Chapter 11: Alexithymia (Akito's PoV)

Frustration curled around me like a scythe; poised for the kill. Tendrils of chagrin wrapped around me, spiking and tearing at my skin, a torture of the slowest kind. Rubbing at my temples, I blinked slowly, assuring myself that I was overreacting. But I seemed to be prone to stress and worry, allowing it to control me. One of my greatest weaknesses.

I had half a mind to skip school today, but I was dressed and ready and already grasping at my book bag. It didn’t matter. School would get my mind off things.

I peeled around the corner on my way, trying to scrape out mental images of my mother’s drained, white skin, her tear-streaked face… and in turn, my family’s mirroring despair. There was no method to lose, to forget, to teleport the memory away, somewhere that was anywhere but here.

I swung my bag at my side, absent-mindedly, wondering again why I was such an atrocious person. Wondering why I was the only one that didn’t care, but still had to be so affected by my family’s hysteria.

Forget it. As long as I stayed away from home, I could escape everything.

Looking up into the grim, cloudy sky, I realized that I hated the rain today. I didn’t need something reflecting my mood, dampening it further. I milled towards the soccer field, noticing a ball in the net area and played with the idea of some quick exercise.

Conflict tore at me and I realized I didn’t really want to, didn’t have the energy. I laughed through my teeth, unmoving in the center of the field, an early half hour before school would begin. And what had been a soft misting of rain earlier was turning into droplets, padding against my uniform, soaking me persistently.

“Again,” I muttered up to the sky. “Don’t you ever get sick of crying?”

I lowered myself to my knees, motivation and energy draining from my system. I allowed the rain its way with me. It was cold and miserable but somehow numbing, like it was clearing my head. I would have to go home and change, my trousers now stained with mud and grass, and Mom would have a fit, like she usually did.

But none of that really mattered. Exhaustion lingered.

The soft squish of footsteps startled me and I glanced over my shoulder in surprise, shaking the clinging rainwater from my hair.

“Sawachika-kun,” she whispered, breathlessly kneeling at my side.

My heart skipped a ragged beat as I watched Tsumaya press her uncovered knees into the muddy ground, looking up to her face, long streams of water sliding down her cheeks. She was getting drenched, too. What on earth was she doing?

She stared into my eyes, a concerned curiosity etched in her features. And for a brief moment, I wondered why I’d never noticed how beautiful her warm, chocolate-coloured eyes were. Her scraggly brown hair hung wet over her shoulders as she waited for some response from me.

I looked away. “Tsumaya, what are you doing here?”

She folded her arms over her chest, shivering. “I thought it was you, in the middle of the field… and sitting down of all things! I might’ve ignored you if you were playing soccer or something, but honestly, what are you trying to do? Catch a cold so you can go home?”

“And you’re trying to tell me you were worried about me,”

She pursed her lips and gave a short nod. I brushed my soaked bangs from my eyes, incredulous.

“Tell me what happened.” she ventured, crawling forward to sit beside me.

And compiled with my no doubt asinine reasoning, I realized I did want to tell her. Something I could hardly remind myself of, I wanted to tell this girl that I hardly knew. Blinded by a veil of rain, a curtain of grief or mere insanity, I re-adjusted my position, mouth moving and words spilling out, lacking further thought.

“I have a younger brother who ran away a few years ago,” I told her, wary to meet her eyes as I spoke. Why the crud wasn’t I keeping my mouth shut? “Back then, it ripped a gigantic hole in my family, and they never were able to forget about him. Everyone but me, that is.

“He was rebellious -- a noisy and obnoxious kid. Having him around brought more chaos into our lives than happiness, so when he left, I honestly didn’t care. I hated him. Maybe even now I hate him. While everyone else frets over his safety, I secretly am hoping he‘s dead,”

I stole a tired glance at Tsumaya, whose expression was unreadable. “I’m a horrible person, huh? But there was nothing I could do about it. Today it’s wrecking some havoc in my life because my mom found Shigeru’s ‘goodbye’ note that he left years ago, lying under his bed in his untouched room.”

Mom never liked spending time in that room, but nothing was ever moved, ever touched. The door remained closed, retaining a tiny piece of my brother, a gruesome reminder to my parents that the child they had brought into the world and raised for ten years had severely rejected them, disappearing out of their lives without a word. Or so they thought. It would’ve been better for them to never have found the note.

“…if you don’t mind me asking, what did it say?” Tsumaya whispered, her tender gaze unnerving me.

I gave in. “It read something like, ‘I’m happy to be free of this stupid family, all of you can go to hell, goodbye forever!’” I summarized frivolously, pressing my elbows against the grass as I leaned back. For some reason, sitting there, just explaining everything to her felt like telling a story that was taking place in another world, in the life of someone else.

Shigeru had been young at the time he wrote the note, and very likely the same moron he is today, if he’s still alive. The note had only frustrated me, because my brother was such a fricking idiot, and because of the heavy sheet of grief it cloaked my family with.

After a carried silence, her gaze turned intent, serious, and it clashed nicely with my careless retelling of the issue.

“Do you hate him more now because you miss him?”

My eyes shot up, surprise taking me. “What?”

She straightened out her dirtied skirt, playing with her hands as she talked, “Maybe I don’t understand anything, Sawachika-kun, but you hate him because you love your family, right? Isn’t he your family, too?”

Something triggered inside of me just then, and I had the nagging feeling it had nothing to do with my brother as I gazed into her eyes. Somehow, the annoyance of the morning that would likely return when I got home… it was beginning to fade away, tuck itself into a corner of my memory where I weighed the importance of allowing myself to be so strongly affected by the radiant gloom of my family. For the first time, I was grateful to have a tutoring session this afternoon to extend the time I didn’t have to face my depressed family members. What Tsumaya said made sense, and optimistically thinking, she might be right. Thinking the thought was a complex, time-consuming effort to figure things out. And I didn‘t want to do that right now.

Instead, I was wondering what had happened to make me suddenly desire a friendship with this crazy, soaked girl in front of me. I didn’t have to spend a lot of time with her to know she was a good person; that she was kind and readily forgiving, but that didn’t mean I could understand her.

“…Tsumaya, look at you,” I said, motioning at her and thinking she must be freezing in a skirt. “Why did you run out in the rain? Go back inside and change, or you’ll catch a cold yourself.”

“We look the same, okay!” she retorted, tugging at my heavy sleeve as she rose. “I hope you’re feeling better now, but regardless, you need to go inside. If you stay, I will too.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, wondering why she even cared. But I submitted and we made our way to the dreary academy doors. Stopping for an instant, she faced me seriously and said, “I don’t think you’re a horrible person. I think you’re human.”

And I hung back, watching her continue through the rain and into the building. She turned to wave me in. And alexithymia swallowed me whole.