3. Understanding

"You're…scared," Yoh said quietly as he walked over to where the shaking girl was splayed out on the ground like some sort of pathetic marionette that had been tossed away and forgotten by its violent owner after a temper tantrum. He painfully observed how she made some sort of noise of protest and used every fiber of her half-conscious being to move away from his touch when he reached out to help her up. He managed to straighten up the very much unwilling Anna. "How long has this been going on?"

"What? The demon coming out? Or the…this…" She bitterly shoved the sleeve of her robe up to reveal a dark, sickly looking trail of bruises winding their way up the startlingly white skin of her arm.

"Both."

Her usually acerbic demeanor slipped away for a moment as she saw that this boy, this strange, foreign, slightly oafish boy actually was concerned for her well being. "For as long as I can remember," she revealed breathily, the soreness of her bruising beginning to throb and settle in.

"Why do they do this?" he asked sadly, rocking back and forth on his heels as if he was bursting to do something to help. He just didn't know what that something was yet.

"They don't understand," she told him simply. "They're scared."

"But don't they get that you're scared too?"

"They don't understand," Anna repeated flatly, roughly seizing the edge of her pushed up sleeve and jerking it down forcefully to conceal the evidence of yet another of the almost daily beatings she endured from the villagers. She batted his hands away and drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them securely. She rested her forehead against her kneecaps but Yoh was able to see the very epitome, the very definition, the very essence of suffering glance across her face before her hair totally obscured it from view. "And I'm not…"

"Scared?" He put his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. He winced a little as he realized that he hadn't completely thought out the action and had forgotten she hated being touched.

To his surprise, he felt her body wrench up pathetically as if to meet his touch and in that moment he knew that she was starved of affection and caring. Starved of human contact. His breath caught in his throat as he felt a shiver course through her body and heave. "Are you going to leave me now?" she whispered to her knees. "Like the rest."

"Nope." He shook his head and knelt next to her.

Anna raised her head and looked at him skeptically. "Why?"

"Because I understand."

A/N: yeah. up to the readers to decide if they want daily updates or every other day updates. i am now capable of doing either. leave your preference in the review. sorry for the lack of updates. I have by no means forgotten Critical Condition. however in these past two weeks, something very earth shattering for me has happened and i hate to say this but my former spark and absolute, flat out love of writing has waned to the point that I didn't really see the point anymore and didn't want to write ever again. luckily, i feel like i'm on the way back to my old self in terms of actually wanting to write and such. i hope you all do forgive me. I'm trying not to go flat out emo/angst on you guys but i think you do need (and deserve) an explanation for my (lack of) actions. I'll elaborate more when I post the next chapter of Critical Condition.