AN: Okay, so this chapter is NOT short. It is more than twice as long as usual. At first I was gonna split it up again, but then I realized I would have to come up with another chapter title so I came to a conclusion of 'who the hell cares' and here we are. A LOT goes on in this chapter. Let me know if you guys prefer the longer ones (The other ones are super short, I know, but they're easier to get out on a weekly basis). I'm excited for the next chapter!
PLOT IS HAPPENING FINALLY PLEASE TELL ME IF IT IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE
Disclaimer: I got a new mouse but the payment was not applicable toward the rights for KND.
Wild Birds
Chapter 7: An Infinite Discontinuity
"You're kinda quiet today, Kuki. Somethin' got your pants in a knot?"
Though Kuki appreciates Wally's tactful attempt at avoiding the word 'panties,' she replies shortly, "I'm fine, keep working on problems 33 through 38."
It's the day after Eve went batshit and Kuki is swimming in a sea of doubt. Her friends are pretending the fight never happened and Kuki found herself following suit without even thinking about it. No use stirring up trouble, right? It's not a big deal.
It's not.
She just hasn't been feeling like herself lately.
Truth be told, though, she isn't exactly sure what 'herself' is supposed to feel like anymore.
"I'll take that as a yes," Wally mumbles as he hunches over the homework. "Is is because we got detention? Because it was so your fault."
"It was your stupid drawing," Kuki points out.
"Yeah, but you got caught with it, butterfingers," he replies with an air of fondness.
Kuki smiles, just a little. "It could've been worse. They used to read notes out loud when you got caught until everyone switched to texting."
"Yeah," Wally says thoughtfully.
Kuki panics, sure he is about to ask for her number.
Not that she doesn't want that.
Does she want that?
Is that weird?
Do friends ask for each other's cell phone numbers? Kuki can't remember. Her hands are sweating.
Kuki scrambles for another topic, grabbing the homework she'd been working on for inspiration. "Thirty-three through thirty-eight, come on Wally."
He groans theatrically as he slumps back over his work.
There is no doubt in her mind that the things Eve was saying yesterday aren't true.
Okay, maybe a little bit of doubt? She spent most of their tutoring session yesterday indecisive and half ignoring him. After all, she's only known him a few weeks. She's known Eve for years. Maybe…
Wally looks up and catches her eye. Kuki's train of thought screeches to a halt as he offers her a dimpled smile.
No. Eve is wrong. She has to be.
"What? Something on my face or am I that handsome?" Wally asks, the momentarily kind smile morphing into a more familiar smirk.
Kuki is saved from replying when the front door slams open and Wally's mother steps into view, Joey trailing behind with a smiling, dirty face.
Mrs. Beatles's eyes are on fire.
"'Boys will be boys' my sweet arse! Fighting in the classroom! I don't know how I managed to raise such violent heathens!"
"I kicked their butts," Joey says proudly to his big brother.
"Attaboy," Wally replies, ruffling Joey's hair.
"Don't encourage him!," their mother shouts, slamming her purse down on the table with enough force to rattle Kuki's glass of water like something out of Jurassic Park. "I do not want my boys fighting, especially at school! Violence is never the answer, right Kuki?"
Kuki hesitates, surprised and a little intimidated by being brought into the family argument. "Uhh…" She should probably agree, tell Joey that fighting is bad and never solves anything and blah blah blah. Because that's what she thinks, right? Kuki Sanban never fights out her problems. She's a peaceful person.
"Well it depends," Kuki finds herself saying. "Were they bad guys, Joey?"
"Yeah!" Joey says assuredly. "They were trying to look up Marcie Millan's skirt!"
"Then you did good," Kuki tells him, reaching out for a high five despite herself.
Joey smacks her hand hard and runs off, giggling madly up the stairs.
"Joey Beatles, wipe that mud off your face!" Mrs. Beatles calls, running after her youngest child.
Kuki stares after them, odd tingles spreading from her spine to her fingers. She wants to run. She wants to run and jump and turn cartwheels and backflips. She squeezes her right hand and feels like it's missing something.
"Dang, Kooks," Wally laughs. "My mum is never letting you in the house again."
Kuki feels odd.
Very distinctly odd.
Like just really, really weird in a very specific way.
"Maybe I should go apologize," she says dazedly, gazing at her empty right hand.
"Nah," Wally replies, but Kuki hears it as if through a haze. "She loves you."
Her brain is buzzing.
It hurts.
"I gotta go to the bathroom." Kuki bolts abruptly from the room.
Her legs are shaking. She takes deep breaths as she enters the hall, leaning against the wooden-slat wall lined with photos.
The first is a wedding photo of two smiling blondes in their early twenties. They hold a two-year-old Wally between them.
The next is a hospital picture of a red-faced newborn with a fuzz of yellow hair. He's wearing a deep frown.
Kuki smiles. Her heart skips, slows, and she regains her footing as she moves along the wall.
After come a series of photos depicting Wally through about age ten, until another baby begins to show up.
Kuki is only halfway down the extensive wall of pictures when she comes to one taken in the backyard of the house. A ten or eleven-year-old Wally stands front and center, arms crossed over a bare chest, a scattering of friends in bathing suits posing around him.
There's a chubby kid in goggles who Kuki thinks might go to their school now, a bald kid with sunglasses being held tightly by a girl who looks a lot like Lizzie…
Kuki pauses; she moves closer.
The next girl is black with a long braid twirling out from under a red hat.
Kuki's breath speeds back up. Her head aches. Tremors get her supporting herself on the wall again.
The next girl is perhaps the least – and most – recognizable. Her grin is wide and carefree. Her arms are around Wally's stiff shoulders.
It's her.
Kuki's heart stops dead.
Then it slams straight up into her throat.
She chokes and stumbles back, crashing into the opposite wall.
That's her. Eleven-year-old Kuki, smiling and happy in a place she's never been to with people she's never even met.
Her head hurts.
Colors are swimming together.
Wally is there, suddenly, his words muffled by the roaring in Kuki's ears.
It's her.
He was there, too.
He knows her.
He never said anything. Not one word.
All this time and…
She had friends.
Kuki wriggles away, muttering panicked excuses that she barely even registers.
Then she's out the door.
Then she runs.
Her head hurts.
It's raining, but of course it is.
Kuki runs down the sidewalk. She doesn't know where. Home?
Home.
No one will be there.
Though her mind is racing and her stomach is churning, Kuki's legs manage to get her to the right street before she knows what happened.
She's through the front door.
She's not alone.
Mushi calls out her name, half in concern. The other half is annoyance, but that's pretty much a requirement at thirteen.
Suddenly, Kuki can't remember when she even last spoke to her sister.
The photo flashes in her mind, and suddenly it's all too much.
Kuki bursts into tears.
"What? What did I do?!" Mushi stutters uneasily.
Kuki sits down on the floor, bawling like a child.
The house isn't empty.
With some awkward fumbling and only a little bit of muttered contempt, Mushi manages to bundle Kuki into bed with hot cocoa and a few magazines.
She'd left all her homework at Wally's.
Though Kuki tries to read, the words keep swimming in front of her eyes, replacing themselves with the smiles of the familiar strangers in the picture.
Kuki continues to wonder; is it real?
Why would Wally have that photo on the wall?
Why did he never say anything?
What does Abby know?
Her head hurts.
In the morning, Kuki is frenzied.
She feels like a crazy person, jittery and looking over her shoulder on the walk to school.
The treehouse looms.
Kuki stops to stare at it for far too long.
Abby does not meet her eyes when Kuki enters the classroom, but that has become the norm the past week or so.
Kuki stares at her.
She sits, hair unbrushed, one leg bouncing, and waits.
And stares.
Her head hurts.
The moment the bell rings, Kuki is up and practically chasing Abby out the door and down the hall.
When Kuki catches her arm and Abby spins around, for a moment she feels like all her questions are about to be answered. Abby will explain. It's all a joke. Her and her friends planted that picture because Kuki was stupid enough to think she was included. None of it is real. Abby will explain, and it will all be okay.
The question that comes to Kuki's lips first is, "Are we friends?"
Abby blinks. She opens her mouth.
"I mean were we?" Kuki quickly amends, reddening. "When we were kids? You and me and Wally?"
Abby's eyes widen and dart around anxiously. Her bicep flexes beneath Kuki's palm. "Uh, Kuki, I'm kind a hungry, can you-"
"Answer me, Abby, please!" Kuki begins to sound desperate, even to her own ears. "I found this photo, and-"
Abby's steely eyes lock onto her own, stopping Kuki's voice in its tracks. "What photo?"
"At Wally's house, on the wall, it...all of us and these kids I don't know but I do...or I did. Please, Abby, I feel like I'm going crazy! I remember things I…things that never happened! I keep getting these awful headaches like something's sawing my brain in half and I know you know something! Please, tell me! Tell me what the treehouse means! It's okay if you don't want to hang out anymore, just tell me I'm not crazy!"
Abby's eyes dart somewhere behind Kuki's shoulder, and for a moment the panic Kuki feels is reflected in her eyes.
"You're crazy." Abby says bluntly.
Deep down, Kuki feels something shatter.
"Let me go," Abby demands, shaking off Kuki's grip.
Kuki lets her go and Abby brushes past her without another word.
Shaky and stunned, Kuki turns to look after her and stops cold.
Standing with his back against the lockers is Abby's friend Phil. Even through his sunglasses, Kuki can feel him staring her down.
Then he smiles, and there is not a scarier thing he could have done.
Kuki flees, more scared and hurt and confused than ever.
Detention is served that day after Pre-Cal. Mr. Fibb sits morosely at his desk while Kuki and Wally grade homework from opposite sides of the room.
It's boring. And monotonous. But they aren't allowed to talk, which for today is good.
He'd returned the things she left at his house before class started and passed her a few concerned notes afterwards. She was barely more than cordial for the former and didn't reply to the latter.
Everything is too weird right now, and she doesn't know if she's more angry or hurt or confused.
Kuki steals furtive glances at Wally from beneath her hair.
Well, confused is probably at the top of the list.
He's so familiar.
"I am going to the restroom," a dull voice interrupts her thoughts. Mr. Fibb is standing and heading toward the door. "I will return in two minutes."
Kuki panics.
Mr. Fibb is barely out the door before Wally is out of his desk and sneaking over to crouch beside Kuki's. Her cheeks heat when he grins up at her, chin propped up on the desk table. "This sucks," he says cheerfully.
"Yeah," Kuki murmurs. She keeps hovering the tip of her pen over the paper as if she's reading the answers, but she's too aware of Wally's presence to take any of it in.
"Okay, what's your problem, Kuki?"
"What's your problem, Num-?"
Kuki blinks. Is there an echo? "Nothing. I just don't feel good, okay?"
Wally frowns. She can feel him beginning to form a question on his tongue, and quickly disarms him.
"Hey, what kind of name is Hoagie, anyway?" she asks suddenly, eyeing the name scribbled at the top of the page she's working on.
Wally shrugs. "Uh, it's a sandwich, Kuki."
"Well, I know that." Kuki squints at the name, suddenly sure she's seen that scrawl before. Hoagie P. Gilligan. No, it's definitely familiar. "Do you know him?"
Wally opens his mouth and then pauses, jaw hovering without forming words. His brow furrows and his eyes dart around the test paper in Kuki's hand. "Uh… no," he finally answers. "I've never met him."
"Neither have I."
Wally darts back to his seat as Mr. Fibb returns, the threads of the conversation left dangling. Relieved, Kuki returns to her work, but the careful loops of Hoagie P. Gilligan's homework continue to catch her eye from the bottom of the stack. She hasn't met him. She's sure of it. She's never even heard of him.
The sound of jet planes taking off pounds in Kuki's head. Helicopter blades. Whirring gears.
Her head hurts.
Hoagie P. Gilligan got a perfect score.
Kuki jolts awake at 3am. This time, it's not due to a nightmare.
There is a gentle tapping on her window.
Kuki stills, slowly rolling over to see something dark beyond the venire curtains. Like there is someone crouched at the windowsill.
Fear spikes in Kuki's chest and spreads through her limbs in a cold chill. Her fingers tighten on the blankets. She tucks in her chin. Her eyes remain focused, unblinking, on the figure knock-knocking on the glass.
She makes the decision not to move. She makes the decision to sit and wait for it to leave.
She gets up.
More silently than Kuki thought was possible of herself, she slips out of bed and tiptoes to her propped-open closet, where her mom keeps some of her college stuff. Kuki pulls out a lacrosse stick and brandishes it like a spear.
She moves slowly toward the window, and the dark figure who has stopped knocking.
As Kuki watches, heart pounding out a staccato rhythm and safely invisible in the shadows of her room, the shadow pulls something out of its clothes. It shines silver in the moonlight.
A knife.
Kuki twitches, fear washing through her and right back out again. Her tongue slams into the roof of her mouth to keep from crying out for help. Instead, she adjusts her grip on the crosse and widens her stance instinctively.
She knows what to do.
The knife slips into the break between the top and bottom of the window, expertly wriggling both locks free.
Kuki rocks back on her heels.
The window slides open.
Kuki tenses to spring.
The hooded figure comes into the room.
She knows what to do.
Kuki lunges out of the darkness.
The base of the stick slaps flatly into the intruder's hand. They let out a noise of surprise as the knife clatters to the floor.
Not missing a beat, Kuki adjusts her stance again and jabs out with the crosse.
The figure is clearly shocked at the ambush, but reacts, blocking the gut shot with an elbow to redirect the point.
Kuki rolls with the momentum of the crosse, swinging around the other end and aiming it for the figure's head.
The intruder drops down. It's too dark to see when Kuki's legs are swept out from under her.
Pain shoots up from Kuki's tailbone when she lands hard, lacrosse stick clattering across the floor, out of reach. A foot plants itself solidly on Kuki's chest, pushing her down with surprising strength.
Kuki grabs at the ankle, trying to twist it away, but the figure holds firm, keeping her down.
"Damn. You still got it," a voice says.
Kuki tenses. She knows that voice.
The figure reaches up and pulls down their hood, revealing a familiar silhouette.
"Kuki, we need to talk."
AN: Not actually sure what the real age difference is between Kuki and Mushi. Soo chapters should be getting longer now? Plot is happening!
Next time: Some fun Abby and Henrietta! Agh, I love 'em.