A/N : Hi, everyone who is still reading. I hadn't updated ever since *looks at the update date and gasps* 4 months ago?!
I honestly thought it was just 2 months ago...
I'm so so so sorry, I'm just plain busy with school, and yes writer-blocked.
When I came back, everything in this chapter was just so wrong that I rewrote it all. And I'm sooo happy that it only took 2 days! *wootwoot*
As for the replies of the reviews, I'll do it as soon as my schedule stretches just fine! But I'll let you know I've read them all. My infinities of thanks to you! And for those who alerted and faved too!
Her sides were soft, so was her above.
They smelled like springs and lilacs and butterfly touches, and she leaned against them, beneath them, around them; nudging, clenching, feeling her, forgetting.
The blackness embraced her, and she hid herself to crave for more, hoping for it to swallow her whole (lesser to see, lesser to think, lesser to feel, easier to forget). She clutched onto every shadow, and drowned in the mild satisfaction that no one would find her.
It didn't end long.
A line of white cracked in, blinding, as did a playful voice.
"Hey, it's dinner."
She flinched away, almost scared.
"Go away, onii-chan," she told him, half croaking, pulling every trace of darkness around her like a blanket.
"So the closet is your new playroom, huh?"
She stayed still, ignoring the laughter evident in his wake, willing him to go. No, he couldn't see her like this. He'd tease, he'd assume she was weak, he'd find out she was a freak!
If ever he took the hint, he seemed to shrug it off.
"You sure you won't regret?" A sneer remarked, and the light spread wider as the door creaked aloud, "It's your favourite cur-"
"GO AWAY!"
Her back collided against the wooden back of the wardrobe (she could hide no more), sob bubbles bursting as she curled into herself. She wanted nothing but peace and tranquility and darkness could comply it for her, she never asked to be found, she never asked for light, she just wished to be alone once w while.
She didn't want to feel.
Couldn't he understand that?
The silence that followed hurt, for she was sure he had left. Like anybody else did to her. Like Mom. Like Dad. Like them.
Instead, there was a hug, one that was better than the sweet darkness, warmer than the smell of her mother's clothes she had been clinging onto, more than anything.
Before she knew it, her walls had crumbled.
.
.
.
Chapter 3 : Of Shopping and Everything Nice
.
.
.
.Lucy.
Should I relate with an object, I'd say emotions are like some kind of radio waves.
They curve and travel and linger in the air, waiting for a receptor to yield them in. Some are transpired cleanly and coherently, some are between the blurs, while the others remain completely vague. But, unlike those signals who depends on the weather, they always exist albeit circumstances.
A few of them strike like rumbling roller coasters that scream of upside-down chaos, a miniscule of them pelt like a warm downpour in mid-winter, a couple of others are laced with rainbows and sprinkle like condensed sugar.
His was a crossbreed of everything spontaneous: splashed like ice-cold water in a pail, heavy as if swallowing a line of pebbles, flushed like the burning of matches.
But then as short-lived as they surfaced, they were gradually repressed, inch by inch. Not perfectly nor did they were washed completely, but it did just fine to lessen his clenching-unclenching fist, minimize his widened irises, brush the runny nerve out of his way, and render his stance determined.
For some reasons, automatic or not, he had readied a mask.
Oddly though, he reminded me of myself.
"What...," a cough brought me back to my senses, "What gained you that," his brows furrowed in a funny way, seemingly seeking for more appropriate words to say. Lips were then tightly pursing as he found them, "...Rude assumption?"
Rude assumption? I pondered, still bleary with emotions as I watched the dirt beneath my shoes, then the sky and the semi-empty plane, then back to the boy for clue.
At the sight of his finely muscled chest, the thoughtless statement came rushing back, dumping a giant 'oh' on my forehead.
"Are you a runaway exhibionist?"
Ha, me and my stupid single-track minded mouth...
I looked back at him and noticed that he had allowed (or was it 'accidentally slipped'?) a slit of annoyance to grace his feature, tapping his feet impatiently on the ground that I almost saw dusty trails surrounding it.
It sounded mildly entertaining, but it occurred to me that person was trying to keep his cool in front of a stranger. Really, people and their obsession with first impressions...
I could have worded it better, but I blatantly shot it anyway.
"You are...half-naked?"
He craned his neck below, just realizing what I had pointed out in the first place and blinked, twice, thrice, as if he'd grown five tentacles, and red bit on his ears in seconds.
(I swore there was a sound akin to a mixture of pitched squeak and gasp and marvel in the middle of those momentums.)
His mouth gapped to form a come-back and I would have amused myself in his embarrassing predicament if there wasn't a new voice, melodious and feminine, interrupting him.
"Excuse me, are you the one who got my purse back?"
It was a woman; middle-aged, brunette, formal shirt, and Capri pants. She peered expectantly at me.
"Ah," feeling a bit idiotic, I chirped in suddenly, a faint recognition I let dripping freely beneath my words, "Sorry, this should be yours."
The woman took her bag off my wrist, slightly weighing it before a beam bloomed over her lips, a curve of red against brightening dimpled cheeks, grateful and earnest and so so ecstatic, "Thank you so much."
How she didn't even take a second glance to check if her precious objects were really in there was beyond me. For anyone might know, a teenager in their destructive state like me (not that I was brutal or anything) could have taken and used them for anything...imaginable.
It always confused me how someone could be so trusting to someone she just met.
An inner, almost unheard question sprang out and added in disbelief.
And to me, of all people?
I pressed down the swelling feeling inside my chest, it felt pleasant yet too smug to my liking so I breathed it out as I settled on a light-toned, "No problem, Miss."
This broadened the lady's simper before her onyx pools flickered over my shoulders. If possible, it just got even bigger.
I was surprised his bizarre appearance did not faze her.
"Did your friend help?" Seemingly mistaking our surprise with confusion, she corrected, "Are you brothers?"
I gave the 'not-exhibionist' (well, he did deserve a nickname) a look as he did the same (how could she easily assume a blonde and a brunette were ones of the same genetics?), but then our redeemed protest were backtracked by a short gasp of the woman and a swift check to her expensive watch.
"Ah! I'm late for work!" She whispered, loud enough for us to hear, then muttered something in the lines of "Boss is gonna kill me", followed by a string of dignified profanities and a frustrated brush to her mouse-coloured bangs.
"Maybe it isn't much...but here," she forced something she had pocketed to the palm of my hand, her pedicured nails almost digging into my skin, "Bye, and thank you once again, kids! Sorry, I'm in a hurry!"
Thus, she stalked off, tripping once in her journey and disappeared in the distance.
I recovered from my stunned-induced silence, and dragged my eyes down. A crumpled notes of 'not much' 500 Jewels lied within the mounts of my hand.
A sudden epiphany popped inside my head before I could stop myself.
I pointed at the boy, noting that it was the first time he really met my eyes.
"You need a shirt."
"...Were we just kicked out?"
The boy leaned his head backwards, eyes on the shop houses' roof. His spiky locks of raven made a light bristle as it knocked against the wall and he exhaled heavily, as if seeing this thing coming from afar, "Yes. Yes, we were."
I couldn't form a word nor a response, suddenly exhausted. Now that I think about it, who in their right minds would allow someone with an exhibiting tendency to scare the customers out of their store, let alone would hang out with them?
Inwardly, I groaned at the weight of irony. Me that's who...
"You know...we don't have to buy it," he reasoned with a spark of hesitance. Embarrassed or too guilty to burden a person he just met, I was way too baffled to analyze which, "I have spares anyway."
"Spares?" Arms folding, I deadpanned, "At home?"
"...Well duh," he answered a second too late, marking he had just utter it within a whim, then peered at me, head tilting slightly, "We should've gotten you new glasses. They're broken, aren't they?"
"I have spares," I echoed him, feeling his silent smirk as I did, then quickly added, "They are neutral-lensed."
The brunette sighed, one hand traveled up through his hair. He'd done it plenty of times already, "Thing is, this is the only clothing shop nearby," he explained reluctantly, popping my hopes like needles on balloons, "Unless we take another blocks of people staring. There's a good chance of police arresting me for public nudity too."
I snapped my head so viciously at him that my hat almost tipped off its place. His last query horrified me, if not just a little bit. With him captured as a criminal, I, who was walking with him would absolutely be assumed as his comrade. One thing to another would lead me into interrogation, revelation of my disguise, they'd find out I was one of the wealthiest heiress of Fiore, Dad knew, and I'd be sent back home.
I painfully cringed. That kind of situation is just a nonono.
"Then take the money quick and go dress up at home," I suggested out of desperation, but refused to show it.
"We're through about the money thing," he stared head on stubbornly (we had argued about who took it moments ago, ended up in circle and decided to divide it by shopping each of our need). Such concern would have flattered me if I wasn't cursed in a condition such as this.
"Besides, Mom will kill me," his expression drained a shade and somehow I got a feeling that his mom may really have a katana in hand at the sight of him bare-chested and mutilate him in multiple slices, I kinda pity seeing him like that, to be honest, "Why don't you go in alone then?"
His nonchalance appalled me, absorbing my previous tiny-bity pity of him, "You expect me to shop at a men's underwear shop?"
"Afraid of getting lost?" A scoff followed, "You are not a five-year-old, dude."
I almost, almost gave him a disapproving snort about his lack of knowledge in the etiquette department (Aquarius really did rub it on me), before every little cracked pieces of puzzle I hadn't regarded matched themselves together into an unwanted picture.
"He stole it!" The thief had yelled to me.
"Are you brothers?" The face of the smiling lady popped out.
"You are not a five-year-old, dude."
Dude.
Yes, dude.
I gapped behind my fingers, keeping my tongue from splating onto the stone pavement.
No way.
He, no, they all thought I was a dude.
(A beret hiding my hair into a cropped cut, a baggy sweatshirt, baggy jeans, sneakers... I sighed contemplatively, Virgo and her taste of cosplaying me...)
A part of me actually was relieved, because in the name of everything holy I finally got a reason to not enter the store of taboo lingerie and everything not nice! Like, yay.
Are you nuts? Another part of my rationality protested otherwise, He is about your age! What if by any chance, you went to the same school, he knew you as the cross-dressing freak he met in the streets (though unintentional), laughed at your face, and tell it to the world?
(Well, maybe not that world-wide. But hey, people have Facebook and Twitter going on nowadays, do they?)
The idea of my minimal exposure being snatched away before I even had a glimpse of it, scared me as much as being arrested.
I sized him up once more, calmed myself down in a blur of heartbeats and indecisiveness, managing a question of, "Grab an L-sized plain t-shirt and pay?"
I gained a roll of eyes ('are you an idiot or what?'), and in the most unnoticeable manner gulped all my insides.
Pushing the glass doors open, feigning indifference, half-praying the shop owner would just kick me out once again, I was in.
It seemed like a normal, white-painted store with shelves and hangers (as long I didn't stare at all the masculinitaries, everything is well), and I almost concluded that it wasn't all that bad of an experience, until I saw her or rather heard a pair of click-clacking high heels. In place of the burly, stunted, hairy man who kicked us out, there poised a busty woman, all tight in dress and a superficial mole below her eyes.
The speed of the shift change astounded me.
"May I help you?" she bent, intentionally granting me a view of her half-exposed cleavage, a not-so innocent smile on her glossed lips, "Briefs or boxers?"
.Gray.
It was insane that these strange occurrences grew to be so damn normal.
Maybe it was the side effect of my too-often sense of boredom or a little part of my aphatic nature (as appointed by Loke) that even an experience you believed only happened in movies and clichés (I mean, come on, who would have faith in fateful encounters and love at first sight?), would left me un-amazed.
Not that this circumstance was completely expected on my side, nor it was not odd in any way, and that I didn't feel the tiniest bit of surprise but still...
I had the urge to clap my forehead in concern of the nonsense swirling in my head, but then remembered both of my hands were gripping a plastic tray. Unless I wanted the two hotdogs and icy beverages fling somewhere onto a stranger's lap or (not preferably) my face, I rather had to hold it in.
I couldn't fathom for the life of me that I had to agree with the scatter-brained Natsu on this one. Thinking (about useless things) indeed was exhausting.
Catching a sight of grey beret and juts of yellow, I turned into said direction, pulling the red spinning seat under the bar-like table with one of my legs, and plopped the white tray on its wooden, splintered surface.
The boy who was the major source of this so-called 'normal' situation seemed to not acknowledge my presence. One elbow propping his chin, caged brown eyes were glued on the wide glass window positioned to our opposite, in times glancing from left to right, back and forth, as if calculating how many vehicles and excited kids had run by.
I sneered wryly inside. Tough luck with that, Saturday's crowded street was just way too perfect for counting.
Contemplating it would be somewhat rude to call out on him, I pushed the tray slightly more to our in-between's than my front, waiting for the scratchy swish that followed.
This gained his attention wholly as those faraway glints in his caramel pools disappeared, being exchanged with a coat of confusion and finally a dull understanding.
(Or maybe I was just visualizing it, considering his face wasn't any filled with expression than he already was before.)
"Oh. Thanks," the blond kid, who called himself Lucas, muttered, palms scrambled around the hot dog's paper wrapping, fingers pressing against the pillow-like surface that the mustard was ready to burst.
It didn't though, fortunately.
I nodded an answer, peeling my own hot dog off its wrapping and dug in the smell of ketchup and the heat of smoky sausage, realizing that my stomach couldn't lie out of its hunger anymore.
The clock ticked for ages, accompanied with the honks and humps of cars, tipped with childish laughter and pouty whines, and the high-fives of assembling teenagers sitting and leaning around the circle tables. Yet, in contrast of all, neither of us spoke a word or made another eye contact. Just the sound of crumpling papers almost infused with the noisy surrounding, soft nibbles, and slurps to our side that reminded us of the presence of one another.
It was clear that he was off flying to his own world again, while I was forced to devour the silence that lingered.
(And my hot dog of course, but yeah you knew what I meant.)
This empty interval sent me back to my pondering spree, vaguely remembering that there was quite plenty of minutes left to go before dinner. Good thing I stuffed some snacks in, in case we were really going to have some seafood. I'd rather miss dinner than going anyway.
I pulled at my bangs at the thought, frustrated, feeling pathetic. How could I prefer eating with a stranger than my own family?
"Thank you."
I abruptly turned left, slightly unsure if the soft-spoken voice originated from Lucas since his lips had pursed back into biting his food. He had been so quiet (and slightly pale) upon being out of the lingerie store, so I was a little bit relieved on this recovery. Not that he was categorized into the chatty type, but I had the absurd hunch that I had offended him in a way and/or was somewhat the reason beneath his silent treatment.
"Uh...," scratching the back of my head, I replied, doubt lacing my query, "If it's the food, you should thank that woman instead."
He shook his head.
"I am grateful for your help with the thief," he settled shortly, still looking ahead, and I noticed the way he nibbled on the puffy bread. It was a careful bite, not small neither too gluttonous, as if it was set so any sauce won't spill on his cheeks, or even his teeth, and that was saying something. I wouldn't assume it was girly, but if I was lacking for a better term, I would say that it was 'graceful'.
Self-conscious, I licked my upper lip. It tasted of mustard.
"I must thank you too," I decided, taking a sip of my mint-lemon squash, then pinched my new white attire with a thumb and an index finger, "For buying the shirt for me, I mean."
He didn't especially show it, but I got the feeling he was suppressing a grin. The twitch of his lips gave it away.
It was discomforting, because I didn't know whether it was my mind playing tricks on his stoic composure again.
He took a quiet slurp, "I guess tricking the thief with a police ringtone is acceptable."
His statement successfully froze my hand midway, and I was thankful for that short tactfulness for I had almost ended up sticking the blue straw of my drink into my nostrils.
"How do you know?" I slowly asked, pushing back the embarrassed heat crawling through my neck, figuring that denial wouldn't get me anywhere.
He was silent for a short while before answering, "My brother used to prank me all the time."
"With the same ringtone?" I asked.
He shook his head once more.
"No. Crying baby. He said I was pregnant."
I bit back an attack of chortles. Manners, Gray, manners, "And you believed it?"
A pout caught me off guard, "I was four."
With it, the rope to my self control broke loose. Laughter popped out of my guts like confetti, tickling every length of my stiffened nerves. I clamped it with my fingers, but it did nothing to prevent some customers for staring at me like I'd grown three heads and the blond from flattening me with his stare and throwing his head back to the window. His cheeks weren't red and other people would take that he wasn't affected, but I knew he was chewing his insides with his lips pursed too tight.
"Oh joy," he remarked monotonously, "Didn't receive enough of it last Christmas?"
"Sorry," I reduced my stupor, mindlessly patting him on the head, still having the energy to tease him, "Man, you're adorable."
He flinched on my touch, eyes widening considerably for a fraction of second, flickers of something indescribable danced in his pupils before it drowned back into flecks of brown. Then, in the speed of light, he ducked his head low, and hid it with his folded arms on the table with a 'thump'. Lucky they missed the food residue or his long sleeves would certainly be stained.
I didn't fail to see what shade pink his ears had become.
Unfreezing my paused finger in the air, I went back laughing, like it was the last thing I was responsible to do, hitting my fist against my thigh in the process, and wondered the last time I had such fun this way.
Is this how having a little brother like?
(Maybe just maybe, Ultear feels this way too?)
My heart drooped down my stomach and I choked on my chuckles when he startled me once again, this time with his head up.
"These hot dogs...," he started slowly, round face once again devoid of expression, but no hiding that a certain urgency was lied within, "...They do not use dog meat for these, do they?"
.Lucy.
Today I met a strange exhibionist.—
I wrote inside my head, as I walked ahead the road full of houses, a piece of memo in possession.
—And humiliated myself in front of him God knows how many times.
I clenched the small, worn-out paper, finding a sudden wish to tear it off to abstract pieces as did my mental diary, but then remembered Yoga (breath in, breath out, repeat) and gained control of myself.
It's not like I'm screwed, I cheered myself up. The school's disguise is different so he won't recognize, he didn't even ask on my suspicious big bag so my secret's safe and sound, my exposition's won't be threatened and everyone will live happy ever after, yet...
No one, other than my big brother, had ever laughed at me that way.
The thought was so abrupt and piled that I blinked at its force.
It was a fact nonetheless. And a bitter one to boot.
I rested a palm on top of my head in reflex. It was warm and it lingered on my skin.
"No one but Mom ever pat me like that too," I voiced aloud to the sky, a thing I found myself often did when I was alone. I wasn't sure what I expected, but it seemed to be the only inkling form of hope that hadn't subsided, that he in all illogical ways would return even after he had left, that wherever he was, he could answer me in connection of the same sky we loved and lived under.
I halted on my step, my right toe knocking with an empty can with a thud.
(Hope, what is it again?)
I picked the can up, threw it at the nearby trash bin. It rolled on the tip of the large square bin, before dropping into the hole, its hollow clank of emptiness echoed within.
(And so did I throw the dreamy, faraway recollections away, glad it wasn't that painful to do so anymore.)
I skidded to another stop. This time, with a clear destination.
To my left, stood a two-storey house with number 21 stamped on its mail box with curvy, white lines.
Number 21, Strawberry St., Magnolia City, my crumpled memo convinced me.
I took my first step towards the fenceless narrow path towards the door which suddenly burst open noisily.
The next second I knew, my butt had hit hard on the ground as a blur of white and barks and black braids all came at once to my senses.
"How-dee!" A little girl about 4 who I believed had jumped off the tree somehow, yelled with a high-pitched voice as she kneeled on my sprained stomach (ouch), and a little Cihuahua who I later regarded as Plue, licked my cheeks wet.
The toddler grinned brightly, "Welcome home!"
Plue barked happily.
.
.
"Sensei thinks I'm troublesome again today."
He escalated a blond brow, all urges of tease and jokes were erased on the serious note of her tone, before popping a question.
"She said that to you?"
She shook her head, "No, I know so."
"What did you do?"
She played with her fingers, watching as the hem of her skirt shuffled, "...I broke her vase."
There was a slip of silence before came the long awaited, "Why?"
This time, he found her eyes; lost and sad and angry.
"She never scolds me like she does to everyone else."
(Nor ever one dares to laugh at her front either.)
'We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.'
-Paul Laurence Dunbar
A/N : Well, that's it! I dunno if my writing is getting rusty, I apologize if it does! ;_;
Reviews are truly treasured :3
p.s : I changed the summary. I know I'm such a derp...
~snowdrop03
Last edited : December 6, 2012