Chosen

Chapter Eight: Kiyoshi

She's tense. Her fists are in balls so tight that her knuckles are white. She doesn't want to talk to him, Kiyoshi knows that.

But who is he to listen to his instincts? When has he ever?

"Hello, my love!" he says enthusiastically. She watches as she takes a deep breath. She must have given herself a mental talk, because when her eyes open, her fists unclench, and her body relaxes.

"Hello, Kiyoshi." She crosses her arms, rubbing them as she walks towards him. "Christ, is it always this cold in your house?"

"Yes," he says. Both metaphorically and literally, he thinks. "I could get you a jacket, if you'd like."

She turns down his offer. "Listen, Kiyoshi, I must go," she says.

"Why? You just got here," he says. "Why not stay and enjoy my amazing company?"

That makes her smile, just a bit. She looks outside, watching as the sun sets. "I can only stay for a bit, Sato. I need to meet Levi at a ten."

Kiyoshi mime gags. "Eugh. Gross."

"You're gross," she teases. This is a side of Lysandra he doesn't see enough. The one that makes jokes and teases and has fun. He saw That Lysandra all the time when they were younger, and then her father died, and she changed. Especially after The Day. Kiyoshi shudders, and before he can mask it, a shadow falls over Lysandra's face, and he knows she's going back to that night. He doesn't like to think about it much, as when he does, every reason to fear Lysandra is shoved in his face. He doesn't like fear.

He saw This Lysandra earlier today. When she looked at his father, there was a look in her eye that chilled Kiyoshi to the bone. Which brings him to ask, "Lysandra, dear, what did you do to my father?"

She looks taken aback by the question. "I didn't kill him, unfortunately. He will need a little help with writing for quite a bit, though."

Kiyoshi laughs softly. Only Lysandra could make such a ruthless act seem so small. He just doesn't understand how a girl who cried when her father stomped on a bug could become such a... a...

"I'm not a monster, Kiyoshi. Monsters are the fearful creatures that hide under your beds and in your closet." She has a hard look in her eyes. "I am a human. Though, there isn't much of a difference, is there?"

Aaaand That Lysandra is gone. In a flash, the Lysandra he grew up with is tucked away. It doesn't mean he won't try and coax her back out. "I was expecting you to say, 'I am a god', and go on a tangent about how you're strong enough to level cities and how I must respect you and so on," he muses.

He can tell by the line she's pressed her lips into that she is trying not to smile. "Maybe that, too."

He smiles, and then notices that the sun has fallen behind the mountains and trees, returning home for his slumber. "Say, what time did you have to meet Levi again?"

Lysandra notices it, too. "Kiyoshi, I must get going. It was nice talking to you," she says, and runs out of the house.

Kiyoshi doesn't stand there for too long, instead walking down the hall where Lysandra came from, and entering the med-wing. He finds his sister asleep, and for once in her life, she looks peaceful. She looks like the seventeen-year-old she is. A wave of guilt and shame comes upon him, and he lets himself drown in it.

He is the older brother, the one who should be protecting her. Instead, she's protecting him as if he was some sort of child. All he could do was watch as their father pinned her to the ground, kicked her, treated her like some sort of wild animal in need of taming. And all in a span of five minutes, he came back to see his baby sister bleeding out on the ground, their father not having a care in the world, his ears deaf to her screams and he delivers blow after blow after blow.

I'm useless, Kiyoshi thinks. I could not even protect my own sister from our father, even all those years ago. What am I here for? If not to protect her?

Kiyoshi makes a vow to himself. He will protect her, no matter what. Sure, she could hold her own ground in the streets, kill a man in her sleep, but against their father? He must protect her. He will not allow this monstrosity to happen again, he will not allow his father to hit his mother, never again.

He will protect them, even if he dies trying.