Chapter 12: What is Love?
2129 Words
I remembered a while back, before the mission had began….
I sat in the Royal Palace after being found by soldiers who had managed to win against the rebels in my village. At first, they had thought that they had found Princess Emerald, although it hadn’t taken long for the Prime Minister to recognize me as a separate person. It was a cold meeting room and I sat in the middle like a specimen being probed by a team of scientists.
They glanced at me eerily, questioningly. Gazes filled with mistrust and wonder.
It was then that I was made an offer from the Prime Minister himself. To sign off as Luisa Cardona and assume the identity of Princess Emerald until her true whereabouts are known. In exchange for giving the government my life, I was promised that my grandmother would receive treatment and health benefits for the remainder of her life. Also, our home in the village would be rebuilt. Our leaky roof would be fixed along with the broken windows. Or, if we would have liked, we would be given a home in the capitol where we would live the rest of our lives surrounded by things we would never dream of having. Of course, that was assuming that I had fulfilled my mission well and that Agricola would be able to successfully restore its monarchy.
In the other room, my grandmother, Eulalia Cardona, was made to sign an agreement that she would never speak of the mission after its completion. If the mission were to be known to people outside of the cabinet members or myself and herself, then consequences would be faced by not only her but myself as well.
As the politicians were happy with my decision to fulfill my duty as a citizen of the small island nation and I with their decision to treat my grandmother, I was sent to a make-up artist who was intent on perfecting my look as a royal Princess rather than a country girl who hadn’t ever heard of a makeover before. It was a rough day as I could remember.
I was completely stripped of all my body hair with the exception of the eyebrows on my face which were plucked painfully to perfection. Even my blond hair itself, was subject to rigorous washing and a thousand chemicals worth of styling. For the first time in my life, I had heard of the word ‘cuticle’ of which were extended beyond its reaches and dipped in all the essential oils that the princess had previously used.
I was trained in the art of high heels and perfect posture. I was told which spoon to use for which dish. I was trained to speak three of the 5 languages that the real Princess Emerald had spoken on a regular basis with the knowledge that one had already been my native tongue. Learning how to properly put on dresses was another lesson that I had to learn all together. By the end, I was able to act and look like the actual princess that I was supposed to portray.
It was only the lessons on etiquette that I had learned to abandon rather quickly after learning of the true nature of the Agricolan Princess.
By the end of all the lessons and transformations, the final product was enough for the appraisal of the politicians who had been quite proud of their work but it was also up to the suspicions of the other politicians.
It was my last day in Agricola, before my flight to Switzerland, that I had passed by a small closet that had become the meeting place for the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Education and the Minister of Commerce, three politicians that had always seemed to stray from the other five.
“What should we actually do after the mission is over?” One of them had whispered to the other two.
“Do you think it’s actually safe to keep her? Aren’t there any laws in the land that prohibit impersonation of the royal family??” Another one had replied.
“No….it is not only that but the fact that she is going to find out too many of our secrets….we can’t risk any flaw to our power….”
“What makes you think she would question us in the first place?”
“You don’t know what she’s going to do….I don’t even know why the Prime Minister insists on keeping those two alive in the first place…he is usually the most logical one.”
“I say we make it look like an accident. The old one we can keep alive…but the doppelgänger….we’ll make it seem like an accident…who knows what contact she’s had with the rebels?”
I backed away in that moment, a slight chill wriggling down my spine.
Since that day, I had feared for my life every-time someone had mentioned the name of Agricola to me. I was scared that one day….
I would die by the hands that had promised salvation.
~~~~~
Spring arrived with rising temperatures and the start of a new beginning. At the campus, all the flowers and trees had bloomed showing off their beauty and color in ways that perhaps no beauty in the world could possibly rival. This morning, Chaiya and I had taken a path filled with cherry blossoms to our first class.
Basking in its rain of light pink petals that were as gentle as a light kiss, it was hard not to fall in love with them. We didn’t have these trees in Agricola, but I sure wish we had.
“Spring break is coming soon.” I said to Chaiya, holding out my hand to catch a couple petals.
“It is.” Chaiya chuckled, rubbing the back of his head nervously.
“What’s wrong Chaiya?” He seemed a bit quiet today instead of being his usual talkative self.
“A-Ah….there’s just been a question lingering in my mind since we started walking.” He said.
I raised an eyebrow, stopping into place to turn towards him. “What is it?”
“I-It’s a little embarrassing…” He blushed, looking away from me.
“I can take embarrassing.” I replied.
“D-Do you believe in love?” He mumbled.
“Love?” I repeated. “I’m not quite sure….what about you?”
“Well…I want to…” He began to walk again and I had followed.
“You know…I’m very influenced by anime….” Chaiya began. “It made me realize my dream of falling in love with someone under the cherry blossoms…..”
I giggled. “That seems rather cliche.”
“IN MY DEFENSE!” Chaiya exclaimed. “ANALYN, YUJUN, AND AKITERU SHARE MY DREAM!”
“It’s cliche AND romantic how about that?” I corrected myself.
“Much better.” Chaiya agreed, nodding his head.
We spent the rest of the day talking nonstop, a little more than our usual. From classes to lunch to the dorm, it seemed as if Chaiya was afraid of something else, afraid that the moment the conversation ended he would never be able to get it back.
Back in the dorm room, we were playing Chaiya’s favorite game again, as we usually had when there was nothing left to do besides the studying that we both had loathed so very much. He had gone quiet after the game had started, a product of his concentration as I had imagined.
The room was quite peaceful with the others out. The clicking of buttons and exaggerated, repetitive, sound effects filled the living room space that only contained two people.
The rest of the silence was rather awkward with a tension just waiting to be broken.
“Luisa….I….” Chaiya began, after the next round had ended.
“What is it?”
“I’m getting an arranged marriage….and I…I don’t think I want to go.” He mumbled.
“A what?!” I exclaimed.
“My father wanted me to meet this girl….” Chaiya added. “And I know who it is….and to be honest….I’m not even interested in her as a person…….I just….I just don’t think I’m ready you know?” Chaiya leaned forward, holding his head between his hands. “I just….I think I’m in love with someone else…” I could see that Chaiya was in a deep emotional dilemma. While he, himself, wanted something else, there was no way he could even bring himself to go against the people that he had perhaps loved more than himself.
As tears began to stream from his face, I approached him, patting his back and holding him to let him know that I was there for him. “Chaiya…..” I called out for him, hoping that he would have felt consoled knowing that someone was there for him.
The door to the hallway opened as the rest of the Alpha Four walked in. Their expressions changing once they had seen Chaiya’s tears.
“What the bloody hell happened?” Eric asked as he walked inside, giving me some side eye. “What the hell did you do now?”
He was always quick to blame me even if it wasn’t entirely my fault.
“He’s getting arranged marriage…” I explained, patting his back. Contrary to what I had expected, their expressions hadn’t changed at all, as if the gravity of the situation was not that serious.
“Luisa…..that kind of thing is normal.” Duke told me, adjusting his glasses. “The government had probably picked for him it isn’t necessarily just the family itself. This kind of thing is normal for people like us.”
“But….he has a whole life ahead of him….and he doesn’t even like her!” I exclaimed.
“Luisa…..it’s just the way things are, whether we’d like to believe it or not.” Duke added.
“Just because it’s the way things are doesn’t mean it’s the right thing. Imagine if you were in his shoes you wouldn’t like it either.”
“I wouldn’t like it but I have no way of changing it.” Duke replied rather coldly.
“There must be something we can do isn’t there?” I turned my gaze away from Duke and away from Eric, both who didn’t seem to even try and empathize with their friend and I looked at Felipe, whose expression was warmer and filled with more concern.
“I do believe Luisa has a point.” Felipe said. “There must be something we can do. I say, we all go to Thailand and tell them that be honest that you don’t want to marry her, Chaiya.”
“But I….-“ Chaiya began.
“We are old enough to make decisions for ourselves.” Felipe added. “You are no different, Chaiya.”
“But how do I even begin to convince them?”
“You said it was an engagement party right?” Eric butted in.
“Uh….not sure….”
“Well whatever it is I say we crash it.” Eric smirked excitedly with a smile full of malice.
“Let’s have Luisa pretend to be your girlfriend.” Felipe suggested.
Chaiya blushed at the thought, looking away with a reddened face.
“Sounds like a plan…ruining things is my specialty.” Eric seemed proud of himself.
“Are we actually…..” Duke sighed. He was always being dragged along with the rest of his friends along these crazy adventures and being the most mature out of the group it made him fell rather anxious to go against the status quo.
“I’m in.” I smiled. If I could help Chaiya, I would have done anything.
~To be continued~
- Writer
