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Groaning in frustration, Jolyne smashed the buttons of her Nintendo DS as she struggled through a gruelling puzzle in her game.
Jolyne didn’t know how long she had been sitting on the couch for—she was sure she had fused with the leather by now—trying to get through this damned ice puzzle in her copy of the newest Pokémon game. She had spent a dreaded hour trying to get through a difficult maze of a mountain, only to be stunted by this confusing puzzle when trying to get to the gym leader of the respected city. With each movement, her sprite would slide across the entire screen, thanks to the stupid icy floors, causing her to miss where she wanted to go. When she would try to return to her original place, her sprite would slide all the way across to another edge of the screen.
Perhaps Jolyne was spending too much time on a dumb puzzle designed to stunt children, because Stone Free had wandered out of the room several times to hand her a glass of water or some snacks. Jolyne didn’t know to what degree stands could be sentient, but she could feel the prickling of her stand underneath her skin, urging her to do something else.
But Jolyne couldn’t—she had already spent an obscene amount of time on this game. It would be a waste not to see her efforts all the way to the end.
Yet, she had already exhausted all of her options, and victory seemed further and further away.
Unless... she still had that option.
Jolyne paused all of a sudden, eyes widening. A small chuckle fought to escape her lips, perhaps to fight the apprehension. She rose from the couch—almost stumbling on her feet from sitting down for so long—and walked out of the living room. Until she stood outside Dad’s office.
Jolyne knocked once, and she didn’t even have enough time to get a second knock in before the door slowly swung open—revealing her father clad in his usual clunky purple jacket, god-awful snakeskin trousers and his beloved hat. It was a sight Jolyne realised she had to get used to since choosing to stay with him, after all of this, yet she couldn't get used to being able to see her father whenever she wanted. As a child, she would kill for this, but as an adult, it was a curve she had to jump.
Dad had a confused look splayed across his features, a thick brow cocked up. Jolyne could never decipher his expressions; he always looked pissed-off for some reason.
“Hi,” she let out, not accounting for how shaky her voice was. “Um, I need help.”
At that, her father's eyes widened in concern, and Jolyne could hear the faint glimmer of Star Platinum manifesting behind him. “Are you hurt? What’s going on?”
“No, no! It’s not like that!” Jolyne quickly assured, before her expression grew sheepish. She held out her DS to him, “Um, I’m having trouble with this ice puzzle. Think you could take a crack at it?”
Star Platinum disappeared. Dad’s expression slowly relaxed, returning to his usual black-faced look, before his look grew apprehensive. An awkward silence filled the room, one that had Jolyne almost regretting her question before her father spoke. “I’m not sure, I’ve never been good at video games,” he murmured out, before gesturing to the scar spanning down the left side of his face. “And with this eye, it’ll be even harder—“
“Please?” Jolyne let out, voice small.
Her father's walls immediately crumbled, and he let out a small sigh. “Yeah, alright,” he said, and Jolyne grinned. Good to know that trick still worked on the old man.
Jolyne led her father to the living room, where they both sat on the couch before handing him her DS. Dad begrudgingly took it from her, holding it at different distances away from his face until his eye adjusted to the screen. Jolyne shuffled a little on the couch to sit closer beside him so she could also see the screen. “You have to slide across the tiles to get to that point over there,” she told him, and Dad squinted before he mashed the buttons.
Seemed so, her father was also facing the same difficulties as Jolyne did, trying to cruise through the ice puzzle. With each press of the D-pad, the sprite kept sliding across to another part of the screen. Dad muttered a few curses to himself—mostly in Japanese—as he grew increasingly frustrated.
“Ah, you just missed it,” Jolyne let out, watching as her father missed the exit once more.
“I know, Jolyne. No need to remind me,” Dad begrudgingly responded, an edge of frustration in his tone. Jolyne held back a chuckle. Was her stone-faced father actually getting upset over a game?
“Missed it again,” she reminded, and Dad only responded with a grunt.
Then, her sprite was almost at the exit—the closest she had gotten so far—before frustratingly sliding away, and Dad let out a loud curse, brows furrowed. His hands were gripping the console so hard that Jolyne feared he might break the plastic, and she grew a little concerned.
“Ah, it’s alright if you’re not able to—“
“No,” Dad interrupted, a flicker of determination burning in his iris. “I’ll solve this.”
Jolyne’s eyes widened before she stifled a chuckle into her fist. Well, she couldn’t argue with that.
Sighing, Jolyne swung her legs onto the couch, staring at the corner of Dad’s shoulder before hesitantly shuffling closer and laying her head down. Dad didn’t protest, only adjusted his position on the couch to make more room for her, as there would always be for his daughter, and a small grin graced Jolyne’s lips.
However, as more time passed, Jolyne was more convinced that this whole ice puzzle was a lost cause. Dad had been glued to the couch for a concerning amount of time—mimicking Jolyne’s earlier predicament—by the time she had wandered into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, Dad was still smashing buttons on her DS. His already irritated expression grew tenfold, muttering further curses under his breath.
“Good grief,” Dad muttered in Japanese, brows growing increasingly furrowed. “This is supposed to be a game for children, so how the hell—?”
“Language,” Jolyne teased, taking a sip from her mug. Dad only threw her an unimpressed look.
Yet, Jolyne also wondered the same thing. She rose from her father’s shoulder, “Maybe, I should search up a tutorial—“
Then, Star Platinum’s glowing hand was urging her back down onto the couch, keeping her close to Dad. “No,” he protested, “I said I’ll solve this. Without a tutorial.”
Good grief, Dad could be as stubborn as a mule—Jolyne wondered where she got it from—any attempts to get him to stop, or get help, were immediately shut down. All over a children’s video game, the music was starting to hurt her ears.
It was nearing nighttime, and Dad was still glued to the DS in his grasp, holding onto it as if his life and honour depended on it. Jolyne was beginning to feel the effects of being fixated on a screen all day, a small yawn escaping her, eyes squeezing shut. The coffee table was littered with more mugs of tea, as well as leftovers from dinner, so clearly they had been here for a while. Jolyne rubbed at her face with both of her hands, messing up her green fringe. She properly sat up on the couch.
“Dad, I think I’m going to go to bed,” she let out, and Dad turned towards her—a look of… disappointment in his face?
Jolyne glanced away. She couldn’t handle Dad sporting any other expression that wasn’t his regularly pissed-off look. “Alright,” he said, his voice as blank as ever, yet Jolyne could tell there was an inkling of dismay in his tone.
She slowly stood up from the couch, groaning as she stretched. “It was nice spending time with you,” Jolyne added, and the smallest quirk of a grin twitched up Dad’s lips.
“Yeah,” he breathed out, and then Jolyne was holding her hand out, indicating that she wanted her DS back, but Dad held onto it. A small silence stretched between them.
“Can I…” his voice sounded so uncharacteristically small, “Can I give it back once I finish the puzzle?”
At that, Jolyne’s brows raised before a small snort escaped her. Good grief, what had happened to her old man? “Sure,” she smiled, and she pulled her hand back. “Goodnight then, good luck on the game.”
Dad’s lips curved into a proper smile, “Goodnight, Jolyne.”
Lying under the blankets, Jolyne was just on the verge of falling asleep when her door swung open, and Dad burst into her room.
“Jolyne,” he called out, his voice wielding the most excitement Jolyne had ever heard him with in the last twenty years of her life. “I solved it, I solved the puzzle.”
A small groan squeezed past her lips. Jolyne slowly rose to sit in her bed with squinted eyes and a wild mess of hair on her head to see that Dad was right. With her father holding the DS in front of her, Jolyne’s sprite was finally at the exit of the gruelling ice puzzle, ready to face the gym leader. That had her eyes opening a little.
“No way,” she breathed out, “Thanks, Dad—“
Suddenly, the DS powered off, the screen fading to black.
Dad’s eyes widened, and he turned the console towards him due to the lack of music. “What happened?” he let out, voice light in his chest. “The screen faded to black—?”
“It must’ve run out of battery,” Jolyne sighed, massaging her forehead in frustration. “After having it on the entire day, the battery must’ve drained.”
At that, Dad’s expression remained for a few moments before withering from his face into a blank slate, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. It was the most disappointed Jolyne had ever seen her old man. Not when he used to scold her when she was younger, or when he had visited her in jail, but when his hours of progress hadn’t been saved for a video game of all things. Jolyne almost felt a little bad.
“It’s alright,” she assured, taking the DS from him and closing it, placing the console on her nightstand. “Thank you for trying anyway.”
Dad’s face softened a little, despite the frustration, and he let out a soft sigh. “Don’t worry about it,” he muttered, trying to mask the disappointment in his tone. “Sorry for waking you.”
Jolyne grinned at him a little, her earlier irritation fading at her father’s dejected expression. “It’s fine,” she replied, and Dad’s lips twitched.
A short, awkward silence took over the room as Dad stood in front of her bed, not saying anything back. A silence that Jolyne was getting sick of suffocating in, so she cleared her throat. “Goodnight then, Dad.”
Her father gave a short nod, “Goodnight, Jolyne.”
Another silence.
Dad simply stood there in her room, not yet leaving. His hands twitched and fumbled around in his sleeves—like he was debating between something. Jolyne slowly cocked a brow. Her father’s mouth then opened, then closed, then opened again, but nothing came out.
“Do you want to be tucked in?” he suddenly asked, and Jolyne’s eyes widened. She wasn’t expecting that.
“Huh?” Jolyne let out, as it was the only thing that would leave her mouth. “Dad, you haven’t done that since I was a kid.”
“Ah,” he simply replied, before his gaze was cast down, and he was turning away. “Just thought to ask.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” Jolyne interrupted. Dad paused. He slowly turned back, and Jolyne greeted him with a small smile. “Sure, why not?”
Dad’s lips twitched again with a small smile that barely graced his expression, before he was slowly walking towards Jolyne’s bed again. He carefully took the edges of her duvet and fanned out the fabric—Jolyne shuffling down her pillows to lie down properly—before gently pulling it over her body.
A soft sigh escaped Jolyne at the comforting warmth radiating from the sheets, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment. Dad held a concentrated look in his eye, and Jolyne’s gaze fell to the scar spanning across his entire face, into his hairline and stopping just shy of his jaw—a reminder that he had sacrificed himself for her not once, but twice.
Dad always smelt of the salt from the ocean, vaguely coastal. Jolyne had always taken comfort from the smell since she was little, but found she couldn’t seek the same solace within the scent anymore. Not since the memories of crimson streams of blood seeping into the ocean remained, the salt stinging in her wounds, clusters of clouds rushing through the sky, the growing dread of time accelerating, and there was nothing she could do about it—Pucci right behind her father.
“Jo—lyne.”
Then, Dad’s face was splitting in half.
Sometimes, Jolyne saw the priest in her nightmares. Through the accelerating clouds and turbulent waters, a looming figure of Made in Heaven stood over her as she dragged Dad’s bloody corpse out of the ocean. She would wake up in a sweat, gasping breaths wracking her frame, until they would turn into trembling sobs, and Jolyne would curl into her knees, trying to muffle her sounds as it was the middle of the night.
Strangely enough, there would always be a glass of water appearing at her nightstand on those mornings after.
Dad tucked Jolyne in gently, gathering the blanket carefully over her so she wouldn’t be cold. Just as he used to when she was little. Her father smoothed out the creases of the duvet, pushing up against Jolyne’s chin with his fingers, perhaps fussing over it a little more than he used to, but Jolyne didn’t stop him. Only smiled at him tiredly.
Dad sat at the edge of her bed. He sat still for a longer moment, fingers fiddling with a particular crease of the duvet, but his movements seemed too artificial—like he was deliberately searching for a distraction for whatever was brewing in his mind. Jolyne’s brow cocked again, and this time, she opened her mouth, about to ask what was wrong.
Then, Dad leaned over, pressing a small kiss to her forehead.
“Goodnight, Jolyne,” he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.
Jolyne’s eyes were wide; she blinked a little at him before a small smile overtook her features. “Night, Dad,” she whispered back.
Dad was smiling properly this time, and he reached a hand to card through Jolyne’s green fringe. She closed her eyes, remembering the sensations from when she was little. How Dad used to kiss her goodnight every night before he went away.
But Dad was here now.
“Sleep well,” Dad said, and Jolyne grinned him goodbye. Her father rose to his feet before he switched off the lights in her room, gracing her with a final smile. He gently shut the door behind him, his footsteps growing quieter.
Jolyne fluttered her eyes shut with a soft sigh, nestling into her blankets. She was no longer that little girl, and Dad wasn’t as strong as he used to be. It was something Jolyne was coming to terms with while getting to actually know her father—that he loved her this entire time, that he would do anything to protect her, that in a perfect world, he never would have left her. Now, he left a space open for Jolyne, one that she could choose to inhabit if she so wished.
Because now, Dad would always be there.