Promise Me
Isaac walked away from the classroom, and he sighed. He knew that Marvin wouldn't keep quiet about what happened. Well, he would keep quiet about what he had said, but Isaac had a feeling that he would surely twist the truth around some way the next time he talked to Diana. After all, the last threat Isaac spoke was a serious one.
He scolded himself for letting his anger go away with him. Although I know Marvin has no care towards Martin and Diana, as long as he gets what he wants, Isaac thought to himself, I should have never gotten into that argument in the first place; it'll only add fuel to the fire.
With this in mind, he returned to his room at Torrington, and worked at his school-work, expecting Diana to come along within a few hours. When he was finished, yet Diana hadn't come along yet, he decided to go to Pebbleton's office, and tell him of the transfer of schools. As he walked into the principal's office, and told him about wanting to transfer, he apparently wasn't surprised.
"I got a call from your father an hour ago," Pebbleton explained, "saying how you wanted to change schools. I must say, it caught me off-guard; I expected you to stay for the whole school year."
"Changing circumstances," Isaac stated, thinking of what Harold might have said to the Principal.
"Though I must say how co-incidental it is," Pebbleton said almost reminiscently, "for you to be transferring to the very school an Exchange student, Tatsuki Miyabe, attends in Japan."
Something clicked in Isaac at that moment. When he had lived in Osaka, he had attended school in an entirely different division from Tatsuki's. Back then, he still had feelings of hostility toward Tatsuki, for the crimes her brother committed; for the people he had hurt. Looking back on it, he regretted how short-sighted he was, and how he let his anger towards Sousuke affect his opinion of Tatsuki. In a way, he felt that as he was back then, he was quite similar to Algernon...
"Is...Something wrong, Isaac Alexander?" Principal Pebbleton asked.
Isaac shook his head, snapping himself out of past memories. "No, it's nothing. I'm just feeling nostalgic."
That was half the truth; Osaka had actually been one of the places where Isaac had stayed the longest when he and his father moved around when he began making a name for himself as an Archaeologist. They spent two years there, having moved there shortly after Isaac's fifteenth birthday. He really missed the rich culture it had, even if he could barely understand some of the more complex Japanese, even though he had spent those two years learning the language, among other things.
"Well," Isaac said, "I better go get my things sorted out for when I leave within the next two weeks...though I might leave even earlier."
"Oh, for what reasons," Pebbleton asked curiously.
"As I said earlier, Principal Pebbleton," Isaac said, "Changing circumstances." Leaving the Principal wrapped in confusion, he walked out the door.
The other half was out of confusion and suspicion. The Sorcerer's comment about Isaac being something different, 'what he was', had been the 4th time that Isaac had heard that ever since August.
He stopped walking back to his room, and leaned on a wall, folding his arms. He recalled the first two times, all back in the Miyabe incident. The first time was from Sousuke, and the second was from Algernon himself, and both men knew what they were talking about, as Isaac now realized:
"You have no idea, boy" Sousuke spoke mockingly, "you have no idea how much alike the two of us really are! Whoever your parents are may have done something, but the reality of what you really are is inescapable!"
"What do you really know of that boy," Algernon had spoken to Martin, Diana and Tatsuki. "He keeps his identity hidden under a mask, even under a fake name, yet the boy himself has yet to find out what he really is. It's ironic, Tatsuki, since he's one of the few people like you."
Isaac gritted his teeth, and his hands tightened their grip on his arms. He hissed through gritted teeth. "What is it you are still hiding?"
But before he could come to an answer, a voice called out to him: "Who is hiding what?"
A chibi Isaac leaped four feet into the air, and three feet to the left, and he found Diana looking at him, almost glaring. He took a breath to steady his nerves. "Diana, I nearly had a heart-attack!"
"Sorry, Isaac," Diana said, and went straight to the point. "Isaac, why were you so hostile towards Marvin earlier?" She spoke angrily. "And did you really threaten to break his back?"
Isaac sighed; Marvin had told her, and he had left everything that he said out. He also decided to put his own spin on Isaac's threat, thinking it was physical. Isaac had another idea in mind when he said it. Having been near-death twice, the second courtesy of, regretfully, Diana, and all of the life-threatening missions he had been on, physical pain or breaking bones had become something Isaac considered part of his work at the Center. What he had in mind was to expose what Marvin had said to him to Diana and Martin.
Although, thinking about it now, he realized that might not work. After all, would Diana really believe him, considering her feelings for Marvin, Isaac admitted, and could he be sure Martin would too? Even if Marvin had tried to force those two apart, Martin may have still considered Marvin to be a friend. Isaac thought to himself: had I really been too forceful?
He spoke, as he tried to explain himself. "Look, Diana..." He looked at her eyes, which burned with expectancy, as Diana waited for his answer. "Diana, did you honestly expect me to just stand around while you let Marvin tell you to stay away from your own brother?" He heavily emphasized those words, and Diana's eyes widen, as she took a step back.
"Isaac, don't use that tone with me!" Diana spoke forcefully, taking a step forward. "Marvin...he was just concerned, that's all. You saw what Martin was like; he wasn't his normal self! He had good right to want me to stay away from Martin...he was concerned for me, and..."
She seemed to catch herself before she could go any further. "...Look, Isaac," she started again, looking away from Isaac, "I've already talked to Martin, and we've made up. I just want to know why you acted the way Marvin said you did," her voice lowered, and she spoke softly. "It doesn't seem like you to act so violently towards someone like that."
After hearing this, Isaac made up his mind: he felt he had to tell Diana the truth. "Diana," he said, his voice shaking from even remembering his words, "It's about what he said that set me off, and what he was doing, as I mentioned earlier."
As Isaac spoke his next question, Diana's found it to be like an echo of what she heard once before. "What do you really know of Marvin?"
The question caught Diana off-guard, and on top of that, the look on Isaac's face as he said it: it coldly reminded her of Algernon, and what he said about the masked boy...the one who nearly gave his life to save Diana from Sousuke's attack on her. "Well, he's smart, enthusiastic, detail-oriented, great at sports, a good Center agent, and-"
"Not his achievements or merits, Diana," Isaac interrupted. "Besides you told me that before..."
Diana knew what the before meant: when she was infected and turning into a vampire two weeks ago. Getting back to the conversation, she said frustrated: "Isaac, does it really matter? I trust Marvin, and even Martin trusts him. I...I even like him, though you probably know that too!" Isaac nodded, meaning "yes, you did say that once", and she continued. "He also saved us in the Amazon rain forest. Why are you so angry because of that?"
"Much of what you said," Isaac said, his anger simmering again, "is precisely what he said to me about why you told him, and furthermore..." He went silent, wondering if he really should say it. "...Never mind." Isaac finally said.
"Why?" Diana spoke angrily. "Isaac, you never get that mad at someone without reason, and I want to know-"
Isaac snapped at her. "HE DOESN'T CARE, DIANA!"
Diana was taken aback. Panting, Isaac continued. "Diana, he doesn't care about anything that happens between you and Martin, as long as it doesn't affect him. He only sees you two as step-siblings, and is part of the reason why he doesn't care whether or not you two love each other or hate each other!"
Diana was about to respond angrily when Isaac began chuckling to himself, his hand covering his face. Isaac, have you gone mad? Diana thought, backing away in fear. It was another echo that Diana heard to someone else she knew, this time, Sousuke. A part of herself, she was ashamed to admit, was scared of Isaac, since in this brief argument, he showed similarity to both Sousuke and Algernon, people she had considered to be monsters.
"But look at whom I'm saying it to," Isaac said, the chuckling still present, albeit faded, "you don't believe anything as outlandish as that unless it hits you in the face."
At that moment, the one hit in the face was Isaac, as Diana slapped him hard, causing him to spin around twice before coming to a stop. A little dazed, Isaac looked at Diana, who looked extremely angry with him. He wasn't surprised; thinking back on it, he was shocked by his own demeanour that his anger caused.
"Stop it, Isaac," she said hushed, and then yelled. "Have you always been this mentally imbalanced?"
Isaac was about to respond, but he froze when he saw Jenni right behind Diana. Diana noticed it, and looked behind herself, and jumped back two feet, startled.
"Isaac, Diana, what's..." Jenni was at quite a loss for words. She had come along just as Diana and Isaac's last exchange occurred, and it shocked her, since such an argument, and what they said, were those she would have never attributed to Isaac and Diana's relationship. Heck, the whole school knew about their relationship as well as they did Martin and Diana's.
Diana tried to explain, but was at a loss for words. She opened her mouth, yet nothing came out, and she looked away, ashamed at her behaviour. Isaac was too; he would have never said such things to Diana normally, and he knew it was because he let his anger get the better of him. He took his hand off his face, and spoke. "I know how this looks, Jenni..." He admitted. "And I hate to say it, but you're right." He looked at Diana sadly, who looked back at Isaac, astonished. "Diana...I'm sorry for what I said...just forget what I said..."
He turned around and began walking away, in the direction of his room. When Isaac had rounded the corner towards the Dorms, Jenni finally asked. "Diana, what the heck happened between you two?" Jenni questioned. "I've heard of people quarrelling before, but this one takes the cake."
Diana was only half-listening to Jenni, still looking in the direction Isaac went off in. She wrapped her arms around herself, as a small tear formed in her right eye. "We both said things...that we should have never said to each other."
"Don't tell me you two are breaking it off," Jenni spoke in worry. "You two used to really like each other...well, before now, I guess."
"Well..." Diana admitted, "He and Marvin had an argument earlier, and he said that Marvin said...well, he claimed that Marvin basically implied he didn't care about what happened between me and Martin, and must have out-right stated it was because we're only step-siblings."
Jenni's eyes widened in disbelief when Diana finished explaining what happened. It was quite conflicting in Jenni's mind what she just heard; she, as did many of the girls in Torrington, saw Marvin as the perfect guy, never doing anything bad intentionally, or acting as such towards people, yet she also knew that Isaac was never the kind of person to lie just to make someone else look bad. It hurt her brain quite a bit; two contradictions rolled into one.
"But...Marvin wouldn't...would he, Jenni?" Diana asked Jenni pleadingly.
"Whoa, slow down, Di," Jenni said, a little panicked herself. "I don't know either. There are celebrities that look all prim and pretty and perfect on paper," she admitted, "and...from what Isaac said, it could be the same with Marvin, as unbelievable as it sounds. But Di," Jenni told her, "didn't he just say to forget it? He looked just as hurt as you about what he said."
"Jennifer," Diana spoke, "I think you're right."
Jenni lifted her eye-brows in surprise; it was rare for anyone to call her by her full first name, instead of the shortened version, Jenni. Diana must have really been going through a lot. "I spoke with Martin earlier, and he told me you two had a spat as well. Did something happen last night that I should be concerned about?"
"...No, it isn't," Diana said to Jenni, hating keeping her friend locked out of the loop when she was so concerned. "Martin...was just angry that Isaac's going to be leaving Torrington."
"What?" Jenni yelled. "When did this happen, and why?"
"Well," Diana half-lied, "I guess his Dad got a job over in Japan, and Isaac decided to go along with him. He moves around like that a lot apparently."
"I see. I always found it odd how Isaac and Martin got along so well, considering how their personalities conflict. Though it makes sense how Martin would grow so attached to Isaac as a friend. I hate to say, but aside from Billy and the Janitor," Jenni spoke, "he doesn't have many friends."
Diana wiped away a tear. "But they are the best ones he could have." Diana pushed herself off the wall, and began walking towards Isaac's dorm room. "Where are you going?" Jenni asked.
"I'm going to talk to Isaac," Diana spoke. "Since he is leaving, I don't want it to be with bad blood between us."
As soon as Isaac got to his room, he fell down onto his bed, and into thought. Idiot! Why did you do that? He thought to himself. Bad enough you insulted Diana, but you didn't even care about her feelings. ...Maybe it is better if I leave after all. That kind of behaviour is almost like how I acted back then, during the Miyabe incident...
After a few minutes in silence, he heard a knocking on the door. He got off the bed, opened the door, and was surprised to find Diana standing there, hugging one of her arms. "May I come in," she asked meekly.
"...Sure, why not," he said, and let her in. As she sat down on a chair, he told her. "Diana, as I said before...I'm sorry for everything I said."
"Look, Isaac, you don't have to constantly apologize," Diana insisted, "in a way, it's both our faults."
"...Diana, the fault is primarily mine," Isaac stated, "I was the one who confronted Marvin, remember, and he said that-"
"Isaac," Diana stopped him, "I know what you said. It's possible that he was just frustrated and angry, you mis-interpreted...or he really meant it." She admitted to herself. "I just don't know Isaac, and I don't want any of this ruining the group."
Isaac sighed. "All right then."
"Isaac," Diana said softly, and cupped one of Isaac's hands in her, "Just...promise me that you won't get into any more arguments with Marvin. I don't want things getting any worse than they are. Can't I just have everyone get along for the time-being, at least until you leave?"
Isaac looked down at Diana's hands, and then looked up at her face. Her eyes were hopeful; they were hoping that this didn't happen again. He didn't want it to happen again, since he was so ashamed at how angry he had felt earlier. He allowed himself a small smile. "...All right, I promise," Isaac said, putting his own hand over her own.
"Good," Diana said, and she leaned over, and gave Isaac a kiss on the cheek, which caused him to blush a little. "Isaac, if you don't mind if I go see if Marvin...?"
"It's best not to play favourites, Diana," Isaac admitted, "you should tell him too."
He saw Diana smile, but it seemed her face was still...sad. She walked out of the door, and Isaac thought to himself how close things came to falling apart.
That is two bullets dodged in one day, Isaac thought to himself, counting the problem between Martin and Diana, and began to worry. Things won't always go so easily, and I doubt I'll be able to dodge the third bullet.
Isaac wouldn't need to dodge the third bullet: due to the secrets his parents kept from him, he was the third bullet.
