The Upper-Class

Chapter 6: A Day at the Park

Damian, Kai, and Shelby walked through the front door. It was just another Wednesday as far as any of them thought. Damian had cleaned out his locker a bit earlier that day and found a Valentine’s Day note that had fallen underneath a few books. He always got a thousand letters from girls on Valentine’s Day and sometimes they would get lost, so no one had thought much of it.

“We’re home,” Damian called when they got through the door.

“Welcome back, Mr. Damian,” Alexander said as he walked by them and into another part of the house to continue his work on the daily chores.

Kamiko was sitting up in the living room on her floor. She had found blank music sheets earlier in the day while she was wandering around the house and was now trying to write some music of her own down. She was beginning to grow frustrated.

“Damn it! That’s not right either!” Kamiko yelled, furiously erasing the last of what she had written.

The boy that her schizophrenia brought to her snickered as she erased her work and muttered a mischievous suggestion.

“You shut up!” she yelled, sitting up and pointing a finger in his direction. “I’ve about had it with you today!”

He replied with more laughter and another suggestion about a way to shut him up. Before Kamiko had the chance to yell at him again, she noticed him tense up and back away to the wall as far as he could before vanishing into the shadows.

“What are you up here yelling for?” Damian asked.

Kamiko turned around and saw Damian as he walked up the stairs.

“You could hear me?” she asked, getting a little embarrassed.

“I think everyone in the tri-state area can,” Damian teased.

“Sorry, I’m just a little mad I guess...”

“Mad? About what?”

“First of all, I can’t get these stupid notes right...”

“You write music?”

“Yes, well, no. I used to when I was little. I had this notebook and I would write music all of the time, but I can’t remember the notes...”

“That’s so cool. Do you play any instruments?”

“Yeah, guitar and piano. We had them in my house. Papa played guitar and Mama played piano. They taught me and Koro when we were little and then I practiced myself.”

“’And then’? Did they stop teaching you?”

“Um... Yeah, you can say that.”

“So, you said ‘first of all’, what’s the rest of the problem?” Damian decided not to pry anymore about her family since she was still reluctant to tell him much about them.

“He’s, uh... He’s been giving me a hard time all day...”

“That kid again?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, it’s just that since he hates you so much whenever you’re not around it just turns into a free for all!”

“Wait, why are you apologizing for that? It’s not like it’s something that you can control...”

“But, it’s not like I need to bother you with this kind of stuff... Anyways, what happened today at school?” Kamiko quickly turned the topic of conversation away from herself.

“Nothing out of the ordinary... So, we were thinking about going down to the park for a while. You wanna come?”

“Park? Like a playground for little kids?”