Choices:
By: Haruka S. Knight
Chapter Eleven: Taka and Roshi
This is a short chapter, and it is not a happy one. I didn't want to force too great of a mood shift by combining it with other portions. Please review.
Trigger Warnings:
LGBTQ+ youth subjected to threats or mistreatment by family.
Drug use.
Implied violence.
Flashback:
At 16 years old Hiroshi was usually a very responsible young man, known for his forethought and obedience. However, there were exceptions to every rule in this life. On this night Hiroshi thought that he had the entire mansion to himself aside from a few staff members. Haruka, Yoshi, and Maiko had left earlier that day to attend a tournament his sister was competing in over in Sapporo. The family was not expected back for a few days, with the teenage son being left behind because he still had school to attend. That was why Hiroshi had taken what he considered to be a calculated risk and had invited Taka over to spend the night. It seemed however that sometimes the gods themselves must simply hate to see Hiroshi happy.
"What do you have to say for yourself, young man?" Maiko stared her grandson down once his guest had been escorted out of the mansion. Hiroshi could feel tears welling behind his eyes, but he firmly believed men shouldn't cry. He choked down the overwhelming emotions as best he could and ignored the burning he felt in his throat.
"I thought you were going with Dad to watch Haruka compete." Hiroshi managed to force out through the strangling sensation.
"That is immaterial, Hiroshi! What were you thinking?!" She slapped the side of his head and her tone was filled with contempt for her grandson's actions. The slap did not hurt physically, but the teenager would rather have had the physical pain instead of the emotional anguish.
"I haven't done anything wrong!" he insisted turning his brown eyes toward his grandmother in defiance.
"You haven't done anything wrong?! Ha! What do you call what you were doing with that delinquent in your room?! You are the only son of this household! It is your responsibility to carry on the family name, and to conduct yourself in a manner which does not bring shame upon this family!"
"Oh, now I'm the only son!" Hiroshi threw his hands up in exasperation. He was fed up with everything he perceived as the inequality of his home life. "Haruka is the one that you brag about and the one that you reward, allowed to do whatever "he" wants, and suddenly when I do something for myself, I'm a disappointment!"
"Your little friend is not welcome in my home!"
"Boyfriend." he growled. His grandmother raised an eyebrow questioningly at him and he crossed his arms again trying to feed as much defiance into his expression as possible. "He is my boyfriend, not my friend."
"I will not tolerate this, and you will choose tonight." Maiko's voice had dropped to an extremely dangerous, incredibly quiet tone. "You will do as I tell you or you can leave this house, and you will never be part of this family again. Am I clear?"
"Grandmother . . ." Hiroshi rocked back on his heels a bit.
"Am I clear?" Maiko's eyes were cold, and it was clear there was no room for compromise on this issue.
"Yes, Grandmother." Hiroshi lost the fire which had been burning in his eyes, and his voice dropped to a quiet tone of surrender. He did not look up as he was dismissed and made his way back to his room alone.
End Flashback
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"What did you think you were doing putting on that little show at dinner?!" Maiko sat in her old armchair, very much the way one might imagine a Queen would sit upon their throne, and glared at her eldest grandchild. "I would have thought it would be a simple request for the two of you to behave for a few short weeks but clearly you are incapable of even that."
"Everything I said at dinner was true! I'm only pointing out factual dangers in the interest of everyone involved!" Hiroshi was shaking where he stood, angry in a way that he could not properly express yet holding back because he knew that completely losing his temper would do him no favors in this situation. "One day we're going to get a call that there's been a fatal accident on some track, and I refuse to go to the funeral if that's how this charade ends."
"Oh, don't pretend that you're looking out for your dear sibling's welfare." Maiko treated her grandson to a very withering stare. "We both know your real nature. Few choices you've made have had anything to do with anyone's welfare except your own. You always look after your own skin, Hiroshi, and you are fooling no one here."
"If that's true I've learned it from you!" Brown and Gray eyes glared at each other with equal contempt from across the study. "You were always there to take care of poor little Haru, to make sure that everything Haru wanted Haru got! I watched out for myself! I took care of myself! And I did it all under your ceaseless demands for perfection and always, always, more sacrifice for the family good."
"Don't be over dramatic, you've wanted for very little in your life." She dismissed his accusations with a wave of her hand. "You have had the best education, the best clothes, and the best of everything we have ever given you."
"Freedom of choice is all I ever wanted!" He yelled this, beyond caring about controlling his tone. "I wanted to choose where I went to school! I wanted to choose what career I would pursue! I wanted to choose how I would live my life and you never let me!" Hiroshi slapped his own chest as if to punctuate each of these points. His Brown eyes were filled with accusations as he stared at his grandmother. "You never let me choose anything. Even now you were the one who told me that I must impress this woman and her parents, or you will disinherit me! Marry her or else! I'm merely doing what you asked me to do!"
Hiroshi did not wait for a response, instead he stormed out of the study and slammed the door behind himself. Ichiro opened the door a few moments later to check on his mistress after the volatile heir to the house had departed. They exchanged a few quick words and the Butler departed to fetch a calming tea for the family matriarch, to help settle her nerves after the angry exchange. While she had an instant aversion to listening to anything which she perceived to be a temper tantrum from either of her grandchildren, she found herself needing time to think. While Hiroshi had certainly made his share of poor choices, and while those choices had complicated all of their lives, she did feel that perhaps she needed to give this issue more thought. She needed to reexamine exactly how much influence she had exerted over her grandchildren's lives.
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One of the perks of being a member of the Tenoh family was that Hiroshi had a better office than any other young doctors like himself. He had an office befitting his assumed future as a member of the board and the young man had no qualms about enjoying that perk as best he could. He was on call today, however he had no wish to be home, so he lounged on the couch that took up one wall of his office. His cell phone was to his ear as he lay across the couch, staring at the ceiling and imagining the face of the man speaking to him.
"She's trying to make you get married?" Taka's voice conveyed his disbelief. "Why now?"
"Some inane agreement between her parents and mine." Hiroshi's dark eyes scanned the ceiling as if he could will it to help him somehow. "The guests I mentioned are the woman and her parents. Her parents own a lot of shares in the hospital."
"So, the old battle axe just wants to keep control." Taka huffed into the phone. "Man, she can't handle not controlling anything, can she? Bet your grandpa was a real fun guy too."
"Don't know, he died before I was born, and she doesn't talk about him."
"Do you want to do it?" Taka sounded unusually serious and that made Hiroshi feel like his stomach had filled with ice. A cold, hard, chunk of ice pulling him down from the inside out.
"Pretty sure she has a thing for Haru. That's all I need, another person who loves Haru and resents me."
"Ya didn't answer, rich boy."
"I don't want to marry any woman, and I certainly don't want to marry someone my Grandmother chose." Hiroshi asserted in a vehement tone. "If I don't though, I'm disinherited. No more hospital, she'll probably find a way to fire me, and I'm sure I'll be out of the manor. I still have most of my trust fund but after everything she'd just discard me."
"Hiroshi, man, listen to me." Taka's tone was surprisingly soothing. "You do not need your family. You don't need Grandma Battle Axe, you don't need Haru."
"Taka I don't think you understand."
"I think I do." His tone had a hint of that eternal playfulness for just a moment, before it turned serious again. "You're a doctor, a damn good one too. You did that, not your family. So, they pushed you into it, so what, you did the actual work. You want to keep practicing; the boys and I will set you up with an office anywhere you want. Pick a city, anywhere." He let that hang for just a moment before he spoke again. "Or we could help you get back into that art of yours. A studio?"
"What are you talking about?" Hiroshi moved to sit up as they spoke.
"Leave." Taka told him. "The hospital, the manor, the family, everything. We'll help you, hell if you want, we'll just take care of you. You haven't got to do anything you don't want to." There was some sort of commotion in the background and Taka growled before he spoke again, with forced calm. "I gotta go take care of something but think about it, Hiroshi. Okay? I'll hit you up later."
Hiroshi heard the click as the call disconnected, and he moved his phone so that he could just stare at it. Leave? Taka made that sound so easy, like he could just walk away. Just wander off in the night and not come back. No more arguments, no more demands, no more infernal pager going off while he was drawing. He grimaced, dropping his cell phone on the couch, and moved to his wooden desk. He opened one drawer, moved a few well-placed items, and retrieved a box. From the box he pulled a mirror, a dime bag of powder, a playing card, and a small tube.
'Just to take the edge off, give me some energy.' Hiroshi told himself as he lined the speed up on the mirror. 'I can quit any time I want; I just don't want to.'
Across town Taka eyed his own phone for a minute, hearing a couple of guys rush about the house. He slipped the phone into his pocket, the chain hanging from his pants jangled a bit as he turned. Soon a well-worn, heavy, leather jacket with a bold red dragon settled across his shoulders. Gang members moved aside as he strode into the hall and made his way toward the main room, several moving to follow him. All told around 20 or so men and teens wearing dark leather jackets climbed into various vehicles as they left the house.
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Hiroshi Tenoh scrubbed up for surgery, listening as a nurse explained the condition of the patient on the table in the next room. He tried not to let his hands shake, he had probably taken too much speed, but he could not let anyone else notice it.
"Male, appears to be in his late 20s, with several puncture wounds and blunt force trauma." The nurse read off the chart. "He coded in the ambulance once, but they got him back. He was in some kind of fight." Other information followed, blood type, blood pressure, other things that the doctor catalogued in his mind in a very detached way.
They entered the Operating Room, the medical staff moved about like parts in a well-oiled machine. Hiroshi came to the side of the table and began to examine the problems with his own eyes. He issued instructions to a few other staff members and had just lifted a scalpel when he glanced toward the man's face. It was an old habit, a weird wish to ensure the patient was not suddenly awake. The scalpel clattered to the floor, having slipped through his numb fingers as he caught sight of the man's face. A curse left his lips as someone got him a clean scalpel, he snapped at someone else to get another of his fellow doctor's he knew was in the hospital. When they hesitated, he glared and berated them harshly.
"Hang on, Taka." Hiroshi muttered under his breath, as it became a bit harder to control the shaking. He turned to his work, because if he waited his friend would not be alive when the other doctor arrived.
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Flashback:
"You need to relax more, Roshi." Taka whispered to the other teen, tugging him a bit closer by the front of his school blazer. Hiroshi's dark eyes glanced at Taka's lips, though he tried to keep his expression serious.
"You're a distraction." He told Taka who laughed, moving so that his lips hovered close to the other boy's ear.
"Good, you need to be distracted, Mister Class President." Taka whispered to him in that playful tone he liked to use with the serious young man. Hiroshi would never admit it, but he would follow Taka almost anywhere at the other boy's request. Taka, did not push him, just nudged him occasionally. They had become fast friends, followed by something more those first two years of high school. The class president and the class delinquent. They both knew everyone, teachers, classmates, Taka's fellow gang members, viewed them as each other's charity case. Maybe even as each other's pet, but that was not how they viewed each other. Taka moved back a bit, after all they were still in the school halls, and grinned at the other boy. "Show me what you've been drawing, I wanna see it."
"Is that the only reason you came to school today?" Hiroshi asked as he turned away to start fiddling with his locker. Taka leaned on another locker, winking at anyone who eyed him for more than a moment.
"Well, and I couldn't disappoint my class pres, could I?" Taka teased.
End Flashback:
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