Title: Peerless

Author: sllebswap

Characters/Pairing: Kobayashi Rindou and Tsukasa Eishi

Type: OneShot/Drabble Collection (InComplete)

Genre: Romance/General/Humor

Word Count: 4134

Rating: T (Contains content not suitable for children)

Disclaimer: Shokugeki no Souma belongs to Tsukuda-san.

Summary: To be peerless is to be unrivalled. Standing at the highest peak, unchallenged and without equal. To be peerless is to endure; the pressure of the world clamoring at your feet, the stark bite of loneliness clawing at your back. …Or is it always?

Loosely interconnected one-shots/drabbles exploring the curious relationship between Tsukasa Eishi and Kobayashi Rindou. Updates may not be in chronological order.

Verse: Canon Divergent AU

Chapter Last Revised on: 18/12/17

Oh my baby

She was still asleep when he roused.

Curled up snugly against him, her head resting against his chest, she was blissfully lost in slumber. Maybe pregnancy was physically exhausting, and he would not be surprised if that was indeed so. She was slowly growing an entire human within her right now, and just the very thought filled him with quiet awe and amazement. Now that he had some decent rest overnight, his mind was so much clearer, and with it, he could think.

Even though he had only just woken up, Eishi was already thinking, a lot.

His hand slowly, carefully drifted over to her stomach, his touch feather light, eventually coming to a rest over her clothed middle. To his mute surprise, she was already showing signs of a little bump there. It wasn't very obvious yet, but now that he was seeking it out deliberately, he could feel it all the same. There was a child nestled in there, and a tender sort of wonder trickled into him. Their child. Struck by an intense curiosity, he slipped his hand beneath her nightshirt and carefully roved his large, warm palm over the bare skin of her belly, his fingers gently stroking her smooth flesh, even as his other arm tightened minutely around her shoulders and he shifted her closer.

The life that he knew was changing again, but then, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

He was quiet and introspective just lying there in the early morning, tangled with her during that time where the soft, pastel rays of the rising sun slowly peeking through the windows were still fuzzy and mellow, easily reflecting his current mood. There were many things clamoring for his attention and waiting for him to deal with but at the moment he was reluctant to move and shatter this peace.

It was a while later when Rindou started to stir. As always, she willfully resisted the call of wakefulness at first, a small furrow growing between her brows and her nose wrinkling even in rousing slumber, her eyes squeezing shut as if in a reluctant grimace. She burrowed her face into his shoulder, mumbling unintelligibly as she tried her hardest to sink back into sleep, only to give it up eventually for a lost cause.

Her eyes drifted open, dreamy gold irises slowly sharpening to lucid awareness, and she yawned languidly, flashing curling pink tongue and white fangs. She was still in a daze, and had no compunction against burying her face into the side of his throat, absently, sleepily, kissing his warm skin, and he could feel her long eyelashes brushing against his neck as she slipped them close once more.

"…Mornin'…"

"…Morning."

It took her awhile more to realize where he had placed his hand, or rather, she was soothed by his absently rubbing her stomach. She eventually lifted her head to look at him, fire engine hair tousled and mussed, her bright exotic gaze wordlessly querying. But he was the one who spoke first.

"…How long have you known?"

She paused at his question. She wasn't surprised that he had already more or less guessed, judging by her level of calmness, that she had kept this information to herself for a while already.

"A month…or so…?" She shrugged at the look that he gave her in response, silently asking why she hadn't informed him right away. "I would have told sooner, but the timing was never quite right."

He thought of her constant good mood and how she had seemed to be in such high spirits lately…so this was the reason why.

"…You're truly okay about this?"

She raised a brow.

"Yes~" she chirped, voice still husky from sleep, but there was no lie, no hesitation, not one ounce of doubt in her reply. She was glowing with happiness. This child, no matter the accidental circumstances of its conception, was very much wanted. Their child, no matter the accidental circumstances of its conception, would be utterly loved and cherished.

She glanced askance at him, her gaze clear and forthright, neither judgmental nor filled with any sort of expectation of him, just wanting to hear his thoughts. "You're not okay about this?"

He shook his head immediately.

"No- I mean yes. Yes. I'm okay." He moved his hand from her middle and slowly snaked his arms around her instead, pulling her into his embrace, as if instinctively seeking to quell her concerns with his presence. "Well, maybe not yet as okay as I'll be after all the shock wears off, because this is really sudden and I just never actually thought-" He abruptly broke off his flustered rambling and exhaled loudly. Clearly, the poor man was still having some trouble wrapping his head fully around the idea of impending parenthood.

He was going to be a father.

"I'm happy," he croaked in a quick, hoarse burst, his face buried in the subtle, familiar perfume of her hair, his tone a fervent and earnest rush by her ear. At this point, it seemed more like he was drawing strength and composure from her than the other way around. "But I'm also worried – what if we mess up? We're hardly prepared-" That hilariously gobsmacked look crept over his face again…which was also starting to grey due to god knew what worst case scenarios he was running in that head of his now. He clutched her tighter, instinctively.

She huffed at his reaction, not entirely surprised by his honest caution but feeling oddly pleased all the same. These days, he only ever still panicked about all the things that mattered most to him. His bewildered delight was incredibly reassuring, and the steady, warm thrum of his growing enthusiasm and dazed elation cosseted her like the softest, coziest duvet. That full, heavy feeling of radiant contentment in her chest swelled even more and bubbled to the surface, close to overflowing. She could not help but snuggle into him more, her senses happily unfurling, even as she offered her comment.

"Oh pooh, we're never gonna be prepared enough if we leave it up to you, Tsukasa." Now it was her turn to free up a hand from their tangled limbs to pat him haphazardly on the shoulder, her turn to offer reassurance. "We'll be fine. Everything will work out. People all over the world have kids all the time – we'll just figure it out along the way too~"

He pulled back slightly and frowned at her, perplexed. She was always so relaxed and nonchalant even when facing all these important crossroads in their lives – sometimes he wished that he was as graceful under pressure as she was.

"How many months along are you now?" he asked, abruptly struck with the intense need to know as much as he could about this little being that was both his and hers. He wanted to learn as much as possible about this tiny new life, to do his part to support his child whom he hadn't even seen yet and had just only recently learned of its existence but was already resolving to protect and nurture to the best of his ability. As of now, he felt like he was stumbling around completely blind in the dark, but the white-haired man was determined to fix that oversight as quickly as possible.

Suddenly, he could not seem to stop the outflow of questions pouring out from him.

"What else did the doctor say? Do you need to have anything special added to your diet? When's your next appointment? What about your work? Will you be taking a hiatus? Does your parents know-"

He turned a shade paler at the thought of having to face her boisterous family now with the knowledge that he had gotten their precious only daughter with child and yet to be married- and then he turned even whiter altogether at the thought of having to repeat the same announcement to his own parents. Oh god.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa-" she interrupted him before he could barrel on and possibly start to hyperventilate in the process. She disentangled from him and sat up, a lithe clamber of pale shapely limbs and long red hair amongst a comfortable nest of bedsheets and duvets. "Breathe, Tsukasa! If you pass out on me again, I'm gonna put a sharpie to good use on your face!" He was still very distracted, and so at last, she leaned over him and clapped her hands on both sides of his face, and the sharp crack snapped him out of his derailing thoughts.

His eyes focused on her.

"Slow down. Why are you thinking so far ahead all of a sudden?" Her soft palms cradled his cheeks, now tinged a faint red with color. At least he was no longer on his way to turning purple.

"I'm fine. Baby and I are perfectly fine and the doc has already recommended me a good obstetrician. I'm about three months along now, or so the doc says. I'll obviously need to make some adjustments to my work schedule when I start growing sideways more, but I'll deal. Last but not least, you're the only one I've told – figured that you might wanna be the first to hear 'bout this, even if it took a while for me to broach the topic."

He reached up his hands and grabbed hers, and then he sat up too, so that they were both cross legged in lotus and facing each other, close enough that their knees touched. He did not let go of her hands, but brought them down to rest on his lap instead, his larger appendages enfolding hers carefully like they were nestling a pair of little birds.

He looked at her. It seemed that she already had everything all figured out, and he could not help but feel that she already seemed entirely resolved and willing to take the brunt of all these sacrifices, with or without his support in the matter. She had always been the optimistic one out of the two of them, always seeing the positives in life and finding the silver lining in every cloud, and so very, sometimes frustratingly, independent. She was already looking forward into the future while he was still inwardly reeling from the present, and sometimes he felt like he had to grab hold of her and hang on tight or she would blithely go on ahead without him.

"I still don't get how you're being so calm and accepting right now," he muttered. Not that her panicking and being scared and uncertain would have been any better, but he did wish that he knew just where she was getting all this abundance of self-assured poise and confidence from so that he too could have some for himself.

She cocked her head at him, her gold eyes bright as she viewed his disconcerted, visibly ruffled demeanor. "Would you rather I get rid of this pregnancy?"

He stiffened immediately, and his grip on her hands tightened, the response wholly reflexive. All that uncertainty and doubt clouding his patrician, noble features disappeared in an instant. His eyes snapped to hers, lavender irises sharp.

"No."

It hadn't even been an option that he had considered, not even for a single moment. He hadn't even thought about that possibility until she had so innocuously brought it up, but now that she had, the parental instinct he hadn't even known that he possessed in him was quickly rearing its head, baring fangs, fierce and protective. He was inwardly startled by the visceral snarl of his own reaction, but that stark distaste that her suggestion evoked had just settled it all for him. His ensuing statement was clear and abrupt, leaving no room for compromise or arguments.

"…No. We're not going to do that."

However, she didn't even seem the least surprised by his response.

"Okay," was all she said to his assertive stance. "Ya know, the whole reason why I'm so calm and accepting is 'coz s'not like this is completely unexpected…."

He was briefly confused. "Huh?"

She shrugged. They were each other's firsts and onlys. She had always known that if there were ever to be children in her future, that they would be coming from him. "I sure am not gonna be having babies with anyone else but you."

She was so clear and certain about her future as well as what she felt about it that he really could not think of anything else to say. He probably was worrying too much again, but he could not help his nature, which was why she was accepting his fretting with such uncharacteristic patience and long suffering good humor.

"…And your work?" he asked again. She had given up a lot as well over the years, worked so hard to put herself out there just to get to where she was now. This pregnancy would set her back for sure, and cost her opportunities that she might have to miss due to her expecting condition. He tightened his hold on her once more, regretful on her behalf.

She blinked at him. "I can have a career and still be a mom at the same time, ya know," she pointed out, not as upset as he had expected. Her mother had successfully raised five children on top of juggling a very active, dynamic career, after all. The sterling example of her female parent was probably also why the redhead was so unfazed about this pregnancy. She came from a huge clan, and she also really didn't see why she couldn't enjoy an outstanding professional life as well as a family at the same time.

She was taking on all these sacrifices with such blithe grace that she took his breath away. It was disorienting, the speed at which how quickly everything was moving. And right in the middle of it all, was her, beaming at him, eyes twinkling with joy and mischief, one slender hand outstretched towards him, once again ready to drag him onto their next adventure.

She was disorienting, as always.

Okay. Okay. So they were going to have a baby. That was fine. That was more than fine. He had experience being responsible for hundreds of Tootsuki employees during his stint as French Division Head; in theory, surely he could take responsible for the care and wellbeing of one little human being too. He wasn't going to be alone in this endeavor – his co-parent would be there every step of the way. She kind of had to be, since their baby was entirely dependent on her right now. And there was also no way that he would let her do this alone, without him. They were just going to have to figure this out together. They were going to be parents, for better or for worse...and it was always going to be her or no one else, for the rest of their lives together.

Speaking of the rest of their lives…

"We should get married." The thought struck him suddenly, and with such surety and certainty that he quickly blurted it out without thinking.

It was her turn to look befuddled, caught off guard by the direction of his thoughts.

"Huh?"

He eyed her response cautiously, but was still bound and determined to push his intention forward. There was no hesitation here, only a decision that settled surely and firmly over his bones, because it felt completely right. He wanted to marry her. It had always been the inevitable conclusion and end game when it came to the matter of their relationship, though they had previously been in no hurry to get there yet, still so focused on building up their careers that matters like marriage and family had been shuffled to the backburner in the meantime, but hardly forgotten. They had never really discussed this part of their future together either, but as far as he was concerned, it was already implicitly understood that she was it for him- she had always been it for him. There had never been, nor would there ever was going to be, anyone else.

The news of her pregnancy had only served to bring forward these long-termed plans, but nothing had changed fundamentally. He would propose formally. He would pull out all the frills and jump through all the hoops; buy the flashiest ring and get down on one knee and ask for her hand in marriage, whatever else it was she wanted in order to say yes. He was even prepared to ask for her family's blessings as well, each and every one of the redheaded members in her boisterous clan of Kobayashi, but first of all, he wanted her to know. He wanted to say the words, finally affirming this long assumed 'probably' always floating unsaid between them and cementing it with a 'definitely.'

I want to marry you.

"Marriage. You and I."

"Now?" She still sounded unusually disconcerted, and he was starting to wonder just what was it about his proposal that she had to look so astonished about. Had she never considered marrying him at all? "Just because I got pregnant?" she asked.

That strange wariness in him increased. Just…because?

"Now's as good a time as any, right?" he responded slowly, taking his time to formulate his reply, carefully layering his defenses with perfectly sound reasons and outcomes. "It makes sense to. We're having a baby. Our families will be pleased…and it will also be easier for you, at work…and also in general."

Modern twenty first century they might be in, but social stigma still clung to unwed mothers in their conservative society. Taking his name would protect her from the potential backlash and media fallout…and her reputation was important for her work – she was a public figure, after all. Even more so than he was.

Besides, they had already been together for so long. It would be good to make things official.

Rindou just continued to stare at him, not speaking for the longest while, her expression schooling to one that was pretty much unreadable. She was making him apprehensive all over again with her prolonged, reserved silence. Before he could ask her what she was thinking, she finally responded, that solemn mien falling apart like it had never been there, carefree and lighthearted all over again.

"Eh? I don't think we need need to get married just because I'm preggers!"

What.

The startled look on his face must have been very indicative of his thought about her opinion, for she shrugged (shrugged!) at him. He was momentarily speechless.

Rindou was more than happy to take advantage of his flabbergasted response to further elaborate. "I think that we're doing pretty well as we're currently, so why try to fix something when it isn't broken?"

His mouth opened immediately as if to refute her, but then he closed it again when he could not seem to think of a strong enough reason to counter her devastatingly simple logic- at least none that she would listen to, knowing her. At last, flustered and nonplussed, he could only blurt out.

"Are you serious?"

It was a purely rhetoric question, but she nodded all the same. "Yep~! Serious as a heart attack! 'Sides, I don't think I quite mind havin' this 'lil one be a Kobayashi too!" she quipped merrily, affectionately petting her tummy at the same time. "Ya know, I've always wondered why is it the woman who does all the hard work giving birth but in the end all the credit always goes to the dad. How unfair is that?"

He was becoming considerably alarmed by her line of thinking. Not only did she sound like she was momentarily uninterested in marriage, but she did not even seem like she was going to be willing to settle down at all. He was starting to feel increasingly bewildered and disadvantaged at the moment, caught unprepared and on the back foot by her response. Marriage proposals were typically concluded by either 'yeses' or 'nos,' – he hadn't before heard of any outcomes that ended with 'why must wes?'

But the woman he loved was not someone who could be browbeaten into doing anything she did not want to. She was very spirited and she most certainly possessed a mind of her own, and capturing her was proving to be a much harder endeavor than he had originally anticipated…especially when he had always assumed that he already had her in the first place.

Turned out, that was not so true, after all…

The White Knight was trying not to feel uneasy all over again. Just a few months ago, she had abruptly upended him on his head with that drastic move of hers threatening to leave him and even now he still remained traumatized by that event. Granted, he recognized that she had been pulling out all the stops for the sake of his dreams and ambition, but the mere thought of her walking away had made his throat close up all the same.

She must have taken a good look at his face then, his rising distress and disquiet, and she squeezed his hand. Then she clambered forward and plopped onto his lap, soft and pliant and all too comfortable curled up in his arms, like she had always belonged. He could not help but emit an unhappy sound as he pulled her close, lowering his head and digging his nose into her hair. She snuggled into him, humming under her breath in a comforting, reassuring way. She wasn't going anywhere.

"Eishi. I won't marry you just because it's gonna make things easier, or just so that our families will be all the happier for it. You understand, right?" she asked him. He did not reply her, not confident of his ability to speak eloquently at the moment, and she wrapped herself even tighter around him, sighing. He was still so tense, strung taut like a bow.

But he understood clearly what she was trying to say…even if he did not appreciate it very much.

When we marry, it will be because we want to, and not for any other reason. Not for convenience. Not for other people's sakes. Not because it'd be easier.

It seemed that he had approached this at the wrong angle this time, though in the first place, when was this woman the type to follow the crowd just because everyone was doing the same thing? She often forged her own path, a trailblazer, but the choices she made and the way she went about blithely through life always ensured that she lived freely and happily, without having any regrets. It would have been easier to resent her for her unapologetically selfish refusal to compromise on her own values and whims…but how could he, when they were also amongst what he loved most about her?

At long last, after some silence, he sighed, the brittle tension between his shoulders reluctantly dissipating with that greatly put-upon heave of his shoulders. The news that she was having his baby still filled him with jittery happiness and excitement, though the rest of his pleasure was tempered by her rejection of his proposal.

And he hadn't even asked officially.

Eishi was one to be persistent, though. Unstoppable force versus immovable object. He would keep trying and trying until he wore her resistance down eventually, however long he took. She lifted her head to make of his suddenly quiet demeanor, and she must have seen that particular glint in his usually mild lavender eyes, that look that said that he wasn't giving up and she wasn't going to hear the end of this any time soon.

She huffed.

"You're so stubborn," she grumbled, though not entirely surprised. Then she emitted a startled yelp when he tightened his arms around her.

"Excuse me? Pot calling the kettle black," he mumbled back, sounding equally disgruntled. They glowered at each other for a while before Rindou suddenly snickered. He deflated like a soggy paper bag, slouching in a rather undignified manner to rest his forehead against her temple in defeat. He still wanted to be exasperated and left to stew in his upset, by of course she wouldn't allow him to do so.

"Why are you always like this…" he muttered. She petted his arm, warm and affectionate even with their disagreement. He didn't reject her either. They shared a curious dynamic with each other but it also clearly worked.

"Just think about how utterly dull your life will be without me," she quipped, grinning rather unrepentantly at him.

He raised his head a little and looked down at her, silent for the longest time.

Dull would not be the word he would use to describe a lifetime without her.

"…Yeah. I know."

::owari::

Questions That I Would Like To Answer Before You Ask:

Gah, I've been tweaking this for days and getting nowhere! Fed up and just gonna post for now!

So, this chapter continues right from where the previous one stopped. Poor Eishi; not yet married but his marital problems are only just beginning, haha.

The rest of this chapter is pretty intuitive and self-explanatory, with plenty of fluff galore! Hope you enjoyed!

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Main leads' ages in this chapter: 24 y.o.

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Your reviews make me update faster; so please leave a comment if you like this fic!

-sllebswap