"Please don't tell anyone."
"Ichigo" looked at her in confusion. "About the crying? Of course I won't tell any-
"I mean about what you and I know idiot. I don't want dad or yuzu to know about you."
Karin briefly looked down, enough to not notice "Ichigo's" very short wincing.
"Oh and If you tell anybody I cried, I'll kick you in the balls."
"Ichigo" suddenly let out a high pitich groan.
Karin was silent after that. And for the first time in what felt like forever, the imposter was silent as well.
For a while.
She thought he got the message. But she was wrong. He was now trying to cheer her up with stories of his exploits with Ichigo and his friends, apparently including a princess of some valley (Karin thought she saw a large blush appear on his face, and when later asked why, the imposter paled and covered his mouth in shock, stuttering as he changed the subject.) The rain was almost deafening however, and drowned out his words as the drops splattered on the streets and sidewalk. At one point she had enough and stopped and glared at him in response.
He was silent thereafter.
That didn't make the walk home any more enjoyable though. They didn't think to bring an umbrella, so they were forced to quicken up their pace as much as possible and sprint from street to street with only the light of the cars and lamps to guide them through the darkened town. Karin realized that without "Ichigo" to bother her, she now had no distractions from her thought's and of those led to nothing but memories that hurt almost as much as their mom's…
As her Mom's death.
These were the kind of memories you hide deep inside you. The kind that define you and change you forever. The kind she needed put behind a wall out of necessity.
The kind…
The kind that felt like poisoned daggers being struck into the recesses of her brain, opening them to the light for all to see, forever tainting the happy memories with their distressing implications.
And just to think that it had taken her so long for to see the truth.
.
.
.
Karin was alone playing on her Playstation 2. She was playing alone due to Ichigo being busy, her dad always being a complete jackass whenever he joined in and Yuzu being perpetually scared of video games due to watching her play Silent Hill.
The trouble started with a headache.
It started with just a little ache behind her eyes. As she rubbed her eye's the ache turned into pain, and the pain then turned into agony, as she fell to the floor in pain. For a frightful few seconds, she thought she was having an aneurysm, but the familiar sensation soon had her fearing more then that.
Some kind of invisible force was forcing her to ground, it's very presence in the air was suffocating her, and strangling any movement. It was like there was an invisible man holding her down and punching her brain.
Though she couldn't see them, she heard the sound of all the glass in the house cracking, and then shattering, spraying tiny shards in all directions
"Nee Chan!"
Karin heard Yuzu yell in pain, so in spite of the pressure she stood up and rushed into the living room as fast as her legs could carry her. No matter how much she was trying to will her way to her sister, whatever force they had felt was slowly holding her back, winding her in the process, slowing her down to a crawl, and making her heart beat out of her chest in spite of everything.
Finally, she made it into the living room. The usually immaculate house was now an absolute mess. Windows had shattered, the lights had gone out…
…and Yuzu lied on the floor bleeding and crying. She was covered in little cuts and scrapes, and tucked into a little ball.
"Yuzu!"
Karin tried running to her aid, but fell on her hand's and knee's for all her trouble. The broken glass splintered even more as she cut her herself on the pieces of window, groaning in response from the sudden pain.
"Yu... Zu!" Karin grimaced as she struggled to get up. Thousands of questions ran though her mind in those precious few seconds. But one question was on the top of the top of all others.
Where was dad and Ichigo?
.
.
.
"Karin? We're home."
Karin looked and saw that he was right. Somehow she been so deep in thought, she hadn't even noticed the rest of the walk home. She also saw that he had put his jacket on her, and Karin was suddenly reminded of those weird romantic movies that Yuzu sometimes watched, where the one creep always tries to be romantic by giving his dumb girlfriend his jacket, as if that wasn't already the right thing to do.
Understandably she suddenly was very grossed out. However, since she was wet from her hair done to her feet, she decided to just bear with it.
As "Ichigo" opened the door, a large, white, annoying, and very obnoxious blur came doing a flying front kick out of the house, and unto his chest, sending "Ichigo" flying from the empty gray lawn, and into the front street.
"That's for getting your sister home late!" Dad roared, his childishly, cartoonish, over macho personality showing itself. "My poor sweet defenseless little Karin could been-
Great.
Dad was acting like a little kid again. It, reminded her of a gorilla beating its chest.
So while he was distracted, Karin didn't wait for an opportunity to punch him in the face.
"How's that for defenseless?" Karin shot back as he fell flat on his face.
"Ughhh…"
At that moment "Ichigo" got up cradling his stomach, with a look of destruction in his face.
"What… The Hell!" He clearly had wind knocked out of him. And a few bruises, plus a possible concussion, but other than that it seemed that by the way he looked, his ego was the most hurt.
Suddenly, dad came back up with his entire face covered in muck, already reinvigorated, and more than ready to continue to act like a fool.
"Such Language!" Isshin sprinted at "Ichigo", shortening the distance with a few flips to get over the fence, and jump "Ichigo". But the imposter was ready, kicking him through the fence, causing damage that they couldn't afford.
It reminded her of the old fights, between her brother and dad. Ichigo would always win. But now dad would actually win most of the time.
She had enough. Instead of continuing to watch the brawl on the street, she scowled, turned away, walked inside the bright house, and slammed the door shut.
"Nee san?"
Yuzu came into the room, with a concerned look on her face. She always was the most sensitive and caring member of the household, always caring for other people instead of herself.
"All you alright nee san? Is onii san and otou san fighting again?"
"Nee sa..." Karin said to herself.
Briefly, she wanted to tell Yuzu the truth about their "brother".
How she was an idiot.
How he was deceiving her
How all that new attention was not from her brother, but from a Parasite leeching off her family.
But all that quickly passed, when she realized how much it would hurt her. She had more than enough of that and didn't need to start spreading it to someone else.
So instead, Karin forced a smile, and nodded. "Yes, Yuzu I'm just a little bit sick. I think I'm going to go lay down." At the very least she wasn't lying there.
Yuzu still wasn't convinced. "Are you sure? Without dinner?"
"Yes Yuzu I'm sure."
Yuzu smiled. Okay, I'll save you some of it for tomorrow!"
Karin then went up the stairs to her room, and all the emotions she kept held in exploded all at once.
It wasn't fair. Why did Ichigo have to die? Why didn't he listen to her? She nearly punched the wall, but instead went to her bed and found a pillow instead.
But she realized that she could scream, fight, and even cry, it still didn't change anything,
Her brother was gone, replaced by some body snatching pervert who couldn't win a fight against a one legged cat much less her dad.
The worst part was that she couldn't tell anybody. What if because of her, they get killed as well?
Worse yet, she was making her family worry enough. She was failing in her promise. And after this revelation dawned on her, nothing could stop the tears.
She covered herself in her green blanket, and fell asleep with the lights on, barely noticing the arrival and sudden disappearance of a few of the evil spirits.
Author's Notes:
Yeah I've changed the format of the notes. From now on they will only be done here. So would do you guy's think? Did I get all the emotions right? Anyway if you want to see my see my deviant art page go check it out! I've got a bunch of my drawings… And something else planned.
Wink Wink. (;
Thank you all for the constant patience and your continued viewership! It really is awesome how far I came and I couldn't do it without all of you! And thanks to Abei34 for his continued support.