Eventide
Chapter XVII
Oh man, that night had been awful. Since Soul couldn't safely get me to the barn when the moon was up and the stars twinkling, all the Meisters had to get to the apartment. Let's just say, in Soul and Wes's small apartment with six shirtless guys with sweaty bodies, the testosterone level is high in the air and even I couldn't keep my eyes off their wet abs.
Well, especially since you are sandwiched between a shirtless Soul and a shirtless Wes on a very much too small couch for all of us to fit in.
"Dude, are you serious?"
"That can't be! No Kishin can break through the blood lines!"
"This Kishin is way too intelligent than the others!"
"We are going to be fucked if we don't kill it soon!"
"Everyone shut the fuck up!" Black*Star hollers, successfully shutting everybody up. "Let the man talk so he can explain everything!"
Soul sighs, running a hand through his hair, his sweaty body gluing into my naked arm. Oh why didn't they get an air conditioner? Seriously, I won't be able to handle all of these naked upper bodies forever, how does even Tsubaki do it? She is the only female here along with me, but she just stands beside Black*Star, not seeming to bother at all.
"Alright everyone." Soul says and I can smell the sweat radiant from his body. Oh his manly scent mixed with his even more amazing deodorant. "This Kishin can obviously shift into a human. That is the only way for it to get pass the blood lines. Also, this Kishin must be able to shift into a physical body in its Kishin form." Soul stands up and I feel his sweaty skin leaving patches of sweat on my body. "Our only target from now on is to kill that Kishin. That Kishin threats us and other humans."
"Hold on!" Kilik says, crossing his arms over his naked chest. "How are we supposed to find it? If it can shift into a human, then it could be anyone."
"If you haven't forgotten," Kid says, "Kishins still can't hide from us. Their souls can't be concealed. They are still tainted and if we use our Soul Perception, we will see their soul is tainted like a Kishin's."
"Yes." Soul says. "That is correct. Everyone needs to stay sharp and use your Soul Perception as often as you can, especially if you are close to Maka. The Kishin's motive as we know is Maka. She can never walk around without at least one Meister with her. We are no longer safe in daylight. It can control the dark so it can make the sun go away at any given moment."
"What are we going to do now?" Chrona asks while he skittishly rubs his arm.
"We are going to go in pairs. Black*Star, you will stay behind with Wes and Maka. If the Kishin returns I want you to give us the signal." Soul answers. "We are all going to leave in ten minutes." Soul informs everybody which they will be going with while all of them puts on their shirts and arms themselves with daggers, swords, guns and Kilik grabs his special iron gloves. What is he supposed to do with them? Beat the Kishin to death?
Soul assigns them the areas they will be scouting before they all leave one pair at a time. Tsubaki shares a quick passionate kiss before she and Soul leaves, without Soul even giving me a goodbye. They all leave the small apartment and only Wes, Black*Star and I remain inside of the apartment.
"Man," Black*Star sighs as he crashes down on the seat beside me. "I wanted to get some excitement too, not being locked here on babysitting duty."
"Black*Star." Wes hisses. "Don't be selfish. Don't forget, Soul made you stay behind for a reason. You are obviously a very strong Meister and if the Kishin arrives here tonight, you will be able to handle it while Maka and I escape."
"Well," Black*Star puffs out his chest. "If you put it that way, I am the strongest Meister out there. I will wope that Kishin's ass flat with my left hand!"
Oh dear… Why did Wes have to buff his ego?!
Black*Star keeps going on and on about how amazing he is and how he will be the one to Kill the Kishin with his "godly skills."
How does Tsubaki even stand him? I have been sitting beside him for a few minutes, listening to his rant about himself, and I want to take a knife and cut his tongue out to get him to shut up. Stein could always fix his tongue afterwards if he was still alive.
"I can't stand this." I get up from the couch and I feel the sweat sticking to my tank top. "I'm going to go to my room." Or rather, Soul's room he just happened to give it to me since he hasn't been using it for some time now.
"Okay, I will start making dinner soon." Wes informs just before I close the door and flop down on Soul's large bed. Taking a deep inhale of Soul's pillow, his scent is long gone and replaced with my own. I miss his scent. It feels like it was an eternal since Soul and I got a moment alone to just talk. Weren't we going to get to know each other? It isn't going that well if we aren't with each other or even look at each other. Sometimes I wish that Kishins could just disappear and I could live a normal life. Have a normal boyfriend who doesn't kill Kishins at night. Have a normal family who I come home to every day after school to eat dinner with. Just a perfectly normal life.
I turn on my back.
A knock on the window almost sends me flying through the ceiling. Quickly I look out of the window and I see blond hair and blue eyes looking at me.
Quickly I open the window and Hiro smiles wide toward me. "Finally, I have been trying to get a hold of you for forever." Hiro jumps inside and onto the bed. "We need to talk." His blue eyes almost seem to light up the darkness inside of Soul's bedroom.
"Sure, but Black*Star and Wes are inside of the living room. We will have to be really quiet then." I whisper to Hiro.
Hiro smirks wide while he gets off the bed and lifts up the mattress. "Nah, we will go outside. Don't worry, I will keep you safe. I know a great place to hide away from people and Kishins." Hiro digs with his hand under the mattress before he retrieves something underneath it before he stuffs it inside of his jacket. "I will return it once we get back, but I will need it in order to get you to understand."
"Wait, what if Wes and Black*Star discovers I'm not here?" I ask.
"Don't worry, we won't be gone for long." Hiro climbs back up on the window and extends his hand toward me.
I take a second to look at his face and then back at his hand before I take it. He hoists me up on the window sill to then help me down the apartment. We were quite high up but it didn't take long for Hiro to help me climb down the tree that grew outside of Soul's window. Very convenient.
My feet hit the ground and Hiro follows just a second after. "Come on, we better get going." Hiro grabs my hand and we both start to jog away. "There are no Kishins around, but if you go into your spiritual form, then they will flock here. The best cover is to stay in our physical form and blend in with the others."
Hiro is very careful. We sneak through gardens and he looks around every corner before we run toward the next house. I have to admit, all the sneaking around in the dark is kind of exciting. I have never done something like this before. We go in a zig-zag pattern until we reach our destination, which proves to be a tree house. It very large for being a treehouse, it is made out of wood planks and it is obvious a grown person with building skills built it.
"Climb up." Hiro says while grabs the ladder and holds it toward me. "I will be right behind you." I grab the ladder and climb up until I reach the inside of the tree house, which is nicely decorated with a small table set and a two person couch. It is very nice decorated for a tree house.
Hiro climbs up the ladder and hoist himself up. "You have to keep an open mind, okay?" Hiro quickly says while he takes a seat on the couch.
"Is it really that bad what you are going to say?"
"Depends. I just want all the cards to be laid out, you know, so you know everything. I know Soul is good at keeping secrets and avoiding topics. I bet he hasn't told you it." He pats the seat beside him. I walk up to the couch and take a sit beside him, leaving some space between us. "Do you know anything about the one rule Soul's gang has?"
Rule? Soul has never said anything about any rule. "No, he hasn't told me."
"What a surprise." He says with sarcasm dripping from his mouth. "It all started when Soul and Black*Star started the group. I came along not that long afterward and it was just the three of us, well, technically four of us." Hiro pulls out the object from inside of his jacket and it proves to be a photo. A photo of Soul and a pink haired woman.
Soul looks utterly at peace, he smiles wide and his eyes sparkle with joy and― and love. Love for the woman who kisses his cheek. Soul has his arm around her and pulls her close to him while she has her arms wrapped around his neck. The two of them look absolutely content and love and passion just radiating from them. I don't think I have ever seen Soul look this in love and this happy. I have seen him smile, but they always were very small, but this smile, it is ten times larger and expresses so much emotions and love.
"This is Kim. She is Soul's first love and as far as I know, he isn't over her."
I bite my lower lip and my heart twigs in pain. It hurts more than I want to admit, all of those exchange of words, all of those kisses and promises, they were all lies?
"Kim is Stein's daughter. As soon as Stein got word about Soul was dating Kim, he tried to stop them as well as he could. It wasn't until he made a very important offer to Soul, Black*Star and me. He offered us his medical services and in exchange Soul and all Meisters would stay away from Kim. She is a Meister like us, but Stein wants her to have a normal life, therefore he doesn't want any Meisters around her." Hiro sighs. "At first Soul didn't want to accept the offer, and me and Black*Star almost forced the offer on him since we both knew we needed it. Soul came to accept it, and that is when he accepted the offer. Soul was heartbroken when he broke up with Kim." Hiro grabs my hand and entwines our fingers together. "I'm not going to lie, I pulled a very dirty trick. I knew Stein was suspecting something was going on between Soul and Kim and I had promised not to tell anyone about their relationship, but I sold him out and told Stein about it. Soul found out and ever since then, he has hated me for it."
"Why would you sell Soul out? I mean, you three must have been very close friends." I feel like I want to cry. The little feelings I had grown for Soul had literally shattered because I knew it was true. Just the look Soul had in the picture is proof enough not just me, but all of Soul's previous girlfriends, we were just rebounds for this one girl named Kim.
I was right from the very beginning. Soul only wanted to use me, just not as a rebound from Jacqueline, but from Kim. He is still in love with him. When he had talked about Kim, Soul seemed to be in such a happy daze, he clearly remembered her and how much he loves her. Not me. Not Jacqueline or any other girlfriend.
"He was spinning out of control. His love for Kim blinded him, and he became more and more reckless. He put Black*Star and I in danger by skipping going out at night and fighting the Kishins, instead he was with Kim. One night, Black*Star was so hurt I couldn't do it anymore. Their relationship had to stop or else one of us would end up dead because of their romance. It went too far and I had to get Soul to realize the danger he put us in, but he never understood it."
Hiro squeezes my hand and I have to admit, it kind of soothes my aching heart.
"So that is why you two have been fighting."
He chuckles. "More like he fought with me. I never had anything against him. As soon as we made the deal with Stein, I left the group because Soul kept freezing me out and snapping at me. It didn't make it any better that everybody seemed to take his side. I don't dislike Soul, I think he is a good guy, it is just some things he has done that are very stupid and irrational."
"And what might those things be?"
Hiro sighs and he looks down at our entwine hands. "Many things that revolve around you, first, keeping your true identity away from you, second, not telling you everything about Kishins and Meisters, third, he is taking far too many risks with you. He isn't protecting you properly and he isn't playing safe with you. He is taking far too many risks with you." His eyes wander up to mine and they lock. "In my own opinion, he is failing you. Everybody there is failing you. They aren't teaching you what you need to know, all they are doing is failing you and you know the worst part of it, you don't even know how badly they are failing you."
"Then enlighten me, how do you think they should treat me?" I feel like I want to disappear. I feel disconnected from Soul and I feel like I need someone else to help me. The Kishins won't stop coming at me, I need to know how to fight them properly. It was Hiro who has been the one to tell me the whole truth that Soul tried to hide from me.
"He shouldn't have left you alone with the Kishin running the streets. I have been spying on him and I can tell you that he has been looking at the wrong places. If I was the one in charge, I would have had you hand-cuffed to my hand. I would take you out at night and let you see how real Meisters live instead of keeping you tugged away in a corner. I would teach you everything I knew about fighting Kishins and how to kill them. The best way of protecting you is by teaching you to fight because we all know you are a Grigori. You are a very important piece in the Meister world. Grigories are the ones who are the most deadly to the Kishins. You are the one who can make a change in this toxic world. You are the only one that can truly stop the Kishins."
"Hiro." I whisper, looking into his eyes.
"You are the light we need." Hiro cups my cheek, his face much closer to mine than it had been. "We all need you." And the next moment Hiro's lips crush against mine. He presses his lips against mine while he caresses my cheek with his thumb. The kiss doesn't send shivers down my spine, it doesn't make my fingers tingle. I don't feel anything kissing Hiro. Even though I don't feel anything, it was quite nice.
Hiro pulls away and he chuckles. "I don't know about you." He whispers and he releases my hand and my cheek. "But I didn't feel anything."
"Me too!" Okay, maybe I was a little too quick and too cheerful. "I mean, I didn't feel anything either."
"So staying friends sounds good to you to?"
I nod happily.
A sudden shriek goes off and the dark sky lights up with a bright red light.
"That's the signal." Hiro quickly gets up from his seat on the couch. "They know you are missing."
My eyes widen and I spring up from the couch. "What?! They know? What am I going to do now?"
Hiro chuckles. "You know what I told you, about seeing the real life of a Meister, we could start tonight."
Tonight? It sounds like a great idea actually also a very stupid, dangerous and reckless decision, but he is right. I can't keep being kept inside of a glass locker like a fragile doll. I need to learn and I have always learned better under pressure. The previous fight outside of the restaurant, I might have flipped out, but that was the moment I learned how to shift into my spirit form and using the Soul Force. I might just be able to do it again.
I smirk wide. "Bring it on. I'm ready."
Let's go and kill some Kishin bitches.