Unspoken
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Shugo Chara!
Copyright: Peach Pit
"I'm leaving, Kazuomi."
Ichinomiya Hikari stood by the door of their apartment, one hand on the knob. Her wide-brimmed white hat overshadowed her eyes. She carried a black wheeled suitcase and her voice was low, but quite steady.
Kazuomi felt something like a cold wind blowing over his soul. So she was finally doing it, after all. Still, he couldn't say it was expected.
"Hikari," he said, taking a step forward. "Please. You don't have to do this. Think of the child, growing up without a father – "
"Yuki would grow up without a father no matter what," she retorted acerbically. "You don't even look at him if you can help it."
"You're exaggerating – again. I have a duty to my company, and if that means spending a bit less time with my family - "
Hikari silenced him by making a slashing motion with one hand. "All right. That's it. You won't listen, and I won't give in. This is the last time we're having this argument, understand? I'm picking Yuki up from school, and I'm going back to Mother's, and the next time you try to contact me it had better be through a lawyer. Goodbye, Kazuomi."
"Hikari, I – "
He took an unconscious step forward and held out his hand. His mind hunted for the right words, anything that would make her turn around and stay. Her blond hair caught the light of the hallway lamp like a golden waterfall; her cream-colored skirt and blazer were the same shade her wedding dress had been. She wore her lily-of-the-valley perfume. In that one brief moment, he noticed things about his wife which he hadn't noticed in years, and he came within seconds of exclaiming: Don't leave me, I still love you. But his pride held him back.
If she wanted to leave him so badly, let her leave.
Hikari shut the door with a final, resounding click.
"Am I speaking to Ichinomiya Kazuomi-san?."
"Yes. May I ask who's calling?"
"Dr. Chiba, of Nagasaki Hospital. I'm afraid I'm calling with bad news for you, sir. Are you the father of an Ichinomiya Yuki?"
He clutched his cell phone hard. Yuki. The little boy he remembered from what felt like eternities ago. He would be how old now? Thirty? And the hospital was calling. Bad news.
"Yes. Yes, I am. What happened?"
"We've just identified him among the victims of a traffic acident. His mother, wife and son, as well. The child is the only survivor. We're very sorry."
Kazuomi felt as if the stranger's words were echoing over and over in his brain. It was too much to process all at once.
His son was dead.
His daughter-in-law, whom he had never met, was dead.
He had a grandson.
The only surviving relative.
"Sir? Uh – are you still there?"
Kazuomi's lips disappeared into a thin line. Instead of pouring out his heart in an incoherent mixture of grief, rage, confusing and relief, which would be completely unbefitting of his image as a competent professional, he only cleared his throat, blinked his eyes hard to dislodge any stray drops, and said: "Yes. All right. Thank you for calling. I'll get down there as soon as possible."
Kazuomi soon found himself to be as hopelessly inept a grandfather, as he had been a father and husband.
Three-year-old Ichinomiya Hikaru was an uncanny child. He barely said a word – but when he did speak, it was with perfect grammar and clear-glass pronunciation. The hospital staff suggested therapy, but Kazuomi flatly refused.
"He's an Ichinomiya. We don't need shrinks. If he's quiet, all the better – that means he's been well brought up. Children should be seen, not heard."
He did not want it known that a relative of his was mentally unbalanced. His pride could not take it.
Kazuomi hired a live-in nanny and a private tutor to watch the boy 'round the clock and challenge his prodigious brain to the limit. He bought him the most expensive clothes, games, books, everything. That was the one silver lining to this mess, after all: he had finally gained the post of CEO at Easter Company. And little Hikaru would make the perfect heir.
He tried not to think of that long-ago reproof: You don't even look at him if you can help it.
Hikaru had his grandmother's golden hair. And his father's eyes.
Kazuomi was afraid to face the accusation he saw in those wide blue eyes. So instead of asking him, Why don't you speak? What do you want? How can I make you happy? – the Director of the Easter Company turned away and closed the door.
"Where is my son?"
Kazuomi dreaded coming home to his second wife sometimes. Hoshina Souko had been a beauty once, tall, blonde and soft-spoken, the sort of woman who could light up a room simply by entering it. Tsukiyomi's abandonment had hit her very hard, however; she had spent three months in a mental hospital and was still on a daily regime of pills, which didn't seem to do much. Kazuomi had married her for her position as the Easter heiress, not for love. Still, he hated to see her like this.
Now her daughter, idol singer Hoshina Utau, had moved out. Souko followed her career obsessively through the newspapers and TV. As for Ikuto, the spitting image of his father, he was gone. And Souko was thinner and quieter than ever.
"I don't know," Kazuomi lied. "I don't know. Now will you please eat something? You haven't touched your sushi."
He knew quite well where Ikuto was. Locked in a dark room in the Easter complex, waiting to be set loose and gather X eggs. It was the boy's own fault; Kazuomi argued to himself. If he would only cooperate, there would be no need for mind control.
The X eggs were necessary. The Embryo was the thing. Once they had the Embryo, he would let the Hoshina family go free, and Hikaru would be happy. He was doing this for everybody's good.
The Embryo had come.
That rare white jewel, the one thing Hikaru had ever asked for, rumored to grant its owner's every wish. The thing for which Kazuomi had invested millions in research funds, pressured his employees, used and abused his stepchildren, and broken countless people's dreams. The Embryo had come, and it was not the Embryo at all, but Hikaru's own heart's egg , which had fled its bearer to escape the infinite sadness there. The young corporate mastermind who had lived without a soul as long as he could remember, who lived by logic and saw laughter and tears alike as 'useless', was crying. Great, shing tears rolled down his face; he rubbed his eyes with both fists like the little boy he was.
"What do I do?" asked Kazuomi.
And Hinamori Amu, that child barely older than Hikaru who had been his adversary for two years, gave him a smile of pure compassion.
"You know what to do."
And Kazuomi did. Right there beneath the sky of a spring night, at the abandoned amusement park, watched by a group of transformed child heroes and by his own bodyguards, he knelt down and held Hikaru close.
Tears began to sting his own eyes, the suppressed tears of an entire lifetime. He breathed in his little boy's scent, noted the feeling of holding him.
"I'm so sorry, Hikaru," he rasped between sobs. "Forgive your ojii-chan."
When he pulled away, those blue eyes of Hikaru's still shimmered with tears. But he was smiling, and for the first time, Hoshina Kazuomi felt that things were exactly as they should be.