Disclaimer: I do not own KKM.

So this story has been in various stages of completion for over 2 years now (actually closer to 3...but saying 2 makes me feel better). Anyway, I was reading through all of my in progress stuff to try and get a bit of inspiration to bite to finish something, I decided that this one needed to be finished more than anything, to say nothing of posting it, before I could in good conscious continue anything else that had been started well over a year after this one first got going. I sort of feel like I abandoned it. I didn't even give it a name before now, it was just called 'KKM fic' on my computer.

All of that said, I hope that you enjoy it.

I Understand Now

Yuuri hacked up some of the water clogging his lungs after a bad trip bad to earth.

It seems that someone, namely the Great Sage himself, had manage to twist himself around and flail his way through the transfer so that when they landed in the little swimming pool in Yuuri's backyard, Yuuri had wound up somehow being shoved beneath a sudden weight being pressed against his unprepared shoulders, knee buckling and his face being plunged into the cold water below.

"Heika!"

"Yuuri!"

"Yuu-chan!"

Voices clambered around him as he fought the stinging sensation in his throat and nose.

Slim hands wrapped around his shoulders and he felt himself being pulled up and held against a narrow chest.

Ahh, Wolfram.

Yuuri pulled his feet under him and pried open his eyes, laying his hands against Wolfram's chest momentarily to steady himself.

"I'm alright," he croaked, throat a bit sore from coughing.

Concerned green eyes bored into his own. "You sure?" The blonde asked quietly.

Yuuri nodded and stepped back, the rest of the world coming back into view and he noticed that his brother was berating the bespectacled Murata.

With a sigh Yuuri stepped away and felt the blonde warm hands drift away from his shoulders, making him aware of the heat that he had been engulfed in despite the cool autumn air, and now he was very aware of the fact that he was cold and wet and wanted nothing more than to be inside and warm and dry.

With determined effort, he called his brother off of his friend, finally convincing the over-protective man that they all would be better off inside or risk catching a cold, at which point he practically earned whiplash as Shori grasped him by the arms and tugged him hard inside the warm glow of the awaiting house.

Conrad's warm chuckle and an accompanying huff from Wolfram shortly followed before the pair of demon brothers followed their King into his family home.

There was a reason that they had come to Earth this time. It wasn't anything to do with Yuuri needing to sit an exam. There was no big threat that needed to be defeated. It wasn't done in an attempt to dodge the increasingly insistent Anissina, who seemed determined that the Maou should supply the energy for whatever her latest experiment was (sorry Gunter and Gwendal…). It wasn't that he was homesick.

He was here for diplomatic reasons, hence the presence of his friendly retainers.

Earth's Maou, Bob, was finally stepping down from his position. The man finally felt that he had given Shori enough of a basic framework to take up the position himself. The fact that he was just flat tired out might have something to do with it as well.

His coronation of sorts was to be that evening, but that meant that there was an entire day for Yuuri to just relax around Japan. To not have to worry about politics or potential wars or factions within nations, both home and allied, who still didn't like the idea of humans and demons peacefully co-existing with each other.

It occurred to Yuuri as he offered to clean the dishes after supper that he had been gone for a rather long time this time around.

Even when he was back in childhood home, he was always so narrowly focused on whatever reason had brought him back, he never took the time to look around and notice the subtle changes that would always occur over time. The fact that the last four songs to come out of the radio playing quietly in the corner of the kitchen where completely brand new to him just seemed to bring that fact home loud and clear.

"Hey wimp," a certain blonde said jovially as he jumped up and sat on the counter, just outside of the range of the faucet should Yuuri elect to turn it on him, which was something that the fire demon had learned from experience.

"Not a wimp…" Yuuri said dully, more out of habit than anything else, as he shifted yet another dish to the rapidly filling strainer.

"You can't even get me to stop calling you a wimp…and you claim that the title isn't true?" Wolfram had been in a rather good mood recently.

You see, he had been making great strides, he thought, in his relationship with Yuuri. In fact, Yuuri had made a rather sudden change in his relationship with all of his friends and confidants back in the Demon Kingdom.

Gunter had been surprised at the sudden dedication that his beloved Maou was giving to his lessons on history and customs. Dancing down the hallway after one lesson when the King actually referenced a past lesson about the history of relations between two of the noble houses and asked if that had caused any strife during the preparations for the Great War between demons and humans.

Gwendal had inquired after the King's health when the young man settled down to handle paperwork without so much as a groan. And rather than asking questions like, "Do I really have to do this?" instead, the young man would ask questions of clarification and inquire as to why Gwendal's notes on the document were for or against its passage or signing. Gwendal had stared dumb for several days as this repeated itself until he finally worked his mind around to the fact that this was the new normal.

His morning workouts with Conrad felt less and less like staying in shape, and more and more like true training. He would return bruised and exhausted, muscles strained, but moving forward in his skill with a blade.

And Wolfram, despite being a fire wielder, was working with Yuuri on learning control of his awesome power. Yuuri wanted to be able to call on it when he willed, and not just when he, or someone he loved, was facing mortal peril. There was too much of a risk that something would go wrong if he had to wait for a situation to escalate to that extent.

The blonde's reaction had been rather funny in bed the night that Yuuri had asked him to help with his training. Wolfram had leapt from the bed so quickly that his feet had remained tangled in the sheets and he found himself in a rumpled mess on the floor.

"Wolf!" Yuuri had cried, scrambling to the edge of the bed and to the fire demon's side.

Wolfram just watched with wide eyes until he finally shouted as Yuuri reached out a hand to help the other man up, "Are you Yuuri?!"

Yuuri's hand pulled back slightly and his expression looked confused. "What?"

"You've been so strange lately…with me, Gunter, my brothers…you're not acting like you usually do…" The soldier managed to free his feet on his own and pulled them under him to sit cross-legged but ready to spring at a moment's notice.

A shadow seemed to cross Yuuri's face. "I've seventeen now." The young man said, leaning back onto the heels of his feet on top of the bed. The king seemed to study the hem on his shirt intensely as he continued speaking. "When I first came here I was just fifteen. There was no way that I could be the King that all of you wanted me to be then – so I just did the best that I could trying to come to terms with the fact that alternate worlds even exists, let alone that I was a King in one."

Wolfram listened to Yuuri as he laid out the emotions and thoughts that he had never really said. Not even Conrad had heard this kind of doubt coming from the beloved double black.

"After I turned sixteen, and by your custom had to choose my life path – even though in the world I was raised in I would still be considered far too young to choose what I want to do for the rest of my life, you all still let me skate by like I had been." Yuuri scratched the back of his head. "I'm lucky that you all are around, and grateful!"

And his eyes met Wolfram's for the first time since he had started talking and the fire demon was shocked to see the level of insecurity and honest-to-god fear that was present in the usually confident Maou.

"But you all shouldn't have to cover for me. I could have stepped back and let you be Maou when I turned sixteen, but I didn't. I said that I would give everything to be the best that I could." A deep sigh left the teen and his eyes drooped again. "But I lied. I haven't been trying my best. I've still been living in a world where I can escape to another if I want. Your Uncle wasn't wrong when he thought that was a point against me continuing as the Maou."

"Yuuri…" Wolfram tried to interrupt on instinct, to stop the man from tearing himself down and dare claiming that Waltoranna was right.

But Yuuri help up a hand, "Let me finish."

Wolfram's mouth gapped for a moment before shutting it and rising to sit next to his dejected fiancé on their bed, waiting in silent support for the other man to finish.

"I feel like I've been playing at being King without really thinking about everything that the position entails. I've been impulsive and downright ignorant and somehow that had all worked out so far, but what are the odds that it will continue that way forever?"

Yuuri was unconsciously clenching his hands in his lap and Wolfram reached out a hand to grasp the one nearest, trying to show that Yuuri could share that tension rather than keeping it bottled within himself.

"If I keep playing around and not listening to you all and at least hearing what you have to say, one day I'm going to blunder into a situation that no amount of skill or magic or sheer dumb luck will be able to save me from." A lone tear slipped down Yuuri's cheek.

"The biggest thing though, is that I have to stop thinking of Earth as my home. It's my childhood home yes, it was where I was raised and where my parents and my brother will forever be, but this," Yuuri clenched his hand around Wolfram's and the blonde wondered just when the other man had released his fist to lace their fingers together, "this is my home now. And I have to live up to the title and respect that everyone gives me here. When they put forth their all, but I'm just half-assing it, I can't say that I am living up to that."

"Yuuri, you're the greatest Maou we've ever had…" Wolfram's voice was soft, but slightly desperate. The usually happy go-lucky-Maou seemed seriously depressed at the moment, and Wolfram just wanted to see that smile again.

"But what if what I've been so far isn't the greatest Maou I can be?" Yuuri slumped his shoulders and went willingly into the embrace that Wolfram suddenly engulfed him in.

"That fact that you worry about that at all, tells me that you will be. Yuuri, you ask these kinds of questions of yourself and demand perfection for everyone else's sake rather than your own. That is why you are a great Maou and will be a great Maou for the rest of your reign." Wolfram gave a dark chuckle. "I could never be as selfless as you. To put the care of the people so far above my own."

"You put my care above your own." Yuuri pointed out, his voice tired and Wolfram knew that the Maou would be asleep soon.

"You're one person. You put the lives of all of your citizens…no, the citizens of every nation, above your own. That is strength I could never hope to achieve."

Yuuri let out an unconvinced sounding mumble in response.

"Alright wimp, I'll start working on basic techniques with you tomorrow night after dinner."

He could feel the smile through his nightgown, "Thanks Wolf." And the tired man had drifted off to sleep.

Wolfram's mind snapped back to the present.

Yuuri was staring at him with a quirky kind of smile. "You alright Wolf?" he asked, with the amused tone of someone who must have tried to get his attention several times.

Wolfram swatted at the hand Yuuri had placed upon his shoulder and huffed, hopping down from the counter and staring at the wall, just over Yuuri's shoulder, "I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?"

There was a laugh that twinkled in the corner of Yuuri's eyes and Wolfram felt a blush taking over his face at the depth and warmth that filled those onyx eyes. Black eyes should be creepy, frightening, something that makes you distance himself from them because they are so hard to read. But not Yuuri's. No, somehow the teenager could manage to convey every little minutia of emotion in his eyes and could trap you because you were so entrances at their expressiveness.

"'Cause I've been trying to talk to you for a while…" Yuuri smiled and lightly wrapped his fingers around Wolfram's wrist. "Come on, we're going out. It's been a while since I've been able to see my hometown."

Wolfram allowed himself to be dragged along and took the offered jacket that Yuuri grabbed out of the closet by the front door.

"What about Conrad?"

"Out with Dr. Rodriguez." Yuuri answered without missing a beat.

They left the comfortable warmth of the Shibuya home and out into the grey skies of Japanese autumn.

They walked around the neighborhood and Yuuri pointed out where friends of his had lived and seemed surprised when some buildings that had always been there seemed to have been knocked down to make way for something else to stand in its place.

On every visit they'd made to Earth, Wolfram had always thought that there was this incredible sense of peace and security that just didn't exist in his world. No matter how much better things have gotten since Yuuri took over, people didn't have to think very far back to remember a time of fear that war would break out at any time. That sense of imminence just didn't exist here. That, Wolfram realized, was what Yuuri was striving to bring to their world. He wanted a world where children didn't have to worry about troops traipsing through their fields, of fathers and brothers going off to fight and never coming back. And Wolfram thought that if it produced a generation of children anything like Yuuri, it was a goal well worth the struggle.

"Let's go to the boardwalk!" Yuuri jumped excitedly, wrapping an arm around the chilly Wolfram to steer the fire demon towards a long wooden pier going out over the water.

All around them children raced on bicycles, foot sellers clamored to be heard, and people joked and talked and laughed with their companions.

"I used to come here all the time when I was younger." Yuuri explained, pointing towards one particular food cart, "Shori and I used to go to that cart and do goofy faces for this old woman who ran it. She was really old and kind of scary looking so people avoided her, but she was really nice. She would give us stuff for free sometimes if we made her laugh. That's her daughter running it now."

And indeed, rather than a craggy old face, a round cheerful face of a woman in her mid-thirties would break into an easy smile and hand over the fried snacks while taking the patrons' money.

They walked all the way to the end of the pier and leaned against the railing, Yuuri smiling contentedly as the wind whipped off of the water sprayed against their faces.

Wolfram laughed lightly, especially since Yuuri had gotten more water than him.

"Very funny…" Yuuri mumbled.

"It's is indeed." Wolfram snickered.

Yuuri turned to look at Wolfram and there was a serious look in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something when a voice shouted to their right.

It looked like a gang of four high school aged boys had another boy cornered about fifteen feet away from them.

"Come on man…we know you like it. All the faggots like you like it…"

Yuuri's eyes flew wide but Wolfram was confused. Anissina's translator was telling him that the group had just called the boy a bundle of wood…but why would that be an insult? Because it was obvious that the word was meant to hurt the boy it was said to but Wolfram found himself just baffled.

Yuuri turned around to just in time to see the scared face of a boy disappear as the group closed ranks around him.

He clenched his fists so tight that his arms were shaking and Wolfram reached out to lay a hand against his shoulder. "Yuuri…"

"Aha! Look over here! Another pair of faggots!" One of the boys yelled.

"Why don't you just go away!" Wolfram shouted, voice heavy with an accent that had never seemed to bother anyone else before, but threw this group into fits of giggles.

"Look at the pretty foreigner, trying to speak Japanese." One of the boys walked up. He was tall, taller than both Wolfram and Yuuri, whose face was scrunched up as he glared down the approaching teen.

He took one step in front of Wolfram and held out his arm in a protect gesture. "Leave him alone." Yuuri's voice was deadly. It wasn't the voice of the Maou, speaking through Yuuri, but it was deep and sharp and seemingly ready to slice through flesh with words alone.

The other boy faltered for a moment before he hardened his face and stomped right up to Yuuri, looking down his nose at the Demon King.

"Let that kid go, these guys will be more interesting." He sneered, and indeed, his group did leave the kid that they had been tormenting, allowing him to flee, but they all came up around the pair now.

Wolfram shivered, this wasn't right. Earth was supposed to be safe. And dammit, he didn't have his sword. Yuuri said that he would stick out too much because people didn't use swords here anymore.

He saw Yuuri go into a slight crouch and take up one of the most basic fighting stances that any soldier learns, one that allows them to fight if they have been disarmed, whether their opponent has been or not.

Wolfram unconsciously did the same, his mind still boggled by the fact that he was needing to protect Yuuri while they were literally just walking around his hometown, which had seemed the bastion of safety in Wolfram's head ever since his first visit.

"Yuuri…" Wolfram hissed out of the side of his mouth.

And suddenly one of the nameless goons was moving, reaching out for Wolfram and both of the demons jumped to action. Wolfram quickly backed away, moving the arm that the human had been reaching for to a position out of range for the moment, in order to assess the situation and prepare for the next moron to move.

Yuuri however jumped forward. One hand clasped around the outthrust wrist while the other arm pushed upward, slamming the base of his palm hard into the quivering jowl of the offender, forcing the boy's head upward with a noticeable creak, while simultaneously tugging on the wrist he had captured and brought the teenager down to the ground in what seemed to be only an instant.

Moving fluidly, Yuuri turned full circle so that he was once again facing the shocked faces of their opponents but was standing even more surely in front of Wolfram who seemed struck dumb by what he had just witnessed. Guess those training sessions with Conrad were really paying off.

"What the fuck?!" the leader screamed and the others came forward.

This time they both jumped into action, incapacitating their attackers, keeping their backs locked firmly together so that no one could get the jump on them from behind.

Wolfram had to say there was a sense of great satisfaction when his fist collided hard with the nose of the ringleader who fell to his knees, crying like a small child.

The rest of them flocked to their fallen leader, seemingly amazed that the man had been brought down – even though from what Wolfram saw he was no a fighter of any consequence.

Yuuri grasped harshly at Wolfram's wrist and started running, causing the blonde to stumble before finding his footing once more as they barreled down the boardwalk.

"Why are we running away?" Wolfram asked, confused and baffled beyond any moment that he had ever experienced with Yuuri.

Yuuri, tugged him around a corner and they both fell against a wall, chests heaving.

"Yuuri?" Wolfram prompted, disturbed by the grim look in Yuuri's usually cheerful eyes.

"I didn't want us to get arrested." Yuuri finally said, lips pushed firm together.

Wolfram furrowed his eyebrows. "Why would we get arrested? We were just defending ourselves."

Yuuri bit his lip and glanced towards Wolfram before looking determinedly at the park across the street.

"Did you see the looks on the faces of the people around us?" The king asked quietly. "The ones who were watching." He added quickly.

Wolfram shook his head. What did that have to do with anything?

Yuuri grimaced. "They didn't exactly think that we were innocent."

Wolfram felt his ire rising. How were they anything but innocent?

Yuuri stopped him from shooting his mouth off with one raised hand and a pained smile.

"I've told you before. Where I come from the idea of two men together isn't considered a good thing and it isn't welcomed by society."

Wolfram's eyes flew wide. He knew that the Maou had said it, on more than one occasion, especially when they were newly engaged. Wolfram hadn't comprehended the argument then. What could any society have against two of their own citizens loving each other? What did it matter what their gender was? As the years had gone on, Yuuri's use of that as an excuse had faded and honestly, the fire wielder couldn't recall when the Maou had used it last it had been so long ago. He had heard the argument and dismissed it, it was something outside of his frame of reference and impossible for him to comprehend so he never gave it any thought.

But now, he had first-hand experience of the type of reaction that Yuuri's culture had instilled in its people. He had seen a child being hunted down like an animal...then the mob turning on another pair seen to be different and literally attacking strangers for no discernible reason in his mind. And then Yuuri...telling him that the law would not have protected them. That society's damnation would affect their chance at justice.

It suddenly clicked in Wolfram's mind and he felt his knees growing a little weak.

No wonder Yuuri had protested.

No wonder he had tried to ignore their engagement.

No wonder Wolfram had had to battle every day for the wimp to look at him as something beyond a retainer and then, beyond a friend.

Wolfram's dropped jaw was the only response that the young king got, but it was enough apparently.

"Let's get home. We should start getting ready for Shore's ceremony tonight anyway."

They drudged slowly back to Yuuri's parent's house, Wolfram still lost in thought over the revelation.

As they moved in silence to don the nice suits that Yuuri's mother had laid out for them, Wolfram's mind continued to turn over what had just happened.

The ceremony itself was short enough. Yuuri stood with Wolfram, Conrad and the rest of the Shibuya family as his brother pledged an oath to Bob that he would do everything that he could to maintain peace and stability amongst demons on Earth and also to aid the Demon Kingdom if ever the need should arise. There was a slight smirk in Yuuri's direction as this was said, but Shori solemnly swore on his life and honor that he would do so.

Bob announced the ceremony over and that bowed his head momentarily, "To the new Maou of Earth."

A massive smile split the elder Shibuya brother's face and he turned, quickly loping over to his brother and gathering the other man up in his arms. Ignoring Yuuri's protests, he mashed their cheeks together. "Hear that Yuu-chan, your big brother can help you out in your duties now. So don't you worry about a thing!"

Yuuri wrestled the older man off while everyone else watched and laughed.

Yuuri threw the his brother's lanky arms off of him and glared straight into his eyes – being hit with the sudden realization that they were the same height. When the hell had that happened?

"Shori!"

"Call me big brother!" the new Maou of Earth huffed.

Yuuri quirked an eyebrow and mumbled under his breath, "Oh, I'll call you big something alright…"

But soon their parents were crowding them and Yuuri was able to slip out of reach as they practically fell on their eldest son. Exclamations of "We're so proud of you!" and kisses to the cheek and arms clenched tight around his flailing limbs.

Wolfram leaned over and whispered into Yuuri's ear, "Maybe it's a good thing that they couldn't come to your coronation."

Yuuri snorted at the image of his mother and father somehow managing to be at his bungle of a coronation where he was tugged back to Earth just at the ceremony's conclusion.

His mother's voice reached a dog level frequency and Conrad winced while Wolfram covered his ears. Yuuri, rather used to this having been raised by the woman, just pushed one finger into his ear and twisted, trying to end the ringing sooner rather than later.

He sighed at turned to Wolfram, "I get flushed down a toilet to become King of a land filled with demons that I thought never even existed…but somehow I'm the normal one in my family…"

Conrad laughed quietly from his other side but the blonde smiled. "You are not normal Yuuri…I doubt even by human standards." He hooked his arm around his fiancé's neck and jerked his head towards the still squealing mass, "But in comparison to them…yeah, you are. And we like you this way."

Yuuri flushed, and focused his eyes steadily on his feet while pushing Wolfram away half-heartedly.

"Family is family though right?" He threw a grin Wolfram's way and the blonde positively glowed at the simple happy normal conversation that they were happening that he couldn't imagine ever being possible if one looked at their formers selves when they had first met.

"Yup. Sometimes we can't stand them, but we love them anyway."

Later that night found the two curled up on Yuuri's childhood twin bed, spooned up together for lack of space. Over time the pair had wordlessly agreed to share the small bed while on Earth, both of them knowing that they could no longer sleep soundly through the night without the comforting warmth of a another body in the bed. But more than that, the presence of the other, the subconscious reaffirming sensation when their questing hands and feet connected with the other's skin in the middle of the night was a delight to their souls as they hummed peacefully in their sleep.

Yuuri smiled and breathed in deeply as he stood up from his less than graceful entrance to the Demon Kingdom.

Wolfram snickered behind a hand as Conrad inquired after Yuuri, who merely waved off his godfather's concern.

Gwendal and Gunter stood next to the slight Ulrike, holding out paperwork and a towel respectively.

Yuuri sighed for a moment and grabbed the towel and began to wipe down his hair while stepping out of the fountain and asking Gwendal what was so important that it couldn't wait for him to make it to the castle.

Yuuri spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through paperwork about a trade issue with Big Cimmeron who still liked to occasionally rattle its sabers as though it was still a big power house to be reckoned with. Yuuri just smiled like one does at a child playing make believe and let them save a little face as he worked his way through their complaints.

'No wonder this job tends to run in families on Earth...' Yuuri thought to himself as he rotated his right shoulder to alleviate some of the tension that had built up from being hunched over the desk for hours. 'You wouldn't be able to get anyone else to do it…'

Normally, Yuuri would be heading back to his and Wolfram's quarters, but he turned down a different hallway towards the guest quarters instead. Greta hadn't been there to greet them when they arrived back, she had gone out with Hube and his family for the day, glad of another child to play with for a bit.

The couple and their child were going to spend the night in the castle before heading back to their own home in the morning.

Warm light flowed from an open door at the end of the next hall and Yuuri smiled as he heard Greta's happy laugh dance around the hall.

"You can't catch me!" Greta positively sang, and the young King could picture the girl darting about the set of rooms that seemed to permanently belong to the young family as they visited their friends so frequently.

A mirth-filled laugh answered, and Yuuri was surprised, because rather than Hube's deep baritone his ears filled with the higher-pitch of Wolfram's voice.

"Got you!" The blonde cried out, the happiness in his voice pulling a smile from Yuuri unwittingly.

"Wolfram?" Greta asked as Yuuri pulled even with the door, though all eyes were focused on the little girl so they took no heed of his entrance.

"Yeah sweetie?" Wolfram answered, settling her on the bench at the foot of the bed and fixing her flyaway curls.

"When are you and Yuuri going to get married?" She asked simply.

Wolfram seemed to choke on his own spit, while Nikola hid her smile in her own child's hair.

"Why do you ask?"

"You both look at each other like Hube and Nikola do and they're married. So doesn't that mean that you two should get married too?"

Wolfram's mouth gaped for a moment and Yuuri had to admit that he was interested in how his blonde would answer their daughter's question.

"Besides," the girl continued, tugging at her dress as a child does when their attention begins to wane, "you're both my parents and when parents love each other shouldn't they be married?"

"I..." Wolfram groped in the dark for a response for their inquisitive daughter.

"She has a point..." Yuuri said softly from his position against the door frame.

"Yuuri!" Greta leapt from the bed and collided with her adoptive father who gathered her up in his arms and lifted her up slightly, squeezing her tightly in his arms, before placing her feet back on the ground and running his fingers lightly through her hair and she smiled up with him in complete adoration.

"How's my girl?"

And she was off, explaining what she had done that day, completely ignoring her last question to Wolfram whose face now sat shadowed and his hands clenched tightly in his lap.

Eventually Greta talked herself into a doze and Yuuri rose, the girl cradled in his arms to leave, Wolfram on his heels after wishing Hube and Nikola a good night and thanking them for looking after Greta all day.

Yuuri and Wolfram made quick work of changing their daughter for bed and tucking her into her sheets. Yuuri lightly ran his hand over Greta's hair before laying a gentle kiss to the child's forehead. "Sweet dreams," he whispered.

He smiled when Wolfram did the same before they silently slipped out of the door.

In companionable silence they readied themselves for bed, though Wolfram kept sending furtive glances the King's way.

"Yuuri…about what Greta said earlier…" Wolfram spoke softly as they got into bed.

Yuuri's eyes were already closed, but he groaned, rolling over and wrapping an arm around Wolfram's waist. "Hmm?" he hummed, waiting for the blonde to continue.

The events of their last trip to earth were on his mind, even as he rested his hand on Yuuri's cool one, subconsciously sharing his own warmth. "It just…I get it now…why you don't want to…"

Yuuri pulled tighter around Wolfram's waist, raising his head and wrenching open his eyes to study the other man. "What are you talking about Wolf?"

Wolfram stared at the ceiling instead, stubbornly not meeting the double-black's gaze. "It's just…now I know what it's like in your world…why you took it so badly after our…engagement…happened."

Yuuri snorted and buried his face into Wolfram's shoulder for a moment. "Wolf, I was fifteen! How mature were you at fifteen?"

The lack of answer along with the furious blush told Yuuri all he really needed to know.

"Yeah...thought so..." he teased gently.

"Yuuri, I'm being serious!" Wolfram snapped, smacking the arm that was still wrapped around him.

"I know!" Yuuri exclaimed, "I know, I understand." Yuuri sat up, crossed-legged on the bed and waited for the fire demon to do the same.

They were quiet, feeling the fragile silence between them. To Wolfram this felt like a monumental moment, like the universal had hushed up to give them the chance to have this conversation. There were no noises from people passing in the hall, no calls from owls or any other animal outside their window. Nothing was going to interrupt this conversation.

They were finally going to talk about it in all seriousness, everything laid bare and it was only his military training that allowed Wolfram to hide the tremble that seemed to have taken over his insides.

Despite all the years, Wolfram found himself wanting to hide from this conversation, to let him carry on in blissful ignorance for just a while longer. To savor what they did have, the friendship and bond that had held the pair together despite their vastly differing personalities and life experiences.

"Wolf..."

He bit his lip, here it was.

"Wolf, you are Romance with a capital R." He held up his hand when Wolfram looked to him, confused, "Just let me finish. You are like the protagonist in Great Literature. You are the son of a Queen, a warrior amongst men, leader of the military who is respected by the men in his command. You are strong and determined, more determined than any ten others would be in your stead. You have a sense of honor that is unshakable and a devotion to your goals that borders on delirious. Your heart was the Key to opening the boxes – the strongest part of you, strong enough to be a force in the universe. By rights you should be the one that everyone is looking to.

"Me on the other hand, I am a bumbling comic relief character, or I should be. I mean I got here the first time by having bullies give me a swirly and flush me down the toilet." Yuuri smiled a self-deprecating grin. "I'm working rather hard to correct that now, to become the king that the people here deserve an-" Yuuri cut himself off mid-word and his face looked uncertain.

Taking a deep breath, as though to steel himself, Yuuri reached out and grabbed one of Wolframs hands. He hand it carefully within his two, like it was precious, running his thumbs along the lines of the pale palm seemingly trying to read his future in the other's hands.

"I am trying to make myself worthy of you."

"Yuur-" Wolfram was cut off when one of the King's hands settling against his mouth.

Wolfram wanted to tell him what an idiot he was being. Wanted to tell him that he didn't need to do anything. Wanted to remind him that he was a King and he was certainly worthy of anyone, it was others who had to struggle to match him.

He wanted to do all of these things, but instead swallowed it all into a throat gone dry at the openness of Yuuri's eyes, at the knowledge that Yuuri was leaving himself bare before Wolfram by choice, by conscious choice, and how intimate that moment felt, as the hand slipped away, to regain its grasp on Wolfram's own.

"When we first met I was at the age where I was only just starting to realize the kind of things that I liked in another person, and with all the drama of coming here, and how strange everything was, I wasn't ready to see something as different from what I knew at two guys being together as a possibility. So I reacted badly and immaturely and at best treated you like nothing more than a retainer." Yuuri grimaced, "By the grace of some god you stayed anyway, at my side whenever I needed you, even if I hadn't known that I did, supporting me even if my ideas were crazy, and all of that when I wasn't treated you as fairly as you deserved. It took me a long time to realize how cruel it was to be treating your affections the way that I did."

He swallowed loudly and took his eyes off of their joined hands to meet Wolfram's steady blue gaze. The fire demon didn't know how he was supposed to be reacting to this. It was all he had dreamed of for years, and unbelievably it was here.

"It took me even longer to realize the reality behind why you stayed…and why I was so happy that you did."

Yuuri was blushing furiously at this point and Wolfram felt like crying and it seemed far too serious an atmosphere for what should be a happy discussion but neither really seemed to know how to move it to that. Instead, Wolfram shifted his hand so that he was able to slip his fingers between Yuuri's.

"Yuuri..." he didn't know what to say, so he squeezed the fingers in his grasp.

A small smile quirked up the corner of Yuuri's mouth. With a slightly trembling hand he brought Wolfram's to his lips and placed a simple kiss against the web between the pointer finger and the thumb.

Wolfram's breath hitched and from the puffs against the remarkably sensitive skin of his hand, Yuuri's own breathing was not exactly calm.

With a bit of his usual bravado, Wolfram grinned at Yuuri whose eyes widened as the blonde leaned forward and captured the double black's lips with his own. For the first time the kiss was completely deliberate and with Yuuri's response, a bit tepid but not hesitant – the response of someone without much experience, one that was welcomed by both parties involved. Their lips were dry, and trembled with uncertainty, but it was warm and real and felt to Wolfram like sunlight on your face on the first warm day of spring.

Pulling away Wolfram smiled, his blue eyes sparkling, and Yuuri slipped into a bashful grin.

"We're okay," Wolfram whispered, placing his forehead against his precious fiancé's.

Yuuri nodded and they quietly laid down, hands still joined and peaceful smiles on their faces.

*Two Years Later*

Wolfram checked that all the clasps were done up properly, and his best dress uniform was immaculate by studying his reflection in the full length mirror of his room.

He had never really used it after Yuuri had arrived to the palace, but they had been his nonetheless and they were trying to follow a little bit of Yuuri's tradition in this.

So that meant that the couple could not see each other on their wedding day until they met down the aisle.

They had been together properly for two years, engaged from disturbingly longer than that and now they were finally actually getting married. The blonde almost couldn't believe it.

He took a deep breath, and clenched his hands for a moment at his side to try and release some of the nervous stress that was starting to build up. It was silly to be nervous he thought. It wasn't as though things were really going to change. They would continue to share the same bed, complete the same tasks, take care of their daughter, still fight and bicker over silly things and make up soon enough with blushes and chuckles and scratching heads, and really nothing would change.

Except there would be a ring on his finger, and he would be introduced at State Events as husband instead of consort, and he would stand even with Yuuri instead of a step behind him.

Wolfram shook his head. Stop freaking out, he ordered himself.

There was a knock at the door and Wolfram bid them entry.

Greta's bouncy curls peaked through the doorway before even her beaming face could be seen.

"Dad! Papa, said to come see you and give you this!" She held out a folded sheet of paper, bouncing on the balls of her feet, clad in shiny black leather shoes, a poufy light blue dress bouncing around her.

Wolfram smiled at the girl, a human, who years ago he would have never deigned worthy of any attention and now would lay down his life for without a thought. "Thank hun." He patted her head and took the offered note. "How is he?"

Her grinned pulled impossibly even tighter across her face, "He is singing and won't stop smiling!"

Wolfram chuckled. Of course he was.

He sat against the bed and looked at the note.

Wolfram,

I understand now, what I didn't then.

But you stood by me as my best friend.

To hold my hand and guide me through

And wait patiently for one to be two.

Now I've grown and wonder why

I took so long and made you cry.

But at my side you'll always be

My miracle worker, who made a blind man see.

Don't mock me for poetry! Gunter is always going on about how "uncultured" I am and I've been trying to work on it.

Anyway, I love you Wolf, don't be nervous! I know you have to be pacing around or biting your lips, but don't worry! Everything is going to go well; it'll be just fine so relax. Today is only the first day; we have many more to come.

Your wimp,

Yuuri

Wolfram started laughing. Yuuri would know that Wolfram was getting a bad case of nerves and would seek to calm the man down. He refolded the note and slipped in inside of his jacket, his own lips tugging into a gentle smile.

Another knock came to the door which had remained open after Greta's entry. Gwendal stood in the doorway, his typical stern expression resting on his face. "It is time." He said simply before turning around and walking off down the hallway.

Greta tugged him up from the bed and clasped his hand, "Come on come on!"

Wolfram grinned and squeezed his hand around his daughters. "Okay okay!" And with a shared viscious grin the duo bolted down the hall, passed his bemused older brother and his nerves were completely gone.

Yuuri was right. This was just the first day and everything to follow. They had a long and unconventional road to get here, but he wouldn't change any minute of it. And wherever the road would lead them too in the future, they would see it together.

The End

So...the poem part wasn't in there as of this morning...in fact none of the Two Years Later part was but I was seriously bored at work today because they only had about 10 minutes worth of paperwork for me to accomplish and I needed something to fill my time with and apparently that meant that I was going to spend half an hour listing all the rhyming words that I could think up.

Well, I'm quite proud of myself for finally finishing this piece after all of this time and I hope the KKM fans out there enjoy it!

Please leave a comment if you liked or hated something so that I can improve as a writer!