Fandom: Tokyo Babylon / 東京Babylon
Title: You think one way, I'll look the other
Pairing: Seishirou + Subaru
Rating: PG
Description: Hokuto tells somewhat of Subaru's and her childhood. But it's something that Subaru would rather not discuss. In the end, Seishirou finds himself trying to comfort Subaru not really knowing what to do because he already knew some of this childhood recollection.
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine. They're Clamp's. The only thing I did was name Shisei as Hoku-chan's and Suby-kun's mommy.
You think one way, I'll look the other
by Miyamoto Yui
Chapter 3 - When I was a very small boy...
Subaru darted his attention to Hokuto-chan. "Hokuto-chan?"
Seishirou whistled as he came back and sat in a chair next to Hokuto. Hokuto-chan just tried to look every which way to avoid her brother's gaze. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You said something..." He began to blush and clenched his hands along with his eyes. "The only time you do this is..."
He shot up and eyed her with a slight pout. "You didn't! And not to Seishirou-san, did you?"
When he turned his head to Seishirou, of course the evil yet adorable smirk crept up to his face to reveal that he knew all. As it should be.
[Author nods at this statement. "Seishirou is god, after all."]
Subaru turned redder than anything that you could have possibly imagined. But apparently, it wasn't that at all.
He was actually very upset.
"Hokuto-chan!" he shouted with a burst of energy.
Silence.
Squeak.
She immediately stopped and went to the fridge to get more water with a guilty expression. She knew better, and yet she had tempted Fate by telling Seishirou of his boyfriend's antics when he was little. It was only natural, ne?
But Subaru, who rarely got mad at anyone or anything unless they pushed him to the limit, had very little to be mad about. But pull on those special strings and he would become unstably quiet.
A quiet Subaru instead of a cute embarrassed one meant a cute, mad one or one that pondered too much about life.
And so, there remained an unsteady calmness in the air in which Seishirou glanced at both of them oddly as if they were out of character. Which in this case, they were.
That was scary in itself.
Seishirou went over to Subaru, who was standing in the middle of the path between Seishirou and Hokuto. He rubbed his arms and hugged him from behind whispering that it was okay. But at this point, in back of the Sakurazukamori's mind, he wondered with awe what was it that he had to say 'It's okay' to.
But Subaru looked to one side and sighed. He gently rejected Seishirou's sweet advance and smiled wistfully while saying, "Thanks...but not this time."
"I'll be back in a few." He walked to the door and held the knob with his back towards them. "Maybe. We'll see."
Flap. Click.
The door closed like a silent explosion. It was like someone who talked monotonously, but was actually shouting for you to be damned at the same time.
Seishirou looked at Hokuto's back in confusion.
Hokuto smiled and turned around while simply rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand nonchalantly. "Don't worry about it. He just gets this way whenever I talk about our mother."
"Why?" Seishirou blurted out without tact. He'd never seen this side of Subaru and something inside made him mad and compassionate at the same time.
This was Subaru, after all.
He had wanted to take that sad smile off his face in the back of his mind. But at the same time, he was twinged a bit with jealousy at the fact that he did and could not know everything about the prey he had cared for so long.
"Our mother died when we were young." She sighed in recollection. "We always had happy memories until..."
[Mom's perspective]
It was only a matter of time.
I was only too naive to think that I could hold my children longer. I wanted to hold their innocence as much as I could, but I know I cannot do that any longer.
They have sensed him, Ryu. They all know about Subaru.
The other clan has seen our heirs.
My babies.
Both of them.
They're only six for goodness sake! * teardrop * I barely saw Hokuto-chan and him go into kindergarten a few months ago...
I knew this day would come. It had come to Mother also, but she and my father were able to keep me alive until I was able to have my own children. That's very sad that I must say 'Keep me alive'.
Yes, I've learned that because I was born into this household, I have responsibilities.
My Suby-baby cried for these responsibilities.
Mother had to tell him what it truly meant to be an heir. He knew he was one, but it floated in the air like a bubble waiting to be popped.
It did a few months ago.
Now he knows now sadness means. He cried when he found out and there was nothing I could do, but hold onto him with my heart broken into a million fragments.
His sister senses his loneliness, but we both try to keep him cheerful despite everything.
All I could do was nod my head and keep smiling at him despite everything. What am I supposed to with that?
Am I supposed to show my children that I will mourn for both of their deaths? I cannot do that.
For everything...for everything...
Oh, why cannot the yumemi be wrong? Hinoto-hime...
When I made a pilgrimage to the capital, I stepped into that building only to come out holding my stomach before they were even there.
I feared for you, Ryu. I told you everything, and yet you accepted it as if it were a part of every relationship. That your children will die before they are thirty? And because of what?
Love. Love for the family...Love from a child and parent...Love by another person through obsession...
Who wouldn't be scared? Tell me who would stop this from happening if it could be helped? I did. I tried to be a tomboy and promised myself I wouldn't fall in love.
But you, Ryu...
You wouldn't let me. If they didn't live, then what would happen at the end of the world?
And you died believing that...
While I was rushing to the emergency room, you had just been slain by the Sakurazukamori...
by Setsuka.
We weren't different, weren't we? Caged in our homes like freaks. But I was able to fly only so far, unlike her. They feared her release.
They said her child would become a better assassin than she...
So, if you, my children, read this, it must be that I am no longer with you. Know that I love you very much...
With every drop that flows in your veins, your father and I fought for that. We wanted you to live normally, but I'm sorry that could never be.
Use your techniques wisely. Especially you Hokuto. Mother should explain this to you when you are about fourteen.
As for you Subaru, please make me proud. If you are ever lost, remember that for every pain in life, there is a happiness. Even a sprout should grow from such a dejected place, whether it is in your heart or somewhere out in this forsaken world.
No matter how twisted it may be."
Seishirou was a bit taken back at the mention of his mother, though he tried not to show his surprise. For years, he had not even heard his mother's name and for the Sumeragi's to even know her that well...
by her first name too...
What was it that this mother of theirs never told them?
"So...how did your mother die?" Seishirou asked as he sat in his seat. Hokuto leaned her head on his shoulder by that time and sighed.
[flashback]
"No!" a muffled scream was heard.
"What's that?!" Hokuto shouted as she heard banging from the next room.
"Not yet!" Shisei flung her arms around Subaru while chanting in her mind but shouting, "You can't make him! No, you mustn't, Se-"
Slash.
As Hokuto ran and flung open the door, there was the smile of the Sakurazukamori shining, but she couldn't see the face through the darkness. The murderer then took out their bloody hand from their mother's chest.
Subaru was so frightened that he couldn't even scream. He shook so violently as he watched his mother fall to her knees and open her arms.
"MOTHER!" Hokuto shouted as she ran towards the chaotic scene.
The Sakurazukamori chuckled while leaning close to kiss Subaru on the cheek whispering, "Happy Birthday, Sumeragi. I hope you enjoyed your present."
With tears in his eyes, Subaru's eyes were full of fire as he shouted in his seven-year-old voice, "ON ASANMAGINI UNHATTA!"
At that moment, sakura petals fell all over the place and the assassin's face briefly flashed with a shocked face, but was gone in the same split second.
Hokuto ran to hug both of them. "Mommy, you've got to go to the hospital!"
Subaru was trying to hold his mother up and nodded his head with tears in his eyes. "You can't die, Mommy."
She shook her head. Instead, their mother held onto Subaru's bloody cheek. "Mommy is proud...she...won't...worry too...much...now..."
Her eyes wandered on both of their faces as she also patted Hokuto's cheek. "I love you..."
As their grandmother came to the scene, her eyelids closed...
[end of flashback]
Seishirou tilted his head trying not to look guilty at all. He knew exactly where this story had headed to anyway.
"And that's what happened." Hokuto got up and went to the window. "That's why Subaru can never let it go. He'll always remember our mother before she died. And she had died for both of us, nonetheless. That's why from then on, he was never mischievous. It would dishonor our mother."
Her eyes wandered at the street before her. "And so, when we were old enough, our grandmother sent us here. She wanted to keep our mother's wish."
Turning around with tears in her eyes and a sad grin, Hokuto held her hands behind her. "But wherever we go, we'll never be 'normal', now will we?"
Seishirou was at a loss for words and he still where he was as he sipped the rest of his coffee.
"Go after him, Sei-chan." Hokuto's voice broke the silence.
"What?" Confused, he looked at her oddly.
"He's just right there. Go comfort him." She ran to the bathroom. "I can't do it. Not right now."
She knew somewhere deep inside that she had lost her brother...
But Seishirou couldn't understand that part.
Never wanting her brother to see her in tears, Seishirou had only understood somewhat of this piety that existed between family members. This emotion that seemed to reach among the depths of the hearts of those who lost and gained by death.
When he opened the door of his clinic, there stood Subaru with the raindrops on his face that were being held back with all their might. Seishirou then pulled Subaru's chin so that they could look each other in the eyes.
Like a child, Subaru left the mask of reserved actions and put his arms around Seishirou's waist. And he began to cry the tears he had never thought he would let out.
Suddenly, Seishirou picked him up and carried him. Subaru didn't protest this time.
Putting his arms around the kind doctor's next neck and laying his head on his shoulder, his legs naturally dangled beneath him. Seishirou was holding as if he were a small child that needed to be reassured. It was like piggy-back ride, only, Seishirou wanted to embrace Subaru as best as he could. And Subaru didn't want anything but in that moment of time.
Without so much as thinking about the people that would surely give them bizarre expressions, Seishirou just closed the door and walked out onto the sidewalk.
"It's okay, Subaru..." he shushed him with his soothing voice. But Subaru kept on silently sobbing his heart out wanting to cry blood if he could.
At this, Seishirou felt a tinge of sadness. But he didn't know how to really console his prey. Some part of his conniving nature wanted to see this pain because his own life thrived on this type of feeling.
But...
He couldn't stand Subaru being sad either.
The rain began to trickle from the skies and a drop was hanging from his own eye.
He knew exactly what happened to that diary. Setsuka had burned it on a day that ended in rain like this one...
"I could have been roaming around and killing anyone as I wished it so. Just like you will someday, my child." Her voice echoed in her cell. "Do you know why I was contained here for years, Seishirou?"
He shook his head.
"I let that Sumeragi live."
"What do you mean, Mother?"
"I loved Shisei like a sister. And we had grown up together as so. When we found out later that we were on opposite sides, only then did I realize that I loved her as a woman also."
Mother half laughed, "Even when she could have killed me, she didn't. Damn her and her kindness!"
And she never said anything on that subject ever again.
As they came to the front of Subaru's and Hokuto's apartment, Seishirou took the keys from Subaru's pants and opened the door. As he was going to let go after flicking on the light switch, Subaru held on even tighter. His cheek leaned closer to Seishirou's neck as he tilted his lips upwards to whisper, "No. Don't go yet. Stay with me like this for a while."
Seishirou leaned his back to the wall and nodded. "Okay, Subaru-kun."
Plop.
Subaru's hat finally fell to the ground and Seishirou leaned over to kiss Subaru's forehead.
"It's the only thing I can do," he reasoned to himself.
With a heavy heart, Seishirou also thought, "So the first person I killed was your mother. But I can't tell you that, can't I?"
"It's okay. Keep on crying." Seishirou's eyes closed in slight pain as he drowned his ears to the cries of his beloved Subaru. And so, he held Subaru closer to him, not really knowing what he was doing or why.
In some part of him, this boy always touched the human part that had numbed away years ago. But in these few seconds, Seishirou was slipping. He could feel the warmth of Subaru's existence. Somehow, were their paths intersecting...
...or were they intertwining?
Maybe there is a difference between people and things?
And so, even though he didn't know what he was thinking or doing, his heart knew otherwise.
Even though...
I know perfectly well that I am the cause of your pain...
All I know at this moment is that I love this broken boy I'm holding in my arms...
As Seishirou looked up to the white ceiling above them, he sighed.
"Will I always let you think one way, and I'll look the other?"
Owari. / The End.
-
Author's note: I don't know. This story had taken a whole different turn than I wanted. But I really liked the ending. I wanted Seishirou to hold Subaru like that too because I wanted to draw a pic like this. I wanted him to be so protective Subaru and for Subaru to finally show his true vulnerability before he was broken by Seichan later in TB.
I wanted this to be much longer, but I didn't want it to drag on either. It was going to be light-hearted at the beginning, but I am proud of myself that it started off like that, but ended very painfully, just like the TB manga. I had never captured them like this before, well, that's just my opinion.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!
Love,
Yui
February 2002