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“Mama, what was Papa like?” asked the little one nervously twiddling his thumbs at the lady’s side.
Lumine sucked in a breath at her young son’s question, her grip on the worn handle of the cart tightening. It was an inquiry that she had avoided for years now even if her not so baby boy saw her husband’s photos lying around the house – quite a few of them were framed even. Her child was older now than he used to be when he first asked and far too big to fit inside a grocery cart even if he practically begged her to ride in it earlier.
The woman’s eyes flitted from the empty aisles of the store to the single open cashier that they had passed by seconds before. Though it was but a brief sweep, her gaze fell upon a rusted old tin can sitting innocently next to the price scanner. The red wrapping bearing words she could not read from afar but knew all too well and the monotone faces of pitiable children caused a twinge of pain to blossom in her chest. She drew a deep breath. “Your Papa?”
“Mm-hm,” nodded the boy enthusiastically to his mother’s solemn chagrin. This was a conversation they were bound to have at some point, one she had been putting off for the last three years or so deeming her not so little one too young back then. “You said you’d tell me when I was older and I’m,” he began counting on his fingers, “six now!”
The woman shook her head, a fond smile gracing her lips and a clammy hand of hers reaching for her son’s head of dark hair and ruffling it, “you just turned six the other day.”
“But I’m not five no more,” said her son, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet and leaning into his mother’s touch, “I’m big!”
“And you’re still my baby no matter how big you get,” she cooed. The toddler puffed out his cheeks, arms crossed over his chest, “I’m not a baby,” he mumbled.
A hollow laugh almost escaped her as she took in her son’s expression. A button nose all scrunched up, little lips akin to the petals of Sakura blooms drawn into a pout, and a slight tilt of his head to the side as if he was avoiding her eyes. It was a sight she was well-acquainted with even though the face before her currently was far younger than the one in her memory. Even the annoyed gaze of her young one reminded her of another one just like it that she had seen far too many times in her youth. “Whatever you say my not-baby baby.”
Seemingly satisfied with her reply, her little one began twiddling his thumbs again. Short, stubby fingers toyed with the hem of a white-cotton shirt that was a size too big – it was on sale when it was bought a few months ago and Makoto would eventually grow into it – all the while dark, striking indigo, eyes peered at the woman owlishly. “About Papa…”
Yet another sigh came from the mother’s lips which were soon drawn into a thin line. Of all the traits he could have inherited from her, it just had to be her stubbornness. Then again, she had been putting off telling him for literal years now – and he was likely at the grade level where his teachers and classmates talked excessively about their complete families, of a family consisting of the father, the mother, and their children. Her options were having her child pester her for the days to come over the topic or tell him and dig up old wounds that still had yet to heal – slashes across every chamber of her heart that would probably never heal. Exasperation evident in her tone, she uttered, “what do you want to know?”
The poison she had picked was perhaps heavier than arsenic or it could be the cure. Lumine was uncertain if telling her son would ease the pain in her bosom – fill the void left by her beloved husband – but perhaps talking about it – about him – would prevent old injuries from festering faster and allow them to begin scabbing over?
A short and surprisingly melodic hum from her little one followed, “how did you meet him?”
Bits and pieces of a time long gone came to her in flashes. A boy who could be no older than thirteen was sat next to her at the teacher’s command, grumbling as he plopped his bag onto the floor. When she held out a hand to him while introducing herself, all he replied with was a grunt of his name, Kunikuzushi Narukami, and a phrase that did nothing to endear him to her, “don’t hinder my studies.”
“We were classmates during high school,” came her reply as her eyebrows creased while looking at the price tag of a can of sardines. It was higher than expected and though she didn’t want her child to get used to eating canned goods rather than proper meals – even if those did get her and her husband through college – finding work that paid well with her nursing degree was quite tough as there were no openings that didn’t expose her to Covid-19 patients. The pay they promised was great but the mere thought of her catching the virus and passing it onto her son – even if the little one was fully vaccinated now – didn’t sit well with Lumine. “I didn’t like him at first.”
Not liking him was an understatement. The boy that would become her husband later on was, for lack of a better term, an absolute prick and she counted her unlucky stars that she of all people ended up as his seatmate for a year. It didn’t help that their ideas always clashed but were almost always correct and in line with class discussions. It only got worse when the class rankings were released for the first quarter of the school year and they were tied at first place. The look on his face was priceless even as a venomous hiss, “you won’t be first with me for long, Viatrix,” left his lips.
“Really?” asked little Makoto while starting to climb the side of the cart; his attempt was thwarted by his mother’s glare. “And then what?”
“A lot of boring stuff.” Because what else could she call their mundane and bordering petty academic rivalry as the two students always fighting for the top spot? Both of them were quite immature for the first two years of four spent in the nesting grounds of their local high school; always bickering over math formulas and scientific hypotheses and conclusions. Then third year came and they were paired for a project which neither of them expected nor looked forward to. “Until we had to work together.”
“Then you loved Papa?”
The woman shook her head, stopping their walk to inspect the price of a kilo of rice. The numbers had doubled since her high school years. It was quite the annoying sight but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Looking at the bag took her back to more than a decade earlier when her then project partner – who donned a white apron lined with violet lace and ribbons – a plateful of rice accompanied by a small bowl of miso soup in her face after hearing her stomach rumble. “Don’t work on an empty stomach, idiot. I don’t need your poor excuse of a brain malfunctioning and dragging the both of us down for this project.”
Even at a young age, Kunikuzushi was such an independent man and a great cook to boot. In the days that followed after they worked together on that project, he would hand her a small Tupperware during lunch time. Sometimes it would contain a sandwich – that was heavenly when compared to the ones sold at the school canteen – and a note saying that if she starved and kicked the bucket, class would become boring. Other times it would be filled with a serving of chazuke and a brief note detailing that he heard her stomach rumbling and it was annoying him. Rarely would it contain handmade desserts and a slip of paper that told her she looked uglier with a frown than with a smile. All in all, thinly veiled concern that she could see right through not from the get go but a month into the endeavor.
It took a while for his actions to endear him to her but it did spur on teasing from her friends. Husband material, they called him, if they ignored his rather snarky attitude.
“So, when did you love Papa?”
Lumine shrugged. Frankly, it was hard for even her to discern when she had begun seeing her rather abrasive rival in a different light. Maybe it was when he cooked for her for the first time? Maybe it was when he stopped challenging her answers and turning their recitations into debates? She was unsure of the when but she was sure of the time she acknowledged that feelings began blossoming between him and her.
“Let’s take a detour before getting the eggs.” Her son, brows creased, nodded.
Makoto’s eyes sparkled once they entered the aisle filled with treats. A cacophony of colorful wrappings and her child’s excited babbles assaulted her senses. He kept pointing at different candies – marshmallows in particular – and asking her if they could get them. As much as it broke her heart to do so, she shook her head each time – too many sweets led to rotten teeth, rotten teeth led to dental appointments and those weren’t cheap – and drunk in her son’s crestfallen expression. The way his lower lip juts out in a pout and his cheeks puffed like a pufferfish reminded her of his father. Despite her husband’s often biting remarks, he too had quite the sweet tooth with a fondness for Sakura mochi and dango specifically.
As her child remain entranced by the array of sweets and crestfallen because he could not eat any and all of the ones that he wanted, the woman searched the shelves for a particular brand of chocolate. A decades-old one that her love gifted her with throughout the years of their courtship, dating, and marriage. Once she found a small bar of it, she tapped her son’s shoulder and handed it to him.
“Mama,” Makoto’s eyes narrowed at the small chocolate bar his mother had handed him, “why Cloud 9?”
Laughter bubbled from her lips, spilling over into giggles muffled slightly by her white facemask. In her youth, Lumine had a similar reaction when her then academic rival suddenly handed her a single bar of chocolate and bid her a ‘happy birthday’ with his cheeks aflame and eyes looking everywhere except her face. “You’re Papa gave that to me.”
“And then you loved him?”
The lone chocolate bar thudded against the metal cradle of the grocery cart, bouncing between the cans of sardines and bags of rice before settling down. The young boy reached for another bar on the shelf before his mother gently took hold of his wrist. He looked up, dark eyes meeting hers, and the woman shook her head. With a pout, the child’s hand fell to his side.
“You loved Papa after he gave you chocolate?”
“No.” The reply echoed in the otherwise empty aisle alongside the clack of worn wheels against cracked tiles. “But it was a start.”
Returning to their rather short list, they went to the poultry section next. “Your Papa courted me during our last year of high school,” she snickered, “after swallowing his pride and confessing to me that is.”
The woman picked up a tray of eggs, almost chuckling at another memory – specifically when she smashed a dozen of them on her suitor’s head while singing her birthday greetings to him. Granted, she did help get all of the whites and yolks out of his hair afterwards and that was over a decade ago when the price of a single egg was less than 5 mora per piece at the store in front of their school. In all honesty, she didn’t know if this practice persisted to today given that eggs, and other food stuff, were much more expensive now than they were in her youth. The practice – that supposedly heralded blessings for the receiver – was a waste of money and good food after all.
“And then you loved Papa?” A chuckle erupted from her lips, “yes, after a while and when we were in college that is.”
“I thought you wanted to take up mechanical engineering?” asked a younger version of Lumine – decked in the whites and blues of her high school uniform – while treating her suitor to a look of incredulity. The boy’s indigo eyes swerved to the side, fixating themselves on a woman in a prim and proper black suit talking to their class adviser. “Mother wants me to follow in the family’s footsteps.”
The girl pursed her lips. She had scene the frames upon frames of medals in his house – service awards of the free and the living dead – and the small altar where flameless, plastic, battery powered candles were always lit. Years before, she had discerned the profession of his mother and that of his deceased father and how Kunikuzushi’s stance on service did not align with theirs – muttering that he would be more use to the country alive in its blossoming industry rather than dead in a field thousands of miles away. “She already enrolled me in a university with a service course and would likely disown me if I refuse.”
“Does she know you don’t want to serve?” He scoffed at her inquiry, “of course, she does, but mother is a stubborn mule. The only plus side to this is that we’re in the same uni.”
Her mother-in-law’s insistence for her son to serve was one she could hardly understand considering he was adamant about not going into the same profession as his parents. Lumine wondered how the stubborn woman, who was likely in her sixties now, was doing considering her son cut ties with her the moment he graduated from college. Was she doing well or was she also wallowing in misery like her daughter-in-law?
The soles of their shoes, thinned and worn from excessive use, padded against the ceramic flooring as they made it to an aisle lined with instant noodles. “Go on and get your favorite, dear.”
As her son bounded off towards the towering shelf filled with the reds and yellows of instant mac ‘n cheese and spaghetti, Lumine busied herself looking for the cheapest yet most delicious instant noodles that she remembered from her days in college. Briefly, she wondered if they were still as affordable as they were during her and her then boyfriend’s – because she finally gave him her sweetest yes once they both got into college – dorm years. Though they stayed in different dorms, Kunikuzushi always knocked on her door with a Tupperware filled with his home-cooking. It was him that made sure she wasn’t always running solely on cup noodles and instant coffee.
Soon enough, Makoto returned to her side. In his little arms he clutched four packets of easy-to-cook carbonara, baked macaroni, mac ‘n cheese, and spaghetti. Grinning widely, her son dumped the items into the cart. For a moment, she thought she saw her own husband’s grin – when things went his way that was – on their son’s lips. “Did you and Papa eat this too?” asked the boy, pointing to the items he had just added to their cart.
In response, she raised her own hand that held two sachets of her preferred product. “We had this and your Papa would make it like it was cooked in a restaurant.”
“The fancy shmancy ones?”
An affirmative hum was her response. Lumine herself was a decent cook but her own prowess was nothing compared to her partner’s. “I wish you could’ve tasted his cooking, Makoto.” More than that, she wished that he was still with them.
“Why did Papa go away?” It was the question she dreaded the most. Long had she expected it to come from her son’s lips but she also secretly hoped it never had to. How could she begin to explain the pain that came with saying that he was always with them? That his eyes followed their every movement all over the house?
“Do you really have to go?” she muttered, fiddling with her silver wedding band on her left ring finger. The man, whose striking indigo eyes bore into her own and left her speechless still, nodded. “Duty calls,” he replied curtly followed by an exasperated sigh, “it’s Yashiori this time.” Her heart plunged to the pit of her stomach at the mention of the place.
Decades long the conflict in that area was – a battle of ideologies combined with a desire for autonomy from a state that favored a specific faith. It was hard to believe at first, especially when she was conditioned to view those who took up arms against the government to be insurgents who senselessly slaughter innocents, but history never truly changed though many tried to spin the narrative to their favor. Kunikuzushi once said that the military – backed by the ruling administrations that came before – had labeled them such in order to rally the people against them. A loss of support would be a possible devastating blow to a rebellion that they failed to nip in the bud and had been festering for decades – perhaps even centuries, given the extensive history between the sovereign state and the region that never truly bowed their heads to them and their rather forceful faith in a god that supposedly walked among them still. Whether there was a grain of truth in his statement she was unsure but it did add context to why he abhorred going into the military in the first place.
A sigh left her lips as she fixed his cap onto his head, “come home in one piece.” To this he replied with a peck to her forehead and a mutter of “my starlight, the faster I get this job done, the sooner I can come home to you.”
“Your Papa loved us,” she whispered – avoiding the question for now – almost wistfully, as if she was still in her early 20s and in a hospital bed, watching as her husband smiled oh so softly as their newborn’s fingers wrapped around one of his own, “and because this country is our home, he fought for it.”
It would be all too easy to say that he fought for the country because he wanted to but that would be a lie. Her husband was no patriot nor was he a person who would suddenly voluntarily put his life on the line for others who did nothing for him – unless they were children or the elderly, of course, as they were the exceptions he had a soft spot for. The man she had married was a merely an average citizen who did his job as fast and as efficient as possible so he could come home sooner rather than later.
After Makoto was born and Christmas had passed, Kunikuzushi returned to Yashiori – to help guard against the many insurgents there. The call to arms was one he had to heed and each time he did, fear gripped at her heart. The battlefield was a land of uncertainty. One moment you were fine, the next a bullet pierced straight through your head. Day and night, she prayed for his safety and that he would be home soon. She just hoped he’d come home and greet them with a hug and not in a casket with the Shogunate’s standard draped on top.
“Mama?” The lady hummed in response. “We missed the crackers.”
Whatever reverie Lumine had found herself in, ended as her son pushed a bundle of crackers into her hands. The transparent packaging mixed with soft blues swirled before her eyes, shifting and transforming to a different image entirely. These were the same brand of soda crackers that she’d tuck into the breast pocket of her then fiancé’s uniform before he left for work. He had yet to be called to the field then, confined to a logistics post – the last place he wanted to work at – but, in her eyes at least, he was somewhat safer than he would be on the frontlines.
“Sorry, dear,” she muttered, “I just remembered something.”
“About Papa?”
“Mm-hm, he was a soldier,” she paused then drew in a deep breath, “a hero.”
Hero. A bitter chuckle almost escaped her lips at the term that sounded both right and wrong. Many had lauded him as a hero for his service – for dying in the line of duty – and, perhaps, he was a hero to many but the title itself held no fanfare nor glory. All it did was serve as a reminder that he was gone and her little one would continue to grow without having known the feeling of being safe in the arms of his father.
“Papa was a hero?!”
“He was.”
It felt like she was lying to her own child – refusing to give him the full truth. But how could she explain the treasonous thoughts in her head every time her mind drifted to her love’s reluctant entry into service? How could she tell her bright-eyed Makoto of his father’s stories of superiors whose loyalty was not to their country but to their bulging pockets? Would she dare to shatter his rose-tinted of the people around him?
The day her husband left remained stark in her mind, of him kissing both her and their son goodbye whilst he was dressed in full combat regalia. “If I die,” he paused as he noticed her glare, chuckled, then pinched her cheek, “don’t call me a hero.”
“But that’s what people who die, which you shouldn’t do by the way, in the line of duty are called.” Her love shook his head dismissively, “that’s a title reserved for figureheads in propaganda, a dead man doesn’t need such a thing.”
Her love was heading to the frontline miles away, fighting for the sovereignty of Inazuma against a group of rebels that have taken a settlement and hundreds of people hostage. “And I don’t want to be a part of their machinery.”
“But he didn’t come home.”
The news of the rebellion’s end was music to her ears. It meant that Kunikuzushi would be home soon. Lumine was excited for his homecoming – sprucing their home up a bit, dusting here and there. Doing the groceries while cradling their infant son so they could cook their favorite meal together once he was home. She was doing the dishes, her child in a sling strapped to her chest, when the knock came.
“Did the bad guys take Papa away?”
All she could do was nod while suppressing a sob.
What greeted her at the door was her husband’s commanding officer, the nation’s banner in his hands and apologies on his lips. In grief, she had fallen to her knees and the dish sponge she held fell to the floor. Her dearest one had died leading children and their families to safety. A couple of rebels had hidden themselves among the retreating folk and had caught the soldiers escorting the innocents to safety by surprise. Her beloved had been fatally shot in his back while protecting a group of little ones.
“Why?” To this, she shook her head. The question was unanswerable as she had no inkling of why he had to die – of why it had to be him. Neither could she pinpoint who was the true villain. Was it the guerillas in the fields decked in ragged clothes and holding smuggled firearms? Or was it the men in pristine uniforms in their airconditioned offices who leant over tables and waddled in a sea of green?
“War is an investment, Lumine,” said a younger Kunikuzushi who had yet to graduate from high school. “Why else would they allow armed skirmishes to continue while negotiating peace instead of ordering a ceasefire?”
It was an off-handed comment dripping with nonchalance yet it haunted her to this day. They were young back then, supposedly oblivious to the ways of the world, but maybe, just maybe, her husband was right. To the people with agendas that catered to their self-interest, anything would become expendable. Much like the food in their grocery cart, even people were consumable – perishable goods.
“He was just protecting kids like you, Makoto,” she uttered, her hands that held the cart shook.
“So, Papa saved people?” The woman smiled sadly through unshed tears as she nodded her head.
“Then,” Lumine was very much familiar with the determination in her son’s eyes. She feared the words that would come from her son’s mouth as if they were a crocodile that would eat her alive. “Can I be a hero like Papa?”
Sadness tinged the smile that had spread itself earlier across the woman’s lips. Her not so little one had always been fond of heroes – both fictional and historical – and to know that his father had been one in some way left him on cloud nine.
Mentally, she apologized to her husband. For a while, just for a little while, she would keep their views to herself rather than divulge the full story to their son. He was far too young still to understand the complexities of the militarized arm that was supposed to protect the citizens of the nation rather than favor one group and jeopardize others. Far too young to know of the bloodstained reality coating the arms of their country’s military. Too innocent still to be tainted by the knowledge that his father never wanted to be a hero in the first place.
Momentarily, Lumine let go of the grocery cart and kneeled in front of her son. A small pat was bestowed on the boy’s head as his mother’s free arm drew him in to a short but tight hug. “You already are, dear,” she whispered, smile growing strained at the mere thought of her son eternally confined to the borders of a frame and wearing the dark, violet hues of the Inazuman military garb just like his father.
“I am?”
The haunting image of a possibility in the future was then replaced by one from the past – of a little boy waddling his way into Lumine’s arms. The infant who was once unsteady on his feet grew older, entering the kitchen one Sunday morning while holding the framed picture of his father. And then the toddler became the young school boy in front of her, curiously waiting for an answer. “Yes, you are, my Makoto. You’re my hero.”
For a hero was one that inspired another to continue living and, in the wake of her beloved’s death, it was their son that prevented her from spiraling. He was what kept her going throughout the rough years – that urged her to work hard and earn money to make ends meet for even the pension provided by the government alone, due to her being a widower, was hardly enough to sustain them. The economy was far from doing well – regressing back to being a sick man of sorts even! The prices of goods were higher than they used to be – higher than they should be. The woman could always call her mother-in-law but the last thing she needed was the old woman looking at her grandson and coercing him into continuing the family tradition. Her husband had already died in the line of duty, she would not let their son follow in his footsteps unless he really wanted to. She needed her little boy as much as he needed her.
The child’s eyes, that resembled those of his father, sparkled as he then raised his fist in the air, striking a pose resembling that of the heroes he saw on television shows. “I’m Mama’s hero!”
A laugh slipped from the woman’s lips, “can my hero go get his own milk?”
Her son nodded before speeding off towards the dairy aisle. As his silhouette shrunk in the distance, she could almost see the cape fluttering behind him and the ghost of her husband chasing after him. “He’s a little bit of me,” she muttered to the wind hoping it would carry her words to her departed loved one, “and a lot more of you.”
It was a thought that frightened her so but perhaps all they needed was a bit more time. One day, Makoto would know the full story. One day, he could choose for himself if he wanted to pursue a military career like his father or something different entirely. But that was far into the future and her concern at the moment was the present – was a little child waving a box of powdered milk while jumping up and down. “Baby steps, Lumine,” she muttered to herself, “you’ll get there eventually.”