In The Lap of Luxurious Love

When I awoke early the next morning, I found myself wound tightly in Kurama’s arms, with no sign of Genkai anywhere. Everything was gone, including all of her formerly-discarded clothes. Careful not to disturb my sleeping lover, I pulled myself from his embrace and sat up. That’s when I saw the note on the dresser, which I picked up and read.

“My darling boys, thank you for such a wonderful experience,” she had written. “I love you both, and hope that we can do this again in the future. If, as I hope, a child has been begun on this night, I will inform you immediately. Let me know when you decide on a wedding date. Talk to you soon.” I smiled. She was so sweet, a side that I hadn’t seen much of when I was under her training. I set the note back on the dresser, and lay back down in the bed. Still asleep, Kurama sensed me there again and placed his arm on my waist, his hand coming to rest on my ass almost possessively.

“Duo…” he whispered in his sleep. “Ya varandeem kakina shuruumb loveaba.” It was a familiar tongue, that of the fox demon that he was, and I knew what he said. I love you from the depths of my soul. “Ya sharanete pin hep tivika ya sommonshipa mil parpentara.” I long for the day I can call you my husband.

“Kurama, lin yipurnia varkandeek,” I whispered in wolf tongue, a tongue which I knew he also understood, even if he didn‘t speak it. “Yip kilba dianar kar Lin vikino hisbanda lin bikawuu dun yippar.” Kurama, I love you, and the day I become your husband, I will be complete.
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The weeks passed quickly, and things began to return to normal for us. Kurama returned to work at his company, and I started a new semester at Tokyo University. Many of my classmates from the previous semester asked me where I had been for so long, and I told them that I was now living with my fiancee, and that we had taken a trip together. Some asked me where Heero was, and the hardest part of returning to school was telling everyone who asked that he had been killed. But the greatest comfort was seeing Kurama’s face as I walked through the door each evening, his arms ready to hold me as I still mourned my dead lover. Of course, my mourning often led to intimacy and a renewed happiness.

One day, the phone rang, and I answered with a cheery “Hello!”

“Duo, it’s good to hear your voice,” Genkai said.

“You too, Ma Petite,” I said with a smile.

“Put me up on the video screen, I want to show you something,” she said. “And get Kurama if he’s home.”

“He’s just barely coming in the door,” I said, then called to him. “Koibito, Genkai’s on the phone!”

“Moshi-moshi, Genkai,” he said cutely as her picture appeared on the screen. She immediately held up a black x-ray-looking picture to the screen and gave a huge grin. “Oh, my god, is that what I think it is?”

“Is that… Our baby?” I gasped.

“Yes, I just got the first sonogram today,” she said excitedly.

“Vishido babani!” Kurama cried. “Convatanabi, Genkai!” You’re having a baby! Congratulations, Genkai!

“What did you say?” Genkai said.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Genkai,” he said. “I get so used to speaking fox and wolf language at home that I forgot that you don’t speak either of those languages. I was basically congratulating you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And don’t forget what I said to you before. I want you two to be this child’s parents. Although I’m the mother, I will act as just an occasional babysitter, and allow you to raise it as your own.”

“Do you want the child to know you when it gets older?” Kurama asked.

“If he happens to find out, so be it,” she said. “But the two of you are Daddy and Papa to this child.”

“I only… I only came inside you once,” I said in amazement. “Just one time can… cause such a miracle to happen?”

“Yes, it’s as simple as one sperm meeting with one egg to create a life,” Kurama said, taking my hand. “I guess this means we’ll need to start preparing a nursery room in our suite.”

“For more than one child,” I said, and Genkai made a confused face. I looked at Kurama with a smile and he immediately understood. “Shikina erramata kinera, Kurama?“ Shall we tell her, Kurama? He nodded, and I continued. “We’re going to adopt one or two of the children who were abandoned when their parents were killed. So with our child, Kurama and I will be raising three children.”

“That’s very noble of you, boys,” Genkai said. “Any luck on deciding on a date for the wedding?”

“Actually, you’re the first one we were going to tell,” Kurama said. “We’ve chosen to be married on Christmas Eve.”

“That’s a little over a month from now,” she said. “Will we be able to pull everything together by then?”

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” he said. “We don’t have to worry about booking a hall for the ceremony or the reception, and the chefs on my staff obviously have a great deal of experience with cooking for large numbers of people. Other things are easily attainable during the Christmas season, like decorations and such. All we really have to be concerned about is a photographer and a minister who is willing to perform a gay marriage.”

“Darling, I think I have the minister thing covered,” I chuckled. “I have a number of friends from the orphanage that became priests who support gay marriage, and would perform the ceremony for us.”

“You’ve just got everything under control here, don’t you?” Genkai chuckled. “Just let me know if I can be of any service to you.”

“Actually, Dearest, I did have one favor to ask you,” Kurama said. “Would you be so kind as to be my Maid of Honor in our wedding?”

“I would be honored,” she said.
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Within a week, Kurama and I were able to choose two children whom we would call our own. One boy, Yuu, age 3, and one girl, Leena, age 5. As I told Kurama, one reason I had chosen her was because she looked so much like I would’ve imagined Relena Yuy did when she was that age, her golden-brown hair put up in the same fashion. Kurama said that Yuu looked much like a friend that he had been close to during grade school, and that was why he had chosen him. As much as we hated to spend any time away from them now that we were their parents, my class schedule and Kurama’s work schedule forced us to take them to the estate daycare during the day. It broke my heart, but I understood that it needed to be done.

“Papa!” Yuu bounded across the room when he heard Kurama walk through the front door.

“Hello, my little boy!” Kurama laughed, dropping his briefcase and picking him up. I looked up from my homework and smiled at them. “How were they today?”

“Well, a certain young lady got into a little trouble at school,” I said, and Leena looked down at her coloring book and blushed in embarrassment. “I told her you’d talk to her when you got home.”

“Go play, Yuu,” Kurama said, setting him to his feet. “Your sister and I have something to talk about.” He reached out his hand to Leena, and she cringed slightly before she took his hand.

“Will you be okay on your own for a little bit, Son?” I asked Yuu, and he smiled and nodded. We walked with Leena into the bedroom, and I could see that she was scared as she sat on the foot of the bed. “Honey, would you mind telling me what happened?”

“You’re not gonna hurt me, are you?” she asked, and we both gasped.

“Why would either of us hurt you?” Kurama asked. “Both of us love you.”

“Mama and Mommy said they loved me too,” she said. “But Mama… When I was bad, she hit me.”

“Is that why you have that scar on your chin?” I asked, fingering the little white remnant of a gash. She nodded, and I kissed her forehead. “You don’t have to worry about us hurting you.”

“You promise, Daddy?” she said.

“You might get spanked, but I promise we won’t knock you around like your mama did,” I said. Kurama hugged her too, and she held onto him so tightly that he nearly grunted. “Are you ready to talk to us now?”

“Yes, Papa,” Leena said. “There’s a boy at school who’s not from any of the estates, who was teasing me about having two daddies. He wouldn’t stop, even when I told him to leave me alone, and I even told the teacher. He finally got on my nerves so bad, I kicked him, and told him that my Papa and Daddy love me more than he‘d ever get loved with his Mama and Daddy.”

“Well, I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself and our family,” Kurama said. “But you know you really shouldn’t have kicked him.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, Papa.”

“Tomorrow’s Friday, and then it’s the weekend,” he said. “You need to apologize to the boy for kicking him, and then there’s no TV until after school Monday. If you come home and Yuu is watching TV in the living room, you‘ll go to your room or into the kitchen to work on homework. Does that seem fair to you, Daddy?”

“Yes, Papa, it sounds very fair,” I said, a twinkle in my eye.

“Yes, very fair,” Kurama said. She smiled, and we hugged her. He swatted her behind, but this time she didn’t flinch. “Go do your homework, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. When she walked out the door and it closed behind her, I looked at Kurama with a worried expression.

“They hit her,” I said. “Can you imagine what that little girl has gone through?”

“Yes, when I saw that look on her face, I just couldn’t stay angry at her,” he said. “She was scared that she was going to get hurt.”

“But you handled it incredibly well, under the circumstances,” I said, wrapping my arms around him. “That’s what I love about you. You know when to be stern, but you also know just what to say in the most delicate situations.”

“Duo, I want you,” he sighed as I reached under his shirt to caress his chest with my hand. “Give me a moment to call one of the boys to watch the children until it’s time for them to go to bed.”

“Don’t keep me waiting too long,” I said.
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The days turned into weeks, and before I knew it, it was the day of our wedding, and I was incredibly nervous! Despite how much I had protested, Kurama had insisted that he spend the night before the wedding at his mother’s house. I hadn’t realize before how superstitious he truly was. When I woke up, there was a note from him on the bed which one of the boys had placed there while I had been asleep. It was written in wolf language so no one else could read it.

“I couldn’t sleep a few nights ago, so I decided to write you a letter to give you the day of our wedding,” he had written. “You already know this, but I love you more than I could ever adequately express. The feel of you wrapped in my arms, the taste of your lips as we kiss, and your face as you look in my eyes when we make love. All of those are parts of what I love, but it is your spirit that drives me to be my best.” I smiled, reading his sweet words, until I came to a little note at the end of the letter. “P.S.: Have fun getting the children ready for the ceremony! I left the house last night for a reason!” I rolled my eyes and gave an evil smirk. Oh, he was going to pay for that one that night.

When I walked into the children’s portion of the suite, I was pleased that some of the boys had already gotten them up and were dressing them. Although I thought she might be a little young for makeup, I had agreed to allow Leena to be made up with a tiny bit of lipstick and a touch of eye shadow for the wedding. Looking at her, sitting there as quiet and still as possible for a five-year-old, I couldn’t help but admire how beautiful she was, her golden hair glistening in the sunlight that was shining in through the windows.

“Daddy!” Yuu squealed, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Hey, big boy!” I said. “Akano, how long have the children been up?”

“About 45 minutes, Master,” Akano said, applying the finishing touches to Leena’s makeup. He was a professional makeup artist, and was very good at what he did for a living. “I prepared your tuxedo, and it’s hanging in the bathroom.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Something tells me it’s going to be a good day.”

“Of course it will be, Master,” he said. “It’s going to be a wonderful day for all of us, to see our masters truly happy and getting married.” I smiled, but I was longing to hold my lover in my arms, and was wishing that the day was already over and we could be together as husbands, just holding each other.

“It’s going to be a good day, but the three hours between now and the wedding are going to be super long,” I said. Akano smiled at me as I walked into the bathroom. Sitting in the large Jacuzzi tub, trying to relax and not be nervous, I imagined that Kurama must be sitting at his mother’s kitchen table, eating a wonderful breakfast, surrounded by his step-father and step-brother and all their family, while I was sitting there, almost by myself, just waiting for the wedding. But just as I was thinking that, a knock came to the door.

“What?” I called.

“Master, there is a young man who wishes to speak to you,” Akano said. “He says that his name is Chang Wufei.” That caught my interest immediately! The other last Gundam pilot was honoring me with his presence at my wedding?

“I’ll be out in a minute,” I called, hurrying to get out of the tub and into my bathrobe. As I opened the door, I saw something I’d never seen from Wufei: a smile. "Well, hello, stranger!"

"Hello," he said. "I thought you might want some help with the children this morning."

"Well, while I think that the boys can get them ready okay, I appreciate it," I said. "Yuu will be excited that you're here. I almost think that you and Sally would've been been just as well off adopting him. You could do just as good a job raising him as we could, if not better."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, Duo," Wufei said. "But today isn't about me, it's about you. Come on, let's get you ready for your big day!"
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And help me he did. The few hours before the wedding flew by in a flash, and it was soon time for Kurama and I to meet each other at the alter. This was a day that I had always hoped that I would be able to share with Heero, but as I stood outside the chapel with Leena on my arm, I could almost feel Heero and Relena's presence in the room. They had been soul-mates, just as Kurama and I were, and now that they were together in spirit, I knew that they could both be happy for me.

"Are you ready, Honey?" I asked Leena. She nodded, giggling at all the attention she was getting. "Just do it the way we practiced last night, okay? You'll be fine."

"It's Yuu that I'm worried about, Daddy," she said. At first I thought she meant me, but then I realized she was talking about her brother, who seemed to be having difficulty holding the ring pillow properly. Thankfully, the rings were tied to the pillow and wouldn't fall off. Finally, the wedding march began playing and the doors on either side of the chapel opened. I looked at my groom-to-be, standing there with his mother, and he looked back at me with a very loving smile. I couldn't take my eyes off of him as we walked toward the front, and I could tell that he was having a difficult time as well.

Before I knew it, we had said "I Do," placed the rings on each others' fingers and we were hearing "beloved husbands. You may now kiss." The wedding ceremony had flown by! We looked into each others eyes as we kissed, and I felt all the sparks of love and passion come to life as our lips locked.

"I love you," I said, and my Yoko looked me in the eyes and smiled. "We're finally married."

"Yes, Love, we are," he said. "I love you too. Ya varandeem kakina shuruumb loveaba.”

"Love live Master Kurama and Master Duo!" yelled one of the boys. We both laughed as we turned toward the crowd, as flash after flash went off in our faces, and we both began to see spots. All the boys of our house were whooping and hollering, and the other owners were applauding exuberantly and politely. We walked slowly back down the aisle, and as we walked past Genkai, who was now obviously pregnant, she smiled at us. On the other side, I saw Wufei standing next to his wife and son, and Yusuke, Keiko, and Keena. Then, there at the back of the hall, were our children. Yuu and Leena bounded into our arms, and we each picked one of them up.

"It feels so good to finally be a family," I said. Kurama said nothing, but kissed me again.

"Cake and Ice Cweem!" Yuu said, looking at me.

"Not until after dinner," Kurama said.

"No, now!" he pouted. "I want ice cweem!" I looked at my husband, and asked him with my eyes to give into the child. There was more than enough extra dessert in the kitchen without having to touch the wedding cake yet.

"Okay, fine," Kurama said. "I'm feeling generous. Nakumo, take the children into the kitchen and get them some dessert."

"Right away, Master," he said.

"You've got to stop spoiling them, Duo," he said, taking my hand as we walked to the reception hall.

"Aw, you take away all the fun," I said. "It's their day too."

"Yes, but it'll be OUR night tonight," he growled softly and seductively, soft enough that only I could hear him. "I cannot wait until we leave for our honeymoon."

"Mm, me neither," I said, and we kissed passionately again.

From that time on, I knew that I would always be loved by someone, whether they were around or not. Our life as a happy family continued to get better and better, with a very healthy baby boy arriving six months later, who we named Trowa Winner Minamino-Maxwell. What would be ahead of our family in the coming years, I didn't know, but one thing I was certain of -- I was happy. My family was happy. And most importantly, I had found eternal love with this man who was my husband.

As I sit here tonight, the night before my fifth wedding anniversary, I'm reminded how truly lucky I am to have all the things I have. That's why I decided to write this. I'm happy. That's all there is to it. I'm happy. Kurama and I have everything we've ever wanted, and watching our three kids grow up is a blessing in and of itself. Goodnight, my Darling Fox, and may we never part from each other's side. I hope that I can always wake up next to you in the morning, and fall asleep next to you at night.

The End