The calm water reflected a sharp light into Kori's eyes under the bright moon resting in the sky. As he walked, he thought about his past for some reason.
He didn't know what prompted him to start thinking about it, because he really disliked that period. Even now, years after it, he got irritated at the thought of it.
But he couldn't stop thinking about it, it stuck to his mind. Not letting go of him.
He had no choice but to continue his reminiscing until it finished.
He had had several other times like this, when he was forced to remember his past and the actions that shaped his current self.
The memories usually started and ended at different times in his life, but they usually kept to the same event. And all of the pain and sorrow that followed it.
Biharu looked in confusion and worry as Kori stared at the ocean beside them with a bewildered and angered pair of eyes.
Biharu thought
-What is he thinking about? He seems strangely pissed considering that we succeeded in our mission. Maybe he's unhappy over the level of the opponents? Damn, that's scary.-
Kori drew his eyes to the moon next and thought
-That damn geezer!
Everything… Because of him.-
…
When an hour went by, Kori's body decided that it had recovered enough and started twitching slightly.
Kori slowly raised his head from the twisted position it was posed in as he lied on the floor. He opened his eyes and was greeted by several books lying on top of his head, he quickly sat up and the books fell to his lap. Among them was a mathematics book, which he promptly threw away quickly out of pure instinct. He then inspected the scenery around him to gather what had happened and immediately noticed the disassembled bookshelf next to him and got a quick shot of pain as he remembered what had happened.
At that point, Kori didn't have the energy to start crying again. But he did feel the same feeling as he did right after he exited his blind rage then.
The heavy guilt that made him question a lot of things.
- Even if they were the ones who bullied me, does that allow me to just hit them back with twice the force?
Not only that, but they had never gotten physical in that way. The closest was when they pushed me around a couple of times, but never a punch or anything of that degree.
But yet…-
The image of Takashi with the messy face popped up as he thought it through.
The feeling of guilt deepened.
But that wasn't the worst thing about it, Kori realized something as he thought back to the fight.
He had enjoyed, quite a lot in fact.
A look of despair hit him as he stared at his hands like they were the culprit of a violent murder.
-What is wrong with me!? How could I have enjoyed something like that!? Fighting does nothing but hurt people, that's what dad always said to me.
He's not wrong, is he?
I mean, Takashi looked completely wrecked at the end, and all because of me…
What should I do? Talk to somebody about it?
But… I can't do that!
That's how dad died, wasn't it?
If I tell somebody that I want to talk to them about my issues, then they'll just die, won't they?
I must be some cursed, there's something wrong with me, I'm not normal. What normal kid enjoys beating up others? What kid can cause death by wanting to talk about their feelings?
Not only that, I got some weird power thing back there.
Like, that doesn't make any sense but I still have those weird buttons in my view. I really must be cursed somehow…-
Kori didn't want to believe what he remembered, he thought that it was impossible for him to enjoy fighting that much. Or for him to be cursed.
But his conviction chipped away slowly as he ran home as quickly as he could.
When he arrived at his front door, he put up a little strategy
-OK, so I can't be seen by mom in this state. I'm not that smart, so if she starts asking difficult questions, I won't be able to lie well.
So when I enter the hall, I'll have to run past the door-frame to the kitchen and then to the right so I can enter my room as quickly as possible. The problem is if she isn't in the kitchen, but in the living room instead.
Then, she'll easily see me because the door-frame to the living room is right in front of me as I enter, and I have to go past it to run to my room.
I don't have a clock with me right now, so I don't know what time it is, but from the sky: I would guess it's around dinner time. So hopefully she's either cooking dinner, or eating dinner. Both of which she does in the kitchen.
Ok, here goes nothing.-
Kori entered the house with haste and took off his shoes quickly.
His mother heard the noise and said
"Welcome home, you're awfully late today. Where were you?"
Kori noticed that the noise came from his left, meaning that it most likely was from the kitchen. He smiled as he said
"I'm home. I decided to help the class rep a little bit today."
Before Kori ran into his room, his mom said
"That's rare. But good, I suppose."
Kori quickly closed the door when he reached it and pushed out a sigh of relief.
He quickly fixed himself up and then sat down at the dinner table with a downbeat face. Yumino continued to chomp down on the steak present in front of her, but a bit more warily as she glanced over at the unenthusiastic boy with a bowl-cut.
She paused her eating and looked at Kori worryingly, which Kori noticed as he started eating the food presented.
Yumino squinted her eyes in mild suspicion and asked
"What's wrong? Something seems to bother you."
Kori felt a shiver of shock as he looked over in surprise, he now had to make a quick decision about how he would approach this.
He thought about it for a couple of seconds and decided that he wouldn't tell his mom about what had happened. He didn't want to believe in it, but he still thought that he was cursed somehow. And that if he even said that he wanted to talk about some of his problems, then the receiving person would get killed.
It was a baseless thought, and even Kori could on some level understand that.
But the idea of being in an exclusive club of people who were cursed was cool and exciting to Kori on a deep and subconscious level.
Kori responded
"Nothing, I'm fine."
Yumino slowed her actions down as she continued to suspect Kori as she ate the food. The usually cheerful and energetic Kori was replaced with a quiet and visually confused one, and Yumino was confused about the change.
But, she shrugged it off as she thought that it could've just been a bad day at school or something, and perhaps that Kori didn't feel like talking about it with her at that moment.
,,,
Kori made his way to his room and walked past his bookshelf to the right of him and proceeded to the bed in the northwestern corner of the room. As he walked, he looked at his TV and console with a longing face plastered across.
The road to escapism was so close to him and seduced him to forget everything and just get transported into another world. The idea of escaping reality appealed to Kori, displayed through him stepping a bit to the right, where his controller laid carelessly on the coffee table.
But Kori made his conviction clear to himself as he quickly dashed to the left, where his bed lied.
-I can play games later, but it would be immoral for me to do it right now.
I have a lot of things to think about, and I wouldn't dare to just escape that right now.-
Slightly disappointed with his own choice, he laid down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. As he stared deeply at the leaning slope that connected his wall to the roof in a 45-degree angle, he started processing everything. Kori put himself into a sort of trance as he thought through it all, because he simply thought about everything and didn't display any sort of emotions whilst doing it.
Several hours passed as he just laid there on his bed.
The wake-up alarm silently resting on his bedside table displayed the time 01:23, way past his bedtime.
Suddenly, Kori finished up his thoughts.
The conclusion he had reached was a bit unclear, but for some reason the scapegoat he wanted to blame the most on was none other than his father.
Kori scratched his head roughly, to the point of pain, as he pondered why. There was no way that he could blame his father for all of this, but yet that was the only conclusion his brain wanted to draw.
He shot a glance at the bedside clock and realized that it had gotten awfully late at this point. Kori decided to go and brush his teeth quickly and then go to bed. The reality was that even if he didn't want to, there was still school that he needed to attend later that same day.
Kori left his room and walked a couple of steps until he noticed a subtle sound coming from his right side.
He concluded that the sound was from his mother's room, and the curiosity of a young boy compelled him to check out what the sound was.
As he drew nearer to the door, he thought to himself that it was strange that his mother was still up at a time like that, since she usually went to bed just a bit later than he did.
But when the floor creaked one last time and a pair of curious eyes peered through the small gap left between the door and the frame, Kori realized why what he thought was strange had happened.
On the bed where his father and mother usually slept on, his mother now laid completely alone, sobbing at the sight of an old picture.
The tragic sight pierced Kori's mind as it burned into his memory, the sight of his mother, the person who always smiled and treated him with the utmost kindness, lying alone, in the dark, crying over her fallen husband.
Kori's mind instantly started racing, thinking to itself
-Maybe my conclusion was right, maybe my father is the culprit of everything!
He is the reason for our financial situation, just leaving us in the dirt and forcing us to move away and completely readjust our lives for the worse.
He is the reason my bullies still pester me, because he just left me without any sort of advice on what to do. He left me completely clueless as to what I'm supposed to do, and look at how it turned out!
But worst of all, he is the reason my mother's life is worse than before, forcing her to take multiple jobs just to even try and close the gap in our income. Forcing her to work hours and hours, therefore, destroying her health and ruining everything. Not only that, then he leaves her with the trauma of a dead husband, the woman he supposedly loved the most being left behind with only sorrow and grief as he goes to 'a better place'.
He abandoned us! He left us in the dirt with nothing left, and I'm supposed to respect his ideas and legacy?
NO!
He's a traitor to our family!-
As Kori sat there on his knees, he had gotten back the bewildered eyes from before. Now with even more sadness in them.
He felt like he needed to get the anger building inside of him out, so he quickly sneaked to the hallway and ran outside.
Living somewhat close to the center of the town, the nigh life instantly greeted him with noisy chatter and blinding neon signs as he stepped outside.
He didn't know what he was going to do, so he just walked into one of the big streets and started walking around whilst watching the nightlife around him.
A lot of people stared back at him, wondering why a young kid was out in the city so late into the night.
He knew that a convenience store was right up along the street and decided to go there and buy a juice box or something.
Whilst walking, even though he was still angry, he started thinking of which flavor to buy.
He had decided that he would buy the grape flavor as he approached the sign to the store.
A couple of teenagers stared at Kori from the opposing street, but he didn't care and just walked into the store.
One of the suspicious teenagers, with black hair covering everything on the top of his head except his two blue eyes, drew closer to the others and whispered
"Wait, isn't that the kid that Nouran told us about earlier, you know the guy who beat him up? He fits the description pretty well. Maybe we should have a talk with him when he comes out."
The teenager standing across the black-haired guy nodded and said
"Yeah, let's have a little talk with him. Let's go."
With that, the teenagers moved their location to the opposite road, next to a trashcan and a particular sign.
,,,