A Big Brother's Duty
"Mom?" Ten year old Makito Ozu had never seen his mother with such a sad expression on her face before. She was hunched over her desk in the study, looking intently upon a picture of his father, Isamu. He missed him too, and wished he could have stayed longer before returning to his expedition in that southern country he was always going on, but that couldn't possibly be what was making her so sad. "What's wrong Mom?" Already his original purpose in trying to find her, to tell her that Houka wouldn't do her chores, was gone from his mind. Only returning the smile to his mother's face mattered now.
"Oh, Makito." She turned her head towards him, a smile desperately pulling at the corner of her lips and a tear at the corner of her eye. "I suppose you should be the first to know." Makito felt something cold gripping at his heart as he saw the smile fade all together. "Your father…he won't be coming home again. There was…there was a disaster." Makito felt his head drop, and now the cold was a filmy, slimy thing filling up all his insides, making it impossible to feel. His dad, gone? His dad…dead? Then he looked back to his mother, and realized just how selfish he was being.
"Don't worry Mom." Makito put his hand on her shoulder, trying to show her his strength. "Before he left," Makito firmed up his resolve, as stable as the ground, "Dad told me to being strong, really strong means, and I will be, for you and the others." Makito watched and waited for her response.
"That's very noble and brave of you, Makito." His mother wiped the tear from her eye, her smile becoming a bit more genuine. "It's going to take a lot of courage to fill your father's shoes. Do you think you can do that for your little brothers and sisters?"
Makito thought carefully. He thought about Houka, flighty and irresponsible. Urara, quiet and dependable, while Tsubasa was always a bit serious and surly, and Kai…the youngest of them all, he was only two years old, too young to remember their dad, being held by him as he smiled that big smile of his. All the rest of them could summon up memories of him when they had to, but Kai wouldn't be that lucky. Kai was going to grow up without a father, without anyone to show him how to grow up to be the kind of man their family could be proud of.
"I will Mom." This he promised, for his mother, for his siblings, and for his baby brother who would need him more than he could ever know.
