4
Akane sat on the outside of the protection wall that surrounded the roof of their school. She was swinging her legs, which almost touched the fence that rose high up from the back of the school. The fence's purpose was to protect people from falling over. Now chewing her lip, Akane looked down through a gap in the fence. It was definitely big enough for a person to fall through, so why did they even bother to put the fence up anyway? That aside, why wouldn't they even bother to fix the fence? But Akane shook her head. Nobody would want to climb over the waist high wall that surrounded the roof of the school and sit on the little strip of concrete with nothing to help their balance.
"Kari-chan?" Akane, her voice shaking a bit, turned to her friend sitting beside her who was leaning against the wall behind their backs.
"What? Don't tell me you're scared." Karina said sarcastically, taking a bite of her sandwich. She seemed to be angrier than usual, but that was probably just Akane.
"Of course not. I… just… It's just that nobody else wanted to join you - us, so far." Akane said, avoiding her gaze.
"You didn't have to remind me." Karina admitted, though with even more venom in her voice. Akane thought that maybe they should just give up trying to find people to go to a mafia competition with them. She felt weird when she asked people and they gave her weird looks.
"You? A mafia? Competition? On your team?" A certain someone had said. "No, thank you." After that, the girl had left and Akane felt as if some rumors about her was going on… Ones that she didn't know about. Of course, she didn't want to know about them anyways, she already had enough to deal with.
Ever since she got into high school, Akane had made herself an enemy of a few individuals. It all happened very quickly. It was the beginning of the term, and there were some great games that the school had organized. The higher grades prepared rewards and all were exciting and people were buzzing. It was then that Akane had won a game of 'whack the mole' and beat four other girls who were playing against her team. After that, the girls held a grudge on her and unfortunately, they were the 'queen girls' of the school. They then warned her not to do anything stupid anymore and started spreading rumours about her. Of course, since they were the popular kids, their rumours spread quite quickly. If it wasn't for the Sawada twins, Yoritomo, and sometimes Umira, Akane would be a loner. She had wondered how people could be so childish even in 8th grade.
"Akane! Kari!"
Akane jerked up when Yoritomo called their names. She whipped her head around and wavered on the step out of dizziness, gripping the edge of it to regain balance.
"What is it?" Karina asked, clearly annoyed about how he had disturbed the peace.
"What are you two doing here? There's only two minutes of lunch break left!" He said casually, tipping his head towards the door that lead back into the school.
"E-eh? Two minutes left? But it's only been… like… ten minutes!" Akane said.
Yori took in the whole sight: two girls sitting on a narrow strip of concrete, with the wind blowing hard and them seeming ready to jump off at any second. Well, maybe not Kari. She was casually leaning back against the fence and eating her sandwich.
"...Goodness, chibi, were you trying to commit suicide?" There was a pause before Yoritomo said anything to Akane.
"Of course not!" Akane said, feeling exasperated. She started crawling back over the waist high wall and cautiously stepping onto the school's actual roof. "And that is off topic, and don't call me chibi!" She frowned.
"Okay, okay. Stop arguing, you two. We need to get to class now!" Karina interrupted. "It's like you two have some secret relationship. Like you two are flirting constantly, every single day through these small arguments that none of you have with others," Karina added with an evil smile, deliberately glancing at Akane's light brown eyes and nudging her towards Yoritomo to provoke her.
"What!? No! I wasn't flirting!" Akane exclaimed, face red, letting the provocation succeed. She felt even more exasperated. Yoritomo didn't say a word. He just shrugged ever so lightly, and turned to walk back through the door and into the school.
"Wait! Yori!" Karina shouted. "I need to ask you something!" She then chased after him. Akane paused, knowing what Karina was up to and groaned. "It's not going to work. We've already asked so many people. Who wants to become a mafia when they can have a bright future and lead a great life?" Why did she even believe Karina about this whole mafia business? Why couldn't she be less gullible? If it was all some cruel joke from Kari, Akane felt that she would kill her.
Karina stopped in her tracks. "Akane, you, after all these days –"
"It's only been two days, Kari-chan."
"Whatever! After all these days, you never asked Yoritomo to join us!"
"Eh? I was supposed to?"
"Actually, yes! Yori is actually someone I, er, we trust and know! A perfect candidate! Besides, I already told Kazuto that Yoritomo would be joining us."
Akane facepalmed. "Karina!" She whined, drawing out the vowels.
"Shut up, Akane. Oi, Yori! You will join us, the mafia?" It came out of Karina's mouth more like a statement... With a slightly lifted tone at the very end.
Then the bell rang, drowning out Yoritomo's response. But through his facial expressions, Akane could tell that he agreed. She mentally facepalmed herself, wondering how she got such weird friends who would agree to anything, and how she got herself into all this mess, then ran to Chemistry.
...
"Umira-chan~" Akane heard Karina's voice say behind her. Her dark-haired friend would only say such a thing in such a sweet voice when... She facepalmed herself – this time not mentally – and loudly. The whole class turned to her, and looked at her glaring red forehead.
Karina shot Akane her best evil eye, and continued to whisper to the class president.
"Chiruma-san, do you need to go to the nurse?" the teacher and many students asked Akane. Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet! was what she thought. She needed to hear what Kari was saying to Umira's. "Um… yes. No, wait! I mean no! I meant no!" Despite her protests, what was said could not be undone. They picked Salazar, out of all the people in her class ("He needs to know where it is anyways!" they had said.), to take her to the nurse's office. Surprisingly, Umira didn't follow when Akane was hustled out with Salazar. Was what Karina said to Umira so interesting that it distracted Umira from silver-haired people? Akane sighed, wondering how she could have hurt herself so badly.
They were walking along the corridors of the school in silence for a while when Salazar suddenly spoke.
"Akane-chan?" Salazar said, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"Akane-san," she corrected, and started to walk down the stairs, hands rubbing the red spot on her head.
"Anyways, I just wanted to ask something…"
"What?" Akane snapped, though not intentionally. Her head hurt way too badly.
"Are you crazy?" At this, she turned to him.
What? Do I seem crazy to you?" Akane laughed, annoyed. "There's more rumours about me now?" Akane expected Salazar to laugh but he didn't, which made Akane feel uneasy.
"Um... Actually, yeah." Salazar said after a long pause. Akane then knew that what she just said as a joke was stupid and actual.
"Oh... It happens..." Akane said, trailing off. She then forced a smile and shrugged. "What did they say?"
"Nothing, really. Not much."
They were both quiet for a moment. "So, um… what's with all the mafia business?"
The hazel haired girl shrugged. "Nothing, really. Anyways, here we are. The nurse's office."
...
Akane pushed open the door, and beckoned for Salazar to go in first. However, instead of seeing a young woman with her hair tied up in a bun, she saw a man with black hair that seemed a bit like octopus tentacles. He also had conspicuous white hair.
Dr. Shamal smiled, "A pretty girl to visit me? For free? I love this school."
Akane frowned. Where was the usual nurse? "Excuse me sir, where's –"
"Ru-chan? Ah, she got sick."
No one called the nurse by her first name, much less Ru-chan. Was he her… father? He seemed a bit too old to be her boyfriend or husband.
"Okay, um, could you help me look at my head?"
Shamal motioned for her to sit down in the chair next to him. "What happened to your head? Ah, those are some pretty curls. Did you dye it to be this beautiful hazel color? They match your eyes perfectly, I must say."
"Don't try to flirt with her, and you have tons of noticeable white hair because of your age – agh!" Salazar yelped as he tripped over Shamal's foot. The doctor pretended not to notice, and moved his foot back to where it was before.
"I know a great dining place on Airuregi Boulevard, or maybe you want to go on a picnic at the park near the school?"
"Thanks…? But we're not in a relationship, doctor. Scolle-san recently just transferred here, and I'm not really interested in him, though some others are," Akane replied, her face heating up.
Shamal chuckled, then shot a groaning Salazar a dirty look. "I didn't mean him, that wretched, mannerless boy. Would you like to go with me?" He scooted his chair closer to Akane, and placed his hand on the red spot, but his fingers fiddling with her short bangs. "That is one great bump you've got there. Whatever did you do to cause it?"
Akane's face turned beet red, and she sprang up, accidentally kicking Salazar, who was lying down on the floor in pain from tripping over Shamal's foot, in the stomach. He clutched his stomach and shouted random words, rolling around the floor.
"Mister, I would have to caution you to not harass me like that. I can report you to the principal," Akane said shakily. Who was this guy? Why would the school even allow someone like him to be a nurse? Oh, how she wished Karina was by her side right now.
"BLOODY HE – SOMEONE HELP ME! YOU'RE A DOCTOR, AREN'T YOU?"
"I don't treat men. I specialize in women," Shamal said lightly.
"DO YOU KNOW HOW WRONG THAT SOUNDS?!" Salazar shouted, still clutching his stomach. He can still be so sarcastic in pain, Akane thought. "JUST TREAT ME, YOU NUTTER!"
Akane looked down at the poor boy in agony, and felt a wave of pity. Her forehead didn't seem to hurt that much anymore, so she might as well have the doctor treat Salazar instead. Besides, it would be nice to get the doctor off her back. But first, she needed information.
The girl crouched down to Salazar. "Scolle-san, if the doctor treats you, will you tell me what the others said about me?" Though Akane's voice sounded how it was usually like, there was a hint of threat.
"YEAH! SURE! I WOULD'VE TOLD YOU IF YOU ASKED BEFORE THIS ANYWAYS!"
"I thought I asked…?"
"YOU ONLY ASKED ME WHAT THEY SAID, NOT TO TELL YOU WHAT THEY SAID!"
Akane blinked. Normal people wouldn't be so… picky? He was playing with her words, like many villains in fairy tales did. Shrugging it off, she told the doctor to treat Salazar's wounds; if he had any. Dr. Shamal agreed, though rather reluctantly, as Akane noticed. After the boy had stopped yelling and swearing, Chiruma dragged him away from the doctor, and they started up the stairs.
...
"Akane-san!" Akane turned at the sound of her name and saw a girl with purple hair and eyes and red glasses running - no - stumbling towards her.
She stopped in her tracks to face the class president. The school bell had just rung a few minutes ago. What would she have to say? Ah, yes, of course. Salazar. "Oh, um…"
Umira raised a hand to silence her. How Akane wished she had that power. It would be so useful with Kari. "Karina-san told me everything. The mafia? I would love to join the team!"
"Honestly? Tha–"
"It's just like in those manga and comic books! This is going to be great! You know, all the 'pow!'s' and 'whoosh's' and all!" Umira said, waving her hands around. Akane had never seen her like that before.
"Oh, uh... Well then. That's, heh, great!" Akane managed to say. She noticed that Umira, for once, spoke without all those big words and seems to actually be using sound effects (Umira: onomatopoeia! Kari: No one cares!) for words... Which was extremely rare. Well, this was actually the only time Akane heard Umira talk like that.
Just as Umira was about to say something, Karina and Yori arrived. Umira shut her mouth and waved to the two. "Hi! So, when is the competition starting?"
Karina pursed her lips. "A few weeks later, but there's a training session that all teams have to go to this week at Tokyo."
"Alright! So, the four of us are going?"
"Um…"
Karina pulled Akane to the side, 'to talk to her about some private things'.
Or maybe she was just planning to kill her.
"Kari-chan -"
The dark-haired girl raised a hand to silence her. How come everyone but Akane could do that? It wasn't like she never tried it before; she'd tried it on Karina and earned a laugh.
"Shut up. Listen, the competition starts tomorrow, and we don't have enough people. So far, there's only you, me, Yori, and Kawasaki. We need three more people to make a team of seven, or we can't enter."
"Okay. So…?"
"So we need more people, dumbo!"
"Why don't you just go ask Scolle-san then?" Akane said tentatively. "He might agree. He's new, and new to the rumors about me, so –"
"Why didn't you ask him before then, Aka-chan? Besides, we've only known him for a few days. Can't trust him."
"Well, um, we could get Kazu-kun to join!"
Kari's face darkened at this, and Akane began to worry for her life. Weren't Kazuto and Karina usually on pretty good terms? They sure squabbled a lot, but that was normal sibling behaviour, right? At least, Akane was pretty sure that was how siblings usually were like. She had a dog, she had a father, but she didn't have any siblings.
After a while, when there was no reply from Karina, Akane began to move back towards Umira and Yoritomo. Had she gone too far and offended Karina on a huge scale? If so, how? Who knew what would happen to her if Kari suddenly exploded?
"U-um… Kari-chan?"
Akane was met by silence. She sighed and walked back towards the group, one eye on her friend in case she decided to suddenly attack.
"KAZUTO THAT DISGUSTING LITTLE CREEP WON'T BE JOINING US!" Karina suddenly shouted, slamming a fist against the wall.
"Alright, alright… c-calm down…" Akane went over to her long-haired friend, trying to calm her down, and 'comfort' her, whatever comfort meant to Kari.
"Hang on," Yori spoke up, breaking his usual silence. "You," he looked towards Karina. "Never call your brother 'Kazuto' unless you're mad at him. What happened between you two?
When Karina began to protest, he held up a hand to silence her. Akane blinked. There it was again. The magic hand. It could even silence Kari.
"As your brother's best friend, I deserve the right to know."
"THEN GO ASK HI –"
Yoritomo held his hand up even higher. His left hand went through his black hair, making it even messier than usual. It wasn't like he tried to make it messy; it was just like that. "I want to hear it from you."
Karina glared at Yori, spun on her heels, and walked off.
...
Akane was in her bedroom, trying to decide whether or not to pack. She had these little arguments between herself daily. Should I do this, or should I do that? Sometimes, she had them in front of Kari, which annoyed her friend to an extreme extent. Unlike Akane, Karina was more of a 'i feel like doing this now and so i'm going to do it no buts no ifs i don't care' type of person, while Akane was a 'no but should i do this or that because if i do this then i don't need this but then if i do that Kari might get mad and i'll get in trouble and die so what should i do' type of person. Karina had said that they would go to a Vongola training session this weekend.
But based on Karina's reaction to Yoritomo's magic hand and surprisingly long talk (at least for Yori, it was long), Akane was unsure whether or not they were going to Tokyo tomorrow. They did need seven people, and they only had four. That type of obstacle wouldn't really get to Kari, but if she and Kazuto really had a bad fight…
Though it didn't seem like it, Akane could tell that Kari depended on her twin a lot for many things. He was someone that she subconsciously depended on, no matter what happened. it did seem like the two were pretty cold to each other today, which was odd for them. They would either start quarreling or tease Akane together every morning. Instead, they just… sat at their desks. The Sawada twins even arrived at school separately that day, which surprised everyone in the class and caused rumors to spread. Akane had thought nothing about it, but now that Yori had brought it up in a more serious manner…
"Akane! It's for you!"
The girl ran down the stairs towards her father, who was holding the phone out towards her. He looked tired, as he always did these years. When Akane saw him, he was either working, eating, or reading the newspaper. Not riding in a car whenever he could. Trying to ignore Felix, their dog, which was a hard thing for him to do. For the past two years, he was trying to avoid anything that would remind him of her mother.
Felix, who was practically raised by his master, found this unnerving. He would run to his master whenever he could, and snuggle up close by. Akane even found her father avoiding her, his own daughter, out of all the people in the world! But she understood, and said nothing about it. Instead, she tried to help him get out of it in subtle ways. Reminding him of the good memories, trying to make it feel like his wife was there by him, and it was working, though slowly.
Akane took the phone from Mr. Chiruma, and held it to her ear.
"Hello?"
"PACK YOUR THINGS, AKA-CHAN!"
Felix jumped and growled at the loud voice, and Akane threw the phone away in fright, towards her father, and he caught it with great ease. "Is it Karina-chan?" he mouthed, used to her best friend's manners and ways of speaking. Akane nodded in response, and took the phone upstairs where they wouldn't bother Mr. Chiruma.
"What do you mean, Kari-chan?"
Akane heard Karina take a deep breath before she had to hold the phone away from her ear again. "FIRST-OF-ALL-YOU-WOULDN'T-ANSWER-YOUR-CELLPHONE-SO-I-HAD-TO-CALL-YOUR-HOME-PHONE-AND-NO-ONE-USES-THAT-ANYMORE-SORT-OF-ANYWAY-YOU-KNOW-HOW-WE'RE-MISSING-A-LOT-OF-PEOPLE-WELL-IT-DOESN'T-MATTER-WE-CAN-STILL-GO!"
"...So you bribed your dad into letting us go even if we don't have enough members?" Akane asked after a pause to rub her ear.
"Um… no. I sort of didn't tell him. We're technically sneaking into the competition."
...
A few blocks away from the Chiruma household, Karina threw her cellphone away from her ear, which narrowly missed crashing against the wall. She went to her bed, picked up the cellphone, and lay down.
"Don't scare me, Aka-chan. What do you mean by shouting 'WHAT?!' It's not like we can't sneak in."
Her friend's agitated and nervous response was so long, that Kari's attention began to drift to random objects in her room. Posters of her favorite band, pencils, anything to keep her mind off of Akane's long and boring speech.
"...I mean, I know that it's wrong, and I really wish we could go, but–"
"Stop being so indecisive, will you?!" Kari yelled, frustrated. "We're going, and that's the end of it!"
"Um, Kari-chan, didn't your father hear you when you shouted about your 'plan'?"
"No, don't worry. He's still at work. My mom took Yuriko to her friend's birthday party."
"What about Kazu-ku–"
"I heard it."
Karina's sat up at the sound of her brother's voice and scowled at Kazuto, who was at the door. She instantly pressed the 'talk' button to put off speaker. Then she hesitated but hung up on Akane without bothering to say anything, and marched up to her twin. He was leaning casually against the open door, a serious look on his face. "Get. Out. Of. My. Room." she spat through gritted teeth. However, Karina disliked the fact that she had to look up to glare at him in the eyes. They were the same age, so how could Kazuto be half a head taller than her? He was only four minutes older. Only four minutes. Besides, she should be the one looking down on him, not vice versa.
"You do realize that I can tell dad? That you're going to sneak in to the competition?"
The younger Sawada twin rolled her eyes. "Oh, running off to tell daddy, aren't you? What a tattletale."
"Really, Kari, I'm sorry about whatever happened yesterday, but I really don't know what happen -"
"Just shut up, Kazuto. I'll tell you what happened. You turned into a pink fluffy unicorn, throwing up rainbows and casting magic spells."
Her brother sighed exasperatedly. "Kari –"
Too late. Karina had already slammed her door in his face. Literally. She ignored his yelp of pain when solid wood came into contact with his forehead, and slumped back onto her bed. After tying her straight, waist-length hair into a messy ponytail and clipping her bangs back, she heaved out a suitcase and began to pile clothes into it.
Of course, along with many different knives that she stole from the kitchen that night and hid in her closet.
...
"Hello? Kari-chan?" Akane sighed, shaking her head at Karina's quick temper, and went downstairs. "Dad...?"
Mr. Chiruma looked up from the television. He was watching some old black and white movie with no sound. "Yes, Akane?"
"Um, I just wanted to tell you that I'm going out for the weekend."
"To where? And you do realize you have school on Monday?"
Akane fidgeted a bit. "I'll be going to Tokyo with Kari-chan, and maybe some other people. We'll be back just in time for school."
After a moment of silence, he nodded. "As long as you're with an adult, I'm fine with it. Why are you guys going?"
"We're going to a ma-" Akane stopped. Her father looked extremely tired under the dim light of a lamp. Saying that she was going to train for some mafia competition would stress him even more, and she wasn't sure if he was able to handle that. "I mean, we're going to visit one of our old friends."
Her father's eyes flickered back to the television, and he nodded again. After Akane slipped up the stairs, she sighed and lingered there. She hated lying to her dad. Then Akane caught Felix's whine and the jingling of his collar when someone pets the dog. "She's hiding something from me, isn't she?" muttered to Felix. Akane tensed as she heard her father's voice. "But then again, she is already about to go into 9th grade. And teenagers always have their little secrets, don't they?"
Regi: I butchered Shamal's personality, didn't I? QmQ Sorry for the, idek, like, month late update guys. Things got a bit hectic. By the way, why do the Sawadas have so many knives in their kitchen, that after Kari stole a lot, no one noticed? Maybe Haru is actually a really awesome fighter XD with kitchen knives.
Ailurophilek: Yessss, I like that idea.
Regi: Hmmm... Maybe we should use it…
Ailurophilek: This chapter was pretty much written by Regi-chan. So applause for her! See? I'm not evil like Regi said. ;)