Saiunkoku book 15 chapter 3 (3/4)

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Yuushun greeted Ryuuki with his usual kindly smile from behind his desk. He bowed his head.
“Please forgive my rudeness in not standing up to greet your majesty.”
“We don’t mind. The one who suddenly visited late at night was us.”
Ryuuki realized, with a start, that Yuushun’s face looked paler than usual. Was it because of the moonlight coming in? Maybe it was because the room was dim, as there were fewer candles in it than most rooms.
“….Aren’t there a lot of unlit candles here? Isn’t this bad for your eyes? Did the servant forget?”
“My night vision is good, so it’s not a problem.”
Ryuuki was impressed by this comeback. At first glance, it seemed he was answering the question, but if you thought about it, that didn’t answer Ryuuki’s question at all. Ryuuki was not fooled.
The sound of the cane, and the smell of smoke. Yuushun had extinguished one or two of the fires near him, and then greeted Ryuuki.
“I’m going to light these myself.”
Ryuuki lit up all of the candles. Yuushun made a face as if giving up, and didn’t stop him. After all of the candles were lit, Ryuuki turned around and was shocked.—Really, his face was ashen.
“What this? Now you look like you’re going to collapse. Stop working and go home and rest.”
“…..Oho. I thought you would say that, so I put out the candles and made the room dim..”
“Of course! You weren’t like this during the day.”
“I get like this at night. Actually, in my family there are descendants of kyonshi [translator's note: Chinese vampires, reanimated corpses. See earlier summaries], so I’ve had to take care that my unusual composition hasn’t been revealed, so I wouldn’t lose my job and be unable to look after my wife, and so up till now I’ve been able to live.”
“…..You must really be tired, Yuushun….”
Even Yuushun covered his forehead at that.
“…That seems to be true. I’ve noticed it now. It feels like I’m worn out, even inside my head.”
“Go to sleep!”
“That’s right. Shall I do that after your majesty’s question and my work are done?”
He noticed one of the lamps wavering.
“Did you have something you wished for me to do?”
His smile, as warm as sunshine, had always supported Ryuuki’s fragile heart.
“What is it, my lord?”
His soft voice, like the calm spring rain, had always rescued Ryuuki from deep ravines.
In the ranks of the officials, who changed attitudes like flags blowing in the wind, no matter how bad Ryuuki’s position became, Yuushun alone did not change. Not even once did he waver or be uneasy. And that alone was, when his confusion was growing even more deep, Ryuuki’s only consolation. He was the only one of the high officials who had become Ryuuki’s sword and shield, just as he had said at the beginning.
“…Perhaps you should not place so much trust in Prime Minister Tei.”
Seiran’s words echoed in the back of his head, and Ryuuki closed his eyes. He had thought about this on his own for a long time. What Shuurei had investigated. What Suou had reported. And the reason that this had not been told to Ryuuki up till now.
“Yuushun…What sort of face are we making now?”
“Let’s see. I can’t see it clearly, so I don’t know.”
With this, Ryuuki realized that he was looking down. That had been Ryuuki’s habit since his childhood. He was bad at looking people straight in the eye, and would find himself looking down. It was like how he had gotten through the times when his own mother would curse at him and beat him by desperately curling himself into a ball and trying not to feel anything. He feared seeing rejection in the eyes of others. If that was so, he thought it would be better not to see anything, and eventually he deliberately avoided their eyes… when had he started doing that?

When Ryuuki raised his head, he looked straight at Yuushun. So as to make sure there was nothing that spilled out unseen. Yuushun soundlessly smiled more deeply. His smile was like a maze. The deeper it grew, the more confused the person seeing it became. Or did it only appear that way because Ryuuki himself was confused? Even that, he was no longer sure of.
“….then, how about asking me what you wanted to ask, my lord. Please go ahead?”
Ryuuki took a deep breath.
“Is there! Something you haven’t reported to us?”
“There is.”
“Is there or not? But if it’s hard for you to say it, you can use pictures or makes some kind of gesture….wha?”
Though he had mustered a hundred times more courage than the time he asked for Shuurei’s love, and seriously asked straight out, the reply had come so smoothly that his words had missed a beat.
“…There is?!?”
“Yes, there is. If your majesty would like to know in more detail, which case would that be?”
“Whi..which…which case?”
“….There is something you wished to know?”
Ryuuki was in chaos. That was right. There was something he wanted to know, so he had mustered his couraged, and decisively come here. What did he want to know? What did he want to ask?
“Which one…?”
A bizarre silence fell into place. After awhile Yuushun slowly nodded. It wasn’t a case of which one.
“….Which case, your majesty. Shall we have some hot water? You’re sweating.”
“case…”
Instead of making a defiant response, Ryuuki made the hot water himself, and when he returned, he brought two cups and a chair. He carried the hot water to Yuushun, and sat put the chair in front of the desk and sat in it. Due to this placement, he felt ask though he were being interviewed by Yuushun. The desk was like a fence, psychologically. Ryuuki took the chair and began to move it around near Yuushun, looking for the best place. While Yuushun was drinking the hot water Ryuuki had brought, he watched the king, who was moving around in a suspicious fashion, and waited for him to calm down. He was like a bird looking for a place to build his nest. But, because he was in the form of a human, if someone like Kouki saw him, he’d probably be mercilessly arrested as a suspicious person.

Finally, when Yuushun had drunken all of the hot water, Ryuuki decided to sit right next to Yuushun.
“….Well then, your majesty? Which one did you wish to know about?”
Ryuuki took a gulp of the now cool hot water, and swallowed it. He had calmed down.
“…..I heard there was something strange about the administration in the countryside.”
“Other than the corruption of the Undersecretary of the Military, there was nothing strange, but in these past two years, the amount of national exam officials has certainly gone down. Because the national exam faction tends not to want to go to the countryside, naturally the noble faction officials have taken over the important positions. Many of the governors are national exam graduates, so this opposition causes a lot of trouble for them. And the Seven Houses of Color would be trouble enough on their own. Thanks to this, even though Kyou Bunchuu and Ryuu Shibi want to come back to the capital, I can’t let them. Really, if talented young people want to get experience, the provinces are the most suitable place, though…”
He was not lying.
Kouyuu had researched the matter as well. In these past two years, actually since Ryuuki’s coronation, the noble faction had clearly taken over most of the important positions in the countryside. Yuushun had become prime minister in the spring of that year. There were many transfers in the provincial offices during the autumn, and that was being handled now. …. This was not at all Yuushun’s error.
The ones who hadn’t noticed it, or hadn’t tried to notice it…. were Ryuuki and Kouyuu.
“…Autumn…transfers…?”
“…..Actually, when I took office in the spring, I had thought I would recommend in autumn–which is to say now, that Kouyuu-dono should become the governor of Ran province and Shuuei-dono the governor of Kou province.
“Shuuei the Kou Province governor?!”
“If it were the opposite, the Censorate wouldn’t allow it as a conflict of interest. Shuuei passed the national exam as Bougen, and he has some experience and potential as a civil official. We’re short on people, so I was going to take everything out of the storeroom and use it. The officials and merchants and nobles there are all sly old foxes, so much so that people say you can get ten years of experience after one year as the governor of Kou or Ran province. I had thought that there Kouyuu-dono and Shuui dono would work hard there, and then after a few years, come back. If I were to do that, then I could call back Kyou Bunchuu from Ran province and Ryuu Shibi from Kou Province, and then I could reorder the central administration. Then I planned to demote Reishin and send him off somewhere far with the pandas. ”
Ryuuki’s eyes had been opened. Ryuuki now understood his meaning, and the worth of it.
On one hand, it would finally separate Ryuuki from his “confidantes” of the Kou and Ran clans, and that would let him take back the hearts of the national exam faction, and on the other, Kouyuu and Shuuei would be placed as the young, rising governors of Kou and Ran province, and in a short time amass experience and power, and furthermore, they would be like a weight holding down the noble faction in the provinces. Also, the amount of high level game pieces who could move freely would increase, so with that, if they could then in one sweep renew the central administration, then—it was splendidly obvious to anyone that something would have changed.
“But, I miscalculated, and more problems piled up than I had thought. Ah well, it can’t be helped.”
It wasn’t that it couldn’t be helped. He had had to give up. By the time autumn had arrived, there had been no one left. Both Shuuei and Kouyuu had been pursued by and taken down by the Censorate, as if it had had them in its sights. Certainly, the problems had piled up. But, rather than the counterfeiting or the administration, it had been within his group.
How many of Yuushun’s ideas had disappeared all too soon, before they were even at a stage where he could suggest them to Ryuuki?
“….Could it be, that during the supernumerary officials controversy in the spring, the person who recommended Shuurei to the Censorate…. was you?”
Yuushun smiled strainedly.
“…..Yes, actually, it’s as you said. I asked Chief Ki. Of course, the final say in whether she should be hired was his. It was sort of a rough way of doing it, but I gambled on her being able to survive in the Censorate without being crushed. It was because Shuurei-dono is one of the precious few officials who your majesty is able to trust completely.”
He would take everything he could use from the storehouse and use it—just as he had said.
But, Ryuuki had been deluded, so he had even destroyed that with his own hands.
“This time the provincial administration probably can’t be moved very much…. However, I’m worried that in Heki Province…”
At the place name “Heki Province,” Ryuuki reacted slightly.
“….The grasshoppers?”
“Yes…ah, someone from the Censorate must have told you.”
Yuushun said this easily. As if he wasn’t shaken a bit.
What was he thinking? He didn’t know. He became more and more unable to figure him out.
Behind his smile, what was he thinking?
Every single one of Yuushun’s words was right. There were no contradictions within them. However, he had become unable to understand him.
If Yuushun were to lose countenance, even slightly, if even showed in his manner some bad conscience from hiding something, Ryuuki would be on the contrary, probably relieved.
“….Why didn’t you tell us? You knew from this summer, right? That’s why Shin Suou was sent out.”
Why? Would he even have the right to say that soon?
Summer. That summer had thrown everything to the side, pushed it all on Yuushun, and run off to Nine Colors Cove.
(……What if….there was a report, but it had come when we weren’t here…?) Yuushun gracefully took up some documents from one corner of a desk that looked as though an avalanche had happened on it.
“….Your majesty, how much do you know about locust plagues? This may be presumptuous, but you probably know about the name since it appears in history books? Because for some decades, there hasn’t been a large locust plague.”
The was correct, so Ryuuki nodded. He had heard of it, but never had seen it.
“A locust plague is, to put it simply, the damage caused by a great swarm of grasshoppers. There are some climate conditions which must be met, but more importantly, if there’s not enough food to support a swarm, then there won’t be an outbreak. During the period of great disaster in the past, each year the weather was abnormal, the land and heavens changed, the agricultural population decreased, and the frequent wars made the land a vast waste, so the outbreaks could not even occur. That was the worst era in history. It was a time when parents would boil their children and eat them, so if people found the eggs, juveniles, or adult grasshoppers, they’d gather them all and eat them. There were some small swarms, but the people were overjoyed and fought to eat them rather than being afraid. Yuushun spoke dispassionately, but Ryuuki shuddered.
Uu Uu, Shou Taishi, Sou Taifu—and has father, had lived during that period, what—
“…However, although locust plagues may be small, actually, they are the worst disaster. Grasshoppers have an abnormally strong life force, and so the eggs, juveniles, and adult insects can all hibernate.”
“In other words, the eggs and the adult insects can survive the river, and awake in the spring again….?
Most insects died when it became winter. Ryuuki, who had thought this obvious, had a glimpse of the uncannily powerful life force of the grasshoppers, and his spine shivered.
“Yes. And, the eggs are laid, they can continue being fertile in the earth for years until the climate conditions are the best for their hatching. They’re incredibly obstinate. ”
“….No, wait. But usually grasshoppers don’t swarm, right? Aren’t they normally solitary?”
“That is correct. The true grasshopper loves to move around alone, to the point of running away when it meets another grasshopper. Like the saying “the grasshopper’s solitary journey.’ It’s an insect which loves nothing more than solitude.”
“Th–that’s cool! You could say it’s like a vagabond. Rather than a lone wolf, a lone grasshopper. Gathering in the same crowd with everyone is uncool!”
Yuushun’s eyes were looking somewhere far off.
“…But, like a band of foolish delinquents, once they’ve formed a group, gotten rowdy and stolen stuff from people, thinking they’ve found and easy way to live, they won’t return back to normal again.”
“No, that’s uncool! Juvenile delinquency is out! Stop gang violence!”
Ryuuki shouted this sincerely, as if he wanted to make this next year’s catchphrase.
“However, the principle of the swarm of grasshopper is different from the way gangs of delinquents act–’if we all attack at once and then run away, it’s not scary. Nor do they have any sort of conscience. They attack and attack and attack. They eat, and eat, and eat. After that they don’t care what happens.”
It was none other than like gang violence run amok. Yuushun’s brows narrowed.
“….Right now, really they are behaving badly. Once they get near a swarm, strangely, grasshoppers who a few seconds ago loved solitude enter the swarm, and it gradually swells.”
“Grasshoppers who used to live respectably are pulled into the gang?!”
“Yes. Once they get near it, they’re instantly infected and their appearance and personality changes.”
It was just like an honor student getting caught up in a gang, thought Ryuuki.
“I heard that they become black and yellow.”
“That’s correct. Normally, they’re green, in other words, protective camouflage. The color lets them hide themselves in the leaves and protect themselves from enemies. When they swarm, they turn black and yellow. It’s a very aggressive color, as if to say ‘I don’t care if you find me! You can’t do anything to me, hehe.’ That’s how they can be told apart.’
“Th–that’s bad! Bad grasshoppers! They’re the worst! A real eyesore!”
Ryuuki was fairly shocked to see that gangs of humans and butterflies did not differ greatly in their practices. [[]]
How to advance. It looked like Ryuuki was running away from reality in a philosophical manner.
“We still haven’t figured out the mystery of the color change. For some reason, they change their preferred foods too.”
“Wh–what do grasshoppers eat?”
“Grasshoppers are famous for their bad eating habits, but mostly they eat grains. That’s why it’s really unfortunate that it’s harvest time now. However, that’s the solitary grasshopper.”
“…….then what about the swarming ones?”
“Once they swarm, they eat up pretty much all of the grasses and trees they set their eyes on, not only the grains. Trees are stripped of all of their leaves, and even the bark is eaten up. The surface of the earth is full of holes, and not a single blade of grass is left. All of the things humans can eat are gone. ….What were you told about this?”
“….Th.they said that there is nothing that humans can do about this.”
Yuushun closed his eyes.
“That’s right. Once there’s an outbreak, no measures can be taken. The worse are the adult insects. They’ve got wings, so they can move to a new area at top speed. The damage expands as the swarm moves around, and until they destroy themselves, they continue to attack. It’s the worst of disasters, as once there is an outbreak, it is said that the population may decrease by a third. And, once they have gathered in one place, they lay eggs. The juveniles can’t fly, but they can walk together and eat up all of the grass on the surface of the earth, and once they become adults and sprout wings, they fly away all at once, and do what their parents are doing. …. Do you understand?”
Ryuuki’s face had become ashen. Around the same color as Yuushun’s when he entered the room.
“…One there’s an outbreak, it might happen again several times….?”
“….Yes. That’s the true fearsomeness of the locust plague. Actually, in the histories, once a outbreak occurs, usually it happens again. The sprouts in the spring, the plants in the summer, and the ripe grains in the fall are all eaten. A great famine continues for years, and the population falls drastically, and in a vicious cycle, the country falls. That is what the plague of locusts is.
Ryuuki forced himself to speak, hoarsely.
“….How did you notice this?”
“It’s not that I confirmed it. I thought ‘just to be sure.’ The first time the conditions for the outbreak were all in place was right before the war between the princes ten years ago. The country had revived a bit, and the greenery in their habitats had also increased. If that happens, then if there’s a great amount of rainfall or drought, then there will definitely be an outbreak.”
“Rain or drought….?”
“If there’s a drought, then the amount of water in the rivers will decrease all at once, and the places that had been underwater will become grassland. They like to lay their eggs in places like that. One of the bad things about locusts is that they hatch all at once at the same time there’s a drought which decreases the amount of food for humans. However, ten years ago, it seemed there would be an outbreak, but there wasn’t.
Ten years back. Wasn’t that exactly the time Yuushun had gone to Sa Province?
“Was it because order had broken down because of the war between the princes?”
Yuushun was silent for awhile.
“….no, it was because there were precautionary measures taken early so that there wouldn’t be an outbreak.”
Yuushun unrolled a scroll. On it were the orders given ten years ago.
“The important thing is that one must not allow them to swarm. They are by nature insects which like to be alone. As long as they have no opportunity to do so, it is rare for them to swarm. Therefore, if people destroy the eggs or the juveniles when they see them, the conditions for them swarming go down markedly. They sent out orders saying that if people caught them, anytime, when the fields were being tilled in the spring, when they were being watered in the summer, during the autumn harvest, anytime, and put them in a bag, they would receive a reward from the government. Even children could earn something, so they were happy to cach them. There are records left that many were caught. Under the guidance of the censors sent to each place, the outbreak was prevented….. It was not at all because of the how the government had worsened because of the war between the princes. That is not ‘governing.’”
Ryuuki felt very ashamed and hung his head.
“….that’s right. Sorry….I said something stupid. ….? Again..the censors…?
“Yes. historically measures against the swarms are pushed on… are entrusted to, mostly the Censorate, because moving around from place to place is part of the censors’ jobs. That’s why this time I asked for help from the Censorate and Suou-kun.”
“…and the one who ordered the measures that time”
“Was the head of the Censorate then, Ou Ki-dono. It was because he has a way of doing things quietly, without disliking inconspicuous tasks.”
That name was predicable.
Why did everyone obey Ou Ki? Why they trust Ou Ki’s words more than Ryuuki’s?
That was…. that was obvious.
“….However, these measures stopped being thoroughly carried out after the war between the princes. … Although the Censorate wrote appeals to the throne… it seems that they did not receive the imperial seal.”
Ryuuki raised his head violently. Imperial… could it be?
“…Us!?”
“…..The date is around the time of your coronation…so it seems that it was when you were staying within the Inner Palace.”
When he looked at the appeal in Yuushun’s hand, certainly, the date was of around the time when Ryuuki had not left the Inner Palace and would stamp the documents that came properly sometimes and sometime not.
He did not even remember this.
At that time, Ryuuki hardly ever held court, and rarely if ever met with the secretaries. Perhaps among the people whose visits he had refused had been Ki Kouki. Perhaps had come many times, carrying a mountain of documents explaining the locusts swarms, and the measures to be taken against them.
….He had come back from Nine Colors Cove with the intention of paying the tab.
However, thought it was what he had done, he had not thought that the results of when he had played around saying ‘I don’t want to become king,’ would come to hang so heavily over him.
“Anyway, it was within Chief Ki’s authority for him to give a minimal amount of guidance, but without the imperial seal, the efficacy of of the orders is different. So the official authority related to it was cut in half. It was unfortunate that the amount of money the Finance Department would give was also greatly reduced…”
Ryuuki had been the one who said ‘I want to know.’ It was something he had to hear.
“Since your majesty’s coronation, the country has calmed down somewhat….Then, there was last year’s heat wave. I worried then that there might be a possibility of a swarm.”
“….the heat wave in the summer of last year….”?
Ryuuki repeated this foolishly. It sounded to him as if it were a hundred years ago. Last year in the summer, Shuurei had not yet become an official. Dressing as a page boy, she had run around doing errands for the Secretary of Finance, to make up for the gaps where officials had collapsed during the heat wave.
(…heat wave…?
What had Yuushun said earlier?
Hadn’t he said that after a great rain or a drought, that it was easy for them to lay eggs? Then, until the right conditions came, they would wait in the earth–
During the heat wave a year ago, certainly the amount of water in the two great rivers coming from the Banri Mountain Range had decreased for a time. It had not quite been a drought, so there hadn’t been much of a commotion. But what if at that time they laid eggs…
“Fortunately, last year nothing happened, but this year was a slight drought….so, since there was little food, the risk of them swarming rises. Suou-kun went to see if there was a risk in autumn.”
Summer.
Even if they wished for Ryuuki to stamp the imperial seal on the preventative measures, Ryuuki had not been there. Even if they were to use the prime minister’s authority, at that time Ryuuki had ’secretly’ gone to Ran Province. He had said he had transferred all authority, but that was only to the highest officials, such as Ou Ki, and not to the six secretaries. Ryuuki was supposed to be in court. If they drafted orders without an imperial seal, then that would clearly be found suspicious. The orders would become a target of the Censorate.
“Since the preventative measures weren’t thoroughly carried out for years, we can only trust our luck to the heavens. Generally, even if we take precaustions, if it happens, it happens, and when it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. That’s why these are natural disasters. What we can do now is send officials to places where it looks like there may be outbreaks, and if they find grasshoppers who have changed color, to report and deal with them. Therefore, I was planning to wait until Suou-kun’s report, then to present it to your majesty.”
“Then, Ki Kouki sent Shin Suou to meet Shuurei in Kou Province…”
“Probably he wanted to have him investigate whether the black and yellow grasshoppers had appeared in Kou Province or not. At that time, even if Suou-kun were to enter Kou Province alone, the economic embargo was in full swing. If he were part of the imperial messenger’s retinue, he would be able to be heard. Kou Province is a great producer of grain. Since at this time, there are mountains of the grasshopper’s preferred foods in Kou Province, he wanted to get him in there however he could.”
Then, Suou had returned.
Ryuuki put his hand to his forehead. The voices of Ki Kouki and Yuushun came to life within his head.
“However, if you call the prime minister and myself here directly, and give us an imperial order, are you fine with it being interpreted as saying that to your majesty, the case of Kou Shuurei is of the highest importance, and that all other affairs of state should be set aside in favor of it?
But, please ask yourself whether that order of priorities is really correct. Please treat all of the officials equally, and see them as equal. Please pay attention to what Chief Ki said, about how there is a mountain of other things to do.
How has they seen Ryuuki, who had called them there only worrying about Shuurei.
How had they?
“Shin Suou…. said that he had found black grasshoppers in Heki province….”
“He came to tell me this slightly before he came to your majesty. Suou-kun sent messages to each provincial government before he came back and had them take measures against it. … If it’s uncontrollable, probably messengers will come on fast horses from Heki and Kou provinces. In case of that, please let me stay here in this office.”
“Y..Yes…”
Ryuuki nodded, and stood up.
At that time, Yuushun spoke.
“…you majesty.”
“Hmm…?”
“Didn’t you want to ask me something else? This may be the only time you can ask. If there is something, then please go ahead.”
Ryuuki stopped.
–What did he really want to ask?
Wasn’t it not the about the personnel or the grasshoppers?
…That was true. He had really, wanted to ask about something else.
And now this might be the only time he could.
Yuushun, who remained sitting there, was gently smiling as always, but he seemed also tired. The flames of the candles wavered.
(Only now)
He started to open his mouth, but nothing came out. What was it he really wanted to know? Was it whether Yuushun was hiding anything, where he came from, why the documents relating to his life before entering court had disappeared, or that Ryuuki didn’t know what he was thinking? Did he want to ask Yuushun about that? If he got a response, would the anxiety and confusion which were like a bottomless swamp, disappear?
–He felt as though everything was going wrong, was that all Yuushun’s fault? He had something he wanted to ask. But what it was, he didn’t know.
Probably it was only really one thing. He should ask about only that one important thing.
(What?)
After a long, endlessly long silence, Ryuuki spoke.
“….You agreed to become our prime minister.”
“Yes.”
“Until when is that? Until when will you be our prime minister?”
Until when? Until Ryuuki made some terrible mistake? Until Yuushun thought he was no longer fit to be king? Until he no longer trusted Yuushun’s words? It could be interpreted in all of those ways. Ryuuki himself didn’t really know whether that was what he really wished to ask. There was a bit of silence.
Yuushun smiled, and with his feather fan in hand, quietly bowed his head.
“….Until whenever. As long as you find me necessary, I shall be your prime minister.” As expected, an answer that could be taken in many ways. It was the answer of an honor student, and also words in something was hidden. Ryuuki could no longer tell lies from the truth. Only, Ryuuki felt as though he had been told “it’s your choice.”
When Ryuuki left the room, he didn’t know what sort of face he was making.

Notes: “Plague of locusts” is not an exact translation of ‘kougai’ 蝗害. The first kanji here means grasshopper or locust. The second one means damage. The word for grasshopper itself in Japanese is 飛蝗, of which the first character means flying. There are translation issues here which may require revision. >_>

Commentary:
I like how Ryuuki talks a long time to Yuushun, but ends up finding out pretty much nothing the reader couldn’t already have figured out except that Yuushun recommended that Shuurei be appointed to the Censorate, which really IS surprising.

The less said about Ryuuki’s abilities as a manager, the better. XD I think I would be disturbed if my boss came to my desk and couldn’t figure out what he wanted to ask me.

Well, at least the author has added a rational reason why everyone respects Ou Ki so much. Anyway, regardless of the hash Ryuuki has made out of his romantic life, this seems to be far worse.