Jungle fever

Chapter 33

Hiruna was cleaning the plates after dinner and handed them to Masako to dry them. "How is Ako-chan doing? She didn't catch a cold?" Masako put the plate on the pile beside her. "No, she's fine. She's always been a robust child." She looked over to her daughter who was currently pulling at Teppei's hair, a small smile tugging at her usual stoic face. "They seem to get along pretty well." Handing over another wooden plate they both smiled, seeing the little child dangling head down and legs tightly clutched around Teppei's neck while the tall male smiled a tad painfully as her heels dug further into the muscles of his shoulders. "Teppei really has the patience of a saint. My late husband hated her from the day she was born. Always saying she should shut up and got mad when she spat her food out." Masako sighed and got back to work. "That really sounds difficult. I'm glad that my stubborn man loved his kids from the first minute he saw them." They fell silent for a while until Masako quaked in surprise as she felt something cold and slimy at the back of her knee. "Mommy, look what Teppei-oji-san got me." The small child held up a hand full of snails and beamed at her mother. "Hey, Ako-chan! I'm not that old." Playing wounded and clutching at his bare chest over his heart, eyes teary, he stumbled to them. "And I thought you would marry me someday."

"Nuuuuu, bleh. You have wrinkles. Like mommy." She grinned impish up to him and kicked him at his shin before dashing away. "You little ..." Hopping on one leg and holding his abused shinbone with his hands he glared after her, but a smile tugged at his lips. "She really is a tomboy." He peered down at Masako and raised an eyebrow. "Uhm, you have a snail there." He said pointing at the side of her knee. She looked down to the slimy animal, picked it up and pressed it to his forehead. "And who's fault is that?"

"Ewww, Masako." Teppei swatted the snail away and rubbed over his forehead. "But I'm glad. She is back to her old self thanks to you." She patted his arm and smiled lightly up at him.

Hiruna chuckled to herself at the sight of the endearments those two young adults exchanged. There was teasing, but it came with the gleam of beginning love in their eyes. "Masako go with Teppei, I will do the rest." She gave the black-haired woman a friendly pat to her back and looked over her shoulder as they departed, leaning into each other and Teppei draping an arm around her shoulder. 'What a nice couple.' She thought, but sighed heavily and cleaned the last few plates. She wanted to see her son and his significant other. Having had a serious talk with her daughter and Seijuurou the other day about their plan of marriage and how to convince Masahiro, brought back her longing to see each of her children happy. One played currently tag with the golden boy, the other was missing in a labyrinth and the third suddenly wanted to marry a man she only met. Life was never easy, but this exceeded even her capacities. She didn't let others see her anxiety, but it gnawed at her. She would go all out for her children that was for sure, but if her marriage could take another blow, of that she wasn't sure. Sighing again, she peered over to her husband. She still loved him dearly even after all those years, but his stubbornness and impossible demands brought her more often to her wits end these days.

But all that brooding brought her nothing and so she wiped her hands dry, hoping that everything would work out somehow.

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Oha-Asa meanwhile sat at the blazing fire and puffed at her pipe. It was lively around her and somehow she had missed that, given that Seijuurou was more the silent type. She had done her best to bring him up well, but had guessed more than once that maybe it would have been better if he would have had more contact with others earlier in his life. Her circumstances now and then were not easy due to her rare gift. If she was too long in the presence of many people, her foreseeing got clouded and she made false judgments. This made her decide to live as a hermit with the only company of a little toddler, now proud man, who at the moment dedicated one of his rare smiles to the pink-haired girl beside him. She was good for him, the old woman felt it in her bones. But the future, she couldn't predict at the moment, got her a bit worried. Something like this had happened once before, resulting in Seijuurou becoming an orphan.