Memories of the Forgotten One
Chapter 4
Bright Part One
The last chapter didn't get any reviews. That makes writers sad! Please review this story! I know I might not be that great a writer, but at least tell me how I can improve.
This chapter is sort of strange because it focuses mainly on Kazuki's thoughts. I guess it is a few years after the last few chapters. Sometimes I will write in first person for Kazuki's thoughts and sometimes in third person for every other character. I hope it isn't too confusing.
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Kazuki's POV
It is loud. The voices are raised, as they say. If raised means loud, they must be very raised. Rising up into the clouds that fly far above the house. I wish that I were like the clouds. Flying from place to place, coming back to the ones I liked. Leaving when there was a storm or lightning. Like now. I don't like this place, not now. Not most of the time. I want to fly away like the clouds. But not forever. There are good things here too. There are many good things. No one ever does anything bad to me. They disagree sometimes. Many times. It is very loud and the noise hurts my head.
I don't understand why they disagree so much. It's easy to not disagree, to not be loud. If someone asks you a question you say the answer they want to hear. Like if someone asks if you understand. I always say yes. I usually don't understand. I don't understand lots of things. Maybe I never will understand everything.
No, that's not true. I'll understand when I'm older. That's what everyone says, at least. I wonder why I'll understand when I'm older. Does everything really change so much? I don't want to change. I want to stay like I am now. I don't want to start being loud and disagreeing all the time. I don't want to make my voice raised and scare people.
The only thing I want to change is how I'm always causing problems. Problems cause disagreements. Disagreements make the raised voices that hurt my head and make me close my eyes. I know I'm causing the problems. I always hear my name when there are disagreements, and many words I do not understand as well. I want to learn to understand all the words in the world so I can understand what the problems are. Then I can fix them and we can all be happy. When I am older I will know all the words in the world. Then I will not have to become a cloud and fly away.
I see the corner of the sofa. There is a hole, and inside it are clouds. I take my hands off from my ears and reach in to pull some clouds out. The bits of cloud are fluffy, but not as soft as they look. They are a little bit scratchy on my fingers, but not enough to make a white-line-mark or to really hurt.
I take out some more clouds. I want to make one big cloud that I can sit on to fly up, up into the sky. I will fly up really far. Maybe I will never come down. Maybe I will come down when the disagreements are over. Maybe I will come back when I am older and understand things. I hope I will understand things when I am older.
The cloud is very big now. The pieces are kind of hard to stick together, but I find a way to. I break them up into really small pieces, like little strings, and roll them in my hands. I never knew clouds were made of string. Strings that sticks together, and float in the watery blue sky.
I look at the cloud now. It is big, big enough to sit on. But the corner of the sofa, I think it is the armrest, is flat. It is like an empty plastic bag.
I'm scared. I just wanted to make clouds, so I could fly away. Then there would be no more disagreements. They will see the flat sofa and be angry. They will ask if I understand, and I'll need to lie. I hate lying. Everyone always says that it's wrong, but everyone always wants me to lie. I wish I could explain that I wanted to make clouds, but they won't understand, I know. They never understand. When I am older I will know the words to explain. I can explain to everyone and there will be no more disagreements ever.
They are still disagreeing; they will be a while before they notice the bad thing I have done. I walk out through the back door; they are not watching. I close the door quietly behind me. It is heavy and made of wood. The wood is a dark brown colour, with lines of darker brown running through it. I run my fingers over the lines. They make a nice pattern, sometimes turning towards eachother, sometimes away. Whatever one line does the one beside it does the same in the other direction.
I think it has been a long time. The sky is darker. It is purple, blue, and orange, a very nice pattern. I see the sun; half of it is behind a hill far away. I want to walk over to that hill, to see the sun. I want to know if the sun feels warm. It is warm in summer, when there is more sun I think. But it is hard to remember the winter. It was a very long time ago. It was cold. I'm not sure if I remember that or if I just know from people talking about it. Everyone says that last winter was very cold. Harsh was the word, I think. I don't know what the word means, I think very cold. I remember the flowers and the grass and trees turned brown, even the leaves.
I think it is fall now. There are some orange and brown leaves on the trees and on the ground. There are also some green ones, dark green. Like green paint with black paint mixed in. Sometimes Mom lets me use the paints to draw. Not usually, only when she is around and is not doing work. She watches me draw. I think it is so I don't make a mess. Maybe she also wants to see what I am drawing. Mostly I draw us, me (Kazuki!) and Mom and Dad. I always draw us happy, never disagreeing. This is partly because I want us to be like that, and also because I think that it would make Mom sad to see me draw us like that. Sometimes I draw myself with orange hair, like it is. It is strange hair; more orange than anything I have ever seen before. More orange than squashes, or orange flowers. It is bright and shiny, like an orange sun. I have never seen an orange sun, only a yellow sun, sometimes it looks white. I never really look at it, or course, that's bad for your eyes. Once time it was red for a few days, because there was a big fire nearby. There were ashes in the air, Mom explained it to me. I could look at the sun then, because it wasn't bright enough to hurt me past the ashes. It was very beautiful, shiny and round. It was round like the yolk of a fried egg, and red as the red parts of a fire.
Sometimes I also draw myself with black hair. Everyone I know has black hair, or at least dark brown. I don't know very many people, though. I know my parents, and sometimes people come to the door to visit. They never come in though. I don't know why, but Mom and Dad and me are not usually supposed to leave the house. Dad leaves to go to work. Mom does work mostly at home, cleaning and cooking. She also does work where she reads papers and writes things, and calls people on the phone. I am not really sure what her job is, but I think it is important because she doesn't like me to interrupt. I know that Dad is a doctor. Sometimes we have to go see Daiki. When that happens we all have to wear our fancy clothes. I hate wearing fancy clothes. I can't play because I'll get them dirty and they aren't comfortable at all. They are scratchy on my skin like the clouds from the sofa.
I am walking towards the hill. I can't walk very fast though, so the hill stays far away and small. I look behind me and I can't see the house. Oh no, now I'm going to be in even more trouble. I'm not even allowed to leave the house except to see Daiki. I used to think that Daiki must be another person who is causing problems, like me. When there is a disagreement his name is said almost as much as mine. When I met him though, I found out he wasn't like me. He gets very angry fast, like Mom does sometimes, but worse. He yelled a lot, like Mom sometimes does, or Dad when he is really, really angry. But Daiki didn't just yell. He threw something and it almost hit me and I could tell Mom was angry and Dad was surprised but they both didn't say anything. I think Daiki was mad at me, because he threw the thing at me, not even close to Mom or Dad. I wish I knew why everyone is always getting mad at me. I think it has something to do with the beads I have to wear and with my orange hair.
I know that if a girl hugs me I turn into a cat. Mom explained it to me. Sometimes I will accidentally bump into her and I'll turn into a cat. Sometimes I will bump into her on purpose and say it is an accident. That is the only way I can ever hug her, and even though she gets mad at me after, it is worth it. It is because I am cursed. The rat cursed me, I know. There was a banquet to be in the zodiac, and the rat tricked me so I couldn't go to it. That's why I'm cursed, because the rat is a stupid liar. I hate him. I don't remember the banquet or the rat, I think because it was so long ago. I heard that it was in a past life, but I don't really understand what that means. How was I alive before now if I don't remember it? I wish I could remember my past lives or that someone would at least tell me about them. I asked Mom, but she acted like I didn't even say anything. I asked Dad and he said that he can't tell me because I did bad things in those lives and I didn't want to hear about them. I felt very sad when I heard that, that I had done bad things to people. I wish I could go back and change them. I don't want to hurt people; I want to fix the bad things even if I don't know what they are or why I did them. Then maybe I wouldn't always be causing problems for everyone now.
Sometimes Mom would let me play outside in front of the house. I wasn't supposed to tell Dad about it for some reason. I think it is against the rules. The rules are so confusing; I don't understand why they are different for me than they are for everybody else. When I played outside I would squish the blades of grass against smooth rocks. It would make a green paint, and I would put it on the tips of my fingers. I would write my name onto trees using the paint. My parents taught me how to use letters to write my name. I only know a few kana, reading and writing are hard. I think it will take me a long time to learn all the letters. Some day I will also learn Kanji, which are very complicated and difficult. There are more than one hundred of them. I can only count to twenty, numbers like one hundred are really big. Someday I will also know all the numbers. I will know all the numbers, letters, and words. I will be very smart and know how to not cause any more disagreements.
I am not allowed outside anymore. One day when I was writing, some boys walked by. They stared at me and started talking to eachother, very quietly so I could not hear their words. I went over to them. I wanted to talk to them, I had never seen any other kids before except from inside through the windows, and then I hadn't been allowed to talk to them. When they saw me coming they ran away. I think one of them yelled. I told mom about this and since then she never let me outside anymore. I hope that sometime soon she will let me go out again. Then I won't have to sneak out like this and get in trouble. I'd like that. I think when they find out that I am gone they will be very mad. Maybe they will never let me out again, maybe they will always watch me.
Maybe that will not be so bad. If they are always watching me they will never have the extra time to raise their voices and hurt my head. Maybe we can finally be happy. I'd like that, even at such a high cost.