Disclaimer and notes from first entry also carry on to here.
Notes: I wish I was a more reliable person, and often the only way to change yourself is to do something about it. Sometimes we need people to pick us up. Other times we need an example to mold ourselves after. There are times to submit, and times to dig our heels in.
. . .
.:Finality:.
What did you see at the end? What changed you in the Forest of Pain?
Taihaku had asked about it before. At the time, it hadn't been something he was ready to answer. And if he asked himself now, he'd say he still wasn't ready. Not then, not now, and probably never. But something deep inside him demanded that he speak with the man. Even if it was only just a few words.
Impulsively, he dropped by ICOLO, the simplest way to find the man without mailing. It didn't feel right to mail him for this sort of thing. And Haseo knew that he was better with just talking.
The guild area was silent. A quick look around proved it just as empty. A scan through his friend list revealed that Sirius and Alkaid were indeed online, but apparently training or roaming town. Taihaku had tagged his status to busy.
Haseo tossed his options for a moment, shook his head, then headed to the Sage's room. Sure enough, Taihaku's trim figure stared contemplatively into the starry fields beyond the balcony.
He leaned against the doorpost and lightly called in, "Got a minute?"
The blond PC quickly looked up, nodded his greeting and beckoned him in. "What wind brings you here?"
Haseo stepped in, toed the plush carpet, then met the man's eyes. "He wasn't there this time. The old man." His words came out in the wrong order.
Taihaku gave a subtle nod. "You returned there then. . . You didn't need to."
The oddness suddenly broke, and his tongue worked correctly again. "Eh, it wouldn't've been right not to. I didn't plan it though. Someone I hadn't seen in a long time said she'd be there. Then she wandered in alone. I didn't even get the chance to turn her down."
"Would you have?" Taihaku asked in what Haseo used to think of as an all-knowing neutral tone. Now he realized it was a reflective question, and it sort of asked both parties of the conversation. Answering was optional.
"Hm, probably not." It was a simple and quick answer that didn't take much thinking to resolve. Even before he'd gone in, he'd known it would be different this time around. And it was. He'd been with good company instead of alone, and his mind was clear instead of murky with grief and unfound anger. Those two factors made all the difference in the world.
As it happened, Taihaku was the one who pinned down the real point first. "I asked you before what you saw at the end. The upside-down man and his gift unearthed things about myself that even I didn't know. I expected to be judged, as if by a deity."
"The memories by themselves were more than enough judgment if you ask me," Haseo added flatly.
The older man nodded. "They are heavy. Their weight on my mind has lessened none at all."
The younger man suddenly realized something. "They didn't break you."
Confusion flitted through Taihaku's weary eyes. "A broken man has nothing."
"You still have your mind. My mother often told herself something. That the best part about hitting the bottom is that there's nowhere to go except up."
Taihaku shook his head. "That seems a rather sorrowful outlook on life. Hoping to hit the bottom so that one can pull himself together isn't something I can find solace in."
Haseo briefly scouted the possible routes the conversation could take, then decided the beginning was the only place that made sense. The same illogical pull that had dragged him here in the first place helped his words fall more naturally. He hadn't planned on telling the very story that caused him so many troubles with his family. "I woke up in the hospital a few years ago with no memory. I didn't recognize my family, my name, and hundreds of little things that are just part of being human. Then, the memories the old man showed me. . . They weren't mine." They were Skeith's, not Ryou's.