Ecstasy

Chapter 26; White Lies

The apartment was incredibly messy.

Broken glass from picture frames lay scattered across the floor. Paintings that were hung were either askew, or thrown hastily on the ground.

The pictures were of a middle aged man, possibly his early forties. Pictures of himself, and of his family. In each picture, he sported a glowing smile, with shimmering eyes. In one picture, he sat in a strained upright posture, wearing white clothes and a sailor hat, seated next to the national flag in a monotone expression.

This man was in the navy.

However, there wasn't just glass and junk on the floor. There was blood, both dried, and fresh. Blood in pools, droplets, splatters and drag patterns.

The room smelled sickeningly metallic, and high of bleach.

The same man lay lifeless on the floor, 16 feet away from a large pool of dark red blood that was beginning to crust around the edges; a clear path was mapped out with his own blood from the pool. The shimmer was sucked out of his eyes, and the glow gone from his skin, his face forever petrified in his final moments of life. However, the man was still warm.

The eldest son of the Dietsu family sat on the floor against the wall with a small blade, covered head to toe in blood that wasn't his own.

Satoro closed his eyes letting out a small sigh or relief, tilting his head backwards.

"Toro..?" Dari called out to his older cousin. Satoro walked in with his jet black hair ruffled and messy. His ice-blue eyes darted at Dari, their eyes were the same colour. Dari's hair was still its original colour, a deep dark brown.

"Yeah, Dar?" He spoke, his voice slightly higher pitched. They were in their early teens. Satoro was about 15, and much skinnier than his now muscular build. Dari was leaner, and taller, but about 5'9. He was 13.

"Is Ddaeng okay?" Dari asked him. Satoro's expression immediately changed from curiosity to worry.

"Yeah, of course. What makes you think otherwise?" He lied through his teeth. Ddaeng had been recently coming home with new cuts and bruises each night. Satoro knew what was happening already, as the bathroom and Satoro's room were right next to each other, and they had thin walls.

Each night, Satoro would hear Ddaeng come in the shower at 1 AM and turn on the shower, trying his best to cry as quietly as he could.

"He just seems really off, and I'm worried." Dari answered with a pensive expression. Satoro's heart fell. So was he. He too, was worried about his brother, but Ddaeng being the arrogant kid he was, never confided in anyone other than.. nobody.

"I'm sure he's fine, love." He gave Dari a noogie, heading upstairs to Ddaeng's room, where he was angrily scribbling into his sketchbook.

"Sup, Taejoo?" Ddaeng asked, without looking up from his book.

"Stop calling me that, D." Satoro laughed. He always hated it whenever Ddaeng called him by his middle name.

"Okay, Satoro Taejoo Dietsu. Would you rather I call you STD? Those ARE your initials, just sayin'," Ddaeng smirked from his book, glancing up at Satoro. Satoro smiled back at him. He would've normally yelled at him, but this time was.. different.

Satoro's face froze in his loving smile in a short-lived silence.

"D..?" Satoro started, pausing to find the right words.

"Yes, Toro?" Ddaeng asked, still smiling at his joke, still scribbling with his pen.

"Are you.. okay? You've been really off lately," Ddaeng's smirk was wiped off swiftly.

"I just wanted to make sure everything was alright." Satoro finished.

"Yeah, I'm fine, quit worrying." He said monotonously, in a strained, joking way.

"Okay, now seriously, this is due tomorrow in art, Ken won't give me another extension. Shoo." Ddaeng was visibly upset as he rushed him out of his room. Satoro was tremendously disappointed and he headed back downstairs to lie to his cousin yet again, just to tell him that his brother was doing just fine.

Satoro opened his eyes, picking up the man's phone.

He used the man's body to open the phone, using his facial recognition password, to text back a number on the man's contact list, texting the words "It's finished." to the same number whom the man left on 'seen' over three hours ago. The message reading,

"I know what you did."