I had just finished speaking with Vera about the situation when the boy,
Jecht's boy, came into the room. It was late at night, and he had obviously
heard a strange voice and decided to come and investigate, a blitzball
clutched in his hands as if he were going to chuck it at me. "Mommy!" he
cried, like a tremulous command, anad instantaneously suspicious eyes moved
to me. He seemed satisfied when Vera drifted over to him. He didn't seem to
notice her pale lips, the shattered look in her eyes. That hopeless stare.
I noticed, of course. I had been the one to put it there.
"Tidus.... This is, uh...." A pause as she sorted back through the pain I'd brought her to find my name. ".... Mr. Auron. He's--he's going to be staying with us for a while."
"I don't want to impose," I interjected quietly.
"It's not an imposition," she insisted. "It's not."
"Well, I think it is!" the boy suddenly said.
"Tidus!" Vera's martyred eyes widened. "Apologize immediately!"
"No!" He ran from the room, the blitzball tumbling to the ground and rolling underneath a sofa.
I said nothing about it. I believe Vera was glad.
-----
The memorial service for Jecht was small and private. His family (a few distant relations, the boy, and Vera) had posted a small notice in the media that they had received definitive information that Jecht was deceased, and had decided to hold a memorial service to honor his memory, etc. etc. I stood in the back of the small shrine to some-or-another vague deity and watched as the nobler aspects of a pointless, blitz-oriented life in Zanarkand were presented as to make Jecht seem like some sort of hero. Vera and the boy sat in the front row. Vera was unnaturally still throughout the entire thing. The boy, too, was quiet. I couldn't quite tell if he was satisfied or not.
A small scene was made during the closing prayers as a nubile, pregnant blonde fell into the aisles, weeping, and began screaming for Jecht. Vera didn't seem to hear her. The boy peered around, though, mildly curious at all the noise.
-----
We three ate our first "family" dinner three weeks after the memorial service.
Vera suddenly said she was sick of cooking, sick of looking at the inside of the houseboat, and why didn't we all go out like a normal family should be doing? Before I knew it, we were seated around a table at one of the nicest restaraunts in Zanarkand, with a view of the blitz stadium at night. By then I was pretty immune to the wonders of the city; Vera kept her back turned to the windows the entire evening, and ate only salad. She wore a sequined green strapless dress that had obviously fit better when she was twenty or so pounds heavier and still had cleavage. The boy was indignant in a tie.
"So, Auron," Vera began fixedly, shredding lettuce in her fingernails. "What do you do for a living?"
I couldn't very well say, "Guarding you and your son." I hedged slightly. "I used to be a monk. Now, I'm a bodyguard."
It was close enough to the truth to satisfy her. She ordered a bottle of wine. "Please, have some, Auron."
"I'd like some!" the boy said loudly. Vera laughed nervously.
"D-don't be silly, Tidus. Wine is a grown-up drink."
The boy said, "I'm grown up!"
"Drink your water!" Vera suddenly snapped, and the waiter materialized at her elbow to pour her a fresh glass of wine.
-----
The door to the room I was occupying in Jecht's houseboat creaked open, and Vera stood shadowed for a moment in the doorway. I glanced at the clock. It was an ungodly hour. Light crept in through the windowshades, a pale silvery light that shone over Vera's naked body like a casting back in Spira. I sat up in bed, blinking sleep away.
"Auron," she whispered, unfolding her arms from her breasts. "I don't want to be alone..... I--I can't bear it."
There was a long pause, and tears trickled down her face, gleaming wetly on her cheeks. I could feel eyes upon me, and my gaze moved behind her to a small shape in the hallway, watching us intensely. For a second, my gaze met the boy's, and I read the loathing there. He knew exactly what was happening.
He turned and fled down the hallway on silent feet. I looked back to Vera.
"Go back to bed, Vera." I said it not ungently, but she turned and fled almost as quickly as the boy, and I listened to the sound of her feet until I heard her door close. A moment later, and the dim sounds of sobs crept into my room. I'm still not sure whether they were hers or not.
-----
The boy seemed to become friends with the old widow next door. He began stopping by her houseboat every day after school, before he came home. Vera didn't seem to mind. She had other problems, I suppose, and the old widow was one of those gentle old ladies who had married a poor husband, buried a rich one, and settled down to live out the remainder of their wealth in the warmth of the bay. It couldn't hurt. At least, I thought so until the school called to inform Vera that the boy hadn't been to school in several weeks. Vera was in bed sick, so I took the call.
I walked out onto the deck afterwards. The boy was sitting and looking up at the stars. He turned around when he heard me approach. His hostile stare nearly made me stop. Nearly.
We talked then, perhaps our first real conversation, and it was as difficult then as it would be every time thereafter. I wasn't exactly sure why it was so hard at first, but I heard myself confessing quietly to the boy, "If she died--I don't know what I'd do."
There--an admission of weakness, something Jecht would never do. Ample fuel for him to attack me with, accusations of loving his mother perhaps, or of trying to take Jecht's place, pretending to be a father when I damn well wasn't. I was more vulnerable before him then than I had ever been before any fiend in Spira, up to and including Sin itself.
It was to establish the pattern of our relationship, I think.
"Don't say Mom's gonna die!" he breathed.
"My... apologies."
-----
The old widow was a great help after Vera passed away. The boy refused to come home for several weeks, and I had my hands full planning Vera's funeral, dealing with her and Jecht's relatives, who all seemed to think they deserved a piece of the massive estate which had been left to the boy. Luckily, Vera had altered her will to name me the executor, and they left empty-handed. I had promised Jecht his son would be taken care of, and I certainly couldn't do that without gil. Taking legal custody of the boy was more difficult. Vera had named me as the guardian in her will, but her relatives seemed more than eager to combat that in court, and settling with them took some time.
But eventually I did have to go take back the boy from the widow's houseboat. They saw me coming evidently, because they were waiting on the dock for me by the time I arrived. The boy had a suitcase, likely full of toys and clothes the widow had bought for him.
"Time to come home," I said to him quietly. I laid a hand on his head and had a momentary touch of soft, baby-fine hair that badly needed a brushing. Then, the boy jerked away from me and bolted home. I heard him crying in his room by the time I got there, and his door was locked.
-----
I never expected Tidus' first experience with drinking to be until he was at least fifteen years old. But the idiot kid seemed to decide that he wanted to celebrate the anniversary of his mother's death by stealing my sake jug and drinking until he vomited all over the floor.
I arrived home and found him in a near-comatose state on the floor of the main room, the carpet all around him stinking of vomit and liquor. I said nothing, but forced water on him and accompanied him on numerous trips to the bathroom as he continued to get sick. I was beginning to think we might need a trip to the hospital when he finally was able to sleep. I had to carry him to his room, where I found my jug, only half-empty. His pillow was slightly damp, too.
He never apologized to me, not even when I made him scrub the carpet he'd ruined as soon as he woke up. He seemed surprised to find me sitting by his bedside when he awoke, and took the brush and pail I indicated without saying a word to me. He never touched my sake again.
-----
"Uh... Auron?" Tidus muttered, shoving a permission form at me. "Can I, uh, go to this blitzball camp?"
I glanced over the brocheure. "It's for 14 - 16 year olds. You're twelve."
"They'll make an exception for me, I know it!" he insisted, giving me the pleading, charming eyes he only made when he wanted something. "Please? Please?!"
Out of pity for the effort it took him to ask, I signed the form and paid for the camp out of his trust fund. The day he was to leave, I gave him a large handful of loose gil--my own--without bothering to explain why or what for.
It was his first time away from home. The camp was several miles outside of Zanarkand, underwater. It cost a fortune, of course, but Tidus had been right in saying that they had jumped at the chance to accept Jecht's only child into the camp. It was during that camp that his abilities began to shine, and I received glowing reports of his progress and talent from the directors, who wanted me to come to the end-of-camp blitz game, which was the usual opportunity for all of the parents to watch their children play. Tidus did not ask me to come.
The blitz game was held at the Zanarkand Blitzball Stadium, which the camp coordinators had paid for the use of, and it was packed with proud parents and others holding up spheres and trying to spot their child among all the players. I sat in the back and watched the teenagers struggle in the water. Tidus warmed the bench the entire game, though he got considerable applause when his name was announced in the starting lineup. His team won, and he did a single victory lap with the others, his face excited even though he'd not contributed a thing. I think just being there in the water, suspended in the Stadium with all eyes upon him--I think that was enough to convince him that blitzball would be his replacement for anything and everything that was wrong in his life. Clearly, for him, it was an incredible high. Like father, like son, I suppose.
Afterwards, I didn't join the press of parents outside of the locker rooms, but waited outside of the stadium for Tidus to emerge. It was nearly an hour later when he did, surrounded by a gaggle of friends, most far older than he, but all in clear admiration of the son of Jecht. He looked really, really happy then; he was in his element, so to say, one that didn't remind him of the past all the time.
We made eye contact. He hesitated only a moment, then passed on by.
-----
"You're going to cut your throat open if you use that razor on your first try."
Tidus jumped, and nearly dropped the straight razor with which he was trying to scrape away the peach fuzz on his chin. His fuzz was remarkably dark; his hair was darkening too with age, no longer red. "Why don't you watch what you're doing?" he snapped at me.
"You should've asked for help."
"Like I'm going to ask you for anything!" he sneered, and promptly cut his chin.
-----
Why in the world did I agree to let Tidus hold his fourteenth birthday party in the house? Looking back, I can see that it was a recipe for disaster, especially given what a social butterfly he'd become. It wasn't that they trashed the houseboat, though a team of teenage blitzers can certainly make a mess.
Tidus asked me before the party to make sure I uninvited myself. I showed up anyway, halfway through the festivities, to make sure the boat was still in one piece.
I got some curious stares as I walked in. A young couple making out on the couch hurriedly yanked apart. Others, prying into the liquor cabinet, vanished so quickly I thought they had used a spell. All around where I walked, teenagers stared and stopped what they were doing rather guiltily, and a few called out, "Hey, Tidus! Who's that guy?"
Tidus gave me that look he reserved only for me since the moment I walked into his life. "That's Auron," he mumbled in a thrilled tone.
I took up a position propping up a wall and after about half an hour, I was nothing more than red-coated scenery to the partying blitzballers. I didn't even object when the alcoholic motive entered the scene, as I knew it would at some point. This evidently inured the children to me, and they even offered me some (as if the sake jug at my hip didn't indicate that I had more than enough for myself, thank you). The party staggered on uninterrupted until a young man emerged from my room, carrying my katana clutched in two hands. "Hey, look what I found!"
There was some oohing and aahing from the young men in the room, whom had likely never seen a real sword before in their lives. Before I could make my way over to them--which I was trying to do, as fast as I could--Tidus had hold of the sword.
Flushed with alcohol, wanting to show off, he lifted the katana and chopped it clumsily through the air. "Hey guys, watch this!" he called out in a bragging tone, and he hopped up onto a coffee table, about to take a flying leap as if at an imaginary fiend--when my hand caught him by the scruff of the neck and held him there.
"Go. Home."
The houseboat cleared out even faster than if the children were being chased by sinspawn. Yanking my katana from Tidus' hands, I let go of him, after giving him a solid shove to get him down from the coffee table.
"You little idiot! You could've killed someone--or yourself! My weapons are NOT toys, and if I EVER see you fool around with them again--" I stopped to try and catch my breath. My face felt hot, and I could feel my heart racing. "What if something happened to you?"
Tidus stared at me for quite a long time, then closed his eyes and shuddered. I realized he was trying not to let me see him cry.
I turned away from him to give him that small victory, leaving him there sprawled on the floor, and put my katana back into my room. Quiet feet followed me, then passed me on the way to Tidus' room. I glanced after him-- I couldn't help it--and saw him looking back at me for a moment, standing in his doorway. It reminded me of that other time. Then he awkwardly dropped his eyes and disappeared into his room, the door shutting me out as neatly as a sword falling through the air.
-----
I suppose fifteen wasn't too young to date, but a majority of the girls Tidus took out were merely impressed that a sophomore--Jecht's son, no less!--was being seriously looked at for the High School League's All- Zanarkand team. Or whatever fresh honor Tidus was earning. His star in the blitzball world was rising even more meteorically than Jecht's had, though his father's fame helped pave the way for the opportunities he enjoyed. Certainly Jecht's talent was strong in him, maybe even stronger than it had been in Jecht himself.
It was after girlfriend number four that Tidus came home with bleached blonde hair. I wanted to comment, looking at the pathetic job he'd done to it, but somehow managed not to. Unfortunately, Tidus was going through a period of preemptive striking.
"What do you think of the hair, huh?" He took one look at my face and became defensive, his excited grin vanishing in an instant. "Hey, it's a hell of a lot better than yours, old man!"
I suppose I did look old. My hair started graying seven years ago, and it had only continued during my time in Zanarkand. For all of their wondrous machina, even the Zanarkandians didn't know how to stop the movement of time, even on something as simple as hair, and I wasn't about to do a Tidus and dye it. Hardly befitting a guardian.
"What you do with your hair is your own concern."
"That's right!" Tidus nodded triumphantly. "See, you can be cool sometimes, when you're not reminding yourself how wonderful you are."
Once again, I refrained from comment. But my jaw clenched hard enough to become sore. Tidus must have noticed, because his cocky stare became a bit hesitant, and he started to raise a hand toward me. He seemed to decide better of it, however, and turned his eyes away.
-----
"Auron.... I think I'm in love with Melinda," Tidus told me shyly. "We've been going out for nearly six months now..... I....."
I merely watched him as he stumbled for words. He finally simply tapped his cheery energy, pulling up the "gambaru" attitude that had made him so wonderfully popular in high school. It was a perfect shield, more effective than my grouchiness, I must add. "Since her parents, you know, aren't so happy about our relationship, I was wondering if Melinda could live here with us?"
I closed my good eye. "Out of the question. You shouldn't be anyone's ticket to either independence from parents or a responsibility-free life. You two are seventeen, and that's far too young to even think about living together or anything of the sort." This felt like we'd done this before; perhaps it was simply the comfortable rhythm of our arguments getting to me. They made me sick each time, sick and tired of what we put each other through for reasons I didn't even fully understand.
Tidus started to protest, his eyes weak--lately, he had been putting up less and less of a fight for even the things he wanted most, another strange sign. "But--" He cut himself off, getting to his feet. "Why bother. You tell me no simply because it's something that I want." He glared at me, for all the world reminding me of the hurt little boy I'd first seen on this very houseboat, so many years ago. "You're not my dad, you're just some guy who walked in off the street. I don't need you, and I--I don't need your approval anymore." To his credit, his back was straight and proud as he walked away, disappearing into his room.
It was tempting to match him pain for pain, anger for anger, lies for lies. It was tempting to follow after him, break down the door to his room, and tell him the only reason I'd shown up in the first place was because Jecht had asked me to "hold his hand" because Tidus was "such a crybaby"; it was tempting to tell him that he'd made my life here in Zanarkand a living hell from day one. It was tempting to tell him that I hated him.
But I couldn't. I sat there as if poleaxed, paralyzed, because I couldn't lie like that. Not now, facing a young man that I had helped to raise and would live out my existence protecting. The truth--the reality of why I was still here after all this time--was that I was in Zanarkand and still alive simply for Tidus' sake. I certainly would have found my death in Spira had it not been for the promise that kept me going after Jecht and Braska were gone.
And, as much as I hated to admit it, I had found something here with him that I'd never felt before.
So I waited a suitable length of time, rose, went to Tidus' door, and knocked.
I had never spent more than a few minutes inside his room, which was his sanctuary; not counting the time when he got drunk, I'd never even been allowed inside before. After a long minute, I heard Tidus say, "Come in." His voice sounded funny and strained, but when I opened the door and stepped in, he looked alright.
Now that I was there, I hardly knew what to say. I cleared my throat, but Tidus spoke first, staring hard at his beaten-up pillow. "I saw her with Eddie the other day." Eddie, if I remembered correctly, was the goalkeeper of Tidus' high school team. "They were--kissing." He shuddered, just a little bit. I found myself wordless, and sat next to him on the bed. "I... I thought that if I got her away from her parents..... maybe....." He shuddered again, trying his best to maintain his pride, but tears were slipping out nonetheless.
"I thought... I thought she was the one, Auron. I still want to be with her, but all I can think about is..... is what she did...." His head drooped. I awkwardly put a hand on his shoulder, and for once, blessedly, he didn't turn away. Perhaps he sensed the effort that reassurance cost me.
"We.... everyone feels that way sometimes," I said gruffly. "And sometimes it is the real thing, and when it ends, you have to try and move on." There was a very long pause, and Tidus turned miserable eyes onto me. Somehow, I felt myself continue to speak. "A long time ago, I--I fell in love with someone completely wrong." I had his attention now. For obvious reasons, I never really talked about my past. And even though I was leaving out any sort of detail, this was the naked truth, and he sensed that. I forced myself to meet his gaze as I continued.
"That--that person was already married. And there were other things too, but they were complicated, and I shouldn't really get into them." My hand rubbed his shoulder a minute, and he nodded. "Anyway, that person never seemed to realize how I felt. Then one day they told me that they were-- going to die." My eye closed behind my mercifully dark shades. Damn, this was hard. "I'll never forget how that felt. It wasn't the betrayal you experienced, but it was still hard. I knew we had to say goodbye."
I stopped. After a moment, Tidus prodded, "So what happened?"
"Well, that person died. Then I came to Zanarkand to be with you."
"With me?" Tidus frowned. "But what about Mom? Weren't you here to be with her, to take care of her? Didn't Dad send you?" There was a long pause. He leaned forward. "Didn't Dad send you to take care of Mom?"
I opened my eye and looked at him again. "No. He sent me here to take care of you."
What happened afterward was, I suppose, something of a miracle--but then, the bare emotion we had both shown was near enough to a miracle for the both of us. Tidus reached forward and hugged me, the self-conscious hug of a kid embracing someone far larger, and before I knew what was happening, he was crying again. I knew Jecht, and I also knew that Jecht had caused Tidus much pain. I'd never intended to come here with the thought of erasing that pain and giving Tidus what Jecht should have given him. My hand fluttered gently to his head, and I tried to comfort him until he dozed off on the bed.
I eased Tidus from my lap and stood, my left leg having fallen asleep. I pulled the comforter up over his shoulders; I crept from the room, closing the door behind me. I went back to my own room, poured myself a large glass of sake, and sat.
I sat and thought, and removed my sunglasses. "'Such a crybaby,' huh Jecht?" I said outloud, raising a hand to wipe at my good eye. I laughed. "The both of us, I think."
Owari~
I noticed, of course. I had been the one to put it there.
"Tidus.... This is, uh...." A pause as she sorted back through the pain I'd brought her to find my name. ".... Mr. Auron. He's--he's going to be staying with us for a while."
"I don't want to impose," I interjected quietly.
"It's not an imposition," she insisted. "It's not."
"Well, I think it is!" the boy suddenly said.
"Tidus!" Vera's martyred eyes widened. "Apologize immediately!"
"No!" He ran from the room, the blitzball tumbling to the ground and rolling underneath a sofa.
I said nothing about it. I believe Vera was glad.
-----
The memorial service for Jecht was small and private. His family (a few distant relations, the boy, and Vera) had posted a small notice in the media that they had received definitive information that Jecht was deceased, and had decided to hold a memorial service to honor his memory, etc. etc. I stood in the back of the small shrine to some-or-another vague deity and watched as the nobler aspects of a pointless, blitz-oriented life in Zanarkand were presented as to make Jecht seem like some sort of hero. Vera and the boy sat in the front row. Vera was unnaturally still throughout the entire thing. The boy, too, was quiet. I couldn't quite tell if he was satisfied or not.
A small scene was made during the closing prayers as a nubile, pregnant blonde fell into the aisles, weeping, and began screaming for Jecht. Vera didn't seem to hear her. The boy peered around, though, mildly curious at all the noise.
-----
We three ate our first "family" dinner three weeks after the memorial service.
Vera suddenly said she was sick of cooking, sick of looking at the inside of the houseboat, and why didn't we all go out like a normal family should be doing? Before I knew it, we were seated around a table at one of the nicest restaraunts in Zanarkand, with a view of the blitz stadium at night. By then I was pretty immune to the wonders of the city; Vera kept her back turned to the windows the entire evening, and ate only salad. She wore a sequined green strapless dress that had obviously fit better when she was twenty or so pounds heavier and still had cleavage. The boy was indignant in a tie.
"So, Auron," Vera began fixedly, shredding lettuce in her fingernails. "What do you do for a living?"
I couldn't very well say, "Guarding you and your son." I hedged slightly. "I used to be a monk. Now, I'm a bodyguard."
It was close enough to the truth to satisfy her. She ordered a bottle of wine. "Please, have some, Auron."
"I'd like some!" the boy said loudly. Vera laughed nervously.
"D-don't be silly, Tidus. Wine is a grown-up drink."
The boy said, "I'm grown up!"
"Drink your water!" Vera suddenly snapped, and the waiter materialized at her elbow to pour her a fresh glass of wine.
-----
The door to the room I was occupying in Jecht's houseboat creaked open, and Vera stood shadowed for a moment in the doorway. I glanced at the clock. It was an ungodly hour. Light crept in through the windowshades, a pale silvery light that shone over Vera's naked body like a casting back in Spira. I sat up in bed, blinking sleep away.
"Auron," she whispered, unfolding her arms from her breasts. "I don't want to be alone..... I--I can't bear it."
There was a long pause, and tears trickled down her face, gleaming wetly on her cheeks. I could feel eyes upon me, and my gaze moved behind her to a small shape in the hallway, watching us intensely. For a second, my gaze met the boy's, and I read the loathing there. He knew exactly what was happening.
He turned and fled down the hallway on silent feet. I looked back to Vera.
"Go back to bed, Vera." I said it not ungently, but she turned and fled almost as quickly as the boy, and I listened to the sound of her feet until I heard her door close. A moment later, and the dim sounds of sobs crept into my room. I'm still not sure whether they were hers or not.
-----
The boy seemed to become friends with the old widow next door. He began stopping by her houseboat every day after school, before he came home. Vera didn't seem to mind. She had other problems, I suppose, and the old widow was one of those gentle old ladies who had married a poor husband, buried a rich one, and settled down to live out the remainder of their wealth in the warmth of the bay. It couldn't hurt. At least, I thought so until the school called to inform Vera that the boy hadn't been to school in several weeks. Vera was in bed sick, so I took the call.
I walked out onto the deck afterwards. The boy was sitting and looking up at the stars. He turned around when he heard me approach. His hostile stare nearly made me stop. Nearly.
We talked then, perhaps our first real conversation, and it was as difficult then as it would be every time thereafter. I wasn't exactly sure why it was so hard at first, but I heard myself confessing quietly to the boy, "If she died--I don't know what I'd do."
There--an admission of weakness, something Jecht would never do. Ample fuel for him to attack me with, accusations of loving his mother perhaps, or of trying to take Jecht's place, pretending to be a father when I damn well wasn't. I was more vulnerable before him then than I had ever been before any fiend in Spira, up to and including Sin itself.
It was to establish the pattern of our relationship, I think.
"Don't say Mom's gonna die!" he breathed.
"My... apologies."
-----
The old widow was a great help after Vera passed away. The boy refused to come home for several weeks, and I had my hands full planning Vera's funeral, dealing with her and Jecht's relatives, who all seemed to think they deserved a piece of the massive estate which had been left to the boy. Luckily, Vera had altered her will to name me the executor, and they left empty-handed. I had promised Jecht his son would be taken care of, and I certainly couldn't do that without gil. Taking legal custody of the boy was more difficult. Vera had named me as the guardian in her will, but her relatives seemed more than eager to combat that in court, and settling with them took some time.
But eventually I did have to go take back the boy from the widow's houseboat. They saw me coming evidently, because they were waiting on the dock for me by the time I arrived. The boy had a suitcase, likely full of toys and clothes the widow had bought for him.
"Time to come home," I said to him quietly. I laid a hand on his head and had a momentary touch of soft, baby-fine hair that badly needed a brushing. Then, the boy jerked away from me and bolted home. I heard him crying in his room by the time I got there, and his door was locked.
-----
I never expected Tidus' first experience with drinking to be until he was at least fifteen years old. But the idiot kid seemed to decide that he wanted to celebrate the anniversary of his mother's death by stealing my sake jug and drinking until he vomited all over the floor.
I arrived home and found him in a near-comatose state on the floor of the main room, the carpet all around him stinking of vomit and liquor. I said nothing, but forced water on him and accompanied him on numerous trips to the bathroom as he continued to get sick. I was beginning to think we might need a trip to the hospital when he finally was able to sleep. I had to carry him to his room, where I found my jug, only half-empty. His pillow was slightly damp, too.
He never apologized to me, not even when I made him scrub the carpet he'd ruined as soon as he woke up. He seemed surprised to find me sitting by his bedside when he awoke, and took the brush and pail I indicated without saying a word to me. He never touched my sake again.
-----
"Uh... Auron?" Tidus muttered, shoving a permission form at me. "Can I, uh, go to this blitzball camp?"
I glanced over the brocheure. "It's for 14 - 16 year olds. You're twelve."
"They'll make an exception for me, I know it!" he insisted, giving me the pleading, charming eyes he only made when he wanted something. "Please? Please?!"
Out of pity for the effort it took him to ask, I signed the form and paid for the camp out of his trust fund. The day he was to leave, I gave him a large handful of loose gil--my own--without bothering to explain why or what for.
It was his first time away from home. The camp was several miles outside of Zanarkand, underwater. It cost a fortune, of course, but Tidus had been right in saying that they had jumped at the chance to accept Jecht's only child into the camp. It was during that camp that his abilities began to shine, and I received glowing reports of his progress and talent from the directors, who wanted me to come to the end-of-camp blitz game, which was the usual opportunity for all of the parents to watch their children play. Tidus did not ask me to come.
The blitz game was held at the Zanarkand Blitzball Stadium, which the camp coordinators had paid for the use of, and it was packed with proud parents and others holding up spheres and trying to spot their child among all the players. I sat in the back and watched the teenagers struggle in the water. Tidus warmed the bench the entire game, though he got considerable applause when his name was announced in the starting lineup. His team won, and he did a single victory lap with the others, his face excited even though he'd not contributed a thing. I think just being there in the water, suspended in the Stadium with all eyes upon him--I think that was enough to convince him that blitzball would be his replacement for anything and everything that was wrong in his life. Clearly, for him, it was an incredible high. Like father, like son, I suppose.
Afterwards, I didn't join the press of parents outside of the locker rooms, but waited outside of the stadium for Tidus to emerge. It was nearly an hour later when he did, surrounded by a gaggle of friends, most far older than he, but all in clear admiration of the son of Jecht. He looked really, really happy then; he was in his element, so to say, one that didn't remind him of the past all the time.
We made eye contact. He hesitated only a moment, then passed on by.
-----
"You're going to cut your throat open if you use that razor on your first try."
Tidus jumped, and nearly dropped the straight razor with which he was trying to scrape away the peach fuzz on his chin. His fuzz was remarkably dark; his hair was darkening too with age, no longer red. "Why don't you watch what you're doing?" he snapped at me.
"You should've asked for help."
"Like I'm going to ask you for anything!" he sneered, and promptly cut his chin.
-----
Why in the world did I agree to let Tidus hold his fourteenth birthday party in the house? Looking back, I can see that it was a recipe for disaster, especially given what a social butterfly he'd become. It wasn't that they trashed the houseboat, though a team of teenage blitzers can certainly make a mess.
Tidus asked me before the party to make sure I uninvited myself. I showed up anyway, halfway through the festivities, to make sure the boat was still in one piece.
I got some curious stares as I walked in. A young couple making out on the couch hurriedly yanked apart. Others, prying into the liquor cabinet, vanished so quickly I thought they had used a spell. All around where I walked, teenagers stared and stopped what they were doing rather guiltily, and a few called out, "Hey, Tidus! Who's that guy?"
Tidus gave me that look he reserved only for me since the moment I walked into his life. "That's Auron," he mumbled in a thrilled tone.
I took up a position propping up a wall and after about half an hour, I was nothing more than red-coated scenery to the partying blitzballers. I didn't even object when the alcoholic motive entered the scene, as I knew it would at some point. This evidently inured the children to me, and they even offered me some (as if the sake jug at my hip didn't indicate that I had more than enough for myself, thank you). The party staggered on uninterrupted until a young man emerged from my room, carrying my katana clutched in two hands. "Hey, look what I found!"
There was some oohing and aahing from the young men in the room, whom had likely never seen a real sword before in their lives. Before I could make my way over to them--which I was trying to do, as fast as I could--Tidus had hold of the sword.
Flushed with alcohol, wanting to show off, he lifted the katana and chopped it clumsily through the air. "Hey guys, watch this!" he called out in a bragging tone, and he hopped up onto a coffee table, about to take a flying leap as if at an imaginary fiend--when my hand caught him by the scruff of the neck and held him there.
"Go. Home."
The houseboat cleared out even faster than if the children were being chased by sinspawn. Yanking my katana from Tidus' hands, I let go of him, after giving him a solid shove to get him down from the coffee table.
"You little idiot! You could've killed someone--or yourself! My weapons are NOT toys, and if I EVER see you fool around with them again--" I stopped to try and catch my breath. My face felt hot, and I could feel my heart racing. "What if something happened to you?"
Tidus stared at me for quite a long time, then closed his eyes and shuddered. I realized he was trying not to let me see him cry.
I turned away from him to give him that small victory, leaving him there sprawled on the floor, and put my katana back into my room. Quiet feet followed me, then passed me on the way to Tidus' room. I glanced after him-- I couldn't help it--and saw him looking back at me for a moment, standing in his doorway. It reminded me of that other time. Then he awkwardly dropped his eyes and disappeared into his room, the door shutting me out as neatly as a sword falling through the air.
-----
I suppose fifteen wasn't too young to date, but a majority of the girls Tidus took out were merely impressed that a sophomore--Jecht's son, no less!--was being seriously looked at for the High School League's All- Zanarkand team. Or whatever fresh honor Tidus was earning. His star in the blitzball world was rising even more meteorically than Jecht's had, though his father's fame helped pave the way for the opportunities he enjoyed. Certainly Jecht's talent was strong in him, maybe even stronger than it had been in Jecht himself.
It was after girlfriend number four that Tidus came home with bleached blonde hair. I wanted to comment, looking at the pathetic job he'd done to it, but somehow managed not to. Unfortunately, Tidus was going through a period of preemptive striking.
"What do you think of the hair, huh?" He took one look at my face and became defensive, his excited grin vanishing in an instant. "Hey, it's a hell of a lot better than yours, old man!"
I suppose I did look old. My hair started graying seven years ago, and it had only continued during my time in Zanarkand. For all of their wondrous machina, even the Zanarkandians didn't know how to stop the movement of time, even on something as simple as hair, and I wasn't about to do a Tidus and dye it. Hardly befitting a guardian.
"What you do with your hair is your own concern."
"That's right!" Tidus nodded triumphantly. "See, you can be cool sometimes, when you're not reminding yourself how wonderful you are."
Once again, I refrained from comment. But my jaw clenched hard enough to become sore. Tidus must have noticed, because his cocky stare became a bit hesitant, and he started to raise a hand toward me. He seemed to decide better of it, however, and turned his eyes away.
-----
"Auron.... I think I'm in love with Melinda," Tidus told me shyly. "We've been going out for nearly six months now..... I....."
I merely watched him as he stumbled for words. He finally simply tapped his cheery energy, pulling up the "gambaru" attitude that had made him so wonderfully popular in high school. It was a perfect shield, more effective than my grouchiness, I must add. "Since her parents, you know, aren't so happy about our relationship, I was wondering if Melinda could live here with us?"
I closed my good eye. "Out of the question. You shouldn't be anyone's ticket to either independence from parents or a responsibility-free life. You two are seventeen, and that's far too young to even think about living together or anything of the sort." This felt like we'd done this before; perhaps it was simply the comfortable rhythm of our arguments getting to me. They made me sick each time, sick and tired of what we put each other through for reasons I didn't even fully understand.
Tidus started to protest, his eyes weak--lately, he had been putting up less and less of a fight for even the things he wanted most, another strange sign. "But--" He cut himself off, getting to his feet. "Why bother. You tell me no simply because it's something that I want." He glared at me, for all the world reminding me of the hurt little boy I'd first seen on this very houseboat, so many years ago. "You're not my dad, you're just some guy who walked in off the street. I don't need you, and I--I don't need your approval anymore." To his credit, his back was straight and proud as he walked away, disappearing into his room.
It was tempting to match him pain for pain, anger for anger, lies for lies. It was tempting to follow after him, break down the door to his room, and tell him the only reason I'd shown up in the first place was because Jecht had asked me to "hold his hand" because Tidus was "such a crybaby"; it was tempting to tell him that he'd made my life here in Zanarkand a living hell from day one. It was tempting to tell him that I hated him.
But I couldn't. I sat there as if poleaxed, paralyzed, because I couldn't lie like that. Not now, facing a young man that I had helped to raise and would live out my existence protecting. The truth--the reality of why I was still here after all this time--was that I was in Zanarkand and still alive simply for Tidus' sake. I certainly would have found my death in Spira had it not been for the promise that kept me going after Jecht and Braska were gone.
And, as much as I hated to admit it, I had found something here with him that I'd never felt before.
So I waited a suitable length of time, rose, went to Tidus' door, and knocked.
I had never spent more than a few minutes inside his room, which was his sanctuary; not counting the time when he got drunk, I'd never even been allowed inside before. After a long minute, I heard Tidus say, "Come in." His voice sounded funny and strained, but when I opened the door and stepped in, he looked alright.
Now that I was there, I hardly knew what to say. I cleared my throat, but Tidus spoke first, staring hard at his beaten-up pillow. "I saw her with Eddie the other day." Eddie, if I remembered correctly, was the goalkeeper of Tidus' high school team. "They were--kissing." He shuddered, just a little bit. I found myself wordless, and sat next to him on the bed. "I... I thought that if I got her away from her parents..... maybe....." He shuddered again, trying his best to maintain his pride, but tears were slipping out nonetheless.
"I thought... I thought she was the one, Auron. I still want to be with her, but all I can think about is..... is what she did...." His head drooped. I awkwardly put a hand on his shoulder, and for once, blessedly, he didn't turn away. Perhaps he sensed the effort that reassurance cost me.
"We.... everyone feels that way sometimes," I said gruffly. "And sometimes it is the real thing, and when it ends, you have to try and move on." There was a very long pause, and Tidus turned miserable eyes onto me. Somehow, I felt myself continue to speak. "A long time ago, I--I fell in love with someone completely wrong." I had his attention now. For obvious reasons, I never really talked about my past. And even though I was leaving out any sort of detail, this was the naked truth, and he sensed that. I forced myself to meet his gaze as I continued.
"That--that person was already married. And there were other things too, but they were complicated, and I shouldn't really get into them." My hand rubbed his shoulder a minute, and he nodded. "Anyway, that person never seemed to realize how I felt. Then one day they told me that they were-- going to die." My eye closed behind my mercifully dark shades. Damn, this was hard. "I'll never forget how that felt. It wasn't the betrayal you experienced, but it was still hard. I knew we had to say goodbye."
I stopped. After a moment, Tidus prodded, "So what happened?"
"Well, that person died. Then I came to Zanarkand to be with you."
"With me?" Tidus frowned. "But what about Mom? Weren't you here to be with her, to take care of her? Didn't Dad send you?" There was a long pause. He leaned forward. "Didn't Dad send you to take care of Mom?"
I opened my eye and looked at him again. "No. He sent me here to take care of you."
What happened afterward was, I suppose, something of a miracle--but then, the bare emotion we had both shown was near enough to a miracle for the both of us. Tidus reached forward and hugged me, the self-conscious hug of a kid embracing someone far larger, and before I knew what was happening, he was crying again. I knew Jecht, and I also knew that Jecht had caused Tidus much pain. I'd never intended to come here with the thought of erasing that pain and giving Tidus what Jecht should have given him. My hand fluttered gently to his head, and I tried to comfort him until he dozed off on the bed.
I eased Tidus from my lap and stood, my left leg having fallen asleep. I pulled the comforter up over his shoulders; I crept from the room, closing the door behind me. I went back to my own room, poured myself a large glass of sake, and sat.
I sat and thought, and removed my sunglasses. "'Such a crybaby,' huh Jecht?" I said outloud, raising a hand to wipe at my good eye. I laughed. "The both of us, I think."
Owari~