Raisins (Pt. 3)

The last part to my 'Raisins' story! Enjoy, and voila!

My eyes open, and I see nothing but darkness. I look around, but all there is is darkness. I’m sitting on the ground and I stay this way for a little while, not quite sure of what to do. With my rear numb and sore, I get up and wander off a bit, careful of hidden objects that might ambush me. Something starts glowing from my side; a soft light. I ignore it and begin to notice that it’s getting colder, my clothes aren’t helping me with heat at all. I rub myself to keep warm and notice that there are many holes in my clothes and that my hair is longer than usual--more tangled and snarly too. The glow is bigger now. Much bigger, the strange thing is, it seems to be emitting heat. So I reluctantly head over to the light. As I get closer, I get warmer and see that something seems to be inside the light. I slow my pace because who knows what’s going to happen, and with caution, take smaller hesitant steps. I want to stay away because I don’t want anything to do with the thing, but I’m cold and desperately need to get warm. So I decide on it and briskly walk over to the glow. Once I get to the light, I squeeze my eyes shut, and I squat down to let the warmth envelop me. I try not to, but my eyes betray me and look over the thing. It’s a person. And I try to ignore him and focus on the warmth. But I can’t, because it’s Hibiki.

I’m sitting at the counter, and my mom is preparing breakfast. She sets a plate of waffles in front of me and sits down across from me, starting on her book. Hibiki can’t mean what he said last night… I glance over at my mother, look at how normal she is right now. What about Shun? I get up and peek out the door into the living room. She’s putting on her socks and humming. She doesn’t look sick at all.

“Kaito?” I hear my mother question me. I look over to her and she motions her head to my untouched plate. I look at it, do I want it or not? Why not? It’ll help with thinking during the pre-test.

What is found in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells...Cell wall, ribosomes, plasmid… Urgh! What is it? The waffles aren’t helping me with my pre-test at all. It’s been over half an hour, and I’ve only answered eight questions. I flip through the small packet, there are two more pages to go. I should be farther along, maybe even finished if it weren’t for the images of Hibiki invading my head. His red and angry face distracts me, his words confuse me, and my stupidity irritates me. My day is not going well.

For the rest of the school day, all my hours repeat and imitate what had happened in Biology. During lunch I sit with my usual group of friends, but keep to myself, causing my friends to look at me weird. All this doesn’t matter though. What matters right now are Hibiki’s words. What’s wrong with dad’s job? Is he getting laid off? Did he get fired? Did he get in a fight? My thoughts of the other three people in my family are just as similar.

“Finally,” I say, walking my usual route home. I breathe out and see a cloud of white escape from my mouth. It’s getting colder. I continue walking in silence with only my thoughts for company. When I get to the last intersection on my route, I pause and look at the cars that pass by. A blue car. A tan minivan...red car...black truck. You guys must be having a great day, huh? Before my thoughts can continue, I hear a loud beep coming from the left. It’s a silver car. I motion for it to go, but it doesn’t and so I just stand there for a while, looking at the other sides of the intersection. A lot of cars are coming now. I look to the silver car and make an exaggerated motion for it to go. It still doesn’t.

“Just go!” I yell, irritated. The silver-carred driver gestures with a sweep across the windshield for me to hurry up and cross. I don’t want to, but cars are screaming and drivers are angry, so I awkwardly run across the street with a scowl. When I get to the other side, I give the driver a glare, but she’s already turning a corner.

“Today,” I say aloud, breathing to the sky, “is definitely not my day.”

“Hey, mom,” I say, “I just want you to know that our family is important to me, and that I care about what each of you is going through and that…” I pause, reaching for invisible words, “that...Urgh!” I sprawl out on my bed, giving up. “What am I doing? I don’t need to practice what I’m going to say. It’ll just come to me, naturally…” I quickly get up into a sitting position again. “I care about what our family is going through. You can tell me--Aw, seriously,” What am I going to do? I slouch and fall over onto the soft yet firm mattress. Wait...soft, firm. I press on the bed with the tips of my fingers. They smoothly glide down and up. I watch them for a moment, an idea dawning on me. “I just have to be soft yet firm with my words. Okay,” I whisper, “let’s do this.”

“Hey mom,” I begin quietly.

“Hm?” she replies, putting the leftovers into the fridge. I watch her move from fridge to stove, from stove to counter and counter back to stove. I want to continue where I left off, but my words won’t come out. My heart’s beating faster. I didn’t anticipate this.

“Kaito,” she’s looking at me now, “did you want something?” My face is red and nothing will come out. Not even a breath of air. She gets back to cleaning the kitchen and I stay there, observing her movements. How can she, a great and caring mother, cry to herself everyday? She’s always doing something, and it’s always for someone else. I realize, what has she done for herself? I look over to the woman yet again, something’s different.

“Why are you always smiling?” I whisper to her. Unable to comprehend her everyday act my voice gets louder. “Are you that happy? Nobody can be that happy in their lifetime. It was a smile yesterday and today, what about tomorrow? Is there still going to be a smile?” I look at her face, her smile is fading and her eyes are changing. I’m also changing. Instead of not being able to utter a word, the words are pouring out of me and don’t show any signs of stopping. “What are you? A robot?” I hear my own voice and surprisingly, it’s stable, but it’s not a tone that I should be using. She’s getting nearer. “I know that you’re lying.”

“Kai--” my mother tries.

“That you cry everyday. That you hide from me. Why do you do that?” my voice is starting to shake, I don’t like that. She’s holding onto me now. “Why do you hide? And only from me?” I keep my eyes on her. She’s looking at me with horror. Even though I know it’s not true and that I’m lying to myself, the thought still surfaces: do you hate me that much? Here it is again, the all too familiar wet trickles of yesterday. I can’t take it, I can’t...

“Kaito,” she says, looking me in the eyes and then pulling me in for a hug, “Oh...you know it’s not like that at all....” I pull away from her and shake her hands off.

“Then why?” I simply say, void of emotion. She touches me again, I flinch.

“Kaito, you have no idea,” I blankly look at her. “how much you are gone, and how much you miss when you’re not home.” Something breaks inside of me. It’s true. I’m gone too much. My first home is school. This place, here, is second. “I know that you do things for our family. That you want to better our situation, but the way you’re doing it is wrong. You lose too much with us.” She looks me calmly in the eyes now. My anger dissipates and I can think more thoroughly now. “You need to learn more about us.” The way she says this saddens me, because, it’s the truth. I know all the happenings and events at school, but nothing about my family. At this thought, I deflate inside. I guess I deflate on the outside too because she pulls me in for another hug. This time I accept it graciously.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter into my mother’s hair. “There were so many things to do…” She gives me a couple of pats on the back as reassurance and then we’re suddenly attacked from the side and separated. I exclaim in surprise and my mother “oomphs”. There’s something clinging to me and it’s warm.

“I’m sorry too.” I look down and smile in warmth. It’s Hibiki. He’s smiling and I can’t not hug him so I squat down to hug him also.

“I’m sorry for being so mean to you, Hibiki.” The little boy quickly moves to get a good look at me.

“Nope! It’s okay, because you’re my big brother!” he says, then hugs me just as quickly.

“Wait,” I pull away, eyes darting to my mother and Hibiki, “what about Shun? Isn’t she sick?” At this my mom silences a short laugh and replies.

“Shun just had a cold. What’d you think she had?” My eyes shoot to Hibiki’s and he gives me a look of feign innocence.

“You little liar!” I pause, and add, “Hm...I wonder who knows about Hibiki’s little cry yesterday.” And I pretend to think really hard about this, glancing at him to see his reaction. I hear a gasp come from Hibiki and I smile in triumph.

“And might I remind someone of the little tantrum they just had?” my mom teasingly says, sneaking her own glances at me. Hearing her comment and the tone she said it in, I give her a look.

“What’s happening?” I turn to see that Shun has joined us and is dressed in her pajamas.

“Did you just wake up?” I question. Shun nods instead of answering and carries on doing her own thing. My mom and I exchange glances. Hibiki looks up to me and I shrug. The three of us watch Shun do what she is doing in silence. She walks to the fridge and opens it, then takes out a jug of juice, shakes it, and sighs. With what seems like a large amount of effort, Shun takes something else out of the fridge. A gallon of milk. She walks over to the sink and grabs a cup, then turns back to the fridge and proceeds with filling her cup. She puts the gallon of milk back and closes the fridge, sighing, yet again. My mom looks at her. Hibiki looks at her. And I look at her. Then we all look at each other. The looks in our eyes seem to be saying the same thing: what’s she doing? After the quick mutual feeling of confusion we set our eyes back onto Shun. To my surprise she’s looking at us!

“What are you guys doing?” she asks, scrunching her face and squinting her eyes. “Weirdos.” With that comment she casually leaves the kitchen in the same manner that she had entered in, but with a cup of milk. We, the trio of onlookers, stay still for a second, not sure of what we just saw.

“Pfft! Ah-haha!” Hibiki suddenly bursts out laughing, causing my mother and I to also laugh. I laugh until my sides are sore and Hibiki until his snot greets us.

…

“I see that you made things right,” Mrs. Honda says to me.

“Mrs. Honda!” my mother exclaims, going in closer for a hug, “It’s been too long!” Mrs. Honda hugs her back and looks at the other three people that I stand with.

After realizing what I was doing to myself, and to my household, I started paying more attention. It’s amazing how much you learn just by being there and observing and listening.

My father, I found out, did get laid off. When I asked him about it he said that the company was running short on money because sales had been bad for a couple of months now. But since I started talking to him more I found out that he was okay with it, because then he would get to spend more time with my mom. I also noticed, that he was coming home more often with a smile rather than a sullen look.

“How are you Mr. Akiyama?” Mrs. Honda asks my dad.

“I’m doing very well. How are you?” my dad replies, also giving her a hug. I smile at this and

quickly glance over to Shun.

On the day that I had my little outburst Shun had broken up with her boyfriend--which explained why she had been so drained and emotionless. But, looking at her, no one would believe it because right now she’s so happily texting on her phone and smiling, letting a laugh in here and there.

“Shun, you’re so tall now! Taller than me even,” Mrs. Honda says to her, smiling. I’m surprised at what Shun does next. She looks away from her phone. She even presses the button to turn it off. Shun returns the smile and hugs Mrs. Honda. Hibiki tugs on my shirt and points to the raisins.

“Do you want them?” I ask Hibiki, and he nods. I look to my mom and dad and they nod. Hibiki cheers and runs over to look at all the raisins.

The days after our fight, Hibiki and I spent our time talking and getting to know each other more. Hibiki, I learned has been crushing on a girl in his class. Her name is Hana. “She has short black hair and looks really pretty with flowers in her hair” is what he always tells me, so I’ll believe him.

“Kaito,” Mrs. Honda stops in front of me and holds her arms out, “do I get a hug from you too?”

“Of course you do Mrs. Honda,” I say, smiling and wrapping my arms around her.

“Was it hard?” Mrs. Honda asks, pulling away and holding me by the upper arms.

“It was a bit harder than I thought it was going to be,” I admit, “and it took more energy than I thought would be needed.” Mrs. Honda smiles at my honesty and comes by my side, her hand on my shoulder, and the both of us facing my family.

“But you did it, didn’t you? You found Hibiki.” Considering the number of people around us, I’m surprised that I heard Mrs. Honda say this so clearly. I smile and observe the members of my raisin-loving family. I look at Mrs. Honda for a while, a smile creeping up onto my face.

“That I did,” I say, “and much more.”

Author's Note

This was the last part to my little 'Raisins' story. If you didn't get the first giant paragraph and thought it to be random, I'd like to say that it was a dream. I feel that the dream isn't really needed, but what are YOUR thoughts on it? Do you have any? I bet'cha do~ ;D

Reviews

[callipygianphiltate]

This is a beautiful ending to a beautiful story. I just- I can't even express how much I love your writing style. The dream I felt was symbolic but yeah either way if was or was not included it wouldn't change my opinion of the story either way.

[Pajci]

Hi! Thanks so much for reading all three parts! I'm glad to know that you enjoyed reading and found the overall plot compelling. Which character of yours did Kaito remind you of? I'd like to know!