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Gakushuu knows that his father and he have an unusual relationship.
He isn’t blind, and it isn’t a secret. Anyone with a functioning brain can figure it out. He never understood why others tried to make a big deal out of it.
It’s fine, it doesn’t bother him. They don’t act like a normal family, he knows that. But it works for them, and that’s the only thing that counts.
He knows his father loves him.
When he is nine, his teacher pulls him aside during lunch. Says she is concerned about him and his father, so Gakushuu tries to explain.
It’s like a tower built of blocks on uneven ground. It sways and trembles, gaps in certain places, but it always stands strong. Sometimes they argue and a brick falls, but he’ll pick it back up and rebuild that part.
Not repair, it’s never the same, the brick chipped or inserted at a wrong angle. But the tower keeps standing.
The teacher looks at him funny.
A week later, his father transfers him to another school.
It’s tiring, but Gakushuu smiles as he carefully stacks the fallen bricks once again.
Relationships require work. He doesn’t mind.
It’s worth it.
Their tower stands on a small island, surrounded by a bottomless void, only reached by a tightrope.
It is to keep it safe, Gakushuu whispers to his plush toy. To keep others from coming and knocking it over. He ignores the chasm and smiles at their tower.
From this far away, it looks like he can hold it in his fist.
His father yells at him, and a brick tumbles to the ground. Gakushuu clasps his hands over his ears as the house door shuts in his face. He can hear the clatter of two more bricks.
The sun is sinking, long shadows draped over the streets, a wind blowing falling leaves over the sidewalk.
Gakushuu sits down at their front steps, pulling his blazer tighter around himself. His back falls against their door and its cold seeps into his body.
He picks up the bricks and starts rebuilding.
When Gakushuu brings home a gold medal, his father smiles and hugs him. He beams and watches as his father puts a new brick on their tower.
It towers over Gakushuu, twice his height, swaying gently, and he’s never felt more proud.
He is tired. The principal is lying to him, and he doesn’t know why.
Gakushuu watches from afar as the bricks keep falling, day after day.
He doesn’t have the energy to pick them up.
Another day passes and another brick falls.
Their tower nearly falls over once.
His father won’t come out of his room, no matter how loud Gakushuu cries.
So he does the only thing he can think of and tries to rebuild.
The bricks won’t stay and keep falling, scratching his hands. Through blurry tears, he picks them up again and starts anew.
He doesn’t know how often he has to try again; he can’t count that far yet.
But Gakushuu doesn’t give up. The bricks are rough and hurt his hands, small wounds and dust covering them. But he is good at jigsaws, he can do this.
When their tower stands again, it looks wrong and has more gaps than Gakushuu remembers, but it stands, and his father comes out of his room.
He smiles as bright as he can and ignores how it shakes.
Gakushuu barely feels the kick before the pole topples and he falls. His head hits the ground, and he watches helplessly as another brick drops. It skitters over the ground and plummets into the void.
Gakushuu has always hated heights. His father does too.
When a friend comes to him, crying about an argument with their mother, Gakushuu tells him to rebuild their tower. His friend pulls a face and calls him weird. Says that there is no tower.
Gakushuu tries to explain, but he doesn’t listen.
The next day everything is back to normal, so he thinks his friend must have found it after all.
Gakushuu looks at the tower in front of him.
It’s only as tall as he is, dozens of bricks laying at his feet. He leans down and picks up the first one. It’s broken in half.
Carefully, he places it back on the tower. It’s his fault, he shouldn’t have waited so long. The principal is stressed, he doesn’t have the time.
He picks up the next one and keeps rebuilding until every brick is back in its place. He desperately ignores the gap that wasn’t there before. Tries not to think about the one that’s forever lost.
Ignores the ashen taste as he turns his back, his job done.
Gakushuu watches the other children run to their parents, giggling and squeaking. He sees their towers, strong and tall.
He doesn’t ask his father why theirs looks so different.
Their tower crashes to the ground.
Gakushuu hits the wall and a dull pressure spreads across his face. He can barely feel it, numbly watching the remains of the tower. The bricks are scattered all over, shattered, some lost forever.
He feels someone pulling at him and his legs following mechanically, but his eyes never leave the fallen remains.
He wants to rebuild it, salvage whatever remains until his hands bleed and he knows it will never fall again, shake and tremble but stand indestructible again.
But he can only watch, as his tightrope crumbles, the tower a lonely, unreachable island.
Desperate eyes search for the only one who can save it, begging him to rebuild whatever they have left as if he wasn’t the one who took a sledgehammer to it. Gakushuu watches as the principal does nothing.
His heart stings.
Gakushuu knows that his father and he have an unusual relationship.
He isn’t blind, and it isn’t a secret. Anyone with a functioning brain can figure it out. He was naive; he has been the only one to hold onto it, rebuild it.
They don’t act like a normal family, he knows that.
But Gakushuu thought he could depend on him.
It’s a distant memory. His father ruffling his hair, building a foundation as Gakushuu happily babbles something about his friends, his smile warm and open like he hadn’t seen in ages.
Years later, the ruins remain. A thick layer of dust covers them and Gakushuu looks at the tightrope, new and fragile, shimmering in the low light.
And he turns around and never returns.