alicenine fanfic Imprisoned chapter 2

Warning: yaoi =guy loves another guy, don't like don't read

Chapter 02


“In our country, mental illness is like the leprosy of the 21st century,” the raven-haired student opened his presentation with a rather strong statement.

This student known to his peers as Tora was a 3rd year psychology major in the university. He knew a lot about mental illness. He knew how patients would fall victim to delusions and false belief, and how these delusions they suffered would affect their daily lives. As a student, he was requested to know his subjects. In fact, all of his fellow classmates were requested to learn about mental illness, the many psychological theories, about how human brain worked, amongst many other topics.

Behind the raven-haired young man, who stood in front of his large roomful of classmates, a series of newsflashes started to play on the huge screen hanging on the wall. News about a high school student committing suicide due to schoolwork-related pressure, news about a mentally ill mother strangling her children to death before killing herself, news about a male pop star having to step down from his leading-role after suffering a nervous breakdown, news about ex-mental patients being forced out of their jobs; news about town people protesting bitterly against a state-owned asylum opening in a place very close to their community……all of these news provided a seemingly endless supply of evident to show how the general public reacting negatively against mental diseases and the patients.

“Why would so many of us react to mental diseases and those who suffer with them in such a strong and defensive manner? Why would mental patients be always related to violence, disorder and so many other scary, negative things? Why would many of us associate the patients with those negative images even so quickly, with hardly any hesitation?”

“Because of discrimination?” One of the students, who sat at the front row with his friends, spoke up to offer his own conjunction.

Tora gave his fellow student a small nod in agreement, but he clearly had something of his own to add, “Discrimination is obviously part of the problem, but at the bottom of hatred and mistrust, there’s something deeper, more primitive, and it’s...”

In here, Tora’s voice dropped as his last words stretched into nothingness. Many of the students subconsciously leant their upper bodies forward, waiting.

“It is fear,” Tora didn’t continue after he offered the audience an answer to his own question. Instead, he let the quietness sink in, letting his words sink into them fully; before he picked up again.

“Fear, one of the strongest, the most primitive emotions possessed by humankind. As we all know, fear is one of the human’s innate emotions. We are born to fear, it’s in our very nature.”

Tora paused again, and he saw some of his classmates nodded their heads.

“Fear is what keeping mental patients from the rest of the society, from the mass. Our fear towards them,” he knew it was time to bring his points across, “Our fear towards mental illness and disorder draw a huge gap between the confirmed mentally ill people and those who are considered ‘normal’. To a point of cutting the patients off from their much-needed social and emotional support.”

“Amano san, I see that you have come up with a rather...impressive point. So, would you explain this part to us with more detail and example?” The lector, who stood on the left side at the front of the lecture room, steadily suggested.

“Sure,” Tora was ready for a request like this, so he responded to it with confidence.

Next, he started to give examples to back up his claim, also backing it with classical theories and finding of past researches.

By now, most of the students were quiet and concentrating. When the 3rd year student’s presentation came to an end, everyone was clapping with appreciation.

Then, Tora went back to his seat, and the lecture continued for some time, with other students presenting their own presentations. Eventually, the lector drew a conclusion for their lesson, and then today’s lecture came to an end.

Before the lecture ended, the lector reminded his students, “Next week, there will be more students coming up with their own presentations. I hope you guys would bring in something as...finely constructed as Amano san has offered today.”

At this point, many students turned their heads towards Tora, admiration clear on their faces; the raven-haired student smiled politely in response.

After the lecture, a group of students came up to the front of the lecture room and greeted Tora. The raven head chatted with them causally. After a few rounds of small talks and laughter, one of the female students from the group seemed to randomly come up with a question, “Why are you so good at your study, Amano-san? What’s your secret?”

“I guess having a strong interest in the subject helps me focus better on my study,” Amano smiled patiently at the young woman as he answered.

“But why would you develop such a strong interest?” The female student questioned again, instead of accepting what she was told and got out of Tora’s sight.

Tora felt his patience wearing thin; but outwardly, his smile didn’t fade. He couldn’t show his true feeling when he was amongst his classmates, “My subject...let’s just say the more I study on it, the more it helps me to satisfy some...personal curiosity.”

Thankfully, this time the young woman was satisfied by the answer she got. She even thanked Tora for sharing a piece of his mind and his helpful hints on study with she and her friends, everyone was smiling. Soon, Tora excused himself from the group.


“Tora...hey, Tora.”

The raven head turned on his heel, facing an equally tall young man who had called out to him earlier.

“Miyavi-senpai,” Tora smiled, waiting until his senior in college arrived before him.

“Tora, I thought you’ve forgotten about our appointment,” said Miyavi between his pants.

“No, of course not. In fact, I was about to head to the coffee shop.”
“Great. Let’s go then!” Said Miyavi cheerfully.

~*~

It didn’t take long for them to reach the coffee shop, not far from the train station. Yesterday, Miyavi had requested a meeting to Tora. Due to their activities, the two of them had not been hanging out together lately. So today, when they finally had some free time, they decided to meet up.

Miyavi unexpectedly changed the topic, "You know, isn't someone in our college has recently gone missing?"

“I’ve heard about it,” Tora replied, “We all have seen the flyers.”

The raven-haired student wondered what had made his senior mention this missing person case—although the case had attracted a lot of attention amongst the student body, still Tora was certain Miyavi didn’t know the missing student personally.

Miyavi smiled a bit, and then gestured the younger man to turn his head. Tora turned around and saw a poster on the wall behind him. The poster showed a picture of a young man, there were a huge HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PERSON? printed above the photo.

When Tora turned back to face his senior again, their order had arrived at the same time.

“Poor kid, I wonder what had happened to him,” the older man commented, as he picked up his cup of coffee, “Do you know him?”

The raven head raised an eyebrow, “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Nothing. It’s just that I heard the police didn’t get much information about him.”

“Really? I thought police would get to the bottom of what is there to know whenever they do their job,” Tora asked sceptically.

“They’re still investigating. I think I heard they’ve informed this student’s parents too.”

“I feel sorry for the parents, though.”

Miyavi nodded in agreement, and then he added thoughtfully, “I noticed the other students are a bit shaken up too. It’s disturbing to know a case of disappearance can hit so, so close to home.”

Tora nodded. Miyavi did have a fine point here. Bad things happened all the time, horrible things happened to the most innocent victims with hardly any reason. As harsh as it might sound, it was just how life worked.

As adults, all of them understood as much; but on the emotional level, most people tended to turn a blind eye on the harsh reality. They used to think: ‘Bad things just can’t happen to me, can’t happened to someone close to me, someone I know. Bad things can only happen to people who live far, far away from me, who have nothing to do with me.’

This kind of thinking might sound selfish and heartless, but if people were being honest, they would find it was what many, if not most, people did live by those kinds of false beliefs.

Tora just had to wonder whether Sakamoto Takashi and his loved ones had also lived by this false belief and fake sense of security, until it was too late.

~*~

He was in his flat again. Hanging out with his senior had made him relaxed. Miyavi had said that they should do it again next time they had the chance, before they parted at the station.

Tora toed off his shoes and hung his jacket on the door hanger, proceeding to his bedroom afterwards. He threw his bag onto the bed and lay down on it, only to sit upright again when he remembered something. Grabbing onto the strap of his bag, the raven head dragged it towards him and opened the zipper. Fumbling through the contents, it wasn’t long until he fished out a flyer from inside his bag.

The said flyer was none other than the one about the missing person, which happened to be a student in his and Miyavi’s college. The dark-haired young man had carried it back home. His senior had seemed interested in this case, although the older man didn’t seem to know this Sakamoto Takashi person. However, considering that it was one of their college mates, it was pretty understandable that Miyavi showed some concern.

Still holding the flyer in his hand, Tora moved to his desk and opened his laptop. Sitting on his chair, the raven head waited until the device finished starting up and the internet was connected. His fingers moved swiftly over the keyboard, as he entered in the URL of his university’s website. First, he checked the forum. His guess was right. The news about Sakamoto Takashi’s disappearance had spread so quickly, and the thread discussing it was on the very top. He clicked on the thread and scrolled down slowly, summing up the comments people had posted. Most of them, the same as Miyavi had done, showed their concern towards the case. Some even bothered to make speculations of their own. Although the most recent comments sounded too unlikely that it even made Tora snort in amusement. The raven head wasn’t really into detective-play, but people’s thoughts on some cases were what made him interested.

Having enough browsing the forum, Tora then went back to top and searched for the link that would bring him to the students list. Although the website didn’t provide full profile of the students due to privacy, the raven head still found it helpful, for what he needed to check was only the students’ status. Specifically, Sakamoto Takashi’s status.

As he arrived on the page he was looking for, Tora typed in the kanji of the missing student and in a few seconds, the result was shown. Sakamoto Takashi’s photo appeared on his laptop screen, followed by his profile. His eyes narrowed at what he read. He leant back onto his chair, rubbing his chin in thought.

“They’ve sure moved fast, haven’t they? Even his status has changed to ‘missing’,” muttered Tora.

His hand moved to the flyer again. The raven head picked it up and examined the picture. Miyavi’s voice resounded in his head, “Do you know him?”


to be continued.