Lightning-Dono: I've only read the first Suikoden III book, but here we are...
Father
By: Lightning-Dono
Status: One-Shot
All she saw was an empty seat across the dinner table.
--
The chandelier flickered on, a dazzling array of lights filling the room, casting long shadows across the filled dinner table.
A dinner table filled just for her, dishes fit for her tiny appetite and what remained would be what her father would've eaten were he there.
Chris plopped herself down on the leathery chair, her wavy blonde hair swaying as she shoved herself closer to the table. As always, a glamorous bowl of fruit studded with invaluable gems glittered like a colorful disco ball, beckoning her to reach within its depths and remove an apple of her liking. But Chris didn't like apples anymore.
--
Flashback
--
A month-younger Chris was wandering the massive mansion that her father owned. In her tight fists was a teddy bear that comforted her times of loneliness and hardship. The stuffing was showing at the loosely sewn seams, but she cherished its cushy texture, the warmth it provided her as she trekked the lengths of the grand hallways of her own home, wishing someone other than maids and butlers would attend to her needs.
She wanted her father. She wanted him so badly that it hurt her heart to think about him. Chris squeezed the bear, bringing him closer to her chest, pressing the lacy collar of her dress into her neck.
The entire house was a wasteland. A wasteland of velvety carpeting, underpaid servants, and paintings. Paintings that meant nothing to Chris, except for a portrait that a famous artist had crafted within a few days of her father. Her father. Not just any famed man or woman that her dad had hung paintings on the wall of. This was the man who had cared for her throughout her youth until he went out to battle.
And she needed him at home.
"Mistress!" A suited butler called from beyond the hallway, turning the corner messily as he slipped on the slick hardwood floor.
"Yes?" She said nervously from her position on the floor, gazing up at her father's painting, memorizing every wrinkle, every tone of his skin at the exact place the shadowing came in. This would never help her in the future, she knew, but she missed him. Chris reached down into the plate beside her that the maid had set there, picking up an apple wedge and biting down on it with her front teeth, savoring the juiciness of it all.
"Your father has gone missing in battle," the butler exclaimed hastily. I chose the right words, he thought to himself, filled with pride because he was handling it well. She doesn't need to know that he's dead. She doesn't want to hear that.
But that didn't keep the shock from sinking in.
Chris bit into her cheek. The salty taste of blood trickled into her senses.
--
End Flashback
--
She reached out for a plate of rice and slowly spooned it onto her plate of glistening china.
She put nothing on it. Slowly, she lifted a spoonful of rice to her lips. Chewing the miniscule grains, tears filled her eyes. Her father had loved rice. Lifting her chin a centimeter more blasted her with a partial image of her father's seat. He had never missed a single dinner with her until he had gone off to battle.
He dominated her thoughts.
He controlled her feelings.
And she missed him more than anything.
You can be gone for a million years, but I will still be waiting for you. Waiting for you to hold me in your arms, tell me you love me, and tell me everything will be okay. And everyday, I still wish that you would come home, father.