THIS OLD DOG/ANOTHER ONE ➫ S. KIYOOMI

05

05,
One Another,

"Hey kid, everybody is prone to some mistakes. If you'd always think straight you'd never learn." Coach Washijo mutters, he pats your head in reassurance, but that only makes you frown. "I can't get over him, old man." You weakly mutter, "It's been half a year, kid. It's not like you never tried to forget him. You could do this." Washijo mumbles.

"I know, but what's there to learn about this? I should've tried to talk with him about it, but I was too upset with his choice-"

"It was his choice, wasn't it?" Washijo asks, "It was, but it was also mine to not reach out to him. What did you do to get mom to forgive you?" You ask him, "Ahh..I didn't. Your old woman hates me with her entire heart." Washijo chuckles awkwardly. You gape at him and groan, realizing he's not helping you, you get up from your seat and begin walking out of the living room.

"Don't feel like all the time you put in went to waste, you'll regret it." Washijo shouts as you close the door, you chose to not dwell on his words for too long since he wasn't one to talk. He couldn't even get your mom to forgive him for all the horrible things he's done, so you couldn't really confide in him as you hoped to.

The way your heart has been beating all those years, suddenly it beats in another pace, a different kind of beating—terror. Just as you had made it to your room, you collapsed on the floor. You don't remember when's the last time you've gotten the chance to take your medicine, which are steroids, so you figured these are the consequences.

You suddenly began coughing violently, you furrow your eyebrows and grab your handkerchief from your pocket and cough into it—once you stopped coughing, you look down at your hands and notice small drops of blood on them, you look at the handkerchief and yell really loud.

That causes your father to rush inside your room, he finds you on the floor with your body shaking, he feels pity for you since it was partially his fault you ended up in this condition, but decides to help you instead of drowning himself in a pool of guilt. He helps you up and begins looking through your medicine cabinet, where your pills were and grabs a water bottle that was somewhere on your nightstand.

See, the reason why you had this chronic disease was because of genetics and because of the impact your father's harsh decisions had on your mother's health when she was pregnant with you. Even when you were still in the womb, Washijo always found a new way to belittle your mother, which led her to smoking and doing drugs—as illegal as it was in Japan, she didn't care.

Thus, her well-being went down the drain, it was fixed when you were born, but quickly returned back to its state after your father demanded a divorce.

Not to mention, your father's side of the family had a problem with the same chronic disease you had. It was only natural for you to be a victim to the cruel disease. "Are you okay?" He asks you once you swallow your pills along with the water, you gulp and answer after a few seconds, "Yeah.."

"Your condition is getting worse.." He frowns, he was lucky enough to never have gotten the disease, but his genes unfortunately passed it down to you—your mother also had something to do with it since she did drugs during her pregnancy with you.

"I know.." You whisper, your hand reaches to touch your skin that covers your heart and you almost cry when you feel it burn.  "Let's go to the doctor's cause your condition is starting to worry me." Washijo sighs, "Call Ushijima to accompany you if you want."