Holy crap, this thing is massive. D: RUN AWAY BEFORE IT EATS YOU TOO.
Anyway, this is dedicated to xChewy and her amazing review-button-hitting skills, as a sorry for what I'm about to do to Enough. I need to revise it, majorly. Therefore, it will be down for several weeks/months, depending on how long it takes me to rediscover my original plotline under all the junk.
Hopefully this will make up for things. For now.
And for some reason, this feature's chocolate in a main role. Don't ask. Also, don't ask how BEGA wound up in southern Romania--I don't know that, either.
DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING. DON'T SUE ME--MY WEEK'S BEEN INTERESTING ENOUGH, THANK YOU.
Chocolate Aversion
"I just don't like chocolate, okay?"
Ming-Ming gaped at him from across the coffee table. "How can you not like chocolate? It's impossible!"
Kevin bristled. "I just don't like it," he repeated. "Drop it, okay?"
"No! I wanna know why!"
Brooklyn, who had been watching the exchange from the door, stepped forward and leaned casually agains the back of Kevin's armchair. "If he doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't have to. We can't force him."
The pop singer pouted. "But Brooklyn--"
"No, Ming," he said, employing his rarely used "serious voice," as dubbed by Mystel. "He doesn't want to, he doesn't have to. Now, it's getting late, you should probably get headed home before it gets too dark. It wouldn't be good if you ran off the side of the road because you couldn't see."
She huffed and sulked, but got up anyway. "'Night, Brook. 'Night, Kevin."
Once she was out of earshot, Kevin smiled thinly at the older boy. "Thanks."
"It's nothing, really. Ming-Ming can get a little...invasive at times, but she means well."
The green haired boy shook his head, dislodging his now-nose length bangs over his eyes. "No, not that. Well, yes, for getting her off my back, but for letting me stay here with you, too. I mean, I don't really know you that well, and the last time we met, we weren't exactly on friendly terms, and--"
Brooklyn sat down on the couch and shook his head, stopping the boy's apologetic speech. "We've talked about this--you're welcome to stay here." He chuckled softly. "Anyone who can survive a solo trip from rural China to southern Romania has more than earned my eternal respect and the spare room, in my opinion."
Kevin laughed hollowly, thinking back on his long journey. "I was just happy to find someone I knew. By the way, how the heck did you wind up in Romania, anyway?"
"That, my friend, is a story for a new day and a different hearth, to quote the wise words of the old guy who lives in the apartment down the hall from the elevator on the second floor." Standing, Brooklyn held a hand out to assist him in standing up. "Now, I think you've had a long day, and a soft bed and a good night's sleep is in order for us both."
Accepting the offered hand, Kevin pulled himself up and groaned at his sore muscles, stretched raw from running along highways and sleeping on train seats. "It's pathetic how good that sounds."
Kevin curled up in a corner of the twin-sized bed and whispered to himself, "Whoever may or may not be out there, please let me not have another nightmare tonight...I don't care how you do it, and I don't care what you want in return, just...please let me sleep..."
Several hours later, the comforter had been kicked halfway off the bed, and the green haired teenager was tossing and turning, in the midst of yet another nightmare.
Kevin groaned, lifing his heavy backpack onto his shoulder. "I'll catch up with you guys later, okay? Minna was in town over the weekend and has a whole bunch of candy bars."
Rolling her eyes, Mariah asked dryly, "And you're going to go beg her to share her spoils, right?"
"No," the green haired boy, feigning an indignant attitude. "I'm gonna see if she'll sell." He pulled his allowance out of his pocket.
"You and your sweet tooth," Rei said, winding an arm around Mariah's waist. "Just be back before dark, okay? We don't want to get in trouble for losing you, even if we do know where you are."
Kevin raised his eyes to the sky and turned away, making a gagging motion with his hand. "The cuteness alone is enough to strangle an elephant," he muttered, fully aware that Mariah, who didn't like being mocked in the least, could hear perfectly. Before she could get her hands on him, he darted off to find the object of his affections--and Minna, too, of course.
Minna leaned against the wall and smiled sweetly. "Hey, Kevin. Guess you heard about the candy bars, huh?" She laughed, pulling two bars wrapped in metallic foil from the pocket of her sweater.
Reaching for his allowance, Kevin asked innocently, "How much do you want for them?"
"Nothing, silly--I bought them both for you!"
He floundered.
Smiling, Minna held both bars behind her back. "But you can only have them if you say yes."
"Say yes to what?"
"Kevin, will you go out with me?"
"I--"
In a suddenly embarrassed blur, she kissed him full on the lips and pressed the candy bars into his hands. "Think about it, okay," she asked, sounding nervous and rushed.
Then, she was gone.
Kevin shook his head and looked at the candy bars in his hands, trying to dislodge the haze she had left in her wake. He turned to head home.
He needed Rei's advice.
As soon as he walked through the door, he could tell that something was wrong. The house wasn't usually this quiet--with the thin walls and creaky floorboards, you could easily tell if there was anyone home. As far as he could hear, there was no one home.
He was just to the end of the hall, intending to drop off his bag before canvasing the house, when he passed Mariah's door.
Bloody footprints led back the way he had come.
Curious and scared, the green haired teenager followed the fading tracks into the kitchen, where they disappeared altogether. He looked up from the floor and found the back door swinging open.
He cautiously stepped outside, and off the porch. Wandering farther into the backyard, he warily entered the small grove of Japanese maple trees in the back corner of the plot of land.
Lee stood over a limp figure on the ground, bashing whatever it was repeatedly with a baseball bat. The smell of blood was heavy in the air, and the dark liquid had stained the ground and the wood of the bat, and had spurted up at one point on the trunk of the nearest tree. "That traitor had no right to take you away from me...Now neigher of you can dishonor my family ever again...You won't hurt us any more..." He moved slightly, shifting as his incoherent rant continued. Kevin saw a flash of pink, stained the same browning shade of magenta as a dying orchid.
Kevin screamed.
A hand covered his mouth, muffling the outburst. Terrified and still half-asleep, the boy struggled to free himself for all he was worth, thinking some unnamed terror had come to kill him, just as Lee had taken Mariah.
The body that the hand was attatched to leaned over him and flicked on the lamp sitting on the bedside table. "Easy, easy, you're okay. Is that better?"
Able to see his night visitor, Kevin calmed down and pushed Brooklyn's hand away from his face. He took several deep breaths.
"Sorry. I didn't want you to wake the neighbors. I'm already in trouble with my landlord."
Kevin nodded mutely, his blood slowly draining of the adrenaline rush.
After several long moments of silence, the redhead said casually, "Must've been some nightmare."
Again, Kevin nodded, although reluctantly this time.
"Wanna tell me about it?"
"No." There wasn't as much finality in the monosyllibic answer as he had intended, but Brooklyn got the message.
He stood up from the edge of the bed and stretched his arms high above his head. Looking at the archaic analog alarm clock on the bedside table, he remarked, "I think 3am is a perfect time for breakfast. You can come join me, or go back to sleep for a few hours--your choice. I'm going to leave this on for you, either way." He walked back out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.
Kevin looked around at the shadows in the corners for several minutes before jumping out of bed and bolting after him.
"Decided to join me? Good, this way I only have to make breakfast once," Brooklyn said over his shoulder as Kevin edged his way into the kitchen. He turned the stove burner off and fished two cereal bowls from the cabinet. "You don't mind rice, do you? It's pretty much all I have until I go back into the market, which I try to avoid, anyway."
Kevin accepted the bowl and spoon and followed Brooklyn into the living room, where the redhead gestured to the chairs, indicating to pick whichever he fancied, and flopped back onto the couch.
Halfway through a mostly silent breakfast, Brooklyn said, "If you want to talk, the offer's still open, you know."
Kevin sighed, mentally battling with himself. His desperation to be sane again won out, and reluctantly, he cleared his throat. "I've been having the same nightmare for weeks--I haven't slept more than two hours at a time since it happened."
Brooklyn set his now-empty cereal bowl on the coffee table and prepared to listen quietly. After hearing a detailed explanation of the dream, he asked thoughtfully, "This really happened to you?"
Kevin nodded, his knees drawn up to his chest in an attempt to stifle the oncoming meltdown.
"What happened to Rei and Lee?"
"Lee's still in the village, I guess. I ran before I told anyone." A short burst of hollow, slightly hysterical laughter exploded like a small firecracker. "Stupid, huh? I just had to get away, I didn't even think about where I was going or why I was running or anything."
"It's not stupid. It's completely logical. Well, the running all the way to Romania, not so much, but the running itself was logical."
Kevin snorted. "Since when are you an expert on logic?"
"Since is psyches people out--especially psych ward nurses. What happened to Rei?"
Sighing, Kevin dropped his forehead to his knees, looking suddenly very small, and yet, older than he was supposed to be. "There was a news report--he'd been taken to the hospital with bad trauma to the head. He still hasn't woken up, according to the updates. They don't expect him to ever walk again, even if he does wake up and regain full use of his brain--too much nerve damage."
Silently, Brooklyn watched him sit like a melancholy sculpture in the armchair, not moving beyond taking slow, deep breaths.
"You blame yourself, don't you?"
Whe Kevin lifted his head up, his vivid purple eyes were full of restrained tears, and his voice cracked slightly when he spoke. "If I hadn't run off for those stupid candy bars, I could've stopped him! They might still be here if I hadn't left them! That's why I can't stand chocolate anymore--it just makes me feel so guilty--"
"What would you have done?"
Kevin stopped, looking as if he hadn't quite heard the question.
Moving to the other armchair close to the one Kevin occupied, Brooklyn repeated, "What would you have done? If you had been there, he would've just killed you too, right?"
The green haired boy had no answer.
"From what you've told me, Lee was already past the point of 'being stopped,' for lack of a better term. He wouldn't have had any problem just doing the same things to you that he did to Rei and Mariah."
"I could've distracted him, given them the chance to get away!"
Brooklyn looked at him impassively for a moment, watching him slowly slip into hysterics. Sighing, he reached out and placed a hand on the top of Kevin's head. "Calm down, you'll hurt yourself," he said blankly. "I can see you won't listen to reason, so think of it this way-- Would Rei and Mariah really have wanted you to be severely injured or killed because of them?"
Kevin calmed down at this. "No, I guess not."
"Because then they would feel the exact same way you feel now, right?"
He nodded.
"And would you wish this on anyone?"
He shook his head to the negative.
Brooklyn removed his hand from the boy's head. "There you go."
He gathered up the bowls from breakfast and started back to the kitchen.
"Hey Brooklyn?"
"Mmm?"
A pause, and then, "Can I stay here for a while? I'd get a job and help with grocery money and rent and stuff--"
"You can stay as long as you want. Free of charge."
"Really?"
"Yep."
"Thanks, Brooklyn."
"You will have to put up with Ming-Ming and Garland and Mystel whenever they're in my neck of the woods, though."
"I think I can handle that."
The ending was not what I wanted it to be, but oh well. It's done, I feel accomplished, and Grace's lust for blood is hopefully sated for the time being. Right? It was 2047 words, darn it. It better have.
Please review.