Categories > Anime/Manga > Gravitation > Butterfly Boy Track One: Egg
Author's Notes (A/N) at the end of the chapter.
Butterfly Boy
Track Four: Cocoon
Excerpts from ‘Sparkle and Shine: the True Story of a Rock God’ by Yuki Eiri
Ryuichi-san’s incapable of hate. The least he could garner is indifference. The most, pity.”
Seguchi Tohma, when asked about Sakuma-san’s stepfather's alleged abuse
~~*
“Such an extraordinary talent and such an extraordinary personality. I’m often asked what he was like as a teen. I usually just tell those who ask, ‘just look at him now, his personality has yet to change.’”
Masumoto Hideaki, journalist for The Tokyo Times, Nittle Grasper official media liaison and longtime personal friend of Sakuma Ryuichi
~~*
Unknown to Noriko, the three fans of Noisy Little Grasper and even to Tohma, (although the astute blond suspected something), Ryuichi did not have a happy home life. His home life was what made the smallest boy in his school so shy and so quiet.
Ryuichi’s father had died when the lad was only five, and Manami, his pretty young mother had remarried Ichimura Kenji, a man twenty two years her senior, trapped in a middle management position he hated. The only thing he hated more was the idea of his wife having a son from a previous marriage, especially since he was unable to father any children himself.
Eighteen years prior to meeting Manami, he had an accident with a steel beam at his previous construction worker job. It left him unable to father children as well as a slave to testosterone pills. The idea of not “being a whole man” any longer turned the proud, once muscular man into a physically slim, pale shadow of himself, as well as cruel, angry and bitter.
Thus the usually angry man would often hit the mossy-haired boy and say vicious things at nearly every chance he could in an effort to “toughen him up.” The undersized teen was made to feel as though nothing he did was ever good enough for his cruel stepfather, despite making every effort to please him. The only thing that seemed to please Ichimura was when he struck the teen, usually making sure to do so in places that could be covered up by Ryuichi's school uniform. Ryuichi was too often glad that his school blazer covered up the bruises his small body had, even though he was sometimes forced to wear the long-sleeved jacket even in the heat of the summer sun.
Manami, who dearly loved her boy, felt powerless to stop the merciless emotional and physical assault the teen underwent. So as a way to compensate, she would shower the teen with her love, having long talks with her young son, but only when her husband wasn’t around. She would often take the money she earned as a house-cleaner to buy toys and other gifts more fitting for the five year old boy he was when his father died, which confused the teen even more.
The shy, emotionally withdrawn teen never invited anyone into his home, nor did he wish for his band mates to meet his family. He did so out of fear of his new-found friends’ pity and their rejection, and most of all, out of shame for his miserable and often confusing home life.
To make things worse, Ryuichi was the butt of many a cruel prank and comment while at school, thanks to Arakaki Katashi and his band of bullies.
It was during his first month at M Academy's middle school, and after a night of being yelled at by his stepfather - which resulted in one of Manami's feeble attempts to save her son from the verbal abuse - that an exhausted Ryuichi stumbled and fell towards Arakaki while waiting in the school lunch line. Ryuichi’s newly open milk carton spilled its contents all over the much larger boy.
As the other students laughed at the mishap, Arakaki pushed Ryuichi, causing him to nearly bump into another one of his ruffian friends, who then pushed Ryuichi back into Arakaki. “Stop pushing the school messenger boy around,” the lunch lady yelled.
That accident as well as the lunch lady's well-meaning interference was all the impetus that Arakaki's gang needed to turn Ryuichi's life into a living hell....as long as there were no teachers around.
Until Tohma came into in his life, Ryuichi did not get a break from abuse at home nor at school.
Thus it was extremely remarkable that despite so much mental and physical abuse, Ryuichi was beginning to show glimpses of his true self, sometimes even smiling while in class, especially when he was around Tohma and Noriko, and even occasionally smiling at home.
Unfortunately for him, Ryuichi’s callous stepfather did not like the new way the teen’s personality was changing.
~~~~*
One Friday in early September, after a particularly rough day of bullying at school, Ryuichi came home from school to the family’s small apartment and immediately began his usual after-school routine after first wishing Tohma a good evening at the door of their apartment.
He did chores first, and then homework, which was a lot easier since Tohma had explained how to do it on the long walk home, before he cooked and refrigerated dinner for the family since his mother was at her part-time job as a house-cleaner and his stepfather qas working late as usual.
When the teen was done with his routine, he decided to take a well-deserved soak. Carefully placing Kumagorou on the edge of the tub so that the bunny wouldn’t fall into the hot water, Ryuichi settled into the small, American-styled bathtub, momentarily stopping as he thought he heard a sound. Perking ears made sensitive from years of listening for his angry stepfather, the olive-haired teen waited to hear if the sound would repeat, but when he heard nothing else after listening for a while longer, he settled back in the hot water to relax before his parents were due back home. The combination of heat and the stresses of the school day soon caused the exhausted lad’s eyelids to close over his sapphire eyes as he settled himself further down in the water and all too quickly drifted off to sleep.
The sliding door to the bathroom slamming open rudely woke the teen from his doze. Grabbing Kumagorou and holding him behind his back, Ryuichi looked up to find his stepfather standing over him, staring down at the nude teen with expressionless brown eyes. Ryuichi abruptly sat up in the bathtub, sloshing water onto his stepfather’s slippers and soaking the plushie as the boy gazed up into his dull brown eyes and waited for him to speak.
“I hear that your grades have improved, Ryuichi-kun. Yet you haven’t gone to cram school for a while,” Ichimura Kenji began, the much larger man glaring down at the tiny boy curling around the soggy plushie, ignoring for the moment the hot water seeping through his socks.
“Y…yes otosan. That’s true. My friend Tohma…” Ryuichi began as Ichimura cut off the rest of the boy’s sentence by backhanding him, knocking the adolescent into the back wall of the tub and splashing more hot water onto Ichimura-san’s blue suit pants. Terrified, Ryuichi put his free hand on his face as blood ran from his now broken nose into the bathwater as he stared up at his stepfather.
“You’re lying, aren’t you boy? You haven’t been to cram school at all, have you? You cheated on those tests, didn’t you?” the man hissed.
“No otosan, I studied for them! Tohma helped me! I didn’t cheat…” the teen once again began as another large hand grabbed his hair and lifted the struggling boy into a more upright position, Kumagorou in a death grip in the small teen’s hand, dripping and dangling by one leg still behind his back. Bringing his face close to Ryuichi’s, the teen smelled alcohol on his stepfather’s breath as the man continued.
“You cheated and now you’re lying to me to cover up the fact that you cheated, aren’t you!” Ichimura bellowed as Ryuichi tried to shake his head, his azure eyes wide with fear as more blood flew.
“No…no! I didn’t cheat, I didn't! I studied! I did!” Ryuichi cried, hot tears of fear and pain leaking from his eyes, mixing in with the water and blood on his face.
Picking up the diminutive boy by an arm, Ichimura forced Ryuichi out of the tub. Nearly throwing the boy out the small bathroom, he bellowed, “How dare you lie to me! I’m gonna beat your ass for lying to my face! Your cheating ways have brought shame to this family, to my family’s name!”
The much larger man unfastened his leather belt, pulling it from the loops on his pants. Following Ryuichi as the teen ran into the main living area, he stood over the smaller boy, the belt-wielding arm raised and a vindictive smirk on his face as the small teen cowered nude against the bookshelf that covered one entire wall, his nose still dripping blood as he raised the arm that still gripped the pink bunny.
“Otosan, I did not cheat! I studied hard and earned my grades! I didn’t bring shame to you nor your family’s name, I swear! Please believe me!” Ryuichi yelled as Ichimura brought down the strap hard on the boy’s upraised arm, where it wrapped itself around the thin limb, the buckle hitting Kumagorou in the back. Yelping in pain, Ryuichi did something he had never done before; he yanked his arm down hard, forcing the belt out of his stepfather’s grasp.
Realizing what he had done, the teen panicked as Ichimura’s eyes widened then narrowed at the bold action. Growling, the enraged man reached toward the terrified boy, who ducked and ran toward the apartment door leading to the outside. Opening the door, he ran, still naked out of the small second floor apartment and down the stairs, the belt still wrapped around his arm and the plushie still in his hand while Ichimura-san followed, bellowing for him to return.
Not paying attention to where he was going, Ryuichi ran, full tilt out into the street that ran in front of his building.
Masumoto Hideaki was tired, driving on autopilot, the sun dipping below the buildings as he made his way home. It had been a rough day at his new intern job at The Tokyo Times, and the journalism professor whose lecture he had just finished at the local community college was extremely dry and boring, but necessary for any kind of a shot at a real journalism career. Thus the twenty-three year old had been practically falling asleep at the wheel when a pale shape ran out of nowhere and ended up in front of his car.
Hitting the brakes a split second too late and feeling the “thump”, Masumoto stopped the vehicle and opened the car door, nearly running as he headed toward the front of his car to see what he had inadvertently hit. Cold panic ran through his veins as he realized his car had struck what seemed to be a nude ten year old boy carrying a pink stuffed rabbit, a thick piece of leather wrapped around his forearm . The boy appeared to be out cold, his small, bloody body covered with bruises in various stages of healing and the left side of his chest now slightly caved in from the car’s impact as a woman on the sidewalk screamed.
“Call for an ambulance, quick!” Masumoto yelled at the crowd that began to gather around to watch the spectacle. Taking off his suit jacket, Hideaki gently raised the boy’s head and placed it underneath, cradling the boy’s head in his lap as trickles of blood ran from both his nose and mouth. The journalism student’s sharp eyes also took note of the belt still wrapped around the boy’s arm and the beginning of a large bump where the boy’s head had hit the ground. An older woman came over to cover up the boy’s nakedness with her coat as a man ran up and stood over Hideaki and the boy, his hand over his mouth.
“Ryuichi-kun! I…I didn’t mean for this to happen…but he cheated, he did!” the man began, his voice slurring as he did a poor attempt to defend himself while taking in what had just occurred. Hearing the slurred voice, Hideaki turned to look up at the man, who looked as if he had been drenched from the waist down, blood droplets on his now ruined undershirt. Glancing up and down at the man, Hideaki mentally noted that the man wore wet indoor slippers on his feet as distant sirens began to be heard.
An ambulance and a police car quickly pulled onto the scene. When the police officers stepped out of their vehicle, Hideaki pointed to the slippered man.
“This guy is involved in this! He must have somehow caused this kid to run out into the street! Look at this kid’s body! He should be taken in for questioning!” Hideaki shouted as the man looked helplessly at the officers before falling onto his knees, his arms down by his side.
The police officers took in the scene before them as the paramedics rushed over to the unconscious boy and began working on him, pointing out to the officers some of the old bruises on the teen when a paramedic moved the coat that was covering him. Seeing the injuries, one officer placed an authoritative hand on the half-wet man’s shoulder while the other pulled out a notebook and began to interview nearby witnesses.
“Please sir, it was an accident! I only wanted to punish Ryuichi-kun for cheating on his tests! He wasn’t supposed to run!” Ichimura shrieked as the policeman sniffed closely at Ichimura’s alcohol-laden breath before looking him up and down, pulling out a pair of handcuffs and placing them on the still-kneeling man. A second police car pulled onto the scene and two more policemen began directing the back-up traffic.
The paramedics carefully placed a neck collar on the still unconscious Ryuichi, positioned the boy onto a backboard, strapped him down, put the backboard onto the cot and then into the back of the ambulance, one gently tucking in the soggy Kumagorou under the top cot strap. Ichimura-san, his voice slurring, yelled, “Damn you boy! If you hadn’t run, I wouldn’t be arrested! Just wait until I get my hands back on you!”
The arresting policeman frowned at that statement and told the irate man, “I think that you’d better worry about what’s going to happen to you rather than how you’re going to punish him. If I had it my way, you’d never see that boy again!” he warned as Ichimura was pushed toward the closest police car and rather roughly placed in the back seat, the cop slamming the door hard as Ichimura continued his loud rant in the back seat.
The officer with the notebook walked back over to the police car, its flashing red and blue lights throwing the entire twilight-lit scene into stark relief as he sat in the front seat and brusquely asked the raving man in the back seat a few questions before getting out and heading over to the still open ambulance doors.
“The kid’s name is Sakuma Ryuichi, and he’s sixteen, according to his stepfather in the back set of my cruiser. Witnesses say that the kid was chased out into the street and the man that was taking care of him on the scene hit the boy with his car. My partner and I will check on the boy and get a statement from Sakuma-kun once we’re done questioning the suspect at the station. Hopefully the kid will be awake by then,” the cop told the medics as one placed an IV into Ryuichi’s skinny arm.
“That’s fine officer. We’re going to Tokyo Medical’s emergency room with him,” one medic said as the other paramedic jumped out of the back of the ambulance and hurried over to the driver’s seat.
Lights and sirens going as the ambulance sped away, Masumoto sighed before going over to the police car. Pulling out his driver’s license, he handed it to one of the two cops who stood outside of the car talking, their eyes occasionally flickering to the man in their back seat, who had finally quieted down and sat, hanging his head.
“How can I find out what happens to that kid? I still feel partly responsible. Besides, I’d like to bring him a gift,” Matsumoto admitted.
The officer with the notepad flipped to the correct page and wrote down Masumoto’s license information and asked him to tell him what happened before answering.
“We’d like for you to come to the station and fill out an official accident report, Masumoto-san. He’s probably going to end up in Tokyo Medical’s pediatric unit. It seems that that boy’s actually sixteen, he’s just small for his age, according to his stepfather. That’s the stepfather, Ichimura Kenji in the back of the car. The kid’s name is Sakuma Ryuichi.”
“Sakuma Ryuichi,” Masumoto repeated before pulling out his own small notepad and a pen from his back pants pocket. He wrote down the information he was just given as well as a few notes before nodding and putting away the notepad and pen.
“Thank you officers, I’ll head down to the station right now,” he said before he bowed and headed back to his own car, going around to the front of it. Standing in front of the car, he stared down at his now bloody jacket coat as it lay on the ground before picking it up and tossing it into the back seat of the car. Getting in, he inhaled deep, and then blew out as he put his head down on the steering wheel.
‘I’ll head to the hospital after I fill out the report and stay only for a few minutes. I just want to make sure that Sakuma-kun’s okay. Besides, that kid has a story to tell,’ he thought as he pulled away from the accident scene, occasionally glancing in his rear view mirror at the police car’s flashing lights before he made a necessary turn towards the police station.
After a few hours of questioning and filling out paperwork, Matsumoto was finally allowed to leave the police station. Getting into his car he headed towards Tokyo Medical. Once he was close to the hospital, he stopped at a local convenient store and bought a few items before pulling into the ER parking lot.
~~~~*
Ichimura Manami came home to a disaster. As she went to put in the key to open the door of her family’s small apartment, she noticed that the door was not quite closed. Carefully pushing open the door, the first thing she saw was that some of the books from the bookshelf near the front door has been knocked off their shelf, and that they lay in what seemed to be a puddle of red water in front of the bookshelf, and that a water and blood-stained trail led deeper into the residence.
Cautiously, she walked further in, following the trail of water and blood towards the bathroom. One look at the mess that met her when she slid open the door was enough for her to begin screaming out her son’s name. Never before had her husband caused Ryuichi to bleed. Frantic, she searched every inch of the apartment for her small son, hoping to find him still hiding somewhere. Finding nothing, she ran out of the apartment and finally saw that the blood droplets led away from the apartment and down the stairs. Carefully following them, she lost the trail as it led away from the building.
“You’re that boy’s mom, aren’t you, Ma’am? The one that was hit by a car. I saw and heard everything. It was scary,” a child’s voice said as Manami searched around, trying to find where the voice was coming from. Paling at the comment, she quickly turned around and saw a small girl partially hidden behind one of the trees in front of the building.
“Yes. Ryuichi-kun is my son. Can you tell me what happened? I won’t hurt you, you can come out,” Manami assured, her heart beating hard in her chest at the news.
A dirty-faced girl, no more than seven came out from behind the tree as Manami squatted down to her level and beckoned the girl closer.
“I like your son…Ryuichi-san. He gives me candy every now and then. My family lives right under you. Ryuichi-san’s daddy hits him a lot. Did you know that?” the girl asked, her muddy face serious. The pretty woman nodded as a sad look came across her face
“My name’s Oohara Chiaki,” the girl said, bowing low.
“I’m Ichimura Manami, and Ichimura Kenji-san is Ryuichi’s stepfather,” Manami solemnly replied as she stood and returned the bow before squatting down once more. Repeating the question, Manami once again asked in a soft voice, ”Chiaki-chan? Can you tell me what you saw? I need to find my son.”
Chiaki nodded as she gazed into Manami’s worried face before taking a deep breath. “Ryuichi-san didn’t have any clothes on and he ran into the street, and his daddy was chasing him, yelling really loud. He ran in front of a car and it hit him and Ryuichi-san fell asleep in the street. The man in the car got out and put his jacket under Ryuichi-san’s head and his daddy yelled some more. The police came and so did the ambulance. The ambulance people put Ryuichi-san in the ambulance and drove away with the sirens going and the lights blinking. I think Ryuichi-san was still sleeping, he didn’t wake up the whole time. The policemen took Ryuichi-san’s daddy and put him in the police car and drove off. And then I went over to play in the water,” she explained breathlessly, pointing toward a mud puddle in the empty lot next to the building.
Manami stood and once again bowed low to the girl. “Thank you very much, Oohara-san. Now I can find my son. And whenever I have candy, I’ll be sure to give you some,” she called over her shoulder while she hurried back toward the building.
Going inside of the messy apartment once again, she pulled out a public phonebook and picked up the phone. Turning first to the section with hospitals, she began making calls.
~~*
Masumoto Hideaki walked up to the nurses’ desk on the pediatric floor of Tokyo Medical, shifting the plastic bag he was carrying. The thirty-something nurse that was sitting behind the desk writing looked up as he approached and smiled benignly at the short, slightly pudgy younger man with the tired eyes.
“Can I help you sir?” she asked, wearing an expression of boredom as she took in the unassuming man in front of her.
“I’d like to visit Sakuma Ryuichi-kun’s room. I’m his uncle and I heard he was injured. I want to bring him a gift. I work nights, and this is the only time I can come see him” he lied, hopefully convincingly as he smiled down at the nurse.
“Well, unfortunately, he’s sleeping,” she began, putting her hand under her chin. “The doctors said that he has a mild concussion but he won’t wake up. They said there’s no reason for him not to be awake by now,” she told him as Masumoto shifted slightly, the plastic bag making a crinkling noise.
“Id still like to see him. And then maybe you and I can go out for a nice walk,” he suggested in a sweet voice, smiling as he pulled out a carnation and handed it to the nurse, who took it, smiled in return and gestured for him to lean closer.
“No visitors, Doctor’s orders,” she said in just as sweet a voice.
Luckily, Matsumoto was expecting that reaction. So he resorted to Plan B.
“Well, we could ignore the doctor’s orders, just this once, couldn’t we?” he asked smoothly, smiling even wider as he pulled out a bottle of top-shelf convenient store sake.
Her eyes opening wide, she looked to either side of the long hallway as if expecting to see her supervisor approaching, who she knew was asleep on a cot in a linen closet far away from the potentially noisy desk.
“Well…you ARE his uncle,” the nurse began as she smiled up at the plain-looking man from where she was sitting. Looking once more down the hallway where she knew her supervisor was sleeping, she grabbed a mini bottle of mouthwash from a desk drawer and stood.
"Matsumoto-san, I will let you peek in on your nephew for a few moments.../if/you agree to share your drink with me,” she murmured, eyeing the sake bottle greedily.
“Absolutely. I will only be a few minutes,” he replied, handing her the bottle. “Ladies first,” he said as she took the bottle and placed it under the desk where she had been sitting.
Quickly leading Matsumoto to the small teen’s room, she opened the door and quietly told him, “I will return in a few minutes. Make it quick, we don’t normally allow visitors this late at night,” she before hurrying back to the desk, pulling out her coffee cup and filling the empty container with sake.
Matsumoto walked over to the side of the bed where the small boy lay, half-uncovered by the sheet he was lying under, seemingly sleeping. Watching the way his bandaged ribs moved as he breathed, he reached into his bag and pulled out a small tiger plushie wearing a t-shirt that read “Get Well Soon!” and placed it on the nightstand, next to a damp, dirty pink plushie rabbit.
Quietly moving the chair closer to the bed, Matsumoto sat down and gazed for a while into the teen’s face, taking note of the broken nose and the two black eyes he now sported. Taking a deep breath, the journalism student reached out as if to pat the sleeping teen, then seemed to think better of it and instead picked up the well-worn rabbit and placed it at the boy's side instead as he began to speak.
“Look Sakuma-kun. I really wasn’t paying attention while I was driving. I was tired from working my new job and coming home from yet another lecture from my boring professor. But those are nothing but excuses. I should have paid attention to where I was going, then maybe when you ran out into the road, I would have been able to stop in time. But, from looking at these older bruises you’re sporting, it seems me hitting you isn’t your biggest problem. I don’t know what you did to make your stepfather so pissed that he’d chase you into the street, but I’m sure either way it wasn’t a fair fight. I have a friend that works in the emergency room and it seems that this isn’t the first time you’ve come here after “being clumsy,” or “doing something stupid.’ “
Matsumoto sat at the side of the bed for a little while longer, then stood. Taking his hand off the side rail, he momentarily touched the small boy’s shoulder with his fingertips.
“I’d like to help you, Sakuma-kun. I don’t know how yet, but I will. It’s the least I could do.”
Getting up out of the chair just as the nurse opened the door and peeked, the journalism student gazed down at the mossy-haired lad once more before turning to go, a thoughtful expression on his face as he followed her back to the desk. Leaning a hip against it, he smiled down at her as he asked, “So. When do you go on your lunch break?”
~~*
“Ryuichi? Ryu-kun? Come on boy, let’s go fly a kite! Let’s fly everyone!” Ryuichi heard a loud, yet kind voice say in a sing-song voice. The olive-haired boy instantly recognized the carefree voice as he felt himself being picked up and placed on a pair of strong shoulders. Hanging on tight to the leg of a slightly dirty pink plushie bunny, he made himself comfortable..
‘He’s…he’s my daddy!’ five-year-old Ryuichi said to himself, instantly recognizing his father’s beloved voice when he heard the familiar saying. He looked around, beaming when he realized that he was much higher than the other people standing with them on the train platform.
“Here, Ryu-kun, have a piece of candy,” his father suggested as a graceful, yet masculine hand held up a bright red lollipop. Shoving Kumagorou inside the front of his shorts so that the toy’s upper half flopped out, the small boy took the candy.
“Not too much, Natori, we don’t want to spoil his appetite for the picnic,” a younger Manami fussed as beaming, her husband reached out with his free hand and grasped the hand of hers that wasn’t holding the picnic basket. Her pretty face turning a delicate shade of pink, she giggled while the five-year-old Ryuichi gazed down into her smiling face, mirroring her smile.
‘I never want to forget this feeling, this feeling of always being happy!’ the boy thought, giggling as he placed one of his arms around his father’s large olive-colored head, the other hand holding onto the lollipop.
The throng moved closer to the yellow line painted on the concrete ground as Ryuichi looked around for his mother, losing her in the crowd when it once again surged toward as the incoming train’s whistle blared.
Suddenly, the young boy heard people yell as he felt himself flying, the lollipop falling to be lost in the shifting crowd.
For some reason, the only thing the small boy could focus on was his plushie’s limp ears in the front of his shorts.
‘I’m flying.”
A woman’s voice screamed as he was caught by many arms, preventing him from hitting the hard station floor. The boy was placed gently on the ground as a man took off his coat and placed it over his legs.
‘Rain? Its raining inside of the train station,’ Ryuichi thought to himself as he felt droplets fall upon his upturned face and arms.
Still dazed by the thought of ‘flying’ like his daddy used to always say, he looked up into many strange faces, most filled with pity and concern. Wiping his face, he found his fingers stained red as the woman’s voice continued to scream on and on, seeming to not take a breath, sirens joining in to the pandemonium.
“Daddy? Daddy, where are you?” Ryuichi cried out, only to watch the hovering faces turn completely to pity as the voice continued to scream, a second voice joining in.
‘NO! NO! I DON’T WANT TO REMEMBER THIS!’ he thought as he realized the first screaming person was his mother…and that the second voice was his own.
Holding tight on to the damp plushie bunny now somehow in his arms as he awoke screaming from the memory, the small teen in the large hospital bed sat bolt upright and began to weep, not the quiet sounds of a teenager upset over finding out that Life isn’t always fair, but the heart wrenching sobs of a small child lamenting, crying for daddy in the hopes that said loving parent would come and chase away the monsters that were scaring him. As if with the appearance of his long-departed father, all would be right with the world him; as if nothing bad could ever happen to him as long as he stayed safe within daddy’s strong, loving arms.
Too bad the world doesn’t always work that way.
After a while, the tone of his crying changed as Ryuichi began to morn for his father, something he did not have a chance to do at the time of his father’s untimely death, being too young to understand what had actually happened.
He cried for the loss of his father’s loving, protective arms. He cried for his mother, too afraid of the man she had married to prevent him from hurting her only child. He cried for himself, for being forced to see the harshness that the world can sometimes throw at someone, even if they’re too young to understand it at first.
But most of all, he cried for the happy boy that he was before the dark curtain of death parted him from the one person who protected him from Life’s monsters.
Some time later, Ryuichi’s confused mind finally realized he was no longer the innocent five-year-old boy, but nearly a man of sixteen when more recent memories, many of them not pleasant, tried to flood the boy’s vision with other red scenes of unhappiness.
His only witnesses, Kumagorou as well as the small toy tiger, seemed to smile gently at the boy, trying in their own plushie ways to calm the crying teen.
Still trying to catch his breath, Ryuichi attempted to inhale a deep breath, instead only managed a quiet gasp as sharp pains hit as his broken ribs made themselves known.
Temporarily unburying the horrific memories, he quietly declared to the plushie pair in the night-darkened room, “Mom thinks I’m still that boy, so I will be that boy! I will be happy so that I make her happy! I will sing and play and be the happy clown so that no one around me feels sad like I feel now!” Ryuichi decided.
From where he sat, Kumagorou’s smile seemed to widen at the declaration as the teen gingerly reached for him for their nightly snuggle. Ryuichi pushed his declaration deep into his subconscious before settling down for the first truly restful sleep he had had in a very, very long time.
Its eyes shining in the dim light of a nearby streetlight, the tiger sat on the nightstand, a single brief sparkle also showing that it agreed with Ryuichi ‘s verdict.
~~*
It was well after 2am when, breathless and still upset from searching for her family, Manami finally made her way into Ryuichi’s room. Having pulled out ID and pictures to prove to the thirty-something night nurse that she was indeed Ryuichi’s mother and not his slightly older sister, the nurse, after explaining that the boy was “unwakable, but not in a coma,“ got up from her desk long enough to show the worried mother to the teen’s room before quickly returning and resuming the conversation she had been having with a rather unassuming, pudgy younger man.
Gasping as she saw her son's broken nose and black eyes, Manami set her jaw as she made her decision. Not seeing the tiger plushie on the nearby nightstand, Manami sank slowly down in the chair closest to the bed. Sighing with the relief of finally managing to find her son, she noticed as a single tear make its way down her boy’s cheek while he lay curled around his ever-present pink bunny. Taking the corner of the sheet he was lying under, she wiped away his tear, only to watch as another replaced it.
“Ryuichi? Ryu-kun? Its Mommy. Can you hear me? Wake up, please,” she murmured in a hushed, yet insistent voice.
The boy slept on, seemingly incapable of hearing her.
Thinking back to the night nurse explaining that Ryuichi was unconscious, Manami sighed and stroked his hair as she began to talk in a low voice, hoping against hope that her only child could hear her.
“I know I haven’t been the best mother to you, Ryuichi. I wanted you to have a father, and instead, I married a man that hurt you time and time again. I didn’t protect you from Kenji-san whenever you needed it, I should have, but I couldn’t. After losing your Dad, I became so afraid of losing Kenji-san, of losing those I love period…but after nearly losing you because of your stepfather’s actions, I don’t care about him anymore! I’ve decided to file for divorce, so it’ll just be you and I, Ryu-kun. The people I work for are really nice, and they want me as their full-time head of housekeeping, with a huge pay increase! I told them that I have a son and that we’ll need a place to live, so they said that we could live in the cottage that they have on their property. With your grades improving like they have been, you too should be okay.
Things will be rough for a bit while we get used to these big changes, but I’m sure that we’ll be fine, as long as you and I stick together. No more secrets between us, Ryuichi. I don’t ever what you to feel as if we can’t talk. I don’t ever want you to feel alone again.”
Stroking her son’s cheek, she leaned in and kissed it. Taking one of his hands from around his bunny, she smiled gently and whispered, “You’re the most important person in my life, Ryu-kun, I just wanted you to know that.”
“I know that Mom, I always have,” Ryuichi murmured back, opening his sapphire eyes and smiling up at her momentarily shocked face as recognition finally flooded his own. She smiled back, her own equally deep blue eyes wide as he painfully sat up in bed.
Slowly scooting himself and Kuma over to one side, he patted the bed next to him, inviting his pretty mom to join him like they used to do when he was younger. She lowered the rail and eagerly climbed into bed with him as he moved down and put his head on her soft lap.
“Mom, I knew that you were having a hard time with otosan. I saw a lot more than I let on. I don’t quite understand it all, but maybe someday I will. I want you to know I’ll be okay,” he explained as she stroked his olive-colored locks.
“I know that Ryu-kun. You’re stronger than you let on. We’re stronger than we let on,” she exclaimed.
And so, mother and son quietly talked as they sat together in the bed, each reaffirming bonds the other had thought were broken by the angry, pathetic man who now sat fuming in a concrete jail cell.
~
All too soon the Saturday morning sun crept into the hospital room, and shone into the face of the teen, who awoke to see that his mother had also fallen asleep. Lifting his sore head up from her lap, he gently tapped her leg to awaken her. She rubbed her eyes while Ryuichi yawned and carefully stretched just as the doctor walked into the room.
“Ah, I see the two of you are awake! Welcome back to the world of the living, Ryuichi-kun,” the doctor joked as he went over to the bed and began to examine the teen.
Giving the boy a clean bill of health and writing notes in the chart by his bed, the doctor assured Manami that her son had two cracked ribs on his right side, a hairline fracture to his nose, a concussion and a bump on the back of his head, along with various and sundry bumps and bruises but no other lasting side effects from the previous day’s accident. He left the room to finish filling out paperwork and to discharge the mossy-haired teen from his care.
As they checked out of the hospital and entered the battered old car Manami owned, the mossy-haired teen became quiet, and stayed so the entire ride to their small apartment, desperately hugging the two plushies that now took up his lap.
As the vehicle pulled up to the building, Manami looked over to her silent son. “What’s wrong, Ryu-kun?” she asked, slightly worried.
“Is…is otosan there?” he queried in a small voice.
She giggled a bit as she replied, “No he’s sitting in a cold jail cell for assaulting you and causing you to run out into the street and get hit! And when he gets out, we’ll be long gone! Now smile, my son, this chapter of our lives is over, and there’s nothing but blue skies and clear flying from here on, I promise!” she explained, turning off the car.
Not quite believing that the years of mental and physical abuse from his stepfather was about to be over, Ryuichi stared at his mom as she got out of her side of the car and came around to his side of the battered car. Picking up the newer plushie and putting it under one arm, she held out her opposite hand. Still clinging to Kumagorou, the teen took it and slowly got out, echoing her smile as they headed toward their soon-to-be former home.
~~~~~~~~*
Tsuzuku
(To Be Continued)
~~~~~~~~*
A/N:
Gravitation is owned by Murakami Maki-sensei as well as its various companies. I only use her characters out of love for their eccentric and unique personalities, as well as with the deepest reverence for her and her work. Any other characters are my creation; they exist purely to help enhance the storyline.
A pic that Listy Rayne from deviantart.com’s ‘Ryuichi Fangirls’ helped inspire me to write this chapter. She drew a picture titled ‘Uncle’s Drunk Again’. Something about that picture captured me. Go check it out and comment on it, it’s brilliant…and to me at least, horrifying, especially since I so relate to Ryuichi. (Yes, I even have a bunny obsession, just ask my friends about Kuma George! (^_^) )
http://listy.deviantart.com/art/Uncle-s-Drunk-Again-51990419?offset=0#comments
(I hope she doesn’t mind me pimping out her work….)
I know that normally if someone yells while in a hospital, people would come running, and that a nurse would probably accompany anyone running in a hospital’s halls. Just think “artistic license,” okay?
Domo arigato to GNG Shuichi for literally giving me a particularly tricky sentence that I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to write, and to GNG/FB Eiri for saving you readers from one of my run-on sentence paragraphs. It was a fate that would have made this story read really weird if they hadn't helped. Much love to you both!
Any final tweaking to this story is all my fault.
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Japanese/explanations in this track:
*OtÅsan – Father, honorific
*According to my research, and family and friends living and working in Japan, nearly anything can be bought at convenient stores. (^_~)
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Butterfly Boy
Track Four: Cocoon
Excerpts from ‘Sparkle and Shine: the True Story of a Rock God’ by Yuki Eiri
Ryuichi-san’s incapable of hate. The least he could garner is indifference. The most, pity.”
Seguchi Tohma, when asked about Sakuma-san’s stepfather's alleged abuse
~~*
“Such an extraordinary talent and such an extraordinary personality. I’m often asked what he was like as a teen. I usually just tell those who ask, ‘just look at him now, his personality has yet to change.’”
Masumoto Hideaki, journalist for The Tokyo Times, Nittle Grasper official media liaison and longtime personal friend of Sakuma Ryuichi
~~*
Unknown to Noriko, the three fans of Noisy Little Grasper and even to Tohma, (although the astute blond suspected something), Ryuichi did not have a happy home life. His home life was what made the smallest boy in his school so shy and so quiet.
Ryuichi’s father had died when the lad was only five, and Manami, his pretty young mother had remarried Ichimura Kenji, a man twenty two years her senior, trapped in a middle management position he hated. The only thing he hated more was the idea of his wife having a son from a previous marriage, especially since he was unable to father any children himself.
Eighteen years prior to meeting Manami, he had an accident with a steel beam at his previous construction worker job. It left him unable to father children as well as a slave to testosterone pills. The idea of not “being a whole man” any longer turned the proud, once muscular man into a physically slim, pale shadow of himself, as well as cruel, angry and bitter.
Thus the usually angry man would often hit the mossy-haired boy and say vicious things at nearly every chance he could in an effort to “toughen him up.” The undersized teen was made to feel as though nothing he did was ever good enough for his cruel stepfather, despite making every effort to please him. The only thing that seemed to please Ichimura was when he struck the teen, usually making sure to do so in places that could be covered up by Ryuichi's school uniform. Ryuichi was too often glad that his school blazer covered up the bruises his small body had, even though he was sometimes forced to wear the long-sleeved jacket even in the heat of the summer sun.
Manami, who dearly loved her boy, felt powerless to stop the merciless emotional and physical assault the teen underwent. So as a way to compensate, she would shower the teen with her love, having long talks with her young son, but only when her husband wasn’t around. She would often take the money she earned as a house-cleaner to buy toys and other gifts more fitting for the five year old boy he was when his father died, which confused the teen even more.
The shy, emotionally withdrawn teen never invited anyone into his home, nor did he wish for his band mates to meet his family. He did so out of fear of his new-found friends’ pity and their rejection, and most of all, out of shame for his miserable and often confusing home life.
To make things worse, Ryuichi was the butt of many a cruel prank and comment while at school, thanks to Arakaki Katashi and his band of bullies.
It was during his first month at M Academy's middle school, and after a night of being yelled at by his stepfather - which resulted in one of Manami's feeble attempts to save her son from the verbal abuse - that an exhausted Ryuichi stumbled and fell towards Arakaki while waiting in the school lunch line. Ryuichi’s newly open milk carton spilled its contents all over the much larger boy.
As the other students laughed at the mishap, Arakaki pushed Ryuichi, causing him to nearly bump into another one of his ruffian friends, who then pushed Ryuichi back into Arakaki. “Stop pushing the school messenger boy around,” the lunch lady yelled.
That accident as well as the lunch lady's well-meaning interference was all the impetus that Arakaki's gang needed to turn Ryuichi's life into a living hell....as long as there were no teachers around.
Until Tohma came into in his life, Ryuichi did not get a break from abuse at home nor at school.
Thus it was extremely remarkable that despite so much mental and physical abuse, Ryuichi was beginning to show glimpses of his true self, sometimes even smiling while in class, especially when he was around Tohma and Noriko, and even occasionally smiling at home.
Unfortunately for him, Ryuichi’s callous stepfather did not like the new way the teen’s personality was changing.
~~~~*
One Friday in early September, after a particularly rough day of bullying at school, Ryuichi came home from school to the family’s small apartment and immediately began his usual after-school routine after first wishing Tohma a good evening at the door of their apartment.
He did chores first, and then homework, which was a lot easier since Tohma had explained how to do it on the long walk home, before he cooked and refrigerated dinner for the family since his mother was at her part-time job as a house-cleaner and his stepfather qas working late as usual.
When the teen was done with his routine, he decided to take a well-deserved soak. Carefully placing Kumagorou on the edge of the tub so that the bunny wouldn’t fall into the hot water, Ryuichi settled into the small, American-styled bathtub, momentarily stopping as he thought he heard a sound. Perking ears made sensitive from years of listening for his angry stepfather, the olive-haired teen waited to hear if the sound would repeat, but when he heard nothing else after listening for a while longer, he settled back in the hot water to relax before his parents were due back home. The combination of heat and the stresses of the school day soon caused the exhausted lad’s eyelids to close over his sapphire eyes as he settled himself further down in the water and all too quickly drifted off to sleep.
The sliding door to the bathroom slamming open rudely woke the teen from his doze. Grabbing Kumagorou and holding him behind his back, Ryuichi looked up to find his stepfather standing over him, staring down at the nude teen with expressionless brown eyes. Ryuichi abruptly sat up in the bathtub, sloshing water onto his stepfather’s slippers and soaking the plushie as the boy gazed up into his dull brown eyes and waited for him to speak.
“I hear that your grades have improved, Ryuichi-kun. Yet you haven’t gone to cram school for a while,” Ichimura Kenji began, the much larger man glaring down at the tiny boy curling around the soggy plushie, ignoring for the moment the hot water seeping through his socks.
“Y…yes otosan. That’s true. My friend Tohma…” Ryuichi began as Ichimura cut off the rest of the boy’s sentence by backhanding him, knocking the adolescent into the back wall of the tub and splashing more hot water onto Ichimura-san’s blue suit pants. Terrified, Ryuichi put his free hand on his face as blood ran from his now broken nose into the bathwater as he stared up at his stepfather.
“You’re lying, aren’t you boy? You haven’t been to cram school at all, have you? You cheated on those tests, didn’t you?” the man hissed.
“No otosan, I studied for them! Tohma helped me! I didn’t cheat…” the teen once again began as another large hand grabbed his hair and lifted the struggling boy into a more upright position, Kumagorou in a death grip in the small teen’s hand, dripping and dangling by one leg still behind his back. Bringing his face close to Ryuichi’s, the teen smelled alcohol on his stepfather’s breath as the man continued.
“You cheated and now you’re lying to me to cover up the fact that you cheated, aren’t you!” Ichimura bellowed as Ryuichi tried to shake his head, his azure eyes wide with fear as more blood flew.
“No…no! I didn’t cheat, I didn't! I studied! I did!” Ryuichi cried, hot tears of fear and pain leaking from his eyes, mixing in with the water and blood on his face.
Picking up the diminutive boy by an arm, Ichimura forced Ryuichi out of the tub. Nearly throwing the boy out the small bathroom, he bellowed, “How dare you lie to me! I’m gonna beat your ass for lying to my face! Your cheating ways have brought shame to this family, to my family’s name!”
The much larger man unfastened his leather belt, pulling it from the loops on his pants. Following Ryuichi as the teen ran into the main living area, he stood over the smaller boy, the belt-wielding arm raised and a vindictive smirk on his face as the small teen cowered nude against the bookshelf that covered one entire wall, his nose still dripping blood as he raised the arm that still gripped the pink bunny.
“Otosan, I did not cheat! I studied hard and earned my grades! I didn’t bring shame to you nor your family’s name, I swear! Please believe me!” Ryuichi yelled as Ichimura brought down the strap hard on the boy’s upraised arm, where it wrapped itself around the thin limb, the buckle hitting Kumagorou in the back. Yelping in pain, Ryuichi did something he had never done before; he yanked his arm down hard, forcing the belt out of his stepfather’s grasp.
Realizing what he had done, the teen panicked as Ichimura’s eyes widened then narrowed at the bold action. Growling, the enraged man reached toward the terrified boy, who ducked and ran toward the apartment door leading to the outside. Opening the door, he ran, still naked out of the small second floor apartment and down the stairs, the belt still wrapped around his arm and the plushie still in his hand while Ichimura-san followed, bellowing for him to return.
Not paying attention to where he was going, Ryuichi ran, full tilt out into the street that ran in front of his building.
Masumoto Hideaki was tired, driving on autopilot, the sun dipping below the buildings as he made his way home. It had been a rough day at his new intern job at The Tokyo Times, and the journalism professor whose lecture he had just finished at the local community college was extremely dry and boring, but necessary for any kind of a shot at a real journalism career. Thus the twenty-three year old had been practically falling asleep at the wheel when a pale shape ran out of nowhere and ended up in front of his car.
Hitting the brakes a split second too late and feeling the “thump”, Masumoto stopped the vehicle and opened the car door, nearly running as he headed toward the front of his car to see what he had inadvertently hit. Cold panic ran through his veins as he realized his car had struck what seemed to be a nude ten year old boy carrying a pink stuffed rabbit, a thick piece of leather wrapped around his forearm . The boy appeared to be out cold, his small, bloody body covered with bruises in various stages of healing and the left side of his chest now slightly caved in from the car’s impact as a woman on the sidewalk screamed.
“Call for an ambulance, quick!” Masumoto yelled at the crowd that began to gather around to watch the spectacle. Taking off his suit jacket, Hideaki gently raised the boy’s head and placed it underneath, cradling the boy’s head in his lap as trickles of blood ran from both his nose and mouth. The journalism student’s sharp eyes also took note of the belt still wrapped around the boy’s arm and the beginning of a large bump where the boy’s head had hit the ground. An older woman came over to cover up the boy’s nakedness with her coat as a man ran up and stood over Hideaki and the boy, his hand over his mouth.
“Ryuichi-kun! I…I didn’t mean for this to happen…but he cheated, he did!” the man began, his voice slurring as he did a poor attempt to defend himself while taking in what had just occurred. Hearing the slurred voice, Hideaki turned to look up at the man, who looked as if he had been drenched from the waist down, blood droplets on his now ruined undershirt. Glancing up and down at the man, Hideaki mentally noted that the man wore wet indoor slippers on his feet as distant sirens began to be heard.
An ambulance and a police car quickly pulled onto the scene. When the police officers stepped out of their vehicle, Hideaki pointed to the slippered man.
“This guy is involved in this! He must have somehow caused this kid to run out into the street! Look at this kid’s body! He should be taken in for questioning!” Hideaki shouted as the man looked helplessly at the officers before falling onto his knees, his arms down by his side.
The police officers took in the scene before them as the paramedics rushed over to the unconscious boy and began working on him, pointing out to the officers some of the old bruises on the teen when a paramedic moved the coat that was covering him. Seeing the injuries, one officer placed an authoritative hand on the half-wet man’s shoulder while the other pulled out a notebook and began to interview nearby witnesses.
“Please sir, it was an accident! I only wanted to punish Ryuichi-kun for cheating on his tests! He wasn’t supposed to run!” Ichimura shrieked as the policeman sniffed closely at Ichimura’s alcohol-laden breath before looking him up and down, pulling out a pair of handcuffs and placing them on the still-kneeling man. A second police car pulled onto the scene and two more policemen began directing the back-up traffic.
The paramedics carefully placed a neck collar on the still unconscious Ryuichi, positioned the boy onto a backboard, strapped him down, put the backboard onto the cot and then into the back of the ambulance, one gently tucking in the soggy Kumagorou under the top cot strap. Ichimura-san, his voice slurring, yelled, “Damn you boy! If you hadn’t run, I wouldn’t be arrested! Just wait until I get my hands back on you!”
The arresting policeman frowned at that statement and told the irate man, “I think that you’d better worry about what’s going to happen to you rather than how you’re going to punish him. If I had it my way, you’d never see that boy again!” he warned as Ichimura was pushed toward the closest police car and rather roughly placed in the back seat, the cop slamming the door hard as Ichimura continued his loud rant in the back seat.
The officer with the notebook walked back over to the police car, its flashing red and blue lights throwing the entire twilight-lit scene into stark relief as he sat in the front seat and brusquely asked the raving man in the back seat a few questions before getting out and heading over to the still open ambulance doors.
“The kid’s name is Sakuma Ryuichi, and he’s sixteen, according to his stepfather in the back set of my cruiser. Witnesses say that the kid was chased out into the street and the man that was taking care of him on the scene hit the boy with his car. My partner and I will check on the boy and get a statement from Sakuma-kun once we’re done questioning the suspect at the station. Hopefully the kid will be awake by then,” the cop told the medics as one placed an IV into Ryuichi’s skinny arm.
“That’s fine officer. We’re going to Tokyo Medical’s emergency room with him,” one medic said as the other paramedic jumped out of the back of the ambulance and hurried over to the driver’s seat.
Lights and sirens going as the ambulance sped away, Masumoto sighed before going over to the police car. Pulling out his driver’s license, he handed it to one of the two cops who stood outside of the car talking, their eyes occasionally flickering to the man in their back seat, who had finally quieted down and sat, hanging his head.
“How can I find out what happens to that kid? I still feel partly responsible. Besides, I’d like to bring him a gift,” Matsumoto admitted.
The officer with the notepad flipped to the correct page and wrote down Masumoto’s license information and asked him to tell him what happened before answering.
“We’d like for you to come to the station and fill out an official accident report, Masumoto-san. He’s probably going to end up in Tokyo Medical’s pediatric unit. It seems that that boy’s actually sixteen, he’s just small for his age, according to his stepfather. That’s the stepfather, Ichimura Kenji in the back of the car. The kid’s name is Sakuma Ryuichi.”
“Sakuma Ryuichi,” Masumoto repeated before pulling out his own small notepad and a pen from his back pants pocket. He wrote down the information he was just given as well as a few notes before nodding and putting away the notepad and pen.
“Thank you officers, I’ll head down to the station right now,” he said before he bowed and headed back to his own car, going around to the front of it. Standing in front of the car, he stared down at his now bloody jacket coat as it lay on the ground before picking it up and tossing it into the back seat of the car. Getting in, he inhaled deep, and then blew out as he put his head down on the steering wheel.
‘I’ll head to the hospital after I fill out the report and stay only for a few minutes. I just want to make sure that Sakuma-kun’s okay. Besides, that kid has a story to tell,’ he thought as he pulled away from the accident scene, occasionally glancing in his rear view mirror at the police car’s flashing lights before he made a necessary turn towards the police station.
After a few hours of questioning and filling out paperwork, Matsumoto was finally allowed to leave the police station. Getting into his car he headed towards Tokyo Medical. Once he was close to the hospital, he stopped at a local convenient store and bought a few items before pulling into the ER parking lot.
~~~~*
Ichimura Manami came home to a disaster. As she went to put in the key to open the door of her family’s small apartment, she noticed that the door was not quite closed. Carefully pushing open the door, the first thing she saw was that some of the books from the bookshelf near the front door has been knocked off their shelf, and that they lay in what seemed to be a puddle of red water in front of the bookshelf, and that a water and blood-stained trail led deeper into the residence.
Cautiously, she walked further in, following the trail of water and blood towards the bathroom. One look at the mess that met her when she slid open the door was enough for her to begin screaming out her son’s name. Never before had her husband caused Ryuichi to bleed. Frantic, she searched every inch of the apartment for her small son, hoping to find him still hiding somewhere. Finding nothing, she ran out of the apartment and finally saw that the blood droplets led away from the apartment and down the stairs. Carefully following them, she lost the trail as it led away from the building.
“You’re that boy’s mom, aren’t you, Ma’am? The one that was hit by a car. I saw and heard everything. It was scary,” a child’s voice said as Manami searched around, trying to find where the voice was coming from. Paling at the comment, she quickly turned around and saw a small girl partially hidden behind one of the trees in front of the building.
“Yes. Ryuichi-kun is my son. Can you tell me what happened? I won’t hurt you, you can come out,” Manami assured, her heart beating hard in her chest at the news.
A dirty-faced girl, no more than seven came out from behind the tree as Manami squatted down to her level and beckoned the girl closer.
“I like your son…Ryuichi-san. He gives me candy every now and then. My family lives right under you. Ryuichi-san’s daddy hits him a lot. Did you know that?” the girl asked, her muddy face serious. The pretty woman nodded as a sad look came across her face
“My name’s Oohara Chiaki,” the girl said, bowing low.
“I’m Ichimura Manami, and Ichimura Kenji-san is Ryuichi’s stepfather,” Manami solemnly replied as she stood and returned the bow before squatting down once more. Repeating the question, Manami once again asked in a soft voice, ”Chiaki-chan? Can you tell me what you saw? I need to find my son.”
Chiaki nodded as she gazed into Manami’s worried face before taking a deep breath. “Ryuichi-san didn’t have any clothes on and he ran into the street, and his daddy was chasing him, yelling really loud. He ran in front of a car and it hit him and Ryuichi-san fell asleep in the street. The man in the car got out and put his jacket under Ryuichi-san’s head and his daddy yelled some more. The police came and so did the ambulance. The ambulance people put Ryuichi-san in the ambulance and drove away with the sirens going and the lights blinking. I think Ryuichi-san was still sleeping, he didn’t wake up the whole time. The policemen took Ryuichi-san’s daddy and put him in the police car and drove off. And then I went over to play in the water,” she explained breathlessly, pointing toward a mud puddle in the empty lot next to the building.
Manami stood and once again bowed low to the girl. “Thank you very much, Oohara-san. Now I can find my son. And whenever I have candy, I’ll be sure to give you some,” she called over her shoulder while she hurried back toward the building.
Going inside of the messy apartment once again, she pulled out a public phonebook and picked up the phone. Turning first to the section with hospitals, she began making calls.
~~*
Masumoto Hideaki walked up to the nurses’ desk on the pediatric floor of Tokyo Medical, shifting the plastic bag he was carrying. The thirty-something nurse that was sitting behind the desk writing looked up as he approached and smiled benignly at the short, slightly pudgy younger man with the tired eyes.
“Can I help you sir?” she asked, wearing an expression of boredom as she took in the unassuming man in front of her.
“I’d like to visit Sakuma Ryuichi-kun’s room. I’m his uncle and I heard he was injured. I want to bring him a gift. I work nights, and this is the only time I can come see him” he lied, hopefully convincingly as he smiled down at the nurse.
“Well, unfortunately, he’s sleeping,” she began, putting her hand under her chin. “The doctors said that he has a mild concussion but he won’t wake up. They said there’s no reason for him not to be awake by now,” she told him as Masumoto shifted slightly, the plastic bag making a crinkling noise.
“Id still like to see him. And then maybe you and I can go out for a nice walk,” he suggested in a sweet voice, smiling as he pulled out a carnation and handed it to the nurse, who took it, smiled in return and gestured for him to lean closer.
“No visitors, Doctor’s orders,” she said in just as sweet a voice.
Luckily, Matsumoto was expecting that reaction. So he resorted to Plan B.
“Well, we could ignore the doctor’s orders, just this once, couldn’t we?” he asked smoothly, smiling even wider as he pulled out a bottle of top-shelf convenient store sake.
Her eyes opening wide, she looked to either side of the long hallway as if expecting to see her supervisor approaching, who she knew was asleep on a cot in a linen closet far away from the potentially noisy desk.
“Well…you ARE his uncle,” the nurse began as she smiled up at the plain-looking man from where she was sitting. Looking once more down the hallway where she knew her supervisor was sleeping, she grabbed a mini bottle of mouthwash from a desk drawer and stood.
"Matsumoto-san, I will let you peek in on your nephew for a few moments.../if/you agree to share your drink with me,” she murmured, eyeing the sake bottle greedily.
“Absolutely. I will only be a few minutes,” he replied, handing her the bottle. “Ladies first,” he said as she took the bottle and placed it under the desk where she had been sitting.
Quickly leading Matsumoto to the small teen’s room, she opened the door and quietly told him, “I will return in a few minutes. Make it quick, we don’t normally allow visitors this late at night,” she before hurrying back to the desk, pulling out her coffee cup and filling the empty container with sake.
Matsumoto walked over to the side of the bed where the small boy lay, half-uncovered by the sheet he was lying under, seemingly sleeping. Watching the way his bandaged ribs moved as he breathed, he reached into his bag and pulled out a small tiger plushie wearing a t-shirt that read “Get Well Soon!” and placed it on the nightstand, next to a damp, dirty pink plushie rabbit.
Quietly moving the chair closer to the bed, Matsumoto sat down and gazed for a while into the teen’s face, taking note of the broken nose and the two black eyes he now sported. Taking a deep breath, the journalism student reached out as if to pat the sleeping teen, then seemed to think better of it and instead picked up the well-worn rabbit and placed it at the boy's side instead as he began to speak.
“Look Sakuma-kun. I really wasn’t paying attention while I was driving. I was tired from working my new job and coming home from yet another lecture from my boring professor. But those are nothing but excuses. I should have paid attention to where I was going, then maybe when you ran out into the road, I would have been able to stop in time. But, from looking at these older bruises you’re sporting, it seems me hitting you isn’t your biggest problem. I don’t know what you did to make your stepfather so pissed that he’d chase you into the street, but I’m sure either way it wasn’t a fair fight. I have a friend that works in the emergency room and it seems that this isn’t the first time you’ve come here after “being clumsy,” or “doing something stupid.’ “
Matsumoto sat at the side of the bed for a little while longer, then stood. Taking his hand off the side rail, he momentarily touched the small boy’s shoulder with his fingertips.
“I’d like to help you, Sakuma-kun. I don’t know how yet, but I will. It’s the least I could do.”
Getting up out of the chair just as the nurse opened the door and peeked, the journalism student gazed down at the mossy-haired lad once more before turning to go, a thoughtful expression on his face as he followed her back to the desk. Leaning a hip against it, he smiled down at her as he asked, “So. When do you go on your lunch break?”
~~*
“Ryuichi? Ryu-kun? Come on boy, let’s go fly a kite! Let’s fly everyone!” Ryuichi heard a loud, yet kind voice say in a sing-song voice. The olive-haired boy instantly recognized the carefree voice as he felt himself being picked up and placed on a pair of strong shoulders. Hanging on tight to the leg of a slightly dirty pink plushie bunny, he made himself comfortable..
‘He’s…he’s my daddy!’ five-year-old Ryuichi said to himself, instantly recognizing his father’s beloved voice when he heard the familiar saying. He looked around, beaming when he realized that he was much higher than the other people standing with them on the train platform.
“Here, Ryu-kun, have a piece of candy,” his father suggested as a graceful, yet masculine hand held up a bright red lollipop. Shoving Kumagorou inside the front of his shorts so that the toy’s upper half flopped out, the small boy took the candy.
“Not too much, Natori, we don’t want to spoil his appetite for the picnic,” a younger Manami fussed as beaming, her husband reached out with his free hand and grasped the hand of hers that wasn’t holding the picnic basket. Her pretty face turning a delicate shade of pink, she giggled while the five-year-old Ryuichi gazed down into her smiling face, mirroring her smile.
‘I never want to forget this feeling, this feeling of always being happy!’ the boy thought, giggling as he placed one of his arms around his father’s large olive-colored head, the other hand holding onto the lollipop.
The throng moved closer to the yellow line painted on the concrete ground as Ryuichi looked around for his mother, losing her in the crowd when it once again surged toward as the incoming train’s whistle blared.
Suddenly, the young boy heard people yell as he felt himself flying, the lollipop falling to be lost in the shifting crowd.
For some reason, the only thing the small boy could focus on was his plushie’s limp ears in the front of his shorts.
‘I’m flying.”
A woman’s voice screamed as he was caught by many arms, preventing him from hitting the hard station floor. The boy was placed gently on the ground as a man took off his coat and placed it over his legs.
‘Rain? Its raining inside of the train station,’ Ryuichi thought to himself as he felt droplets fall upon his upturned face and arms.
Still dazed by the thought of ‘flying’ like his daddy used to always say, he looked up into many strange faces, most filled with pity and concern. Wiping his face, he found his fingers stained red as the woman’s voice continued to scream on and on, seeming to not take a breath, sirens joining in to the pandemonium.
“Daddy? Daddy, where are you?” Ryuichi cried out, only to watch the hovering faces turn completely to pity as the voice continued to scream, a second voice joining in.
‘NO! NO! I DON’T WANT TO REMEMBER THIS!’ he thought as he realized the first screaming person was his mother…and that the second voice was his own.
Holding tight on to the damp plushie bunny now somehow in his arms as he awoke screaming from the memory, the small teen in the large hospital bed sat bolt upright and began to weep, not the quiet sounds of a teenager upset over finding out that Life isn’t always fair, but the heart wrenching sobs of a small child lamenting, crying for daddy in the hopes that said loving parent would come and chase away the monsters that were scaring him. As if with the appearance of his long-departed father, all would be right with the world him; as if nothing bad could ever happen to him as long as he stayed safe within daddy’s strong, loving arms.
Too bad the world doesn’t always work that way.
After a while, the tone of his crying changed as Ryuichi began to morn for his father, something he did not have a chance to do at the time of his father’s untimely death, being too young to understand what had actually happened.
He cried for the loss of his father’s loving, protective arms. He cried for his mother, too afraid of the man she had married to prevent him from hurting her only child. He cried for himself, for being forced to see the harshness that the world can sometimes throw at someone, even if they’re too young to understand it at first.
But most of all, he cried for the happy boy that he was before the dark curtain of death parted him from the one person who protected him from Life’s monsters.
Some time later, Ryuichi’s confused mind finally realized he was no longer the innocent five-year-old boy, but nearly a man of sixteen when more recent memories, many of them not pleasant, tried to flood the boy’s vision with other red scenes of unhappiness.
His only witnesses, Kumagorou as well as the small toy tiger, seemed to smile gently at the boy, trying in their own plushie ways to calm the crying teen.
Still trying to catch his breath, Ryuichi attempted to inhale a deep breath, instead only managed a quiet gasp as sharp pains hit as his broken ribs made themselves known.
Temporarily unburying the horrific memories, he quietly declared to the plushie pair in the night-darkened room, “Mom thinks I’m still that boy, so I will be that boy! I will be happy so that I make her happy! I will sing and play and be the happy clown so that no one around me feels sad like I feel now!” Ryuichi decided.
From where he sat, Kumagorou’s smile seemed to widen at the declaration as the teen gingerly reached for him for their nightly snuggle. Ryuichi pushed his declaration deep into his subconscious before settling down for the first truly restful sleep he had had in a very, very long time.
Its eyes shining in the dim light of a nearby streetlight, the tiger sat on the nightstand, a single brief sparkle also showing that it agreed with Ryuichi ‘s verdict.
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It was well after 2am when, breathless and still upset from searching for her family, Manami finally made her way into Ryuichi’s room. Having pulled out ID and pictures to prove to the thirty-something night nurse that she was indeed Ryuichi’s mother and not his slightly older sister, the nurse, after explaining that the boy was “unwakable, but not in a coma,“ got up from her desk long enough to show the worried mother to the teen’s room before quickly returning and resuming the conversation she had been having with a rather unassuming, pudgy younger man.
Gasping as she saw her son's broken nose and black eyes, Manami set her jaw as she made her decision. Not seeing the tiger plushie on the nearby nightstand, Manami sank slowly down in the chair closest to the bed. Sighing with the relief of finally managing to find her son, she noticed as a single tear make its way down her boy’s cheek while he lay curled around his ever-present pink bunny. Taking the corner of the sheet he was lying under, she wiped away his tear, only to watch as another replaced it.
“Ryuichi? Ryu-kun? Its Mommy. Can you hear me? Wake up, please,” she murmured in a hushed, yet insistent voice.
The boy slept on, seemingly incapable of hearing her.
Thinking back to the night nurse explaining that Ryuichi was unconscious, Manami sighed and stroked his hair as she began to talk in a low voice, hoping against hope that her only child could hear her.
“I know I haven’t been the best mother to you, Ryuichi. I wanted you to have a father, and instead, I married a man that hurt you time and time again. I didn’t protect you from Kenji-san whenever you needed it, I should have, but I couldn’t. After losing your Dad, I became so afraid of losing Kenji-san, of losing those I love period…but after nearly losing you because of your stepfather’s actions, I don’t care about him anymore! I’ve decided to file for divorce, so it’ll just be you and I, Ryu-kun. The people I work for are really nice, and they want me as their full-time head of housekeeping, with a huge pay increase! I told them that I have a son and that we’ll need a place to live, so they said that we could live in the cottage that they have on their property. With your grades improving like they have been, you too should be okay.
Things will be rough for a bit while we get used to these big changes, but I’m sure that we’ll be fine, as long as you and I stick together. No more secrets between us, Ryuichi. I don’t ever what you to feel as if we can’t talk. I don’t ever want you to feel alone again.”
Stroking her son’s cheek, she leaned in and kissed it. Taking one of his hands from around his bunny, she smiled gently and whispered, “You’re the most important person in my life, Ryu-kun, I just wanted you to know that.”
“I know that Mom, I always have,” Ryuichi murmured back, opening his sapphire eyes and smiling up at her momentarily shocked face as recognition finally flooded his own. She smiled back, her own equally deep blue eyes wide as he painfully sat up in bed.
Slowly scooting himself and Kuma over to one side, he patted the bed next to him, inviting his pretty mom to join him like they used to do when he was younger. She lowered the rail and eagerly climbed into bed with him as he moved down and put his head on her soft lap.
“Mom, I knew that you were having a hard time with otosan. I saw a lot more than I let on. I don’t quite understand it all, but maybe someday I will. I want you to know I’ll be okay,” he explained as she stroked his olive-colored locks.
“I know that Ryu-kun. You’re stronger than you let on. We’re stronger than we let on,” she exclaimed.
And so, mother and son quietly talked as they sat together in the bed, each reaffirming bonds the other had thought were broken by the angry, pathetic man who now sat fuming in a concrete jail cell.
~
All too soon the Saturday morning sun crept into the hospital room, and shone into the face of the teen, who awoke to see that his mother had also fallen asleep. Lifting his sore head up from her lap, he gently tapped her leg to awaken her. She rubbed her eyes while Ryuichi yawned and carefully stretched just as the doctor walked into the room.
“Ah, I see the two of you are awake! Welcome back to the world of the living, Ryuichi-kun,” the doctor joked as he went over to the bed and began to examine the teen.
Giving the boy a clean bill of health and writing notes in the chart by his bed, the doctor assured Manami that her son had two cracked ribs on his right side, a hairline fracture to his nose, a concussion and a bump on the back of his head, along with various and sundry bumps and bruises but no other lasting side effects from the previous day’s accident. He left the room to finish filling out paperwork and to discharge the mossy-haired teen from his care.
As they checked out of the hospital and entered the battered old car Manami owned, the mossy-haired teen became quiet, and stayed so the entire ride to their small apartment, desperately hugging the two plushies that now took up his lap.
As the vehicle pulled up to the building, Manami looked over to her silent son. “What’s wrong, Ryu-kun?” she asked, slightly worried.
“Is…is otosan there?” he queried in a small voice.
She giggled a bit as she replied, “No he’s sitting in a cold jail cell for assaulting you and causing you to run out into the street and get hit! And when he gets out, we’ll be long gone! Now smile, my son, this chapter of our lives is over, and there’s nothing but blue skies and clear flying from here on, I promise!” she explained, turning off the car.
Not quite believing that the years of mental and physical abuse from his stepfather was about to be over, Ryuichi stared at his mom as she got out of her side of the car and came around to his side of the battered car. Picking up the newer plushie and putting it under one arm, she held out her opposite hand. Still clinging to Kumagorou, the teen took it and slowly got out, echoing her smile as they headed toward their soon-to-be former home.
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Tsuzuku
(To Be Continued)
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A/N:
Gravitation is owned by Murakami Maki-sensei as well as its various companies. I only use her characters out of love for their eccentric and unique personalities, as well as with the deepest reverence for her and her work. Any other characters are my creation; they exist purely to help enhance the storyline.
A pic that Listy Rayne from deviantart.com’s ‘Ryuichi Fangirls’ helped inspire me to write this chapter. She drew a picture titled ‘Uncle’s Drunk Again’. Something about that picture captured me. Go check it out and comment on it, it’s brilliant…and to me at least, horrifying, especially since I so relate to Ryuichi. (Yes, I even have a bunny obsession, just ask my friends about Kuma George! (^_^) )
http://listy.deviantart.com/art/Uncle-s-Drunk-Again-51990419?offset=0#comments
(I hope she doesn’t mind me pimping out her work….)
I know that normally if someone yells while in a hospital, people would come running, and that a nurse would probably accompany anyone running in a hospital’s halls. Just think “artistic license,” okay?
Domo arigato to GNG Shuichi for literally giving me a particularly tricky sentence that I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to write, and to GNG/FB Eiri for saving you readers from one of my run-on sentence paragraphs. It was a fate that would have made this story read really weird if they hadn't helped. Much love to you both!
Any final tweaking to this story is all my fault.
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Japanese/explanations in this track:
*OtÅsan – Father, honorific
*According to my research, and family and friends living and working in Japan, nearly anything can be bought at convenient stores. (^_~)
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