Warnings: Parents fighting/fractured home life


Lucky Child

Chapter 59:

"Got My Wish"


Kagome had fallen asleep, and I had grown more than a little hoarse, by the time Minato ran out of questions. He surveyed the notepad on his lap with a critical eye, quiet as I eased back against the couch and tried not to rouse Kagome. She leaned heavily on my shoulder, snoring, head nestled in the crook of my neck. I draped my arm around her and pet her thick, soft hair, motions absentminded and slow.

"This should do for now." Minato closed the book and nodded. "Thank you, captain."

He'd called me "captain" more than once over the past few hours. I didn't mind it (I'd suffered far less dignified nicknames before) but its grandiose quality felt a bit weird. I said, "Please. Call me Eeyore."

Minato eyed Kagome's sleeping face. "I confess I am still mystified at your nicknames."

"Why?"

"Keiko and Kagome are perfectly good names," he said, as matter of fact as a weather report.

"Yeah, but…they aren't ours. We forgot our names when we became who we are today." I hesitated. "Did you…?"

"Yes." Blue eyes turned nearly navy. "I forgot mine as well. I remember everything else about my life, but…"

"Everything but that. Same here." I pointed at Kagome with my free hand. "Neither of us felt comfortable using a name that didn't belong to us. Not around someone who knew it didn't, in fact, belong to us. So we picked the names, and we use them when we're alone." A shrug, best as I could manage given I currently functioned as a human pillow. "Gives us something of our own to hang onto, I guess, when we have so little else of our past selves."

Navy brightened back to royal blue. "Ah. I think I understand." He put a hand to his chest. "I chose my name in this life. Or I altered Minako's name, at least. I made it my own, as did you."

"Right." Another hesitation, but my curiosity got the better of me. "Can I ask something potentially invasive and awkward? You don't have to answer if you don't want to, of course. Safeword is…um, 'swordfish.'"

Minato smirked. "Good to know. And sure. What is it?"

"Your school, your parents. What do they think of your new name?"

This was, of course, a carefully coded way of asking how he got away with staying true to being a man, despite inhabiting the body of Aino Minako—or at least a question of how he was treated by society. Japan was a conservative place compared to 2016 America. Part of me knew it was way too personal a question so early in my relationship with Minato, but he didn't react badly to it. Minato merely looked above my head, staring off into space as his thoughts gathered.

"My parents…you mentioned the anime and the manga portrayed them differently." He scanned his notepad, flipping back a page or two. "According to this, my current life follows the canon of the anime, in the sense I live alone."

I couldn't help but wince. In the anime, Minako was a tragic character, totally alone and without family. In the manga she had parents, even if she didn't have a great relationship with them. Even so, having parents of any stripe after being torn from your old life would be better than a life of loneliness, wouldn't it?

Minato must have sensed my unease, because he elucidated without prompting.

"My father travels. My mother is dead." He shrugged. "I never knew her, and I barely know him. He rarely sees me, and has no opinion of how I live my life. As for school and teachers…" At that he smirked, conspiracy in expression. "I have access to technology not of this world. Altering my records was easy enough."

My brow lifted, impressed. "So, legally…?"

"My birth certificate says male, now." He gestured at himself. "And when this body develops more, this transformation brooch will prove useful indeed. It transforms me both into Sailor V and into a variety of different forms." Another smirk. "I've experimented. It can make me look like just about anyone, changes subtle or severe as I see fit."

It was, essentially, perfect for someone who wanted to "pass"—and I got the sense that for Minato in particular, passing was the goal. I smiled, some of my worry abating. "That's awesome."

Minato nodded; I started to speak, change the subject to something less person, but a yawn rose high and round into my throat. Kagome stirred against my shoulder, muttering under her breath.

"You should head home, I imagine." Minato gave my foot a pointed look. "You're still recovering."

"We'll go in a little while," I murmured, offering him a soft smile. "We told you our stories. You're still a question mark, though, but I don't want to pry more than I have."

His brow knit. "What would you pry about?"

"Well…where's Artemis, for starters?"

At the mention of the talking white cat, who had led the original Minako through her awakening as a Scout, regret coiled behind Minato's eyes. "At my apartment," he said—but softly, like he didn't want to admit he'd left the cat behind at all.

"Does he know?" I couldn't help but ask.

"No. I haven't told him." Still, a tightness gathered in Minato's shoulder. "But I think he suspects. I'm nothing like the Venus he used to know."

"Now that's a question mark." The idea had been brewing at the back of my mind since I learned a Sailor Scout had been switched out, and now I finally had a chance to say, "V and the other scouts were all reincarnations. So you…?"

"I have no idea what I am." Minato spoke with matter-of-fact assurance, and if not knowing bothered him, he gave no sign. "I have no idea what happened to the soul of the original Venus, and if I took her place in this world. From what I recall of Inuyasha, your…Tigger, was it?"

"Yes."

"Tigger likely has similar questions, given her relationship to…I forget her name. The priestess."

"Kikyo. And we actually figured that whole debacle out over the summer break."

Minato's calm exterior crumbled just a little when he leaned toward me, intent. "Oh?"

I smiled. "The Feudal Era is lovely the time of year."

He looked impressed. "She went to the past? But she's so young."

"She is. But I didn't let her go alone."

"You both—?" Minato cut himself short, chuckling under his breath. "Hiruko must be pleased, I imagine."

"Maybe. I haven't seen the little bastard in months." Thoughts of his pink hair and ever-present smile set my teeth to gritting. "Remember how I said Kagome went through trauma recently? It happened on our little vacation to this past this summer. We have our answers regarding her reincarnation…but again. She needs to be the one to tell you." A look at her sleeping, snoring, trusting face hardened my resolve, even when Minato looked less than pleased. "I'm sorry, but I can't say more without her consent."

For a moment, he did not reply. Eventually he admitted, "You're a loyal friend. I can see that now." Minato gazed at Kagome like he could read the answers in the fall of her hair. "For all the crime-fighting I do, I suspect the two of you have had far more interesting adventures than I have."

"Hey," I said, winking. "Stick with us and life's bound to get pretty exciting, right?"

I half expected him to snort, brush the overture of companionship aside, and soldier on…but the soldier in the body of a Sailor Scout hesitated, instead. He flipped through his notebook in silence, fingers skimming the words on the page like they were written in braille.

"I don't know how good of a friend I can be to the two of you," he murmured, so low I almost missed it. "It isn't…it isn't in my nature to open up."

Poor guy. I couldn't help but feel for him. If my past experiences had taught me anything, it's that emotional vulnerability didn't come easy to people who'd had to guard themselves in warzones. Didn't blame him for that, of course. It just meant becoming his friend (if he ever let it get that far) wouldn't be as easy as it had been with Kagome.

"You don't have to open up right away. Or ever, really." At that he stared, surprised by my soft words. "We'll still support you. We're in this together whether you want to open up or not."

Another glance at the notebook. "Given what you've told me about the Scouts' powers, I might have to try."

I caught his eye and smiled. "You a fan of fro-yo?"

"I like it well enough. But what…?"

"Well, Kagome and I routinely get fro-yo and rant about how hard it is to relate to teenagers when you're an old fogey inside—"

(That time Minato did snort, lips twisted with wry humor.)

"—and you're welcome to join us any time." I lifted my free hand in surrender. "No strings. No expectations. Just fro-yo and a good venting session, if you have a need for it. Here, write my number down."

He took it down as dutifully as a secretary, scribbling down his own number on a torn bit of notebook paper. Midway through the proceedings, Kagome groaned and sat up, rubbing her eyes with both hands.

"What'd I miss?" she mumbled.

I smoothed down her hair, which had fluffed in the back as she slept. "We're just planning future fro-yo dates, that's all."

"Oh. Good." Sleepiness vanished at the mention of her favorite snack. "Do you like fro-yo, Minato?"

"I like it well enough."

"Good." Arms over her head in a long stretch, Kagome yawned, sending a ripple of sympathy-yawns through the room. "Man, I'm beat. What time is it?"

"Late," I said, and I reached for my crutches. "We should head back."

"Right. Let's go!" She bounced to her feet, but before she took a step she put a finger to her chin. "On second thought, I'll take the front door and leave the TARDIS to you, Eeyore. This arcade is closer to home than your house."

"Ah, really?"

"Yup. It's deep in the heart of Tokyo…" Kagome glanced at her watch and sighed. "And yup, the last train left already." Her face paled, eyes widening beneath her fringe of heavy bangs. "Oh god. My grandpa and mom must be worried sick!"

"Well, quick like a bunny, then," I said—and I shot a glance at Minato, sheepish. "Pun not intended."

His lips twitched. "Though I appear stoic, rest assured that inside, I'm screaming."

Kagome cackled; I laughed, too, pleased when Minato smiled and didn't run away terrified from my bad jokes. When he cut a glance at the computer console nearby, however, the smile faded.

"Before the two of you leave, I have something for you," he said.

While Kagome helped to my feet, Minato headed for the computer and typed something on one of its many flashing keyboards. The transparent screens projected above the console glittered and pulsed, symbols in a language I did not recognize, and after a few moments out of the console popped a metal drawer. From this Minato lifted two pink capsules, like something from a gatchapon machine, which he brought over and handed to each of us. At his nod Kagome and I exchanged a look, then as one we opened our respective capsules.

Inside mine lay a necklace—or, more specifically, a pretty golden pendant on a gold chain. Shaped like a star with cute rounded tips, a circular stone occupied the star's center, bright red facets scintillating in the computer's blinking light.

"Press the gem three times in succession if you need to speak with me," Minato said. He took the necklace from my capsule and demonstrated; three sharp clicks, and the jewel pulsed with its own internal radiance like the beating of a gemstone heart. "Reserve the beacon for emergencies, of course."

Kagome looked thrilled, draping the chain around her neck with eager hands. "Wow! It's so pretty!"

"I'd change it to something less twee if I could, but for the time being it serves its purpose," Minato said. He held out the necklace, draping it around my neck when I bent my head for him. That done, he turned smartly on his heel and headed for the door. "Follow me."

The chain settled cool and smooth against my nape as we trailed him up the stairs and out of the command center, down the hall, and onto the arcade floor. The place had closed for the day, games dark and desolate, an unnatural quiet swathing the normally bustling arcade like the cast of some great shadow. Minato unlocked the main doors (sliding, glass, and automatic) with a key and pushed them open manually. Kagome skipped out the gap between door and frame like her namesake cartoon tiger, spinning in place to wave at us from the sidewalk beyond.

"See ya later, Eeyore," she said. Her eyes moved from me to the boy at my side and darkened. She hesitated, rocking on her heels, then sighed and shook her head. "And Minato—it was nice meeting you. Sorry I got grumpy earlier."

But he merely shook his head. "Don't apologize. The captain here told me you've been through recent stress, and that I walked right into it."

Kagome chuffed at the nickname, shooting me a rueful glance. "'The captain' is right." She banished the regret in favor of a merry grin. "I promise to tell you all about it if you buy me fro-yo, though!"

"Sure." He waved in farewell. "Safe trip home."

She saluted to Minato. "Roger that, officer!" And to me she waved. "Night!"

Kagome vanished into the midnight of Tokyo like a ghost into fog, dashing down the street toward home without a backward glance. Minato locked up after her and led me back to the TARDI door, which he opened with a push of one strong hand—on the other side lay my bedroom, dark and tidy, moonlight streaming in the uncovered window above my desk. As I passed through it, that odd change in humidity brushed against my skin, the only mundane tell revealing the laws of time and space had been bent and broken just for me.

I couldn't help but wonder how many of those same laws Hiruko had bent—and perhaps outright broken—to put us in our various positions.

"So." Turning around on crutches isn't easy on thick carpet, but somehow I managed, hanging off them with my armpits so I could kick off my shoes. "Before we shut the door on this—pun intended, this time—what's going on with Botan?"

Minato (who did not join me in my room, staying firmly on the arcade side of the TARDIS door) reached into a pocket and pulled out a metal tube, about the length of my hand and no thicker than a finger. Out of this he yanked a small metal rod; between the rod and the main tube appeared a screen, a pull-out monitor that flashed twice before filling with light and color. More Sailor Moon tech—but I did not have time to marvel.

Upon the screen I saw Botan.

"I'll call when she wakes," Minato said. "Doubtless she'll be confused."

He held out the screen, showing me an image of Botan asleep in some sort of metal cradle with a transparent dome lid, like Snow White in her glass coffin. Various symbols and ciphers scrolled across the dome, and when I caught sight of a heart monitor pulsing with a steady rhythm, I surmised they were medical readouts. Her face looked serene enough, I supposed, bangs brushed straight back over her forehead to reveal the black slit of her (mercifully closed) third eye.

So. She was safe, it seemed. Good.

But how long before she woke, I wondered?

"I didn't say this before," Minato said, "but I can page you via the necklace I gave you." He pointed at the star upon my chest. "If it lights up, call me immediately."

"Will do." It was even harder to bow on crutches that it was to turn on them, but I managed anyway. "Thank you for caring for her, Minato. And please know I'm happy I met you."

"Thank you." He bowed back. "I—"

Minato stopped. We weren't close, and perhaps we never would be, but his roving eyes and parted lips conveyed a lot of things—uncertainly, mostly, as if he knew what he should say, but had no idea how to actually speak the words.

"Don't force it," I said, tone gentle. "I was just telling another friend of mine to just let relationships evolve organically. So, please don't stress. I'm not going anywhere, and neither is Kagome."

The confusion in his eyes cleared, and when he spoke, I got the sense he meant every word sincerely. "I appreciate that." He reached for the door. "I'll be keeping in touch."

Just as he started to close the door, something occurred to me. "Oh, wait—Minato?"

The door paused mid-swing. Blue eyes raked my face, confused. "Hmm?"

"I don't suppose you've ever had any interest in taking aikido lessons, have you?"

I had the pleasure of seeing him look surprised, then—surprised and pleased.

Minato and I weren't close. Perhaps we never would be.

But it turned out we had common ground, after all, that would help bridge the gap between us in ways both small and necessary.


He stood with hands behind him, rocking forward and back atop his wooden sandals. Time had not dulled the high-wattage intensity of his smile, nor had it cooled the mischievous glitter in his blue eyes. In fact, he looked exactly the same as he had the last time he visited me in my dreams—way back when Yusuke was still dead, months ago, when Hiruko and Cleo visited me together and I banished them from my head out of frustration. Red kimono, fishhook dangling from an ear, insouciant grin pulling his lips into a cheery bow, he looked every inch the boy I remembered, diminutive and lithe.

But this was not a boy to be trusted. Not after what I'd seen when Hiei invaded my head, and not after my trip to the past with Kagome, where we saw of what Hiruko was truly capable.

"Not-Quite-Keiko," he said, but only after I said nothing. "Or is it Eeyore now?"

"You are not allowed to call me that."

One petal-pink brow lifted. "Oh?"

"Only friends call me that."

"Ah, yes." His smile took on the faintest tinge of regret. "And you don't consider me one of those. I had forgotten."

I couldn't help but snort. Fat chance this puppet-master had forgotten anything. Putting my back to him, I took a deep breath and organized my spinning thoughts, shuffling and reshuffling questions in order of importance. I finally had this asshole in my grip; no way was I going to fuck this up. Before me stretched an endless field of green grass dotted with pink flowers, sky overhead shifting from powder blue to periwinkle behind a smattering of puffy clouds. Nice of Hiruko to craft this dream into something pleasant. It made getting centered all the easier, calm landscape easing the nerves fluttering in my gut.

"So tell me. How was your little soiree in the past?"

I turned. Hiruko waited, expectant, still with his hands clasped politely behind him. I put my hands on my hips and scowled, trying to affect the look of a stern teacher.

"So that's what you're here about," I said.

A nod, chipper and efficient. "It was quite alarming, seeing you vanish from an entire time period the way you did."

"Sorry to have startled you." I pivoted (my leg wasn't broken in this dream, interestingly enough) and gazed back at the gilded horizon. A distant, rising sun stained the sky there gold and violet and magenta, a technicolor maelstrom it almost hurt to look at. "And if you want to know, talk to Kagome."

It wasn't often I managed to throw Hiruko off-balance, but judging by his sharp intake of breath, I managed to do so just then. A smirk twisted both my lips and my heart. Fucking good. Little prick deserved to feel uncomfortable.

"Oh, yeah," I said, tone deceptively pleasant. "We know what little trick you pulled with her. And she's going to tear you into pieces for what you did." Eyeing him over my shoulder, I shook my head. "But it's not my place to beat the shit out of you. Not even my place to scream your ear off. I'll leave that to her."

But Hiruko shrugged, voice a humored song. "Perhaps you shouldn't. Her story won't start for some time." He spread his hands as if he were helpless, which was a total joke and we both knew it. "Who knows when I'll be seeing her?"

"You little shitstain."

Even Hiruko's ever-present smile flickered at my hissed jibe, at the pure wrath radiating from every syllable. I rounded on him, fists clenching with the fury that had flared to life inside me—because how fucking dare he? How fucking dare he say something like that?

"That's just so like you, isn't it?" I snarled. "You tear people's lives apart and then abandon them like they mean nothing to you! That's what you did with Kagome and her family, what you're doing to me, what you did to Minato—!"

When he held up his hands this time, it was with actual helplessness, because my rage was the one thing beyond his direct control. "I haven't abandoned any of you," he said.

"Then what the fuck do you call what you're doing to us?"

I wanted to strike the patronizing look off his face with my fist. "Now, now, Eeyore. You know I can't tell you that."

"Just like you can't tell me what happened before I woke up as Keiko, I imagine." But Hiruko didn't look guilty, or conniving, brow furrowing merely with confusion. "Hiei unlocked something, that day he went inside my head. I know you fucked with my memory, Hiruko." I stepped toward him; he stepped back, smile a ghost upon his lips. "I saw the couch. I saw meting you after I died. I saw how you ripped off The Good Place. What other memories did you take from me?" When he didn't speak, I snarled, "Answer me, dammit!"

"You're stressed." He held up a hand. "Here. Let me help."

I opened my mouth to tell him he could take his help and shove it up his ass.

He snapped his fingers before I could get the words out.

And with that, we were not in the field anymore.

No fading, no morphing, no bleeding of color or evolution of shape and form. One second we stood in a field, the next we were somewhere else with a jolting shift of hue and solidity. No sky arched overhead and into the distance. Instead a white ceiling crisscrossed with elegant beams hovered above my head, a ceiling fan spinning in lazy circles through the quiet air. I wheeled on reflex, taking in the windows on the rectangular room's every wall. One bank of windows overlooked a dark, quiet bedroom, huge bed draped in white linen and velvet pillows. Behind the bed stood a set of built-in shelves filled to bursting with books, two white statuettes of rearing horses cupping the set of signed first-edition tomes on the top shelf. The other three walls looked out over riotous greenery, a caramel wood fence cupping the garden like hands cupping a whispered secret. Two robins and a blue jay splashed in a fountain in the garden's back corner, water dripping onto the purple and pink and blue cabbages at the fountain's base, and onto the face of the stone cherub watching from the fountain's top.

I said nothing. I merely turned in place, staring out the windows, eyes scouring the room's black and white checkerboard floor, the green velvet fainting couch in the corner, the wicker furniture with black cushions, and the myriad potted plants lining the sunporch's many windowsills. A chess set, brass and heavy, sat on a glass-topped table in the corner, board draped with delicate ivy trailing from a hanging planter. Next to it atop a white pedestal sat a bronze bust depicting a young woman, laurel-crowned and smiling.

Nostalgia—nostalgia and pain—filled my chest, like the garden's birdbath had spilled inside me.

If I went to the bust of the young woman and turned it over, I'd find my name written on a scrap of masking tape beneath its heavy base. And under my name I'd find the words, "This is for my granddaughter when I die, and no one else."

My Nana had bought that bust of Daphne, the tragic girl from Greek myth, when she was 26—the same age I'd been when I died.

"You don't recognize it?" Hiruko said.

"No." The rebuke came hard and sharp, a blade in the stillness. "I know where we are. Just, how…?"

"I know everything about you, Not-Quite-Keiko. And I know this is one of the places you feel most at ease in all the world."

I closed my eyes.

I hated to admit it, but Hiruko was right. My grandmother's sunporch—smelling of old books, growing things, lemon-scented cleaner, and Nana's rose perfume—eased the rage inside me like cool water on a burn.

"I know everything about you," Hiruko went on. "I know everything about Kagome, about Minako—or Minato, rather." His smile turned wistful and morose. "You think I have abandoned you. Maybe in some ways, I've done exactly that. But that doesn't mean I care nothing for you."

It felt pointless, somehow, to argue. I walked to the pale green fainting couch and sat, pulling the angora throw atop it across my lap. The blanket felt just as I remembered, silky and yet rough at the same time. Typical angora weaving. My family had raised those goats for decades.

"What do you want, Hiruko?" I said, fingers tangling in the blanket's fringed edge.

"What do you think I want?" Hiruko asked. "Cleo all but told you."

I took a deep breath, Nana's perfume homey and disturbing on my tongue. Of all the relatives I worried about, she I worried for the most—because I'd been her girl, her favorite grandchild (which she admitted freely, to anyone who'd listen). My death would have killed her, I was sure.

But now was not the time to cry, much though I wanted to wrap myself in angora and sob into this facsimile of her furniture. My eyes pricked, but I did not let tears fall.

"You took something from Cleo. From the Fates," I said. "Cleo coughed up a stone when she tried to tell me exactly what…but when I had that dream with the both of you in it, you had string. That glimmering cord you used to fight her. When she saw it, she got angry. I assume you stole…the thread of destiny, perhaps. The loom of fate, maybe." A shrug. "I don't know all the terms to describe working of destiny, so maybe my feeling is right and my words are wrong."

Hiruko's grin amped up a few watts. "Something like that."

"Just…why? Why did you take it from her?" My many questions reordered themselves, vying for answer. "What are you planning? What are you doing?"

I expected him to deny me. To prevaricate and equivocate, change the subject and shield the truth with cryptic nonsense, the way he always did.

Instead, he looked hurt.

Raw pain clouded his eyes the way a storm clouds the sea, drear polluting his crystalline vision like wine poured into water clear.

"Cleo…she said you were a lost soul looking for his place." I knew I was on the right track when Hiruko's eyes flicked down to the clawed feet of the fainting couch, away from my questing eyes. "Is that why you created this world? To make a place for yourself?"

He hesitated—but then, in a voice like a quiet wind, he said: "Something like that."

It was both an answer and not an answer, stirring my earlier ire back into being. "But why the fandoms?" I asked. "Why ask me to break the rules?" When Hiruko didn't reply, and stared instead at the bust of Daphne in the corner, I shook my head. "I don't understand. I just don't—I just don't understand."

Hiruko walked away from me, wooden sandals clicking against the tile, and approached the windowsill overlooking the garden. His hands alit on the sill like birds, as likely to stay as they were to fly. His pale face and pink hair reflected in the window's wide glass, image just clear enough for me to read the resignation in his eye.

For the first time that dream, his smile had faded down to nothing.

"You had a terrible relationship with your parents," he said. "That's why you love this place so much. Your grandmother protected you from them here."

"Why are you bringing up—? Oh." It clicked, the legend of Ebisu provided neat explanation. "You weren't so cozy with your parents, either."

He snorted. "If you call them putting me to sea in a basket as a baby 'not so cozy,' I suppose that's true enough." A long sigh, low and desolate. "You did everything you could to get their attention. But nothing ever worked, did it?"

We were no longer alone on the sunporch.

As soon as he finished speaking, they appeared—the golden-haired girl with ringlets the width of my wrist, eyes grey like polished pewter, and at her side the slender woman with eyes of the same burnished shade. Nana looked younger than she had when I last saw her, face less lined, back less bent. Instead of a short pageboy cut, she wore her hair in an intricate mass of braids woven across the base of her skull, held in place by three jeweled pins (they had belonged to her mother, and her mother before her). I'd cried when she cut her hair short when I was thirteen or so—but the girl on the floor, fingers clasped around crayons, was younger than that. My hair had turned brown and lost its curl when I turned eight, which meant…

Screaming, guttural and raw, cut the silence like a buzz saw.

The little girl's eyes—my younger self's eyes—filled with tears as the sound echoed through the bedroom and into the sunporch. Her hand paused over her notebook, the story she'd been writing stopping short at the sound of a plate breaking in the distance.

"Now, now," Nana said, chiding and warm. "You can't stop there. I want to see how the story ends."

My heart nearly broke at the sound of her creaking voice, at her cadence, the way she over-enunciated the last three words for comical effect, eyes as wide as they'd go for emphasis. Little Me nodded and went back to work, eyes still swimming, as Nana began to hum. She wasn't particularly on key, but the strain of Sinatra's "New York, New York" covered the sounds of my parents fighting like a fog covering the sun.

Another plate crashed.

Nana stopped humming.

A tear fell down the face of my past self.

"Stop it," I whispered as my child avatar climbed into Nana's lap. Nana hummed again, that same cheery tune, but it couldn't drown out my mother's shrieking or my father's returned bellow. "Stop that."

"That's why Nana kept the pictures you drew, and why your refrigerator at home was bare." Still he didn't turn from the window, watching me in the reflective glass. "That's why she read the stories you wrote, and not your parents. She was the only one to ever value what you made. Your parents left you with her for months at a time, and it was the only time you ever felt like you belonged." His fists clenched on the sill, in time with yet another breaking plate. "Well, Keiko. I don't have a doting Nana like you did. I was all alone—I've always been alone."

From inside the house swam words, shrieking distinct as the screaming grew closer. None of the words were kind. Some of them concerned me, my birth a mistake my mother never should have made, my father a mistake she never should have married—and my father agreed with her, because she was a petty fucking bitch, and he should have left when he had the chance, before she popped out a kid and ruined his life.

Nana hefted my younger self into her arms, stood, and—expression thunderous—opened the sunporch door and took me into the garden, over to the birdbath and the decorative cabbages. The door shut behind her as she sang "New York, New York" aloud.

From what I remembered of that day, her voice would only cover some of my parents' fight—a fight still raging in the house behind me, screaming melding with Nana's song, the two amalgamating in terrible, disgusting harmony until I had no choice but to cover my ears with my hands.

"I said stop it!" I shouted.

But the fighting, the singing, it didn't stop. It only grew louder, gathering behind my eyes like a brewing migraine. Hiruko turned to face me with teeth bared.

"I thought you, of all my chosen, would have the capacity to understand me," he said.

My eyes squeezed shut. "Stop it, Hiruko!" The signing only reached a crescendo, though, my mother's voice a collection of harsh, wordless shrieks of pain and fury, Nana's song a desperately futile plea for peace. "Stop it!"

But he did not obey. "I thought that you—"

The rest of his words blended with the cacophony of singing, of screaming, of pain and misery all rolling together, filling my chest like someone had packed me full of concrete. My teeth gnashed, my fists clenched in my hair, and the words ripped out of my gut as if pulled free on the end of a sharp hook.

"I said, QUIET!" I bellowed.

And all at once, silence reigned.

I opened my eyes.

Hiruko, hand clutched to throat, gaped at me. Nothing came out when his lips moved, and when he took two steps in my direction, his feet made no sound against the tile. Out in the garden Nana still sang, carrying child-me in her arms, body swaying in time to music…but I couldn't hear her.

From inside the dark house, the fighting had ceased.

There was…nothing.

It was, at long last, quiet.

"Well. That's. Um?" My voice echoed in the tiled sunporch. "That's interesting."

Hiruko glared at me, because apparently he found this turn of events far less interesting. One hand rose, fingers snapping (though soundlessly) and movement flickered at the corner of my eyes. Into Nana's bedroom surged two people, a man and a woman.

As soon as I saw the woman's livid green eyes and the man's purple face, I scowled.

"Go away," I said.

My parents obeyed, vanishing as if they'd never been.

Hiruko's expression of wild, shocked confusion nearly made me laugh, but I held the mirth at bay. Instead I rounded on him, holding aloft a single accusatory finger, glaring down its length like I aimed at him down the barrel of a hunting rifle.

"You do not get to conjure an image of the one place I ever felt safe, and turn it into that, in some misguided attempt at forcing me to empathize." Every word rang like a gunshot, purposeful and deadly. "You are not allowed to do such a thing."

Hiruko's mouth opened and closed, but still no sound came out. Blue eyes cast about, desperate for some escapee, some clue as to how I was doing this—but even I wasn't sure. Still pointing at him, still staring with all the imperious, righteous fury I could muster, I took a deep breath and made a wish.

At once, the windows blacked out.

The garden and bedroom through the glass disappeared into featureless black.

My wish had been granted in the time it took to breathe.

"I don't want you here," I said to the wide-eyed Hiruko. "I don't want you near me." My finger swung toward the door. "Get out. Leave!"

The door swung open, blackness beyond as deep as an empty galaxy. Hiruko's body jerked backward toward the door as if pulled there by the vacuum of space, like I'd jettisoned him from the airlock, but at the last second his fingers caught the doorframe and held on tight. He clung to it and stared at me, mouth moving as he spoke his silent pleas—but like the pharaoh before Moses, I remained unmoved.

"This is my dream, isn't it?" I said. "My dream, my mind?" A wicked grin split my features, and his face reflected horror in return. "Well, buddy, I have news for you. This is my brain, and that means it's my playground—and right about now, solipsism has never sounded so good."

I strode toward him. Lifted my foot.

"Get lost, asshole," I said. "Boy, bye!"

I smashed my foot onto his hand.

Hiruko let go, and he vanished into the black.

For a moment I just stood there, silent, as in the back of my brain I felt his presence dissolve and disappear. It felt like a literal weight vanishing, someone removing a textbook from a pack I hadn't realized I carried on my back. I closed my eyes and hummed, more room opening up inside my soul as Hiruko's manifestation faded.

Once I closed my eyes, I found I didn't want to open them again. Not here, anyway. Not in this nostalgic place, one which carried as much love as it did pain.

"I don't want to be here anymore," I said. "Gimme…oh, I dunno. Oz?"

When I opened my eyes, I stood in a field of poppies, the Emerald City looming high and stately against the azure sky. The gold slabs of the Yellow Brick Road pressed firm and hard under my feet, scent of sweet flowers filling my lungs like cotton candy.

"Huh. That's neat." And because this was a dream, and because the lightness in my chest could not be denied, I spread my arms and sang, "I believe I can fly! I believe I can touch the—eek!"

My feet lifted off the golden cobblestones at once.

A shriek tore out my mouth, but I didn't rise any higher, didn't careen into the endless blue firmament as Hiruko had careened into the black of deep space. I breathed hard, staring at the ground below, and swallowed down my fear.

"OK," I said. "Here we go."

Flying in a dream works best when you don't think about it. It's like moving your muscles, really—not controlled by conscious thought, but propelled rather by the sheer force of your will. It didn't take me long to get the hang of it, zooming over the tops of the red and pink poppies like Matilda, gathering blossoms in my hands as I flew past. Cackling like the Wicked Witch, I gathered an armful of flowers and darted up into the sky, scattering the blossoms to the wind with a wild whoop of joy.

And then a phone rang, incongruous and shrill, and I found myself lying awake in my bed.

"Way to kill my lucid dream," I muttered, somehow wide awake. I snatched the phone from its cradle by the second ring and shoved it between my chin and shoulder. "Hello?"

A pause. Then: "You're up late, kiddo."

I knew that scratchy voice, those deadpan words ringing with an undercurrent of wry amusement. All grumpiness forgotten, I said, "Shizuru! You're back?!"

"Apparently." A low exhale, probably exhaling a cloud of smoke. "But lemme ask you something."

"Anything."

"Why the hell is Urameshi Yusuke asleep in my bed?"

In the shadows of my darkened bedroom, all I could do was laugh.


The door popped open as my mother hummed a merry tune. "Keiko, honey, are you—oh my god, Keiko, are you all right?!"

I popped up like a jack-in-the-box, hands aloft and placating. "I'm fine, I'm fine, Mom, I promise! It's fake blood! Fake! Fake!"

Truly, she had every right to freak out given how much fake blood I'd poured on the bandages wrapped oh-so-liberally around my head and arms. I'd even blacked one of my eyes with makeup and done a good job faking a split lip with lipliner, and I'd put my leg cast on prominent display atop a mound of pillows. I'd been lying down when she came in, head lolled piteously to one side, every inch of me posed for maximum tragic effect.

Too bad she wasn't my intended target.

"But—but why are you—?" Mom stammered.

"Yusuke's coming over and I'm going to scare the crap out of him."

Dad appeared in time to hear this explanation, and after doing an impressive double-take at my costume he threw back his head and cackled. "That poor son of a bitch!"

Mom turned and swatted him. "Language!"

"Sorry, darling! But Yusuke is in for it." Dad chortled behind a hand. "Our daughter could be a comedian!"

"I knew one of you would be proud," I grumbled, and then I slapped on a sheepish look. "I'm so sorry I scared you, Mom, but he's going to come over in the next hour or two so I thought I'd get ready early. And then I heard you coming up the stairs, so…"

She considered this, and then her face softened. "Well. I suppose Yusuke has scared you enough times in the past to deserve some payback. But sweetheart, why didn't you ask me for help?" She walked over, leaned down, and sniffed me. "Is that…is that jam on your bandages?"

My sheepishness intensified. "Yeah."

"Oh, dear." She tutted. "You know you can make much better fake blood with cornstarch and food coloring, don't you?"

I stared at her, both because she knew how to make fake blood and because, "We have food coloring in the house?"

"Of course. Leftover from those White Day chocolates you made a few years back."

Mom winked, and I cracked the hell up, because apparently giving Yusuke a good scare was meant to be a family activity. Mom and Dad scampered downstairs giggling like the co-conspirators they were and returned a few minutes later with a mug of surprisingly convincing fake blood. We exchanged my sticky, jammy bandages with clean ones and then doctored me up all over again, maniacal laughter reverberating off the walls as they helped me perfect my best I-am-about-to-die pose and facial expressions.

Soon they left, however, to go keep watch downstairs ("We'll warn you when he gets here!" my mother promised with devious glee). With that done, there was little left to do but wait. I sat up in bed and pulled out my latest notebook, opening it across my somewhat bloody lap as I uncapped my favorite pen.

Before I could start writing, however, a voice muffled by glass and distance said, "Meigo?!"

I flinched, but it was only Hiei crouched outside on the roof, white showing all around his irises as he stared. "I am scaring literally everyone but Yusuke today," I muttered, and then I waved and pitched my voice a little higher. "It's fake blood, don't freak out." A point at my cast. "Leg's a little banged up; can you let yourself in?"

He did as I asked with his brain, Jagan glowing as he opened the window lock from the inside. Clambering over the sill and onto my desk, he snapped, "I wasn't going to freak out."

"Well, your face suggested otherwise," I said, good-natured and teasing. Before he could bristle I added, "How've you been, Hiei?"

He ignored the question, looking my over with a scowl. "What happened to you?"

"Suzaku sicced the infected humans on me." I shrugged. "Broken foot and a cut up shoulder, but I'll survive."

"Hmmph. Yes. You're nothing if not resilient."

It was amazing how he made a compliment sound like an insult. I brushed aside his derisive tone and chirped, "Aw, thanks Hiei! And by the way, I heard you kicked some ass against Seiryu."

"That's putting it mildly." He wore the haughtiest smile you ever did see. "I slaughtered him."

I gold-clapped. "Good show, old chap. Though I don't imagine you came here just to get your ego stroked."

His pert nose turned up. "As if the opinion of a weakling human would matter to me."

Pretending to look cowed, I opened my journal back up atop my lap. "Well, then, far be it from me to keep giving you compliments." And with that, I pointedly began to write in my journal, ignoring him completely.

Hiei wasn't the type to let that slide, however. Hands jammed in his pockets, he strode over and stared down at my notebook with a sneer. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

I closed the notebook, sighing, because would I ever get to write down my interactions with Minato and Hiruko at this rate? "I'm journaling."

"What in the world is that?"

"It's—it's journaling?" The fact that he could operate a record player but didn't know what journaling was struck me momentarily dumb. "Y'know? Writing down all your thoughts and observations so you don't forget them?"

"Hmmph." Once more, he turned up his nose, snooty as a little prince. "A human invention, no doubt. A demon would never forget what matters."

"Maybe so." His supercilious act had me biting the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. "All I know is that it helps me."

His brow arched, disappearing beneath both bandana and bangs. "Helps you how?"

"It helps me worry less. Makes things less scary." I tapped my temple with my pen. "My brain has a way of puffing things up. Makes monsters look bigger than they really are. But if I put the things I worry about on paper, they become…small. And then they're a lot less scary." I couldn't help but grin. "Monsters look smaller in broad daylight."

"I don't understand."

Hiei's scarlet eyes, stare bold and bald and combative, bored into me with unrelenting confusion…and perhaps some curiosity, if I read him right. He knew how to operate a record player, so while he put on quite the show of disdaining humanity, I suspected he wasn't the type to reject researching them, either. To know one's enemy and all that…

"Expressing how I feel helps me cope," I said. "Helps me move on past things that trouble me. Whether it's journals or venting aloud, getting my fears and anxieties out in words makes me feel better." Once more, I tapped my temple with my pen. "My worries are really subjective in my head, too, so getting them out in front of an audience is helpful. I do it for my mental health, I guess."

For a moment he just stood there, brow furrowed, staring—and then his eyes solidified, almost, as he gave a resolute nod.

"So that's why you refuse to shut up when we eat ramen," he said, half accusing and half satisfied.

"Eh?"

"You talk and talk and talk about pointless little worries until you run out of air, not caring that I don't give a damn." Now he was all accusing, glaring at me as if I'd personally insulted him. "You do it every single time."

"Well, you're a good listener, even if you don't care about what I'm saying." My smile was as sweet as peach pie, which Hiei met with a somewhat disgusted scowl (because of course he did). "Thanks for that, Hiei. I really do appreciate you."

Hiei's scowl vanished. He blinked twice—but before he could snap at me, tell me to quit being an emotional sap—my mother's voice cut the silence as it bounced toward us up the stairwell.

"Well, now, Yusuke," she said with the fakest, most overblown sadness she could muster—complete with a dramatic sniffle and an artificial crack or two, totally selling it, acting worthy of soap opera stardom. "I'm glad you're here. Poor Keiko could use a visitor, given her condition." Another sniffle, and then an overacted wail of anguish. "Our poor daughter! Who knows how much time she has left?"

"Oh, dammit!" Yusuke said. Feet slammed onto the stairs. "I'm comin', Keiko, just hold on!"

I suppressed a maniacal laugh and flopped back onto the bed, quickly assuming the I'm-dying-so-please-be-sad pose my mother and father and I had workshopped—but I cracked an eye and growled at the slaw-jawed Hiei, "Quick! Hide!"

He looked positively mortified. "Hide? Why?"

"Don't fucking argue, Hiei just get in the closet or something, just go!"

Hiei glared, seemingly debating the merits of obeying as Yusuke thundered toward us—but just as the door to the room burst open and slammed against the wall, he disappeared, flitting from sight so fast I had no idea where he actually managed to hide. No time to wonder, though—I heaved a heavy groan and let me head fall to the side, allowing my lashes to flutter as if the act of opening my eyes had become a heavy burden.

"K…keiko?" Yusuke stammered from the doorway.

"Yus…uke…" I muttered, and I stretched one shaking hand out toward him.

Poor sucker absolutely bought it. He gasped and dashed to me, on his knees at my bedside, gathering my hand in his and holding it to his heaving chest. Through my slitted eyes I saw figures gather in the doorway, Kurama and Kuwabara, Mom and Dad, even Shizuru standing with hands over their mouths, trying desperately not to snicker and give the game away.

When Yusuke turned his head to look at the cast on my leg, I gave everyone in the doorway a cheesy-as-hell wink.

"Keiko," Yusuke said. "You broke your—and the blood—oh my god." He clutched my hand tighter, peering into my face. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't get to the whistle faster."

"Yusuke," I grated out, trying my best to sound pained. "Come…come closer."

That drama queen didn't even hear me, too busy muttering. "I'm going to kick Koenma's ass, I promise you, Keiko, I—"

"Closer, Yusuke," I said, a bit louder this time. "I—I can't see…!"

That got his attention, finally. He leaned in, eyes wide and horrified. "Yeah, Keiko? What is it?"

"Clo…ser…"

He held his breath and did as I asked. I waited for him to put his ear basically over my mouth to speak.

"Eat," I said.

"What was that, Keiko? Are you hungry?"

"Eat…eat a dick, Yusuke…"

He sat up.

Stared at me.

"Huh?" he said.

And then everyone in the doorway burst out laughing. So did I, in fact. I rolled to my side and howled, slapping at the mattress as Yusuke's jaw dropped. He looked between me and the others in turns, mouth working as he tried to summon words and failed.

"You idiot!" I wheezed, eyes streaming. "You big idiot! You should see your face right now!"

"What the—?" he managed, and then he bolted to his feet and leveled a finger at the others. "You tricked me! You were all in on it!"

But no one answered him right away. Too busy laughing, even cool-as-a-cucumber Kurama and Shizuru unable to form words amidst the riot. Yusuke turned the color of the fake blood on my bandages and wheeled on me.

"What is that, pig's blood?" he said, snatching the bandages off my head. "It certainly suits you, old hag!"

My dad laughed loud at that. "She got you good, Yusuke, you have to admit!" Arms around each other, my parents waved and wiped their eyes. "Now we'll leave you kids to it. Thanks for the laugh, kids!"

They left, and the others filed into my room and shut the door—but I hadn't yet recovered, lying flat on my back and trying to catch my breath, giggles cresting over and over again. Yusuke stared down at me with teeth grit, but when I buried my face in my pillow, I heard his feet scrape over the carpet.

"And to think I was worried about—is that my Famicon controller?!"

His voice cracked on the last syllable. I lifted my face and saw him holding the controller, face purple with fury, the controller's long cord snaking from his fist to the space under my bed—the space where I'd stashed the gaming system when I got home from the hospital. But how had he seen the controller? I thought I'd shoved it pretty deep under there.

"I wondered where this went!" he said. Before I could make a quip about him caring more about his gaming system than he did me, his childhood friend, he glared and said, "What, you stole it while I was asleep?"

I pointed across the room and threw a certain someone under the bus without compunction. "Kuwabara did it."

"He did WHAT? OH, that's it!" But Kuwabara hid behind Shizuru, who rolled her eyes, and Yusuke decided he'd beat the other boy black and blue another day—because right now he had to find his precious Famicon. Glaring at me, he demanded: "Where's my game, huh? Where is it? Where'd you hide it?" He followed the controller's cord and dropped to the floor, lifting the bed skirt to peer beneath my mattress. "What, did you hide it under your—oh my god what the fuck?!"

In half a second he was across the room, back against my closet door, pointing in horror under my bed. Before anyone could ask what he was yammering about, however, something rustled—and then Hiei appeared, brushing off the front of his black cloak and glaring straight at Yusuke. The others all stared, open-mouthed with shock.

"What the fuck is Hiei doing under your bed?!" Yusuke yelped.

Hiei pointed at me. "She told me to hide!"

"I don't care what she did! You scared the shit out of me!"

Hiei's stare was as baleful as it was unapologetic. "Perhaps if you'd been more observant—"

Yusuke bared his teeth. "Why you little—!"

As was custom, a squabble broke out, replete with threats and headlocks and all the yelling you could ask for. Kuwabara jumped in, gleefully mocking Hiei's size ("Doesn't surprise me a shrimp like you could fit under a bed!"), while Kurama and Shizuru looked on from the sidelines, amused. The giggles caught up with me again, of course, because their antics were the stuff of legend—but then they died down, leaving me to stare at the boys (and one girl) in awed silence.

I'd finally gotten my wish, I realized.

All of my boys were here at last, together in one place.

They were all here, and they were all OK.

My boys were together at long last, and aside from Botan, everything—well. Everything had turned out OK, hadn't it?

The sensation settled over my shoulders like a blanket, warm and soft and bracing.

Everything was going to be OK.

I'd done a lot of crying over the past few days. Tears of worry, tears of sadness, tears of fear, tears of mirth. And all of them—no matter how unpleasant, or even how fun—served their varying purposes.

That day, as my eyes welled and my boys bickered, I learned that tears of happiness felt the best of all…not that that should come as a surprise to anyone.


NOTES:

I was happy to end this chapter on an upbeat note. The boys are comedy goldmines and getting to put a twist on "Yusuke thinks Keiko is dead when he wakes up" bit was super fun. Her parents totally stole that scene, which I didn't expect, but I LOVED writing them.

Many thanks to those who reviewed last week! ED99, Yakiitori, DiCuoreAllisa, YourTeaLovingKookiness, Viviene001, xenocanaan, Marian, Almecestris, Saj te Gyuhyall, racnor, tatewaki2000, Leahcar-Soutaichoi, CountingSinfulStars, Kirie Mitsuru, Yee, iheartlife888, wennifer-lynn, tsaurn, Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, MoonKishi, DarkRoseCharm, Kaiya Azure, WaYaADisi1, Lola, Isabella andradesantos, Lady Ellesmere, ReneeSarah, Laina Inverse, KuramaG33, zubhanwc3, Miss Ideophobia, Mistress Anko, LittleDragonTamer, Kuroyuki no Ryu, Miqila, Just 2 Dream of You, ahyeon, Kaylamarie517, Siera-Knightwalker, britneycase3, Konohamaya Uzumaki, Violet Haze 9, Lady Rini, AnimePleaseGood, and two guests!