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*I honestly planned to have this series go from when Gyousou is a child to when he becomes king, thus ending it at the last chapter, but Nightheart who reviewed every single chapter asked me to write 'the part where Gyousou enlists the aid of En-ou and company to trick his kirin into feeling better'. I still think the story as a whole flows better if it ends right when he becomes king, but it occurred to me the flow isn't too badly interrupted as long as I end it before his official coronation.

*However, I'm not continuing this post-canon, or even post-The Shores of the Maze. I'm like Tom Bombadil: you'd have to get all the free people of Middle-Earth to beg me for me agree. If you can do that I'll write anything you want. If not, might I suggest you ask Frodo?

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Kei Taiho was completely different than how he pictured him.

Not that Gyousou had had any particularly clear expectations of what Kei Taiho would be like, only certainly not monotonous and expressionless. Kouri had once told him he wanted to be exactly like Kei Taiho when he grew up, and Gyousou was currently wishing fervently that it didn't happen.

Mind you, at this point he was desperate enough that if Taiki grew up to be the black haired replica of Kei Taiho he'd take it, as long as it stopped his baffling depression.

The last true smile he'd seen on Taiki's face had been that watery, relieved one on that night they sat together by the camp fire in the Yellow Sea. He sometime after that he seemed to have become anxious and depressed.

The nyosen declared he was probably homesick for Hourai where he was raised, as well as upset at leaving his new home for a strange land. But Gyousou didn't believe that. Taiki had chatted on quite happily about life in Hourai with the same tone he used to talk about the weather, the food, or any inconsequential thing. If he didn't miss the place he had lived for ten years, would he be so attached to Mt. Hou to induce this prolonged silent suffering? His mood more resembled that of when he was fretting about being unable transform or make a youma submit than it did of simple homesickness, but as Taiki could now do both Gyousou was at loss for what could be causing him distress. He'd tried asking Kouri directly and every time had been told "nothing" with a face that clearly said otherwise.

Not the nyosen, Risai, nor anyone in Hakkei Palace had been able to get any other answer out of him. And that's when Gyousou remembered Taiki's wonderful, kind Kei Taiho.

Maybe Kouri's mentor would be able to get him to talk. Maybe another kirin would be easier to open his heart to. Maybe Kei Taiho had some kind of kirin power that let him read the mind of another kirin. Maybe anything! It couldn't hurt, could it?

That's just how desperate Gyousou had become.

Kei Taiho had been talking to Tai Taiho earlier, according to his servants (he made a mental note to review the list of servants again; if they were still so numerous to have spare time to idle around gossiping together clearly his cutbacks were not sufficient), and so Gyousou had sought out the man who was currently staring at him with a blank and unreadable expression.

"… Tai Taiho is… distressed." Gyousou schooled his face so that it did not wear an expression that said I know that, tell me WHY. "… I don't understand much about taika, and I don't seem to have explained it very well. I'm going to go consult En Taiho about this matter, since Tai Taiho will probably misunderstand anything I try to tell him."

Gyousou felt this conversation had headed to where he wanted it to go and then overshot by a mile. "What is 'this matter'?"

Keiki hesitated with… was that apprehension? "… He… I think I confused him about what the revelation is. He appears to have responded to the revelation without recognizing it."

Gyousou had no idea what Keiki was talking about and felt a headache coming on. "What?"

"Simply put, the instincts of a kirin will make him select a king regardless of his will. In this case, regardless of whether or not the kirin knows that it is his instincts that are causing him to make the choice."

Does he always answer questions so vaguely? "… Could you clarify that?"

"He chose you as the ruler without understanding why he needed to, and is under the impression he received no revelation, because he didn't recognize it as such."

Gyousou was definitely getting a headache. "So am I really the king?"

"Kirin cannot give false vows, even if they don't know it themselves. I'll take my leave now and head to En." And Keiki did leave, and left Gyousou there with his mind reeling.

No one knows what the revelation is except a kirin. Except apparently Taiki, who doesn't know what the revelation is despite being a kirin. And yet he was still able to sense and act on it, but do it without knowing what he was doing? If he transformed and subdued a shirei in extremis when all other times he failed, if the revelation was something similar…

Turning a corridor, Gyousou was brought to the dining hall, where he could see Taiki's slumped outline through the screen. It suddenly struck him that it was exactly the same posture he had assumed when trying to explain to Gyousou why he was afraid of him. So Kouri… all this time…

Poor Kouri. No wonder he won't tell anyone.

When Gyousou entered the room Taiki's head swiveled towards him, surveying him with dread. Gyousou smiled at him,

"So did you enjoy chatting with Kei Taiho?"

Taiki sighed in relief, and mumbled something that sounded like an agreement. Gyousou couldn't think of any way to convincingly explain what Kei Taiho said it to the guilt ridden child beside him, so he continued on with the one sided small talk he'd grown accustomed to recently. He spent the next few days sorting out his debt-ridden country while impatiently awaiting Keiki to return from En with advice from the only other taika kirin alive. He was in his office sorting through lists of the imperial tailors, trying to figure out how many were actually necessary and which ones to keep, when he heard Kei Taiho's voice echoing in his hallways, as well as an unknown preteen boy's voice.

"… idiot. What in the world did you tell Taiki anyways?"

"I told him the ruler will have ouki."

"And what did you say ouki is?"

"The will the ruler emanates."

"You moron, no wonder he misunderstood you!"

Gyousou watched in surprise as Keiki entered being chastised severely by a golden haired boy who looked a few years older than Kouri, followed by the lip quivering king of En.

En Taiho turned his scowling, exasperated face to Gyousou. "Well, since Keiki has caused yet another misunderstanding I've graciously come in person to sort out his mistakes and rescue my fellow taika from his misery."

"I do not cause that many misunderstandings!"

Shoryuu grinned. "I guess I just imagined that time when your General of the Center turned up at our borders under the impression he had been sent to collect 200000 peaches."

Enki grimaced. "Or that time where the queen of Kei arrived at our court thinking the head of our tailors had offered her weaving lessons."

"Or that time when…" To Keiki's horror the two leaders of En continued on their tirade of all the misunderstandings they knew of that he had unwittingly caused, which was quite an impressive number for someone who left Mt. Hou two years previously.

Eventually Enki concluded with, "But this is definitely his worst ever. The only way to top getting a kirin to receive the revelation without realizing it would be to get a ruler to accept without realizing it, which even Keiki doesn't suck at communicating enough to do."

"I don't do it on purpose!"

"It doesn't really change the fact that you cause more misunderstandings than a weekly soap opera, does it?" Everyone in the room stared at Enki blankly, and he rolled his eyes. "Let's just talk about how we're going to correct the misunderstanding, ok?"

Gyousou sighed, "Could En Taiho not speak with Kouri, taika to taika?"

"I doubt it would do much good. I only lived in Hourai for four years, most of which I was too young to remember, not to mention this was five hundred years ago. Since I was brought back so young I couldn't sustain human shape and grew up like a regular kirin afterwards, so our circumstances aren't exactly identical here. I can see where the revelation – from Keiki's description – would have confused him, but whatever idea he got from Keiki's rather vague description must be cemented in his mind by now and will mess up whatever I try to tell him."

Keiki looked slightly dejected, and Gyousou said firmly, "Rather than laying the blame, we need to focus on correcting the problem. As words do not appear to be our best recourse, we must consider another method."

Shoryuu mused. "Then wouldn't it be more convincing to show rather than tell? If we could find some proof to show him that he didn't choose wrong…"

Enki snapped his fingers. "That's it! We'll put on a show!" Everyone stared at him and he continued on excitedly, "Don't you see? Kirin can't bow to anyone but their rulers. One of the things that drove my parents absolutely nuts about me was I never bowed to the passing processions of nobles. I actually tried, since at that time I had no idea I was a kirin, but it was completely impossible to bow my head. Since Hourai is completely different now Taiki probably never experienced that, but if we can scare him into thinking he needs to bow and then he finds out he can't…"

"Tell him he needs to bow to the visiting king of En, for instance," interjected Keiki.

"Exactly!" Before anyone could stop him Rokuta dashed into the hallways and yelled, "Hey, call Taiki here! King En wants to see him!"

"Don't just go ahead on your own! You can't do things like this in other people's palaces!"

"Shut up, Shoryuu you moron, like you can talk!"

"Should we not rehearse this deception first?"

"Naw, we'll just improvise."

It occurred to Gyousou that things were spiraling out of his control at an alarming rate, but as they were spiraling in a direction that was beneficial to him it was best to just leave it be. Hopefully. One never could tell with the duo from En.

In the time that it took Taiki's servants to dress him appropriately the four conspirators frantically worked out the outline of their plan – in between Shoryuu and Rokuta fighting. By the time a disconcerted boy dressed in copious amounts of fabric arrived they had pretty much worked out what they would say at the beginning, though none of the details had been finalized.

When Taiki was told that this was King En his eyes widened and he looked nervous as he bowed his head and said, "Um… Nice to meet you."

Gyousou had to school his face to keep its stern expression: clearly they would need to go over the pleasantries a kirin was supposed to offer to a visiting king. When he was sure he was not about to start laughing and looked quite grave and intimidating, he hissed,

"Kouri, you must kowtow." Taiki looked surprised, as even he knew that kirin didn't ever do that to anyone but their own king. "The length of King En's reign is only second to that of King Sou. We cannot treat him the same way as the other rulers."

That was the reason they had finally agreed on to give Taiki, and it was good that he was so trusting because it was ridiculous. But Taiki had fallen marvellously into their trap, and as his body stopped halfway and refused to budge it was time to draw the strings.

The king of En, Gyousou discovered, was a brilliant liar.

"Does the Kirin of Tai Kingdom have something against En?"

"No." Kouri looked at Gyousou with an expression the begged help me! and Gyousou had to force himself to be harsh.

Taiki was panicking now and he looked completely desperate as his muscles strained to kowtow. Gyousou felt sorry for him behind his harsh mask. If Shoryuu also felt sorry for him, you certainly couldn't tell.

"If you can't give me a reason and don't bow to me, then I will take this as a sign of hostility from Tai towards En!"

Poor Taiki tripled his efforts but it was completely in vain; he couldn't bow any more than most people can lick their elbows. If he didn't look so desperate it would have been comic.

King En advanced menacingly towards Taiki and – to Gyousou's horror – started pushing down on his head, "As it is, all you have to do is lower your head. Surely it can't be that hard?"

He's going to snap Kouri's neck! This was not part of the plan and he had never agreed to this. Gyousou stood up.

Enki got there first. "That's enough!"

Previously Gyousou had no idea that kirin, the incarnation of pacificism, were capable of hitting anyone, much less their masters. But Enki proved otherwise. "How can you do this to a child? Taiki, are you okay?"

Enki and Keiki started fussing over Taiki like he was their baby brother, which Gyousou realized was not far off from the truth. It was sweet to see the scowling kid and stoic man fret so much over the sweat drenched child, who looked extremely confused at the complete turnaround in his situation.

King En commented on it, reminding Enki and Keiki about who had caused Taiki such distress in the first place. As the two golden haired kirin yelled at the foreign king Gyousou said not one word in his defence. Shoryuu deserved this much at least.

Never again would he agree to let the king of En improvise. But at least now the misunderstanding was cleared up. He would forgive Shoryuu. This time.

Taiki left to go explore with his two kirin brethren and Gyousou stayed behind chatting with Shoryuu. They scheduled another duel, since Shoryuu had remembered him from all those years ago, and used this opportunity to re-establish the En-Tai trade routes that had been neglected during the latter half of KyouOu's reign.

Later that night there was a banquet for the foreign dignitaries. Since Gyousou had dismissed well over half the work force it was absolutely nothing like the feast the king of En had attended all those years ago, and Shoryuu was visibly relieved. With no ministers to restrain him he went completely wild and eventually Enki dragged Taiki off, muttering something about not corrupting the minds of children. Gyousou was glad as he had been toying for some time now with how to send Taiki to bed without him feeling like he was being punished. The king of En just laughed drunkenly and called for more wine.

The next morning Keiki excused himself to return to Kei and an envoy of ministers from En arrived. They politely requested they be permitted to escort their monarch and kirin, who apparently had run off without a word, home. The two trouble makers looked resigned (and in Shoryuu's case, very hung over) as they were marched out of Hakkei Palace by their ministers, though not before En Taiho promised to return for a week at Gyousou's coronation and King En groaned in (presumably) agreement.

Gyousou was on his way to continue sorting through the never ending paperwork in his office and wondering when those two ever found the time to do their jobs when…

"Gyousou-sama!" Kouri raced up to him and doubled over panting with a grin that could have split his face. It was a very nostalgic sight that he hadn't seen since Mt. Hou. "Guess what! Guess what! Last night, Rokuta-sempai, En Taiho I mean, he…"

Taiki trotted beside him the whole way chattering on excitedly about all the wonderful things Enki had shown him the night before, and had Gyousou not been so delighted he would have been worried about letting one of En's nefarious duo influence his kirin. He found himself answering a million questions on how the staircase worked, why there was an ocean on the clouds, what the job of that servant over there was, what each room they passed was used for, and so forth. When they arrived at Gyousou's office Taiki perched nearby contentedly examining a bunch of papers, looking much more relaxed than he had seen him in weeks. It put Gyousou in a good mood, and he discovered that maybe he didn't need to fire quite so many people after all. At least not yet. They could hang around for now and if their work ethic didn't improve by the time he found replacements, then he would fire them.

That day the minister who received the layoff list blinked in surprise, and glanced around to see where the rest of the stack had gone. Upon realizing it really was just one sheet of paper today, she burst out sobbing in relief. Recently so many people had been laid off that the remaining capable ministers had their workload tripled by all the projects previously assigned to someone who left, resulting in much stress. When a king is miserable he makes everyone else just as miserable as he is, regardless of whether this is intentional.

The minister in charge of layoffs was the most relieved: she had been pulling all-nighters for four days now trying to finish an alarmingly increasing number of paperwork stacks. She made a giant bonfire out of all her processed papers to celebrate, and other people gave her odd looks as she laughed hysterically and shouted, Burn! Burn! DIEEEEEEEE! Thankfully, most people hadn't been quite as stressed out as that particular minister.

Also thankfully for her, the reductions in the number of servants meant they didn't have time to idle around gossiping, particularly with a coronation to prepare for, otherwise Gyousou might have heard about the affair and replaced her with someone more mentally stable. As it was, Gyousou was left sorting through his own never ending pile of paperwork with a cheerful Kouri working beside him, keeping him sane as he went through extremely depressing reports of the national debt. And thus life at Hakkei Palace was, for a time, peaceful.