A/N: I woke up this morning and saw that I had 7 alerts, 6 related to people following/favoriting this story. (Over 5 hours of sleep)
Looks like people like these changes - thanks for the feedback, inside and outside out of this website, that made that possible. This chapter is dedicated to you guys and girls.
I was thirteen.
I don't remember too much from this period, which makes the memories that do stand out all the more apparent.
One morning, I tripped down a flight of stairs at home, and it didn't hurt at all. I suppose I've always been a little pain tolerant from as far back as I can remember, for what that's worth; but this time I literally felt nothing.
My parents and I didn't think anything was wrong, so I cleaned up and went to school. Halfway through, I collapsed unconscious.
Turns out that the injury had broke something in my head, and blood was filling up. I was rushed into emergency surgery and operated on.
Thankfully there were no complications, and I made a full recovery. But this was far from the first time I had hurt myself in such a clumsy manner, and apparently this time the school could not ignore it; I was taken away from my parents while they were investigated for child abuse.
These allegations were, of course, false. I can see how the mistake was made, looking at it from an objective standpoint, but I was not pleased at the time.
I now realize that none of that helped my parents in the least. I was shifted to one of my mother's cousins while the investigation against my parents continued. She wasn't much of a fan of dealing with me because I was disabled, and we mostly ignored each other as much as possible. It was a fairly miserable existence.
School was worse; a group of boys seemed to think that my collapse was funny. When I patiently explained to them that I couldn't have felt the pain, they seemed to grow jealous despite the exceedingly obvious drawbacks of suffering from it. Apparently, one of their bunch had an abusive father, and seemed to think that it wasn't fair that he should feel the pain and I not.
Children are truly simplistic creatures and are capable of unthinkable levels of cruelty. Before every session one of them would tell me "You'll feel it when I'm done with you" and then proceed to beat me mercilessly. Near the end they'd always ask me if I could feel anything then, and I'd try to say that I did even though I honestly couldn't feel anything just to get it to stop, and they would reply with "I don't believe you" and continue until they left me on the ground as a shaking mess.
That wasn't the first time that happened. I learned to cover up the bruises as much as I could to prevent people from being falsely blamed, and because they threatened me with more violence should they get in trouble.
After all, according to them, it was only fair.
Eventually my parents were returned to me and I moved back in with them, but the accusations were rather damaging to both of their reputations. My father lost his job and struggled to get a new one, and my mother lost much of her friends and family.
This, of course, was blamed on me, and, having learned from my lessons at school, I stood there and took it.
They never actually wound up physically beating me, but they became particularly competent at tearing me down to shreds.
This went on for about two years.
I stopped participating at school, eventually started cutting classes. The administration notified my parents and they forced me to go to school, basically so that "I wouldn't cost them anything else".
I was walking down the hallway the day after school when I noticed that same group of boys from before, the bullies. It appeared that, in my absence, they had gotten bored, because they were picking on someone else now.
A young girl, her uniform identifying her as a seventh grader, bag and books scattered all over the ground. I watched as someone kicked her in the leg and she fell.
I don't know what they said, but it didn't matter; I came up from behind the guy who kicked her and slammed his head into the locker, and he dropped like a rock, blood everywhere.
The rest of them ran. Probably thought he was dead. I sometimes wish he was. Would've been better for him. As far as I know, he's still unconscious in that hospital bed.
As you can imagine, this got a bit of publicity, and things would have gone very poorly for me if not for the girl I protected.
As fortune would have it, the bullying victim was Rei Miyuki, the only other person suffering from HSAN-6 in all of Asia, and daughter to one of the richest (and therefore most powerful) men in the country. She was the one that convinced her parents to step in, silence the media, and got the parents of the person I nearly killed to settle out of court.
This naturally didn't protect me from my crime, which was technically assault, but no one really wanted to go against the Miyuki family, particularly when the wronged family didn't even care enough to try to press charges, AND no one wanted to really defend the guy who had thought it fitting to pick on a girl three years his junior, and thusly I was released with a slap on the wrist, mostly. It's not even on my record; I still suspect that money changed hands, somewhere.
This stopped any legal consequences from coming my way, but didn't solve my own issues regarding the subject. For weeks after the incident I would still wake up screaming from nightmares, and I was hospitalized myself for some time.
With Rei Miyuki's assistance and friendship I managed to pull myself together somewhat, thinking that I needed to set some kind of example as the older HSAN-6 patient. As it turned out, she was the one more often leading me through life. Without her, I'm not sure that I would still be alive. Certainly I wouldn't be free; I might have gone to jail without her protection.
At this time, I was still reacting pretty poorly to my own condition, these emotions exacerbated by the bullying I went through. It was Rei who helped me cope with it better. I'm still not perfectly okay with it, but I've at least come to accept that it is the reality I live in.
I love her for that.
After this ordeal, though, eventually I had to go home. And…
My parents were not pleased in the slightest. And, well…
I step into the kitchen. Dinner is set for two - a telling sign. My parents appear behind me.
"You've disappointed us again, son." My father tells me, in an icy tone.
I stiffen.
"After all we've gone through to sustain you, is this how you want to treat us? Tell me, what did we do to deserve this kind of behavior from you?"
Silence. My mother just stands there. I don't know if she agrees or disagrees; the fact is that she stands there, saying nothing, and that is enough for me to understand where she stands on this.
"Do not disappoint us again."
I turn around, slowly, trembling.
"Who…who are you…to talk about disappointment?" I whisper.
"What's that, boy? Speak up." My hands slowly clench into fists.
"WHO ARE YOU TO TALK ABOUT DISAPPOINTMENT?" I shriek at him, at her, at both of them. "MY PARENTS ARE COMPLETE FAILURES! THAT'S THE DISAPPOINTMENT I HAVE TO PUT UP WITH! DON'T YOU DARE TALK TO ME ABOUT DISAPPOINTMENT!"
He slaps me, hard. My head whiplashes from the impact as I stumble back, towards the kitchen table. My mother gasps, but the sound is drowned out by the blood rushing through my veins.
"DON'T YOU DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!" My father shouts back, having lost his temper. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR MOTHER AND I HAVE SACRIFICED FOR YOU?"
"SACRIFICE? YOU'VE SACRIFICED NOTHING! YOU WEREN'T EVEN THERE WHEN I WAS IN THE HOSPITAL! I HAD TO RELY ON OTHER PEOPLE, A GIRL THREE YEARS MY JUNIOR, TO TAKE CARE OF ME BECAUSE MY OWN PARENTS COULDN'T BE HALF-ASSED TO SPEND A FEW MINUTES PUTTING IN THE EFFORT TO CARE!"
"I GAVE MY JOB UP FOR YOU!"
"THAT WASN'T MY FAULT! I CAN'T CONTROL WHAT I WAS BORN WITH! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE 'H' IN 'HSAN-6' STANDS FOR? HEREDITARY! IF YOU WANT TO FIND SOMEONE TO BLAME FOR MAKING ME THE WAY I AM, BLAME YOURSELF!"
He's struck momentarily speechless by this, before resorting to the age-old response and slapping me across the face again.
Something inside me breaks.
My hand reaches behind me and yanks a knife off the table, and I point it in his direction, blood trickling down my palm from the blade cutting into my skin.
"Don't touch me again, bastard." I sneer, as his eyes go wide. "No, I suppose I'm the bastard here, aren't I…? After all, I don't have a father."
I can see the words slam into him.
"Consider something, why don't you two? Do you think you're the only one suffering? God, I HATE both of you! You have to put up with me? So WHAT? I have to wrap my head around the fact that my parents stopped loving me - if indeed you ever did - because I became an inconvenience!"
Still pointing the knife at him, I move back towards the door. "What kind of monsters are you?"
They stand in the way.
"Move." I whisper. "Or I'll run you through." I shift my grip on the blade. "And if you think I won't…"
"There isn't a number sufficiently small enough to adequately define how little I care about your continuing existence. Move, or I'll bring it all to an end and DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES!"
Slowly, he puts his hands up and shifts out of the way. Keeping an eye on him, I look towards my mother.
"Move, bitch." I say simply.
"Hisao-" She tries to say something and I violently shake my head.
"Move or die."
She moves, tears flowing down her face.
I retreat, eyes carefully on my parents to make sure they don't try anything, but they don't, just watch me exit. My father appears to be struggling with something.
I don't care.
Once I'm satisfied that I'm out of their range, I turn and exit the house, not looking back.
A safe distance away, I drop the knife, hands shaking, and then return to the hospital.
…
It's some time later that I wake up in a hospital bed, not remembering having fallen unconscious.
"You're awake." A comfortingly sweet voice says, and I tilt my head to see Rei.
"How …how long have I been asleep?" My voice cracks at first. Not very long, obviously, or I'd be struggling a bit more. It comes out in a bit of a mumble, but she seems to understand.
"Not very long. Just a day or so. You staggered in with blood dripping from your hand and the nice doctor came and sutured your cut up. Mind explaining that?" I give the younger girl a dry look.
"For someone three years my junior, you sure love to bully me." I reply at an attempt at humor, but it falls flat. I just feel…empty and cold inside.
"That's my job, isn't it?" She replies warmly, placing her hand on top of mine.
"Hey, Hisao?" Rei asks. Over time I've come to respect her and her friendship, despite our initial meeting. Regardless of how I felt, there was no way I could not like her, after I watched her desperately plead with her parents on my behalf to help me as I helped her.
Nor could I ignore the sense of responsibility I felt when I realized that she was being bullied for the same reasons I was. Perhaps if I hadn't started skipping school, I would never have had to watch that; she would never have had to experience it.
But I don't think she would have broken the way I did. Despite her upbringing…there's a lot of strength in her. She isn't spoiled like I would expect; her down-to-earth traits are actually the most prominent thing about her.
It's why I respect her so much, even though she's so young.
"Hisao?" Rei asks again. I blink.
"Sorry, I was thinking for a moment. What is it?"
"Are you okay?" She asks.
"I'm fin-" I cut myself off, studying her face. "Oh, I see. You want a real answer to that, don't you?"
"…Then, no. No. I'm not fine at all. I just found out that my parents are despicable, miserable wrecks that never loved me." I say simply.
"Ah." Rei says. "Want to talk about it?"
I give her a dark look, ready to tell her exactly what I think of that idea and where she can shove it; then I stop and look again.
Her intense crystal-blue eyes stare into mine, some kind of unidentifiable look in them.
"Hisao. You're allowed to say no." Her fingers grip mine with a startling strength.
I sigh and close my eyes, all the tension flooding out of me.
"I know. But I won't." My eyes fly open again to stare deep into hers, unflinching. "Don't try to convince me that my parents were anything but monsters, and I'll tell you."
Rei nods.
"Alright. Well…where do I begin? I'm honestly not sure where to start. Things were peachy for a while, up until about three years ago, actually. That's when my condition fully developed - before then, it was just high pain tolerance. Things had slipped away so gradually that no one, including myself, had any idea that anything was wrong…"
…
I feel my heart throb as I watch Hanako cry on my behalf, her arms wrapped around my shoulders as she apologizes for something that she had no role in.
Apologizes that my life had to be so needlessly cruel.
I'm not sure how to react to this sudden warm feeling; it feels terribly unfair to have her crying right now.
My breath comes in desperate breaths; am - am I crying?
We both are, I think, that's what it feels like to me.
Hm…
A reaction? I need a reaction.
Brain? You on call, there?
Aha, here we are.
"Hanako…" Think that's a good start, her name.
My heart pulses again, a dangerous feeling in my chest.
…!
I - this feeling - I know it. Where? Where?!
This is something important, I think. So I need to remember, but…
"Hey…Hanako…" I murmur.
"…Y-Yes?"
"Do…do ya have a cell…phone?" I ask.
"I-I do…Hisao…? Are you o-okay?"
"Mmm…don't think…call…help…"
Ah…this is just like when-
Darkness.
A/N: Original characters aren't going to become a focus of the story at hand, but they are necessary to help shape and guide Hisao. Note that, especially because this is from first person, narrative bias IS a thing and that a character saying it does not make it objectively true or logical; characters can make mistakes and say things that aren't strictly logical without ever questioning it. It doesn't even necessarily mean they believe it!
Chapter 41...Wednesday, perhaps? Depends on feedback.
Also, to keep the focus on the main story, I'm not going to go into detail with Rei beyond the essentials, but I may write "bonuses" at the end of chapters to give you a better idea of how they interact beyond the role they play.
