Victory Storm - Love Hurricane

He could understand her so well: she was confined in a world she didn't want.

“So, is that the reason why you often come here and cry?” Adam whispered softly, trying to hold back the emotion that scene was stirring inside himself.

Unlike all the other girls in their school, Kira wasn't crying for a bad mark, for a love disappointment or for any other girlish foolishness. He was very struck by her.

“Would you like to go back to Princeton? To your friends?” he guessed again.

“To Lucas,” Kira moaned and sniffed her nose.

“Lucas? Is he your boyfriend?”

“No, he is my best friend. He is in danger and I'm not there with him any more, to protect him... I don't even know where he is at the moment and what's happening to him” the girl sobbed, showing Adam the sealed envelop she was holding in her hand.

Adam turned it upside down in his hands. The letter was addressed to a Lucas Scott from Kira Yoshida, but it had been sent back to her with the words “unknown addressee,” written by the post office with a big red stamp.

“Your friend might have moved home. Did your Lucas ever tell you anything?”

Kira stopped crying with a superhuman effort and she tried to focus on the explanation she should give him. She had never been in confidence with anyone in the last year, not even with her school mate Misaki, but at the moment she was feeling like offloading the burden she was carrying inside onto someone else.

She had never spoken to Adam before actually, but his eyes made her understand she could trust him.

“My father was moved to the USA five years ago, so we went to live in Princeton, next to Davenport...I met Lucas there. He is as old as me and went to my same school. I'm very fond of him and I've always tried to protect him from that alcohol addicted butcher, but...”

“Alcohol addicted butcher?”

“His father,” Kira explained and started crying again. “He beat him... Lots of times and I couldn't stop him. My mother tried too, but with no effect... however, we helped Lucas a lot by our presence and the violent scenes became less frequent, but I'm not with him any more now, I...I...”

A new burst of weeping.

“He is alone at the moment and there is nobody ready to protect him,” Adam guessed, feeling sorry for him. “What about his mother?”

“She died some years ago and left Lucas alone with his father” Kira answered in a very scornful and resentful voice towards that woman who should have looked after her own son instead of running away to the after-world, in her opinion. “I'm the only one who cares about Lucas in this world and I left him.”

That guilty feeling and her pain for that state of things struck Adam like a punch in his stomach, leaving him absolutely breathless.

“What will he do without me? I'm sure is father will beat him again and I won't be there. I'm not there with him any more, can you understand me?” Kira went on giving vent to her deep frustration. “My mother keeps saying that Lucas never answered my letters for his father's fault and that he probably never gives them to him... but after this last one, I don't know what I should think. Could anything serious have happened to him?”

“Can't you hear from him anyway?”

“Thanks to her previous job, my mum was able to learn that Lucas is well, even if his father has a lot of money in the last year because of some wrong investment. But that's not enough for me! I want to go back to Princeton! I should never have gone away! It's all my father's fault.”

“Your father was moved back to the USA embassy in Tokyo a year ago, wasn't he?”

“Yes, I prayed and begged him to leave me in Princeton. I was ready to go to college, but he didn't let me do it. The worst thing is that I was really sure I would stay there with Lucas. I had sworn to him that I would never leave him, instead...I don't know if he will be able to forgive me. He'll think I'm treacherous like his mother.”

“That's not your fault.”

“It's all my fault: each time Lucas feels pain, it's my fault, my parents are always quarrelling for my fault...” Kira burst out because she had noticed her parents' never ending night quarrels, when they believed she was sleeping in her bedroom. Leaving Princeton had been difficult for her mother too, because she had had to leave her job and her daughter was dejected and unrecognisable, so that had been a very bad blow for Elizabeth too.

“I've never seen our daughter crying so much, not even when she was a baby! Kenzo, I've been trying to make her stop for months! I was wrong to agree with you and leave Princeton. And what for? To turn into your mother's carer? Oh, Kenzo, this isn't the kind of life I wished for,” Elizabeth often complained.

“Tokyo is my home town and my wife should look after my mother which is a widower now and is alone. Besides, I've already told you to look for a part-time job, but only if you are able to look after our daughter. Being so often far away from you was a mistake. Kira clearly needs some discipline and moral rules” her husband kept telling her.

“What are you hinting at? Do you think I didn't match up my responsibilities towards her?”

“Should I remind you that our daughter hasn't spoken to me for months and is behaving very badly with everybody? Not to mention her bad marks at school! She didn't even pass her entrance examination at the International School and she is attending a very common Japanese school at the moment.”

“Kira has always been the best in her class! What did you expect from her? You suddenly dragged her away from her school, her friends and above all from Lucas! You know how much she cares about him!”

“You should call him a scapegrace!”

“It's not his fault if he has a father like that.”

“I don't care! Kira's life is here now and she must accept it!” her husband ended every time before leaving the house and slamming the door.

At the memory of those quarrels, Kira was carried away by a new torrent of tears.

Without uttering any other word, Adam made her sit down on a dusty chair and let her give vent to her feelings, till she stopped crying.

“I'm so sorry for what you are going through,” Adam burst into her thoughts. “I don't know what's happening to your friend, but I can tell you that you should put more trust in him, in my opinion.”

“I trust him!”

“So, stop considering him like the victim he used to be when you were children. He is growing up like you, so he will soon be able to protect himself from his father, you'll see.”

“But Lucas is so small and thin if compared to his father.”

“He probably used to be like that, but I'm sure he'll turn into a strong boy soon, capable of looking after himself.”

Kira looked at him with wide- open eyes. She had never thought that Lucas could be able to protect himself from that monster. In her mind, Lucas was still a small and slim nine-year-old child, covered in bruises and scratches. However, Adam was right: Lucas had grown up and had become stronger, even if that wasn't enough. At the moment.