It may not look it, but this chapter is slightly longer than the past one. Also narrated by your favorite jerk Gumiya. :)
Luka and Gakupo are fighting. That's really something to take notice of, maybe even record - I've never seen them say a single antagonistic thing against each other, ever. But now, Luka's face is stone-hard and Gakupo's eyebrows are practically one as they argue, voices low and insistent.
"We have to follow her! Find her!" Luka's arms are crossed - she's closing herself up. In no mood to argue. "Did you see her? She's terrified. Of everyone. "
"Exactly! We have to get her somewhere safe, which is why I don't understand why you're so against calling 119." Gakupo's frowning, expression thunderous and eyes stormy.
Luka shakes her head, pink tresses flying this way and that. "No, no, no - Gackt, please. I'm worried about her, and I just want to help her. She'll be hysterical - more than hysterical - if she sees police."
Her boyfriend nods stiffly. "Yeah, but what can we do? You think she's been abused, don't you?"
Luka blinks. Lips tight, she nods. "Just... Even if it's not that, she's traumatized, or something along those lines. Fragile."
"Luka, you're usually the level-headed one," says Gakupo, gesturing with the cell phone grasped in his right hand. "That just means we have to get her out of whatever situation she's in right now, isn't it?"
The tall girl is silent for a moment. I watch her, motherly Luka. Calm, practical, sensible - and right now, she's fiercely protective of Rin, a girl she's only just met. Emotional, too, and irrational. Gakupo's right, if she's being abused, then it's better for us to call the -
"Just trust me on this," Luka says, voice firm. "Please. First we should find her and calm her down. Then we can call 119, if we need to."
"Count me out," croaks Lily from the ground. I grimace as she reveals the swollen bruise on her stomach, stained deep blue and green with a generous speckling of violet. She'd tried to try to help Rin out when she first started staggering around like a drunkard, and she'd paid for it with a punch in the stomach.
How the hell was Rin so strong? She looked like she weighed barely ninety pounds.
Gakupo looks down and seems to remember Lily. His eyes widen; I think he's been friends with Lily since they were in elementary school, or something along those lines. "Lil. You okay?"
Lily winces as she tries to get up, using Miku as a crutch. "I'm going home. Miku, can you - ?"
Miku's eyes are giant pools of teal and cyan, but she nods and tries to escort Lily off to her house. I can tell that she wants to go with Luka, to go see what happened to Rin. She really does like the girl, doesn't she? After all, Miku's nothing without her signature twintails and excitable, trusting personality.
As for me - she pushed me. And although that sounds ridiculously immature, it's a big deal. Her strength, her panic attacks, her ignorance of social norms, and hunted-animal behavior - she puts me on edge. It's less that I don't like her. More of that she's dangerous, capable of...
Well, I won't say destroying my life and harming my loved ones. More like causing a lot of havoc and confusion. Better to stay away, but I know I'll never manage that. Even now, I'm thinking about her, wondering...
After all, Gumiya's nothing without his abrasiveness and powerful curiosity.
"You don't like her? No?" Gumi's squeak disturbs my internal monologue.
I jump. Gumi's small and cute, the epitome of naïvety and innocent joy, but sometimes I swear that she can read mines. Most notably mine.
"Rin really doesn't like Gumiya..." Gumi trails off, frowning as she tries not to get too confused. "Or is it that Gumiya doesn't like Rin? Latter, but not really, right? Gumiya, what did you do?"
"She threw me out of the administration office," I reply, glaring at her. "She freaked out when the lady there couldn't find her name in the list, or something. One of the teachers - Mr. Al, I think, came to sort it out."
"Freaked out?"
"She literally just pushed me out of the room and locked the door. She's strong," I add, and Gakupo absentmindedly rubs his arm where Rin barreled past, very near knocking him over.
"Still! Pushed you out?" Gumi's mouth is a little pink O. "But you're so heavy! And stubborn!" She giggles, but no one else does the same. I wait for Luka to chide her gently but her voice is absent, almost as if one were walking and stepped onto a lower stair without noticing.
I look around and notice that Luka is gone.
"Luka?" Gakupo sighs. "I think she just went ahead on her own. Gumiya, take Gumi - "
I'm already racing towards the road Rin stumbled down a few minutes. "Gumi! Can you find your way home?"
"Of course Gumi can!" She's insulted, and she whirls around to head home before turning right back. "But I want to see Rin too - "
"Good girl, go!"
"Gumiya!" Gakupo calls. "Are you - Luka - oh, hell." He hurries after me, dragging his fingers through his disheveled hair. "Gumiya will call you soon, Gumi!"
It's a quiet little side alley that Rin chose to take - or did she really choose it? I'm not sure what she's on, or if she's even on something - Luka seems to think that Rin's traumatized by something or another and Gakupo seems to think so too. Is it a psychological disorder? PTSD?
Gakupo's raced ahead; he's older and stronger, as well as taller. His ponytail flutters and swishes as he stops rather abruptly and I can't help but grin slightly as it obscures most of his face and all of his vision.
The grin falls off when I see our two runaways.
"Rin, please - let me help you!"
Luka's standing a few feet away from Rin, who's on her hands and knees, retching and coughing. She says something, tries to step closer to Rin who scuttles back and deposits a pile of vomit on the asphalt.
It's pink.
No, no - I shake my head. Stop that. Her vomit's streaked with blood, red mixing with other unsavory details that all vomit contains. What's odd, though, is the black that spreads through it, a slight sheen over it like - no, it can't be oil, can it?
Gakupo stands next to Luka. "What should we do?"
Luka licks her lips, effectively telling him that she wished she knew. "Her vomit. It's full of blood and oil. I don't need to be a genius to know that's strange."
Her boyfriend glances at the ground. "Oil."
"That's what I just said." Luka's frustrated, and she's starting to get snappish. Gumi told me what happened when Luka got pissed. General nothing beneficial, to say of the least of it.
I sigh.
Stepping right up to Rin, I kneel next to her, trying to ignore the blood soaking into my clothes. "Rin." Of course, she doesn't hear me. But I go on. "We all suspect that something really horrible happened to you, Rin. I'm sorry. But you'll be alright. Mother Luka will protect you if she dies doing it." Not really an exaggeration at all. "So calm down."
I take a breath. I don't think that was blunt or mean in any way, if I do say so myself. Surely if she could hear this -
"Gumiya - !"
Rin screams in my face, eyes wide and glazed. I don't think I'm imagining the four different notes blasting into my ears.
Her little fist whistles toward my face and I fall back just in time to avoid getting her skull smashed in. As it is, it skims my nose and I feel hot blossoming, dripping red onto the pavement.
"Gumiya!" Luka's eyes aren't afraid - rather, fierce and determined. Ah, the might of the mother. She rushes towards me, but I shake my head. Calming Rin down will wrap this situation up much faster than taking care of me.
"I'm fine," I say, as I stumble back and dig in my backpack for something to quench the bleeding with. As I raise my P.E. shirt to my nose, I wonder what the girl went through to become so strong. How many sit-ups and how many curl-ups, push-ups and squats?
Rin bares her teeth. She tries to get up, to walk away, but she fails miserably, tripping over her own feet. She screams again, and Luka winces as she covers her ears. Now she's really having a fit, arms and legs beating against the ground as she fights an enemy that only she seems to see.
Gakupo tries to calm her down, only to receive a harsh kick in the ankle. Luka's eyes are sad as she tries to talk to Rin, tries to calm her down and reason, tries to assure her that everything will be alright -
Enough of this. "Goddammit you are loud. SHUT THE FUC - "
Luka hits me in the face with her purse. "What are you doing?"
"If not comforting, I thought maybe swearing..." I trail off. Rin's quiet now, her eyes closed but from the twitching I think maybe her eyeballs are still rolling around, looking at things only she can see. Her face is streaked with tears, blood, vomit, and oil, as well as being scratched in multiple places from who-knows-what happened while she staggered all the way over here.
A twinge of guilt?
I sigh. "We'll get you home, Rin. To your mother."
She seems to relax a little, and she stops trembling. Her breathing slows and... I breathe out, half snort, half sigh of relief.
"She's asleep," I say. I look up to see Luka and Gakupo, both shaken. "Her house is the one next to Miku's, right? The one that was empty last week?"
Gakupo nods. "I'll carry her."
"I'll." I look down at the sleeping Rin, easily summed up in one word; mess. Only now she seems to be getting pneumonia on top of her fits - her skin is frightening pale and her lips are tinged with blue.
"Luka."
She looks at me, face pale and pinched. Her hair's a mess and there's a giant red stain on her usually spotless shirt, but she doesn't seem to mind. Or maybe she just doesn't notice.
"You signed up for swimming, right?" I ask her. I faintly remember Gumi saying something about Luka swimming a lot, although 'she's really like a kitty-cat trying not to be a scaredy-cat' - her words, not mine.
A flash of recognition flits across her face and she pulls a big pink towel from her backpack. I wrap Rin in it, burrito-style, and pick her up. She's not as light as I thought she would be. Probably heavier than Gumi, despite Rin being the skinnier of the two.
As I stand up, I feel something squeezing my wrist. Tightly, painfully.
Rin's fingers are clenched around my arm, fingers cold and hard like they're not flesh but diamond and titanium. Her lips are moving, but it's hard to hear what she's saying.
" - Iroha - "
"Iro ha nihoheto..." I mutter, then shake my head. "Rin, can you hear me?"
The girl ignores me and whispers something else, although this time, I fail to pick out nothing whatsoever.
"What?"
Her eyes flicker open, no longer glazed but still pained. Her lips move, the words coming in small bursts. " - sparks of fire... out... smoke pours..."
"I don't know what you're saying."
I blink, seeing that she's fallen back into unconsciousness again. Her blonde hair's sweaty, but she shivers. Her cheeks are piping hot to the touch.
Yep, probably best to get her to her mother. Although it would wonderful if her mother happened to double as a doctor as well.
I look up to see Luka and Gakupo staring.
"Well?" My voice sounds remarkably blithe. "Lead the way."
"Agh - !"
"Gumiya, what on earth - "
"Static."
"What?"
"Static. My fingers are still numb."
"That's why you dropped Rin?"
"Imagine brushing against an electric fly swatter. Multiple by twenty."
"Luka, look - "
[A gasp.]
"Oh my..."
"That's smoke."
"Yeah. And..."
"What?"
"Super strength, smoke, and oil gets you thinking. Y'know, about - "
[The door flies open.]
"Rin!"
Gumiya's... Fun to write. He's weird. And always wondering about stuff. And he has absolutely no idea how to be subtle or sympathetic through words. Oh well. Still hope you liked him!
In all honesty, there's a ton of stuff I want to write here when I'm actually writing the chapter, but when I'm done... Bleh. I just wanna go sleep. Thank you so much for your reviews, though! Luv em :) Also chocomint3 I swear I will go over my chapters and edit them sometime... During Spring Break or something... Q_Q. Thank you so much for your reviews & ALL YOUR ANSWERS WILL BE ANSWERED NEXT AND NEXT NEXT EPISODE, or at least a large majority...If I don't mess up like I kind of trashed the summary for this chapter as I went along. Also may I call you Minteh. It sounds so delicious ;D
Next chapter: tentative date, sometime next week. Big Al. Meiko. A present.