The Toy Princess
Haru's arms were hungrily latched around a rather plain-looking box as Tohru drove up the winding road to her new home. She stared at the trees that passed, lost in her own thoughts and wishes of what could have been. What should have been.
What would never be.
"We should be there soon," her enormous bodyguard told her gently as he maneuvered the large truck up to a straighter part of the road. "It sure will be nice not to travel for a while."
"Yes," she agreed a little numbly, wishing with all her heart that there was one more occupant of the vehicle.
Well. A talking one, in any case. She gripped the wooden box on her lap a little tighter, both to protect it from the bumps in the road and because she desperately needed the comfort.
The contents of that box were worth more to her than her own life.
After what felt like too long, they were at the front gates to the manor she had bought for herself two years ago.
"Key?" Tohru asked while holding out his large hand.
Haru fumbled with the contents of a black coat pocket before handing him a set of keys. "It's this one," she informed him while pointing at the largest key.
He nodded at her with a grin before leaving the vehicle.
A cold wind bit harshly at her cheek from his open door, but the sixteen-year-old girl couldn't force herself to care. One hand rubbed the top of the box as if it were a pet. "We're almost home. Don't worry," she whispered to it, knowing how talking to the box worried her devoted bodyguard.
But she couldn't help it. She felt like her own heart was lying inside the box, which was only plain to keep anyone she met between her old home and new one from asking questions or guessing just how valuable the contents were.
Soon Tohru was back in the truck and easing the vehicle as close to the front doors as he dared. Haru gathered herself and stepped into the frosty December afternoon after he opened the door for her.
The pictures she had been sent over the past two years did not do her new home proper justice. It was large, larger than she really needed if forced to be honest. Especially since she would have to employ a cleaning service every now and again when keeping it clean herself would prove to be too much.
It was still barely more than a summer cottage compared to where she grew up, though. But that suited her just fine.
Her heart felt full, yet strangely weeping as Tohru easily handled all of their luggage before closing the back door of the truck.
"Let's head in so I can park in the garage. It looks like it's going to snow soon."
"Right," Haru agreed, though she had to take the keys back from him in order to unlock the door.
The foyer was spotless, as her realtor had promised, and a handful of lights were dimmed just in case they came after dark.
"Home sweet home," Tohru sighed as he unloaded everything. "Can you stay right here until I get back?"
"I'll be in the drawing room. It's down this hall on the right, I'll leave the door open," Haru compromised, since she was keen to see that room in particular.
He nodded and closed the door behind him.
Delighted that the request had been remembered, Haru switched her thick winter boots for the indoor slippers that had been set out for her before walking into the afore-mentioned room.
There was a fire already burning in the fireplace, and a very familiar cat sprawled in front of the glowing heat. He raised his head lazily to look at her.
"I was hoping to find you quickly," Haru informed him with a tired smile. She carefully set her box on a side table next to the fireplace before tucking her gloves and hat into various pockets of her long black coat. Then she sat on the rug next to the large white cat to start rubbing his back. "Been keeping the Baron company for me?"
"Meow," he assured her contentedly, sliding himself onto her lap as if liquid could move upstream.
"This really worked out well, you know," she confided in him as both of her hands went to work on his creamy fur. "I'd have been fine with picking out a cat since I've always wanted one, but it's nice that you made it unnecessary. I mean, if nothing else, you don't annoy Baron, right?"
"Meow," he repeated a bit more smugly than before, purring happily at all the attention she was giving him.
Haru couldn't resist the urge to wrap her arms around him for a big hug. "I'm hoping I don't annoy him, either," she whispered softly. "I really want to live here. It's a perfect refuge from the world, and that's exactly what I need right now."
He looked up at her with sad eyes before reaching his head upward to lick at her cheek. "Meow," he replied sadly as if he could taste her dried tears.
"You said it," she agreed, glad that he seemed to understand that she was still in deep mourning.
One of the modern world's little mercies was that it was no longer unusual to be seen wearing all black, so she didn't have to keep talking about… the worst day of her life.
Tohru stuck his head in after a while. "I see you found the cat," he commented as the rest of him followed. He tilted his head a little at the feline, who happily did the same to him. "That boy's been overfeeding him," he added flatly, making the cat hiss at him angrily from around the teenage girl's embrace.
"No, he looked like this when the workers started trying to shoo him off the property," Haru corrected while trying to soothe her new pet. "I'm just glad Angelica informed us about him before calling animal control."
Tohru hummed once before looking up at the portrait over the fireplace. He jerked a little in surprise. "Is it my imagination, or does that guy look a lot like Tamaki?"
"He's actually Tamaki's uncle, several generations removed," Haru explained, since she had noticed the resemblance too and had done the research.
Her cat meowed as if surprised, but his new owner kept talking.
"His mom's ancestor was a cousin of Baron's that married into French money. That's why he and the Club want to come visit for spring break. Tamaki's really interested in finding out more about his ghost uncle if he's here, and they want to make sure I'm okay. By then I'll have a better idea of Baron's temperament to know if that's a good idea."
Tohru blinked before pointing a sausage-like finger at the portrait. "So you're saying that's the ghost that's supposed to be haunting the place?"
Haru nodded without hesitation, looking at the portrait herself. "At least one of them, yes. But he was a lot less of a shameless flirt than Tamaki, so I'm not worried about sharing a home with him. Frankly, even Tamaki would be safe since he knows the difference between flirting and being a creep. Do you remember the rules?"
"Is it really necessary?" he asked in Japanese plaintively.
"Please, Tohru? If he's not haunting the place, we can have a nice laugh knowing we behaved well anyway. If he is here and finds us offensive…" Haru trailed off intentionally, since she had already briefed him on the strange incidents that kept happening around the property, with more than one witness over the decades since the lord's mysterious death.
Tohru sighed tiredly and held up a hand as if swearing in court. "Speak English so he knows we're friendly, ear buds or headphones for music an almost century old ghost wouldn't appreciate, and permission before any major modern modifications."
"It's really not that much to ask for, and I'm sure he'll appreciate being respected in a house he's pretty much being forced to share," Haru comforted him before turning her attention back to her new cat, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "This hand means you want to be called Moon," she informed him while offering a fist and waiting a few seconds before offering the second. "This hand means that Muta sounds better to you."
The cat scratched his paw over his chin a little before slapping it gently on the second hand.
"Muta, it is," Haru confirmed, scratching his back before standing up. "I don't know if you can hear me, Baron, but I brought a present for you," she stated loudly, although she was reasonably certain he was already within hearing range.
She zipped open a large inside pocket of her long black coat and extracted a black pad with a pen snapped into the side. "I don't know if you can write when you're like this or can draw pictures, but I think this might make it easier for us to communicate without going through a lot of paper. Only use this pen to write on this and press the button up here to clear what you wrote," she explained while pressing the button herself.
The pad was gently lifted out of her hands, making Tohru jump a bit as the pen seemed to dance of its own accord over the black surface. It was even being held at an angle to suggest being cradled against an invisible arm. It soon turned to her to read, 'Welcome home'.
Tohru gaped in shock. "So that's what happened to the luggage I just brought in."
She relaxed, glad that all her hard work to win the spectral lord over the past two years had paid off. "I am planning on holding a memorial service here in the drawing room for my nanny tonight, as per her request if she didn't make it here with me. I hope you won't mind if I honor her wishes, because you're going to like what I have to say about her."
It only took a few seconds for him to write 'will attend'. Maybe there was something about being a ghost that prevented him from using complete sentences.
He had good penmanship, at least.
But he was soon writing something else. 'Don't panic.'
"Panic?" Haru asked in confusion but was soon interrupted by one of the windows flying open. Even as she turned her head to see it, a large black crow looked like he was being tossed into the house, except he seemed to land on nothing but air so that he wasn't injured.
"Caw?!" he asked in shock before righting himself and staring at the two humans when he settled on the wooden floor.
Tohru hurriedly put himself between the bird and his charge. "Why would a ghost want a crow in the house?" he couldn't resist asking as he readied himself for a fight.
Haru was pretty confused too but shrugged it off as she laid a hand on one of his arms. "It is pretty cold outside. I bet this cat and crow have been pretty much the only consistent company Baron's had for years."
'Correct,' was the ghost's only response.
The crow was keeping one eye on the large human as it flew a little closer to the fireplace, landing on the back of a chair that had been hastily drawn close by an invisible hand so that he could warm up. He was cawing in appreciation as he fanned his feathers toward the flames.
"I wonder if that's the same crow the reports were about," Haru mused out loud while taking a closer look at him around her bodyguard's girth.
"I really don't like this," the large bodyguard muttered under his breath with a stormy, slightly frightened expression.
Haru took in a cleansing breath before taking one of his fists between her hands, although it made her feel like a tiny doll herself. "Tohru? I know you took it with a grain of salt when I told you our new home was haunted by at least one benevolent ghost. I'm used to the idea since I bought and began restorations two years ago. My previous offer still stands if all this is too much for you."
He looked at her sharply, shaking his head without hesitation. "No, I'll stay with you. You'll still need protection when it's time for Yale, and I don't trust boys around you."
She smiled lovingly at him, since he had raised her standards almost impossibly high for a bodyguard. "Even if the crow wanted to hurt us, Baron's probably weeping tears of joy over tenants like us. I don't think we need to worry about surprise attacks from him, even if he tries."
"… I guess that's true," he conceded, though he still looked a bit unhappy about everything.
Haru turned to look at the crow, somewhat startled by his gaze. She had always had the opinion that animals were more intelligent than a lot of humans gave them credit for, but something about the gentle puzzlement in his small black eyes screamed to her senses that he understood every word of their conversation. "Are you hungry?" she asked politely.
The crow cawed enthusiastically, but he was still making movements that he wasn't completely warm yet. Muta pawed at one of her legs while meowing that he'd love some food, too.
"All right. Stay right here and warm up," Haru invited them while taking back possession of her beloved wooden box. "Jet lag's catching up on me, at least, so a nap after we bring the pair of you lunch sounds about on schedule."
"Oh, good," Tohru moaned happily, letting his shoulders sag tiredly. "But you're having lunch too, you know."
"… I guess I should," Haru admitted, even though she didn't feel all that hungry. "To keep you from worrying, if nothing else."
"That's my girl," he encouraged warmly as they left the drawing room. "Though are you sure you don't want to leave the box?"
"Not until tonight," Haru insisted, clutching it even tighter than before. "I'll have no choice but to let go of it tonight."
Tohru looked at her a little helplessly even as he awkwardly helped her remove her coat from around her grip on the box. "I'm not sure where the kitchen is around here."
Baron's pad was soon floating in front of them with 'follow me'.
Haru did so without question, feeling more and more of the jet lag catch up to her until she was nodding off in the middle of opening the third can of tuna for sandwiches.
"Hey, there's grape soda!" Tohru cheered, helping himself to a bottle while looking for the mayonnaise.
"What, you thought I was going to forget about your preferences?" Haru asked him with a sly smile, using the temporary wake up call to dump that can into the bowl as well.
"… Forget is a strong word," Tohru answered evasively while bringing her the mayo. "It's just that you and Ichigo were so wrapped up in each other…"
Not that he needed to remind her of the fact. Haru's gaze returned to the box next to the bowl on the counter. "Forever and always," she stated before wiping her tears on the sleeve of a black sweater. "But that doesn't mean I'll forget that you were part of the plan to live here, if you wanted to."
Tohru frowned, especially when he saw her nodding with fatigue again. "I'll take it from here," he insisted, pulling the bowl to his side of the counter to start mixing in the mayo. "I'll finish this and feed the pets. You're going straight to your room after a bite, young lady."
She managed a tired smile for him. "Are you trying to make me feel better?"
"Is it working?" he asked hopefully as he added this or that to the tuna mixture for the best sandwiches.
"A little," she admitted with a very soft, silly smile. "But you were the one driving today and yesterday. Shouldn't I be the one sending you to your room?"
"How much did you sleep last night?" he asked her bluntly enough to make her wince.
"Fair." She used a spoon to steal some of the salad around his mixing to slather on some bread before devouring it, since she had skipped on breakfast at the hotel to get here a little faster.
"Hey, Haru? What's the plan for Christmas?" Tohru suddenly remembered to ask. "Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, after all."
Haru finished swallowing before saying anything. "I'm not in the mood for it this year, but I won't stop you if you want to do anything. We do have everything we need for a traditional Christmas dinner, even if it would be a bit much for us and the pets. Just remember to ask Baron if it's okay to chop down a tree or if he'd rather we try our luck with a fake one from town. I don't know if he's got ornaments in the attic since that and his private chambers were the only places he didn't want workers getting into. It would be easier to ask if he'd bring them down if he does, but the pad should help with understanding him."
Tohru couldn't resist looking at her long and hard. "Why, Haru?!" he finally asked like he had been dying to for months. "Why didn't you and Ichigo tell me about this place before everything happened?! Why are you completely fine with living in a haunted house?! Why spend so much time and money on this place when you could have built from scratch literally anywhere in the world? Why have you spent the time since that day acting like nothing existed other than coming here?! How are you just… getting along with the said ghost when other people apparently can't?!"
Haru finished her sandwich, privately impressed that it had taken this long for him to blow up. "First off, you were on my father's payroll instead of mine back then. As much as I like you, I didn't want to run the risk of him finding out I was going to run away here with Ichigo right after graduation, changing our names and backstories if we had to."
Tohru gaped like he didn't know how to answer that.
Haru went ahead and enjoyed a tall glass of water to wash down the sandwich before picking up the box again. "We had been debating before then about whether or not if it was going to be safe to ask you if you wanted to come at the last minute, since I really didn't want to get married first thing out of high school or kept waiting around until Kaoru's parents started arranging everything, likely after Kaoru graduated high school." She couldn't resist a shudder at the thought of how close she had come to the altar. "As for the other questions, they will all be answered tonight at the memorial. Baron, I was informed that you forcefully took charge of which room was mine when most of my things arrived last week?"
He must have suspected that was going to be the next question, because he hadn't bothered erasing 'follow me' before using the pad to lead her to a nice room on the second floor.
Haru didn't even care if it looked odd when she curled up around the box on the bed like a lioness around her cub, even keeping one arm over the top in case the ghost got curious enough to pick the lock and open it himself while she slept.
He'd find out why the box mattered soon enough.
ooOoo
A/N: No lynching! This one's a four parter!