Dlbn: I'm back with another one shot! I wrote it a long time ago but never transferred it to my new laptop or flash drive so I could upload. Well here I am!
Nbld: Expect a multi-chaptered Halloween fic to start up some time this week. I'll update once or twice a week to get it all out before Halloween, with Halloween day being the conclusion.
Dlbn: So without further ado, we bring you "Aidien"!
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Loveless or anyone/thing contained within. That all belongs to Yun Kouga. I DO own Aidien, the women he mentions that aren't Misaki, and Amia. I make NO money off of writing in this category.
000
They say that you can't help who it is you fall in love with. It isn't just something you can turn off with a flick of a switch. Anyone who knows me knows that this is something I consider utter horse shit. You can control it. You can distance yourself from people who are bad for you, loving them or not. Oh, how I wish I had heeded my own word back then. But no, I was a young, naïve teenager and a slightly more naïve twenty-one year old when I fell in love with her. If you want to talk about someone being bad for you, have I got a story for you. The woman I once fell in love with-the young, petite, raven haired beauty with the chocolate brown eyes that drug you deep into their depths and trapped you-is now nothing more than a shell of her former self, if that. The youth never faded from her face, and she always retained her petite figure. However, the light within her eyes faded rather quickly until her eyes were left to be nothing but pure, deep, black emptiness.
Her mind started slipping right before our youngest son, Ritsuka, lost his memories a couple years ago and did a complete 180 in personality. Her mind was already beginning to snap gently before this, though our two children-Seimei and Ritsuka-didn't see it. She was able to control it then. They had her on a light dosage of medication. But when Ritsuka had his accident? Her already fragile mind completely snapped in two; a schism that could never be repaired, no matter how much they drugged her. Depression, anxiety, and a touch of schizophrenia were just the stepping stones. Ritsuka's changes somehow set off that one last snap and dragged her down into the very pits of insanity. She declares that he is not her son, that he took her real son's place and needs to be killed to bring the other back. This is all utter nonsense, the ramblings of a madwoman too unaware of how her body functions to do anything about it. She attacks him, this son of ours, causing physical, emotional, and psychological damage that no amount of sessions from his therapist Dr. Katsuko can reverse. The Ritsuka he once was is gone and will never come back no matter how hard he tries or how hard the therapist tries. Medications won't work; hypnosis won't do a damned thing. Yet, does she know this? Does she understand this? Can she understand and comprehend that her son has changed but he is still the same son she worked so hard to carry, give birth to, and raise for ten years? Obviously, the answer is no. They increased the dosage of her medications, gave her a new one to combat the 'hallucinations' as they called them, and threw in some sleeping pills for good measure to counter the bags forming underneath her dark orbs. She doesn't take the medicine regularly; she over-drugs herself with the sleeping pills. One of these days, she may just unintentionally kill herself…if she doesn't kill our son first.
There's only so much one can do in this situation. Seimei tried to intervene between them to protect his brother, but when he died two years ago, there was nothing there to stop her. As a lawyer, my job keeps me working odd hours, calling me to the office when I was supposed to be at home with my family or relaxing on my day off, making me stay later through dinner and way past my son's bedtime of nine PM. There's only so much I can do whenever I'm actually there at home for more than five minutes. Once I leave, she's right back to her old tricks, I guarantee that without even knowing what goes on behind closed doors while I'm gone. I wonder how the neighbors in our new development have managed to go so long without reporting a disturbance from our home. Misaki yells, curses, and downright goes into a frenzy when he upsets her in some way-normally by being out past his 6 PM curfew, leaving late for school, or eating something she cooked that he never liked before the memory loss-so it amazes me how they don't hear something and make one quick phone call. It's only three numbers, so why not dial it?
Call me a hypocrite if you want, as I haven't done anything about it either, but they hear it more than I see it. Surely they could do something quicker and more often than I could. I wonder why his sensei don't see the marks his mother leaves behind-when and if there are any-and report it. Isn't that their job? Or are they too cowardly at this new school to pick up a phone either? I know that, in the very least, as his Father, I should do something about it. But what can I do? Report it and get him taken away, sent somewhere where they may treat him even worse than his mother does? I'd probably go to jail for failing to protect him while she'd either go to jail or a mental institution for child abuse. Thus, we'd have no choice but to let the government take him away and place him somewhere else. An old friend of mine went through the system a lot as a child, often bouncing between foster homes that were less fit to raise a child then the home she grew up in. I can no longer remember her name or face, and last I knew she had passed away, but I can remember the horror stories she'd tell me. The injuries she'd go to school with daily until school officials finally did something about it. She had attended a boarding school with me at one point and was safe there, but we both got kicked out for performing poorly academically, and she was quickly sent back into the system for another Foster home. If I recall, it took her fifteen different placements to find one where she was safe from harm and better off than at her birth home.
I've been called many things since this disaster of a marriage began spiraling downwards and my sons began to notice the downward turn their mother had taken towards insanity, mostly by Seimei and his mother. Pathetic, spineless, worthless, a sad excuse for a father-for a man…maybe these things are all true, maybe they're not. As a husband and father, I know that I can do better. There has to be something I can do for Ritsuka's sake, as well as my own.
As with quite a few bad marriages that begin to crack and fade away, adultery starts to rear its ugly head and begin to drive an even further wedge. People stray, loyalty crumbles, and mistakes are made. I'm not too proud to admit that I am guilty of making mistakes several times of this nature since this all began. The first mistake, I cannot remember her name, was a young woman around twenty-five years old. I met her while working on a case concerning her four year old son, who had been injured in a car accident a few months before we met. It started slow, with less than obvious flirtation while at consultation meetings together. It quickly sped into heated kisses and touches, long nights spent away from the family I had been growing for the past twenty years or so. Once the case was over with, our fling only lasted three or four months before she and her son moved to another city with a boyfriend of hers that I had never heard heads or tails about before. My second mistake was a former secretary for one of the other lawyers at my company. She only lasted a month or so at the firm, having been turned in and arrested for attempting identity theft on a few of the firm's various more high-profile clients. She wasn't really worth the trouble, honestly; a bad kisser, money hungry and always expecting some kind of gift whenever I saw her. She was more of a threat to my finances and reputation than anything else. There were about four or five other women after that, but none of them are worth mentioning.
One woman that I spent about four months with discovered that I was still married from talking to one of my coworkers, and almost brought everything down by threatening to find my house phone number and tell my wife everything about us unless I gave her a monthly allowance. For three months I gave her two thousand dollars a month. I was finally relieved from my hell when she hooked in a much older, richer gentleman in his late sixties and used him for his money. I would have said something to him, but the old man died shortly after they were together; just long enough for the gold digger to be named in his will as the sole beneficiary. It was fun watching her being dragged in and out of court and polygraph examinations by a high ranking lawyer in my office. She had tried to sucker me into destroying some documents and messing with evidence for her so that she'd walk away with all his money, but she managed to slip away from any charges by seducing the youngest of her late husband's sons and getting him to believe her. They're off somewhere in Ropongi Hills or something like that, living high off the hog on the old man's money.
Clearly my taste in women is severely lacking. They all either turn out to be complete psychopaths, or having been using me to be able to get money or gifts until I bored them or they moved onto a bigger pay day. There were about six more after that-bringing it up to fourteen, I believe?-and before I met with my longest lasting extra-marital affair.
Her name was Amia; a five foot six inch, violet haired, green eyed beauty. Her lips are as soft and pale pink as sakura blossoms, with a quick wit and strong mind of her own. She is creative, intelligent, and funny alongside her beauty; everything I saw in Misaki way back when we met in high school. Although having different genetics and hair and eye colors, she is like my second chance at getting the happy, healthy marriage I had always thought Misaki and I would have. We met at a coffee shop, where she worked as a barista, while I was making a run to get coffee for myself, my secretary, and three other lawyers that were working on a case with me. It was my turn that day to buy, though I didn't want to at the time, but now I'm glad that I had accepted the chore to do so. If I hadn't, I may have never met her. I don't go to that shop on my own time, but my coworkers always get coffee from there, so it would feel odd to break tradition. We flirted a little bit while I waited for my drinks, and I walked out of there with not only a complete order, but her number etched carefully with a pink pen into the side of my cup. I got a lot of jarring and guff from the others for that, but it's worth it.
After a month or so, I confessed to her that I was still married but that we were going through a separation and planning on getting divorced if we couldn't reconcile. I thought I was surely done for, that she would do the same thing as my biggest mistake and threaten to tell my wife. Turns out I was wrong. She admitted that she was only recently separated from her boyfriend of two and a half years, and that they had a one year old son together that they were co-parenting. She was very understanding of my circumstances and understands how I am slow to divorce my wife due to her mental instability. I haven't introduced her to my only living son, Ritsuka, yet as I know it is not the right time for that. His mind is still a little too fragile for me to consider shattering his world apart by introducing him to my mistress and her son; who I spent more time with then I did with him.
When the time comes and I finally free myself from the shackles of the sham of a marriage between Misaki and I, once I file for divorce finally and get that settled, then perhaps he will know. When we see one another in public, he goes out of his way to avoid me if he can, but does greet me with a soft, grunted hello that may as well have never existed. My relationship with him is shattered into pieces even smaller than the ones left behind from Misaki's mind breaking in half. Am I happy that things turned out this way? Do I like for my son to dislike me and want to avoid me when we're near one another for various reasons? Do I like being ostracized from my family and not invited to family reunions and other family related events due to my unstable marriage and damaged son? Do I like having to sneak around behind everyone's backs to spend time with Amia and continue our relationship? Do I like that her son looks at me like a second father while my own child looks at me like a pile of nothing on the street? No, I do not. I wish that things were different, I really do. I wish I would have been able to help Misaki before she snapped and brought her back to reality so that the current one wouldn't have had to transpire. Does that mean that I don't want Amia in my life or that I regret it? No, of course not. What I do regret, however, is what a shell of my former self I have become. A once proud, highly intelligent man reduced to being a dirty cheat that avoided his own family like the plague and allowed them to suffer in silence behind closed doors while I ran off to do my own thing. But, sometimes, things just happen the way they do and we can't control them.
Damn, I'm a hypocrite…
000
Aoyagi Aidien quickly exited Sakura Grounds Coffee Shop and Bakery with his girlfriend Amia hot on his heels. He carried a cup of coffee in one hand and a croissant in a paper bag in another, as she carried a cup of coffee and a bag containing a strawberry frosted doughnut. The young barista nearly tripped over the ribbon that tied around her waist on her apron as she tried to keep up with the blonde.
"Aidien!" She squealed. "I know you're excited for this surprise you have for me, but please, slow down!"
"Can't, we're already running late." Aidien corrected, stopping her from falling with the hand containing the bagged dessert.
"Late? What did you do, make reservations for us somewhere?"
His silence was the only answer, and she squealed in joy again.
"Oh, you did!" She cheered, catching up to him more. "I can't believe you went and did that! It's only been a year that we've been together, Mr. Rush It All."
He stopped and turned to her, catching her as she bumped into him.
"How am I rushing anything? It's just a nice dinner." He stated. "And you've kind of ruined the surprise, so yes, that's what we're late for."
She smiled up at him. "If we're already late, then we may as well take our time."
"That's not how it works. If we're not there in a half hour, they'll give our reservation to someone else."
She frowned. "How late are we?"
"Fifteen minutes."
"Well, then, I guess we'd better hurry."
"Just what I was thinking." He grinned.
He turned around and picked up the pace. Once they got to the street corner, it was only a few meters to his car parked around the side, and then a quick drive to the restaurant. What he didn't expect, however, was to collide with someone and drop his coffee, staining the other's beige pants dark with coffee.
"I am so sorry, Gomen." He stated, handing the man napkins to wipe up.
The blonde shrugged and took them from him. "Arigato." He replied. "It's not that big a deal."
"Are you two alright?" Amia wondered, looking the stranger up and down. "Paint splotches…are you an artist?"
"Yes, I am." The man, a blonde with cobalt eyes framed by thin silver glasses, held up a covered canvas. "And I'm late to turn this in for class, so if you don't mind, I'll be on my way."
"We're in a rush, too." Aidien tossed his now empty cup into a waste bin to get rid of it. "Once again, I am deeply sorry."
"Quite alright. Like with any stain, it will come out in time." The blonde wiped down his legs, drying coffee.
"Soubi, are you alright?" A young voice asked the blonde.
A young teenage boy with raven black hair and plum eyes that Aidien would recognize anywhere dodged across the street as traffic cleared and stopped by the blonde's side.
"I'm fine, Ritsuka." The blonde, Soubi, replied as he smoother down the younger's ears.
"Baka." Ritsuka batted his hand away. "I hope you're at least not causing any trouble. Don't you have that assignment to turn in?" He glared at his watch. "You have ten minutes…"
"Plenty of time." Soubi stated. "And no trouble at all, I assure you." He smiled at Aidien and Amia, though it seemed forced, and threw away the ruined napkins. "Just had an accidental bump with this gentleman here. Nothing to worry about."
Ritsuka cocked an eyebrow. "You're so weird." He stated after a moment, laughing. "Gomen…" He finally looked at Aidien and Amia and his eyes darkened. "Perhaps I should take that back…"
"Ritsuka…" Soubi started to scold.
"It's quite alright." Aidien held up a hand. "It's been a while, Ritsuka. How are you?"
His nears flattened, blending perfectly into his hair. "I'm fine, thank you…how are you?"
"I'm fine as well."
"You two know one another?" Amia wondered.
"Who's she?"
"Amia, this is my youngest son, Ritsuka." Aidien introduced, ignoring the glare from the teen and the bandage on his left temple. "Ritsuka, my girlfriend, Amia."
"Ah, Ritsuka, we meet at last!" Amia giggled. "I've heard a lot about you."
"That's funny." Ritsuka deadpanned. "I could say the opposite."
Soubi put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Ritsuka, come now, don't be rude." He scolded.
Ritsuka rolled his eyes. "Pardon…"
"It's quite alright." She replied. "Seeing one of your parents with someone else is hard, I know."
"Not really." Ritsuka argued. "I barely see him as it is." He folded his arms across his chest. "It's more of a surprise to run into him out of the blue then anything."
Aidien cleared his throat, face flushed red. "Yes, well…"
He couldn't help but notice the annoyed glare the tall blonde was sending his way. If he was a friend of Ritsuka's somehow, he probably knew enough about the boy's father to have some sort of dislike of him.
"Your friend…?" Aidien wondered.
"My manners." Ritsuka stated, adjusting the strap of his blue-black messenger bag over his shoulder. "Agatsuma Soubi. Soubi, my father, Aidien."
"A pleasure." Soubi grimaced.
Ritsuka giggled. "We really should be on our way before that project is late, Soubi."
"Hai." Soubi nodded. "Nice to meet you both. Worry nothing about the pants."
Ritsuka took the elder male's hand in his own and pulled him around his father to continue towards their destination.
"Nice to meet you!" Amia called after them, waving.
Ritsuka turned and waved at her with his free hand, scowling at his father shortly afterwards.
"Your son seems nice."
"I suppose…he needs an attitude check, though."
"Oh, come on, Aidien." She wrapped her arms around one of his. "Imagine how you'd feel if your parents were splitting up, and you one day meet your father's new woman. It isn't easy."
"I suppose so, yes."
He didn't have the heart to tell her that his son was like this every time they ran into one another, or that his son also didn't know about his intent to leave his mother.
She smiled and pulled him down the road. "So don't take it too personally, okay? Just try and relax. We have a wonderful evening ahead of us, don't we?"
"That's right, we…" He looked down at his watch. "Damn it, we need to hurry."
She grinned. "Run with me!" Giggling, Amia let him go and took off into a run.
"Hey, wait!" He called after her, breaking into a sprint to try to catch up.
000
A little ways up the road, Ritsuka watched his father and his new girlfriend running off in disgust. Soubi had gone on ahead without him to turn in his assignment, leaving the raven haired neko waiting for him. How could his father just run around with some young woman like that and not have a care in the world? While meanwhile his wife was getting crazier and crazier, and his son was suffering more and more injuries at her hands back home. It was downright disgusting, to be honest. Sure, he had the right to be happy, but so did Ritsuka and his mother. If he was going to mess around with other woman, he could have at least had the decency to leave the woman he married first. And, possibly, take his only surviving son with him. Ritsuka briefly wondered if his father wished that he had died alongside his brother so he could just up and leave their mother behind while he went off to do whatever he pleased. Maybe it would have been easier for his father to leave his mother if he wasn't alive still…no…he was not going to blame himself for that one. He wasn't going to be one of those kids who took all the blame for his parents splitting up when he knew damn well it had nothing to do with him. His father couldn't keep it in his pants and his mother was a complete head case. That had nothing to do with him; it was just who they were. After years of coming to terms with who he was and accepting himself as such, he was finally able to see that his mother's psychosis wasn't caused by any changes to him and his memory. It was most likely present in a more muted form way before that, and he had just been too young and naïve to see that.
"Hey, Rit-chan!" A friendly voice greeted him, an arm draping loosely over his shoulders. "How's it going?"
"Hey, Kio…" Ritsuka replied.
"That doesn't sound too good." Kio informed. "Where's Soubi?"
"I sent him ahead to go turn in an almost late project."
"Why not just go with him?"
"We ran into my father and his…ugh…girlfriend…"
"Oh? How…um…how did that go…? I know you don't really like him…"
"Neither did Seimei…or mother…or anyone, really." Ritsuka confessed. "I could have done without seeing them. She seems nice enough though, I guess."
"So why are you standing here?"
"Just watching them leave."
"Creepy, Rit-chan. You've been hanging around Soubi far too long."
Ritsuka shrugged one shoulder. "I can't believe he can just do that…"
"Do what…?"
"He's still married to my mother…"
"Oh." Kio cocked an eyebrow. "Gross." He sighed. "Rit-chan, promise me that if you ever get married and stuck in a shitty marriage that you'll leave your wife or husband or whatever before messing around with someone else?"
"I'm never getting married." Ritsuka blushed.
"Yeah, I said the same thing." Kio wiggled his finger bearing a wedding ring in front of Ritsuka's face. "But times change. Who knows, you and Soubi might actually…"
"Me and Soubi?" Ritsuka pulled away. "Now you're just being crazy, Kio."
"You wouldn't consider marrying Sou-chan if he asked you?"
"Never thought about it before."
Ritsuka shook his head and began walking towards the college his boyfriend and the green haired male at his side attended together. Kio turned on his heel and quickly joined the teen.
"Well maybe you should."
"Why? Did he say anything to you?"
"No, but you'd have to be a complete idiot to not see how much he loves you."
Ritsuka snorted. "Soubi's more of a father then my own father is…how pathetic…"
Kio's eyes widened and he pulled at his collar. "I'm going to pretend that you didn't say that…you don't think of Sou-chan as a father figure, do you?"
"Of course not. You know how I feel about Soubi." Ritsuka flushed. "But just saying it's sad that my boyfriend is more of a father then my actual father. It shouldn't be that way."
Kio put a hand on his shoulder. "You met my family at the wedding, Rit-chan, so I can be real with you, and you know I'm being one hundred percent honest with you when I say this. You can't choose your family, but you can choose how you interact with and how you respond to them. I know you don't like your dad at all and, honestly, I don't blame you. But at least treat him like a father and not a useless pile of flesh like he is." Kio grinned.
Ritsuka laughed. "I guess you're right."
"So forget about him and his girlfriend or whatever she is, and let's go figure out where Sou-chan went off to…"
"I told you, he went to class to turn in an assignment."
"Our Sensei is gone for the day at noon…"
"…damn it!"
Kio laughed.
000
It's been about two years since I met Amia and, honestly, I couldn't be happier. Although I moved in with her, she is aware and accepting of the fact that I sometimes do have to go home to my family. Back to that house of chaos and insanity, back to a place I'd rather run away from as quickly as I can rather than step foot inside it. Whenever I go home, Ritsuka avoids me until dinner and Misaki starts something with him just to try and get me to react. I tell her to stop, and he runs off up to his room to do whatever it is he does. While Misaki is cleaning up, I fake having to go to work and leave. He's never called me out on it, she's never been suspicious, and I don't care to say anything more than 'I'm leaving'. I guess she's used to the erratic hours and he…he just stopped caring about what I do and what I don't do. That's fine, I'd rather they not ask questions and just continue with their lives as if nothing was new. Without Seimei here, I can't imagine how much my younger son is subjected to at the hands of his mother, but I'm pretty certain that nothing much has changed. The day I ran into him and this rather tall, older, earless blonde man, I could see a bandage on his forehead to cover some kind of injury; a clear indication that something still wasn't right in that home. I'm just glad Amia didn't ask anything about it. I don't know what he, or I, would have said in response to any questioning. I wonder if the blonde knows anything…and just who he was. The name sounds so familiar but I can't put my finger on it. Oh well, it's not important.
The day will soon come where I can file for divorce without worrying about repercussions and finally be free of my psychotic wife and can begin my new life with Amia and her son, Taro. And, who knows. Maybe, in time, Ritsuka will come to be able to acknowledge and tolerate me again and will join us. That is entirely up to him, though I don't know who in their right mind would choose to stay with a mother like Misaki, and I have no idea where else he'd go other than into the system for the next few years until he turns eighteen. Maybe he could move in with a friend or something; like Osamu, his best friend from his old school who was the daughter of the police officer-turned-chief who had been responsible for investigating Seimei's death. Only time will tell, but honestly, I hope that it's rather soon. I may have made a mistake with Misaki and my sons, but I won't make that mistake again. I have a second chance with Amia.
Am I truly a terrible person? A bad husband? A terrible father? Am I all of these things? Granted, I can't say that I'm a perfect person or that I've done everything-if anything-right in my life up until this point, but is it wrong of me to seek happiness? Is it wrong of me to try and correct the mistakes I've made in life and get my life back on track and going in the right direction? Perhaps I shouldn't have simply left Ritsuka behind during all of this, but in all honesty, I couldn't bring him with me. Other than hating me and baring several new injuries each time I see him, he seems to be doing alright. From what I've learned, he has a lot of new friends from that new school he goes to, as well as that Soubi guy and a couple other people he's mentioned in passing-Kio and Akira, I believe?-and he has an old elementary school teacher that worries over him and watches out for him even now. Things are alright with him, right? Then…why do I feel so guilty…?