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Post by Emma King on Aug 30, 2013 22:51:46 GMT -5
Emma sat on the couch with her twin. Mom and Dad were talking in the kitchen, and whatever it was seemed really serious. "What do you think they wanna talk to us about?" She was getting worried, and she couldn't help but think of different scenarios that this could go to.
Hotaru leaned against one of the counters in the kitchen, one arm wrapped around her stomach and the other messing with her hair nervously. "Jack... I really don't wanna do this..." She was scared to tell them, really she was. Who knew how they would react...
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Post by Tyler King on Sept 1, 2013 20:43:16 GMT -5
Tyler shrugged and leaned close to whisper conspiratorially to her. "Maybe we're gettin' a puppy?" ALONG with a little sibling? Unlikely, but it was in his nature to try and joke. Especially since his twin was looking so worried.
"We agreed it would be for the best, Ruru..." Jack soothed in the kitchen as he took one of her hands in his own, thumb rubbing over her knuckles to comfort her. "They'll be okay, we'll ALL be okay..." And it was really for the best they heard it from them more than anyone else.
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Post by Emma King on Sept 1, 2013 20:55:55 GMT -5
Emma laughed quietly at Tyler's idea. It didn't ease all her doubts exactly, but it did lighten things up a little bit.
Hotaru glanced down at their hands for a second, then back up to meet Jack's eyes. "Alright, let's just hurry and get it over with..." She just wanted this to be done for good. The redhead walked out of the kitchen with her husband and smiled at her son and daughter on the couch. "Hey you two, good you're sitting down already." Because this was DEFINITELY going to take a while to explain.
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Post by Tyler King on Sept 1, 2013 21:18:27 GMT -5
Tyler was honestly a little... not scared, really, but a bit apprehensive about what they were going to be told. Their Mom hadn't looked much like this since he and Emma were little... She had been terrified and sobbing, and their Dad had told them that they needed to just go and play in their room for a bit... Tyler wasn't sure if Emma remembered it, but he did. "What's up?" he asked, putting on a small smile for them.
Jack took a breath. "There's something we need to talk with you two about..." He glanced to Hotaru silently asking if she wanted to start breaking the news or if he should.
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Post by Emma King on Sept 1, 2013 21:29:37 GMT -5
Hotaru glanced at Jack for a moment and took a deep breath as she went to sit in a nearby chair. "Your father and I... Well, we haven't been completely honest with the two of you..."
The last hopeful gleam in Emma's eyes was crushed at the statement. "What do you mean? Not honest about what?"
The redheaded mother frowned and tried to gather her thoughts. "...A lot of things that happened before you were born." She turned to Jack. "Where should we start?" The fact that their granpa use to be an alcoholic? Her gang? When they first met?
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Post by Tyler King on Sept 1, 2013 21:52:55 GMT -5
Tyler blinked a bit as his parents settled down in the chairs across from the coffee table in front of them. What the heckle-deckle was going on?
"At the beginning would probably work best," Jack supplied. Yutaka could come clean on his own though, that was his issue to bring forth, not theirs. "Do you remember what we told you about the old clan wars, when the ceasefire first started up again? How that was when your mother and I met?"
Tyler nodded slowly. "Yeah... what happened?"
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Post by Emma King on Sept 1, 2013 22:10:15 GMT -5
Hotaru bit her lip for a moment. "Well, um, first off, we were actually at the cemetery when we met. I was visiting a friend of mine's grave." She paused, here's the first one. "You see, he died from a fight with a gang we use to be in."
Emma's eyes widen, and she had to force herself to not giggle. Her mother? HER MOM, had been in a GANG of all things? That just didn't sound right... but they looked so serious, and that scared her.
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Post by Tyler King on Sept 2, 2013 0:23:10 GMT -5
Jack gave a good long look at his children before deciding that they were going to need a lot more information if they were going to explain. "You mother, so long ago that we hadn't met yet, had been part of a gang. It was better than where she was and worse than where she would eventually be, but that was then." It was also when she had met Eva, but that could be told if the twins asked.
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Post by Emma King on Sept 2, 2013 0:38:26 GMT -5
Emma looked at Tyler, then her dad, and back to her mother. "You can't be serious, Mom you don't.."
"Look the part?" Hotaru finished for her daughter. She chuckled quietly and nodded. "Yeah, well if that wasn't enough I was actually the leader at one point. Your Aunt Eva was part of the gang too, she was the one that showed me the ropes." She tool another breath. "Umm, you two know the scars I have right? How I said I was in a fire?" She got a nod in return and continued.
"The fire was during all of that, the friend I mentioned, Greg, he pulled me out. He saved my life then and he saved me again after we tried leaving the gang." Hotaru frowned. "He took a bullet for me, literally. It messed me up for a while, but then I eventually met your father." She glanced at Jack with a loving smile, all these years and he was still the same boy she met back then.
She looked back at the twins, once again serious. "But, our troubles weren't over, in fact they were just starting..." She'd let Jack explain most of the Aiden situation, it was HIS brother after all.
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Post by Tyler King on Sept 2, 2013 0:48:49 GMT -5
Jack took a deep breath. "Your Uncle Aiden was ALSO much different back then... a lot of it was issues that we just don't KNOW about now, since my father had a lot of his medical records destroyed, including a psych evaluation that would have been VERY helpful..." He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he spoke calmly.
"But when I was a little boy and Aiden was barely any older, we lost our mother, and he hadn't been right after that. That trauma..." He searched for a word.
"Festered? Grew?" Tyler offered, hating long pauses in conversation.
Jack nodded. "It deepened, he and you Aunt Tekka were at odds, he blamed her for our mother's death. And maybe back then it made sense to him, but it warped him." He turned to look at his wife. "For a time, he wanted to kill you Mom because she and I were dating."
Tyler's eyebrows shot up. "No way!" He exclaimed. Aiden was VIOLENT sometimes, sure, and he knew how to kick ass six ways to Sunday, but he and Mom got along at least FAIRLY well to the best of Tyler's knowledge...
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Post by Emma King on Sept 2, 2013 1:41:24 GMT -5
Hotaru nodded to husband and looked back at Tyler. "It's true, actually the first time I met him he landed your dad and me in the hospital.
"So, it became clear to us that if we were going to get him to stop we had to stand up to him." The redhead took her purse that was sitting on the coffee table and sat it in her lap nervously. She didn't need her medication for the moment, it just made her feel a little more relaxed(and they hadn't even gotten to the traumatic part yet). "We formed a team of sorts to help. There was us, your Aunt Tekka and Eva, and another friend of ours."
"You guys weren't gonna try and KILL him, were you?!" Emma hadn't realized that had come out of her mouth until it was too late, and she quickly threw her hands over her mouth. She had NEVER yelled at her parents before, but what they were saying just sounded plain crazy.
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Post by Tyler King on Sept 2, 2013 10:24:52 GMT -5
Guilt pooled in Jack's chest at what they had had to consider at the time as he began again. "It was a possibility..." He had even had a shot, a clear shot at Aiden with the gun that didn't suit him and the choice he didn't want. Kage had chosen for him, in the end. "And thankfully, it didn't come to that- though," he amended, "at the time we thought it had."
Tyler's brows furrowed as he leaned forward, almost a perfect mimicry of his father's posture. "Well what's THAT supposed to mean? What happened?" Everyone was FINE now... So it... It had to have been resolved peacefully, right?
"He fell off of a roof, riddled with bullets. ALL of us," he put emphasis on the word, because even injured as he was, Aiden had done a lot of damage. "wound up in the hospital, though." His hand grasped Hotaru's again, half for his sake and half for hers. "Eva knows more about what happened to him there than either of us do, but Aiden lost most of his memories from that fall."
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Post by Emma King on Sept 2, 2013 14:09:55 GMT -5
Hotaru squeezed Jack's hand a little. "We thought it would be for the best if Aiden simply didn't know about what happened with his family, so he wouldn't go back like that and try hunting us down." She could see the confusion in her daughter's eyes. "Eva and my brother, who would've been your Uncle Matsu, were there for him to make sure he didn't do anything stupid."
Emma rose her hand up just a little, a habit from school when she had a question. "So, you're saying he just didn't remember any of you and you left him like that?" That didn't make sense to her. "But... he CLEARLY knows you now..."
The redhead squeezed her husband's hand a little tighter. "Matsuda eventually told him when he thought he could handle it, by then Anya had just been born and I guess he thought it would help with grasping things in a better way." She knew how her brother thought, and it seemed like a logical thing. "And as much as I hate to say it, it couldn't have come at a better time..." She trailed off, fumbling with her purse using her free hand. She couldn't talk about this one, she just couldn't, it was too hard.
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Post by Jack King on Sept 5, 2013 19:56:53 GMT -5
Tyler rose back up to sit straight as he glanced from his mother to his father. "What happened..?" His voice... was apprehensive, not sure if he truly wanted to know but at the same time so VERY curious...
Jack rubbed his thumb over the back of Ruru's hand to try and keep her calm. "A trio of psychopaths... took your mother from me." Even now he still didn't know all of the details of what had happened, and he wasn't going to force Hotaru to remember unless she thought she could handle it. Even then, though, he wasn't sure he himself would be really ready to handle it either. "They had her for three weeks..." His voice was quiet and sad, disappointed in himself. He SHOULD have, acted quicker. He should have found her faster. He should have had a perimeter set up to not let the head psycho escape.
Should have, should have, should have...
"The did... terrible things to your mother, but in the end we got her out." He glanced down, unable to meet his daughter's or his son's eyes. "But Matsu... Your Uncle, Matsuda, died in the rescue."
Died without knowing whether or not Hotaru was safe, if their mission was a success. Died without telling Keisko that he loved her one last time. Died without seeing his children, or seeing them grow up.
He hoped Aiden had made the bastard that killed him suffer.
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Post by Emma King on Sept 6, 2013 0:12:37 GMT -5
Emma's eyes widen, while it sounded insane(much like the rest of their story), things were slowly starting to make sense. Their mother had always been so paranoid about her and Tyler when it came to times when she couldn't keep an eye on them herself. And their uncle, every time Roman, Perri, or even one of them asked about how he died the adults always seemed to dance around the topic...
The grey eyed twin turned to her mother, hesitant in asking what she was so curious yet scared to find out. "Mom... What did they do to you..?"
The redhead let out a strained laugh, she'd been trying and failing to stay calm and her sudden trembling showed it. "Funny thing... I've never been able to remember." She messed with her hair nervously, while it had grown since then it had never gone back to the full length it use to be. "When... when your father found me I was drugged up and my hair was all chopped up."
Hotaru searched through her purse, finding the prescription of pills she hated taking every day for nearly eighteen years. She tried getting off of them at one point... that hadn't gone too well. She passed the bottle across to Emma shakily. "I've told you two these were for headaches, but that's not exactly the case..."
Emma took the bottle of pills, holding it between Tyler and herself so he could read it too. "'Take one a day... or when hallucinations occur.'"
What...?
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