"You look so tired, mago," his grandmother said, pushing his hair away from his forehead.

"I'm fine," he assured her frailly, even as he leaned with his elbows on the island in the kitchen, cheek squished in his palm. His shoulders sagged, and his eyes blinked sleepily as she continued to comb her fingers through his hair.

He was staying at her house for Obon, along with his sister, Kon, and their rapidly growing toddler. Everyone was hovering between the kitchen and the dining room, working together to prepare a meal (or else giving up on the carrots they were supposed to be cutting up in favor of staring into the abyss).

"You know my remedy for fatigue?" His grandmother pulled the cutting board out from under him and set to work finishing his task for him.

"Lemongrass tea and sleep?" he mumbled, focus blurring on the clock on the wall.

"That's for physical fatigue, mago. The cure for mental fatigue is a vacation and a good long talk with grandma."

He sighed. For half a second, he thought of launching straight into a rant, before deciding he was too tired even for that. "I don't think that's going to fix it," he mumbled instead.

"Hm. Then your sister should stop working you so hard."

"Hey, I've already forced him to take time off twice now," Akane said from the sink. She finished washing the zucchini in her hand, then handed it down to Tsukushi who held it up over his head and ran it across the kitchen. He tugged on the hem of Asahi's shirt.

"Jiji, more!"

Asahi took it and passed it right over to his grandmother.

Tsukushi blinked up at him, his head tilted back. "Thanks you!"

"Thank you," Asahi mumbled, and his nephew ran off to the sink for more vegetables.

"Maybe you should take a break from working in general," his grandmother said, slicing into the zucchini. "You have enough on your plate already. You should focus on finishing school."

"It's not about work."

"Maybe not, but you should give yourself some slack somehow," Akane said over the rush of the faucet.

"I have to work." He let his forehead drop onto the counter. "I'm an adult."

"You're a student," his grandmother said. "You work hard enough already."

"I'm probably failing all of my classes."

"All the more reason to focus yourself."

Asahi heaved a giant sigh and didn't bother with a rebuttal, so Akane changed the subject.

"Is Dad coming?" she asked over her shoulder.

Asahi scoffed into the counter. "10,000 yen says that's a negatory."

"He said he had to work," their grandmother responded.

"Called it."

"It's Obon," Akane stated.

"Mama, haffa peepee!"

"I know, so I invited your mother instead."

Asahi lifted his head and gave his grandmother a look. "You did what?"

"She's your mother. She's part of the family. Take your nephew to the bathroom, please."

Asahi pinched his lips as though ready to argue, but turned away with a scoff instead and rounded the island to start toward the bathroom. "Booger, come on."

Tsukushi trotted to catch up, and Asahi swept him off the floor to carry him.

"Haffa peepee."

"Yeah, I know. We're going."

Tsukushi took his time going potty. It was his favorite way to slow everybody down. He just sat there and kicked his feet, and looked down into the toilet bowl every now and then, then he would look back up and strike a conversation that Asahi half understood and half translated into his own nonsense. They had interesting talks, and normally he was amused, but today he wasn't feeling it, so he just sat on the floor across from the toilet with his knees up and allowed his nephew to kill the time. It wasn't until Tsukushi was finished singing four verses of a tuneless song that he declared he was all done, and Asahi forced himself to stand and helped him wash his hands.

He carried him out of the bathroom and they sat with Kon for a while as he finished up an article for work after setting the table. There was maybe another twenty minutes of peace before the doorbell rang, and Asahi was deemed the one who should answer it. He spent the whole walk to the door sighing to himself and trying to prepare his temper.

His mother squealed immediately, when he opened the door, and she threw her arms around him and Tsukushi, who was still attached to his hip. She kissed them both several times, and Tsukushi whined and buried his face in Asahi's shoulder to get away. Asahi wished he could do the same.

"Oh, my baby, I miss you so much!" She pursed her lips as she pinched his cheeks and shook her head with disappointment at the same time. "Why don't you ever call me?" she accused loudly. "I haven't heard from you in months. You don't visit anymore. You don't answer my texts. I'm all alone out here!"

"Hi, Mom," he said tonelessly, pulling away to close the door behind her.

She squeezed his head in another one-armed hug and patted his shoulder as she let herself past the genkan and squealed some more as everyone came to meet her. He kept at a safe distance, out of range of her reaching arms, and allowed himself to focus more on the ache beginning to spread through his arms from holding Tsukushi for so long. He was heavy.

"It's so good to see you again, Erina-san," his mother said to his grandmother. "Thank you for inviting me over."

"I'm glad you could make it," his grandmother said. "Family is family, forever and always. And I know both of your children are happy to have their mother around for the holidays." She tilted her head very conspicuously, giving Asahi a sharp look as she stressed the word both. He didn't keep the sour out of his expression, just turned his eyes away stubbornly.

"Yes, and I'm so happy to see them," his mother said, squeezing Akane close.

Akane smiled and patted their mother's back. "I know, Mama."

"And my handsome son-in-law of course," she went on, releasing Akane to give Kon a big kiss on the cheek. "How are you doing? Have you been writing? I imagine you've been pretty busy what with the Olympics going on, right?"

Kon huffed a breath and smiled. "Yeah, I just got back from Brazil the other night. They put me on judo this time. It was fascinating."

His mother cooed and fawned and asked plenty of darling questions, and Asahi tuned it out. Tsukushi was squirming in his arms, ready to get down, but he felt like he'd be in the line of fire without him. He'd run off, and then there would be one less distraction for his mother. Eventually, though, Tsukushi started to whine and throw himself backward.

"Down!"

"Just let me hold you."

"No!"

"Booger, come on. Don't you have to go potty again?"

"No!"

"Fine then, go distract Obaa while I run away."

"No!"

Asahi tched and finally conceded. "You're such a snot." He set the toddler down, and he darted past everyone's legs to cling to Akane's pants.

"Tsukushi!" Asahi's mother exclaimed, crouching down with her arms spread. "Give Obaa a hug!"

"No!"

Akane clicked her tongue. "Tsukushi," she chided lightly. "Give hugs."

He obeyed only reluctantly, because Kon physically picked him up and put him in his grandmother's arms. She squeezed him tight.

"Oooo, Tsuku-chan, Tsuku-chan," she sang. "You've gotten so big!" She gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek, and then released him back to his own mother.

"Ah, you're such a beautiful family," she cooed, clasping her hands under her chin as her eyes glittered on the trio. Then, inevitably, and to Asahi's great misfortune, she turned to call him out before he could make it all the way around the room and back into the kitchen.

"Asahi! Where are your offspring?" she demanded, perching her hands on her hips.

He scoffed under his breath and cocked his head in her direction with a flat smile. "I'm still a baby, Mom."

"Nonsense, you're over twenty already! I was your age when I had your sister, you know."

He grimaced. "Please don't say things like that."

A sparking twinkle lit her eye, and he already knew what was coming next. "Well, you're in luck. One of my clients has a daughter that's your age …"

"Mom."

"She's studying at the Women's Medical University, right in the city. So close to where you are!"

"Mom …"

"I got to meet her — showed her a picture of you. She thinks you're really handsome," she sang. He epically failed at keeping his face from dropping with exhausted irritation, but of course she didn't notice. She already had her phone out, and was right next to his side, scrolling through pictures.

"I told her I'd show you," she said. "Look! There she is. Isn't she gorgeous?"

"She's beautiful," he said dryly, and she completely missed the pinch of agitation in it.

Meanwhile, Akane was already raising her eyebrows at him in that "You didn't tell her?" kind of manner that was not at all subtle, and he was pretty sure his grandmother was doing the same. He stiffly shook his head and waved them off. He wasn't going to tell her.

"You two would make such beautiful babies. Wouldn't they, Erina-san?"

She tilted the phone to his grandmother to show her the picture of the random girl, and she played along with an exaggeratedly slow head nod.

"Ohh yes, I'm sure they'd be beautiful. But maybe she's not so much Asahi's type?" she slid in suggestively, pinching her chin and giving Asahi another look.

"Is dinner ready?" he said sharply.

"Oh!" his mother exclaimed. "Have you lit the lanterns yet? I brought one for my parents as well. Would you mind?"

"Not at all, not at all," his grandmother said, waving a hand and allowing the subject to change. "Go right ahead. We put up Banri's already, but Asahi can hang yours for you."

Asahi didn't fuss about it. It certainly would have been rude. He didn't remember much about his mother's parents, but he respected them nonetheless, so he cooperated as his mother gathered him and his sister, and they knelt with her at the butsudan as she said prayers and lit an incense that she placed on the alter along side an offering of her mother's favorite candy. She had Akane light the paper lantern she'd brought, then after one final prayer, passed it over to Asahi. He took it out to the front of the house, where the lantern for his father's father was already glowing, and secured it to the awning.

He was very nearly finished, when he squinted against a bright light that glanced across his face. He grimaced and peered through the shadows of the night toward the driveway at the shiny black SUV that pulled up. It only took a second for the slime of dread to slide down the back of his spine.

"Shit."

He muttered an apology to his deceased grandparents, and hurried back into the house.

"Obaachan!"

"What?"

He marched directly to the kitchen where his grandmother and sister were now removing pots of food to place on the table.

"You said he wasn't coming," he nearly shouted.

"What?"

"You said he wasn't coming."

"Who?"

"Dad! You said he wasn't coming. Why is he here?"

Both his grandmother and his sister visibly flinched with eyes of immediate panic.

"He told me he had to work," his grandmother said, setting down the pot in her hands, already making her way past him in a bustle.

"He just pulled up in the driveway!" Asahi said, throwing out an arm toward the front door.

"Where's, Mom?" Akane asked, also hurrying past.

"She went to the bathroom."

"Get her out of the house."

"Absolutely not! I invited her here."

"Well then he can't come in."

"Asahi, this is his house."

"This is Obaa's house. She can kick him out."

His grandmother swatted at his arm. "I will do no such thing."

"Well, you have to get rid of somebody."

Too late.

"Hello, hello," his father said, letting himself in with a broad smile. "Asahi, for shame. You didn't want to greet me at the car?"

"You're supposed to be working," Asahi blurted out.

His father grinned and held out his hands. "Surprise."

Akane coughed up a shaky laugh, her lips were pulled up but it was more of a grimace than a smile.

"Musuko," their grandmother hissed, swatting at her son's arm. "You should have told me you were coming."

"What are you so upset for? Surprise," he said again, tossing his hands once more as though hoping for a different reaction. When he didn't get one, he dropped his smile with a scoff. "Well, is no one going to say hello, at least?"

"Hello, Sohei-san," Kon said from the background.

"Kon! Thank you. What a proper gentleman."

Asahi's father walked right in, kissed his mother and daughter, and gave Asahi a hearty pat on the back with a one-armed squeeze before he made it to formally greet Kon with a handshake and get his share of cooing in at Tsukushi. The toddler was very disinterested in getting even more hugs.

Akane shuffled her way out of sight, probably to head off their mother before she could make it back to where everyone was gathered, but apparently she was either too quick or too insistent upon not being left out, because they both appeared again within seconds, and his mother's face was already sour.

"What are you doing here?" she said immediately, eyes aglow with bitterness.

His father looked up from the baby and frowned immediately. "Me?" he scoffed. "What are you doing here? This is my mother's house."

"I was invited."

"Pardon?" he said, swinging disbelieving eyes toward his mother, who dropped her arms in a huff.

"You were supposed to be working."

"I managed to pull some strings. Why would you invite her?"

"Her?!" Asahi's mother exclaimed.

"She's the mother of your children, Sohei. She's family. We're not doing this now," Asahi's grandmother said, putting her hands up with an indignant toss to her head. "The food is ready. You're just going to have to deal with it. Everyone sit."

It was done with great reluctance, and Asahi was included in that. This was the very last kind of situation he wanted to sit himself in, but his grandmother gave him a death glare when he dragged his feet, so he sat … right in between his parents — and that really was not the kind of position he wanted to be in.

Initially, he ignored them, which was all good and well, because they also ignored each other. It didn't go very smoothly, as they both seemed to want to address the same people at the same time, and everyone was trying to be cordial and stretch their attention, and lucky Akane had Tsukushi to tend to, so she got to look away every now and then and focus on wiping her son's hands and telling him not to throw food across the table.

It could have continued like that for the whole meal, and Asahi wished it had, but of course, that was a tall order to ask of two people who forgot how to be adults when they were around each other. Also, there was something about fighting over Asahi specifically that they just couldn't seem to let go of, which was most unfortunate, because the moment they turned to talk to him was the moment everything fell apart.

"So, Asahi," his dad started from his left. "We haven't caught up in awhile. Got yourself a girlfriend yet?"

He didn't even have time to sigh to himself before his mother was responding for him.

"As a matter of fact," she said, leaning around from his right, "I was just talking to him about my client's daughter. I think they'll be a beautiful pair for each other."

Asahi set his chopsticks down and propped his elbows on the table. He cupped his hands over the lower half of his face and stared over Kon's shoulder across the table.

"Oh, is that so?" his dad said. "Setting him up on blind dates again. Did he even confirm to you that that was something he wanted?"

"I don't believe you were part of the conversation. Why would that matter to you?"

"I happen to have a vested interest in my son, thank you."

"Oh a vested interest, I see. Hence why you two are so close, you have to ask him about his relationship status."

"Coming from someone who didn't even bother to ask, no doubt. Did you even check with him to see what's going on in his life before you started setting him up with other people's children?"

"Other people's children? Do you think I'm just picking random strangers up off the street?"

"It certainly sounds like you're that desperate. I bet you've never even met the poor girl. Did you ask her about her life yet? Or are you just inserting whoever you think will fit into the fantasy you've created for my son?"

"Your son?! I'm sorry, were you the one who carried him in your body for nine months?"

Asahi let out a long breath through his nose that went completely unheard — not that he was trying. No one was trying. Kon elected to stare down at his bowl and push his food around. Akane took the moment to smile at Tsukushi, who was turned around in her lap, and sat a pair of baby headphones over his ears. She handed her phone to him, and he was very conveniently occupied by brightly colored cartoon characters teaching him how to count. Asahi's grandmother also sighed and set her chopsticks to the side. She folded her hands under her chin and just waited. Honestly, there wasn't much else to do at this point. She'd already done her best to steer the conversations away from inevitable arguments until now. They'd just finally found the thing to discuss that made it impossible for them to remain compliant.

"Well, it's certainly not my fault that he doesn't talk to you, now is it? Especially not when I apparently have 'nothing' to do with your relationship."

"I'm sure you're one to talk. When's the last time he called you? He knows you'll just try to control every aspect of his life —"

"Control?!"

"Yes, because that's exactly what you do when things aren't going the very specific way you want them to go!"

"It's called compromise. Another word for you to add to your very limited vocabulary."

"You are just something else, aren't you?"

"I know my son. It's not control when I happen to come across something that might be of interest to him."

"No, it's just control when you insist that that 'something of interest' is most definitively of benefit to him when you haven't even consulted him about it first."

"I consulted him!"

"I'm pretty sure telling him you've found his future wife is not consulting him —"

"You weren't even there for the conversation!"

"There are bigger things happening," Asahi muttered, gaze now completely out of focus as they resorted to leaning over the table to yell at each other around him.

His blood was boiling. Forget the content, he'd heard it all before. There were a million other past arguments just like it. And this, by the way, was the very reason he didn't talk to them anymore, because it was always a competition. They both insisted that they knew him better, that they knew what was better for him, that they were the better parent, and that the other one should just butt out of everyone else's lives entirely.

Obviously, neither of them were right, but what was most irritating about this situation in particular, was just the putrid timing of it. They should have been done with these arguments years ago, yet they insisted they should continue on with them like the world never turned, like Asahi was still twelve, not twenty-one, like their biggest problem in life was each other, and that no one around them ever had anything else to think about except for them.

But the world did turn — every single day in fact — and Asahi was twenty-one, not twelve, and there were bigger things happening. Like for instance, how his best friend's little brother was dying of cancer. That family had a shit-load going on, and they never argued like this with each other, not that Asahi had noticed. They were all tired, they were all sad, they all had different feelings and opinions on how things should go, but they didn't waste their time taking those things out on one another. In fact, the more time Asahi spent with the Shiginos, the more the acid of empathy really ate away at him, because he could see just how deeply they loved each other, how much they cared, that they were willing to prioritize taking time to comfort and smile for one another rather than dissolve in a tantrum that would have been completely warranted.

It wasn't all that long ago, when Asahi, Makoto, and Haru had first visited the Shiginos after Hayato's diagnosis, and they'd sat around their table eating a meal, laughing, carrying light, friendly, positive conversations in which everyone was respectful and listened to one another. How was it that a group of people going through so much could exhibit such warmth, and yet here he was between two people who refused to leave their pettiness at the door for one night. For one night. For one fucking family holiday meal.

"— because you always take that tone! It's no wonder he refuses to talk to you —"

"You can't even make accusations like that! He doesn't talk to you either!"

"It's because he knows how you'll start getting on his tail with that entitled bullshit attitude —"

"Entitled?! Entitled- you want to talk about attitudes? You and your guilt-tripping —"

Asahi pulled his hands away from his face as he sat back, and this time spoke loud enough that they should have heard him. "There are bigger things happening!"

"It's always everyone else's fault, never yours. Just like someone who doesn't know how to take responsibility of your own actions!"

"Oh, don't even start!"

It was a blur, the next second, because everything doused itself in red, and he wasn't even sure if his body and his brain were communicating. He just knew that it had to stop and they weren't going to listen. And it did. The very moment that he slammed his glass down on the table and it burst into a hundred scattering shards, they went quiet. But at that point, he'd long since decided that he was done, so he didn't acknowledge the baffled looks that anyone gave him as he stood and turned away from the table. He just took his leave toward the front door and picked up his shoes without bothering to put them on first.

He wasn't going to say anything initially. He was angry enough that his first thought was just to leave them staring after him in complete silence, but the moment he opened the door, something pinched at the top of his spine, and he knew he could do better than that. So he shot a glare to his parents over his shoulder.

"I'm in love with a boy!"

Then he slammed the door and left.

He waited until his parents were long gone to go back and apologize to his grandmother. Otherwise, he put the entire ordeal behind him, because it literally didn't matter. There were bigger things going on. So he blocked all of his parents' phone calls, and he ignored all of their texts, and just simply disowned them on the spot. It was rather freeing that way. It gave him room to focus on things like bringing Hayato to the beach on the last day of summer break.

They made an evening of it. He, the Shiginos, and the three Tachibana kids all loaded themselves up with beach toys, sunblock, and a picnic dinner, and just decided to have fun.

Hayato had been asking to go to the beach a lot, and more than that, had been begging to swim. He wasn't allowed to exert himself, so most of the summer had consisted of simply sitting in the sand and watching the sun go down in the cooler parts of the day, but he was adamant about swimming this time, and no one was going to make the decision to tell him no. So Makoto picked him up and carried him into the water, wading way out into the deep — farther than the twins were willing to go, but Asahi and Kisumi kept up with him. They got past the point where even Kisumi's feet could fully touch the sandy floor anymore, and the water level was just under Makoto's nose. That was where they stopped, with Hayato sitting high atop Makoto's shoulders, his fingers skimming through the surface of the water when it was calm, and giggling and holding tight to Makoto's head whenever a wave swept by and picked him up for just the smallest moment.

Both Kisumi and Asahi were there to catch him on the off chance that he got swept away, but neither of them chose to worry about it. Asahi could tell that Makoto wasn't the most comfortable with being so far from the shore, but he had been the tenacious volunteer to carry Hayato on his shoulders without a single complaint, and the resolve in his eyes was something so solid, it couldn't possibly be of this earth.

They were all listening to Hayato laugh — in a silence that would have been dead if it weren't for the steady breathing of the ocean. They were all staring toward the horizon with him, watching the same colorful descent of the sun as it slowly dipped it's way down toward the water.

It was a warm day with absolute clear skies. They'd spent the majority of it speaking in free conversation of things that were buoyant and superfluous, things that had nothing to do with the life they saw in front of their eyes. They'd built sand castles, and tossed beach balls, and munched on grapes and popsicles. They'd smiled and laughed and enjoyed each other, and now all of that was a warm whisper of phantom joy in a pocket of reality, hovering somewhere behind their backs on the shoreline that they had strolled away from.

Here, in the middle of the ocean, there was resilience. There was humility. There was courage. There was the tangibility of the end of the world, facing them on the very same horizon that swallowed the sun. And there was a collective exhale. In no way did it remove the tightly coiled ball of the inevitable tangled around the support system holding each and every one of them up. But maybe there was the smallest amount of peace, in just that one moment, as an indescribable acceptance carried them in the palm of its hand. Even Hayato's giggles eventually died off and were replaced by simple breathing. And it wasn't until that moment that Asahi tore his gaze from the sunset and glanced up at the little boy to find him smiling while a single tear slid down his cheek in silence, and his fingers curled in Makoto's hair.

There was nothing to think about it, and nothing to say either. So Asahi let it absorb and find a place to keep itself where he knew he would always remember it. And then he looked back toward the sun.