IT’S ONLY WHEN THEIR GAZES MEET THAT REALIZATION SINKS: There has been a grave miscalculation. Daughter unfurls its truth as heir and father as predecessor. There is no house. Father does not exist. The space they’ve carved for themselves is in the hollow script of folktales where father– predecessor– selfishly plays pretend. There is no difference between daughter and heir. Father, predecessor, commander– he has ordered his demand. Heir follows in obedient suite.
(And this is their reality,)
Tsubaki stares, aghast, as tear-stricken eyes gaze back at him in harrowing fright. Their eyes meet; they do not connect. Her hands wipes away her own misery before his can; heir’s gaze downcast in shame. She departs from him and reveals the crater. Comfort was illusory. The warmth of his daughter lingers in its finality and that, too, is ephemeral. A single winter gust blows it away until the only proof of its existence are the tears that stain his nagagi, the remnants of her despair that stabs into him.
Pain: the only way love identifies itself unto him.
Isolation: the only way she knows how to progress.
Heir walks past him with disoriented steps. Her steps are deafening echoes, each a stake plunged into his heart. Crater crumbles to canyon–
(And this is their reality,)
(And he glances back down at the unraveled threads of her perfection. Where he collects her individual strands and marvels at their existence, heir already weaves ahead with the needle. Where he smiles skywards as the wildfire’s fumes submerge him, the matoi is hoisted proudly once more.)
He turns to stare at her retreating figure. The Amayari kamon branded upon her back– from his haori and its intricate silk too thin to shield her from winter’s frigidity– stares back. Heir turns and perches herself alone and her grief is still omnipresent: in the charcoal black streaks carved upon pale cheeks, in swollen eyelids, in her desolate gaze.
“I’ll overcome this,” heir says as she stares back at the wreckage, contemplating her would-haves and could-nots and it does not dawn upon her: father stands there, too, in the pale-white of his nagagi. He has not moved from the epicenter of her grief. He, too, becomes an obstacle.
And this is their reality.
Tsubaki watches her; they are two solitary creatures. Orbiting each other but never meeting; reaching out to each other but never touching. He stares at her furisode and the camellias adorning it; the final cloth of her youth before she sheds it away.
This is their reality, but is he okay with this? To quietly let the heart of his daughter, not heir, fizzle? In this desolate moment, he sees her future: where her tears will fall again as she stands in her lonesome, stubbornly scrubbing traces of herself away and muffling herself into silence. In this heart-wrenching moment, he sees her future: where she peers back, alone, at the graveyard of would-haves and could-nots and there is a gaping cavity in her chest, directly where the heart should be. She has overcame everything, but what is there left?
This future of hers is easy to visualize; it may be her future, but it was his reality.
He is not okay with this; to let history repeat its script again. This is not their reality. Father steps closer to daughter. He will not make this their reality; where father directs and daughter obeys, where daughter forcefully steels herself as father watches. Wrath towards another forgotten; there is only desperation.
Daughter, forgive him for being selfish and straying off of script again– For he has seen this scene and the damage that commences and has stubbornly decided, he does not want that for her. Tonight is a homage to her coming-of-age and it was supposed to be perfect and they were supposed to be celebrating, but the night has gone astray and has shattered into imperfect smithereens— So, what?
Father reaches out to daughter, again. He takes a step forward because he has decided, yet again, he wants to continue playing pretend. They want to be Father and not predecessor; not commander and not idol; for they too, are flesh and bone and a soul, and not the picture-scroll of an idealized soldier with his winning smile that his daughter seeks solely for inspiration and not comfort.
“What I meant to say is,” Tsubaki says as he finds his place by his daughters’ side again. He sits by her and his gaze lowers, too, at the destruction and wreckage that they’ve called this night. “You are my daughter, so you needn’t overcome this alone. I am here by your side, for I am your father.”
He tilts his head to look at her, again, and the shame marring her features that she’s tried so hard to hide.
“If you need a shoulder to cry on, or someone to confide in, I am here, Matoi. I will listen to you.”
(And his memory flickers back to the Deeprealm, of the day he returned and realized the energy has shifted. Where trusted caretaker could no longer look him in the eyes and daughter had silenced herself and something had happened, but no one would speak. He does not want this to be a pattern anymore.)
“So, you don’t need to become better immediately and you don’t need to be so quick to define.” He smiles, bittersweet. “There is only so much that you can bear alone, Matoi. Acknowledging that is not inviting weakness but, rather, growth.”
He seeks for her, again. “Please, share your burdens with me. Then, together, we can decide what to do from here." A pause, "Or we can simply sit together and look back at the wreckage. For that is enough, too."
