Justice: Through Blood-Colored Glasses
Justice Reversed: Bias. Unfairness. An imbalance - disruption of the relationship between cause and effect.
"Maya.. have you ever wished that you were someone - anyone - other than yourself? No, of course not..."
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Katsuya Suou recieved his very first feline at the tender age of seven, after mother and father gently explained that Mummy was having a little brother or sister for Katsuya to play with and he must stay with grandma for the week. The boy - the quiet sort, with a serious little face that several distant aunts found just too adorable - simply nodded. And off he went. Always very well-behaved, their Katsuya. They hadn't imagined he'd start taking in strays like that and stealing canned tuna from granny's cellar.
Nobody knew exactly why it became his very bestest of friends - but all were a bit relieved he at least did not take to calling on imaginary playmates, and Mother and Father really didn't want a fuss with the new baby in the house. They called their second son Tatsuya. They thought that was clever. And perhaps it was.
The cat was injected, tested, and cleaned - declawed, neutered, and made as harmless as a living stuffed toy. A bribe, as it were, from harried progenitors. Something to keep him occupied when Mummy and Daddy were off to work or with Tatsuya long into the far from silent night. He was a different sort than his older brother entirely - always crying and making a fuss without even the slightest inclination towards sleep no matter what their mother's efforts. And they'd all be awake past the midnight hour when he got colicy, Katsuya sitting politely in his room with the sky-black animal.
The boy - bottle-thick glasses continually sliding down his nose - did not mind. His parents and his baby brother were more important than anything else, right?
The cat meowed in response after recieveing the solemnly whispered confidence (under cover and by flashlight) that when he grew up, Katsuya Suou was going to be a superhero.
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Katsuya Suou was nothing less that a superhero in the kitchen.
Tortes and creams and mousses of more types than one would care to explain at a moment's notice. All manners of chocolate and vanilla and fruit, united in outrageous combinations as far as the mind's eye could see. Every single one was outlined in a fair-sized collection of cookbooks, interspersed with the gateaus and glacees that advertised the glories of the French masters. These were peppered with more international, exotic dishes - a concoction of honey here, and almond there - but he'd always held a certain higher regard for the blue ribbon chefs of the tricolor nation. The patesseurs.
They were the greatest in all the magazines. They needed to be seen to be appreciated, and Katsuya never would.
The teenager was not making use of any of his more extravegant recipies on this particular occasion, however. They were sealed away in a hiding place under his bed, in a strangely clean corner blocked off by the guitar case he'd recieved at thirteen. Acoustic, of course. Tatsuya was forever bothering father for an electric, but that had both expensive amps and a less versatile sound to Katsuya's mind.
Never mind that he never got to hear it.
The cook probably should have been studying instead of squeezing oranges into a bowl for what he called kind of simple, and his father called pretty damn good. Katsuya did most of the cooking when Mom was working, because Tatsuya (being eight, after all) was pretty useless at it and the older boy didn't really mind anyways.
It was kind of... just.. relaxing. When he wasn't studying for law school. Which was pretty much all the time, actually. Dad was kinda obsessed with getting him away from a 'goddamn dead-end cop-car'. Especially since Tatsuya didn't seem to take well to the discipline that school required...
And so it was rare night indeed when Katsuya Suou could be a superhero. He did Slightly Annoyed Big Brother pretty well on a regular basis, though.
"... what're we havin'?" Tatsuya, his one and only younger sibling, was gliding about the room like a wraith. Or a ninja. Or whatever he was playing at now. Katsuya.. he'd always been the samurai. Wanted to build a tent with the tablecloth one day, but knew it would have been annoying for Mom.
"Duck a l'Orange," Katsuya didn't bother to look down, fixated as he was on one of the recipe books he had by all rights no time or means to make use of.
"Eeeeeew," a pout struck from behind. "Foreign food is icky. I want noodles! Noodles an' rice and mum's curry an' lots of yummy food like Mr.Tatamura on the steetcorner sells and we better get takeout next time Mom's away or else I'll be real..."
Katsuya wisely decided to ignore that while he continued with his basting. His little brother would come around when there was actual food on the table. Which would hopefully be soon - the fowl's thick layer of skin was bumpy and skightly slimy to the touch and just all-around kind of drigusting. He'd never been inordinately fond of working with meat.
"Don't you have homework?" ah, the desperate plea of a Big Brother in fear of his sanity. Or eardrums. Or perhaps just the tiny bit of peace and quite that he could afford to find in flour and butter and a touch of vanilla essence for flavoring. The kitchen usually smelled like soy souce - a garish salt whitewashing over all the other aromas of bread and wine.
"Don' have homework," Tatsuya verbally crossed his arms, wandering about underfoot for no apparent reason.
Whisk.
A few eggs.
Whisk again.
Turn the page aaaaand.. repeat with salt. Careful not to let that demiglace splash upon the transparent looking-glass spectacles.
"Yes you do," the older boy, already knowing the answer to that, didn't bother to turn in his slippers. Dad was going to give Tat three shades of holy hell when he got home if that Chemistry project wasn't done, and they both knew it. But noooooo....
"I'll do it later. Geeze, Katsuya.. don't be such a spaz. You jus' live in the library, is all," strange beeping noises accompanied his sibling's reply. The boy had started up one of those horrible videogames he seemed to be obsessed with. "I went to play with Jun today. He has that cool Robo Crusher X his dad got him and his mom took it away 'cause Mrs.Kurosu is really meeeeean even if she is on TV and one kid said Jun looked like a girl and he was all sad so I ..."
"Not again. Dad's gonna throw a fit, brat." his older brother adminished, bringing his delicate fruit concoction to a satisfactory simmer. "And you really shouldn't just wander off after school without calling me or Mom. What if you were kidnapped? Then it would be my fault, and Dad would freak out, and we'd have half the Sumaru Police Department looking for you."
"Hey!"
A booming voice calmed the impending storm. Dad was home. Mom was never home. Kat, true to form, kept his eye on the heat of his sugary experiement while Respectfully Greeting Dad Back. There were cats to wave away from the main course, after all. A brood that had multiplied to three through some arcane reason apparently unconnected to kittens or strays, and most likely related to Katsuya's uncanny abality to attract other people's pets. It was probably the smell of food. Like his duck. A duck currently had to be defended from a sleek, stalking triad of feline assult with a few choice swipes.
Sometimes he regretted not getting them declawed.
"Hello Dad."
This, naturally, gave Tatsuya the opening he was looking for.
"Katsuya was being mean to me! He told me that I shouldn't play with Jun and that..... "
"I'm sure," the detective laughed, Tatsuya taking a scowling grab at his trenchcaot lapels. Most people thought that was cute.. Katsuya at some times included. Dad always. But this time.. today.. why did he look just a little bit sad?
"Isn't that a little.. ambitous, son? Look - we'll get take-in tonight. We have to discuss something, and I don't have alot of time..." his thin-lipped eyed the several bowls and an unholy amount of spoons arranged in a deceptively orderly manner.
Great. Yet another lecture on the glories of Tokyo University Law. Yet another load of pamphlets on cram schools and cheap expectation. Katsuya'd always told himself that one day.. one day he'd just tell him and...
"It's no problem. I like cooking," shrugged the youth, unperturbed by a second knocking at the door. Today was the day. He had to do it, or else Dad was never gonna get the picture. Today was the day he was going to tell him about the exchange program in Paris. Today, today, just one more day and he'd be able (no, really) to...
A knock failed to dispel the tension.
"Hold on - I'll get it. You take care of that.. umm..whatever it is. "
Who was he kidding? Better to let dad know at graduation when...
"Osamu Suou, you're under arrest for treason against the government of Japan."
Katsuya dropped his whisk. Wooden spoons went crashing to the ground. Ah look - the kettle's started whistling.
"You have the right to an attourney, and the right to remain silent."
And his younger brother left the colored lights to stare back wildly. The jets of steam fogging his eyewear couldn't quite manage to drown that out.
"You will proceed with us to the station in a calm and orderly fashion."
At the back of his mind, he knew when he ran to grab his monster of a younger brother that the sauce would singe in excatly thirty-eight seconds.
"Is that understood?"
Yes, yes it would.
".... yes."
It would fill the room with the stench of foreign oils as father was pressed to the wall. Beaten. Resigned. Why wasn't he fighting? The men in flat blue suits were just like father - greying a bit. Strong in stance and authority. Classic cops. Flat blue.. a dead, numb sort of color...
"Daaaaad! Dad make them go away I don't wanna..."
Did mother know? Tatusuya was upset. The cats were more awake than usual, and some smoke rose from the stove. How odd. How funny. How oddly funny; the way the sunlight played through the windows in slow motion, and he knew he'd lost it.
"Dad, what's going on?"
The myopic youth was surprised, just a little, when his voice stopped shaking. Or maybe those were his hands, reacting to the stagnant blue men tramping through their apartment. The boys were just furniture. Bystanders like the yowling felines.
"Take care of you mother and your brother," he was led away. Led away. That wasn't right, was it? Father would never do something like that. This was a novel - literature, drama, a dream.. this was not a normal friday night with his cookbooks and his kittens. "I'm going to be a while."
"Hey.. it's okay, I'm here now. I'll take care of you, I promise."
Was he the one saying this?
Of course he was.
He'd talk to father about it another day. Another day. A day more ordinary. Once he'd done what had to be done.
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It was the day that Katsuya Suou burned his very first dish - the day that superman fell from the sky and fractured a rib or two - that he realized he would be a cop. Not a lawyer, mind you - just a plain old detective. Law School regardless. And his cookbooks were replaced with textbooks. And his choice was replaced by dogmatic devotion. And his bratty little brother became something of a cross to bear. And there was no one left to sneak Marlboroughs from to smoke behind the gym with Daisuke Sakashima after school. Money was tight with dad gone.
It was that day that Osamu Suou would be replaced with a younger model; one with better looks and new glasses and a thousand doubts he'd throw away each morning with every bite of a grease-basted english muffin from Peace Diner.
It would not be until years later that he's realize it'd all been for nothing. When - accosted with a sibling that didn't care, a family that did not want to stay together, and a world that didn't play the roles the way the script ran - he would discover that the seven cats he kept in his apartment were really far too expensive. He could name then all immediately, as well as the ludicrous price in yen of their upkeep - primarily because he refused to feed them canned fish instead of the real thing. Animals need proper upkeep. And the animals, surrounded by those of kind who lived off preserved tuna, didn't give a damn.
Once in a while - just once in a while, mind you - he'd do something different. When he'd have Tatsuya thrown in the drunk tank to try to get him to see some sense or raid Club Zodiac just to embarass his borther out of delinquancy, he'd try to just make dinner for himself again. Try to make out a measurement here and there through the red haze that made up his armani-plated world.
Viscerally, painfully aware that he was the only one on this quietly rythmic beach (of a world) with tinted lenses.
"You've started smoking again," the boy that asked was no longer a loud, defiant scarlet. But he still retained just a bit of that disarming bluntness.
Tatsuya.. you have to learn a little something about masks, little brother. That would be rude if you weren't talking to me.
"Yeah," Katsuya breated out a lungful of cold comfort. Or was that warm? It was cold out here at least.
Why shouldn't I?
"Why?"
That's a good question little brother. But not the one you're asking. Why didn't I start smoking again once I got my own job? Why did I ever stop? It's a hard habit to kick. They say it takes.. what did that instructional video say? Iron will. Perfect discipline.
"Why not?"
It had taken him quite a while to grasp the value of a why not. And that he wished to say it.
"Didn't you say it was a bad habit for me to pick up? You're always on my case about that..."
Little brother.. you got Maya. You got glory. You got the life you always wanted on one side, and the ability to forget your dreams on the other. And I'm okay with that.
"It is. "
Really, I'm okay with that. No really. Why wouldn't I be okay with that? He's my little brother, right? I took care of him, didn't I? Of course I'm happy. Of course I am. I did my job. I did things right.
Are you really satisfied?
Damn Shadow. This isn't a fairytale. I'm not a kid like him. And I don't need my happy ending.
"So why do you keep...."
Just let me order in dinner, and you can complain about how you want to go to Zodiac with Jun and that Yoshizuka girl and I can tell you you mustn't hang around with a boy from the reform school. I'd like that. Then you'll laugh at me. Let me be your dorky older brother like I always tried to be. Play along for just a little while; that's all I ask. Make it worth while. Then you can go back to whatever you need to be that's not what you're supposed to be. And I'll be alright with it, because I really am happy for you kid.
Really. I promise, little brother. I promise I'll be able to stop wantimg to hate you.
"Because I want to."
Please.. just please. Let me have my have this on little thing.
".. 'kay. I'll see you at home later then. You really gotta stop coming out here so often. It's .. kinda wierd."
And the world kept on turning on a tilted axis;
while a man who every morning put on blood colored glasses smoked a cigarette
with his shadow in the noonday sun. Perhaps they'd get to know each other
better.
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