I have absolutely no excuse for this, except a tiny detail of the manga's epilogue and my personal deep conviction that Kanone is German. You'll get it if you read.
Or not.
Manga-based, again ; if you haven't read it you'll get this even less.
Warnings : Only a very tiny bit of mentioned violence, for once, but a whole lot of cursing even though Kousuke's not in this one. He might have met his match, haha. Not a lot of spoilers, but pretty big ones. For your sake, do not read this unless you've read up to volume 13 or heard about it, and it'd be better to read/know about the epilogue too.
Then again, this is probably too confusing to actually give away much.
Disclaimer : Still not mine, but I'm not giving up. Shirodaira Kyou, Mizuno Eita, I am watching youuu.
You ring.
The door opens.
The woman that opens the door has brown hair, cut short so they don't fall into her eyes, and matching brown eyes — very plain eyes, really, which surprises you a little. She looks like she might be fourty at most — at most, and for a fleeting second you wonder how old she was when she had her child. But then she's looking straight at you, a defying, haughty glare, like you're nothing more than a worm bothering her. And you're fairly sure that it would make anyone else than you actually feel like that.
You smile cheerfully and say : "Hello, Miss Hilbert. Forgive me but I'm going to bother you for quite a while."
o
You barely need to do any explaining, actually ; she's been warned, of course.
"So you're the agent I'm supposed to host ?" she cuts sharply through your introduction.
The way she looks you over from head to toe clearly tells that she is not impressed.
"And protect, yes. I'm glad to have you as my host and bodyguard," you say (automatically refraining the polite bow you've become used to over the last few years).
"I'm not," the woman groans, and you smile. That showed in her attitude, too ; but work is work, and you both know that she isn't in any position to refuse.
She lets you in, but turns her back to you almost immediately and never once checks that you're following.
"Care for tea ?" she asks once she's reached the kitchen, seemingly more out of reflex and politeness than anything else.
"Thank you, that would be delightful."
She scowls slightly, as if she'd hoped you'd say no.
She leads you not to a kitchen, but to a small, cosy living-room with a sofa and two plush armchairs — a lot of furniture for a lone woman, but this is simply yet another detail that you carefully store away. The woman leaves you alone for some time ; she uses an old kettle and a full porcelain tea-service, and the way she arranges the cups and pours the steaming liquid tells of old habits. You think of English family tea-time and children's laughter as you take your first sip.
The tea is delicious.
She snorts when you tell her so, but you smile.
o
It's not exactly possible to make small talk with your host, but you still try. When she starts glaring at you, though, you sigh and resign yourself to get to your point.
"By the way," you start, and you refrain a smirk when you see her almost rolling her eyes.
You lay back in the comfortable couch, but don't change your expression or your tone, as if this topic had no more importance than the previous one.
"I've met your son," you say. "A few months ago, on my last job."
She doesn't look up from her cup. "Mustn't have been boring then," is all she says.
You stare at her, calmly sipping her tea, and wonder whether she knows that her son is dead.
"You must have met little Rutherford as well then, I suppose ?" she asks after a few more silent sips.
You blink and smile cheerily. "Ah, not so little anymore," you answer in a light, practically singing voice. "Almost twenty already."
She doesn't even twitch, you'll give her that ; but you think you can almost see the rush of thoughts flashing behind her eyes. But her voice keeps as deadly calm as ever and she just says : "Time flies. How is he doing ?"
"Oh, he's doing rather fine."
"Bullshit."
You start. She sets her cup down on the table and now she is looking at you, staring straight into your eyes.
Her mouth twists hard and her brows are frowning deeply above her glaring eyes. "Unless we aren't talking about the little boy I practically raised in stead of his mother, he must be completely broken right now."
You stare back into her eyes, harsh and painful now, and you don't have any doubts left.
You carefully set down your own cup of tea, and say without looking up : "Yes, he did break down, although he of course wouldn't let me see ; but I am certain that he's okay now. Not perfect, not like nothing's happened and not pretending it either, but he's got back to hoping."
You smile.
Evangeline shakes her head and sighs, "That boy..." She leaves that beginning of a sentence hanging alone in the air, then dismisses it with a shrug and a bored "Never mind."
You would give a lot to know what she was going to say, but you just smile softly and say, "Kanone hoped, too."
o
"Admit it," Evangeline spitefully mutters a little while later, "you just wanted to talk about him with me."
You simply smile again. "Don't you ?"
She looks up, but not at you ; her face is unreadable, her eyes far away in thought. You imagine that she would take a drag of her cigarette if she had one, and puff out a cloud of smoke ; she would look just like another woman you know, thinking about the same boys — and like that woman, she will start talking eventually.
o
"I'm not big on maternal instincts, you know," she blurts out all of a sudden after a long minute of silence, and you smile again.
She's started.
I haven't seen any of them for years now, Kanone or Rutherford or any of the other little fucked-up kids. I only met some of them, the others, long ago, but I used to hear so much about them... You know that little Ryouko girl ? I bet you do. I took her in for some time when her parents got killed. Some girl she was ! Practically a boy. I actually liked her a little, she was just like how I would've expected my child to be if it had been a girl. A girl Kanone, can you imagine...
Of course that didn't go well, could never have with kids like these ; Kanone was rather fond of her in some weird way, I think, and Rutherford didn't care enough to dislike her, but she ended up hating both of them with a passion. What a time it was... Had to move all the knives to a new hiding place every day. That's how I discovered that Kanone had smuggled in a whole litter of newborn kittens in the attic, by the way. I must admit I was impressed, although angry of course ; he'd managed to hide them from me for over a week and only two of them died. Or three, can't remember. The white one stayed around for years, that I do remember clearly. That stubborn thing wasn't afraid of gunshots. Kanone loved it, of course, but he loved every single one of them to death.
Anyway.
Anyway little Ryouko didn't like me too much — I'm sure I was nothing like her beloved momma or even her dad — but she never forgot I did take care of her somewhat when she needed it, so she kept writing to me over the years after she went back to Japan. So even though I've only met that Kousuke boy once or twice, I know a lot about him, more than you'd probably imagine. I'm sure he'd freak out, since he probably forgot all about me. Kanone talked about him a little too, sometimes, when he called, but most of what he told me was that Kousuke was a moron. They all seem to agree on that.
Whatever. It's been long, anyway, since Ryouko's last letter. She didn't write to me about Kanone. I think she never really thought of me as "Kanone's mom", actually, because she barely ever mentioned him and I know she kept disliking him over the years but she still wrote to me, as Evangeline, the woman who once kind of took care of her. So maybe that's just why, maybe she just didn't think of me. Or maybe she simply couldn't bring herself to.
I think that's more like it.
But the thing is, Rutherford, he didn't call or write or anything either, you know. I practically raised him, though I'm positive he never thought of me as a new mother either, just like I never saw him as another son — but still. Out of all the people that could have told me, I'd have hated it less if it'd been him. Instead I got a call from some Watcher woman — and I hate those lazy Watchers assholes — and she just dropped it like that, like a fucking bomb, "Are you Evangeline Hilbert ? Your son Kanone was shot yesterday. I'm very sorry."
Yeah, right, you bullshitting little fuck. Sorry for who ? I was sorry, right, God knows I was sorry, and I...
I.
I loved my son, you know. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise ; they don't know anything. He didn't know anything. I loved that fucking idiot, with all my heart, since the moment I laid eyes on him — you can be a killer, you can be the toughest woman in the universe, but you can't not love something you've cared for, worried for, suffered for and carried inside you for nine fucking months. You might not know this, you, but I tell you now : you can't not love it, I couldn't not love him. I'm a killer, I gave birth to a killer, I made him a killer and I made him enjoy killing and I know I'm probably the worst mother there ever was. I know I fucked him up even more than he would have been anyway and I always knew, I always knew he was only ever going to kill until he got killed, I always knew he would have to be killed eventually. And I knew I might be the one to pull the trigger. I knew he shouldn't be allowed to live, should never have been born, I knew I should never have given birth to him and he was going to, had to die before I did, but — still.
It hurt, when I heard it. It hurt.
I loved him, you know.
She shakes her head and turns away, and actually sneaks a hand up to wipe her eye, so quick and so swift you can pretend not to have noticed.
"You happy now ?" she says, trying to snarl but her voice is still thick and shaky.
"You could say that," you whisper, but you're not really talking to her and she didn't really expect an answer.
She takes back her tea cup and raises it up to her mouth, holding it with both hands, much like a shield of some sort. She takes a sip, halfheartedly, but her mind is still far from it ; away to long-gone times of the closest thing to bliss she could ever give to her child.
The cup clinks when she sets it back down on its saucer.
"Emotional talk is over now !" she states in a suddenly loud voice, as if talking louder would give her more credibility and erase the previous moments.
You shake your head with yet another discreetly amused grin, but indulge her and simply hand her your tea cup when she stands up and starts cleaning up. "Back to work," you agree.
"Exactly. How should I call you, anyway ?" You open your mouth, automatic answer all ready, but she doesn't wait for it. "I know you're not supposed to tell me your name, actual one or current one, but it's just disturbing not to have anything to call you. So make up a name or I will."
You almost laugh, but instead you just smile (once more), simple, soft and warm, and whisper :
"Call me Hiyono, please."