Alone
By, Esmee
– – –
You're standing there all alone
Looking like
You're carved from stone
Standing there
Alone
"How did your brother seem to be coping?"
"I honestly thought he was fine."
"You had no idea that anything was wrong? He seemed completely fine?"
"There had never been any indication that he was otherwise."
"You're certain there wasn't?"
"There wasn't. Was there? Yes. Maybe, I don't know; I'm not sure. No.
"I mean there was the normal depression that comes after life altering accidents, but the psychiatrists all said that was normal, you know?
"But he never gave us any signs . . . Never acted strangely really.
"He pushed us all away. At the time that seemed acceptable. He wouldn't let people get close anymore. But, in retrospect, he was begging us to help him by doing that. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty."
"Tell me about the accident."
" . . . The accident?"
"Yes. Tell me about the first few months afterwards."
"The first few months after the accident were hard. My parents . . . They were very afraid that he might do something drastic to himself. It was at about the six-month mark that they seemed to think that everything was going to be fine."
"That upsets you?"
"How could they believe that? Why didn't they see . . .?
"None of us saw. I am being hypercritical now. I hate hypocrites."
"The accident . . .?"
"Oh. Yes. The accident. I'm sorry."
"It's alright. Please, continue."
"It was never the same after the accident. It was as if some giant rift was slowly but surely opening between us all. My self, Yamato, our friends, we were drifting farther and farther apart. Leaving us divided and afraid. Alone. And there was nothing that any of us could do to stop it. That was something that shouldn't have happened. That was the time when we need to pull together and be strong. I suppose having two people blaming my brother for their loved-ones deaths did not help matters much.
" . . . I miss Shin."
"Shin?"
"My brother's best friend's brother. He just seemed to, I don't know, ignore us after the accident. I think he felt resentful that Yamato survived and Jyou didn't.
"He'd always been nice to the younger kids, never patronizing or arrogant. He taught me a lot. It hurts that he won't even look in my direction now. I guess I should be thankful that I had never been too close to Kohaku. It would be too hard to see him everyday, hating Yamato and I."
"And Kohaku is . . .?"
"His girlfriend's brother."
"The one that died?"
"Yes.
"You know, it's funny really. Kohaku hates Yamato almost as much as Yamato hated himself."
I watched silently as Doctor Iio pushed the stop button on the tape recorder. We had been taping my sessions since I had started seeing him a few weeks before. On occasion we use a session to go back over what I have said and see if I still am encumbered with that particular emotional stress.
Doctor Iio is the first therapist with whom I have felt comfortable. He was a small man, shorter than I, but he held an air of strength about him that was comforting. His face was narrow and brown and wrinkled. Snowy white hair was kept meticulously clean and coiled at the nap of his neck. His eyes were bright despite their years and he had a warm voice. He wore thin, gold-wire framed glasses.
He cocked his head at me, reminding me for all the world of a curious bird, and waved his hand at the recorder. "Well young man. This is something we have yet had to deal with."
I nodded.
"Do you still feel like this?"
"Yes. For the most part."
"Good." A chuckle rumbled in his chest. "Had you answered otherwise I would have been worried."
I got up and wandered over to the large picture window with ugly chintz curtains that over looked the bay. It still made my eyes water when I looked at the bay. It always made me think of the time, during the battles with Myotismon, that Jyou and Ikkakumon had taken me to go find Yamato and Otousan. I quickly turned around and went to the bookcase on the opposite wall. I fiddled with the heavy, glass, egg-shaped paperweight that Iio kept there.
"I do find it surprising, though, that you still blame yourself for your brother's death." I glanced over at him, faintly startled. "Yes, you heard very well what I said, boy. Now tell me why."
"You should know why," I retorted. "You're the psychiatrist."
He snorted. "Very well. You feel guilty because you were not there when it happened. You feel responsible because your brother was someone that protected of you and you should have been able to return the favor. You feel resentful because he shouldn't have placed you in a position where you needed to protect him, your older brother." I made some vague sound of protest deep in my throat. Iio glared at me sternly.
"You be quiet when your elders speak."
I scowled. "Aren't therapists supposed to believe in self awareness and self fulfillment and all that other crap?"
"Perhaps some, yes."
"Then shouldn't you be being gentle and coddling with me?"
He looked genuinely amused at this. "Me? Coddle you? My boy, what you need are facts. Facts and truths to put straight in your mind that it wasn't your fault, there was nothing you or anyone could have done. Continually hating you brother is just as unproductive as continually mourning him."
I stared at him.
"You look like a fish, boy." Iio said irritated. "Close your mouth if you have nothing to say."
"You just said I hate my brother." I breathed, feeling numb. I had to put down the paperweight because my hands had begun trembling so badly.
He sighed deeply. "Takaishi-san my lad, though you have not even acknowledged it to yourself yet, you hate your brother for what he has done. You hate him for the changes he's caused that can't be changed back. You hate him for the trusts he's broken that can't be repaired. You hate him because the choices he made excluded you. You hate him because he is your brother, and he is not supposed to do things like that. Not to you." He leaned forward, hands steepled under his chin. His eyes seemed tired.
"You hate him because you love him."
I shook my head mutely, wanting to deny the statement but finding myself unable to speak a word. That was not true. I did not hate my brother. Do not. Cannot. Should not. I saw him start to get up and make movements like he was going to come towards me. I back peddled and shook my head even more vehemently. The small of my back cramped in pain where it bumped against the bookcase.
"You're wrong." I croaked finally. "I don't hate my brother. I don't. You're wrong." He paused in his movements, sitting back down.
"Am I?"
"Yes." I was pleased that my voice was getting stronger. "I don't hate my brother. I don't hate that he choose to die. I don't hate that he never even tried to talk to me, never tried to get help. I don't hate that he pushed us all away, that he pushed me away, every time we offered support. I don't hate that because of him I have lost some of my best friends. I don't hate that because of him people are continually looking at me as if they are just waiting for my to follow in my brother's footsteps. I don't hate the fact that the bastard didn't even stop to consider what kind of impact this would have on his friends and family. I don't hate the asshole for not even considering what he would do to me. I don't hate him . . . "
I saw my look of dawning realization mirrored in the lenses of Iio's glasses. He wisely stayed silent.
"I . . . " Words froze in my throat before they could form. "I . . . " I could feel something old and aching writhing inside me. Hurting. My eyes stung.
"I . . . "
"It's alright to hate, Takaishi-san." He murmured gently. "Hate is a natural emotion. And a hate so strong that it won't even let you weep can only be born of deep love."
"I . . . " My eyes darted around the room, looking for some route of escape. I was feeling increasingly trapped. My hands fumbled for my coat. My fingers where stiff and wooden, like those of a marionette. "I –I think that today's session is over now."
"You are angry that he didn't even consider what this would do to you." Iio wondered to the room, ignoring me. "Why?"
I paused at the door for a moment; hand perched on the doorknob. I looked back. He was sitting in his large, overstuffed antique leather chair, his pride and joy, in a ray of blindingly bright winter sunlight. It haloed his head in a wreath of white and gold. He looked ancient at that moment. And wise. And tired and so mortal.
"There was a time," My voice sounded hollow to my ears. Tinny. "When the thought of any type of hurt or worry to me would send Yamato into a near hysteric, protective rage. It seemed to be his only weakness: his only flaw.
"I just find it funny that he would be the one to hurt me the most. That's all."
The door fell shut behind me with a soft click and a feeling of finality.
You're jaw is clenched
You're lips are tight
You're eyes shine with an awful light
Standing so
Alone
The streets outside Iio's building where drab and dirty. They were also almost empty of life, with only a few brave individuals willing to trudge through the chilly winds to their destinations. The smart people where in their cars or at home. But I had never been very smart in that sense.
But then, I never needed to before. Because Yamato would always be there to help catch me and pick up the pieces of whatever I had broken. But now . . .
I was forced to admit to myself that Iio was right, in a way. My dependency on my brother was almost crippling. A flutter of dusty brown caught the corner of my eye as I trudged past the large picture window of some antique store. I paused and glanced down. A tiny, soft dun-colored bird lay on the trash littered cement. The wind ruffled the small, downy feathers on its breast. It's head hung at an odd angle. There was a miniscule speckling of red on the beak.
I tore my eyes away and pushed my walk into a brisk trot, then a run. Death seemed to be all around me now. Or maybe I was just now realizing it was there, having had the passive immunity most people hug tightly around themselves suddenly striped away. I wondered briefly if my face was as impassive as those of the people I saw walking by me on the street.
Probably not. I have never had a good poker face.
I paused at the street corner, shifting impatiently from foot to foot as I waited for the crossing light to change. It was very stupid, I felt, to be afraid of a dead bird. But I was. It made me uneasy, seeing the odd angle of its neck and the foggy dullness of its eyes. It looked too unnatural. Or maybe the real problem was that it looked all too natural. This strange unease and awareness I have about death is a topic I've yet to discuss with Iio.
I was reluctant to go back to my apartment. Well, not my apartment; I was staying with Otousan right now, but he was home so often that he might as well have been a repairman coming in for a monthly check-up of some troublesome appliance. Thus I have come to think of the apartment as mine, in the most abstract sense of the word. But I did not want to go home and sit in the dark, listening to music, as I knew I would if I went there. I did not want to be alone, but I didn't want to be with anyone either. My feet directed me to the park that stood like a small dead oasis in the winter of the city of their own accord.
The park, or so people liked to called it, was no more that a patch of trees, mud and grass left standing on both sides of the river to obscure the view the apartments had of the industrial lots that were creeping their way up the river banks. A narrow bridge reached plaintively across the metal gray expanse of water rippling below. It was actually quiet a charming place in the summer time. I paused on the perimeter of the gravel path that meandered its way lazily through the bare gray and white tangle of trees.
"Takeru! Takaishi Takeru!"
I started momentarily as my name was called out. I turned warily to face the speaker, and felt a momentary surge of surprise and pleasure to find it was Hikari running up to me, pink-cheeked and clear eyed.
"Takeru," Her breath made tiny, lucent clouds around her head. She was panting a little from her brief sprint across the space between us. I smiled at her.
"What are you doing out in this weather?" I asked softly, smiling faintly. Foolishly. "I'd thought I was the only person daring enough to venture out today." The smile she returned to me, a little uncertainly.
"How are you Takeru?" She asked instead, bypassing my question to her. Her smile grew more confident with each word spoken. "I never see you anymore."
I smiled back, gently so as to not alarm her or frighten her away. Few people dared to talk to me now, let alone dared let me smile at them. They seemed terrified that I might be hiding something inside my melancholy cheer. Even people who had known me since I was a child seemed afraid of me. Or maybe it was for me. I can barely tell the difference anymore.
"I'm good. Could be better, could be worse, but I'm good." I made a vague gesture towards the tattered gravel path laying all but forgotten at my feet. "Walk with me?"
She blew out a white puff of air. "Be glad to."
We walked in silence, neither seeming to know what to do or say. We were at the bridge before Hikari had gathered sufficient courage to speak. The winter winds made me wish wistfully of the warmth of indoors, but I managed to dismiss my discomfort.
"Daisuke asked me to marry him." She turned to face the river abruptly, leaning against the rail. I could see she was gripping it tightly; the knuckles on her gloves were strained. I watched her for a moment. The wind off the water dragged fine strands of nut-brown hair away from her face and pinked her cheeks.
"Are you going to accept?"
"I –I, no. I don't . . . Maybe. Yes." She rocked restlessly on the balls of her feet.
"You should." I rebuked mildly, now leaning against the rail myself. "He cares for more than he cares for himself. He would be there for you when you needed him." It was very quiet suddenly. The wind vanished like a bad dream in daylight, and tall smooth columns of gray and white wood muffled the sound of the traffic one knew was just beyond the empty branches. So very quiet I could hear the rumble of my heart sobbing in my ears.
"Do you ever," Hikari spoke up suddenly, licking wind-chapped lips. "Do you ever regret?" I stared down at the choppy water below.
"All the time." The words were surprisingly easy to say. "I would have to be something more than human not to." She shook her head slowly.
"I didn't mean it like that." She used her forearms to brace herself against the rail. "I meant do you ever regret choices you've made."
"Yes."
"Do you ever wish you could be given a chance to do them over again?" I did not see where she was going with these questions. Perhaps did not want to see.
"Always." Hikari hunched her shoulders in her coat, tucking her hand under her armpits to warm them.
"But I tend to try and not dwell on the past if I can help it."
"Takeru," I looked over at her, finding something odd in her voice. "Do you ever . . . " She trailed off vaguely. She sounded both frustrated and frightened. I waited.
She turned and looked at me. Scrutinizing me for something that she apparently found lacking.
"Are you okay with this?" There was an odd curiosity in her cinnamon eyes.
"It's a little late for me not to be." I replied sardonically, waving my hand in the air to encompass everything within our field of view. I took a deep breath. "Yes, I'm okay with this."
"This won't change things between us?"
"Why would it?" I muffled my chuckle at the anxiousness in her voice with my scarf. "You've been seeing Daisuke for what is it? Two years? Three . . .? If anything would change our friendship, it would have been that."
"Three and a half." She corrected absently. "It's been three and a half years."
"Ah yes. Ever since the accident." We were both quiet for a moment.
"There could have been an 'us,' you know." Hikari said quietly, musingly. "If–"
"I know." I thought it best not to travel that road. Not now. " 'If' could have been many things." I huddled deeper into my own coat, as she had done earlier.
"Yes, at one point in time there could have been an 'us.' But not now."
"Do you regret that?"
"Do you?" I countered.
She was thoughtfully silent for a moment. "Yes, in a way. I do regret that we never tried. But I am happy where I am now."
"I'm glad." She looked at me, slightly uncertain as to which comment I was referring. In truth, so was I.
She wrapped her arms around herself suddenly, hugging tightly. "It wasn't like I didn't want to be there for you." She said defensively, addressing an imagined accusation. For some reason she felt the need to validate this to me. Or maybe it was to herself.
"We were all breaking apart. I didn't know what to do. Daisuke was there. I didn't know what to do and Daisuke was there." Her voice had dropped pitifully on the last few words.
"Hikari," I drew her attention to myself. "You don't need to explain. Or make excuses. I'm your friend. Now and always. You should know that by now." She raised her hand to brush some hair away from her face. Her eyes were uncertain of me.
"Thank you."
My smile was off beat; I could feel it hanging crooked on my face. "You're welcome.
"Go back to Daisuke, Yagami Hikari. Tell him your answer. There is nothing here for you but ashes. Go warm yourself by his fire."
She took one last look at me and turned around and went back the way she came. I could just make out a small trembling in her shoulders as she walked away. I hoped it was from the cold.
Now I wanted to go home. I turned and slowly made my way up to the apartment, leaving a chunk of myself moldering behind me. Now, now I wanted to be alone.
You are surrounded
But still alone
Feeling chilled to the bone
Standing still
Alone
The apartment was on the scenic third floor of a mid-range rent level complex. It was fairly large, two-and-a-half bedrooms and two working bathrooms, very simple furnished. Otousan had never been much of an interior decorator; Yamato had always been the one . . .
Well. Anyway. I am much like Otousan in that way; I couldn't care less how the interior of the house looked.
Otousan moved immediately after Yamato . . . Passed away. He just could not continue to live in the same house that his son had died in. But even then, he almost never came home. I think he did not feel safe in a home anymore. I do not blame him for that. So the apartment is not a home. It has no paraphernalia cluttering the walls and the living space. There are no family pictures sitting proudly out on the mantel, though we have a large one. The floor is bare wood, vinyl in the kitchen, with no bright throw rugs scattered haphazardly across the almost empty rooms. The only thing that might signify someone actually living here and not just staying is the shiny, well cared for stereo sound system in the living room.
Otousan used his work to be alone; I used music. The CDs were all from Yamato's collection. They were the only things of his that I kept.
After refusing to let myself look back at were Hikari and I had talked, I almost ran to the sterile safety of the apartment. I locked the door behind me, and placed my shoes neatly and symmetrically by the door. Once in my room I rummaged through my dresser drawers for a particular CD. I became almost frantic when I could not find it in the small pile of battered plastic cases before I remembered that I had left in the stereo after I had listened to it last. I took a deep breath before heading into the living room. In some ways it almost felt like I was preparing for battle.
In the living room I pulled out my Walkman, and several unmarked cassette tapes, and placed them beside the single, ancient chair the living room held. I lightly fingered the CD's cover were it lay beside the stereo. I still remembered so clearly the day that Yamato, Mimi, and I had picked out the songs for her demo tape. The soft pastel colors of the cover winked up at me, reminding me of the giddy, almost fierce look that had been on Mimi's face as she and Koushiro designed the front cover. I had had the great honor of helping her arrange and compile the songs. Otousan being in the media business and all, and Yamato was seriously becoming interested in media tech.
I can still remember the day we three actually sat down and organized her demo recordings. How she had laughed and moaned about all the work it required. And how she had tried to wheedle me into doing it for her. I did. In the end, that is. I had always held a soft spot for her. She had seemed so out of place when I'd first met her at the summer camp Yamato and I went to.
She had laughed so much and so joyfully that afternoon. And it was only four years ago that she'd . . .
Kami . . . Was it really four years ago . . .? It seemed so short a time ago. We were all together, all so happy. Why . . .
I tapped the case once more, then switched the CD on and turned up the volume. I flung myself into the chair and slung the headphones to the Walkman around my throat. My finger hovered over the play button as if it were the trigger of a gun. I let the sweet, melancholy, mocking music from the stereo wash over me. I let myself remember for a moment the hollow shell of a human my Oniisan was before . . .
I didn't know that Yamato owned a gun. I had never thought to check.
Yamato was badly scared after the accident. Not just mentally and emotionally, though that would have been enough, but physically as well. He'd lost the little finger and the ring finger on his right hand. Because he'd been driving, when the steering wheel was pushed inward, his hand had been crushed between the windshield and the wheel. This had also severed a tendon in his right hand, causing it to heal stiffly and near useless. It was only after extensive physiotherapy that he was able to regain some degree of use from it.
There were scars too. Thick, crimpled burns stretching across his body like a putrid disease. They started around his right armpit and lower right shoulder, and continued they're spiraling, destructive pattern downward in irregular patches, ending mid thigh on both legs.
I still remember the first time I saw them. It had been about three or four months after the initial accident. I had known Yamato was scared, but not to what extent. Not to that extent. I had been staying with Otousan and Yamato at the time. I was over there almost all the time after the accident. During those first few months it scared me that we let him be by himself so much.
I had just gotten home. Daisuke, Hikari, Miyako and I had all gone out for a semi-reunion. Ken had refused to come for some reason and Iori had declined on the basis of a personal problem. I didn't stick around for long. I felt uneasy among them then.
When I got home, I couldn't find Yamato, but I heard the shower running. I waited for twenty minutes. Finally, fearing that he had done something to himself, I barged into the bathroom.
The room was thick with steam, clouding the mirrors and fogging the shower stall glass. And it was hot. Almost sweltering. The heat rolled out in a wave that hit you with an almost breathtaking force. The water sounded like pieces of glass shattering against the walls of the shower stall.
I slid the doors open to find my Oniisan sitting up against the stall wall, right beneath the steaming showerhead, head tilted back and upward. His hair clung to his head in a sleek yellow helmet, some sticking darkly to his cheeks and lips. His eyes were closed and his knees were pulled loosely to his chest, arms absently flung about them. He was very still.
"Yamato?" I'd ventured softly. He had looked at me then, eyes very bright and sharp.
"It won't come off." He'd looked down at his hands, red and swollen. "I can't get it to come off." His entire body was pink from the strength with which he'd scrubbed, the scars even more so. Almost an angry mauve in color.
I, not knowing what to do or how to react, wadded in to the shower and turned off the near scalding water. I then helped him up as I would a very small child, and tried not to stare at the ugly scars covering him, warping his body. I wrapped a towel around him.
"Dry off," I'd told him softly. "Then come and get something warm to drink with me." He'd nodded obediently and I'd left him alone.
Looking back now, I saw what I wouldn't let myself see before; the depression, the manic cycles, one moment calm and still, the next angry and almost violent, the carefully suppressed rage, the self-imposed emotional isolation from other people. They were all warning flags I'd willfully chosen to ignore.
Unable to bare the memories Mimi's desolate music re-awoke in me anymore, as it always did, I swiftly jabbed the play button on the Walkman, already having made sure that the volume level on it was a loud as it would go. This way I could listen to the music and review the way I felt without being subjective, but objective.
This was my ritual. Listen to Mimi's music, which was also Yamato's in a way. Listen to the tapes of my therapy sessions so I could begin to grasp at what I was feeling without being swamped by a wave of despair. And allow myself to glimpse at the memories of the happier times.
You try to walk
When you want to run
Away
From the strangers whom surround you
Looking for a face
No longer there
Standing ever
Alone
"The trick is to keep breathing."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Breathing. That's the trick."
"The trick of what?"
"Surviving daily.
"Once . . . once just after the accident he and I were watching TV. Some news update came on saying something about one of the only survivors of that plane crash that happened a few days earlier. I had asked Yamato how someone could survive after something like that had happened to them. After having people around them die. And he turned to me, and he looked at me.
" 'The trick is,' He told me softly. 'To keep breathing. In and out. Every day.' "
There was one time when I was talking to Yamato, just before . . .
Anyway. There was one time when he called me, and he had whispered so softly that I had to strain to hear him. He whispered, 'there are times when I feel so . . . alone.' I'd replied quickly, too quickly, almost sharply, that he had no need to feel like that. We were there for him. He was not alone. I'd laughed off probably his only plea for help.
Looking back now, I think I may have lost an opening he was showing me. I think I lost a chance to help him. I think I didn't want to believe that anything was wrong.
I think I realized that when I found him. Just sitting there . . .
Otousan and I threw that chair out afterward; the bloodstain on it was permanent.
Now you're falling
Falling down
"The report says you were the one to find him."
" . . . Yes."
"Would you tell me about it?"
" . . . I probably should, shouldn't I?"
"I believe it would be helpful. Yes."
"Alright.
"I had just talked to him. Just phoned him before I came over. He didn't seem . . . he didn't sound any different than usual, I guess. Maybe more calm. Maybe more tired, but I . . .
"I guess I wasn't looking for the right signs."
"No one ever is Takaishi-san."
"I do remember that there was this . . . tranquility in his voice. Like he'd finally finished something started a long time ago. I think I thought that he was coming to terms with himself. I guess he did, in his own way."
" . . . Takaishi-san?"
"Hmm? Yes?"
"Do you wish to continue?"
"No.
"Anyway, I went to the house. I went in, I have my own key, and noticed how still it was. Like the entire house was holding its breath. That frightened me. I called out as I shed my coat. I had just called. He knew I was coming. Why did he do it then . . .? He could have waited for me. I would have come. I was coming."
"Takaishi-san?"
"He was in the living room."
"Yes. That was in the police report."
"He was just sitting there. His head was slumped back against the headrest, tilted sideways, a little. Resting on his shoulder. It looked like he was asleep.
"The stereo was on."
"I didn't read that in the report."
"It wouldn't be. I didn't tell the police."
"Oh?"
"It wasn't important.
"The music wasn't blaring. It was soft, comforting. It was her music. But then, it always was. After the accident he refused to listen to any music that wasn't hers.
"After I'd called the ambulance, I went back into the living room. I'd asked the operator to call Otousan. I didn't ask her to call Okaasan. Yamato had never really forgiven her for leaving. After a while, it was like only Otousan and I were his family. Okaasan stopped asking after Yamato around then too. Even after the accident, though Okaasan was worried and want to help him, she didn't go see him. It was always just Otousan and I. I guess she though that might push him away even more."
"The report says that you were found holding your brother."
"That's right. Yes."
"Why?"
" . . . After I made those calls, I felt this . . . I don't know, this stillness creep over me. Start to consume me. He looked so small in the chair, so very fragile. I wasn't sure what to do. I remembered that once, when I was younger, I had had a nightmare. Otousan was away for the night, and Yamato was in charge. He heard me, and came into my room and held me. Just rocked me back and forth and hummed. It made me feel better. I thought that maybe, if I did that, he would wake up. That maybe this would have all been some never ending dream and that by holding him, I could give him some of the comfort he gave to me.
"It didn't work. He didn't wake up, but it made me feel better. A little less useless."
"The report also says that you were very calm when they found you. You weren't crying."
"Tears don't change anything. They wouldn't have been helpful."
I hadn't even known that Yamato could use a gun. But, I guess you don't even really need to know how to use a gun to kill yourself with one.
Seeing him there had been odd. It was like I was looking at someone else in that chair and not my Niisan. But it was my Niisan, and that's what was most strange about it. It was my older brother sitting in that chair, one hand lying neatly in his lap, with the right side of his face blown away. Red. And white. Raw. The other hand was flung over the armrest. The gun was on the floor, fallen from nerveless fingers. There were strands of bright blond hair stuck to the wall behind him and the chair in droplets of drying blood. There was some on the floor behind as well.
I wasn't as shocked as I think I should have been. I know I was more relieved than I should have been. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had known that, in the end, it, this, would happen. Well maybe not this precisely, I had never thought that he would be dead, but I knew that something would happen to break him. He was never fine, though we all liked to pretend he was. I think I felt it was a relief to finally get it over with, get it out in the open.
But, contrary to what my parents and friends believe, I do not think it was Mimi's death that triggered this. It was multiple things. Jyou death and Yamato's part in it; I knew he blamed himself for not paying enough attention. School. After the accident, he took up the courses he would need to get into medicine or maybe psychology. The professions Jyou was going to get into. He had always hated science. His grades were low; he wasn't doing well.
It also didn't help that Otousan, despite being vaguely worried about his eldest son's emotional state, decided that the best thing to do would be to just pretend that everything was fine, or was going to be. Okaasan was the opposite, for a while at least. She wanted him to go see doctor, to get help, she wanted to protect him from what happened, blot it from his waking mind.
Yamato ignored both of them, sinking farther and farther into his own world while I watched not knowing what to do. Or maybe I didn't want to know what to do. Maybe I . . .
Maybe I had wanted him to.
You're waiting for the impact
"He phoned me once."
"What did you talk about?"
" . . . I don't remember."
"Keeping thing bottled up won't help you Takaishi-san."
"I don't, okay? I don't remember what we talked about.
" . . . But there was something he said towards the end that always stayed with me."
"And it was . . .?"
" . . . I guess there had been a lull in the conversation. One of those moments of absolute silence that were becoming very familiar to me. What he said in that silence surprised me."
"What did he say?"
"He said, 'I remember.'"
"That's it?"
" . . . No. I asked him what he remembered and he gave a tinny laugh. It may have just been the telephone, but it sounded tinny to me.
" 'I remember want Mimi and I fought about.' He'd said. 'I remember what we had that fight about.' I asked him what it had been and he said, 'We were fighting about that tour she went on. I didn't want her to go. I thought that she should put it on hold and finish school here, with us. With me. I said as much to her.'
"I didn't know what to say to him. So I didn't say anything. After a moment of silence, he said goodbye and hung up."
Yamato was a private person. Nobody who ever met him could deny that. But there are times when I think to myself, when I ask myself, why nobody ever noticed the way he withdrew from everyone. I would like to think that they just honestly didn't see it. But I know they did. I know they knew something was wrong. They just didn't care.
They were afraid of him. And who wouldn't be? With his disfigured hand and body, with his best friend dead in a car accident, of which one of the cars had been his, with him at the wheel. He scared people. Not intentionally. And they were not intentionally scared of him. Maybe 'scared' is not even the right word. 'Distrusting' is better. They didn't feel that they could trust him any more. It was devastating to him.
I had once asked Ken about it, surprisingly enough. We, all of us, had been at the semi-annual meeting that we held, this time at the Yagami's. We were subconsciously divided into sections. Daisuke, Iori, Miyako were all standing together, being the 'new' Chosen. Taichi, Sora, Koushiro were altogether, being the 'old' Chosen. Hikari and I wandered back and forth between them, being both. Ken sat off to the side, being not quite one of the old Chosen, though he held a tag and crest, and not quite being one of the new Chosen, though Wormmon could armor evolve. Yamato, too, sat off to the side. Partly because he hadn't really wanted to come, partly because we had all seen the tentative, sickened look that had been apparent on familiar faces.
They made a minimal effort to include him in the conversations going on. But he did not help them, only answering monosyllable replies to questions presented to him. They just stopped trying after a while.
I had been mad. I had brought Yamato to the damn thing in hopes that being around our friends would get him to talk, maybe even laugh. That he was being such an ass was not helping. I wandered over to where Ken sat watching us all make idiots of ourselves trying to not say the wrong thing. He smiled enigmatically.
"Having fun?" I'd snarled uncharacteristically. Ken just looked at me and I'd shifted uncomfortably.
"Sorry." Ken had shrugged.
"It's alright."
We both watched the others for a moment.
"Your Oniisan is not doing so well." Ken had looked at me from the corner of his eye, tilting his head in Yamato's direction.
"Ya think?" I'd retorted shortly. Ken shook with what might have been a silent laugh.
"That's not exactly what I meant." He turned to me, indigo eyes intense. "He doesn't trust himself. That makes him afraid to trust others. Because, if one can't trust ones self, then who can one trust?"
I'd shivered a little under his eyes. "How do you know that?"
He'd gotten a far away look on his face, eye dilating into cloudy cerulean. "I know. What more do you need than that?"
Ken was right. Yamato didn't trust himself. Hell, he barely liked himself. And they always say that how you feel about yourself reflects onto other people. Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that crap.
The tape in the Walkman shuddered to a halt, signaling the end of this side of the tape. I hurriedly flipped it, trying to prevent myself from losing myself to deeply in the music. I jabbed the play button for the second time, feeling a rush of relief as the tape squealed to life.
It comes
But now familiar arms hold you
"Takaishi-san, do you know what the emotion opposite to love is?"
"I don't know. Hate?"
"No, not hate. Fear, Takaishi-san, it is fear. Fear is the emotion opposite of love. Fear is the root of all other emotions as well. Hate is begot of fear, anger is begot of fear; envy, jealousy, depression; all are a different type of fear.
"So Takaishi-san, what are you so afraid of?"
What am I so afraid of? If I could answer that then maybe I would be all right. Maybe I could have made Yamato all right. Maybe . . .
Maybe . . .
" 'Maybes' are no good." Ken had told me a while ago. He had seemed, I don't know – concerned? Worried? Anxious? – for me. I had run into him at a small bookstore I had taken shelter in from the rain one day. Ken and I began talking to relive some of the boredom. I had began to wax wistfully of the 'might's,' 'should haves,' and the 'maybes' that I didn't do.
Ken, surprisingly, was the only one that never really seemed too shocked by what was happening. By what Yamato had done. By what everyone seemed to think that I was in the process of doing to myself.
That day, in the bookstore, he grabbed my shoulder with a steel grip, holding me still before him.
"You can't think about the 'maybes.' That will destroy you. It will pull you down and hold you tight and never let you have a life." I'd stared at him wonderingly. He'd seen my look and something in his eyes had flickered.
"Takaishi, you could have done nothing for him. He was the only one that could have pulled himself out of the empty space he was falling into.
"Takeru," His eyes had seen past me then, at something long ago. "He didn't want to stop himself. He was killing himself slowly with university. With the guilt. You don't need to. You can survive if you stop the 'maybes.' " I'd jerked my arm from his grip.
"Why do you care?" I'd tried, unsuccessfully, to stare him down.
"I like you." He'd answered glibly, looking away. "I don't need any more reason than that."
I would like to let go of the maybes. I really would. But I can't. Simply because I know, no matter what anyone says, that I could have stopped him.
The question I must now deal with is why didn't I?
The second side of the tape clicked to a stop, but this time I didn't bother to change it. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the chair. The music swirled and swelled in the air around me, lifting me up to heights unknown before letting me plummet to the deepest of depths. I could feel a bar of silky warmth across my face and chest. The sun was setting. The windows in the living room faced west.
I kept my eyes closed, just letting the sun-warmed air glide around me in smooth fingers. Letting the bar of warmth slowly move away from me as the shadows deepened.
I ignored the cool wetness I could feel sliding down my flushed cheeks.
"What I am afraid of . . .?"
"Yes."
"I am afraid of failing."
"And?"
"And what?"
"What else?"
" . . . I don't know."
"Yes you do."
" . . . Maybe.
"Maybe –Maybe being alone. Not the way I am now, but . . . alone."
" . . . And?"
" . . . Forgetting whom my brother was before . . . All this."
"And?"
"Remembering who my brother was before this, maybe."
"Why?"
"I might grow to hate him if I remember how strong my brother was, and then how weak."
"I see . . . And? What else?"
" . . . Becoming like him. Or not becoming like him. I don't know which scares me more."
Standing
No longer
Alone
– – –