when the zetas fill the skies, will our leaders tell us why

[priorcommitment]

The moment that someone steps into Semele's is the moment that they register on Ishiah's radar. It's important to be able to look into the background of a customer, especially if they later become a regular patron. Most of the time, it's nothing too interesting. Your average salaryman, come to Semele's to have a break and to indulge themselves with good food and drink, sometimes with a family in tow.

When one young man asked recently to see the owner within fifteen minutes of entering, however, Ishiah decided to keep a closer eye on him.

Afterwards, it became a waiting game. The boy's surname was familiar, as was the color of his eyes. Ishiah had considered briefly trailing after the young man and speaking to his more well-acquainted brother, but the brother comes into Semele's often enough on his own, and the last thing Ishiah wants to do is raise alarm before it becomes necessary.

So he waits until Rin comes into the restaurant again late one day, heading directly for a booth at the back of the restaurant and ordering his usual soda as he waits for Nuriko to finish her shift.

Casually, Ishiah makes his way to the table, and seats himself across from Rin.

"I met your brother recently," he says with a slight furrow of his brows, without greeting or preamble.

Comments

[phosphor]

"I--" Rin starts, before quieting again. He lowers his head slightly, dark blue eyes half-lidded with thought. Resentful, but contemplative. He doesn't like having to think about these things, but once he's made to, he doesn't totally refuse.

Sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, he worries it carefully. "I don't know how Yukio feels. I used to think I did But he was lying to me. For years. For practically our whole lives. And there's no way for me to know .. how much of it all was Yukio, and how much of it was just something Yukio was pretending at, to keep me complacent. The way our dad wanted things. I know dad didn't treat us similarly. But I don't know what Yukio thinks of that. Probably that dad was way too easy on me. If I was Yukio .. I think I'd be angry. Angry at dad. Maybe angry at myself. But Yukio's not me."

[priorcommitment]

"You could stop to ask him questions like this," Ishiah suggests. A first impression isn't enough to offer his suspicions on any of the above, but he's watched Rin more than often enough to know that Rin has a tendency to evaluate everything at face level — and the meeting with Yukio, however brief, showed that the younger brother didn't expose himself so simply.

"If you don't know what Yukio thinks about your father, try to find out. If he seems angry, try to uncover where his anger is directed. The worst case scenario might be that he bears some degree of anger with you, in which case you have the ability to either address that or leave it be. But there's also the chance that there is some other fact that you haven't considered yet that has constructed the wall between the two of you." Ishiah's eyes briefly skirt to Rin's glass, where condensation starts to slide down the side, pooling at the rim.