Sapphire Ambassadors

It had been... quite a day.

Sapphire Ambassadors. We're part of something new.

He stood by Hatsuki's door, exhaled a long breath, and then scratched at it.

Hatsuki opened it, looking a little surprised, but pleased to see him. "Please, come in."

She stepped back to let him inside. "Shall I get tea started?"

"If you like. I just..."

A pause.

"Wanted to talk. Needed to talk? Needed to talk. It's been... well. You were there for a couple of the day's high notes..."

She closed the door behind them and rested a hand gently on one side of his jaw. "You seem like you have a lot on your mind. I'm happy to listen to whatever you say."

"Well, first of all..."

His expression turned downright goofy as he took her hand in his and kissed it.

"Twins!!!"

He let out another breath.

"And I think that problem we worked on solving? It's not the problem we thought it was. Had some time to... let my temper cool."

She laughed softly at that. "Twins!" she echoed, just as happy.

The second made her elegantly-shaped eyebrows rise. "What kind of problem was it? Did you sort it out?"

"Let us just say that my marriage will proceed as planned."

He shrugged.

"For me, there are far worse things than a wife who I will never love, and who will never love me. And her... actions, that made me so furious?"

Choudai shook his head.

"She's in pain. A pain I can relate to- but hers is worse. Benten was far kinder to us."

He looked into Hatsuki's eyes.

"With us, it's mutual."

She couldn't help but frown at that. She had hurt him. Whatever her motivations were mattered much less to Hatsuki than they did to him.

Would they never love each other? Warmer emotions had grown from less fertile ground than sympathy over shared pain.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm the strange fear that had coiled in her chest. Over Mikan of all people. She wasn't a threat, she only had eyes for Nadeshiko.

Calm down.

Then she opened them and nodded. "I think I understand. I'll support whatever decision you make on that front."

"I'm glad to hear it. I'm not asking you to forgive her- she hasn't yet even attempted an apology to you, after all- but... I think I have enough on my conscience without adding the murder of a miserable young woman to the list."

A frown.

"Did you know when I asked if there was anyone from home she'd want to come see her, she said there was no one save Nadeshiko? I'm not privy to training of the Kakita Artisans, Hatsuki-chan, but your school, it seems to me, does more to isolate those who can't fit in than any training I've seen among the Scorpion."

His expression shifted back toward a smile.

"But enough about her. Without the need for public decorum... how does it feel, Ambassador Shosuro Hatsuki?"

She crossed her arms and sighed. "It wasn't pleasant, but I'm more concerned with how it affected you and Nadeshiko. That's what gets to me. What's to stop her if she gets into another mood, hmm?" She clenched her teeth hard enough to make her jaw audibly click. "If Nadeshiko says something she interprets negatively, who's to stop her from driving someone into despair over and over until they snap? That was not how our school's method was intended to be used. How dare it even cross her mind?"

She let out a long breath to try and address what else Choudai said. "... It does. That's why I got into makeup in the first place. Before I became... what I am today, I actually wanted to help my fellow students with it to see themselves in a more positive light. I think that's part of why using our techniques the way she did made me so angry."

"Sorry, I'm just... ugh." She ran her hands down her face.

"Hatsuki. You need never apologize to me for your feelings."

He chuckled.

"Or anything else. You know I worship the very air you breathe, right? Her reaction was certainly wrong- and seeing what it did to you, I resorted to some viciousness of my own. But she didn't get what she wanted out of that little display. It takes more than despair to slow me down, Hatsuki-chan, especially when it comes to someone who has hurt you. It won't happen again. I intend to give her plenty of leeway when it comes to the house. Of course, if she touches the kitchen or my sleeping chamber, well, then her tragedy will be a short one, but we've agreed to keep out of one another's way as best we can. The Crane seek to get rid of her, and the nakodo probably seeks to make some object point about pairing two oddballs with a few social disgraces under our obi. Well. The joke's on them. I'm going to make it work. The way I want it to. And if my wife spends her days pining for your cousin and painting, that doesn't concern me in the slightest. If, by some chance, she makes a particularly biting piece of artwork, you can't tell me the Scorpion Clan won't find a use for it."

He reached out to brush her hair with his fingertips.

"There was one more thing. The first thing she did when I called on her? She begged me to permit her to give some paintings to Nadeshiko. Not... her usual, either. You know your cousin's eyesight is failing? Mikan painted landscapes from around the Empire. She wanted to let Nadeshiko see as much as could, even if just in a painted form, before her eyesight goes entirely."

He chuckled.

"And for the life of me, it sounded like something I'd try to arrange for you if the situation applied."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She took his hand and squeezed gently. "Thank you. I... get it. Like I said, I'll follow your lead." She paused and then added, "And I promise I won't take matters into my own hand."

He smiled.

"You don't need to promise, either. I trust you more than I trust myself, you know that right?"

She took his hands and leaned up, meeting his lips with hers. "I don't know if it's your best decision, but I appreciate it."

He just kissed her back and said nothing further.

He couldn't let dawn find him in her room, he couldn't be there when their children were born, he couldn't even let the children know, but he could be there with her and for her for a while.

[/FTB and scene, methinks, barring further business]

/scene