Hey everyone! It's me again! Sorry for the long absence, but I'm back now and (hopefully!) ready to do some writing! I just wanted to create this little short to let you know that I'm here and that I'll be working on your favorite stories soon! I'm glad to be back and I hope that we can all get along together! Enjoy! :3
Edit: Way sorry about that! I don't know why my document went screwy! Hopefully it's fixed now!
Lucky Charm
"Alright! Let's go!" Watanuki cheered herself on, stepping onto the school grounds briskly, smoothing down the skirt of her blue uniform. The young Watanuki had a big day ahead of her because today would be the day where nothing went wrong. "Today is going to be different! Today is going to change everything! Today is the day that I talk to him! Wari and I will be friends!" The girl blushed, thinking about the cute boy in the classroom next to her. She'd been too shy to talk to him all of last year, but this year would be different, she would make sure of that!
But how she was going to do that...she had no clue. The school year had just started, she had just turned thirteen and surprisingly enough despite those facts, she was actually doing well for her second year of secondary school. The girl didn't really have any friends yet (she was still considered the weird one to the people who knew her from elementary school and was too scared to really get to know anyone yet) but her fellow classmates hadn't quite learned to alienate her yet for not understanding that she could see spirits. Right now, that was the best she could hope for from the student body at large, but she'd been watching the cute, curly –haired Wari for some months now and he seemed to be nice to everyone…maybe he'd be nice to her too!
The girl put her hand in her pocket and wrapped her fingers around the omamori charm, squeezing it for good luck. Watanuki had tons of charms and talismans, seven were currently hooked to her bag, she had the one in her pocket and there were at least fifteen more at her apartment. She wasn't a very superstitious child anymore, but she still hoped that magic talismans could ward off the spirits that loved to hang around her. So far it was about fifty-fifty. Sometimes they worked a little bit, and sometimes they didn't. It kinda sucked. But right now, if she could just get some luck and protection, the raven was sure that things would work out.
Watanuki joined the crowd of young teens rushing into the school and kept a watchful eye out for her crush. The girl blushed just thinking about Wari! He was so cute! His eyes were gorgeous and his dark, curly hair bounced around his head like a wild halo…he was perfect! Watanuki could just imagine it: she'd talk to Wari, he'd give her that cute smile of his and then they'd start talking together and maybe, just maybe they could spend time together after school! Ah! The girl would die of happiness if that came true! Wari! You're so cool! I can't wait until we're friends! I'm going to talk to him today! The young raven was so giddy and giggly and distracted that she completely forgot to watch where she was going and ran into someone, hitting them hard. She fell on the floor, her butt aching from the drop, and her backpack slid off her shoulders, landing with a thud behind her.
"Owowow!" The raven hissed, rubbing her behind. Whoever she'd run into had stopped and was looming over her. "I'm really sorry about that-" the girl started to apologize, looking up at who she'd run into but then she clammed up, startled at who it was.
"Are you alright?" A monotone voice asked. Watanuki was staring up into the eyes of Shizuka Doumeki, the student who was in the same class as Wari. He was kinda scary, towering over most of the kids in their grade. He seemed to be good at everything, already having a star spot in the archery club, he had a distinguished family, money and all the girls had a crush on him…so basically everything Watanuki wasn't. But she didn't really care too much; they had hardly spoken two words to each other…until now that is.
"I'm fine." Watanuki smiled nervously, the young man unnerving her.
"That's good." Doumeki reached out his hand to help the girl up, his bronze eyes looking her over to really make sure she was okay. Watanuki took his hand and got pulled to her feet. He was odd…but polite. Everything was going fine until Watanuki got annoyed by his next statement. "Sorry, I didn't see you either. You're so short."
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Watanuki lost her temper, ticked that someone who barely even knew her thought it would be a good idea to insult her (but he didn't insult her, he just stated a fact, but Watanuki conveniently forgot that part). Doumeki was startled by the girl's outburst, slapping his hands to his ears to muffle the sound of her piercing, loud voice. "Well, maybe if you weren't so freakishly tall! You could almost be a high schooler!" Watanuki's glared at her school mate, wondering how the hell she'd ever thought of him as polite.
"But you are short-" Doumeki started again, but he got cut off when the raven opened her mouth again.
"Shut up! I'll grow someday! Just you wait!" Watanuki huffed, reaching down to grab her bag. The sooner she got away from this jerk, the better. She slung her bag around her shoulder and started to zip to her class, but she was stopped when her backpack strap jerked her back. She whirled around and found Doumeki holding onto her bag, looking at all her charms and reading the kanji on them.
"How many lucky charms does one person need?" Doumeki asked, eyeing the girl's bag and reaching some of the embroidery on the small pouches.
"When you're me…all of them!" The raven replied bitterly, years of pain and fear barely masked by the anger in her voice. "Now let go!" She yanked the bag out of his grasp and stomped down the hall. Doumeki let her go, watching the girl with his bronze eyes until she disappeared into her classroom.
Unfortunately, Watanuki's day did not go as she planned. Every time she tried to talk with Wari, something came up: she got cut off by other people trying to talk to him, she got stuck behind slow people in the hallway and lost Wari, during gym when she tried to run with him, she got hit in the face with a soccer ball and had to be sent to the nurse's office and then there was that incident with the spirit. She had just mustered up enough courage to get her big chance when she'd spotted a spirit stalking her. The girl had frozen up, watching as the dark, creeping shape of the spirit skittered across the walls. It kind of looked like a spider-lizard thing with three huge eyes and was about as long as her arm. The spirit blinked its eyes at her and chattered, gnashing its teeth as if it was excitedly waiting for its snack. And when she saw that, Wari just did not matter and the girl turned and dashed away from the spirit as quick as she possibly could. She ended up hiding the bathroom for recess, scared that if she went out, she'd be attacked. She hoped that the monster would just go away and leave her alone. If it didn't, she'd do something stupid looking in front of
The raven sighed as she sat on a toilet, locked in one of the restroom stalls. Today was a complete disaster. She ran into that jerk this morning, she hadn't been able to start a decent conversation with Wari once and now she was being cornered by a spirit and clearly her lucky charms were not working for any of those things! The girl grabbed her backpack and yanked all of the charms off of it and flushed them down the toilet. A few tears slipped down her red cheeks, but the young girl wiped them away angrily, replacing her glasses on her face afterwards.
"Damn…" She whispered, "Nothing works out the way I want it too." Watanuki sighed and left the bathroom a few minutes later, sulking and in a bad mood. She slunk down the hall, still caught up in her own thoughts, unaware that she was being followed. Her little spirit friend was hot on her tail, its eyes narrowing as it looked over its delicious snack, grinding its fangs hungrily. It skittered down the hall after the girl, keeping on the ceiling. The small spirit started to elongate as it got closer to Watanuki, its legs stretching, growing larger and larger, its already grotesque features becoming more and more frightening by the second. Soon it was twice the girl's size, its gaping jaws able to swallow half of her in one bite. The spirit leaned forward and down, its tongue uncoiling, flicking and getting ready to strike.
It was at that moment that Watanuki felt something watching her, a chill racing up her spine. She froze and then turned around quickly, seeing just how close the spirit was, her face paling as she saw how big it had become. She bit back a scream and whirled around, racing down the hall as fast as her little legs could carry it. It was the only thing she could do. Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! She screamed at herself, dodging past several students who'd wandered in from break, leaving their shouts of annoyance behind as she turned a corner and started racing down the stairs. The spirit was close behind her, ignoring her classmates, solely focused on the raven. The girl's breathing was heavy, her heart pounding. She had no clue what to do…she couldn't leave the school grounds because the gates were locked until classes ended…if she couldn't lose this spirit…she might really be dead this time! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! She grabbed onto the banister as she swung around the corner and flew down the rest of the stairs. The spirit growled, tracking its prey, scrabbling around the walls and ceiling to keep up with the girl.
What am I going to do, damn it!? She couldn't keep running forever! The raven was already getting tired and she was running out of places to run, picking halls at random. She was going to get trapped at some point. Tears sprang into her eyes as the raven dashed past a teacher. She heard shouts to stop running in the halls, but she couldn't stop. It was heartbreaking to think that the adults had no clue what was going on, a spirit ghosting right past them, undetectable to their eyes…and no way to help one of the students they were supposed to look after. It had always been that way, and Watanuki knew that she was on her own, now and forever. Unless forever wasn't that long because she was going to be eaten! Only luck is going to save me this time! The girl was desperate, running out of options, running out of time and running out of breath all at once. As Watanuki ran, she remembered that she still had one lucky charm left…the one she'd left in her pocket. Her hand flew to her skirt, gripping the talisman tightly in her hand through the cloth, praying that this one had at least a little luck left as the spirit opened its jaws wide, ready to pounce and end the chase.
Suddenly, the girl hit something, falling over and tumbling into a tangle of arms and legs, rolling and skidding to a halt on the floor, just down from the boys' restroom. She'd hit a someone! The girl cried out, and then groaned, knowing that with her luck, it was a teacher. Her head snapped up, smacking the chin of Shizuka Doumeki and throwing his head back.
"Doumeki!" Watanuki yelped, trying to scrabble off the boy. Doumeki didn't even make a sound as the raven poked and prodded him in several places in her rush to get off of him. He hadn't even really yelled when she'd barreled right into him, probably too surprised that he'd been barreled into in the first place. The raven jumped up and smoothed her skirt down, completely forgetting about the spirit for a second before whirling around, expecting to get eaten, eyes wide with terror. However, the spirit was hissing and spitting, backing away snarling and slinking around a corner and disappearing. It was the strangest thing. Watanuki had never seen a spirit do something like that! A huge smile grew on her face and Doumeki was left to wonder why the girl had been sprinting down the hallway like her life depended on it, only to tumble into him and then stand there and smile like an idiot.
"What's going on?" He asked, his voice even and emotionless.
"None of your business!" Watanuki snapped, her beautiful smile gone in an instant, replaced by her instant dislike of her school mate.
"It is my business. You ran into me." Doumeki stated, pointing out the obvious.
"You wouldn't understand!" Watanuki blushed, having no other explanation for the boy. "Thanks!" She piped before running off quickly, avoiding any other conversation with the jerk. She didn't know what had happened, or that she'd gotten Doumeki involved, but she was alive and that was all she cared about! "I've still got some luck after all!" She grinned again, the tears in her eyes happy ones this time. The girl made her way outside to finish recess, her little hand tightly gripping her good luck charm. She didn't understand what had actually transpired, but that would be revealed in time…it was inevitable.