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easy does it like easy does

they called him hiyori. a child borne of the sun, who knew only of the heaven and earth themselves. ( "sure, you mean the mountains? the last time you tried living out there, you came home with hypothermia!" one sister jokes. ) a child, who knew no limits and whose fate was far barred from the hands of the gods. ( "if you were that lucky, don't you think you would have graduated from junior high?" another sister adds much to his chagrin. ) [break][break]

they called him hiyori, knowing that he was a child destined for great things. regardless of what his much ill-content older sisters might insist is the case. though, he must admit with reluctance that for all his parents and older sisters boast of their illustrious pedigrees—astronomers don't come by the handful, you'll find—that it may be possible that this may be a case of the apple falling far, far from the tree. [break][break]

the fourth child, but the first son in a gaggle of daughters named for every celestial body there was in the sky, hiyori grew up in the relative peace of okinawa with no more to say for his childhood than most people did. he doesn't remember a whole lot of it, but his eldest sister might argue that might be the fault of him hitting his head one too many times for their mother's comfort. riddled throughout his formative years were any number of broken limbs. [break][break]

nights spent watching the stars alongside his mother whose greatest dream was to venture from this earth, heads spinning the minute that any algebraic formula emerges on a crumpled and well-stained workbook. [break][break]

where his sisters excelled, he failed. [break][break]

and where he excelled, his sisters, well. [break][break]

also succeeded. [break][break]

but he harbors no resentment for them. or even for his parents. not all children can succeed in the same way, even with the nurturing and guiding hands of good intentions. sometimes, the only way a child can grow up is by failing. sometimes, growing up means falling down and finding the courage to get up again. and for the admirable number of times he tries to make things go his way, it doesn't seem like studying his way to the top is an option. so, the insistence that he ought go to a high school fades with the years. [break][break]

so too, do the expectations. [break][break]

his mother insists that it's enough to be hiyori. [break][break]

privately, he disagrees, but it's not as if though he has much room to argue at the ripe old age of thirteen and he's somehow gotten stuck in a baby swing again even though he used to fit in this before. his teenage years are no more trouble than the last, though the explanations for why and how things seem to continue to happen to their baby boy seems more difficult to come by with the years. especially as he continues to grow more like a weed than a sunflower. [break][break]

everything is okay until it isn't. [break][break]

bad luck strikes at the worst possible time. with two daughters off at college and the third abroad, the patriarch of the miura household loses his job. soon after, so too does the matriarch. when his sisters call home, they ask him to lie to them even as the bills for the house begin to mount. he decides he's had enough of his parents making excuses for him and for themselves and takes it upon himself. what he lacked in smarts, he had spades in strength. at seventeen, he makes for tokyo with little left than the clothes on his back and some odds and ends. he finds a job. [break][break]

finds two jobs, three jobs, then four—all this before he calls home years later to let his parents know he was alright. they're mad, of course. they tell him to come home. he doesn't. he'll make it. it'd be alright. [break][break]

they just had to trust him. [break][break]

he could be great too. [break][break]

they'd just have to wait and see. [break][break]