Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language, sexual references.

Notes: I know that it's been almost six months...

Beretta 14

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December 2009

Your uncle is giving you a very odd look tonight. Considering that you came half-limping into the front room of the Toukohan, sat down on the couch with an audible hiss of pain, and Tokitoh's grinning like a son-of-a-bitch, you think it's safe to assume that everyone is well aware of what you just spent the last two hours doing.

Kou is his normal, implacable self, chatting quietly with Ryoji over tea. Your reporter friend knows just enough local gossip to fuel a small tabloid, so he and Kou are well-matched when it comes to information circles. Tokitoh's face slips from smug to properly-embarrassed as Kasai shifts that odd expression from your eyes to your cat's. It almost makes you chuckle. Instead, you lean back against the worn old sofa and let your eyes slip closed as you listen to Tokitoh chew on his fingernails and the idle chatter around you.

You're drifting towards sleep when Ryoji directs his voice to you. "Yo, Kubo. I've already explained most of this to them."

You nod and turn to arch an eyebrow at your uncle in silent questioning. As much as you are loathe to admit it, you really do value his advice. His well-lined and perpetually exhausted visage still carries that strange expression though, and he holds your gaze for a moment while an unvoiced internal debate plays out in his eyes. Finally, he inclines his grey head towards the shop's front door, getting slowly to his feet.

The hesitation in his eyes sends up a warning flag in your tired mind, but you follow him outside all the same. You don't miss Tokitoh's violet gaze on you both. He doesn't move to shadow you.

The evening air is ridiculously cold, and considering that you're wearing your previously abandoned tee shirt and a pair of battered old jeans, ripped at both front pockets and one knee, you repress a violent shudder but offer Kasai your full attention. The last time that you saw him display this degree of awkward nervousness was the day that you showed up unannounced and unwanted on his doorstep after your mother died.

"I need to come clean with you about something," he says quietly, eyes darting left and then right in an old paranoid habit. "You remember when Toki-boy went missing, and you asked me not to get involved?"

You nod. How could you forget? After that solid punch to the jaw your uncle delivered, that day is etched into your mind forever. "Well, me and Araki had some information, but we didn't think it would help you. I came across it completely on accident, really."

You're all ears, now. What could they have possibly discovered that is causing your uncle to avoid your gaze, hang his head like this?

And as if a set of proverbial floodgates have been opened, he starts talking in one long, continuous rush of words. "Tokitoh's real name is Ushio Minoru. He's the son of some upper-echelon political figure in the Japanese government. The man died a few months back, and I found this," he retrieves a crumpled-up newspaper clipping from his inside coat pocket and hands it to you. "It's a memorial article. I saw the picture, and I just knew that kid is Tokitoh."

The face smiling up at you is identical to the one in the photo on that priest's office wall. The only difference is that this kid looks very happy, healthy, and well-cared for. And his eyes are blue. "I'm guessing that the Wild Adapter changed his eye color, as well," your uncle says quietly, almost reading your mind. You both gaze at the clipping, at the normal and loving family preserved forever on ink and paper. "His mother and older brother died in a bus accident of some kind in Vietnam when he was about five years old. He was listed as missing, and after a while I guess they just stopped looking."

You aren't quite sure of how to respond to this information, but you silently hate the part of your mind that experiences sharp relief at the idea of his family being unable to claim him. To take him away from you. And would they really have wanted him back, anyway? He's fifteen years older now, tainted and dangerous. He really isn't Ushio Minoru any longer, is he?

Kasai sighs heavily and leans back against the front exterior wall of the Toukohan. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner. I just... I didn't think it would do any good, and I know how he responds to that name..." he trails off weakly.

How would Tokitoh take this, you wonder. And would it merely be cruel to tell him? To taunt him with the ghost of a family dead and gone?

"Don't say anything to him about this," you finally murmur, staring at a fifteen year-younger version of your stray.

Kasai nods, lighting a cigarette, taking a deep drag and letting his head fall back against the cold brick of the wall. "It still doesn't tell us how he ended back up in Japan," he mutters. "Or what that bastard Sanada did to him."

"Mn." You tear your eyes away from the clipping and shove it into your back pocket. Something in you is terrified to tell him. It's akin to the paralyzing fear that threatened to choke you back at the Church of the Sacred Heart. You're afraid that if you tell Tokitoh about this his memory will come back, and he'll forget your name and the things you've done to protect him. He'll forget that possessive, fierce loyalty to you.

But he might remember exactly what has happened to him, what Sanada did and how that right hand of his got to be the way that it is. It's one hell of a gamble. You just don't like these odds.

"This is ridiculous," you sigh, chuckling despite yourself.

Kasai shoots you a wary, questioning glance. You meet his eyes and smile deprecatingly at the irony of this situation. "If I tell him, he might remember everything. And if I tell him, he might forget everything." Because right now, Kubota Makoto and Yokohama are everything to this kid, his whole world.

And as much as it unnerves your pride and your self-reliance to admit it, Tokitoh is your reason for living, for breathing, for fighting.

Your uncle shakes his head sadly. You sigh in defeat. "So do I tell Tokitoh?" you ask no one in particular.

And your blood runs cold in your veins when you hear a voice so achingly familiar speak from within the Toukohan's doorway. "Tell me what?"

Kasai drops his half-finished cigarette into the snow, he's so startled. Tokitoh has always had that pesky habit of being ridiculously goddamned stealthy when it suites him...

You exchange a loaded glance with your uncle, communicating in seconds the threat of violence, and you know he won't say anything to your cat. He excuses himself rather hastily and disappears into Kou's shop, leaving you very under-dressed, cold, and a mental nervous wreck outside on the street. Tokitoh's gazing at you hard, trying to read your expression, standing in the doorway. "Kubo-chan?"

If there has ever been a time in your life that you mutely prayed for divine intervention, it's now. But you don't believe in a god beyond the scrawny stray staring at you in jeans and a sweatshirt, and you know that he isn't going to assist you in this endeavor. No, it's all on you Kubota.

Don't fuck this up.

"Kasai found something," you say blandly, extracting the newspaper clipping from your back pocket and handing it to your roommate. You hate yourself for doing this. You just can't bring yourself to lie to him.

Tokitoh stares at it for a moment, his brow knit in concentration. You watch his violet gaze search the photo for a long minute, freeze on one particular face smiling back at him, and your mind screams for you to grab the paper from his thin, scarred hands and rip it into shreds, but you can't seem to do it. Then Tokitoh's eyes widen, and his hands start shaking. His mouth falls open in stunned recognition. "Mom?" he whispers in disbelief.

His hushed voice sounds like your heart breaking.

Your cat's gorgeous violet eyes bolt from this old family photograph to stare at you incredulously, and then he collapses into the snow.

I apologize for the delay in updating. My freshman year of college is done in less than a week and it's been.. interesting. If Minekura starts putting out updates to the manga soon I'll have more material to work with, and the updates will become less infrequent. Thanks to all of the reviewers and readers who subscribed to story alerts. I appreciate all of you.