Current music:	Madonna - Frozen
Entry tags:	christmas 06, saiunkoku, shuuei/kouyuu

Title: Surviving The Mourning Process
Fandom: Saiunkoku Monogatari
Pairings: Shuuei/Kouyuu, background Ryuuki -> Shuurei and hints of Ryuuki -> Seiran
Genre: Humour
Word Count: 1,637
Notes: Christmas fic for thehoyden, 2006.
Summary: If Shuurei doesn't come back soon, Kouyuu is going to kill someone. Possibly himself.

---

“Shuuureeeei,” Ryuuki moaned, collapsed pitifully across his desk. Over the last year he’d grown to become a fine emperor, and he’d made the right if difficult decision by sending Shuurei and Eigetsu (and Seiran) to the Sa Province. Like opening the way for women officials, it had been the proper choice for both Shuurei and for the country, however much it hurt Ryuuki on a personal level to go through with it.

Right now, however, Kouyuu wished fervently that Ryuuki had been a little more selfish and had either not sent Shuurei anywhere (and then the Sa Province would be in turmoil and Shuurei wouldn’t be as happy) or had gone with her (completely implausible), because there was only so much melodramatic angst Kouyuu could take and he was rapidly approaching that quota.

“I wonder if she misses me,” Ryuuki sighed, oblivious in his despair to Kouyuu’s internal strife.

Common sense suggested that, Shuurei being Shuurei, she didn’t miss Ryuuki anywhere near as much as he missed her, particularly not with Seiran by her side. Kouyuu was not stupid enough to say this, however.

“I’m sure she does,” Shuuei said soothingly, but apparently couldn’t resist adding, “Though perhaps not quite as much as she is missed.”

Ryuuki bolted upright in his chair. “What if she forgets me?” he exclaimed, horrified and dismayed, and Kouyuu gave Shuuei a filthy glare. Only an idiot went out of his way to poke a wounded bear with a stick. “What if she falls in love with someone else? Even though she promised she’d warn me if she got married…”

“That would be very unlike her, wouldn’t it?” Shuuei replied, much more reassuringly this time. “Knowing Shuurei-dono, I’m sure she’s concentrating on her career as an official.”

“You’re probably right,” Ryuuki conceded, and deflated a little from his panic before a new thought struck him. “But what if she gets hurt? Or killed?”

“That’s what Seiran-dono is there for,” Shuuei reminded him gently. “To protect Shuurei-dono.”

“Yes, but what if Seiran gets killed?” Ryuuki said miserably, and then began to wail at the whole new set of horror and loneliness this possibility filled his mind with. Kouyuu had been wondering when Ryuuki would get started on his beloved older brother; he reserved most of his fits of insanity for Shuurei, who he was just as smitten with now as he had been all year, but every so often he’d be triggered off on a “wah! Ani-ue!” rant.

All told, Kouyuu was almost relieved when Shou-Taishi came to discuss something with the emperor, because as much as he distrusted the old man, it was a nice change for Ryuuki to put on his official emperor persona once more.

Kouyuu really did not want to have to strangle the emperor, after all.

~

The sixteenth morning after Shuurei’s departure, Shuuei entered the library to find Kouyuu looking extremely frazzled and like he might at any moment start beating his head against the desk he was sitting at.

“Have you been here all night?” Shuuei asked cautiously, because the dark circles and the wild look in Kouyuu’s eyes suggested a distinct lack of sleep.

“Any more of this and I am going to go insane,” Kouyuu snapped in response, fingers twisted desperately in the loose strands of his bangs as though he were on the verge of tearing his hair out. “Reishin-sama is going to drive me to it!”

Shuuei raised an eyebrow from where he was leaning casually against the window frame, and presumably, knowing Kouyuu as well as he did, he also knew to take that answer as an indirect affirmative. “Really? Not his highness?”

“His highness has pushed me to the edge,” Kouyuu said grimly, eye twitching. “And Reishin-sama wailing about the absence of his cute niece will be the last straw.”

Having possibly realised for the first time the true horror of what Kouyuu faced from all angles, Shuuei winced sympathetically.

“At least Shouka-dono didn’t leave for the Sa Province,” he pointed out wryly. “Or Reishin-dono would be completely inconsolable.”

“If Shuurei-dono is gone for a year,” Kouyuu said, glaring at Shuuei without the slightest hint of levity, “I will die. But not before I kill everyone around me.”

There was something scarily believable about the way he said that, but Shuuei did not seem at all fazed.

“Would you like me to help you unwind?” he offered generously, and the suggestive smile and the way he leaned over Kouyuu from behind, trapping him against the desk, did not leave much mystery as to what kind of help he was referring to.

“No,” Kouyuu yelled, and threw a book at Shuuei’s head, but didn’t storm out of the room, because with his luck he’d just get lost and end up running into Ryuuki or Reishin and committing very regrettable homicide.

At least, Kouyuu consoled himself, if he killed Shuuei, he probably wouldn’t regret it quite so much.

And if that was a dirty rotten lie, that totally was not the point.

~

One would expect that the longer Shuurei was gone, the more accustomed to her absence her friends and family would become.

One would be sadly mistaken, however, and Kouyuu was reaching the point where he would frequently begin to very seriously contemplate beating his head against a convenient wall until he passed into blissful oblivion.

Most of the time he quite liked being alive, though, so Kouyuu had intelligently opted to try and avoid vexatious situations wherever possible rather than beat himself into either death or a coma. Mostly this worked.

Sometimes it didn’t, because being the adopted child of Reishin and a trusted advisor to Ryuuki was bound to throw him into the path of such situations with depressing regularity. And sometimes, there were unforeseen complications.

“I do rather miss Shuurei-dono’s cooking,” Shuuei said thoughtfully on the twenty-fourth night, just as Kouyuu was about to fall asleep and probably on purpose. “And her tea. It’s becoming harder to avoid drinking tea made by Shouka-dono.”

Kouyuu pushed himself up from the pillow, hair tousled and eyes struggling to stay open. “Not you too,” he complained, a bit lack-lustre from sleepiness, and gave Shuuei the evilest look he could manage given that his arms gave out on him and almost planted him face first in the pillow. “I came here to escape Reishin-sama!”

Shuuei smirked, sliding his hand along Kouyuu’s back.

“Is that the only reason?” he asked coyly, and Kouyuu blushed, scowling and grumbling something muffled as he turned his face away, but didn’t slap Shuuei’s hand away from where it rested against the curve of his spine. Perhaps because he was tired and it was too much effort; perhaps for some other, more favourable reason. “And don’t you miss Shuurei-dono too, even if only a little?”

“I miss common sense,” Kouyuu mumbled, grudgingly, and Shuuei laughed.

“Surely you’re not suggesting Reishin-dono or his highness ever possessed such a thing,” he teased, and Kouyuu snorted.

“I meant her common sense,” he retorted, relaxing instinctually into Shuuei’s touch for a change. “Though his highness and Reishin-sama are both admittedly less insane when she’s around. Or maybe more tolerably insane.”

“Maybe,” Shuuei agreed, and very considerately did not bring the matter up again until the next night when Kouyuu was about to fall asleep.

~

“I suggested to his highness that perhaps he could afford a short period away from his duties as emperor,” Shuuei told Kouyuu, with absolutely no warning. “He has a sudden and inexplicable desire to travel through the Sa Province.”

“…And if he happens to see Shuurei-dono’s progress towards Koren,” Kouyuu said, rolling his eyes, “it’s just a coincidence?”

“Exactly,” Shuuei said, with a wink. “His highness also informed me that he wants his two most trusted advisors to accompany him.”

By which he of course meant Kouyuu and Shuuei, and Kouyuu thought: I hate travelling long distances. I hate sleeping outdoors, I’m terrible at navigation and I can’t fight to save my life. I’ll be useless and miserable, especially since his highness won’t have any work to distract him from talking about Shuurei-dono, and if Reishin-sama ends up short staffed because I’m gone, I’ll never hear the end of it.

Then again, when Kouyuu thought about it from the other side of the argument, as one of the five people most trusted by the emperor (three of whom were already in the Sa province), he had somewhat of an obligation to go. Reishin would probably forgive him if it were in the name of looking out for his precious niece. As for being useless and miserable…

As much as Kouyuu hated to admit it, he’d probably be even more useless and miserable if Shuuei went with Ryuuki and they left him here.

Having considered all this, finally he scowled and said, “You’d better keep your hands to yourself, Shuuei, or I will kill you.”

But Shuuei just smiled smugly like that was the most romantic thing to ever cross Kouyuu’s lips (which sadly was possible), which made Kouyuu blush uncomfortably and want to stomp on his instep.

“Duly noted,” Shuuei said smoothly, and made a liar out of himself immediately by sliding his arms around Kouyuu’s waist from behind and making Kouyuu shriek and struggle out of his grasp, dashing to the other side of the room to press his back against the bookshelf and hyperventilate like a spooked cat, still vivid red and spluttering with incoherent rage when Ryuuki entered the room.

“Huh? Did I miss something? Is Kouyuu okay?” he asked, vaguely bewildered. “What? What?”

And as Shuuei laughed and Ryuuki looked between them with a confused expression, Kouyuu slumped against the bookcase, reflecting that he needed to learn how to say ‘no’ and mean it, or at least persuade Shuuei he meant it.