"When I was, around 10 maybe..." Kareki starts to speak. Small coughs escaping him as he speaks. The almost 20-year-old trying to make the shivering of his body less obvious.
Zeno stops reading with Kiriga and they both turn their attention towards the cursed man. Zeno tugs Kiriga to shift his sitting position to a more proper one and put's the famous in modern times, published just 42 years ago, Yotsuya Kaidan book down. Kareki smiles and continues to speak.
"My father Kariya told me about his aspirations." Kiriga looks up sharply, his shoulders now tense with focusing on whatever his father says.
"His own father, my grandfather Kaneya died quite young, at 17 and thus father was made the Oyakata at age 4." Zeno mulls that over in his head. Far too much pressure on an 4 year old, his mother or aunts maybe handled the corps more during the early years.
"No matter how much burden my grandmother tried to take off his shoulders, most of the corps' decision's still needed to be run through the official Oyakata. My father, having as per tradition been raised as a girl didn't quite understand why so much suddenly relied on his word." Kareki takes pauses between words, out of breath just by speaking.
"As he got older he felt even more extremely pressurized and burdened by the lives on his hands and realized that he didn't want that on his children." Kareki gazes at Kiriga, maybe lamenting that the 6 soon to be 7-year-old would be, in a less than 15 years in his position, dying on a futon.
"So he decided to live as long as he could, so that his own children wouldn't be forced in to becoming a figure head so young." Kareki leans his head to the side where Zeno sits. Zeno leans forward a bit so the man can rest his head on Zeno's shoulder.
"I'm so very sorry Kiriga," Kareki lets his hands tremble, allowing a few small tear drops slide down his face. Hiccups and sobs subtly rack through Kareki's body.
"That your father is not sturdy enough to be able to make sure you don't get that burden so early." Kiriga blinks, the 6 year old tilts his head in confusion at his father's words.
"That I am not able to give you time, or a proper childhood."
And even though Zeno tries he can't speak up, all he can do is to just hold the sobbing 19 year old. Kiriga is fussing, trying to help his father through means of hugging and smiling.
And Zeno wonders, contemplates and thinks. Zeno really is trying so hard to understand the Ubuyashiki's cycle of never having enough time.
Because if there is one thing Zeno has always had too much of, it's time.