Hello guys, here's the seventh chapter! :P I wanted to update yesterday but I was I like "It's a bit short…" so I wrote a little more. The ending is kinda rushed because I couldn't leave it to later, otherwise I would fall asleep and you guys had to wait another day… I don't want that happening! I don't wanna deprive you guys!
As you may have noticed, I update this story once a week (that'll change temporarily when I have my holidays in three weeks time). Mainly because I barely get any time for this story, so I need time. But do expect to see it updated every Friday or Saturday, one of those two. :)
WARNING: Contains Course Language.
The door did its familiar creaking sound, which only did that sound a few minutes ago, when it opened, and in came a well-known determined woman with a man, his face unfamiliar and nervous as hell.
Snickers were heard around the room, all of them mostly teasing the woman's choice of companion.
"Hikaru, I can feel your nervousness, and it doesn't look good. You chose to come with me, so at least try to act normally." Haruhi warned and nudged Hikaru's arm. But he didn't pay attention, he was too busy by subtly looking around the building he was in with awareness.
She did a small, inaudible sigh, and continued to strut down to the back door, with the nervous older twin behind her.
She opened the door and stepped in, greeting the man in front of her with a scowl. The man looked up at her with his perverted grin and toyed with a lock of hair from one of the girls beside him.
"Ichiro." Haruhi said simply, never changing her ill expression to the man.
Ichiro was a man at the age of thirty-two, the boss of a certain surviving gang in the hideous world of disease. Haruhi knew him well, kind of, because he was a regular client of hers to smuggle in and out goods between his and a few other gangs around the city. She hated him, with his always short messy, tangled raven hair, wide open yet bloodshot eyes of caramel, a disgustingly dirty beige (or was it that filthy that it was once upon time white?) tank-top underneath his thin black vest, his loose-fitting jeans covered of stains from liquids of sorts, his always assortment of slutty girls, and last but not least his perverted signature grin. But he paid well, so she stuck around with him, even with her hatred towards him.
The girl on his left, a girl quite young, maybe twenty-three, with long flowing strawberry blonde hair, blue tinted green eyes, wearing a half-cropped tight pink tank-top, revealing her flat as a cardboard stomach and emphasising her C-cup breats, and white short-shorts, gave Haruhi a look of disgust, because she knew deep down the man next to her wanted Haruhi, since the younger brunette had a certain perverted 'soft'-spot in his heart.
The girl on his right, equally the same age as the girl on the left and had brown hair tied up in a messy bun, kind dark eyes, wearing a loose yet sexy-looking sleeve-less white hoodie, her shorts black, was completely oblivious to Haruhi's scowls, but was more concerned about her strawberry blonde haired friend across from her. She didn't care if her boss wanted the brunette smuggler his, she just wanted to escape from his grasp and let him leave her alone. She didn't understand why the strawberry blonde across from her wanted their boss' attention so bad.
"Haruhi!" Ichiro sniggered, adding his regular him of perverseness in his deep voice. "You came on time!"
"Yes I did." Haruhi said and sat down in a plastic chair across the table from him, leaving Hikaru standing by the door. "Can we just get down to business?"
"Of course! So- Oh? Who's this?" he asked, fake innocence dripping in his voice. It just sounded so wrong. "I thought you worked alone, Haru? Or is this your boyfriend and he wants to stay by your side?"
Haruhi kept her regular cold expression, but couldn't hide the faintest tint of pink on her cheeks. Hikaru, on the other hand, let his mouth hang slightly open as his face went scarlet. He tried to protest, and say the man was wrong, but no words came out, just strangled vowels.
"I was right, wasn't I?" Ichiro laughed, but if you really strained to listen, you could hear the most faintest sound of disappointment.
"He's not my boyfriend. A close best friend of mine, but we're aren't intimate." Haruhi said indifferently, narrowing her eyes the slightest to the older man in front of her. Hikaru sighed a breath if relief, mainly from not making a fool out of himself from his stupid quiet sputtering.
"Fine!" Ichiro said and acted defeated. "Be that way! It only means one thing if he isn't your boyfriend…" Ichiro added before he leaned over the table, cupped his fingers underneath Haruhi's chin, leaning his forehead against hers and said in a very seductive whisper, "…it means more of a chance of me having you, Haruhi…" he purred silently, letting domination of a man's craving for sexual activities come visible to his face.
This, though, instantly caught Hikaru's attention. And he felt that unfamiliar yet still familiar feeling of hatred and annoyance to the man. He hadn't had that feeling for several years, and it really only happened once, that was the time when they were at Pension Misuzu and they met Arai, but this time…that hatred was practically hundred times worse.
"Get your filthy hands off her." he growled and gave quite the noticeable glare to Ichiro, as he stepped over and pushed Ichiro's forehead further away from Haruhi's with two fingers.
The older man simply raised an eyebrow of amusement as he slumped back in his seat, doing his previous action of playing with the strawberry blonde's locks in between his fingers. She, obviously pleased that his attention was back on her, started to giggle like a little school-girl, whiles the messy bun'd brunette averted her gaze to the small crack on the wall, disgusted with her friend's antics.
"Oh, but if she isn't yours, then what authority do you have to protect her from someone like me?" Ichiro said, eyeing the teens at the corner of his eye. "We live in a harsh world, and unless the property is claimed yours," he said and draped an arm around the strawberry blonde, who squeaked in delighted surprise as he pulled her closer to him. "Then others are allowed to have it." he finished off.
"Don't mind Hikaru." Haruhi said as Hikaru glared daggers at the perverse man. "We're just protective towards each other. Can we get down to business now?" she said with an impatient tone.
"You're no fun, Haruhi." the man whined. "But I wonder how you are in bed?" he pondered to himself, feeling the stares of pure hatred for him by Hikaru and could hear the disgusted snort from the brunette beside him.
"Can you just shut up?" Haruhi growled and rested her chin in her palm. "You only think the most disgusting thoughts."
"I am who I am." Ichiro said and grinned. He clasped his hand together with a loud clap and looked at Haruhi straight in the eye, totally serious. "Okay, down to business. That stupid Moth gang wants to trade a few items, and a few things they have caught my interest. But, as you already know, we aren't at the best terms. That's why I need you to go." he said and rested his elbows on the table.
"Like I didn't already know that." Haruhi muttered and rolled her eyes in impatience.
"They're willing to give us about six kilos worth of fruits and vegetables, a pair of medical scissors, since our last pair recently broke, and three containers of painkillers. In return we give, five bottles of water, four kilos of meat and two bottles of wine." he said and gestured to the bottles on the table.
"Easy enough." Haruhi said and shrugged. "But what will we get for delivering?"
Ichiro smugly smirked, and the strawberry blonde rolled her eyes, knowing what he would say.
"I was thinking of giving you about a box-load of food; oatmeals, cereals, dried food, and all that kind of stuff. Plus some ammo and a new shotgun. And also…!" he said with triumph and leaned towards Haruhi again. "…You can have me!"
Haruhi kept her cold, blank look and pushed his nose with her index finger to distance the space between them, meanwhile Hikaru was practically disgusted by this behaviour.
"You do realise I have a loaded gun, right?" Hikaru merely threatened.
"I'm very well aware of that." Ichiro said and sat down in his seat again, never even glancing up at the twin's face. "Haruhi once pointed the gun at my head, the safety switch off. One small slip up and I would've been a dead man!" he laughed off like it was no big deal.
"I would've preferred you in that state…" Haruhi muttered with some malice in her voice. "Anyway, I would like to see these supplies before we leave." Haruhi politely requested, feeling somewhat bored and took out a small pocketknife from her pocket, playing with the blade in between her fingers.
Ichiro eyed the knife slightly suspiciously but then shrugged it off, knowing very well that Haruhi was great with knives, but would have killed him with a gun instead if she indeed feel the need to kill him.
"Of course." he said and leaned back more in his chair, tilting his head backwards and faced a flight of stairs. "CHIZUKO! GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE WITH THE SUPPLIES!" he yelled rather loudly, causing the other inhabitants of the room to wince. Some soft tapping was heard against the wooden stairs, and Haruhi expected to either a drunkard or a whore to be coming down, but instead a small girl came down with a box a third of her size in her arms. This was the most…odd looking girl Haruhi, or Hikaru for that matter, had ever seen. She was quite young, perhaps twelve or thirteen, and she had naturally white hair. And then I don't mean white blonde, it was white as starlight. Another thing was her eyes. Haruhi had heard of people having heterochromia before, one of her old neighbours used to have it, but this case was completely different. Most of the time, people would have had the shades of eyes only slightly different, like one eye green and the other blue, but this girl's was different colours all together. The girl had one eye an ocean blue, with the most faintest tint of green, while the other eye was a dark chocolate brown, the eye showing the smallest trace of red mixed in with it.
Her clothes were rather ordinary, with the small tear here and there. She wore a long-sleeved blue shirt, and wore khaki shorts, her shoes white but with green outlining.
It took Haruhi a moment to realise that the girl was now standing in front of her, showing the items inside the cardboard box.
"We've made sure that the expiring dates on these items are at least two weeks away," the girl, Chizuko, said, her voicing showing faintly such an emotion of distress, like if she said something wrong she would be dead. "The shotgun and its ammo is upstairs, it is in perfectly good condition, like new."
"That's good." Haruhi said, looking back and forth between the labels of the food inside the box.
"And it will be all yours once you're done. You have another…three hours before you two have to leave, correct?" Ichiro said, giving a small pause when he read the clock on the wall.
Haruhi nodded as she stood up, placing her knife in its place.
"We should then go, can we have the supplies now?" she asked, dragging her bag off her shoulder to pack whatever item she needed to place in there. Chizuko nodded quickly, and ran up the stairs in such a speed you would think she had been training for the Olympics. She came back down again, in a more slower speed this time, careful not to damage or drop the supplies. Haruhi took her fair share of items while Hikaru did the same.
Haruhi slung her backpack over her shoulder, letting out a sigh as she stared at Ichiro, who was nibbling on the strawberry blonde's earlobe, herself being lost in the world of dreams.
"I'll see you later then." Haruhi waved off as she went for the door, Hikaru right behind her, snorting from the man's behaviour.
"Bye, Haru~!" Ichiro waved and slumped down comfortably. "Now, what do you want to do girls?" he addressed the 'whores' besides him, the strawberry blonde giggling whiles the other looked away.
The two stepped out of the stinky building that reeked of alcohol, landing their feet on the pavement outside.
"How do you stand him?" Hikaru asked bitterly, narrowing his eyes at the street before them. She sighed and gave him a blank look, almost telling him like she had heard this question a gazillion times before.
"He pays well," she said and did a mere shrug. "And if even tries to make a move I'll blow out his brains." she muttered as she started off down the street.
"I hope that day comes soon." he whispered more to himself, letting the whistling from the wind cover up his comment. He followed her patiently, and wondered what could happen during this night.
"Be aware of your surroundings," Haruhi said out of the blue, like she had just read his mind. He looked up at her confused as she continued to speak. "There are some people who thought it was better to survive on their own, so there's a chance we can see some weird lunatic on our way." she said indifferently, shrugging her shoulders while staring straight ahead.
He watched her for a moment, trying to see what kind of emotion she was feeling, but ended up failing. It was like this stuff was as easy as riding a bike for her, having it all under control but fate may give you a small accident at the odd times. After that, they kept walking without any words, the only sound filling the silence was their tapping from their footsteps. She seemed to have known this whole town off by heart; from every shortcut through alleyways to every single brick that stuck out the most tiniest fraction out of the wall.
He couldn't believe it; he was doing this, he was out risking his life for trading a few items between two groups of people. He never really thought that this was the way he would end up, doing his best just to survive through the day. Just a little more than two years ago, if he ever thought about what he would be doing at his current age, he would've thought that he was spending some of his prime years of university. But fate, destiny and reality were all sick, twisted individuals, and all of them together created the most awful things at times.
Thanks to these three individuals, he had lost the girl he loved, had nightmares of scenes of what could've happened to her for several nights, making him shake and nearly scream once he woke up. On good nights, he would dream about seeing her again, but would end up crying his heart out once he woke up for knowing the small chance of it ever happening. He remembered the first time he woke up from one of those nightmares. He had woken up, screaming bloody murder at his imagination while doing a combination of tugging at his hair while clinging onto his brother what looked like for dear life. He remembered the looks of sympathy and empathy everyone had given him, even the emotionless face of Kyouya traced some of it.
He was scared of reality. He despised reality, he hated every bit of it ever since that day. He didn't go one day without being afraid, and he was even scared to go asleep, from either the chance of being killed during his sleep or having those disgusting nightmares. It all felt like one big dream for him, and almost every single day he wished just that he would wake up again. He was surprised as he had done the few discoveries from his unconscious studying of the girl in front of him. She seemed to be afraid of nothing, even before the ordeal. But now he really wondered, was she afraid of anything? Or did trauma overwhelm her senses, and maybe she just couldn't find anything to be weak over once she had accepted reality? She has to be afraid of something, nobody is fearless.
"…Haruhi…" he meekly called out to her, his eyes drifting down to his feet. She turned her head to catch a glimpse of his somewhat troubled face, his eyes revealing approximately ninety percent of the troubles.
"Yes?" she replied, turning her head so she was watching her path once more.
"…Are you…afraid of anything?" he asked gently, lifting his gaze to try to meet hers, but only met the back of her head.
"Why do you ask?" she retorted, never leaving her glued eyes from the road.
"It's odd. You have changed, but in a way you haven't. Your weakness isn't thunderstorms anymore, so it must be something else." he said. "Nobody is completely fearless, just some are more scared than others." he continued to speak. "There must be something that gives you horrible dreams at times, or making you shake and tremble until you can't control your body." he finished.
There was a silence for a few moments, the tapping on pavement echoing more than ever.
"That's a question you hear a lot in the community." Haruhi spoke up, breaking the silence. "Most would say they were afraid of death or those infected people on the other side of the walls, but I can't get afraid by those things, it's just a thing you have to control over. I realised my fear after I figured out the true meaning of the phrase 'you never knew you had something until its gone'." she said, shifting the weight of her bag. "I'm afraid to lose dad, Miya, anyone in the community; to sum it up, I'm afraid of becoming alone." she said in her regular serious tone, though if she revealed her true feelings, she would have broken down right then and there. Hikaru's eyes widened, not actually believing that she would say something like that as her weakness. He didn't say a word, but remained silent for her to continue on. "There's nothing left to live for if everyone you love is gone, what's the point in trying to survive then?" she questioned and turned her head to see his face, seeing the faint shock from the answers she had been giving.
"…becoming alone…" he repeated, letting the words echo through his head. 'Alone' was such a familiar word, yet it was a stranger to him.
"Yeah," she said softly. "They can take my health, my strength, all of my belongings, but if they hurt or take away the ones I love, then I'll kill whoever or whatever did it."
"Look, Takashi! They have apples!" Hunny cheered and pointed to the tree in the communal garden. Mori grunted and followed his cousin that was happily skipping off to the apple tree. Even though it was late at night, the garden for the people looked beautiful in the moonlight. It was season for most fruits, and a lot of it already had been picked, but there was still plenty left. The plants' leaves were all a lush green, and the former club members and the blonde haired girl were scattered about, either picking or observing the growth of the plants.
Miya had a bright smile on her face, collecting different kinds of edibles. She had mostly collected strawberries, her main purpose of wanting to come here, but she had also taken blueberries, raspberries and other kinds of berries. Why berries? Because she loves berries, that's why. And it's a good travel snack.
She giddily walked along the paths that was in between the small fields, looking around at the hosts' doings. Hunny, as mentioned earlier, was picking apples from the apple tree with Mori, Tamaki was taking all kinds of random vegetables and fruits because 'he wants to be a good father' while Kyouya observed, and Kaoru was sitting on the side. He was twirling a leaf between his fingers, staring at it in deep thought. She raised an eyebrow and went over to him, plopping down besides him.
"What're ya thinkin' about?" she asked casually, studying the leaf he held.
"Nothing, really…" he mumbled, never averting his gaze from the dancing leaf. She responded by giving him a blank look, her eyes half-lidded while her mouth was a thin line.
"For somebody who's thinking about nothing you sure are zoning out a lot." she said and placed her hands on ground behind her, leaning her upper-body weight on them. "Lemme guess, you're worried or something about your brother." she said and let her eyes wander to the sky, seeing all of the twinkling stars and letting the moon's rays reflect on her eyes. He stole a quick glimpse of her face and sighed.
"Yeah, something like that." he said and stopped twirling the leaf. "All day he has been…odd. And I know he's hiding something, he knows something but he's not telling me."
"How do you know he's hiding something?" Miya asked, not really sounding interested at all, but deep down she did really know how he could tell.
"I guess it's a twin's instinct." he replied, shrugging. "I could tell, we're just that close."
"Haru did mention something about you two having a weird fake taboo relationship…"
"Huh, yeah we did, thought it was just an act in our club."
There was a thick silence between them, the moon shining down its reflecting light upon the two. Miya let the corners of her mouths turn upwards as she took out a few of the berries she picked.
"Here, even though it sounds lame, berries usually does make me feel better." she said as she stretched out a palm with several berries on it to him. He studied the small fruits in her hand, a questioning brow raised, but shrugged and took two of them, popping them in his mouth. He savoured the sweetness and Miya smiled brightly, eating the remaining berries in her palm.
"Don't worry about your brother, I'm sure he'll eventually tell you-" 'If he does I'll beat his retarded ass…' "-or he'll figure out whatever that's troubling him on his own." she said and smiled reassuringly. Kaoru flickered his eyes up to the blonde's emerald green ones, trying to found out what she really meant.
"He's just not very good with his emotions when it comes to things, that's why I'm a bit worried, that's all." Kaoru said indifferently and shrugged.
"As I said, everything will be fine." she said again. "Even the most hardest hardships has a positive side to it." He only shrugged again in response, he didn't even really understand what she was trying to do to help him.
"Miya-chan! Kao-chan!"
The two of them looked up, seeing Hunny waving from the branch he was sitting on in the apple tree.
"Look at how many apples there is!" he shouted cheerfully, and moments later Tamaki bounced towards the tree like a happy little puppy.
Haruhi stopped walking at the end of the street, staring at the slightly battered, but still readable, street sign that sat on the corner. They were getting closer to the more dangerous part of town. It wasn't only dangerous because this was one of the areas where a lot of the infected, especially Crackers, occupied, but it was also dangerous because there were many desperate surviving madmen in that area. These desperate madmen would be people who thought they would survive better on their own. They would try to kill anyone who could have something on them to help their survival, and because of the lack of socially development and loneliness they would be complete killer-machine nutjobs. Haruhi had encountered a few before, and every single one she had to kill. It didn't feel right killing someone that was healthy physically, but unfortunately their mental health would only cause more harm than good if they stayed alive, so she would kill them. She felt hurt deep down, but in a way she did help them. She ended their pain, the pain that she would always see in their eyes.
"Haruhi? Why did you stop?" Hikaru asked from behind her, his face showing a mixture of concern and confusion. She turned her head a fraction, eyeing him from the corner of her eye. 'Why did I bring him with me?' she questioned herself, knowing full well that if they did encounter one of those lunatics, it wouldn't end well if they attacked him. She let her eyes wander back to the sign, sighing.
"We're entering a more dangerous district, so be cautious of your surroundings." she said clearly.
"Oh…okay…" he said and put his hand in his pocket, feeling the gun that was inside. She squinted her eyes and pointed upwards to a street.
"We'll need to head that way, and then travel about six kilomet-"
WHACK
"GIMME THAT BAG!"
Haruhi in an instant spun on her heel, pulling out her gun and aiming it at whoever attacked the person behind her. Once she had done her rotation, she saw Hikaru on the ground, his gun a good few feet away from him since he dropped it, staring in fear at the pointy modified weapon of a rake held by the attacker. The attacker was an old man, he had a messy beard of that looked like a birds nest, his hair was tangled, knotty and it reached down to his shoulders, his clothes were ragged and scruffy, his eyes bloodshot, and the rake that was in his left hand had sharpened points, whiles his right hand was in his pocket. To quickly sum it up, he looked like an homeless man having drug hallucinations.
"Sir, put that down now, or otherwise I have to shoot." she said calmly, but her face said otherwise. The man jerked his head up, like he had just realised she was there. A wicked smile came to his face, revealing yellow rotten teeth with tonnes of holes.
"That's a nice looking gun you got there," he said somewhat threateningly, doing a small nod with his head to emphasise his point. "Too bad that I have a better one!" he yelled, and before Haruhi could even blink, the man pulled out a small handgun from his pocket and shot at her hand. Luckily enough, it only caused her weapon to fly away from her hands.
She stared at the gun that was approximately fifteen feet away with some panic, before she turned her face back to the man. He smirked, and kicked Hikaru quite hardly in the gut, causing him to double over, before he went over and pointed his rake at Haruhi as he took slow steps closer to her.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, such a pretty little doll face as well," the man sighed. "Oh well, let's get this over with!" he added and kicked Haruhi down to the ground with a quick flick. She glared at him, but he acted oblivious and pushed her with his foot so she laid on her stomach, using one foot to keep her wrist trapped while the other rested on her lower back. He yanked the bag off her back, smirking the smile of the devil. "You should at least let me play with you first…" he said as he gently stroked Haruhi's back with the sharp points of his rake.
"HIKARU, FUCKING SHOOT HIM!" Haruhi bellowed, and with that Hikaru scrambled over to his gun. Just as Hikaru flicked the safety switch and turned to aim at the man, he heard something he never wanted to hear. A cry of pain from Haruhi.
The man's wicked grin grew wider by the second as he dug his pointy rake into her flesh, blood oozing out. She bit her lip, and tried to not scream from the pain, but let out instead muffled and strangled vowels.
The gun shook from Hikaru's shaking hand while he watched with eyes wide of terror, seeing the puddle grow by the second.
"Yes! Feel the pain, doll face, because if you don't you won't ever know what life is about." the man chuckled and pressed his weapon harder against her, earning a stifled cry . "Feel the pain or otherwi-"
PCHWO
The man fell to the ground, becoming limp as the new hole on his forehead dripped out small droplets of red liquid, mixing together with the splotches on the ground. Hikaru panted, dropping the gun from his violently shaking hands.
"HARUHI!" he cried, and stood up so quickly that he only managed to stumble towards her. She lifted herself up from the pavement, resting on her hands and knees. She bit her lip to stifle her cries of agony, and did a very good job at it, but worried about something greater than the blood pouring out of her back.
"…Hikaru, help me up…" she mumbled. He obliged, and gently hoisted her up.
"…what the hell am I going to do?…" he cursed under his breath, not having a single clue of what to do.
"Grab your backpack and run." Haruhi said seriously, and he only stared at her in shock.
"What the hell are you talking about?! We need to take care of tha-"
…CRACK…CRACK…CRACK…
"I SAID FUCKING RUN!" she screamed and grabbed his hand, running in top speed and grabbed her bag and weapon on her way as the Crackers and other infected people crawled out of the buildings, hearing a new meal nearby.
There you have it folks, this week's chapter. It will probably be more exciting next week, but oh well, sometimes you need boring chapters to fill out and get the storyline moving. :P
Until next time~!
