WHAT? WHAT EVEN? WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING? A KND FANFICTION? WHAT?
Okay, so this is how it goes: I was feeling the longing, an empty black hole feeling. The kind of feeling you get when you're missing something that once was important. So, I started to read KND fanfiction. AND NOW WHAT? I'M WRITING IT? WHAT? I know I must be crazy, KND and I haven't seen each other...in a while and yet here I am, writing an Author note on a KND fanfiction.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
Anyways, getting over myself: I don't know KND...or anything else they may be mentioned in this.
I LOVE YOU GUYS IF YOU'RE READING THIS!
Also, please note that grammar is more/less purposely wrong in the diary entries. Kuki's a kid when she's writing them, therefore her grammar most definitly won't be perfect.
However: IF YOU DO NOTICE ANY DISCREPENCIES (beside regular grammar) IN MY STORY PLEASE INFORM ME SO I MAY FIX IT!
Chapter 1: Why Yes, I'd Like Some Memories With That
Kuki stomped into her room. She screamed loudly, viciously complaining about little sisters and blackmail and all other things associated with her taking her little sister, Mushi, and her little sister's boyfriend—her sister had a boyfriend for six years! Kuki was lucky if she got six months—to the movies. Saturday was supposed to be her day with her friends!
Mushi, for whatever reason Kuki couldn't remember, did not like Kuki. In fact, whenever possible Mushi found it in her best interest to be a little tyrant in Kuki's life. There was something in the back of Kuki's mind that screamed GRUDGE, but for the life of her, Kuki wasn't sure what it had been about.
Okay, so Mushi wasn't bad all the time. Actually, she could be quite sisterly and sweet sometimes. When Kuki would get dumped she'd bring a bowl of ice cream or other such sweets and comfort her and when Kuki would study so hard she'd forget to eat and her parents weren't there to lecture her eating habits Mushi made sure to take their place and bring a plate of brain food. Hell, sometimes Mushi would come in and play through her (very very very secret) chest(s)—okay, maybe there was more than just one chest; she could admit it to herself and Mushi if no one else—of Rainbow Monkeys.
But if Mushi wanted something badly enough and Kuki wouldn't give in right away, Mushi could sure drag the situation out and down the road.
Kuki flopped onto the bed, groaning and cuddling with her Extra-Supuh Dupuh Cuddles Rainbow Monkey she slept with every night. Minnie, her closest friend, knew about her thing for Rainbow Monkeys, but she'd be mortified if anyone else found out. Her crazy punk image would be in shatters. She could imagine the cheerleaders glee at such a weakness.
She would never let them know. Not ever ever ever. Her life would be over.
Her eyes rolled up to the picture of her and Mushi on the very top of her book case. Back then—when she was maybe ten or eleven, when she was flat chested instead of a 34C, when her pin-straight hair was solid black and not streaked with neon green and she wore sleeves too long for her arms—life must have been so carefree for her to have such a happy expression on her face. She wondered what it was she was missing from back then. Everyone said she had changed when she was thirteen, like some sort of switch had been flipped. She hadn't noticed, but she had noticed the awful blank feeling she had when she tried to think about it.
Yes she had been forced to see a psychiatrist. No, it did not help.
She huffed, pushing herself off her bed and going for the framed. It took a little bit of some moving furniture—the oh-so-safe rolly-spinny chair—and a reach upwards but she managed to get it and get down with only one scare.
She looked at it closer, vaguely seeing the strained expression Mushi seemed to be pushing off her face. Kuki laughed, that strain suited her sister just fine. She wondered when this happened. Lazily, Kuki decided to see if there was a date. She didn't ever remember taking the picture, but if she was being honest her parents were just as confused by her confusion as everyone else. When she had asked about the picture she had been told her and Mushi had gone to the Rainbow Monkey amusement park that day, hence the Rainbow Monkey balloons and gear.
Way to state the obvious, Mom.
Kuki took the old picture from the frame, ignoring the small square of folded paper that stated in childish handwriting For Teenage Kuki and looked to no avail for a date on the picture. She hated it when the camera didn't automatically didn't put dates on things, it made it so difficult. She also felt stupid for not writing it on the picture herself. She'd started to date everything since she'd turned thirteen. There was always a small part of her that was terrified of forgetting.
She sighed, putting the picture back and looking at the folded square wondering if she should put it back as well but…she was "Teenage Kuki" she supposed. She found nothing wrong with looking at it and, if she was being honest, her curiosity had always been a bit hard to ignore.
A little part inside of her twisted in excitement as she opened it. She'd always liked mysteries and her iPod was full of puzzles and mystery games that kept her busy for a few hours until she finished one and moved onto the next one. Her favorite one was a princess-like one where you wake up and know nothing and have to solve all these puzzles to figure it out.
So she like ushy-gushy-goo, I love you, and other such stupid mindless fluff like a ten-year-old girl. She couldn't help it; she was just drawn to it like an idiot bug to a shock light.
As she full opened it she folded her forehead in confusion. "…Wha…?"
She looked at it. It looked like a map of her bedroom—or what was her bedroom. She recognized it from right before she redecorated it after she'd turned thirteen. Over in the middle had been where her Rainbow Monkey bed had been and over in the northwest corner was where her Rainbow Monkey Mountain of Complete and Utter Joy had been….and there was a giant X scrawled in green marker over the messy drawing of her mountain.
When she flipped the sheet over there was a list hidden in one of the boxes created by the folds, but it was placed conveniently where it would be hidden as soon had she folded the paper back up.
Drill, it said. Glovesit said next. Then: Blanket to put fiberglass on.
Kuki shook her head and looked at the corner daringly. She wanted to look but…not right now. She was too lazy right now and all she was probably going to find was Rainbow Monkey stickers or something like that. She'd always been a bit of a ditz, everyone she knew told her she had been even worse when she was younger, so she could see it happening.
"Are you ready?" Mushi asked, sticking her head in the door to Kuki's room. "The movie starts in an hour. I wanna get there early."
Kuki looked up from the paper and glared meanly at Mushi. "Why couldn't you get one of Sandy's brother's to take you again? And why are you making me stay?"
Mushi smiled almost innocently. Kuki knew better though, growing up with the little brat. Those smiles were meant as a warning to take on your best defenses—and fast. "Because I looooove you. Oh, and you have the fake I.D. that'll get us into the R rated movie. Can't be there without you."
"They have real I.D.s," Kuki frowned, finding it unfair that Mushi was using the evidence of blackmail—the fake ID—to get was she wanted as well. "You owe me."
"Or I could tell mom," Mushi sung. "Y'know?"
Kuki glared for a moment longer. "Fine." Kuki put down the paper and grabbed her coat and purse off the floor by the front of her bed. "Let's go."
"Happily."
.-.-.-.-.-.
The movie had been pretty decent, Kuki admitted. It wasn't necessarily a movie she'd go out of her way to see again, but if it was on T.V. later on in life and nothing better was on she'd watch it.
"I liked it," Sandy smiled, twining his fingers with Mushi's as they walked down to the ice cream parlor for some after movie snackings.
"I don't know." Mushi shrugged, ever the critic. "It was okay."
"You're just mad that the guy didn't end up with that chick." Sandy swung their hands up. "So if you're feeling like you lacking a little romance…" Tenderly he brought her knuckles to his lips and made Mushi giggle.
Kuki would be lying if she were to ever deny jealousy. She wanted a boyfriend like that and not some dickhead, cheating ass crack.
She'd had four boyfriends. One, her first, turned out to be gay. She didn't necessarily have a problem with this since there was a little voice in the back of her head that kept screaming GAY the entire time they dated and they were now pretty good friends. Her second boyfriend got caught all up in hard drugs and she was not taking that. Winners three and four both were lying, two-timing, man-skanks that needed to have their balls chopped off and handed to them.
Which they had been, metaphorically, once Kuki had found out about their little escapades with other girls.
She held the door open to the ice cream shop and looked around, her eyes meeting Wallabee Beatles' from school. Quickly she looked away, focusing back on Mushi and Sandy walking by her. Wallabee Beatles was Bad-Ass MoFo of high school, despite only being a sophomore. Sure, he'd been held back in freshman year, but he'd also been Bad-Ass MoFo both those years and all through middle school…and he had some pretty good looks too.
He was blonde like the sun on a cloudless day, tanned like sand, tall like a tree, and had beautiful green eyes like gems. Kuki loved green and loved his eyes.
Minnie knew about this…liking and never said anything on it, but Kuki was sure Minnie wasn't a fan of Kuki's adoration of Wallabee. Minnie was more into making sure she fit into her stereotype than Kuki ever was. Wallabee wasn't punk like colored hair streaks of obnoxious color varieties and screamo music; he was punk like Old-Metallica, motorcycles, and leather jackets.
"I'll pay," Sandy told Kuki, "Since you drove us."
"You don't have to just because you have a job now," Mushi said blatantly. "I'm blackmailing her."
"It's fine." Sandy grinned. He looked over at Mushi and into her eyes. "Besides I still feel like I owe her."
Kuki gave him an odd look though Mushi seemed to know what he was talking about and shook her head defeatedly.
"I'm with Mushi," Kuki said. "I can pay for myself, I've got a job too."
"Just order Kuki," Sandy ordered. "You're gonna mash my manly pride if you don't. Besides, how am I going to show off how rich I am to Mushi?" He wiggled his eyebrows obnoxiously and had both the girls giggling slightly.
"Okay," Kuki gave in. "Get me a small chocolate vanilla swirl cone." Kuki stopped for a second before adding, "Please and thank you. I'll go sit down."
Sandy nodded and Mushi stuck with him to wait in the short line and order her overly complicated, sugar-filled cup of ice cream. Kuki swore up and down sometimes that Mushi was going to get diabetes then remembered how much a bitch life could be and realized she was going to be the one to get diabetes and not Mushi, but it would still be Mushi's fault for eating so much damn sugar.
Though the shop wasn't busy or packed, the small amount of business they had at this time of night still left only one table open, the one next to Wallabee Beatles' table. Kuki sat down heavily by Wallabee with her back towards him so she wouldn't keep glancing and staring at him. She was a little tired after watching the movie and a little cold from being tired and being in an ice cream shop. She tugged her jacket a little tighter around her and sighed a little sigh.
Then there was a blonde head next to her.
She looked at Wallabee who was staring critically at her. He was leaning back in his chair in a teenager-ish unsafe way and looked fairly good doing it as he ignored the two kids and his friend.
"Hi," She said.
"Hi," he repeated, his voice a little deep and accented with Australian gold. "Don't I know ya from somewhere?"
"Somewhere, yeah. School. I have the locker next to your friends." Kuki crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward a little, dipping her head to the side.
"Oh," He said then sat up. However a few seconds later he leaned back again. "Ya look weird." Then just as swiftly as he came, he was sitting up straight again.
Kuki whipped around. "I beg your pardon?"
"Ya don't have t' beg," Wallabee grinned, turning to look at her with laughing green eyes. "Ya're pardoned."
Kuki grabbed the front of his orange shirt and tugged him forward. The force made his chair tip back to balance on its hind legs again. Screw how pretty his eyes were, what a jerk! "Look here, asshole. You don't just go and insult someone. It's rude."
Wallabee opened his mouth to respond but Kuki noticed Sandy and Mushi making their way over and tugged him just a little before dropping her grip on his tee. He flailed a little, making a little "Aaaaaah"ing sound of distress as he toppled backwards and hit the floor.
His friend and the two kids laughed as Kuki stood and walked towards the door. "Sandy, Mushi, we're eating in the car."
.-.-.-.-.
Sunday mornings were always the worst. All her friends would be hung over because, unlike her, they went to a party last night. Though Kuki would be lying if she said she hadn't enjoyed the night before. She felt kind of bad for how she treated Wallabee but…he had said she looked weird. That wasn't nice at all.
Whatever.
Her parents were at work. Sundays, for whatever reason, was the most longest, hardest day of the week for them. Sure Kuki understood her mom was at the tippy-top of the corporation that mass produced Rainbow Monkeys and her dad worked high up in another company where Sunday paperwork was beyond necessary, but it didn't make the house feel less empty.
Kuki had always been an early riser, and Mushi a late one, but Kuki still guessed she'd gone to bed to early the night before. They had gotten home around nine and she went straight to sleep and woke up about ten minutes ago and stayed awake.
The sun had even risen yet.
She rolled on her side, looking at her desk and the blocky paper teetering from the wind from her fan.
Gloves. Drill. Blanket.
She sat up, shivering a little before grabbing a throw from the foot of her bed to tug over her shoulders. She wondered if all that really was under there were Rainbow Monkey stickers. It seemed like a lot of work for something so little. Maybe it wasn't so little to her back then. Well, only one way to find out, she supposed.
It was easy to find the drill, hidden in the bottom of the linen closet with a few others of her dad's tools that he didn't like leaving in the garage. She'd also grabbed her mother's gardening gloves and an old towel she could throw away when she was done. However, finding where and what exactly to use the drill on was another quest entirely.
It took her a while anyways, to move all the stuff out of her way. A throw rug, a shelf, and lots of neglected hiding dust kept her more occupied then she'd like to ever admit, but finally she had gotten the area where X marked the spot cleared.
She stared at wall. Nothing. Maybe this wasn't where she was supposed to look…maybe she had a secret hide out or something?
She looked down at the floor, looking at the screws and nails holding the polished wood down. She had to stare a little bit more before it finally hit her. Screw. None of the other floor boards but two had them. She had something! Possibly! Maybe!
Really, she hoped so.
She revved up the drill with a Phillips head and easily unscrewed the boards. Two minutes later and she had gloves on and was placing pink fiber glass on the blanket. There wasn't much pink fluff, at least not over the biggish, shallow rectangle box she found beneath it. Kuki was surprised how big it was—and how heavy it was when she tried to pull it out.
It took some effort and maneuvering on her part to get the foot and a half long and wide out and cleaned of fiber glass. When she was satisfied and after she forced herself to put the fiberglass back she turned all her attention to the box.
What was in it, she wondered, whisping her fingers gently over the top that had MEMORIES messily scrawled across it. Pictures? But pictures of what? And why were they hidden so well?
She lifted the lid off peeking inside. Everything was covered in a thin film of dust. The two large photo albums, a scrap book, the two small ones the six books that said either DIARY or Journal, and a few photo frames that had pictures of her with four other people. A fat boy, a pretty black girl, a short boy, and a bald kid with sunglasses. They were all in a group, arms wrapped around each other like they were a family of best-friend misfits.
A part of her felt a familiarity looking at the other kids. Three of them reminded her of kids at school, she couldn't place them. The bald one she couldn't seem to place at all.
Gently she took the framed pictures out and laid them out around her before going to the scrapbook that read KND in big letters on the front. She looked at it longingly and a deep lonely pain tugged at her heart. She…remembered this. Only a little. She remembered placing the big purple flower on the top corner of the book and pasting the small white bead on an orange flower right next to it.
Her temple hurt a little, but she ignored it. She'd had small headaches now and then since she'd been thirteen. They were never really bad enough for medicine so she often tried to avoid taking any.
She opened it.
There were separate pictures of the other four kids and her. Each picture had a "Numbuh" written under it with the kid's actual name in parenthesis.
Numbuh 1 (Nigel Uno)
Numbuh 2 (Hoagie P. Gilligan Jr.)
Numbuh 3 (Kuki Sanban) (her)
Numbuh 4 (Wallabee (Wally) Beatles)
Numbuh 5 (Abigail (Abby) Lincoln)
Wallabee—Wally. The guy she had a little crush on. The guy with green eyed and (now—because he apparently used to have a bowl/surfer cut) slightly spiky hair.
She blinked, recognizing the names, not only from school but from somewhere deep in the back of her mind. She idly flipped through the book, only glimpsing half heartedly before she would sell her heart and soul to it. She wanted to go through her other things first.
She picked up one of the books—the one from the very top—and opened it to the first page. There was a date it the middle of the top of the page that dated back to eight years ago and in the middle it said:
Kuki you won't understand until you read these but if you don't remember much you've been decommissioned. If you feel like you're missing something in your life like your memories or something try reading these. They can help.
Love Kuki (age 12)
Kuki blinked, before flipping the page to the first entry and noticing the hand writing difference. She must have gone back and written that before burying it in the box. She frowned looking down at all the other books before the one back in her hands. She flipped the book, some pictures falling out. Some were of Wally—he'd been so short!—and some of Abby, Hoagie, and Nigel. They were all silly and ridiculous—one was what Kuki was guess, Nigel's big butt and she had to laugh.
Then she flipped back the first entry. There was another picture of when she was eight taped to the back of the page before the actual writing began. She looked at it, studied for a moment and then started reading.
Today I started THE KIDS NEXT DOOR! I was excepted! Yay! I'm so excited! I have to get a new Rainbow Monkey to celebrate! I met my new teammates today to! Sadly once I turn 13 I'll be decomishoned and won't remember anything so I'm writing this to remember. I'm so smart! Let me tell you about everything…
