Amaeru 甘える (1/8)
Nov. 25th, 2014 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wendyjolyTitle : Amaeru
Author : WendyJoly
Pairing : Ohno Satoshi/Ninomiya Kazunari
Rating : From PG to NC-17
Summary : Ohno Satoshi, young and promising actor just lost his wife in a car crash, an actress twice his age. She entrusted him his son, Kazunari, his worst intimate enemy.
Note : For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
br_arashi and octavialao who requested for a sequel to Wallflower.
All my love to my preciousgraine2moutarde who created once again an awesome poster for this story
CHAPTER 1
I hate her.
I should be overwhelmed by sadness and consideration but all I can feel is anger. A mad anger, insane anger, waiting to be unleashed.
I try to stay calm as much as I can because I know everybody is staring at us, I can't afford a wrong move. It's neither the place nor the moment but the day won’t end before I let explode this rage. I blame her like I never blamed anybody; I blame her because she let me down when she promised me to be by my side for better or for worse.
I’m numb since the moment the policemen woke me up in the middle of the night to announce me I was widow. A car crash because she wanted to avoid an animal. How could she die so idiotically?
She refused to put her glasses outside of the house and by night in her car with her lens, she could barely see beyond a few meters. I told her hundred times. It's laughable, isn't it?
I close my eyes to avoid the camera's flashes of the bunch of journalists who came to enjoy my misery. I’m perfectly aware of what they say in my back while they're displaying their mournful faces.
Ohno Satoshi, 25 years old, actor, married to a decaying actress who was twice his age...I know they think we never loved each other, that we were married to gain some free advertising. What a bunch of asses. I love her madly.
I loved her.
I can't realize I have to employ the past time to talk about us.
I try to wrap myself with the rest of my dignity as I seize a bone with my chopsticks to hand it to the only other person of this family, this intimate enemy, her son. He doesn't look at me; he takes what I give without raising the head. Since Riko's death I barely saw him though, he almost refused to take the same car as me to come to the shrine.
I don't know what's in his mind, we never liked each other, he always treated me like a rat. I’ve always thought it was just some kind of kid's rivalry because I stole his mother and I let it go just as if he wasn’t part of the scenery. Yeah, it was certainly more comfortable for me, I must admit. But during our 6 months of marriage, I barely met him.
He's very talented to play the hollow man, locked in his bedroom. He goes out with his buddies, perhaps flirts with some girls, I don't have a clue...he vanishes from home, making us forget his very existence.
Riko has always been soothing, asking me to not force him to talk to me, saying time was all we needed. But we hadn't time enough and today she's not here anymore to play the mediator. I guess we'll stay strangers forever, nothing links us. Especially not the desire to be together.
He leaves the shrine first, I'm few steps behind and notice my friend Jun who came to support me. He never left me since the accident and I seek for his look for him to lend me his strength. I need it to walk straight to the car, head up; I don't want to give to the paparazzi the pleasure to see me down. I nod to him and climb into the big black car with driver waiting for us in the street.
I sit down on the back seat beside him and he's looking outside, nibbling his thumb to hide his feelings.
I remain silent; I don't know where to begin with him, so I watch the scenery passing by, the car taking us far away from the crowd. I put the funeral urn between us and it burns my tight, Riko's ashes are still so hot. At least, it kept me awake, making me feel something else than numbness.
Once the car parked, he strides to the house and I can hear his bedroom's door slamming strongly. I don't want to knock, I hide myself in my workshop and this is the place where I can let my anger exploding.
Finally.
I devastate everything.
The paints pots fly on the walls, I use my tools to destroy my canvas, to shred them until there's nothing up.
I don't answer to Jun's phone calls despite his insistence.
What can I say, « I'm fine ! » ? It would be bullshit and he knows it. And the truth « I'm devastated », « I'll never be all right again » it's not my kind, I'm not talkative, especially about my feelings.
I will avoid him until the moment I’ll figure out how to find my usual spacing-out face back.
When there's nothing left in the room, I fetch some bottles in the bar and I light a fire in the garden. I take off my shirt and my top tank, I'm barefoot. I look down my chest and my arms full of flashy colours, my feet letting red step marks on the floor. I take a big sip of alcohol burning my throat and my stomach desperately empty. I can't even count the number of days since the last time I ate. Did he eat something?
The fire rise up quickly with some drops of whisky and when it touches the sky, I burn everything. My canvas, a naked paint I began and never achieved because I never could be stoic enough with her to finish it, the sky of our first morning together, all those bullshits which made us laugh because we thought we had eternity for us.
I gaze up and see him behind the window, watching me. Not very long. Just enough for him to notice me and close quickly the curtain.
When the dawn comes, I'm covered by soot and I can finally burn the last frame.
Then I shower and put my black suit on. We have an appointment with the notary today, I don't want to be late. I shave myself carefully, swallow a pill against headache, and above all I avoid my own reflect in the mirror. I'm just a walking dead.
« We're gonna be late »
I wait, my fist raised in front of me, I don’t know if he heard me or if he’s awake. But as I’m ready to knock again, the door opens and he goes out without a ‘Hello’. He’s not wearing a suit but his usual sweater and a pair of jeans he likes so much. I swallow my ‘ohayo’ and climb down the stairs behind him. If I believed during a second he would head to the kitchen, I was wrong, he goes outside and lights a cigarette.
It’s one of those things Riko hated. She hated when he smoked or drank alcohol. But once again, I am no one for him and I can’t lecture him as I have nothing else but nicotine and whisky inside the body since days.
No driver today, I take the sports car and open the door for him. It’s not my car though. It’s red and flashy like Riko loved cars while mine was cheap and standard. But mine is now at the scrap yards, I have no choice but to drive this one, even if I hate this. Landing at the notary office with this engine seems to be improper and that’s what I see into the eyes of my co-driver too. It’s improper. Just like our marriage, to her and I.
We wait soundlessly the authorization to enter the office and we’re sitting into the big armchair he brings out.
I already saw this man. He’s potbellied and benevolent, he was a friend of Riko’s father and she insisted to introduce me in spite of my refusal to establish a marriage contract. We kept the secret but I wanted her to know I didn’t marry her for her money. I didn’t need it, I need her.
“Sorry for your loss. Ohno-san, Kazunari-kun.”
“Thanks.”
“I wanted to see you to read Riko-chan’s last will with you.”
Riko-chan. It touches me, he knew her pretty well after all, since longer than me. I know it’s for her that I’m here, even if I’ll own nothing but our memories and my regrets.
“Soon after your wedding, she consulted me to write a will concerning you, the both of you. I know you refused any marriage contract.” He adds as I open the mouth to argue “In spite of my advices.”
“I didn’t marry Riko~”
“…For money. I know. But she insisted to leave you some possession. The Okinawa’s house and some piece of art, some shares she owned in a movie company. For the rest…her Tokyo’s house and her movable properties, her stocks, like half of the death assurance, the other half being for Ohno-san, goes to Kazunari-kun.”
“She left me the Tokyo’s house?”
It’s seems like months since I didn’t hear his voice. I can’t say he’s enthusiastic, but at least he wakes up.
“Indeed.”
“So I want him to leave.”
He punches me in the stomach. His voice is so hateful that I could crumble on the floor if I wasn’t so desensitized by the lack of sleep and the starvation.
“You can’t.” whispers the Notary as if he tried to reason him.
“It’s my house, I’m not forced to endure his presence.”
The man stares at me as if I should argue. As if I’d wish to live in this house where Riko is missing, as if I’d wish to fight to live with this stubborn kid who’s the person on Earth who hates me the most. So I look away, I focus my attention on the children who are playing outside. I want it to be concise; I want it to be over as soon as possible.
“This is the reason why you’re in my office today. Those possessions are yours, at least when you’ll come of age. For the time being, Ohno-san will be your tutor and the only manager of it.”
I faced them as struck by thunder. I’ll be the tutor? She’s kidding me? She surely laughs up there, it’s the worst gift she could do to us.
“What?!” He can’t believe it either.
“You’re 18.”
“19!”
“Not yet, Kazunari, in three months only. And you can’t manage the possessions your mother left to you. That’s the reason why she chose Ohno-san to be your tutor until your 21th birthday.”
“I get it, but why he? Why not you?”
“Ohno-san was the beloved husband of your mother. And…you have no one else. I’m only a notary.”
He hangs the head and I stare at Kazunari for the first time. He clenches his jaws hard. Because he’s angry or because he wants to cry, I don’t know, but I feel bad for him.
He glares at me suddenly and I mumble a ‘Sorry’ even if I don’t know why I should be but he leaps and exits, slamming the door. The notary looks at me with compassion and I ignore if it’s for Riko or Kazunari. I greet him and go out. I guess we are done.
“Ohno-san?”
“Hm?”
“I will send you the papers to sign and if you have questions to ask, call me. Riko-chan was like a daughter for me.”
As a matter of fact, when I come home he’s not there. What can I say to him? I’ll never be a father for him and it’s not a question of age gap. We have nothing in common, nothing to talk about. Tonight I blame Riko a bit more.
Because she entrusted me his son, because if she wrote this will it was surely because she thought she could leave us as he was still underage. I could think she screwed everything on purpose. I can’t believe it, I don’t want to believe it, I want to keep only those wonderful moments we spent together.
I wait for him. Hours and hours, sat in an armchair I turned around to face the door. I want to know what he has in mind, tell him I’m not his enemy, that I’ll give everything he will ask if he spare enough to go to the university and lead the life he wants to lead.
From the corner of my eye, I stare at the bottle in the bar calling me but I have to keep my mind clear to talk to him and when the night fall, I’m still alone. I don’t even have his number, why should I?
When he comes back, he staggers. He freezes a moment when he spots me, smirks meanly and grabs the ramp of the stairs to climb to his bedroom.
“Wait!” I stand up and grab his elbow as he’s about to fall. But he pushes me and leans on the wall to find a balance he lost since a moment, visibly. He stinks alcohol and cigarette, a girl’s perfume too.
“I said I wanted you to leave my house.”
“I can’t, not before your 21~”
“Who gives a shit? Do you think I’ll complain to anyone? Give me my money on the beginning of each month and forget me. Get out of my life and live your own life, I don’t give a shit.”
I wonder in what extent he can be cruel, in what extent he hates me. Probably beyond imagination. I should be hurt if I still had the slighest notion of moral pain. But I’m too deeply buried for being hurt by his attacks.
“I won’t leave, you’re mother decided I would be your tutor.”
“I’ll rot your life.”
“I don’t see how my life could be worse.”
“Just you wait.”
He rises and manages to climb the stair. We’ll never make it. I watch him entering his bedroom and I go back to my workshop. This is the only place where I belong, this place in my image.
The next morning, when I wake up I’m laid on the floor and above me, Jun is desperate.
I half open my eyes, struggling against the too bright sun. He crouches by my side and grabs my arm to make me sit, then gazes at me, his arms resting negligently on his knees.
“Nice design.”
He grins; skimming the workshop then comes back to me, reaching out to hand me the cell phone on the floor.
“57 messages. Did you wait for me to call an ambulance?”
“I don’t know Jun.”
“When is the last time you ate?”
“I don’t know either.”
My mouth is doughy and talking asks me an unusual effort. My head is in a vice as if I woke up after a huge hangover.
“Stand up!”
“What?”
“To the kitchen, I will cook for you. Now!”
He takes his bossy tone and I gather all the willingness I still possess to obey. I sit on a stool and watch him as he puts an apron on and dig into my fridge. I try to remember the date of our encounter. I was perhaps…18. He studied photography at university and I was part of the theatre troupe. He took pictures of me. A lot. At that time, I even thought he had a crush for me. But he was het, well that’s what I thought seeing him with a different girl each week. And a day he told me he decided to move in to Kyoto to live with the man of his life a paediatrician named Sakurai Sho he knew since years.
They came back to Tokyo when his man had find a job in a hospital I can’t remember the name. I really like them, because they are meant to be together and for the very first time they made me believe that when you loved someone everything was possible. They didn’t tell me there was a prize to pay.
“When are you working?” He asks me, breaking an egg.
“I don’t work.”
“Nothing planned? And this drama you received the script?”
“I didn’t call them back. In my state I can’t work, did you see my face?”
“Make-up does exist.”
“I’d need surgery not make-up.”
“You will begin by eating and sleeping. You’ll think straight later.”
“I don’t want Jun.”
“What don’t you want?”
“Sleeping. When I sleep I have to wake up and realize once again she’s not here anymore.”
“Satoshi…”
“You’ll tell me it will heal, that time resolves anything? It won’t heal, so keep your words.”
“You were at the shrine yesterday only, you can’t imagine you’ll be better one day.”
He resumes his task and a few minutes later, he slides a plate in front of me.
“And Kazunari-kun? He’s out?”
“He should be in his bedroom, and I didn’t tell you the great news: I’m his new tutor.”
“Not surprising. He has no one else.”
“That’s what the notary said. It’s probably our only common point. We have no one else.”
“That’s a thing, isn’t it?”
“He asked me to leave the house and believe me if I could I’ll do.”
“How is it?”
“It’s good.”
I struggle against my stomach which tries to reject the omelette and I’m not strong enough to win any battle. I run to the window and puck the few mouthfuls I just ate. It’s painful, my eyes are burning and begin to drop. I feel Jun’s hand on my back, he hands me a glass of water. I whip my face and spit the water but those damn tears keep on falling. My belly is painfully twisting and when Jun takes me into his embrace I can’t help but sobbing.
I put my arms around his shoulders and I hold him tight, as tight as I can, like a drowning man cling to a buoy. After a long time, my tears run dry and I can breathe more calmly.
“I won’t make it, Jun.”
It comes from the bottom of my heart, more than everything I had confesses during all my life.
“Of course, you’ll make it. Your life is still long.”
I know he’s wrong but I’m grateful to him because he sincerely believes it.
“Anyway you don’t have any choice; you have to take care of Kazunari now. It’s a good reason to move on, right?”
I finally send him back home because Sho is surely waiting for him. He can’t help but look his clock when he thinks I don’t see him. I know he would stay gladly if I’d ask him to but I have to be alone. He’s right; I have someone to take care of. Perhaps is it Riko’s way for helping me?
I have to stop thinking about me and all this misery. I have to lock it to achieve the task she entrusted me. After…whatever…I’ll find her back or live like a hermit, who cares?
I force myself to eat and order two bentos I put in front of Kazunari’s door. I knock and go down. I know he will jump on the meal when I will have turn tail. He should be as starved as I was before Jun’s visit.
The next day I do the same thing but the bentos I left the previous day are still there, intact. I can’t believe he’s so stubborn.
“Kazunari-kun. You have to eat. I know you don’t like me, but it’s not a reason to die of starvation, I swear. We didn’t take a good start but it could change. I’m a nice guy…”
I let my sentence unfinished when I hear his laughter in my back. He’s still in the stairs with one f his friend and he mocks me.
“You’re talking to a door now? So pitiful.”
He walks by me and unlocks the door without a word. His friend waves at me as if he wanted to apologize for Kazunari’s harsh words and picks the bentos on the floor. I don’t know if they intend to eat them or throw them in a trash bin, but I sincerely hope it will be the first option.
After one week, my agency calls me to ask me to move on. What a delicacy, they waited seven days to let me mourn my passed wife.
Two days later, an errand boy delivers a stack of scripts and I know I have to choose something or I’ll be definitely blacklisted by the movie studio and the TV channels.
This system is so cynical.
Becoming widower of Ninomiya Riko, I’m bankable as ever. The audience wants my blood and my tears, nothing less.
Nonetheless, I ask one entire month to make my choice; I don’t want to ease their task. I pretext the big black circles around my eyes, the weight I lost, my new prominent belly due to the alcohol…bullshit, but I don’t want to avow I’m unable to focus more than ten seconds.
That’s the very moment when the high school of my charming roommate begins to harass me. The principal reminds me my artistic agent somehow. The same “I know you are living hard times.” The same “You should go back to work now.”
He skips school. Though, it’s not a real surprise. What can I say? He doesn’t give a shit about me, he hates me and swear to turn my life into Hell? Asking him to go back in class? What a joke.
I don’t turn around the bush, I tell to his head teacher to do the job.
He’s surprised but stops calling me. I guess it worked.
I skim the scripts and it isn’t brilliant. Love story, pathetic dramas about an ill guy or the victim of an accident. They want me dead, that’s insane.
Then one catches my attention. It’s a moneyless movie, obviously, I wonder by what miracle it’s in this stack of properly calibrated blockbusters. The main character is a borderline lawyer murdering his brother’s murderers one after another. It’s dark and very well-written. Merciless and clever, I can’t stop reading before the last page. I have no doubt about it, it’s the only movie, I’ll accept. Because it has nothing to do with my previous jobs, because the character is so mysterious and melodramatic that it will be a slice of cake to become this man.
Setting a foot on the set the first day, I figure out I still belong to the world of the livings. No whispers around me like I feared, no one evocate my wife or her death. It’s almost surprising.
For the first time, I realize that being an actor can save my life.
I put someone else’s disguise, a lawyer psychopathic today, who knows nothing about me, about what’s in my mind, me, Ohno Satoshi and it’s extremely appeasing, almost therapeutic.
I keep my distance with the rest of the cast, it’s too hard and I’ve never been the liable man anyways.
We’re gathered for a reading around a table, each of us read his parts during the first scenes and the very professional atmosphere comfort me.
It helps me to find an outlet for the war at home. I can’t even call this “my home”, I have the feeling to be the guardian of zoo. The entire house is a real mess and I can only clean behind him, I don’t want to be snitched to the social services, or cops, or worse paparazzi.
I don’t want to give up to angriness, I don’t have the strength to, I’m still on the edge. I don’t want to overthink about it either, I’m too afraid to give up to a depression I can afford.
I feel alone.
I still have the feeling to be a living dead watching the world around from afar without any interest or involvement.
I smile, I joke but it’s only an act. The less I see him, the better I feel. All it left to me is to hold on until his majority and we’ll finally get rid of each other.
“Do you know your lines?”
I wake up from my lethargy to watch the girl who’s my co-star. She sounds totally panicked. Her cheeks are red and she tries to fan herself with her script.
“I guess.”
“I can’t remember anything. I didn’t sleep last night…”
“You’ll remember, don’t worry.”
I go back to my text but she grips my forearm and she trembles. It’s been ages since someone touched me and it moves me. It’s an electric shock, I forgot this sensation. I gaze at her, really, shamelessly. She’s not beautiful or pretty, she has big black eyes and very long hair falling on her lower back. She’s dressed like a teenager and the way she moves I can tell she’s not a seducer. It’s almost appeasing.
She arches an eyebrow and I figure out I lack of the most elementary politeness. But after all, I don’t care; it’s so surprising for me to be interested by someone that I can’t get enough of it. I wonder how old is she, if it’s the first time she has a main role in a movie, how she decided to be actress…it’s new for me.
“On the set, please.”
The director calls the staff and she squeezes my arm stronger.
“I think…it hurts. Miss?”
“Oh, sorry! Aiko Aitani.”
“Aiko-chan?”
“Satoshi-kun?”
“That’s it.”
At least she smiles and follows me on the set. Eventually, her angst chases away mine. The day is hectic and her performance stuns me. Under the eye of the camera she changes subtly and I figure out I like playing with her. I drive to Sho and Jun’s place once out, I’m a bit better and I don’t want to go back right away in my personal Hell.
It’s a sweet home. I don’t have a better word to describe it. Everything sounds to be simple with them, everything goes smoothly, they belong to each other, that’s all. I think we don’t have this chance in our life, the chance to meet his soul mate. I wonder if people thought that about me when I was married to Riko, if that’s the feelings people had about us, I don’t think so. Our relationship was undoubtedly far stormier.
“How goes your life with your pupil?” Smirks Sho-kun, putting a plate of bread on the table. Jun throws a warning look at him and I smile when he concludes with a “I shouldn’t have ask.”
“Nothing goes with him. Each time we meet, he insults me or threats me.”
“Charming.”
“Exactly.”
“And…his relationship with his mother?”
“Between him and Riko?”
“Yeah.”
I try to hide the necessary effort I have to do to remind a scene between the son and the mother. In vain. Perhaps Kazunari with us? Nothing more. I have to admit my ignorance.
“I don’t know.”
“They never went out together? You never did anything together?”
“He didn’t like me already and Riko asked me to temporize until things get better.”
“Things never got better?”
“We didn’t really have the time.”
“Satoshi…perhaps is it idiotic, but I guess he needs to be loved. That someone cares about him.”
To be honest, I often thought about it when I was with Riko. But we never really discussed about the ‘case’ Kazunari. Every time she muffled my scruples under sweet and evasive words.
“He will reject me.”
“Of course, it won’t be easy. How old is he?”
“18.”
“…It won’t be easy. But it’s the only way to live under the same roof peacefully.”
Sho-kun confident gaze gives me a light of hope. I know I didn’t do my best to buy the social peace at home so maybe, maybe, if I try hard, he will leave me alone. I dream about it.
They drive me back home because I drank a bit but as soon as they park the car, I fall back on Earth.
People half naked are running in the garden and by the opened windows and doors a noisy music kills for good our good relationship with the neighbourhood.
Each time, I think things can’t be worse and each time, he brilliantly shows me how much I was wrong.
I pass the threshold cautiously, straddling the empty bottles and the corpses on the floor. Where is he?
Instinctively I know. I walk to my workshop and keep the door ajar. The room is dark and I perceive clearly the shape of my tools on the floor, nothing moved. I didn’t set a foot in the place since Riko’s death. But I see him.
He’s leaned against the wall, a bottle of beer in the hand, gulping the alcohol loudly and a girl is kneeled at his feet. His free hand is on the girl’s head, moving it up and down, I can hear the salacious noise she’s emitting.
Crossing his proud gaze, I have only one thought, I’ll slay him. It wakes me up instantaneously. I feel Jun’s hand on my shoulder and he encourages me to take up a role I felt reluctant to until now. Jun claps his hands and going back to the living room, he climbs on the low table.
“You have two minutes to get away from that house before I call the cops. The countdown begins.”
The girl at Kazunari’s feet stands hastily and blushes when she crosses my gaze. But he smiles again. He readjusts his T-shirt but doesn’t zip his pants while he walks to me, challenging me.
“I don’t have the right to party at my home?”
“You don’t have the right to devastate your mother’s house and certainly not the right to keep the neighbourhood awake until the morning. And you in my workshop…”
“Do I shock you?”
“Your behaviour shocks me. You have a sexual life, okay, you want a blow job, okay, but without condom?! What the Hell!”
“You watched well. You’re such a pervert.”
I don’t even think about it, my hand moves by itself. I think that those months of frustration and angriness took the control. He screams, hurt and surprised, holding his cheek. He sounds not so proud suddenly, he didn’t expect this.
“We’re taking our leave, Oh-chan. Everybody’s gone.”
Sho and Jun are behind, staring at us.
“Don’t go, did you see what he did to me?! He’s totally crazy, he hit me!”
Jun chuckles and puts his arm around Sho’s waist for them to leave.
Kazunari glares at me but I won’t give up. I can’t stand his brat behaviour anymore and my passive method is obviously not the good one. It’s high time for me to find a new one.
“Willing or not, I’m here and I’ll stay. I won’t leave this house and I don’t abandon you either, so you’d better shape up.”
He steps aside and tries to run away but I grip his arm.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“In my bedroom, leave me alone!”
“You have to clean the mess before. It’s not to me or to the cleaning lady to do it for you. You’ll fix the mess!”
“And if I refuse?”
“So you’ll be spanked for the first time of your life.”
He clenches is jaws and gauges me. But my hand is already itchy.
“You won’t dare.”
“Challenge me.”
He touches his cheeks where my hand left a red mark. I can’t wait and I grab the nape of his neck brutally, forcing him to go to the devastated living room.
I fetch a roll of trash bags and hands him.
“Do quick or you’ll spend your night here.”
“Are you gonna help me?”
“I’ll watch. Don’t be lazy.”
I’m startled by his lost puppy look. He sounds lost once his brat manner forgotten, alone in the middle of the living room. I can’t believe it works, as I watch him opening the bag and picking up the bottles and the papers all around without a word. I boil water and sits at the counter, taking a glance from time to time. I turn on the music and play oldies I liked so much, ages ago.
He lines the bags methodically and doesn’t argue even if he takes a glance at me from time to time. I look at him straightforwardly.
“What?!”
“I…It is my birthday today.”
“Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. If I had known…no. Even if I had known, I wouldn’t have done anything.”
He sounds miserable, but fuck, what a pleasure to stop walking on eggs with him, to stop apologizing because I was his mother’s husband. I say what I think and finally become his equal. He doesn’t possess the monopoly of the cruel honesty after all.
He resumes his task and I keep on sipping my coffee with a smile.
After a long time, he approaches me.
“It’s done.”
I raise and inspect the room. He did well. But I don’t want to be permissive anymore.
“You will go to bed after cleaning the dishes. I worked all day, I’m tired. See you tomorrow.”
He groans and probably curses me, but I enjoy it. Because I know that for once, for the very first time, I won. I go to bed after a warm shower and I’m reading when I hear his footsteps in the corridor. I’m not really comfortable…and if he decides to run away in the middle of the night? Plus I can’t sleep, I drank too many cups of coffee…what a moron.
I turn off the light quickly.
I feel remorse suddenly, and what if I went too far?
I hit him, I never hit anybody before. I didn’t know I could. Though our relationship is so bad, it can’t be worse.
My heart skips a beat when he opens my door. He walks to the bed, tiptoeing and I wonder if he decided to stab me during my sleep.
But he lies down on the bed without a word, and I feel him curling into a ball behind my back a few inches from my spine. I hear his fast breathe and I can feel the warmth of his hand on my shoulder blade.
I don’t get it but I know he doesn’t want to hurt me, on contrary, for once he sounds to be so fragile against me. Sho was right; he needs someone to care about him, to take decisions for him.
“Ask forgiveness.” I don’t move at all as if I was alone in my bed.
The silence is loud during a few seconds but soon he moves close to me, his breathe brushes my back.
“I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes and I don’t know if I won the peace I crave for. I’d rather think I’ve inherited a responsibility I never thought I’d have to assume.
TBC...
Author : WendyJoly
Pairing : Ohno Satoshi/Ninomiya Kazunari
Rating : From PG to NC-17
Summary : Ohno Satoshi, young and promising actor just lost his wife in a car crash, an actress twice his age. She entrusted him his son, Kazunari, his worst intimate enemy.
Note : For
br_arashi and octavialao who requested for a sequel to Wallflower.All my love to my precious
graine2moutarde who created once again an awesome poster for this storyCHAPTER 1
I hate her.
I should be overwhelmed by sadness and consideration but all I can feel is anger. A mad anger, insane anger, waiting to be unleashed.
I try to stay calm as much as I can because I know everybody is staring at us, I can't afford a wrong move. It's neither the place nor the moment but the day won’t end before I let explode this rage. I blame her like I never blamed anybody; I blame her because she let me down when she promised me to be by my side for better or for worse.
I’m numb since the moment the policemen woke me up in the middle of the night to announce me I was widow. A car crash because she wanted to avoid an animal. How could she die so idiotically?
She refused to put her glasses outside of the house and by night in her car with her lens, she could barely see beyond a few meters. I told her hundred times. It's laughable, isn't it?
I close my eyes to avoid the camera's flashes of the bunch of journalists who came to enjoy my misery. I’m perfectly aware of what they say in my back while they're displaying their mournful faces.
Ohno Satoshi, 25 years old, actor, married to a decaying actress who was twice his age...I know they think we never loved each other, that we were married to gain some free advertising. What a bunch of asses. I love her madly.
I loved her.
I can't realize I have to employ the past time to talk about us.
I try to wrap myself with the rest of my dignity as I seize a bone with my chopsticks to hand it to the only other person of this family, this intimate enemy, her son. He doesn't look at me; he takes what I give without raising the head. Since Riko's death I barely saw him though, he almost refused to take the same car as me to come to the shrine.
I don't know what's in his mind, we never liked each other, he always treated me like a rat. I’ve always thought it was just some kind of kid's rivalry because I stole his mother and I let it go just as if he wasn’t part of the scenery. Yeah, it was certainly more comfortable for me, I must admit. But during our 6 months of marriage, I barely met him.
He's very talented to play the hollow man, locked in his bedroom. He goes out with his buddies, perhaps flirts with some girls, I don't have a clue...he vanishes from home, making us forget his very existence.
Riko has always been soothing, asking me to not force him to talk to me, saying time was all we needed. But we hadn't time enough and today she's not here anymore to play the mediator. I guess we'll stay strangers forever, nothing links us. Especially not the desire to be together.
He leaves the shrine first, I'm few steps behind and notice my friend Jun who came to support me. He never left me since the accident and I seek for his look for him to lend me his strength. I need it to walk straight to the car, head up; I don't want to give to the paparazzi the pleasure to see me down. I nod to him and climb into the big black car with driver waiting for us in the street.
I sit down on the back seat beside him and he's looking outside, nibbling his thumb to hide his feelings.
I remain silent; I don't know where to begin with him, so I watch the scenery passing by, the car taking us far away from the crowd. I put the funeral urn between us and it burns my tight, Riko's ashes are still so hot. At least, it kept me awake, making me feel something else than numbness.
Once the car parked, he strides to the house and I can hear his bedroom's door slamming strongly. I don't want to knock, I hide myself in my workshop and this is the place where I can let my anger exploding.
Finally.
I devastate everything.
The paints pots fly on the walls, I use my tools to destroy my canvas, to shred them until there's nothing up.
I don't answer to Jun's phone calls despite his insistence.
What can I say, « I'm fine ! » ? It would be bullshit and he knows it. And the truth « I'm devastated », « I'll never be all right again » it's not my kind, I'm not talkative, especially about my feelings.
I will avoid him until the moment I’ll figure out how to find my usual spacing-out face back.
When there's nothing left in the room, I fetch some bottles in the bar and I light a fire in the garden. I take off my shirt and my top tank, I'm barefoot. I look down my chest and my arms full of flashy colours, my feet letting red step marks on the floor. I take a big sip of alcohol burning my throat and my stomach desperately empty. I can't even count the number of days since the last time I ate. Did he eat something?
The fire rise up quickly with some drops of whisky and when it touches the sky, I burn everything. My canvas, a naked paint I began and never achieved because I never could be stoic enough with her to finish it, the sky of our first morning together, all those bullshits which made us laugh because we thought we had eternity for us.
I gaze up and see him behind the window, watching me. Not very long. Just enough for him to notice me and close quickly the curtain.
When the dawn comes, I'm covered by soot and I can finally burn the last frame.
Then I shower and put my black suit on. We have an appointment with the notary today, I don't want to be late. I shave myself carefully, swallow a pill against headache, and above all I avoid my own reflect in the mirror. I'm just a walking dead.
« We're gonna be late »
I wait, my fist raised in front of me, I don’t know if he heard me or if he’s awake. But as I’m ready to knock again, the door opens and he goes out without a ‘Hello’. He’s not wearing a suit but his usual sweater and a pair of jeans he likes so much. I swallow my ‘ohayo’ and climb down the stairs behind him. If I believed during a second he would head to the kitchen, I was wrong, he goes outside and lights a cigarette.
It’s one of those things Riko hated. She hated when he smoked or drank alcohol. But once again, I am no one for him and I can’t lecture him as I have nothing else but nicotine and whisky inside the body since days.
No driver today, I take the sports car and open the door for him. It’s not my car though. It’s red and flashy like Riko loved cars while mine was cheap and standard. But mine is now at the scrap yards, I have no choice but to drive this one, even if I hate this. Landing at the notary office with this engine seems to be improper and that’s what I see into the eyes of my co-driver too. It’s improper. Just like our marriage, to her and I.
We wait soundlessly the authorization to enter the office and we’re sitting into the big armchair he brings out.
I already saw this man. He’s potbellied and benevolent, he was a friend of Riko’s father and she insisted to introduce me in spite of my refusal to establish a marriage contract. We kept the secret but I wanted her to know I didn’t marry her for her money. I didn’t need it, I need her.
“Sorry for your loss. Ohno-san, Kazunari-kun.”
“Thanks.”
“I wanted to see you to read Riko-chan’s last will with you.”
Riko-chan. It touches me, he knew her pretty well after all, since longer than me. I know it’s for her that I’m here, even if I’ll own nothing but our memories and my regrets.
“Soon after your wedding, she consulted me to write a will concerning you, the both of you. I know you refused any marriage contract.” He adds as I open the mouth to argue “In spite of my advices.”
“I didn’t marry Riko~”
“…For money. I know. But she insisted to leave you some possession. The Okinawa’s house and some piece of art, some shares she owned in a movie company. For the rest…her Tokyo’s house and her movable properties, her stocks, like half of the death assurance, the other half being for Ohno-san, goes to Kazunari-kun.”
“She left me the Tokyo’s house?”
It’s seems like months since I didn’t hear his voice. I can’t say he’s enthusiastic, but at least he wakes up.
“Indeed.”
“So I want him to leave.”
He punches me in the stomach. His voice is so hateful that I could crumble on the floor if I wasn’t so desensitized by the lack of sleep and the starvation.
“You can’t.” whispers the Notary as if he tried to reason him.
“It’s my house, I’m not forced to endure his presence.”
The man stares at me as if I should argue. As if I’d wish to live in this house where Riko is missing, as if I’d wish to fight to live with this stubborn kid who’s the person on Earth who hates me the most. So I look away, I focus my attention on the children who are playing outside. I want it to be concise; I want it to be over as soon as possible.
“This is the reason why you’re in my office today. Those possessions are yours, at least when you’ll come of age. For the time being, Ohno-san will be your tutor and the only manager of it.”
I faced them as struck by thunder. I’ll be the tutor? She’s kidding me? She surely laughs up there, it’s the worst gift she could do to us.
“What?!” He can’t believe it either.
“You’re 18.”
“19!”
“Not yet, Kazunari, in three months only. And you can’t manage the possessions your mother left to you. That’s the reason why she chose Ohno-san to be your tutor until your 21th birthday.”
“I get it, but why he? Why not you?”
“Ohno-san was the beloved husband of your mother. And…you have no one else. I’m only a notary.”
He hangs the head and I stare at Kazunari for the first time. He clenches his jaws hard. Because he’s angry or because he wants to cry, I don’t know, but I feel bad for him.
He glares at me suddenly and I mumble a ‘Sorry’ even if I don’t know why I should be but he leaps and exits, slamming the door. The notary looks at me with compassion and I ignore if it’s for Riko or Kazunari. I greet him and go out. I guess we are done.
“Ohno-san?”
“Hm?”
“I will send you the papers to sign and if you have questions to ask, call me. Riko-chan was like a daughter for me.”
As a matter of fact, when I come home he’s not there. What can I say to him? I’ll never be a father for him and it’s not a question of age gap. We have nothing in common, nothing to talk about. Tonight I blame Riko a bit more.
Because she entrusted me his son, because if she wrote this will it was surely because she thought she could leave us as he was still underage. I could think she screwed everything on purpose. I can’t believe it, I don’t want to believe it, I want to keep only those wonderful moments we spent together.
I wait for him. Hours and hours, sat in an armchair I turned around to face the door. I want to know what he has in mind, tell him I’m not his enemy, that I’ll give everything he will ask if he spare enough to go to the university and lead the life he wants to lead.
From the corner of my eye, I stare at the bottle in the bar calling me but I have to keep my mind clear to talk to him and when the night fall, I’m still alone. I don’t even have his number, why should I?
When he comes back, he staggers. He freezes a moment when he spots me, smirks meanly and grabs the ramp of the stairs to climb to his bedroom.
“Wait!” I stand up and grab his elbow as he’s about to fall. But he pushes me and leans on the wall to find a balance he lost since a moment, visibly. He stinks alcohol and cigarette, a girl’s perfume too.
“I said I wanted you to leave my house.”
“I can’t, not before your 21~”
“Who gives a shit? Do you think I’ll complain to anyone? Give me my money on the beginning of each month and forget me. Get out of my life and live your own life, I don’t give a shit.”
I wonder in what extent he can be cruel, in what extent he hates me. Probably beyond imagination. I should be hurt if I still had the slighest notion of moral pain. But I’m too deeply buried for being hurt by his attacks.
“I won’t leave, you’re mother decided I would be your tutor.”
“I’ll rot your life.”
“I don’t see how my life could be worse.”
“Just you wait.”
He rises and manages to climb the stair. We’ll never make it. I watch him entering his bedroom and I go back to my workshop. This is the only place where I belong, this place in my image.
The next morning, when I wake up I’m laid on the floor and above me, Jun is desperate.
I half open my eyes, struggling against the too bright sun. He crouches by my side and grabs my arm to make me sit, then gazes at me, his arms resting negligently on his knees.
“Nice design.”
He grins; skimming the workshop then comes back to me, reaching out to hand me the cell phone on the floor.
“57 messages. Did you wait for me to call an ambulance?”
“I don’t know Jun.”
“When is the last time you ate?”
“I don’t know either.”
My mouth is doughy and talking asks me an unusual effort. My head is in a vice as if I woke up after a huge hangover.
“Stand up!”
“What?”
“To the kitchen, I will cook for you. Now!”
He takes his bossy tone and I gather all the willingness I still possess to obey. I sit on a stool and watch him as he puts an apron on and dig into my fridge. I try to remember the date of our encounter. I was perhaps…18. He studied photography at university and I was part of the theatre troupe. He took pictures of me. A lot. At that time, I even thought he had a crush for me. But he was het, well that’s what I thought seeing him with a different girl each week. And a day he told me he decided to move in to Kyoto to live with the man of his life a paediatrician named Sakurai Sho he knew since years.
They came back to Tokyo when his man had find a job in a hospital I can’t remember the name. I really like them, because they are meant to be together and for the very first time they made me believe that when you loved someone everything was possible. They didn’t tell me there was a prize to pay.
“When are you working?” He asks me, breaking an egg.
“I don’t work.”
“Nothing planned? And this drama you received the script?”
“I didn’t call them back. In my state I can’t work, did you see my face?”
“Make-up does exist.”
“I’d need surgery not make-up.”
“You will begin by eating and sleeping. You’ll think straight later.”
“I don’t want Jun.”
“What don’t you want?”
“Sleeping. When I sleep I have to wake up and realize once again she’s not here anymore.”
“Satoshi…”
“You’ll tell me it will heal, that time resolves anything? It won’t heal, so keep your words.”
“You were at the shrine yesterday only, you can’t imagine you’ll be better one day.”
He resumes his task and a few minutes later, he slides a plate in front of me.
“And Kazunari-kun? He’s out?”
“He should be in his bedroom, and I didn’t tell you the great news: I’m his new tutor.”
“Not surprising. He has no one else.”
“That’s what the notary said. It’s probably our only common point. We have no one else.”
“That’s a thing, isn’t it?”
“He asked me to leave the house and believe me if I could I’ll do.”
“How is it?”
“It’s good.”
I struggle against my stomach which tries to reject the omelette and I’m not strong enough to win any battle. I run to the window and puck the few mouthfuls I just ate. It’s painful, my eyes are burning and begin to drop. I feel Jun’s hand on my back, he hands me a glass of water. I whip my face and spit the water but those damn tears keep on falling. My belly is painfully twisting and when Jun takes me into his embrace I can’t help but sobbing.
I put my arms around his shoulders and I hold him tight, as tight as I can, like a drowning man cling to a buoy. After a long time, my tears run dry and I can breathe more calmly.
“I won’t make it, Jun.”
It comes from the bottom of my heart, more than everything I had confesses during all my life.
“Of course, you’ll make it. Your life is still long.”
I know he’s wrong but I’m grateful to him because he sincerely believes it.
“Anyway you don’t have any choice; you have to take care of Kazunari now. It’s a good reason to move on, right?”
I finally send him back home because Sho is surely waiting for him. He can’t help but look his clock when he thinks I don’t see him. I know he would stay gladly if I’d ask him to but I have to be alone. He’s right; I have someone to take care of. Perhaps is it Riko’s way for helping me?
I have to stop thinking about me and all this misery. I have to lock it to achieve the task she entrusted me. After…whatever…I’ll find her back or live like a hermit, who cares?
I force myself to eat and order two bentos I put in front of Kazunari’s door. I knock and go down. I know he will jump on the meal when I will have turn tail. He should be as starved as I was before Jun’s visit.
The next day I do the same thing but the bentos I left the previous day are still there, intact. I can’t believe he’s so stubborn.
“Kazunari-kun. You have to eat. I know you don’t like me, but it’s not a reason to die of starvation, I swear. We didn’t take a good start but it could change. I’m a nice guy…”
I let my sentence unfinished when I hear his laughter in my back. He’s still in the stairs with one f his friend and he mocks me.
“You’re talking to a door now? So pitiful.”
He walks by me and unlocks the door without a word. His friend waves at me as if he wanted to apologize for Kazunari’s harsh words and picks the bentos on the floor. I don’t know if they intend to eat them or throw them in a trash bin, but I sincerely hope it will be the first option.
After one week, my agency calls me to ask me to move on. What a delicacy, they waited seven days to let me mourn my passed wife.
Two days later, an errand boy delivers a stack of scripts and I know I have to choose something or I’ll be definitely blacklisted by the movie studio and the TV channels.
This system is so cynical.
Becoming widower of Ninomiya Riko, I’m bankable as ever. The audience wants my blood and my tears, nothing less.
Nonetheless, I ask one entire month to make my choice; I don’t want to ease their task. I pretext the big black circles around my eyes, the weight I lost, my new prominent belly due to the alcohol…bullshit, but I don’t want to avow I’m unable to focus more than ten seconds.
That’s the very moment when the high school of my charming roommate begins to harass me. The principal reminds me my artistic agent somehow. The same “I know you are living hard times.” The same “You should go back to work now.”
He skips school. Though, it’s not a real surprise. What can I say? He doesn’t give a shit about me, he hates me and swear to turn my life into Hell? Asking him to go back in class? What a joke.
I don’t turn around the bush, I tell to his head teacher to do the job.
He’s surprised but stops calling me. I guess it worked.
I skim the scripts and it isn’t brilliant. Love story, pathetic dramas about an ill guy or the victim of an accident. They want me dead, that’s insane.
Then one catches my attention. It’s a moneyless movie, obviously, I wonder by what miracle it’s in this stack of properly calibrated blockbusters. The main character is a borderline lawyer murdering his brother’s murderers one after another. It’s dark and very well-written. Merciless and clever, I can’t stop reading before the last page. I have no doubt about it, it’s the only movie, I’ll accept. Because it has nothing to do with my previous jobs, because the character is so mysterious and melodramatic that it will be a slice of cake to become this man.
Setting a foot on the set the first day, I figure out I still belong to the world of the livings. No whispers around me like I feared, no one evocate my wife or her death. It’s almost surprising.
For the first time, I realize that being an actor can save my life.
I put someone else’s disguise, a lawyer psychopathic today, who knows nothing about me, about what’s in my mind, me, Ohno Satoshi and it’s extremely appeasing, almost therapeutic.
I keep my distance with the rest of the cast, it’s too hard and I’ve never been the liable man anyways.
We’re gathered for a reading around a table, each of us read his parts during the first scenes and the very professional atmosphere comfort me.
It helps me to find an outlet for the war at home. I can’t even call this “my home”, I have the feeling to be the guardian of zoo. The entire house is a real mess and I can only clean behind him, I don’t want to be snitched to the social services, or cops, or worse paparazzi.
I don’t want to give up to angriness, I don’t have the strength to, I’m still on the edge. I don’t want to overthink about it either, I’m too afraid to give up to a depression I can afford.
I feel alone.
I still have the feeling to be a living dead watching the world around from afar without any interest or involvement.
I smile, I joke but it’s only an act. The less I see him, the better I feel. All it left to me is to hold on until his majority and we’ll finally get rid of each other.
“Do you know your lines?”
I wake up from my lethargy to watch the girl who’s my co-star. She sounds totally panicked. Her cheeks are red and she tries to fan herself with her script.
“I guess.”
“I can’t remember anything. I didn’t sleep last night…”
“You’ll remember, don’t worry.”
I go back to my text but she grips my forearm and she trembles. It’s been ages since someone touched me and it moves me. It’s an electric shock, I forgot this sensation. I gaze at her, really, shamelessly. She’s not beautiful or pretty, she has big black eyes and very long hair falling on her lower back. She’s dressed like a teenager and the way she moves I can tell she’s not a seducer. It’s almost appeasing.
She arches an eyebrow and I figure out I lack of the most elementary politeness. But after all, I don’t care; it’s so surprising for me to be interested by someone that I can’t get enough of it. I wonder how old is she, if it’s the first time she has a main role in a movie, how she decided to be actress…it’s new for me.
“On the set, please.”
The director calls the staff and she squeezes my arm stronger.
“I think…it hurts. Miss?”
“Oh, sorry! Aiko Aitani.”
“Aiko-chan?”
“Satoshi-kun?”
“That’s it.”
At least she smiles and follows me on the set. Eventually, her angst chases away mine. The day is hectic and her performance stuns me. Under the eye of the camera she changes subtly and I figure out I like playing with her. I drive to Sho and Jun’s place once out, I’m a bit better and I don’t want to go back right away in my personal Hell.
It’s a sweet home. I don’t have a better word to describe it. Everything sounds to be simple with them, everything goes smoothly, they belong to each other, that’s all. I think we don’t have this chance in our life, the chance to meet his soul mate. I wonder if people thought that about me when I was married to Riko, if that’s the feelings people had about us, I don’t think so. Our relationship was undoubtedly far stormier.
“How goes your life with your pupil?” Smirks Sho-kun, putting a plate of bread on the table. Jun throws a warning look at him and I smile when he concludes with a “I shouldn’t have ask.”
“Nothing goes with him. Each time we meet, he insults me or threats me.”
“Charming.”
“Exactly.”
“And…his relationship with his mother?”
“Between him and Riko?”
“Yeah.”
I try to hide the necessary effort I have to do to remind a scene between the son and the mother. In vain. Perhaps Kazunari with us? Nothing more. I have to admit my ignorance.
“I don’t know.”
“They never went out together? You never did anything together?”
“He didn’t like me already and Riko asked me to temporize until things get better.”
“Things never got better?”
“We didn’t really have the time.”
“Satoshi…perhaps is it idiotic, but I guess he needs to be loved. That someone cares about him.”
To be honest, I often thought about it when I was with Riko. But we never really discussed about the ‘case’ Kazunari. Every time she muffled my scruples under sweet and evasive words.
“He will reject me.”
“Of course, it won’t be easy. How old is he?”
“18.”
“…It won’t be easy. But it’s the only way to live under the same roof peacefully.”
Sho-kun confident gaze gives me a light of hope. I know I didn’t do my best to buy the social peace at home so maybe, maybe, if I try hard, he will leave me alone. I dream about it.
They drive me back home because I drank a bit but as soon as they park the car, I fall back on Earth.
People half naked are running in the garden and by the opened windows and doors a noisy music kills for good our good relationship with the neighbourhood.
Each time, I think things can’t be worse and each time, he brilliantly shows me how much I was wrong.
I pass the threshold cautiously, straddling the empty bottles and the corpses on the floor. Where is he?
Instinctively I know. I walk to my workshop and keep the door ajar. The room is dark and I perceive clearly the shape of my tools on the floor, nothing moved. I didn’t set a foot in the place since Riko’s death. But I see him.
He’s leaned against the wall, a bottle of beer in the hand, gulping the alcohol loudly and a girl is kneeled at his feet. His free hand is on the girl’s head, moving it up and down, I can hear the salacious noise she’s emitting.
Crossing his proud gaze, I have only one thought, I’ll slay him. It wakes me up instantaneously. I feel Jun’s hand on my shoulder and he encourages me to take up a role I felt reluctant to until now. Jun claps his hands and going back to the living room, he climbs on the low table.
“You have two minutes to get away from that house before I call the cops. The countdown begins.”
The girl at Kazunari’s feet stands hastily and blushes when she crosses my gaze. But he smiles again. He readjusts his T-shirt but doesn’t zip his pants while he walks to me, challenging me.
“I don’t have the right to party at my home?”
“You don’t have the right to devastate your mother’s house and certainly not the right to keep the neighbourhood awake until the morning. And you in my workshop…”
“Do I shock you?”
“Your behaviour shocks me. You have a sexual life, okay, you want a blow job, okay, but without condom?! What the Hell!”
“You watched well. You’re such a pervert.”
I don’t even think about it, my hand moves by itself. I think that those months of frustration and angriness took the control. He screams, hurt and surprised, holding his cheek. He sounds not so proud suddenly, he didn’t expect this.
“We’re taking our leave, Oh-chan. Everybody’s gone.”
Sho and Jun are behind, staring at us.
“Don’t go, did you see what he did to me?! He’s totally crazy, he hit me!”
Jun chuckles and puts his arm around Sho’s waist for them to leave.
Kazunari glares at me but I won’t give up. I can’t stand his brat behaviour anymore and my passive method is obviously not the good one. It’s high time for me to find a new one.
“Willing or not, I’m here and I’ll stay. I won’t leave this house and I don’t abandon you either, so you’d better shape up.”
He steps aside and tries to run away but I grip his arm.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“In my bedroom, leave me alone!”
“You have to clean the mess before. It’s not to me or to the cleaning lady to do it for you. You’ll fix the mess!”
“And if I refuse?”
“So you’ll be spanked for the first time of your life.”
He clenches is jaws and gauges me. But my hand is already itchy.
“You won’t dare.”
“Challenge me.”
He touches his cheeks where my hand left a red mark. I can’t wait and I grab the nape of his neck brutally, forcing him to go to the devastated living room.
I fetch a roll of trash bags and hands him.
“Do quick or you’ll spend your night here.”
“Are you gonna help me?”
“I’ll watch. Don’t be lazy.”
I’m startled by his lost puppy look. He sounds lost once his brat manner forgotten, alone in the middle of the living room. I can’t believe it works, as I watch him opening the bag and picking up the bottles and the papers all around without a word. I boil water and sits at the counter, taking a glance from time to time. I turn on the music and play oldies I liked so much, ages ago.
He lines the bags methodically and doesn’t argue even if he takes a glance at me from time to time. I look at him straightforwardly.
“What?!”
“I…It is my birthday today.”
“Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. If I had known…no. Even if I had known, I wouldn’t have done anything.”
He sounds miserable, but fuck, what a pleasure to stop walking on eggs with him, to stop apologizing because I was his mother’s husband. I say what I think and finally become his equal. He doesn’t possess the monopoly of the cruel honesty after all.
He resumes his task and I keep on sipping my coffee with a smile.
After a long time, he approaches me.
“It’s done.”
I raise and inspect the room. He did well. But I don’t want to be permissive anymore.
“You will go to bed after cleaning the dishes. I worked all day, I’m tired. See you tomorrow.”
He groans and probably curses me, but I enjoy it. Because I know that for once, for the very first time, I won. I go to bed after a warm shower and I’m reading when I hear his footsteps in the corridor. I’m not really comfortable…and if he decides to run away in the middle of the night? Plus I can’t sleep, I drank too many cups of coffee…what a moron.
I turn off the light quickly.
I feel remorse suddenly, and what if I went too far?
I hit him, I never hit anybody before. I didn’t know I could. Though our relationship is so bad, it can’t be worse.
My heart skips a beat when he opens my door. He walks to the bed, tiptoeing and I wonder if he decided to stab me during my sleep.
But he lies down on the bed without a word, and I feel him curling into a ball behind my back a few inches from my spine. I hear his fast breathe and I can feel the warmth of his hand on my shoulder blade.
I don’t get it but I know he doesn’t want to hurt me, on contrary, for once he sounds to be so fragile against me. Sho was right; he needs someone to care about him, to take decisions for him.
“Ask forgiveness.” I don’t move at all as if I was alone in my bed.
The silence is loud during a few seconds but soon he moves close to me, his breathe brushes my back.
“I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes and I don’t know if I won the peace I crave for. I’d rather think I’ve inherited a responsibility I never thought I’d have to assume.
TBC...
