Chapter Text
My father has a heavy hand. And I am the only person that knows its full weight.
My father and I have never been “close”, even as a child we barely talked, we barely interacted really, all my life, my father and I have been closer to strangers living in the same room.
My childhood memories are fuzzy, what I remember the most are some weird sections of clarity withing my own brain, most of them where….
My father has a heavy hand, and I know the weight of it, my whole life I’ve know its weight, he had the odd custom of hitting me with the back of his fist if I cooked dinner before he ate, and if he didn’t eat, I would not eat either.
But those hits were light, they were safe, when he ate he also hit me for not eating after him, but those only came at night, in the morning, he always left for work early in the morning, and there was no morning where I would go without a meal, even if it was small, he always left something at the side of my bed.
Speaking of, we only had one bed, he always told me to sleep on the bed, because it was mine and no one else had the right to it. I think it was my mother’s bed before it was mine, at least that is how he treated the bed, if I damaged the bed or if I left it messy in the morning... his heavy hand would find me no matter for how long, or how well I hide, that’s just how things were back in our room.
I remember that we never talked, my words were met with anger, or annoyance from him, but he always listened, he almost never offered words in response but he listened, when I told him about my damaged running shoes as a child, he hit me in the back of the head and then he left, the next morning, right beside my breakfast there were new running shoes, my perfect fit too.
Once a month he used to take me down to the theater, sometimes we snick in, sometimes it was free and sometimes he paid, but he made sure that I was down at the theater every single month, he always made sure of things like that, he never missed my school presentations, or father-daugther events, or teacher reunions.
“…”
Oh?, well we had a complicated relationship I guess, I can’t hate him , he was always there, I suppose, thats more than many got, but still I wonder why he was like that.
He gave me a myriad of reasons, while drunk, while beating me, while fighting with me, while shouting at me, and those are some of the few interactions where he actually looked at my eyes.
I remember the stench of alcohol in his mouth when he told me I ruined his life, that my birth was nothing more than a sick joke that killed his wife… well my mother. Now that I think of it I never meet any other family nor did he told me about any other family.
But even after he told me that, he was still there, he never apologized, but he treated me a bit more softly after that, he gave me a bigger portion of food, he allowed me to arrive a bit later without getting angry, he even stopped hitting me in the face and head… for a time at least.
“… hate…?”
I… I am not sure, you see, I couldn’t just hate him, he gave me everything I had, he gave me all he had, and probably some more, he paid the full tuition to Tracen when I asked, he hit me and shouted at me for being selfish and asking for such a prestigious academy when my academical abilities where rather lacking, but even after all that, he did everything to pay the academy and the living arrangements at the academy.
But it is a lie to say that I don’t despise him, I never had many friends and the few I had I could never get close to because of my dad, I remember his hand had the weight of his whole body, no matter how strong I got one of his fist just threw me down to the floor heaving for air, and then I had to stay down till he got bored and left.
I remember, when I took Doto there, to his house, it was disgusting, beer cans, trash, cigarette buds, the smell of filth, and then him, he shouted for us to leave, while slapping me and threatening Doto, I don’t remember much else from that day, I remember Doto cry, worried, and being simply angry, and after that… I don’t know.
It wasn’t even a different fight, it was one of thousands of fights, but it gave me an excuse to not contact them again, the racing money was starting to come, so its not like I needed him much, and im sure he was elated I wasn’t bothering him with my existence anymore.
But then, then it happened, he got himself hospitalized, the directives of Tracen themselves called me to tell me that he was there, I personally wanted to ignore it, I wanted to say “thanks for informing me” and go on with my life, I wanted to casually forget about it.
But Top Road insisted, Hayahide insisted, Urara Asked, Fuji was worried, Doto looked with a silent and worried understanding of my situation, but it all was the same, they all told me to visit at the very least, soon, rumors started spreading, that I Opera was heartless, that I Opera caused this…
I wanted to be the cause, god knows I wanted to be the one who hospitalized him, I wanted him to die, and I wanted it to hurt, I wanted him to suffer, I wanted him to leave me alone, but not even on his deathbed he did, he was still haunting me… I… I wanted for him to bleed, I wanted him to beg, I wanted to ignore it like he ignored me.
But I wanted something else too, I held onto hope, I held onto the hope that he did not hate me, I held onto the hope that he would someday lower his head and apologize, I hoped that all that he did for me was real, I wanted to believe that if I won enough times he would be proud of me, I wanted to believe that if I gifted him all the money I won he would finally look at me in the eyes.
But I knew that hope was just there so I could resent him more, none of that would come, I would be left an orphan, and that would be it, no closure, no apologies, nothing.
“. . . O . . .”
I went to the hospital, I just wanted to see him in a worse place I suppose, as if that would quell my anger, or as if that would bring any kind of joyous feeling, in truth I was just tired of top road, insisting and Hayahide telling me it would be my last chance.
“O...p…”
when I saw him, he was the but ash of the man that raised me, he had no muscles, he had no strength, and his normally booming voice was nothing but a loud whisper at the other corner of the room. The scene was just, it was horrible, I felt scared, I felt sad, I felt angry, I felt disgusted, I felt disappointed, I felt confused, I felt pity and I felt something else.
“Ope...”
“… yes?”
“I’m sorry Opera…”
“…”
“I failed…”
“you … failed?”
“I couldn’t take care of T.M”
“. . . what?”
“I hate her, I hate her so much, but… But she deserved better”
there was silence, for a moment, for a long moment there was silence, the thoughts failed to appear, something was shattered, something unnamed for her father, something very real for opera, it was shattered and gone, tears started to pour, her breathing didn’t falter but she was blinded by tears.
“I wanted to give her everything, I didn’t even have studies, Opera, I had nothing, I could give her nothing, and I wanted to never give her anything, but she…”
silence.
“But she deserved better than me, she deserved better than you, why did you leave? Leaving me with… yourself…”
first it was her breathing, that became irregular, and shaky.
“I couldn’t live, I am barely reaching 40 and she… she is more of and adult than us…”
then it was everything else, her composure, her voice, her strength, she had to sit down, as understanding, pain, sadness and everything in between came, he was talking to her mother, he was talking to Opera House… and he just killed Opera O in the process.
TM Opera O took her father’s hand, she took it with care, she took it hoping that her father would regret everything he just said and apologize, he wished to the stars, to her victory, to her friends, to everything and anything there was, for her father to be lucid for a minute and apologize to her, and tell her that it wasn’t true.
But life, no, the world wasn’t there for her when he beat her, the world wasn’t there for her when she went hungry, the world wasn’t there for her when she was sad, and the world was not going to be there for her in this moment. Her father gained lucidity, her father gained his last minute of lucidity and when she looked at him, when she with tears and with pleading eyes looked at him.
“Stupid girl...”
He didn’t even looked with pity at me, he Spat his last words and then just lazily turned his head to one side and died, all the sorrow he had when talking with his death wife, all the regret was nowhere to be found, all those feelings left him the moment he looked at me.
I felt his pulse die down, in the span of minutes, maybe hours, his pulse slowed to a halt, and all I did was look down and cry while I kept his hand in my hands, the words he said never left me, the feelings I felt never left… but beyond all that, I never felt his hand as heavy as I felt it that day.
I had in my own hand’s a had so heavy I could only tremble, it was the hand of a man who failed, it was the hand of a man who gave his all even if it was not much, it was the hand of a man who tried to act a father, tho he failed at almost every turn, it was the hand of a man who sacrificed his own life, for the life of someone he hated with a passion, and that was, way more weight than I could handle.
My father… Had a heavy hand, he had a hand so heavy I couldn’t burden myself with the weight of it without feeling immense pain, and so I did what I did when I couldn’t burden myself with the weight of something, I kept silent, and walked away, I didn’t tell anybody, I didn’t call anybody and I let the dead lay and rest.
The next day, I did my routine as it was always done, I ate, tho nothing had taste, I ran tho my body felt no change, I slept tho I felt no need to rest, and the day after that I did the same, and the day after that I did the same, and the day after that I did the same, and the day after that I did the same, and the day after that I did the same, and the day after that I did the same, and the day after that I did the same and thedayafterthatIdidhesameandthedayafterthatIdidthesame, and the day after that I collapsed.