Amor Fictus
Written by Sakki
Anything you haven't heard of belongs to me.
Anything you have heard of, doesn't.
"Out of the way, punk!"
"Geeze, what's up with him? He's always so quiet 'n shit."
"Who cares? I mean, it's not like he has any friends to talk to."
"I wonder why."
Laughter.
"He's a teacher's pet, isn't he? They all like him because he gets As and stuff."
"That's why, then?"
"Why what?"
"Why he always sits alone."
"Oh. Well, probably. I wouldn't wanna be a friend of someone teachers liked."
"Yeah, the nerdiness might rub off on you!"
More laughter.
He never understood why they always laughed at him. So what if the teachers liked him? It meant he could get away with not turning in homework sometimes. Or he could get extensions on his projects, or he got extra credit for doing nothing. It meant he got good grades for doing work other people would consider average.
Apparently nobody cared.
He always tried to slide sightlessly, soundlessly through the halls, like the other friendless losers who sought to avoid conflict. If he ducked, he could avoid the flying arms of the massive football players. Sometimes he had to jump over kneeling girls who were busily painting their nails.
Damn, did it have to be so hard to get to one class?
One class. Oh wait – he had forgotten, he had three classes left. But yes, he was only going to one class. Lunch would be after this class. Lunch was a time he didn't like very much, but that was ok; there were other friendless losers at lunch who would let him set with them.
They were such nice people. Why didn't they have any friends?
He got to his classroom on time, before the bell rang and before there were too many kids in the room. The teacher was there, sitting on his desk, reading through some papers and making quiet comments that went unheard by anybody else.
On the ringing of the bell there came a flood of late students, still calling their goodbyes to their friends and giggling or laughing as if there was nothing wrong with being late. As one of the jocks passed by his desk, he found that his books were knocked 'accidentally' onto the floor, resulting in a round of laughter by the other students. He dove under his desk to fetch them and put the scattered papers and textbooks back on his plastic-scratched desk.
The teacher hadn't laughed, but he had been watching.
"Guten Morgen, my little students. I hope all of you have your hausaufgaben from yesterday?"
They all did, but very little of it was done. Only he had his completely finished; well, he and a few other students who enjoyed getting passing grades. The teacher sauntered through the rows of desks, pen in hand, marking off points for those who didn't have it done and scribbling words of encouragement on those who did.
A few students glared at those who received compliments, and one of them kicked him. He cringed and withdrew him into his desk.
Again, the teacher saw but did nothing.
"I see most of you need a lesson in anti-procrastination," the teacher said. "So tonight, I think I'll assign a little extra work for you to do. But we'll figure that out later, shall we?"
The students groaned, unhappy with the misfortune which they had brought upon themselves.
So the class went on, with the teacher scribbling unfamiliar words on the blackboard and making them memorize phrases; but he also played songs and made them sing along, as he was convinced that was a great way to force kids to learn. After all, it was recent music, and trendy, too. Nobody could complain.
"Let me see…today's homework will consist of sections seven through twelve…and because of yesterday's obvious failure to motivate you, you can do sections fifteen through twenty as well."
Unjust cries shot through the air, but one deadly look from their normally carefree teacher silenced the class.
"If you do all of this correctly, maybe I'll 'forget' to give you homework tomorrow. Who knows?"
The bell rang. Students grabbed their books and their bags and rushed out the door; his papers were knocked to the floor again. He sighed and went under his desk to fetch them again only to find that, within a moment, somebody else had picked up one of his books for him.
He looked up, then stood up slowly. His teacher was holding his book for the previous class out to him with an eyebrow raised.
"That makes twice in one day somebody's done that."
He did not respond.
"And four times this week."
Silence.
"I wonder what could make your fellow students prey on you like they do. Could it be the fact that you're new here?"
"…probably."
"It's such a shame. You seem so talented, too." His teacher sighed. "It's always the best ones that are ignored. I've seen it too much."
He took his book from his teacher's hand and shuffled his papers into a slightly straighter pile.
"I…need to go."
"Wait."
He didn't like the sound of his teacher's voice, but who was he to ignore an order?
"…what?"
"Soccer tryouts are starting soon. I'm a close friend of the coach, you know. You seem like you'd be a good player."
"I don't…think I can." He tried to leave when his teacher grabbed his arm and pulled him back toward him.
"Look, I'm offering you a chance to get out of the loser position and move into a spotlight of popularity." His teacher leaned in close and whispered directly into his ear. "You want that, right? I've seen how much you hate living ignored and passed over. If you take me up on this, everybody would like you. You'd never be hated again."
He stared blankly at the wall, trying to ignore the feeling of his arm being crushed. A chance to be popular…he'd always wanted that…
"What…do I have to do in return?"
He felt his teacher smile. His arm was released and his teacher moved away from him, smiling like a Cheshire cat.
"That," he said simply, "you will find out later."
Later, he realized, meant in the next five minutes.
He wished, many times, that he hadn't taken up that offer. What would his life have been like if he'd rejected it, stayed a loser, stayed ignored and unappreciated? He often pondered this question at night. Maybe he would have killed himself. Maybe he would have started cutting.
Maybe his life would have gotten better.
But he was falling, drowning, suffocating in his choices, in his blood, in his pain, in his responsibilities.
It was all his fault.
Yes.
It was all
his
fault.
"Excuse me…Mr. Fujimiya?"
Ran looked up from where he was sitting. A dark-haired nurse was looking at him from a doorway.
"Would you come this way, please?"
He stood up as if a zombie and followed the woman in white. She led him down countless hallways and up a flight of stairs until he finally arrived at another door. She opened it, and there was Ken, lying in a bed.
"Is he…ok?" he asked, walking cautiously over to the bedside.
"He's not in any serious danger at the moment."
Ran stopped moving and looked at the woman.
"At the moment?"
"I don't have any clear information, but the doctor who took care of him is coming to talk about it. Please have a seat."
The woman turned and left, and Ran pulled a chair up next to Ken's bed. The brunette was pale and still in his bed. There was sweat trickling down his forehead.
He hadn't had time to wonder why Ken fainted at the time it happened. All he knew was that the boy had heard the name Schuldig and it triggered something inside him. He'd watched as Ken's pupils nearly vanished into his irises before rolling up into his head. Then his entire body crumpled, as if his legs had suddenly lost their bones, and his empty water bottle had fallen beside him. Ran had panicked and jumped to wake him, but when it didn't work he lifted Ken up and rushed him to the nearest hospital.
Now, however, he had time to think.
The nurse said he wasn't in any serious danger at the moment. What did that mean? Was something wrong with Ken that was ready to pounce should the opportunity arise? Was there some kind of disease running rampant in his veins that nobody had known about until now? What was it? What was wrong? What was wrong?
The door opened, and a tall man with black hair stepped in.
"Excuse me." The doctor approached Ran and sat down next to him. "You were the one who found him like this?"
"I was with him."
"Are you a family member?"
"No."
"Do you know anyone in his family?"
"Not closely."
"Are you aware of the location of his family?"
Ran gave the man Ken's apartment address.
"What's wrong with him?"
"I can only inform his family of this."
"Hold on," Ran said, looking at the doctor for the first time. "What's wrong with him? Tell me."
"I can't."
"You have to. I'm…I'm the best family he's got."
"Is there something wrong with his real family that would put you in a position to say that?"
Ran was about to spit a heated remark about Ken's current situation when he caught himself. Ken didn't want people to know about this, did he? But…with the problem at hand, what choice did he have…?
"His…caretaker is abusive."
"Do you have proof?"
"What proof do I need? Look at him!" Ran gestured toward Ken. "Isn't there some kind of report you take on body injuries? He's got cuts all over him! Look at his face!"
The doctor raised an eyebrow and leaned over to examine the left side of Ken's face. There was still the healing scar there of the ring wound, where he had been backhanded.
"And there's more," Ran went on. "All over him. His entire body is covered with bruises and cuts and – and worse. On his leg there's this really big bruise that keeps getting bigger, and I think one of his ribs is cracked, and I – "
"Wait," the doctor said, cutting him off. "How long have you known about this?"
"A few weeks. But he made me swear not to tell anybody, and I…didn't want to do anything that would make his guardian…angry."
"You were afraid he would hurt him more?"
"Yes," Ran snapped. He was angry. No, he was pissed. There was a lot of anger in him that was mainly directed at life in general, but there was a growing section devoted to getting Ken's guardian thrown in jail that was flaring up right now.
"We do have a file," the doctor said, "of all his injures, that we took earlier. There are some surprisingly critical ones that were never properly taken care of. You say this is abuse?"
"He told me it was."
The doctor leaned back and sighed, setting down the clipboard he was holding. "When he wakes up, we'll have to make him give the same story to the police if this is true, you know."
"I…know." Ran looked away.
"For now, I suppose I can trust your judgment." Both men looked at Ken. "He has a serious infection."
"What?" Ran started, turning to glare at the doctor.
"Somewhere on his body, there is an infection that could be life threatening if not taken care of soon. As far as we know, it's on his leg – you mentioned that he had a growing bruise on his leg?"
Ran nodded, afraid of what he would hear next.
"That is an infection. If it keeps growing untreated, it could cause complications that may eventually lead to amputation."
Amputation.
The removal of a limb…?
Ran stared numbly at the wall. Ken's guardian had hurt him badly enough that Ken might have lost a leg.
"Is it…too late to…"
"No, we can still treat it. It will take at least a few months to go away completely and not come back, but right now it's not a severe problem. Another few weeks, though…"
Ran closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His thoughts collected themselves, and he exhaled.
Then he opened his eyes.
"Will he wake up soon?"
"His fever is going down surprisingly quickly, so yes, I believe he will."
"Call the police. I'll give them my side of it."
The doctor nodded, stood up, and left.
Ran was left with Ken, hoping and praying to gods he'd forsaken long ago that the boy would understand.
~~~
In a not-so-distant apartment complex, Brad Crawford sat at his desk.
He was writing a letter to an old friend of his, whom he hadn't seen in many years but kept in contact with from time to time. They weren't particularly close, but right now Crawford had nothing to do and he hated having nothing to do.
There had been meetings. There had been occasions of grief counseling. There had been TV reports, interviews, sympathy letters, funerals, wakes, mourning sessions, and so on. He had been invited to all of them.
And he had gone.
Of course he'd gone. Everybody knew the German teacher. Everybody liked the German teacher. He was friendly, he was funny, he knew his comebacks, and he knew the other teachers very well. Some of them a little too well.
Very few people hadn't come, and those had been the ones too overcome by grief to even leave their houses.
Who would kill the German teacher? Who would kill the principal's son? Who would kill such a nice, friendly, educated young man? Only a rampant serial killer, most certainly. But there were no witnesses, and the security camera had been mysteriously turned off in that room during the time of the murder. So a very intelligent rampant serial killer. Oh, the grief and weeping. Oh, the sadness.
It made him sick.
He set down his pen and re-read his letter, checking for errors that he probably didn't make.
He never made mistakes. He never made errors. He never made miscalculations.
Oh, no. He never made miscalculations.
Except…
His eyes narrowed in anger, and he set down his letter gently to avoid crushing it. He stood up and walked across the room to where he had a punching bag set up.
It was interesting that Brad Crawford would have such a device in his home, but he did. Although he'd argued with himself at the time of the purchase, he'd decided that it was an excellent acquisition after using it a few times. Any time he was angry while at home, he'd go over and hit it as hard as he could. Many, many times. Sometimes he envisioned his current point of rage in place of the battered red bag. It really helped.
But sometimes, he had to take slightly more drastic action. Sometimes the punching bag wasn't enough. Sometimes he was so angry he just had to hurt the real thing. Sometimes he did.
Only twice, though. He'd never be so crude as to give in to primal urges on a regular basis.
The first time was with the Fujimiya boy. So what if he'd read the question incorrectly? That didn't give the boy the right to be arrogant and prove it in front of an entire class. While he did think he'd gone to a bit of an extreme by slamming the boy's head into the blackboard, it was entirely worth it. He hadn't been fired yet, and therefore the boy hadn't told.
Although he'd had to reinforce this once or twice.
As for the second time?
It had made him realize something.
He really hated redheads.