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Ryoma just about had a heart attack when he first saw the youngest Nohr princess kiss his baby sister in the middle of a battlefield.
“Sakura,” he began gravely when he took her aside, “I want you to know that, even if we are building, er, relationships with Nohr, there are certain, ah…boundaries, or maybe, um…you should never feel, er, forced…”
Thankfully, his sister understood his floundering and interrupted his rambling speech by promptly turning the same color as his armor. “B-Big brother, no! I-It’s not like that! It was just a greeting.”
He blinked. “A…greeting?”
Sakura nodded vigorously enough to mess up her hair. “Y-Yes! In Nohr, people greet their family and close friends with kisses! A-And Princess Elise said I was b-both, so…”
“I see…” Why had he not been informed of these greetings? His foreign diplomacy advisors shouldn’t have kept something so important from him! What if he had accidentally offended one of their comrades? Certainly there were quite a number of Nohrians he would now consider close friends, and since Kamui considers themself part of both families, then that makes the Nohrian royal family his extended family as well…was this why Prince Xander had been acting strangely these past few weeks? That won’t do at all! “Thank you for informing me, Sakura. I was unaware of such a custom.”
She nodded bashfully. “G-Glad I could help, big brother!”
Heading to his next destination, Ryoma resolved to use this greeting the next time he had the chance. It wouldn’t do to offend valuable allies.
---
Xander was muddy, sore seemingly everywhere, and just bone tired. After that last scouting mission, all he really wanted to do was throw off his armor and find somewhere relatively soft to pass out for a few days. But he knew that Kamui would need to hear what news he had found, so he forced his weary body to attend the war council.
Stepping into the tent, he saw that he was among the last to arrive; both the royal families and their retainers were already in attendance.
“Prince Xander!”
Turning around, he couldn’t help but smile at the other crown prince despite his tiredness. He certainly would never have guessed that they had so much in common at the beginning of this whole venture, but there was just something about Ryoma that relaxed him in a way that he didn’t even realize was tense.
“Prince Ryoma! How was everything - “
In two long steps, the prince of Hoshido was rather uncomfortably in Xander’s personal space. Which was unusual, to say the very least. He tended to find that Hoshidans in general had a wider personal bubble than Nohrians.
And when Ryoma leaned up and kissed him on the mouth, he just about had a coronary.
(That his heart was trying to beat out of his chest didn’t bear mentioning. That wasn’t a new state of affairs around Ryoma.)
“Oh, my…” he heard distantly as Ryoma pulled back, a welcoming grin present on his face.
The same face that just kissed him.
“What news do you bring?” He asked, oblivious to the stares he was gathering from everyone present. “How long do we have to prepare?”
The dead silence that greeted him was broken by Niles exclaiming, “Why, Prince Ryoma! How bold of you!” Immediately followed by Leo elbowing him in the side and Odin trying to cover his mouth. Several titters and some suspicious sounding coughs broke out, and Xander made a mental note to reprimand the ones he recognized.
Ryoma finally seemed to get that something was amiss, a look of confusion replacing his smile. “Is something the matter?”
…how did he even begin to answer that?
Xander cleared his throat and unsuccessfully tried to will away the heat in his face. “May I ask what you were doing?”
The look of confusion grew. “Did I do it wrong? I must admit that was my first attempt at this.”
Somebody was wheezing in the corner, which was pretty close to what Xander’s reaction would be too, if he hadn’t been taught to keep his composure under any and all circumstances.
“Do what wrong?” His voice sounded strangled.
“I…was told this was a Nohrian greeting?” Ryoma looked uncertain. “Is that not the case?”
“Well, it is a Nohrian greeting,” Camilla piped up. “A greeting between lovers, that is. Something you’re not telling us, my darling brother?”
He had never actively wanted the earth to swallow him up as much he did now. Judging by Ryoma’s mortified expression, the sentiment was shared.
“B-big brother…”
They all turned to face the youngest Hoshidan princess, who actually managed to look the most mortified of them all.
“T-The greeting was a kiss on the cheek…”