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Title: Flowers for Yamaguchi
Author: MK
Pairing: Sawada Shin x Yamaguchi Kumiko
Fandom: Gokusen
Theme: #22, cradle
Disclaimer: I don't own Gokusen.  Welcome back to the plot, ladies and 
gentlemen.  I hope the last part didn't scare you off too badly.


	In late March when she was a child, her parents had forgotten to come 
home.  Rather, they had intended to come home, but in the end were unable to 
make it.  They had been detained indefinitely when another car had slammed into 
their own, breaking bone and tissue and severing those fragile threads of their 
lives. 

	She had sat alone at the front of the funeral; other, less closely-related 
family and friends lined up behind her, all wearing black, all whispering, talking 
about her.  She had been angry, not just at her parents for abandoning her, but at 
those people for talking at that event.  Her parents deserved more respect. Her 
mother deserved none of their comments.  

	"She was the only daughter of that kind of family! The child will go there."  

	"Sh, she'll hear you!"  
	
	Scorn, fear, disgust.  She hadn't known what they had meant by their 
comments, or what kind of family she would move into, but she had felt their 
disrespect stab deeply into her, and it had stayed, at least a little bit of it, ever 
since.  

	Each year at the same time, she wore that dark colour again, lost herself in 
it, and made a solemn visit to the gravesite.  Grandfather had gone with her each 
time in the past, but this time, that person had requested to come along as well.  

	


	They ate breakfast in silence, dressed in their formal black clothing and 
were seen off by the others.  The graveyard was in a less-busy part of town on a 
high, forested hill that was home not only to the dead but also to the shrine the 
Kuroda family had been loyal to for generations.  Kumiko found the place 
soothing, but it irked her that maybe her parents would prefer to be buried 
elsewhere.  They had been normal people.  Kyo drove, but stayed in the car.  

	They climbed the many, many steps, passed through the looming gates 
and past the temple to the rows of grave-markers.  She carried with her the water 
and food, Grandfather had the incense, and Shin had brought flowers.  

	They cleaned the grave, though the monks did so regularly.  Yankumi 
ladled the water out over the top of it, and they had set their offerings there, 
prayed silently.

	She spoke to them daily in the small shrine at home, but here she was 
careful to mention all the things she thought most important: her dream, that 
Grandfather was happy to let her be who she was, how kind they were to her.  Her 
thoughts skipped guiltily around Shin before settling on facing up to it.  She had 
corrupted one of the normal people, and felt her mother especially wouldn't 
approve.  She told them in detail of his situation at home, and his sister and how 
the kumi treated him with respect and affection.

	She neglected to mention the events of the meeting.  

	She told them of Tetsu instead, and his slow friendship with Shinohara.  Of 
3-D and how they had not been afraid of her, had treated her just as they had 
before, and how Natsumi had called her Sister.  

	And then she apologized. There was so much to tell them and so much she 
was unsure of.  She could clean and tend to this patch of space as much as she 
wanted, but some things would refuse to wash away.  Some things she was too 
happy with to wash away.  

	Grandfather had told her stories that said her parents would have been 
proud of her regardless, but she wanted their pride, even in death; wanted to live 
up to their high expectations.  

	Grandfather and Shin, too, had finished praying.  It is a hard thing, she 
thought, to lose family.  Hard, because it never ends.