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The imperial gardens were at their most beautiful in late spring.
Atsumu knew this the way he knew most things about the palace; not from books or courtly lessons, but from living it. From years of mornings spent wandering these stone paths before the world woke up, before duties called, before anyone needed him to be Empress rather than simply himself. He knew which rosebushes bloomed first along the eastern wall.
He knew the fountain near the wisteria courtyard made a slightly different sound when rain was coming. He knew the gardeners left the wild clover patches untrimmed near the south gate because he'd asked them to, once, three years ago, and they'd never forgotten.
He loved this place with a fierceness that surprised even him sometimes.
He loved it more now, walking through it like this. One small hand tucked in his left, another small hand tucked in his right, and his belly round and full and heavy between his hips, their daughter curled up quiet and warm inside him while her brothers flanked him.
"Mama," said Kaito, who was three and therefore said Mama approximately four hundred times a day.
He tugged at Atsumu's hand and pointed at a butterfly. It was orange-winged, lazy, drifting over a bed of white peonies.
"Mama, look."
"I see it, baby." Atsumu squeezed his hand. "Pretty, isn't it?"
Kaito considered this with enormous seriousness. He had Kiyoomi's eyebrows and Atsumu's mouth. "It's very pretty," he concluded, nodding once, satisfied.
Kaoru, six years old and deeply invested in the project of being mature about things, did not say the butterfly was pretty.
He looked at it for a long moment with those careful dark eyes of his. All Kiyoomi, those eyes, watchful and still, and then he said, "That's a painted lady. We learned about them. They migrate. They go very far."
"That's right," Atsumu said, delighted. "Did ya learn that with Master Heiji?"
"In the nature books." Kaoru glanced up at him, a little shy about his own knowledge the way he sometimes was, like he wasn't sure if showing it was allowed. "They go thousands of ri, Mama. All by themselves."
"Thousands," Atsumu echoed, looking down at his eldest with something that lived in his chest like an ache and a warmth at once. "And it still ended up right here in our garden. Imagine that."
Kaoru thought about it. Then, quietly, like he was offering something: "Maybe it likes it here."
"Maybe it does." Atsumu let go of his hand just long enough to smooth his palm over Kaoru's dark hair before Kaoru leaned into it a little, just slightly, the way he always did when he was trying to pretend he wasn't leaning into it. Atsumu's heart turned over. Six years old and already so careful about taking up space.
Kaito had lost interest in the painted lady and was now crouched down near the clover patch, both hands on his knees, nose three inches from the ground.
"What are ya doing," Atsumu said, amused.
"Looking for the frog," Kaito said, matter-of-fact.
"There's no frog in the clover, sweetheart."
"There was one," Kaito said. "Last time."
"Last time was six months ago."
"He lives there."
Atsumu pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. He looked at Kaoru. Kaoru looked back at him with an expression of older-sibling exhaustion, brow furrowed, mouth flat, and Atsumu did laugh then, soft and helpless, his free hand coming up to rest over the swell of his belly.
His daughter gave a lazy flutter at the sound of it, just a small movement, like she was saying I hear you from wherever she was curled up in her warm dark.
He pressed his palm a little firmer against her.
I know, little love. I know.
"Kaito," Kaoru said, with the gravity of a scholar, "frogs are not territorial in that way."
"He lives there," Kaito repeated, unmoved.
"Come on, baby." Atsumu carefully lowered himself, carefully, because his center of gravity had been a negotiation for the past two months and crouched beside his youngest, one hand braced on his knee. He peered into the clover with him. Green and soft and smelling like earth and sun.
"Let's see."
Kaito looked over at him, surprised to have company in his investigation, and then broke into a smile so sudden and so whole-faced that Atsumu felt it like a physical thing, a warmth that spread up through his ribs.
"You see him?" Kaito whispered, conspiratorial.
"Not yet," Atsumu whispered back. "Keep looking."
They looked. No frog emerged. The clover rustled in the breeze. Above them, Kaoru sighed the sigh of a six-year-old forced to wait while the universe declined to be rational.
"Okay," Atsumu said, eventually, pushing back to standing with a small oof with one hand pressed to his lower back.
"He might be sleeping. We can check again on the way back."
Kaito accepted this. He stood up, brushed his hands on his robe leaving little green smudges that the palace laundresses were going to have opinions about and took Atsumu's hand again without being asked.
They walked on.
The garden opened up ahead of them into the wide, sun-drenched lawn that rolled toward the south pavilion, and beyond it, just visible through the climbing jasmine and the stand of old cherry trees, the peaked roof of the imperial gazebo.
Atsumu had always loved the gazebo best of all the garden structures. It sat at the garden's heart like a secret kept in plain sight, its carved wooden columns weathered to silver-grey, wisteria growing so thick over its latticework roof that in spring it was practically made of flowers.
Someone had already been through to set up the low lunch table inside. He could see the arrangement of dishes from here, pale celadon bowls, the blush-pink of pickled plum, steam still rising faintly.
Kaito spotted something in the grass and veered sharply left.
"Stay on the path," Atsumu said, automatic.
"It's a stick," Kaito announced.
"It's wet grass," Atsumu said. "Your slippers."
Kaito looked down at his slippers. Looked at the stick. Performed a visible calculation.
"...Kaoru-nii," he said, looking at his brother with enormous earnest eyes, "can you get the stick for me."
Kaoru looked deeply unimpressed. "No."
"Please."
"I'm not getting the stick, Kaito."
"But you have longer legs—"
"That's not—that's not how—" Kaoru pressed his mouth shut. Looked up at Atsumu. "Mama, tell him that's not how legs work."
"Legs," Atsumu said serenely, "work in many ways."
Kaoru made a sound of genuine betrayal.
Atsumu was laughing again. He couldn't help it, it just happened around them, laughter came out of him like something that had been stored up and needed releasing, and he was so busy laughing that he almost didn't notice the tall figure stepping out from the path that curved around from the eastern wing, unhurried and quiet, hands clasped behind his back, dark hair slightly windswept from the morning.
Almost.
He always noticed Kiyoomi.
Kiyoomi had cleared his morning schedule.
This was not, technically, a remarkable thing. The Emperor was permitted to clear his schedule. It was, in fact, one of the distinct advantages of being Emperor, the schedule was, at some fundamental level, his, and if he decided that the reports from the eastern provinces could wait another two hours, they would wait.
They had waited before.
He had told his chamberlain something vague about an inspection of the garden pavilion.
Kiyoomi had told himself he was just going for a walk.
He had believed this for approximately forty seconds, which was how long it took to pass through the residential wing's garden gate and realize he was already walking toward the sound of his children.
He heard Kaito first. Kaito was always the sound, a high bright voice carrying across the lawn with zero concern for acoustics or decorum. Then Atsumu's laugh, lower, warm, catching in the still spring air like something lit.
He stopped walking, just for a moment, just to look.
Atsumu was standing in the sun with both boys at his sides and one hand resting over the swell of his stomach, and he was laughing at something Kaoru had apparently just said, his head tipped back slightly, the morning light making something gold out of his hair.
He was wearing informal robes. Soft dove-grey, the sash tied loose to accommodate the pregnancy, and he looked, in the uncomplicated language of Kiyoomi's private heart, like everything.
Three years ago, Kiyoomi had watched Atsumu walk through a crowded palace reception with Kaoru balanced on his hip and a cup of tea in his other hand, holding a conversation with three different courtiers simultaneously while also somehow making sure Kaoru had something to eat.
He started walking again.
It was Kaoru who saw him first, which was almost always the case. Kaoru, with those watchful eyes, always cataloguing the garden, always knowing who was where. His face changed: a quick brightness, carefully contained but not quite contained enough. Then, controlled, deliberate, he tugged once at Atsumu's sleeve.
Atsumu turned.
The look on his face was worth every report from the eastern provinces.
"You're not supposed to be out here," Atsumu said, when Kiyoomi was close enough. Not accusatory but warm, curious, a small smile already forming.
"I cleared my morning," Kiyoomi said.
"Did ya."
"I wanted to see the garden."
Atsumu's smile went a little crooked. "The garden."
"The garden," Kiyoomi said evenly, "and its current occupants."
Kaito had been watching this exchange with his whole face. He had no patience for it. He never did, and so he simply took three steps forward and grabbed Kiyoomi's hand with both of his and pulled, not hard enough to move him, just enough to announce an intention.
"Papa," he said.
"Good morning, Kaito."
"There is a frog," Kaito said, "in the clover. I am looking for him. You can help."
"Can I."
"Yes. After lunch." Kaito nodded firmly, the matter settled. Then he looked up, eyes very wide, very serious: "Papa, did you know butterflies go thousands of ri?"
"I did know that," Kiyoomi said.
"Kaoru told me." Kaito glanced back at his brother with unalloyed admiration. "He knows lots of things."
Kaoru, who had approached with the careful dignity of someone who was definitely not hurrying, came to stand at Kiyoomi's other side. He didn't reach for his hand the way Kaito had. He stood close enough that his shoulder pressed against Kiyoomi's arm, which was Kaoru's version of the same thing.
Kiyoomi looked down at him. "Good morning."
"Good morning, Papa." A pause. "You cleared your schedule?"
"I did."
The careful brightness again, a little fuller this time. "...Good."
Kiyoomi felt something shift and settle in his chest. He looked up, over both boys' heads, and found Atsumu watching him with an expression he knew; soft, unhurried, private. The kind of look Atsumu only had out here, away from the court, when it was just the four of them (five of them, soon).
He crossed the remaining distance between them.
His hand found Atsumu's waist, natural as breathing. He felt the warmth of him even through the layers of silk, and Atsumu leaned into him just slightly, just enough, his head tipping for a moment toward Kiyoomi's shoulder.
"How are you feeling?" Kiyoomi asked, quietly.
"Good." Atsumu glanced up at him from under pale lashes. "She was moving this morning. A lot."
"Already making her opinions known."
"Wonder where she gets that from."
"From you, presumably."
"Bold," Atsumu said, and Kiyoomi felt the curve of his smile against his shoulder.
Kaito had circled back and was now standing in front of both of them, looking between his parents with the expression of someone who has decided something important. "Are we going to lunch now," he announced, "because I am hungry."
"You were just at breakfast," Atsumu said.
"That was a long time ago."
"It was an hour ago."
"I'm growing," Kaito said, with great dignity.
Kiyoomi made a sound that was almost a laugh. Kaoru made a sound that was definitely a sigh. Atsumu said
"I know, baby, I know, come on then, let's go eat" and reached out for Kaito's hand again with one arm and kept himself tucked against Kiyoomi's side with the other, and the four of them walked toward the gazebo together through the late-morning sun, unhurried, the jasmine spilling over the archways in cascades of white.
The gazebo was warm and full of light.
The kitchen had sent more than enough. It always did when the family lunched in the garden, because Atsumu had a reputation for appetite that pregnancy had only intensified, and the palace staff took this very seriously.
There were cold sesame noodles and pickled vegetables and soft tofu dressed with ginger, and a bowl of the sweet red bean soup Atsumu had developed a particular attachment to over the past month, and small rice cakes wrapped in bamboo leaf that Kaito immediately tried to eat before sitting down.
"Sit first," Atsumu said, lowering himself to the cushions with careful slowness, one hand braced on the low table, the other pressing briefly to his side where his daughter had apparently chosen this moment to stretch.
Kiyoomi was there before he'd finished the motion: steady hand at his elbow, quiet, not making a production of it, just there.
"I'm fine," Atsumu said, but he didn't pull away.
"I know," Kiyoomi said, and held on until he was settled.
Kaito sat. Fell sideways. Righted himself. Reached for a rice cake.
"Hands," Kaoru said, in the exact cadence of every adult who had ever told him the same thing.
Kaito looked at his hands. Looked at Kaoru. "They are hands."
"They need to be clean hands."
The handwashing ritual was performed. The rice cakes were distributed. The table came alive with the specific organized chaos of a meal shared between small children and adults trying to both eat and prevent disasters simultaneously.
Kaito upset his cup of barley tea almost immediately and looked so genuinely stricken that Atsumu cleaned it up before he'd finished apologizing, already saying "It's okay, sweetheart, it's just tea, here, look, all done—" in the same breath.
"You're going to spoil them," Kiyoomi said.
"Absolutely," Atsumu agreed, handing Kaito a fresh cup. He didn't sound remotely concerned about this.
Kaoru was eating with the methodical focus he brought to most things, chopsticks precise, working through his noodles in careful order. But he kept glancing up, at Atsumu, at Kiyoomi, at Kaito, the way he did when he was keeping track of everyone, making sure the composition was right.
"Papa," he said, after a while.
Kiyoomi looked over. Humming.
"When the baby comes." Kaoru set his chopsticks down, aligned them neatly. "Will you still be able to come to the garden? With us?"
There was something underneath the question — Kiyoomi could hear it, careful and tentative as Kaoru always was with things he actually wanted. Not asking for reassurance so much as checking the math, making sure the numbers still added up the way he needed them to.
"Yes," Kiyoomi said. "The garden doesn't go anywhere."
"But you'll be busy."
"I'm always busy." He held Kaoru's gaze. "I still cleared this morning."
Kaoru looked at him for a long moment. Then, satisfied with something private, he picked his chopsticks back up. "Okay," he said quietly.
Under the table, Atsumu's hand found Kiyoomi's knee and pressed once, warm and brief, and Kiyoomi turned his hand over and laced their fingers together without looking, without interrupting the flow of the meal, like it was simply the most natural thing, which, between them, it was.
"She's going to be small," Kaito announced, somewhere in the middle of the second rice cake.
Everyone looked at him.
"The baby," he clarified, as if this had been unclear. "She'll be small. Like I was."
"You were very small," Atsumu agreed gravely.
"Will she fit in my hands?" Kaito held up his hands, considering the available real estate.
"Probably not both," Atsumu said, "but almost."
Kaito thought about this with the full force of his three-year-old concentration. "I'll be careful," he said, finally. Decisive, like a vow. "I'll be very careful."
Atsumu made a sound, barely a sound, just a breath, but Kiyoomi felt his hand tighten. He glanced over. The look on Atsumu's face was one he recognized: the one that meant he was overwhelmed by the simple, staggering fact of loving them.
He got that look sometimes when Kaoru said something unexpectedly perceptive, or when Kaito laughed, or when both boys were asleep and they stood in the doorway of the nursery together looking in at them, and Atsumu always looked like he couldn't quite believe they were real.
"I know ya will, baby," Atsumu said, and his voice was steady even if his eyes were bright. "She's lucky, getting you for a big brother."
Kaito beamed. Looked at Kaoru. "We're lucky brothers."
Kaoru considered the statement with characteristic care. Then: "Yes," he said. "We are."
After lunch, Kaito made everyone go back to the clover.
There was no frog. There was, however, an earthworm, which Kaito received as a partial victory. He crouched over it with the devotion of a scholar at a rare text while Kaoru stood beside him narrating information about earthworm biology with the enthusiasm of someone who had been waiting for an opportunity to deploy this knowledge.
Kiyoomi stood behind them with Atsumu leaning against his side, the solid warm weight of him, one arm around his waist, Kiyoomi's hand resting at the small of his back.
The afternoon had stretched long and golden around the garden. There were no ministers, no reports, no petitions.
Just the boys crouched in the clover, talking about earthworms, disagreeing about whether this one was large or medium, the wisteria moving in the slow breeze above the gazebo behind them, and Atsumu's daughter turning once, gently, in the warm dark.
"She'll like the garden," Atsumu said, quiet, unprompted.
"She'll like it," Kiyoomi agreed.
"We'll bring her out as soon as we can." He was watching Kaito and Kaoru, his chin tipped up slightly, a smile at the corner of his mouth that he wasn't trying to contain. "She can watch the boys find frogs."
"Earthworms," Kiyoomi corrected.
"Frogs," Atsumu said firmly. "He's going to find one eventually and I refuse to let it be called anything else."
He turned his head, just slightly, enough to look up at Kiyoomi properly. The sun was doing something to his eyes making them gold where they were usually brown. "Thank you for coming."
"I wanted to."
"I know, But still." His hand found Kiyoomi's, the one at his back, and covered it. "It's good, when you're here."
Kiyoomi looked at him. At all of them, the whole small improbable scene, his family arranged in a spring garden around a clover patch with an earthworm in it, and felt something that had no good word in any language he knew.
Something like fullness.
Something like enough.
"Papa," Kaito said, twisting around with enormous urgency, "I think the frog ate the earthworm — no wait — no he's still there—"
"That's not how frogs—" Kaoru started.
"Come look," Kaito insisted.
Kiyoomi looked at Atsumu.
Atsumu was already smiling, already squeezing his hand, already nodding toward the boys: go on.
He went.