Eventually, the day turned to night, Helei still sat reading when Shizukani returned, when Kaito returned, when Shouta went downstairs to wait for dinner. After reaching the chapter before last, Helei closed the book and went downstairs, lugging her heavy, 10 pound water tank on her back. By the time she reached the table, she was out of breath, coughing and wheezing. She grabbed for the mouthpiece on a connected tube in her watertank, then sucked the water down into her airway. She took the seat in between Kaito and Zikaki, across from Bereii. Kaito and Shizukani sat on the opposite ends, and Shouta sat beside Bereii. As usual, dinner was loud and talkative, mostly from Bereii or Shouta, who would contribute most of the fightingat the table would answer politely, and Helei too would sometimes take the tube from her mouth, droplets of water dripping onto her shirt, too answer quick, raspy answers before replacing the tube again. Shizukani only talked to correct someone about something or to disagree about something. Zikaki, obviously, said nothing. This is what Helei did. she observed. Everyone and everything, she watched, day and night, all the people in her family and what they did. That was really the only thing she , like all the other members of her family, had a specific 'ailment' to her, if you will.
Helei could not breathe. Well, not breathe well. Not without water, Which is why she carried that heavy, back-breaking water tank on her back, which she refilled every morning. Helei was the Koi fish, which explained her condition. She could not run far or fast, nor lift a heavy object. She could not survive without 'breathing' in half her weight each day in water. Helei was, out of all of them, the one who actually displayed signs of actual illness. She coughed and wheezed, her voice was raspy and laboured. Her skin was pale and she was frail in a world she could not operate in. Ignoring the food on her plate, she guzzled down the large glass of water provided for her and opened her bookunder the would finish it before tonight was over, and have newly supplied dreams of superheroes and powers. That was one secret no one knew about Helei; even when she was little, she always wanted to be a superhero.
How silly, Helei thought, that she even had the idea of being a superhero. She was notfast, or strong. She could not fly or breath fire. She breathed water and could swim well. That was it. She could turn into a Koi fish and swim in circles. And yet that fighting urge still grew inside her, the need for action, for adventure, to really help someone. She wanted to be a hero, more than she wanted anything else. After dinner, she slowly made her way to her room,next to Bereii's, which is why she had her walls opened up to the last chapter of her book and finished it before mdnight came. Noticing the time,she sat the finished book in her drawer and got up, detaching her heavy daytime water tank and replaced it for a temporary nighttime carry on that was less than half its size. She got up and went into her bathroom, turning on the shower and filling up the smaller container. Now heavier, she lugged the mini-tank back into her room. Helei had to sleep with the night tank because the daytime tank supplied too much water for her sleeping form to process, but the mini was designed (by Kaito) to only give as much as was needed.
Unfortunately, the tank had to be turned on, and in the morning she always recieved loud complaints from Shouta, who slept in the attic, that he didn't get a wink of sleep because of Helei's 'stupid fish bowl'. Helei flipped the switch and the water from the top began poring out into the reciever, which was connected to a thin tube that ended with a large, blue mouthpiece. Helei strapped the mouthpiece on and got up out of bed to fullfill her task of getting Shouta to bed. With noisy tank in arms, she made her way up to the attic and out onto the roof where Shouta ran. Helei loved watching Shouta run, no matter how annoying he was. He had the speed Helei would never have; the speed of a hero. Day and night he'd stay up on the rooftops, training till the sweat turned to blood and his steps became heavy.
Helei envied the speed of the hummingbird, for what did she have to best it other than the water? Helei stepped up onto the platform, chilling air making goosebumbs rise onto her pale arms. "Shouta," She said, and that was all that was needed. "I know, I know." Shouta called back to her. "I'm comin'." He grumbled as Helei turned and made her way down to her room again. Wheezing, she intook large amounts of water from the piece as she got back into bed. She snuggled into her pillow and soon sleep clouded her mind. She dreamt of superheroes with incredible speed and eachtime one took of their mask it would be Shouta, mocking Helei's water tank. Soon the dream became a nightmare, large Shouta's popping up into hummingbirds that grew larger than life and morphed into hideous creatures that chased Helei down a desolate street.
Each time the dream started over, and right before it ended and it began to replay again, Helei would get just far away enough to think she could make it, but then her water tank grew heavier and heavier, and she could no longer carry it and it fell on her. The seventh time it fell Helei's eyes snapped open. In a cold sweat, she sat up, looking around. No monster Shouta birds. No inflating bolder of a water tank. Just Helei and the darkness. She slowly lowered herself onto the bed again, trying to regulate her breathing. Her back was sore and her vision cloudy. She closed her eyes once more, clearing her thoughts.
Stupid Shouta. It was all his dumb fault. Why couldn't Helei be fast? She'd show that stupid hummingbird. She'd show him he wasn't the only fast one. He wan't the best. He wasn't the only one who could be a superhero. Helei pushed herself into a restless sleep once again, her heart rate finally returning to normal. She would show him. She would show them all. That she was not just a fish on land. Not just a worm in a book. She would show them that she could be someone. Someone great. Someone super. A hero. Helei buried her face into her pillow and her final thoughts of the night before she resigned herself to sleep was that she, Helei Kagami, would be a hero. She would change the world.