She donned a mask that hid her face in decorative lace, red as celosia, and it curled around the small bridge of her nose. She liked the way it looked, made her rounded girlish face more mature, accentuated her cheekbones and complimented the smooth deep red she'd applied to her lips with a gentle finger. Ching had done her hair in topknot buns, let her excess hair fall and splay at her open back. Her dress was red and gold, wrapped her curves like a princess in silk, left the skin of her back on display, hid her legs but gave a playful taste with a cut that reached from hem to her hip. She caught herself staring at the mirror for minutes, admiring her own reflection in the lit mirror of her bedroom.

Ching stood by the back near the closet, smiling at her awe, giggling to herself as she readied her body with soft cream and lavender perfume. She didn't know how Ching wasn't spending more time in the mirror, herself. Beautiful purple eyes batting out from under black eyelashes, cheeks pink despite the conservative nature of her dress. Empire-wasted but tight nevertheless, hair drifting down her back in soft straight strands- she looked like a princess. She supposed Ching was, in a way. The only daughter of Sooga's only Martial Arts master, an excellent matchmaking opportunity for the rich and honorable. That was what this party was about, after all, a sneaky way of introducing his marriageable daughter to the world of handsome, honorable men, who would love Ching right, bear beautiful children and support them as the culture of Sooga said they should. She doubted much would come of the night.

"Pucca?"

She hummed.

"Do you think Abyo is going to notice me?"

They both knew the answer. Abyo would rid himself of his upper tux early into the night, hit on every girl that wasn't herself or Ching, and go home sweating- maybe covered in punch, assuming he picked a fight. Which he would. Pucca gave her a smile and nodded, and Ching pretended to believe her.

How funny, love was.

The party itself was loud, large, crowded. She and Ching had gotten to her house in the nick of time. They snuck through a window on the dojo's second floor, leaving moments before Ching uncomfortably made her way down the staircase with a thousand eyes on her, and Pucca had to stand in the ocean of faces and ignore the nagging feeling that, despite the lack of reason, things were about to change.

She hadn't seen Ching since the party had begun, since she'd gracefully took each stair with a heavy foot and light slipper and smiled at the men who had their eyes on her. Pucca wondered, if maybe, some of those eyes weren't as well-intentioned as she thought, and if Abyo had seen the tint of her eyes or the lidded darkness in the eyes of the men around him. Ching could handle herself, but the point was that she wanted Abyo to handle it instead. Pucca huffed; she'd have to keep an eye out for trouble. If Abyo wouldn't do it, she would. She turned so sharply that one strand of loose hair flipped, seeking the punch and the table full of snack foods, preferably to find something sweet.

In the next moment, she brushed into someone, shoulders breezing as though intentional, and she pulled back to smile apologetically. He did too, and she swallowed when, in the very next moment, she recognized Garu. All done up in a suit, hair as neat in two tails as usual, one single heart sewn on the pocket of his blazer. He looked delicious, and her immediate urge to jump into his arms to steal some soft, perfect kisses grew on her so suddenly that she froze. She held back, because Garu was smiling apologetically at her, but there was something soft in that gaze, as though he was waking up from a pleasant dream, or thought himself in one. She was no fool, she knew that gaze, knew it so well because she wore it everywhere and hoped he'd see it. Her heart jumped in her chest, then plummeted. He glanced down at her empty glass and nodded at the cocktail servers wandering about the party, so she hesitantly nodded her head.

Garu didn't recognize her.

He was gone and back within moments, not a stray hair out of place. He held out her new glass, and kept the other for himself. She felt her cheeks turn pink at the gesture, so she tilted her head and smiled; his cheeks burned underneath his mask, and he nodded again. She glanced to one of the dojo's benches, and found he'd followed her questioning eyes. She turned and he followed her with no complaint, and some tortured part of her cried out because he was falling for a stranger. He took a seat beside her, so close that their legs bled through to the other, her bare skin pressed against his panted leg. The bench was small, after all, and Garu was nothing if not a gentleman. She toyed with her full glass, finger still red with lipstick running along the rim of her glass so slowly she could almost feel the vibrations she made in the champagne. He took a nervous sip, and she glanced at him with a raised brow and a corner-up lip. He pulled on his collar and chuckled. She giggled.

Maybe she'd been too suffocating. Maybe she hadn't matured as she'd been so sure she had, because she still followed Garu around, still tricked him into kisses, still took a running leap into his focused arms as he meditated. Maybe she'd been mistaken to think that Garu held anything for her in that heart he wore on his chest, because the woman he thought she was now had him licking his lips, fiddling with the stem of his glass, sweating in the heat of the bodies surrounding them. She bit the inside of her lip hard enough to draw blood. What was it about her that drew him to her now? She was prettier than usual, sure, but she'd never taken Garu for that kind of man- he wasn't that kind of man. She felt herself returning to questions she customarily brushed away on sleepless nights, many like the one she was sure she would have once she got home and unlaced herself from this stranger who'd so suddenly captured Garu's attention. Was she not strong enough for him? Was she really that annoying? When she was in danger, did he save her because he cared, or because it was the honorable thing to do? The same questions- that drew knives at her heart and splintered her strings until she drowned that inner voice with some chamomile and fell to a dreamless sleep- were plaguing her then. But there was no chamomile, only the glass of champagne in her strained hand. She tipped it back and sucked every sip down, then turned from the dance floor back to Garu. She placed her glass off to the side and nodded to the couples dancing in small swaying circles; with some hesitation, he obliged.

That venomous voice only got stronger as he willingly drew her in closer, apprehensively, by the hands he'd set just above her hips. It was laughably romantic, so comfortable and gentle that she felt the sudden urge to scream and cry and laugh because she'd wanted him to hold her like that for years. She wrapped her hands at the back of his neck and swayed with him slowly. She could feel his heart, right where the pocket was, pounding against his ribs, hitting her heart square in the center in the most painful way. She should have been happy.

She leaned forward, because she needed to hide her face, and dug her head under his chin, because she could. He straightened and tensed, but relaxed the longer she sat there uninchingly. How ludicrously romantic. She closed her eyes and let his body move against hers, feet sliding in circles, chest-to-chest, his chin in her hair, his hands warm at her waist. Something hot coiled in her stomach as their lower halves brushed, and she bit the dirty idea down and chewed on it until the blood in her stopped rushing and she could taste the copper dripping from the idea's meaty muddled corpse. He was too honorable, and she loved him ever too much to lie like that. As it was, she pondered herself a fiend. Maybe he didn't know it was her, and maybe that didn't matter if she could pretend he did. Just for one dance, just for one kiss.

She sighed and pulled away by a head's width, just far enough to look up and see him glancing around anxiously- probably looking for her. Her face twisted, and she knew it, that he was waiting for her- the Pucca he knew- to come out of nowhere and potentially body the only woman (persona) she'd known him to love, or be well on the way to loving. The copper flooded her mouth again, because it took everything in her to bite her tongue. Garu, after taking a moment to be sure Pucca wasn't lurking in impending outrage (what a joke), turned to meet her eyes. His brows furrowed, and he opened his mouth to ask a question they both knew he'd never break his vow of silence to ask- what is wrong? She said nothing, slid one hand from his neck to his cheek and watched his skin blossom. If this was true, if she was doomed to an unrequited love, then she dared not look a generous fortune in the mouth. For the night, Garu was hers, and she would take that as far as he'd let it go. His eyes frantically searched her face, but he didn't pull away, didn't try to run like he always did. He looked scared, but he wasn't stopping her. His eyes alternated between her own and her lips, thick with an emotion she couldn't read. Was it fear? Lust? She'd never know. She closed her eyes and willed him to do the honors.

A moment passed before there was a returning pressure square in the middle of her pursed mouth. She thought him an awkward kisser, but realized in little enough time that he'd pressed a single finger to her lips. She exhaled, eyes gliding open because he must have figured it out, or even this dream-turned-nightmare had been too good to be true. He must have seen the disappointment in her eyes, because he frowned and shook his head. What surprised her was his slowly moving arms, how he deliberately, kindly, gently pushed her out of his space, looking apologetic all the while. He smiled and looked around the room and still didn't find what he was looking for, so he sighed and pointed at himself, then the heart on his breast's pocket, and then vaguely to the crowd. Pucca's eyes widened, but she caught his meaning: I love someone else. Her lips pursed in an "oh", and she tilted her head: Who? Garu's face grew red, and indignant, but he swallowed, made gestures at his hair with his hands, rounding them like small buns at either side of his head. Her heart skipped a beat, and she reached out, but he was already disappearing into the crowd.

Ching had left the party hours before it ended, and Pucca knew, when she showed back up at her house after the party ended, with a torn dress and messy pigtails, that Abyo had convinced her to spar with him outside. It wasn't lost on Pucca that there was a huge smile on her face, or that Abyo had gotten bored once the ladies didn't pick up what he'd been putting down. Maybe, just maybe, he'd been too stupid to see what was in front of him, but Ching was always, always, always the one he'd go back to at the end of the day. The girls had slept that night (or early morning) giggling under the moonlight that drifted in between parted curtains, exchanging new memories as time slowed under their huddled forms and blankets.

Abyo seemed no different the next morning, not that she'd have expected him to be. Garu had undergone little to no change, himself, and sat by the front stoop of his house meditating as Abyo broke boards with his bare knuckles. Ching sidled up to Abyo and offered to spar, and Pucca- well, that morning she chose to take a different approach. Garu cracked one eye open as she plopped down beside him, simply tilted her head back, and watched the clouds go by. He rose an eyebrow and inched away a centimeter, and she let him. It was hard not to kiss him, but she was capable of holding herself back. If it got him to look at her like he had the night before, she'd do anything. Once he took her behavior at face value and shut his eye, she leaned back on her palms and smiled. There was no rush, they had all the time in the world for Garu to be true, so long as she knew that she had already occupied that special place in his heart.

Epilogue

"Hey, Pucca! Where were ya last night?" Ching squeaked as Abyo's leg very nearly missed her face. "Garu and I couldn't find ya!"

"What are you talking about?" Pucca winced as Ching giggled. "Garu was dancing with her all night long! So romantic!"

She froze, and she was sure Garu had frozen, too. She risked a glance at him, found his shoulders tense and his back straight. She made a move to look closer, and he whipped around with wide eyes and troubled lips. She leaned back in reaction, then looked away and twiddled her thumbs so he couldn't see her looking suspicious. Abyo baulked.

"What? That girl was Pucca? You two nearly-ommph!"

Abyo choked on the dirt-filled handful of grass she'd thrown at him. Garu glared at Pucca, then looked back at Ching, who looked just as confused as Abyo.

"Pucca, you told me all about it last night! What's so-?"

Pucca made a pleading sign at her, and she shut her mouth, but not before Garu could see her together-turned palms. He glared at Pucca, and cleared his throat. Pucca sighed and lowered her hands in shame.