Lavender | Wakatoshi Ushijima

35 | I Hope

Fear makes its way up my back, grazing my spine. I hold onto myself as I make my way to the door.

"Going anywhere?" Mother says intimidatingly. I forgot to ask for permission. Shoot.

"Oh. I'm going to Kiyomi's house to-" "To study for your final exams?" she completes my sentence. I freeze.

"Yes," I say. "You're not carrying any books, Hana," she says, piercing me with her eyes.

She said my name. She said it. She caught me. And for a second, I think she's going to shoot me down for it.

"Do you take me as a fool?" she speaks with a calm tone.

"No, Mother," I say, shaking. I'm not breathing. "I know you're not going to study." She doesn't move her gaze from mine. I can't look at her.

My voice leaves me, it vanishes. "I had the coincidence of speaking to your friend's mother. I had the pleasure to find out you've been lying to me. Lying to the both of us." 

My father remains quiet as my Mother stands up and walks over to me. "Can you explain what kind of nonsense you've been doing while you're wasting your future? At the coffee shops and beaches?" she voices. I'm looking at the floor.

"I saw the photos of you at the seaside. How shameful is it, to see my daughter prancing around in that disgusting clothing? Don't you ever think of your image or your family's name? Where's your mind to tell you right from wrong?" she yells. 

I flinch. She caught me. I shouldn't have lied. I'm a fool. I should've known and done better.

Shame, image, family, daughter, nonsense, future, waste. 
I'm still not breathing.

She grabs my arm and looks at me with death in her irises. My head keeps spinning and my eyes are watering. I beg my head not to do this right now. I beg for my vision to unite. I can't afford it, not right now. I lose my senses. It burns.

Her voice runs cold and my last breath is so coarse my lungs are now yelping. My esophagus is drying out. She can't be ashamed of me, right? No, no. She doesn't know. She hasn't seen my latest scores. She doesn't know he came so I can tutor him. She understands, doesn't she? But she doesn't, and for the first time, I'm not too shocked.

"Beaches, coffee shops, boys, are you trying to ruin your life? When I first found out, I thought I'd let you enjoy something for yourself, thinking you'd use that brainless head of yours and stop fooling around. But, as I predicted, you failed. You failed and decided to take advantage of our absence."

"You continued with this naïvety until this very moment. You're letting your future slip away, as you've always allowed it to. You've always let your future slip away, never trying to reach out and take it. Never trying hard enough for everything, lazing around. I don't know why I thought you'd put in an ounce of effort and please us for once," she spits. Her voice is too close.

"And there you stand, lying again and again! But you thought we wouldn't ever know, because we're idiots. We're the fools that raised you, believed you would take on our family's name, and honor it like the rest of us have worked so restlessly for." 

It's for nothing. It's all for nothing.

My achievements, my work, my grades, my image, my life. It's for nothing. Every breath I take to make them proud makes them ashamed. 

I am nothing but the empty void in this family. An empty void among a family of stars.

 Anything and everything I do will be transparent, only I will see its value. I won't ever be one of the greats, a member of this family, or this world that wants so much from me.