…
…
His head pounded.
Automatically, one of his cold, shaking hands came up to touch the skin on his temple, flinching at the slight pressure his fingertips added onto the strain. Lying down didn't feel so good when completely awake.
His body didn't feel quite right—it felt wrong, bigger, tighter somehow.
Running his hands through his dark tangle of hair, Ritsuka took several moments of deep breathing to ease the room from the violent spinning motion his body felt like it was stuck permanently in. Once the terrible sensation faded, the young boy slowly crawled out of bed, cupping his palms over his morning-sensitive eyes to protect them from the callous slits of sunrays clouding Seimei's bedroom.
He reeked of sweat. A hot shower was seriously called for.
Flipping on the fluorescent lighting in the connected bathroom, the slumping teenager ran water into the sink, ready to take a handful to rub into his blurry vision—
—when it came back with crystal clearness.
Stunned, he stared into the mirror's reflection, his jaw visibly dropping as his trembling digits traced the space of where his ears were suppose to be.
But they weren't there!
The nearly identical stranger gaping back at him opened his mouth wider mockingly to unleash a noiseless scream.
"RITSUKA!! RITSUKA-KUN, COME DOWNSTAIRS AND EAT! RITSUKA-KUN, I MADE YOUR FAVORITES!!"
At the sound of his mother's high-pitched shrieks and insistent banging's on the bedroom door, the earless boy rushed out of the bathroom, torn between hiding under the bed and crying or burying himself under the blanket covers.
The pale sheer curtains by his window sidetracked him.
The fall from the second floor window bruised the sides of his arms badly. Luckily, the skin didn't break. Running wildly down one of the highways, fear and confusion prevented him from a clear feel of where he was going.
Maybe if he kept running…
This would all just go away…
A bad nightmare...just a bad nightmare...
Someone was waving him down.
Skidding to a stop in front of an unfamiliar high school, Ritsuka fell forward in time to be brutally grabbed by the sleeves and propelled into the arms of a tall girl with a beanie and a pink side-ponytail.
"RITSUKA-kun! Why didn't you call Yuiko this morning? Are you not answering your phone again—is it Soubi? Did you two get into another fight? Oh!" Her bright blue eyes suddenly filled with sparkling sympathetic tears, alarming him with the wet warmth as one or two made contact with his cheek, "Don't tell me you break up! Oh, Ritsuka, it's just so…"
Her fast-paced ranting broke up with a soft sob and silence.
After a moment, he was forced away from being crushed by her enormous breasts, grateful for the air, but greatly unnerved by her next reaction. She stared at his hair then into his dark eyes, melancholy immediately replaced by shock.
"You…your ears…Rit—. "
Her curious hand stretching to touch his head suddenly was roughly knocked aside. Ritsuka looked at his own hands as if amazed by his quick reflexes and shouted deafeningly, causing the hot pink on the girl's face to fade into a milky sick tint, "Who are you lady? How do you know me!"
He jumped at the sound of his own maturing voice, finally taking the time to glance down at himself, only to pale and weaken.
"What's going on…I don't understand this…any of this."
Joining alongside the girl, a shorter boy with long black hair and glasses squinted at him as if he were an interesting specimen.
"Aoyagi-kun, what did you do last night?"
Yuiko elbowed him rudely aside and made a mad grab for the hyperventilating boy as he bolted the scene, missing by a couple inches of the collar of his burgundy fur jacket. Resigning to the fact that she couldn't catch him, Yuiko glared openly at her companion, "Look what you've done! Now he'll never talk to us again!"
Yayoi lowered his black and mint green cat ears slightly, whining pathetically, "What…did I do…?"
Furious blue gazed up, rounding out with relief as they focused on the handsome figure approaching.
"Soubi-kun! Over here!"
The cat-boy sighed irritably, half tempted to curse.
"What are you two up to?" The ash blonde man smiled kindly with a cigarette between two perfect sets of teeth. Yayoi shrugged, crossing his arms and facing the exact opposite of the intruder, "We just saw your boyfriend a minute ago."
"Did he seem alright?"
The question was light, almost emotionless.
Yuiko tugged anxiously on the end of her hat, the frown on her expression troubling the older man, "We're not sure…"
"Which direction did he go?"
It was a rather tight fit.
Ritsuka dipped his head down as he climbed into the ground level circular playground tube, pulling his knees to his chest and letting his chest rise and fall rapidly as he tried to regain normal breathing. No one had followed him. He was sure of it.
The abandoned playground was a town away from his house, the only person who knew his secret hiding place was Seimei.
He squeezed his eyes shut firmly.
Where was he? Why wasn't his big brother there when he woke up that morning? Why did his Mom sound so mad? Who were those people? How did they know him? As far as he knew, he didn't know any high schoolers.
Crunching of leaves.
The earless boy whirled his head around to stare horror-struck at the final stranger he'd met that day. An ash blonde man with shining crooked glasses crouching through the opening of the tube, only inches from him, looked back at him somewhere between honest concern and fascination. His periwinkle eyes floated over the empty spots on Ritsuka's head.
Before the new arrival could speak, the first thrust himself backwards, sliding his body as far as possible from any physical contact. This didn't seem to alarm the man. He merely smiled humorlessly.
"Ritsuka."
Wine-colored eyes rounded. The boy's body came to a total standstill at the mention of his name from the lips of the handsome stranger. He stayed rooted even as a large cool hand cupped his face, intimate fingers curling to press gently into his jaw.
"Are you mad at me?" The man sounded sad. Not the hysterical tone like the girl had, but nevertheless, it rang truly hurt.
Ritsuka's voice quivered with every syllable.
"H-How do you know me?"
The hand disappeared almost instantly. The stranger's blonde eyebrows scrunched together into a puzzled line. He made an indecisive move forward, proving to be a big mistake as the younger burst into unexpected tears, his beautiful face twisting into absolute distress, "Don't touch me!"
Ritsuka lurched to the side, ugly childish tears rolling down his cheeks.
"If you don't leave me alone, my big brother wi-will beat you up! When he f-finds me, you'll be in big trouble!"
The blonde man softly touched the back of his shaking head, causing a scream of No! to sear into the delicate bone of their eardrums and echo through the cramped space.
"Is that an order, Ritsuka?"
Gasping and crying answered him
"I won't go away unless you order me."
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"
Several moments passed where crying and hunger began to clench his stomach uncomfortably. Shivering with the passing day's temperature drop, the boy lifted his tear-stained face to see the opening unblocked.
And bathed with fresh moonlight.
…
…
TBC...
Loveless belongs to its original creator, blah, blah. Ended a bit abruptly but I'm having some blockage, alright? Well, after going over my notes for this story plotline, I'm come to realize that there is no friggin way I can cram everything into three installments. This is going be to over five chapters, I'm pretty sure. Hope you're sticking for the ride cause it's gonna be fun (yes, I'm a big meanhead, fee free to curse me out). A big lovable thank you to my beautiful reviewers and favoriters, you all get Soubi hugs and little cookies with cat-shaped ears! Reviews help me update sooner! -hides behind pillow from angry people-
