Mizuki stuck in the future, part two.
"Put me down, I can walk," I mumble as I fight the urge to sleep. The blurry-looking boy with the familiar voice shakes me as he has me in his arms and denies my request again with a grunt. "Put me down or else I'll-nngh…I'll-I'll-"
"Do nothing. I'd have to save you again."
"No you don't…jerk," I mutter feebly. When we're a safe distance away from where the Heartless attacked me, he drops me on the side of some building. I close my eyes for a second and reopen them to clear everything up. That's never happened to me before, usually I just pass out. Were those mutated Heartless trying to suck my soul out or something? I look over my head to see a broken glass store window. "Nice, I feel so safe-" I stop the sarcastic joke when I recognize the boy who saved me, a boy I never thought I would see again. "You! Grey!"
"Yeah," he sheepishly scratches the back of his hair. He looks so much cleaner than when I first saw him but that's because he's covered in sweat that got rid of the dirt and smudges he used to have on his face. His hair looks cleaner and it's a brighter shade of brown than I originally thought but it looks as if he cut his hair himself. "Why are you getting mad? I saved your ass back there."
"I didn't want to be saved by you of all people!" I push myself up and step in his face, nostrils flaring. "You who lied and tricked me just so you can save your own ass. If anything, we're even."
"Even?"
"You're damn right even. I saved you and you saved me, even though I could've saved myself back there but-"
"You were being dog-piled on, yeah you really could've saved yourself. I should've let you handle those Heartless right?"
"Yes!" I throw my arms in the air in frustration. I hate it when people are right and can't stop rubbing it in my face. "You forgot about that queen did you? Remember what I did for you?" he brings up the past mission where I first met him. Even seeing Dori would be better than seeing this piece of trash. Why are boys so deceitful and greedy? Girls like me aren't like that at all.
"So what? You killed the queen that was really Heartless but I could've done that myself too," I protest. He snorts, shaking his head disappointedly. "I can't believe this, you're being so stubborn about this. Letting those Heartless eat your heart would have been too good for you," he turns away with a hurt expression. Does he expect me to go "my hero" and give him a kiss like Princess Peach? He wants me to feel sorry for him, yeah, like I'm gonna do that. Why didn't he leave me there in the first place?
"Why don't you just go then! I don't care if you're the future Grey or the past Grey or whatever, just get outta here, I don't wanna see you anymore you damn-monkey!" when I can't think of anything to say, I make up insults. It's how I deal with tedious situations. He bursts out laughing, not taking me seriously. "If you won't leave me alone, I'll go off on my own." Still laughing at me, I storm off, flicking my frizzy hair behind me. I hear his footsteps behind me. "Where are you going?"
"Where do you think? Away from liars like you."
"I think you have no idea where you're going," he insists, ceasing his laughter to pester me like a mosquito that won't ever go away. "The road stops here."
"What?" When I look ahead, the rest of the street is literally broken off. To reach the end of this street I'd have to jump a pretty far gap. My head snaps back as I sigh sharply. "I thought what happened was in the past," comments Grey coolly.
"Too bad, I keep grudges," I turn and tip-toe to get in his face, giving him the ultimate scowl. His teasing face vanishes, matching my furious face. I've gotta say, he's got small, gorgeous brown eyes but they're not going to do anything for him right now. "I already apologized for tricking you, what more do you want?" we ignore the gunfire up a couple of blocks. "Should I go on my knees and kiss your feet?"
"Maybe you should, that would teach you to not mess with me ever again." I've never met a boy who infuriated me so much-well that's not true. My stupid classmates from Tokyo, they pissed me off when I was on that cruise ship. Besides, who cares if he gets mad anyway, he made me feel a lot worse when he made me believe he was my long-lost brother. "You're a piece of work kid," remarks Grey with a snort.
"Ditto."
"Such care and dedication for each other," says the light-skinned woman in the turquoise robe with blonde hair. "A bond like yours isn't going to easily break."
"The bond of hatred!" I insist with a burning, beet-red face. I don't think I've yelled so much in one sitting, it feels as if someone tried drowning me in a river. Holding onto all this anger is actually exhausting me. "What do you want?"
"Grey, you've seem to have fallen into a time rift also. What a coincidence," she says, disregarding me as if I was some ant.
"Hey, I'm talking to you."
"Yes I did, what of it?" his fierce eyes locked on Time. Oh shit, they know each other, how? "Don't mock me, we know there's no such things with you around."
"Yes there are strange occurrences when time takes an unexpected turn but you are correct. When time is in control, coincidences don't exist," she explains. "This is the boy your heart reached out to Mizuki. He is your chosen one."
"What're you babbling about?" demands Grey.
"You were meant to defend her, that is why you two will always be connected to each other. Look for Space, he might help you two out of the future and remember, don't let get into contact with your future selves." In a flash of light, she vanishes up towards the reddish violet sky before I can ask her if she was crazy. So he did come from the present, it's not a future version of him. What was that whole thing about, with defending me and something about a chosen one?
"What do you know about her? You never told me you knew her," I comment.
"You never asked me. She's someone you and I should both be afraid of. I'm getting out of this spot and if you want to come," he takes out black tacky green fingerless gloves and puts his hands in them, "you're free to follow. But like that person said, if you meet your future self, time and space are going to collapse and you'll cease to exist."
"Oh," my frustration vanishes when I understand the gravity of the situation. It's time to act like a mature grown up and deal with this problem like the mature teenager I know I am. "Where are you going?"
"What was that, I didn't hear you?" he pretends to not have heard me. I scrunch my face up the way I do whenever I'm annoyed. "Jesus, you heard me."
"Guess it was just nothing. See ya around," he starts running and makes a left turn away from the core of the city's chaos. If he thinks he's gonna shake me off just like that well he's dead wrong. "No way, wait up." I'm just following him because he has a better idea of how to get back to the present better than I do, I think.
"Now why don't you leave me alone?" he slows down but doesn't come to a stop. Does he remember that I have inability to run at all? I'm sprinting as fast as I can but he's patronizing me with his light jog. "Oh now you need me."
"For Christ's sake yes but if you're going to be a jerk about it than fine, I'll figure stuff out my own way." Why do I bother honestly? I turn away and jog back to where the chaos is unfolding. Time said my heart "called out to him", which I would've dismissed if I was in Tokyo, safe and sound. Ever since I crashed in Metropolis, I've been more than willing to believe anything out of the ordinary. But why would I reach out to him of all people? He's only caused me pain and frustration since I met him when I was on that mission. "I need to plan out what I'm doing next," I tell myself as I look around the area."Alan's Deli", a convenience store with a smashed window, boxed up from the inside stands out from the other stores. A good place for me to recharge and think; I hurry over and easily punch through the empty boxes, stepping into the dimly lit store. "Now I can eat and think," I announce to the grocery store happily. Free food and completely empty, this is a good hideout.
"Hello?" a boy's voice reverberates from the third aisle. Aw man, I really looked forward to eating like a pig while plotting my next strategy. I didn't think anyone would be in here-I should've realized when I saw the boxed up window. "Are you a human?"
"Uh duh," I grab a couple of Skittles from the cashier area and step over the spilled fruits and milk. When I find the boy, he's standing behind a fort made of cardboard boxes. It's just some fifteen year old Filipino kid who looks like he's seen better days. He should have straight hair considering his nationality but it's oddly really moppy like a sheepdog's hair, almost black as the sky, wearing a T-shirt with a pixalated Mario and Luigi jumping for their own question-marked boxes. "Are you building a fort?"
"How do I know you're human?" he asks skeptically but sounds too wimpy to really be threatening.
"Do I look like an alien to you? What kind of question is that?" Boys are so freakin' stupid sometimes. "How do I know," he asks in a half feeble half firm tone. "Don't get smart with me, alien scum."
"I know that's Mario and Luigi on your shirt. Uuuuh, I know the Wii game came out last year in a special red box. And what else, go on ask me anything else."
"What's the candy that you just picked up?"
"Skittles. Packed with sugar that I need right now, are you done?"
"Ok fine, you are human sorry, I've got to make sure," he says satisfactorily. I manage to step over his cardboard wall, knocking over two of them to his annoyance. "How did you manage to survive?"
"Survive what?"
"Don't you realize what's going on around you? Have you been on vacation, there's an invasion going on-wait, did you hear that?"
"No."
"Get down under the fort." He gets on all fours and underneath the cereal boxes and picks up a stick that looks like it used to be part of a broom. I hope he knows that we're not gonna be saved by some cardboard, whatever we're hiding from will smash this fort to bits. Oh God what if it's a Heartless?
"Mizuki, where did you go?" Grey's voice puts me back in a sour mood. I should just say he's an alien just so I could get to see him get beat up by this guy.
"Ugh, that's an alien for sure. He followed me here," I mutter low enough for the kid in the Mario shirt to hear as I put the Skittles in my pocket. With a determined glint in his eyes, he gets up, breaks down the cardboard fort and screams like the guy in that Sparta movie. Shit I didn't expect him to actually go in there. I get up to find Grey seizing the kid by the shirt while blocking the Filipino's strikes from his broom stick with his other hand. I forget that Grey is sixteen,taller than me by a foot, and is a pretty good fighter, that kid is like an ant to him. "Kid, stop swinging that stick at me."
"Die alien scum!"
"Grey why did you follow me here?" Did my heart call out to him or something weird like that?
"Because we're in a mess that's why, the same kind of mess. We need to stick together-kid if you don't screaming I'm going to beat you until you stop."
J.G.P.