visions of gideon - sufjan stevens
that night, as ushijima rolled his dinner around on his plate and watched his ice melt in his water, he never said a thing. and his mother noticed.
she knew that she hadn't done the best job at making her son feel like he could talk to her, but when she was home, she did notice how he felt and how he acted. at the beginning of the school year, he was happy. he seemed excited to be at school, and he was more relaxed than he'd ever been when he returned home, despite the fact that all he'd do to describe his day was give her one word answers.
"wakatoshi, you haven't eaten anything. are you feeling well?" the older woman pulled his attention away from the tiny bubbles in his miso.
"i'm alright," he said, shaking his head.
his mother wore a small smile and watched her son skeptically. "you must think i'm stupid, 'toshi."
"i never said that."
"you didn't have to," she shrugged. "i know i'm not much of a mother to you anymore now that you're all grown up, but the least i could do is pay attention to how you're feeling. and you're clearly upset right now."
"how could you tell?"
the woman stood quickly, lifting her plate and empty bowl with her. she momentarily walked to ushijima's side to stack his dishes with hers, careful not to make a mess as ushijima had barely eaten.
"you never eat when you're upset," she laughed, fleeing to the kitchen and dropping the dishes in the sink. she heard ushijima sigh loudly. "it's alright, your father was the same way."
ushijima quietly followed his mother into the kitchen with their used silverware and cups, looking to help and feeling bad as she washed all of their dishes.
"really, what is wrong? i never see you this sad."
ushijima glanced at his mother for a moment, not to question if he wanted to tell her, but more to convince himself that she wouldn't hate him after he told her what he had done.
"this girl in my year... i fell in love with her."
"yeah?" the woman asked with genuine surprise. "congratulations!"
ushijima ignored the positive remark. "she was one of the girls who change over the summer, and once she became our manager, she had a lot of eyes on her."
"a summer girl? poor thing... that's one of the worst things that could happen to a girl so young."
"she didn't like it either. i fell in love with her, but so did somebody else on the team, so we've been fighting over her for months. i found out that she confessed to me last year but i rejected her and i hurt her a lot and then she came back different and i was a lot more interested except she has issues with guys all the time, and she has this guy friend and i was angry because i couldn't tell how they felt about each other and i had an argument with tendou and at the training camp. i kissed her while everybody else was asleep but she thought it was a dream so i could never talk about it. she was my partner for my english project and her brother is probably the most famous volleyball player in the college world right now and he hates me and her younger sister was also a manager and she hates me and today i kissed her in front on the entire cafeteria and she ran away crying and-"
"slow down!" his mother interrupted him. "i'm getting old, 'toshi. i can't keep up."
she had finished washing the dishes and she placed them all on a drying rack beside the sink. she dried her hands off and grabbed her son's hand to pull them both over to sit on the couch together.
