Chapter 78 - Onyx Lion

The memory of her cheerfulness on that morning made the month that followed just that much more bearable.

Well, that and Suigetsu's chores. Though he went about them with an anxious cheerfulness that was entirely new to him.

He wanted to slap himself when he found himself counting down the days to his return.

Well, why shouldn't he count down? If he showed up too early it'd give off the wrong impression. And showing up late was a fucking no-brainer as to why that was bad. Jeez.

He allowed it to continue. Fourteen days, ten days, six days, three days…

Oh, fuck it, he could return a little early. He had reports in hand, anyways. Lots to say about Yakata, too. Karin would love that, since his reports about him were usually so vague, and her eyes always filled with such joy when he packed a lot of detail in.

Not that he felt the kid was her favorite, she didn't really play favorites.

…well, maybe not. Her favorite was kind of certifiably Ooda.

(Ooda, who had only noticed after an hour or two that Suigetsu had actually called him by his name for the first time in his life during that breakfast, that morning.)

(He wondered if maybe he had taken so long because he was so nervous for his mother, who kept him fully-informed about what she and Suigetsu were doing in her bedroom.)

(Luckily, they were so quiet that he wasn't really disturbed or worried. Though he was still a little uncomfortable, thinking about it, and even more uncomfortable seeing their strained conversations with each other in the mornings after.)

(He'd been his mother's medical assistant since he was five, and had helped deliver more than his fair share of little ones—both Karin's and other women's.)

(But this was, um.)

(This was new.)

Still, Karin would probably be happy to hear about him. And the others.

Therefore, her squirming, lip-biting impatience in receiving his reports to her surprised him. "Something bothering you? I mean, nothing's happened to them," he began.

"Don't you want to know if it worked or not?" she blurted. She was grinning, holding her arms together in front of her like a giddy child.

It had been taking him everything not to just flat-out ask her if he'd knocked her up or not.

"Well, I—of course I do, I just wanted to get that out of the way first!" he replied. "I mean, I have a job to do, right?"

She started laughing. "Sure, Suigetsu, whatever."

He tried to look cross. "Well don't drag it out, did it work or not?"

It had to have worked, with that smile.

And then she nodded. "It worked."

Oh, he could show some excitement here, and Suigetsu did not hold back, balling his fists and making some sort of undignified, happy noise.

This made her laugh again. "Don't get too excited. It's only been a few weeks, and the first trimester's generally when things go wrong, if they do go wrong, okay?" She rested a hand on her lower stomach as her expression fell.

Suigetsu, in response, grew quiet, and then scowled. "Well, come on, don't get my hopes up and then bring me back down again…" he said.

(He said it with far too much pain to not have really meant it.)

"Nothing's gonna happen, not if I can help it," he concluded.

Ah, there was a smirk, at least. "What, really? I don't think you have much of an influence on my body, Suigetsu."

A deeper scowl. "…well I can at least tell you to rest up or whatever so nothing happens," he replied. "That's enough, right?"

"I suppose it is," Karin said. "At any rate, two or three more months and we'll be more or less fine. It won't be that long, okay?"

He shrugged. "Time flies like that, I guess."

And then his eyes widened, as he realized, "You know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"

More laughter. "I'm sorry, but I won't know for several weeks, at least. I'm sorry. But I promise I'll let you know once I know, okay?"

"Okay, okay, okay," he replied. A pause. "…honestly, this is really happening?"

"Really happening," she replied. "I suppose this is where I tell you you're pretty much officially going to be a father, Suigetsu. Congratulations."

Despite his knowing that a smile was more than fine here, Suigetsu still tried to fight against one. "Shut up. And hey, can I get some lunch or something?"

Karin just laughed more.

Still, that fact, that new, amazing fact, though tarnished with the uncertainty of earliness and androgyny, kept Suigetsu grinning all night.

Holy shit, holy shit, this was working, he was going to be a dad.

…but then he'd all of a sudden be thinking about Karin again. She had seemed healthy enough, when they had met, but it was so early, and he knew how sick she had gotten with others.

Kid, I haven't met you yet and you're probably tiny as hell right now, but don't give that woman any trouble, all right? He thought to himself, to his child. She kinda doesn't deserve it. She's too good for that.

It probably wouldn't help, but thinking that made him feel a little better, at least.

He managed to get over the initial dizziness of the news, enough to get back to work. Sometimes he'd even forget that this was even going on, that she was having this kid for him.

The thoughts would come back to him in strange ways. Like wondering if he'd have a little boy like him, or a... little girl, probably a little less like him, but no doubt she'd be cute as hell, and he'd do a fucking great job at raising her.

Man, what would he name it?

…was he even ready?

That last thought was the most fucking persistent, and much as Suigetsu pushed it out of the way with "Of course I'm fucking ready," and "I'll know when it's born," he found himself thinking it, over and over and over.

Time, as he had rightly guessed, flew.

Mysteriously, his visits to Karin seemed to occur closer and closer to each other. Of course, she called him out on it.

Yeah, so what if he was checking back more often? He had to see how his kid was doing.

"The little one is fine," Karin would reply, as soothingly as she could muster, with stories of progress and milestones to match.

Suigetsu noticed that she never seemed to mention the things that the other kids had made her suffer with. And Karin didn't complain much, but when something was really making her suffer, she made it known.

So, of course, because he was just worried, naturally, he called her out on it.

"Actually," she replied, with raised eyebrows and a smile, "I haven't had any of that. I haven't needed any medicine to keep from feeling sick, either. It's kind of freaking great, okay."

"Well, hey, glad to hear it!"

He said, wondering, almost amusedly, to himself if that kid of his was linked to him with mind waves or something. At least it wasn't hurting Karin.

And then, one day, on a very cold February, Karin was practically bursting at the seams with some secret sentence, and it annoyed Suigetsu that she wasn't letting him in on it. "Okay, seriously, what's going on."

And she restrained herself for only another moment more before saying, "I felt him moving the other day."

"… felt who?" She didn't answer. "Hey, come the fuck on, what are you talking about."

"Who do you think I'm talking about, dumbass?" she replied. She patted the top of her stomach.

She had felt him moving.

Him.

"You mean it's a boy?"

"Yeah! I confirmed it just a few days ago and—Suigetsu I couldn't wait for you to get home, okay, I knew how happy you'd be."

"Well fuck yeah, I'm happy!"

Holy shit, holy shit, a son.

"You know what this means, right?" she continued. Her glasses were slightly askew from all her bouncing around.

"Do I—of course I know what it means! The kid's gonna be like—like me, right?"

And she nodded, once, twice, three times. "A viable Hozuki with the water body trait and everything. We did it."

Suigetsu found that he was having a hard time catching his breath, he was smiling so hard, though those last few words did something to prick at him.

"Hey, hey, hey," he said. "You're doing all the hard work. You did it. Don't sell yourself short."

Her expression softened as well, at that. "…well, hey, it's your kid, okay? You had something to do with it, too."

"Mm…"

The thoughtful quiet that settled in after that was far too distasteful for either of them.

"So, well, it's been sort of a little quiet today, but if it starts kicking I'll yell for you," she said, clearing her throat, tossing a blanket of laughter onto her voice. "Gosh, you have no idea, it's a wild little thing at night, always when I'm trying to sleep."

"What, you mean my—my son?"

"What else would I be talking about, Suigetsu?"

"Well I dunno! Just clarifying, all right? Jeez, c'mon…"

The words still felt stiffly new on his tongue. Not just his kid, his son. His son.

(Though Karin, for all the months afterward, would still call him "it," would still call him "little one," out of force of habit.)

(It was far easier to bear the loss of an object, a little, singular object, than a baby, with a sex, with a possible identity.)

His son was due in late June, Karin informed him. June. That was enough time to prepare.

Every free thought from that day forward was with that watery little boy and his imminent arrival, and preparing for him.

Suigetsu's visits back to Karin's place grew closer and closer together. And as the time passed, Karin's body and words grew softer and softer. In his returns back to her, he always addressed her first, first and foremost, before greeting his son, as if the child could hear.

Which, after a while, he probably could, which Karin told him after she noticed his little, twittering attempts at conversation seemed to sputter out into "Oh never mind, I'm just being stupid," after a while.

"In all likelihood, it'll probably respond to your voice quite a bit once it's born," she elaborated. "I mean, you're what it hears most consistently, beyond me and Ooda."

"…no kidding," said Suigetsu. "He'll know I'm his dad?"

"Something like that."

(Karin tried not to laugh at the shine this revelation had given to his eyes. It was adorable, which would only have made him angry.)

(Karin kept many more things to herself those days than she had in the past, for Suigetsu's sake. To anger or upset him only upset herself, especially now, with his past and her reasons and his unerring faithfulness.)

(Even though the baby was worryingly quiet, where entire stretches of daylight would go by without so much as a twinge within her.)

(Even though, when she checked her belly with a sonogram jutsu, her uterus would appear upsettingly full of nothing.)

(But then, right when she would least expect it, there it would be, stretching out and swimming around like any normal little one.)

(…only to stop whenever she made any sort of sudden movement.)

(But she was growing, and there was a new chakra system forming within her, she could feel this, it was undeniable.)

(She calmed herself when she got too worried by saying that it probably only had to do with the watery traits of Suigetsu's family.)

(…probably.)

(None of this reached Suigetsu. She didn't want to worry him. She could handle it.)

The things that Karin did say, spontaneously, were surprising.

"So what are you going to name him?" she asked, sealing off a dwindling conversation one afternoon.

"'scuze me?"

"Your kid. I mean, surely you have something in mind, okay."

Suigetsu's eyes wandered upwards, and his teeth zippered together behind his lips.

"…oh don't tell me you haven't thought of anything," she continued.

"I've thought of a ton of names, none of 'em have just sounded right, okay?" he replied, rolling his eyes.

"Oh? Well throw a few at me."

The pause and the way his eyebrows were dancing made it far too clear that he'd been caught off guard. He tried to lessen this.

"You don't have anything in mind, do you," Karin said.

"Shut up," he replied. "These things take time."

"I know they do," Karin said. "Well, here, let me at least offer some help?"

There was both curiosity and distrust in the way he tilted his head. "Help how?"

"Give you some ideas, so you aren't totally stuck when it's born. I mean, three months can pass surprisingly quickly, okay?"

He blinked a few times. Yes, time could pass quickly.

"Okay, well, what were you gonna do?" he said.

"Well, I was gonna ask you what you'd have named it if it had been a clone of your brother and not your kid."

Suigetsu thought for a while.

"…well, I was gonna call him Mangetsu…"

"What, like his original?"

"Yeah, so? Because he would be Mangetsu."

Karin scoffed, laying her palm against her cheek with her shaking head. "Thank goodness you didn't do that, okay."

"Now what is that supposed to mean." The defensiveness in his voice surprised even him.

"Well, would you have told him who the original Mangetsu was? Would you have treated him like a brother, or a son?"

…how would he have…?

(He started thinking, of all people, of Ooda, who flinched at strange things. Of the prohibition of words that Karin put up, even when his tongue had been tied.)

(Mangetsu had been a far… better person than Orochimaru, but…)

"…not like it matters now, since I'm having this kid instead," he replied, crossing his arms, like that was that. "So what does it matter?"

Karin just sighed, shaking her head further. "I suppose not," she said. "And it's not like you're going to use this name with your kid, right?"

Suigetsu thought.

"…Suigetsu, you aren't going to name your son Mangetsu, are you?" she said.

"No! No, that's… that's my brother's name, I wouldn't even think of doing that, come on," he said, swatting a hand in the air.

Karin was sighing far too much that afternoon, and this bothered him.

"I'll figure out the right name when it comes to me, all right?" he continued. "But I'm not gonna fall back on Mangetsu."

"Sure, sure," Karin said.

"Anyways." Suigetsu cleared his throat, but tried not to show it. "I gotta use the bathroom."

"Go ahead, you know where it is," she said.

Though when he was midway down the hall, he heard her voice again.

"Shingetsu."

He turned around. "Eh?"

"How does Shingetsu sound? You know, like 'new moon,'" she said.

He thought about it, a hand on his chin, a finger on his lower lip. "What makes you suggest that?" he said.

"Well, you and your brother both have 'getsu' in your names, okay, and this kid of yours would be… well, sort of a new beginning for your clan. So, Shingetsu. New moon. You like it?"

…it had a fantastic ring to it.

"I'll… well I'll keep it in mind. I'm not sure of anything yet," Suigetsu said. "All right?"

She adjusted her glasses, smirking. "Sure, it's just a suggestion, okay."

He thought for a good long while after that, long after he'd done his business.

He liked that name.

…the trouble was that Karin had come up with it. He kind of wanted to have come up with the name himself.

But then again, the kid was… kind of hers, too, even though she strongly gave off the impression that she wasn't at all interested in raising him after those first few months.

Still, he was, in a way, her son too.

…well, if that was the name he eventually decided on, it wouldn't be unfair to give her that credit.

The three months passed quickly and he didn't come up with anything better. But he didn't tell Karin that, figuring if he did figure something out, he'd just look like an idiot and she'd make fun of him for it with that firecracker laugh of hers.

Shingetsu, for now, was fine.

Funnily enough, the final trimester was far more stressful for Suigetsu than it could have ever been for Karin.

(Uncomfortably heavy and irritable as she inevitably became from the sizable weight of the child, his now-weekly returns—sometimes twice a week—amused her in how obviously and increasingly anxious he was with each one.)

It got to the point where she had to tell him, "Look, just stay in town already, you can manage it, okay? I know you don't want to miss this."

"What? Miss what? What are you talking about?" he replied, with shifting eyes.

"You want to be here when it's born, don't you."

"Well—well yeah I fucking want to, it's my son, I don't wanna miss-"

"Then stay in town," she said, raising a finger to his lips. "Or in my house. Just don't get too stressed out. You won't miss it, okay?" Her voice was full of astonishingly harsh comfort.

"…I'll find a hotel," he said.

(The redness of his face made her giggle terribly once he was gone. It was a rare pleasure.)

(Karin had to reassure herself far more often, this late. The quietness—and this was strange, in a bad way, this quietness—had persisted all the way to this ninth month. All of her others had been uncomfortably pressed for space within her at this stage, and made it quite evident. But not this one.)

(And there was still the worrying, evident emptiness of her still-growing belly. Though she had managed, on strange, haphazard occasions, to get a look at the little one with sonogram jutsu, which tided her over for a few days after each look.)

(She was almost grateful that Suigetsu never touched her, or her stomach, or even tried to, always staying quite a distance away from her, even when talking to her, oftentimes folding his arms into themselves.)

(…she tried not to tell herself that this was because he was still shocked and disgusted by her scars, and instead felt as sorry for him as she could, that he hadn't yet felt his own son kicking.)

(Oh well. There would be time enough for that after the little one was born.)

(…and it would be born healthy. It would, it would, it would. Okay. There was nothing wrong with it.)

(…she hoped.)