A/N: Just a peek-in 'cause I feel like there may be confusion on Hatori's maternal family:
Batuhan "Ovoo" - Hatori's grandfather
Naran "Emee" - Hatori's grandmother
Kana - Hatori's great-aunt, sister of Naran (not the Kana Sohma we know; and yes, I named her this to troll Ha'ri)
Yisu - Hatori's aunt, who is just a few years his senior
Erden - Hatori's uncle, twin of Kara
Kara - Hatori's mother (Mongolian)
Daisuke - Hatori's father (Chinese)
Turgen - not family, but Hatori's mother, Kara's, ex-boyfriend
Think that's it! Enjoy! R&R!
Chapter Two Wine on the Ivories
Hatori played on the family piano the next morning after breakfast. Prior, he had given his family at Longzhu a call, reassuring them he was still alive and would not be making an appearance on Dateline or Blood Relatives any time soon (well, that one was specifically for Kyo). While Batuhan had gone to fetch some more alcohol and tea for the week, Naran had laid down for a nap, Kana took to gardening in the backyard, and Yisu quietly watched Hatori with a glass of red wine, standing at the archway behind him. Only in admiration did she gaze upon him, studying the dips of his back, the slight bulges of his muscles as he played, and the silent strength in his precise fingers.
With only a passing chill associated with watching eyes, Hatori shrugged a little, but not so much as to disrupt his playing. Since the attack when he was sixteen, watchful eyes had stirred unease and unsatisfied anxiety inside him, not easily calmed by careful words or rationality. But regardless, he gathered his thoughts, reasoned his racing mind to tranquility, and let the feeling pass with a steady breath. In his mind, he ran the events of breakfast over and over again, trying to rationalize his grandfather's distaste for his late-night adventure as natural, familial concern, a simple guess that also applied to his grandmother's contained anger when he was confronted about it by his great-aunt. Kana had mentioned that, with his fragile immune system, he must take extraneous measures when swimming at nighttime—not that it was sympathetic to the conversation, but Hatori could not recall mentioning his illness to her, or any of them. Perhaps he had told her when she visited him in Japan. "Yeah," he had said when Yisu sent him a questioning glance. "I have lupus."
"I figured," Naran had commented, casually sipping her cabbage soup. Much to his unease and utter confusion, she smiled at him as if he were a child caught eavesdropping.
"You're sharp, huh, Emee?" he had said, trying to tamper down his emotions, assuming this was some sort of teasing game they played. "That's good." Batuhan gave a rather authoritative nod at him and winked at his wife.
"Thank you, darling." Naran's smile only widened, and she took the cloth napkin from her lap and dabbed her staring grandson's face, where a stray piece of egg found refuge on his chin. "Always the messy eater," she had continued, then pinched his cheek when she had finished the primping. "Oh, but you're just so precious."
Hatori scowled a little in concentration, trying to understand. But he could only settle upon the possibility that he had told Great Auntie Kana during her visit, and due to the notorious lupus-induced brain fog, he had forgotten that he had even brought it up. That had to be it. Concluding that that was the truth, convincing himself that it had to be, the tension in his neck unwound and the tightness in his shoulders relaxed to a natural lag. The hectic crescendo of the piano calmed to a peaceful mezzo-forte, and he gazed out the open window at the sunflowers peeking through the willow's screen as if the yellowness was being confined in a rather serene cell. A thing so vibrant hidden away as to be overlooked by any passerby. Acknowledging the extent that his mind can wonder at any given moment—something he had been reprimanded for since toddler-hood—he snapped himself out of the stupor and scanned the room in case anyone had spoken to him. "Oh, sorry." He stopped playing and turned around to face her. "I didn't hear you."
Yisu, however, remained there, observing. "No. It's fine. I was just stopping by." She came over and sat beside her only six-years-junior nephew, placing her wine glass in her lap. "I never learned to play. But then again, Aunt Naran and Uncle Batuhan never let me touch it, growing up."
"That's what she said." Yisu sent him a questioning look, to which he, noticing he had said it out loud, shifted his attention elsewhere for a moment. "Uh… Really? They didn't let you play it?" Hatori asked, wondering why his grandfather simply told him to help himself to it during the official house tour after breakfast. "Is it an heirloom or something?"
"It was Erden's."
"Mom's brother." He mainly said this to himself.
Yisu hummed and took a sip from her glass. "It must be wearing on you already, but you really do look like them. The twins, I mean. I can't really narrow it down to how, but you just do." She met his eyes, gazing hard into them.
Hatori replied in a polite, but flat voice, "I am Kara's son. Biologically, it makes perfect sense that I would resemble her and Erden."
His aunt laughed immediately at that. "You're so stiff, li'l nephew." She messed up his hair a little, and though he did not particularly care to be toyed with, he gave her a small, apologetic smile. A pressured quiet overran them, with cicadas humming, birds vocalizing songs of togetherness, and fishes swirling other fishes in the pond near the sunflowers.
Hatori, now nervous under the weight of her stare, inched back and drew his eyebrows together. "So, if I can ask you a question—" He was silenced by the plump, wet lips of Yisu when she snatched his face. She tasted of red wine, sweet seduction, already-burgeoned flowers spreading their petals only wider and wider…and a summery dose of damnation. Hatori grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back as forcibly, but gently as he could. "I'm sorry, but what are you doing? I mean, I already know what you're doing. But why are you doing that?"
"I'm sorry," Yisu said, blushing. She glanced down at her wine, causing Hatori to do the same. He took it from her hand and placed it on the window pane. "I didn't mean to— It must be the wine. Or…something, I don't know."
Completely uncomfortable, Hatori stood and pressed himself to the window, but never breaking his sight of her. "I don't mean to press, but please…just…why?"
"I don't know! You just…look too similar."
"Sure, because what's summer without a little late morning incest!"
"Don't act so offended, nephew! Jesus, am I that unattractive to you?!"
"You're my aunt!"
"No one knew me like Erden, okay?!" Yisu commented, a short glare sent her nephew's way and crossing her arms.
"I doubt that, now!"
Yisu snapped, "Don't be cynical."
"I understand," Hatori said, calming himself little by little. "But I'm not him. I look like him, sure, but I'm not him." Yisu huffed and looked out the window. "I'm sorry—"
Before he could comprehend it, she stood and slapped him across the face. When he looked back at her, she had tears in her eyes. "You're sorry?"
Hatori, despite his stinging face, blinked in his usual way. "Yes."
In her smoky eyes were daggers, but also lust beneath all the anger; she hugged herself, breaking eye contact with the Dragon. "I heard from Mom that you were a private person, but you don't have to be so stone-cold about it."
"We're family, Yisu," Hatori said. "That's what it all narrows down to." But as he spoke, she snatched her wine from the window and left the room in a heartbeat, downing the rest of it before she passed the next doorframe. Letting out a long sigh, Hatori wiped a hand down his face. "Holy shit," he muttered. Pulling out his phone, he considered calling his family to inform them that his aunt lusted for him. Imagine the inspiration Shigure would draw from that… He could already hear the Mabudachi's junior's laughter and the trio's (still immature) senior's overprotective, overly-dramatic claims to swoop in to save their middle-child from the evil clutches of whoever and blah, blah, blah. Opting against it for now, Hatori shoved his phone back in his pocket. Now alone, he wished not to remain in the room where he involuntarily committed familial taboo, so he walked out in the opposite direction that Yisu had retreated to. Murmuring could be heard upstairs, where the rest of the family slept; ever-curious, Hatori followed the voices, stealthily, standing on the middle-point of the staircase.
"…know that. But that doesn't mean—"
"Perhaps it does."
"Naran. You're talking nonsense again."
"Am I? Batu says the same. But he's more supportive than you've been."
"Don't make statements like that. I know you've been skipping doses."
"Quiet down. Enkhtuya's still in the house. Don't disturb him." Footsteps. Hatori raced down the stairs as soundlessly as he could in the haste, and sat back down at the piano bench, staring out the window when they came in. Naran kissed his hair, hands on his shoulders. "Done playing already? You play so well."
Hatori chuckled, but he thought only of his mother. "Yeah. It's just…so nice out here. It seems criminal to stay inside."
Kana smoothed back his bangs. "Well, then… We could use some help with the groceries. I can give you money. Why don't you head to the store for us?"
"I'm making dumplings tonight. Already have half of them wrapped up. We just need beverages, bamboo shoots, and eggs," Naran said. "How do you say that in Chinese, honey? Dumpling?"
"Jiaozi," Hatori replied, simply.
"And in Japanese?"
"Gyoza or dango—really depends on which dish you're referring to."
"Ah," Naran joked. "Look at you! Here's the real test, though. How do you say dumpling in Mongolian?"
"Uh…" Hatori thought for a moment. "Buuz…?"
Naran chuckled. "Correct!" She pinched his cheeks, cooing about how smart he was, how well-rounded he came out to be. And Hatori let her, simply enduring the additional humiliation of his great-aunt watching. After a bit, his grandmother retrieved a map from one of the drawers by the door and pointed to a rectangle building. "Now, the store's about ten minutes away. Right before you leave the outskirts, there're streets lined with shops and stores and bakeries. It's right here."
"Hongzhi Street," clarified Kana, still rolling her eyes at her sister's fawning. "Be sure to hurry. If your favorite meal isn't motivation enough, I'm not sure what is."
Hatori smiled, but his stomach dropped. Had he mentioned what his favorite meal was? "Sure," he said, slowly. "No problem."
"Take the truck," His great-aunt quickly fetched her purse in the next room and returned with her wallet in her hand. "Batuhan takes the sedan to work."
"Okay," Hatori agreed as he was slipped money. Naran nodded. "I'll be back, then."
##
"15.74," said a middle-aged cashier, graying hair on his balding head. Hatori nodded, face flushed beyond summer heat—since he stepped foot outside the truck, the townsfolk have not ceased their blatant staring at him, gazes of interest, of shock, of familiarity. But regardless, he had dealt with looking—and plainly, being different—than other people for as long as he could remember; but the constant attention was starting to bother him a small bit. He paid the cashier and offered a polite smile when the elderly man kept staring. "You know, you look like someone. I can't remember who—"
"Kara and Erden Nergüi?" Hatori suggested, already knowing.
The cashier, his name was Jonghis, snapped his fingers. "That's it. Sorry. I bet you're tired of hearing that by now."
Hatori chuckled. "It's fine. It's bound to happen when one visits family. I'm Kara's son."
"That explains it," Jonghis said. "Sorry if I came on a little too forward."
"Not a problem." Hatori took a glance around the store, for reasons he did not quite know yet, before he asked, "Out of curiosity," hoping not to intrude too much, "what happened to them—"
"Oh, that. A real tragedy." The cashier shook his head in disapproval, and as he spoke, Hatori's expression dropped from curious to something close to dreadful confusion. "Some say they were trying to run away to the big city, try their hands out at the fast life. You know, with all those temptations. Erden, unfortunately, wasn't as lucky as his sister."
"What do you mean?" Hatori asked, almost in a panic. "What happened to him—"
"It's not proper to pry, son."
A hard-of-hearing elderly man behind him hollered, "Move, boy! You got cotton in your cornhole?!"
Massively embarrassed, the Dragon gathered his stuff and bowed to the line that he had not noticed until now. "Sorry." He hurried from the store as civilly as he could in mixed company. Outside, he tossed the bags in the passenger seat and let out a sigh, allowing the quickening of his heart to pass. Why would Mom and her brother run away? With the knowledge that every family had its share of secrets, he scowled and chose to disregard the churning of his stomach. Erden filled his mind—did the fact that he 'wasn't as lucky' as Kara mean he got caught? Or did it mean, from the townsfolks' point of view, that he managed to distance himself from Yakeshi entirely? But was that not what Kara had done? More confused than before, Hatori ran his fingers through his hair and turned the key in the ignition. Right then, his phone's ringtone erupted in the rift of some George Strait song. "Shit," he said, and put it to his ear. "Hello?"
"Hatori, it's me," Kana said. "Are you on your way, dear?"
"Yes, ma'am," Hatori half-lied. "There was a bit of a line. But I'm coming."
"Good."
He wished to ask her about the estranged twins, but the lingering silence on the other line, as if a warning, prompted him to remain just as silent. After all, as he had learned over time, prying is rarely appropriate. On the drive back, Hatori watched the tall oaks and magnolias speed past. His mother hated magnolia trees; willows made her cry. Every time he asked her why, it was never the proper place or moment—she would only reel him away from everyone else or chide him until Daisuke came to his rescue.
But his father could not always spare him from her untimely mood shifts, nor did she always have a certain bite to her tone with him. But that bite proved to be a mere pinch when she gifted him a piano for his seventh birthday. "Ai-ya," she would fuss when he would slam the keys just for the sake of creating a massive sound. "Hatori! That is not proper."
Hatori would challenge, "Daddy said proper isn't fun—"
"But it's necessary," Kara had said, strictly. "I know. Understand the whole message, not just the one part." The piano lessons started shortly after that—every day after homework, sometimes in the middle of his playing with Shigure and Ayame and Kureno. Kara would call from their house, "Hatori! Piano, now! It's 4 o'clock." That single command alone, in time, would be enough to make him burst into tears. Shigure and Ayame would tease him, of course, with how-bad-can-it-be's and oh-no-not-the-dreaded-piano's. But he knew just how bad the piano can be, how each key was weighed down by his mother's expectations, her disappointments when he messed up, her boasting right to the other Sohma parents when he mastered songs that never seemed to end. By the time he was eight, the pressure came on like cranes pushing his temples into each other. By then, he had resisted his mother to painstaking lengths; he would hide from her, lie about some after school activity, throw a tantrum here and there until she would opt to lift-dragging him to the piano bench. There were times he contemplated running away because of it. He would only tell his father, and they would disappear together. Anywhere this form of Kara was not. But he knew Daisuke would never leave his mother, nor would he let him go anywhere on his own. But he could not take another day with her pulling him along by the hand to the store, stopping nearly everyone in their tracks, saying, "Hello, I'm Kara. This is my son, Hatori. You must have heard about him and his musical skills. Sometimes, he forgets about his homework because all he wants to do is play the piano!" Hatori could only stand there by her side, blushing under the massive image she gussied him up to fit into. Every passerby's reaction was the same—a blending of surprise, pride, and envy as they knelt down to get a closer look at him, as if to see if his face matched that of a genius. He never knew what they saw peeking back at them. He only knew that he hated every minute of it.
Later, dinner carried on in its casual way, with everyone talking and laughing—but mostly, Naran had asked Hatori to tell stories about his life and city people, the latter mainly for Batuhan to scoff and rant about. He told them about his parents, the summer trips they took with his godparents and Kenan, and some about his own family that awaited him at Longzhu. Though not by name, he also told of a particular loud-mouthed Cat he had grown close to over the past years. But every time he looked to the piano in the next room, he could nearly see his mother pulling him towards it, could almost hear her barking orders and warnings over his pleading cries. Despite the numerous occasions they had done this, only one occasion bore into his mind, only one tugged any valid excuse from his heart, filling the gash with guilt.
Kara was on her final lick of patience with her son's defiance; and Hatori knew this, but more importantly, he was through with her boasting of him. "Hatori," she said, standing over him as he flipped through Dracula for the second time. "It's 4. Piano."
"I don't want to play anymore." As usual, their wrestling went on for a minute before she had him on the bench again, collapsed in tears. Hatori's entire body burned, a wildfire in his eight-year-old frame. "I wish I was dead!" he spat before he could stop it. "I wish I could disappear!"
"Well, you can't!" Kara replied, catching her breath from all the fighting. "Just because you don't want to something doesn't mean you can just drop it! Stop throwing a fit—"
"Then I wish you disappeared!" That shut her up. She bit the inside of her cheek, nostrils flaring—the same way he would whenever Kyo or Kisa, in her juvenile disdain, would test him. "I wish someone would lock you up and make you do something you hate—"
His mother slapped him for the first and only time that evening. In his rage, he had hardly felt it until later when Daisuke tucked him in for bed, but it was his mother's expression that silenced him. Through the haze, he could see Kara's face swell with water. For days following, she spoke not a single word to him, not matter how many times he apologized or cried or begged. She remained in the silence of the living room, gazing out the window, numb to his existence.
"If you guys want me to learn a skill," he said to his father one day, sitting on the latter's mahogany desk. "Then how come I can't try anything else? Why does it have to be piano right now?"
His father's answer, of course, was to be patient and trust him and Kara, to know that no matter what they only wished the best for their child. But Hatori still could not understand. But he resolved first to have his mother back.
"Sometimes, things that we say," Daisuke explained to him, "bring up…bad memories for other people. Mommy will always love you, but she just needs time right now." He wiped his son's tears and smiled gently in his usual way—another trait Hatori obtained along the way. Hatori, though, for the first time, doubted his father and his kind words. Her words over his head, her grips on his arm and palm to his face, the single glare she gave that made him cry himself to sleep. They did not happen all the time, but when they did, they did. This was not love. It could not be. Is this what people risked everything for, fought for, died for? Did Kara even love him, he wondered once. Was she another parent that resented their child's Zodiac? He could only drop his eyes from Daisuke. "But make sure you let her know you're sorry."
But he was not. Not entirely, at the time. There were many things he was not sorry for until Kara called to him on her deathbed. Maybe that was why his favorite stories and films were not horror or action or romance; but dramas in which children find their way back to their parents, or at least have some earth-rattling epiphany to better understand their mom or dad. Tales of unconditionally good children with compassionate parents, not selfish sons who said harmful things, who refused to hold their mothers in the final hour.
Upon her weeklong visit to Japan, Kana had exploded on him after he shrugged at one of her questions about Kara as an adult. "Ai!" Her chopsticks smacked against the table as she shrieked this. "How does a son not know his own mother!" And he had no answer—not then, not when Kyo pressed to know what her deal was, not even when he saw her again yesterday. How could a son know nothing of his mother?
It must have been some sort of divine punishment, some karma curving back at him.
Hatori looked up from his patient reports, realizing he had not achieved much from when he started hours ago…and that he had fallen asleep at the desk—and also, by the wet blotches and smeared ink by his signature, that he had been crying in his dream. It was not a nightmare or vague memory, just a single image. His mother's face, her subtle smile, as if he were simply staring at her photograph—and when he had reached for it, it vanished into nothingness. With nothing in particular to wake him other than a withered throat, he stood groggily, organized the files back into their binder, and switched house sweats for pajama sweats. As stealthily as he could manage, he pried the door wide enough for his body to fit. Only in passing the hallway mirror, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, did he notice a thick line of black upon his forehead. "The hell…?" He raked his fringes up to see the full spectrum of it, touching its graininess, smelling nothing from it on his finger, tasting nothing but the inside of his mouth (which he knew was technically not the best way to go about analyzing a foreign substance, but curiosity was curiosity). It was just…there. So, he went back, to the conjoining bathroom of his mother's room, flicked on the light, and washed his face. And when he had finished, drying himself with a small towel, he noticed specks of black powder on the latte counter, on the pastry-white tile floor. His only logical excuse—perhaps he sleepwalked again, got into something in the cabinets. So, he continued on his original destination, navigating through the moonlit hallway, bumping into the coffee table in the front room and nicking his hip on the wall corner. As he passed the chimney by the stairs, he noticed candlelight flicking at the flowery wallpaper of the piano room just around the corner. The closer he drew, the more hastily the tiger iris's lavender leapt from the cream backsplash. Unsettled by the innovated thorns of the iris, Hatori remained where he stood, watching them, as if expecting a shard to dart through him if he breathed.
"Thorny flowers," his godmother, Emiko—Daisuke's sister—warned him when he was eleven, "bring nothing but pain. Unhappiness. Stay away from them."
Hatori, since infanthood, was notoriously curious, though, and prone to being consumed by his own mind and wonders. He got ever-closer to the dim room as if mesmerized by the dancing irises on fire. Fire, much like the wings of a phoenix, resurrected, free from its ashes…but very much burning, simmering, raging. The purple flowers' ease roared at him the nearer he became, but he went, cautiously. Beyond the archway and the wallpaper and the scorching flowers, he saw her. "Emee?" She did not respond, content with sleeping there on the claret-stained piano. Out of routine dutiful habit, Hatori quickly came to her side when he spotted more of it in her palm; and to his relief, the red was merely spilled wine from the dripping glass tangled in her fingers. "Emee?" he pressed again, firmer, placing two fingers to her neck to check her pulse—weak, but okay. "Emee, I think you enjoyed the wine a little too much tonight. Let's go to bed now." Nothing more than a simple groan. If she could groan, she could breathe. Hatori sighed lightly, trying to figure what to do, though he had the medical skills necessary. She was fine—just drunk beyond comprehension—but moving her from here to bed upstairs would not work out well for either of them. It would set his mind straight if he had known what medication she was on. However, apparently, asking that much was improper. Batuhan's stern look told him that much. Even as a doctor, Hatori had to know his place. "Emee, please. I need you to wake up."
"What's going on—" Batuhan asked from the doorway. "Oh, no."
"I found her like this a minute ago," Hatori said as his grandfather passed him. "Övöö, I know she's on meds. But how do they affect her in the event that she consumes alcohol? I mean, I checked her vitals. She's fine, technically—"
"Naran." Batuhan took the toppled wine glass from his wife and gave her a sturdy shake by the shoulder. "Honey. You know you're not supposed to drink that much." He gathered his wife in his arms and turned to give his grandson an apologetic grin. "She gets a little tipsy from her meds, and then, of course, the alcohol. She loves red a little too much."
"Övöö, is she—"
"Not now, son. She's just fine. Sorry you had to see that."
"Yeah," Hatori said, skeptically. "Yeah. It's not a problem at all, really. Sorry—"
Batuhan's grin turned to a light scowl. "Nah! Boy, every time you apologize, I just want to shake you." He laughed, and soon Hatori nervously joined him.
"Right. I'll just go back to bed, then."
"Night."
Naran wriggled a bit in her husband's arms. "Good night, Kara."
Hatori frowned at first, but then remembering that she was completely intoxicated, dropped his previous expression for a more forgiving one. "Night, Emee." Watching them go, he bit down hard on his tongue and looked at the stained piano. The bloody tint that dripped off the keys and onto the wood. Hatori rushed to the bathroom around the corner, back towards his mother's room, and snatched a towel and dampened it under the faucet. Hurrying, he returned to the piano and began dabbing the white and wood, careful to get between the cracks.
Prying was unbecoming of a young man, but he could not ignore the ceaseless foreboding in the realms of his mind. Confidence was one thing in the medical field; confidence and lack of communication, however, never meant good news, anywhere. He knew his anxiety and his overly-zealous imagination firsthand; but in spite of that, he knew himself and his rationality just as fondly. He saw what he saw.
…Right?
Dismissing his suspicions, Hatori went about his way around the width of the house, getting a better feel for the palatial décor, the odd, but calm color scheme, and the numerous harmonies of tiger lilies and sunflowers, either stalked in vases or polished barrels, or simply photographed upon the walls. Clearly, as Batuhan had told him the previous night, the Nergüis missed their children. But what of the sunflowers, he wondered.
Water bubbled harshly in the thick glass cup Hatori held under the running faucet—being out in the country, sink water had to suffice as the purified water he had back home. When he pushed the tab down and took a drink, a pair of small blue and pink handprints caught his attention. They were mismatching, but completed the image as a tacky whole, and just barely masqueraded by an overgrown houseplant in its pot. The prints were bound to be his mother and uncle. It made sense, and he did not think much more of it. So, he looked past it, leaning on the counter, and into the night sky that seemed to reach the earth. No interruption of buildings or streetlights or zigzagging highways. Truly, it was nice out in the country.
Erden, unfortunately, wasn't as lucky as his sister.
Hatori scowled. What did that cashier mean? He reached down into his pocket for his phone—
"Kid."
Gasping, Hatori spun around. Upon the floor, the glass shattered across the coffee-colored pattern, shards hiding in the indentations between plates. "I'm sorry," he said, immediately dropping to collect the pieces.
Batuhan came across the room, flipped on the light, and knelt down to help his grandson. "It was an accident. I didn't mean to scare you."
"Of course not," Hatori said. However, in the back of his mind, he could not believe his grandfather's words. Something was off here, but he had to give them the benefit of the doubt.
"You know…" He looked at Batuhan. "Erden was always so dutiful. Obedient. But Kara had the bigger heart." Regardless of how he and his mother clashed, Hatori smiled and nodded in understanding. "They were good children. Really good. But I worried about them."
"You worried about them moving to the city, right?"
"Sure did."
"Out of curiosity, did you ever live in one?"
Batuhan's thick eyebrows shot down and he shook his head. "No. Never wanted to. Why?"
"It was just a question," Hatori said, gathering all the shards in the cup of his hand and sweeping them into the trash.
The elderly man stood and washed his hands in the sink while the Dragon came back with a towel to dry up the water and any remaining glass between the cracks. "Too many people, too many chances to sin with them. And you can't really have a friendly conversation with anyone without them thinking you've gone nuts." Hatori chuckled. "Tell me, son. How is that living? How is that guaranteeing your own safety?"
"Oh, I… Well, people adapt."
"It's survival of the fittest out there." Batuhan turned to him as he stood. "Out here, everyone's safe, everyone has their fair share, and no one gets hurt."
"Right," Hatori replied, slowly. Again, he had his own opinions, but it would most likely be rude to say—and even if he did speak them, chances are his grandfather would have brushed them under the doormat. "If I can ask you a question, I heard some people around town saying that Erden—"
"Prying is inappropriate, young man," Batuhan corrected, leveling his gaze on Hatori, who nearly looked as if he was being held at gunpoint. After a lingering, awkward silence, the grandfather sighed. "I miss my children with my entire heart. Best we leave it at that."
"Sure," Hatori said. "I didn't mean to be so abrupt. I'm sorry." Batuhan simply nodded, but there was something primitive, something feral in his eyes. The light casted a shadow to dim his brow in a way that Hatori could not pinpoint to necessarily friendly.
"Well," Batuhan said with a heavy breath, "back to bed, it is. Go on."
"If I can ask something else—"
"Good boys go to bed when told."
"Excuse me?" Hatori asked, confused. His grandfather gave him a stern look, a disapproving raise-of-the-brow reserved for parents of teenagers. Hatori, in fact, knew that look all too well—it was one he saw countless nights when he would miss curfew and Daisuke was on his way out to find him. He spoke slowly, taken aback and a small bit humiliated. "Right. Okay. I'll…do that. Night." Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and paced from the room, eager to remove himself from the awkwardness in the air. Returning to the twins' room, shutting the door, he heard something…odd. A click or clatter on the front side of the door, so, he investigated. "What the hell…?" he muttered at the sight of a brass stopper on the wall opposite of the hinges. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure his grandfather was not there, Hatori touched the metal, sticking his finger in the holes were bolts had to be screwed in. Figuring he might ask his great aunt about it in the morning, he decided whatever reason it was there could wait for now.
So, off to bed he went, growing evermore cautious of the two teddy bears by the foot of the bolted-down double bed.
