Part II: The mysterious newcomer
"You can see Amurako. But you know I can't be here while she's is here."
Chiiary stared blankly at the food on her plate. She glanced up and looked straight at her father. She said argumentatively, "But Dad, you haven't seen Amurako for five years! I know that she disappointed you, but don't you think that kicking her out was enough?!"
Her remained quiet. Finally he sighed. "Eat your food, Chiiary," he said emotionlessly. She gave up, knowing there was no use.
"Noon", a woman with long, fire-red hair muttered as she stared at her watch. She looked up at Tokyo Tower and removed her sunglasses with pitch-black lenses. "Papa.." Hours later, her taxi stopped, and the woman stepped out, holding the hand of a little boy. She walked through the park and towards the estates. She hesitated when she arrived at Chiiary's long, limestone driveway. She took a deep breath.
"Momma, where are we? " the little blonde haired boy, around the age of 4, asked.
"This is Aunt Chiiary's house," the woman said, "Where I used to live, Mijou." She knocked softly at the door. She kinda hoped that no one would hear it so she could just leave.
Chiiary dropped the burgundy kimono that she had been making as soon as she heard the knock. She raced to the door and opened it. "Come in," she muttered, out of breath. Amurako followed her sister into the house. Chiiary smiled sweetly, "Is there anything you want to drink, Amura-sama?"
Amurako sat on the couch and held her son on her lap, where Ayato had been sitting earlier. She nodded. "Yea, green tea, thank you." Chiiary disappeared into the kitchen. Amurako looked around. "Papa??" she called out after awhile later.
Chiiary re-appeared, holding Amurako's tea. "Our father..." she muttered, "isn't here." She gave the tea to her sister and quietly sat down on the chair across from the couch. She crossed her legs and sipped from her tea.
"Momma, can I go look around outside?" Mijou asked.
"Sure," Amurako replied. She let the boy down on the floor and he went straight to the door. "Stay near the house," she warned. She then turned her attention back to Chiiary. "So, what's up? What happened while I was gone?"
Chiiary thought for a moment. "Nothing much," she replied.
"Oh, come on, it's been years. Something had to have happened."
"Well, you know about mom," Chiiary said softly, "Nothing really happened other than that." She glanced down as she remembered.
Chiiary's mother, Niekali, had grown up in America. She moved to Georga from Indiana when she was thirteen. She wasn't really as good of a person that Chiiary would have liked her to be. To make it short, she was the "playboy bunny" type. The first people she met there were a boy named Tony and a girl named Mona. She befriended Mona only to get close to Tony.
A few years past and her and Mona seemed to be best friends, although they were always competing. In the end Tony would be Niekali's, and Mona would be resentful. Niekali's fun ended when she found out she was pregnet. Tony stayed with her awhile, but he didn't want, not couldn't handle, the responsibilty. Tony and his new girlfriend, Mona, showed up soon after Amurako was born. Niekali told him that if he ever came near her, she would kill him. So Tony left without a fight.
Niekali's dream had been to be an actress. She considered the baby as something that ruined her life and killed her dream. Defeated, she moved back to her father's home country, Japan. There she met and married Chiiary's father, who was much older than her. As the years past and Chiiary was born, she settled down. But thoughts of what may have been wouldn't leave her. She dealt with it, out of love for her daughters. When Amurako got knocked up, Chiiary's father made her leave against Niekali's will. Niekali started to remember everything and her marriage began to fall apart. After awhile, Niekali couldn't handle it and had a nervous breakdown. She ended up becoming really depressed and slit her wrist, bleeding to death.
"Yes, I got your letter," Amurako said quietly. She had just been thinking about the same thing as Chiiary had been. She sat her tea down on the table. She slowly stood. "Why don't we take Mijou out to lunch?" she asked.
Chiiary smiled and stood up. "Alright."
Three weeks past. Chiiary knelt at her locker, wearing a dark green, snake skin print shirt and black capris with her hair pulled up in tight, little braids. Her hair style resembled that of an Athenian princess. She, as usual, had a grape sucker in her mouth. Ahviera stood leaning against the locker next to Chiiary's, books against her chest. "The start of a new trimester, heh..", Ahviera said cheerfully.
Since they had met, they had become best friends. Ahviera had always wanted to live near school, but she had never been able to afford the rent. She talked Chiiary into not applying for the exchange student program, not yet. Instead she could pay half the rent and stay in Japan for another year.
Chiiary had put off studying with Ayato for awhile. How could she face him? She would have too soon, though. Never did she stop, even if it was little, thinking about what happened with him. "I wonder if he's upset that I've been avoiding him," she thought quietly with a blank look on her face. She continued to clean her locker mechanically.
Ahviera began to talk about a guy at school. She stopped when she realized that Chiiary was not listening to her. She frowned. "Chiiary! You aren't listening!!" As Chiiary shut her locker and began to stand up, Ahviera asked, "So, what classes do you have this Tri?"
"Well, I have..." Chiiary stopped when she saw a girl standing against the corner of the hall quietly. Her piercing green eyes, dark makeup, and her teal hair--cut at her chin--brought out her perfect, fair face. Dressed in a long, black and blood-red gothic dress and draped in a black cloak with a burgundy lining on the inside, people walking down the hall couldn't help but look at her. Chiiary and the girl continued to stare at each other. The mysterious stranger smiled slightly, lips not spliting.
Ahviera looked at Chiiary and then turned around to face whatever she was staring at. She looked at the girl and back at Chiiary. She waved her hand in front of Chiiary's face. "Hello? Earth to Cherry!?"
Chiiary blinked and snapped her head towards Ahviera. "How do you know about that nickname?", she asked with a questioning look on her face.
Ahviera smiled. "Ayato lives in my neighborhood, remember? He always walks by our house, and sometimes he stops by for some water or some junk." Her smile faded and she shielded her mouth with her left hand. "Who is that chick?", she asked in just above a whisper.
"I don't know," Chiiary said as she looked at the girl, avoiding her eyes. The girl pulled away from the wall and walked down the connecting hall without either of the other two girls noticing.
"She's weird.." Ahviera turned around. "Huh?", she muttered, "That chick is gone." She looked at her watch. "We should go to class."
"Yea..."
"Mystian Blake?" the teacher called, "Mystian Blake?!" She shook her head and marked on her clipboard. "Absent.. But she was supposed to start today," she muttered.
The girl in front of Chiiary rolled her eyes. " Mystian? What sort of name is that?"
"I like it," a girl on the other side of the room said, "It's cute."
"You would like it, dumb ass," the girl muttered, twirling a blonde strand.
Chiiary rested her chin on top of her hands and her eyes fought to stay open. She sighed. "Boring." The sound of the door opening caught her attention. She looked up.
The girl that she had seen earlier in the hall walked in. "Mystian Blake is here," she said with a smooth Aussie accent. She walked towards the left side of the room. She stopped next to Chiiary. She touched a desk with the side of one of her books. "This seat taken?" she asked softly.
"Uh, sure," Chiiary muttered, "I mean..., no it's free." She moved her books on the floor to the right to keep them from getting mixed up with Mystian's. Mystian smiled and laughed under her breath. Chiiary sighed.
"What's wrong, Cherry-sama?" Mystian asked. Chiiary looked at her questionably. "I heard your friend," she explained. "So, what is your real name, anyway? It sounded like shea-rie," she said.
Chiiary laughed. "No," she replied, "It is chee-R-ree. And nothing's wrong. It is just that we have to spend the first day of each trimester in homeroom, doing nothing." She shifted in her seat.
For the next few hours of homeroom were silent. Mystian wrote in a notebook, and Chiiary once again started a letter to Ayato that she had tried to write many times. As soon as the lunch hour began, Ahviera made her way over. Chiiary sighed and ripped the letter out of her notebook and tossed it towards the trash can. Neither of the girls saw Ahviera come up behind them. "Hey hey," she said cheerfully. Chiiary was used to it and just looked up, "Hi."
Mystian jumped. "Oh sorry," Ahviera said as she touched Mystian's shoulder," I thought that you saw me..." The person in front of Mystian got up and walked over to her friends. Ahviera sat down. She held at her hand. "Oh well, hi. I am Ahviera. But, you can call me Vie-chan."
"Hey, Vie-chan. I am Mystian Blake, the new exchange student from Australia," she said in her smooth, light voice, "But me chums call me Misty. Nice to meet ya."
Chiiary and Ahviera took out their lunch tins from their bags. They stopped when they saw that Mystian wasn't doing anything. Chiiary asked, "Misty, where's your lunch? Do you want some of mine?? I always bring too much." She grinned and held out her tin.
Mystian laughed lightly. "Oh noh, that's okay, mate. I don't eat meat and I'm not that hungry for salad right now."
Chiiary drew back her arm, "Oh, okay."
Mystian re-opened her notebook and began writing quietly as she had been doing earlier.
"I don't mean to be nosey or anything," Ahviera began, fingering a shrimp. She lifted her eyes to Mystian, "What are you writing?"
Mystian continued to write. "It's a column I'm working on for my old school's newspaper," she said without looking up, "You see, I'm writing a few articles about Japanese culture and school life. In exchange they donated a large sum of money to help pay my tuition here."
"Can I read it?"
"Not until I'm done," she replied, "You're just in time, it's the first one."
"Vie-chan, don't you think that we should look for an apartment today?" Chiiary asked. She shut her locker and smiled at Ahviera.
"That you should do, mates," Mystian said as she approached from the left, with her yellow messenger-bag's strap on her right shoulder and her neatly-folded cape in her arms close to her chest. She leaned against the lockers and grinned. "I'm not trying to butt into your conversation; it is...just my opinion."
"Oh, we don't mind," Ahviera beamed, "In fact...I think that we will. But, we have to stop by my house first. You can come with us. You did say you lived on my street, didn't you?"
"Yeah, next door to be precise, Vie-chan" Mystian answered. She laughed, saying "-chan" made her feel Japanese. She was there for the year, and already she felt as if she had already ajusted to the culture. " I saw you through my window when I was unpacking last night." She tilted her head to read the time from Chiiary's watch. "We better go then before we miss the bus, I hear that it waits for no one," she said.
"We wouldn't want to miss it and wait at the library again," chiiary sighed. She slid her black, leather bookbag's strap over her shoulders and started down the hall with a tired expression on her face.
Ahviera sped up to get next to Chiiary. She slowed down and studied Chiiary's face. "Ayato would probably be at the library, right?" she asked. Chiiary nodded in reply.
Mystian looked at Chiiary remorsefully. "Cherry, was what this Ayato guy did really so terrible? I mean, you sound like you fancy him an awful lot, and he you also. Why care about what others think?" she looked at the floor and thought. She grinned, "He is worth any gossip 'bout either of ya, huh?"
"It isn't just that, Misty, but thanks anyway," Chiiary said. She started walking faster. She looked at Ahviera, "She knows... He...still hasn't dumped Venarie, has he? If there was ever anything between Ayato and me, it would not last long. All Venarie would have to do is take off her shirt, and Ayato would be her's again."
"Talk about implants," Ahviera laughed. She thought for a moment. "I know Ayato. Although he is physically attracted to barbie dolls like Venarie, he couldn't love her. And once he decides to love someone, it'll be someone like you."
"I don't care anymore," Chiiary said. She faked a smile and tried to look like she was fine.
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