I'm afraid of this silence. Not the awkwardness, but the feeling, knowing that it could be broken at any moment.
I don't like loud noises, either. All this shouting hurts my ears and breaks my heart.
After dinner, Mother and Dad thought we went to bed and began to argue quite loudly. We were actually in the living room watching TV with Jacob. I placed my hands on Kaito's ears just in time to block a really horrible word.
Jacob turned the TV up louder and went over to calm them down; not for the sake of calming them down, because I'm sure he knew he probably wouldn't help much, but at least to get them to stop cursing when Kaito was listening. I'm pretty sure he wanted to mention me as well, but I assured him that I'd lost my innocence long ago.
Jacob was really nice to us. I think it was because he didn't have children of his own; he'd told us that he liked children, with their sticky hands and constant crying.
"Hold on," I exclaimed."I do believe you are referring to 4-year-olds in nursery school. I'll have you know that I am 12."
At this he laughed.
"I meant that. What I was trying to say was, I really wanna have children of my own, ya know? Even if they aren't black!"
He smiled and whispered to me, "That isn't racist to you, right?"
He was quite aware of the colour of his skin. In fact, I think he was proud of it. He mentioned it quite a bit. He was also aware that some of the comments he made might have been a little bit racist, and always seemed to check with me after making a remark.
"Oh, no," I said quietly with a smile. "We don't take any offence from this at all, don't worry."
He managed to temporarily calm them down - at least, for a couple of hours. At about midnight they were at it again, and this time Jacob was too tired to stop them.
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