To say that I adore the Kou family would be putting it lightly. Lovelovelovelove Kouyuu and Reishin. Love Kouyuu and Shouka. Love Kurou, Shouka and Reishin. Absolutely can't wait for any Kouyuu and Kurou interaction because I have this feeling that Kurou would have the biggest soft spot for Kouyuu and wouldn't be as good at hiding it as Reishin.

Anyway, this fic is set soon after Kouyuu is adopted by Reishin. Kurou is about 20 (and as such is still growing into his political suaveness that comes naturally to Shouka and Reishin. Heh, poor Kurou), Reishin about 23, and Shouka in his late twenties, early thirties.

Kurou wasn't entirely sure where the small boy had come from, but he was certainly brightening up what had been a fairly dismal day. Normally, when the politics in the Kou estate became even too much for him to deal with (granted, sometimes at his own fault), Kurou had a habit of taking a brisk walk beneath the cherry blossoms. Winter had come early this year, however, and while the trees were still pretty even when they weren't in full bloom, there was still something off putting about taking a walk in the middle of a thunder storm. He would have retreated to his own quarters had it not been for the fact that the very people he was attempting to avoid would have easily managed to track him down (and really, it wasn't solely his own fault that things had ended as they had. He'd had such good intentions this time, as well). In the end, he'd decided it would be safest to retreat to the one place where no-one would ever think of looking for him, even if that meant an afternoon spent in the archives of all places.

As luck would have it for once, he had been right. His disinterest in the archives was generally well known, although Reishin had once said darkly that his dislike of the place was a thinly veiled attempt to get out of ever having to do any work there. Reishin had naturally been right of course, in the same way he had naturally been wrong. Kurou never minded actually working, it was just that the archives were the sort of place that lesser people were supposed to go to get the scrolls and books that he happened to need. There was a certain … order to these sorts of things, and the moment that order was lost chaos quickly followed. One only had to look at the current state of the capital (and by extension, all of Saiunkoku's provinces) to know the catastrophic byproduct of things falling out of order.

'Things being in the right order' wasn't, admitably, the only reason why Kurou tended to avoid the archives – the place had a habit of being so blindingly boring that he feared that if he strayed there too long he might turn into one of the large stone pillars that held up the heavy, grey ceiling. Naturally, that childish fear was all Reishin's fault, his older brother had told him when he only five that exactly that would happen if he was in the room for more than 10 seconds at a time. Now, of course, Kurou knew that Reishin had only been trying to ditch his younger brother in favor for his older one (who back then had visited the archives all the time), but Kurou had always been a strong believer of the concept that any excuse works in a pinch.

And the afternoon in the archives surely would have been boring if it hadn't been for the small little fact that there had already been someone there when he arrived, and someone he hadn't even been attempting desperately to avoid at that. The young boy hadn't seen him enter, and then apparently appeared to be too preoccupied with whatever it was that he was doing to notice Kurou after that, although that could have been influenced by the way Kurou hid himself in a corner so that he could silently watch him. A small smile curled at his lips as the boy scurried between the rows of books and scrolls before stopping abruptly and grabbing one from the shelf, before scuttling back again to one of the large oak tables that already had six or so books piled on it. There was a list there as well, Kurou had realized early on, and while it would perhaps be easier if the boy took the list with him each time as opposed to having to return constantly to the table, the one time the child had attempted exactly that had been met with disaster. There were, after all, only so many books one boy could carry before he ended up sprawled on the far too hard wooden floors with a book in his lap and one splayed open on his head like an absurd wig. Even now Kurou wasn't entirely sure how he had managed to bite back the laugh that had threatened to bubble up.

Generally, Kurou wasn't all that fond of children, and while he'd dutifully had a son of his own the moment he'd become married at the tender age of seventeen, they were the sort of thing that were best left for women to deal with. But there was something about the small boy that held Kurou's interest in a way that even the most exclusive (and expensive) of plays could not. He had a feeling that it was how the boy moved about with such earnestness, never pausing in his collection of the books even when surely he must have had enough by now. The boy obviously came from a wealthy enough family – was quite possibly even a distant member of the visiting Ran clan – but there was something about the child that seemed to defy his effluent dressings. Clothed in elegant white robes peppered with tiny blue flowers and with his hair tied back prettily with a blue bow, the child should have been a picture perfect representation of the sorts of things that were supposed to be seen around the Kou estate. The thing with pictures, however, was that they didn't move, and the young boy certainly did. Scurrying, skittering, flittering. A study of movement as opposed to a staid portrait, the child held more motivation – more life – than any of the politicians and social movers who had flocked to the Kou estate during these politically unstable times.

The boy was, quite simply, far too cute for his own good. And, when he couldn't reach the next book on his list even when he stretched to the very tip of his toes and reached as high as possible with his fingers, Kurou stepped out of his corner and took it down for him with a smile.

"Here you go," he said with more warmth than he generally reserved for anyone who wasn't family. "I believe this is the book you were after." Kurou hadn't really expected any sort of response from the boy beyond perhaps a thank you, but the look of utter horror he received instead seemed just a touch out of line.

"Nobody is supposed to come here!" The young boy protested wildly, wide eyes locked on Kurou's confused ones. "He said that nobody ever comes here!"

"Whoever he is, he's generally right," Kurou offered wryly, before smiling gently in an attempt to calm the frazzled young boy. "What is your name, boy? Mine is Kurou." THAT brought a small gasp, and as the small boy stumbled backwards a couple of steps, Kurou wondered what exactly it was that he was missing.

"But you're especially not supposed to be here!" It was practically a wail. "You can't even read!"

Kurou blinked, stunned.

"Pardon?"

"He's going to kill me," the boy muttered, his softly spoken words holding an edge of hysteria. "He's going to kill me then he's going to send me away forever and I'll never see him again except when he drops of his paperwork." Lavender eyes somehow managed to widen impossibly larger. "How am I supposed to find him books if I'm not allowed into the archives?"

"I'm sure that everything will be fine," Kurou attempted, deciding that trying to find any sort of reason or sense at the moment was rather useless. But just as his other wayward attempts at calming the young boy had failed rather miserably, speaking again only seemed to remind the boy that he was still there. 'Being there' was apparently a bad thing, as it caused the boy to freeze for a moment, before suddenly turning on his heels and taking flight.

"Wait!" The command didn't come quite as quickly as he would have liked due to a little thing called shock, but it hardly mattered as the boy ignored it completely. Left with the choice of shaking his head and staying put or childishly running after the boy, Kurou made the mental decision to do the sane and appropriate thing of staying where he was.

Unfortunately, his feet came to a completely different decision.

If the boy had known the Kou estate at all (and Kurou was positive that he didn't given his erratic and unpredictable running), then it would have been easy for Kurou to catch up with him. As it was, the weird twists and turns that the child took threw him off completely, and it didn't help that he had to occasionally duck out of the way when someone he was attempting to avoid happened to stroll down the corridor he was running through. The young boy was quick too, although he did stumble occasionally when his robes caught around his legs and feet. Just as Kurou thought that there was no chance of catching up with the child as he disappeared around yet another corner, the sound of a collision echoed through the corridors. An uncharacteristic grin came to his lips as he sped around the corner that the boy had dipped behind, only to come to a sudden halt as he saw exactly who it was that the boy had collided with.

"I'm so sorry, Reishin-sama!" The small boy babbled from where he was sprawled on the floor, his apologies falling from his lips even before he'd managed to pull himself up into a sitting position. "I didn't mean to, and I know I'm not supposed to leave the archives, and I, I-"

"That is enough, Kouyuu." The cool response was so typically Reishin that it took Kurou a moment longer than it possibly should have to recognize that somehow his older brother knew the child. As those impatient eyes rose from Kouyuu to Kurou, Kurou found himself flinching under Reishin's gaze, realizing suddenly that he must look a mess after his race through the corridors. "Dare I ask?"

"It would be best not to," Kurou admitted, and was rewarded by an elegantly raised eyebrow.

"We were looking for you anyway, Kurou." Shouka said it warmly, which was a surprise not because Shouka didn't always talk warmly to everyone, but because Kurou hadn't even realized that his eldest brother was there. "It's nice to see that you're doing … well." And he must look a mess if that was the best that Shouka could manage. One day (and that day seemed far off right now) Kurou would gain some of the elegance and poise of his older brothers, and perhaps then he would not feel so inadequate in their presence. The fact that he could recognize those traits in Shouka as well as Reishin did not mean however that he was blinded to his eldest brother's faults, and as such he chose to ignore Shouka altogether.

"If you needed me you could have simply sent someone to find me, Reishin." There was no need for his brother to come after him himself as though Reishin was a mere commoner – or worse, an actual servant. "We do pay people to do exactly that, after all."

"For some strange reason they couldn't find you," Reishin said dryly, his gaze drifting back to the small boy who had since managed to find his feet again and was standing self consciously off to the side. "Not surprising since I highly doubt that anyone would have thought to look in the archives for you." Surprise flickered across Kurou's features at that – how could Reishin have possibly had known that was where he had been hiding? Reishin read his expression perfectly, and with a deep sigh he continued on, the reluctance in his tone obvious. "Kurou, Shouka. This is Kouyuu, my son."

"Your … son?" Shouka found his voice first, "We … didn't realize that you had any children." That was putting it mildly.

"I've been hiding him." Reishin said it as though it was the most simplistic of concepts.

"In the archives for 10 years?!" Kurou finally managed to blurt out in horror, his gaze falling on the poor, poor boy.

"Yes, Kurou." The sarcasm in Reishin's voice was unmistakable. "I've been hiding a child in the archives since I was thirteen." Reishin looked down at him with disdain. "I adopted him, you fool. I've only been hiding him there for six months."

Only six months. Only six months.

"Surely you could have found some place a little more suitable?" Shouka questioned gently. Reishin could have certainly found someplace a little less boring, Kurou thought darkly as he still tried to wrap his head around the fact he now had both a nephew and a niece.

"He likes it there," Reishin responded dismissively, but as always his tone held more warmth when Reishin was talking to Shouka. Doubtfully, both Shouka and Kurou looked down at Kouyuu, who nodded his head uncertainly.

"Has he ever been anywhere else?" Kurou asked, still unable to believe that any child (or any adult, for that matter) would believe that the archives were a fun place to be.

"Not deliberately," Reishin said darkly, causing Kouyuu to blush and dip his head.

"It's nice to meet you, Kouyuu." Shouka's smile seemed to only make the young boy even more uncomfortable, and Shouka wisely turned his attention back to Reishin. "Is he … from a family that we know?" Shouka's question was poised with a delicateness that Kurou would never have been able to manage.

"No. I picked him up off a street corner."

A delicateness that was obviously wasted on Reishin. Shouka's smile froze at just about the same instant that Kurou's jaw dropped, the only sound coming from Kouyuu who groaned slightly as he buried his face in his hands..

"I did not," Reishin began slowly, his dark, deadly gaze sweeping from Kurou to Shouka and then back again. "- mean THAT sort of street corner."

"Oh," Shouka said, relief clearly in his voice.

"Oh," Kurou said, not quite so convinced. Kouyuu was a very pretty young boy, after all.

"He was just an ordinary street child," Reishin calmly said, this time solely to Kurou, the silent threat heavy in his words. "It would be best for you to remember that."

"Of course, Reishin-sama." The submissive answer was exactly what Reishin was after, and with a nod Reishin turned his attention to Kouyuu, dismissing any more talk concerning why Reishin had suddenly decided to snatch a child from the streets and proclaim him as his son.

"Let me have a look at your arm, you landed on it quite hard when you fell." Reishin didn't ever speak softly to anyone, preferring rich sarcasm or harsh words. Yet, there was something almost gentle in the way Reishin crouched before the young boy and took a hold of the injured arm, something so strangely paternal and completely out of place in Reishin of all people. Kurou loved his brother dearly, but loving Reishin meant accepting his selfishness and self serving attitude, yet for just a moment Reishin was neither. Wide eyed, Kouyuu let Reishin do as he pleased, quiet adoration slipping into his gaze and dusting his cheeks with a different shade of red to earlier.

Kurou was speechless, which was probably for the best considering that otherwise he would have most likely have found the exact wrong thing to say. For once, Shouka seemed to be as well.

"You should go back to our quarters, Kurou can take you." When Reishin spoke again he sounded more like his normal self. Kurou would have protested – was about to protest – but the calculated look that Reishin gave him as he stood back up was enough to convince him that taking Kouyuu back to Reishin's room was not such a bad idea after all.

"If you wish me to." He was rewarded with a nod, and when Kouyuu moved uncertainly (and just a touch fearfully) to his side, Kurou couldn't quite resist the urge to ruffle the small boy's hair just slightly, something that earned him almost identical looks of surprise from Reishin, Shouka and Kouyuu. "Oh!" It was only as Reishin and Shouka had started off again that a sudden thought dawned on him. "Reishin? Did you tell Kouyuu that I couldn't read?!"

Reishin's laughter echoed through the hallways long after the other man had disappeared around the corner.