Chapter Text
Miyuki Kazuya and Sawamura Eijun are crybabies.
This is an incontrovertible fact. At any given time, either boy may burst into uncontrollable sobs, and nothing their families do seems to have any impact on this.
It is also a fact, however, that neither boy’s families understand what brings on these random bouts of tears.
All babies cry. That’s not what makes Kazuya and Eijun such mysteries to their loved ones. It’s the fact that neither boy cries when normal babies would.
They don’t cry when they’re hungry, or lonely, or scared. They don’t even cry when they’re physically injured.
At nine months old, Kazuya crashes into the corner of a table hard enough to need stitches, and he laughs on the exam table.
At eighteen months, Eijun slips on ice and slices his knee on a frost-covered rock, and he cheerily skips back inside to show his mom, tracking blood the entire way.
And yet, both boys burst into heartfelt wails at the drop of a hat when absolutely nothing bad has happened, and they were both perfectly happy and content merely seconds before.
Baffling.
What few in their families remember, however, is that it wasn’t always this way.
Kazuya, for example, cried at perfectly appropriate times until two days before he turned six months old.
Eijun, on the other hand, cried as often as any other generally happy baby would until two days before he turned six weeks old.
In both boys’ cases, the change was sudden, and absolute.
* * * * *
Almost-six-month-old Kazuya was sitting at his mother Shiori’s feet in their garden, blissfully playing with a ball while his mother pulled weeds and chatted with her son. His garbled responses weren’t exactly intelligible, but that in no way slowed their happy conversation.
A stray dragonfly buzzed by on its way to the nearby river. Kazuya’s unblinking amber eyes followed the glittering insect as it darted around, his sharp, intelligent gaze never losing track of the tiny creature.
Not for the first time, Shiori found herself impressed by her son’s observational prowess and insatiable curiosity. At the same time, she recognized both traits might land her kid into trouble when he was older.
Ah well, she thought. She’d be there to bail him out when he needed it.
Wanting to impress her son as much as he impressed her, Shiori carefully coaxed the dragonfly to land on her finger. Kazuya gasped, enchanted, and her warm smile deepened as she gently lowered to give Kazuya a better view.
His shining eyes seemed to reflect the multi-faceted eyes of the dragonfly, and inspired, Shiori started singing Tonbo no Megane (Dragonfly’s Glasses). To her delight, Kazuya started humming along to the cheery folksong in an adorably off-tune gurgle.
Suddenly, Kazuya’s humming cut off with a strangled cry, spooking the dragonfly into flight. His little fingers squeezed into fists, sending his favorite ball into the dirt, where it rolled away to hide under a tomato plant.
Before Shiori could try to soothe her son, Kazuya’s face scrunched up, tears filled his amber eyes, and he grabbed at his own shirt, hand over fist, right over his heart.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Shiori softly crooned.
Kazuya looked at her then with an expression she’d never seen before; it was beyond heartbreak, beyond grief. Her darling, bright baby boy was swallowed up by a sorrow more intense than Shiori could even comprehend.
Then he screamed, and Shiori’s heart shattered right alongside her son’s.
---
The scream lasted an eternity, and also mere minutes.
By the time Miyuki Toku came home for dinner, Kazuya was completely back to normal, as if the afternoon had never happened. When Shiori relayed the experience to her husband, he told her not to worry. “Babies cry,” he’d said, unknowingly repeating the same refrain Kazuya’s pediatrician had told her when she’d shown up at his office in a panic.
Shiori eventually gave up, pretending to agree with everyone’s assurances, but she paid even more attention to her son after that. She was therefore the first (and only) to notice Kazuya’s change in temperament.
He’d always been a relatively happy child, smiling often. He rarely laughed, but Shiori could sneak those baby giggles out of him now and then. He also rarely cried, but did so when necessary to communicate his needs and feelings.
Except, after that fateful afternoon, he stopped.
It didn’t matter how upset he might be, he wouldn’t cry to alert anyone. Eventually, Shiori started teaching him simple signs so he could communicate before he learned to speak. To her great relief, he picked those up almost as natural as breathing.
Toku was also impressed by their son’s quick learning, but he didn’t understand Shiori’s concerns.
“He still cries. All the time, in fact,” Toku protested. “If anything, I think the kid cries more now than he ever did.”
Technically, this was true.
In fact, earlier that very day, he’d started bawling on the bus, slapping his arm like a swarm of bugs had descended upon him.
At the dinner table, in the bath, at the park, in his bed in the middle of the night—at any time, in any place, Miyuki Kazuya might burst into tears. But the cries were never anywhere close to the scream that still haunted Shiori’s nightmares.
And the cries never seemed to have any underlying cause.
Eventually, Kazuya learned enough signs to be able to explain to his mom, “It hurts. I’m sad.”
Shiori, of course, investigated, but never found anything physically wrong with Kazuya. Sometimes he’d have scrapes and bruises from week-old injuries that never elicited a single tear from the boy, but nothing new enough to explain his current distress.
That is, until one day, when Kazuya was almost two years old, and she finally saw a golden sheen appear on his left knee.
* * * * *
Sawamura Eijun has been in a hurry since the day he was born. In fact, he was in such a hurry to be born, he showed up three weeks early.
In his mad rush to enter the wide world, he ended up tangled in his own umbilical cord.
In his hurry to begin the amazing adventure of life, he almost skipped right to its conclusion.
At 1:01 pm on May 15th, Sawamura Eijun’s tangled cord tightened in time with his mother’s final push, restricting his oxygen and blood flow. His tiny heart started beating erratically, and his brain fought back the shadowy wings of unconsciousness.
The pain should have been immense. But the little guy never felt a thing except an indomitable will to live.
At 1:02 pm on May 15th, Sawamura Eijun was born into a room of blinding light and piercing beeps.
He opened his mouth to pronounce his arrival, but no sound could push past his constricted vocal cords. Frightened and sad, he wanted to scream his frustrations into the void.
Instead, his tiny heart stopped beating altogether.
Somehow, in the seconds before the blackness overtook his mind, it felt to Eijun that somewhere off in that void, someone screamed on his behalf.
Then with a sudden snip, the restriction was gone, and a rush of fresh air flooded his lungs, and blood rushed into his brain, and his heart beat stronger than ever before.
And Sawamura Eijun banished the silence he’d been stricken with, and yelled with all his might to announce for the first time (but not the last) that
This Sawamura Eijun was HERE TO MAKE AN IMPRESSION ON THE WORLD!
---
Make an impression he did.
Baby Eijun was bright, golden-brown eyes wide and expressive. He learned to laugh faster than any baby his pediatrician had known. He learned to crawl soon after that.
About once a week, his mother Chika almost caved and became one of those moms who put a leash on their kid.
No one would blame her if she did.
Honestly though, chasing after her sunshine child was one of Chika’s greatest joys.
She’d been so terrified she’d never hear his boisterous laughter or see his dazzling smile, that every time he reminded her (forcefully) that he was fully alive and well, she could only be grateful and laugh right along with her crazy kid.
She could only cheer him on as he raced through life, full-tilt.
Of course, all this racing led to more than a few bumps and bruises along the way. But no physical injury ever upset her brave little boy.
In fact, right before he turned six weeks old, nothing normal ever seemed to upset Eijun again.
No one could explain his mysterious behavior, but his mother had her own suspicions.
That first time he cried for seemingly no reason, he also mouthed his fingers, just like a teething child. He, of course, had no teeth coming in; it was months too early.
His dad and grandpa scolded him, worried he’d start sucking on his thumb next, but his mom snuck him cold teething toys. Soon enough, he stopped sucking his fingers and quit fussing.
A couple months later, while Eijun napped in his crib, a bee flew in his open window and landed on his sleeping form. He instinctively slapped it away, and it stung him.
The welt it left on his arm was almost the size of a quarter.
Eijun didn’t even wake up.
“Proves he’s cut out for the outdoors, a born farmer like his grandpa!” Eitoku declared proudly.
That same proud grandpa flicked his grandson in annoyance the moment Eijun started wailing in the grocery store a few weeks later.
“Nothing’s wrong, baka! Stop your crying now. You’re fine!” Eitoku insisted.
Chika couldn’t calm Eijun down for almost twenty minutes, but she wasn’t surprised. Eijun only rarely cried, but almost nothing would calm or distract him once the crying started. The only choice was to wait it out.
This time however, when the tears finally ebbed, and his bright red face finally returned to his normal healthy hue, Chika was in for a surprise.
There was no mistaking the golden shimmer on Eijun’s forehead.
* * * * *
“Soulmates,” Shiori and Chika whispered to themselves, and wondered what this would mean for their sons.
“Soulmates,” they murmured, and glided gentle fingers across golden marks.
Hundreds of kilometers apart, the two mothers smiled and silently prayed for their sons’ other halves.
“Be healthy and strong, so my son may be as well. And one day, find each other so you may learn you can share so much more than pain.”