Marionette Omakes (NOT FOR NEW READERS)

Supplement Chapter #1.3 - Astonish

STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING! Are you up to date with the current events of Marionette? (Minimum reading up to Cosmos, Chapter Twenty). These are NOT for new readers to read. These contain SPOILERS to the main book, and as such, read at your own risk. All Supplement chapters should not be read until Cosmos Chapter Twenty at the minimum, but it's recommended for readers to be COMPLETELY up to date. If you spoil yourselves by reading this while you're still in Oceans arc, then thats your own choice, but be mature and don't post spoilers from here onto the main book before a character even turns up. I wouldn't want to have to permanently mute you.

For the first time since his parents had started working away for weeks at a time, Akabane Karma didn't find it so lonely.

For the first time, he found that there was someone here who bothered to actually look at him.

And it was the last person he had ever expected it to be.

The days since his eighth birthday were spent in a rather pensive silence, mulling over the changes that had taken place without his realizing. His parents had come home the day after his Birthday Just as they'd said they were home before he even woke up that morning.

His mother had noticed the cake sitting in the refrigerator, surprised by the fact that there was one there at all. And he didn't have the guts to actually admit that the girl he'd been tormenting for a few months had actually been the one to give it to him.

His parents were home for the next month, a longer break than he was used to them taking.

Though there was the chance that something would come up part-way through, and they'd have to leave early.

The snow lightly covered the city streets during early January, speckled with footprints and turned to slush over the bitumen. His breath escaped him in clouds of white, one of the many signs of just how cold it was that day.

He rubbed his hands together gingerly, the friction bringing minor warmth to his otherwise cold hands.

Why did that girl decide to go out of her way and bring him a present like that?

How did she even know it was his birthday, to begin with?

And why ... why did she break her perfect silence?

Why for him?

Even at such an age, these questions pestered him beyond comfortable.

Classmates of his, and others from surrounding year groups ran right past him on their way to school, seeming to not even notice him at all, if not for the wide berth they all gave him.

He eyed them all with disdain, though otherwise he did nothing.

At least until he spotted a form up ahead that almost blended in with the snowscape seamlessly, if not for the girls uniform they were wearing.

The extremely pale complexion and white hair of none other than Rat-kun almost made her look invisible, if he didn't stare long enough to see the girl's movements.

If the uniform for the girls had of been white instead of the olive green it really was, he wouldn't have even known there was a person walking there at all.

The conscious realization that Rat-kun was up ahead had Karma slow in his steps, a small pout creeping across his face as he found himself almost wanting to approach her. He didn't understand why, exactly, and that bothered him.

There was a lot about that girl that bothered him.

However, out of a lack of excuses to approach her, he just followed up towards the classroom, that pout still in place.