Disclaimer:
Sunrise, and not I, has the pleasure of owning this great franchise.
Notes:
This story was written for A Teaparty for Muses at the Mai Universe community.
As I said there, this is the result of a challenge I sometimes give myself to write, or at least attempt, a sympathetic look at a character I dislike. Whether I succeeded in truly being sympathetic or not, I honestly found the exercise interesting.
Thanks to Kampilan for encouraging me to post this here as well as MU.
A New Life
Saeko was dead.
Kuga Hiroshi barely remembered the vibrant, fun girl he had proposed to. He often wondered if she ever existed, but did admit that she must at least have seemed to exist. Why else would he have proposed?
Of course, Saeko had been beautiful, but he found her less so daily. Disdain, after all, wasn't beautiful and that was what he saw, more and more when he saw his wife's face.
It started as a sort of patronizing humoring of him. He'd done well in school, but the jargon of her scientific world was a language he hadn't learned. She got that promotion and then worse, when she had the baby, she stopped answering his 'how was you day?' questions with quick, true if vague answers. She would hesitate, often not really answering at all and he'd see it in her eyes: 'You wouldn't understand, and I'm tired of dumbing my life down to your level.'
The baby… he had tried to see Natsuki as theirs, he really had. That was why he'd insisted they not use kanji, so that the girl wouldn't be set apart from normal people from the outset just by her name. Even after he'd given up on his marriage he'd fought to share simple things, like his love of bikes, dogs and music. Sometimes he could almost think that it had worked.
It hadn't worked, not really. Maybe she liked dogs and bikes, and pop music, but it didn't really mean anything. The girl was a carbon copy of her mother. When she was an adult she'd be able to pass off an old picture of Saeko as herself. That could be deal with. Looks can be changed by style, after all. No, the final straw was that he could tell she took after Saeko in mind as well as body.
Saeko couldn't go on enough about how smart 'their child' was. She emphasized 'their' and it sounded nagging whenever it didn't sound mocking. It was, he knew for certain, a reminder that she knew about the other women. She knew, and she didn't care, but by God she'd make sure that he didn't leave. While she lived, he would remain, and play the part of father to 'their child'. Saeko was a scientist, she only made statements that were undisputed truths.
The first time he'd cheated had been 'a mistake,' even 'an accident'. He was just putting off going home when the woman met his eyes. She wasn't looking down on him. She wasn't too good for Kuga Hiroshi. After her, none of them had been 'accidental.'
When he met Hanna he stopped looking for one night stands. She loved him, respected him. Her children would really be 'their children,' not strange creatures that saw too much and learned too fast. He'd take the business opportunity overseas and in a new country he'd have his new family, his new life.
Saeko was dead. Natsuki was Saeko…
He'd let the lawyers handle the rest.