Fists and Lipsticks 2: The Silver Crescent

CHAPTER 20: Sessions (Part 4)

CHAPTER 20: SESSIONS (Part 4)

Is revenge worth it?

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"What are you reading?"

Yoshida Ayane did not answer me. Instead, she continued scrolling down the text written on the encrypted word processor. Sighing, I stood up from my comfy seat and walked towards the glass that overlooked the busy Tokyo streets at 9'o-clock in the evening. The grandeur view had to be my favorite thing about her bedroom, although in fact, I admired its overall contemporary theme – white bed, carbon floors, dark pink rugs, ceramic flower vases, and bookshelves made of titanium carrying books that have never been opened since they were bought.

I turned towards her, hoping that in my fifth attempt to ask, she would finally decide to give me an answer.

"Can you tell me what it is about?" I pointed towards her laptop. "That one you're reading?"

She stopped scrolling, finally noticing my existence. Pulling down the laptop screen partly, she wore a faint smile as she opened her pink lips to speak.

"I had to remind myself of my goals," she answered.

"Your goals?" I strolled towards her desk and sat right across her.

To my surprise, she pulled up the laptop screen and tilted its screen so that I could also read what was written on it.

"Here," she scrolled back to the first page. "Read it with me."

"What is it?"

"My father's diary."

I have never tried reading someone else's diary before. I was hesitant at first, looking away from the screen to see what Yoshida-chan's reaction was. But as our eyes met, she gave me a look that seemed to say 'go on, it's okay'. My eyes rolled towards her hands and noticed that they were clenched into tight fists.

That moment, I thought that perhaps she did not only let me read it so that I'll know what it was about. She wanted to share it with me so that I'd know what she feels. She wanted to show it to me so that I'd know how to help her. I smiled with the thought, for that's the very thing I was there for – to help, to correct, to heal.

I felt chills running down my spine the moment I read the very first sentence in Yoshida Akira's diary.

I am sorry.

Taking a deep breath, I read on –

I am aware that by the time someone else reads this journal, I have already breathed my last, perhaps made to vanish not only in this world, but also in the minds of people whom I've cherished the most. This is my attempt to keep those memories hanging even upon a thin string, so that one day, people would understand me... so that one day, people would understand them... so that one day, people would understand us...

So that you would understand...

So that you would forgive me...

And with this, I say again –

I am sorry.

They say that the thing that can make a person rise to the top and can make a person sink to the bottom was money. Yes, money was the reason behind the start of this climb – this climb to power.

Money and power were two things I never had as a child. My father and mother did not fear storms - not sickness, not an empty stomach, not a deadly knife or the deafening pull of the trigger. Instead, they feared words, letters, papers, and pens, for they did not know how to read and write. This was the reason why my parents could not find a job. We lived in the kind of poverty that goes beyond an empty stomach; it was the type where all you could do was to clutch your knees, bow your head, and cry so that you can drink your salty tears that would suffice for dinner. At night, we would sleep on the cold streets. At morning, the cycle begins all over again.