Lie to Me Again | ONC 2024

6 - The Tudors

Writing Sophia's paper took less than an hour under Rhett's tutelage. They sat in the family "quiet room" with full bookshelves lining peacock blue walls and silver flowering lamps scattered throughout to give light. Yuki shifted on her embroidered pillow, her elbow resting on the low table between her and Rhett. 

He scribbled a few more notes onto a sheet of music before stretching. "I think I've had enough for the night. You?"

Yuki nodded with a wide yawn. Hot tea and sweet pancakes weighed her stomach with a comfortable warmth. Despite her tendency to pull late-nighters, at half-past nine her eyes already wanted to shut. 

Rhett gathered his papers and got up to set them on the grand piano in one corner of the room. "Minji's been learning a new song. Maybe she'll have a mini concert for you when she's finished."

"That would be nice," Yuki agreed, watching him brush the glossed top of the instrument with his long fingers. Music had always run in the Tudor family. Beautiful voices too. Mrs. Tudor had once explained how environment and genetics influenced the singing voice, allowing family members to achieve a cohesion in their singing that others couldn't due to natural shared inflections in their tone.

"Do you still play violin?" Rhett asked.

Not since the accident. She'd had trouble holding the bow properly and quit after several tries where she ended up crying in frustration. Hugging her knees to her chest, she replied, "No, it's been awhile since I lost interest in it."

Settling down on his pillow again, Rhett poured another round of tea. Unlike Era, he spilled a little onto the saucer. "You were a good violinist. Maybe you'll pick it up again in the future."

Maybe it was the late hour or years of friendship that couldn't simply be erased, but Yuki couldn't help betraying her secrets around Rhett. "Maybe. I can't help but think I'm not good at anything though." Before, she'd swam and played tennis because she thought she loved it. Now she wasn't so sure, that maybe she'd mistaken talent for love and now that she wasn't skilled at those things anymore, she no longer enjoyed them.

If she couldn't be great, why try?

"Anything worthwhile takes time and effort," Rhett mused. "But a person has to find what's worthwhile first. Do you like being called Hime?"

Yuki sipped her tea, feeling a strange sense of deja vu. "I don't hate it."

Rhett shook his head. "If you don't figure out what you want, Era's going to chew you up and spit you out. You must know that."

Warmth. That was the difference between Rhett and Era. Rhett could be the gentle komorebi—sunlight filtering through the trees—but he could also be the sun and if she flew too close her wings would burn. Era was the ruthless edge of ice—cold and cutting to the core—but she was also fair and Yuki understood her to some extent in a way that she didn't understand Rhett.

"If that's the case," Yuki asked, watching Rhett for any tell she could decipher, "then why are you playing her game?"

His cheeks flushed with the slightest tint of pink. "Why are you? Yuki, you've changed and I don't know why. Is it something I did? Did you get into trouble and have to transfer schools? You can tell me."

Yuki propped her chin in the palm of her hand. Somehow, even though Rhett had matured in looks, had followed her example in the art of witty, scathing remarks, he wasn't quite sure of himself. He broke rule five, giving up control of the conversation and putting all the power in her hands. But she owed him something.

"You didn't do anything wrong," she said softly. But then the time for kindness ended. "Yes, I got into trouble but my parents don't want me to talk about it. I'm starting with a clean slate here." Her gut clenched at the falsehood, at this lie out of all lies because it was to the person she cared about most still left in the world.