Chapter Fifty Six: Small Steps Forward
Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.
Song Playing: World So Cold
Theme 16: Peace
Hiruma Youichi was a man who was comfortable with himself. He knew the power he held. He knew how intelligent he was. He was even aware of his handsome exterior, though it was often overlooked in favor of his more menacing evil aura. Still, as confident as he was, there was something about the fact that his mother and long time girlfriend went to lunch every Sunday without fail that unnerved him more than he cared to admit.
Most of the time he was able to utilize this alone time to his advantage. He called people he knew Mamori didn't approve of, pop his gum as loud and as often as he wanted, and let Cerberus out to chase their dick of a neighbor that tried to steal his newspaper.
But every so often his brain would refuse to settle. And when his brain wouldn't settle the rest of his body followed its lead.
It was one of those days were his mind couldn't stay on one thought long enough to formulate anything but a vague notion before to was speeding off to the next thought. When Mamori was around she always found something for the two of them to do; she had a sixth sense about these sorts of things. She also had the uncanny knack for finding the one thing that was able to get his racing brain onto a single track instead of weaving in and out of lanes.
Then there were the times when he was alone, more often than not because she was having lunch with his mother. Most of the time he could hold off for a while, an hour maybe more before he his feet were hitting the pavement and he was wondering through the crowded streets like some kind of vagabond.
Today he hadn't lasted fifteen minutes.
Before he knew it he was walking through a familiar neighborhood he hadn't so much as set foot in since middle school. He couldn't remember the train ride over or when he decided to make the journey but it didn't change the door he was staring at. The unassuming door he had walked through a thousand times before and never expected to walk through ever again. It was as if he was on autopilot when he reached under the well treaded on welcome mat and closed long fingers around the spare house key.
He could think of a thousand reasons not to go inside. But then he saw her guilty expression whenever she came back from those weekly lunches. He knew she felt guilty for knowing things about his family, about wanting to talk about them but keeping quiet because she knew how he felt about them. Seeing her face like that made his chest ache.
So he sucked it up and went inside.
At the age of forty five Hiruma Yuuya was convinced he was having a heart attack when he stepped into his kitchen to find his only son sitting at the table like he had never left home.
Ten minutes later he was forced to admit he wasn't having a heart attack. That there wasn't an easy way out of this confrontation. Working past the knots his heart and stomach, he took a seat next to his boy. And he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It dragged on forever and seemed to go by in the blink of eye at the same time. His trembling hands fiddled with his tea mug, the same one he had been meaning to reheat when he had first walked into the room half an hour ago. Then, suddenly, he couldn't take the quiet anymore.
"She's a good girl." He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, avoiding eye contact at all costs. "Anezaki, I mean. She's a good girl."
There was a long silence. Long enough for him to wonder if it had been the wrong thing to say. Maybe he had ruined what tentative bridge his son was trying to make in their relationship. Maybe his personal relationships were off limits. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut and just appreciated the idea that his only child could tolerate being in the same room as him. Which was more than he had ever thought possible even as early as that morning. Maybe- Maybe-
"The best."
His heart nearly leapt out of his throat at the sound of his son's voice. It was the first time in year that he had heard it addressed to him. Not to reporters, not to players, not to anyone else but to him. Him and no one else. His hands stopped shaking.
For twenty minutes after that they sat in that kitchen without another syllable spoken between them.
Then he left just the way he came in: without a sound and without a word.
He couldn't bring himself to move in fear for a long time after that. Afraid that if he so much as twitched that that moment would forever be gone. That he would startle himself awake and find out it never happened. It wasn't until his wife came home hours later asking him what he wanted for dinner that he found himself taking a deep shuddering breath and crying into his cold tea.