Welcome to Gaia! ::

Zhane nodded, stepping inside and moving to sit at the foot of Seiji's bed, which he felt was a polite distance away from the desk where the dragon child currently perched.

"Well, more a courtesy thing, really. Its your room, not mine." he said quietly. "But thank you."

There was a moment of quiet while he got his thoughts in order, trying to figure out where to begin. "First of all, I want you to believe me when I say I love your mother. .....and I care about you, Lexi, and Ren very much."

It was hard trying to drive home the idea he was sincere when all he had to stare at was the back of a blue-haired head, but he was making his best effort. "....and I didn't leave to get away from any of you. I left because I needed to."

"No, that would be more along the lines of someone -forcing- me to go." he said patiently. Of all the people he'd expected to grill him when he got back, Seiji had not been one of the foremost candidates in his mind.

"I left because things had been a mess in my life for a long time. It started before I met your mom, and it got more complicated from there." He avoided Seiji's eyes for the moment. "I guess when you were still smaller, I must have looked like an adult who had life figured out, but..."

he reached up to rub at the back of his neck absently. "....but I guess in a lot of ways, I was still a kid too. There were a lot of things I wanted answers to that I didn't know how to find. Meeting your mom was probably the first real thing I felt since I can remember. I barely knew her and all I knew was I wanted to be with her. And then I met you, and Sellexi came along and...."

He was rambling. He forced himself to put a lid on it before it sounded like he was talking down to the child. Seiji didn't need it dumbed down for him or sugar-coated....he'd made it quite clear from the moment he'd come in the door what the playing field was like between them.

"I felt like you guys deserved better from me." he settled for at last. "Not some flighty teenaged putz who doesn't know where he's going or where he's been. And I felt like it was time I finally stopped chasing my own tail and learn what I needed to learn."

It was a relief to see him smile, making him look, for the first time since he'd gotten home, how Zhane had remembered him. "I'm going to be staying." he confirmed, returning the smile. "As much as I can while I get things settled with my parents."

It was the second question that threw him for a loop. And, again, made him wonder. Was that something else he'd heard at school, or something he'd heard at home?

"That.....I'm not sure about." he said, clearing his throat. This hotseat Seiji had him in only seemed to get hotter. "There's some things your mother and I need to talk over still. And its just as much her decision as it is mine. I don't want to buffalo her into anything she's not ready for."

The hug bewildered him and he scarcely had time to return it before Seiji had bolted from the room to go rejoin the others. He sat there a moment, thinking, wondering what Seiji had meant before shaking his head and rising to head out and follow suit.

He'd worry about it later. When he had less on his mind.

He accepted the cup from her, letting his fingers linger on hers a moment as he took it. "Quiet can't be -that- bad, can it?" he teased, though he knew what she meant. He'd felt it too. Being away from them all had left a big, silent void in his life that he was only too happy to have pieced back together again.

He watched her as she situated herself on the other end of the couch. "How about you? How are you feeling?" Her quiet hadn't been lost on him....and he was hoping he would not be in for round two of what he'd sorted out with Seiji.

His brow furrowed as he leaned forward a bit, laying a hand on her leg, just above her knee. "Hey," he told her gently. "Its not a dream. I can promise you that much, at least." Giving her leg a squeeze, he drew back again to settle back with his tea.

"If it WAS a dream, my forehead wouldn't feel like somebody took a cattle prod to it, still..." he added with a small chuckle. It felt weird to be sitting here making small talk with her when, up to the day he'd left, they'd been much, much closer.

....but as Seiji had proven, things had changed since he'd been gone. And he didn't want to push it. Especially not with the things he had in mind to discuss.

He tried not to flinch as her fingertips brushed the rune, sending little spines of pain racing through him. Instead, he covered for it by reaching up to take her hand in his own, interlacing their fingers, the back of it reporting similar markings as his forehead now held, glowing very dimly in the living room light.

"What happened to me is I found exactly what I was looking for." he told her. "I went far from here, Nani...all the way to the other side of Gaia, where nobody had seen anything like you or me...it was like time forgot it."