Title: Rhapsody in Blue
Rating: K+
Genre: Family/Hurt/Comfort
Pairing: Jirou/?
Jirou is dancing again.
In the backyard, arms outstretched, reaching towards the sky as if trying to coax it down and play. He spins around once and then again, curls shaking happily in the breeze, that eternal look of rapture spread across his face like sun across silk. For all the world, he looks like a child who's caught spring fever – never mind the fact that Jirou is almost twelve and it's the frigid month of January. You watch through the kitchen window as his lips move to hum some tune that's surely as whimsical as the singer himself.
Jirou, your strange, sweet son.
You've never been able to grasp him in any sense of the word. As a child he never cried – never could, seeing how he spent most of the day dozing around the odd corners of the house, blanket in tow and a mischievous, kitten-like smile across his face. Jirou is one of those children who learn to run before they can walk – and decide that running is infinitely more fun. Remember how he used to trip around the neighborhood tennis courts with a baseball cap on backwards? – completely riveted on the chase to that fuzzy green ball like you've never seen towards anything else.
He should be inside, you think, it's too cold out, exams are coming up, he's got a B- average… and yet you don't move. Just a little bit longer, you think, just a little bit more. It can't hurt to give him some freedom – it's scarce enough in today's world as is – doubly so for Jirou, who's never been completely there in the first place.
You will use this rationalization many times in the future, in justifying your laissez-faire attitude towards him. Even when Jirou turns eighteen and gets his first tattoo, causing your spouse to throw a fit, you will just shake your head. Of course you'll wonder: Why? Who is this person, important enough to have their name engraved across Jirou's smooth skin in swirling, dark blue letters? But beneath all those very responsible, rational thoughts, you'll tell yourself: boys will be boys. Because Jirou is like air, like sunlight, like a let-go balloon string, you reach out knowing full well that nothing can ever make him stay.
The phone call nine years from now, in the early hours of morn, will surprise and terrify you to equal degrees.
"Oh my god, Gakuto, I-I've done something terrible. Oh sh*t, I've ruined everything, what am I going to do, I can't believe-"
"Jirou? Buddy, you okay?" You'll try to make your voice sound low and comforting even though inside, you're probably more rattled than he is at the moment. Somehow, through whatever perverse process is part of parenthood, the Jirou of your memories will have been enshrined in a sterile glass case, decked out like a fairy in luster and silk. The one on the phone who sounds hysterical and heartbroken is a different creature altogether, dimming and shaking and warping the twelve-year old Jirou who dances through your mind over and over, stuck on repeat.
"Jirou? You still there?"
A pause. Then: "Sorry, wrong number." Click.
You'll find out way later, in confusing, broken snippets from an informant, something about Jirou and geese and a house on a hill by the sea.
By then, rheumatic arthritis and round-the-clock medications will keep you from visiting him. So you'll ask, "Is he happy?", dreading the inevitable "No" that's the only shadow on an otherwise successful life. Because however far-removed, however futile it might have been, you'll think that you should have reached out more.
There will be a long sigh on the other end of the line. At last, the informant (who just happens to be the same person whose name Jirou had tattooed under his collarbone at eighteen) will say, "I think so. I hope so."
But all that lies in the future. Now, as you watch him, you idly entertain the thought that Jirou's not dancing at all, but waving goodbye.
Author's note: I entered this a while back for the Scholastic Arts & Writing Competition, under a different title with some minor modifications (like, the son's name is Jack and Gakuto is 'Leo'). It didn't win anything though. :( Yet another example of how anime and real life do not mix.
Concrit is very much appreciated! I'd love to know what you got, if anything, from reading this.