Growing up as a social person, Sora Suzuki was surrounded by love and affection- even from the most random people. Tender strokes, gentle kisses. Love came to him in the form of five unique beings, and damn, he's in deep. But when shit happens, and...
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MAY TWENTY FIFTH, TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHTEEN
18:03 in the evening
SINCE HER DEATH, Sora struggled to hold onto the reality of his wife. The true sense of her, outside the fantastical stories told before, after and around her death. His wife—his chosen partner—had always been a person larger than life, painting herself as the portrait of either a martyr or a willow tree. She was neither, of course. Just a person. It was she who taught him that. Humans were humans; they always would be. They were made from the same material. Blood ran through their veins. Oxygen filled their lungs.
Humans could not be monsters. They could not be gods, either.
"Do you want to head back home?" Sora's father questioned; Rin strapped to his front in the baby carrier thing. He was fast asleep, cheek resting against Tsubasa's shirt, drool slipping past his pacifier. "Your mom and I will take care of Rin tonight. So, just get some rest. Don't worry about anything else."
"I'll go back in a bit," Sora replied, unable to draw his gaze away from their graves. A hideous longing sat in his chest. Oh! How he wished to reach down and bury himself beside them. Perhaps then, he would feel at peace. But he could not do that to his son. Rin was the only one he had right now; depriving him of a father, when he already did not have a mother, would surely destroy him— just as it destroyed Sora. "Go ahead without me."
"Will Hajime-kun and the others be staying with you tonight?" his father asked.
Sora shrugged. "Probably."
"Alright," he said. "We'll leave everything in your hands." His father hesitated, then reached and kissed his head. Sora hid his flinch. Physical affection from his family had always been scarce. Tsubasa looked at him tenderly, and Sora couldn't look him in the eyes. It felt too vulnerable. "I love you, son. I don't say it a lot, but I really do."
The little boy curled up inside Sora dug his head between his knees. His shoulders trembled. He needed that more.
"Thank you," Sora replied. He couldn't say anything else. Couldn't say it back.
Tsubasa frowned, his expression despondent, but fathers never truly understood their kids, did they? He left soon after.
Like always.
Sora stood amidst the silence, the breeze flitting past him. Streaks of lilacs simpered from the sky, wiggling through the trees, their branches bending over in a way that looked almost woeful. The sky was a clear canvas painted a firey orange, with white swirls drifting gently across its surface. Sora stared upward for a moment longer, feeling a raw ache welling in the nape of his neck.
