Storge
"Father, you know I… love you, right?"
They road in the back of his father's limousine, divider up between them and their chauffeur. Saying the words aloud made Akira's throat hum. His feelings had been safe in his mind; to thrust them into reality left him exposed in a way his father was apt to prey upon.
He had spent the night before thinking about the mother he never knew. His father refused to entertain any extended conversations about her, which made conjuring up a personality hard. There were only a few pictures of her left, and she was a radically different woman in each of them.
Akira never would have believed it if he weren't living proof of the relationship, but his father married a police officer. Her official work portrait was the only picture of her that couldn't fit into one of their storage boxes, so his father kept it face down on the floor instead. He hated having to put it back in that position whenever he was done looking at it, because how could such a magnificent portrait be hidden from the world? In it she sat with her shoulders snapped back, staring into the camera lens with the curious and open look of the "good cop" luring her suspects into a false sense of security. She sat with her hands in her lap, left hand over her right, and Akira just knew she did that to show off her wedding ring. Was his mother vain enough to want to flaunt the prominent diamond? Or was she simply proud of the love she and his father shared?
Because he knew that they loved each other. There was an old snapshot of the two of them together on their first date, before she was a cop and he was a king. They had gone to some restaurant downtown and were seated side-by-side, the booth's garish upholstery gleaming plastic in the florescent lights. The food before them was piled high in plastic trays and shined wet with oil. It made Akira nauseous just looking at it, but his parents didn't seem to mind. His mother's face was split open into a grin so wide that her eyes were nearly closed against the apples of her cheeks. She was only nineteen, but her teeth were already stained a dull yellow. Her blush came through as uneven splotches that contrasted harshly against her pale skin. But his father—his inscrutable, impossible-to-please father—had his arm around her shoulders anyway, his cheek resting against the top of her head. He smiled in a way Akira never saw for himself. He was enchanted by that tenement girl.
And then there was the picture of her at the party celebrating LUNA's ten year anniversary. Surrounded by smartly dressed business associates, she wore a green sequin dress that was so endearingly gaudy that it made Akira feel warm inside. He liked to think it was a conscious decision, a refusal to conform to the world her husband was eager to join despite their working-class background. In the picture she had one hand on her hip and clutched a glass of wine in the other. Shimmering in the soft yellow lights, she smiled toothily and winked at the camera. And Akira supposed she still could smile that way, because he hadn't been born yet.
There was only one picture of the two of them, taken after they brought him home from the hospital as a newborn. They were seated together on one of the antique sofas his father so loved. Akira was clearly visible in the shot, but his mother had her face turned away from the camera. She ate her work gun six weeks later. His birth had been the trigger, and he would have blamed himself for everything if not for the little message she left him. On the back of that photograph were three words, written in her loopy handwriting: love you, sweetie.
He first found the message when he was six years old, and in an instant his heart swelled with love for the mother he never knew. But when that happy feeling died down, he realized with the slow sinking of his heart that while his dead mother loved him, his living father never once told him anything of the kind.
The man relentlessly mocked any "whining" he attempted, so he knew better than to ask for love. Instead, he set out to earn it. He rose to the top of his class. He dressed with class and spoke with perfect diction. There was never a hair out of place. There was hardly ever a strong expression of emotion. He strived to be the sort of child worthy of affection, and to that end he could wait. He could wait. He could wait he could wait he could—
By fourteen he still hadn't received a word of tenderness from his father, and when his yearning became too great he would think about his mother, and her special message to him, and how it made him feel. But one night it dawned on him: his father had to be waiting for him to express his love first! Of course! The unbreakable King of LUNA never showed any vulnerability, and what could be more intimate than expressing your love for someone? Akira knew he had to show his father it was okay. He would open his heart first, and surely that would work, wouldn't it?
"Father, you know I… love you, right?"
The man kept his steely gaze fixed ahead. "Is that so?"
"Yes."
He hummed. "That's nice."
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
Even at five years old, Aoi knew a couple things about her daddy.
He was a musician. The instruments he could play outnumbered the ones he couldn't. He released a couple of CDs, but Aoi never heard him playing on that radio. But that was okay, she wanted daddy's voice all to herself.
She only had one picture of him, hidden at the bottom of her toy box so her mom wouldn't see it and rip it up. He was playing his guitar, right hand wrapped around the neck of the instrument, fingers pressed up against the cords. He wore thin silver rings on each of his fingers, even his thumb. His left hand was captured mid-strum, blurred in motion, and Aoi liked to imagine that he was playing one of the songs she liked best.
Her daddy's hair was the color of the sky, but his eyes were brown like hers. They looked so soft, lovingly gazing at the crowd before him, like he wrote and composed and labored over the song just for them. That was the look of a father, right? Surely he would look at her that way when they finally got the chance to meet. He'd have to, because the only thing her mom ever told her about him was that he loved his music more than anything else. Aoi loved his music too, so he'd love her back, right? Like he loved all his fans. Of course it would be like that.
She met him once before he drank himself into oblivion and tumbled off the edge of the pier. She and her soon-to-be-brother were at her soon-to-be-stepfather's company, in the room off the side of his office. She was coloring, with Akira periodically commenting on her efforts while he did his homework. She'd been absorbed in her work, until she heard the most wonderful, most beautiful, most melodic voice—
"Geez girl, you're really movin' on up in the world!"
Aoi stopped mid crayon stroke.
"Not all of us can live fifteen years in the past." A pause, the shuffling of paper. "Here. My attorney marked off where you need to sign."
"And you're gonna give me what you promised, right?"
"You'll receive your compensation," her soon-to-be-stepfather stepped in.
She got up from her seat. She needed to see him, to look into eyes the same color as hers. Behind her, she could hear Akira set his book aside. "Aoi…"
"Goddamn, you're making this sound like some sorta business transaction."
The King of LUNA scoffed. "Isn't it?"
"Stop." Her mother interceded. "Let's just get this over with."
Aoi made it up to the door. In front of her soon-to-be-stepfather's desk stood a spindly man dressed in black. Even at a distance she could catch the scent of stale cigarettes, and she instantly loved the smell just as much as she loved him.
Her daddy was bent over the documents, and she could see the bumps his spine poke out from beneath his too-tight shirt. He signed off with his left hand, and Aoi thought that was so special. When he set the pen down she could see the trembling in his hands.
She wandered out the front door, and made it two steps before Akira caught her by the upper arm. "Come Aoi, let's go back inside—"
Without looking back she pulled away, walking over to the crowd of adults. "Daddy?"
The man turned around. He looked much older than he did in the picture. He had crows-feet at the corners of his brown eyes, lines etched around his mouth, and grey hair threaded through his blue locks. His face twisted into a grimace. "Why's our boy wearing a dress?"
Oh. Oh.
"Goodness, you mistook your daughter for a son. How does one do that, exactly?" her soon-to-be-stepfather drawled. He sounded like he was bored. "But I suppose you wouldn't know her that well, this is the second time you've ever seen her.
Her daddy was still looking at her mom. "I know this isn't our kid."
Her mom had been staring at the ground, but her head shot up at that remark. Her blue-grey eyes were glistening, "How could you say that? She has your eyes!"
"He."
"She!" Her brother shot back from behind her.
The King of LUNA stared at the other man with soulless eyes. "I fail to see why this matters to you. You've relinquished your parental rights." He slid a smaller piece of paper across his desk. "It was a pleasure doing business. You can see yourself out."
She swore her daddy eyes grew a shade darker when he saw that piece of paper. He slowly picked it up and held it at eye level. "Goddamn," he smirked. "I never thought I'd see this many zeros on a check."
"Get out!" her mother roared.
As soon as they got home her mom hid herself away in her bedroom, and the man she was going to marry followed in soon after. Aoi couldn't hear what they were saying, so she went to her room and laid down on her side, trying to visually trace the pattern of her floral wallpaper through her blurred vision. And when she started started to cry for real, she buried her face in her pillow. She didn't want them to know.
How could daddy—not daddy, that guy—do that to her in front of her new family? Didn't she look pretty? Did some men just not want daughters? Why didn't he want her? She wanted him for so long, staring at that stupid picture and dreaming of the day he'd sing a song just for her. But he wouldn't. He didn't love her and made it so that no one else would, either. If the person she got her eyes from didn't love her, how could anyone else?
Her thoughts fell further and further down this path—nobody loves me, nobody loves me, nobody loves me—when she felt someone place their hand on her back. She jumped, instinctively turning to face the source of contact.
It was Akira, who recoiled at her sudden movement. "Sorry, I was just calling for you. You didn't answer so I decided to check…" his brows furrowed. "Are you okay?"
Aoi wiped the tears and snot away with her sleeve. She tried to nod, but only wound up crying even harder.
Her soon-to-be-brother shifted his eyes away, worming his hands into his pockets. "Do you want a tissue?"
She shook her head.
"Some juice? Something to eat?"
She shook her head again, turning back away from him to face the wall.
"Okay." She expected him to leave, but he didn't. "You know Aoi, I'm really glad my dad is marrying your mom. Do you know why?"
Aoi chewed on her nail. Was it possible he still didn't know?
He continued. "Because all my life my dad has been my only family, and all he had was me. We were very lonely with each other." He paused, like he just then realized he was talking to someone with a mouth full of milk teeth. "Being lonely together… I guess that doesn't make much sense, does it?"
It didn't, but Aoi still turned back around to face him. He kneeled down so that they were at eye-level. "I guess I'm trying to say that I'm glad I get to be your brother. We can be there for each other in a way our parents aren't, or can't be. You... can't imagine how much that means to me." He smiled, but even Aoi could see the drop of pain in his expression. "I promise you'll always be my sister, no matter what anyone says."
Mom always said not to hug strangers, but Akira wasn't a stranger. They met three times already, and they were going to be brother and sister, and he knew and he still saw her the way she wanted to be seen—as she was. So she threw her arms around his shoulders, rubbing her tears and snot onto his blazer. He didn't hug her back, but her soon-to-be stepfather never hugged anyone back either.
What was important was that he didn't push her away.