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Why do I get the feeling that the eye patch kid will be a main character?

Welp. I'm back and I bring with me a new Where the Blame Falls. This is kind of rewrite of the first chapter which completely invalidates the second, so even though I will generally be working from the framework of the previous two chapter as I write the story don't expect it to progress exactly to the point of those chapters, infact, it will probably diverge rather far from the previous two chapters, so let's just call those out of continuity for now m'kay?
Also, I'm making it a point that I will only post a chapter after I have completed writing the chapter that continues on from it, so since this is the new chapter 1 I have chapter already written chapter 2, it will be posted after I complete chapter 3 and so on and so forth. I'm going to make an attempt to make bi-weekly posts, but with my scatter shot mind it's probably going to be more around every three weeks, we'll see. Anyway. Enjoy.

Chapter 1.

(carrying on from the prologue)

How long ago was that now? Seven, maybe eight years, it feels like a lifetime ago. Back then I was just some little girl who had nothing but thoughts of unicorns and sunflowers in her head… now? Well now I’m-

My thoughts interrupted by the feeling of something cold and hard pressing against my temple along with a familiar voice saying, “Hey, Kairi. Earth to, Little Miss Red Eyes! Are you in there?”

The familiar voice and name pull me from my previous thoughts, and back to reality. I’m sitting at the coffee table in our family room, with a hot cup on my hands. I can feel the steam rising up and warming my chin. It smells like I have green tea in the cup.

I’m prodded again by the cold and hard thing that is once again accompanied by the voice, “Kari!” it says with an impatient tone.

The voice is high pitched, almost mousey, but it has an oddly mature undertone to it, and it belongs to my older adoptive sister, Ai.

“Stop poking me,” I sigh with an annoyed voice and a slight sigh to her as I put the cup on the table.

There is a brief silence before I’m poked yet again, “I said to stop, Ai!” I yell in annoyance.

Ai gives a short chuckle, “I’m not the one doing it,” she says in an amused tone.

Not believing her, I look in the direction of her voice with a stern look, before I get poked once again, but not from the direction that Ai is sitting, which I think is across the coffee table from me. I also notice a small, barely contained giggle after this poking.

I turn my stern look to the direction from where the poking is really coming from just in time for the next poke to land squarely in the center of my forehead.

The combination of the stern look on my face and the sight of whatever is poking me being planted right in the center of my forehead must be pretty funny because Ai and Kotaru, the one who apparently was the poking me, break out into a small bout of laughter.

Well, Kotaru’s is a small bout, but Ai is laughing so hard that I’m pretty sure that I hear her fall backwards and hit her head against the floor, which causes me to grin and laugh shortly.

“You two laugh at the oddest things,” I say in an amused tone as I try and fail to remove my grin.

“But, you laugh too Kairi,” says Kotaru in a confused tone with her quiet and soft spoken voice.
My grin widens as I turn my head a little more towards where her voice is coming from, “I wasn’t laughing, I was… sneering in joy,” I say to her.

“What the heck is sneering?” she says in an even more quizzical tone than before.

Ai and I just chuckle at the question. We learned a long time ago that trying to explain the meaning of a word to Kotaru usually ends up turning into an hour long session of questions from her on the meaning of every other word we know. She definitely asks more questions than the normal six year old, but I guess it’s better to ask a lot of questions and learn than to not.

“We’ll tell you later, Kotaru. Maybe on the way to Kairi’s new school,” says Ai as I hear here take a loud sip from what I assume to be a cup of tea. Although she could be drinking that terrible energy drink that she likes. I personally think it tastes like liquefied rocks.

Don’t ask me how I know what that tastes like.

I groan at the mention of the new school, “Can we not talk about my banishment right now?” I say in an exhausted voice as I rest my arms on the table as I feel a knot form in my stomach. I just think the knot away. I have been getting that feeling every time we talk about my new school because it makes me nervous.

“Oh, stop bitc-,” Ai says cutting herself off, probably so that she doesn’t have to explain that particular word to Kotaru, “I-I mean, stop complaining about it. This place costs a lot of money, and is one of the best schools in the country, so stop whining,” she finishes as she takes another loud sip.

The school we’re talking about is a boarding school that I forget the name of and that I am going to be attending starting tomorrow. I haven’t really been away from this family since they adopted me five years ago. I’m just not sure about living at a school, mostly because I’ve only ever been to a local private school. Also, I don’t feel good about Shin, and Haruhi spending so much money on a school.

Haruhi runs a bread shop along with Ai, and Shin has some kind of corporate job. I honestly don’t know what he does, I know it brings in a good amount of money, but I don’t think he’s ever actually talked about what he does, or not to me at least.

“I’m not complaining exactly. I just don’t like the idea of being stuck a school all week,” I reply to her as I pick up my tea and take a small sip. It’s actually pretty good, a little too bitter, but still good.

Ai just laughs and takes another sip before continuing, “You are aware that they have dorms on campus, right? It’s not like you’re chained to a wall in a class room while a teachers drones at you for the entire school year.”

“At least that would make school more interesting…” I say taking another sip of tea.

“It sounds like you’re complaining,” Kotaru says in her usual innocent tone, which makes me wonder if she’s scolding me, or if she’s just talking for the sake of it. I think I’ll go with just talking for the sake of it, mostly due to the lack of any follow up.

“You sound like you’re complaining,” I say with a smug grin in an attempt to get a reaction out of Kotaru.

“No I‘m not!” She replies defensively. Sometimes it’s just too easy getting her like this, which probably isn’t much to brag about considering that she’s only six years old, but I’ll take my victories where I can find them.

I’m about to fire back, but I can practically feel Ai drilling a hole into me with her a glare. I sigh, “Yup. You aren’t. Good job,” I say with a sarcastic voice, which I’m pretty sure goes right over Kotaru’s head since she gives a quick “Ha!”
Ai doesn’t really like it when I mess with Kotaru. I guess she was her little sister before I was.

“Kotaru: 1. Kairi: 0,” Ai says smugly before taking another loud sip. I then hear a noise that sounds like a tin can being crushed. I guess she was drinking the energy drink.

Before I can say anything, I hear the front door open and the voice of Haruhi calling to us, “We’re back! Someone want to help us with these groceries?” She says with a strain in her voice.

“I got ya,” Ai says as I feel her pass by me and she bops me on the head with her drink can.

I go to take another sip from my tea, but I stop when I hear Ai talking in the by the door, “Okay. What do you need me to- Oh, hi there, Haichi.”

I almost drop my cup at the mention of the name, “Way to ruin the surprise, Ai,” a gruff and booming voice says disappointedly.

I quickly put my cup down on the coffee table as a smile begins spreading across my lips, stand up and manage to find my way over to the arch way that leads to the front door. Once I get there I pop my head into the next room, “Haichi?”

I feel someone walk up to me and give me a big bear hug, they smell like sweat, have large bulky arms, and what feels like an unkempt beard that hangs down to their chest, “Hey there, kiddo!” Haichi says in his usual joyful voice.

“I thought you worked today,” I say when I finally manage to pull my face away from his chest.

“He decided to call in sick, so he could come,” says Shin as I hear him walk into the house with heavier than usual steps, “Now can you guys please move out of the way. I don’t want to bump into any of you and drop this.”

“Sure. Hey, Ai. Take these bags and put them upstairs,” Haruhi says as I hear several plastic bags move around and then I feel someone move past me before going upstairs. Shortly after, I hear Shin walk past me into the kitchen.

“Uncle Haichi!” Screeches Kotaru as she comes in from the living room.

“Hey there, Kotaru, what’d you doing here?” Haichi says in mock confusion pressing my head back against his chest.

“I live here, silly!” Kotaru replies with a small giggle.

“You do?” Haichi says, keeping up his mock confusion, “If that’s true, then where’s Kairi? I don’t see her anywhere?” He continues as I feel his beard move back and forth along with his head as he pretends to look for me.

“She was just- Hey. You’re hugging her, silly!” She replies before running up and pulling on my dress.

Haichi lets out a surprised gasp, “You’re right. She’s just so small that I couldn’t see her there!” He says with mock surprise in his voice.

I gently hit his chest before and give him as stern a look as I can before replying, “Who’re you calling small?”

“Hey. Where did that voice come from? Is there a gnome living in this house?” He says, pretending to have forgotten where I am.

My stern look quickly cracks as I find myself unable to hold back a laugh, “Not funny, Haichi!” I manage to say through my laughing fit.

“Oh, but I think it is, Chuckles.” He says in a smug tone as he gives me another squeeze.

“Hey. No smothering the school girl when we’ve already paid for the school.” Ai says jokingly as I hear her come back down the chairs.

“I promise nothing.” Haichi says as he hugs me a little tighter, which causes me to laugh a little more.

Ai gives a little chuckle shortly before I hear Shin exhaustively grunt from the other room, “You need some help there, pops?”

“No. I’m good. And don’t call me- Whoa!” replies Shin before I hear several heavy thuds and crashes from the other room.

“Are you sure you don’t want-” Ai says before getting cut off by Shin, “Help!” He says in a panicked tone before Ai quickly makes her way past us.

“I wish half of my guys at work could move as fast as her.” Haichi says with a chuckle.

When he says that, it reminds of what Shin said earlier. “Didn’t Shin say you called in sick? Aren’t you afraid that you’ll get fired?” I ask with concern in my voice as my smile is overtaken by a worried frown.

Haichi just lets out a short chuckle before responding, “My boss could care less about me not showing up. It gives him an excuse to yell at the new guys.”

“Are you-” I’m cut off by a large finger pressing up against my lips, “Yes. I’m sure. Stop worrying, kiddo.” Haichi says before stepping away and gently messes with my hair, which manages to bring my smile back, “Now. Where’s the food around here?”

Haruhi and I chuckle at the question, “Down the hallway as always, Haichi.” She says in an amused voice.

“In that case, I’ll be right back with sandwiches and drinks.” He says before I hear quick heavy footsteps on the carpet head down the hall before going onto a tiled floor.

“I’m going to make sure he doesn’t clean us out. Take Kotaru into the living room and we’ll bring the stuff into you guys.” Haruhi says messing up my hair in the same matter as Haichi, before heading down the hall.

“Maybe bring a brush back with with you? I don’t think messy hair makes the best first impression at a new school!” I say before walking back into the living room with Kotaru.

“Uncle Hachi is so silly! I wish he’d come over more.” Kotaru says as we sit back down at the table.

“So do I, but he has a lot of work to do.” I reply before testing my tea. It’s cold. How long were we standing over there?

“Work is icky.” She replies, adding a loud “Bleh!” before sitting down next to me, “Uncle Haichi shouldn’t work so much.

Then he could come over all the time!”
I chuckle at the comment before taking a small sip of my cold tea. God, I hate cold tea.

Kotaru isn’t actually related in blood to Haichi, or to me for that matter, but every time he comes over I call him Uncle Haichi, and she just ended up copying me. I’m not sure why, she was perfectly fine just calling him Haichi before then, but she did.

God I hate cold tea. I swear it always tastes like watered down flavored water, or just flavored water, I guess.

As I’m thinking over my hatred of cold tea I feel Kotaru begin running a brush through my hair. She likes brushing my hair for some reason. Not that I’m complaining.

“Thanks, Kotaru.” I say as I sit up a little straighter and put down the cold tea back onto the table.

“No problem!” she replies with a small giggle as she starts working on a particularly tangled knot, thanks Haichi.

As she finally gets the knot loose she lets out a dreamy sigh, “Your hair is so pretty, Kairi. I wish mine was as long as yours…”

I just smile and give a little chuckle, “Watch what you wish for. This kind of hair is a nightmare to keep.” I reply.

“But it always looks pretty, even when it’s all messy in the morning.” She says with a chuckle as she pulls out another small
knot.

“My hair isn’t that messy when I wake up…” I say dejectedly.

“Yes it is.” Ai says as I hear her enter the room. “And while we’re at it, your morning breath could kill a bear.”

“Shut up.” I reply with an annoyed sigh.

“I will when you make it a habit to eat a mint when you wake up.” She says jokingly as I feel her sit down next to me.

“What are you doing with her hair Kotaru? Here let me do this.”
My head is quickly yanked towards where Ai is sitting by my hair. “Ow!”

“Oh, stop complaining ya sissy!” Ai barks as she starts quickly running the brush through my hair.

“You- Ow! Sound like Haichi.” I reply through gritted teeth as she brushes out another knot.

The next couple of minutes pass with little of note happening, beside it feeling like Ai pulled out a chunk of my hair, but kept on dodging me whenever I asked about it. Mom, dad and Haichi come back into the room with sandwiches, tea and some lemonade. Apparently cut his hand when he dropped whatever it was that he was carrying, so he complained that it stings whenever he picked up a cup or anything like that. And Haichi tells a story about one of his co-workers.

Where does Haichi work? He’s a semi-truck driver and is usually spending most of his week out on the road, which is part of the reason why Shin and Haruhi ended up adopting me. They were friends of Haichi before I came to live with him and I spent most of my time over at their house and then Haichi had an accident where he couldn’t work for a few weeks and he sure as hell didn’t have enough spare money to take care of me, so he decided that I would be better off living with them.
After we’re done eating and Haichi is done telling his story Haruhi interrupts me as I am about to ask something about the story. “Sorry to interrupt, but we need to leave in a few minutes if we want to get Kairi to Yamaku on time.”

Oh, yeah. The name of my new school is the Yamaku Academy for the Disabled or something like that. As the name would suggest it’s a school pretty much exclusive to physically disabled students. I actually never heard of it until a few months ago, but I guess it’s really prestigious. Although one thing that struck me as weird is that the opening ceremony is actually a day before the first day of class. I honestly can’t think why it’s like that.

We all quickly get up and get ready. I grab my backpack from my room and put on my shoes while Haichi grabs my luggage and Ai struggles to keep Kotaru still long enough to get her shoes on.

“I’m driving!” Ai yells through the house as I hear the door fly open two sets of footsteps stampede out of the house as Kotaru shouts, “Yay! Ai is driving!”

I feel a sudden wave of dread wash over me, because Ai’s driving could only be described as reckless if you describe a tornado as a pleasant afternoon breeze. Kotaru enjoys it for some reason, though.

“Does someone want to stop her?” I yell down the stairs to Shin and Haruhi.

“She’s fine just as long as she-“ Shin is cut off by the sound of someone coming back up the stairs, “We’re taking the van, by the way.” Ai says with a chuckle before running back down the while laughing like a child.

“Please hold this, dear.” I hear Shin say before I hear something large exchange hands, “Ai! You are not driving the van!” he yells as he speeds out of the house.

I can hear them talking to each other Ai saying “Yes I am!” and Shin saying, “No you’re not!” This goes on for about two minutes before Kotaru pipes up with a, “I want to drive!” but she is quickly told no and they go back to their back and forth.

Haruhi gives a loud sigh before I hear her put down whatever it is that Shin gave her and she walks outside and tries to stop the argument.

Haichi and I make it outside just as Haruhi has gotten the two to stop arguing and I stop for a second when I feel the sunlight shine on me.

I take a deep breath and take in the warm of the sun and smells of spring. I’m not really sure why I like the outside, I didn’t before my accident. Maybe it’s because I was stuck in the hospital for three weeks after the accident.

“Gonna get going?” Haichi says as he bumps me with my luggage.

“Yeah, I’m going.” I say as I extend my cane and make my way down the stairs.

“Fine, fine, but I get to ride shotgun!” I hear Ai say as I approach the van and hear one of the doors quickly open and close.

“Having fun?” I ask jokingly.
Shin just lets out a sigh before I hear him walk around to the other side of the van and get in.

“Here, Kairi. I already got the door open for you.” Haruhi says before I hear her open up the back for Haichi to put my luggage inside.

I get in and buckle up. Kotaru takes the seat next to me while Haruhi and Haichi take the seats behind us.
Shin asks if we have everything and Haichi confirms that we do then the van starts moving. I think Haruhi says something to me but I don’t notice it I’m distracted by the knot in my stomach return.

I think the knot away again. “Come on Kairi. This will be fun.” I think to myself as we pull out of the driveway and unto the road to Yamaku.

Yeah. This will be fun. I think…

End of chapter 1.

Well. There it is in all of it glory, or horror depending on your opinion. I encourage any criticisms that you may have on the writing, phrasing of sentences, sentence structure, characters or punctuation mistakes because nothing ever gets any better without criticism.

Anyway. I hope you enjoyed and I eagerly await any comments you guy may have.

And yes, this does take place during her first year. The story may continue into her second, or even third year, but that depends on how I feel the story is going.

-LS

Yes, this version is definitely a lot better than the previous one.
No major complaints about grammar and not much to say about the story yet - the chapter wasn't really long - other than it's nice reading a prequel… those are kind of rare.
Any reason for the changing colours?

Good to see you're still around, Mirage. Yeah. It's kind of funny how over three thousand words can be shorter than you think, isn't it? Anyway. The main reason why it's short is pretty much because I find I tend to be more precise and to the point and don't indulge in extra words where they aren't need (At least that's what I like to say. Not sure if it's actually true.) Although. This is the longest chapter I've written out of any of my fanfics so far, which I'm not sure if that's sad, or impressive.

And, yeah. I conscientiously went for a prequel as it hasn't been done and I feel allows for some more freedom in regards to how long you want character development to span.

The changing colors are just something I've adopted as a system. I find that it's easier for people to point out where a mistake is if it's in a certain color section that they can point to when they don't have a specific line number. It helped out a lot when i had some people go over a speech I had to write. (The speech itself wasn't all that good, but at least I fixed most of the grammar problems. )

Anyway. Thanks for the comment. Any thoughts on the characters so far? I know it's only a brief example (And these character won't be back in for a few chapters) but I like to get the initial feel that people get from them, so I can see if they are coming across how I want.

Just a small update. The next part may actually be up by Wednesday. Update over.

I can't say whether this is better than before or not as I don't remember what it was like before, but what you have now is really good. Looking forward to more.

It's good to know that I'm writing this better then A Painful Past. (Which isn't exactly saying much, but whatever.)

Just a quick disclaimer. I haven't played KS in awhile, and my computer apparently hates the main KS site at the moment, so I don't really remember what Yamaku looks like, or the layout for that matter. So if the description of Yamaku sounds a little off, that's why.

Anyway. I said I would probably get it done by tomorrow and I have somehow managed to swing it by tonight. After staying up way too late yesterday and making last minute edits. I also write all of the chapters in Microsoft Word and I don't space out the paragraphs, so I have to do it on here and that may cause some weird line splits, but I'll fix them later. Because I have had a long day and I can't be bothered to fix them at the moment.

Chapter 2.

“I’m telling you; take a left.” Ai says in a bored tone from the front seat.

“Are you sure? I’m pretty sure it’s-” Shin begins to say, but is cut off by Ai, “Pretty sure pops.” She replies decisively.

“Pops, since when did you start calling me that?” Shin replies with a chuckle as I feel the van turn right.

“It’s a term I use for all old people who are terrible at following directions. Alternatively I call them-” Ai says with an annoyed chuckle before she’s cut off by Haruhi. “Not while Kotaru’s in the van, Ai.”

“I was only going to say that I call them very nice and reliable people.” You can audibly hear the smug sarcasm drip from her voice. “And she’s asleep anyway.”

“Is she?” Haruhi asks quizzically as I hear her turn in her seat.

Kotaru is resting her head on, and drooling on, my shoulder as she quietly snores and murmurs random words in her sleep. I myself am leaning my head against my window with my eyes closed. I’m not exactly tired, but the knot of tension in my stomach has been replaced by a slight sense of boredom mostly because Yamaku is almost three hour of straight driving from our house, and I’m not exactly comfortable in cars much anymore, so I decided to try and fall asleep so I can be as unaware of our means of travel as possible.

Before Haruhi can say anything I pipe up, “Yes she is. And she’s creating a nice little river down my arm.”

“Oh, Kairi that’s disgusting! Here, uh, take these.” She says before I feel a few napkins land on my lap.

I slightly right myself up in the seat, not enough to wake Kotaru just enough so I can comfortably bring my arm around, and pick up the napkins, “Thanks.” I say before using them to wipe off the drool from my arm.

I’m not really sure why Kotaru likes to use my arm as a pillow, but she has ever since she was three. I catch Ai using it as a pillow too when she thinks I’m sleeping, I’m not sure if that’s cute or weird.

“How much longer, until we get there?” I ask to no one in particular as I dab away the last little puddle of drool from my arm.

“About ten minutes.” Shin says back to me which causes Ai to give a small scoff. “Not if he keeps on going the wrong way- er.”

“Oh would you look at that.” Shin says with an immeasurable amount of smug, “I can see Yamaku on top of that hill-“

“Shut it.” Ai says with an indignant tone. “You were still wrong though it’s only five minutes away tops.”

“I can make it take ten minutes if you want.” Shin replies with a small chuckle as I hear Ai grumbling under her breath.
Shin usually doesn’t mess with her this much, but Ai really does have a terrible sense of direction. One time she actually managed to get all of us lost only three miles away from home because she was looking at the wrong map.

“About time I was about to start singing just to make the time go by faster.” Haichi says with a hearty laugh.

“Or, more accurately, tortuously dragged it out.” Ai replies with a small yawn and what sounds like her stretching I her seat.

“Hey. My voice is angelic.” Haichi replies in a sing songy voice that cracks several times before the sentence is done.

“No comment Haichi.” Haruhi cuts in with a sweet tone. Sweet is kind of like Haruhi’s version of sarcastic. Her voice is kind of higher pitched and just naturally sounds sweet, so every time she tries sarcasm it just sounds odd. Although she also likes to use sweet in place of commanding, which somehow manages to make it sound much more intimidating, you can tell when she’s doing sweet-sarcastic and sweet-commanding because when she’s doing commanding her voice gets ever so slightly gravelly.

“Oh, come on Lee!” Haichi replies with a hurt tone in his voice. Lee is a nickname he gave to Haruhi. “Don’t you remember that last talent show at school?”

“I do...” Haruhi says with an apprehensive voice, “And in the interest of not being a jerk. I will avoid talking about it.”

“Hey. Everyone gave me a standing ovation.” Haichi thunders back with a prideful tone.

“That’s because someone pulled the fire alarm, man.” Shin interrupts.

“Well, yeah. But it was a standing ovation none the less!” Haichi replies defensively, and singing the last part badly.

“Again. No comment.”

Haichi pouts at the comment which draws a small chuckle from both Shin and Haruhi. The three of them met during Haichi’s last year of high school and ended up becoming friends, though apparently they didn’t see much of him after he graduated until a few years after they graduated themselves. As Shin tells it, he just kind of walked back into their lives at some point. Haruhi just changes subject immediately as her tone takes on an embarrassed tone. And Haichi just gives a hearty laugh and tells me, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” In what he probably thinks sounds like a sagely voice before walking off with another hearty laugh.

I pull my arm around and poke Kotaru in the temple, “Wake up Kotaru. We’re almost there.” I say. A few seconds later I feel her head lift off of shoulder.

She gives a small yawn, “Is that the school thingy on the hill?” she asks groggily.

“Yup that’s Kairi’s new school. Looks pretty cool, huh?” Haruhi replies to her with a quiet and smooth voice. She does that a lot when she’s talking to Kotaru, Ai and me when we wake up. I’m not sure why though.

“It looks scary.” Kotaru says.

“Scary? What do you mean?” I ask with concern clear in my voice.

“It looks like those things you so in police man shows! A pr- pra- Prason?” she replies in a quizzical tone.

“I think you mean prison, Kotaru. Uh, not that it actually looks like one.” Haichi says adding on the last part hastily.

“Does it really look that bad?” I ask in an unsure tone.

“I think it wouldn’t have an image problem if it wasn’t for the brick walls.” Ai says sleepily as I feel us begin to go up an incline.

“Brick walls, seriously?” I reply as the knot reforms in my stomach.

“It doesn’t look that bad. The bricks are a very nice color and the gate is, oh.” Haichi cuts himself off.

“What’s the ‘oh’ for?” I ask sitting up straight in my seat.

“Well that looks pleasant.” Ai says sarcastically.

“What looks pleasant?” I ask leaning forward a little bit.

“It’s well, uh-” Haruhi is cut off by Ai. “It’s a big black wrought iron gate that has spikes at the top.”

What? Why the hell would a school have a gate like that? Who was the architect? And why didn’t anyone object to that?

Apparently everyone is glaring at Ai because after a brief silence she just gives a non-committal, “What?” I barely notice though because my mind is busy visualizing the gate in front of a portal of fire with monster clowns wielding chainsaws coming out of it.

Yes I’m afraid of clowns. Shut up.

“It really doesn’t look that bad, Kai.” Haruhi says calmingly to me apparently noticing the look of terror forming on my face. Kai is a nickname she gave me when I was still living with Haichi and he got hurt at from something. It was so long ago that I honestly forget what he hurt himself on, but I do remember being afraid and Haruhi just kind of sat with me and calmly talked with me. Ever since then the name has had this weird instant calming effect on me. It isn’t the name itself that really has all that much effect, I think it’s just that it’s Haruhi saying it.

The knot in my stomach lessens considerably at the name, “I thought you guys said this place looked nice.” I whine.

“It’s just the front gate Kairi.” Shin says as I feel the van come to a stop. “It looks fine through the gate.”

I can hear people talking through the glass of my window. It sounds like there are a lot of them out there.

I wonder how many people actually go here. Is it only disabled kids here? And just how many are blind?

How many were born like they are and how many were in an accident? Have any of them gone through what I’ve gone through?

“Kairi!” Haichi yells, which pulls me from my thoughts.

“Huh?” I say snapping my head to his direction.

“You okay? You started staring, er, uh, looking, no-” Haichi’s sputtering is stopped when Haruhi cuts him off, “You zoned out.”

“Yeah that.” Haichi says regaining his composure.

“Yeah I’m fine, just thinking about something.” I say calmly before turning my head towards the window again.
They always get concerned like that when I get lost in thought. Mostly because there was some times after the accident that I would just zone out for minutes at a time when I thought about mom or dad and I would just completely blank on what I was thinking about until someone asked me why I was crying. I never do remember what I’m thinking about when that happens, but they don’t happen as much anymore.

An awkward silence seems to have blanked the entire van after my little moment, “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go inside!” I say cheerily in an attempt to raise the mood a bit.

There’s another small silence for about three seconds before Kotaru pipes up, “Hey. That girl has funny looking legs!”

“Which, oh, nevermind I see which one you mean. And she doesn’t actually have- I mean yeah. Funny looking legs.” Ai says uncomfortably.

For some reason her stuttering makes everyone chuckle a little.

“Anyway. I’m gonna go get Kairi’s luggage.” Haichi says as I hear his door open and air come rushing into the van. “Whoa. A little windy here.”

Now I can clearly hear what everyone outside is saying. Well not clearly since there is so many people talking that all of the talking meshes into an incomprehensible noise, but I do make out small bits of certain conversations. There’s really nothing all that interesting with the exception of someone farther away shouting something about feminists.

Haichi gets out of the van and opens the back as the rest of us unbuckle. I grab my backpack and climb out of the van into the crowd. A few sounds jump out at me; mostly the sounds of wheels squeaking somewhere along the sidewalk and what sounds like metal repeatedly hitting the ground.

“Wow.” Ai yawns as I hear her door shut. “Bigger crowd then it looked like in the car.”

“Hey. Can you tell me what everyone looks like?” I ask slightly turning my head towards her.

“Describe what everyone in this crowd looks like? I think I would, uh, umm.” Ai’s sentence dies as a dejected looks takes over my face.

Ai sighs, “I’ll call out any interesting looking one, okay?” she says reassuringly.

I grin and nod. Ai has kind of been my eyes ever since we met and is usually the one I ask when I want to know what something, or someone, looks like. She’s surprisingly observant and usually sees things that other people glance over.

I hear Shin get out and make his way around the van to us. How do I know it’s Shin? Because the sound of the door shutting is followed by roughly twenty ‘excuse me’s, ‘good morning’s and ‘I’m so sorry’s. Shin is kind of overly polite to people he doesn’t know and, according to Ai, he says ‘I’m sorry’ if he barely even brushes past someone’s shirt.

“Well this place looks nice.” Shin says as he walks up next to us.

“Eh, looks decent to me.” Ai replies dismissively.

“You can be dismissive of this place once you actually clean your room.” Shin fires back as we begin walking towards the gates.

I pull out my cane and begin tapping it back and forth in small arcs in front of me as they continue to talk, “My room is perfectly clean… well, at least when it feels like it.”

“When it feels like it? Since when does your room have its own will?” Shin replies before grabbing my shoulders and moving me to the left of where I was going.

“Didn’t I tell you guys that? Huh, I must have forgotten to mention it after my room and I saved the galaxy.” Ai says jokingly as she places her hand on my chest and I hear something roll past us as someone say, “Excuse me.” and Ai replies, “No problem.”

“Is that why it’s so messy? You use it as a space ship?” Shin chuckles.

“Yup. It’s the USS, erm, uh… Toothpaste.” Ai says with an uncaring tone.

“Why are we talking about toothpaste?” Haichi asks as he, Haruhi and Kotaru catch up with us.

“It’s best not to ask, oh, this place looks beautiful!” Haruhi cuts in as we pass by something cold and hard, which I think is the gate.

“Wow. I guess I retracted my earlier statement. This place looks pretty good.” Ai says with a clearly impressed tone in her voice.

“I thought you guys said this place looked kind of creepy.” I say as I bump against someone.

“Oh, uh sorry.” I say backing away from them slightly, “It was my fault.” they say before walking off.

“That was the outside,” Ai continues. “The inside looks amazing!”

“Well?” I ask her expectantly.

“The walk way leads straight up to a big building, I think it’s the main school building, it has a kind of old style look to it. There are trees lining the way to the building and looks like I branches off to a few other areas. I see what looks like a garden, extra building, a track and what I think are dorm rooms a little farther off.” Ai explains. “The buildings are made out of brick and the tree leaves on the way to the main building are green, but I think I see some cheery blossoms in the garden.”

Her description is enough for a picture to start forming in my mind. Although my version is probably a bit bigger and likely has more extravagant details around the place. I wish I could see the real thing.

“It sounds beautiful.” As I say this I feel like I’m about to cry. I hold it back but it’s pretty easy to hear it in my voice.”

“Yeah well you probably got a prettier version from my description then the actual thing.” Ai replies cheerily.

“Probably…” I trail off for a second.

“A-anyway. We should get in for the opening ceremony.” Haichi says with a carefree tone.

“Agreed, the entrance is just over there.” Haruhi says before grabbing my shoulders and turing me where we’re headed.

“Okay. You guys go do that and I’ll make sure everything came through alright.” Shin says before heading off to the administrative building.

We walk into the entrance of the school just ahead of most of the crowd. As we go along Ai describes what it looks like inside and what some of the people look like. We eventually sit down in a large auditorium where the principle gives a welcoming speech. I don’t really catch most of it because Ai ends up falling asleep and I spend most of the speech trying to wake her back up so she’ll stop snoring. Eventually the opening ceremony ends and we are told can go unpack in our dorm rooms now.

“I still can’t believe you did that.” I say to Ai as we walk out of the auditorium.

“Hey. I was stuck up front reading a map the entire way here. I reserve the right to a nap after that.” She replies nonchalantly.

“Didn’t you take the front seat before anyone else could?” I ask as I pull my cane back out.

“There is no scientific evidence that I ever did such a thing, and as such you cannot prove it.” She replies in a matter-of-fact way.

“Funny.” Haruhi says dryly.

“I thought it was.” Ai replies with a smug voice.

“That was boring.” Kotaru whines as she and Haichi catch up with us.

“I thought the principal’s speech was very nice. Don’t you think so Kairi? Oh, what happened to your hair?” Haruhi asks as I feel someone move up behind me and begin running their fingers through my hair like a comb.

“I wasn't really listening. I was too busy try to wake Ai up. And the hair is like that because she ruffled it.” I reply as she smoothes out the last patch.

“Oh, why did you do that to her hair Ai?” Haruhi says as she moves around to my front and brushes my bangs over to the side.

“She disrupted my nap. And that is an offense punishable by hair ruffling.” Ai replies jokingly. Haruhi just gives a disapproving "Tsk tsk.”

“Well it was absolutely thrilling compared to my high school’s opening ceremonies.” Haichi jokes as we begin walking back towards the entrance.

“I thought you liked your high school.” I reply as I begin tapping my cane in arcs again.

“Oh, I liked the school just fine, but the opening ceremonies always put half of the students to sleep. Some of us joked about harnessing its boring energy so we could wreak havoc upon the world.” Haichi replies with a hearty laugh.

“And thus, trigonometry was born.” Ai replies with a chuckle.

I chuckle at the joke, “Or golf.”

“Hey. Golf can be fun.” She replies defensively.

“Maybe if you were raised on nothing but oatmeal and really stale plain crackers, but to us normal people it’s about as interesting as that NASCAR crap from America.” Haichi replies dismissively.

“First off, you don’t get to say ‘us normal people’ at least not until you shave that beard and stop reading classical music sheets.” Ai says her voice equal parts condescending and smug. “And secondly, I would have thought you’d love that kind of stuff.”

“Classical music is good for the soul. And just because I drive a lot doesn’t mean I want to watch someone drive a really expensive car in circles for three hours. And don’t dismiss the beard until you try it out.” Haichi states condescendingly.

“If I ever do somehow grow a beard then shoot me, because I’m already lost by that point.” She replies jokingly.

“I have a perfectly good truck for that.” Haichi replies with a chuckle, which causes Ai to laugh.

“Shut up.” I interrupt in a cold voice.

Both Haichi and Ai both stop laughing and blurt out a short apology. I honestly don’t get how they can joke about that kind of stuff, especially while I’m around.

No one really says anything until Ai pipes up, “Oh, there’s a corner ahead, Kairi. Turn left when I say.” She says simply.

“Okay.” Ai is also my navigator when we’re in places I’m not familiar with. Although sometimes her directions make no sense like one time she told me to go left by turning right.

“Now.” She says.

I follow what she says and turn to the left just as someone runs straight into me and knocks me down.

I’m kind of stunned and unsure of what happened for a second before I hear a tired sounding girl who sounds like she’s standing up start talking, “Impressive display.” She says through a yawn.

“I am so, so sorry! Are you okay?” another girl asks who sounds like she is sitting at my level.

"Yeah, I'm good. I'm not the one who just got knocked over." the tired sounding girl says.

"I wasn't asking you!" the other girl replies assertively.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine. I think.” I say as Haichi helps me up.

“I am so sorry!” the second girl’s voice, which actually sounds strangely deep and almost masculine, says frantically. “I was just trying to help this girl find her things and- uh. What’s your name again by the way?”

“Suzu. As I said about twenty time already.” The first girl, whose voice is neutrally leveled but tired sounding, says.

“Not you, well actually, yes you because I forgot you name again, but I meant her.” The second girl replies.

“Me? I’m Kairi. And I’m fine so you don’t need to explain.” I say as I straighten my dress.

“Oh, really? Okay, good because I thought I ran into you too hard, but anyway. I was trying to help Suzu here find something she lost and I thought I knew where it was and I thought that if I stuck to the wall then I could kind of run without running into anyone and-” I get the feeling this is going to go on for a few minutes if I don’t do anything, so I just raise my hand to say ‘stop’ before speaking, “You don’t have to explain everything. Just watch where you’re going and maybe don’t run in a school where there are bound to be people like me who really can’t see you coming.”

“Can’t see me comin- Oh my god!” Oh no. “I can’t believe I knocked over a blind person! I am so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, s-” I raise my hand yet again. “It’s fine. You didn’t know, but know you know that you have to be more careful next time, right?”

“Right!” She replies in a chipper voice.

“Well good then. Then there’s nothing else to worry about.” I say.

“Oh, okay then.” She replies seeming satisfied. “Now Suzu let’s- Suzu?”

“I think I remembered where I left it.” Suzu’s voice rings from farther down the hall.

“Hey! I said I wanted to help! Wait for me!” the other girl whines before I hear her charge down the hall after Suzu.
We all just stand there in silence for a few seconds before Kotaru breaks it, “That sleepy looking girl’s hair was a pretty color.” She says seemingly oblivious to what just happened.

For some reason her comment draws a laugh from everyone, “Yeah it was, Kotaru.” Ai says.

“Well that was a weird experience.” I say rubbing my behind. It actually did hurt a considerably, she must at a speed that makes bullet trains blush, but it’s nothing I can’t take.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Kai?” Haruhi asks noticing the slight pained expression on my face.

“Huh? Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Let’s get going to the dorms.” I reply.

I should probably be a little ticked off that she knocked me over like that, but she apologized and it didn’t really hurt all that much, so I can live with it.

We eventually meet back up with Shin and make our way to the girl’s dorm. It’s a little hectic as everyone is trying to find their own rooms while carrying around their entire luggage, but we eventually get to my room; Room 023.

Before Haichi brings anything in I take a few minutes to walk around the room and memorize the layout of everything.

There’s a closet on the left wall coming from the door, a little past that there is an empty book shelf and a dresser, on the furthest wall from the door there is a window above a studying desk table and on the wall to the right of the door there is a bed with a night table next to it. The room itself is actually so small that all of us can’t fit in it and move around at once, but it’s big enough for me.

After everything has been put away where I want it we took a tour of the school grounds, visited the head nurse for a checkup, went out to eat and spent an hour or two getting me familiar with the route to the school building, and before long it’s getting late and it’s almost time for everyone to leave.

I’m sitting on my bed clutching the blanket out of anxiety. I knew they would have to leave, but in the past five years I don’t think there’s been a single moment of my life where I haven’t had at least one of them around me at all times. The knot returns.

“Well we should probably get going if we want to be back before it gets too dark.” Shin says with a grunt. I think he’s stretching or something.

“What time is it anyway? I swear it feel like it’s ten.” Haichi says with a drawn out yawn.

“It’s seven, something or something like that...” Ai answers him in a tired voice. “It is gonna be WAY past your bedtime when we get back Kotaru.”

“Not tired.” Kotaru states indignantly despite her drowsy slurring for the past few minutes.

“Yeah, right. I’m gonna take her out to the van and wait for you guys.” Ai says before grunting from what sounds like strain. From her weak mumbling protests I’m pretty sure that she just picked up Kotaru. “I’ll come visit on Sunday, sis. Okay?”

“Sure. Have a safe trip back.” I reply with less enthusiasm then I intended, but I don’t think Ai notices because she leaves the room with a simple, “’Kay then.”

“I should probably walk em’ out there in case Ai ends up getting lost.” Haichi says with a sigh. “Hey. No long faces.”

“I don’t see any do you?” I reply glibly.

“You’ll do fine kid.” He says before giving my hair another playful tussle. “Stay in school.”

He leaves before I have a chance to reply to the joke. Only two more and I’ll be the only one in here… I honestly don’t think the knot could get any tighter at this point.

Shin just puts a hand on my shoulder and gives me a light kiss on the forehead before walking out. He never was one for words with this kind of stuff.

Haruhi sits down on the bed next to me and gently puts her arm around me and I lay my head on her shoulder.

“So, Kai, what do you think?” She asks in her usual sweet tone.

“About what?” I ask as I consider falling asleep on her shoulder to see if that would keep her around until I wake up.

“About anything you can think of.” She replies calmly.

“I’m not sure. Kind of scared, kind of excited.” I say dreamily.

“Hey. What’s there to be scared about? You get a new school, a cool new room and a chance to make some friends.” She says drawing me a little closer.

“I’m not exactly all that good at making friends.” I say with a dreamy sigh. I’ve never actually been all that good at being myself around people outside of my family, the most I can usually muster is to be polite and just nod in agreement with everything they say while not saying all that much myself. Obviously that doesn’t make me the most interesting conversation partner and before long most people just stop talking with me.

“Maybe you can get better at it here.” She replies confidently.

“I guess so…” I trail off into my thoughts away from thinking about friends and more about why I’m afraid of staying here.

Why am I afraid? Is it because I just don’t want to leave home? Am I afraid I won’t like it here? Or am I just scared to leave everyone I know? Probably a mixture of all of them to be honest, I’m not really all that good at pinning down exactly why I feel a certain way at certain times.

“There’s no guessing about it. You’ll do good here.” She says with a certain determination that I don’t remember hearing her use before. “You’ve gone through worse than high school and you’re doing well. This will be easy for you.”

She gives me a small squeeze before removing her arm and rising from the bed. “I don’t want to keep them waiting too long.”

“Yeah…”

“Love you, Kai.” She says before giving me a kiss on the forehead.

I hear the door slowly open and then close. And then I’m alone in my room.

“This will be easy for you.” I say it to myself in the hopes that I’ll believe it if it comes from myself, but no luck.

I fall back onto my back just lay there for awhile thinking about a bunch of different things like, are they going to get home safe? Will I like it here? Am I going to meet anyone who will want to be my friend? That girl who knocked me over might be a good choice. I know that sentence sounds weird, but she did seem sorry about it. I wonder what Ai wants to do when she visits on Sunday? Did I pack my phone charger? And various other things that eventually just delve into the silly as I feel myself getting more and more tired.

I reach my hand over to where my night stand is. After some fumbling I find my clock and press a button on the side of it, “It is 8:23 pm.” An electronic male voice drones from the speaker. It doesn’t feel like it should be that late, but my body and mind disagree as I slowly begin to feel my eyes grow heavy.

I close my eyes and just listen to the sounds around me. I’m not really sure why I always keep my eyes open, but I do. Anyway.

There isn’t much to listen to except for some thudding noises from the room on my right and some soft music coming from the room on my left. I’m not sure what’s going on in the former, but I’m pretty sure the later is being used to help someone fall asleep which I would wager is working because within a minute of hearing it through the wall I feel myself drifting off to sleep.

…

I hope I like it here.

...

End of chapter 2.

Well this chapter didn't take as long as I thought it would when I started writing it. But then again, neither did the next chapter.

Anyway. I hope you enjoyed and have a good day, er, night, thing. Whatever time it is for you in your time zone. Let's just put it that way.

-LS

She does that a lot when she’s talking to Kotaru, Ai and I (Author note: Sorry, but that is a really odd part to read out loud; Ai and I. God that must get confusing at some point.) when we wake up.

That's probably because it's wrong. Should be: "to Kotaru, Ai and me"
Another thing that happens quite often is using singular when there should be plural, e.g."There is trees lining the way"
Otherwise the grammar is okay.

The story itself continues to be way better than the previous version. The characters are all distinct and likeable, though you might consider going a bit easy on the nicknames. Too many will confuse the readers.

Oh. Thank God that is wrong. Just looking at it make me want to punch someone, but word kept of making the damn green line whenever I wrote the sentence, which I also hate, so I just submitted to it.
Again. A lot of time word tells me that it is an incorrect sentence (I'm using an older version, not sure if that matters or not.) whenever I put 'there is' in. I will make more of an effort to look out for this type of thing and I'll go back and fix as many as I can find.

Thank you for the compliments on the story. I don't plan on using the nicknames that much. I pretty much just use them as ways to give a bit more character, or imply a past with another character. Although I guess the whole 'implying' thing doesn't work if I outright explain it in the very next sentence.
-LS

Wait. I don't think I caught what you were saying there. Are you saying that the 'there is' in "There is trees lining..." is incorrect? That's one of the few times it didn't give me the green line.

Half the time I read Haichi's name i read Heihachi from Tekken instead, which is amusing if you know who he is.

Anyways, another great chapter. The only odd thing I noticed was

LorSquirrel wrote:I close my eyes and just listen to the sounds around me. I’m not really sure why I keep my eyes open but I do.

Are her eyes closed or not? That line is confusing.

My bad. It is supposed to read, "I don't know why I always keep my eyes open, but I do." I'll fix it.

LorSquirrel wrote:Wait. I don't think I caught what you were saying there. Are you saying that the 'there is' in "There is trees lining..." is incorrect? That's one of the few times it didn't give me the green line.

Yes, it's incorrect. "Trees" is not an uncountable noun, so the plural should be used.

Also, trusting in Word's spellchecker or in any spellchecker, really is like hiring a blind, deaf, drunken, one-armed guy as driver of your car.

Okay. I must be beyond tired, because I only just noticed that I used 'is' instead of 'are'.

And now for a joke at my own expense. http://beta.diylol.com/memes/61-high-ex ... -so-stupid

Anyway. I'll go fix that incredibly embarrassing mistake. *Pops collar up and hunches over as he walks to avoid the contemptible gaze of the entire internet.*

And, yes. i know I shouldn't always trust spell checks, but they tend to fix problems that I don't even notice as problems. And I just plain suck at spell checking myself, so I kind of have to rely on it since I don't have an editor anymore. I will be more observant in the future.