A/N: I would like to thank BitterSweet27, lindajrjt, loritakitochan, and dishrag-chan for their lovely reviews. I should probably explain that this story has no curse in it, and it takes place in Canada, more specifically Alberta. This might be kind of weird, but it's somewhere I actually know about. As a warning, I should mention that this chapter contains homophobia, insensitive remarks, and possibly triggering material. Sorry… I just couldn't think of another way to show characterization and forward the plot that was realistic.

The chapter title comes from a song by The Dresden Dolls.

Deconstruction
III: Good Day

Akito

The only other students in the library seem to be there for the computers. Rows of students staring intensely at rows of whirring, clicking machines. The library's only other occupant is the librarian, a middle-aged woman with extremely short hair. Nobody pays me any attention, and I find this calming after my experiences this morning.

I look through the books, taking as much time as possible. It's not like I have anything else to do before my next classes – athletic advancement and chemistry. Chemistry I have no problem with, but the word "athletic" sets off a red flag. Maybe I'll talk to the teacher and see if I can get transferred out. For now, I'd rather not think about it.

I move deeper into the library, away from the new arrivals and towards the old, plain books that have probably not been checked out in years. I run my fingers over their cracked spines as I walk, making trails in the layers of acquired dust. I pick up a book entitled Chemistry, but put it back when I realize the yellowed pages are filled with poetry. Not my thing.

A group of teenagers I hadn't noticed before have congregated amongst the back shelves and are talking in hushed voices. With jagged, uneven haircuts, all black clothes, and looks of disinterest, they remind me of Nikki's friends. The way the librarian gives them warning glances whenever she walks past strengthens the resemblance. I briefly entertain the notion of going up and introducing myself to them. Hey guys, what's up? The urge passes, of course.

I decide on a book about photography, not sure why or even if I will bother to read it through. It just feels like since I came here I should get something out of it.

"Student ID card?" says the librarian, in a tone that implies I should have already known to have it out.

"I don't know if I have one. I'm new here."

Her manner doesn't soften. "It will be in the student information booklet they gave you when you arrived."

I have that in my backpack. As I search for it, she taps her fingers on her desk, like I'm wasting her precious time, even though there's no one in line behind me. I manage to find it, making sure to flash my most irritating smile as I hand it to her.

She (grudgingly) runs it through the machine, then hands it back to me along with the photography book. I glance at the card as I walk away. There's a picture of my face on it. The lighting does no good for my pale skin, giving me a greenish tinge. My black hair pretty much covers my eyes, and my expression is very serious. Written beside the picture is the name of the school and my birth date, just over 17 years ago. Beneath that, there's one more line of text.

"AKITO SOHMA, GENDER: F"

F. Like a failing grade.

I put the card deep in one of the hidden pockets of my jeans, closing the zipper all the way and hoping I'll never have to undo it.

The librarian hadn't given me any strange looks that I'd noticed – she was pissed off, but she wasn't weirded out. So either I looked like a girl to her, or she hadn't bothered to check the card. Thinking back, she hadn't looked at it for long, just swiped it through. But there's nothing to ensure that she'll be as careless next time, or that the other librarians won't pay more attention. I decide that from now on, I'll get books from the public library.

-/-/-/-

I kissed her. She pulled away.

She looked over her shoulder like she was worried someone would see us. The halls were empty, obviously. We were supposed to be in class. "Akito, I can't keep doing this." She looked like she was about to cry.

At first I wasn't sure what she meant. Kissing in the halls? Skipping class? Neither sounded like things she'd worry about. She didn't care about rules.

It hit me. Hard. Like someone had punched me in the stomach. She wanted us to break up. "Why?" I said. It was hard to talk, like the air got stuck in my throat.

"Akito, you're wonderful." She wrapped her arms around me, but it wasn't affectionate. It felt like she needed something to hold her up. "My parents… they'd disown me if they found out. They're old fashioned, they don't understand… this."

"Why does it matter what they think? You're always complaining about them, anyway." My voice sounded angry to me. Did I feel angry? More like the floor had been yanked out from under me.

"But they're myparents. I live with them, and every time I see them now, it feels like I'm lying." She is crying now. "It scares me so much. And if we stop now… it will be easier. It we… this… if it goes any farther, it will hurt too much. I'm 15. I'm not ready for anything serious like that."

This was worse than being punched. This was being stabbed. Repeatedly. By then I'd caught up with the anger in my voice. What we'd had didn't qualify as serious? Then what the hell did she think it was? A joke? Practice for when she met a guy?

I pushed her away. Black make-up was running down her face.

"Akito-"

"No! I don't want to talk to you, and I don't want you to touch me! I can't even stand to look at you!" I was probably shouting, but the weird thing was I couldn't tell. It was like my ears were blocked, or I was yelling into a vacuum and there was nothing to carry my voice to my ears. But I know that's what I said. I could feel the words from my lips to deep in my chest, as though they'd burned me when I let them out.

Even though I'd quickly turned away from her, Nikki's stricken expression was vivid in my mind's eye. For some reason this pissed me off.

She might have called something after me. I don't know. I was too angry to hear. I know she didn't run after me as I walked out of the school. She probably didn't see that as soon as the door shut behind me, I took off running.

I wasn't athletic, but I ran for a long time, as fast as I could. I was on a paved trail, and most of the snow on the ground had been hammered into thick, white-grey ice sheets by countless footsteps. I would have been cold if I wasn't running so hard. All my skin went kind of numb. The sky was the same colour as the dirty snow. There weren't many other people on the trail, which must have been since it was still school and work hours. The people that were out didn't pay me much attention.

At one point I slid on the ice and slammed into the asphalt. I ripped my jeans, and my knee was bleeding a lot. It was bright, bright red and felt warm. That's all I noticed about it. Then the world tilted and I vomited onto the snow.

When I stood up, I was really shaky, but after a few steps I started running again.

It was getting dark when I finally stopped. I was at the outskirts of the town, and it seemed an anticlimax. The road stopped being paved, and then it merged into grass, which merged into fields. And then those abruptly ended, cleanly cut off by the road. If I walked through the fields, I would no longer be in my hometown. But that didn't mean much. I suddenly realized I hadn't been just running to nowhere in particular, nor had I been looking for the edge of the town. I was looking for the edge of the world.

If I had been there, right at that moment, at the edge of the world, I probably would have jumped off, just for the possibility of landing in another place where everything was different.

I turned around and ran all the way back home. When I got there, That Woman was already asleep, but I put my desk in front of my door so that she couldn't get in if she woke up. I collapsed on my bed. I was shaking uncontrollably. If I hadn't been so tired, I probably wouldn't have fallen asleep. But I was tired, and I was unconscious almost instantly, still in the clothes I'd worn all day, feeling dirty.

-/-/-/-

Yuki

Kyo is waiting outside the door to the gymnasium when I get there. As per usual, he looks angry. I try to ignore him and get to class, but he steps in front of my path. "What's up, goth-boy?"

I hate that nickname. If he was just insulting me, I could brush it off, but he's not. The name has more to do with whom I spend my time with than my own personal style.

"Will you move?"

"What gives you the right to tell me what to do?"

That's Kyo logic. I've given up trying to make sense of it. "Fine. What do you want?"

He continues to glare at me. "I want you to call off your friends." My surprise must show, because he says, "Or do they not bother to tell you about what they get up to?"

I truly have no idea what he's talking about, but somehow the way he phrased that prevents me from saying so. "I'll talk to them," I say.

"You better." But his posture relaxes, and he moves out of my way. "And oh," he calls back behind him, "tell your new emo to stay away from Tohru."

"My new what?"

"That new kid, the skinny one with the black hair and black clothes. Looks like one of your crowd." And then he's gone, disappeared down the halls.

Nothing ever comes out of a conversation with Kyo that isn't completely nonsensical.

I head down the flight of stairs to the locker room and quickly change into my gym clothes. When I get back to the gym, I'm relieved to see I'm not late. Or at least, other people are taking longer than I am and the Ms. Shiraki doesn't seem to mind. She's talking to a student I've never seen before.

Is this the person Kyo had been ranting about? He – I think they're a boy, although I'm not completely sure. It doesn't really make much of a difference to me – fits the description well. Jet black hair that is neither short nor long, pale and noticeably underweight. Black shirt, black jeans, black hoodie.

Kyo said this person was new. Maybe he'd be joining our class. This strikes me as odd – he doesn't really look like the athletic type.

Then again, I remind myself, neither do you.

Akito

"You must be the new student."

"Yes. I am Akito Sohma."

"I'm Ms. Shiraki. So, why did you sign up for athletic advancement?"

I didn't. I am not in the least an athletic person, and I'm sure it shows. "I think I just got put in it."

She nods. "Well, if you have the right attitude, you can get a lot out of this class. It's designed for athletes who are willing to work hard to bring up their level of performance."

The right attitude. Great. I'm guessing that not caring at all about sports is the wrong attitude. I am willing to work hard. Unfortunately, my idea of working hard is a few minutes of slow jogging. Anything past that isn't hard. It's impossible. The only thing I want to get out of this class is a passing grade. And to survive.

She assigns me a locker number and writes down a combination that in all likelihood I'll never look at again. I put it in my pocket with the ID card. Since you didn't know to bring a change of clothes, she says, you can sit on the stage and watch everyone run around.

It's really boring. I take out the photography book within a few minutes of sitting down. The book is more interesting than I thought it would be. A bright red and blue and grey picture of water droplets splashing up as a car runs through a puddle. A teenage couple holding hands reflected in the surface of a very shiny building. A kite flying in a cloudless sky, a bright yellow field of canola in the foreground. Ordinary moments with perfect timing. I wonder if, to a photographer, the world always looks this sharp and vibrant.

I doubt it.

"What book is that?"

I look up, and my eyes meet the startlingly red ones of a boy my own age. There's something familiar about him – after a moment, I place him as one of the black-clad teenagers from the library. He's still wearing a black shirt, but he's exchanged the rest of his outfit for running shoes and a pair of shorts the same colour as his eyes. Despite grey-purple hair with a streak of violet in his long bangs, I wouldn't have thought of him as part of that group just by looking at him, here by himself.

I must be staring, because he points at his ruby eyes. "Contacts. They're naturally grey."

"Why are you talking to me?"

He shrugs, not seeming at all put off by my words. "You looked lonely. I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself. I'm Yuki."

"Akito. It's a book about photography."

"Interesting?"

"Sort of."

He climbs up on the stage and sits down next to me. Too close in my opinion.

"Why aren't you running?" I say.

"It's my turn to rest. Only one person from a group sprints at a time."

As I look around, I see that he's telling the truth. Three quarters of the students are stretching or standing around talking as a few run the circuit at a breakneck pace. Feeling supremely idiotic, I say, "Do you know if we can transfer out of classes?"

He looks thoughtful. "I think you could go to administration about it, but it would probably take a while to sort it all out. Halfway through your first athad class and you already hate it that much?"

"My first what?"

"Athad – athletic advancement."

"Oh. It's not really my kind of class."

"So what is?"

Actually? I realize I have no idea, so I say, "Other stuff."

"It's not usually like this, you know – the sprinting. Usually it's more laid back, like games and stuff."

"Why do you care whether I stay in this class or not?"

He shrugs again. "I don't know, I just think you should give it a chance."

I look away from him and back at the sprinters. I've decided he annoys me.

His turn comes to run again and he jumps down from the stage. He doesn't come back to talk after that.

-/-/-/-

The first few days after we'd broken up (read: she dumped me with no warning) Nikki completely avoided me. If she saw me in the halls, she'd go quiet and stare at the ground, then take the quickest path out of sight. I couldn't blame her for that, after the way I'd reacted. I honestly don't know if I was more hurt by her avoidance than I would have been if she acted differently. Just being in the same building with her, or the same world, knowing who she'd been to me and that things were never going to be the same anymore felt like too much to handle. A part of me was gone.

When she worked up the courage to start talking to me again, it was my turn to brush her off. We'd have pointless, Hi, how are you? conversations when we saw each other. We (or at least, I) would lie, Fine. And then we'd go our separate ways.

Slowly, things got better. Sort of. After a few weeks, I knew that I had once lived without her in my life, and I could go back to doing that. I'd be okay, right?

I was in my room reading when That Woman started pounding on the door. The whole room seemed to shake.

"Akito! Open up!"

I kept quiet, even trying to slow my breathing down. When I got scared, even before I realized it, I tended to start hyperventilating. I always felt pathetic about the fact that I had barely any control over it.

She continued to slam on the door, but my desk held in place. She kept on shouting things, and I did my best not to hear them.

"Open up NOW, or you're never getting out!" Suddenly the pounding stopped.

I wished that Hatori were around, to take me out of the house. His high school was having some sort of break for the week, and he was using the time to go out of town and see different universities that were supposed to be good for studying medicine.

The pounding didn't resume. Gradually, my breathing became effortless again.

A few hours passed. I suddenly couldn't see the words I was trying to read. How did it get dark so fast? As I stood up to turn on the light, I almost fell over as a rush of dizziness hit me. I'd skipped breakfast that day, and I almost never ate lunch. And since I'd locked myself in my room the second I got home…

I hadn't eaten since breakfast yesterday.

It was really no reason to panic. I'd gone way longer before. My stomach didn't even hurt, not badly anyway. Since I hadn't eaten breakfast, my metabolism hadn't fully started up, and I knew that as soon as I got a taste of anything, my body would suddenly realize how hungry I was. I would hurt, and I would binge on everything around me even if it was food I usually hated, and then I would only end up making myself sick and feeling disgusting.

So I tried to go to sleep. But now I couldn't stop thinking about food. I'd be kind of half asleep, in between thoughts and dreams, and I'd start to imagine I was eating and then I'd realize I wasn't and then I'd jolt to being completely awake again. Since I had no sense of time in that state, I don't know what time it was when I finally decided to just give in and go to the kitchen. I'd just eat one bowl of cereal, and clean everything up perfectly so That Woman had no idea. Of course, I wouldn't stop at one bowl. But that's what I told myself I would do, and if I hadn't managed to convince myself on some level that it was true, I never would have gotten up to leave the room.

I moved the desk slowly, careful not to make a sound. If I woke her up, I was screwed. I turned the doorknob and pulled…

And nothing happened. Something was resisting me, pulling back on the door so it didn't move. I gave a hard yank, and the door budged maybe a couple centimeters, but then snapped right back.

By now I was freaked out. Was she actually going to just leave me in here? Would I actually starve to death? If I had to, I could break my window, jump down onto the lawn and go…

Where? I don't think I could even have survived the fall, and the glass would cut me all over and I'd be bleeding and by bones would be broken and and and and -

I hadn't realized, but I was still pulling on the door. I wasn't even being quiet anymore; I was slamming it back and forth, almost ripping it from its hinges.

And then it opened. That Woman stood right in front of me, holding one end of a piece of rope in her hands. The other end was tied to the doorknob of the washroom, across from my own room. That's how she'd locked me in. She'd tied the doorknobs together.

"Now we're going to talk," she says. I walk past her into the kitchen and run a glass of water from the tap, listening to the sounds the water made as it traveled through the pipes. "Akito, I've been hearing some things about you from the other parents. I need you to tell me they're not true."

Her referring to herself as a parent was a joke and a half. Even though she was my mother, it wasn't like she did any actual parenting. She was just a crazy person who happened to live in the same house as I did. I switched the tap off and brought the glass to my lips. The water was cold and carried the faint, familiar taste of the chemicals used to purify it.

"Akito!" she said sharply.

"What?"

"They say you've been associating with that delinquent lesbian crowd. Tell me it isn't true." She says the words like they taste bad to her. The same tone as she'd use if she was telling me, "They say you've been skipping school to set fire to the elderly." I wondered where she'd gotten her 'information' from. It wasn't even accurate. Nikki said she was bisexual, and I think a few other people were too – it was hard to tell who was joking and who wasn't, but it didn't really seem that important to us to put ourselves in those terms. In any case, calling us the "delinquent lesbian crowd" was retarded.

"Akito. Tell me it isn't true!"

"Why does it matter to you?" I set my empty glass down hard on the counter. "It's not like you care about anything else in my life!"

She picked something up off the uncleared table and threw it at me. I ducked just milliseconds before it hit the wall behind me and exploded into tiny fragments. It had been a plate. I reminded myself to be careful on my way out not to step on the shards all over the floor. "I want you to stop seeing these friends of yours. People are going to start making assumptions about you." Shows how little she knew about my life. People already made assumptions, and had been doing so for years. "Do you want people to think that you're like that?"

Like that. Other. What a stupid way to classify people. Two categories. Either you're Like Us or Like That.

"And what if they do?" I challenge.

She slapped me, and this time she didn't miss. My cheek stung like it was on fire, and the sound and feeling of the hit echoed in my head. "Your father would be so ashamed of you," she said. Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

I pushed her away from me with all my strength. She crashed down to the floor, cursing. She yelled after me as I ran to the door. I stepped half-into my shoes, and was out, running blindly through the dim glow emanating from the streetlights, my shoes nearly falling off. When I felt like I was far away, I stopped. I fell onto a bench, fixed my runners, and considered my situation.

I couldn't go back there. But where else could I go? The sun would be up soon, and then I'd just be some girl in the park, dressed in an oversized shirt and boxers and running shoes. I wasn't even wearing a bra. I was just some stupid fourteen-year-old runaway who hadn't even planned it out enough to change into appropriate, non-conspicuous day clothes. And if I stayed out here, she was going to find me, or they'd send me back to her. Even Hatori's parents would agree that I should me with my mother. There was only one other place I could even consider going.

And that's how I ended up standing outside in my pajamas at four A.M., ringing the doorbell to my ex-girlfriend's house.

-/-/-/-

At least chemistry class is straightforward. We take notes the entire time, and no one even tries to talk to me. Yuki is there too, but he's across the room and completely mesmerized by the music coming out of his headphones – not earbuds, but actual big, old-fashioned headphones – and doesn't even look at me. After school, I take the bus back to my apartment and give Hatori a call. We don't talk long, but I let him know things are fine, just because he worries too much about me. I listen to the radio for half an hour before walking to work. All in all, the day has been okay so far. It will be nice to get back into the routine of school. I don't know why it brought back so many memories I had been working on repressing, but I'm hoping that will stop. Athletic advancement and annoying art teachers aside, I seem to have pretty good classes.

Things aren't very busy at the mall, at least not relative to the other days I've worked here. That makes sense, considering it's a school day. I see quite a few people I recognize, although no one I talked to, which makes sense considering I really only talked to maybe three people excluding teachers. At the bubble tea place, there's quite a bit of time between customers. I don't talk with my coworkers except to forward orders or help them with the machines, but that's normal. They talk to each other about school and their social lives, but I don't join in, except to glare at Sean or Shane or whatever the long-haired guy's name is when he refers to one of his classmates as a fag. He looks embarrassed and apologizes. I notice him correcting himself mid-word when he starts to make similar remarks. Ga- la- lame. Dy – ork – dork.

"Hey. Can we please get two mango bubble teas?" says a pleasantly aloof male voice that I would expect to belong to a hippie. I turn to see the customer. He's a couple years older than me, with green eyes behind blue square-framed glasses, light blond hair down to his shoulders, and a goatee the same shade. His clothing is an odd mix of very expensive and made-it-myself; a pink dress shirt over a white t-shirt that he seems to have drawn a large tic-tac-toe board and played a game on in permanent marker. A shell necklace completes the look.

Since there are all kinds of people dressed far more oddly at the mall, I probably would have forgotten him if I hadn't looked down to see the girl standing beside him. More specifically, holding hands with him.

"Tohru…" I say. I don't know what I was intending to say after that, or if I even intended to say it out loud, so I trail off.

"Oh! Hi, Akito!" she says. "Akito, this is my friend Daniel." Friend? That's a good sign, right? Is it normal for people who are just friends to hold hands?

"How's it going, man?" says Daniel.

"Okay," I say as he starts shaking my hand.

"Only okay?" He looks concerned.

"I'm well," I add, breaking off the handshake that he seems to intend to go on forever. I would probably say something rude to him if Tohru weren't right there.

"Do you want to come hang out with us when you're done work?" says Tohru.

Really? Of course I do. I hardly know her, but I want to know more. "Sure," I say. "I'm actually finished in a few minutes."

"We'll just be over at that table," says Daniel, pointing to an empty one nearby. Tohru and him thank me as I hand them their bubble teas, and they walk over there, still holding hands.

"What was that about?" asks the girl who looks too young to work here.

"What?" I say.

She smiles conspiratorially. "Your shift doesn't end for over an hour and a half."

"I've been working here for a week yesterday, and we get a fifteen minute break each day. Since I've always worked through my breaks, I've got one hour and 45 minutes of break time counting today's that I haven't used. So I'm using it now."

She laughs. "That's clever, but I doubt the manager is going to accept that logic."

"Then you don't have to tell her. It's not like she comes and checks on us, and besides, it's not busy enough now that we require three people."

"Okay, but if she asks I'm not going to lie for you."

"You won't have to – I doubt she'll chose today to come check, after never doing so previously."

"She must be special to you. That girl, not the manager."

"It's really none of your business."

"Okay, point taken. Have fun on your date!"

I decide not to respond to that.

As I join Tohru at the table, I notice Daniel isn't there anymore. "He went to get food," says Tohru when I ask. "He didn't want to leave me here, but I managed to convince him I can handle myself for a few minutes. And you're here too now, so I'm not alone, am I?" She smiles, and I feel my face start to go red. All the white noise and excitement around us fades out, and all I am aware of is us.

"He seems really protective of you."

"Yeah, he's like that. He's actually really protective of everyone, but me especially. I don't think it's even because of the vision thing, just that I'm the youngest and he thinks he has to protect me."

The youngest? She can't mean siblings – she's Japanese and he's Caucasian. Unless they're adopted. And what does she mean by vision thing? She wears glasses, but that's not a big deal. "What do you mean?" I ask. That seems like the safest thing to say. My heart is beating really fast. This is the first real conversation we've had.

"In our friend group. Except for Kyo, all my friends have graduated, and I don't really see Kyo outside of school." She suddenly looks a bit sad, but she brightens quickly. "Or did you mean what I meant by vision thing?"

"Both, kind of," I admit.

"I'm blind."

This throws me, because she's obviously looking at me. I notice for the first time that her eyes flick back and forth a lot, but still, I can tell she's seeingme. Why would she wear glasses if they didn't do her any good?

"Oh, sorry. I should explain that I meant legally, not completely."

"Oh."

"Aren't you going to ask me what it's like?"

"I wasn't sure if I should. You probably get people asking annoying questions all the time."

"Sometimes. But as long as it's not 'how many fingers am I holding up', I don't usually mind."

"Okay. Um… how far can you see?"

"Pretty far. Things just get blurry quickly. Like, I can walk home fine. Daniel insists on leading me around in here since it's so busy, but I could probably do it myself if I had to – don't tell him I said that."

That was why they were holding hands. And that explained the dog in the restaurant. How had I not put these things together?

"What do I look like to you?" I don't know why I say this.

"Hmm." She leans in closer. I'm all too aware of how close she is now. If I just moved my face forward a bit, I could kiss her. My face goes redder, and I hope she doesn't notice. "I can see you really well from here. Perfectly, I think, although I don't know what perfect seeing is. This is perfect for me." She sits back down. "From here, I can tell that you have dark hair. And you're wearing black, and you have really pretty eyes."

I laugh. I can't help it. "Your eyesight must be really bad." It's the stupidest thing possible I could have said. I seem to say a lot of brain-dead things when she's around. This is not a good pattern. She should be offended, but she laughs.

"No, really! You do. Sorry, was that rude of me to say?"

"No, of course not, why would it be rude?"

"I just met you, and I didn't mean to say anything out of line."

"I'm just not used to people saying stuff like that to me."

"You two seem to be getting on well," says Daniel, sitting down on either side of us and setting down a tray of Chinese food. I don't know whether to be grateful or annoyed by his arrival, but as we start talking, I realize I don't really mind him. This surprises me.