Happiness

The second child (Part 1)

The day of the birth of his second child was a nice one. The day itself was hot, but cooled down at the late afternoon.

Hakuryuu was happy that he was able to put down his pen and meet with his small family for dinner soon.

In the morning, time seemed to have stopped. He was working and working, but somehow it did not get any later. On the one hand that was great, because he was able to finish a lot of his work. On the other hand it was tiring. Today was one of those days that were somehow exhausting to no end. It was hard to concentrate on his work and so he sometimes read the same sentences more than twice and he still was able to finish a lot of his work, because time seemed to have stopped.
Hakuryuu reached for his glass, which was filled with water or at least it should have been filled with water. The glass was empty. Again.
It was good to drink a lot, especially on hot days, but it was also very annoying since it meant to refill the glass so often and get new water.
He did not even start to count how many times he went to the bathroom.

Hakuryuu was worried about his wife. She did not feel well yesterday, and yesterday was a very hot day as well. She said she was fine, but he still was worried about her and the baby inside of her. Of course, he was worried about his son as well, but he was sure that aunt Kougyoku took great care of him – Kougyoku loved the little boy so much and the little boy loved his aunt so much. Further, his son was a very smart one and already knew that he had to drink more than usual on hot days. Unfortunately, the little child often forgot whether he had already drunk something or not, but aunt Kougyoku was there to make sure that he couldn't really forget it.
Since Hakuryuu had to leave for the kitchen – he still needed more water – he decided to check on his son and his older sister. A little detour did not hurt anyone. But the young man was not even able to leave the room because a servant just came rushing in before Hakuryuu could even stand up from his chair.
With a confused expression he looked at the servant, who was totally out of breath. He was about to deliver an important message. The question was just, what kind of messages it was and from whom. Unfortunately, the servant did say the words "empress" and "infirmary" without any explanation or at least the explanation did not follow right away. Therefore, Hakuryuu started to panic and rushed out of the room. If he had stayed a little bit longer, he would know that his wife was about to give birth to their second child. But he did not stay and so his thoughts were a total mess and he worried so much about everything.
One could find it interesting what kind of absurd thought could cross the mind of Ren Hakuryuu while being in panic. On the other hand, it was really sad that he was only able to think of negative things instead of positive ones. It was known that the second child should be born soon, but this never crossed his mind while running through the hallways of the palace.

It was nothing new to the servants anymore that their emperor sometimes would run like a mad man through the hallways. Most of the time it was because something was wrong with his wife or his son and most of the time it was a false alarm. Hakuryuu was way too worried about his small family and more than once he did not even wait for an explanation and run off without knowing what the servant or someone else had to say in regards to his wife or son. Because of that it became a habit to the people in the palace to leave an ally between the left and the right side of the hallway. In this way crashes with the running emperor were brought to a minimum, even the almost crashes were minimized.
Another positive side effect were the fact that no one had to fear being run other by the priest Judar and the former empress Kougyoku. Judar, as always, loved to tease other and more than once he over did his teasing which made Kougyoku rightfully angry and almost every time ended in a chase between the two.
And last but not least there was the little prince with his mother as well. His mother loved to run, when she was overly happy. She needed to share her happiness with her husband, son and family – family included Kougyoku and Judar. Fortunately, she was not overly happy so often or at least not when she was alone. People could see from far away how happy she was with her life and her family, but running through the palace was more about the happiness she felt when her son spook for the first time or made his first steps or drawing a picture or her finding out something "interesting" or "cute" – she had her own interpretation of these words – or her not being able to handle her love her family and had to let them know that she loved them more than life itself!
Her son just loved running in general. Running away from mommy or daddy was the most fun. Running away from other family member, excluding aunt Kougyoku, was running for his young life! The little one was not afraid of them, but he most likely did something he should not have done and was about to get "punished" – no one dared to punish the young prince besides his parents and aunt Kougyoku, who was too nice to think of a real punishment for her nephew – which he wanted to run away from. So, it was more running away from the punishment and not from the person that was chasing him. In other cases the hallway was just an extension to his playroom.
Running around seemed to be a family trait. And as long as one was not affected by it, it was funny to watch the imperial family chasing through the palace now and then – the palace went silent after the fire accident many years ago, but started to be filled with love and laughter again since the emperor married his wife and things between him and his other family members were more or less handled.

When Hakuryuu reached his goal, without crashing into someone, he opened the door without knocking or thinking about the possibility that someone could be right behind the door. Who was stupid enough to stand behind a door anyway?
Inside the room he found a bunch of nurses and doctors – there were always more than one doctor when it was about the imperial family – and his wife with Judar.
And Judar looked very uncomfortable. He was delighted when he saw Hakuryuu entering the room, because he could leave now. And that was what he did as soon as he wished Hakuryuu good luck – Hakuryuu wasn't sure why Judar wished him luck or for what, but he did not care much at that point. His wife needed him. Even now Hakuryuu did not think about the chance that he would became a daddy for the second time. He needed his wife to point that out for him. Not that he stopped worrying, only the reason why he was worried changed.

While his wife gave birth to their second child, Hakuryuu felt so totally useless and unnecessary. He could only hold his wife's hand and pray that everything would go right – of course he knew from the very beginning that he wouldn't be able to do much for her besides holding her hand, but a part of him still wished to be able to do more than that.

His worries vanished into thin air when he was holding his little baby girl in his arms for the very first time.