Lisa was trying hard to focus, she really was. She thought she'd be alone at home for the rest of the evening, giving her time to try and focus on her Physics homework without Twelve interrupting her every few minutes wanting her attention or playing pranks, or Nine looking over her shoulder and sighing loudly every time he spotted a mistake. Physics was not Lisa's strong suit and she'd rather get it out of the way so she could use the weekend to do the rest of her homework.
She hadn't counted on Five's ever changing schedule though, and although the white haired usually left her alone, it seemed that today had been particularly boring for Five. For the first few minutes since she got home Five had flopped lazily on the couch—exactly a couple of feet behind from where Lisa sat, cross legged, trying to get her homework done. Five sighed, huffed and turned the TV on and off several times before settling and just staring at the back of Lisa's head. Lisa could almost feel the holes burning through the back of her scalp, and chanced a few glances at her companion only to have those piercing violet eyes stare right back at her, unashamed of their scrutiny.
Lisa swallowed and turned back to her books, trying to block out the nervous tingles crawling up and down her spine. Five only paid attention to her when Twelve was around, doing so more to tease the brunet than out of interest for Lisa. In fact, they hadn't had many conversations since she came to live with them just a month ago. The first couple of weeks had been tense as Nine and Twelve seemed to monitor every single one of Five's actions, assessing whether she still posed a threat to them until, eventually, some of that uneasiness dissipated between much teasing from Twelve and the rare smiles Nine offered her. Five had officially become a member of their little family then; a sort of sister for Twelve, something more than a sibling and rival to Nine: a relationship hard to classify but important and deeper than either of them, especially Nine, were willing to admit. But what were Five and Lisa? Where did they even stand on the family/friend spectrum? Lisa couldn't even be sure they were on friendly terms. Last time they had been alone, just the two of them, Lisa had been handcuffed and scared senseless as Five painted her nails and taunted her.
So this little moment alone with the imposing Five, even knowing she was no longer a threat to her life, was awkward at best.
Lisa was doing a decent job of pretending she was immersed in the formulas written on the pages before her when Five's cool voice finally broke the tense silence.
"I'm bored. I dislike being bored."
Lisa turned to look slowly back at her, unsure of what to respond to that. What?
"Ah, um…I'm sorry you—"
"Entertain me."
"What? Uh-I-I'm—right now—I don't think…" Lisa swallowed, glancing back at her books, hoping the gesture would serve as a more coherent answer since her brain and her mouth suddenly weren't cooperating with each other.
"You're not really getting anything done, I can tell. So why don't you stop pretending you're being productive over there and do something to amuse me."
Lisa's frown was automatic. Even though she was clearly intimidated by Five she couldn't help but to feel insulted. She wasn't anybody's buffoon and had no interest in becoming Five's.
"I don't expect you to tell me jokes or do tricks for me," said Five, as if reading Lisa's thoughts "I doubt you'd be good at either. But maybe we can converse and you can shed some light on something I've been wondering for quite a while now."
When Lisa didn't say anything but didn't turn back to her books either, Five smirked.
"I don't know what Twelve—or for that matter, Nine—sees in you, but there must be something worth all the trouble both of them went through to keep you,"
The frown on Lisa's face deepened. Now she was being likened to a pet.
"Since you're still here, there must be something they really like about you. I can't fathom both of them just tolerating you and still letting you live with them. I have not been able to figure it out though. I know you are polite, quiet, and go out of your way to be helpful around here; I know Twelve has a—let's call it fondness, for you and you're stupidly loyal to him and Nine; but you're also reckless, clumsy and don't always make the best decisions; you don't say much, or do much, really, and still…" Impervious to Lisa's clearly upset expression and now reddened cheeks, Five continued "What is it? Are you secretly brilliant and had actually been helping them with their plans all along?"
Lisa opened her mouth but couldn't get a word out before Five threw her head back and laughed, rather loudly, at her own question.
"Of course not, seeing as you are sweating over your high school homework. But I'm sure you have a secret talent, a trait that has been especially useful to Nine and Twelve. Why don't you tell me what it is?"
"I don't have any secret talents," with some heat in her voice Lisa held Five's gaze "If you're just going to sit there and insult me then I should just go back to my homework and stop paying any attention to you."
But still, she didn't turn away.
Five narrowed her eyes a fraction, appraising the smaller girl carefully and deciding she was at least starting to show some nerve. So that was something other than that painfully polite and quiet manner in which she carried herself most days. It was progress. There had to be something more to her though, she was certain Twelve hadn't shown such devotion to just anyone. He had seen something in Lisa that Five was still missing somehow.
Fine, so it might be harder to find out, and simply asking wouldn't cut it. Even if she was forced now to use more conventional methods, she still considered herself good at getting information. Perhaps it was that Lisa didn't know what made her 'special', and so couldn't really give Five the answer she was looking for. Maybe she should try a different approach.
"Alright, I'll try not to hurt your sensibilities. Promise. We'll stop focusing on what you have to offer Nine and Twelve. Maybe you'll be more inclined to tell me what it is that made you stick around a couple of terrorists?" Five patted the seat next to her on the couch and offered Lisa her version of a non-threatening smile.
From Lisa's vantage point Five's gesture was more patronizing than friendly and that smile was really just another one of her taunting smirks. She didn't budge from her place on the floor, deciding it was safer to keep a reasonable distance. "I told you… I made a choice."
Five did her best not to roll her eyes at that. She knew that part of the story; the simpler, less truthful version. Nine and Twelve had never really needed to make her an accomplice, and she was certain they wouldn't have let her die either. They had only given her the illusion of a choice, something the girl staring so determinedly at her had yet to realize. And again, that didn't explain the relationship they had developed from that encounter. It didn't justify the ridiculous lengths they all went to stay together even after their mission had come to an abrupt end.
"I want to know how that choice to be an 'accomplice' ended up entailing this sort of arrangement," Five gestured around with her hand. "Don't you have a home?"
"I ran away,"
Five noticed how the girl didn't elaborate, but she was smart enough to draw some theories of her own. She didn't look like an abuse victim, not now at least, but she figured there had been enough trouble at home to push her to make such a decision. The background check she had done on her was telling enough. Single mother, dropping grades, probably no friends to speak of.
"And Nine and Twelve just scooped you up from the streets and let you live with them? That's not like them, especially not like Nine. I can see Twelve doing something like that if only to get a rise out of Nine, but certainly not out of the goodness of his heart."
Lisa shifted in her place, uncomfortable with the notion that Twelve might have been using her all along. "I'm sure his intentions were sincere; a lot happened after that," The girl was sensible enough not to reproach anything to Five, "It brought us closer, and we're sort of…we're like a family now. They're my family."
Five snorted, "You consider these two criminals who threatened to kill you on more than one occasion, and who almost did by foolishly including you in their plans, family?"
"They're not—!" Lisa cut herself off, offended by the word Five had used to describe Nine and Twelve but knowing it was technically accurate. "Don't call them that,"
"It is what they are," Such loyalty again, Five thought "They wouldn't argue the term if you asked them,"
"I don't think it is all that black and white, everything they did was a for a reason, their circumstances—"
Five felt the heat burst from her chest to her neck and face, "If you're about to tell me the sad tale of their pasts you better stop right there. I know about their 'circumstances'!"
Lisa started at Five's outburst and leaned back as the white-haired inched closer to glare at her. "I know about them much better than you ever will, I was there, I lived those 'circumstances' –as you so delicately put it—in the flesh. Don't attempt to sell me a sob story to justify what they did."
"I wasn't trying—" Lisa shook her head "I'm sorry, Five. Of course you know better."
Five narrowed her eyes. She had expected an argument and not an apology. Curious.
"But that means you should understand why they did what they did. They're not bad people. They just wanted to be heard. After what was done to all of you," Lisa looked at Five in the eyes "it's the least you deserve."
Five leaned back on the couch "Deserve? Since when did the world start caring about what anyone deserves? I don't need their acknowledgment or their apologies. I have no use for either."
Lisa didn't say anything for a while and just stared at her hands on her lap. "I think… if that's what they want, then they should get it. Nine and Twelve, they're not doing it only for themselves, but for all the other children that never even had a chance… isn't that noble? Doesn't that tell you just how much they're capable of caring? You told me they don't have a lot of time left," Lisa swallowed hard and blinked rapidly, taking a couple of seconds to continue "that makes their efforts even more valuable; they could have been selfish and lived out the rest of their lives trying to forget, erasing all those painful memories, living in the now without a care and pretending they're just like the rest of us, and instead… instead they decided to remember, every day, with every single action they took. The world should know, and it should be ashamed of what it did to all of you,"
There was a beat of charged silence until finally, Five puffed out a breath "God, you're so stupid."
Lisa sniffed, rubbing some tears off her face.
"Maybe that's it. Your stupidity and theirs are perfectly compatible," Five looked away from Lisa's face, too much emotion was reflected on it for her to pretend she wasn't affected by some of her words, "They're not noble, they just have a huge hero complex. They're not selfless, they're suicidal; they aren't trying to give those children a damn thing, those children are dead and the dead don't give a tiny damn about what the living do in their name; and most importantly, Nine and Twelve do not care, so stop deluding yourself in that regard. None of us are wired to care or love or feel all that much in the spectrum of emotions,"
"Wi-wired?"
"Even if they escaped, the damage had already been done. You keep thinking they're the same as you but they're not. We're in a different category, we're something else."
"Nine and Twelve are more human than most people I know!"
"Human," Five's mocking tone did nothing to rid Lisa of her conviction. "Human, sincere, caring… do you even know them?"
Lisa opened her mouth but Five interrupted her before she could say anything.
"You obviously don't. I was with them, day and night, for the better part of five years, right up until the moment they decided to escape. I know them. I know Nine wouldn't even blink when they carried the bodies of the children out of our rooms. I know he only wanted to escape to show how superior he was to all of us. I know Twelve went along with Nine's plan because he was a rebellious little shit, who would joke and make light of everything that had the rest of us terrified or fearing for our lives, everything was a fucking game to him. They don't care, they can't possibly care when they never showed an ounce of sympathy back then. It's all an act and you're too dumb to see through it,"
"That's stupid,"
Five's eyes widened "Excuse me?"
"I said that's stupid, and you don't really believe that. Those are self-defense mechanisms, people don't always act on their feelings. It's normal to hide your emotions. I may not understand much about other things but I know what it is like to be so scared you freeze and behave in ways that make no sense to anyone else,"
"You can't pretend you know that when you weren't there to see how-"
"I know it because I've seen them act like they don't care," Lisa interrupted, "Like Nine; when Twelve brought me here, all Nine wanted was for me to go away; he was cold and even a little mean, but he was doing it so I wouldn't get involved and end up hurt. I know that now,"
Five arched an eyebrow.
"And Twelve, he told me that he would kill me if I made one wrong move… but then, he risked everything to always keep me safe," Lisa paused "You know that, you saw that."
"Maybe that's how it seems to you, but we don't get attached to people, we don't think that way,"
"Maybe you don't, not yet…" Lisa murmured "But I would trust Nine and Twelve with anything now, and I don't doubt that they care about me."
Lisa's phone pinged with an incoming message, she read it and smiled, putting the phone down after a moment.
"Five, I don't have any regular or more normal friends. I actually don't have any friends but them, and my real family… well, it was never really a family, " Five was surprised to find no hesitation or self-pity in the words, just facts that Lisa seemed to have assimilated as such "But I've grown up observing people, I can tell what's real. I've seen others being false and toxic to those close to them, I know what pretending to care for somebody looks like. Nine and Twelve, they're not like that,"
"Look at you, acting all sure of your words when you've not even known them that long," Five wanted her statement to sound mocking, but she wasn't able to pull it off.
"We've been through a lot together,"
"That doesn't mean this will last,"
"Right," Lisa looked down once again, fiddled a bit with her phone "But I'm still here, the girl who just made things more complicated for them, the weakness they didn't need, right?" despite the harshness of her words, Lisa delivered them in a soft voice, "And so are you, even after all the confrontations you've had with Nine and Twelve. We're both here and," Lisa held up her phone again to show Five the message she had just received "they're bringing dinner,"
Five frowned, even as she felt an odd warmth spreading in her chest and the sudden urge to laugh. So ridiculous. This girl was absurd and yet her words rang true even to her. It was maddening.
Lisa got up, gathered her things from the table and then turned to Five again "They are my friends and my family now, and I know it's soon to tell but you could be a part of it if you really wanted. I think…I think that you know all of this already, but you have your own self-defense mechanism, right?" Lisa offered her a small smile "It's alright if you need time, we're not the most well-adjusted of families anyway."
Five simply stared as Lisa walked away, the girl's words echoed in her head so loudly they had prevented her from arguing. Mishima was wrong, of course she was wrong. What did she know? Who was she to pretend to know so much about them?
She chewed on her lip and kicked the coffee table in front of her out of frustration. It wasn't long before she heard the girl pulling out plates and glasses in the kitchen and speaking happily on the phone with who she assumed was Twelve.
Five threw her head back and closed her eyes.
A family… as if.
But maybe, just maybe, she was beginning to understand why Nine and Twelve kept her around.
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Dolce S.- I had been meaning to write about these two and these two alone for a while now. I had this on my wips for over a year and this anniversary gave me the motivation I needed to finally finish it.