Warnings: Hrm... Setsuka fans might not like this chapter that much, but I maintain that Seishirou had to inherit his neuroses from somewhere. Oh, and a warning for Seishirou's crazy grandmother. That's where Setsuka inherited *her* neuroses.
If you'd like to see Seishirou's family tree, at least this portion of it, go here -- yeah, even we couldn't keep it straight.
Chapter Twenty-One
Seimei was impressed. The sheer size of the Sakurazuka Clan compound nearly knocked him over. It looked more like a small town than a few families living together. He had relatively little idea of how many people lived there, but it was either a whole hell of a lot, or there was a lot of extraneous housing.
Seishirou was equally impressed, but much more reluctant to admit it. He hadn’t really realized that his Clan was so large as well.
Senichi was waiting for them at the front gate; Seimei had made the arrangements with him, then crammed Seishirou into the car and wheedled him into coming. He’d had second thoughts at the last minute, but Seimei wasn’t having any of them. He’d all but threatened to steal the car and come by himself.
“Konnichi wa, Seimei-kun, Seishirou-san,” Senichi said, bowing slightly. “It’s good to see you.”
Seimei bowed in return. Seishirou just gave the slightly older man a look. It was one of those looks that said ‘who are you and what exactly am I doing here?’
“Meiri-sama is waiting for you,” Senichi said. “As are most of the rest of the immediate Clan.” He smiled slightly. “We’re all very pleased and honored to have you here.”
“The honor is all mine,” Seishirou replied automatically. He knew what etiquette expected of him, and could function on autopilot until anything big came up.
Of course, the sheer number of people in the hall he was led into was enough to make his eyes pop out. There were at least twenty people. It wasn’t a large number, exactly, but certainly larger than he’d expected. The ages ranged from a four-year old clinging to her mother’s leg, to the three elderly people at the front of the room. Seishirou assumed they were what remained of his grandparents.
Seimei meeped as everyone’s eyes settled on them, and inched behind Seishirou. He looked around for any semblance of comfort and his eyes settled on a gangly young man a little older than him, who offered him a reassuring smile. Seimei managed a shy smile back, then nearly walked into Seishirou as he came to an abrupt halt.
“Seishirou-san.” The woman sitting at the front of the room was regal in bearing and in looks; dressed in a simple black and white kimono. “Seimei-san.”
Seishirou bowed deeply; Seimei bowed even deeper.
“It is an honor to have found both of you again, and to welcome you back into the family.”
Seimei shifted nervously, seeing the look on Seishirou’s face. He looked like he was about to start denying all part of being ‘back’ in the family. Fortunately, he didn’t deign to speak these thoughts out loud.
Meiri gestured around the room, introducing each member of the family by name. Seimei began to wish he had a piece of paper to write it all down on, but figured they couldn’t possibly expect him to remember everyone’s names. At the end, he had only learned two extra names. The man behind Meiri and slightly to her right, who resembled Seimei’s inner image of Santa Claus, was named Zenko. He only remembered that because of the sheer absurdity of the name. The boy who had smiled at him was named Teiji.
Seishirou was starting to look slightly glazed. Meiri’s round of introductions hadn’t included how everyone was related to him.
“I hope you will stay for dinner,” Meiri said, though she didn’t really sound hopeful in the slightest.
“Uh huh,” Seishirou said vaguely, then realized with a start that he should probably give a better answer than that. “I would be more than pleased, Meiri-sama.”
Seimei muttered something he hoped was at least vaguely appropriate.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I have business to attend to,” Meiri said loftily.
Seishirou recognized a dismissal when he heard it and started out of the hall. Seimei followed on his heels, wondering if that was it, and if they went home now or what.
“Sorry about that,” Senichi said, catching up with them outside. “She hasn’t quite been the same since her husband died.”
“Aa,” Seishirou replied, and kept walking in quick strides towards the front gate.
“Don’t go,” Senichi said, catching his sleeve.
Seishirou shook him off and turned to him angrily. “Why the hell not? You obviously don’t want me here.”
“She doesn’t want you here,” Senichi corrected. “The rest of us do. Ignore her; it’s about the only help for it.”
Seishirou hesitated, but by now others had caught up with him and were starting to press in to greet him. He realized there was no escape, and grudgingly gave in. There were still a few hours until dinner; time enough to satisfy everyone’s curiosity.
“Seishirou?” a voice said, and Seishirou turned to see a man he guessed was in his fifties. There was a definite family resemblance -- not surprising, given that they were all related somehow -- and it was stronger than most. Seishirou did not have to be told that the man was his father.
He blinked a few times, then spotted a few teenagers hanging around on the edges of the group and gave Seimei a gentle shove towards them. “Go on. You came here to make friends, so make friends.”
“You gonna be okay?” Seimei asked quietly.
“I’m fine,” Seishirou said distractedly. “Dinner’s probably going to be around six, but they’ll know what’s going on. Don’t be late.”
“Me? Be late? God no. That lady is scary.” Seimei melted into the crowd without another word. Seishirou saw him shyly approach the tallest of the boys, who looked somewhat like a scarecrow with black hair. He smiled welcomingly and ushered Seimei off with a few other people around his age.
“You’ve done well for him,” the man said, watching Seimei go. He smiled slightly as Seishirou turned back to him. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. My name is Hajime Chimori.”
“I know who you are,” Seishirou said harshly.
Chimori gave him a very long look. “I’ve missed you,” he finally said.
“Yeah, I’ll just bet you have,” Seishirou replied, his tone sharp.
Senichi interrupted quietly. “Seishirou-san, perhaps you and I and a few others should sit down somewhere, where we can give you our side of what happened between your mother and the Clan?”
“Oh, sure,” Seishirou replied, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Sounds like my idea of a fun afternoon.”
He found himself sitting inside another house with a glass of lemonade. His father sat on one side of him; Senichi was on the other side with his two elder siblings. Atsuko was the eldest, approaching fifty, and she was a firm, no-nonsense sort of woman that Seishirou probably would have liked immediately under other circumstances. Kaiji, between her and Senichi, seemed to be taking the whole situation a lot less seriously than Seishirou would have liked.
“Why did she tell me you were dead?” he asked abruptly, not giving them any time to say anything.
“Well, guess someone didn’t learn their manners,” Kaiji said cheerfully, taking a long drink of his lemonade.
“Yes, that would be you,” Senichi replied, rolling his eyes.
Chimori sighed slightly. “Seishirou, we can’t speak for anything that your mother did after she left the compound. She hid herself from us very well, and the few people who did manage to track her down never came back.”
“That’s not true.” Seishirou heard the words fall out of his mouth in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. “Why would she have been hiding? You kicked her out.”
The three siblings exchanged looks. “If you’d just let us -- ” Senichi began.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Seishirou said, standing up. “I don’t need to sit here and listen to these lies. She was my mother and -- ”
“And she was my sister,” Atsuko replied. “Young man, sit down and shut up.”
Seishirou sat. And shut up. And then wondered what the hell he was doing.
“If only I had raised you like I was supposed to, we wouldn’t be having this problem,” Atsuko lectured. “Now, you’re going to sit there and be quiet and let your father and your uncles explain what happened. Understand?”
“Yes’m,” Seishirou said meekly. He reflected vaguely that it was a good thing Seimei wasn’t there. He’d probably be laughing his ass off. The Tree certainly was, in any case.
Senichi cleared his throat. “Uh, thanks, neesan,” he said uncertainly.
“So scary, neesama,” Kaiji said, hiding behind Senichi.
Chimori sighed slightly and turned to Seishirou. “To begin with, you should probably know about how this portion of the Clan is formed. I’m from the Hajime branch, your mother was from the Sakurazuka branch. It’s all the same bloodline if you go back far enough, and the Hajimes have been honored to,” he coughed slightly, “work with the Sakurazukas in this field.”
“Go on,” Seishirou said grudgingly.
“Thirty-six years ago, it was decided that there should be an intermarriage between the two branches, to bring them closer together,” Chimori continued. “Which worked out fairly well because I’d already been seeing Setsuka-chan and had every intention of marrying her. Tadataka, Meiri-sama’s husband, was the Clan Head and Sakurazukamori at the time, and he approved, and everything seemed fine.”
“We knew that ‘Suka-chan was a bit . . . off,” Kaiji said, his normally congenial face looking slightly worried. “But she was fun! And she seemed to do her duties all very well . . .”
“What very few people knew,” Atsuko interrupted, “was that Setsuka had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and manic depression. She was unstable, suffered from delusions and hallucinations. She would be fine for periods of time, and then would have spells where she didn’t know where she was, or what was happening. The only people who knew this at the time were Meiri-sama, Tadataka-sama, Chimori-san, and myself.”
Seishirou gave his father a questioning look.
“Yes, I knew,” Chimori said quietly. “But I loved her all the same.”
Seishirou didn’t comment.
“About a year after they’d been married, Setsuka became pregnant,” Atsuko said. “She wasn’t able to take her medication while pregnant, and became even more unstable than she’d already been. Meiri-sama and I began to doubt her ability to care for you, once you were born. It was decided, shortly beforehand, that you would be given to Meiri-sama and she would raise you, until I came of age; at which point you would be given to me. It was also up for debate whether or not she would become the next Sakurazukamori.”
Seishirou blinked. “I know it doesn’t necessarily travel from parent to eldest child, but who was up for the position if she couldn’t take it?”
“That was the problem,” Kaiji said. “There wasn’t anybody yet. ‘Suka-chan was only twenty when you were born, which made Senichi-kun, who would be the best bet right now, five years old. But ‘tousan was still in his prime. No one was worrying about it yet; it had just come up.”
“So what happened?” Seishirou asked, enthralled in spite of himself.
“Setsuka found out,” Atsuko said simply. “We didn’t realize it until later, because she didn’t tell anybody. But three weeks after you were born, she killed ‘tousan and left.”
Seishirou blinked. “Why?”
“We didn’t take you immediately. We weren’t even planning on cutting her off,” Atsuko said with a helpless shrug. “She loved you. But responsibility was not one of her strong points. Keep in mind that I was fourteen at the time, and the best person you could really be talking to about this is Meiri-sama, but . . .” She shifted uneasily.
“But she hates me with all the fires of hell,” Seishirou said flatly. “Why?”
“Because she loved her husband with every fiber of her being,” Chimori said with a shrug. “And Setsuka-chan killed him, for no reason. Just because she was crazy. She wanted the position of Sakurazukamori because then she could call on the Tree’s power and we wouldn’t be able to reclaim you from her. She killed Tadataka to get it because she knew we’d never let her take it.”
Seishirou blinked, suddenly very suspicious and feeling a little sick. “What do you mean, let her take it? I thought the position was always transferred with the Sakurazukamori’s death.”
They blinked at him. He didn’t need an answer.
“Did Setsuka tell you that?” Senichi asked quietly.
“Yes,” Seishirou said. “And I killed her.”
They looked at him for a long minute. “We knew she was dead,” Chimori finally said. “But we didn’t know how.”
“I’m sorry,” Seishirou heard himself say. “I didn’t know. It was what she wanted. What she told me to do.”
“It’s all right,” Kaiji said. “She was uncorked.”
“It isn’t all right.” Seishirou wondered exactly when he had lost control over his vocal chords. They kept speaking without his permission. “How can you say it’s all right? I killed her. I didn’t want to kill her, and I didn’t have to, but I did.”
Chimori moved slightly, as if to embrace him, then apparently thought better of it and settled back into his seat.
“Why does Meiri-san hate me?” Seishirou finally asked. “I was three weeks old.”
“Because she’s old and bitter and has no one left to blame,” Atsuko said quietly.
“Does she hate Sei-kun as well?” Seishirou asked, sounding a touch bitter himself. “Because I don’t really feel comfortable abandoning him to her mercy.”
“No, she doesn’t seem to, except in his association with you,” Senichi said with a shrug. “Besides, he’s a cute kid, nice and polite and shy. He’ll grow on her, if you give him time.”
“Great,” Seishirou said. “It’s just me that’s bound to be outcast. Wait until she finds out that I killed her daughter; I’m sure she’ll really like me after that.”
Atsuko glared at him. “You can’t help that. You didn’t know. And if you bring it up again -- ”
“Were you a schoolteacher by any chance?” Seishirou interrupted.
“Better. I’m a nurse.”
“Oh, that would explain it,” Seishirou mused.
“Look, Seishirou,” Chimori said with a sigh, “you can’t just stay away because of Meiri’s opinion. The rest of us want you here; be it as a son or a nephew or uncle or what have you. You’ve been missed.”
“Right, I’ll just ignore the head of the Clan,” Seishirou said brightly.
Senichi coughed slightly. “Seishirou-san . . . technically speaking, you’re the head of the Clan.”
Seishirou blinked. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a position traditionally held by the Sakurazukamori,” Kaiji explained. “Meiri-sama has been holding it in your absence.”
“No,” Seishirou said.
“No?” Kaiji asked uncertainly.
“No. I’m not the head of the Clan. I met you people today. I’m not going to lead anything.”
“You don’t have to,” Atsuko said, giving him another one of her stern looks. “Yet. But you might want to think about it, because Meiri is seventy-four and you’ll be getting the position at some point, and Seimei-san will have it after you.”
Seishirou tried to picture Seimei being a Clan Head. Surprisingly, he could imagine it fairly well. The kid was certainly diplomatic enough. As long as there was someone around to assure him that he was making the right decisions, and he could kill that stutter that he got when he was flustered . . . “Out of curiosity, who did I shove Sei-kun towards? Tell me they’re at least related.”
Senichi smiled slightly. “They are. Teiji was there, at least -- that’s my stepson, my wife’s child from a previous marriage -- and I saw Tsuki . . .”
“My daughter,” Kaiji volunteered. “She’s a computer expert. She’s how we found you.”
“Remind me to thank her later,” Seishirou said dryly.
“I think Hideki was with them as well,” Chimori spoke up. “One of my brother’s children.”
“Seimei-kun is the baby of the family,” Senichi said with a slight smile. “Too old to be one of the kids, but not old enough to be one of the adults.”
“What about the little girl?” Seishirou asked.
“She’s the mascot,” Chimori explained. “My granddaughter.”
“Granddaughter?” Seishirou processed this. “I have a sibling?”
“Half-brother,” Chimori specified. “I remarried a few years after Setsuka left, and she obtained a divorce. My son Ichido is married and has a daughter now.”
Seishirou felt his head beginning to swim. “So they’re all related. Are they all assassins?” That, he decided, would just make his head explode. Though it would probably also make Seimei the happiest kid on earth.
“Teiji and Hideki are both in training,” Senichi confirmed. “Tsuki’s in computers, but she’ll definitely be working for the family.”
“My head hurts,” Seishirou announced. “It’s too much to take in.” He let his head thunk against the table.
The three siblings exchanged looks. “We’ll just, uh, go,” Senichi said. “Let you two get acquainted. Dinner will be at six in the Main Hall -- Chimori-san knows the way.”
They left Seishirou sitting there, staring into his empty lemonade glass as if it held the secrets to his life.
“Are you all right?” Chimori asked, knowing it was a stupid question, but also knowing that it had to be asked.
“No,” Seishirou said. “I have no idea who you are. You have no idea who I am. If you knew, you’d probably hate me. My life is messed up beyond belief.”
“That doesn’t mean I would hate you,” Chimori said, surprised.
“I killed -- ” Seishirou let out a hollow laugh. “I suppose I can’t use that reason here. I killed innocents. People who didn’t deserve to die.”
“Why?” Chimori asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Seishirou said, his voice dull. “Because I had nothing better to do with my time, and nothing seemed to matter.” He laughed again. “I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion that I’m losing my mind. I started a war with the Sumeragi Clan.”
“No, your mother did that when she killed their Head,” Chimori replied.
“I’ve ruined my son’s life.”
“He seems to be a pretty well-adjusted kid to me,” Chimori countered.
“I’ve totally screwed up the only person outside the family who might have ever loved me. Who just happens to be the head of the Sumeragi Clan, which means we were doomed even before I broke his heart and killed his sister.”
“Seishirou -- ”
“Why were you going to give me away?”
Chimori blinked, taken off guard by this total non sequitir. “Because Setsuka-chan couldn’t -- ”
“No. Not mother. Why were you going to give me away? Didn’t you want a kid?”
“I did,” Chimori said quietly. “Badly. But I knew that Setsuka-chan wouldn’t be able to raise you. I was going to help Atsuko. I was still going to act as your father. Atsuko can’t have children; she’s sterile. We didn’t know that at the time, of course; she was too young. But you were her one chance to ever have a child; she still resents Setsuka-chan for taking that away from her. But I wasn’t going to give you up or give you away. I was just going to let Meiri-sama and Atsuko take responsibility.”
Seishirou looked away.
“I thought it was what was best for you,” Chimori said. “And don’t tell me that you don’t understand that. You let Seimei-san go for the exact same reason.”
Seishirou shot him a sharp glare.
There was a long moment of silence.
“I don’t even know you,” Seishirou said wearily.
“We still have time to fix that.” Chimori looked away. “If that’s what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want anymore,” Seishirou said.
Chimori stood up. “Come on, it’s a beautiful day. I can’t monopolize you. Let’s go for a walk and I’ll introduce you to anyone else who comes along and we can talk. Okay?”
“Yeah.” Seishirou stood. “Okay.”
~~~~
Seishirou and Seimei didn’t have a chance to talk again before dinner, so it wasn’t until afterwards, after saying goodbye and procuring numerous telephone numbers, that they managed to talk again. Seishirou gave his father a very awkward embrace, and Atsuko gave him a hug which seemed far more normal. Seimei was slapped on the back several dozen times and the two of them were seen off in good cheer.
“Did you have fun?” Seishirou asked, getting into the car.
“Yes. Once I got over the horrific embarrassment,” Seimei replied. “This place is so . . . big. And so well-armed!”
“Who were those kids you were hanging out with?”
“All cousins of some degree,” Seimei said. “They showed me around, gave me a tour and stuff. Hideki, he was the shortest one, he’s okay. Didn’t seem very interesting, but a nice enough guy. He makes bad jokes. But he’s learning all the ‘jitsu. His dad is an assassin and he’s training to be one too.” Seimei bounced a little in his seat. “Tsuki, she was the oldest, is this big computer expert -- she knew everything, I swear. She was nice. Kinda cool at first, but I think she’s just like that. And then there was Teiji.” He blushed slightly, hoping his father didn’t notice. “He was nice. His sense of humor reminded me of you. He’s training, too, mostly with guns. He knew a lot about guns.”
Seishirou smiled slightly as Seimei went on to detail his adventures of the day, somehow always coming back to this miraculous teenager. “Sounds like you really liked this Teiji kid,” he finally said.
“Well, yeah. He was nice. And . . . my cousin.”
Seishirou cleared his throat, trying very hard not to laugh. “Not technically,” he said casually. “He’s Senichi’s stepson, so he isn’t related to either of us by blood.”
“Really?” Seimei asked, brightening considerably.
Seishirou didn’t bother to hold back his grin. “You really did like him, then.”
“Well . . . maybe. I bet he’s straight.” Seimei hurriedly changed the subject. “So what were you talking about with the other scary adults?”
Seishirou explained what the others had told him, cutting out a few of the less important details, but telling him pretty much everything that had any relevance. “Then Chimori-san and I went for a walk and talked for a while about unimportant things. That’s about all.”
“You mean personal things,” Seimei said.
“Some of those, too.”
“So that’s why the scary lady hates us?”
“In a nutshell. And she mostly just hates me,” Seishirou said dryly.
“Oh,” Seimei said. “I’m supposed to like her when she hates you. Right-o.”
“Quite frankly, I don’t care whether or not you like her, and I doubt she cares either, so don’t worry about it.”
“Are we going to go back and visit next weekend?” Seimei asked cheerfully.
“You’re going to come back and visit tomorrow,” Seishirou said.
Seimei blinked. “Where are you going to be?”
“I have dinner with Subaru-kun. Remember? I told you about it last weekend.”
“Right,” Seimei said, nodding, looking a little bemused. “Uhm.”
“Normally I’d just leave you at home, but I’m still a bit worried after what happened with Muraki. But I don’t think there are possibly more capable hands I could leave you in, and the Tree will let me know if anything is wrong.” He paused. “That’s okay, isn’t it? I asked Senichi about it before dinner.”
“That sounds okay. Remind me to stab Muraki next time I see him.”
Seishirou smiled slightly. “Of course, there’s no formal dinner at the main house, so you’ll be eating with Senichi’s family.” He glanced over. “This includes Teiji, of course.”
“You’re not allowed to harrass me,” Seimei said.
“I’m not? That’s what fathers do.”
“Well, I hope you and Sumeragi-san find a nice private booth.”
If he was hoping to have needled Seishirou, he wasn’t in luck. “Thank you. I hope we do too.”
~~~~
Seishirou had seen Seimei safely into bed and bolted the door before going out to feed the Tree. He made a mental note that if he saw Muraki, he was going to kill him just for the fun of it. However, there was no sign of the man. Seishirou walked to the Tree and stood underneath it, folding his arms and glaring up into the branches. “All right,” he said. “You don’t get fed until you explain to me why you were hiding that all these years.”
There was a very audible sigh, then the human figure of the Tree stepped out from the shadows. “Blackmail? Seishirou, you wound me.”
“No, wounding you is what I’ll do if I hear any more smart comments,” Seishirou replied.
The Tree laughed. “I’m not sure I can really explain, Seishirou. I didn’t tell you because -- ”
“If you say it’s because I didn’t ask,” Seishirou began, a dangerous glint in his eyes.
“No, that’s not it,” the Tree said with a sigh. It sat down underneath its physical self and drew its legs up to its chest, then motioned for Seishirou to join it. He reluctantly did so.
“You know that only insecure people sit like that?” Seishirou asked.
The Tree looked at him like he was deranged. “It’s comfortable. Go suck on it.”
“Would that I could,” Seishirou said dryly.
“I don’t think the Sumeragi would really object . . .” The Tree grinned unremorsefully as Seishirou glared at it. “But back to the subject at hand. So, your mother was a lunatic. What the hell was I supposed to say?”
“You could have told me that the rest of the family wasn’t trying to hunt me down and kill me like ‘kaasan always said,” Seishirou said stiffly. “You could’ve let me know that they would have welcomed me with open arms. You could’ve told me that I didn’t need to kill ‘kaasan, too.”
“To answer that last one first,” the Tree said, holding up a hand to slow his string of accusations, “yes, I could have told you that. But it wouldn’t have stopped Setsuka from trying to get you to kill her. I figured it was easier if you didn’t know that it wasn’t strictly necessary, because she wasn’t going to let you get away with not doing it. She was crazy, Seishirou. I liked her, but that’s true.”
“All right,” Seishirou said grudgingly. “I suppose I understand why you never told me that, but what were you going to do when it came time for Sei-kun to kill me?”
“Give me a break, Seishirou,” the Tree said, sounding disgusted but amused. “Seimei was never going to kill you. He just doesn’t have it in him. You never had to know the reason why it worked, as long as it did.”
Seishirou sighed and shifted slightly so he was facing the Tree. “And the rest of it? Why didn’t you ever let me know about my family?”
“There are a few reasons,” the Tree said. “For one thing, you certainly trusted your mother and loved her more than you ever cared for me, and I didn’t want to ruin your memory of her. Secondly, look at what happened when you found out. You fell apart. I didn’t want to be responsible for that.”
“I didn’t really fall apart,” Seishirou grumbled. “I just moped a whole bunch.”
“Right, that’s because Seimei was telling you everything and then slapping a bunch of glue on you to hold you together.”
Seishirou had to laugh at that image. He fell silent for a long minute, pondering. “But . . . my father . . . Seimei’s grandfather . . . you should have told me.”
“In all honesty, Seishirou, I wanted to,” the Tree said, shrugging. “But I couldn’t.”
Seishirou gave him a sharp look. “Couldn’t?”
The Tree nodded slightly. “Setsuka made me promise that I wouldn’t. Oh, it’s all void now, since you found out another way. But I was under that vow, so I couldn’t tell you.”
“What the hell did she threaten you with?” Seishirou asked, ready to tear out his own hair. “If she’d starved you, she would have died too!”
“Yeah, I knew that, and so did she,” the Tree said. “But Setsuka was a loony, and I didn’t really want to risk that. Besides, it didn’t really seem to be skin off my ass. I knew this would happen eventually, in any case.”
Seishirou closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “My mother was insane.”
“Well, at least you come by it honestly,” the Tree said cheerfully.
Seishirou just sighed and gave him another glare. “Yeah, that’s really comforting.”
“It should be.” The Tree shrugged. “But I don’t hold myself responsible for the constant flaws in your logic.”
“Do you want dinner or not?”
“Look,” the Tree said, “it all worked out in the end. What the hell are you complaining about?”
Seishirou glared at him again. “I suppose the thirty-five years I missed with my father seem like the blink of an eye to you,” he said bitterly.
The Tree was silent, considering that argument for a long minute. “I suppose I could say something to that, apologize or something,” it finally said. “But here’s my take on it: if you’d been raised by the Clan, think about how different your life would have been. You wouldn’t have ever had Seimei. And you wouldn’t have met the Sumeragi, either.”
“I ruined Subaru’s life,” Seishirou said sharply.
“Subaru was a lunatic long before you ever got to him,” the Tree said with a shrug. “Look at the way his sister and grandmother bossed him around; it’s no wonder he’s gayer than Rudy Galendo.”
Seishirou rolled his eyes, wondering when the Tree had become a fan of figure skating. “I didn’t do too well with Sei-kun, either,” he pointed out.
“Maybe you didn’t do the best you could’ve,” the Tree said. “But if you think Atsuko and Chimori would’ve let you bang some hooker on the street to have a kid -- ”
“Now wait just a minute -- ”
“Then you’re sadly mistaken.”
Seishirou glared fiercely. “Misako wasn’t a hooker. She was just there picking up a friend.”
“But regardless, you went there looking to find a hooker who was willing to have your kid, so the distinction doesn’t really matter in the long run.”
Seishirou said nothing.
“And she was nineteen and you eighteen. Trust me, if Atsuko had raised you, Seimei would most definitely not exist right now.”
Seishirou analyzed this series of statements for a long minute. “You’re avoiding the argument,” he finally said. “It was very clever to sidetrack me that way, but the fact remains that you still should have told me -- ”
“And couldn’t -- ”
“And if I want to be cranky about the time I lost with my family, I have that right, so you can sod off.”
“To be perfectly frank, I can’t actually sod -- ”
“Oh, shut the hell -- ”
“And if you’ve lost so much time, stop being so cranky so you can make some of it up, you big weenie.”
Seishirou sighed. “Right-o.”
Right about then was when the Tree started laughing its ass off.
~~~~
Chapter Twenty-Two
Home
