The Simple Life Of Haru And Winter

Chapter Two

Haru Ame

This feeling I have deep inside of my body, the feeling that's making my hands tremble on the outside. The feeling that's making my mind a endless jigsaw puzzle that cannot be solved by myself. What is this feeling? I'm tearing my brain into pieces due to the confusion because even I don't know what it is.

It's like I felt this feeling before but it's being engulfed by other emotions that I have not felt. But, maybe perhaps I have felt them... Just not in a long time. But of course, the strongest feeling, the feeling that's more present and known to be more existent inside of my body than the others is there. Fear.

That four letter word just sends a shiver down my spine as I think of it. It's as if someone whispered it down my ear. Someone with a very cruel, dark voice. A voice that took many human souls just by saying the word to them in the back of there mind.

A person like you shouldn't be feeling fear Ame. Says the dark voice in the back of my mind. Your the great Haru Ame. The best piano prodigy in all of Japan.

I'm only the best because I was beaten into becoming one. I say back with bitterness in my mind. The dark voice chuckles in my head, causing the hairs on the nape of my neck to stand up. But being beaten comes with a prize my dear boy. At least it is in your case. It says light heartedly. I cringe on the inside as I recall one of the countless distant memories of my mother beating me.

°°°

"Idiot!" My mother screams at me. She grabs my wrist with a deathly grip and throws me off of the piano stool. Tossing me like a ragdoll. The impact I received was head first, breaking the rest of my tiny body's fall. I curl up into a tight body ball and hold my small head. It throbs in a excruciatingly painful way.

"Your a disgrace to the family name!" She walks over to me and violently yanks my hands off of my head. Her hand raises up in the air and I prepare for the impact. A rugged hand meets my left cheek in the matter of the short, quick seconds. The loud echo from the violent contact bounces off the black walls throughout the room.

After it fades an unwelcoming silence welcomes the both of us. I listen to my mother's ragged breaths as I try to calculate how long the throbbing in my cheek will form a freshly made bruise. My tongue wonders to the left side of my lip. I feel a small bump and the taste of warm blood fills my mouth.

The door from down stairs opens with a small creek crying out. Footsteps echo up the stairs and down the hallway approaching the room that my mother and I are in. The door to the room slowly opens hesitantly. My dad walks in with a smile on his face that quickly fades when his lips are pressed into a tight line. His eyes travel to me then my mom.