Title: Undervoice
Warnings: Marital strife, discussion of miscarriage, possible emotional child neglect.
Spoilers: End-of-series, Recourt arc
Pairing: Kuro/Fai, OC/OC (sort of)
Author's notes: This was written as a gift for  Ryssa for the Tsubasa welcome-back gift fic exchange. Ryssa's request was "the travelers go to another world and meet Kurogane's parents, and maybe little Kurogane too." Hopefully this will satisfy, Ryssa!

 Kurogane’s first words, as his boots landed on the soil of a brave new world, were “Oh thank fuck.”

Fai, who had landed beside him — his arm laced through Kurogane’s elbow, as had become their tradition during these transitions — laughed. “What, didn’t Kuro-warrior like  that last world?” he asked teasingly. “I thought you liked  all that sword-and-sorcery, feudal farming, serfdom setup stuff. Full of noble knights and brave warriors, fine ladies and courtly kings — and such exciting fighting — right up your alley, no?”

"It was like a breath of home for Kuro-ninja!" Mokona agreed cheerfully, wrapped securely in Syaoran’s arms as Kurogane’s elbow was wrapped in Fai’s.

Kurogane let out a growl. “Just because I grew up in a world like that doesn’t mean I necessarily like it in all forms,” he snapped. “There’s nothing noble  about a bunch of mailed thugs that go around terrorizing the peasantry and murdering each other wholesale for their own selfish greed and pride, not fighting for any greater cause or to protect anything or anyone at all. And a social compact of protection and support between the producers and the martial aristocracy is just great — don’t get me wrong — when  it’s properly done. That world we just left was so torn up with its civil war and infighting that everything was just degenerating into chaos, the farmers couldn’t work their fields, nothing could run.

"Even if they don’t all end up murdering each other for fun and profit, whatever survivors are left are going to starve to death in a snowbank once winter comes because they haven’t been attending to any of the harvests. And  that’s not even mentioning the army of zombies that’s advancing very slowly  on their borders! Ugh!” Kurogane shuddered in disgust. “Name one thing — one thing! — about that world that made it worth living in. I bet you can’t.”

Syaoran thought about it deeply for a few minutes, and then answered, “They had dragons.”

 

Kurogane threw his hands up in exasperation. “Oh, well, that makes it all better then!” he shouted. “Because one person  in the world had a couple of exotic pets, that makes up for all the murder and rape and pillage and pestilence and starvation!”

Fai laughed and tugged his hand downward again. “Well, we’re out of it now, Kuro-rant,” he said cheekily. “Don’t worry so much about it! Worry about whatever new world we’ve come to, instead.”

Kurogane subsided, grumbling, but he let off all his accumulated frustrations from the last world in a long slow breath. Strange, it was, that Fai  should be the one reminding him to cast off the past and look to the future. But then, it was a lesson they’d had to teach each other, over time.

"Now, I wonder what kind of world this is?" Fai asked no one in particular, looking around. They had visited an astonishing variety of places — and times — during their journey; some in the far past, some in the far future, some strange amalgamations of steel and stone that defied all chronological description. But there were enough repeated themes and commonalities that the travelers had begun to put words to the patterns, give them names and so define them. Hot worlds, like the desert realm that Princess Tsubasa initially came from, were considered “Sakura’s worlds.” Cold ones, for the same reason, were considered “Fai’s worlds.”

In between were the temperate worlds, which could sport any diverse array of epochs or societies. Quieter, older worlds that fell into simpler forms of governance and technology with a healthy sprinkling of magics — like the one they just had just come from, much to Kurogane’s annoyance — fell under his aegis. And on the other side of the scale were the worlds that seemed to have little to no magic at all, worlds of shiny chrome buildings and smooth-paved roads, bustling with people and crowded with their mechanical servants —

Like the one they’d just been dropped into.

"I think that this one is like my home!" Syaoran said brightly, surveying the horizon ahead of them.

"I think you’re right," Fai agreed easily, shading his eyes with one hand as he did his own survey. "I don’t sense too much magic in this world, right Mokona?"

"Mokona doesn’t either!" the little magical creature chirped in agreement. "There’s a little bit, it’s not all  empty and dry, but Mokona thinks it’s mostly underground, where people can’t sense it. Just like in Tokyo!”

Kurogane made a noncommittal noise in his throat, doing his own survey of the landscape — this one for potential threats. It seemed benign enough so far; they’d been dropped into a green park with a few short and scanty trees, with walkways all around it and buildings towering on one side. The passersby he could see, both in the park and on the streets, moved with the unselfconscious clumsiness of men and women who’d never taken a life — and never been put in fear of their own. He could hear, in the background, a sort of persistent vibrato hum, of thousands of people talking and thousands of machines running nonstop, a noise that would never fully leave them, day or night.

He couldn’t say he was sorry, all things considered. If nothing else, Syaoran’s type of world was usually good for hot, filling meals, cozy shelters, and unlimited hot baths.

"Excuse me, sir!" Syaoran called out to one of the passersby — an elderly man shuffling slowly along the sidewalk close to them. He trotted over, holding Mokona in his arms doing her best stuffed doll impression. Kurogane and Fai followed behind, Fai sliding his hand down Kurogane’s arm to twine their fingers together, out of sight.

The old man stopped and turned towards them, peering at them quizzically. “Eh, how can I help you, sonny?” he asked in a wheezing voice.

"Pardon me," Syaoran said, exquisitely polite, "but we’re new in town. Can you tell us where we might go to get information about this city, and what we can do here?"

"Eh, what?" the man said, turning his head towards them and cupping one hand over his year. "What was that you said, son, I’m afraid I couldn’t hear you. Young people today," he added, seemingly as an aside to no one, "always mumbling, can’t speak clearly — it’s a dang disgrace. Speak up, why can’t they."

Syaoran blinked at the rudeness, but repeated his question, louder. This time, it finally seemed to penetrate.

"Sure, sure," the old man replied. His bushy brows rose as Kurogane and Fai stepped up behind Syaoran, taking in the picture of all three of them. "You’ll want to go to the Visitor’s Center — shares a building with the Guildmaster’s Office, down in city center."

That information delivered, the old man continued talking, apparently to himself. “Now, this group of young ruffians, what’s the to-do with them? Students, eh? Foreigners, maybe? Students and foreigners, I’ll bet. Probably some of those foreign exchange students spending a gap year, taking it abroad, seeing the sights before they graduate.”

"Yes," Syaoran said, somewhat confused by the old man’s maundering, but willing to roll with it. "We’re… students. Um, foreign exchange students, spending a… gap year."

The old man let out a cackle. “I thought so!” he cried. “Well, the visitor’s center is the place for you, sonny boy, they’ll set the three of you right. Best of luck, boys, and take care of yourself. Stupid kids,” he continued right on, even as he turned away and began hobbling back on his routine, “never any peace, always getting into trouble. Back in my day, young people had some respect, understood the value of learning…”

"We’ll just… be going now," Syaoran called after the old man. "Thanks for all your help."

Fai stared after the old man. “What an odd fellow,” he remarked.

"I think he’s a little…" Syaoran made an evocative twirling gesture in the vicinity of his temple. "You know? Some people get that way, when they get older. My grandfather did."

Kurogane snorted. “Kid, you are your grandfather, remember? You don’t got a lot of room to talk.”

Syaoran flushed beet-red. “I meant my other  grandfather,” he yipped. “Grandpa Masaki, my mother’s grandfather, Nadeshiko’s father! Only, he’s not actually her father, he’s her  grandfather, her and Sonomi’s, which means he’s actually my great-great-grandfather, so the two of them are cousins —”

Fai laughed. “If we have to listen to Syaoran-kun’s entire tree,” he said, “we’ll be here all week. Let’s go visit this Visitor’s Center!”

—-

The Visitor’s Center turned out to be a big, attractively glass-and-chrome building fronting off a wide boulevard puffing with automobiles. A flight of marble steps ran up into a pleasantly decorated lobby, lined on three sides with wooden counters manned by smiling tellers. It reminded Syaoran vividly of Piffle World, and he mentally resolved not to allow Fai near any of their paperwork.

The teller that greeted them was a pretty, slightly plump young woman with brown hair that twisted in strange corkscrews. Her manner was friendly and professional, greeting them with a smile and inviting them to seat themselves on the nearby benches. “Yes, how can I help you?” she asked.

Syaoran still took the role of spokesman for the party more often than not. This was still in many ways his journey, even as it had been his father’s journey — and more to the point, terrible things tended to happen when you let Fai or Kurogane make decisions at all.  ”Hello yes, we’re new in town and we’re just wondering what sort of things we would need to get around?” he asked, ending on a question.

The worker nodded as if this was to be expected, and rifled in a nearby file folder bristling with papers. “Well, here’s a map of town to start with,” she said, pulling it out on the counter between them and showing them the You Are Here  marker. She circled another nearby building in red pen.  ”You can get your money changed here at this bank. Do you have a place to stay?”

Syaoran shook his head. “Not yet, no.”

"There are some nice hotels around this area," she indicated a few city blocks further down the wide main thoroughfare. "You can pick which one is best. Or there are some inexpensive hostels over on this side of town. Because it’s not like you guys probably have a lot of money anyway," she added rather unexpectedly.

"Um… thanks," Syaoran said, a bit taken aback by this bluntness. Not that they hadn’t heard such sentiments before, but she had been perfectly polite up until now.

"How long do you plan to stay?" the woman asked them in a businesslike tone.

Syaoran glanced up at his companions, who returned shrugs. “We don’t really know, yet,” he said.

"Do you have jobs lined up?" she pressed. "A work-study program perhaps?"

"Uh, no," Syaoran said uncertainly. "We’d like to get jobs though, if we can."

The worker nodded understanding, perusing her file-folder for more printouts. “That just figures. All you lazy immigrants come into town and just expect handouts, living off our economy. No wonder the job market around here has tanked.”

Now that was just out of line. “Excuse me?!” Syaoran said indignantly, sitting up ramrod straight on the bench.

The girl blinked at him in some confusion. “What?” she asked in bafflement.

"We’re not expecting handouts, and I don’t appreciate you calling me or my friends lazy!" Syaoran fumed.

Her eyes and mouth grew round, and the girl began to mouth hasty denials. “W-what? I didn’t say that!” she sputtered.

"You most certainly did, I heard you loud and clearly," Syaoran said, certain of his rightness.

"I never did!  Not in my overvoice," the girl denied. A suspicious look dropped onto her face. "Were you  eavesdropping? “

"Huh?" Syaoran floundered a bit, feeling like he had missed a step. "You just said, right to my face…"

"You WERE eavesdropping!" The worker’s expression had blossomed up into full-blown appalled shock. "How — how dare you listen in on my private thoughts? What kind of rustic backwater were you raised in, anyway?”

"I don’t understand…" Syaoran said. For all that she had started the exchange of insults, Syaoran had never been able to stand up very well against an angry female. "I didn’t mean any offense…"

"You… oh… never mind.” The girl got a hold of her temper once more with a grimace. “Are you seriously telling me that where you come from, there aren’t anyrules about eavesdropping on people’s undervoice?”

"Uh," Syaoran said, never having heard the word ‘undervoice’ before and wondering if this was some odd Mokona-translation fiasco, "no."

"Well, around here, in CIVILIZED places, it’s incredibly rude and tacky to listen in on people’s private thoughts," the girl told him sternly. "It’s just not done. I guess you don’t know any better, but you should NEVER eavesdrop. You might as well peep in people’s bedroom window while they’re in their underwear, or look up women’s skirts on the train!"

Syaoran felt a hot blush spreading over his face, which only flamed hotter when he wasn’t able to suppress or control it. “I-I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

The girl sniffed loudly. “Well, now you know!” She thrust the handful of paper — map, currency exchange, hotels and employment — over the counter at them like a weapon. “Hmph! What a bunch of dirty savages.”

Syaoran felt Kurogane’s looming presence increase by at least 50%, and heard the almost subliminal growl that escaped him at the insult. “We’ll just… be going now,” he said, taking the paper and standing up hastily from the bench. “Thanks for all your help…”

—-

They retreated to a cafe further down the street, pleasant and tidy with double glass doors that opened wide, spilling the seating out onto the sidewalk. Their drinks were brought (coffee, tea, and milk) by a waitress who interspersed laconic questions about their order with an ongoing, intricate running monologue about some serial manga she was reading. Like the others in this world, she did not seem to expect any response on this, or even realize that they had heard it at all. Once might have been happenstance, twice a coincidence, but it was becoming increasingly clear that the travelers were the odd ones out here.

"Well, that was a bit of a social faux pas," Fai said over his drink.

"I don’t understand. What just happened?" Syaoran complained. "Undervoice? Overvoice? What was she talking about?"

Kurogane sat back, looking somewhat smug. “So you guys didn’t notice, after all,” he said.

"Huh?" Syaoran’s brows bent in. "Notice what?"

"Don’t keep us in suspense, Kuro-smug," Fai added.

"That her mouth didn’t move while she was talking."

Syaoran gaped. “Wh-what?” His gaze snapped to the waitress over by the counter, continuing her ongoing soliloquy about the female heroine of her manga. Now that he looked, her  mouth wasn’t moving, either. He had simply expected such movement so naturally, when talking to someone, that his brain had subconsciously filled in the blanks. How could he have been so dense?

Fai took the revelation in stride, as usual. “So… she was talking with her mind alone, then?” he said thoughtfully.

"Telepathy!" Mokona cried, taking a break from guzzling the whipped cream off of the coffee they’d gotten. "The people in this world are all telepaths!!"

"And they talk to each other with their minds," Fai clarified, at Syaoran’s flabbergasted look. "And to us, as well."

Syaoran thought about that for a moment. “But, what does that mean with the ‘private thoughts’ she was saying?” he asked.

Fai set his elbow on the table and leaned his chin against his propped fist. “From the sound of it, I guess in this world there are thoughts that you are allowed to listen to, and then other thoughts that you aren’t allowed to listen to,” he reasoned.  

"It makes sense, doesn’t it, that they would have such rigid rules about listening to other people’s thoughts. I mean, can you imagine growing up in such a world?" He was growing more excited now, waving his hands in circles in the air and eyes bright. "A world where you can hear every thought that passes through another person’s head, no matter how small, or inconsequential, or maudlin. A world where you can’t  keep  from hearing what the other person is thinking at every moment! Why, you’d go mad in no time!”

"Gee, I wonder what  that’s  like,” Kurogane said dryly. Fai ignored him.

"But… we can hear both kinds of thoughts?" Syaoran said slowly.  "The public kind and the private kind?"

"Hmm, well, I’m guessing that’s an artifact of Mokona’s translation spell," Fai said. "Since they’re both basically the same kind of communication, they both get translated at the same time."

"Mokona can translate  all  forms of communication,” Mokona asserted confidently. “Even telepathy. Mokona is very  clever!”

"But is there any way you can  stop  translating this… undervoice?” Syaoran asked, even as Fai assured Mokona that she was indeed very clever and very useful. “I mean, if these are thoughts that they don’t want us to hear, it’s awfully rude of us to listen in on them… and we might keep getting into trouble!”

Kurogane had a thoughtful look on his face. “Kind of a tactical advantage though…”

Fai elbowed him lightly in the ribs, grinning. “Let’s not be so mercenary, Kuro-cunning,” he said.

Mokona looked doubtful. “Well… Mokona can try. Normally Mokona doesn’t have to think so hard about translating. It just  happens. ” She shrugged, her white ears flapping. “But maybe Mokona can play with the frequencies, a little bit…”

Conversation around the table lapsed as Mokona concentrated fiercely. They could hear the ongoing descant from their waiter, a confusing babble of conversation from a few other patrons in the store, and a constant murmur of voices coming in from off the street. Syaoran thought nervously that Fai’s description of going mad was all too apt, especially if they were left constantly unclear as to what words they should be responding to and which they should ignore.

All at once, the tones shifted. The leisurely conversation between the other patrons suddenly seemed to come into focus, inconsequential small talk about children and traffic. The other voices dropped to a background rumble, muffled and distant though still audible.

Before Syaoran could congratulate Mokona on her success, a new voice broke into the hush. Despite the muted sound to it, Fai’s tenor was distinct and familiar. "I hope we can finish up here soon and find a hotel room," he was saying. "I want to drag Kuro-chan to the nearest bed and not let him up until he begs for mercy. He will, even if he says he won’t. I can pin him with my legs and use my mouth on his…"

Fai blinked in some confusion at the three sets of eyes that had suddenly riveted on him. “What?” he asked, bemused. “I didn’t say that aloud, did I?”

"Not… aloud, exactly,” Syaoran said, strangled. Oh god,  he thought. I can hear his thoughts now. It’s bad enough just having to be in a room with an adjacent wall. I’m going to hear way way too much about their sex life before this trip is over…

"Ah," Fai said. "So now we’re  broadcasting, as well.” (This is going to be awkward…)

(Crap, so much for privacy,)  Kurogane’s familiar grumble came across. (And I was really looking forward to having the mage to myself in this world. It’s been at least three worlds since we had that kind of privacy.) He shifted his gaze to Fai, considering. (Of course there was that one time in the last world where we went dunking in the lake right outside of the inn, and that sucked because I got water up my nose and the mage nearly drowned. So at least it can’t be that bad.)

Fai returned Kurogane’s regard with a heavy-lidded gaze and a sly smile. “If we could get a hotel room we could do it again with no risk of drowning,” he said aloud.

Syaoran jumped up from his seat as though it had been lit on fire, waving frantically for the bill. “Yes, yes, please  let’s get to the hotel!” he said. God willing, at least walls would be able to muffle this new kind of speech better than it did normal out-loud sounds.

—-

They did find their way to the hotel eventually, after a brief stop at the currency exchange, an antique store, and the police station. There they managed to secure a suite with a bedroom connected to a small sitting room; Kurogane and Fai disappeared into the bedroom quickly upon arrival. Syaoran found out to his relief that walls  did  seem to be enough to block the constant stream-of-consciousness coming from the undervoice, but unfortunately did very little for more traditional headboard-banging sounds.

By mutual agreement, Syaoran took Mokona and went out to the nearby employment office to search for a job. They never quite knew, of course, when Mokona’s earrings would start to glow, yet there was a pretty consistent pattern to when it  wouldn’t  start glowing; they hadn’t been in this world for long enough to see or do anything apart  from figuring out the secret of the undervoice itself. Syaoran was left with a nagging feeling that something more was left to do, and Mokona, being the closest thing they had to an authority on the subject, agreed.

Mokona sat in Syaoran’s lap across the desk from the Vocational Evaluator, a rheumy-eyed older gentlemen who peered over the top of a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. His undervoice seemed mainly to consist of a preoccupied stream of updates on his intestinal troubles, which Syaoran was mostly able to ignore. “And what would you say is the primary expertise of you and your… fellow job-seekers?” he asked.

"Um. Security," Syaoran said, projecting as much confidence as he could. He thought of Fai, and amended that to, "And childcare. Security and childcare."

The vocational officer peered at Syaoran, raising one skeptical eyebrow. (A bouncer or a bodyguard, this little nipper?)  his undervoice doubted. “Hrum, well, we don’t hand out high-risk security postings to just any vagabond off the street, you know. I’ll need to see your bodyguard licenses, and some references.”

As Syaoran opened his mouth, groping for some excuse or clever tale, a little voice came up from under the table. “You don’t need to see their licenses,” Mokona said.

The man blinked and frowned, but it looked more confused than disapproving. Mokona’s small voice continued, “They have very good references. Very  good references.”

Clearing his throat, the vocational officer blinked several times down at his desk. “Well, all your paperwork seems to be in order here,” he said after several long moments. “Your references are very good, I have to admit.”

"Um," Syaoran said. "Thanks."

"You should give them the best posting you have," Mokona’s voice prompted.

"As a matter of fact, I have a posting here that just might suit you…" The vocational officer shuffled around on his desk for a folder, stamped with a gold-embossed circular seal. "Security and childcare, an unusual combination indeed, yes, but invaluable in some circumstances. Children must be protected as well, of course, but it can be very difficult for them to be around professionals… Anyway, here’s your information."

"Er, we’ll do our best!" Syaoran said.

"And," Mokona’s voice turned suggestive, "you should give the adorable white Mokona all the candy in your desk drawer."

With a puzzled look, the vocational officer’s hand went drifting towards the side of his desk, groping for a drawer handle. Syaoran shot to his feet, Mokona held in one hand. “Is this all the information we need, then?” he said quickly. “Thank you so much. We’ll just be going now.”

He hurried out of the office before the man could come to his senses, and didn’t stop for breath until they were both outside. “What was that all about?” he asked Mokona, once they were in the clear.

The white creature beamed brightly. “That was Mokona’s Secret Technique #117: Jedi Mind Persuasion!” she chirped.

Syaoran’s eyebrows rose. “117? I thought you only had 108 secret techniques,” he said.

Mokona pouted. “It’s a new one,” she said. “Mokona is always learning new things, you know. We shouldn’t be bounded  by all the things we knew before.”

"Huh." That made an odd kind of sense, and Syaoran hugged Mokona absently with the hand not holding the folder. "I guess you’re right. Let’s get back to the others."

—-

Thankfully, by the time Syaoran got back to their rooms, Fai and Kurogane had managed to work off some of their accumulated sexual frustration, and were both dressed and out in the sitting room. Fai was cheerier than ever, and even Kurogane’s typically saturnine mood had mellowed. Syaoran tried very hard not to listen to the instant replays of just what had put them in such a good mood, but he couldn’t help reflecting that this world’s habit of blocking out each other’s undervoice made perfect sense.

"I found a job for us," he said, raising the paperwork in one hand. Even though the chances were minimal that either of them would be able to read this world’s language, he still passed the folder around. Fai only glanced at it before shaking his head and passing it around. "We’re going to provide security for a couple called Mariko and Tetsujin Reigen and their young daughter.  We’ll be staying in their hotel, so we won’t have to pay for any more nights in this one at least." Which was good, because they hadn’t gotten very much money for their usual cross-world trinkets.

"How old is the daughter?" Mokona wanted to know.

“Four,” Syaoran answered.

"She sounds cute!" Mokona said cheerily. "Mokona can’t wait to meet her!"

"Huh." Kurogane peered at the paperwork with a look of suspicion. "Mariko? That’s a Nihon-style name, but that’s not kanji they’re using to write."

"No, it all seems to be phonetic," Syaoran said, and bent his head back to the paper. "I don’t think they’re actually from this country, this part of the world I mean. They’re just traveling. They’re both high-profile, upper-class sorts of people; she was the heiress of an old banking cartel, and he’s a famous industrialist, head of a weapons company."

"Weapons, eh?" Kurogane crooned in obvious approval. (Ooh, shiny weapons.)

(I can’t believe I’m coming in second in his attention to a faceless weapons corp,)Fai grumbled.

Syaoran cleared his throat. Stop that, this is not the time. "Apparently there’s a big manufacturing expo in town, and that’s why they’re here. The expo has its own security — our job is to provide security for the hotel they’re staying at."

Fai hummed in approval. “Well, it sounds like our accommodations will be first-class, then,” he chirped. He shot a sly look at Kurogane. “Probably Tetsujin-san won’t be carrying any of the weapons in his pocket, though!”

Kurogane’s undervoice sighed in disappointment.

It was a simple matter to pack up and vacate the hotel; they traveled lightly by habit and by need, Mokona carrying in storage anything that was too heavy to carry on their persons. They ended up heading downtown towards the wealthier hotel district, after all; Syaoran’s stack of papers bought them entrance to a much grander lobby. They were issued circuit-printed badges with their names (which Syaoran had filled out, so as to prevent Fai from doing it) and waved to a private elevator.

"We can hope that this’ll be a boring job," Fai remarked as they trod through what felt like a mile of plush-carpeted corridor. "This world seems so peaceful. I can’t really see assassins crawling over rooftops or sneaking in windows here, especially not windows fifty stories off the ground." (Except Kuro-sama, if he gets bored enough.)

"You never know," Syaoran said. "We’ll do our best for the Reigen family, anyway. They’re counting on us, and we did  kind of fake our credentials and all.”

Kurogane shrugged.  ”Then they got a better deal than they could possibly have anticipated,” he said. (In my old job I could kill fifty assassins in a night without breaking a sweat. I don’t think anything this world throws at us will be too tough.) ”Let’s get to work. Who knows what we’ve been put in this world for, but the sooner we go about our business the sooner it’ll get done.”

"It’ll come to us, Kurogane-san," Syaoran said. "We were led here for a reason, to do something or learn something. No matter how strange or random the worlds we get thrown into, there is definitely some kind of connection here, some chance of encountering events or people we once knew…"

They arrived at the hotel door at last, and Syaoran stepped forward smartly to knock. “Who is it?” a female voice called from inside.

"Hello?" he called back. "We’re from the security agency. The front desk should have called to let you know we were coming up?"

"Oh, good," the female voice said, and footsteps led up to the door. There was a pause, probably while she checked the peephole, and then the door opened to reveal a neat, smiling woman in her fifties. She had a snub nose and bobbed brown hair under a neat cap.  "I’m glad you’ve arrived."

"Reigen-san?" Syaoran addressed her, but to his surprise the woman shook her head.

"No, I’m Dana," she replied. "I’m Miss Reigen’s au pair.  She’s just inside, with Haneko.”

They followed the woman — maid? — inside, and found a much grander version of the hotel suite than they’d left behind. There were several bedrooms and a wide living room, decorated with couches, desks for writing, and even a mini kitchenette. A slender woman with long black hair was bending over a letter at the desk; in the opposite corner, a small girl played quietly with a sheet of paper and a brilliant array of crayons.

(Oh, my goodness,) Fai’s undervoice gasped, as soon as the little girl came into view. (It’s Princess Tomoyo! There’s no mistaking it. But she’s so small. I wonder what Kuro-tan is going to think?)

Almost at the same time, a similar shock of recognition ran through Syaoran. Because he recognized the face of the woman bending over the desk. He’d seen it through the eyes of his double, through the uncanny lens of a book of memories in the magical library of Recourt. He’d seen it last smudged with ash and blood, the light gone out of those liquid black eyes, dying.

It’s Kurogane’s mother,  he thought, and the only thing to do seemed to be to panic.

It was always hard to tell what Kurogane was thinking; he was a deeply private, reticent man. But Syaoran had learned enough about his older companion — both through the eyes of his predecessor, and from their own time spent traveling together — to understand much about him. How his mind worked, what things were important to him, and enough ot his values and priorities to have a guess at what would be going on in his head at any given time.

But in this moment — here when he should have had better knowledge of Kurogane’s thoughts than any other world save Recourt — Kurogane’s undervoice was completely silent. Frozen.

"My apologies for all the rush," Kurogane’s mother — no, Mariko-san — was saying to them. "We had been assured that the hotel would be providing their own security, only to discover at the last moment that their notions of security were completely inadequate to the task." (Stupid twits,) her undervoice added thoughtfully. “But you three come as highly recommended, trained professionals, so I am looking forward to working with you.”

"Um," Syaoran said, rising bravely to the challenge. "To you, as well. I am Syaoran, and these are my partners Fai Flowright and Kurogane."

Mariko nodded politely to each of them, but her eyes widened as she looked up at Kurogane. “My goodness,” she said. (He looks so much like Jin!)  ”Are you sure this is the first time we’ve met? You bear a striking resemblance to my husband, you see; so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some connection on his family’s side!” (And really, knowing that family’s habits, even less surprising.)

Kurogane’s frozen silence shattered like a sheet of ice, and he turned on his heel and strode quickly for the door. “Perimeter,” he managed to grunt out over his shoulder, and slammed the door behind him.

Fai gave them a bright, hectic smile. “He’s very dedicated to his work, you know,” he assured the startled-looking Mariko. “In fact, why don’t I go, um… check in the perimeter too? I’ll be right back.” He fled the scene almost as abruptly as Kurogane had, leaving Syaoran alone.

Fai caught up with Kurogane in the corridor outside, at the end of the hallway where there was an attractive little nook with a window to the outside, overlooking the rest of the city. Kurogane stood in front of the window, backlit against the skyline.

Fai cleared his throat to announce his presence, not that Kurogane could possibly not know he was there. Kurogane didn’t react — but also didn’t tell him to fuck off, either, which Fai took as an invitation to come over and sit down. He scooched over on the window seat until his thigh was pressing against Kurogane’s, a point of warm contact and reassurance.

"Are you going to be okay, Kuro-chan?" Fai asked quietly. "That must have been an awful shock."

Kurogane didn’t turn to face him, but his frame tightened in what might have been a minute shrug. “I always knew it was a possibility,” he said. “Just… wasn’t prepared for it here. Today.”

After a pause, he went on in a near-whisper (or maybe that was his undervoice,) “We go to all these different worlds and times. Sometimes I’ve wondered what would happen if they went back to my old world, in the past, while my parents were still alive. Just another world, just another time… but that world seems closed and cut off from the rest of time. I can never go back.”

"Kuro-chan," Fai repeated, and Kurogane raised his head to meet his gaze evenly.

"I can never go back," he repeated, louder. "And even if I meet them in another world, they aren’t my parents. They may be the same people, but they aren’t my parents, and I am not their son. …I don’t know where I’m going with this." He broke off and shook his head, looking frustrated.

"I understand," Fai said, and thought he did. They had never come across another Ashura in all their travels, despite the near-miss in Shara country, and Fai still didn’t know how would react if they had. But even if he had, the other Ashura would not have been  his  Ashura, his king and foster father. They had shared too much history together, history that was an integral part of what was between them. Take away those experiences, and even if the person remained, the relationship was gone. Syaoran had been made to understand that, at least.

But the lack — or loss — of a relationship wasn’t always a bereavement. Sometimes, it could be a kind of liberation, letting you get to know the person anew.

Kurogane managed a small quirk of his mouth, and Fai wondered how much of his thoughts had been broadcast just now. “You should go on back,” he told Fai. “I’ll be along in a few minutes. I just need… a little time to think first.” (Time to think without being overheard.)

Fai nodded and stood up, momentarily regretting the loss of the warm contact. He worried for Kurogane, but the other man deserved his privacy. “I’ll get Syaoran to fill you in on anything you missed,” he said brightly, and went back down the hall.

—-

Kurogane returned a little later, once he thought he had a hold of his emotions. Fai looked up and flashed him a smile, but made no further attempt to fuss, thank the gods. Even better, his moth — Mariko  barely gave him a glance, being deeply involved in a discussion with Syaoran. Little Haneko — Tomoyo-that-wasn’t — was still playing by herself in the corner, scribbling over a wide sheet of paper with crayons.

"Is there anything in particular that you think we need to watch out for?" Syaoran was asking. "Have you received any specific threats?"

"This week?" Mariko smiled wryly. "No. But my husband has many enemies… because of who he is, what he does. Some of them are his business rivals, men who play ruthless games with high stakes in the billions. Men and corporations whose competitors become unlucky… very unlucky, suspiciously unlucky. But they also have to play it safe, always keep a level of deniability, not show their hand or do anything too incriminating. So they’re always waiting for a moment when our guard is down.

"Some of them are our own people, who hate what he stands for, whose politics and beliefs revile him. For the most part they confine themselves to running blast pieces in the media, or forming protests outside our gates, but sometimes they’ll get past security and come right up to us. They’re not terribly dangerous, I just want them kept away from Haneko. There are some things she shouldn’t have to be exposed to.

At the sound of her name, Haneko looked up from her play. She climbed to her feet — she barely came up to Kurogane’s thigh — and gathered up her paper, walking over to her mother’s chair and tugging at her skirt. “Mommy, look what I drew,” the little girl implored.

"That’s nice, dear," Mariko said, without looking. "There are also some foreigners who hate him and would target him because he made the weapons that were later used against them — or their families. They have the most anger and least to lose, but for the most part they don’t have much in the way of resources; they can’t get into our country or past our security. Still, we must be vigilant."

After a few more attempts to draw her mother’s attention failed, Haneko’s shoulders slumped and she turned away, heading back to her corner. Kurogane felt a twinge go through him, and he abandoned his lurking post by the door to loom over the little girl instead. “Hey there,” he said gruffly.

"Hello." Haneko looked up at him, curious but not intimidated despite his size. Her gaze caught on his nametag, and she pointed up at it. "Look, your name looks like mine!" she said excitedly.

Sure enough, the last character of Kurogane’s name was the same as the first character of Haneko’s. He doubted she was actually up to reading kanji yet, but she did know what her own name looked like. He was impressed that she’d caught it.  ”You’ve got a quick eye, T- … hime.”

He cursed himself for the slip of the tongue.  But it was so hard  to look at this little tyke and not see the priestess he’d grown to adulthood with, whom he’d served and protected for so long. He wondered if this girl — like the Daidouji Tomoyo of Piffle Country — had any dreamseer abilities, and if they put her in touch with the Tomoyos of other worlds. Surely she was too young; the Tsukuyomi had given away her powers before this girl would even have been born. Not that time ever behaves in order, anyway.

Haneko’s eyes widened almost comically, brown flecked with purple. “Did you just call me a princess?!” she asked incredulously.

"Um… yes."

"How come?" Haneko’s face was round and wondering.

Kurogane cleared his throat. “Well, your mommy and daddy are very important, aren’t they?” he said gruffly. “They’re sort of like lords, or royals. And you’re their daughter. So, that kind of makes you like a princess.”

"I’m a princess!" Haneko said, and giggled with delight.

Footsteps out in the hall caught all their attention, and Fai made a move towards the door. Mariko, her face lighting up, waved him away. (I’d know those footsteps anywhere.) "No need for that. It’s my husband," she said.

This time Kurogane had forewarning, and a chance to brace himself, but he was still a little proud of himself for showing no overt reaction when the door opened and a younger version of his father stood on the stoop, kicking off his boots. “Honey, I’m home!” he called out.

Mariko rose from her chair and hurried over to greet him with an embrace and a kiss.  ”Jin!” she cried.

Fai and Syaoran both glanced his way, and Syaoran cringed slightly; Kurogane wondered what raw expression had escaped in his undervoice just now. The man — Jin — was somewhat shorter than Kurogane, with his hair slicked-back and shiny and a neatly trimmed beard growing on his chin.

After they parted from their first clinch, Jin slid his hands down Mariko’s arms to clasp her hands. “How has your day been?” he asked, looking her straight in the eye. “You’ve been resting? Not straining yourself?”

Mariko brushed away his concerns with a little flip of her hand. “Little enough I could do to strain myself in this palatial suite,” she said with a smile. (As though I had time to rest. If I did as little as you seem to think I should, nothing around here would ever get done.) “I feel fine, dear.”

"Daddy, daddy, you’re home!" Haneko came hurrying over to her father, paper clutched in both hands. "Look what I drew, look!"

Jin released his wife long enough to pick up his daughter and swing her around in the air, eliciting a shriek of delight. “Well, well, what have we here?” he exclaimed, looking over the piece of paper with mock seriousness. “Is that me, Hane-chan?”

"Yes!" Haneko pointed out all the features of her drawing proudly. The four figures — three tall, one short — were all scribbled over with bright red and blue crayon, drawn in the crude shapes of stars and hearts. "That’s you, and that’s Mommy, and that’s Dana, and we’re all at a party. I gave you all party clothes!"

Jin laughed out loud. “If only I could wear one of these suits to the next board meeting,” he chortled. “Can you just picture all the looks on all their faces!”

Haneko beamed, and Mariko smiled indulgently. Syaoran sidled up to Kurogane and made urgent faces at him, which Kurogane ignored.

Jin turned his attention away from his family to the strangers in his room. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” he said, stepping towards Fai and sticking out his hand. “I’m Reigen. You the security that the agency sent?”

"Yes, that’s us," Fai lied effortlessly, taking Jin’s hand and beaming. Ever the master of effortless lies and charm, Kurogane thought, and Syaoran poked him in the ribs with his elbow. “I’m Fai Flowright. Don’t worry, Mister Reigen, we will make sure that nothing untowards happens to your lovely wife and daughter.”

Jin nodded and shook hands with Syaoran, introducing himself in turn. He turned to Kurogane and looked a bit taken aback. “My, my, is the agency offering body-double services now as well?” he joked.

"No, sir," Kurogane said gruffly, making an effort not to put too much strength into his handshake. The whole hand-shaking thing still seemed kind of pointless to him. "Just one of those funny coincidences."

Jin seemed to accept that easily enough, and fell into a discussion with Mariko about dinner plans. Syaoran was looking back and forth between Kurogane and Jin, puzzled.

"I don’t understand," he murmured, too quietly for anyone but Kurogane’s sharp ears to pick up. "You look alike, but not exactly alike.”

"He’s another version of my dad, not of me," Kurogane murmured back, and the tone of his voice was almost normal.

"Yeah, but… when I saw — when I saw him in the book, I thought he was you, at first. I swear, you looked exactly  the same.”

"What," Fai chipped in, edging closer to the pair with a smile. "Maybe all Nihonjin just look alike to Syaoran-kun?"

"No!" Syaoran sputtered, turning red. "It — it’s not like that!"

Kurogane shrugged. “I guess maybe I remembered the similarities more than the differences,” he said. The thought made him strangely uneasy. It wasn’t completely irrational, he supposed, to think that over the years of separation, his memory of his father’s face would gradually have smudged a bit, distorting to match his own face that he saw in the mirror. But it made him feel oddly unmoored to face the fact that his memories were no longer picture-perfect.

His attention snapped back to their clients as the volume and pitch of the conversation went up. “I’m sorry, dearest,” Jin was saying, “but this is an obligation I just can’t get out of. After dinner, I have to go back to the office to do some last minute brainstorming for the expo with my colleagues.”

"Oh?" Mariko said. Her face still bore the pleasant smile, but there was a dangerous edge to her voice — or to her undervoice? (Excuses, more excuses.) “Would I know them? These colleagues?”

"Sure," Jin said. "Kusanagi, Kigai, Asagi, and Yatouji. Pretty sure you’ve met Yatouji before, you know them. They’re some of my best employees." (And any of them will swear to you that I went just where I said I did.)

(All your loyal lackeys who would gladly lie to cover for you,) Mariko said in the undervoice. “Of course. Well, be sure to hurry home as soon as possible.”

Haneko clung to her father’s leg. “Does that mean you won’t read me a bedtime story tonight?” she said, a hint of a whine in her voice.

Jin bent down to stroke her dark hair. “Sorry, sweetie, not tonight. Why don’t you ask your mom, I’m sure she’d be glad to.”

As he went off into the bathroom, Haneko turned to her mother instead. “Mommy, will you read to me?” she pleaded.

Mariko was still looking after Jin, a line pinching her delicate eyebrows. “Not now, dear. Mommy’s tired,” she said absently. From the expression on Haneko’s face, this was a line she had heard repeated many times.

Fai and Syaoran looked from mother to daughter, then to the closed door where Jin had retreated, then exchanged glances with each other. Something here is not right.

—-

The night, after Jin left again, was not a peaceful one. Syaoran volunteered to stand first guard while Kurogane and Fai try to get some sleep. It was a formality; Kurogane didn’t sleep well and therefore neither did Fai. From the master bedroom they could hear Mariko tossing and turning, and occasionally, coughing. Several times during the night they heard the rustling of her nightclothes as she got up and walked around.

Jin never returned.

Come morning, everyone got a slow start. Dana cooked breakfast for Haneko, as well as for the suddenly-expanded household of their new security detail. But by mid-morning Mariko was out of bed and seated at the hotel’s worktable. There were dark circles under her luminous eyes and her fair skin had a greyish pallor to it, but she plowed into her correspondence single-mindedly.

Fai kept a watch over her as she worked, affably inquiring if he could help. She set him stuffing envelopes and licking stamps for, it turned out, a multitude of party invitations. They worked at this all day, while Syaoran entertained Haneko in another room and Kurogane prowled the edges of the suite. Mokona had taken out to hiding in Haneko’s room, pretending to be a stuffed toy (or, when Haneko was around, not bothering to pretend at all.) This world didn’t seem to have things like Mokona, and a talking animal (or living toy) would have raised too many questions.

The envelopes were all prepared by lunchtime, elegant cream-paper embossed with gold thread, and Fai thought that they would go out into the suite’s kitchenette to eat dinner with Dana and Haneko. Instead, Mariko started immediately on a new raft of preparations: dinner menus, from what Fai could see, and a list of clothes-coordination.

"You seem to spend an awful lot of time planning parties," Fai said, his voice as neutral as he could make it. And not paying any attention to your daughter,  he thought. Even King Ashura, busy as he had been with the day-to-day details of running his country, had always found time to spend with Fai: little stolen moments at mealtimes, mornings, study breaks during the day. If Ashura with the weight of an entire country on his shoulders, struggling against the agony of his precognition and the knowledge of his coming fate, could make time for his adopted son, then surely this woman could make time for her true daughter?

Mariko paused in her writing and looked up at him, and her delicate lips briefly compressed in a thin line. (And who the hell are you to judge me?)  her undervoice asked. “I have my reasons,” she said at last. “This too is part of my duties, as my husband’s wife, as the chatelaine of his family’s business.

"I told you once already that my husband has many enemies; some abroad, some at home. For those that live under the same roof as us, how can we defend against them? So much depends on the way others see us; the investors, the public, the media. When the interests of two companies clash, which one do customers choose to boycott, them or us? When a group of extremists stages a protest outside the gates of our company, do the papers report them as troublemaking lunatics, or feisty underdogs fighting for a good cause?" She took a breath, the shadows under her eyes seeming to deepen. "Are we seen as patriots, defenders of our country, for giving our soldiers the arms to defend themselves and the rest of us; or are we only ironmongers, selling blood and lives for money?"

"My husband is a shrewd businessman, and he has built up our fortune well… but his family still comes from humble roots, artisan origins. To have moved up into the rarefied circles we move in now… it’s not enough just to have a lot of money. There are some things that can protect us, can protect all of us, that can’t be bought; it all depends on who you know.  Or more importantly, who knows you. Who thinks highly of you, and cares enough to lend their resources. It is these people that I must court, and I must court in the style that they are accustomed; for the success of my husband, the reputation of our family, and the future of my daughter.” (Do you think I do this for fun? If I could stop now and throw it all away, if I could rest, I would.)

That last came out more bitter than the rest, more vehemently than perhaps she’d intended; she looked away, biting her lip, and bent back to her meal schedules and tuxedo rentals. “But there is much still to be done,” she said quietly. “There is always so much to be done.” (And so little time to spare.)

"I understand," Fai murmured softly, although he wasn’t sure he did, entirely. But he understood that she believed it, that she felt it passionately, painfully.

The situation in this world was proving painful in a completely unexpected manner. Fai had worried about others seeing the turmoil of his inner thoughts; he hadn’t stopped to consider what it would mean to be forced to witness the roiling chaos of others. He felt uncomfortable and unclean, like a voyeur, witnessing the bitter doubts and unhappiness she kept so tightly locked behind good manners and a serene smile. He felt like he was watching her crumble, disintegrating from the inside like sappers undermining a fortress, and that there was nothing he could do to hold back the slow decay.

—-

All that afternoon and evening, and all that night, there was still no sign nor word from Jin. Mariko’s mood grew steadily worse as the day progressed, the air darkening about her like a gathering storm. Even as she kept a composed demeanor on the outside, her temper slowly simmered towards the boiling point, to the point where others didn’t even need to hear the blistering commentary in her undervoice to sense the danger in her mood. The others took to avoiding her as much as possible in the small suite; Dana made some excuse about going shopping and vanished for hours. For those who had no such opportunity to make themselves scarce, Haneko and the travelers tried to stay small and out of the way as much as possible.

"What’s making her so angry?" Syaoran wondered aloud, sitting with Haneko in a corner as she scribbled with crayons on a fresh piece of paper.

Somewhat to his surprise, Haneko answered his half-rhetorical question. “Mommy’s mad ‘cause she thinks Daddy is going out with other girls,” she said.

Syaoran was taken aback by the bluntness of her response. “Oh,” he managed.  She said that in front of her own daughter?  he thought, appalled.

"She doesn’t know she’s talking," she clarified.

"Does that mean you can hear the undervoice, then?" he asked, surprised. "I mean, you can hear what people are saying when they don’t mean to say it aloud?"

"Yes." Haneko looked up at him, her brown eyes glinting. "Other people don’t listen, they can hear but they don’t listen. I think that’s stupid.”

Haneko herself didn’t seem to have an undervoice, Syaoran noted. What she thought was what she said, and nothing more. The reverse was clearly not true. “So… so do you know…” about our journey,  Syaoran completed the half-formed thought.

Haneko nodded. “I know that you’re lying about who you are. I know you come from far away. Other worlds.”

Syaoran gulped, then nodded acceptance. “And… are you going to tell your mother? About us?”

"No," she said calmly. The paper still occupied all of her attention.

"Why not?" Syaoran said. The little girl seemed entirely unbothered by their deception. But then, maybe she was too young to really consider the implications of security men not being who they claimed to be.

She shrugged. “Mommy never listens to anything I say, anyway.”

"Oh," Syaoran said.

Mariko had fallen to pacing the suite, the inner fire of her agitation driving her onwards even as her steps flagged with fatigue. (Where could he have gone? Who could he have found in this town to spend so long with?)  her undervoice ran, circling around and around. (Did he go to some brothel, like a common street john? Did his new ‘friends’ from the expo take him on a tour of the city?)

Her foot snagged on a carelessly strewn doll and she turned in a fury, all her bottled-up anger seeking a new outlet. “Why is there trash all over the floor?” she snapped, focus falling on her daughter for the first time. “How is it that we have only been here for a few days and this place has already become a disaster area? Are you physically incapable of keeping a room clean for more than a few hours at a time? Clean this mess up!”

Silently Haneko moved to obey, keeping her eyes on the carpet as she began to pull her toys and crayons into a pile. Mariko’s attention fell on a newly-returned Dana next and she was off, ripping into her inadequacies as a maid and a nanny, unable to keep even one four-year-old child in order. Syaoran, finding nothing he could do to help either of them, fled to another room.

There he found Kurogane standing by the window, arms crossed like plate mail over his chest. He was staring out the window, but Syaoran knew from the tightness in his eyes that he was listening to every word — both said, and unsaid.

Syaoran didn’t exactly consider himself an expert on child-rearing, but from his own memories of his childhood — growing up with his gentle mother and serious father — it was nothing like this. Nor from his strange doubled-memories of his father’s own childhood, raised by Syaoran’s grandfather Fujitaka, nor from what he’d seen of his friends and classmate’s parents. It wasn’t normal for mothers to scream at their children for failing to clean up, nor for fathers to absent themselves from the household for days at a time.

Syaoran searched for some words of comfort, or reassurance. “It must be hard for you,” he offered at last, “seeing people who look so much like your parents but act completely different.”

Kurogane snorted, the sound seeming to break him out of some kind of trance. “No…” he said slowly. “This is actually pretty much how things were most of the time back in Suwa, too.”

"Really?" Syaoran was startled. The memories he’d seen from the book had not suggested anything like this. "But your mother…"

"Was always infamous for her temper." Kurogane shrugged. "Where d’you think I got mine? It certainly wasn’t from my dad."

"And your father…" Syaoran trailed off, groping for a good way to ask. "Wasn’t your father…" any help at all?

"He spent most of his time out patrolling the border, or attending magisterial duties in the provinces," Kurogane said. "He wasn’t around much, either." It came out flat and factual, devoid of emotion or judgment. His undervoice told a different story. (He wasn’t there for me,) it  whispered. (Neither of them were ever there for me, not when I needed them most.)

He took a deep breath. “My mother, well… she was always sick. And her duties took up so much of her time and energy, she didn’t have much to spare. She spent most of her time in her rooms, or in the shrine, where I couldn’t go.”  

On seeing Syaoran’s look of confusion, he elaborated: “In Nihon, at least among nobility and royals… men and women live in very different worlds. Men don’t go into the women’s quarters, except in an emergency, and vice versa. Once I got past my milk-years and moved out of my mother’s quarters, I didn’t see her often.” His gaze slipped out-of-focus again. “But when she got in one of her tempers — when something really riled her up, usually to do with my father — the whole household quaked in their boots.”

"But —" Syaoran protested. "Your memories… I saw your memories. Training with your father, spending time with your mother…" You were happy. They were happy. It wasn’t like this.

Kurogane rolled his eyes. “It’s not like I never saw them,” he said. “I lived fourteen years in that household, it would have been pretty impressive if we’d never crossed paths once in all that time. It just wasn’t… an everyday thing.”

He looked back out the window, though Syaoran knew he wasn’t seeing it, and his voice softened. “When my dad was home, and he had the time to practice with me… when my mother was out of her rooms, conducting the ceremonies for O-Bon or the new year… those were good times. Joyful times, when we were all there together and everyone was happy.  

"They were all the more precious because they were so rare." He glanced back at Syaoran, gaze sharpening as he returned to the present. "D’you think I would let go of those memories? For anything?"

Wordlessly Syaoran shook his head, and turned to leave the room. This was not a good place to seek retreat from over-boiling emotions.

—-

Well past midnight Jin finally returned, nearly thirty-six hours after he’d last gone out. His footsteps were heavy and not entirely steady in the hallway, and he was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fai caught the strong whiff of alcohol drifting from him.

Maybe he’d intended his late and quiet return to go unmarked by his family; Haneko, at least, was long since in bed with Mokona tucked in next to her. Mariko had stayed up waiting, though, and the lack of sleep had done nothing to make her temper sweeter. The travelers were awake too, keeping themselves out of sight in their small bedroom but unfortunately not able to block out the voices. A half-ajar door threw light into the room, showing a slice of the action outside.

Almost as soon as Jin closed the door behind him she was on him, throwing pointed questions at him like barbed spears into murky water. Jin got himself a glass of water from the kitchen, sat down in the suite’s couch, and said nothing.

At first, it was only Mariko talking, with Jin staying stubborn and silent as a bump on a log. Mariko began with a cataloguing of all the ways that Jin’s delinquency had hindered, delayed and ruined her plans, both for them as a family and for the company. When Jin failed to respond, Mariko took it up a notch, moving on to criticize his failures of character, especially as pertained to drinking, laziness and absenteeism. This too failed to draw a response, so Mariko finally launched into a litany of all the ways he had failed in his duties as a man, a husband and as a father.

This finally stirred Jin from his grim silence. “I work hard day after day to manage my company,” he snarled. “I give you and Haneko a roof over your head, food on your plates, protection from those who would do you wrong. I give you everything you ask for! In what possible  way am I failing my duties?”

"In every way that a husband CAN fail his wife!" Mariko shouted back at him. "You swore that you would cleave to me only, and you spend every night carousing on the town, instead! You swore that you would set life in me, and instead you avoid my bed like a plague barn. You swore to give me children —"

"I have given you children!" Jin yelled. "What is Haneko then, chopped liver?"(Why make such a fuss over wanting more children when you don’t even look after the one you have?)

Syaoran stirred uneasily. (Can’t they keep their voices down? They’re going to wake Haneko.)  He slipped along the wall towards the door of Haneko’s room, no doubt to check up on the girl. Fai glanced over at Kurogane, no longer even pretending to sleep.

Fai swore he could hear Mariko’s teeth crack, so hard was she grinding them.(Don’t pretend like that’s all my fault, when you’re never even here!) "It’s yourfamily that will not allow her to inherit your company when she comes of age!” Mariko shouted. “Isn’t it enough that you forswear your own duties, without also forcing me to fail at mine? It’s my  duty to bear you an heir, to carry on your empire when you’re gone, and how can I do that when you creep out of my bed every night? How can I give you a son when you won’t even try —”

"For what?" Jin bellowed, turning suddenly at bay to face her. "For what, Mariko? For another week in the hospital? Another night spent holding your hand, watching our baby dribble down into the sheets? Three times, Mariko! Isn’t it enough?” Anguish bled steadily into his voice, almost enough to drown out the anger. “How many times do you mean to put yourself through this? How many times do you mean to put me  through this?” (What if the next one takes you with it?)

Kurogane, Fai knew well, was a big man — not just tall but heavy, thick with muscle and strong bone. But he could move silently as a shadow when he had a mind to, and quickly as well. The only noise that marked his passage was the softest scrape of the windowsill as it sighed open, and the gentle tick of the curtains blowing back against the walls. Kurogane was gone.

Fai glanced for a moment back at the slice of light coming in from the living room, then followed Kurogane out the window.

They had chosen this room because it faced the back of the building, towards an alleyway facing another edifice, and opened onto a long narrow metal staircase running along the side of the building. Something to do with fire, Fai vaguely remembered Syaoran telling them. Kurogane had liked the avenue of escape it presented; the staircase ran down many floors to the street, and up to the roof.

Fai barely glanced down at the street below before swinging himself up, the last few floors onto the roof. Kurogane was there, of course; perched on the edge of a ledge looking up at the moon, the brooding sweep of a black cape was not present but implied. He looked… pissed off, which was a bit standard for Kurogane really, but also haunted. And lonely. Fai stole up beside him and sat down, wrapping one long arm around Kurogane’s broad shoulders.

"Hey," he said softly, barely audible above the wind. Are you all right?

"Fine," Kurogane said. This was not exactly a lie, so much as a hope. Or perhaps a prayer.

They sat there for a long time, looking out over the city and up at the star-spattered sky, while Kurogane’s thoughts and feeling churned violently within him like a pot set to boiling. At last, he vented a long weary sigh. “Well,” he said. “I always wondered why I was an only child.”

Fai huffed a soft laugh and nudged Kurogane gently with his shoulder. The moment of humor faded quickly, though, in the cool night air.

"I didn’t actually," Kurogane said lowly. "Wonder, I mean. When you’re a kid you don’t… think about things being other than they are. They just are.  It was only later that I thought about it… when I saw that my friends, the other servants and noblemen’s kids, they had brothers and sisters and I didn’t. But then…” He trailed off, but the thought completed itself in the undervoice: (but then, they probably would have died that night in Suwa, and I would still have been alone.)

Fai nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He had never, ever known what it was like to be an only child; even after his brother was gone, he still always thought himself as one-half of “we.”

"I never thought," Kurogane began again. "I never thought about what kinds of strife and struggles my parents might have gone through, that they hid from me. I was just a stupid, self-centered kid at first, and then… later on it was too late."

"Maybe that’s why we were brought here, to this world," Fai suggested tentatively. "So that you could know."

Because while ignorance might be bliss — at least for a little while — the truth came out in the end, and the disaster and heartbreak was all the worse for the not-knowing. Fai had always known that there was something  making King Ashura sad, but he had never known the depths of his torment until it was far too late. If he had known, if he had known… things might have been different. I’ll never know now.

Kurogane looked away. “I wanted all my memories of them to be happy ones,” he said quietly. “Because that was the only place they lived any more, in my memories. I wanted them to be happy there, if they couldn’t be happy anywhere else. But in the process I forgot… so much.” (Mother’s temper. Father’s absences. So many silences.)

Fai squeezed Kurogane’s hand tighter, and didn’t say anything (or even think anything particularly loudly.)

"I didn’t want to remember them fighting, or angry, or ugly," Kurogane continued, and his voice sounded suspiciously close to breaking. "It would have felt like… dishonoring them. Betraying their memories. Because I didn’t want… I didn’t want to admit how angry I was, too. At them.”

Fai made a soft sound of query, hugging Kurogane tight.

"I was so full of hate, when I first came to Shirasagi castle. So full of anger. Anger at the demons who destroyed my home. Anger at the Empress, at the Tsukuyomi, who arrived too late to save anything. And I was so —" his hands curled around the edge of the roof, tight enough that the plaster threatened to crumble. " — so angryat my parents, for leaving me. For not being there when I needed them, when I needed them the most. And so guilty, for feeling so angry.

"I know — I knew — it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. They didn’t want to… but they still left me. Gods and demons!" Kurogane swore, and the pain he’d tried so hard to batten down broke into his voice at last, catching in a sob. "They left me alone! I was just a boy, just a child. How could I hope to do everything alone? I hated them, for leaving me. And.. I hated myself for hating them. For dishonoring their memory that way.”

He wept quietly then, suppressing the sobs that ran through his big frame. The pain and grief of a little boy, buried under ten years of rage. Fai’s heart ached for Kurogane, his soulmate, his friend — but not in pity, because he could feel Kurogane’s pain too clearly. He had been so angry, so angry  at King Ashura — for his lies, for his betrayals, but more than anything else for his leaving.

But as angry as he had been at Ashura, he’d never stopped loving him. Maybe that was the important thing — knowing that you could love someone and be angry at them at the same time.

"I sure as hell hope so," Kurogane said, disguising the roughness of his voice in a growl. "Gods know there have been plenty of times when I wanted to bounce your head off the wall for your stupidity. But that didn’t mean I stopped —” (loving you.)

Fai smiled sadly. Me too,  he thought back, loudly and firmly as he could. How strange that even now Kurogane avoided saying it aloud, his cultural programming making him feel intensely awkward and uncomfortable to express such raw feeling aloud. But Fai never doubted, whether he could hear it in the undervoice or not. It was always there.

"There is no such thing as a perfect parent," Fai said aloud at last. Certainly not Ashura. “because there is no such thing as a perfect person. Everybody just does the best they can, from day to day. It’s our honor to meet our parents again as adults, and get to know them again as men and women.”

Kurogane nodded, his head resting against Fai’s shoulder. He let out a deep, shuddering sigh.

When Kurogane and Fai slipped back in through the open window, the hotel suite was quiet. Fai peeked through the slice of open door and saw Mariko and Jin standing in a close embrace, wrapped in each other’s arms, with their foreheads pressed together. They were swaying slightly in time with the soft words that flowed between them; undervoice or merely tender murmurs, Fai did not know. He caught a few fragments, flowing past:

"….couldn’t bear the thought of risking you…"

"…only wanted the best for you, the company, everything…"

"…mean more to me than the company ever could…"

Fai backed away, satisfied. “Looks like Mommy and Daddy are hugging it out,” he repoted to Kurogane, who had settled back into their bed with a look of stubborn determination. He took one more look and then shut the door softly, cutting off the flow of soft voices.

"Maybe they have the right idea," Kurogane said; when Fai looked over at him, he raised one hand and flapped his fingers commandingly.

Fai grinned and stole back over to bed. “I think they’re going to be okay,” he announced.

"Probably," Kurogane agreed. (We were, after all. Right up until the end.) "The kid’s on guard?"

Fai nodded. “He and Mokona are keeping watch together,” he said. He put one hand on Kurogane’s face and pushed; it wouldn’t have worked unless Kurogane went along with it, but he did, the two of them sinking back onto the pillow. “Now sleep.”

Sleep, my beloved, gloomy husband. All is well tonight.

Kurogane wrapped an arm around Fai’s waist, and closed his eyes.

—-

It wasn’t much of a surprise — though it was a disappointment — when Mokona’s earring started glowing the next day.

"It doesn’t feel right, skipping out on them in the middle of a contract," Kurogane griped.

What if something happens to them, because we ran off and left them?

"I called the company that gave us the contract in the first place, and told them that we couldn’t finish it out and to find a new one," Syaoran reported, dutiful as ever. He grinned wryly. "Of course, skipping out on a contract means that we’ll never find work in this town again, but that’s not something we have to worry about. And at least the Reigen family will still be protected."

Jin was in the shower, his voice raised in cheerful, most-in-tune song and punctuated by the occasional whistling. Mariko was out in the suite, pacing in a circle as she argued with someone on the phone. “Yes, I’m well aware of their stance on the issue,” she was saying. “I don’t give a damn. Reigen Haneko will  be the heir to the Reigen Zaibatsu, whether they like it or not. They can hire all the lawyers they want, but our decision is not going to change.” (Do they think that Haneko won’t be able to helm the company simply because of her sex?) her undervoice ran as a derisive counterpart to the argument. (More fools them, and I look forward to the day she annihilates them…)

Remembering Daidouji Tomoyo, to say nothing of his own Tsukuyomi, Kurogane could only agree.

By mutual agreement, they decided not to try to explain the complex situation to Jin and Mariko (not least because, having experienced it once indirectly, nobody wanted to be on the sharp side of her temper.) They did, however, take some time to say one last farewell to Haneko.

"You’re going away?" the little girl asked them, when they entered her room as a group.

Syaoran gave her a hug. “Sorry, Princess, but we don’t have a choice,” he said. “We would like to stay longer, but when our time is up we have to go.”

Haneko’s lower lip trembled a little bit, but she took this with surprising equanimity for a toddler. “Take this,” she commanded, as imperiously as any little princess. She thrust a sloppily rolled-up sheet of paper in their direction, bright colors bleeding through the thick parchment. “She said I should give it to you.”

Kurogane unrolled it carefully; it took his eyes a few minutes to parse the childish scribblings. Then his heart jumped into his throat. “This is…” he began.

Haneko helpfully pointed down the line of figures for his edification. “This is me, and this is Mommy and Daddy,” she recited, pointing to a set of clustered figures with scribbled black hair and star-spangled kimonos. She pointed next to another tall-and-short trio; one with black hair, one with red, and one with yellow. “An’ this is Fai, and Syaoran, and Kurogane. I didn’t have any white crayons,” she said apologetically to Mokona, pointing to a pink circle half the size of Syaoran, covered with glue and silver glitter.

"It’s okay! Mokona is so pretty and sparkly!" Mokona jumped into Haneko’s arms for one last snuggle. "Mokona will take very good care of your picture!"

Kurogane’s eyes were glued to the bottom of the page. Haneko was too young to learn any kanji yet, but embossed in large wobbly kana at the bottom of the paper was the word: FAMILY.

"Hane-chan, who said to give this to us?" Fai asked, peering over Kurogane’s shoulder with his brows drawn together thoughtfully. "Your mother, or…?"

"The pretty lady with the nice dress said," Haneko corrected him scrupulously. When the travelers only blinked, she explained impatiently, "The one from my dream."

(A pretty lady in a nice dress in her dream,)  Fai’s surprised undervoice echoed.(Was it Tsukuyomi? Or perhaps Daidouji?)

Kurogane swallowed, unlocking his throat. “Did she have any messages for me?” he said, careful not to let his voice tremble.

"She said," Haneko repeated, then screwed up her face as she tried to remember. "She said that if you can’t stay with your family, then you can take your family with you. She didn’t say it exactly like that," she warned, "but it was something like that. She had such  a pretty dress,” she sighed wistfully.

"I see." Fai gave the little girl a hug of her own, and dropped a kiss on her shining black hair. "Thank you, Hane-chan. As Mokona said, we’ll keep your picture very safe."

Kurogane was last, and he hugged Haneko very carefully, exquisitely careful not to let his strength overpower the wriggling girl in his arms.

It was an almost physical hurt to let her go. To step away, within the circle of Mokona’s rising magic, and leave them all behind. Tomoyo — again, always — his mother, his father, in this strange new world where, against all reason, they so perfectly fit.

But he knew that even if he left them behind, they would always be here. And so would he, a part of his heart until the end.

"Well, sayonara,” he said, as the wind began to whip up around them. Out in the hotel suite, the singing stopped, and so did Mariko’s argument with the lawyers, as they heard the unaccountable noise of wind coming from inside  the building.

"Take care, Haneko," Syaoran urged the girl, and "Tell your mommy and daddy good-bye from us!" Fai called cheerfully. "Good-bye! Good-bye!" Mokona sang.

Then the magic swallowed them — or maybe swallowed the world, it was always hard to tell — and all voices were washed away. Only four words remained, hanging suspended in the undervoice:

I love you. Always.

 ~end.