i think about this so, so much. do you think that when he held that little girl in his arms he knew he had to go back? do you think that when he held her, this tiny little baby whose mother lay dead at his feet, father was nowhere to be found, he thought of susato? do you think he saw her in iris? do you think that, in the darkness, lady baskerville’s still form might have looked a little like how ayame’s had when she was sleeping, the curve of her shoulder, the waves in her hair. do you think he looked upon her bloodied corpse and her bloodied baby and his bloodied hands and realized that he had left his daughter behind? that he had been too afraid of being alone to stay and be strong for her. that when we lose the people we love sometimes we don’t know how to go on. we can’t go on. he fled to a faraway country months and months away from his baby girl because he didn’t know how to handle it all on his own. do you think he held iris in his arms and realized that he had to go back to his daughter? that he couldn’t leave her to suffer the same fate that this infant would have?

because i think he did. i think he did and he went back and he was a thousand times greater of a father than he would have been otherwise. and i think, in that way, he and iris and herlock and susato will always be connected, the four of them, in a little cycle of love. yuujin loves susato who loves iris who loves herlock who loved yuujin. around and around and around and all because of this single split second.