Disclaimer: I own very little.

A/N: Once upon a time, there was a game called konomicomplex. While it's dead, my Kabaji-muse refuses to die. So, here's a little crack featuring him and his rather... unconventional... little family.

Princess Princess

While it might have definitely been true that Atobe Keigo was in need of an heir, the sole owner of a mighty business empire as he was after his father's death, he was most certainly not in want of one. He quite enjoyed his free lifestyle without any binds save those of his business, and without living parents to pressure him and equipped with the typical belief of young people in his own immortality there was little that could have forced him to consider offspring. Accidents weren't exactly a possibility, either, not when the most intimate he ever got with a woman was when posing for the paparazzi next to his starlet of the week.

Atobe was rich and young and mostly single, and nothing could have interested him less than children, and then he found Kabaji again.

He hadn't heard of Kabaji since years ago when he had left everything behind to take over his father's business; and now Kabaji was there, the security expert he'd hired to ensure the safety of his party guests was Kabaji, and it was just like four years ago but it wasn't. Kabaji wasn't as quiet, for one thing, he'd had to learn to speak for himself in lack of Atobe, and – and he was lacking Atobe. Just like Atobe had been lacking Kabaji.

After the mutual apologies they talked further, and Atobe found that unlike himself, Kabaji had a woman in his life; a very charming, six-year-old woman he'd last seen as a toddler, when she'd still been Kabaji's niece. After four years, and various mishaps in the life of Kabaji's sister, Kabaji Sachiko knew only one parent, one who'd once been his uncle.

Though Kabaji's family was wealthy – how otherwise could he have been a childhood friend of Atobe's? – he refused to accept a single yen from his parents; working in the security field, Kabaji worked hard to support himself and his little daughter. None of this surprised Atobe; however, when he discovered Sachiko was attending simply the closest – and cheapest – private school, he was devastated. No child of Kabaji's could do less than Hyoutei, he announced, hiring his friend on the spot – though he probably would have anyway, if only to have Kabaji back in his life.

Having Kabaji back, though, now meant also having Sachiko, and while Atobe wanted no children of his own he quickly discovered this didn't mean he disliked them. Sachiko was a pretty little girl, her character a beautiful mix of some of Kabaji's most endearing traits as well as pride and decisiveness that reminded Atobe of himself, and it wasn't long before she became Sachiko-hime, the benevolent little ruler of two grown men.

Atobe now had all the rights of parenting with hardly any of the duties, free to come and go as he pleased yet always finding a ready ear for a bedtime story and an innocent hug to relieve him after a long day of work. He took Sachiko's extra-curricular education upon himself, not because he found Kabaji incapable of it but because he quite enjoyed it, and Sachiko learnt French and studied Shakespeare just as happily as she asked for a cookie or demanded to be picked up. Playing the piano was hardly her forte, but she did try, and if Kabaji sometimes found them both asleep curled up on the couch he never said anything, just smiled.

Atobe paid for Sachiko's Hyoutei tuition, and Kabaji made sure she brushed her teeth in the morning, and if Atobe walked her to school on the first day it was only so her schoolmates would know just who was the rightful queen of the school now because Sachiko-hime deserved no less.

He still had lovers as he pleased and made sure to appear publicly with various women to keep up his playboy image – much preferable to being publicly outed as gay – but as he sat in the plane on the way back from Europe, or was struggling through yet another exhausting social gathering, all he thought of was getting home. Home was, in his wistful imaginations, not in his own large and luxurious and quiet and empty apartment; coming home was hearing two happy voices and giving a treat to Sachiko-hime and getting a smile from Kabaji as he sank on the couch, a little girl immediately crawling up to him and demanding that he read to her. He wasn't sure when such a transition had happened, nor was he sure he minded at all.

At some point Kabaji found it a good idea to move into a bigger apartment, Atobe's improvements to his pay check making it very much possible, and a guest room was prepared according to Atobe's tastes as the fold-out couch was hardly that comfortable. Atobe helped Sachiko in decorating her room in the new apartment, and insisted on doing the same for the guest room since it was essentially his anyway, and soon the only times he stayed the night in his official address were when he had a lover over.

Of course, nothing can escape the tabloids for too long, and one day Atobe found himself informed that he was openly living with his gay lover and raising a child together. As the tabloid had actually pictures to back up their claim – the paparazzi were sometimes a curse, sometimes a blessing; this was certainly one of the former cases – every other part of the Japanese media was sure to catch on. And sure enough, suddenly his phones were ringing aside from the ones with secret numbers, and not long after people were ringing the doorbell, Atobe walking around the apartment drawing curtains in front of the windows since though this was the fourteenth floor he wouldn't put it past them to somehow get behind the window for this big a scoop.

"I'm sorry," was all Kabaji said when he understood the situation, and hugged the scared Sachiko.

"No, I am." Atobe sighed. "I knew they would find out sooner or later; this is my fault for not showing more discretion." He frowned as he saw Sachiko's fear – the few times they'd gone somewhere together had made her quite used to the paparazzi, but this level of invasion was unheard of in her experience.

"No, it's my fault. Your safety is my responsibility; I should have foreseen these circumstances." Ah, Kabaji, stubborn as ever wasn't he? And yet wrong.

"Why are all those people outside?" Sachiko asked. "I'll be late for school!"

"I'll call your school and ask them to excuse you for the day while we formulate a plan," Kabaji said soothingly. "Though I'm sure Keigo already has thought of something, haven't you, Keigo?" He looked expectantly at Atobe, who nodded in response.

"In fact, I have several plans, depending on which amount of interference we want." Atobe eyed speculatively the door out of the apartment, behind which they could very well hear all the journalists and paparazzi calling for them. "I could, for instance, call some people to… deal… with these nuisances. However, that would only delay them, and isn't suitable for a permanent solution." Looking back at Kabaji, he continued, "Or we could fabricate a story – for example, my life has been threatened, and thus I am staying close to you, my personal bodyguard."

"You're in danger?" Sachiko's dark eyes flew wide. "Keigo! Don't worry, Daddy'll keep you safe!" She looked quite determined about this claim, confident in her Daddy's abilities.

"No, I'm not in danger, Sachiko-hime," Atobe said in an attempt to calm her. "I was merely… telling a story, you see. The only ones who are any danger around here are those bloodhounds out there." He glared at the door.

"But why?" Sachiko ran up to hug Atobe's legs, looking up at him. "We haven't done anything wrong, have we? Why won't they let us go out?"

"Because they think silly things," Atobe replied, petting her soft black hair. "They think Daddy and Keigo love each other."

"But you do!" Sachiko announced, then frowned. "…Don't you?"

"We do, dear, just not in the way those people think." Something in Kabaji's voice made Atobe look at him. There was a flicker of an expression, fleeting as ever but still visible – and incomprehensible – to Atobe. Frowning, he concentrated on his friend, trying to read whatever untold emotions were going on behind that usual mask of calmness. It was rare that he did this; Kabaji was usually very easy for him to read, so much so that he understood his friend without any need for words. Now, though, there was something guarded about Kabaji – and this disturbed Atobe. He wasn't used to not knowing everything about Kabaji. Closer, just a bit closer, soon he would know –

Atobe's eyes widened as he stared at Kabaji. Surely he had been mistaken… Seeing another minute change in Kabaji's expression, he asked, quietly, "…How long?"

Kabaji lowered his eyes. "…Always, Keigo."

"You – I – I never knew – Munehiro, I –" Kabaji, loyal Kabaji, standing beside him all this time aside from those years lost to Atobe's own mistakes, always there for him, calmly watching his never ending parade of lovers and boy toys and fake girlfriends, never saying a word, never doing anything but just… being there. Never revealing how he must have suffered. "…I'm sorry."

"No, I am." Kabaji replied seriously. "You hardly need such a thing to be added to your burdens, and least of all on a moment like this. I'm the one who should apologize."

"Like you could help your heart." Atobe smiled sadly, for a moment, before crouching down to pick Sachiko up. "Hey, Sachiko-hime? How would you feel if Keigo moved in to live with the two of you?"

Sachiko tilted her head to the side, looking somewhat confused. "…You already live with us, Keigo," she pointed out with the tone of one who mentions something blatantly obvious.

"Oh, of course. Do forgive me, princess." Atobe smiled, then looked at Kabaji. "Munehiro? How would you feel about the matter?"

Kabaji looked somewhat surprised. "Keigo, you shouldn't –"

"Oh, hush." Atobe still smiled, a smile more brilliant than any he'd worn ever since the last time Sachiko's actually managed to play a piece almost right on her piano. "You do agree it's about the time I settle down, don't you? All those girlfriends of the week are quite wearing on my reputation as a respectable businessman, if you can imagine. Or would you object to such an arrangement?"

"…Hardly."

"Great." Atobe walked up to his friend, still carrying Sachiko, and rose on tiptoe to brush a light kiss against Kabaji's lips. It was… different, somehow, from the one kiss they'd shared before, under a mistletoe back in England. Atobe dared to hope it was because this one meant something, something more than a silly custom they'd been raised into as children. "Let's give the world what they want, naa, Kabaji?"

"Usu."

The next day, every Japanese paper's – and many of those abroad – front page was taken up by some shot or another of Atobe Keigo, smiling self-assuredly as he held the hand of a little girl in a neat school uniform, a larger man standing by his side. "The Atobe family," announced the headlines, "Business prince comes out to the world!", "Most eligible bachelor taken by a man!"

Atobe read the most interesting headlines and articles that night as picked out by his secretaries, frowned at some, chuckled at some, read some aloud. As he got no response to the latest one, he glanced to his side, finding Kabaji dozing off at the other end of the couch. Smiling a bit, Atobe resolved to awaken him once he'd gone through all the headlines.

Browsing through the newspaper clippings, he came across one that made him pause. "Japanese politicians suggest possibility of gay adoption," the headline told him. Hell, sure they did when they thought there was some favour to be gained from it.

Glancing towards the door marked with pink flowers, though, behind which he knew a little girl to be fast asleep, he began to think it perhaps wasn't that ridiculous a thought at all.

After all, it was definitely true that Atobe Keigo was in need of an heir. Or an heiress.