9/19/13
Rating: T for repeated swearing and mentions of suicide, murder, and such.
Pairings: If you squint and tilt your head a bit... you'll just look like an idiot. Seriously, there is no romance whatsoever.
Updates: This story is already finished, and it should have five chapters total. I'll update weekly, hopefully on Thursdays.
First, let's get one thing straight: I'm not writing this for your entertainment or my betterment, so don't expect me to crack jokes or come to some amazing and life-changing realization in the end. Second: this won't have a happy ending. I'll tell you right now, things get pretty shitty for me. I wouldn't be writing this if it all turned out sunshine and rainbows. Now that we have that straightened out, I'll get to the point.
L is an asshole. I know a lot of people who would agree and a fair few who would disagree, so I'll explain my reasoning. Lucky you. I'll start with the basics.
As far as I'm concerned, my name is C. Translation: that's my alias. I was the third and final orphan in the first generation of potential successors for that asshole -I mean L, the greatest three detectives in the world all wrapped up into one charming package. (Did you see the eyeroll that went with that, because I meant it.) And if you're reading this, I'm guessing you already know A and B, so I'll skip the whole 'introducing them' bit. Yeah, I know: A, B, and C. Haha. But actually, the letters were just a coincidence; our real names all actually start with A, B, and C. Will I tell you my real name though? No.
Anyway.
A and B. Alternative, Backup, and me, Conclusion. The thing is, L couldn't have possibly picked a better trio of orphaned genii to solve crimes together than the three of us. And the hilarious part is, he didn't even have a clue. Which is why he made the crucial mistake of trying to pit us against each other. Normally, that tactic would have gotten us to compete to out-do each other, do to our incredibly competitive natures, but if we had worked together instead... Shit, we would have been virtually unstoppable. The three of us could each do something... unexplainable.
Now, before you say I'm nuts and quit reading, hear me out. The way I found out about B's 'specialty'—and arguably the only reason I found out A's power as well—is quite simple, yet no less shocking or unbelievable. B messed up.
...-...-...-...-...-...
I burst into A and B's room at seven o'clock on the dot, slamming their door open with much more force than needed, as always. I was greeted with the usual sight of A sitting on his bed, finishing getting ready for classes, and B, who had his head buried under his pillow in an attempt to block out the sunlight.
After nodding at A, I looked over at the lump of blankets that I knew to be B and said in the chipper-est, chirpy-est, most irritating voice I could muster, "Good morning, BB!"
I received muffled swearing and the cursing of my very existence in reply.
With a fake pout and a quick smirk in the direction of the quietly snickering A, I silently padded over to the side of B's bed and swiftly shoved him onto the cold ground.
Tearing himself out of the mess of blankets and glaring at me from beneath his tangled black hair, B growled, "Damnit, Char-" before he abruptly closed his mouth, his crimson eyes widening slightly.
The three of us stared at each other silently for a moment. A was the only one who wasn't certain what B had been about to say, but it didn't take a genius to guess that it had been a name. My name. No one knew my name. Not Roger, nor Wammy. Not even L. I could count on one hand the amount of times I'd even spoken it out loud, let alone told anyone.
"How do you know that name?" I asked darkly, dangerously, staring down at my fellow orphan.
...-...-...-...-...-...
And because B had no way of weaseling out of that one, he was forced to admit that he could see the names of everyone he met, written right above their heads. But if you're reading this, I'm guessing you already know about B's eyes. The thing that you are most curious about is, 'What is C's ability then?'. Well, there is a reason why BB couldn't get away with saying he'd read my name in one of Roger's files or something; that explanation was a lie.
Ever since I learned to speak and understand English, I've always known when someone told a lie.
'You're such a good child.' 'Mommy loves you, dear.' 'Your mother just had to go away for a while, that's all.' 'You don't have to go to the orphanage if you don't want to.' 'Hello, my name is Watari.'
Lies.
But enough about my tragic past that lead to me ending up in Wammy's House. I'm sure you want to know about what was special about A. I'll tell you right now, everything was special about A. The kid radiated good-will and cheerfulness. It was, quite frankly, impossible to hate him. God knows B certainly tried. And failed rather spectacularly, considering the fact that the three of us were best friends. A was a rare kind of person who seemed to outshine the sun, but without the annoying side-affect of being too bubbly.
You never would have guessed that Fate had stuck him with one of the worst abilities it could think of.
See, A was an empath, meaning he could see the emotions of anyone within reasonable distance of him. Not so bad. Maybe a few issues about which emotions were his, but not so bad, right? The problem was, A didn't see any of the good emotions. Hate, jealousy, grief, and unbearable sadness swirled around him constantly. He once described it to me as seeing a rainbow cloud surrounding everyone, but not the pretty fairy-tale kind. He said it was more like someone had left the corpse of a rainbow draped around everyone's shoulders, and the worse their emotions, the more rotted the intangible cloud of colors was.
Add that to the fact that he was at an orphanage, literally surrounded by kids with tragic histories, and I'm frankly surprised he didn't snap and kill everyone in sight.
Just himself.
Maybe.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
Shit, there's no other way to explain it; the sun got darker the day It happened. BB had been missing all day, and I sometimes wonder if he somehow knew, but that's crazy. I was sitting in my room when Roger came in with a serious expression, and for a moment I wondered if B had stolen all the jam from the fridge again and Roger was trying to get me to rat out on him.
That was the first and only time I ever wished somebody had lied to me.
Ongoing challenge: has anyone noticed anything odd about the way I've described C?
Review to tell me what you think!