Author's Note: This chapter is from Tayuya's point of view.
Title: Religion and Music
Chapter 10: When I Hated Him
I felt like an idiot as Kabuto carried me into our house. I could feel the hatred coming from him and the rest of my brothers as we entered. They seemed to be trying to hurt me with their gazes, and I would be dead if looks could kill. I tried my best to hide my face from them, but their glares still gouged their way into my skin.
Kabuto set me down as soon as I heard the front door close. Slowly, everyone spread out around the nearby living room as soon as they took their shoes off. I stood near the entrance, not wanting to join the rest of them. If there was ever a time when I wanted to be dead, it was at that moment.
"I'm glad you're safe," I heard Dad murmur as he walked into the kitchen to the right. "Would you like something, Ta-chan? Something to eat? Something to drink?"
"Ha!" Kiddoumaru suddenly burst out. "You're offering her something to drink after the incident we just faced at that bar?! No wonder the brat is so screwed up!"
"She's ruined our entire night now," Jiroubo spat. "I was going to meet up with friends."
Sakon and Ukon hoisted up their middle fingers at me simultaneously. "You're such a pain in the ass," they hissed together.
Kabuto snorted. "Bitch."
No wonder the brat is so screwed up!
She's ruined our entire night now.
You're such a pain in the ass.
Bitch.
I slapped my hands over my ears. God, I did NOT need to be hearing those things. I groaned and wanted to cry when I heard my stupid brothers snickering. Damn, those guys were such assholes, and I was cursing everyone in my head for being home. Normally, they all would have been away at school or work, so seeing all of them was the last thing I wanted.
"Give her a break," Kimimaro suddenly interrupted. I looked up at him with wide eyes. He was standing next to me, and his hand was on my shoulder. "She's just a kid. She made a mistake. What a surprise! She's human!" He took his hand away. "It wasn't her fault."
I gasped. Someone was on my side.
"What do you mean 'It wasn't her fault'?!" Sakon exploded. "OF COURSE it was her fault! If she hadn't gone and been an idiot, none of this would have happened!"
Ukon nodded. "We'd be better off if she had died there. She's nothing but a nuisance."
If she hadn't gone and been an idiot, none of this would have happened!
She's nothing but a nuisance.
"ALRIGHT, THAT'S ENOUGH," Dad finally announced. He turned towards my brothers. "ALL OF YOU are staying in this house for the rest of the night, no questions asked. No one is going out for any reason without my approval." He took his cell phone from his back pocket. "Don't make me call my men on you."
I watched as my brothers twisted their faces in anger and disgust as they muttered curses under their breath and headed up the stairs to their rooms. They snuck in their last insults and slammed their doors at the top of the stairs. I kept my eye on them and barely noticed when Kimimaro began heading up the stairs.
"Kimimaro," Dad continued, "remember that your physical therapist will be here at eight."
My brother nodded. "Yes, Father." He looked back at me, smiled one last time, and climbed the stairs. I watched him as he shut the door to his bedroom behind him.
Dad let out a long sigh and put his cell back in his pocket. "I'm sorry about that, Ta-chan" he murmured. "They won't bother you for at least the rest of the night." He glanced at me. I didn't look back at him, but I could tell that he was trying to make eye contact with me. He sighed again. "I don't want you going out tonight either, Ta-chan. Stay at home, okay? Tomorrow you can go out. It's just been a really rough night. Go to bed early, okay?"
Once again, I refused to look at my father. I heard him give another deep sigh.
"If you won't respond, I'll leave," he offered. He waited for a moment and then walked out of the kitchen and past me. I could tell that he desperately wanted to talk to me, but I was too busy being a stubborn ass. I waited until I heard the closing of his bedroom door to break down.
I fell to my knees and let a few tears fall. God, what was up with me? I never cried, literally. Tears showed weakness, not strength, and all my life, I had sworn to be strong. I had to be strong if I was going to put up with six asshole brothers and a bastard of a father. I needed to have strength to live the life Mom lost. I needed to gain strength to continue to live as I was meant to.
I wasn't meant to love. I was meant to hate.
So why...why was I in love with that loud-mouthed, silver-haired, Devil-worshipping idiot?
I looked up towards the ceiling. I needed an answer as to why, just...why? He was a total moron with nothing working for him besides an amazing chest and an eye for an awesome motorcycle.
Well, um, okay, maybe for those reasons, he wasn't that much of a moron.
I gently picked myself up, wiped my tears away, and walked into the kitchen. I needed something to settle myself, so I boiled some water and brewed some tea. I watched as the color of the leaves began to spread into the water, tinting the whole kettle with a very calming shade of green. I frowned. It was just like the tea. My life was full of shit, just like a violent storm of boiling water. The tea leaves had interrupted it, and for a moment, everything was still. Then, when the color began to spread, the water began to calm.
I narrowed my eyes at this thought. This guy, this Hidan guy, was just as bad as I was. He was a total jerk with a foul mouth and no idea how to present himself to a lady. He had even flat-out broken our relationship up for his stupid gang or whatever. God, how I had hated him after that. He had hurt me so damn badly, and he had caused such a pain in my chest unlike I had ever felt before. I hated him for that.
But...at the same time, I was also very...grateful. It was the first time in my life when I had felt...
...human.
I sighed as the tea finished brewing and took the kettle off the stove. After waiting for a moment, I poured the hot beverage into a cup and brought it to the table. I didn't drink it right away though. For a moment, I sort of just stared at the little ripples that appeared on the surface. The tiniest of movements could start them, and after they could only get bigger until they met with the sides of the cup. They would...crash.
"Oh, you made tea."
I looked up and met with my father's gentle gaze. He had changed out of his collared shirt and slacks and into a normal t-shirt and sweatpants. He was smiling at me as he went for the counter. "Do you mind if I have some, Ta-chan?" I nodded and his grin grew a little.
After a rather awkward silence, Dad sat down next to me at the table and took a sip of his tea. He sighed contently. "You always make good tea, Ta-chan. You'll make a great wife one day."
I twitched at that last sentence. Dad laughed, that jerk.
"I'm sorry, Ta-chan, I didn't mean it like that." He sipped his tea again. "I know you're having a little bit of guy trouble." He smirked when my head jerked up. "I could tell at the bar. It was the boy who was hanging onto you through all the chaos. Damn, Ta-chan, he wasn't going to let go of you for anything. I saw this look in his eyes, even when he was surprised to see me. He would have given up his life if it would keep you alive."
I shook my head out of shock. There was just no way...
Dad sighed after taking another sip of tea. "He's got something for you, Ta-chan. He's something special." He paused. "By the way, chances are good you both would be dead or, at the very least, badly injured if it weren't for Kimimaro." I cocked my head. "He saw what was happening while out driving," Dad explained. "He drove back here and got your brothers and me. We all went down to the bar to stop the fighting. You owe your brother a thank-you in the morning."
I nodded.
After a few more minutes of silence, I finally spoke.
"Dad," I whispered, "why is it that love hurts so badly?"
Dad looked at me with quite a bit of interest in his eyes. He gripped his tea cup and said, "I don't know if asking a yakuza boss will get you a good answer, Ta-chan." I wanted to curse him for joking with me, but something inside me kept me from losing it. I guess I was just too desperate for an answer, whatever the answer would turn out to be. Dad took another sip of tea before continuing. "I guess that when love hurts, it's because of one of two things. It's either because the relationship is bad or because you love a person so much to the point that your physical body can't harbor all those passionate feelings." He was quiet for a moment, but when he did speak, his voice had a twinge of sadness to it. "For your sake, Ta-chan, I sure hope it's the latter of the two."
I looked up at him. "You mean that?"
Dad nodded. "It was the only thing your mother wanted. When she found out she was pregnant with a girl, she told me that she wanted her daughter to one day fall so much in love that she couldn't take it! She wanted you to live happily with a person that you loved with every fiber of your being. She didn't care who. You could have been a lesbian for all she cared. She just wanted you to be happy."
"You think she still wants me to be happy after what I did to her?"
Dad stared at me. "What did you do to her?"
I rolled my eyes. "I killed her."
Dad blinked and shook his head. "No, you didn't kill her," he asserted. "She was always weak. Even when I married her and we started a family, I knew she wouldn't last long. It was just a matter of when her body would give out." He tried smiling. "You didn't kill her, Ta-chan. Besides, even if she wasn't weak, she would have given up her life if it meant she could give birth to a daughter. She just wanted a girl so badly..."
I picked up my tea cup and sipped it to distract myself from letting any tears fall down my face. That couldn't have been right, no way. It had always been me, right? I had always been the one behind the death, right? Well, that was what my stupid brothers had always told me anyway. I had grown up with the idea that I was this evil murderer.
"She was able to hold you for five minutes after you were born," Dad whispered. "After those five minutes, you were taken away from her. She looked at me, smiled, closed her eyes, and died." He paused. "I remember sitting there next to her bed. I hadn't even held you yet, but I couldn't do anything. I just sat there...and cried. Somehow, I knew that this would be it."
I dropped my head. "If everyone knew that this would be it, why didn't anyone stop Mom?" I sobbed quietly. "She should be alive, not me."
Dad drank the last of his tea. "That wasn't what she wanted. What could I do? She had the right to choose."
I rubbed my eyes and looked away from my father. It was all too much.
He just sighed. "I'll leave you alone now," he told me as he began to get up from his seat. "You need to be by yourself."
"Wait a second!" I shouted, thrusting my arm out towards Dad. "Don't! Stay here for a little while longer, okay?" I bit my lip. "I just need to ask you one last question." I narrowed my pink, puffy eyes at him as he sat back down. "Why did you blackmail my school to make me play my flute for them that one morning? You know I damn well I would hate you for that move. You know I always WILL hate you for forcing me to play my flute when I don't want to." Now I was getting angry.
"I just want you to get discovered," Dad replied quickly. "That's all I want."
"So you went and BLACKMAILED my principal to make me play for those high school idiots?! They don't know crap about music!!"
"But you can teach them."
"You can't teach the hopeless!"
"What about that boy, huh?"
"What about him?"
"Oh, don't play stupid with me. I know that you've been seeing him and playing your flute for him. Don't try to hide that one from me." He stuck his unusually long tongue out at me. "I'm your father. I know you. I know when you act differently."
I growled harshly. "Still, he has nothing to do with this," I hissed. "He's special. He's not that much of an idiot. What I want to know is why you would sink so low to get me up on stage."
"I told you, Ta-chan," Dad groaned, trying to be as gentle as possible. "I want you to get discovered."
I looked away and ran my fingers through my hair. "Can I offer you something then if you're going to be so stubborn?"
"What?"
"Can we compromise?"
My father's eyebrow rose. "Go on."
"Alright, how about this: I will play my flute on stage whenever I want. However, you may offer any place for me to play. It'll just be up to me to decide which gigs I play at." I grinned. "Can we agree on that?"
Dad laughed shortly. "I guess I can't argue with that."
OH, HELL, YES!!
I shook my head amusedly. "Thanks, Dad," I replied.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang. I looked at Dad and got up out of my seat to see who it was. I peeked through the eyehole and opened the door to see two young men standing before me. They were wearing white medical outfits but didn't seem that experienced in their fields.
I raised an eyebrow. "Can I...help you?"
"Does Kimimaro Sound live here?" one of them asked.
I nodded. "Yes..."
"His usual physical therapist is sick tonight. We were assigned to take his place."
Dad looked up and nodded. "Come in. Kimimaro's room is the second on the right on the upper level. Just tell him what you told us."
The men nodded and passed me as I moved. I narrowed my eyes as I closed the front door and watched them climb the stairs of our home. Something just wasn't...right.
"Ta-chan," Dad called. I whipped my head around. "You should get some rest. It's been a long day."
I nodded slowly as I began walking towards the stairs. "Okay."
"And Ta-chan?"
"Yeah?"
"That Hidan boy isn't one to let go of." He grinned. "He loves you for exactly what you are. He's not concerned with your flaws, and, trust me, you have plenty. Instead, he's more concerned with loving all of you, no matter how messed up it may seem." He paused. "He's the type of person worth sticking with."
I looked back at Dad sadly. "Then why do I feel as though I hate him?"
"There's a fine line between love and hate, Ta-chan. I'd figure out which side you're on before it's too late."
I bit my lip and turned, ready to head up to bed. I didn't need to listen to my father's out-of-character advice anymore. I needed to sleep so I could dream of Hidan.
TO BE CONTINUED
