Chapter Text
Living a life where my dad was constantly on the move was quite the acid trip. One moment he’d be at home with me and my mom having dinner with us while I told him about my day at school and the next moment he’d be away at work.
Don’t get me wrong–he was present in my life in all the ways he is and I love him because of that. Sometimes, he’d come home with a small present from his office for me to keep, but a part of me felt like he was hiding something from me.
Dad’s absence during the daylight left my mother in a constant state of intense fear and paranoia that he’d never return home. My whole childhood consisted of her feeding me false hope.
“His job is very dangerous, Ysumoto,” she told me after asking about it whilst working on schoolwork at the kitchen table. “It’s not something you should be asking about.” She’d always give my head a small kiss before hurrying away to go off somewhere else.
I never questioned her one bit. Looking back at where I am now, I feel like I should’ve asked her more.
I was desperate for answers but my questions were always met with the turn of a blind eye.
That was more than enough to let me take the case into my own hands.
One night, I waited until both of my parents had fallen asleep to sneak out of my bedroom and into my dad’s office to find something—anything—about what my parents were hiding.
Shelf after drawer, my need for satisfaction couldn’t ever seem to be satisfied until I found one of my dad’s files laying on his desk.
It was multiple typed documents with certain sentences and words crossed out with a black marker and photos attached along with them.
A photo of a warehouse was on top of a photo of a man with shaggy black hair and a suit.
There was one word that kept showing up and it was always circled in red ink—Infinite Hope Pharmaceuticals.
I’ve heard of Infinite Hope multiple times through the commercials that would air on TV and hushed conversations between my parents late at night. Not to mention their recent anxiety pills being scattered all over the apartment. Mom took them everyday to ease her fears about Dad, and it made her act tipsy whenever she took them. Sometimes, she acted like a completely different person.
Funny enough, there was a half empty bottle on the desk in a plastic baggie. The paper describing the prescription was gone, the name was scratched off and only left details about the side effects and when to take each pill.
Turning my attention back to the file, I found it hard to piece together what the document was saying. The words that weren’t crossed out didn’t align with the others. It was a puzzle that I couldn’t figure out. Through my search, I found something that made my blood run cold.
Hiedaki Aoyama, a fellow ESPD Officer to Cohort 12, has relations with Kohu Sakatashi…
The next few sentences were scratched away in black, unable to be read.
What could Dad possibly have to do with this stuff? And why is Mom roped into this too?
“Ysumoto, what are you doing here?”
I turned around and saw Dad standing at the doorstep, exhausted. His usually tranquil face had exhaustion painted all over it. He was in a loose shirt and some shorts instead of his work uniform.
“I…” I stumbled over my words as I searched for an excuse to say. “I thought I left something here.”
Dad sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “This isn’t a place for you to snoop around, you know. It’s something that’s for adults and adults only.” He grabbed the file from my hands and placed it back onto his desk.
I let out a breath from my nose, mustering myself up to speak. I had questions and they needed to be answered. “I lied about the whole searching for something,” I said.
“I want to know what you and Mom are hiding and why it’s such a big deal. What do you actually do for a living?”
Dad went quiet for a moment, looking like he was slowly processing what I said. His eyes then met mine. “It’s complicated.”
“Dad.”
He sighed. “It’s top secret information, Ysu, but if you really must know…”
“I’m a spy,” He said bluntly, “that’s why your mother’s always so worried about me not coming home all the time. I have a chance of dying on the field. It’s dangerous and it takes a whole lot of guts to do it.”
I stared at him blankly as he spoke, not knowing exactly how to react. The cat was out of the bag so why wasn’t I satisfied? Looking back now, I still can’t figure out why.
“A…spy?” I asked.
”Yes.”
We stood in deafening silence for a moment or two before I turned around to grab the file off his desk. ”Then what’s all this?”
Dad took the file from my hands, his eyes searching through the text before looking back at me. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.” He closed the file and left it on the desk. “Let’s get back to sleep.”
I walked out of the office, Dad following close behind me. The door shut with a click. I scurried my little self back to my bedroom before l could even be told, tucking myself snuggly under the covers.
“Don’t let me catch you doing this again,” he said, standing at my door with his hand on the door handle. He wasn’t angry with me and he made sure not to make himself sound too stern when talking to me. Mom was asleep in the other room, after all, so he didn’t want to wake her up while disciplining me.
He walked into my bedroom and kissed my head. “Goodnight, Ysu.”
“Goodnight, Dad.”
He walked out and closed the door behind him with a soft click, plunging me into the darkness. I turned on my side and closed my eyes.
It was too bad Dad couldn’t protect his little girl forever. That I couldn’t crawl under my bedsheets and hide away from the hardships that are called life.
From that point on, things in my life got scarier than I could ever imagine.