His ears perk up at the sound of windchimes, pools of cobalt staring more into the object than at it.
Remembering a superstition his step-father believed in, a scowl shapes Shinn's lips, fists clenched while memories of his mother slowly fill his mind.
His mother loved hanging windchimes around their hell of a home - between doorways, above windows, and near closets just out of reach from fan blades but not from the winds, - and he never understood why.
He never understood the smiles given to the cadence of the chimes, never heard the sweetness of the rhythms in the winds, never even believed his mother's words when she told him that windchimes attract spirits allowing entrance into another world - one that holds secrets he never knew he wanted to know.
Windchimes attract spirits. He scoffs at the thought, remembering a superstition his step-father believed in.
Windchimes attract spirits, and when naughty spirits visit, the leave you with bruises and scratches.
A hand reaches up to cover the calloused surface of his scars - they appeared only after his mother remarried.
Because windchimes don't attract spirits that reveal secrets, nor ones that leave mere bruises and scratches, they attract ghosts (that never cease to haunt him) and demons (that never stop scaring him) and devils (that seem more daunting than Lucifer himself).
And all he wanted, was to save himself; all he wanted…
Was to see his mother smile in authenticity - the way she did at those windchimes, the way she always would before his father passed away. Not the way her grieving lips forced themselves upward before Shinn took his own life, he never found out how they curved after that.
He was being selfish; he knew - he knows. All he wanted was to smile in authenticity, the way his mother did at those windchimes, the way she always would before his father passed away.
A/N: I don't own Angel Beats.
