«ａｍｎｅｓｉａ»「nejire x reader」

〔13〕- The Truth...?

ყ/ŋ'ʂ ℘ơ۷
I sat up, dusting my self off and stepping into the bus, turning around and waiting for the girl to hop on. The driver asked if I booked online, and I nodded and put in my PIN for the ticket, glad I didn't have to use my student ID.
I grabbed a seat and the girl paid her fee to the driver, and sat next to me. Her dog, despite being quite big , managed to squeeze in between her left leg and my right - it's big brown eyes looked up at me in a friendly manner. I smiled and patted it on the head.
"Leon, don't go creeping on people," the girl laughed.
I laid my head on the window, the bus letting out a steamed sound before slowly rolling. I thought about school. About everyone there, what I was going to say to them when I came back...oh god, what was I going to say to them when I come back?
She seemed to pick up on my agitation.
"I-I'm Anzu," she muttered, I'm guessing it was to distract me.
"H-huh?" I said dumbly.
"Anzu, t-that's my name, yours?"
"Y/N..."
"You have a nice name, and a cool quirk,"
I smiled softly, the compliment making me calm.
She fumbled with her protruding ant jaws, then feeling her face and covering her eyes with her fingers.
"I'm ugly...my whole face is gross, that's why the step-monster is so mean, she calls me a freak, she calls me disgusting and Dad does nothing about it,"
The word disgusting made my head spin, familiarity...
I heard a voice, it...it sounded like me?
my body is disgusting.
The words cut me like a knife. That...a flashback? That couldn't be me? Could it?
"Y/N?" Anzu tapped me on the shoulder, her dog picking up on my distress too and rubbing its nose against one of the rips in my jeans.
"Y-yeah, but about what you said, you aren't gross, I think you look cool, plus your eyes are awesome,"
"Really...? You really think so?" Her antennae perked up as her eyes went wide.
I nodded, and turned my head back to the window.
It took me a while, but I realised I was crying. I didn't know what for, but hot tears steamed from my eyes. I wiped it with my fingers. Anzu had plugged earphones in her ears, but Leon, her dog, was resting his chin on my knee, and he started panting happily when I looked down at him.

~

The rest of the trip was a blur, but the driver over the microphone announced that Main Street station was now down the road. Anzu, Leon and I stood up, grabbing our backpacks and stepping outside once the bus had come to a halt.
"Jeez, it's still dark?" Anzu mumbled, "oh well, I'm only walking to the station, where are you going?"
"Laudanum Booksellers, just down that way," I pointed, the only light on in the street was the bookstore's.
"Oh, well, I guess this is goodbye now," she sighed.
"Yeah, but it was nice to meet you," I mentioned.
Leon whimpered.
"Aww, don't worry, boy, soon we'll be back at mom's, nice meeting you too Y/N,"
I waved goodbye, stuffing my hands in my pockets and walking down the street. I pulled my mask over my nose again, because the cold was biting at my cheeks. But this sense of coldness still ran through my whole body, in waves, fear...cold...fear...cold.
The fear seemed to stab at me when I reached for the door. My stomach twisted with fear and a feeling that I need to turn back was whispering to me. Urgent, Turn back now and run. The same feeling I felt in my dream. I opened the door, cautiously making my way into the shop. I'm not giving up now. I walked down the isle that was divided by bookshelves in a slow pace. The lump in my throat was hard to swallow, and my hands began to shake at the eerie silence in the store signalling that something wasn't right. As I reached the end, something hit me in the head and caused me to black out from the surging pain.

~

Groaning, my head throbbed as the world soon came back into view. Shit, where am I?
I looked around, a concrete wall either side of me, I was leaning on one. Ripped up posters, wooden crates and topless trash cans were strewn around. I looked to the left, and saw...I saw the sign.
Maple Street
No...no no no no.
I looked to the other side of me, Main Street was across the alleyway.
"Oh shit," I cursed under my breath, trying to stand up. The sky was now darker than usual, that meant I'd skipped through the whole day, and that it was now night. Across from Maple Street was a desolate car park, if I run for it, would I make it?
"I wouldn't think of trying,"
My head swerved as I heard his voice.
This felt all too familiar. My hair flared up on its own accord, spouting small blue flames as it spilled onto the floor around me. The parts touching my clothes were solid rock. There was a shadow, a figure inside of it, of a tall man.
"Why have you dragged me here?" I choked out,
"Why am I here?"

He chuckled, "maybe you should ask yourself that, you're the one who came back, despite not remembering what I did to you,"
What he did to me...? I touched my bandages, swallowing hard but not taking my gaze off of him.
"That's right..." he said, "I burned you,"
I choked back a sob.
I was right. It wasn't me who caused my injures or my amnesia-
"It was me," he finished my thought process for me.
"Why would you do this to me?" I asked, hot tears swelling up again.
"I gave you an option, you know, but you refused," he sighed.
He stepped out of the shadows. A black trench coat covered most of his body, a white v-neck underneath and showing a nasty purple scar that travelled all the way up his neck and to the corners of his mouth, spiky black hair covering some of his face, but what struck me the most were his piecing blue eyes. They were what I remembered the most. He crouched in front of me, and lifted my chin up, examining my face then my body.
"You look very different, I almost didn't recognise you," he muttered.
On his wrist was a dark circular indent, a burn that stood out from the rest of his.
"Oh yeah, that shit still stings like hell, you know, your lava hurts,"
"I did that..?"
"Yeah, you did, and let me tell you it hurt like a bitch," he laughed quietly.
"So you came here for a reason, was it because all of your 'friends' were acting weird?"
"T-they...why did you say it like that?"
"Because you never had any,"
I was struck speechless, he can't mean that...of course I had friends. He seemed to read my face.
"Nah, you only had that gravity girl and that's it, but even she was tired of you, you're constant crying and depression was something she couldn't be bothered to deal with,"
"B-but what about..." I couldn't bare to say her name, did she...she never cared about me?
"If you're talking about that other one, not that I remember her name, the spiral one or whatever, no, she never cared about you, she was only worried for her friend," he smiled darkly.
I couldn't respond. I'd spent...I'd spent so much time with them all, but all along they'd never even cared about me...
"Don't you see?" He continued, his fingers still on my chin, "you're all alone in this world, really, no one even cared about you, so why would you care about them?"
Maybe he was right...why would I...?
"I-I don't know," I answered, my eyes wide and the tears falling and sizzling on the ground.
"Exactly," he cooed, rubbing my small jaw, "so why don't you just leave them, give up on them, they tormented you before you were important to them, but you were always important to us,"
His other hand was caressing my arm, and I did nothing about it.
"You went missing that night, and the two you considered your friends never even came looking for you," he continued, "the teachers found you, and brought you back to the hospital, that's when your classmates and fake friends came to see you, they didn't give two shits about you before then,"
I began to cry, these words hurt so much, the truth was finally revealing itself and it hurt, really bad.
"So...I was living a lie this whole time?" I managed to say.
He sighed.
"Now that the truth is out, I think they deserve a visit from you," he leaned in and whispered in my ear, sending a cold shiver down my back, "then you come back here, come back to me and I'll take you away from here,"
My rapid breathing made the tears fall faster. I stood up, holding myself in my arms, the only arms that I felt cared about me anymore...I was alone now.
I was all alone and there was nothing I could do about it. Do I do as he says..? Really, what else was there to do... the liars weren't going to care if I left, would they?
I sobbed and ran out of the alleyway. I didn't stop, I ran down the streets, the school up on the hill in constant view. I came here for answers, but now I wished I just lived out the stupid lie that people made up for me. They all lied to me, I just...I couldn't believe that they really cared for me, not now that every dot seemed to connect. The winding streets led to the mountain, and I ran up my breathing desperate and grasping for air. I reached my gate I burned through. I tore away the branch and ran into the school grounds.
~