“You don’t even know, Mom!! She was the first person I could be myself around, and she got bullied because of me, and then…”
All the emotions I’d been repressing raged out of control.
My mother stared at me blankly.
With huge tears pouring from my eyes, I grasped her shirt collar and shook her over and over.
“I feel like it’s my fault she died… You could never understand!!”
“You…”
“If my presence offends you that much, I’ll disappear! I’m sick and tired of you talking to me like I’m a piece of shit!!”
I fled to my bedroom.
There, I put on my school uniform, packed the bare minimum of what I thought I’d need, and grabbed my wallet.
Just as I was about to leave my room, the door popped open, and my older brother poked in his head.
“What was all that fuss about…? Wait, why are you in your uniform? Are you going to school?”
“No. I’m leaving.”
“Leaving? Where to? When will you be back?”
“It doesn’t matter! I’m never coming home again!!”
“Hey!”
I pushed past him, ran to the front door, and stormed out of the house.
My brother followed me outside and sprinted down the street at full speed. Of course, there was no way I could outrun a grown man, so it didn’t take long for him to catch up.
“Let go of me!”
“Stop fighting back! Just calm down for a minute!”
“But!!” Tears started pouring down my face again as I whimpered. “Mom asked…if I killed her…”
My brother fell silent, then patted me on the back.
“She really said that, huh?” He slowly pulled me in for a hug before speaking a little more quietly. “I do think you and Mom need a little time apart. Your and Mom’s mental health is more important than our reputation.”
With that, he took my hand and started leading me away.
“I’ll see you to the station.”
“Oh…okay.”
I thought he’d be against my leaving, so his reaction left me a little deflated. I nodded anyway.
We walked all the way to the station in complete silence, but simply having my brother by my side reassured me somewhat.
When we arrived, he said, “Wait a second,” and walked over to an ATM.
He returned a moment later and passed me a weighty envelope.
“If you leave home without any money, you’ll end up back here in no time.”
“B-but…”
“There’s three hundred thousand yen in there. If you’re careful, it’ll last you a few weeks.”
“No way! You don’t have to do this!”
My brother flashed me a wry smile.
“It’ll cause more problems if I let you leave home with nothing. Stay at a proper hotel, okay? Make sure to call me if you ever feel like you’re in danger. If you promise me you’ll stick to those two conditions, I’ll smooth things over with Mom.”
I stared at the envelope in my hand, then gave my brother a hug.
“…Thanks.”
“…You’ve done well, staying strong up until now. Take a little break.”
He ran a hand across my head, then gave me a firm pat on the shoulder.
“I’ll see you when I get back,” I said.
“See you then. If you run into any trouble, contact me right away, okay?”
“I will.”
I think my brother was more of a parent to me than my mother ever was.
I wondered if this was the way a parent was meant to express concern for their child… But I quickly pushed the thought from my mind.
And with that, for the first time in my life, I ran away from home.
After I ran away, I was alone in the truest sense of the word.
In my hotel room, it didn’t matter what I did. No one could see me or say anything about it.
Suddenly endowed with this newfound freedom, the very first thing I experienced was a sense of emptiness.
“What even am I…?” I muttered to myself repeatedly. But I could never find the answer.
I was born into this world without a mother’s love.
My big brother cared about me, but his kindness always felt tinged with pity.
I was never able to make any friends, and when I finally found one, she left me behind.
Now that I thought about it, maybe I’d never meant anything to anyone.
My physical isolation only exacerbated my feelings of loneliness.
I kept questioning what I was even doing, borrowing 300,000 yen from my brother.
I’d finally managed to escape from my mom, but I didn’t feel any better.
Sometimes I felt compelled to act out, but I wasn’t brave enough to try alcohol or cigarettes. So instead, I spent the days naked in my hotel room pleasuring myself. I always felt pathetic when it was over, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop.
The hotel stays quickly drained my funds, and I was eventually left with only a fraction of the money my brother had lent me.
He had told me to stay somewhere safe, but I figured I could make do in an Internet café for a week with the 20,000 or 30,000 yen I had left, so I hung out in one of those until I’d spent almost everything I had.
Apparently, my brother had calculated how long the money would last me more carefully than I’d thought, and on around my third day at the Internet café, my phone started ringing constantly.
“Where are you?”
“At a hotel.”
“What hotel? If you were staying at a hotel every night, you would have run out of money by now.”
I can’t remember how I managed to wriggle my way out of that one.
But a few days later, he must have realized I was lying, because my phone began to ring even more incessantly.
Before I knew it, I’d stopped caring about anything. Even I was surprised.
I knew I didn’t want to go back to my mom’s house. I couldn’t imagine ever repairing our relationship.
I owed my brother a lot for helping me run away, and I felt bad breaking the promise I’d made to him. But I just wanted him to leave me alone.
I drained my phone battery and tossed it straight into a trash can outside a random convenience store.
I had no money and no motivation to think deeply about anything.
One night, I was wandering around the city, unsure of what to do with myself, when a man in a suit called out to me.
“What’s a high school girl like you doing out this late?”
The man looked a little drunk, and his face was flushed. Only then did it occur to me it was a Friday.
I was surprised at how easily I forced a smile.
“I ran away from home, and I don’t have anywhere to stay.”
“…Hmmmm.”
Staring at me, the man paused to think for a moment.
“It’s dangerous out here,” he said. “How about you stay the night at my place?”
I felt apprehension course through my body.
This was definitely one of those dangerous situations my brother had told me to watch out for.
But by then, I didn’t care what happened to me.
Plus, if I played my cards right, I’d secure a place to stay for a while.
Before I knew it, I’d given him my answer.
“…Are you sure it’s no trouble?”