[ He freezes, and looks up at you before he can stop himself. Can you blame him for being so surprised? It's been years since you've called him that. The last time had been...
...And while he is remembering it, he really doesn't want to remember the day that you called to him back in the 27th, when he was sixteen years old. He had been frightened by the summons, if only because the other ones had ended in broken things, tears, suffocating silence. Even if that meeting had ended with apologies and an almost-normal conversation, watching you - much thinner, eyes clear but sad, smiling at him yet unable to reach out and touch him - had cut deep.
Since that day, you had never called him by the name you had given him. It took him years to stop thinking about why, because doing so drove him a little crazy. ]
I'm all right, Kasumi. [ It's easy to call you "mother" when there's a crowd, somehow. ] I'm just tired.
[ Lies and lies and lies. He should get back out of the habit of telling them, shouldn't he? ]
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...And while he is remembering it, he really doesn't want to remember the day that you called to him back in the 27th, when he was sixteen years old. He had been frightened by the summons, if only because the other ones had ended in broken things, tears, suffocating silence. Even if that meeting had ended with apologies and an almost-normal conversation, watching you - much thinner, eyes clear but sad, smiling at him yet unable to reach out and touch him - had cut deep.
Since that day, you had never called him by the name you had given him. It took him years to stop thinking about why, because doing so drove him a little crazy. ]
I'm all right, Kasumi. [ It's easy to call you "mother" when there's a crowd, somehow. ] I'm just tired.
[ Lies and lies and lies. He should get back out of the habit of telling them, shouldn't he? ]