The Cursed Eye

by T L Brevis

  He had to swallow that rage, however. It was imperative to do so. The police simply could not be allowed to gain more ground in their investigation.

  This was Hiroshi’s hurdle, and he would overcome it.

  ∞

  Hiroshi had just concluded the lengthy and tedious process of staring into the eyes of the disgusting criminal Saisho Waru who had stolen millions from children’s hospitals, most of which were non-profit, meaning he endangered or even cost the lives of many children as well. Hiroshi despised that smug expression that seemed to constantly remain on the tall, large, black-haired and eyed man.

  What Hiroshi had learned from those two hours was that Saisho Waru lived in a Mansion. Quite standard by that point for the wealthy.

  He also had a wife with no children, as well as having no need for any consistent medication in order to survive.

  “I need to get close to him or his relatives somehow… But it would be suspicious for a random child to befriend them months before his death… Especially since he does not have a child for me to befriend to make it easier… This situation truly is quite troublesome,” Hiroshi thought while looking down towards his lap, sitting in an armchair in another miscellaneous motel room he was staying in.

  “That's it,” Hiroshi thought; his eyes lit up with satisfaction.

  “And so it shall begin.”

  ∞

  “Alright, just an easy pop,” said Hiroshi.

  Hiroshi was sitting, legs crossed on the floor with his left leg extended, while Kaito stood over him. Hiroshi planned to dislocate his leg. He had researched the least painful method that would secure a clean dislocation that would land him in the hospital for a short period of time.

  “Alright, Hiroshi, ready?” asked Kaito in his normal, solemn tone.

  “Yes. Do it as we rehearsed,” responded Hiroshi in a somewhat jittery tone, although his resolve was also very apparent in it.

  Kaito nodded and grabbed a wooden bat that had been by his side and began striking Hiroshi quite forcefully all over his left leg with it while Hiroshi was gritting his teeth in pain and discomfort, then reached for Hiroshi’s knee with both hands. He parted his hands from one another to have each on either bone, and with one firm, swift movement, a pop sound could be heard.

  Hiroshi grunted in pain and closed his eyes, but the thought of his beautiful plan coming to fruition was what drove him to breathe and follow the rest of the procedure as planned.

  Kaito proceeded to hoist Hiroshi up with one arm and carry him over his shoulder, then dashed from their motel room into the lobby and screamed for someone to call an ambulance, making sure to look very shocked and worried as per Hiroshi’s request.

  The lady at the reception desk saw the situation and stared at Hiroshi, now wailing in pain and hurried to heed Kaito’s order, with a look of pure horror on her face.

  The ambulance arrived in a little over five minutes, the entire time Hiroshi was wailing steadily louder and louder, mostly as an act, but unfortunately with some of it being all too genuine. The paramedics hurriedly carried Hiroshi onto a stretcher, all while his volume was steadily increasing.

  They quickly fastened him in the back of the ambulance while Kaito was holding his right hand and staying by his side, then drove away at top speeds within seconds.

  When everything was on track, one of the two paramedics in the back with Hiroshi and Kaito asked Kaito over Hiroshi’s screams what had happened, not before taking out a notepad and pen.

  “Hiroshi here fell down the stairs. It was very sudden, but I heard his screams from the other room and came running to him immediately. It turned out he rolled down them, then got his leg caught in an opening below the railings. After that, I took him to the front desk and told them to call an ambulance.”

  “Alright, and who are you to Hiroshi exactly?”

  “Oh, I am his legal guardian. His parents, unfortunately passed away a while ago, so I decided to adopt him after I found him at a foster home. Here are the documents. I quickly gathered them up from my bag because I thought you might need some proof.”

  Kaito produced an untidy stack of papers and handed them to the paramedic as he said he would.

  “Thank you, and yes we do need this documentation.”

  Despite the pain, Hiroshi was avidly listening to every single word Kaito and the paramedic uttered, all while keeping up the screaming. Those documents did bring Hiroshi some nostalgia though. The day Kaito had taken him to a foster home and adopted him, using the control ability to make the lady at the front desk record Hiroshi’s name in the databases as being a member of the home, then being adopted by Kaito.

  “Wow, that was about a year ago now. So much has changed since then,” Hiroshi reflected to himself.

  As he was finishing the thought, the ambulance arrived at its destination. The main hospital sponsored by Saisho Waru.

  ∞

  “So young man, after some tests, we found out that you dislocated your knee. Now what that means is that it popped out, and this happened because you fell, correct?” said a doctor standing beside Hiroshi’s hospital bed, with a gentle smile across his face.

  “M-Mhm,” Hiroshi replied, trying his best to sound shaken up, while also carefully going over how to handle the situation at hand.

  “Yes, well it looks like that due to the bruises near your knee as well. So we need to give you a surge-” said the doctor, before stopping dead in between his words, with a blank look in his eyes.

  “I would like to conduct the surgery tomorrow night since you look pretty scared right now. Is that okay?” asked the doctor with a smile.

  “M-Mhm,” replied Hiroshi in almost the exact way he had moments prior.

  “Oh yes, Mr. Waru is also coming in today, I'll make sure he comes to see you too, since it’s your first time and it must be scary.”

  “I-I don’t know who that is b-but I guess t-that’s okay,” replied Hiroshi, in the same tone.

  “Ok good. Alright, well I will leave you alone with your father now. Nice talking to you Hiroshi,” said the doctor, before turning around and strolling out of the hospital room door and shutting it softly behind him.

  Kaito waited until the doctor’s footsteps were a faint pitter-patter of thumps far away before moving a muscle. He cleared his throat in two short bursts, in quick succession, with the latter being more drawn out and louder than the former.

  Hiroshi immediately recalled their conversation minutes before they started the process of dislocating his knee where Kaito had told him that various, normal-looking pieces of body language and sounds were to be used by them to create various meanings, and explained each of them to Hiroshi.

  “If I clear my throat twice, drawing the latter out, it means that there are security cameras and wiretaps in the room and we will engage in a regular conversation that an adoptive father and his son would have.”

  Hiroshi ensured his expression would not reflect his realization, but kept up the same one he had before.

  “So Hiroshi, how’re you feeling? Is it better?” asked Kaito in a concerned tone, with a matching facial expression.

  “Y-Yea,” responded Hiroshi.

  “That’s good. You’re going to have to keep up with your schoolwork though. Would you prefer to just do more after going back, or if I bring it to you here?”

  “I’ll just do more after I go back. I'm sure I'll be able to catch up, I’ve read ahead in most subjects already so it’s no big deal.”

  “Good. I suppose I will go get us some food from downstairs. Just stay right there and wait for me,” said Kaito in the most fatherly tone he could muster yet.

  “Alright, dad.”

  With that, Kaito left the room. This left Hiroshi alone, and all the while he was just sitting on his hospital bed quietly and occasionally took a quick glance at the clock on the wall in front of him.

  “Tick, tock, tick, tock,” was the faint sound Hiroshi could hear, other th
an the even more faint sounds of people going about their business in the hospital on the other side of the room door.

  “Just a few more minutes,” Hiroshi thought to himself as his eyes began to follow the clock’s second hand intently.

  “It does not matter. I'm being too paranoid, they will not be able to incriminate me for simply looking at a clock, I could simply be counting the seconds until my father would come back with food like he said he would seconds ago. Nothing suspicious,” Hiroshi thought. He was being overly cautious, but that was much better than the alternative.

  Hiroshi suddenly glanced from the clock to the door of his hospital room after a few minutes, and right after doing so, an originally faint array of sounds began to grow louder and louder, coming from the edge of the corridor that spanned from one end of the ward to the other, with Hiroshi’s room being somewhere in the middle.

  The noises comprised of the distinct, non-stop clicking of cameras taking countless photos, along with booming laughter and conversation. Hiroshi simply remained seated patiently on his bed, not changing his expression, but just gazing wide-eyed at the door as the noises grew in volume.

  When the noises had seemingly reached their peak, Hiroshi’s door burst open and the sounds grew to an even more immense volume. There was a crowd of people at the entrance to his room, but only two were actually in clear sight through the frame. Hiroshi’s doctor and Saisho Waru.

  Saisho Waru pompously took several large strides toward Hiroshi with a huge grin and placed his hand on Hiroshi’s shoulder. He then proceeded to speak in a booming tone, challenging the volume of the endless amounts of clicking from the cameras now being pointed at Hiroshi’s face after their owners had entered the room behind Saisho Waru.

  “Hello, young man! What seems to be the problem with you today?!” asked Saisho Waru, in a volume that most would achieve in a scream, but he had easily displayed in his obviously normal tone of speaking.

  Hiroshi was repulsed. This was exactly the type of man he would expect to be robbing children. What a disgrace? It was faked, but Hiroshi knew Kaito would not stray this far off from the original, so it was effectively all too real. It was difficult, but Hiroshi knew he had to keep a straight face while replying.

  “I-I have a dislocated k-knee,” Hiroshi said in the same nervous and innocent tone he had used when speaking to the doctor.

  “Oh, I am sorry to hear that. How about this?” Saisho Waru said in a dramatically saddened tone, then leaned in to have his mouth directly next to Hiroshi’s ear.

  “Young man, your doctor has told me that you don’t have many friends, so once your knee heals, why don't you come to visit my nephew? He is much like you, and I think he could use a friend like you, and maybe you could too,” said Saisho Waru in a whisper uncharacteristically silent for him, but somehow he had been able to pull it off.

  Hiroshi responded by leaning in and whispering back, “Y-Yea, that would be really nice of you mister.”

  Saisho Waru smiled smugly and stood back up, straighter than ever, puffing out his chest to its limit, then turned to the eager journalists and began speaking in the same booming tone once more.

  “This young man will also get a cheque for ¥100,000!”

  These few words were met with thunderous applause from the crowd, to which Saisho Waru bowed in response, seeming to enjoy the spotlight immensely. After a few seconds of basking in the limelight, Saisho Waru turned back and waved at Hiroshi and he replied with one back. The man swiftly spun back around and walked out of the door after the crowd of journalists parted to allow him through. They followed right behind him, as did Hiroshi’s doctor, and seconds later, the last journalist slammed the door behind him.

  Hiroshi could not hold back his smile. It was slight, just enough to satisfy his amusement at that point. His plan was all coming together, and very nicely at that.

  Chapter 11

  Hiroshi had just arrived at Saisho Waru’s brother’s house where he was to meet and play with Saisho Waru’s nephew. It was a mansion, something he was used to seeing by now due to the mass corruption in the government he had to take care of, although this one in specific was particularly gargantuan in size.

  Hiroshi had been able to walk over to the house, as it was near to his motel. He saw Saisho Waru’s nephew waiting outside so he quickened his pace to reach him.

  “H-Hey. My uncle wanted me to p-play with you.”

  The boy was exactly how Hiroshi was acting like he was. A great contrast to the other fools in their age group that Hiroshi had encountered prior. Other than that, the boy looked quite average, except for his light green eyes, making a strange pairing with his jet-black hair. Hiroshi assumed he had gotten them from his mother, who was presumably foreign like Hiroshi’s, although, that was made much more apparent in Hiroshi’s case physically, although the rich green eyes he was staring back into were incredibly unique.

  It had been a month after Hiroshi’s surgery and he had made an almost full recovery, except for having a limp when he walked, thus having to use a walking stick.

  Saisho Waru had, as he said, made arrangements for Hiroshi to come and see his nephew. The boy was around Hiroshi’s height and around the same age. The boy was looking down at his feet, frightened to make eye contact, save for the first few moments he had laid eyes on Hiroshi when he was walking towards him.

  He reminded Hiroshi of his goals quite well. His goal was to prevent children like this boy from suffering, specifically at the hands of Owari. To think that he had to be related to a disgusting man like Saisho Waru, involved with the very organization made Hiroshi beyond enraged. Nonetheless, Hiroshi would dispose of that man quickly enough.

  “H-Hi,” replied Hiroshi, mimicking the boy’s posture and mannerisms perfectly.

  “I-I have some toys and g-games we could play. D-Do you want to?” asked the boy in the same tone.

  “S-Sure,” Hiroshi replied, looking up and smiling, to which the boy replied with a tiny smile of his own. This would perhaps be an occasion where Hiroshi would not particularly mind engaging in such childish behavior.

  ∞

  “Bye!” said Hiroshi cheerfully as he swiftly walked down the steps of the giant mansion.

  “B-Bye. Nice to meet you!” the boy shouted back.

  Hiroshi turned back as he reached the bottom of the steps and they waved to each other one final time before Hiroshi turned away.

  Hiroshi waited until he was about 2-3 blocks from those steps until he took out his phone, and right on cue, got a text message from an unknown number.

  “Here is the information on Saisho Waru. His behavior with his close friends and family is very similar to his outside behavior. He is very confident, flamboyant and cheerful to everyone around him. He gives very valuable and well thought out gifts to everyone, and constantly donates to hospitals and charities.”

  Hiroshi smiled and pocketed his phone once more while looking at it the entire time. He looked up from his pocket into the dreamy blue sky and his smile grew.

  “Everything is falling into place. Saisho Waru, I expected you to act very different toward your loved ones, but apparently, you are even deceiving them as well. You are the only person who knows of your true colors. It hardly matters though. I do not need proof of your disgusting thoughts or even acts, just how you portray yourself. Saisho Waru, your miserable time on this planet will soon be complete,” Hiroshi thought to himself.

  “From here, I will go on about two more ‘play dates’ as they are called with Saisho Waru’s nephew. That will be enough time to somewhat gain their trust. After that, it will be a quick and easy strike according to my plan.”

  ∞

  “Hey, Hiroshi,” said the boy.

  It was halfway through the next “play date” that Hiroshi had with this boy, and by this point, he had actually begun to warm up to Hiroshi and no longer stuttered or darted his eyes to the ground while around him. Hiroshi also came to become quite fond o
f the boy. Although he was not his intellectual equal by any means, he could tell the boy was still intelligent for his age and was very respectable.

  The more time Hiroshi spent with him, the more it reaffirmed his sentiment that children like this were why he would continue with his future plans. Hiroshi also came to view the boy as his friend of sorts, since, despite Hiroshi’s intellect, he still had the built-in feeling of wanting companions his own age, and if he were to pick, this boy would be the spitting image of what he would prefer.

  The two were laying in a warm field, filled with majestic flowers of endless colors located inside the family’s massive property, just gazing up at the majestic blue sky above and lying there with his friend brought Hiroshi the only adolescent joy he had received in a long while. It brought him back to another, very similar memory in fact. However, all of this did not dissuade him from his purpose at all.

  “Yes, Makoto?” responded Hiroshi in a relaxed tone that matched his external appearance, and perhaps a bit of his internal mood as well.