estirose

Um, probably going to be a few of these over the next few days.

The four friends were trying hard not to break down in front of him, Taiga could tell. There was a sniffle on Imari-san's end, and he was sure there was a glint of tears in their eyes. "All of us here miss Mio," he told them. "But the four of you know her far better than I. I loved Mio, but we hadn't settled down and gotten to talk about our pasts." Not that he would have wanted to, on his end, but he would have enjoyed hearing about Mio's life. Hers had to have been far better than his.

He didn't want to tell the four that Mio had chosen Wataru over himself, and how he'd so badly screwed things up. So blind to the fact that Mio hadn't ever shifted into the role of Queen and wasn't ready to love him, if ever, he had never thought to think outside the box. Perhaps he could have persuaded Mio to be in a sort of threesome; loving Wataru, who would have of course lived with them, but being officially with Taiga. He was sure he could have convinced her to do something like that, just to keep the peace.

King and Queen were obligated to marry, but there had been room in there for a lover. It wouldn't have been ideal, but it would have worked, just to keep Mio alive and settling into her role.

But what was past was past. Mio was dead, and he'd have to deal with the consequences. Make friends with her friends, bring them to Wataru's cause, or whatever he needed to do.

Kaori-san was the most traditional of the bunch, he judged, but she sounded like she could be persuaded, if he could convince Wataru not to enrage her. Wataru wasn't the most socially ept person ever, especially when it came to things he held dear. He didn't realize, sometimes, that others' feelings could be hurt.

Sometimes he was in the right, in fact, he was more in the right than Taiga cared to admit, but it wasn't impossible to be right and still hurt others.

It was, Taiga realized, going to be one hell of a balancing act. Get his people to accept this very radical change without offending most of them, get them to accept that this might be a good thing, even if not carried to Wataru's extremes.

Suddenly he wished that Wataru wasn't going to this interview. Maybe if he could get Wataru to just mouth the whole thing about alternative food sources, no matter how much his little brother didn't like it, they stood a chance.

But knowing Wataru, that was probably going to be hard. He knew something about politics, that you could go for the extreme voters or the moderate ones, but it was hard to do both. If Mio's friends - those who didn't have a problem with Wataru's ancestry or that he'd been thought human when Mio was dating him - were unwilling to go for the idea of a Life Energy substitute, then there was probably little chance that the Fangire as a whole were willing to go for it either.

Maybe Dawn was right. Maybe he, and especially Wataru, just needed to grow as Fangire before upsetting the whole boat.

He didn't want to disappoint Wataru, the only family that he had that really loved him. The only one that would support him wholeheartedly like this. But maybe Wataru's ideas were far too radical for the moment. Maybe they were too radical to ever be considered. Taiga might eventually convince people that an alternate Energy source was a good thing, but hunting Humans was part of who they were, and he doubted Wataru would ever be able to squash that very Fangire attitude.

He also doubted that Wataru would ever stop trying. To someone raised Human, who had seen Fangire hunting from a Human point of view, it probably seemed barbaric to hunt intelligent beings with their own lives. Taiga doubted the argument that Humans slaughtered animals for their meat would make any impact. For one, he could easily see the counter-argument, that they were not intelligent life forms with their own lives, that the Fangire lived among and talked to.

Though he had, in his time overseas, heard arguments against whale hunting that basically said the same thing. Not that Humans lived among them, but that they were intelligent species. Of course, that was a fairly radical proposition too, but it had been enough to at least turn non-hunting nations against hunting ones like Japan. Taiga followed human politics enough to know the issues, because they could affect his people.

It was something that would have to be done carefully. For the moment, until their guests left, he couldn't talk to Wataru. So, instead, he asked the group, "I want to hear about Mio in happier times."

Imari-san, Koji-san, and Satoshi-san all turned towards Kaori-san, and she looked around at each of them. "Mom yelled at us a lot because we played tag in our kimonos...." Kaori-san said, apparently elected to be the one to start.

"She loved ice cream," Satoshi-san said, with a grin. "I remember her trying to sneak it out of the kitchen when her mother wasn't looking."

"She always did have a fondness for human food," Kaori-san added. "I think she wanted to be a cook, but she wasn't exactly dextrous."

Wataru was shaking his head, smiling a little, and it made Taiga feel warm, like a blush was stealing over him. If he could only get Wataru to be at home with these people, to become a Fangire in a way he couldn't before, it would all be worth it. He himself could use some friends, too, but it was Wataru that needed to feel at home with their people.

If he took Kaori-san on as his personal assistant, then Wataru would be seeing her a lot. He would probably understand what it meant to be Fangire from someone who had always thought of herself as Fangire despite her human blood.

But Wataru should spend time with the others, too, still. Taiga decided to start with Kaori-san and work with her to get Wataru to make friends with the others.

"I remember when I had a project for high school, and we both stayed up so late. Mom let us." Imari-san was smiling and ducking her head at that. "I was so lazy, and she ended up making sure I passed the class."

"Mio was very friendly to people she knew," Koji-san said. "She didn't like meeting new people, but she loved being with people she was comfortable with."

"I know," Taiga said. "I... she was warming up to me when she died. I always figured she'd get over her shyness and open up to me, too."

"Oh, you poor thing!" Imari-san cried. "Of course Mio always takes- took forever to get to know someone."

"Imari," Satoshi-san whispered, probably lounder than he thought, "You're talking to the King."

Imari-san visibly deflated. Taiga looked at her and the others. "For today, I'm not the King. Wataru is not the King's brother. We're just people gathered together to talk about Mio and our memories of her."

"Oh," Satoshi said, in a quiet voice, cringing a little.

"Wataru, why don't you tell them how you met Mio?" Taiga said, prompting him. It would give his little brother an in with these people that he desperately needed and probably would have never thought of.