Guardians of the Prince

The early summer sunlight weakened a bit as the day wore into evening, and a refreshing breeze started to blow.

The hotel courtyard had been transformed into a forest, with light snacks and drinks set out on long thin tables in the shade of the trees.
Invited guests milled about, waiting with drinks in hand for the new bride and groom to appear.

The Hino family – the bride’s side – chatted happily with one another, and I stood beside a white birch with my aunt, making conversation as we waited for them.

“What a nice ceremony that was.
You must be relieved Koaya finally managed to get married.”

My aunt, in full formal kimono, tilted her champagne flute, and flashed a meaningful smile at me.
“It might take a bit of the load off of your shoulders too, Koume, since you’ve been basically acting mother? It’s your turn to find happiness now.
Is there anyone good on the horizon?”

“Well… I mean, the youngest is still around, and a terror,” I answered, noncommittally.
The truth was that we’d lost our mother at a young age, and I still wanted to look after my youngest sister.
Well, there were other reasons too, but…

My aunt stared at me, her eyes open a bit wider.
“Really? You don’t think you’ll get married until Nanao’s bigger? But she’s still–”

“Hey sis!”

I heard myself being called and turned around to find my youngest sister Nanao running down the hotel hallway.
She leapt down into the garden, the sleeves of her polka dot summer dress fluttering.

I excused myself from my aunt’s company and rushed over to Nanao.
“Stop running! You’re not recovered yet.”

“I’m fine! It doesn’t hurt at all anymore!”

Nanao hopped up and down a bit to show me.
She was in the third grade, and had sprained her ankle during gym class the other day.

“Well, alright I guess,” I said.
“You were gone long enough, was there a line in the bathroom?”

Nanao sighed.
“Yeah.
Oh good, I’m in time for Sissy Aya to throw the bouquet!”

She grinned.
When she smiled, she looked just like our late mother.

Nanao called me, the eldest daughter, “Sis,” and the next eldest, Koaya — today’s new bride — she called “Sissy Aya.” She used to call us other cute little nicknames, but recently, she’d suddenly dropped them.

That wasn’t all she’d dropped… When she’d sprained her ankle, she’d managed to hide it from me for a while, in an effort not to bother me.
She was still young enough that she should have been good at getting babied, but after a certain incident she’d suddenly started pushing herself in an attempt to become an adult.

“You want the bouquet? You’re still in elementary school, what are you going to do with it?” I asked, in a deliberately bright voice, but Nanao shook her head.

“No, I want to watch you catch it, sis.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.
Sissy Aya said she was going to throw it in your direction.”

Koaya was two years younger than me, twenty three.
Wasn’t there something a little off about an older sister getting the bouquet from her younger sister?

“You absolutely have to catch it, sis.”

Nanao had her fists clenched, and I suddenly let a bitter smile slip.

I had just gotten over the demise of a painful relationship a few months ago.
Koaya and Nanao were no doubt trying to keep my spirits up.
Catching the bride’s bouquet means you’ll have a happy marriage, after all.

I was, of course, overjoyed that Koaya was getting married.
She’d been captivatingly beautiful in church today, pledging her future to the person she loved with the sounds of the organ in the background.

But seeing her so happy like that did bring back my own bitter memories.
My sister’s happiness made me feel drab by comparison, and ill-at-ease in my own sorrow.
Honestly, I wanted to give them my blessings without any reservations, like the cloudless blue sky we’d had today, but I just couldn’t.

A noise went up from the crowd, and I came back to myself.
When I looked up, the long-awaited bride and groom had finished changing their clothes, and had just made their appearance on the hotel’s second floor balcony.

Koaya was wearing an expensive cocktail dress of black lace layered on a white base.
I’d been there when she’d chosen the dress, and the both of us had taken one look at it and said, ‘This is the one!’ It fit her personality perfectly.

Maybe I’m a bit partial as her big sister, but Koaya is a stylish beauty, just like our father, and chic tones suited her perfectly.

Our eyes met, and she tilted her head to one side, and grinned.
She looked like someone else entirely.
She turned to me and stuck out her chin, like she was telling me to come to the front of the crowd.
The sense of purpose in her eyes was incredible.

“Honestly, get up there!” Nanao said, pushing me forward, sassy little thing.
“Take the bouquet, and go find yourself a boyfriend already.
Even if you have to elope!”

She stood me in line immediately behind friends and colleagues of the bride.

The bride turned around, and got herself into position.
She glanced back for a moment, and I knew she was making sure I was there.

“I get it, I get it.
I’ve gotta catch the bouquet and find happiness too,” I said, smiling wryly.
Nanao screwed a smile to her face like she was worried about something but determined to give it her all nonetheless.

“That’s right.
And then next time, I’ll catch your bouquet!”

“”

I nodded to her with a smile of my own, and looked up to the balcony.

Putting up fronts for each other… I had to pull myself out of this quick.
Maybe if I caught it, I really could throw off all these heavy emotions and find a new love.
And then Nanao would feel better too.

A bouquet of white roses flew through the air.
The lace ribbon fluttered.
And just as I reached out with both hands…

Suddenly everything went silent.

Wait, what? Am I in the water?

Clear ripples spread over my field of vision, like when you dive into a pool and look up at the surface of the water.

Just as I thought I felt my hand touch the bouquet, something thin and hot suddenly wrapped around my left wrist.

Immediately after that, the sound came back.

The roaring wind– No wait, it was sort of like glowing water coiled into whirlpools– I heard the guests screaming, but only in patches.

I had the sensation of my left arm being yanked hard.
When I reflexively tightened my grip on the bouquet, my legs started floating.

My body was caught in a whirlpool and suddenly I didn’t know which way was up.

I felt like I was having the longest, weirdest dream.
I felt like I was drifting around in the water, and I could hear voices from a long way off, a higher pitch and a lower pitch.

And then–

“Woah!”

A shock ran up my back and I woke up.

A thin blanket was wrapped around me, and I couldn’t move.
I rolled slightly to the right, and bumped into a wooden bed.
I must have been tossing and turning in my sleep and fell onto the floor.

“Where… am I?”

I managed to pull my arms out of the blanket and sit up.
I moved slowly.
For some reason, my head felt incredibly heavy.

Looking around, I was in a room about 6 tatami in size, with light-colored timber on the ceiling, the walls, and the floor.

Light shone in through the curtains, illuminating a chest made of the same wood as the room.
The soft light was strangely dazzling, and I squinted.

This wasn’t my room.

I’d been attending my sister’s wedding, so this must be the hotel, right? Was this a hotel room? I must have collapsed and they’d carried me up here, I guessed.
But it was a bit shabby for a hotel room… Maybe it was an outbuilding or a cottage or something?

Confused, various thoughts floated through my head one after the other and then disappeared.
Still sitting on the floor, I shut my eyes.

Calm down, calm down. Okay, I certainly had gone to the hotel.
And I’d attended the ceremony at the church on the grounds there.
And after that… Right, Koaya threw the bouquet in the courtyard before the reception.

But as I was catching the bouquet, I felt a yank, like a tuna on a fishing rod…

There was nothing in my memories that could serve as a reference.
So in the end, what the heck happened?

I looked down, crestfallen, and my own two hands came into my field of view.
There were three pale green bands on my left wrist, right where I’d felt something wrap around me in that moment.

I held my hand out and changed the angle.
They glittered when the light hit them, and they were so small I couldn’t really tell, but the rows seemed to be packed with strange, thin characters, and even when I rubbed, they wouldn’t come off.

“I can’t make heads or tails of it, but for the moment, it seems like I missed the reception, at least.”

The reception was scheduled to start in the evening, but judging by the light coming in through the window, it seemed to be morning already.

My stomach gurg