Full Circle
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha
Ch 2: Changes
Things started to change at this point. My teachers of course were happy at the return of my more pleasant behavior but I began to think that even they thought something was wrong. The time that I spent at my father's office after school could have been considered a slow death sentence. He was a demanding perfectionist. I started to believe that no CEO was complete without such a demeanor. So of course, the way I did things was never to his standard of liking. Even filing papers was a ridiculous endeavor. According to my father, I was learning the definition of hard work. By the time I got home in the evenings, I was exhausted and still had to do homework. I was learning the definition of hard work yet I wasn't even getting paid for it and I was unable to do my own. I couldn't count the amount of times I fell asleep. Not only had the trace of a social life that I had disappeared but so had good grades. I was better off in detention everyday.
I assumed that things couldn't get any worse than they had gotten, but my assumption was incorrect. Lack of sleep and the time around my father only left me angrier and more frustrated each day. It wasn't long before this presented itself in the classroom. What I had been intentionally doing at the beginning of the semester had become unintentional less than half-way through. Fatigue left me too tired to pay attention or too frustrated to understand. Either case led to doing something unconstructive like sleeping or listening to music during class. Every single offense threatened to put me back in detention, which would have been fine if my father wouldn't find out by some miracle.
It wasn't more than a week before I took things too far in Ms. Kagawa's science lecture. She of course chose to ask me a question about the lecture, of which I had no idea what she was talking about since I had been asleep. I was angry that she was singling me out and before I could put my brain before my mouth I cursed her under my breath or at least I thought I had. The classroom went silent and everyone turned to stare at me as if I had lost my mind. Such a defining moment of junior year.
"Get out!"
I complied without another word, and heard her mumble something about the principal as I left. Detention would have been far too nice of a punishment. I spent my time in ISS for the rest of the day. To be honest, ISS was the best part of the day. I was in the clear. I would still get to my father's office without him finding out anything. That was until I was called back to Ms. Kagawa's class at the end of the day. There she was with the principal and my father, of all people. I wanted to turn around and walk back out of the classroom. I wasn't sure if my father had ever stepped foot into the building before and there his enormous presence was. I didn't realize it at first, but I was standing closer to the principal than I was my father.
Anytime my father's work was disrupted, it meant his money was disrupted, which left the man unhappy. The entire conversation became background noise in comparison to my father's body language and occasional glares. From time to time I would hear the mention of a bad grade or missed assignment but that wasn't what phased me.
The time between my father's instructions to go straight home and laying down to go to bed was a blur that seemed to happen in seconds rather than hours.
"Are you trying to embarrass me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You want to be a failure don't you? You want to prove to everyone that Inutaisho Takahashi has a screw up for a son. And if that's not what you're doing, then what the hell are you doing?"
"I'm doing everything you asked me to."
"This is not how I've raised you."
"You didn't raise me at all!"
I could tell that he lost his composure for a second but then regained it.
"Then who did?"
"My mother."
"And where is she now?"
"…I don't know."
"Exactly. If she'd done such a good job raising you, if she cared about you, she'd still be here."
I couldn't count how many times since my mother had been gone that I had been to blame. But I knew who was at fault and not for a second did I let myself be responsible for her exit.
"No. Maybe if you hadn't slept with that whore she'd still be here!" There was only a split second between wishing I could take back what I said and the consequence of it coming out.
What happened from there was at best surreal. The shatter of the mirror as I was forced against the wall was only the beginning of a long night. Being on bad terms with my father was one thing but what was happening now was insanity.
It wasn't until the morning that I looked at myself. What I saw was a product of money hunger, a lack of tolerance for failure, and the anger of a man who was in denial. I noticed that the front room was still in shambles from the night before and I did my best not to look at it again. Of all mornings, my father was present which made the situation even more awkward. I couldn't look him in the face and I felt almost as if I was maneuvering around fire. If he moved, I moved out of his way. I wondered if it was normal to be afraid of my own father.
So there's the second chapter! Let me know what you think!
LadyRin23