“It is.”
“You don’t trust me to do it without some sort of legal commitment. How could you? History says you can’t. History has labeled me not trustworthy. The past few weeks have labeled me flighty in your eyes.”
“Tom Alan, the way you speak, without such pausing and uncertainty…”
Tom Alan stood, turned, and looked down on the man. “Is it because I ran from my real mother? Left her to die at the hands of that creep she married? Deserted her like a coward? Is that why?” More tears came then, running down both cheeks—nasty, wet sniffles, too—and his vision became too distorted to make out the expression on Nobuo Tsuchino’s face. “Because I failed her, I will fail Kyoko-san.”
Nobuo Tsuchino stood. He grabbed Tom Alan roughly into a strong if awkward embrace. “You are nothing of what you
