Never Enough Time
A conversation between father and son between the hours of the night.
Yukio wakes up with a slow blink, his eyes dragging open to peer into the pitch-black darkness of his room. There is a blanket of exhaustion weighing down his body, a bone-tired ache that he is all too familiar with despite his young age. His head tilts on his pillow as he wonders what time it is. The alarm clock next to his bed glares red blurry numbers at him, but the room is dark enough that he thinks it may be a time earlier than he is used to waking up. The knowledge allows him to relax again. His eyelids falter and begin to close again.
The floor creaks.
The sound makes him tense and the heavy weight of footsteps shuffling has Yukio blinking away his sleep. His heartbeat spikes up and, carefully, he sits up on his bed with bated breath. A few feet ahead of him, there is a familiar figure kneeling down on the floor, peering into the bottom rows of his bookcase. The image is blurry without his glasses, and normally, the dim lighting of the room would make it impossible to tell who it might be, but Yukio instinctively knows who this is.
"Father...?"
Shiro glances back and lets out a soft sound under his breath upon seeing him awake.
"Damn, I didn't mean to wake you," he says, his gruff voice apologetic.
Yukio rubs his hand across his eyes and reaches for his glasses. The sheepish smile crossing Father's face becomes clear.
"Go back to sleep, Yukio. It's still early."
Yukio shakes his head; he is already slipping out of bed.
"What's going on? Do you need help with anything, Father?"
"No, no. I was just looking for a book," Shiro replies, rubbing the back of his neck. "I thought I had leant it to you, but that was a while back now that I remember."
Yukio wonders why now, at this time, would Father be looking for a book, but he doesn't ask that. Instead, "Which one was it?" he says.
"Ah, it was that one, you know." Shiro waves a hand in front of him, the gesture dismissive. "The one on summons. But seriously, Yukio, go back to sleep. You look like you need it," he says, a frown tugging at his lips.
Yukio shakes his head again. He doesn't feel like going back to sleep anymore. "I'm awake now." Might as well make use of the extra time, he thinks.
Shiro lets out a resigned sigh and pushes himself up to his feet. "How about we have an early breakfast then?" he proposes.
The walk to the kitchen is short. They sit down at the kitchen table. Or rather, Yukio sits, having been urged by the large, insistent hands on his shoulders. Shiro is tinkering around the kitchen, doing his best not to make too much noise as he navigates through it despite having left the lights off. Yukio's eyesight has since adjusted to the darkness, and he follows his father's movements attentively. He is still not sure what time it is exactly. There is a clock in here somewhere that will help him confirm it, but when his father slides a cup of coffee in front of him, Yukio only smiles, slow and pleased, as his hands curve around the warm cup.
They sit in the silence for several minutes, enjoying the peace that can only be found in the hours between when one is asleep and when one is awake. The monastery, for all intents and purposes, feels empty, devoid of life—conversations, obligations—and Yukio can't remember when was the last time he felt this relaxed.
Almost as if his father could read his mind, he breaks the comfortable silence by saying, "It feels like it's been a while since the two of us sat down like this." He lets out a short, almost tired huff, and a smile tugs at his lips. He meets Yukio's eyes warmly. "How have you been lately, Yukio?"
Yukio thinks about it, his eyes falling down to the table momentarily. There is a bowl of cereal next to his cup, he realizes. Pink and green little marshmallow dinosaurs are floating up atop a pool of milk. He isn't sure when Father poured it out for him, but he is grateful for the gesture. My favorite, he notes with a small smile, lifting a spoonful into his mouth.
"School going okay?" Shiro prompts, and Yukio realizes he had yet to offer a response. His spoon falters and his back unconsciously straightens. School…
"Kurosawa-sensei should be giving out the results of last week's exam soon—" he begins, but his report falters upon seeing Shiro wince, holding one eye closed.
"I'm sure you did fine on that, of course." There is a hint of pride in Shiro's voice. "You're always on top of your studies. But I meant school, Yukio, school." He leans over to ruffle Yukio's hair. The touch is earnest, affectionate—I've missed this, Yukio thinks a little achingly—and his stomach flutters as he allows himself to lean into it briefly.
"Have you been getting along with your peers? Any girls I should know about?"
Yukio pulls back fast, cheeks flushed. Whatever expression is on his face makes Shiro laugh.
"Father…!" he protests.
Shiro's lips stretch wide, his grin teasing. He leans his body forward on the table, resting his cheek into his palm.
"I wonder, just how many love letters have you already received…?" The older man ponders out loud, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "At your age, and with that head over your shoulders, I imagine your shoebox must be filled with them! Or maybe… Has there already been a brave one yet that's given it to you directly?" he mused.
Yukio feels his face steadily get pinker at the thought, and he's suddenly grateful of the dim lighting of the room. "Please stop teasing me about that. I don't… I don't have time that kind of thing anyway!"
Father has never been the type to stop teasing anyone easily. Yukio mentally prepares himself for the onslaught that will follow, vowing to never reveal that there had been a girl. Chocolates, too. It's a day he'd really rather not recall at all. So, he is surprised when, instead of asking another embarrassing question on the subject, Shiro's light-hearted mood fades along with his smile.
He looks… sad, Yukio realizes, with a sudden pang of guilt for having caused it. He has never seen that expression before. Somber, tired, worn—those were familiar; never sad. He wonders what exactly had caused it.
"Time, huh…" Shiro's eyes close, leaving Yukio's to wander.
Time has not been kind to Shiro Fujimoto. Objectively, Yukio knows that his father is old, but it is something that is hard to notice on a face you see every day. Now, as the moon peers out from the behind the clouds and shines down through their kitchen window, the teen realizes that the wrinkles on Father's brow are more pronounced than he remembers. There are frown lines marring his cheeks, crinkles at the corner of his eyes. His face is thin, drawn. Even as they're sitting down, Yukio notices the difference in their height has been reversed.
There is a time where Yukio remembers sitting on his Father's shoulders alongside his brother, each of them with a festival mask propped up on the side of their heads. Yukio had been scared back then. There had been tears pooling at the bottom of his eyes at the thought of falling, and then worse, at being lost amongst the sea of people surrounding them, but Father's hands, so big at that time, had held on fast to his small body, and Yukio had held on too, feeling safe, secure. It is a time that seems like so long ago right now.
"You have a lot of love inside of you, Yukio," Shiro says abruptly, catching his eyes again. Yukio stills under that gaze. There has always been strength in it, the strength he has always admired, always sought after. "Love is what makes people grow strong, you know? It's your love for your brother than allows you to train so hard, isn't it? I don't want you to forget that."
Love?
The concept shouldn't feel foreign; certainly, his desire to protect his brother, to make his father proud, stems from there, yet there is something inside Yukio, something sharp and cutting, that twists at the word. The line of his lips turns flat.
"What are you saying…?"
Yukio thinks of the steel in his father's eyes when he's facing down an enemy, the respect that he's surrounded with by all who know him, the responsibilities that he faces. Yukio has always admired his Father, even if he has not always understood him. It's that sort of strength that he wants to emulate.
"I know I've been hard on you… You're so mature for your age, sometimes I forget you're still just a kid." Father's eyes don't look strong right now. They look worn. Haunted. It is that expression that stops Yukio from protesting at his Father's choice of words.
"I am not always right…" the priest whispers.
A chill runs down Yukio's spine. "Why…" he says. The word feels dizzy on his lips. It is a buzzing, weak protest. "Why are you telling me this…?"
Shiro carries on, neither answering nor acknowledging his question. "Even so, I want you to listen well now, at least to this piece of advice." He reaches forward then, his hand capturing Yukio's hand beneath his own. "Take care of yourself, Yukio. Eat well! Live well!"
Yukio stares, bewildered, at their joined hands. The mug beside him is empty. His cereal bowl is untouched.
"I know, I know." And there is Father's rueful voice. "It's not as simple as that. You have responsibilities, and I trust you will handle them well. But there are still some parts of your childhood I want you to enjoy. So, make friends where you can, trust people. Don't become a boring old man like me. The last thing I want for you is to ever feel like you are alone."
Alone.
That word pierces through him much more strongly than the last one. It reveals a hunger inside of him, a hunger that has nothing to do with food, gnawing at the center of his being. There is a monster hiding beneath his skin, and its claws are reaching out, lunging at him, tearing him open as the word—the word—
A few things finally start to connect.
The book that his Father had been looking for is not one that he would've have found in that bookcase, not in such clear sight. And Rin… Rin had not been in their bedroom. There had only been one bed, a single desk—that hadn't been their bedroom at all. Yukio lets that sink in, and he feels truly nauseous as the next realization comes in.
"You're not really here… are you?" he whispers, and the sudden sense of awareness is all too asphyxiating now. Yukio feels the edges of his vision blur.
Shiro looks down for a second, his smile turns sadder.
The hand covering Yukio's own tightens its grip.
"I'm watching over you right now, aren't I?"
Father's hand feels warm. It feels real.
Yukio blinks, and the voice sounds miles away. The image of his father sitting across him fades, replaced by dim sight of his ceiling. He's in his room again, his real one.
He swallows hard and sits up fast. His heart is thundering in his chest and when he covers his face with his hands, he realizes that he is shaking. He can't feel his Father's touch anymore, can't even remember how his warmth felt. I miss you, he thinks, despite all of the anger and growing doubts that have been plaguing him for months.
"I'm watching over you right now, aren't I?"
Yukio's shoulders quiver and he shakes his head. He tries to commit the voice to memory, but the only real noise in the room are Rin's loud snores as he shifts around in bed and Yukio's own harsh breathes as he curls into himself tighter.
Liar.