Kuwabara stared up into his mother's face. Hers was a look of madness, while his was absorption. He took in everything he saw, categorizing what he knew, but mostly creating whole new branches to better understand the bizarre scene before him. Being so young, Kuwabara had yet to experience many new things. Right now, confronted with something new, he lived in the moment, accepting life for what it was as only children could.
Kuwabara could see a wild look in his mother's eyes. This was a look he was familiar with. Many of the stray cats he liked to play with had that same kinda panicked air about them the first time he approached them. They always calmed down when they found Kuwabara's small hand to be gentle as opposed to the expected cruel. Kuwabara thought that maybe his mom was looking for an escape, like the cats when they were cornered. Glancing at the open bedroom door from behind tight springs of orange hair, he wondered why his mom didn't just leave through it instead of standing in the closet muttering to herself.
The muttering was a new thing. It was harsh, angry; more a hiss than actual words. It wasn't quite the sound his mother made when she scolded him for doing something bad, but it still made Kuwabara tense in fear and he felt the shame of wrong doing without actually having done the crime.
A great curiosity consumed Kuwabara as he watched his mother rifle through the closet. It was his father's closet, overflowing with ratty, old, stained clothing and household tools. In Kuwabara's mind, he thought of how moms and dads had separate spaces that was just for them. Even now, Kuwabara felt special for being allowed in his parent's room, when usually the door was closed and locked.
With a cry of triumph his mother pulled out one of the several small RC cars his father built in his spare time. Kuwabara smiled at the car, it was one he got to help make. He loved when his father would take him and Shizuru to the races. The babble of talk and the loud whirling of the little motors as the cars soared around a small indoor track always got Kuwabara excited. What was even more compelling was the other boy Kuwabara got to play with at the races. He liked his race friend because he was older and he took Kuwabara on little adventures around the decrepit building the races took place in while the adults were busy prepping. Shizuru would always sit and talk about boring girl stuff with the other teenage girls dragged there by their fathers.
He giggled a little as he remembered the last race he and his friend Takeshi got to play together at. Takeshi had found a hole in the wall with a set of stairs leading to a small room. The room was covered in sawdust, wooden beams, and tools. A light stood in the corner to illuminate the enclosed space. The two passed most of the day playing in that room. When their father's had finally noticed their absence and called them down, Takeshi had leaned down and kissed Kuwabara. His father wasn't as happy about the occurrence as Kuwabara was when he retold his day on the way home. Kuwabara hadn't been taken to a race since. He missed his friend.
"Mommy, what are you doing?" Kuwabara spoke with an uncommon quietness, the foreign situation driving him to caution. The crazed look his mother wore swung to him, striking fear in his heart. Blood roared through his little body double-time, but for all its efforts for a fight-or-flight he could not move from beneath his mother's intense gaze.
"Your father's a fucking bastard. He doesn't care about you! Or me or Shizuru! All he ever does is spend time on his precious little cars, throwing what money we do have on the damn things!" she snarled.
Kuwabara understood few of the words his mother spoke. From what he did understand, he felt confusion. Without a doubt, Kuwabara knew his daddy loved him and Shizuru and Mommy. Daddies had to love Mommies, and they had to love their babies too. For Kuwabara, this was a law. An absolute truth that couldn't be over turned even by his mother, though he knew to listen to her words.
Kuwabara watched as his mother pulled a half used, crumpled tube of super glue from her pocket. Horror washed through him as his mother smeared the glue all over the belly of the car, coating the axels and effectively trashing the possibility of future functioning. Together, he and his dad had worked forever on the little car. His dad had painted the plastic outside and tinkered with the wires in the belly of the car while Kuwabara has helped by hammering nails into a block of wood. Kuwabara had no idea what happened to his wood he worked on, but he knew that their car was being trashed and he needed to stop it.
He rushed his mother, jumping up and down trying to reach for the car in her grasp. His mother didn't pay him any mind, even when he started screaming and crying and banging his little fists against her hip. She ignored him as she brushed past him, storming from their bedroom in the direction of the garage. Kuwabara jumped onto her legs and clung to the waistline of her pants. His mother swatted at him, yelling for him to get off.
As they passed through the kitchen/dinner room area, where Shizuru had been trying to do her homework but was now looking on in complete terror as the sudden fight scene, Kuwabara's mother managed to knock him down. Kuwabara sobbed from his place crumbled on the floor, rubbing at the carpet burn on his knees. He surged to his feet, lunging back towards his mother, fists flying again. His mother was back to ignoring him in favor of yanking open the door to the garage and hurling the damaged car onto the concrete ground. Right where his dad parked his truck when he got home from work laid the car, broken into pieces that surely couldn't be repaired.
Kuwabara watched helplessly as the door shut on his prized project with his dad. With the car being ruined, the actual event of building something with his dad seemed to fade, already becoming a dream in his young mind. Emptiness seeped through him as he mourned the loss of the car. The stinging blow his mothers slap dealt to his cheek soon replaced that emptiness. Though he had made a ruckus about the car, the physical pain didn't bring forth a cry or even a whimper. Tears still slipped lazily down his face, soothing the burn on his reddened cheek. Kuwabara remained silent, motionless, as he tracked the departed of his mother back into his parents' room.
The sound of the door slamming shut accompanied with the softer noise of the lock clicking into place, left Kuwabara feeling calmer. More secure. He turned to look at his sister, seeing her staring after their mother with a look of disbelief. She soon switched he gaze to him, still in shock.
"What the Hell was that?" she asked shakily.
Kuwabara casted his eyes to the ground and headed to his own room. As he passed by Shizuru, he quietly murmured, "Mom's crazy."
Kuwabara wouldn't know until his teen years that much of his childhood was defined by witnessing his mother's increasingly insane moments. Moments that could actually span into days or weeks. It would be even longer until he understood why sudden changes of emotions constricted his heart with terror. But he always remembered why he never ventured into his parents' room again; even when the door was open and everything looked warm and welcoming. Because he knows that things can be deceiving. And that glue doesn't always fix things.