WHOOHOO! UPDATED! HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! I'm sorry once again for the late updates. In this chapter...hmm... i"m not gonna spoil it. Te conetent is a bit messy but I hope you will enjoy it. Also, it's a bit late but Merry Christmas! And happy birthday to our little prince, Allen!

I do not own D. Gray Man.

Chapter 25, I'm the cause?

"Hey, do you wanna hang out this evening?"

"Sure! Why not? Where do we meet?"

"Hmm… like… can you bring your cousin as well?"

"…Ah…Why? We can just go by ourselves."

"Well…like…some of my friends want to meet and get to know her…so…"

"I see…"

Ran was standing before the front door impatiently. She knocked on the door once, and twice. She frowned. 'What the hell is she doing? Open the door already!' She banged onto the door. 'That wench…'

After closing the closet door, Lenalee quickly left the storage room and dashed downstairs. She was panicking so much that she almost fell down the stairs. Luckily, she didn't. Trying to regain her usual cool and calm composure, she took one deep breath and made her way to the front door. Once she got there, she could hear the knocking from the outside louder than ever.

"Hey, wench! Open the door this instance!" growled Ran as she knocked. Lenalee trembled and shakily placed her hand on the door knob. 'It's ok. It's alright. Calm down!' She told herself. 'Allen and Tim are going to be safe. She won't be able to find them so it'll be just fine.'

She nodded and unlocked the door, turning the knob. Just as she did so, Ran wasted no time and forcefully pushed the door open which pushed Lenalee backward, making her falling onto the floor. The teal-haired winced slightly when her body hit the ground hard. But, she didn't have time to turn get up as Ran suddenly pulled her by her hair.

"What the hell were you doing? I've been knocking all this time and you can't even hear it?" asked the furious girl. Lenalee bit her lower lip to fight back that pain that she's feeling and placed her hands on Ran's gripping one, slightly trying to pry free. Ran saw this and frowned before forcefully threw the teal-haired down and forcefully slammed the door shut.

*SLAM!*

Lenalee tensed when she heard the loud sound echoing through the hall. 'If it's this loud… Allen would probably be able to hear it!' she thought worryingly.

Ran grumbled to herself and took off her shoe, "…useless wench…" She walked past Lenalee and into the hall. "I'm craving for some tea. Prepare some for me right away." She ordered her cousin who was sitting up from the floor, rubbing her head.

She clicked her tongue in annoyance and turned away. Lenalee noticed where her cousin was heading. "Wait, Ran! Where are you going?" She asked, stopping the girl.

"To my room, you idiot! I did tell you that I forgot something, didn't I?" replied Ran with an irritating tone. "Don't tell me that you didn't read the text?"

Lenalee nodded abruptly as she picked herself up from the floor. Ran rolled her eyes and went upstairs. The teal-haired looked troubled. 'Allen…Tim… please, don't come out!' She wished, gulping and quickly walked into the kitchen to prepare what Ran has 'requested'.

Ran walked up to her bedroom while losing herself in deep thoughts. Mainly, she was growing a bit suspicious if Lenalee's behavior. 'That wench…she's acting weird these past few days… what the hell is she hiding?' She thought. As she came across the storage room, one she has never bothered to enter, she stopped for a while as she heard small sounds coming from inside.

'What was that?' She raised a brow. But, she quickly shook the thought of someone being in there off and continued her way to her bedroom. After retrieving what she has forgotten from her room, she began to make her way back downstairs. But, she stopped once again.

She stared thoughtfully at the door which led to the storage room once again. She was curious, but she didn't want to waste her time either. 'That wench… it couldn't be that…she's bringing someone over, isn't she?' She thought.

She was about to ignore this once again, but…

"Listen, Ran. The boy that you saw with Lenalee the other day… I heard that they're together from time to time when she's at school. So, there's a chance that she might slip out little words about how we treat her to him…although she doesn't look like she will… But, there's no telling that she won't do it…"

The short conversation that she has had with her mother had urged her to check any suspicious behaviors that Lenalee made. "Urgh…let's just get on with this!" Annoyingly, she slammed the door before her open. She glanced around the room. There was nothing wrong with the room. There were just huge pile of boxes lying here and there…or so she thought. Even though she scanned the room with less interest, she's not stupid enough to overlook some of the boxes lying opened on the dusty floor.

'Seems like someone's searching for something…' she assumed as she turned her head from side to side, roughly investigated the room. She wasn't interested in whatever was going in her cousin's head or what she was attempting to do, but she didn't want to get angry by her mother if she were unable to prevent Lenalee from doing something that might affect both her and her mother either. So, as much as she didn't want to, she had to be cautious of her cousin's behavior. 'Well… it's not that I'm fond of that wench either…'

As she searched for the signs of anyone being in the room, her eyes immediately darted to a door that seemed to be a closet as she felt like she's being watched from there. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she inched closer to the closet. 'If she really did bring someone here, that wench… I'll make sure she won't ever do it again!' She was standing in front of the closet, her hand on the knob. She smirked. 'Alright…' Slowly, she began to turn the knob.

"Ran, the tea is ready!" she jerked up a bit when she heard her cousin's voice coming outside of the room. She turned around and saw Lenalee standing beside the door. She clicked her tongue. 'Tch…what timing...' Her eyes were showing a little bit of dissatisfies, but…

'Oh well…instead, I'll play with her then…' She smirked. She let go of the door knob. "Be right there." She said with an unusual smile that crept the hell out if Lenalee.

The teal-haired gulped slightly as Ran walked past her and out of the room. She felt relief. 'Just a little more and Allen would have been found out… Thank god!' She screamed to herself in relief. It was a great thing that she decided to come running upstairs when she was having this bad feeling. She turned to look at the closet. 'SAFE!' She could imagine how frightened Allen would have been.

Brushing the thought away, she quickly followed Ran who was already going downstairs. The two girls made their way into the kitchen where a cup of tea was prepared readily on the dining table along with some snacks. Ran sat down on the table while Lenalee walked over to the basin to quickly wash her hand and placed the cleaned dishes back into the cupboard.

"Ran, did you find what you forget?" She asked her cousin to ease the tension between the two a bit. Ran took a sip of tea from her cup before replied boringly. "Yeah…"

The teal-haired gulped again. "So…like… will you be going out again after this?" Ran laced her cup down and snorted.

"Of course, I will. The party is not over yet." She muttered. "The ceremony has just ended so I took the opportunity to slip out."

"Ohh…is that so?"

Ran frowned. "What? You didn't expect me to come back, did you?" she asked. "Disappointed?"

Lenalee quickly shook her head. "Of course not! It was just unexpected." She stuttered. "Why should I be disappointed?" She didn't dare to turn around and conversed with Ran eye to eye because she felt that Ran was giving her a very menacing look; one that she always saw whenever the girl abused her. It gave her chills.

Ran smirked. "Oh, I wonder why…" She looked around and saw a fork lying beside the plate on the dining table. Lenalee began to shiver a bit when Ran said nothing more after that. Something inside her was telling her to run away, but she didn't know why. It was an instinct that that she had had from growing up under her aunt's abusive nature, though lately, the one who's been constantly hitting her was Ran.

Lenalee felt someone slowly approaching her from behind. She suddenly stepped to the side to avoid the fork that was suddenly come flying from behind her and hid the cupboard frame instead. Though, she wasn't able to fully avoid the attack and the fork left a small scratch on her right cheek. The teal-haired was caught up by the surprise attack and didn't have time to react when her hair was forcefully being yanked by Ran.

"Ahh! Ran?!" She sub-consciously shrieked in surprise. Blood dripped from her cheek where the fork has gazed against. Ran smirked as she yanked Lenalee's hair harder. "Now, that's surprising. Normally, you would merely wince at times like this." She gave another strong pull making Lenalee fell backwards with a painful wince. "To suddenly shriek like that…it seems like you've been very much self-aware with me and Mom, haven't you?"

Truth to Ran's words. Normally, Lenalee didn't really care when Ran hit her or beat her. If she didn't say or fight back against her cousin, her abuses would end quickly because Ran would immediately get bored by her plain reaction. To suddenly react this way, it's like provoking her to hit Lenalee harder and harsher. The teal-haired was aware of that and had always tried not to fight back as much as she could. But, right now, her head was filled with many kinds of thoughts and she subconsciously reacted. That triggered her cousin.

"Hey, wench…" Ran gripped Lenalee's hair tighter and yanked her up making Lenalee's yelp. "I heard that you're seeing a boy from a class. Is that true?" She asked with a smirk.

Lenalee's eyes widened. "W-What are you talking about?" She shuddered. 'How did they know?' She gritted her teeth to prevent the scream when her cousin suddenly threw her at the dining table, which caused the tea cups and the plates to land on the floor as she collided with the table.

*THUD! CRASH!*

The plates crashed as they dropped to the ground; drops of tea were spilling on the floor. Lenalee gasped when her arm got burnt a little from the spilling hot liquid. 'I-It hurts…' She bolted up when Ran approached her once again.

"Heh! Look you at; so pathetic!" Ran scowled, her eyes glaring at Lenalee with pure hatred and disgust. "You really are trying to ask for help, aren't you? From time to time, you would dare to make friends at school…to tell them about this, don't ya?"

"No! Ran, I won't do that!"

"As if you wouldn't! Let me tell you something, wench! I don't care how many friends you would have, but you would never escape from this! Hear that!"

Lenalee was terrified at this point. Ran was definitely going to do something bad! She's definitely planning to torture her.

Ran walked over to the counter and grabbed a pair of scissors. The teal-haired flinched. 'Is she going to cut me instead of hitting?' She thought. No! That's definitely was not okay. She had to get away! She tried to stand up and scrambled away from her cousin, but Ran wouldn't have any of it and grabbed Lenalee's hair.

"Oh, no! I'm not gonna let you get away, wench!" She shouted. Ran didn't stop there. "Come here!" She forcefully dragged Lenalee out of the kitchen, ignoring the girl's whimpers. Just like that, she continued to drag her to the bathroom before pushing her inside the shower.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you." She said in a soft, sadist tone. The teal-haired whimpered, feeling too scared to move. Ran smirked and slowly twirled Lenalee's long teal hair between her fingers. "I'm just gonna take something away from you."

Lenalee now fully found out what Ran was about to do. "No way! Please, no!" She cried.

Ran gritted her teeth and slapped Lenalee. "SHUT UP, WENCH!" She shouted. Lenalee cringed at the amount of rage and jealousy she could sense from her cousin's voice. "Why…? Why is it always you…?" Ran's voice began to shake slightly.

"Why is it that everyone's so interested in you? Why not me?" She shouted. Lenalee flinched. Ran had definitely lost her mind. Lenalee yelled in pain when her hair was pulled again.

"Every time someone asks me something, it's always about YOU! IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT WANTING TO MEET YOU!" Ran grounded her teeth. "What is it that everyone likes about you? Just what the hell is so good about you? Is it your look? Your face?"

She looked insane. Ran used to have mental disorder when she was younger and she hasn't fully recovered yet. It was told that the cause was because of the stress from her surrounding but they couldn't find out what. 'So… I was the cause?'

Ran chuckled. "If it is your look…. Then I should just destroy it…" she murmured eerily. She raised the scissors and pulled Lenalee's hair closer. "If your hair were to be shorter… it would make you ugly, wouldn't it?"

Lenalee turned pale. "Ran, stop! Don't do this! I'm begging you please! Ahhh!" She screamed when Ran stabbed her on the shoulder.

"SHUT UP! I WOULD DO WHATEVER I WANT AND NO ONE WILL STOP ME!" Ran yelled menacingly before kicking Lenalee's stomach. Lenalee groaned and went numb. Ran smirked. "Now then… let's have fun, shall we?"

Lenalee was in pain from the blow. She was too weak. She watched helplessly as Ran began to cut the tip of her teal hair. "Ran… please…don't…"

Ran giggled all the time with pleasures as she cut off her cousin's hair while Lenalee was still too weak to move. After she's done cutting the hair, she threw it beside the teal-haired and dropped the numb girl. Then, she turned on the shower, soaking Lenalee in water. She stood up, staring down at Lenalee.

"Now… that's great, isn't it? From now on, you won't have to deal with that messy hair anymore." She grinned innocently. She slowly stepped back and threw the scissors in front of Lenalee. "You should be greatful, Lena. I got rid of those nuisance for you." She said cheerfully. "Well the, I'll be leaving then! See ya. Ahahahaha." She giggled one last time and left the room.

Lenalee was lying helplessly in the bathroom; her body turned pale from the splashing of shower. She heard the door slammed shut. Ran was gone. She slowly regained her strength and sat up. She stared at the discarded hair beside her. Her shoulder was bleeding, but she didn't care. She slowly touched her hair which was now only ear-length.

Tears began to form at the corner of her eyes. It's gone. Her hair… the only thing that she physically inherited from her mother… the hair that her mother had carefully taken care of…

"…Your hair is quite beautiful, too…"

'It's not anymore…' Lenalee sobbed. 'It's not here anymore…' Tears cascaded down her violate eyes like waterfall. It's unreasonable to cry over something like this. But even so… Lenalee felt her heart ached in pain. She wanted to cry out loud. But no… She couldn't yet… Allen and Tim were still in the house. They would come down anytime soon…

"I've…got to clean this up…" She tried to stand up, but her legs felt weak. She still wasn't able to get over this yet. She heard Timcampy barked and footsteps running this way. She knew. Allen was coming. She had to stand up.

"Ah, Lenalee, is everything alright?" she heard him asked; sonding very worried and concerned.

She opened her mouth to respond but no voice came out. 'No… I can't let him see me like this…'

"Lenalee?"

'I have to say something…'

"Lenalee!"