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“Do you ever feel like sometimes… you’re not enough?” he whispered.
The cherry blossoms were beautiful at this time of the year, and that was why spring was his favourite season. When he was younger, Honda Kiku used to love coming here with his parents—watching them bloom, taking photos of the fallen petals, and pointing when they fell into the clear blue water of the lake. The surface would shimmer with the light of the thousands of stars above them, creating ripples that undulated like the soft dark waves of his hair.
It was strange that his mind gravitated there, when he swore he had erased those memories years ago; broke all the photos in his flat, screamed until his voice went hoarse, and scribbled over his silly, childish drawings with a permanent marker. Because in the end, that’s all they would ever be. Drawings, penned by the hand of a child. Fantasies that would never come true. Something to show one’s parents after they got home from work. They would smile and nod, tell you it was good, and then scold you for not doing your homework instead.
It was foolish of him to believe that they could ever be a big, happy family. Just a child, back then he could never understand why they did the things they did—how they justified them with sweet, honeyed words while smoothing bandages over his broken and bruised skin.
It was cruel, almost, to hide that all from such a sweet, innocent boy. But then again, he supposed that everyone had a yin and yang. Most people just didn’t know that they were becoming the monster they had grown up being so afraid of. All he had ever wanted was for them to look in the mirror and see what they had become. Though they never did, and that wish, that hope, was swallowed up by the waves of adulthood.
Old and expired, but never forgotten.
Alfred F. Jones looked at him pityingly, but said nothing. With eyebrows pinched together, as though he were trying to empathise with him, yet couldn’t quite. And that much was true. Fortunately, Alfred had never experienced the same things as Kiku had. It would only ever be sympathy, and it was obvious from the way he smiled. He had several different smiles, and Kiku had spent enough time staring at his face to know each one from the other.
Alfred smiled because he didn’t have a care in the world. Alfred smiled because he was truly, truly happy in ways that Kiku would never be, even long after his childhood had grown cold and stale in his hands.
Perhaps it sounded stupid to say it out loud, but…
“I’ve always envied your smile.” Kiku murmured, sitting down at the water’s edge. The hem of his kimono dipped into the lake ever so slightly, creating a small ripple that cascaded across the undisturbed surface.
There was a rustle of grass beside him, “Oh, it’s the charcoal toothpaste.” Alfred hummed, “It really helps with all the—”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Kiku said, his voice strangled, “But that’s okay. I don’t really need you to understand.”
At that, Alfred frowned. Kiku didn’t see him, but he could feel it. The way the wind shifted ever so slightly, the way the air stiffened and held its breath, the way that each frond of grass felt cold to the touch. For the first time in his life, Alfred fell silent. Words failed him, but what words were there to say?
There were none. No sentence was worthy of being uttered. No sentence could make up for the lashes or the beatings, or the words that cut like the curving snap of a belt.
“Do you ever wonder if what you’re doing is… right?”
Silence. Kiku didn’t expect him to answer, nor did he want him to. Alfred wouldn’t get it.
Kiku had spent his entire life thinking. Not a day went by wherein he didn’t contemplate, didn’t question, didn’t regret what he had done.
After quite some time, Alfred spoke up. “I guess I’ve never thought about it. I kinda just do whatever I want.” He spoke slowly and deliberately, enunciating each word with a care and quiet compassion that Kiku had never known Alfred had. That thick, patronizing American accent of his disappeared to the wind, replaced by hoarse, raw words—said with no particular dictation. “I bet you didn’t have that kind of freedom, Kiku.” The mop of blonde hair hid his face from view, but what Kiku had just seen was unmistakable. Rain fell from the heavens, and misty droplets fell upon Kiku’s cheeks. The water that streaked down Alfred’s face was leaking from his eyes.
“I wonder what that must have felt like.”
Alfred could always wonder, but never imagine. He had such a vivid imagination, but the horrors were not something anyone could ever see in their mind’s eye—awake or asleep, dead or alive.
Oh, how Kiku longed to have Alfred’s imagination, just so he could have seen his own freedom sooner. He could wish for it over and over, but what was done was done. Set in stone, and he would take it all to the grave whether he liked it or not.
At that, Kiku smiled serenely at him. It didn’t reach his eyes—void and hollow pits of soil. He watched Alfred wipe his tears and laugh emptily. “Man, why am I the one crying? I’m not the one who’s gone through all this bullshit.”
Though there were no tears left in his eyes, Kiku would have cried too. If crying solved all problems and stitched up wounds, he never would have drowned.
“That’s just who you are.” Kiku muttered. “You get emotional, and that’s okay.” Watching as another petal fell into the misty water, he stood up, carefully brushed the back of his kimono free from grass, and trudged through the freshly trimmed foliage until he reached the trunk of the closest tree. Alfred closely followed suit, his long, slim legs navigating the terrain with ease.
“I just hope they know.” he said coldly, voice as clipped as the wings of a fallen angel. Staring down at the two headstones, a surge of bitter satisfaction rose up inside him.
And it was ugly—a black, pulsing aura that made his eyes sink further into the hollow, empty void.
He had never hated them. They had just hated him.
No matter how much they claimed it was for love, it was not. It was all lies, all selfish, vain conceit, all control coated in sweet, syrupy, cloying sugar. Between each slap of the wrist, each crack of the belt, the words would tumble out, useless and empty and bland as food without salt.
When they locked him up in his room, when they took away his DS, his phone, his enjoyment, it was not to protect him, nor to shelter him from the outside world. It was to keep him theirs—like he was a pet to be raised, like he was livestock to be slaughtered.
“I just hope they know how much they hurt me.” Kiku’s voice wavered in the wind, which gradually rose until it shook the branches of the tree. His bottom lip trembled, and he grabbed fistfuls of his kimono behind his back. Alfred’s eyes flicked over to him. Once. Twice.
Kiku didn’t hear him approaching. He could only hear the blood pounding in his ears, the ache in his ribs, the howl of wind and the slashing of the rain.
But he did feel him. Alfred was warm to the touch, and it was beautiful—a bright white aura that outshone the blank lacuna. Wrapping his arms around his middle, Alfred nuzzled his head into the crook of Kiku’s neck and pressed a single kiss into his pale skin.
“I’m sorry.” he breathed, “I’m so sorry.”
That was Kiku’s wish, his last, dying dream. It died with them, because he had never heard them say those words. He had told them everything, let his feelings spill out like ink on a page, and yet still…
Never was he granted the reprieve he had yearned after for so long.
Kiku knew he could never forget, and he could never forgive. But perhaps—as he melted into those firm, strong arms—he could learn to let go. To take up Alfred’s hand instead of walking back to the one that hit him.