Chapter 14 Head Balloons (7) The home where Yota Sato was born...
Yota Sato was born into a family that was not well-off.
It could be said that she grew up in a broken, troubled family.
His father was a complete alcoholic, indulging in alcohol every day. Sato Yota was always afraid of him because every time his father drank, he would verbally abuse him and his mother, and even hit them.
The mother, unwilling to accept the family's poverty and her husband's moral decline, frequently went out seeking excitement and novelty, becoming known as a "social butterfly" among the neighbors, neglecting her own well-being.
Every time Yota Sato got home from school, the first thing he did was clean up the mess his father made when he was drunk, and then cook a meal in the kitchen for his mother who wouldn't be home until the early hours of the morning.
Home is a lonely place for him, and it's something he can do without, so he prefers to play with his classmates and friends outside.
Once you get home, your body and soul become numb.
He cannot feel love.
He is also unable to have love.
As usual, he returned home and carefully opened the door. Inside, shoes were scattered everywhere, bottles were rolling all over the floor, and glass shards mixed with vomit were stuck to the floor. He had to squat down and wipe it with an old rag to get it barely clean. Sato Yota quickly tidied up the mess his father had made of the house. He was about to rest on the sofa for a while when there was a rapid knock on the door.
"Here it comes." Sato Yota's heart skipped a beat as soon as his hand touched the doorknob.
Those who arrive at this time are mostly up to no good.
As soon as the door opened, a smell of smoke mixed with sweat rushed in, and then my collar was grabbed tightly, and I was lifted off the ground by my toes.
Yota Sato's back slammed against the door frame, making him gasp in pain. He looked up and saw a man with a scar on his face, a cigarette dangling from his lips, the ash about to fall.
"Hey, you little brat." The man with scars on his face had a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He shook the cigarette in his hand and glared at him fiercely: "When are your parents going to pay you back?"
Sato Yota's throat tightened, and his tongue seemed to be tied in knots: "No... I don't have any money."
He knew his father was in debt, but his mother had to earn money from social connections to buy rice, so there was no spare money to pay off the debt.
"No money?" The man chuckled, took the cigarette out of his mouth, took a deep drag, and slowly blew the smoke rings into his face.
The smell of smoke made Sato Yota cough and his eyes water, but the man patted his face with the back of his rough hand, quite hard: "If you don't have money, just use your drunkard son as collateral, you can get a little money back."
No sooner had he finished speaking than the man grabbed him by the collar and dragged him outside.
He struggled desperately, gripping the doorframe: "Let me go! I'm not collateral!"
Unable to resist, Yota Sato screamed, begged for mercy, and cried in the corridor. Fear gripped his entire body, and he had no idea what kind of life he would lead in the future.
Where would he be taken? Would he be sold, or beaten and dumped on the roadside? He dared not think about it, and could only look back into the house as if hoping for something, yet knowing there was nothing to hope for.
Just as he was about to give up struggling, a loud crash came from inside the room—the sound of a wine bottle falling to the ground.
Then his drunken father staggered out, squinted at him for a long time, and then roared in a hoarse voice, "What's all the noise about? You're disturbing my sleep!"
"Dad! He's trying to take me away!" Sato Yota cried out as if grasping at a straw, tears and snot streaming down his face, his voice trembling with sobs, "Save me, Dad!"
He wasn't sure if his father would intervene, but this was his only hope.
The father glanced at him, then at the man who was holding him, said nothing, and slowly turned and walked back into the house.
Sato Yota's heart sank to the bottom. Sure enough, why would he save him?
He said self-deprecatingly.
But the next second, the father ran out of the house again, holding an unopened beer bottle in his hand, the bottle gleaming coldly in the dim light.
While the man was still pulling at Yota Sato, his father smashed a bottle hard against the back of the man's head.
With a muffled thud, the man released Sato Yota's collar, clutched his head, and squatted down, feeling his vision gradually become double.
Yota Sato fell to the ground and looked up to see warm blood seeping from between the man's fingers, running down his cheek and dripping onto the floor of the stairwell, a glaring red.
The man swayed, his eyes glazed over, and then he collapsed to the ground, motionless.
Yota Sato sat on the ground, trembling all over, his eyes filled with terror, tears still on his face, but he forgot to wipe them away.
The father staggered over to the man, squatted down to look at him, then turned to look at him, his voice muffled but tinged with smugness: "Your old man... may be a scoundrel, but I still have a way of dealing with people."
As he spoke, he grabbed the man's leg and dragged him towards the stairwell like a sack. After taking two steps, he turned back and instructed, "Stay inside and don't wander off anywhere."
Having never experienced love, Yota Sato's eyes lit up when he heard his father's words.
In an instant, the image of his father gradually grew taller in Yota Sato's mind.
One of his sentences even influenced his entire life.
Sato Yota listened to his father and obediently waited in the house for his father to return. After a long time, the door was opened again. Sato Yota excitedly stepped forward to say something, but was suddenly slapped to the ground.
His father yelled at him, "What are you doing opening the door like that? Huh? You're causing me trouble!" He then kicked him, hitting his arm and back, saying, "If you hadn't opened the door, would I have gotten into any trouble?"
Yota Sato curled up on the ground, groaning in pain, but his eyes still shone as he looked at his father's face.
He seemed to have stopped feeling the pain, and was thinking to himself: Dad hit me to protect me.
I even wanted to get up and tell my father that I would never open the door to anyone again.
Later, a group of uniformed men stormed into the house and dragged the still cursing father away.
His father struggled and yelled. Sato Yota clung to the door frame and watched as his father was shoved into the police car and the taillights disappeared around the corner. He didn't even get a chance for his father to turn around and look at him again.
In the end, only he and his mother were left at home.
When his mother returned, she saw the mess on the floor, frowned slightly, squatted down, and tapped his forehead with her red-painted fingernails, saying with disgust, "What a burden."
A strange man, dressed in a suit and tie, followed behind her, looking at her as if she were an eyesore of furniture.
His mother gave him a push and commanded, "Hurry up and call him uncle."
"Don't be so harsh on the child." The man smiled and put his arm around the mother's waist, pinching it lightly. His gaze fell on Sato Yota, making him feel extremely nauseous.
But he knew he had to call out. If he didn't, his mother would scold him, and might even leave him in this empty house.
He lowered his head and whispered, "Uncle."
From that day on, he moved with his mother.
Sometimes she would stay for a few days and then leave, sometimes she would stay for half a month and then move on to a different place. Each time she would go to a different house with a different man.
Some of those men would slip him some pocket money, while others would look at him with eyes that disgusted him.
The houses varied in size and cleanliness, but none of them made him feel "this is home".
His mother taught him to smile at people, even if he didn't want to.
She taught him to talk less and do more, and not to cause trouble for others.
She taught him to read people's expressions and to be mindful of what he should and shouldn't say.
He learned them all.
He would quietly go to the kitchen to wash the dishes while his mother was talking to the man, and he would quickly lower his head and pretend to read a book when the man frowned.
When asked, "Where's your dad?"
Yota Sato would force a sweet smile and say, "My dad went to work in another city."
He became more and more obedient and smoother, like a stone whose edges had been smoothed out.
But beneath that stone lay untold grievances, unspoken fears, and words he had chewed over and over again.
Perhaps, just as my father said, once I learn to "tame people," I really won't have to be afraid anymore.
So during high school, he learned to manage people and gained popularity among the boys in the school.
He had never enjoyed this feeling before, and he became even more convinced that as long as he knew how to deal with people, he had nothing to fear.
Until he met Yuko Nishimura.
The girl, who was as thin as a bean sprout, stopped Yota Sato from disciplining people.
She said to him, "What you are doing is wrong."
In an instant, it was as if something had been exposed in Yota Sato. Fear, terror, and anger swept over his entire body, and he grinned a wicked smile.
"I'll show you I'm right."
And so, Sato Yota would find her whenever he had a reason, throw her schoolbag into the trash can, tear up her homework, and beat her up in the alley.
Even so, Yuko Nishimura still tried to stop herself from hitting others, even though she was covered in bruises and tears were streaming down her face, she kept saying, "What you're doing is wrong."
The more she said that, the angrier Yota Sato became, and the more reckless he became in his actions.
He wanted to shatter her self-righteous facade and make her admit that his logic of "if you can handle people, you're not afraid of anything" was correct.
He gradually grew tired of Nishimura Yuko's behavior; she would always jump out whenever he tried to discipline her.
Until one day, he discovered that Yuko Nishimura no longer stopped him.
His doubts led him to seek her out.
When he found Yuko Nishimura, she came out of the principal's office, muttering repeatedly, "This is wrong," while tears streamed down her face.
“Hey, Nishimura idiot,” Sato Yota walked over and grabbed the man’s hair, saying sarcastically, “What are you crying about, crying like a pig? Tell me something to make me laugh.”
Yuko Nishimura looked up at him, her eyes now empty. When she saw Yota Sato's face, all her emotions seemed to erupt at that moment.
She retaliated, punching Yota Sato in the face. Yota Sato was hit in the nose by the sudden counterattack, and he painfully covered his nose.
Why did you tear up my notebook?
Why did you make everyone lock me in the toilet?
"Why..." Sato Yota didn't hear the rest of the sentence.
She buried her head and cried, wiping her face haphazardly with the back of her hand, but the more she wiped, the more tears she shed. Eventually, her crying subsided and turned into suppressed sobs.
Just as Yota Sato was about to get angry and clench his fist to step forward, Yuko Nishimura pushed him aside.
He staggered, and when he looked up again, he could only watch helplessly as Yuko Nishimura's figure disappeared into the distance.
But things don't seem to be that simple.
Sato Yota's gaze swept toward the principal's office, where a middle-aged man stood by the window with a kind smile on his lips, but Sato Yota felt that the smile was inexplicably eerie.
Yota Sato finally understood why he had felt that the other person's smile was eerie, and that the look in his eyes revealed desire and greed, like a demon.
A note from the author:
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Corrected some typos that were found
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