Welcome to Gaia! ::

A variety of emotions play over his features as she speaks, tiny tongues of emotion flickering from his person to match them. Wistfulness at memories past, disbelief that she would speak of him so kindly, and then finally mingled puzzlement and dread over her statement of knowing if he were dead or not.

At length he shakes his head, folding his arms on the table to pillow his forehead upon them with a sigh of deepest frustration.

For six years, he tells Rika, he believed that Baikou hated him. And it has been as many years since he has last seen her. She has every right to hate him, he supposes....

He lifts his head again, smoothing back his hair. They WERE to be married, he explains. Had even gone so far as to proceed with a wedding ceremony. But....

....he had ruined it. Everything.

Who is Yuuto? he inquires.

A son...

He blinks, having been blindsided by it, though quickly catching himself. That's....that's good. He's happy for her. She deserves all of the joy a family can bring her.

He says that. It seems that, as it passes fairly clearly via his projections, that he means it as well, though his eyes cloud over with unshed tears.

The entire story feels, to him, like a rotting tooth that has ached and twinged for years. The only person to know, really, why he did what he did, was his little sister. He had told no one else, mainly for the reason that no one else seemed to care to know. They seemed content to draw their own conclusions on things.

Yet here is Rika, holding several pieces of an incomplete puzzle which she may not like the look of when it is finished, but...

....but did he really want HER drawing her own conclusions as well, at this point? The person he was coming closest to calling a friend in this strange world who had done so much for him as it was?

Perhaps, then, he ventures wearily, he should start at the beginning...

He ventures a smile, one that manages to be warm and actually hold itself for a moment despite the otherwise-distraught look on his features.

For that much, he thanks her deeply as that is, really, his greatest concern in bringing any of this up. He very much would not want Lady Rika to think any less of him.

Though he wonders if it may help to talk about it after all, if the topic is making her uncomfortable, he will stop.

She surely has enough to worry about at the moment without him poking at his old wounds, yes?

He feels warmth at her last projected thought, allowing it to embolden him a bit as he fishes for the front end to the tangled and knotted string that was Hitsuga and Baikou.

The two of them had been friends for as long as he could remember. Every day that he can recall when he was young, was a day Baikou took part in. They shared everything with one another. She was....she was his big sister. She knew things about him no one else did. She knew ways to calm him when no one else could. He trusted her with his life. His entire being

....which was, he supposed, why he took it so badly when she announced at her sixteenth birthday party, that the two of them would marry. It was nothing they had discussed prior. Nothing they had agreed upon.

But she had been so happy. So certain of her love for him, that he had tried to reciprocate. He had WANTED to reciprocate. But all he'd been able to think of when she would look up at him with adoration was when, exactly, he'd had to start looking -down- at his big sister.

There was that much as it was that felt wrong about a marriage between them, he explains, and there was also the fact he feared other things. He'd listened to the tortured projections that emanated from his neighbor's house after her passing from the husband she'd left behind. He had been terrified of the same fate befalling him one day.

It had upset him so BADLY, that he couldn't work. And Kitsuo had noticed. And taken pity on him. And had shown him a way to protect himself.

Shame and guilt flares in both his emotions and in his face.

Yes...

But....he doesn't remember how, exactly, it worked. Kitsuo had cast a spell on him, and had taught him the other piece of it. It was....some sort of protective bubble around one's mind. When activated, it would stop a mate-bond from forming, though would not block out the caster from feeling affection, love, and pleasure with their partner.

But...! he continues quickly, an edge of urgency in the thought that begged her not to think badly of him for it. But....he had not entirely wanted it, he'd decided. Even a day after having it placed on him, he had convinced himself it was not necessary. Baikou was not going to hurt him and if he could just....quiet his noisy head for the evening that was their wedding ceremony, and their following marriage, things would be fine.

And that was what he'd decided to do. That was what he HAD been doing...

But...

But then...

On the evening of their wedding, alone in her room, he had panicked. So much was happening that he didn't understand, and he had felt like he was losing himself. He had tried, entirely too late, to activate the spell and had....DESTROYED everything between them.

The tears that had danced in his eyes the last few moments now began to spill over. He...he had been very sick for months. He had been told later that he had likewise made her sick. He had also been told that he was not to see her again.

.....and so he hadn't.

He is glad of that, at the very least, he says....or rather his mind seems to moan. SHE does not deserve to suffer for what was his own mistake. And there is not a day that goes by that he does not hate what he'd done to her.

To them.

He hitches a strangled sob, trying to calm himself down again.

He misses his friend. He misses her horribly.

But, he goes on, wiping hurriedly at his eyes with the heel of one hand. He can't change what has been done. All he can do is resolve not to hurt her, or anyone else, like that ever again.

He has been very careful with everyone around him ever since.

His eyes look down to her fingers, and then return to her face, though he does not shift away, or even move at all for the moment, perhaps having had too much taken out of him relating it all.

If she chooses to come, then.....yes. Its all right, he nods. He would like to see her again. If only to say he's sorry, and explain why he did what he did. And let her decide from there whether she wishes to talk to him further.

.....

He thanks Lady Rika immensely for listening. He truly does appreciate it.