Author's Note: First off, if you're not very familiar with the song, take 5 minutes and listen to this: .com/watch?v=Y4OLQB7ON9w
I feel this is essential as it's a very unique sound. So now for something completely different. Thematically, maybe not so much, but I've done a bit of stylistic experimentation here. I've liked this song (Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap) ever since our high school acapella group preformed a rendition, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that this idea actually hit me. Kind of possessed me for a bit there, actually, as I was obsessively trying to get it out of my head so I could actually get some work done. My biggest problem with songfics is that, although sometimes the overall song is just spot on with the feel you want to create, the supporting text just ends up rephrasing the lyrics. I tried to avoid that and go for more of a symbiosis than a fusion. Tell me if I got it?
Disclaimer: Hide and Seek is by Imogen Heap and I claim no part of it. I wish I had that much talent, but alas.
Beep… beep… beep… beep…
Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssss
"Kouichi…"
"What? What is it Grandma?"
"You need to know. Kouichi, you have a brother. You must find Kouji…"
"Kouji…" My brother… my twin. That can't be.
Where are we?
What the hell is going on?
Beep…beep…
It's not possible. I can't have a brother, not without knowing about him. It can't be true because if I had a twin, I'd have known about him. Simple as that. Right, Grandma?
If I'd had a brother, we'd have grown up together. Played together, fought together. Mother wouldn't have raised me alone as just my mother; she would have raised her two sons as our mother. You'd have sat us both down for stories and lectures, Grandma. You'd have taught us how to be twins from when we were very small.
If there's supposed to be two, why has there only ever been one? It doesn't make any sense.
Why would you lie to me like this? It's not funny.
Beep… beep… beep… beeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Grandma?
The dust has only just begun to form
Crop circles in the carpet
Doctors rush in. Their feet are loud against the laminate floor, but not loud enough.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Jarring voices. Words I don't understand. They swarm around Grandma. I'm pushed aside. Back into Mother's arms.
Grandma? Grandma, you can't go. I don't understand. I don't know who Kouji is.
You can't leave me!
Mother covers my eyes and leads me from the noise. Her fingers are cold and trembling. She doesn't want me to see Grandma die. So instead I watch my own world crumble in the darkness. It's not a lie; I can hear it in her still heart- feel it well up inside me like tears. I have a brother and I must find Kouji.
It's hard to breath past this lump in my throat; I suck shallow air through my mouth is stuttering gasps. There's something warm and wet pooling between Mother's pinkie and my eyelids. Then it grows cold and slips down my cheek. Drops collect at my chin and fall to the ground.
Sinking feeling
I don't know how.
Spin me round again
And rub my eyes, this can't
Be happening
I've come to the right address, but have I really found anything? Is it real? It doesn't seem real.
I'll have to see him to be sure, but it doesn't seem real. It's just impossible, I know that. Yet here I am, because I have to be sure.
I stand outside his door. Apparently I have a father and I have a brother and they live in a house. With a yard and a fence and a dog. And another woman. They're already a family.
So what am I?
No one notices, not even the dog. They walk leisurely and I follow. A shadow with my cap pulled low. He does look just like me. Identical. But so far away, like a distant star in a sea of black.
I'm still not sure I believe it. Mother would have told me. She would have made sure that, even if she and Father separated, the twins still grew together. It's just so cruel to keep us from each other. It's so cruel to allow is to live this horrible lie. Mother's not like that; she wouldn't have done this to us.
How is it that I don't know him?
It was my intention to talk to him- to them. Now my voice is stuck. I'm not being discrete, but they don't see me. Why can't they see me? Perhaps they only see what they want to. Perhaps in their world only what is acceptable has form.
But I'm your brother, Kouji.
When busy streets a mess
With people would stop to hold
In the sea I don't have to hide. Just one of thousands. Little people with their little problems. Specks of misery in this pointillism of the world. He bobs through without care or concern.
Brush by those who pause to realize their suffering.
Their heads heavy
I know everyone has misfortunes. I know we all feel small and unwanted. Insufficient. I know we've all been lied to and we're all angry. Chasing dreams we'll never catch. I know I'm just one of many trying to make it all better. I'm not special at all.
That's the worst part.
Why? Why separates us? Why tear my brother from me and turn me into his shadow? Why lie? Why force me to see the truth?
I don't understand- don't want to understand. Slowly though, it comes to me.
I keep out of his sight because that makes me feel like it's my choice not to be seen. It gives me something to do as reality melts away.
Hide and seek
Trains and sewing machines
This is my room. These are my toys and books. I've lived here my whole life and filled these walls with myself. That's what I was told. That's what I remember. But is it true? Has this always been my room? Have I always been here, alone?
What can these walls remember that I can't? The dual screams of babies? Children's first steps? First words? A comforting friend to the half-soul frightened by its first nights alone?
Humans don't remember their first two years of life. Not usually. You make up the memories to fill the void. None of it's real, just a self-perpetuated lie. Stories you've turned into the truth. Believe them all you want; it doesn't change the stark account recorded in the Book of Time. Things happened regardless of your feelings or memories.
I've lived my whole life peering through the fingers of this lie. It's covered my eyes for so long I barely know how to look past it. The truth of my existence, kept from me since I don't know when, cuts down the curtains and lets in the harshness of that fact.
All those years
They lied to me. And I believed them. I trusted them and they lied to me! To take Kouji away was one thing, but to pretend he never existed? Or am I the one that never existed?
How can there only be one if there should be two?
This room knows. It watched in silence as history unfolded… and keeps its silence as history continues.
They were here first
On Saturdays I come back early from school, before Mother's out of work. I clean the house while she's gone so she can come home to something nice. Also so that she doesn't have to worry about it herself. I can do that, at least. Before this, I liked to clean. I liked to go around our little apartment and think 'There may not be much, but it's really all we need. We do all right, Mother, Grandma, and I. We're just fine.'
That seems so absurd now. We're not fine. Grandma's dead, Mother's on the verge of collapse and I-
I know what I should do, but I just can't do it. I shouldn't have to do it. We should never have gotten into this situation where it became necessary. They should never have forced me into this!
What were you thinking, Grandma! You all lied to me this long why not just keep lying! Did you so desperately need to clear your own conscience? And you two, did you hate each other so much you couldn't even tell us our twin existed? And you… do you have to be so oblivious? Do any of you even realize what you've done to me?
My fingers are tight around the duster handle, nails digging into my palm. It hurts, but I can't stop. The duster rests over a picture frame.
I shouldn't hate them. But I do.
I didn't know how pitiful I was before. I didn't realize there was an entire side of me I knew nothing about. I want to know Kouji, but at the same time I wish he'd disappear. Because in his light I can see how dismal my life is and how powerless I am to change that.
And there is no one I can confide in. These new truths grow thick and stagnate inside me.
Oily marks appear on walls
Where pleasure moments hung before
Where once memories sat suspended now only half-truths stare back. These things which once made me smile fade to brown, disgusting imitations. All I see is shadow and doubt; water stains smearing color into pools on the floor. Nothing I look at is real, nothing I touch has substance, nothing I hear means anything.
The takeover
My hand releases the duster convulsively and instead reaches out to grasp the picture frame, bringing it closer to my face. It's a photo taken with a cheep camera and developed at a cheep convenience store. It's a picture of Mother and I at the park.
I scowl and hiss through my teeth. I can't see how happy we are anymore. I can't see how much she loves me or how hard she works to protect me. All I see is who's not there- who would have been there if anyone had ever bothered to ask my opinion. All I see is a deception that took advantage of a child's naïveté and wove itself tightly into the fabric of reality. Now I tug on one thread and my whole world comes undone.
I'm so angry! I don't want to be, but it festers and cracks inside me nonetheless.
The sweeping insensitivity of this
I let the picture frame go. My eyes are narrow and cold. I know what's going to happen and I don't care. It falls through the air and clatters on the floor at my feet. A crack shoots through the glass pane, right between Mother and me. Our faces obscure.
She'll see it when she gets home. Let her see. Let her worry. Let her ask what happened and realize that I've been lying to her too. Let her break and get angry or cry or contact Father or do something! Let something change!
I can't stand how nothing has changed. I can't stand how little I have to say in this matter. I wish I could make them all feel my suffering. Endure some of the pain they've thrust so carelessly onto my chest.
Regret what they've done to me.
Still life
What am I saying?
Hide and seek
Trains and sewing machines
Suddenly I can't be in this apartment any more. I can't be on this street or in this neighborhood or around anything familiar.
I pick up the picture and replace it face down. I'll go get some new glass, fix the frame before Mother can notice. The duster goes back in the closet on the shelf above the broom. My train and bus card comes out of my school bag and into my right pocket with some spare change. Maybe ¥700. I pull on my cap and shoes by the door, grab my keys off the hook, lock up and leave.
(oh, you won't catch me around here)
It's 5:30 PM. I need to start heading back now, before Mother gets home and finds me gone without a note. I get on the JR Saikyo line at Jujo towards Omiya. Five minutes later, Kouji gets on at Akabane, heading towards Shibuya. I double back, slipping into the car next to him. I'm right next to him. If he'd only glance around, peer through the glass to his left, he'd see me. Staring at him. Like always.
Somewhere along the way this became my responsibility. It's not fair and I resent them for pushing it on me. Things I never wanted to know. A past I never wanted to have. In my mind he can make it better. Weld the broken pieces back together. He gets off at the Shibuya Station.
I'm so scared. I chase after him, running. It's 5:58
What happens when I catch him? What happens when I confront him and everyone else? What will I do when they answer my most burning question?
Why? If you love me- if I'm your son and grandson and brother, then why?
Blood and tears
They were here first
I remember tripping down the stairs. Kouji was on the elevator, going to the basement. I couldn't wait and went after him. Now I'm here. It's so dark. Floating between shades of purple and green. Where is here? Why isn't anyone else around?
Isn't someone supposed to come and greet the newly dead? Yet it's so empty. So, even now, I'm ignored.
Unbidden tears roll down my pale cheeks even as a mirthless smile contorts my lips.
I've died. I'm just some nobody spirit wondering around in some empty Hell reserved for the insignificant. I wonder if anyone's even noticed.
It's unfair. This is all just so unfair! How could this have happened? How could you let this happen?
Don't you care what happens to me? Don't you want to know if I'm hurting? Don't I matter?
Will somebody answer me!
Strips of torn memory well up from inside my soul and spill forth into the blackness. Knots of tangled thread that once formed the fabric of my world. They've come to offer a response. They've come to complete my torment.
I see them all. Father, Mother, Grandma… Kouji. I hear them in the tatters of reality that whirl around me in a sick dance. They're still lying to me.
Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmm that you only meant well?
Well of course you did
Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmmm that it's all for the best?
Of course it is
Mmmm whatcha say?
Mmmm that it's just what we need
And you decided this?
Whatcha say?
Mmmm what did she say?
"You have a brother."
They've surrounded me now. Encircled. The green light stains their skin and cloths, like paper dolls. Eyes empty glass orbs. All talking at once. I can't comprehend any of it.
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs
Speak, no feeling
No, I don't believe you
You don't care a bit,
You don't care a bit
I shake my head and close my eyes. My hands cover my ears, but that doesn't block the voices out. No matter where I run or what I do, I can't get away from them. They're coming from inside me.
(Hide and seek)
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs
(Hide and seek)
Speak no feeling no I don't believe you
You don't care a bit,
You don't care a (you don't care a) bit
And in all the lies, theirs and mine, I can finally hear the truth.
(Hide and seek)
Oh no, you don't care a bit
Oh no, you don't care a bit
(Hide and seek)
Oh no, you don't care a bit
You don't care a bit
You don't care a bit
I wish you'd left me with the lie.