A/N:
I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created
It wasn't the lies. It wasn't the secrets. Hell, they hadn't even been secrets: his mom had known all along that his dad had another. But it wasn't the adultery, or the lies, or the promises broken before they were made. It was the silence.
Shiro remembered it in numbing detail. The silence that had permeated every word, every gesture, every act in the theatre that had been his family. The silence of things that were never said, but always known.
He had wondered, in his childish attempts to break the silence with rage, who they had been performing for. Who was there to applaud their flawlessly delivered lines, except the photographs on the walls? Who was there to judge their still-life interpretation of a model family? Who was there, except the actors: suffocated in painted masks, bent broken in roles learnt by heart.
He'd been a "problem child": the kind who always got in trouble and fights. How unfortunate, relatives had said. Devoted parents and good income, and still he turned out like that. Hopefully he'd grow out of it. Boys will be boys, you know?
And no matter how he fought, or screamed, or misbehaved, nothing could break the silence. Nothing was allowed to disturb the performance. The dollhouse walls stood firm, the play went on, and on, and on, and…
Then it ended. Without applause, without encore, silence reigned supreme. The stage was sold to cover debt, and all inventories and decor that no longer filled a purpose were auctioned out. And he was alone. A problem child that was never silent, as little problematic children ought to be.
A lone cardboard box of personal belongings had been left in storage. Nobody knew what to do with it. No one wanted such things: crayon drawings, a tattered baseball glove, photographs of a model family – a silent audience, leaving when the show was over.
The problem child had been left in storage. Nobody knew what to do with him. No one wanted such things.
He had inherited various things from his parents: children tend to do that. His dad's hair. His mom's hands. His dad's winning smile.
His mom's drive to do everything he could for the people that mattered.
His dad's inability to sort out problems before they piled up high and buried him.
And though he'd fought, and screamed, and resisted, the silence had found him and forced its inheritance on him.
A/N:
Dear Dare mo
Sorry for the last part of my reply. ^_^' I might need somebody who speaks Italian to translate from English to Italian for me. I can tell from the reading statistics on TEotB that I have Italian readers, but I don't know how to reach them: so I "shouted" at them, hoping that somebody would contact me. (I bake very nice cakes as reward. 0w0 ) You deserve a cake as well, for the inhuman patience you must have to translate English fics. x') No need to defend yourself! If you have to translate, then those small details are the ones that will suffer in the process. (…who wouldn't want to see the multimillionaire Johann Faust IV crawl around and behave like a dog, though? xD)
If Shiro had lost in ch 104? Well, I doodled something in BtEatB for that. ;)
Dear Vee
You put me in a difficult position here: I should apologise for the problems I'm causing you, but I don't think I can do that and actually mean it. x') That's incredible to hear, in the rawest semantic sense of the word. Really, thank you. *awkward blush* There are plenty of awesome authors around: the problem is finding them. The one who's been the greatest inspiration for me, and whom I keep recommending to everyone I meet, would be Patrick Rothfuss. The wordsmithing, detail, love and sheer brilliance he puts into his writing is nothing short of divine.