A/N: Hi, everyone! I thank you so much for reading Ribbon of Royalty until the end! Please enjoy the epilogue! (No, there is no lemon in this epilogue. I can't even write them. xDD) [Sadly, there is no sequel to Ribbon of Royalty… Sorry! Q^Q]
Ribbon of Royalty
Epilogue
Years have passed and Tobari Palace spent those years in peace and harmony.
At least… that's what the citizens thought.
In truth, not all was well. The Crown Prince Shinji and Princess Hikari had their ups and downs (occasionally), but their relationship was still promisingly intact. The current king, Reiji, and queen, Sumomo, lived a happy life for sure.
Plus, Shinji became an uncle! Yes, Reiji and Sumomo had a baby… a baby boy! They decided to name him Mamoru, one who protects. He was only four years old, bright and energetic. He had light red violet hair with onyx eyes.
Hikari had noticed many things since her stay in Tobari Palace. Some were strange, some were understandable, and some were… unexpected.
"Shinji, I made you breakfast!" Hikari chimed. She entered their bedroom, holding a tray of food. "And I also made your favorite, fresh orange juice!"
Her husband, Shinji, was still asleep on their bed.
"Geez… I thought I woke you up already…" Hikari set the tray of food on the drawers and opened the curtains. "Wake up, Shinji. Come on, your food's gonna get cold."
Hikari had changed over the years. Her figure became much more womanly and was very beautiful. Her previous shoulder-length blue locks had grown to the bottom of her waist. She often tied it up high. Her usual hyperactive personality also changed. She was calmer and more adult-like.
Shinji had many changes. He had more build in his muscles. Also, the scowl that was always on his face was replaced with either a small smile or a calm expression. He only scowled when someone kept embarrassing him. Ever since Reiji and Sumomo had Mamoru, Shinji became a little more playful. He liked Mamoru's company – especially when he was bored.
The blunette gently shook Shinji by the shoulder. "Shinji…!" She pouted at her husband, who didn't even budge. She jumped up and down in frustration. "Shinji! Wake up, wake up!"
He still didn't budge.
Hikari bent down to Shinji's ear. "Fine, I'll leave you alone." She smiled and proceeded to walk away when she felt a hand grab her wrist. "See, you weren't asleep after all."
"No, I'm still half asleep…" Shinji drawled.
"I know, I know," Hikari giggled. She tousled Shinji's head. "Hurry up and wake up, Master Shinji. Little Prince Mamoru wants to eat breakfast with you."
As if on cue, Mamoru ran in the room. "I'm not a little prince!" he exclaimed. "I'm a really cool robot that wants to save Prince Shinji from the Sleep World!" He jumped on the bed and grabbed Shinji's shoulders. "Wake up, Uncle Shinji!" He shook Shinji as hard as he could – but to Shinji, it was as gentle as Hikari's shaking.
"Alright, alright… I'm waking up…" he groaned. Shinji sat up from his pillow and yawned. "Did you sleep well, Mamoru?"
Mamoru nodded with a bright smile. "Uh-huh! But I don't think you did… You look so grumpy."
Shinji blinked with sleepy eyes. "Maybe I'm grumpy because Aunt Hikari didn't give me a good-morning kiss…"
"Haha!" Mamoru teased, "Aunt Hikari gave me a good-morning kiss earlier than you!"
Hikari cocked a brow and pursed her lips. "Oh, please… I woke Uncle Shinji earlier than you and gave him a good-morning kiss already." She placed her hands on her hips and stared at Shinji. "Maybe he was too sleepy to even notice it."
"…" Shinji was silent. "Hn."
Mamoru snorted in laughter. "Uncle… you are so funny!" Shinji stretched the boy's cheeks. "Sorry! Sorry, sorry!" he laughed.
Shinji smirked at his nephew. "Don't be teasing me now. You don't know what I can do." He rubbed Mamoru's head. "So I heard you wanted to eat breakfast with me?"
"Mhm!"
Hikari giggled and placed a small table wide enough for Shinji and Mamoru. She placed covered bowls and their orange juices on the table. "Eat up, you two. I made today's breakfast extra special." She secretly took out a video camera from her back pocket.
Shinji took a sip of his orange juice as he opened the cover of his bowl. His eyes widened and he spit out the orange juice in his mouth. "What the…?"
Mamoru stared at Shinji with curious eyes and opened his cover too. In his bowl was his favorite dish, OmuRice* inside. But the ketchup on top wrote, "You're going to have a cousin!" He raised a brow and looked at Hikari. "Auntie, what do you mean I'm going to have a cousin?" Hikari smiled and pointed to her stomach. Then, Mamoru knew what she meant. "SERIOUSLY?"
"…" Shinji's jaw was hanging down. "Mamoru, will you pinch me… hard?"
The little boy pinched his uncle as hard as he could. "You okay, uncle?"
Yeah, the pinch really hurt. Shinji's brows shot up as he looked at Hikari. "You're… pregnant…?"
"Don't you faint on me, Shinji," Hikari giggled. "Yeah, I'm pregnant."
Shinji took a deep breath and ate his breakfast hurriedly. "Mamoru, you start eating too. Your aunt made it really special today."
"Duh!" Mamoru took a big bite of his OmuRice. "I can't believe I'm gonna have a cousin!"
~.~.~
After Shinji washed up, he found Hikari resting on their bed. Mamoru had gone back to his parents to relay the good news.
"How long has it been?" Shinji asked. He placed his hand on her stomach, feeling a very small lump.
"Just a few weeks," she replied. "I'm planning to go to the hospital next month to check on the baby." Hikari smiled as she rubbed her stomach. "I wonder what gender it is."
Shinji kissed Hikari on the cheek and smirked. "Doesn't this mean we're going to be parents?"
"Yeah!" Hikari whispered. "I know parenthood is gonna be difficult, but I think it'll be fun." Before she could even say any more, her best friends burst in through the door.
"Hikari!" Kasumi called.
"You're pregnant?" Haruka asked in disbelief.
"Mamoru was serious!" Nozomi exclaimed.
"Oh. My. Gosh!" Leaf squealed.
The girls ran towards the blunette, who was startled by the sudden entrance. "… That was… fast."
Unfortunately, she did not notice that Shinji fell off the bed when the girls accidentally shoved him out of the way.
"… Is this how I'll be treated now…?" he muttered. He got up and dusted himself off. "Anyways, I'll be going. I'm pretty sure Mamoru told those guys too…" He left the room to the girls and prepared for… any humiliation his friends were going to give him.
"So you're the third pair to have a child out of all of us, huh?" Shigeru smirked.
"First was Kasumi-San, then Haruka… now you?" Shuu questioned with a smug expression. "Well… It seems our children are going to be best friends."
Satoshi turned to Shigeru and Kengo. "So… Do you two plan to have any kids?"
Shigeru scratched his cheek. "Uh… Well, I don't really plan to have kids until Leaf is ready." He rolled his eyes when Shinji chuckled. "What about you, Kengo?"
"Uh…" Kengo stuttered, "W-we s-sorta… kinda… had it… last week."
The guys were looking at the brown-haired man with deadpan eyes. "Are you serious?" Shinji asked.
"Yeah…" Kengo drawled. "Anyways, I'm gonna go home first. I might as well tell my hometown of the news. I'm sure Ayako-San knows, but… you don't know what could happen." He slightly neared Hikari and Shinji's bedroom. "Nozomi, I'm going to my hometown to tell them the news, okay?"
"Alright! Make sure nothing too bad happens!" Nozomi replied.
With that, Kengo left hurriedly.
"Do you know the gender yet?" Satoshi asked. "Mine's a girl and Shuu's is a boy."
"Hikari's planning to check on the baby next month," Shinji murmured.
Shuu slid an arm across Shinji's shoulders. "Well, well, well… I wonder how busy you two got that night."
Shinji's scowled at the green-haired prince. "Shut up. You should be saying that to yourself, not me." He smirked at Shuu. "I hear you have twins."
"… Touché."
Shigeru simply laughed at the two princes. "You two are hilarious…" He glanced at Satoshi. "Well, maybe not as ridiculous as him, but still…"
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Satoshi whined.
~.~.~
"So what gender do you think your baby is?"
Hikari tapped her chin. "I don't know, but I'm fine with whatever gender our child is." She gently rubbed her belly. "I wonder how being a parent will feel like…"
Haruka smiled. "Well, a newborn will always need attention from their parents." Kasumi, Hikari, and she exchanged glances. "I wonder if these three will get along well…"
Nozomi scratched her cheek. "Um… There just might be four…" All the girls went wide-eyed at the red head. "Uh, yeah… Kengo and I… ya know…" The red head was then overwhelmed by squealing and questions. "Girls, I know it's a huge thing and all… but just because Kengo and I did it doesn't mean it's 100% guaranteed that I'm going to have a baby!"
Leaf laughed, "I think we should leave her alone. She doesn't seem to like these questions!"
"You told Shinji, right?" Kasumi asked. "I'm pretty sure you did."
"Of course!" Hikari giggled. "His reaction was so funny!" She got the video camera on the desk and played the video. "It's like a must-see thing!" The video from about half an hour ago started playing.
Everyone started laughing when they saw Shinji spitting out his orange juice.
"I swear I'm watching a cartoon!" Leaf laughed. "Oh my god, that was hilarious!" She took a deep breath to control her laughter. "Ah, that was the most out-of-character action I've ever seen from that guy!"
"You should totally show that to your mom," Haruka chuckled.
"Don't forget to show King Reiji, Queen Sumomo, and Shinji himself!" Kasumi reminded. "They'll just die watching this – especially Shinji!"
"I'll die watching what?" A familiar voice sounded throughout the room. The girls turned around to see Sumomo by the door. "I heard some laughter on my way to Hikari's room…" Once they showed her the video, Sumomo burst into laughter. "What the heck is this? It's so funny!"
"I know, right?" Hikari giggled. "Ah, I'll never forget that scene. It's, like, embedded in my mind." She closed her camcorder and placed it in her drawers. "So how did you girls get here so fast?"
Kasumi put her arm on Hikari's shoulder. "Well, let's just say we were coincidentally in Tobari City lately." They all had their stories and laughs to share until dusk.
~.~.~
After Hikari greeted them good-bye, she went to the kitchen to cook dinner. There, she found Takeshi, who just entered the kitchen to prepare dinner. "Oh, Takeshi-San, you don't need to prepare dinner tonight. I'll do it."
Takeshi looked at Hikari in slight surprise. "Oh? What got you into preparing dinner tonight?" He smiled at the blunette. "It's fine, Hikari. I heard the news that you were going to have a baby, so I decided to cook a special dinner."
"Geez… You know too? How many people did Mamoru tell?" Hikari sighed, chuckling.
"Well… Let's just say Tobari Acrobatics and Magic knows a lot of people."
Hikari's eyes widened. "Uh… They didn't tell the city or more, right…?"
"No, of course not!" Takeshi reassured. "They know who to tell and who not to." He began to take out ingredients from cabinets and the refrigerator. "Anyways, like I said, I'll be cooking dinner. Hikari, you should just rest until it's ready. Tonight's dinner is my congratulations present for you."
The blunette slightly blushed and scratched her head. "U-um… Th-thank you so much, Takeshi-San." She bowed and exited the kitchen.
She walked back to her bedroom, finding Shinji reading a book on their bed. "Hi, Shinji."
Shinji looked up with a small smile. "Hey. How was your reunion with your friends?"
"I guess you can say it was really fun, considering how I haven't seen them for months. What about you?"
"Humiliation everywhere and to everyone," he mumbled. "It seems like I wasn't the only one who was going to get embarrassed, really." He put his book back and stretched. "So where were you just now?"
Hikari shrugged while smiling. "Oh, the kitchen. I wanted to cook a special dinner, but Takeshi-San wanted to cook my present." She put her hand on her stomach. "I think I'm going to be eating a lot for a while."
"Try not to get fat," Shinji chuckled.
Hikari stuck her tongue out. "Geez, I thought I could let Takeshi-San be with his wife today, but no…" She lied down on the bed, resting her head on Shinji's lap. He played with a few strands on her hair. "You know, there have been a lot of changes ever since I got here…"
Shinji smirked. "Yeah, I know. You did all these changes to me, Hikari." He recalled the time when Hikari first became his maid. "Seriously, what about me made you start loving me?"
"Hey, don't make me start," Hikari warned. "I loved you to the point of crying at the thought of you ignoring me." She sat up and turned to Shinji. "But it turns out that you loved me back."
"Was that unexpected to you?" he asked.
"Eh… I have to admit, yes…" Hikari nervously laughed. "I mean, I was your maid back then after all."
Shinji rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but I don't really think that mattered."
Hikari giggled, recalling Shinji's confession that time. "Hey, what about me? What made you love me back?"
"Do I have to say it? I had enough embarrassment today."
"Please?" Hikari cutely insisted. She batted her eyelashes, her eyes growing big. It was like the perfect puppy eyes. "I promise I won't bother you about it next time."
A blush crept to Shinji's cheeks. "Fine… You were always yourself around me and stuck close to me. I knew you the most, after all." He scratched his cheek, slightly sweatdropping at Hikari's beaming face. "Geez… Stop teasing me."
Hikari giggled and kissed him on the cheek. "But it's so fun!" She exhaled and made herself comfortable on the bed. "So many years have passed… and we're having a baby. You better take good care of me. Pregnancy can be a scary thing to take care of."
"If I can deal with you stomping and hitting me, I can deal with your pregnancy," Shinji replied. "Remember that time when you stomped on my foot?"
"… Shut up…"
Shinji chuckled and pulled her into an embrace. "Hey, those were fun times, right?"
"Yes, they were. But it's probably not as fun as the changes in you – especially this." She took out her camcorder and played the video from this morning.
"… You recorded it?" Shinji muttered in disbelief. "Okay, give me the damn thing." He reached out to take it but Hikari managed to put it out of his reach. "Hikari, give me that camcorder!"
"Never!" Hikari playfully cried. "Mamoru! Help me get your uncle away from me!" She laughed and ran out of the room. "I need to show Reiji-San something!"
Shinji's eyes widened. "No! You are not going to show Aniki!" He chased after her.
This is what they call a happy ending… probably.
~.~.~
A/N: Oh my gosh, it's finally the end of Ribbon of Royalty! QAQ Well, I had fun writing this fanfic! ^^ Thank you to all the reviewers who took their time to review my story and supported it! ^o^ Now, here's a little shoutout to those reviewers! 8DD
Thank you to…
mednin
AnimexLuver4Ever
Paulover98
Glow-In-The-Dark Stickers
splitheart1120
DaRkMiDnIgHtSnEaKyCaT
Grim-Death-Kitty
Sapphiet
RosieShiba
LuckyTigger
FrivolousFlare
Foxgrl18
PerkyPearlyPanini
xotennisloverxo
SweetAngel92
IgglybuffPichuandOrcha3000
Anonymous
Starfire1407
KuraiDawn
Geko Geko Girl
lonewolfgirl-sademo588
LovelyLily12
Rissychan (from Serebii Forums)
Ichi (My Twin Brother xDDD)
Did I skip anyone? I hope not! O^O If I did, I'll put you in! Thank you again for reading and supporting this fanfic! ^o^