Banana Fish AshxEiji

~part twelve~

This is real. My father, my own father hit his daughter. My baby sister. No. I won't let this happen ever again. I look in her eyes, rage bubbling in my stomach when I see what his fist did. She looks at me fear evident on her features, "No Eiji im okay, it was only once. My grades are slipping, he had every reason too," this takes me by surprise, "what?" I say the rage disappearing for a moment, confusion taking its place, "there is no excuse for our father to hit you Aimi."

She looks at me begging me with her eye to drop it, she hates conflict. I stand up quickly, hating that this simple movement still makes me lightheaded and dizzy. I storm around the building to see Ash waiting there on guard, he has no drinks with him. He knew what was going to happen after we talked. He matches his pace to mine and I can hear Aimi running after us trying to stop me, I stop and look back at her. She stops herself before running into me, taken aback by my sudden outburst, "Im not letting him get away with this anymore, you and mom aren't safe" I exclaim and she shakes her head whispering, "you can't get hurt Eiji".

"I won't." I say confidently, but i'm not confident. My dad is strong, Sota Okumura, once a famous baseball player is now a business man. I continue to walk towards our old house, the more the more I think about what he did, how hard he must have punched to give Aimi a black eye the faster my pace gets. Ash easily keeps up, but Aimi is a few meters behind us yelling random things to try and get us to stop walking. I ignore her and before I can even think twice about what I'm doing we're outside of my old house.

Memories flood into my mind, breaking my hard exterior. My eyes soften. The traditional japanese houses made with fine woods and bamboo was always one of my mother's favorite things about japan, she was so happy when she found one for sale. I think about all the dinners we ate together, when my mother taught me how to make the tofu sandwiches that Ash hates so much, or when I eavesdropped on her telling Aimi how to steam rice correctly. None of those stand out as much as the memories of my father yelling at us to get to school or the times he would drink too much Sake and 'accidentally' hit my mom. My gaze drops to the cobblestone, a tear rolling down my cheek. Ash grabs my hand and calmly says, "i'm right here, you need to do this and I know you can".

I nod and Aimi appears at my other side, I look at her and she looks beyond afraid but she also looks determined. I laugh and they both look at me confused, "sorry i'm still mad," I say still laughing, "but we look so cliche right now". Aimi rolls her eyes at me and mumbles something, Ash smiles and snickers a little himself. I walk up the step to the entrance of the house and I hear the tv playing distantly from the living room, I slowly open the front door and my mother stands there. Her back is turned towards us, I can't tell what she's reading.