Happy Father's day! This idea came to me when I saw the most adorable picture of Ryoma ruffling Shiro's hair, so I hope you all enjoy it! (PS: If Anyone from the Naruto fandom is seeing this, I'm working on Dream Girl and Good Luck, I swear!)

Through a child's eyes, the world is nothing but a wondrous space just begging to be explored.

The skies are multicolored and the oceans are vast. Time is precious and people are unique. "Life," was what the adults called it. This was what it meant to be alive – to learn. To learn about the skies above their heads and to learn about ground beneath their feet. To explore different concepts brought to light.

The adults, however, didn't think that 5-year-old Shiro would have to explore the concept of death so soon and so gravely.

He sat next to his father in the first row, but was unable to see his mother – only the shiny mahogany box they put her in. A coffin was what he heard Aunt Hinoka call it. As Shiro listened to the man up at the podium speak about his mother, he subconsciously pulled Crimson, his wyvern plushie, closer to his chest.

"...Scarlet was a wonderful, lively person," the man spoke. He stood straight, hands behind him, and his voice was clear as day. "As a geologist, she was committed to her work, and was one of the best employees I've ever had. She was one of the best people I've had the pleasure of meeting, and we will all truly miss her."

If Shiro had the proper words to say, he'd call this entire thing pitiful. The dull clapping, the robotic speeches – all of this felt wrong to him. It was as if no one truly cared. Where was their passion? Where were their hearts? They all just sat there silently, letting their tears roll freely down their cheeks.

This "funeral" was really getting on his nerves. Grandpa Sumeragi said that funerals were supposed to celebrate lives, like a going away party. This was the worst party he'd ever seen. His mother only deserved the best going away party.

Shiro's body moved before he could really think about what exactly it was he was going to do. There were several people calling his name, but they were all ignored. He made his way up to the podium, causing his mother's boss' speech to be cut halfway. He didn't have a microphone, and he wasn't sure if everyone could see him properly, but Shiro knew he needed to be up there.

"I just wanted to say, that my mom's the coolest person out there!" He cried. "She cooks me yummy chicken, and she reads me the best bedtime stories! And she collects the shiniest rocks just for me, so I'm gonna be a geolographer just like her! I dunno where she's going, but that's okay. Grownups do lots of stuff I don't get."

What he didn't expect were more people to start breaking out in tears. Even Grandma Ruby began to sob. Shiro didn't understand. What did he say that was so bad? "S-sorry, I didn't mean to hurt everyone's feelings…" he grumbled.

He only wanted to everyone to know how great his mother was. A family friend retrieved him, and sat him next to his father who was hunched over in his chair. Shiro tugged on the sleeve of his suit jacket. "Dad?" He called out to him. "Hey Dad, why is everyone crying? How come, huh?"

"Shiro, please," Ryoma spoke slowly. "I need you to be quiet, okay?"

Why did his father sound so broken? "But Dad, I don't get it. It's a going away party, right? Then why is everyone sad? Is Mom… not coming back?"

"Dad will explain everything later, okay? But right now, I…" Ryoma's voice hitched. "I need you to keep quiet. Please, Shiro."

While he didn't understand why he had to be quiet, Shiro didn't like how deflated his father sounded, so he kept his mouth shut as the funeral went on. Before he knew it, they all got to look inside the coffin one by one.

In his father's arms, Shiro could see his mother's sleeping face. She looked comfortable in there, but Shiro wondered if she'd have any space to stretch out if she needed to. Although she looked like she'd be warm and comfy in the box, her hands felt cold and stiff.

Soon, Ryoma's hold on him felt a little tighter, and he looked back to see his father's face stricken with grief. Shiro's soft, small hands moved to wipe away Ryoma's tears. "I know I'm not s'posed to talk, but you don't have to cry, Dad."

Ryoma couldn't answer him verbally. He only nodded.

By the time of Scarlet's burial, Shiro knew exactly why they were celebrating her life. It was because she didn't have one anymore. When he learned this, he couldn't help the tears that rolled down his cheeks either.

The sun peeked out through the little openings of the blinds, shining light on blue carpeting and white, dinosaur patterned sheets. Shiro, who was half awake, could feel a presence over him. His eyes fluttered open, and when his vision wasn't so blurry, he realized he was face to face with his father.

The young boy groaned, and pulled the blankets over his head.

"Oh no you don't," Ryoma said, tearing the blankets from him. "It's time to get up, son."

A shiver climbed down his spine and the warmth of his blankets were ripped from him. "Ugh! Dad, it's too early! Can't I get five more minutes?" Shiro pleaded.

"I think not! You know exactly why I wake you up this early," Ryoma lifted his son with ease and placed him over his shoulder. "Come on, Shiro. Who's going to excavate all those rocks if you don't wake up early enough to do it?"

"I can do it tomorrow!" Shiro whined.

Ryoma hummed. "Maybe, but today is also the first day of school. And you can't skip that." Shiro gave an exasperated sigh. He could have skipped the first day of school, but he wasn't about to argue that point to his father.

A warm shower was just the thing Shiro needed to properly wake him up. This alert, more excitable Shiro was what Ryoma was more accustomed to. As a towel clad Shiro dashed out of the bathroom and back into his bedroom, Ryoma had to scold him about running in the house. Though, it felt like he was wasting his breath. When was Shiro not running in the house?

"Okay, I'm gonna eat breakfast now!" Shiro cried, running towards the stairs. His father caught him before he could fly down them. "Hey, what gives?"

"Did you even brush your teeth yet?" Ryoma asked. Shiro had gone quiet for a moment. "…Go brush your teeth."

"Only if you race me!" He beamed.

Ryoma set his son down and folded his arms across his chest. "Why does everything have to be a race with you? Besides, I've already brushed my teeth."

Shiro rushed to the bathroom and climbed his stepstool before hastily applying toothpaste on his toothbrush. "Cause I have to be the fastest!" There was an unspoken "duh" at the end of that sentence, as if to say that this was common knowledge.

From the mirror's reflection, Shiro could see his father leaning against the door's frame. "If you do that, they'll start to bleed," Ryoma said.

The smirk on Ryoma's face came from the look of pure horror his son's face. "Teeth can do that? You're lying!"

"Would you like to try and find out?"

Shiro brushed his teeth normally, and the two were able to eat breakfast and head out. Just as Ryoma expected, Shiro would linger behind to look for any rocks that would fit in his collection. It ate up a considerable amount of time of their commute to school when Shiro was in kindergarten.

Now that Ryoma knew better this time around, it wasn't a problem at all. Dealing with Shiro's crankiness in the morning was worth seeing the bright smile on his face when he picked up a fascinating rock. "Hey Shiro," Ryoma called out, "Doesn't this one look nice?"

As Ryoma bent down to pick up the blue tinted rock, Shiro stopped him. "No Dad! We gotta exivate it first."

Oh right. On his path to becoming a geologist, Shiro also demanded to excavate all the rocks he wanted in his collection. "Alright Shiro," Ryoma ruffled his hair. "Let's hurry before school starts."

Shiro ended up collecting four rocks that morning, which found their way into Ryoma's pocket since his son was always so distracted by them during school hours. As they reached the school building, Ryoma kneeled down to look his son in the eye.

"First day of first grade. Are you excited?" He asked.

"You bet!" Shiro cried.

"Good. And I want you to be on your best behavior."

"No promises!" Shiro beamed before rushing off into the school building. After a moment passed, Shiro peeked back out to wave goodbye to his father, and Ryoma waved back. As he stood up, one phrase continued to circle in his mind.

This was something that Scarlet was supposed to see.

The sounds of her incessant groaning was beginning to tire Ryoma out, especially now that he knew she'd been doing it on purpose. This had been going on for almost an hour now, and although Ryoma considered himself a patient man, he couldn't let it go on any longer.

When he stepped into the bedroom, his wife greeted him with a mischievous smile. "A-ha! I knew it wouldn't be long before you ran in here."

"Scarlet," he began, "why are you making such a fuss in here?"

She frowned. "Maybe it's because you have me in here, bedridden. Do you know how horrible it is not being able to move around freely?"

"The doctors said that you shouldn't move around needlessly. So for your sake, and the baby's, try to relax."

Scarlet let out a long sigh, and her husband thought it'd be best to lie beside her and comfort her. "This kid needs to get out. Right now."

"No, not right now," Ryoma countered. "You're very impatient, you know."

"I know, but I just can't wait to meet him. Can't you?" She asked. The look of worry on Ryoma's face began to frighten her. Ryoma hardly worried about anything. He was always so cool and composed. "Is something wrong? I thought you were excited too."

Ryoma kept silent for a while, as Scarlet continually ran her fingers through his hair. "I am, but… as shameful as it is to admit it, I'm nervous about all this… about being a father. It's a huge responsibility and I want to be a good father to my child but…"

As his voice trailed off, Scarlet placed a gentle kiss on her husband's head. "Hey, don't sweat it, alright? I'm new to this too, so you're not alone," she said. "Besides, we'll get to share a lot of firsts together too. That'll be fun."

Ryoma raised an eyebrow, and Scarlet continued on. "We'll get to be there for his first word, and when he gets up and takes his first steps."

"…I suppose we'll be there for his first birthday as well. Ah, and when he grows his first tooth."

Scarlet chuckled. "And when he loses his first tooth too."

Soon, the two of them talk and joke about things from their baby's first vacation to his first day at school, and everything in between. Raising a child was no easy task, but knowing that Scarlet would be with him every step of the way put his mind at ease.

Ryoma was always reminded of that particular conversation whenever he gazed at the photo of them on Shiro's first birthday. Slowly, he took the picture frame off of his desk, taking in the happy smiles on their faces – Scarlet's in particular.

Shiro definitely got his smile from her, Ryoma concluded.

The knock on his opened office door caused him to look up at one of his subordinates. "I was stopping by to give you my report," she began, but her eyes look towards the picture frame in his hand. "Oh, is that…?"

She didn't need to say anything more. The entire law firm had heard of Ryoma's late wife, and even though a full year had passed, it was as if they were walking on eggshells with him. Quietly, her eyes glossed over a few more on top of filing cabinets. "W-wow… your son must have gotten so big since we've last seen him. How old is he again?"

"He's six now," Ryoma answered. "Since August."

"Then, he must have started school now. That's good! I'll bet that he'll be as bright you!"

Ryoma smiled. "Thank you. That means a lot."

"O-oh right! The report! So, this is what our numbers have been showing for these past couple of months…"

As she spoke, Ryoma slowly drowned her voice out with his own thoughts about Scarlet. Maybe he should have taken today off.

Shiro was always a proud little boy, and proud little boys didn't like to hold their father's hands any more. At least not until they were a block away from the school building. "Are you afraid that your friends will tease you if you keep holding your father's hand?" Ryoma asked.

After the first week of school, he noticed that Shiro's arm would go limp. After the second, he'd felt his son try to pull away from him. Ryoma found it amusing.

"Nah, I don't care about stuff like that, but it's kind of lame," Shiro said, smoothing out his shirt. "You're kinda messing with my style when you do that?"

What style? Ryoma thought to himself. "Alright then, I won't hold your hand anymore."

Shiro frowned. "I mean, it's okay to do it sometimes… But only sometimes!"

Ryoma let out a light laugh. "Okay, I'll hold your hand. But only sometimes."

After a quick hug (quick enough that nobody noticed but long enough to make Shiro feel warm inside), Shiro waved goodbye to his father before they went their separate ways. Today was a good day, because Shiro hadn't given his father all of the rocks he collected this morning.

He kept the prettiest one all to himself. It was yellow with little brown spots on it, and it was the prettiest one because it reminded him of his mother and those freckles of hers. During class, Shiro would always keep his hand in his pocket as his thumb continued to run over the rock.

During lunch, Shiro was able to look at it more often. It wasn't as shiny as he originally thought, but it was still the prettiest. He'd make sure that he'd put this one in a different box from all of his other rocks for Crimson to guard.

"Yo, Shiro!" One of his classmates called out to him.

"Whatcha want?" He didn't even look up at them.

Another one snorted. "Figures. He's always looking at those rocks."

Shiro rolled his eyes. What's it to them anyway? When he looked up, he noticed that three of them had surrounded him. One of the children had a cool robot band aid on his left cheek while another looked like he was chewing on gum. The third one was a little tall for his age. Stuffing the rock back in his pocket, he asked again, "Whatcha want?"

"How come your dad always takes you to school? Why's it never your mom?" The taller kid asked.

He shrugged. "I don't have a mom," he said simply.

The child with the band aid laughed. "Really? You never shut up about your mom and those dumb rocks, and you mean to tell me you don't have one?"

"Haha, what'd she do, leave you and your dad? It's probably cause you're so annoying!" The taller one laughed.

"Hey, don't you think that's going too far?" The other child cut in.

"Don't be stupid, Asugi. You don't think he's annoying? Yelling 'rocks this,' and 'my mom,' that! No one cares!"

As they chattered away, the flowers outside the window caught his attention. They reminded him of something his mother told him a while back.

"You look so happy Mom, is it cause of those flowers?" Shiro asked, peeking over her shoulder.

Scarlet grinned. "Sure are kiddo! They're called primroses, and they're my favorite. Especially the white ones. Your dad gets them for me all the time."

They sure were pretty, sitting in a vase like that. What really interested him was its yellow center. "Hey Mom, why's the middle yellow?"

"Oh that?" She asked. "That's the flower's yellow eye."

"Yellow eye?" Shiro parroted.

His mother nodded. "Mhmm! And guess what? They're all my eyes! They help me see in other places."

Shiro gasped. "That can't happen! You can't have more than two eyes!"

"Oh, but I can. And I can prove it. I saw when you were playing with your soccer ball in the house yesterday, ya little scamp!" She cried, giving her son a light noogie in the process."

"Wha? But you weren't there!"

"I wasn't. But my flowers saw you, so I saw you!"

Shiro remembered how amazed he was that she could see everything through those yellow eyes. Gazing at the flowers once more, he concluded that even though those flowers has yellow eyes too, they weren't primroses.

So, they weren't his mother's eyes.

That meant that his mother didn't get to see that moment in time where her son used all his strength to punch another child square in the face.

The icepack against his throbbing right eye stung terribly, but his father insisted he keep it there, saying that it'd reduce the swelling. Shiro's head hurt, his arms were weak, and his right hand was freezing. To top it all, his father's constant back and forth pacing wasn't helping his mood.

And looking at his son's beat up face wasn't doing much for Ryoma's mood either, so he did his best not to look at him. His heart stopped when he was called out of a meeting to be told that his son had gotten into a fight at school.

Here he thought that in these past few months, Shiro had been making friends. His pacing came to a halt, and Shiro's posture stiffened. "Why did you put your hands on another student, Shiro?" When his question had earned him no response, Ryoma could feel his patience thinning. "I'm asking you a question, Shiro."

"I know," he shot back.

The tone wasn't appreciated, but Ryoma pressed on anyway. "Then answer me. Why did you hit that child?"

"Because he pissed me off!" Shiro cried.

"Hey," Ryoma scolded. "Watch your language!"

Shiro huffed. "You asked me why, and I told you."

Ryoma let out a sigh of exasperation. "Shiro, you can't just hit people when they make you angry. That's not okay." Shiro sat there silently, turning his head away from his father's narrowed gaze. "Alright, that's it. I'm taking away those video games."

The icepack slipped from his grasp and hit the floor with a loud thud. "Why!? I didn't do anything wrong!" He cried, rocketing up from the couch.

"I just got through telling you why. You cannot hit other people just because you're upset," Ryoma said. "Hand me the ones you have on your room."

"But I didn't do anything wrong, this isn't fair!" Shiro cried.

"I'm not going to tell you again, Shiro!" Ryoma shot back, his patience finally gone.

Shiro's cheeks had puffed up in anger before storming upstairs. The slamming of his bedroom door soon followed. Ryoma was quick to call him out. "What did I say about slamming doors in this house!?" He cried.

His son's only response was to scream as loud and as hard as he could, and Ryoma plopped down onto the couch in pure frustration. His hands moved to massage his temples. Ryoma hadn't expected this to be easy, but he didn't think he'd be at such a loss of what to do so soon.

Was he doing the right thing? Were his frustrations and concerns justified?

His son neglected to tell him anything about his little scrap, and became irate when his punishment was handed down. How could he effectively explain to a child that his behavior had been offensive without him getting angry?

Ryoma ran a hand through his brown tresses, and a long sigh escaped him. Was he supposed to approach this differently? Maybe it would have been best to give Shiro some time to rest before confronting him about the fight.

He could definitely feel a headache coming on.

With his head cleared and nerves in check, Ryoma lightly knocked on Shiro's door. There was no response, but when he tried the doorknob, he was relieved to know that Shiro hadn't locked himself inside. He opened the door just enough to be able to peek in. Although the lights were off, he could see his son's silhouette sitting on the bed.

"…May I come in?"

Shiro sighed. "So you can take my games away? I packed them up already."

"No, I just want to talk to you," Ryoma said. "So, may I come in?"

He shrugged, and Ryoma took this as an okay to enter. He removed one of Shiro's pillows to sit down on the bed, taking note of how wet it was. He'd been crying, Ryoma thought. "I still want to talk about what happened at school."

"I already told you," Shiro said hoarsely. "They made me mad."

Ryoma bit down on his lip momentarily. "How did they make you angry?"

"They made fun of me cause I don't have a mom anymore…" he croaked, and Ryoma could feel his heart sink into the pit of his stomach. "They laughed at me, and they made fun of her too… So it's fair, right? What I did was fair cause they can't say that… right…?"

"Shiro…" Ryoma spoke as he embraced his son. The only words that were able to leave his mouth were, "I'm sorry…"

It was wrong of those children to speak to Shiro like that, but on the other hand, he couldn't go around punching everyone who insulted him. As Ryoma explained it as delicately as possible, Shiro didn't once lash out or become angry. It was safe to say that he understood.

"…Those kids suck," Shiro murmured, causing Ryoma to chuckle.

"I suppose they do."

With a soft kiss on Shiro's head, Ryoma promised to become the best father he possibly could.