Guess We'll Never See Eye To Eye

[Fenrir]

“My son is going to college. I can’t believe it.”

Rolling her eyes behind her mother’s back, Akeno focused her attention on the shirt that was in her hands and suppressed a sigh that would only get her in trouble. It would have been less aggravating if it had been the first time she’d heard it, but her mother had been saying some variation of that sentiment all morning and it was starting to wear a little thin. Just empty words to cover the fact that there was no real conversation going on between them.

Akeno’s brother, Daisuke, was going to leave for college in less than a week and she had been roped into helping him pack. He was in the garage, sorting through boxes and deciding what he would take with him and what he was leaving behind, while Akeno and their mother were in his room dealing with his clothes.

Why she was being brought in to help with this she didn’t know, but it was how things ended up and it wasn’t worth the trouble of trying to argue her way out of it. As for why she was folding clothes specifically, she could understand the logic of dividing the tasks this way as only her brother would be able to decide what he was taking and what he wasn’t while folding clothes was just busy work that anyone could do. The only problem was that it meant she and her mother got to spend an extended amount of time in each other’s company and considering the two mixed like oil and water that was sure to end poorly. So far things had remained peaceful, but she knew that was likely to change at any moment.

If she could just make it through today without an argument then she would consider it her win.

“I wish he wasn’t going to a college that was so far away.” It shouldn’t be too hard, all she had to do was stay quiet and her mother would fill the silence for her. Her mother could continue a one sided conversation no problem and when she was on a roll like this it wasn’t necessary for Akeno to interject. In fact, past experience told her thing things would go more smoothly if she didn’t. “But at least now that he’s graduated he’s out of the reach of that horrible TV show.”

Right, SOTF. While she could imagine that any parent with teenaged children would be distressed by the idea of them being abducted, most families probably didn’t dwell on it that much either. For her parents though, it at always been a real fear that one day they would turn on the TV and see her brother on the screen. It wasn’t strange to hear her mother talking about it now that her brother had ‘survived’ high school since she always mentioned it in one form or another.

It did irk her slightly that so far there had been no mention of the fact that she would soon be within the reach of that same show, since she was starting high school in the fall. She hadn’t brought it up either to be fair, but she would be lying if she said she hadn’t been thinking about it just a little bit. Seeing her parent’s relief every time a new season started and it wasn’t kids from Miami, every time a school year ended with no tragedy, it had left an impression on her.

Even so, she wouldn’t say she was scared of it exactly, just aware of the possibility, like she was aware of the possibility of winning the lottery; it was possible but that didn’t mean she expected it to happen. The odds of being chosen were so low she was probably more at risk of being struck by lightning on any given day.

It wasn’t worth worrying about.

“You’ll be starting high school soon as well.” The sudden change of topic to was jarring, especially since it matched the subject of her thoughts. Akeno looked up and over and her mother, but the woman wasn’t looking back at her since she too was focused on the clothing in her hands. “Make sure you work hard; your father spent a lot of money on your tuition. It’s a good school, the same one your brother went to; it would be a shame to waste this opportunity.”

Funny, she didn’t remember Daisuke getting that speech when he was starting high school. Granted he got in on a scholarship, so there was no sunken cost if he failed out. Honestly, she wished they hadn’t bothered enrolling her at the same school; she would have been fine at a regular school, but her parents were insistent on sending her to the same school as her brother. They probably expected that it would make her more serious about her studies, but Akeno remembered how that had gone last time.

They didn’t need worry about her screwing things up though. She would pass; no more, no less.

“I hear they have a lot of clubs there; maybe you’ll find one that you like.” The totally-casual-definitely-not-planned-in-advance off-hand comment from her mother had Akeno clenching her jaw, biting her tongue to stop herself from making the comment she desperately wanted to make. “Or you could play a sport, like your brother. He made a lot of friends on the soccer team, you know.”

It took a considerable amount of effort not to say anything, but somehow she managed it. Instead she made a non-committal noise in the back of her throat and continued folding clothes.

Mangrove Garden certainly had a lot of clubs, but unfortunately she already had a hobby; one that she wasn’t planning on giving up any time soon. Akeno knew her mother hadn’t forgotten that because she knew for a fact that that her mother didn’t approve of her chosen activity. They’d had conversations, arguments even, about how she wished Akeno would do something more ‘appropriate’ with her spare time. What that would be she never specified, only that it certainly wasn’t what she was doing at the moment.

It was a shame Mangrove Garden didn’t have a karate team, just to see the look on her mother’s face when she joined it.

“We’re almost done here. Go help your brother in the garage and I’ll finish this up.” Akeno tried not to look too relieved as she threw down the shirt in her hands so that it landed in the suitcase with the rest of her brother’s clothes and left the room. She jogged down the stairs, down the hallway past the boxes that sat to one side and followed the sound of rummaging through the door that led to the garage.

She heard her brother before she spotted him, surrounded as he was on all sides by open boxes and piles of belongings that he had accumulated over the years. For the moment he hadn’t noticed her and Akeno took that opportunity to lean against the door frame and observe him for a moment, taking the time to figure out how to have a conversation with someone she hadn’t really spoken to since she was still a kid.

Daisuke was four years older than her, a whole stage of life ahead as he was about to enter college right as she was about to enter high school, but the age difference wasn’t what separated them. She remembered idolising him once upon a time, when she was small, which was a strange idea now. She remembered relying on him more than she relied on their parents, seeing as how he was infinitely easier to approach and ask for help. They would spend all of their time outside of school together, play games together, he would help her with her homework, things of that nature. Then, one day, she’d kind of just realised that he wasn’t someone you could rely on. He’d let her down in a way that probably didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things but which mattered a whole lot to a little girl and she’d never really forgiven him for that.

They’d grown apart since. They stopped spending time together. In fact, Akeno couldn’t remember the last time they spent time together just the two of them. She’d joined karate and made a bunch of friends both in and out of school and there hadn’t been much reason to hang out with her older brother any more.

That and she still hadn’t forgiven him she guessed.

He looked up and saw he standing there and the moment was over. She pushed off of the door frame with her shoulder and stepped past the threshold into the garage proper. “Need any help?”

There was a pause as he looked at her before he shrugged his shoulders and focused back on the box in front of him. “Sure.”

Picking a box at random Akeno knelt down next to it and began to sort through it. For the next few minutes the silence in the room was broken up only by the act of picking through boxes, holding something up to examine it and then placing it in another box. It was not the comfortable kind of silence, not from her perspective at least; it was silence of two people who had no idea what to say to each other so they said nothing instead. Given that this might be the last change Akeno had to have a private conversation with her brother, she felt she ought to say something.

Soon, he would be leaving home and Akeno wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She would miss him, of course, but she didn’t feel it as strongly as she probably should have. His absence would be felt but Akeno was more anxious about him leaving than anything else. There was a dynamic at play in their family that would soon change and she wasn’t sure how that change was going to play out; what would things be like when she was the only child around and her parents’ focus was no longer split between two adolescents? Would things change? In what way?

So, she needed to say something; she just didn’t know what. While her mother could be counted on to talk enough for the both of them, her father and brother were a lot quieter which put the impetus on her to fill the gap. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, as her friends could attest, but around her family specifically she always had a hard time coming up with something to say.

She felt like a completely different person around them sometimes. The way she acted at school or at the dojo was completely different than how she was at home and it wasn’t a deliberate change on her part. It was just the way things were, how they had been for a while.

It made her think of something she’d heard before, a belief people had in Japan about people having three different faces or something like that. The face you wore in front of family was different from the face you wore around friends, which was different from the face you wore for yourself. That sounded a bit more dramatic than the reality, which was that you just showed different sides of yourself around different people; she just wasn’t as comfortable around her family compared to her friends.

“So… are you looking forward to college?” An easy conversation starter, given what they were doing.

“Yeah, I am.” Unfortunately it didn’t have much longevity, but it at least it got the ball rolling and let her ask follow-up questions.

“Are you nervous about living alone?” She probably would be, if she was in his shoes, but she’d also look forward to it. Living alone would give her more independence and freedom, which would be a fair trade off for the extra effort involved in her mind.

“A little bit.” There was a pause and it took Akeno a moment to realise that the sounds her brother was making had stopped. She looked up to find him looking pensively into the box in front of him. “I won’t know anyone else there and it’ll be my first time being by myself but, I think I’ll be fine. It’ll be different and that’s always a little scary, right?”

Right.

That was the second time today that her thoughts had been echoed by someone. Knowing that they were both apprehensive for the same reasons helped ease the tension in the room a little bit and Akeno found that the silence that fell next wasn’t as uncomfortable as it had been before.

The box in front of her seemed to be one of the older ones, full of stuff that was already in storage rather than the ones that had been filled up as part of the moving out process. There was probably no reason for her to go through it, since a college student didn’t have much use for old toys and books, but a little bit of extra digging led her to uncover something nostalgic.

An old games console, the same one that they used to play as kids back when that was still a thing. They used to spend hours on it and some of her fondest memories revolved around it, even if most of the time she was just watching her brother play; she wasn’t good enough to beat the games herself or to really play the multiplayer stuff. There was one game though, a fighting game, where she would just mash the buttons and hope for the best. What was it called? She looked back in the box, under where the console had sat, and saw a small stack of plastic cases for the games.

She didn’t even know he’d put this away. Akeno just assumed it was still sitting in his room. “When did you put this away?”

Daisuke looked up from his own task, a stack of much newer books which he seemed to be putting away in a fresh box, and craned his neck to see what she was holding. “Oh, that was ages ago. I wasn’t using it anymore.”

That surprised her, but she didn’t know why. It had been, what, five or six years ago when they had last played this thing? Maybe more? It wasn’t like he was much of a gamer or anything so why would he still have the thing set up in his room if he never used it. He must have put it away in the garage years ago and she’d just never noticed.

It kind of bothered her that she’d never noticed.

Since he wasn’t using it anymore maybe she would take it back to her room and play it for old time’s sake. A few of her friends at the dojo had been talking about SOTF Combat not long ago and it had gotten her thinking about the game they used to play back then. Akeno was pretty sure it was called Street Fighter but didn’t know which version; she remembered one of the characters being a girl in a karate gi though and that was enough to spark her interest.

Putting the console back in the box for now, Akeno shuffled over on her knees to start digging through the next one; she would need to remember to ask Daisuke if she could take it before he left. The next box looked like it was filled with the clothes that her brother wouldn’t be taking to college with him, extra t-shirts and some formal clothing he apparently didn’t need any more and at the top of the pile however was something she didn’t expect to see. “Hey, aren’t you taking your soccer stuff with you?”

Daisuke looked up again, this time to see Akeno holding a pair of shin guards in one hand with a look of confusion on her face. In the box with them was Daisuke’s team uniform for the Mangrove Garden soccer team, probably keep for sentimental reasons, and his soccer boots. “No, I don’t need them.”

His answer didn’t do much for Akeno’s befuddlement. The uniform she could understand, but wouldn’t he need the boots and pads when he played soccer at college? “Are you buying new equipment when you get to college?”

That would make the most sense and while it was a little wasteful, it did mean he wouldn’t have to transport as much, but judging from the shaking of his head that wasn’t it either. “I’m not going to play soccer at college. I want to focus on just my classes.”

“Oh.” That was mildly disappointing for some reason. Daisuke had been playing soccer for years at this point, five or six years give or take, and he was pretty good at it. He had a gathering of trophies and medals that was much larger than her own measly collection, he’d been the best player on his middle school team by far and he was one of the better players on the Mangrove Garden team as well. Just another thing that he was great at. Not that she’d really paid attention to any of that the past few years but still, the idea of him no longer playing soccer any more was… weird. “Have you told mom and dad?”

He shook his head in the negative, meaning that their parents didn’t know yet, but for some reason he didn’t look as bothered by this as she would have been. “I wasn’t really planning on telling them; it’s not like they can come see my matches anymore.”

“You should… they’d… you should.” He should tell them that he was quitting, but for some reason she couldn’t quite articulate why. Their parents had always supported him when it came to playing, they had done from the moment he had first said he wanted to join his schools team. Their dad and especially their mom were really proud when he made the cut, when it turned out he had a talent for the sport and starting running rings around everyone else. They went to all of his games, celebrated his first win. Even if it wasn’t up to them whether or not he continued and whether or not they’d be able to watch him play if he did continue, they kind of deserved to know.

I mean, if Akeno was going to quit karate then she’d tell them. Though that was a completely different situation considering her dad was paying her membership at the dojo; any change she wanted to make would need to go through him. She hadn’t had a choice but to tell them when she wanted to start learning the full-contact style of fighting because she’d needed parental permission to do so.

But then again, even if that wasn’t the case it would still a different situation. The responses they each got would be drastically different for one; Daisuke’s decision to quit would be accepted and understood, while if she quit karate then the news would be celebrated. Her mother would be smug as hell that she was quitting, she would barely be able to contain her excitement at the idea; Akeno could just imagine the look on her face, the smile she wouldn’t even try to hide as she told Akeno she’d made the right choice.

Her choice.

She’d never had the kind of approval that her brother had and she knew that she would likely never get it. Not as long as she continued doing what she wanted. Not unless her wants just so happened to align with those of her parents. Yeah, that was the thing; she could do anything she wanted as long as it was something that fit their expectations of what she should be doing. Of course, that had never earned their approval either come to think of it, so she was kind of stuck either way wasn’t she. If that was the case then she might as well do something she enjoyed. It was the harder path for sure, but worth it in the end.

Akeno had needed to fight and grit her teeth and plant her feet and stand her ground just to be able to do karate. I mean, to be fair she’d only fought at the time for the sake of fighting, but now that she’d gotten it she’d fallen in love with it and she really wanted to keep it; because it was fun and she was good at it and it was hers. The one thing she’d ever done that was just hers and she wanted to keep it. Daisuke had never needed to do any of that to get what he wanted, he just got it. He’d got it so easily and with so much support behind him that their parents wanted her to do the same just so she could be more like him.

And he was giving it up.

Shit.

He wasn’t even going to tell their parents about it because that’s how little he thought about it.

But she thought about it all the time because she knew that at any point they could change their mind and just decide to take it all away from her. They could stop paying her membership at the dojo, stop signing the consent forms for tournaments, refuse to let her take the test for the next belt grade; everything hinged on them allowing her to do this, which was scary when she knew that her mother definitely didn’t like her doing it and she didn’t know why her father had agreed to it in the first place.

Every time she needed to talk to them about karate, asked about paying for lessons or asked to be driven to a tournament, she was worried that would be the moment when they decided enough was enough; she’d had her fun and it was time for her to do something else. Something they approved of. Her mother wanted to do it, she’d seen the disapproving looks she’d gotten whenever she came home with bruises or a limp or just when she looked dishevelled and worn out from training; her mother would have made her quit years ago if she could but for some reason her father was on her side for now and so her mother limited herself to passive aggressive hints and she didn’t know how long that was going to last.

Her brother never had to worry about any of that and fuck that was probably why she hated him sometimes. Because he’d had unconditional support from day one; their parents couldn’t be prouder and he never had to worry about letting them down. Because he was the one setting the example, the gold standard, and she was the one always failing to meet it. Because he had no idea he was the favourite. Because he had never gotten what it was like to be her and to be living in his shadow and he never would. Because he couldn’t even stand up for his little sister when she needed him to.

But, fuck none of that was his fault and it certainly wasn’t hers but she couldn’t help but resent him a little bit for it anyway. She’d kill for that kind of approval, just to not feel like she had to fight to be able to do the things she enjoyed doing every step of the way and to not feel like a weight was hanging above her head all the time. He had that, he had all of that and he didn’t even think twice about wasting it. He had no idea he was the golden child.

Dropping the shin guards in the box Akeno rocked back so she was crouched instead of on her knees and then stood up. She walked over to the box with the old books and toys and reached inside, digging around noisily until she came back out with the console she had held earlier, a controller and a copy of Third Strike. “I’m taking these.”

Exiting the garage without waiting to see what Daisuke’s response was, Akeno walked back down the hall past the boxes, jogged back up the stairs, walked past her brother’s bedroom with the open door and into her own. Kicking the door closed behind her she threw her spoils onto the bed haphazardly and flopped down on the covers next to it with just as much grace.

There might be some consequences for this later but, whatever. Right now she couldn’t care less. It wasn’t fair but she felt like being a bit mean and selfish after everything that had just run through her head. She wanted to play video games and feel nostalgic and maybe take a little of her frustration out on someone who wasn’t really at fault.

She’d apologise to Daisuke before he left.