Author's Notes: This story would not be possible without the contributions of fellow user dori4n, who's fellow love of this smaller "Heroes" ship, chatting about head canon, and Skype roleplaying helped to inspire and create this story. So if you like it please, make sure to check out their page and stories as well.
[Please see bottom of each chapter for translations to Japanese words or phrases used by the characters.]
"Natural disasters are natural!" God, how this immortal could be so unyielding when he wanted to be! Was he doing this on purpose? Comparing things that had nothing in common? Just to vex him? "It's nothing like what I'm talking about, you know it! I've seen futures where all of us are locked up like animals. I've seen futures so dark I can't even tell them. I don't want them to happen, never! Not for me, not for the people I love!"
His voice had rose up and his glasses had slipped on the bridge of his nose as he'd tried to explain his point of view and Adam could feel one thing he was trying to hide in his voice: fear. This little man was trying to be brave but he was terrified by all the things he'd seen in the past, in the future.
He frowned though when Kensei explained why he had been focusing on the bad things. "But..." He appeared a bit distraught here. "Beautiful things can last forever as well. Philosophy, art, selflessness, kindness..." His eyes were begging for him to confirm that. Hiro needed to hear someone acknowledging this was not just a fantasy.
"And people? Human nature? If they do what is natural to them, how is that different," the blond offered, but he knew he was simply being difficult now, could see the other man becoming frustrated. This would have amused him before, but now it seemed a more hollow victory, he thought shaking his head, and listening to the rest of Hiro's argument for the changes he made to history as he traveled through it. "But you would see me locked up," he pointed out softly. "I have been in a cage for every future. Just different kinds of bars, haven't I?" This must have meant that he wasn't one of the people that Hiro loved, he thought dejectedly, before letting the matter go.
He smiled as Hiro offered up that some beautiful things could last forever. He sounded hopeful, but also uncertain, as though he hoped this forever youthful, but in fact ancient man could confirm this for him. "Love," the blond replied simply. "When it's real," he qualified. "It's the most beautiful thing there is-the only beautiful thing that lasts forever."
Thoughts were tumbling inside of his head, his little time traveler's brain trying to sort things out, to understand everything he was hearing here and to be honest, it was quite hard. He took a few moments of silence to focus, to think, to try to get in everything the other had said and take them one by one and answer them. "Love..." This word was such a big one. One Hiro hadn't used often to talk about people out of his family. "I think... I think love can last forever yes." He agreed, not daring to look the man in the eyes. "About having you locked..." This time he looked up, above his glasses and whispered. "You'd have been better locked up than in some of the future I've seen."
"No," the immortal replied shaking his head firmly when Hiro suggested that he should have left once he and the princess had found each other. "Shut up. Don't you understand my stupid Carp? -You should never have left me. Without you I would always have been a drunk! You were meant to be a part of my story. Yaeko was sweet, pretty enough, but she was always your princess. -And you, were my prince." he admitted with a long and dejected sigh.
There he'd said it. What he had been holding back for 400 years. He would stick him back in the box now, the blond thought. Leave him there to die over and over again, but never rot, forget about him and go back to his family and friends just as he had before, because what else was he supposed to do with him? He couldn't possibly love someone he feared and hated, he had never been, and never would never be as good as the hero that he'd heard about as a child. "I was never upset, or hurt because you kissed Yaeko. I was heartbroken that it wasn't me. That I was so disappointing a hero you took my name back from me and became one of your own."
"I looked for you. After I woke up, and my body mended itself... I looked for you. Every village, every city in Japan, then Asia, then everywhere. I thought if I could just find you again, maybe..." he trailed off. Maybe what? What could he have done that would have made Hiro look at him with the unadulterated adoration that he had when first they had met? How had he ever thought that time would be enough to make things different? That Hiro could- that they might- He shook his head. "But you were right Carp, I'm better off in that box," he concluded finally. I'm tired of living so long, and seeing so much alone, he thought spirit finally broken, beyond what his powers alone could mend.
Hiro was about to reply to the 'shut up' the immortal man had thrown at him, but too soon after, Adam had explained and Hiro was left speechless. 'My carp' had he just said? Never had the little Japanese man looked more like a carp than right now, with his mouth open, his eyes narrowed and an air of complete confusion painted all over his moony face.
All of their previous subjects were forgotten, this was too big and he couldn't be more grateful to have a tree to lean back against one more time because his legs were failing him. He listened, silenced, his mouth finally shutting as one of his hands went to cover it but in his eyes were no disgust or rejection. More like a terrified realization. "Me...?"
His voice was barely more than a shaking whisper and suddenly the last piece of the puzzle found its place. It was him, it had always been about him and not Yaeko, that was why... Everything actually. "It was... It was about... Me?" He was stunned. He blinked for a moment, like a fish, then he pushed back his glasses up and his face took this serious look again. "Well... You found me. 400 years later but you found me again. I wont make the same mistake twice. If I am all you need to be this man I once knew again, I wont fail you." He straightened his back and took a few steps toward the blond man. "I wont send you back in your box. I will right my wrongs. You have my word. If only I can show you how the world can be beautiful again, I will," he promised, adopting his more serious persona of taking on a mission... this one a vital one, he knew. But afterall if it was for Takezo Kensei, he would do it without a second thought.