Categories > Anime/Manga > Weiss Kreuz > crash & burn
bridge
and it's you that makes it hard to let go...
Alex lit a cigarette and leaned back against the wall. He wasn't the only guy leaning against this particular wall; there were seven or eight of them altogether, some in their school uniforms, a couple of jrocker wannabes with bleach jobs and lip-pierces, and the rest neatly togged up in whatever their mommies had laid out for them that morning...they smoked and shifted and preened and shoved at each other, but from the direction they kept glancing in, he guessed they were all waiting for the same thing he was. More or less, anyway.
He could just hear the harsh grind of the bell as it rang for afternoon dismissal in the huge high-school building across the street. The double-doors of the entrance opened, and with a sound that reminded Alex of the exotic bird house at the zoo, the female population of the school poured out in a blue-and-white flock, laughing and calling to each other in the breathy, high-pitched sing-song that Japanese girls were blackmailed into using all their lives. Alex remembered his father referring to it once as "Tokyo Disney" when he'd heard Cailin doing it around the house, but she'd kept on with it. She'd never look like all the other girls (or any other girl, Alex thought), but at least she could sound like them. That's what she'd said, and her father, passing, had stopped and twisted a lock of her dark red-brown hair around his scarred finger, tugging at it until she'd turned to look at him.
"You'll bury them all," he said, and she'd smiled at him as if he'd just congratulated her on making the tennis team.
Maybe that was why Alex missed her the most of everything he'd bailed when he left home - she didn't watch him all the time, waiting for a weakness she could exploit; she didn't push into his mind when he wasn't expecting it and smudge up what she found; she didn't wake him in the middle of the night and take him somewhere to do something he didn't want to do to someone he didn't know; she didn't look at him like an investment that had failed to produce the expected return. Out of all of them, she was the only one who didn't have some kind of...plot; some hidden script she was working to. Cailin just /accepted/...and it almost made things seem normal.
Two girls walked past him, laughing, and one looked back, her eyes going as round and blank as the cartoon kitty's on her schoolbag. Alex pulled the hood of his jacket up over his blood-orange hair. Way to blend in with the crowd, baka... How stupid was it to stand out here, where anyone could see him, just on the off-chance that she might come by....what if his father came to pick her up...stupid...he hadn't spent four months sealing off the entrances and reinforcing the walls of Alex World to fuck it up like this, just because there was one gap that wouldn't close.../stupid..../
He straightened up and flicked the end of his cigarette away. OK - dumb idea. Time to get out of here. As he turned away, something hit him from behind, knocking him into the wall - something that had strong fingers and smelled like candy floss.
"Akachan Akachan /Akachan/...." it said against his ear and he knew it was Cailin.
"Kiirichan..."
He turned back around and held her away from him for a moment, his fingertips leaving small scorch marks on the shoulders of her blouse, looking into her yellow eyes that were like honey with the sun shining through it.
Some bridges just weren't meant to burn.
and it's you that makes it hard to let go...
Alex lit a cigarette and leaned back against the wall. He wasn't the only guy leaning against this particular wall; there were seven or eight of them altogether, some in their school uniforms, a couple of jrocker wannabes with bleach jobs and lip-pierces, and the rest neatly togged up in whatever their mommies had laid out for them that morning...they smoked and shifted and preened and shoved at each other, but from the direction they kept glancing in, he guessed they were all waiting for the same thing he was. More or less, anyway.
He could just hear the harsh grind of the bell as it rang for afternoon dismissal in the huge high-school building across the street. The double-doors of the entrance opened, and with a sound that reminded Alex of the exotic bird house at the zoo, the female population of the school poured out in a blue-and-white flock, laughing and calling to each other in the breathy, high-pitched sing-song that Japanese girls were blackmailed into using all their lives. Alex remembered his father referring to it once as "Tokyo Disney" when he'd heard Cailin doing it around the house, but she'd kept on with it. She'd never look like all the other girls (or any other girl, Alex thought), but at least she could sound like them. That's what she'd said, and her father, passing, had stopped and twisted a lock of her dark red-brown hair around his scarred finger, tugging at it until she'd turned to look at him.
"You'll bury them all," he said, and she'd smiled at him as if he'd just congratulated her on making the tennis team.
Maybe that was why Alex missed her the most of everything he'd bailed when he left home - she didn't watch him all the time, waiting for a weakness she could exploit; she didn't push into his mind when he wasn't expecting it and smudge up what she found; she didn't wake him in the middle of the night and take him somewhere to do something he didn't want to do to someone he didn't know; she didn't look at him like an investment that had failed to produce the expected return. Out of all of them, she was the only one who didn't have some kind of...plot; some hidden script she was working to. Cailin just /accepted/...and it almost made things seem normal.
Two girls walked past him, laughing, and one looked back, her eyes going as round and blank as the cartoon kitty's on her schoolbag. Alex pulled the hood of his jacket up over his blood-orange hair. Way to blend in with the crowd, baka... How stupid was it to stand out here, where anyone could see him, just on the off-chance that she might come by....what if his father came to pick her up...stupid...he hadn't spent four months sealing off the entrances and reinforcing the walls of Alex World to fuck it up like this, just because there was one gap that wouldn't close.../stupid..../
He straightened up and flicked the end of his cigarette away. OK - dumb idea. Time to get out of here. As he turned away, something hit him from behind, knocking him into the wall - something that had strong fingers and smelled like candy floss.
"Akachan Akachan /Akachan/...." it said against his ear and he knew it was Cailin.
"Kiirichan..."
He turned back around and held her away from him for a moment, his fingertips leaving small scorch marks on the shoulders of her blouse, looking into her yellow eyes that were like honey with the sun shining through it.
Some bridges just weren't meant to burn.
Sign up to rate and review this story