RAKHEKFBHKJSBG hi.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, but my OCs
Update: Sometime after NaNoWriMo
Kyo groaned as he attempted to sit up. A sharp pain shot through his stomach that he couldn't quite identify.
He tried again, more carefully, but found that the bean-bag-chair-ness of the couch made it impossible for him to do so.
"Oh good, you're up…" An unfamiliar voice murmured.
He shifted his head, and saw the girl who had stabbed him.
"You…" Kyo said, and the girl shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"Sorry about that whole… Incident…" She said, sounding extremely apologetic.
"Mmf." He grunted and stared at the ceiling again. "Am… Am I dead?"
"Well yeah, if I was able to stab you here then you're obviously- Oh, did you mean if you died here? You can't really die I you're already dead… That would be madness!
"It is madness!"
"What's madness?" Ayato poked his head out of his room.
"Madness!" Dahlia's voice echoes through the room, as if from nowhere.
Ellie and Kyo looked towards the doors in confusion, and Kyo shook his head.
"I guess its okay… Why were you stabbing people, exactly?"
"I have… issues. Mainly spurts of anger and rage. I can't really control myself when it happens…" She twiddled her thumbs.
"Do you… Want to know about my past?" She asked him.
"Uh, okay… Sure."
She took a deep breath.
...
"When I was alive, I was the middle child of seven. I know that isn't really an excuse, but it led up to my attention issues.
I was the one who was put in charge of watching my little siblings when my mom was working, and my older siblings were out smoking, drinking and partying.
This was a normal until I turned 12.
I had a breakdown and ran out of my house, only to fall in with a starting gang. They saw some kind of potential in me, and, I wouldn't say forced, but convinced me to join them. They taught me to relieve stress with violence…
In a few months with them, I was a raging alcoholic and I had gotten an addiction to most street drugs. I tried to go home once, but my mother wouldn't let me inside the house. I thought that, because my mom did the exact same thing to my older siblings, she had stopped loving me, or considered me just another failure of a child.
That's when my anger issues began. I was the fighter in my group, because when someone got me angry, I wouldn't stop until something happened to calm me down.
I guess it must have been horrible for anyone around me…
One day, though, some new gang members had been sent to go and find another member to jump.
I wasn't in on it, and the three guys didn't know about my problems.
They saw the jacket, and attacked me.
I freaked out, and accidentally killed one of them.
They got scared, and ran. I guess they called the cops, because next thing I knew, I was rejected by my gang, and I found myself smuggling myself on a plane to Japan.
I didn't think my plan through, when I used counterfeit to get the ticket, and then used my real passport to get there…
I was soon discovered hiding in an alley.
They closed in on me, and I knew they were going to put me in jail. I tried to run, stabbing one cop to try to cause a diversion, and I was shot down in five seconds flat."
...
She stared at her shoes and Kyo looked at her in shock.
"So you're how old?"
"Thirteen."
"Whoa… So you… You had a pretty rough life, huh?"
"Yea, I guess. I get it know that my mom didn't hate me… She just didn't want me to be a negative influence on my siblings. I never had a normal life, no true friends, and no education… I'm here until I fulfill my need for normal-ness. Thank to Dahlia, I've calmed down quite a bit, and now I'm best friends with Zendaylah. You met her earlier, right?"
"Huh… Oh, yeah I did…"
Ellie looked at her watch, and stood up. "I have to go. 'I'm really sorry, about everything."
"Okay, it was… It was good meeting you, I guess…"
"Bye…" And she left.
Kyo rubbed his stomach, which still hurt like hell, and winced.
"Can we come out now?"
"Is your touch, heart-to-heart moment over now?" Ayato and Dahlia's voices chimed from their rooms.
"Fine…" Kyo grunted, to tired and achy to argue, and they ran into the room.
"You feeling okay?" Ayato asked him.
"Sucks, doesn't it?" Dahlia smirked, "Do you believe me now?" She looked smug.
"I…" Kyo began, sounding negative.
Dahlia's frowned, and sat on his legs.
He cringed, for Dahlia was heavier that she looked, and started cursing.
"Shit! Fine, I BELIEVE YOU!" He yelled in pain.
"Good." And she stood up again."
"Fuck… Why the hell did that hurt somuch!"
"Wellll… While I carried you back here, I accidentally dropped you and you pretty much broke your leg or something."
"WHAT?"
"It wasn't on purpose! It was either you, or both of us. You were already unconscious, so I figured a bit of extra pain wouldn't be anything more than a good persuasion technique."
"How did you carry me all the way here?"
"My point exactly."
Kyo grumbled to himself, and Dahlia pulled the picture that she had taken a few days earlier out of her pocket.
"Oh yeah! This is what you looked like after you passed out, just to clarify, so you don't get any ideas." She tossed the Polaroid at him and sat back down.
Kyo took one glance at it, and his face lost all color.
"What the…" He couldn't look away from himself, his blood pouring around his body, staining the ground red. He torn his eyes away, and Dahlia was baring her teeth like a vampire and hissed.
Ayato laughed and mimicked her. Kyo shook his head, and his stomach growled.
"I'm hungry."
"I can tell. What'dya want? Take-out, or do you want me to cook?"
"Meh…" He said.
"Secret Dish it is!" She said, and went to go cook. "I shall do something evil to it!" She smiled, and Ayato and Kyo shared a worried glance.
After several minutes passed, and Ayato broke the silence by muttering, "I told you so…"
"What?" Kyo asked.
"I told you we weren't lying to you."
Kyo sighed. "You could easily be lying still."
"How? How could we possibly be lying? We have photographic evidence!"
"Photoshop." He shrugged.
"It's an instant Polaroid." Dahlia interrupted. "How could I possibly change it? I'm not magic!"
"But… But you can change the way you look! You can stop the rain!"
"So?" She asked, and picked up the tablet and tapped a bright square. It thundered.
"What the-?" Kyo said, startled.
Dahlia, apparently done cooking, sat in her spinny chair and gazed out into the rain.
It was a much stronger downpour than before.
"Mmmf…" Kyo moaned and yawned. Ayato bent over to look at him.
"He looks funny…"
"I don't-… I don't like the rain…" He mumbled.
"I love rain." Dahlia smiled. "It's nice, and refreshing. Summer down pours are my favorite, when it's hot and it just storms."
Kyo said something unnintelligble, and she laughed at him.
"You know something, Kyo? You remind me of a cat I had a few years ago… He was all grumpy and stuff, and he hated being caught in the rain. When he liked someone, he was such a little fluffball though…" She turned to him, "Are you a little fluffball when you like people, Kyo?" She joked.
"No. I hate everything." He muttered, and everyone laughed at him. "Mmf."
Dahlia went back to watching the people in the streets scatter.
"I'm guessing you like cats?" Ayato asked her, feeling left out of the conversation.
She whipped her head around and, with an incredibly serious expression, that didn't quite look right on her face, said. "Yes. Yes I do. Cats are fantastic. The only reason why I don't have Nefer-kitty anymore is because of Richard… He hated them-"
She paused to grumble to herself,
"-And was allergic. I needed him to help me too badly, and had to be here a lot, so I left my poor baby with one of my friends… I should really go look for him…"
Kyo murmered something, and before anyone could pay attention to him, Ayato jumped in with, "'Nefer-Kitty'? Seriously?"
"I like weird names! He was my male Maine-coon. He was so fluffy and cute and sweet and…" The stove beeped. "Oh!" She ran over to go stir a pot of something. "It's done!"
"What is the-" /Cough/ " 'Evil' You've done to it?"
"It looks fine…"
"I was kidding." Dahlia said dryly.
...
The pair sat on the couch in awe. They had been watching Dahlia, watching an Anime, and clutching the Plushie of what appeared to be a main character, for four and a half hours, reciting all the character's lines.
"Do you think she can do that with the other ones too?" Ayato whispered, referring to her vast collection, and Kyo just shrugged.
...
A clock chimed eleven P.M., and Dahlia was fast asleep.
"Should we wake her?" Ayato asked, and without waiting for a reply and did not wait for a reply as he shook her.
"Mmmf…" She mumbled and turned over as she slowly woke up.
"Wha-?"
"You fell asleep…"
"Oh, god… I'm sorry was it bad?"
"Was what bad?"
She stared at him with an increasingly worried expression on her face.
"Nothing. Never mind." She said quickly, and headed to her room.
The door shut, and everything went silent.
"Are you going back now?"
"No… I'm still a bit sore I'll just crash here." Kyo said, and he pulled a blanket off the ground and covered himself.
"See. I'm good." He said simply.
Ayato didn't reply. Slowly nodding, he turned off the lights and went to bed.
"G'night!" He called, and shut the door. A flash of color caught his eye. He turned and saw his walls, which had been a neutral tan just a few hours before, were now a shade of green. He touched the walls. They were completely dry.
"I'll ask Dahlia about it later…" He mumbled to himself and changed into the pajamas she had given him.
And he slowly…
Fell…
A
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.
...
Dahlia sat at her art desk sketching a half-formed figure. It had no features, and wasn't male or female. It just was.
She heard a rustling somewhere outside her door.
/It's probably Ayato or Kyo…/ She thought, but now that she was distracted, she went to read a book.
She heard a muffled yell and, miffed, went to go investigate.
Walking into the common area, she saw Kyo, thrashing a talking in his sleep.
She ran to his side and attempted to wake him. "Kyo! Wake up Kyo!"
She tried to push him, but nothing worked, so she quickly filled a cup with water and dumped it on his head.
...
"What?" Kyo asked, alarmed because he had been suddenly awakened. He looked around. It was dark.
He heard a sigh and footsteps, then, a light went on.
"Are you okay?" A voice asked him, and with those words, rushes of memories swirled through his head.
Him as a child, alone in a park.
Shying away from all who came near.
The light-haired girl, his only friend.
They fight, she leaves, the world is dark again.
"Kyo?"
He whipped his head around, and saw Dahlia looking worried, with odd, dark circles under her eyes.
"What?" He said angrily, his face burning bright.
"Are you- Are you all right? Is everything okay?"
Of course it isn't…" He shook his head. "Just leave me alone!" He started to get up and leave.
"Wait!" She reached out to pull him back, but he pushed her away.
"Don't touch me." He stared at her with disgust and walked closer to the door.
"It was your memories, wasn't it?"
He stopped and stared at her. "How-?"
Her eyes filled with pain.
"It was nightmares, wasn't it." She said, quietly.
He stared.
"Go back to sleep." She said, blinking several times to many, and turned off the light. She turned off the light again, and left.
He lay back down.
/What?/
He tried to comprehend what just happened, and thought back.
. . .
"Mmmf…" She mumbled and turned over as she slowly woke up.
"Wha-?"
"You fell asleep…"
"Oh, god… I'm sorry was it bad?"
"Was what bad?"
She stared at him with an increasingly worried expression on her face.
"Nothing. Never mind." She said quickly, and headed to her room.
The door shut, and everything went silent.
. . .
"Oh…?" He said quietly. He thought of how… Tired, she looked. /Maybe she… She has nightmares?/
In the dark, he kept seeing the blackened circles under her eyes.
/Does she even want to sleep? It's so late, and she seemed wide awake… Would hers be so terrible that…/
He shivered at the nerves his nightmares touched.
His eyes closed, and he tried to sleep.
...
Ayato was awake before dawn. He assumed Dahlia was asleep, and thus, did not attempt to open her door, and Kyo was still sleeping haphazardly on the couch. He ate, and decided to go and see the sights that were so new to him.
Walking out into the sunshine felt good on his skin and he saw the typical bustle of a city. Hurried people walking into and out of buildings, laughing, talking… There was no hate.
At this time more than anything, he wanted to remember what had been to have him sent here again. If his memories were so terrible, he wanted to know that there was a place that would never have all those bad moments.
A street car rushed in front of his face, and he jumped back, stunned.
"That was close…" He said quietly to himself, as he ran after it and hopped on it, letting it take him to anywhere.
...
She was back in the kitchen when Kyo awoke. Her dark circles were gone, and he thought more of the incidents that may have occurred in her past.
...
She heard the rustling of fabric in the general direction of Kyo.
/Look up…/ And she did. /Smile. Don't make him worry./ And she did…
...
"Good morning!" She said cheerily.
He watched her solemnly.
"Why the long face? Did you sleep well?"
When he didn't respond, she said, "Do you want to talk about it?"
He shook his head No.
"Do you… Get them too?" He asked her, and she sat next to him and scrutinized him, looking for a motive behind his words.
She must of found genuine concern behind his eyes, for she responded with, "Yeah… And way to often at that…"
She put he hand under her eye, and Kyo wondered if she was wiping away tears. He couldn't handle tears. She moved her hand, to reveal the dark circles from before, concealed by heavy make-up.
"I had to sound proof my room… I bothered to many people…"
She played with her sleeve. "I don't like to be much of a bother… Richard hated it too… I did my best so that when I sleep, if I do sleep and believe me, I do NOT enjoy it, that no one would be able to here me if I freak out…"
"This Richard guy sounds like a real douchebag…"
"He was the only help I had. I didn't like him that much, but he was all I had to work with."
"So… What are they about… Your nightmares?"
She stared at him.
"You don't ask questions like that. It is way to personal for most people."
"But you asked me-."
"-If you WANTED to talk. I did not directly ask you about them. Too many people consider it rude."
She playfully punched his shoulder to lighten the mood.
"Don't bother either. I'm not telling you, or Ayato, anything yet. Only three people in ten years know anything about it, and, now, only 2 people know about my nightmares. I'd suggest you don't say anything about it either."
She stood and threw a bundle of fabric at Kyo."
"Now, go shower. You stink."
And she pushed him out the door.
...
"Huh…" Dahlia sighed and sunk to the ground, cradling her head in her hands. She had only every told Richard about her nightmares… And that was only because she had to… She hoped Kyo had enough sense not to mention it to anyone…
She might lose her confidence, or her emotional mask, and all her work would be ruined.
/It isn't often a n00b has a bad nightmare like that… I only started getting mine after about five years… Maybe they won't be constant…/
She brooded and repeatedly hit the back of her head on the wall as she thought.
"Angst…"
She went to the window and ran every possible outcome through her mind and, overcome with stress, punched the window.
The glass shattered and large chunks of the window fell to the floor.
"Fuuuuuu-!" She yelled and held her hand and hopped up and down, doubling over in pain. "Shiiiiittttt!"
She shook off her pain, and picked up the shards, then replaced the window, and something caught her eye.
She pulled her spinny chair up to the window to examine it.
...
Ayato stood in front of the school, looking up the stairs. He could almost see his fleeting memories play out in front of his eyes.
"Hey, you!" A voice called behind him.
He turned to see the two girls they had seen, Zendaylah and Ellie, from when Kyo passed out.
"Oh, hello!" He called.
"You were one of the guys with Dahlia, right?"
"Yeah."
"Oh cool…. I don't know you're name."
"Ayato Naoi."
"Nice. Soooo… What're you doing out here?"
"Enjoying memories…"
They stared at him with blank faces.
"Nevermind…"
"Hey… Was did Kyo seem mad at me after I left?" Ellie asked.
"Oh yeah, he was your latest 'victim' wasn't he, Ellie?" Zendaylah said teasingly.
"Shut up!"
"Not really." Ayato said, interjecting. "He seemed to have let it go… He was… Surprisingly passive, actually."
"And that's… Weird?"
"Heh heh… Yeah."
"So, do you like it here?" Ellie asked him.
"Yes, actually. It seems much… Happier."
"What?"
"Nothing." /They wouldn't understand if I explained it to them…/ "So, what's it like? You know, having classes with NPCs?"
"It's cool! You can bug them all you want and they NEVER get super pissed!" Zendaylah said happily, "And they walk into all of your jokes!"
"Okay then…" Ayato said. "Hey, you guys don't look Japanese!"
"Oh, I didn't think you would notice!" Ellie said sarcastically. "You know my story." She pointed to herself. "Runaway."
"I'm a transfer." Zendaylah remarked.
"Ahhh… 'Kay. I should probably get back soon…" He looked at the slowly setting sun.
"Do you like Dahlia?" Ellie asked him.
"She seems nice… I can tell that she has a lot of secrets though…"
"We all do…"
"This is a place where you can be anything, and "anything" includes telling everyone absolutely nothing."
A bell rang.
"Oh! We have to go!" Ellie pulled Zendaylah's arm as they started to run back towards the school.
"Bye!" They called back at Ayato.
"Bye." He waved, and hopped on a street car that was perfectly timed for his departure.
...
Ayato walked into the apartment to see Dahlia sitting balanced on her feet, with her knees up on her frequently used office chair.
She was fixated on something on the window, and he walked up behind her.
"H'lo." She mumbled, not taking her eyes off the thing.
"What'cha doing?" He asked her.
She pointed at a small, moving dot on the outside of the glass.
"Bug." She said, and it moved. She made a funny noise.
"So… Why are you staring at it so intently?"
"It has no wings…"
"So?"
"Dude! We're on the 30th floor!"
"Okay…"
"Ninja bug…"
Ayato laughed.
"What's funny?"
"You!"
"Okay…"
"Why don't you try tapping it?"
"I did. Nothing happens…"
"It doesn't fall?"
"Nope. It's an epic ninja bug." She held up her hand for a high five, and he gave her one.
A sparkle caught his eyes, and he bent over to pick up a relatively large shard of glass.
"What…?"
"I punched a window.
"Why?"
"I was pissed."
"Why were you pissed?"
"I can't tell you yet."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't feel like it yet."
Ayato shot her a look that said, 'Why?', and Dahlia just smiled.
...
"Pfffffffft-!" Ayato held back laughter as Natlie walked out in a large, baggy, black cosplay.
"Why are you laughing? This is awesome!" She reclined on the couch.
"Something's on your mind." She said.
"Spit is out." Kyo bothered him along with Dahlia.
"Well… I was just wondering… Everyone here seems to be from, or in Japan when they die… And you don't seem to be Japanese… Why were you in Japan?"
"I was thinking the same thing… I guess there's one of tehse places for other places too… Anyway… I'm from Canada. I was on vacation."
"Wow… Died on vacation. That must of sucked…" Kyo commented.
"Oh, that's not why it sucked…"