Chapter 24
Monday, a week or so later. After a few days home sick, Naoyuki returns to school. Ikuo stalks off with his back turned and wordlessly leaves him alone on the front walk, as usual – no, not as usual; he was being even colder. Naoyuki starts toward the door when a voice calls out to him. He looks up to see Taki waving and jogging over. “Hey, where’ve you been?” she cries. “I missed ya,” she adds with a smile. She takes Naoyuki’s backpack from him and starts up the walk with Naoyuki in tow. “Not too much going on here, I guess,” she says, “except progress reports go out today.” Taki looks down at him and asks, “You look a little pale. Are you okay?”
Naoyuki nods. “I was sick, but I’m better.” he tells her.
Taki blinks at him incredulously and roughly yanks his coat hood over his messy dark hair. “Then stay warm, for goodness’ sake! You’re not even wearing a scarf, so you should at least wear your hat!”
Naoyuki pulls back a little and blinks up at her uneasily. He wasn’t used to being yelled at in that manner – not by one of his peers. At the look on his face, Taki backs down and starts walking again, and Naoyuki apprehensively follows.
“So what’s up with your brother, anyway?” Taki inquires. “Does he always ignore you like that?”
Naoyuki frowns as he nods back a ‘yes’. “Ikuo is my stepbrother,” he tells her softly.
“Stepbrother?” Taki asks. “So, are your parents divorced?” Naoyuki shakes his head. “One of you is adopted, then? But you look a lot alike...Hey, are you the adopted – ?” Taki sees Naoyuki’s frown deepen. “Not a comfortable subject, huh? Okay, I’ll lay off. Sorry.” So Naoyuki is adopted? That explains why he transferred at such an odd time, I guess.
“Taki, do stepbrothers fight a lot?” Naoyuki asks suddenly.
Taki stops, turns around and stares at Naoyuki questioningly. “I wouldn’t know; I’ve never had a step-sibling. But I guess they might feel left out sometimes, because they’re not really part of the family.”
So Ikuo doesn’t like me because he feels left out now...? “I don’t mean to make Ikuo feel left out...” Naoyuki muses.
“Huh? He’s the adopted brother?” Taki asks, to which Naoyuki nods in reply. “Then how come you’re the one who transferred in? Where were you before now?”
“I...” Naoyuki lets out a little sneeze.
“We should get inside,” Taki laughs slightly. “Come on.”
Naoyuki follows Taki up the remainder of the walkway and into the school building. Suddenly, he feels empty; his stomach ties up in knots. I’m with Mama and Papa now, he thinks, frowning, but it’s not the way I thought it would be. I want to go home. Back to my house, with Shizuyo. Back to my school, with Kotaro..and Haruko. I want to go home and take Mama and Papa – and Ikuo, too – with me.
“Naoyuki, what’s wrong?” Startled from his thoughts, Naoyuki jerks his head up to look at Taki. “Is something the matter?” Taki inquires.
Naoyuki frowns and looks away, shaking his head. Going back to his locker through the crowded hallway with Taki flanking him against oncoming traffic, he thinks of all the absent work he needs to pick up from his teachers, then the work he still needs to catch up on from before he transferred in – all the make-up work was piling so high, he feels as though he could drown in it. “Taki,” he asks gingerly, “can you help me with my make-up work?”
“Huh? Really?” Taki asks, bewildered. When I asked to help him before, he acted like he didn’t want me to. She heaves a sigh. “I really don’t get you, Naoyuki. One second, you’re pushing me away, and the next...You majorly throw me off.”
Hurt in his eyes, Naoyuki mutters, “Never mind, then.”
“No, I want to help you!” Taki blurts out. “Sheesh, you’re so sensitive!” She watches him bow his head in embarrassment. Too sensitive, she thinks. So easy to hurt. So subdued and helpless. It’s no wonder his classmates have pinned a target on his back.
“So, um..After school, then? In the library?” Taki inquires.
“Study hall?” Naoyuki asks softly.
A gentle grin stretches slowly across Taki’s face. “All right. Study hall it is.” She gives back Naoyuki’s backpack and parts ways with him when he reaches his locker and the warning bell sounds. “See you then!” she calls as she rushes down the hallway toward her first class.
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When Naoyuki finishes unpacking his backpack upon arriving home, his stepbrother’s feet stomp up the stairs, and he steps into the room, his face dark. “Dad wants you downstairs,” Ikuo grumbles, then strides past Naoyuki to his side of the room, where his school papers were laid messily out on an old oak desk, and drops down into the hard chair.
Naoyuki blinks back at Ikuo momentarily before turning and leaving the bedroom. As he clutches the railing to start down the stairs, he realizes that his hands are shaking. He realizes that he was nervous. Come to think of it, Naoyuki’s father hadn’t really talked to him at all since he’d been staying there – not really, with the exception of giving him a curt greeting or telling him to do this or that. Other than that, he only watched from a distance – never really got involved. It was that cold indifference that scared Naoyuki; it reminded him that, after three years, he was the outsider here. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Naoyuki’s shaky hand releases the railing, and he cautiously makes his way into the living room toward the couch and the set of fabric furniture, where his father sits, waiting, with a chess set laid out in front of him.
Naoyuki’s father gestures toward the couch across from him. “Sit,” he says tersely. “We’ll play a game.”
Naoyuki takes a seat on the couch, suddenly more nervous from his father’s tone. Sitting there, watching as his father picks up a pawn and scoots it a space forward, Naoyuki remembers playing the game with his father when he was younger. He’d been good at it; but in the end, his father had always won. Naoyuki had polished his skills since then, playing a game with Shizuyo once in a while – he even played with Haruko when they were at the Fubukis’ house. His father’s voice interrupts his train of thought, for once, for the better – thinking about Haruko, who was still unconscious in the hospital (“in a coma” is the phrase he kept hearing), only saddens him. “Your move,” is what his father said.
Recalling some of the strategies he learned, Naoyuki makes his first move, then watches his father move the next piece; makes another move, watches his father move a third pawn. Naoyuki takes his father’s second pawn with a knight. Naoyuki’s father takes Naoyuki’s first pawn. Move from Naoyuki; clack. Move from his father; clack. Regardless of how much time had passed, the board now has less than half a dozen pieces remaining – Naoyuki is up one and has his father in check. He could win. Finally.
Suddenly, something comes over him. Naoyuki’s move. He backs down and takes a bishop instead of the king or queen. Victory is in reach; but Naoyuki doesn’t want it. He would let his father take the game this time. For old times’ sake, if nothing else. Mostly because he doesn’t want to anger his father.
“That’s how you’re going to play?” Naoyuki’s father bolts up from the couch and swipes his hand across the chess board, sending the pieces flying off the table as Naoyuki stares on, dumbstruck. “No. No, no, NO! This is NOT acceptable!”
Mrs. Kondo steps out of the kitchen. “What’s going on here? Is something wrong?”
Her husband looks back at her, bites his tongue and regains his composure. “We’ll talk later,” he says coldly.
Hesitantly, Naoyuki’s mother says, “Dinner will be ready in ten. We can talk then.” She looks at Naoyuki and says, “Homework right after, okay? Help your father clean up, then go call Ikuo down – ” Before she even finishes her sentence, Naoyuki’s father stalks away, leaving Naoyuki with the mess.
Dazedly, Naoyuki gets down on his knees and starts picking up the scattered chess pieces. What did I do wrong? he wonders. Why did Papa get so mad? One by one, he puts the chess pieces back up on the board until each pawn, knight, rook, bishop, king and queen is returned to its place. He hears the door open upstairs and sees Ikuo come down the steps; Mr. Kondo climbs down behind him, his face rock-hard. “Papa...” Both pass Naoyuki up without a word or a look. Naoyuki lowers his head and goes to wash his hands, then reports to the kitchen for dinner.
His father throws down a folded-up piece of paper on the table. It was a progress report – Naoyuki’s progress report. Sensing the pent-up anger boiling under his father’s ice-cold visage, Naoyuki braces himself for the worst as his mother uneasily picks up the paper and opens it. Not even a fork hits a plate as she reads it – the brick-heavy silence was almost worse than his father’s outburst after the chess game. “Not surprising,” his mother says casually. “After all, he did transfer late in the semester. I’m sure as long as he catches up – ”
“Don’t make excuses for him Aya,” Naoyuki’s father growls. “What are we supposed to do with an imbecile who can’t apply himself seriously at anything? What of his future – high school, college, a job – No, forget that! He barely even talks, Aya! Who will have that? We didn’t raise such a disgraceful child!”
“Hiroto, please!” Naoyuki’s mother cries.
“I didn’t raise my son to be a weak, spineless coward!”
Silence again. Naoyuki bows his head under the thick tension seething in the air. ‘Imbecile,’ he said. ‘Weak.’ ‘Spineless.’ ‘Coward.’ A disgrace. That is what his father said. Is that what he really thought? How his father really felt about him? If that was the case, it was no wonder, then, why he had really abandoned Naoyuki three years ago -- why he had replaced him with Ikuo instead of going back for him. Naoyuki was a disappointment to him – his failure.
I want to go home. The thought keeps replaying in Naoyuki’s head. Forget it. This isn’t what I want. I want Shizuyo, and Kotaro and Haruko. I want to go back. I want to go home! I don’t like it here!!
“Running away?”
Naoyuki stops a few feet from his chair; he didn’t even realize that he’d gotten up – that he’d started to run out of the kitchen, away from his father and his scathing criticism. “Naoyuki, please, sit down and eat,” his mother coaxes him.
Tears streaming down his cheeks, Naoyuki backs away and shakes his head, then turns to flee. Heavy footsteps pound behind him, and he feels himself yanked back to have a heavy hand strike his face. “I won’t have that!” Naoyuki’s father yells.
Naoyuki screams, kicks at his father’s legs and flails wildly to free his arm from his father’s grip. Finally jerking away, he falls to the floor and backs away on his hands and feet. But that wasn’t enough; his father reaches down and tears him off of the floor and onto his feet. “NOOO!!!” Naoyuki screams.
His father strikes him twice more, once on the face, once on the arm, hard enough to leave bright red bruises on his skin. “I REFUSE to spoil you any further!”
“Hiroto, STOP!!! That’s enough!!!”
Too late. Already worked into a frenzy, Naoyuki claws at his father’s arms and lands a kick to his father’s mid-section, screaming wildly despite his reddened face and quickening gasps for air. His mind and heart were racing – the only thing he could think to do was get free and run. Somehow. Somewhere. Get away from here. Why was this happening?
Suddenly, everything goes blank, and Naoyuki feels himself collapse. Then nothing. Was he blacking out? He could barely see; but he feels his head spinning, his heart pounding – Was his mother calling him?
When, finally, Naoyuki could register what was going on around him, he realizes that his mother was panicking, and even Ikuo was at her side. “Naoyuki, are you all right?!” his mother cries. “What happened? Can you breathe?”
Naoyuki nods slowly – he still feels light-headed. What in the world just happened?
His mother picks him up and carries him up the stairs and into his bedroom. Gently, she lays him in his bed and pulls up the covers over him. What was that? she wonders. A panic attack? “Get some rest,” she says gently, caressing Naoyuki’s bruised face. “I’ll bring up your dinner later, then we’ll talk about school, okay?”
Naoyuki nods and watches his mother leave the room.
