~Chapter 2~
A week passed by, and I hadn't even noticed. Well, until Fin notified me, of course. She had been extremely cautious around me, choosing her words carefully before telling me something. I didn't like to be pestered; she realized that when I locked her outside for a night. Ever since then she had been so gentle with her words that if those words took on a physical form, they would be softer than silk. As much as she wanted to slap some sense into me and scold me for how I was acting, she didn't dare. She was smart to keep a fair distance.
But then there were the exceptions, my work with demons. She didn't quit her job just because of my actions. She still informed me of a demon's whereabouts and which person it possessed. Almost every single time, I refused to go. Sinbad and Access could handle them; I wanted out. And that was exactly what I kept telling Fin. She always objected to this, saying that Sinbad and Access were working for the devil.
I was pretty sure that even they noticed me less and less. This was because I wouldn't go unless I felt like I had enough energy to move that far. Jumping off rooftops and dodging a possessed person's attacks, sometimes even a demon's, just kept getting more and more...unnecessary. My body didn't want to move. My mind wouldn't let me rest enough to move.
I looked at a shard of the mirror I had beaten up. I had yet to clean the mess. Inside that shard, I saw my reflection. My hair, a complete wreck. My eyes, bloodshot and tired. My mouth, never smiling. My lips, dull and bloodied from the many times I had chewed them. I looked like I was on drugs. Good thing I wasn't.
I picked up that evil shard and threw it across the room, waking Fin.
"Maron, is everything okay?" she whispered.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I turned and walked out of my room. I was so tired, after flopping onto my couch it only took seconds for me to fall asleep.
The demon was towering above me. I was right about to seal it. I was already saying my phrase. But before I could do anything to that demon, I was tackled.
I looked up to a dark, shaded figure. Two evil yellow eyes glared at me. I swore that thing smiled.
"Why did you do that?" I asked. "Why are you protecting the demon?"
I woke to Fin patting me on my cheek.
I shot up, screaming at her, "DON'T TOUCH ME!"
Fin backed off.
I felt sick at my stomach. I had to go take a shower. Now.
In seconds water could be heard pattering against the floor. I stepped in, letting scalding hot water run off my skin. I scrubbed and scrubbed. It wouldn't come off!
Chiaki, being next door to me, heard my screaming and then my shower. He woke up, along with his little Kuro-Tenshi, Access.
"She's up again," Chiaki mumbled sleepily.
"Jeanne's really acting strange. She wakes up in the middle of the night, always shouting the same thing. Then she takes a shower. I don't blame her for wanting to be clean, but still...in the dead of night?" the black angel said.
"And since we live right beside her, we wake up whenever she does," the bluenette added.
Both the boys sighed.
Miyako also woke up. This wasn't the first time she'd heard me, though she usually slept through it somehow. Miyako was truly worrying about me, but had given up on trying to get me to talk to her or anyone else. The only thing anyone could do when I woke was try to ignore the noise and go back to sleep.
Miyako used to always come banging on my door, pleading with me to tell her what was the matter. I never even gave any indication I was still alive, let alone an indication I was going to talk. They could all just forget about that.
Once, she had gone over to Chiaki's room and managed to get him to try to reason with me. She had already tried and failed. Chiaki didn't get any further than Miyako. I would not speak to them, I did not answer their calls, I did not usually go on my 'missions', and I most certainly did not let them in my house. If I wanted to be left alone, then I would undoubtedly find the means to do so.
Miyako rolled over and tried to get sleepy enough to completely ignore any racket I made. She knew her parents, if awake, were doing the same.
Chiaki and Access were equally worried for me, but knew just as much as anyone else that there was absolutely nothing they could do. They, too, tried to get back to sleep.
Everyone else who had woken had their own routine for midnight awakenings, and they were forced to follow that routine when I woke up.
I stepped out of the shower. My skin was red from scrubbing myself so hard.
I climbed back onto the couch. I was completely unaware that anyone would hear me when I woke up screaming like that.
I was so tired, so exhausted... I didn't bother to dry my hair or even brush it. I had to rest. My feet directed me to my bed instead of my couch. I fell onto it and sighed heavily. I stretched and spent only a few minutes trying to get back to sleep.
Fin pulled on the covers until I had the entire blanket over me.
The next morning, at school, everyone took their seats. I had woken up four more times that night, so both Chiaki and Miyako were flat-out beat. Access decided not to go with Chiaki. He wanted to stay home to 'look for demons'. It really meant he wanted to catch up on sleep.
Miyako yawned, and Chiaki followed soon after.
"Miyako, don't yawn; it's contagious," he grumbled.
"Tell that to Maron... You know she woke up five time times last night? I didn't get an ounce of sleep!" she complained.
The teacher stepped in at this point, almost as if to my defense. "None of us know what Maron is doing in there, nor why she won't come out. She's probably upset about something and is having nightmares about it. Those nightmares might be waking her up so much. So shut up and get to work!"
Everyone looked at the sensei. She might be onto something, but the real answer was too unclear, because I had isolated myself from the outside world. I had confined myself into my room, and everyone had noticed my absence. There was always an empty seat next to Chiaki, my seat.
I didn't know it, but Chiaki had been missing me. Even though he didn't show it much, he was very worried about me. Everyone was, actually. Not a single person knew what had happened to make me act like this. And they would never know; I would never talk about it.
After school was over and everyone went home, I heard a soft knock on my door...and here I thought everyone had given up...
"Uh, Kusakabe-san... I have a problem. I really need your help, Kusakabe-san. Please, will you let me tell you about it?" It was Iinchou. He usually didn't talk to someone about problems. This one might be pretty bad.
Fin watched me carefully, hopeful that the door would open for the first time in two whole weeks. She knew I needed to talk to someone, to have some form of human interaction, if only for a moment.
I stared at the door for the longest time, pondering whether I should open it and try to help him, or whether I should keep quiet and wait for him to leave. I wanted to do both, but only one of the two options could actually be done.
"Maron," the angel whispered, "he needs you."
I got off the couch, turned off the TV, straightened my hair out a bit, and rested my hand on the knob. If I saw someone now...if saw someone, what would happen? I didn't want to see anyone. I didn't know if I could look someone in the eye. It was hard even with Fin. After two weeks of absolutely no contact whatsoever, what would Iinchou think of me now?
"Go ahead, Maron. It's okay," Fin encouraged me.
I took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and turned the knob. I cracked the door, not showing my face. "What's the matter, Iinchou?"
"Is it okay if I come in, Kusakabe-san?" he asked nervously. I knew why he was nervous. I had been so harsh to everyone in an effort to push them away. I might've hurt some people's feelings, and Iinchou didn't want to get hurt.
I didn't answer, and I left the door cracked.
"It's just that I don't really want to talk about it where everyone else can hear me," he explained.
Coming from him, that would be pretty obvious. If I had a problem, I wouldn't want to announce it to everyone.
Halfheartedly, I opened the door enough for him to come in.
There wasn't just Iinchou, though. Three people came barreling into my room: Chiaki, Iinchou, and Miyako. I didn't have enough time to push them out before they were all gathered around on my couch, giving each other congratulatory looks.
It had just been a plan set up by them.
Sighing, I closed the door and turned to face them. "What do you want?"
Iinchou shrunk back, half hiding himself behind Chiaki. Chiaki didn't do anything, he just stiffened. Miyako stood up in her normal serious-detective's-gonna-find-out manner.
"We want to know," she said, "why you never come to school anymore! You won't talk to anyone, you won't see anyone, you won't even let us sleep anymore!"
I hissed in frustration. "I don't want to talk about it. Now, if that's all you have to say, I would like you to leave."
"And what's with that attitude? We don't get to see or hear from you in two weeks even though we're your best friends, and you've alienated us!" she continued.
"Leave."
"Tell me, Maron."
"I said leave! Get out of my house!" I screeched.
She jumped back; I had never acted like this before, especially not to her. "Maron...what's gotten into you?"
Chiaki acquired a serious expression. I was beginning to act the way a possessed person would. He began looking around, until he spotted Access hiding from Fin behind the candy box on the center of my coffee table. After he was sure Access noticed him, he sent the Kuro-Tenshi a dead-serious look.
Access got the point. He looked around and tried to sense a demon in my apartment. There was no demon. He shook his head to Chiaki.
Now all he had was a confused look. Why was I acting like this if I wasn't being possessed? What had happened to expunge my strong and willful personality? I had become a completely different person!
I grabbed Miyako's arm and pushed her outside. I did the same thing to Iinchou, but I expected Chiaki to leave on his own. And he did.
I slammed the door, and they heard the knob click. Now they would never get another chance to to see me unless I came out. They heard the curtains to the windows being pulled tight. Then they heard the TV being flipped back on, and me slumping back against the couch.
"Why is she like this...?" Iinchou asked quietly.
Miyako shook her head.
Chiaki went back to his apartment.
That night, Chiaki had the weirdest dream. It was so realistic...so detailed. The weird part was, it was all about Jeanne. Why would he have a dream about me? Was it because he'd seen me earlier today? What caused him to think about this? He could only remember a part of it, but even that part made him feel uneasy. It was like something bad was happening, but he didn't know what. He couldn't remember the situation.
There I was, right about to seal a demon. A rush came over him, and the next thing he saw were my eyes. They looked up at him. They were so full of torment and pain, shock and disbelief, regret and suffering, a whole slew of emotions, really. They seemed to be trying to tell him a story. They were my once beautiful lavender eyes, now dulled by anguish. They were my eyes. Eyes that could only ask why.
He woke up sweating. He tried to shrug his dream off as nothing.
He looked over at Access, who was still sleeping.
He sighed and laid his head down just in time to hear me scream and get up to take a shower. He hated it when I screamed like that. It wasn't because it woke him up, it was because it gave away how traumatized I was by something. Whatever that something was had stripped away my personality. He wished I would talk to him. He wished he could help me. He wished he knew.
But he knew I'd never tell him. He likely would never know. He'd never know because I didn't want anyone to know. If it was just that bad...if it was that bad then why couldn't he be trusted? He loved me, but right now we weren't anything more than really good friends, even though I often acted like we weren't. He knew I had more of an understanding with him than any of my other friends. He was the only one I'd told about my parents. I had confided in him something I'd never even wanted to think about, so what made this so different?
He sighed and heard Access groan.
"Why does she keep going to the shower? Screaming is one thing, but a shower, too? Girls always take such a long time to shower!" he complained.
"Cut her some slack. She seems stressed over something," Chiaki returned.
Access froze and averted his gaze. Access knew. He had been there when it took place. There wasn't anything he could do to stop it; he had just hovered there with a horrified expression stuck on his face. It had been so terrible that he was crying at the time. Never had he thought something like that could happen, let alone to me. And even it did anyway, he never thought he'd have to sit back and watch. But at least Fin didn't know; at least she hadn't seen it.
"Yeah..." he mumbled. "It does seem that way..."
The Kuro-Tenshi couldn't even imagine what Fin must be going through with me like this. He knew I didn't know how much I was changing, but...he was still worried. Fin was such a small angel, a Jun-Tenshi, that if I were to one day snap, I could hurt her. It worried him even more since I was basically retiring from the Kaitou business. He and Sinbad were seeing less and less of us. Fin was always trapped in my apartment, and I stayed in there of my own will.
With every time they went out to seal a demon, he couldn't help but wonder if that would be the time they would never see me again.
A/N
Blum, blum, blum... Please review and all that crap authors are supposed to say. I already know the summary sucked, no need to tell me. I suck at summaries, like 90% of the people in the fanfiction world. I'm not one of those just absolutely amazing authors who can write a good summary and a good story, but I know I always have an interesting plot or two, so I'd appreciate it if there were no flames.
Anyway, SOME CONTENT IN THIS STORY MAY BE A BIT GRAPHIC, so read at your own risk. Oh, and if you don't understand something yet, either re-read some of the previous paragraphs, or wait until it is shown in later chapters.
:3 Right now I bet you're a little confused. ;D Don't worry, you'll know eventually.
