Chapter Nineteen
Houjun was about to put his key in the lock when the door swung open, and his mother looked at him accusingly. "Where did you go?"
He shrugged and moved past her. He could feel her eyes on his back, and he hated it. He was tired of the oppression, of the hurt and of the suspicion. He climbed the stairs slowly to his room, and when he reached it, opened the door and walked in, but not before turning the door and locking it behind him. A fortnight earlier, after his parents' discovery of him and Genrou, he had come home to find his room ransacked, and any item pertaining at all to the redheaded youth destroyed or missing. He remembered his rage as tolerance had finally snapped. The shouts and the mental trauma flashed back before his eyes.
*Flashback
"What do you think you're doing?!" he hissed through clenched teeth as he stood in the doorway, looking at the rifled drawers and the open journal on the table. "WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING."
His parents barely looked up at his arrival. "There is no room for your silly fancies and confused ideas, Houjun," his father had declared as he tore out a page from his son's blue-bound address book, the book he clearly knew had been where Houjun had kept Genrou's number and address. His mother stood there calmly, but in her hands he saw the remnants of photographs, and he knew just which memories she had destroyed.
"HOW DARE YOU!" he screamed. Red descended upon his vision like a veil as he turned on his heel and ran. He ran down the steps, out the house, and on and on.
*End of Flashback
He sighed, pushing the thoughts out of his head, grabbing his file from the shelf and flipping it open, pulling out his worksheets. He busied himself for a good half an hour and was absorbed in his work when the doorbell rang.
Frowning, ignoring the interruption, he bit on the end of his pen and briefly wondered if he should research that particular topic when a shout reached him from downstairs.
"HOUJUN!"
Before he knew it, he had gotten to his feet, had unlocked the door, opened it, and raced downstairs where his mother stood in between them, refusing to let the youth outside in. When Houjun looked at that face, despair flooded him.
Genrou was visibly shaken, his pallor obvious with his flushed cheeks, the glint of moisture on his skin and his eyes…the glowing amber light fading each time he noticed, into a deeper brown, a darker sadness.
"Go away before I call the police," his mother hissed, not knowing that Houjun was right behind her, taking one step forward, and then another, his gaze fixed on Genrou. There was longing, wondering and confusion as he neared the door, his emotions flitting like battered moths.
"Houjun?" Genrou's voice held a trace of tears, and of grim determination. "I need to talk to you."
His mother wheeled around then, and her brows knit together fiercely. "Go back to your work!"
He calmly slipped under her arm, and faced Genrou directly for a few moments, before turning and regarding his mother. He bowed his head, before pushing past her, blocking her reach of Genrou with his body, and silently leading the younger boy upstairs. Behind him, he could hear his mother's harsh words but, somehow, they didn't matter now.