Categories > Original > Horror > Always By Your Side (Completed)
Part 2/3: Betrayal from the Grave
0 reviewsThe dead lives on, in the love that they leave behind, and in the lies. Warning: boys' love
0Unrated
Part 2/3: Betrayal from the Grave
The tireless rain clamoured relentlessly about his speeding mustang. Although Tsubasa was warm and dry, he couldn't help feeling uneasy. The grim and ghastly weather was like a foreboding of what was to come.
Tsubasa seldom returned home. He had no reason to. His father, a successful businessman, was an excellent provider but little else. Distant and reserved, Tsubasa sometimes wondered if he was an only child because his father hated children. The memories he had of the times they shared were often of short spans of unbroken silence and sudden sparks of awkward alarm, when the elder in parting, tried to ruffle his hair.
But it was never always like that. If he dug into his memory, somewhere deep inside were idyllic days of soft, warm kisses.
Before their family left for Tokyo, they had lived in Shonan, by the sea. He vaguely remembered his father taking him to the beaches. After they got off the car, he would insist that his father carry him on his shoulders to the shore.
'Up, up and away, Roboto!' Little Tsubasa commanded.
'But I'm a horse,' Imai Senior argued.
'No, a robot!'
'No, a horse! Neigh...' The stubborn father mimicked a horse then galloped wantonly to the shore, with a gleeful Tsubasa riding high and waving his arms in the wind.
But those golden days were long gone, like the faded photograph he held in his hand.
Sitting in front of the much aged gentleman, with wispy white hair and weary watery eyes, Tsubasa felt a stab of guilt. He should have spent more time with his old man. He should have visited him more after his mother died. He should have tried harder, smiled more, laughed louder, even if their time together usually felt like a ticking time bomb.
Lost for words, Tsubasa placed the yellowed photograph onto the coffee table before his father. It was then; he saw something beyond his wildest imagination.
Before his very eyes, his father collapsed and crumbled.
'Yui!' Imai Senior mouthed. Face contorted with grief, he knelt forward and pressed the flimsy paper to his chest. He stayed kneeling for a while, rocking gently back and forth, nursing the picture. Then he started to cry.
At that moment, Tsubasa felt, for the first time in a long time, connected to his father. He knew his pain, that intense soul-shearing pain of losing a loved one.
............
'I loved her. No, I love her. I still do,' Imai Senior confessed. 'You’d think it get easier. But it doesn't.'
'Then.... this boy?' Tsubasa asked in low cautious voice.
'A mistake. Like his mother, a beautiful mistake.'
'But who is he?' Tsubasa asked, urgently this time.
'Your brother.'
...........
Tsubasa stayed curled up on the bathroom floor for the longest time. Sheer horror had swept away all his strength. And he couldn't breathe. Like a fish out of water, he could only manage low shallow gasps. It was only after repeatedly forcing in deep breaths of air, did he somewhat calm down. With effort, Tsubasa pulled himself off the floor and dragged his impaled body to the sink. Watching the sobering water trickle down his ashen face, he was suddenly seized with terror! Tatsumi was staring back at him, smirking.
...........
Although born of the same father, they led very different lives. When Tatsumi’s mother died tragically in a car accident when he was still a child, Imai Senior had initially wanted to bring him home. But worried that the affair may jeopardize his sickly wife’s health, he decided against it and sent him to an orphanage instead. He took care of him financially but was never there for him.
‘Why didn’t you visit him?’ Tsubasa asked.
‘I wanted to, I really did. But he’s a splitting image of his mother. I can’t face him.’ The old man wringed his hands in anguish. ‘Every time I saw him, my heart died again. I know I’m being selfish, but I just can’t.’
If Tsubasa heart hadn’t recently died too, he would have berated his father for abandoning his younger brother. But it wasn’t just his younger brother who was abandoned, Tsubasa was as well. It became clear to him that his father had neglected him out of guilt. He couldn’t bear to treat one son better than the other. In the end, both boys suffered.
……………
Tsubasa stayed the night at his father's. But even family wasn't enough to save him. It was one of those nightmares so chilling that even after he woke up, it didn't go away. He laid there in the grey light of dawn, and even though he was safely tucked in bed, it still haunted him - Tatsumi's maggot-infested face twisted into an evil grin. In his mind, the ghoulish presence was still by his side, looming and lurking in the shadows, just out of sight.
Yesterday's episode was far from over. But it did serve to firm his resolve in selling his apartment and putting a premature end to the lease of Tatsumi's. He wanted this nightmare to end. He wanted nothing to remind him that he had fallen for his half-brother.
…………
It baffled him why he was here again. Something must have possessed him. He could have gotten the movers to dispose off everything. But something compelled him to return, to this wretched place.
Despite the blazing heat outside, Tatsumi's place still evoked a piercing iciness and a sinking, sickening feeling of the heart and gut. Strangely, not all was dead when he arrived. The sleek desktop computer was on, humming away softly. But its dark coiling wires and heavy socket were unplugged.
‘How’s this possible?’ Tsubasa pondered as his skin tingled.
Eerie, or not, it was impossible to ignore. It arrested his attention, like a moth to the light.
There were many folders on the desktop. Most folders were the ordinary ones: photos, music, etc. But a few caught his eye: iami, alegna and asabust. Their spelling looked foreign. Randomly, he clicked the ‘iami’ folder.
His heart stopped in mid-beat. There were photographs of his father, over the years. He could tell they started a couple of years back. There was even a schedule of his father’s day to day activities.
Anxiously, he checked out ‘alegna’. Angela! Angela, his fiancée.
'Childhood sweethearts' everyone had labelled them.
Since childhood, they had been close friends. They were inseparable in school and held hands wherever they went. Everyone assumed they were an item, so no one bothered the cute little couple. Little Tsubasa didn't have any sibling, and was thrilled to have a friend to play with. But he didn't know if it was love. Adult Tsubasa didn't know if it was love too. But he figured that even if he didn't love her, he at least understood her. So when their parents pushed for marriage, it only seemed like the most natural thing to do. Tsubasa didn’t bother consulting his heart and readily agreed to an engagement.
But his heart answered back and it said 'Tatsumi'.
The younger man, a junior in his university, was also his benefactor. Tatsumi had saved his life. One night as he was leisurely strolling in a secluded park, he was approached by a gang of yakuzas who solicited him. When he politely refused, he was brutally attacked. Punches and kicks rained on him from all directions. For a moment, he believed he was about to die. Miraculously, a young saviour appeared in the nick of time.
‘I’ve called the police! They’re coming shortly!’ Tatsumi shouted to the unruly gang.
The gang hesitated a little before throwing a few parting kicks then left battered and bruised Tsubasa cowering in a corner.
It was a whirlwind romance. Tatusmi fell love at first sight and courted him zealously. Despite his initial rejection, Tsubasa soon caved under the constant shower of attention and generous display of affection. His lover soon became his personal assistant too, after Tsuabsa entered his father's company, Imai Inc.
Before Tsubasa realised, he had let go of Angela’s hands. And someone else had very timely taken his place. In the 'alegna' folder, there were her pictures, and Tatsumi and hers.
Suddenly, it flashed in his mind, the image of a willowy figure, masked behind a black veil. That solitary mourner was at Tatsumi's funeral, weeping from a distance, away from the crowd.
‘Was it Angela? A love triangle? Was Tatsumi the reason why she suddenly turned cold? Were they in love? Was he cheating on me? Was she cheating on me?’
Tsubasa’s mind was swimming by now. His pounding head felt heavy and vision glazed over.
‘No wait! There’s one more,’ he urged himself on.
In the last folder ‘asabust’, he saw - himself. They were not just his pictures, but compromising ones too. They showed him in bed with a few other guys he had never seen before! They were all naked and as one guy was humping him, the other two were giving him a facial. But he had no recollection of any foursome. The only guy he had ever been with was Tatsumi. He must have been drugged! But who would do it? Why was it in here?
His head hammered like never before. But there were more, more dirty secrets to uncover. In subfolders, he discovered files of confidential business documents that shouldn't have been leaked out of the office: multi-million-dollar business contracts, contact info of their board of directors, etc.
‘Why are these here?! Why are all these here?!’ Tsubasa tore at his hair and with clenched fists thrashed his head repeatedly.
‘Tatsumi, why? For revenge?’
Too many questions with no answer. And there would never be an answer. No matter if he flung all the contents of the table onto the floor, or hurled the furniture against the wall, or even if he ripped out his aching, bleeding heart, there would only ever be silence and nothing more.
But Tsubasa wanted answers, answers to his burning questions. His heart wanted answers too.
‘Did you ever love me? Even for the briefest of moment, did you ever love me?’
……………….
Lying on the sofa, Tsubasa cuddled up under a large cushion. It was becoming oppressively cold. Too tortured to think or feel anymore, he let go of all that pain and closed his eyes.
Before long, he felt a hint of warmth, then like a snug blanket, it soon embraced him.
Sick and tired of questions, Tsubasa nevertheless asked one last question before he dozed off.
‘Who are you? You, who is always by my side.’
End of Part 2/3: Betrayal from the Grave
The tireless rain clamoured relentlessly about his speeding mustang. Although Tsubasa was warm and dry, he couldn't help feeling uneasy. The grim and ghastly weather was like a foreboding of what was to come.
Tsubasa seldom returned home. He had no reason to. His father, a successful businessman, was an excellent provider but little else. Distant and reserved, Tsubasa sometimes wondered if he was an only child because his father hated children. The memories he had of the times they shared were often of short spans of unbroken silence and sudden sparks of awkward alarm, when the elder in parting, tried to ruffle his hair.
But it was never always like that. If he dug into his memory, somewhere deep inside were idyllic days of soft, warm kisses.
Before their family left for Tokyo, they had lived in Shonan, by the sea. He vaguely remembered his father taking him to the beaches. After they got off the car, he would insist that his father carry him on his shoulders to the shore.
'Up, up and away, Roboto!' Little Tsubasa commanded.
'But I'm a horse,' Imai Senior argued.
'No, a robot!'
'No, a horse! Neigh...' The stubborn father mimicked a horse then galloped wantonly to the shore, with a gleeful Tsubasa riding high and waving his arms in the wind.
But those golden days were long gone, like the faded photograph he held in his hand.
Sitting in front of the much aged gentleman, with wispy white hair and weary watery eyes, Tsubasa felt a stab of guilt. He should have spent more time with his old man. He should have visited him more after his mother died. He should have tried harder, smiled more, laughed louder, even if their time together usually felt like a ticking time bomb.
Lost for words, Tsubasa placed the yellowed photograph onto the coffee table before his father. It was then; he saw something beyond his wildest imagination.
Before his very eyes, his father collapsed and crumbled.
'Yui!' Imai Senior mouthed. Face contorted with grief, he knelt forward and pressed the flimsy paper to his chest. He stayed kneeling for a while, rocking gently back and forth, nursing the picture. Then he started to cry.
At that moment, Tsubasa felt, for the first time in a long time, connected to his father. He knew his pain, that intense soul-shearing pain of losing a loved one.
............
'I loved her. No, I love her. I still do,' Imai Senior confessed. 'You’d think it get easier. But it doesn't.'
'Then.... this boy?' Tsubasa asked in low cautious voice.
'A mistake. Like his mother, a beautiful mistake.'
'But who is he?' Tsubasa asked, urgently this time.
'Your brother.'
...........
Tsubasa stayed curled up on the bathroom floor for the longest time. Sheer horror had swept away all his strength. And he couldn't breathe. Like a fish out of water, he could only manage low shallow gasps. It was only after repeatedly forcing in deep breaths of air, did he somewhat calm down. With effort, Tsubasa pulled himself off the floor and dragged his impaled body to the sink. Watching the sobering water trickle down his ashen face, he was suddenly seized with terror! Tatsumi was staring back at him, smirking.
...........
Although born of the same father, they led very different lives. When Tatsumi’s mother died tragically in a car accident when he was still a child, Imai Senior had initially wanted to bring him home. But worried that the affair may jeopardize his sickly wife’s health, he decided against it and sent him to an orphanage instead. He took care of him financially but was never there for him.
‘Why didn’t you visit him?’ Tsubasa asked.
‘I wanted to, I really did. But he’s a splitting image of his mother. I can’t face him.’ The old man wringed his hands in anguish. ‘Every time I saw him, my heart died again. I know I’m being selfish, but I just can’t.’
If Tsubasa heart hadn’t recently died too, he would have berated his father for abandoning his younger brother. But it wasn’t just his younger brother who was abandoned, Tsubasa was as well. It became clear to him that his father had neglected him out of guilt. He couldn’t bear to treat one son better than the other. In the end, both boys suffered.
……………
Tsubasa stayed the night at his father's. But even family wasn't enough to save him. It was one of those nightmares so chilling that even after he woke up, it didn't go away. He laid there in the grey light of dawn, and even though he was safely tucked in bed, it still haunted him - Tatsumi's maggot-infested face twisted into an evil grin. In his mind, the ghoulish presence was still by his side, looming and lurking in the shadows, just out of sight.
Yesterday's episode was far from over. But it did serve to firm his resolve in selling his apartment and putting a premature end to the lease of Tatsumi's. He wanted this nightmare to end. He wanted nothing to remind him that he had fallen for his half-brother.
…………
It baffled him why he was here again. Something must have possessed him. He could have gotten the movers to dispose off everything. But something compelled him to return, to this wretched place.
Despite the blazing heat outside, Tatsumi's place still evoked a piercing iciness and a sinking, sickening feeling of the heart and gut. Strangely, not all was dead when he arrived. The sleek desktop computer was on, humming away softly. But its dark coiling wires and heavy socket were unplugged.
‘How’s this possible?’ Tsubasa pondered as his skin tingled.
Eerie, or not, it was impossible to ignore. It arrested his attention, like a moth to the light.
There were many folders on the desktop. Most folders were the ordinary ones: photos, music, etc. But a few caught his eye: iami, alegna and asabust. Their spelling looked foreign. Randomly, he clicked the ‘iami’ folder.
His heart stopped in mid-beat. There were photographs of his father, over the years. He could tell they started a couple of years back. There was even a schedule of his father’s day to day activities.
Anxiously, he checked out ‘alegna’. Angela! Angela, his fiancée.
'Childhood sweethearts' everyone had labelled them.
Since childhood, they had been close friends. They were inseparable in school and held hands wherever they went. Everyone assumed they were an item, so no one bothered the cute little couple. Little Tsubasa didn't have any sibling, and was thrilled to have a friend to play with. But he didn't know if it was love. Adult Tsubasa didn't know if it was love too. But he figured that even if he didn't love her, he at least understood her. So when their parents pushed for marriage, it only seemed like the most natural thing to do. Tsubasa didn’t bother consulting his heart and readily agreed to an engagement.
But his heart answered back and it said 'Tatsumi'.
The younger man, a junior in his university, was also his benefactor. Tatsumi had saved his life. One night as he was leisurely strolling in a secluded park, he was approached by a gang of yakuzas who solicited him. When he politely refused, he was brutally attacked. Punches and kicks rained on him from all directions. For a moment, he believed he was about to die. Miraculously, a young saviour appeared in the nick of time.
‘I’ve called the police! They’re coming shortly!’ Tatsumi shouted to the unruly gang.
The gang hesitated a little before throwing a few parting kicks then left battered and bruised Tsubasa cowering in a corner.
It was a whirlwind romance. Tatusmi fell love at first sight and courted him zealously. Despite his initial rejection, Tsubasa soon caved under the constant shower of attention and generous display of affection. His lover soon became his personal assistant too, after Tsuabsa entered his father's company, Imai Inc.
Before Tsubasa realised, he had let go of Angela’s hands. And someone else had very timely taken his place. In the 'alegna' folder, there were her pictures, and Tatsumi and hers.
Suddenly, it flashed in his mind, the image of a willowy figure, masked behind a black veil. That solitary mourner was at Tatsumi's funeral, weeping from a distance, away from the crowd.
‘Was it Angela? A love triangle? Was Tatsumi the reason why she suddenly turned cold? Were they in love? Was he cheating on me? Was she cheating on me?’
Tsubasa’s mind was swimming by now. His pounding head felt heavy and vision glazed over.
‘No wait! There’s one more,’ he urged himself on.
In the last folder ‘asabust’, he saw - himself. They were not just his pictures, but compromising ones too. They showed him in bed with a few other guys he had never seen before! They were all naked and as one guy was humping him, the other two were giving him a facial. But he had no recollection of any foursome. The only guy he had ever been with was Tatsumi. He must have been drugged! But who would do it? Why was it in here?
His head hammered like never before. But there were more, more dirty secrets to uncover. In subfolders, he discovered files of confidential business documents that shouldn't have been leaked out of the office: multi-million-dollar business contracts, contact info of their board of directors, etc.
‘Why are these here?! Why are all these here?!’ Tsubasa tore at his hair and with clenched fists thrashed his head repeatedly.
‘Tatsumi, why? For revenge?’
Too many questions with no answer. And there would never be an answer. No matter if he flung all the contents of the table onto the floor, or hurled the furniture against the wall, or even if he ripped out his aching, bleeding heart, there would only ever be silence and nothing more.
But Tsubasa wanted answers, answers to his burning questions. His heart wanted answers too.
‘Did you ever love me? Even for the briefest of moment, did you ever love me?’
……………….
Lying on the sofa, Tsubasa cuddled up under a large cushion. It was becoming oppressively cold. Too tortured to think or feel anymore, he let go of all that pain and closed his eyes.
Before long, he felt a hint of warmth, then like a snug blanket, it soon embraced him.
Sick and tired of questions, Tsubasa nevertheless asked one last question before he dozed off.
‘Who are you? You, who is always by my side.’
End of Part 2/3: Betrayal from the Grave
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