Blink | By : yeagerbomb Category: Gravitation > General Views: 2675 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Gravitation, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
“Alright, here’s the deal,” Mika said three days later. “Mother’s lawyer says she’ll plead guilty on Tatsuha, if we don’t touch Eiri.” We all went along, but when it came time, she plead innocent. So the whole thing went to court, and none of us were pleased.
Tatsuha’s court case blew in and out over the next month and a half, and I only left Tohma’s apartment once, to testify, the entire time. Tatsuha was out much more than I was. For the first month I wouldn’t leave my room. Mika was worried I wouldn’t go to testify, but I did. I wouldn’t let Mother get away with touching a single hair on Tatsuha’s head.
I told the lawyer what Mother had done. That she had hit him twice in the face and when I stopped her from hitting him a third time, she scratched at me. Pictures were shown of the marks on Tatsuha’s face from her hand. Evidence of the scratches were shown, and our lawyer sat down. I didn’t want to talk to Mother’s lawyer, but I had to.
“Your mother had never hit Tatsuha before?” he asked. I shook my head.
“No.”
“And she was in a stressed state on this day, correct?”
“Yes,” I said, not liking where he seemed to be going.
“Was there anything particularly ‘special’ about the day?”
“Not to my recollection,” I ground through my teeth.
“So this could be set aside as a sudden, uncommon, outburst, true?”
“Objection! Your honor, this is speculation and there is no way he could answer that. It’s a question for a psychiatrist.”
“No, it’s an honest question,” the lawyer argued.
“Nagasame, please keep the questions within the scope of the case and the witness’s answering ability.”
“Yes, your honor,” he said apologetically. He then turned back to me. “Has your mother ever acted this way towards him before?”
I bit my lip, hating him. I wanted to say yes. That she had been like that before, that she had hit me thousands of times. But that wasn’t the question. “No,” I whispered.
“Please speak up,” the judge said to me.
“No,” I repeated, louder. “Not that I’ve ever seen.”
“And if she had, you would have known, yes?”
“Yes.” I was staring hard at my lap, tears shining in my eyes, but not slipping away.
“Nothing further,” he said, sitting back down. Our lawyer stood back up.
“I would like to re-examine the witness,” she said briskly. She walked up to me. “Eiri, has your mother ever hit you or either of your siblings before this?” I looked up quickly, a sparkle in my eyes. I opened my mouth to say yes, but Mother’s lawyer interrupted.
“Objection. There is no relativity in the question.” The judge beckoned them both forward, and they spoke quietly, although I could hear them.
“There is relativity,” she insisted. “I asked about his siblings. That includes Tatsuha.”
“But we’ve already shown that she’s never hit him before.”
“But a chain of hitting her other children would show a pattern of child abuse.”
“But you aren’t looking for a chain, you’re looking for Tatsuha.”
“A chain would say that this attack was, in fact, child abuse.”
The judge cleared his throat softly. “Ms. Kisonare, please retract the question. We are looking for evidence of abusive behavior towards Tatsuha, not the others. Make a separate case for that if you must, but for now take it back.”
“Yes, your honor,” she said. Mother’s lawyer walked back to his seat, a smug look of superiority on his face. She withdrew her question, and began to sit back down. But she stopped, turned, and asked me what day it was that this had happened.
“S-Sunday,” I said, not understanding.
“What was the date?”
“The twenty-third. Of February.”
“And was there anything special about that day?” I sat, bewildered, but suddenly it came to me.
“Objection. Your honor, I’ve just asked the same question. It’s been covered that no, there was nothing special.
“Your honor, my witness’s mind is fogged right now. I believe that the date will jog his memory.”
“I’ll let it stand. I hope there’s something behind this Ms. Kisonare.”
The few tears causing my eyes to ache disappeared, and I almost smiled as I answered. “My birthday. She ruined my birthday.”
“Nothing further,” she said, smirking as she sat. I didn’t go back until the jury came out of deliberation, two days after going in. I couldn’t be in the court room, but I listened with my ear pressed against the door. I could barely hear them. It was too loud in the hall.
I stood back from the door as Mika and Tohma came out. I looked up at them expectantly, and Tatsuha stood beside me, his eyes large and watery, acting as nervous as a puppy. Mika reached down and lifted Tatsuha into her arms. I continued to stare apprehensively. Tohma put a hand on my head and led me out, Mika following slowly, carrying Tatsuha. He buried his face against her, knowing it hadn’t worked. She was free. But I refused to believe Mother had gotten away with it until I was told. I finally found my voice as Father walked to us from across the courtyard.
“What happened?” I asked quietly and timidly, scarcely louder than a mouse could have been.
“We lost,” Father said, hugging me.
“H-how?” I asked, not allowing myself to cry.
“I’ll tell you later, alright?” Tohma said when Father didn’t answer. I nodded. Father left to go to the temple. He hadn’t been there for a week, and a lot of work had to be done.
That night Tatsuha was sleeping and Mika had gone to work. I was trying to reconstruct some of my notebook, but in order this time. The poems were done because I had most of them memorized. I knew that as I rewrote the story it was changing, but that was alright. Tohma sat at the table across from me and set a bowl of ice cream in front of each of us. I stared at it a moment, then him. He smiled weakly, and said I needed something to cheer me up. I returned the smile, but at half the strength he used.
As I started eating, he spoke. “We lost because there wasn’t enough evidence. Your mother under dramatized the slaps, she said he was crying over nothing and she was just trying to get him under control when she accidentally lost it. Tatsuha wouldn’t talk about anything but what she did to you before. The notebook and th…the garden. He was in contempt of court and his testimony thrown out. Your father wouldn’t testify against his wife. Your testimony was the only thing saying she actually hit him until she went up. And she claimed she didn’t hit him that hard.” He paused and I took it all in. Tatsuha’s testimony was worthless because he wouldn’t answer a question? Why? “Mika couldn’t bring herself to speak ill of her mother in front of all those people, and I know she’s very upset about it. I didn’t testify because… Well, I’d brought an awful lot of hurt into the picture, but if I hadn’t, more would have come, don’t you think?” I nodded gently. “I wanted to testify, to bring some peace into it, but Mika felt I’d done enough and the lawyer didn’t want the jury to think we were piling too many men against her.”
“We’re going to try her for me, right?” I whispered. Tohma looked at me. He nodded.
“Yes. If that’s what you want.”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” he said, picking up his phone carefully. “Here. Ms. Kisonare is on speed dial. Number seven.”
I pressed the button and, with her and Tohma’s help, set up the charge. Mika had been the one filing the charges before, so she had been there, right beside the lawyer through the entire case. Tatsuha and I could only be there on days we were testifying.
But I was filing the charges this time, which meant I would be sitting next to the lawyer through it all. A constant reminder to the jury of who she was beating.~
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