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Satori had small, wonderful moments with his equally small, yet close and tight knit family. They’d be a happy family and be getting along pretty well. During those times he’d be playing Mario with his brother on their ancient Wii system and dance to the Mii song, or help with his mom in the kitchen when she was rather tired from work.
Sometimes, his mom got so tired, that Satori himself volunteered to make dinner that night while she rests on the couch. He was getting pretty good at it and could make a mean dinner that rivalled his mother’s cooking.
And when his mom wasn’t home on the weekends, Satori would help his younger brother bake a brownie, a small cake, or just make cookies from scratch himself, all was adding cinnamon to ease his obsession with the damn spice.
His mom would make fun of his baking because, “Chocolate and cinnamon don’t go together Satori.”
This was not one of those times.
Satori was reading a manga of some kind and the cat was chilling on his stomach, vibrating his shirt with how much purring she was doing.
His mother marched up the stairs, seemingly pissed at whatever happened that day, and asked Satori for a jar, because he had a lot.
“Go ahead and take one, they’re in the cabinet, first shelf.” He continued to read his manga and pet the purring cat on his stomach, who got up and hid inside the closet, for whatever reason.
First mistake.
She took a jar half-way full of whatever obscure, shiny Goshiki gave him awhile back that was fine if stayed out of the fridge.
He ignored her presence while he read his manga and was just chilling on his bed.
Second mistake.
She proceeded to ramsack his room, pulling out mangas from the chest at the foot of his bed and knock over the comics in his shelf with such force it rattled the walls.
She almost broke the shelf with how much force she was using.
He set down the manga and was so confused by her actions. He hadn’t done anything to anger her, but that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was she was angry and he was scared.
“Mom, what are you doing?”
“Finding out what else you’ve been hiding from me!!”
That confused him even more, he hadn’t been hiding anything from her. He was just being Satori, being himself, being himself wasn’t hiding anything. Right?
“Mom, I’m not hiding anything from you! Why are you doing this?”
“You’ve been taking things from me without permission Satori.”
That was the most confusing thing she’d ever said. He wasn’t taking anything from her, he was taking odd or interesting things he found from outside yes, but not from her. It didn’t make any sense.
“Mom, you’re not making sense! I’m not taking anything from you, I’m just collecting things and storing them!”
Third mistake.
“Oh really now, and where might you be storing them? Hmm??”
She continued to ramsack everything in his room, the shelves in his cabinet, the chest of mangas he had, the storage in his closet, even going through the clothes in his dresser to find something she wouldn’t find.
Satori didn’t stop her, he was paralysed with fear as she went through everything and screamed at him the entire time. Swearing at him and calling him a brat and mistake. Anger trumping the faint disappointment that could be detected within her.
By the time she was done, there was so much destruction in her wake. Books with bent spines, the cabinet at an odd angle, clothes and sweaters on the floor, and some king of glass had been cracked and broken.
God he was terrified that she would hit him. For what? He doesn’t know.
She left. She left and left him shaking on his bed without a single clue as to what he did wrong.
“Satori, you had better not cry. You’ve been deceitful for too long. You deserved your punishment.”
She marched down the stairs.
He was left to be so confused, so upset, and so scared. He didn’t remember doing anything wrong to his mother. He didn’t do anything wrong.
She came back upstairs.
“Pick another jar for me to take Satori. I’ll give you the pleasure to pick which piece of junk you get to get ride of.”
Satori just nodded and picked a random, empty jar for the shelf, and gave it to her.
“Thank you.”
She left for downstairs and didn’t come back up for the rest of the evening.
If wasn’t crying then, he was now.
Just like before, he was confused and scared and upset, with the faintest bit of anger surfacing. But he stomped that out, he did not want to be like his mother right now.
He crawled to the door of his bedroom and shut it as quietly as possible, then crawled inside of his closet and sat in an open space.
He hated tight spaces and being trapped with no opening, but he needed some kind of closeness right now. Even if it was fake.
Softly, he shut the sliding door to his closet and curled into himself.
Then he proceeded to have a panic attack.
Mrow?
His cat rubbed her head against his knee after he started to have some difficulty breathing. She got annoyed with his lack of a response and crawled into his lap.
Satori gladly scooped her up into his arms and cried into her fur, the softness of it soothing him out of his panic attack.
She started to purr and the feeling helped to ground him and bring him back to reality.
He was fine, a little finicky and weird but he was fine. He was okay.