I followed the boy through many steps and turns. It seemed that his home was rather far from the other humans. I silently wondered why, as he dragged me along by the hand. I expected my hand to feel hot, as if burned by the heat of the sun but when I touched his hand I felt comforting warmth radiating off his body. The heat practically pulsed through my body and I could feel my heart accelerate. The initial shock weared off I could still feel the heat in my face as I blushed slightly.
Were all human men this bold? To find a strange girl on the street and just take her home just like that. Or was it just him? Or maybe he didn't consider her a girl? Or maybe he did? I felt my eyes widen as I realized the danger of my situation. He could be some type of pervert! Sheshe had warned me about this type of thing.
Suddenly I wanted to let go of the hand and run. I wanted run as far as I could until my lungs begged for air. And even then I'd keep running. I wanted to. I really wanted to.
However my body wouldn't let me.
It was as if for some reason half of me was totally against running away from this mesmerizing person. As if I couldn't even begin to move away from him. As if he'd trapped me.
Oh dear. I thought as I swallowed hard. This isn't good.
As I though about my options, which were very few considering that I had no chance of running, he dragged me through the long labyrinth of alleys. Before I knew it I was mesmerized by the long path that I would surely never remember. Left, right, left, left, left, right, straight, down the stairwell then left, keep going left until you reach another stairwell then up. Then again left, left, right, left…
I could feel my mind swimming with confusion and I couldn't help feeling a little light headed. To stop my dizziness I looked to the cracked concrete we were walking on. I stare at my feet which were still bare. It surprised me that I felt no pain. Just a soft numbness as my feet stepped on sharp stones and broken glass. No pain. Weird. I looked ahead and studied his feet. Unlike mine his feet were properly covered. The weird shoes with the laces that humans enjoyed wearing. However his were different. They were longer in a way. Reaching to the top of his ankles and approaching his upper legs. But they weren't boots. They were too short to be boots. I frowned as I stared at his shoes, letting him lead me through the maze of left and rights.
The shoes were amazingly colorful. Blues, reds, yellows, oranges. They reminded me of his gloved hand that was now holding mine. Soon my vision swirled into a mess of colors as I was mesmerized by his colorful shoes.
"We're here." Said the strangely non-deep voice. I looked up to see that he was starring at me once again. Still slightly dazed I stared right back at him. We stared at each other for a moment until he looked away. He rummaged in the pockets of his shorts that were to big for him and took out a small key. The key dangled on a ring along with a small toy rabbit. What surprised me was that the rabbit was black. With his colorful clothing I would have expected it to be white if not multicolored.
I stared at his hand as he opened the door. It was then that I noticed me surrounding. I looked around sand saw that I was standing on the front porch of a completely isolated house. I could see the grass surrounding the house like a barrier but as soon as the grass stopped there was more cracked concrete. The hose was just right. Not to small, not too big, and very welcoming despite its surroundings. On the 'lawn' there was a rather old looking lawn chair and a sprinkler that was turned off. I know this because it was in the human object encyclopedia that SheShe hot me for my birthday.
I could feel my heart sink at the thought of Sheshe. My big sister. My heart clenched painfully at the words and my jaw clenched along with it. Was she missing me? Was she happy I was gone? Was she worried?
I could see it clearly in my mind…
Sheshe wakes up and reaches to her left. Patting the empty rock she does the same to her left. Her eyes pop open as she sits up and looks frantically.
" Mimi?"
The pain in my chest is so bad I could hardly breath. How could I do this to her? how could I just leave like that?! She needs me!
Or do I need her. I can't tell the difference anymore.
"Hey?" they boy said as he squeezed my hand. I looked up to see that he once again looked worried for me. "Are you alright?"
I nodded. But he just looked more concerned.
"Are you sure you look like…your in pain or something…." He said thought fully. Then he blushed. "of course your ion pain, you fell. Which reminds me I got to get you cleaned up." He says as he brings me inside his home that perfectly reflects his warmth. Io hesitate a bit. Do I really deserve to be in such a warm and amazing place? Am I worthy?
He turns back to me looking confused.
"Don't worry, no one's here. No one's ever here but me." He says as he unties his shoes. That wasn't what I was worried about. However that's what I'm worried about now.
As I said before I don't know much about teenage human boys. However I don't think that anything good could come of this scenario.
When he finishes untying his strange shoes he puts them neatly in a near by closet. As he is about to stand up he catches sight of my feet. His eyes widen and he looks up at me in shock.
"Have you been walking bare foot all the way here?" he asks as his eyes flit between my feet and my face.
I nod when he looks back up at me.
"What the-? Why would you do that?" he said looking back to my feet. " Do you know how dangerous that is? You could have seriously cut your feet! Heck, you probably did! If I had known you didn't have shoes we could have taken the beach route. It would have taken longer but at least you'd be unharmed…" he sighed and looked back up at my face. I have to say that his sudden out burst scared me a bit and that it probably showed on my face.
"Sorry…" he mumbled, not looking at anything in particular. Definitely not looking at me. "I shouldn't have yelled at you…" finally he looked at my face. His expression was pained like her was guilty, embarrassed, and worried at the same time. "Just don't do it again, okay? You could really injure yourself…and if you absolutely need to do it…then…then do it on the beach only okay? Do you promise?"
Once again I merely nod but that seems to be enough for him because his face breaks into a large grin the warms my aching heart.
"Alright." He says as he once again takes me hand. He leads me to a room with tiled floors and cleaned counter tops. In the room there is a round table that was clearly designed for four people but only had one chair at it. He sits my down on the chair that is much more comfortable then it looks.
He watches as I squirm in my seat trying to get the absolute most comfortable spot. When I am finally satisfied I look up to see him with a amused smirk on his face. Before I can ask he answers my question.
"Nothing. Nothing at all." He says as he grins. He then goes into a large cupboard on the other side of the room and pulls out a small white plastic box with a red cross on it. He comes back and keels in from of me. i promptly blush tomato red.
"Give me your arm please." He says formally. I comply but not without giving him a questioning glance. He grabs my hand gingerly and with the same tenderness, turns my arm this way and that. "Hmm…" he says before he clicks his tongue. He put my arm carefully on my lap, he hand accidently brushing my exposed knee. I feel warm shivers go up and down my whole leg. I watch as he opens the box and takes out a strange looking bottle along with cotton of some sort. He shakes the bottle before picking up my arm again.
"Keep your arm up please" he says as he lets go. I do as I'm told without question. I don't believe he'd hurt me on purpose. He shakes the bottle again and aims it at my arm but hesitates. He looks back up at me with a strange look on his face. A cross between worry and determination. "This will sting a bit, 'kay?" he says. He looks at me expectantly and I nod accordingly. He smiles then presses a button on the bottle. The bottle sprays some of its contents on my arm and I cringe in pain. It does sting! I have only faced this pain a few times. Whenever I hear the begging of a new mermaid princess song my ears sting like crazy. However that surpasses into a sharp pain through my temple.
This pain was different. It was persistent and painful. But the pain I felt my also have something to do with my inner wounds.
Suddenly the pain dulled and cooled. I hadn't realized that I had closed my eyes so it was weird to open them. I look down to see the boy with eyes like the sun blowing on my wound. He then slowly wiped it with the cotton. I watched him and soon he noticed my gaze. He smiled and then warned me about the stinging I nodded and we repeated the process. Spray, blow, wipe, spray, blow, wipe. The pain lessened with every touch, blow, and smile he gave me.
I watched as he finished my feet. He had had to take out a small metal object to pull the glass out of my feet and only his encouraging smiles and worried glances kept me from crying out. However that didn't stop me from biting my lip until I tasted a salty sensation in my mouth. The boy sighed when he saw I was bleeding (as he called it) and hurriedly wiped off the red liquid from my lip. I thought that he would have to heal that too, however instead of the stinging liquid (which I'm sure would taste bitter) he just told me to lick it.
"Body fluids heal wounds better then any chemical. But sometimes we don't have fluids to waste." He said as he began to pick up the red stained cotton off the floor. He looked back up at me then down to the floor again. He did this for a while before he seemed to have made a decision.
"So what's your name?" he asked after he through the cotton in a near by waste bin. He leaned against the wall in front of me, arms crossed.
it wasn't until then that I noticed that we knew nothing about each other. That this boy had bring me into his home without a second thought and healed my wounds. I owed him a lot more then just my name. Still, I know that I can not give him my real name. I do not wish to give him my real name. That name holds too many memories. I need a new name.
Or, I thought, an old new name.
"Marie." I say, my voice shaking ever so slightly. I don't know why I am nervous but I am anyway, as he stares at me intensely.
"Marie…" he says quietly, as if testing the name on his tongue. His voice makes my new name sound melancholic and beautiful. "What is your last name?" he asks.
"…I don't have one." I say deciding to be honest with him. I stare at my lap as I can almost feel the gears in his head moving.
"Why were you running." He asked instead of the question I knew he was burning to ask. How could she not have a last name? I knew that all humans had them. But then again I wasn't human.
"I was trying to get away…" I say quietly.
"From what?" he asks his eyebrow furrowed in concentration. Finally I look up at him and into those warm eyes. I stare at them for a moment trying to gain courage to tell him all that's happened. Or at least half of what's happened. It doesn't have to be much just the gist of it.
However as soon as I open my mouth I lose my nerve and say something that seems to sum it all up.
"Everything." I breathe the word so slowly that he had to strain his ears to hear it. "I ran away-I'm running away- from everything and everyone apart of everything."
He doesn't move. Its like time has stopped and I'm the only one moving. My breath seems to be permanently unlogged in my throat and I can't seem to look into his warm eyes. He is the first to speak.
"Do you have anywhere to stay?" he says. I look into his eyes for a second before looking down at my lap. I keep my eyes on my neatly folded fingers on my lap as I shake my head. "Do you have anywhere to go?" he asks. I think back to the place I stayed at the last time I was human. I don't know how to get there. And I don't know the name of the place so I can't just ask for directions. I shake my head no.
I hear him walking around the room. I don't look up to see what he's doing but my eyes follow his multicolored-socked-feet. Finally he stops in front of me and pats me on the head gently with something. I look up to see him holding a very large shirt, a key and a tooth brush. I look up into his warm eyes that stare down at me. His smile matches his warm eyes.
"There's a room down the hall. It used to be my mom's but know its extra space. You can sleep there tonight and as long as you will need to from today on." He says. I swallow loudly and take the generous offers.
"Thank you." I say. I can feel my voice crack but I don't care. I think I might just cry again.
"No problem." He says with a grin. "Follow me." he says as he walks out of the room. I am slightly disappointed that he didn't take me hand again but follow him just the same. We stop at a door with a rose delicately painted on the front. He turns and smiles at me.
"The key please." He says holding out his palm. I place the key there carefully but still touch his hand. Warm shivers go up my arm. What is that?
He unlocks the door with skilled ease and leads me into a simple but beautiful room. It doesn't have much furniture or anything but it is strangely charming. The bed is made up nicely and the carpets clean. Everything in this room is clean. As if it's never been touched. It was my Mom's but now its extra space. Whatever happened to his mother? If she gave birth to him she must be a wonderful woman.
"Alright. I'll leave you to get changed and get some sleep. It's late after all. You must be exhausted. We'll talk about everything else tomorrow as well as go shopping for new shoes…" he stares at me for a moment and I stare back at him. A objection is ready on the tip of my tongue. " you don't have any do you? Shoes I mean.
"No…" I say with a sigh. For some reason its hard to lie straight to his face.
"Yeah, well…." He said with a shrug. " we're lucky tomorrows Sunday. We can shop all day and get you some stuff."
"I have no money." I say quietly.
"I do." he say bluntly. I am about to object his money but he puts up a hand to silence me. " Morning. Not now. Morning." With that he is about to close the door.
"Wait!" I say before the door closes completely. He pokes his head out grumpily. This guy wasn't that friendly when he was tired. "What's your name?"
He looks surprised by the question but then smiles, doing a complete 180 from a couple of seconds ago. "Nagisa. Shirai Nagisa." He smiles once more and is going to close the door again…
"Wait!" I say again and he comes back in with an expression crossed between amusement and annoyance.
"Do you not want me to sleep for some reason?" he asks.
"Um, no…I just…want to know whose shirt this is…"I say lifting the shirt that's ion my hands.
"Oh. Well its mine. Who else's could it be?" he asks looking confused. I blush slightly for more reasons then one.
"Oh, well, goodnight…I guess." I say hugging the shirt to my chest.
"Goodnight Marie." Nagisa says as he closes the door with a soft click.
I stare the door for a moment, my face hot. I then look at the shirt in my hands. I quickly strip off my clothes and pull it on. It's warm but that is to be expected. My numb bare feet pad silently on the ground as I make my way to the bed. Pullijg up the covers that smell the same as the flower on the door, I get in and promptly yawn. I pull the cover to my chin and stare at the sealing. After a few minute I can't help myself anymore and sniff Nagisa's shirt.
Funny enough it smells of soap, mint,
And sunshine.
And that's the end of that chapter. If you don't like what I'm doing don't read. I just never liked the way Hannon treats Nagisa and always liked Mimi. When Mimi went into human form I was thrilled and even more thrilled when she was nice! Anyway I think this chapter was really long. If you want them to be short again then tell me. REVIEW PLEASE!!!!!!
