I love Yu Yu Hakusho, but I've never written for it before. Thought it might be time to change that, so here we go! ...Will be updated irregularly. Sorry, guys.
In-ter-lude: noun, an intervening episode or period of time, a brief show inserted between the sections of a longer performance.
Interlude One
By The Anonymous Authoress
Hayaka Megumi would never forget the day that she almost lost her son.
The morning had been unremarkable. The family had woken up, her husband had prepared for his day, she had made breakfast, they had all eaten… the memory of it all blurred together with the countless repetitive mornings that had come before.
After her husband had departed for his office, Megumi had taken her young son Kichirou grocery shopping with her, just like she did every other Tuesday. On the way to the supermarket, she had consented to buy him a new ball to match his fast-changing obsession with games and sports.
Perhaps if Megumi had kept the ball inside its shopping bag, her son would not have been so tempted to play with it before they returned home. Perhaps if Megumi had not stopped to sample the fragrance of some flowers for sale, she would not have begun to chat with the shop owner. Perhaps if Megumi had paid a tiny bit more attention, she would have noticed her son wandering down the street and out of sight. Perhaps if Megumi had warned her son just one more time to be careful not to play in the street…
Perhaps another little boy would not have died that day.
But she didn't.
Megumi wished that she could have been more alert, more protective, more attentive to her son. She wished that she, like some other mothers, could have sensed that something was wrong. But the truth was that she didn't even hear the screech of tires, and had half-ignored the excited voices of the far-away crowd.
No, it wasn't until a good twenty minutes later, when the ambulance had gone and the crowd had begun to disperse, that Megumi first noticed her son was gone.
Megumi was not, by any means, a bad mother. She loved her son dearly. Any of the bystanders walking the street could attest to that fact after catching sight of the panicked woman abandoning her grocery bags to go on a mad sprint through the city blocks, calling Kichirou's name in a high, distressed voice.
After a few hastily interrogated strangers and a desperately-hailed taxi, she was finally reunited with her son. Kichirou was a bit bumped, a bit bruised, and a bit scraped, but otherwise— thankfully— whole and unharmed. Megumi remembered how he had smelled, how his hair had tickled her nose, and how he had squeaked in protest when she had clutched him to her chest. She also remembered the leftover shakiness in her own breath, and the coldness of relived droplets in the corners of her eyes. Megumi had never before thought that she could feel so utterly elated.
Then Megumi learned of the other boy.
Hayaka Megumi would never forget the day that someone gave their life to save her son.
She would never forget the horrible feeling of having almost lost her precious little Kichirou. She would never forget that some poor mother was going to experience that feeling forever.
And she would never, ever again be so inattentive to her son.