Peter's "Diary" {Therapeutic Journal}

[Yuki]

We find Peter’s diary, lying face down on his bed as if he forgot to put it away. It says nothing on it’s red cover, spine, or back, but on the inside it clearly states “PETER’S PROPERTY—DO NOT TOUCH UNLESS GIVEN PERMISSION TO.
But that’s not stopping us, now is it?

November 2nd

Ah, hello there, to anyone who’s reading! If you read the cover, my name is Peter Yerami. I’m sixteen, and I’m currently attending Florence Academy. If you’re reading this, you probably know that, though, so why am I talking about that? Well, anyway, I know it’s a bit weird for a boy to have a diary, but I’m... required to. Some of my teachers think I’m just not paying attention in class, which is why I’m failing. But, that’s not true, I pay attention everyday! And then, I think I get it, but then when I get out of the classroom, everything just…

Vanishes.

Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? But, it’s true! Ever since I was little, things just fly right out of my mind when I leave the classroom! The only thing I’m actually good at is writing, which was why my teachers suggested a diary to make me figure out what’s wrong with myself. It’s horrible, I know. I should just stay in the classroom, right? How silly, barely even remembering a thing! I don’t know why some people don’t believe me, though—I mean, I tell them I don’t remember, and they don’t listen! Some people even think it’s Dante’s fault that I’m doing poorly in school!
But that’s not true.
My problems started before he started hating me… yes, we used to be friends, best friends! Even then, I had trouble with school, but Dante always tried to help me, no matter how impossible the task seemed. He was always the perfect older brother, and of course there are times when I wonder what could’ve happened to us that made him hate me.

And then it hits me.
My parents.

Is it their fault that I’m this way? No, it can’t be, they always wanted me to be perfect too. Like Dante was. They wouldn’t make me dumb unless they wanted to only praise one son… but they wanted me to be smart! Why wouldn’t they want me to be smart?! I’m their son, of course they’d care for my studies! I—

The entry seems to end here, as if the writer was in a rush to leave.

[Yuki]

November 3rd

Well, hello there again! I know it's only been a day, but I really just need to write again! I just... well, since I started writing in this thing, I've been just... thinking of what's really going on in my life. I mean, yeah, it's the usual "I'm failing all of my classes, thus I'm a failure!" routine, but there's something more... I think I've just been thinking more about Dante, truthfully... which is a bit weird. Of course I want to be like him, so I try to think like him, but I've been thinking of it... differently. Like, before he hated me, like I said in my previous entry. Does it seem as though I'm obsessing over him? I'm trying not to, I'm just trying to think...

What made him hate me so much?

Well, let's see... I was seven when he had told me that he disliked me, so it was probably before then... what happened during that time? It's almost like a bit of a blur, all I know is that I was failing classes, Dante was passing them, we were great friends, and my parents hated it. They've never really been afraid to tell me if I'm a failure or not, or if I'm doing something wrong. It's their special way of making sure that I try to do the right thing, even though I never can really do the right thing anyway! They try too hard to make me perfect! God, why couldn't I have had nicer parents, like the ones that... that... Fran has! Yeah, she said that she has great parents--heck, a great family! With brothers and sisters who love her, and loving parents too! They don't care if their daughter is a screw-up, not that I'm saying she is! She's a great person, with a great personality.

Don't I have a good enough personality for my parents?
...
Guess not.

Guess all they care about is their precious Dante, how his life is, his grades, his looks, his wife.
...
...
...
...
Was it Alice's fault that we're not friends anymore?

Well, I guess that I shoudl go now, a bit too much for one entry, hahah. Alright, goodbye my good friend! I shall write in you soon enough!

[Yuki]

Ah, hello there again. I didn't feel like putting the date up today, seeing as though it won't matter soon anyway. Besides, what has the date ever done? As long as one journal entry is after another, I know that one entry was made on one day, and another was made a few days later. So, what's the use for dates? Guess I don't really need them... But anyway, last night there was a... dead body in the lake! Oh, it was so creepy and scary! A dead body?! I didn't know the girl, but still... the fact that she was a student is so weird! Why did she die!?

You wanna know what else was scary? I... saw her! Yeah, that's right, I saw the body! It was after they got it out of the water though, and it was all contorted and scary... and those eyes... they were like vacant spaces, completely empty and lifeless... and what a pretty blue color! They were like the ocean themselves, they were so pretty! I only saw one pair of blue eyes like that before in my life, and those where... Alice's...

Alright journal, I guess I should tell you about Alice, shouldn't I? Well, Alice was Dante's first crush, to tell you the truth. Yes, Dante having a crush is funny, isn't it? And besides a crush, the two were really good friends, and always hung out (if Dante wasn't already playing with me). I usually didn't play with her as much, though--she was too boring for me! But Dante had found her so interesting, and was obviously head-over-heels in love with her. Too bad she wasn't.
She only liked him as a friend.
She didn't even tell him her name.
How can you possibly fall in love with a person who can't even tell you their name?

Oh dear, it looks like I'm sounding... jealous? No, I wasn't jealous of her! Dante and I still were best friends, even if Dante hung out with her a lot. It was always me who was the more loved, even if Dante wanted to spend every waking moment with her. Tch, if only I could find someone like that... someone who I just want to be with forever, but who could fall in love with a failure? No one, that's who. Even people who do love a failure will eventually stop loving and move on.

Like Dante did.
But why?
Wish I knew.

[Yuki]

Hello there my good friend, Journal. I decided that you don't need a name, but that I should call you something. Journal sounds appropriate, considering that you are, in fact, a journal. Well, anyway, I suppose you want me to keep writing about my little story, right Journal? Well then, here I go... I suppose.

So, I had left off when Dante and "Alice" had started becoming friends, right? Wel anyway, Dante just started spending more and more time with her, and not me. I guess it was normal--he was growing up and was in love, while I was too young to really understand what exactly he was feeling. But, I did understand one thing: Dante had a new friend, who he was spending way to much time with, in my opinion. Sure, I was glad that Dante had a new friend, but... as each day passed, he started to grow a bit more distant from me. All he thought about was Alice, all he talked about was Alice. Alice this, Alice this, Alice did this today, Alice gave me a flower today, Alice, Alice, ALICE! It was ALL about HER! It just... wasn't fair, at least not in my five-year-old mind.

But was I going to tell Dante that? Of course not! As much as I disliked Alice, I wasn't going to ruin their happy friendship. I suppose that it would've happened eventually, Dante being more distant from me. And of course, I really did want to play wiht them, but as I said in my previous post, she was just so boring! I still to this day don't know why she had gotten my brother's full attention, but... well, I guess that was love, right?

And then, one day, Dante had rushed home to say that Alice's parents and our own parents actually knew each other, and we should all have dinner together. Oh, goodie, another event for me to mess up. My parents usually forbade me from going to any sort of event with them, even if they were the hosts! But thank god, Dante had begged and pleaded, and so I was going to go to this one. Maybe at the dinner party, though, I could see who Alice really was, and why Dante loved her so much.
Too bad we never got the chance to enjoy the dinner in the first place.

[Yuki]

So, anyway, our parents had gone out, leaving me and Dante alone for the night. I had went to bed a bit early that night, feeling a bit sick. It looked as though I was always getting sick anyway, maybe I was allergic to something when I was little? I now pretend to think that I was allergic to my parents themselves, and now that I'm away I don't get sick anymore--haha. And if they weren't the thing that made me sick, then I at least made them sick--they always would avoid me like some disease.
Why couldn't they just accept me for who I was.

But, now I digress. Alright, Journal, I'm about to say something that no one should ever know... really, most people think that a crush is amazing, but if this got out... it could completely ruin the Yerami family. So, hopefully no one will find this, and if someone is reading, please don't. I'm beggin you, please don't read any further. The only reason I'm telling you, Journal, is because if I don't at least write this down, I'll go crazy. These sort of things make you a bit... insane, if not treated.

Alright, here I go.
So.
I'm not sure what time it was when I had woken up, but I do remember that it was in the middle of the night, my parents weren't home yet, and I was hungry. Deciding that there must be some food downstairs, I hopped out of bed with a yawn, walking out of my room. I was just about at the stairwell when I heard something downstairs. Thinking it was my parents, I began to walk quietly down the stairs until I saw two figures.
Two unfamiliar figures.
In the dark.
Alone.
Thieves.

Holding back a scream, I rushed back up the stairs, covering my mouth. I remembered that Father told us that if there were thieves in the house, we had to tell him. But he wasn't here, so I just went to the next best thing, which happened to be my darling brother.
"DANTE!"

I rushed to his door, opening it and panting heavily, since I had been running. He asked me what was wrong, and I ran to his bed with tears threatening to fall. "There are thieves in our house," I whispered shakily, holding onto him for my life. I almost broke down into tears, but no, I was stronger than that. I had to be, to prove to everyone that I really was strong. And catching these thieves would prove it, right?
Wrong.

[Yuki]

When Dante had said that he'd try to protect, I knew that my face had lit up immediatly. I always knew my brother was protective of me, and just hearing him say that made me feel a bit more relaxed. Everything would be better now--Dante always made sure of that. I gave a small smile to him, nodding my head towards him.

And then the next question came.
"Where does Father keep his gun?"
At this, I was a bit nervous, wondering why he'd ask such a question. Father's gun!? He wasn't planning on shooting the thieves, was he? No, no, I convinced myself that he'd only take the gun out as a warning, to scare the thieves off. Of course, he wasn't actually going to kill them. That's be murder, and even if they were thieves anyway, murdering someone was far, far worse than stealing. But, now was the question to where Father's gun really was.

Thinking a bit back, I remembered that one day I had been in his room, looking for Mother to ask a question. Of course, my Mother had screamed at me and sent me to my room before I could even ask, but nonetheless, I did catch a glimpse of something that could've looked like a gun up on top of the shelf. That had to be it, right? "Yeah, I think I do..." I said quietly to Dante. "It's on top of the shelf in Father's room, but I'm too short to reach it."

So of course we both ended up going to our parents room, Dante getting the gun by standing on the chair Mother sits on when putting on her make-up, and we were ready to scare off those thieves.
And scare ourselves too, at that.

[Yuki]

The two of us had walked downstairs, Dante holding the gun gently in his hand while I followed behind him quietly. Of course, I was still scared, but with Dante in front of me, I had almost nothing to fear. So, we arrived downstairs, and the first thing we saw were the two thieves. I had rushed towards the lamp, in order to show the thieves that we could hurt them, but before I could get anywhere near it, I had heard two gunshots echoing throughout our empty house.

BAM!
BAM!

I jumped, letting out a small yelp as I almost stumbled over my own feet. I didn't even look back, only turning on the lamp, and then turning towards Dante. At first, I thought the shots were only warning shots, but... on the ground were two bodies, lifeless. And in between them just happened to be Alice, with a horrified look on her face. I had screamed myself at the sight of the dead bodies, droning out the conversation that my dear brother and his friend were having. The only word I had caught was 'monster' before she rushed out of the house, leaving both Dante and myself sobbing on the ground.

Our parents came home only an hour or so later, horrified at what had happened. Unable to believe that their precious Dante was able to kill, they attempted to make us completly forget about the incident, act as though it never happened. They told us there was no murder, it was just lies... listening to that sickly sweet honey-like voice of mother and the soothing voice of father could've easily made anyone believe that. But I wasn't buying it--I was there, and that was an image that will never escape my mind.
Dante never forgot it as well.
In fact, that scene was just too unbearable to think about anymore, that he went almost insane. So my parents took him into therapy to try and make him back to normal, so that they had "at least one successful son".

For three years, Dante would go to the therapy, and for three years I would wait for the day that he would come back as his normal old self, happy, smiling, and my loving brother.
But he never did come back. At least not the Dante I knew.

[Yuki]

Three years.
Three god damned years of our lives, wasted away because of therapy. And what came of it? Sure, Dante became normal again, but... not the normal that I wanted. Not the normal, loving Dante who would always take care of me, oh no. This Dante was... different. Hating. Brooding. Scary... hell, he was practically the core of evil itself. But still, even after all of that... I can't hate him. No, this is my brother, my older, loving brother who I know is still alive somewhere in that body. He's just... sleeping, now.

And until he wakes up, I'm living with Hell.
I don't even know how it had happened. Of course, Dante had been feeling terrible after his sessions, and it was showing in his grades too. He was failing, he would barely eat, and he was hardly getting any rest at all. But I would always be right there next to him, waiting for him and making sure he was alright. I would hug him, hell, I even wiped his tears away if he were crying. My goal was to just make Dante as happy as he could possibly be, and for a while, it really did work.

But then, one day... oh god, I remember it so clearly. It was just a normal day, with Dante being in another therapy session. I was, as always, waiting for him to finish, just pacing around the large house of ours. But, this session was taking a bit longer than usual, and I wasn't too sure why. Then, finally, I saw Dante, and I grinned. Opening my mouth, I quickly realized that he had looked angry, and only when it was too late did I realize that his anger was directed at me.

Before I could move, he had tackled me to the ground, punching me and beating me senseless. I screamed and cried, tears immediately falling down my cheeks. "Dante!" I cried, "w-what's going on!?" I tried to push him off of me, but he wouldn't budge. He was just too strong, as if all of the anger from his sessions had just come out and used against me.

There are a few wet spots here and there, thus resulting in some of the pages being a bit wrinkled. There's a large wet drop on one word, but it's hard to make out.

I don't want to write anymore... it's making me feel... bad. I'm going to take a break for a while, alright Journal? I won't leave forever, I just can't... write.

In smaller writing, near the bottom, it says very sloppily:

What happened to you, Dante?