Now:

"Kyo, is something wrong? You don't seem very focused today."

Kyo snaps to attention at the mention of his name. "What? Oh, no. It's nothing." He wipes at the sweat on his brow. Today's class had been exceptionally challenging and though he doesn't want to admit it, Kazuma is right, his mind had been elsewhere during the lesson.

As if he could see right into Kyo's head he says, "I heard Hatsuharu had a bit of an outburst in class today."

Kyo is taken aback. "Who told you about that?"

"He did. He stopped by earlier this afternoon and told me what happened. He said you were particularly upset about the ordeal."

Kyo grinds his teeth and clenches his fists, looking at the ground. That stupid Ox just had to go around running his mouth. "Yeah well he was the one in a rage, I was just trying to keep him from hurting Toh— from hurting anyone else."

"I see," says Kazuma softly.

Kyo touches the beaded bracelet on his wrist and winces. He can still see the terror in Tohru's face from that day in the woods; the shock when he sent her flying through the air. He could have hurt her far worse than Haru almost had. He could have…killed her. The thought makes his mouth go dry and his head swim. How can he claim to protect her when he also nearly killed her? The question has been nagging him like a persistent headache all day. This is why, he thinks, this is why it's better that I go away. Once I'm gone no one will get hurt by me anymore. No one will have to sacrifice anything for me ever again. Just then a thought occurs to him. "Does Rei know?"

Kazuma looks at him curiously. "I would assume not, but if she does she didn't hear it from me."

Kyo lets out a breath of relief. "Okay. Good. Don't say anything to her."

"You two having it out again?"

Kyo regrets bringing it up now. He should have known that Master would go digging into things. "Not exactly. I'm just trying to get some distance from her. Ever since she's been back it's like she's been breathing down my neck."

Kazuma chuckles. "She might not always have the most subtle approach, but she has your best interest at heart."

"And who is she to say what's in my best interest? She's not my mother," Kyo snaps.

Kazuma frowns. "No. She's not." There's a silence between them for a moment before Kazuma says, "But she does worry about you. You may not always like that, but one day you'll look back and realize that it's a rare gift to have people in your life who care enough to worry."

Kyo looks away, feeling a pang of shame sting his chest. "Master, she just…she doesn't understand. I get that she might mean well but she makes it seem like I'm some kind of personal mission of hers. She doesn't understand how…how much weight that is to carry…" Or how guilty it makes me feel.

"Perhaps you're right. Perhaps she doesn't understand that," says Kazuma, "But I bet you she would if you told her."

"Yeah right. She doesn't listen. She never listens," A feeling begins to well in Kyo's gut and he forces it down. "Just forget it," he says, "I'm going to go get cleaned up. Tohru probably has dinner waiting by now."

Kazuma steps out of the way and lets Kyo later he watches from the window as Kyo walks through the garden and disappears down the path, out of sight. Still so much to learn.

Kazuma does wish that maybe Rei would take a more subtle approach on these things, but at the same time that's what he's come to admire most about her. Her unwavering ability to be unyielding in her convictions. It has always impressed him. Since the very beginning. He's never told her that. He's never told her a lot of things he wishes he had.

Then:

Kazuma's mother was beautiful. Not only physically, but from a place deep within. When he was very young she would take him into the garden and teach him the names of all the different bugs that lived among the foliage. Pests, that's what most people would say. People like Kazuma's father who very rarely smiled, and thought his mother's notions were foolish and naive.

"Pay no mind to what they say," she told Kazuma. "Life is precious, no matter how small. It can be very easy to take the things we have for granted, but when we stop to look around us, when we recognize the presence of other living things, we begin to appreciate what we have so much more. Come, listen." She sat in the garden and pulled a then 5 year old Kazuma onto her lap. Her buttery, lilac scented hair falling onto his cheek as she bent down. "Listen. Open your mind as well as your ears. There is a rhythm. A melody coming up from the earth. It's all around us. Do you hear it?"

Kazuma's eyes flew open wide. He did hear something. To this day he doesn't know if it was just a trick of the wind or if it really happened, but at the time he could have sworn… "I hear it, mama! It sounds like music…" He put his ear to the ground. "...Like a piano."

He remembers the way she smiled at him. She had the warmest smile.

Growing up, kids at his school would whisper as he passed by about his crazy delusional mother who believed she could talk to plants and who never bathed. None of this was true of course, but the rumors spread regardless. Kazuma heard the hushed conversations behind cupped hands, the laughter when he walked through the halls. And shamefully, he would say nothing in response.

Pay no mind to what they say…

That's why when he saw Rei at the dojo all those years later, throwing punch after punch at one of his father's students in the kitchen, the first thing he felt was jealousy. She was so quick to defend what she believed in. So unwavering. The shock on Rei's face when he stepped in to assist her…It was clear to him that this was the first time anyone had offered her help in her entire life. How deeply his heart ached just from that one look.

He didn't know how to tell her that it wasn't the first time they had met.

The first time had been years earlier. Kazuma's mother had taken him to the local symphony in the city. He remembers the rush of cars, the bright lights, all so dazzling to a boy who was accustomed to staying within his own yard. His mother pointed out every landmark and detail in the architecture. In the theater Kazuma sat on the edge of his seat, angling to get a better view around the heads of the adults seated in front of him. He loved the music. Loved the way the different instruments worked in tandem together, how so many unique sounds that were so different from one another could come together and create something that made his senses soar. Towards the end of the concert a young girl came out onto the stage. She was a student of the academy who had been selected to showcase a piece of music.

He remembers how she hardly regarded the audience at all. Like the presence of hundreds of people in the room was no more than a trivial detail to her. She sat herself at the piano in the center of the stage, fixed her posture, and began to play. The word ethereal didn't do it justice. The music she was creating was transcendent. A hushed silence fell over the crowd at once. Every eye in the hall was upon her and yet she played as though she didn't notice a single one of them. It's rare, Kazuma realized later on, to be able to feel the bond between someone's passion and their soul. To truly see them be one and the same. He didn't know why he got out of his seat, only that no one tried to stop him. He walked down the center aisle and up to the stage so that he was practically standing directly below her. This girl, so incredibly young, had captivated his heart.

When she finished the piece the room fell silent. The audience was perfectly still in a collective astonishment. Then the first person rose to their feet to applaud, followed by another, then another after that until the whole room was roaring. The girl didn't seem the least bit phased by this, in fact she looked almost sad. And Kazuma knew why without her even saying anything. She was sad because she had stopped playing, the connection she had to her music was so intensely pure that when she stopped it was like saying goodbye to a friend. He saw this in her eyes. She wanted to reach out to her, to tell her that it was alright, that he understood. But in an instant, she turned to exit the stage and was gone.

One their way home Kazuma felt a certain giddiness he'd never felt before. "Did you hear it?" he asked his mother.

"Hear what?"

"That girl's song. That was it, that was the sound."

"What sound?"

"The sound of everything."

His mother smiled sweetly. "Yes," she said, "I think you're right."