Chapter Text
Osamu isn’t sure how long he’d been sitting in this cell. All night if the rising sun letting a stream of light into the tiny room had any say in the matter. And it certainly did have a say, as soon as the light began to filter in he heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching where he was.
When his cell door opens he almost wants to fight back, to spit in the face of the man who is not Chuuya (that gets his blood pumping in fear, he thought he was Chuuya’s case to deal with?) and scowl at them. He doesn’t force himself to have a sense of calm wash over him. But, inside, his blood was boiling. He’d heard Fukuchi and Mori being brought in as well and he knew they had been betrayed and that gave him an ever so slight feeling of smugness that they had been fooled.
“I need to speak with the king, it is imperative and in his greatest interests that I do.” One of the other guards who had snuck up on him landed a harsh hit to his side, causing him to double over, placing an arm around himself protectively.
“I don’t believe he would want to speak to a criminal.” The guard says, spitting in his direction.
He sent out a prayer to any god who was willing to listen that Chuuya or Ranpo or, hell, even Kunikida would come for him soon. He needed to get out of here and back to that place. He groans a bit as he is hoisted up into the guards arms and dragged out of the cell. He fights it just a bit, yelling obscenities at where Mori and Fukuchi were being held.
“Thanks for knocking me out, assholes. Hope you’re happy with yourselves now that we’re all stuck here!” He screams back at them, straining in the arms that hold him as his mind races over every tiny detail of that night he could remember. He hoped Sigma was alright. She was smart, the second he took too long she would have run and gotten help, maybe run back to Chuuya or Ranpo, preferably the later as he seemed to know as well as Osamu. He continues to struggle in his bonds as he is tugged forward.
“Gentlemen,” a voice in front of them begins, “I believe this man was declared innocent not five minutes ago.” Ranpo says, strutting across the hall like he owned the place as Edgar followed shortly after looking like he didn’t belong here at all. Kunikida and Chuuya are following closely behind, the later looking more and more pissed off the closer to Dazai he got. At their heels is a tiny, white cat that he knew all too well.
His heart sinks.
Sigma was not with them.
“But sir, we–”
“Are you truly going to question your crown prince?” He asks, cocking his head to the side with a knowing smirk on his face. He gestures behind him. Chuuya pulls the set of keys from its hook and is making his way towards Osamu. “Go on, ask the king yourself if you aren’t sure.” The guards look at each other and back to Ranpo before hurrying off with a few mumbled apologies to their prince. Ranpo beams an even brighter smile. “Works every time.” He half mumbles to himself as Chuuya works the chains off Osamu.
“You were able to get a pardon in that short of time?” He asks, rubbing his raw wrists. Ranpo lets out a single loud laugh.
“You really think I’d wait for you to get an official pardon?” As his eyes open they sharpen onto Osamu as he asks his question. “Sigma, where is she?”
“We were hoping you could tell us.” Edgar speaks up, stepping forward and picking Atsushi up from the ground. “Atsushi here was able to find us after the festival last night but he was alone and seemed in distress. What happened?”
“Her father…” He faintly remembered a third figure that night, just before he was knocked unconscious and dragged away. He must have been the one to betray Mori and Fukuchi. He must have been the one to take Sigma away. He must have been the one to… “Shit.” He curses suddenly, rushing over to Chuuya and grabbing him by the shirt collar, lifting him just a bit to get his point across. “Chuuya, please, she’s in danger and I need to go to her. I promise this is the last favour I will ever ask.” He seems to only hesitate for a moment before nodding resolutely. Grabbing Osamu’s hand as he turned away from the hall of cells and rushing his way out of there. Atsushi follows hot on their heels.
“Take my horse, she’s the fastest we’ve got.” He says leading him away to the royal stables and hurriedly saddling his horse and helping Osamu up and sending them on their way, racing out of the kingdom with a final hopeful glance at them.
(Fukuzawa notices the way the familiar horse races its way out of the kingdom rather shortly before he received the news that Ranpo had claimed the man they had taken in as a prisoner just the night before had been given a pardon. He simply nods, knowing that if his son had chosen to let him go, there had to be good reason.)
He finds his way to the forest and through it easily, as if muscle memory and adrenaline were fueling him in his quest as Atsushi mews incessantly. His mind lingers to Sigma, of who had taken her. The man who was her father, who was her kidnapper. The man who had killed his dad.
He would get his revenge, one way or another.
He almost misses the tower and the entrance to it in his rush, Arahabaki is still huffing and whinnying as he pushes her harder onwards hopping off the second he was within running distance, slamming into the hard stone with a slight grunt.
“Sigma!” He calls up to her, hoping that she hears him. That she was safe, that she was alright. That she was alone. That he wasn’t too late. “Sigma, I’m here, let me up!”
(“It seems that prince charming has arrived.” Fyodor chuckles coldly, running a cloth against the cool blade of the knife as he drags her hair over to the window. Sigma whimpers and struggles even more in the chains that bind her. “Pity; he would have been better off in his cell where he belonged.”)
He isn’t thinking when the hair falls before him. He doesn’t think of the possibility that he was too late. He doesn’t think that Fyodor could be there, leading him to a trap. He only thinks about saving her.
He climbs up as fast as he possibly can manage, clamouring into the tiny room. He stands there for a moment, horrified as Sigma screams, muffled behind the cloth gag stuffed in her mouth. It’s almost numbing the way he is jolted forward in pain.
He glances down to see the very tip of a knife sticking out of his stomach. As it is ripped free from him he gags on a breath, feeling himself begin to fall to the ground in agony. His blood runs fiery hot and agonising. What hurts more is Sigma’s screams, a muffled attempt to say his name as big fat tears roll down her cheeks as she struggles harder against her bonds, thick chains that keep her exactly where she is. He wants to stand, to get up and hold her and promise her that everything will be alright. He wants to take her away from this place forever and burn it to the ground so she never has to think about it ever again. But, suddenly, he feels very, very weak.
He barely manages to open the bag he had brought with him to set the white cat free before his arms collapse in on themselves. He faintly feels someone stepping on him, right over the still open wound and winces at the sudden flash of heat stretching over his side. Sigma screams once more. The muffled words above him barely register as he blinks in and out of consciousness.
Fyodor looks far too smug as he approaches her once again and takes the bundle of chains, keeping her still in his hands and dragging her towards the stairs. “We don’t need to worry about him anymore, I made sure he won’t bother us ever again.” But still, she struggles, she fights back as much as she can because at this point that's all that she can do.
He yowls at the sudden pain, kicking Atsushi away from where he had bit down on his leg, the small moment giving Sigma enough time to struggle away, her hands, clumsy and weak able to manoeuvre up to her gag and pull it out just the tiniest bit, spitting the rest of it out like it had offended her.
“Fyodor, stop this!” She pleads, eyes wide as she looks up at the only father she had ever known. “Please, stop.” her voice goes quiet as the man looks down at her, his eyes softening ever so slightly. The sounds of Osamu’s ragged breath and shaky groans of pain steal her nerves and she takes just a few calming breaths. “I will go with you,” she knows she shouldn’t, but what other choice did she have? “If you let me heal him, just this once, then I will never ask for anything ever again.”
She could practically feel the distress of the others washing over her, she knew what she was now and what that meant. But she couldn’t let anyone die because of her. She would walk willingly to her fate if that's what it took.
Fyodor gives her five minutes alone with him, still watching her like a hawk, seeing every movement of her hands.
Osamu groans when she presses a hand to his shirt, the blood quickly coating her hands. She rips open his shirt with shaking red hands, almost wanting him to make a joke about how she was ‘going too fast for him’ or how she should ‘at least take him out to dinner first’ or something along those lines. But, all he does is grit his teeth. It looks bad. She’s never seen so much blood before.
His hands, bloody and slippery, try to shakily grasp her hands as she works. Trying to stop her, wordlessly.
“Just let me do this.” She whispers to him, trying to calm him by brushing back his hair as she pulls her own to where he is injured. She notices the way he whispers and leans in closer to hear him.
“Sigma, don’t do this.”
She feels the tears come fast as she thinks of a response. She would be fine after this, so long as he was alive, then she could live with herself. “I can’t let you die, not if I can help it. Thank you, Osamu Dazai, for letting me see the world.”
A hand comes to her mid back and she startles for a moment before leaning in, both to the hand and Osamu’s face; believing he was finally, finally, going to kiss her like she was a precious gem as she had imagined he would, like she was someone who mattered. Like he had treated her the whole time, as if she were human.
What he does is far more loving.
She feels the hand grip her hair tight, slicing through it all in one fell swoop, cutting each and every last strand of her healing hair apart. His hand is bloody as it drops the glass shard, a soft smile on his lips. And her heart feels suddenly light as she watches the hair fade in colour; dying.
“You bastard!” Fyodor screams at him. But he was powerless now, because Sigma was useless to him now. Sigma was free. And that took a while before she realized it. She stands quickly and rushes over to the table, still set for the food they were meant to have the night before.
The knife feels almost natural in her hand as she slams it into Fyodor's stomach when he tries to reach for her. He looks pained, eyes widening at her as she glares at the man. She acts before she can think, shoving Fyodor, weakened as he was so suddenly, stripped of his power over her, closer and closer to the edge of the windowsill, the very one she had sat at for hours, days, years dreaming of the life she could have lived if he had not taken her. She pushes with all her might and he leaves her sight with a single final scream that is cut quickly short.
Then the world is silent, and she remembers the person still bleeding out behind her.
“Osamu?” She questions as as turns back to look at him. His face is pale, lips still held in a small smile. “Osamu!” Sigma rushes forward, already tearing apart her skirt and pressing the cloth into the hole in his stomach, he coughs at the pressure and cracks open his eyes just a bit. “You’re gonna be fine, Osamu.” She promises even as she knows better.
“Sigma,” he mumbles as she works, tearing apart more of her dress to make some form of bandages. She's never had to do this before and her hands shake as she tries to work. “Sigma, go.”
Those words make the tears in her eyes begin to fall.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t…
“You can,” he whispers, a weak hand coming up to brush away her hair. “You are so brave, Sigma. And you aren’t alone. There's so many people who can help you. Go, find Chuuya and the others. They’ll take you home.”
Her sobs grow stronger as she clasps his hand in hers and presses further into it.
“You are my home, Osmau.”
He huffs out a little breath, and smiles. “I’m sorry.”
His hand goes limp in hers.
“No. No!” Her hand acts on its own, flying up to his face and cupping a cheek in it. She shakes him, once twice, and there is no response from him. “No, no, no please don’t leave me.” She sobs, tears falling freely now onto his face and neck and rolling down everywhere. She throws herself down onto his chest, clutching at his shirt.
Atsushi comes over as well, limping a bit as he walks, plopping the top half of himself down onto Osamu’s right shoulder and begins to purr. As if that will wake him, make everything better again.
She continues to cry into his chest, uncaring about the world outside her little bubble of grief. It's like a hole had hollowed itself out of her chest and nothing could possibly fill it again. She’d never had to see someone die before. In the stories she’d read it was always glossed over or described as if it never mattered. The characters would talk about it once or twice afterwards. This. This had felt as if it would never heal. Sigma howls in pain, barely able to catch her breath in her pain.
It isn’t for a long time before her tears slow, even longer for them to still.
By that point she was tired and the sun had dipped below the horizon.
She considers, for just a moment, just laying here on Osamu’s chest and waiting for death to come for her as well.
“Sigma?” A voice, rough and familiar speaks up, makes her shoot back up to look into dark eyes as they flutter open in the moonlight streaming into the tower. “Did I ever tell you you look really good with shorter hair?”
She doesn’t care to think about how her tears were magical in the same way her hair was or her lacklustre first aid had worked, she just threw herself into Osamu’s arms. Relief washing over her like a warm sunbeam.
“Oh, wow, that's really good. I thought you were gone for a minute there.” Another voice, this one unfamiliar and new, spoke up.
When Sigma looked up there was no sign of that familiar white cat she knew too well. Rather, there was a young man with similarly white hair and oh so familiar eyes.
“What the fuck?” She practically screamed, rather surprised at this newest development. The boy flinches back from her scream and she feels almost bad for that.
“Calm down, please! You know me, I promise!” He goes on to say, nervously holding out his hands as if that would calm anyone down in this situation. “I-I’m Atsushi. Your cat?”
“You’ve been able to do that this whole time?” Osamu asks, looking much too calm for this situation. I mean, the man died and came back and now the cat he's known this whole time is now a person. Sigma looks between the two of them with a hint of concern in her shocked expression. What a day this has become.
“Not exactly!” Atsushi defends, holding up his hands and waving them around before bringing them to his chest and playing with his fingers. “I was put under a curse by that man, once he died I was freed but I didn’t change back right away because it seemed like a very emotional moment!”
“I would have preferred to know sooner rather than later.” Sigma complains, relief seeping into her voice with a hint of laughter.
“At least you know!” He sighs, hunching his shoulders in a bit of guilt. “I came searching for you, that's why I was transformed into… that.” He cringes and seems to shiver a bit before looking back at Sigma. He looks at her with all kinds of affection lacing his eyes and a small smile on his face. “And, that's why I stayed all this time.” She nods.
She needed to tell them. So, Sigma takes hold of Osamu’s hand and looks into his eyes.
“Osamu, I’m—”
“The princess, Sigma, I know.” He interrupts before she could get too far, a small smile stretching across his face. He shrugs at her shock. “The second I saw you and your hair I had a hunch. The fact you could heal helped me figure it out.” She laughs, wet and teary eyed as she leaps into his arms, holding him tight as he pets her hair back, kissing her temple as she does. “Let’s get you home, love.”
~~~
She is led back into the kingdom slowly, the horse beneath her walking at a slow gait as Osamu and Atsushi lead them back out of the forest. They come out of the treeline into the bright sunlight. She still feels shaky and a bit terrified as they pass by palace guards, no longer needing to hide as they had before. Atsushi pulls some strings; having been the other lost child of the kingdom had some advantages and he was able to finagle their way into the palace walls even with a still wanted fugitive and a complete stranger with him.
They find their place at the front entrance, standing on the small platform leading up to the palace doors.
Sigma stands there for a very long time, heart racing in her chest as Osamu’s hand tightens around hers and she grips Atsushi’s shoulders. She wants to say something, at least she thinks she does, but every word she says seems to grow cold in her throat, clamouring for a way up but no matter what she does it can’t escape. She squeezes Osamu’s hand and silently thanks him for not mentioning she was probably already holding it enough that it could shatter at any moment. But he doesn’t complain, maybe he was just as terrified.
As the sound of a door opening hits her ears she turns slowly and sees the entire royal family standing there along with Chuuya who gives her a slight nod of support. The king, the one who looks worn, and tired, locks eyes with her and his entire face seems to soften. He says nothing as he slowly walks towards her. She spots Ranpo holding back a few of the younger looking children. Atsushi jumps free of her arms and rushes forward. The king is able to catch him, pulling him into a quick hug before pulling back to trace a hand along his face, looking him over for any injuries. Sigma waits anxiously, hands coming up to hold onto her arms as Osamu slowly backs away from her as soon the king looks back at her. She feels naked before him.
Atsushi makes his way over to Ranpo, the crown prince she now realises. He sends her a smile, genuine and calming.
She barely flinched back when the king approached her, slowly and carefully.
He cups her face first, tilting it up to his face, and oh how she wants to sink into that hand, let it cradle her for a year. It was so much warmer than Fyodor's hands had ever been and it is so wonderful to feel. The fingers soothe back her skin as she leans in heavily against the palm. The king was just staring at her, contemplating her hair and her eyes and her dress, all torn and bloody and wearing boots that still did not fit properly but were the best she had.
He says nothing when he pulls her into a hug.
It feels nothing like Fyodor who had always seemed to keep her at arms length away even while in an embrace. It felt cold, callous, more like an obligation than a want. But not this. This was warm, safe, where she was able to sink her entire weight onto the king and he held her up like it was nothing. He cradled the back of her head, keeping her nose tucked firmly into his shoulder. Sigma doesn’t ever want this to end.
But, as with all things, it has to end at some point. But, maybe, a part of Sigma is glad it ends so slowly.
The king pulls away slowly, an inch at a time, still holding onto Sigma in little ways. She feels his hand trail from her hair to her shoulders, the one around her waist going to her upper arm. She lets her head droop down before leaving his shoulder entirely. But he doesn’t hold her at an arm's length. He holds her hand in his, holds her face gently still. Ranpo approaches next, still with that smile on his face as he pulls Atsushi along by his shoulders.
“Nice to have you back, Sigma. Glad to see you’re alright.” He pulls her into a much shorter hug but it still feels meaningful. Then she is being swarmed on almost all sides by people. People she was meant to see as family. People who had certainly come to see her as family at the very least, despite how little she knew them. It would come easier with time, perhaps, one day she may consider them in the same way.
She struggled for a moment to pull away.
“How could I ever repay what you have done for this kingdom?” The king asks Osamu who stands beside Sigma now, a hand around her shoulders which, by then, was practically the only thing keeping her up. Her legs were still shaking where she stood. It wasn’t meant to be this easy, this simple to be taken into a family. She was supposed to fight and earn her place here. But still, the king had taken her in like it was nothing.
“You’ve already given me everything I could want.” He says with a rather dopey looking grin on his face as he looks right at her. She tenses up and quickly slaps him on the chest.
“Osamu, maybe ask for a pardon for your crimes?”
“Ah, right! That.”
The king laughs heartily and Sigma feels her heart lighten just a bit. “No need, I believe there was a call for your pardon this morning?” He looks over at Ranpo with a knowing smirk. The man blushes a bit at being caught and turns away with a pout. Edgar sends a small smile their way.
“Well, he brought her home didn’t he?”
“And for that, we are in his debt.”
Osamu tenses up, waving his arms around as if that could stop the king from saying what he already had. “No, no. Really, you’ve already done so much for me I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
“Maybe you could ask to stay in the castle.” Chuuya suggests, a smirk on his face as he does so. The rest of the royal family—her family—seems to agree, all coming around to pat him on the shoulder and greet her with an offering of their name.
Sigma laughs through her tears.
~~~
There is nearly a full two weeks of celebration in her return. A new crown had been forged for her to replace the one that had been lost in the events that had transpired, similar in make with little changes here and there. She had been given shoes that fit her properly and dresses of the softest kind in all kinds of styles. And she had appreciated it, she really had. It was nice to be so loudly loved for once. But, when she walked down the gilded walls of the castle in far too expensive dresses and passed by the occasional guard. For some reason, it didn't feel quite right. Like a lingering feeling that Fyodor wasn’t truly dead and right around every corner he would be there to take her back. He couldn’t, of course, upon descending the tower Sigma had seen his corpse herself and had even ensured he would be fully and truly dead.
“What was my mother like?” She asks Fukuzawa one day, on a day where they are drinking tea in the library and there is no one else but them.
He had to know, had to know what other lies Fyodor had fed her before. He had said her mother had died before she could even hold Sigma, that she hadn’t wanted to hold her. She had died alone and cold and the only reason Sigma had survived was because of his kindness.
Fukuzawa closed his book and gently placed it on the small table beside him.
She leans in as he takes her hands in his.
“Your mother was a peasant, and she was very sick and very malnourished before you were born. She had been married and her husband had thrown her to the streets when she had told him she was pregnant.” His voice is low and steady as he recounts this to her, even as her own heart begins to race in her throat. There was no real way to know for certain that he was telling the truth, all she could do was trust that he wouldn’t do that to her. “You were sick as well when you were first born.” That Sigma had known. That's why she was here. Unless, Fyodor had lied about that as well. “She was put under my care. We did all we could to make her comfortable and healthy, but by then most of the damage had already been done. By then all we could do was wait.” He pauses for a moment to look at Sigma, scanning her face for any sort of distress. She nods at him, resolute in her choice. She needed to hear him continue.
“She took a turn for the worse when she had caught the red death and we needed to take some sort of action. When we found the flower it was almost too late as you were born already. We hadn’t known of the ways that it could be used to its fullest potential and had only enough to heal one of you.” His breath seems to catch in his throat somewhere and she places a calming hand on his shoulder. It felt odd, having to comfort him when, up to this point, Fukuzawa had been so strong and sturdy for her. But, he had his right to grieve. “She made me promise I would save you, and that you would have a good life and I knew I would have to make it happen no matter what it took. We let her hold you until she passed, and I had never seen her look so happy before.”
She finds it almost hard to imagine, her mother, a face she hadn’t even known holding her. Fyodor was a liar, she knew this, but it still felt too strange to her mental image. The one of a hateful woman who would have tossed her to the streets the first chance she had. Sigma tried, and found it steadily got easier to imagine the scene. No doubt Fukuzawa was there to see his ward pass away, he would have been right beside her the entire time, holding her shoulder or hand or brushing her hair back. Ranpo would have been standing off to the side respectfully, old enough to know what was happening but too young to fully comprehend it. Maybe, once her mother was gone, Ranpo would have held her first. Or it was Fukuzawa. Or perhaps Yosano who would have been curled up right next to the feverish woman, perhaps she had taken up a passion for healthcare and that's why she went to school.
Maybe Sigma was wrong. Maybe Fyodor had been right the entire time and this whole life that had been crafted was all a ruse, a falsehood. Something she still couldn’t fully trust anymore than the man who had come before.
“Thank you.” She says rather than voicing the thoughts rolling through her head.
~~~
Sigma found, perhaps far too soon, that the castle was not her place in the world.
It was all too much, too opulent and rich and strange to her. She loathes to admit but Fyodor was good at one thing, and it was to keep her humble and content with far less.
And the strangest thing was that Fukuzawa was content allowing her to go, so long as she promised to visit and that if she ever needed any help she would go to him first. Her family, the one who had chosen her and not forcibly taken her, had agreed to let her go. They had even gotten her situated in a house on the edge of the kingdom with plenty of space for her to start a garden and an old horse from the stables.
She was only a bit upset that Fukuzawa had sent two guards with her. That frustration faded a bit when she learned who would be accompanying her.
Kunikida and Chuuya had stayed with her—helping her tend the fields that needed a strong hand and some hard work, waking with her on nights where nightmares took over her and they would all sit up with a warm cup of tea and walking the nearby village for a while—just long enough for the two to get engaged, at which point Sigma had voiced her need for some space, some time for herself; she needed time to work out who she was and what she wanted and they had agreed, promising to come back often. She sent them off with a wave and a letter to her father explaining that she was still safe, and that she would write as often as she could.
The following month was hard, not for the reasons she had believed.
She had made friends, the locals at the village had adored her the second they met, and her garden grew steady and strong and every night where the darkness seemed too thick she would light the fireplace and hum a song she hadn’t thought of for a very long time. She wrote a lot this time. Memories, stories she had been told second hand, everything she could think about. And she missed something. Like there was a dull hole in her chest whenever she thought of her adventures.
It didn’t take her long to know what she wanted and made a trip back to her family.
Kenji was the first to greet her, sweeping her into his arms and lifting her up like it was no big deal and that made Sigma giggle with a wide grin on her face. Something she’d needed to get used to was this, this easy sort of affection that came with being in the royal family. The sort of affection that didn’t make her think she was in trouble of some kind. The kind that felt so genuine she wasn’t sure how to go about it at first.
She grew more and more used to it every passing day.
Kunikida and Chuuya had been faring well, a recently adopted child hanging onto their arms the entire meeting and Fukuzawa looked rather relieved to see her, eyes light and face looking just a bit younger.
And the biggest change was when she first saw Osamu walking through the front entrance of the castle.
He looked cleaner, as if he were getting regular meals and a good bath, and his clothes were that of a royal child. Sigma felt good knowing that, at least now, Osamu could make his father proud of who he had become. And his smile didn’t look fake anymore when he looked at her; in fact, it almost seemed genuine.
Sigma had said she would only be back for a week, and that week passed, then another. It was nearly a full month passed before she finally was able to corner Osamu in the gardens and talk to him as she had been intending.
“Why are you avoiding me?” She asks him, when she finds him sitting beside the roses, one delicately placed in his hands. “The entire time I’ve been here we haven’t been able to talk, not like we used to.” They had exchanged pleasantries in the halls or during meals but beyond that it simply wasn’t as it had been before with his teasing or flirting or jokes. She missed him.
He sighed, looking more tired than the month had let on that he was.
“Because you’ve moved on from whatever we had. And I’m okay with that, you deserve someone good for you.”
“Osamu, what are you talking about?”
He sighed once more, finally turning fully to face her as they both stood there in the moonlight. “You loved me, but it wasn’t real. Sigma, I don’t want you to feel like you’re trapped with me just because I was the first human interaction you ever had so I tried to get you out into the world let you experience others…” Oh, okay, she wants to slap him so badly right now. “I was surprised you hadn’t found a husband yet.”
She does slap him when he says that.
He doesn’t even look hurt by it.
Before he can go sulking for too long she grabs his chin and forces him to look at her; at her and nothing else.
“I don’t care about that.” There is a single deep breath shared between them before she pulls him into a kiss. And its not exactly what she had been expecting. Her books had all talked about how it would feel like flying or fireworks going off or any other form of big explosion of happiness. In fact, it's a bit messy. Maybe she’s just a bad kisser. But Osamu seems to think she is a wonderful one as he pulls her closer by the back of her head, tangling into the hair he had cut what feels like a century ago but had truly been only a year and a half. “Osamu, I love you so damn much.” She mumbles once they have the great idea that oxygen is a thing and pull away for a breath.
The wedding comes shortly after another year of courting and they find themselves a house just a bit closer to the kingdom's capital.
~~~
Sigma had been resting on the couch for a while now, book in hand as Osamu told a bedtime story for their children. She heard their squeals of joy at funny or exciting moments and their gasps at the twists and turns seeping out of the mostly closed door and sighed; content. She had been growing more tired lately so this was a much needed break. As much as she loved the life she had carved for herself, as much as she adored her children it could get exhausting at times. But Osamu had never minded, how could he when he loved their life just as much. She groans a bit as she stands, a hand placed delicately on her stomach.
“And that, children, is the story of how I died!” She hears from the children’s room as she passes by and she laughs a bit, opening the door just a bit more to stand right behind him.
“Osmau,” she huffs playfully from the doorway. Sigma rolled her eyes at him when he tenses up and slowly turns to face her.
“Alright, fine, that was also the story of how we fell in love.” And she nearly glows at the way her children's eyes light up.
“Is all that true, mama?”
“You were kidnapped as a child?”
“You had magic hair!?”
She wants to slap Osamu over the head for getting their two girls so wildly excited right before they had to go to sleep, does this man have no idea what a bedtime story is??? Instead she just sighs and takes a seat on the edge of Ichiko’s bed. She manages to wrestle the young girl into her arms and settle her relatively well.
“I have no doubts your father exaggerated things a bit. Because, no, it did not take us thirteen years later to get married, and no, I did not single handedly take on fifty armed assassins. But yes, I had magic hair that I gave up willingly, I was kidnapped by a man who claimed to be my father. And yes, that was the story of how we fell in love.” She places a kiss to Ichiko’s hair (pale as the moonlight and twice as shiny) as her husband picked Kaori up and carried her to her own bed, all the while she squealed in joy. “When we go to see grandpa he can tell you a bit more of the story, in fact there's a lot of people who know better than I do what happened.”
Ichiko and Kaori don’t fight as the blankets are pulled over them individually. She kisses each of her children's faces and watches Osamu do the same. Right before she closes the door behind her she turns to her children and smiles at their now sleepy faces. “Goodnight my loves. I promise you’ll hear the whole story one day.”
She doesn’t close the door fully, just in case they had a nightmare or something of that sort and needed to get to their parents easily. So that she could bundle them up into her arms and kiss and hug the tears and fears away. Something Fyodor had never given her.
Then it hits her, suddenly but slowly and she nearly has to grab the wall with the way she lurches.
She… she had never thought she would get this.
During her first pregnancy she had been so, so terrified she would end up the same way as her mother, dying without even knowing if her child would be safe. But Osamu was there the whole time holding her hand and Fukuzawa was right beside her in the same vein. She had been given the most comfortable bed and Yosano took extra special care to soothe her before she could work herself into a panic. And then it was over and done with and she was holding a screaming Ichiko in her arms.
That was something her mother had never gotten.
Yet Sigma was here, living with people she loved and in a place she felt truly safe in. She had always wanted children but could never linger on the thought for long before Osamu had come for her. Against the hand on her stomach a small foot kicks and she almost sobs.
Osamu notices before long, the way she lingers in the hall, facing all the family portraits they had commissioned.
He leans down, wrapping his arms around Sigma’s waist and placing a few kisses to her shoulder, covered in a small shawl to keep her warm in these swiftly cooling nights. He trails his mouth up toward her neck, burying his nose there and taking in her smell. One hand takes his and he grips it tight, pulling it up to his mouth to kiss it. His other hand trails across Sigma’s stomach, heavy with their third and most likely final child. Not that he was upset, he couldn’t have been happier here if he tried.
“Osamu?” She mumbles into his hand, a small smile gracing her lips.
“Yes love?”
“Thank you for stealing my crown and breaking into that tower.”