A/N: Written for the Furaba Flash Bingo Challenge, #099 – Ren Sohma.

Jealousy of a Mother

Ren wanted to love that child she carried, and maybe she could have if it didn't take the whole world's attention as though she were gravity itself. Anyone would find it difficult to be pushed into the background: one sibling overshadowed by another, one friend pushed aside…but it was hardest when it was a parent pushed aside by their child: a child not even born yet no less.

So the jealousy and loneliness festered: the way every person in the Sohma house looked at her and saw their future Head, how the Zodiac members crowded around her, waiting for their God to be born. How she wasn't Ren anymore, Akira's beloved wife: how she was just the vassal to deliver the next Head and God into the world.

The love was buried somewhere deep down; she was sure it was, because she was a mother and no mother couldn't not love their child…but the hatred had eaten what lay on its surface, had eaten it all away so only the anger remained.