At first she didn't recognize the ache that was in her heart. She cried inwardly. The tears came later. She cried because he came back, and yet he didn't.
The person who stood before her came back a different person than the one who left. She had already prepared for this, yet no preparation was ever enough. Her unshakable faith was now wavering.
She met his gentle smile with quivering lips. Her eyes burned with distress.
"Who are you? Which one are you?" she managed between sobs. Gone were the stern demeanor, the hard plated exterior, and the emotionless guise of a face; the hormones of early motherhood had taken over.
He placed his hands on the evident rise of her belly, a belly molded by four months of pregnancy. She wanted to recoil but her surging emotions had paralyzed everything in her body, save for the conditioned responses to convulse and cry.
His touch was tender and his eyes looked probingly into hers. But she wasn't familiar with the wise years in his eyes. They have leaped in age from sixteen years of boyhood to two lifetimes of pain and the hundreds of years in between.
"I am who I should be, Anna."
"No," she mumbled softly as she backed away.
"And I still love you wholeheartedly." At those words, her sobbing reprieved. She slowly stepped back to him, glancing once more at his face, stroking his hair and his cheeks. He smiled as he let her examine him. She relaxed when she saw that his compassion was still and truly there. She could ignore the new length in his mahogany locks. And she could ignore the erect, authoritative posture that has replaced his usual willowy slouch.
"So you are Yoh?" she pleaded.
"I am still Yoh." But there was a break in his sentence. Gently, he resumed, "but I am also him." When he saw that she was trembling and drawing back once again, he added hastily, "There is no lie in saying I love you wholeheartedly, because both halves always did."
And when she felt that those words could be true, she realized that perhaps she could get used to things.
August 19, 2005----I always wanted to see what happened in between the last chapters of the manga and the Funbari No Uta installments. Here's one way I imagined it. In another variation, I think Anna's façade would still be in place, so she'd be a lot calmer.
Jgirl79-- I always found your words so encouraging. Really, thank you! Wipes tears from eyes. Although I don't usually respond to reviews directly, I want you to know that I read every single one of them and always keep them in my consideration when I write.