Cursed Love: Illness 3: Monster (4)
Chapters (5):
Cursed
Illness 1: Asylum
Illness 2: Sacrifice
Illness 3: Monster
Redemption
Illness 3: Monster
“My father did everything to protect you and that whore,” Sho growled. “But she only used him until she ran off with you. Uncle Aiba threw away your mother, but she still only saw him in the end. The biggest fool was my father who loved her from the beginning, just like how I cared about you and you made a fool out of me.”
Again, Kazunari shook his head, but this time unconvincingly. “My mom never loved Aiba’s father.”
“Use your head!” Sho demanded. “Out of every single person at school, why the hell would the Suns even care about a common delusional girl unless she threatened them.”
“I…” Kazunari faltered off.
“She was a selfish bitch. Your mother ruined her family name. The Ninomiya family denounced her for shaming them.” Sho released Kazunari. He twisted away on the bed. “Leave. I don’t need your help. I won’t be stupid enough to befriend someone like you ever again.”
Kazunari clenched his hands into fists and his fingers dug into the soft skin of his palm. He moved around Sho and jumped off the bed. At once ashamed and frustrated, but more overwhelmed than anything, he held his breath and stormed to the door. He couldn’t think straight. Had his mother really loved Masaki’s father? Had she followed him? Then if he was really Aiba’s son, did that mean Masaki’s father had used her and abandoned her? Had she, in turn, abandoned Sakurai’s help too?
Just as he reached for the doorknob with trembling fingers, he heard a small murmur break the ice with clarity.
“Kazu,” Sho whispered, his voice ringing with a single chord of longing.
One hand outstretched, Kazunari hesitated. They waited in silence as the strain of what they had discussed and the emotions that boiled within them fought for release. They sought for answers and for what could have been. Kazunari recalled naively stating earlier that this was their parents’ fight. How could he have spouted such nonsense when someone like Sho blamed him for what his mother might have done? But how could someone like himself change such belief when he did not even know the truth? Could he, Kazunari, continue to believe in his mother’s complete innocence? He doubted, and that doubt was dangerous.
There was only one truth about their past that he knew with complete certainty. In that about himself, Sho had been wrong.
Kazunari turned and saw Sho on his back again with his eyes closed, but he knew Sho was still conscious. He made a decision then. He had to set right that one truth he knew. Determined, he took steady steps back to the bed where Sho lay. Sho slowly peeled back his eyelids and stared up at him hovering at the bedside.
Kazunari rubbed the scar on his arm. Sho, not his imaginary friend, had inflicted this scar, a scar that was the replica of Sho’s own scar below the elbow. This had been their friendship scar. “Even if your father did, and even if my mother did, but I did not intentionally forget you,” he said, struggling to appear calm. “As a kid, I thought I had an imaginary friend. When my mom and I moved, that friend did not come with me. Every night I called for my best friend, but he never appeared again, so I thought I lost my ability to dream. But to know now that that imaginary friend was really you…” He paused and took a deep breath. He told the entire truth. “Sakurai, you gave me the most happiness I had in my childhood. Even if you hate me now, I needed you back then.”
When Sho moved, Kazunari thought Sho would harm him as he did every time the distance between them closed, but he felt astonished to feel Sho’s arms lock around his middle instead. Sho’s head pressed against his chest. Kazunari’s arms remained suspended at his side. He didn’t know what to do with them.
“I used to go back every day,” Sho whispered. “I’d check if you came back. And then father told me you’d abandoned and forgotten me. You’ll never know how much I cried, Kazu. I hated you, but I still missed you.”
Slowly, Kazunari’s trembling arms rose and closed in until they encircled Sho’s head in a gentle embrace. One hand smoothed down around to Sho’s arm and covered the ragged, less refined X-shaped scar underneath the sleeve. At last, he recalled the lost face of his first friend. The memory returned in great vivid detail. He knew that the young boy, the child Sho, had always come with a smile. Sho had been a fairy who injected color in Kazunari’s childhood; a friend with the power of happiness. Holding Sho in his arms, Kazunari mourned the loss of that innocent smile. As their warmth consoled each other in the enclosed bedroom, he wondered when that smile had disappeared. He wondered how he could restore it.
“You’re just like your mother,” a third person interrupted them. “As soon as I’m not looking, you cheat on me.”
Both Kazunari and Sho turned to see that the door had opened without their notice. Masaki stood in the doorway grimacing at them.
“Aiba,” Kazunari just barely murmured before Masaki doubled and fell over.
Kazunari’s heart almost stopped. He dropped Sho and ran to Masaki’s side, going on his knees instantly. His pulse pounded in fear as he touched Masaki’s pale face and found his skin cold. “What’s wrong?” he demanded anxiously.
Masaki clutched himself and shivered uncontrollably as all heat escaped his body within a few moments. “I’m hungry,” he groaned.
“You’re hungry?” Kazunari’s anxiety grew.
“I’m hungry,” Masaki repeated and shook until his teeth chattered.
“How am I supposed to help you!?” Kazunari demanded.
From behind, he heard Sho answer, “His illness.”
Before Kazunari had even begun to process the reply, Masaki threw his head back and howled in deep anguish. As tears slid down his face and his trembling intensified, he leapt to his feet and rushed out the room up the stairs to his pet room.
Kazunari chased him, but Masaki was quicker and the steel door slid shut behind him. Kazunari slammed his hand into the button. The door would not open. He pounded on the steel door. He pressed the button in the wall repeatedly, but unlike the first time he’d done it, the steel door did not slide open. Inside the room, Masaki had locked it from within. Kazunari stopped trying to find his way in and pressed his ears against the door. The muffled, anguish cries he’d heard from earlier had been replaced with deep silence and that frightened him even more.
He sat on the ground and pressed his back against the door, waiting for something, anything, to happen. His pulse thundered in his ears and his body shook as concern brought wild images into his head. He imagined Masaki suffering. He remembered the pain in Masaki’s voice as he accused Kazunari of cheating on him. Had he and Sho sparked the illness? And if this intense reaction was some part of Masaki’s illness, what did the rest entail? Will Masaki hurt himself like Sho?
Fear for Masaki took hold of every sane thought in his body. Kazunari leapt to his feet and ran back down to the ground floor. He ran into Sho’s bedroom and found the Sun fast asleep in his bed as if his friend’s anguish upstairs was none of his concern. Angry, Kazunari ran to him and grabbed his arm to shake him awake, but the scars on Sho’s wrists and new wounds reminded Kazunari again of the ordeal Sho had gone through that night and he crumbled beside the bed in despair. All over again he felt with an overwhelming sense of helplessness the cruelty of the Four Suns’ illnesses. If like Sho accused, this was his mother’s revenge, he thought her vengeance a little too cruel. Masaki suffered at this very moment and he was of no help at all. Kazunari pressed his forehead against the bedframe and struggled to hold back tears of frustration.
He felt Sho’s hand land heavily on the top of his head. He knew it was a gesture of comfort and Kazunari gratefully took it. He tilted his head back to stare at Sho. Sho’s eyes cracked open, just enough to see Kazunari. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.
“Masaki will be fine. Go back to your room and get some sleep. He won’t come out until later.”
“Will he be hurt like you?” Kazunari asked.
“No, not like me. Not where you can see. But in his heart and mind, he’ll bleed. That’s why you need sleep,” Sho advised softly. “You won’t be much support for him if you’re falling over when he comes out.”
Kazunari reluctantly stood. He gently placed Sho’s hand down on the bed. It was true that he felt exhausted. He’d been up the entire night and add to that the number of revelations he’d learn in the last few hours, his soul felt as thoroughly worn. He considered sleeping in the circular chamber or even returning to wait outside on the hard ground outside the pet room, but scrapped the idea. The thought of stepping away from this chaos for just one moment appealed to him. He required a change of setting to relieve his anxiety. As he made his slow way to the door to head back to his dorm room, he paused and turned back to view Sho who was on the verge of falling back into unconsciousness.
“Why’re you suddenly nice?” Kazunari asked.
Sho’s eyes fluttered, but they remained closed and he mumbled as if sleep talking. “One moment I’m cold and the next my friends are the world to me.”
The reply struck Kazunari. “Am I your friend?”
Sho did not respond and as Kazunari watched with weary eyes, he saw the even fall and rise of Sho’s chest and thought him to have fallen back to sleep. He turned to exit the bedroom, but Sho gave him one last whispered answer.
“Once upon a time, Kazu was my best friend,” Sho replied.
* *
Kazunari fell asleep within a moment of falling into bed. His sleep was dreamless. He believed his anxiety about Masaki would be enough to wake him as soon as light brightened the sky, but he slept like the dead until mid-evening. The only real reason he woke was because of the pounding knock at his door. Kazunari jerked awake at the commanding sound, glanced at the clock installed in his room, and sprang to his feet. He stood at the door in two seconds and swung it open in the next. Mr. Kagawa waited outside the entrance.
“I did not see you come out for class this morning. I was afraid you’d been hurt again,” he said.
Kazunari breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed his weary eyes. “No. I stayed up late last night. I just woke up. Thank you for waking me.”
The elderly man nodded and patted Kazunari’s arm with a soft, unblemished hand. “Take care of yourself. You’re an important student of this academy.” He grabbed his broom and went back to his idle cart in the hallway.
Kazunari closed the door as he left and ran to wash and dress. He was out and rushing to the East Tower approximately ten minutes later.
Sho sat calmly on a couch typing into his laptop when Kazunari intruded into the room without invitation as was his recent habit. Without even glancing up, Sho said, “You’re back earlier than I thought.”
Kazunari’s eyes strayed to the neatly wrapped, but heavy bandages around his wrists.
Sho felt his gaze and uncomfortably moved his sleeve forward to cover the bandages. “I took sleeping drugs in the afternoon to give my hands time to heal. These were from last night.”
“Is Aiba okay?” Kazunari ventured to ask.
“He’s not out yet, but give him a little time. He’ll come to ask us to witness the burial.”
“Burial?”
“You can ask him about his illness when you see him,” Sho said and offered nothing more on the subject.
Kazunari remembered the graveyard in the artificial forest. He made the connection: if Sho had an asylum built for himself in the East Tower, then Masaki must have built the pet room for his own illness as well. But what did his illness have to do with a graveyard? Disturbing images entered his mind and Kazunari struggled to clear his head. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, think bad of Masaki.
Kazunari moved over to seat himself across from Sho and waited impatiently. He couldn’t sit still; concern for Masaki made him restless. Habitually, he reached to trace the scar on his other arm. He observed Sho quietly working away at his laptop. A sudden question that had nothing to do with Masaki cut through his anxiety.
Without inhibition Kazunari asked, “Do you think you will ever stop hating me?”
Sho glanced up from his laptop and their eyes briefly met across the sitting room. He smoothed his fingers over his hidden wrists. “As long as I am ill, I will hate your mother.”
“What about me?” Kazunari asked.
Sho gritted his teeth and focused his gaze on his laptop screen. “You don’t need to worry about me hating you. I won’t trouble you anymore. I don’t have long to live and I must accept that it’s a waste of my time blaming you.”
Kazunari bounced upright in his seat in alarm. “What do you mean, ‘don’t have long to live’?”
Almost nonchalantly, Sho explained, “Jun and Satoshi’s illnesses are determined by external factors, and as long as Masaki eats, he’ll survive. But consider what I experience twice a day everyday. When I can’t depend on drugs anymore, I’ll have to take it as it is. My body won’t last.”
“You’re joking,” Kazunari tried to joke off. “Don’t be so pessimistic. You have perfect health.”
Sho went on as if Kazunari had never spoken. “I skip my physical education classes. I try not to leave school. I even spend most of my days in this room. But I’m still exhausted. I’m self-destructing at this rate.” His previously downcast eyes turned up again. “But I didn’t say this to get your pity. I’ve already accepted that I’m dying sooner than all of my friends.”
Kazunari stared into space as Sho’s words sank in. “Why should you have to accept such a thing?” he said in a small voice.
Heavy footsteps on the stairs interrupted them and both turned to see Masaki making his way down, swaying unsteadily on the balls of his feet. Kazunari leapt to his feet as he observed the disheveled appearance of the Sun. Masaki’s clothes were wrinkled and streaked with dirt. His manicured nails were dirt encrusted, as were his expensive boots. His eyes, Kazunari particularly noticed, were bloodshot and swollen. Frighteningly, dark red smudges like blood marked his clothes and chin. He was a horrifying wreck.
Once he reached the ground floor, Masaki dragged himself to Sho who had set his laptop aside. Sho opened his arms and Masaki fell into them as a storm of tears overtook him. Kazunari watched helplessly on the side while Masaki whimpered in Sho’s embrace and clung to his best friend. His deep cries seemed to echo throughout the silent room. Sho patiently held him for a long time until Masaki’s heart-wrenching sobs ebbed away.
Pressed against Sho’s chest where his tears and soaked through Sho’s shirt, Masaki murmured, “Will you be there for Lucy’s burial?”
Over the top of his head, Sho glanced at Kazunari. “Will you like Ninomiya to be there as well?”
Kazunari’s name sparked a frenzy in the Sun’s body. Masaki shook his head vehemently and trembled. His hands fisted on Sho’s shirt. “No! I don’t want Ninomiya to know. I-I… I don’t want him to hate me.”
“I won’t hate you,” Kazunari assured him. He placed a gentle hand on Masaki’s shoulder that was meant to be comforting.
“No,” Masaki sniffled against Sho’s shirt and shrugged him off. “You will hate me.”
“I won’t,” Kazunari stated.
“No! I’m a monster!” Masaki screamed and hid his face in Sho’s shirt away from Kazunari. “P-please, don’t let him know, Sho. Please… please…”
“Whatever it is, I know it’s not your fault,” Kazunari said, holding back from touching Masaki again. “I know it’s the illness.”
But Masaki continued to shake his head and desperately clung to Sho. His face an expressionless mask, Sho forced them to their feet and led Masaki to the stairs. At the first step, Sho turned and murmured to Kazunari, “I’m sorry.” He then led an unsteady, unstable Masaki back up to the pet room.
Kazunari felt bereft and betrayed. Despite Masaki declaring his forgiveness, and despite claiming his love, his fear showed he still had no trust. As Kazunari heard the door shut behind the two, he stood alone in the circular chamber of the East Tower. His willingness to help and his concern meant nothing to Masaki. The Sun only spouted beautiful words. Kazunari decided he couldn’t wait there like a fool for the both of them to return. He’d never felt so lonely and abandoned, not even after his mother’s death. He had to put distance between himself and the Suns. An invisible knife at his heart and lungs blocked the air from him. What had he come for?
Holding back angry tears, he stormed to the double doors just as they opened and Mrs. Aiba flanked by one of her butlers and a desperate Mr. Kagawa walked in. Kazunari stared at Mr. Kagawa and then Masaki’s mother as they both stared back at him. Her shock quickly twisted into hatred.
“You bastard! You don’t even have the decency to leave my son alone at school!” Mrs. Aiba’s shrill accusation rang through the room. She moved towards Kazunari with her hand raised to slap him, but Mr. Kagawa grabbed her upraised arm.
“You can’t hit him!” he screamed.
The butler tried to pry his hands off her and together they struggled as Kazunari watched the almost comical battle in shocked silence.
“This would’ve never happened if you were not fool enough to accept the bastard to this school!” Mrs. Aiba shouted. “I’m taking Masaki out of here and all of Aiba’s shares will be sold to the Yama group. Let’s see if you have the temerity to deal with the yakuza!”
“No!” Mr. Kagawa screamed, clinging on to her desperately. “You can’t do this to me!”
The butler jerked him back. “Get your hands off my Mistress, Kitagawa.”
Kitagawa? Stunned, Kazunari froze again until the freed Mrs. Aiba marched straight to him and struck him across the face. His face stung. Kazunari took one staggering step back and could not meet her eyes, so overwhelmed was he by the feelings of betrayal, loss and loneliness that swept over him again. After Masaki’s dismissal, he had to learn that the only kind man who had welcomed him and whom he had confided in was not a sweet, innocent man at all.
“You can’t!” Mr. Kitagawa screamed.
“Take him out!” Mrs. Aiba ordered.
Her butler, taller and a few years younger than the Headmaster, had only a little trouble completing her command. He dragged Johnny Kitagawa, screaming insults and curses, out the double doors. Alone with a dejected Kazunari, Mrs. Aiba glared at him.
“Where is Masaki?” she asked him.
Kazunari’s gaze remained fixed at his feet and he refused to answer her.
She screeched, “What have you done to him!?”
“I’ve done nothing,” Kazunari muttered, bitter and emboldened by her accusation.
She reached out to slap him again and he allowed her the act of petty violence. Her palm and fingers stung his other cheek.
His head tilted sideways to the ground. Kazunari’s eyes burned. “I won’t be here long. I won’t bother your son or anyone else you care about as well. In fact,” he started, his voice growing stronger with every word, “you won’t even have to pull Aiba out from this school. I’m quitting. I’ve had enough of this place.”
She laughed hysterically, reminding Kazunari of the frenzy she was capable of during their first encounter.
“You think I’ll forgive you if you leave? Bastard, you’re as foul as your mother. You think just because you pretend to be nice, I’ll let you off the hook? Do you have any idea what your slutty mother did to me? Do you have any idea what she did to Masaki?”
“My mom did nothing,” Kazunari said, standing his ground. Even if she had something to do with their troubles, he would never agree in front of this woman.
At his denial, Mrs. Aiba screeched again. “How dare you!? My darling cries every single time his illness strikes. You and your mother made him into a monster. You hurt him.”
Kazunari’s rage increased with every line she uttered. His fists shook at his side as he seethed. “You are the one who put the notion into his head. He is not a monster. You’re the one who hurts him. Whatever suffering he goes through, Aiba should never believe any of it is his fault.”
“Because it’s your fault!” She lunged at him again.
This time, he dodged by stepping behind a couch. Frustrated that she could not get to him, Mrs. Aiba lost all composure and burst into tears. Unlike the first time she’d done so, Kazunari did not run to her and demand answers. He allowed her to work herself into a frenzy and spit out her tale. Eventually, she did.
“You made my son a monster. Are you happy now?” she sobbed into her palms. “He loves his pets so much! So so much. But my darling has to drink their blood or he dies. Do you know how hard he cries? Why his pets? Why something he loves the most? He couldn’t do it! My darling tried to hurt himself! He drank his own blood. He almost died!” She screamed as the horrific memory returned to her. “Poison! His own blood is poison to him! Human blood is poison!” She pounded her fists on the marble floor. “Is that whore finally happy? She stole my husband and she’s killing my son! I’ll never forgive her! Never!”
The sound of metal against wood rang through the chamber. A dirt covered shovel clattered its way down to the bottom of the steps. Mrs. Aiba continued to be engrossed in her own hysteria, but Kazunari’s eyes moved up to catch Masaki and Sho at the top of the stairs. Masaki’s expression twisted into one of pain as tears streamed down his already swollen eyes. As Kazunari watched, he clutched his chest and doubled over. Sho held him from pitching forward down the stairs.
“No…,” Masaki sobbed in disbelief as his body began to shake and his monstrous cravings overtook him twice in one day. He gasped for breath, turning visibly pale within a few seconds. Sho tried to drag him back to his pet room. Masaki struggled to shrug him off. “No… I don’t want…”
“You’ll die!” Sho screamed at him, over both the sobs of his best friend and a wailing Mrs. Aiba. He partially lifted Masaki to his feet and dragged him from the stairs. Anguished cries burst from Masaki’s lips.
“I can’t!” Masaki cried.
With shaking hands, Kazunari covered his ears and escaped from the circular chamber. He ignored the butler who had returned and stood waiting out in the hall. With quick steps on the verge of running, he left the East Wing. Kazunari continued to block his ears, but Masaki’s agonized screams continued to ring in his head, driving him to the brink of a hysteria similar to Mrs. Aiba’s. Silent, hot tears burned down his face. He loved his mother and he knew what had been done to her, but how could his mother hurt them? How could he forgive her?
Again and again, his heart broke.
* *
Kazunari rocked back and forth inside his dark room, welcoming peace from the hatred and chaos of the outside world. He ignored insistent knocks at his door. If he had to face the mind-numbing cruelty of what his mother had done, he’d rather be dead to the real world. The knocks returned an hour later, but the pounding were insistent, heavier and stronger. He did not respond or even acknowledge it. A large hand crashed through the wood and reached inside to unlock his door. Kazunari did not turn to see one of Satoshi’s bodyguards step in. The man carried a phone.
“My young master wishes to speak to you,” the bodyguard said gruffly.
Kazunari remained seated on his bed facing the wall. His expression remained blank. He did not reach for the phone. The bodyguard disregarded his silence and placed the phone next to Kazunari on the bed with the speakerphone on.
“Nino,” Satoshi sobbed from the other end.
Kazunari painfully closed shut his eyes. His tears from earlier had exhausted him. How many more tears had to be shed until this was over? He’d locked himself in his room in hopes that nothing could hurt him, but still pain and suffering searched for him.
“Nino, Jun will d-die,” Satoshi whispered into the receiver, as if afraid to voice the truth. “They said it’s im-impossible to d-do surgery through me. Even if I’m here, they c-can’t help him, N-nino. I’ll do anything… p-please, please help us. Save Jun. P-please save Jun, Nino.” His desperation cut like despair into Kazunari.
“I can’t,” Kazunari murmured. His head fell into his hands and he gripped his hair in his frustration. “I don’t know how.”
Satoshi cried harder into the phone. “I’ll d-die if Jun dies, Nino. I c-can’t live without him. H-he’s my brother. P-please save Jun, Nino. P-please.”
Kazunari had rubbed his eyes red earlier and the soreness pained him, but hot tears still burned its way down his cheeks again. He used his palms to scrub his face. “I can’t,” he repeated.
Satoshi broke into incomprehensible sobs. His bodyguard stepped in to end the call. The burly man bowed to Kazunari and silently stalked out as he had done earlier, leaving a gaping hole in Kazunari’s door.
Kazunari continued to sit in the darkness. The stillness and the enclosing despair closed around him; suffocating and eating away all lightness. As night came around, a passing student ran through the halls and shouted important news at the top of his lungs. He noticed the hole in Kazunari’s door and stepped inside to check if anyone were inside. He caught sight of Kazunari’s shadowy form in the darkness.
“Big scoop!” he bellowed. “The Headmaster sacked Sasaki! Something’s happened! Ohno’s pressing charges against Kitagawa and Sasaki! Isn’t that great?” As soon as the student spilled the news, he ducked back out and went on running down the halls shouting his joy. “Can’t wait until Ohno takes over this school!”
Their motive was revenge, Kazunari knew. Mr. Ohno planned to crush the person who would steal the life of his younger son. Revenge and justice enmeshed in one incomprehensible force. Everything his mother had done was out of pure revenge and caused everyone involved to suffer.
As the hours passed, exhaustion began to wear Kazunari down. He lay on his bed, but even though he blinked tiredly in the darkness, he held sleep at bay until the hands of his clock turned to midnight and somewhere in this school, Kazunari knew another boy locked in his asylum was slowly dying. Kazunari finally closed his tired eyes to the darkness in his room.
* *
One autumn night, he returned home from his part-time job from the grocery store after school. He carried bags of vegetables and stuffed them into their almost empty refrigerator. The voice of a male newscaster wafted in from his mother’s room. The familiarity warmed Kazunari and he allowed nostalgia to wash over him. This was just another night in his mother and his apartment. He’d spent a good five years here in the cramped, yet comfortable space living very similar days. With a pang, he realized he missed his life before Kitagawa Academy. He hadn’t noticed that his dorm room was the same size as this apartment.
Reining in his sadness, Kazunari took off his jacket and stepped to his mother’s bedroom door. He peered in and saw her lying on her side engrossed in the news. It felt like a lifetime since he’d seen her. He struggled to maintain his composure.
“...in honor of the charity work the young chairman of the Aiba Corporation has committed himself to this year…” the newscaster on screen said.
“Mom, I brought back some food,” he told her.
“That’s great. Did you have a good day?” she asked and sat upright to better see him. She wasn’t the exhausted, weary mother in her later years that he’d eventually came to know. She was younger, fairer, and still full of hope. Her smile, aimed at him, was bright and full of love.
Entranced by her warmth and love, Kazunari hummed his response and stepped inside her room to sit beside her mattress. On the television screen, he saw a handsome middle-aged man shake the hand of the president of the charity organization he’d donated to. The captions indicated that he was Chairman Aiba. Kazunari waved to the man on screen. His hand shook. “Mom, did you love him?”
His mother sighed as she turned her attention back to the television. “I still do. I love your father very much.”
“But he didn’t love you,” Kazunari countered.
She shook her head and reached out to clasp his hand. “He loves me. Very much.”
“He married Aiba’s mother,” Kazunari said.
“A shotgun marriage. She was already months pregnant before they found out and they rushed the marriage. That was before I knew I had you.” Her voice carried dregs of regret and sadness. “That was not your father’s fault.”
Kazunari refused to forgive his supposed father. “But mom, he cheated on you with her. He slept with both of you.”
She squeezed his hand. “Kazu, I still love him and he loves me.”
Kazunari pulled his hand away from her. “Then why did you run? Why didn’t he protect you!? Sakurai had a wife too, but he defended you from her, didn’t he? He wasn’t a coward like that man!”
His mother looked into his eyes with sadness. Tears glimmered in its depths. “Don’t blame your father, Kazu. He did the best he could.”
Kazunari swallowed and forced his temper down. “Then please tell me the truth, mom. Are the Suns ill because of you? If you do not blame Aiba’s father, why did you do it?”
Desperate for his acceptance, his mother reached for his hand again, as if their skinship could establish the connection and understanding that she craved. “I love him and they destroyed me, Kazu. I couldn’t, just couldn’t, live with the fact that they’d live perfectly happy while my own son suffered. You’re a Ninomiya and an Aiba, Kazu. By blood ties you are one of them. But I brought you into this world stripped of everything you could have had. And their boys would have everything in the world. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. In my heart, I wanted them to suffer.”
Kazunari squeezed her hands and his own eyes glimmered with unshed tears like his mother’s. “You don’t understand. I didn’t need anything, mom. I didn’t need anything as long as I had you. We could have been happy.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
“And yet, you left me. You loved him so much, the news of his death devastated you.”
“I’m sorry, Kazu,” his mother repeated.
Kazunari wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He took a deep breath and squeezed his mother’s hand in reassurance again. “It’s okay. Everything will be all right. Even if no one can, I’ll forgive you. You’re my mom. I’ll never abandon you. I’ll find a way to help them, even if it kills me. So you can be happy for me.”
He felt his mother fade. The solid hand clasped in his turned to air. The whole room seemed to fade along with her, but her apparition struggled to hold on for one more moment. She reached up and gently touched his cheek.
“My son. My sweet, clever son. Masaki’s your brother. He’s your family. Care for him, but don’t live like me and let one person break your heart over and over again.”
* *
Kazunari woke to the unfamiliar yet familiar surroundings of his dorm at Kitagawa Academy. He slid off the bed and staggered to the window. He pulled back the curtains. The sun rose in the east; a splash of beautiful orange above the East Tower. His hands splayed over a window pane. Down below, late revelling students were just returning from a long night out, possibly still celebrating the rumor of Kitagawa’s demise.
Kazunari pressed his forehead against the chilled window and closed his eyes. He tried to retain the image of his mother from his dream. He hoped her beautiful smile remained etched in his memory.
“Goodbye, mom.”
Cursed
Illness 1: Asylum
Illness 2: Sacrifice
Illness 3: Monster
Redemption
Illness 3: Monster
“My father did everything to protect you and that whore,” Sho growled. “But she only used him until she ran off with you. Uncle Aiba threw away your mother, but she still only saw him in the end. The biggest fool was my father who loved her from the beginning, just like how I cared about you and you made a fool out of me.”
Again, Kazunari shook his head, but this time unconvincingly. “My mom never loved Aiba’s father.”
“Use your head!” Sho demanded. “Out of every single person at school, why the hell would the Suns even care about a common delusional girl unless she threatened them.”
“I…” Kazunari faltered off.
“She was a selfish bitch. Your mother ruined her family name. The Ninomiya family denounced her for shaming them.” Sho released Kazunari. He twisted away on the bed. “Leave. I don’t need your help. I won’t be stupid enough to befriend someone like you ever again.”
Kazunari clenched his hands into fists and his fingers dug into the soft skin of his palm. He moved around Sho and jumped off the bed. At once ashamed and frustrated, but more overwhelmed than anything, he held his breath and stormed to the door. He couldn’t think straight. Had his mother really loved Masaki’s father? Had she followed him? Then if he was really Aiba’s son, did that mean Masaki’s father had used her and abandoned her? Had she, in turn, abandoned Sakurai’s help too?
Just as he reached for the doorknob with trembling fingers, he heard a small murmur break the ice with clarity.
“Kazu,” Sho whispered, his voice ringing with a single chord of longing.
One hand outstretched, Kazunari hesitated. They waited in silence as the strain of what they had discussed and the emotions that boiled within them fought for release. They sought for answers and for what could have been. Kazunari recalled naively stating earlier that this was their parents’ fight. How could he have spouted such nonsense when someone like Sho blamed him for what his mother might have done? But how could someone like himself change such belief when he did not even know the truth? Could he, Kazunari, continue to believe in his mother’s complete innocence? He doubted, and that doubt was dangerous.
There was only one truth about their past that he knew with complete certainty. In that about himself, Sho had been wrong.
Kazunari turned and saw Sho on his back again with his eyes closed, but he knew Sho was still conscious. He made a decision then. He had to set right that one truth he knew. Determined, he took steady steps back to the bed where Sho lay. Sho slowly peeled back his eyelids and stared up at him hovering at the bedside.
Kazunari rubbed the scar on his arm. Sho, not his imaginary friend, had inflicted this scar, a scar that was the replica of Sho’s own scar below the elbow. This had been their friendship scar. “Even if your father did, and even if my mother did, but I did not intentionally forget you,” he said, struggling to appear calm. “As a kid, I thought I had an imaginary friend. When my mom and I moved, that friend did not come with me. Every night I called for my best friend, but he never appeared again, so I thought I lost my ability to dream. But to know now that that imaginary friend was really you…” He paused and took a deep breath. He told the entire truth. “Sakurai, you gave me the most happiness I had in my childhood. Even if you hate me now, I needed you back then.”
When Sho moved, Kazunari thought Sho would harm him as he did every time the distance between them closed, but he felt astonished to feel Sho’s arms lock around his middle instead. Sho’s head pressed against his chest. Kazunari’s arms remained suspended at his side. He didn’t know what to do with them.
“I used to go back every day,” Sho whispered. “I’d check if you came back. And then father told me you’d abandoned and forgotten me. You’ll never know how much I cried, Kazu. I hated you, but I still missed you.”
Slowly, Kazunari’s trembling arms rose and closed in until they encircled Sho’s head in a gentle embrace. One hand smoothed down around to Sho’s arm and covered the ragged, less refined X-shaped scar underneath the sleeve. At last, he recalled the lost face of his first friend. The memory returned in great vivid detail. He knew that the young boy, the child Sho, had always come with a smile. Sho had been a fairy who injected color in Kazunari’s childhood; a friend with the power of happiness. Holding Sho in his arms, Kazunari mourned the loss of that innocent smile. As their warmth consoled each other in the enclosed bedroom, he wondered when that smile had disappeared. He wondered how he could restore it.
“You’re just like your mother,” a third person interrupted them. “As soon as I’m not looking, you cheat on me.”
Both Kazunari and Sho turned to see that the door had opened without their notice. Masaki stood in the doorway grimacing at them.
“Aiba,” Kazunari just barely murmured before Masaki doubled and fell over.
Kazunari’s heart almost stopped. He dropped Sho and ran to Masaki’s side, going on his knees instantly. His pulse pounded in fear as he touched Masaki’s pale face and found his skin cold. “What’s wrong?” he demanded anxiously.
Masaki clutched himself and shivered uncontrollably as all heat escaped his body within a few moments. “I’m hungry,” he groaned.
“You’re hungry?” Kazunari’s anxiety grew.
“I’m hungry,” Masaki repeated and shook until his teeth chattered.
“How am I supposed to help you!?” Kazunari demanded.
From behind, he heard Sho answer, “His illness.”
Before Kazunari had even begun to process the reply, Masaki threw his head back and howled in deep anguish. As tears slid down his face and his trembling intensified, he leapt to his feet and rushed out the room up the stairs to his pet room.
Kazunari chased him, but Masaki was quicker and the steel door slid shut behind him. Kazunari slammed his hand into the button. The door would not open. He pounded on the steel door. He pressed the button in the wall repeatedly, but unlike the first time he’d done it, the steel door did not slide open. Inside the room, Masaki had locked it from within. Kazunari stopped trying to find his way in and pressed his ears against the door. The muffled, anguish cries he’d heard from earlier had been replaced with deep silence and that frightened him even more.
He sat on the ground and pressed his back against the door, waiting for something, anything, to happen. His pulse thundered in his ears and his body shook as concern brought wild images into his head. He imagined Masaki suffering. He remembered the pain in Masaki’s voice as he accused Kazunari of cheating on him. Had he and Sho sparked the illness? And if this intense reaction was some part of Masaki’s illness, what did the rest entail? Will Masaki hurt himself like Sho?
Fear for Masaki took hold of every sane thought in his body. Kazunari leapt to his feet and ran back down to the ground floor. He ran into Sho’s bedroom and found the Sun fast asleep in his bed as if his friend’s anguish upstairs was none of his concern. Angry, Kazunari ran to him and grabbed his arm to shake him awake, but the scars on Sho’s wrists and new wounds reminded Kazunari again of the ordeal Sho had gone through that night and he crumbled beside the bed in despair. All over again he felt with an overwhelming sense of helplessness the cruelty of the Four Suns’ illnesses. If like Sho accused, this was his mother’s revenge, he thought her vengeance a little too cruel. Masaki suffered at this very moment and he was of no help at all. Kazunari pressed his forehead against the bedframe and struggled to hold back tears of frustration.
He felt Sho’s hand land heavily on the top of his head. He knew it was a gesture of comfort and Kazunari gratefully took it. He tilted his head back to stare at Sho. Sho’s eyes cracked open, just enough to see Kazunari. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.
“Masaki will be fine. Go back to your room and get some sleep. He won’t come out until later.”
“Will he be hurt like you?” Kazunari asked.
“No, not like me. Not where you can see. But in his heart and mind, he’ll bleed. That’s why you need sleep,” Sho advised softly. “You won’t be much support for him if you’re falling over when he comes out.”
Kazunari reluctantly stood. He gently placed Sho’s hand down on the bed. It was true that he felt exhausted. He’d been up the entire night and add to that the number of revelations he’d learn in the last few hours, his soul felt as thoroughly worn. He considered sleeping in the circular chamber or even returning to wait outside on the hard ground outside the pet room, but scrapped the idea. The thought of stepping away from this chaos for just one moment appealed to him. He required a change of setting to relieve his anxiety. As he made his slow way to the door to head back to his dorm room, he paused and turned back to view Sho who was on the verge of falling back into unconsciousness.
“Why’re you suddenly nice?” Kazunari asked.
Sho’s eyes fluttered, but they remained closed and he mumbled as if sleep talking. “One moment I’m cold and the next my friends are the world to me.”
The reply struck Kazunari. “Am I your friend?”
Sho did not respond and as Kazunari watched with weary eyes, he saw the even fall and rise of Sho’s chest and thought him to have fallen back to sleep. He turned to exit the bedroom, but Sho gave him one last whispered answer.
“Once upon a time, Kazu was my best friend,” Sho replied.
* *
Kazunari fell asleep within a moment of falling into bed. His sleep was dreamless. He believed his anxiety about Masaki would be enough to wake him as soon as light brightened the sky, but he slept like the dead until mid-evening. The only real reason he woke was because of the pounding knock at his door. Kazunari jerked awake at the commanding sound, glanced at the clock installed in his room, and sprang to his feet. He stood at the door in two seconds and swung it open in the next. Mr. Kagawa waited outside the entrance.
“I did not see you come out for class this morning. I was afraid you’d been hurt again,” he said.
Kazunari breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed his weary eyes. “No. I stayed up late last night. I just woke up. Thank you for waking me.”
The elderly man nodded and patted Kazunari’s arm with a soft, unblemished hand. “Take care of yourself. You’re an important student of this academy.” He grabbed his broom and went back to his idle cart in the hallway.
Kazunari closed the door as he left and ran to wash and dress. He was out and rushing to the East Tower approximately ten minutes later.
Sho sat calmly on a couch typing into his laptop when Kazunari intruded into the room without invitation as was his recent habit. Without even glancing up, Sho said, “You’re back earlier than I thought.”
Kazunari’s eyes strayed to the neatly wrapped, but heavy bandages around his wrists.
Sho felt his gaze and uncomfortably moved his sleeve forward to cover the bandages. “I took sleeping drugs in the afternoon to give my hands time to heal. These were from last night.”
“Is Aiba okay?” Kazunari ventured to ask.
“He’s not out yet, but give him a little time. He’ll come to ask us to witness the burial.”
“Burial?”
“You can ask him about his illness when you see him,” Sho said and offered nothing more on the subject.
Kazunari remembered the graveyard in the artificial forest. He made the connection: if Sho had an asylum built for himself in the East Tower, then Masaki must have built the pet room for his own illness as well. But what did his illness have to do with a graveyard? Disturbing images entered his mind and Kazunari struggled to clear his head. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, think bad of Masaki.
Kazunari moved over to seat himself across from Sho and waited impatiently. He couldn’t sit still; concern for Masaki made him restless. Habitually, he reached to trace the scar on his other arm. He observed Sho quietly working away at his laptop. A sudden question that had nothing to do with Masaki cut through his anxiety.
Without inhibition Kazunari asked, “Do you think you will ever stop hating me?”
Sho glanced up from his laptop and their eyes briefly met across the sitting room. He smoothed his fingers over his hidden wrists. “As long as I am ill, I will hate your mother.”
“What about me?” Kazunari asked.
Sho gritted his teeth and focused his gaze on his laptop screen. “You don’t need to worry about me hating you. I won’t trouble you anymore. I don’t have long to live and I must accept that it’s a waste of my time blaming you.”
Kazunari bounced upright in his seat in alarm. “What do you mean, ‘don’t have long to live’?”
Almost nonchalantly, Sho explained, “Jun and Satoshi’s illnesses are determined by external factors, and as long as Masaki eats, he’ll survive. But consider what I experience twice a day everyday. When I can’t depend on drugs anymore, I’ll have to take it as it is. My body won’t last.”
“You’re joking,” Kazunari tried to joke off. “Don’t be so pessimistic. You have perfect health.”
Sho went on as if Kazunari had never spoken. “I skip my physical education classes. I try not to leave school. I even spend most of my days in this room. But I’m still exhausted. I’m self-destructing at this rate.” His previously downcast eyes turned up again. “But I didn’t say this to get your pity. I’ve already accepted that I’m dying sooner than all of my friends.”
Kazunari stared into space as Sho’s words sank in. “Why should you have to accept such a thing?” he said in a small voice.
Heavy footsteps on the stairs interrupted them and both turned to see Masaki making his way down, swaying unsteadily on the balls of his feet. Kazunari leapt to his feet as he observed the disheveled appearance of the Sun. Masaki’s clothes were wrinkled and streaked with dirt. His manicured nails were dirt encrusted, as were his expensive boots. His eyes, Kazunari particularly noticed, were bloodshot and swollen. Frighteningly, dark red smudges like blood marked his clothes and chin. He was a horrifying wreck.
Once he reached the ground floor, Masaki dragged himself to Sho who had set his laptop aside. Sho opened his arms and Masaki fell into them as a storm of tears overtook him. Kazunari watched helplessly on the side while Masaki whimpered in Sho’s embrace and clung to his best friend. His deep cries seemed to echo throughout the silent room. Sho patiently held him for a long time until Masaki’s heart-wrenching sobs ebbed away.
Pressed against Sho’s chest where his tears and soaked through Sho’s shirt, Masaki murmured, “Will you be there for Lucy’s burial?”
Over the top of his head, Sho glanced at Kazunari. “Will you like Ninomiya to be there as well?”
Kazunari’s name sparked a frenzy in the Sun’s body. Masaki shook his head vehemently and trembled. His hands fisted on Sho’s shirt. “No! I don’t want Ninomiya to know. I-I… I don’t want him to hate me.”
“I won’t hate you,” Kazunari assured him. He placed a gentle hand on Masaki’s shoulder that was meant to be comforting.
“No,” Masaki sniffled against Sho’s shirt and shrugged him off. “You will hate me.”
“I won’t,” Kazunari stated.
“No! I’m a monster!” Masaki screamed and hid his face in Sho’s shirt away from Kazunari. “P-please, don’t let him know, Sho. Please… please…”
“Whatever it is, I know it’s not your fault,” Kazunari said, holding back from touching Masaki again. “I know it’s the illness.”
But Masaki continued to shake his head and desperately clung to Sho. His face an expressionless mask, Sho forced them to their feet and led Masaki to the stairs. At the first step, Sho turned and murmured to Kazunari, “I’m sorry.” He then led an unsteady, unstable Masaki back up to the pet room.
Kazunari felt bereft and betrayed. Despite Masaki declaring his forgiveness, and despite claiming his love, his fear showed he still had no trust. As Kazunari heard the door shut behind the two, he stood alone in the circular chamber of the East Tower. His willingness to help and his concern meant nothing to Masaki. The Sun only spouted beautiful words. Kazunari decided he couldn’t wait there like a fool for the both of them to return. He’d never felt so lonely and abandoned, not even after his mother’s death. He had to put distance between himself and the Suns. An invisible knife at his heart and lungs blocked the air from him. What had he come for?
Holding back angry tears, he stormed to the double doors just as they opened and Mrs. Aiba flanked by one of her butlers and a desperate Mr. Kagawa walked in. Kazunari stared at Mr. Kagawa and then Masaki’s mother as they both stared back at him. Her shock quickly twisted into hatred.
“You bastard! You don’t even have the decency to leave my son alone at school!” Mrs. Aiba’s shrill accusation rang through the room. She moved towards Kazunari with her hand raised to slap him, but Mr. Kagawa grabbed her upraised arm.
“You can’t hit him!” he screamed.
The butler tried to pry his hands off her and together they struggled as Kazunari watched the almost comical battle in shocked silence.
“This would’ve never happened if you were not fool enough to accept the bastard to this school!” Mrs. Aiba shouted. “I’m taking Masaki out of here and all of Aiba’s shares will be sold to the Yama group. Let’s see if you have the temerity to deal with the yakuza!”
“No!” Mr. Kagawa screamed, clinging on to her desperately. “You can’t do this to me!”
The butler jerked him back. “Get your hands off my Mistress, Kitagawa.”
Kitagawa? Stunned, Kazunari froze again until the freed Mrs. Aiba marched straight to him and struck him across the face. His face stung. Kazunari took one staggering step back and could not meet her eyes, so overwhelmed was he by the feelings of betrayal, loss and loneliness that swept over him again. After Masaki’s dismissal, he had to learn that the only kind man who had welcomed him and whom he had confided in was not a sweet, innocent man at all.
“You can’t!” Mr. Kitagawa screamed.
“Take him out!” Mrs. Aiba ordered.
Her butler, taller and a few years younger than the Headmaster, had only a little trouble completing her command. He dragged Johnny Kitagawa, screaming insults and curses, out the double doors. Alone with a dejected Kazunari, Mrs. Aiba glared at him.
“Where is Masaki?” she asked him.
Kazunari’s gaze remained fixed at his feet and he refused to answer her.
She screeched, “What have you done to him!?”
“I’ve done nothing,” Kazunari muttered, bitter and emboldened by her accusation.
She reached out to slap him again and he allowed her the act of petty violence. Her palm and fingers stung his other cheek.
His head tilted sideways to the ground. Kazunari’s eyes burned. “I won’t be here long. I won’t bother your son or anyone else you care about as well. In fact,” he started, his voice growing stronger with every word, “you won’t even have to pull Aiba out from this school. I’m quitting. I’ve had enough of this place.”
She laughed hysterically, reminding Kazunari of the frenzy she was capable of during their first encounter.
“You think I’ll forgive you if you leave? Bastard, you’re as foul as your mother. You think just because you pretend to be nice, I’ll let you off the hook? Do you have any idea what your slutty mother did to me? Do you have any idea what she did to Masaki?”
“My mom did nothing,” Kazunari said, standing his ground. Even if she had something to do with their troubles, he would never agree in front of this woman.
At his denial, Mrs. Aiba screeched again. “How dare you!? My darling cries every single time his illness strikes. You and your mother made him into a monster. You hurt him.”
Kazunari’s rage increased with every line she uttered. His fists shook at his side as he seethed. “You are the one who put the notion into his head. He is not a monster. You’re the one who hurts him. Whatever suffering he goes through, Aiba should never believe any of it is his fault.”
“Because it’s your fault!” She lunged at him again.
This time, he dodged by stepping behind a couch. Frustrated that she could not get to him, Mrs. Aiba lost all composure and burst into tears. Unlike the first time she’d done so, Kazunari did not run to her and demand answers. He allowed her to work herself into a frenzy and spit out her tale. Eventually, she did.
“You made my son a monster. Are you happy now?” she sobbed into her palms. “He loves his pets so much! So so much. But my darling has to drink their blood or he dies. Do you know how hard he cries? Why his pets? Why something he loves the most? He couldn’t do it! My darling tried to hurt himself! He drank his own blood. He almost died!” She screamed as the horrific memory returned to her. “Poison! His own blood is poison to him! Human blood is poison!” She pounded her fists on the marble floor. “Is that whore finally happy? She stole my husband and she’s killing my son! I’ll never forgive her! Never!”
The sound of metal against wood rang through the chamber. A dirt covered shovel clattered its way down to the bottom of the steps. Mrs. Aiba continued to be engrossed in her own hysteria, but Kazunari’s eyes moved up to catch Masaki and Sho at the top of the stairs. Masaki’s expression twisted into one of pain as tears streamed down his already swollen eyes. As Kazunari watched, he clutched his chest and doubled over. Sho held him from pitching forward down the stairs.
“No…,” Masaki sobbed in disbelief as his body began to shake and his monstrous cravings overtook him twice in one day. He gasped for breath, turning visibly pale within a few seconds. Sho tried to drag him back to his pet room. Masaki struggled to shrug him off. “No… I don’t want…”
“You’ll die!” Sho screamed at him, over both the sobs of his best friend and a wailing Mrs. Aiba. He partially lifted Masaki to his feet and dragged him from the stairs. Anguished cries burst from Masaki’s lips.
“I can’t!” Masaki cried.
With shaking hands, Kazunari covered his ears and escaped from the circular chamber. He ignored the butler who had returned and stood waiting out in the hall. With quick steps on the verge of running, he left the East Wing. Kazunari continued to block his ears, but Masaki’s agonized screams continued to ring in his head, driving him to the brink of a hysteria similar to Mrs. Aiba’s. Silent, hot tears burned down his face. He loved his mother and he knew what had been done to her, but how could his mother hurt them? How could he forgive her?
Again and again, his heart broke.
* *
Kazunari rocked back and forth inside his dark room, welcoming peace from the hatred and chaos of the outside world. He ignored insistent knocks at his door. If he had to face the mind-numbing cruelty of what his mother had done, he’d rather be dead to the real world. The knocks returned an hour later, but the pounding were insistent, heavier and stronger. He did not respond or even acknowledge it. A large hand crashed through the wood and reached inside to unlock his door. Kazunari did not turn to see one of Satoshi’s bodyguards step in. The man carried a phone.
“My young master wishes to speak to you,” the bodyguard said gruffly.
Kazunari remained seated on his bed facing the wall. His expression remained blank. He did not reach for the phone. The bodyguard disregarded his silence and placed the phone next to Kazunari on the bed with the speakerphone on.
“Nino,” Satoshi sobbed from the other end.
Kazunari painfully closed shut his eyes. His tears from earlier had exhausted him. How many more tears had to be shed until this was over? He’d locked himself in his room in hopes that nothing could hurt him, but still pain and suffering searched for him.
“Nino, Jun will d-die,” Satoshi whispered into the receiver, as if afraid to voice the truth. “They said it’s im-impossible to d-do surgery through me. Even if I’m here, they c-can’t help him, N-nino. I’ll do anything… p-please, please help us. Save Jun. P-please save Jun, Nino.” His desperation cut like despair into Kazunari.
“I can’t,” Kazunari murmured. His head fell into his hands and he gripped his hair in his frustration. “I don’t know how.”
Satoshi cried harder into the phone. “I’ll d-die if Jun dies, Nino. I c-can’t live without him. H-he’s my brother. P-please save Jun, Nino. P-please.”
Kazunari had rubbed his eyes red earlier and the soreness pained him, but hot tears still burned its way down his cheeks again. He used his palms to scrub his face. “I can’t,” he repeated.
Satoshi broke into incomprehensible sobs. His bodyguard stepped in to end the call. The burly man bowed to Kazunari and silently stalked out as he had done earlier, leaving a gaping hole in Kazunari’s door.
Kazunari continued to sit in the darkness. The stillness and the enclosing despair closed around him; suffocating and eating away all lightness. As night came around, a passing student ran through the halls and shouted important news at the top of his lungs. He noticed the hole in Kazunari’s door and stepped inside to check if anyone were inside. He caught sight of Kazunari’s shadowy form in the darkness.
“Big scoop!” he bellowed. “The Headmaster sacked Sasaki! Something’s happened! Ohno’s pressing charges against Kitagawa and Sasaki! Isn’t that great?” As soon as the student spilled the news, he ducked back out and went on running down the halls shouting his joy. “Can’t wait until Ohno takes over this school!”
Their motive was revenge, Kazunari knew. Mr. Ohno planned to crush the person who would steal the life of his younger son. Revenge and justice enmeshed in one incomprehensible force. Everything his mother had done was out of pure revenge and caused everyone involved to suffer.
As the hours passed, exhaustion began to wear Kazunari down. He lay on his bed, but even though he blinked tiredly in the darkness, he held sleep at bay until the hands of his clock turned to midnight and somewhere in this school, Kazunari knew another boy locked in his asylum was slowly dying. Kazunari finally closed his tired eyes to the darkness in his room.
* *
One autumn night, he returned home from his part-time job from the grocery store after school. He carried bags of vegetables and stuffed them into their almost empty refrigerator. The voice of a male newscaster wafted in from his mother’s room. The familiarity warmed Kazunari and he allowed nostalgia to wash over him. This was just another night in his mother and his apartment. He’d spent a good five years here in the cramped, yet comfortable space living very similar days. With a pang, he realized he missed his life before Kitagawa Academy. He hadn’t noticed that his dorm room was the same size as this apartment.
Reining in his sadness, Kazunari took off his jacket and stepped to his mother’s bedroom door. He peered in and saw her lying on her side engrossed in the news. It felt like a lifetime since he’d seen her. He struggled to maintain his composure.
“...in honor of the charity work the young chairman of the Aiba Corporation has committed himself to this year…” the newscaster on screen said.
“Mom, I brought back some food,” he told her.
“That’s great. Did you have a good day?” she asked and sat upright to better see him. She wasn’t the exhausted, weary mother in her later years that he’d eventually came to know. She was younger, fairer, and still full of hope. Her smile, aimed at him, was bright and full of love.
Entranced by her warmth and love, Kazunari hummed his response and stepped inside her room to sit beside her mattress. On the television screen, he saw a handsome middle-aged man shake the hand of the president of the charity organization he’d donated to. The captions indicated that he was Chairman Aiba. Kazunari waved to the man on screen. His hand shook. “Mom, did you love him?”
His mother sighed as she turned her attention back to the television. “I still do. I love your father very much.”
“But he didn’t love you,” Kazunari countered.
She shook her head and reached out to clasp his hand. “He loves me. Very much.”
“He married Aiba’s mother,” Kazunari said.
“A shotgun marriage. She was already months pregnant before they found out and they rushed the marriage. That was before I knew I had you.” Her voice carried dregs of regret and sadness. “That was not your father’s fault.”
Kazunari refused to forgive his supposed father. “But mom, he cheated on you with her. He slept with both of you.”
She squeezed his hand. “Kazu, I still love him and he loves me.”
Kazunari pulled his hand away from her. “Then why did you run? Why didn’t he protect you!? Sakurai had a wife too, but he defended you from her, didn’t he? He wasn’t a coward like that man!”
His mother looked into his eyes with sadness. Tears glimmered in its depths. “Don’t blame your father, Kazu. He did the best he could.”
Kazunari swallowed and forced his temper down. “Then please tell me the truth, mom. Are the Suns ill because of you? If you do not blame Aiba’s father, why did you do it?”
Desperate for his acceptance, his mother reached for his hand again, as if their skinship could establish the connection and understanding that she craved. “I love him and they destroyed me, Kazu. I couldn’t, just couldn’t, live with the fact that they’d live perfectly happy while my own son suffered. You’re a Ninomiya and an Aiba, Kazu. By blood ties you are one of them. But I brought you into this world stripped of everything you could have had. And their boys would have everything in the world. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. In my heart, I wanted them to suffer.”
Kazunari squeezed her hands and his own eyes glimmered with unshed tears like his mother’s. “You don’t understand. I didn’t need anything, mom. I didn’t need anything as long as I had you. We could have been happy.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
“And yet, you left me. You loved him so much, the news of his death devastated you.”
“I’m sorry, Kazu,” his mother repeated.
Kazunari wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He took a deep breath and squeezed his mother’s hand in reassurance again. “It’s okay. Everything will be all right. Even if no one can, I’ll forgive you. You’re my mom. I’ll never abandon you. I’ll find a way to help them, even if it kills me. So you can be happy for me.”
He felt his mother fade. The solid hand clasped in his turned to air. The whole room seemed to fade along with her, but her apparition struggled to hold on for one more moment. She reached up and gently touched his cheek.
“My son. My sweet, clever son. Masaki’s your brother. He’s your family. Care for him, but don’t live like me and let one person break your heart over and over again.”
* *
Kazunari woke to the unfamiliar yet familiar surroundings of his dorm at Kitagawa Academy. He slid off the bed and staggered to the window. He pulled back the curtains. The sun rose in the east; a splash of beautiful orange above the East Tower. His hands splayed over a window pane. Down below, late revelling students were just returning from a long night out, possibly still celebrating the rumor of Kitagawa’s demise.
Kazunari pressed his forehead against the chilled window and closed his eyes. He tried to retain the image of his mother from his dream. He hoped her beautiful smile remained etched in his memory.
“Goodbye, mom.”