And here's chapter 3. Finally. I added almost five pages to this chapter in the rewrite... be happy O.o
Thanks to all the reviewers :D I don't know if I've answered any of you... I've been really busy. If I haven't, I'm sorry. If I have, well I have :D
Anyway, starting with this chapter I'm going to be writing one past chapter, and one future chapter, until the past catches up to the beginning of the future. So... yeah.
Please enjoy, review, and I'll post a new chapter as soon as I write it. (This is unedited. Sorry about any mistakes).
~Sunechirei
It had been seventeen years since my life started. Twelve years since I lost my mom to illness, and nine years since my dad left the world because of his depression. To be honest, I'm surprised he lasted that long.
He loved Mom more than anything in the world, and I think he only stayed as long as he did because he didn't want me to be alone.
As I sat alone on the roof of my school, trying to keep the wind from blowing my hair into my face, I thought about this. Thought about everything that's happened to me since those things happened. Meeting Hana, dealing with Luna and Andou, finally making a friend.
The thought of Hotaru made me smile. I loved her so much. She's the only person who actually treated me like a human being all the time. Well, except for Mr. Nogi, but he's a teacher. He doesn't count.
"Mikan Yukihara, why are you on the roof? You can't get in trouble anymore, and you know how much Mr. Jinno likes to find reasons to pick on you." I grinned at the sound of my friends voice, and jumped down from the railing, not caring if my skirt would flip up over my head.
"Hotaru!" I yelled, jumping on her excitedly. She hated it when I did that. I loved to see her annoyed face. No matter how much she got angry with me, she kept coming back, and that always kept me going.
Her reaction to my hug was to shove me off and roll her eyes.
"Really, Mikan? Do you have to do that every time you see me?"
"Yup."
"You're such an idiot," she said, sighing. "You do realize this is one reason all the guys avoid you. They think you're in love with me."
Really, I didn't care anymore. There was only one guy I was interested in, and he knew better about me being a lesbian, as Hotaru was implying. Besides, I didn't find anything wrong with hugging your best friend.
"I'm not an idiot," I told her. "And the guys avoid me because Luna pays them to. You know that as well as I do." Of course, another reason happened to be because I'm average looking, don't have much of a personality, and I'm as clumsy as they get. Dance class is horrible for me. I can't even do a waltz correctly. How can they expect me to do anything else?
Hotaru rolled her eyes. "Look, Mikan, if you want things to change, you're going to have to start standing up for yourself. Tell Luna off or something." If only I could.
"I'd love to, but I also like the peace that's appeared in my house lately. I don't need to give Luna any more reasons to harass me, and I don't need Hana getting angry at me. Again, you know that's what's going to happen if I stand up to her."
"Well, at least tell the teachers what Luna's doing with your homework," Hotaru grumbled, her voice raising in volume a little. "It's getting ridiculous. She's not letting you do any of your own homework anymore."
Let me say something about Hotaru really fast: she rarely raises her voice. I mean, very rarely. I've only seen it one or two times, and those times ended in chaos. Literally. She created this device that the King wanted, and it creates this little field of chaos where you go insane and end up curled in a little ball on the ground, crying for you mother.
I love Hotaru, but she scares me sometimes.
"She never let me do any of my homework before, remember?"
"She let you do some of it."
"Only because I didn't tell her I'd done those assignments. If I had, she would have taken them too."
What can I say about Luna... she's a bratty, no good, annoying step-sister who thinks she rules the world. While most people like that have had a great life, I have to admit I know Luna hasn't. Mainly she acts this way because she misses her own dad, and because her mom is so vain.
Yes, I don't want anything to do with her, especially since she takes my homework every morning. Still. But I can't hate her.
Hotaru never understood that about me.
"Well, I think it's time to make this stop," Hotaru muttered. "I refuse to let this continue on, Mikan. Your life is being ruined by those people just because Hana hated your mother. It's time for Luna to grow up a bit. Let's go to the teacher."
"No!" I grabbed her arm to keep her from leaving. "If I tell the teachers, they'll talk to Hana. She would tell them I'm lying for attention and I'd just get in trouble with her. You know how it works with her."
"You're seventeen, Mikan," Hotaru grumbled. Her amethyst eyes were cold, though still full of concern for me. "Andou's gone from the house, and he's the only one who would physically hurt you. Luna's not that scary and your bitch of a step-mother can't do anything too bad to you or she'll lose custody. Then she'll lose all of your dad's money."
I flinched. Andou did hurt me when he lived with us. But he wasn't the only one. I just never told Hotaru. If I had told her what Hana would do to me when she was pissed enough, I'm pretty sure my best friend would get King Persona give the order to have her killed.
Yes, Hotaru has that amount of power over the king. She gives him all his weapons for the military. She can ask whatever she wants of him.
Sure, she knew about the living in a storage shed, the cleaning, and the having to obey everything Luna said to me. Plus, what Andou would do to me as a kid. But that's it. I never told her the other things.
But, I'm sure she'll find out soon. It's gotten harder and harder to hide the bruises and cuts. Before I could blame them all on my step-brother. Now I have to hide them, or find other reasons for them.
"Mikan, please just go tell Nogi. He'll do something about it and get you out of that place. You can come live with me. My parents love you, and I'm sure Brother wouldn't mind having you there." Hotaru sounded so desperate that I almost considered telling her I could. But I couldn't.
"Come on, lunch is almost over," I said, walking toward the stairs. "If we don't hurry, we'll be late to class, then we'll both get in trouble." She clearly wasn't happy with my change of subject, but she grumbled about how insane I was and followed me, rather than arguing still.
I smiled and opened the door, then watched Hotaru walk through it. I didn't follow her immediately though. Something about going down to class disturbed me. No matter what, I was going to get in trouble. I figured I could just stay there and at least have a few more hours of peace before having to deal with Hana.
"Are you coming?"
Hotaru called this up to me after I didn't follow her. I just grinned and nodded, not wanting her to know how much my body didn't want me to go.
"Yeah, just give me a minute, I think I left something up here. I'll be down in a second."
With this excuse, I scrambled back to the cage blocking people from falling off the roof and grabbed onto the metal mesh. I stared down at the town below me, like I always did when I needed a pick-me-up.
Well, "town." More of a city. A capitol city with the palace in the background. I could see it in the distance so easily; it stood out so easily, even though there were mansions surrounding it, one being my father's. The palace caught the eye of all who passed by. Even in the town you can see that stupid building looming above you; mocking you.
But at a time like this, I didn't pay attention to the ridiculous, lavish building. Instead I looked down at all the people running around the market, talking to each other; dogs barking, children screaming as they played through the streets, and just overall a humorous atmosphere kept the town alive.
I smiled, feeling slightly energized again, and hopped down, mentally preparing myself for the last few classes of the day.
Sure, I'd have to deal with Jinno.
Yeah, I'd probably do something stupid and get in trouble.
I could deal with it.
To say I hated my class would be like saying I hated my home. An understatement beyond belief. I didn't just hate my class; I loathed it with a burning passion that could probably set the school on fire if people could have such powers.
One of the main reasons for this is the school decided to separate me and Hotaru into different classrooms after our first year of high school, so I had no friends in my class. I would have loved to make friends, but that kind of thing doesn't happen to someone like me. Not with Luna in my class.
Everyone knew from the first day that I was her slave. She could tell me to do whatever she wanted and I had to listen to her. Of course, even if Luna hadn't paid them to be mean to me and ignore me, I would be ignored anyway. I was the poor orphan girl, after all.
Granted, sitting in the back of the room really didn't help me at all. I'm pretty sure Mr. Nogi, my homeroom teacher for the third year in a row, didn't hate me, but he still put me back there.
Maybe it was chance. Maybe he did it because he knew something was off about my life and he didn't want to have to deal with it.
That honestly hurt more than what Luna did to me day after day.
"Miss Yukihara, are you paying attention?" Jinno's disgustingly cold voice brought me back to the actual class I was in. Math. Always been horrible at the subject, and Jinno treated me like I was.
I hoped, when I glanced up, that no one could see the light blush that'd formed on my cheeks. Of course, they wouldn't know I'd been thinking about Mr. Nogi, or that I had a horrible crush on him, despite him being older than me by a good ten years at least, but I still didn't want them seeing it. I mean, if anyone other than Hotaru found out, it would mean mass humiliation, and I just didn't want to deal with that.
Hotaru made fun of me for it enough.
"Yes sir," I replied, standing. "I am paying attention." I bowed quickly before sitting back down again.
Jinno snorted. "I couldn't tell based on your actions."
"I'm sorry, sir," I muttered, trying to ignore the snickers coming from my classmates. I made eye contact with Luna for a second; long enough to see her gleeful expression, before I turned away.
"I want to see you in my office after school today, Miss Yukihara. Understand?"
"Yes sir."
"And I'm going to call your mother."
Step-mother, I wanted to say aloud. But instead I just said, "Yes sir."
Apparently my tone didn't sit well with my teacher. He stomped to the back of the room, meter stick in hand, and slapped it on my desk. I barely moved my hands away in time. I could hear more laughter coming from the other students, despite their best efforts to keep silent, and I glared up at Jinno, annoyed he'd done that.
I'd done nothing to deserve it.
"You wish to sass me," he growled.
"I didn't sass you, sir."
"Sounds like you did to me, and I think that's all that matters."
I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. This man did nothing but pick on me day after day. Just like Luna. I needed it to stop, or I was going to go insane from annoyance.
"Do you understand me, Miss Yukihara?"
I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have said it. I should have just let the punishment happen and stop him from being such a horrible person to me. When I think back to it, what I did wasn't worth it at all. I should have just let bygones be bygones.
But I didn't.
"No, sir," I responded quietly. "I don't understand."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't understand why you think it's fun to constantly pick on me, despite the fact I've never done anything wrong in this class. I've never acted out, I've never sassed until this very moment because I'm not that kind of person. But you know what?" I stood up and grabbed his ruler, shoving it back at him. "I'm sick of you, and everyone else in this school treating me like some kind of disgusting human being who has no feelings and no ability to stand up for myself."
I clenched my teeth, watching Jinno's eyes widen when I finished my rant. I don't think he's ever had a student yell at him like this. Most of them just did what he wanted.
But not me.
"Miss Yukihara," Jinno said, voice so dangerous I felt the anger bleeding from the voice, "this is going to-"
"Excuse me, Mr. Jinno?" I heard Hotaru's voice, and I felt myself relax a little bit. She always had impeccable timing.
"What do you want?" He turned around angrily, glaring at the girl in the doorway. Her calmness was eerie, radiating a hint of disgust at the teacher for snapping at her.
"I need Mikan Sakura to come with me."
"Why?"
That's what I wanted to know. What could Hotaru want from me?
"You see, unbeknownst to her, I've been performing experiments by adding certain mood changing supplements to her food so I could see what happens for a new weapon I'm developing at the current moment." I couldn't tell if she was lying or telling the truth. Either way I was going to have to get mad at her for being stupid and interrupting class like this. And for messing with me.
"Why do you need her now? I'm lecturing her." He was beginning to calm down a little, realizing who he was talking to. Even the teachers gave Hotaru a sense of respect no one else gained.
"Because she's having an emotional, irrational break," Hotaru explained. "I need to take blood and see what her reactions to certain things are."
"We're in the middle of class."
"I don't think King Persona cares what time it is. He wants the results, and he wants them as soon as I get them. Now is the time to get them." She pranced into the room proudly, and grabbed my arm the moment she was close enough to. "Now, if you'll excuse us, I have some experiments to do." She grinned viciously. "So, by the way, this snapping she's just gotten done doing isn't her fault."
Then I was dragged out of the room, everyone staring at me like I'm some kind of strange being who's going to be dissected.
Which I wouldn't put past Hotaru.
The moment we were outside the room and the door was closed, Hotaru turned on me, eyes narrowed and hissed, "What are you thinking? Didn't you just lecture me about how you can't tell anyone about the homework thing because you'll get in trouble? Why did you just blow up on Jinno?"
"So, you haven't been putting mood supplements into my food for a strange weapon you've been developing for the king?"
"No. Now answer my question?"
I sighed. "I honestly don't know. It just kinda happened. I didn't mean to do it." I trailed off, thinking about where that rage came from. If I didn't control myself, I could do it again. This time to Hana or Luna, and worst things would happen, especially since Hotaru couldn't rescue me as she just did.
"Well you need to control yourself. I know Hana isn't that bad to you at home, but she can still make your life hell if you do anything that makes her seem bad. You're lucky I've bugged your room and I spy on you during the day to see what horrible things you have to go through."
"Wait, you do?"
"Doesn't matter."
It mattered to me. This girl didn't understand the idea of privacy.
"Now come on." She grabbed my hand. "I've gotten the two of us out of school for the rest of the day. Let's go experiment on random things to annoy people."
Just like her to do this. I smiled, and gripped her hand tighter, barely able to contain my happiness.
"You were acting out in class today?" Hana asked the moment I walked in the door. Hotaru had left only moments before, telling me if anything bad happened to call her. Looked to me like something bad was about to happen.
"I'm sorry Ma'am," I muttered, bowing. "It wasn't my fault. Hotaru decided to do something to me and I lost control of myself. The effects should have worn off by now though."
"Don't lie to me!" She didn't hit me, but I flinched, expecting it. She'd done it before, after all. What was keeping her from doing it again. "Luna told me that you and Hotaru made a plan to get you out of class that day. Don't tell me your precious little friend experimented on you because I know it's not true.
You can't know that.
My demeanor changed drastically when I got home. At school I could relax more, but the moment I stepped in my house, I had to be a perfect servant. That's all she saw me as, after all.
I stood with my hands folded in front of me, eyes turned away so I wouldn't make eye contact, and my back stayed perfectly straight. Everyone who worked there had to stand like this day, after day, after day. I was no different.
"I apologize, Ma'am. I won't let it happen again."
I wouldn't be. Hotaru lectured me the entire way to the town about how I must lie and keep myself
Better to lie and get it over with, then tell the truth and get punished worse. Hana scoffed, shaking her head, just as Luna walked into the house.
"About time you said that," she muttered. "Next time you won't be getting off so easily. For tonight, clean the front hall by yourself. You can have food when you're done." At least she was going to feed me tonight. Sometimes she didn't even do that.
As she stalked off into the house, I heard Luna giggle, and she skipped over to me, a malicious grin on her face.
"See? This is what happens when you try and act normal." She was reminding me of a conversation we had before school. Where I told her to just let me have a normal life. "I can't let you be normal, because you're not, Mikan. You're not, and you'll never be. So have fun tonight, Miss Slave. Have fun cleaning this hall by yourself. It's going to take you a long time. I just know it." She snickered, then patted me on the head like some kind of child. I wanted to bit her. "Good luck!"
I clenched my fist, and turned away, heading to the locker where they kept the cleaning supplies. No need to talk to Luna. If I did, I might explode again, and I couldn't have that. Who knows what she would do to me if I yelled at her directly. I'd probably be killed. Or maimed. Or seriously injured. One of those.
She'd already gotten me in trouble once tonight. I didn't need to give her another excuse to.
It was about midnight when I finally finished cleaning the hall. I stumbled down to the kitchen, hoping I could maybe find some food to fill my stomach before I collapsed into a exhausted heap and withered away into nothingness.
Well, that wouldn't happen. But I might sleep for most of the time.
"Oh, Mikan sweetie, there you are!" The cook, Anna, rushed over to me and threw her arms around my neck. "Nonoko told me what the Mistress made you do. I felt so bad I had to stay up until you came down to scrounge." I hugged Anna back, trying not to let the tears fall.
"Thanks," I muttered.
"Oh, don't thank me. It's the least I can do for you. I'm sure your father would have wanted me to do this for you, seeing as no one else can." She pulled me to the other side of the kitchen where a warm fire had been lit, and a steaming bowl of soup waited for me.
"I still want to say thanks to you."
"Don't speak. Just eat." She almost literally shoved the spoon in my hand and continued to glare at the table where the soup was, waiting for me to take a bite and fill my growling stomach.
Luna and Hana may be disgusting, but everyone else was amazing. They treated me with respect, and love, and I loved them all back. A lot of them were here when my mother was alive; they all loved her, and I guess since I look like her, they treat me with the same respect they treated Mom with.
I smiled as I tasted the soup. It tasted like home. Family. Acceptance.
Eventually, my hand started to shake, and the spoon fell from my it, clattering against the table loudly. I pushed the bowl away and put my head in my arms, sobbing into them without control. Anna came over and began rubbing my back gently, trying to calm me down, but it wouldn't work. Nothing would work.
This life... I couldn't take it much longer. The suffering, the loss, the pain... everything. It was just too much for me. All I wanted was to go on with my life. Make it so I didn't have to go through this anymore.
One more year. You'll be eighteen soon.
That thought kept me going though. Soon, everything would be mine. I could get Luna and Hana out of the house. Things would be fine again.
Or, I hoped it would be fine.
