Long lost words whisper slowly to me.
Still can't find what keeps me here.
When all this time I've been so hollow inside.
I know you're still there...
'You killed your mother.'
Of all the accusations and insults my aunt could toss my way, that one has always hurt the most.
'If your idiot father hadn't knocked her up, she'd still be alive right now.'
Well, I guess that is true.
The town looks pretty at night, covered in snow. Little brick buildings line the sidewalk, their windows brimming with bright Valentines Day merchandise. It's almost spring, but there's an unseasonable amount of snow on the ground. Nakatsu will complain about a snowy soccer field if I come home.
What if I didn't go home? What if I just walked away from the town, or some random guy threw me in his car and drove away? What if I just laid down in the snow and went to sleep? Would my friends worry? Would they call the police if I didn't show up by sunrise? Would they-
No.
That's right. They probably wouldn't care at all.
I continue walking. The wind has stopped, but snow is still falling so thick I can hardly see two feet in front of me.
I like the snow. It's cold. Quiet. If I close my eyes, I don't have to see all that whitewhitewhite...
I keep my eyes open.
I'm nearing the cemetery now. I don't really want to go there, see all the ghosts rattle their chains at me. At school I have charms to keep them away from me, unless I want them there. I don't want old men breathing down my neck, chiding me for doing homework rather than something manly like chopping wood or raping little girls or whatever the hell else they did when they were my age. I don't want to comfort the young women as they yearn for their husbands or boyfriends.
And I really don't want to look into the eyes of the little children who died far too young, who stop their games to stare at me as I pass by.
They stay away from me at school. But I do have to face them sometime.
Besides, I've always been much more comfortable with dead people than the living.
The cemetery gate creaks as I open it and step inside. Those who weren't already look up and stared. They come to me as I walk; like moths drawn to a light. They know I can see them.
The wind picks up again, swirling black snow and bone dust around me. A few more feet and the weeping willows protect me from the wind. Tombstones stick out of the thick layer of snow, like gray birthday candles in white frosting. The mausoleum stands in the middle of the small graveyard, like a church.
I am the only one here. I'm only one of many.
I walk up the stone steps to the mausoleum and step inside. Instantly, the air grows twenty degrees colder, as if the rotting bodies in the walls are giving off their own chill. The ghosts yell at me and tell me they're just trying to get some sleep. I flop down on the bench and tell them same here.
Before I was Taiki 'Ghost Boy' Kayashima, before everyone knew I was I freak of nature, I was just Taiki. When I was just Taiki, my father loved me and used to take me in his lap and tell me the story of how my parents met.
Once upon a time, man meets woman. Man desperately falls in love, but woman has boyfriend. Man battles to win woman over and whisks her away on a white horse. Man and woman get married and live happily ever after.
Until woman has child, who kills her.
The real story is not so poetic. Mom had a boyfriend who beat the crap out of her on a daily basis. Mom met Dad in a bar, Mom and Dad get drunk, Dad knocks her up. When she found out she was pregnant, she left Asshole and married Dad. They couldn't stand each other by the time I was born, so it only seemed right that Mom had a heart attack right after my birth and died before the doctors could do anything.
I see my mother a lot. I don't mind her around me at school, because she's never spoken to me in my life. She just sits and watches me, smiles sometimes, but most of the time she has a sorrowful expression on her face.
I disappoint her.
Of course, if you die to give birth to your child, shouldn't you be allowed to hold high expectations for that child?
My mother just shook her head when my aunt yelled at me. Laughed when my father spun tales of their love from sugar and broken dreams to satisfy my questions and make me sleepy enough to go to bed. And cried when I was cornered by the boys in my class who used to beat me for nothing more than seeing things they were too blind to see.
I can speak to ghosts. I can hear what they have to say. I could hear my mother, if she decided to speak up.
But she won't speak to me.
My father tried his hardest to raise me on my own. But he was a business man, hardly home enough to sleep in his own bed, much less care for a son who saw dead people and cut open his own skin.
He got me a nanny. A nineteen-year-old high school graduate who lived on our block and wanted to take some time off and save up some money before she went to college.
I told her about my mother. About my grandparents, and the other various ghosts that decided to attach themselves to me.
She did the same thing as my father, lying to herself that I was only a child and all children make things up.
She made it until I was four years old, then she ran.
After the third nanny left, when I was six, my father was forced to admit that I was not the normal, bright little child he wished I was.
Well, that's too bad. Sorry I can't be perfect.
My aunt continued to insist I was possessed. Said that my mother's death should have told them right away that I had the Devil in me. She also told my father that there was no way I could be his, my eyes were far too dark and my coloring too pale, and what were the chances he got Mom pregnant with one drunken hookup when she was sleeping with her boyfriend every other night?
My father told her that if that's what she thought of me, than she was welcome to stay the hell out of our house.
She never did stop trying. She knew that as long as my father had custody of me, he would let me see these things and wouldn't try to beat some sense into me. She wanted to put on rubber gloves so she could hand me over to the professionals and tell them to experiment at will before scrubbing her hands with antibacterial soap.
She tried to have me DNA tested once. A man couldn't possibly want to take care of a sick son who sliced his skin to free his bones, and if the little freak was another man's child, he didn't have to.
My father refused. It would have shut my aunt up if my blood came back same as his, but the odds were that I wasn't, and I could tell he really didn't want to know.
I don't know how long I lay on that cold bench. Finally, the ghosts bang on the walls and tell me there was no room for Taiki in the clubhouse, no sir. Only for bones and decomposing flesh. Living and breathing people not welcome.
I'm not welcome with the living either. Isn't that funny? You won't accept me until I don't breathe and my heart stops beating and they cart me in here, pale and dead. Then it's no problem. But even though I'm alive, living people don't want me either.
That's why being dead is a better deal. You just have to die to get in. Living is a whole lot harder.
The ghosts won't let me sleep with them, so my only choice is to go home and pretend to sleep there. The wind has picked up again as I walk across the cemetery. The ghosts wave at me as I leave.
My mother is not buried here, but she is standing at the gates, waiting.
As I leave the protection of the cemetery, I see a car speeding on the road, headlights blaring in my direction.
Just get it over with. Just step out into the streets. They'll never see you in time. It'll be over before you know it.
My mother's hand on my shoulder. She doesn't want me to end like this.
The car whizzes by, oblivious to that fact I just saved them a 911 call. My window of opportunity closed.
Damn.
I wish she would just talk to me. Tell me how she wants me to do it. Because the only time she hasn't stuck her nose in to stop me, my father found me and it was all over before it even started.
I continue walking in the direction of my school. Some of the ghosts from the cemetery follow me, at least until they get bored and go home, back to their cold graves.
I end up in a grocery store. I have absolutely no idea how I got here; one minute I was standing up to my shins in snow, next I was standing in front of the painkillers, aisle 4. The snow from my boots melt onto the floor. My wet sweater clings to my body.
The heat of the building does nothing to warm my bones, rods carved from ice and wrapped with broken glass and barbed wire. The cut on my arm has opened up again. I can feel the warm blood trickle down my arm, like boiling water on my skin.
I pick up a bottle of aspirin and read the warning label. Maximum dose: 2 tablets. Do not exceed four tablets in an eight hour period. How many pills in a bottle? 50. So you could safely take twelve pills in one day, so in four days you could have taken 48, leaving one dose at the start of the fifth day. Or you could take it all at once. Get it over with.
Doing menial math usually keeps me from actually thinking.
I count the bottles of pills that have that particular brand name on it. And the other ones. Then I move onto antidepressants, bandaids, and toothpaste. Anything to keep me from actually thinking.
"Hey. Kid. Are you gonna buy something?" I look up. The pharmacist, a twenty-some year old guy with a goatee is staring at me. My eyes dart away from his. He continues to eye me quizzically.
"Sorry." I managed to mumble, them grabbed tube of toothpaste and left the aisle.
I grab a candy bar and a couple of cheap tabloids at the check-out line. I shake my head at a bag and stuff the toothpaste in my pocket and slid the tabloids in the waistband of my jeans. I unwrap the candy bar and munch as I walk away. The taste explodes onto my tongue, sweet chocolate and sticky caramel. I'll read the tabloids when I get home. They're always good for a laugh.
I toss the wrapper into a garbage can as I step outside. The wind has slowed quite a bit, and the snowflakes were small and glittery.
I don't really want to go back home. But I've already did my shopping (I really did actually need more toothpaste) already gotten yelled at by the ghosts in the cemetery, there really isn't anyplace else to go.
I just walk. I don't think about where I'm going, I turn off my head and I walk. I recite passages from books and count backwards from one thousand to chase all thoughts of anything away.
I don't know where I am when a police car drives up to the side of the road and a uniformed police man steps out. The store I'm standing in front of is still open, the window has teddy bears and red hearts set up. Past that there are rows and rows of Valentine's Day cards and stuffed animals inside the brightly lit store.
"Hey, you. What's your name?"
I saw no reason to lie. "Taiki Kayashima."
"You go to Osaka High?"
"Yeah."
He stares at me for a moment. My heart pounds. Did Nakatsu call me in missing or something?
"That's pretty far to walk. Especially with no coat on."
I didn't feel like putting my coat on. It doesn't keep my warm anyway.
"I'm sorry, sir." I bowed. "It won't happen again. I really should be going back to school now."
I turn away, but the officer's voice brings me back.
"Hey, wait, I can't let a high school student walk three miles back to school in the middle of a blizzard."
Three miles? Wow.
"Get in the car. I'll give you a lift."
"You don't have to do that."
It's not that I don't trust him. His aura is a deep red, so I know he poses no danger to me.
"Actually, I do. You could freeze to death out here. Against my policy to allow a minor in a potentially lethal situation. Get in the car."
I would have actually preferred to walk, his car wouldn't warm me up no matter how high he turned up the heat. But I suppose it was late, and if I wasn't back soon, Nakatsu probably would make a big stink about it.
I thank the officer and got into the passenger seat of the cruiser. He opens the door to the driver's side and slid in before taking a look at me.
"Umm...maybe I should drive you to the hospital instead. You're lips are purple."
"I'll be fine." I hear myself say.
He shrugs and turns the key in the ignition.
"Suit yourself."
My father married Miyako because of me.
A few years after my mother died, my father's family began to chide him about finding a 'respectable' wife for himself and a 'suitable' mother for me.
The problem? Me. It was the same thing as the nannies my father hired to take care of me as a small child. They thought I was cute on the outside; poor little Taiki, mother died so young; but the first thing I usually did was tell them what color their aura was.
One woman slapped me across the face and walked right out of the front door when I told her her aura was a scary shade of pink. Thankfully, most of the women just laughed nervously and told my father I was adorable. They'd always make up a reason why they had to stop seeing him when he called them the next day.
Miyako was a woman who attended college classes part time and worked at a small psychic shop in Tokyo. The first time my father brought her home she was wearing a black hijab with purple beads sewn into it. They clicked together whenever she moved, so she always sounded like a beaded curtain. I really have no idea why she was wearing a hijab, she wasn't a Muslim, but she seemed partial to them.
She was the first person who made me feel like I wasn't a freak. She told me I had a gift.
Ha. I know she would just love to be able to talk with the paranormal. She would love to be able see people's auras and speak with their dead friends or parents or lovers-it would be a great boom to her business.
She hadn't been cursed with these abilities since birth. She didn't know how the spirits latched onto me as a child, and prevented me from being normal.
She was in her early twenties, fairly attractive, and besides the way she dressed, she could be fairly normal around people when called to be. She treated me well, and she had a nice shade of blue for her aura, so I trusted her.
When I was eleven, my father married her.
Miyako is not the evil stepmother of my life. Quite the opposite, actually. Miyako didn't try to suffocate me by trying to make up for eleven years I experienced of motherlessness. But she didn't try to push me away, the misfit son of her husband's first wife.
Miyako will never truly be my mother. She understands that. But she's close.
My father cares for Miyako, and he's grown to love her, but he would have rather had the luxury of waiting and marrying whomever he wanted. He never said anything, but I knew he blamed me.
I thank the officer as he drops me off at the school gates and apologize for making him go out of his way. He just tells me to take a hot bath because my lips are still blue and the blood in my skin is still ice.
Ashiya and Noe are in the common room playing hearts when I walk in. They look up and Ashiya jumps up when she sees me.
"Kayashima! Where were you? Nakatsu's been freaking out!" I look at the clock on the wall. It's nearly eleven. Damn. I have been out a while.
"Yeah, he said if you weren't back by midnight, he was waking Nanba up." Noe added, taking a sip of strawberry juice. I took the tube of toothpaste out of my pocket.
"Sorry. Went out to get some of this, then I got distracted and lost track of time. I didn't mean to worry anyone." Mizuki's face relaxes.
"It's alright. But you should take your phone with you. You know Nakatsu." She rolls her eyes. "He worries about everyone."
I apologized again for making them worry, then Sekime came out of the bathroom and I had to explain yet again why I was gone for four or five hours.
After Sekime sat down and they resumed their game, I walked up to my room. I really didn't care about the wet clothes, but I'd catch a cold if I didn't change into something dry soon.
I swung open the door to my room. Nakao was sitting on the staircase up to my level when I walk in. Nakatsu is sitting at his desk, playing solitaire, and Sano is lounging on Nakatsu's bed. They turn when I enter the room.
"Kayashima! There you are! We were just about to send out a search party for you. Nakatsu stands up, a goofy grin on his face.
"Where were you?" Sano asks, staring up at me quizzically. We told Nakatsu not to worry, but you were gone a long time, and you didn't have your phone."
"I just needed to go out to the grocery store and I lost track of time." I pull the tabloids out of my jeans and toss it on top of Nakatsu's card game. "Sorry. I just forgot my phone."
They know I'm lying. I can tell by the way they're staring at me. And why should they? I'm a terrible liar.
"Here. Get out of these wet clothes. My God, Kayashima, your skin has turned blue..." Nakao gets up and runs over to me, trying to undo the buttons on my sweater.
"Nakao! God, I can undress myself." I snap meanly. I shove his hands away, ignoring the hurt expression on his face. I reach up and try to unbutton the rest of the sweater myself.
I can't let them see me with my shirt off. It would ruin everything.
My fingers were stiff from the cold. The skin was colored blue, and they wouldn't work for me. I fumbled with the button for a minute before Nakao removed my hands from the top.
"You can't. Just let me help you. You need to warm up..."
"Get away from me!" In a panic, I shove Nakao away from me. Shocked, he grabs the sleeve of my now-unbuttoned sweater and pulls half of it off.
Nakao stops when he sees the scars. The sweater falls from his hand, and I stand still, thinking maybe I could escape this, and the weight of the rest of the top causes the rest of the sweater to fall to the floor.
Watching me,
Wanting me.
I can feel you pull me down.
Saving me,
Raping me,
Watching me.
I won't let you pull me down.
I really didn't mean to make Nakao seem like a dirty old man, but that's all I could think as I wrote that...oh, Nakao. How I love you.
This chapter was mostly just Kayashima rambling aimlessly about his life. I'll stop ignoring the other characters from here on out.
Confession: Until I wrote this chapter, I had absolutely no idea how to spell 'mausoleum.'
So that review button? Click it. It's not a request. I'm ordering you to.
