I was so stupid for not pressing the save button on the edit of the previous chapter..sheesh..
I'm sorry for the week where I didn't update the chapter, I forgot to mention that I had a trip that weekend and couldn't post that chapter, and then I came down with a horrible fever so I had to take rest, so do forgive me if the previous chapter was a bit of crap. I just got around to feel much better, but my throat's still killing me, and my head still hurts from time to time.
Well, enough chit-chat for now, this chapter is going to squeeze your heart out!
At 24 weeks and with his stomach just a little bigger than a soccer ball, Misaki finds himself struggling to keep up with the house chores, sleeping and even walking around. His back hurts, his feet hurt and most importantly, his heart hurts. The gnawing feeling that resided deep within his chest when he found out that Saruhiko is lying subtly and keeping some sort of secret is getting more painful and more obvious as the weeks went by. Misaki doesn't know what to do and often breaks down in angry sobs, due to his hormones, in the middle of the day when Saruhiko is busy at work.
You got me in this condition, and now you're keeping secrets from me. Stupid Saruhiko, is he trying to make me suffer or have a mental breakdown? At which point do I have to be in until he's satisfied? Misaki thought darkly one day. He's starting to doubt whether Saruhiko actually wants Ryuu back and is slowly changing his mind. But Misaki wants the child, he longs to hold Ryuu in his arms and cradle his tiny body.
What the fuck am I thinking? I'm a guy! the crow thought defiantly and snapping himself awake from his daydream. He was in the middle of vacuuming when he fell into that state, a state he's been doing a lot recently. "I have got to pull myself together, maybe I shouldn't ask Saru for so much sex these days..." he mumbles quietly whilst going back to vacuuming the living room. Ever since his 17th week, Misaki finds himself demanding more and more sex, though he knows that Saruhiko is enjoying it as much as he is, the crow is still not satisfied and wants more.
Shuddering, Misaki turns off the vacuum. "Yeah, I should definitely lay off the whole 'I want more sex' thing," he continues to mumble to himself as he puts away the vacuum. With his back killing him, the crow decides to take a breather on the couch where he can spend at least a little bit of his time just feeling his baby kicking around. He just got around on asking Dr. Yuzuki on why his stomach is a little bigger than last time, she happily replies it's due to the elasticity of his skin and because his stature is small, making him look bigger. Misaki happily accepts the truth in that, as long as his baby is kicking and growing normally, then he's fine with however he looks.
Sitting down and making himself comfortable on the couch, Misaki slowly strokes his belly and is immediately responded with a barrage of punches and kicks, causing the crow to wince a little at the pain. "Hey kid, take it easy with using my organs as punch bags, they're not for punching to begin with anyway," he murmurs light-heartedly at his son. Misaki knows that the baby can hear him properly now as his ears have been fully developed. The only organ still growing is his lungs, and Misaki will be damned if he allows himself to go into labour this early. Dr. Yuzuki warned him that due to his gender, his hips aren't wide enough to support a baby, so premature birth for him is very possible.
Even so, he wants to keep on carrying full term, not caring what happens to him as long as his and Saruhiko's child is born into the world healthily. Saruhiko had been worried sick at first, but now he too tries to help Misaki carry until a full nine month by providing healthy foods, simple exercises and plenty of rest and love to go around.
Thinking about Saruhiko stirred something from inside Misaki. "Hey Ryuu," Misaki talks to his belly affectionately while rubbing it. "You want to see me beat up your dad later on? Because I think with his lying, secretive attitude, he sort of deserves it, don't you think so too?" he continues and is replied with a punch shortly after. Misaki smiles when he felt his baby's response, to him, it was similar to a high-five instead. Misaki then proceeds to spend another hour there at the couch with his baby until he falls asleep.
And that's where the dream plays again like an endless loop. Once again, Misaki finds himself standing in the middle of some white spectrum, with only a blue and red smoke barrier dividing him and some unknown world. From the tiny faded spaces between the smoke, Misaki could make out a beautiful world encrusted in gold, and the smell is just heavenly. This is the first time he could see through the smoke and smell what's on the other side. His brown eyes wide when he sees a stream with milky white water on the other side, trees made out of silver and gold with berries he's never seen before, each of them the size of a human head.
"What is this place...?" he wonders to himself loudly. As he continues to peek through the gaps, he can finally make out a garden with a gazebo in the middle of it all, and two young children are talking. Misaki could make out one of the voices being Ryuu's, and the other remains a mystery. "Ryuu? Is that you kiddo?" Misaki calls out to the other side and the chattering stops. The children are too far for him to see clearly, even with his sharp eyes, but his ears could pick up their voices easily as though they're standing in front of him.
"Sorry, but this is as far as you can go, our world is forbidden to adults," the mystery voice says after a pause and Misaki finds himself waking up lying sideways on the couch. Rubbing his throbbing temple, Misaki tries to get the pain to subside but when he thought of the mystery voice again, his head feels as though it's about to split in half. It was the voice of a girl, and sounds quite snobbish at that. Huffing in defiance, Misaki slowly pushes himself upright into a sitting position before patting his belly. He's greeted with a slow punch, indicating that the baby is probably asleep inside him too. "Might as well make some dinner before that stupid monkey comes home," Misaki mumbles with a yawn.
At Scepter 4, Saruhiko is painstakingly going through every report and news article about Mogura's escape a few years ago. He had completely forgotten about that son of a gun. His blue eyes go through lines after lines of words and jumbled up texts, and all the information he had already known. Mogura escaped prison two years after his capture and was never heard from again until now. No one knew where he went, what he did or what happened. It was as though he disappeared from the face of the planet completely, Saruhiko thought vehemently as he goes through another article about the bust Mogura did. His eyes hurt, but if he could get even the slightest of information on who knows about Mogura, he'd be more than happy.
A whole day of research and facing the blazing screen of his laptop, and still nothing.
Sighing, Saruhiko runs a hand down his face, his glasses on the table as he needed a break from staring at the laptop. It's already evening and his shift ended half an hour ago, right now he should be in his car, heading back home but his attention is still on Mogura. "I can't leave Misaki waiting at home alone, he'll get worried and then the questions will sure follow," Saruhiko growls with a click of his tongue. Sighing heavily once more, he puts his glasses back on and turned off his laptop before packing up for the night. His Vice-Captain had head home long ago when the Blue King insisted she gets some rest.
Making sure that the office is in neat condition, with the doors and windows locked and security being on, he makes his way out of the building, passing some night-shift workers on the way and nodding a silent greeting whenever they cross path. Many of the people had noticed Saruhiko's subtle change these few years, but none said anything as they prefer the new Saruhiko. He's less stiff, his eyes doesn't look like he's about to murder somebody and his attitude have also gone up for the better.
Saruhiko, of course, doesn't know any of this. Keeping the documents that Seri wanted him to complete before the next day close to him, he swiftly makes his way towards his car and starts up the engine. Despite his calm looks on the outside, Saruhiko is a total mind wreck on the inside, his brain still trying to figure out the connection about Mogura and why the Strain suddenly decided to show up after disappearing for years. Guy doesn't even look like he's been hitting the gym or anything special. Sure he looks more like a mafia gang member, and that he's toned up a little but what does that have anything to do with all this? Saruhiko continues to ask himself even as he drives up towards his house.
The only thing he knows is that Mogura is after Ryuu because they both had ruined his drug-dealing business years ago, back when Mikoto and everyone was still mostly alive, back when there was Homra and a complete red clan. Gritting his teeth, Saruhiko allows the memory to linger for a short while before diminishing them from his thoughts completely. Homra is gone, and so is the red clan along with the Red King. Now just waiting for a new one to resurface...and it's almost a decade long already, the blue clansman thought emotionlessly.
It took a decade before Reisi took the throne as Blue King, and even so Scepter 4 barely survived. Even right now, Homra is nothing more than a remembered word on the lips of people, its clansmen and the other clans, and just like Scepter 4 all those years ago, it's slowly crumbling. But none of those is Saruhiko's concern right now, now he's more worried that a deranged, psychotic Strain is after his unborn child, and that's a serious matter for him.
Pulling up at his house's entrance, Saruhiko cuts off the engine and relaxes himself in his car seat, there's no way he's going to go into the house looking so tensed and worrisome. He knows Misaki is suspecting him of something, and he's not going to stress his significant other with the thought that a Strain is going after their boy. This is a messed up world, and having an idiot to share your problems with is just going to make it more messed up, twice over, he thought grumpily. Deeming himself relaxed enough, Saruhiko steps out of the car with his files in hand.
From inside the house, Misaki could hear Saruhiko's car coming up, so he decided to peek through the curtains and see what Saruhiko is up to. He could clearly see the car parked in front of the house, but Saruhiko sure took his time getting out, and Misaki starts to suspect something isn't right. Normally the blue clansman would just take a minute or two to gather his stuff and walk out, but this time it took almost ten minutes, and that itself sends the klaxons in the crow's head to be blaring noisily. And uneasily. He couldn't see that Saruhiko was merely relaxing, thus his mind starts to make up some weird scenarios he normally wouldn't think of.
What is he doing in there? Misaki wonders to himself, the newly-cooked food resting on the dining table, slowly cooling off. As Saruhiko walks in, he's completely oblivious to the fact that Misaki is just standing a couple of feet away from him, staring right at him from behind the curtains. Taking off his jacket and putting his saber away, Saruhiko promptly collapses on the couch with a groan, and inside it melted Misaki away. "Had a long day monkey?" Misaki asks as he makes his way towards the exhausted blue clansman.
Saruhiko's head snaps upwards when he finally sees Misaki coming towards him, he didn't even realize the crow was there. Groaning again, Saruhiko lets his head flop down back on one of the couch's pillows. Right now all he wants to do is just to take a nice, long and hot bath, eat dinner and fall asleep holding Misaki close and feeling their baby moving around inside the crow. "Stupidly long, and the Vice-Captain can kiss my ass if she demands the paperwork tomorrow, I'm not giving her a single crap anymore," Saruhiko grumbles under his breath that was heard clearly by the crow.
Misaki grins when he heard that, serves Saruhiko right for always messing with the woman and giving her hard times for the past few years. A temperamental, pregnant, and cold-hearted woman is not someone Saruhiko should even mess around to begin with. He now has to reap what he had sown. "You shouldn't have given her crap these days then, you know how she can be when she's pissed. But whatever, food's ready so drag your lazy ass out of the couch, I just cleaned that,"
"Misaki is so cruel, and I just wanted a hug too," Saruhiko whines pitifully when Misaki simply walks away without even a kiss. The rest of the night was uneventful for the two, Saruhiko quietly slinks away to take his shower and ate his dinner with Misaki, while the crow tries his best not to question what Saruhiko's been hiding in his sleeves for the past few weeks. No matter how much he tries, Saruhiko could tell that Misaki is bothered and dying to question him something. He just doesn't know what Misaki is so restless about.
After putting his clean dishes away, Misaki makes his way to where Saruhiko is sitting on the couch, lazily watching the late night shows when he should be doing his work. He couldn't handle it anymore, his curiosity got the better of him and he has to know. "Saruhiko," he asks in an unsure tone. Saruhiko didn't even look up at him, simply keeping his gaze on the television screen up front and answering with a grunt. "What are you hiding from me, Saruhiko?" he asks without a beat, that's when Saruhiko turns to look at him dead in the eye.
"What are you talking about?" the blue clansman's eyes are hard, and his tone is cold and not even filled with guilt. Misaki asks him the question again and he could see Saruhiko's lips thinning into a line. "I don't know what crazy idea are you talking about Misaki, I'm not hiding anything from you," Saruhiko answers defiantly. This is where Misaki's blood starts boiling. He points a finger in Saruhiko's direction; his eyes set hard in a stone cold stare.
"You think I'm some sort of idiot, Saruhiko? I noticed that you're not telling me everything these past few weeks and you're evading all the questions I threw at you. Well guess what monkey, I've had enough of your bullshit and I want answers right now," Misaki growls at Saruhiko venomously. Even the blue clansman feels threatened by those words and the old Saruhiko, the side of him that ever denies Misaki's wants and always keeps his mouth shut from saying what he feels, awakens and took over.
"You really are an idiot, one who doesn't even think or see what he wants before spewing nonsense to others. Really Misaki, you think you're the one putting up with the bullshit in this house? Saruhiko sneers before getting up the couch and looming over the now slightly petrified Misaki. "I'm the one having to deal with all your bullshits, and I've had it with you. What I do is always wrong in your eyes, always questionable and never perfect, and I tried to do everything for you too,"
By now, Misaki is unsure of what to do anymore, he couldn't hit Saruhiko for fear of the baby's health, and he couldn't even talk either when his eyes are staring into Saruhiko's cold ones, so cold that it sends shivers down Misaki's spine. "Deal with your own crap from now on Misaki; I'm seriously done with everything you threw at me,"
And with that, Saruhiko put on his Scepter 4 uniform once more and walks out of the house. Mogura who has been watching, smiles sadistically to himself.
I hope this wasn't too short or anything.. I wanted to make it longer but it's really late right now and I got assignments to finish. Geh... (rolls eyes) Anyways, hope you guys had fun reading this one, second chapter's up next week as usual so stay tuned!
Also, Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah and have a wonderful 2014 for everyone!