"Did you hit your head? Who's Gin-chan?" Umibozu asked, his voice urgent yet placating.
Seeing the concern on his father's face, Kagura's eyes welled up with tears. "Kamui, he..." Her eyes darted towards her brother, who only looked puzzled, and she slowly inched towards the safety of her father's side.
Umibozu noticed Kagura's cautious behavior towards her brother and immediately shot an accusing stare at his son. "Kamui!"
Wearing his deceptively innocent face, Kamui disputed the accusation. "Don't look at me like that, baldy. I didn't do anything," he calmly voiced. "I was just standing here."
He was right. Both of them were just standing by the door, and his kids' quarrel was the usual back and forth. Kagura wasn't one to let her brother have the last word (and that's where the problem lied, because Kamui wasn't either), so how Kagura came to this state of distress was beyond him. He turned to his daughter. "Kagura, what happened to you?"
Clutching her father's shirt, Kagura gasped. "Gin-chan. Gin-chan went to fight his old friend. And they're going to kill So-chan. We have to find them, Poppy. Hurry!"
Umibozu knew Kagura wasn't capable of creating a lie this elaborate. Considering the news these days included alien invasions and giant roaches, he decided that anything was possible. "Kamui, hand me my phone, keys, and wallet," Umibozu ordered as he carried Kagura in his arms.
Kamui did what he was told and ran to his father's bedroom.
"Now, hurry and get ready for school."
"But..."
"Now! I'll take Kagura to the hospital."
In the months following his wife's death, Umibozu was haunted by a disquieting question: Did the wrong parent die? That was years ago. He asked himself that now. Kagura's suffering reminded him of his parental failures. If he died instead of Kouka, maybe Kamui would have never run away. Maybe Kagura wouldn't have to find home in another family. Yet, he couldn't find it in him to talk about their mother, because he knew Kamui blamed him for his mother's death. How should he respond when they asked about her? How should he discipline his kids when they were being rebellious? Would Kouka be able to prevent every catastrophe he caused? These thoughts left a knot in his chest. There was no guidebook on how to be both Poppy and Mommy.
"Poppy, I don't understand what's going on," Kagura muttered.
Umibozu held Kagura tighter as he carried her to his car. "We'll figure it out."
"Kamui was...he was about to kick my head."
The knot in his chest tightened.
Unsure what to do, Kamui stared blankly at them as his father stepped out the front door. Sure, his little sister was a pain in the neck, but he'd beat up anyone who dared hurt her. But something in her eyes perturbed him. Determination? Hostility? No, it was more than that. It was fear. An instinctual fear. Like a prey frozen in the moments before instant death. And that fear was directed towards him. Shouldn't he, a man who broke people's arms just to hear the sound they make, take pleasure in instilling fear in others? But all that was there was a pang of...something in his chest for making his little sister fear for her life.