Fate/Stay Gakuen | Gilgamesh x OC: Hinako Suzuhana (AU)

(Winter) Chapter 39

"Ah, I finally found it!"

Hinako's grandfather took out a picture frame from one of the boxes. It wasn't all that dusty but still needs a little clean-up. He approaches the golden-headed man and hands the picture frame over to him. "Here."

Gil looks at the object, it was facing him from the back. He was curious. "What is it?"

"Just take it and see for yourself."

"O-Oh... All right."

Gil took the picture frame from the grandfather's hand. He looks at the back for a while before turning it over. When he saw the picture in it, he felt the heat rise to his cheeks and can't seem to hide the smile that just automatically shapes on his lips.

"This is," then Gil's face softens with the same blush on his cheeks.

It was a picture of Hinako when she was around six or seven years old, wearing a sun dress and a straw hat. She had a happy expression plastered on her face while she was splashing on the waters of the beach.

"That's little Hinako," the grandfather starts while looking at the picture with a frown. "She was only a little one back then. I still remember the times she visited me and her grandmother with her parents. Back then, everything was all right. Though, I never imagined that our son would do something so horrible. He left his wife and child for another woman, and when Chidori died, never did I expect for him to abandon his daughter just like that."

Gil looks at the picture and held the frame tightly. He felt that maybe he could have gotten along with Hinako differently if she never had experienced such tragedy. Maybe if they didn't clash too much due to their self-defense mechanisms, things between them could have been better. Maybe, just maybe, he could have liked Hinako for her smile. Seeing her happy face in the portrait made him all the more guilty of the things he did wrongly towards her. He thought that now is the time to actually look after her more.

"That picture, along with the other boxes here, were left behind by my son after he and Chidori separated. I thought that you can have Hinako's picture, seeing how much she looks up to you and how she holds you dear."

The last sentence caught Gil's attention. He slowly lifts his head up to look at Hinako's grandfather.

"What?"

He smiles a sincere smile. "On the night Hinako came home, she told us of her time in Fuyuki. Her school, her home, her teachers and friends, and you. She told us how much you mean to her, on how the two of you are alike, and how you managed to erase her sorrows even though you don't know about it."

"S-She said those things?" Gil blushes, hiding half of his face with the picture frame he was holding. "I really didn't do much. She might have told you about how we were when she first came to Homurahara."

"Well, yes, she did," an invisible arrow strikes Gil from behind. "But don't worry, I'm a father, too. I know how hard it is for you youngsters to live without a mother or a father, or both. All this time, we've been sending Hinako money for her rent and schooling but we didn't try to reach out to her, let alone stop her from transferring to Fuyuki."

"Why didn't you reach out to her? Why didn't you stop her?" Gil asks, a little angry at that fact. "She needed you two."

"We...were afraid, Douji-san," the grandfather replies, looking back at the leftover boxes.