"Poor girl, she was so young."
"How old was she?"
"Only twenty-five."
"A shame, she left a loving husband and daughter behind."
"Yes Atsuko has been taking this very hard. She was so close to her mother."
"Where is she now?"
"In her room its best to leave her be. She's going through a hard time right now."
Atsuko stood behind the wall of the living room, alertly listening to what the adults had to say about her mother. She held back tears as she heard her aunt talk about how happy her mother was before her illness. Footsteps walked towards her and she quickly made her way to her room. Once there she sat on her bed and flipped through pages in her photo album. Pictures of her mother were on every page. She was always smiling. Even after she was diagnosed she still smiled.
Atsuko had turned to the last page and broke down in tears. The last page contained a photo of her mother and her in the hospital days before she passed. She was smiling, her hands around her daughter and head resting on Atsuko's, her long blond hair falling on Atsuko's shoulder. Atsuko was now sitting on the floor clutching the photo album close to her chest, crying fiercely. Not even the knock at her door made her turn. In fact she hadn't noticed when her father entered her room, or even when he sat down on the floor next to her.
A couple minutes went by before she actually realized she was not alone anymore. When she turned and saw her father, he had his eyes closed. She wiped her own and tapped her father gently to get his attention. He looked up to see his daughter, red-eyed but no tears. She must have wiped them off, he thought. When he looked at her Atsuko saw something in his eyes, anger, hate, guilt possibly?
"Dad?" Atsuko said with a gentle voice. "Are you alright?"
Her father just looked at her for a moment before speaking. "Yeah I'm okay. You and me. That's all we've got, there's no one holding us down anymore."
Atsuko was just about to ask her dad what he meant by 'Holding us down' when her aunt walked into the room. "Hiroshi? The family's looking for you."
"I'm coming, give me a second." He said and her aunt left the room. Leaving Hiroshi and his daughter alone. They sat on the floor for at least a minute before Hiroshi stood up.
"Come on." He said extending a hand to his daughter. "You should at least say hello."
Atsuko stood and spoke. "Dad I really miss her, I wish she were still here, why did it have to be her?" When she said this she looked up to look at her father and she saw the same emotion she had seen when he entered her room, this time she saw what it was: Anger.
"You're a teenager Atsuko you know why! Because she was sick, because she was always sick. Now wipe your eyes and go say hello to your family." He then left the room and slammed the door leaving Atsuko on the other end stunned and crying, thinking to herself what had gotten into him.
Checking the mirror, for any sign she had been crying, the young teenager left the room to hear her relatives talk about her diseased mother. Standing at the doorway to her living room she tugged at her short black hair same color as her fathers. She stood thinking how the only resemblance she was able to see of her mother was her blue eyes. She was like her mother in every way when it came to character but she was told she had her fathers anger problem. She was about to begin crying again when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning she saw her cousin standing behind her with a glum face.
"I'm so sorry Atsuko, I cant imagine how you must be feeling, do you need anything?"
"No I don't need anything thank you Koto."
"Do you just want to talk or something?"
"Yeah that would be nice."
Walking into the living room Atsuko said hello to her relatives and excused herself. She and Koto then walked out the door to sit outside. As they walked to the bench on the front yard, neither said a word. They both just looked at the sky, the sun would almost set and soon everyone would go home. Koto was the first to break the silence.
"So what so you want to talk about?" She said turning to her cousin beside her.
"I don't know anything I guess" She said and waited, then added "How have you been lately, anything new?"
Koto thought for a while then said, "Not much, I heard this story, have you heard of the Hell Correspondence?"
"What's that?"
"It's a website, they say if you want revenge on anyone all you have to do is type the name of that person into the site and someone called Hell Girl comes and sends the person to Hell. They say you can only access the site at midnight. Creepy huh?" Koto finished with a smile.
"That's not real you cant send someone to hell like that, someone made that up."
"Guess so, but what if it were real?"
They both sat pondering that question not paying much mind to the adults leaving the house. Eventually Koto and her parents went home and Atsuko was inside with her father who still looked angry.