Chapter Text
“Well fuck you, too!” Joe screamed at his mom, picking up his backpack and his duffle. “I’m fucking done!”
“You’ll regret this!” she screamed back, blocking his exit from his bedroom. Her eyes were wild, almost manic. “You’ll come crawling back!”
Joe dropped the duffle on the wood floor with a thud, a fury burning at his bones as he stared her down. “You’re the one kicking me out!” Joe growled. “You’re the one who said, ‘Oh, you’re 18, get out!’ You are the one doing this to me and I’d rather live in the streets than come back here!”
She didn’t move, just folded her arms and extended her neck so she was looking down her nose at him. Mom didn’t look so large now that Joe was leaving for good. He was slightly larger than her, taller definitely; she’d never dared to hurt him physically but she’d always been a verbally abusive bitch. And now that he was free of her, by her own command, Joe could see how ugly she was.
“I won’t let you come back,” she told him, getting in his face.
Joe just laughed at her. “Good. I hope to never see you again, as long as I live. Live knowing your only fucking son hates you.”
Her dark eyes flashed angrily and Joe could tell she was rearing up for an ugly yelling match. Before she could berate him any further, he picked the duffle back up, slung it over his shoulder, and he pushed past her.
“If you walk out that door, you’re done! You aren’t coming back!” she told him, following through the small house to the front door.
Joe rounded on her, stopping her in her tracks. “Sounds like you’re begging me to stay. You gonna miss me? Kiss my feet if you want me to stay.”
“No, I want you gone,” she snarled. Her breath stank, heavy with booze.
“Good, you got your wish. Maybe while I’m gone you can finally get sober… Or drink yourself to death, I don’t care.”
He turned away but she grabbed his arm, holding him back from throwing the front door open. “You’ll regret saying that.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he snorted at her. “But I can regret that when I’m away from you. I’m not taking shit from you anymore.”
He yanked his arm from hers and pried the door open, stumbling into the night with the few possessions he called his own in old ratty bags. He turned back and waved, “See you never!”
“Don’t come back!” she screamed after him, but her fingers were clutched at either side of the door frame, turning white, as if she couldn’t stand him walking away from her.
It was just like her, to be upset that he was doing what she wanted. Joe hadn’t been the perfect son, but she’d made him out to be downright rotten. Well, now she’d have to taste her own consequences of finally uttering the words to kick him out, because he was done with her.
He’d been planning on leaving when he graduated, but what was a few extra months earlier? Joe had money stashed away from years of odd jobs, preparing for this exact moment. He’d kept them in his mattress where she wouldn’t find it or take it. Prepared was an understatement of what he was because he and Kaoru had been planning for months for moving away, so he had the plan down pat. He wasn’t scared.
Joe was down the road at this point, determined to not even give her another glance, not even when she spat curses after him. The words eventually faded, and so did she.
That was the last time he ever saw her.
“Holy—” Joe said, grabbing onto a moving box to steady himself when he read the letter in his hand. It was from some legal attorney or something, it had the official seal of an official office or whatever, but really, it was what was inside that mattered. “She’s dead,” he said aloud to himself in his Italian apartment.
The room around him was boxed up and ready to be moved. He’d just finished working with a renowned chef for over four years, all with the goal to open his own restaurant back home. If he’d gotten this letter even two days later, he would have missed it.
His mom was dead.
He didn’t know how he felt about that. He hadn’t seen her in ten years but she’d still lived like a nightmare in the back of his mind, taunting him for every choice he’d made. Even when he made something of himself, earned himself a name in the culinary world, he could still hear her taunting him, telling him he wasn’t good enough, that he wasn’t smart enough. Maybe he’d secretly been hoping she’d hear about his gig in Italy, or maybe about the restaurant he’d open up, but he wanted her to know she was wrong about him.
And now she was dead.
The letter gave him little go off of. It just mentioned her date of death—six days ago—and the contact information for their office. It said she’d left him several things that he would need to sort out. Also, there was the issue of her funeral.
“For fuck’s sake,” he cursed, tossing his head back to look at the ceiling. Even in her death she taunted him. Making him bury the bitch? He couldn’t believe it.
And why the hell was he getting teary eyed?
He sank to the floor, listening to the silence of his apartment and put his head into his hands. Fuck. Why did he feel like this? She’d been cruel, evil beyond compare for an entire lifetime of nightmares. Why was he crying for her?
He dug his nails into the wood floor and breathed. After a few deep breaths, he forced himself to get a hold of himself. He laughed humorlessly, wiping at his wet face. Joe would not cry another tear for that woman.
He gathered himself and sat down on one of his boxes—there wasn’t any furniture clear for him to settle on—and called Kaoru. His best friend answered after a few rings, “Kojiro.” His voice was warm and affectionate. Joe felt his heart twist and thump.
He was glad he had Kaoru. Things had been hard at first, being separated by half the world between them, but Kaoru called him every night and Kojiro texted him each morning. They kind of had a thing going, something that never quite taken off, but Joe was hoping when he got back to Japan…
“Kaoru,” Joe returned, sounding tired but just as affectionate. His voice did not betray his breakdown just a moment before.
“Happy birthday, Kojiro. You’re only two more years from being an old 30-year-old man.”
Joe huffed in amusement. He’d almost forgot about his birthday. “Might I remind you that you’re four months older? Besides, 28 is still young. I’m not retiring anytime soon.”
“With starting your own restaurant, I would say you’re just starting your career,” Kaoru agreed seriously.
It had been a rough ten years, getting to where Joe was now from being kicked out of his childhood home. When he first left, he lived at Kaoru’s family home while he finished out high school. Then he attempted to go to a private university with Kaoru, quickly finding out that college just wasn’t for him. He didn’t decide to switch to culinary school until he had sunk too much money into the preppy school. That was his first mistake, attempting to go to school in a place way out of his price range. Afterwards, he made his way through culinary school, taking any internship he could get his hands on. On one hand, he only sunk himself into further debt during those years, but on the other, it got the internship that bridged the gap to living in Italy.
When Joe got the job in Italy, working under one of the best Italian chefs in the world, Kaoru had cried and laughed, congratulating him on his dream job. It had put a strain on their friendship but look at them now! Things were fine again and he was heading home!
“I’m applying for the loan as soon as I get home,” Joe said proudly, glad for the distraction. It was the last step, the only thing standing between him and his ultimate dream. He would be the best Italian chef in Japan. “Just sucks that my mom won’t get to see all of my success up close.”
“What?” Kaoru asked. “Don’t even think about her. She doesn’t even deserve to see you—”
“I mean,” Joe interrupted with a sigh, “that I just got a letter that she died.”
“She died? From what?”
“I don’t know,” Joe said with a shrug that Kaoru couldn’t see. “All I know is that she seems to have left me her crap. And get this. She put me in charge of arranging her goddamn funeral!” He shook his head, placing his head in his free hand. “She should have taken me out of her will when I left.”
Joe could almost imagine the scowl on Kaoru’s face. “So, she left you some chores.”
“Seems like it. I just wanted to let you know so I didn’t miss your call later, in case I’m still busy with this crap.”
Kaoru groaned into the phone. “I wish she just left you alone. If she had no one else, her stuff should’ve just been possessed by the government. Someone else could have taken care of it all.”
“Right, but that’s my mother. She always had to have the last word.” Joe pulled the letter to himself again, glancing at the number for the Japanese attorney. “Look, I’m gonna call them and I’ll call you right after. I’ll tell you what I find out.”
“Good luck,” Kaoru said softly. “Whatever happens, I’ll help you with it, okay? I can help clean out a nasty house if we need to.”
Joe smiled at the floor. At least Kaoru had his back. “Thanks, I appreciate it, Kaoru.” There was a reason he called Kaoru his best friend. Kaoru always made him feel better.
They said their goodbyes and after he hung up, Joe promptly typed in the attorney’s office, pulling his phone reluctantly to his ear.
“Tokyo Kokusai attorney office,” a women answered.
“Hi, I’m just calling about this letter I got about my mother’s death? I’m Kojiro Nanjo. My mother was Tamika.”
“Oh, of course. Let me get you to the right person.”
After a bit of shuffling of phones, Joe was put on with a man who had a monotone voice and he poorly delivered a half-assed, “Sorry for your loss.”
“It’s fine,” Joes said, fiddling with the letter for something to do. “I just wanted to call to figure out what else needed to do, what I could do to get this whole thing behind me.”
“I’m sure you want to see Reki.”
Joe frowned. Was that the name of some boyfriend of hers or something? “Sorry, who is that?”
“Oh,” the attorney said, managing to muster some surprise in his monotone voice. “It says here that your mother left you custody of your brother.”
“Brother?” Joe asked, sitting straight up, bewildered. “I don’t have a brother.”
“Really? Well, it says here he’s your half-brother.”
He pinched his nose between two fingers. “Are you telling me that my mother had another kid?” It couldn’t be true; he didn’t want it to be. Why the hell would that witch of a woman have another kid?
“She had him about nine years ago next month. Real cute kid.”
“I can’t believe it,” Joe hissed, crunching the letter without noticing. The kid had to be fucked up, a total mess, based on how he was raised. It was a miracle Joe even came out of it only slightly fucked up.
The attorney paused before continuing, “Look, Reki is with child services right now. If you didn’t want to take him in, you wouldn’t have to. We could move him along to foster care with the hope of adoption. And, if you want, we can just wrap up everything quietly, if you don’t want to deal with any of it. It doesn’t sound like you were close.”
Joe opened his mouth to agree, to put the whole ordeal behind him, but he stopped. A kid, his brother, would get shipped off to who knows where. “I should at least meet him,” Joe found himself saying. Curse his fucking bleeding heart. “And maybe go through a few things of hers.”
The man’s voice had a noticeably cheerful tone, “Good. We can start there. How soon can I get you to my office in Tokyo?”
“Three days,” Joe told him. He glanced at the boxes scattering his apartment, the sun filtering through the window, lighting up the empty apartment in a warm orange glow. What was he thinking? He could barely afford moving. There was no way he could afford a kid. Why even look at him? Why even get the poor kid’s hopes up? “What’s the kid’s name again?”
“Reki. Reki Kyan.”