Transparent Love

Chapter 1

The feeling of stepping into a new, refreshing atmosphere appeased 16 year old Mikaela Shindo. Taking in the scent of his new home was something he could get used to. He took notice that the walls weren't chipping and revealing their prior, hideous shade, that the walls were tidy without a speck of fifth. Mika adored the decent size of the living room and kitchen for he and his mother had room to move around without crashing into each other on a daily basis. Especially, he admired the way bugs or cockroaches didn't welcome themselves into their home at every dark corner of the room unlike the apartment he and his mother finally moved out of.

The rental apartment they delightfully moved out of was a temporary hell he had to burn in everyday when he got home from school. 500 dollars a month went to waste for a grimy place with horrific service. The insipid tone that the managers used to greet costumers should've been a warning sign to Krul that these people weren't going to give a rat's ass about them.

But the worst part wasn't the spiders and cockroaches that would huddle themselves on the wall until it became a huge, disgusting hodgepodge, nor was it the shower that refused to reward Mika and Krul with warm water after a tough day at work or school. It was the obnoxious neighbors that celebrated every weekend until sunrise including Friday.

The toxic stench of beer and alcohol arose Mika every morning at an unnecessary hour, but it's not like Mika even slept throughout the night with creaking bed springs and raspy hollers demanding they get more shots. The biggest party animals stayed in the apartment above Mika and Krul. Occasionally, they would use Mikaela's porch to climb up their upper porch when they were drunk or high and usually ended up destroying it and leaving the wooden pieces covered with open nails abandoned on their lawn. Blindly, Mikaela stepped on one of the rusty nails screwed into the bare wood once when he was 15, and the neighbors refused to apologize for his foolish mishap. Accusing him of being a reckless teenager, the irony begun there. And to top that off, they owned two massive great danes, who despised him terribly.

One time, Mikaela decided he'd walk home from school, and little did he know, he'd run into the two hell hounds. The dogs trotted next to boy, so Mika could award them with a soothing belly scratch. That was until the dog viciously ripped through his satchel with his god forbid teeth, and the papers he organized in his folders subtly flew down like a waterfall. That mayhem was followed by the other bitch snatching his papers and tearing them up like old newspapers or a new, squeaky chew toy.

Mikaela rapidly climbed up the mountain of stair steps because there awaits his room. Once Mika was standing in front of the door, it wouldn't budge. A crease formed between the puzzled boy's eyebrows as he let out an exasperated sigh.

"Mom, the door's locked!" Mika complained from upstairs.

"That's weird. The movers came in earlier to put in your dresser, bed, and desk," Krul concluded while she rushed to where Mikaela was waiting. The petite women pulled out a bobby-pin from her pink, luscious hair and jabbed it into the lock and violently twisted and turned until the door let out a satisfying creak and opened. Mika let an excited cheer escape his mouth as he entered the room.

The room was a bit plain, but it beat Mika's cockroach-infested room. Many heavy, brown boxes were piled on top of his full sized bed, and the painful part was unpacking the sturdy textbooks.
"I'll go get your mirror. I'll be back," Krul reassured as she head downstairs to get the remaining object Mika was missing.

Mika struggled to lift the box off of his bed to the desk where he wanted to place them. When he accomplished that task, he proceeded to pull out his school textbooks. Mikaela's devotion to school was fervent. His eagerness to graduate school was one of the few goals that was in Mika's reach. Sports required a load of agility and strength while fine arts requires talent and the audacity to make a fool of yourself before an audience.
Intelligence requires knowledge, patience, devotion, the three qualities Mikaela was blessed with.