"OBLIGATION"
CHAPTER 1

"If by chance I run into that wretch of mine in the winding corridors,

I'll clasp her tightly in my arms:

'I want to interrogate you about the lack of meetings, the surplus of separations,

About showing your shadow but withholding your body'"

-Wang Shifu, The Story of the Western Wing

She wasn’t the first girl he had ever had. From the time he had come of age, his family had been sending viable females his direction, hoping that his genetic material would be passed on to suitable young women. At first, like any other hot-blooded young man he had taken to it with much enthusiasm. But quickly interest dwindled, and he found himself more enthralled with his studies than in the sultry eyes of some curvaceous beauty. She wasn’t the first, nor was she the most beautiful. But this was the first time that he desired for reasons other than base physical need. It was strange, truly strange when his heart had leapt with some unknown hope when she had asked. Strange that this act of entanglement of limbs and flesh meant more to him than the mere sating of lust. True, they were friends, closer friends than he could ever have imagined, particularly after he had lost…

Seeing her wince beneath him, he paused. The dim light from his screens flickered against the curve of her cheek, millions of mathematical processes compiling happily in the darkness.

“Are you all right?” Breathlessly, he reached out to gently cup her face, his pale-gloved hand concealing the cold metal beneath. The feedback simulator gave him the impression of warmth, of softness through the yielding cloth. For a brief moment, he wished he still had his hands, so that he could truly feel her.

Silently, she nodded. For an instant, they looked at each other, almost curiously, as if seeing each other for the first time, a realization that things now would be different.

He reached down to press her against him more closely.

Afterward, he held her, drowsily resisting sleep, knowing that she was still awake though her eyes were closed, thinking that perhaps he should say something. She who was often verbose felt uncommonly silent, curled up against him.

“I am sorry if I hurt you.”

Her eyes flickered open. “That’s the nature of this, isn’t it? That it should hurt the first time…”

“Yes. But I suppose I had wanted you to know that I never intended to cause you pain. Particularly since now, I…I have made you someone similar to myself, one who has left the family…”

She cut him off. “Don’t try to make me regret this. It was my choice. It’s better you than some idiot noble that I’ve never met. Better you than being sold off to the highest bidder. Better you than someone else…” Her eyes hardened minutely, before wandering away from his.

Internally, he felt a stab of pain, but like all else, he concealed it well. Logically, he knew that this night was only so that she could be free, so that the marriage that had been arranged for her would be broken. High official families of Durance did not accept spoiled goods into the flock.

Yet part of him had hoped for something more. It was utter lunacy, he thought. Tomorrow would be like any other day, and they would return to being just friends.

“Let’s get some sleep. I have an early class tomorrow.” She shut her eyes, and within a few minutes her breathing had shifted, and he knew she was asleep. He marveled at her ability to fall asleep so quickly once she had made the decision. He watched her as she slept, and let himself indulge in this feeling, wishing that it could last longer, her warmth pressed against his, the tickle of her loose dark hair against his skin, the faint scent of sex lingering in the air.

Then he too closed his eyes, and let his body’s weariness drag him slowly into sleep.

Within days, everyone in Sector Eight knew, proving once again, that it was impossible to keep a secret in the Royal Science Academy. Akiko didn’t care though. Let them talk about it; let everyone talk about it. Then word would spread back to her family more quickly, and this ridiculous notion of being married off would be put to rest.

She wasn’t about to be like all the other women of her family, educated for the sake of bearing and training children. She was going to be different; after all, she had been one of the first of her generation to be allowed education outside of her home planet. And she wasn’t about to give that up. Not when she had worked for years to get here, and not when passing the galactic examinations to enter Todain was as difficult as climbing heaven itself.

She wasn’t about to suffer from deprivation and loneliness, as she knew her mother had, married to a man she neither liked nor loved. She refused to bear those burdens, those duties and obligations. Her world would be bigger than Durance; her life would be lived outside of cloistered screens and inner quarters. An entire galaxy existed outside of the backwards fate that her people had chosen for themselves, a universe of technological wonders. She was not about to let it go because they wanted her to go home and get married. She was not about to give up her future.

Even if it meant that she had to disgrace herself and her family.

Angrily tugging and straightening the sleeves of her long, dual toned green student’s coat, she stalked down the hallway, her mind replaying the same thoughts, the same lines of argument. As she passed her fellow students in the hallways, she could hear them whispering amongst themselves, and knew full well they were talking about her. Occasional stifled giggles, the odd inquisitive stare, but she passed them all without much interest. Let them talk; it only made things easier for her. Soon everything would be settled and she wouldn’t ever have to go home again.

“Akiko-ah! Slow down, will you?” A familiar voice jolted her from her thoughts. She stopped and turned to see Kina running toward her, her wispy short-cropped midnight blue hair fluttering about her face as she ran.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you, Kina. I was just on my way to…I have an appointment that I shouldn’t be late for.”

Kina smiled at her, her bright green eyes flashing. “No problem, Akiko. I just wanted to talk to you for a minute. I know how busy you are these days.” Her smile turned brightly mischievous.

“If it’s about what I think you want to know, I have nothing to say.”

“Akiko-ah, what do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, Kina. Everyone’s talking about it. I’m not a fool.”

“I wasn’t trying to say you were foolish, you know me better than that. I just wanted to know…is it true? Did you really spend the night over there? And did he?” She lapsed into nervous giggles.

“Did he what?” Akiko looked at Kina levelly, her voice quietly intoning the words as she turned to look at Kina, whose hands were clasped over her mouth as if to try to stifle the little bursts of uneasy laughter.

“You know. Did he touch you? With those hands of his? And did you?” Kina blushed, unwilling to continue.

“Kina, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh come on, we always talk about these things. Didn’t you tell me that you liked him? Even if he’s creepy and cold and so much better than everyone else?”

“Kina, please. It’s none of your business.”

“Akiko-ah. Talk to me seriously, did he force you or something? Is that why you won’t talk about it? Look, if he did something bad to you, I could never forgive him…I never trust those guys from Repose, they’re all so dangerous and…”

“Kina, I’m fine. Look, I’m going to be late. I’ll talk to you later, is that all right?” Akiko said, impatient to be on her way.

“Fine, be that way,” Kina sulked, as Akiko hurried off, heading toward the engineering labs. Sometimes, that girl was far too strange, she thought to herself. Who would want to go and mess around with a guy like that? She once had the misfortune of having him as a laboratory instructor in a beginning dimensional studies course. Just thinking about watching him do basic field demonstrations made Kina shiver inside.

He was so haughty and arrogant, and then there was that thing with his hands. Sure, it was common that people wore gloves, it was part of the formal uniform after all, but no one wore them all the time like he did, and over those eerie metal hands of his. Who in their right mind in this day and age would keep a defect like that? These things were easy to re-grow. She knew that from experience, having lost her little toe in an accident when she was a kid.

But even if Akiko did start sleeping with him, it wasn’t like it was such a big deal, either. Kina had had her share of lovers, which she had always been able to talk to Akiko about openly, so she was annoyed that Akiko was being so elusive and tight-lipped. They were friends, right?

That girl must be crazy, she decided. It wasn’t too surprising, she supposed, since Akiko did come from such a backwards planet. Or maybe she just had awful taste in men. Kina grinned toothily to herself as she walked to her next class.

Later, later. She’d get the story out of that one, most certainly.

No other sounds but the hum of machinery and the quiet padding of her footsteps along the stone floor. Few students made their way down these hallways, fewer still had the kind of access she had. Knowing this, Akiko felt as though she were an initiate into a mystery unseen by common eyes. A thousand years, she thought, and even after that, I would not be used to this. She walked humbly past the giant machines, filled with reverence for the power contained within them. For others, they were exceptional. For her, having come from an anti-technologist society, they were awe-inspiring.

She stopped before the plain wooden doorway that marked her destination, almost incongruously placed amidst the labyrinth of metal and ceramic. Pressing her hand against the door, she wondered if she should really go in. After all, they had both been avoiding each other for the last few days. But she should go in; even if they had set up her physical terminal so that she could do most of the work from her quarters, it still would not be seemly if she did not show up at least periodically to see if the Professor found her progress acceptable.

Taking a deep breath as though to steady herself, she briskly stated her name and the door opened before her.

As she stepped through the doorway into the main office of the laboratory, she was confronted with a maze of desks, some cluttered with piles of books and papers, others veritably dripping with assorted tools and mechanical parts. Scanning about the room, she was relieved that her calculations had been correct. It was still too early in the morning for most of the researchers to be in yet. The earliest to show up usually came in around noon, save for emergencies when the entire team would stay here day and night.

Which would explain the food cartons. She frowned as her foot crunched over an empty container. Sometimes she wondered how the Professor was able to tolerate this sort of working environment. Between the lack of proper windows, the always too-cool environmental regulator and…

“Excuse me?”

Akiko yelped, nearly jumped out of her skin at the suddenness of that voice. So brightly cheerful, yet so startling, the diminutive figure of the Professor seemed to have appeared out of thin air right before her eyes. She gasped, pressing her hand against her pounding heart, and wondered how many years had been taken off her life to date from the time she started working here. It was no huge surprise that this lab had one of the highest turnover rates for researchers in this entire sector.

“Good morning, Akiko. I trust that the archival project is coming along well?”

“I…it’s going well, Professor Hakubi, I just thought that I should check in and see if you wanted me to…”

Before her, in her dark violet working uniform, Washu shook her head; her spiked red hair swaying with the motion. “Nope, don’t need anything today. I was just on my way out. We just finished a project last night, so everyone has the rest of the week off. Besides, you’re doing fine. If you worked any faster on it, I’d have to have you transferred. Always have to leave something for the future, you know.”

“I…that is…thank you, Professor Hakubi. If you need me to do anything, please let me know.”

Washu’s voice lowered, and her eyes glittered conspiratorially. “Well, there is one thing…” Washu glanced over her shoulder at a particularly large pile of books. Behind them, light from a screen flickered and Akiko noticed the top of a silvery-blue head of hair peeping out from behind the books.

“I think we woke him up,” Washu whispered as she winked at Akiko. “I’m not sure how long he’s been here, but you should take that boy home. He could really use some rest, you know.”

Akiko nodded as Washu’s voice came at a more normal pitch. “Well, it’s time for me to go. See you next week.” Casually, she waved back as Akiko picked her way through the clutter.

Good thing that she had had that girl transferred over, Washu thought, truly a brilliant move on her part. Sure, he had always been a little odd, they all were, but after that incident with his family, she was quite certain that he had almost lost his mind. Bringing Akiko here not only seemed to stabilize him, but also made him significantly more bearable to be around. After all, she couldn’t have her prize pupil going crazy and becoming a menace to himself and others.

Washu yawned as the door closed behind her. Time to go home and get some sleep.

By the time Akiko got to his desk, he had removed his glasses, and holding them in one hand, was rubbing blearily at his eyes with the other. With his sleeves rolled up, the metal of his wrists gleamed dully in dim light, and his white gloves looked smudged from too much wear.

“Oh, it’s you.” He looked up at her mildly. “Need something?”

“Kagato…” She paused, pursing her lips, and examined him more closely. His clothes were rumpled as though he had been sleeping in them, and the normally immaculate hair was poking out at odd angles.

“Yes?” He looked at her curiously, and wiped off his glasses against the hem of his shirt, before replacing them neatly back on his nose.

“When was the last time you had something to eat that didn’t come in a disposable pouch or liquid form?”

He shrugged. “Not certain. However, I’m not hungry.”

“Do you remember the last time you slept? For more than a few hours? And not at your desk?”

He paused, as if trying to remember. “I don’t…don’t seem to recall. I just thought I’d close my eyes for a few minutes before I finished this and…”

Akiko nearly rolled her eyes at that. Typical.

“Come on. Get up.”

“Hmmm? Are we going somewhere? But I wanted to finish…”

“You’re coming with me. I’m taking you home. You can bring this with you and finish it later. It’s time for you to get some rest.” She glared at him, her dark eyes daring him to question her.

Kagato scowled at her, looking angrily obstinate for a second, before sighing in acknowledgement. “Yes, likely that you’re right. Let’s go.”

Touching the screen with the tip of his finger, it blinked out of existence.

As they made their way through the intersecting buildings toward the single students’ quarters, Akiko ventured to ask him about the project that he had been working on, but Kagato seemed particularly unfocused today, barely responding as if walking in a half-dreaming daze. He was even walking sedately, something that she was almost unused to, being more familiar with trying to catch up to his impatient long-legged strides.

Finally, she gave up trying to talk to him, and instead wondered what he had been doing these last few days. Was he mad at her? Or was he just tired? Had he been doing nothing but work since that night? When they…

She quashed that line of thought. It usually took him a full three 28-hour cycles of sleep deprivation to get anywhere near this incoherent. And that had been more than four days ago. And the Professor did say that they had just finished a project. But she knew that he only threw himself into his work like this if the project was so important and fascinating to him that nothing could get in his way, or if something was bothering him. She felt a flash of guilt.

Still, one had to admit; he had exceptional stamina…

At that thought, she blushed. Get your mind out of the gutter, Akiko.

Kagato halted. “Is something wrong? You look flushed. Are you ill?”

“No, I was just…”

“Here.” With a quick movement of his arm, he pulled her close against him, and leaning down, carefully touched the side of his cheek against her forehead.

“Kagato…people are looking.” Akiko felt frozen, unable to move. Up close, he always seemed so much taller.

Kagato examined her closely. “You don’t feel feverish.” Akiko winced, feeling herself shrink away from him. Just as quickly he let her go, and resumed walking.

“Fortunate, I was afraid you had caught something new,” he said, his voice drifting down the corridor.

“You shouldn’t do that when people are watching,” Akiko scolded, when she had caught up to him.

“You know that the feedback simulators do not have the sensitivity to adequately convey temperature to me with the precision that actual skin has. I was merely making sure that you were not becoming ill again.”

“I’m…well, thank you for making sure that I was fine, but really, I’m okay…and…oh, look. We’re here.” Akiko suppressed a sigh that she did not have to get into the finer points of her sudden flush. He could be so painfully stubborn when it came to finding out the exact details of anything that piqued his curiosity.

Standing patiently with arms folded, she waited for him to key in his passcode.

“Hoy, Akiko. You coming back for more? It’s pretty early in the day for that.” A young man leaned out of his door a few doors down, grinning at her almost maliciously.

“Listen you, I…”

A movement caught her eye as Kagato turned, and straightened out his formidable height. Moving his hand away from the passkey panel, he reached up and adjusted his glasses, before turning his full attention onto the neighbor who now seemed significantly less sure of himself. Akiko chanced a glance back at Kagato, who looked haggard but blandly disinterested.

“Go away.”

Doors slammed down the hall.

Akiko followed him in, unsure of herself now that she had gotten this far, glad that he hadn’t commented on her entrance into his private quarters. Had it only been a few days since she had been here? It seemed almost a lifetime’s distance, and the chilliness he evinced scared her a little. \

“Don’t you have any food in this place?” Akiko scanned the shelves in his living quarters, packed with books, but devoid of anything that remotely resembled anything edible. It was uncannily tidy as always, as though he never spent any time here, a cheerless personality-free zone of neatly stacked books, charts, and toolsets.

“I told you before, I’m not hungry.” Kagato muttered irritably, as he unbuttoned his dark green uniform coat. Pulling off his shoes, he let them drop carelessly to the floor.

“You’re never hungry. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat something once every five hours or so when you’re working hard.”

“This is not hard work. Must I remind you that I was not raised as a scholar? The ‘hardships’ one endures in a place such as this are minimal compared to the type of training I had as a child.”

“’Riding a juk-juk before he could walk, holding an energy weapon before he could talk’, I know, I know, I’ve read the ethnological reports on Reposian society.” Akiko gave up trying to find something vaguely approaching edible, and started scanning the titles. Did he have nothing but technical manuals? Oh wait, there were some books on archaeological theory.

“You do realize that most of the studies about Reposian warrior society are terribly misinformed, don’t you?” Kagato sat down heavily on his chair, staring blankly at the floor, trying not to watch her as she rifled through his books. What did she want?

“Really?”

“Truly. No serious ethnographers have ever been allowed into any of the major clans. What you’ve read are official prints made as a compromise to academic interest.”

“Oh, so is it true that when Reposian women marry, they…”

“I do not suppose that you’re here to discuss Reposian mating rituals. Though theoretically, we could.”

Sudden and awkward silence. If she just stood here and looked at his books, then maybe she wouldn’t have to say anything.

“Oh…well…I…”

Kagato cut her off. “Akiko. I would like to clean up before sleeping for the rest of the day…and that involves me removing my clothing. I would rather not offend any delicate sensibilities further than I may already have. If you don’t mind…”

Akiko stood stiffly at the bookshelf, her hand half-resting against a particularly heavy tome on interstellar physics. What should she say to him? Of course he was cold, he was always cold…but not to her, and not that night… And now, his voice – there was an edge to it, a particular sense of bitterness, almost as if concealing something that pained him, something that…that she…

“I…” Akiko stopped, unable to continue. Frustrated, her hands fell carelessly to her sides, fingers clenched tightly together.

“Yes?” Kagato stated patiently, trying to conceal the sudden sinking chill within, fraying his nerves. Really, he should have known better, the closest friendship he had had in years, and he had to stupidly get his body’s irrational needs involved. There was absolutely nothing better to destroy a good friendship than becoming physically intimate. Or at least, that was what he had heard.

“Look, I…” Akiko pressed her hands against her face, unable to face him. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What for?” Gods, why was she being so…opaque?

Akiko took a deep breath, and searched blindly for the words that would aid her.

“I’m sorry. Sorry about the other night. I…I feel like I’ve used you. For something that I really could have gotten anyone to do. But I was scared, I didn’t…didn’t want…I don’t know so many other…I know I could trust you…so…so I…”

Kagato sat silent, stunned.

“And then, then I was thinking, about…what we did…and how that means…that I’ve dishonored my family…and how they probably won’t let me go back home now...I was the sum of their hopes, you know? But then I thought…maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if I had just gotten married. I would have to quit my studies…and raise the children and run the household…but that wouldn’t be that long, right? Only about twenty years? But that’s normal for everyone…And after that, I could go back to my studies and…”

“Regret is useless.”

Akiko turned. He was sitting on his bed, watching her pensively. A tiny flash of remembered pain, and the emotion was gone from his face, replaced by weariness.

“You said to me yourself, that you did not want to quit your studies for the sake of marriage, and that you wanted something more. That you could not bear to suffer a similar fate that the other womenfolk of your family have suffered. Freedom from obligation is never gained at a low price.”

Kagato glanced at his hands for a moment before looking up at her.

“You regret because you care,” he continued. “But to live with regrets, is to live a life burdened by the past, a past that may try to destroy you. Which is why I try to live my life free from regret.”

“But what about…”

“Akiko, you don’t have to stand. Come sit with me.”

A few steps forward, was all it took, and she sat down in his chair, facing him.

“Listen. If I had not wanted to, I wouldn’t have.”

Miserably, she nodded, too embarrassed to face him directly. This was terribly awkward. Part of her wondered why she had even brought it up, but knowing that it was being said, gave her a certain measure of relief.

“The truth is, it was enjoyable. You may be my friend, but you’re also a woman. Has it never occurred to you that perhaps there was an element of attraction? You’re intelligent and beautiful, unconventionally so, a rare commodity, these days. And though it is true that anyone else could have easily accomplished the same goal, I did not want to see you hurt. Better that it was me than someone else. Isn’t that what you said?”

Akiko blushed faintly from his words.

“I thought that you were angry at me. I…didn’t want to talk to you, because I felt so ashamed of myself. But I also didn’t see you around for days…”

“Oh, that?” Kagato shrugged. “No, I was busy. There was something that I needed to finish, a little project that had to be…here, let me find it.” He picked up his discarded coat, and rummaged through its pockets before pulling out a small, gleaming object, which he deftly concealed beneath his fingers.

“I been working on this for some time now, and after the other night, I thought that I should finish it.”

“I’m not sure I follow you…”

“It is customary among my people,” he said, the last words touched with a tinge of irony, “that after one accomplishes one’s…first encounter, that the man should present his…that a gift should be given. Though I am not fond of custom, it seemed appropriate in this instance.” Pressing his hand to hers, he placed the object in her palm.

Akiko opened her hand, and looked at him curiously. “A bracelet? Oh, it’s very beautiful.” She stared at the circle of deeply blue stone in admiration, examining its carefully polished surface, mottled over with gray, reminding her of the sea in stormy weather.

“Not just jewelry. The embedded circuitry alone is probably worth the cost of a small colony. I had heard of such devices before, and thought I would try my hand at making one. So try not to lose it.”

“W…what’s it do?” Akiko looked at it suspiciously. It looked so innocuous, fitted with a silvery metal clasp.

“It allows you to access high level computer functions without the need of a physical terminal. If only you weren't so stubborn and merely accepted the implants like everyone else, I wouldn't have to do such things. But the learning experience was worth the effort.”

“I…thank you. It’s wonderful. I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Gingerly, she slipped it onto her left wrist, and as she closed the clasp, it felt almost as though a faint humming passed through her hand, a touch of warmth as the stone heated up against her skin. Startled, she gasped, wondering if it was causing her some strange, unknown harm. She beat down the impulse to tear it off.

“It does that. I wouldn’t worry. It’s completely harmless. I’m certain you will grow used to it in time.”

“Kagato, I…”

“I will teach you how to use the device later. It’s not terribly complex; it works in a similar manner as the implants, where will is the determining factor to accessing the functions you require.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, well, as I said, it was a good chance to learn something new. Now, I think it is time for me to get some rest. I’ve been up for three days, and trying to stay coherent these last few minutes has been draining.”

Akiko nodded. “Oh, then I should be going. I’m sorry if I…”

“Apologies are unnecessary. I will see you later.”

Somewhere else was where he was, moving ever closer to his destination, an appointment not made lightly. Long fingers moved dexterously across the terminal’s panels and brought up a variety of screens. Negotiations were moving along quickly, and his was a crucial step in the process. Deep amber eyes flicked over a particular screen, pausing.

Suddenly, a voice interrupted him. “Captain, four hours and twenty minutes to arrival. Shall I hail the planet beacons?”

“Please do. It will give them time to prepare for our arrival.”

It was not every day that an Imperial fleet vessel visited Todain, Kagemni thought as he sat back, waiting for the ship to drop out of subspace. Running a hand through his short-cropped silvery-blue hair, he wondered how his brother was doing.

After all, it had been three years.

Around him, data danced and blinked with frenetic movement.

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