Title - Price of Forgiveness (Chpt 10)
Author - HourglassThorne
Rating - R (see warnings)
Pairing(s) - Pairing yet to be specified
Warning(s) - Glühen spoilers; strong language; graphic violence; disturbing content
Notes: My apologies once more for the extended lengthy time it took for me to get this one up. My muses have finally decided to stop being on strike, and now I know where I want to go with this. Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this story of mine.
Status of fanfic - ongoing
There was a faint knocking at the door. "Youji-kun?" a tenative voice softly spoke from behind the closed door before it opened just a crack. Cautiously, Omi crept into the room, pausing once he was fully within it to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting . Ken poked his head in afterwards, making sure that the door didn't open any farther than necessary and let in too much light.
"Youji? Are you asleep?" the dark haired Japanese man whispered gingerly.
Omi shot him a look. "Thank you Mister Obvious," he whispered back, rolling his eyes while a corner of Ken's lips curled up in a small grin as he shrugged.
Though there was no movement from the curled up form on the large bed against the far wall of the room, something definitely stirred from within the crib that was bumped up on the side wall next to the door. The two men turned their heads to the small infant standing up in her crib, holding onto the railing, staring at them wide-eyed with her luminous emerald eyes.
The younger Wei's face lit up completely when the baby, upon recognizing the man looking at her, broke out into a huge grin and bounced up and down before losing her grip and balance and sitting back down with a bump. "Kaiya-chan!" he crooned, still keeping his voice low. The little girl giggled, which brought a stir from the lump on the bed. Both men froze, Ken in mid-entry into the room, until the movement settled and was motionless once more. They both released the breaths that they absentmindly had been holding. "Shhh, Kaiya-chan. We don't want to wake up your papa now, do we?" Omi moved to the crib and lifted her up, hugging her gently while the small child clung to him like a little spider monkey. Eventually, though, he moved to the changing table and quickly began to change her while Ken watched on in a sort of awe.
"Looks like you've had a lot of practice at that." He came up and stood looked down on Kaiya, who paused in her attempts to roll over and stared at Ken curiously.
Omi shrugged. "When I wasn't hung up on business, I'd spend all my free time with Youji and his family. They were the closest things to it that I had over there once you guys left." He smiled a bit sadly, though he shook off the feeling as best he could. Somehow, entertaining sadness and grief when around the small child didn't seem right, if not an outright crime. Once done, he lifted her up and held her against his chest. "Grab that blanket there," he motioned to the crib. "And the bear too. Is there somewhere here where we can let her crawl around and play?"
Ken looked about for a moment before zeroing in on a door next to the bed. "Over there. There's a living room connected to this one." He grabbed the things from the crib and led the younger man to the door, trying to move all the more stealthily as they passed by Youji's bed. Once reassured that the young child's father was still sound asleep, they quietly opened the door and slipped into the next room.
The moment the door was silently closed behind them, however, the lanky figure on the bed turned over to look at it with a curious expression on his face. Swinging legs off the side of the bed, Youji gingerly made his way to the door and with practiced ease silently opened it just enough for him to listen in to the sounds within.
Unknowing of their secretive audience, Omi whirled Kaiya around in his arms as she squealed with delight at the movement, Ken laughing at the happy sight. "She certainly is a keeper when she's not screaming her lungs out," he commented light-heartedly.
"Kaiya-chan's one in a million." Omi beamed as he looked about the room. It was a small room, but comfortably furnished. There wasn't a television or computer to be found, but there was a black grand piano as well as a top of the line stereo system with a collection of cds on the shelf behind it. Taking up the rest of the bookshelves were volumes upon volumes of literature. Complete with a fireplace in the corner and several leather armchairs, as well as a comfortable looking sofa, this room was the perfect hideaway for those of less active and more studious relaxation. "Lemme guess... Aya spends alot of his free time up here, doesn't he?"
Ken shrugged. "If the weather's lousy, he does. Actually, when he's relaxing, he has a garden out back he works on. Even has a greenhouse all to himself." He laughed. "You should have seen the face on the regular gardener when Aya decided to claim it as his own. I swear that old codger looked mad enough to chew nails when Aya kicked him out and told him it was off-limits. Not sure why, but he's gotten quite possessive of it. Though we do have apartments in London above the flower shop, we come back here every now and again to unwind or to train."
The younger man smiled and shook his head. "The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh Ken-kun?" He set an almost furiously squirming Kaiya down on the floor gently.
The other one stared at Omi blankly, then laughed. "I guess you're right. Never thought much about it." Suddenly, Ken felt a tugging at his jeans. Looking down, he was a bit startled to see that Youji's young daughter had crawled over and was trying to pull herself up against his legs. "Wow! She's not shy or scared of me at all, is she?" He could feel his heart warm from the inside out as she flashed him with a winsome smile, her three bottom pearls of teeth shining in the bed of pink gums.
Omi took the blanket from Ken. "Watch this. She loves this. Hey Kaiya-chan! Look what Uncle Mamoru's got." When the little girl turned around to face the younger man, he flipped the blanket out so that it landed lightly on her head, covering her face. The babe squealed brightly with absolute delight as she waved her arms under the blanket, sat down with a bump on the floor when she lost her balance, and eventually tugging the soft pastel cloth quickly from her face, still laughing that infectious little baby giggle. Both Ken and Omi joined in, their light-hearted laughter filling the room. As Omi flipped the blanket over her head a second time, though, Ken gave him a slightly pained look.
"Must have been hard... Having Youji call you 'Mamoru' this entire time, hasn't it?"
"It was... at first. I still hate the Takatori name and everything it's connected with. However, coming from him didn't seem so bad. With him, 'Mamoru' was just my name and not a stigma." He sighed. "Even though, when we first became friends, there were several times that I completely spaced out and didn't answer him when he called me by that name. It was so unfamiliar attached to his voice. I guess my mind kept wanting and waiting for him to call me 'Omitchi'." He chuckled fondly. "I never would have imagined that I'd ever long to hear that annoying nickname ever again."
"Yeah. Y'know when he showed up at the Kitten's House, after he and Aya lost those thugs who were after him, one of the first things that he remembered were our goofy nicknames too. Of course I had to remind him of his own one."
"Of course."
The two young men shared a smile between them and turned their attention back to entertaining the small child, all three of them delighting their improptu game of peek-a-boo. After a while they switched the game around for the baby girl, taking the bear they had swiped from her crib and setting it on the floor before draping the blanket over it, covering it completely. While watching the girl examine the bear-shaped lump carefully, they both sat next to each other on the floor, their backs against the sofa.
"I never wanted to hurt any of you, y'know," Omi murmered softly. "Especially not Youji. All I wanted for him was a chance to live a life he always wanted... A life away from all 'this'." The young man made a sweeping gesture with his hand, to which Ken nodded with clear comprehension on his face.
"I understand. Aya does too. And I'm sure that Youji will forgive you eventually, especially when he remembers all we've been through together." Ken put his arm about his former partner's shoulders comfortingly.
Omi frowned though. "But even if we tell him everything tonight... Will he actually remember it? I remember when he was at the hospital and I talked to the doctors. They told me that even though he had suffered a lot of injuries, there was no physical damage to the brain to explain away his amnesia. Although considering everything he'd been through in those last few missions, especially after Neu, I guess the psychological trauma might have been enough to make him block things out." Despite the young man's words, his tone revealed that he wasn't completely convinced of that rationalization.
Though he smiled at Kaiya as she pounced upon the teddy that she finally uncovered while tugging persistantly on the blanket, Ken nodded as he contemplated his old friend's words. "I still don't like the idea of bringing him back into this. That last mission almost killed him, and by the grace of some higher power he was not only allowed to live, but to have an actual honest-to-goodness life. I mean.. How many of us can really even dare to dream about something like that the way our lives are right now? Honestly?"
The younger former Weiß couldn't meet Ken's questioning gaze, but the expression on his face spoke volumes.
In the shadows of the bedroom, Youji sat there on the floor, his back against the wall and his ear next to the slight opening in the door. He listened intently, absorbing all that he heard with a stoic expression on his face that gradually melted into something more serene as the conversations between Ken and Omi continued. When they fell silent once more, save for the occassional giggles and babbling from his little girl, the tall blonde carefully got to his feet, stretched, and quietly entered the living room himself.
So absorbed the other two were in their own thoughts while absentmindedly watching Kaiya that they didn't realize that they had a visitor until they saw the little girl suddenly move to her hands and knees and began crawling like mad away from them. They had both twisted around to go after the little girl but froze when they saw Youji kneeling down gingerly to gather up the little girl in his arms. Not wanting to endure a long awkward silent moment, Omi got up and walked up to the taller blonde contritely.
"Youji-kun... I just... just wanted to say... that I'm sorry for everything. I didn't mean to hurt you. I just wanted you to be happy, to be safe, to be-"
"Y'know," Youji cut in gently, as he let Kaiya grab a hold of a lock of hair and tug on it playfully when he lifted her up. "I never felt comfortable calling you 'Mamoru.' For some reason I couldn't figure out, it didn't feel right, sound right. It was like the name didn't fit." He winced when the baby gave his hair a really hard pull and gently pried her tiny fingers apart to release it. Then he turned to give the younger man a small, weary smile. "Your name is Omi. That's what fits."
He took Kaiya over to the piano and sat her on his lap as he used a free hand to walk his fingers along the keys, playing a simple C major scale. The child oohed and ahhed and clapped her hands together, which seemed to relax the tension in Youji's frame and drew some of the weariness from his eyes. As he let the tiny child reach over and experimentally tap out a few haphazard keys of her own, he turned his attention back to the other two.
"I'm still not happy with being lied to and having secrets kept from me, but I'm too tired and don't have the energy to be mad right now." His haunted jade eyes, underscored by shadows from sleeplessness and grief, closed as he massaged the temple. "If it's not too much trouble, can't we please just forget all about all the lies and secrets and everything else... At least while we're here with Kaiya? Can't we just pretend, at least for a little while, that everything's ok between us?" He lifted his eyes and there was a heartfelt pleading within them. "I know I feel comfortable with you despite everything, and my daughter likes you both... You're the only people I feel safe around right now." Youji held his baby closer to him in his lap, drawing a curious look from her when she noticed he'd pulled her away from the piano keys.
Omi and Ken looked at each other. Then they both smiled supportively at Youji.
"What lies? What secrets? I don't know what Yotan's talking about. Do you, Omi?" Ken spoke up with a shake of his head.
Omi bent down to retrieve the teddy bear from the floor. "Nope. Can't say that I do, Ken-kun."
Youji stared at them both for a moment before his face finally relaxed enough for a genuine grateful smile to appear. He chuckled softly as Kaiya crooned and reached for the bear. "Kaiya-chan. Do you want to go to Uncle Omitchi and Uncle KenKen for a bit while I get you some juice from the other room?"
The youngest of the former Weiß gave Youji a startled look, completely unprepared for the feeling of warmth at the sound of his old nickname coming from the eldest Wei's lips. He smiled back, genuinely happy, as he lifted Kaiya from her father's lap. Youji then tried to stand up, wincing as he tried to put weight on his injured ankle. Before he knew it, though, he found Ken at his side, helping him up.
"Here, lemme help ya with that, Yotan. Y'know, Agnes will have my hide if I let ya make that ankle of yours worse."
The tall blonde smirked at him. "Aww... The mighty Kenken cowed by a kindly old grandma?"
Ken laughed as he walked with Youji to the bedroom where spare bottles had been left within. "'Kindly old grandma' my ass! She may be all nice and sweet when you're doing exactly what she wants, but the moment you step outta line with her, watch out. She's an evil, evil woman with a full set of kitchen cutlery at her disposal and a master key to nearly every room in this place."
Author - HourglassThorne
Rating - R (see warnings)
Pairing(s) - Pairing yet to be specified
Warning(s) - Glühen spoilers; strong language; graphic violence; disturbing content
Notes: My apologies once more for the extended lengthy time it took for me to get this one up. My muses have finally decided to stop being on strike, and now I know where I want to go with this. Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this story of mine.
Status of fanfic - ongoing
There was a faint knocking at the door. "Youji-kun?" a tenative voice softly spoke from behind the closed door before it opened just a crack. Cautiously, Omi crept into the room, pausing once he was fully within it to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting . Ken poked his head in afterwards, making sure that the door didn't open any farther than necessary and let in too much light.
"Youji? Are you asleep?" the dark haired Japanese man whispered gingerly.
Omi shot him a look. "Thank you Mister Obvious," he whispered back, rolling his eyes while a corner of Ken's lips curled up in a small grin as he shrugged.
Though there was no movement from the curled up form on the large bed against the far wall of the room, something definitely stirred from within the crib that was bumped up on the side wall next to the door. The two men turned their heads to the small infant standing up in her crib, holding onto the railing, staring at them wide-eyed with her luminous emerald eyes.
The younger Wei's face lit up completely when the baby, upon recognizing the man looking at her, broke out into a huge grin and bounced up and down before losing her grip and balance and sitting back down with a bump. "Kaiya-chan!" he crooned, still keeping his voice low. The little girl giggled, which brought a stir from the lump on the bed. Both men froze, Ken in mid-entry into the room, until the movement settled and was motionless once more. They both released the breaths that they absentmindly had been holding. "Shhh, Kaiya-chan. We don't want to wake up your papa now, do we?" Omi moved to the crib and lifted her up, hugging her gently while the small child clung to him like a little spider monkey. Eventually, though, he moved to the changing table and quickly began to change her while Ken watched on in a sort of awe.
"Looks like you've had a lot of practice at that." He came up and stood looked down on Kaiya, who paused in her attempts to roll over and stared at Ken curiously.
Omi shrugged. "When I wasn't hung up on business, I'd spend all my free time with Youji and his family. They were the closest things to it that I had over there once you guys left." He smiled a bit sadly, though he shook off the feeling as best he could. Somehow, entertaining sadness and grief when around the small child didn't seem right, if not an outright crime. Once done, he lifted her up and held her against his chest. "Grab that blanket there," he motioned to the crib. "And the bear too. Is there somewhere here where we can let her crawl around and play?"
Ken looked about for a moment before zeroing in on a door next to the bed. "Over there. There's a living room connected to this one." He grabbed the things from the crib and led the younger man to the door, trying to move all the more stealthily as they passed by Youji's bed. Once reassured that the young child's father was still sound asleep, they quietly opened the door and slipped into the next room.
The moment the door was silently closed behind them, however, the lanky figure on the bed turned over to look at it with a curious expression on his face. Swinging legs off the side of the bed, Youji gingerly made his way to the door and with practiced ease silently opened it just enough for him to listen in to the sounds within.
Unknowing of their secretive audience, Omi whirled Kaiya around in his arms as she squealed with delight at the movement, Ken laughing at the happy sight. "She certainly is a keeper when she's not screaming her lungs out," he commented light-heartedly.
"Kaiya-chan's one in a million." Omi beamed as he looked about the room. It was a small room, but comfortably furnished. There wasn't a television or computer to be found, but there was a black grand piano as well as a top of the line stereo system with a collection of cds on the shelf behind it. Taking up the rest of the bookshelves were volumes upon volumes of literature. Complete with a fireplace in the corner and several leather armchairs, as well as a comfortable looking sofa, this room was the perfect hideaway for those of less active and more studious relaxation. "Lemme guess... Aya spends alot of his free time up here, doesn't he?"
Ken shrugged. "If the weather's lousy, he does. Actually, when he's relaxing, he has a garden out back he works on. Even has a greenhouse all to himself." He laughed. "You should have seen the face on the regular gardener when Aya decided to claim it as his own. I swear that old codger looked mad enough to chew nails when Aya kicked him out and told him it was off-limits. Not sure why, but he's gotten quite possessive of it. Though we do have apartments in London above the flower shop, we come back here every now and again to unwind or to train."
The younger man smiled and shook his head. "The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh Ken-kun?" He set an almost furiously squirming Kaiya down on the floor gently.
The other one stared at Omi blankly, then laughed. "I guess you're right. Never thought much about it." Suddenly, Ken felt a tugging at his jeans. Looking down, he was a bit startled to see that Youji's young daughter had crawled over and was trying to pull herself up against his legs. "Wow! She's not shy or scared of me at all, is she?" He could feel his heart warm from the inside out as she flashed him with a winsome smile, her three bottom pearls of teeth shining in the bed of pink gums.
Omi took the blanket from Ken. "Watch this. She loves this. Hey Kaiya-chan! Look what Uncle Mamoru's got." When the little girl turned around to face the younger man, he flipped the blanket out so that it landed lightly on her head, covering her face. The babe squealed brightly with absolute delight as she waved her arms under the blanket, sat down with a bump on the floor when she lost her balance, and eventually tugging the soft pastel cloth quickly from her face, still laughing that infectious little baby giggle. Both Ken and Omi joined in, their light-hearted laughter filling the room. As Omi flipped the blanket over her head a second time, though, Ken gave him a slightly pained look.
"Must have been hard... Having Youji call you 'Mamoru' this entire time, hasn't it?"
"It was... at first. I still hate the Takatori name and everything it's connected with. However, coming from him didn't seem so bad. With him, 'Mamoru' was just my name and not a stigma." He sighed. "Even though, when we first became friends, there were several times that I completely spaced out and didn't answer him when he called me by that name. It was so unfamiliar attached to his voice. I guess my mind kept wanting and waiting for him to call me 'Omitchi'." He chuckled fondly. "I never would have imagined that I'd ever long to hear that annoying nickname ever again."
"Yeah. Y'know when he showed up at the Kitten's House, after he and Aya lost those thugs who were after him, one of the first things that he remembered were our goofy nicknames too. Of course I had to remind him of his own one."
"Of course."
The two young men shared a smile between them and turned their attention back to entertaining the small child, all three of them delighting their improptu game of peek-a-boo. After a while they switched the game around for the baby girl, taking the bear they had swiped from her crib and setting it on the floor before draping the blanket over it, covering it completely. While watching the girl examine the bear-shaped lump carefully, they both sat next to each other on the floor, their backs against the sofa.
"I never wanted to hurt any of you, y'know," Omi murmered softly. "Especially not Youji. All I wanted for him was a chance to live a life he always wanted... A life away from all 'this'." The young man made a sweeping gesture with his hand, to which Ken nodded with clear comprehension on his face.
"I understand. Aya does too. And I'm sure that Youji will forgive you eventually, especially when he remembers all we've been through together." Ken put his arm about his former partner's shoulders comfortingly.
Omi frowned though. "But even if we tell him everything tonight... Will he actually remember it? I remember when he was at the hospital and I talked to the doctors. They told me that even though he had suffered a lot of injuries, there was no physical damage to the brain to explain away his amnesia. Although considering everything he'd been through in those last few missions, especially after Neu, I guess the psychological trauma might have been enough to make him block things out." Despite the young man's words, his tone revealed that he wasn't completely convinced of that rationalization.
Though he smiled at Kaiya as she pounced upon the teddy that she finally uncovered while tugging persistantly on the blanket, Ken nodded as he contemplated his old friend's words. "I still don't like the idea of bringing him back into this. That last mission almost killed him, and by the grace of some higher power he was not only allowed to live, but to have an actual honest-to-goodness life. I mean.. How many of us can really even dare to dream about something like that the way our lives are right now? Honestly?"
The younger former Weiß couldn't meet Ken's questioning gaze, but the expression on his face spoke volumes.
In the shadows of the bedroom, Youji sat there on the floor, his back against the wall and his ear next to the slight opening in the door. He listened intently, absorbing all that he heard with a stoic expression on his face that gradually melted into something more serene as the conversations between Ken and Omi continued. When they fell silent once more, save for the occassional giggles and babbling from his little girl, the tall blonde carefully got to his feet, stretched, and quietly entered the living room himself.
So absorbed the other two were in their own thoughts while absentmindedly watching Kaiya that they didn't realize that they had a visitor until they saw the little girl suddenly move to her hands and knees and began crawling like mad away from them. They had both twisted around to go after the little girl but froze when they saw Youji kneeling down gingerly to gather up the little girl in his arms. Not wanting to endure a long awkward silent moment, Omi got up and walked up to the taller blonde contritely.
"Youji-kun... I just... just wanted to say... that I'm sorry for everything. I didn't mean to hurt you. I just wanted you to be happy, to be safe, to be-"
"Y'know," Youji cut in gently, as he let Kaiya grab a hold of a lock of hair and tug on it playfully when he lifted her up. "I never felt comfortable calling you 'Mamoru.' For some reason I couldn't figure out, it didn't feel right, sound right. It was like the name didn't fit." He winced when the baby gave his hair a really hard pull and gently pried her tiny fingers apart to release it. Then he turned to give the younger man a small, weary smile. "Your name is Omi. That's what fits."
He took Kaiya over to the piano and sat her on his lap as he used a free hand to walk his fingers along the keys, playing a simple C major scale. The child oohed and ahhed and clapped her hands together, which seemed to relax the tension in Youji's frame and drew some of the weariness from his eyes. As he let the tiny child reach over and experimentally tap out a few haphazard keys of her own, he turned his attention back to the other two.
"I'm still not happy with being lied to and having secrets kept from me, but I'm too tired and don't have the energy to be mad right now." His haunted jade eyes, underscored by shadows from sleeplessness and grief, closed as he massaged the temple. "If it's not too much trouble, can't we please just forget all about all the lies and secrets and everything else... At least while we're here with Kaiya? Can't we just pretend, at least for a little while, that everything's ok between us?" He lifted his eyes and there was a heartfelt pleading within them. "I know I feel comfortable with you despite everything, and my daughter likes you both... You're the only people I feel safe around right now." Youji held his baby closer to him in his lap, drawing a curious look from her when she noticed he'd pulled her away from the piano keys.
Omi and Ken looked at each other. Then they both smiled supportively at Youji.
"What lies? What secrets? I don't know what Yotan's talking about. Do you, Omi?" Ken spoke up with a shake of his head.
Omi bent down to retrieve the teddy bear from the floor. "Nope. Can't say that I do, Ken-kun."
Youji stared at them both for a moment before his face finally relaxed enough for a genuine grateful smile to appear. He chuckled softly as Kaiya crooned and reached for the bear. "Kaiya-chan. Do you want to go to Uncle Omitchi and Uncle KenKen for a bit while I get you some juice from the other room?"
The youngest of the former Weiß gave Youji a startled look, completely unprepared for the feeling of warmth at the sound of his old nickname coming from the eldest Wei's lips. He smiled back, genuinely happy, as he lifted Kaiya from her father's lap. Youji then tried to stand up, wincing as he tried to put weight on his injured ankle. Before he knew it, though, he found Ken at his side, helping him up.
"Here, lemme help ya with that, Yotan. Y'know, Agnes will have my hide if I let ya make that ankle of yours worse."
The tall blonde smirked at him. "Aww... The mighty Kenken cowed by a kindly old grandma?"
Ken laughed as he walked with Youji to the bedroom where spare bottles had been left within. "'Kindly old grandma' my ass! She may be all nice and sweet when you're doing exactly what she wants, but the moment you step outta line with her, watch out. She's an evil, evil woman with a full set of kitchen cutlery at her disposal and a master key to nearly every room in this place."