Alternate Canon: Kyou

I grumbled as Ushio and I walked home from her school. "Stupid, Kyou...why does she always have to..."

"What's wrong, Daddy?" I looked down to my daughter's eyes, wider than usual, and I cursed my carelessness.

"I'm sorry sweetheart, I'm just...frustrated." I ran my hand over my face to wipe my frown away, forcing a smile to my face. "There; all better."

She came to a stop and, since we were holding hands as usual, I ended up stopping as well. "You don't look better," she said. It was as though the kid could see right through me. "You're still fustered."

"'Frustrated'," I corrected gently. "Yeah, I am...all right, I'm sorry for lying," I quickly said at her doubtful expression.

She tugged on my hand, and I lowered myself to one knee so we could talk eye-to eye. "Why are you frus-tray-ted?" she asked, and I had to keep myself from smiling with pride at her efforts at pronunciation.

"I can't say," I said.

"It's Fujibayashi-sensei, right?" she asked with an honest expression – like she had any other kind.

It was embarrassing, not being able to hold the gaze of a five-year-old. "You're pretty smart, you know that?"

"Is it because she says mean things about you?"

I rose to my feet. "We'll talk about it more when we get home," I promised, really not wanting to talk about it at all.

"Okay."

***

"I'm surprised you noticed," I said as I put snack before her. "You've laughed every time, so..."

"Well, at first I thought you were trying to be funny," she told me, then ducked her head. "And the way your face got red was...funny."

I couldn't help it; I laughed loudly. It felt so good. "Yeah, I can see how it would. But what changed your mind?"

She looked back up at me with an earnest expression. "Michiru – she's a friend of mine at school – she was getting picked on by some other girls, and she looked just the way you did."

I was floored; was I the father of a genius? "And you...you figured it out just like that?"

"Uh-huh," she replied nonchalantly before taking a bite of her snack. "I mean, feelings are feelings, right? Grown-ups can feel bad too, right?"

I nodded dumbly. "Yeah. We...We'll get hurt over different things than kids, but yeah."

"Pain is pain," she declared. "You and Michi had the same hurt face, so you both hurt...even though it was different girls."

"Fine," I said with a defeated chuckle. "You win. Yes, it's your teacher. You know that she and I went to high-school at the same time, right?"

"Uh-huh; she told me so."

I found myself wondering what else Fujibayashi-sensei had been filing my little girl's head with, but I resisted the temptation to ask. "Well, she used to..." I stopped myself; did I really want to trash-talk her beloved teacher. Finally I decided-

"Was she mean to you in school, too?"

Me and my big mouth. "Yeah, but she's settled down a bit."

"Do you want me to talk to her?"

"Huh?" I was starting to wonder who was the parent and who was the child in our relationship as I watched her take another bite of her snack. "Uh, no...no, thanks. If I have a problem with someone, I need to talk to that person myself, right? Isn't that what you've been taught?"