Yellow- Shinkami

Caught Red Faced

TW
Slight abusive behavior
Mental distress

"Denki Kaminari."

"Mom?" Denki asks shakily turning his head towards his front door.

The light from his foyer spills out onto the sparsely lit porch illuminating the night and shrouding his mother in a fierce shadow.

"Get in this house right. Now."

He looks back to me panicked.

"Hitoshi I-."

"I said now."

With that he lets me go and walks into his house, tail between his legs. Before the door slams shut in my face I make eye contact with his mother. She doesn't even have to change her facial expression for me feel her contempt.

For a minute or two I just stand there.

What just happened?

"C'mon kiddo, you'll see him tomorrow!" Papa shouts from the car while honking.

I turn and walk to the car. I already know I won't be getting any sleep tonight.

-

"Denki, how could you not only see someone behind our backs, but come home late and kissing him on our front porch where anyone could see?"

"Mom I was only a few minutes late. I'm sorry." I respond already using everything in me to hold back tears and the lump in my throat even though she hasn't even started to yell yet.

"Oh yeah? And what's your excuse for kissing that boy Denki?"

"I-I don't know mom."

"I don't know isn't good enough. How long has this been going on? Are you two having sex?"

"Mom no, stop we just started dating," I feel my face burning more and more with every word spoken.

"Dating? And you thought that was appropriate?"

"Yes!" I argue back now just feeling sick to my stomach.

"Excuse me? You think it is appropriate for you to be not only seeing but kissing another boy? Do you have any idea what that means Denki? What are you doing?What is wrong with you?"

"I don't know, what's wrong with you!"

As soon as I said it I regretted it. I know she'd only said a few sentences to me and it'd only be a minute longer before she settled for ignoring me for the next week but it seemed like it was going on forever. Like she would never stop criticizing Hitoshi and I.

I regret that now. I should've just let her talk.

She raises her hand and slaps me on the mouth with the back of her hand. A stinging feeling quickly emerging. She grabs my wrist tightly. She tugs me in her direction as she walks towards the stairs. I try to pull away but she just pulls me harder making me trip and fall on the bottom step. I still try to get out of her grasp but she just keeps dragging me behind her. As we go up the stairs my shirt rolls up and drags along the carpeted stairs, burning my stomach and chest.

"Mom stop!" I tell to her, tears fully unleashed, snot running down my chin.

"I don't want to hear it Denki."

She continues dragging me, as I just squirm and beg her to let me go. The more I fight the weaker I get, and the stronger she gets. When we get upstairs she drags me down the hallway giving me relief from the carpet burn and an even surface to get my footing back on. Once I stand back up I try to get her hand off of me.

"Let me go!"

She doesn't even respond this time. Just looks at me furious and yanks me back towards her. I trip over myself for the second time and my head catches on the door frame to my sisters room. As my mother drags me screaming and crying into the bathroom across the hall from them I find myself looking at their door hoping it would open and they would come out and tell mom to calm down, or help me out. But I get nothing. Nothing except thrown into the bathroom harshly. I look up from the cold tiled floor at my mother fumbling through cabinets, as I'm too scared to try and run from her. My body is on fire and I feel like I will never not be in this moment. This really awful moment.

Finally she turns back to me. Before I can even see what she's holding she shoves something hard at my face. It hits my lip hard and as she draws back her arm to go back in I see what it is. A bar of soap. She thrusts it back towards my mouth this time using her other hand to hold my head in place as she harshly rubs it against my closed mouth.

"Open Denki," she demands rhetorically as she squeezes my face hard so that my lips pucker and she shoves the bar all the way in my mouth. I immediately gag and before she can move it her hand out of my mouth I vomit all over both of us.

She stands and looks at me with disdain.

"Clean this up."

She leaves and slams the door in my face. All I can bring myself to do is lay down. My body shakes and heaves as I cry from my chest. I find myself gagging again and gasping for air and I struggle to catch my breath between sobs. I gag and almost throw up a few more times before it calms to just tears dripping from my face to the floor as I lay curled up on it.

"Denki? Are you okay?" Taiyo asks from the other side of the door.

I don't know why but at those words I have to try to contain the fit of crying that tries to erupt again.

"Fine," is all I settle for, the end slightly raspy from all the congestion in my throat.

"Oh, ok," Kihito responds.

Then it's just silent. With the exception of the sounds of my mothers footsteps from her room as she probably gets ready for bed nobody makes a sound.

My heart hurts. Why couldn't I have just been more careful?

I just want to go home.