Chapter 11: My father My father, Miss you Am you?
It was a blustery day in Death city and the rain started to pelt down to the ground in a hurry and after a second the sky turned a morbid grey. All around were echoes of the shaa noise rain made as it fell fast, a lullaby to make those who heard it immediately sleepy and put a frown on all those wishing to go outside and explore. Blair the cat with magical powers watched lazily outside, swirling her finger on the fogged up glass and mewling sadly to herself as she watched the rain fall.
"No good, I wanted to cause some mischief nyaa. Rain Rain go away, never come again," She half-heartedly sang with a pout, drawing a frowny face on the glass.
"You can still have fun indoors," Someone said behind her, placing a hand on her lower back and stroking there in a sensual slow way.
Blair stuck out her tongue childishly and curled in a ball. "No way, nya. I wanted to play outside. Spirit make it stop."
"That's something I can't do," replied the man who was Maka's father, his red hair in its usual fashion and his dark green eyes staring outside. As of right now he had a white open shirt with rolled up sleeves and black business pants. "I think even the school is closed today because the weather is so bad."
"I hate rain, it makes me sad somehow. Purr~ Maybe I'll visit the witches when it stops."
"But until then…?"
Blair cast her seductive gaze his way, swishing her tail back and forth excitably and giving him a winning smile. "I suppose I can cause trouble here. I do wonder though, if young Maka knows what her father does here, hmmmeow?"
Spirit sighed heavily, running his fingers through his bloody colored locks, turning away for a second. "No…and she doesn't need to know. She hates me enough as is." His sudden chipper mood melted into a one that matched the gloomy outside. It broke his heart to not be the great father he'd been when Maka was just a little one but now she despised him for all he had done to her mother. He blamed himself for the distance between him and Maka and knew they would never be close again. He had a picture of them in his wallet; a picture was all he could manage to ever have of her. A cherub with blonde pigtails, smiling right at the camera and his arms tight around her.
His hand twitched near his wallet where the picture lay, close to his heart, preserving the memory of his little angel so close to him, forever stuck in a white Polaroid giving him a look she would never cast his way again. All because he had a roaming eye. He still loved Kami, deep down he loved her but something went wrong. That something was him. If he could go back in time and slap himself he would. He left the most beautiful woman in the world and the most adorable child in the world for a few women whose names he couldn't remember. He wasn't in any better state now, try as he might to be a good father he failed miserably every time. She wanted nothing to do with him; it was as if she had no father.
"I hate you don't ever come near me!" She had said when confronting him about cheating on her mother, the person she loved more than breathing.
"But Maka sweetie I-"
"Don't call me that anymore! I don't love you anymore! You are bad, bad, bad, bad!"
"You don't mean that…Maka I'm your father…you can't really hate me….can you?"
"You are not my father anymore."
It tore him in two to see his child, the thing he made from love and loved like nothing else, disown him. No matter how he apologized, no matter what he bought her, no matter what he said she never forgave him, as if he cheated on her and not Kami at all. Spirit wiped away his tears from the memory, feeling his heart thud sadly. As a boy he didn't have a good relationship with his parents either, they constantly fought and his father was a drunken abusive cheater, more so toward the Misses than Spirit. Spirit turned to his friends for help but they were worse for the wear.
Azusa was raised by a strict Asian family who expected a lot of her, Marie didn't even know who her father was and her mother died at an early age with only the memory of how she prostituted herself in young Maries mind and Stein…No one knew exactly what Steins home life was like or how he ended up the way he did but Spirit remembered that one day in the locker room Stein had marks on his back and this time Stein wasn't the one who made them.
"Pretty neat huh?" He whispered to Spirit when he saw them.
"You do that? You need to stop it Stein, it's crazy!"
"I suppose we are all a little crazy…but I didn't do them."
"Then who did?"
Stein tilted his head with a sick grin, a sad spark in his eyes as if he wanted to cry but couldn't. It crushed Spirit on the inside, so much so he almost tore his eyes away. Those green eyes were pleading for pity and straining to feel some foreign emotion. He probably had forgotten what human emotion even was. Stein laughed in the usual way he does that makes people run away before shrugging and saying, with an undertone of jest,
"Beats me."
The words haunted Spirit for the remainder of his youth until it was that Spirit put two and two together. Of all of them Stein was the worst off. The reason Stein knew no human emotion was because he was denied any. Spirit came to realize that there were many people he knew that had horrible childhoods or some sort of back story that was hard to bear but Spirit felt the worst for Stein. He still did to this day and not a day went by where Spirit did not feel bad for anything he said toward the man. Once Spirit asked if Stein was an only child, his response…
"I wasn't always. I had a sister once."
"What happened to her?"
"She died."
"Oh….I'm sorry…"
"Don't be. It's what she wanted."
Spirit grimaced at that not wanting to think further into what was said. Stein always said creepy things and was fascinated with the occult and bizarre, so who knows what he meant. Only Stein knew what went on behind the closed doors of his past, doors he wished not open but Marie often commented how even her dear Frank, mad as he is, has nightmares too. He jots them down in a notebook, she said, and thought it's rude of her, she reads them, hoping it might help. Always there is one line, only one line, scribbled hastily in red ink all over the pages, staring at her.
STOP IT
Blair wrapped her tail around Spirits legs and looked up at him. "Something wrong? You seem sad all the sudden, mrrow."
"It's just…I've turned into my father…"
"Your father?"
"Yeah…" His voice cracked and a tear went down his face, "Soon I'll be abusing people too…what if I hurt Maka?"
"You're not an angry drunk, Spirit. Pump um pumpkin," Blair chanted, producing a pumpkin pattered napkin for him to wipe his eyes.
"Neither was he…at first. It makes me wonder just how much of our fathers we have in us…If Stein….If Black*Star even…"
"Hmmmrrow?" Blair tilted her head of purple hair to the side, stroking over his shoulders and kissing his nape. She hated having to talk about deep or depressing stuff. She'd rather talk about shopping or catching bugs in the fields. Sometimes Spirit was such a downer.
"Nothing. Forget I said anything, kay? I'm an idiot," Spirit accused, rubbing the back of his head. "Now about that mischief making?"
"Thought you'd never ask!" Blair excitably squealed then turned her attention back to the window, eyes wide as if she saw something shiny. "Hey is that…is that Kid?"
"Yeah it is Kid, where is he going in this weather and without an umbrella?"
"Beats me."
Spirit shuddered at that, feeling ice running down his back and seeing that heart destroying spark in those electric green eyes on that face that was, back then, unstitched. Outside was Death the Kid, donned in his usual garb, his mask on his head and trudging slowly through the mud, uncaring about his boots getting dirty at the moment. He kept walking; head down, until he got to his destination where he got on his knees, sitting there in silence for the longest times.
"Forgive me for being late…" He spoke through a rough voice, soft and wounded, digging his hand in his pocket, "But the rain held me up a bit. I brought you something…"
From his pocket he produced the skull shaped cookie he had been saving from the other day and placed it on the ground, a bitter smile spread across his face. "I see you have many flowers…that is good. How am I? I am alright…No…I'm lying to you….I'm sorry. Forgive me for that too…"
Kid took off his mask and pulled back his cape, letting the rain soak his hair and frame. You could not tell because of the rain but he was crying profusely. His hand went over his heart that broke inside his ribcage.
"I am weak…I am so so weak…How can I even…How do you even…What do I do? I feel maddened! I thought I could handle this…What's that? You are still proud of me? That makes me feel better…"
Kid curled up and just stared into space, breathing in a shaky fashion as sobs wrecked his form. "I went to the coffee shop, you know? I met Maka and Soul and we saw Marie's baby. His name? It's Ein. Yeah…I know. Oh yeah? You think so? Me too…"
His golden eyes looked up upon what he had been intently staring at for so long, begging for direction, begging for guidance, begging for mercy, and begging for things which he could not attain. What he was looking at, where he was, what he walked so far to get to was his father's tomb.
"Father…I miss you…so so much. I was a piece of you and so when you died, a piece of me died too. It gets harder for me to measure up to you…I am not you…at times I feel like I'm not your son. What do I do? Please help me!"
Kid screamed to the tomb, trembling as pain shot right through him. "You won't answer…I only pretend you talk to me to ease my suffering…but it never goes away…never…at times I feel it will never get better."
A howling wind rushed past him and blew his hair, making his skin create goose bumps from the cold. The wind roared in the trees and made the petals of all the flowers float in the air. He grit his teeth hard, looking down at the ground, seeing the treat he brought get all soggy from the rain. It was the only way he could…the only way he could share it with his father again….
"It will get better soon," A whispery breath of a voice said in his ear making his head jolt up to see a figure standing next to the tomb. He didn't recognize the figure at all but the voice sounded eerily familiar.
"Who are you? Have you followed me here? Speak now!" Kid barked, on guard but never sounding too angry.
Then, without a trace, the figure left as they came, mysteriously and quietly, leaving only one thing behind which was a plant in a bright pink pot. Kid recognized the flowers, they were orchids, nothing too special about them but if Kid wasn't mistaken…
They were the same orchids that Maka gave to Crona.
