Songs for Daddy- Chapter 47: Play the Game Tonight (Part 10 [Clifford's cliffhanger])
As usual, there was always dinner at a traditional Japanese steakhouse of some kind. Anezaki and Emiko had hung back at the stadium, waiting for Hiruma to finish cleaning up and talking to the press. There were dozens of questions concerning his condition, why he hadn’t played all season and where he had been the last six years.
“I’m fucking fine- stop asking me that!” “Coach and doctor told me not to.” “Had a kid.”
The last one was most alarming. Hiruma had had a child!? It seemed so surreal.
“I don’t have any fucking pictures on me- I’m wearing a fucking football uniform, dipshit! It doesn’t have fucking pockets.”
Name, star sign, blood type, birthday, physical description, now please.
“Hiruma Emiko. And none of the rest of that shit matters.”
Does she look like you?
“More like her mother- she’s fucking adorable.”
Who is her mother?
“My late wife, now if you don’t fucking mind, I’m trying to get the hell out of here.”
What?
“I’m taking her out to fucking dinner and she gets anxious when I’m late.”
Wha-!? Wait! Hiruma-shi!
…Where’d the team go?
Takekura had made it insanely clear that the Babies would be out and packed up quickly so that they’d be at the restaurant on time. Anyone who was running late would probably get shot by Hiurma had been his warning. No one who had played with Hiruma prior questioned this, but a few newer members did. Takekura had simply told them that Hiruma’s autistic daughter got very stressed and anxious if he was running more than 30 seconds late and this translated to a Hiruma that was running late becoming upset at the notion of upsetting his daughter and he would be liable to take that out on others.
Needless to say the team was completely out of there and two minutes early to the restaurant they had selected. When Hiruma finally made his appearance in the restaurant of choice, he was pleased to see the noise level was reasonable. He’d allowed Emiko to have a small screaming fit to calm her down enough to handle the after-game party. She looked grumpy, for lack of a better word, but seemed in relative good spirits despite getting completely overstimulated earlier.
“Oye! Hiruma!” Kurita waved from the table where he and Takekura where sitting. They’d saved Hiruma and his company seats there. Without sparring a single moment, Hiruma quickly marched Emiko over and sat her down before she could be distracted or made more upset by something else in the room.
Emiko observed that everyone in the room got really quiet and looked at her as she and Papa walked by. Although what they were doing seemed strange and unusual, Emiko just smiled and walked along. Papa said dinner was going to be tasty and that Mom, and Grandpapa, and Clifford-san would all be there.
“Where’s Grandpapa?” Emiko asked when they arrived at the table. Mom was just behind them, but Grandpapa and Clifford weren’t.
Hiruma looked around a bit curious himself. Where were they?
_=_=_=_=_
Yes, Clifford is providing a cliffhanger. The pun is not lost on me and was intentional.
And also, I’m now a world champion engineer. Whoo!
[1] - Jiheishou, according to an online English-Japanese dictionary I found, is ‘autism’ in Japanese. It’s not a word someone would know, even if they were bi-lingual. In Clifford’s case he hadn’t had a reason to learn the word in Japanese, therefore it was unfamiliar when Emiko’s issues were first explained to him. If you wish to argue this, I will ask you this first: how often do you use the world ‘autism’ in your day to day speech?
[2] - Almost all autistic children in the US find themselves being schooled in the public school system. Private schools can reject a student because they “do not have the facilities” to deal with them (this happened to me). It is neither impossible nor improbable for Clifford to have had exposure to autistic children growing up, which is why he recognizes the behavior and knows exactly what to do next. The reason why I say ‘from America’ here is because the autism rate there is 1 in 150 (while Japan has 2 in 1000).
Chapter End