The Abnormal: Amane's Tale
Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Systems, and TV Tokyo. All names were changed to the characters of this fandom in order to protect the real people involved in the following incidents.
Part 2: The Girl and the Dark Phantom
Amane is fourteen years old and thinks that her house is haunted.
It's not the moonlit ghost again, but a dark phantom that glides from room to room, dressed in the black shawls of the night. He is blank and eerie, dead to all the going ons in the world. The phantom scares her because Amane remembers what he was like when he was alive.
The phantom is angry, glowering at her from between the cracks in doorways, the junctions of rooms. Sometimes she glimpses him out of the corner of her eye, but he disappears whenever she looks back.
Amane avoids his room, which is more of an enlarged storage cupboard than a place to sleep, like it contains a fiery pit that leads straight to Hell. She's afraid that if she goes in there, she'll find the dead, rotting body of the boy she once loved - still loves - and know that she caused his death.
Sometimes she dreams of him, like she did when she was younger, but it is different at the same time. Amane's moonlit ghost had been replaced by the dark phantom there, too. And while the ghost showered her in sweet words and sweeter kisses, the phantom had taken on a form much more sexual.
She's under him and he kisses and touches her everywhere at once. Sometimes, he brings her to completion without even fucking her, just with his fingers and his mouth and the whispered words of "I love you" in her ears. When the phantom that haunts her dreams does decide to finally do it, his lovemaking is agonizingly slow and he stares at her the entire time. It makes her feel more self-conscious than being naked ever would.
When she wakes up, Amane feels cold and clammy and, most of all, alone. It takes all of her will power and all of her fear of his room not to walk down the hallway and jump him.
In the morning, she sees him slide into the kitchen of their new house, across the ocean from the place she grew up calling home. She watches him as he slathers some jam onto a hunk of bread and chews it as he walks away. Her - their, and she's still not used to saying that - parents chatter away about something on the news. Amane pokes at her first attempt at fried eggs, coming to the conclusion that they are passable and non-toxic. She feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she her eyes flick towards the doorway. The phantom is staring at her.
His eyes are like glowing embers, an unnatural shade of red that makes him seem much older than she knows he is. Amane wonders, and then doubts her herself for thinking such nonsense, if it was something other than a kind of weird disease that colored them that way.
The phantom is wearing her father's old shirt. It's black and goes down to his knees. His arms look like skinny poles of white, shifting out of the darkness that cloaks his body. His face is pale, with features chiseled into rigid, cold stone. Amane swallows hard as she tries to keep his gaze, wishing for beautiful Ryou to come back to her or, at the very least, for him to show some form of emotion. Something. Anything to distract her from remembering his voice, something she hasn't heard since they moved to America.
She blinks and he's gone, the front door closing so softly that she barely hears it over her mother's voice. The fork drops noisily from her hand as she bursts into silent tears.
Amane leaves before her parent's notice her sadness. If they do, they would smother her with their concern. She doesn't believe that they genuinely care about her. If they did, they would have told her about Ryou being her brother. If they had, none of this would have happened. If they had, she would be normal.
But they hadn't. And neither had he, so he is somewhat to blame for this entire mess as well. Her old hatred for him wells up again and threatens to take hold. She shoves it down as she grabs her bag to go to school.
Amane touches up her make up in the mirror. She's going with a glittery green today and a subtle shade of red for her lips. Her hair naturally falls straight and she pulls it up into a ponytail. She specifically picks a shirt that rides up a little around her stomach, just to give a little tease, and is cut low to show more than a hint of cleavage. Her jeans look like they're sprayed onto her legs, but she doesn't care. She's hot and people love it. They can't get enough of her.
Besides, boys think that her accent is sexy. She's exotic and different, cool and assertive. Guys like that. It makes her popular.
It makes her forget that the boy she really wants in completely unattainable. It makes her forget that she's in love with the phantom that haunts her home.
"Him?"
"...Six. Him?"
"Ew. Two. Him?"
"Four. How about...him, over there?"
"Who? Oh...OH! Hello, hotty! Perfect ten, all the way!" Tea cheered, eying the guy walking by their bench at the mall. "If he didn't have kids hanging off his arm, I'd be all over him."
"Like you'd let that stop you," Amane joked as the man turned his head towards us. Tea winked and waved flirtatiously. He looked away nervously, holding his children closer to act as chick deterrent. We burst out into mad giggles.
Tea Gardner was easily the most coveted girl at Domino High. She was on the cheerleading squad, which in Amane's rather private opinion was an outdated thing for schools to have that was only really there so that boys could look up girl's skirts with no consequences. Tea could easily get any guy she wanted and did, too. She talked like she'd walked straight out of Mean Girls.
Tea could be a little ditzy sometimes. She seemed to have her mind completely wrapped around boys. Still, she was a good friend to have and an awesome dance partner for when they went to parties. She, unlike Amane, could hold her liqueur enough to get them both home at the end of the night if they didn't manage to snag a guy - which was, like, a one in a million chance, but sometimes did happen.
"Oh my god, did you see his face?" Tea laughed, "I swear, he thought that I was going to chase after him for a moment!"
"I know!" She continued to giggle, but quieted down after a while, "Hey, Tea? What do you think about my..." she has to consciously call him by his correct - and more hated - term, "brother?"
She blinked, "You have a brother?"
Amane breathes a sigh of relief. If Tea hadn't noticed Ryou, then she probably wouldn't. Ever. "Never mind."
"No way! Is he cute?" She refused to let it go, "I mean, you're hot. Any brother you have must be smoking. And with your accent, damn..."
She insists that Amane show her the mysterious brother at school the next day. She's more nervous than anything in her entire life. She's worried that Tea will actually turn her attention to Ryou and he will be forever out of her reach. Because who would go after her when they had Ms. America?
However, Tea is actually horrified by him, "I mean, yeah, he's kind of good looking, but he's such a freak! I can't believe you're even related to him."
Amane can't believe they're related either, but that's a totally different story.
What concerns her, though, that Tea confirmed that Ryou the phantom was 'kind of good lucking'. 'Kind of' implied that he was and that it was possible for someone to like him. The thought of him with any girl aside from her makes Amane want to claw at the eyes of any being with baby making abilities within a good fifteen miles. He was hers and her's alone; she'd gotten there first, damn it. What right did any sleazy slut have to him?
And yet, Amane can't bring it upon herself to make the first move. She's terrified of what he will think. She's terrified of what everyone will think. Their twins, for crying out loud. She shouldn't feel this way towards him at all.
She hooks up with a guy at a party, some hunk she recognizes vaguely from science class. He's got gorgeous green eyes and a sweet ass, but he's a freaking virgin and she looses interest as soon as he cums prematurely when she attempts to give him a hand job. She thinks the rest of the night is going to be the same, until he flips her over - as per her demands because she really doesn't like seeing people's faces when she's having sex - and fucks her doggy style.
Amane's imagination goes into overdrive, conjuring up images of white hair and lips on the back of her neck. She pretends that the hands gripping at her waist are as white as snow and that there is a phantom behind her, driving her insane.
She let's his name slip once. Only once. When she does, Amane's pretend world dissolves and reality sets in. She doesn't cum, but is left more hot and bothered than she cares to admit. She does feel some sympathy for the guy when she hears him muttering another girl's name, over and over, as he is pushed over the edge.
"Serenity," he says through gritted teeth. "Oh-oh god, Serenity!"
Duke Devlin and Amane hit it off, not as boyfriend and girlfriend, but just average friends, shortly afterwards. Neither of them mentions the night that they were together to anyone. It contained too many secrets for both of them and neither wanted to admit what they may have heard the other say.
She is surprised that after becoming sexually active, Duke goes on to rival Tea in the 'Largest Number of Ex's' category at school. He's a goddamn player, but sometimes she catches him staring out the window and in the direction of Domino Hospital where, as she's become recently aware, Joey Wheeler's younger sister is recovering from an eye operation.
At least, Amane reasons, she's not the only one suffering from unrequited love. At least she's not alone in this.
Joey Wheeler is the one person in the entire world who Amane swears she will never sleep with. Never, never, never. It's not happening, no matter how much he wants to otherwise.
Duke is the kind of guy that radiates confidence and sophistication. He's an upper class rich kid who decided that instead of going to some private high school, he'd rough it with the ordinary folk. He's like a Greek sculpture - one of the few that was able to keep it's clothing on, though that doesn't last for long once the alcohol starts getting passed around.
Tristan Taylor, Joey's BFF, is boring and ordinary in comparison. He's just another face in the crowd, easily forgettable in her mind. She doesn't understand why he even hangs out around them. Joey just doesn't seem to want to let him go.
But unlike them, Joey is neither easy to dismiss from the mind, nor is he the face that becomes engrained into your memory. Joey is the 'Hey, ladies. Are you ready to be treated poorly tonight?' guy.
He's a hick. A Yankee. He's everything infamous about the American teenager that the idea of kissing him makes Amane want to barf all over his shoes. He's the big dumb idiot that she despised everything about.
That doesn't stop her from flirting with him, though.
It's a simple Push and Pull strategy. In order to pull someone towards you, one must push away all the unwanted competition. Joey serves that role well because, really, his ego really needs to be taken down a few hundred notches. The way he talks, one would consider him to be God's gift to women. In reality, he's a lousy kisser - not that she knows from first hand experience or anything, but Tea does and she talks a lot when she's drunk.
His sister, on the other hand, is a complete angel. Serenity is pure and sweet and innocent. She's everything that Amane would have grown up to be, had her parents not lied to her about the true identity of Ryou. Amane could have been Serenity, but now she's stuck with the life of part party girl, part good daughter. She wonders (and hates the fact that she wonders) if the phantom likes innocent girls more than someone who could give him a good lay. A part of her is unreasonably scared about the fact that he might not like that she's not a virgin - some guys aren't into tainted goods.
Amane doubts it though. In fact, she doubts that Ryou has ever even looked at a girl like that before. He hasn't looked at anyone, let alone talked to them. She hasn't heard his voice in so long that she's beginning to forget what it sounds like. That all changes in the late days of April as she nears her sixteenth birthday.
Joey tracked her down, sparking up a conversation under the pretense of the up and coming semi formal dance that the Domino High student counsel is organizing. He wants to go with her. She doesn't want to go at all. Parties are one thing; dances are completely different. Dances meant pretty dresses and Amane can't put on one of those things without thinking of the colour white and how it looks lovely on blushing brides. How she used to want to be that blushing bride as she walked up the aisle towards a now dead ghost.
The conversation, however, turns towards Ryou as he slithers past them rather quickly. She feels a draft as he moves towards his locker, like his presence as made the entire hallway colder. She feels the glance of a red-eyed phantom for an instant, but doesn't turn to look at him. She can't show weakness. She doesn't dare gaze at temptation at all.
"So, he's your brother?" Joey asks the question she's been getting more often than not. Everyone wants to know how she ended up with such a freak as a sibling and Amane doesn't know how to answer them. The title of 'brother' is still something that she can't seem to give the phantom at all. It just sounds, feels, and tastes wrong on her tongue.
"He's so weird," Joey comments. "So, is it true?"
Alarms go off in her head, screaming for her to distract him from his current path. But Amane's inner child comes out to play at the same time, wondering just what was under the forbidden kitchen sink - or in this case, wandering through Joey's head.
"Is what true?" She asks as she puffs out her chest. His eyes look down and he's practically drooling. God, could he get any more disgusting? At least, she thinks, he's been sufficiently distracted by the hypnotizing powers of her breasts and won't be able to remember what he was going to say.
No such luck, it seems and Joey looks up from her cleavage and asks a question that makes Amane's heart stop.
"Is it true that he fucks cadavers?"
Her eyes bulge and at first she can't believe what he just said. Necrophilia? No way, Ryou wouldn't do that. It just wasn't possible. It's disgusting - about as disgusting as incest, but her mind pushes that one away - and Joey starts laughing.
"He's always in that graveyard. I bet he just digs them up and enjoys a cold one. What a freak –"
Then there is a loud crack of boney flesh hitting the back of someone's skull and Joey goes down, clutching the back of his head and swearing profusely. The phantom stands behind him, red eyes ablaze with hatred and anger. His arm is extended in a fist and he growls low and dangerous.
Then he opens his mouth and speaks, "Shut the fuck up, you bloody wanker! Sod off, you arsehole!"
Amane stops breathing. Everyone stops moving, talking, and thinking. For one moment in time, she wants to smile and leap into his arms because his voice is still there and now she can remember it all. Then she realizes just how sharp and rough and livid he is. The sounds of his former gentle shyness are gone and dead, just like the ghost is.
This is the voice of Ryou the phantom. And she hates it.
She laughs at him, mocking that voice, "Oh my god, I can't believe you still talk like that. No one says that stuff anymore."
He turns on her, something he's never done before, "Piss off, Amane. I'm not a Yank and neither are you."
She so shocked by the revelation that the phantom has a backbone and can stand up for himself that she can't get out of the way when Joey gets up and kicks him. He stumbles and fails to catch himself, falling right on top of her.
Oh god.
This must be what Hell feels like, she thinks. This is Hell because she has what she wants within sight and she can't take it. His lips are so close to her's that Amane could just tilt her chin up to kiss him. The phantom's body is sprawled on top of her, but it isn't suffocating. In fact, it's warm and soft and far too nice. She feels like she could melt under him with no regrets.
It scares her just how much she wants to. But she can't because people that she knows surround them. She can't because it's wrong. She's wrong.
So Amane does the only rational thing she can think of: scream her head off.
"Get the hell off me, you loser!" She yells, struggling to knock him off. It's a pretty hard thing to do when she's clinging to his battered and wrinkled shirt like it's the only thing in the world. The phantom's eyes are wide and confused; he doesn't understand what's going on at all as his legs accidentally tangle with her's.
Then she hears Duke's voice, "You're wrong, Joey. The freak doesn't fuck bodies. He prefers something closer to home."
Amane's screams only increase because, oh dear god, they've guessed. They've guessed her deepest, darkest of secrets - her love for Ryou. Ryou the phantom. Ryou the freak. Ryou the loser.
Ryou, her brother.
She shoves him off, quivering and shaking like she's been stuck in an meet locker for a week. Tea grips her shoulders, comforting her and trying to calm her down. Joey pulls the phantom into the middle of the hallway, intent on beating the crap out of him for being 'sick.' He's got the wrong person. Ryou doesn't love her - he hates her more than anything in the world. Amane, however, is the sick one.
But it's Ryou who takes the punches and the kicks instead of her. And as the crowd disperses, she sees him lying on the ground with Joey standing over than him. The jock pulls the phantom up by his long hair and drags him to his feet.
"If you ever touch Amane again, you're dead. You hear that, freak? You're dead!" He threatens, letting go of Ryou and letting him fall back to the floor. He let's out a pitiful cry of pain, but hauls himself up and limps away. He doesn't even look at her.
"It's alright, Amane," Tea whispers to her from behind. "It's alright. He's gone."
No. It's not alright. How could this be alright? She can't afford for people to see them together. She can't afford to be seen even thinking of the phantom in a positive light. Amane has to cut all ties with him, make it seem like she hated him. She had to prove that she didn't love him because no one could ever know about her shame.
Demetrius Trudge is a jerk. He's her boyfriend for a whole three weeks before Amane dumps his sorry ass. He's arrogant and horrible in bed. She doesn't understand why she keeps him around at all.
He's the fourth guy that she hooks up with in the semester and she decides that she needs to get another one quick. If she doesn't have a boyfriend, people might suspect that what Duke said was true (she refuses to even look at the guy for a whole month after that smart comment). She doesn't love Ryou. Not at all.
She doesn't look at the phantom. Sometimes, though, when he's taking too long in the shower, she yells at him to hurry up, but that's about it. There's as little interaction between them as she can manage. Amane doesn't even flinch anymore when she feels him staring at the back of her head.
Ryou is the talk of the entire school and she does everything in her power to keep it that way. She makes up outrageous lies about him in order to keep him as Domino High's official loser. If no one wants to talk to him, there will be no one to contradict her stories. No one would believe him, because the student population now fears the phantom as much as she fears what he stands for.
She starts going out with some guy named Pete Coppermine, but that only lasts about a week. Amane considers him to be part of her rebel phase because he has emo hair and wears black far too much. It isn't because he was startlingly similar to Ryou in looks. No, not at all.
They fuck once and she doesn't like it. Not because he's bad or anything, but because Pete insists on her facing him. She has to close her eyes as he enters her body. If she looked at him for long enough, his hair would start to turn white and his eyes would glow red.
She breaks up with him soon after. She just can't take that risk. What if she says the wrong name again? It worries her so god damn much and she hates herself for it.
Why, oh why, did she have to be born a twin?
Amane is sixteen. Sweet six-freaking-teen. She doesn't understand why it's such an important age. It's just another number, as far as she's concerned. Well yeah, now she can learn how to drive, but there's nothing really remarkable about it at all.
Speaking of driving, her parent's sign her up for classes as a birthday present. She wonders if she's going to get a car for her seventeenth, but doubts it. Her family's alright when it comes to wealth, but she wants to buy her first car all by herself. She's been saving up for one since she turned fourteen and she might be able to get a used car before she goes off to college.
For Ryou's birthday - though it's more belated than anything else because it happens a few weeks later - he gets tied to a pole. Naked.
Amane doesn't know about it until after it happens. She had reactivated gh05twr1tt3r over the summer holidays, purely for fun, and has been addicted ever since. It's probably she only thrill during her high school years. Everything else has just become so monotone and boring. Her illegal activities are the only things that seem to really excite her anymore. Hell, even sex has gotten boring. She hasn't cum from anything other than a vibrator in months.
So she's typing away on her laptop, bypassing the FBI's firewall with such ease that she wants to call them up and tell them just how terrible it is, when her phone buzzes. Someone has sent her a message.
It's Tea: 'OMG! D freak hs a tiny dik!'
Attached to it is a picture of her brother, duck taped to a football goal post, completely naked and, worst of all, unconscious.
Amane drops the phone, eyes wide with horror as she realizes that Ryou never came home that night. It was almost two in the morning and the photo looked like it had been taken around sunset. He was still out there.
She deletes Tea's message because it's just disgusting and she can't believe that her best friend did something like that and then decided to send it to her (it has nothing to do with the fact that it looks almost like BDSM porn to her). She's halfway through pulling on a black hooded jacket and tying back her hair before she realizes what she's doing.
She's going to go save the phantom of her nightmares.
Amane's had far too much practice sneaking out of the house to be caught by her sleeping parents. She steals a pair of scissors first before she leaves, as well as a flashlight so she can see what she's doing. She also brings along her bottle of mace, in case some creeper decided that he wanted to mess with her at this moment in time - she doesn't want to think that Ryou would make an easier target in his prone shape.
She doesn't remember most of the trip to Domino High, but she can recall each and ever second of her trek across the football field. She can see the outline of the phantom as she approaches, hung limp from the metal post like a rag doll.
He's asleep, she notices as she comes closer. Amane is amazed that he can sleep in the position that he's in because it looks insanely uncomfortable. She can see that the parts of his skin connected to the tape are colored an angry red, a stark contrast from the rest of his normally pale complexion. She tries to keep her eyes above his waist, but can't. Silently, she spits at Tea despite the fact that the girl is nowhere near her at the moment.
He's not small, damn it. Ryou is perfectly normal sized...for a...guy...yeah...
She's going to stop looking now. Really.
Amane takes out the scissors and cuts through the duct tape holding him up. She is completely unprepared to catch him when he falls forwards on to the ground. Ryou's red eyes snap open and a strangled noise comes from his mouth. She nearly drops the flashlight in shock. She hadn't been expecting this.
He looks up, but turns away quickly. She remembers that bright lights hurt his eyes, but she doesn't lower the light; Amane doesn't want him to recognize her.
She has to try to move her legs several times before she can actually start running the hell away from him. She hears Ryou calling, "Please! Wait! Don't leave me here!" It seems far too similar to the last time he'd begged her for something, except it's him that's naked this time and not her. Amane's cheeks burn a bright red as she bounds back into her room. She throws the clothes she's put on into her hamper and pulls the covers over her head. She tries to sleep, but can't.
It's an hour later when she hears the front door open. One of the stair's creaks as the phantom walks up them. The sound of another door shutting softly.
There is quiet for a whole three seconds and then there is a pained scream. Amane realizes that Ryou isn't in his room, but in the lav. He is probably ripping off the tape. Alone.
This time she actually hears the tearing of tape from skin and then "AAARRRGGGHHHHH!" It's practical torture for her, but no matter what she does, she can't block it out. She cowers in her bed and shakes; eyes burning with unshed tears as whimpers threaten to escape from her mouth.
The screams soon become moans, moans becoming almost inaudible gasps. The door opens again and he treads over to his room. Amane tries not to think about how she hears him sob once - only once and that hurts because he's stronger now and he isn't going to start bawling like he used to. She can't take care of him, comfort him, like she used to. He would never comfort her like that anymore either.
Because Ryou the moonlit ghost is dead and now the phantom walks in his place.
She hates her life so much right now.
Amane doesn't see the phantom for a week. It's like her parents called an exorcist and removed him from existence. She doesn't dare knock on his door to see if he's okay because she's still scared of its contents.
She doesn't participate in the laughing and joking that her friends partake in on the subject of The Prank. Every time it comes up she tells them that she has to use the loo or go do something or whatever. They're terrible excuses but they are bought, so she isn't complaining. But there wasn't much she could do the entirely escape from the questions and the rumours. People kept coming to her to talk about her 'brother'.
"Go away," she answered, swiping at their phones that all contained the photo Tea took. They waved them in front of her like they were some kind of all access pass to getting her to talk to them, "Get out of my face."
It does nothing to deter them; the vultures of Domino High School can smell gossip a mile away. They want to know everything. Absolutely everything. Amane can't even get away when she goes home for the day. Her cell starts to ring because some idiot - Joey - leaked her number to the entire goddamn student body.
She hates him, hates him, hates him. Joey that is. She can't hate Ryou for this. It wasn't his fault, for once.
It's Duke's fault. It's Tea's fault. It's Tristan's and Joey's fault, too. They did this to him, to her. For once in their lives Amane just wishes that they would think about the consequences of their actions before they go out and make trouble for her. If they knew just what was going on - no, she stops herself. They can't know. No one can know the truth.
The phantom reappears at the breakfast table one morning and she nearly has a stroke. He looks so burnt out and soulless, more blank and empty than he normally does. He is as much of a walking shell of flesh as he was when he tripped his way off the plane and on to American soil. Ryou is dead and chewing his food like it's made of cardboard.
It only gets worse when they go to school. Her old boyfriend, Demetrius, plows his massive meaty fist into the phantom before the first period even begins. Ryou has to fight him off and run to the safety of English class, shouting for everyone to just leave him alone.
When she sees him again, it's the end of the day. She hears through the grape vine that he was in five fights during the day and that Duke Devlin was going to go and find him to finish him off. He'd be gone for good. Amane panic and rushes around school to find him. She needs to say something, do something, to make this all go away. She wants her moonlit ghost back.
She spots him walking out of the boy's loo near the gyms. He doesn't see her as he passes, walking straight by her hiding spot as he tries to straighten out his shirt like he's just put it back on. She follows him, silent and stealthy, as he walks out of the front door and down the sidewalk towards...a flower store?
What? Her mind jumps to all sorts of conclusions. A secret girlfriend? A gift for a crush? Her heart leaps: what if they are for her?
He comes out with a rather pitiful bouquet; there are only three or four flowers and they're a bit wilted. He crosses the street and resumes his trek towards his unknown location.
Amane reassures herself that she is gathering intel and not stalking him for her own need to know what Ryou is doing. She hounds him all the way to a local cemetery. She sees him lay the flowers on a grave, before he sits down and starts talking to himself. She can't hear what he's saying, but instead listens to the hum of his voice, the rising and falling sounds that were Ryou.
They are beautiful when he is not angry and full of wrath.
He gets to his feet after about an hour or so of speaking to no one. Amane wonders if there's something not right in his head but has to hide again as he moves to leave. Just as he turns in the direction of their house, he hisses and clasps a hand over his shoulder.
Suddenly, she is struck by a wave of pain-that-is-not-pain. Amane is assaulted by the burning smell of antiseptics and other smells that you associate with hospitals. It's wrong but it's right at the same time. She can't describe what she feels because it's gone in an instant.
She opens her eyes just in time to see Ryou frown, roll his shoulder and raise his eyebrows.
"Strange," he mumbles. "I could have sworn..."
She strains her ears to hear more, but he's already moving again. Amane hesitates, wondering what to do, but her curiosity gets the better of her and she runs into the graveyard to see whom the flowers had been for.
The stone slab has the name 'Rebecca Hawkins' carved into it. Below it is a set of dates: July 15th, 2008 - November 10th, 2012.
The girl had been four years old.
But as she wandered back home, Amane had to wonder why Ryou had been laying flowers on that grave. She had died in the year before they had moved her, so it wasn't like they had known each other. Right?
The phantom goes into hiding again a year later, just after taking his SATs. She doesn't understand why because there was no news going around school about anything he had done or anything that had been done to him. She doesn't know who caused it to happen, but she knows when it started.
It's hard to explain because she knows that Ryou didn't walk through the front door after the test (she had secretly waited for him to poke at his cold exterior and find out how well he did). However, when she gives up and walks up the stairs to have a shower, it happens again. It's pain-that-isn't that feels right but doesn't at the same time. She thinks of running water from the shower she has yet to take and of the ocean she flew over on the plane over.
There's a thump inside the phantom's room, like he leapt onto his bed. And then there is a yelp of horror. Then everything goes silent.
What the hell is going on?
Amane frowns but doesn't question it. What can she say? That she's seeing things? No freaking way that there is any way that anyone will believe her.
But that's the start of it. It is also the end of it all because the next time that she sees him he is no longer the phantom. He smirks, powerful and strong, with an entirely straight backbone that just proves to her even more that the ghost is dead and something else is walking in his place.
But this is something completely different.
His whole being screams with confidence as he says that some guy named Moto wanted him to go to some preppy college school, completely passing over her. Amane yells at him to go and fuck himself because who does he think he is? He's failing in almost all of the subjects that he's taking. What do they want with him?
But Ryou's smile only gets wider as she stomps on her old iPad out of revenge. She can't believe this. What the hell is going on?
But the phantom, like the ghost is gone. The phantom has shed his black shawls and stepped out into the light. He burns her with his confidence, his lack of anger, and his whole existence. She can't take it.
But the phantom is dead. And now she doesn't know what to do; what to make of this new Ryou. She hates it and she wishes that he would go away.
He does. For two weeks.
He doesn't comes back the same. He returns a free spirit; different from anything she's ever seen before in him.
Who in the world is this new man? She doesn't know.
Hello!
I'd like to thank the people who reviewed for the last chapter: Malik'sStalker, Coolaloo, heartsneverfall, and oliva.
So we've finally caught up with The First Year's timeline. We've also got a bit of insight into some of Amane's Abnormal powers - namely, the headaches that she suffers from. What are they, I wonder?
Also, I'd like to apologize about the delay on this chapter, as well as any other delays I may have in the near future. My family is moving to a different city and things are really chaotic around the house right now. I've barely had any chance to relax, let alone write. It doesn't help that I'm going off to university this year, so its like a double move. So, if you don't hear from me for a while, that's what's going on.
If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, drop me a line on my forum, write a comment, or send me a PM.
Until then,
AlcatrazOutpatient
