(A/N): I appreciate your patience and I'm almost done with training so I should be able to crank them out faster after this next week. From this point forward it will mainly be Izumi's point of view with the occasional alternate input of other characters. Kurama will have a chapter in his point of view once he waltzes in here. Should be soon.
Big thanks to Soto and NightlyRowenTree for the reviews. I may get flack for Kashi and Atsuko this chapter. Curious to your thoughts.
~Yasha's Sis
Chapter 8
Regrets
The shock of being separated from him is more than I can describe. It hurt. Not a physical sensation like my death or a mental one from the space before. My soul ached at the loss. A need unlike any other welled within me and my soul moved, searching for the sprit I learned as well as my own. To my amazement he was still there, thriving and angry and searching for me as desperately as I was for him. It was strange that when I reached for him, he didn't seem to full recognize me. It was as if he was forgetting what I felt like.
Odd.
I pulled back slightly and followed the tendril of his spirit which was slowly binding itself fully to the fleshy substance containing it.
Wait-
Flesh?
The moment Yusuke spotted Katsukashi standing in the archway between the kitchen and living room, he turned right around and stomped back upstairs without a word. Atsuko yelled profanity at him and stalked up the steps to try and drag him back down stairs but Izumi knew her brother. He'd be out of the window and half way down the block before Atsuko could finish kicking down the door. A part of her wanted to join him, but running away wasn't an option right now, not when she could clearly see the look of anguish Yusuke's immediate rejection had given him.
No.
She wanted Katsukashi to truly understand.
It'd hurt more this way.
"You need to leave." Kashi's eyes snapped to her and his face tightened.
"Mimi-"
"No!" Izumi snarled before calming herself and shaking her head. "You left us without a fight, Katsukashi." He flinched at his name. "You have no right to waltz back into our lives without warning and act like nothing's changed."
Something flickered in his eyes and this hand tightened briefly. She could see his heart breaking with the words, shredding itself with self-hatred and shame.
She didn't care.
It had almost broken Yusuke when he heard the old man turn them out. He had never loved someone so much and had them betray him so callously, at least their mother said good bye before she turned them out to a stranger.
Izumi wouldn't let another person hurt her brother and leave without retribution. So she kept her eyes cold, her voice chilled and her heart hard.
"Izumi…" He expected Yusuke's flight, the boy turned tail when he came up against something that was too emotionally difficult to deal with, but Izumi was always the understanding one. She was the voice of reason, restraint. To have her condemn his actions was a censure worse than all the screaming and hitting Yusuke would have tried to do.
"Leave."
Katsukashi swallowed thickly, his dark gaze dropping from hers after a long moment. Shakily, he pulled out an envelope and held it out to the girl. Izumi didn't even look at it. She merely raised her hand to point at the door. Yusuke would have felt a flash of sympathy at the broken stature of a man they had always considered strong. He probably would have caved at the hitched breath, but Izumi saw the points to prod and deliberately stabbed them to get the full effect.
The bear of a man took a shuddering breath and headed towards the door before sending one last wan smile over his shoulder and placing the envelope on the little table beside the door. "I'm glad I saw you both once more before the… well… I love you. Both of you. And I never wanted to let you go."
Despite herself, Izumi's lip trembled.
He paused as if to say more but by that point Atsuko was stomping down the stairs muttering about brats and escape artists and the moment passed. Kashi closed the door softly behind him. Izumi didn't even wait until Atsuko realized their former guardian had left before she ignored the older woman and walked up to her brother's room, easily stepping over the splintered wood on the ground and exiting the window to track him down.
The last thing either of them wanted right now, was to be alone.
~*ADMW*~
It's been six months and Kashi hadn't come back to their home. Not to say he hadn't tried contacting them in other ways.
Yusuke was torn between being angry and relieved but Izumi was nothing but smiles and doing everything in her power to put Yusuke into thinking about something else. She'd take the burden of the man's broken features and keep them from hurting her brother. She'd tease Yusuke and hit him and even egg Kazuma into spending time with the twins if it kept the older twin occupied and distracted from the curiosity of Katsukashi's visit.
Her brother couldn't care less about why the man turned back up on their doorstep. Yusuke just wanted to inflict pain of an equivalent nature on their former guardian until the older male understood what his abandonment did to them, and then, simplistic and lovable idiot that her brother was, he'd forgive Katsukashi and continue as if nothing happened.
Because that was Yusuke. If he cared, nothing could keep him from coming back to you once you acknowledged and repented for what you did wrong. Atsuko never did, so she had yet to gain his respect again but were their mother ever sober enough to try to have a civil conversation with her first born, her brother would welcome her back with his usual gruff affection.
Yusuke's heart, beneath all the gruffness and sarcasm, was as welcoming and warm as a mother to her babe if you knew how to reach it.
Izumi on the other hand, though far slower to rile, burned longer and harsher than her brother when wronged. She could hold a grudge with the miserly tenacity of a pennypincher with their coin. When the twins were six, it took weeks to crack her cool reception of Yusuke after he called one of drawings ugly and tore it in half. Longer still to return to the carefree nature the two held with one another that whenever disrupted was obvious to everyone in proximity to the pair. So Izumi was willing, able, and determined to keep Katukashi out their life long after the man was buried and gone and no longer a source of potential discomfort.
But she failed to understand one thing that kept her from executing the erasure of all things Kashi related.
Kashi knew them better than their own mother. By not reading whatever letter he left on the stand and urging their mother to get rid of it, Izumi was left with the irritating curiosity as to why Katsukashi had returned in the first place. It had been years since they last saw him with no contact or even a glimpse of one another. Why now? What could he possibly want from them at this point? Forgiveness? Reconciliation?
Izumi's lip curled slightly as she sat at the edge of her bed facing the closet.
He didn't deserve these things and he knew it otherwise he wouldn't have left so quickly. But…
Izumi thought the singular envelope he left on the stand would be the last evidence of the man.
She was wrong.
There were more letters, each addressed to the twins and slowly piling up in a shoe box Atsuko placed them in. Her brother didn't have the heart to throw them away and the only thing that stayed her hand was that Yusuke asked her not to. Izumi relented and Yusuke promptly forgot about the slow growing correspondence as he turned back to routine, eager to numb the pain with activity. But Kashi knew them, knew that while Yusuke was most likely to forgive him in person, he would not gain any recognition in total if Izumi put her mind to shutting him out, so the letters came. Building and building until there were two shoe boxes instead of one and another package that came for the twins that Atsuko grumbled at and tossed in Izumi's closet when the girl refused to open it until curiosity was warring with righteous anger.
Which is why she now looked at the box stationed at the foot of her bed while Yusuke was playing (fighting) with Kazuma and the boys.
It was probably a soccer ball and a martial arts uniform, something Yusuke or Izumi had asked him for before they were taken- no abandoned.
It won't matter, she told herself. Kashi made his choice. Why should they have to forgive him for hurting them? Why should she let him back into their lives only for him to do it again?
The young girl scowled as she reached for the scissors to cut open the package. She didn't get why he was doing this. They made it obvious they didn't want to deal with him. Avoided answering whatever letters he sent and when he called, Izumi would loudly tell her mother that she didn't want to speak with him. Atsuko knew better then to ask Yusuke after the first time. It was like Kashi needed their forgiveness-
Izumi stared at the neat bundled stacks placed side by side and tied with twine. They were letters. More letters. Each dated and arranged in chronological order.
Each stamped with 'Return to Sender' in rust colored ink.
Izumi carefully pulled the oldest, slightly battered stack out and her jaw clenched when she realized it was dated the day after they left Kashi's house.
Why had the twins never heard of them until now? Why would he write all these letters?
The small girl hesitated as her thumb hooked under the ledge. On one hand she wanted to burn all of the letters and push this entire ordeal behind her but on the other, it wasn't like Kashi to leave something unfinished.
These letters, dating back to years, was concerning, interesting. A mystery she itched to understand. Her lips pursed and she let her finger flick, tearing the fold. She'd read one just to see what he wanted.
Just one…
~*ADMW*~
"'Zumi?"
She blinked, chocolate eyes focusing on the image before her at the foreign touch and voice which drew her from her mind.
Yusuke.
Her brother was scowling and to any who didn't know him, they would have taken the look for one of irritation but she saw the concern in his eyes, the tightness of his jaw, and the telling gentleness of his hand on her arm. He was worried.
"'Zumi, what-?"
Her gaze drifted down to the piles and piles of torn envelopes and scattered correspondence. The boxes that once held the letters were tossed aside and emptied of their contents, partially obstructing the door. Her brother was kneeling in the middle of the paper storm, crumpling the carefully arranged piles the girl had formed in her search.
A dull throbbing pulsed at the base of her chest at the crinkle of paper.
"923."
Yusuke's brow quirked at the number, worry deepening at her blank stare focused on the careful script of the sheet in her hands.
"That supposed to mean something to me?"
Izumi's voice was without inflection as she clarified. "Katsukashi sent 923 letters. They started the day after we left."
I'm sorry.
I never wanted to let you go.
I'm trying-
Hoping-
Please-
Yusuke made a noise that was somewhere between a scoff and a whine. In another mindset, she would have thought it hilarious.
"Every day. He sent one every day, but-"
I don't deserve your forgiveness, but-
I love you so much.
Please-
I never meant-
I couldn't watch-
They took her from me and I couldn't lose you both too!
"But-" Her fingers tightened on the sheet in her grip.
The elder twin swallowed, she could almost visualize the bob of his not yet pronounced adam's apple.
"But what? We never got any-" He shifted again, enough to expose the rust red ink of the return to sender stamp.
I love you-
Love you-
Love you-
Dying-
She could sense his question even though he stopped talking. Why hadn't they gotten them? What happened? And something deep within Izumi strained at the bafflement in his voice.
Don't let him think on it. Keep him distracted, keep him safe. Direct his attention from the truth because this would break him all over again. As much as he displayed his scorn to Atsuko, he trusted certain things not to be done.
"He's dying." Izumi said into the silence, burying the ache and burn of betrayal with an ease that tugged at something dark in her mind that made her dream of trains, brown eyes and twisted metal.
Yusuke's voice was a croak. "What?"
So she handed him the letter, fingers sliding off the sheet with a numbness that should have made Yusuke worried had he not been devouring the words like a man starved. Her eyes traced the expressions that flickered across his face while her own where shuttered and still as stone.
Confusion, worry, anger, anguish…
They danced across Yusuke's face like lines on a script and the vulnerability made her hate Kashi just a little for using his encroaching death to pull at their sympathy.
But, a quiet voice noted, he never wanted to tell you.
Which was true. The initial note on the top of the box said that this wasn't to be opened until after the funeral. A funeral that had not occurred as far a she knew so this was premature. The twins were never supposed to know he was dying, not until after he passed so that they wouldn't feel obligated to see him. Kashi never liked pity, and abhorred coercion of innocents even less. It would be cruel, to him, to tell children that a loved one didn't have much longer to live. A sentiment, at other times, Izumi would sneer at but right now…
"What's wrong with him?" The crack in his voice should have embarrassed him but Yusuke didn't even notice. It made that strained part inside her tear just a bit.
The earlier letters explained what it was but cancer, to someone as unread as Yusuke, would mean little. It also didn't matter. What use was knowing what was wrong when they could do nothing about the sickness? No, their focus needed to be on what they were going to do next. There was no point agonizing over their lack of use in that area. "His body is old," She said instead, wincing even as she did because of the inadequacy of that response. Yusuke's skeptical face was enough of a censure. "He has cancer, it happens sometimes when people get older, their cells start to multiply without any reason or purpose until it's harmful to the body. Yusuke," Izumi said sharply when her brother's eyes started to darken once he realized he could do little to aid in helping the other man get better. "What do you want to do?"
The elder twin's gaze dropped back to the missive half crumpled in his fist.
She knew what he was going to say before he even said it.
"We go kick his ass."
Even though she knew what was about to happen, she couldn't help the burst of laughter that escaped her at the no nonsense declaration.
"That bastard knew he was about to keel over and didn't give us a heads up or anything." The boy continued unperturbed with his sister's noise of amusement. "What the hell does he mean, You better not be reading this until after I die?! He can't die until I've beaten the tar out of him for missing out on your last three seasons of soccer! Jerk." He stood with a more natural scowl on his face now and cocked his hip to the side as he looked down at her. "What are you still sitting around for? Get up, before the old codger kicks the bucket and I have to listen to some idiot spout mushy crap over the man's grave."
Izumi found herself smiling at her brother as he, with more care than his words implied, folded the letter back up and placed it on Izumi's bed.
She pulled herself to her feet and rolled her eyes when the boy charged out her room and down the stairs.
"What lit a fire under his ass, Izumi?"
Dark chocolate eyes fixed on the groggy face of Urameshi Atsuko, gaze cooling rapidly at her mother's carefree yawn.
"If he weren't dying, you wouldn't have let him see us?" Atsuko froze, gaze flickering back to her daughter's too dark eyes. There was a message there and Atsuko felt her skin prickle at the chilly tone of her daughter.
"Izumi-"
"The truth." The girl interrupted quietly.
The elder Urameshi female watched Izumi for a long moment before smirking. "No. Probably not."
"And the letters?"
Atsuko propped her hip on the doorframe. "You never would have known."
The young girl blinked slowly and said nothing.
"Izumi! Hurry the hell up!" Neither female moved for a second and then Izumi shook her head slightly and headed for the door.
"I'm coming brat!" She shouted back just before reaching the threshold that her mother had yet to vacate.
"Nothing he could have said would make the pain any better." The comment was matter-of-fact, tone speaking of personal experience, and it drew Izumi to a halt. She had almost forgotten Atsuko was taken from him too. That time, he had fought to bring her back only to be stopped because the courts recognized her father as Atsuko's legal guardian.
Izumi's gaze drew to her mother's. Atsuko probably thought she was protecting them by ending contact abruptly and not dragging out the process. Kashi probably hadn't pushed too hard either after the first time. "Do you think less of me for it?" Atsuko asked and that strained part within Izumi snapped.
"No." Izumi said thinking of panicked brown eyes and an outstretched hand reaching, reaching only to pull away when the horn sounded and the realization that one lost life was better than two. "I don't think of you as much of anything anymore."
Atsuko smirked, straightening from the wall and made her way back to her room. "Good." She said, making Izumi blink in surprise. "Go make sure Yusuke doesn't hurt the old man. I'm making sushi tonight."
The youngest Urameshi nodded reflexively, mind replaying the pleased expression on Atsuko's face before she turned away.
What could possibly be good about losing the ability to view her own mother as someone worth depending on?
The less people you trust, the less chances you have to be hurt.
The thought came unbidden and Izumi had to shake her head to focus on not walking into the door once Yusuke opened it when she came downstairs.
When Katsukashi opened his door to the flying kick of Urameshi Yusuke, he had the grace to let the blow hit before retaliating and schooling the two kids on just how much more they had left to learn before they could best him.
And if tears ran down his face the whole time, Yusuke and Izumi pointedly didn't mention it.
(A/N): Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?
****Slight spoiler****
Going to fast forward a couple years in the next chapter and introduce another character unless someone cares for more Kashi screen time. Otherwise he shall only be mentioned in flashbacks or in passing. No miraculous survival for him.
****End Spoiler****
~Yasha's Sis