Cardfight!! Vanguard G: Z World

#56: Saving the person who saved me

♢

I've never once had to make a serious decision in my life.

Deep in my heart, I vaguely remember all the shouting. All the arguments. All the screaming.

While I holed myself up in my room, my parents were downstairs pitting venomous words against venomous words.

My father, who was drunk and stressed. My mother, who was depressed and tired.

A marriage on the brink of divorce.

They always wanted the appearance of a "happy family". They desperately wanted it, even if their lives have gone down a path they didn't want.

It all stemmed from my father's obsession with his religion. He was a devout Christian, and wanted to become a priest and spread the gospel of Christianity. Even though my mother had no interest in it, and grew on Shinto practices and beliefs, they somehow worked out these differences, and got married.

Shortly thereafter, I was born.

But my father, who wanted to continue down his Christian path, was cut off abruptly after being rejected to become a priest. Desperate and poor, he scrambled to find work, while my mother took care of me with stress buried in her heart.

My mom told me about the abundance of times of how close we were of being evicted, but we were seemingly saved by my father getting a job as a salaryman. I wouldn't know, however. I was too young to even realise these bad things were happening.

Despite that, the company was shady. My dad was abused, overworked and exploited, so I never saw him much as a result. Whenever I did, he was drinking all his issues away. All his hopes and dreams of spreading the gospel of God, only to be replaced by hard days of constant work he hated.

He was told to keep all the anger and hatred he had inside no matter what. Or else he'd be weak.

My mom continued to raise me by herself. It was when doctors told us I had dyslexia that she began to heavily encourage and push me to play sports, as if to make up for my academic weakness. Deep down, she was just stressed, and wanted to be with her husband she loved so much.

The flames of their marriage, the deep passionate love they had for each other, became a tiny kindle over time.

She hated living like this. But dealt it, because I was her son, their only child. My parents clashed constantly soon after.

And just as my mother filed to divorce—

—my father drank himself to death.

Those days, that past. I blocked all of it from my mind, because deep down, I didn't feel sad.

I faced my father's grave not with tears. But with sympathy, a hardened resolve, and a tough grin, to make sure I wouldn't fall down the same path he did.

Were they truly happy? That's what I ask myself now looking back at those two.

That was when my "path" was cut open for me, cleanly.

I focused on getting myself stronger, so I could make my late father proud, so I could protect my fragile mother, so I wouldn't lose everything like they did.

I promised myself that I'd turn all my weakness into strength. I promised myself that I'd become one of the best athletes in the world. I promised myself that I would make my parents, dead or alive, happy.

So they don't feel like they tossed their lives away for a failure.

Since that day, the path that I've been going down has been set out for me. I accepted that path, because I believed it was correct.