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The number flashing on his phone wasn't one he recognized. It was a Munich number, so it didn't get flagged by spam and sent to voicemail. It didn't mean he would answer it.
Yoichi's eyes ghosted over his screen as he set the phone down. His gaze shifted back to the field in front of them, no concern for the call Michael was ignoring.
Dimitri was playing well today. Only 13, and already playing for an U16 team. He looked like Michael did at that age, minus the wild hair and skinny frame. He had all of the confidence though, and was still young enough to seek out his parent's approval for all he did. Periodically, he glanced over to the stands, making sure he and Yoichi saw a play, but Michael only wanted to yell at him to focus. Don't be so distracted. But, he refrained as Yoichi squeezed his wrist.
They didn't want to be those parents, as Yoichi said.
His phone rang again. Same number. He hit the button to lock his phone and slid it back into his pocket. If it was important, they'd leave a message. If not? They could fuck off.
Michael scanned the field, picking out the oldest player and sizing him up. Dimitri had skirted around him a number of times, his footwork light and delicate in a way that both Yoichi and Michael could only dream of. His coach had discussed moving him up to the Club's U18 team, but was holding back based on his age. Something about preventing injuries until he hits his next growth spurt. Many of those boys were already hitting 180 centimeters in height, and while Dimitri's age and height didn't much matter when the boys were only a couple centimeters taller than him, nearly a whole 30 centimeter difference seemed excessive and potentially dangerous. Michael nearly pushed for him to move up if that was where he would get the best challenge, but Yoichi had the final say. (And the most common sense apparently as their son had been bodied a few times by a boy on defense that weighed twice as much as he did. He was fine of course, as Michael Kaiser's son would have to be built of tougher stuff, but it still resulted in a sharp inhale of a gasp from Yoichi. )
Michael cursed as he felt his phone ring again. It was almost halfway through the game, he didn't care what was going on that prompted not one but three calls. If it was important, he'd have their damn number.
"Again?" Yoichi asked as he angrily pressed down the end call button, sending them to voicemail again, hoping they'd get the hint.
Michael grumbled, shoving his phone in the pocket of his coat so maybe he could ignore the vibrations of an incoming call. Yoichi patted the back of his hand briefly, before raising his hands to clap excitedly as Dimitri scored his third goal of the half. A hat-trick, and the game wasn't even half over. He made his fathers so proud.
"God damnit," Michael cursed as he pulled his phone from his pocket again, a fourth call. Yoichi seemed concerned, his eyebrows knitting together as he pulled the phone from Michael's hands.
"Hallo?" Yoichi answered the call, knowing that there was no way Michael would be polite in this moment. "I think you've got the wrong- Yes, this is his… No? Wait, hold on…"
Pulling the phone down and pressing it against his chest, muffling the person on the other line.
"Michael… You may… You may want to take this call." Yoichi held out the phone to his husband, call still running on the screen. But Yoichi seemed… nervous? His hand shook slightly as he passed the phone back to Michael.
"Hello?"
-—
The car ride home was awkwardly quiet.
Dimitri in the back seat, arms crossed over his chest and blonde head lolling against the window as he slept. He had already excitedly consumed the lunch they bought for him on the way home, and would probably fall asleep in the shower Yoichi would make him take before he fell into bed.
If he noticed the air of discomfort radiating off of his father… he didn't say a word.
But Yoichi did. The moment he returned from the call. Michael had walked away from the crowd when he took his phone from Yoichi, the nervous look on his face letting Michael know that this might be a call he needed to take in private, if he could.
He had yet to say a word to Yoichi about the call. He couldn't. Not in front of their son.
Dimitri had asked on a few occasions about them. The nameless, faceless people who gave life to his father. Yoichi's parents were around so often that they might as well have lived there, their guest room a permanent monument to older Japanese people that called their house their second home. Dimitri always loved when his grandparents visited as he was spoiled even more rotten than normal. And no matter how rotten Dimitri was, no matter how fufilling his life was when his grandparents said "yes" to his every whim, it didn't stop the periodic questions.
Who were they?
Where do they live?
Are they still alive?
Michael didn't have the heart to say that his paternal grandmother was very much still alive, as the wicked bitch seemed to be immortal. She had reached out to him once in the years that Michael stepped out into the public eye. Maybe she wanted to put to bed the rumors that their identicial faces had made of the entertainment industry. Maybe she wanted his finacial support for a movie about god knows what. Maybe she genuinely wanted to reconnect, and decided that sending him a DM on instagram was 100% the way to go.
He blocked her the next day after mentally torturing himself with the question of "what to do."
She didn't try since.
But him.
It was easier to hate his mother. She abandoned him. She had given him nothing except a handsome face. She did the bare minimum, and he found it difficult to even call her his mother. Birth giver, though he really didn't even know if he had been born or delivered. He never asked when he could, which had been never.
His father though… He had been there. Drunk, usually. And when not drunk, high off of something. His father didn't really like drugs, as they didn't make him feel the nothing that alcohol did. But as many children with shitty homelives did, he had to rationalize that maybe, at one point, he was loved.
Maybe he was even wanted.
He survived, right? He survived through childhood. He was given enough food. He hadn't developed any diseases. (He remmebred once there was an internet trend about determining whether you were loved or not as a baby based on whether or not the back of your head was flat. Yoichi had caught him cupping the back of his head with his hand, trying to figure out if the sentiment had any weight to it… His head didn't feel particularly flat… so maybe he was loved just enough to be picked up frequently so as to not have a flat head).
But then there were the scars. Mental. Physical. Everything in between.
Sometimes, he could still feel the scar on the bottom of his foot from stepping on a broken beer bottle in the living room. It wasn't even visible to the naked eye anymore, but he could still run his fingers over the thin line. Had he even gone to the doctor for stitches? He couldn't remember. When was the last time he had god to the doctor as a kid? He…really couldn't say.
It was all so simple. His parents had a simple list of "How to be a decent fucking human being and a not terible parent" and they really had only managed one thing.
Keep the baby alive.
His first doctor appointment after he was arrested (another small thing that he didn't want to tell Dimitri about) had been traumatizing. Being poked and prodded by a man he didn't know and didn't trust all for the sake of "health" and he was just supposed to accept it? He did, of course, because he knew he would get sent right back to that hellhole of a house if he refused.
How did that bastard even get his number?
"It was the hospital," Michael mumbled as he and Yoichi shut themselves into their bedroom. Michael peeled off his shirty, smelling of sunscreen and sweat from a morning out in the sun. He needed a shower to wipe this damn day off of him. He couldn't even enjoy his son winning his game because of that man.
He wasn't supposed to be interefering anymore.
"They said you were his emergency contact?"
Michael rolled his eyes, shaking his head. Emergency contact. What a joke. Michael didn't even know who his emergency contact was for half of his life. Probably just someone under Ray Dark who could go get him if he got hurt and return him to the medical wing of their club. Maybe his manager, when that had been established. It had been Yoichi for the last several years, because he trusted his husband and knew his husband would follow along with whatever he knew Micahel might want, should he be rendered unconcious or worse.
"He must really not have anyone else in his life if he is resorting to this…" Yoichi mused, sitting on the edge of their bed as he watched Michael pace. Up and down. Back and forth. All around thier bedroom until something made sense.
Because this made so little sense that Michael could scream.
Of course he had no one else. He was a bastard. He'd used up all of his savings on a few fancy things for his mother, trying to win her love and affection, never seeing that she was just using him as a launch pad to bigger and better things. Michael had looked once. He hadn't produced a single film since his mother left his father. What a damn waste to lose it all for a woman.
He'd been living on royalties since then, as if that amounted to much. The high class whisky had turned into cheap beer. The irritation of a shot on the rocks shifted to the rage of a whole case of swill that never tasted good, no matter how many times Michael had tried to escape from it all using the elixer that his father swore by to not feel a damn thing.
But really, after so long in the business… after making movies that were beloved by surely someone (he'd yet to find them)… he had no one. Not a friend. Not a girlfriend or spouse. No one.
Not even his own son.
Stopping his pacing, Michael stood in the middle of his room. Dimitri was surely upstairs already, snoozing away soundly in his plush bed. Michael had been sleeping on the floor at his age.
"Yoichi… I don't know what to do."
It felt like defeat… admitting this to his husband. He always knew what to do. Always. He made the decisions when Yoichi was waffling between two options and couldn't decide. He made the final offer on their house, their cars, their life, and now, he was finally at a crossroads where he had to decide. Right or left?
But what even was right in this situation?
Yoichi, feeling and observing his inner turmoil, wrapped his arms around him and held him tightly. Michael folded, near immediately, feeling like the little kid again who hid in the closet amongst the stinky shoes and outdoor jackets that never saw the outdoors anymore. But instead, he was hiding on his husband's shoulder, eyes covered as he squeezed so tightly that it must of hurt. But Yoichi dared not complain.
"What did they say?" Yoichi asked, fingers stroking Michael's hair, soothing him. Yoichi's touch was always right. Always exactly what he needed.
"He wants to see me," Michael admitted, feeling as small as small can be. "He's…"
Dying.
Michael couldn't even say it.
Wasn't this supposed to be a day he rejoiced?
He half expected to not even know when it happened.
To be scrolling social media on his phone to one day see…
Beloved FilmMaker and Director Dies at 68
He wouldn't pause to read the article, as he already knew what it would say.
He died in the hospital, surrounded by friends and family. Who? Someone the press made up to make him appear more sympathetic.
Someone would reach out for a statement. Michael would tell them the truth. He drank himself to death. Kidneys, or whatever it was that alcohol killed over time. Michael would appear cold hearted. Yoichi would squeeze his hand to calm him down.
He would have won.
But what kind of victory is that? Outliving your bitter, bastard of an old man. He had everything. His father had nothing.
Michael couldn't even be excited about it.
"Maybe you should go?" Yoichi offered, trying to be helpful. "So you don't regret it when its too late."
Michael shook his head. Would he really regret that?
The thought of seeing him… tied up with tubes and needles and unable to stand without support. That wouldn't make him feel better.
This was who he was still scared of. Unable to hurt him any longer. And yet….
"I can't."
Yoichi nodded, understanding his choice. Their foreheads knocked together as Yoichi tried to raise his head. To look him in the eye.
"I just want you to not regret anything, you know?" Yoichi asked, leaning foreward to kiss his cheek. His lips were soft and warm and familiar. Safe. Home. "Whatever that is… just choose what you won't regret."
Michael had spent almost every day of his adult life, not ever thinking of him. Every moment trying to reduce the influence that man had on his life. Pulling at the strings of hatred and anger, unwraveling the person that his father had made.
His family had put him back together again.
Yoichi, who really did not help at first with his whole self-discovery thing, eventually became the most important thing to him. He thought about his father once on his wedding day, wondering if he should've been polite and sent an invitation, just to rub it in his face that he was happy and fufilled.
Spite.
He thought about him on the day Dimitri was born. How could a father ever look down at his son and see something he hated? Sure, if he and Yoichi didn't work out, it may hurt to look at Dimitri… his eyes the exact same shade of blue as Yoichi… but he could never hate him. Never hurt him.
Anger.
Another year. Another world cup. Another championship. Another everything. Year after year. Time after time. So many happy, beautiful moments in his life. Maybe, if he had shown up then. Maybe if he had ever said he was sorry. If he had apologized, things would have been different.
Dissappointment.
Every single emotion he could attribute to his relationship with his father, and not a single positive one. Spite, Anger, Dissappointment, Fear.
Why was he responsible for giving that old man some comfort in his last few hours? To show him what? That he didn't completely fuck up by killing Michael, which it felt like he had tried to do on a number of occassions?
He didn't deserve such slim satisfactions.
When the hospital called again, he told them as much, with a bit more colorful langauge.
"Tell that bastard he can go fuck himself."
The news broke a few weeks later.
After a long hospital stay, the filmaker / Director Kaiser has passed away.
"Dad?"
"Hm?"
Dimitri approached him with his phone in his hand, a confused look on his face.
"Do we know him?"
Michael grabbed the phone from his son's hand. He read over the article. A short paragraph about when he had died. A short paragraph of what he had done with his life.
And he felt nothing.
No joy.
No grief.
"He wasn't a good man, Dimitri." Michael patted the couch beside him, encouraging his son to sit by his side. He saw Yoichi out of the corner of his eye, apparently coming to tell him the same news, but hesitating slightly when he saw his boys sitting closely, Dimitri's face coated in confusion. Michael waved him in. Might as well have the whole family here. He didn't want to have to relive it twice.
Dimtri was old enough to face his father's fears.
They couldn't hurt him. Not anymore.