[[ author's notes;; This one I will post a bit differently to see how everyone responds to the change of length. This is a full chapter, not shortened for reading purposes. Please, don't hesitate to tell me if you like it this way or broken up! I want to appease to my readers at least in how it's formatted. Very complex and intense Hiei x OC1 and Kurama x OC2 fan fic written from OC1's POV. This is a lot darker of a theme then the previous one, so I apologize if you expected it to be as...normal. A lot of fighting, heartbreak, and blood, so I made this one a Teen rating, just so everyone knows it's not for all audiences. Again, please don't hesitate to review this for grammar, spelling, flow, etc. I LOVE reading what people think about my work. Oh, almost forgot, but for this one, the chapters have titles that are lyrics from songs that are a bit of an insight to what the chapter may be about or a theme in it. This one won't have as much cliffhangers as it's segmented into set chapters, chapters that are already written out in a notebook and revised in Open Office. Now to work on Chapter 2! ]]
Plot and Original Characters © Mistress of Vyolence
Yu Yu Hakusho and characters © Yoshihiro Togashi
Iris Goo Goo Dolls
Chapter One;; Yeah, We Bleed Just to Know We're Alive
Breathing: the main function of the brain that allows us to live, even if we don't realize we're doing it. Something that she was hesitant to start again once she chose to stop, though to her, it never felt like a choice. Her mind fought with her and was adamant on keeping her alive, though her heart and soul fought it tooth and nail. Those things were not as strong as the survival instincts of the human brain, of any mammalian brain, to keep the body alive. These instincts kept her brain from following her shattered heart's pleads for an ending to the pain. Clearly, her body refuted this, as if it assumed that a heart broken so badly would be able to mend. Would it? Would she be able to feel normal again? Would she be able to feel anything but pain? Warm blood trickled onto the floor from a knife and formed a small puddle that was hit with drops of tears, the blood mixing into the water without any sign it was even introduced to it. Yes, she was alive still.
Most teenagers had never gotten to know the sting of their lives truly falling apart, the extent of their drama being that of divorce or a harsh break up, possibly even a fight. This could not be said for Celene, who lost her parents and her small group of friends from a freak car accident and her boyfriend who was beaten to death by his abusive father. She never expected to feel pain this viciously gnawing at her very being. She had no family to go to, not even an aunt. How was she expected to do anything normal? Anything at all but mourn? Dealing with the pain was hard for her, her only source of relief a bloodied knife and her own skin. Nothing was meant to mortally wound her; she was too afraid of screwing up or dying in extreme pain, as she was already in as much pain as her body could take. If she had the resources, suicide would have been eminent.
Nothing was the same after that, especially at school. Already bullied for being shorter than most students and a bit weird, she now had to deal with rumors about their deaths and why, hallway whispering as she passed, and people who showed no care for what she had been through. No one bothered to see how unsteady and emotionally scarred she was, not even the principal, who ended his contact with her after apologizing for her loss, his words completely indifferent. None of her teachers seemed to notice the blood on her clothing and the blatant cuts on her wrists and forearms that she had never even attempted to hide, or the fact that she had reduced herself to just eating a small snack every day to keep herself from passing out.
Nothing in life seemed to be getting better for the young woman until the start of the new term, a few months after the death of everyone she cared about. The first sight of the start of positive change was in her first class of the day, a Senior Art class, though at first it did not seem like anything positive would be taken out of it. Like normal classes, she walked in without much to show for the first day. A backpack with a few notebooks and a sketchbook for drawing, a release that helped her cope with the school life she hated so much but knew she had to attend to keep the government paying for the things she needed. If she even thought she could do anything that would be considered a job, they would not be helping her and she would be a drop-out.
Finding a suitable desk in the right corner of the room, her eyes scanned the students, most of them already waiting for the first assignment. Once the class started, every movement caught her attention, mostly the people getting up and sharpening their pencils or asking the teacher questions. No one held her dead gray eyes for very long, all of their problems and lives none of her concern. If they weren't going to be hospitable with her, why the hell would she be it back? The click of the classroom door opening forced her eyes to trail from the guy who was having an unusually hard time using the hand-sharpener to the boy walking into the room, late by several minutes.
This kid looked like he was just angry to be there, his tardy appearance only pushing her mind to think that he hated being at school as much as she did. She doubted that he was being forced to go like she was though. Hm? Taking a closer look at the boy, she noticed that he was around her height, his hair giving him a few more inches than hers ever did, which was strange for her as she was the shortest in the school. There was something strange about him though, her eyes following him to his seat. He was definitely more mature then the guys in her class, most of them laughing about stupid jokes and not even working on the assignment that was due at the end of the hour. She watched the teacher go over to him and explain what to do, his only response a nod in understanding before he opened up a sketchbook and started working.
Somehow, watching him brought a stiff pain to her chest, something she had only felt for the first few weeks after she lost everyone important to her. This pain was enough to drive her look away from him. It was almost as if her emotions and what she had been through in the past term had been drained from her subconscious and rose again to wreak havoc on her thoughts. It got so bad that her stomach did flips and she thought she was going to pass out. The only thing that saved her from running from the room was the fact that she wanted to complete the assignment; the objective of it to show the artistic skills you had by drawing something in the classroom. Wanting to do her best and keep an eye on the strange boy at the same time, she decided to draw him, people being one of the things that gave her trouble without reference. He was possibly the easiest person she had ever drawn while watching them, the only time he moved his body was to check on the clock or erase something with the rubber erase he had with him.
Months went by and the pain that surfaced when she looked at him started to slowly fade. Still with the courage of a crumb, she did nothing but watch him when possible. He was even stranger than what she had thought the first day she saw him. He never ate lunch, choosing to lean against the outside of the building when on break and always disappeared right after classes ended, even if she had been waiting for him right outside of the classroom. Getting her things out of the graded art bin, she noticed that they carried interest in the same kind of dark things and had almost the same amount of artistic talent, his first assignment being a shade drawing of a dying rose that was bleeding from its cut stem. He wore black, white, and red almost every day like she did too. Somehow, she started to assume he was just a trick played on her by some of the other students, who didn't really like him either. They were so similar; how was it possible that he was like that all of the time?
A small holiday break gave her time to go visit her families graves as well as that of her friends and ex boyfriend. She took care in cleaning the headstones off, as the grounds keeper seemed more interested in keeping unnecessary memorabilia from around the graves then he was about the sinking blocks and leaves covering their names. It was a bit of a tedious job that waned on her diminished strength and lack of a solid state of mind, but she did it anyway, fighting the pain off.
As she finished, she looked down at the cleaned graves, silent sobs giving way to tears that flowed in a constant stream down her face. If they only knew how terrible her life was without them and how much she missed them, but they couldn't, as they were dead and she was positive a god didn't exist. If one did, then why was everyone she cared about taken away from her so abruptly? With her eyes all puffy and red, she sank down to sit on the grass in front of her parents grave. Not even a second after she sat, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she could feel eyes burning into the back of her head.
Turning to look and see who it was, she realized that it was the boy she had been watching every so often, the one that was like a male duplicate to her. Though there was something different about him that she couldn't quite place at first, her silence and still dripping tears bringing awkwardness to the situation. Once she realized it, more curiosity grew within her. His eyes...they're red? She had always saw them as a deep brown in school, though she could have been mistaken, almost always covering her face and view with tresses of long wavy black hair. Changing from brown to crimson in the daylight was not something she could easily accept as normal.
Embarrassment flushed through her face as she realized that she looked like a complete mess. "What are you doing here?" she asked quickly, using the sleeve of her hoodie to attempt to wipe the warm tears from her face. It was futile though, her eyes refusing to stop swelling with the salty water. Those were the first words she had ever spoken to him and the first words she had said in a while that weren't full of hatred and contempt fr everyone around her.
For a minute, the awkwardness came back in the form of silence. She was about to turn away, giving up on getting a solid answer from him when he spoke. "I...I am sorry for your loss," he stated quietly, his voice deep though not overwhelming. He was the first person to tell her that and show true sorrow in his words, even if it was only a faint trace of it. Why had no one else felt enough pain for her that they actually meant what they said when addressing her problems? He then looked away towards the road that led into the graveyard before turning around and starting to walk away. It was almost if he could feel the pain she was in and didn't want to be around it any longer.
"Thank you for actually meaning it," she replied, watching his head turn back to look at her, "I'm sorry I can't stop crying..." She hoped he understood her motives behind being so upset, though she would have been alright with it if he walked away without saying anything else. Not everyone had the capacity to see what people were going through, though the some that did often got upset at others pain as well. She guessed that he had experienced some kind of loss as well; one that helped him understand how hard it was for her to be around the graves of the people she mourned.
Rubbing her eyes to clear them of tears, she blocked out any view of her face that would show that she was crying, wanting to get rid of the tears. Moving to look back at him, she noticed that he was gone, the faint feeling of someone watching her still lingering. She looked around at her surroundings, trying to find the source of the feeling, but finding nothing at all. No one was even visible in the graveyard, not even other people coming to visit their lost love ones.
For a few days of having a constant feeling of being watched, she thought that there was going to be a situation with a stalker that would have to be taken to the police, but she had a feeling that it was the boy in her class, the very same person who had visited her briefly in the graveyard. If he had intended on stalking her without being noticed, then why was he still showing up to classes; the only time she got a break from the monitoring. He was also acting a bit different, choosing to stand inside the cafeteria, though he still had yet to eat anything, and he was still disappearing after school. She could now tell when he left by the time that she felt the prickle on the back of her neck.
One morning, she walked into class to see him sitting in the normally empty spot that she had sat at every day, his eyes attentively adverted to the project he was working on. It was a midterm assignment, in which the students had to create a still life in their mind and draw it with proper perspective and creativity when it came to choosing the objects chosen. He was the only one besides her that took the class seriously and they were the only ones who had it even close to being done, apparent by any simple means of observation, the due date set at the end of the next week.
She walked over to her seat, setting her things down before going and getting the drawing she was working on, a large horned animal skull the focal point of the piece. "Hi," she said quietly, sitting down and taking a glance over at him. Her voice oozed with the weakness of her famished body and of her spirit, enough so that he looked up at her for a moment before going back to shading in what looked like an orb of some kind, his pencil moving smoothly against the paper.
There was something that she felt she needed to check, her eyes staying glued to his face for a moment. It was long enough that he glanced back over, his pencil still leaving trails of lead on the paper, a quick hint of annoyance passing through his brown eyes before she turned to face away and started working on her own project. He does have brown eyes, she thought, a bit puzzled at how they had changed so drastically between being at school and outside of the grounds.
That day, like every day before it, they sat in silence as they worked on their projects. The teacher would occasionally give confused glances to her, wondering why he was sitting there without them exchanging a single word during the period. That was okay with her though, as she did not know what to say to him. She could comment on how his work was coming out, but that thought seemed to create a nervous air around her. How uninteresting it would be to be the dimwit that said the complete obvious. He never even said anything to the teacher, even if she commented on how he was drawing something or if he needed to change something. Just a nod, something that would not justify speech in a class she had yet to say a word in, besides saying hello to him.