These words, handwritten and scrawled across a scrap of lined notebook paper, have sat tucked away and unread in one of those old magazines on my bookshelf for years now. Tear drops had stained the page, and certain words written in the black ink had been diluted and run into others. Crying over writing something like this... What a childish way to think of things, what selfish words of me to write... but I guess maternity hadn't come full circle at that point, so I can justify my behavior just a little bit. I can't possibly blame everything on Takumi, because that'd be just as bad if he blamed me for being the pregnant one. But he never did that- not long term, at least. Sure, maybe in outbursts of anger or when we fought those scattered times, he'd let his temper loose; but never without provocation from myself.

At the time that I had written that, I was merely twenty years old and just about four months pregnant. It's not that I don't remember what a drama queen I used to be, I just like to pretend it never happened. That way, I could deny that I ever behaved in such a manner to my children, playing the role of a perfect maternal figure flawlessly.

Much time has passed since then. I've given birth to the baby that had brought Takumi and I together... Ichinose Ren. A boy named for a flower in our lives that wilted from this world far too soon, and a natural born guitarist, taking after his namesake in the way that had made him so famous.

He takes after Takumi so much, in the way he speaks and his demeanor overall. It's almost depressing, because just like his father, he shows little affection towards many people- including myself. I feel less and less like his mother every day, because he rarely ever listens to what I have to say. I think more than that, I feel guilty whenever he looks to me for an answer to his constant array of questions:

Why isn't Tou-sama home more often?

Why do you frown so much, Kaa-sama?

Why is my name Ren?

'Oh, he's just a little boy,' I try and tell myself... But he's got the mentality of an adult man. This can't just be the curiosity of a child. And I tell myself that because of the look in his eyes when he asks me these questions- he's thought them out well, pondered on them, and probably even asked his father or others of our close friends before confronting me. It seems like an awful lot for a boy of five years to comprehend and accomplish, but I could put nothing past him. He was, after all, the son and offspring of world-renowned musician, Ichinose Takumi. And though I never knew my husband as I child, the stories I had heard from Reira, and even some from Ren before his untimely passing, gave me fairly clear pictures of my husband as a young boy.

It seems as if he did all the growing up I waited to do until I saw his newborn baby face. I waited until I was twenty-one before I started to really act like an adult- my son did the growing up for me. I think, most of all, I feel heartbroken when I see him. Maybe it's because the marriage of his parents is a fake, a shot gun wedding that never had a real ceremony.

Or maybe it's because every time I look into his eyes, I can't tell if I'm seeing Takumi reflected in them, or Nobuo.

We opted to never check the paternity of the baby. That was one thing Takumi and I had agreed on. For the sake of our happiness, and that of the baby's, we would never truly know who was his real father. Of course, I'd always have the incessant lingering in the back of my mind, wondering, 'what if?'

But I had to remind myself: if I had chosen Nobuo, I would have chosen Nobuo. I think the choice I made happened for a reason. Actually, I made that choice simply because it was what I wanted. After all, I'm a grown woman now; I can't keep blaming the demon lord for the problems I cause myself.

I'm twenty-six years old. An adult. A mother. I'm married. I have a home to take care of. I have a husband. And a young child. As fragmented as it seems, all the components are there... like Takumi said when we made the decision to marry, love is supposed to come with time, right? Even if that time hadn't come just yet, even if there was still distance barring each of us from the others, we were a family.

And when you're a mother, family always has to come first.