Chapter I
Boom, Headshot
While other people's minds naturally suppress bad memories, mine does not-though I wish it would.
I remember every aspect of that day-when the demons attacked, my mother almost being killed, and even the Grim Reaper strutting onto my doorstep like he owned the place. In fact, I remember the day so well that listen to this: once upon a time, I almost believed that the incident was nothing but something you find in a published novel; I, for one, would never read it. Who would? It's all about horrific fights that do nothing but end precious lives and steal a daughter's mother straight from their fingertips. I lived that story, so why would I want to read it? And to all the others who do read it-you're all sick bastards.
I lost my mother when she went missing five months ago in battle, but no actual signs of her death exists. She just-it's as if she stood up and left; and as my brothers would say, her corpse walks this earth, because they disallow her survival. And here stands my clingy ass, hoping her inevitable death is nothing but a hoax, but my brothers say otherwise.
The one thing that disturbs me more than anything, though...
... is that I should be dead. I'm serious, more than dead serious. I'm not one of those hypochondriacs that constantly think an aching jaw is cancer. After I was separated from my mother and brothers, a demon chased me, and when he caught me, he scrambled my ribs so they faced the wrong way and punctured my internal organs. The squirming to slip away didn't help me. I was helpless in the hands of that demon. Wouldn't you think you'd be dead if that happened to you? Yes? I knew that's what you thought.
My sides still hurt to this day, as if the pain decided that it would stick around and haunt me like a ghost for the rest of my life. Even as I lay flat on my stomach on my lime-colored sheets, my chest bones crackled and ached when I breathed; I don't think they healed over the past months. Don't tell me to have it checked out by the doctors. What would I even say? Hello, a demon punctured my lungs. Can I set an appointment for six-o-clock? Thank you.
I would compare the pain to childbirth; as women who have had a baby claim the contractions are the worst pain ever, but I'm sixteen, and having a little snot-brat running around sounds worse than my pains and childbirth contractions altogether. You won't find me opening my legs anytime soon.
Sometimes the thought of telling my brothers crosses my mind, but I can't; I've never told anyone since that eventful day. My brothers would think I'm crazy. Knowing them, they would say it's only hormones causing my breasts to be extra tender and sensitive. Weirdos.
Want to hear something even weirder?
Back at the attack, I touched the demon who attacked me (because that's the only way I could defend myself in my weakened state) and it surprisingly worked. When my fingertips brushed against the malformed skin of the (I think mom called it a Goblin?) demon, he howled in pain as his skin sizzled and burned away, and then the sucker ran for his mother. My hands hadn't been purified, but it was as if they had been. But then again, I was passing out from blood loss; it could be all my imagination.
Music blares through my earbuds and I attempt to focus on my homework in front of me, but words and problems travel past my brain instead of into it. I close my eyes and prod at my individual canine that protrudes from my top right jaw and passes my lip with a dented thumb; a common habit I did when thinking takes over. I love math, but looking at equations and theorems did not make me feel any better. I close my notebook, tossing the yellow, bunny sticker-covered item off my bed and remove my earbuds from my ears, tossing them aside without a care too. As I sit up, fixing my gray shirt and sweatpants, my bedroom door opens.
A serious teen stands in the opening of my room with his eyebrows scrunched in a pissed expression-my older brother, Masayoshi. His red hair matches the same angry flush of his face.
"Chie!" he snaps, "are you even listening to me?"
"W-What?" I ask, running a hand through the tangled locks of my auburn hair. Crap, with my earbuds in, I can't hear anything at all. "I was listening to music and doing homework and didn't hear you-"
"Me and Nobuyuki are already late for school, I don't have the time for this," he interrupts, "where's our uniforms?"
"Oh yeah!" I jump to my feet, missing my yellow notebook by an inch and scuttle over to my dresser by my brother. Kneeling down to level the dark-brown drawers, I pull the third drawer out and toss other clothes aside before finding my brother's uniform-a clean white shirt and black pants, folded. The uniforms belong to True Cross-the school my brothers attend. The two live in the dormitories-the same one from what I'm told-but visit often when my caretaker is at work and when their clothes are a mess-which is often, considering they somewhat fought demons in the Cram School.
I straighten up and hand both outfits to him, smiling. He takes them, holding the pair in separate hands. "There ya go. I patched up the pants with black so the thread didn't show as much as last time. Your jumpers and ties are hanging up in the bathroom."
When Masayoshi took the clothes, my chest and sides burst into pain. It happens a lot. I stifle my incoming grunt with a giggle. Masayoshi didn't notice, his eyes instead examining my handiwork; his face softens. He smiles. "Thank you, Chie. I appreciate it." He pauses briefly before smirking. "You know, you're pretty awesome at designing clothes. You should join your two brothers at True Cross and make design a line of fashion to protect us from demons!" he gushes out and throws an arm around my shoulders. By reaction, I gasp and ran my hand over my sides, shocked by his outburst. No, there's no way that I will ever be able to join True Cross; it took a goddamn miracle for my brothers to gain a scholarship for their tuition and with mom gone, neither my caretaker, Kazuki and I can afford to pay for me to go to the rich kid's Academy too.
"A-Aren't you supposed to be heading to school with Nobuyuki?! Go, get outta here!" I shove him by the chest as he laughs.
"Okay, okay, I'll go since my smol sis doesn't love me anymore." He gives me a pouty expression, fake tears streaming down his cheeks.
"It's true." I smirk. "I don't love ya anymore."
He runs a free hand over his chest, his lips forming into an O. "I'm appalled."
"You'll more appalled when the teachers shove their foot up your two's asses for being late."
He chortles before ruffling my hair, making the long strands even messier than what they are. "True," he says, "well, stay safe and we'll come visit in a few days. Now come say goodbye to Nobuyuki."
He reaches for my hand but I poke my head out the door and call out, "bye Nobuyuki! I love ya, unlike Masayoshi!"
Seconds later my other brother replies, "I love ya too, sis! Bye!"
"You're silly." Masayoshi laughs and walks out of the room, waving.
Watching him leave hurt; I miss my family a lot and with the last of them gone takes pieces of my heart too.
I sit on the edge of my bed, my hands releasing the apparent death grip they had on my shirt. I smooth the wrinkles out from my tank top.
The front door slams shut.
"I should get ready," I say to no one in particular-just myself-and grunt. When you're about as lazy as I am, forcing yourself out of bed brought disastrous thoughts-but it's now or never because school doesn't just go itself now, does it? My body tells me later, but my mind tells me now, and I stand back up; the soft fabric of my sheets coaxes me back down, but I don't listen.
Most people would die for my room since it owns its own lavatory. Heck, give me room a refrigerator and stove and I'll never have to leave. The door leading to the luxury room forever stands next to the dresser on the opposite side of my room door. I stretch the lazy muscles of my arms and walk the short distance to the bathroom door and open it. The bathroom is probably the only room Japanese styled, the rest Western inspired. My mother spent a lot of time in America and loves most of the style of the country. The tiles along the wall are a wooden brown; a small bamboo bathtub sits on the far end, next to it a sink with a mirror above it. I step in front of the mirror and open it, taking my contact container off of the second shelf of four. I close the mirror and set the container on the sink edge.
After washing my hands thoroughly-double checking if no dirt remains under my fingernails-I rinse the soap off. The contacts were easy to put.
Now that my dull eye site sees through high definition, I pick my hot-pink brush up and ran it through my hair-watching my crystal blue eyes with the purple rim around my pupil through the mirror. I brush until my hair matches the smoothness it had when I ran conditioner through it last night, and left the bathroom.
I change into my school uniform-a white sailor blouse a size too big for me. Dangling in front of my chest, a red tie. With my shirt, I have to be careful putting on; From the attack, my sides were abandoned with one large rim of black bruises. Also, I have a strange condition to do with small bones developing underneath the skin on my shoulder blades. They poke out, giving a person a reason not to be oblivious of them when walking behind me. To hide them, I wear baggy shirts when going out. Nor do I wear bras because the straps irks them.
I exit my room and walk into the entrance room-excuse me, I mean the living and dining room hybrid. Around when I step in front of the coffee table, a sudden light catches my eyes. The curtains are open, shining a light onto the counter separating the kitchen from the living room. The glint shines again and I see that it's from the counter, emitting from a metal object on top of a black box.
Don't tell me they forgot something, I think to myself, walking towards the white countertop. They had: Nobuyuki's bentou and the key to their... well, dorm, I'm guessing.
Wait, the key looks familiar. I pick it up and examine it. Both Masayoshi and Nobuyuki had the same one. I had once seen them use it on their old rooms when they lived here, which is odd since the locks aren't the same (At least that I know of). Now I will be late for school because I have to return the bentou and key to them before they forget completely. School will have to wait!
The box is light as I pick it up and set the key on top of it. I walk to the front door in the kitchen and slip both my shoes on with one hand. The door knob doesn't turn when I twist it-obviously meaning that it's locked. I'm about to unlock it when a strange urge ran through my head:
Use the key.
I don't know why my mind told me that, but I found myself using the key. The door clicks and I push it open, but the outside doesn't come. I rather find myself in a whole other room, perhaps even house? What in the actual hell? The hallways have a diamond checkerboard print with black and red colors. Pillars the color of gold and green extend up on the walls and last way past my vision. I charily step through the opening and the door magically closes itself. Jumping from the snap of the door, I turn around and see that the door has a cool glass pattern to it. Around me are the same doors, none with any numbers or signs to tell me what room it belongs to.
"Where the hell am I?" I ask myself.
I expected no one to answer.
"In the Cram School of course." A hand touches my shoulder; fingers folding along. A jolt of anxiety surges through my body, sending shock waves to my brain that tell me to fight instead of flight. So I do.
I spin around, the bentou high in both my hands. I fling it and it slams across the cheek of the attacker. Food unleashes and spills everywhere all over us. Soy sauce splashes in the man's face almost in slow motion and he forces himself to close his green eyes. The liquid substance falls from his white hair in small droplets, staining it as it drips along; his hand still reaches out for me while being frozen in place. His eyes then open, and I could see the shock in his constrict pupils.
"Hey you!" From down the hallway, a male's voice calls out. Please tell me it's someone to get this freak away from me... I back away, almost into the wall. "Leave her alone, you asshole!"
Thank god... it is someone to help.
The man in front of me twirls around with strong hands by a tall male with brown hair and a blonde Mohawk down the middle. A vein, that appears to show anger in my savior, bursts from his temple.
Unfrozen, the first male growls and shoves the splenetic male by the chest, yelling, "this isn't what you think!"
Of course it is, you-
"You're harassing her," the second male retorts.
"I wasn't trying to," the first male mumbles and turns back my way, his hands flat on his chest. He stares me straight in the eyes, but no anger flashes, just awe. I want to look away. "Chie!" he says and elbows the second male as he charges him, holding him off, "don't you remember me? It's your childhood best friend..."
Then it hits me:
Oh my god, I just slapped Shadow with a lunch box.
A/N: The OC Shadow, and everything that belongs to him is rightfully owned by a friend on Wattpad who allowed me to use him.
