Yuri woke up in his room, the room that had always been his room, with the sun coming in through the blinds. His first reaction was panic—the sun was up already, and he wasn't. And then he remembered: He'd been fired ... and in any case it was Saturday (not that that necessarily decreased his workload; often it just shifted its locus).

Events of the previous night ran through his mind, stumbled and looped, stuck on the hand he'd raised to Kaede. Even if she'd done something wrong, she was a child ... and she hadn't. She'd been brave and enterprising and had wanted to help, and he ...

And he...

It didn't matter that the blow hadn't landed. However briefly, he'd succumbed to temptation. And frankly, if Kotetsu had seen fit to beat him to a bloody pulp, he'd have made no attempt to defend himself. He of all people.

He of all people. He who believed in justice.

But Kotetsu hadn't raised so much as a finger against him. Kotetsu had reached out to someone who didn't deserve anything, didn't deserve anything better than scorn, and in his astonishment Yuri had had no words for the shelter of Wild Tiger's mask and Kotetsu's hat. He'd sat there in the half-light, silent, face hidden, tears running down that already-sodden mask and dripping off the end of his nose, beyond embarrassment, beyond pain, for a time even beyond gratitude.

Kotetsu hadn't been angry. In an evening of unsettling and impossible things, that was the most unsettling and impossible of all.

Kotetsu hadn't been angry.

Nor had Kaede. Frightened, yes, at first—Yuri didn't blame her, any more than he had when she found his eye flames frightening (they were)—but when he'd finally pulled himself together enough to offer the apology that he, in fairness, owed a dozen times over, she'd simply smiled and accepted it.

She'd accepted it. She'd accepted him. Kotetsu had too. This despite Yuri's wrongdoing, his weakness, his...

They accepted it. No recriminations. No grudges.

Normally Yuri would have saved them the trouble of the latter. He could hold a grudge. It was something he did as a matter of course. Anything else would have made Lunatic's work impossible. Wrongdoing couldn't be left lying around like litter on the street (and whatever had happened, he wondered, to the paper cone he had discarded?).

And yet...

Yuri eased himself out of bed, padded barefoot over to the window and peered out the blinds, into the sunlight. When he had been younger, Saturday was a good day, a happy day. Even the word inspired a smile, just as it was doing now. (Which was ironic, considering the day's nominal connection with the gloomy and leaden planet Saturn, but for the moment Yuri would suspend judgment, would accept the incongruous smile. For surely if Kotetsu and Kaede could accept him, he could accept that.)

The sunlight was very beautiful.

The world was looking pretty good, too.

Yuri changed into his around-the-house clothes, made his way to the bathroom, and went through his usual morning ritual. Wash off his carefully applied makeup (he had to sleep in it, in case Mama needed anything in the middle of the night), shave, apply the whole business again ... honestly, he might as well be a woman, all the time he had to spend in front of a mirror every damn day. He pulled his hair back, something he normally did not do if he didn't anticipate going out, but he felt like sprucing himself up a little. It was a special day. Kotetsu had said so.

Oh, wait. That had been yesterday, when he'd been fired.

He should have been bitter. He supposed he was. He'd been good at his job, which was a good thing in itself, but all the more impressive considering that he had no business being in it—not at his age. Beyond the position indicated on his initial application for employment at the Justice Bureau, none of it really had been his choice. Openings had appeared, Yuri had been selected to fill them, and there he'd been, until someone else died, or had a breakdown, or accepted an offer he couldn't refuse, or was convicted...

Yuri tried not to dwell on the people who had been steps on his ladder of advancement. Particularly not Judge Ross, whom he'd most recently replaced, and whom everyone had agreed was as forthright and upstanding as Yuri could ever hope to be. Well, that was what they'd said until he was brought up on child molestation charges. Yuri tried very hard not to think about it, and usually he succeeded. Now he had his own job loss to mourn. Like Kotetsu. Like his father.

It was better to have the rug yanked out from under one all at once and simply come crashing down, than to collapse in gradual stages, watch helplessly as it all ran out between one's fingers, wonder endlessly, over and over, where to go, what to do, how to still call oneself a man.

You're gonna be okay. If anybody has a problem with the way you look, they've got Wild Tiger to answer to.

If Kotetsu could wear that outrageous getup, hold down that ridiculous job, and still call himself a man, Yuri could coat his scars with concealer, be unemployed, and do the same. (Speaking of which, he really did need to update his résumé. Monday, he told himself.)

Anyway, unemployment was relative.

Even when overloaded with work, Yuri always managed to keep the refrigerator decently stocked. Eggs, milk, butter, thick-sliced bread ... a little rummaging in the cabinets also produced cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and a large mixing bowl. Yuri buttoned his shirt, rolled up his sleeves, and set to work.

"Yuri, dear?" Not surprisingly, the noise had attracted his mother's attention. "What is my Yuri busy with this morning?"

"I'm making French toast, Mama." For the first time since I was a teenager.

"Aren't you smart! Did you see what the good fairies brought us last night?"

Despite himself and what was probably coming, Yuri smiled. "Tell me what it was, Mama."

"The most beautiful bunch of white roses! I've never seen so many all at once."

Yuri coated the first slice of bread and laid it in the skillet. Over the sizzling, he told her, "I'm glad you like them."

"I wish your Papa hadn't left so early. I need to thank him. And he should have stayed to eat your French toast, if you're going to go to the trouble of making it."

Yuri's smile faded only a little. "We can still enjoy it."

"And the flowers."

"And the flowers," Yuri agreed. He had coated another slice of bread and added it to the skillet. In a few minutes those two were done, and he quickly transferred them to a plate. "Do you want powdered sugar on yours?"

She always did.

Too many slices of French toast later, Yuri was still smiling. It felt so luxurious and decadent to have a full stomach and sit staring at the sunlight while ignoring the breakfast dishes. His mother would talk about doing them and then wander off and rearrange the photos on the credenza in the living room. He would wash them and dry them, put them in the cupboard where they would await the next meal or his mother's next bout of lucidity, whichever.

He wondered if Kotetsu and Kaede even remembered it all now. Something itched at his brain, telling him it would be fitting if they didn't, if they forgot as well. He wouldn't hold it against them. There was, after all, no injustice in that unconscious act.

They had been kind, and it was enough that he remembered.

Author's note: I titled this story "Forgiveness" because, since it's told through Yuri's consciousness, the word can't appear within it. It's something that literally would not occur to him. But even if the word itself eludes him, he craves the act, and he can't reject it when it's offered with neither condescension nor sentimentality.