Crimson Rebirth

Part 18

 The days rolled on, spending the daylight outside, getting everything ready for the upcoming winter, and the evenings eating dinner, baths, and doing miscellaneous chores until bed. It was a pattern Gene came to find herself loving, nothing too overwhelming, nothing too slow nor boring. Every day brought her a new surprise, and waking up to seeing Kaiju downstairs, cooking, getting ready for the day.

 It was the little things she started to notice about him. How he stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth when he would focus on a particularly stubborn plant. How he would set his jaw while cooking. How gentle his hands were when it came to the animals.

 All of those little details sent her stumbling deeper in love with him, her heart fluttering when he would give her a half-smirk, as though catching her in the act of memorizing all of those little bits that made him unique, made him unlike anyone she had ever met in her life. That damned half-smirk would make her heart flutter and make her cheeks burn a flustered red, caught in the act. He would chuckle, pulling her close just to kiss the top of her head.

It was after one of those moments when his eyes rested upon the little shrine he had.

 He had caught her in the act of admiring him once again, this time while relaxing in the living room, and had pulled her under his arm, watching as Gene nestled against him slightly. Kaiju's hand gently ran through her slightly damp locks, still wet from her bath earlier in the evening. His eyes roamed around the room, before settling upon the shrine he had.

 There were no words that needed to be said of the silent words that spoke in his eyes and in his mind. The look of a father who was, in some silent way...still aching.  

 Genevieve, from her position under his arm, gently leaned against him a bit more, as though to get him to look at her. "Kai?" She asked, adopting the nickname she had for Kaiju. "....Do you want to talk about it?"  

 Kaiju inhaled slowly, then let his breath out steadily as if it were an exhale from a pipe he had a knack for smoking every other night or sometimes every two nights. He'd do so respectfully outside of his own home, never inside. It was a habit...or an old routine...

 "I know of your interpersonal affairs to some extent because you trusted me enough to tell me," he began, "The better question is...would you be all right, being able to know who I am...where I came from and how far I went...?"

"I leave that up to you." Genevieve said after a moment, her emerald eyes full of trust. "I feel as though the question is; Do you trust me enough to tell me, love?"

 Internally she cringed at the secondary nickname she had only called him in her head, and been rather careful to not say out loud. But it was there, in the open, no longer stuck inside her head.

 Kaiju felt her cringe. He smiled and nodded; she had a good point in asking him. He then inhaled.

 "Two sons..." he explained, "...I had to raise two sons for close to two hundred plus years, and almost the majority of those years on my own. I didn't completely flounder, but there were days I did feel like it. When I felt like I couldn't do it alone. Sometimes I wished my...my wife was with me. I wish she hadn't died so violently that night after giving birth to Einvell but...I couldn't do anything."

 Genevieve didn't interrupt him, her head resting against his shoulder and nodding gently, as though asking him to continue to the limits he was comfortable with.

 Absentmindedly, one of her hands found one of his, and gave it a gentle squeeze, as though to help comfort him where words wouldn't be enough.

Kaiju went on, "I'm not making sense. I should start from the beginning..."