“What?! My lords, you’re having a child?!” Yue had prepared himself for this reaction from the followers at the temple so he covered his ears ahead of time.

“Yes,” Yue answered simply and Viktor nodded with a smile. The followers immediately started to talk amongst themselves suggesting ceremonies and celebrations and all kinds of things. Some followers were frantically writing. They were all crazy about documenting Yue’s life.

“How far along?” Jinghua had a gleam in her eye, she loved kids.

“Uh…less than a week,” Yue murmured. He pulled the bag with the pearl out from his hanfu.

“Oh?! Is this?!” Jinghua asked, watching as Yue carefully took the pearl from the bag and showed it to her.

“Yes, this is our child.” Yue smiled.

“Fascinating!” A follower exclaimed, frantically writing.

“How beautiful! Is it a girl or a boy?” Jinghua asked, smiling.

“Oh…” Yue murmured, he hadn’t thought about that. He was going to use insight to find out but Viktor beat him to it.

“It’s a girl,” Viktor revealed.

“Oh! How exciting!” Jinghua exclaimed and Yue kind of just stared at the pearl for a bit before smiling, he really didn’t mind either way but he was happy that Viktor was even just a little more involved with the child.

“Do you have any name ideas?” Jinghua asked her smile widening as she watched Viktor slip his hands around Yue’s waist.

“Something Russian,”

“Something Chinese.”

Yue and Viktor gave opposite answers and then proceeded to stare at each other.

“…Oh dear.” Jinghua giggled.

Yue was a little surprised, he expected Viktor to take a backseat in this and let him choose but apparently, that was not his intention.

“What Russian name were you thinking…?” Viktor asked with a raised eyebrow.

“…anything really but Y’know….” Yue glanced up at Viktor with puppy eyes, he had a feeling this idea would get shot down, “Viktoria sounds nice.”

“No.” As expected, Viktor shot the idea down.

“Yeah well, I bet your reason for wanting a Chinese name is the same as my reason for wanting a Russian name!” Yue argued.

“…you are not wrong,” Viktor admitted.

Their argument persisted for a while on the topic. It went on for days actually.

-

“Natasha has chosen her baby’s name. Anastasia if it’s a girl and Anton if it’s a boy.” Elena said to Viktor and Yue as they sat to have tea.

This sparked their argument—which had been put on hold for the tea party— all over again.

However, This time, they both looked at Elena as their tiebreaker.

“…How about this… since you want a Russian name,” she turned to Yue, “and you just want a name that is similar to Yue’s,” she turned to Viktor.

“How about Yuliya?” Elena suggested.

Yue kind of wanted to object to the likeness to his name but…he had to admit, he did like the name. Viktor obviously loved it though.

“…I guess..” Yue tried to pretend he was only mildly satisfied.

“I love it,” Viktor said and smiled.

—

“I am not at all surprised.” Mai giggled as Yue recounted their name argument to her during a party in Belarus.

“A match made in Heaven, those two.” Natasha chuckled.

Yue rolled his eyes. The party was the first ball of the season after both the royal wedding AND Natasha’s pregnancy announcement days prior so there were a lot of eyes on them. Yue kept his story in Vietnamese as he told it to Mai but Natasha knew the context and the story so she could follow along.

“Uh oh, here comes trouble,” Yue whispered with a little grin as the three of their husbands walked over to meet them. They had been stalled with plenty of congratulations, questions, and introductions and just then got the chance to join their wives once again.

“We heard that.” Viktor chuckled and kissed Yue’s cheek, while Huy and Alexei laughed.

The three talked amongst themselves peacefully for a bit before people began to approach them all again.

“Looks like you’re the odd ones out, Your Highnesses.”  A noble said to Yue and Viktor, referring to how the other two couples were expecting. 

“Huh? Oh…for now.” Yue giggled, looking at Viktor with a smile.

That definitely sent the gossip into a frenzy around them.

Yue’s eyes were drawn to Leonid on the other side of the ballroom…he was clearly calculating the situation. One hand on his glass and the other on Mark’s shoulder. Perhaps because he was in pain, Mark wasn’t even looking up at Viktor and Yue.

‘So Whatever happened to Mark running for Lord?’ Yue asked Arseny and Viktor through telepathy.

‘He “mysteriously” pulled out after our engagement was announced.’ Viktor explained.

‘Rumors say his reaction was so severe that Leonid forced him out for the sake of the family’s reputation. He is to serve as his aide though.’ Arseny added.

Yue smiled a little, he was glad Mark was still involved with the lord competition… after all,  he needed to get his revenge for all the rumors he’d been spreading.

—

“Is this competition going at a rate of half a match a day or something?” Yue whined, looking at his schedule made by the maids at Ivanov manor.

“One week is swordsmanship, one week is magic, one week is an expedition to a real dungeon and one week is duels,” Andrei explained.

“How will the public be involved in the dungeon section?” Yue asked, confused.

“We have been developing technology to keep a record of events Inside dungeons for centuries now but we just recently got it down completely because of our experiences in the scale. With a device, we can see inside a dungeon and capture the surroundings.” Andrei explained, opening a drawer and handing Yue a set of papers with sketches of the product.

“Oh wow…”Yue murmured, he couldn’t help but think this had been a project spurred on by what happened with Vikentiy.

“Well that’s good, no foul play will be involved then,”  Yue added.

Things between him and Andrei were comfortable enough. It was still a little awkward but Yue attributed that to Andrei generally being a bit of an awkward person despite his commanding exterior. Viktor and Andrei were making lots of progress though. They hadn’t sat down and had a conversation yet but Yue and Elena were quietly working them up to that.

“...Is the child doing well?” Andrei awkwardly asked.

“Yes…she’s growing quickly. She grows most in the temples though.” Yue said and smiled.

“That’s good.”

“Actually about that….”

—

“You’re up to something…what are you up to?” Viktor asked as he watched Yue fix his clothes in front of a mirror.

“Hmmm, nothing.” Yue hummed and chuckled as he turned and looked at himself in the mirror.

“I don’t know if you making your dress look like that qualifies as nothing…” Viktor chuckled and wrapped his arms around Yue’s waist, patting the slightly bunched-up part of Yue’s dress.

“...I have approval from the king himself. Also, this event isn’t about me! I doubt anyone will notice.” Yue giggled, placing his hands on Viktor’s.

“Yeah right,” Viktor said with an eye roll and rested his chin on top of Yue’s head.

“…are you smaller?” He asked after a second.

“Oh, yeah I changed it for when I’m like this. It’s hard for me to keep my transformation looking the same while I’m growing taller…” Yue explained.

“Yeah… you’re starting to catch up to me.” Viktor chuckled.

“…Liar. You’re somehow STILL growing.” Yue rolled his eyes, he should’ve expected this when he met Andrei but Viktor’s lanky body still had space to grow. 

“Your baby is going to be very tall.” Elena chuckled as she stepped inside. “There’s not a single short gene in the family.”

Viktor and Yue both laughed.

“I heard from Andrei about your little “hint”, sounds just like something I would do,” Elena said to Yue and smiled.

“That’s never a good sign,” Viktor replied.

“…being nice is only fun when it’s effective. Sometimes this is the only way.” Elena chuckled.

Viktor had an idea about what was about to go down but he decided to just let it play out.

—

The Belarusian Lords and the remaining lord candidates all stood in a special balcony section of an arena in Minsk. They were watching the battle of the day in the magic part of the competition. The general public and nobles from Belarus were watching down the stands below them as Leonid Delov prepared to face another candidate.

Mark was on the balcony with everyone else, he had been Leonid’s aide during the swordsmanship portion. That just meant he prepared his weapon and helped with healing and that wasn’t allowed for the magic portion so he had no choice but to watch until the dungeon portion where he would serve a similar purpose as in the swordsmanship portion.

“The Crown Prince and the Princess have arrived!” Someone whispered near Mark. 

Mark wanted to keep facing the center of the arena, he didn’t want to look at them because he knew he would get yelled at by his brother regardless of what he did.

“Oh? Her highness… she seems to be…” whispers around Mark were making him falter. He didn’t want to break but there were so many things that a whisper like that could mean and he would never be sure unless he looked.

He couldn’t save himself. He turned his head without even realizing it. He just needed to know. 

“Both princesses…What a joyous time for Belarus.”

Mark could feel his palm bleeding. His fist was gripped so tightly that his nails had dug into the skin of his palm. He felt like he was going crazy. He couldn’t believe this. How could Viktor actually choose a woman over him?!

It had to be some sort of spell. It just couldn’t be true.

“Your Highness?! Why haven’t you formally announced the wonderful news?” One of the lords asked Viktor.

“We want to wait till the competition is over, we’re still technically on honeymoon...” Viktor chuckled and wrapped his arms around Yue’s waist.

Yue giggled and placed his hands on Viktor’s hands.

“It's a shame the competition had to happen right after our wedding…I think everyone saw this coming though,” Yue said and smiled.

That was generally true, no one was surprised that Viktor and Yue were immediately with child, Natasha and Alexei were the same when they got married… but for the lords and lord candidates—many of whom had all known Viktor for a while— it was still weird for them to see Viktor with a woman and awkwardly enough…not with Mark.