"You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't absolutely necessary."
Subaru looked curiously at the phone and shifted it better under his chin. "What do I do with him?"
"Just pick him up from daycare--"
"Daycare?"
"Yeah it ends at 5 in the school building. Feed him, pop in a movie, let him color ... easy stuff. I'm only asking for a few hours Subaru, this closing is going to take all evening and Yuzuriha has her thesis defense..." The irony of placing his son in Subaru care, who used to kill children, was not lost on Kamui. But that had been a different time, a different Subaru ... he hoped.
He had hopped out of closings before and if he did this time and the deal was blown he would lose his job. Although Chiaki would likely feel abandoned and unloved, sometimes you had to hurt the ones you loved in order to protect them. Fuuma had taught him that.
"Please?"
"Okay."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Thank god ... I called the school and told them you'd be picking him up, if you have a problem just call me."
Subaru did not believe in daycare. He understood why Kamui made use of childcare providers, but he saw no reason for him to make any use of them. After all he had been staring vacantly at his wall all morning.
"Oh ... I was under the impression you were picking him up at 5."
"Change of plans," Subaru said, lifting his sunglasses smoothly and giving her his most charming smile.
Subaru had come from a traditional family where children were raised by their parents. On the rare occasion where they could not be they were raised by family. He did not believe in leaving children to the company of strangers who were paid to look after them.
Being that Kamui had no other options available, Subaru would overlook it.
"Well ... Shirou-san is usually better about--"
"I know, he's just having an extremely busy day today."
"We should call--"
He put his hand down sharply on the phone before she could reach it and made use of the intimidating presence he had picked up accidentally as the Sakurazukamori. "Please, he's under a lot of stress now. I don't want him to feel like he has to worry about Chiaki-kun on top of everything else."
"Oh," the woman breathed. "I guess not ... well, he's on the playground right now--"
"Thank you," Subaru dismissed her with a wave of his hand and moved to walk out of the office.
"Hey ... wait a minute!"
He let the door shut out the sound as it closed behind him. He was being unreasonably childish he knew, but the attitude helped him nurse himself out of the lost and confused mood he had found himself in since that night with Kamui.
Why were mistakes so difficult to see for what they were before they happened? At the time it had seemed so natural, so right, and had felt so good neither one of them had even thought to question why they were doing it. Of course what blaring red lights was he looking for? When did such things not feel good?
Life didn't make any sense anymore. He loved Kamui in his own way, which was a far cry from the starry-eyed passionate love of other people, but it was love all the same. Kamui loved him, but Kamui also loved Yuzuriha and Chiaki. Subaru had no desire to make Kamui "choose", he had not expressed any disapproval with their current situation, but yet the necessity of a choice was still present and demanding.
Subaru didn't understand why the simple act of living always had to be so damn complicated.
He supposed that was just the way of things.
And as if life was not screwy enough on its own, he could literally feel a deep void in his soul-- like a large crater left on his heart by the impact of something horrible. A hole that the Sakura's drug-like snare had blinded him to, but now that the Sakura was gone it was all his mind could think about. This emptiness…
Like any naïve individual, and it seemed if nothing else he was permanently naïve, he thought he could fill that void with love and everything would be okay again. But the void had rejected Kamui and would not leave him in peace now. So it appeared another unscalable wall had been put between them.
And with that in mind, he wished Kamui would be happy with his hard earned family instead of ruining it for him.
Subaru had hoped to get back to his onmyouji duties after he had finished with the Sakura-- assuming he lived of course. But lately he had been feeling strangely distant from himself and had trouble concentrating. The clan had ordered him to take a vacation, the problem being Subaru had never had a vacation before and didn't know exactly what to do with one.
Inevitably he ended up staring at his wall.
Although he was sure that Chiaki was a perfectly charming and sweet child to everyone else, the boy was far from happy to see Subaru. It took a nudge from his teacher for him to get any closer, which he eventually obliged with a scowl that attacked Subaru defiantly.
It was a really long walk back to his car.
Subaru opened the passenger side door and indicated for Chiaki to get in. He was aware that small children needed certain adjustments to keep up with the world their parents had to deal with, but this seemed a simple enough task.
Evidently not…
"I'm not suppose to sit there," the four year old informed him. "It's the law."
"Well then we're criminals I guess ... it's not a long drive, come on."
Chiaki looked him straight in the eye and said without any moral hindrance, "I don't like you."
"Why not?"
"Because you took Daddy away."
Subaru walked around to the driver's side, taking off his sunglasses and his coat before throwing them both in the backseat along with Chiaki's book bag. "Actually the truth is quite the opposite," he mumbled. "Your father's not going to leave you ... certainly not for me."
"He's not here now."
Chiaki was remarkably sharp for such a small child. He could see what Kamui found so unnerving about him. It must be horrible, Subaru thought, being scared of what your own son might become.
"You like to eat don't you? You like having a bed to sleep in?"
"Huh?"
"They are lots of kids in Tokyo without homes or food, how do you think Kamui gets those things for you?"
Chiaki stared blankly at him. Perhaps he should have known better than to reason with a child. Children could often seem more perceptive than they actually were.
"Look," Subaru said. "Either get in the car or I'll feed you to my shrubbery."
Certainly Subaru had a lot to learn about childcare. And tact…
She tapped lightly on the door as she entered, peering around the room for signs of life. All the other offices were abandoned and dark as the men and women of Tokyo had returned to their families for the night. It was late, much later than Kamui usually worked. Yuzuriha had called his apartment only to find that he still was not home, which meant that Chiaki was still with Subaru.
She was on her way to pick the child up when she remembered that sometimes if someone did not physically pick up Kamui and drag him away from his office he might never come back. Things the last couple of days had been rough for all of them, it wasn't good if Kamui started living at the office on top of it.
"Nekoi-san," Kamui's secretary greeted. Her voice was friendly but reasonably exhausted and Yuzuriha's heart went out to the woman. To everyone actually, they all worked so hard here trying to rebuild the fallen city piece by piece.
"Is he still here?"
She nodded, "will you tell him I left for the night? I really have to get home now."
"Of course, of course ... it will be fine, Kamui probably didn't even realize you were still here."
"Probably not," the woman admitted as she packed up her things. "He hasn't come of his office in three hours, if I wasn't so exhausted I'd be inspired."
She chuckled and handed the woman her coat politely. "Did everything go okay today?"
"We got it. The deal is final."
While Yuzuriha was sincerely happy about that, it puzzled her. "Well ... if you finished closing the deal, why is he still here?"
A shrug, "I guess he had some back work to do, he went into his office to file the paperwork and hasn't come out since."
Concerned, she let the secretary politely slip out as she walked over to Kamui's small office and knocked softly on the door.
No answer.
She looked questioningly at Inuki who gave her a matching quizzical glance. Nothing seemed to be amiss around them; the office building had been lulled into a soft, gentle peace as the sun had set. Neither one of them could detect a disturbance of natural or unnatural forces.
She slowly opened the door. "Kamui?"
Kamui was at his desk, head resting on his arms, completely and totally sound asleep.
Inuki seemed disappointed. Yuzuriha laughed. "Oh dear, he's been in here for three hours like this?"
At first he didn't want to wake up. Sleep was so warm and relaxing and it felt so good to not have a thought or worry in his head.
"Kamui ... Kamui come on, wake up. It's time to go home silly."
"Mmmmmm..." Kamui groaned a bit, frowning just before his pair of confused violet eyes fluttered open and blinked wearily. "Yu..."
"Yes honey it's me."
It took a few minutes more for Kamui to process where he was and what had happened before he leaped up in an absolute panic. "Oh my god, I fell asleep!"
"It's all right Kamui-"
"No it's not, I left Chiaki with Subaru and I've still got to finish filing this stuff and make something for dinner and-- god it's so late!!"
"Kamui, Chiaki is fine I spoke to him no less than five minutes ago, Subaru hasn't turned him into plant fertilizer and he seems to be having a good time where he is. I can help you finish this up, and everything else will take care of itself."
For a moment Kamui just stared. It did not surprise her, Kamui was not used to banal problems that had simple and easy solutions, he was used to Earth shattering foreordained problems with impossible solutions.
Kamui settled back into his seat, sighed heavily and smiled at her. "You don't have to help..."
"Let's get it done and get out of here," she told him. Picking up the pile of documents, she divided them in half and pushed the second pile towards him. "There."
"They're filed by seller's last name, top box on the right." He pointed it out to her. "See?"
"Aahh, no problem." She gave him a cheerful thumbs up sign and set about her half of the task. Together they could finish this off quickly, because it seemed like, and had always seemed like, together they could do anything.
"Blue ... red, green, yellow, blue!"
"Nonono, you have to go down the chocolate slide and then you're on this blue."
"Do not!"
"Do too."
Kamui and Yuzuriha found the door to Subaru's apartment unlocked and therefore saw fit to let themselves in. Kamui had been prepared for a whole variety of worsts but not the sight that greeted him in the center of Subaru's apartment. While Yuzuriha giggled, he just gawked … not quite sure whether to think Subaru was adorable, or completely out of his mind.
Chiaki and Subaru were sitting on the floor playing Candyland. What a child's board game was doing in Subaru's apartment in the first place was anyone's guess.
"Daddy!" Chiaki exclaimed, then almost too quickly he pointed accusingly at the Sumeragi and declared "Subaru's cheating!"
"Am not!" Subaru insisted. "You have to go down the chocolate slide like this…"
"Errr ... that's only if you land directly on the slide," Kamui pointed out.
Subaru blinked and looked down at the board game. "Really?"
"Told you so! Told you so!"
"Chiaki don't be-- what in the world happened to you two?"
Now that he was closer and in better light he could see the bright colored smudges littering both of their faces and hands. Chiaki's black hair was actually glowing green and a touch left the strange sticky hairspray like stuff all over his hand.
"Subaru took me to the carnival after school," Chiaki announced.
"... he ... he didn't have to do that..." Kamui began.
"Neh Chiaki you thanked Subaru-san for being so nice to you right?" Yuzuriha smiled, she had every reason to be amused by this scene.
Chiaki nodded as Subaru indicated to the face paint and hair gunk that the toddler had gotten all over him in his show of appreciation.
Kamui was at a loss for words.
"Daddy can I stay over? Subaru lets me have ice cream for dinner."
"Shhhhh..." Subaru hissed, covering the boy's mouth with his hand and pulling him close enough to whisper something hotly in his ear. At which the child cleared his throat and wisely corrected himself. "I mean ... he let me have ice cream after dinner ... grilled tofu, green beans and rice, yummy!!!"
"Uh-huh ... well no you can't stay over it's a school night--"
"I'll take him to school tomorrow," Subaru offered.
"You will?"
The onmyouji nodded honestly, "yeah I've got nothing to do."
Too convenient. Kamui didn't trust convenient situations. If it didn't take a hell of a struggle to pull off and a lot of angst getting there it obviously was going to turn on you in the end.
Unfortunately, before he could say no Yuzuriha saw fit to step in. Perhaps she had anticipated his reaction better than he had. "Great, we'll go grab his overnight bag and you can drop him off at my place tomorrow, all right?"
"Sure," Subaru grinned.
"Hey but--"
"Kamui when was the last time you ate out at a place that didn't have menus that came with crayons? Come on," she pushed him towards the door. "Let Subaru worry about getting all that crap off him."
He understood that Yu was only trying to give him a little de-stress time, but he couldn't help feeling guilty about wanting a break from the chaos his child brought into his life. He was pleased of course that Yuzuriha wanted to welcome Subaru into their lives as much as he did "But..."
"No buts," she was dragging him out. "A little 'me time' will do you good."
Lately it seemed like he had had entirely too much 'me time'...
"Bye Daddy, see you tomorrow," Chiaki waved as he closed the apartment door with a sharp click.
"He locked the door..." Kamui nearly gasped. For four years he had been the man ruling over his little family. Not a tyrannical Alpha male type thing of course, but his son always listened to him and Yuzuriha permitted his semi-self destructive tendencies. Now everyone was ganging up against him. "This is mutiny!"
"Kamui just think ... nice hot shower, clean clothes, good food and a little sake..."
It went almost without saying that in a peaceful quite restaurant, with heavy plates filled to their brims with food, and candlelight and soft music, Kamui would be immediately inclined to angst unnecessarily. It wasn't that he wished to disturb the wonderful peace of the environment, it was just the way his mind seemed to work.
He was fortunate then that it was Yuzuriha who was with him tonight. It was hard to angst with her. Doing so made him feel ungrateful and spoiled.
"Yu ... I'm kind of worried about Chiaki."
"Worried? About what Kamui?"
"About..." his breath slowly faded from his throat, he wasn't sure how to put this in a way that was both honest and accurate. But that could be because he wasn't sure actually what he was thinking himself. "I don't think he should be spending so much time with Subaru."
Her smile became concerned, not for their son but for him. "He's not going to hurt him Kamui."
"I know that," forget the fact that there was no guarantee that the Sakura was gone for good to begin with. Or that Subaru could presumably hurt Chiaki and might do as much if everything they thought they knew about the man was false. Despite the reasonable nature of this fear, it was not what bothered Kamui. He trusted Subaru not to do anything deliberately to hurt the boy, it was the possible accidents that concerned him. "It's just ... Subaru and Fuuma were ... well ... not close really. It's not like they were friends or anything ... but ... they talked a lot, they understood each other in some odd way."
He twirled his chopstick nervously. Odd that after all they had both seen, after living the lives of mythical Dragons of the apocalypse, that admitting the theory that haunted him would embarrass him so much. Like Yuzuriha who had a spirit dog that could transform into battle equipment would think he was crazy for believing that the child called Chiaki had been Fuuma long ago. Kamui knew she didn't share his beliefs about their son, and he didn't blame her. It seemed like such a desperate delusion on his part in so many ways. "I'm worried that being with Subaru might ... hit upon something ... a memory or something.."
And then he would lose the most important thing in his life to... guilt? insanity? or even hate? No matter who he was or wasn't, no matter what his fate was, Kamui loved his son. Even if Chiaki was not biologically his own, he was the most important of all the shambles Kamui had left.
"It's a new life Kamui, a clean slate, if you want to ensure that he never remembers the past you have to stop keeping it alive."
"You believe that?"
"Of course."
"I just don't want to let him down again. And Subaru reminds me of how I failed him the first time. He worries me."
"Don't you trust him Kamui?" She said it in such a way that he knew it was okay if the answer to that was 'no'.
"I dunno ... he's been acting strange lately."
"How strange is 'strange'?"
"Well let's see I've seen morose angsty Subaru, obsessive Subaru, lifeless Sakurzukamori Subaru ... yet somehow this outranks them all in strangeness. He's behavior is just so different than what I've known from him."
"Maybe he's having a midlife crisis," Yuzuriha suggested.
Kamui blinked, that made sense ... why hadn't that occurred to him? Had his common sense been over-shadowed by anticipation of some extreme effects the Sakura's end might have had? Subaru was much older than them, why did that image of the young 25 year old persist so in Kamui's mind? "Well... Maybe you're right ... maybe I'm looking for drama where there is none."
She laughed and placed her hand over his comfortingly. "It's not odd Kamui. You spent your life in the mists of death and tragedy, after all that time I'm sure moving away from that kind of thinking is no easy thing."
She was always so patient with him. After all she had seen and been through herself she couldn't allow herself to be bitter or cynical the way he and Subaru had inevitably become. "How do you do it Yuzuriha?"
"Do what Kamui?"
"How do you know that this world is run by good things instead of a cruel and hateful god or something?"
"That's quite a way to put it Kamui."
"It's what I'd like to believe," he shrugged shyly. "I want to believe something like that Yuzuriha but experience keeps teaching me otherwise. How do you do it?"
"I know it's the truth. It's easy to believe something when you know it's true. As for how I know ... that's my secret."
He was momentarily surprised when she broke their serious conversation with a playful wink. Kamui blinked a few times just to make sure he hadn't missed some hint that he was supposed to pick up on. "That's not fair," he frowned.
"Well how do you know that Chiaki is Fuuma?"
"He..." Kamui tilted his head in deep thought. He was desperately scanning the events of the child's lifetime for a solid undisputable clue, but all he could find were innocent comments and looks that had triggered something deep inside of himself but had no meaning on their own. Those incidents could easily be nothing more than illusions he constructed to support his hopes, he was all too aware of this. With a sigh he admitted his inevitable defeat, "it's just a feeling."
"But you know it's the truth because you see all the tiny details that everyone else is blind to. That's it Kamui, that's how I know that life is good. I can see all the small details of goodness everyone else misses. I'm sure you could if you just look for them as hard as you look for the dark monster lurking in that child."
Kamui drew in the world around them for a moment. The other people in the restaurant seemed little more than scenery moving about in a living play. He did not know them, how could he see the good in them? How could he accurately see the good in strangers when the ones he loved had shown him their deeper darker sides so intimately? It was so easy to believe they weren't real people and so hard to try to see the good instead of the cynical. Kamui sighed and lowered his head weakly, it was hard to assume others had more virtue than even those he loved.
Hesitantly he admitted to both of them that he probably would never have the ability to see what was too painful to believe. "Will you teach me?"
The bill being paid he grabbed their coats and escorted her to the door. "Oh crap," he sighed as he glanced out the window. The sky had seen fit to release its heavy burden of rain, ruining what had been a warm and beautiful evening for certain. Kamui frowned, he had been hoping to show his appreciation for Yuzuriha's continuing kindness by making sure she had a good time out with him, and though dinner was lovely he still felt unsatisfied with that task. "It's pouring."
"We'll call a cab," she suggested helpfully, already holding the phonebook in hand and moving around to find money for the pay phone.
But a cab ride was so … convenient.
Nevertheless he wasn't going to be so stubborn as to make them walk in the rain. He was going to be stubborn in other ways! And cute and romantic and make Yuzuriha forget all of his inadequacies that she put up with.
The cab arrived, Kamui took her arm gently and held open the door for them. She snickered at first, kissing him sweetly on the cheek as she sometimes did before punching him in the shoulder with a wink. "Don't get sneaky on me Kamui, I was beginning to think you were one of the few honest men left in Tokyo."
The gutter was swelling with mud and scattered puddles, so of course the cab was waiting for them as far away from the curb as possible without being out in the middle of the street. There was a river of heavy mud between them and the yellow cab which Yuzuriha hesitated in attempting to cross. The paused did not last for long and she intended to move to bravely through the mess when Kamui grabbed her elbow and began to remove his jacket.
She laughed. "Oh no Kamui, don't do that!"
"But it's the gentleman thing to do isn't it?"
She was charmed, "there's no sense in ruining a nice jacket for a pair of cheap shoes." Yuzuriha pointed down to her feet cutely, "they're pleather Kamui."
"Shush," he smiled as he covered the puddle. "I got this from the little boy's department anyway. Come on."
She sparkled as he took her hand and gracefully lead her over the mud puddle and into the taxi. Scooping up the soiled jacket as he swung in behind her, Kamui landed on the soft vinyl cushioned seats with a cheerful plop and gave the driver directions to Yuzuriha's apartment.
He was soaking wet. Water was sliding slowly down strands of his hair, his shirt was clinging coldly to his skin, his shoes and the hem of his pants were muddy and soaked, chivalry did not do much for his dry cleaning bill.
"We should have brought an umbrella," Yuzuriha noted.
"And miss mother nature turning Tokyo into a water park? I scoff at the very suggestion."
"But look at you Kamui! Why you look like a child who's been playing in a mud puddle!"
"Or swine that's been rolling in it," Kamui mused. "I have been rolling in it Yu, I am so fortunate to have you and Chiaki and Subaru. I only wish you all didn't drive me completely insane."
"That wouldn't be any fun."
"Probably not."
"And wasn't this fun?" Yuzuriha prodded.
"The parts not in the pouring rain? Yes certainly. You know ... we should do this more often."