autorejoin | Memory Writeups for AFD

Entry tags:

Memory Writeups for AFD

Memories in the comments.

If you don't do it now, you'll regret it your whole life. If you don't fight while you're alive, your soul will rot.

"You're using drugs to escape again?"

The sound of Kira's voice cuts through the haze of your mind. You couldn't even make it to your bed, half-draped on it with a cold glass of whiskey in one hand and the floor covered in pills. You think the pill bottle fell at some point. You don't care right now.

"Shouldn't you go to the hospital? Your dad's looking bad, right? You should go see him one last time."

There's a sharp, stabbing feeling in your chest. Metaphorical, though you can't quite form that word in your mind right now. You look up at Kira, focusing on him.

"I'm in pain..." the words are dragged from you, from the haze. You can barely form them, high on painkillers mixed with the whiskey you're still cradling.

"Then fight. You won't be able to run forever. Eventually, you'll be caught and the price you pay will be heavy." Kira's words were like a blade... They always gracefully stabbed right through the heart of the matter. "If you don't go and fight now, you'll regret it until you die."

Kira grabs the front of your shirt, commanding your attention as he sits perched on your bed. "If you really want to live, then fight. Even if it rips you apart, even if it's shameful... If you're sick of rotting away, then become a better piece of crap."

You didn't fight. You didn't even show up for the funeral.

Edited 2016-07-09 21:44 (UTC)

You know you shouldn’t be going through Mother’s things. A shiver of guilt runs through you, but you push it aside. She won’t miss a few trinkets, right? Of course not. You reach into her secret drawer, when your hand brushes against something…. a photograph? Why is that there? So you pick it up.

And then your blood freezes.

It’s a picture of your mother, looking somewhat younger than she does now. She looks so happy, smiling, but the man… that man pleasantly hugging her shoulders.

That’s not Father.

Your hand slowly raises to your mouth in horror. Those inconsiderate eyes, pale skin, the shape of his lips… everything is saying you are from the same genes. This man you've never met…!! ...The grotesque idea of a person with the same face as me reproducing over and over as if creating clones... I'll never have any kids! My father should have told me from the beginning. He could never love the child of his wife and another man.

Why didn’t Father ever tell you from the beginning? “You’re the child from my wife and another man’s affair—!!”

You run out of your parent’s bedroom, out into the living room. The tears are welling up in your eyes, but you holds them back, your lips curling into a snarl. You grabs a box knife and tears at a picture of the family together frantically. The hell with the happy family portrait. It was only an illusion built on thin ice. You all can continue acting out this fantasy!! I won’t cry over this. The thoughts tear savagely through your mind. If I cry, I’ll lose! I will not lose!!

Edited 2016-11-12 18:35 (UTC)

"Is it true? Was there an accident?"

You sit up abruptly in your hospital bed. It couldn't be—

"Honey, you came home from work?!"

Dad?! He came?! You were blindsided by shock, yes, but also hope—

"You mean the one in the accident was Yue? Well, at least it wasn't Sae."

Sae. Your sister, five years older, a pretty girl and the apple of Father's eyes. At least it wasn't Sae. The words ripped through you painfully. He'd only come because he'd thought it was her, after all. Not you.

"I hoped the name 'Yue' would bring bad luck. That it would kill him... but I'm not that lucky, am I?"

Yue. Written 故, meaning: late (deceased). It hit you all at once with a sick realization. That was the real meaning behind the name you'd always hated:

Your father wanted you to die.

Edited 2016-07-09 21:44 (UTC)

Father grabbed Mom's shoulders and shook her, an expression of twisted anger on his face. "Don't think I don't know you still love that man!"

Mom's voice trembles as she speaks. "Please... not in front of the children!"

You don't glance at your older sister, Sae. You don't want to know the kind of face she's making now, and anyway, you can't stop staring at the scene before you. You don't really understand what's going on, don't know what they're talking about, but Father is so angry. He's always angry, you think. That or indifferent, unless Sae is involved. Father loves Sae, and you wish that he'd love you, too.

"Hah!" Father spits at Mom's request. "Like a kid can understand what's going on! Look at Yue! He's just staring at me."

Something tells you desperately to look away, but you can't. You're frozen in wide-eyed horror by the door frame, unable to move or even blink.

"Stop looking at me, you brat!" Father sneers, his fist balling at his side. He cocks back his elbow.

"Don't!" Mom cried out frantically. "He's just a child! You'll kill him!"

Your vision goes black as the fist connects.

Edited 2017-04-28 19:11 (UTC)

High school, as it turns out, is just as lame as middle school.

You're in your first year, or you're supposed to be— you've been cutting classes today, and ended up in a hostess club. That'll piss off your dad if he finds out— when he finds out— but you can't seem to care right now. That's a problem for later, when you get home and he decides to start hitting you again.

(He's not my dad, not really.)

Shit. You can't handle this. You take another swig of the alcohol you've been nursing, but it doesn't really help. You sigh and slump over the table, putting your head in your arms. There's a hollow ache in your chest, a deep-seated pain that seems to be taking you whole. You aren't sure who you hate more right now— your father, or your mother.

"Are you alright?"

You look up at the voice. The woman is there, her dress hugging her curves. This hostess was a hot one, that's for sure— pretty face, breasts the right size: About a handful each. Under most circumstances, you'd be hitting on her right now— clumsily, probably, but doing it anyway.

"It doesn't seem to work...." the words leave your lips with a sigh. You feel stupid for even putting the words out there. But the hostess seems to be considering your words.

"You're in pain," she says, her words coming out carefully. "But I have good medicine."

Your heart skips a beat. You're fucking riveted, and right now, you'd do anything for that medicine.

"It will make you feel better." The words come out with a smile from her red, red lips. "Bring money next time. Maybe you can sell some, too? You can escape all your terrible pain. You can run away from it all. Who cares as long as you have fun?"

No one cares. No one except for you, and the ache in your chest that won't go away. Of course you agree to her offer.

She gives you some kind of pill. Amphetamines, you later find out. That's not what you care about right now. What you care about is this:

There's a feeling going through your body. Your hands are tingling, your head is light. The air feels soft, delicious. There's music playing in the background, and you don't know what it is, but music has never sounded so good before. You feel good, you feel alive. It feels like nothing in the world can defeat you right now.

And the hollow ache in your chest is gone.

Edited 2017-03-21 06:01 (UTC)

Katou was supposed to be in class. He knew he was, and he knew he'd catch hell for skipping later. But he just couldn't bring himself to care anymore. What the hell's the point? Nothing he did was ever going to impress anyone. So fuck it, he was going to do what he wanted. And what he wanted right now was a cigarette.

So that's how Katou Yue, aged thirteen, ended up smoking in some forgotten corner outside the school building. He'd found it was a good place to avoid attention, at least, for a little while. And if any of the teachers caught him smoking, there'd be even more hell to pay. Though the thrill of potential discovery was almost as exciting as the cigarette itself. He'd only recently taken up the habit, but he'd found he liked it. Liked the taste of the tobacco and nicotine, liked the thrill of doing something he wasn't supposed to. Liked buying them from the vending machines he wasn't "supposed" to go near at his age.

To hell with everyone and everything. Katou was through with playing by their rules.

At least he got to be alone for a little while out here. The classroom was stifling, moreso now that he'd come to the stomach-churning conclusion that there just was no point in it. All he wanted was some damned peace and quiet.

Kira has actually always liked class. He enjoys the order, the structure, the ability to plant his nose in a book... sometimes he actually even learned a thing or two from the teachers he hadn't already taught himself. But he couldn't spend too much time in class, either; he didn't even want to create the vague impression that he might be a good student.

So every couple days, he would simply decide to spend his time outside of the classroom: push open the sliding door and just walk out, in spite of the teachers' protests. Honestly, what could they even do about it, anyway? Sure, they'd lecture him until they were blue in the face, call his father, sometimes they'd even try to yank him back in. But he was surprisingly strong, and most of the teachers were too meek or to weak to do anything... and even then, there was something just off about Kira that kept anyone from being able to properly intimidate him, even the burliest of gym teachers.

So that was how on this bright, shining, spring time day that Kira came to be out in the hall, half leaning his upper body out a cracked window as he held in one hand a book he wanted to read as opposed to whatever drivel was being covered inside the classroom.

It's perhaps the mark of Katou's sincere lack of planning that he wasn't paying very much attention to the world outside of him and his cigarette. It would be a smart idea to keep an eye out for those teachers he was trying to avoid, at the very least. Not that he had many places to run, but it's the principle of the matter.

So he didn't notice this kid hanging out a window, reading a fucking book of all things. Who ditches class just to read? Seriously. He'd have a lot of questions about that if he were more attentive. Chiefly, "Why?" and "Have you considered a less nerdy hobby?"

(Books had never held Katou's attention. He was too easily rendered bored and impatient of them. His loves were video games, movies, and television shows. But like hell was he going to admit he still watched that toku crap at his age. His secret love of the Kamen Rider shows would remain a fucking secret.)

Anyway, so Katou's crouched under a window— just happens to be the same window this weirdo kid's hanging out of— and he takes a deep drag of his cigarette. (It's not menthol, of course, because that shit's nasty.) He sometimes considered trying to do fancy tricks with the smoke, like he'd seen in movies, but the most he could ever do was make weird, misshapen puffs. So he was content to just let it go in a steady stream for now.

Kira didn't mind sharing the space with some other kid. In fact, that worked to his advantage, in a way: if a teacher came upon them, they'd have to choose one or the other delinquent to go after, and he'd be willing to bet the other kid was weaker, appearances aside. He didn't bother to look at the other boy very closely--he only had enough of a view at first to get a periphery glance. Blonde hair and gangly. In fact, it's testament to how little attention Kira was paying him until the smell of his cigarette wafted over.

Kira had taken up smoking a good year or so ago. It had just been the next step on his list of things to do to try to make his father hate him, in the beginning. But the habit had actually gotten the better of him, in a way: he could do without them if he needed to, but it was preferable to smoke, especially when someone else was doing it. So the moment those telltale fumes reached his nostrils, Kira knew he wanted a cigarette himself.

Only problem was--as he reached into a pocket and found his box--he'd forgotten his lighter. Was it in his backpack? Or had he left it at home? That was a careless mistake, he scolded himself.

Of course, there was an easy solution right down the hallway. All he had to do was get the nerve to ask. And Kira has never lacked the nerve to do basically anything.

Kira shut his book and walked right on over to the kid (who, now that he had a good look at him, was downright scrawny, like no one was feeding him at home). He could have asked nicely, perhaps. But Kira was out of practice asking for anything nicely, except for when it came to girls.

"Let me borrow that," Kira said, gesturing to the lighter still in the other kid's hand.

The blond hair was actually a new feature on him— not very long after his world went sideways, he'd found he couldn't fucking look at himself in the mirror. The bleached hair had given him some feeling of control, a way to choke down the dizzying self-loathing to more manageable levels. That it pissed off his parents was just a bonus. A very nice bonus, and he thought he might keep up with it.

So anyway, this kid walked up to Katou, cool as you please, and asks to borrow his lighter. Kid's got a fucking book in his hand, and those questions are popping up into his head. But this kid, Katou thought he might recognize him— Kira something, usually got some of the higher scores in their year. Or something like that, he just knew that he recognized the guy. And seriously, some nerd's gonna ask him for a light? This sounded like a trick to Katou.

"Are you kidding?" the words came tumbling out of Katou's mouth with a derisive snort. "What's the matter, the little goody two-shoes has decided to slum it? Gonna try and smoke?"

(It's too bad that while he recognized the face, he didn't really have a bead on Kira Something's reputation around school.)

That really was too bad--mostly for Katou. Kira was pretty used to not being thought very highly of, and in fact, he was certain that people called him names behind his back. But since he kept a semi-low profile and nobody who knew of him messed with him directly, it had been a couple years since anyone had had the audacity to say shit like that to his face.

Technically, the kid's not really even done anything all that bad. Goody two-shoes... that's nothing. Nerdo, book worm, four eyes--he's heard em all, and worse. Hell, people have been calling him a monster since he was eight. But it's been a while since he got into a good ol' fashioned fist-fight at school, partially because the kids have wisened up to picking on him. This'll be even better than skipping class, as far as detestable deeds go.

Kira's mouth, previously set in a firm, straight line, warped into a smile. He's still a bit young to be truly handsome (or beautiful; he is on the feminine side for a man, it's true), but it's easy to see that in a few more years, he's going to be a real lady killer.

"I see you also skipped the class where they taught us not to judge a book by its cover. Get up. It's time somebody taught you a thing or two." He stretches his neck to one side and then to the other, letting the bones crack loudly.

A wide, wild smile threatens to crack Katou's face in half. He's a little too scrawny (and a little too young) to be considered handsome, but one might get the impression that somewhere underneath the bleached hair and attitude problem— there's potential there. Not as much as Kira, for sure, but still potential.

There's a lot of violence itching to get out of Katou at the best of times, and he was never one to turn down a kid just begging to get his ass kicked. This fucking nerd thought he could take him on? Bring it.

He springs to life, not even bothering to take the cigarette out of his mouth as he throws a punch Kira's face. And for such a scrawny kid, he sure packs a hell of a punch. If his opponent weren't secretly an immortal sword spirit wearing a flesh suit, Kira would be in trouble.

Yeah, if he was a normal person, Kira would be in trouble. Too bad for Katou he's playing with a loaded deck. Kira evades the punch thrown at him with minimal effort--that is, not only does he dodge to the side quicker than Katou could have expected, but he doesn't go far. Instead, he reaches up, grabs Katou's arm, and uses the provided momentum to help Katou into a throw over his hip and down the hall.

What the hell?!

That's the only thought flashing through Katou's mind as he finds himself being flung down the hall. His landing's a rough one, knocking the wind out of him and he thinks he might have twisted his wrist on the landing. Shit. Shit, shit, if he ended up going to the hospital for a wrist, that was gonna get him in worse with his old man than he'd intended. That asshole was always more sour when money ended up involved in Katou's escapades.

("He's not really my father," a bitter thought bubbling up in his mind.)

Still, Katou had to admit that he was getting more than he'd bargained for with this Kira kid. That was... kind of exciting. So he gets up with a groan and decides to go for another swing at this guy.

Too bad for Katou--Kira's already there waiting. (When did he get down the hall? Did Katou even hear him run? Was he so absorbed in his own thoughts that he missed that, or--?)

As Katou comes up, ready to make his next swing, Kira ducks underneath the arc of where an arm would aim for his face and brings his own arm forward to slam his fist home, hard, into Katou's solar plexus.

Katou's too busy dropping to the fucking ground to wonder how the hell Kira got there so fast. A hit in the solar plexus means it's not going to be so easy for him to get back up. He should know— he's been on both the giving and receiving end of a blow like that before. (Never quite as hard as this time, holy shit, this guy hit like a ton of bricks.)

He's dimly aware that the next blow this kid gives him is gonna wind up with him out of commission entirely, as if he wasn't already, but he's still too busy wheezing, trying to catch his breath after that hit to the solar plexus winded him so thoroughly. He can't even think of getting back up yet.

Even if Katou doesn't, can't get up, the next blow is definitely coming. Katou's hunched forward, but between being breathless and stunned, it shouldn't be too hard to shove him backward enough to get a good shot at his face. Stooped over and practically straddling Katou's body in order to get in close enough proximity, Kira punches him in the face, the corner of the mouth to bloody up his lips, just once.

Edited 2017-04-14 19:54 (UTC)

Somehow, Katou was expecting a blow that would knock him out entirely— perversely, almost welcoming it. Not that he liked being knocked unconscious so much as knowing that it's the end result of getting your ass soundly beat. So when the blow came and it was only a lip buster, Katou was.... confused.

"What the fuck," was what came eloquently spilling out of his mouth with a pained wheeze.

"What, you thought I'd knock you out," Kira asked. He's still got Katou's shirt balled up in one fist, and the second is still coiled back, his body tense--like he's a viper that might strike again. He's not a mind-reader, but Katou's confusion is palpable. "Naw. That's not my style, see?"

And just like that, he lets, withdrawing. There's something soft and elegant to the way Katou's shirt whispers out from between his fingers. Better yet is the fact that during all of this, he's gotten his real target: sometime during the conflict, Kira managed to filch Katou's lighter from him, and now he nimbly rocks and rolls the silver rectangle between his fingers, letting the silver glint cheekily at him.

"See, the way I see it, it's that dumb mouth of yours that got you into this in the first place." From his own back pocket he pulls out a cigarette with his index and middle fingers. "If I knocked you out, you'd have a pretty convenient excuse to say you forgot all about this."

Kira lights up and takes a deep breath, drawing the smoke deep into his mouth; releases it, mouth and tongue shaped into a small o to blow out a series of rings, just as pretty as you please, right into Katou's face. "So the next time your mouth feels like talking, or smoking, or... you know... doing anything maybe you'll think it through first."

18. Kira telling him to fight or his soul will rot. (cw drug use, underage drinking)

07. Going through his mom's things and finding out he's a bastard child.

06. At the hospital, finding out why Dad named him 'Yue'. (cw child abuse)

01. 'He just glares at me with those eyes!' Dad beating on him. (CW child abuse)

08. ♦ "Run away from everything you hate." Getting offered drugs for the first time.

05. ♦ Meeting Kira.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

03. Dad gives Sae a gift, "forgot" to bring something for Katou. (cw child abuse)

04. "Your father named you Yue."

Why do you hate me?

"Why did you dye your hair?! Where do you go every night?!"

17. Sae's wedding gift. (cw attempted rape, mention of drugs)

15. ♦ ODing, getting rescued by Kira (cw drug abuse)