AN: Thanks for your patience in the update of this fic. I need to differentiate the languages so I'll do that next chapter when Kuon and Kyoko explore more of LA

Chapter Twelve – Home Again

Kyoko had seen large houses before but she had never seen them in person and what the Hizuri residence was counted as a pretty large house. The house was gated off with a large iron gate that required a code for it to unlock and there was a large yard with many trees. It must have been amazing to grow up here. The house looked like it at least had three stories and so there must be multiple bedrooms. She was excited as she looked out the window but then she heard measured breaths beside her and turn to see Kuon wrestling in his mind with being there.

"Corn?" she asked and Kuu kept driving ahead, though his back had tensed and Kyoko suspected he was trying his hardest not to turn around to see how Kuon was doing. Julie grabbed Kuon's hand, he had had a similar panic when they had arrived at the airport. She hated how his return home was something hard for him to endure.

"We'll need to have your help sorting things out, your father and I were terrible at knowing what to keep and not so most of what you had is in boxes. She smiled at her son but he kept his head bowed and his eyes closed. He hadn't acted like this before.

"Is there anything that I can do?" Kyoko asked as Kuu unlocked the large garage for the car. He drove in sleekly and Kyoko noticed that there were more than two cars inside. She had expected for each Kuu and Julie to have one but it looked like they had five cars between them. Maybe one was used for special…no, no car was used for special events.

"Yes, maybe you could help Kuu in the kitchen. I've been told about your amazing cooking skills," Julie said, "and the snacks you prepared showed that to me as well." Kyoko nodded slowly. She could definitely cook for them but she was still worried about Kuon. He definitely wasn't doing so well.

Once they stopped, Kuu went to Kuon's side and helped his son out of the car. He managed to swing his son's arm over his shoulder wanting to give him more stability. Kuon pushed him away, dropping down next to a bucket and threw up with Kuu staring at him wide eyed. He rushed behind him and knelt down, massaging his back.

"Kuon," he said gently as he tried to soothe him, "It's okay. It's going to be okay."

"I have to get used to it," Kuon whispered, his body shaking. "It's just, my head," he tried to gesture and Kuu nodded. He patted Kuon's back again as Julie and Kyoko stood back watching the two men. Maybe it had been too early to move Kuon from Japan to America but he had wanted to go, he had planned on going before the New Year so he was a little delayed but that was okay.

"You two go into the house, get some tea started?" Kuu asked them before seeing how afraid Kuon was when he looked around. It was as if after the accident, his emotions had become a burden on him that he had trouble controlling. Kuu was anxious about how Kuon would be the remainder of the day and the next day but after that they had scheduled a doctors visit so that he could help with his treatment.

"Do you need the wheelchair?" Kuu asked thinking about the device that the doctors had suggested if Kuon was having difficulty. His son had been forced onto the road by a truck and so it was amazing that he could even walk a few feet before needing to stop and catch his breath. The one thing that Kuu was most worried about was his son's developed narcolepsy and seizures caused from the brain injury. He was scared that Kuon would put himself in the middle of a dangerous situation and then his brain would turn off sending him to sleep.

"I'll take the wheelchair," Kuon nodded though Kuu knew he hated having to rely on the chair. Kuu helped him sit down and then smiled as he placed his hand down on his son's shoulder and squeezed it. He wheeled him back to the house and saw the painful expression on Kuon's face as he looked around both taking in the new changes and surprised by how similar it was.

"You know the way around," he said and Kuon nodded. He looked at the elevator in the house, there weren't that many houses which had both an elevator and a staircase. Yeah, his parents liked living in luxury and that was one of the reasons that they had accidentally ignored their son when he needed help the most.

…

…

Julie sighed as she took down the tree by herself. She had been looking forward to having Kuon home with them so badly and had been planning on celebrating the holidays with him, now it seemed like there was another holiday season where they weren't able to celebrate at home and that is what she had wanted the most. She sighed as she took down the lights and then saw Kuu beside her, helping her collect them.

"I wanted to spend the holidays with him here," she had told Kuu and Kuu sighed.

"I know. I didn't want for the accident to happen either but if you think of things, the holidays come every year and now it's January, you have something to look forward to next month," he said and a smile stretched over Julie's face as she looked at him excitedly.

"That's right!" she said happily, "We can spend his birthday with him. We can celebrate all those missing birthdays too," she said and Kuu shook his head.

"I wouldn't worry about celebrating the ones that we weren't able to as long as we concentrate on an amazing birthday for him this year, one that really celebrates him. I'm sure he'll be happy to let you take charge on arranging something for him but just remember that he'll be turning twenty-two, he's not a kid or a teenage anymore."

"But he can drink," Julie said with a grin and Kuu nodded.

"Sure, he can drink, we can have alcohol at his party," he told her as Julie started thinking about things she could put together and ways that she could celebrate their son. Kyoko might not be in America then so maybe something large an extravagant although…those would more likely be people that she and Kuu knew than people that Kuon knew and that might remind him of when he was a kid and had started to feel ignored.

"I want to do something intimate, maybe just the three of us or we could invite relatives who want to see him," Julie mused and Kuu watched her with a grin on his face, at least she didn't seem to be upset any longer.

"You'll make him something good tonight, right? Or should we have takeout? This is his first night back and I want him to enjoy it. We have to make him something so delicious that he won't return to Japan. Oh and I get to hear his voice, he already called me Mom several times but half of those times were in Japanese." She paled with her eyes widening, "What if his brain is in Japanese, what if his English isn't as good as it used to be."

"Jules," Kuu sighed, "He hasn't just forgotten English and turned into someone who is completely Japanese. I've also heard him use Russian. He might slip up on a few phrases and slang terms but it's not as if the language he used for fifteen years has just fallen out of his head."

"What's fallen out of my head?" Kuon asked in his Californian accent and Julie smiled as she came towards him and hugged him. "You mean from the accident?"

"You sound like you used to," Julie grinned, "after all of your speaking in Japanese…"

"while we were in Japan?" Kuon asked and Kuu grinned as well, he and his son sounded so much alike but Kuon had more of a laid back Californian accent, some might say that it bordered onto the stereotypical "surfer dude" accent but that was the area they had brought him up in. "Kyoko isn't used to hearing me like this, I wonder how she'll take my proper voice. She's heard the Ren voice too often that that's how she thinks I talk naturally."

"I love your voice," Julie told him and placed a hand on her heart before gently ruffling his hair affectionately. "She'll love it. You'll still have girls going faint when they hear you talking to them."

"I should be careful then," Kuon winked.

Kuu heard a noise from the kitchen and he went towards the area that it had come from. He saw Kyoko looking at the different spoons and cooking utensils. "I was thinking that we could go get some steak from a butcher I know," he told her and Kyoko nodded but she looked upset as she cast her eyes down to the ground.

"Father," Kyoko said weakly as she turned to look at Kuu. "I shouldn't be here, yes, being here makes Kuon happy but I'm scared that something might happen," she saw the confusion on Kuu's face and looked away. Her heart seemed to twist in her chest. "Kuon was only in the accident because of me," she told him and Kuu nodded.

"I feel as if you might have told me this," he said and Kyoko gulped.

"I mean that if I hadn't have chased after him he wouldn't have been caught off guard. I was the one who was supposed to be hit by the truck because I wasn't paying attention to logic. I wasn't aware of my surroundings and when I saw the impact and Kuon's limp body, I realized that he had saved me but that should have been me. I had been rejecting seeing him, not wanting to be near him and so I had blown him off so many times that he didn't want to give me a proper goodbye," she told Kuu who sighed. "If I had just listened to him one of the many times when I knew that he wanted to tell me something then we wouldn't be here right now. He'd have been okay. He wouldn't have been suffering."

"Well," Kuu shrugged, "He's healing. He might have some problems that he needs to overcome but he's healing so it doesn't really matter how it happened, as long as you're both alive then don't feel that you have anything to worry about. Kuon would have hated himself were you to have lost your life."

"I know that he feels that he carries around a debt to others but…" Kyoko shook her head, "I'm afraid that if I explain to him exactly how the accident happened, that I was angry at him and felt so betrayed by him and he ended up saving me regardless, he'll want nothing to do with me."

Kuu sighed, "I don't think you have anything to worry about," he said before seeing how frightened she was. "Just tell him honestly. Tell him that you regret what happened between the two of you and why you're hiding what happened from him. Sometimes people don't remember the accident because of an amnesia that they have but…sometimes they do," Kuu tried to warn her and Kyoko nodded.

"Time, Father," Kyoko said as she saw Kuu going to get his jacket, "All I need is time, the right time."

Kuu nodded before trying to smile, "You want to help me get the ingredients for dinner?" he asked and Kyoko gave a weak nod. "I don't think either Julie or myself blame you because Kuon is alive and he's healing. He's going to be okay. Even if he passed, I'd forgive you…"

"And Julie-san," Kyoko asked nervously.

"Let's just focus on the fact that Kuon's alive and that you are also alive," Kuu told her. She didn't need to know that because of how deeply and protectively she loved her son, had he passed away, Julie would have never forgiven her.

End of Chapter Twelve

Thank you for reading, reviews are appreciated

Thank you to the reviewers of Chapter Eleven

Guest (x2), H-Nala, Kaname671, kikoune, paulagato

Author Response:

Whilst it's just the two of them, Kyoko is going to wrestle with the thought of telling him the truth but she's afraid he won't forgive her for it being her fault. Thanks for the support