#Yeah they are the great Kagari-England siblings

[skywardsoul]

Diannakko Week 2019

@dianakko-week day 6, Adulthood! I want to apologize for having fallen a day behind. I hope you enjoy this nonetheless!

Diana and Akko go to visit her family in Japan. It might just be a fun trip for Akko, but for Diana, it's a chance to ask Akko's parents for her hand in marriage.

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20391742/chapters/48565283

Read on FF.Net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13372417/6/Dianakko-Week-2019

Few things scared Diana Cavendish. She was raised a proper witch, and witches were supposed to instil fear, command it. Not to mention she had years of aristocratic training under her belt. Trying to intimidate her was about as difficult as moving a mountain. That being said, as she stepped out of the car and followed her girlfriend to her parent’s house, Diana was very afraid. 

It wasn’t that Akko’s family scared her at all, no it was quite the opposite. What Diana was scared of, was herself. For there was a moment, a single grave mistake Diana made when she first met the Kagari family, and the fear of ever making another one had hung over her ever since. Here she was, one of the most distinguished witches of her era, the family head of one of magic’s oldest and noblest clans, a fully fledged doctor at the Lady Beatrix Hospital for Magical Maladies and yet the first impression she made was that of a bumbling goofs.

The incident happened when Akko’s family had flown into England to visit their daughter. Since It was Diana’s first time meeting Akko’s parents, she had wanted to obviously make a good impression. She had Akko tell her everything about them in the days leading up to their arrival. What was their favorite foods? What did they like to see on their travels? What was their opinions on magic? Everything but the goddamn kitchen sink. When it came time to greet them at the airport, Diana felt confident that she had the perfect understanding of who Kumiko and Hayato Kagari were. What she wasn’t aware of however, was that Akko was not an only child. As Akko so conveniently forgot to explain in all the time they knew each other, she had a kid brother, two years younger than her. A kid brother who, when viewed from behind, looked remarkably similar to his elder sister, especially since Akko had just cut her hair.

Akko had gone off to buy a snack from a kiosk while Diana had patiently remained at the gate. It had been several minutes since Akko left on her venture when Diana thought she spotted her, turned around and staring at a restaurant. It seemed like the snack was not enough for her insatiable love. Struck with a random and rare romantic whim, Diana decided to sneak up on her girlfriend, and hug her from behind. So she did just that, pouncing on Akko and wrapping her arms around her waist.

“Hello there Miss Kagari,” Diana said in a somewhat sultry voice. “Hungry? Got tired of waiting?”

She had expected Akko to respond with a surprised squeak, and maybe follow it up with an adorable bout of embarrassment and a flustered excuse.

Only that was not the response she received. What she got instead was a surprised scream, followed by a decidedly more masculine voice then the one that belonged to her love speaking very rapidly and very angrily in Japanese. Turns out she hadn’t snuck up on her girlfriend at all. No Diana Cavendish had the great pleasure to make her first interaction with Akko’s parents be one where it looked as if she decided to assault their son Kaito.

Thankfully Akko was nearby and was able to quickly explain and somewhat smooth over the incident while Diana felt her very soul leave her body. The Kagari’s were very understanding, well except maybe for Kaito, and accepted Diana’s apology easily. Akko’s father found the whole fiasco quite humorous.

“I told you to change up your hairstyle Kaito!” Hayato said through a booming laugh. “You look too much like your sister for your own good!”

Of course Diana had seen Akko’s family many times since then, each one going off without any major issue. Yet that first meeting, that incident at the airport still haunted Diana’s mind anytime she was set to interact with the Kagaris. As she stepped out of the car and followed her excitable girlfriend up to the door of her parent’s home, Diana’s worry returned with a vengeance. If there was anytime she couldn’t mess up in front of Akko’s parents, it was now. Akko believed this trip to be a simple visit. For Diana, it was much more important. Sometime over the course of their week spent in Japan, Diana was going to ask Akko’s parents for her hand in marriage.

She was aware of the fact that the concept was a bit outdated, and was seen in a generally negative light nowadays, but it was the way of the Cavendish family and goddamnit maybe sometimes Diana liked being old fashioned.

Akko knocked at the door eagerly and stood back, practically buzzing in place as she waited for it to open. It wasn’t long until they heard a voice through the door.

“I told you salesmen to go away, I don’t want to buy any!” Hayato’s voice had a playful tone to it.

“Dad!! It’s us!” Akko responded with a giggle.

The door to the Kagari household swung open to reveal Hayato Kagari standing in the doorway.

“Well would you look at that! It wasn’t a salesman at all! Just and adorable bunny and her wonderful girlfriend.”

Akko practically tackled her father as she leapt forward to hug him.

“Tadaima!” Akko said through a bout of laughter.

“Okaeri,” her father responded in turn. 

Akko’s father was a very kind and goofy man, standing no taller than Akko herself. If not for the grey in his hair and the lines on his face, he could easily be mistaken for a man much younger. He was energetic, much like his daughter and the ruby red eyes he shared with her more often than not were warm and welcoming. 

“Hayato, who was at the door?” Akko’s mother’s voice drifted in from the kitchen. “Was it the girls? Are they here yet?”

“Yes honey! It’s them! Cool it in the kitchen for a bit and come to greet your daughter will yah?”

There came an annoyed “hmph!” in response before Kumiko Kagari entered the living room, wiping her hands on a towel.

Akko’s mother was fairly opposite from her father. While still a wonderfully polite woman, she was much more reserved and would scold her excitable husband and daughter when necessary. She was a good deal taller than Akko and her father and had pale, green eyes. The only physical features she shared with her daughter was her brown hair, and rounded face. Although a year older than her husband, pretty much anyone would agree Kumiko looked younger.

“Atsuko!” Kumiko said as she wrapped her daughter in a hug. “Oh it feels like ages since we last saw you!”

“Mom, It’s only been a couple of months…”

“Someday, if you’re ever a mother you will understand why that feels like ages,” Kumiko retorted.

“Hello Miss Kagari, Mr. Kagari. It’s a pleasure to see you again,” Diana greeted, figuring now was a good time to do so.

Hayato turned to her with a smile. “Oh Diana, always so formal eh?”

“Well I-” was all Diana got out before she received a similar hug to the one Akko got.

“Dontcha know you don’t have to be so stiff around us by now? You’re practically family!” Hayato said. “And you’re Japanese has gotten so good! I can’t even tell you’re not a native speaker.”

“Hayato! Put the poor girl down, you’re making her uncomfortable!” Kumiko said commandingly.

“Oops! Sorry Diana. Got carried away there,” Akko’s father said, releasing her from his hug.

“That’s quite alright,” Diana said, giving him a smile. “It makes me happy to know you see me as such.”

“Say, Mom,” Akko interjected. “Where’s Kaito?”

“I sent him to the store a little a while ago to pick up some ingredients I still needed,” Kumiko explained.

“Yeah you’re mother is really going overboard with dinner today. Halfway through making the main course and she decides she’s gonna serve soup too. She’s been sending your brother back and forth all day.”

“It’s not ‘overboard,’ Hayato. Our daughter lives halfway across the world. Excuse me if I want to make sure dinner is special when she comes home.”

“Still! You spend so much time in that kitchen it’s almost like you live halfway across the world. Sometimes I think you love the stove more than me.”

Akko laughed as her parent’s started a strange sort of playful bickering. Diana couldn’t help but laugh at the antics too. She thought back to Hayato’s earlier words, how she was considered part of the family. She smiled as she watched Kumiko gesture angrily at her husband with a wooden spoon. It felt nice, having parents again.

“Tadaima!” Came a call from the front door, as Akko’s brother returned. “Who’s car is in the driveway?”

“It’s ours!” Akko replied with an excited shout as she tackled her brother in a similar fashion to the way she greeted her dad. “Okaeri, Kaito!”

“Argh! Akko! Get offa me!” Kaito said struggling to remove his elder sister.

“Oh come on! Don’t pretend like you aren’t happy to see me!” Akko said, releasing her brother and ruffling his hair.

Kaito smacked away her hand, but had a smile on his face as he fixed his hair. “Yeah, Yeah...It’s good to see you again Akko.”

“Heard mom had you playing errand boy. Just like when we were kids.”

Kaito rolled his eyes. “You don’t know the half of it. If i have to go back to the marketplace one more time, I swear old man Ryuo is gonna assume I’m making some kinda cry for help.”

The two siblings broke into a bit of shared laughter...one that ended semi abruptly when Kaito’s eyes meet Diana’s own.

“Good evening Kaito,” Diana said.

“Hello Diana,” he responded curtly, and somewhat dead pan.

Diana knew that Kaito didn’t quite like her. After how they first met, she couldn’t blame him for holding a little resentment, but she had an inkling that the issue went further. According to Akko, the two siblings were very close growing up as kids. When Akko made the announcement to her family that she wanted to go to school overseas, Kaito got fairly upset. Akko even said that the siblings relationship strained somewhat in the months leading up to her departure. If Diana had to hazard a guess, even factoring out their strange first encounter, Kaito saw Diana as a representation of everything that made Akko move away. 

That was just a guess, but really the only guess she had. Diana grew up learning to read people to an absurd level of perfection, yet she could never tell just what Akko’s brother was thinking. It really was striking, just how much Kaito resembled his older sister. Everything from their height, general body build, shape of their face, and hair color were nearly identical. It didn’t help that Kaito like wearing his hair fairly long. The only real way to tell the two apart was their voice and eye color. Kaito had his mother’s striking green rather than his father’s red. It was honestly hard to believe they weren’t twins. 

Now if only Kaito shared his sister’s friendly personality. Thankfully, before things could get truly awkward, Kumiko called out from the kitchen.

“Dinner is almost ready! Everyone wash-up and then get you butts to the dining room stat!”

No arguments were made as the other members of the house did just that. The Kagari’s ‘dining room,’ was really just a nice table situated in a corner of their living room. Akko had long since explained that the act of referring to it as its own proper room was a family in-joke. Once everyone was seated, Kumiko arrived, balancing various plates of food on her arms. Diana would have offered to help, but had learned the hard way that Kumiko Kagari never accepted help in the kitchen, carrying dishes to the table or otherwise.

“I’d be careful with the curry Diana,” Kumiko said to her once she was seated. “I know you aren’t the best with spicy foods. I may have made it with a bit too much kick.”

“Thank you for the warning,” Diana said with a nervous chuckle.

For awhile, Dinner had been going great. Akko talked excitedly with her parents, cramming as much of her day to day happenings as she could into her rapid fire sentences. Hayato kept the atmosphere at the table light telling jokes, and much to Akko’s charging, sharing embarrassing stories from her past. Every once in awhile, Kumiko would chime in with her two cents. Kaito largely stayed silent, but would laugh along with his family whenever he found something funny. Yup, it was a typical dinner with the Kagari family. Just like ones Diana had shared with them before. She had been a bit on edge what with her secret objective but as the Dinner went on, Diana felt herself begin to relax. Everything was going great.

“I still don’t see why you went and bought a house,” Kumiko said to her daughter. “Diana’s family owns a mansion, a mansion Atsuko!! Think of all the space you could’ve had!”

“Moooooom, I told you,” Akko said with a roll of her eyes. “Diana didn’t want to live in the mansion her whole life. Besides, I’m more comfortable in our house then a big place like that anyway.”

“What makes you not want to live there?” Hayato asked Diana.

“Well, I have a lot of complicated feelings towards my family home. One’s I’d rather not associate my relationship with,” Diana explained as politely as she could.

It would do her no good to explode into a rant about her aunt or reminisce about her mother.

“Well I can understand wanting to make your own life, trust me,” Kumiko said. “But giving up such a big living space for it? I mean a manor like that is the perfect place to raise a family! If you ever have children you might get crowded in that current house of yours.”

Diana nearly choked on her food.

“Mom!” Akko said, a blush staining her face.

“Oh come on. I said ‘if,’ not ‘when,” Kumkio replied with a wave of her hand. “Besides, you want children eventually right Diana?”

Diana felt her earlier nervousness return with a vengeance.

“Um, well, I suppose-”

“Wait a minute, is that even possible?” Kaito interjected. “They’re both women.”

Diana doubted it was her sake, but used to opportunity to shovel some food into her mouth. Hopefully that would keep the question from being directed at her.

“Please Kaito, don’t be silly. Adopting children is always a possibility. Besides, they’re witches,” Kumiko said in a know-it-all kind of way. “I know they have ways to conceive children between women. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

Diana swallowed her food, but immediately went for another bite. This was definitely not. Where she wanted this conversation to go. It was much too proposal adjacent for her tastes.

“Can’t be worrying about kids yet Kumiko! The weddings gotta come first!” Hayato said with a loud laugh.

Akko groaned in annoyance. Diana felt like she was starting to sweat.

“You’re getting married?” Kaito asked Diana flatly.

Diana swallowed the food in her mouth before responding with a waver “Well, no, but-”

“But you do plan to don’t you?” Kumiko asked pointedly “Marry my daughter I mean.”

“Mom, stop.” Akko said “This isn’t an interrogation.”

“Nobody’s interrogating anyone Akko. Your mothers just curious.”

Diana felt her face starting to heat up. Was it always this hot in here? She tried to ignore it and kept eating.

“Weddings are important Atsuko. I just want to get an idea of when I should expect one.”

“You’ll know when I know!” Akko said to her mother.

“Is that soon?” Kaito asked dryly, again directly to Diana.

Yeah. He definitely didn’t like her. Diana tried to act natural, taking a couple of more bites of food before responding.

“Uh, Diana,” Akko said, trying to get her girlfriends attention.

She had a feeling that her girlfriend was trying to save her from having to answer, but Diana was determined to tackle this herself. If she appeared to be nervous about marrying Akko, her parents would never sign off on her proposal.

“It's hard to say. It’s definitely a goal, after all I love Akko, but I don’t know if I could-”

“Diana,” Akko tried again.

“I mean trying to nail such a specific time frame is-”

“Diana!” Akko shouted.

Diana finally snapped her attention to Akko, freezing mid sentence holding her spoon above her plate.

“You know you’ve been eating mom’s super spicy curry right?”

Slowly, Diana looked to the food she had been shoveling into her mouth in her attempts to appear nonchalant. Ah. so she was. The sweating and sudden increase in temperature made sense now. Suddenly the effect of the curry all hit Diana at once, and she felt like she was on fire. She remembered shooting up from her seat in a panic, remembered Akko shouting something, Kumiko steering her into the kitchen, and then drinking an inordinate amount of milk.

Diana felt like an idiot. For the second time, she had utterly embarrassed herself in front of Akko’s family. She slid to the kitchen floor, defeat written across her face. She could hear Akko’s voice coming from the living room. From what Diana could hear, she wasn’t happy. Diana brought her knees up her face and rested her head against them. She felt like a child. She wasn’t a nervous teenage girl, meeting her girlfriends parents for the first time, but that was exactly what she acted like. If she could have melted through the floor just then, she would have. 

Diana heard someone enter the kitchen, and looked up, expecting it to be Akko. She was surprised to say in the least to see Kaito standing there instead. The youngest Kagari shuffled a bit awkwardly.

“Hey. Akko sent me here to check on you,” he said, rubbing the back of his head nervously.

Even his mannerisms were similar to his sister’s.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes, I am now,” Diana answered.

Kaito looked like he wanted to leave just then but instead let out a sigh and moved to sit next to Diana on the kitchen floor.

“Look, I’m sorry for earlier,” He said after a second.

Sorry? For what? That she made herself look stupid.

“I hardly see what you have to be sorry about,” Diana responded. “It’s not like you forced me to eat the curry.”

“No but anyone could see you only did that because we were making you nervous,” Kaito said. “And that, was at least partially my fault.”

Huh, he was a perceptive one wasn’t he.

“Honestly I thought you would be enjoying this. A chance to see the girlfriend you dislike make a fool of herself?”

Diana didn’t know why she said that. She usually had more tact for things of this nature, but after everything that had just happened, maybe she didn’t have the patience for tact.

“I don’t dislike you,” Kaito said.

Diana merely raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay well I did...maybe I still do a little, I don’t know,” Kaito stammered. He rubbed his head again. “It’s not like I don’t like you as a person or anything Diana… It’s just…”

He tapered off the thought.

“Just, what?” Diana pressed.

“Akko and I have been partners in crime for pretty much forever. I guess I just got kinda mad when she decided to move away. I thought, at the very least, she was gonna come back once she graduated you know?” Kaito paused to take a breath.

“But then she met you, and the next thing I know she’s living halfway across the world for probably the rest of her life. I don’t hate you Diana...I just hate not getting to hangout with my sister. Anyone that reminds me my best friend moved away is gonna make me a little cranky. That’s all.”

Silence fell between the two. Until Diana broke it with a laugh. Here they were, two adults, both with such childish problems.

“You know what, Kaito? I understand,” She said, turning to Akko’s brother with a smile. She saw him blink in surprise as she held out her hand to him. “But maybe we can move past that?”

Kaito shot her a grin that would have looked perfectly at home on Akko, and shook her hand.

“Deal.”

There was another pause, although this time Kaito broke it.

“You were gonna ask my folks if you could marry her, weren’t you?”

Again, perceptive.

“I was.”

Kaito stood, stretching his legs a bit before walking to the kitchen door.

“Don’t bother. The answers gonna be yes. They consider you a part of this family more than my dad’s own brother, although that might be because he nuts,” Kaito said, turning to look to her with a smile.

“That’s not exactly a high vote of confidence,” Diana responded.

“You love her, right?” He asked.

“With all my heart,” Diana instantly responded.

“Then you’ll be fine,” Kaito said as he walked out.

Akko walked in right as her brother left. Instantly she was at Diana’s side, and pressed a much needed kiss to her lips.

“You doin okay?” Akko asked worriedly, running her hand through Diana’s hair.

Diana smiled. “Yeah, I am. And you know what Akko? I think I finally got your brother to like me.”