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If one were to ask about Sylvio Sawatari, the answers would vary depending on who was asked. Girls swooned over him and called him a dreamboat. His teachers would say that he was typically a good student. His dueling instructors would tell you that he had a lot of promise as a duelist, that his winning streak was fairly impressive, and that he was able to come up with good strategies no matter what sort of deck he decided to put together. Some other kids his age would spout nothing but envy toward him due to his upbringing and his family’s social status. Others would call him a stuck-up snob who only used his father’s powerful political status to receive anything and everything he wanted.
Yes. People had a lot to say about Sylvio Sawatari. But the one thing people never spoke about was how lonely he really was.
He hid it well enough. He surrounded himself with yes-men who applauded his every move, and he typically always wore a charming smile. He always acted suave and unbothered. But no one ever talked about how at the end of the day, he dreaded going home to that big, empty house.
On the outside, it seemed like Sylvio never wanted for anything. His father gave him mostly everything: toys, games, clothes, pets, Duel Monsters cards, whatever the boy requested, no matter how frivolous. But the one thing he never truly gave Sylvio was time. Sylvio hardly ever saw his own father. He was mostly raised by nannies while his father worked on his career. It had been that way for as long as Sylvio could remember.
No one ever mentioned that, though. They never spoke about how his father had shown up to maybe one, possibly two of his own son’s birthday parties in the fourteen years Sylvio had been alive. No one ever talked about how his father bought his son’s love with material items almost constantly in order to make up for his absence in his son’s life. No one ever said anything about how the Sawatari estate was so massive, and yet Sylvio was mostly left alone within it. And no one talked about how Sylvio was the one that was jealous.
He was jealous of his classmates, whose fathers sometimes picked them up after school. He was envious of the children playing catch with their fathers in the park. He resented his friends when they had to go home, where they had family dinners every night. Sylvio wished his father took an interest in him like all the other fathers did in their sons, but his father was always too busy. He had never attended any of Sylvio’s duels and he had never come to any of Sylvio’s school plays or any sporting events he had participated in when he was younger.
But no one talked about that, despite being aware of it. Not anyone. Not any of Sylvio’s admirers, none of his teachers, none of his dueling instructors, and none of his cronies.
Sylvio certainly didn’t. Because if he didn’t talk about it, it didn’t feel as real. He typically wanted for nothing all his life, but the only thing he didn’t have was a house that truly felt like a home. But Sylvio told himself that this was normal, that he didn’t need his father’s attention. That’s what he told himself. Those were the words that he tucked himself in with every night as a stray tear escaped him just before drifting off to sleep.