Marionette. That was what he would like to think of himself as, with Souichirou up in heaven somewhere pulling his strings. That was how it had been ever since the job of 'Daisy the Protector' had been bestowed upon him after all, binding him to his best friend's little sister in hopes that he could help her along her way in life after her brother was no longer there with her. When at first he had already assumed the limitations that would come with his new tasks, as he went along with his appointed duties, he quickly found even more that he hadn't even expected.
One of the most important ones presented itself to him one night when he was eating at Flower Garden, talking to Master at the same time about things mostly consisting Teru, his servant, and the girl he had sworn to watch over. The problem presented itself in a text message, making his phone vibrate in his pocket, and then once he read it, causing furry to well up inside of his heart.
"Damn it! And I just warned him!" He exclaimed to no one in particular, slamming his fist against the bar at which he sat, and causing his drink to nearly tip over due to the tremor which it caused. He was on his feet in an instant, but though he longed to go and fix the problem presented to him in the text, he could do nothing, and remained at the bar with his head drooping in frustration.
The black phone was snatched out of his hands then by the all too concerned Masuda, allowing him to read the message that Teru had just sent. "A thief!" He yelled once he was finished learning that a person had broken into the high schooler's apartment and trashed it, leaving her alone and scared.
"That bastard, he was targeting Teru from the start." The blond murmured, as ways to murder Takeda, the man that was intent on getting information from the girl, and the prime suspect at the time, flashed through his mind, none of them being something that he wasn't angry enough to do. "No…we don't have proof that he did it." He then reprimanded himself out-loud, trying to get his mind off of its current subject and on to what was more important at the time.
Master then did that with his next comment though, even if it was only to get knocked down in the end. "Forget about that! Teru is more important now! Go over-"
"I can't..." Kurosaki cut him off, placing his hand that wasn't in a fist on the table on the stool that he had been sitting on moments before, so that he would have more support when the revelation that he could do nothing suddenly came crashing down on him in full force. "The one who gets the mail is Daisy, not me. If I went there…" The tall man didn't finish the sentence, but both knew what would happen. Suspicions would rise, and at least one of them wasn't sure if they would be able to come up with enough lies quick enough to cover up what they did if they were to help.
"Idiot! This isn't time to be thinking of something like that!" The other protested, voicing what was on his mind while managing to add in an insult even in the pressing situation. "Just pretend you need something and call her!"
"I never asked for her number!" Another wall came up in the two men's way every time they came up with a new idea then, though they seemed to grow more frantic with each passing minute.
"Damn!" The one behind the bar yelled. "Just use 'I was walking by' as an excuse!"
"Can't you come up with a more natural excuse?" The other one demanded of his friend, feeling as if he was about to cry as through his head, pictures of what the poor girl that they both so desperately wanted to help had to have been going through while he just stood there and did nothing. "Damn it…why am I thinking of excuses at this time?" He then cursed himself, lifting a hand to grip at his supposedly bleached hair as he felt like pulling a few strands out himself. "There's no choice now, I'll just have to go there…" He said, making up his mind to simply offer Teru his help and then deal with problems as they came, when the door to the restaurant suddenly swung open, reveling a teary-eyed girl in her uniform that had just been through more than she would ever had liked to experience.
"Ah…You really are here Kurosaki." She said, taking a few steps closer to the man that she was more familiar with then she knew at the time.
Said man regarded her with pained eyes, something that he didn't bother to cover up now with tears beginning to spill out of the petite girl's large, innocent hazel eyes. "A thief broke into my house. The whole place is a mess; even the bed sheets got shredded." She explained her predicament to him. "I'm really scared… Even though I sent Daisy a mail, he didn't show up… Then, I don't know why…but I came here…" Her tale ended once Kurosaki pulled her into his arms, unable to bear standing still while Teru wept in front of him any longer.
"It's alright." He comforted her as salt water began to seep into the fabric of his shirt, though it wasn't as if he minded in the least, what with more important things currently weighing on his mind. "Everything is okay now, so no need to be afraid anymore. Everything is alright…" Kurosaki swore then, that even if everything wasn't really alright at the time, he would make it alright, because that was what he was there to do. He no longer had any other purpose on the earth besides protecting the girl that he currently held, so he would do that one thing with all of his might.
But then, wasn't his problem that he couldn't always protect Teru with all of his might? Creating the name Daisy for him to hide behind had had its advantages in the end, mostly for the fact of protecting Kurosaki's identity and keeping Teru in the dark for as long as the sun would refuse to come up and reveal the truth. But then, it also limited him in ways that someone wouldn't expect unless they knew just how much danger that someone was in. Because the sister of Souichirou knew that Daisy would save her, that was who she went to in times of trouble, not knowing that the very slave driver that she put up with at school was the one behind the empty figure that was the bridge between them, connecting them.
This is what bound him in practically everything that he did; only allowing him to go so far as he tried his best to get closer to Teru, and whisk her away from the cruel world that they both resided in. And every time that he strained against what bound him just out of her reach, the shackles to which only she held the key would bite into his skin, producing a pain that he was unable to avoid no matter how many different ways that he tried to get around it. But he knew, these shackles were placed on him for a reason, and every time he fought them he tried to figure it out.
Why were shackles placed on him if the puppet strings controlling him were the ones pushing him to try and break free?
So, just something I thought up when I was listening to Everybody's Fool by Evanescence. I hope you enjoyed, and in case anyone was wondering, this scene was from chapter 4 of the Dengeki Daisy manga. I got the dialog off line instead of from my volume, so if you don't read it online it may be different from what you've read, but I'm not sure.
