Chapter Fifteen

With much arguing, Tatsuya managed to convince his mother to allow him to go home. He honestly wasn’t feeling anything. Well, nothing physically anyway. He was confused, angry, and upset. All of the worst possible emotions mixed together in a large mass.
Tatsuya locked himself in his room the instant he got home.
“Are you okay, Tatsuya?” Gina asked as soon as he walked in. “I haven’t seen you in a while. It’s been over a week.”
Tatsuya was in no mood to hear from Gina. He grabbed onto her wire, and unplugged the computer. “Sorry, Gina,” he said. “I just can’t deal with this right now, I just can’t deal with anything right now.”
Tatsuya took slow steps towards his bed before he completely collapsed. He groaned into his pillow and didn’t want to move. He especially didn’t feel like jumping up into the air when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He reluctantly picked it up and flipped it open to see a text from Maddy.
“My parents are inviting u over for dinner tonight. If ur mom lets you come please do! We need to talk about things,” it read.
“I hate how people spell in texts,” Tatsuya complained into the covers on his bed.
And then a horrible thought just struck Tatsuya’s mind. Maddy’s parents, though they were Maddy’s parents, were still the parents of little Madison Anabel Fisher. The vicious parents who hated him with a burning passion of ten thousand suns. The parents who wanted any excuse to get their precious little daughter away from him. The parents who believed that he was corrupting their little girl with horrible misconceptions of the world.
“Damn,” Tatsuya said under his breath, his face still buried within the depths of his bed. “Why is it that I can never say no to Madison Anabel Fisher?”
Tatsuya forced himself out of bed and decided to prepare himself to look decent in front of Maddy’s parents. These were, in fact, the people who hated him to death since he was five years old.
“I bet they were glad their daughter got amnesia,” Tatsuya said, rummaging through his drawers for clean clothes. “I bet they started reforming her the minute she woke up from that accident. Changing her mind to be the mindless robot they wanted her to be. The mindless robot without that stupid boy corrupting her. That stupid boy who was ruining their precious daughter. Too bad they couldn’t do anything about it. Thankfully their daughter completely forgot about him, and they could make her perfect.”
Tatsuya continued to mumble on to himself in this manner. It was a little known fact about him, but in extreme emotions he had a bad habit of speaking in third person.
“That stupid boy didn’t know anything,” he said to himself. “He was just five years old. Yet he still had the ability to change this girl. He was changing her for the better. Those stupid parents don’t know what they were talking about. Just look at Maddy now. She’s the farthest thing ever that Madison Anabel Fisher would want her to become. Madison Anabel Fisher thought that high heels were for show offs. Madison Anabel Fisher wasn’t as shallow as Maddy is. Maddy is a bit of a slut, too, and Madison Anabel Fisher would never stand for becoming anything like Maddy is today.”
He moved on from clothes and went into the bathroom, where he took a piss before attempting to tame the mangled beast on his head that he called his hair.
“I wish I had Madison Anabel Fisher back,” Tatsuya sighed as he gazed at his reflection in the mirror. “Madison Anabel Fisher would have made it so that none of these problems would come up. She would make sure that the five year old boy would grow up to be a fit fifteen year old young man. Someone who wasn’t so lonely all the time. And if he wasn’t lonely, he wouldn’t be killing people left and right without his knowledge.
Once Tatsuya felt that he was decent-looking enough to meet the people he hated oh so much, he ran downstairs, where he was slightly surprised to find Kimi standing at the door.
“Hey, Kimi,” Tatsuya said, fighting with his jacket in trial to zip it up. “What’s up? Are you guarding the door or something?”
“Yes, Tatsuya, I am guarding the door,” Kimi said, her voice quivering with every syllable. “I’m keeping my eyes on you, I’m making sure you don’t do anything like you did last time.”
“Oh,” Tatsuya said. He didn’t expect that response from her. “Listen, Kimi, I promise I’m not going to do something like that ever again.”
“How do I know?” Kimi said. “You’re lucky mom decided not to tell anyone, otherwise they’d be sending you off to the mental asylum or something. Do you know what would happen to me if that happened?”
Tatsuya didn’t answer.
“I’d be all alone,” Kimi snapped. “I’d be all alone at home, and my brother would be gone, and mom would be at work all the time trying to get enough money so I could live a decent life, but I’d be all alone, Tatsuya. That’s not a decent life. But there would be nothing mom could do about it.”
Tatsuya knelt on one knee. “Kimi, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you,” he said. “I love you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I never want you to feel lonely. No matter what happens, I’m always here for you.”
“Sure,” Kimi said, inching away from her brother. “You’re always there for me, huh? Breathing in carbon monoxide in the car. Yeah, totally there for me.”
“I can’t explain why I did that, Kimi,” he said. “At least not now. It’s too bizarre. But trust me, I did it for the greater good.”
“What good? There is no good without my brother!” A single tear ran down her face, and Tatsuya stood up.
“Don’t give me that,” Tatsuya said. “Listen, I promise you, nothing is going to happen. To me, to you, or to mom. It all looks bright from here.”
Kimi sniffled. “Don’t say that. Don’t promise things where you know you can’t keep them. You don’t know what’ll happen to me or mom or you. You never know, someone could kill mom at work right now.”
Tatsuya bit his upper lip. “Kimi, calm down. Nothing is happening to mom.”
“How can you say that? Wasn’t dad shot right here? Right at this door by a completely random stranger?”
Tatsuya’s teeth dug into his lip even more. “Kimi… that guy… well, we don’t really have any information about what happened that night. I was five and you were barely 1. Are you going to let me out now, or not?”
“No,” Kimi said, falling to her knees. Tatsuya went to his knees and tried to give her support, but she refused to stand up. She began to sob into Tatsuya’s jacket once again.
“I promise, nothing is going to happen.”
“How can I trust you now?” Kimi snapped.
Tatsuya felt like his heart had just broken into a million little pieces. His own little sister didn’t even trust him anymore.
“You can’t honestly be doing this to me, Kimi,” Tatsuya said. “That last comment really hurt.”
“Well, I mean it,” she said. “I don’t want anything to happen, Tatsuya. Too many bad things are happening. First grandpa, and then you go and do your thing, and I just don’t want to think about it anymore. Please, Tatsuya, just don’t go. Stay home tonight, please, stay with me. Mom will be home soon. Stay with us.”
Tatsuya held his sister tight in his arms. “Nothing’s going to happen,” he said. “I promise. I love you, Kimi. If you let me out, I swear I’ll be home soon. Please, won’t you let me out?”
Kimi rubbed her face with her sleeve. “Where are you going? Can I at least know that?”
“I’m going to a friend’s house,” Tatsuya said.
“Who’s your friend?” Kimi asked.
“Well, do you remember that girl who was at the hospital when I woke up?”
Kimi nodded slowly.
“I’m going to her house to have dinner with her and her parents. Won’t you at least let me go for that? I’m not doing anything to hurt you. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“Don’t say that,” Kimi said. “Every single word you’re saying right now is hurting me.”
“Kimi, you’re hurting me, too,” Tatsuya said. “I promise, you can trust me. I’m your freaking brother, Kimi, you can trust me with anything. You can trust me with your life!”
“Ha!” Kimi screamed. “Sure, I can trust you with my life! I don’t even trust you with your own life anymore!”
“I didn’t do it for myself!” Tatsuya argued back, trying his hardest to have his voice remain calm. “Listen, it’s going to be really ridiculous and complicated for me to explain right now. But if you just keep in mind that I love you, and that I will always do anything for you and the people I care about, then… well, that’s the best explanation I could give you right now.”
“I told you I don’t want an explanation,” Kimi said. “That’s the last thing I want. I don’t want to hear your excuses and stuff.”
“It’s not an excuse, Kimi,” Tatsuya said, practically begging his sister now. “Please, you have to let me go. I promise, nothing bad is going to happen.”
“I’m not stupid, Tatsuya. I wasn’t born yesterday. And you shouldn’t make promises where you don’t even know if it’s possible for you to keep. Like I said, this is life, and anything can happen.”
“I know that, Kimi,” Tatsuya said, dropping the volume of his voice. “You’re just going to have to trust me. I know I’ve done some stupid things recently, and I know that a ton of stuff has been happening, and I know you’re upset, but I love you so much and you’re just going to have to trust me.”
Kimi looked up and frowned at her older brother. “I love you, too, Tatsuya,” she said. “You’re the best older brother ever. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me,” Tatsuya assured her, smiling in attempts to be sweet. “I’m always going to be there for you. Dead or alive. All you’re going to have to do is trust me.”
Kimi frowned, but slowly moved a few steps to the right. “You can’t break your promises,” she said, her voice slowly becoming steadier. “And if you end up not coming home, mom is going to blame me. You wouldn’t get me in that kind of trouble, would you?”
“Of course not, Kimi,” Tatsuya said, standing up again. “And just so you know, you’re the best younger sister anyone could’ve ever asked for. I love you. I’ll see you in a bit.”