Prologue
I lied there awake. I shouldn't be awake in my bed, at 1 o clock on a school night! But with the noise coming from the living room it would have been pretty hard not to be awake. I'm going to be so tired tomorrow! Nobody liked to be tired, almost falling asleep all day, then you just go to bed like it's a regular day.
And actually on a regular day I would not be up this late, at least not on a school night. But today was obviously different Misaki and Takeru had some sort of fight and were yelling late into the night. Their kind demeanour must have been fake. How could they keep us up this late? Taking in foster children had to be a good thing to a certain point, but you should at the very least have the decency to allow their sleep patterns to stay unharmed.
Then again I had only been here for about two weeks. What could I possibly know about their morals? We had breakfast every morning and dinner every night, not to mention they packed each of us a lunch. They seemed to be normal, but maybe they weren't. But I was getting ahead of myself one incident couldn't possibly prove such a thing. We weren't their real children of course we didn't quite get the utmost respect.
I looked over to Kasumi this must have scared her. She was only five or six and was most likely not used to this kind of thing. I quickly contemplate comforting her, but then I decide not to. I didn't really feel like getting out of bed and she'd probably need to get used to it living like this. But then again she was so young comfort would probably help her either way. I groaned sadly I had to do the right thing now or feel guilty for the rest of the night and get literally no sleep.
"Hey," I began still unsure how to help, "It's going to be all right, it's not like this is about you or anything." I stopped still unable to really help her. Maybe this would help a bit though? I hoped so.
"Okay, I know" she whispered in attempts to only be heard by me. "But it's still scary" she finished reassuring me that I had not helped at all.
"Well," I started, "Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked taking in her darkened features as she turned to me. Her long teal hair had been pulled back into a braid, most likely Misaki's work. I couldn't really make out much more of her in the dark.
"No, I'm fine" She replied fear evident in her voice.
I sighed, "You know it's alright they don't do this every night, in fact they barely ever do!" I tried to cheer her up seeing as though I'd been her longer than her. She simply nodded
I gave up; there wasn't much I could do for her anyways right? No matter, I was going to try and fall asleep. Although I knew it would most likely be a futile attempt.
I finally fell asleep around 2:30 or 3:00 I wasn't quite sure.
When the alarm I shared with Kasumi blasted in our ears, I was still incredibly tired. But I got up after one snooze cycle and bushed my teeth, took a shower (in attempts to wake myself up, which worked for the time being) and applied a little bit of makeup. After seeing my face in the mirror I noticed the bags under my eyes, which I didn't try to fix due to a lack of concealer.
I began my walk to school once I was dressed and my hair had dried. Kasumi was still in elementary school so she took a different route.
I walked into the building with my long blonde hair pulled into a high pony tail, and a pink and white tee shirt that had the adidas symbol on it with a pair of blue jeans and sneakers. It wasn't special, but this wasn't a special day anyways just another day of school three quarters of the way through the year if not a little further. It was quite cold in Washington, so I could withstand wearing jeans.
After returning home for the day I found out that, because the couple planned on keeping Kasumi (although they did scare her the night before) that I was going to have to move in a week's time. This made me sad, not all families were quite as nice as them. I hoped I'd get another nice family, I don't know what I'd do if I didn't.
The next week went by slowly. I didn't want it to be over, what if I got a family full of children that they couldn't honestly take care of? Or worse an abusive one, I hadn't seen many of those but I'd seen it on Dr. Phil and other TV shows and I knew it could be really bad.
After packing my bags, I finally stood before the door of my new home. I inhaled deeply, as my social worker told me to alert him if anything were to happen and rang the doorbell.
I sighed in relief when a young woman with a kind face opened the door. So far it seemed that I had been lucky this time. I almost thanked the gods for this blessing aloud. But I realized I may not be correct, you can't judge a book by its cover, and that goes the same for a woman.
The woman showed me to my room, my worry evaporated for the time being seeing that there was only one girl there. At least I wouldn't have to worry about overcrowding. I walked over to my bed across the room and introduced myself. "Hey, I'm Ino" I smiled at her.
The girl looked to be about my age, her hair was short and pink, and I wondered why she dyed it that colour. "Nice to meet you" She began, "I'm Sakura" She smiled as well leaning forward on her bed.
We talked together for the next hour or so and eventually made our way to this topic. "So why did you dye your hair pink?" I asked her finally giving into my curiosity.
She glared at me offended, "It's natural!" she growled in anger.
"Really?" I asked with a surprised expression on my face.
"Yes!" She growled again, "Why does everyone suspect that it isn't natural?" She questioned me. I almost answered that it was a very unnatural colour but held it in.
"Well I guess it's kind of cool that you have such a…" I paused trying to think of a word, "radiant hair colour" I smiled at her again.
"Yeah, it is pretty damn cool" She smirked as she looked back up at me.
We continued on like this for quite a while, it turned out that she had gone to my school all along, I had just somehow missed her. We were in the same grade too! How the hell did that happen? Oh and I got to stay at the same school! This seemed to be turning out pretty good so far.
After dinner with Kione and Sakura I got a full night's sleep. Not so unusual but it was nice anyway.
When I woke up, me and Sakura walked to school together after my daily morning routine. The rest of the week went by smoothly, and I soon found that Kione had a husband who was now on a business trip in New York. I wondered what he would be like. Would he ruin my life here? Sakura had never met him because this trip was obviously extremely long and she had arrived only a few days after he left.
Me and Sakura became pretty good friends over that week, although it was only a week and not much could arise over that time.
The moment Ichiru returned home I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, despite the great week I had. He was yelling as soon as he got home, he did not enter our room but continued to yell at Kione. I had to wonder why he was so angry with her, was it because of me and Sakura? I hoped not.
When I awoke, after a poor night of sleep Ichiru had already left for work. I wanted to ask Kione what they were yelling about, but was too afraid that it might be me and Sakura. The rest of the day continued at a normal pace besides my lack of sleep.
I heard Ichiru return again at night, but there was no yelling today and I could fall asleep easy. The rest of the week went by at a similar pace, but I was afraid for the weekend when I would finally have to face Ichiru.
On Saturday morning I awoke to a pile of pancakes, both Sakura and Ichiru were still asleep, but Kione was obviously awake. She smiled at me as I walked into the room. I quickly sat down and started eating the pancakes that I had also been given the previous weekend.
Ichiru eventually joined us, but Sakura was still asleep. I first gave me a look of suspicion, but then realizing that I was the foster child he eased up a bit and said, "Hey" he smiled although I could tell it was fake.
The rest of breakfast was awkward, this guy seemed pretty anti -social, and when Sakura joined us it only got worse. The entire day was awkward and boring. The only thing I could find to occupy my time was homework, and when that happened you knew life was sad.
The next day was quite different. After most of the day was over me and Sakura snuck out and went to a party. Which of course was pretty damn fun.
But on the way back in, Ichiru caught us, Sakura and I both were scared out of our minds. We had no idea what was going to happen, and it wasn't pretty.
First he began yelling at us, which awoke Kione who tried to stop him, insinuating that we were teenage, drug using, party going sluts (I'm not sure where he got that) and did not deserve a place at his home. He then continued to slap me in the face first, but Kione stopped him before he could hurt Sakura. I was so surprised I had not expected this; it had been going so well so far!
In the morning I awoke to find a bruise on my face that would be quite visible to anyone. Luckily, or so I assumed at the time Kione woke me up early in the morning and took me to the drug store to help me find some concealer which she paid for. Nobody could tell that I had a bruise on my face, but not only did it still hurt, but it scared me.
The rest of the week was similar, Ichiru angry with us and finding any excuse to harm us, Sakura and I received a few more bruises and Kione could not leave us alone with him. After that week I was quite scared, and proceeded to call my social worker as he had advised when he knocked on the door. I didn't want to take it anymore if I didn't have to, I'd try to help Sakura too if I could. But of course I came first; I mean she wasn't family or anything.
I called and his secretary answered, "Hello?" she sounded quite happy despite she was working for children in need of homes.
"Hi" I replied into the phone receiver, Ichiru was still at work, which was part of the reason I could do this. I asked to speak with her boss immediately and she told me that he was not available at the time. Then proceeded to ask me if there was anything she could do. So I told her about what was happened. This seemed to sadden her.
"I'll do what I can, I'll try to get this to him as soon as possible" She replied her voice still slightly depressed. I nodded and hung up.
I waited another week for something to happen, but nothing did. What had she done? Nothing? I hoped not. I tried calling again but the line was busy and I didn't try again.
I waited yet another week and not only had she done nothing yet, but the abuse continued and I refused to continue living here. But what could I do? Confront him? There was no way that would work! Tell someone at school? But who, I didn't trust any of them very much; I had only gone to this school for about a year. Then I thought of it.
I'd run away, It'd be great. I only had a week left of school so I decided to wait until it was over. I might as well finish what I started and get exams over and done with.
Even though I still had to finish the week, I began packing the bulk in the suitcase I took to get to the other homes. I began to wonder if I should include Sakura in this plot. I eventually decided not to. If I went missing, the police would hopefully look into it and notice that Sakura was being abused! Then they'd send her to another home. She hadn't done anything about it herself, or if she had I didn't know. I told her about the phone call, which of course exited her. Then she went on about how if we went somewhere else she hoped we'd still be together because we had gotten close, and we were the same age! But when nothing happened she didn't mention it again.
Over the week I had slowly packed everything up, token exams, bought a train ticket to Chicago Illinois, Packed a snack in my back pack which I decided I would also take. Sadly I had to steal a bit of money from Kione, which I regret but it was indeed necessary, I wanted to be able to survive after. I decided that this Friday or actually today I would stuff my blanket into my bag and carry my pillow with me out the window at 8 when we lied in bed, but before Ichiru came home, considering that he never looked in our rooms or at least barely I knew I had the night to get where I wanted.
I quickly ran off to the train station and got on the train to Illinois using my one way ticket. The security person gave me a suspicious look, I told him that was going to meet my uncle there and he understood my lie. I happily slept in the train seat in wait for my life away from here. It would be great or so I hoped, but at least it would be better, and maybe I might even get to go to school again.
A/N: Okay, in case you're wondering the reason I put this in the U.S is because (even though I'm not American…. IM CANADIAN!) I understand the USA much better than Japan. And From what I've heard from my Japanese teacher (yes I am learning Japanese) is that they don't even have a foster system there! So it might not even work there. I'm keeping Japanese names cause it would be stupid for me to add all the new people (or OCS) with English names or change all the Japanese names. Oh yeah and I'm sorry if there are any spelling mistakes I'm to lazy to edit myself and when I spell checked I said yes to almost everything without looking so some things may have screwed up. Tu comprende? Okay if you like this please review I haven't posted anything lately and I hope to continue with this soon.