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An assassination attempt.
That was the last thing Knight Hinata could remember.
It had been a regular day. Duke Kageyama Tobio and he had been strolling through his private gardens.
It was cool and cloudy, with sun occasionally streaming through the breaks. Then the wind shifted, coming from the east.
A disturbance.
Three o’clock. By the bushes.
He remembered drawing his steel.
”Step back, Your Grace,” He bellowed, pushing Kageyama to the side.
An assassin—judging by the colors, a remnant of the fallen Aoba Johsai kingdom.
Hinata had stepped in front.
He remembered the screech of clashing steel, and then—
A sword piercing his chest.
But… what about his duke?
Kageyama?
Hinata awoke with a gasp, eyes flying open, his breath catching in his lungs.
"Your Grace!” he shouted, his heart still hammering as if on the battlefield.
Yet he was not on the battlefield. He looked around. This was not the gardens. There was no intruder.
The familiar scent of oak, saddle leather, and amber filled his senses. His eyes adjusted to the dim light, tracing the familiar red velvet curtains, the familiar plush of the bed.
He was in Tobio’s room.
Their room.
His heart still rabbited in his chest as he looked around, wincing when a blistering pain bloomed from the wound. He clutched at it, the memory of the strike vivid and sharp.
"Lie down, you idiot," came a familiar chastisement.
Hinata whipped his head around, feeling annoyance and gratitude war within him. There was his Duke—Kageyama, Tobio—whole and unharmed.
"Your Grace," he breathed out, unable to mask his bewilderment. He was met with a familiar scowl, but Tobio's blue eyes betrayed a deep worry. Hinata spotted dark circles beneath them—ones that hadn't been there before. How long had he been out?
"You're alive," Hinata said, gratitude and relief flooding through him, momentarily overpowering the pain. "What happened to the assassin?"
"I struck him down myself. After you fell."
Hinata buckled under the weight of the words. It was his job to strike down attackers, and instead, Kageyama had been forced to defend himself—and him. He had failed. Whatever relief he had felt was now drowned in a wave of sharp guilt.
Kageyama, of course, did nothing to soothe him.
“Your stance was terrible,” Kageyama snapped, pressing a cloth to the wound. He wiped away a trickle of blood with a roughness that betrayed his fear. “You left yourself wide open, practically gift-wrapping the strike for your enemy.”
Hinata could only scoff, though the movement sent a fresh jolt of pain through his side. Of course, Kageyama would critique his form while he was bleeding out on the bed.
Yet the way Kageyama’s jaw was clenched, the deep furrow of his eyebrows, the dark circles looming under his eyes—those were new. Hinata swallowed.
This was not the criticism of a duke demanding perfection from his knight.
No.
It was the unspoken terror of a man who had replayed the moment of Hinata’s injury over and over. Knowing Kageyama—which he did—the duke had likely dissected every second, thinking of every way he could have prevented it. This lashing out was all he could do.
With a weary sigh, Hinata reached out and pressed a warm hand over the duke’s. Kageyama stilled, his eyes flickering with a torrent of emotions all at once:
Guilt.
Fear.
Love.
“Kageyama,” Hinata breathed out.
Kageyama did not listen. Instead, he returned to cleaning the wound, wringing the cloth out over the bowl of water with more force than necessary.
“Kageyama,” Hinata repeated.
Silence.
“Tobio.”
Finally, Kageyama stopped and locked eyes with him.
“I can’t do this anymore, Shoyo,” Kageyama whispered, his voice hoarse. “This is the third time. I can not bear…”
Kageyama hung his head in defeat, his grip on the cloth turning his knuckles white. Hinata tightened his own grip on Kageyama’s hand.
“It is my duty—”
“I thought you were joking…” Kageyama confessed, the words bitter. “All those years ago, when you said you intended to die by the sword… I thought it was bravado.” He paused, his gaze intense.
“And I do. I’m a man of my word,” Hinata said, a small, pained smile touching his lips. “It is the most honourable death for a knight—”
“I forbid it,” Kageyama declared, his resolve hardening like steel. “I forbid you from dying such a death.”
“Kageyama—” Hinata breathed out, the protest dying in his throat.
The lamp guttered, casting long, dancing shadows that made the lines of worry on Kageyama’s face seem deeper. Hinata’s words, "Well, if you didn't have so many damn enemies..." hung in the air, a feeble defense that shattered against the raw fear in Kageyama’s eyes.
"This isn't a joke!" Kageyama whirled around, and the Duke’s composure finally cracked, revealing the man beneath—terrified and furious. "I cannot... I will not do this again. I have every intention of growing old with you."
The words landed not as a romantic promise, but as a command. A decree.
Hinata looked away, towards the window where the first hint of dawn bled into the darkness. "Growing old is a luxury for courtiers and merchants, Tobio. Not for knights. My life has always been meant to end by the sword. It is the only fitting end."
"Fitting for whom?" Kageyama’s voice dropped, losing its edge for something softer, more desperate. He moved back to the bedside, his presence overwhelming. "Not for me."
A profound weariness settled over Hinata. This was an argument he could not win, not because he was weak, but because his opponent held his very soul. He had sworn his life to this man a dozen times over—in formal oaths, in whispered promises in the dark, in vows stronger than any wedding rite could ever be.
”Then if you insist on dying because you are a knight,” Kageyama said, his voice turning cold and formal, “I hereby dismiss you from my service."
Hinata’s jaw dropped.
“Y-you can’t.”
But Kageyama’s resolve was absolute. He straightened, shedding the skin of the loving, intimate Tobio and donning the full, imposing mask of Duke Kageyama Tobio.
“I command you to grow old,” he declared, his voice echoing with finality. “Until your legs can no longer hold a proper stance, until your arms struggle to even grasp the hilt of a sword. I command you to live.”
Hinata closed his eyes, the fight draining from him along with the last vestiges of adrenaline. When he spoke, it was a soft surrender, the ultimate truth of his existence.
"My life," Hinata sighed, the words a sacred confession in the quiet room, "is yours to command."
And it was. It had been since the beginning.
Kageyama’s breath hitched. He heard what Hinata was truly saying. This was not the oath of a knight to his lord. This was the vow of a man to his love. He reached out, his fingers gently brushing a strand of sweat-damp hair from Hinata’s forehead, his touch infinitely tender.
"I know," Kageyama whispered. "And my first, and last, command is for you to live it with me."
Hinata let out a breath of resignation. He bowed his head, a gesture of both defeat and profound respect, and uttered the words he had spoken for decades. This time, they were final.
“As you wish, Your Grace.”
A year had passed since Hinata’s dismissal.
Kageyama had sent him to the southern reaches of the country—tasked with training new recruits. Hinata wanted to hate him for it, but he couldn’t. Besides, the south was warm and dotted with serene beaches.
When Hinata was dismissed, the court had overflowed with whispers.
‘Hinata Shoyo is past his prime.’
‘How cruel of Duke Kageyama,”
“—to cast aside his knight for a single failure.’
And so, he did as he was commanded. He trained the recruits, and he healed. Focusing on the two kept him from going insane. Living in the lavish estate Kageyama had gifted him as ‘severance’ was quite nice, as well.
Yet, none of it quelled the near-crippling loneliness. He still heard whispers of the Duke—how he had found a replacement, how he operated the kingdom's duties without missing a beat. Hinata would often stare at a blank sheet of paper, desperate to write to his lover, but the words were always either too much or too little.
And so he didn’t write at all.
Not that it mattered.
He never received any letters either.
One day, Hinata was deep in training a new batch of recruits. During a water break, he overheard their hushed conversation.
“Have you heard? Duke Kageyama Tobio has retired.”
Hinata froze, the water in his mouth turning to ash.
“An early retirement? Impossible!”
“Gave everything to his nephew—the lands, the duties, the titles. All of it, gone.”
“But why?”
“—Fallen in love, perhaps?”
“With a commoner? Must be if he’s stepping down—”
“Who knows.”
“No—he’s probably gone mad from all the wars.”
Hinata had dismissed his class early, their bright faces and relief a stark contrast to the hurt and confusion churning inside him.
What had happened?
Did Kageyama fall ill?
There was no reason for him to step down.
None whatsoever.
He had to go back to the Capital. Dismissal or not—something was wrong, and he had to be there.
He raced home, his arm twinging in pain both from his recent injury and the strain in his heart.
Damn him.
Damn Kageyama Tobio.
He went to the stables and found his horse, The King, the one his Duke had gifted him all those years ago. It was only fitting that he return to Kageyama on this horse. With his frantically packed bags, he saddled his horse and prepared to mount.
“Going somewhere?” came a familiar drawl.
Hinata froze. His horse, surprisingly unstartled, let out a soft huff of recognition.
Hinata whipped around and met the gaze of the ocean.
“You,” Hinata breathed out.
“Me.”
“What are you…” Hinata choked out, still grasping the saddle. “What are you doing here?”
“Retiring,” Former Duke Kageyama Tobio bit out. He tilted his head, eyeing Hinata’s bewildered expression. “Did you not hear the rumors?” he stated flatly.
“You didn’t say anything! Didn’t write!” He snapped, his arms thrown wide in exasperation.
“I thought it was a given. I told you you were to live your life with me.”
“You sent me away! On my own!”
“Until I could wrap up my own affairs—“
“You jerk!” Hinata hissed. “You absolute buffoon! I thought… I thought I was..”
Hinata stopped himself. Not allowing the word ‘abandoned’ to slip from his mouth.
Yet Kageyama bristled as if he had heard him.
Kageyama stepped forward, his eyebrow arched. Though he no longer held titles, his power was still absolute.
“I told you this many years ago—your life is mine. Your loyalty. Your very breath.” Hinata flinched, recalling his reply when Hinata had desperately confessed his forbidden feelings in the wine cellar so long ago:
‘Your life has always been mine, as is your loyalty, your very breath. It only makes sense that your heart belongs to me as well.’
“Why would I discard something so carelessly?”
“Prat,” Hinata huffed softly. The weight in his chest and shoulders—a burden he hadn't even realized he’d been carrying for over a year—dissipated completely.
And Kageyama smiled. A warm, genuine smile. Rare, and only ever for Hinata.
“Good. Now, come make me tea. You better have Earl Grey, lest you wish to face the consequences.”
“You jerk!” Hinata snapped. “You didn’t even give me time to prepare for your arrival!”
“Then be prepared to face the consequences.”
Yet Hinata never did that night. Because he had a tin of Earl Grey tea leaves tucked away in his kitchen cabinet, waiting.
They had both been waiting for Kageyama Tobio.
The world called it a scandal.
The abdication of Duke Kageyama Tobio, in the prime of his life and at the peak of his power, was the gossip of the century. He handed his titles, his lands, and his responsibilities to a capable, wide-eyed nephew with an unsettling finality.
The court whispered of illness, of secret shame, of a mind broken by the horrors of war. But those who saw him in his final days at court saw not a broken man, but a serene one. A man who had found an answer to a question no one else had dared to ask.
He retired to his Southern estate, surrounded by beaches, not politics.
The rumours followed him. He must have fallen in love, they said, and hidden her away. A tragic romance with a commoner, perhaps.
Why else would a man of such a line simply… disappear?
The truth was both simpler and more profound.
On the porch of that country house, two older men sat watching the sunset paint the sky in hues of orange and purple.
One had silver streaks cutting through his once-jet-black hair, the lines on his face mapping a lifetime of command. The other, his hair still a fiery shock though faded with grey, moved with a slight, familiar stiffness in his shoulder—a souvenir from the third time he’d almost died.
Their hounds slept at their feet. The air smelled of damp earth and blooming jasmine.
“The historians are going to have a field day with you, you know,” Hinata said, breaking the comfortable silence. He nudged Kageyama’s foot with his own. “The great Duke who gave it all up. A waste of a good bloodline, they’ll say.”
Kageyama didn’t look away from the horizon. A rare, soft smile played on his lips. “Let them talk. My bloodline is someone else’s problem now.”
Visitors from the capital, rare and always carefully vetted, would come and see them like this. They saw the Duke and his steadfast knight, the legendary Sir Hinata, who had never left his side. They saw a bond forged in battle, a brotherhood that transcended death.
‘How touching,’ they’d think, departing. ‘It must be a comfort to grow old with someone who shared those trials. A loyal friend to the end.’
They admired the brotherly bond. They never saw the way Kageyama’s hand would find the small of Hinata’s back as they walked through the garden, a silent, steadying touch.
They never heard the quiet, shared laughter in the dark, or witnessed the way Hinata would still, even now, keep himself awake in their shared bed, an old, unbreakable habit of protection.
The history books would indeed call them partners. A Duke and his knight, an exemplar of unwavering loyalty.
Yet the two of them knew better.