Seiji felt the painful breeze blowing against him suspended in the air. Across from him, Miltiades stood towering over him. ‘Yuki…I lost again…’ The words tasted bitter to him, but it was less about sourness and more the fact of their familiarity to him.

He hated it.

A terrible, rotten, sour taste buried itself first in the nose. Then just when he thought the stench was gone, it sank down into his throat. Growing in weight like a kilo of lead the putrid smell rested in his stomach. A rank, ill odor decayed in his belly churning an awful stink lingering for days until he could bear it no longer.

He hated it.

Chapter 118 – The Depth of Loss

A cold day or a hot day, neither mattered anymore. It was both that day for him. The day was so frigid that all he wanted was to be held by something warm, tell him everything would be fine, and work out. The day was so unbearably sweltering that sweat soaked into his clothes with such paralysis that even moving felt like an impossible feat.

Seiji, age eight, stood in his bare feet with a simple shirt and shorts wrinkled heavily looking like he had just woken up from bed. Had he partially closed eyes he would have passed the test of being sleepy. Yet he was unable to close his eyes even a little. They were wide-awake, so wide it was painful. He stood in the doorway to his mother’s room, a room that he was accustomed to walking into in the morning to greet her as she tidied the room.

Her room was a place only for her. He had never known his father to be there, even in the house at all. He hardly remembered the face of his father. It was only because she smiled warmly while picking him up and told him that he was his father that Seiji even knew. It was his mother’s room and she was always there.

Every morning he counted on seeing her there. Every morning he could see the warm smile. Every morning she would let him help her make breakfast. Every morning grandfather spent time telling stories while she held onto him.

Every morning he knew it was going to be warm.

It was so cold that morning.

Little Seiji’s eyes couldn’t even budge from looking forward. The shell shock that had hit him minutes ago didn’t fade away. Her room was empty. She wasn’t there. The smell of her perfume no longer hung around. The sheets on the bed were unmade and tossed half on the floor. Drawers in the dresser hung low or cast to the corners upside down.

Each piece in the room heated and festered. The tears and cracks all bore emotions so strong that even Seiji, as young as he was, could feel them. Viewing the whole room as a scene, it all played as a blurred fast-paced movie to his eyes. He saw it all. The heat made him sweat, nothing that tears could calm.

Ten minutes passed before Seiji’s mind even functioned or his lips tried to utter a sound. When his foot stepped into her room rigid and weak, almost making him collapse, it felt like he had run a marathon. He reached out his hand still catching faded images of her going about cleaning. “…mom?” He followed her around the room trying to keep up, but always just out of reach. “Stop! Mom! Come back! …come…back… Mommy!” Seiji dropped to the floor no longer able to see her in his mind.

As time in the room crept onward a faint scream from another room wound its way to Seiji. He snapped his head up, immediately realizing the sound. “Shoji!” Seiji darted for the hall, but paused looking back at the room. “I…I…can’t…” He rushed to see what was wrong with Shoji, but when he finished he returned to the room. The empty room loomed before him.

Seiji spent his morning cleaning up the room. He put all of the things back into place. He remembered watching her and helping with the small things. It had to go back. It had to be the same. The longer that he worked the more certain he became. “I can’t let him see!” It was her room. She was still here.

He finished with the room and stood back to take it in. It felt as though a bit of the warmth had returned, but it still felt bitter and empty. Seiji couldn’t look at it anymore. His feet made him flee back to his room. A short distance, but his lungs heaved and heart pounded in his ears. He slid down to the floor, forced to catch his breath. “…mom…”

Not until he heard the whining from Shoji again did Seiji dare to move. Once he heard his brother though, he discovered new energy and stood. When he reached his little brother, still an infant at two years of age, Seiji watched confused. All Shoji did was cry at him. “What do you want? I don’t understand!” A growl came from Seiji’s stomach. “Oh…I forgot about breakfast…”

Lifting Shoji out of his crib, Seiji wobbled a little with the size of his little brother. Once he had him in his arms to carry, he started walking out of the room. “Let’s go see mom! I bet she’s making—“ Seiji came to a sudden stop and the weight of Shoji disappeared for him. Absent to his mind, his legs resumed walking him through the hall. Eventually, he found himself in the kitchen with his little brother seated in the chair staring up at him with the expectation of food.

Countless thoughts crowded into his mind. The dizzying torrent of questions without answers paralyzed him again. However, it all boiled down to the same thing each time. He stared back at Shoji, regaining his focus. ‘I’m his big brother! I can do this!’

Watching someone else cook didn’t seem that hard to Seiji to duplicate to him. If she had been able to do it, he should be able to just as well. A half hour later, a scolding from their grandfather and burns and cuts made him realize the difficulty of cooking.

Life moved on around the shrine whether Seiji wanted it to or not. Shoji, he knew, was too young to understand. Therefore, he couldn’t blame him for not acting any differently. In spite of understanding, his heart kept hoping and drawing him to her room each morning with the expectation of her being there with a smile as always, like it had all just been a terrible dream. He wanted to wake up from the nightmare that only he experienced.

Rumors in school soon circulated around him. They isolated him repeatedly, having found something to sink their teeth into, the boys. He only had three surrounding him. “Is it true that she couldn’t stand you and left in the middle of the night?” The other two snickered and laughed.

“Hey, I bet he couldn’t stop wetting the bed! So she left such a bad child behind!” added the second boy finally finding a pause between laughter.

The third boy slapped his hand on Seiji’s desk looking at him with a wicked expression. “She probably took one look at him and regretted that she was his. Isn’t that right?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The boys laughed moving closer to him. Any light or salvation closed behind them. “Well Seiji? You little momma’s boy? You chased her way didn’t you?”

“Yeah, she got sick of hearing you whining all the time for her!”

“Even his daddy knew better than to stick around!”

Seiji’s head tilted down with a deep impenetrable shadow over his eyes. Sweat built up along his neck and face. His hands clenched in his lap pressing together painfully. He wanted to say something, anything, but his mouth wouldn’t open. All he did was take in all of the laughter and their twisted looks. It was his new routine, no longer spending time in the warmth of her light.

He returned home that day having received another round of verbal abuse after school before they let him leave. It left a boiling set of emotions primed on the surface. He nearly reached the limit of his endurance. Seiji slowly walked the stone path to the shrine. Their grandfather stood out front removing stray weeds from the grounds.

When his grandfather took notice of Seiji arriving he stopped his work and half turned to face him. “Shoji’s been calling for you. I think he’s hungry.”

Any other day, Seiji would have continued to walk without a second thought in mind, but not that day. He knew well enough that Shoji never called for him, he was still too young. All he ever said was ‘mama’, a painful reminder. Seiji snapped with a fierce glare through thinly narrowed eyes, “I’m not his mother! Why don’t you go find her for him, if you can pick weeds all day!?”

Not expecting such a venomous retaliation, it took him a moment to recover. “There is no one to find,” he responded curtly and sharply with a snapping tone mixed in, “He has none.”

“Yes, he does! She’s out there right now!”

His grandfather turned his full body to face Seiji, no longer content to give him half of his attention. The full height and stature bore out through his words. “There is no one! We are the only family! End of discussion!”

Seiji felt shaken in the presence of his grandfather. All of the anger that he felt meant nothing before him. He had never seen him or heard him raise his voice to him. Seiji was at a loss. Any more words came out muted, barely audible. He just marched on into the shrine wanting to get out of sight as quickly as possible.

The rest of the night followed in relative silence. Seiji had no words to say, still taken back. Only Shoji spoke and it still came out as broken Japanese. In the morning, Seiji thought the atmosphere improved, but the moment he saw his grandfather it all came back to him. All of the emotions and words that he held back rose to the surface. Awkwardly functioning, he made breakfast and left for school. However, when school ended something happened. Something changed for Seiji on that day.

The leader, of the roughly grouped elementary school boys, shoved Seiji up against the wall of the school. Through the day, Seiji tried to ignore them as usual, it only seemed to make them more annoyed with Seiji. “Where do you think you’re goin’ Seiji? You’ve got no one to return to so quickly!”

“Right!” the second boy piped up, “Stay and let’s have some fun!”

“Yeah, you’ve got no one anyway!” the third chimed.

A twitch in Seiji’s eyebrow responded to the words. Within his mind, the words echoed repeatedly. ‘There is no one!’ His grandfather’s words pounded against his head making him ache. Seiji forcibly grasped the side of his head wanting it out. ‘He has none!’ The voice became louder and louder until he couldn’t even hear the children.

His other hand rose to hold down the pressure he felt. ‘Stop it! I do! Don’t tell me I don’t!’ Seiji shook his head a little trying to fight his grandfather’s voice. A sweat along the back of his neck and shoulders built up as heat from inside his body grew. ‘Shut up!’ The pain in his head spread further making his arms shaking and spun a terrible odor in his stomach.

The stronger it grew the more he hated it.

He hated it!

Laughter from the kids broke through for a moment when Seiji opened his eyes. His eyes narrowed viciously fueled by the endless emotions stored inside. Seiji lunged forward, the leader’s arm brushed away in the motion, tackling the boy to the ground. The other two boys stepped back surprised that Seiji, always quietly taking their abuse, acted out. Seiji let his fist fly without even thinking. ‘I do! I do!’ Each punch came backed with his thoughts.

After the initial surprise finally wore off for the two, they grabbed Seiji up off the kid and threw him backwards. Seiji stumbled and slid a little on the grass, but his rage ignored everything that happened. He went after the next boy in his sights without thought to the others. His hands grasped for the kid grappling for a hold when his friend came in behind and grabbed Seiji. Seiji strained at their hold savagely reaching for anything. ‘Don’t tell me I don’t! Don’t you!’

Seiji’s back slammed into the dirt again, taking several more hits from the boys. He wrapped his legs up around one of the boy’s legs while his arms went after another. The kids didn’t know how to react to the wild manner of Seiji’s struggle. They fought to peel him off them.

In the confusion, Seiji managed to pin one down and lay in a few more hits before tossed off. He took his beatings and broke free again landing on top of the leader running his fist into him. Drops of tears built up in his eyes the longer he went. “I have a mother!” he screamed, his voice carrying through the entire schoolyard.

Enough time passed in the fighting, two teachers ran out shouting ahead of them breaking up the small group of on looking students. Bruised and a bit bloody, the three boys paused in their kicks making a calculated decision. They immediately let Seiji go and ran off to stay ahead of the teachers. Seiji was in no shape to flee, his strength finally leaving him with his rage disappearing. One teacher continued after the boys while the other stayed to take Seiji back into the school.

A nurse visit and a phone call later, Seiji faced his grandfather and principal of the school. He heard little of the words between them, but the results left him with a day suspension for fighting. Another yelling from his grandfather came when they got home, which Seiji also hardly heard.

Nothing was ever the same again for Seiji. The school punished the boys as well, but none of it actually stopped the abuse. It delayed it a little, but they resumed quickly. Yet Seiji no longer allowed them to get away with their talk. He struck back at them each time. Elementary school became violent for Seiji, but it wasn’t until junior high school that truly became dark for him.

When junior high arrived Seiji left behind the kids that tormented him, but he came out of it rougher and stronger. The few that followed him to his school stayed away from him. Rumors circulated, but most didn’t know of his family situation.

His reputation as a violent student carried with him. It brought an unease and fear through most of the junior high, as no one wanted anything to do with him. The lack of fights left him with anger resting on the surface with no outlet. He started looking for trouble out of school from anyone. A strange look would be enough for him to trigger. Everyone made fun of him in his mind and he needed to show them all.

One day after school, a more superstitious person might have considered the important meeting fate or destiny. For Seiji, the day was the happiest he had ever been in years.

Seiji, age thirteen, stood looking proudly cliché with his school jacket unzipped and wild hair casting a shadow in an alley. Opposite him looking uninterested, but no less ready for a brawl, was a short thin looking kid his age wearing a different uniform. Seiji knew immediately from looking at him walking on the sidewalk that something was different. He raised his fists, cracking his knuckles displaying his strength. “The moment I saw your eyes I didn’t like you!” roared Seiji with barely managed rage. “That look thinking you’re better! Don’t look down on me!”

Still uninterested, the young teen raised a tired eye to Seiji. “I haven’t said anything. What’s with the anger? We’ve never met.”

“It doesn’t matter! Your eyes said everything I needed to hear!”

“I think your eyes need to be checked, because the only thing mine are right now are bored.”

“See you do think you’re better than me! I’m going to show you how wrong you are!”

The boy had a little trouble dealing with the illogical pattern of rationale coming from Seiji. He ran his hand through his hair sighing to himself a little. A bored glance through his fingers at Seiji gave him his attention. “Who are you?”

“I’m Seiji Tsuji and you can’t tell me I have no one!” Seiji threw out his hand with his index finger pointed at the teen in declaration.

“Huh? I haven’t said that.” Another sigh came from him. “Well whatever, I guess you’re looking for a fight and I’ve definitely been itching for something. I doubt your thick head will remember it, but Yuki Hayashi is the one that has beaten you!”

“Don’t go making assumptions until the fight’s finished!” Yuki and Seiji charged at each other fists ready. After the first few blows most of the details to the fight disappeared for Seiji. He just remembered the feeling. The feeling was unlike any of his other fights before. All his fists ever felt was a dull pain burning with heat that made his stomach churn long after which the only cure was another fist. Against Yuki, his fists ran cold. All of the rage disappeared in those moments.

It was pure.

At the end, Seiji laid on the ground looking up at Yuki with the sunlight cracking between the buildings. It darkened Yuki’s face leaving only an offered hand in sight. “…I lost?” ask Seiji, smiling.