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“Guh- guh- guh glasses.” Oito mimed putting on and taking off a pair of glasses. “G is for glasses.” She pointed to the picture in the book, a sketch Kurapika had done of his friend Leorio, a glasses wearer.
She flipped the page. “Ffff fff ff friendship. F is for friendship.” She pointed to the page where she had drawn the three of them, her, Kurapika, and Woble. “Fuh fuh friendship.”
Wobble cooed.
A door slammed.
Oito looked up from the alphabet book she and Kurapika had made to see said man standing in the doorway.
“Everything alright?” She asked, getting up, balancing Woble on her hip automatically as she did so.
“Yes. Everything is fine.” Kurapika said stiffly.
Oito frowned. “Kurapika, I believe we had an agreement to trust each other. How can I protect my daughter if I don’t know what’s going on.”
“It’s nothing really.” He sighed. “I’ve just received some frustrating news from one of my friends working for the other princes.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing serious. They just haven’t been able to gather the information we’d hoped to find on Tserriednich.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it.” She said, patting him on the shoulder. “We only just started looking and for all the time I’ve known him I haven’t been able to learn anything we could use.”
“I know.” Kurapika said. “But if we can’t know our enemy, especially that one, how can we ever expect to protect Woble?”
“We’ll find a way.” She said, clutching her daughter closer. And she wanted to believe it. Because for all of his stubbornness and strong moral convictions, Kurapika was smart and a pessimist. He knew it would take a miracle to save her daughter. So she had to be the one to believe in it, foolishly and with all her heart.
“Of course.” Kurapika said. She knew he didn’t believe it but she appreciated him saying it, for her sake.
She also appreciated that even if he knew they would probably never succeed, this man, who held so many peculiarities and heartbreaks in one small frame, had devoted his energy to caring about her and her daughter.
It broke her heart, too, to think about it; She knew what his past was like, knew what had happened to his family. And even if she would never be so bold as to admit it, she knew the three of them had formed their own little family. A little family that had no chance of surviving. She and Woble would be eaten up by the other princes and then once again Kurapika would be left without a family, with just his rage and pain for comfort.
She didn’t notice she’d fallen into thought for so long until Kurapika touched her arm, snapping her out of it.
“Hey. Why don’t we go over the plans one more time.” He suggested. “I thought of another safety precaution we could take and-”
“Or,” Oito suggested delicately, already preparing for a battle. “You and Woble could rest and then we could go over it.” As he’d talked she’d noticed the bags under his eyes and she felt guilty. He was staying up late working and worrying about them and even if she knew he probably didn’t sleep much before he knew them, it still made her feel bad.
Surprisingly, Kurapika didn’t fight this time. Perhaps he was too tired for even his favorite hill to die on: resisting taking care of himself until he all but dropped dead.
“Ok.” He sighed. “I guess a nap couldn’t hurt. But I’d prefer if I could sleep on the ground here, so I would be close in case you needed anything-”
“That’s fine. But you’re not sleeping on the ground.” Oito said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. It was like Kurapika was addicted to punishing himself and if she didn’t view it with fond exasperation, she knew the sadness of it would overwhelm her. “You can sleep in my bed. I’m not tired.”
“If you’re sure.” He shrugged. He kicked off his shoes and shrugged off the jacket of his suit. But he didn’t lay down just yet.
“You’ll wake me if there’s any danger?”
“Yes, Kurapika.”
“Or any news?”
“Yes, Kurapika.”
“And if you feel even the slightest bit like something is wrong or-”
“Kurapika.” She said. “I promise you, if anything happens, I will wake you up. Now please go to sleep.”
He looked like he wanted to argue but he bit it back, finally slipping under the covers and laying down, if stiffly.
Satisfied, Oito turned her back on him to let him fall asleep in peace. She turned her attention to getting her daughter ready for a nap and was able to get her to sleep in record time.
Smiling, she turned around and was even more pleased to see Kurapika had already fallen asleep. It probably meant he was exhausted and hadn’t slept in a long time but it still made her happy, to see her dear friend resting so peacefully.
With nothing else to do, she tidied the room, putting away the toys she had been entertaining Woble with earlier and separating the laundry they needed done into piles.
Then she went to tidy up the books she’d been reading to Woble before Kurapika had come in. She scooped up the first two but when her hands fell on Woble’s Alphabet , the book she and Kurapika had so lovingly put together, she was overcome with a sweeping melancholy and she fell to her knees, clutching the book to her chest.
They had made it in the hopes that despite being far removed from the early childhood educational materials she would normally have had access to, Woble would still be able to develop and learn like a normal child.
But now Oito knew it was pointless. Her daughter would probably die before she ever had a use for the alphabet.