(BL) Mafia Love; He who falls the hardest loses-Chapter 97: Nightmare

Hiroshi watched the young child playing ball in the driveway with the gardener his father employed after his mother became too sick to tend to the flowers.

He raised his head to look at the pale woman standing at the window watching the same boy. Hiroshi took a step closer to the boy hoping he would be able to shield the boy from seeing what was to come.

He turned to the woman. She wore now wore a smile although he eyes still had a dead look as though all the colours in her life had long faded away. He looked at the child and back at her wondering if he could save her.

That was his mother, the only woman he loved through all his life. The woman who gave him both sorrow and joy. He wanted to stop her so he tried. He didn’t want her to die. She was so much better without the illness that took her smile from her.

She used to laugh out loud whenever he did something silly. She would never resist hugging him tightly and rumpling his hair while planting so many kisses on his face. Her kisses used to tickle him so he would join her laughing heartily.

His father was not around most of the time since he worked in a faraway country and barely had the time to visit but whenever he was around, he would not hold back from joining the fun. He could still remember his father reaching for his mum to tickle her instead with kisses.

Then he liked the fact that he had someone to support him against his mum as she would laugh and beg them to stop tickling. She had the most beautiful laugh ringing beautifully in his ears. After his mother fell ill, his father’s visit was reduced either because of her sickness or because he got busier.

The small child smiling as he played ball with the young gardener who was once his mother’s student stopped and raised his head to that window. Hiroshi watched as the boy’s smile disappeared and he trembled shaking his head firmly.

The boy parted his lips to speak, to tell his mother to leave the window that it was dangerous after all, he had witnessed her fall from it before. The boy couldn’t say the word, those words he so desperately wanted to say before the woman climbed onto the window sill and dropped down.

Hiroshi felt his heart seize along with his breathing as he gasped, the terror ran fresh through his veins as he remained frozen unable to either stop her or protect the boy from witnessing such horror.

The woman who should have protected him, who should have shielded him from horrors was the same person who displayed it without hesitation.

Screams filled Hiroshi’s ears, was it his or was it from the little boy? Or was it both? His was loudest though. The blonde woman’s body lay sprawled on the pavement with her limps bent unnaturally even despite the free fall she did that looked as though there was a bed waiting for her on the ground.

Hiroshi tried to breathe but all his body did was scream until it could release any more sound and refused to inhale anymore. He tried to force himself to breathe to take in a deep breath.

He wanted to desperately to breathe yet he could only gasp for air as though the entire world around him had run out of oxygen. He reached for his throat as the word helpless kept pounding in his head almost as loud as his palpitating heart and throbbing headache.

His mother had been helpless, she had been sick and slowly spiralling down but she got no care, no one cared, not her family, not her husband and not him, her son. Perhaps that was why she took the wicked route to let him watch what his lack of help did to her.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he began gasping for air and coughing so hard his chest hurt. Rushing down from the bed, he opened the fridge pulled out a bottle of water and gulped it down hastily until the entire bottle was empty.

He looked down at his state sitting on the cold floor of the room and made up his mind to leave the house and never return but the last thing he would do is sell it. This was where his mother set up her workshop.

This was the house where she painted all her most prized artworks and he knew it would go for a lot with the backstory of the house but he didn’t want to sell it, he knew she wouldn’t want him to sell it.

Back in Japan, she was a long-forgotten memory and for him not to end up like her, it was best he stayed there or at least far away from this house. After showing up and dressing up, he called a bigger car and packed up all his brother’s things into the car before carrying his bag too.

He went straight to a hotel since he had no idea where Aki kept the key to his house in the city. He then went to the hospital to visit Aki. Aki was asleep when he got to his room. He closed the door and went to sit beside Aki’s bed.

He massaged his temples as he thought of how he had gone home to rest but ended up with so much headache, that he felt as though his head was filled with gravel and its weight had become so much it could roll off.

He sighed and looked at the visitor’s bed made available in the room and considered going to sleep but he shook his head instead when he remembered the nightmare. As much as he thought it was just the house, he was not certain he would be able to sleep peacefully.

"Brother," Aki called out as he turned his head to look at his brother.

"Aki," Hiroshi responded casually but his voice came out a bit hoarse along with the pain of a sore throat. To think that he had been screaming out from his dreamland, made him want to walk out of the room to find a psychologist in the hospital. "How do you feel?"

"Better, a lot better," Aki replied as he tried to sit up.

"I don’t think you should try sitting up," Hiroshi warned him worried that his younger brother would strain himself.

"I am better. At least I can sit up without much problem," Aki told him to stop worrying as he sat up and adjusted the bed and pillow by himself. "You don’t look too good what are those on your neck?"

Hiroshi touched his neck and stung a bit. "I got bit by a bug and I ended up scratching a bit too much," Hiroshi replied casually. He smiled when he saw the worry in Aki’s eyes intensify. "That was why I moved your things from that house. I think they need to fumigate that place a bit."

"Oh, where are my things then?"

"At a hotel. We will take them to your house when you get better. Have you eaten?"

Aki nodded his head. The medical personnel have been serious about his meals although he was only allowed to eat fluid-like meals which was frustrating enough for him.

"I will go get something to eat," Hiroshi told him as he rose up from the chair and gave Aki a light pat.

When he got to the door, Aki stopped him and said, "Father called, he said Haruki did not seem pleased."

That name caused his heart to drop to the pit of his stomach. Haruki the man he was crazy about, the man he had come to love more than life itself seemed to have been forgotten during the period he spent in this country.

He had ignored all appropriate procedures to take a leave as Haruki’s doctor but that didn’t matter at all. He raised his hand to touch his face and then his forehead as he wondered what went wrong with his brain when he made the decision to visit Aki without Haruki’s permission.

Aki watched the little bit of colour that was left on Hiroshi’s face disappear at the mention of Haruki and he could not understand the weird feeling it gave him.

Hiroshi glanced at Aki meeting his eyes for a few seconds and appreciated him for the information before walking out of the room. Instead of going to get his meal, he attempted to text Haruki but he got no response so he went to buy a local SIM card.

He stepped into a café and ordered a cup of coffee and a sandwich. He chose a private spot in a corner and dialled Haruki’s number as his hands shook slightly.

He wondered what Haruki would say, he knew this time, he might have committed a crime that didn’t deserve forgiveness and as much as it scared him that Haruki wouldn’t forgive him, he still wanted to try.

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