The Brightest Shadow: Teenage Days

MEMORIES: BITTER AND SWEET! 

"Only six years…that's what we agreed on! Six years! Or were they too much for you to handle?" A husky, booming voice that, belonging to Travis reverberated across the spacious room with a query that sent chills to paste themselves onto the figure of a man who was standing five minutes away from him. 

"You failed to keep your promise…!" Travis blurted with a voice that was cracking up with emotions. He aired the words with great difficulty whilst his dewy eyes carefully watched the face of the man in front of him harden with coldness. 

"What did I do to receive this kind of treatment from you? Does it not matter how long I waited?" Travis questioned in a brittle voice as soon as he took timid steps towards the man's direction— a man who did not dare to soften his face, rather he put on a face that lacked emotions and warmness. 

Slowly but surely, the man turned his features, together with his figure away from the saddened Travis that was already weeping. 

"I'm sorry, but…you are late! It could have been earlier!" In a quiet, innocent voice, the man suddenly spoke. A tear that Travis did not see, rushed down his chubby, blooming cheek and without saying more, he stormed out of the room— leaving behind Travis whose lips were parted with flabbergast.  

Travis who was left alone immediately collapsed on the floor with a mind that was deeply reconnecting with poisonous thoughts— thoughts that brought back all the memories. Be it, good ones and depressing ones. 

•••

[Seven Years Ago] 

—16 June 2016—

A family of large, hideously ill-omened clouds were rapidly rendezvousing and floating in the tar-coloured sky of Tokyo. A clap of thunder roared as soon as a flash of light discharged itself between the gloomy clouds. 

"Smells like rain!" Travis murmured scarcely when thunder rumbled once again with renewed vigor— to his cousin, Arthur over a video call. 

"Oh well…It's—" 

"Wait a minute…I'll be back!" Travis interrupted Arthur whilst he jumped out of bed to shuffle towards the slightly opened sash window as soon as he heard a car screech. Peeking through the transparent turquoise curtain, he sighted a car screech to a halt, thirty seconds away from a trail of cream-white coloured stairs that led into the huge mansion. 

His eyes widened with depressed darkness and fright shortly after pasting themselves on the gigantic figure of his father, Mr Fujiriki, throwing himself out of a black SUV. Slowly, Travis's eyes fell into a void of Mr Fujiriki's enraged eyes, encouraging his heart to sink with aghast into the rooms of his throat. 

Travis always knew the meaning of that distorted face his father made. He knew the answer to why his father's eyes were red with rage— he knew it all and he was aware that he was in trouble. 

"Travis? Travis? Can you hear me?" A breaking voice of Arthur asked over the phone. It did no matter how long Travis had shifted from the screen, Arthur was already growing worried. He waited for two minutes and when he did not get a reply he disconnected. 

"I hope it won't hurt!" Travis whispered with a trail of tears escaping from his eyes. The air around him became heavier and heavier for him to inhale an instant he saw his father rush into the house. Mr Fujiriki's hands were harshly clasping a pink file as his calm eyes albeit filled with indignation narrowed at Travis as if warning him. 

There was visible threat in his tottering steps as he disappeared in the mansion. Travis stood still next to the window and allowed the lightning to illuminate aghast that was covering his face. 

"More name-calling! More stab wounds in my heart! What does today bring me?" Silently, Travis cried as he tightly closed his eyes. 

"Where the hell is he!?" 

Mr Fujiriki's voice was heard calling out from the living room. His deep, sonorous voice threw a query that everyone [maids] had to give an answer to or else, hell will break loose. The two huge brown doors opened with a loud clang enabling the waves of a life-threatening tone to echo across the big, sumptuous house. 

Startled, all the five maids scurried away to the living room to find their master cheesing off as he aggravatedly crumpled a document that had tiny writings in black and red ink. 

"TRAVIS!" 

Mr Fujiriki growled, pacing angrily near the start of the staircase, leading to Travis's room. The jacket he had worn was unceremoniously thrown on the floor as audible swears swam out of his lips. 

His voice was incredibly loud— it was so thunderous that none of the people present in the living room made sense of the words he was huffing. 

"Need I have to repeat myself to you?" Mr Fujiriki questioned as soon as a 1,85m tall, slim-figured boy showed up— slowly flying downstairs. His teary-filled and terrified eyes which were hidden by his black, long fringes, locked themselves on the white-tilled floor. 

"So…sorry, father!" In a quiet, wobbly voice, Travis muttered an apology. His slim, veiny fingers were nervously fiddling with the sleeves of his white-striped, black polo shirt. "It won't happen…again!" Travis continued to express. 

His eyes instantly squeezed themselves shut a second his father's huge hands tightened onto his collar, forcing him to look into his bloodshot, dark eyes. 

"I should have killed…I should've allowed you to be born!" His father spat the words that swiftly created a hole into Travis's heart— they pierced through his throbbing organ like a merciless dagger meant to end his life in an instant. 

"Wha…!" 

Raising his dewy eyes at his father, Travis whispered, his forehead frowning with confusion. 

Without warning, Mr Fujiriki's rough palm landed on Travis's right cheek, giving him an open-handed blow that coerced his head to turn. Just as he was adjusting to the pain, another blow landed on his left cheek— encouraging him to lose balance and fall on all fours. 

His vision went vivid and blurry. The maids instantly looked down when their young master fell— no one dared to talk. 

"Mitsumi! What are you doing!?" 

A squat woman in her late middle age [49 of age], stormed inside the house with two men with the size of a goliath behind her. Her chestnut eyes dilated in horror at the sight of seeing her grandson hustled on the floor. 

"TRAVIS!"

She called out to Travis who was shaking his head as he hoped to get his best vision back. His nose was bleeding out a stream of crimson blood like a stuck pig. He was now shuddering like a signal flame held high. The maids were too afraid to rush to him, he was in a daze and the voices of those who were speaking sounded like they were muffled by the air. 

He gulped and drew air into his lungs abruptly when he felt his oesophagus closing in. At this point, Travis believed that he was going to die— he'd time and time again mutter inaudible words that no one heard. His vision betrayed him and went completely dark and that was all he remembered. 

•••

[A Year Later] 

—31 December 2017—

A year passed and no matter the approximate days and months that went by, that particular rainy day still lived in the chambers of Travis's heart like no other. 

Immediately after getting better, his grandmother, Mrs Park, took him away to live with, in South Korea, Seoul— there, where he spent a full year learning Korean. 

31st December; a day when Travis normally received presents and words of wisdom, was now a nightmare for him. It was his nineteenth birthday and he wished it never came; hence instead of enjoying a party his grandmother threw him, he sneaked out to a night club where he vowed to get himself drunk as a skunk. 

As he was drowning his liver in the smooth, milky flavour of Makgeolli, his eyes met a familiar tiny-figured boy being roughly pulled outside by two huge men. They rushed him outside as they ensured that their huge fists cluttered the individual's face. 

"Why isn't anyone doing something!?" Tavis asked himself, as he scanned the faces of people who completely ignored what was happening. He stealthily followed them and as soon as he was outside, a cold wind kissed his skin, sending shivers down his spine. 

Two minutes away from where he was, in a dark lane, Travis heard a sorrowful cry that made him guess that it was the boy he saw earlier, crying. He instantly dialled 112 with a racing heart.  

Sooner; the police arrived and the men immediately galloped. 

"What an extraordinary meeting! Will you remember me?" 

•••