Back again, didn't I tell you there were going to be two chappies instead of one? Thanks beta-reader hugs your so very, very good to me! (she bought me RAMEN yesterday!) Now ONWARDS!
Chapter 6: Part I
Someday at Christmas
Men won't be boys
Playing with bombs, like kids play with toys
Someday At Christmas-Stevie Wonder
Touched
You say that I am too
So much of what you say is true
I'll never find someone quite like you
Again
He had called, informed, and now he was here. Blonde hair rivaling Millerna's and eyes as static filled as her own. Hugs, and kisses and mush filled words, mother was happy mother was crying, and father had stood proud, towering from the door. Father was here…but at least he could protect her, her knight in shining armor, but wait a minute, who was this behind him? Familiar violet eyes, sallow hair, but different voice, not Millerna but a version of her, perhaps a sister or a cousin. Then again her friend had never mentioned a sister, she hadn't mentioned her own brother to anyone but Hitomi so I guess they were even. And even so she was just making assumptions, "Are you Millerna Aston's sister, by any chance?"
Ice stalactites, icebergs, and every other possible ice formation her mind could conjure was what her gaze looked like at the mention at the name, Celena didn't flinch though, didn't now how unless he was coming after her. "Yes I am, are you friends with her?"
'Stupid question Marlene,' Celena thought, mentally shaking her head, she wouldn't ask if she wasn't friends, because if they weren't it wouldn't be the least bit important. The forced smile she adorned when answering the question seemed more painful than loving. And for some indescribable reason the distaste for this girl ran thick all the through to her toes. Possibly because she could see this cuddle up to her father while he resisted then when she was take it out on her mother and herself, or perhaps she knew that this Marlene chick would take up more than all of her brother's available time, therefore not allowing her one bit of comfort in her home. This meant that she should prepare her own personal feast in her room, because that's where she planned to hideout until that man left again, hopefully Allen decided to join them for Christmas, she couldn't bear the thought of having to enjoy of her father's personal festivities.
"Celena," the word slithered evil, slimy, dirty creatures beneath her skin following the pattern of her veins, and when he touched her she had to lean herself against the wall from fear that her rubber knees wouldn't hold her up. Fear wound so deep from his snake like voice and grimy hands that for a miniscule moment she thought she was going to soil herself. She needed a very hot-raw-scrubbing shower, and she prayed to whoever was above that Allen and his dolt of girlfriend would entertain him long enough for her to finish.
"Yes father," she nearly threw-up the word as vehemently as possible, but restraint was something she had learned in this house from Hell.
"You didn't answer Marlene's question." It was a statement, crossed t's and dotted i's, that meant more than she would liked, she really wanted them would stay as long as possible…
"Oh sorry, um…yeah I am friends with her, good friends…at least I think so," she blushed for affect, another trait she had picked up while residing here, acting was a handy tool.
Marlene smiled, okay not seriously smiled, but it was as much a smile that she could adorn while mentioning her sister. And she was glad that fathers still disciplined there daughters—unlike her father with that smaller sibling of her's—it was what made them turn out like good kids. So she decided that she particularly liked Allen's parents…oh how little she knew.
While her mother invited them inside Celena had dashed upstairs—out of her father's sight—into the shower. Hot, hotter, as hot as the stream could assault her body—spidery tendrils of water with a million feet trailing down her battered scalp—she let it burn her scars, bruises, to where she thought she was going to cry because they hurt so much. Then scrub, scrub, scrub, soap sinking in deeper over the place where red reigned and her skin was pushing a dirty purple colour. God, she was so ugly, so very hideous, every piece of re-grown skin tissue was the personal narrator to disgust that she hid so easily, it was a wonder had someone hadn't noticed them yet. She was glad though, people didn't need to know about her problems anyways, pity wasn't high on her feelings-she'd-like-to-obtain-from-people list…if such a list existed anyways, and she wasn't keen on listening to the whole "Awwww poor Celena," routine she could hear in her mind this minute. That and climbing footsteps, 'Oh God, please…' as if He could hear her. But kept scrubbing at the rare, tender skin across her body, hoping that if she didn't come out of the shower at the opportune moment—for him that is—then the shower curtain, that thin piece of plastic, could be the barrier between him and her, unless he felt the need to join in. 'Jesus Christ, fucking please,' she was in the danger of becoming a full-blown-foul-mouthed Christian if those footsteps didn't decide what they wanted to do.
Wait too many footsteps and muffled voices to be the one man, or man with her mother, sure she knew her father heard things but he refused to talk to them. Her mother decided to give a tour; she was going to kiss the ground that that woman walked on someday when her father went away. While they were passing her father—in only the biological sense of the word—hissed (instead of growled, or some equally comforting word) for her to get out of the bathroom, and despite the amount of gratification she'd get from pissing off the man, she was, and perhaps always would be, deathly afraid of him. Therefore the fear that his very breathing evoked was much more colossal than any feeling that could pummel through her, obedience it seems is the shadow of fear.
What a shadow indeed because by the time the tour was over Celena was dressed in the most appropriately covering thing she owned and had set the table for tea and cookies, her father never liked it when she sat in a corner looking incredibly disgruntled, and when he wasn't "playing" with them as he liked to call it—with such innocent flare that it was practically sickening—and while he wasn't at work, he was learning to perfect the art of becoming a modern day Egyptian slave driver. Obedience thence is the catalyst for domesticity, and isn't this a corruptible little world we live in? And when said cookies and tea were prepared, and drunk and eaten, when the conversation had begun to wane and everyone seemed to be getting bored of the other's company Celena realized that if she didn't do this now, there would be no sparing chance, no divine opportunity to ask again, now and only now, her mother coincidentally was thinking the same thing.
"Sweetheart would you and Marlene like to stay here tonight?" high pitched and polite, letting not a hint of urgency wander absently through, but you could see it in her eyes, see that there was a necessity in him being there that night and every other until he could not stay any longer. 'Please,' is what Celena desperately begged, and if one could tap into her mind one would feel all the hopeful anguish with which the word was repeated.
"Please?" it screeched its pain through the glass and walls and you could nearly hear the broken record scratching its sorrow behind, pretty pretty please with a cherry on top plus a bright coloured lollipop? Or so the rhyme went in their house, back when Allen was still around, and her father was still Superman, god of the entire universe, and her mother laughed a good hardy laughed instead of the pitiful false giggle she coined now. Oh how much simpler were things way back then…
"I'm sorry Mrs. Schezar it's my fault I told my father that for all of this week we'd stay over by him then next week and New Year's we'd stay by you," the woman—damnable thing—smiled as sympathetically as possible while professing all of this.
With that and a "We'll visit as much as possible, and I'll call you when we get to the Aston's mom, see you later Celena!" they were off. There was Marlene sitting beside her brother, her only possibility at knight in shining armor who was able to protect from villainous, fire breathing Daddy—and she was smiling, practically laughing, at the fact that she was taking Celena's only prospect of hope away. Whilst waving back at her knight and his devious enchanter, she decided she liked it better in the cold, because she was dreading going back into that house. Then as she was just settling quite coldly onto the porch in an attempt to numb the pain of loss for a bit, her father—the dragon-villain—called her back inside…
Tension was on the rise in his house, couldn't, didn't even begin to understand, and the way they had asked him to stay…it was unsettling. There was a disturbed balance, and part of him didn't want to know. Didn't want to know why Celena—his long since virtually abandoned sister (by him) who he had only permitted himself to write letters to so that the separation between the both of them wouldn't be made harder if he couldn't be around to answer the phone when she called, couldn't help her when there was desperation for him to return because just hearing his voice played the video camera in her head which was filled with childhood—seemed so distant yet so longing of something he didn't think he knew how to give. Why his mother looked so entirely broken, that it shattered his heart to see her smile, why his father looked so disturbed, but so forlorn. What could it be, that thing which was eating away at them but he could never pinpoint? It was among the unspoken territory, never even insinuated into a conversation, but it was noticeable, this thing, this…issue, at least noticeable to him. So as he and Marlene happily babbled together about what a great family he had, he in his mind tried to find the missing link of it all, that one tiny flaw that had thrown them so violently off course that no one not even their neighbours would have noticed anything was remotely wrong at all. Or maybe they didn't want to tell him because in the end he couldn't do a thing to stop it?
I'll never find someone quite like you
Like you
She had, in the mental projection of herself, been pacing for more than and hour, back and forth, so pathetically repetitive that she had swore she had paced a large hole into the floor mat of brain tissue. Back and forth, wearisome back and tiring forth she marched on while sitting perfectly unperturbed in her rich girl room, listening to Christmas music. She wanted to turn it off, it was too happy for the arrival of her long and almost forgotten sister. Almost. The CD player was still crooning its cheerful Christmas noise and she was tempted to throw something make the tinkling sound of snow crunch and the ding-dong of fake bells, stop. Her false feet padded in time with her heartbeat consuming all the oxygen and hemoglobin that had been reserved the two hemispheres of her worm-like matter, all neatly squished into her skull. She wished that they would just arrive already, instead of drawing out their arrival a slug paced timing that had her temples pounding begging for them to just finish the friggin race already.
She knew that if her sister didn't emerge soon—with her nobody boyfriend—, so soon that soon didn't have the age to be in the future tense of the word, only now, her mind and her entire physical being would sputter one last remaining sane cry and then explode with impatience, or maybe it was fiery resentment at having her Christmas ruined by the absent thought of her sibling's presence in this house. Then when the decided to make themselves available to the love and kindness of her father's heart there would only be bits of and pieces of her to look at, splashed in a pretty mural around the room. Shrugging and thankful for the sudden beauty they would ignore it and head back down the winding stairs to take pleasures in the other's company, but she wouldn't mind she would be glad, because her eyes would be too busy being splattered against the white and blue walls to even think about looking at them. Her ears and eardrums separated by the corners of room wouldn't be able to decipher their conversation, and brain entirely somewhere else wouldn't be able to comprehend a thing. Gruesome yes, but the thought was utterly gratifying.
And just when she about to become an abstract picture on the walls—she could hear the biological time bomb counting down the seconds hurriedly, urgently—there it was. Ding-dong, happy ring of the doorbell and she could hear the butler turn the deadlock, pushing the latch down, each individual gear clanking and turning in her still intact head, click, click, click, an incessant sound that reverberated around her hatred considering whether it should let her own horned demon out.
However she pushed herself up heading to the mahogany railing and the lush white carpet of the stairs, ignored her father's voice when he called her, because she was coming anyways, and let them pad their way down spongy, white, roughness. It was then that she first saw him. Well she thought he was more of an angel than a him, but when she was assured that he had no wings, she thought that maybe she could sense them. Women did have a sixth sense, but her sister would have been too idiotic to feel the glorious aura he carried like a burden on his back, and she almost stepped cowardly away from him in a sign of reverence. But goddammit this man, full of heroic potential, was just too endearing to stay away from. He had something regal about him—wait not regal, noble like a version of a medieval knight whose intentions were pure, and even though he had the task of saving damsels in the utmost distress, what he never did with these many women was even more wondrous than that of what he did do. Swaying blonde hair that did its best to capture the glaring white of sun and turn it into warming currents of yellow, blue eyes that consumed her lilac irises and they looked so infinitely deep that she was sure that the greatest of all the bodies of water couldn't even begin to compare. Muscular, sinewy body that showed underneath the layers of cloth and stuffing, he seemed to come out of some romantic fairytale, and step right into her foyer.
Nobody boyfriend indeed, huh Millerna.
Stupid Marlene hadn't warned him, never even thought to warn him to the fact that her sister was an epiphany to all of man of what it meant to be female—especially to him. Sure she looked like Marlene but there was this holy quality mixed in with the absence of any innocence and paradox in a woman is the most sought after thing, it made her enigmatic, mysterious, and that was too attractive. You see Allen had gone after Marlene because she displayed this righteousness, this frailty, as if she touched anything too dirty she would simply crumble and he wanted to protect that, to fend off any evil that stood in her path. Death and destruction to all those who rose up against her prudent perfection. But oh my, that sister of her's, she was anything but prudent perfection, more like a demon from paradise, and a lot of the time those demon's possessed the persona of the most angelic being known to man. Behind well shaped blameless lilac eyes, with eyelashes that spread over cream's complexion, hid all the static passion that sin had the greatest part of, call him immoral but he wanted apart of that. Wanted to apart of her, he had never in his life felt something so deeply, wanted his hands to be apart of that golden halo of hair that acquired all the wayward qualities she captured man with. Maybe wanted was the wrong word, maybe it was needed, yes that's right he needed her, right down to his feeble bones, he was never so sure of one thing.
News to him, in his transfixed state, was that he still had Marlene, and he couldn't, refused to break her heart during Christmas—death and destruction to opposing forces remember? This feeling, this gut wrenching slew of more than raw, wanton emotion was an imposing force, now he had to live here, reside in the house with this angel from hell for one week, one whole week of not touching her, not devouring her entire essence—and perhaps that couldn't satisfy him—until he was far away from her. Away from distraction, away from his need…or at least not having it presented smack in the face like it—she—was doing now. But he was sure that he could feel her pump through his body already.
All this inner thinking, but Allen had not missed a beat, a second of uncertainty on his part at which part Marlene would forcefully call his name and drag him back to earth, back to where his eyes would constantly be engaged by this…oh god he didn't know what to call her but whatever she was, the purest looking siren he was definitely sure. He was sure he was ensnarled by like a beautiful rosebush, full of delicacy and thorns. And this rosebush was just so damn unattainable because his hands are already full what would he do with two bouquets, one so pure and pristine white, no unnecessary weeding or preparation to go through, perfection; however the other wild, bleeding red blossoms of fervor for every piece of the world and all that it had to offer, so untamed that one glance had him needy and one touch had him retracting, coaxing him to find a way control her, knowing that he never would.
But that was perfection too, wasn't it? Nowhere inside of her being did Marlene possess a simple untamable spirit, making it an ensured fact, which was that he Allen Schezar would want her but never get this temptress of a sister and therefore would never find her amongst the swirling wind, pounding rain, captivating chaos that the world produced. And he heard her name "Millerna," was her answer when he questioned her and shook his hand…he would never find another Millerna.
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The razors and the dying roses plead
Glinting metal, and blood glimmers right above the sink, until 3, 2, 1 crash—tiny, insignificant but loud enough for the world to know what she's doing in her bathroom—and it joins the many molecules of hydrogen and oxygen. Diluting red the seeps through and the single droplet expands like food colouring in the generic ceramic white. Variety is the spice of life they say and there is a new artwork of scars and pain tracing itself intricately up her arm. No this wasn't pain this was a child's fucking dream compared to the agony ripping her apart from between her legs, and the slashes across her back were naked to the moon while she lie there crumpled, just as bare, body in a fetal position trying to lock itself away. Reenter the womb of comfort, let the umbilical cord of ease and peace reconnect to the fabled world of goodness, feed her the lies that she'd rather digest than the harsh, sour, reality that marred her very being every day.
She was wilting away up in this tiled cage, with watery whispers and shiny white, smooth scaled dragons trying to take her soul, or perhaps they wanted to deafen her from the sounds creeping up the stairs implanting splinters of pleas, and silent screams being hammered into her head. Pushing its way through the white noise of unconsciousness, maybe sleep. If sleep were possible she'd be there already with candy canes and lollipop's like the Evanescence song she heard one day, yes she really wanted to be there, but the voices were her restriction, jarring her back to where and when, and the immense scraping sensation running through arms, her blood, leaving her shredded on the floor. She needed to get there, one moment of freedom, was all she wished for, was all she was searching for, she'd remove her own eardrums with that goddamn razor which was telling the neighbours about their secrets with its incessant drip, drip, drip—but freedom was non-existent in this place that she lived. She wanted to dream that the world was swallowed whole and she was left with cotton candy clouds and chocolate houses that billowed marshmallow and hot chocolate steam. Just wanted everything to shut the fuck up and leave her in peace to bleed to death—which with her luck would never happen—or pass out. Either would have been taken, but when she closed her eyes…ah there was the problem. It came in perfect order too.
He was so gentle when it came to her face, he never wanted her to destroy it like she did, plenty of holes doing the job of pores and sucking up oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide when they weren't filled with metal or sterling steel. And he didn't glance at her arms as abused as they were, she couldn't understand why anyone in their right mind—even if that man wasn't—would want to glance at such despicable mangled things. But everything else, he claimed, was his. He had apart in the making, he would have just as much fun destroying the creature. She had tried to run—always running and telling her mother to hide when only a trace of bourbon thickened the air, but Mother never knew where to hide, because he always found her anyways.
Begging, pleading, "Oh please no…I'm sorry…I'm so sorry," it hardly did anything really except let him display his incisor teeth until black leather descended with all the sadistic love it could muster. Beating her ribs and back the colour of Valentine's Day streamers and balloons, red, purple, pink, such pretty festive colours. He'd admire his handy work for a while calloused hands grazing raised skin, welts, and all the sorrow her body could pump through its veins. He'd coo and awe, then throw her into a corner, and be forced to watch all the degradation one woman could take without letting the neighbours know. He would know, know when the next scream would screech its wraith body through the walls over the fence and land smack dab into a brain receptor of someone who didn't want to know and would tell themselves to mind their own business. When that was on the teetering, precarious, cliffhanger verge he would end it all. Help her mother dress herself, and then it was her turn. She'd be driven until she thought that any minute she'd simply snap in half and he'd have nothing left but her mother and a broken doll corpse, but no when she was sure she'd pass out a slight smack against the back of the skull brought her back.
Ditched, naked, cold, shaken to the bitter core, she was left to crawl up the wooden stairs, bumpity-bump, hips smacking and making her legs quiver in pain. Up, up, up to a world all on its own, when he would then think and drinking the whole of the brown liquid, would crumple in the corner and tell his wife how sorry he was while trying to keep the voices at bay. And the only thing left of them all was tears, raw voices, cold white noise, and her blood.
I let the paper balloon fly high into the sky,
At that point the tears well up,
the red candy melts away with my memories until there's nothing.
How many more years will it be before these tears end?
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I don't leave you alone
Yukari couldn't leave her alone, couldn't stop the need to hear her healthy voice, couldn't stop the worry. Even when the doctor had simply said that all Hitomi had was the flu and that's why she wasn't eating, Yukari knows it's a lie. Problems went deeper than that, people thought that even the most level headed of beings weren't capable of depression, of anxiousness, weren't capable of anything but a monotonous emotions, but Yukari knew better because she had been one of those once. A level headed being that is, back before things weren't thrown out or dyed some midnight, starless black because her clothes were all plain, emotionless, and weren't dreary enough for her liking. Way back when—for it seemed it had been years now—chalky powder, with richly smooth red and blue black the colour of loving death weren't all part of her regular face wear. Far away when prescription candies, and other such delicious tasting things didn't have to take her higher than heaven to make her feel good.
It's a good thing really, because when Hitomi's around pleasure-ville in the pill had to stay deep in her pocket, and she smiles whenever Hitomi makes her appearance. Hitomi would leave her house and enter her's bringing with her life and refreshment and her whip-thin body. The doctor said since she's been sick for a while she should take it easy on the eating, just little, easy-to-digest things is all she needs. Yukari however doesn't still believe the doctor. Yukari always knows better.
Hitomi, with her pretty blonde hair, and encouraging smile is at her door again, and Yukari grabs her out of the crisp air, probably freezing her small boned body to the quick, and into the warm comfort of her and Marie, the soft pink walls and peace of the house consuming her whole. Hitomi happened to love it here, where there were no worries of future headaches or migraines, where she didn't have to tread softly lest she meet her weeping mother or bump into her father whose angry steam coiled and rolled off of him scorching all those who came into contact—he was always heading out the door. She was scared that one day he simply wouldn't come back. She would find her brother in the basement playing his video games or his music or watching T.V, anything to pretend he was the impervious stone and that nothing that just went on bothered him. Just sitting there as he kicked some extraterrestrial ass or what not, and she would join him, looking just as impermeable, and together they became the impenetrable family, with a leaky faucet for a mother and possibly no father to behold.
They were baking cookies now, her and Yukari, or at least she was baking and Yukari was there animatedly moving her hands and complaining how commercialized Christmas was, and watching her press cookie cutters into the tasty dough, making Christmas trees and big clanging bells for them to eat later. She glanced outside, the sun was setting and flashes of orange and red glittered like crystallite jewels on the ice covering the window. She smiled, when was the last time she had done that in her own house, when did the time when her mom would mix cookie dough—eating half of it, I assure you, before it was even baked and then have hot chocolate while watching sappy Christmas specials, waiting for the cookies to finish while the scent hovered in the air, a testament to their happiness—end? "The beginning of high school," her mind and mouth told her but she wasn't even aware that words had unknowingly seeped into the air.
Yukari just smiled her knowing smile and kept babbling, she knew that half of Hitomi was listening the reasonable half, the half that despite what happened would forever stay grounded and kept her from going anywhere or doing anything illogical. The other half, the distant side that Hitomi let show through only sometimes, was in the world of problems, the land of her forsaken, the one she shielded from everybody else, and she was reminiscing on something that seemed important, maybe pondering about why things had to be the way it was. Coincidently the two halves of Hitomi's whole essence joined—momentarily—and that world crept into the next just for a little while.
She used to be logical remember? And now both of her worlds coincided happily neither one taking the lead, they lived in glorious harmony with one another, her dream world of problems showing through the clothes she wore and what she looked like almost every day, her intellectual self thriving in the world of school and the rest of reality. Oh it wasn't easy, all this balance, but she her candy for that, and it was easier than trying to keep half of herself all bundled up and away from the world, things were as smooth as silk like this where everything that the world didn't want to see was already there, and since she was already exposed, well there were no worries in that I suppose.
"So Hito, who was that guy that brought you home when you were sick?" a cranberry coloured nail uttered from her side. Van…she had successfully been ignoring his nagging presence for two weeks now, oh she always knew that he was there knocking on the door that could very possibly let him into the realm of worry, the place where she strategically placed every person she cared about. And Van was just pushing to get in. The problem was she doubted if she, in actuality, did give even something remote as pity for that bastard of a man. Then again maybe pity was all she had left for him, because even after they had achieved so much—possibly an inch past searing apathy for one another—he just dragged them back down to square one. Hitomi was finally beginning to understand that Van Fanel was an asshole to boot and there was most likely nothing she could do about it. That was why whenever her mind strayed to such silly, compassionate thoughts of him she would out-rightly refuse to even indulge her kindness in wasting its time.
It was just that, now, that she had more time to think about it, and no need to fret about the exams she had to take, or the job she had recently contracted, she had time to dwell on him. Facial expressions she was too busy to catch before, ghosting across her memory, accusing her of not being observant, or even considerate enough to stop, take a closer look. She should have noticed that when he courteously prompted her to "screw off and bother someone else", there was a slight twinge of emotion, something nostalgic and forlorn, that now when she heard it, it dulled the ice of indifference, softened his features a bit. Maybe that's how it always was and it took her four months and watching him barf up blood for her to recognize it. Yes, that was exactly it, the ruby colour of her anxiety, perhaps it was the only thing that concerned her. How much did it take for someone—a guy no less—to vomit blood? If it was a girl she would have blamed it on bulimia or some other eating disorder (though she shouldn't really be the indicter of such things), but a guy…However if you looked closely enough at him you could see it: nearly invisible hard lines that made him look so menacing, but when they smoothed became so despondent that even the least empathetic of hearts had to turn away for just a moment, not being able consume the simple anguish all at once. Skin that held its own honey tint even without the access of the sun, but so translucent, that sometimes, if it wasn't for his tenor voice, she would have never known he was there. A phantom made of flesh, that laid half in reality, half beyond humanity's reach, one world percolating into the next, he simply the transfusion plug, the last remaining memory of something entirely forgotten.
All very confusing, so until he trusted her enough to explain anything to her—which she was practically certain would never happen—she would just have to accept the verity of Van's ambiguity. He was all smoke and mirrors, too wrapped in his own fuzzy obscurity, for anyone to completely figure him out. And she thought all adolescent guys were too narcissistic to have any sort of depth at all. But Van was the exception to most every other of her male stereotypes so that was just one more to the list.
"Yo…uh Hitomi?" Yukari's voice dragging—as nicely as she could manage—out her friend's almost comatose state.
"Yeah, oh sorry—that was Van," she droned.
"And…" she ventured expectantly, hoping there was a story or two she could pull out of the girl that would explain the strange reverie she dipped into a couple minutes ago or the way that whenever "Van" left Hitomi standing by her locker after school—for she had now officially become part of the legion of three friends, thanks to Hitomi, and that Celena had so many facial piercings, or maybe Millerna's badass attitude, possibly all three—because she only ever made it when his back was turned and was walking away with that vibrant red head, Hitomi would look so incredibly sour.
"And nothing he just happened to be around and noticed how overly warm was, despite the cold, so he thought I had a fever…and he was right. Plus I don't think I looked that great anyways, and I hadn't been eating that much."
"Well he sounds pretty damn observant if you ask me," she pointed out while helping Hitomi put the white spongy shapes, the waxy paper, and the metal into the mouth of the stove, 'open wide big boy,' Yukari thought while placing it into the wafting pre-heated metal cautiously.
Observant…she never thought of Van being in cue with anything at all, thoughtful yes but never observant, it was actually sort of strange to imagine that he paid attention to all the little details of life. Tell-tale signs that she missed while analyzing him, someone else picked up, maybe that's all it would take to figure him out, if she was on the outside looking through the barrier window. "Yes well I guess I should have told the doctor about him too, but he told me not to say anything…although it's been bugging me for a while. He just looks so sick all the time…" she was mumbling now more to herself than to Yukari, hoping that the girl with thick hair the colour of ripe strawberries—hair and nails to match—wouldn't have heard or rather paid very much attention to what she just said. All of which happened in that eerie place that had captivated her from the very start was more of her and Van's business than anyone else's and she was only there by chance.
"What was that?"
"Oh I just worry about him sometimes that's all, probably because he looks like he doesn't eat or sleep at all every once in a while," a vague explanation and she was half right, for Van had barely slept in the past however many months since the death of his parents, and although he does eat we all know what happens with that. But now was not the time to dwell on him or his peculiarities, no now was the time to head up the stairs of Yukari's house like the good girl she was and pretend she had no worries while Yukari slathered her nails in some incandescent shade of fuchsia. She just noticed how much pretending she did. While blowing her nails and happily listening to Yukari babble on about one thing or another—for she had probably realized that Hitomi was more content listening than talking—she absentmindedly glanced out the window, which happened to show the street, and what an unlikely character was walking towards her door.
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Dryden Fassa was dying, oh he knew it too, knew as much as he knew that the human race was a sucker for anything big, bright, flashy, and simple. Whatever the five senses believed right and true—which was most of the time the easy way, nothing too difficult or they don't want to do it, but careful now nothing too effortless that they begin to suspect something—was what they went along with. Five brain receptors were the only things you had to be worried about, naiveté would do the rest. All of that had been taught by his con-artist father, who liked to coin the term "merchant" or "business man" when describing himself.
The thing was Death had been creeping up on him ever since he was twelve, this tortuously slow countdown of breaths he had to take till he was down to his last, then his activation of a new partnership with Mr. Grim Reaper. And since the time of diagnosis he had been more certain than the doctor that sooner rather than later he would be joining his only chance of a cure. Six feet under, exactly like her. He didn't mind though, when your twelve and your passing is affirmed you tend to immerse yourself in the thing you're sure you can't escape—unless it a miracle from the heavens, but he was too much of a jackass (even as a kid, daddy sure did train him well) to get even that. And that's what he did, he practically swam in it all (his father got especially worried then), so presently he was as unafraid of the one thing he was the most educated about other than his father's own expertise. Although he wasn't particularly looking forward to dying (there were some days when the pain was bordering unbearable however, around then he wasn't so sure) but when he was asked to hold Hell's hand—for that is where his mind had assured him he was going—he could do it fully prepared and without fear.
Now don't get me wrong, Dryden wasn't one to dress up all in black, Marilyn Manson, Joy Division and just about anything else remotely gothic sort of grated his nerves—he'd take The Beatles any day— and the very contemplation about make-up taking residence on his face gave him the shudders. Morbidity had yet to corrupt his optimism, or his stubbornness to live the most carefree life he could possible have—for he was going to die soon what was taking anything too serious?—or his need to gather all knowledge his mind had the capacity to hold. This meant that what his teachers thought of him was a little less than favorable but they had to admit the humor—and regrettably the arguments—were appreciated, if slightly untimely. A friendly youngster, with an opinion in everything (and if he didn't have one he would assess both sides and form one), and a reputable intellectual mind…it was just too bad that he used it all to cheat people out of whatever he wanted from them (cheat is the wrong word, it was more like manipulation, but whatever.) Old habits die hard, so since his was entirely engraved into him—carved in stone somewhere—he'd just have to die with it. That was Life and obviously she was just as bitchy as Fate.
All of this is why the extremely agonizing headache that he had being lugging around for the past hour did absolutely nothing to curb his enthusiasm about going outside, he would manage after all he had his heavy duty medication, nothing that would cure him—that all went out the door after he went into remission—only the little things that would "ease his passing"…if they would just ease it a bit faster he'd be out there enjoying all the pretty white stuff. Although before he went out he'd have to be wrapped with more layers than an onion—because that's all they really were, layers of skin and this small bulb for a seed—he'd be positively round by the time his father's "lap dog" (ahem…errand boy) was finished but that was okay, a tiny price he'd pay gladly. Besides he wasn't going out to impress anyone, just going out to enjoy perhaps the last chance he'd ever have to make a snowman, because when you're dying the small inconsequential things you did as a child appear to be so important. He'd creep down the stairs from his room at night and make himself the grandest chocolate sundae sometimes when he was feeling up to it. He was sure that some of the maids knew—they had to he was always forgetting to put something back—but they'd just smile their knowing smile and went on with life, because they understood as well as he did: he was appreciating the little things, freeing himself from the depression he knew he would sink so easily into. The love of the "small things" was all the liberty he would ever need to die a happy adolescent. He was definitely one lucky bastard…
A few hours later that mean migraine had departed, he was bundled—looking like some sort of round, semi-squashed, multicoloured vegetable—and then deposited outside to make his masterpiece of a snowman…well that wasn't exactly working the way he had planned. Over the course of the last couple months his strength had been fading away and now he was practically reduced to bones and droopy skin—no fat because he lost that with the muscles—this made even moving a circuit exercise, blood pummeling through his body at an increased rate, breathing coming out in shallow pants as he tried to suck in more of the frosty air to cool his rising body temperature. God, it felt like someone was cooking him from the inside out, they pulled all his organs to the roaring heat of an oven made just for him. He was perspiring a lot…too much he was about to become a dehydrated lump of burnt meat, but he not only wanted to finish this, now that he was feeling like shit he needed to finish, just to prove to his damnable disease that it hadn't won yet, it wouldn't win until he said so—or until Death came a-knocking, but all in all it was still the same. Over-exertion would kill him off real quick, and he knew it, but he couldn't help it he was as stubborn as a mule when he wanted to be—which was the reason he hadn't died yet, but that was most likely going to be the cause of death anyhow—and right now it was one of those "want to be" times. But he only had a little more to roll, just one final lumpy ball of snow to mount and then the easy stuff would come afterwards, but he could not, would not pass out until he was in his bed where no one would have to fuss all over him. He hated that the most, the fuss, the general uproar, he preferred things relaxed, quiet, unless it was the happy excitement people generated during Christmas Day, and Christmas parties.
'Just one more lift,' he told himself as he began to lug the mass of tiny, soft, icicles, to the level of his chin—body protesting loudly: Drop the damn thing and run into that friggin' house before you kill yourself you idiot!—and as he was placing that stupid head which felt like it weighed a goddamned ton he saw her, all that work nearly lost from the utter surprise of her presence on the sidewalk.
Boots clicked loudly down the gray cement, all the cracks and engravings being filled in by the snow and she almost laughed. It was cute in a queer way to see some guy who she was sure resembled a stick—the lean face gave it away, although if that scarf was up you would have to get extremely close to notice at all—looking absolutely round. He sort of looked like that snowman he was making and the thought had her just about ready to giggle again.
She had to get out of that house with the man who seemed to her was like some god come down to earth to fulfill every little fairytale fantasy she had ever included the male species in. It was all too surreal to see someone that wonderful appear out of nowhere—and on her sisters arm no less, and the fact that she needed him to treat her with as much genuine love and respect as he did her sister was killing her. So she had runaway again, away from the oppressive air—need—at home and into to the streets looking for a good time, a one-night stand. Something that would make her feel as if for at least one measly hour some man in this world really did love her. See what "love" did to you? It made you a whore—and despite the vulgarity it was the abso-fucking-lute crude truth. Ha, there was that word—you know the one between abso and lute—it was the only thing she seemed good at now. And wasn't that the dirtiest thing you have ever heard?
Anyways she was walking down this street and was going to go to some club or another, looking for her nightly fix—she was no better than old hag of a nanny now was she?—when all of a sudden she saw this guy in all his kiddy cuteness. Not a lot of teenage boys would have the nerve to bundle up like that—with more clothes than muscles or body fat, stand outside on their front lawn, and make a snowman all by themselves. She could see the bangs on his forehead—the one's poking from underneath his blue hat—plastered with sweat, and he looked somewhat pale, but he seemed to be having fun. So when he smiled—wow what a great smile, and those pretty white teeth!—and waved his pudgy, red, mitten clad hand, she grinned and laughed a bit while waving back and telling him he was doing a good job. She even wanted to join him, but she didn't know him and her inhibitions (yes she still had some) held her back, so for a while as she was passing by she watched him work. She didn't notice that while she was doing so Allen—what a noble name, as soon as finished up with business she would look up the meaning—was so far from her mind that Allen didn't even exist anymore. Just her and that guy with his faux fat and his snowman, this was the exact reason why she didn't acknowledge that Allen didn't exist, because for those two minutes or so Allen never existed at all. But that minute or so passed and she was alone again, Allen also came back infesting her mind, and she, although smiling before, passed the next house with a bit of despondency. Dryden with a little tune in his head that he couldn't quite place just watched her go.
Woe to the girl who passes all her fairytale fantasies by.
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Feathery soft and innocent, the burning of demons, brimstone and fire, absolute purity, he was convinced that once upon a time it was all here where time stood still and the air left a vacuum of sound, where everything and nothing except the bench, the stonewalls, and the fountain subsisted together. It was all a world on its own, the peaceful world of nothing and the ever substantial reality coming into being. Birthed out of one little trip with Hitomi, maybe he should bring her along with him more often because every so often good things happened when she was around. Then again maybe not, it was weird though, every since they—she—had found this he had found his mind, more often than not, wandering over to her, wondering if she was alright—which she was he knew, he saw her the last week of school—and strangely missing her. Bad, very bad, he realized that too yes, but it was like half of the something that was supposed to be this vast amount of space, his own personal haven, was lost, missing without her here. So despite whatever he thought, and no matter how much he lusted after the solitude, he could not—for an unknown reason—sit in great expanse of white with only half of the magic that he felt while he was with her. Once you had that, that small feeling of gloriousness, you could never settle for less than the whole dose. And now he was a little druggie.
So this was his reasoning when he found himself on his way to the street that Hitomi had lived, and of course since he lived on the opposite side of town he also found himself on a bus. Did he ever mention how much he hated buses, it fermented itself a little deeper than the despise for Hitomi—but now he found that he not only could tolerate her but actually like her…it was all Merle's fault really—and no matter what he thought about either of them he needed them both. It seriously is a sick little world we live in. Anyways as they bumped along Van tried to breathe through his mouth, luckily he had brought gum along to mask the taste, and think on better things. Better things…hmph…his mind was drawing a blank on that one, it was like every good memory—that didn't involve his parents—had decided unanimously that the bus wasn't worth their time, and they'd rather walk than join him on the stupid hunk of metal. See you later Van, hope you enjoy the ride without us, he should have never gotten on the thing. Nevertheless he was there, and he'd calmly have to struggle through the entire awful trip down memory lane that the bus with it's brunette, rumpled looking, middle-aged, driver was taking him on.
These spiteful memories assured him that yes it was his fault, would always be his fault, and since he was the one at fault he'd have to bear burdens of his faulty actions. But the thing was it wasn't his problem (or fault) that he was hot-tempered, stubborn, or moody…oh no, no, no, it was his personalities own flaws, so unless he made the especially difficult decision to remake his personality, to change who he was, he was just going to stay that way. He had (stayed the same, that is) because he hated change as much as he hated buses, still, more than he hated Hitomi—dear God, there she was again, even on buses she popped up. Back to it not being his fault now…he wasn't to blame (okay so yes he was) that his own righteous indignation, and need to protect the dignity of his family—chiefly that dead brother of his—had him seeing red faster than those disgruntled Spanish bulls, or that he happened to be able to beat the crap out some of those twits (gang members) that pissed him off. It was their own stupid defect, and as soon as he could convince himself of that the happier this bus ride would be.
Too late now though, the ride was over and it was time to get off and…ooh look at whose back? Hi Van, did you have a nice time? 'Of course not you dimwits,' was his reply just as angry as that bull he was comparing his furious side to earlier. That's why he loathed buses, sure they got you anywhere you wanted to go in the physical sense, but in the act of "getting there" you had time to yourself to contemplate about all your little predicaments. But by the time you were sure the answer was going to come, the ride was over and off you go out into the world, with your mind right back at square one.
AN: Another chapter completed, please review…the second part of this chapter is being written I don't know when it will be finished though cuz a lot has to happen. Well ta-ta for now!