see that there was less traffic not that far up ahead. "Once we make it past here, we should be home in around two and a half hours."
"That's enough time to listen to your playlist. I'm telling you my opinions on it tomorrow—and you better care about them." She put her earbuds in, leaned back against the car seat, and closed her eyes. Even though he couldn't tell what she was thinking, she looked more peaceful than normal.
The construction site was coming to an end. In less than half an hour, he should be able to drive more freely. The rain would be a little bit of a bother, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. He already had Arei inside his car. But then again, his mind went back to the sweet smile on her face every time he thought of her. He would happily deal with her if it meant he got to see that smile more.
As time went on, their car made it further through traffic. They just about reached the end when Xander felt someone nudge his shoulder. He looked over and saw Arei sitting in between in the driver seat and the passenger seat and holding out one of her earbuds.
He hesitated, but he took it. Once he did, she sat on the passenger seat and put the seatbelt on wordlessly. He still hadn't put the earbud in his ear yet.
"You need to stop moving so much," he said.
"I'll stop now," she replied. "We're actually moving, so you can get into a car crash now."
"I don't want to get into one."
"Good, I don't either. If you do and I die but you live, I'm haunting you." Her eyes flashed as she looked at him. "And if you try to haunt me if I'm alive but your dead, I'm exorcising you in the most painful way possible."
"I don't want to kill us both, so I guess we both have to live."
"Good thing we agree on that."
Xander realized he still hadn't put the earbud in. When he did, he realized his playlist was playing. His phone sat between them as music went through to both of them. Arei was looking out the window with that unreadable expression she had when she found out he had a lip piercing.
Xander wasn't sure what to think of it, but he had to drive right now. He wasn't risking any haunting from Arei. She could push anyone's buttons, but she would make for a cute ghost.
ᵖʳⁱⁿᶜᵉˢˢ'ˢ ᵒʳᵈᵉʳˢ ;; ᵈʳᵈᵗ ⁽ˣᵃⁿʳᵉⁱ⁾
Summary: Having personal guards is so annoying, but since Xander Matthews is the only one protecting her at night, Arei Nageishi can tolerate it. Warning: DRDT Spoilers (Arei's backstory) Word Count: 2,521 A/N: I meant to post this yesterday to celebrate the end of DRDT’s hiatus, but I got distracted by the actual episode. Anyway, let’s go, we’re going to find out Arei’s killer soon! Can’t wait to see if I’m right or not about my culprit theory, especially since the person I’m the most suspicious of is on, like, everyone else’s innocent list, but I might as well ride it out with that theory until the actual killer becomes clear (I think it’s Whit, by the way. I also thought David might be an accomplice, but that theory may or may not have been ruined with the new episode).
it’s my command!
Supposedly, rumours of the two eldest princesses of the kingdom being sent away for drastic misbehaviour was bad for the kingdom’s reputation. That was what Princess Arei Nageishi was told when her older twin sisters were sent off. As the king and queen, her father and mother were sending out word that they were being sent to stay with family to help understand the lives of others better. Nothing mentioning starting fires near rural villages, messing up trade routes so villagers couldn’t get as many necessities as they should, or any of the other things her sisters did for fun.
Obviously, Arei knew nothing about it. She was the innocent younger princess. Disliked by many, yes, but also the one who had done nothing wrong, in contrast to her cruel older sisters. In her parents’ eyes, she had to stay that way to preserve the royal family’s reputation. That made them come up with the idea that she needed personal guards.
Arei didn’t like it. She didn’t need anyone to watch over her for every hour of the day. She didn’t need multiple people doing that job every hour of the day. Fortunately, her nights were spent with only one guard outside her chambers, but having personal guards itself was so annoying. They probably had better things to do anyway, so if she didn’t want them here, they could go somewhere else! She didn’t even want to do anything destructive anyway! Not anymore, at least.
At least she could have her pick at who could be guarding her chambers at night. She couldn’t remember half of her personal guards’ names and could barely remember what all of them looked like, but she knew Xander Matthews. He would never snitch to anyone about anything she did as long as it wasn’t disruptive, unlike all the others who thought their job was to tell her parents the exact moment she went to the bathroom. That meant she could bother him for as much as she wanted!
Annoying people in the castle’s long hallways wasn’t fun, though. If either of her parents found her—or worse, if both of them did—she would get scolded for at least 10 minutes about how her sisters were disappointments to the family, and she couldn’t join them. It was ironic since they called her the disappointment of the family plenty of times before her sisters were sent off, but they apparently had to show love for at least one of their daughters to keep up the appearance of a loving royal family, even if that daughter was her.
Luckily, her chambers were private enough! The only people allowed coming into it were anyone there to clean, but they couldn’t stay around for long or else they would have to face her. Her parents never came into her bedchambers unless she gave them specific permission to, and she could count on one hand how many times she did that! Especially since there were no snitches to run to her parents, Arei could have Xander inside there with her all she wanted!
One of the things she liked most about guards were their swords that they wore all the time. They were so sharp but so light. Arei was sure she could be pretty good at dealing with swords if she tried. That was why she always asked Xander to hold his sword every night he came into her chambers. Today was the first time he actually let her.
Arei sliced the sword through the air, the sword’s blade looking bright even in the very dim lighting. Xander warned, sitting at her desk, “Careful not to hit anything. If you mark something, your parents might realize I come here, and they’ll reassign me at best.”
“I didn’t know you liked coming here,” Arei responded while she continued swinging his sword. He didn’t have to worry about her hitting anything. She spent, like, five minutes with it. She was basically be a knight now!
“You force me to come here,” he reminded.
“And you like it!” She swung the end of the sword to barely touch his neck. He didn’t flinch. Well, she would get him to flinch with her amazing swordsmanship skills one of these days. “Anyway, you shouldn’t have given me this.”
“I know,” he replied. “Now, you’ll hold today over my head and keep bothering me more to let you touch my sword.”
“I will,” she admitted, “but I’m a princess! Your princess. You’re meant to follow my orders!”
“The only orders I’m supposed to follow are your parents’, specifically the ones that keep you safe.” Xander moved the tip of his sword away from his neck. “I’m already failing at my job since I’m letting you do this.”
“It’s not unsafe if I don’t do anything that isn’t safe!”
“You just holding it would be unsafe in your parents’ eyes.”
“Then it’s good they’re not here!” Arei swung her sword at one of her bed’s four pillars. It grazed against the wood and left a thin line paler than the dark wood surrounding it.
They both went closer to inspect it. Xander ran his finger over it. She noticed they were long. “Someone is going to ask you why that mark is there.”
“I was feeling bored,” Arei suggested, “so I looked through my stuff. I flung one of my old earrings around, so it might’ve made that scratch.”
“You don’t wear earrings,” he reminded, pointing to her ears.
She covered her ears with her hands and found herself wondering if he preferred girls with earrings. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of earrings from when everyone thought I would because every other girl who ever existed did. I can just say I was trying to throw them out.”
“You never throw anything out.”
“I do! You just never see me doing it.”
“You’re throwing your stuff out when it’s the other guards’ shifts?”
“I definitely do!” She just happened to not throw everything out. It wasn’t her fault she received a lot of gifts because she was a princess. Even the one no one liked could achieve that.
Xander sighed, his focus going back to the scratch. “Even though that story is unrealistic, it’s better than the real one... Give me my sword back.”
Arei reluctantly handed it over. Now what was she going to swing around her chambers? Her pillow?
Xander sheathed his sword. “It’s getting late, Your Majesty. You should start getting ready to go to sleep.”
“I am ready.” Every time before Xander came, Arei got ready for bed. She was already in her nightgown, and her hair was braided to prevent knots in the morning. To make sure no one knew about their secret meetings, she let all the lights be turned off, but she always lit a candle that was bright enough to see but small enough for no one outside the chambers to notice. In a way, it felt more intimate to her, and she liked that more than she thought.
“I meant ready to actually sleep.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do that right now. Let’s talk more!”
“About what?” he asked, skepticism laced in his voice.
He should never worry about her ideas! They were always good and innocent! Like, her idea right now was, “Teach me how to sword fight!”
“No.”
“But why?” Just in case, Arei put on one of the many sad looks she had prepared. It was sad enough that it looked like she was genuinely disappointed but happy enough that it didn’t look like she was about to cry.
“Your parents won’t let me,” Xander answered.
“Teach me in secret. It can be our little thing!”
“Our ‘little thing’ is talking in your chambers when I’m supposed to be outside your door all night to make sure you’re safe.”
“We can have two little things!”
“I don’t have the time to be teaching you things.”
“Make time. I’ll clear up your schedule! I’ll order it to happen.”
“Please don’t do that.” His voice sounded a little more genuine. “I want to do everything I have to do.”
It was her turn to be skeptical now. “What do you have to do?”
Xander counted what he had to do on his fingers. “Being your guard is the obvious one. I also have to sleep since I’m meant to be awake all night. There are meetings between all of your guards in case something like a ball comes up. We need a plan to make sure you’re safe. There are also people I want to see too.”
The last part stuck out to her the most. “Which people?”
He shrugged, looking away. “Just people I know.”
“Who are...?”
“People I know. You don’t know any of them,” he added.
“You don’t tell me anything about your life,” she pointed out.
“You never asked. Besides, I’m here to protect you, so really, everything should be about you.”
Arei wasn’t sure what to think of these mysterious people he knew. She wasn’t stupid and was fully aware that he knew people outside of her life, but it was still weird to think about. She knew him as a fun-to-bother guard who was the best out of all the personal ones she had. They probably knew him as something different because of the time he spent with them. She didn’t like thinking about that.
“I think I’ll go to sleep now,” she declared with less enthusiasm than she liked to admit.
Xander blinked a few times before frowning. “Did I say something wrong? I’m so sorry if I did.”
“I’m disappointed that you’re not giving me my sword back,” she forced herself to say with the enthusiasm she lacked earlier.
He lost one eye before she met him. The one he had left was very expressive, and she liked to think the other one was too when it was still there. It looked brighter when he was panicking over saying the wrong thing, but it relaxed after she successfully played it off as a joke. She liked looking at his eye.
“It’s my sword,” he corrected, “and you’re not having it back after today.”
“All I did was get a little scratch on my bed that’s barely even noticeable! I deserve a sword!”
“If you are, you’re not getting one from me.”
“Why? Am I not good enough for you? Am I too weak as a princess for you?”
Usually, when she said stuff like that, Xander either got really defensive or was too tired of her to argue. Today, he laughed. She was caught more off guard than she would like to say. It wasn’t like she heard him laugh before, though. The other people he knew probably did tons of times.
“If you want to go to sleep,” Xander said when his laughter died down, “I’ll let you. Good night, Your Majesty.”
“Good night, Xander!” Arei smiled. Xander smiled back before he left her alone in her chambers. It felt quieter with him gone. Then again, it always did.
Arei decided to follow what she told Xander. She blew out the candle before getting under the covers. When her back hit the mattress, her mind thought back to the people Xander knew and liked to spend time with. He was right about her never asking about who he knew. She never thought about it before.
It wasn’t like she was too obsessed with herself to notice other people’s lives. Everyone in the kingdom, including and especially her parents, thought she was, and she always let them think that, but she wasn’t. She knew what was happening throughout the kingdom. She knew the struggles the people were facing better than probably everyone else in the royal family. They were always obsessed with what was happening and could happen to them. The minor problems such as inflation, the difficulty to get food to the villages outside the one closest to the castle, the low-paying incomes many made, and so much more were unnoticed by the others. She did. She couldn’t negotiate to make peace with a rival kingdom for the life of her, but she could maybe make laws to help the daily lives of the little people of the kingdom if she became queen due to her sisters now being seen as criminals to their parents.
Their problems were better to focus on than her own. Whenever she wanted to try to distract herself from her sisters’ recent bullying, the commoners’ problems were what she went to. Hearing about things they dealt with didn’t make her feel any better about her own, but it gave her something to think about. She could be a good person and help them, or she could be cruel and make their lives worse. Or, she could be just like the rest of her family and let them continue on with their lives and doing nothing to worsen it but also nothing to help them.
Xander was a commoner. She knew he was raised in the farthest village from the castle, right next to the boarder between their kingdom and the next. He worked his way to get to where he was now. The problems he had were definitely more interesting than her current ones, but he never shared them with her. She understood that she wasn’t the kindest to him, but even if she was, he probably wouldn’t. He was only meant to be her personal guard, not anything else. They were already crossing a line with their secret meetings, and he wouldn’t try to push it any further.
The other people he knew probably knew of his problems, though. He probably shared all the problems he had to them, and they listened or offered solutions. They knew him better than she did.
For a while, Arei read books when she was trying to escape her sisters’ torment. No one liked her, so it was the only way to entertain herself. There were multiple books where she saw a stereotype of a princess having no friends. She hated that she fell into that stereotype. There was no one in her life that she wanted to spend time with, and there was no one who wanted to spend time with her. Everything was out of pure obligation before Xander came in. He was the first person she wanted to be with, and he was the first person to want that with her. She didn’t know how to talk to him, but she knew she liked feeling seen, feeling comfortable, feeling like a person when she was around him. She liked knowing he enjoyed her company and wouldn’t try to leave because he didn’t want to be with her. It was almost amazing how good someone could feel around someone because of that.
Of course, there were other people Xander liked more than her. There had to be. She couldn’t imagine herself being his favourite person to be with, even though he was surely hers.
Thinking was too much work. Arei should definitely go to sleep.
Confession: Even though this was meant to be posted yesterday, I just finished it today. Whoops.
Poem???
Anyone wanna read this poem i just wrote working on my poetry annalysis sleep deprived? No? Imma just gonna put it here then.
I heard you wake
When eve barely broke
And yet I ignored the call
The birds and bustle
For the temporary comfort I had
I ignored my duties
What I don’t want to face
To what I had
I pulled myself closer
The covers over my head
I woke when the sun was high
When noon had struck and I could lie no more
Light glaring through the curtains, the bustling outside
Sitting up like being wound
A turner in my head, the gears now turning
I stood from my bed
I walked out of my room
The hall brightly lit
By the sunlight at the end of the corridor
Blinding I avert my gaze
I wanted to retreat
Back where I came
Not wanting to face
And yet I must
My comfort now gone, where I left it just then
Feeling regret with every step
The cursing loudly echoing
My day had just begun
And yet it was already half gone
I could only watch, as I waste what little I had away
Cursing even louder, though I made no point to change
There always seems to be something better, more alive
Than what I have to do
I buried my thoughts in laughter, I myself laughed too
Facing the bleary screen
My mind is blank though moments ago it was full to bursting
I could only watch as the numbers change
5, 6, 7, 8,
Slowly but surely
Now I feel stress
It all seems to be crashing down
Like that of the titanic
Engine and goose up north
Can I land
Is there time
Regret and remorse fill my mind
I now sit by myself at the dead of the night
My words not none but not nearly full
If only I didn’t crowd my mind
As I take a pen to write
Tapping of the keys, bright light above
No more could I take
I bury myself, in what comfort I have
Lulling my mind with a fake promise
Closing my eyes to all I fear and despise
Hoping to never wake again