HI! I started working on this chapter pretty soon after I updated chapter 3! Told you I would update faster! But my mom is making me write this reflection on my trip to china so fan fictions might be delayed… TT_TT
I KEEP FORGETTING TO DO THE DISCLAIMER!!!!!! TT^TT so here's a master disclaimer for all my chappies:
I own Monochrome Factor. Yeah right. NOT. If I did I wouldn't be writing FanFictions!
-Recap-
The reason why I'm kind of nervous around that Nikaidou Akira dude is because he looks identical to the brunette who rescued me a couple years ago.
Chapter 4
-Akira POV-
Who exactly is Iruyama Hikari? Why does she look so familiar to me too? My thoughts, once on this train of thought, were impossible to stop. The question of why she looked so familiar to me was a mystery, but that was enough to get me thinking of a few years ago when I was about twelve or so and I met this really mysterious girl-or cat-girl I should say.
~rewind in time to when Aki was twelve~
Dammit! Why do those guys always chase me? They're like what, fourteen or fifteen and I'm twelve! The most I ever expect are the kids from my grades but that's to be expected if you're a delinquent. Running and running, I'm wearing down pretty quickly. I never had much stamina to begin with. Why I'm running instead of fighting though is because I can't take down three teenagers yet. I'm just not that strong or heavy enough.
I ended up near Kou-nii's place. There's this abandoned building right next to me with its front door right there inviting me to come in. I knew the rumors about the place, how it used to be this mad scientist lab with human used as genetic experiments. Some crazy people even say that you can still hear the screams of the experiments.
Anyway I ran in; anything to escape those freaks pursing me. I hear shallow breathing around me coming from these dungeon chamber things lined up in the walls. Of course, being mildly curious, I peered into the first one, which actually resembled a fish tank, glass wall and everything; even including the gravel at the bottom of the tank!
Then a shadowy shape swam up to the glass and made me jump back but I smartly kept my mouth shut. What was in front of me was this…fish person. Not mermaid. Fish person. It still had the vague shape of a human body but the hands and feet were webbed and looked a lot like a frog's. There was this webbed crest on the thing's head. The skin was covered in scales and it had a TAIL. On its back was this huge fin and same thing on his waist, there were these fins. It was probably a he since it was wearing trunks.
I walked to the next dungeon and saw a dude with hamster ears and that short stubby tail. There was even a thin layer of fur on him! Feeling more than disturbed, I walked to the next cage and saw this half dragon half human thing too. Hurrying on to the next cage, I was immediate attacked by this blur.
I jumped back and noticed that it was a girl with cat ears and a tail and was restrained by a leash so she couldn't even reach me if she tried. She was about my age and very pretty but her face and arms were covered in cuts and scratches. I left after I observed that because, well, I was really disturbed and wanted to get back home.
I found myself going back to that lab-the rumors were apparently true except the lab still existed- and visiting the cat-girl whose name was Hikari. She could speak but she was clearly out of practice. Eventually she warmed up to me and started smiling. I was glad to get her happy again and finally got her out of that hellhole but she ran straight out the door and I never really saw her again after that.
She actually looks a lot like Iruyama Hikari though.
~at school the next day~
"Hey Iruyama-san, by any chance do you know a brown-haired boy?" I asked. She looked up in shock.
"H-how did you know that?" she stammered out.
"Dunno. Met a girl that looked a lot like you when I was twelve," I replied.
"Uh-huh."
"Do you mind coming to my house after school to talk some more?" I asked.
"Sure. I have to tell my dad first though," she agreed to my relief.
"Okay, meet me at the front gate then."
~after school~
"Hey," Hikari said.
"Alright, now we can go," I muttered. We walked off receiving many stares but I ignored them all.
~at aki's house~
"So who was this brown-haired boy that you met in the past?" I immediately
demanded.
"He was identical to you, about twelve years old," was her abrupt reply. This took me by surprise because I only knew one girl who looked like her and with a guy that looked like me.
"Well I met a girl that looked like you about the same time period," I said to her. This seemed to take her by surprise too.
"Okay this is kind of creepy because we both have seen kids that look similar to each other around the same age too," Hikari noted.
"Yeah you're right. You're most likely to think that I'm crazy when I ask you this, but by any chance do you have any relation with cats?" I hesitantly asked. Iruyama-san's golden cat-like eyes narrowed as she stared at me with this piercing glare.
"Y-yeah…What of it?" she tartly said.
"Okay, you're definitely going to think I'm crazy when I tell you this, but the girl that I met a few years ago was…umm…part cat. These weird mad scientists experimented on her since she was five and injected a ton of cat DNA into her," I rushed out.
I thought she would just laugh at me and say I was nuts but she said instead, "That's very strange because that, god I feel awkward, pretty much describes my life since I was five in a thumbnail sketch. Since you told me that, I'll tell you about the guy that rescued me from that place: brunette hair, identical to yours, gray eyes, and seemed like he was accustomed to fighting."
Sighing, I said to her, "Yep that's probably me but how did I meet you here after all this time?"
"If we really know each other it's cuz I wanted to go to a public school after being in this bitch filled rich kid private school. Of course, I wanted to go to the nearest public school so I could walk and it was by chance our school," Hikari explained.
"Oh."
-Hikari POV-
How he figured it out I don't know but I guess that it was by the slim evidence of similar looks. I sighed with tiredness and slight frustration. After a long pause: "Hey do you still have your cat ears then?" Akira-kun asked.
"Huh? Yeah, I still have them," I answered absentmindedly and flicked out my ears and tail to make a point. Akira laughed a bit and started smiling a little.
"You're laughing. And smiling," I stated.
"That's unusual how?"
"You don't seem like the type to do that a lot."
"Well I do laugh and smile; I'm not a cyborg. Besides, I can tell you the same thing. I have never seen you laugh, but I have seen you smile around your friends."
I laughed at this and said to Akira, "Well sometimes with the way you walk and look at things, it reminds me of a robot, because you just blankly stare and walk with this constant rhythm."
After smiling for a while, Akira said to me, "You look really cute with cat ears."
Sorry for the slow chapter! Even though I have a good part of the story lined up in my head, it's kind of hard putting it into words. The weird part is that I already know how to do the epilogue but not how to finish the story! DX even though it's still really early in the story!