Subtitle: On the Grave of Their Old Love: Part 2. From Shigure's point of view.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the song title. A/n: Cosleeping is quite common in Japan, so Shigure's request isn't that odd. Also, I just made up Haru and Rin's careers here.
She hoped that it would be over soon, but it wasn't. After twelve sleepless hours of Akito screaming, cursing and giving me death glares that would have reduced a weaker man to ashes, our daughter was born.
"She's beautiful! She looks just like you!" I proudly showed the baby, newly cleaned and wrapped in a pink blanket, to Akito.
"It doesn't. Get it away from me." She turned over, away from the baby and me.
"You really are Ren's daughter. Although, at least she'd look at her daughter…"
Akito was so easy to bait. She rolled over. "I'll hold the stupid thing." She allowed me to hand her the child.
She gazed at the baby, and then started to weep. I tried to comfort her, but she was inconsolable. That night, she cried herself to sleep.
--
After we returned from the hospital, things seemed to become a blur. The first night after we took Tsubaki home from the hospital- Akito declined to give the baby a name, and I had to call her something- Akito was not too pleased.
"Do you have to bring that thing into bed with me?"
"Yes, where are we going to put it?"
"Just keep it on your side of the bed. You wanted it, you take care of it. "
--
We soon settled into a routine. Diapers for Tsubaki. Bottles for her if Akito was nowhere to be found. Breast for Tsubaki if Akito could be persuaded. If Tsubaki wasn't too restive, I could try to find Akito in one of her hiding places. She had a few favorites- she loved the closet where the futons were, she would curl up under a sunny window almost any time and sometimes, I'd find her sleeping under the kitchen table. She would never come to meals with me, but I could figure out whether she had eaten or not by what was missing from the refrigerator.
--
Ayame came over with a bag overflowing with handmade baby clothes- he had been sewing since I told him, four months ago.
"Where is your lovely wife, Shigure?"
I shrugged. "Hiding somewhere."
Ayame looked a bit worried. "Well, I'm sure she would love my magnificent creations! I've made a variety of styles that a lovely girl or a strong boy could wear, since you've never told me what it was." He looked at Tsubaki, who was sleeping in my arms.
"She's a girl."
Akito shuffled through the open door and sat down on the floor. She didn't look well. Her skin had taken on a grayish pallor and her hair was tangled and dirty. She was still wearing my old yukata.
"Hello, Akito! Shigure was just telling me about your delicate and lovely daughter."
Akito just stared past him.
"Do you want to see the wonderfully designed and made outfits I've made for your beautiful daughter?"
Akito shook her head slowly, and started to weep.
I patted her shoulder. "Don't cry, Akito."
She buried her face in her hands. "I was so stupid. I thought it would be fine and I could be happy."
Ayame seemed to not know what to say for once.
"My life is over and Shigure is happy about it. He always wants me to feed the brat, and he always takes it to bed with him. He's probably happy I was stupid and got pregnant. "
I felt like I was frozen in place, and in the next hour, I kicked myself for ever thinking Ayame was a lightweight. It was he who directed a servant to lay out a futon for Akito to lay down on, it was he who called Hatori.
I tried to comfort her, but she lay down on the futon offered and refused to look at me or talk to me. She just whimpered.
Hatori walked in looking concerned. "What's going on?" His eyes took in the scene of me kneeling beside Akito who was curled into a howling, weeping mess. "Shigure, come with me."
We went into the next room and he slid the door closed behind me.
"What did you do to her?"
Tsubaki mewled and I held her a little closer. "I didn't do anything to her. Ayame just asked her if she wanted to see some of the baby clothes he made and she just started crying." I kept my mouth shut about what she had said. She acted like it was some sort of a sin to be happy about being a family together.
"So she was perfectly happy- smiling wide, cooing at the baby, and Ayame comes in with baby clothes, and suddenly she collapses into complete insanity?"
He'd gotten me. "Ok, maybe she was acting a little strange but she acts as if feeding her child or even sleeping in the same room as her own child would kill her."
Hatori shook his head. "I'll go and talk to her."
Tsubaki started to squirm and I rubbed her back to comfort her. Maybe I couldn't stay in the room with them, but I could certainly eavesdrop.
"Akito, what's wrong?"
I could hear Akito whimpering still.
"Akito, you can talk to me."
I heard Akito's voice. "He's going to leave, isn't he?" She started to whine.
What was she talking about? I never said anything about leaving.
"Has he said anything about that?", Hatori said.
"No…but he just seems so angry. He looks at me so coldly"
Hatori's voice was gentle. "Akito, Shigure loves you. Really, sometimes he doesn't show it…"
Tsubaki started to root at my chest.
Akito was quiet for a bit, and then she spoke. "He was happy. He'd look at my belly and smile. He wanted me to buy baby clothes, and name it. I couldn't do it. I don't want to even look at it, or be in the same room with it. He seems so hurt that I don't love it."
Tsubaki choose this time to start wailing. There was no way I could eavesdrop with Tsubaki making such a racket. I went to the kitchen and started to warm a bottle. Ayame was sitting there quietly, sipping tea.
"So how is Akito?"
I shook my head. The bottle was warmed, and I tried to feed Tsubaki. Tried being the word. She turned her head and wailed louder.
I sighed. "She'll take a breast in a minute, but sometimes she won't take to the bottle."
I jiggled her a bit, hoping she'd calm down. Ayame just watched quietly. I felt a bit nervous. A quiet Ayame? I couldn't quite grasp it.
Tsubaki finally took the bottle, and I filled the resulting silence by saying "You're quiet, Ayame."
"When Akito was that age, she'd stare at you for at least two minutes straight. But Tsubaki is totally different, even though they look the same."
Tsubaki seemed nearly finished with her bottle. "She's a normal child. Akito was possessed by a spirit."
Ayame shifted in his seat. "Everything seems so different now. The bond seemed so real and vital at the time, but when I look at Akito now, she seems so pitiful."
Maybe she had always been pitiful, but still, she was one of the most real things in my world.
Hatori walked in, looking guilty. "She's sleeping now. Don't wake her."
--
Maybe it was Hatori's visit, but after that day, she improved slightly. She mostly slept on the futon downstairs. She'd sometimes lay the baby on the futon and stare at it, or just doze there while the baby slept. She had at least picked a spot instead of changing all the time, but her eating hadn't gotten much better. I had tried to help by having foods that could be eaten cold and with the hands in the fridge, hoping that she'd eat more if she could eat without anyone seeing. Haru said that he and maybe Rin would be coming over for a look at the baby. Maybe he was able to forgive her now after everything that had happened.
I found myself going somewhat afield in search of something Akito would eat. I remembered sometimes that I could get Akito to eat when no one else could. I'd bring her little treats. She'd stare at them scornfully, but she'd put them aside, and wrappers and messy fingers would appear.
When I saw the cupcakes, I knew they were perfect. That day, she licked icing from her lips and said that maybe she would take entrance exams for college. She smiled and I felt her slipping into a wider world, a world where my butterfly would flit to many different flowers.
When I returned, Haru was there, holding the baby. I gave Akito the cupcakes. She refused them, as I knew she would, but her long looks at them made me sure that the second I walked out of the room, she'd eat them all. When I ate one, she looked like she wanted to eat it directly out of my hand.
Haru watched most of this quietly, speaking up here and there. Haru had really grown in the last two years. Not physically, but he had a quieter, more mature air about him. After Tsubaki had had one of her spectacular spit ups, Haru quietly came with me. He called Rin about my invitation to dinner, and we moved to the kitchen.
I poured him a glass of wine. It was actually eel tonight. I had only said an eel dinner because I noticed that Akito would often clean her plate of eel when we were at the main house.
"You came to see the baby, Haru? I wouldn't have expected you to come."
He was quiet for a moment. "I thought someone should come and visit. I mean, should I avoid her for the rest of my life? I thought I couldn't forgive her for what she did to Rin, but Yuki is right. Even if I don't forgive her, even if I blame her for the rest of my life, it can't change what happened."
After that, I heard a bit from someone who didn't share that philosophy. I was surprised that Akito took being berated so well, but when she yelled shut up, I knew it was time to come into the scene.
It seemed that Rin had berated Akito, thinking she was Ren. I guess she did look more like her, with her hair long. Rin sat down at the table. I poured her a glass of wine and she drained it quickly.
"Rin!", Haru said.
I just smiled. "If she wants to beat me in a drinking contest, she'll need to do more than that."
She glared at me. "I don't understand you!" Whether she meant me or Haru, I didn't know, so I continued sipping my wine.
"Understand me or not, we have eel, wine, and heck, I've got something that will make you laugh."
Rin brushed her bangs off her face and scowled. "I don't see how anything can be funny with Akito in the next room."
I drank some more of my wine. "I can think of plenty of things that are funny with Akito in the next room. Heck, I can think of plenty of things that are funny with Akito in the same room."
Rin was keeping pace with me on the wine, but didn't say anything more.
Haru put his arm around her. "I came here because I think that not seeing Akito makes it worse. It's been two years since the curse broke, but we still carry it around. I mean, Rin's preparing for her first solo art show, and I'm going to find work under a fashion designer. I thought of helping Ayame, but I decided I didn't even want to be that close to the Sohmas. In all that time, I've maybe seen Akito once, but we still act as if Akito is important to our new lives."
Rin glared at him and continued drinking. I guessed that what he said was true. Everyone had drifted away to new lives and new feelings. Even though I was happy about some of the changes, it was lonely sometimes.
Haru looked up. "Are you…crying?!"
I wiped my eye and shook my head. "Well, I'll show you what was so funny." I changed Tsubaki into a silly outfit, and they did laugh. The evening went forth on a happier note from time forth, until I sent the kids off to bed.
--
Akito was curled up on her futon. There was enough space for two, since she was so thin now from not eating. I lay down beside her and put the baby in her arms. She looked at it disapprovingly, as if it was at fault for her misery.
I made a gibe about her sulking, and she replied with a lie about missing the main house. Both of us knew it wasn't true, but maybe it was time to return.
