Hey every one! Thank you for all the kind comments. I promise things will eventually get better for poor Michel (I have a bad habit of torturing characters I love).
Since I am apparently not the only person here that's looking for Side B fanfics, I made a Side B C2 community. Everything I've found and read here is archived there, so go check it out; it's called "Further on Down the Road." Also, if you know anything else that should be there, let me know.
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Tick. Tick. Tick.
Michel glared fiercely at the clock on Miss Ebert's wall. The woman had left the office to make photocopies, telling the teenager to stay put. He slumped down in the chair, trying to shut out the incessant ticking of the clock. Other than that, the room was dead silent and the sound was threatening to consume him. He curled up smaller in the chair, hugging himself tightly. This was going to be bad and he knew it. Aya wasn't going to be happy.
He glanced around the office. It was full of those stupid motivational posters ("Reach for the moon and even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."), potted plants and university catalogues. The chair he was sitting in was relatively comfortable and her desk had that antique, worn look about it. There were a few other chairs in the room -probably for when she counseled more than one student at a time- as well as a coat rack and large file cabinet.
It wasn't all that unlike KR's office, but there was still something about it which made Michel uncomfortable. Maybe it was that he was aware that he was simply one of several hundred boys who were paraded in and out on a daily basis. Or maybe it was the niggling feeling that he didn't trust Miss Betsy Ebert. Or maybe it was that damn clock.
Or perhaps he was simply nervous over the impending Aya-doom.
Whatever it was, he didn't want to be there.
Miss Ebert came back in after what felt like an eternity and began filing things. The phone rang a few times and she scheduled parent-teacher conferences, gave progress reports or answered questions for the parents of prospective students. The whole while, Michel sat curled in the chair, staring blankly at a wall. Miss Ebert seemed to have forgotten about him. Or maybe she was ignoring him as a tactic to get him to talk. She'd probably seen many people break under the pressure and the silence.
He wasn't about to budge though. He would not give in to this woman, no matter how she tried. Michel was a tough little thing and he had his pride, even when all he wanted to do was burst into tears.
He was looking at the clock for the millionth time -was it his imagination, or was time passing more slowly than usual?- when he heard Aya talking to the secretary in the room outside the office.
Suddenly, he wished time would stop. He didn't want Aya coming into the room; didn't want Miss Ebert to speak to Aya; didn't want to face whatever Aya was going to dish out to him. He knew his "small and invisible" tactic wouldn't work on the redhead and he was going to be in trouble.
After a courteous knock and Miss Ebert's response of "come in," Aya strode briskly into the room, violet eyes immediately drawn to Michel. The boy wilted slightly under the gaze, but the man said nothing and turned to Miss Ebert. "I'm sorry for any trouble he may have caused." Typical Aya; always polite.
"He isn't any trouble." Miss Ebert rose to shake his hand. She had never met Aya Fujimiya before; Richard Krypton himself had always been the one to visit for conferences and open-houses, accompanied by his secretary. The redheaded man had a firm, brisk handshake. "I am worried about him though. He won't tell me what happened."
"Aa." Aya gave a slight nod. "Some one at home will talk to him, then." He turned to Michel. "Get your things."
Miss Ebert blinked. "Classes aren't over for another forty minutes, Mr. Fujimiya."
Aya frowned at her. "Michel would be better off at home, Miss Ebert. I trust that he would not try to leave school, unless something truly upsetting had happened to him." He looked at the teen again, "Go get your things. We're going home."
Michel jumped up quickly, giving a polite nod to Miss Ebert as he snatched up his book bag and pulled on his jacket. Then he trotted obediently to the door. It would not be wise to question Aya or keep him waiting.
The car ride to the shop was a tense one. Aya stared out the window, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. Michel gazed sullenly out his window, watching the world pass by and trying to pretend he wasn't as terrified as he felt.
Neither of them spoke until after they parked. Aya's fingers were still gripped around the wheel, only not quite as tight now. "I never thought I'd get a call about you." He paused, violet gaze still focused on a parking meter as if he couldn't bear to look at Michel, "What happened?"
Michel shrank down in his seat. It almost made it worse that Aya wasn't looking at him. And the disappointment…They'd all come to expect that phone calls like that would be about Yuki. Yuki's grades were abysmal. Yuki was the one who got in fights. Yuki gave the teachers attitude. And now he was the one who had made waves, rather than Yuki, and the disappointment in Aya's tone was like a slap to the face.
Aya waited for a moment. When it was clear his question would get no response, he finally looked over at the boy. Michel was hunched up in his seat, pressed against the door as if he wanted to be as far away from Aya as possible. For a moment, the man was taken aback; he would never raise a hand to Michel. But on a closer inspection, he could see something else in the teenager's eyes. Those pale green eyes were dark with self-loathing and despair and Aya knew that -no matter how much he wanted to know what had transpired before Miss Ebert got a hold of Michel- forcing an answer out of him would not have helped. He knew; he understood all too well. If he persisted, Michel would shut down.
"I'm not going to force you to tell me." He finally sighed, "Go in and get started on your homework until your shift starts."
He watched as the tiny blond scurried out of the car, book bag slung over his shoulder. For a moment, he wondered if sending the boy off to his room alone was the best idea. If something that terrible had happened to him -and Aya suspected it had- it was not wise to let him hide himself away where they couldn't keep an eye on him.
He did, however, have other matters to attend to.
Like explaining to Free what little he knew of the situation.
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Michel once again ignored every one as he hurried through the shop and thumped up the stairs. He saw the odd look on Chloé's face and Ken's confused expression and wondered fleetingly if Aya had even bothered to tell them where he was going when he left. He didn't stop to find out though; just breezed through without a word.
He knew he couldn't answer any questions. The memory hadn't numbed yet; he could still feel hands touching him, could still hear their cruel words. It hurt; God, it hurt. Why him? Why did it have to be him? Everyday…Even if some days were better than others, they were all pretty much the same. Unasked for, undeserved abuse due to religion or nationality or sexuality or some other thing that shouldn't have mattered. And the hurt…Why wouldn't it just go away already? It was getting harder and harder to turn it off.
He tossed his bag down the second he entered his room, locking the door behind him. He needed to do something…It hurt too much.
He peeled off his sweater, tossing it in the general direction of his hamper. The white button-down uniform shirt followed soon after and he stood in front of his bureau, first staring at his reflection in the mirror, then down at the smooth skin of his chest and stomach.
It was a beautiful canvas, really. No one would ever see, for how often did he wander around without a shirt on? The skin was wonderfully soft and unmarred, so unlike his thighs and arms; hairless -he'd never be hairy, even as a fully grown man- and so inviting. He fully understood the appreciation for a body like his…He was like a porcelain doll. So perfect; so breakable.
And if they weren't going to be gentle with him, why should he be gentle with himself?
It was so easy now. He'd been doing it so long; he didn't even have to think any more. It was over in a matter of seconds and he stared down at the horizontal cuts, watching the blood bead through the shallow incisions. He'd been doing it so long, he could totally detach himself. There was no pain, no smell of blood, no feeling at all. Just simple bliss as he let all of the hurt bleed out.
Michel didn't know what all the fuss was about. He didn't hurt himself any more than he'd been hurting his entire life. He'd survived far worse than a few scratches and anyway, if he was hideously scarred, maybe they would finally leave him alone.
He unlocked the door and sat down at his desk to begin his homework as Aya had requested, still without a shirt. He didn't want to ruin any of the clothes Krypton had bought him or any of the tops that had been birthday gifts by bleeding all over them. It was one thing to hurt himself. It was another to hurt one of the others by ruining something they'd given him out of kindness. So he sat down to do a lab write-up and let the cuts scab over, thinking he would finish changing when he needed to go down to the shop for his shift.
He was half-expecting Aya or Free or both to come barging into his room, demanding to know what happened. It was Free's day off and Michel had no clue where he was, but he suspected the man was somewhere around the apartment still; he rarely went out without Michel's company. Aya wasn't the type to pry, he knew, but he couldn't help wondering why no one was demanding answers. Yuki was usually grilled the moment he got home after any sort of transgression. But the circumstances of the afternoon were so unusual and details so vague that he was sort of surprised that neither of them did come seeking answers.
He wondered if Aya had bothered to tell Ken and Chloé anything. They had obviously been surprised to see him march through the shop and they were, by nature, curious and nosy, respectively. Michel was pretty sure that neither of the aforementioned men had any idea what he did to himself when he was upset. Yuki had caught him in the bathroom one night when he was cutting his legs. He had told Free and Aya, of course, had somehow found out.
The lab write-up was almost finished by the time quarter of four rolled around. Michel set down his pen and stretched. He was proud of himself for working so hard -maybe he would finally get an A on something in physical science- and he felt better. Aya had looked in on him once, acknowledging his diligent work with a nod, but other than that the apartment had been fairly silent.
He rose from his seat and padded over to the closet in search of some clothes. He was still in his school trousers and his uniform sweater and shirt were still on the floor. A pair of grey slacks soon replaced the brown plaid and he pulled a white and blue long-sleeved polo shirt over his head. He looked in the mirror again. The shirt was soft, well worn and comfortable and it was lose enough that it wouldn't rub against the marred skin of his stomach.
He slid his feet into a pair of blue running shoes that had never actually been worn for running and made a failed attempt at straightening his unruly curls before padding out of the room to start his afternoon shift at the shop.
Ken took off the moment he stepped through the door, pausing to ruffle the blond's hair as he passed by. It was his afternoon for deliveries and there was a large order going to a church for a wedding the next morning. He would be busy and gone for the rest of the afternoon, meaning dinner would be some sort of takeout. The rest of them could cook well enough, but Ken's stellar cooking had spoiled them and it just wasn't the same. Whenever the brunet wasn't available to cook dinner, they always ordered out.
He watched Chloé for a moment. The other blond was working the register that afternoon and he was simply leaned over the counter, bored. But somehow…Chloé managed to make bored look good, as he did everything else. Michel had known Chloé the longest of all his teammates and he still hadn't gotten over how sophisticated and perfectly groomed the Romanian man always appeared.
Even with all the teasing he endured, Michel adored Chloé. The boy had been alone in Krypton's castle for so long that, when Chloé had arrived, he had jumped on the chance to have a friend. Chloé had been skeptical at first -Michel had only been eleven at the time. But the castle was a lonely place and Chloé had found himself with a choice: boredom or spend time with the sad little blond who's only friend seemed to be the puppy he'd acquired on his eleventh birthday.
Chloé had taught him to play chess and, although he wasn't very good at it, it gave them both something to do. They had also gone to museums and galleries together and Michel had learned more about art than he ever thought there was to know. Chloé had supported the boy when he'd expressed an interest in art and encouraged him by getting him a set of chalk pastels. They'd laughed together when they realized Michel was a horrid artist, except when it came to trees, which he could draw fairly well. Over the years, smudgy drawings of trees in various stages of bloom had turned up in all over the place, first around the castle and later in the shop and the rooms of the apartment.
He smiled at Chloé, feeling the same familiar brotherly feeling he'd come to associate with the man. He knew that he'd been subconsciously using Chloé as a replacement for his own long-missing brother. He hardly remembered his brother and the memory would probably have been totally obliterated by images of Chloé if not for the well-worn and faded family portrait KR had rescued for him after his parent's murder.
The smile he received in return was sort of strained. Worried, maybe. So Aya had told them, then. He continued watching Chloé as he settled down to repot some plants at the low table in the back of the shop.
"I'm thinking I may get out my pastels again." He said absently, tracing a pattern in the dirt on the table. Said pastels weren't the box Chloé had originally bought him, of course; those had been worn down ages ago. But he had received a new, more expensive looking set for Christmas the previous year and they had hardly been used. He hadn't really felt like drawing much.
This earned him a more normal smile. "More trees?"
"More trees." He nodded, "I've been thinking about it and I'm fairly certain there is a large pad of paper somewhere under my bed." He looked back down at what he was doing, carefully uprooting a small leafy plant and placing it in a bigger pot. He loved the feel of dirt in his hands; it felt good to think that he was helping to support life, rather than take it away. The soil reminded him vaguely of the way it had felt to blend oil pastels with his fingers and the earthy smell made him think fondly of times when he had begged for trips to the park so he could sit under the trees and draw what he saw.
"Am I going to start finding brown and green fingerprints all over the place again, kid?" Chloé's voice held a hint of amusement and Michel couldn't help giggling.
"I think I've grown up enough to know better than to touch anything without washing first. That was nearly four years ago, Chloé!" He grinned, looking happier than Chloé had seen him in a long time, and buried his hands in the dirt again.
The older blond shot him a fond smile, then turned to help a customer who had wandered in.
Michel turned his attention to the task at hand once more, realizing suddenly he had one more plant than pot. He wondered absently how he had miscounted, then rose to fetch another terracotta pot from a shelf in the storeroom.
Stretching on his tiptoes to reach the needed object, he felt a dull pain in his abdomen. It didn't register for a moment that it hurt; it was simply annoying. Then he realized that, to his dismay, he had pulled open at least one of the scabs spanning his stomach. He winced as he retracted his arm, the pot left on the shelf. It hurt now and itched and he was sure he wouldn't be able to make it out of the storeroom and escape upstairs without any one noticing.
Don't be a baby, Michel, he told himself. Suck it up and deal. His comrades had lived their normal lives dealing with far worse injuries than those he'd given himself. He could handle this; he could forget about the pain and force himself to finish his work. He took a deep breath, calming himself, and pushed back the pain, turning it all off. If he couldn't feel, he couldn't hurt, after all.
He reached back up to grab the pot, the pain once again nothing more than a niggling little thought in the back of his mind. Everything was so much simpler if he just shut down.
Seated back at the table, he set to work on the last plant, humming softly to himself as he worked. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a couple of middle aged housewives watching him work, whispering to one another. He knew what they were saying, of course. It was always the same old thing…"Look at that gorgeous child. And how nicely he handles the plants, so gentle for some one so young. His parents must be proud." It made his heart twist almost every time, but he found it hard to ignore.
He moved the freshly repotted plants to the sill he'd retrieved them from, then scampered back to clean up the table and put away the bag of soil he'd been using. On the way past the register he was stopped, however, as Chloé's hand caught his sleeve, pulling him to a halt.
"What is all over the front of your shirt?" Crystal blue eyes peered into his and he felt his heart lurch. He'd been bleeding! Bleeding, and it had soaked through the shirt, just as he'd feared earlier. He turned to pull away without answering, but the older man's hand tightened around his wrist.
"Is that blood, Michel?" Chloé hissed, drawing the boy closer and pulling him around behind the counter. "What happened? Why are you bleeding?"
"It's none of your business!" He tried to yank his arm free. Chloé tightened the grip again, grabbing the bottom of his shirt and pulling it up in search of the spreading stain's source.
"What the…" The man's eyes widened as he stared down at the stripe of exposed flesh, took in the gashes, obviously pulled apart by recent activity. "How did this happen?" He wondered aloud, glancing around the shop. Finding it -thankfully and by some stroke of luck- empty, he dragged the boy over to the door and flipped the little sign to "closed." Then he hurried towards the back of the store, hand still clutching Michel's wrist; unwilling to let go for fear the teen would flee.
Escape was in the forefront of Michel's mind, but Chloé had an iron grip on his arm and breaking free seemed unlikely. He wanted to panic; to cry hysterically. He could feel something akin to mania bubbling up and he knew this would not be good. Chloé wouldn't let something like this go, not without a satisfactory explanation and Michel feared that the only explanation which would be deemed satisfactory would be the truth.
There was a tense moment of silence as Chloé pushed Michel down to a chair and released his arm. The little blond felt even smaller as Chloé towered over him, gaze never leaving his face as he unintentionally did a pretty decent impression of Aya. "What happened, Michel?"
More silence.
Michel turned his head away, unable to stand that intense stare any more. He hated when people looked disappointed in him, but he hated it even more when that worried, uncertain expression was turned his way. He seemed to be getting that a lot lately and he couldn't tell any more whether it was genuine or superficial.
Chloé's fingers beneath his chin forced his head back so that they were again eye-to-eye. He was startled by the blank look on Michel's face; the vacant look in his eyes. With that expression, those wide eyes appeared more grey than green and the man couldn't help noticing that he looked tired. "Who did this to you?"
No answer.
"Did you do it to yourself?" The thought made him sort of sick, but he felt compelled to ask anyway. He had expected some sort of reaction at that, but Michel just stared back at him impassively, not even a flicker of emotion crossing his face. "Dammit Michel, what happened? You're hurt! You can't just pretend you aren't!"
A very, very polite smile suddenly painted itself across Michel's face. "I do not mean to be rude, Chloé, but it's really none of your business." He said simply, voice still devoid of any emotion. On the inside, however, he was crying; sobbing; dying for Chloé to hug him and tell him everything would be okay.
"Michel…" The Romanian man frowned, "This is serious. You need to tell some one what happened." He heaved a sigh, "If you won't tell me, at least tell Free. Please. He's worried about you."
"I.." For a moment, the tiny blond considered letting the entire tale come pouring out; he was so tired. He wasn't sure if he could do it any more. It was getting so hard to pretend. He wanted to tell Chloé so badly; hell, he wanted to tell any one at that point. But he just couldn't do it. "I…I'll try to tell him." He couldn't promise, but he could try. He bowed his head, exhaling softly, drawing the breath back in. It was almost like coming back to life for the briefest of moments.
His head rose when he felt Chloé's hand affectionately ruffling his hair. His eyes widened and he looked up, confused. A half a smile played across the older blond's face as his slender fingers caressed baby-fine blond curls fondly. "It's a start."
