#i fr need to decide on a format for posting my ao3 stuff adhjfghd

[appreciatingtokrev]

of loving men and /loving/ men

link to ao3

rating: t (rated t for mentions/descriptions of abuse, neglect, trauma, death, and grief)

archive warnings: chose not to use archive warnings

relationships: kisaki hideko (kisaki tetta’s mother) & kisaki tetta

characters: kisaki hideko (kisaki tetta’s mother)

additional tags: hanma shuji, mentioned kisaki tetta, kisaki tetta dies, kisaki tetta’s father, non-linear narrative, angst, hurt no comfort, character study, relationship study, regret, grief/mourning, family issues, physical abuse, emotional/psychological abuse, past domestic violence, neglect, child neglect, past child abuse, trauma, mental health issues, minor character death, canonical character death, original character death(s)

wordcount: ~4.3k

notes: her name is (with permission) directly taken from the diary of a boy who will never be missed by @/ruoyeah on ao3 btw,, this fic is also inspired by said work, as well as mourning sickness by @/dazed (spiritscript), also on ao3!! also i think i could write abt hideko forever i grew too attached to her... i love her sm and somehow writing this was very easy?? i see it as a win

Tetta’s mother is a wreck. Hideko is a wreck. Hideko is a punching bag, a ghost, and anything she could possibly be, except herself.

Or: A study on Kisaki Tetta’s mother.

She sees him standing in front of her son’s grave. His name is Hanma, she guesses, and he looks just as sad as she does with his shoulders held low and his hood on his head. Her hair is starting to go gray, and she’s only thirty-five. She’s not pretty anymore, and she’s still so young. The grief doesn’t suit her.

He turns around as she walks closer, recognising the familiar blue in her eyes. ,,Are you Kisaki’s mother?’’, he asks, and the grief doesn’t suit him either. He’s letting his hair grow out, it seems, and his voice is monotone. There’s no smile decorating his lips, only a cigarette.

,,I’m Kisaki Hideko’’, she introduces herself, ,,I believe that you’re Hanma? You were his friend.’’ She tries to smile, but the corners of her mouth only waver.

 

,,I’m Kisaki Hideko’’, she introduces herself, ,,I got married last month. Please change my name in your database.’’ She smiles. Her hair isn’t gray yet.

,,Oh, congratulations!’’, the girl at the counter exclaims, and types something into the computer in front of her. Probably her new name. It feels too fresh, too unfamiliar, but she likes the sound of it. Kisaki. Like her husband. Like the little boy that’s growing in her womb.

,,Thank you, dear’’, she says and bows her head. ,,I’m very happy, he’s a loving man.’’ A loving man who kisses her belly every morning, and who runs his fingers through her hair. A loving man who brings her flowers, and makes her tea. A loving man who’s never home, and hits her with his belt. She’s still not sure which part is real and which part she pretends is.

,,I’m very glad for you. I hope to one day marry a man like yours’’, the girl says, smiling, fully believing it’s real. It makes her believe it’s real. That he’s a loving man, and that the little Kisaki inside her belly will turn out to be a loving man, too. She’s sure of it.

 

And Tetta was a loving man. Perhaps he was too loving for his girl. Perhaps she was too loving for him. Or not loving enough. It was hard to love when the people you love loved through abuse and neglect. She now knows that she did it wrong herself. Loving. All her life, she thought that there was one thing you couldn’t fail, no matter what—and yet here she is, standing in front of a gravestone, with everything she ever claimed to love buried six feet under.

She now knows that she loved wrongly. She fell in love with the wrong man, gave birth to the wrong boy, and raised him wrongly. Both the loving man that she married and the loving man that she carried in her belly for nine months are dead, and she doesn’t think she ever wanted to love them at all. Not the man who hit her when he wasn’t away like always, and not the man who was away when he didn’t hit her like always.

 

Tetta always watches when he hits her. She doesn’t know why. Out of fear, maybe, out of power, out of love. He looks at her with those big eyes full of pain and hate and rage. She hopes that the hate and rage are for her husband. And she looks back with the same emotions on her face.

She hugs Tetta when he leaves the room, holds him close. He doesn’t move. She lays her head on his shoulder, and she doesn’t cry. He’s already five years old. It’s nothing new.

 

It’s nothing new when Tetta comes home with bruises. He’s thirteen, and he’s a delinquent, and he knows what to do. He knows half of the books in the library by heart, and she knows how double the bruises on his body feel. They feel like love. She smiles, he must have a loving boy. Girls don’t hit, only boys do, and she doesn’t care because her son looks normal and loved.

She teaches Tetta how to hide the bruises, how to touch them up with makeup. They’re standing in front of the bathroom sink. She’s looking at his blue eyes in the mirror. They’re the same color as hers, the same color as the sky, the same color as the monster in her nightmares. They’re beautiful. She corrects Tetta when he applies too much foundation. It’s meant to look like his skin is perfect. No bruises, no makeup. Flawless, just like everything else about him.

Tetta comes home with blood on his face and broken glasses. He wears a proud smile. She asks him what happened, why he’s so happy. He says that he watched a horrible person die a horrible death. That day, she wonders if he saw her smile as she watched her loving man die. She wonders if his loving boy died. She wonders if she killed him. She wonders if he did.

 

Days after Tetta’s death, it’s the first time in eighteen years that she allows herself to try and break down the facade again. It’s hard. It’s hard to let out the seventeen year old girl in herself when she was defined by having money, smiling, and being hit for so long. It’s hard to let out the little kid in herself when she wanted nothing but for herself to be a good mother, and she failed nothing except that. It’s hard when you ended up being the most unloving loving mother. But, still, she tries her best. So she goes to buy a stuffed cat and cuts it open with a pair of scissors after she comes home. And then she cries.

 

One day, she notices that Tetta hasn’t come home with bruises in a while. ,,Does he not love you anymore?’’, she asks him.

,,Who?’’, he asks back, staring at her face with his blue eyes. With her blue eyes. And his cheekbones. And jawline. And eyebrows, and ears, and lips, and teeth, and hair color. He bleaches his hair a lot, but it’s not enough to cover the black roots. It’s like makeup. It fades out, and it stops hiding the ugly bruises she gets from her loving man. It stops hiding the black hair he inherited from his loving father.

,,You know, the boy you love. The one who caused all the bruises. He must’ve loved you as much as my husband loved me’’, she explains. What she’s talking about is all normal, she tells herself, it’s how love is supposed to work. Because love is suffering through pain for someone, love is covering up the issues for them, love is looking at your bruises at night, and it’s smiling about your lover’s dead body at the foot of the stairs.

,,Oh, he’s gone. But there’s a girl I’ve loved for even longer. She’s precious. She wouldn’t ever hit anyone’’, Tetta says. She wonders if his loving boy was the one who he smiled about when he came home with broken glasses, but she doesn’t ask. It’s not important anyway. She’s glad that there’s a girl that he loves so much. She’s glad that he doesn’t get hit anymore. She’s glad that she pushed him down the stairs, and that Tetta smiled about his death.

 

Her father reaches for her hand, and she flinches away before grabbing his. She squeezes his fingers, doesn’t let go. ,,My precious daughter....’’, he breathes out, and she tries to pretend that it means something as he continues, ,,I love you. Don’t cry.’’ She does. She sobs, horribly, and she screams. The word love doesn’t mean anything to her, but she feels like she’s robbed of everything she’s ever had. His hand slips from hers, he’s dead. And she’s all alone, because her loving man is at work, away, somewhere at the other end of the sea, and she doesn’t have anyone else.

 

Tetta’s favorite food is fried rice with lots of vegetables, and she makes sure to cook it often. Just for him. Hence, she’s filling bowls with tofu, spicy rice, and lots of carrots. She sets the table, makes sure to place his plate between his chopsticks and a glass of water, right beside her own. ,,Tetta!’’, she calls, ,,Dinner is ready.’’ Soon after, he arrives as she’s already sitting on her chair, waiting for him to join in, but he just grabs his food and chopsticks. He turns around, goes back to his room. She sighs, and starts her dinner, and it tastes as bland as every day that she has it alone because her own son won’t look her in the eyes.

 

,,Hanma Shuji. Nice to meet you, ma’am’’, he says. She has to look up to see his eyes. He’s so much taller than her, than Tetta, about the height of her late husband. His eyes are dull, one is yellow, one purple. She doesn’t know why she searches for the blue in every pair.

,,I’m sorry’’, is all she can manage. She doesn’t know what else to say. Her son is dead, and she loved him so much that it wasn’t enough. She wishes that she’d never given birth to him. She wishes that she’d never loved him.

 

,,I hate you’’, she whispers, cradling Tetta in her arms. He’s sleeping soundly, and she doesn’t want to wake him. He looks so peaceful, so weak wrapped up in the white blanket. It scares her. It scares her; that he could die.

,,I hate you so much, Tetta. I wish I would’ve never given birth to you’’, she continues to whisper. She loves him. She hopes that he’ll live forever. Tetta’s just a little boy, and he deserves the world, she thinks. He deserves everything that she gives him, and everything that she doesn’t.

 

She hates the grave that she stands in front of. Her hair is starting to go gray, and there are two bodies buried under the flowers. Two loving men. One that she loved too much, and one that she didn’t love enough. She misses the bruises. She misses the laughter. She misses herself. But she doesn’t miss either of the dead men.

 

Often, she dreams of blue skies, and she’s just a little girl dreaming of happiness and comfort. She dreams of blue skies over green flower fields, blue skies over dark and mysterious forests, blue skies over rivers running full of blood. She’s only four, she’s only five, she’s only six, only seven, eight, nine, ten. She doesn’t know what the blue skies and the rivers full of blood mean. Sometimes she wishes she does.

 

Her loving man leans down, gets on one knee, and holds up a little ring. She knows that it’s his grandmother’s wedding ring, and that it means the world to him. He asks if she wants to marry him, and she says yes as she breaks out in tears. She doesn’t know if she cries because she’s happy or if she does because she’s sad. He doesn’t hold her.

He never holds her. He didn’t hold her when she was seventeen, he didn’t hold her when her father died, he didn’t hold her on the day they got married. He didn’t hold her when she gave birth to their son. He wasn’t even there. All he ever does is give her money, and flowers, and expensive dresses, and yet another credit card. She’s happy, she’s glad that she can create her own life, but sometimes she just really wants to be held.

 

Tetta never tells her about his friends. She asks and asks, but he always says that he doesn’t want to talk. She says that she knows that he sneaks in every day, every night, that he could walk through the door instead. He says that she’s hallucinating. That she’s making it up to make him feel bad about not ever bringing anyone over.

One day, Tetta tells her that his name is Hanma. That she should finally stop asking questions, because it’s his business, not hers. So she does. She starts pressing her ear to the door of his room and smiles when she hears them laugh. She smiles when he hears Tetta curse out Hanma for eating chips on his bed. She smiles when she hears Hanma’s screams of joy for winning a video game and Tetta’s snickers about how his mother shouldn’t find out that he’s there.

 

Their house always feels so empty. Most of the time, Tetta is there, but it’s as if he isn’t. He’s completely silent, staying in his room all day, closing the door when he comes into the kitchen to get food. She doesn’t know what to make of it. She tells him that he doesn’t always have to study, that he can take breaks, tells him that she won’t be mad if he’s in the living room, that it’s okay if he makes noises, that she won’t go and snoop around in his things if he doesn’t lock the door. But Tetta doesn’t listen, and she feels so guilty and helpless, and she tries to forget it by always having television run in the background.

Tetta starts to go out with his delinquent friends a lot, and while she’s happy for him, she’s mostly happy for herself. He has a good life, he does nice things, and she doesn’t have to feel miserable about their house feeling so empty all the time because it is. There is no loving man in their house, most of the time, and neither is there a loving boy. And she feels alone, so very alone and lonely, but now she has the right to be sad about it.

 

She picks up the stuffed cat that her mother just bought her. It’s fluffy, and big, and warm. It makes her feel safe. She looks at her mother, into her dark eyes, and she searches for something she’s never seen. ,,Go play in your own room. I need to do work. Hush!’’, she shoos, gesturing towards the door. She looks back one last time, then leaves, running away until she climbs onto her bed. She takes her scissors and starts to cut open the fluffy cat because there is no love in her mother’s eyes, and the only affection she gets is money. And it doesn’t matter anyway because she will just buy her a new one without asking what happened to the other.

 

When Tetta brings home good grades, she smiles. When Tetta brings home bruises, she smiles. When Tetta brings home books, she smiles. When Tetta gets brought home in a casket, she smiles. All she’s ever done is smile, and she only stops after she knows that her loving men are both dead because she’s seen both of their corpses. She thinks that she should hate herself. She’s sad, and she’s not smiling anymore, but she’s relieved that they’re gone. She’s always been scared of the name Kisaki.

She loves Tetta. She loves him with all her heart, all her might, and she loves that he’s dead. She wishes that he’d never died. She wishes that she’d raised him differently. That she’d gotten rid of her husband earlier in life. That she’d never given birth to her son. That he’d been born into another family. She still loves him too much.

 

,,What for?’’, he asks. He lifts his cigarette up to his lips, takes another drag. He turns his head away to breathe out the smoke, caring enough not to blow it into her face. She wonders why this boy cares more than hers ever did.

,,For loving him’’, she says. It doesn’t make sense to him, she knows that, but it’s the truth. She’s sorry for everything. And everything she’s ever done was love the wrong man and love the wrong son.

Hanma looks at her. This time he doesn’t look away to breathe out the smoke, blows it right into her face. She coughs, does her best to stop. She stares up at his face. His eyebrows are softer, his jawline is even sharper, his cheekbones are lower, his lips are wider, his hair is darker than the bleach and lighter than the roots, and his ears are rounder, his teeth are not the same. She doesn’t know why she keeps comparing everyone to him. Everyone except herself.

 

Tetta is turning out pretty well. She’s raising him the way her mother raised her, with neglect. She gives him food, and water, and a warm bed, and money. She gives him the opportunity, he builds his own life. He buys books, and snacks, and a video game console, and she knows that he dislikes video games, and that it’s for Hanma, but she doesn’t say anything.

She hopes that the money is enough to keep him happy. She never comforts him, and he never cries. He doesn’t stand still in the doorway and stares as he hits her anymore, because he’s dead, and she goes to place new flowers on his grave and throw away the old ones every two weeks. It snows, and she ignores her freezing hands as she digs through the inches to reach for the old petals.

 

She blows out the seventeen candles on her chocolate cake. She doesn’t really like chocolate, prefers vanilla, but she feels like she should be happy that her father left a cake for her birthday in the freezer because it’s still better than nothing. It’s her only gift, except for the new book she bought herself, because her father is at work, far far away, and her boyfriend is staying with his grieving mother, who’s just lost her husband. And she thinks that she should be happy, because at least she has a birthday cake, and birthday candles, and a birthday wish, but she also knows that she will never truly be loved, no matter how many wishes she makes.

 

They never go somewhere together. A few times she’s asked if Tetta would like to go anywhere, but he said no every time, arguing that he could just go alone. Or that she could go alone, if she wanted to. Or to find someone else to do things with because he doesn’t want to. It’s not her fault, she thinks, that she wasn’t ever there for him. There never was any moment in his life in which he needed someone other than himself. She would have been there. She would have been there to stop the truck if she had known.

 

He’s a small child, barely ten, and he brings home a friend for the first time. His name is Takemichi. He has black hair and green eyes. He’s loud, he talks a lot, and Tetta looks at him as if he was heaven and hell at the same time. She cuts a mango and some melon into slices, puts it all into a bowl, and brings it into his room. Takemichi’s eyes shine bright, he grins and bows his head. Tetta just nods. She leaves and closes the door behind her. It’s the last time Takemichi ever comes over, and it’s the last time Tetta shows her one of his friends.

 

,,Father, do you think that mother will ever come back?’’, she asks, looking up from her book to study his expression. It shifts from a peaceful reading face to that of a man after five years of war. He furrows his brows, unfocuses his eyes, and wrinkles form on his forehead as he slightly scrunches up his nose. The corners of his mouth waver in a sad attempt to smile.

,,I don’t know. I don’t know, Hideko’’, he says, slowly shaking his head. She knows that he tells the truth, she knows, and she still hopes that he’s lying. She still hopes for her mother to come back. Even though she’s just a woman, just a woman in a thirteen year old girl’s life who tries to keep her happy by buying her expensive gifts and credit cards. A woman who doesn’t realise that all her daughter’s ever wanted was to be loved, to be held, to be looked at with gentle eyes and a soft smile. And she vows to never ever become such a mother herself, and instead hug her future son, to hug him, even if he doesn’t cry, and to show him how much she cares.

 

She loved her son so much that it wasn’t enough. She didn’t love her husband enough, and it still ended up being too much. They’re both dead. Now she’s stuck with just herself, and she doesn’t think that she can ever love herself again after everything she’s done and lived through. She misses the green flower fields, and the dark, mysterious forests in her dreams. She misses the happiness that the blue skies brought. She misses herself, and she misses the little girl she used to love so much. Because when she was a child, there had been no one else to love except herself.

 

Her loving man calls, she puts him on speaker after his request. Four year old Tetta’s sitting on her knees, excitedly waiting for his father to tell him that he’ll be back before the next day. ,,I’m sorry, darling, I’m so very sorry, Tetta. I can’t make it today. Expect me to be home next month instead. I miss and love you both, but I have to go now. Goodbye’’, is all he says. Tetta frowns, pouts, his lip is trembling. But he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t scream. She smiles.

,,I’m sure he’ll be back next time, Tetta. Only two more weeks’’, she tries to lift both of their spirits. It doesn’t work. Tetta gets up, tells her that he’s fine, walks into his own room, and closes the door. He doesn’t need her, or any of her love. Nor does he need his father. All he needs is himself, and the world at his feet, but he’s at the feet of the world instead, and she wonders why a four year old tries to be so grown up when all she wishes for is to be a kid again.

 

Tetta never hits her. He never hits anyone, as far as she knows. He’s a delinquent, and he fights, he beats up people, but only the ones who can hit back. She fears that he will never love anyone because love is supposed to hurt. Love is supposed to rob you of yourself. She knows that Tetta will grow up to be a loving man, that he will never hit anyone, and that his love won’t hurt. And she’s jealous of that.

Tetta never gets hit. She doesn’t hit him, because women don’t hit. Girls don’t hit. And her loving man, she doesn’t know why, but she thinks he doesn’t love their son because he never hits him, and inflicting pain is how he shows his love. Or maybe he loves him through her, he loves through the money he gives her that she then gives Tetta. But that doesn’t really count, she thinks, because he never looks Tetta in the eyes and smiles when she gives him his money because he’s never home.

 

She looks at the stairs, and thinks about how they killed one of her loving men. She remembers the other. A truck. She remembers the man in the truck, scrambles for her phone. She calls the police department, asks for the man who killed her loving boy. He was sent to the hospital, she gets told, and then she calls the number they tell her when she asks about it. Someone picks up. She asks for his name. He’s alive, they say, he barely made it. They ask if she’s family, and she says that she is. She asks if they have his number. They do, and she calls him.

,,I forgive you’’, she whispers when he picks up, ,,I forgive you for killing my son.’’ A sad laugh escapes her. She still loves him too much. She’s glad that he’s dead. She wishes that he’d been immortal. The man says something, but she doesn’t understand what. She can’t concentrate on the words. All she can concentrate on is herself, herself and her two dead, loving men. She hangs up, and goes to drink a glass of water.

 

She has everything she’s ever wanted, and somehow, she’s still broken all of the promises she’s made with herself as a kid. She promised to love her future son, to love him with warmth, with welcoming arms. She promised to marry a kind man, one who doesn’t hit or scream, one who cares. She promised not to do any of the mistakes her parents did. And still, twenty-five years later, she’s lying in her bed at night with a husband who hits, and a son who never tells her good night. And all the money in her bank account, all the marriage certificates on her desk, and all the birth papers in her drawer can’t fix it.

 

Hanma sighs. He nods. He takes another puff of his cigarette. He blows more smoke into her face. He stares into her eyes. ,,I thought I loved the color blue’’, he says, and then he turns around. She, too, thought that she loved the color blue. In reality, she loved her old self. What little that was left of her. She stared at his blue eyes so much because they resembled her own.

,,It was nice to meet you’’, she calls after him. Maybe he doesn’t hear her, maybe he just doesn’t react. He walks away without looking back. She turns to the gravestone, and thinks about the blue in her eyes, in his eyes, in the sky, and in the monster from her nightmares. The monster is a little girl, with tears on her cheeks, and blood on her hands. It’s her. It’s the tears she cries for all the people she loves. It’s the blood of all the people she’s killed by loving wrongly. It’s the blood of herself.

tag list: @offtaskotaku

#☆—`writing #i fr need to decide on a format for posting my ao3 stuff adhjfghd #tokrev #kisaki #kisaki tetta #kisaki hideko #also taku i mean ik you were excited on this one but you are on my general fic taglist right? right?? #i don’t think we’ve ever established it adhjhjg #i certainly wanna be on yours tho!! art tag list of it that exists!! all the tag lists