XP: Hello! Thanks for reading this.
This is a one-shot of how Debitt and Jasdero met and ended their human lives.
Enjoy!
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I wonder when I first noticed him. That dirty blond boy across the street, usually lying alone in the alley way, staring up at the blue sky seemingly without a care in the world. Face smudged with mud, clothes torn and ratty. He would smile all silly-like, seemingly lost in his thoughts, sometimes humming a song. Sometimes he would twiddle his thumbs, sometimes he would twirl his hair, giggling.
I despised him.
I hated him with my whole being.
"Yo, Debitt, What cha' looking at?" A rough voice sounded from behind.
I blinked and flusteredly replied, "Oh, nothing, Bryan."
"Ya better not be slacking off, or I'll cut off your limbs and make you beg for money..." Bryan growled. Then he smirked. "Oh, what's this? You've become interested in that filthy girl, is that it?"
I scowled. Was he blind? In what way was that a girl?
"Well, if you continue to stand here, I just might steal her away..." Bryan laughed cruelly.
"Yeah, yeah," I rolled my eyes, turning to run away.
"Why you! You dare to give me lip?" Bryan raised a fist, threateningly. I stuck out my tongue, unseen by him, of course, I don't have a death wish.
Let me explain, then. I'm in a thief 'organization' for poor orphaned kids. After that huge war with our neighbouring country years ago, homes were bombed and destroyed, our parents died in the war, and this city became somewhat of a dead town, only a few people were left. Yeah, my country lost. I think I joined the organization when I was six or something, I'm already twelve. Anyway, what sucked was that the bigger kids took what we stole, we barely had enough food to survive, and we always had to be bossed around by those older than us, like what happened just now.
So, yes, we steal from this victorious country I hate for stealing my parents, my life, my freedom, away. So I come here, taking food, money, whatever I can, and... everyday, I'll just go look at that blond boy for awhile.
I don't understand it, something about him draws me to him, like how he can smile so happily being in such a dirty place, such dirty clothes, and I wonder, how does he survive? So I check on him, just a glance every now and then, to see if he's dead. And he's always there, smiling like some kind of a fool. I think he's from this country. Which adds on to my hatred of him. Of how he can smile in this kind of world.
One day, I see this huge man going over to him and giving him bread. The boy scarfs it down hungrily, still with that smile, and I scoff. Of course, he gets food by sympathy. How else would he survive from just lying there everyday? He doesn't even have to work for it!
Then the thing I see next horrifies me, and I run.
The man... he... he...
He grabbed that fragile, girly looking boy and tossed him to the side, and... he stripped, and... oh god, I choked on my tears and I ran, and I felt horrible and guilty. That boy was being... ... For how long? I didn't help him. But he isn't anything to me, right? I hate him. I hate him, so...
Bile rose up my throat. My eyes watered and my lower lip trembled at the sheer thought of it all. He didn't deserve that. Not that constantly smiling boy.
"Ay, brat, why cha crying?" An older boy in our organization scowled, with a disgusted look. Weaklings were looked down upon.
"I'm not!" I wipe furiously at my eyes.
"Wat happened?" Our leader, a 18 year old boy comes over, and slung an arm around me. "Ey, ya didn't make our lil' Debitt cry, did ja? I like this brat." He glared at the other boy, who stuttered something and ran out. Our leader was a dangerous man, he had cut off limbs of members he didn't like, so I'm glad he liked me, for what, I don't know, whether I brought in the most profits or because of my baby face.
"Wat's wrong?" The leader led me to a seat. His kind black eyes watched me gently, as he lays a hand on my shoulder. The warmth seeps through the cloth of my shirt, giving me the courage to speak.
"I saw a boy... being..." Tears start flowing out of my eyes again. "...raped."
"Ah," The leader nodded in sympathy towards me, thumbs catching a stray tear. "Is it a fellow member in our group?" He snarled, eyes promising bloody murder.
I shake my head helplessly, biting my lower lip.
"A friend of yours?"
I shake my head again, hands clutching at the fabric of my pants.
"Then who cares about him?" The leader snorted, ruffling my head.
I blinked, and nodded, but there was still something heavy weighing down in my heart.
"So stop crying, ya look like a sissy," The leader gave me a final pat and walked out coolly without a second glance. I stayed for a few moments more to compose myself and checked out my eyes in the mirror. They weren't red. Good. I fixed my hair. I wasn't vain, I was checking for irregularities so that no one would pick on me about things they shouldn't know.
"Che, suck-up," The older boys sneered as I exited our run-down headquarters. They didn't like how I got special treatment. Anyone else who cried got a beating.
I went to check on that blond boy again.
He was in that same pose, leaning against the wall, lying down, having that silly little smile. Today, he turned his head and spotted me, and he smiled even brighter, eyes curving into half-moons. "Hello," He said softly, in a girlish, before puberty voice, ya know? It just made him look even more fragile.
"...Hey," I replied, not knowing what to do. I looked from side to side, then scratched the side of my face awkwardly. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, wondering if I should have came.
"Do you like lullabies, dero?" He asked suddenly, turning back up to look at the sky with those blue eyes of his.
"Eh. I dunno," I shrugged, moving closer, curious. I squatted in front of him to watch him, my hands resting on top of my knees. It was the first time I heard him speak, after all.
"Alright," He smiled, and opened that pretty thin mouth of his, and he sang.
On sunny days, you were there,
On cloudy days, I sang,
On windy days, I watched you,
And on snowy days, we shared,
so close, and yet so far,
I sing, to bridge that gap,
maybe you will hear me,
I hope I'll see you again...
I sat down next to him, and I asked, "Hey. What's your name?" I was rather disturbed by how the song seemed to describe what we did, but it was a nice song. I've not heard anyone sing ever since my parents died.
"Jasdero! Dero!" He beamed. "And you're Debitto!"
"Wha... how did you know?" I blinked at him owlishly.
"I heard! The scary looking boy called you that, dero~!" He smiled.
"Oh." I nod.
"Why don't you smile, dero?" He tilted his head with that annoyingly innocent smile of his.
"How can anything smile here?" I scoffed, rolling my eyes. I hugged my knees tightly, looking down at the ground.
Jasdero blinked, looking confused. "But... smiling makes you happy, right? Mummy told me that."
"You have a mother?" I questioned, tilting my head. My bangs fall across my face, and I regarded the blond boy in front of me.
"Oh. She went BANGBANG and died," Jasdero smiled widely, making his hand into a gun motion and pointing it at his head, giggling. "Bang," He repeated softly, lolling his head to the side with that ever constant smile. Was it him or did that smile look a little tight?
"...You mean someone shot her?" I asked quietly.
"Mm! Red flowers bloomed!" Jasdero said childishly, drawing little patterns with his finger on the floor. He started to draw faster and faster, eyes staring wide at the floor.
"Then your Dad?" I questioned, looking at my bangs and picking out a stray leaf from my hair.
"Well, he ran away with bitch, yes, Mummy called her that," Jasdero nodded to himself, and was soon distracted by a black butterfly.
"How do you smile then? You should be crying," I said incredulously.
"Dero no more tears. Dero can only smile to bring joy to other people," Jasdero said happily. He caught the butterfly in his hands and laughed.
"Hey, wait, don't hold it like that, you'll-"
A wet sound.
"Squish it," I finished flatly.
Jasdero blinked and opened his hands. His face fell for a moment, and then he started giggling. "Dero killed it! Dero killed it!"
"Ew, dude, get it off," I scrunched up my nose and flicked it out of his hand. We both stared at the dead butterfly for a little while, but Jasdero continued giggling.
"So you smile no matter you're happy or sad?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah!" Jasdero grinned. "Because when I smile, it hurts less!"
My heart fell like a heavy stone when I heard that. "Jasdero, you know... Sometimes, just sometimes... you're allowed to cry." I felt like crying myself as I stared at the dirty boy across me. I suddenly noticed his jutting out cheekbones and pointed shoulders, saw how thin and malnourished he was.
"Cry? Dero cry?" Jasdero blinked in confusion. "Dero neverrrrr cryyy." He drawled out the words, playing with the silver necklace around his neck.
"..." I decided to change the topic. "So, what's that?" I pointed to the silver glinting thing.
"Mummy and Daddy!" Jasdero said brightly, opening the little oval hanging on the chain to show me. His mother was a pretty blond woman, and his dad was...
"Dad?" I said incredulously. My eyes flung up to stare at Jasdero. "Are... Are you sure those are your..."
"Un!" Jasdero beamed.
Flusteredly, I shoved my hand into my pocket and searched for something, taking it out when i touched it's smooth surface. It was a picture of my family.
"Dad!" Jasdero identified with childish glee, pointing at the picture. It was my dad and my mother. However, I looked nothing like my mother, taking on the dark black hair of my dad, and they said my blue eyes were from my grandparents, but I could see now that it was... it was from her.
Jasdero's mother.
And I knew then, Jasdero was my brother. Not just my half-brother, my brother. And my mum... the mum who raised me, broke their family, our family, apart.
"Jasdero," I said softly, urgently, catching his attention, which had wandered to a stray cat. Jasdero hummed lightly, distractedly. "Do you know, when you were born? Your birthday?" I wanted to see, who was older.
"December 21! 12 years old!" Jasdero squealed.
That was my birthday.
"Jasdero..." I repeated, testing out the name on my tongue. He beamed at me.
"Debi!" He replied brightly. Innocence shining clear in those bright blue eyes.
"D-Dero...Dero, Dero, Dero...D-D-D..."
"...Debi? Debi?" Jasdero cocked his head to the side quizzically. "Why are you crying? Are you alright? You have to smileeee!" Jasdero waved his hands about in the air frantically, seemingly lost on what to do.
I'm not alone, not in this world... I have a brother... my twin brother...
The thought made me choke and bawl even harder, and Jasdero instinctively reached out his scrawny arms to pull me to him tightly in a bid to soothe me. Clumsy hands rubbed random circles on my back, as though a distant mimicry of what a mother would do. My own dusty hands reached up to wipe desperately at the tears that never seemed to stop as I wailed and gasped for breath.
"Ay, what's this? Our crybaby wuss with the town's whore?"
It was Bryan. Bryan and the other unsatisfied boys who didn't like the leader's special treatment of me. Alarmed by the menace they directed towards me, my tears abruptly stopped from the shock as my brain whirred to sort out the situation. I grabbed the slender wrist of my twin and turned tail to run.
"Chase him! Don't let them live!" Bryan commanded, the bloodlust clear in his eyes.
"Bryan, what if the leader punishes us for this?"
"Well... the stray dogs attacked him. We know nothing!" Bryan cackled.
Their voices sounded less clear as I ran further ahead. The scenery blurred at the lightning speed I ran at, and I could hear my twin's labored breath and pounding feet as he struggled to keep up to my light running. Of course, he was not used to exercise from all the time he spent in the alley. My own heart palpitated hard in my chest as I ran through the town I knew so well, the desolate and dilapidated place that I have spent a large part of my life at.
Jasdero stumbled and fell onto the grimy ground, and I stopped immediately, my face grim as I knew those large boys were close behind.
"Sorry... Debi...I..." Jasdero wheezed weakly on the ground.
I heaved him up onto my back, and continued to run again. He was much lighter than I thought. We were running away from our hideout, so I knew I could not seek salvation from the leader. I could only lose them or hide. Jasdero's thin and bony arms curled around my neck, and I pushed myself to my limits to run away. I wouldn't be giving up without a fight!
Cut a sharp corner, kick the barrels behind, push the wooden sticks, jump over the little metal fence, climb through the little hole in that back alley's brick wall.
I was getting tired, nothing I did seemed to be working. Desperation started to fill my mind, and it must have showed, because Jasdero spoke up.
"Debi..."
"Shh," I whispered gently. Looking around critically, always looking out for a way out.
"Let me go, Debi..."
"Shut the fuck up!" I hissed. "I'll never fucking let you go, I'll never let you fucking suffer alone anymore, dammit! I'm here, and I'm here to stay!"
The bawling that reached my ears stunned me.
It was the first time I heard this smiling boy cry.
It was supremely dramatic, fat tears wetting my back, those wide open, wailing lips, those thrashing legs... It made me want to laugh, but I had to conserve my breath, so my laughter escaped in violent shudders of my shoulders, which made Dero think I was crying too.
"DEBIIIIII, don't cry too... WAHHHHHH!"
"Pfft!" I snickered, not able to stand it anymore.
Pushing him up a wall, and scaling it easily myself, I collected his frail body in my arms again and continued to run. They started to chase us to the cliff, and despite me knowing that it was a dead end, I continued to run with Jasdero in my arms, hugging me tightly and bawling. At the cliff, I set him down, turning to face our aggressors with a confident smirk even though there was no longer a way out.
"We're got you trapped now, Debitt!" Bryan shouted haughtily, flicking out a knife.
Jasdero's small hands clutched onto the back of my shirt, trembling in fear as he stared at them. We both took a step back, and loose rocks rolled down the steep cliff. I smiled, taking those hands off, clutching one tightly in my hand. "Jasdero."
Fearful eyes turned to look at me.
"I hope that we will be able to meet as twins in our next life. I didn't really know you for long, but... I'm glad I met you."
I smiled, and Jasdero smiled tearfully at me. "I love you too, Debi!" He hugged me fiercely and sobbed.
"Are you sissy boys done saying your last words, we're gonna-"
We closed our eyes, smiled, tightened our interlocked fingers, and stepped back.
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"WAAAAHHHH DEBIIII! I CAN'T FIND MY CHICKENNNN!" Jasdero wailed, fat tears running down his ashen grey cheeks.
"Shut up, ya crybaby," I scoffed, though I'm getting up to help him find it. "Stop crying." I passed by him, ruffling his hair. "Come on, he should be out running along those fields like he always does."
"You're the best Debi!" Jasdero grinned through his tears, glomping me from behind.
"Wha-! Stop it, you're heavy!" I grumbled, as Jasdero grinned.
"Hehe! Debi, Debi, Debi!" Jasdero sang happily.
I snorted, smiling affectionately in exasperation as Jasdero pulled me along.
***End***
XP: Hope you guys enjoyed it! :D