Eleven Red Lotuses | Kageyama Tobio | S/H

There is No Twelfth

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     "Daddy?"  The little girl whines.  He smiles, picking her up and setting her on his hip.  
     "Yes, baby?"  He asks softly.  
     "Can you tell me what God-Papa was like?"  She inquires.  He chuckles, a somber smile pulling his lips.  He sits down on the couch and sets her on his lap.  
     "Your godfather was an amazing man,"  Shoyo tells his daughter.  
     "Is he a bad guy now?"  She asks.  He laughs a little.  She was so innocent.  She copies his laugh with a high-pitched squeal that he loved.
     "No, dear.  Your godfather sits in the stars.  He's dead."  He tells her.  Her face falls, more to confusion rather than sadness.  She had only a vague memory of him, he died when she was only 3 and a half.  She was just a child who had never really experienced death and loss.
     "What happened?"  She asks.  
     "The subway car he was in caught on fire.  He spent too much time helping everyone else out that he couldn't help himself."  Shoyo answers.  
     "How old was he?"
     "He was only 27."  She frowns.  
     "That's old!"  Shoyo can't help but laugh at her antics.  Of course, to a 6-year-old, 27 was pretty old.  
     "I guess it is!"  He laughs back.  
     "How did you feel?"  She asks.  He sighs softly.  How could he explain fate and destiny to a 6-year-old?  How could he explain fate and destiny at all?  
     "I was sad, and I still am.  He was a good friend of mine.  But I wasn't surprised.  Everybody knew it was going to happen."  She gasps dramatically.
     "Did you kill him?"  
     "What?  No!"  He defends quickly, but she breaks out into giggles.  
     "But nobody knew the subway would catch on fire!"  She states in an accusatory tone.  How would he explain it?
     "We didn't expect that, but we knew he was going to die that day,"  Shoyo tells her.  
     "How did you know?"
     "Because there is no twelfth lotus."  He mumbles.  His daughter tilts her head, her face attempting to make a quizzical expression, but she didn't have the fine motor skills to really do it yet.  "The last painting Tobio's soulmate made had eleven red lotuses."  He explains.  "She told him that maybe that was how long he could live without her.  She died when they were 16.  On the day she died, 11 years later, we all knew.  Even your godfather knew."  
     She frowns.  Her hands reach up and slap his face, though she meant for it to be a gentle touch.
     "I'm happy for God-Papa."  She states.  Shoyo cocks an eyebrow.
     "You are?"  
     "Yeah!  They can be happy now.  Do you remember?  When the evergreen's pines all fell down and it started crying?  It's that happiness!"  
     Shoyo's smile went wobbly.  When his parents' evergreen behind the house started dying, it had a sudden surge of sap, and she had always said it was crying.  
     Surely, that was a sign.  There was no way that was a coincidence.  She never knew of their heavy connection to nature.  She never knew of their nicknames and how they symbolized their love with the life cycle of plants.  And what child could grasp the concept of tying the loss of a soulmate to the death of a tree without even fully understanding either soulmates or death?  
     "You know, baby, I'm happy for God-Papa, too."