Kia Soul || D3 || Deceased

before the war

You are my son, Kia. Don't ever forget that you are my son. The boy with the wood hair and the pearl smile. The boy who thinks all he can ever be is a freeloader. You're so much more than that, Kia. I wish I could tell you this. I wish you could hear it with your own ears. But I cannot show love to any of my children, even if that is what I feel.

I remember when I found you. Untouched by the orphanage. A gleaming spark with one dark spot. Your parents had died. You couldn't have been more than eight. You grew up with Porsche and Bugatti until Toyota became your sister and you were always the happiest of my children. I don't know why. You'd seen so much pain. So much hurt and anger. When you were young, you told me about it. You told me about the night your parents died.

Your brother. A monster. At twelve, he'd decided he would rather have his family in ribbons and bows than whole pieces. You watched him slowly remove your parents' skin until they were sobbing masses of red blood pouring from every place. You'd watched your mother's hair go from a beautiful blonde to being stained with crimson as it fell to the floor in pooling tendrils of pain and terror attached to pieces of her scalp.

That's something I found out about you quickly. Your attention to detail. You account was so graphic I wondered how something that horrible could sit in your mind. How could you still smile? How could you still laugh and learn and joke and function?

One day, I asked you. Your response is something I've never forgotten about you. 

"Mother always told us, especially when times got rough, that everything is okay and will be okay and to close our eyes until our darkness passes."

You said you whispered that to yourself the whole time they were dying. Before your brother left them for dead and took off out the front door. 

When I used to check on you and your siblings after you'd gone to bed and I'd been up late going over paperwork, I'd sometime hear you murmuring in your sleep the same phrase over and over again. I knew you were having a nightmare. How couldn't I, by the pained look on your face and the twitching of your limbs. But I couldn't wake you. Your demons are yours to face, my son.

yeah, before I grasped that people died 

before I saw my sister cry 

I was just a kid, I was singing la la la la la la la la 

shit was simple just like la la la la la la la la

As I write this, you're seventeen years old. Almost the age my little competition starts. Almost an age where I don't have to worry about losing you or your siblings to the Hunger Games. You're taller than I am-- 6' 3". My tall, slender son. You're a string bean, boy. 

The way you look at people with those clear hazel eyes is... interesting. You are predictably unpredictable. The only thing I know for sure you'll do is something that will make you happy. You swing between being incredibly selfish and unbelievably selfless. I think it must have something to do with your age. Your exploration of your being.

You've just spilled a glass of water you were drinking. I want to chuckle at your predictable clumsiness. You've been tripping over your own legs since you were as old as Toyota. You started visiting bars and parties just two years after that at sixteen. I'd love to protect you from yourself. I'd love to wrap you all in comfortable little cocoons and then help you break out of them. But a butterfly who doesn't emerge on his own is doomed to be too weak to fly. 

At least it has never been a serious problem. You drink to have fun, from what I can see. You smile and laugh and down a shot with your friends. With the person or people who are your lovers for the time at your side. You just want to have fun. You constantly tell yourself that everything is okay and will be okay. How do you do it? How do you not let your worries show on that chiseled face of yours?

I'd love to say you have my nose, but I would be lying. It looks like mine (a tad too wide and a tad too crooked) but it isn't because you're not truly my son. No matter how many times I say it, I have to say it just one more time to remind myself. None of your are my children. And yet... you are. You are even more my children. 

Kia, this has been a long-winded attempt of your old man to document a moment in time. A moment before you'll be forced to consider the possibility of being at your sibling's throats. You like them. I can see you do. You try so hard to pretend like there's no competition between the four of you. Could I maybe call you the glue?

so take me back to the days when I was younger 

all this bullshit is overrated 

back to the days pour some shots out with my people 

and we gon’ sing like la la la la la la la la 

at our local bar like la la la la la la la la

You just came back downstairs after a while. It's nearly seven o'clock on a Friday night. You'll be going to your favorite bar to meet your favorite people and do your favorite things. Still the pleasure-seeker. 

"Dad?" You started calling me dad when you were thirteen. It was always Mr. Soul and then suddenly 'Dad.' I still don't know why or what changed in that strange mind of yours.

"What?" I said, keeping my tone neutral. "Are you wanting to go out again tonight?"

I can tell by the clothes you're wearing. They're expensive, but they're not nice. I don't know why I let you buy them. An olive green ratty hat paired with ratty khaki-colored jeans. Paired with a blue button-down shirt that fades in strange places.

You glanced away. I can tell you think I disapprove of you and your choices. I guess you could say I do. You look like a guilty dog cowering in a corner. But that doesn't make you any less my son.

"Yes, Sir," you murmured.

"All right. Just be back before midnight and use your head, rather than that heart you're always talking about."

"Yes, Sir," you murmured again before you walk out of the room, closing the door behind you. You started running in the hallway. I can hear your heavy boots banging against my hardwood floors.

Kia, you are my son. No matter what happens, you'll never be any less of a man in my eyes. That's all I really wanted to say, but I managed to come out with this exceedingly note that you'll never even read.

But it's all okay. It will all be okay.

before they put our dreams in jail
before we lost our fairy tales oh
we were just kids, we were singing la la la la la la la la
love was simple just like la la la la la laa la