Author’s Notes: Nobody else in this one other than our dear
little Gaku-chan and his Daddy dearest. We’ll get everyone else in the next one, I
promise.
shat·ter
(shăt’Ər)
She seemed like a nice person. She was always pleasant to talk to. Of course, that could just be the druggy
talking, considering she was the one who always came to dope him up for the
night.
Eh…it was worth a shot.
“Hana…” Pleasantries really didn’t matter much to him
anymore. “Can I ask a favor?”
“Of course Gackt,” she smiled, placing the
tray she was carrying down on the table by his arm. He glanced at it. The druggy cried out for attention at the
sight of the white pills. Later.
“Could you
possibly…do some research for me?”
“What kind of research?” Her smile faltered a bit.
“I haven’t seen my family in…years. I haven’t heard anything from any of
them. I was hoping…” he swallowed down
the lump that had just formed in his throat, “I was hoping you’d be kind enough
to look them up for me, considering I’m not really allowed access to a
computer.”
The smile was back. “Of course Gackt-san. But you have to make me a promise.”
“What kind of promise?” Dangerous ground.
“You have to promise me to be good this
week, okay? I don’t want to see you in
the office.”
He smiled bitterly. “Of course Hana.”
*****
About a week later, she stepped into the
room, as usual, and placed the tray of pills on the table – again, as
usual. But then she withdrew a piece of
paper and read down the list of names in a voice that lacked more emotion than
he thought possible.
“Your sister is dead, has been for two
years. Your brother skipped the
country. He left about five years
ago. Your mother--”
“Is dead, I know.”
“Your father is alive and in the
country. He’s taken up occupancy in
“All of the close
‘relatives’ are dead,” he whispered.
Looking up at her, he faked a smile and said, “Thank you Hana.” He stretched
a hand forward to take the glass of water before taking the pills off the tray
and tossing them back.
“Will you be talking to the commissioner?”
He stood and stumbled towards the
bed. His vision was already
blurring. It felt nice. “Probably.”
“Very well. Sweet dreams Gackt.”
*****
The man behind the desk puffed on his
cigarette while flipping through the pages of documents bound together in the
folder. Leaning back, he straightened
his tie and narrowed his eyes as he looked his visitor up and down. “What is the purpose of this trip, again?”
Gackt suppressed a tired sigh as he kept
his eyes just below the other’s gaze. To
meet it would cancel the trip before it even left the man’s hand. He was second-class now, after all. Had he still been an Isolate, his eyes would
be on the floor. “I have not spoken to
my father in a long while. I would like
to spend some time with him.”
“Ah.”
He pulled the cigarette from between his lips and tapped the ashes off
into a silver tray by his elbow. Gackt’s eyes locked on it and watched as the ashes
smoldered for a moment longer before they died.
“How do you know he even remembers who you are?”
“A father never forgets his child,” he
said softly.
The man behind the desk snorted. “You would know, I take
it?” He chuckled and the sound of
it made Gackt want to scurry away and he winced. He hated that laugh. “Sometimes it’s better for the father to
forget.”
He didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t.
He had waited so long to even gain entry to this room,
he wasn’t going to fuck himself over now.
So he waited.
“Two days.” There was the dull thump of the rubber seal
on the packet of papers.
Gackt’s head shot
up. “Two days?” The shock in his voice betrayed him. Biting his lip, he dropped his eyes to the
floor seconds before the man looked up.
“Is that a problem…?”
“No…no, Sir. It’s just…I haven’t spoken to my father in
years. We can’t possibly…” What can
I say in two days that will cover two decades of lost time?
“I suggest you talk fast, in that
case. Two days. That’s all.”
*****
He stood outside the house and watched the
nondescript black cars speed off over the hill.
He stayed there, shifting back and forth between his aching feet, still
uncertain about whether or not this was real.
The line between dreams and reality was starting to blur. Most of the time, he didn’t really mind much,
though.
Turning to face the house with the dark
windows, Gackt momentarily wondered if they had lied to him, and there really
wasn’t anyone in there. He hobbled up to
the stairs, taking them slowly, bracing his hands against the banister with
peeling paint. Once he reached the
porch, he sighed, thankful that he wouldn’t have to walk much farther. Stretching out a shaking hand, he knocked
twice and waited.
A small man with deep-set wrinkles and
thinning hair answered the door and peered up at the uninvited guest standing
on his porch. A spark of recognition passed
over his eyes, but he hid it under a mask of suspicion.
Gackt felt his heart skip a beat. “…Dad?”
The mask faded and the elder man stepped
forward and took him into his frail arms.
Between cracked lips and suppressed tears, he whispered, “My son…where
have you been these years?”
*****
They sat across the small table from each
other over breakfast. Gackt ate like it
was his last meal, savoring every mouthful of the meager broth and rice set
before him. He kept his eyes locked on
his food but was well aware of the older man watching him.
“How’s your brother doing?”
Gackt stopped, his spoon hovering above
his bowl as he thought for a moment how to respond. “He’s…in
“
“Business is better, I would think.”
“Ah.
How about your sister?”
“She’s…” Dead. “She’s busy.
Busy with projects. I think she
was working on a vacation home for the one of the Prime Minister’s aides or
something.”
“She always did climb high and fast.”
“Yeah…”
Gackt swallowed another spoonful and it burned like fire on the way
down. “She always had good
connections…”
“I wonder why neither of them have come to
visit…or called at the very least,” the older man said, sorrow laced carefully
in his voice.
Gackt did look up at this. “It’s…It’s hard to come back.”
The older man glanced up from his soup and
seemed to consider his son’s words. “I
suppose I never…I never really tried to make any of
you feel welcome, not after your mother…”
Neither said a word for a long time. Gackt set his spoon down and leaned over his
breakfast, watching his father intently.
“I’m here,” he whispered.
His father looked up and smiled. “Yes, yes you are. And I’m blessed to have you.” He reached forward and touched Gackt’s arm with a hand browned and creased by time. “My dear son…” Gackt smiled and covered his father’s hand
with one of his own. “How long do we
have?” the older man asked softly.
Gackt’s smile
faltered. “They gave me two days. That’s all.”
*****
“You can take my bed upstairs,” the elder
man said. “I wasn’t expecting you, so
the guest room is a bit out of sorts.”
Gackt looked up the flight of stairs and felt sick. When he didn’t respond, his father turned to
look at his son and noticed the greener shade the other’s face had turned. “What’s wrong?”
Gackt shuddered and diverted his eyes from
both the stairs and his father. “I can…I
can stay downstairs. I don’t want to put
you out. I came so unexpectedly…”
“What did they do to you?” the old man
whispered. The son’s lips sealed shut
but he didn’t move. “Satoru…look at me.”
He took a deep, shaking breath and fought
to lift his head. It was harder than he
remembered and it was even harder to bring his eyes up to meet the other
man’s. His body shook head to toe from the
effort he had to draw upon for such a simple task.
His father must have seen something in
those haunted eyes because he took a step forward and held the taller man’s
shoulders in his hands. “What did they
do to you?” he repeated.
Gackt felt his resolve crumble around
him. The tears welling in his eyes
blurred the other’s face and made the world melt into shades of gray. “They’ve broken me…”
*****
Gackt walked about the kitchen, doing his
damnedest to savor both of his feet at the same time. He had every intention of making dinner for
his father – it was the least he could do, he figured – but the man had barely
anything in the cupboard, or the cabinets, or the refrigerator and most of what
he did have was either bad or going bad.
Every now and again, a sharp pain lanced
up one of his legs from the sole of his foot and he hissed, doubling over, his
hand clutching at his knee trying desperately to keep the pain from going
further up. It was during one of these
moments that his father stepped into the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?” the older man asked,
taking a quick step forward.
“Nothing, nothing,” Gackt said, waving the
other man away. On the other leg,
another pang lanced up his leg and he screwed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw.
“Doesn’t look like ‘nothing.’ Here, sit down,” his father instructed,
moving the younger man into a seat before dragging its companion over opposite
him. “Let’s try again – what’s wrong?”
“My feet…” Gackt hissed. When his father lifted one of his legs, and
pulled the offending foot into his lap, the younger man motioned for him to
stop. “No, don’t--”
“Don’t what?” He pulled the sock off of his son’s foot and
gasped, his hand covering his mouth in shock.
Gackt turned his head away and hid his eyes with his hand, elbow
balanced on the top of the kitchen table.
“Did they do this?” his father asked.
“Why did they do this?”
“So we don’t run.” He let that sink in for a bit.
The older man stood, setting both of his
son’s feet on the chair he had just vacated.
“Wait here and don’t move. I’ll
be right back with some antiseptic and clean bandages.” He turned and walked out of the room.
“Dad--”
He popped his head back into the
room. “Yes?”
Gackt struggled to find the appropriate words
for a moment or two before sputtering a tearful, “I love you.”
His father’s face softened and the older
man returned to his son, wrapping his arms around his head and neck and holding
him close. “I know. I love you too.”
*****
Two days later, his father opened the door
and they found themselves confronted by Koichi.
He smiled apologetically at them both.
“They sent me to bring you back,” he said softly.
Gackt stepped forward and gingerly slipped
his feet into his polished black shoes which had sat neglected for the past 48
hours by the door. Turning back to his
father, they embraced in the foyer.
“You’re my son. I love you.
Never ever forget that,” he heard the older man whisper. He clenched his jaw shut to keep the sobs
from slipping between his lips. He
couldn’t stop the tears however as they slid down his face to soak into the
elder man’s shirt.
He didn’t remember how they managed to
pull the two of them apart. He didn’t
remember how they managed to shove him into one of their black cars. He just suddenly realized he sat beside
Koichi in the back seat and they were driving down a stretch of dirt road. Turning in his seat he lifted his eyes to the
pale horizon.
Black smoke billowed up from behind the
hills, twisting and arcing over itself into the sky to thin and cast gray
shadows over the clouds above. He didn’t
need to follow it down to find where it was coming from – he knew.
Shaking, his left hand fumbled down by his
side and found the latch to open the car door.
He thought he heard Koichi say his name, but couldn’t be sure because a
moment later, the door swung open and out and he tumbled head over heels out of
the car.
The car screeched to a halt somewhere down
the road a bit. The doors slammed. Standing, he stumbled a few steps back
towards the house before collapsing and heaving up the contents of his stomach
on the side of the road.
Somewhere in the distance, a fire siren
blared.