One Step Short of Angel
Thank you to all of my reviewers! Everybody should take an example from them!
AN/ Weird beginning, they're just character blurbs from when the characters were littler...um...I don't really know why I added them, no. (By the way, I try not to use the same band or singer for the songs, but...)
Track Ten: Help!- The Beatles
Help!/ I need some body/ Help!/ No just anybody/ Help!/ You know I need some one/ Help...
My name is Ryuuji and I am eleven years old.
My mother is dead. My father is angry at me, mainly because of that.
I don't exactly understand why, but I'm a smart kid. I know it...wasn't my fault. That's what the books tell me.
And what the books say is law.
...Really.
I don't really care that mother died. I got nothing from her but her good looks.
Because she was beautiful, and so am I. I know it, I can see it in everybody's eyes, when they look at me for the second time. Who is that beautiful boy?
It's true.
At least I have something, if I'm beautiful. I may not be smart, I may not have friends, but I'm beautiful.
Hey, that's enough for me. People may say it's vain...I guess so. I don't really care.
My name is Malik, and I'm thirteen years old.
I live in Egypt, and I don't often leave the house. Father was very paranoid about that. He would get really angry if I left the house. Because of this, I was ten before I left.
I'm going insane, by the way, before you approach me to talk to me and are disappointed by my strangeness.
I see things that aren't really there. You know what sucks? It's really rare for people my age to get mental illnesses like the one I have. I'm not sure what it's called, except for the hallucinations.
My sister doesn't know, my brother doesn't know...my father is dead, so it's obvious he doesn't know.
My father killed himself last year. I still don't know why. Isis won't tell me. I hate being ignorant.
We're moving to Japan, Isis says. We have plenty of money to fund the trip. That's funny...I didn't know we had that type of money. She says that there are great psychotherapists there, and to hang on until then, please.
It takes a lot out of me, getting 'visited' by my non-friends.
I want to sleep all the time, and I have really random mood swings.
...Sometimes I just want to die and get it all over with.
My name is Yuugi. I'm eight.
My daddy is working today, and I don't really have anybody to talk to, so it's lonely.
Sometimes I get tired of all of this. My mother doesn't live with me, like my father, so I don't have her to talk to either. And Grandpa's always sleeping. It's the only thing he ever does.
I can't go outside and play with the other kids. Nobody lets me, and the kids don't like me either. They say I'm a cripple, and I can't keep up with their games. I am a cripple, but the braces on my legs are supposed to be helping that. They're really un-comfy, though.
But I have my games and my puzzles. I can make puzzles really easy, and I like cards too. Those are games I can play all by myself.
I don't care for playing with the kids, running around and getting all muddy and sweaty.
I don't want to play their stupid games anyway.
My name is Katsuya, I'm nine.
I have a sister, and her name's Shizuka, and she's my favorite person in the world.
But then my mom had to go take her away. I know it's wrong to hate mom, 'cause all the teachers say hating is wrong, but I hate her all the same.
I hate dad too! I have a sense of what's right and what's wrong, y'know? And everything about dad is just totally wrong.
He's got nothing, we live in a little apartment on the bad side of town, and he has a dead-end job...nah, as far as I know, he doesn't even have a job.
I don't want to end up like that. The teachers may say that I don't care, but I really do. It's just kinda hard to break out of concrete that's already dried. That's a metaphor. See? I do listen in school.
My name is Ebina Seto, I'm eleven years old, and I live in an Orphanage.
I'm just counting the moments until I can get out of here...everybody wants to have me...but they don't seem to want Mokuba as much. Mokuba's MY little brother, and I'll be damned if I leave him in this place.
Everybody wants to adopt me because I'm a genius, and that's no understatement. My Intelligence Quota is apparently 'freakishly high', according to the people who tested me when I was six.
My father was still alive then, he died the next year. My mother died a couple of years before. She died giving birth to Mokuba...
I'm not happy here. I don't think I'm ever happy here or around here...maybe I'll never be happy anywhere.
But maybe I still have a chance. Scratch that, maybe Mokuba still has a chance. I'm just counting the moments.
It was quiet in Kaiba's room, before Ryou cleared his throat nervously. "So...anything interesting to say?"
Ryuuji looked through him, Kaiba typed on his computer, Yuugi studied the ceiling of the room, Malik just wasn't paying attention at all, and Jou hummed the theme to an anime under his breath.
The non-mortal in the room sighed. "Guys...guys...am I even getting through to you at all?"
No, not at all.
He groaned. "Listen!" Nope, nobody was listening.
"NOW!" He basically screeched, losing his patience for half a second. Most everybody there jumped and looked up at him in dismay.
Malik yawned. "Sorry, Rosuto. You were saying?"
"Well, do you have anything interesting or important to say at all?
A chorus of 'no's' sounded around the room. "Why are you all so tired, then?"
Nobody answered. "A bad night?" Everybody nodded slightly. "Oh. So, nothing at all happened in school today?"He knew the questions he was asking were lame, but he was trying to keep his charges awake.
"Um...there was a new girl in class." Ryuuji volunteered half-heartedly.
"Really?"
"Mhmm...seemed okay."
"What was her name?"
"Can't remember."
Yuugi was the one who remembered. "Mazaki! Mazaki Anzu!" He cried out triumphantly.
"Oh. Well...that's nice." He didn't want to talk about his idea yet. "Nothing else?"
"Would you just stop asking?" Kaiba finally snapped in exasperation. "We don't have anything to say!"
"Fine, fine...well, do any of you keep...journals." Alright, it wasn't any less lame than the other thing he had said, but it was something different.
Jou snorted. "That's for girls!"
"No! I kept a journal when I was alive. Barely wrote anything in it, but I had it."
"Then I guess you were girly!"
"I was not girly! Girls crawled all over me! I never actually had a stable relationship, but I did have fan clubs."
"Ya did? Woah. Like Otogi."
"I have fanclubs?"
"Hell yeah, you haven't noticed."
"...Nope..."
"Chhh...you have to have."
"Nuhuh."
"Prick."
"Dog."
"I ain't a dog!"
"Okay, both of you, stop, before you start fighting!"
Ryuuji and Jou shut up.
"Well, even if journals are supposedly for girls, I want you to get one."
Malik raised an eyebrow. "You sound like a parenting book. They're always advising parents to get journals for their kids."
"Well, parenting books are in the right."
Ryuuji rolled his eyes. "Hah! This venting out feelings thing didn't work for you."
"Shut up, Ryuuji." Ryou hissed quickly. "It'll work for you. I mean, imagine it as a school assignment. Write a few sentences every day for...um..."
"Two months." Yuugi suggested.
"Two months."
Kaiba rolled his eyes. "You're trying too hard. This sounds like a 'Seizonkinan' movie."
"Yeah." Ryuuji agreed. "The kind where the corageous teacher helps the unwilling, poor, unfortaunate students and ends up, like, transforming them."
"Well...I don't expect you to be transformed or anything...but it could help, couldn't it?"
Kaiba glared. "First you tell us that we have to meet like this, and now you want me to waste valuable time with a girlish hobby? I don't think so."
"Please? Please? It's two months! It can't be that hard."
Kaiba sighed. "Very well. As long as you answer a question for me."
"What kind of question?"
"Where did you die?"
Jou snorted. "Well, that's not creepy at all."
"Shut up."
Ryou fidgeted. "Um...why do you want to know?"
"Curiosity." The fifteen year old boy deadpanned.
"Well...Kyoto." He mumbled.
Kaiba nodded, tucking the information into his mind.
The uncomfortable silence was broken by Yuugi. "So...are we doing this...assignment?"
"Yes. You have to."
Ryuuji smirked. "What makes you think we will? You aren't going to read it."
Or so you think...an evil little part of Ryou gave a Cheshire-cat smile and chuckle. "I can be scary when I want to be."
Ryuuji frowned. "Did he just threaten us?"
The others shrugged.
