Author: greyrani
Genre: romance, angst

DAY 450

If someone asked about the darkest time in my life, I would have answered it was this past month. Just within seconds I felt my world crumbling down, trapping me within an endless sorrow and unbearable burden. I was lost under my composure. I put on a tough façade despite my heart shattered inside. I had to stand strong because that’s just how people expected me to be; that’s just how a king should be.

My Majesty Father, King Yamada Shinsuke had passed away last month.

I might have only stayed with him for short, during my childhood and after I returned to this Kingdom, yet all my life I had been looking up to him. Father was my role model. He was the man I wanted to be: quick-witted and physically strong, warm yet intimidating, wise but also fierce. He was the portrait of an ideal King.

Father never kept a mistress nor concubine as long as I knew. He was a devoted man, to his country, to his comrades, to his spouse. That’s perhaps the reason my ever so strict mother couldn’t bear the lost. She loved him more than she ever loved any man. It's then why his passing truly break her that she couldn’t stop crying for days, slipping in and out of consciousness because of her sorrow.

When Father died, the power should shift to his Dowager until the new king was crowned, yet with my mother's inability to take on the lead, everything was directly shoved to me. From inspecting the preparation of my father’s funeral till the penny spent for charity during our mourning period, from the signing of letters written for the other kingdoms till the detail of how their stay during my father’s funeral would be, from giving speech for my people till renegotiating pacts and agreements with some allies…

Within seconds my life changed. I had been prepared, yet it felt that it wasn’t enough. The sudden rush overwhelmed my being.

I was struggling with things the ministers asking me to approve. I knew even though the king had gone, life must go on, so does the kingdom’s affair. Battling with myself inside to push away my deep sadness, I knew this was the first test for me before claiming the throne.

And just as I wished, you chose that time to stepped in.

In the middle of that, you came interrupting. You visited the King’s study chamber unannounced when I was reviewing some reports, startling my ministers who were waiting for my signature. Smoothly you instructed them to leave us alone. Then when we’re alone, you started with your speech, telling me about how I should not drive myself harder than my utmost limit. I told you that it couldn’t be helped since that was my duty to serve my people. You countered back by saying that I should give myself chance to mourn for my father, to also do what a child do for the loss of his parent. I didn’t know why I was being unusually stubborn that moment that caused us to continue arguing about what should and what should not be done.

At last, you kneeled down bes