Characters: Misaki Ryou, Ichinose Kaoru, and Kaoru's mother.
Rating: K/ G.
Genre: Quiet fluff. Eidetic character exploration. 'ship-centric.
Words: 1005
Disclaimer: The .hack// franchise is in no way owned by me.
Author's Notes: I really appreciate all the kind reviews you all left me in Kaoru - each one of them made me feel absolutely wonderful. I hadn't planned on writing more for these two, but after browsing for fanfiction and subscribing to the Knights of Rose C2, I realized that our 'ship is sadly lacking in the love, and your reviews have sufficiently motivated me to add to our small collection. I hope you enjoy another of my takes on the relationship between Ryou and Kaoru.
---
It's funny how Mac Anu seems to be so beneath him now that he has graduated from beginner status again. He has not been there since the AIDA server incident, since Dol Dona opened. Since he had been designated an 'intermediate' player. It's funny how it seems to be so different when it looks exactly the same as it always had.
Haseo does not know why he is looking here; why he had looked anywhere. He is obviously not logged in. He knows this because he has checked his party list several times, almost compulsively during the last two hours. It has not changed. He is not here.
He has been to the docks, because he knows Endrance thinks they are beautiful, where the ocean bloats yellow and red, but the docks are empty when he looks. All three times. He has been to the Alchemy District where Bicman swells with x's and o's and thanks him for his models while Haseo ignores him, but Endrance is not there. He has been to Lumina Cloth where the sky falls black, but Endrance is not there.
Haseo knows he can't be there, because Endrance is not logged in.
It bothers him that he cares. It bothers them that he worries when he doesn't see the man - the boy - every day. But he is different, and Haseo knows this; he knows Endrance does not have a job to go to. He does not have a school to keep him busy. He does not have a family to have emergencies. He is alone, and The World is all he has, and Haseo knows this.
And this is why he worries. He stands in the Central District of Mac Anu, in the bowl of buildings in the middle of the city, where the sky is just a corona stain of orange beneath the sun, and he waits.
But Endrance does not come.
---
His mother had been the one to find him, sprawled across the ground with his headset still across his eyes. Only naturally, of course; she is the one responsible for keeping him alive. When she sees him like that, she is sure he is another of those victims she has seen on television. Doll Syndrome, was it? A coma victim? She knows then that she should have put an end to it along time ago, when she thinks she is too late.
She cries and shakes him, bony hands on his bony shoulders and shakes him and cries, and she yells at him to be okay. Please be okay. Baby, baby, my baby, please wake up.
Please don't leave me like this.
Kaoru opens his eyes to confusion and quietly asks his mother why she is shaking him that way.
---
She won't let him on his computer until two more days have passed, and she brings him soup whenever she can. He is sick, she says, from being so unhealthy. His addiction has finally caught up to him, and she will not let him go on like that. Like a junkie. She will not be terrified like that ever again.
Kaoru is annoyed at first, and then frightened, and then just as terrified as she had been by the prospect of being alone; or, more accurately, being isolated from Haseo. He endures a panic attack the next night, and when she hears him hyperventilating, she runs to his room and holds him tight and cries with him.
She had seen this coming. She hadn't stopped it. Why, why, why?
She tells Kaoru she is so sorry. She should have been a better mother. Stronger, maybe. She should have protected her son from a future like this, and Kaoru is in her arms and clinging tight and trying to breathe properly again.
No, mother, it's okay, he says. It's not your fault, he says.
It's okay.
I'm okay, he says.
And he stops shaking, stops crying, and now he is the one holding his mother in his arms while she cries, and he really is okay.
---
She lets him on for ten minutes the next day, just long enough to send Haseo an e-mail. Kaoru tells him he will be okay, and that he is very sorry if he may have worried him, but he had fallen ill and his mother was determined to take care of him the right way this time. Kaoru tells him that he does not know if his mother will let him on soon, and that he is so sorry if he can't come back to help Haseo when he is obviously so in need of it.
He can't save The World by himself, after all.
Kaoru tells him that he still loves him deeply, because he does, and that he hopes he can see him soon. He says that he will do his best to get better so he can come back to Haseo, where he thinks he belongs. He says he hopes that everyone is okay, even that annoying Atoli girl with her shrill voice and silly ideals, and he hopes he can save the Alkaid girl soon. He hopes all his friends will be alright, and that he will be able to become a part of them again.
He tells him, p.s.
my real name is Ichinose Kaoru.