Story Title: Tales of the Invisible
Chapter One: His own Sad Song
It was a long rainy day at the ever-changing strident downtown of Tokyo where the crowd seemed like a never-ending sea of rushing umbrellas and in the street some people managed to stop the traffic, so that the cars had to avoid those who left the sidewalks.
Thousands of people walking through the same busy streets every day, with their own lives, families, jobs, thinking about problems and debts that were causing their daily stress.
Seiko Shimane walked peacefully among them, following the same rhythm of routine as everybody else but with his own melody.
He had no umbrella so the water was dripping slowly down his dark hair and pale handsome face: as if he didn't care about the strong rain zooming down the sky. After walking a while down the heavy rain his entire body got heavy because of his wet clothes.
He stopped in a corner in the least busy side of the street and disappeared in a less crowdie alley. The pipes that let the water come down from the roofs were pouring intensely making the noise of the rain twice as loud as the normal dripping. Seiko reached a rusty door that made a long screeching sound from the moment he waved it to get into the small room until he closed it again.
After taking off his damp shoes and soaking jacket and shirt and leaving his dressing pants only, Seiko climbed upstairs silent as a mice and quick as a cat as if he didn't want anyone in the place to know he was home. But his astute efforts didn't work when a 13-year-old girl, burst out of the door next to Seiko's room wearing a really loosed pajama that seemed to be really old and the colorful pictures that once were shiny, became grey and distortional.
"He left this morning" whispered the girl holding the door open "Few hours after you went to school"
"What about mom?" asked Seiko whispering too "is she asleep?"
A gloomy look appeared in the girl's face. Seiko had seemed to understand the meaning of her expression and changed the subject. For some reason they didn't stop whispering.
"Are you hungry?" he asked, taking off his socks.
"I already microwaved some ramen I brought on my way back from school" the girl said, closing the door slowly, "there are some leftovers next to kiri's milk. If you're going to the kitchen don't make any noise please, I don't want him to wake up"
Before she completely shut the door, Seiko was already in his bedroom. "Mess" can't be the proper word to describe the place. His socks and books were in a pile next to his bed and they seemed to have been there for a long time. Food leftovers, cans, fast food recipients all over the floor and his bed gave the impression that a crowd had slept there the night before. Seiko grabbed a shirt from his messy closet but before he put it on, he looked himself in the tiny mirror he had put behind the door many years ago. Inside the frame he could see a young, pale face with grey eyes. His black hair, dark as the shadow that walked beside him, made his skin even paler when there was a sunny day. But there were no sunny days in Seiko's life. In his short lifetime Seiko had already lost many important things for him, things that he couldn't recover, like his home and his own father who had died four years ago. His family had been in an accident before kiri, his two-year-old brother, was born. Seiko's father died instantaneously after a car crash and before the commotion was over Seiko's mother got married with a men from Tokyo called Hiro Domoshi that told her he had a business in the city, a big business and that she could bring her son, that they were going to live in a nice place in Tokyo were Seiko's mother could find a decent job, move forward and that they could have another child. The only thing in Hiro's words that was actually truth was the baby's arrival, the rest, was a big piece of scum, smelly and packed with lies. When Seiko and his mother arrived Tokyo the men told them that his business was an illegal business: some nasty bars at the very south which included drug dealing, prostitution and many other things that followed those two in the list of the worst and the least, they also saw that he lived in a garbage can near downtown and that he had a daughter called Aki (the girl in pajamas that whispered Seiko).
They couldn't do anything but redeem themselves to their new life of poverty because they had already lost everything after Seiko's father death. Their reputation in the town, their money and the happiness they had enjoyed in the past.
But four years went by really fast, of course, they never got used to it, they just adapted to their new life.
Seiko opened a biology book and started reading while he went downstairs to grab something to eat. He had a test next day and he needed all the time possible for studying the difficult terminology of Cell Division. He had earned a good scholarship last year for a Scientific career, he specialized himself in Science and Math, and in the last term he obtained the highest marks among all his scientific fellows. Although it seemed impossible because they moved to a new city, Seiko found a scholarship just in time and the best part, the college he got into was in the Tokyo area. His mother didn't really care, she was always away selling some illegal products that her husband's "organization" used to bring from neighbor countries like China and Vietnam. Seiko always avoided him while he was at the house, getting wasted, watching TV and shouting at his daughter and wife. This was something Seiko couldn't stand, but he was always keenly holding his temper until, one day, without warning, Domoshi hit the baby across the face making him fall flat in his back, crying breathlessly. Sometimes Seiko tried to remember what he had done, but his fury was so intense, that he could only remember flashes of himself punching a heavy bundle lying in the floor, motionless.
Kiri meant a lot to Seiko and Aki because he was the only reason in that place that made them smile, and in the very depths of Seiko, the only reason why he was going back to that house after school.
Seiko was already eating the ramen leftovers and reading the book while sitting in a sofa in the small living room/kitchen of the house. He ate the whole thing quietly and dropped the plate in the couch next to him so he could keep reading. Seiko, for some reason, was restless, he couldn't concentrate at all so he decided to turn on the TV and see what was in the news. Some excited reporter was announcing that in a small town in the south, a crowd of people had seen a "strange light" over the church. Many of the witnesses referred to it as an angel.
"Bah" snapped Seiko, frowning at the TV "there's no such thing as "angels" or gods or magic! They don't want to see the truth, that's what it is…" Seiko waved his book to the screen "you can only rely on science because everything is proved...its fact! You can touch it and say it's there! Old hags believe in such stupid things…" his voice reduced to muttering and then silence. Seiko was listening to an old lady that was being interviewed, apparently a witness.
"It was so beautiful" the lady gasped as if she had just seen it "I could see a giant pair of white wings...silver wings that...that made me feel a happy sensation..."
"White or silver you idiot? How can they believe what those blind old hags say?" Seiko turned off the TV hastily, chucking away the remote. Once again, he climbed upstairs like a little mice, went to his bedroom and read his book for a few hours before falling asleep.
In his dreams, Seiko heard the usual whispering he had always heard ever since he had use of conscience. That night he heard his own voice echoing loudly among them
"there is no one else watching over us in the sky...humans made that up just to find an explanation for what they don't know..." the voices whispering in Seiko's ears stopped and Seiko heard himself again, but this time his voice was nice and loud.
"Angels and miracles don't exist. Deal with it"
Seiko was always the first one leaving the house every morning. He didn't like to talk to his mother or stepfather, but he would always pass by his sisters' room to give them a goodbye kiss. Aki always refused but Seiko found the way of doing it when she was fast asleep.
The first thing he used to do after leaving the house was to go to the park that was near downtown where noises became distant whispers. He used to go there most of the time when he had a test the same day; he would stay there for an hour or so and then leave, his mind much more relieved. He had a lot of time before his first class. Most of the time, after the walk in the green side of the city he went to the mall near his college, grabbed some breakfast at the food court and then walk around the mall until the time for leaving for his calculus class arrived.
That rhythm Seiko followed was just as dull and constant as everyone else's. But he had his own melody, his own song, slow and sad and that people could hear if they just paid enough attention…
After that day, the song would never be as sad and boring as usual. Not after listening to hers.