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WILTED FLOWER
Chapter 3 - Changing Colors
The sky was darkening, and the moon was slowly fading beneath a facade of clouds that were conquering the night skies. It was about a half hour past midnight and Kyo was walking Tohru back to her house after the whole park fiasco. While walking down the neighborhood, Kyo's forehead crinkled slightly as he surveyed the area with frenzied eyes, thinking to himself,
Wait a second...this area looks oddly familiar... have I been here before?
Before he could analyze the situation any further, Tohru stopped in front of a moderately big house with nice bushels of flowers that surrounded the sides of the house, with a freshly mown lawn and shining glass windows that gleamed in the pale moonlight. One look at the house and Kyo's mouth dropped open involuntarily.Tohru's forehead creased with concern and she asked,
"Are you allright?" when she saw him pale slightly.
Kyo looked down at the worried girl beside him and asked in a throaty voice,
"Uhh... is this your house?"
Tohru smiled and smoothed down the sides of her hair with a pat of her hand, answering,
"Yeah, well... umm thank you so much for walking me home. It was really nice to see you again... and we will see each other again right?"
Kyo's throat suddenly became very dry and he gulped a couple of times to saturate himself before replying back hesitantly, "I don't know..." Tohru looked down at his uncertainty and then nodded glumly before giving him one last hopeful smile. Then she hopped up the stone steps to the door where she turned her back to him to open the door with her silver key. While turning the knob, she turned her head back and said with a warming smile,
"Good night,"
then she disappeared into the house after those two final words. A deafening silence lingered in the air and Kyo could feelt a huge lump form gradually in the back of his throat while he stood in front of the big cold house, petrified. He was so taken aback by the fact that he had actually stolen from her... of all people, her. Kyo kicked the rocks on the pavement in an irate manner and growled under his breath while walking the rest of the way back to the Shadow Bandit's hideout.
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Kyo entered the creaking door of the cabin and saw the group sitting in a circle on the floor, all slurping up bunches of ramen and playing cards, like they always did.
"Yo, where've you been?"
asked Haru plainly while placing his finished bowl of noodles down on the wooden floorboards. The rest of them turned their heads up and started to stare at Kyo for an answer of his whereabouts.
What do I tell them?
Kyo looked around the room frenetically, and his eye suddenly caught on the bag of treasures that they had pilfered from Tohru's house the other night, and he felt that unwonted feeling of guilt erupt into his insides again. He felt his heart tigten as he suddenly blurt out, "Look, you know that stuff we stole the other night?" One by one, they all cast each other strange looks and then turned their attention back to Kyo, nodding and giving him curious looks, waiting for him to say more. Kyo's eyes swept shamefully to the ground and he could feel his fingers shaking a little as he said through clenched teeth,
"Well... uhh... we have to give it back."
All ten eyebrows seemed to shoot up at once, and Hatori stood up from the ground abruptly, ignoring his food and cards, asking as calmly as ever,
"Why?"
Kyo continued to stare down at the floor and muttered back with a low voice,
"Let's just give it back, okay?"
Haru was the next to speak up,
"What's your problem?"
"Yea! We earned that stuff ourselves!"
Shigure chimed in.
Dammit!
Kyo's head flew up and he looked up at the group with flaming eyes, then he yelled out in a strained voice,
"We just have to okay?! We can get more stuff from another house or something, but I..."
Hatori crossed his long arms over his chest and asked calmly,
"You what?"
Kyo looked around the room to see that all eyes were on him, making him sweat. Then he finally admitted in a low mutter, "I know this person that we stole from, allright? Happy now? Now let's just give it back..." Momiji could see that Kyo was in pain at the moment and cried out, trying to mediate things,
"Let's just give it back you guys! We can have more fun with another house."
Ayame nodded and aquiesced with Momiji,
"Yea, Kyo seems to be really passionate about this!"
Ayame then placed a delicate finger onto the tip of his snow white chin, thinking aloud, "I wonder why though... hmm.... I wonder who this person is. A girl?! A LOVER?!"
Ayame was smiling idiotically as he promptly nodded his head with excitement, watching to see if Kyo would agree with his accusation. Kyo's face slowly filled up with a tomato color and he felt his body burst into a roaring blast of flames from Ayame's jesting words,
"Shut up!!"
Shigure's mouth flew open and he let out a huge, bellowing laugh escape from his overt lips. He fell to the floor with his arms clutched over his stomach and he howled in between his hooting laughter,
"It is a girl!! Well then we must return the goods to this young maiden, right?"
Hatori shrugged and then sat back down in the same calm and collected manner, but now he was sporting a hidden devilish smile on his lips,
"Well I guess you should return them back to your girlfriend then."
Momiji asked enthusiastically,
"Oooh! How did you meet her anyway?"
Kyo rolled his eyes at all of them and screamed out in defiance, "AUGH! You guys are so stupid!! She is not my girlfriend! She's not anything!"
Kyo snatched the two bags that still contained the valuables, and then he stormed out of the doorway without another word. Everyone stared off at the enraged boy and then Haru asked to no one in particular,
"You think he's gone soft?"
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Tohru's feet lagged up the cool stone steps to her house and she felt like her body ached all over, her work had really drained out a lot of the energy from her body. She yawned and pulled out her keys from her bookbag, and was in the process of turning her key in the keyhole when she felt her foot hit something solid, her eyebrows knit together and her eyes lowered down to see what her toe had just collided into. Her eyes widened a bit when she spotted two velvet black bags sitting right next to each other. She pulled the key out of the hole of the knob and then bent down to see what was inside of these mysterious bags that had ended up on her front porch. She cautiously lifted up the flaps of the bag, wondering what she would find, and where it had come from. She peeked inside to see what the bag contained, and to her surprise she saw that it was filled with all of her belongings. She blinked rapidly and took a second look to make sure. Surely it was her things! Her bracelet was sitting inside, gleaming at her. Tohru gaped at the sight in wonder for a while, watching as the glittering jewels shined at her, wondering with amazement,
How did these get here...?
She pushed her hair back behind her ears and then clutched the mouth of the bag into her hands, wondering if that robber had actually given the goods that were stolen, back to her. Were there any other possibilities? She chewed on her lower lips in deep thought, and then decided to relinquish the questions that filled her mind, she was just going to have to sort this all out in the morning, because she was too tired to analyze the situation at the moment. She pushed open her front door and then vanished inside of her house, closing the door behind her.
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Kyo blew out a cloudy breath and leaned against the bumpy bark of the large sycamore tree that he had run behind right after he had dropped those two bags on her front porch. He was extremely relieved that he had gotten that over with, he could even feel the trickles of prespiration gathering up at the top of his forehead from doing one small good deed.
Geez... what's is my problem?
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Kyo was slumped back into the cabin and saw the group sprawled out on the ground, asleep. All except for Ayame who was raking a small wooden brush through his cascading, flowing, snow white hair. His bright olive eyes sparkled when he saw Kyo enter the door and he announced immediately,
"Ahh, so how did everything go with your lover?"
Kyo gritted his teeth together and retorted back with annoyance,
"Shut up, you idiot! She is not my lover, so just shut the hell up."
Ayame pointed at Kyo teasingly and said laughingly, "Kyonkichi is flustered!!" Kyo's face flared and he stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door shut, trying to shut out Ayame's faded laughter.
She means nothing!
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It was the next morning and Kyo had left relatively earlier from the cabin, earlier than his usual time to wake up. The reason was only to take a stroll outside and get a deep breath of the fresh air. This wasn't something he usually did every morning, but for some unknown reason, he had felt like his brain was wounded too tight, so he went outside to clear it up. It felt like an hour had passed after some aimless wandering around the city and he finally stopped to sit down at a nearby bench in front of a bunch of pigeons that quickly fled when he seated himself. He sighed and stared straight ahead, not knowing what he was doing, and what he was thinking anymore for that matter. His head pounded loudly in his mind and he buried his hands over his face for a minute, letting the blinding darkness fill his eyes. He then peeked out from the small holes between his fingers, letting the shining light seep into his dilated pupils. His hands slipped slowly off of his face, and he lifted his head up, seeing the light blue color that washed over the clear sky, touched with gentle sprays of white that served as clouds. His eyes moved downward and he spotted a cluster of wildflowers that were blooming up from the grass, blinding him with all of their clashing hues that melded together all at once.
Why had he never noticed the beautiful things in this small town before? Whenever he walked through these neighborhoods, he saw dark colors, wilted flowers, and dreary skies. He had never actually taken a second look to notice the colors of things. What had changed now? Why were things seemingly... different? His teeth bit down against each other and a sudden thought dawned into his head as his feet carried him into a place that he had never thought of visiting ever again.
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Childen's laughter erupted from nearly a mile away while Kyo approached the orphanage that he had once been sheltered. He watched as the little kids in the yard laughed and chased each other around like rabid dogs on the loose. He felt his heart ache a little, and he gulped, feeling his heart tighten as flashbacks sped through his head like lightning. He almost turned to leave. Almost. He took a deep breath and let his courage loose as he shuffled slowly around the orphanage, stopping with amazement when he saw a beautiful flowerbed sitting in the middle of the garden of the orphanage. It hadn't been there before...
Even with the cold, biting winds that slashed his face, the pale sunlight that was almost invisible, somehow showered its gently rays onto the flowers, showcasing their beauty to nature. The petals of the flowers were each sprinkled with little dew drops and Kyo had never seen such a sight that made his heart turn over on its sides. He reluctantly walked up closer to the flowerbed and jumped back, when he saw that there was a girl stooping down in the flowerbeds. She looked up from her spot on the ground and to his surprise it was a familar face, Tohru's face.
Her face was in shock as she cried out,
"Kyo-kun?!"
"You scared the living hell outta me!"
Her laugh was like a song and her chestnut hair glittered gently while she swiped her hands over her cotton dress very rapidly, "I'm sorry," she answered back with a terse bow. Kyo ignored her apology and proceeded to walk closer to the flowerbed, and then he asked under his breath, not looking straight at her, "So... what are you doing here?" Tohru tilted her head at him with curiosity and then smiled nostalgically, "I come here to help Kitsune with the flowers once in a while... I just love to see the wondrous beauty growing here."
Kyo didn't say anything else, prodding her to ask him nervously,
"Umm, so what are you doing here?"
His head jerked up with a blush staining his tan skin, when he realized that he didn't even know why he had come here... it was just something that he had wanted to do. A feeling.
"I guess...um... you know, I'm not so sure of why I came here either."
Tohru nodded as if she understood what he was talking about and then asked him lightly,
"Would you like to help with the flowers?"
"Eh... I'm not a flowery kind of guy."
Tohru giggled at his mordant reply and then nodded again,
"Well, if you ever change your mind then that would be amazing."
Before the two could say anymore, a small child ran to the flowerbeds and Tohru met up with him in alarm, asking with concern,
"Is everything okay?"
The little boy's eyes were muddled up with tears, and his nose was running like water while he tried his best to sniff it all up. He looked like he was hysterical from the way that he was shaking, and he finally blurted out in a tremoring and broken up voice, "Th-the... k-kids are m-m-making... f-fun of me! T-they s-s-said I was t-too mu-much of a l-lo-loser to play with th-them!" He began to wail after the last words stuttered out from his flapping lips and Tohru patted him on the head, trying her best to comfort him,
"It'll be okay, you don't have to listen to them! You are a wonderful person!"
Kyo walked over to the kid and waited until the little boy calmed down enough to gape up at the older boy that overshadowed him by a few feet. Kyo kneeled down and Tohru moved over a few inches to give Kyo some room. Kyo sternly looked into the little child's eyes,
"Look kid. You can't let those kids win."
The kid wiped away his tears with his right sleeve and then asked with a less shaky voice, and with more amazement now,
"Who are you?"
Kyo just rolled his eyes and said with exasperation,
"Does it matter? I'm just telling you that if you let those kids win, then they'll never let you play with them. So, just be strong alright? Be firm, and don't let those little pieces of shit tell you what you are, you tell them that you'll kick their asses if they make fun of you again, got it? Just remember to be strong about it, not wussy"
The little boy nodded tentatively at Kyo, thinking that this stranger was the coolest guy he had ever met, but also not wanting to disobey the older boy for he may have been plagued with a black eye at any moment. The small child touched his chin to his chest, looking down at his ragged shoes in shame, admitting in a brittle tone,
"But... I don't know how to be strong..."
his lower lip began to tremble again and he stated honestly,
"I'm not like you..."
Kyo immediately slapped the kid across the head, lightly, getting the boy's attention and Kyo harshly stated,
"Just find your strength! ...Find it in someone that you care most about."
The boy looked down and thought for a while, not fully comprehending Kyo's words. Kyo sighed out loud and then, with exasperation, he barked out,
"Now get your ass up, and march back in there alright?!"
The boy's ruddy face turned red and he scrambled up to stand taller, saluting and smiling at the same time, feeling a surge of newfound pride and hope saturating him, "Alright!!" Kyo smirked and then pushed the boy back into the direction of the yard, clapping his hands together in mock conceit,
"Now that's how it's done,"
he said while raising an eyebrow at Tohru. She stared at him for a while and then a smile spread onto her lips as she said,
"That was amazing."
Kyo blushed and turned away,
"Nah.... it was nothing."
Tohru looked down at the flowers with almost a sadlook swirling in her eyes as she murmured gently, "I'll try to remember what you said..." Kyo looked at her and asked,
"Wait, what?"
Tohru nervously let out a laugh and waved her hand in the air, dismissing her strange behavior, and answered back with another nervous laugh,
"Nothing!"
She stooped back down into the flowerbeds with a pink face and Kyo watched her for a moment before saying diffidently,
"I'm... gonna go now."
Tohru nodded, her head still bent down low, hiding behind the flowers as she asked softly,
"We will meet again...right?"
Kyo stopped, his back facing her, wondering how to answer her question. He smirked and then finally answered sincerely this time, "We'll meet somewhere again," he paused,
"I'm sure of it."
With that, he walked away from her, feeling a sense of accomplishment wash over him.
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I can feel it...
Kyo walked down the bright and lively streets of Kyoto, seeing that even though the streets weren't really carved out of pure gold, he looked at it, and noticed its wonders. He noticed the life of the city that he had been staying at. The people. The sky. The flowers; everything.
I can feel everything changing, and it's going so quickly...
He stopped and stood at the middle of the local park, surrounded by the echoing laughter of the kids. But, instead of their laughter sounding like screams to him, they washed over him as if it were like soothing music to his ears. Instead of the sky being gray, it was bluer than the ocean's surface, and now the flowers that were once wilted in his eyes, were painted with various hues that made them unique and beautiful in their own way. Everything was different now.
I feel so...different... It's as if everything's... changing colors.
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