If Tōga had chosen any other park on any other day, he would not have been there, at exactly that moment, looking into golden eyes so like his own, taking in silver hair that reflected the light, just like his, and… downy triangular dog ears perched atop his head. A sign that this child was at least partly Inu yōkai.

The sight of the silver hair had arrested his stroll, and the brief glance in his golden eyes had been enough to hold Tōga hostage before he had the good sense to duck behind a tree. Tōga stared, mesmerized, perhaps too long. He had too many questions, felt too many feelings. And while there were memories swirling through his mind, one scratched at him. A memory he sometimes tried to forget, but one he always came back to in the dark of night when he was at his loneliest.

"Baby! Time to go!" A voice he would never forget—hers—called into the playground.

"Okay mama!" the golden-eyed child called back, scrambling off of the multi-colored jungle gym he'd been climbing.

When he bounded into the arms of her, Tōga jumped, nearly tripping backwards over a root of the tree that he was currently hiding behind.

Izayoi—the woman he could never forget, the one who held his biggest regret in the palm of her hand—reached down and clutched the little boy lovingly, nuzzling his nose and rubbing his little ears. Izayoi was the mother of an Inu hanyō. A child, Tōga couldn't help but believe, was his.

Why the hell hadn't she told him?

The question ricocheted through his mind, leaving dents on the inside of his skull.

Because unfortunately, he also thought he knew the answer.

Izayoi was his former secretary. She was also the woman he could not conceal his feelings for. The woman who… had their affair, as short as it was, gotten out, would have ruined him (and definitely her).

Because lord knows his ex-wife had not made it easy. Tōga had known for a long time that he did not love Inukimi, but her family was powerful and she had a strong bloodline. And in the days of old, that was enough for demons to marry, and to produce children. Sesshōmaru was proof of that; he was, in many ways, a perfect Inu yōkai. But Sesshōmaru had inherited his mother's coldness, a coldness that had slowly eroded away Tōga's joy. And before Tōga lost his own heart, he had to get away.

So, he'd filed the paperwork, asking for their miserable marriage to end. Perhaps he had been naïve, because Tōga could not imagine that Inukimi was happy either. They mixed like oil and gasoline, where the minutest spark could set them both aflame and burn everything around them down. But… Inukimi had not seen Tōga's offer as an out; she saw it as a grievous insult, and used every last ounce of her energy to make Tōga pay.

She made Tōga pay by leveraging Sesshōmaru.
She made Tōga pay by hiring the most bloodthirsty lawyers she could find.
She made Tōga pay by claiming that he was breaking a mate bond (something unheard of amongst demons, and categorically untrue).
She made Tōga pay by insisting her "lifestyle" included fineries she'd never even thought about before he'd given her that paperwork.
And finally, she made Tōga pay by digging into every corner of his life and exposing it to the world.

It had taken eighteen months. And they had been the worst eighteen months of Tōga's life.

Except for one thing—one sliver of sunshine in that dark and murky time—Izayoi.

How Tōga had ever been so lucky to have found and hired Izayoi as his personal assistant as he helmed Taisho Corp., the venture capital firm he'd started nearly a century ago, while everything else went to hell, was beyond him. Despite being a human, Izayoi just got him. She knew when to come to his office with a camomile tea (because the scent could soothe him). She knew when to call him on his shit (often, he had to admit). She knew when to say something, usually to tease him or to tell him he did something well. And she knew when to say nothing.

That was probably how that night had happened. How Tōga, now dealing with Inukimi's fourth set of bloodthirsty lawyers, had let it happen.

Taisho Corp. had put on its annual fundraising gala that year: for Hakurei House, a charity that specialized in helping broken families get back on their feet (with a special eye on mixed human/demon families). It was a masquerade ball that year, and the theme was 'predator and prey'. Izayoi had come up with the idea.

"Obscuring our faces will help people mingle honestly, without worrying about hierarchies," she'd so proudly declared. "Let each person decide what they are, predator or prey. It'll be fun!"

Tōga would have said yes even if it was a bad idea, but it wasn't, like all the rest of Izayoi's ideas.

And the ball was perfect.

Tōga remembered seeing Izayoi across the room, adorned in an ornamental bunny mask, dressed in a flowing white gown that had little accents of teal. Teal, Tōga noticed, that happened to be the same color as the stripes along his face (and well… his body, but Izayoi definitely didn't know that).

He remembered feeling his yōki surge at her, dressed as a prey animal adorned in his colors.

"You look good enough to eat." He really had said that. He blamed the champagne he'd consumed, and the long nights at work, and the intense stress of the divorce.

"Down dog," Izayoi had said, touching his chest softly, her bubbly personality amplified by the champagne she too had drunk.

And maybe that would have been the end of it. A brief flirtation, a little joy at the masquerade that put a smile on Tōga's face in the sea of falsely upbeat underlings. But it hadn't ended there. Because that night, Tōga had returned to his office, to avoid both the false smiles of the party and the nightmare waiting for him at home.

It hadn't ended because Izayoi stumbled into Tōga's office, her bunny mask now sitting atop her head.

"Oh, I thought you'd gone home," Izayoi had said.
"Just… avoiding everything," Tōga had admitted.
"Even me?" Izayoi had asked.
"Never you," Tōga had answered.

It hadn't ended, because the moment after 'never you' had slipped from his lips, Izayoi had kissed him, her tongue finding its way into his mouth so rapidly that he hadn't had time to think about how bad an idea it all was. And he'd kissed her back, just as passionately, just as desperately. Because Izayoi smelled divine and moaned when he touched her.

It hadn't ended because she'd whispered in his ear that she thought about him all the time, inappropriately, and hated to see what the ice queen (her nickname for Inukimi) was doing to him.

It hadn't ended because he'd never wanted a woman the way he wanted Izayoi. The way she'd started to unbutton his shirt and tug on his hair. The way they tumbled onto the plush carpet of his office, unable to resist the pull of the other.

It hadn't ended until after Izayoi was snuggled up in his mokomoko, breathing deeply in the satisfied afterglow of their lovemaking.

And then, everything had ended.

"I'm so sorry Tōga." He still had Izayoi's notice, claiming she was pursuing other opportunities. "If I stay, I would ruin you." Tōga also remembered the tears Izayoi had tried so hard not to shed as she walked away. "Be well, Tōga. Until we meet again."

That was four years ago.
And they'd never met again.
Not until this day.
The day Tōga discovered that he had a second son.

Tōga's urge to run to Izayoi, to his son, was so strong that he whined as he backed away. He couldn't corner them in the park, but… he also couldn't pretend he didn't now know that he'd unknowingly fathered a child with Izayoi.

His child.

But as Tōga retreated to regroup, to try to figure out what to do next, he couldn't help but feel a smile come to his face. Fate had answered his plea to find a way to see Izayoi again, even as his heart shattered that she hadn't told him that they had a son together.

At least now he knew.
And he had faith that he would figure out what he needed to do next.
Because, no matter what else was to come, Tōga wanted to be in his child's life.