Hiyah everybody! ^-^
So very few people(cough*one*cough) tried to guess what really happened and no one got it right. So here goes the plot.
And it's a little dark so here's some tissues just in case.
..:~: Reino POV (8 minutes later) :~:..
"They fixed it. Press the button again." Kanae said when she came back. Mizue pressed it and we faintly heard the sound of the elevator moving. Nice.
"Did anyone else hear that groan from the elevator?" Sho asked. All of a sudden we heard something that sounded like someone being pushed against the wall followed by a moan. What the hell?
Then the doors opened and everyone gawked at the compromising scene.
"SAY IT!" Kyoko shouted. She was pinning Shizuru down on the floor by sitting on his back and had his hands in hers to prevent him from thrashing any more than he is now. Why were there a whole bunch of cards around them?
"NEVER!" he shouted back and managed to roll over which caused Kyoko to fall off of him. He got up and ran for it but the other guys grabbed him and held him in place. He kept squirming and kicking, though. Kyoko got up and got out too before the door closed. She ran for Shizuru but I held her back.
"Whoa! Wait a second! What is going on?" I asked, grabbing Kyoko's hands in mine and wrapping my arms around her waist.
"That little weasel is backing out of our deal!" she glared.
"No! You couldn't have won! You must have cheated somehow." he protested.
"Bullshit! I won fair and square. There is no way I could have cheated. You're just being a sore loser because you got beat by a girl." Kyoko said condescendingly.
Oh. I get it now. The cards. The deal. The fact that Shizuru appears to have lost. He introduced her to the Dare Games.
"Oh. I see what happened. Shizuru, just do the dare." Miroku said, smirking.
"No!" he yelled.
Mizue smacked the back of his head and said, "Stop being stupid and do it or else I'll bring back the nightmare." she threatened. Everyone in our band froze. Oh God. Not that.
Shizuru looked at Mizue. Then Kyoko. Then back to Mizue.
Then he dropped to his knees, nearly dragging the other guys with him. Everyone, except Kyoko, looked at him weirdly. Kyoko just grinned.
"I humbly except defeat and I promise to never be stupid enough to question you ever again." he said, bowing his head. Everyone was silent for a minute before we all cracked up. Mizue patted his head as he grumbled and I buried my face in Kyoko's neck, trying to stop laughing.
"Okay. If Reino doesn't marry her one day then I'm adopting her. You make me laugh." Miroku said, putting a hand on Kyoko's shoulder. Kyoko and I blushed and failed to say anything coherent to that. We looked at each other and stepped away awkwardly.
"Aww. Look what you did! Now they're too embarrassed to even look at each other." Kanae complained. Mizue snickered and playfully wrapped her arms around Kyoko's shoulders from behind.
"Don't be so shy. We all know it'll happen. You should get used to the idea now so you won't get embarrassed later." she said jokingly. At least I think it's a joke…
Kyoko just blushed even more. I know this because she glanced at me the moment I glanced at her. We both quickly looked away.
"They act like some eleven year olds who got caught crushing on each other." Sho said, chuckling. I gave him a glare and he just smirked at me. I jolted at the smirk. A distant memory flashes before me and I shake me head, trying to forget it. I gulped and looked away from him but then Mizue caught my eye. I could tell she noticed and she gave me a worried frown. Everyone else seemed to notice the sudden tension and looked at me strangely. Then the rest of the band looked at Sho and then at me and they realized what probably happened. Sho noticed and gave me a questioning look.
"What was that?" he asked. I closed my eyes, trying to get rid of the images that keep popping up in my head.
"What happened? Did I do something?" he asked and placed his hand on my shoulder. I flinched and before I knew it I slapped his hand away from me and backed away from him, my eyes wide in fear.
"Reino?" he asked taking a step forward. The guys stopped him. Mizue and Kyoko carefully walked towards me. Ren and Kanae stood with the guys and Sho, confused.
"Reino." Mizue said softly. I looked at her. My vision started getting blurry. I backed into the wall and slid down. Once I sat down on the ground I brought my knees up to my chest and buried my head in my arms.
"Reino." Mizue called again. I felt her kneel next to me on my left and place a gentle hand on my arm. I shut my eyes and held back a sob. Then I felt a smaller hand touch my cheek. I looked to my right and saw Kyoko looking at me with an almost heartbroken expression.
Reino?" she asked, unsure. I could hear Sho asked the guys what happened and then them shushing him, trying to tell him what happened without actually telling him. I made a mistake. I wasn't supposed to react like that. I spent so much time trying to get used to his face. Why did I break all of a sudden?
"I think we should tell them." Mizue said. I whipped my head towards her. She also looked like she was about to cry but she also had this sureness about her.
"I want to. But I can't. I'm not sure I can go through with it." I practically whimpered. She just bit her lip and kissed my cheek.
"I'll tell them if you can't." she assured me. Did I want them to know? It would explain everything if I did. But would I be able to hear it all again without breaking?
"I'll help you get through it if you feel like you can't get out of it alone." Kyoko said softly. I looked at her again. She gazed at me softly. The hand that she placed on my face again felt so much like mom's…
"Okay." I said, my voice cracking a little. Mizue and Kyoko nodded, carefully pulling me up.
"You guys know that Reino and I have a history that…is pretty dark. It's actually still causing problems now. It might help if you know it. So we're ready to tell you if you're ready to listen." Mizue said with the slightest shakiness in her voice. She held my hand and I held it in a death grip, trying to not cry.
Miroku , Shisuru, Kiyora, and Dasuku already knew everything and they were looking at me solemnly. Ren, Kanae, and Sho on the other hand just stared at me for a minute, trying to read the situation. Sho nodded stiffly with Ren and Kanae following his example. I nod back and start walking for the exit of LME.
Mizue and Kyoko walk next to me. The band close behind. And the other three behind them. We all were headed to my house. Mizue went in her car with Kanae, Sho, Kiyora and Dasuku. Ren went in his with Miroku and Shizuru while Kyoko came with me in mine. I was the first to leave and as I drove, the feeling of what I was about to do caught up to me.
I was going to tell Kyoko, and the others, what happened six years ago.
What I go catatonic again? What if Mizue has another episode? She's already showed some of the symptoms. This can destroy Mizue and I. I don't want us to go back there.
While I started panicking, Kyoko reached a hand out and placed in on my knee. My throat a little tighter. I could feel her looking at me but I didn't look back. One because I might break and two because I don't want to crash. So instead, I just brought one hand down and laced my fingers with hers and continued driving.
Somehow Mizue got home first. When I parked in the drive through she and the others were waiting. When Kyoko and I got out I saw Ren's car park behind my car. Mizue opened the door and everyone walked into the living room.
When everyone was seated, Sho said, "So tell us." I took a deep breath and tightened my grip on Kyoko's hand.
"First I have to tell you something about Mizue and I. Have you guys noticed that there is something strange about me?" I asked Ren and Sho. They were the only ones who don't know about our powers.
"You have this aura about you that I can't really explain." Sho said thoughtfully.
"And that time we got in an argument, I touched you and you saw into my past." Ren said. Sho looked surprised.
"Yeah. It's not just me though. Mizue and Kyoko are the same. Sort of. And there are several others out there in the world with our abilities." I said.
"Abilities? What is it?" Sho asked.
"We don't have a name for ourselves. Some of call just use the name psychic. We can see ghosts. Some of us can control spirits or even demons. Kyoko only has grudges and I don't really have any of them but I can purify them. Mizue actually does have demons, though." I explained. Kyoko looked up at that. Yeah. We forgot that we didn't tell her everything.
"We also have this thing where our muscular strength and endurance is increased so we can move really fast. Reino just recently got a hold of that, though. Kyoko…hers is kind of on and off." Mizue said, trying to make me smile. It sort of worked.
"All of us also have our own special abilities. Reino can read into a person's past through physical contact. The darker it is the less control he has over reading it even if he doesn't want to. He can also paralyze people. I can do something similar to his first one. I can erase or bring back memories so in a way I have to be able to see a person's past as well. I also have this weird thing where I can manipulate the gravitational pull on something. Like if a vase fell, I can make it lighter so it lands as if it were a feather. Kyoko still hasn't exactly developed hers but I'm guessing it has something to do with telepathy and telekinesis." she continued. I looked up at the last part. She didn't tell me that. She mouthed "Later" to me.
"The thing is that these abilities are potentially available to anyone but only open to people experiencing extreme anger, sorrow, or any other negative emotion. The lucky one's don't get them even if they feel those emotions. The chances are even greater if your parents also had those abilities like Kyoko and ours." I said.
"The thing is that the powers aren't always permanent. You can lose them as well. If you are under a certain amount of stress then your powers react and your brain can shut down completely. Often people survive but they no longer have their powers. Kyoko's and our parents were also survivors." Mizue said softly. It was only yesterday that Kyoko found that out.
"The problem with two of our kind having a child is that it creates a kind of curse. The first person to hold them with a large amount of emotion, even if it's hate, will die. We don't know why. Kyoko's dad died because of that. But this is just a theory and we only just recently brought it up to actually be considered. It's faulty because Reino and I have the same parents and our mom died when Reino was seven months old. So either I was one of the rare cases where the curse doesn't happen or it's actually something else." we all stopped for a minute so that Sho and Ren could digest it all.
"So Kyoko found out that that was what probably caused her mother to hate her. And It was the same thing for our father." Mizue said. I took a shaky breath and saw something click in Kyoko's head. She's starting to connect the dots.
"You see, our father was never really that close to us. Mom had always been the one to bring us all together. She was everything to us. Especially him. When she died, it broke him. He was lost. he didn't know what to do with us and he tried to take care of us. Over the next few years he started becoming even more distant. And even a little hostile. I think he started coming to the same conclusion as we did because he was trying to find out why mom died. She was perfectly healthy and all of a sudden she collapses one day from her body just shutting down. He did his research and found out about the parents of kids like us also dieing and decided that it was our fault. Well, he blamed Reino because she died after he was born." I could hear Mizue voice getting heavier, softer, yet angrier. I could also feel the eyes of everyone now finding out the story and those who already look at me in pity. Even if I wasn't looking at them, I just knew. I felt Kyoko shuffling closer to me.
"It wasn't until I was thirteen that he actually started becoming abusive. With me he was harsh and angry. I didn't find out until about a month after it started that he was abusing Reino." I heard a couple gasps. I'm sure they all knew it was coming. It's still disturbing to actually hear the words come out. That's how Miroku described the feeling when he found out.
"Sometimes I still get mad at myself for not realizing it earlier. Reino and I were always close. We told each other everything and raised each other despite us being only children. When he started becoming a little distant with me, I thought is was a phase. You know how kids around his age start acting like it's too weird to hang out with their siblings so they start hanging out with other kids. It also didn't help that he was trying so hard to hide it from me." she said sadly.
"He threatened to hurt you if I said anything!" I shouted. She knew this but she never cared. She said that it doesn't matter what he did to her. She'd always protect me, but only if I'd let her.
"And I told you that I didn't care. We never keep these things from each other. When you were being bullied in grade school, I helped you learn how to fight back with out physically fighting. Well, unless it was absolutely necessary. You were never picked on after that. When I was being harassed by the boys in my school, I told you even though I was handling it. But it was amusing to watch you make them cry that one time." she said smirking. Well as close to a smirk as she can get in this situation. I gave a tight smile and everyone chuckled a little bit at that.
"So one day I saw Reino scratch his arm and he rolled up part of his sleeve. I saw a bruise there. I questioned him about it and he wouldn't say anything. Our father came into the room to ask why I was yelling and he saw me holding Reino's arm. When his eyes darkening threateningly toward Reino, I knew. So I confronted him." I shut my eyes at that part. I can't do this. Mizue probably sensed me panicking because she stopped and then I felt Kyoko wrap her arm around me. Her other hand gently guided my head to rest on her shoulder and before I knew it I was holding on to her for my life and shaking like I was about to have a seizure.
Mizue continued in an almost robotic voice and said, "He didn't even bother denying it. He just kept rambling on about how everything was Reino's fault and the whole time, all I could think about what that he dared to lay a hand on my little brother. I didn't even know that we got into a full on fight until I heard Reino crying and beg us to stop fighting. I got distracted and he used to his advantage." God, I don't want to hear this.
I held on to Kyoko even more and if there even a moment where it started to hurt her, she never showed it. She just kept trying to soothe me even though she was also pretty shaken.
"When I turned to Reino he got a pen and stabbed my in my lower back. Then he dragged it a little to the right and I collapsed in shock. It only lasted for a few seconds because he started going for Reino. That was when Reino's paralyzing abilities kicked in. He froze our father but it was new and unstable so it broke after two seconds. But that was all I needed. I got back up and attacked him. At one point we both either tripped or shoved each other and I landed on my back, which caused the pen to dig deeper into me, while he crashed into the glass table. Reino called the police while he and I were unconscious. One shards pierced his heart and several glass splinters entered his blood stream. They cut the vessels and he died from all the internal bleeding. Apparently it was pretty painful." she said humorlessly.
"The pen didn't get any of my organs and I only had a little bit of a problem with the bleeding and muscle damage. I was lucky. But Reino still blames himself for the fact that I got hurt in the first place." It was my fault. I distracted her while she was fighting. I could have avoided the whole fight by just dealing with it myself or telling Mizue like she said I should have.
"I know what you're thinking Reino. It was my fault too. I'm not going to say that you did nothing wrong but I have never blamed you for anything." she said solemnly. That still doesn't mean that I'm not at fault. I didn't handle it the right way and Mizue paid the price.
Everyone was silent for a while until Sho spoke up.
"But why did Reino react like he did at LME when I smirked at him?" Mizue took a deep breath and got up from her seat. She went over to one of the pictures we kept on the shelves and took out the photo of Mizue and I with our mom. She showed it to Kyoko, Sho, Ren, and Kanae.
"You both look just like her. The pale skin, black hair, purple eyes, the smile. You'd think you were clone from her." Ren said.
Then Mizue handed them the photo hidden inside the frame that was always behind that one.
"This was our dad." she said. I heard Kyoko gasp and Sho stared at it, shocked.
"He…he looks…he looks just like me." he whispered.
DUN DUN DUUUUUUNNNN! Please review. Or else sad robot will cry again. And i'll hold the next chapter hostage.