Lavender | Wakatoshi Ushijima

35 | I Hope

Fear made its way up my back, grazing my spine. I held onto myself as I made my way to the door.

"Going anywhere?" Mother said. I forgot to ask for permission, shoot.

"Oh. I'm going to Kiyomi's house to"

"To study for your final exams?" She completed my sentence. I froze.

"Yes," I said.

"You're not carrying any books, Hana." She said, piercing me with her eyes.

She said my name. She said it. She caught me. And for a second I thought she was going to shoot me for it.

"Do you take me as a fool?" She spoke with a calm tone.

"No, Mother," I said, shaking. I'm not breathing.

"I know you're not going to study." She didn't dare move her gaze from mine, I wasn't looking at her.

My voice left me, it vanished.

"I had the coincidence of speaking to your friend's mother. I had the pleasure to find out you've been lying to me. Lying to the both of us." My father remained quiet as my Mother stood up and walked over to me.

"Do you dare explain what kind of nonsense you've been doing while you're wasting your future? At the coffee shops and beaches?" She voiced.  I was looking at the floor.

"I saw the photos of you at the seaside. How shameful is it to see my daughter prancing around such boys doing god knows what in that disgusting clothing? Don't you ever think of your image or your family's name? Where's your mind to tell you right from wrong, you shameless girl?" She yelled. 

She caught me. I shouldn't have lied, I'm a fool. I should've known, and done better.

Shame, image, family, daughter, boys, nonsense, future, waste. 
I'm still not breathing.

She grabbed my arm and looked at me. My head kept spinning and my eyes were watering and I lost my senses. That burned.

Her voice went cold and my last breath was so coarse my lungs were now yelping and my esophagus was drying out. She can't be ashamed of me, right? No, no! She doesn't know, she hasn't seen my last biology test or knows he came so I can tutor him. She understands, doesn't she? But she doesn't, and for the first time, I'm not too shocked.

"Beaches, coffee shops, boys, are you trying to ruin your life? When I first found out, I thought I'd let you enjoy something for yourself, thinking you'd use that brainless head of yours and stop fooling around. But as I predicted ever so effortlessly, you failed. You failed and decided to take advantage of our absence! You continued with this naivety until this very moment, letting your future slip away, as you've always allowed it to. You've always let your future slip away, never trying to reach out and take it. Never trying hard enough for everything, lazing around. I don't know why I thought you'd put in an ounce of effort and please us for once. And there you stand, lying once more! But you so hoped we wouldn't ever know because we're idiots. We're the fools that raised you and believed you would take on our family's name and honor it like the rest of us have worked so restlessly for." 

It was for nothing. It was all for nothing.

My achievements, my work, my grades, my image, my life. It was for nothing. Every breath I took to make them proud made them ashamed and I am nothing but the empty void in this family. An empty void among a family of stars.

 Anything and everything I do will be transparent and only I will see its value. I won't ever be one of the greats, a member of this family, or this world that wants so much from me.