Unfinished Fanfictions - Free For Use [Vocaloid]

Arc 5 - Chapter 1 (1344 words)

By the time she'd reached the door Gumi was exhausted. It wasn't that the child was heavy; in fact, he seemed malnourished and too light for his age. However, added to the weight of Gumi's homework-filled bag, and the fatigue that rested on Gumi's shoulders after a long day, it felt like heaven to put him down.

"Okaay," she heaved, finally able to breathe normally. Now, she could actually examine the boy.

Scars ran over his limbs. Victim of abuse? Gumi wondered, but she wasn't able to confirm it. The child was the literal definition of "skin and bones"; under his rough, pale skin, there seemed to be nearly nothing. His clothes were grimy with dirt and rubbish.

But what caught the most of Gumi's attention were the boy's eyes. Like any other child that would be in his situation, they held a pitiful, scared look. However, something else rested inside his emerald green eyes - except it wasn't an emotion. Gumi couldn't tell what it was, exactly. But with the intense, concentrated stare he was giving her, it was as if he were analysing her.

Not the other way round?

"You can understand English, right?" Gumi finally asked after a long, awkward silence. The boy nodded. "Can you speak?"

The boy hesitated, as if in contemplation, before shaking his head. Sighing, Gumi wondered what she were to do. How would she communicate with the child? She didn't know what he needed. Well, obviously, the boy needed a shower-

And Gumi was not doing that.

Sure, it was a young child, but he was still a boy. And Gumi was a teenaged girl in the midst of adolescence, so... no. She probably needed her older brother Gakupo for this.

Speaking of which, where was Gakupo? Gumi suddenly noticed that neither of her older siblings had come out of their rooms to greet her. The house was eerily silent.
Immediately, Gumi picked up her phone, and it was then she saw the text message sent by her older brother.

"Out with friends, coming back at 8. Lily's at a sleepover, so she won't be back until tomorrow. You can survive, right?"

Usually, Gumi would have cheekily replied, "Sure I can, but can you?" But this time, her fingers paused in mid-air before hitting the keyboard.

Would she survive?

Regret hit her. Maybe she shouldn't have picked up the child. Maybe his parents were searching for him now.

The child tugged at her sleeve, and as if he had read her mind, he shook his head, as if trying to tell her that it was the right choice to pick him up. Gumi gazed at him, his bright eyes a stark contrast of his filthy body. He stared back.

Gumi glanced back at her phone, before turning it off and putting it down.

She wasn't going to reply.

No promises.

"Okay, let's see..." Gumi tapped her chin. "Do you know how to bathe yourself?"

The child just blinked.

"I don't want you drowning in water... If I gave you some wet cloths, can you try, um, cleaning yourself?"

The boy nodded, much to Gumi's relief. Picking him up, Gumi carried him to her room. While he did as he was told, Gumi searched her cabinet for anything that he could wear.

Nothing.

Gumi started to regret burning the clothes of her childhood dolls.

Groaning, she rummaged through for anything else. Diving deep into her clothing chest, she dug out the smallest shirt she could find. Blatantly too big for the child, but it was better than all the other options.
A hand tugged her sleeve, beckoning her to turn around. Half-closing her eyes (so as to not ruin her decency), Gumi pinned a towel around his hip and then slid the shirt onto him.

"..."

Okay, the shirt, was dragging along the floor everytime the boy took a step, but surely it wasn't that bad.

Right?

The boy tripped and landed flat on his face, bruising his cheek. Crying out, Gumi lunged forward to help him up.

He wasn't crying.

He looked, in the least, undeterred.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Gumi patted his head. "Hey... If I give you a book or something... Can you let me wash up for a while?"

The boy stared blankly at her but Gumi decided that it would be okay. Leaving him with a kid's picture book, Gumi sprinted into the toilet.

She'd never bathed so fast before.
When she'd changed and exited the bathroom, the boy was under the blanket, rolling on the bed.

Laughing a little bit, Gumi removed the blanket. The boy pouted for a second before sitting up.

"How old are you?"

The boy stared at his fingers for a while, before showing her two fingers.

"You're pretty smart for your age, huh?" Gumi commented. The boy just continued staring at her.

"I guess you can't speak, so I'll probably just do something else other than ask you questions," Gumi dived under her bed and emerged a few seconds later with a medical kit. "Sit still while I treat your wounds, okay?"

The boy flinched as Gumi applied ointment onto his reddish skin, but didn't cry out in pain. It was as if his throat had been stripped of the ability to make any noise at all, but instead the ability had been replaced with an inexplicable amount intelligence.

Just as the the last of the cotton white bandages had been securely wrapped around the boy's limbs, the creak of an opening door resonated through the house.

Gakupo!

Gumi was about to stand up and call him for help, but the boy suddenly tugged at her sleeve and shook his head. What did he want? She wondered. Not to leave him? Or not to alert Gakupo?

As footsteps approached, the boy began shuddering. It was as if he was suffering from a sudden seizure; he covered his ears with his tiny palms, before lunging underneath the bed.

"Hey, Gumi?" Gakupo asked, opening the door.

"Hey, Gakupo," Gumi replied, attempting to act normal. "Why are you back so early?"
"Some of my friends didn't show up, they were taken ill. The rest of us didn't really see the point in going on without them, so yeah... Why? Are you not happy to see your big brother?" Gakupo fake-pouted.

"Bleah," Gumi blew him a raspberry before yelling, "Get out of my room already!"

"Okay, okay," Gakupo sighed and exited, heading for his own room. Immediately, the boy crawled out.

"Why were you scared?" Gumi instantly asked him. The boy just blankly gazed at the closed door. Seeing that he would not reply her, she stood up and walked to the drawer, pulling out a lot of snacks and drinks. She'd concealed them for sleepovers, but since there hadn't been any for weeks already, she guessed that she didn't need them anymore.

"Here," she opened a packet of chocolate cookies and handed it to the boy. However, he did not seem interested in it. Instead, his attention was on a ball capsule on Gumi's table.

"Oh, that?" She picked it up and passed it to him. "This is a toy capsule. I got it from a Gacha machine when Rin and I were at Akihabara."

The boy opened the capsule and took out the green dinosaur keychain inside. He looked at Gumi with eyes that seemed as if they were pleading. Gumi grinned. "You want it? Yeah, you can have it if you want, I don't really need it."

The boy nodded and placed it back in the capsule. Holding it close to his chest, Gumi couldn't help but reach for her phone to take a picture.

"You look so cute..." Gumi's voice trailed off for a moment, wondering what she could name the child, before continuing, "...Gacha-boy."

"G-gach-cha..." The boy began mumbling. Gumi's eyes widened. "You can speak?"
He struggled to pronounce the words, especially the 'B' sound.

"Gacha... poi... poi..d?"

Awed, Gumi brought her hand up to her mouth, nodding.

"It's nice to meet you, Gachapoid."