Father's Day
Summary: Wow, another fic by Ego that emphasises a poor father and son relationship. Here, Ryuuji's indifference could prove lethal for his father. One-shot. PG. Ryuuji-centric.
Note: I'm upping this now since I will not be in town on Father's Day. I have to get the posion out, hm? Suuuuure.
Disclaimer: Gues what? Ego-chan does not own anyhting.
His father was sitting in an oversized, unattractive leather chair he had purchased on a trip to Italy fifty years before for his apartment in Cairo. Ryuuji remembered having a strong dislike of it and how the leather stuck to his bare skin when he sweated. After his mother had disappeared, his father became obsessed with returning to Japan and had taken the chair and his son with him. It currently sat in his son's house, facing the area of the tokonoma which accommodated the television. Both he and his son believed that as long as there was a small space left empty for the priest to bless, they could fill the alcove with whatever they wanted. It was a life lesson Ryuuji was convinced was the only real profit that had come from his childhood.
"Ichiro, have you seen the news?"
"I'm Ryuuji."
"Now you're just 'Ichiro' for me."
Ryuuji shook his head silently, not allowing his father's behavior to bother him. He found he lost his patience very quickly with the man. At times, all he had to do was look at the old, mutilated face, and he would feel upset. He didn't know how to treat his father; kindness and respect was wasted, empathy was too much work, and frustration was almost always mutual. The old man strived to be difficult. He was demanding and unappreciative of what his son had done for him. Ryuuji gave his father everything a man of his age and mental condition would need to live comfortably; it couldn't possibly be his fault that his father was cursed with an incapacity for contentment. He only hoped it wasn't genetic.
"The economy is fallen apart, Ichiro. How's your company doing? The television never tells me good things for it."
"Black Clown is doing fine. We've expanded to other countries. It'll be fine."
"You never know that. You're no good with numbers and management. You're just good at tearing people apart, threatening them and telling them what to do."
"How?"
"You always tell me what to do."
"I'm looking after you. You aren't healthy anywhere, Tousan. Even your brain is sick." Ryuuji placed coffee next to his father's sour ume. As the man began his morning habit of two pickle plums and coffee before breakfast, Ryuuji added as an afterthought, "And, I don't threaten you"
The old man shrugged and chewed his first plum slowly. Once it was down he said, "You want me dead, but you don't want me to die."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you blame me for everything. If I die, then there is no problem for you anymore except that you have no one alive to blame. Then, you'll keep blaming my influence. I see that you've always hated me. You're just like me, but you hate me like you mother did."
"I don't hate you; you just irritate me more than I appreciate being irritated by another human being. You do so consecutively, so I avoid it by avoiding you. "
"No, you do hate me because you hate yourself for being intimidated by me."
Ryuuji scoffed. "Intimidated by you, Tousan? What's the worst you can do?"
"Be disappointed in you; care as little about you as your mother did."
Ryuuji became quiet. He wasn't sad or shocked; he was fuming over his father's nerve to say such a thing. He looked at the man hatefully, certain that he would die if he didn't have his son taking care of him. Ever since the mental hospital had declared his father cured for all practical intentions and sent him home, Ryuuji had been forced to care for him. He had tried paying someone else to do it instead, but the geezer threw fits and claimed his son was insulting him by passing him on to others in his old age. Ryuuji had relented and bought the man a house outside the city, visiting him once or twice a month to see if the neighbors hadn't killed him already.
"Do you know this Kaiba Seto guy? He's on the news a lot now. There's hype about him being some kind fag. He looks like a real bastard."
"He is."
"Do you know him?" the man asked incredulously. Ryuuji ignored the tone and shrugged.
"Not personally."
His father still watched him suspiciously. It seemed he was always trying to find something wrong with Ryuuji, a behavior which made his son defensive and deceitful. Since Ryuuji was a child, he had imposed upon him a statue of limitations dictating what he could and could not be. When he felt that Ryuuji had breached the edict, he was relentless in his investigation and chose not to trust him. This had given his son years of frustration and storming out of their apartment after screaming that his father was an ugly, paranoid bastard, and that he rather be the son of a bastard then be the man himself.
"Call Hideki-san, I want to go for a walk."
Ryuuji nodded and went to the phone. Shirakawa Hideki was one of his father's old friends from school. They had met at a reunion a few years before, and Ryuuji had become immeasurably grateful for the man's existence. His father and Shirakawa's walks lasted hours, giving him time to prepare and eat food for himself and work on his company over the internet.
One of Shirakawa's many daughters answered the phone. Ryuuji noticed her voice faltering when she realized who she was speaking with. He'd only visited the household twice with his father to be polite since it made him uncomfortable. It appeared that everyone in the Shirakawa family believe his father was a respectable man who had suffered greatly. They waited on him like a grandfather, leaving the man to complain when they returned home that he should be treated better by his son. Ryuuji didn't changed his manner, telling his father that if he had wanted to be pampered in his increasing age, then he should've fit in a daughter somewhere, since they where much more forgiving and responsible. He pointed out that all Shirakawa had were his wife and daughters. If there had been any sons, they had been intelligent enough to disappear into the cities.
"Tousan would like Shirakawa-san to accompany him on a walk. Is he busy, or has his age caught up with him? If that's the case, I think he's very smart to avoid my chatty father."
The girl laughed nervously on the other end, imagining what she remembered of the man she was talking to and trying not to feel self-conscious over the phone. "Oh, no, no. He is here," she explained quickly. "He's been talking about getting out this week to wake his bones and get some fresh air. I'm sure he'd be glad to accompany your father."
"Great. We'll just dump them off at the park and run like hell, m'kay?"
The girl laughed again, not sure if she should be amused or anxious of what Ryuuji was saying. She knew that he was joking. Still, it was a very strange joke.
Ryuuji hung up the phone after arranging to drop the men off at the park. The girl had said that one of Shirakawa's grandsons would bring him, and Ryuuji had found it unintentionally funny. His father had married late and was now having to be content as an old man without an extended family. Outside his father and his mother, Ryuuji had grown up knowing no uncles or aunts or grandparents. The Otogis seemed to have warded off humanity and the birthrate, which had since lowered in their favor, always having something to hide about the few relatives they did have. This made it difficult for him to understand interdependence and group loyalty, the practice of which he heard started in the family.
"Tousan, put your shoes on so I can take you to the park," Ryuuji said, sticking his head into the room for a second before turning down the hall to get his coat out of his room. When he returned, the man hadn't moved. Figuring he had fallen asleep, Ryuuji went over to shake him.
"Tousan?" he asked as he shook him lightly by the shoulder. There was no reaction. Usually, he would snap awake and swear at Ryuuji for disturbing his dreams. It made Ryuuji uneasy when this didn't happened. He wondered if he should call a doctor or a priest. To his frustration, it occurred to him that he did not know how to read a pulse to see if his father was even alive.
The phone rang. Ryuuji stared at it and tried to figure out what to do. His mind was wiped clean of coherent thought as he fell into an instinctive panic. Everything seemed to have jumbled together until he had no idea what was happening. He becoming solely aware of the phone and it's shrill, persistent ringing. Through the haze, he walked towards it and lifted the receiver.
"Moshi moshi," he said without any hint of panic or uncertainty in his voice. He could hear the Shirakawa daughter breathing into the phone, her voice as anxious as his should have been.
"Otogi-san?"
"Yes, Shirakawa-san?"
"My father can't go out today. An ambulance was called and now he's at the hospital."
"What happened?"
"He tripped on the stairs and hurt his leg."
"You have my condolences."
"Tell you father he is very sorry."
"I will," Ryuuji said, surprised at how calm he was sounding. The girl couldn't possibly know that his father had just suffered a stroke. Ryuuji had heard from his father's doctor that every second wasted resulted in the loss of more brain cells. There was a three hour window for medication in which he could call the hospital, and he was wasting two minutes of it on the phone.
After the Shirakawa daughter had hung up, Ryuuji left the phone. He didn't want to call someone to help his father. When the man had suffered small strokes in the past, Ryuuji had called the doctor only to be embarrassed when he had returned to normal by the time help arrived. His father had changed his lifestyle at the advice of the doctor by watching his food and taking long walks for exercise. What he didn't do, however, was stop smoking and drinking. Ryuuji assumed that was what had kept him from improving.
He went back into the room and sat across from his father on the coffee table, an unlit cigarette waiting in his mouth. The old man stirred when he heard the harsh click of the lighter and turned his face in the direction of the sound. Ryuuji saw his eyes were straining, as though he were trying to see through a dense fog. His expression was worried.
"Boku…bo…boku-wa…" he murmured, not able to get past the three syllables. Ryuuji stared at him, his stomach dancing while his face remained unaffected. He took a drag and waited for the old man to come around.
"Did you take your medicine?" Ryuuji asked before realizing it was a pointless question. "Never mind, I'll go get if for you."
He stood up and walked to the kitchen, looking through the medicine cabinet for a small bottle of his father's most recent prescription. The man had accumulated enough pills to stock a pharmacy in his old age, and none of it was organized. Ryuuji took his reading glasses out of his pocket and began deciphering the labels. When he found the bottle, it was empty. He shook it twice to confirm the fact, annoyed that he had a chore of getting more. He took up his coat which had been patiently waiting for him by the door and headed outside, announcing to his father that he was getting medicine before closing the door and locking it. There was no response from the man in the leather chair.
The walk to the medical supply was not long. Since many of the older generations lived in the area, the store was well-equipped to deal with prescriptions for people who suffered heart attacks and strokes. Ryuuji held an account with the clerk and only had to show him the bottle for a refill.
"Your father is through these already?" the clerk asked in polite surprise. "I filled the prescription less than a month ago. They should've lasted."
Ryuuji shrugged and twirled an unlit cigarette between his fingers. His previous had been sacrificed to the pavement outside the store before entering. "I honestly have no idea how long the pills are supposed to last. I just get them. How the old man takes them and looses them in something I know nothing about."
The clerk nodded politely, as though the insolence of what Ryuuji had said had no affect on him. "Well, maybe he spilled them somewhere? I'm sure he hasn't been abusing the medication. That doesn't make sense."
"Yeah, whatever," Ryuuji said. He filled out the paperwork in front of him, pausing over a few of the responses before leaving them blank. The clerk noticed this when he handed him the replenished bottle.
"Why didn't you answer question five? Aren't you your father's caretaker, Otogi-san?"
Ryuuji scoffed at the idea and shook his head. "No, I'm just his son. My job is to cook and run errands for the week before walling myself back up inside my million-dollar penthouse apartment overlooking the bay, where I am waited on hand and foot by beautiful women and menservants and my authority is that of a god. A man can only bask in his own glory for so long."
The clerk looked at him blankly. "Don't worry about it," Ryuuji said.
"You're strange, so I'm worried about you. You ought to see a doctor."
Ryuuji's eyebrow rose. "For what?"
"You have an unusual behavior. You're probably ill."
"I'm not. You shouldn't recommend that."
"I am very sorry. You're charging to your account, right?"
"Yes, yes. Now, where are the damn pills?"
"In your left hand, Otogi-san."
Ryuuji clenched the bottle tighter and nodded, turning to leave without a word. He knew that if he weren't in such a foul mood then the clerk would have ushered him to the door. His current disposition, however, did not welcome the courtesy. A part of him recognized that he was stressed, but it was something he fervently denied. He chose to adopt a manner that suggested something else, because stress meant worry and worry translated to the idea that he actually cared about his father's health and the damn pills.
Ryuuji didn't turn down the street to his father's house immediately. He paused and waited at the marker, willing himself to keep going. He never liked to return to his father's. It upset him more than he wanted to admit. There was anger with his responsibility to the man and a concern for what people would say if he didn't show. He was tired of it and agreed with his father. He wanted the man to die, to no longer consume his time and energy with his complaints and his expensive medicine. His hand reached for the doorknob and he tried to compose his thoughts. He wasn't happy; the clerk had made sure of proving that much. He wanted to eat and finish reading the newspaper, to do something more productive than listening and trying not to start throwing things to vent his frustration. The Ryuuji of Domino City had a much better, not so sorry excuse for a life, which he had crafted to his own taste and not that of a figure whose only authority was to make Ryuuji waste a few precious days each month visiting.
The television was off when Ryuuji entered the house. He welcomed the lack of the news anchor's voice announcing the goings-on of the world and the weather with perfect diction. If he hurried to the newspaper before his father's favorite game shows came on, he would be able to catch a few more paragraphs on the affects of yogurt in fighting cancer.
"Where were you?" his father asked when Ryuuji passed the doorway on his way to the kitchen. He watched the reflection of Ryuuji in the television as it reached into its left pocket. Ryuuji shook the bottle of pills for him and placed them on the table. His father looked from them to the young man suspiciously, trying to evaluate what he was seeing. Ryuuji waited and feigned patience, his foot tapping unconsciously on the hard floor.
"Why didn't you call my doctor?"
"It doesn't look like you needed him."
"What do you know? You're not the one suffering."
"I know that I really don't care one way or the other."
His father stiffened at this remark and drew himself up in his seat, attempting to look more impressive. Ryuuji wanted to laugh, but let him speak. He was confident that he could guess to man's next words.
"You're a terrible son."
"That's not a major failure on my part; you were a terrible father."
"You shouldn't act how you act."
"I don't appreciate being told how to think."
"I'm not asking you to think a certain way; I'm demanding that you conform and treat me with the respect I'm allotted for being you father."
When it came to dealing with his father, Ryuuji knew he hadn't matured past the point of sounding like a selfish teenager. The old man had been released from the hospital less than a year before, and the time without him had spoiled his son. He didn't want to put up with his father or acknowledge his existence. It had been pleasant for Ryuuji to know that the responsibility had gone to others; to know he had a father but didn't have to tax himself with meeting his needs and supporting him in his ailing health. It had been better to simply write a check once a month and leave it at that.
"But, of course, you want me dead."
"Hm?" Ryuuji didn't care. His father always said that, and in a way, he was right. Ryuuji saw no peace in his life as long as his father was alive and challenging his importance.
"Hand me the remote, Ichiro." As quickly as it had come, his father's anger dissipated. He had fallen back to his second names and petty demands that Ryuuji should only exist to hand him what he couldn't reach when sitting. Ryuuji did as he was asked and left the room as the television started up again. In his room, his suitcase was already packed. Once he finished cooking lunch and reading the newspaper, he would hand his father the Domino City train schedule and ask him if he wanted to stay in the apartment. This meant to both of them that Ryuuji was leaving. His father would take one look and adamantly refuse to go anywhere at his age, complaining that Ryuuji's corporation took too much of his son's time. It was time he should have spent with his father, since he couldn't find a wife to take care of him. Why couldn't Ryuuji even find a girlfriend when he had so much money? He couldn't be that bad looking.
Ryuuji would sneer over his father's waving hands and raised voice, knowing it would be sadistic to force anyone to put up with the old man. The Shirakawa's were the crazy ones. If it had been up to his father, he would've been made to marry one of the less than attractive girls from that family and move in. He was thankful that his father hadn't established that much control over him.
"Ichiro, you're better than Ryuuji. Make me an omelet while you're in the kitchen."
"I'm not Ichiro."
"But you can make an omelet."
"Is that all you care about?"
"Right now, yes. I cannot live off ume and coffee."
Ryuuji sighed and took the heavy skillet from the cabinet. "Fine," he said. "Do you want mushrooms in your damn omelet?"
"Yes."
"I hope you choke on them," Ryuuji said to himself before breaking the last of the eggs and preparing his father's breakfast. His father always asked for omelets, so Ryuuji had become skilled enough to make them quickly. When he brought the plate to the front room with tea a few minutes later, his father was listening to the radio.
"Do you know this Kaiba Seto guy? There's hype about him being some kind fag. His voice was on a second ago. He sounds like a real bastard."
"He is."
"Do you know him?" the man asked incredulously. Ryuuji shrugged.
"Not personally."
His father still watched him suspiciously.
Endnote: I was planning this to be a chapter to something, so when that something eventually shows up, you may see this again. :shrug: I dunno...
Ling no Yong-