What We've Missed Without You

chapter 20

*sorry for mistakes*

Justin stared at the ceiling of the bathroom from the floor, finally feeling his heart beat slow and his vision clear up. He could finally breath again without those voices interrupting him him, blurring out all of his sense until he fell to the ground and almost pass out. Slowly, the dark-haired boy got up and unlocked the stall of the handicapped bathroom. He went over to the mirror to see his messy appearance: his hair was ruffled and messy from rolling on the floor, eyes red and swollen from crying so much, snot running down his nose, and the side of his mouth damp from drooling.

The ten-year-old turned the sink on and splashed cold water on his face to clean any impurities off, blindly searching for the paper towel dispenser to dry off his face. After blowing his nose, Justin opened his eyes and tossed the paper towel away, his attention brought to the mirror and his now pink and puffy eyes. Taking his nimble fingers under the running cold water, he pressed his damp finger tips under his eyes and waited for them to drain out to look normal. This was a normal occurrence, the first couple of times he wasn't so lucky.

"Justin?"

Justin almost jumped as he looked over to see his older sister, Reika staring at him as he laid in his personal futon. His eyes were so red, someone could barely tell the difference between Justin's bloodshot scleras and his actual irises. Instantly, the ash-haired boy flipped over his damn pillow and naturally rested his arms on top, smiling at Reika while acting like nothing happened.

"Ah, did you forget your review book, Nee-san?"

"...Yes, I...Left it on the desk." The wine-eyed girl awkwardly shuffled through the sea of futons on the floor to head towards the lone wooden desk in the corner, picking up a blue college-rule notebook and ushered herself to leave. She stopped at the bedroom door before taking a sigh, turning her head to the boy who was still smiling innocently. He was a terrible liar and they both knew that.

"...Your eyes...They're-"

"Ah...It's those allergies again! You know how they make me suffer! I just though being in here would help it calm down a little." Justin forced out a laugh, sniffling before any snot decided to trail down his nose at the wrong time. The dark-haired female nodded slowly, quietly and carefully speaking up.

"...Cold water helps get rid of the puffiness...And it can help reduce the redness of your eyes. I read it in a book once."

"...Thank you...I'm a bad liar, aren't I?" Justin laughed as he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. Reika shook her head and gave a small smile towards the ten-year-old boy. "You're the most honest and true boy in the world, you just don't know how to lie."

Reika was an awkward person when it came to emotions, but it left a warm tinge in Justin's heart that she was trying to help him out. As he felt the cloud dissipate, he got up and headed towards the bathroom. He knew that she wasn't going to tell their mother, Reika didn't know how to report on other people's emotion. He could remember one time she got a 'special' valentine from a boy in her class and she told their grandmother that 'the boy was running a fever and yet he still came to school'. No amount of books could educate her about emotion, but it'll come to her naturally. Justin was glad for this awkwardness,

It'll give him more time to practice lying.

Once Justin's eyes were normal, he turned off the sink and wiped his hands on his jeans. Fixing his hair, he stared a himself in the mirror for a moment. Justin took his index fingers and forced his lips into a smile, trying to figure out how to hold a natural smile before taking his fingers away and smiling in the mirror. The ash-haired boy smiled in the mirror and headed out the door, seeing his younger siblings circled around and chattering loudly in the empty diner. They looked over at him and circled the older man, Melissa proudly exclaimed to her older brother:

"Onii-chan! Onii-chan! We have all of the players now! We can play knights~!"

"...Onii-chan..." Christina pulled on the older boy's pant leg softly, beckoning him to come closer to her as she reveled a goldenrod yellow paper ground in her small hands. The points were cut out crudely with school-owed safety scissors and too much tape held the paper together to form Justin's 'princess tiara'. He still kept a smile on his face as he accepted the craft, placing it on top of his dark-ash locks. "Thank you so much, my fair knight. I will wait for you in my castle!"

Chiaki, who accepted the part of the king, dragged Justin by the hand to where the castle would be and told him to stay with the dragon, who happened to be Hiroto. Justin's distant velvet-pink gaze warmed up at the sight of laughing children. Chiaki was asking the brave knights, Melissa and Christina, to rescue the princess from the terrible dragon. Kaede faked cried and begged them to bring her 'daughter' back alive and well, and that they would pay them well and make them higher-ranked knights. Different heads of colored hair ran around the room with grinning face and bubbly laughter, at one point Melissa was pulling at Hiroto's hair to try and ride the dragon.

Out of the corner of his eye, Justin saw the employee back room door swing open and Adam walking out with a peeved expression

"What happened to him?" Justin thought, but he brushed the thought aside...Someone probably scribbled on one of Adam's books again, it happened every once in a while.

It wasn't Justin's place to put himself in other people's problems. He didn't want others in his, so why would he get into theirs?

Word count: 1-0-3-6