Chapter Sixteen: Dams and Laughs


Green and purple were back at it again; a couple of couch cushions separated the pair. The two had taken to watching an American poker tournament on the TV across from Ayumi's couch of cloth, both observing the match while inconspicuously sneaking glances at the other - a final checkup before the final farewell. Hitoshi was surprised the two weren't playing cards themselves, as never before had he actually been invited to do something other than spit their aggressions against each other. On the other hand, Ayumi was content with their position, the dispositions of both embodying the serenity within the room at the end of the security wing perfectly.

With no cards before them, neither student could read the other.

Purple broke the silence. "You ready for tomorrow?"

"Yeah," green responded back. "I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere." I'll get my chance to stand tall for everyone too...

"What do you mean?" With confusion laced in his voice, the temperate nature between the two quivered, fluid emotions they held behind their dams threatening to flood and mix, one patched by passion and determination, the other with substances and will to move on. However, such feelings held by one were unknown to the other, and thus, the conversation continued to walk on an invisible fine line.

Looking at the boy who had been in her room so many times before, Ayumi felt as though for the first time, she could see him truly. Behind cloudy indigo pretenses, Hitoshi's young face was shadowed by the illusion of age, deep eyebags pulling his eyes down and frown lines presented as though they were battle scars. He lacked sleep, sleep that would lift the burden of his turbulent past of off his eyes, the burden he couldn't tell Ayumi about. It bothered her to an extent, but without cards, emotions would remain expressionless. Consequently, the bloodshot girl sighed, hoping to appear aloof. "It means what I said."

"Alright, alright. Just a question." The stoic antics were back. To change the subject was a valued tactic among many. Hitoshi, sensing the couch cracking between the two, bridged it with two steps: by bringing his bony feet up onto the couch, laying them over Ayumi's curled up legs, and asking, "Did you send the others off today?"

Irritated by the indigo kid's actions, Ayumi sent the smirking boy a withering glare before answering. "Yes, it was oh so tearful and sentimental. Now get your raggedy 1-C feet off my heroic peacemakers!" The brunette forced the boy's feet off of hers, sending a soft kick to his arm as retaliation. In that moment, Ayumi wasn't the only one with wide eyes, Hitoshi's also bulging; close contact and a lack of boundaries wasn't normal for either of the two.

They both laughed; the poker tourney began to buffer. Then they laughed more, the world glitching, unable to compute two rare sights occurring simultaneously. Nobody would've believed it if heard by ear, green and purple seen as murky and incompatible.

Though both were true, the two laughed nonetheless.

"I'll miss the card games while I'm interning this week." A laugh.

"I'll miss you too." A laugh.

"I know. Keep my deck safe?" Another laugh.

"Always." One last laugh.

Green handed purple the cards that stood between them, the pain they felt not ripe enough to be picked at by the hollow words they knew they'd speak. Laughing could've been a way to cope, or a cry out to the other, yet the way it could cover their problems masked all other possibilities. The murky and incompatible held back by shaky dams was apparent to both now, but the sight of it just made them laugh more. Why break them down when the air was so much clearer?

"I thought you only smiled around me, Mimi." Jin lurched forward, not drunk but under the influence of some state of mind. Eye bags somehow couldn't compare to the darkness of the scar that split his forehead in half so sickeningly, Ayumi reminded of the divides she had brought upon the pair through her weakness.

Sighing, the bloodshot girl refused to face the man, opting to lick her ice cream cone, the sweet treat somehow tasting sour. "That was before...I can barely even recognize you now," she muttered, knowing eye contact was for those deserving of respect. Her time at UA had created an alluring illusion, one the brunette stupidly bought into, cravings for her substances morphing into cravings for human interaction. Both made her weak, progress practically unattainable for the cracked girl as she needed something to fill the holes she'd put in herself. If her wounds were physical, she'd be covered in the all consuming black threads, her thick skin the only reason she could still continue on. No, the sickly girl never stood - she wasn't deserving to look down on what she truly was, down. Ayumi held together, like she always did.

Jin scoffed, shooting back, "Same goes to you. You really should ease up on the pain killers." The absent man went to grab one of her bruised over arms, the arms in which she had broken vessel after vessel in his name, the dark splotches marking an eternal pain the wide eyed girl couldn't let her brother have the satisfaction of making better. She recoiled knowing the blonde was the only one who could fix her at this point, but settled on protectively stepping back from the man who had scarred her in the first place.

She wanted the words to come out coldly as they do naturally did for her, yet her tongue betrayed her (as it did traditionally) and spat, "Oh really. I'd like to see you try to survive when you're fourteen, alone, and most importantly, abandoned." The flaming words managed to bring back burnt bridges while frying them to complete crisps in the process.

Frowning, the stitched man pleaded back, "I couldn't see you like that at home." Then, some sense of determination bloomed in his eyes, dark rings becoming vibrant and powerful in a way. "You should've just given me time and I would've-"

"You would've what? Still left? You've always had one foot out the door when all I've ever given you was time. Time to heal, time to get over your damn unrealistic dreams! No, but you drank and drank." Ayumi wanted the elder Bubaigawara gone, so she readied and fired the kill shot to avoid more memories resurfaced without her consent. The solemn look on her green features said it all, but she still brought tangibility to the words, announcing, "You became like Mo-"

"Don't say it, BRAT!" Pure venom was spat by an alien voice, yet the striking words still were mouthed by him. The voice that emitted from Jin's vocal chords was not his own, the off putting malicious tone ringing over and over in Ayumi's ears, pain brought to the drum in her ear and the drum in her heart. Although she sometimes wondered who he had become while drinking, the man was sober at the moment, yet the voice sounded like a break in character. Was it all a bravado? A bravado to get Ayumi back to being his caretaker?

Wide eyed stretched as far open as possible, the bloodshot girl's bursted ocular vessels took center stage, the anger, dissapointment, and sadness that birthed them on showcase. "What was that, Jin?"

Running a hand solemnly over his head scar, the elder Bubaigawara recounted to the girl who had stitched him up, "It started after the knife. I drank to drown it out. I wish I could've drowned your sorrows out with mine too, but I couldn't. You grew strong, Mimi."

"Why are you here?" The green skinned girl set her sights on the moon, who's warm glow was the only thing keeping her from flooding over, washing skin away and choking him with the potency of her nightmares. He didn't understand, he never would.

The artificial blond set sights on the chocolate locks which once were his own, softly speaking, "I'm about to do something. It's going to be crazy and wild, but once I'm done, I'll have enough money to make a life for us in the shadows again! We can disappear and never come back! I'll-"

"Stop," Ayumi coldly cut her shell of a brother off. "I've just begun my new life in the sun, and I'm growing! I'm healing, Jin! I don't want your shadows anymore!" She pierced his eyes with hers, skewering his empty holes with the force of her burning, aching ones, as she wasn't getting through to him by ear.

Rage contorted his features, a scowl almost emphasizing the scar bursting from his forehead. "Whatever, you clueless idiot. You'll come back to me anyways." And with that, Jin stalked off, back to the shade of the tree Ayumi presumed from which he came. Just before disappearing, the last brunette swore she heard a voice in the wind, calling: "Save me."

The lonely girl couldn't help but whisper back, "I've already tried so many times."

Mint chip was suddenly repulsive, the green girl rushing over to a trash can and dumping it forcefully into the bin. From an unidentifiable source, Ayumi's cruel rage blossomed, burning her bruised hands where the ice cream had carelessly drooled earlier. Grabbing a stray newspaper from the bench beside, she scrubbed her hands, scrubbed them till the burning stopped and aching started, scrubbed even when the entire bin was coated within a thin layer of the ice cream.

It wasn't enough, however, as a scream, which carried much more than just sound, escaped Ayumi's lips as she stumbled to the bench. And the waters flooded, her eyes red with fury and tears.

Ayumi's eyes bursted open, the wetness gone but redness ever present, as she sat up from her position laying. She scanned her surroundings, getting a grasp of the familiar leather seats and tinted windows. Aizawa's car was the eye in a storm of tension, as the bloodshot teen and the man in black were parked outside one of the drug warehouses Team Sodapop was targeting. Although tempted to numb the pain through her usual methods, Ayumi realized her role was too important - running wasn't an option for her anymore. The sickly girl had committed to this new endurance battle, the one she called life, the one that involved avoiding the shadows that used to eat away at her blood vessels. To relapse was to fail, and the strong didn't fail in Ayumi's eyes; losing wasn't an option, and the teen finally was needed. She was needed, needed for something remarkable, something other than a punching bag for her mother's verbal abuse and a fail safe for cocky hero students.

The man next to her was cloaked in his usual black garb, white bandages around his neck. However, Ayumi had a new look, one that she'd never thought she'd get to sport. To operate on herself, she'd need skin, so the green skinned girl chose to send in loose fitting designs when asked by Aizawa. Hence, sitting in said hero's car, Ayumi was decorated in black robes, almost like a gi. No shoes, no gloves, nothing restrictive. The close combat she was taught to specialize in was enhanced by the loose material, the collar embroidered with stars and blood drops as her own personal touch. At her sides, pouches of syringes holding various substances clung to the robes, Ayumi's studying and time in the infirmary paying off. To top off the ensemble, snake bites and the usual updo were employed, Ayumi still keeping her natural touch. It was simple, yet functional.

A yawn escaped her snake bitten lips, leading the eraser hero to glance over in her direction. It was evident he too was bored of waiting, as Aizawa remarked, "Up already? You just shut your eyes."

"Can't sleep. You?"

"That's why I took watch. Does it look like I sleep?" The eye bags pulling Aizawa's tired face down more than the scruffy facial hair already did verified the man's statement. Ayumi had to admit he was persistent, though, considering the way he constantly holed up in his yellow sleeping bag despite knowing the sleep wouldn't come.

"Touché, boss," Ayumi replied, gazing with a sense of tranquility upon the dark warehouse. She'd been to the warehouse several times before; the green girl had been a trusted business partner to the Asamane clan for the few years she spent working the streets. They'd treated her nicely, valuing her high success rate and lack of complaints when it came to the products they sold. The sickly girl had never given them personal information, however, the family allowing her to keep her privacy so long as she produced results.

As she looked out the windshield, out at her past, Ayumi recalled that one of the boss' older boys had been smitten with her a couple of years back. He could've been a son or nephew, but it wouldn't have mattered. No name or face resurfaced in Ayumi's overcrowded mind, but the interactions did. Back then, the brunette lived rush to rush - and she still did to some extent - uncaring of individuality when it was all lost in the gray blur anyways. So no, the boy was just a blur. He probably doesn't even work there anymore.

"Feeling nostalgic?" Aizawa's words sunk in slowly, the haze Ayumi had put herself in dissipating at the mention of the present.

A deep breath, then, "Not at all. I can barely even remember back then. It comes in sensations to me, not memories." Seeing Aizawa's neutral expression in her peripherals, she continued, "They trusted me, trusted me to ruin people's lives because they knew I wouldn't have anything to say about it. That's what they liked about me, I can feel it." Sighing, bloodshot eyes met heavy ones. "It didn't make me feel any more whole giving people the key to my state of mind, but it...I guess I felt better knowing there were others out there. I could say I thought I was helping them, but I knew that I was helping destroy them. Just - people destroy themselves all the time, so I thought I'd make it feel easier."

A hard stare was sent the brunette's way, Ayumi's pride and anxiety about opening up forcing her to battle Aizawa's eyes with her own. After a brief silence, the man and black remarked, "It's twisted."
Fear clawed at the green teen's insides, the sudden urge to throw up overcoming her. The car could've caved in, yet Ayumi's eyes would've stayed locked on Aizawa's, leeches for reassurance, guidance. But alas, Aizawa's heavy eyes softened, like melting ice. "It's twisted, but what you felt then and what you feel now, it's compassion. And no one can take that from you."

The turbulent waters held back within the bruised girl had a visitor for the first time in ages. It was as though Aizawa could see clearly through her troubles, her actions, although they appeared cloudy and ridden with muck to others. She wasn't able to find the words in that moment, but Ayumi hoped someday he'd know how much he meant to her. He sees me still. He sees me.

A small laugh, but it wasn't the pained type.

There was still an itch inside, though. However, the sickly girl knew it was inevitable, not bothering to scratch at more old wounds while inside Aizawa's car. Broken scabs were breeding ground for infection during battle, festering under the heat of ambition and malice colliding. Ayumi would carry on; she'd be scarred, but she'd carry on.

"Look, Joke's here," the man in black pointed out as he tapped his side window. Careening her neck over for a better view, the wide eyed girl made out silhouettes atop the higher ground to the left of the Asamane compound. "We'll meet with them at the top of the hill to organize and fine tune the plan. Let's hope the training you've done with Recovery Girl and I proves useful."

"We don't need hope. I know it'll work out," Ayumi asserted

"Let's go."

The slam of two car doors, and then two silhouettes dashing into the darkness. Each had scars, a mutual darkness held between the two personally. They fit in so perfectly, yet the brightness in their eyes would set them apart to anyone sparing a glance.