School Girls' Stories - New Generation

I thought I would show you more at the parenting skills of our original characters, and show you their own frustration a bit. Ever feel like your parents are just randomly picking on you?

Chapter 20 – Dinner at the Kisekis

“So, how was the party last night?” Yuki asked her children, completely oblivious to the silence they were giving one another.

“Fine,” Sora and Tiera muttered quietly, though neither actually meant it. Tiera could be happy, her secret was still a secret, even from her siblings and parents, but too much had been realized last night, like the fact that Yuna was a whore and Sora had a huge crush on someone that was not Harmony, though that did not matter much to Tiera. What mattered, and worried, Tiera was that it was Rhapsody. Did Sora realize how much had gone wrong for Rhapsody? She could not have another man showing her affection, she was already jilted, and she had only just turned fourteen.

“Yuna, you look pale, are you feeling well?” This from their father, Shinwa, who always took notice more of his golden children, Yuna and Link. Link snickered, but did not say anything. He was the only one who did not seem to have a ruined appetite and was eating every last morsel that was on his plate.

“I’m fine, Daddy, thank you.”

Daddy. Tiera nearly gagged. She wanted something, or else she would never have called him daddy.

Yuki set her fork down, folded her fingers together, looked at her children and asked, “What is going on?”

It had taken Yuki so long to learn English so she could speak to her husband and children, and even now she had such a thick accent it was often hard for the children to understand her. Shinwa had often chided her when she spoke Japanese, when they were younger, because he wanted them to speak English perfectly. Yuki, however, thought it best they know both languages. In the long run Shinwa had won, but Tiera and Sora had both learned Japanese from their mother while Yuna and Link had found it tedious. Link was much more interested in Spanish, it was the language that was going around America, after all. He even wanted to take up Spanish.

“Nothing,” Yuna and Sora both told their mother.

“We just stayed out too late,” Sora finished. “Then with Aunt Noreen coming to visit, it was troubling. It is hard to keep up with Aunt Noreen and her Nazi ways of running children. She still thinks we all need more discipline.”

“And look how her kids turned out,” Shinwa snorted.

Yuki narrowed her eyes at her husband, but did not aim her comment at him, though the children knew it would be an argument later. “Aunt Noreen may be right. You kids get away with more than you should. Like staying all night in a hotel.”

“Please,” Link snapped. “Bliss is our cousin, thanks for telling us that sooner, Mom, and the rest of them were raised so close to us that they are like siblings. You should be happy we found a good group of friends.”

“You aren’t friends,” Yuki sneered. “You think I do not see the… the… discord that goes on when you are around each other now. You were all so nice until Ashe died.”

“Let’s not talk about this,” Tiera whined, pushing away from the table. It was not Ashe’s death that disturbed her, in a lot of ways she was glad he died. It kept Rhapsody from having to live with his… him. It was cruel of her, but the only way to wipe the slate clean of someone so cynical is to have them just die, and for that she was happy. No, Ashe’s death did little to disturb her, instead it was the reaction to his death that bothered her. Everyone reacted differently. Yuna and Link, who had been friends with him, had turned against those who started to look indifferent. Yuna and Link had also turned on Harmony, not knowing the truth, and blamed her for breaking his heart. Little did they know that Ashe’s heart had barely belonged to Harmony any longer.

“Tiera, sit down,” Shinwa demanded. “You have not eaten a thing.”

Tiera flopped back down in her seat moodily. She had as much desire to sit with her siblings as she did to jump off of the Sears Tower.

“You know for Christmas we will be getting together with the Memeshii’s and the Inperiaru’s again,” Yuki said absently, knowing exactly where to strike in the chords of discomfort for her children.

“Isn’t it bad enough we go to school with them?” snapped Yuna. “Now we have to spend holidays with them?”

“We have always spent holidays with them,” Yuki pointed out, picking her fork back up and taking a bite of her pork chop. “This year is no different from any other year.”

“Well, the kids are growing up, maybe we shouldn’t force them,” Shinwa suddenly butt in.

Yuna looked at her dad with truly starry eyes and hope filling her very being. Link looked distraught. Tiera and Sora were indifferent to the whole mess. “Really?”

“Not really,” Yuki snapped. “You’re going.”

“Honey,” Shinwa started, but he saw the daggers his wife was shooting him across the table as she slammed her fork down one more time.

“If no one wants to eat their dinner, fine, I’m feeding it to the dogs,” she snapped, standing up from the table. “And there is no compromise, no faking sick, and no getting out of going for the holidays. Whatever problems you four are having with that family you four did on your own, and you are going to fix it. I did not raise you to act like a bunch of spoiled brats. You were friends for however many years, you will be friends again if I have to strap you all onto a couch and make you face one another until you love each other just to get out. Do you understand me?” Three plates were already in her hands and she did not seem to be stopping for breath. She did not even wait for them to say they understood, or argue. She did not care. Was she so … selfish at their age? “Fuji and Shai are my best friends, and I bet that their children would not argue like this to come see us. You four, all of you, don’t look smug Sora, you are a brat too, are too spoiled for your own good. You think the world revolves around you, it doesn’t. You think your problems are the worst, what the Hell do you children know about problems? Get off your asses and live your life and stop acting like you have any right to be the morbid stuck up brats that you are.”

Yuki had taken all of their plates, food still on them and all, and stomped out of the room, leaving everyone, including her husband, to think about what had just happened.

~*~

“Weren’t you a little hard on them?” Shinwa asked, walking into his shared bedroom with his wife, seeing her hiding under the covers from him and the rest of the world.

“Not a bit,” she snapped at him, her anger still wrapped around her like the blankets she was hiding under. “They don’t know what real problems are. I didn’t raise these children. Why are they so… selfish? These aren’t the children I raised.”

“Honey, it isn’t your fault they are selfish,” Shinwa said, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge.

“You’re right,” Yuki said, suddenly sitting up and glaring at her husband. “It’s yours. You taught them you could fix anything with a little bit of money. You taught them that you would never blame them for their problems. So when Ashe died, and everyone lost a friend and leader, you taught them to turn against the other children, because it was certainly not the Kiseki clans fault.”

“That isn’t fair,” Shinwa said, hardly backing down, but hardly up for this fight. “You are looking for someone to blame and you are pointing the finger in the wrong direction.”

“Are you blaming me then?” Yuki sneered.

“No,” Shinwa snapped. “I am blaming nothing but peer pressure. Those children are growing up the way they want to, the same way you did. All of their choices are their own. No one else’s. If you don’t like the way they are, that is because the choices they made are not ones you would approve of.”

“I love my children,” Yuki said defensively. “I just, I … I hate what they have become since Ashe died. Do you think Sora was right?”

“About what Ashe did to Rhapsody?” Shinwa asked, sitting next to his wife on the bed. Yuki could only nod. “I don’t know,” Shinwa said honestly. “Sora is not the type to lie, but they all looked up to Ashe. Besides, who would have better children than Fuji and Amatsu?”

“Shai and Kyoei,” Yuki laughed. “That’s why I can’t believe these children don’t all love each other. Shai and Kyoei are the ideal parents. You and I fight too much, but we love them, and each other. Fuji and Amatsu love their children, but are too distant. Who would make better parents than Shai and Kyoei?”

“What’s really bothering you?” Shinwa asked his wife, bringing her closer to him, wrapping his arms around her.

“That Bliss had to meet Kaori and find out she was really an Oshidori,” Yuki said. “That our children don’t even get along with each other, much less others. That life in general just isn’t being fair. Didn’t we pay enough for our crimes against life that our children should be happy? I wanted better for them.”

“And they have better,” Shinwa reassured his wife. “They have two parents who love them, along with countless other relatives that care about them. They just don’t know what to do with themselves. They are bored.”

“I hope you’re right,” Yuki said sadly. “I just want them to grow up in a household better than either we had.”

“Well look at Lilis,” Shinwa smiled. “She grew up with us acting as her parents, and we were even worse off then than we are with these children. Lilis turned out wonderfully.”

“Except that she’s marrying a gay guy,” Yuki pointed out.

“Er, yeah, well I don’t know what that is about,” Shinwa admitted. “But, she’s happy, she’s a teacher, and despite her hard life she turned out…”

“Flakey?”

“Normal,” Shinwa laughed. “Don’t be so hard on yourself as a mom. Those kids know you love them, they just don’t know what to do about it because society today tells teens to be brooding and act out randomly. They’ll find the right direction, I promise.”

Yuki sighed and gave her husband a hug. “I hope you’re right.”