Amor Fictus
Written by Sakki-san
Anything you haven't heard of belongs to me.
Anything you HAVE heard of, doesn't.
(Three days later)
You came again.
You came and saw me.
You sat there and watched me and smiled at me and scared me.
You didn't care if they saw you.
You couldn't care.
Ken reached a hand into his gym locker and sought out his shirt. The dirty gray mass was hidden under his shoes, but he continued to reach around. He wanted to buy himself a little time in here, time to think.
He had a new bruise today. It was on his hip. Schuldig had been in a possessive mood, and Ken hadn't been quick enough with his books to escape before the man got to him.
First he'd been pulled from his chair. Then he'd been shoved back into a corner. When he tried to block the invading hands, he had been hit: slapped twice, once on the right cheek, once on the left. The bruise had resulted from his being forced into a bookshelf and meeting with a corner.
However, this had less of an effect on Ken than usual. Schuldig was occasionally in moods like this, and he had always been sent from the room shaken and disheveled. Which was how he was when the man had pushed him out earlier.
But there was someone out there.
Ran.
The name of a man with violet eyes.
That one person Ken had been working with for a few days now. The very same one that Ken had seen write beautiful words on a piece of paper but hide their true meanings behind icy glares. Ran had been passing at the very moment Ken had staggered out, terrified and shivering.
Ran had known something was wrong. How could he not have? Most kids didn't leave their classes looking like that. The redhead had even asked Ken if something was wrong.
And then proceeded to give Ken his sweater.
That orange sweater looked just like one Ken had at home. He'd stifled his tears with the sleeve, inhaling deeply, smelling the scent of a locker and…something else. Something like a flower.
Ran.
The name of a man with violet eyes.
Who knew he was so sensitive?
Ken pulled his gym shirt with both hands, stretching the fabric. He had a faint smile on his face.
Was this really a crush?
The bell rang, snapping Ken back into the cold Hell that was reality. He pulled off his normal shirt and slipped the other one on as quickly as he could. It wouldn't do to let others see his scars and bruises. No, not at all…
A couple of the soccer players came in next to him, twirling the dials on their lockers with ease. They were talking about future games and practices, girls and dates. Ken smiled and listened quietly without joining in.
"Oi, Ken! You're quiet today. What's up?"
"Eh?!" Ken nearly jumped. "Oh…um…just…something on my mind."
"A girl?" asked one boy slyly, inching up next to Ken.
"N-no!" he said, blushing furiously.
"Ooh, he's blushing!" laughed a second boy. Suddenly Ken found himself being grabbed by a group of other boys and pushed down on a bench. One gripped each arm while a third leered in his face.
"C'mon, Ken, out with it! Who'd you get a date with?"
"I – there's not – I mean – I don't have a date!"
"Lie!" yelped the boy to his right.
"Just tell us!"
"I bet I know who it is!"
"Who?"
"That Michiru girl. I know it!"
Laughter burst from the soccer player's wing of the locker room, drawing attention from the other boys. Ken, who was getting redder with every word, managed to pull out of the grasp of his friends.
"Just leave me alone, ok? I don't have a date!"
The grins didn't diminish, but one boy leaned on Ken's shoulder and nodded, seeming to believe him. Ken turned back to his locker, trying to ignore the banter going on behind him. Always about girls, always about dates…god! Couldn't he just be left out on occasion?
He furiously tried to flatten his hair, which had been ruffled in the tiny struggle he'd put up earlier. They were coming close…TOO close…to guessing what he was really thinking about.
Ran.
The name of a man with violet eyes.
He shut his eyes tight and pulled off his jeans. Now for the windpants, and he would be set. If only he could keep his mind off the image of –
Oh, God!
He stuffed his day clothes into the locker and shut it, then proceeded to lean his forehead against the cool metal. It was slightly refreshing, but hardly anything compared to the freezing cold touch of Ran earlier, when their hands had just barely brushed together.
So beautiful…
The bell rang again, telling them to get to class or they'd be dead rats. Ken turned and headed out the door to the open fields, still blank and empty, still brown, still dead. Totally quiet except for the occasional call of a crow.
It was cloudy today…
The coach had followed him out, along with a small group of boys and a couple girls who had finished dressing early. A blast of wind ruffled everyone's hair and blew the cap of the teacher's head. There was a minor scramble to get it back, resulting in one boy being tripped into a puddle of mud.
Normally, Ken would have laughed. But he wasn't even looking at them. His eyes were elsewhere, gazing at the hazy gray sky, his head lost in the clouds…
"Ken? Ken!"
He turned.
"Ken, are you awake? We need to get ready." The teacher was clutching his hat in one hand tightly.
"Oh…yeah. I'm ready." A group of boys had gathered nearby, mostly older ones. Ken looked at them, then past them.
Right at Ran.
Had this been any normal day, he would have just gone on looking. However, the reality made this anything but a normal day, or a normal week, or even a normal week-to-be. Ran was looking at the ground, his hand locked around one arm, his eartails being tossed around by the wind. He didn't even seem to notice when they were blown in his face.
Ken quickly turned away so he wouldn't be caught staring.
"Ok! Today, we're going to be playing one last game of frisbee! I hope you're all prepared." A collective groan was heard; the class was sick of playing frisbee. They'd been playing it for so damn long! At least they'd start a new unit soon.
Ken was divided with a group of other sophomores over to a field. The older boys were sent to a second field, but Ken noticed that the teacher had given Ran a whistle and pushed him over to where Ken would be playing. His heart skipped a beat. A referee! Ran would be a referee, and for his game!
…why had he just thought that?...
The game started off normally: Ran threw the frisbee as far and as hard as he could into the fray, and near-fights had begun for the possession of the damn plastic circle. Ken wasn't familiar with something like this. It was hard and round, with an edge that curved inward and hurt his fingers. He didn't like throwing it; he had surprisingly weak arms for a boy, and his wrist was starting to ache from all the times he'd been forced to use it in the passes.
After a particularly difficult scoring, Ken stood up and half turned around, grinning and panting slightly from the effort of running such a distance. He was really hot despite the icy cold of the air around him, and he was going to turn the rest of the way around to see if Ran had marked down the score.
Something made him stop.
There was a car parked on the edge of the street some distance away, but Ken recognized it without hesitation. Black. Small. Tinted windows. The driver's window was rolled down, and there was someone sitting in the seat. They were wearing sunglasses.
Smirking.
Ken felt his body temperature drop 30 degrees. The grin vanished from his face, and he was seized by a fear few people ever felt.
Why are you here?!
The window rolled up. The car took to the road.
Ken couldn't stop staring.
You came and you saw and you smirked and you didn't care…
"For this project," began Ken's English teacher, "You're going to have to get together with your partner outside of school. I can't provide you all the work time you need in class."
Ken wasn't listening. He just tapped his pencil against the edge of a blank sheet of notebook paper, trying to stay casual.
"This means a meeting somewhere. A mall, maybe, or a park. The best place would be one of your homes."
Ken still wasn't listening.
"For now, today will be your last day to…are you paying attention?"
Ken's head snapped up, too late to realize that the teacher had been talking to some girls in the back row.
"Ye – …."
The girls sulked, red-faced, in the back row as the teacher went back to explaining. Ken pushed back the seize of fear in his chest that had snapped into place like a rubber band.
"As I was saying," continued the teacher, obviously miffed, "Today is your last chance to work on your projects in class. You will have to get together outside of school."
Something else slammed into Ken's chest.
Ohmygod I can't let him come to my house he can't see it he can't I can't let him know!
It was fear again, but a different kind of fear. The one before had been the momentary fear you felt during school when you think that a project is due today, when really it's due tomorrow. This was a choking kind of fear, the fear a criminal feels when the judge sentences them to death.
Ohmyfuckinggod…
Ran was stalking in Ken's direction again. Ken clutched his pencil so tight it should have broken.
Noooo…
The older boy sat down and glanced at Ken. They had grown surprisingly close over just a few day's time. Not like friend-friend close, but the kind of 'hi-I-know-you-from-school' close.
That didn't mean Ken felt safe with bringing somebody anybody to his home.
"Here's - …is something wrong?"
"What?! No! No. Nothing's wrong," Ken said with surprise and false cheer. He scrambled to find his English notebook buried somewhere deep in his backpack.
"…What are you doing?"
"Trying to find my notebook."
"…It's on your desk, idiot."
And so it was.
"Oh. Uh…er…" Ken blushed with embarrassment. Ran gave him one more odd look before flipping into his own notebook.
"Here's where we left off." He started looking over the few items that were scribbled down in his impeccable cursive. Ken attempted to look at the same things, but he could only concentrate on one thing.
"…um….R…an…?..."
"Hn." The redhead was still icy.
"…do you think…erm…if we have to get together…"
"We'll have to."
"Oh." Ken glanced away, blushing furiously from embarrassment, shame, and terror. "…wh…when we do…could we…I mean, could you…could we go to…your place?"
"Sure."
"Wh – are you sure?"
"Yes. Now stop acting stupid and help me with this." Ran started writing a new section in his notebook.
Ken was surprised; he'd expected someone like Ran to be totally against going to 'his place'. After all, this was a tough guy redhead with a fuse shorter than an eyelash. He got into fights and scared kids he looked at. Usually, those kinds of people beat you up if you even mentioned their home.
"Uh…ok. What's today's topic…?"
"We need to make a presentation."
"I know that," Ken said irritably. "What part are you on?"
"The poster."
Recently they had been told that there wasn't just a 'story' to do. They had to make a full presentation. Damn graduation standards…
"Th-that's good. …Do you have any sketches?"
Ran nodded and flipped a few pages in his notebook. Sketches came into view: pencil ones, extremely rough and undefined. Ken could hardly make anything out until Ran got to slightly more developed pictures.
They weren't love-love pictures; there were no couples, no kissing, no puppy love, no daily romance. These weren't kind pictures; there wasn't anybody giving away money or clothes, no donating food items, no volunteering to serve soup. This wasn't what most kids thought of when they pictured kindness.
Yet somehow, they described the word so well.
One was of a boy offering his hand to someone in the street, a smile on his face, one that promised a warm home and good food. Another was of a little girl sharing crayons with another girl who had less. Third was a girl mending the broken wing of a tiny bird. They went on, different people, different things, different ideas of something kind.
This was simple kindness, a tiny act of goodness that can spawn into a million other acts of goodness. This was the sort of thing Ken had always been deprived of in life. Simplicities were not good enough for him, so he'd never seen or had them. The littlest kindness he'd ever experienced was when he watched a kindergarten age girl feed a kitten on the street one time.
The amazing thing about these pictures was that each was drawn with what seemed like a caring hand. They were skillfully made as if they had taken hours upon hours to draw. Most surprising of all was, despite their utter minimalism, they seemed to have an immense level of detail.
He caught himself staring in awe of these breathtaking pictures. Ran was letting him turn the pages as much as he needed. The redhead didn't seem to have any objections to handing his notebook over to Ken.
Then Ken turned the page, and saw a picture that obviously wasn't meant for the posters; it wasn't kind anymore. It was terrifying, horrifying, blinding, awe-inspiring. Ken found himself trapped in the deadly gaze of two car headlights as they raced toward a single standing figure. A second figure was racing into the scene, her face twisted in fear and determination. It looked almost as if –
The notebook was slammed shut in his face. Ken jerked and pulled his fingers away from it, looking at Ran in wonder. The man's eyes were shut. Had Ken hit on something private? Whatever it was, he was sorry…
"…sorry."
"It's nothing."
"…you know…" Ken looked away slightly. "…Those drawings were really good. They looked like they could come alive at any second."
Ran said nothing. Ken coughed and went on.
"I…I mean, they were…really lifelike. And really kind, too. Just the kind of things you…might see every day, but…that most people don't pay attention to…you know, the little things." He glanced over at Ran, who was giving him an unreadable expression. "…They'd really fit the poster. I think you did a great job."
This was just his opinion, though. He doubted Ran would care.
"….you really think so?"
"Um, yeah." Ken looked at Ran.
For a moment, those stunning eyes weren't icy cold and glazed over; they were a different person, an entirely different idea of who Fujimiya Ran was. This wasn't the isolated redhead who everybody ignored and made fun of. This was a vulnerable, normal person who, for the first time, had just been told that he was really someone special and valuable to the world.
Just for a moment…
The barrier returned with a blink, and Ran looked away. Ken also looked back at his desk. What just happened there…?
"…we…" Ran began, then stopped. "…which one should we use? I can redraw it on bigger paper."
"Oh. Um…that first one…or maybe the one with the bird…what was the story about again?"
"Rescue."
"Oh!...Right." Rescue. Of course. They had written about a young man being rescued from an abusive family who nearly killed him sometimes. He had been pulled from a horror story life to one with a future by a girl who really cared, who really watched, and who saw the person behind the cold screen of rejection and bad grades.
So similar to my own life, Ken thought, only it's the opposite with my screen.
The two of them worked for a long time on the project, until the teacher announced that they should start getting ready to leave. Kids gladly abandoned their work and chattered gaily about their after-school lives and what they would be doing as soon as they got away from this God-cursed place. Ken, on the other hand, was mad. The hour had gone so quickly! Now he had to go back home, where he certainly didn't want to go. Not after what happened in PE.
"Ken."
"Hm?"
"Can you come over tomorrow?"
Ken was caught completely off guard by the question. Tomorrow? Tomorrow! He had really asked. Ran had asked if Ken could come over tomorrow. To work on the project, of course, but…still! He had asked!
"I…" He blinked. "I…I'll ask my guardian."
"Oh." Ran nodded slightly, pulling on his backpack. "Tell me tomorrow, then."
"I will."
The bell rang, and then two of them parted ways as soon as they left the room. Ken was feeling lighter than he had in a long time. He would really get to be alone with Ran, for once…
This time, he didn't try to push his feelings away. He knew there was something he really felt toward the older boy. Now, to see if Ran felt the same way…
He was so lost in his thoughts that he hardly noticed his return home. It was as if he was in a dream, a wonderful dream, about to be punctured by waking up. Oh well. He was here and now, and he still had a little time.
Opening the door to his apartment wasn't even enough to burst his bubble of happiness. Trying to act casual, he shut the door silently and put his backpack in his room. He knew his guardian had a session tonight, and would want dinner very early. Plus, he wouldn't be home 'til late that night, giving Ken a free night. This made him even happier, and the boy went about preparing the meal smiling slightly.
Dreams end, but sometimes they end with a nightmare. Two arms wrapped around Ken's chest, drawing him back into a tender embrace. Again the blood froze in his veins.
"Good afternoon, Ken." Soft warm breath blew on the back of his neck. Ken, although scared as usual, pulled against the arms slightly.
"I'll bring in dinner when it's done, Farfarello. You know that."