Welcome to Gaia! ::

Its....well, all of that is a long story. He doesn't want to bore Melody with it. sweatdrop

They visited a Gaian doctor recently who has given her some medication for her pain, and she is feeling much better for it...

But--but the important thing, he insists, is that Baikou might be able to help the children. In the Empire, she had spent the last few years studying the paranormal activity linked to the Silver World. She would know much more than either of them about the sources of such disturbances and how to locate and handle them.

Hitsuga is fairly certain that she would be both untroubled and willing. Especially considering the nature of such a request.

Baikou is.....well, for as long as he's known her, she's been insatiably curious, especially when told there isn't a solution to something she finds of interest to her.

And surely, he thinks, newborn children sensitive to things no one else can see or hear, would be something she would find interesting... 3nodding

Well....that.... sweatdrop

He squirms a bit where he stands, readjusting his hold on Tsubaki.

Baikou's been a friend of his for a long time. A very, VERY long time, he begins. They were born only two days apart from one another and were very close growing up. As close as a brother and sister -- much closer than he and Eikou were as children - they shared everything with one another...

He lingers on pleasant memories for a moment, then shakes his head a bit, chasing away gentle gossamer cobwebs of childhood from his mind.

....but as they got older, things became....very strange very quickly. confused

He supposes things weren't truly strange until Baikou's sixteenth birthday party where she--

He trails off, reaching out to assist Melody with her shift of position. Would she like anything to make her more comfortable? A pillow maybe...?

.....

Her question, innocent as it is, makes his head jolt back on his neck a bit as if Melody had, instead, slapped him in the face, and his thoughts trail off to a distant hum of activity behind a mental wall.

And it occurs to him that nobody, save Kitsuo when he had been testing the waters about revealing the spell to him, has ever asked him this question in recent years. It is not one he's even asked himself.

Seating himself carefully on the closed lid of the toilet, not trusting his legs in case they wobble while he's holding Tsubaki, he draws a long, deep breath, letting it out slowly.

.....he doesn't know, he tells Melody at last.

After all he's been put through in the last six years, and even just recently, he's not sure he even knows what love -- that flavor of it, anyway -- is supposed to feel like.

He wonders if things may have been easier on the two of them if he WERE willing to blindly say yes sometimes, he admits.

His hand which, if it were not occupied with supporting an infant would be wringing his other at this conversation, idly pets Tsubaki's back instead.

Baikou, though, where he's hesitated, has always been the one to step forward and make clear what she wants in life. She has not, since her recent return, been shy at all about how she feels for him.

And....he can't really say what it is that's holding him back from reciprocating now. When they had been younger and her desire to marry him had first been brought up, it had not appealed to him in the least. It would have been like marrying his older sister...

But now....

His eyes drop from Melody's to study the tiled floor.

The feelings of contentment radiating from the baby, make him smile for a moment....though it fades just as quickly into a look of thought.

Hitsuga supposes that makes sense. And its something he HAS been thinking on.

Momentarily, his mind touches to a few days ago...the fleeting kiss that Kan's hatching had interrupted...

.....at times, it seems, more heavily than others, he finishes, the color of his cheeks deepening to a pink. sweatdrop