it is with a heavy heart that i admit that the exclusive rights to La Corda D'Oro and all related merchandise belong to their respective owners, and i'm not one of them unfortunately.
:3
"And so..." the proud father continued thoughtfully as he picked the bundled-up girl by the waist and spilled her in the air. "...and so, the priest will ask, 'Do you, Kasumi, take this man to be your husband?"
The little green-haired girl giggled at her father's 'priest' voice. She always found it funny when he tried to be serious—his eyes always twinkled no matter how hard he concentrated to look the stuffy part.
"Then what will I say, Daddy?" she asked innocently, her eyes full of childish wonder.
"Ah, my little Kasumi, you will shake your head and say, 'No! I will only be with my Daddy!'"
He settled his daughter between his shoulder blades, his hands carefully gripping her ankles to keep her from falling off. Father and daughter had gone off to watch a school production, and were well on their way home. Kasumi had thrown her hands up in the air while Kazuki jogged, and the laughter continued, echoing through the snow-covered park.
Once Kasumi's giggling had settled down, she whispered, "I asked Mommy and she said to say 'yes.' Why does Daddy want me to say 'no?'"
A smile shone brightly on Kazuki's face. "We'll see, if he's a good boy and loves you as much as your Daddy does, I might let you say yes, but until then! No boys! Not until you're, hmm, fifty!"
A small amount of snow found its way into Kazuki's nose, and his daughter wiped it away with the sleeve of her jacket with a giggle.
"Ten!"
"Oh, so we're negotiating now?" he loosened his grip and lowered his Kasumi to the ground just to quickly pick her up before her feet could skim the floor. "Forty!"
"Daddy's not even forty yet," the girl soon wiggled out of her father's grip to run a few feet away. "I wanna see boys when Daddy started," she announced proudly, but mocked him in a way only her and her mother could.
Her defeated father collapsed in the snow. He whined and flailed a bit, and Kasumi ran over to sit on him as if claiming victory.
"And my boyfriend..." she trailed off, and Kazuki felt a stab of fear. 'His daughter of eight years already knows the word 'boyfriend?' It hadn't occurred to him until now just why she kept on asking questions about weddings and marriages and relationships and stuff! He cringed inwardly and narrowed his eyes. No more weekend late-night television sessions for Kasumi. Hmf.
"...my boyfriend will be more handsome than Daddy too!" she exclaimed, and another whine came from the trumpet-player. He rolled on the snow-capped ground, glared a bit at his daughter and said in a pained voice, "No one's better-looking than your Daddy, you said so yourself!"
"But Shouta-kun is really good-looking, isn't he, Daddy? And he has purple hair. How cool is that?"
Hihara Kazuki by now was close to tears.
"S-Shouta?" he managed to stutter.
"Yes! And..." she paused to think for a moment, triumphant at having scored against him. Then she thought of the perfect thing to set her Daddy off. "We'll have tons of kids!"
The time it took for Hihara Kazuki to scoop his child off the ground, sprint home, and almost convince Kahoko as he spluttered hysterics with a pathetic, panic-induced voice that their daughter should be home-schooled was a true record-breaker. Several miles away, a little purple-haired boy sneezed. It wasn't a big sneeze—just a small, quick one from the dust that lifted from the piano as he started his lesson. He took a glance at one of his father's high school pictures—the one with five boys and two girls and a familiar lavender-haired teacher. Seiso. He focused on his scores and smiled faintly as he began to play. Five more years.
:3
