Chapter 23: Yuuri's POV

I'm officially drained. Really, I'm exhausted. I thought I was used to signing ridiculous amounts of paperwork every single day of my life, but apparently, I was wrong.

For the last couple of weeks my desk has never been empty for over twenty seconds. It's obvious Gwendal is doing this on purpose, and not only him, Günter, Conrad and Anissina too! When I read the first couple of nonsensical requests I thought they were maybe testing me. Because, being completely honest, sometimes I don't pay much attention to what I sign. But now I'm convinced, they are just trying to keep me locked up in my office all day long.

With Anissina actually is not such a strange thing. Weekly I reject about twenty to thirty petitions that come from her. It's not the amount of money that she asks for her inventions what horrifies me, oh no. One time, when I was kind of flying low, I was saved by Gwendal at the last minute from signing a petition asking to have the king as her personal test subject for an invention called something like Blow-them-up-kun. I owe Gwendal my life for that, sure thing.

Gwendal also asks for some weird things from time to time. Permission to marry off Anissina, for example.

But now even Conrad has been sending lots and lots of completely useless reports about the most insignificant things. One of them was almost a hundred pages long and it was about the last harvest on a small town on the Voltaire lands. Usually I only get a page long summary concerning each noble land.

And the reason for this torture? Wolfram. They want to keep me away from their little brother. I'm really getting tired of overprotective, brother-complex older brothers.

I only have two more parchments on the unread pile and nobody seems to have noticed. I better hurry up and make a run for it before they do. I just have to read this through and I will be a free man!

Oh great, this is a serious one, concerning the destruction of a very important bridge on the Gyllenhal lands. Now I have to really concentrate.

I look at Gwendal from the corner of my eye. He's knitting something... I'm not even going to try guessing what it is, but judging by the amount of holes on it I'm thinking he's really stressed.

Wolfram has been having a hard time tapping into his marioku since he lost his memory. Neither Gwendal nor Günter were capable of helping him. They are really worried because Wolf never had a problem with this. He's one of the few living mazoku that made a pact with an element just being a toddler.

But they don't understand how hard it can be to do it when you have no idea of what it is to begin with. I try to make him not worry about it, and apparently I have become the public enemy because of it. Even Günter said I was wrong, that almost NEVER happens. Also, according to Gwendal, Wolfram can't control his emotions when I'm around, and that's slowing him down. I completely disagree though, I mean, as far as I remember, the more upset Wolfram gets, the more powerful he becomes.

Okay. The documents are done with. I just need to leave as if nothing was happening. I stand up from my chair trying not to make any noise.

"Where do you think you are going, Heika?" Crap, if I don't come up with something good I'll be stuck here until dinner time.

"I finished signing the papers and I was thinking of spending some time with Greta before dinner" I'm using my own daughter as a pretext, I'm the worst parent ever, I know. But I actually do want to see her for more than five minutes, I haven't talked to her alone in over a week.

Gwendal looks at me doubtingly. I tilt my head to the side and give him a pleading look, that always works as a charm. "Come on! I promise we won't go near the training ground. I know today is Wolf's first lesson with Murata and it's only about an hour before dinner time "

"Fine" he says in a husky voice and I run out of the room before he has time to change his mind. When I turn the corner I finally stop and take a deep breath. Freedom tastes so good.

"Yuuri!" I look to my right and Greta appears next to me. This is perfect! She's wearing a green summer dress and has her hair tight up in a ponytail, she looks so cute... my little girl is growing up so fast it's frustrating. Actually, I'm the one who isn't aging at all, which makes it more frustrating.

"Greta! I was just about to go get you. Would you like to take a walk with me?" I say and offer my arm for her to grab, which she does gracefully.

We walk to the gardens followed by four or five soldiers. It's unbelievable how I can't be left alone even in my own castle. We're used to this so when I give Greta a wink she knows exactly what to do.

In a flash we're both running at full speed with the soldiers behind us. We turn a corner and instead of keep running we hide behind some bushes and the soldiers run past us. When the coast is clear we stand up and laugh. At least life here is never boring.

"So how is my girl doing this days?" I ask smiling. She smiles back, but I can see she's worried about something.

"What is it Greta? is something wrong?" I ask and she shakes her head. We sit on a bench hidden behind some trees. I believe this is Cheri-sama's make out spot.

"I'm worried about Wolfram, when will his memory come back?" she asks looking at her shoes. I feel so bad for her. I can't imagine how I would have felt if some day my mom would have forgotten me. Specially being so young, not that Wolfram is Greta's mom, but sometimes I think he kind of is. Greta has been through so much, and here she finally found a family.

"I don't know Greta. But you know he loves you no matter what. I have seen you two together lately, and even without his memories he still cares a lot about you" I say patting her head. Is weird having a child so similar in age to you. I feel as if I wasn't enough of a parent for her, not without Wolfram at least.

"I know that, but he's... so different now. I feel like he wasn't Wolfram at all" her voice starts shaking and she grabs her dress with both hands trying to hold back her tears. I feel like crying myself. I have had the same feeling for so long now but I just can't... I can't accept that...

"He will be okay" I hug her and soon feel the warm tears in my shoulder. "I promise he will be okay, you know I would give my life for him right?"

She nods but keeps on crying. I can't cry too. I have to be strong for the three of us, for our family. You would think I'm a wimp if I cried right Wolf?... Damn, Wolfram why can't you just remember...

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This story is coming out much more angst than I expected... I'd really like to know your opinion about this, I couldn't decide when I chose the categories for this story, but I went for Hurt/Comfort and Humor, because there is a bit of both in the story, this chapter is a clear example, it started with some jokes and then went right into Hurt, but what do you think?

I think life is a little like that, we jump from one emotion to the other several times during a single day, so I don't think it's all that bad, but I'd hate to see that some people started reading this story expecting more humor than this and then got disappointed.

You think I should change the categories? and if you do, to which?