A resounding Slap! filled the restaurant grabbing most people's attention. Everyone looked away after realizing what was happening and determining it was none of their business. Everyone except a group of five sitting in the corner.
Of those five, one completely ignored the noise as though he hadn't heard it, one looked out of curiosity but then continued eating, and three reached for non-existent swords at their waists.
Of those three, one determined there was no threat and continued eating, one determined there was no threat but kept an eye on the source of the slap anyway since there seemed to be a lot of yelling involved, and the last determined there was no threat, in fact it was a rather sweet scene and blatantly stared at the young couple.
"Look, wimp, that young woman just proposed," he announced happily to his fiancé and decidedly ignored the other man's mutter of not to call him a wimp. Yuuri looked up just in time to watch the man receive a second slap. "Wow, she's pretty insistent. She must really want to marry him," Wolfram commented.
Yuuri groaned when he heard Conrad chuckle, since Conrad had spent a little time on Earth before, he knew some of the customs and was aware of what was actually going on with the young couple seated across the restaurant. "She isn't proposing. She's dumping him," Yuuri corrected. The woman was now yelling at the man while several waiters and waitresses tried to calm her down.
"Dumping?" Wolfram asked.
"Dumping. Breaking up with him, leaving him, they're no longer dating, she doesn't want to see him anymore," Yuuri listed off possible explanations but Wolfram remained confused.
"But she slapped him. Twice."
"In this world slapping someone isn't a proposal. In fact its usually the opposite, on Earth when you slap someone they've usually wronged you or upset you. It's a sign of anger not love." Yuuri looked back to his own food so he didn't notice Wolfram gently touch his own cheek where he had received a slap from Yuuri years before. He was too caught up in his thoughts to notice Yuuri put in hand in his pocket to nervously fiddle with something.
"So.. slapping to you doesn't mean a proposal?" Wolfram asked.
"Well it does now," Yuuri laughed not getting where this line of questioning was leading.
"But when you first came to the Great Demon Kingdom, it meant anger to you then? Not a proposal?" Wolfram kept his voice even. "Is that what you're saying, Yuuri?" Yuuri frowned, he had expected either 'cheater' or 'wimp' there, not his name.
Realization dawned on his face as Wolfram angrily bolted out of his seat. Yuuri cursed as Wolfram ran out of the restaurant. He muttered for the rest of his group to wait there for him while he started running after his fiancé. "Wolfram!" He called out but the blond ignored him.
It was several calls later Wolfram turned on his heel and demanded, "What?! What, you wimp?!" He only had time to see the look of horror on Yuuri's face before he felt his king's body impact his own and shove him out of the way. A look of horror crossed his own face as he watched Yuuri roll over the top of a car and land on the pavement on his side. He heard a screech as the large object that hit Yuuri skidded to a stop.
Nothing really registered in Wolfram's mind as he stared at an unmoving Yuuri. A man got out of the car and knelt next to Yuuri. Yuuri was only unmoving for about 30 seconds but it felt like an eternity to Wolfram. Relief flooded him when Yuuri began to stir, then sat up and looked around him. His eyes quickly focused on Wolfram.
"You ok, Wolfram?"
"You idiot!" Wolfram took a deep breath to launch into a speech about how it was his job to protect Yuuri and not the other way around and what would he do if Yuuri got killed or seriously hurt? He never got the chance to start however because a small crowd gather around the other man.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," He answered them, ignoring the small amount of blood that dripped down the side of his head, and stood on what appeared to be steady legs. Wolfram knew Yuuri better than that, however, and could see the strain Yuuri was putting himself through to stay up. He pulled Wolfram to his feet as well, "See, we're both fine. Thank you for your concern." He grabbed Wolfram's hand and all but dragged him away.
"What are you doing?" Wolfram tried to pull his hand out of Yuuri's, but he refused to let it go.
"Did you really want to stick around to answer questions about how I managed to survive a car crash that should have killed me?" Yuuri answered without looking back. He used the sleeve of the arm not holding Wolfram's to wipe the blood from his face and put pressure to the wound to try to stop the bleeding all together.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see when we get there." Wolfram huffed but allowed himself to be led where ever they were going.
Eventually they arrived at a park and Yuuri sat them down on a bench. Wolfram noticed that Yuuri was breathing rather hard, harder than he should have been for the short walk to the park, and his face was rather red. Yuuri act like this when he was nervous about something, but since there wasn't anything to be nervous about he was worried this might be a side effect of being hit. He frowned. "Are you alright, Yuuri?" Yuuri just ignored him and put his arms around him.
"You know, our worlds have some pretty conflicting customs. I've looked and looked and can't find any significance behind this in the Demon Kingdom..." He trailed off as he removed his arms from around Wolfram and stood in front of him, digging around in his pocket. "So if this means something that I don't realize... Please take it to mean what it means here on Earth and not whatever it means in the Demon Kingdom." Yuuri pulled out a ring and dropped to one knee. Wolfram fought a look of horror and hurt from his face remembering what Yuuri said. He doesn't know what the action means, Wolfram told himself. "Wolfram von Bielefeld, Would you do me the honor of being my husband?"
"I don't understand," Wolfram questioned, not understanding Yuuri's conflicting words and actions.
"This is how we propose on Earth. We don't slap each other's cheek, we get down on one knee and ask," Yuuri explained, his face fell. "This is something offensive, isn't it? I'm insulting you... I knew I should have just asked some-"
"What do I do to say yes?" Wolfram interrupted.
Yuuri smiled brilliantly, "Give me your left hand." Wolfram stiffly held out his hand. Yuuri grabbed it and slipped the ring on Wolfram's finger. "Now we're engaged by Earth customs too," he announced proudly as he sat back on the bench next to Wolfram. "So... What did I just do by Demon Tribe customs?" He asked hesitantly.
"What makes you think you did anything, wimp?"
"Well, as soon as I started kneeling you looked like I just stabbed you and when your brothers saw me, Gwendal looked like the only thing stopping him from killing me was the fact that I'm his king until Murata, who's still laughing his ass off, said something. I'm assuming he explained what I was really doing. And don't call me wimp."
Wolfram huffed, "Gunter is the one who's supposed to be your teacher. Ask him, you-" Wolfram was cut off as he felt Yuuri's arms slacken and his head fall on his shoulder. "Yuuri?" he said, turning his head only to get a face full of black hair. Wolfram shifted the other man so he could get a better look at his face. Yuuri was unconscious and struggling to breathe as though each breath pained him. "Yuuri!" Wolfram called again. His calls alerted the others (who had followed them from the restaurant several minutes after they left) something was wrong and they immediately rushed to his side.
"What happened?" Conrad asked while looking his young king over. "How did he get this?" He asked pointing to the blood crusted area at Yuuri's hairline. It hadn't been noticeable from the distance they were at before since his hair was dark and partially covered the area.
"I... He got hit by one of those," Wolfram answered pointing to a nearby street. Ken looked where he was pointing and surprise filled his face (which was not something that graced the Great Wiseman's features often).
"Yuuri was hit by a car? But he knows better than to-" Ken started but cut himself off knowing it would only serve to make Wolfram feel guilty. He could figure out what happened. Yuuri may have known not go to running into the street but Wolfram didn't and Yuuri would never let anything happen to Wolfram if he could help it. "We should get him back to the house. You're good with healing magic right, Wolfram?"
"Of course I am!" By that, of course, they all knew that just meant Wolfram could do it but he wasn't particularly skilled. Not something the prideful Wolfram would ever admit to though. Conrad made to pick up the young king, but Wolfram beat him to it. He even sent a mild glare at Conrad who just smiled knowingly in return, used to his young half-brother's mannerisms.
When they arrived back at Yuuri's house, they removed his shirt to get an idea of how bad the damage was. Wolfram couldn't help but stare, not because he had never seen Yuuri without a shirt on, no he had seen that many times.
He stared because he had never seen the young king this hurt. Yuuri may be reckless and a bit clumsy. He might get involved in fights and battles when he didn't need to and didn't really know what he was doing. But his retainers had always been there to protect him.
A little ironic if you think about it, he could survive their war ravaged world with barely a scratch but is now hovering on the brink of near death in his own peaceful world.
Wolfram healed the damage he could see, the wound on his head and the entire left side of his torso and back that were black and blue, but he wasn't skilled enough to use magic to diagnose what was wrong and despite healing the damage to his torso Yuuri's breathing didn't even out. It was still coming in short gasps.
Ken was frowning at this, "Why isn't he breathing right? He's going to hyperventilate if he keeps breathing like that..."
"He probably cracked a couple of ribs, Wolfram try healing his ribs," Conrad answered. The Great Wiseman was a strategist, he had always sat on the sidelines. Whereas Conrad was in the midst of battle, he knew the symptoms for common problems on the battlefield. He'd seen many cracked and broken ribs and even cracked and broken more than a few himself.
Wolfram's hands glowed green once more and after several minutes Yuuri's breathing began to slow. Soon his breathing was back to normal and the pained expression faded from his face.
Only then did Wolfram allow himself to collapse, since he wasn't particularly skilled at healing it always took a lot out of him and healing damage he couldn't see was a bit more advanced then he was used to.
He barely felt it when one of his brothers picked him up and moved him to the bed next to his fiancé. He didn't even notice that Yuuri (for the first time in all the years they had slept in the same bed) had wrapped his arms around him in his sleep and pulled Wolfram so his head was laying on his chest.
No, Wolfram didn't notice any of this, all his fogged mind could process at the moment was he was warm and safe and currently falling into the deepest sleep he'd ever been in.
.oO***Oo.
"... And so the wimpy king dropped to one knee and held out a ring for the beautiful lord-" The blonde man stopped telling the story when the young girl on his lap gasped. Even at the young age of six she had been taught the customs of the Demon Tribe.
She huffed her cheeks angrily at the king in the story, "If the wimpy king loved the lord so much why did he insult him so badly?"
"Because the king didn't know what that action meant to Demon Tribe, he was raised on Earth you know," came a voice from the doorway. The young girl and blonde man looked to see a black haired man leaning against the doorframe. His black eyes lit in amusement as the young girl huffed again.
"Well it sounds to me like the wimpy king took the lord for granite and didn't deserve him," she stuck her nose up in the air.
"The king took the lord for granted, dear. Granite is a stone." The black haired man walked over to his daughter and crouched so he was eye level. "But you know what?" He asked her with a goofy grin on his face.
"What?" She asked curiously, cocking her head to the side cutely.
He leaned forward as though telling her a big secret, "The young lord forgave the king for all those years of rejection and being taken for granted," his eyes flicked to the man holding the young girl. Deep black met vibrant green and the two men shared a small smile, "As soon as they returned to the Great Demon Kingdom they started wedding preparations and we're married within the month. They already had one daughter, but soon that family grew to include boy and another little girl. Now why don't you go find your big sister and let Daddy talk to Father for a bit, ok?"
"Ok Daddy!" She jumped off her father's lap and ran out into the hall.
Both fathers stared at the door for a minute until the black haired one looked back to the blonde one, "Well, she definitely got your personality."
"And my looks," the blonde added proudly.
"Do you have to call me a wimp even when you tell the stories in the third person? One of these days she's going to figure out I'm the 'wimpy, cheating king'. If our daughter hates me because of your stories, I'm blaming you." The double black joked. "I'm going to start telling her about how the lord was a spoiled, hot-headed, possessive, over-protective-"
"You wish we hadn't gotten engaged? You cheater!" The blonde asked angrily, but this just made the black haired man laugh harder.
"There is no one in the world I would rather have been engaged or married to and you know it, Wolfram."
"Only this world?" The blond stuck his nose in the air causing the black haired man to sigh.
"No one in this world, Earth, or any other world that exists out there. Now," he smiled as he moved a little closer to his husband, "The children are busy. I've finished all my paperwork and written a note to Gunter telling him I'm taking the week off, this time with no spelling errors that will cause him to run off and join the priesthood. I've reserved the entire hot springs and double, triple, and quadruple checked with them that they don't use Houseki stones. And if we leave right now we can get away without anyone noticing we're missing until its too late and we're gone. I believe the wimpy king and the spoiled lord have a 30th anniversary to celebrate."