Hasn't been too long... I think... haha. Anyway, I got like one review last time. :( Grrr.
Kairi had a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, but she knew from experience that if she just forgot about it, she wouldn't be bothered by it anymore. Ed did plenty to distract by being affectionate at random times, and she kept herself busy picking up the living room, blowing years of dust off of various surfaces. Ed got hungry later on, so she gave him an orange, seeing as she didn't have anything else.
"You never eat," he told her while eating one orange as she peeled him another one. He was on the couch on one side of the coffee table and she sat across from him on the floor.
"I do to," she argued, half a smile on her face.
"You'd get bigger if you ate more."
"You're one to talk. Drink your milk!"
"Milk is gross!"
"Food is gross."
"You've got to like some foods."
She handed him the orange she'd just peeled and started work on another one. "I like oranges; they're okay. And stawberries are good, too. I like mushy fruit, the kind with lots of juice in it." She paused, gathering the peels together to start peeling the last one. "But they're all seasonal, and I'm hardly ever hungry."
"No excuse right now," he spoke matter-of-factly. "Eat that orange."
"Don't tell me what to do," she snapped, but she started eating it anyway. He had that effect on her; it was difficult to argue with him.
"There's not much to do here," Ed commented after he finished his orange. "How did you survive when you were little?"
"I watch the TV a lot before it broke," she nibbled on her fruit, "and after that, I would just read the fairytale books my mom got me. Over and over again." She finished the orange and wiped her hands off on a rag. "She kept this place really clean. But my dad never cleaned it. He wouldn't even pick up the garbage can if he knocked it over."
Ed appeared to be listening, his amber eyes intent, chin in one hand. It made it hard to concentrate on what she was saying.
"He wasn't mean, though. Just bitter. And he concentrated on work a lot. He was home more after she died, but he just concentrated on his equations and stuff." She then mused about how she and her mother would put the orange peels under the orange tree for compost. After a while, her voice trailed off. "Do I have something on my face?"
"No." But he kept staring.
She giggled.
Well, after that, around noon, I might say...
There were still many oranges on the giant orange tree in the backyard (about ten feet from the backroad), so Ed, who was hungry again, went out to get some more. Al followed him outside. Kairi, finally alone, walked up the stairs and into her childhood bedroom.
The room was still destroyed, so she tried to clean it up. Clapping her hands together and pressing them to the wall, she repaired the broken shelves and the book she'd thrown at Travis. She closed her eyes. It was almost funny to her now (she never knew where she got her insane sense of humore from, but her mother had said it was her grandmother's); him tossing her around the room like a ragdoll, her cussing like a sailor and attempting to get away.
Shaking her head slightly, she went to make the bed. It still had some blood on it, but she straightened out the sheets anway. Using alchemy, she fixed a clock he'd knocked over and glanced around the room. Clap, the spiderweb crack on the mirror disappeared, and she put the stack of children's books on her newly-fixed shelf.
"What does it say, mommy?"
"It says that you're not original."
"What? Why can't I be?"
"Nothing about you is original. You're an effort from people that know you."
"I am?"
"Of course you are."
"You mean you and daddy? And James?"
She'd never gone through her parents' room before, never went through thier things, never even thought about it, really. (Not that she was an angel.) But she wanted to know about James's death, and it was the only way she could think of.
She tip-toed into her parents' room. Oh, quit it. Mother's not going to come around the corner and catch you. She glanced around, checking the inside of the closet. She found a large box full of papers, but they were nothing more than military records that belonged to her father. Her mother had a shoebox full of pictures on the top shelf, though. I know they don't have shoeboxes, but that's just the size of the box. ya know? Curious, she stepped over a shattered lamp and sat on the unmade bed.
Typical family photos, she guessed, and she could remember all of them being taken. There was one of her sitting on top of her father's shoulders, one of her mother sitting below the orange tree, reading a book, while Kairi had a field day with the camera. Toward the bottom of the box were older pictures, she guessed, because she didn't remember any of them. There was a picture of her as a baby, lying in her crib, her nose wrinkled up. The next few were pictures from her parents' wedding.
One of her mother at some sort of beach, her dress hiked up and her ankles in the water, another of a small flower girl being chased by a ring-bearer. The next was a shot from a distance, a mingle of grandparents, military men, and children, from suits to dresses to blue uniforms. It was a beautiful wedding. The last wedding picture was of her father holding her mother bridal style, her dress flowing in the gentle breeze. She didn't recognize anyone in any of the pictures except for them. She shook her head.
When she picked up the last picture in the bottom of the box, her heart nearly stopped. It definetely skipped a beat.
It was her mother, sitting on the very bed she sat on at that exact moment. She had her white-blond hair pulled back into its rare french braid. Her brown eyes were bright and there was a smile on her face. Kairi had never seen her that happy before. But it wasn't that that bothered her. It was the little boy that was about as high as her knees, his brown eyes filled with wonder, hand pressed against Serenity's swollen, pregnant stomach. A tussle of white hair was on the top of his head.
She didn't move, couldn't register anything, for about a minute. When she heard Ed and Al moving around in the kitchen, she snapped out of it. Setting the old photograph back in its box, she got up slowly. She felt light-headed. Running down the stairs three at a time, she sped around the corner and out the back door. Luckily Ed didn't seem to have heard her; she didn't want to hear his questions.
The grave. The grave. She tore across the yellow lawn and opened the shed. The robber must have gotten there first, looking for anything valuable, but there really wasn't much. The gardening tools were splayed out everywhere, and when she pulled the shovel out, the rake scratched her swollen right wrist. She ignored the small stream of blood trickling down her wrist and bolted to the opposite corner of the yard, skidding on a fallen orange, and sliding to a halt in front of the grave. The name on the gravestone nearly blinded her.
It took fifteen minutes before she hit the wooden chest. Brushing the top with her fingers, she ran her hands over the design on top of it. A teddy bear. Her breath caught in her throat and there was a weight in her stomach. She flipped the lid open, quick and painful, like a bandaid. She stared down, wide-eyed, then stumbed a few feet away and heaved.
It was rare for her to get upset enough to throw up, but it happened to her a few times. The only other time she'd gotten this upset since her memory loss was that time she'd hurled in the bathroom at Izumi's house. She prayed Ed wouldn't come this time; there was no way she wanted to explain the open grave behind her.
It's empty. She wiped her mouth. Empty.
She heard the back door open, and she could tell it was Ed hurrying toward her because of his footsteps; one was hollower than the other. Damn it. Everytime I get a little bruised up he comes running.
"Kairi-?" She heard his sharp intake of breath, but she was too busy spitting up to pay attention. When she appeared to be finished, he asked, "What's going on, Kairi?"
She didn't answer. Wiped her mouth with her hands and coughing, she turned, jogged away from him, past Al, and into the house. Once she reached the bathroom, she closed the door and locked it.
Whoaaa wait a minute. I bet Ed's confused, huh?
"What's going on, Kairi?"
But she left him standing there, clueless. Why had she dug up an empty chest? He glanced at the gravestone. It read, "James Alkamime" but nothing else. He could tell from the writing and the sides of it that it was made with alchemy. He slowly started walking toward the house.
"What's going on here, Brother?"
"I don't know, Al," he replied, hands in his pockets.
The hazel eyes stared back at her, the white-blond hair mocking her; never had a mirror shown what she truly felt, and the grief-sticken face- so like her mother's- couldn't reflect the heaviness in her heart that seemed to weigh down her very soul. Sitting on the floor, she hugged her knees to her chest. How could they have lied to me like that? She couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation. But where's James at?
She'd only had a few memories from before she turned one (her first birthday was her first, crystal-clear memory, and the rest were all hazy), which James wasn't in. So he had to have been gone for at least fourteen years. Her heart thudded. A lot could happen in fourteen years. He must've been alive, though; if he'd been dead, they would've just buried him in the backyard like they'd always said they had. So where could he be.
Standing up, she fixed her eyeliner (it had started to run when she'd been vomiting). She brushed her teeth vigorously until her gums almost bled. She stretched until every bone in her body had popped and her mind was more at ease. She left the bathroom.
Ed and Al were just coming in from outside and his golden eyes found her sitting about halfway up the stairs. Al took a hint and walked into the kitchen, while Ed walked up the stairs and sat next to her.
"What's the box in the back for?"
She didn't say anything for a moment, and just when he thought she wasn't going to answer, she said, "It was supposed to be a grave."
Taken aback by her monotonous tone, he replied, "Where's the body?"
"I don't know." She rested her elbows on her knees and her forehead on her palms.
"Who's supposed to be in it?"
"My brother, James."
"How'd you know it was empty?"
"I didn't."
"You know," he finally announced irritably. "It's hard for me to help you when I don't know what's wrong."
Nothing was said for a few minutes. Neither of them moved, and Al, who was eavesdropping, would've held his breath if his current state had allowed it. She chewed her lower lip, the inside of her right cheek, traced the letters of the tattoo on her arm. Where could he be?
Whooo!!! ive already got a lot of this written down, I just have to type it out. there are going to be three more chapters, tops, people. but there are at least two. reviewww!!! :D
