Vampires Beneath the Moonlight || Shin Soukoku

I definitely, Absolutely DO NOT Live In A Group Home!

I watch the tiger beetles crawl by one at a time. They form a line, order in the chaos, sunlight glinting off their backs.

There's an older boy, Tatsuhiko-kun, who likes to light them on fire with a magnifying glass or even just matches. He scares me, his long unruly white hair as unnatural as his bright red eyes and pale skin. He's a bully, we call him a vampire behind his back. I think even the directors are scared of him . . . and I'm his favourite target.

My watch shows it's five minutes until my online lesson with my tutor so I gather my things and head back inside. I'm officially back in the trap, and I choose to walk in here. I laugh at my own patheticness. But it's not like I want to be here, it's just that I have nowhere else to go. The streets are full of bandits and broken glass and people worse than bandits.

The care home is a giant house, with all the "extra" rooms with the expectation of the dining room, the kitchen and the study turned into bedrooms for us kids. There were four bedrooms to begin with and a spare room was turned into a nursery for the youngest, while the basement is storage. Each bedroom now holds six children, two towers with three bunks each per room. It's rather cramped and they're always fighting for blankets and closet space. We fight for everything actually, the smallest trinkets to keep to ourselves and life-saving resources, including food and seats at the dining table. The directors never try to stop us, just let us settle things ourselves. I've gotten scars and scratches all over my body and even a few burns from the scrimmages, but I can't make myself win.

The youngest of us are skinnier than even I am, I can't make myself kick and punch them. So whenever it comes to a fight with one of them I let them win, they know, everyone knows I go easy on the young ones. That only makes them come at me harder to prove they aren't only winning because of my kindness. A girl with faux nails she probably stole from a shop raked her hands down my face digging in deeply. I'm lucky I still have my sight.

I have no idea how a simple urchin like me could deserve such luck.

I shouldn't win. I don't deserve it when I never really get hurt. I'm a coward. Sure I get kicked and punched and scarchtecd and slashed, but I've never been really hurt. I've been at it, I can't remember when I stopped feeling the pain. I want to feel it. I should. It's not fair that other children get hurt and I don't.

I'm squeamish too, I can't make myself look at the wounds, and by the time I do, they've healed. I've been lucky. Too lucky. Sometimes I just want to die. Not because I feel badly about myself, but because it feels like that's the only way I'm ever getting out of this prison. 18 feels years away, not months. If I make it that long.

Whenever I feel like that I push it down, I imagine drowning it in a river, because if I'm feeling like that everyone will surely take advantage of me, and I'm tired. So tired of it. I just want to eat.

I used to feel guilty about kicking, punching and scratching anyone, even the older kids, but it's what I have to do to survive. I was kicked and scratched too, I deserve to get a place at the table. Nobody wants to eat on the floor, the floor is cold and there are rats there. I think if I win enough times, then Tatsuhiko will leave me alone, maybe even take me in (not like I want to be around him but at least then I'd be with him instead of at his mercy).

I head to the director's office, the only safe place in the house. Clean polished wood with a desktop computer. The director dials the number for me and then leaves, laughing at me for wanting to keep the illusion.

"Hello, Atsushi-kun. How's your week been?" Kunikida-san asks, he has no idea just what kind of week I've had. My shoulder aches from where an older boy twisted my arm nearly all the way back to keep me from getting the piece of fish he wanted.