Tamaki's life wasn't easy. It never had been. And he doubted it ever would be.
He smiled at the woman lying on the bed. He had to keep smiling, just so that she would smile back at him. She wanted him to be happy, and so he forced himself to be just what she wanted.
So his violet eyes twinkled and the edges of his lips pulled up into a bright smile. Tamaki was a bundle of sunshine. People were always commenting on how bright he was. They just didn't realise the irony of how double-edged that statement was. He wasn't an idiot he just had pretend he was. Pretending that he didn't realise how truly ill she was.
It was the only way to keep her happy.
So he was loud, he was boisterous, he was annoying. He was everything a happy child should be…or just an unhappy one who was a brilliant actor. He played his part well, better than a lot of children would have been able to, and kept it up whenever he around other people.
But in secret, whenever he was alone, the mask was removed. He became the sad, broken child that he truly felt he was. He would allow those heart-felt tears to fall from him glistening eyes. And such eyes. People spoke of their sparkle wit wonder, but Tamaki wondered if it was not just because of the tears he held back behind them. Until night-time. Until, alone in his room, believed by everyone to be sleeping, he would let those tears fall.
But there were times when the mask wasn't perfect, when those tears would fall without his say-so.
It happened when he was out walking with his mother and she suddenly grew weak, the grip of his hand faltering, and he usually sure steps turning into stumbling imitations of his mothers real ones.
It happened when it snowed and the other children talked about their parent's playing with them in the snow, or going out with them in the rain. His mother would never do that. His mother could never do that.
It happened when his mother became feverish and called out a name; a name that's absence in Tamaki's life had left a gaping hole in his upbringing.
Yuzuru.
His father.
Tamaki knew that his father couldn't help not being there. Tamaki knew that his father couldn't be the one who held his mother's hands through the fever rather than the small boy. Tamaki knew his father couldn't help not being there to soothe Tamaki through the tears that came at night.
Tamaki knew all that, just like he knew that he shouldn't hate his father for not being there when he needed him. And so he tried. Oh how he tried.
Whenever his father came over, bringing over with him tales of ninja and futons and his homeland Tamaki tried not to hate him. Whenever he talked of that perfect world so far away from Tamaki's own dystopia he tried not to hate him.
But it was hard.
But even harder was the way his mother looked at him. The way her eyes filled with happiness, yet at the same time sadness. The type of sadness that was born of a longing and desire for what one wants more than anything in the world, yet what one can't ever have.
And how could he not hate his father when he made his mother feel that way?
But his mother still loved him.
And to make her happy Tamaki would love him too. No matter how hard it was.
So he did. He listened with rapt attention to every tale of Japan. He played every game of 'ninja' his father coaxed him into. And he came to love him.
But not as a father. Never as a father. The man who came to visit was a story-teller, who spoke of wonders that Tamaki would never have. He was a distant figure, some uncle from a far off land, who visited and then was forgotten about.
And if Tamaki admitted his was anything else, anything much more important, like the parent that was missing from his life then Tamaki couldn't love him. If Tamaki admitted that Yuzuru was his father then he would have to hate him. And for his mothers sake Tamaki didn't want to do that.
But he would call him 'otou-san' just like his father had asked him to. Because if he called him that he didn't have to call him 'papa' like all of the other children at school called their fathers. And he wouldn't be 'Yuzuru'. He wouldn't be the owner of that name that his mother called out for in her delirium. Because his mother always called out 'Yuzuru', not 'otou-san' or 'papa'.
All so he could fool himself and the rest of the world. All so he could just keep smiling for a little while longer.
So he smiled, he smiled at 'otou-san' he smiled at 'mama' and he smiled at the rest of the world too. And he would keep smiling, because of he stopped he knew it would hurt his mother, and she was already in enough pain.