Hi, guys? How you have been doing? I want to apologize for not updating sooner! I had something like an author-block and I just reached a point in the chapter, where I just didn't know how to write what I wanted. And at first I decided to leave it like this for a few days, but then I returned to it, I started writing and realized I'm writing everything horribly and after half an hour I just stopped, because I was writing bullshit. Well, I realize that this doesn't really have anything to do with you guys, and I'm going to post a chapter every two days to compensate to you, probably like, for two week maybe? I have a few questions for you, so please keep reading.
1. To IdioticLaptopUser you always make my day, dude. And I want to apologize to you, as well, as to all the readers, for my soooo late update, please read what I have written above number 1 and please read numbers 3 and 4, because I just think this chapter turned out completely horrible. I just... I don't know what to say. I just reread it and I pretty much feel ashamed to admit that I have written it, but I decided to post it nevertheless. I thought that maybe it would be better to rewrite it than to post it as it is, but I didn't really want to change the plot here. I wanted to write what I've written but just the way I did it... I think I couldn't do it properly and that it sounds really rushed, illogical and overdone. I'm writing abut the modern world, but I think just the way I described everything here and the way I descried especially Luffy's thoughts (you'll see), is too unrealistic and too... I don't know how I said completely illogical and just simply put - horrible. I pretty much ruined this chapter, but I couldn't even find a way to fix it. I'm sorry that you're going to read my shitty chap and I'm really sorry that I'm writing all of this like a personal response to your review. I'm really sorry. I just.. You always comment and you're always so sweet and just... I wanted to hear your opinion. Please be honest in your review, if you decide to write me a such. Have a nice day! Love you, honey, hope you still enjoy the story after this terrible chap! XOXO
2. To yekyucho I'm happy to see a new fan! To answer your question - yes, they will. But I'm looking to a slow-built for their relationship, but I too want to make them interact more in future chapters. I want to apologize to you and to all the readers, about the soooo late update and + I think the chapter is horrible, so I want to apologize for this too. If you want to you can read what I'll write in number 3. to see what I'm talking about. Please keep reviewing what you like and dislike in the chapters, your ideas and etc. Hope you have a nice day, love you, honey, and again - thanks for bothering to write a review. I really appreciate it XOXO
3. I think this chapter turned out horribly, first! Well, I can still hope that it's all in my head, but... I just don't think it is. How I said to IdioticLaptopUser, even if I know the chapter is terrible, I still wanted to post it, because, in reality I wrote what I wanted to write, but I simply put, wrote it horribly, at least, in my opinion. Especially, Luffy's thoughts, which you'll see, I think I just described everything illogically and VERY unrealistically. My idea was to write how Luffy starts recalling stuff from the past and how, because of all the years of all kinds of abuse - psychological, verbal and physical, he thinks that Garp was maybe right that he deserved to die, that he deserved all kinds of pain and etc. and how in such moments as the one in the chapter he couldn't help but to unintentionally recall those kind of things, but doesn't really realize he is doing it and that he is implanting them in a situation in which there is nothing similar. I know it all sounds really confusing, but AAAAAAA. OMG, I'm a horrible writer. I don't even know if you have understood anything about what I just wrote, but if you have please share your opinion if did a good job or not.
4. SHOULD I DELETE THIS CHAPTER OR NOT?
Luffy shrieked.
To be damned the mad people and the ghosts in the forest, right now there was someone behind him, who just spoke in his ear.
The boy promptly jumped from his sitting position and crawled on all fours further in the bush, trying to scoot away from the source of the voice. He practically pricked out his left eye on one of the thorns of the green bush in hurry to run away.
Eventually, after a wrestling match with fibrous branches and pointed prickles, Luffy found himself tangled in the plant, face to face with a girl around his age.
Ignoring the pulse, drumming in his ears and his shallow breathing, he couldn't help but to take in her long, light blue hair, tied up in a high ponytail and her intoxicating, icy-blue gaze. He narrowed his eyes.
Blue hair, those eyes…
Somewhere in his head a bell rang and the raven-haired boy's eyes widened. The ghost from yesterday.
For a moment they stood still, examining each other.
The girl was presumably a little older than him. Eighteen or nineteen maybe? She had an oval, clean face with pale skin. Her eyes were round, much like his own, but in contrast to his, they were gorgeous and the shade of the iris - matchless.
It was an incredible and abnormal shade of pale-blue. At first, he called them icy-blue, by instinct, but looking at them up close, they were literally like ice. They reminded him of cold, but pleasant winter, fresh air and snow, but at the same time, in contradistinction from the shade, there was something warm and comforting in them. It instantly made Luffy relax his tensed body and calm his racing heart and rapid breathing.
She had this thin nose and long black eyelashes for which many models would die for and the perfectly shaped eyebrows that surprisingly were blue too. Her hair, despite being held by a black rubber band, was a span away from reaching her waist.
The girl was wearing the same clothes as last time - skinny blue jeans, black leather jacket and black, velvet, high-heeled shoes. The end of a jet-black lace top was showing from beneath her jacket and a lace choker was shouldering her slim neck.
She was really beautiful, but then again who, from the people he had met so far, wasn't in this town? Luffy was seriously beginning to feel like an ugly duckling around the natives - both humans and ghosts. Nami was beautiful, Robin was beautiful, this girl was beautiful, his brother was handsome and his colleagues from work too, the green-haired stranger from yesterday…
Yup, he was un ugly duckling.
The raven-haired boy's track of thought was interrupted by a soft laugh.
Luffy blinked at her, watching how the girl put a hand over her pink lips to stifle her laughter, her eyes starting to water.
"What?" asked the boy, sullenly.
"N-nothing," answered the blue-haired girl, unconvincingly and choking with laughter. Luffy continued to stare at her sulkily, not believing in anything she said. She lifted her gaze to look at him merrily. "You just look ridiculous."
"Well, sorry if so," snorted out the boy, quarrelsomely, a pout curling his puffy lips, cheeks slightly bulging.
Taking in his child-like frown, the girl couldn't hold out any longer and burst out laughing. Resonating, feminine laughter, filled the space between them, resounding in the forest. It was a beautiful sound - tuneful and amiable.
But even with this thoughts in mind, Luffy didn't even try to stop the deepening of his frown. He hummed angrily and turned his head to the side with closed eyes.
After a few seconds the blue-haired girl wiped away a few tears that had escaped the corners of her amazing orbs and the last bits of laughter in her voice died, but the beautiful smile wasn't leaving her face.
"Okay, I'm sorry," offered she, tenderly with notes of cheerfulness. The girl leaned closer to Luffy, making him instantly shift his eyes suspiciously to her.
She peeked over the raven-haired boy's shoulder, looking at the situation going in the bush.
"Swirl your left wrist a little bit and pull it out carefully from behind your back. This way I think you would be able to free it, without cutting yourself," said the girl thoughtfully with a delicate hand over her chin, after a short inspection.
Luffy just sat there, staring at her.
"Come on, stop pouting and do it," prodded she with a small laugh.
Luffy frowned.
"I'm not pouting."
"Oh, yes, yes, you are."
"Hmpf."
The blue-haired girl laughed at the childish frown she received for her last sentence. "You're just so cute."
Okay, now that hit a nerve.
A vein on Luffy's temple twitched.
"No, I'm not," he snapped back.
"You sure?" she teased him.
"Yes!" scowled the boy at her, narrowing his eyes.
The girl just responded with a laugh. "If you say so."
Luffy knitted his brows, looking daggers at her. The boy began opening his mouth in order to shoot something back at her, when she spoke.
"Okay, so now, when we know you are not cute and definitely not pouting like a baby, how about untangling you from this brush, before you've grown together with it?"
The raven-haired boy's pout remained, but, nevertheless, he followed, the girl's instructions. Soon after he found himself sitting on his knees in a muddy puddle with a few more scratches from the sharp prickles. Well, at least now he wasn't getting intimate with a plant, so everything was okay.
Luffy turned his full attention back to the ghost.
He wasn't scared. The boy knew she was a good person. Well - a ghost. There surprisingly were such. In reality, Luffy actually had a few ghost-friends back in his hometown. They were really nice and his intuition was telling him that the beautiful young woman in front of him was pretty much like them. Kind, good-natured.
But he still wasn't planning to forget her remark about him being cute. Nope. Not until Hell freezes. Men aren't cute.
"I'm Vivi, by the way. Nice to meet you," said the girl with a warm smile and offered him a hand. Luffy blinked at her, taken by surprise.
"U-um, Luffy. N-nice to meet you t-too," responded the boy, suddenly feeling nervous. Vivi chuckled. He was adorable.
"So, Luffy, what are you doing here? This certainly is not a place most people new in town would want to visit."
"W-well.. I was d-doing a research, but…" And it hit him.
The man.
The silhouette.
Luffy's eyes widened in pure horror. They were here in the forest. With him. And because of his shriek from before, they knew exactly where he was. The boy's mouth dried up and a giant lump find its way in his throat.
He was a corpse.
Luffy's whole body strained and he started hectically looking round for any traces of someone else's presence. He bended forward a little bit, his hands bawled into fists in the mud.
"Hey, you alright?" asked Vivi worriedly, but her words seemed to remain unheard.
How for God's sake he could have been so stupid as to scream? Or to sneeze in the first place. He was pretty much asking to get killed right now. Obviously he had seen something which he wasn't supposed to see.
How he can be so stupid?
And the other ghost. If it was only for the ominous stranger maybe he had some chance to get away from here unharmed. But with a ghost in the picture? He just couldn't run from two things at the same time. Having in mind his luck till now, the new ghost was going to be demented too. If not even the same woman as before.
Oh, yeah, Alvida was it?
The raven-haired boy clenched his fists even more, until the knuckles on his hands became white. His heart was racing in his chest and his breathing was becoming shallow.
"Hey, do you hear me? What's wrong?"
The girl's voice felt distant to him. As if she was talking to him through a thick glass.
Alvida.. The mental woman who had killed hundreds of people. The woman with the surgically modified sharp teeth. The woman that was now pursuing him. Why?
Well, obviously something about him had angered her. But what? Before coming to this town he had never seen her or heard anything about her.
But the boy guessed it wasn't surprising. He had a knack of angering people, how his grandfather always used to say.
Maybe he actually deserved to die here. Yeah, why not? What was he even doing at this place?
What really?
Luffy bent his head forward. His charcoal bangs fell over his eyes, casting a dark shadow over them. A bitter smile made its way on his face.
I'm just stupid. What am I doing? I should never have come.
What was the so big deal about Alvida anyway? He knew she couldn't hurt him physically. Ghosts can't do that. Because of his ability he might be able to sense their touch, their breath, their warmth and etc. but they can't hit him or do anything similar to that.
So why was he here? Couldn't he have just ignored her?
His breathing calmed and his body relaxed. The wry smile on his face widened.
No, of course, not.
Because of his past experience with the fortune-teller, he knew it was possible to make a demented ghost stop their pursuit. That's why, he thought that maybe, if he finds out more about Alvida, he might be able to find out why he intrigued her or more correctly, why he made her mad. Of course, he had to cling on even the smallest bits of hope.
He hoped that he might be able to solve the problem, whatever it was, and send her away.
Yeah, as if.
That was because he wasn't mentally strong enough to endure the presence of the demented ghosts around him all the time.
He wasn't capable to ignore them, when they were watching him and smiling at him maliciously, with promises for pain and suffering.
He wasn't good enough to not get scared, when they were whispering to him at night how they will rip up his stomach and stuff his mouth with his own intestines, till he suffocates or die from blood lose - which one happens first.
He couldn't help it but to get terrified from their sudden appearances and how they would always bring up his biggest fears at the worst time possible, hoping to drive him mad and then tell him how he was good for nothing.
But maybe he deserved all of this. Maybe he deserved all of the suffering, all of the pain. For being so weak. So worthless. Maybe he actually deserved to die here, didn't he? For never doing the right thing, for always being so stupid, for never being good enough. It was all his fault. He deserved it all. He deserved to die.
"Hey."
There was a warm hand placed on his shoulder. Luffy came to his senses. The boy was suddenly taken out from his stupor by the gentle and comforting touch. Wide, startled coal black eyes met Vivi's calm and affectionate blue gaze. The blue-haired girl had stood up and with slightly bent knees, was now hovering over him.
Luffy was just sitting there, staring up at her. His legs were folded on either side of him, next to his butt. Vivi couldn't help but to associate him with a little child that simply didn't know what to do. She smiled heartily at him and said, reassuringly, "Everything is alright."
The boy watched her a few more seconds than nodded slowly. Vivi's smile widened.
"Okay. Now do you want us to find a better place to sit, because you've been sitting in a puddle of muddy water from quite some time now?"
"T-t-the m-man…" stuttered out the boy.
"Hm, what man?" asked Vivi.
"T-the o-one with p-purple h-hair a-and the kn-n-ife."
Vivi blinked. "Oh, you mean the one with the black greatcoat and the hat, who looked ready to kill you, after you sneezed, but then received a phone call? He has probably reached his car till now. He parked it near the main road close to the front of the psychiatry."
Now it was Luffy's turn to blink. This meant he was nowhere near them right now. And wait.. Main road? GoogleMaps didn't show him anything like that.
"B-but isn't h-he coming t-to.." Luffy's voice started quivering at the end of the sentence.
"Kill you?" said Vivi, lending him a hand. "No. Although he looked really disappointed that he can't do it. You saw him picking up his phone, right?" Luffy nodded. "He was told to get going, because they didn't have time or something like that. I couldn't hear more, because of the rain. But now he is not here."
"T-the o-other g-ghost?" asked the boy.
"She went in the building."
"I s-see," said Luffy with a sigh of relief.
"Come on, now. There is a wood-shed near us. Let's go there," said the blue-haired girl with a smile.
"O-okay."
The boy tried to stand up, but his legs, no, his whole body was feeling numb, thanks to the trance in which he was moments ago. He did his best to get rid of those thoughts, but he was still deeply shaken up. Thanks to Vivi, he managed to come to his senses, but the thoughts were still there. They hadn't disappeared. They were just settling in some dark corner of his mind. He knew it, but at this moment he knew he couldn't do anything about it.
Luffy gritted his teeth and with effort stood up. The blue-haired girl was watching him intently the whole time, sensing that there was something going on in his head, but remained quite. For now.
They started walking.
Just to make sure that there really was no one behind them, the boy casted a furtive glance over his shoulder. Vivi sighed, looking at him. Luffy heard the sigh and shifted his head to the right to look at her.
"Don't you think I'm going to tell you if there is someone around us?" asked she.
"U-um…" stuttered Luffy in embarrassment and looked at his feet, biting his bottom lip. The raven-haired boy could feel how his cheeks were turning deep red.
Vivi was watching him with a cheerful smile.
"You really are cute," said the girl and laughed when Luffy's face became even more flushed.
"I-I'm not."
"Whatever you say." She winked at him with a smile, then started more seriously, "But really, back then too, when we were sitting on the ground next to the bushes, don't you think I was going to warn you, if something was threatening you?"
"I-I'm sorry."
Vivi's face softened, "It's okay."
Luffy was still looking at his soaked trainers, when he remembered something. "By the way, where were you standing, when you listened to the conversation this man had on the phone. I, um, didn't see you anywhere around," asked the boy more calmly now.
"There is a basement under the main building, but it isn't under the ground completely. You see the little windows there?" asked Vivi and pointed somewhere in the distance.
They were walking near the open field connecting the wood and the psychiatry, but enough far away from it, so the cameras on top of the roof, wouldn't capture them. After all, it was strange to see a soaked teenager, walking alone around the back of the psychiatry in his dirty pajama bottoms.
Luffy looked at the spot, she was pointing at, narrowing his eyes slightly. His eyesight was quite poor, but he managed to see a little square window, built in a few inches from the ground. Actually, there were many of them.
He nodded.
"Usually they leave it slightly open, in order for some fresh air to come in, because it gets really moist down there. When I saw the man, I just went there to have a better view of what he was doing."
"Oh."
"But then you sneezed, I noticed you and after the man had his phone call, I came to you."
Oh, yeah. The boy was always amazed by this one of the their ability. It was going to be so cool if he could just appear wherever he wanted.
"Here are we," announced Vivi, cheerfully. Luffy blinked and shifted his gaze to the front. At not more than 15 meters away there was standing an almost hidden between trees and bushes, old wood-shed.
PLEASE, REVIEW! LOVE YOU ALL, HONS!
