Imagine if sei and shiraishi couldn't get back to their original world, I have this thought that sei would adopt her since it's implied that he sees her as his daughter in a way (tbh I forgot if it's true or not, probably smth not so far off). I would love to see a fic where their relationship is explored since they are in the same boat.
Oh man, I started writing this and it got so far away from me! 😅😅😅 I hope you're ready for almost 4k words for found family FEELS.
Spoilers for the end of the series! But it's canon divergent from the ending so it's still readable even if you haven't read Volume 3 of the novel.
AO3 Link Here or read below:
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“I’m so sorry, Kondo.”
Seiichirou gritted his teeth and watched as the last year of his efforts went up in smoke. Quite literally.
The throne room was deathly silent as the last of the magical energy in the room dissipated, leaving nothing behind. It was the Romany Sorcery Department’s latest attempt at a location spell to bring Seiichirou and Shiraishi back to Japan, and the results could not be interpreted as anything but a spectacular failure.
Director Zoltan and Ist both looked just as devastated as Seiichirou felt. It had been their efforts too, of course. Seiichirou had championed the Sorcery Department, had fought for the Royal Treasury to reallocate the kingdom’s budget from the Holy Maiden summoning to their research efforts. Even in just the last six months, magical research had advanced by leaps and bounds, and Romany’s magical prowess was close to double what it had been when Seiichirou and Shiraishi had first been summoned to this world.
And yet, despite all this, their original plan, the plan to find a way to send Shiraishi and maybe even Seiichirou back home, was still as far away a goal as when they’d first started.
Seiichirou clenched his fist, and for the first time in his life, wanted to lash out his frustrations, to bang his fists against the wall and scream why, why, why. This spell should have worked; Ist had reviewed all the parameters of the spell meticulously, Seiichirou had double checked the numbers, and the other sorcerers casting the spell were the best that Romany and Egorova had to offer. There had been hours upon hours of research conducted, multiple trials completed, and an endless supply of expensive magical ingredients collected. Seiichirou had spent countless nights balancing the books for their expenditures and it should have all worked.
The one thing Seiichirou had not factored in, however, was how difficult it would be to actually locate Seiichirou and Shiraishi’s original world in the first place.
Without the tether of the Holy Maiden’s magical signature to guide them, the sorcerers of both Romany and Egorova were scrying blind. It would have been easier to find a single needle in multiple haystacks, instead of what they were trying to do now. Seiichirou had been fascinated to find out that there were just as many worlds in the universe as there were stars in the sky, and were he not so desperately trying to find just one, he thinks he would’ve liked to explore these supposed other worlds and see how different they were from Japan and Romany.
But as it stood, locating each world took a significant amount of magic, and despite multiple attempts, no one had yet been able to find the correct one. On top of that, some of the magical plants sourced for such a spell took years to grow, and were now dangerously low in supply after so many attempts. Ist and the Sorcery Department had exhausted every theory and hypothesis their minds could think of, left no stone unturned, no idea too outlandish. They had all been so sure that their thesis was correct this time, that this spell was the one that would lead them to the correct world.
“What went wrong?” Seiichirou finally brought himself to ask. Ist immediately launched into a long explanation that Seiichirou tuned out after just a few minutes. He’d gotten the gist in just the first minute without needing to hear the details. Simply put, everything they initially thought would factor into finding the correct world had been wrong. The Sorcery Department would have to start their research over from scratch. It wasn’t the result anyone wanted. But it was all they had.
Today should have been cause for excitement. Seiichirou had been so sure that they would find a way back to their original world that he’d even invited Shiraishi to witness the spell being successfully cast for the first time. He now realized that this was a foolish choice. He’d done exactly what he was always warned not to do growing up; he’d counted his chickens before the eggs could hatch. Now he had nothing but a scrambled mess to show for it.
“K-K-Kondou?” Shiraishi stammered out from beside him, her small frame shaking as she realized what this catastrophic failure meant.“W-what do we do now?”
Seiichirou doesn’t know. He’d built multiple fail-safes into this plan, and even planned for how he could pivot balancing costs in case of more than the expected amount of failures, but even he hadn’t expected to come up against such a high hurdle to cross. He felt like an idiot for assuming that just because Romany had been able to locate and summon Shiraishi once, that they would be able to reverse engineer the process and use her magical signature to be able to send her back.
“…We adjust,” Seiichirou finally said to her, though his own voice was shaky. “I’m not giving up Shiraishi, but—”
Seiichirou doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because what little composure Shiraishi had been holding onto shatters as she falls to the ground and wails at the sky.
—Three Years Later—
“Seiichirou!”
Seiichirou stopped walking and turned at the sound of his name coming from a familiar feminine voice. Yua bounded up to him, her arms full of books likely borrowed from the Royal library and her elegant but practical gown swishing behind her as she jogged to catch up with him.
“Shir—Yua,” Seiichirou greeted, correcting himself before Yua noticed his slip up. It was still somewhat foreign to him, referring to Yua by her given name, even though they had been doing so for almost a year now. “Happy Birthday.”
Yua beamed up at him, clutching the books closer to her chest.
“Thank you, Seiichirou! I can’t believe I’m already twenty!”
Unlike Seiichirou, Yua had no qualms about using Seiichirou’s given name. In fact, Yua had been the one who initially wanted to drop the formalities between them, much to Aresh’s chagrin. But even without his lover’s misplaced jealousy over the matter, Seiichirou himself had felt that it was inappropriate for an adult and and a young girl who were unrelated by blood to suddenly start addressing one another more casually.
Yua had accepted Seiichirou’s reasoning at first, but as time passed, she began pushing the matter more frequently, and it was only on his most recent birthday that Seiichirou finally understood the reason why. Yua had presented Seiichirou with a mug that was enchanted to always keep tea warm, along with a selection of teas low in magicules that she sought Norbert’s help to procure. When Seiichirou told her that she needn’t have gotten him anything at all, Yua simply shook her head and pressed the gifts into his hands.
“You’re the only family I have left, Kondou,” Yua had said, giving him a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Please just…let me thank you for always taking care of me.”
Something had broken inside Seiichirou at Yua’s words, and after a good long cry in Aresh’s arms later that evening, Seiichirou resolved to indulge Yua as much as possible. He’d started, of course, with letting her use his given name, and using hers in return.
“Are you excited for your party tonight, Yua?” Seiichirou asked. Yua nodded eagerly, her entire face lighting up. Yua had always loved the lavish parties the kingdom threw, especially the ones that were catered to honor her as the Holy Maiden. There were fewer of them now that Yua had completed her purification duties, but her birthday was still treated like a national holiday in Romany. Once upon a time, Seiichirou may have protested the high costs that came with such a celebration, but well. Circumstances had changed. And so had Seiichirou’s priorities.
“I am!” Yua practically squealed with delight. “Yurius told me he had a surprise for me too! Will you be attending as well?”
Of course he was, Seiichirou had organized the whole affair. The “surprise” that Yurius had promised was also Seiichirou’s idea. But naturally, Yua knew neither of these things, and Seiichirou intended to keep it that way until the party itself had started.
“I have some work to finish up, but Aresh and I will be there,” Seiichirou answered with a nod, then grunted as Yua suddenly launched herself at him, enveloping Seiichirou in a tight hug.
“Don’t be late, okay?” Yua said cheerily, waving and turning to walk towards her original destination. “I’m going to try and see if maybe the chefs know of a drink kind of like sake that we can drink!”
As if Seiichirou would be late to such an event. Even if Seiichirou hadn’t been the one to plan everything behind the scenes, he wouldn’t miss it. Yua had been right when she’d presented him with her birthday gift to him. They were all that remained of their old world, and that destiny bound them tighter than the original purpose Yua had been summoned here for, at least in Seiichirou’s mind.
Seiichirou had not given up his efforts to find a way back to Japan. He’d continued working with Ist and the sorcery department, and he would continue to do so for as long as the kingdom would permit him to chase the ever-growing distant goal of trying to get Yua back home. Even if just for a moment. Even just a single day. Seiichirou wanted her to go back to their homeland at least once and give it a proper goodbye for both of them. He’d long given up on the idea of going back himself and taking Aresh with him.
But while Seiichirou tirelessly worked to make this dream a reality, both he and Yua only got older. Seiichirou had hoped—rather foolishly so, in hindsight—that the research into getting them both home would take no longer than a year or so to complete. He had thought it would be appropriate that Yua could go home, become a proper adult, and then later make the choice to come back to this world if she so desired.
Reality, however, had not come to match his expectations. Before he knew it, Yua’s 18th, then 19th birthday had passed, and now at twenty, she was considered an adult in Japan. If Seiichirou had his way, she would be celebrating Coming of Age day with her peers, eating alcoholic snacks and staying up way too late partying, like Seiichirou had at that same age.
Of course, the Sorcery Department was at least another four months away from another attempt at the location spell, and Seiichirou was determined not to waste Yua’s 20th birthday with just another normal celebration. Yua would only turn twenty years old once in her life, after all.
Yurius had protested at first when Seiichirou insisted that he handle Yua’s birthday celebration this year. Once Seiichirou had explained the importance of Yua’s legal status as an adult, not to mention the nationwide celebration of the Coming-of-Age ceremony, however, Yurius’s only stipulation was that Seiichirou include him in every bit of the planning and explain things to Yurius in as much detail as possible.
Seiichirou knew that Yurius loved Yua deeply, and that the two had spoken about marriage. What he hadn’t realized up until their conversation was how deep his love for her ran. He had asked many thoughtful questions about what Seiichirou was planning, the cultural significance of certain traditions, and if there were other such holidays and celebrations that Romany could incorporate from Japan.
“This is your home now too,” Yurius had said. “It’s not the same, but I—the kingdom will do its best to honor you both by honoring your world’s traditions.”
Seiichirou wasn’t used to having his chest seized by anyone other than Aresh, but Yurius’s words had spurred him to scale the celebration to something larger than what he’d initially planned for. If that was how the kingdom felt, then Yua would have a proper Coming of Age ceremony. It was the least Seiichirou could do for the younger girl—no, she was a young woman now—that he had come to regard as his own family.
If he could not bring Yua back to Japan, then Seiichirou would bring Japan to Romany instead.
It’s a little surreal, Seiichirou thought, to see the nobility of Romany all dressed in kimonos for an event.
Initially, Seiichirou only meant to have kimonos specially made for himself, Yua, and Yurius, but Yurius had insisted upon notifying the rest of the nobility that they were to have their own formal kimonos commissioned for use at the celebration. He’d even gone so far as to require any noble families with children who had just turned twenty wear special red kimonos to compliment the one he and Seiichirou had commissioned for Yua.
Normally, only the women would be wearing kimonos at a Coming-of-Age ceremony, but Seiichirou supposed the whole idea of Japanese formal dress was a novel concept to the people of Romany, and so now everyone had gotten into the spirit of things. Of course, this had required additional work on Seiichirou’s part as he was the only person who could advise each and every dressmaker in the kingdom on how to design and style a kimono. The last few months of planning had been exhausting, to say the least. Seiichirou still didn’t know how all of this managed to be kept a secret from Yua.
A flash of purple danced across his vision, and Seiichrou’s eyes immediately turned to find Aresh, handsome as ever, dressed in a dark purple haori and black hakama, the color scheme reminiscent of his Third Royal Order uniform. Seiichirou’s own kimono was blue and white, though the obi sash is the same red color as the cape of his Accounting uniform. Aresh had two glasses of water in his hand, and he handed one to Seiichirou, who nearly gulped the whole glass down.
“Do you think she’ll like it?” Seiichirou asked, trying both to calm his nerves, as well as the hot flare of attraction that rekindled itself upon seeing Aresh. Seiichirou had taken special care in planning his lover’s kimono, and when he’d first seen Aresh in it earlier that evening, he’d gotten so distracted by how good it looked on him that they had nearly been late in arriving. He needed something, anything else to talk about or he was at risk of dragging Aresh home before Yua had even arrived.
“I think she’ll appreciate that you planned all this for her,” Aresh replied with a soft smile, looking around at all the guests and decorations. “Is it exactly as it would be in your homeland?”
“Not quite,” Seiichirou answered honestly, taking another sip of water. “But I think it’s better this way. I don’t remember my own coming of age ceremony much, I was too drunk.”
Seiichirou nearly snorted at the glare Aresh gave him in return.
“You better not indulge tonight,” his lover warned.
“I won’t,” Seiichirou replied immediately. “That’s for the people actually celebrating, not for the old men. I’m more than happy to stand by and watch Yua enjoy herself the way she’s meant to.”
Aresh nodded, satisfied with Seiichirou’s answer. They then took to walking around the banquet hall, greeting guests and making small talk while they waited for Yua’s arrival. Apparently, the kimonos were a huge hit with the nobility and quite a few families were quick to request more of Seiichirou’s designs for their seamstresses. Seiichirou really doesn’t have as much artistic talent as the nobles seem to think he has, he’s not even sure the kimono designs he does remember are 100% accurate to traditional designs from Japan. But he supposed there’s no harm in a little deviation from the norm. It’s not as though the Japanese government was going to hunt him down for some slight inaccuracies.
When Yua finally arrived with Yurius, she was easily the most stunningly dressed out of everyone. Her furisode was a bright red patterned with a variety of flowers in bright yellows, pinks and whites across the entire body. Yurius had personally overseen the design, choosing to decorate her kimono with a mix of flowers both native to Romany and Japan. There was even gold stitching representing the church of Abran along the sleeves. Next to her, Yurius looked equally regal in a dark gray kimono with silver mias flowers decorating his haori, and a gold hakama that glittered in the light of the banquet hall.
As they descended the stairs, Seiichirou noticed that Yua had tears in her eyes, though he could tell they were more emotional rather than sad tears. When she eventually spotted Seiichirou, Yua dropped all sense of decorum and dashed down the rest of the steps towards him and Aresh.
“S-Seiichirou!” Yua wailed. Seiichirou let out an “oomph” as she crashed into his arms. The only reason he didn’t get knocked over completely was because Aresh stood behind them to absorb the impact of Yua’s hug.
“I take it you’re happy with your surprise?” Seiichirou asked, trying his best not to lose his composure as well. Yua looked beautiful and Seiichirou felt proud of her in a way he never thought he would feel for another person. He wondered if this is what it was like to have a younger sibling that you’ve watched grow up.
“Where did you get all of this?” Yua asked, gesturing to herself and then around the room. “Yurius said you had everything special made!” Seiichirou nodded, locking eyes with Yurius who wasn't far behind her.
“Yurius helped a lot,” Seiichirou admitted. Seiichirou himself had wanted only a simple ceremony and for Yua to get to wear a kimono one more time. It had been Yurius who had pulled all the strings to make the evening a grand affair that Yua would truly never forget.
“Now’s not the time to be humble, Kondou,” Yurius replied, his haughtiness in full swing. “This whole thing was your idea, take your credit.”
“You designed her kimono though,” Seiichirou countered.
“You did?!” Yua squealed, turning back to Yurius and taking his hands in hers. Yurius blushed furiously and Seiichirou struggled to hide his laugh in his mostly empty water glass. “Yurius, this is beautiful, thank you again! Did Seiichirou explain to you what Coming of Age day is like?”
“A little,” Yurius replied sheepishly. In fact, Seiichirou had explained the whole thing in great detail to Yurius multiple times while they had been planning, but Seiichirou could see that Yurius wouldn’t mind hearing it all over again from Yua. “Why don’t you tell me more? I’m sure Lord and Lady Milan would love to hear about it as well.”
Yua nodded, then waved goodbye to Aresh and Seiichirou as Yurius guided her towards the other noble families. Seiichirou let out a satisfied sigh as he watched her light up during her explanations of the kimono, Japan, and Coming of Age day to various noble families.
After handing their empty glasses to a server, Seiichirou and Aresh resumed their socializing and eating, and for once Seiichirou was happy to not be using an event for networking purposes. He doesn’t think he’d be very effective at it anyways, every time he looked at Aresh at a new angle, he got distracted by how handsome the commander looked in a kimono. Really, it was a good thing that the outfit was formal wear, and thus would not be worn often. Though judging by the smug look on Aresh’s face, Seiichirou could tell that Aresh knew just how enticing he looked to his lover.
As the night progressed, Seiichirou found himself caught off guard by another blending of cultures: watching Yua and Yurius dance to a Romany waltz in their Japanese kimonos. It was a bit strange, yet somehow the image fit perfectly at the same time. Both Yua and Yurius were a bit clumsy with the steps in their wooden sandals, but they managed after a time, and Seiichirou could feel that same pride he’d felt earlier in the evening welling up inside his chest.
“I feel like a proud uncle,” Seiichirou chuckled when Aresh loops an arm around his waist, resting his chin on Seiichirou’s shoulder.
“You look more like a proud father,” Aresh replied, and Seiichirou stiffened at the words, pride giving way to a different kind of swelling in his chest. He could feel Aresh’s smile on his shoulder, which doesn’t help ease the ache whatsoever.
“She has a father,” Seiichirou managed to stammer out after a moment. “I-I’m not, I’m just—”
“You’re not just anything,” Aresh interrupted. He placed a hand on Seiichirou’s chin, tilting his face towards his for a brief kiss. “Family doesn’t always mean blood.”
“I know,” Seiichirou sighed. “It just feels like I shouldn’t be replacing her blood family, not yet. Not until—”
“You’ll bring her home, Seiichirou,” Aresh reassured him. “One day. You’re the most brilliant man I know. I know you’ll figure it out, and find the most cost efficient way to do it too.”
Warmth spread not just in Seiichirou’s chest, but in his lower body at Aresh’s words. He gripped Aresh’s hand tightly, and Aresh purred into his ear in response, recognizing immediately what Seiichirou was telling him without words. He nipped at Seiichirou’s earlobe before pulling him towards the area where Yua and Yurius were now standing so they could give their goodbyes. Yurius huffed and narrowed his eyes at them, likely having already guessed the reason for their departure, but Yua doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss.
“Thank you again for everything tonight, Seiichirou,” she said, gripping his hands in hers. “I’ll never forget it.” Seiichirou smiled, returning the gesture and squeezing her hands tight.
Someday, Seiichirou would figure out a way to get her home. Yua’s parents, at the very least, deserved to see what a fine young woman their daughter had become in her time away. Until then, he’d continue to watch over her, just as he had done since the first day they arrived in Romany.
