Yosuke adjusted the strap under Kichirou's chin, ensuring the boy's bike helmet would stay on. "You're all set, kiddo!"
"Thanks, Dad!" Kichirou hopped onto his red and black bike and waited for his dad to get on his own.
Soon they were speeding down the park's winding bike trail. Yosuke had the bikes fixed up just for this. He'd been urged by a coworker to get active, more for his mental health than anything. He'd finally confided in a coworker that his wife had left him. The man had been surprised. 'You always seemed so happy together,' he'd said.
Well, appearances could be deceiving.
Regardless, once or twice a week, he'd take Kichirou to the bike trail at the park. It allowed him forget his troubles for a little while at least.
"Dad! Did you see that?"
Kichirou slowed down. "What was it?" Yosuke asked, pulling up beside him on his bike.
"Something ran into the woods. Maybe it was a deer!"
Yosuke laughed. "What, are we back in Inaba all of a sudden? Probably a bird or something."
"It was pretty big, Dad!"
"All right, I trust you. Now let's get moving!"
Moving forward. It was all he could really do. It wasn't easy, being a single father. A rough day at work was made rougher when he came home and had to cook and clean. His primary source of happiness was his son. He loved hearing how the boy's day at school had been and what games he had been playing with his friends. The boy seemed to be holding up all right, although he spent more time over at Hiroshi's place now than he had when Souji had been around. They were a functional family unit, just the two of them.
The bike trail led to a bridge over a river, and here they stopped to feed some scraps to the fish below. "Look at the turtle, Dad!"
A turtle was competing with the fish for the scraps. "It's a pretty big one," Yosuke observed.
"Don't say that!" Kichirou scolded. "It might be a princess."
Yosuke patted the boy's head in amusement, and they watched the turtle lazily swim around with the fish.
When he was with Kichirou, everything was fine. But when he was alone, that's when loneliness threatened to swallow him up. He missed his wife, yes, but more often, he wished Souji was still home with him. His best friend and partner... Despite his best efforts, he kept wondering what might have happened if he'd kissed Souji or otherwise confessed. How would the man have reacted?
Souji's kindness towards him was borne out of a deep friendship. These thoughts were a betrayal of that friendship, so Yosuke cut off his line of thinking right there. It was too dangerous a path to go down. But he was also Yosuke, and when his mind was stuck on something, it just wouldn't let go. He thought of Souji every single day, remembered his soft smile and his supportive words, recalled how the man loved Ki-kun as if the boy was his own son...
Yosuke sighed to himself at the bridge's railing. He was pretty sure it wasn't a simple rebound anymore.
"All right, Dad, that's all the leftovers. See you next week, Princess!" Kichirou called down to the turtle.
After waving goodbye to the turtle at his son's request, Yosuke helped the boy onto his bike, and together they headed home.
One early-autumn afternoon Yosuke found his son just sort of lying there on his futon with his arm draped over his face. Something was obviously wrong: normally at this time he'd be doing homework or playing a game or reading or something. He could've simply had a rough day at school, but school had let out hours ago. If that was the case, he should have recovered by now.
"Ki-kun? Are you all right?" Yosuke asked from the doorway.
The boy shifted his arm enough to peer at him through the crick in his elbow. "Dad..."
Yosuke moved next to the futon. "You can talk to me, you know."
Kichirou grimaced and looked away.
Dammit, his son was too young to start being rebellious!
"Well, is there anything special you want for dinner?" Yosuke asked.
"...don't care..."
"Then we'll have natto."
"Daaaad!" his son protested.
It was a joke, but Yosuke was grateful to get a rise out of the boy. Seeing him like this was painful.
At dinner, which ended up being pork sukiyaki, Kichirou was still looking depressed, so Yosuke suggested he invite Hiroshi to come over after school tomorrow to cheer him up. To his complete surprise, his son sniffled and began to cry.
"H-hey! Did something happen?" Yosuke asked, dropping his chopsticks in alarm.
"W-we're not friends anymore!" Kichirou cried. He wiped his eyes and large tears fell onto the tabletop.
"Wh-why not?"
"He told everyone I don't have a mom!"
Yosuke stood up immediately and hovered around his crying son with no idea how to comfort him on this. That little asshole, he thought. "Hey, hey... You can't be the only one missing a parent," he tried.
"Everyone treats me different now," the boy mumbled. "I hate it. I hate everyone at school."
"Everyone?" Yosuke asked. "Even your homeroom teacher?" From the way he'd spoken of her before, Kichirou had seemed like he'd had a crush on her.
"Especially her."
Well, so much for that crush. "Do you need me to talk to her?" Yosuke suggested.
"No!" the boy shouted. "No," he repeated, quieter now.
"Your classmates will get over it soon," Yosuke tried to tell him, but the boy didn't look comforted by that fact, so he proceeded to tell him a story about a time when he'd felt angry at all his friends back when he was a kid. By the end, the boy was smiling again, and Yosuke rubbed his back and hugged him close at the kitchen table.
But then the boy asked about his mom, since those were the same questions his classmates had asked him. Why she was living away from them. When she'd come live with them again.
Tell him the truth, Souji had advised, so Yosuke did, explaining it as well as he could. That sometimes people who love each other will hurt each other without realizing it, or maybe even on purpose. Sometimes, he said, there's more hurt than love, and sometimes maybe it's best just to let the person go. "Right now you're mad at Hiroshi-kun, right? I don't think you hate him."
Kichirou didn't answer.
"It's okay if you're mad at Mom, too, for leaving… If she was still here, this wouldn't have happened, right?"
He saw a twinge of guilt flash across the boy's face. Yeah, he had thought that.
"It's okay if you're mad at me," Yosuke added. "I can take it. I'm an adult. And I'll still love you, okay?" He pulled the boy's head to his chest and messed up his hair.
Kichirou murmured a protest, but didn't stop him.
"Anyway," Yosuke went on, "what I was trying to say is, Mom might not be happy with me, or living with us anymore, but she does love you, okay?" It felt weird talking to his boy about abstract things like love, but who else was going to teach him?
"Y-yeah. Actually, Dad, umm…" The boy turned his head to look up at him. His dark eyes focused intently on his face.
"Yes, Ki-kun?"
"Mom visits sometimes while you're at work, and she calls me every week. So..."
"Yeah. That's good," Yosuke said emphatically. He was glad to know she was still visiting their son, even if she had nothing to say to him. "I told you. She loves you."
Kichirou leaned into Yosuke. He mumbled against his chest: "A-and I love you, Dad..."
Regardless of whether or not Kichirou wanted Yosuke to talk to his homeroom teacher, Yosuke found himself in contact with her. She called him one evening right after dinner, introducing herself as from the elementary school.
"What can I do for you?" Yosuke asked.
"I have some concerns regarding Kichirou-kun. You see, Hanamura-san, he was in a fight today…"
"Wh-what!?"
She didn't go into detail, instead requesting to schedule a time in which she could visit to discuss the issue in person.
Yosuke spent the rest of the evening industrially cleaning the living room to prepare for said visit. Kichirou asked him what he was doing and then looked scared when Yosuke told him that his teacher was coming over. He didn't press the boy, recalling how he'd never wanted to talk to his parents about problems at school when he was a kid.
Kichirou's teacher was a well-dressed woman who seemed to be in her late thirties or maybe early forties. She wore glasses with small oval lenses and her brown hair was in a bun. Yosuke ushered her into the living room and seated her at the tea table, then offered her coffee as a refreshment, which she accepted with cream.
Once the pleasantries had been dispensed with, she got down to business. "Kichirou-kun seems to be having some difficulty getting along with his peers."
"Is he being disruptive in class?" Yosuke asked, having his own difficulty imagining any such scenario, but... he'd never seen his son interact with other children his age aside from Hiroshi, so it wasn't impossible.
"Not exactly," she said. She pulled out a paper from the folder she'd carried in and handed it to him.
It was a very stylized drawing of a dinosaur—a tyrannosaurus rex—with a kid on its back. The dinosaur was rather gleefully, by the smile on its face, stomping down on another kid. An arrow pointing to the dying kid labeled him as Hiroshi-kun. The drawing was definitely done in Kichirou's art style. Obviously, the boy hadn't made up with his friend yet.
Looking more closely, the tyrannosaurus seemed like it had gray hair. Yosuke wanted to laugh, but this was a serious matter to the teacher present. "I see," he said neutrally. "You mentioned yesterday that he got into a fight. Was it with Hiroshi-kun?"
She nodded. "It didn't come to blows, but there was pushing involved and name-calling. Kichirou-kun is normally well-behaved. We were wondering what may have caused this change."
Yosuke blinked down at the drawing. Kichirou showed a strong face, but Michiko's absence must be affecting him more than he let on. Perhaps Souji's presence had been a calming influence on the boy as well. "We are going through a tough time," Yosuke admitted, "but he just wants to be treated like a normal boy. When people think of him as 'that boy without a mom' it's not going to help." He felt the need to defend his son. He himself had hated being labeled 'Junes Boy,' after all.
She pursed her lips and her face flushed a little. Ah, so she had been guilty of treating him differently as well. No wonder that crush was over.
"The Ito family and I have been friends for a few years. I'll talk to them," Yosuke promised. "And I'll talk to my son, too, of course."
She went on to discuss Kichirou's academic standing, which was actually better than Yosuke's had been at his age. He was just a hair above average. She suggested looking into a cram school if it seemed the boy needed something to keep himself occupied.
After she left, Yosuke went to Kichirou's room and knocked on the door—he'd had the boy stay there with the door closed, knowing he'd eavesdrop otherwise. "Dad?" the boy said apprehensively.
Yosuke opened the door and found his son sitting on his futon, looking dejected. "Hey, champ, it's all right," he said soothingly. He sidled up next to the boy and put his arm around him. "You're doing good in school. I'm proud of you, you know!"
"Y-yeah?" The boy looked up at him.
"Yeah," he confirmed. "But... don't let Hiroshi-kun get to you, okay? I know you want to punch him for some of the things he's said, but you've got to hold back, okay?"
"Yeah..."
"Also, Ki-kun... Have you talked to Uncle Seta about this?" Souji probably had great advice to impart that Yosuke would never think of.
"Yeah!" the boy declared. "He said that when I'm angry I should find something else to do. So I've been drawing! But Hiroshi-kun saw it and he got mad and..." Kichirou hung his head.
Oh, so it was Souji's fault he'd drawn that picture. "And then Hiroshi-kun told the teacher. I got it. Hey, if you're interested, Ki-kun, I can send you to an after-school art class."
Kichirou blinked at him. "R-really?"
He nodded. "Really," he promised. "Just let me know, okay?"
He turned away to head out of the room when his son whispered at him. "Hey, Dad...? Uncle Seta, umm, he..."
Yosuke paused and looked behind him. "Yeah?"
Kichirou was looking down at his hands now. "N-nevermind."
"You can tell me," Yosuke prompted. Isn't that what Souji would say in this situation? "Ki-kun, if you ever have anything to say..."
"It's just... I just wish he didn't live so far away," Kichirou admitted. "At least I see Mom sometimes..."
Yosuke stepped forward and sat next to the boy on his futon. "You miss him, huh...?"
His son nodded, and Yosuke put his arm around his shoulder, trying hard not to think about how much he missed Souji, too.
Yosuke bit his fingernail while he observed the two boys, Hiroshi and Kichirou, sitting across from each other at the tea table, ostensibly working on homework. Neither was getting any work done, however, because they were too busy glaring daggers at each other. Getting these kids to make up was going to take some doing, but he'd promised Ito-san he had a plan.
"H-homework can wait," he announced, stepping into their sight. He was carrying a big white sheet he'd taken out of the hall closet. "It's time for us to make a couch fort!"
"Couch fort!?" Kichirou exclaimed.
"Why?" Hiroshi asked.
"Because you're going to be attacked soon," Yosuke answered. "You'd better be ready to defend yourself!"
Hiroshi glanced at Kichirou for an answer, but the boy was swiftly putting away their school supplies. Then he was eagerly taking the sheet out of Yosuke's hand and draping it over the sofa's back. "Hiro-kun, don't just stand there like an idiot, help me!" He aired out the sheet to make a point. It wasn't reaching the far end of the table like it was supposed to.
"Don't call me an idiot!" Hiroshi retorted. "Stupid, you can do it yourself!" He grabbed an empty plastic cup and used it to anchor one end of the sheet and shot his ex-friend an 'I told you so' look.
Kichirou tugged hard on the sheet and the cup wasn't enough to hold it down.
"You boys better hurry it up!" Yosuke warned them. "Do you call that a fort? I call that a sheet on the couch, that's what I call it. You didn't even prop up the pillows!"
"Dad! You could help us!" Kichirou pointed out.
"Help? I'm the lookout." He turned his back to the boys and prayed to any god listening that this plan was going to work.
"...What is he looking out for?" He heard Hiroshi whisper behind him.
"O-only a few more minutes!" Yosuke said, looking down at his watch to try and emphasize that they should get to work.
"Your dad's weirder than your uncle," Hiroshi commented dryly.
"He is not!" Kichirou shouted.
Please don't get into a fight, please, Yosuke mentally begged. Better not chance the argument escalating, he decided. Time to enact the next part of the plan.
While the boys were still bickering, he sneaked into his son's room and snatched up the Featherman mask from where it was hanging on the door and donned it. Then he took out a bunch of bean bag animals from a drawer and carried them back to the living room.
"That's not how it's supposed to—" Hiroshi had been saying until he was beaned in the head by a bean bag husky dog. "HEY!"
"This fort is mine!" Yosuke shouted madly. He threw another bean bag at Hiroshi and then at his son, to be equal-opportunity.
"Daaaad!" Kichirou protested, but he was laughing.
"Who's 'Dad'?" Yosuke said. "I'm, uh, Red Mask, the, uh, Mighty, and I'm taking this fort, no kids allowed!"
"No way!" said Hiroshi, but Yosuke pelted him again.
"Here, Hiro-kun!" Kichirou said, tossing Hiroshi a dart gun. Ah, he'd found it. Yosuke had hidden it under the table earlier. "Fight back while I get the pillows up!"
"O-okay," the other boy said. He took aim at Yosuke and the dart hit him square in the face. Thankfully he was wearing the mask!
Yosuke soon ran out of bean bags, but Kichirou began to throw back the ones on his side at him. They all had fun throwing back and forth like that for several minutes until Yosuke gave up because the odds were against him, anyway.
"You're better with the dart gun than I am," Hiroshi admitted while they were catching their breaths.
"Y-yeah?" said Kichirou. "You were pretty good with the pillow!" He'd been holding a pillow up as a shield to defend against Yosuke's bean bags.
Yosuke took off the mask and put it safely to the side. "So... are you two friends again? You worked pretty well together!"
"Aww, Daaaad," Kichirou whined.
Hiroshi's face darkened and he looked away.
"Come on, Hiroshi-kun," Yosuke said. "You wouldn't have even come over today if you didn't want to. You both need to apologize. You both hurt each other, and that's wrong."
There was a very long, awkward silence. Then Kichirou said, very quietly, "I'm sorry I drew a dinosaur crushing you..."
"I'm sorry I told everyone about your mom..."
"Friends?" Yosuke prompted.
Kichirou held out his hand, and Hiroshi took it, and Yosuke let out his breath in relief.
"And I do have a mom," Kichirou said solemnly. "She might not live here, but she loves me and I do have her. Look, I even have her phone number." Kichirou took his cell phone out of his school bag and showed it to his friend.
"I know," Hiroshi mumbled. "You were so happy when she called, it bothered me... B-but I didn't mean t-to hurt you..."
Hiroshi was sniffling now, and Kichirou hugged his friend. "It-it hurt a lot," Kichirou admitted.
Soon they were both crying against each other and apologizing over and over again.
[Author's Note: The turtle princess comment refers to a Japanese legend. Look up Urashima Tarō for more information. ]