[Metal Tsubasa]: 95.Other Stories.Again

   She had done it again. Every night it was the same and every night I would look to my father and wonder if he would ever say what he was thinking, what I was thinking.
   So many times he would clean up the spilt wine that she dropped while falling into a drunken coma that couldn't be considered sleep, but she wasn't awake either.
   I never felt bad for her, well, perhaps a little bit. Sometimes, when she'd stumble and find herself sprawled on the floor. I suppose I didn't actually feel sorry for her, but for my father, who always was there to pick her up and take her to bed.
   There had been so many times that I just wanted to ask him why. Why did he put himself through this? Sometimes I figured it was because he had nowhere else to go, since he himself had not been in the best of shape when they had met. Nonetheless, it disgusted me, made me want to scream.
   Things she would say, things she would do, I just became so mad. When she would wake the next morning, she wouldn't remember, I suppose she was lucky. My father and I, we remembered.
   I had heard my aunt asking her to get help, to stop her from doing this every single night, but she never did. She never thought it was that bad, never realized how other people saw her when she got that way.
   It certainly wasn't abuse, because abuse... well, it's too strong of a word. She would say things, things that were troublesome to me, but I ignored them; she was drunk and that was all it was. Sometimes, I tried to pretend that it wasn't like that, that she was merely fooling around, but the attacks weren't playful, but then again, I suppose the word 'attacks' is too strong as well. Pinches and a few drunken hits; that was when I gave up.
   She did it every night. Sit down on the couch or the chair or in front of the fire place with a glass of wine that she wouldn't finish, maybe sometimes, but mostly the carpet soaked it up. Either my father would take the glass before she passed out completly, but mostly he would only think to take it after she had already dropped it on the floor.
   So much for the candle wax, I would think sometimes, refering back to the time when I had knocked a candle off onto that very same carpet. She had been so mad; the wax stain is gone now.
   However, once again I watch her, unable to say anything, as she pours herself another glass and sits down on the couch above a stain that never has the chance to fade.