Forever With You

“Let me see your hand,” Hitoka said, after putting Aiko down in her cradle. She held her hand out expectantly.
“I’m fine,” he replied gently. “It’s really nothing to worry about.” Eita held up his hand and showed her, trying not to show how much pain he was actually in.

Except, it didn’t work. She saw the way his eyes squeezed shut for a brief moment, and heard him stifle a gasp. All she did was lift a single eyebrow, and his hand was in hers. With great care, she started to inspect his hand.

“Nothing seems broken, or out of place. Can you make another fist?”
He tried, and inhaled sharply. “Damn! Sorry. Hurts like hell,” he grumbled. “It’ll be fine in a few days.”
“I know. Please, let me help you.”
“Alright.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, she asked him to sit down at the table and wait while she gathered up a few things to patch him up. While she put what she needed on a tray, and started the kettle for tea, she calmed herself as much as she could.

“Thank you,” she said softly, once she made it back to him. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did,” he replied as she took his hand in hers once more. “What he did to you was wrong. He hurt you…”
“It was my choice, my mistake…”
She cleaned his hand and rubbed the tiny splits in his knuckles with an antiseptic. He winced again, and she apologized softly.
“He took advantage of you, Yacchan. I wouldn’t be surprised if he targeted you.”
“That may be true, but still…”
“No buts, Hitoka. Terushima is a slimy bastard who went after a girl desperate for any sort of love and affection, preyed on those needs, used you, and then left you without a single care when you needed him most.” He paused for a moment. “It’s not your fault.”

She knew that. She did! There hadn’t been a single day that went by during her pregnancy that she remembered his rejection. After Aiko was born, she buried the memories as much as she could. What’s done is done, right? All in the past? They should fade with time and happier memories to replace them, right?

She startled when she felt his hands gently cup her face, as if she were something precious to him. He slowly swiped a thumb along her cheek, and that’s when she felt the wetness of her own tears. And they kept falling, no matter what she tried to do to stop them.

Shaking free of his hands, she stood up and walked away, but she stopped about halfway to her room. She couldn’t stop crying. It wasn’t just what happened at dinner; it was more than that. It was everything that had happened in her life since her mother put her on the ship to Japan.

With one little phrase, everything came rushing in to swallow her whole. She only ever had time to keep acting like everything was normal, to keep landing on her feet every time the rug was ripped out from under her. To keep moving forward when she wanted to curl up in a corner and disappear. Remembering that she couldn’t do that when she was now the mother of a beautiful baby girl.

She doubled over with heart wrenching sobs. She would have fallen to her knees, if it weren’t for a warm pair of arms surrounding her, holding her tight. Swaying gently, as if he was rocking her like a child. Humming the lullaby from their homeland and gently rubbing her back to calm her. Even going so far as to sift his fingers through her hair, massaging her head with each soft pass.

Duke Semi… no, Eita… had been there when she needed someone, at least recently. For reasons she couldn’t yet understand, she knew in the instant they met that she could trust him. She could trust him with her daughter, and perhaps most of all, she knew she could trust him with her heart.

Her sobs quieted, but she still cried, soaking his shirt with her tears. Her hands gripped that shirt tight, refusing to let go. And Eita held onto her through it all.

~*~

A few hours later, Eita walked into his suite and found both his advisors waiting for him, along with one of the palace physicians to look at his hand. While the doctor examined his hand, applied a cooling ointment to the reddish, bruised areas, and then wrapped his hand, Eita took Taichi’s report and read it.

“Your hand is fine, your grace,” the doctor told him, gathering up his stuff. “Just keep it wrapped up for at least another day, or until it doesn’t hurt anymore. I’ll send some more antiseptic up for the cuts.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”

The man left and Eita went to sit in one of the chairs in front of the unlit fireplace, reading the report again. Hitoka’s family really hadn’t been that big, and from the look of it, most of them were old, so the main branch was dying out. Hitoka and Aiko really were the last in the line. The cousins she’d been sent to live with were so far distantly related, it was a wonder they even knew about her in the first place. Clearly her mother had formed some sort of connection in the past, but a tenuous one at best. A connection that broke as soon as the money stopped coming.

The following pages went further into the family’s ancestry, and Eita nearly gave up on reading what’s left, until he found a small highlighted section.

“Hey, Taichi?”
“Found it, huh?”
“Yeah, but what…?”
“I don’t know. Someone obviously didn’t understand the assignment. Or, they just failed to do their homework correctly.”
“A misunderstanding, or something else?”
“Without anything to go by, sir, we won’t know.”
“And you looked?”
“As far as I could with the resources I had here. I’d have to go back home to dig deeper.”
“Right.”
Taichi came over to sit next to him, and nudged him with his shoulder.
“Worried, Semi?”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t,” Eita admitted quietly. “I mean, I’m still getting used to being the Duke in the first place.”
“Even after five years?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t something I ever thought would happen, you know? One day, you’re helping your dad out in his music shop, the next the regent and captain of the guard are telling you you're in line for the throne to the Grand Duchy.”
“For someone who never thought he’d be Grand Duke, you’re doing a pretty awesome job at it. Some of the changes you made have been beneficial to our country.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, tourism and trade have been the biggest changes. Somehow, you’ve made Shiratorizawa less like visiting a mausoleum and more like a… a vacation destination.”
“Mausoleum… good one, Taichi.”
“I try.”

They sat there for a while longer before Eita excused himself to go to bed. Once the door was closed, he leaned against it and sighed, running his hand through his hair. On nights like these, he’d typically play his guitar until he was relaxed enough to sleep. However… he looked at his bandaged hand. Guess that wasn’t happening tonight.

Pushing off the door, he went to go take a shower and get ready for bed. A soft knock on the door sounded, and he went to answer it. On the other side, Kenjiro held a tray with the ointment the physician sent, a fresh bandage, and a steaming cup of tea. It wasn’t his usual honey lemon, or the bergamot blend he liked as well. He inhaled the steam; vanilla chamomile, Hitoka’s favorite.

“How did you…?” he asked, picking up the mug while Kenjiro brought in the tray and set it down on the little table by the window.
“A maid brought it by while you were in the shower. There’s a note on the tray,” his younger advisor said. “How’s your hand?”
“Still hurts like hell, but it’ll be fine soon.”
“Good. Sleep well, your grace.”
“Same to you, Kenjiro.” The man bowed and was almost out of the room when Eita called out to him. “Thank you for stopping me,” he said. “The first time. I might’ve done more damage then.”
Kenjiro looked surprised, but then smiled and bowed again. “You’re welcome, sir.”

Alone again, he took a few sips of the sweetly scented tea, noticed it was lightly sweetened (just the way he liked it), and he couldn’t help smiling. She had praised his tea making skills and claimed his tea was better than hers. He politely disagreed; her tea was top notch. Taking another sip, he walked over to the table and picked up the note. Eita chuckled; her handwriting was a charmingly endearing… mess. It was legible, he’d give it that, but still.

I hope this helps, your grace. Eita. Thank you. For everything.
Hitoka

He set the note back down, finished his tea, and began smoothing some of the ointment on his knuckles and fingers. Tetsu hadn’t planned much beyond his birthday dinner and a few outings for everyone to enjoy while on his island. He announced a do-over for his disastrous dinner, which would be held the night before everyone else had to leave at the end of the week. He’d jokingly added that it would certainly be less eventful, to which everyone else laughed.

However, Eita had already decided where he wanted to be. Tetsu and Kei would just have to make his excuses once again. Taichi was going to tease and laugh at him as much as he could. Kenjiro might just have an aneurysm. Wakatoshi and Reon won’t know what to do with themselves. None of that mattered. The Nekoma royal household was about to acquire a temporary nursery assistant in the form of one Grand Duke Eita Semi.

It would give him an excellent excuse to wear comfortable clothing.
It would mean he could play his guitar, once his hand felt better (which it was).
It would mean he could relax and just be himself, even around a small herd of children.
It would also give him time to be around two angels who had somehow managed to tuck themselves into his heart.

Which might actually be made easier to accomplish, he thought as he finished wrapping his hand with the bandage. A distant rumble had caught his attention, and he went to the nearest window and waited. If he was right, then… In the dark of night, and still far off in the distance, he saw a flash of light that illuminated the clouds. Lightning. And, another few minutes later, thunder.

Just to make sure his hunch was absolutely right, he went over to the desk he rarely (okay, never) used, booted up his laptop (also very much neglected), and accessed Nekoma’s wifi. He found the local weather page and checked out the forecast. Indeed, it looked like the rest of Tetsu’s birthday week would be a wash. Literally. In fact, it looked like they might be stuck here at least a day longer than planned.

The storm in the distance was already listed as a category two cyclone, gaining strength as it moved, and its trajectory would bring it close to Nekoma, if not right over the island. By morning, it would be too late for anyone else to leave safely. Thankfully, Terushima and his people had already left.

And, right on cue, there was another knock on his door. Shutting down his laptop, he was about to answer it, when the door opened and Tetsu walked in.

“Well, at least you knocked,” Eita said sarcastically.
“I also waited for you to holler if you were indecent or whatever, but since you didn’t, I figured it was safe.”
Eita snorted. “I’m gonna guess the weather brought you here?”
“Yeah. We’re informing everyone now. We’ve already put the castle on lockdown, so even if you thought about leaving, you can’t.” He waved a hand as he said that. “You already know the drill.”
“Yeah, but thanks for letting me know anyway.”
“No problem. We’ll be keeping an eye on the reports, but I’m already having everyone get ready to move down to the castle shelter.”
“Right.”
“Sorry to disturb you.”
“Bit late to tell me that, don’t you think?”
“Bah! See you in the morning, okay?”
“Right.”
Tetsu was on his way back out when he stopped at the door. He looked back over his shoulder and winked.
“You’ll be staying in the suite next to the nursery. Figured you’d want to be close to a certain nanny and her daughter.”
“How did you…?”
“Eita, my best friend, and hopeless romantic fool,” he said with exasperation. “Do you honestly think anyone here doesn’t know where your heart lies by now?” His smirk grew wider as Eita floundered for an answer. “Dude, we all know you’re in love with Yacchan, and it’s quite possible the same is true for her.”
“Yeah, well…”
“See ya in the morning,” Tetsu said as he left.