Doubt

1

Madara:

2 years previously

Nobody should have to do this.

I stood in the rain, clad in black suit pants and a black winter coat. I was holding an umbrella, but to no avail; my hair was already drenched.

Nobody should have to bury their eighteen-year-old little brother.

I hadn't cried during the ceremony. Not even once. All my tears were already spent, had been spent since the doctor came out to us in the waiting room in the hospital.

"I'm sorry..." the doctor had said.

I put a gloved hand on the white lacquered coffin that had been covered in red roses. It felt strange, that it would be buried and covered in heaping layers of sand and dirt and gravel. I looked at the hole in the ground. It was so deep. Is it really necessary?

"See you, brother", I said.

And I turned to leave, unable to watch as they lowered my little brother's body into the ground to be devoured by the earth.

"See you, Izuna."

Present time

Madara:

I was sitting on my bed in my room, going through a thick law book that was part of the course literature. Tomorrow, it would be my first day of lectures. I had spent all weekend moving into my new student room and only had the evening to prepare. Next to me in bed, I had a dish of rice with crispy tofu in a peanut sauce that I had cooked and was eating at slow pace with a pair of chopsticks.

And I finally found the part I was looking for.

The part about drug crimes.

I was drawn to it in a way I suspected wasn't healthy for me.

"I'm sorry..."

I took a piece of tofu, put it in my mouth whole and chewed.

"He died in the heroin overdose."

My family had asked for his medical record, and I had read the note from the ER.

"The patient was found without a pulse and no breathing by his brother. Paramedics arrived 12 minutes after he was found. CPR was commenced immediately by the brother. The paramedics took over upon arrival. A substantial amount of stomach contents were sucked out of the patient's airways in the ambulance. Asystole upon arrival to the ER. Resuscitation continued for forty minutes before it was discontinued and the patient was pronounced dead."

We had known Izuna was a heroin addict. He had tried it when he was sixteen when he got together with his first girlfriend, as she was into it and he loved her. And after that one time, he was hooked.

He could disappear for days on end, not only from home but from school as well. Before that, he got the highest marks in all subjects in school and was a model child. Everybody had loved him. But nobody loved you like I did... We were all so proud of him, and heartbroken when he got addicted. There seemed to be nothing, absolutely nothing we could do, and that helplessness had gotten me into a deep depression I still was in the midst of.

Speaking of depression...

I took a Prozac pill and swallowed it dry, and continued reading about drug crimes.

Stop looking at me... Please, stop looking at me.

I hugged my laptop in its bag close to my chest, trying to hide behind it. I always carried it in my arms, despite having a backpack, because it made me feel safe. It was a habit I developed because people always stared at me, as they did now I was walking down the corridor of the law building of the university for my first day of lectures.