Chapter 161 - Second Movement: Robin
There are a great many great romances that came to be because of a mutual friend. Someone that put the pieces together, and tied some strings, and drew together two people that were too oblivious or nervous or shy to make the first move.
For Ooda and Nadeshiko, that person was Yakata.
They were, for the longest time, just two separate friends to him. Equally dear, but not something he'd ever consider as a pair.
What probably contributed to this was the fact that Ooda, for a good long while, would keep himself well-covered whenever visiting Yakata, wearing scarves and hooded sweaters so that nobody would have to see his face in public. He said that it was to keep people from recognizing him - he'd gotten no small amount of publicity, after the Riverman Incident - but as Yakata got to know him better, it became apparent that there was more at work behind him. Especially since Ooda always did away with the coverings once he was inside and in private with Yakata, and thus safe from judging eyes.
Yakata tried to show him support, as time went by. After all, Ooda had been nothing but supportive to him, for even the smallest issues, and Yakata wanted to give back to him. "It's, it's been a long time since, since the whole… possession thing," he explained, after they'd become friends, but before the changes. "I, I don't think people will, will have an issue with you…"
"It's all right, Yakata," Ooda replied. "I don't mind. I'm comfortable like this."
"If, if you say so…" Yakata said.
As far as Nadeshiko was concerned, for a long while, Ooda was just the strange, faceless man that picked him up for lunch from the flower shop, occasionally trailing a little red-haired girl behind him that wore tutus with her rainboots. He was a friend of Yakata's, which brought her comfort, but she felt nothing else.
And as far as Ooda was concerned, Nadeshiko was nothing more than a shadow at the back of the flower shop, never seen in full, like a bird or a spider, flitting away when disturbed.
What changed this was Han, or at least what got him made.
Nadeshiko stayed in Ryokyo for most of the time she was "seeing the world," since the in-vitro process was lengthy and required her to be near Karin's clinic at all times. She was content to stay in her hotel room, in between, and read, or walk on the beach nearby.
"Are you into theater?" Karin asked her, after examining her one day.
"I've never been," Nadeshiko replied.
"Oh, you should go. There's a show in town and my son's in it. I have extra tickets but I've already seen him plenty of times, okay." Karin took off her rubber gloves. "Maybe you'll have fun."
"I suppose," Nadeshiko replied.
The play was The Thousand-Swordsman. Nadeshiko sat in the middle of the theater, idly playing with her program as she watched the first few scenes go by.
And then Ooda showed up.
He'd begun taking small roles in filmed media, at this point, but returned to the theater on the request of his friend Ryusuke and the director. "It's how you got your start, anyhow," Ryusuke said. "I think it'll be fun."
Nadeshiko had never before been so pulled away from reality; not even books came close. With Ooda's words, the stage became a whole world, the players taken along with him into what he summoned.
(And she had never seen anyone so beautiful to her in her entire life.)
Two hours passed without her noticing, and she was left sitting alone in the theater long after everyone else had gone. An usher, cleaning up afterwards, tapped her gently on the shoulder. "Ma'am? The show's over, do you need assistance?"
"That samurai, the lead role. Who plays him?" she asked.
"Oh, uh, that would be Takada Ooda, I think," the usher replied. "He used to live here."
"Takada Ooda. I see. Thank you." She stood, smoothed her skirt, and said nothing more as she returned to the hotel.
After her appointment with Karin the next day, she asked, "Does this town have a florist?"
"A florist? On the main street, I suppose," Karin said. "Why do you ask?"
"I enjoy flower arranging," Nadeshiko replied. "I thought I'd make something while I was here."
"Oh, okay," Karin replied.
Nadeshiko found the florist's, and after an afternoon alone in her room, she returned to the theater before the show, stopping at the box office. "Could you deliver these to Takada Ooda, please?"
The bouquet, as Ooda later discovered, was filled with coral-colored roses and gardenias.
(The florist that Nadeshiko visited had a much more limited selection than her home store, but she managed to get some message across.)
"Looks like you have an admirer," Ryusuke said. Ooda was quite speechless, for he'd never received a bouquet so large, nor so beautifully-arranged. It was also completely anonymous, save for a small card: "Thank you for your beautiful performance."
(The flowers, if Ooda knew how to read them, said more.)
(Coral-colored roses, for congratulations.)
(And for secret desire.)
(Gardenias, to tell someone they're lovely.)
(And for secret love.)
Nadeshiko was not with him for that second performance, nor any other, but the memory of his swordsman stayed with her in dreams and in daydreams.
Nadeshiko also gave Karin a small bouquet, once the implantation was proven a success, and the medicines to keep the fetus healthy were prescribed. It was a small thing, made up of sweet pea, for thankfulness and departure, and sage for health. "This is lovely, Nadeshiko, thank you," Karin said. "Good luck to you and your family, okay."
The little infatuation faded as Nadeshiko returned home, to her family, and to her new son. The beautiful man she had seen on the stage was as pleasant and unreachable as a dream.
Until.
One day, when Yakata came over to visit, she had the television on for background noise while she worked on a new arrangement for her kitchen. Yakata was playing with Han, then a year old, on the floor, keeping him out of the way.
Yakata suddenly shouted, pointing at the television. "Oh! Look, it, it's Ooda!"
Nadeshiko looked up, and there he was. He was on a historical drama of some sort, his hair pulled back into a high, noble ponytail, and aside for some makeup covering the purple around his eyes, his face was exposed for all to see.
The dream circled back into her mind.
"Isn't that your... friend that comes by every so often?" she asked.
Yakata nodded. "Yeah, he's, he's an actor," he said.
"I don't believe I've… ever seen his face before," Nadeshiko said.
(Of course, she had, even before the play, and the dreams. But five years had passed since then, and all she remembered was a blanket, an odd, unsettling smile.)
(All Ooda remembered of that time was a ghost, if anything.)
"Yeah, he, he's kinda shy, I guess," Yakata replied.
Nadeshiko had never felt so completely foolish. It was just a crush. Something normal people got.
...normal?
She dismissed almost everything until the following weekend, when Ooda came by for his usual lunch. He was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and sunglasses, and was almost unrecognizable.
Oh, but she knew that voice. Deep, almost fuzzy at the edges, like warm wool. She stayed in the back of the shop, however, only stealing glances, and closing her eyes otherwise, matching the voice to the beautiful face that she knew she'd seen, letting it warm her heart like an embrace until it faded into the chorus of the street.
This was how it was, for a while. Nadeshiko didn't think herself able or even worthy of a relationship with someone so talented or beautiful or kind. She would surely ruin his life by association.
(Nor did she fully believe, in the deepest shadows of her heart, that she deserved or was even capable of feeling love and longing and desire like normal people did.)
As stated before, Yakata didn't notice this, at first, much less Ooda. It took Ooda's involvement for him to tie everything together.
Ooda was initially hired as a gimmick, on the early productions - almost everyone knew him as the long-lost clone of Orochimaru, so that would bring in some viewers. And despite Karin's protestations that they were going to exploit him, Ooda wanted to perform too badly to refuse.
(Karin still went over his contracts with a microscopically-fine-toothed comb, to make sure that nobody was going to abuse her beloved son.)
He adopted the last name Takada for the sake of easier recognition, and his career began.
Despite the cheesiness of these projects, Ooda astonished his collaborators with his ability to become - body, voice, and all - the roles he was given, no matter how small. He played vampires and ghosts, hapless lovers and would-be idols. And soon enough, people began to notice.
By the time Han was born, he was moving from a B-movie cameo to a rising star in small films and television series, and that meant higher budgets, and larger casts, and an apartment in the Land of Lightning - well, it was the film capital of the world.
It was undeniable that he would eventually meet someone.
And that someone was Furiko.
Furiko wasn't a groupie, or a fan, but a makeup artist, and she was very good at her job. Part of that came from the fact that she had moles sprinkled all over her body which, combined with her brown, droopy eyes, gave her the impression of a spotty little dog. She'd gotten very good at covering them up, or at least most of them, as a teenager, and turned her skill into a profession as she became an adult.
Ooda was already impressed by her skills in making him look fantastically ghoulish, or exotically handsome, but it was when he caught her touching up her makeup, covering up her spots near the cast cafeteria that he felt something more. A connection, a kinship.
"Could you… do that for me?" he asked.
"Do what?"
"Make me look… normal. Like that."
"Normal?" She shrugged, smiled, and closed her makeup compact. "Sure, I can do that."
Ooda always used his natural skin on his projects - it was something of a trademark, now - but some things he still couldn't keep himself from feeling.
They waited until filming had wrapped for the day, and she took him back to the dressing rooms, her box of tricks and miracles in her hand.
An hour later, Ooda emerged with skin that was dappled with flesh tones, warm and convincing, instead of the plastic facsimile that came with stage makeup. His eyes were still yellow, giving the game away, but everything else…
"You look wonderful," Furiko said.
"I… I feel wonderful," Ooda said.
"That's what happens when you finally look how you feel." Furiko tilted her head, the loose wisps of her ponytail following the motion.
"...would you mind, uh, going out for coffee with me? Like this?" The words stumbled from his mouth, given haste by his new, unnatural confidence.
Furiko replied, "Sure, when?"
His bravery washed away with the makeup, when he showered that night, returning his skin to his ugly, natural white-ness. And when he met Furiko for that coffee, a day or two later, he was sorely tempted to call it off, apologize, and pretend that nothing had happened.
Yet there, at the cafe, Furiko was holding her little box of wonders, and smiling widely at him, her skin as clear and perfect as he wanted his to be. "There you are!" she said. "I brought my supplies for you. Mind ducking into the bathroom for a mo'?"
"S-Sure!" Ooda's heart quickened, and he wasn't quite sure if it was because of her, or what she brought with her.
A half hour in a bathroom stall later, he emerged with mottled-peach skin, and brown contacts as well, which he goggled at in the mirror. "Wow, this is really me?"
"Sure's shootin', handsome," Furiko said. "Let's get some coffee."
Coffee dates turned into dinners, and theater outings, and time spent, just together, in Ooda's house, touching hands and lips. She improved him, with every meeting, to the point where Ooda almost wanted her to move in with him, so he would never have to go outside and feel vulnerable, ugly, and stared-at. She would always be there to cover him, if he asked.
He visited his mother, one Friday, in makeup applied with a wish of good luck from Furiko, and Osato nearly screamed, finding him unrecognizable, and having to approach him closely to see who he really was. "Who did this?" Karin asked.
"Furiko, she's a… friend of mine," Ooda replied. "She's a makeup artist."
"An artist indeed," Karin said. She was elated to see Ooda so happy and confident, but something unnerved her about seeing her son, whom she was unconditionally proud of, looking so much unlike himself.
"I don't like it, all right," Osato said, puffing her face up in a pout. "You look like a weirdo."
It wasn't Osato's opinion that changed things, obviously.
This was where Yakata began to notice.
Ooda had his makeup on - Furiko taught him how to stipple sheer colors together to give the illusion of blood vessels and blotches - when he dropped Osato off at Naruto's one weekend, when she was seven. Naruto reacted a little more kindly than she did, echoing that Ooda did "look weird" but that, hey, if Ooda liked it, good for him.
He went off to the flower shop, afterwards, his hair out of his face and a whistling tune in his head, basking in the anonymity of it all. Yakata, stocking shelves at the time, didn't recognize him at first, and let out a yell of surprise when Ooda identified himself.
"You, you look different!" he said.
"A good different, I hope?" Ooda said.
"I, I guess!" Yakata said. "I mean, I, I didn't even know it was you!"
"Great!" Ooda said. "That means it worked!"
It was here that Nadeshiko finally chanced looking out from the back room, her arms occupied with a tray of flowers as an excuse. Her face fell, as did her heart. "Oh, what a shame," she said. "I think you look much more handsome without it."
...struggling to keep her composure, she dropped the tray off on the cashier counter, and walked to the back room again, covering her face once nobody was looking. What a horrible thing to say!
Ooda, meanwhile, was wondering whether or not anyone could tell he was blushing, under all that makeup. Yakata, at least, noticed his expression going slack. "Uh, you, you okay there, Ooda?"
Ooda cleared his throat. "Oh! Yes, I'm fine. Let's, uh… go off for lunch."
By the time they got to a cafe, however, he had completely forgotten what he was going to talk about. Furiko, maybe, or his work. But all he could think about was that girl.
She thought he was handsome?
"Yakata, um… that woman that works with you, what's her name?" he said.
"Oh, that's, that's Nadeshiko, my, my cousin," Yakata said. "Why, why do you ask?"
"Oh… nothing," Ooda said. "She just… I just wonder what made her say that."
"Say, say what?"
Ooda's face was warm, almost sweating. "N-Nevermind. Why don't you, um, tell me about… your work at the school?"
Yakata thought it highly suspicious that, returning to the shop after lunch, he found that Nadeshiko was suddenly very jumpy, finishing her tasks quickly and being very tight-lipped in general.
It was even more suspicious when, a few days later, Ooda came back before picking up Osato, his face wiped clean of makeup, his bangs back in his eyes, but otherwise uncovered.
"What, what happened to the makeup?" Yakata asked.
"It was a phase, I guess," Ooda said. "Didn't… seem right to go around looking like someone I'm not. Besides," he added, looking over Yakata's shoulder to the entrance of the back room, "I… heard that I look more… handsome this way."
There was no makeup to hide his blushing, this time, so he quickly excused himself and promised to be back the next week, as usual.
(And Nadeshiko covered her mouth with her hands, grateful she wasn't anywhere to be seen.)
"Hey, why, why didn't you go out and say hello?" Yakata asked, when he returned to the back.
"What for?" she replied, keeping her eyes on her task.
Yakata shrugged. "Well, he, he noticed what you said."
"Really."
"I, I think he might like you, Nadeshiko."
"Don't be absurd," Nadeshiko replied. "Some cinquefoil, please?"
Once Yakata got over the fact that his two dearest friends had crushes on each other, he quickly set to work thinking about how bad it would be of him to intervene and get them at least on one date.
He concluded it wouldn't be that bad at all.
The problem was that the two of them were so stubbornly convinced that nobody would ever be interested in them, romantically, that he had to be exceedingly sneaky.
He took his first step with Ooda, since the point of their meetings was to talk about things, and he often passed time with Nadeshiko in happy silence.
The opening was actually an ending, at least on Ooda's end.
In the days following the handsome comment, he became preoccupied with thoughts of all sorts. Mostly, he began questioning his relationship with Furiko; if he was truly attracted to her, or just the way she made him look.
She was more than a little bewildered when he asked that she stop, that they return to just being colleagues, and friends. "Is it something I did?" she asked.
"No, it's… me," he replied. "I've been unfair to you. You deserve someone that wants to… date you for you, not your job."
"Aw, is that how you feel?" she said, and put a hand on his shoulder in comfort. "I don't mind that."
"Please, you… deserve better," Ooda replied.
She parted ways with him with a hug and an offer. "You ever want me to make you up, Ooda, you just call."
(Ooda never did.)
(After all, someone thought he was handsome, and had said it to his face.)
(He could at least try to work at believing it.)
"So, does, does this mean you're single again?" Yakata asked, once he heard.
"I… suppose so, yes. Why?" Ooda said.
"Just, just thinking out loud," Yakata said. "My, my cousin Nadeshiko is, is single too, you know."
Ooda sat up straight a little too suddenly. "I, um… isn't she the one with the… son, though?"
"Oh, there's, there's no father," Yakata said. He smiled a little. "I, I could introduce you, if you want…"
"I'm fine, thank you," Ooda said.
To Yakata's excitement and relief, Ooda took the bait, and eventually caved. "You… don't think she'd mind if I sent her… flowers, or something?"
It had been two weeks, and Ooda had not given much of a segue for Yakata. "Who?"
"Your… cousin, Nadeshiko," Ooda said. "I mean, she works at a flower shop, and all, so maybe I should think of something else…"
"I'm, I'm sure she'd love some flowers, Ooda," Yakata said. "But, but why don't you just, just talk to her?"
"Oh, I couldn't possibly," Ooda replied. "I don't… want to make a fool of myself or anything."
Yakata pruned his smile back. "Well, if, if you don't want to talk to her, then, then we'll have the flowers do the work for you."
"Flowers?"
"Did, did you know there's a language to flowers?" Yakata said.
It was quite fortunate that Ooda was not at all fluent in flower symbolism, because Yakata put together something that was far more direct than was probably intended.
(Of course, that wasn't an accident.)
He constructed the gift in his own time, gathering his supplies from the Yamanaka Garden so Nadeshiko wouldn't see him, and keeping them in his room while he waited for Ooda to visit. "Don't, don't worry, it's very… tame, I, I guess," Yakata assured him, when showing off the flowers. "Just, just things that mean 'You're pretty' and 'I'm, I'm interested in you' and such."
"Well, if you say so…" Ooda said. He handed Yakata a small card, on which was written a message. "This is, uh… for her, I suppose. If she replies, then, um… you know where to send it."
"Of, of course," Yakata replied.
The thing was made up almost entirely of jonquils, the cheerful cousins of daffodils, whose meaning was "Please return my affections." Crowded among them were white violets - "Let's take a chance together" - and yellow irises - "Pure passion." White rosebuds were clustered with yellow-white primroses and pale dianthus flowers near the ribbon that held them all together, for the final message - "I am worthy of your love, Nadeshiko, and I cannot live without you."
Yakata had never, ever seen Nadeshiko blush before.
"Who in the world sent this?" she managed, her fingers on her lips.
"My, my friend, Ooda-san," he replied, trying not to grin. "He, he just asked me to take this to you all, all of a sudden, before he went home. What, what does the card say?"
"It… seems he would like to treat me to a cup of tea next time he's in town," she said, as if she were reading a newspaper article. "Hm."
"Well? What, what are you gonna do?" Yakata said, when she didn't respond immediately.
"It would be rude to refuse," Nadeshiko said. "I'll write him back."
She put the bouquet in a clear glass vase, and kept it in her kitchen when she got home, where Han couldn't pull it down - he was beginning to walk, and loved pulling at things, including her hair and the various things in her garden. Nadeshiko didn't mind any of the latter, but the former seemed...
...far too precious.
And so, they met for tea, somewhere private and out of the way.
They awkwardly avoided looking at each other for a few moments, across the table, both still fairly frozen with disbelief.
And then Nadeshiko asked him about what he'd been reading lately.
And that led them to taking about No, and the fact that they both owned every volume and could quote from it at will.
And that led to films, and deep, intellectual discussion, and both of their cups of tea growing colder as they were ignored.
And that led to them having to find somewhere else to talk when the cafe closed without them noticing.
And it all ended with them, together, on a park bench, planning and promising to meet again.
(And in the night, both of them reeled with minds full of stars and happiness, and amazement that there was more than just beauty but substance behind their attraction.)
It wasn't until maybe their fifth date that they realized the common link between them, when discussing the first bouquet. Ooda had brought her a single red rose, for that meeting, and Nadeshiko couldn't help but comment. "I still have the flowers, from the first time."
"Oh, you mean the daffodils?" Ooda said.
"Daffodils? No, jonquils."
"Oh, I thought they were daffodils," Ooda said. "Yakata didn't really elaborate when he made it for me."
Nadeshiko blinked. "Yakata made the bouquet?"
"Well, I asked him to, since I wanted to send you flowers and he said that I could use them to tell you how I feel, so..."
"Then he didn't tell you that… jonquils are a request for returned affection?" Her expression emptied a little.
"N-no, he didn't," Ooda said. His shirt collar began to feel tight.
"Ah. Then that was him speaking for you, was it?" She lowered her head, almost disappointed. "I'm terribly sorry, if those aren't your true feelings then I understand."
"Uh! No, actually, I-!" Ooda swallowed. "I don't disagree with them… Honestly, if you… feel the same as I do, I'd be… incredibly happy."
She looked up. "How… do you feel about me?"
"Well, I want to get to know you better, but… I really like you."
Her smile was as warm and black as jet. "Then I feel the same."
The stained-glass moment lasted for a small eternity.
"...um! Just out of curiosity, if I had sent you daffodils, what would they… mean, exactly?" Ooda said, too embarrassed to say anything else.
"Oh. Unrequited love," Nadeshiko replied.
"Oh, uh, thank goodness I didn't choose those, then… I mean, might that come across as… I don't know… desperate?"
"It also symbolizes chivalry and sunlight," she continued. "And I would not have been offended in the slightest. After all, I felt the same."
"You really wanted us to make a connection, didn't you?" Ooda said to Yakata, the next time they met.
"You should have been more truthful about those flowers," Nadeshiko added. She was beside Ooda, her arms crossed, playful mock-anger in her voice.
"Hey, ad-admit it, if, if I hadn't done anything, then, then none of us would be happy," Yakata replied, his hands still raised defensively. "I, I couldn't resist."
And it was true. Without him, they'd have just continued watching and wishing and denying themselves any sense of moving forward, shackled by lack of self-confidence.
Yes, like many great loves, Nadeshiko and Ooda came to meet because of a third force sewing them together.
And they also bettered each other, healing the broken parts that they could not fix alone.
Nadeshiko, eventually, grew accustomed to the thought of someone loving her, like she had grown accustomed to Yakata's own kind of love. In safe, private spaces, she let Ooda kiss her, and she acquired a kind hunger for the coolness of his hands on her skin, of her face against his bare chest.
Ooda, eventually, began to believe in the beauty she saw in his skin, that she said other people saw, and for the first time in his life he felt comfortable letting someone see him without clothes, and as himself, rather than shielded with a persona or a role. Certainly, he'd been shirtless before, for roles and for characters, but that wasn't his skin people were looking at. That wasn't him they were looking at.
(That wasn't him that his fans and admirers loved. It was the men he became.)
Those men were not shamed by their skin or their eyes, so he couldn't be.
(But Nadeshiko loved him as he was. She loved him, all of him, and not anybody else that he had been or could be.)
(And most importantly, he believed her.)
Ooda called her hands gentle - and they truly were his favorite part about her - and he made himself a flower for her. She had flowers for those she cared about most, but for him, it became a name, and his formerly-anonymous letters began to carry that with them.
Nadeshiko called his eyes beautiful - and they truly were her favorite part about him, even more than his skin - and only when he felt safest, and most loved, did he ever let her see his face in full.
Softly and sweetly, she lost her fear of history and of guilt, and came to love her hands as much as he did.
But Ooda never truly loved his eyes, no matter how much love she gave him.
He never entered her home - there was too much danger, there - but she visited his often, and even brought Han along as he got older, and their relationship grew roots and became stable. Han stayed with his grandparents, otherwise, who were curious about where their daughter was jetting off to every few weeks, and with such a smile on her face.
Once he was old enough to recognize such things, Han began calling him "Daddy," which Nadeshiko tried to discourage at first, until Ooda - to his own surprise - found himself not minding it. The boy drew pictures of the three of them together - after all, what was a Daddy but someone that loved your Mommy very much, even if he lived far away?
"Do you suppose we'll have children together, someday?" Nadeshiko asked him, once, as they watched the sunset together from his new apartment's balcony. They were celebrating the recent success of his latest movie, The Scissor Man, and the conversation had inevitably drifted towards the future.
(The Scissor Man, coincidentally, turned out to be a sleeper hit, and would eventually make him a household name as directors clamored to sign him onto high-concept films for international audiences.)
(To his bewildered delight, he found himself collaborating with his somewhat-forgotten somewhat-brother, Kurunari, on a cosmic horror film based on one of his best-sellers. "I'm a huge fan of your work," Kurunari admitted, and Ooda had to laugh and admit the same. But that was a bit of a ways away.)
Ooda had asked this question of himself far too many times, and the answer had always been in the negative. "I don't… think I'm the sort of person who should be having children," he replied.
"Why do you say that?"
"Well… look at me," he said.
"I am," she replied. "What am I looking for?" she continued, when he didn't speak.
"Isn't it obvious?"
"Apparently not."
Ooda sighed. "I'm not exactly someone with genes you want passed down," he said.
"That's nonsense," Nadeshiko said. "You have plenty of good qualities."
"And I also… look the way I do," Ooda said, letting his hair fall further into his face.
Nadeshiko put her hand on his shoulder. "Ooda…"
"What if we had a child, and it looked like me?" he continued. "The… last thing I want is for someone else to have to live through what I… lived through."
"Well... in the unlikely event that this actually happens, and our child is... different, and not accepted for it, we'd just have to raise it with extra love," Nadeshiko said. "But... honestly, if I were to have a child with you... if it looked like you, I'd love it even more."
"That's… very nice to hear, but…" Ooda pulled his knees up to his chest. "I'm thinking about your family. Your father. If… we had a child, we'd have to tell them about us."
(Karin already knew of their relationship, but understood the need for discretion on Nadeshiko's end.)
(And it was unspoken but understood that no matter how much Sasuke had changed, it was highly unlikely his opinion of Ooda had improved much, especially given their lack of communication.)
Nadeshiko looked out towards the sky, where the sun was turning coral-orange. "I suppose we would," she said.
"And if… well, you were with any other person, you wouldn't even be in this situation," Ooda continued. "We wouldn't have to be… sneaking around like this, and you'd have a…" He shrugged. "...normal-looking kid for sure, I suppose."
Nadeshiko reached forward, and touched his face with her hand. "There is nobody in this world I would rather be with than you," she said, "and there is nothing in the world that would ever change that. Not even my father."
She pulled him to her chest, and he rested against her heart, listening to its rapid beat, her body warm with love and fear.
"Someday, we will have to come forward about this," she said. "But I won't be afraid. We'll have each other, and it will all be fine."
And, yes, the time eventually came for the door on their relationship to open.
It began with a phone call. Nothing unusual; Nadeshiko called him every evening, like clockwork, to the point where his assistant had blocked off an hour each night to give him his precious time with her. They were no longer able to meet in person as often as before, but they filled the space with their voices, and numerous letters in between.
She began with "I love you," and an update on Han, an inquiry into the film shoot, and his health.
And then, she said, "I'm pregnant."
It felt as if the air had suddenly gone very cool in Ooda's room. "Pregnant? You don't mean..."
"Our last meeting. I ended up conceiving." She laughed - her laugh was so rare, and it made his face flush with warmth.
"Nadeshiko, I... I can't believe this, you mean you're really...?"
"I am. You're going to be a father."
There was a dizzying tangle of emotions that followed. Bliss - pure and utter bliss - issued from his heart, but dull, throbbing anxiety beat upwards from his stomach. Ooda felt light-headed.
"Ooda, are you okay?"
"I think... I need to sit down," he admitted, and did so. "Have... have you told anyone else?"
"The only one that knows is my obstetrician, Haruno Kenji-sensei. He processed the test for me personally," she replied.
She paused. He ached.
"I want you with me, when we tell my family," she finally said. "No, I... I need you with me."
"Nadeshiko, of course, of course I'll be there, you just tell me when you need me and I'll come running, I will cancel anything, I'll-"
She hushed him, a laugh in her breath. "It's all right. We have time. We don't need to do this now."
"Okay. You just tell me, though." He began to feel dizzy. "Can... I tell my mother, however?"
"Yes, of course you can," Nadeshiko said. "I expect she'll be very pleased."
"Osato's gonna be over the moon," Ooda said, halfway to a mutter.
"I can only imagine."
He asked her for as many details as he could, before their hour was up. How she was feeling, her due date, what medicines she was taking, and she patiently answered all of them, smoothing over his more logical fears.
She ended with a promise to call again, a promise that things would be okay, and "I love you."
Alone and without her voice, Ooda fought with himself.
He was going to have a child.
A child with Nadeshiko.
His child.
And all he could think about was his skin.
He ended up distracting himself with the revelation that he did not feel what would once have been an instinctual, desperate need to rush to Nadeshiko's side and never leave her, in case there was a miscarriage, or some other complication.
This was his child. Not his mother's.
All of those things were unbelievable, true, and wonderful.
(But his skin.)
As expected, his mother was excited to learn she would soon be a grandmother, and all the while he heard Osato sing-shouting in the background, "GONNA BE AN AUNT, RIGHT, GONNA BE AN AUNT, YEAH, GONNA BE AN AUNT!"
"If I talk to the director, I should be able to get out for your birthday," Ooda said to Nadeshiko, in a call some weeks later, when she said she wanted to plan his visit. "I mean, the Suzume Kuro premiere is in July, I can't miss that."
"Of course, Ooda," Nadeshiko replied. "My birthday should be an excellent time. Everyone will be there to meet you."
"I wish I could be there now, to hold your hand," he continued.
"You're always here, for me," she replied.
Until the time came when the thought no longer counted.
When Nadeshiko called him in May, at her usual time, he expected nothing but the usual, kind, comforting words.
Instead, he heard shadows dripping from her voice. "They know," she began, without even saying "hello" or "I love you" first.
A cage of anxiety sprang tightly into his chest. His hand hungered to hold hers. "They know?"
"Who you are. That we're together. My father doesn't approve. I don't know what I'm going to do."
"Hey, hey, it's all right, just breathe," Ooda said. His emotions felt tight, whip-lashed, but he could sound calm for her. "We were expecting this. We'll be okay. We're together."
"He's never going to speak to me again," Nadeshiko said. "I'm such a fool."
"Nadeshiko, it's going to be okay."
"I should never have done this. I should have just run away to live with you a long time ago. They would have liked that better."
"Breathe, Nadeshiko. It's okay. The worst part is over," he said, as much to himself as it was to her. "How did the rest of your family react? Focus on them."
Nadeshiko breathed in, breathed out, wrapping up her sadness. "Only my mother knows. She… looks forward to meeting you," she said. "Everyone else only knows you as Daffodil, and they're excited too."
He could hear her small smile in her voice. "Then it'll be okay."
"Mostly," she said.
"It will be. I'm right here beside you. Just one more month, and I'll be there."
Nadeshiko wanted to believe him, that it was going to be okay.
But as much as she wanted to, she couldn't.