The Toy Princess Part 3
The crow cawed at her, nudging his beak against her head to beg her to elaborate.
Haru laughed a little self-consciously before drying her face again. "I guess I should explain a little about myself before I tell how her path crossed mine. My name's Yoshioka Haru, and I'm the only daughter of the C.E.O. and owner of one of the most popular toy brands on the planet. I can't really say a lot more about him since I only saw the man an average of once or twice a year, and a lot of those visits were either him telling me to be stop being a nuisance or us getting into a fight. I can't really say a lot about my mom either, but that's because she passed from cancer when I was still a baby. Their marriage was part of a business deal, and there wasn't really any love between them. For reasons I was not told about, none of the hired help I knew were willing to tell me much more about her other than she enjoyed being left alone. Can't say I blame her," Haru muttered to herself before shaking her head and getting back to the story.
"A marriage had been decided for me when I was pretty young as well. His parents at least made occasional attempts to get us to interact, but the problem was that Kaoru is an identical twin, and the two were so inseparable that there wasn't room for anyone else. I'd tried to coax them into things like making a snow man, but they wanted me to be able to tell the difference between Kaoru and Hikaru before giving me the time of day. Before giving me a chance to get to know them, might I add!" she still fumed. "It got worse when we got older because they enjoy pranks and lying about which twin they were so they could humiliate me. I was far from the only girl they did that to, and it got bad enough that I skipped a grade in middle school just so that I could put a limit on how often I had to deal with them. But that's getting ahead of the story," she added with a nervous smile before feeling something nudge her elbow.
Baron was now offering her a glass of water.
"Thanks," Haru said gratefully, just now noticing that her voice was turning scratchy from how long she had been talking. She was normally finished with her Nutcracker story long before now. She sipped it happily before continuing. "In fact, Hikaru and Kaoru are sort of the reason I met Ichigo. Their parents are a lot more doting than mine, and I was feeling jealous at the ripe old age of six. I had an entire wing of the mansion devoted to my needs, enough clothes that I could easily only wear things once and never again, and more toys than I could play with. The only things denied to me were a pet since my sperm donor thought they were a waste of time, and the sperm donor himself. It just didn't seem fair that Hikaru and Kaoru could block out the whole world and still have parents willing to pick them up and hold them in public when there would literally be times that I wouldn't recognize my own father when he would poke his head into my wing to see that everything was in order. The twins did tease me that not even my dad wanted to be around me and suggested throwing a tantrum to make him come see me."
Haru blinked and carefully thought about that while taking another long sip before setting it to the side to give her attention to the animals draped over her. "You know, I'm just now wondering if they weren't really offering advice instead of being jerks again. Well, in any case I took the advice and became a little terror. Mice in the beds, shampoo dumped all down the halls to make people slip, greasing every door handle I could get close to so no one could just enter a room-"
The crow was almost snickering his approval.
"Yeah, you would approve!" she shot at him with a smile that was half-annoyed. "Crows are born troublemakers!"
Muta was also rubbing his face against one of her arms while purring up a wicked storm with what she could have sworn was a smirk on his lips.
"I also threw massive fits and broke anything fragile I could get my hands on, without a care of how expensive anything was. I wasn't worried when my nanny at the time quit because she was already my third one that I remembered and I knew she was going to be replaced without a whisper. There was absolutely no emotional attachment on either end, and I know she wasn't the only one to call me 'the brat' when they thought I couldn't hear. But nothing I did worked. I was scolded, naturally, but they could only punish me so much since the place had cameras everywhere and there would have been evidence if someone had tried spanking me. I'll admit I probably deserved it back then, but it was all so frustrating! I just wanted a parent that cared about me and I was so sick and tired of all the adults trying to tell me that I was being a spoiled brat and I should try being grateful for what I have. Since the way I was living was the only way I knew, it wasn't really possible for a six-year-old to appreciate so many luxuries when I was after something I knew the other kids I got to play with could have without much trouble. There was a revolving door of nannies after that third one left, but I'll admit I felt a certain satisfaction that they usually left not long after introducing themselves. I should have kept count, but since they weren't my main goal, I didn't care."
Haru was still massaging fur and feathers when her mind returned to that beautiful memory. "One day, I was having a particularly bad meltdown in my playroom. Screaming, crying, pounding the floor while thrashing, the whole nine yards. I was so exhausted from trying to make my father come home and at least talk to me, but no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't worth the trouble. It wasn't like I was even being subtle about why I had been acting this way for the past month. There came a point when I was just screaming over and over, 'I want my daddy! I want my daddy!', but it felt like no one could hear me."
Tears streamed from her eyes at the next part. "Since I was so lost in my tantrum, I hadn't noticed the butler bringing in another nanny to try her luck. So I wasn't expecting a hand to grab my arm and drag me onto a lap. When I calmed down enough to see who was putting their arms around me, there was this dignified old lady also crying, though her tears were silent. She said, 'me too' and cried with me." Haru did what she could to keep from crying aloud, but she could feel something moist get absorbed into the shoulder of her black sweater.
The same one that held the crow.
She sent a silent prayer of gratitude that it wasn't coming from the space between his legs. "It was exactly what I needed. Maybe if one of the other nannies had tried to comfort me like that, it wouldn't have escalated so badly, but that was the first time I didn't feel like someone was in my life because they were getting paid. Having someone that understood me without trying to change how I felt? I have no hesitation in admitting that was the first genuinely happy memory I have." She took in several breaths to pull herself together before a small fit of giggles erupted from her throat. "And to think it happened because of a mix-up."
"Meow?" Muta asked encouragingly.
"You see, Ichigo was coming in to be interviewed as a maid and was careful to keep her best clothes looking as sharp as possible to make the best impression. The assistant that greeted her thought that she was another nanny for me because she was far too old to be mopping floors and I had gone through so many, that they weren't bothering with interviews for me due to how quickly I ran them off, just a resume and background check that the assistant thought someone else had gotten to. When the real nanny showed up, the assistant realized his mistake and tried to take Ichigo from me." Haru's next grin was vicious, and her tone turned a little sing-song as she mocked the idea. "But I wouldn't let him. I latched onto her even harder than I already was and threatened to scream the whole place down if I didn't get to keep her, as if she were another doll for my collection. I understood it was a mistake, but I didn't care. I told him if he wanted me to stop acting like a monster, he'd back off and let me keep Ichigo. Needless to say, she got the job."
The crow cawed low and lovingly as he wrapped his wing around her head again for a compromised hug.
Haru nuzzled her face into his feathers for a response before continuing. "Ichigo told me years later that she saw a lot of parallels between how she had been treated in the camp and how I was being treated. The only difference that meant anything was that she knew what a loving family was like and they were as good as a fairy tale to me. She also realized that if she didn't do something, I was very likely to grow up throwing tantrums every time I wanted something, and I'd eventually turn into one of the entitled harpies that Baron would flee from. She decided that same day that if there was one last thing she was going to do before leaving this world, it was going to be turning me into a real lady."
Haru couldn't resist a silly grin at the word. "I'll definitely say that was the start of a new chapter in my life. Ichigo loved to ignore the staff when they tried to interfere in her way of raising me, and I eventually learned more diplomatic ways to get what I wanted at least most of the time. She gave me the excellent solution of being the chaperone when I had to spend time with the twins since they were never apart, but then handing me a book and suggesting to Hikaru and Kaoru that she would swear we played together all day even if they did their own thing, and they jumped on it. They were more than fine with sharing a game console on the other side of the room while I enjoyed whatever book Ichigo had smuggled in her bag. I wasn't too happy about learning how to clean since it's exhausting work even for adults, but it did teach me to stop seeing the hired help as furniture instead of people, and I started treating them better as a result. The cooking lessons were more fun, though. Some of my favorite times were after we finished baking cookies and we would enjoy a small tea party together with them, just her and me."
Her smile only grew deeper as countless memories flashed before her eyes. "She taught me every language she knew other than German for obvious reasons, and all it took was her performing 'Once Upon a December' for me once, and I begged for piano and singing lessons as well. The other staff were shocked, not just by how easy it was for Ichigo to keep me under control, but by the sort of things that she could tutor me in herself instead of sending for tutors since they had foolishly written her off as 'just an old lady'. Ha, she was an army of tutors all by herself!" she asserted triumphantly. "If you can call me a lady now, it's thanks to her efforts!"
The crow cawed his approval as her cat renewed his efforts to be as much on her lap as he could possibly manage, still smirking but with a strange tinge of pride.
By then Tohru had relaxed himself, especially since he more or less knew how the story went from here. He was leaning forward to enjoy the story anyway as Baron finally threw the disgusting mulch of tissue and saliva into the fireplace.
Haru let the thrill of Ichigo's triumph sing through her veins before continuing the story. "Let's face it, though. All talk of age and genetics aside, the only reason Ichigo never let me call her 'Mother' is because she was worried that my sperm donor would find out and send her away. It was the only reason I was willing to accept, though we were in complete agreement about her being the mother I never had, and I was the daughter she never had. But around Christmas time, the old ache would still come back that my sperm donor didn't really want anything to do with me, and she'd spend way to many hours assuring me that his attitude was the problem, and not me. Since Christmas was the busy time of the year for a toy company, he was never around. When you're wealthy enough that you can afford literally anything with a snap of the finger, even Christmas morning can easily lose its savor if there's no family to share it with. About the only thing I really liked about Christmas was that Ichigo would tell me her family's version of the Nutcracker, which I always liked a lot better than the normal interpretations because her way made the characters seem more real, like they had actually existed once."
The crow cawed but didn't let up on running his long beak lovingly through her long brown hair.
It tickled, but the teenager didn't try to stop him. "When I was ten, I was getting into my normal moody state on Christmas Eve when Ichigo suggested that maybe I could do more than mope this year. I asked if she had any ideas, she asked when the last time I touched a lot of my toys was, and that there were a lot of kids sick in the hospital for the holidays and even one of them would brighten things up for them. I liked the idea a lot more than just throwing them away, especially since most of them were either lightly used or not used at all, and from my sperm donor's own popular company. The hospital we visited was more than happy with the donations, but I couldn't help noticing that the children at the time had been gathered together in a large room for a mediocre concert that they clearly weren't enjoying. I felt bad but didn't think it was my place to upstage the choir, and I had more than a little fear of speaking in front of people I didn't know. But then I remembered how much Ichigo's version of the Nutcracker always cheered me up, and I asked her to tell it for them."
Haru shrugged. "She said no, but that I could if I thought it would cheer them up. The kids really did look like they were going to fall asleep, so I forced myself to go up to the person that organized the event and asked if I could follow up the concert with a story and gifts for the kids. She was very grateful since she hadn't gotten much out of the choir that year, and Ichigo was just able to beg me discreetly to say I made up the retelling instead of crediting her. I found out much later that it was to keep anyone that might know the truth about her family from finding out that a Drosselmeyer still existed. Obviously she was too old for childbearing, but cloning is a thing now-"
The crow cawed loudly again, almost in horrified disbelief.
"Yes, not kidding," she assured him while wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Just because something's unethical doesn't mean it won't be tried, as this story alone is proof enough of. So although I was super nervous, I was able to get wrapped up in the story, and I used my impressive vocal chords to make sure that everyone could hear me since the microphone refused to cooperate that night, which is one of the reasons the choir wasn't very well received. It turned out I've got a bit of a flair for storytelling. The kids loved it and were even happier when I started handing out my own toys that still looked brand new. It completely blew my mind, how just one of these toys could make a kid with an IV in his arm happier than I had ever been with all of them. After the gifts, I got on the piano and we sang carols, and honestly, it was just a lovely night I'll never forget. Those kids taught me more about gratitude in one night than I could have imagined possible. That was the year I really started to love Christmas."
Haru's mood dampened a little. "I hadn't noticed because I was having too much fun, but a reporter had gotten wind that the daughter of the Kuma toy brand owner was doing charity work at a children's hospital. Ichigo had tried to shoo him away, but he got enough pictures of what I was doing and collected enough information from the staff to make it public. Would you believe that sorry excuse of a sperm donor got mad at me?!"
Tohru only smirked since he knew the next part, but Muta was spitting angrily as the crow flexed his claws once, but then seemed to regain control of his temper and flew back to his former perch with a stormy expression.
"It's because of all the good P.R. the company was getting over the incident, which was even more infuriating," Haru growled, gently nudging her cat off her lap since her legs had fallen asleep thanks to his weight. She kept talking even as she methodically moved her legs to get her circulation back before finishing off her water. "The fact that I wasn't put up to it, I was just trying to be a good person, it was almost ridiculous how much the stock for the company went up over the incident. He was angry because if he had known I was going to do something like that, he could have arranged for more gifts, more reporters, more coverage than just what that one reporter could gather up. That's what really made me give up on him as a parent; that he couldn't even be proud of me for giving my toys to kids that needed them more than me. He wanted to take over how I was going to do it next year, but I threatened not to do it at all if he turned something this precious into just a spectacle. Ironing out the details for that turned out to be the longest conversation we'd ever have, and it felt a lot more like a business arrangement than anything resembling a family talk."
Haru scowled. "I wasn't happy about dressing up like a princess, but he wasn't happy about my stubborn insistence to use marionettes to tell the story instead of ballet dancers, especially since the point of ballet is telling a story without a word!" she angrily fumed before forcing herself to calm down again. "I wasn't happy about all the reporters recording my every move, and he wasn't happy about me using my version of the Nutcracker instead of the typical one. I wasn't happy about being forced to agree to musicians playing Tchaikovsky through the whole thing since I was trying to be different from that version, and he wasn't happy that it was a small band instead of a full-on orchestra. He did get me to agree to do it once with the full ballet and orchestra on live television for a charity, so I guess things were still slanted his way, and he did at least make sure there were plenty of wrapped presents for me to hand out afterward with little tags I could immediately rip off saying preferred gender and age group for each item, though I did get interpretive when I could see the recipient wouldn't appreciate the standard treatment. Whether I liked it or not, I did get the public title of 'toy princess' over this new Christmas tradition. But since the first time had put me in the public eye, the sperm donor decided that I really should have a personal bodyguard since now 'common riffraff' could recognize me on sight. It's kind of depressing that I know the only reason he'd pay blackmail to get me back is because the company's image wouldn't recover if he let it become public knowledge that he didn't care about me at all."
She gave Tohru an adoring look. "The reason Ichigo insisted on you when I was presented with all the candidates was because you reminded her of her Uncle Renny. She was very pleased that you never gave her a reason to regret seeing the similarity."
"I look like him?" he asked in surprise.
"Enough for anyone to notice," Haru answered evasively since she didn't want to come out and say what the similarity was. But now she could almost swear that the crow was laughing behind one of his wings, and Muta was glaring at him and holding one paw slightly up as if offering a knuckle sandwich to the bird.
She shook it off and kept going. "Because our parents don't know when to give up, they tried to pull the twins into what I was doing with the Nutcracker, but they thankfully bailed so I didn't have to deal with them or any sabotaging pranks. Ichigo was the only one that supported me or even really listened-"
Tohru coughed pointedly.
"-until Tohru showed up that I really didn't want to marry Kaoru," Haru corrected while giving him an apologetic smile. "Since she had escaped a bad engagement herself, she was pretty shameless about letting me know that I already had everything I needed to get out of it. I had a pretty hefty allowance, and thanks to Ichigo shamelessly corrupting me into not needing much to be happy, I barely touched it compared to how quickly it built up. One of my classmates, Kyoya, was already making investments with his allowance to better himself and his future, and while he was a bit rude when I asked for pointers, everything he suggested worked like a charm. He might have suspected that I was planning on running and would need the money, but thankfully he never outed me. That guy's got one heck of a poker face," Haru muttered before getting back on track.
"Two years ago, almost to the day, I had just finished another round of telling the Nutcracker story and handing out gifts while trying not to pay attention to the cameras or how some of the kids were a little snotty about me handing out gifts before going home to a mansion. Just comes with the territory, I guess," Haru sighed, since she had been glossing over how entitled some of the children or even adults were. "Ichigo and I had just gotten back to our wing and she was helping me with some of the trickier parts of the dress I couldn't undo by myself. I casually mentioned, 'wouldn't it be the coolest thing ever if there really was a family out there that could bring toys to life?'"
The crow almost snickered, making the bodyguard look over with a thoughtful expression before turning his attention back to Haru, since he didn't know about this part.
Haru smiled tiredly and started rubbing Muta's fur in slow lazy circles. "Ichigo took a few minutes before deciding that I was ready for the whole truth. She had told me bits and pieces of her life before becoming my nanny, so I knew she was planning to talk me into running away to England with her when I was old enough to have a say in what happened to me. But that was the night she told me everything." The teenager took in a deep breath. "I won't lie, I had a bit of trouble swallowing all of it, and thought at first that she was pulling my leg. Because I loved her far too much to call her a liar while she was being that open and raw with me, I instead asked if she'd mind if I did a bit of research to verify her story. She was surprised I could, mostly because the only thing she refused to learn over the years was technology beyond a cell phone."
She shook her head in disbelief. "Toto Drosselmeyer. Renaldo Moon. The Baron. Every detail of her hometown, just as she said but with less details. A beautiful little place by the mountains and hip-deep in a forest. She was so relieved that her home hadn't changed too much over the years. I had to dig through a lot of the town's archives, but we were able to glean that while her family was definitely gone without a trace, Baron's spirit still haunted this manor. Poor Ichigo felt so badly that he was left alone for so long other than idiots that wanted to ruin his home and peace. But then I saw that this place was up for sale, and thanks to the time difference and how late we were staying up doing research, I was able to contact Angelica pretty quickly and set things in motion to buy the manor and hire people to fix it up to its former glory. Sorry if I took a lot of the credit for that, but because I was still in school, I pretty much gave Ichigo a blank check and told her to have fun with making this place the way it was when she was a little girl."
Haru shook her head in numb amazement, too lost in her own thoughts to see how far the crow was leaning forward to catch her every word. "I apologized for not completely believing her at first and for stealing her title of 'toy princess'. But she was ecstatic about finally telling me how proud she was to find someone worth passing the title to, since that had been one of her nicknames before that terrible night." The poor girl looked down in depression. "I thought about sending her here back then to personally supervise the restoration. I really should have sent her here back then. Maybe then she'd still be alive."
"Haru," Tohru warned in a low growl.
"It is my fault," Haru stated more than she insisted.
"No, it was your sperm donor's, if anything. Think how Ichigo would have felt if I'd called her and said…" The bodyguard stopped himself, since he didn't want to think about what would have happened if the nanny hadn't been so quick.
Baron's pen was tapping at her lips again, a bit more firmly than the other times.
Haru nodded to say she understood he wanted that explained. She had to shake her head and take a deep breath before continuing. "So because the sperm donor didn't pay attention to me other than for business, we realized there was a good chance that he didn't know I had skipped a grade, we could have a small head start before anyone found out we had flown the coop. Now that we had a destination in mind, I pushed myself even harder to skip another grade. One advantage to skipping a grade the first time was that I didn't have many friends that would make it hard for me to leave Japan. The people I had left behind thought I thought I was too good for them since I avoided them while avoiding the twins, and people in my current class didn't really bother with me because they didn't like how I skipped a grade. Kyoya congratulated me when I skipped the second time, that was nice of him," Haru added with a silly smile.
"I apologize for admitting it, Baron, but when I saw a photo of you, it really freaked me out because of a transfer student in my class that year from France, Tamaki. If his hair was a bit more gold and had green eyes, I probably would have thought he was your reincarnation other than the constant flirting. I'd already complained about him to Ichigo, so when I said he looked like you, she was very swift to assure me that you were more reserved, and honestly, you did yourself a favor. But because the resemblance was so strong, I looked up his family tree a little, and you were dangling in one of the branches. I didn't want to because of how shameless his flirting gets, but Ichigo begged me to find out from him if there was any information on your death that was known just between the family."
She couldn't resist the urge to laugh. "I knew that if I tried a direct confrontation, I'd look just like one of the many girls hoping to win him over, but as flirtatious as he was, it's a bit surprising he didn't date that much. I slipped a note into his desk without signing it explaining that I wasn't an admirer; I was someone who had a question about his mother's family tree, and please meet me in music room three to talk about it." She shrugged with one shoulder. "He showed up but had a lot more questions than me about you. He's actually got it worse than me when it comes to relatives other than his mom that he's currently forbidden from talking to, so he was starved to find out about a good role model. I'm hoping that was a factor in why the club he founded is a low-key place people in school can run to if they need help with odd problems. The surface of the club was a bit superficial for me to go in there, but I assured him I wouldn't mind if he found a way to drag my fiancé into his club. If nothing else, it would force the twins to finally develop some social skills and if I was lucky, fall in love with someone else and talk their parents into breaking off the engagement."
'It's a step,' Baron agreed with the pad.
Haru pulled her knees up and crossed her arms over them so she could rest her chin. "I think the way I've been talking about Tamaki's a little rude, so I will clarify. He is a shameless flirt and Prince Charming wannabe, but he's also got the personality of a Labrador retriever. He finds ways to find joy despite what his father and grandmother throw at him, and he finds a way to make better people out of his friends. It's an open secret that the members of his club are his real family. Hikaru and Kaoru are still joined at the hip and are evil tricksters, but now they're remembering it's okay to laugh and have friends other than just each other. They still more or less ignored me, but that was better than getting roped into their tomfoolery again as far as I was concerned. I was too busy trying to make sure I graduated as quickly as possible when I wasn't distracted with my charity work."
Then she saddened. "Everything was going according to plan. Tamaki promised not to talk about my connection to his uncle if I agreed to let him know if Baron was still here with a chance for visitation, my investments were doing better and better, plus I had found a guy that could give me and Ichigo documented and digital evidence that we were completely different people than the ones that were going to disappear from Japan after I graduated. After makeovers to further disguise ourselves, I was going to cover my tracks by telling Angelica that something had come up and I had sold the manor again, but thanks for everything she did before Ichigo and I moved in as grandmother and granddaughter. She could hardly wait to show me where she used to sleep, where she used to skip rope, and see if her old swing was still hanging on its branch. She wanted so much to come back and tell you what had happened to her since that night," she insisted wistfully.
Baron was tapping her lips with the pen again.
"You're really liking that thing," Haru grumbled, but got the point. "Three months ago, I just felt like doing something for fun to relieve my study stress, so I rented a fancy horse-drawn carriage and took the kids well enough for it for rides through the park close to the hospital. It was very relaxing and we all enjoyed it, but then Tohru got a message from my sperm donor demanding to take me to see him in his office." Haru closed her eyes in pain. "He screamed at me for doing something public outside of the Nutcracker thing even though he'd likely benefit from it, and I had some snarky comments back because, hey, I'm a teenager. He tried to punish me by firing Ichigo, but then I hired her right back as my personal assistant, listing out all the things she already did as the requirements for her 'new job'. He didn't like that, and we were still arguing over whether or not he could fire someone that was on my payroll when a guy I didn't recognize ran in and shot my sperm donor in the heart while screaming gibberish and nearly foaming at the mouth. I'm a little surprised there was something in his chest at all."
Haru looked at her feet, wishing she didn't have to talk about her worst memory. "Even as the guy finished pointing his gun at me next while Tohru ran at him… you wouldn't believe how fast a ninety-three-year-old woman can move with the right motivation. She grabbed me and yanked me to the floor while keeping her body covering mine. There were two more gunshots while Tohru was wrestling him. One of them hit her."
She felt too tired to cry. She wanted to at this point, but her tear ducts could barely squeeze out a drop after how many tears she had already spilled this night. Muta tried balancing himself on her arm to lick her face, but she barely noticed. Even when the crow perched on her shoulder again and gently cawed to know more.
Her voice almost turned robotic as she replayed those last moments for Baron's sake. "Despite our agreement, the sperm donor did hear me scream 'Mom!' when I realized it had been a fatal spot instead of the arm graze I was praying for. She was able to tell me one more time that she loved me, and not to forget my promise. Right after I finished the phone call with Angelica buying the manor, Ichigo was worried something would happen again, and told me how she wanted her body handled and what to do when I got here. I didn't want to listen. I didn't want to think about a life without her. But she's a stubborn soul and forced the promise out of me."
Haru sighed tiredly. "She'd also warned the sperm donor years ago that if he didn't learn to come when I cried for him, he was going to regret the day I stopped crying for him. I didn't think about it until Tohru told me about it later, but his facial expressions as he lay dying while I gave all my attention to Ichigo made it clear that he was regretting something. The shooter was a tech that the donor had fired for not being able to do something outside the laws of physics, and it was a last straw thing for someone that could get at a firearm. He's in prison for life."
Deciding that her legs could handle the cat's weight again, she dragged him back onto her lap and cuddled him like a toy again while he purred into her ear as the crow preened her hair with his beak again. "Kaoru's parents wanted to speed up the marriage since they didn't think I should be without adult supervision at sixteen. I was grieving, and I kind of feel bad for how I let loose on them when they came by with the twins to discuss the matter. I told them how little I was interested in marrying into their family, not because they're bad people, but because I never got a sincere apology or chance from Kaoru. He was pretty shocked when I told him that he and his brother were the reason I skipped a grade the first time. Because I was still upset about Ichigo's death, I laid out everything from my nanny covering so we didn't have to interact to planning to run away to get out of the engagement. I have no idea why Hikaru and Kaoru thought I was just going to forget the way they've been treating me for years, even though I did mention I was happy they had learned how to be decent people to anyone that wasn't me. But they didn't complain when I made the counteroffer to buy my family mansion and the company since that was the main reason for the engagement. I even offered a discount if the twins took over my Christmas charity work. Turns out they did like my work but didn't like being forced into spending time with me. Their whole club is getting into the act this year, so I know the kids will love it even if they miss me."
Haru nuzzled Muta's creamy fur a bit before continuing. "His parents were not happy about the bullying, the twins did offer a belated apology, but their family took my deal with the charity work. Their father will take care of the company until the twins graduate and they figure out which one wants to run it instead of their mother's fashion empire when she eventually retires. I tried to speed up my final exams so I could just leave for here, but since they were only two months away at that point, I wasn't allowed."
Haru shrugged with a small smile. "Between skipping grades twice, my investments, charity work, the hefty inheritance from the sperm donor's death, various testimonies about my character and mental health, the sale of one of the largest toy companies on the planet, and keeping Tohru on my payroll, the judge was nearly begging to stop drowning in reasons to grant me emancipation. I used the time until the final exams to sell or donate anything I didn't want to take with me, shipped off the rest before exams started, paid the promised triple amount if the glass smith could fool me into thinking Ichigo's swan was made by a Drosselmeyer and well… here I am," she finished a bit lamely since she doubted Baron cared about how she had her handful of items packed for the plane after her final exam. "I still don't have the results, but I'm confident I passed and have an offer for Yale's fall semester next year, which should give me time to grieve before furthering my education. I don't even care about walking at my own high school graduation."
She looked up at the glass swan lovingly, making everyone else do the same. "I know the story went a bit off-topic near the end, Louise. But if your father's spirit could hear what was said this night, I'm certain he won't mind at all when I say that you will always be his masterpiece."
"… A-men!" an unfamiliar voice croaked with emotion, making the depressed teenager jump.
Because it was coming from the same shoulder that had the weeping crow.