Tokyo Babylon: Sound part 4: Conversing / Thought Subaru knelt down before the boy, his son, so that their eyes met on the same level. The younger Subaru's eyes met his evenly, green pools of liquid emerald, eyes that were, like his own, mature before their time. "Gods," Subaru breathed, "we look so much alike...." "Mother always says that I inherited your looks and her temperment," Subaru responded. "I guess she'll need to find different names to call the two of us, now that you're back." Subaru smiled softly, carefully touching his son's fine black hair. "I guess she will, won't she? It'll get confusing, otherwise." "What have you been doing since she left you?" Subaru-kun asked slowly. It was as if they were trying to dance around one another with words, not knowing what to say. "What I did before she met me," Subaru answered. "I'm an onmyouji; that's what I do, what I have always done." He looked at this boy before him, and suddenly felt the futility of their trying to speak together as adults and strangers. They may have never met before this day, but Midori's son was no stranger to him. _Their_ son.... "I wish I had been here," he said suddenly. "I wish I had been here for all the days of your life, Subaru." "Would it have made a difference?" Subaru questioned. "I would have grown up the same, wouldn't I have?" Subaru smiled. "Probably," he replied. "Your mother did a very good job of raising you. But it would have made a great difference to me...." "She invited you to stay, didn't she?" his son asked, changing the subject, asking as if stating a fact that he already knew. "Mmm," Subaru agreed, nodding. "Your mother is a very fair woman." "You accepted?" "I could have refused?" Subaru asked in turn. "She can't be any worse of a cook than I am." Subaru suddenly grinned. "She's a great cook," he reported, "even when she makes weird stuff." "'Weird stuff'?" "She cooks non-Japanese food as often as not," Subaru told him. "Most of it's pretty good, though... especially when she makes cookies and stuff. She lets me help." "Remind me to make Hokuto-chan's special cake for you sometime," Subaru said, unable to suppress a soft smile. "It's one of the few things I can cook well... and it's really good." "Okaasan always said you didn't eat correctly," Subaru observed, tilting his head to the side. "She probably wants you to stay here just so she can make sure. She's like that sometimes." "I probably don't sleep correctly either, according to her." "She doesn't mind so much about sleep. She stays up until one or two most nights, and gets up at six to do everything she needs to do before sending me over to Seiji's and leaving for work. She only lets me stay up that late for my birthday and New Years'." "What date is your birthday?" Subaru asked. "I've missed eight years' worth of it... now I have to catch up." "Christmas." Subaru thought, and speculated on the cosmic significance of that for a microsecond. * * * Subaru opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling and thinking. His powers as a Kanjou-tsukai, an Emotion Master, an empath, in no way prevented him from having feelings himself or having problems dealing with them. And now he was feeling things that he had not let himself during his remembered first conversation with his son. He wanted to cry, to let the tears slide down his face and wet his pillow, weeping for the time with his child that he had lost. None of the onmyouji he had trained among the members of his clan had taken to the art so naturally as Su-chan, as Midori had taken to calling their son, did. And never had he felt such a sense of ease working with the others as he did with his son. If only he could have had more time... been a real father to the precocious child that he already loved.... But oddly enough, he couldn't hate Midori for what she had done. She had done what she thought was best, and she had probably been right. The wheel of fate had turned and now settled its regard upon their son due to the awakening of his onmyouji power, which was almost directly Subaru's fault. And she had neatly been avoiding telling him that which he most wanted to know, not speaking upon that which he most desired to hear from her. First, what exactly was going on. And second... second, did she still care for him? Subaru sighed and got out of the bed. He wanted to go and talk to Midori, even though she was probably sleeping at the moment. He wanted to have her explain what the danger to Su-chan was, so that he could be ready and prepared against it. As for the other... it could wait until she was ready to speak on it. He would force himself to wait for that. Silently, he moved down the hall until he came to her door. He opened it and looked in, seeing, as he expected, the mother of his son curled up in her bed, asleep. He closed the door behind himself as softly as he could and moved forward, sitting lightly on the bed beside her still form. Only the slow, gentle rise and fall of her shoulders betrayed that she was alive and not just an illusion of the moonlight and his imagination. He carefully brushed a drifting strand of her hair out of her face, and contented himself with looking at her. It had taken him a long time to fall for her, and he knew he would never let go of it. But the Midori he had found was not the Midori he had known. Oh, they were the same person... yet there were subtle differences that the years had given her. She was no longer as much of a wild child as she had been, and her primary responsibility had shifted from her destiny and talents to lie instead upon their son. Subaru closed his eyes and smiled softly as he let his fingers brush across her smooth cheek. He knew what she felt, whether he reached for the knowledge or not, and she felt such an outpouring of love for Su-chan that he wondered if there was any left for him. They had only had the one night together. It had been her first time, and his first time with anyone other than Seishirou-san. It had also been his last time. He had never found anyone who could cut through the fabric that she had entangled him in, a garment that fit and felt right to him. And he didn't want to. He wanted her, Midori. He wanted to do things right this time, things that he hadn't had the ability to do the first time around. He smiled as he closed his eyes and imagined himself drowning her in attention. Movie dates, dancing, red roses, and finally a formal proposal. He wanted to marry her if he could. He wanted to do things right. He wanted to have more children with her and grow older together. But she was "business first" in her ways and manners now, which forced him to re-direct his attentions to the problem confronting them. If only he knew what it was that they were fighting.... This was the third night that he had used his abilities to watch the mind of their child, waiting for whatever it was that caused Su-chan's nightmares to surface. For three nights, there had been nothing. But soon, he told himself, schooling himself into patience again, whatever it was would surface again. Nothing that was a true problem--and he trusted Midori implicitly on that diagnosis--went away for very long.