Rattlebones (bxbxb)

Shinigami

I didn't mind talking to a counselor. 

As strange as my thoughts were and being adopted as a child, my parents had taken extra precautions with my mental health, and I thanked them for that. It allowed me to realize that my pessimism was a perfectly natural part of me. Just like how some people were raging balls of sunshine, I was a ball of tumultuous misery that had not been rivaled since Oscar Wilde had walked the earth.

The Priest leads me to his office and he opens the door. Only, it wasn't really an office. It was the old storage room that the band used to hold all their extra chairs and costumes.

"Excuse the mess," The old man apologizes, and he takes a seat at a rickety metal desk underneath a chalkboard. "My stay here is temporary, so they've given me a temporary room. Sit down, please." 

I take a seat across from him, unsure of what to say. How did one even begin to explain what had happened between Eugene, Igor, and me in only a matter of two days? How I had fallen madly in love with them with everything contained within my 5'1 vessel, and subsequently been rejected? 

"Darcy Brown, my name is Father Jerome." Jerome begins. "As I understand it, you saw Eugene Wilder die, didn't you? Do you care to replay that day over for me?"

I think back to Eugene writhing on the floor, foaming at the mouth. Holding him in his arms as his body convulsed and me screaming for help. How I had tried so hard to bring him back to life with a kiss of life but failed everyone around me. At least until now. "Well..." I begin, and I bite my lip a little. "Eugene stuck a probe into a frog's anus and he was electrocuted," I explain. "As you know, electrocution stops the heart and--"

"How about a less detailed version?" Jerome interrupts me. "How did it make you feel?"

Nobody had ever asked me that. 

"I guess I felt out of control," I reply, and my voice is quiet. "Helpless. I never really talked to Eugene before that. We were always sort of enemies. But it's weird because I'm feeling things for him now that I never thought I would feel."

"Did you want to take out your anger on someone?" Father Jerome questions and his voice is low. "Exact revenge on your classmates in a violent act of terror?"

Okay, what in the actual fuck? This was beginning to feel more like an interrogation. 

"No!" I exclaim, instantly appalled. "I wouldn't do something like that. It wasn't my fault that Eugene died."

Jerome studies me, his tiny eyes like two twin mosquitoes, digging into me. "You were born in Kyoto, were you not? My son Benjamin had a class with you, shortly after you arrived. Apparently, you locked him in a Scold's Bridle when you were both children."

Tibbles. Of course, that little shit had ratted me out to his parents. Who knows what else he had told them.

Jerome leans forward and folds his hands in his lap. "I know that they found you lying on the steps of a Japanese temple." He murmurs. "I read your adoption record."

"You know what?" I start to gather myself to get up, feeling super creeped out now. "I'm just going to leave. I told my parents that I was coming home early." I get up and I start for the door, almost certain that Jerome was going to lunge across the table and grab me. He just had that batshit insane look in his eye that told me so.

"Shinigami."

I stop walking, chills shooting down my spine, and turn around to face Jerome. How had he known the exact word that I had heard in the bathroom? "What did you say?" I ask him, my voice a squeak. "What is that? Shinigami?"

"The word that was pinned to your outfit when they found you," Jerome murmurs. "Shinigami. Death bringer. It seems fitting, doesn't it?"

I start to back away slowly and then I take off running. 

"Sooner or later your past will make itself known!" Jerome shouts after me. "You can't run from your sins, Darcy Brown!"

I slam out of the room and into the hallway right as the bell rings to signal the end of the school day. Students begin pouring out, and suddenly I'm lost in the crowd and the chaos. Despite all the noise and pushing and shoving though, I felt ridiculously alone. Trapped in my own bubble, unable to call for help. 

I stumble along until I find my locker, and try opening the padlock, but my hands are shaking so badly that I can't even spin the combination right. 

"Here, let me help you." A voice cuts through the roar in my head, and suddenly several fingers with pink manicured nails are on my padlock. "Darcy, honey. You're a bit of a mess right now. Aren't you?" Rainbow Lewis drawls.

I stare up at him, the assault of sequins and neon clothing too much for my modest eyes to take. It's like Lisa Frank and Elton John had a love child together. Rainbow Lewis was known in the halls as the most flamboyant boy to ever grace our high school, and people loved it. He sang and danced his way through life as if it were his own personal Glee series. He helped old women cross the street, and he loved life.

We also couldn't stand each other. Especially after I had caught him on his knees in front of Eugene Wilder in the janitor's closet and outed them to the entire school.

"Rainbow," I say in the most monotone voice that I can muster. "What muppet did you skin this time to make your jacket?" 

Rainbow smiles smugly. He was sacrilegiously beautiful, with bubble gum lips and perfect eyebrows. Hair, a hideous shade of lavender. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Mother fucker.

"I actually wanted to ask you something." Rainbow leans against the lockers. He smells like that weird bubblegum, baby powder perfume that all kids used when they were like twelve. "I noticed you hanging around a tall guy in bandages earlier."

Of fucking course Rainbow had spotted Eugene from a mile away. I roll my eyes and grab my backpack and keys from my locker. "What about him?"

Rainbow fiddles with one of his shiny rings. "He reminds me of Eugene Wilder." He says.

I open my mouth to reply, and then I notice Rainbow crying. But it's not loud crying or anything, it's this silent kind of crying, where tears are rolling down his cheeks.

"I miss him," Rainbow tells me. "I wasn't in love with him or anything, but I really liked him."

This is the worst that I had felt in a while.

"I have to go," I tell Rainbow, and I move to walk past him, leaving him behind in the crowd. At this point, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and lay there for a few days.