AN: Thank you for your patience with this update. I've been kind of busy and wanted to create a good chapter for everyone reading this. I really hope you enjoy it 😊 Thank you for supporting my work.

Chapter Five – Royal Princes

Even though Kuu knew that he wanted to make sure this little girl was cared for and despite how he saw her with Kuon and how much help she had given his son, Kuu still felt awkward about bringing this girl to live with strangers. Due to this, he had decided that he was going to make sure she was cared for in a home that allowed her to be loved and provided for. The inn that belonged to the Fuwas.

That night, Kyoko was finishing up on her work before seeing Shou come and sit down in front of her, looking bored. She grinned at him, "Look" she told him, "I got all the practice problems right. How did you do?" she asked as Shou looked away.

"Did you think that he'd take you to a different home?" he grunted, "You're stupid. You shouldn't go with strangers."

Kyoko tilted her head as she watched the six-year old boy she had come to feel was her prince. She looked down thoughtfully. "Mother doesn't want me yet, but I'll make her come back if I work hard enough," she said with a voice full of optimism. "She told that man to take care of me," she told Shou wanting to keep the information of Corn's fairy kingdom secret from him.

"That's dumb. She could have said that to anyone and then you'd be in a bad place. You're stupid sometimes," Shou rolled his eyes before looking at her. "It's good that you're here," he shrugged. "Even though you don't have good toys."

Kyoko smiled again. She didn't need toys or a lot of friends, she could make games up by herself and she could think about the fairies and fairytales and use her imagination. It was good for Shou that he had his toys to play with but there was a lot more to life than toys and material objects. "I have a new friend," Kyoko said, "he gets to stay here a bit longer."

"He?" Shou asked his eyes widening, "You're my friend. I don't want some dumb boy hanging around," he grumbled and Kyoko grinned.

"He's not dumb. Maybe you can meet him some time, I'll have to ask him," she said before she checked her work again. "He helped me with this one thing," she pointed to some math homework that Kuon had told her how to do. "He's really smart."

"What's his name?" Shou asked and Kyoko smiled.

"It's Corn," she grinned.

...

….

A couple of days later, Kuu was sitting with Kuon again and was crouched down in front of him. He had managed to lift the ten year old so he was sitting on a towel at the side of the house. His physical therapist had suggested to sit on the ground and try to do some of the arm and hand stretches. Even if he couldn't move his body yet, the doctor had told them that Kuon should still be attempting to move and thinking he could do it.

"So, I want you to try to reach my hand?" Kuu said as he held his hand out. He looked at Kuon, determination in his eyes as well as patience and understanding. Kuu was supposed to have left to sort things out in the US, but he couldn't bear to leave his family like this.

"Dad…you know I…" Kuon said, his eyes still full of fear. He hated feeling that he was just this doll that people could pick up and move however they wanted. He didn't want to be a puppet for anyone.

Kuu sighed, "Just try one more time, okay?" he asked moving closer.

Kuon looked down before sighing, he tried to reach out to his dad but he couldn't, what the two of them did notice was that Kuon had been able to move his hand very slightly as well as create a five angle degree bend with his elbow. "D-Dad," Kuon said shakily and Kuu smiled.

"That's great, that's really great," Kuu said as he kissed his ten-year-old son on the top of his head. "You're so amazing, Kuon," he tried to encourage him before Kuon nodded. He looked over to where his mother was watching the wo of them. "Julie!" Kuu called and he waved her over.

Julie slipped on her sandals and came over to her husband and son.

Kuon looked up at her guiltily, "It's not much," he said as she squatted down in front of him. She looked closely at how he had been able to make slight movement in his arm and wrist and tears came to her eyes. She tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand, but her joy at seeing her son working so hard overwhelmed her. She pulled Kuon in for a hug.

"That's incredible, you've worked so hard," she said overjoyed by the fact that her son was getting better. "We love you so much," Julie said as she kissed him again. "I think you're going to get really really strong," she said, "See, things will get back to normal and you're such an inspiration and hard worker Kuon that you'll be back to reading books and playing those video games before you know it."

Kuon smiled, glad that his parents were able to help him feel better about what he was training his body to do rather than what he had lost. "Mom, I'm ready for lunch soon," he told her and Julie nodded. "Can you help me back to my chair?"

Julie nodded. The doctor had told her how she might be a bit overwhelming for Kuon if she kept acting like the overprotective mother she was, so they had come up with a system that Kuon was supposed to ask before she did anything for him. They were supposed to communicate about it so that Kuon still felt as much independence as he could.

Julie managed to pick him up and then go over to his wheelchair which had a device where he could move himself around by breathing certain directions. It wasn't without its flaws but it allowed him to do a little bit more than he could do before. She set him in the chair and then looked over at her husband. "Did you want to cook?" she asked him as Kuu nodded.

"Did you want to have it liquified again?" Kuu asked as Kuon closed his eyes.

"I can…eat the solid food," Kuon said trying hard to be accepting of his condition. "Maybe Mom can use a spoon?"

"Of course, darling," Julie said as she kissed Kuon again. She sat opposite him and then had an idea. Going over to a box that they had bought to keep things for Kuon in whilst he was outside, she picked up a small stand and then some books. "Did you want to read one of these today?" she asked. She knew that Kuon couldn't turn the pages, but they had found some larger print books which were easy to read from where he had to sit and she would turn the pages for him when he asked.

Kuon nodded, "The one about birds?" he requested as Julie pulled that out and then got herself a fashion magazine that she could read. She could never concentrate on these magazines, but they gave her a way to pretend that she could take her attention away from her son whilst he read. "I think I was at that page about parrots," he reminded her although Julie had put a bookmark in it for him.

"Okay, here we go," she smiled as she turned to the correct page. "I love sitting here in the sun with the shade of the trees reading. It's a great hobby," she said before concentrating on the new fashion designs in Europe.

As the two of them read, they didn't notice that the young girl who always popped out from nowhere, was back in the yard again. It was Kuon who looked up first, hearing some shuffling and he smiled as he saw Kyoko there. His smile slipped a little as he noticed that a small boy was following her. He looked down, this must have been her prince Shou that she talked about so often.

He had no idea why he felt weird about this, aside from the discomfort that comes from meeting new people when one is not at the peak of their health, but he knew that this boy was very important to his friend. "Hey," he smiled as Kyoko giggled and dashed over to him.

"Hi, Corn!" she said before doing a cute curtsey, "Hello Mrs Fairy Queen," she smiled and Julie placed a hand on Kuon's shoulder protectively.

"Hello, Kyoko-chan," Julie smiled to her, "It's good to see you and this must be a friend of yours," she said and Kyoko nodded. Shou had crossed his arms and was looking away from everyone as if this was a huge bother on him to be there.

"Yeah! This is Shou" she gestured. "Shou, this is Corn and his mother," she said as Shou looked up at Kuon and then frowned.

"Why is he broken?" Shou asked as Julie stiffened. She wanted to wrap her arms around her son but she knew that that might embarrass him. She had to take a quick inhale then exhale to remind herself that this boy was just little and ignorant about the world. He probably didn't mean any harm in what he had just said.

"Corn got hurt and now he has to heal," Kyoko said trying to not mention the fairy kingdom or the curse or anything like that. "Corn's working really hard to get better."

"Well he looks broke," Shou muttered as Kyoko saw the ten-year-old seem to retreat inside himself a little. She now regretted bringing Shou along. She had thought it would be fun for the three of them to play together, she hadn't thought that her prince Shou would say mean things and insult Corn.

"Kyoko-chan, I'm glad that I got to meet your friend," he tried to smile and Julie could tell that he was trying his best to act and to not hurt the little girl's feelings. This was the nice person that her son was, even though he was hurting he was still doing his best to help protect the feelings of a little girl.

"Why don't I go check on your father?" Julie said to Kuon before leaving, she wanted to let Kuu know that Kyoko and her friend were there as well.

Kyoko nodded happily and then tried to take a look at the book that Kuon was reading. "Wow," she pointed at the different birds on the page. "I guess they don't have many of the birds from where you come from," she said, "you like birds, don't you, Corn?"

Kuon nodded and was about to respond when he heard Shou speak.

"I don't wanna be here, Kyoko. It sucks here. Birds are boring and your friend is stupid and broken," he said as Kuon closed his eyes. It was best to just let little kids be especially when they were acting like brats. At least Kyoko seemed interested in the book that he had.

"Maybe we should go…I just wanted to say hi to Corn, I'm sorry Shou," she tried to apologize before Shou got up onto the seat that Julie was just on.

"I don't like Kyoko to have broken friends. I'm her friend," Shou said before Kuon paused and opened his mouth to speak. However, due to his inabilities, he was unable to protect himself when Shou shoved him from the wheelchair and onto the floor.

Kyoko's eyes widened as she saw that Kuon was in pain but didn't want to show it. She turned back to Shou with a look that asked 'How could you?'

….

….

AN2: Thank you everyone who has been supporting this fic, I have personally been so thrilled by how many people like this fic, it really means a lot to me. Special shout outs to:

Ashenvale, Aynari20, brennakai, Darushii, Dream Idol, Felicity Dream, Fire1, Guest (x3), JazminSS, Julie, ktoll9, Mainaru974, monkey kix ass, paedirt, Sara (x2), Shadowheart, strawrawbaby, unicornforcewinds, YukiYuri13, Yuri : all of whom reviewed the previous chapter 😊 Thank you so much!

And now a little more egobrag

A New Fic of Mine

I know that everyone likes particular fics and particular storylines, but I just wanted to take a moment and talk about a new Skip Beat fic that I've been writing because I'm super excited about it and I feel that the small summary space isn't big enough.

The Cold Body of the Law

Kyoko is relentlessly stalked by a man who claims to be in love with her. Due to this, Kuon gets extra protective of her which leads for Kyoko to try to escape to have a little time for herself. However, this is the time when the stalker finds her and Kyoko is part of a rape. Kuon tries to protect her but is killed whilst trying to do this.

However, since he died of a heroic act, Kuon is brought back into an identity and body created just for him. He is now Takeshi Chiba, both a legacy and a prodigy in the legal world who is physically unable to say who he was in his past. With Kuu's help, he is able to maneuver it to get close to Kyoko again by being the lawyer on the Kuon Hizuri case. Will Kyoko recognize him through actions or will Kuon have to try as Takeshi to win her affections all over again.

This is all juxtaposed with flashbacks of the early part of the Kuon-Kyoko relationship.

I really hope that I've interested at least one person enough to check this new fic out.