"Cute kid."
The Sumeragi matriarch raised an eyebrow at the offhand comment, every inch the head of an old, very wealthy and very powerful family. Compared to the languorous figure of the space-time witch reclining on a divan, they made a very odd match indeed; the older woman's dove-gray kimono, against Yuuko's fitted black dress - their only similarities found in their eyes. Both gazes rested for a moment on the tiny figure of the boy, so soon to become the next clan head.
Maru and Moro had taken charge of him within seconds of his entrance into the shop, dragging him by each arm towards a small child-sized table that had been positioned there just that morning when Yuuko had urged the sudden idea of redecorating upon them. The two girl-constructs were now regaling him with tales of a boy who worked for a magician in order to pay for a spell that would allow him to see. His green eyes were wide as he listened to the story and nibbled carefully on bits of cake that the girls had given him.
Another incongruous match, that. The wispy child's figure with one small cake crumb at the corner of his mouth – the only concession to childhood that careful training in manners allowed - and the enormous potential the boy actually contained.
But then, Yuuko's shop was full of things that didn't seem to match. Things that only Yuuko herself could find the partner for, no matter how strange the pairing seemed.
"I have a request, Yuuko-san. A 'wish' if you must call it that," Subaru's grandmother began, all firm business and priorities. "And it is not within my own power to fulfill - as I'm sure you are aware." She folded her hands, placing them delicately in her lap as she smoothly dropped into a formal kneeling position on the other side of the table.
"Hitsuzen is not within anyone's power to tamper with Sumeragi-san." The title fell off Yuuko's lips with a barely suppressed smirk, which was immediately covered with a glass of amber liquor as she took a lazy sip. Her cigarettes had been carefully tucked away into a drawer while small children were in the shop, but a single drink was harmless enough. "What you are asking... are you certain that it is not for the best to let fate run its own course? Your grandson is so closely wrapped up in the threads of possibility that adding another could choke him." She idly twirled a lock of her hair around the index finger of her free hand, spinning it slowly in circles through the air.
"If I do nothing, it will not be choking that he has to worry about." The old woman's eyes were burning, and her hands clenched into fists, wrinkling the fine fabric of her kimono. "He has been marked, Yuuko-san! Marked at birth, and twice marked just this past week!" All the ire seemed to drain from her when she finished, and she took a deep breath. "Forgive me. That was uncalled for."
Yuuko waved a dismissive hand. "Not uncalled for Sumeragi-san, though perhaps unnecessary. I know how much the boy means, to both you and others. For such a sincere wish, I wouldn't stand in your way. Even so, I cannot change a fate in motion."
"Then you can do nothing?" Subaru's grandmother sighed, the lines around the corners of her eyes suddenly seeming to increase.
"Not nothing." Yuuko smiled faintly. "A meeting may be hitsuzen, but what is free will, except choosing the circumstances?" Standing up, she tossed back the remains of her drink. "Let me speak to Subaru-kun." And she stretched, raising her hands above her head and lacing the fingers together, as though preparing for a period of strenuous exercise.
0-0-0-0
Subaru had sat quietly the entire time that Maru-chan and Moro-chan (as they had insisted upon being called) had told him stories. When he'd first walked into the shop, he'd had to fight the urge to fidget, bending his will towards keeping his hands complacently at his sides, so that he didn't appear as nervous as he felt. His Grandmother had long been trying to impress upon him the necessity of not letting his emotions get the better of him, and he wanted to succeed.
That didn't mean that sometimes his Grandmother's emotions didn't get the better of him. She'd been tense all day long and most of yesterday too, only relaxing when they'd finally found the shop that his grandmother had been looking for. She'd walked so quickly that Subaru had been afraid he wouldn't be able to keep up, and would be scolded. Thankfully, it had taken almost no time to discover the location of the small shop; his grandmother had unerringly walked towards the house – so much so, that Subaru thought she must have been there before, or at least cast a small enchantment to find the place. It was, in Subaru's opinion, the only way she could have found a house that was concealed so well between two other massive buildings. That brought a new wave of guilt, since Subaru knew that his grandmother was strict about using their family's power for 'minor things'.
Subaru bit his lower lip, trying as best he could to look attentive for Moro-chan as she bounced in her seat, describing the way the blind boy had added magic herbs to the supper he was cooking. In the back of his mind, he turned over the events of the day before, when everything had started. And he knew that it had been his fault. Even if he wasn't quite sure what he had done, the boy knew that his wandering from the park bench to the enormous Sakura tree had spooked his grandmother. She'd refused to let go of his hand for the rest of the day, and had been turning her head suddenly as though trying to catch someone sneaking up on them ever since.
"Hey kid."
He blinked, staring into half-lidded amber eyes that watched him mere inches from his face. A small squeak escaped him before he realized what had happened and he flushed, embarrassed. Hokuto-chan would have laughed at him if she'd been there; would have told him not to be a scaredy cat, and then held his hand tightly to make him feel better anyway. He wished suddenly that Grandmother had brought her with them from Kyoto. Hokuto-chan, at least, would have made sense.
"Hello," Subaru said politely instead, collecting the shreds of the manners that had been taught him. "Are you Yuuko-san?"
Sometime in the middle of his thoughts, she had left her conversation with Grandmother, and had come to stand in front of him, bent at the waist so that she stared straight into his eyes, her long black hair draping over her shoulders to lightly brush the ground. She smiled at him, tilting her head like a cat that had found a new toy and sat down on the floor beside him. There was no formality about her position at all - one leg bent at an angle as though she were trying to sit cross-legged, and the other leg bent upwards, elbow resting on top. All in all, she looked like a string-puppet, left to sit the way it had been dropped. It left Subaru feeling altogether too formal dressed in the traditional robes that his grandmother insisted he wore for all formal occasions.
"Not quite."
Subaru blinked. She was smirking at him with an amusement that he couldn't quite grasp the reason for. "But - "
"Call me Auntie Yuuko!" She told him suddenly, smiling widely. "So, Subaru-kun, do you know why you're here?"
Scrunching up his face in thought, he pondered for a moment, green eyes innocently locking with half-lidded amber ones. "Grandmother's upset," he commented finally with all the carefulness of one who was being brought up as the next clan head of The Sumeragi. "And she's here to ask your help."
"Well," Yuuko said, nodding her head slowly, "you're partially right. She is here to ask me for some advice. And I 'might' be able to help. But then – maybe not."
That drew a small frown of confusion from him. Not only was he not completely sure what Yuuko was supposed to help with in the first place – aside from something of his Grandmother's wishes – it was also decidedly unclear whether she'd be doing anything at all.
Taking in his cute pout and bewildered expression, Yuuko chuckled delightedly, and ruffled Subaru's hair, feathering the thick locks in all directions. Leaning in close, she lowered her voice until she was almost whispering into his ear. "Do you want to know a secret?"
"Unn!" Subaru nibbled the tip of his finger lightly, smiling over it. His happiness wilted slightly as he glanced over Yuuko's shoulder, where his Grandmother was sitting drinking her tea quietly, and listening to the babbles of Maru and Moro with a suffering look of patience. "But…won't…"
"This'll be between the two of us." Yuuko smirked conspiratorially, waving a finger in the air. "I promise it's not anything your grandmother needs to know, though, if that'll make you feel any better. In fact – it might upset her a little to find out, so you really should keep it a secret.
That did it for Subaru; his uncertainty vanished at the thought that it would upset his grandmother to learn something unnecessary in the first place. "Alright."
"It's called Hitsuzen."
"Hitsuzen?" The word came out in a hushed whisper, as Subaru leaned forwards curiously.
"Hitsuzen." Yuuko confirmed. "You might have heard it called fate – or something like that, though it's not really. Hitsuzen is 'what will be, will be'."
"So 'what' will be?"
Slouching down further Yuuko held up the pointer finger of each hand in front of her. "Let's say that two people meet, and they immediately feel a connection between them. What do you think they should do?"
"Umm…" Subaru frowned. "be friends? Or…"
Get married. At least, that's what Hokuto would have said if she'd been there. Lately all she could talk about was how she wanted to be a beautiful bride when she grew up, and that she had to start making her wedding dress now so that it would be perfect by the time she was sixteen – since any older was way to old to get married, and boys only liked pretty and youthful girls. She'd even made him try on the white party dress she had carefully cut the sleeves off of, since 'we're twins Subaru, and I can't change the dress while I'm wearing it!'.
Yuuko's eyes danced as though she could hear Hokuto's opinion on the matter. Subaru smiled a little back, though he had a feeling he didn't really understand the question, or what the right answer was supposed to be. Yuuko didn't look upset, so maybe she agreed with him.
"But maybe in this case, it would be very difficult for the two to be friends, Subaru-kun. These two people, they grew up with very different families, and they don't like a lot of the same things. They might argue a lot. They might even hurt each other. So the family of one of the people says they shouldn't see each other again." Yuuko's eyes didn't look happy any more, and the string puppet positioning of her arms and legs had tightened. Subaru was strangely unafraid. This was important. This was what he knew. It made his stomach tighten and the hair on his arms stand up to think that someone was relying on him to help them. This was like when Grandma took him to talk to the little girl whose mother had locked her in the basement for so long, and he'd had to help her to unlock those extra locks on the door so she didn't have to be a spirit anymore.
"If they have a connection, maybe they need to meet." Subaru felt his heart pounding suddenly. "And maybe it's better that they're different? If they like different things and know different things, then maybe if they're friends they can teach each other? Like how I showed Hokuto meditating to stop bad dreams, even though she had to spend the weekend with auntie baking cakes while I learned?"
"You don't think it's bad that they'd hurt each other?"
"But they're friends, right? If they're really friends, they wouldn't hurt each other. And they'd be lonely if they couldn't see each other again. I'd be lonely." Subaru thought of Hokuto, who he knew he had a 'connection' to. He could feel it. Sometimes when he was sleeping, he was pretty sure he could see it: a bright gold shimmering thread cutting through the darkness and piercing his heart without ever hurting him. It would be horrible to lose that thread – to know that he'd once had someone there with him always, and then to suddenly have to stand alone in the dark. "It would be sad…if people had to live alone."
Yuuko nodded and untwisted her limbs from the half cross-legged position and pressed her palms flat against the floor as though making a decision. "That is a very sad thing Subaru. But sometimes, even being friends can't change people. They still want some things, and like other things. Not all people are meant to be friends. Maybe, if those people met on a different day, when one of them was in a bad mood, they'd feel that connection, but they would be enemies. And they'd still fight. But it wouldn't hurt so much. Having a friend hurt you is the worst kind of hurting, Subaru-kun."
"But friends say sorry." Subaru scratched a fingernail against the fabric of his clothes. He felt hot and wished he could take off the outer layer of his robes. "Isn't that better than always fighting with someone?"
"Maybe." Yuuko tilted her head to the side as though asking him a question. "Only the two friends know if it's better."
"I think friends are always better."
0-0-0-0-0
Subaru was a little confused when he found out that his grandmother hadn't bought herself anything from the shop. It had seemed so important to her that she visit it, but all she'd done was drink tea with the owner. Did she need to have an important discussion with Yuuko-san? If that was why they'd come, why did they stay so long afterwards? After he had talked to Yuuko-san she had left to "check the stock" in the back of the shop and he and his grandmother had sat drinking tea for what felt like ages, while listening to Maru-chan and Moro-chan chatter. He was pretty sure his grandmother hadn't enjoyed the girls' stories that much…
Still, he was glad they'd visited the shop, since his grandmother seemed much less upset now. It really must have been an important conversation, since afterwards his grandmother seemed to forget all about his wandering off yesterday, and had even bought him a gift for "being patient all afternoon" (or maybe to make it up to Yuuko-san for drinking tea without buying anything else the shop had to offer). The gloves were nice, but quite plain, and he wished he didn't have to wear another layer of clothing in the warm spring heat. He didn't take them off though, because he didn't want to remind his grandmother that she was supposed to be upset with him.