Fuzen was staring blankly at the disaster in his parents room for a long time. He wasn't actually thinking a lot at that moment. He really had no words, other than expletives, with which he could convey his feelings. All he could do was get up and numbly shut the door. Fuzen's hand lay on the door even after he had shut it. This changes a lot of things. This changes everything. He promised a demon he would kill someone. Fuzen began to laugh. His laughter was empty and hollow. How was he supposed to do that? Why couldn't he do a damn thing right? Fuzen his lip and thought, 'This whole year you wanted to die, but when it comes to it, not only do you not have the spine, but you promise to take someone else's life just to save yours?' Fuzen grabbed fistfuls of his hair and started yanking it. He stormed into his room, locked the door and broke whatever there was to break. When he ran out of things to break, he started breaking himself. Beating the walls and slamming his head against the door. When he was tired and bloody, he collapsed onto the floor. Every breath he took would shake his body. When he caught his breath, he began to mutter, 

'useless' over and over again. He saw an old friend from the corner of his eye and he stopped muttering. The bottle of Sake encapsulated his senses. 'Yes,' he thought, 'if he could just forget it, it would be fine' He would try to forget this just like everything else. Blood was dripping down his face as he brought the Sake to his lips. When he tasted that first sip, he felt incomparably weak, and it infuriated him. He slammed the bottle against the floor and shattered it. Then he kept beating it into the floor over and over again. Glass shards flew wildly, most missed him, but some didn't. Fuzen didn't care though, he just continued to smash the bottle into the floor until there was nothing left in his hand. 

Fuzen rolled up into a ball and rocked back and forth. All that could be heard from inside his room for hours was the squeaking of the floor and the unceasing mutter of 'useless.' When he finally calmed down, he sprawled across the floor and let out a long deep sigh. The corner of his lip went up in a helpless smirk as he said in defeat, 

"It's already done. I just won't do it, when that demon comes to collect the debt, he'll do what I've been too scared to." Just as Fuzen started to smile, a voice went off in his head, 

'You done with your temper tantrum?' Fuzen shot up and looked around his room, he couldn't see anything. Hearing a voice out of nowhere scared him, but what scared him even more was... 

'God damn son, I've only been gone for a year and this place has gone to the shitter.' It was his father's. Fuzen looked around, but couldn't find a thing. He slowly ventured out the word, 

"Dad?"

'Not only your room, but the whole damn house is a mess! Does your sister even eat right? I bet you don't even know you damn useless kid!'

'Don't be too hard on him sweetie, he has had a rough year.' Fuzen was gobsmacked, and he could barely mutter to word,

"mom?"

'Don't be too hard on him? Look at what the blasted excuse for an Ogawa has done! If I didn't know better, I would think this was a trash heap not a house!' At first, after shock, Fuzen was overjoyed. He could hear his mom and his father again! Then, after a while he began to think about it and didn't know whether he had lost his mind or not. Several hours later, he discovered, not only would they not change what they said any further than different ways to curse him, defend him, or tell him to clean, but they just wouldn't shut up!

Every other minute, his father would curse him out for leaving a dirty house, and nothing he said would get through to him. His mother would defend him, but that go tiring too seeing as the only damn thing she'd ever say was, 'Don't be too hard on him sweetie, he has had a rough year.' It was driving him absolutely insane if he wasn't already. The only difference he would notice is when he went to grab Sake. Then his father would curse him even harder, and his mother would join in too! 'What happened to a hard year mom?!'

In the end, he did the only thing he knew how to do when his father was nagging him. Acquiesce!

"OK FINE! I'LL CLEAN JUST SHUT UP!" After he screamed, to Fuzen's pleasant surprise, it was quiet. Fuzen was feeling good until he realized what he just promised. Looking at the heaping piles of trash throughout the house, he wanted to cry. He didn't even know how to get it to the dump. Make a trip for every bag? No, thank you! Just as he was feeling despair, he felt a card in his pocket. Fuzen started to laugh evilly. 

"I sure hope you have a truck Miyamoto-sensei," he said in a sing-song, voice, "You did promise to help out, and I'd hate to make the inside of your car smelly," His lips curled up sinisterly as he said, "Well, I wouldn't hate it." At this point, Fuzen didn't care if the old man got nosey, as long as it would shut up the voice of his nagging father in his head, it was worth it! Fuzen pulled out his phone and typed in the numbers on Miyamoto's business card. As soon as the line picked up, Fuzen said, 

"This is Ogawa Fuzen, you said you'd help whenever right?" There was a pause on the other side of the line for a moment before Miyamoto spoke, 

"Well, that was fast... What do you need punk?" Fuzen rolled his eyes and said, 

"I need you to help take trash out." 

"Kid, are you messing with me?," Miyamoto sighed and said softly, "I'm going to hang up, believe it or not, most people don't have nothing to do all day, if you stayed in school, you'd know that."

"Wait!" Fuzen said anxiously, "I send you a picture." Fuzen took a picture of the hallway, and sent it to the mobile number listed on the card. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. It lasted for several minutes before Fuzen asked tentatively, 

"So?" Fuzen's face cringed as Miyamoto cursed out, 

"What the hell?" Fuzen just shook his head and asked, 

"Are you gonna help or not?" Miyamoto sighed and said, 

"How do you even make such a mess? What the hell are your parents doing?"

"Any other day, I would say cursing me out for not burning enough Yen for them in the afterlife, today I'm not too sure." There was another long silence on the end of the phone before Miyamoto spoke again,

"Alright kid, I'll help you out. However, it's going to be an all day thing, you're going to have to wait until the weekend." Fuzen was ecstatic, no more mess, no more voices in his head telling him to clean it!

"Thanks Miyamoto-sensei!" just as Fuzen was about to hang up the phone, Miyamoto spoke again, 

"Wait."

"What?"

"I have a condition." Fuzen's face dropped. He knew this was a nosey old man, 

"Fine, what is it?"

"You have to stop drinking." Fuzen's body shook. He would do a lot of things to get these voices to shut up, but it wasn't like he completely lacked long term planning. How was he supposed to deal with the quiet days without alcohol? This was especially troublesome, because for Fuzen, every day was a quiet day. Fuzen had to suck in his bitterness and say resolutely, 

"Nevermind old man, I'll call someone else." Miyamoto was irate, 

"This little brat, its Miyamoto-sensei this and Miyamoto sensei that when he wants something, as soon as he can't use you, you're an old man! Listen here twerp, all you have to do is last a week. If I see that you haven't been sober by the time I get there, you can forget me helping you out. Do we have a deal?"

Fuzen bit his lip and said confidently,

"Deal,"

After all, it was only a week, how bad could it be?