Chapter Sixteen

Even though he promised Kimi for the best, on the way to Maddy’s house, he couldn’t help but think of all of the worst possible situations. First he began to think of bad situations. Like maybe they would recognize him and would kick him out of the house. Or maybe they would tell Maddy to stay away from him and tell her everything about him from ten years ago, and by “everything about him” they would tell her things that were probably untrue, but she wouldn’t remember anyway because of her amnesia.
And then even worse situations came into his head. What if he accidentally let the word “alone” slip? What if he gets angry and kills off one of Maddy’s parents? What if he manages to kill Maddy? Tatsuya thought that maybe going to her house wasn’t the best idea, but he just couldn’t say no to Madison Anabel Fisher.
Tatsuya knew the way to her house perfectly. He didn’t know why, but for some odd reason Maddy’s parents decided to live in the same house they lived in ten years ago. He remembered the way exactly because of the numerous times his mother had to drive him there for play dates with the little, adorable Madison Anabel Fisher.
He nervously climbed up the three steps leading up to the door. He remembered how difficult it was to climb these steep steps when he was five years old. Even though his legs were much larger now, he still found them incredibly difficult to climb. He raised his hand slowly, and banged his knuckles thrice against the mahogany door.
The few seconds he had to wait were probably the most nerve-wracking in his life. All of the horrible thoughts repeated themselves in one quick second before rapidly flying out of his mind where he stood there, thoughtless and emotionless.
Maddy opened the door and grinned at Tatsuya. “Hey, you’re kind of late,” she said. “Is everything all right?”
“O-oh yeah,” Tatsuya stuttered. “Yeah, I had some stuff to deal with my sister. You know… she was pretty upset about me leaving the house and stuff. Especially since what happened.”
“I can imagine,” Maddy said, her grin slightly fading. “But you can come in.”
She opened the door all the way and Tatsuya cautiously took four small steps into her house. She closed the door behind him, and he began to notice the similarities and differences from ten years ago. A lot of the photos were the same. But the furniture and everything looked so much more expensive, so much more ravishing. The lives of the Fisher family obviously changed a lot since they moved away from this dinky little town. The walls were a lovely peach color which made Tatsuya sick to his stomach, and he couldn’t help but notice the giant chandelier hanging down from the ceiling, practically mocking him in his face.
“Nice house,” he said bluntly.
“Thanks,” she said. “Well, I really shouldn’t be thanking you for that compliment. My parents should.”
“Where are your parents?” Tatsuya asked, rubbing his palms on his jeans to try to get the sweat off of them.
“Oh, they’re just finishing up with dinner,” Maddy said. “I actually just finished setting the table. So dinner should be ready in about fifteen minutes or so. Why don’t we just hang out in my room until then. We can have an interesting discussion about recent events.”
“Yeah, sure, okay,” Tatsuya said quickly. He followed Maddy up the strangely familiar stairs until they were in her room. It was as sickly pink as most of the rest of the house. He didn’t want to complain, though.
Maddy sat down on her bed. “Oh, don’t just stand there,” she said, pointing at a chair. “Please, sit down. God, I sound like a freaking psychiatrist right now. Seriously, just chill… and you can tell me all of your problems.”
Tatsuya chuckled nervously at Maddy’s seemingly funny joke as he took a seat on the chair next to her desk. He laughed at himself when he half expected the computer to talk back to him.
“Listen, Tatsuya, I know you’re going through a lot of stuff right now. Your friend is sick, and your grandfather just passed away, and I don’t really know what’s going on between you and that Kaida girl, but it can’t be anything good if you thought suicide was a good idea.”
Tatsuya nodded his head, even though he wasn’t fully listening. “I know you want an explanation,” Tatsuya said. “But I have no idea if I’m allowed to tell you.”
“Allowed to tell me?” Maddy repeated. “What the hell does that mean? Why wouldn’t you be allowed to tell me something?”
“It’s just some really bizarre stuff,” Tatsuya said, his voice a bit uneasy. “It’s really unbelievable, and I don’t know if you would understand.”
“Can I tell you something?” Maddy suddenly piped up.
“Uh… yeah, sure, I guess,” Tatsuya said, a bit uneasy about what she was about to say.
“You know, ever since I’ve moved here, I’ve considered you one of my best friends.”
Tatsuya’s eye brows disappeared behind his bangs.
“Yeah,” Maddy said. “I mean, of course I’ve been keeping in touch with my besties from my private school, but after I came here, I feel like I’ve reached a whole new level of myself whenever I talk to you.”
“Are you sure it’s a new level?” Tatsuya mumbled to himself.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Maddy asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Tatsuya said. “Er… I guess I should say thank you.”
“No, I should be saying thank you,” Maddy said. “I know I’ve talked to you about this before, but I really do feel more thoughtful around you. It’s kind of weird, but thank you. For being a great friend, and showing me a side of myself I never knew existed.”
Tatsuya looked down at his hands and smiled to himself. “You’re welcome, Madison Anabel Fisher.”
Maddy chuckled. “Um, yeah, it’s just Maddy. It’s not exactly normal to call someone by his or her full name.”
“Right. Of course,” he said, smiling up at her now. “Sorry about that, Maddy. But maybe I’ll be able to tell you. You seem to have an open mind.”
“Yes! Yes, I do have an open mind, Tatsuya. And I promise I’ll listen and believe anything you say. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.”
“I trust you, Maddy,” Tatsuya said.
“Then please tell me.”
“Maddy!” called a shrew, female voice from downstairs. “Can you come down for dinner now?”
“Coming, mom!” Maddy called back. “Let’s go, Tatsuya. I can finally introduce you to my parents! Maybe they won’t be so pissed about me hanging out with you once they know who you are.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Tatsuya said, his palms sweating again. “Or maybe they’ll get to know me and they wouldn’t want you being around me.”
Maddy giggled, and stood up and walked to her door. “That’s just silly, Tatsuya,” she said, opening the door. She guided him downstairs and into the dining room, where Mrs. Fisher was placing the food on the table.
Mr. Fisher glared at Tatsuya.
Yep, he definitely remembers me, Tatsuya thought.
“Oh, mommy and daddy,” Maddy said, sitting down at the table. “This is my new friend I’ve been telling you about.”
“Ah, yes,” Mr. Fisher said, his voice as prick as ever. “I do believe this is the suicidal one?”
Great, Tatsuya thought, I’ve already come to a bad start.
“Um, yeah,” Maddy said nervously. “Tatsuya, please sit down.”
Tatsuya rubbed his sweaty hands against his jeans again, and sat down in the chair next to Maddy, straight across from Mr. Fisher.
“Uh, thanks for inviting me over,” Tatsuya said awkwardly.
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Fisher said. “So how long have you been living in this area?”
Tatsuya wanted nothing more than to shoot these two imbeciles a dirty look. They definitely already knew him, and there was no point to their stupid interrogating act.
“Oh, all my life, ma’am,” Tatsuya answered, playing along with their little charade.
“How interesting,” she said. “Now just tell us a little bit about yourself. I don’t want my precious Maddy to be around with someone I don’t know.”
Tatsuya slowly took a bite of food. He moved cautiously as he didn’t know what sort of things were going to come up next. “What do you want to know?” he asked, carefully remembering that he had to finish swallowing first before he spoke.
“Well, what do you like to do?”
“Think,” Tatsuya said plainly. “I like to think. Being a deep person is fun.”
Mrs. Fisher frowned. “Well, that wasn’t exactly the response I was looking for, but it was interesting nonetheless.”
“Yeah,” Tatsuya said, digging into his food with a fork. “Life is pretty nice like that.”
“Nice like what?”
“Well, you never know what’s going to come up,” he said. He took another bite and swallowed, barely chewing it down. “But it’s always interesting. Without those things life would be so boring.”
“Keeping to a routine is nice, though,” Mrs. Fisher said.
“Well, of course, keeping a routine is necessary. It’s simple, and nice, and there’s not a lot of thinking involved. Without a routine, a lot of people would just go insane. But a little bit of reality is nice, too.”
Mrs Fisher frowned again, her face wrinkling up as if she ate something incredibly sour.
“Um, Tatsuya,” Maddy whispered to him so her parents couldn’t hear. “I know that’s how we usually speak to each other, but my parents aren’t so cool with it. They just don’t like the way all that deep stuff sounds.”
“Oh,” Tatsuya said under his breath. “That’s kind of stupid.”
“So, Tat-soo-ya,” Mr. Fisher started, completely pronouncing Tatsuya’s name incorrectly, “you seem like an intelligent young man. What sort of grades do you get?”
Tatsuya shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Mostly Bs, I guess.”
Mr. Fisher quickly glanced at Mrs. Fisher.
“I’ll tell you what your problem is,” Mrs. Fisher stated in a matter-of-fact like tone. “It’s all that time you waste thinking. Really. If you stopped thinking of things that don’t really matter, or that no one else who is normal really thinks of, you’re not going to spend enough time thinking of things that do matter. Like grades, and your family, and things of that sort.”
“I think about important things,” Tatsuya said, trying his best to keep his voice low. “I think about my family a lot. My father died ten years ago, and since my mother works a lot, it was pretty much my responsibility to raise myself and my little sister.”
“No wonder you’re in such a state,” Mrs. Fisher said, taking another bite of food.
Tatsuya glared, but stopped before they noticed. “What do you mean? What sort of state am I in?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, dear, don’t worry about it,” Mrs. Fisher said with her shrew, wrinkly smile. “Maddy, do you mind getting the potatoes from the kitchen?”
“Not at all, mom,” she said, standing up and walking away from the table.
Tatsuya rubbed his sweaty palms against his jeans again. The last thing he wanted was to be alone with Mr and Mrs. Fisher.
“Say, dear,” Mr. Fisher said to Mrs. Fisher, “doesn’t this boy look slightly familiar?”
Mrs. Fisher squinted her eyes and smiled. “Why yes, it does seem we’ve seen this boy somewhere before.”
Tatsuya scoffed and smiled. “I see you two remember me,” he said. “Madison Anabel Fisher doesn’t.”
“Don’t call her that, her name is Maddy,” Mrs. Fisher snapped.
“And besides,” Mr. Fisher cut in, “we’re slightly upset that Maddy is getting all of these bad ideas from you.”
“Oh, dear, I was so afraid this was going to happen,” Mrs. Fisher said. “I had a feeling this boy was still around these parts. When Maddy told me she wanted to move here and go to a public school, I knew it was a horrible idea. She would run into this thing again.”
“Did you just call me a thing?” Tatsuya asked, but the Fisher parents continued on like he didn’t say anything.
“Honey, I don’t approve of this boy,” Mr. Fisher said to Mrs. Fisher before turning to Tatsuya. “I never approved of this boy. Not then, and definitely not now.”
Tatsuya’s mouth dropped.
“Wasting his time, corrupting our daughter,” Mrs. Fisher mumbled.
Tatsuya stood up. The noise from the chair falling over behind him completely distracted him from the fact that Maddy had just walked into the room, potatoes in hand.
“I don’t have to sit here and take this,” he said. “I have other things to… think… about. Important things. I’m wasting my time here. Good night, Mr. And Mrs. Fisher.”
“No!” Maddy cried, putting the giant plate in her hands on the table. “Tatsuya, don’t leave just yet!”
Tatsuya had almost made it to the door until Maddy stopped him.
“Listen, I know you might disagree on some of the stuff they say—” Maddy started, but Tatsuya cut her off.
“Maddy, this is kind of complicated, and a bit of a long story, so it’d be easier if you just dropped it. I just can’t stand talking to them.”
“Okay, whatever,” Maddy snapped. “I’m fine with that. But you were supposed to talk to me. I don’t want you to keep all of this inside you. Please, when are you going to talk to me?”
Tatsuya twisted his face into an odd sort of half-smile. “Tomorrow.”