Chapter 3: Old Songs

The next morning, Shu sat on a park bench. Across the river, the silvery New Tokyo Tower was a shining symbol of Japan's newfound independence. He took in the cool dawn air and put on his earphone. He turned on his music player and listened to Egoist's "Departures".

I'll never be loved by you again

Or needed by you again, either

And so here I am, all alone

Ouma Shu imagined Yuzuriha Inori sitting in a field of flowers covered by a light morning fog, her pale pink hair and dark pink dress in stark contrast against the lush greenery. She turned to him. Neither the iridescent violets nor the dusk blue roses could match the beauty of her face.

What did you tell me when we parted?

The words hung in the air and never reached me

I know my dreams and wishes are illusions

And yet I cannot give up one them

He approached her, along the way crushing a few ethereal blooms whose names only Inori knew. Every step released honeyed fragrances all around. In his daydreams, Shu was not blind. He could see everything and, as he kneeled down beside her, he could grasp her hand with the warmth of his own flesh. He raised that fragile hand and placed an unworthy kiss upon the perfection of her skin. "Good morning, Inori."

You said, "Don't let go, hold onto my hand"

"We will always be together"

Your hands as I held them were warm

And tender

"Good morning, Shu," she whispered back. "How was your day?" She smoothed her lap, beckoning him to lie down.

He followed suit saying, "We had a birthday party for Hare. Everyone was there except Arisa-san, as usual." He closed his eyes as Inori patted his chocolate brown hair. "Yahiro, Kanon, are Souta are all working hard at their jobs. Tsugumi will be taking her licensure exam next month and Lieutenant Ayase made another delicious cake. Last night, we made cookies to give to the children at Angel's Refuge. They're delicious."

You always do that, make me angry

And then make me cry in the end

But when you said "I'm sorry" afterward

I always loved the look on your face

He could feel Inori twirling a strand of his highlighted hair around a nimble finger. "Shu… Remember, when I made you onigiri?" She stopped twirling. "Were those delicious?"

He looked up to meet her inquiring ruby eyes. "Yes, they were delicious." He reached up his right hand to stroke a smooth cheek.

She giggled, "But the shape was weird!" They both laughed heartily, remembering the salty misshapen rice balls.

Hold me as tight as you can and don't let go

I want to be in your arms

We'll sleep with our foreheads pressed together

He sat up and faced her. Quietly placing his forehead against hers, he asked, "What would you like for your birthday?"

Inori glanced down at the flowers on their feet, "Strawberries would be nice, but my birthday isn't until February."

Shu smiled and said, "Well since we just made that up, it can be your birthday today. If that's what you wish."

She shook her head delicately, still leaned against his, "No, it's okay. I like the birthday you gave me. It was the day I was set free."

Did you know we would never see each other again?

He held her tight. "The day both of us were set free, Inori." Then in the shroud of morning mist and the fading scent of ghostly blooms, a single tear rolled down his face.

You said, "Don't let go, hold onto my hand"

"We will always be together"

Your hands as I held them were warm

And tender

"I miss you so much."

Ayase sat motionless as she watched from a distance. A single tear drop fell onto Shu's metal hand. How can I even begin to imagine that I could have a chance? She slowly turned her wheelchair around. After all these years, he still—

"Ayase? Is that you?" Shu perked up and quickly wiped at his face. "Ayase?"

The chestnut-haired girl moved towards him and touched his knee, "I'm flattered that you can tell I'm around by the sound of my wheels."

"It takes practice," he smiled. "Shall we go?" He stood up to walk when Ayase took his mechanical hand. The metal was damp with either tears or morning dew. "Are you okay, Shu?"

"Yes," he gave her hand a squeeze. "Thank you for your concern."

A blushing Ayase kept her hand in his. "Don't be so polite. That's friends are for!" she cheerfully replied looking up at his calmly smiling face. Friends, huh? Nice one. She guided him forward, "Shall we?"

"Of course, but may I please carry the box? It's the least I can do." Shu offered his left hand. Ayase took the box of cookies from her lap and handed it to him. "Are you sure? They're a bit heavy."

"No big deal," he tucked the box and his walking stick under his left arm. "I've carried heavier loads," he chuckled. "Once, I even carried the weight of the world on my shoulders, remember?"

She sneered, "Oh my, your comic timing is getting as rusty as your arm."

"What are you talking about? My guns are brand spanking new!" He let go of her hand and flexed his mechanical limb proudly. "See that? That's pure manliness right there!"

"If you say so, Mr. Muscle! Hahahaha!" She gripped her wheels and rolled herself forward, instantly missing the feel of Shu's hand. Even if it was just a prosthetic.

"So Ayase, how is Tsugumi? Before I left your apartment last night, I heard her running into her room. Her footsteps sounded upset." He asked as he lightly held the handles of her wheelchair.

"I really don't know. She seemed so happy when she first came in. After she rushed right back outside it was like a complete 180," she explained as they went up a wheelchair ramp onto the sidewalk from the riverside park. "Fyuneru was even knocking on her room but she didn't open it. She was still sleeping when I left this morning."

Shu matched the pace of her rolling, "I hope she's okay."

"Me too." Ayase agreed before crossing the street to Angel's Refuge Orphanage.

Tsugumi stifled a yawn as she listlessly wandered the hallways of Tokyo University. Last night, she cried herself to sleep after she saw Daryl hugging another woman. She turned the corner and found herself face to face with a familiar pair of large breasts concealed under a white lab coat.

"Ah Haruka-chan!" She looked up Shu's fawn-haired stepmother.

"Now, now, Tsugumi," the older woman waved a disapproving finger at her face. "How many times must I remind you to call me, 'Professor Ouma' around here?"

"Aye, aye. Sorry Professor Ouma-chan." Tsugumi joked. "I'm just feeling a little under the weather today."

"I can see that. Your eyes are red and your nose is bit sniffly, too." Haruka pinched her cheeks and pulled at them, "Could it be that Tsugumi-chan just experienced her first heartbreak?"

"EEEEH? Who told you that?" Her face turned a deep rosy shade. "I'm going to kill that Ouma Shu!" She waved a fist out the window.

Haruka held Tsugumi from behind, "No need to blame Baby Shu. I have a sixth sense about these things!" She squeezed the air out of her. "I'm a woman, too, you know. I've experienced the bliss and suffering of first love! Let Momma Ouma help you! I'm sure I can give you some great advice!" She lifted the petite girl over her shoulder and carried her along the busy hallway. People left and right stared at the unusual scene. "Come with me, little kitten! Nyahahaha!"

"Ney! Ney!" Tsugumi held onto her cat ears and struggled in vain. The professor took her victim into her private office. She plopped the red-faced cat girl down on a small couch and pulled an arm chair in front of her. With a flourish she let her hair loose and sat down.

"So who is it, little one? A classmate? A member of the Undertakers? Or is it my own Baby Shu?" She winked mischievously.

Tsugumi looked down at her black sneakers. What should I say? Geez I'm not good at talking to mothers. Probably because I never knew my own. She glanced at the wall behind Haruka and saw two old photos: One of her wedding to Ouma Kurosu, and the other of three happy children: Shu, Mana and Gai. I can't even tell Aya-nee what happened. I've never really shared my feelings with anyone else.

Haruka held Tsugumi's face with both hands. "Tsugumi, I know you never really had a mother." She touched her headband. "But would you mind if you told me what's bothering you?" She slowly took her cat ears off. "You can trust me. Just like how I accepted and loved my stepson, I also grew to care about his friends as if they were my own precious children." She placed the headband on her lap and gave her an encouraging smile.

Tsugumi felt vulnerable without her metal cat ears. Her eyes started to water again. She couldn't hold it in any longer. If crying shoulders are what mothers are for, she was willing to give it a try.

"She was so annoying! I don't even know why I wasted so much time with her." Daryl complained while munching on a buttered bread roll. An exquisite set of pastries and earl grey tea lay before him in a sunlit patio.

The woman in front of him playfully replied, "Please, not this story again! You've told me about this girl at least a thousand times!" Cascades of long blonde hair quavered with her every movement, and her dark blue-violet eyes exuded a sly charm.

"Aunt Charlotte!" Daryl's own lilac eyes widened at her accusation. "That's not true! I've only mentioned her once or twice."

He checked around for any maids who could be listening in on them. He cursed at himself for bringing her up again. He couldn't help it though because one look at his dear aunt, and he instantly turns into his younger self. It was often said that she and Daryl's mother had the same face but now that she dyed her hair from jet-black to white-blonde, she was a near-perfect image of Maria Steiner Yan. Only her eyes were of a darker hue and of a more understated feline shape, unlike her sister's wide and animated gaze.

"Once or twice this hour?" Charlotte Steiner Gespenst teased her nephew.

Eight years ago, she was surprised to get a call from America that he was still alive and well after the collapse of GHQ. A neurobiologist, she was the one to establish the key principle behind the mechanism of void genome emulation. Her sister years before left behind designs for prototypes of machines controlled by genomic resonance. This new theory she studied, through communications with Dr. Ouma Kurosu, helped build the framework for many studies conducted by Sephirah Genomics under GHQ, but the greatest result of her work were the creation of the Endlave. Sadly, Maria took her own life shortly before the first Endlaves were released for military use.

"Fine, change topic!" Daryl defiantly stood up to grab the last bread roll out the plate of his beautiful confidante. "I've been thinking about what I wanted to do while I'm here." He sat back down and chewed on the roll thoughtfully. "I can't join the Japanese military, but I still want to pilot an Endlave." He swallowed hard and thought back on when he first decided to become a pilot.

After his mother's suicide, he didn't know how to deal with his feelings. He took it out on servants, pets, strangers, and once, even on his own father. Major General Yan became scarce as soon as the United Nations promoted him to Commander-in-Chief of the newly-formed GHQ, tasked in controlling the Apocalypse Virus Pandemic in Japan. But even before Lost Christmas, he was rarely around. His marriage to Maria was a professional relationship. She was a brilliant computer engineer from a noble family, but she was eccentric and withdrawn from society. He needed her skills to help him rise among the ranks, and she appreciated the comfortable life he gave her.

Daryl didn't receive any comfort after his mother's death. Even his Aunt and Uncle suddenly stopped coming over as often as they used to. When his father came home and didn't want to talk to him, he couldn't hold back his frustration. Daryl didn't mean to slap him in the face, but his father still slapped him back twice as hard.

"Why are you being so annoying just because she gave birth to you?" Major General Yan shook young Daryl by the collar of his shirt. "If you want to learn how to deal with pain, become a soldier! Honor your no-good mother by causing destruction with her creations." He laughed a deep and monstrous laugh before throwing the little boy against a wall. "And don't you dare touch me again, son. If you hurt me, I will hurt you right back."

For the first time in his life, he felt lonely.

Mama said, when Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Charles got married, she felt lonely.

Before he left to join the military, Daryl tried to ask his uncle what happened that night, but Charles simply denied being at the Yan Estate, and told him that the trauma has messed with his memories. Charles Gespenst used to be so kind to little Daryl, teaching him how to ride a bike and taking him to amusement parks. Then after Maria's death it was as if he didn't even exist anymore. Daryl used to think of him as a second father.

"Aunt Charlotte, you think you can let me be your test pilot again?" Daryl stared at his steaming cup of tea before taking a small sip.

Charlotte half-smiled at him. "I'll see if my new toy will be ready for you to play with." Before the battle of the Fourth Apocalypse, it was she who gave instructions to First Lieutenant Rowan to have Daryl pilot the physically-demanding Gespenst Endlave with the Void Genome Emulator. She remembered how Rowan refused to obey at first, but she convinced him that she would never put the life of her own nephew in danger.

"Thanks." He murmured into his cup before getting up with a grin on his face. He snapped a finger and a butler briskly walked in to hand him a white jacket.

"Was that a 'Thank you' I just heard?" She mockingly cupped an ear in his direction. "Goodness gracious, my darling Kill-em-All Daryl is indeed feverish with love!" She fluttered her eyelashes at her nephew. "Are you going out on another date?"

"It wasn't a date!" he turned to leave. "And I didn't say thank you!" he shut the front door with a bang. Technically, I only said 'Thanks'.

"So let me get this straight." Haruka crossed her legs and handed Tsugumi a box of tissues. "This boy—"

"Man," Tsugumi protested before she adorably blew her nose on a thick wad of tissues. "He's about the same age as Shu."

"What am I? An old hag?" Haruka frowned jokingly. "You twenty-somethings are all still clueless kids! I believe that twenty-five is the new fifteen, thus making forty-five the new thirty-five!"

"You're already forty-five years old, Haruka-chan?" she discreetly reached for her metal headband. "But you look so young!"

"Heehee!" the forty-five year-old snatched the cat ears back. "Not until I'm done talking to you, young lady! Besides, flattery will get you nowhere." She said as her ego soared into outer space.

"Oh really now." Tsugumi slumped in the couch. She didn't know what to make of her sudden outpour of emotions. She knew she felt embarrassed. Beyond embarrassed. Humiliated! But she also felt a bit lighter.

"Whatever. So this MAN you met when you were in junior high at a school festival was a whiny jerk, but you say that's what made him interesting?" Haruka waved the kitty headband back and forth.

"Yes, he was impossibly interesting." She tried to grasp her moving target. Not to mention impossibly good-looking. She giddily thought about how cute he looked with his pale blonde hair and his handsome purple eyes behind those eyeglasses he wore that night that she completely forgot where he's seen him before.

"Uh huh. Then you find out that he's the mass-murdering, spoiled-brat, GHQ pawn, Kill-em-All Daryl Yan, right?" She raised an eyebrow and put the shiny cat ears on her own head.

"Yeah." Tsugumi remembered how horrified she was when she reviewed the surveillance footage from the Roppongi Fort battle. She held Fyuneru tight as she watched the same boy kick down an innocent woman and shoot her down in front of her own son.

Haruka admired her reflection in a compact mirror. "Hey, this kinda looks cute on me don't you think?" She glanced at her obviously gloomy little captive and decided not to wait for a reply. "So then he helps you escape when Gai got resurrected but then tries to kill you when Mana was being resurrected." She took off the silver headband. "You and Ayase defeated him and you thought he died. But last night, you ran into him and you went on a date and decided to start over as friends."

"It wasn't a date!" Tsugumi countered trying to snatch back her treasured accessory. Haruka quickly raised the kitty-band high over her head beyond the small girl's reach, and paused before giving her a look of concern "Then you see him in the arms of some other woman."

Tsugumi withdrew her hands and folded them on top of her black leggings. "Yes. Something like that." She distractedly pulled on the cuffs of her long-sleeved cotton shirt. "I don't know. I'm so mad and sad at the same time! I know I shouldn't be because what I saw shouldn't mean anything to me. We just became friends and suddenly I'm like… expecting something else! I don't know what I'm feeling."

"That feeling, my dear," Haruka placed the silver kitty ears back on Tsugumi's head and gently combed the girl's violet-black hair with her fingertips. "That was your first heartbreak."

Tsugumi blushed and kept silent. At this, Haruka lightly pinched her chin and gave her a compassionate smile. "It's good that you're aware that you shouldn't expect anything, but you don't know who that girl is. What if it was just his mother or sister? You don't know him well enough yet. So I suggest you give this boy another chance."

"Man." Tsugumi grinned, feeling better after hearing Haruka's surprisingly sound advice.

"Whatever," Haruka rolled her eyes and gave Tsugumi a big hug. "Oh I'm such a good mommy! Nyahahaha!"

The office door opened. "P-P-Professor Ouma." A student caught the two women in mid-cuddle. "Here's the draft." He handed Dr. Ouma a piece of paper and paused to stare at Tsugumi. "No, no, Alex. This is not what you think!" Haruka fluttered her hands in disagreement, but the boy seemed caught up in gawking at Tsugumi's shiny hair, slim body, and her pretty face. He stopped when he noticed that she was staring back. "I'm sorry for the interruption." He nervously hand-combed his midnight dark hair down before running away.

"Sorry that was a student working with the university newspaper. They're going to publish an article about me next week." Haruka cast an eye over the document. "Wow, I've never had a student give me a paper copy of their work. They usually just e-mail or submit a memory stick. Are all creative writing majors like this? It's handwritten, too!"

Tsugumi gaped at the open doorway.

Just outside the gates of Tokyo University, Daryl waited in his brand new convertible. He stretched out his arms and adjusted his mirrored sunglasses. Damn, it's hot today. What's taking that kid so long?

"Aniki!" He heard a familiar voice call out.

"Hey, Alex!" The two purple eyed boys greeted each other with fist bump.

Alex hopped into the front seat next to his taller blonde doppelganger. "Glad you're back."

Daryl messed up the shadowy dark hair of his smaller friend, "Glad to be back. What have you been up to?"

"Not much," The younger boy quietly replied. "School and stuff."

Daryl fake yawned, "Still a boring man of few words huh?" He handed the younger boy a pair of his sunglasses just like his, and winked. "What would you ever do for fun without me?" He revved up the engine and drove away, the fast car disappearing down the street in a loud roar.

End of Chapter 3: Old Songs

Just a quick shout out to purplesparkz02, ForbiddenSweets, ChaozHeavenz and KyraX who reviewed the previous chapters! And to all my readers specially everyone who added this story to their alerts/favourites, thank you so much! 3

This week's chapter was not as fluffy as I initially planned but it's a nice change of pace. Writing Shu's dream sequence made me so sad! Oh god why did Guilty Crown have to end that way? T_T

Plus poor Tsugumi and Daryl not knowing about how to deal with their feelings. *sigh* So cute.

BTW I love describing Charlotte and Maria. They're both so beautiful! Plus, who is Alex? And why did he call Daryl "Aniki", which means "big brother"? Hmm?

Stay tuned for more Sweet Rewards! Hohohohoho~!

Love Always,

Kinky Robot