Rules Were Made to be Broken

‣ scene 10 [broken portrait]

After returning from lunch and bidding Chihiro farewell, Kiyotaka worked silently for several hours. He left without talking to anybody else, and he skipped the gym in favor of sulking at home. He tried to watch TV. Nothing caught his interest. He couldn't focus on a book long enough to read. Night fell, and then he spoke to his parents on the phone and just nodded along to their lectures. Eventually the clock struck nine, and then he had no more excuse to be awake. He changed into his pajamas and climbed into bed.

There was a problem: Kiyotaka couldn't sleep.

For one thing, he was afraid of having another embarrassing wet dream, but that wasn't his main problem. Every time he closed his eyes, he started drifting back, mentally, to a time when he was small and still innocent, because Chihiro and her genuine kindness had somehow reminded him of that. Actually, whenever he flashed back, it was always to that exact time when his childish innocence had been shattered.

He groaned and rolled himself into a fetal position. The apartment was big, but it was lonely and empty, and the pressing sheet of darkness above him seemed to remind him of this fact. There wasn't a single sound. Nothing to indicate that any other human being anywhere gave a damn about him. This was a depressing thought.

Kiyotaka didn't want to face the visions waiting for him in sleep, but he had little say in it. His eyelids drooped and fluttered, and his breathing slowed, and he felt the abyss of sleep pull him down like hands from the netherworld.

Then, he saw it clearly.

He was six. His family was close-knit and comfortable, always smiling and laughing. There was plenty of money to go around, enough that Kiyotaka got to adopt a kitty of his very own. He'd named her Snowball, and he'd loved her like she was his own daughter.

Grandpa— the great Toranosuke Ishimaru— visited almost every single night. He stayed for dinner. He always had such amazing stories about all of the places he'd been, and whenever he came back from overseas business trips, he had candy and souvenirs for his beloved grandson. He'd teach him bits of other languages, and all about politics and history and economics, and he showed Kiyotaka how to shine his favorite boots so that they sparkled.

On his favorite nights, grandpa would read him stories by the fireplace. Dickens, mostly, but they were also fond of Hemingway. Any of the classics, really. If Kiyotaka's parents weren't home, grandpa would read him scary stories or let him watch movies that mom thought he wasn't old enough for.

On his favorite mornings, Kiyotaka got to ride with grandpa in his cool convertible car. They'd zip down the highway until they reached Kiyotaka's favorite ice cream place, and if he was especially good, grandpa would buy him a toy from the corner market. He liked to brag to the old lady that worked there about how smart his grandson was. He showed her Kiyotaka's honor roll certificate once, and then they gushed over him together.

He had his entire happy family, and there was plenty of money, and he had Snowball. She slept in the corner of his bed at night. His classmates picked on him sometimes, but he didn't let that get to him. They said his eyebrows looked funny and that his eyes were a weird color, but his mom told him that he was handsome, so he knew that those kids were lying. And all of his teachers liked him! They would let him eat lunch with them when the other kids were being mean. He told his favorite teacher that he would be a teacher like her when he got older, and she looked really happy.

Kiyotaka was seven. Grandpa's company got really big. Something about fortunes? Grown-ups said that it was a really big deal. The Ishimaru family had a big party where all the adults drank champagne and clinked their glasses together. Dad quit his job working at the bank and went to work for grandpa instead. Mom, who sold people houses for a living, started learning to do computer and phone things so she could work for the family too.

Grandpa started showing up in newspapers and fancy magazines, and he got another car, and Kiyotaka and his family got a bigger house. They had a backyard with a trampoline, and his classmates suddenly started being nicer to him because they heard about his pool and wanted to come over and play. His favorite teacher told him not to invite them over until they apologized to him, and he thought that was a good idea.

Kiyotaka was eight. The company got even bigger, but something was wrong. People would whisper amongst themselves and say that the company was growing too fast, and that a lot of the money it made on paper seemed not to go anywhere. Grandpa said that was all a bunch of lies, though, and Kiyotaka believed him. Grandpa would never lie, especially not to him, right? Kiyotaka reassured himself of this even when when dad and grandpa started arguing late at night about funny paperwork or something, using lots of words Kiyotaka didn't understand.

Kiyotaka was barely nine. Special government police in suits raided the house. Kiyotaka held Snowball and cried in a corner while mom and dad swore they didn't do anything. The men in the suits were looking for grandpa and couldn't find him. One of the men said that grandpa had "drained it all", something about lots and lots of money, and mom cried.

They caught grandpa eventually. They caught him at an airport, trying to leave the country. He got charged with lots of crimes that he denied, but they said they had proof and put him in jail for a very long time. The company "went under". Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people lost their jobs. Some jumped off of buildings or in front of trains because they'd lost everything. Toranosuke Ishimaru had become the most hated man in Japan overnight, responsible for "fraud" and "embezzlement" and lots of other things that sounded really bad. People on TV called him a thief and said he'd stolen millions of dollars.

The kids at school wouldn't talk to him anymore. Even his teachers seemed reluctant to be seen with him. Mom and dad pulled him out of the school and sent him to another one, but nothing changed. It was even worse there. They didn't have enough money for the big house anymore, anyway, so they sold it and moved into a small townhouse where the heat almost never worked and lots of spiders got in through the windows. Kiyotaka switched schools again, and the kids got even more mean.

Mom and dad were angry, and they didn't have much money anymore. Some smaller companies hired them both, since the policemen proved that they didn't do anything illegal, but they still had to pay lots of people, like the lawyers. Dad, especially, was mad about it. Mom and dad yelled and fought a lot. Kiyotaka would sit in his room and cry and pet Snowball, who was now his only friend in the world.

He was barely ten when mom and dad made him sit at the kitchen table and told him that it was his responsibility to fix everything. He wouldn't have time for playing or taking karate classes anymore, and they sold his calligraphy set to buy him a suit. He would be expected to get nothing but the best grades at school, and he'd have to go to cram school and study groups after school, and then he'd have to study more once he got home. No playing, even on the weekends.

At first, he took this as a challenge. He truly believed he could fix everything. He thought that if he was the best in his class, mom and dad would smile again. He thought they might start calling him Taka again and giving him hugs instead of glaring at him all the time and reminding him of how expensive he was to feed, or of how expensive Snowball was. So he kept it all to himself and talked to Snowball at night.

But cats only live so long, and when he was twelve, Snowball suddenly wasn't around anymore. Mom and dad said he couldn't have another cat because they cost so much money and he didn't have time to care for one anyway, and that he also didn't have time to sulk around and cry about it because he still had to go to cram school.

He got accepted into a good middle school, then a top-of-the-line high school, then an incredible college on a full scholarship, even if they did still have to pay for books and board and some other things.

Instead of being happy for him, mom and dad said he should have gotten into a better school, and that he should have gotten the board to cover all of his expenses.

He never did get them to smile at him again.