*Crack*Crack*
*Crack*Crack*Crack*
Once one starts the crackling chain, the rest follow suit without fail, as if everyone suddenly realizes their knuckles are stiff and need relief.
*Crack*Crack*Crack*
The obnoxious outcries of their joints caused him to twitch, to jerk, to writhe internally at the disturbance they caused him.
*Crack*Crack*Crack*
Memories, sickly sounds and sensations, flooded into his mind with each addition to the arthritic choir.
Tiny knuckles snapping; the foreboding whistling of the air. An explosion of stinging pain in his hands; bright scarlet stripes across his palms. And a shrill voice reprimanding him, over and over again. The grinding tone, the condescension and reproach, slams into him with each insult and instruction. A heavy hand is on his shoulder, pressing into his back and shoulder blades.
Physical pain for musical failure.
The weight of a real hand on his shoulder pulls him back into the present. He jerks involuntarily, roughly swatting the gesture away.
"Get off, you witch," he grumbles.
Shock overtakes him when he looks up, for he finds that he is staring into soft jade, not hard crimson or flashing gray.
"Soul-"
It's just Maka. Just his partner. His disciplinarians are gone. The witch has been dead for three years now, he knows this, and the warden is far away from the halls of Shibusen. He flashes her worried eyes a weary grin as he places his head in his arms.
"Just a bad memory." He softly chants to himself. "Just a bad memory. Ding Dong, the wicked witch is dead, and the warden is not welcome here. Everything is alri-"
His body tenses as another crack shoots through the air.
This painful chorus is endless.