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A couple months after Kiyotaka was born, his grandfather gifted the new parents a baby arowana. Keiko bowed and thanked him profusely like the good little daughter-in-law she was, but Takaaki only asked where they would keep the fish.
"Somewhere in your apartment, I imagine," said Toranosuke without looking up from his paper.
Toranosuke Ishimaru knew full well that the couple lived in a cramped two room apartment in Arakawa where the futon took up most of the living room. He was there right now. Keiko often made noise about moving to a larger four room block across the street. The arguments were always the same: if Takaaki would only give in and ask his father for money, they had a child after all, did he really think that he could send his son to a good school on the salary of a police sergeant, et cetera, et cetera, day in and day out.
This couldn't have been what she imagined when her parents told her she would be meeting the Ishimaru heir. Toranosuke, for his part, said nothing about the woman to Takaaki, only that her family was important and Takaaki should keep her happy. At the end of their first date, he knew even less about her. She was polite. So very polite. Her favorite activities were calligraphy and ikebana, her hands were pure white without a hint of vein or hair, and even her coquettish nervousness--the only part of her that seemed like a personality trait--was pristine, manufactured and never too ugly. But what else could Takaaki want? If you had to share your life with someone, might as well pick someone inoffensive.
The mother of his child was being anything other than inoffensive at the moment.
"I apologize for my husband," she said, flashing her wide, radiant, porcelain doll smile. "He meant to thank you. Didn't you, dear?"
"Yes, thank you, father. I've always wanted to look like a third-rate Yakuza lieutenant."
"You're welcome, said Toranosuke, peering at his son over half-moon spectacles. Takaaki had always looked forward to the day when he would get to look down on that gaze, shrink it down and put it in its place. The day never arrived even as he grew to tower over his father. "It's a beautiful creature. Kind and self-sacrificing. If anyone in its household were to die, it gives its life and dies in their stead."
"A Chinese superstition. You must be getting old."
Takaaki shook the plastic bag in his hand lightly, jostling the baby arowana inside. Keiko snatched the bag out of his hand, politely and gracefully of course, never dropping her smile. By sheer coincidence, the baby started to cry in the other room.
Unburdened by a bagged fish, Takaaki reached the baby first and gathered him up. A cold fear persisted in his chest, and he kept his boy--his warm, healthy, peaceful baby boy--in his arms long after he had stopped crying. Comforting the baby Kiyotaka was one of the few things in life Takaaki somehow figured out how to do without being told. Kiyotaka didn't respond to toys or even a smile, but he loved rocking, tongue-twisters and wordless sounds.
Keiko coughed behind them. Takaaki pretended not to hear.
"I'll look after Kiyotaka," she said. "You deal with your father."
"What is there to deal with?"
There was something new behind Keiko's red eyes--steely, menacing and ugly. If only Takaaki had seen that before they married, he would have known that there was a human underneath the doll. He would have put more consideration into living with a human than with a doll.
"Whatever issue you have with your father, you need to deal with it," said Keiko. "You're an adult now. Whatever happened to you as a child doesn't matter. Forget your manly pride, go in there and cozy up to your father, for your son, if not for me."
Takaaki glared at her but obliged all the same. Keiko had left the fish on the coffee table, where it sat next to a mug of Darjeeling tea. His father was still leafing through the newspaper, but Takaaki knew he didn't read a single word of it. Eye contact was a precious resource to him, and he didn't dilute its power by granting it to random layabouts like his son except to discipline him.
"Your baby cries very often," he said. "I hope it's not taking after its father."
"I haven't cried for fifteen years."
"Good. Do you still bounce your leg?"
"No. And frankly, I don't understand why--"
"Don't lie to me." Toranosuke looked up from his paper. The disappointment in his eyes could stop a river from running. "Not only do you still shake away your luck, you're telling me now that every one of the criminals you bring in knows when you're nervous."
It was not just nervousness; it was silence, boredom and a thousand other things Takaaki couldn't explain. An idle tic accompanied by no other expression or context did not signify anything. But it was useless to say all these things in front of his father. Toranosuke Ishimaru knew how to be listened to, not the other way around.
Instead, Takaaki changed the subject. "Why did you give us this?" he said, gesturing at the fish.
Toranosuke grunted. "Can't I congratulate my own son for becoming a father?"
"You know I'm going to sell this the second you step out of the house," said Takaaki. "This thing grows to be enormous. I don't have space or money for a thousand liter tank."
"I won't stop you," said Toranosuke. "But do consider what I said. Children are awfully fragile. Who knows, this 'thing' might save your son from a bad fever."
***
The arowana lived happily in its 200 liter tank before the debt collectors started visiting. Every time it heard their violent knocking, it scurried around, slammed itself against the glass and attempted to jump out of its tank. Kiyotaka was the one who returned it to the tank more often than not. He didn't understand why the other children pretended that a sand bucket was a house or held funerals for their broken dolls, but he understood that the red-gold fish flailing around outside the tank was in pain and wished to return. Once he dropped a dead spider in its tank, and the arowana actually ate it. Takaaki had trouble feeding it canned tuna.
Takaaki often wondered how on Earth him and Keiko had a child like him. Keiko was a lifeless doll. Takaaki was also flat and soulless, if his coworkers at the precinct knew anything. He rarely changed his voice from a flat monotone, rarely emoted and did not acknowledge anyone at the water cooler, even before the scandal. Kiyotaka was anything except soulless. He would never sit still and let Takaaki make the lunchboxes; he seperated out random food he didn't like the textures of and insisted that he shaped the rice balls into a perfect triangle himself. He'd cry when touched anywhere except the head without warning, and yet attempted to hug his father when he was standing in the kitchen. The hug earned him an unintentionally sharp scolding. While other parents welcomed an act of spontaneous affection from their children, Takaaki simply felt constrained. He patted Kiyotaka on the head to dull the sharpness of the rebuke, hoping it would be enough.
It was schedules that contained Kiyotaka's exuberance and turned it into bearable enthusiasm. Takaaki woke his son up precisely at six and left the house together precisely at 7:30 to catch the train. On the crowded train, Kiyotaka would chatter endlessly about the new color code of his notes or an upcoming birthday of a classmate, heedless of the commuters around them.
One particularly awkward train ride, he asked what had happened to his mother--for the second time, as it turned out.
"You said she died of cancer," said Kiyotaka.
"I said she had cancer," Takaaki said, "...which she still had....when she was run over by a truck."
The woman sitting on their right glared at Takaaki. He pretended not to notice.
"Are you sad?" said Kiyotaka.
"I miss her every day," said Takaaki flatly. "Kiyotaka, we shouldn't discuss this in public."
"Why?"
Takaaki knew all the usual answers--that it was a private matter, that it was disrespectful to the people around them, et cetera--but deep down, he too didn't understand the rule. None of the strangers on the train would remember them once they stepped off. Most of them listened to music or chattered about one thing or another anyway. Why was it so strange to talk about a dead mother in public? He shook away the thought. That line of questioning only made a fool of him, turned him into the caterpillar that forgot to walk as soon as it was asked how.
"Will you do it for me?" he said instead.
"Okay," said Kiyotaka. He spent the rest of the trip happily contorting his fingers into random shapes.
***
Two years after the scandal broke, Toranosuke Ishimaru decided to move in with his son. He did not ask or plan; once he decided, he got his way. Not even losing all his worldly possessions aside from three boxes and a beaten-up old Mazda stopped him from expecting the world at his feet.
Takaaki refused vehemently when his father broke the news--he had enough trouble finding space for the giant, unwanted fish that Toranosuke gifted years ago--but as always, his father broke him down. You'd let your father live in a nursing home, the tirade went. Maybe I went wrong with you, maybe I do deserve it for not raising you to respect your family, I heard one of your superiors had a sister who works at a nursing home, what gossip would it be, an old man in a nursing home with a living son, a living son who is a civil servant to boot.
The first thing he said upon moving in--before "hello," and "thank you for having me,"--was a curt question directed at the ten-year-old Kiyotaka. "What are you good at?"
"Errr...I know a lot of kanji!"
Toranosuke took a pen and a planner out of his coat pocket and handed them to his grandson. "Write down 'rose' for me."
Kiyotaka took the pen and hesitated, face growing redder every second. "I've only ever--"
Toranosuke snatched pen out of his hand, tutting. "Why did I expect anything different?" he said.
Takaaki would have reprimanded his father if he didn't notice the strange fire in Kiyotaka's eyes as they lingered on the pen. The fire persisted through the rest of the week, where he spent nearly every free moment glued to a notebook or a dictionary. Once he was satisfied with his strokes, he came up to his grandfather with a piece of notebook paper, filled with lines of a kanji Takaaki had never seen.
"Who told you to do that?" said Toranosuke irritably, as he often was when forced to look at something other than his newspaper.
"You!" said Kiyotaka cheerfully. "It was wonderful practice! If it's alright, I would like another kanji to work on!"
Toranosuke snatched the paper and frowned. "Did you write with your left hand?"
Kiyotaka nodded, unaware of the storm that was about hit.
"Why?"
"Because he's left-handed," Takaaki called out from behind the kitchen counter.
"And you never stopped him."
"I'm sure he can write Taito with his left hand if he wanted. It's more difficult, but difficult is not a word for him."
"I know the kanji for difficult!"
"Let the adults talk, you talentless brat." Toranosuke left the futon and walked over to the kitchen counter to stare his son directly in the face. "It's all well and good that he's left-handed, but does he plan to bump elbows with everyone around him when he's at a company dinner? As regretful as it is, there are still countries in the world that consider left-handedness a mark of the devil. Your child already looks like a little devil. Do you think anyone would trust him if--"
"Kiyotaka, you don't look like a devil."
"Not to you, but you've never understood that other people exist besides you, have you?"
As much as he complained, the former Prime Minister did grow interested in Kiyotaka after that night. Takaaki was a lost cause who broke down halfway through middle school and failed to get into a single university, but while not gifted, his son was at least "malleable," as the Ishimaru patriarch put it. Toranosuke Ishimaru, who had no teaching experience and never studied for exams a single night in his life, decided that he would tutor Kiyotaka well enough he could be mistaken for a genius. As befitting of a genius, he seemed to be succeeding. Before he reached seventh grade, Kiyotaka had learned trignometry, world history and various 50+ stroke kanjis no human being truly needed to know.
He had also grown quiet. The boy who used to eagerly fill hours prattling about his day at school barely spoke a word at some dinners. When Takaaki asked why he never talked anymore, he said he didn't want to be tiresome.
"You're not tiresome, Kiyotaka," said Takaaki as he inspected the arowana tank. The water had a strange, muddy color, and he couldn't tell what was causing it. "I miss hearing about your day."
Toranosuke huffed as he pretended to read the evening news. "Do you like a politician who filibusters, Takaaki? Do you like a man who can't tell when you've stopped listening? Don't lie to your child."
"He needs someone to talk to."
"Like a friend? I wonder why he doesn't have any. Is it because his father keeps encouraging his bad habits?"
Only Takaaki noticed that Kiyotaka's eyes had begun to well up with tears. He stole a worried glance at his grandfather, and upon confirmation that he was not looking, dried his eyes on his sleeve and began to rock back and forth. Takaaki remembered the old habit of bouncing his legs. His father pinched his arm every time he caught him doing so until he stopped doing it in front of him.
Were trigonometry and 50 stroke kanjis worth all that? Takaaki wanted to answer no, but he never had the potential to be great, unlike his son. With his drive, Kiyotaka would inevitably get into Todai or some equally prestigious place abroad. One day, he would come home for winter break and talk about some writer Takaaki had never heard of, and in the silence between their words, father and son would both realize they had nothing more in common, nothing more to talk of. It was not a tragedy. It was the fate of every parent who managed to give their child more than they got. What did it matter that it was happening earlier? What kind of father would he be if he held his son back just so he could talk to him more?
He kept quiet.
***
Toranosuke Ishimaru did not.
Night after night, the family had a different argument. The father would come back from work around nine, and cook a late dinner. The son would do his homework on a kitchen counter, seated on a high stool. The grandfather sat on the futon opposite the arowana tank and clipped old newspaper articles about himself. Either during dinner or after, some argument would start about Kiyotaka or an earlier visit from a debt collector. Takaaki listened mutely several times in an effort to stop the arguments, but the only thing that truly stopped his father was the eleven o'clock bedtime or the arowana jumping out of tank. No one in the family could hide from the others in that cramped apartment, no matter how much they wanted.
Ironically, it was the grandfather who got fed up with the situation first.
"You need a bigger apartment," he said, sounding much like his former daughter-in-law. "And you need a bigger tank for that fish. It's jumped out twice today."
"We can do that as soon as you give me the money."
"How much money do you make in a month?"
"We shouldn't be discussing this in front of Kiyotaka."
"Kiyotaka is not so young he doesn't understand money."
"Kiyotaka is well aware of our money issues, you old devil. Whose fault is that?"
"So you don't make much. I assume your superior doesn't like you. How often do you drink with him?"
"I don't drink with my superiors."
Toranosuke adjusted his glasses and frowned, as if the sight of his son was too unbelievable for his eyes. "You don't network," he said flatly.
"If I get a promotion, it'll be through my work."
Toranosuke sighed. "That's not how the world works, Takaaki," he said, with more pity than anger. "I'm trying to help you for once."
In the end, the old fart got his bigger apartment and a private room that doubled as a study. Takaaki had followed none of his advice to lick his superior's boots. Instead, he met with his superior, stated that his elderly father had moved into the house and he needed more money to support him.
"Your father should be supporting himself with all that money he stole," said his superior.
Takaaki didn't get a raise, but he got additional hours.
The atmosphere in the family changed the moment they moved into the new apartment. Takaaki was never home and awake for more than two hours for his father to voice complaints at. When he returned at ten in the night, he heard Kiyotaka in the study, reciting from memory some piece of Edo poetry that his grandfather liked. It was a memory drill that Takaaki knew well and did not resent. Kiyotaka heard the door open, stopped his recital and called for his father. His grandfather slapped a ruler on the desk and told him to continue. That was most of what he heard of Kiyotaka these day--his voice, stuttering and somewhat monotone as he attempted to recall antiquated words he didn't know the meaning of. As his son continued to recite, Takaaki sat on the futon and ate leftover rice, odd dinner illuminated only by the soft blue light of the fish tank.
The arowana had stopped jumping from its bigger tank. Every additional hour Takaaki worked was worth it.
***
One Saturday night a year after the move, the arowana jumped out in full view of all three Ishimarus and broke its jaw on the floor. Kiyotaka rushed to its side and diligently put it back in its tank, but even he knew the arowana was finished. A fish with a broken jaw would only starve to death. After a long talk, Takaaki convinced his son to let him euthanize the poor fish. Unable to find a good burial spot, the family resorted to cremating its remains in a makeshift bonfire by the dumpster.
Kiyotaka stopped speaking exactly a week after the incident. He woke later than usual the following Sunday morning, and instead of studying with his grandfather, he spent most of his time watching the empty tank. His grandfather, in an uncharacteristic display of patience, said nothing about the truancy. At dinner, he offered Kiyotaka an extra serving of rice, which Kiyotaka simply stared at.
Takaaki did not attempt to speak to him. For one, whenever his father or grandfather spoke--which was thankfully rare when Kiyotaka was not in the middle of a lesson--he winced and barricaded himself in the bathroom. For another, Takaaki still had trouble looking his son in the eyes after killing their family pet. Kiyotaka had always been a little strange, sensitive and lonely. He'd nodded through tears and said he understood, but the depressed, aging, sickly fish had been the closest thing he had to a brother or a friend.
Takaaki wanted to lock himself up in jail for negligence the next day when the school called and said Kiyotaka hadn't showed up. That's impossible, he said. Are they bullying him? Have you been hitting him? You understand that it's archaic to slap children with rulers these days? I don't care if you do it to everyone, don't. No, of course I don't accompany him to school anymore, he's older, he can handle it, he never does this without reason.
Finding Kiyotaka wasn't difficult, thankfully. As soon as Takaaki got off the call with the homeroom teacher, his partner showed him a recent report about a middle school student who wouldn't get off the train and started crying noiselessly when anyone spoke to him. The conductor had dragged him out and left him at the last stop, unattended. Takaaki left the desk immediately and drove to the last stop in his own car. A sliver of light returned to Kiyotaka's eyes when he recognized his father crouched in front of him, but he squeezed his eyes shut and froze when the station announcements started playing. It's noise, Takaaki realized. Even the sound of his own voice inside his skull must have been too loud for Kiyotaka. Quickly and wordlessly, Takaaki took off his scarf and tied it lengthwise around Kiyotaka's head, covering his ears.
Something severely wrong had happened to Kiyotaka, and it was not the fish dying.
"Don't worry about him," said Toranosuke when Takaaki dragged him out to the balcony to discuss the matter. "The arowana took whatever bad luck would have fallen on him."
Takaaki scoffed. "I knew you didn't give a damn about him."
"Far from it. I love that boy. He's our little genius. He'll go far."
It was the first time Toranosuke had said anything to that effect. Genius. Love. Somehow, Takaaki felt that he wasn't lying.
On the third day, Takaaki called the school to say his son was sick. The family had no money for a doctor's visit, but Kiyotaka's condition improved hourly in the calm of his own house and Takaaki hoped it would be enough. The stubborn boy tried his best to go to school anyway, putting on his uniform, tying a scarf over his ears and tugging weakly against his father as Takaaki kept an iron grip on his wrist. He finally stopped when Takaaki wrote a little challenge on his planner: if you're well enough to be at school, speak to your father. Once that was settled, Takaaki instructed his own father to call him if he noticed any change and left for work. For some reason, he still believed the old man meant what he said
Kiyotaka was well enough to greet him at the door when he came back that evening. He greeted with a smile instead of a word, but Takaaki welcomed it, patting his head in return.
His fingers found a bump. In the middle of it was a still open cut, at least five centimeters wide.
Takaaki had thought he was grieving a fish. He thought his son couldn't talk because he was grieving a fish.
Where did you get that? he wrote in his planner.
I don't remember.
That was not an issue. Without a second's hesitation, he grabbed a flashlight from his room and barged into the study. Toranosuke continued to read his paper as Takaaki shone the flashlight over every bit of furniture in the room from multiple angles. He found the little grey stains he was looking for on the front left corner of the desk.
"What happened to Kiyotaka?" he said, every bit as cold and flat as ever.
Toranosuke sighed and put his paper down. "I knew you would be like this."
"What happened to Kiyotaka?"
"Like I said, the arowana--"
Thirty-six years of pain exploded out of Takaaki Ishimaru in that instant. Snarling, he hoisted up the withered old devil by the collar of his jacket and slammed him against a wall. His glasses popped forward and slid off his nose, but Takaaki didn't let him reach for it. He didn't even let the old man put on his shoes before he dragged him out of the apartment. Kiyotaka covered his ears and attempted to follow, but the din of it was overwhelming that he only managed to stumble off the futon and crawl three steps before freezing. Neighbors spied the commotion through peepholes and half-open doors. The theatrical old bastard, who had been able to keep pace perfectly inside the apartment, stumbled and fell to his knees at least five times as they descended the stairs. Each time he did, Takaaki yanked him up by the sleeve and continued to drag him down the stairs.
"Look at you! Dragging your helpless old father in public!"
"Shut up! Shut up!"
The march down the streets was thankfully faster than the one down the stairs. The cover of the night hid their faces, making it useless for the old devil to keep screaming. Takaaki reached the car, opened the back door and shoved his father inside.
"You're going to a nursing home," he spat. "Be thankful it's not prison."
The old man huffed, straightened his jacket and put on the seatbelt as Takaaki pulled out of the driveway. How adorable, worrying about three or four years left in his pathetic life. Fuming, Takaaki followed suit. Kiyotaka needed his father, and he needed his job.
"So much for keeping quiet in the house for your son."
Every one of Takaaki's instincts told him to keep his mouth shut. Criminals in the back seat never said anything of use. Every word you said to them was seen as an encouragement for a thousand more pleas, excuses and pathetic attempts to get under your skin.
"I would have helped him if I knew you wouldn't react this way," said the old devil. "But I was unfortunately correct in my assumptions about you."
How very typical it was of a criminal to blame everyone but themselves.
"I wasn't worried. I figured the arowana had saved him. Sooner or later, he would have hit his head playing some foolish children's sport and gone through the same thing. It's one of the things that happen when you're a child: a bad flu, getting burned, a concussion. Helps them grow and helps the parent let go."
Takaaki's knuckles had gone white on the steering wheel.
"It was your fault, you know," said Toranosuke simply.
As the car weaved through the lamplit streets of Arakawa, the criminal confessed to everything that happened. Kiyotaka had approached his grandfather first, an hour after he came back from school. He stood in front of his grandfather, and when said grandfather refused to look at him in the eyes, ordered him to look at him, like he would do to classmates, to children. Once his grandfather deigned to oblige, he told the former Prime Minister of Japan that he shouldn't say awful things to his son, Kiyotaka's own father. It hurt him, he said. He was getting sick, he couldn't get out of bed on some days and Kiyotaka had to drag him out one time. His grandfather responded that they barely spoke anymore and that all his previous words, however cruel, were true. His son was not talented, he almost dropped out of high school because he wouldn't leave the house, and now he worked as a traffic cop, upholding the most arbitrary and trivial of society's rules while struggling to feed a single son. Kiyotaka responded that it was his grandfather's fault. How could he claim to be successful while the person closest to him failed? Toranosuke stood up, peered down at the child over his spectacles and informed him that no, you cannot hold yourself responsible for another's failure, some people were worthless and talentless, and it was for the best of the talented to leave them to their devices.
"He told me that was why I failed as a Prime Minister. Can you imagine? 'You don't care for anyone except geniuses, but society is made up of more than geniuses,' he said. What a joke. Who told him all this? Was it you, Takaaki?"
Takaaki remained quiet. His grip loosened, and for a moment, he forgot where he was driving to.
From the sound of it, all he had ever done was nearly kill his son and not realize it for three days.
"Of course not. You're never home. When was the last time you talked to Kiyotaka? I practically raised your damn son for you, and this is how you treat me."
He had looked after Kiyotaka for a little over two years. But then who raised Kiyotaka before? Takaaki had always been so busy at work.
The inside of the car smelt vaguely of must and gasoline. He rolled down the windows, but no air seemed to come in.
"If it matters, I did feel terrible. Do you know why? Because the moment I hit him, I realized he was special. Three decades of you, and I never felt the need to hit you even once. You never did anything surprising enough to warrant such a stain on my image. But this boy...again and again, I tried to teach him that not everything mattered, not everyone mattered, but he wouldn't listen. I've never had this much trouble convincing a fully grown adult, much less a child. It's my talent to bend people to people to my will. Only another talent could hope to negate it. Ultimate Stubborn Donkey, Ultimate Busybody, whatever he is, he's something."
Of course he was something. Takaaki never once had to tell him to do his homework, never once had to reprimand him for misbehaving in school. Wherever he got that fire in his eyes from, it wasn't his mother or father.
Toranosuke took a deep breath and immediately started to cough--a protracted, nasally, disgusting cough that made Takaaki feel sick listening to it. The smell of brine and wet compost rolled in through the open window. Arakawa River must be near. They just needed to get to the other side.
"I might be expecting too much of you, but did you ever understand why I bought you the arowana?"
Takaaki did, from the moment he shook the poor thing and his son started crying.
"Large, finicky, gorgeous creatures. Did you see what happens to them when they're stuck in such a tiny tank? I'm honestly surprised yours survived so long."
So was Takaaki. He expected two or three years at most. He had hoped it would jump from its tank while he was gone to work, and Takaaki would rest easy, thinking it saved his son from some awful childhood illness. It did not go that way. Kiyotaka was rarely ever ill. And the fish survived every desperate jump, every panicked bump against its little tank until its final day. It certainly hadn't been Takaaki's achievement.
"I always knew your son had it in him. I felt it in my bones. It takes one to know one. The moment you said you had a son, I knew I needed to teach one final lesson to you."
He was the tank, wasn't he? He thought it was the debt, the poverty, the cramped little house full of arguments, but it was him in the end. The talentless father, the man who disliked being hugged by his own son.
The half-lit apartments gave away to the sight of Arakawa River and one of its many wide bridges.
"Your son thinks the world of you. He thinks you're some sort of saint for managing to earn two loaves of bread a week. He could be doing more, but the poor boy has no imagination. He can only imitate what he sees."
The bridge was strangely empty this time of the night. Arakawa River stretched out under them, deep, dark and silent.
"It's always a shame when a fish gets smothered in its own tank."
Keiko was still alive, wasn't she?
Muttering a quick apology to no one, Takaaki drove his car off the road and into the railing of the bridge.
***
For all her talk of caring for her son, Keiko was the one who brought the divorce papers. She acted so very apologetic about it, inviting him to a fancy restaurant in Ginza, reaching across the table attempting to hold his hand, and doing everything in her power to pretend it was one of their old dates. She said her parents wanted to dissociate from the Ishimaru family. They said they made a mistake, she made a mistake, she was 23, still of a good age, but no one would want to marry her if she brought in a son, especially a son from the Ishimaru family, it was better anyway, oh how she shuddered to think about the ways a stepfather would treat her poor child, you're a good father, I'm sure you'll manage, but how much will I miss my dear Kiyotaka, please let me see him every once in a while, please.
To which Takaaki replied, "No."
The high-pitched whines stopped. Without them, Keiko's voice was strangely hollow. "Why?"
"A dead mother who loved her child is better than a living one who left them."
"I didn't choose to leave him!"
"You didn't fight for him."
"I--"
"You have voice enough to yell at me every night, but you don't have voice enough to fight your parents, even for your son. You let them walk all over you, and you say you care."
Keiko bowed her head, shuddering.
"I thought you of all people would understand," she whispered.
Real tears gushed down her face onto the back of her hands, staining her silky white gloves with mascara. Even her ragged breathing was too quiet to be heard over the din of the restaurant. On another night, years in the future, Takaaki would have recognized in the silence a woman who had been told she made too much noise. But that night, he couldn't.
"Stop it," he said instead.
***
Takaaki Ishimaru was an attempted patricide. Attempted. Attempted. What was the difference between murder and an attempted murder?
In his dogged determination to keep his job, Takaaki hadn't been going at enough speed to even dent the railing, much less break through. Hot blood dribbled from the cut on his brow down his nose. His father in the backseat was unharmed. Takaaki closed his eyes and pressed his head--open wound, wet blood and all--against the wheel. Finding he couldn't cry, he screamed until his ears rang.
"You truly can't do anything properly, can you?" said his father.
***
Kiyotaka was asleep on the futon when his father returned to the apartment at three in the morning. The only light in the room came from the soft blue of the empty arowana tank.
Takaaki would not have shown his face there at all if he didn't need to write himself a citation. He asked for one from his partner, who happened to arrive first on the scene, but all his partner did was shake his head and tell him to calm down. Panicking, Takaaki told him he almost killed his father and needed to be in jail, where he needed to call Keiko and tell her to take their son. At some point during the rant, his partner gave up on reason and offered him a ride. Instead of the precinct, he dropped Takaaki off in front of his apartment and told him to take a day off.
The bastard knew Takaaki couldn't actually drag himself to jail, not after Kiyotaka saw him.
"Father?"
The single word took him effort. He squeezed his eyes shut and braced for the noise long before he said it. Even so, it had done its work. Takaaki didn't want to leave, even if he was a poison and a noose, even if he was selfish and suffocating. He could stay around for one night. He would leave one day, but not this way. He would drop Kiyotaka at boarding school or college, let him hug his father for once and then leave, to eat away as much of the debt as possible before he died. But for now, he couldn't leave.
He found his planner on the floor where he had dropped it in his mad rush earlier in the night. He picked it up and wrote on a new page.
I'm sorry.
He sat on the futon next to his son and passed the planner to him. Kiyotaka didn't read the note. Instead, he pointed at the cut on Takaaki's forehead. Takaaki shook his head firmly. Kiyotaka nodded and began to rock back and forth, leaning further and further forward with each period. How many months had it been since Takaaki had seen his son do that? Had he stopped because he had no worries to warrant it or because the habit got pinched out of him? Knowing him, he didn't blame Takaaki or even his grandfather for the mess. He would convince himself somehow that he needed to be better, that if he could get rid of all his flaws and become perfect, nothing bad would ever happen around him again.
Takaaki took the planner back and wrote again. Don't blame yourself. None of this is your fault.
After a moment's pause, he added, You're talented. Your grandfather said so. You have a kind heart that no one in the family has.
Kiyotaka shook his head and pulled the planner onto his lap. It's not a talent, he wrote.
You'd be surprised what kind of talents there are, wrote Takaaki.
Kiyotaka barely took a second to read it before starting his reply.
It's you, he wrote. When Takaaki did not respond, he added, You're kind.
I'm a liar and a murderer, Takaaki wanted to write. I hated your mother because she was empty like me. I kept you motherless so I wouldn't feel jealousy when she did better than me. When you were hurt, I could only think about my own pain. I did not think a second about how I left you alone with a head injury, reeling from all the noise I made. When the car crashed against the railing and I thought I was about to die, all I felt was relief that I'm escaping.
In the end, he didn't. He was talking to a child. He was talking to Kiyotaka, who had seen more of his family's ugliness than any child should.
Instead, he watched the tank, faded and blue, empty without its inhabitant of over a year. One final thought joined the ever-spinning reel of worries in his mind--one so innocent in its ridiculousness that Takaaki did not feel too concerned writing it down for his son to see. It read:
Don't die before me, alright?