Days Without Nights - Chapter 29
Jul. 14th, 2015 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angevon'Dad, are you happy?'
Kichirou had asked that question this morning when Yosuke had helped the boy get ready for school. It had come out of nowhere, and he hadn't been able to answer it at the time—he'd just brushed it off by changing the subject.
But now it was on his mind while he was at work.
He didn't have an answer for his son. 'Yes' was a lie and a 'no' would only make the kid worry about him, and he didn't want that. Though knowing Ki-kun, he might be worrying anyway...
The truth was that overall, Yosuke wasn't happy. Who would be? His wife had left him! Even if he and Michiko were speaking civilly to each other the rare times they saw each other, the relationship was over. She wasn't coming back.
On the bright side, if it could be called that, Yosuke had finally gotten into the swing of this single dad life. Get up early, make breakfast, and get his son up and ready for school, then survive another long day of work, come home and make dinner, make sure Ki-kun did his homework... Depending on how late it was—and how exhausted Yosuke was by then—they'd ride their bikes at the park or watch some TV or play a game together. The weekends became dedicated to cleaning and shopping. And then the week would start over again, and... the cycle repeated.
At work, one of the guys offered to take Yosuke out to the local bar, but he'd declined. He wasn't much of an alcohol drinker, but more importantly, he wasn't ready to look for someone new.
Not when the divorce wasn't finalized.
...Not when Yu was still on his mind.
Yu had been calling now. Trying to, at least. Yosuke couldn't manage to bring himself to answer the phone whenever he saw that name on the screen. His heart would beat too fast, his chest would feel so tight. He was still far too afraid of what he might say to his best friend.
But Yu never left a message, so Yosuke found it easy enough to pretend that he hadn't been available to answer the call, that he just hadn't had any time to return it. Yes, it was an easy lie to tell himself, even as the days turned into weeks...
"I'm home!" Yosuke called.
He frowned at the lack of response, but thought nothing of it, thinking his son might be in the bathroom.
He entered the kitchen to find a note on the table. It turned out that his in-laws had taken Kichirou to their own home and would return him at the end of the week.
Yosuke was incensed. This was ridiculous! They could have called and asked to see him. They could have just come over to visit, too. Yosuke wouldn't have minded coming home to surprise in-laws waiting for him. Well, he might mind it, but it was hell of a lot better than them actually taking Kichirou out of the house like this. Damn, they must be pissed that he'd skipped their scheduled visit last month... And the holiday visit, too. Yosuke grimaced at the paper and then called them up.
"Furusawa-san?"
"Ah, Hanamura-san... We expected you to call. Kichirou-kun is doing fine. We will return him on Friday. We were... worried about him living without his mother. We decided we could help."
"I get that," Yosuke said. "But you really should have, you know, talked with me about it!"
"We hadn't seen him in so long," the older man replied smoothly, "that maybe we were carried away... Nevertheless, you know he is safe with us."
"Fine," Yosuke said, but it came out harsh because he was not happy. "Put my son on the line, please."
He heard some talking in the background and after several long moments, his son's voice came loud and clear. "Daaaaad!"
"Ki-kun! Hey, you all right with staying with your grandparents for a bit? I can't believe they just took you like that, sheesh." That last bit was mostly muttered to himself.
"Uh, umm," the boy stuttered. Probably his grandparents were standing over him while he was on the phone, listening to at least his half of the conversation.
"Hey, I can come visit, if you'd like." Heck, Yosuke would like that. A week without Kichirou, with an empty house, was going to be rough.
"Uh, umm, w-well... It's okay, Dad. Uh, umm..."
Yosuke frowned into the phone. Maybe the boy wasn't sure of the situation himself. Seeing his grandparents only once every month or so meant he wasn't that close to them. "It's all right. They said they'd bring you home on Friday."
"Oh! Okay!" Kichirou seemed happy to hear that. They mustn't have told him. Yosuke shook his head. Michiko hadn't been close to her parents; maybe this poor communication was why.
"Be good for them, all right?"
"All right, Dad! Goodbye!"
Instead of handing the phone back to his grandfather, Kichirou hung up. Yosuke decided not to call back. He brooded for some time, noting how quiet the house seemed without his son around. Kichirou wasn't a noisy kid, but he would play his video games, he would get up to use the toilet or get a drink or ask Yosuke for a snack after dinner, or ask for help with his homework...
And Yosuke couldn't give him a bath. He'd forgotten to tell the grandparents about that. He should have given them some rules, too, about taking care of the boy. Like, bedtime, 10 pm sharp! Don't let him stay up later!
He wandered into Kichirou's room, wondering if they knew where he went to school, and then checked to see if they'd brought changes of clothes for the kid, too. He'd need one school uniform, at least. Yeah, they had raided the drawers.
Then he sat on the boy's futon and stared unseeing at the boy's TV.
Just another few days. He could handle that. And Monday was already almost over, so that meant there was only Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then on Friday he'd come home from work to find Ki-kun waiting for him. So basically just three days. It'd be fine.
Tuesday night wasn't so bad—Yosuke invited Hiroshi-kun's father over and they watched a televised baseball game together. Mr. Ito knew so much about stats and current standings. Yosuke would have learned a lot if he'd found it in himself to care. At least it distracted him for a little bit, and they had a nice chat after the game was over.
Wednesday wasn't bad, either—Yosuke decided to spend the evening doing all the shopping he'd planned to do over the weekend so that when his son was back, they could spend that time doing something else much more fun than buying groceries.
Thursday night was when the loneliness became a little too much.
Restless, Yosuke found himself in his son's room again. He sat on the futon and discovered that the boy had left his cell phone there. When his grandparents had taken him away, he must've so distracted that he'd forgotten it.
Yosuke picked up the cell phone and absently turned it over in his hands. Poor Kichirou probably felt naked without it. At the same time, the kid wasn't really glued to it or anything like he'd heard of happening in other families.
He flipped the phone open and noticed there was a number of new texts. Popular kid, huh...? He closed the phone and then frowned. He really shouldn't. He trusted Kichirou and there was no question he was a good kid. But Yosuke was alone and missed him and...
He opened the phone back up and began to look through some of the boy's messages.
Most of the sent and received text messages were to his friend Hiroshi, of course. Yosuke only read a few before giving up. Had slang evolved that much since he'd been in school? He couldn't really make heads or tails about what they were saying to each other, but he suspected some of the acronyms were related to a video game. It would be just like his son to talk about what was happening in a game right as he played it.
Yosuke noticed that one of the contacts was labeled, 'Mom.' If he really wanted, he could get Michiko's current phone number from it. He decided against it in the end. He wasn't sure what he'd do with it. He wouldn't call her to beg her to come back to him or anything. And with the visitation schedule set up, he didn't have anything to say to her.
Kichirou's most-called number, as it turned out, wasn't his best friend or his mom. It was a contact labeled, 'Uncle.'
It was kind of depressing that his son had more contact with Yu now than he did, wasn't it?
In fact, the most recent text message was from 'Uncle.'
You can call me anytime, you know, Kicchan (=^-w-^=)
Yosuke knew he shouldn't, he really shouldn't... but he began to go through the Kichirou's text message log to and from Yu.
There wasn't much. Most of Kichirou's texts to him were simple, 'Can I call you now?' queries. Yu's answer was usually, 'Of course,' but there was one 'Just a few minutes, please, and I'll call you!' Every message Yu sent had a silly emoticon at the end. It was rather endearing.
Probably any serious discussions the two had were through actual calls. Well, that's good. Yosuke shouldn't be prying.
But he continued to pry, anyway.
He found a text from Yu asking if he could call Kichirou, and the reversal puzzled him for a moment until he read the text the boy had sent beforehand:
I think Dad's crying I don't know what to do
Yosuke stared at the text, and then checked the date it had been sent. Yeah, not long after he'd asked Yu to leave them. So. His son had seen him crying to himself on the living room couch. He looked up at the ceiling with a sigh. Then he snorted, recalling how he'd once asked Yu for advice when his son had been crying. That felt like eons ago, now.
I miss you and I think Dad misses you too
...His son was perceptive, wasn't he...?
Yosuke backed out of the texts menu and closed the phone with a very long sigh. But the truth was that if Yu was here, he wouldn't be half so lonely while his son was away.
Yosuke came home from work on Friday full of excitement, but his enthusiasm was killed dead in its tracks.
Kichirou was not there.
In frustration he called the Furusawas to demand an explanation.
"We'll bring him tomorrow," his father-in-law promised.
"What time?" Yosuke grumbled. Kichirou didn't have Saturday school the next day, so the boy would be free in the morning.
"Mid-afternoon," the man replied promptly.
"Fine. Fine," Yosuke repeated. "Lemme talk to him, okay?"
"Unfortunately," — Yosuke could hear the grimace in his voice — "he's in time out."
"Huh? What did he do? Not eat his vegetables?" Yosuke forced a dark chuckle. "Don't be too harsh on him, Furusawa-san. I still want to talk to him."
"I'm afraid that since he is in my house, he has to live under my rules. And—"
"He shouldn't even be at your house!" Yosuke growled.
"We will see you tomorrow," the man said coldly, and then there was only a dial tone.
Yosuke swore into the receiver. The hell was wrong with them? Kichirou was his son. He had every right to talk to him, 'time out' or not. He almost tore some of his hair out, but he'd gotten a haircut and it was too short to get a good grip on. He was sorely tempted to get on the bus and go over there right now...!
He sighed and decided to go to bed early that night in the hopes that it would make the next day come sooner.
Yosuke moped about all Saturday morning, watching awful morning television, when finally his father-in-law called him. "It's, it's..." the man said, gasping.
"What? Just bring my son over already, dammit!"
"He ran away! We don't know where he is!"
