Just You Wait by rui

Chapter 02

Chapter 2

Van's eyes felt as if they were about to pop out of their given place as his jaw tightened in an attempt to prevent his mouth hanging open. Merle, on the other hand, was already leaping forward, grabbing the elder by his collar and shouting rather rudely and loudly in his face.

"What do ya mean you've chosen Lord Van's future wife!" The gray haired man's eyes grew large and his body trembled with fear as the Neko spat and hissed on about the injustice of it all.

While the one messenger was preoccupied, another one touched his lord on the shoulder. Van turned his wide eyes feeling permanently fixed in the enlarged state.

"You must understand this situation from our point of view, your highness." The man was one of the most respected and wise on the council. "You have had a year and more to find a suitable wife and have always come back without a solid reason or a future bride. The people need reassurance, we need reassurance that the crown will not be given away from your family."

Van slowly nodded, knowing he would be up all night gnawing over this new and quite alarming conversation. In the meantime, he decided to preoccupy himself with disconnecting Merle from the whimpering man she was shaking around violently.

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"Consider it this way instead, m’dear, because he will most likely not see you until it's too late to retract the offer of marriage posed by the Grand Fanelia Council and myself, he cannot disapprove. Therefore there is nothing left for him to do but approve!"

Hitomi shook her head and mumbled under her breath. It would figure, since her older sister was still being married to every eligible man over seventy and her younger sister had run off a few years ago to marry some pauper boy, Hitomi was the last one around to raise the family fortune. In truth, she would have rather raised her family's IQ.

She never meant to think poorly of her kin, but this was just unbelievable. It also proved her family spoke only one language, the language of money.

"My baby sister is going to be all grown-up and married to a King!" her oldest sister, Leiko, piped up. She was only twenty-five and was already on her fourth engagement. "It's better to be married to someone who can keep your wardrobe up-to-date than someone who keeps you up to your elbows in work!"

Their mother and Leiko shared the same laugh, but Hitomi remained annoyed.

"It's not fair to me!" she complained, knowing that it was fruitless but refusing to give in so soon. "If I was a male, you wouldn't have done this!"

"If you were a boy, I certainly would not!" her Father bellowed. "Of course, it would be even more money handed over to me if the men who try to touch you found out you were a boy instead!"

Hitomi rolled her eyes, climbed out of the chair she had dropped in, and stalked out of the room.

"I don't see why she's in such a huff," Leiko pointed out. "I've seen this prince. He is nothing short of a dream. She should be happy that at least he still has his own teeth!"

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"I can't believe this!" Merle screeched for what seemed like the twentieth time that hour. "Why can't you get a say in this?"

"Because--" Van sighed, knowing he'd have to repeat this explanation over and over again until the neko chose to understand it. He also knew he'd probably be celebrating his golden wedding anniversary before she accepted it. "The council decided and they said I took too long."

"You can't expect to like some pompous spoiled princess on command!"

"She's not a princess," came the gruff voice of the oldest maid in the palace. Van and Merle both stood wide-eyed as the maid bustled around, turning down the Prince's bed in anticipation for him sleeping there soon.

"Not a princess? That's worse!" Merle moaned, flinging an arm over her eyes and staggering backward into a chair. "That's like them saying you aren't even worth another royal, Lord Van!"

"Then who is she, Rai?" Van inquired eagerly.

The old woman turned around, her thick arms crossed across her chest. "A daughter of a respectable merchant."

"The guy sold his own daughter?" Van asked incredulously.

"Basically. Served her up on a silver platter and fed the council spoonfuls of horse manure until they saw it his way." Rai nodded her head.

"Do you know what she looks like?"

"Men! Always concerned on the physical!"

Van's face did a lovely turn from tan to bright red. "Th-that's not what I meant!"

"Sure, sure." Rai waved him off. "I don't know what she looks like, or age, or name, or anything and neither does the council."

The adopted siblings’ jaws swung open in unison.

"I'm going to be married to someone, who we can only hope is female, and the council didn't even investigate to see what she was like?"

"You have to consider, Lord Van," Merle chirped up, "you'd have shot her down if you knew anything about her."

"I thought you were on my side," Van shot glumly. His fate was sealed, announcements of his coronation, and the wedding had already made it to the far stretches of his kingdom and within the week he was sure that the entire world would know.

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"Would you look at what a fair room this is, Hitomi!" Her mother swooned upon entering the large bedroom that Hitomi, future bride of Van Fanel and current title holder of Miss Misery, would use for the week before the wedding. The time had flown by as
Hitomi found out that tailors were pickier than a child, threw bigger temper tantrums and had repeatedly called her fat.

Needless to say, a blushing bride-to-be Hiotmi was not. On several occasions she had purposefully missed appointments or left the shop door open so that random animals could find their way into the shop and create enough of a distraction to allow her to slip out the side door.

"It's fine," the girl muttered.

"And you get to meet with the Prince for dinner!" her sister crowed, falling down on the over-sized bed. "And think of all the eligible and rich men that'll be trying to romance me once I say that I am the Queen's sister." The dreamy look got into Leiko's eyes and Hitomi wanted nothing more than to run into a wall, break her nose, and bleed to death.

"We must prepare you for your first meeting with the Prince!" Her mother flew into action, producing curlers, dresses, make-up and other things which were meant to make the Prince’s fiancée stunning. Glancing at the clock on the wall Hitomi patiently pointed out that it was only five minutes after noon, but that didn't faze her relatives.

Hours passed, and the two women got into a bitter argument about attraction.

"More cleavage!" the sister demanded, yanking the front of Hitomi's dress lower. The victim squeaked in protest and tried, in vain, to pull the dress back up to it's proper place.

"No, no, no," Mother cried, jerking the dress up. "More legs!"

"Chest!"

"Leg!"

"Chest!"

"Shut-up!" Hitomi snapped. Both of the older women turned their disbelieving stare to the girl after her outburst. "If I am to be married to this guy, then he'll see both eventually whether I like it or not so I'd rather not give free advertisement to any other male in the castle!"

Her mother recovered from the angered declaration first. "Hitomi--we are just looking out for your best interest." The dirty-blonde-haired girl grabbed each of the other women by an arm and hauled them to the door.

"If that was true," she roughly shoved them out the door, "I wouldn't be here" With that, she slammed the door shut. There was a mild protest, but when the sharp clicks of their heels were heard, she let out a breath.

There were only a few minutes before she would meet the man who would be her husband, and she wasn't too pleased. True, she looked marvelous, but Hitomi decided that she didn't want to look marvelous. She wanted to look like her normal, middle-class-feeling self.

Ripping the pins out of her hair, she decided to do just that.

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She stood in the doorway of the largest room she had ever seen, and it was just the dining room! When these royals really meant to make the lesser man feel like less, they did it in style.

Leiko and their mother rediscovered Hitomi and her new state of 'self' and Leiko had to catch their mother from falling on the floor in a dead faint.

"You simply can't go looking like that!" her mother cried. "He'll think he's going to be marrying a begger!"

Leiko walked around the girl and nodded. "Shows chest and legs. Nice pick." That dried her mother's tears and almost got Hitomi to start crying. She had chosen one of her shorter dresses, true, but it was also one of her cheaper dresses and the stitching attested to that.

Feeling the need to give last minute instructions, the two women went over a thousand different polite things to do and some---questionable tactics to 'land' the Prince.

"I thought it was a signed and sealed deal," Hitomi pointed out— just to be ignored.

"And above all," her mother and older sister said in unison, "do not talk." The girl opened her mouth, but was rudely shoved through the opened doors and had them slammed shut behind her.

Hitomi gave a nasty glare to the wooden doors and whipped her head around, seeking another escape route only to see a dark-haired male staring out one of the enormous windows covering an entire wall of the room. Briefly, she wondered if this was a butler or a soldier who decided to play hooky, and hide in the dinning room, but when the person turned around to face her, the royal crest seemed to flicker in the sunset light.

"Are you Lady Hitomi?" came a smooth, cool voice. She wasn't technically a lady; they just lied and said she was in order to appease any of the other royals around the kingdom. She nodded and he drew closer, but not before letting out a sigh.

Don't forget, Hitomi, she mentally warned herself. This isn't going to be a knight in shinning armor. More like a spoiled brat in a rusty can. The thought made a smile perk her lips up.

He bowed and gave a simple greeting of, "So happy you could come."

She gave the automatic reply, "So happy to be here."

Lie, she hissed in her mind.

When she regained her stiff-back composure from the small curtsey she did, their eyes met and quickly darted away from one another. Hitomi rolled her eyes as Van thought of several things he'd rather be doing and many of them regarding tormenting the Council members.

"My liege!" a butler bubbled as he walked into the room. "My lady!" he continued. "Please be seated, dinner will be served. Though, your highness, I was to convey the high council's deepest apology that they will be a few minutes late."

The butler bowed and the images filling Van's head became more violent. They were trying to get him and this---girl to play nice. Sometimes they were as transparent as glass and as thick as brick in the head.

"Very well, shall we start without them?" he suggested. Hitomi marched past him, pulled out her own chair and sat down in it with a thump.

The butler and Van blinked in surprise at such a rough nature in one who was supposed to be a highly sophisticated girl. Biting a comment back, Van begrudgingly sat at the head of the table, his current guest was seated to his right. That is where; Van thought with a small storm cloud forming over his head, she would be sitting for the rest of her natural life.

"So, Hitomi." Thank the gods for Merle's meddling. She was able to climb down the wall and slip onto the guest balcony to learn the girl's name so that Van wouldn't look any worse than need be. How disgraceful would it be not to know one's own fiancée's name? "What is your father's occupation?"

Safe topics, she thought. At least he wasn't asking if she able to bear children or something as embarrassing as all that. "He's a merchant."

"In what?" Van prodded; his breeding trying desperately to make him act as a good host would.

"Anything that is worth anything," she answered flippantly. "Pots, pans, jewels, the normal things people are interested in. He is very successful at his job."

"Obviously," Van commented under his breath, but because of the silence and their proximity, Hitomi heard his snide comment and gave him a firm glare. The overly-happy butler came into the room and placed two bowls of hot soup before them and quickly scurried away.

"I beg your pardon?" The honey-blonde girl asked in a pseudo sweet voice. Van, having been around one too many princesses, recognized that tone. It was a warning to choose his words wisely.

"I'm sorry? Is there something wrong?"

"Yes, you said something after I answered you about my Father. What was it? Or are you prone to insulting young ladies in your presence?"

"I was simply saying that I didn't realize that peddling brides was a legal occupation." Van replied, his pride hissing in warning after her jab.

Hitomi's eyes put the candles the servants were lighting to shame. "I was wrong. You don't insult ladies in your presence---but with your presence."

Van's neutral face soured as he quickly jumped to his feet. Hitomi followed suit and the distance between closed until there were mere inches away from each other as they glared threateningly into the other one’s eyes.

It was then that the council made their grand entrance. They chuckled when they noticed the two, as they dubbed them 'love-birds', flush faced and close to one another.

"It seems you are pleased with our choice, your highness!" the eldest member cooed. Van's eyebrow twitched as he sat, hard, back in his chair. Hitomi, again, followed his example but where Van began to eat, she pushed the food away, crossed her arms and refused to acknowledge anyone in the room.

"Oh my, she must be in love! Already loosing her appetite!" another member joked as the servants began to lay the vast meal on the long table.

Upon hearing this comment, the upset girl nudged the food aside and grabbed her bowl and with amazing speed, slurped her it down. When she was sure she had gotten the last of it, she slammed the bowl down and glared at the man who had made the assumption.

Van raised an eyebrow and with a cool indifference, leaned over to her and pointed out, "You have a noodle on your nose."

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