InsaneJournal

The Kitano Family & Friends: Bumpy Roads
Who: Kelsey, Zach, Adrienne, Lucinda, Nico, and Loki.
When: Saturday: April 7th, 2007
Where: Zach's house in Del Norte County, California.
What: Kelsey didn’t always approve of Adrienne. In fact, he once hated her. Family drama ensues.

Kelsey made his way down the darkened hall to find Zach, his robe tied around his flannel nightclothes. His mind poured over the information he had discovered just hours before from the mouth of his daughter. Alicia hadn’t said it directly to him, but Kelsey heard her say it nonetheless. His daughter had been talking to Zach about Adrienne, the girlfriend of his son, who had flown across the country to spend some time with Zach at their residence. During their talk, the word werewolf had come up — and it had come up in reference to Adrienne. Many, many times. Alicia had not sounded surprised either. In fact, she had already known about it when Kelsey overhead the two of them talking about her.

Zach had lied to Kelsey about this new girl. Of course she wasn’t a normal human, coming from the same school that Zach had been sent off to, but his son had lied to him about exactly what she was. An animal shapeshifter, Zach had said. Lucinda had said it, too, as did Alicia. Adrienne was not an animal shapeshifter with the ability to become a wolf, though. She was a monster — a werewolf of all things — and Zach had allowed her to come into their home without as much as warning to his own father! If Zach thought that this was something the elder Kitano was going to brush off and forgive, he was deeply mistaken.

It was with this in mind that he sought out his son late at night, hoping the boy had not gone to bed already. When he arrived at Zach’s room, he knocked quietly on the door. It took a moment before Zach opened the door. His son looked tired, though he was still awake. Zach leaned against the door frame for support.

“Hey, Dad,” Zach said, and Kelsey could tell his son was sleepy.

“Are you going to bed soon, son?” he asked, his voice deceptively calm. Hopefully, Zach wasn’t tired yet and would have time to listen to him now. Kelsey didn’t want this to wait until morning. This conversation had to take place now for obvious reasons.

Zach pursed his lips and shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I’m not really tired.”

Good, Kelsey thought. “Do you mind coming downstairs with me and having a talk? Father to son,” he said evenly, betraying none of his true intentions of what he wished to talk about or his feelings at the current moment. Kelsey’s face was blissfully calm.

Not seeing any reason not to follow his dad, Zach nodded his head. “Okay,” he said, opening his door wider and walking out into the hallway. His father immediately began to walk down the hallway towards the staircase, and Zach followed his footsteps carefully. It wasn’t long before they were downstairs, and his father’s path led towards his study. Zach didn’t ask any questions of why they were going there. After all, everyone’s bedrooms were upstairs and talking would be less intrusive down here.

There were occasions when Kelsey had something important he wanted to talk about, and there were times when it just happened to be at odd hours. It wasn’t anything new, and Zach was too tired to question his father’s motives this late at night. He just wanted the meeting to pass by as quickly as possible, so he didn’t have to spend anymore time awake.

They reached the study, and his father led the way inside. Zach sat down in one of the large, overstuffed chairs that appeared to swallow his small frame. Even though he was a teenager, he was born with a small frame and short height. Sitting there in his pajamas with his hands in his lap, he looked a lot like a child because of it.

Kelsey saw the comparison as well. Zach did still look like a child, and Kelsey still viewed him as a one too. Zach couldn’t make certain decisions without help. He needed to be the guiding figure in his son’s life, or Zach was going to make a mistake one day too big for Kelsey to fix. He had to correct him while he was young to ensure the best for his son, and this current way of things was not best for his son.

He remained standing in front of his desk, facing Zach, as the tips of his fingers touched down on the smooth surface of the desk behind himself. “Why did you not tell me your girlfriend was a werewolf?” Kelsey asked him, continuing the deceptively calm demeanor he had displayed from the beginning. He wasn’t the type of person to beat around the bush, even if he liked to conceal how harsh his feelings were at first. He asked the main question on his mind immediately and waited to see his son’s reaction.

Zach gulped, feeling nervousness bloom inside of his chest as he looked down at his hands. He knew, Zach thought. He had tried his best to keep it from his dad. His father wouldn’t have accepted it, and Zach didn’t need a psychic to tell him that. Anything beyond the normal wasn’t acceptable to his father, and now he knew about Adrienne. He’d only told the truth to his mother and to Alicia. He hadn’t wanted to tell his dad, and for good reasons.

“I didn’t think you would have accepted her,” Zach said honestly.

Kelsey crossed his arms over his chest. “Of course I don’t accept her,” Kelsey announced with an icy tone. She was a beast and a monster, a danger and a threat to his family — to Zach! — and his own son was blind to it. “The point is you failed to provide me with this vital bit of information, and as we speak, there is a monster in my house, who is a threat to my family.” As the words continued, Kelsey’s fury grew more visible with each passing moment. “Your mother! Your sister! Lying in bed sleeping with that . . . that thing next to her! And you,” Kelsey said sharply, pointing a finger at Zach, “did not stop to consider this was something that concerned me?”

Frozen in his seat, Zach felt all of the color draining from his face as his father’s voice spat out these things at him. All of these were things that Zach had considered somewhat himself once upon a time. Was a werewolf really safe to be around? But of course Adrienne was safe. She had never harmed anyone. She never harmed Zach or any of her friends. She only shifted on the full moon, so how was that a danger to Alicia or to Mom or even to him or his dad? Adrienne wasn’t a danger, and Zach believed this, and he believed it was his father’s ignorance and prejudice that led him to say these things.

Boldly, Zach sat upright in the chair. “You’re wrong,” Zach told his father, his heart thumping wildly in his chest as he spoke the words as steadily as possible. “You don’t know anything about werewolves, and Adrienne isn’t a dange—”

“I’m wrong?” Kelsey inquired. His voice was so low, so quiet it silenced Zach completely. “I’m wrong about wanting to protect my family? About wanting to protect my son from making the biggest mistake of his life? For getting involved with a werewolf—”

Zach shot up from the chair onto his feet. “Don’t talk about Adrienne like that,” he snapped.

“SIT DOWN!” Kelsey bellowed at his son, and he watched as the small fight that Zach was ready to put up fell out of the boy like the expression on his face fell from anger to disgrace.

Zach immediately sat back down, lowering his head to look down at his lap. His gaze couldn’t meet his father’s eyes at that moment. He was so used to fighting against his father behind closed doors, not confronting him head on like this. It wasn’t as easy as other people made it sound, especially not with his father’s reaction.

“I’m sorry,” Zach said quietly.

“I am your father,” Kelsey began again with a more steady voice, “and you will obey what I say you will obey. You may not realize it, Zach, but everything I do I do for your own good. I am not here to make your life hard. I’m here to make it right. I’m here to make it easy for you.” Kelsey kept his eyes on Zach. He was doing this for Zach’s own good. He just needed Zach to see that.

“Adrienne stays for the night,” Kelsey continued, speaking more calmly. “I’m not going to kick her out onto the street. In the morning, though, I want her gone — and I never want you to see her again. Do I make myself clear, Zach?”

Lifting his gaze from his lap, Zach stared at his father in shock. He couldn’t believe his ears. His father was asking him to break off all ties with one of the few people who actually cared about him for who he was without all of the lies he was so used to telling in order to cover up the truth and protect himself? His father wanted him to just leave her behind as if nothing ever happened between them? To never speak to her again, to never hang out with her again, and to never see her again? Had it been some random girl that Zach kind of wanted to date from before, he would have done what his father told him to do, but this . . . this was different. This wasn’t some cute, random girl. This was Adrienne.

“No,” Zach said faintly, shaking his head in disbelief.

Kelsey furrowed his brow, the displeasure seeping back into his features. “No?” He couldn’t be sure what Zach was trying to say, and so he waited for his son to clarify before choosing his reaction to the word.

With his head still shaking at his father, Zach repeated what he had said more forcefully. “No,” Zach pronounced in a much clearer tone. “I won’t. Adrienne is not leaving, and I am still going to see her for as long as I—”

“I WANT THAT THING OUT OF MY HOUSE!” Kelsey roared. His voice might have been loud enough to wake the dead, but if it took that tone of voice to get Zach to listen to him, then he was going to use it.