What We've Missed Without You

Chapter 31

*sorry for the mistake*

Yui smiled as she wiped the remainder of the chocolate mousse stains around Airi's mouth, servants were guiding the aristocrats back to the ballroom to continue the party with another round of dancing and chatter. From what she overheard: after the dances, all of the guests are supposedly presenting Subaru (mostly Karlheinz) with their gifts, serve an eight-tier birthday cake to everyone, serve an after-cake champagne, and have a final dance where Subaru gets to pick his partner. By then, Yui should be able to leave with Momoi, Hayato, and Airi and go home. She could see they were growing tired, being so used to the eleven o'clock curfew Yui placed upon them on the friday nights and the weekends. She couldn't help but giggle when she saw Hayato struggling to keep his eyes open and Momoi letting out a couple of yawns, they looked so adorable in her eyes. Airi probably won't feel that until later on in the night from all the sugary desserts and treats she had, the chocolate mousse at the final plate of the course being enough to have her bouncing in her seat and trying to steal the raspberries from Hayato's plate (who didn't mind and tried to give them to her in the first place). Once Yui was done cleaning up Airi's face, she ushered her three children to follow her to the ballroom so they wouldn't impede on the servants cleaning after the other guests. She bent over and picked up Hayato before he could nod off on the table, balancing him on the swell of her hip and a single arm wrapped around his back for security before walking off with Momoi and Airi following her. They blended into the crowd, seemingly forgotten by the aristocrats as they tended to each other and the long sparkling glasses being passed around by attending servants, the music of the small orchestra filling the air with a whimsical and classy aura. It somehow calmed Yui, being invisible in this crowd of people and the fanciful mask tied around her head obscuring some of her identity: of course, it didn't really do much but it was a small comfort Yui felt like she could indulge in just for the moment.

It wasn't long before the first couple of dances kicked up, moderate-paced classical music providing a rhythm for the guests to dance to with their partners. Yui turned to Momoi and smiled at her.

"Do you want to dance or do you want to rest for a moment? I'm sure Hayato wants to rest for a little bit."

"I'm...Feeling kinda tired."

"I know you're not used to staying up this late...Here, go rest over by those chairs with your brother, okay?" Momoi nodded, taking the sleepy albino in her arms with ease from her mother. The blonde-to-white haired girl immediately carried her younger brother over to the wall of chairs lined up next to the refreshment table to lay him down on the plush of the seats. While her eldest daughter and one of her younger sons tended to themselves elsewhere, bend over with that gentle smile on her face as she asked Airi who still had Bonnie squeezed tightly against her chest while staring in awe of the second wave of dancing: she was probably too engrossed with the treats to actually notice everything up until now. "Airi-chan, do you want to dance with me?"

"Can Bonnie dance with Airi and Mommy too?"

"Of course she can!"

"Yay! Yay! Yay! Let's dance, Mommy!" Airi excitedly tugged on Yui's skirt, to which she held onto her tiny hand and guided her to the dance floor. Yui held onto Airi's hand and grabbed onto the plush arm of her stuffed rabbit, to which Airi held out graciously for her, before they started to waltz around on the ballroom dance floor. The upbeat tempo of the orchestra made it easy for Airi to get use to the steps as she laughed, spinning around and and stepping within beat to the string instruments. No one else paid mind to the two, as they were more focused on dancing with their own partners to really care. Yui seemed to gain more confidence with ballroom dancing ever since her first counter with that stranger from earlier, Kino. He somehow gave her a nostalgic feeling, but Yui couldn't really put a finger on why he felt so familiar. She couldn't remember meeting anyone like that, it didn't help that he wore his own blood-maroon colored eye mask that obscured some of his features from helping her pinpoint if she actually met him before. His attitude was similar to Ayato's, yet he still retained a classy and refined aura compared to Ayato's crass nature. He was like Carla in a way, high-class and never hesitant to look down on lower class (mostly her). Something about this made Yui sigh, probably since she was thinking about Carla and Ayato after a long time: usually it was in her nightmares, she never reflected back on better times with them. Then again, it might be because she's in a familiar place after all these years. All the anxiety of coming back here aside, maybe this can be some form of therapy? She remembered discussing different types of behavioral treatments back then when she was still pregnant with Adam and Harue. Confrontational was one of the treatments, if she remembered correctly: to face the very thing that caused you your trauma. However, Dr. Kurosawa never recommended that to her for very obvious reason. To try and confront the person, or people, who violated you would cause more problems than solve anything for victims especially if their perpetrators held no sort of remorse for them or chose to commit that crime. Would Yui be a special case since hers felt remorse? No, only Subaru showed any sort of remorse about it. She didn't know if the others felt the same, not like she was willing to forgive everything they did. Even though she didn't want to admit it, that confrontation with Subaru lifted some of the extraordinary weight on her chest. Maybe because Subaru wanted to be in their son's life eased her, that Hayato can grow up with both parents in his lives; it wasn't odd for young children to have separated parents and it would be healthy for all three of them in the long run.