A/N: Nope, I'm not dead. In a manner of speaking. School and work have just drained the life out of me, but I'm not giving up on this fic just yet and found just enough time to finish the next chapter. Really sorry about the long wait, but thank you for your patience and kind reviews as usual!
Tadashi allowed GoGo to visit the library whenever she pleased, sometimes leaving in tools or objects for her to tinker with. Before she knew it, the castle began receiving material shipments by the week and every hour there was some new contraption running amok if not blowing up parts of the castle entirely. As much as the servants wanted to complain (Wasabi the most), they dared not risk halting the relationship blossoming between them. Occasionally Prince Tadashi would pop in and they'd excitedly discuss which parts of the castle needed upgrades or what impossible thing they could make possible. As reluctant as GoGo was to admit it, it was far more convenient to live here than in her little village, where she could freely express her ideas and even carry them out without ridicule. She even had a friend, a real friend she could talk about theories and engineering and her favorite books with.
"Could you read it again?" Tadashi asked, eagerly peering at the book on the table as he scooted his seat closer.
"You already read it once," GoGo said, playfully flicking his forehead. Her finger bounced off the rubbery white skin and she reminded herself not to do it again.
"It sounds nicer when you read it."
Rolling her eyes, GoGo gently smoothed out the pages and cleared her throat. "O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell just as sweet." Her eyes flickered to Tadashi for a moment. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather read Twelfth Night?"
"Do you not like Romeo and Juliet?"
"I don't like this part in particular."
"Why ever not?"
"They're whiners," she grumbled. "And everyone for some reason keeps thinking 'Wherefore art thou Romeo' means 'Where are you, Romeo?'"
"But she's actually asking 'Why are you Romeo?'" Tadashi added.
"Exactly! She's asking why he has to be Romeo Montague and why he can't be named a non-Montague for the sake of their stupid hormone-induced relationship! Romeo is unbelievably shallow, you know."
"I like this part."
"You enjoy whining?"
"No, I just find Juliet's reasoning interesting."
"It's wishful thinking. Obviously they wouldn't have to axe themselves off if he weren't a Montague."
"I understand what she's saying, though. The title of Prince is just a title. I would still be the same if I weren't Prince Tadashi, wouldn't I?"
"I hope you realize a flower and a person - or whatever you are - are two different things," GoGo reminded him. "Of course your title affects who you are. Say you grew up on the streets. You can't afford to be a prissy nice little flower all the time. You have to toughen up, learn to get practical and survive."
"True, but Juliet isn't thinking of any of that. Just that they'd be free to marry if not for their families."
"Like you would be free to dilly dally around if you were a peasant instead of the Crown Prince?"
Tadashi didn't respond, just stared at her. For whatever reason, that perpetual blank expression irritated to GoGo to no end. What she wouldn't give to punch that plush face and rattle it until she could get some shred of emotion out of him. Well, no, she wouldn't resort to such violent manners. But it was irksome. Not just not being able to read him, but this... desolation all the time, and the fact that she could do very little about it. The irony, that he changed his body but kept his title.
"Well, then, let's switch positions. If you weren't GoGo Tomago, but instead Princess Leiko..."
She thought of herself in expensive dresses and jewelry and snorted. "Do you even know how different I'd be if I were a snooty royal?"
"Not so much. Princesses still have to be trained in politics and other areas because most of them become Queens eventually. And Queens have to run the kingdom and the household among other things when Kings leave."
For the first time, GoGo felt rather stupid. "Oh. Right." She remembered his previous complaints about hard studying and betrothals for alliances. With the weight of an entire kingdom on one's shoulders, anyone was bound to crack. "That's why you're only allowed to marry other Princesses?"
"That, and if you were to marry any villager there's no telling if they've taken advantage of you to usurp the nation's wealth, or if they were some enemy spy."
"Well, then, as Queen, I'd just fund better education for peasant schoolchildren."
"Yeah?"
"And I'd find better ways to mediate between nations, find common ground and make alliances that don't have to rely on marriages or whatever offspring trade-off you have in mind." She slapped the book. "Otherwise you end up with this stupid blood feud. Honestly."
Tadashi chuckled. "You would be a good Queen."
"Too bad about that, eh?"
"You could be if I finished my coronation and you were my wife."
GoGo nearly choked on her own spit, which Tadashi took no notice of. Who was he to speak of things like that so flippantly? "The thought sickens me."
"Of being Queen?"
"Of being your wife." She grinned to show she was joking.
"Well, wouldn't you be a delightful bride."
GoGo slammed the book shut. "Come on," she said, standing up and yanking one of his rubbery hands.
"W-what are you doing?" he asked, waddling as she led him to the door and grabbed a fleece cloak.
She ignored his questions and protests as she brought him out of the library and eventually to the front doors, which she burst open. She gazed at the world outside, resting under a coat of snow. The few healthy trees she'd grown rather fond of had turned barren, and a bitter cold nipped at her fingers. But the snowflakes drifted so delicately to the rest of the white blanket cast over the earth, she almost felt bad about what she would do to it next.
The girl attempted to throw the Prince into the snow, but when he proved much too big and heavy and merely stumbled into the snow, she stomped out in her boots and huddled to the ground.
"GoGo?" Tadashi asked, confused.
"Shh." She held up a finger to keep him from approaching before returning to her task. With freezing hands, she molded the snow into a lumpy ball and grinned mischievously at him. "Hey, Highness. Want to live like a peasant for a day?" Without waiting for a response, she hurled the snowball at him, smacking him in the head.
Tadashi tripped over his feet and plopped into the snow. As he stood up, rubbing his face, GoGo awkwardly lowered the other snowball she had prepared to throw and watched anxiously. Should she not have done that?
"You shouldn't have done that," he muttered.
"I - " Before she could get another word out, she felt a cold, icy smack in the face and nearly stumbled back like the Prince had. When she rubbed the snow off her cheek, she heard laughter.
"That was it?" he taunted.
"That was just a taste!" GoGo shouted gleefully, hastily scooping up another pile of snow.
The game went on for a few more moments, Tadashi finding himself an unfortunately easier target because of his size. GoGo was on the verge of tackling him and declaring herself victor before a small voice chirped, demanding to join.
"Hiro, really, how do you expect to play with no arms?" Wasabi asked as the little cup hopped out eagerly.
"I don't have to throw snowballs!" Hiro insisted. "I'm a master strategist! Wasabi, since you're such a sourpuss, you can join Tadashi's side."
"Hey!" Tadashi cried.
"Ooh, that sounds so fun!" Honey Lemon added. "I call the lady's side!"
"War!" Hiro declared. "War on the kingdom! War on my brethren!"
"That's French for snowball fight!" Fred hollered.
And so it became a war game of strategy and cunning, in which the castle gardens were a battlefield and the Prince and GoGo were the soldiers. Hiro easily took charge as General, GoGo his right-hand woman, and even Wasabi fully invested himself and barked commands at his troops.
"You gotta..." the little Prince whispered behind an apple tree (their base of operations), struggling to think of his next plan, "really catch him off guard!"
"What do you suggest?" GoGo whispered back.
"Urm... surprise me!"
She poked her head out and spotted Tadashi charging in their direction with a snowball in hand. With no further thought, she charged back, hollering a battle cry.
"YAAAHHH!"
Tadashi skidded to a stop just as she slammed her head into his round belly and knocked him into the snow. He lay frozen in shock and at her as she guffawed in his face, prepared to declare victory. It wasn't until he reached out and softly brushed her cloak that she stilled.
"You had snow in it," he said simply.
There was something about his tone. Sweet, almost kind. She, on the other hand, had just tackled him. The wardrobe would have definitely muttered something about "mean, course, unrefined."
"Accept... your...defeat... brother!" Hiro shouted between spurts of laughter. "I... I need to go lie down... Oh, boy."
GoGo was suddenly aware that she was sitting on the Prince and climbed off immediately, standing up and brushing the rest of the snow off her dress. Nervously she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and tucked her hair behind her ears. He turned to her and waved, and she never hated that blank face more.
She also hated her face warming rather rapidly despite the icy season, and she hated that lurching feeling in her stomach that she'd never felt before. New and a bit alarming. Perhaps it was a new disease and she should ask if there were palace doctors to get it checked. Tadashi, despite his title, certainly wasn't a Prince Charming.
But perhaps, a little voice in her head suggested, there was something in him that she simply hadn't seen.
...
GoGo was acting strangely around him.
Tadashi couldn't quite put his finger on it. She didn't speak to him any differently, nor did she avoid him entirely. But sometimes, when he inched closer to her, she would stiffen a little bit. Or occasionally he caught her sneaking a glance at him when she thought he wasn't looking. It was certainly an improvement from months before when she'd simply shudder at him, but still he wondered if he had done something to offend her. Or could she have started to notice him in... a different way?
It couldn't be. He usually ignored it and went on with business as usual, but then again, she'd never looked at him that way before. It didn't matter much, he supposed. She offered him stores of the world outside and the technological advancements they'd made, and then together they'd work on their next project. The servants love the elevator, and when that was done the seamstresses adored what she'd called a sewing machine.
"I didn't know you could sew," Tadashi mused as they worked on several more sewing machines, as per popular demand.
"I had to get creative with everything, not just mechanical stuff," she said simply as she reached over for one of the cogs. "Peasants have to make a living, you know."
"That's so skillful."
GoGo looked at him as if he'd grown a third eye. "You have the best teachers in all the world and you find sewing fascinating? Honestly, what I wouldn't give to be royalty."
"Well, true. But if one day I didn't have servants, I wouldn't have basic skills to take care of myself or anyone. What good is knowing all the capitals of the kingdoms if I can't cook a meal?"
She set the cog on the table. "If you must know, we don't all sew our own clothes. I picked it up from my mother."
"I thought you called her Aunt Cass."
"My birth mother."
Tadashi became very quiet. He'd always avoided the topic of where her parents were and why Aunt Cass raised her, not wanting to overstep boundaries. But this was the first time they'd ever come up, and curiosity was getting the best of him. "What happened to her, if I may ask?"
"She and my father were killed in a house fire ten years ago. I don't remember too much about it; I hit my head pretty badly during the accident."
Ten years ago. Tadashi thought back to his first meal with her when they had that argument.
"What right does that give you to act as if you're some expert on something that happened ten years ago?"
"Again with the ten years ago? I would have been..."
Shame overcame him. There she was, continuing the project as if nothing had happened, and here he was wallowing in self-pity all the time. "I'm so sorry."
"It happened a long time ago. I don't think about it much anymore."
"Not just for the accident."
She said nothing.
"What were they like? Your parents."
GoGo fumbled with one of the needles. "My father was a merchant, so I didn't see him often. But when he came back, he always had books and objects from all these other places, like Corona and Berk. There were some really interesting technological innovations, which I suppose is how I got into it. My mother was the one home all the time. She was the real housewife type, but come to think she probably handled all the finances and stuff."
She laughed a bit. "She wasn't a very patient woman. Sometimes when Father went traveling for a long time, she'd tell me to hurry up and get acne so he'd feel bad on how much he missed out on. He couldn't really help it, but I feel like she got lonely."
"Did you?"
She pursed her lips in thought. "Maybe a little, but I was used to it. I only really felt lonely because I had no siblings, but after seeing your brother betray you on the snowy battlefield..."
"Oh, you had to bring that up."
The girl smirked. "I will challenge you again if I have to, Highness."
"So be it. I'll win next time."
She rolled her eyes. "What about your father? Do you miss him?"
The Prince avoided meeting her eyes and fidgeted with his pudgy fingers. "Well, he's my father."
"Is that a no?" Her eyebrows furrowed. "Was he a bad father?"
"No!" he answered quickly. "He did what he had to. As both King and a father. That's it."
She frowned, unconvinced.
"Your parents sounded like wonderful people."
A smile tugged at her lips. "They were. I'm sure they would have been happy for me to be in your company."
...
"Hiro!"
The cup turned his attention away from the rest of the plates bustling around the dining hall with wreaths, flowers, and candles. Tadashi waddled in, apologizing to any of the servants scurrying around his feet. "Hiro, I need your help."
"Oh, Brother," Hiro sighed. "We've already blocked all the exits in case she tries to leave. Just apologize whatever it is you did."
The Prince shook his head. "Unbelievable. First of all, I want you to tell everyone to unblock all those exits. Second, I want to give GoGo a gift."
Nearly all the servants gasped. Hiro's jaw dropped before he leapt off the table and into Tadashi's palms in delight. "Finally! A step forward! And here I was thinking you'd be a virgin forever!"
"Hiro, I swear, I'm going to wash your tongue with soap."
"Right, right." The cup rolled his eyes before he gasped again. "It's almost Christmas! It's a Christmas gift, isn't it?" The two gazed at the walls the servants were lining with holly and candles. Some were caroling already.
"Did I hear something about a Christmas gift for the lady?" Fred asked, hopping towards the Princes.
"Oh, how exciting!" Honey Lemon squealed. "Why not ask Her Majesty for a new shipment of books?"
"No, that's too small," Tadashi said. "I want to do something big, but not... ostentatious."
"That's Portuguese for ostrich," Fred whispered to Wasabi, who groaned.
"Big, big..." Hiro mumbled to himself. "I have the perfect idea!"
Tadashi and the other three followed the little Prince throughout the castle until he stopped, grinning widely, at one of the untouched rooms. "We haven't been here for years," he said excitedly as his older brother slowly creaked the door open to reveal a grand bedroom larger than any in the entire castle, albeit collected in dust. It wasn't until Tadashi's eyes landed on the oil painting of a stately King with round glasses hanging above the bed.
"Father's bedroom," he whispered.
"Well, Dear Old Dad isn't around to use it anymore," Hiro said. "You should've seen how fascinated she was by that other teeny room we gave her."
"Oh, but... this is His Majesty's room!" Honey Lemon protested.
Neither of the Princes responded. Wasabi tapped her handle. "We ought to leave," he said in a low voice.
When the servants had hopped away with sad glances and sighs, Tadashi lowered his palm for Hiro to leap into. "Are you sure about this?" he asked.
"Look, Brother," Hiro said sharply, "I know there's some deal about preserving his memory or something, but we can always move this stuff into a different room. Like the library, where people actually visit." He glanced at some old books lying on the bedside table. "He always left things behind to collect dust. This way we can actually put it to use."
Tadashi gently patted the cup's rim. "Look at you, using that big brain of yours."
"It is a big brain, isn't it? Such a shame Father never noticed."
The elder Prince snorted. "Well, I'm noticing in place of him now. Get used to it, Brother." He scanned the room some more. "Although... I have a better idea of how to use this room."
Hiro perked his eyes up. "Oh?"
...
"No peeking!" Tadashi insisted as he led a blindfolded GoGo down the hall. Hiro, resting on his shoulder, snickered.
"I'm not going to the dungeon, am I?" she asked suspiciously.
When they reached the room, Hiro whispered fiercely, "Now, now, now!"
"Open them!" Tadashi said.
GoGo pulled the blindfold off just as Tadashi pushed the door open. Upon seeing what was inside, she gasped. Significantly larger than her own bedroom, there was a desk set in the back lined with pens and notebooks. Boxes lay among the walls filled with huge scrolls and various tools, metal scraps, wires and other sorts of material. There were endless shelves and cabinets, and in the very center rested a little table with a sweet roll on a platter.
"It was the most we could do in such a short amount of time," Tadashi said hastily, "but..."
"Is this..." GoGo gasped, "a workshop?"
"Oh, good!" Hiro chirped. "We spent centuries on it!"
"It's yours," Tadashi added.
She turned back to stare at him, mouth hanging open. "You did this for me?"
"It's your Christmas gift," he explained.
Within seconds, GoGo yanked Tadashi in with such force Hiro nearly flew off his shoulder before she caught him. She pulled the two in close, one hand holding Hiro and the other wrapped around Tadashi as she buried her face in his chest.
"Thank you," she murmured. "I love it."
Seizing the opportunity, Hiro declared, "It was Tadashi's idea!" and winked at his brother before leaping to the carpet.
Tadashi was about to protest, but by then his brother had already hopped out the door. Instead, he wrapped his arms around the girl and thought to himself perhaps there was something there that wasn't there before.