Literally 15 pages of garbage that I should've posted four years ago when people were literally emailing me about updating this. I'm actually genuinely sorry and I hope this doesn't stop you guys from enjoying this first chapter.
Tainted
Chapter 1
Mikan Sakura Yukihira: Threshold
Sometimes I miss the way things used to be. Before I had to lock my bedroom door at night. Before I had to wake up before the sun rose to avoid him. Before my mother died and left me with him. There's a part of me that wants to give up and just surrender myself to the earth, and, frankly, it scares me.
I remember when I was younger, I didn't even think about things like that. Like they didn't even exist and the world only consisted of things that make you happy like freshly spun howalon in the summertime and waking up to french toast in bed because its your birthday and you told your mom you wanted it.
And the only things that disappointed you were when you went to the store and couldn't find the strawberries because they were out of season or that time you had to change schools because your dad got a new job in the city. But even that turned out alright for awhile because even though things were absolute shit in that moment, you were still positive about the future and for the world and you didn't want to surrender or whatever to the Earth and let the Gods consume your soul.
And now you're on the edge. The brink. The cusp of snapping and, probably, doing something regrettable.
I grip the hair brush, starting the motion of combing through my hair which has grown long, the ends split and unkempt. For a brief moment, I wonder when I last had it cut. It's not like he takes me out to take care of myself and I'm not exactly allowed to leave. He'd notice if I'd cut my hair. He might say something. He might do something.
I shudder, shakily placing the hairbrush on my bureau counter. He's out tonight. He has the only set of keys. I'm in my room. I'm alone. I'm here.
It takes all of my strength to keep myself upright, my palms flat on the bureau, my breathing harsh. Everything feels shaky like I'm experiencing my own personal earthquake and eventually, I can only curl into a ball on the floor and feel everything.
It felt like a lightning bolt was pointed at my stomach and was in the process of burning me from the inside out. My thoughts dotted from one memory to the next, pictures of mom and him and me and then of him and me and then of him, menacingly staring me down, belt in hand. This isn't real. This is a panic attack. I am alone. I am here.
His hands form vices around my wrists. I cannot move. This doesn't make sense. I try calling out for her but she's not here. She can't hear me. I am alone.
I am on the floor, thrashing. He is over me, hands on shoulders now to stop my movement.
In my imagination, he is laughing, but I remember his silence of that night.
I was the only one making noise; it was like it didn't matter how loud I screamed or how long because no one was going to help me. I was alone. I could only breathe and forget that I was there.
I close my eyes, still on the floor, but slowly pulling myself back from my reverie. These dreams were the worst because I am awake when they happen. The attacks only started recently. I think it's because I stopped fighting him.
.
It's still dark outside when I wake up. My internal alarm clock has me up at five every morning and I'm glad for it. He is still asleep.
I push the covers off of me and shiver at the cool air, immediately missing the warmth of my bed. But I had to go. I rush over to my closet, plucking out my school uniform and setting it on the bed. I shower, brush my teeth, dress, and go through the motions as though I know how to take care of myself. I feel like if I truly knew how to take care of myself, I wouldn't still be here. I would be in some rehabilitation center or living on the streets. Or dead.
Shouldering my backpack, I place a quiet hand on the lock of my bedroom door, turning it at such a slow pace so as to not make any harsh sounds. I always leave myself an extra half hour to escape the house so I won't be late for school. I, ever so slowly, pull the door open, careful to close it just as gingerly behind me before tiptoeing a path down the stairs and past the master bedroom. I can hear his snores from on the other side of his door and the corners of my mouth lift up in a ghost of a smile.
I'm free, for now, at least. He expects me home straight after classes, making school my only refuge.
As I walk to school, I fantasize about what would happen if I just didn't show up. If I took a wrong turn and didn't come home. He'd wait at the dinner table, gripping his silverware for hours, probably, because he'd want to be prepared when I finally did pass through the front door. But what he wouldn't know is that he'd could sit there until he died because, if I ran away, I would never run back to him. No one in their right mind would do that.
A kid passes me by on his bike, ringing his bell to alert me that he'd be coming up on my left. I smile at him, lips forming a morning greeting, but he is already too far past me to hear my hello. I close my mouth, cheeks still shaped in a small smile. I remember when I smiled all the time. I probably looked crazy. But it was hard to be down on small things when nothing truly bad had happened to me, yet.
As I approach the school, I slow my steps; I'm here way too early but being here is better than being there when he wakes up.
There is a boy standing in front of the school. Well, he's probably like my age, I'm guessing, but I'm only sixteen so he must be a teenager too. He isn't wearing the uniform, so it's hard to tell if he goes here. His clothes float around him in the wind; He looks cold in his oversized clothes, but he isn't shivering like I would be.
As I draw closer, he turns his head to me and all I could see were a pair of red eyes and an angular face like he hadn't eaten in years. I stop walking. He looks away when someone out of sight calls him over, stepping onto campus and away from me as I catch my breath.
I've never seen someone like that before. He was so skinny it was almost scary. The way his clothing draped around his bony shoulders and how his pants sat low on his waist because they were so loose. His collarbones jutted out at the base of his neck and he could just about be swept up in the wind.
And his eyes. I've never seen red eyes before. Green, blue, even eyes blacker than night, but red? Never. He had dark circles and his skin looked almost sallow, but maybe that was just a trick of the light.
I shake my head, stepping onto campus as he had done, and made my way to classroom 2B.
.
Natsume Hyuuga: Rage
Why am I even here? I stare at the office lady from my chair in the waiting room who, with each letter she types into her keyboard, makes a damned clicking noise that makes me more and more agitated. I want to hit something. I'll fucking hit her if she doesn't stop typing.
She glances up through her glasses, "Do you need something, kid?"
I grip the edge of the seat, biting the inside of my cheek to keep myself from lunging at her and throttling her. I breathe through my nose, "Just waiting."
She purses her lips and I have to press on the fresh bruise on my hip, which Persona had gifted me this morning, to keep myself grounded, "For what?"
What the fuck does she think? I'm practically quivering with the need to kick something, but I remain seated. My lips form a tight smile to trick myself into acting more docile. I look at her again, "To be enrolled," I gesture to the principal's closed door where Persona was handling the paperwork needed to transfer me to Alice Academy.
She nods, resuming her typing. My stomach loudly growls with need and I have to turn from the office lady's line of sight to hit it so that it'll stop. That's the only thing that'll stop that incessant noise now. I'm not even fucking hungry and it'll still growl as though I'd do something ridiculous like feed it.
The door clicks open, Persona stepping out with a couple forms in his hands. He makes eye contact with me, raising a brow at my folded over stature before giving me that threatening look I've become so well acquainted with. 'Don't fuck this up, Natsume,' it seems to say.
As he leaves, I wonder when I'll see him next. Maybe I won't see him for another couple days. With hope, at any rate.
The principal calls me over from his office, smiling thinly at me, "You can pick up your uniform down the hall in the activities room," he slides a paper across his desk, "This is your schedule; we expect great things from you, Hyuuga-san."
I nod mutely, taking the sheet, unsure of what to say to this man. I don't know if he's to be trusted or if Persona said anything to him about my situation.
The man seems to pointedly busy himself with the pens on his desk, lining them up delicately. It's almost in an afterthought that he even speaks to me again, "You're dismissed. Close the door on your way out, thank you."
I turn and leave for the activities room, an ache behind my eyes as I glance over the bronze nameplates at each door, unwilling to waste time on finding the room. Once located, the woman there struggles with sizing me, commenting on how tall, but lanky I was.
"It's hard because this uniform will fit you size wise but not length wise," she remarks smartly, unwrapping the measuring tape from my forearm, which, incidentally is about the size of baby duck's neck.
I say nothing to her, waiting for her to just give me some fucking clothes. And when she finally does, she's still talking about some fucking nonsense so I leave, cutting her off mid-sentence, before I feel like throttling her too.
I dress in the bathroom, merely putting the uniform on over the ratty clothing I already had on since everything was loose on me anyway. I didn't have a backpack to keep them in either. I didn't want to see the damage on my body either. Not that looking at myself would change anything. I can still feel every bruise on my body. The soreness with every motion. The hunger.
My stomach growls, so I hit it again, grimacing because the bruises that were there from the first time I started hitting my stomach to shut it up were, regrettably, still there. I feel like I've just been keeping it from healing because I hit my stomach so often.
I glance at the schedule sheet, noting that homeroom was in classroom 2B with Narumi-sensei. I glance at the clock on the wall; it's twenty minutes to class, I hope I find the room on time.
.
Ruka Nogi: Hollow
She looks so tired. My mom, I mean. As I look at her in the rearview mirror from the backseat, I can only see the dark circles marring her once lively face. I look down, pulling my sleeves over my palms, jolting slightly when the fabric irritated the cut on the inside of my wrist.
At this point, I don't know if I like the way it feels or if I just want to feel something.
The car slows to a halt and my mother catches my eye in the mirror again. I can see her trying to form a smile, but stopping herself when her eyes began to glisten. She looks away. I silently pull my bookbag over my shoulder and open the car door, looking back at my mother in the driver's seat. I want her to look at me again, but she keeps her neck stiff, eyes focused on some unknown object in the distance. I step out of the car, "Bye, Mom." And when she doesn't answer, I close the door and watch as she drives away.
She told me, once, that while I looked like irrefutably like her, I had my father's eyes. I think that's why she finds it so hard to look at me nowadays.
I tug on my sleeve again, shivering with the friction of the fabric dragging against the cut.
As I walk to class, the bell rings. I spent too much time waiting on her to look at me and now I'm late for homeroom. And it's funny because, when before I used to freak out at even the thought of something tarnishing my attendance record, now I could honestly care less.
I settle into my seat just as Narumi-sensei starts talking.
"Hello class; I hope you all had a wonderful weekend," he gazes imploringly at his students, who are collectively silent, "Now, did anyone do anything interesting?"
No one even moves because Narumi-sensei does this every Monday. He stands up there and asks us about our weekend and every Monday we are collectively silent. I don't understand why he feels the need to ask us. No other teacher asks. It's not like anything we say will be of any interest. Most of us probably just slept in and played video games.
I wonder how he'd react if I told him that I sat in the living room watching television while my dad packed his things to the tune of my mother's tears.
I discreetly scrape the inside of my wrist, with the fabric of my shirt being the only barrier, against the edge of the desk, seething as the cut becomes more and more agitated. My eyes seamed shut in a sort of faux-pleasure because I know and recognize that this movement doesn't feel good, but that's exactly what I like about it. I deserve this pain, even though it's too small a suffering to aid repentance.
"What are you doing?"
For a second, I think I'm caught, that she saw the heinous something under my sleeve somehow. Scenarios of a public revelation of my self-inflicted injuries run through my head and I cannot bring myself to look at my seatmate, Sakura-san. She could grab my wrist and yank the sleeve down; she'll scream and show the class what I'd done. She could go up to Narumi-sensei after class and confide in him. She could try to stop me, kick the desk away and grasp my wrist.
I stop, willing myself to look at her and, to my delight, I see that she isn't even looking at me anymore; her eyes are trained on the front of the classroom where a boy in a suspiciously new-looking uniform stood, holding what looked to be a freshly-printed schedule sheet. A dull smile graces my lips as I turn back to her to answer the damning question that she probably has forgotten all about, "I had an itch."
Which, decidedly, isn't a lie because I did have an itch. An itch to slice my arm open and watch as the red life bled from my body, like a torrent of flower petals in the spring breeze, leaving me an empty carcass on the floor. A shell of who I once was.
Narumi-sensei clears his throat, "No one? Alrighty then. On to the next subject," he gestures to the new kid, "Everyone say hi to Hyuuga-kun."
There are a few scattered greetings despite the obvious interest the entire class had in him. We don't usually get new students so late in the semester, afterall.
Narumi-sensei points to the empty seat on the other side of me, next to Sakura-san, "You can sit there for today, Hyuuga-kun."
I scoot down the bench, making room so he could pass over me and slid into his desk. I couldn't help but notice how little space I had to make for him to step over me. I mean, not that I'm a whale or anything, but Hyuuga is straight out of a Tim Burton movie. I didn't really notice it when he was in the front of the classroom because his uniform is kinda baggy.
Narumi-sensei announces that homeroom is over, leaving to make place for Jinno-sensei who teaches us math. I press the edge of the desk into my wrist again, lightly this time so as to not outwardly express the sensation I felt with every drag of fabric. Eventually, I lose myself in the quiet process of pressing ever so lightly and lifting only to smooth the fabric over and restart.
.
The shuffling and conversations of my classmates convey that it's lunchtime and that I've literally spent three hours ignoring my teachers and scratching my wrist against a desk. It's probably hideously swollen at this point and I'm too scared to check under my blazer sleeve to see if some blood got on my clothes.
Someone shifts beside me, Hyuuga-san, and I wonder if he wants me to move even though Sakura-san already left her side of the bench. But, he just crosses his arms on his desk and nestles his head in them, getting ready for a nap.
I raise a brow quizzically, "Aren't you going to get lunch?" He might not know where to cafeteria is. I briefly wonder if I should show him.
He jerks slightly, as though startled that I spoke to him; he turns his head slightly so one of his eyes are peeking out from the fold of his twig-like arm and I notice their peculiar reddish color. I didn't think it was possible to have eyes so strange a brown that they were red. He lifts his head slightly to speak to me, "Not hungry," but his stomach growls as he murmurs the words.
In that moment, he looked so angry I thought he was going to hit me or something so I instinctively jolted back; but Hyuuga just closed his eyes and gripped his elbows so hard his knuckles turned white.
I nod slowly, though I know he can't see me, "You sure?"
He looks at me again from the corner of his elbow and whispers so lowly that I had to lean forward to hear what he said, "Why? Are you gonna get me something?"
I relax a little more, shrugging while contemplating the concept. I don't think it'll hurt to help him; he's clearly starving, but I can't help but wonder why he seemed so thrown off that I had witnessed his hunger. I nod, making my decision, "What do you like?"
He is quiet for a long while, red eyes seeming to look through me, analyzing me, gauging, as I had done to him earlier, whether or not I was to be trusted. Eventually, he sits upright and faces me, "Strawberries."
I nod, seizing my wallet from the front of my bookbag and standing, "Got it." I rush to the door, wondering if the student store will have any strawberry buns left because if they didn't, I'd have no idea what to get for Hyuuga-san.
.
Hotaru Imai: Nugatory
"Move, Imai."
I stare at the moron. I know that I probably could just move out of the way and be done with this bullshit but I don't like his haughty tone so I think I'll stand here and annoy him.
I can see his neck reddening at my lack of response, something I'm known for at this stupid school. Stupid male. I almost want to put him out of his misery.
Seconds go by and then a minute and I begin to wonder when he'll cave because I'm getting hungry. I also wonder what made him think he was worthy of picking a fight with me. Obviously, I'll win. I think the only reason he's even upright right now and not a babbling baby on the floor is because the Gods felt bad for him. Or maybe they were at a meeting or whatever when they were creating mankind and they decided to create a lesser form of human who, coincidentally also looks remarkably like the moron in front of me, essentially exists to make me, a beautiful, wonderful, wildly intelligent human specimen, look even more beautiful, wonderful, and wildly intelligent.
I mean, what else could he possibly be good for? Taking up space and being half-decent at holding a ball shouldn't warrant the credibility to existence. On top of that, he's ugly and smells vaguely of urine.
"Imai, you bitch, you better watch yourself," his voice lowers to a growl at the last bit and a part of me wants to laugh in his face but I'm sure he'd faint from shock. My smiles are, obviously, a rare occurrence that can be aligned with Halley's Comet. I wish they had the same destruction power of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, but, hey, I guess I can't have everything.
So I just stare at him, silently daring him to lay a hand on me, testing him. I want to see if he's just that stupid. Afterall, only a moron would lay a hand on Hotaru Imai.
He scoffs, finally stepping past me, red-faced and incredibly unattractive, but not before his shoulder cuffs mine. Big mistake.
He's on the floor, writhing, before I even know what's happened. I step over his squealing body, relaying my own scoff as I pass over him, "Moron."
I can hear his angered calls in the distance, but my focus has already moved onto the next order of business. Crab buns.
I feel like the cafeteria is always hushed when I enter, something I appreciate as I'd rather hear whispers than the stupid, asinine ramblings of my peers. I swear, if I didn't know they were talking about me right now, I'd bet money that they're talking about the stupid shit they usually talk about. It's like no one even knows what's going on in the world right now because all they care about is clothes and sex. And, honestly, I'm disgusted if this is all the future generation has to offer because the world isn't getting a bunch of ingenious, courteous young adults; they're getting sex deprived hyenas who don't know their right from left.
But I know they're talking about me. It's not like they're particularly discreet about their gossiping and that earlier scene with that neanderthal wasn't exactly private.
"She did it again," came a quiet voice, a whisper to someone's seatmate.
I queue to retrieve my long-awaited crab bun.
"Yeah. I heard she totally destroyed the dude's throwing arm."
I pay for my long-awaited crab bun.
"Well, I heard she kidnapped his younger brother for ransom."
I walk towards the exit of the cafeteria, having completed my objective of purchasing my long-awaited crab bun.
"All she cares about it money."
"Freak."
"Bitch."
The door from the cafeteria shuts behind me. I imagine them resuming their normal volume, squawking like toucans and fluttering about like vultures over the next choice of gossip. I unwrap the plastic off the bun, sinking my teeth into the crabby goodness. Where shall I dine today? I briefly reminisce at the past times where I would actually attempt to sit in the cafeteria.
I remember, once, a moron approached me and told me to leave. You know what I did? I broke his wrist. Then I left.
I don't understand why these people think they can tell me what to do. I mean, I left because I thought it'd be more troublesome to break everyone who approaches me's wrists than to just leave of my own accord and eat in peace and solitude. It's not like peace and solitude is a bad thing. In fact, I prefer it.
Really, if it were anyone other than me who had to put up with this prepubescent bullying bullshit, I'm pretty sure this school would have a body count. We'd be on the news every other week with a headline like "Senseless Tragedy at Alice Academy: Another Suicide. Details on Page 6." and the article will feature an interview with the principal, who will state that the school knew nothing about the bullying that took place, and with the parents, who will say that they didn't expect their child, who was always so happy and had tons of friends, to kill their self. And, eventually, the news will become old news and everyone will move on until the next person killed their self because of the same asshole bullies. The cycle repeats.
As I near the girl's restroom located in a particularly isolated area of the school, great for ditching (one of my favorite spots, honestly), I can't help but hear some indistinct groaning coming from the other side of the door. Assuming it's just two horny teens fucking in a stall, I decide to stand, albeit with some annoyance, outside and wait for them to finish. Or, more likely, for the guy to cum and leave the girl to finish off herself because he doesn't know where the clit is.
As the minutes go by, I find myself impatiently tapping my foot and staring at the door. The groaning had stopped but no one appeared to be exiting the bathroom. Perhaps they know I'm outside the door and they're just too embarrassed to exit so they're waiting for me to leave or something. Perhaps they passed out from over stimulation and are in dire need of assistance. Perhaps I just imagined the groaning sex-esque noises emanating from the girl's bathroom.
I sigh, hand on the knob. I'm not even sure why I bothered waiting in the first place. It's not like anyone at this school has any shame, if the whole brazen gossiping moment in the cafeteria was any indication. So I nudge the door open, only for it to stop, hitting the curled body of a female student on the floor. I stick my head in, expecting to see some male student crouched over her, but, alas, my sex theory appeared to be wrong. The girl is clothed, afterall.
I raise a brow when she doesn't move, seeing as the door had hit her, not so softly either. She's just shifted over, clutching her sides, curling even tighter into a ball.
"Uh," I stand in the shrinking bathroom now, shrinking because of the sudden pressure to do something about this shaking girl, at a loss of what to do that will demand the least effort. Maybe she's having cramps? That would somewhat explain the groaning I heard, though I've never heard of cramps being so unmanageable that it forces those affected to start groaning. We're all juniors, afterall, so she should already be used to her periods to some extent.
Or at least to the point of not being in the particular bathroom I wanted to use to enjoy my lovely crab bun, dying of cramps.
Or maybe it's not even cramps. Maybe it's something entirely more sinister than the menstrual cycle. I chance a look at her again, still on the floor, still in a ball. She is quiet for someone who was groaning earlier.
I crouch by her against my better judgement, "Hey."
She seems shocked at my appearance here, jolting backwards against the closed door. I can't help but grimace at the thought of all the bathroom germs soaking up into her uniform. There's probably some on the side of her face, as it was pressed against the floor too.
I sigh, extending my hand to this pitible girl, "Come on. Stand."
She stares at me, brown eyes flicking between my hand and my face, before gingerly sliding her sweaty hand (I had to swallow my disgust, really) into mine, "T-thanks."
I nod, pulling my hand back to wipe it on the back of my skirt when she becomes preoccupied with dusting her uniform off. I make a mental note to purchase a bulk hand sanitizer and keep it in my bag from tomorrow on.
She's still shivering now, arms clutched around her sides, looking all sad and shit. Mentally, once more, I make a note to not get into the habit of saving weird girls from bathroom floors. Nevertheless, I do my best to form a friendly smile, placing my hand on her shoulder, "You okay?"
And she literally explodes. A torrent of tears trickling down her face onto my shoulder, arms thrown around me in a vice grip, I am tackled and this crying girl is smothering me. There's a big (I'd say about 99 percent) part of me that wants to just shove her off and leave, but I ignore it as she speaks her next words.
"I-I can't d-do this anymore!"
I, shaking now, unused to this sort of touch, rub circles into her back.
"I don't, I'm done! I don't w-want to do this anymore!" the sobs are wracking her small frame and snot is seeping into my blazer.
Mental note number #3: wash uniform when I get home.
She straightens herself, teary eyes blurrily staring at me, "He wins." As she stands, haphazardly pushing herself off the floor, I wonder about asking her who has won.
.
After the girl leaves (after saying some weird shit), I sit in the bathroom for a long while, wondering about who she is and what happened because, even I, the brilliant Hotaru Imai, am having trouble deciphering the cryptic message she left me with.
Who has won? Why have they won?
After some contemplation, I arrive at the conclusion that she had some sort of mental breakdown, explaining some of her more hysterical actions, but not her garbled words. I suspect her message holds the root cause of her attack.
I sigh, grimacing from the soggy shoulder she also left me with, glancing about me. On the floor, reflected by the fluorescent lighting of the girls bathroom, sat an ID that has, presumably, fallen out of the wallet located about a step away from the strange girl's forgotten bag.
I pluck it from the tiles, glancing it over and noting the name printed on the front. Mikan Sakura. She's going to regret leaving her shit here with me. I should just leave it here. She could just retrieve it tomorrow morning from the bathroom; I doubt anyone else would come in here. This place is usually deserted. Then again, she came here; another student could easily do the same.
I roll the card in my palm, eyeing the wallet lying so innocently on the tile. If I bring her bag to her, I'll have a justification to take the cash in her wallet, instead of just 'finders, keepers.' It'll be my compensation. I smirk, locating her address on the ID, recognizing it as being in the residential district, rather than an apartment. Hm, I wonder if she ditched class. I mean, I've been in here since lunch and, if the clock on the wall is correct, there's only around fifteen minutes left of class today, so it's not like she's missing a whole lot.
I shoulder my bag, and, after a brief mental debate over the benefits and losses of actually bringing her bag to her (i.e. pros: money, cons: human interaction with an overly emotional wreck, walking to the residential district, et cetera, et cetera), I shoulder her's as well, and leave the bathroom with much less stress about the whole situation, as the promise of the money in her wallet (which now sits, much happier, in my blazer pocket) lightens my steps.
.
After seeing the exterior of her home, I can safely say that Mikan Sakura won't be missing the cash I took from her wallet. Not that it's explicitly large or elaborately designed, but, clearly, her parents hold their own during tax season, if you catch my drift.
As I scale her front steps, however, I can't help but notice the half-dead, unpruned bushes by the windows; my eyes, drawn to the broken glass littering the foliage, widen at the handgun sitting so inconspicuously among the leaves.
I slow my ascend in silent ambivalence as I guess the events leading to this scene before me, when movement from inside the house startles me. It is Mikan Sakura, seen so clearly from her broken window, reaching out to grab the gun. Her arm is bloodied, having caught the sharp edges of the glass, but she doesn't appear to even notice the pain.
As she grasps the gun and pulls her arm back inside, I see her face and I know what she's about to do.
.
Mikan Sakura Yukihira: Haze
I didn't even know what I was about to do, the gun in my palm, the barrel, facing me, but incorrectly pointed toward my throat, blood streaking down my arm, a dull ache by my left elbow. I didn't know how I got home or where my bookbag was. I couldn't even remember anything past me leaving second period to wash my sweaty hands.
There is a loud bang, like a firework going off, and for a moment, I think I've died. It is, however, just the slamming of the front door being opened roughly against the wall by an irritated-looking girl who I don't know. She throws what looks to be my bookbag and it hits me right in the face, my math textbook slamming my nose. The gun slips from my hands, which weren't holding it strongly enough anyway, and I am knocked back, my feet clumsily stumbling over themselves as they try and fail to balance me.
I lay on the floor, registering the pain in my face and the warm wetness leaking from my nose. But I can't even think straight right now. Can't even register this girl's face. Can't even move.
She is standing above me now, indigo eyes narrowed in annoyance, "Idiot," she says, crouching by me as her hands find their way behind my head. She cradles it gently but a different, much harsher touch finds my nose, which she pinches to stop the flow of blood.
"W-what?" I say through the blood gushing down my throat, confused and nasal-sounding.
"I saw everything," she says quietly, "You are a moron." She delicately pushes her own cropped hair back from her eyes, staring at my deflated form on the ground.
I look at the gun, across the floor now, knowing what it must've looked like. But, I think to myself, what could it have possibly been if not that? Playing with the gun? Cleaning it? Self-defense against some unknown intruder?
Self-defense against myself, more likely.
I shift, angling my head so as to not swallow anymore blood, silent, thinking of how I'll explain the broken window and the displaced gun to my father when he comes home from work. He'll freak out, probably, and he'll kill me and no one will wonder where I've gone.
When will this girl leave? Will she witness murder? Will he kill her too?
She nudges me with her knee, the pale skin of her leg brushing against my hip, "Stop shaking."
I swallow, eyes fixed on her bare knee now, "Y-you have to go." Her uniform skirt, much like mine, is unaltered, unlike many other female students at our school. It leaves only that small strip of skin by her knee exposed before the rest is covered by her black, knee-high, tube socks.
She stares at me incredulously, delicate eyebrows raised, annoyed again, as if to say, 'you've got to be fucking joking.'
I turn to face her from my pitiful position on the floor, briefly wondering how I'll also explain the blood on the carpet to him, "You don't understand." I try to keep my eyes open and honest without giving away too much information.
She speaks quickly and lowly, pinching my nose harder, "No, you don't understand," her upper lip lifts into a sneer, yet her voice is still soft, "I go out of my way to bring your shit to you, only to find you," she throws her hands in a somehow graceful, yet obscene gesture, "bloodied up from breaking a window, about to shoot yourself and make me a witness to suicide," she appraises me harshly, "Can you imagine having to call the police and explain why you were at some unknown person's house, right before they died?" she shakes her head, clearly bristled, "What the fuck, Mikan."
I move uncomfortably, "How do you know my name?"
She points to my bag lazily, "Wallet," she says curtly before looking at me more seriously now, "If I left you right now, what would you do?"
I shake my head, unable to answer. If she found me in a daze, about to commit suicide with my father's handgun, who's to say I won't find myself in the same position? I may not have been aware of my unconscious attempt towards death, but, clearly, that was the end goal. Maybe I want to die.
She stands abruptly,"I'm calling the police."
My eyes widen at the thought of having to explain my father why the police were at the house, "P-please, don't," I grasp her ankle, "I'll get in trouble," I say quietly.
She rolls her eyes, shaking me off, "That's the point. Idiot."
"You don't und-"
Her eyes narrow, cutting me off, "What don't I understand, Mikan?" she asks, her smooth voice, now a grate to my ears.
I look away, thinking of him and what he'll do.
She stands, still staring at me irately, "What, Mikan?"
I search for the strength to say something, anything, "H-he-"
"He'll win?" she eyes me dangerously now, "Who's 'he,' Mikan?"
"I-I-" He's my father. When I was fourteen and my mother died, he raped me. He's at work right now and I am here.
Her gaze is unwavering. Cruel, even.
I swallow and look away. I am here.
She steps over me, walking to the front door with purpose.
"Wait!" He is not here. I am here.
She stops and I look at her and I tell her everything.
I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Please (please!) review and let me know what you think.