Radioactive

Chapter Two: Of Break-ins and Blue Eyes

When you think of fear, what comes to mind? Most would say some phobia or another.  That fear is irrational and can’t be controlled. The fear of spiders. The fear of snakes. The fear of heights. But really, what is it? Have you ever really encountered it? Have you ever feared for the life of a loved one? Feared for your own life? What is it like to feel real, heart stopping, terrifying, fear? What does it feel like? Does your blood run cold and your heart speed up? Do you start to sweat and does your breath quicken? Do you feel a pit of trepidation open in your stomach or does your mind stop thinking, choosing instead to center on that one thing causing so many emotions to run rampant? If we have never truly felt it, then how is it that we recognize it when we are faced with that emotion? How is it that we know how to describe it? We say the word and our imagination does the rest, but can we ever truly understand it?

“What do you mean I’m fired?” I looked at my boss with complete shock. How had my morning spiraled so completely out of control?

“I mean you’re fired Mr. Mutou,” My, now former, boss said to me slowly, as if I were a child. My eyes narrowed at the implication.

“On what grounds?” If I was going to be fired, I wanted to know why.

“Well, you see Mr. Mutou, when someone who wants the job comes along with a high school diploma or college degree, they become more qualified for it than someone of your, education,” the man said with icy venom, stressing the last word like it was a curse.

His insinuation that I was an incompetent fool had me fisting my hand in the fabric of the chair, trying to keep myself for punching the wizened old man.

“So you’re saying that you’re firing me because someone had a piece of paper as proof that they are smart?” I was beyond irritated.

All my life people had looked down on me because I barley had a second grade education in the government’s eyes, but I was smarter than half the idiots that came out of the universities. At age eight I had taught myself how to read a thousand paged novel and mechanic manuals. By the time I was nine I could write and easily understand a three hundred paged essay on economics and politics. I wouldn’t consider myself a genius, by no means, but I was pretty smart, and I knew it.

“Very good Mr. Mutou,” the man across from me sneered in a patronizing tone. “You understand it then.”

I grimaced at him. I hated people who thought they were better than me just because they had a signed piece of flimsy paper that said they were smarter. “You don’t understand how much I need this job.” I hated begging even more than I hated those college graduate dolts, but I could live with a bruised pride and little to no dignity. I couldn’t live without my precious Yugi. My aibou. My other half.

“You know,” my ex-boss sneered. “I hate people like you.”

“What?” I hiss, incredulous. Did this guy actually have the audacity to say that to me? I mean, I knew when I worked for him that he was a hard man to get along with, but he seriously just crossed a line.

“You people,” he said with contempt. “You make me sick. You and your kind; you’re all a bunch of lazy bums. You couldn’t bring yourself to get off your ass to go to school, so you beg those of us who have jobs because we got an education to give you jobs or money, all because you were to indolent to go to school.”

My hand balled into a fist at his apathetic words. As if I wasn’t a diligent worker. As if I had a choice to drop out of school. As if I was just another dropout and loser.

I was so angry that I could barely keep myself from lashing out. I used all my willpower to keep myself in my seat and school my face into an expressionless mask. It wasn’t an easy thing to do when someone was degrading everything I’d done to keep Yugi in school. To keep my hikari safe. I would have no one say that I’d been lazy while trying to juggle a job, bills, and raising a child when I’d only been a child myself.