Sorry guys, this chapter is kind of a filler chapter, I'm hesitant to start writing the last few chapters and quite frankly SaiMono isn't doing it for me at the moment, I've gone and secluded myself in Skip Beat again. BUT I will try and write some more soon.

This chapter is mainly going to be Kibou-centric since lately it's been all about Ryuuki so it's about time Kibou became the main again. I'm not going to write another Shuurei-centric chapter since she's not all that necessary to this part of my fanfic and she already gets enough face time being the main character of the real series.

I only realized this when I uploaded this chapter, but this chapter and chapter 4 have the EXACT amount of words as each other (minus this line).

~ENJOY

Despite the fact that Kibou made it blatantly obvious that he didn't want him around, Ryuuki seemed to follow him wherever he went. Countless times Kibou had insulted his father and told him to go away – usually involving rude words he had picked up from the older kids at the school he used to attend – but his father was never fazed by these attempts and still refused to leave.

One of the only things that could get him to leave was to say that "Mama was looking for him" but since it had been used quite a few times already, Ryuuki was beginning to catch on and the line was therefore hindered useless. The line by far the most efficient was "Oh look, there's uncle Reishin!" this line always seemed to get Ryuuki running for the hills and although Kibou didn't know the reasoning behind it, he honestly didn't care so long as it did its job.

But today was different, today Kibou didn't run away from his father; instead he actually went to him rather than brush him off. So of course when Ryuuki was visited by his beloved son he was shocked.

"Kibou," Ryuuki's lips turned up in a grin. "Did you come to see me?"

At this Kibou's cheeks turned dark red and his eyes darted around the room but never once looking at Ryuuki. "Of course not!" He sharply denied. "It's just cold in the archives and I know it's warming in the main buildings because of the vents and furnace." He quickly lied. "There's no way that I'd come on my own accord just to see you, don't get cocky." He huffed and plonked himself lazily next to the window, his book open and he started reading.

Ryuuki just watched Kibou for a few minutes but when his lingering eyes began to make Kibou squirm he snapped at his father. "Get back to work old man."

"Hey, I'm not old! I'll have you know I'm still in my twenties." Ryuuki said trying to stand up for himself. Kibou just stuck his tongue out in disagreement.

A little while later Shuurei came in with manjuu buns for Ryuuki. "Kibou? Why are you here?" She then had a slight smirk on her face. "Did you come to see papa?"

"Of course not! No way in hell would I do that!" Kibou shot at her but this only make her giggle.

She smoothly walked over to Ryuuki and placed the plate of manjuus in front of him getting very close in the process. "Y'know, he indirectly admitted you were his papa there."

Ryuuki shone with happiness there and grinned at Kibou, he stood up and his arms were held wide open but before he could get any closer to Kibou, he yelled at him. "Don't you dare come over here! If you do I swear I'll jump out this window right now and run to the archives." Kibou edged backwards until his back was flat against the window pane.

Ryuuki sulked and collapsed back into his chair. Shuurei was still next to him so she leant down close to him so their faces were only centimetres apart and her breath tickled his ear. "You're doing a lot better than I thought you would, good work." She kissed him lightly on the cheek and left the room quietly.

Ryuuki could stop grinning.

Palace life was lonely, Kibou could definitely say that. Even with the constant buggering from Ryuuki there were times when he was alone. Shuurei was often busy herself still fully loving the work of a government official she was helping with odd jobs, Seiran had joined the imperial army and was off on missions a lot and Shouka had his own work to do.

And that's how Kibou found himself alone in the middle of a large grassy patch of the garden.

Bored.

He sighed and collapsed onto the soft grass arms and legs spread wide, this area had very little trees so the dead leaves that scattered the ground were far out of reach. He watched the grey clouds move slowly through the sky and wondered when the first snow would arrive. That's when his vision suddenly became blocked.

"Who're youse?" A girl said with a heavy country bumpkin accent. Her hair was a rusty red colour and tied into braids on each side of her head.

"He looks kinda fancy, might be a fairy or something." Another girl said, this girl was slightly older than the previous and her blonde hair was cut short and straight just below her ears.

"Like a fairy would be here." This girl was the oldest out of the three, she looked about fifteen or so, she leant over Kibou peering into his eyes scrutinisingly. Kibou sunk into the grass edgily trying to move away from her. Kibou's defence mechanism switched on and he swung his foot kicking the girl's legs out from underneath her. He quickly hopped up but before he could run away she had grabbed him by his collar.

"Ya little brat, you dare kick me?" She glared angrily. "Since you've hurt me it's going to affect my work performance, you can help me out can't you, brat?" She moved in closer and her leering eyes made Kibou gulp, instinctively he nodded without thought but at least it made the girl back up.

"Yay!" Squealed the red head girl. "Finally someone as young as me works here." It was only then that Kibou realized that all three of them were wearing house maid's uniforms.

And then it struck him.

He'd just agreed to be a maid for a day.

Even though he did grow up outside of the palace he was still a part of the Kou family and as such he rarely helped with chores. He did enjoy cooking with his mother and would join her whenever possible and occasionally helped out cleaning but he'd never even held a mop before.

"What in the world is this contraption?" Kibou questioned curiously while observing a washboard.

All three girls stared at him unbelievably. "Are you serious?" Kagami, the middle one asked. "It's a washboard, you use it to wash clothes."

"Wash clothes?" The girls nodded. "With this thing?" They nodded again. Kibou just looked at them like they were speaking another language. "You're kidding me right? How in the world can you wash clothes with that?!" He started poking the board.

The girls just sighed. "Maybe he is a fairy after all." They whispered amongst themselves.

"More like a fairy prince." Chika, the red head added. At that word Kibou stiffened up, luckily they didn't notice.

Although he wouldn't admit it, he was having fun and he wouldn't want it to stop by them realizing his identity, who knows how they would treat him then.

"Alright brat, come help prepare dinner." The oldest one, Fujiko said flicking her wrist to beckon him over. At least he could handle cooking, Kibou sighed in relief, amongst all chores cooking was definitely his forte.

"Wow, you're actually pretty good." Kagami said.

"I prefer the term 'awesome'." Kibou said cockily and Fujiko hit him on the head.

"Geez brat, don't get cocky just because you're a little good in the kitchen, do remember you didn't even know how to use a mop before this morning." Fujiko teased.

"Bitch." Kibou muttered under his breath.

Fujiko twitched. "What was that ya little brat?!" She yelled and bashed him with a spoon.

"Oowie." Even though Kibou was bruised all over from Fujiko's rough hits and covered in flour and other food he couldn't stop laughing, it was like he had three sisters now and he was really enjoying their time together. Maybe palace life could be good after all.

"Your Highness?!" A maid's loud was heard from the hallway and instantly Kibou turned back to the soup he was making hoping that she wouldn't notice him. "Prince?!" Her voice was heard again and Kibou's stiffened when he realized she was getting closer.

"Ah, that's right. I heard all those rumours about the new prince." Kagami said.

"Yeah, me too, apparently he's the emperor's illegitimate child."

"I heard he made a ruckus in court. He sounds pretty silly; I want to meet 'm now." Chika added enthusiastically.

"Prince! I finally found you." Everyone in the room turned towards the maid who had just entered. She hastily made her way over to Kibou and grabbed his arm, snatching him away from the pot he was stirring. "What are you doing your highness? Cooking? Please leave that to the maids, there's no need to bother yourself with such a job." She began to pull him away. "My goodness you're filthy, we'll fix that soon enough but your father's been worried sick so hurry along now."

Kibou took one look at the three girl's shocked faces before being dragged away by the maid.

"Holy crap."

"That was..."

"Did we just..."

The three of them just looked at each other.

"Oh my god, I just called the prince a brat!"

"Kibou!" As soon as he heard his father's voice he winced preparing for the onslaught of questions that his father surely had, but he was met with silence when they met. Surely something was wrong so he looked up to his father's face. He was smiling. "Did you have fun? I want to hear all about today." Ryuuki said calmly.

Kibou was shocked, Ryuuki had respected his own decisions and that made Kibou incredibly happy. He smiled back at his father.

"Hey, idiot,"

"Hmm?"

Kibou almost laughed when Ryuuki actually responded to that. "Do you know how to use a washboard?"

"A what?"

"Exactly."

Because of the previous day's events of being a temporary maid, Kibou had the urge to sneak out on classes again and maybe go further than just hanging around the maids for a day.

He wanted to go outside the palace.

But of course he knew he needed a partner, someone strong in case they met any danger and also laid back enough to allow him to leave.

One person came to mind

"Hey, jerk-of-a-father," Ryuuki's head popped up, once again stupidly responding to such a name. "Wanna go out?"

"Thanks but I've already got Shuurei and you're my son."

"Eew, not that way, you're sick. I mean go outside the palace for fun."

Ryuuki contemplated that. "I don't think we'll be allowed."

"That's why we won't tell anyone."

Ryuuki smirked. "I like the sound of that."

"Thought you would, now hurry up." Kibou hurried waving his hands.

In a few minutes Ryuuki had managed to change out of his usual emperor clothes and into something more comfortable and 'commoner looking' even if it was more expensive than an average person's clothes. A few minutes after that they had managed to sneak out past the guards and were walking through one of the shopping districts in the city.

"You know, when I first met your mother she took me out to this same place too." Ryuuki said softly amongst all the chatter and noise of the stalls but Kibou could hear him, he looked up interested. Ryuuki smiled. "She made me work at an accessory shop and sell hair pins to women who found me attractive," Ryuuki laughed at the thought. "and that was a lot of women." He laughed even louder at his own joke and Kibou couldn't help but laugh too albeit only shortly.

Ryuuki was shocked and stopped walking.

"What?"

He grinned. "You laughed! I finally heard you laugh!"

Kibou blushed. "Geez, don't get so excited over something like that."

Suddenly a small ball rolled over to Kibou's foot. It was small, about the size of a child's fist and made from knitting. Kibou picked it up.

"Hey, over here!"

Kibou turned around in the direction of the voice. A few teenage boys were waving frantically and grinning at Kibou. He envied them, their lives were so free and peaceful, and Kibou would love to have joined them.

"Pass it over here." One of the boys yelled.

Kibou looked blankly at them and Ryuuki had to nudge him to get him out of his trance. "Go on, join in." Kibou smiled and threw the ball back in a large swing.

The ball only got halfway to where the boys where and rolled a further distance. One of the boys went to pick it up and continued on to Kibou.

"Nice throw there, kid." He laughed and Kibou pouted. "Here," the boy bent down, he was in his late teens so was a lot taller than Kibou. "Bend you arm like this and use your other arm to point in the direction you want to throw to, then swing your arm forward and let go at the end." He demonstrated.

Kibou began to practice without the ball and when the boy gave him a thumbs up he threw the ball with all his might over to the group of boys, this time it made its way there and one of them caught it.

"Good job kid." The boy rustled his hair. "Wanna come join us? If your papa will let us that is?" He looked up at Ryuuki who nodded. "Or papa could play too." He grinned and grabbed both their wrists, dragging them along to his group.

They played until the sun went down and exhausted, Kibou had to get carried by Ryuuki home.

He wondered how the group of boys would react if they knew that they just played catch with the emperor and a prince.

Kibou let the thought escape his head as he slowly became sleepier as the minutes went by.

"Hey father?" Ryuuki didn't answer but Kibou knew he acknowledged him. "Do you think we'll ever see them again?"

Ryuuki hesitated before answering truthfully. "Probably not."

Kibou smiled sadly. "Thought that'd be the case." He said before giving in to the tiredness that overcame him and he fell asleep in his father's arms.

Luckily for him he was unconscious for the massive lecture they got when they returned to the palace.

The next day Kibou went out to look for the three maids he met the other day to thank them, he searched around asking for them and finally found them in the late morning. When they saw him they were shocked, and unlike their first encounter they quickly bowed to him when he got close, this made him frown for a split second before smiling again.

"I just wanted to say thank you for your company the other day, I really enjoyed it and hope we could do it again sometime that is, if you're not too bothered now that you know who I am."

"I'm so sorry your highness!" Fujiko yelled out suddenly. "I called you a brat! I'm sorry."

Kibou frowned. "You didn't seem to hesitate at all before you knew who I am but now you're speaking to me so formally." Fujiko and Kagami shivered. Kibou smiled though and she eased up. "I really enjoyed it when you didn't know who I was, if it's possible I'd like to return to that way, will you do that for me?"

The girls hesitated. "We'd like to your highness but that would be incredibly rude, my apologies."

Kibou drew his eyebrows together sadly. "I see..." He turned around. "Goodbye then." He said and walked off, leaving his 'normal' palace life behind.

What was he kidding, palace life would never be normal.

Sorry about the shitty chapter. I know where I want this fanfic to end but I need to lead up to that and I'm a bit scared to start that so instead of building up the story line I decide just to add in this extra bit a crap and thicken up the story.

Hope you enjoyed it anyway.

Please review if you want the girls to appear again.

Remember the review button is your friend.