Reap What You Sow / A BNHA Story

Chapter 10

The sound of the door opening dismissed the thrumming sensation in my head, instead giving way to an insistent banging. Like an alarm going off in my mind, a warning beating into my skull, prompting me to move. Though the pulsing headache brewed as the familiar sound of heels clicking against the hardwood floors neared, my body made no effort to move from the puddle of blood numbing my thighs and staining everything it touched like poison. The bloodied knife lay discarded a few feet from my father's corpse, it's hilt pointed towards me like humourless mockery. The footsteps slowed as they neared the bend towards the kitchen, no doubt now noticing the spread of blood smearing the floor. I heard my mother take a shuddering intake of breath as she stepped around the corner of the hall, eyes widening slightly as she took in my father's punctured body. Her brows furrowed as she took in my crumpled state, untouched, unharmed. I couldn't tell if disappointment or surprise coated her features. Maybe both. She stood there, motionless, quiet, calculating for a long moment. The only thing I could make out was the calming rage in my head, dulling down to a hornets unrelenting song. I didn't flinch when she pulled me by my shoulder strap, forcing my legs to comply and move with her; her feet quiet against the floor even as she sped to my room, paused when she saw the blood - my father's - on my bed, and picked up the pace once again this time heading towards her room. She threw me into her bathroom, fishing out towels and shampoo from the cupboard under the sink and throwing them in my hands as she opened the two way mirror to reveal an array of pills, unsolicited drugs, and medicinal tablets. She took two vials of orange pills with a name I couldn't recognise and hurriedly opened them to take a tablet from each one. She set them on the sinks counter before grabbing the cup that contained her and my fathers toothbrushes and toothpaste as she threw them out, filling the cup with water. Finally halting her rushed maneuvers, she turned towards me, her eyes devoid of emotion as she gripped both my arms in an urgent manner. 

"Wash yourself well, apply body wash twice so you get rid of the blood under your pores. Cut your nails as well since I doubt you'll get your hands clean of all the grime. After you're dried and dressed, drink the pills. Wait for me in the car." She made to exit the bathroom, giving me one lingering look before opening her mouth to say something more, but then shaking her head and thinking better of it. "Hurry." Was all she said as she exited her room and clacked along the house. 

I complied with her orders. Doing everything in the order she told me. Once I was dressed and had my hair in what was supposed to be a bun, I stared at the two pills in my hand. One slim and long, the other round and edged, but both a strikingly bright orange. I wondered if my mother wished to kill me by having me poisoned; and make it seem like an accident. It would be a perfectly set story. I went to her room to shower, happened to come across the pills after she accidentally left the hidden stash behind her mirror door open, and felt compelled to take some out of sheer, childish, ignorant, curiosity. 

Even with this predicament, I drank both pills dutifully, making haste to run to my mothers car as she had told me to do. 

When I passed the kitchen to the door, I couldn't help but notice my dead father was nowhere to be seen, and with sheer amazement found the rest of the house to be spotless, though it reeked of disinfectant and measly cleaning chemicals. I lingered for a while, eyes veering to the crack on the wall, perhaps the only remaining evidence of my living here. I had a feeling that this was the last time I was to set foot in this house. 

My mother came running from outside the house, carrying two suitcases and a bag overflowing with clothes. "Come Sunako, my car is in the garage." 

I followed after her, my eyes tracking the rigid tension in her shoulders, pinpointing her fake calm by the way her fingers clenched and then unclenched around the handle of the suitcase, repeatedly.