Stay Silent

The first time Hiro ever got a fitting and bought a proper suit wasn’t for a funeral. Or his brother’s wedding. It was for court.

Hiro was well aware by now of all the stereotypes. He knew that a shabby, underdressed man in court wasn’t going to be as credible as a man in a nice suit. He knew that a masculine woman wouldn’t receive the same kind of lenient treatment as a feminine one.

And Cass seemed to know all about them too.

From the moment he saw her that day, on their court date, he just knew. She looked very different to the lady he’d seen just a few months ago. She looked years– decades younger. Her greying hair was now a vibrant auburn, falling in gentle waves and flicks to frame her face, which was heavy with subtle make-up. Her skin was white and her lips red and her eyes pretty and popping. She wore a knee-length, eggshell-blue patterned dress, her red-nailed fingers often falling to sweep gently over the creases of the skirt, smoothing them out. She wore her deceased sister’s necklace, and she smiled like she were a perfect housewife. A domestic goddess from an earlier century, one that spent her days baking and cleaning in the kitchen, living out a quiet and modest life, where she was happy to wait on her husband and children – neither of which she had – hand and foot.

Hiro wanted to look at her and scoff and say that she looked absolutely ridiculous. But the truth was that she didn’t. She didn’t look ridiculous at all. She was utterly convincing. Right down to the gossamer lace over her chest, just above her cleavage, to mask the scars. She knew exactly what she was doing.

She looked a little bit how she sometimes used to, back then. When he was still letting her bring him cookies and muffins and slices and things, and she would dress herself like this, and call him her “young man”, like they were playing a sick and twisted game of House. He wondered if maybe she dressed as she did on purpose. If it was just another layer of psychological warfare.

She gave both Hiro and Tadashi cold looks, and they returned them right back. She passed them, her heels clack-clack-clacking along the hardwood floor, and Tadashi froze just as Hiro did then because he smelled it too. She smelled just like her baked goods from her café. Like her cakes.

“Today’s court case catered byyyy,” Hiro said under his breath, upbeat and so sarcastic, “the defendant. Feeling peckish, jurors? Need something that’ll hit the spot just right as you make your verdi–“

Tadashi elbowed him in the ribs. He mustn’t’ve thought his younger brother was very funny.

In hindsight, it had kind of been horrible – what he’d been doing. The perfect victim thing. Every victim deserved to be validated and believed and respected, regardless of how they dressed, or talked, or looked, or however they lived their lives. He went from feeling a little guilty about it to feeling full-blown despicable for even conceding that there was such a thing as a ‘perfect’ victim. That wasn’t what he was about. That wasn’t what rape sensitivity was about. There were many kind of legitimate victims, and each and every one of them mattered just as much as the next. There wasn’t a ‘typical’ victim. There weren’t certain characteristics about them that made them more deserving of sympathy than others. None of them asked for it.

To exemplify that, he openly vowed that he wasn’t going to lie. Not at all.

Lucy tried to fight him a little on this. She tried to tell him that it was better to omit certain truths about himself, that it would make him look more sympathetic if he just played their sick little game and made small exaggerations, here and there. But he contested her. Sure, he wouldn’t mention that he’d had a long string of both boyfriends and girlfriends, because it just wasn’t relevant to his case. But if those kinds of claims arose, he wouldn’t deny them. Even if it invited someone to accuse him of being an unstable slut, he wouldn’t deny them.

He already knew he was at a strong disadvantage. He’d missed the optimal, most opportune, most believable time to do it. When it would’ve hurt him the most. But he wasn’t even going to attempt to tip the scales in his favour. He wasn’t going to lie. Even if it made his case look a hell of a lot less severe than it really was… even if it did make him look like he was in fact lying… He wouldn’t do it.

Cass presented as an almost perfect contrast. Her claims were nothing but lies. She denied it, of course. She denied ever raping her then-underage nephew, or showing him pornographic material, or coercing and bribing and manipulating him to engage in various sexual acts with her. She denied it all. She even denied committing these horrific acts and then lying about them, years later, which had almost forced Hiro to hide a smile because at that point… things had gone past devastating to just being… funny.

It was funny to think that his woman had once been his family. That she was the sister of his own mother. Hiro barely knew a thing about his mother, but he hoped that she at least hadn’t been nearly as monstrous as her sister.

He watched her sometimes, during the idle moments of their court case. She didn’t seem scared. No, on the contrary, when she thought no one was watching her, she seemed to exude an air of unshaken confidence, like she knew she’d already won. She caught his eye and she just smiled, with her red, red lips stretched into a tight curve, which looked more like a vivid, bleeding gash across her face than a real smile.

He saw her as a puppeteer, because that’s just what she was. She sat in her chair, her pert lips sealed, her painted eyes always roaming from lawyer to lawyer to juror to juror, and she gave quiet nods and quick smiles like they were wordless commands. Orders. She didn’t even need to use her fingers or her mouth or anything else to manipulate people anymore. She could do it with a mere look, and strings grew taut. Puppets danced. A show commenced.

Lucy told him to really emphasise just how much great work he’d done for male victims over the past several months, and so he did. The defence asked in a tired drawl just how relevant any of those details really were, and the plaintiff insisted that they were, because what kind of role model would Hiro be if he encouraged abused children and adult survivors to speak out against their rapists whilst not even attempting to do so himself?

He was defamed, like Lucy had warned him he would be. He was told by entirely new people – that weren’t his aunt – that he’d just made the whole thing up. He hadn’t been sexually abused as a child. He was lying. He was told he’d only done it for attention. For sympathy he didn’t need. That no harm had ever befallen him at the hands of his aunt.

It was kind of funny, Hiro thought. He still didn’t know exactly where Cass herself stood on the abuse. He still didn’t know, even after all these years, if she’d been delusional and genuinely believed once that she was guiltless, or if she was just lying again and again and again through her teeth. She claimed to have no knowledge whatsoever about whatever it was Hiro kept accusing her of, and a part of him wondered if she still remembered the very first time she’d touched him. If she still thought about it every now and again. If she got off on it, despite knowing that he’d never wanted it. If she relished the fact that no one could ever punish her for it.

He wanted to do it. He wanted to remind her of her transgressions and make her extremely uncomfortable. He was asked to recall his experiences and he gladly did, not holding back. He tried not to dwell on the fact that his brother was right there, staring horrified as he was forced to listen to his younger brother describe in graphic detail all of the gross, sexual acts their aunt had performed on him, or otherwise forced him to perform. He could just see his brother pale rapidly, squicked out beyond his comprehension, but that hadn’t been his intention. He’d wanted to make Cass uncomfortable, but her face never betrayed anything of the sort. She stared at him like he was just so ridiculous, like she couldn’t even understand why they were even attempting to entertain the possibility that any of it was true.

After the testimonies, the only scrap of real evidence he actually had was her letter. The one she’d written to him on his eighteenth birthday. It was crinkled, partially torn in one corner, but it had still somehow survived despite how intensely Hiro had wanted to erase its existence. He was very glad that he’d managed to resist succumbing to those urges.

The letter was read aloud. It was cross-examined for a while, but there just wasn’t enough detail. From the outset, it sounded like every other doting aunt trying to reach out to her estranged nephew. Her words were infuriatingly vague. Hiro had known exactly what she’d meant when she said ‘closure’, but the defence was persuaded to think that it could’ve referred to literally anything else. She didn’t even have to deny that the letter was in her hand. She’d already given such a cock-and-bull story about how he’d been aggressive and rebellious back then, and how she had blamedherself for his behaviour, since he was in her charge. And she just weaved her lies all together so effortlessly.

It was funny how the defence wanted it both ways. They wanted to exemplify the consequences of her abuse without ever conceding that she was the reason for his breakdowns, for his recurrent depression, for his otherwise strange behaviour. He wanted to use the fact that he’d been in and out of therapy and off and on medication since he was eighteen as evidence of his victimisation. But the defence wanted to use it that information as evidence of his lies.

There were many ways for her attorney to say that he’d been “acting strangely” before her alleged abuse had even begun. He was orphaned at three. He was bullied in school. He didn’t have friends. He was a technological genius and that was different, so that was bad too. Fourteen was a time of turmoil, of hormones, of… urges. Someone had genuinely surprised him to bring up the fact that he’d used to make a fair bit of money off street bot-fights in his free time. But it wasn’t at all relevant, and now his younger self looked like a little criminal as well as a pathological liar.

How was it going? Great.

Everything was going just great.

The trial didn’t even fill up a day. Cass had only needed to give reasonable doubt that she couldn’t have committed the alleged crime, and that didn’t take an awful lot. She hadn’t seemed to be trying very hard. And the horrible thing was that she didn’t have to.

Hiro already knew he’d lost his case hours before the jury come out with the final verdict. He’d lost. She’d won. But it was OK. He’d already come to terms with it. He’d had more than enough time to steel himself to the inevitable outcome. His impassive, reactionless expression didn’t betray a single ounce of distress or disappointment.

He just wished he could’ve said the same of Tadashi.

“What,” his older brother breathed his exclamation, his mouth dropping open, his dark eyes going wide. The hand entwined with Hiro’s trembled and clenched. “Th… They’re joking, right,” he said, quiet and stunned, turning from one subdued face to the next, eventually coming to settle on his younger brother’s. He swallowed like he couldn’t find the words. His eyes stayed dry, but they still crinkled with an enormous amount of pain. “Hiro…”

Hiro gave himself a second... and then he scoffed. Waved it off. Like it was nothing.

“Well that was predictable.”

Tadashi shook his head and he didn’t stop shaking it. He sounded like he’d been winded, like he couldn’t breathe quite right. He didn’t seem to understand Hiro’s cavalier, indifferent reaction.

“Hiro, you don’t… seem very…”

“I’m numb to it, OK? Don’t worry about me.” He stared hard at Tadashi. “Really. I’ll be fine.”

“But…” So crestfallen. Someone pressed a sympathetic hand to Hiro’s back, another to his head, another to his shoulder, and a part of him just wanted to die, but he tried not to let it show. His brother was already nearing tears enough as it was. “I… I’d kind of hoped you’d win.”

“Bro.” Hiro forced a smile. He laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “It’s OK. I knew what to expect. But I still went ahead with it anyway. That takes bravery, right? I didn’t win but… a lot of good came from this.” Tadashi stared at him like he didn’t believe him. “I’m serious. I’m more credible now. I think I set a good precedent for other male survivors. I can… help people navigate the system now because I’ve been through it myself. I can always try again if I want to. It’s all on record, and now our names are out there. Mine and Aunt Cass.”

He leaned forwards a little to stare at her on the other side of the courtroom, where they were making the most noise. She was shaking hands and exchanging thanks and smiling unabashed, like she hadn’t once doubted her own innocence even for a second. Like she couldn’t have predicted any other outcome. Like everything went according to plan.

“Some people still believe me,” Hiro continued in a small voice. “And that’s all that matters.”

Tadashi nodded. But Hiro could tell that his brother still wasn’t convinced.

They left the courtroom, saw off the attorney, and then Hiro’s most militant supporters flocked around him to tell him how sorry they were, and how terrible it was, and how awful she was, and how they were all there for him. They were outraged on his behalf, Tadashi was distressed on his behalf. Between everyone there, Hiro barely had enough space to express his own emotions. He felt crowded. He felt…

He didn’t want to deal with it right now. He announced to his friends and supporters that he was taking them all to have commiserative drinks with him, and everyone there returned a downhearted cheer. Tadashi had just been standing there, on the fringes of the group, trying and failing to stay present. Hiro declared, “You’re coming too,” and pulled him along with them.

They ended up in some nearby bar that did cheap drinks because they were going to need a lot of them. There were about ten of them there. Alice and Hiyori, Lucy, Tadashi, and a few others that had been actively involved in helping Hiro to prepare for his trial. For the majority of the night, they exchanged a lot of stories about failed conviction attempts, almost as though it were supposed to cheer Hiro up and not bring him down even more.

He was on his fourth drink when he just happened to glance up to see Lucy watching him. She gave a teensy nod towards the door, and then she was standing up from her chair, pulling a packet of smokes out from her back pocket and walking away.

Hiro cast his eyes around the table. Everyone still there was too busy engaged in fervent discussion to notice if he just slipped out for a while. Tadashi was talking to two older, active members from the organisation – an ex-cop and a nurse – and from the sounds of it, he seemed to be developing ideas on how he could improve his robot nurses, and how he could better program and equip them to help rape victims. He was so preoccupied that he was on his phone, taking notes as he talked. So Hiro stumbled up to his feet and made his way towards the door.

He stepped out into the cool night air and closed his eyes and just… breathed. Though, the air didn’t smell very fresh. Lucy was responsible for that. She gave a pointed cough from a small adjacent smoking area, and he followed her over, dropping down onto the bench beside her. He didn’t look at her. He just stared at the ground.

“Thought you might’ve wanted some space,” she said. “You were starting to look a bit like you wanted to scream.”

Hiro laughed a little. “Yeah, I’ve… been feeling that way for a while now.”

“Since you left the courthouse?”

He hummed. He kicked the ground with one shoe. “Pretty much,” he muttered.

“It’s OK to cry,” she cooed teasingly, laying an uncharacteristically gentle hand on his back, and he bent forward over his knees and laughed. But what started as slightly hysterical laughter quickly progressed into tears, and her joking reassurances became genuine. He put his hands over his face and sobbed and quivered and wept because he’d lost his case and he’d fucked up the one opportunity he had to get the justice he’d wanted, and he’d spent the last few hours trying to keep himself together in front of his brother so that he wouldn’t worry him.

He tried to keep as much decorum as he could, considering he was still wearing a suit. But it wasn’t easy.

She hugged him, which he’d learnt over the time he’d known her was something that she didn’t do lightly. She put her arm around him and held him to her side and let him cry onto her shoulder. “Welcome to the real world, kid,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry you lost. But don’t let this knock you. You just keep doing what you’re doing. And maybe one day things will be better for people like us. You did this for every other guy out there who has yet to get his rapist convicted, and one day they will, because of you. But society doesn’t change overnight. OK?”

Hiro didn’t have the capacity to answer her, but he nodded into her shoulder and she felt it. She flicked her cigarette away to wrap her other arm around him and she absolutely stunk of liquor and stale smoke, but he didn’t care, because this was his rock right now – grounding him, keeping him here, letting him know that it wasn’t for nothing.

She let him hang onto her for as long as he needed.