Author's note: this fic is the brainchild of CameoAmalthea, my co-author, who first proposed that we should try writing a key scene from "Case of Shinra" using two different points of view: I would write President Shinra's viewpoint, and she would write five year old Rufus. The purpose of the exercise was to show how the same scenario and lines of dialogue can be interpreted very differently, depending on which character's mind we are in.
Chapter One: Father
The hour is well past midnight. A middle-aged man pulls a chair up to a mahogany table. He is alone in the room, which is long and high, wood-panelled, with expensive wool rugs spread over polished oak floors. The air smells of beeswax, leather, cigars, men's aftershave. He can relax here. Burning logs crackle in the fireplace; shadows dance around the room. In the corner a grandfather clock ticks heavily. The rest of the house is sleeping. He reaches up, and angles the lamp so that its light falls across the blueprints he has unrolled across the table top.
At the far end of the room, moonbeams slant through the glassed doors that lead to the garden; apparently the under-housemaid forgot to draw the curtains. Now and then the window sashes rattle, and the chimney moans that a storm is rising. We'll leave this old house soon, he thinks, tracing his index finger along the blue pencil lines of the frontal elevation and seeing a tower of chrome and glass, seventy stories tall. He won't be sorry to go.
He reaches for his drink, only to find that the tumbler of whiskey he poured himself minutes ago is empty. The ice cubes have barely begun to melt. He doesn't remember drinking it, but he must have done.
He gets up, goes over to the cabinet, and is pouring himself another when he hears the stairs creak. He guesses at once who it is. None of his domestic staff would dare creep about so late at night: they know he likes to work undisturbed. Sure enough, a moment later he hears the soft pad of bare feet in the carpeted hallway. As he watches, the latch lifts and the door slowly opens, revealing a child in moogle pajamas, a child so small he has to stretch his arm right over his head in order to reach the door handle.
Now what? thinks the father.
He never knows what to do with this child, how to act around him. That's a mother's job. She would have taught them to understand each other. But the situation is what it is, and he's done everything a man can do to make up for the lack. He's hired the very best people, all highly recommended. Speaking of which, where is she, that nanny who came with a list of glowing references as long as his arm? What the hell does she think she's playing at, letting her little charge go wandering barefoot around a big old cold dark house in the middle of the night? Does she think he pays her to sleep on the job? That's what he'll say to her tomorrow, when he fires her: Do I pay you to sleep on the job? My son could have fallen down the stairs!
"Dad?" says the child.
It hurts him to see the boy hesitating in the doorway, as if he's afraid of a scolding. No son of his can afford to be fearful. The boy needs to be bold: he should stride in, make demands, take what he wants. More than anything, the father wishes his son would come running to him and jump into his arms. He wishes for this in the same way that he wishes the boy's mother were still alive.
"Well," he says gruffly, "Don't just stand there, you're letting the warmth out. Come in or shut the door."
To tell the truth, he's always been a little frightened of touching the child; specifically, of holding him too closely. When the midwife put the baby in his arms he was filled with terror. What if I bruise him? What if I drop him? My hands are so clumsy, and he's so new. He was left holding the baby while the midwife and the doctors milled around his wife's bedside, doing things with machines and talking to each other in their incomprehensible lingo. There was so much more blood than he could ever have imagined. At some point Veld appeared with a woman he introduced as his wife, which only served to intensify the unreality of the whole situation, since he hadn't even known the secretive old bugger had a wife. She'd relieved him of the baby, and Veld had put an arm around him and steered him out the door.
The boy comes in, shuts the door, stands with his back to it. The father can see how hard he's fighting the urge to suck his thumb. That's my little man, he thinks. We don't want nanny to have to tie your hands behind your back again.
"What are you doing up?" he says. "If you don't sleep, you'll stay a midget forever."
The child's size is a source of great anxiety to his father. He is small for his age, and so terribly pale. His mother was pale like that. Anemia, they said. She miscarried three babies before this one was born. The first two were early stages, but the third was far enough along for them to know they'd lost a daughter. Gast said, perhaps nature is trying to tell you something. Traitorous bastard.
Does he eat? the father asks his household staff. They tell him his son is a finicky eater. They say that sometimes the boy will take nothing but plain yoghurt and mandarin orange segments for days on end. And you let him do that? he roars. He feels baffled. When he was his son's age, he was hungry all the time. He scoffed anything he could get his mitts on. The human eating machine, his mother called him, and to tell the truth he still loves his tucker - a bit too much, he thinks ruefully, remembering the waist measurement on the new suits he ordered last week.
Veld said, maybe if you took your meals together he'd eat more, so they tried that, but it was a disaster; he couldn't endure the listless way the boy pushed his peas around the plate and nibbled at his chicken. Eat, he roared, eat, damn it. If you don't eat, you'll die.
"I heard your car," says the boy.
His little bony white feet look so cold. I should take him back to bed, thinks the father. He says, "I brought some work home. I'm working."
"What are those?" asks the boy.
"Blueprints."
"Ah," says the boy, nodding as if he knows what blueprints are.
The father smiles. "Do you want to see?"
Carrying his whiskey in one hand, he crosses to the table and sits, gesturing for the boy to sit in the other chair. But the child surprises him. One small hand, unexpectedly warm, plants itself on his knee, and the child clambers into his lap.
So light, this boy, like a bird settling on a branch. Like a nesting chick. Conscious that his breath smells of whiskey, the father leans back and says, "Well? What do you think?"
"That's a lot of drawing," says the boy.
"The architect has to put everything in. He can't forget a single detail. Or the building might fall down, eh?"
The boy gives him a frightened look.
All right, perhaps he shouldn't have said that. Best move on. "Look here," he says, pointing, "These are the lift shafts. These are the ventilation shafts. This will be your bedroom. You'll be able to see all the way to Kalm from up there. You'll be able to look down and see our old garden. That'll be fun, eh?"
"I don't want to leave our garden."
The child can't see that the garden isn't what it used to be. The shrubs are withering. Flowers crumple and dry. The grass has yellowed in patches. His scientists think the problem may have something to do with pollution, or possibly a microbial infestation in the soil. He cannot bring himself to tell the boy that the garden is sick and won't get better, so he has decided they'll just move. That way, the boy will never need to know.
"Simpleton," he says, "You can't uproot an entire garden."
"Will there be a garden in the new place?"
"Rufus, look at the blueprints. Do you see any gardens?"
The child dutifully studies the drawings. His father knows he is only pretending to understand them.
"Where will I play?"
"You won't have time for play, my lad. By the time Shinra Tower is ready for us, you'll be at school."
The boy's lip trembles. He looks like he's going to burst into tears. The father can't let that happen; if Rufus starts crying, he'll have to be scolded for acting like a girl, and this rare hour of togetherness will end on a sour note. Quickly, to distract him, he says, "Look, see this? This is our nerve-centre, the room where I give out orders to the world."
"Amazing," says the child.
"Your old man is the top of the food chain, Rufus. And he's going to be sitting right here, right at the top of greatest building ever built since history began."
"You oversee the world," says the boy solemnly.
"That's about the size of it." Pleased, the father ruffles his child's hair. "And can you tell me what this says?" With his finger he underscores a word written in blue pencil.
"Huh - huh - hospital?" says the boy hopefully.
"Why would there be a hospital on top of my building? Use some common sense. It's Helicopter. Helicopter, son. He-li-cop-ter. Can't you read?"
"It's a big word." The boy sounds a little sullen.
Veld tells him he expects too much of the child. Try to remember, said Veld, he's only five. He's a perfectly normal child - a little precocious, if anything. Veld even had the nerve to say, of course he doesn't perform at his best round you, you make him tense and nervous. Perform! What a word! As if his son was a monkey in a circus. What the hell does Veld know, anyway? He's a paid assassin, not a bloody child psychologist.
Normal isn't good enough. Normal means average, and no son of his can afford to be average. If this boy cannot rise to the challenge of his fate, the world will eat him alive. He must be exceptional. The duty of the father is to make this happen. It's not as if he's trying to terrify the child. Hell's bells, that's the last thing he wants.
"Dad, where's the escape route?"
"What?"
"If the enemy attacks, you need some way to escape."
The father's anger clenches like a fist round his heart. It squeezes, and he feels his face growing red. Who has been filling the boy's head with these fears? If he ever gets his hands on them, they'll be sorry!
He says, "Shinra has no enemies. And even if there were, the President's office is on the seventieth floor." He taps his finger on the spot where his desk will be. "No one can attack up there."
"Mr Palmer said the enemy can attack from space."
"Palmer said that?"
Palmer claims an uncle's privileges, although he is merely a second cousin of the boy's mother. Ten years ago, the rapid expansion of the reactor building program required a quick injection of a large amount of cash, which Palmer's family possessed in abundance. For their part, they demanded a seat on the board for the scion of the house, and offered their prettiest daughter in marriage. It's just business, he said to himself on his wedding day, as he stood in front of the mirror tying his bow tie. Love crept up on him quietly, over time. He still hasn't learnt to love Palmer.
Lard-arse, he thinks. Bird-brain. Every time he comes near my son he gives him something that's no good for him. Only last month nanny had to confiscate an everlasting gobstopper that the child had licked until his tongue was bloody. And now this nonsense about space aliens! It's enough to give a child nightmares.
The father suspects Palmer of trying, in his clumsy way, to finagle an increase in the budget for the space program. They'll be having words about that. Blood relative or not, nobody, nobody gets away with trying to manipulate him through his son.
On second thoughts, maybe he'll send Veld to have those words on his behalf. Heh, now that would be funny. How he'd love to see the look on Palmer's face when Veld walks in -
"Dad," says the child, "I'm sorry. I'm kind of sleepy..."
He looks scared again. Don't be frightened, the father wants to say. Palmer's a bloody idiot; there's no such thing as space aliens. And even if there were, I'm here.
He won't always be here, though. He was old when the boy was born - twenty years older than the boy's mother, and in the natural order of things he could have relied on her to watch over the child when he was gone. But death can strike at any time. One moment a woman is bringing new life into the world, the next she's a bloody corpse. Last week Veld's team foiled another assassination plot, an inside job this time. By the sheer law of averages, one of them, eventually, will succeed.
So what he needs to say is, never show your fear. If they think you can be intimidated, they will use your fear to control you.
But how can he say this to a five year old?
"Listen, Rufus - you're right, this plan needs an escape route. I'll arrange to have one built, just in case an enemy attacks. But let me make this clear, Rufus. I won't be using it."
It's a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, he wants the boy to feel he's being taken seriously; on the other hand, he wants to minimise the danger. I'll never run away and leave you, is what he's trying to say. I'm strong enough to protect us both.
"It will be for you, once you become President."
The boy looks up at him, suddenly wide-eyed. They told him when the boy was born that his eyes wouldn't stay that shade of blue, but they have.
He wonders if he hasn't just made a tactical blunder. There has never been the slightest doubt in his mind that when he dies this child, her son, will inherit his company, but he feels it would be wrong to let the boy think it's a done deal. Anything worth having is work working for. The boy needs to believe that he must earn the right to rule this world: it will give him an incentive to make himself fit for the task.
So he quickly adds, "Of course, there's no guarantee you will succeed me."
"Dad - "
Only last week Veld said, Rufus is looking more like Patricia every day, don't you think? Clumsy of him. For such a subtle, secretive bugger, Veld has his banal moments. He thinks the father blames the boy for his wife's death. He never voices this opinion, but he's not the only one who can read what people are thinking. And the father chooses not to correct him.
Even to his keeper of secrets he can't bring himself to admit the truth. I love that boy so much it terrifies me. Love impairs judgement. Above everything else he dreads becoming a doting father. He has seen too many promising youths, the sons of his friends, ruined from lack of a strong hand. If he spoils the boy now, the boy will grow up and spoil the company, ShinRa and Shinra falling together. His wife would never forgive him.
"Ha," he laughs. "Escape? Me?" It's really a funny idea. If his enemies prevailed, where exactly could he run to, a man his age? He has no desire to outlive his life's work as well.
"Dad, I'm sorry."
The child's pale face is once again pinched with anxiety. His father's heart clenches. "Why are you apologising? Are you admitting your idea was wrong?"
"Yeah."
He's trying to give me what he thinks I want. The father is touched, yet not entirely approving. No son of his should cave in so easily. A strong man stands by his convictions, and doesn't apologise for speaking his mind.
Still, he remembers, this boy is only five years old.
He brushes a hand over his his son's golden curls. It's the sole gesture of affection he allows himself. "You're such a simple-minded one," he says. "Listen," he says, wanting to tease the worried expression from the boy's face, "We'll mark that escape route with something that really stands out. 'L'. Don't forget it, now. 'L' for Loser."
He's not just joking. Men are at their most ruthless when they're fighting with their backs to the wall - and necessity is the mother of invention. The boy might be tempted to give up too soon if he thinks he has an easy way out; he might flee from the battle when it could yet be won with a little extra application of blood and effort. It's essential that he associate the escape route in his mind with humiliation and failure. He must think of it as his last resort.
The child has lost interest in the blueprints. Leaning against his father's arm, he is looking out the garden doors. "What's wrong with the sky?" he asks. The rising wind has blown away the effluent from the reactors: the night is unusually clear.
"Those are stars," says the father. He picks up his son and carries him to the window. All the white stars stand still in their places, but one pair of stars, a red and a green, is moving rapidly across the sky. The boy stiffens in his arms. "Is that a spaceship?"
"You noodle," says the father. "That's one of our helicopters."
They stay there for while longer, watching the helicopters pass back and forth among the stars, and gradually the child's head grows heavier and he lays it against his father's shoulder and closes his eyes, and his breath comes shallow and even and peaceful. I really ought to take him back to bed, thinks the father, but still he doesn't stir, although the fire has died down and the room is growing colder, and his arm is numb from the child's weight, and his whiskey sits on the table top untouched, all its ice having melted.
Endnote:
In the English speaking fandom, President Shinra is commonly characterised as a despicable father, cruel, tyrannical, belittling his son, abusive - even sexually abusive. I presume this is done in an attempt to explain (and excuse) why Rufus is the way he is, and also because President Shinra is some other ways quite monstrous. On the other hand, most Japanese doujinshis I have read characterise the President as a doting parent, doting to the point of ruining his child - again, one assumes, in an attempt to explain Rufus. . My chapter in this fic was an attempt to show that, simply by sticking to canon, the monstrous President can also be characterised as a loving but flawed father who tried to be a good parent - with mixed results.
NB I know it's widely accepted in fanon that President Shinra had Rufus's mother killed, but there is no canon evidence to support this.