8
"I've followed the guidebook... finished reading instructions for core classes. Some of the curriculum is a mess." Shima retorted speculatively, his manner proud, gaining a bit of gusto and energy from the idea, from that moment he'd be able to enroll in online schooling for the first time next week, even with it being 9 at night, when he should be getting tired instead. "I'm not taking Physics just yet, what a sloppy syllabus."
Bon leaned away from his laptop to look at Shima's screen. "Have you uploaded an avatar yet?" He swatted a few hovering bugs away.
"No. Not just yet... Have you?" The laid-back teen seemed not as worried about it as the other, relaxing, finishing off his lemonade.
"Mm Mm." Bon, shook his head. He was known to be extensive in his education. He didn't necessarily do everything by the books, however, as was a good student, he'd make 100% sure everything was perfection before he started his first semester as a sophomore, even if it was simplistic tasks, like making and uploading a custom avatar for his True Cross web-account. He grunted. "This avatar stuff, it's... old technology, and annoying."
"Hm?" Konekomaru, the only one in pajamas, and Shima looked up at him in that moment.
An obvious, puzzled look was furling in his thick eyebrows, and the dimly lit, open-air awning where they sat, even though slightly distracting from the lazy buzz of cicadas, provided a clear enough view. His hair, uniquely dark brown on the bottom, with a blonde faux-hawk on the top, just... wasn't there. "I, I can't seem to find anything that fits."
Shima gazed over hazily, panning his eyes, and erupted, causing Maru to jump.
"Ha... HA! OH! I never thought I'd... haha!
"Would you shut up Shima!?" Bon balled his fight.
The paler boy just continued laughing. "Why, ha, ha... why don't you just, just... choose something close-ish?!"
"I... I don't understand! Why couldn't we just take pictures of ourselves?" His fist slammed into the table, knocking over Shima's empty lemonade cup.
"You're right... that'd be easier." Konekomaru chimed, sighing, adjusting his glasses.
"Shh, yeh." His chiseled jawline frowned, then looking away from the pink headed, laughing moron, to look at the other: "What does yours look like?"
Maru slowly rotated his laptop, lids slim, looking defeated. "Plain."
Silent acknowledgement crossed the other two Highland Brothers.
It was.
A short haircut, which Maru dawned now, glasses, white collared shirt, black pants. It looked... like a run-of-the-mill uniformed student. As a matter of fact, it looked almost similar to the beginning instructional avatar, the boring pre-generated one; the one before a person changes it's clothes in the program's 'closet'.
"Uh." Shima leaned over, toward the shorter. "Are you okay?" He was more concerned about his peer's response.
Maru smiled shyly, that was all.
"Yeh! Do you hate this as much as I do... or what?" Earrings rocked back and forth, and arms crossed. Bon tried to give him that familiar push he always gave willingly so that Maru would feel confident enough to express his opinion. Eventually, he hoped, he'd just start giving it on his own.
"I'm just looking at everyone's avatars..." He sighed deeply, turning his screen back around, that bright LED illuminating his face, squares of white light reflections in his glasses, the other boys could see the screen changing in them.
Shima continued, browsing names in the True Cross student directory like Konekomaru. "Shiemi has her's up. It looks like her, the pink kimono, blonde hair with bangs, green eyes, really pale." He spoke as he typed. "Kamiki, Izumo." It loaded. "Ah... looks like her too, dark hair in long ponytails, that light yellow sweater she wears."
Maru gazed at Bon who in one motion leaned back in his chair, feet on the table, closing his eyes now, attempting to take a quick mental vacation, then to Shima. "Your's will look exactly like you... pink hair, brown eyes."
"Yeh, probably."
They continued to type in names of people they knew from classes, and finally: "Okumura Rin."
"He doesn't have his up either." Shima commented.
"Late as always." Bon grumbled out from under sleepy lips.
Shima chuckled.
"I... I've been thinking about what I said... about Rin. How he's going to change."
Shima: "It's going to be a whole year, you're right Maru."
"And a summer afterwards... It'll be a year and a half." Maru added on some math.
"Well, Rin will be... what?"
"We'll all be 16... and a half." Bon mumbled.
"Everyone's going to change so much, I'm just..."
"What?" Shima asked cooly. "That, everyone's going to be changing, and nothing's going to be the same as it once was? We'll all second-years for starters, I have less stress this year than last year, for sure. Even though..." He pondered. "it is kind of odd, how we won't be seeing each other's faces, for a year or so."
"Nah, I don't think that's what he's gettin' at Shima." Bon spoke, his voice kind of distant as he seemed to be drifting off. "You don't feel like much of an individual."
Maru nodded his head depressively. "I agree with Shima, I wish I could just see everyone's face. But, I also feel that everyone is either changing, or is on their own path to individuality all ready, and I'm just stuck here, in this void."
"Well... Maru, only one thing is certain in this world, and that is that change is the only thing that's certain." Bon announced.
Shima nodded in response.
Bon leaned forward a little, popping open an eyelid. "If you aren't sure who you want to be, what you want to look like, what you want to do, just... experiment." He closed it.
Maru's eyebrow twitched in response, his eyes moving from his computer screen to look down at his hands, sitting idle on the touch pad.
"Seriously. I didn't know if I wanted my ears pierced, and I just went into town and got it done one day, and I ended up liking it. But I could of taken them out at any time."
"That's right, I used to dye my hair a lot of different colors, remember?"
Maru nodded at Shima.
"I just stick with pink because I like it, but I never would of realized I liked it until I tried it."
Bon continued. "And these are just physical examples, this experimentation of self can span across many different things in your life. If you aren't sure what you want to do, why don't you take some classes this year through True Cross that you never thought of taking before? Maybe you'll end up liking something that you never thought you would."
"Or... you could go into town with me later on this week, after we apply for classes, and see what any of the businesses have to offer. I was thinking about getting a summer job!" Shima exclaimed.
"Really?" Bon's eye snapped open.
"Yeh? Why not?" Shima smiled, coming over and putting his hands on Maru's shoulders, not in a controlling type of way, but brotherly. "I'd like to gain some skills working, and I need money, just like everyone else."
Maru seemed a bit more smiley. "Well, it, it wouldn't hurt to try."
"That's the spirit!" Bon took his feet off of the table and sat up cracking his back. "Do whatever you want with yourself. You're in control."
Shima chimed in. "And the best thing is that you can change your avatar at any time! See!" He pointed to the button below it on the screen of his laptop. "Your avatar can keep changing just as you change and grow, just as we all will. And if you're worried about staying in touch, the school is going to provide all of us with everyone's email. So, no worries. Just write them and ask them for phone numbers, and we can all Skype each other once we exchange information."
Bon smirked. Shima was equally as compassionate as him, but he had the softness that he didn't possess. Somehow, between his rough bluntness, and Shima's soft-hearted directive, he knew that Konekomaru would turn out okay. In a way, as odd as it was, he felt that Shima and him were sort of the role models for Maru, the two that he looked up to the most. Maru was the smallest, and the most soft spoken, shy, and no doubt, if he went to public school, would be bullied.
He wouldn't want that for the life of him, and Shima, he knew wouldn't have that either.
No matter what changes Maru would make in his own life, Shima and Bon would be there.
They in fact, were brothers, even though not by blood, they were still family, and they always would be.
He sat outside, on a circular pad of cement, where the patio used to sit, before Satan had showed, and in the fire, burnt it to the ground. The big fenced-in backyard of the monastery provided him enough shelter to let out his tail, and that black, thin limb was slowly moving like a snake across the ground, close to where he sat.
Pitch black, the surroundings were illuminated by a solo street light which sat fairly far off.
She had simply been getting ready for bed, brushed her newly dyed hair, which was now one whole dark-red color, and she had just dressed herself in a night shirt and shorts, provided from some random box left at the monastery door-step. Apparently, donations like that were common, and weekly. Clothing, old jewelry, blankets, draperies, anything and everything that the commoners of the town didn't want anymore, and since the monastery had connections to orphan foundations, and families in need, what a better place to leave unwanted items?
She took some of the charitable donation.
Something was ill about his demeanor. That was what stopped Shura.
It was July, hot as hell, and he just sat outside, legs out in front of him, with no shirt, at 1 am. His shaggy black hair, nearly to his chin now, matted down with sweat, tail moving in kinks. There was no moon, it was cloudy.
What was being displayed to her, as he sat there silently, and she hid from behind a wall from inside the building staring out, watching him, was another dead reminder of the end of his enthusiastic nature.
He was fair in color, his skin she could spy from across the yard, milky in the night. The way his form sat, even though in a relaxed manner spoke of somberness, something ajar within himself. She wasn't sure what to do, or if she should do something.
Something snapped under her foot in the darkness, nothing more than stepping on a small piece of gravel, and she watched Rin's head snap in her direction. Like a command.
It sent absolute chills up her spine.
Two sudden eyes, glowing red, bright, like they were illuminated by their own brilliant flame of their own, were on her.
"I knew you were there." The words were deep, husky, hallowed. "Your breath."
He looked away, and the chill sent up her spine, lessened somewhat. Those eyes. On her. The eyes of the ones she kills.
Words came.
"I, I should of figured. You're big ears pick up more sound."
He snorted. "You just stop t'insult me?"
Obviously he took her words as a direct threat. It was all they did, argue with one another. How could he not?
Shura swallowed, and began walking forward through the patchy grass, she didn't have any shoes on, and could feel the dry, dusty dirt going between her toes as she hit a non-grassy part.
He made no movement as she came sort of close to him, and sat on the other side of the concrete, her feet off the 8 inch edge, in the dirt, she wrapped her arms around her legs. "What're you doing out here?"
The only response was his tail snapping on the end, padding the pavement evenly and roughly, the way an annoyed cat's would.
The city noise was very quiet this time of the night, and it was kind of delightful. Shura hated loud, noisy towns.
The answer came as a direct line, almost like he had been thinking her thoughts:
"It's quiet."
She let a little time go by, as she was unsure whether he even wanted her company before she responded. She wasn't sure what compelled her on, she knew internally why she felt a tether of relativity to him, but why she wanted to talk rather than insult? Not sure. She was growing tired of the insultory remarks, the little spats, it wasn't entertaining anymore. In other words, she'd had her fill, and what was left afterwards?
She'd never been exposed to a sole person that long. Never long enough for her to run out of her own steam, her own puns, her own fitful jists, the sarcasm. Her satchel of self-fuilling tools had been exhausted.
"What... is it like?" Her voice was hushed, how night naturally makes you want to whisper.
Rin turned, a corner of a blood red eye blinked at her. Obviously he wasn't sure what she meant.
"To hear... the way you do."
He turned ever so slightly, returning to the same position he was in. He spoke, since his head was away from her it came out much softer, not muffled, but light.
"There's no peace." He grumbled out.
"Mm." She acknowledged. She wanted to ask about Yukio for some reason, she wanted to know what was going through his head, as opposed to what she'd seen, but she didn't want to push it.
He already didn't like her, and she knew it. He ignored her mostly. It drove her nuts in a way.
"Are you ready for classes?"
He snapped back immediately. "Why do you care?" He sensed a hint of impartiality to her tone, and his own voice in return was frigid.
"I..." She pulled her knees closer to her chest, her sleep shorts were soft. "I was wondering." She yawned.
"Go to bed."
"I should."
He snorted.
After she stood, she worked up the gumption to actually say something to him worth while.
"Why the hell do you ignore me?"
He stood then, turned to face her, arms crossed, which looked slightly bigger for some reason, his red eyes on her form, tail snapping, a defensive posture.
"Because I hate you."
His language damaged.
Her eyes crunched in, and rather than spitting out a fire of insults, like she normally would of done, instead she stood her ground in a different way. In a more adult way, planting a seed for him to answer her. "Why?" She crossed her arms, mimicking him, just as perturbed.
"I don't get why you desire to hear it when the answer is right in front of you." His words, poised daggers. "You should be ashamed of yourself, for showing up here. You're despicable and you're lazy. You delight in stirring up battles, and I let you live in this household, if it wasn't for me putting the law down, you'd be not helping at all, and just sitting around drinking beer on a free-pass like you were months ago. You're selfish. There's no way I'm going to let you think that in anyway you're going to live here, for as long as the Vatican wants you here Red, for free. Also, your history is awful."
That last one struck a chord with her. "You!" She spat out, one on the fists that was crossed across her chest balled into a fist. "You know nothing of... of what I've been through!"
"Sure I do. Nothing. That's the answer. You're a smart ass, who travels the world in a self-seeking manner, killing things to make cash."
"That's!" It was all that came out.
It was true.
His demeanor changed again. He just grew quiet and turned away from her. Like all of a sudden, he just didn't care anymore.
"Go to bed."
She huffed and walked away, inside, slamming the door.
He sat back down on the cement and began whispering to himself under his breath. Agitated, as if he was talking to someone else.
"That woman does nothing, except become an insanity to me. This is awful and grim, I'm stuck living with the person who... who told me. My brother was..."
Silence.
"Is. Dead." He began to choke. Physical words cutting air out of him. "I can't escape her. Every time I see her, I see Yukio. Beaten, horrible."
Something inside him began to create a beckoning tone, and his face was hot. "Like, like... like his perfect. Perfect face. Like... he'd been smacked with a pipe. All I see are his stained eyes, stained with death."
Tears began to falter him. "They haunt me... they haunt my dreams, in the day, when I see her. There is no escape... He haunts me."
Slightly rocking, as if to calm himself, knees to his chest, he grabbed his 3-cross necklace in a frenzy, smacking it against him to confirm: 'YES. IT IS THERE.'
"Everyday I see your face... Yuk... Yukio." Tears. "Your crooked... last few minutes, they replay. I could be staring at nothing, and through my eyes, my head makes imagery... only, of you." He sobbed, he felt chills going up his spine. "Every time I remember something good, it's immediately followed by something bad. Blood. Your death."
He squeezed the crosses at his bare chest, then opened the necklace in his palm, allowing the three crosses, all different, to rock around. He peered upon them, and tears, hotter than that night in July, warped his vision, like a river of hot plasma burning his face.
"Yu... Yuk. Yuki." Whimpering. "How, how?" The crosses in his hands were wet, from the steady flow. "This world is... godless. I." He cried forcefully, and laid on his side, tailed kinking, he closed his eyes. Broken, shivering in the heat from his own course, rough pain, and panic. "You're my... brother, we were, we were... we were supposed to get better."
He sobs were so deep, they choked him, gagged him, rendering breathing useless.
Thoughts replayed in his mind, scenery that he knew now would never happen. He had dreamed so many dreams. Most of them including his brother, his... Yukio. Accepting his death, was like fiction. He seen the chain of events in his mind, and he spit them out into the air, as his whole body tensed and shook.
"We were supposed, t'to ride home t'together... and," he sniffled. "We, w'were supposed to," He coughed in pain. "come back here, rebuild. Yuk... Yukio. You... left me. I'm... I'm... Alone."
He shook in an intense draft of tears. Bonding, that was what he wanted. More bonding, he felt like he had gotten closer to Yukio in the past year, and that left him with so much desire to get even closer.
He let out his anger. Rage.
"You! You! Inverted jerk, with a thumb up your ass!" He got ferocious, teeth snapping. "I, I did everything! I studied. I wrote papers! I read books! I made myself available for you! I fed you! I trained my powers! All of it..." He got quiet again. Sobbing. "Surely... Yu... Yuki. You know. I..." He took in a huge gasp of air, letting it out rash and unevenly, causing another wave of hot wetness to flow. "I did it all... for you."
He cried for awhile and remained quiet, letting the cement wetten under him.
"I was heartbroken. After I found out you'd kill me... if you had to. And once I seen you starting to come around, all I wanted... was for you to like me more. I just... I wanted a real... connection to you. Like kids. Again. But... Yuki," He pleaded to the air as if his brother had awakened from the ashes right then and there. "we, we never... got the chance. I was never as effective as you wanted me to be." His voice came like a silent whisper only to himself. "I will be someone in this life... that will carry on our name... Fujimoto, old man. Okumura... Yukio."
My infinite guidance, I behold in your death.
Let my diabolic blood flow.
Because, it's all I have left.
"I will always be tied... to you. I will honor you."
He pulled his knees into his face, resting his head on his knees. His blue eyes, nothing but blood red, in the blackness, blurry.
"I know we never said it."
He sighed.
"I, I will... always." He pushed it out. The statement foreign and sudden. "I love you."
He sighed, letting an uneven flow shutter from behind his lips. Tasteless in knowing:
"From this day forward, I vow my loyalty to the Vatican."
