It had been a long and exhausting day for him. Too many meetings, too many discussions, too many voices – too many noise. He hadn't felt good the last few days and after all this work today, he even felt worse than before. Maybe he got sick? He hoped not. Of course, his people knew what to do, in case he was sick, but what if something unexpected happened? What if something happened that needed his decision? He didn't want to bother his sister to take care of things. She was quite busy herself. However, it also wasn't advisable to work while being sick. Maybe he should stay in bed tomorrow? If he rested a little bit he would soon feel better, he was sure of that. Tomorrow he would stay in bed and today he would take a bath! A bath together with his wife! She wanted to do so for some time, but he had always rejected her, because he hadn't felt well. She looked so sad and disappointed that it had broken his heart. But now he would make up for it! Although he was determined to do so, he barely moved forward. His legs were too weak and tiered to carry him to his bedroom faster.
Since it was already night, it was cold outside and he didn't wore appropriated clothes for this kind of weather. He had expected be finished sooner with today's workload. The moon shone bright and gave the surrounding a surreal appearance. Hakuryuu felt like he wasn't in the real world, although everything looked as normal as ever. Some months ago his wife had hang up some lanterns, because according to her it was too dark to see anything at night. Hakuryuu couldn't agree, but he also wouldn't argue with her about something so unimportant. More light was never a bad thing, so why trying to stop her? The lanterns were self-made by his fiancée, therefore they all were quite colorful and some looked like animals. It was a bit strange that she disliked the sunlight, but loved the light of the moon and the lanterns at night. Hakuryuu wondered, if she was already sleeping or did she run around? Sometimes she would run through the hallways of the palace without a specific goal, just running, wandering around. Maybe she was searching for something or she missed her home so much and used those little tours to distract herself? As soon as less work had to be done, he would travel with her to her home country. He had liked it there a lot, but because of all his duties he barely had time to visit her country again.
Very slowly Hakuryuu moved forward. He wished he would have already reached his bedroom. There it would be warm and he was sure it also would smile nice, because of the flowers his wife always brought with her. Last time it had smelt after some fruits instead of flowers, maybe this was the case today as well? He didn't mind as long as it was a pleasant smell.
To not fall over, Hakuryuu had to support himself against the wall. Despite still being young, he felt so old at the moment. Maybe he should watch more after his health or do more training? His stamina seemed to have gotten worse. A sad thought, considering that not so long ago he could train without getting tired for hours. However, it also wasn't really surprising, since he often sat around all day. Only when it was time for lunch or dinner, he had some "exercise". Even his training sessions have been canceled, because he was so occupied with his paperwork. All he could do was to hope that soon things would get better, so he had more free time.
"Hakuryuu!", a female voice shout his name behind him.
Without turning around he knew who had called him. His wife had spotted him on his way to their room and decided to follow him, although she wanted to go to the kitchen for some almost midnight snakes. She was a sweet tooth.
When she reached him, she immediately pulled him into a tight hug, which caused Hakuryuu to almost lose his balance – almost because her tight grip made it impossible for him to fall.
"I've missed you! Where have you been the whole day?", she asked still hugging him.
"Here and there and everywhere. I had many meetings today and every single one of them got prolonged. I am sorry that I hadn't had any time to eat lunch or dinner with you. I promise, I will make up for it. How about we take a bath together? You always wanted to do this, right?", Hakuryuu answered and returned her hug, although his hug wasn't as tight as hers.
He lacked the power to do so for now. Maybe he would hug her stronger next time, when he wasn't about to fall asleep while standing in one of the many hallways of the palace.
"Are you sure? You look really tired. Maybe you should go to bed. We can take a bath together tomorrow. I am not running away and the bath will stay there as well."
His wife let go of him and took a few steps away from him to have a better look. She looked very worried. From afar she had seen that he wasn't well, but thought this was only due to him being exhausted, but now it looked more like he was sick.
"I am sure. I feel so stiff and with a bath I think, I can solve this problem. You know, I cannot sleep, when everything hurts and feels uncomfortable."
It was nothing new for him to feel stiff and no matter how often his wife gave him a massage, it didn't get better. On some days it was even so bad that he barely was able to move. Every other person would have probably sought out a physician, but Hakuryuu was different. He tried to ignore his problems, while hoping they would magically disappear therewith. Unfortunately, it hadn't worked.
"Um, if you say so."
She took his hand in hers. Only now Hakuryuu realized how cold he had been. Her hands were so warm and his so cold. It really was the best to get inside, since it was too cold outside – soon the first snow would fall.
"Let's go then", she said with a smile on her face.
Without any further delay the two made their way to their bedroom – it took quite some time, since Hakuryuu was not so fast after this exhausting day. His wife didn't mind it. If Hakuryuu walked slowly, she had more time with him. When they reached their bedroom, they would take a bath and afterwards, she was sure, Hakuryuu would go to bed and fall asleep immediately. So she couldn't have a nice conversation with him about their day. However, when he walked slowly, she could use the time to talk to him and say everything she wanted to tell him, before he went to sleep. But as good as this plan sounded, it was no use, when she said nothing of the things she wanted to talk about. Instead of talking she hummed a song. Hakuryuu silently listened. He was used to her either talking a lot or barely saying anything – he liked both options. Whenever she talked like a waterfall, she was talking about her interests and then she always had a sparkling in her eyes. It was cute to see her so happy and open. Normally she was a quiet person, who seldom opened herself up to others – just like him. So, when she was on fire because of her love for her interests and hobbies, Hakuryuu felt his heart warm up. He could listen to her for hours, although he often did not really understand, what she was talking about. She often told him about the stories she read, but it was hard to follow her explanations, therefore Hakuryuu had started to read the books she read, so he could talk about them with her. In return, she had started to learn more about politics. Now she was helping him out a lot with all his work – however, he knew that this was not a given and that she wouldn't do anything too boring. But every helping hand was better than none. At the moment she spent a lot of time with the educational system of the empire and she was not pleased with how things had been until now. Whenever she was complaining about the current system, he would only listen to her, but stay silent. He knew her well enough to know that his words wouldn't be of any use to her. She just needed someone to vent to.
When they reached their bedroom, his wife went to the bathroom to prepare the bath. Hakuryuu on the other hand searched for his sleeping robes, which took him some minutes, because he somehow was too blind to see them. He really needed some sleep.
Like he had expected the room smelled like some fruits – mandarins. Where did she get those from? And when? He hadn't seen any mandarins around – not even in the kitchen, where he made their breakfast every morning. Well, who cares? There were more important things to worry about and he could always ask her. Maybe they had gotten the mandarins only today and since he was stuck in those boring and useless meetings, he didn't know about it?
"Ryuu, the water is ready! Are you ready?", his wife asked him and came out of the bathroom to get some clothes for changing.
"Yes, I am. What about you?"
Hakuryuu had sat down on his side of the bed, while waiting for the bath to be ready – it was hard to not fall asleep there.
"Almost, I just need some clothes. Let's see…"
It was amazing how hard it could be to decide what to wear in bed. Some of her clothes were too colorful, some were not colorful enough, some were not warm enough, while others were too warm. Somehow she was able to make it some kind of science to pick the right clothes – Hakuryuu wondered if she would find something before midnight or at least before he fell asleep.
"Can I help you somehow?", he asked.
"Sure."
She showed him two night robes, one in a light blue with white stars on it – a gift from her older sister – and one in a deep red.
"Take the blue one", Hakuryuu said without thinking much.
Red was far from being his favorite color. Also she looked better in blue than red!
Skeptically she looked at his choice, but put the other one back in the wardrobe without any remarks. She had asked him for advice, so why should she not listen to him? In the end it did not matter what color she wore, but she wanted to look nice for Hakuryuu, even in bed – it wasn't hard to look good for him, since Hakuryuu thought his wife was the most beautiful person and no matter what she wore this would never change.
Now that they both had some cloths for changing and the bath was ready, there was nothing to stop them from enjoying a bath together.
The bathroom smelled nice. Hakuryuu assumed that his wife had put something into the water so it would smell like peaches. Judar would probably love this smell and would like to take a bath as well. Normally Judar did not like to get wet, so it was always a huge thing to get him to wash himself – although Judar also hated it to stink or to be sweaty. His wife and Judar were very much alike in this regard – but he would never say that out loud.
After washing away all his sweat – his wife had helped him therewith and in return he had helped her, although she didn't need any help, but she was lazy, Hakuryuu on the other hand was too tired, so a little bit of help was very welcomed – he went into the bathtub. Maybe he should have gone to bed instead of taking a bath. However, it was some kind of habit of his to take a bath before going to bed and he really couldn't sleep well, when he felt stiff. Normally a hot bath helped him to relax, but normally he wasn't as tired as he was now.
"Hakuryuu, are you alright?", she asked with a worried expression.
"Yes, I am."
"Is the temperature of the water right? Or is it too warm? Or too cold? Want me to give you a massage?"
"Don't worry, don't worry. The water is perfect and it smells so nice. You really are a genius with all your nice smelling fragrancies. They always make me feel good and it gives the rooms a nice atmosphere. Maybe I should do this with my bureau as well?"
Hakuryuu was so used to his private room smelling like fruits or flowers that sometimes it even irritated him, when he was in another room that didn't smell like that. At first the fragrancies had annoyed him and caused him some headache, but now that he was used to it, he didn't want to miss it. Softly he pulled her into a hug. Her skin was soft and it felt nice. Once he had asked her, how she made sure that her skin was like this, but hadn't got a good answer. "Because I think about you all day long and this makes me happy. And happy people always have nice skin", she had said. He had only laughed about it. It was nice to hear that she thought of him very often and that he made her happy. He had caused a lot of pain to others, so to know that he also could cause others to be happy was a heart-balm.
Although he wished to relax and have a nice bath with his fiancée, his stiffness had other plans and caused him pain. Therefore Hakuryuu backed out of the hug and tried to relax his limps a bit. At the moment he felt as if he had fought thousands of battles, although he only had sit around all day long. His head hurt, his limps hurt, he felt uncomfortable and was tired. Today was not his day. It was a bad day.
"You have a lot on you mind, um? You should try not to think so much. If you want, you can think as much as you want tomorrow, but for now you should stop thinking. It's not good for you."
She was right. He was thinking about the discussions he had all the time. There were many things that needed to be cleared before he could make a decision on this matters, but his mind already searched for solutions, before it even knew the details of the problems. Usually he wasn't very creative, but when it was about making up bad outcomes or creating problems, there was no one, who could beat him! It was as if his mind saved all his creativity for those negative and sometimes even destructive thoughts. An extremely unhealthy habit of his. But how should he change his mind? He already tried his best to be more optimistic, but he wasn't quite successful. He often made mountains out of molehills. His wife was much calmer than him. Sometimes it even seemed as if she didn't care at all, but deep down she worried a lot about many things – like his well-being.
"I know, but I cannot change it. There are so many things I have to take care of and everything is urgent."
"The only urgent thing right now is your health. If you do not look after yourself, you will soon not be able to work anymore, therefore won't be able to take care of all these urgent matters. You need to rearrange your priorities!"
"I will take a break tomorrow."
"Uh! That's great! Than we can stay in bed all day long and cuddle!"
She was so excited. It's been a while since the last time they had a whole day for themselves. Her worried expression changed into a joyful. In her mind she already planned out their day in bed – as if she would leave it, when she didn't have to! Happily she leant against him, taking his hand in hers and started to give it a little massage, while fantasying about all the things they could do tomorrow. The only thing Hakuryuu could thought of doing in bed was sleeping, but apparently one could also do a lot of other stuff. On the other hand, sleeping all day long didn't sound that bad. Actually it sounded very nice. Without noticing it Hakuryuu's eyes had fallen shut. He wasn't asleep, for this his body still hurt too much from the slowly fading stiffness. The soft lips of his wife on his own lips made him open his eyes again.
"Let's go to bed. I don't want you to fall asleep here and are drowning. Also it is warm in our bed and more comfortable."
Since there was no reason to reject her suggestion – he wasn't too relaxed, but it was better than before the bath, so it was better to leave now before he really fell asleep –, they got out of the bath and into their bed. However, they would not immediately lay down and sleep, although Hakuryuu was about to do exactly that. First of all his wife insisted on making his hair, so it would not look like a bird's nest in the morning. Afterwards it was his turn to do hers. She simply loved it, when he made her hair, so he always had to do it in the morning and before they went to bed. In return she would also make his. Sometimes she would try out a few new things with his hair, but in the end they never really changed his hairstyle, because Hakuryuu did not really care and his wife loved his hairstyle the way it was.
"Lay down", she gently ordered him.
Without complains he did what she said. Honestly, this was also what he wanted to do all the time. Lay down in his comfortable bed and sleep. Although she didn't say anything about sleeping, he would probably do so, because he was so tired. Her plan was to give him a massage to get rid of the last bit of stiffness inside him, so he could rest well tonight. And indeed her little massage helped him a lot to relax. He could feel the softness of his bed, smell the nice scent of mandarins and feel the warm hands of his wife on his skin. Slowly but steadily he drifted into the land of dreams.
"I love you", he whispered as his wife stealthy place a gentle kiss on his shoulder.
