Crybaby

by Firefly99

---

AN: I'll admit I used to hate Tidus. But after seeing the ending, I decided I liked him. So here's my little tribute to him. It'll probably be very inaccurate…but what the heck.

All dreadful grammar is deliberate, I swear.

---

All the other kids thought it was funny that the great Jecht's son couldn't win anything at Sports Day.

I used to hate them.

One of my earliest memories was of me running in the school playground along the marked tracks and trailing about six metres behind the kid who kept tripping over his own feet when he was asked to line up to leave the classroom. And the parents were jerks. They only used to cheer on their kid. I bet they use their kids to show off with. They all remember losing bad in front of everyone else and they're adamant their kid don't follow in their footsteps.

I hope I never have to become a parent. I bet it would suck.

So anyway. There I was, chargin' down the field as fast as I could – so fast, my eyes were watering – and my legs were hurtin', and I couldn't hear anything except the parents screeching, "COME ON! GO KAIR! YOU CAN DO IT, YENN! DON'T STOP, ENNA!" and I thought that I'd give anything in the world to hear someone call MY name, tell me that I could win, and that I was better than everyone else. That some day, I'd be laughing in their faces for once. That I was special, the Chosen One or something. That the world only existed because of me, that the world only existed around me, to become my story.

Hell, I woulda settled for a 'Go, Tidus'.

But Dad wasn't there. I don't know where he was exactly, but he wasn't there. He was probably off with my mother, posing for the press, leaning over smugly in front of the waiting photographers and giving them that smile that's on every teenage girl's bedroom wall. You know. Livin' it up. Celebrity-ing.

And if Dad wasn't there, that meant he'd come home blitzed – but not the good kind of blitzed – and hit Mum and shout at us, I realised.

I was only about five, I wasn't as smart as I am now…but that was when I realised how it would go. How he'd never be there when I wanted him so desperately, and he'd always be gettin'…drunk, and even though I didn't know a thing about alcohol then, I knew that when he went there he was happy and when he came back he was angry. And I knew it would carry on.

Then I remember just stopping. Just standing still, watching everyone run on ahead of me. I remember hearing the parents mutter amongst themselves, wondering what the hell was up with me and thankin' God that I wasn't their kid.

And then I just fell down onto my knees in the middle of the red tarmac field, grazing both my knees in the process, and crying. It was the first time I really cried about my Dad, I guess. The parents were all pointing at me, asking if I really was Jecht's son, and all I could do was cry and cry and not stop for anyone –

Crybaby.

Other dads held their kids when they cried, and asked them what was the deal, and tried to make them feel better with themselves.

My dad didn't.

You're such a crybaby. Quit whinin', start actin' like my son! Are you a girl? No? Stop cryin' like one, then!

When I fell over trying to kick a Blitzball, or when I fell out with one of my friends, or when I overstepped the mark with my enemies and got hit for my troubles, that's what he always said.

I was never really allowed to cry.

And I guess that's why I hate my dad so much.