Beloved Beast.
Ichijou took a walk around in the children's grand room somewhere deep inside the Kuran mansion.
Yuki sat on the grand bed with her tiny daughter Yoko, currently three and had already started speaking quite well.
"Momma." Yoko uttered with a sunshiny smile. Her dark, soft curly hair was that of Yuki's departed mother.
Yuki stroke her daughters cheek, kissing her head teasingly.
"Momma ..." a sweet voice sounded from one side of the bed.
Yuume, Kaname and Yuki's dreamy, kind hearted, adorable delicate, now six-year-old son.
His dark straight hair had grown longer. It nearly reached his petite shoulders.
"Oniisama!" Yoko smiled longingly at her brother who could do nothing but return her sunshiny welcome.
Yuume crawled onto the grand bed effortlessly and was instantly embraced eagerly and tenderly by his younger sister.
"Yoko." Yuume spoke softly into his baby sister's dark curls.
Yuki watched her lovable children as she sensed Ichijou's uneven pacing back and forth in front of Yoko, Yuume and herself.
"Yuki-chan," Ichijou asked turning only his eyes towards her.
Yuki glanced gently at him.
"What is it, Ichijou-senpai?" Yuki asked curving her mouth sweetly at Kaname's closest friend, who had become dear to even her and her children.
"Where has Kaname gone to?" he asked, it seemed as though he was asking himself rather than her.
Yuki glanced secretly at her son and daughter sitting, playing with Yoko's long curls.
She did not turn towards Ichijou as she bluntly replied; "Who knows? It's Kaname after all."
He smiled at Yuki as she caressed Yuume's head, silently complimenting him with a gentle stroking hand as reward for caring so dearly for his younger sister, always putting up with her childish cravings.
"Kaname is very lucky to have gotten you Yuki-chan." Ichijou complimented the soothing vampire girl.
Yuki blushed and smiled as she said, while facing her children; "I'm the lucky one."
The dreamy vampire boy suddenly sat gazing at Ichijou.
His delicate eyelashes twitching lightly.
Yuume knew him of course, but why was he here?
"Ichijou-niisan, why are you with momma?" Yuume asked while lying down the golden hairbrush he had used to brush Yoko's fine hair.
Ichijou smiled kindly at the boy whom he sort of considered 'family'.
Ichijou still, as the rest of Kaname's closest allies, found it fascinating yet utterly strange that Yuki had become a mother.
"Eh ..." Ichijou uttered.
He didn't quite know why he was here actually.
He remembered clearly to have been sent for by Kaname, yet Kaname appeared gone as he was led to this room by Seiren, in which Yuki and her daughter was inside.
"'Ichijou-niisan' is here to play with us all together." Yuki answered as she placed a finger playfully at Yuume's tiny nose.
Ichijou seemed to get what Yuki was saying as she turned to him, blinking at him with a delicate sunny smile.
"Ah, niisan is here to share a story about your lovely mother and father." said Ichijou with outstretched arms.
Yoko smiled as she heard the word 'story' which appeared to be one of her favourite words, somehow.
Ichjou blushed lightly as the petite beautiful sunshiny girl awkwardly crawled down from the grand bed and stumbled towards him.
Although she could perfectly well walk almost as beautifully as her mother – in a couple of years or so – Ichijou figured that her stumbling was due to the eagerness which Yoko apparently suffered from, gladly.
Ichijou laughed at the adorable girl as she reached her arms up towards him.
Ichijou had to make sure that taking the tiny girl up into his arms was accepted by Yuki.
Since the tiny girl was in fact a pure blood, her mother – who used to have been the youngest pure blood princess in the whole vampire society – and her father who was the actual ancestor of the Kuran clan, he couldn't just go ahead and touch any of the two children as he pleased.
Although Yuki understood why such a rule was made, she always gave her and Kaname's closest friends leave to do as they pleased, except hurting her children which she knew they would not dare anyways.
She trusted them fully.
Yuki smiled in approval and Ichijou seized the small beauty safe up into his slender arms.
Yuume stared zombie-like at Ichijou as he cradled Yoko securely as she sat in his arms.
Yoko laughed bird-like as her voice always allowed her and Ichjou blushed as he smiled at her.
Yuume twitched the corners of his mouth and little sparks of static electricity occurred from body.
Like a tiny forcefield was surrounding him.
Yuki glanced at him and demanded bewildered; "Yuume stop acting selfish."
The vague electric force vanished yet Yuume did not stop frowning as he gazed dreamily at his mother.
Yuki placed her hands on each of Yuume's cheeks and rubbed them gently.
"You shouldn't be jealous. Yoko is allowed to care for momma and daddy's friends too."
Yuume didn't quite understand the fact that Yoko wasn't loved only by him and his parents.
Many others had taken a liking to her too.
Yuki had to explain the matter of how people sometimes grew to love someone – in this case Ichijou – who was not blood related to Yoko, as 'friendly love'.
Yuume seemed to understand what she was going at although he was not comfortable with letting other people touch his adored little sister as they please.
After all, his daddy was always wary and very careful with having others touch Yoko and Yuume.
"I shall tell Yoko-chan and Yuume-chan a story of a beast's garden. Or pehaps it is more sort of a nursery rhyme."Ichijou said thughtfully, still remembering to smile at the children.
"Yay! Momma, Yuume! Listen, listen!" Yoko uttered demandingly, smiling sweetly at her elder brother who softened instantly, forgetting how to frown, it seemed.
Yuki smiled and nodded at Yoko as approval to Ichijou.
He replied Yuki with a smile in return.
As he walked around with little Yoko in his arms he started;
"Within a giant maze,
grew many blood red roses,
a maze such as that without equal ever seen."
"Though, however neat it seemed,
the maze was tragically cursed,
a cage of immortal children never to fade."
"Upon a sunny day a baby girl was born,
abandoned and forgotten,
within the freak-some maze."
"She giggled at the view,
and touched a thorny rose,
her tiny finger hurt and blood was flowing still."
"The baby girl cried,
and the flowers sang to her,
a ghastly lullaby."
"A beast appeared,
before the tiny beauty,
adoring her petiteness."
"He watched as the flowers,
craving the baby girl,
bend towards the infant."
"The beast viewed the blood,
and swayed the small child,
as the flowers tempted her."
"The baby girl cried,
as she saw the blood,
red and smelly."
"The beast licked her wound,
and turned into a lad,
and cradled safe the baby girl."
"The flower maze,
with fangs and filthy thirsts,
never tasted the girl."
"For she was trapped,
within a cage,
of love from her beast."
Ichijou finished instantly as he sensed the room turn odd with tense choking air.
In the door, high and mighty, and with a bloody aura dwelling flames within a fire, stood Kaname.
To the children, their father's arrival seemed to not stir any feeling of having to be careful.
But Yuki and Ichijou sensed it right away.
Yoko, still safely held in Ichijou's strong arms reached out towards her father.
Kaname smiled at his daughter and reached out for her, seizing her with one arm and kissed her cheeks gently.
Yuki sat perplexed on the grand bed with Yuume by her side.
Ichijou was about to explain himself although he wasn't sure why exactly.
Kaname pointed at the door, smiling secretly at his friend.
Ichjiou thought; He's mad at me …
Kaname turned towards his dear son and beloved Yuki.
Ichijou left quickly, running with all his might, laughing quietly at his friend for having become such a tender father and husband.
Kaname softly slipped Yoko into her brother's arms, which neither of the children seemed to have any complaints about.
"Oniisama!" Yoko called out to her brother as Yuume fell backwards when she landed in his small embrace.
They giggled childishly.
"W-welcome home." Yuki stammered, blushing and smiling, slightly embarrassed.
Kaname's gaze was intense and loving at the same time.
He bend down and pulled Yuki gently towards him and made her sit on the edge of the bed.
He watched her with a teasing smile and a wicked gleam in his bloody eyes.
His fingers gently combed through her long dark hair.
He found her lips and lay Yuki's arms around his neck.
Yuki clung to him as his kiss was slow and sweet.
He softly seized her chin, forcing her sweetly to not deny his mouth from its craving for her before he made her do so.
She did not wish to deny him even if she was able to or strong enough to shove him away.
Within his grasp she would always be just like a mere toddler in compare with him, her beloved.
Kaname ended the kiss, tugging Yuki into his broad chest, securing his most precious and dearest girl.
She inhaled the scent of him.
"Yuki." he said softly in a low voice.
Kaname whispered with a soft chuckle into her hair and held her out in front of himself and kissed her forehead.
"Be a good girl now." he said teasingly and kissed her tenderly.
She blushed wildly as Kaname knelt before her and kissed her hand, his tongue wetting a tiny piece of her finger where after he pierced her soft skin, gazing lovingly at her flushing cheeks.
The peaceful laughter from behind Kaname and Yuki made Yuki turn to glanced at them but Kaname turned her face towards him again, smiling seductively at her, his eyes telling her; look at me forever.
I really wanted to make Ichijou a part of it too ... :( somehow he didn't really got to play huge part.
I just somehow wanted him to annoy Kaname a little with a story about a beast, as in (Ichijou calling/referring to Kaname as a "beast") ^^
I hope you'll enjoy it! :)
Another YuMe oneshot and hopefully I'll have a new one soon! :D