"Karen!" Hokuto called from the doorway. "Come on! The shoot starts in ten minutes and it's a twenty minute drive at best!"
"I know, I know!" Karen stuffed several more papers into a portfolio. "Kazuki lost Paul earlier so I had to spend the last half hour looking for him. Somehow he wound up in a shoe box on the twelfth floor hidden behind the tiger lily perfume display."
"You mean that cardboard cutout of the tiger leaping out of a giant flower at you?" Hokuto backed away as Karen rushed past, rifling through her file cabinet for another folder.
"That's the one. And naturally Kazuki was too scared to even go near it and started crying when I first walked over because she thought it was going to eat me. Or that it already had eaten Paul."
"Poor thing. Did you have Seiichiro come pick her up or something?"
"Huh? No, she's still here with me…"
Hokuto looked around the office. "Um, I hate to break the news to you but unless they've created a whole new face cream that not only makes wrinkles invisible but your entire body and you've got your daughter trying it, she's not here."
"What?" Karen spun around with a panicked look.
Hokuto caught the sheaf of papers before they hit the floor, dismayed as several of them slipped out and scattered anyway.
"Kazuki!" Karen dashed to the door, looking up and down the hallway.
"What?" the little girl poked her head out from under the desk.
Karen clutched at her heart. "Oh thank goodness, I was afraid you'd gotten yourself locked in the broom closet again."
"Um, I'm sorry to interrupt but…" Kakyou hesitantly broke in. "We're already late…"
"I know I know! I'm sorry!" Karen scooped up her daughter and her papers. "I'm ready!"
On her way out the door though she ran into a young man carrying a large bouquet of red roses, sending him, the flowers, and her papers scattering.
"Oh my gosh- I'm so sorry!" Karen cried, handing Kazuki to Hokuto to hold on to while she helped recover the flowers.
"Nono it's alright miss!" The boy scampered across the floor like a startled mouse, trying to reorganize her papers. "You're Mrs. Aoki though right? I'm really sorry- the flowers were a delivery for you…"
"For me?"
He handed her a small card which she stuffed in with her papers.
"If you could just lay them on my desk that would be great; I'm afraid I have to dash off- oh but here's a tip!" She hastily pulled out a few bills before dashing off to join Hokuto and Kakyou, leaving the bewildered young man with an armful of half tattered roses.
"You still have a couple of petals stuck in your hair." Hokuto remarked as they settled into the company limo she insisted upon taking on all business trips.
Karen pulled out a small cosmetic mirror and felt around, disentangling the small red velvet bits from her curls, trying to rearrange them somewhat so as to look a little more like the professional designer she was rather than the frantic madwoman she seemed like.
"What were the flowers about anyway?" Kakyou asked, bouncing a giggling Kazuki on his knee.
"Oh- I almost forgot!" Karen pulled out the portfolio, silently lamenting the state of her papers at this point and rummaged through it until she found the small pink card with gold ornate script across the front announcing "To my loving wife…"
She smiled, feeling her breath catch slightly as she read his invitation to dinner at her favorite restaurant on the inside. For a moment the world melted away and she felt like she did the very first time he sent her roses and an invitation at the studio. It may have seemed a little cliché to most but hey, the method was a classic for a reason. Just like little black dresses, some things will never go out of style, she thought.
Then they pulled up to the outdoor shoot and at one glance through the window she saw scarves being blown off of the models by the air-blowing fans and being captured and stolen by the autograph-seeking fans. One model appeared to have broken or sprained an ankle, which explained the ambulance and the flashing lights that had first caught her eye and in just a few seconds of watching she saw a cameraman lose balance as he tripped over a cord and crash into a lighting standing, knocking it over and smashing what she knew was thousand dollar equipment into tiny metal and glass fragments that she also knew were going to get stepped on and embedded in someone's foot any moment.
Sure enough another model wearing this season's hottest swimwear style unsuspectingly walked by and immediately emitted a banshee-worthy screech that Karen half-expected to shatter the remainder of the glass bulbs in the other lighting stands.
"Oh dear." Kakyou sighed as a furious Hokuto leapt out of the car to jump in and "set things straight".
Karen pulled out her phone and quickly texted an apology to Seiichiro.
.
.
Seiichiro sighed as he read the text message. He had already asked Kamui to babysit for the evening and gotten reservations a month in advance and everything.
"You alright there Aoki-san?" One of his younger journalists inquired, concern etching itself in little wrinkles across her forehead.
"Oh I'm fine Azuma-san, thanks for asking though."
"Well I brought you some more coffee; you look like you could use it."
"Thanks." He gratefully accepted the Styrofoam cup in all its caffeinated glory. "So how did the interview go?"
"Pretty great! I had no idea that the lead coach was such a friendly guy! I guess I always just thought of baseball stars, former or current, as being a little… full of themselves, you know? But he was really nice!"
Seiichiro chuckled. "Yeah, the nice thing about journalism is that you get to actually talk to big names and see what they're really like."
"You got to interview the prime minister himself once didn't you?" the young woman asked, her eyes lit with youth and energy.
"I did, but we didn't really get to chat very much."
"Still! That's so cool! Do you ever miss being out in the field now that you're a big-time editor and all?" she playfully jabbed at him.
"Not at all. I already met the most glamorous person in the world, so what more can I ask for?"
Azuma tilted her head. "You met Lady Gaga?" she asked teasingly.
Seiichiro's laugh was interrupted by the chirp of his phone as it brightly announced another text message. "No. I meant her." He replied, holding up the phone as a small picture of a woman with short curly hair and a red satin dress smiled out of the small screen.
.
.
Karen was grateful that her husband had so graciously accepted her apology two nights ago and thanked her lucky stars that not only was he a fan of theater but she could get last-minute tickets easily via Hokuto's influence. She hoped this would make up for the dinner cancellation and based on his excited text in response when she first secured the tickets, she was sure it would.
She dabbed a bit of rose-scented perfume on her wrists and neck and after a quick but careful look-over in the mirror she decided she was ready. Sure she had put on a little weight in the last several years. No longer being a model and having two children had that effect on one's body; she was still in pretty good shape though. And okay she was starting to get a few small wrinkles at the corner of her eyes but they were easily hidden with concealer. And if she occasionally found a strand or two of gray hair, she knew that too, was to be expected with all the running around she did. She wondered if she should start looking into dyes and sighed, gathering up her clutch and lamenting the loss of youth and beauty.
Kamui looked up from the board game Nataku had regaled him with the moment he had walked through the door and his eyes widened.
"You look great Karen-san!"
"Mommy, will I be as pretty as you when I grow up?" Kazuki asked.
"You're already beautiful hon." She replied, kissing her children both on the head. "And you're such a sweet boy." She added to Kamui with appreciation. "Your mother is a lucky woman."
Kamui gave her an odd look but she was in a hurry to get out the door as she was supposed to be meeting Seiichiro soon so she only gave it a passing wonder as she drove to the theater.
The look her husband gave her the moment she caught sight of him in the lobby was all she needed to know this had been a good idea. The evening was going to be perfect, she thought. First the play, then a late dinner, then maybe a moonlit stroll before heading home for a romantic night of lovemaking…
Unfortunately, just as they took their seats, Seiichiro's phone rang.
Listening to the bits she caught from Seiichiro and the garbled bits of excited shouting on the other end of the phone she managed to piece together that some scandal with a famous politician had just been uncovered and the front page of the paper needed to be redone before morning.
Seiichiro stared sadly at his phone after hanging up before turning to her with disappointment and apology in his eyes.
"It's okay honey, I know how it goes." She reassured him, even as she felt her own spirits crushed watching him dash out the door.
Outside the theater, she noticed two young women walking by pause and read the marquis.
"Ooooo I've heard this is really good!" She overheard one of the exclaim to the other. "We should try to go see it while it's still in town! Do you think we could get student discounts or something on tickets?"
Karen approached them and with a brief explanation, offered them the tickets.
"Oooh! Balcony seats! Oh Tooru this is our lucky night!"
Karen heard the darker haired girl laugh as she walked away, glad that at least they didn't go to waste.
.
.
He had tried showing up at her work to take her to a surprise picnic lunch but that didn't work out today. How was he to know there would be a crisis in the shoe department that would require Karen's immediate attention? He wound up giving the basket with its little sandwiches and red and white checkered blanket to a pair of girls who had noticed him sitting sadly on the steps of the building and asked what was wrong.
He smiled to himself as they walked away, commenting on how lucky they seemed to be lately, glad that at least someone got some enjoyment out of it.
That night when he got home from work, Seiichiro dejectedly put away his coat and briefcase and wandered to the bedroom prepared to drop form defeat and exhaustion.
He stopped dead in his tracks though as he opened the bedroom door to see rose petals strewn across the floor and Karen lying on the bed in nothing but a seductive smile and something that he was certain had to be new; he would have remembered a little number like that.
"Hey there." She called casually. "Care to join me? I have cherries." She added with a wink, taking a provocatively sexual bite of one.
Before he could even make it over to the bed however, thunder suddenly rolled outside and the room went pitch black. He registered what had happened when he realized he could hear Kazuki crying down the hallway.
Karen reacted faster than he did though, pulling a flashlight out of their nightstand drawer and throwing on a robe, rushing past him to the kids' bedrooms. He followed her, picking up and soothing Kazuki's terrified wails as Karen held a nervous and shaking Nataku who was begging to sleep with them for the night.
"Shhh. It's okay sweetie, you can sleep with us until the power comes back on." She whispered to him, stroking his hair gently as she carried him back to their bedroom .
"Are those cherries?" The boy perked up, catching sight of the bowl as she set him down on the bed. "Can I have some?"
"Me too!" Kazuki called, still sniffling slightly.
With a musical laugh, Karen acquiesced and the four of them spent the next hour or so devouring the cherries and telling each other funny stories to keep from being afraid of the storm that had begun to rage outside.
At long last the children fell asleep, curled up between them with Nataku snuggled tightly against Karen and Kazuki clinging to Seiichiro's shirt.
He watched his daughter sleep, lovingly charmed by how tiny her hands were and how peaceful and trusting she looked in slumber before letting his eyes roam over to his son, amazed at how quickly he seemed to be growing up. It seemed like just yesterday he was staring through a hospital window at a little blue blanket…
And Karen. One look at his wife's face told him she was thinking the same thing as she too, watched their children fondly. He reached his hand across the two small bodies, feeling for hers. Their fingers met and entwined, grasping hands across Nataku and Kazuki.
"I love you honey." She whispered across the dark.
Seiichiro felt his heart swell. "I love you too." He whispered back. "Happy tenth anniversary."
.
.
Sometimes he still woke up to a pillow soaked with tears and aches from having been curled into a painfully small ball. He wasn't sure at first that Seishirou had noticed as he never said anything but when he began waking up to a pair of warm arms pulling him closer and gently rubbing his back he realized that Seishirou did know that something was bothering him and was just waiting patiently for Subaru to tell him what it was. This however made Subaru feel even more guilty. After all, how do you tell the person that you love more than anything in the world that you killed them once?
On the bright side though, while the nightmares didn't get any less violent or terrifying, they did come less often. He was sure that they would never completely disappear and he would always be haunted by the memories of that other life.
As such he was not surprised when he woke up again, gasping for breath and trembling in a cold sweat with the lingering scent of blood and cherry blossoms clinging to the edges of his senses.
Before Seishirou could notice and pull him closer though he threw back the blankets and slid quietly out of bed. He dressed in silence, doing his best not to rouse the other man, and slipped out of the apartment.
Pulling his arms close to his body, he wandered through the city, letting his feet take him wherever they chose. This perhaps was a mistake though he felt when he looked up and found himself in the middle of Ueno Park, facing a sakura tree in full bloom. This place had no meaning to him in this life; he had barely noticed it was even here most days. Or at least he did back before Kamui arrived.
He had watched the tension between Seishirou and Kamui without comment, knowing that both had a deep mistrust of the other but he had thought with the tutoring going well that things had smoothed out a little. He knew they weren't exactly ever going to be best friends forever but they had seemed to hate one another a little less at least.
Then again, Seishirou was still a little rougher than usual in bed and he still occasionally noticed him watching Kamui with a wary eye so perhaps he was wrong after all. It wouldn't be the first time Subaru completely misread him.
That was another thing that still haunted him. In this life he had been blindly trusting Seishirou for years and to think that he was lying about any part of his personality was something that simply had not occurred to him until memories of the other intruded. Seishirou acted just like he did when Subaru met him before when he was sixteen. He was friendly, kind, protective… and now that Subaru stopped and looked at it, mysterious. He had known him for nine years, been living with him for six… so why was it when he really stopped and thought about it now he was just beginning to realize how little he actually knew about the man?
Certainly he knew facts like where he worked, what he did during the day, where he was from, etc. But when he tried to remember things like what he actually liked what he wanted, Subaru came up dry. They talked, of course they had talked plenty over the years, but looking back, Seishirou didn't talk about himself.
A breeze caught the branches, shaking loose a few petals, and blowing them away, dragging a few lovingly across Subaru's cheeks and he shuddered.
Subaru knew that Seishirou's mother had died when he was a teenager but now he realized he didn't know what his relationship with her was like. He wondered how he had dealt with it, what he had done after high school and in college before he met Subaru. Oh sure, he knew which high school and university Seishirou had attended and what he had studied. But he didn't know who he met, why he chose it, what effect it had had on him. What about work? Seishirou was a surgeon in the emergency room; surely he had rough days, there were always some that he couldn't save, even if he were good at his job. Didn't that ever bother him? Wasn't he ever stressed out by it? Why didn't Subaru know these things? More importantly, why didn't he ever notice that he didn't know them?
He stared at the ground beneath the tree, imagining blood soaking into the soil, feeding it and turning snow-white blossoms a deceptively delicate pink.
There was no magic in this world. He knew that much but even without the presence of spirits bound by blood to it, the tree was still fearsome. It was sad really, that such a thing of beauty would inspire so much terror and mistrust. He caught a blossom as it floated innocently to the ground and stared at it for just a second before dropping it quickly, feeling as if somehow just holding it was enough to taint his hands. Not that they needed it.
He had taken the job very seriously. Remorse was no stranger to him by that point anyway; it practically had its own key to his front door. After killing Seishirou, killing complete strangers was almost easy, at least to the him in that life. To the him in this life, that couldn't even feed the mice to the snakes he occasionally had to care for at work without shedding a discrete tear, it was heart-wrenching. Some nights the memories of those he had killed left him in the bathroom waving away Seishirou under the pretense of having the stomach flu. Part of him couldn't stand it. And part of him knew exactly how he had done it and granted it calm acceptance.
How had Seishirou done it?
Supposedly the man had always been emotionless. But he said he loved Subaru. Then he said he didn't. Then his last words…
Just as he told Kamui before, Subaru really didn't know what was truth anymore.
"Beautiful."
The voice behind him made him jump and Subaru spun around to see Seishirou standing behind him, his features hidden by shadows as he was backlit by a park lamp.
"I mean both of you of course." He added, his voice a smooth smile as he took a few steps closer, nodding to both Subaru and the tree.
"How did you-"
"I'll always know where to find you."
Subaru couldn't decide whether to be flattered or frightened.
"What's wrong?"
"Huh?"
"Running out for midnight strolls isn't exactly your style. What's on your mind?"
"A lot…" Subaru replied vaguely, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"Care to share any of it?" Seishirou caught a petal as it drifted between them and held it up to the light, examining it carefully.
Subaru frowned to himself as Seishirou ran his fingers over the petal, exploring its texture. "This might seem… like a strange and invasive question." He thought Seishirou raised an eyebrow but it was hard to tell with the veil of darkness over his face. "But how did your mother die?"
"She committed suicide."
It was too even a voice, he felt. Even if it happened almost twenty years ago, how could one deliver such a statement with such… carelessness?
"Do you miss her?"
Seishirou gave a low laugh that in any other context might have set Subaru's skin on fire. Now it froze him to the bone. "Not particularly."
Subaru felt his eyes widen and hated how clear it must have been with the lamplight shining directly into them. He shifted and tried casually walking around Seishirou, leaving a wide berth and pausing at his side, turning to face him again, hoping this way they would both be halfway lit. "Why not?"
Seishirou remained as he was, his gaze turned toward the tree. "She wanted to die. And she did. How can I have any regrets on her behalf?"
"But what about you?" Subaru pressed.
"What about me?"
"You were left alone."
"Yes and I was able to care for myself alone too."
"But…" Why did what he was saying sound so reasonable but so wrong at the same time? Subaru frowned, trying to work out what was missing here.
Emotion. His mind whispered. Emotions aren't reasonable.
But he must feel emotions. He loves me… doesn't he?
Or does he?
He did…
Or did he?
Was that just a lie too? Was he lying about the lie?
Subaru shook his head as if to erase the voices battling it out in the back of his mind.
He looked away, staring at a swing, softly swaying in the breeze. Then a thought struck him.
"Maybe people do bad things because…"
"Were you lonely?"
Who are you asking? He questioned himself. The Seishirou from before or the one standing in front of you?
Does it matter?
Seishirou didn't answer for a long moment.
Face me. Subaru found himself suddenly thinking in irritation. Just turn and face me damn it.
But he remained motionless.
He could have walked away. He could have left. Subaru knew it was an option but just as he realized that, yet another realization hit him: he wouldn't. Without so much as a word or a gesture of acknowledgement of even his presence, there was something about the man standing in front of him that kept Subaru rooted to the spot. In this, he discovered there was one shred of absolute truth amidst all the lies and confusion surrounding their relationship and he clung to it like a drowning man. He couldn't leave even if he wanted to. It may not have been the most reasonable choice but as he had noted earlier, emotions weren't reasonable. And whether or not Seishirou had them, Subaru did.
So this time when the voice in his head repeated the ultimate question:
Is he the same as before?
He could answer.
It doesn't matter.