Secrets and Soundtracks
Title - Secrets and Soundtracks
Prompt - Claudia Kishi
Author - joykilldrama
Word count - 2036
Rating - PG-13
Summary - The Kishi house had a soundtrack. Claudia had a secret.
Link to table - http://community.livejournal.com/babysitters100/2546.html
Author's note - I would like to warn that this story does deal with bulimia. It may be triggering if you are recovering or have an eating disorder. I apologize for the triggering story but I've had this idea for Claudia for far too long. Its time to finally get it out on paper. Or well, computer screen.
The Kishi house had a soundtrack. No matter where you went in the house, you would hear the same predictable noises, always at the same time of the day. If you were downstairs at the right time, you would hear Mrs. Kishi in the kitchen, working on that night's dinner. Mr. Kishi sat at the kitchen table, flipping through the pages of the newspaper. There would be a few words of dialogue, the married couple exchanging stories of their day. In the background, so faint you could only hear it when the talking had ceased, you would hear their younger daughter's indie rock music coming through the vent.
If you went upstairs and stood in the hallway, you would hear the steady typing of Janine's computer intermingled to classic rock music. Janine Kishi had discovered classic rock when she got her first steady boyfriend at the age of sixteen. He'd been a college freshman. Sometimes, you'd hear the deep tenor voice of her current boyfriend, Charlie Thomas, alongside the music and the clicking of the computer keys. Janine's voice would pipe up occasionally, arguing a point with Charlie or talking to herself as she figured out a particularly hard homework problem.
From the other side of the hallway, you would hear the same indie rock that was playing in the kitchen. It was louder upstairs, closer to the source of its origin. From the same room, you would hear the oddest noises. A chorus of a song rising above the normal stream of music, followed by Claudia Kishi's voice as she turned down another invitation to go out to eat with her friends. Sometimes, you'd hear the sounds of a hammer against some strange surface as the Japanese girl worked on her latest piece of art. Frequently, you'd hear the sounds of things being moved around the room as though Claudia were searching for something.
After dinner, the noises would change. The kitchen where noises would change from those of people preparing a meal to people cleaning up from a meal. The noises in Janine's room would return, though often without the addition of Charlie's baritone. Claudia's room would be silent. Instead, there would be the sound of water running in the bathroom. If you listened hard enough, you would hear the sounds of her secret, followed by the flushing of a toilet. Then the shower would come on. If you never listened hard enough, it would seem almost as though she were just another fourteen year old girl, tidying herself up after dinner.
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The Kishi house had a different soundtrack a year later. In the kitchen, where Mrs. Kishi prepared dinner, the normal tones of conversation were replaced with whispers. It was almost as though they were afraid to be overheard, afraid of what would happen if their remaining daughter happened to overhear the conversation.
Janine's room had grown quiet. No longer did the familiar sound of the keyboard go out into the hallway. There was no longer the soft classic rock coming through the doors to collide with Claudia's music. Her bedroom had changed from a source of quiet noise to a source of silence. Janine had left for college the summer before, just as her little sister started her sophomore year.
Indie music still came from Claudia's room, but the chorus of random songs no longer interrupted the flow of music. Everyone had grown tired of being told that she couldn't go out, so everyone had stopped calling to invite her along. She'd lost interest in most of her art. She was always too tired to create something. She'd felt blocked for the past six months. It was strange for her. You could still hear the occasional noise that came from one of the piles in her bedroom being disrupted in her search for her parent-restricted candies.
The noises from the bathroom were now more frequent. The sink would run after breakfast, after dinner, late at night, mid-afternoon. The toilet would flush before the sink would turn off. It was now unpredictable when those noises would come. Mr. and Mrs. Kishi would question these from time to time, only to be answered with sounds that had rarely been heard in the Kishi household. Lies. Lies that they swallowed as easily as one would swallow an Aspirin when facing a migraine. Then they'd return downstairs and whisper again, wondering if their daughter was lying.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
That summer, the house grew almost to normal again. The noises from the kitchen grew back to their constant, Mr. and Mrs. Kishi talking as he read the paper and she worked on dinner for the family. Janine's room suddenly had noise again. She'd brought one of her friends home from college and the two of them sat up for hours talking at night as they listened to Janine's favorite classic rock music. On occasion, they would both contribute to the steady soundtrack of keyboards clicking.
One night in mid-June there was a new noise added. Claudia had been making her usual noises in the bathroom. Janine listened carefully. She'd heard her parents whispering downstairs. She'd watched the signs in the month and a half that she'd been home. She knew the truth. She sat by the door, listening as her sister emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet. She listened as her sister turned on the shower and waited patiently for her sister to come out, dressed in plain pajamas.
Her eyes searched her sister for a sure sign. She didn't want to believe that Claudia could do something so stupid, so destructive to her own body. The signs were all there. Her sister, once a vibrant artist, seemed so dull. Her once shiny black hair was flat, even while wet. It was no longer as thick as it had once been. Her lips were chapped and there were black bags under her eyes, as though she hadn't been sleeping properly. But more disturbing was how her clothing hung off of her lithe frame. Janine couldn't help but gasp at the sight.
“What?” Claudia asked, hearing the gasp.
“We need to speak,” Janine answered. She didn't want to do this, but it had to be done. Her parents, they were swallowing her sister's lies. They would rather bury their heads in the sand than find out the truth of what was happening to the fifteen year old. “May we go to your room?”
“Sure,” Claudia answered.
Claudia's room had changed. There was no longer as much artwork on the walls, just the portrait of Mimi and the picture of Mimi and Claudia at age thirteen. She had just one other painting, a picture of a Hershey's bar sitting on a scale with the word 'FAT' painted in the display. There were candy wrappers sitting on her desk, in plain sight by the door. Janine looked at her little sister and frowned.
“What?” Claudia demanded again.
“I'm worried about you,” Janine stated plainly.
“Why?”
“You're throwing up. A lot,” Janine replied. “I believe you have a problem.”
Claudia narrowed her almond shaped eyes and shook her head. “I don't have a problem.”
“You're lying.”
Janine's voice was even, calm. She stood primly. “There was a girl in my dorm with bulimia this year. She had a heart attack. I don't want that happening to you.”
“I don't have bulimia,” Claudia whispered.
“I believe you do,” Janine stated. “Mom and Dad have been talking about it as well. We want you to get some help. And if you don't agree to help, I will tell Mom and Dad what I heard in the bathroom.”
“You didn't hear anything,” Claudia argued, “because there was nothing to hear.”
Janine sighed. She wished this conversation was going better. She wished that her little sister would take heed of her words. That she would see that she had a big problem, a real problem. It wasn't like the days when her club would meet in this room and talk about problems with their charges. Janine had been jealous during those years. Now she wondered if her sister held this secret even then.
She looked around at the pictures of Mimi staring at them from the wall and tried a different tact. “She wouldn't want this for you.”
Claudia was instantly filled with rage. She couldn't believe that this was happening. “You don't know what Mimi would've wanted!” Her voice was raised in anger. She was almost shouting. “You barely had time for her. You were too busy studying and winning awards! So don't you dare pretend you would know what she wanted.” Claudia's hand began to shake a little.
Janine looked her sister in the eyes, her calm demeanor wavering. “I loved Mimi, Claud. I was never her favorite, that was reserved for you. But never mistake that I knew her too. And I know, beyond doubt, that Mimi would not want you to hurt yourself. None of us want this for you.”
Claudia looked at her sister, and then looked at the door. “Get out of my room.”
“No.”
Claudia looked as though she was going to argue more. She didn't want to argue more. She felt so weak. She'd been feeling weaker and weaker every day. She'd passed out once while talking to Pete Black on the phone, but she told him that she'd been fine. That she was just really tired and hung up the phone. She couldn't risk that happening now. She couldn't risk passing out. Her sister was beginning to blur as blackness closed in around her.
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When Claudia woke up, she didn't know where she was. White walls surrounded her, and a steady beeping noise serenaded her. She wished the noise was her indie music, that the white walls would give way to pictures of Mimi and the Hershey bar. But it never did. As her vision returned to her, she saw Janine sitting next to her. She felt her older sister's hand in hers and heard her sister crying.
She looked around hesitantly, looking for her parents. They weren't there. She frowned. “Mom?” she whispered. “Where's Mom?”
Janine perked up. “You're awake. Mom and Dad are in the cafeteria. I'll go get them.”
“Where am I?” Claudia asked.
“You're at the hospital. You've been unconscious for hours.”
Claudia had never heard her sister's voice that sad, that weak. She took in her sister's appearance. Tears streaked down her cheeks. She looked tired. She looked as though she would fall over if a heavy breeze came through the hospital.
“Why aren't you with them?” Claudia asked. Her voice was raspy.
“Because this is my fault,” Janine replied.
“How is this your fault?”
“I was yelling at you. Then you fell,” Janine began to cry. “I wanted to help you, Claudia. But then you passed out and I knew that I was right. Perhaps if I'd been less in high school, you wouldn't have felt so much pressure.”
“Its not like that Janine.”
The door opened, interrupting their sisterly moment. Their parents walked into the room. Instantly, Mrs. Kishi ran to her youngest daughter and wrapped her arms around her. Mr. Kishi stood at the door. He looked so pained. Claudia felt her stomach sink to the floor and straight through the earth. Her stomach had probably made it all the way to Japan by now.
No one spoke for a few minutes. It was finally Mr. Kishi who broke the silence.
“You're getting help, Claudia.”
Claudia looked up at her father. “Why? Nothing's wrong!” Even sitting in a bed at the hospital, she was determined to keep her secret.
“The doctor,” Mrs. Kishi began, “has diagnosed you with bulimia nervosa. We're entering you into a treatment facility. You are getting help.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A year later, the noises of the Kishi house had settled. The kitchen now held Claudia along with her parents as they all prepared dinner. Janine, when she was home, would sit at the table across from her father and read the paper as Claudia and Mrs. Kishi would prepare dinner. After each meal, Claudia would watch television with her parents for an hour, keeping her from returning to her old secret.
Prompt - Claudia Kishi
Author - joykilldrama
Word count - 2036
Rating - PG-13
Summary - The Kishi house had a soundtrack. Claudia had a secret.
Link to table - http://community.livejournal.com/babysitters100/2546.html
Author's note - I would like to warn that this story does deal with bulimia. It may be triggering if you are recovering or have an eating disorder. I apologize for the triggering story but I've had this idea for Claudia for far too long. Its time to finally get it out on paper. Or well, computer screen.
The Kishi house had a soundtrack. No matter where you went in the house, you would hear the same predictable noises, always at the same time of the day. If you were downstairs at the right time, you would hear Mrs. Kishi in the kitchen, working on that night's dinner. Mr. Kishi sat at the kitchen table, flipping through the pages of the newspaper. There would be a few words of dialogue, the married couple exchanging stories of their day. In the background, so faint you could only hear it when the talking had ceased, you would hear their younger daughter's indie rock music coming through the vent.
If you went upstairs and stood in the hallway, you would hear the steady typing of Janine's computer intermingled to classic rock music. Janine Kishi had discovered classic rock when she got her first steady boyfriend at the age of sixteen. He'd been a college freshman. Sometimes, you'd hear the deep tenor voice of her current boyfriend, Charlie Thomas, alongside the music and the clicking of the computer keys. Janine's voice would pipe up occasionally, arguing a point with Charlie or talking to herself as she figured out a particularly hard homework problem.
From the other side of the hallway, you would hear the same indie rock that was playing in the kitchen. It was louder upstairs, closer to the source of its origin. From the same room, you would hear the oddest noises. A chorus of a song rising above the normal stream of music, followed by Claudia Kishi's voice as she turned down another invitation to go out to eat with her friends. Sometimes, you'd hear the sounds of a hammer against some strange surface as the Japanese girl worked on her latest piece of art. Frequently, you'd hear the sounds of things being moved around the room as though Claudia were searching for something.
After dinner, the noises would change. The kitchen where noises would change from those of people preparing a meal to people cleaning up from a meal. The noises in Janine's room would return, though often without the addition of Charlie's baritone. Claudia's room would be silent. Instead, there would be the sound of water running in the bathroom. If you listened hard enough, you would hear the sounds of her secret, followed by the flushing of a toilet. Then the shower would come on. If you never listened hard enough, it would seem almost as though she were just another fourteen year old girl, tidying herself up after dinner.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Kishi house had a different soundtrack a year later. In the kitchen, where Mrs. Kishi prepared dinner, the normal tones of conversation were replaced with whispers. It was almost as though they were afraid to be overheard, afraid of what would happen if their remaining daughter happened to overhear the conversation.
Janine's room had grown quiet. No longer did the familiar sound of the keyboard go out into the hallway. There was no longer the soft classic rock coming through the doors to collide with Claudia's music. Her bedroom had changed from a source of quiet noise to a source of silence. Janine had left for college the summer before, just as her little sister started her sophomore year.
Indie music still came from Claudia's room, but the chorus of random songs no longer interrupted the flow of music. Everyone had grown tired of being told that she couldn't go out, so everyone had stopped calling to invite her along. She'd lost interest in most of her art. She was always too tired to create something. She'd felt blocked for the past six months. It was strange for her. You could still hear the occasional noise that came from one of the piles in her bedroom being disrupted in her search for her parent-restricted candies.
The noises from the bathroom were now more frequent. The sink would run after breakfast, after dinner, late at night, mid-afternoon. The toilet would flush before the sink would turn off. It was now unpredictable when those noises would come. Mr. and Mrs. Kishi would question these from time to time, only to be answered with sounds that had rarely been heard in the Kishi household. Lies. Lies that they swallowed as easily as one would swallow an Aspirin when facing a migraine. Then they'd return downstairs and whisper again, wondering if their daughter was lying.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
That summer, the house grew almost to normal again. The noises from the kitchen grew back to their constant, Mr. and Mrs. Kishi talking as he read the paper and she worked on dinner for the family. Janine's room suddenly had noise again. She'd brought one of her friends home from college and the two of them sat up for hours talking at night as they listened to Janine's favorite classic rock music. On occasion, they would both contribute to the steady soundtrack of keyboards clicking.
One night in mid-June there was a new noise added. Claudia had been making her usual noises in the bathroom. Janine listened carefully. She'd heard her parents whispering downstairs. She'd watched the signs in the month and a half that she'd been home. She knew the truth. She sat by the door, listening as her sister emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet. She listened as her sister turned on the shower and waited patiently for her sister to come out, dressed in plain pajamas.
Her eyes searched her sister for a sure sign. She didn't want to believe that Claudia could do something so stupid, so destructive to her own body. The signs were all there. Her sister, once a vibrant artist, seemed so dull. Her once shiny black hair was flat, even while wet. It was no longer as thick as it had once been. Her lips were chapped and there were black bags under her eyes, as though she hadn't been sleeping properly. But more disturbing was how her clothing hung off of her lithe frame. Janine couldn't help but gasp at the sight.
“What?” Claudia asked, hearing the gasp.
“We need to speak,” Janine answered. She didn't want to do this, but it had to be done. Her parents, they were swallowing her sister's lies. They would rather bury their heads in the sand than find out the truth of what was happening to the fifteen year old. “May we go to your room?”
“Sure,” Claudia answered.
Claudia's room had changed. There was no longer as much artwork on the walls, just the portrait of Mimi and the picture of Mimi and Claudia at age thirteen. She had just one other painting, a picture of a Hershey's bar sitting on a scale with the word 'FAT' painted in the display. There were candy wrappers sitting on her desk, in plain sight by the door. Janine looked at her little sister and frowned.
“What?” Claudia demanded again.
“I'm worried about you,” Janine stated plainly.
“Why?”
“You're throwing up. A lot,” Janine replied. “I believe you have a problem.”
Claudia narrowed her almond shaped eyes and shook her head. “I don't have a problem.”
“You're lying.”
Janine's voice was even, calm. She stood primly. “There was a girl in my dorm with bulimia this year. She had a heart attack. I don't want that happening to you.”
“I don't have bulimia,” Claudia whispered.
“I believe you do,” Janine stated. “Mom and Dad have been talking about it as well. We want you to get some help. And if you don't agree to help, I will tell Mom and Dad what I heard in the bathroom.”
“You didn't hear anything,” Claudia argued, “because there was nothing to hear.”
Janine sighed. She wished this conversation was going better. She wished that her little sister would take heed of her words. That she would see that she had a big problem, a real problem. It wasn't like the days when her club would meet in this room and talk about problems with their charges. Janine had been jealous during those years. Now she wondered if her sister held this secret even then.
She looked around at the pictures of Mimi staring at them from the wall and tried a different tact. “She wouldn't want this for you.”
Claudia was instantly filled with rage. She couldn't believe that this was happening. “You don't know what Mimi would've wanted!” Her voice was raised in anger. She was almost shouting. “You barely had time for her. You were too busy studying and winning awards! So don't you dare pretend you would know what she wanted.” Claudia's hand began to shake a little.
Janine looked her sister in the eyes, her calm demeanor wavering. “I loved Mimi, Claud. I was never her favorite, that was reserved for you. But never mistake that I knew her too. And I know, beyond doubt, that Mimi would not want you to hurt yourself. None of us want this for you.”
Claudia looked at her sister, and then looked at the door. “Get out of my room.”
“No.”
Claudia looked as though she was going to argue more. She didn't want to argue more. She felt so weak. She'd been feeling weaker and weaker every day. She'd passed out once while talking to Pete Black on the phone, but she told him that she'd been fine. That she was just really tired and hung up the phone. She couldn't risk that happening now. She couldn't risk passing out. Her sister was beginning to blur as blackness closed in around her.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
When Claudia woke up, she didn't know where she was. White walls surrounded her, and a steady beeping noise serenaded her. She wished the noise was her indie music, that the white walls would give way to pictures of Mimi and the Hershey bar. But it never did. As her vision returned to her, she saw Janine sitting next to her. She felt her older sister's hand in hers and heard her sister crying.
She looked around hesitantly, looking for her parents. They weren't there. She frowned. “Mom?” she whispered. “Where's Mom?”
Janine perked up. “You're awake. Mom and Dad are in the cafeteria. I'll go get them.”
“Where am I?” Claudia asked.
“You're at the hospital. You've been unconscious for hours.”
Claudia had never heard her sister's voice that sad, that weak. She took in her sister's appearance. Tears streaked down her cheeks. She looked tired. She looked as though she would fall over if a heavy breeze came through the hospital.
“Why aren't you with them?” Claudia asked. Her voice was raspy.
“Because this is my fault,” Janine replied.
“How is this your fault?”
“I was yelling at you. Then you fell,” Janine began to cry. “I wanted to help you, Claudia. But then you passed out and I knew that I was right. Perhaps if I'd been less in high school, you wouldn't have felt so much pressure.”
“Its not like that Janine.”
The door opened, interrupting their sisterly moment. Their parents walked into the room. Instantly, Mrs. Kishi ran to her youngest daughter and wrapped her arms around her. Mr. Kishi stood at the door. He looked so pained. Claudia felt her stomach sink to the floor and straight through the earth. Her stomach had probably made it all the way to Japan by now.
No one spoke for a few minutes. It was finally Mr. Kishi who broke the silence.
“You're getting help, Claudia.”
Claudia looked up at her father. “Why? Nothing's wrong!” Even sitting in a bed at the hospital, she was determined to keep her secret.
“The doctor,” Mrs. Kishi began, “has diagnosed you with bulimia nervosa. We're entering you into a treatment facility. You are getting help.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A year later, the noises of the Kishi house had settled. The kitchen now held Claudia along with her parents as they all prepared dinner. Janine, when she was home, would sit at the table across from her father and read the paper as Claudia and Mrs. Kishi would prepare dinner. After each meal, Claudia would watch television with her parents for an hour, keeping her from returning to her old secret.