With(out) You

"What's meant to be will always find a way" - Trisha Yearwood

All and all, he felt relieved.

Tamaki definitely had mixed feelings over his life lately and what direction people were pushing him towards, but he could agree on relief as a ranking feeling for this moment. Simultaneously, he pushed all depressing and reliving thoughts to another section of his mind. Later, he promised it. In a bit.

Maybe he was a bit tense.

And a liar to himself.

Just a little.

Shaking his shoulders out, he reached back for a quick rub at the tightened muscles in his neck. Sighing softly, he brought his attention back to the middle aged woman speaking of her son and how he would have been starting his last year of high school. He would have enjoyed this and keeping up on that project and goofing off with his friends and she had seen a friend of his just a few days ago. Tamaki watched the hopes and dreams crossing her face when speaking of her son. There was also an accepted sadness there that he understood, but could not feel himself.

For Tamaki, it was relief. Relief at being able to speak about it. Sadness, yes. But accepting it was not something he thought he could ever do. There was a hurt, of not being able to speak outside of this room. Confined and trapped. To live up to what others expected, ignoring the feelings that made him up. Ignoring the grand and fabulous and gorgeous and selfless and caring and loving person that made him who he was today.

Don't speak about her now Tamaki. She's not here. Move on, there are other things you should concern yourself about. Quit acting like that. She won't smile at your antics. The dead can't smile. And you are wasting time, like a child. Act like an adult and focus on studying what we're telling you to learn. Quit talking like she is watching you Tamaki.

A bit of hatred. Yes. There was that too.

But he wasn't going to admit that he harbored some hatred for his grand-mère. She was family. And it was grand-mère who suggested this group session for him. A rush of appreciation flooded over Tamaki. His grand-mère was not the type of person to linger long over emotions, much less other people's emotions, but she had still taken the time to help him. Normally, he'd be vying for arms wrapped around and crying, perhaps some goofy humor to lighten the situation for himself and the other, to create smiles. However, at this time… Tamaki was glad his grand-mère had the prickly disposition that she did.

"Are you speaking today?"

He glanced up at the softly worded question, a sharp notion it was directed toward him. The middle aged man in charge of the group smiled a little at him, Tamaki automatically smiling back to see the older man's smile grow and linger a while.

It did nothing for him.

The heavily salted mustache shifted again as he asked softly again, "Are you speaking today?"

Tamaki straightened. "Yes." To speak of her, to freely speak of her he thought as relief swept over him. He closed his eyes and smiled. He could see her, encouraging him and telling him it was fine. "My name is Tamaki," he began. An introduction he had fleetingly wondered if it was tailored for him, to keep the family name out of group, but none of the others had paid much mind to the request and brief rules stated at the beginning. It had always been set up like that.

"It has always been my mother and I. As far back as I can recall, my life mostly contained my mother. She has been ill for a long time. Or had been ill, I suppose. My mother passed a couple of weeks ago and I find myself in Japan."

What if he had…?

Shoving that line of thought away, Tamaki continued on. "My mother is a caring person and faced it all with a brave face, wanting the best for me. I helped care for her and stayed with her, wanting to see her smile. It grew more difficult the last few years to brighten her day with real smiles and laughter out of her, spurts of laughter would cause her pain, even though she denied it being true when I had her laughing."

He paused, remembering her firm reprimand when he had tried to limit himself with his antics to brighten her day. That she assured him that she felt far more pain when he wasn't being himself in cheering her up.

"She is a gorgeous woman. My mother. My mother was a gorgeous woman." He bit his lip a little, and then spurred on as he could see her continuing to encourage him. "I still feel that she is here. So I keep trying to make her smile and make others smile around me. For a moment the world feels lighter, but it doesn't last long. And my family here I am staying with… They reject any of my attempts to get them to smile or are quick to reject any smiles I may have made."

His grand-mère and father. No other family. And the rest of the large household was in servants who followed the family leader, his prickly grand-mère. It felt…cold there. A trapped feeling of not being able to show feelings or who you were or what you may be going through. Numb to the fact he had lost his mother. Everyone in the household was so careful not to show favor or sympathy to him.

"Still, I can't not try to make the people around me smile like I did for my mother. She's still here, even in Japan—"

Why was he still here? What good was it to stay with his mother if he was still wound up in Japan? Why was he here? For the vague notion of family, a word his family here did not treat as he did. What if he had…said yes before? What was the point of saying no if he was still here? Here, without his mother. He knew that. He knew he was here without his mother, but he clung to the fantasies she so loved about him. She was still here, with him, watching him and he could make her smile.

He could make her laugh now without her being in pain.

But what if he had…said yes? In his own decision ten years ago, if he wound up here in Japan anyway, what if he had said yes? Choosing to desert his mother for hopes that more money thrown at health care would still have her alive today…but yet…without each other.

He just came to Japan ten years later. He was without her here, but she was still here. She was alive and getting the best treatment in Fran—

No.

Finding his throat thick, Tamaki swallowed and glanced to the side, away from the main focus of the group circle. He had felt relieved talking about it for a time, but then he began feeling more down on himself. These people here were not his mother. No one, even his family in Japan, knew what family meant to Tamaki who had only ever had known family with his mother.

His father had been a figure of importance growing up, but the importance waned at the start of his twenties. The few exciting highlights of childhood visits had been reduced to nothing and he could not help but feel his father was not quite someone he wanted to be in life. He could understand his father's choice, it had been the same choice as his own. They had both chosen to remain with their mothers. Tamaki just realized sometime after the offer, how his offer had come from his father rather than his grand-mère. His father had made his own choice deeper by doing the same grand-mère did to him by doing it to Tamaki. Why had the man decided to force Tamaki to choose as he once had to?

And why was he still finding himself in Japan ten years later?

Sighing, Tamaki brought his attention back up, trying to pay attention to the teenage girl speaking about her passed on boyfriend. She was going on about how everyone kept saying they were sorry for her loss, but more and more they were adding in how she needed to move on already. Tamaki felt for her. People wanting to pretend everything was fine and to gloss over another person's grief and pain. He had had enough of everyone at the household pretending around him. Had hoped for some relief today and now he was not sure what the first day of group brought. Others around him were nodding and agreeing with the teenage girl.

Tamaki looked at those nodding, finding it disheartening. Where were the people for them in their lives? Where did people get the approval to tell them to 'move on' and act like everything was just…peachy keen? Maybe it was too difficult to look at this sort of thing in public spaces, that it was far easier to deal with false acts, preferring to have them act cheerful out in the world. Maybe this was why people who suffered felt the need to hide from most people. Because many out in public shunned what they, all of them in this group session, were feeling from society's eyes.

Where were the people for these people?

He was suddenly angry at this question, not seeing the answer being forthcoming. Tamaki silently seethed, trying to calm down enough to figure out what this bothered him so much.

Mother.

We ARE those people, he realized.

Or at least he was. He had been someone who had been there for someone suffering.

He had been there for his mother. Went through the hard times with her alongside all of the good. Tamaki had spotted it at times, her missing his father. How often he had been filled with numerous stories of his father by his mother? Stories…talking…someone listening…just like…just like they were doing in group. The mother who had talked about stories of her son, what his hopes and dreams were as they all listened. The teenage girl who talked about her day to day life after her boyfriend passed, never said much about him and looked closest to tears and shattered by it.

Tamaki had been someone for his mother. And this group was for those who may not have anyone like he had been for her.

His support was gone. Mother had been there for him when he had his own rough days, just as he stuck with her in her own many rough days. Was he even capable of being who he was a few weeks ago in France? It felt terrible to him. There was so much mother that was part of him, inside of him. Too much to even feel as if he could be himself without her. It felt wrong to even try to be capable of who he was. Wrong. Wrong for him to dive right into things, with abandon, truly setting out to—

"Are you speaking today?"

Tamaki refocused again on what was going on around him to spot who was being asked the question this time. He froze. Held immobile, Tamaki stared and found himself drawn in. Last in the group's circle, a dark haired young man his age sat straight in his chair with bitter eyes set behind a pair of eyeglasses. Slate gray that should have been bland, in fact expected with most people in this room dealing with the loss of a loved one, were anything but a bland eye color. The bitter eyes were full of a sharp hardness, one that would make many to think again about approaching the owner of those eyes. They were also were full of pain, anger, and hate. Tamaki didn't see those eyes directed on anyone in particular inside the room and failed to see why there was so much hate brimming out. Hate…for himself maybe?

It was as though this young man was saying to the room 'I survived, get the fuck away'.

Had this young man been in the service perhaps?

"No," he answered simply. The flat answer did not match with the young man's eyes and Tamaki's gut turned.

I want to see a smile on that young man, he ardently thought. Not bothering to conference with any other part of him, that strong feeling and thought finished. Just that one. Just that young man in this room. I want to see him smile.

Tamaki shook his head, trying to chase out the sudden thought.

He's not my mother, he stated firmly.

"Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can't always understand them, but we have to trust in them. I know you want to question everything, but sometimes it pays to just have a little faith." - Lauren Kate