Aiko WAP 33 preview

CHAPTER 33

She found herself being welcomed into the Uchiha’s territory by one of the same female home guards from the last time. They led her to the main house. It was true morning. Aiko deeply breathed in the scent wafting off of the dew-wet grass. Birdsong twittered all around them. It was a beautiful morning and the dawn was still splashing pale orange and yellow across the sky as she crossed the Uchiha stronghold.

Madara was waiting inside, and he looked particularly pretty. No one could call his hair tame, but something had been done to it. He had kohl around his eyes and more than a hint of collarbones showing underneath what appeared to be pure silk.

‘Is that from Izuna’s Daimyo dress-up wardrobe or does Madara actually like luxury goods?’

Aiko felt her eyebrows shoot up. “I am underdressed,” she said, and got on her knees to make the polite body language at the door. “Please excuse me.”

“You could never be anything less than the standard to judge a room,” Madara purred. “Please, enter.”

She put her hands together on the floor so that her thumbs touched and did the little bow before shuffling in and pulling the shoji shut behind her. The motion brought up an intense memory of tea ceremony classes with Ino long, long ago, in a future that might never happen.

Aiko shook off the danger of homesickness. She glanced over at the whisper of skin over tatami to see that Madara had his bare feet out and he was stretching his legs across the straw mats faux-carelessly. He had fine bone structure and there was something incongruously shocking about seeing them. It felt like he had just come out of the bath– ah, that was what he was aiming for, wasn’t it?

‘...Okay, he is trying a bit hard.’

She was too controlled to let her face twitch with the amusement that she felt. He was making an awfully good showing, he really was. But he couldn’t shock and awe her. She had spent years in close proximity with Utakata, the insufferably gorgeous showoff. She had been immunized against pretty men with sexy eyes deliberately hanging around half dressed to inspire feelings of intimacy. Madara was definitely handsome, but Utakata had weaponized that shit on the daily.

“I am honored to be invited in.” Aiko made her way to the cushion that was obviously her seat. She had meant what she’d said about feeling underdressed, unfortunately. She would have pulled out some of her fancy kimono and accessories if she had known this wasn’t going to be conducted in daily wear. She adjusted her priestess outfit a little unhappily. 

Madara’s eyes followed the motion.

Oh. Oh, Aiko realized.

‘I have enticed him with my incredible charms,’ she thought a bit smugly to herself. ‘I think I’m going to break his heart.’

It was nice to have a plan.