"Oniichan! Daddy wants you!"
Although Yumeji was, thankfully, too oblivious to understand why everyone within the room stiffened and grew silent at his words, he still frowned at the obvious tension. He came over to his brother's side at the breakfast table and wrapped his arms around one his brother's in the only kind of hug that Mitsurugi seemed to allow anymore, worried.
"Well, that's good," Otaru finally commented. "We can tell him that we're leaving, and he can expect never to see his sons again."
Mitsurugi's eyes went wide. "Are you crazy? He's probably still furious over the fact that you punched him! We should just stick with the plan and sneak out."
Yumeji frowned at the exchange as the two older boys began to argue. Never see Daddy again? Well, it wasn't like he actually saw his father all that often. Mitsurugi and the serving marionettes had been the ones to raise him for as long as he could remember.
A thought occurred to him, and Yumeji's eyes lit up. "Do I get to live with oniichan?" he
asked happily, breaking into the heated conversation. He was overjoyed at the thought. It
was lonely living in the mansion, since he wasn't allowed to bring any of his school friends
in and there usually wasn't anyone to play with. He even had to eat alone, not allowed to
wander out of his chambers often unless he was going to school or visiting his brother.
Besides all of that, he loved spending time with his brother. Mitsurugi was fun, letting
Yumeji be his side-kick in all of his endeavors to gain Otaru's attention.
He wasn't THAT oblivious.
He didn't understand the sad looks at his question, so he smiled even more to show that he
was excited over the idea. "Then I can visit Otaru and Lime and Bloodberry and Cherry,
and we can have sleepovers, and explode fireworks, and I can see my friends after school,
and oniichan and I can have food fights!" he declared, dancing in happy little circles a few
times.
"Mitsurugi," he heard Otaru say softly, and stopped his dance around the room in surprise at hearing his brother's first name on Otaru's lips. When had that happened? He hated it when adults didn't tell him things, just because he was a kid!
His brother didn't look up, but Otaru continued anyway.
"You need to stand up to your father. For yourself, and Yumeji. I know you're scared to face him, but you won't be doing it alone. It's time for you to look him in the face, and tell him that you will never be used again."
Ha! Easy for Otaru to say!
Mitsurugi felt as though he was going to throw up. Or pass out. Or spontaneously combust.
It didn't matter that Otaru was standing right behind him. It didn't matter that, somehow,
the marionettes had seemed to forget their mutual hatred and were there for to support him
too. None of that mattered, his father's chamber door seemed just as evil and forbidding as
it always had as he stood before it. Unwillingly, the pain of the past came forward, images
that assaulted his senses so that he was shaking so badly his legs could barely support
himself.
How had he been able to do this before? Answer his father's summons and just walk into the room, despite the fact he knew what was coming. His father was never satisfied with anything he did, no matter how successfully he'd done it, and no meeting ever went without at least a slap across the face. His father was a man who had been born with anger in his blood, an underlining fury boiling below the surface even when he was at his most calm. He was a man that surrounded himself with machines that couldn't speak or think on their own, because he couldn't stand the presence of any human for long. Mitsurugi could remember them having company once, and the man had made a comment which had sent his father into a rage, landing four solid blows before the man had escaped.
Of course, Mitsurugi had then become the focus of his unsatiated anger.
He knew his father had children simply because he'd wanted heirs. That was their only purpose of existence, as far as he was concerned, Yumeji ignored completely because he was just a back-up in case Mitsurugi himself was unable to take on the family name and duties.
He used what he could to keep Mitsurugi terrified of him, and Mitsurugi knew it was so his father could control him. He hated the man, hating having those mental shackles, but had never been strong enough to face the man's anger without flinching. He always just took it, unable to give more than feeble protests, because he'd known his father would just get more upset at him. It was a real fear in him, that his father might kill him one day.
Perhaps today.
It was likely that the fact he'd been unconscious was the ONLY reason Mitsurugi hadn't had to face his anger sooner. Gods, how the hell was he going to do this?