Chapter 3 Ayano Aishi: Not so Emotionless Child in the middle

My earliest memories were mostly visits to the doctor. My father got a wound treated and the doctors with their white clothing were examining me, poking and prodding at me with various instruments.

But then there are other memories:

My Parents were arguing. Again. I winced and covered my ears, and wished it would stop.

"You know this is not normal! We need to do something! The doctor appointments weren't enough! We have to try some more! She deserves to live a normal life!". Fathers face was read and his arms moved quickly.

Mother stood calmly and just said "I told you a thousand times already. Don´t worry darling. She is okay. She will find her Senp-"

Father winced and stormed out of the room immediately, he was twitching and breathing frantically.

Mother quickly rushed after him, grabbed him from behind and pulled him back into the room, and sat him on a chair and stroked him with her arms.

"Don't run away darling. Can´t have you miss dinner. Don´t you know with how much love I make it? Don´t be ungrateful!"

Father slumped in his chair and lowered his head.

Mother started preparing dinner. She quickly and loudly chopped the chicken and the vegetables with a big, shiny kitchen knife.

Mother was making Takikomi Gohan.

The reason why my parents agued was simple. I couldn't feel emotions. I felt empty…cold… numb…tight and maybe sometimes unhappy and frustrated. I never felt any sadness, anger, grief or joy. These were simply empty terms for me. I observed other people expressing those emotions… but all I could feel was emptiness, and maybe faint frustration and bewilderment.

I didn´t find out what that meant until later when I was in school. People that are emotionless get bullied. I got pushed and shoved by some of the kids and they would sometimes try to steal my things. It was … inconvenient. So I had to do something about it. I looked at other people and started imitating their emotions. I did not overdo it, I mimicked emotions to a sufficient degree that I would no longer stand out or attract negative attention. I stayed very cautious and guarded, and talked little to other people, because I did not want to get busted for being emotionless. I knew that if it came out I would be bullied again.

At first I did not really know how to feel about not having any emotions. However soon I knew with certainty that I was frustrated about it and really wanted to change it and finally feel emotions. So I started reading books to figure out more about the world. I read about People, Social interactions, Psychology, Emotions, Biology and Chemistry and many more. I did not understand much at first but gradually I understood more and more. But most emotions were still an enigma to me. Frustrating.

I asked Mother how to get emotions. Mother just told me in a sickly sweet tone that I would meet my senpai, who would bring colour, life and warmth into my life and that I needed to do anything I can in order to get him. I must not be caught doing things that other people hate, and I have a reputation to uphold, but I need to do anything, no matter what that may be, to get my senpai.

Father was visibly really sad that I could not feel emotions. His face contorted in a certain way(pain?) when he saw my emptiness and he cried at times. I felt pity for him. He even started smoking to distract himself from the frustration. That suddenly made me much more frustrated than ever before. It was a tightening, unpleasant feeling in my belly and chest. I´ve read in the books what smoking does in the long term. I think… I would be- ugh… my head hurts thinking about it… I need to avoid him getting harm- it would be painfu-… Probably... Thinking about it is very unpleasant because it suddenly feels like there is a hidden closed water dam which could erupt if I poked to much at it and hurt me a lot. And that is unsettling.

The moment I saw him smoking I ran to him and put up an act, I clung to his leg and even fake cried and begged him to stop smoking, as I had read in the books that smoking was unhealthy and told him that he could distract himself with books instead. It worked.

I felt the absence of frustration. It was a calming relaxing feeling and not as cold or tightening as the other few feelings I could feel. I sighed quietly.

Father then gave me gifts to try and make me happy. Toys, books, stuffed animals and sweets. I did not want him to feel frustrated, so I always tried to console him.

I faked emotions and let him hug me if he needed to. It helped him. But I think he found out that I faked my emotions later. Nonetheless I still continued faking some emotions and it would be disappointing if the effort went to waste. Smoking is bad. Period.

I kept reading these books, as they successfully distracted me from my frustration at not feeling emotions, kept me occupied, and I learned a lot. I asked father for more books and he bought me them. He now reads lots of books too. Well …if mother isn´t occupied with him (ugh why is it so weird-)

Mother taught me how to cook. It was interesting. I leaned to chop food and cook the dishes properly and to clean up the kitchen. I learned how to prepare a steak and how to properly cook rice. I learned to cook the most common dishes, and which spices to use for which foods. Then there was a chemistry lesson too, while father was away.

Apparently, if there is blood (ugh Mother, why did you cut your finger tip? it made me feel- No. No everything is alright.)… anyways. If there is blood on objects, soap and water are insufficient to clean it up.

The blood will still be there. If you spray the blood with the chemicals Luminol and Hydrogen peroxide and turn of the regular light and then use blacklight- that is - ultraviolet light- you can see it glow in pale blue.

There are various ways to get Blacklight. But important to know is that Blacklight is used to show fluorescing materials. For example there are some fluorescing crystals and they are pleasant to look at.

Eventually the glow stopped. There were no more bloodstains to be seen under the blacklight Mother then turned the regular light back on wiped the cutting board clean.

Now to the explanation. Luminol is activated by oxidants such as hydrogen peroxide, and in presence of a catalyst- that is for example the iron atoms inside the Haemoglobin molecule of blood – the hydrogen peroxide decays to form Oxygen and water.

Luminol then undergoes a complex reaction(atoms and electron move around), which will , if conditions are basic enough(add alkalic solutions for that, luminol will then be negatively charged), finally produce a highly instable molecule which then goes to the ground state and releases the energy as light with the wavelength of around 425 nm. This phenomenon is called chemiluminescence.

If hydrogen peroxide is added to blood and luminol the reaction will commence and after about thirty seconds the glow will stop because the all the light from the reaction will have been emitted. Now the blood can no longer be detected this way.

Luminol will not only detect blood, periodate compounds can catalyse this reaction too, which is why horseradish will cause such a glow too.

This lesson sounds useful, after all, if you ever accidentally injure yourself, for example during cooking food, it would be inconvenient to have bloodstains on the furniture.

I told mother about what I had read an she looked intrigued and told me that she was proud of me for learning useful things and that she would give me some more chemistry lessons later on.

Mother told me not to tell father about the lesson, I promised her not to tell him, after all I knew that father and mother were … different people, and I had secret conversation with father about certain topics too. Like… you must avoid hurting people.

But somehow I still wanted to tell dad and have him promise to me that he wouldn't tell mother.