INDECENT 》Harry Styles #Wattys2018

》Chapter Seventy-Seven

Edited by: _rose

**WARNING: sensible content**

JADE'S POV.

Ianfu:

euphemism for military sex slave.

Weird isn't it? How you look at something for almost half of your life and never get to really see it? I've glanced at that book on my parents' nightstand for years and never dared to read it because I had other things to do, plus the title didn't speak to me.

All the information I needed to get me out of trouble were there, in the only book in this house I've never opened. The only one who belonged to my father.

"This was Scott's. He was reading it before the accident." I barely recall that.

"You father was reading about the same society that kidnapped you?" Cole states the obvious with a tone that doesn't leave much to the imagination.

"Apparently."

"Now this is awkward." Karen takes it from the table and starts going through the pages, I don't have the courage to do the same. I'm afraid of what I'll find in it.

"What does it say?" Cole is the one making conversation while Harry stays completely silent.

He is not here with me and I wonder what he's thinking.

"Not much. It talks about these Japanese women that would 'comfort' men; you know the ones used during WW II to keep the military from revolting." Perhaps I'm the only one who doesn't look at Karen like she's out of her mind to know such a thing.

"A bunch of soldiers' stories of their encounters with the Ianfu. I already know all of this." She throws it on the table and I eye it carefully. Something in me is ringing loudly: Take the book. Take the book. Take the damn book.

"He never talked to me about this." My mother looks hurt and out of her environment. It must sting not knowing everything about the person you lived all your life with. "I didn't know he was interested in this type of thing."

"He was a mine man; why would you suspect that?" I blurt out.

My mother throws me a very piercing glare, as if I was talking about shit I didn't have any say in it. I'm just stating the truth as I know it.

"You father, Jade, was a very smart man. He wasn't always a cave man, as you call him. He was a literature professor at the Northumbria college a while ago." I choke on my tea and stare at her with a dead glare.

"What?" I almost scream, they never told me that. For as long as I can remember he worked in that mine and that was it. 

"He was a promising professor when I first met him. My professor, to be more precise." 

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"We fell in love when I was young, very young and that cost him his career. He was ready to sacrifice everything for me and as naïve as I was, I thought this was what he really wanted and didn't stop him. We got caught and he got suspended soon after, making impossible for him to be hired from any other school any time soon. In the meantime, I got pregnant with you and we couldn't afford to wait. Therefore, the second he heard of the job in the mine from a friend, he took it. It was painful for him; Jade I reckon it now. Ever since he didn't dare to ever get closer to a book again. However, when you started reading and writing, I saw in his eyes that he missed it so much. We agreed to keep it a secret so he could just watch you blooming and be so proud that at least you could fulfil his dream. He was so happy the day you told him you wanted to become a writer! He loved you so much he didn't care if he couldn't get the chance to teach as long as he could do it with you. You were the only balm to his aching wounds."