I woke up startled by nothing, I don’t even know why I woke up like that. Guess I was just hoping I would wake up back at the apartment in my so-so comfortable sleeping bag. Instead I woke up in the tent in the sewers, right next to Alice who was still sleeping. I was kinda having a panic attack as the realization of the situation hit me, all of that wasn’t a dream.
Nancy put her hand on my shoulder and that even startled me more.
“It’s ok.” Nancy comforted me. “Everything’s fine. Did you have a bad dream?”
“No.” I responded “I’ve just. Been through a lot.”
“I understand. We’ve all been there.”
“Guess so.” I stood up from the sleeping bag and looked over at Alice who was surprisingly sleeping very peacefully. If I'm still going through the trauma as well, then who knows how Alice is feeling right now.
“If you want to talk about it then I’m all ears.” Nancy said, rolling up my sleeping bag for me.
“I don’t know if you’re ready to hear it.” I responded. “I’m ready to tell you, but.” I looked over at Alice. “We should talk somewhere else.”
“Ok.”
Nancy and I walked out of the tent to see the other people around the campfire again. The absolute heinous smell hit my nose and I almost vomited but managed to keep it in my throat. Me and Nancy walked around a dark corner so no one else could see us.
“Is this ok with you?” Nancy asked.
“Yeah, hopefully no one is eavesdropping on us.” I said, peering around the corner again. Once I knew that no one else was around, I looked over at Nancy and started telling her about what has happened these past few days. Unlike when I told Alice about the night that Eric murdered two people in front of me. I never choked up during any parts, even about the part of finding my parents dead on the floor. The only thing I didn’t tell her was about me and my brother’s fight with Runasi. There’s never really gonna be a good time to tell anyone that I was the first person to ever hit Runasi Haruhiko. Nancy was in disbelief of the story I told her and she gave me a hug.
“I’m so sorry you two had to go through that.” Nancy began to cry. “Kids these days have to go through the most terrible shit.” She wasn’t crying that much but I would still feel some tears hitting my shoulder. The most terrible thing about any of this is that I didn’t shed a single tear at all. Like I've gotten too used to telling my story. Even back when I saw my parent’s bodies, I couldn’t even muster up the tears. My mind went into immediately finding a way to survive without our parents, like it was just a minor inconvenience. Have I gotten desensitized to this? Am I that emotionless? What the fuck is wrong with me?
After the hug was over Nancy tried over and over to comfort me. But I just didn’t hear her, I couldn’t. There was too much on my mind to even give the effort to listen. All of my attention was on how emotionless I was during that whole ordeal. I should’ve been balling my eyes out, just like when I saw my brother die right in front of me.
When I heard Nancy walk away over to her tent and leave me alone. I assume she noticed my silence and let me be alone with my thoughts. I couldn’t move as I stood there in the darkness left alone with my thoughts. The thought of that is just eating me up inside and I don’t know what to do with this feeling, I feel like I need to tell someone but I’m afraid what they would think of me.
Slinca! Slinca would hear me out! I need to talk to her, she won’t judge me as much as other people. I’m sure of it! Don’t know what time it is but that doesn’t matter, I just know that she’ll be at the Yurinami fight school.
I ran over to the tent and opened it up to see Alice waking up from her slumber. She looked up at me and ran at me. She hugged tightly around my waist. I took her by the shoulder and forced her off of me.
“I need to go somewhere, but don’t worry! I’ll be back before you know it.” I said, kneeling down to her level.
“No! Don’t leave me alone!” Alice yelled, hugging onto me again.
“I’m not leaving you alone. Nancy will look after you.”
“I don’t want Nancy to look out for me! I want you to look out for me!”
“I’ll be there to look out for you, I just need to do something. I promise I’ll be back.”
Alice cried as I let go of the hug and got Nancy to agree to looking out for Alice for today, though I knew it was gonna be hard for her. I just need to tell someone, I’m not even gonna stay around for the lesson, I’m just going to drop out of the school. It doesn’t matter anymore, all that matters is to just talk to Slinca about this. I left the camp without having the thought of bringing any weapons with me. I took the way back I took last night and ended up at the ladder leading up to the surface. My body went up the ladder so fast and I opened the manhole cover with my arms and climbed up into the surface.
The sunlight took me a second to get used to the brightness outside, since my eyes were getting used to the darkness of the sewer. Once my eyes adjusted, the sight of the Yurinami school greeted me. For some reason, just looking at the building made me angry, I don’t know why but it just did. Though there was a detail that I noticed, the sun was usually at a different height then it used to be when I arrived here. It has to be nine, but usually school starts at eight. So I’m just an hour after class has started.
I don’t know if they’ll let me in this late but I need to give it a shot. So, I walked up to the door and gave it a hardy knock. To my shock a camera came out of the side of the building and looked directly at my face. I was taken aback but managed to keep my cool and started speaking to the camera.
“Hello!” I greeted. “I’m Lee Pulpis and I'm a student here. Sorry I was a little late.”
I was hoping that whoever was looking at me at that moment would let me in. Apparently it was as I heard a click from the door. I presumed that the click was the door unlocking so I reached out and opened the door to go inside of the Yurinami fight school.
Once I opened the door I saw all of the other student’s eyes look at me, every single one of them. It looked like the training was already in place. Everyone immediately went over to me and started talking to me, but all of their voices mixed in together and I couldn’t hear anything of what they were saying. At the same time I was confused why everyone was acting like this, am I really that well liked around here? I had thought that until I heard Penny say something that shattered that.
“Why did you fight Runasi!?”
What? How the fuck does she know? She wouldn’t have known, so how the fuck does she know? Wait, don’t tell me.
“Everyone back away from the special one!” Yurinami announced coming over and pushing everyone out of the way. He wrapped his arm around my neck like he was a long time buddy with me and began walking over to where there were no other people to hear him. While walking over to the dark corner I saw Jesse looking at me, as she was the only one that wasn’t part of the initial crowd that surrounded me. It felt like she was not only the normal emotionless self that she is, but it looked like she was kinda angry. Though I’m not really the best when it comes to telling other people’s emotions.
“Now Lee since people aren’t gonna be around to hear us let’s get real you and me.” Yurinami’s voice suddenly changed tone from his usually upbeat attitude to his deadbeat sincerity. “You have the best spirit out of anyone here. There is no doubt about it when I say that. Fighting Runasi Haruhiko and landing the first blow on him? God fucking damn, never thought I’d see the day that somebody would do that, but it was one of my students. I feel like a proud dad.”
I didn’t understand why he needed me to go to a place where no one else would hear us for this kind of praising speech.
“What’s the point of this?” I said, kinda taking his arm off of my neck.
“I just need to get the praise out of the way for this next part.” Yurinami then proceeded to slap me in the face, sweep me from under my feet and take his hand, put it on my face, then slam me into the ground.
“You don’t know what i’ve had to deal with this past twelve hours all because you made the idiotic decision to even fight that crazy motherfucker in the first place!” Yurinami growled. “The amount of paperwork that I had to file, the long ass speech I had to sit through, and the guidelines I have to follow now!”
“What the fuck are you even talking about?” I said, muffled due to Yurinami’s hand still being on my face.
“You’ll see soon enough. The shit that you brought yourself into is the deepest I’d ever seen someone dig their own grave.”
“I don’t fucking care!” I yelled kicking Yurinami in the stomach to let me go off the ground and I quickly stood up. “Do you even know how much I’ve lost! EVERYTHING!” I was now full out screaming, the people who didn’t hear us before, now could hear us now. “I’ve seen almost every single family member I’ve known die right in front of me! So I don’t give a single flying fuck that you’ve gone thorugh the most mondane shit in this world! You can honestly go fuck yourself!”
Yurinami didn’t move but only stared at me through his mask. I wanted to rip it off of his face to see who’s really down there. Right there and then, I saw the true Yurinami for who he really is. The purest piece of privileged shit.
“I see that you’ve been through a lot.” Yurinami softly said. “And maybe I was a little insensitive, but if I were you. The last thing I would do is piss me off.” Yurinami began to walk away from me and back to the other students. “Oh, one last thing.” He turned around to face me. “You should keep an eye out on Alice.”
“What the fuck did you say to me!?” I snapped back. Yurinami kept on walking away, and even though I was boiling with rage, I didn’t move to punch him or anything. How the fuck does he know about my sister! I never told anybody about my family besides Slinca. If he really is government funded, then he has to work for them. That's how he knows, that’s gotta be it!
Yurinami walked on over to the group of people to continue on with the lesson that was interrupted by me. I didn’t want to join in on the lesson as I have no interest in continuing with this school anymore, because it didn’t matter anymore. I had no incentive to continue fighting, there was nothing for me to do. All I needed to do was survive.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Yurinami asked me in a mocking tone.
“I'm just standing here.” I responded back with a little bit of sass.
“If you do not participate, I will literally shoot you in your fucking head.”
Even though the normal reaction to that is to be scared shitless, my reaction was just a little bit of shock but total compliance. I just wanted to get this over with and just wanted to talk to Slinca.
So, I partook in the lesson and it was the most uncomfortable thing I’ve done so far. The constant stares I got from all of the other people around me was just so unnecessary. I just wanted to be alone the whole time, every second was an ounce of motivation to even talk to Slinca after all of this. But the weirdest part was Jesse. She never took her eyes off me, even more than Slinca did. It was so fucking weird, it was like she had a secret she wanted to tell me.
The lesson was just normal fighting but I never paid attention to any of it. Soon after the lesson started we all took a water break. I immediately walked over to the corner where me and Yurinami and I were talking, and made it very clear that I didn’t want to be talked to. At this point I regretted ever getting out and coming to this school, I should’ve just stayed in the sewer and thought about what to do next. This is equivalent to torture.
“Hey, Lee.” Ian said, walking up to me with a friendly notion.
“What?” I responded with annoyance.
“Just want to say hi, and check up on you.”
“I’m doing fine.”
“Well from what I heard earlier, you are definitely not.”
“Just leave me alone.”
I turned my head not to face him.
“Look, I'm not here just to ask the normal questions that you would be asked due to your fame around the world now.”
“Huh? My fame?”
“Don’t you know? You’ve made headlines and the news all around the world. You’re the most talked about person in the world, more than Runasi Haruhiko himself.”
I couldn’t believe what he was talking about, I'm famous? He’s gotta be pulling my leg here right now. It would make sense since I was the first person to hit him, but still. Around the world? Is no one even wondering that I’m still alive? Why didn't Runasi just finish me off? Has no one even asked themselves these questions at all?
“Besides that, I’m sorry if this is a sore subject for you. But I’ve heard that you lost your whole family.”
“What are you getting at here?”
“I just know what you’re going through.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes.” Ian came closer to me and looked directly at Penny. “I’ve never told anyone else this but I feel like you need to hear it.”
“Just make it quick.”
“Remember when Yurinami pointed out that Penny already has a kill, she actually has two. Both of them.” Ian paused for a moment. “Were our parents.”
I quickly pointed my head at him.
“I’m not gonna bore you out with this so I’m gonna make this quick like you said. Our parents were drug addicts and were not mentally stable. So one day my dad went on a rampage because he didn’t have any more of his drugs and blamed us. He grabbed a knife and proceeded to attack me, so my sister had no choice but to shoot him right there and then. Next, my mother saw what happened and-” Ian started to choke up a little and rubbed his eyes, which I saw a little tear rolling down. “She shot her anyway, even though it wasn’t really clear if she was gonna do anything.”
I didn’t say anything to that or even give a thought of comfort to help him, and all i sat there wondering is why is he even telling me this? Is there some sort of merit to it?
“I know my situation isn't the same as yours. But I have tons of experience living alone and having to survive on your own. So if you need anything just come to me and I’ll help you. Hell, you can even live with Penny and I.”
“Look, I appreciate your concern and all.” I responded back. “But I’m doing fine currently.”
“Ok, just wanted to tell you that. I thought you would have a hard time on your own.”
“I’m fine! Now please leave. I want to be alone right now.”
Ian complied and left me alone in the corner as I’m pretty sure everyone else heard our conversation we just had. No one else was talking so our conversation might as well have been talked through a megaphone. I saw that Ian looked very sad and disappointed. I don’t blame him, I just told him off and basically gave no consideration for him at all. That wasn’t like me at all, but now I just feel different than everyone else.
The reason why I'm like this should be obvious, but this is just too much, and the worst part of it is that I don’t know how to change it. It’s easy to call it out but it’s harder to change it. Maybe I’ll just be like this forever, or not, who knows. But no matter how shitty my attitude and empathy will be.
I will never be like Runasi Haruhiko157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2IC3Yi20m9
