Chinese Takeout ~ Part One
By: Hikari
Tags: Anger, Abuse, Sadness, Mental, Short Story

I sat in my room, endlessly scrolling down pages and pages of pictures on my USB wireless mouse. I had long since lost the mouse pad, which my grandmother had gifted me five years ago. My ninth birthday. I remember how happy I was back then, how everything seemed like a game. If I lost something, it was okay, because I still had the people that I loved with me, and together we could get it back.

I guess losing the mouse pad on a family trip to Arizona was the start to my realization that some things you never can get back. But of course, that was just a mouse pad.

“Hey, Chiharu!” my sister Sakura called to me from the hallway. I looked to my right down the small hallway in my room that led to the hallway door. Everything was a dark, shady blue color without the lights on. In fact, the computer light is the only light I’ve turned on in this room for days. Huh. Funny. “Riko brought us some more Chinese takeout for dinner tonight. Come out of there.”

“Alright, fine.” I said.

I heard Sakura and my mom have a brief-for-our-family argument as I closed my laptop and walked into the hallway. It went sort of like this…

Mom: I told you to call him dad, not Riko.

Sakura: But he’s not my dad.

Mom: Sakura, be quiet! He is your dad! I am your mother, correct?

Sakura: Ugh. Yes, mom.

Mom: And I am married to your father, Riko, correct?

Sakura: …

Mom: Correct. So that makes him your father.

Sakura: Shut up! He’s not my father, and he never will be!

Mom: Go to the dinner table right now, young lady!

Sakura: But-

Mom: Right now!

Sakura: I thought I told you to shut -

Me: Can’t you guys stop arguing for a few seconds?

Mom and Sakura: But she -

Me: Enough! What am I, the mother of this family?

In tense silence, we all trudged to the dinner table, where Riko was not waiting for us. I looked around to see him sprawled out on the couch with a beer and an insta-lunch, watching football on the only television in our house. The kitchen and the sitting room are in the same cramped space, so whenever Riko was watching TV (always) we had to eat in the same room as him. He always smelled of alcohol, cigarettes and bleach, even from a mile away. I could barely swallow my Chinese takeout with him there, stinking up the place.

I sat on the side of the table farthest from and facing the hallway, and I saw that the warm, flickering light was still on, illuminating the peeling white hallways. I got up to turn it off, and tripped over one of Riko’s… “toys”. Completely grossed out, I ran into the hallway to turn off the light. I made a short trip to the bathroom and threw up, changing my wet socks and putting on shoes. Riko always had shoes on in the house, and if I was going to risk stepping on any more of those disgusting things, I would have to be wearing shoes.

To my left from the hallway was the bar, the same peeled white pain covering it as the walls of the rest of the small house, with white pendant lights hanging over it and the oven and stove back there as well. Directly in front of that was the kitchen and table, a tan wooden set of chairs that matched the molding and the floors of the rest of the house, and a white painted table. To the left was the hair-covered bronze-colored cough, that Riko was covering with his gross body. Between that and the old, used box TV was a small, rough outdoor carpet that looked like the American flag, but something about it was off — probably just Riko’s dirt smudge from his shoes.

In the back of the room just past the couch, on the edge of the carpet and in front of the hexagon-shaped “hallway” where the master bathroom and bedroom are is an old, ripped leather armchair covered in duct tape to hide holes that Riko ripped while drunk and angry. I shiver when I think about it. The floor creaks slowly as I make my way back of to the dinner table, packing up my takeout for tomorrow’s dinner. I feel something hard hit my head out of nowhere, and my mother shrilly screams out, “Riko, stop!”

He doesn’t listen. I hear another crash and glash smashing everywhere, as well as my mom screaming out again. Shaking, I can’t see what hashappened, but what I do know is that there are pieces of glass bottle in my forehead, and it hurts really bad. I scream out in pain as I accidentally blink some into my eye, and I run, stabbing my feet with shards in the process, to wash it out in the bathroom. Fear squeezes at my core. I feel like throwing up again. My head pounds and sharp pain courses all throughout my body. I throw up all over the front of my pajama shirt and succesfully wash a piece of glass out of my eye. My feet bleed and sharp pain courses through them. Blood drips into my stinging eyes and my entire body throbs, my stomach twisting and churning. Slimy vomit runs down my shirt and drips onto my pants, making me throw up again. I hear slurred yelling, loud sobs and glass smashing in the kitchen again. I run back out, only to be knocked back to my feet, stomach getting poked at and arms punctured by a crapton of glass shards on the ground.

I can’t run on my feet yet. Somewhere in my heart of hearts I know I will lose to Riko in this fight, but I go right for it anyway. I just need to remember… this is my own doing. I’ve always been taught never to waste time hating people, as that usually means they’ve won — but not this time. My little sister cries out as Riko grabs her and begins to do some things that we won’t talk about. Rage and fear made my heart skip a beat or two or even three, but I jumped forward with the cleaver anyway. It hit Riko in the arm and he jumped back, yelling incoherently. I’ve left a deep, bloody wound in his arm. Shaking, I drop the knife and rub the blood on my jacket. I grab my sister and my mom, running through glass to get to my room. I close and lock the door. I stand there in silence with my mother passed out on the floor and my sister crying silently. I’m not sure how long we sat there — an hour, a minute, three days. But we didn’t say a word. When I was sure Riko wasn’t waiting for us, I slid down the door to my room, crying.