Author's Note: I had trouble naming this story. It started out as A Moment, and then I realised that really, what I was describing was a moment when a person reaches complete closure with their past, so much so that there's nothing left of it. And I do feel that all of the characters herein gained closure one way or another (dark chuckle). Anyhow, I apologise for the weak title! However, I'm beginning to think that this Author's Note was the hardest part to write…

A Moment of Closure

It goes like this: in a small house on the edge of a nondescript village, a family drama is reaching its climax, unseen by all but a select few.

The mother is crazy. She has finally reached that breaking point where she finds she can no longer halt her tears. Something must be done. She knows what must be done, she has the axe that her son used to chop firewood yesterday, today firewood is not the axe's intended target. Her husband's child is cowering in front of her. Red hair and red eyes proclaiming it for all the world to see: not her son. It cowers there, whimpering, begging her to stop crying – so unlike its father, its handsome, wonderful father who didn't choose her but saddled her with his responsibilities when this terrible reminder's mother died giving birth to it. She wants it to shut up. She wants to stop crying. It tells her in a small voice that it will do anything for her to stop, to stop crying. She wants it dead; apparently the nasty little half-breed is willing enough.

She lifts the axe. Behind her, the door opens.

He knows he should have been home already, knows that they both need him, knows that he shouldn't be putting off his return the way he is… and yet, and yet he cannot bring himself to move. At home there is a mad woman whom he loves. She is his mother, after all. And a half-brother who worships him and whom he loves, also. This brother, unasked for yet welcomed nonetheless, but not by everyone. He is both his family's relief.

He knows his brother isn't at fault for driving his mother mad, he knows his father should never have left them to cope on their own, after already betraying his mother, he knows he shouldn't blame his father, his mother, his brother for this miserable existence, but he does.

The only thing that equals his love for them is his hate. And he loves them both very, very much.

So he lets an hour pass, an hour he should have been at home, placating his mother, protecting his brother. And then, finally, he makes his way home. He doesn't know what impulse made him waste so much time; for surely his mother will start hurting his brother the longer he stays away. Maybe, in the darkest of dark places of his soul, he hopes for one or the other of them to die, finally to die, and let the survivors, finally, live.

Maybe, in that dark place, he wishes he'll come home to find his mother has hung herself, or slit her wrists.

Maybe, in that dark place, he wishes that on his arrival, he'd find his brother dead. Saved from any future cruelty in a prejudiced world.

So he drags his heels, though even at this distance, he can hear the bangs and crashes of breaking furniture. As he reaches the porch, he sees his father's sword lying on one of the chairs where he left it the night before. He took it down off the wall above the fireplace, intending on cleaning it thoroughly, but was detailed by his mother into cutting firewood instead. On that thought, he looks across at the pile of chopped logs.

No axe.

The sounds from within the house have gone eerily quiet. He knows neither of them is dead yet though; he can hear them through the thin walls, both sobbing.

Almost unconsciously, he grabs his father's dusty sword as he opens the door of the house.

This is what he sees before him: his little brother huddled against the far wall, his mother standing over him with the axe. His mother beginning to raise the axe, and his brother's eyes staring helplessly up at her face as she does so. His brother's eyes that say, 'Yes.'

And then he rushes forwards, instinctively lifting the sword so that the point is horizontal, shoving against his mother, shoving the sword into his mother until the point comes out the opposite side of her and his little brother is covered by more redness. She drops to the ground and the noise she makes when she hits it means that it's over. That everything is over; this little life they had in this cheap little house, this labouring job he had to get to support them, his brother's needy clinging, his mother's screaming anger and crying grief - all over.

In front of him, his brother sits, covered in his mother's blood. His brother is not looking at him, is not looking at his mother, is not looking at the blood. His brother is listening to the sound his mother made when she fell to the floor, dead. It is the sound the end makes.

It is the sound of freedom bought at too high a price.

He turns around, there isn't even a speck of blood on his hands, he turns and walks away from his brother, knowing that he is no saviour, he turns and walks away. He does not look back.

Strangely enough, one day, they will both be better people, but his mother will still be dead.

That is not what happens, though.

That is how it could have gone, but this; this is the sound the end makes:

As she lifts the axe, the door opens, and far, far across the room, he sees Jien.

Jien will stop her, calm her, give her tea and sleeping powder and then come patch him up, patch the furniture up, and tell him that he still loves him, even if their mother can't stand the sight of him, and nor can the rest of the world.

But as she lifts the axe, he sees Jien hesitate.

It is the most terrible sight in the whole world.

He sees a doubt, a horrible, terrible doubt cross Jien's face. The doubt whispers, 'if she kills him then she ends this madness, this misery, and you and she can live happily ever after.' And more terrible than the doubt is the hesitation, because it means that Jien has listened to the doubt, and agreed with it. It means that Jien doesn't love him. It means that no one loves him, and maybe they never will.

The axe comes down.

The force of betrayal lends him a strange strength, though most of him wants to die, and he rolls out of the way at the last moment.

For the first time in his short life, Gojyo has saved himself, but now, this doesn't make him glad.

He knows that he has ultimately chosen the selfish path. For he has chosen to live, and to live only for himself – as there is no one else – rather than to die for the happiness of others. He has chosen to live though there is nothing to live for. It is not a conscious decision.

The axe is buried deeply in the floorboards, and though she tugs at it, she cannot free it for another swing.

All he wanted was for her to stop crying, for her to stop crying and be happy. He thought he could die for her because once he was dead she would have no more reminders of his father's betrayal. Now he knows he can't die for her. He could have done it knowing Jien loved him, but now he knows differently.

To die unloved. He won't accept that, so he will live unloved instead.

He stands up, slowly, leaning against the wall for support. The wall gives support without giving or taking anything else; it is safe to lean against it. She is still tugging uselessly at the axe and now he sees her in an entirely different light and he knows why his father left her for another woman. Even if he were dead, she would never have been happy. Never. Such misery, and such uncompromising bitterness, no, she could never have been happy, even if his father returned to her, begging for forgiveness.

He looks at his brother now. Jien has come further into the room, their father's old sword dangling at his side, clutched in one hand. He looks like the same old Jien. But he is not. Gojyo sees him now a step removed, as if a sheet of glass stands irrevocably between them, and though the glass appears warped, it isn't; Jien is.

He sees Jien as utterly despicable and recognises that this isn't the case; Jien has been a good brother to him. He is, however, as flawed as the next person, and the next person happens to be their crazy mother. He finds himself suddenly utterly sympathetic towards Jien, thankful, even, that the truth has finally been revealed, and yet also completely cold to his elder brother who will not meet his gaze.

He pushes away from the wall, passes his mother without a backward glance, walks by Jien, who makes no move to stop him – and all the better that he doesn't – and leaves the house. He's done with them now, forever.

Jien knows Gojyo won't be coming back the moment he twists out of the way of the axe blade. He also knows he's made a terrible mistake. Simultaneously, guilt and relief war within him. He almost doesn't feel sorry for his decision, almost.

The door closes quietly behind him, and he knows he'll never see his little brother again. Never again, unless the gods start meddling, or something equally impossible occurs.

His mother is still pulling mindlessly at the axe, though her prey is long gone. Her efforts becoming weaker and weaker each time. Her ire cooling, the longer she is delayed. He lays his hand comfortingly on her wrist, stilling the motion.   

"Mother, he's gone, he's not coming back."

She's shaking, and at first he thinks it's shock or relief and then he realises as the harsh sound fills the house, that she is laughing.

But she is still crying as well.

"Yes! Your father's gone! He's not coming back, ever!"

"Mother? I meant, Gojyo's gone."

He winces as her hands tighten on the axe once again. She hates Gojyo being mentioned. More to the point, she just plain hates.

"He's dead, you see, I couldn't stand to watch him walk away while he left me with his bastard brat, hah! Once I get this shitty thing out of the floor it's going the same way as its father."

And Jien thinks, 'So that's why he left his sword.' But that's all he thinks.

She'd killed his father. She put them through all these years of misery for a man she had killed herself. He just moves, no thought behind the action, only pain and misery and all the other emotions he can't name, and then there's blood all over the wall and she falls choking to the ground. His father's sword is old, and dusty, but still plenty sharp enough to slit a person's throat.

Afterwards he's thankful that that disturbing mixture of laughter and tears has ended. The silence makes his ears ring. He sits for a long time by his mother's corpse, thinking. He can't decide what to do. Should he leave? Should he stay and wait for justice? Should he die? It would be so easy to die.

It would be so easy to die, that is the thought that repeats over and over in his head. It would be so easy to die.

And it is that thought that helps him make his decision. He walks outside. The sun is rising, he hadn't been aware of time passing, but now the sun is rising. Regardless of the shocking events and the solemn decisions that occurred within the four thin walls of the house, birds are singing their morning songs. The world goes on, he thinks. I am no saviour and the world goes on, perhaps I don't need to be.

And he sets off, away from the rising sun because even now, there are some things a man just can't face, into the West.