5. Father.
T: I warned you last chapter that the cliff hanger for this one was a doozy and I really and truly meant it! I'm putting in the warning of slash connotations for this chapter but am hopeful that won't scare anyone off! Apart from this everything else is as it was and I fear that I still only own the plot and dear little Orito.
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He has known, almost from the moment he had seen his son again, that the lad was keeping something from him.
He had also known that this secret was being retained simply through the Tree's insistence, knowledge that had made him a little weary of what the secret actually was.
He had not, even in his wildest imaginings, believed that the secret might be something of this sort…
He had recognised Hokuto's hand the very moment he had seen it and he'd been startled enough by its presence that Orito had enquired,
"Is everything alright, father?"
He had reassured the child as best he might and had proceeded to dismiss him as subtle a manner as possible.
Once alone he'd lit a cigarette and, his fingers trembling just barely, he'd opened the note.
'Sei-chan,
I am sure you are curious as to how a note from myself has reached the hands of a child whom I should not even know the existence of.
The swift explanation is that our children have become strong allies and that I happened upon Orito's existence simply because of this connection.
You are wondering also as to why I, of all people, am writing to you and as to why I treat you still with such familiarity.
There is a simple explanation to this also; I meant what I said that day beneath the sakura.
I consider you still my friend, Sei-chan, even after the conclusion of that year…even after I have learned that you were keeping from me one of the greatest of secrets.
Do you believe me naive because of that? Do you read those words and think me still blind to your true nature?
I am neither naïve nor blind, Sei-chan, this we both known well; for in sparing my life…in wounding me rather than killing me….you have shown that you know at least a little mercy.
Your son, also, has proven to me that you are not as you claimed, for though he too is Sakurazuka he is neither merciless nor emotionless.
I wish to ask you why you lied about such a thing…why you went to such lengths to prove it true…and yet I do not believe that you would answer me.
You have, and always will be, a very private person, after all.
There are things I am sure that you wish to ask me…things that you fear I shall not respond to….and you are, in part, correct in that assumption.
You believe I do not answer because I imagine that you have no want to hear my answers and this is where you are incorrect.
I do not answer because I am, myself, ignorant in this regard.
There is but one way for this all to be cleared and that is for you to break a little of your privacy and to talk not only to Subaru but also to your son.
Orito is, after all, involved enough in this matter that he has a right to know the details of it.
Don't be a stranger!
Kizuki Hokuto.'
He stairs a while at the letter and then, starting a new cigarette, he calls his son to him.
"I wish to hear what it is that you know of this 'situation' in order that I do not cover old ground."
"I know only that Kizuki-san is somehow linked to the year you were gone from my life and that her twin brother is intensely powerful."
"Hokuto-chan did not mention that you had met Subaru-kun."
His son looks a little surprised by the familiarity and it is a show of his restraint that he does not ask about this but rather replies,
"I saw him briefly in Ueno."
"I see." He takes a deep breath of his cigarette and then he says, "By the time I was your age I had been Sakurazukamori for a year and I had begun to feel a little 'uncomfortable' about the role…had begun to feel guilty for my part in what was paramount to murder.
"Yet mother had said that a Sakurazukamori felt nothing and to doubt her word in that regard was to doubt it also in regard to the matter of the succession…was to make her death an unnecessary thing.
"I was torn down the middle and I believe I would have gone completely mad had Subaru-kun not come into my life.
"We met but a week after my 16th birthday, he desperate to rid the sakura of the malevolent spirits that lingered about it and I in the process of feeding a soul to the tree.
"To see a Sakurazukamori at work was is die and yet, for some reason, I hesitated…for some reason I chose to speak to this boy a little before I killed him.
"He was such a pure soul that it seemed wrong to destroy him and I decided, selfishly, to use this lad to settle the confusion within my heart.
"Thus I made a bet with him, scored the mark of our clan into his hands and then let him free.
"It was not long after that that I met your mother and began the friendship that would lead, eventually, to your birth…not long after that that everything began to change." He pauses in order to take another drag of his cigarette and so that he might shift a little in his seat. "When I saw Subaru-kun again…when I felt the pull of the marks I had placed upon him…I thought, idly, to let him go, the game having become, in the interim, less than it might have been and yet…
"Somehow I could not resist the urge to see what my life might become within his influence, or the urge to indulge a little more in the bright light that he admitted.
"In the end it was not a fair thing, for I had no want to loose at my own game and he had lost all recollection of the bet and its terms. But even with the odds so stacked against him there was something in that boy that I needed desperately to protect…something that I gave so much too in order to keep it safe…" He places a hand, then, to his right eye and, curiosity clear in his eyes, Orito enquires,
"Then you lost your eye for him?"
"Yes."
"But why? And why, if you had given so much to protect him, are you now divided from one another?"
"I could not loose this game, not when doing as such meant facing truths I was not ready for, thus I ended it severed all connections with Subaru-kun and then I simply carried on my life with you." It is not the complete truth nor is it as a comprehensive answer to Orito's questions.
However, the boy is involved enough that he can not tell him this entire story and there is a wish still in his heart to keep some of this matter private.
Thus he snuffs out his cigarette and, smiling genially, he enquires,
"As this is the entirety of the tale and as I have a craving for those peach parcels they sell in that restaurant opposite Ueno, why don't we go out for lunch?"
Orito has, over the years, become used to his subtle manner of asking for a change in subject and thus he returns his fathers smile and replies,
"Why not?"
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Kamui arrives into the shade of the sakura ten minutes after the start of lunch and coated in a minute trace of dust.
The instant the lad spots him he bows as deeply as possible and falls into a long explanation for his slight delay.
He allows this show to continue for two minutes before he catches a hold of the child's shin and, levelling the other's eye line to meet his own, he enquires,
"How did you get so dirty?"
"I tripped."
"Because you were rushing to get here?"
"Yes."
"Kamui, have I not made it very clear to you that I dislike you being hurt for my sake?"
"I'm sorry Orito-san."
"There is no need to apologise, just take things slower next time, okay?"
"Okay."
The boy settles then next top him and for a while he is content to simply enjoy the warmth of his presence.
Eventually, however, he can no longer contain his curiosity and, as nonchalantly as possible, he enquires,
"What sort of a man is your uncle, Kamui-kun? You've mentioned him many times in passing but never directly and I was a little curious as to why that might be."
"Uncle Subaru is very closed in about himself and maybe that's why I've not talked abut him."
"I shouldn't have asked..."
"No, it's not that at all, he truly is a very private person. In fact I asked mama about it once and she told me 'your uncle was betrayed by a man he cared very much about and that betrayal has made him very wary of the world.'
"It made me sad to hear that and so the next time I saw uncle Subaru I gave him an extra especially strong hug and told him, 'not everyone is untrustworthy.'
"After that he seemed a little less cold and I began to see how he was beneath the ice."
"Did your mother mention how he was betrayed?"
"She said something about the man being someone other that he claimed, why?"
"I was curious I suppose."
He can tell, simply for the slight frown in the centre of Kamui's forehead, that he has pushed far enough in this line of enquiry.
There is, however, another way to gain the information he craves so desperately and after a long moment of silence he enquires,
"Have you ever heard of the Sakurazukamori?"
Kamui reacts to the name as though he had received a physical blow and, the stark maturity again clear in his eyes, he enquires,
"Where did you see that name?"
"In a text book I was reading and I had a wish to know a little more about it."
"All you need ever know is that that Sakurazukamori is a dangerous being who uses its magic to kill…
"That it is everything that the Sumeragi clan…the clan that shall one day be mine, opposes."
His blood freezes and, hopeful that he had misinterpreted the lad's words, he enquires,
"Then you are the Sumeragi household, are you?"
"That is correct."
"Forgive me, Kamui-kun, but I have just recalled that Takumura-san asked to see me during lunch."
He all but runs from the other's side, an intense feeling of something akin to panic clawing its way into his stomach and unsettling him in a manner that he has never felt before.
Kamui's friendship has become the one definition in his otherwise bland life…has become as the centre of his world…
To be told, so very casually, that the boy is his enemy…that Kamui despises those of the Sakurazuka lineage and views them as little more than murders…
He believes that, at last, he can comprehend how his father must have felt as the Tree has told him the truth of the lineage and of his mother's insanity.
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T: Warned you! Next chapter hopefully Tuesday but I make no promises as I'm rapidly depleting my buffer…this shall make no sense to you but trust me it's a bad thing! R+R