Author's Note: This is the real end. I have had so much fun writing this story, and I hope all of you have had as much fun reading it. I know the pairing is weird, but it's probably my all-time favorite YYH pairing. So I'm sad that this story is over, but all good things have to end eventually. (Excuse me while I go cry now. Enjoy the Epilogue!)

Post Date: 18 October 2017

Word Count: 1915

Epilogue
Happily Ever After

October 2052

"Aren't you a little too old for bedtime stories?" Large aqua eyes glared up at Yusuke, and it took all of his strength not to smile or laugh. He had to keep his stern face on.

"It's my birthday." Her little bottom lip started to quiver, and Yusuke crossed his arms and clenched his jaw. He would not break.

"That's my point! You're ten now. That's too old for a bedtime story." The bed under him shifted as she struggled out from under her blanket, and Yusuke raised a brow as she sat up and crossed her legs.

"I'll arm wrestle ya for it. If I win, I get a bedtime story." That was it, he was limiting her time with Chu. The big lug was obviously a bad influence. Yusuke quietly clicked his tongue as he looked up at the ceiling, as if he was giving the request some serious thought, and then looked back down before clapping his hands once.

"You're on!" She cheered and then dropped her elbow onto the bright pink blanket, and Yusuke shifted so that he could mirror her position. Bright aqua eyes locked with his as their palms clapped, and Yusuke narrowed his eyes as she counted them down.

After yelling three, he felt her pushing against his hand. For such a little thing, she sure was strong. He watched his arm start to tilt to the side as some of her long black hair slipped over her shoulder to cover one side of her face, but he could still see the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she pushed harder against his hand. Yusuke waited until he saw her little arm flex and then let his hand fall back. She laughed and cheered as she kept his hand pinned, while Yusuke tried to argue that she'd cheated.

"Nuh-uh! I won, fair and square, so you gotta tell me a story!" She pointed a finger in his face, nearly flicking his nose, and Yusuke rolled his eyes with a sigh.

"Fine, you win. Now lay back down." After one last victory cheer, she wiggled around until she was lying down with her atrociously colored blanket pulled up to just under her chin. She looked up at him expectantly, and Yusuke made a show of looking around her room until he could see the large handmade bookcase on the other side of the room. "Alright, which one do you wanna hear?"

"I've already read all of those. I want you to tell me a story." His eyes tracked over the large bookcase, at all of the books crammed onto the thing, and shook his head a little. Sometimes, he had a feeling that she was smarter than him. He looked back down to see those wide eyes still looking up at him, and he crossed his arms as she gave him an eerily familiar look. It was the same look Koto gave him whenever she thought he was being even more of an idiot than usual. (Those were Koto's words, not his.)

"What story is that?" She hummed as she wiggled around to get more comfortable, and Yusuke patiently waited for her to make up her mind.

"I want to hear about how you met Mom." Yusuke started coughing as he choked on his own spit, and he heard quiet laughter as he struggled to clear his airway. He looked into the doorway and realized that the source of the laughter was coming from the twin boys settled on Koto's hips.

"Tell us! Tell us!" the boys chanted as Koto walked into the room.

"Yeah, let's hear it," Koto added as she settled onto the bed so that she was sitting in front of him with the boys curled up in her lap. Her back leaned up against the headboard, and Yusuke felt like squirming as four pairs of eyes settled on him. Two sets of aqua, two sets of brown, and all four were looking at him expectantly.

How he met Koto…well, he couldn't start with the tournament. The kids were ten and four, which was still a little too young to hear about the Dark Tournament. He couldn't even tell them that the only reason Koto was around long enough for them to get together was because of a war that tore the Demon World apart for a couple of years, and that he'd saved her before some demons could get their hands on her. Okay, so, he'd just have to be careful about how he told the story. That was all. He could totally censor himself, and there were some things that he could definitely talk about. Like Koenma and Botan's wedding! That was kind of like a date, and there hadn't been any bloodshed that time. Still though, that wasn't their first meeting.

"Once upon a time," he started and then stopped as a loud groan cut through the air.

"Not a fake story!" Yusuke looked down as aqua eyes glared up at him, and he settled back on his hands as he looked over and met a pair of amused aqua eyes. Well, amused was one word for that look. That look was the one that said Koto was both amused and waiting for him to say or do something incredibly stupid. He always felt like running when he saw that look, but he never did.

"Alright, the first time I saw your mother, I knew she was different than any other girl I'd ever met." That much was true, considering she'd willingly gotten into a ring where demons fought to the death and yelled for more blood.

He told the truth as much as he could, mostly while looking up at the ceiling so that he couldn't see Koto's expression while he told the censored version of their story, and it was surprisingly easy to talk when he couldn't see anyone. All he could hear was the sound of his own voice, which was a little odd because it was rarely quiet anywhere in the palace, but it was kinda nice. He wasn't sure how much time passed before he felt something poking at his knee, and he looked away from the ceiling and straight ahead. Koto had one leg raised up so that she could poke him with her toes, and she smiled as their eyes met.

"They're asleep," she whispered. She inclined her head down and then stood up, and Yusuke turned his head to watch her walk away. Once she was out the door and out of his sight, Yusuke turned back around and looked down.

"Goodnight," Yusuke whispered and started to lean down. He tucked some wild black hair behind a human ear before pressing a light kiss against the top of his daughter's head, and he slowly stood up to make sure that he wouldn't accidentally wake her up.

He kept his eyes on his little girl as he silently backed out of the room, and he held his breath as he closed the door behind himself. He didn't hear any sounds coming from inside the room, so she was actually asleep and hadn't been faking. Sometimes she only pretended to be asleep and then snuck out of bed to read a book, but he was pretty sure that she was actually asleep this time. He turned and walked across the hall, and he was careful to keep quiet as he nudged the cracked door open a little wider. Both of his sons were fast asleep in their beds, messy black hair spread across their pillows, and he watched as the little cat ears on top of their heads twitched. If he wasn't careful, they'd hear him and wake up. Then Koto would kill him. So he said a silent goodnight before backing out of the room and slowly closing the door behind him.

The palace was quiet as he walked down the hallway, as far as he could tell anyway, and he sighed a little as he walked into his bedroom. The main light was off, but the lamp next to the bed was still on. Koto was already under the blanket and sheet, but she was sitting up with her back propped up against the headboard. Yusuke quickly stripped down and then tugged on a pair of shorts, because they never knew when one of the kids would come running in, and he collapsed against the bed with a quiet groan.

Koto laughed quietly as he wiggled around to get under the sheet, and he felt her fingers settle in his hair as he laid his head in her lap. They'd both had a long day, celebrating their little girl's tenth birthday, and he knew Koto had to be just as tired as he was. That didn't mean he was going to ask her to stop playing with his hair though. He let out a quiet sound as he wrapped an arm around her legs, just under her knees, and scooted over so that he was curled up closer to her. He heard Koto let out another quiet laugh, and he twisted around so that he could look up and see her face.

"Somethin' funny?"

"It's kind of strange, isn't it?" Koto had that look in her eye again; the look that never failed to make him want to run for the hills. The amused one that was usually laughing at him, and he huffed a little as he kept looking up at her.

"What's strange?" Her fingers combed through his hair, pushing it away from his face, as she hummed quietly.

"Our story. The real one. Not the heavily edited one that you told the kids." Yeah, she was definitely laughing at him. It wasn't like he could tell their children that they met during a tournament where he was fighting for his life! The same tournament where she was cheering for him to die!

"Our story isn't that strange." Except for the beginning, with the cheering for his death thing. Then there was that huge fight during Christmas, the war, and the fact that they got together because he accidentally kissed her. So maybe the middle was a little strange. Or was all of that part of the beginning? Which would make their lives now the middle? Because the end would mean…yeah, he wasn't gonna think about that. Actually, thinking about all of this was starting to give him a headache.

"It's like a fairytale, except I hated you for a little bit and there was a lot of blood. Like, a lot. Okay, so maybe not a fairytale. Romantic comedy with death scenes?"

Yusuke managed to shift around until he could brace his palms on either side of Koto's hips, and her wide smile gentled some as he lifted himself up until they were on the same eye-level. She was the one who leaned forward to rub their noses together, and his smile pressed against hers as he dipped down to kiss her. The hand still in his hair tightened and pulled him back, just a little, and Koto laughed as she ducked forward to lightly kiss him one more time before leaning back. Okay, so maybe their story was a little strange and not exactly a fairytale, but he thought it was a pretty good story. Since they were still eye-to-eye, his next words were whispered against her lips.

"And they lived happily ever after."

Ending Note: The ending might be cheesy and cliché, but I like it. Thank you to everyone who has read this story, and a special THANK YOU to everyone who supported this story by following/favoriting/reviewing.

SakiHanajima1: Can you believe this story is over?! Because I can't! (I'm totally in denial while crying like a leaking faucet. I hate endings.) I'm glad you liked the side pairings! If the story was longer, I would have expanded on them because I think they're all adorable couples, which is why I had to put them in at the end. They all deserve love. As for the ending of the last chapter, I'm glad you thought it was tasteful! Those scenes are always difficult for me to write, but that one was surprisingly easy. Maybe because I ship Yusuke and Koto so much? Who knows? THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT! And, of course, thank you for the review!

Shell1331: Endings are always a little bittersweet, but I'm glad you still liked the chapter! Haha, writing the 6 month buildup was fun for me. My main goal when I started this story was to see if I could write Yusuke and Koto as a believable couple, without messing up their canon characterization, so thank you for reading the story and telling me your thoughts! It means a lot to me, and I hope to see one of your reviews on one of my other YYH stories one day. Thank you for the review!