The Boy With The Blank Stare: Punishment Time

Chapter Nineteen: Father

The world is a dull place.

And filled with horrible tragedies. It's fallen so deep we make jokes about how rotten it is. We just let everything get worse and yell at each other.

We have war. We kill. We make peace. We have war. An endless cycle that corrupts us all.

Malice. That's what's at the root.  We can't ever escape that cycle. The people who try are killed.

There's no point trying to resist. Life is dull anyway. Nothing could ever bring me pleasure in this meaninglessness.

All we are going to do is die anyway. No matter how little or much we try or successfully change.

Then what? Someone will come and tear it all down again anyway. I'm tired.

I'm tired of this world. But I don't want to die. No, that's the cowards way out. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. But it will be righteous.

No one understands the true reality of this world. I've tried once to get someone to understand. Tried once to feel anything.

She failed. I thought they would. They were broken from the start. Seen the worst. I helped push them to the brink. Maybe then they could've seen what I see.

Maybe know how to fix it.

They didn't. I tried to feel love. All I achieved was the same emptiness, just more content with one thing in this world.

Then they got pregnant. That moment I reached enlightment. This child isn't corrupted.

If I could change the world before it taints them then surely I can be fulfilled.

The idiot. She didn't understand at all. The child was doomed anyway.

They look exactly like her. She had a pleasant appearance so it wasn't disappointing.

But they had her small frame and skinny build. They looked weak. There was only one benefit.

His eyes.

Those eyes were what attracted me to her. They showed emptiness and her broken nature.

For him they were bright. Innocent. Joyful.

Ironic I would see him again only to destroy what I loved most. Those eyes...when I finally saw them again they no longer were as innocent.

But still full of life.

I crushed that life. I crushed whatever innocencr lingered. For once I felt something.

Regret.

However maybe God themself acted. Two idiots saw me. I played dumb for a bit. Stalled long enough for them to find us.

So my son would live he was last. So my son would live when I 'discovered' them I didn't kill him immediately.

Ironic.

This wasn't the first time I had ever been discovered. For that person I immeditaly plunged the knife into their heart.

For him I left him. Themis forgave me for my crime because we were working for our children.

I expelled the malice from him. He was reborn.

Then the detective's nephew came. It all went downhill. My son didn't learn.

So I had to protect him. Before he gave back into malice I tried to break him again.

I killed his cousin. The forged suicide notes along with the single real one dragged that boy into my web.

For my son he perished. Despite his noble soul.

The boy detective left his side for a while. Slowly though they are reconnecting. My son is going to return to corruption.

Just like his Mother. Such a shame, he doesn't know. Not like she was ever given a funeral. Just left to rot in a small casket on the edge of town.

Were you happy? Kokoro?

You still had the scar. Shame. Shame I only felt true lonliness when you were gone.

Anger.
Betrayal.

You got the final laugh. I got the abillity to feel something. Is this what they call sadness?

Is what fell down my cheeks genuine tears? It doesn't matter. She's dead. It's time for him to come home.

It's should have been me who got custody anyway.

I glanced back at the boy unconscious still. Tied up and on a small matress on the floor.

Is this how we will bond? Themis agreed to let me take him on. So I suppose so.

The world corrupted him because I did not work fast enough. So I won't hesitate from now on.

No matter what. He won't become malice. Ironic.

He isn't as weak as his Mother so he doesn't ever stop fighting till his will is utterly broken. And even then he came back on that sheer stubbornness. He isn't like me who seems correction. He does crime but it never affects his soul.

Is this the best of us both? Perhaps.

He will grow. Not into a weed like his Mother nor a tree like me. I don't know what he will become.

Maybe that's what taught me excitement.