Horitake had posed a profound, piercing question to his parents.
It doesn't matter that the two of you got remarried, but what about the blended families you've left behind?
Caught off guard by their son's interrogation, Horitake's parents seemed to freeze. They exchanged a long, uncertain look, clearly at a loss for how to address the doubt in his eyes.
Horitake continued to pick at his rice, his voice drifting with a casual yet deliberate weight.
"Mom, the situation with you and 'Uncle' is relatively straightforward, I suppose. After all, you've been married for a few years now and didn't have any more children."
"But the problem is, I've seen how you two lived. You and Uncle got along wonderfully. Your relationship was solid; you were the picture of a harmonious, happy blended family. For you to remarry Dad, you'd have to divorce Uncle. Would he really be okay with that? Tearing a home apart like that… doesn't it feel wrong?"
He then turned his gaze.
"And then there's Dad."
"Your situation is far more complicated than Mom's. After you married 'Auntie,' you had a child. You gave me a sister. You've lived a good life with her, and your bond seemed stable. It's one thing to remarry Mom, but you'd have to divorce Auntie first. What happens to her? What happens to my sister?"
"Auntie has such a gentle, honest personality, and my sister is still so young. To discard them so easily for a remarriage… isn't that incredibly irresponsible toward them?"
Logically, as their son, Horitake shouldn't have used such a confrontational tone with his parents.
But he couldn't help it. This remarriage was beyond absurd. It was reckless. It was a complete abandonment of their respective responsibilities! As Horitake grew older, he had come to value the concept of responsibility more than anything else.
If this remarriage was merely the result of old embers flickering back to life at the cost of two existing families, then it wasn't romantic—it was selfish and negligent.
His accusations seemed to ignite a spark of fury in his parents.
Horitake's father slammed his palm onto the dining table. The impact made the table shudder, even flipping over the bowl in front of him. His father's face was flushed with an uncontrollable rage.
"You brat! How dare you speak to your father like that?!"
"Why do you think your mother and I got back together? We did it for you!"
Something about those words struck a hidden, jagged nerve deep within Horitake's heart. His expression turned ice-cold in an instant.
"'For what?' 'All for me?!'"
"That sounds so familiar… You know, I've grown to absolutely loathe that sentence."
"It's as if every parent in the world thinks that as long as they wrap their actions in the banner of 'doing it for the child,' they can do whatever they want. They think they can follow every whim and impulse without consequence! What a load of garbage! All that does is ruin the child!"
In a fit of fury, Horitake slammed his bowl down into the center of a serving dish, sending food splattering across the table.
But even that wasn't enough to vent the boiling pressure in his chest. With a sudden, violent heave, he flipped the entire dining table over!
His parents cried out in shock, barely scrambling out of the way as the table crashed to the floor.
Looking at the overturned table and the wreckage of the meal scattered across the ground, his father seemed to vibrate with anger. His chest heaved as he panted like an exhausted bull.
His mother was equally distraught. she covered her face and began to sob quietly, her voice trembling as she cursed her "heartless" son.
"You ungrateful child! What are you doing?!"
"You finally come home for the holidays, your father and I finally get back together—and we did it all for you! How could such an unfilial son treat us this way?!"
Horitake took a deep breath, but the fire in his soul only burned hotter. He didn't look at them anymore. He stared blankly into the distance, his eyes hollow and his voice sounding like it was coming from a great, echoing distance.
"Mom. Dad."
"When you first divorced, I was in my first year of high school, wasn't I?"
"Right. Tenth grade. The year everyone says you're supposed to be 'building your foundation.' I never said anything back then, but the reality is that your divorce took a toll on my studies. There's no doubt about that."
"But I didn't resent you for it. My grades weren't exactly stellar to begin with. Regarding the divorce itself, I was lost at first. I had my grievances. But as time passed and I thought about it more, I eventually made peace with it."
"Because I realized something."
"What was your life like before you divorced? You lived in the same house, but… no, I'm wrong. It wasn't a home. It was just a cold, hollow building. Even though you shared a roof, your relationship had cracked a long time ago. You started sleeping in separate rooms."
"You were in your thirties—not even forty—and you were already sleeping in separate rooms."
"If it had just been that, it might have been fine. But you lived in a constant Cold War. Day after day, you wouldn't say a single word to each other. Aside from going to and from work, you just stayed locked in your respective bedrooms, avoiding each other like the plague."
"You even started cooking separately. Do you know what that represents? It means you couldn't even stand to look at each other while you ate."
"A Cold War… it's a terrifying thing. I've always felt that it's better for a couple to scream and fight until the house explodes than to endure a Cold War. An argument is at least a form of communication, however ugly it may be. But a Cold War is a total silence. It's two people drifting further and further apart until they're strangers."
"How long did your silence last? At least a year. And through that year, your feelings for each other withered away. Your relationship plummeted until it reached a point where a family could no longer be sustained. So, you divorced."
"I figured all of this out gradually after you split up. And what did I conclude?"
"I learned a lesson: If the love is gone, if even the basic affection of family has vanished, then it's better to just end it. Divorce and be done with it!"
"After the divorce, you both flew off in your own directions, and you were finally able to live freely. If you hadn't divorced, if you had stayed trapped in that tiny house together, who knows what kind of misery you would have stifled yourselves with?"
"So, while I was confused at first, once I understood, I accepted it. I even supported it."
"Especially after you both remarried. It confirmed to me that the divorce had been the right choice."
"Mom, after you married Uncle, I could see that you were truly happy. Your life was fulfilling. The biggest proof was the smile on your face—it appeared more and more often. You didn't have that frozen, cold expression you always wore when you were with Dad."
"And Dad, you looked comfortable after marrying Auntie. She has a soft personality; she listened to you. You were truly the head of the household. Not to mention, you had my sister. Having a child later in life brought you so much joy. Your new family was so stable that there wasn't even a place for me to fit in."
"So, here is my final question."
"Both of you were doing so well in your new lives. Everything was fine. Why on earth did you feel the need to remarry each other?!"
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