Author's Note: I had ideas for the chapters that come after this, but not this one. It's been a long bout of writer's block and not finding a song didn't help any matters. Eventually I had an epiphany thanks to Michel Stipe (lead singer of REM).

Song: World Leader Pretend is by REM, I do not own it.

Songs for Daddy

Chapter 11: World Leader Pretend

Hiruma threw himself into his apartment, the adrenaline still rushing in his system. Chizue woke up and began running and barking, clearly upset with the new development. Hiruma ignored the dog, ripped his shoes from his feet and stormed into his bedroom. All the while his mind was moving at a million miles an hour and showed no sign of slowing soon. Somehow he managed to strip, shower, put on pajama bottoms, and crash onto his bed. Finally his mind had calmed, allowing himself to think straight and sensibly again.

In reflection, Hiruma could see himself freaking out. He could see himself being overwhelmed by the illogical fears that had been plaguing him for the last six years. All he had done was run away like a coward. And yet, here he was on his bed, heart rate still high and his body unconsciously shivering in fear.

A small thump and vibration on the mattress told Hiruma that Chizue was now in bed with him. The ex-quarterback chose to ignore the dog and instead burry his face shamelessly in a pillow while he tried to calm his body. Chizue didn't seem to notice and walked over to Hiruma's head. She licked his ear twice and laid herself down right in the crook of his neck. Without any warning for either party, Hiruma grabbed the dog and pulled her up against his chest. With a shaky hand, Hiruma began to pet Chizue. The slow, consistent motions of petting managed to calm down Hiruma's body.

Now with even breathing and a lower heart rate, Hiruma could really relax and try to figure out what happened. After a small bit of reflection, Hiruma decided all of his problems really started when Chizue had convinced him to have sex all those years ago. Hiruma and Chizue weren't in love by any stretch of the imagination and they knew it. They both had an understanding, an empathy with one another, but no love. Chizue was extremely spineless and timid, not traits Hiruma wanted in a life partner. Hiruma wanted someone who would stand up to him, question him, and at the same time support him.

Chizue was a person who needed constant support and would crumble if she tried to support anything. Hiruma always assumed this came from having an extremely controlling mother growing up. One of the few things Hiruma admired in Chizue was her intelligence and her ability to observe. She always saw through people and understood their true intentions, though she almost never had the courage to voice this. Playing poker with Chizue proved to be a very unprofitable experience as she always saw through his taunts and bluffs and had a remarkably impassive poker face of her own right; which is exactly why Hiruma stopped bothering to play with her. Neither of them minded, Chizue didn't really like gambling and Hiruma hated losing.

At first, the loveless couple hadn't even shared a bedroom. Chizue had her room, Hiruma had his; both rooms were set up so that in a small amount of time they could be packed up and hidden away so that visitors would not know about the existence of the spouse of the person being visited. It worked rather nicely for a good while, neither party had any complaints.

But then Hiruma's sleeping teenage hormones decided to wake up. The poor man found himself waking up either hard or wet. He didn't remember his dreams on those nights, but he was pretty sure Chizue was somehow involved in the mess. At first he did nothing other than take a shower every morning and wash his sheets a lot more frequently than he once did. If Chizue noticed the change, she said nothing, for which Hiruma was grateful.

Then one morning Hiruma found himself hard, wet and walking into the communal bathroom to see an undressed Chizue. Apparently she had an early morning and needed to shower earlier than usual. There had been an awkward pause while she looked him up and down.

"This has been happening every night for a while now." Chizue commented, staring right at the evidence.

"…Tch." Hiruma looked to the side, irritated.

"Why don't we have sex?" Chizue suggested, startling Hiruma. "I don't mean every night or anything, just to unwind things like that." She pointed at the erection.

That was the first time in Hiruma's life he had been truly terrified by something. He had felt that his body had gotten out of his control and on top of that he felt that Chizue had become a stranger. Suggesting things to him, offering sex, those weren't things the Chizue he knew was capable of. The next night he had nightmares about her, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases. And the night after the nightmares came back. When the nightmares finally stopped, wet dreams took their place. A small trip to the doctor informed Hiruma he should probably try having some sex to see if it satisfied the hormones.

It turns out it did. The wet dreams went away along with the general horniness Hiruma had found himself the victim of too frequently. At first he had thought he was finally done with the hormones and sex drive. But they came back again, so Hiruma had sex again. Sex became an infrequent affair for the married couple, something that Hiruma wasn't completely comfortable with. They used every bit of birth control they could get their hands on: condoms, cervix caps, spermicide, and countless others. But still Hiruma was not satisfied with the almost 0% chance of conception, he had won football games by margins like that too frequently for his liking. He'd much rather have a probability of zero.

And low and behold, during the second year of their marriage, Chizue came to him one evening and told him she was pregnant. She was scared and he had been scared too. The one condition they had tried so hard to keep to in their marriage, they just broke. Hiruma found himself hearing Chizue's fears and wishes, he found himself getting caught up in them. He couldn't help it; her frantic words and teary eyes stained his memories. Nine months later, mid-football season, Chizue died giving birth to Emiko.

Hiruma faintly remembered being pulled away from Chizue's corpse, but he did sharply recall having the screaming, wiggling infant put into his arms. Hiruma remembered exactly what Emiko looked like the first time he met her. She had a lot of black fuzz on the top of her head and was extremely scrawny, even for a baby. Her head was a bit on the large side, and her small ears were distinctly pointy. Hiruma had gasped loudly when she had been put into his arms, and Emiko had stopped crying. Two brown eyes that were almost black, they were so dark, opened up and looked right into his.

For the first time in his life, Hiruma Youichi had fallen in love, completely and wholly. Suddenly all the chaos of the hospital around him was gone, all of the hells he had carried himself through had led up to this moment, this little life in his arms. It all had made perfect sense; Emiko had made his life make sense. To protect her, Hiruma had chosen to disappear and shake off his enemies and cut ties with his life of enslaving others. Emiko deserved better than that, she deserved a childhood full of smiles and happy experiences, with a wonderful father who loved her and that she loved back without question.

Hiruma hadn't known what to say to his friends, he hadn't told them that he had married, that Chizue had been pregnant. He had deceived them and at the same time betrayed them. Hiruma had promised that he would not deceive them, he had promised Musashi and Kurita a place at his wedding, he had promised everyone that they would be there, with him at the hospital while waiting for his first child to be born. In the end Hiruma had given them nothing but lies, denying them the promises he should have kept.

Part of Hiruma felt horrible and ashamed, he could not face them. The fears Chizue had instilled into him hadn't left and in some ways, had only been amplified by Emiko's presence in his life. So, in fear of rejection, in fear of shame, Hiruma hid himself away from them as well. As the years passed, as Emiko grew up, Hiruma had only felt as though he had gotten in over his head. Yes he regretted leaving his friends, but at the same time he knew that leaving them hanging wouldn't have helped any matters; they probably had gotten more angry and confused as time passed.

It hadn't helped that there was something wrong with Emiko. Hiruma couldn't put his finger on it, but his daughter wasn't exactly normal. Logically, Emiko couldn't be a normal child because she didn't have a mother figure in her life despite Saburo's attempts to fulfill that role. And Hiruma didn't have any experience with children beyond Emiko, nor did he come from a terribly functional family situation. His parenting skills were learned completely by trial and error. It was fair to say he wasn't a perfect parent and it was equally fair to say he had made mistakes. But Emiko's weird phrasing of words, some of the funny ideas she got into her head, and a lot of the things she did around strangers, just weren't normal. Like filling up the trash can in the bathroom with things she found around the house, that didn't seem like a normal child's idea of play.

And there was the fact that Emiko hated dolls. She only wanted animal plushies, preferably without clothes. She played pretend with them frequently, pretending the animals were people. Hiruma didn't mind, but he found it strange that she didn't want to have dolls. Emiko wasn't keen on the idea of new toys either, she was perfectly happy with what she had. Her selflessness often amazed Hiruma.

Hiruma wasn't an idiot, he suspected his daughter might have some kind of disability, but he didn't want to admit that. He didn't want to admit that his daughter might have something fundamentally broken about her. The fact that there might be something permanently wrong with his daughter's mind scared him. He didn't want the fact that he was pretty messed up in the head to have been passed onto his daughter. She didn't deserve it.

Six years later, Hiruma had ran into Anezaki for the first time in years. His old friend had become a school teacher, a childhood dream come true. To say Hiruma wasn't jealous about her life, success, and fulfillment of her dreams, would have been a lie. To say he wasn't intimidated by her happiness would have also been a lie. Hiruma hadn't been expecting her to be so forgiving, to have a desire and drive to help him even after what he had done to her.

Anezaki was confusing him. He had hurt her and the others, he had abandoned them! And yet, here she was, fighting for Emiko's sake as hard as he was. Anezaki was forcing herself back into his life and that scared him. He was scared of changes, just like his daughter was, he was scared of Anezaki finding the person he had become over all these years. He was afraid of her in a way he had never been.

The rational side of Hiruma reminded himself that Anezaki wasn't an intimidating woman, nor was she a horrible person. All she wanted to do was help, there was no hidden meaning there. The same rational side reminded him that being afraid of all these things was silly and dumb, he was smarter than this! And Hiruma knew that outside of Emiko, he was a very unhappy, lonely person. He knew that the only person to blame for letting this irrational fear control his life so perfectly was himself. And Hiruma knew the only person who could crawl out from under these fears was himself.

And ultimately, Hiruma knew that he couldn't get his daughter back until he was a master of his fears. Because if he couldn't control them, then Saburo's arguments were right and he didn't deserve the right to raise Emiko.

Hiruma left then arrived at a few questions: how would he defeat these fears? Where would he find the strength to destroy the walls he had built around himself? When he could find the courage to face Anezaki, his past, his present, and his and Emiko's futures?

Hiruma did not know. He simply did not know.

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