2025-08-11: A Mother's Cares
- Cutscene: A Mother's Cares
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Etsuko Seki
- Where: Port Island Station, Iwatodai
- OOC Date: 2025-08-11
- IC Date: Sunday, June 24 2012
- Summary: Tsubasa goes to visit their mother at her workplace, despite their father excommunicating them from the family, to seek her advice. The advice Etsuko has for them is largely unsolicited, but she's at least able to feed them and encourage them to visit the boy who was injured at hospital. Hanzou overshadows the both of them, but Etsuko still loves her child, even if she doesn't love them in the way they really need.
- Content warning: Deadnaming/implicit transphobia
Tsubasa locked Lance up in the home, after a nice long walk. "Sorry, girl," they said, as she whined at the closing door. "Just... got some shit to do."
And so they go to Rafflesia --
It's a long trip out, these days, but Tsubasa makes it anyway. They don't even know if she'll be here -- she's just a part-timer -- but there, sure enough, is the tall woman with brown hair and blue eyes at the counter. (They oughtn't have worried; if anything, since Hanzou was promoted, she's been working more.) Just as they remember her, she's thin and pretty and almost as caked in artifice as they are, though in far more acceptable ways. Concealer over the eyebags; lipstick and lip gloss to make her appear more smiling than she is; blush to bring colour to her pale skin.
They venture, in their boardshorts and their belly-showing tank-top and their multicoloured wig: "... mom?"
And Etsuko Seki turns to them, eyes widening. "Oh, Tsubaki-chan! What are you doing here? Your father was very clear..."
"It's cool, man, won't bug you long," Tsubasa shifts on a foot, with the uncomfortable reminder of their exile. "Just -- can I talk to you?"
"Oh, I..." Etsuko sighs, looking to the line in front of her. "... my lunch break's in thirty minutes. Can you wait, dear?"
"Sure," Tsubasa shrugs.
And that's how they end up sitting on a bench by the station, as their mother comes by and sits down, unwrapping her sandwiches. "You're skin and bones," she exclaims, with concern which isn't as fake as her makeup. Handing over half her sandwich -- brought from home, despite Hanzou's excellent salary these days -- she says: "Here, let's share, okay?"
".... sure," Tsubasa takes half the sandwich, and looks down at it to obscure the emotions swimming in their eyes and the tightness of their throat.
"Oh, Tsubaki-chan --"
"Don't," Tsubasa chokes out, through those emotions, but their mother just puts a hand on their shoulder.
"I wish you'd stop being so stubborn and come home," Etsuko goes on, regardless, and something in her numbed-out gaze speaks to how she really believes that story. "If you'd just apologise, stop wearing things like that, I'm sure your father would be reasonable... we don't even have to talk about the company you've started keeping until after you're safe and back home with us! Please, dear, I've been worried --"
"Don't!" Tsubasa barks out, flinching under the way she reaches behind them to embrace them.
"Oh... all right," Etsuko says, looking a touch closer to tears herself, but loathe to see their child (though she'd use a different word) running off again. "Well -- will you tell me what's the matter?"
"... there was an attack at school," Tsubasa relates, scrubbing at their eyes with their free hand. "Did father tell you?"
"He said... you'd gotten into more trouble," Etsuko sighs, a shadow passing over her gaze.
"I was -- one of the people what got attacked. Uh. By the outside gang, or whatever." They decide not to fight on the Joker Killer's existence with their mother. "They weren't one of ours, mom, they were way too --" Tsubasa chokes down a swear, because their father would kill them if he heard they were swearing at their mother. "Uh, violent and, s-stuff. There was this girl, like, all gothic lolita... straight gutted a boy, with an axe, right in front of us."
"Goodness!" Etsuko exclaims. "I hope it's not the girls who wear those fashions around here..."
"Y...yeah," Tsubasa says, suddenly horrified by the idea that girl might just have a normal everyday life. "Hope not. But -- me and another guy, we -- we got the guy out, but -- he was real hurt. Uh, they said I hit my head, since I was carryin' him and fell down... so they told me to rest and shit, but it's been hard to go back to school, mom. Since -- since one of 'em was throwin' Molotovs -- my hair caught on fire, and..."
"That must have been so frightening," Etsuko says, giving Tsubasa another of those one-armed hugs which they're still not really able to stand down their alarm signals to enjoy. "Oh, I wish I could have found another school which would take you, dear. With those ideas of yours, Kasugayama's really the worst place..."
"I said -- I don't wanna talk about that, mom," Tsubasa issues, taut.
"I'm sorry," she says, earnestly, though she's not apologising for the right thing. "But you have to go to school, darling. You used to be so smart! Won't you at least try to get into a nice university..?"
"Don't think..." But Tsubasa shelves their pessimism and anger, seeing how upset their mother is. "I mean, I can give it a shot." It won't mean anything, but at least that might make her happy, and they do feel a sick sense of relief when she smiles.
"That's great, sweetie. And how's your friend from school? Is he going to be okay?" Of course Etsuko assumes the boy who was attacked was their friend; who wouldn't want to be her darling child's friend?
"Dunno," Tsubasa shrugs a shoulder, awkwardly.
"I'll get you some flowers," Etsuko assures them, smiling warmly. "Go and pay him a visit, okay? It's the right thing to do."
"Uh," Tsubasa freezes up, "dunno if I can pay for it..."
"Nonsense," Etsuko says, her voice wobbling with emotion. "I'll take care of everything. I know you're, you're very independent, but you must let me take care of you a little, I'm your mother..."
Tsubasa sniffs, too, though they can't really tell her just what's upsetting them about how Etsuko is eager to care for them right up until it involves arguing with him. "S--sure, mom. Thanks."
If only she loved them, with the proper pronoun.