/
Chapter 83 – [Extra] Blood Relationship
The past thirty days had been extremely cold.
The sky was filled with gray clouds, I couldn’t see the sun. There was no wind blowing, yet I could feel the cold air enveloping my face, probably with the intent of freezing it. At this point, I couldn’t even feel the tip of my nose anymore.
I was currently on the way home, in my hands were heavy plastic bags filled with vegetables. My forgetful mom forgot to buy the vegetables needed for dinner, so I had to go buy it. When she asked me to do it, I happily accepted it but after feeling this freezing cold, I regretted it. By now, I could feel my eyelashes starting to freeze, which prompted me to walk faster, but that backfired on me since the cold only got worse.
When my house entered my sight, I quickened my pace. I tucked my face into my scarf, that action surely would help me endure the cold air.
“I’m home…”
The front door felt warm compared to the outside, which made me smile unconsciously. I felt so happy that I let out a slightly obscene moan. Lucky this wasn’t the classroom, else I’d kill myself out of shame.
When I looked down to take my shoes off, I saw an unfamiliar pair of shoes. They looked ordinary but their size was big,  they clearly weren’t mine, and I knew that it wasn’t mom’s either. The shoes were a man’s shoes, that much I could figure out. It was probably either Sui’s or mom’s guests. I dismissed the possibility of any relatives coming since they’ve never visited this house in the first place.
The thought of mom having a boyfriend in secret crossed my mind. She never hinted anything like that, but it was still in the realm of possibility. Even she would be worried about staying single for the rest of her life, as long as she was able to find someone she liked and she was happy with it, I would do my best to support her.
But still, I wished that wasn’t the case at all. I didn’t want to live with a stranger. Even the thoughts disgusted me, besides, I didn’t know what he would do to me. He could babble about being faithful all he wanted but I would never be able to accept him.
I heard an unfamiliar voice coming from the living room. It wasn’t Sui who visited it seemed.
I tiptoed closer to the living room and peeked inside.
Suddenly, I felt nauseous.
A dull pain enveloped my head, it wasn’t that painful, yet it was painful enough to make my expression soured.
The cause of the pain was a man sitting across from my mom. The moment I saw him, I could feel my vision becoming unfocused even though my consciousness was intact.
I reflexively grabbed the sliding door to support my body and that action alerted the two people inside the living room.
“Arina? Is that you, Arina?”
I fell on my buttocks. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t. My whole body felt like it was rooted to the floor, any attempt on defying gravity was useless. I pushed the floor with both my hands as hard as I could, dragging my whole body away from the approaching man. I could feel my back moistened with cold sweat.
I was scared.
If the man in front of me were to touch me, I was certain that I would faint immediately.
“Stop it!”
I heard mom yell at the man, it was the first time I’ve ever heard her like that. That stunned both me and the man and we instinctively looked at her. She stood there, her face reddened in anger and her fists were clenched.
The man suddenly turned to face me and started apologizing. He looked so desperate as he let out a barrage of sorrys. But my body jerked everytime he moved, let alone accepting his apologies, I couldn’t even pay attention to what he was doing.
Seeing my reaction, the man had a mixed expression of happiness and despair.
“Enough! You came back just to hurt her again!”
“No! I swear, that’s not my intention! I’m just happy to see her again—”
“Shut up! Don’t you know what happened to her?! That girl lost her memories because of you!”
“Eh?”
“Of course you don’t know that! Aside from abusing your own daughter, what else do you know?! She doesn’t remember you, so go away!”
“A-Arina, you don’t remember me?”
I didn’t know who he was, but my body recognized this person. I didn’t know if he was someone important to me or not, but my intuition told me that he was related to me.
We probably had a blood relationship. It was possible that he was my dad.
“Stop talking to her! Get out of my house!”
“Please calm down and listen to me… I regret everything–”
“I don’t care about your regrets! What’s the point of it? It’ll never heal her wounds! Besides, didn’t you promise to never approach us again? Did you forget your promise?!”
My mom was getting angrier by the seconds. I could barely stand up, so I could only lean my body against the wall and watch everything from the sidelines.
“I didn’t forget! I had a change of heart! I was out of my mind back then, I want to atone for everything that I did… I want to start all over again… I’ve always regretted hurting her, hell I don’t even know why I did all that… Arina, I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness, but can you let me atone for you for the rest of my life?”
“The best thing you could do to atone is to stop showing up at our doorstep. Go away!”
“W-Wait! I-I’m–”
His words were cut off as mom gave him a hard slap. That sound triggered something within me, a part of my past.
Back when my dad pushed me down.
The smell of alcohol that stung my nostrils.
He grabbed me by the chin and cursed at me.
His drools were dropping on my cheeks.
His face was stained in black because of the fluorescent light.
My distorted vision, caused by my tears.
My hurting neck.
His bloodshot eyes.
My hair that was about to be ripped by him.
That dark memory resurfaced, I could feel the air forcefully pushed out from my lungs as my consciousness plunged into darkness.
*   *   *
I woke up.
I had no memories of falling asleep. My sense of time confused me, I couldn’t tell if it was currently evening or morning. The unreliable, half-baked sunlight made me feel annoyed.
I was in my pajamas and I could feel a faint minty taste of toothpaste on my mouth. According to my phone, it was currently 6.30 on New Year’s Eve.
It seemed like my other self took over for me.
On the desk was a notebook with a ‘must-read’ sign on it, most likely this was her handiwork.
I opened to the latest page and saw her beautiful Ming Dynasty font writing. I collapsed onto my bed and began to read, relying on the faint sunlight as my lighting. (T/N: Standard Japanese font)
It seemed like after she took over, she politely urged my dad to leave. That man was utterly baffled at the sudden change.
He was about to touch my body, but mom stopped him by threatening to call the police if he ever laid his hands on me. Probably realizing that things were going worse by the second, he bowed to us, apologized and stormed out of the house.
After that, my other self told mom about the personality switch and they talked about various things. The rest of the notes were unimportant, it was just a list of what she did after all that, like what she ate for dinner and which underwear she wore.
From the note, it seemed like dad was arrested for abusing me and he was currently on probation. The fact that he had the opportunity to contact us at any time made me feel unsettled. I didn’t want yesterday’s horror to come back and haunt me again.
I thought I could welcome the New Year on a positive note after having fun with everyone, but his presence yesterday turned that notion around. Now I had to deal with this anxiety for who knows how long.
I wanted to tell Tsuru or Sui about this, but I didn’t want to be a bother. I knew they wouldn’t message me out of nowhere, so if I wanted to tell them about this I had to contact them first but my fingers refused to budge.
I went to the living room, where my mother was watching the TV idly.
“Good morning.”
When I greeted her, she jumped at me.
“Arina! Are you okay?!”
“Eh? M-Mhm, it’s me, I’m okay…”
She hugged me and repeatedly apologized to me. Her voice was weak and her body was trembling. I hugged her back. She felt warm.
I went to wash my face while mom was preparing breakfast. The mirror showed my beautiful face but I wasn’t proud of it. Sometimes, it felt like I was borrowing this face from someone and that made me feel unsettled. I was well aware that it wasn’t normal to feel like this but I wasn’t normal to begin with.
We ate our breakfast in silence, the only sounds that could be heard were the sounds of our chopsticks and the TV I was watching. Slowly, mom put her chopsticks down.
“Arina, if…”
“Yes?”
“If he ever comes to our house again, I’ll call the police. You too, if I’m not here and he comes again, call the police immediately. Do not open the door under any circumstances, okay?”
“Got it.”
“…I’m thinking that we should move out.”
“Eh? Do we need to go that far?”
“Of course.”
“…I can still go to the same school, right?”
“Of course.”
“…I see.”
She took it more seriously than I expected.
It was probably natural for her to act like this. If I were in her shoes, a single mother who had to protect my only daughter, I would definitely try to do whatever I could to protect her.
“Also, don’t go home alone.”
“Yes.”
“By the way, do you normally walk home with someone?”
“Yes…”
If I said that I normally walked alone, she would definitely be worried about me again. I didn’t know what she would do, so I decided to lie to her.
“Is it Sui-kun? You are in a relationship, right?”
“Huh?! No!”
“Hehe, I know. Sui-kun told me everything.”
“Jeez!”
At this point I was sick of hearing about this kind of topic. It was annoying enough to hear the ungrounded rumors about us just because we walked to the school together often. I’ve lost count on how many people have been asking me that same question. That guy seemed to be fed up with it too.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything about this. He was the only person that I could rely on. He had a bad personality, he was a hundred and eighty two feet tall giant and looked scary when he got angry, a perfect bodyguard. He often made absurd jokes, good enough as a smokescreen to catch people off guard.
Anyway, forget about that. I planned to go to hatsumode with Tsuru tomorrow, so I had to cheer myself up before that happened. If I were to go while looking gloomy, she would definitely try to meddle like the busybody she was. She was a good girl though and I loved her as a friend, but I hoped that she would stop teasing me by bringing up Sui all the time. Like, when she invited me she told me repeatedly that she would invite Sui too.
I hoped that I could pass the New Year calmly.