Issues. [Private: Adele - Zenshin]

A hand stretched out to her face and began wiping all the humidity off of it from the silent tears Iana had shed. Zenshin dappled her face with a small tissue. Once, twice, thrice and four times. After the fifth, Iana gently gently grabbed his hand however and brushed it off. She turned her face. All the words he was uttering, they were the only comfort she had. And yet, those words seemed so unsettling. They weren't shaking, not one single syllable had any sense of insecurity in them. But yet, to Iana they felt like they were hurting. Like they were suppressing something behind them. A small sigh blew itself out of Iana's lungs. Zenshin certainly had repressed feelings. Even though he was a completely composed person, Iana knew him long enough to know that there had to be something more than what he was doing and saying. He was much too intelligent to be that simple. And because she knew and felt all that, she was reluctant to accept whatever help he offered.

"Zen... you..."

About to blurt out, what she was thinking about Zenshin Iana quickly grabbed her own arm and dug one of her nails into her skin. Not enough to bleed, but enough to scatter her thoughts. She wouldn't approach him like that. Not knowing how he would react, if he would open up to her, if she could bear it, Iana decided to give in to her own weakness. There was no reason to burden Zenshin by telling her. That was what she thought, not realizing that it was probably to have repressed feelings about her. But time would form her, somewhere deep inside her, the fox could tell. Not having responded to Zenshin's words, silence had come down upon their living room. With a huffing growl Iana jolted her head towards him.

"You've been thinking that way for a long time, haven't you?"

She said with a slightly aggressive undertone. It was an undertone that emerged out of impulse, not illwill. But either way, it was aggressive. In a bit, Iana would experience the regret of talking to him in the ways she did. Looking away, she continued.

"But I know all that, it was one of the first things that came to my mind. Every time I think about it... I get really... angry..."

As she said that, her words slowed down, cramping up. Her teeth were pressed together and she got tense all over. Starting to breath a little faster, she clutched her hands close.

"I think... if that were to happen... I don't know what I'd do with myself... and it'd be your fault for.... FOR...."

Her voice grew louder and she was starting to shout again. Again. It seemed that what she had just snapped out of was coming back once more. And it seemed inevitable. Impulse over composure. After so many months of avoiding exactly that, it had come back. And this was just one of those many times.

The fork landed straight in Iana's mouth. It shut her up. It shut her up good. A shock went through her body. Zenshin looked angry. For the first time, she didn't feel as much ties from Zenshin as she usually did and she couldn't sense any repressed feelings in his words. It was frightening. It appeared as if Zenshin finally mustered the strength to stand up to her. What followed would be up to Iana.

What she decided was to do the exact opposite of what would be right. Agreeing with Zenshin, telling him she was sorry for anything she had ever done to him. Embracing him, loving him, realizing that the child carried no fault for her own shortcomings. All of that hadn't found a place in her mind. And she didn't exactly know if it would ever find a place in her mind. Nobody knew that. The last silent conversation between Iana and herself had been before her mindset tilted to complete ignorance.

Whatever Zenshin was telling her was flying through her head. It didn't remotely stick, it hadn't made her feel anything but anger. It was nothing but loud noises coming from his throat. She wasn't used to him yelling. It aggravated her even more than everything else right now, even more than herself. Which was a surprise. She didn't have any reason to really be angry at him shouting right now. But if that was how she would act, then that was how it followed. She gulped down the noodles and grabbed the fork out of her mouth and threw it against a wall hard enough for the fork to stick in the wall. Glaring back at Zenshin, she started talking.

"You... don't get it Zenshin. I'm sorry about what I'm about to do. But you don't understand it. Anything. And I can't expect of you to do. It's pathetic anyway."

She stood up from the sofa and walked over to the fork that stuck in the wall. Picking it out, she continued.

"I don't expect you to understand me. I can't. I thought I could bring it over my heart to burden you with my pettiness..."

Iana clutched the fork tight in her hands. She succeeded in holding back tears. It seemed useless, nothing she said or thought had any impact on what she did. Like an automated robot her feet carried her towards the door. Iana didn't want to leave like this, but she her body had a mind of its own. And it wasn't hers. She wanted to explain to Zenshin how unimportant she felt. How none of her life was really hers. How everything she'd ever done was always an accomplishment of someone else. How without Meoru her whole life had little to no meaning because it was his anyway. How he was the only they reason they were in this situation. How Iana never felt the right to make any decisions. How the kid was just another thing she wanted to let happen the way it happened. How any of her problems were really so little to the rest of the world they didn't really matter to her own small self either.

And there she was, at the door. About to grab her jacket and put on her shoes. Going outside, somewhere to breathe some fresh air, to feel some freedom of everything else. Away from rooms of Zenshin's home. Somewhere she didn't need to think.

Zenshin's yelling startled her. It wasn't just the aggressive tone like before. This time it was an all out explosion of feelings towards her. She was hammering against the bricks that he had put up. Having trouble to hold back her tears, her shaking hands grabbed for her shoes and she started to put them on as he was still shouting through the whole house. Wiping her eyes and nose as she zipped her boots close and stood back up and grabbed for her jacket she hammered against the brick wall in front of Zenshin's door.

It was a strange sensation. He didn't feel like the Zen she knew. More like the Zen she always wanted to know. It wasn't the best situation to have done so, but he actually opened up to her. And completely unexpectedly it shocked her to no limit. Iana would have never thought that her reaction would fall out like this. Shivering from insecurity, her fingers couldn't get a good enough grip on the zippers of her boots and letting go, Iana fell back to the wall. Hammering towards the bricks once more, she started weeping. Tears fell down her face once more. Her irritated eyes looked up from between her fringes at Zenshin.

"Yeah... you've told me now, haven't you!? I haven't even spoken to him ever since this stupid kid is growing inside me! Is it that you can't accept that I'm too weak for all that!? IS IT THAT YOU WANT TO GET RID OF MY STRENGTH?"

The final words were not just shouted, they were roared through the whole house. It was a shattering tone that came with her words. It resonated from the very depths of her heart.

"YOU WANT ME TO CUT TIES WITH MY ONLY REAL SOURCE OF POWER? YOU WANT ME TO END THAT ALL? Maybe... if everything has to come to an end like that... MAYBE IF EVERYTHING ENDS, THEN MAYBE WE-"

At that point, Iana's throat got stuck. Everything she wanted to say after that clamped up in her throat. She went completely silent. Her eyes were wide open in complete shock. Her lips, only slightly opened, shook. Her jaw shivered in despair. Her arms let completely loose and fell to her sides. Iana's whole body dropped like a sack against the wall next to the entrance door. It felt like the weight of the her whole life came crashing down on her. Her glance was aimed at the wall. It was completely empty. Even the tears from before had vanished.

It was an odd realization. Finally, all of her shortcomings were opened up like a book before her eyes. The pages flipped by themselves. And everything about her relationship with Zenshin suddenly made so much more sense. It was curious to finally realize her own bitterness and idiocy condensed into one small ball that was now stuffed down her throat. It had taken several weeks, an unwanted pregnancy and Zenshin to yell. But Iana was finally at the point where she felt something familiar. Something she had always wanted to avoid. It was the sole reason she always tried to ignore herself by covering it in hate instead of acceptance, in anger instead of calamity. The feeling she had since she could think. The feeling everything in her childhood had been centered around. The feeling of worthlessness. And the same way that feeling had suddenly pressed down on her, it got lifted. Lifted, because her eyes ran up to Zenshin. She looked the angered man in the eyes, and cried once more. But this time, it was completely honest.

"Zen... please, help me..."

She wept under her breath, hoping that he could hear her.

Zenshin's touch felt warm. It was a different experience than before. More than its choking grip on her, it gave her fuel. More than trying to push her out of the pothole, it gave her light in the dim cavity of dreadful emotions. Ever-widening, it soothed the waves of her anger, sadness and hatred alike. She was able to calm down. Quickly, her hand searched his. Tracing his strong, but kind arm to the palm that was firmly placed onto her shoulder, Iana lightly layed it on top of his. Calmly moving with his motions, she loosely sat against the bricks. Her eyes climbed their way up to his face. A somewhat worried and exhausted demeanor glared down at her. But there was no repressed frustration anymore. It seemed that not only she was cleansed.

Her arms moved up to Zenshin's neck and wrapped around them as he continued his speech. He was extremely right in everything he said. And it was that Iana felt nearly the exact same thing. But there were so many reasons why she didn't want to let go. Why she didn't feel the power to let go. Especially not of the one thing that had granted her the will to move forward. It should have been a logical decision, but it was so apparent that the weight of it all was just too much for her now. Without tears rolling, trembling lips or a loud voice, she closed her eyes and pulled Zenshin down to her, for her head to rest on his shoulder.

"You are... completely right..." She said with quietly with a subtle huff escaping out of her mouth. "It's just really, really hard, Zen. You don't know him the way I do. He's not just some hokus pokus old fox that is following his own goals. There is so much more to him, and I've experienced all that. It hurts me having to lose him because I made a mistake. Everytime I think about it... it makes me so angry at myself."

One of her hands grabbed Zenshin's and slid it down to her belly. Giving him a soft, somewhat salty kiss, she wanted to signalize that this time there were no excuses. There was not all of that screaming and loose control of herself. She had known better all along, but this one time, her feelings wouldn't get the upper hand of it all. Zenshin had all the right to not trust her just yet. All the skepticism one could imagine was in his hands. But if she could at least be close to him, maybe it wasn't all as bad as she had imagined.

Moving her lips away, Iana brushed her cheek on his and rested her forehead onto his shoulder once more.

"There is really nothing I want more in this world than a child. And having one with you... it seems like a dream come true. But I'm just questioning if this is the right time and the right place. If it means parting ways with Meoru... this early, I don't know if I would ever feel ready to love this child as much as I love you."

Her body pulled itself together.

"If you knew him... knew him the way I do, maybe you would think differently as well.."

"It's the only way... huh... If we do it now... without me having searched for other options... I don't think I'll ever stop questioning if things could have run differently, Zen."

Every single word of him were piercing her heart. They caused her unbelievable pain. The mere imagination that soon Meoru simply wouldn't be there scared her to no end. Especially because Zenshin didn't understand the circumstances in which they had met. Everything Zenshin thought he knew about the circumstances of Meoru and Iana was either not completely truthful or harbored not even an ounce of non-fiction. There was either a lot to discuss with him, or things to ignore. And as she was now, the first option was the only one she truly thought of.

Perhaps the conditions under which she and Meoru happened couldn't have been more wicked and strangely depressing. She needed to tell him. Show him how much he actually meaned to her. Make him realize that most any- and everything Meoru had ever told Zenshin about them was a lie. Ever since he and Zenshin came to converse with each other, Meoru had sparked a pile of untruths covering Iana's situation. Deep down, Iana never wanted anyone to know. Even now, she was completely reluctant to spill what she had in stock. And Meoru, he knew all that. He knew every one of her feeling very precisely. He could read every single thought in Iana's mind. Perhaps because of the fact that he had never questioned her, never cared or judged her for them, Iana fixated on him. To the extent where she wasn't ready to give him up for the life of her own child?

In the end, she didn't know. All the thought was needed right now, was to tell Zenshin why exactly Meoru was so important to her. And especially, why she thought Iana didn't have the right to do such a thing.

"Zen... the things with Meoru, they're slightly different from what you've been told. There's a reason I don't want him to leave. There's a reason for why I couldn't bring it over my heart to let him leave."

Iana tugged at Zenshin's shirt. Right now, she needed him closer than ever. There was all this anger that she had ignored, focusing on her love for Zenshin. All the hatred she was beginning to get ready to replace now. Replace, with trust, care and love for her unborn child. If only Meoru would speak up for once. But he never did. In situations like these, where she desperately needed him to explain for her, he never showed up. Usually she thought that he just didn't want any unnecessary trouble. But for the first time, she thought there was something more behind all the times she could have needed him.

"Remember... when I told you that I had once killed a man? He's... Meoru's... all part of that. When I was completely alone, had nowhere to go and was creeping in complete madness around a meaningless life... he appeared. I was afraid of him at first. But he taught me what it meant to not show fear before something terrifying. That sometimes the most disgusting beings have a nice side. He showed me... that I was worth more than what I had done, what I was born into, where I was."

Iana paused. She knew she wasn't all that clear about what she was saying, but somehow, she just hoped Zenshin would understand what she was trying to describe.

"It was around... 10... maybe 11. It could have been a different age even, I don't remember all too much about my preteens. Heheh... At that time, anyway... I killed someone. For the first time. And up until now... even to the last time. The man I dug a glass shard into... he was quite rich. And I was just a kid... I wanted his money, so I approached him. He was not old, but way past adolescent age... After going into a dark alley, I thought I could quickly snatch his purse and make a getaway, but he started to come onto me weirdly. Only years later... did I learn what exactly he wanted to do with me. After he tripped however... I simply stuck a glass shard into his neck and watched him bleed... quite long even.

And that's when it happened... that's when Meoru appeared for the first time. I didn't know how he looked at that time, but thinking back I could clearly distinct his face. Only after quite some time had passed together with him... he explained himself to me. Whenever he enters someone, he must stay in their body until they die. From that point on, there is a day-limit in which he can exist without a human body. He has to find a new one before his time runs out, or he will die. But... he instantly chose me. And you know why? Because Meoru... a that moment in time, saw something in me. Someone had actually seen something in me. A piece of my soul, perhaps just a spark of will. He will always be the first person to ever see a bit more in me than just another street kid.

He is the only reason... I'm sitting here with you right now... He is the only reason I even considered approaching you... back then. He is the reason... there's a human growing inside me."

Iana started to wipe her tears. It was surely harsh to think about it, but to talk about felt like Mt.Hakobe pressed onto her shoulders.

"You said I'm my own person... I'm an individual. But can I just discard someone like him...? Just like that."

Weeping, Iana hoped that she had somehow brought across the point of the whole story. The point of her clinginess of Meoru.

It was an embracing feeling to simply listen to Zenshin talk. He did it so rarely, that Iana felt hugged by his words whenever he opened up this much. Despite the circumstances in which these words were said and what exactly they conveyed, they gave Iana a small speck of happiness on a window of despair. His admitted rambling took a while. And when he breathed the final gust of air, carrying the last word of the long speech, a grin swept across Iana's face. What he had said was a mixture of tragic, melancholic, somewhat bitter and serious things, yet all that she felt was simple happiness. Even a bit of gratitude was sprinkled all over her face. She traced Zenshin's demeanor, it was stern and clearly stressed. She knew that this conversation was not one to run away from. But sleepiness was starting to take. After all of the yelling, the hours of insecurity what to do and to say, the sleepless nights, Iana was completely finished. But somehow, she had the feeling that in the morning she would feel completely cleansed. With a giggle that trumped her weeping, she started to talk.

"You just... talked so much. I love it when you do. But... I'm tired, and you're stressed. We definitely... need to continue this conversation... but maybe we should do it tomorrow. When we've rested."

Gently moving his hand to stroke it over her belly, she wanted to reassure him that she wasn't running away from anything, but it was really better if they just stopped for now.

"With your amount of determination... you would probably make a great father, I'm sure."

It was a comforting thought, to know that Zenshin would be the person standing through all of this. Pulling her with him, everytime she fell back. Iana felt safer now, much more than before. And what she wanted now, was to be even closer to Zenshin. To be as close as possible. Starting to worm up to an upright position, Iana wanted to give Zenshin the impression that all of this had made her think differently.

"There are some things I still have to tell him... but I can't let this baby die. And the story with your friend... I really don't want you to view me any differently after doing that on me... For now, I'm too tired to talk about all this. Do you want to... go to bed? Maybe... we can talk some more there... or stuff..."

Iana quickly scattered her thoughts, as her mind was spacing out into the realms of the immaterial desires that made her whole being and dictated it somewhat loosely lately. She blushed and shook her head a bit, trying to empty whatever pictures had just been created in her head. He probably didn't even want her now, like that, after all of the things that had just happened. And Zenshin had the perfect right not to.

As her head was laying on Zenshin's chest, her silent breathing could be heard. She was completely knocked out. It was a devil's sleep, there was probably nothing that could wake her up right now. The whole day had been so intense and taxing on her mind and body, that she was ready for a straight up 12 hour sleep into the afternoon. In all the chaos that she had ensued, Zenshin had bent her straight again. The fetus in her body was growing day by day, and soon, she would notice the belly and all the other negative side-effects pregnancy would bring with itself. But that was in the future. For now, Iana was resting a cleansing rest. Tomorrow, the whole world and even her love for Zenshin would appear differently.

Her dreams at the moment were completely empty. She had emptied herself before closing her eyes and drifting off into the netherrealms. Iana had brought herself to utter exhaustion. Clinging to Zenshin after sex, especially in her sleep was something she usually didn't do, but somehow, his figure was her lighthouse in all of the emptiness. Her fingers had even clenched his shirt before falling asleep crumpling it up between her fingers, and one leg of hers had wrapped around one of his. Subconsciously, she probably didn't really want to let him leave right now.

In that scenery, someone who had been away for quite a long time made an appearance. It was Meoru, that wanted to take a peek at Zenshin right now. He was able to imagine Zenshin's position in all of this. Especially since Iana's thoughts were connected to him and he was able to look into them. It just needed a glance at the fight, and he knew what exactly what Zenshin was about. But Meoru surely didn't despise him, it was his very right to be concerned about his child. It was fine that he didn't see the whole picture, that he was disregarding Meoru's position.

"I know that you're awake, Zenshin."

A deep resonating voice, somewhat on the quiet side as not to wake up Iana echoed through the bedroom. It didn't attack, nor did it retreat. It was a neutral tone that Meoru hit. He didn't want to express any sort of thought. There was no intention hidden behind his words. Just a simple, honest statement.

"You are making all the right decisions so far. I have seen many people, and you will likely become a great father."

Meoru still, had no intention of speaking to Zenshin. He was simply making truthful statements. But there was something he wanted Zenshin to know. Something in his eyes extremely important.

"But be aware, that whenever you believe in something as granted, you disregard the opposite as unnecessary. Without the correct distribution of your energy, you will never create the best possible outcome for yourself. And you will fail to keep hold of both her and your child."

There was only little left to say. Meoru wasn't a person of big words. More so someone who was better at answering questions.

"You will never find happiness in knowledge, only drive. Let there be a point where you stop pouring fuel into the fire and settle down for what you have made for yourself and her. If someday you won't be able to take care of her anymore, I will find ways to... I am counting on you. For the girl."

That was all he had to say already. Meoru was done, he had said his piece and there was nothing left to state. Meoru was able to now commit himself to what he had sworn to do for his hosts should he ever bond with them. Use the Jing of Neutrality, the power of waiting and listening to stay by their side as long as possible. Everything Meoru had ever done was always in the spirit of "doing nothing". This was probably the last time he would interact with the outside world. And he enjoyed his last peek at what their room looked like before vanishing into the shadows again.