Beautiful Lie [to Believe in] | 07-a/?? | AoixRuki, UruhaxRuki
Title: Beautiful Lie [to Believe in]
Chapter: 7-a/??
Author: akichuu
Fandom: the GazettE
Pairing: AoixRuki, RukixAoi, UruhaxRuki, possibly more to come
Theme: 021: Illness Illusion - Gackt @ 50stories
Rating: R, NC-17
Genre: AU (highschool), angst, smut
Warning: Yaoi, (slight) pedophilia, incestuous relationship, domestic abuse, possible violence. Not comfortable with those issues? Save yourselves and DON'T read this. I'm serious.
Disclaimer: Title is taken from 30 Seconds to Mars's song, Beautiful Lie. the GazettE belongs to themselves and, yes, the Almighty PSC. I, well I own this story. It's fiction, meaning IT'S NOT REAL and I'm making no profit from it (except my 15 minutes of fame). Yes, mind that.
Beta: izumi_luvsjrock. You're the best! *huggles*
Summary: He was an outcast, an unwanted child that was thrown away, even by his own family. He was taught by life not to trust anyone, especially those who came to him offering the thing called 'love'. 'Love' was just a small part of his dream, and dreams, as far as he knew, weren't real and could never be real.
In this case, Shiroyama Yuu was definitely not an exception.
Comment: FAAAAIIILLLL!! Omg how long did I take to update??? I just hope you still remember this story *laughs* This is, as the title says, chapter 7-a, which means there will be chapter 7-b. It will be posted soon enough, I think. In the mean time, enjoy this chapter and as always, I'm waiting for your critics and comments ^^
Beautiful Lie [to Believe in]
Chapter 07-a
When I woke up it was nearly complete pitch dark around me. For a second, panic rose inside my chest. My heart began to beat quickly and in the midst of this silence, I felt as if the only noise I could hear was the chaotic rhythm of my blood flow, pulsing right beneath my eardrums. My previously hazy, sleepy mind now started to be filled by ugly thoughts as they scrambled into my head. One by one until my brain was overly swarmed by them. One thought that bothered me the most about the situation I had gone through was how it might just happen again. I feared that I had only imagined the whole thing, me leaving home in the middle of the rain and knocking on Yuu’s door. I feared that I was actually still stuck in hell and Dad would come any minute now with his fists tight by his side and his heavy shoes pounding against the floor. He would show up at the door very soon, and I would have to prepare myself to receive his beatings again.
It was like my nightmares repeating themselves, the same old nightmares I’d been having since I was a child. All I could remember doing every night was waiting for that silhouette to show up in my room and hurt me, again and again.
But then I heard voices and music, they were familiar. They seemed to be… the background music of a talkshow. Was I imagining things?
Slowly but surely all the dark and ugly images that swarmed my brain vanished one by one giving me room to think more coherently. I wasn’t wrong; the voices were getting clearer, and although the background music had faded away, I could still hear and recognize the voice of the host. Yes, I memorized it in my brain. Mom watched it every night turning the volume loud enough until I could hear it all the way from my room.
‘Mom…?’
Abruptly shaken up, I rose up from the bed in a rush. Was this a sign that I really was still at home, and out there, in the living room, Mom was doing her habit, watching TV until the late hours of the night? Within the darkness surrounding me I could almost see her image before my eyes. On the white sofa in front of the television she liked to lie down, her eyes focused on the screen, a glass and a bottle of alcoholic beverage stood somewhere nearby.
I had learned by heart the empty look she always had on her face. Shone by the blinking light from the television, she would seem just like a statue, something not alive, some figure that wouldn’t react no matter what I did. Oh yes, there was an exception, and that would be if I dared touching her bottle of liquor. If I laid one finger on her bottle, she would open her eyes wide, rise up from her position and then yell at me, telling me to go away. She didn’t normally use her hand as often as Dad did, but obviously she loved her liquors and drugs more than she loved me.
A flash of pain whipped across my heart, and like a trigger it stirred all sorts of other pain in my whole body. They pulsed in me, reminding me of everything that had taken place today. The right side of my body that Dad had kicked hurt so bad, making it difficult for me just to breathe. I believed that part was swollen by now, because when I sat I felt like a truck was squashing me flat from the side.
But in the middle of the pain that had returned to torture me, the sound coming from the television outside the room kept bothering my mind. I wondered if I was dreaming or if I was fully awake. Biting my lip, holding back the pain I felt, I slowly rose up from the bed. I nearly fell face first against the floor when my legs got tangled in the blanket, but thankfully I was fast enough to grab onto something to stop the fall. I had had enough injuries to last me a whole month, there really was no need for me to add more.
Dragging my feet against the floor, I unhurriedly walked across the room. This room felt unfamiliar, yet there was that feeling that I had been here often as well. If I was really home, in my room, there should be carpet under my feet. But I felt only the cold floor, no carpet whatsoever.
I kept on walking towards the slightly opened door. It was my only guidance, as the light from outside sneaked through the small slit made between the door and its frame. Every step I took the pain all over my body became worse, but it also made me more aware. The closer I got to the door, the clearer the voices became.
My hand shook when it touched the door handle. A part of me was expecting Mom’s or Dad’s face to show up from behind the door, burning with all their fury and anger that was directed at me, but another part told me that was impossible. There was no way that I had been imagining things, these events in my memory because everything was so vivid. The rain, Uruha’s place, Yuu’s apartment… Yuu… My mind was pretty distorted and it took everything I had just to make sure what was real and what was not, but above all those I knew for certain that Yuu had not been a mere imagination. Yuu would be the one I found outside this door, not Mom, not Dad.
The door creaked lightly. Bright light flooded my sight. I blinked.
When my eyes were finally used to the light, I instantly realized that I hadn’t imagined visiting Yuu’s apartment. It was all real, and there Yuu was, sitting right in front of the television. It was not Mom. Mom and Dad weren’t here.
“Why are you awake? Is the TV too loud?”
I believed I jumped a few feet off the ground where I stood when I heard Yuu’s voice. I focused my sight on him and found him staring right back at me. At the corner of his lips hung a lit cigarette, white smoke billowing from its end. It wasn’t exactly a sight I often saw. At school he never smoked, of course, since there was a rule that forbid students and teacher to smoke within the school’s perimeters. Now, in his living room, wearing casual clothes and having a cigarette stuck between his lips, Yuu didn’t look like Shiroyama Yuu, the Biology Teacher anymore. Yuu was just… Yuu.
“No,” I answered Yuu’s previous question. My voice sounded harsh, and my throat hurt when I spoke. “I just… woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
Still dragging my feet against the floor, I walked towards the sofa where Yuu was sitting. I wasn’t looking at him; my eyes were trained down on my moving legs, but somehow I knew that Yuu was watching me. It felt almost like having a camera aiming at my direction, recording my every movement, and whatever I did I couldn’t avoid it. But as much as I could, I tried to ignore the disturbing feeling and kept on walking until I was sitting by Yuu’s side on the sofa. I lay my hands upon my lap that was hardly covered by Yuu’s bathrobe.
‘Oh my God, I’m nearly naked. Why didn’t I realize this sooner?’
I startled out of my odd revelation when something solid and warm touched my chin-Yuu’s hand. He made me turn my face towards his direction. I could see that he had gotten rid of his cigarette, into the ashtray maybe. I was now staring straight into those razor-sharp eyes that were looking at me, making me feel I was an object sitting under a magnifying glass that needed to be carefully observed. An object full of flaws that had to be fixed. By reflex I turned my sight somewhere else, towards the television showing Mom’s favorite talkshow. Tonight’s topic was about children with depressive tendencies, children who had tried to kill themselves at least once in their whole lives.
I almost laughed out loud.
‘Wow, you have a very impressive sense of humor, God.’
The touch of Yuu’s thumb on the surface of my lower lip made me turn my eyes back at him. It hurt, the part that he touched. Without looking at my own reflection in the mirror I could tell that my lip was split. I had no idea which one of Dad’s punches caused it.
Yuu’s eyes were focused on my lips. Creases were formed on his forehead. I wished I knew what he was thinking.
“I haven’t had the chance to treat your wounds,” Yuu said. “But I’m not sure I have enough salve left to treat so many wounds…”
I didn’t know if it was a question that Yuu had directed at me, but I responded anyways. “It’s alright. They’ll heal by themselves…”
Yuu didn’t make any reply to that. For a while he simply stared at my face, at the numerous scars and bruises that my face must be filled with. Finally he sighed and let go of my face. I watched him as he closed his eyes and leaned back against the sofa.
“Is it that bad?” I asked with a shaky voice. My body did feel thoroughly painful, but without looking at myself with my own eyes I really didn’t know how bad my condition was.
Beyond my expectations, Yuu shook his head.
“No,” he answered. “Like you said, they’ll heal by themselves.”
“Oh…” I mumbled. I followed Yuu’s fashion, leaning my back slowly against the sofa. The side of my body that was bruised from Dad’s kick throbbed painfully although I had tried my best to be careful. I hissed, swallowing the pain.
Yuu might have heard me hissing because he promptly opened his eyes and rolled them back at my direction. Without saying a word he stretched a hand towards me, shoving away the bathrobe from my shoulder. In an instant my cheeks flushed hot, especially when Yuu’s hand touched my body. I knew he only meant to check the part where I was bruised, but I got nervous nonetheless. I couldn’t even stop it when my brain started replaying the scenes in the bathroom that had only happened a few moments ago, where Yuu bathed me, cleansed my whole body…
‘Why is my heart pounding so hard like this?’
I could sense Yuu’s breath, warm against my shoulder when he approached slowly; his hand was moving, touching the skin around the source of pain on the side of my body. Once or twice I winced because Yuu accidentally, or not so accidentally, touched a spot that hurt. I didn’t look down, not once. Just how big the bruise on my body was, I had no courage to check on it myself. Yuu’s mumbling gave me enough knowledge, more than I ever needed.
It wasn’t long until Yuu finally fixed the bathrobe back on me. He looked at me and spoke, “We’ll have to put some ice on that.”
I nodded. It seemed that I had lost the ability to form decent sentences and say them out loud, but this went the opposite direction with how much was piling up inside of me. I felt like I had a million stories that I wanted to share but I just couldn’t find the proper language to speak with. Maybe this was what had kept my heart beating so loudly and my body burning in this heat. Honestly I just didn’t understand.
Slowly I tried to sort out the mess that crowded my thoughts. What was it that I really wanted to ask or tell Yuu? Which one was more important for me to put forth now? Which question Yuu might be able to answer?
After quite a while, I finally was able to open my mouth, but it wasn’t a question that came out of it.
“I’m not Dad’s son.”
Yuu’s dark, gloomy eyes, that looked so much like the cloudy night sky, looked at me again. “I know,” he said.
He knew. Was I supposed to be surprised to find out that he had already known? Funny, I wasn’t. I felt like I had suspected all along that Yuu had always known about the whole matter.
“You’re not Hideo’s son. But Mayumi is your mother, your real mother.”
This time I was shocked. My eyes flew wide open, staring at Yuu. Was he trying to be funny? No, he didn’t seem like he was joking. He looked as serious as if someone next door just died. Did he just say that Mom was really my mother? But Dad said he wasn’t my real father, so how could…?
“How did you know that? Do you have any proof?” I asked.
“I was there when you were born, Taka.”
I fell silent. Sixteen years ago, Yuu was there. Yuu was a living witness of my birthday. Yuu, whom I had only known for the past few years, probably knew more about the history of my life than I did.
“Tell me Yuu, please…” I begged. My hands were clutching tightly onto his arm in a desperate death grip. “Please, tell me everything I need to know…”
Seconds ticked away while the end of my nerves prickled from tension. Why wasn’t Yuu saying anything? I only asked him to tell me what he knew. I asked because I didn’t know and I really needed to know. My life had been nothing but one big, fat lie until Dad spread out the whole truth tonight. I just wanted to know what other things were just lies and what was left for me to believe in.
Before I truly exploded, Yuu finally spoke up.
“When Mayumi found out that she was pregnant, Hideo was on duty all the way in Hokkaido. It wasn’t that hard for Hideo to figure out that the child inside Mayumi’s womb was not his. How could it be his, a month old fetus, when they had never met for three whole months? Hideo was angry, furious even. I heard he wanted to divorce Mayumi, let Mayumi give birth to her child or, to go find the real father of the baby-I mean you. But then our families, both from Hideo’s and from Mayumi’s sides, interfered.
“No one could do anything when our families asked them to forget the divorce plan and keep on living as husband and wife, to hide the disgraceful incident and pretend everything was just normal. Hideo was forced to admit Mayumi’s child was his, when it really wasn’t. And they kept living together as husband and wife, acting like they were a whole, intact family.”
Yuu was silent for a moment. Our eyes met. “Until finally you were born into this world, Takanori,” he murmured.
Yes, me, the unwanted child. The child who had never asked to be born but had to endure it anyway and was brought into this cruel, merciless world.
For a while I felt like I had just listened to someone retelling a story of a drama movie. Yes, a movie, the fruit of a person’s imagination that was made into a few hours of moving pictures that many people could watch. A movie with such a tragic story, so tragic it was actually hard to believe. I thought I had watched a movie with a similar story, once.
‘But this is your life, Takanori. This is not some drama movie you can watch on television, a movie that already has a predetermined ending. You can’t just sit and wait for a conclusion to come by itself.’
On the television the talkshow’s host was interviewing a kid whose face was black and blue, and whose wrists were stiffly bandaged. The kid spoke in front of the camera. “I often wish that the whole thing is just a dream,” he said. “I want to wake up from my sleep someday and find that my life is normal, as normal as any other kid’s. I want to be able to trust someone. I… I only want this to stop.”
My sight became blurry, but I never realized my tears had melted and flowed down until Yuu touched my cheek with his finger. I blinked, letting a few drops of tears fall onto my cheek. Yuu’s hand moved until they settled on my nape, and he pulled me towards himself. Soon my face was only a couple of millimeters away from Yuu’s, and then our lips met.
I didn’t understand what Yuu was doing to me. Maybe he only wanted to help me forget my problem if only momentarily. Or maybe he was using the chance that was available while I was weak and helpless. Whatever his intentions were, I said nothing, did nothing to stop him from making advances towards me. I let him kiss my lips. I even kissed him back although my lips hurt due to the wound. I let him pull me closer until I was sitting on his lap. I let his hands touch me, sneaking into the bathrobe I was wearing, groping my skin, making my heart beat so quickly, pumping hot blood to every part of my body.
‘Now that everything is revealed-who I am, who is my family-what am I supposed to do now, Yuu? Now that I know what I needed to know, what do I have to do?’
Yuu’s fingers fumbled with the sash that tied the bathrobe together on my stomach, I sighed. Yuu’s tongue rubbed against mine inside my mouth.
‘And you, Yuu, aside from all the truth I learned today, there’s just one thing left that still confuses me: who are you…? Who am I suppose to consider you as?’
~ TO BE CONTINUED ~
A/N: Theeeereee you go *gets stabbed* Okay so I promised two weeks but it turned out what, two months? LOL~ I'm sorry. Things got a little too hectic and I got sick several times, plus there was that forever-hated writer's block coming to bother me. Well that's that. I'm just glad that this chapter is finally up. I hope you guys are glad too :D
See you soon! ^^
Previous: [ Chapter 01 ] [ Chapter 02 ] [ Chapter 03 ] [ Chapter 04 ] [ Chapter 05 ] [ Chapter 06 ]
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Chapter: 7-a/??
Author: akichuu
Fandom: the GazettE
Pairing: AoixRuki, RukixAoi, UruhaxRuki, possibly more to come
Theme: 021: Illness Illusion - Gackt @ 50stories
Rating: R, NC-17
Genre: AU (highschool), angst, smut
Warning: Yaoi, (slight) pedophilia, incestuous relationship, domestic abuse, possible violence. Not comfortable with those issues? Save yourselves and DON'T read this. I'm serious.
Disclaimer: Title is taken from 30 Seconds to Mars's song, Beautiful Lie. the GazettE belongs to themselves and, yes, the Almighty PSC. I, well I own this story. It's fiction, meaning IT'S NOT REAL and I'm making no profit from it (except my 15 minutes of fame). Yes, mind that.
Beta: izumi_luvsjrock. You're the best! *huggles*
Summary: He was an outcast, an unwanted child that was thrown away, even by his own family. He was taught by life not to trust anyone, especially those who came to him offering the thing called 'love'. 'Love' was just a small part of his dream, and dreams, as far as he knew, weren't real and could never be real.
In this case, Shiroyama Yuu was definitely not an exception.
Comment: FAAAAIIILLLL!! Omg how long did I take to update??? I just hope you still remember this story *laughs* This is, as the title says, chapter 7-a, which means there will be chapter 7-b. It will be posted soon enough, I think. In the mean time, enjoy this chapter and as always, I'm waiting for your critics and comments ^^
Beautiful Lie [to Believe in]
Chapter 07-a
When I woke up it was nearly complete pitch dark around me. For a second, panic rose inside my chest. My heart began to beat quickly and in the midst of this silence, I felt as if the only noise I could hear was the chaotic rhythm of my blood flow, pulsing right beneath my eardrums. My previously hazy, sleepy mind now started to be filled by ugly thoughts as they scrambled into my head. One by one until my brain was overly swarmed by them. One thought that bothered me the most about the situation I had gone through was how it might just happen again. I feared that I had only imagined the whole thing, me leaving home in the middle of the rain and knocking on Yuu’s door. I feared that I was actually still stuck in hell and Dad would come any minute now with his fists tight by his side and his heavy shoes pounding against the floor. He would show up at the door very soon, and I would have to prepare myself to receive his beatings again.
It was like my nightmares repeating themselves, the same old nightmares I’d been having since I was a child. All I could remember doing every night was waiting for that silhouette to show up in my room and hurt me, again and again.
But then I heard voices and music, they were familiar. They seemed to be… the background music of a talkshow. Was I imagining things?
Slowly but surely all the dark and ugly images that swarmed my brain vanished one by one giving me room to think more coherently. I wasn’t wrong; the voices were getting clearer, and although the background music had faded away, I could still hear and recognize the voice of the host. Yes, I memorized it in my brain. Mom watched it every night turning the volume loud enough until I could hear it all the way from my room.
‘Mom…?’
Abruptly shaken up, I rose up from the bed in a rush. Was this a sign that I really was still at home, and out there, in the living room, Mom was doing her habit, watching TV until the late hours of the night? Within the darkness surrounding me I could almost see her image before my eyes. On the white sofa in front of the television she liked to lie down, her eyes focused on the screen, a glass and a bottle of alcoholic beverage stood somewhere nearby.
I had learned by heart the empty look she always had on her face. Shone by the blinking light from the television, she would seem just like a statue, something not alive, some figure that wouldn’t react no matter what I did. Oh yes, there was an exception, and that would be if I dared touching her bottle of liquor. If I laid one finger on her bottle, she would open her eyes wide, rise up from her position and then yell at me, telling me to go away. She didn’t normally use her hand as often as Dad did, but obviously she loved her liquors and drugs more than she loved me.
A flash of pain whipped across my heart, and like a trigger it stirred all sorts of other pain in my whole body. They pulsed in me, reminding me of everything that had taken place today. The right side of my body that Dad had kicked hurt so bad, making it difficult for me just to breathe. I believed that part was swollen by now, because when I sat I felt like a truck was squashing me flat from the side.
But in the middle of the pain that had returned to torture me, the sound coming from the television outside the room kept bothering my mind. I wondered if I was dreaming or if I was fully awake. Biting my lip, holding back the pain I felt, I slowly rose up from the bed. I nearly fell face first against the floor when my legs got tangled in the blanket, but thankfully I was fast enough to grab onto something to stop the fall. I had had enough injuries to last me a whole month, there really was no need for me to add more.
Dragging my feet against the floor, I unhurriedly walked across the room. This room felt unfamiliar, yet there was that feeling that I had been here often as well. If I was really home, in my room, there should be carpet under my feet. But I felt only the cold floor, no carpet whatsoever.
I kept on walking towards the slightly opened door. It was my only guidance, as the light from outside sneaked through the small slit made between the door and its frame. Every step I took the pain all over my body became worse, but it also made me more aware. The closer I got to the door, the clearer the voices became.
My hand shook when it touched the door handle. A part of me was expecting Mom’s or Dad’s face to show up from behind the door, burning with all their fury and anger that was directed at me, but another part told me that was impossible. There was no way that I had been imagining things, these events in my memory because everything was so vivid. The rain, Uruha’s place, Yuu’s apartment… Yuu… My mind was pretty distorted and it took everything I had just to make sure what was real and what was not, but above all those I knew for certain that Yuu had not been a mere imagination. Yuu would be the one I found outside this door, not Mom, not Dad.
The door creaked lightly. Bright light flooded my sight. I blinked.
When my eyes were finally used to the light, I instantly realized that I hadn’t imagined visiting Yuu’s apartment. It was all real, and there Yuu was, sitting right in front of the television. It was not Mom. Mom and Dad weren’t here.
“Why are you awake? Is the TV too loud?”
I believed I jumped a few feet off the ground where I stood when I heard Yuu’s voice. I focused my sight on him and found him staring right back at me. At the corner of his lips hung a lit cigarette, white smoke billowing from its end. It wasn’t exactly a sight I often saw. At school he never smoked, of course, since there was a rule that forbid students and teacher to smoke within the school’s perimeters. Now, in his living room, wearing casual clothes and having a cigarette stuck between his lips, Yuu didn’t look like Shiroyama Yuu, the Biology Teacher anymore. Yuu was just… Yuu.
“No,” I answered Yuu’s previous question. My voice sounded harsh, and my throat hurt when I spoke. “I just… woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
Still dragging my feet against the floor, I walked towards the sofa where Yuu was sitting. I wasn’t looking at him; my eyes were trained down on my moving legs, but somehow I knew that Yuu was watching me. It felt almost like having a camera aiming at my direction, recording my every movement, and whatever I did I couldn’t avoid it. But as much as I could, I tried to ignore the disturbing feeling and kept on walking until I was sitting by Yuu’s side on the sofa. I lay my hands upon my lap that was hardly covered by Yuu’s bathrobe.
‘Oh my God, I’m nearly naked. Why didn’t I realize this sooner?’
I startled out of my odd revelation when something solid and warm touched my chin-Yuu’s hand. He made me turn my face towards his direction. I could see that he had gotten rid of his cigarette, into the ashtray maybe. I was now staring straight into those razor-sharp eyes that were looking at me, making me feel I was an object sitting under a magnifying glass that needed to be carefully observed. An object full of flaws that had to be fixed. By reflex I turned my sight somewhere else, towards the television showing Mom’s favorite talkshow. Tonight’s topic was about children with depressive tendencies, children who had tried to kill themselves at least once in their whole lives.
I almost laughed out loud.
‘Wow, you have a very impressive sense of humor, God.’
The touch of Yuu’s thumb on the surface of my lower lip made me turn my eyes back at him. It hurt, the part that he touched. Without looking at my own reflection in the mirror I could tell that my lip was split. I had no idea which one of Dad’s punches caused it.
Yuu’s eyes were focused on my lips. Creases were formed on his forehead. I wished I knew what he was thinking.
“I haven’t had the chance to treat your wounds,” Yuu said. “But I’m not sure I have enough salve left to treat so many wounds…”
I didn’t know if it was a question that Yuu had directed at me, but I responded anyways. “It’s alright. They’ll heal by themselves…”
Yuu didn’t make any reply to that. For a while he simply stared at my face, at the numerous scars and bruises that my face must be filled with. Finally he sighed and let go of my face. I watched him as he closed his eyes and leaned back against the sofa.
“Is it that bad?” I asked with a shaky voice. My body did feel thoroughly painful, but without looking at myself with my own eyes I really didn’t know how bad my condition was.
Beyond my expectations, Yuu shook his head.
“No,” he answered. “Like you said, they’ll heal by themselves.”
“Oh…” I mumbled. I followed Yuu’s fashion, leaning my back slowly against the sofa. The side of my body that was bruised from Dad’s kick throbbed painfully although I had tried my best to be careful. I hissed, swallowing the pain.
Yuu might have heard me hissing because he promptly opened his eyes and rolled them back at my direction. Without saying a word he stretched a hand towards me, shoving away the bathrobe from my shoulder. In an instant my cheeks flushed hot, especially when Yuu’s hand touched my body. I knew he only meant to check the part where I was bruised, but I got nervous nonetheless. I couldn’t even stop it when my brain started replaying the scenes in the bathroom that had only happened a few moments ago, where Yuu bathed me, cleansed my whole body…
‘Why is my heart pounding so hard like this?’
I could sense Yuu’s breath, warm against my shoulder when he approached slowly; his hand was moving, touching the skin around the source of pain on the side of my body. Once or twice I winced because Yuu accidentally, or not so accidentally, touched a spot that hurt. I didn’t look down, not once. Just how big the bruise on my body was, I had no courage to check on it myself. Yuu’s mumbling gave me enough knowledge, more than I ever needed.
It wasn’t long until Yuu finally fixed the bathrobe back on me. He looked at me and spoke, “We’ll have to put some ice on that.”
I nodded. It seemed that I had lost the ability to form decent sentences and say them out loud, but this went the opposite direction with how much was piling up inside of me. I felt like I had a million stories that I wanted to share but I just couldn’t find the proper language to speak with. Maybe this was what had kept my heart beating so loudly and my body burning in this heat. Honestly I just didn’t understand.
Slowly I tried to sort out the mess that crowded my thoughts. What was it that I really wanted to ask or tell Yuu? Which one was more important for me to put forth now? Which question Yuu might be able to answer?
After quite a while, I finally was able to open my mouth, but it wasn’t a question that came out of it.
“I’m not Dad’s son.”
Yuu’s dark, gloomy eyes, that looked so much like the cloudy night sky, looked at me again. “I know,” he said.
He knew. Was I supposed to be surprised to find out that he had already known? Funny, I wasn’t. I felt like I had suspected all along that Yuu had always known about the whole matter.
“You’re not Hideo’s son. But Mayumi is your mother, your real mother.”
This time I was shocked. My eyes flew wide open, staring at Yuu. Was he trying to be funny? No, he didn’t seem like he was joking. He looked as serious as if someone next door just died. Did he just say that Mom was really my mother? But Dad said he wasn’t my real father, so how could…?
“How did you know that? Do you have any proof?” I asked.
“I was there when you were born, Taka.”
I fell silent. Sixteen years ago, Yuu was there. Yuu was a living witness of my birthday. Yuu, whom I had only known for the past few years, probably knew more about the history of my life than I did.
“Tell me Yuu, please…” I begged. My hands were clutching tightly onto his arm in a desperate death grip. “Please, tell me everything I need to know…”
Seconds ticked away while the end of my nerves prickled from tension. Why wasn’t Yuu saying anything? I only asked him to tell me what he knew. I asked because I didn’t know and I really needed to know. My life had been nothing but one big, fat lie until Dad spread out the whole truth tonight. I just wanted to know what other things were just lies and what was left for me to believe in.
Before I truly exploded, Yuu finally spoke up.
“When Mayumi found out that she was pregnant, Hideo was on duty all the way in Hokkaido. It wasn’t that hard for Hideo to figure out that the child inside Mayumi’s womb was not his. How could it be his, a month old fetus, when they had never met for three whole months? Hideo was angry, furious even. I heard he wanted to divorce Mayumi, let Mayumi give birth to her child or, to go find the real father of the baby-I mean you. But then our families, both from Hideo’s and from Mayumi’s sides, interfered.
“No one could do anything when our families asked them to forget the divorce plan and keep on living as husband and wife, to hide the disgraceful incident and pretend everything was just normal. Hideo was forced to admit Mayumi’s child was his, when it really wasn’t. And they kept living together as husband and wife, acting like they were a whole, intact family.”
Yuu was silent for a moment. Our eyes met. “Until finally you were born into this world, Takanori,” he murmured.
Yes, me, the unwanted child. The child who had never asked to be born but had to endure it anyway and was brought into this cruel, merciless world.
For a while I felt like I had just listened to someone retelling a story of a drama movie. Yes, a movie, the fruit of a person’s imagination that was made into a few hours of moving pictures that many people could watch. A movie with such a tragic story, so tragic it was actually hard to believe. I thought I had watched a movie with a similar story, once.
‘But this is your life, Takanori. This is not some drama movie you can watch on television, a movie that already has a predetermined ending. You can’t just sit and wait for a conclusion to come by itself.’
On the television the talkshow’s host was interviewing a kid whose face was black and blue, and whose wrists were stiffly bandaged. The kid spoke in front of the camera. “I often wish that the whole thing is just a dream,” he said. “I want to wake up from my sleep someday and find that my life is normal, as normal as any other kid’s. I want to be able to trust someone. I… I only want this to stop.”
My sight became blurry, but I never realized my tears had melted and flowed down until Yuu touched my cheek with his finger. I blinked, letting a few drops of tears fall onto my cheek. Yuu’s hand moved until they settled on my nape, and he pulled me towards himself. Soon my face was only a couple of millimeters away from Yuu’s, and then our lips met.
I didn’t understand what Yuu was doing to me. Maybe he only wanted to help me forget my problem if only momentarily. Or maybe he was using the chance that was available while I was weak and helpless. Whatever his intentions were, I said nothing, did nothing to stop him from making advances towards me. I let him kiss my lips. I even kissed him back although my lips hurt due to the wound. I let him pull me closer until I was sitting on his lap. I let his hands touch me, sneaking into the bathrobe I was wearing, groping my skin, making my heart beat so quickly, pumping hot blood to every part of my body.
‘Now that everything is revealed-who I am, who is my family-what am I supposed to do now, Yuu? Now that I know what I needed to know, what do I have to do?’
Yuu’s fingers fumbled with the sash that tied the bathrobe together on my stomach, I sighed. Yuu’s tongue rubbed against mine inside my mouth.
‘And you, Yuu, aside from all the truth I learned today, there’s just one thing left that still confuses me: who are you…? Who am I suppose to consider you as?’
~ TO BE CONTINUED ~
A/N: Theeeereee you go *gets stabbed* Okay so I promised two weeks but it turned out what, two months? LOL~ I'm sorry. Things got a little too hectic and I got sick several times, plus there was that forever-hated writer's block coming to bother me. Well that's that. I'm just glad that this chapter is finally up. I hope you guys are glad too :D
See you soon! ^^
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