AN: Thank you for all of your patience with these updates, it's super hot in California and sometimes I fear the heat is going to eat me up 😊 I hope you enjoy this chapter though.

Chapter Eight – Loving Interference

Kyoko took a deep breath in and stepped into the kitchen where Julie and Kuu were cooking together. She noticed that they weren't really saying much to one another and she wondered if this was a common thing. When she had cooked with Kuu on the last day of the first time she had met him, he had been joyful and shown a lot of heart in his chopping techniques. They had spent a memorable time making that meal together. Kuu didn't look that way now.

"Excuse me," Kyoko said as she tapped on the side of the door, "Is there anything that I can help with?"

"Hey," Kuu smiled to her, "Kyoko, you're such a sweet girl but I've got it. I don't want to make our guest work."

"I'd like to have a chance to help out," Kyoko grinned. "I mean, I know this isn't my house but didn't you say, father, that it's always more fun to cook together than to cook alone. I've heard about how much fun the two of you had making meals for Kuon when he was small. I hoped that -"

"Katarina's okay, isn't she?" Julie asked and Kyoko flinched slightly. She should have been expecting that.

"They are just fine, they watched a TV show and now Katarina is telling Kuon some stories. I think they'll be okay." She watched as Julie's face paled and she tried to remind herself that Julie was not her mother and this was not her childhood. Still, she loved Kuon and to think of Corn's mother seeing him this way, well it broke her heart.

"Are you sure that he's not telling her about the Yakuza?" Julie asked as Kuu looked at her as if she was insane.

"Kuon's not part of the Yakuza," Kyoko said as she tried not to glare at the mother of her future-husband. She sighed, "I don't even think he's ever really been in a gang" she smiled. She knew that she was being too familiar with them and usually she'd try to play as a good hostess, but maybe she could be a mediator. Even the president had told her that she knew Kuon better than anyone, maybe she could convince Julie that he had changed only in positive ways.

"You know…" Kyoko tried to smile as she reflected on her past with Kuon. "When Kuon was shooting Dark Moon, he had to do this car scene and there was this little boy who ran out when the cars were doing dangerous tricks and spins and Kuon and the other car managed to avoid this tiny little boy. I know that there were other things inside his head, but Kuon would have really been hurt had he caused damage to that family despite it being an accident. The thing is that I'm more concerned about Kuon hurting himself than ever purposefully hurting anyone else."

"Kyoko…" Kuu said hesitantly, he knew that all Kyoko wanted to do was stand up for his son but he didn't want to increase the tension in the room.

"I'm not going to lie to you, Hizuri-san," Kyoko told Julie as she tried to stand in a respectful manner. "Sometimes, I do worry about Kuon, but he's doing all he can to control it. He's even spoken to a therapist because the president asked him to. Sometimes he'll be caught in his own head and it's a very scary place in there, I know from experience that sometimes you can't escape that darkness on your own." Kyoko held to her wrist trying not to think too much on her own mother. "Kuon knows though that he can call me to hear my voice and if he gets the voice mail that I will call him the next chance I get. When I'm by his side, even if he's woken up from having a bad dream, all I need to do is touch him and he can find his ground and calm himself. Kuon has some scary parts of his mind, but I love him and I can see all the work he's been doing to get better."

Kuu was silent as he looked at Kyoko, watching the passion that she carried for his son. She really was a good girl.

"Kyoko," Julie said uneasily, "I know what you're trying to say, but I've already lost Kuon. I don't want to lose another one of my children because of -"

Kyoko looked up, "I hate to say it but maybe it's because Kuon never got any real validation until he worked under the name Ren Tsuruga. He was always having to live up to standards that were set for him, always having to make sure not to dirty the Hizuri name and he got sick of it. He's not a bad guy, he just couldn't see a way of keeping his dream. He's not a bad guy."

"Kyoko, do you know how hard it is to come home to see your child gone and then him not coming home for years with no phone calls, no emails, nothing – it's as if he's saying that he doesn't care and that you don't matter."

Kyoko took a deep breath in and closed her eyes, she felt the tears filling them quickly. "No, I don't know how it feels to lose your child but I do know how it feels to come home and be locked out of your own house by your mother. I do know how it feels to be a young child and see your mother walking away and not returning until you're an adult. A mother is supposed to love their child regardless, but I wasn't that lucky."

"I love Kuon," Julie argued.

"But you're mad at him for leaving because he broke, he couldn't function anymore under his own name and you didn't have any other choice but to send him away. He started to lose sight of who he was, started to rebel and become unstable," Kyoko looked down. "I know how he is when he's unstable and I can't promise you that he'll never show signs of it, but we're working on it together. Ever since I became his girlfriend and he explained things, we've been making plans and he's been seeking help to control that side of him. I know that he'd never hurt me and I know he never means to lose control. He's grown so strong from just knowing his weaknesses and building skills to cope with them."

"If you've seen him unstable then I don't understa-" Julie began but Kuu cut her off this time.

"It's because she loves him," Kuu told his wife and Kyoko nodded. "Kuon isn't perfect but we have to take responsibility in the fact that we weren't there for him. You have my word though that Katarina won't go away, we'll notice the signs, we'll do what we can and what we failed to do with Kuon. If we had just been there for him then -"

"I think it's best for Kuon and I to go back to Japan," Kyoko said honestly as she looked at Julie. "You need to talk with him, or at least ask him if he's okay to talk with you. Right now Kuon is shaken in his identity and it's because he thinks you hate him and are afraid of him. I have the feeling that you're not -"

"I love Kuon," Julie tried to explain to the woman across from her.

"Then you might want to tell him that because what you're doing scares me, Hizuri-san," Kyoko said weakly. "Kuon feels rejected by all of this, he feels that nothing he can do will make any difference and he's actually trying to get to know his sister despite how many years they haven't known about one another. The way that you tried to exclude him from a family that has been a source of strength from him reminds me of my mother and how she left me. Please don't leave Kuon out in the cold."

Julie walked to the sink and then washed her hands before looking at Kyoko, "Could you come with me for a moment?" she asked and Kyoko nodded before watching as Julie took out a key from a box in the hallway. She watched as Julie held it in her hand and took a very shaky breath before gesturing for Kyoko to follow her up the stairs and to a room that she had kept locked for so long. The only times when she would open it were if Kuu asked her to – though sometimes he would take the key himself – and times when she needed to think about her son and hope with all of her heart for his well-being in America.

….

….

Kyoko smiled weakly as she saw Julie unlock a room where nothing had been changed for years. This was the bedroom of a fifteen year old Kuon and Kyoko saw glimpses of his childhood as well as the moody emotional energy that had seemed to swarm around him in those middle teenage years.

This was as if she was walking into a shrine or a mausoleum.

Julie hung her head, sitting on the bed and picked up a book that Kuon had read perhaps a dozen times, "I lost my son, Kyoko," she told her. "I knew that I had missed saying goodbye to him, but I waited days, weeks, months, and then years for him to tell me that he wanted to talk to me. I had to live with the knowledge that I couldn't contact him and it broke my heart. It felt as if he didn't want anything to do with him, that I had failed him. Then I got given another chance and I didn't want to feel like I would fail her. I didn't want her to trip her up and hurt her the same way that I hurt him."

Kyoko paused as she looked around the room, she had thought that they would have completely transformed it into a guest room, thrown away all memory of Kuon, given the room to Katarina, but it still stayed as a memory of the son that never really grew up.

"Kyoko," Julie said sadly as she looked up at the woman her son loved, "Do you know the story of Peter Pan?"

Kyoko smiled, she loved that story because she liked the character of Tinkerbell. Neverland was not somewhere she would plan a vacation or a getaway because childhood wasn't all some people said it would be. She was much happier with creating her own stories and too excited about getting married and settling down with Kuon. She nodded.

"I see Kuon as Peter Pan which is just…silly, I know it's silly, but I just was waiting all this time because I thought if I never acknowledged he was gone that he would come back as the same person who left but recovered. I don't recognize the man that my son has become. I am so happy that he is doing better, but I wanted to help him. I wanted to make sure that he knew we loved him and wanted to help him."

Kyoko nodded, "He can't come back like that and he's really trying. I know that there are a lot of things that have changed but just denying his current existence," she said as she looked around. "You need to talk to Kuon, if not today then you need to find a time because you acting as if you hate him is going to make him not want to come to this house ever again," Kyoko attempted to persuade her and Julie sighed.

"I know," she admitted. "I'll try, do you think he could ever forgive me?"

"I don't know," Kyoko said honestly, "but Kuon is a great guy, I think even if it takes a little time, if you're willing to work on it, he'll be willing to forgive you."

…..

AN2: Thank you to everyone who supports this fic 😊 Special Shout out to: brennakai, ChordOversteetFan, Crazy4Animation, DreamIdol, and Sara for their reviews on the previous chapter 😊