Locked Away In Love

Tonight

        "What's outside?" I ask as I see kids run by every now and then, wishing I could join them. "What's outside" I ask again, hoping that one of them will answer me. I want some kind of acknowledgement, some kind of love. My pleas disregarded as noise as my parents just continue to go on about their business. In and out of the house as if nothing is wrong. Where they go, I don't know. I ask my brother Kouyou where they go everyday.

        "To work." He says every time.

        "What's work?" I ask every time.

        "I don't know." Is his answer always. I look out my small window, just large enough to see the seasons change. But there are times in the summer, when I see kids walking around the neighborhood, hand-in-hand with their parents. I wonder what that feels like. I hold Kouyou's hand a lot. But we don't walk anywhere. We can't leave the house. Ever. I don't remember when I have ever left the house. I have never felt an outside breeze in my short life.

        "Mommy, why can't I go outside?" I ask her this time. But once I finish, her hand raises and slaps me across the face. She's never hit me before. Daddy always does that.

        "Don't you ever ask that again." She says with panic in her voice and gets up to leave. I stand there with my face stinging like I had got stung by a jellyfish. Though I don't know what that feels like, I can only assume it's similar to this. I wish Kouyou was here to make me feel better as my daily tears ran down my face from the pain in my cheek. But he's with Daddy. Daddy often takes him to the basement but I don't know why. I can never open the door, it's always locked and I'm afraid to ask Mommy what Kouyou and Daddy are doing. I also never ask about the pictures of the brunett boy on our mantle. Or our walls or in the hallways and in my parents room. I don't see pictures of Kouyou and I. I never see him around the house. I don't even know who he is.

        "Kouyou, who's the boy on the mantle?" I ask him one night, as he's crying after coming from the basement with Daddy.

        "He's just a bad person Takanori. Don't worry about him." He tells me through his tears. Our shared room only has one light and that comes from the moon in the sky. "He was really mean to you, when he live here."

        "I don't remember him. Was he mean to me like Daddy?"

        "Oh yes. Yes he was. I would try to stop him from hurting you but he would push me away or lock me in the closet." He told me, crying harder. I didn't remember any of this so it didn't matter anymore to me.

        "I don't care Kouyou, as long as you tried to help me. What did he do to me?" Kouyou suddenly stopped crying, staring at the wall. He wouldn't stop shaking, it was only sign I had that he didn't just die right there. "Kou-chan?" He turned to me and pulled me into an embrace.

        "We're leaving Taka."