Seeing the Sun

Chapter 3

A/N: Just woke up, and figured why not start on the third chapter? So here I am. Enjoy!

It was getting harder to ignore.

Meg finds herself looking at the empty seat in the back corner repeatedly, as if she expects the silver-haired delinquent to appear at any minute. But she doesn't. Not even late, like last time. The seat remains empty, and it's not right.

"I'm happy she didn't come," she hears some guy say. She recognizes the voice. One of the "bad boys" that Jo had threatened. "The chick's scary. And seriously, what's with the hair and eyes? That's not natural."

Meg can feel herself get mad at this, but she doesn't know why. She remembers how Jo introduced herself the other day, and how she'd smirked as she was dragged out, waving at the red-head as if nothing serious was happening. But her eyes and hair seemed to fit her so well that the only time Meg ever questioned it was the very first day.

As she gets up to leave the class, the teacher stops her. "Meg, I'm sorry but could you stop by Jo's apartment on your way home and drop off the assignment? You live closer to her than the other students."

"Uh... sure, I guess," Meg says, taking the folder that held their homework. "Where does she live?"

The teacher tells her the address, and Meg realizes it's a block closer to school than her house is, but she doesn't recognize the area. She walks out of the room, and is soon on her way back home. She always walks there, but it looks like she'll have to take a detour. She turns the corner, scanning each building for a number.

Then she recognizes the area.

She's visibly nervous as she walks through the neighborhood. This is that part of town. Abandoned houses litter the streets, thugs peering from dark alleys. Each empty building is tagged with some sort of graffiti, usually some sort of vulgar slur. She finally gets to Jo's apartment, a below-average looking place. She dials the number for "Carpenter", shivering slightly. She looks around, seeing that as soon as she approached the place everyone seemed to forget about her.

The door opens, revealing an older woman with black hair and eyes. She seems surprised, almost, but lets her in.

"Hello, um..." Meg holds up the folder, unsure of what to do. "I have Jo's homework."

"Okay, could you bring it to her? She should be in the basement." Her voice is a lot different than Jo's, more... polite, she thinks.

Meg walks down the stairs, hearing the sounds of a horror movie. She shivers but continues, wanting to see why the girl wasn't in school. As she finishes going down the stairs, she is surprised.

It's almost pitch-black in the room, but the TV casts an eerie glow about the room. The walls are littered with pictures of what look like scenes from the movies she's watching, or of hard rock bands that almost scare Meg. The furniture is dark, the walls red from what she can see. The only light seems to have died out.

"Who's there?" asks Jo. "You've been standing there for a while now."

Meg jumps, but answers. "It's Meg, from class. I'm here to drop off your assignment."

Jo nods. She's leaning back in the worn black couch, not wearing her jacket. Her scarf, however, is still around her neck. As Meg approaches, she sees the girl's eyes. They look almost sad, and she doesn't seem to be paying attention to anything. She catches the faint smell of cigarettes, but says nothing. That is, until Jo actually lights one up.

"Isn't that, I don't know... illegal?" she asks, nose crinkling in disgust at the smell.

"Not in America," replies Jo, chuckling lightly. She takes the folder, looking through it. "It's easy," she says, dropping on the table that her feet are resting on. Meg notices the bandages decorating her leg.

"Hey, what happened to you?"

"Motorcycle accident," replies Jo. Her red eyes move towards the side of the room as she blows out smoke, a calm expression on her face. "Luckily, my bike's okay." Her eyes still look semi-sad.

"Hey, Jo, is everything okay? You look kind of, uh... sad."

Jo seems surprised at this, but then goes back to her usual calm face. "Not sad. Bored. I've watched this movie already."

"Then why watch it again?"

"Look," she crumbles the cigarette in her hand, putting it out. "Don't dig into it too much, okay?" She seems to calm down after this, and then seems almost tired. "Thanks for bringing the assignment. Now go, you probably have to get home." She flicks the dead cigarette away, sighing.

Meg walks out, confused and slightly intrigued. What could be happening with Jo? She felt like there was something she was missing... But she also felt like she should take the girl's advice and "not look into it too much". Of course, being an average person, that made her want to find out exactly what she wasn't supposed to see.

As she got out of that part of town (she visibly relaxed when she did), she found herself right in front of her house. She lived alone, her parents having abandoned her in America. Really, she was fine with it. In the orphanage, she'd met some good kids. But she decided to move to Japan. Why, she didn't even know. She had gotten a scholarship to a high-school there, and she could already speak Japanese. So she opted to do it.

As she walks in, she sees how different it is in comparison to Jo's room. The walls are white-yellow, only a few colorful paintings decorating them. Of course, the walls change in every room. In her kitchen, they're orange and in her bathroom, pure white. Every color is warm and soft, not harsh and strong like Jo's dark furniture and blood red walls. But she was at place here, and Jo was at place there. They were pretty different, after all.

And well, Jo's room smelled like smoke. She really had to do something about that.

"Well, I can see you're doing better," comments the older woman as she watches her sister walk up the stairs.

"Very funny, Sei," says Jo, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I don't want to starve to death. And hey, you know I'm a fast healer. I could take you on in a race right now if I wanted to."

"I don't doubt it."

"You got no reason to."

"Did you even do the assignment they gave you?" inquires Sei, raising an eyebrow. Jo nods.

"It's almost too easy."

Jo walks to the fridge, limping slightly. She pulls out a piece of pizza, the leftovers from the other night. Then she takes out a bottle of hot sauce, coating her pizza with it before starting to eat it.

"Honestly, I don't know how you eat that."

"It tastes good," explains the younger girl, voice muffled from eating as she tries to not drop any on the floor. "It's not like it can kill me."

"Your smoking habit can."

"Shut up." She finishes the piece, sitting in the old wooden chairs as she squints out the window. "I cleaned D'jango today," she says as she looks away from the sun in annoyance.

"Your bike, right? I still don't get why Leo named it."

"It's an amazing bike," she says. "And the name fits."

"I guess so."

A/N: Yes, D'jango is a bike and that is how you spell it. You may ask, why is he a bike? It's because in present times, in which this whole story takes place, there are no cybots. Understood? Oh, and if anyone looked for the OC of this story... they already passed. They are a very minor character, with no significance other than to give the team their weapons and ammo, and be one of Jo's victims.