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Maria+Holic

I was hoping for an unban Roxas thread.

Most of them like man parts though. Myself included.

I'm about to get arrested.

1-4

Spoiler

When Erica awoke the next morning she could feel that something wasn’t quite right with her. When she got up and inspected herself in the mirror nothing seemed out of place. When she dressed herself and walked out the door everything was perfectly mundane and normal. Everything she did or encountered was just as usual. However, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong.

Even after she reached school and classes began that sneaking sense of dread lingered on. It wasn’t the same sick feeling as when she worried about a test and it wasn’t the icy chill that Raven inspired. It felt like she was being baked in her skin by some invisible presence, constantly exerting pressure from all sides. Both outer and inner. It made her nervous and antsy about everything. She wanted to just get up and go home but she knew that feeling wouldn’t go away no matter what she did about it.

Halfway through her first period she’d completely stopped listening to her professor and started rifling through her jeans pockets for something to keep her occupied. That’s when it dawned on her, when her fingers closed over that smooth disc, half as a refreshing breeze and half as smoldering ashes. That was exactly what was wrong. The old man, the poker chip, the Casino.

“I don’t need seven days to decide what I’m going to do.” Erica said to herself as she eyed the dark token thoughtfully before closing her fingers around it and her eyes along with them. It felt like only a few minutes but the toll of the bell told her that she’d been absorbed in her own thoughts for nearly half an hour. Erica frowned slowly and picked up her things to leave for her next class. As she stood up she felt the heat and weight slide a little lower on her shoulders, it was a little it relieving to have something to blame for the feeling she thought as she walked out the door behind several other students she barely knew. Out in the hall she wasn’t lucky enough to keep up the anonymity as she was greeted with Fred’s overexcited visage.

“Hey!” She was always acting happy about something whether she was or not. Erica was sure that if Fred’s parents ever did die by some chance no one would ever be able to figure it out.

“’Sup.” She replied unenthusiastically. She felt like saying go away, but that wouldn’t reflect well on her psychological condition.

“I’m good. And you miss sullen face?”

“Sullen.” Erica frowned. “I’ve got to get to class. I’ll see you later.” Said the brown haired girl as she waved and stepped past her blue haired counterpart.

“Alright, you know where to find me.” Fred practically shouted over her shoulder.

“Yeah.” The other girl replied dully as she pretended to walk off in a hurry. As a result she was able to reach her next class with time to spare. Not that it made a difference. She wasn’t paying attention to anything anymore. To Erica, the world had become like a lucid dream. Nothing felt like it had any weight to it. It was like floating just above herself over a field of dust motes. It was the same kind of feeling she got when she was almost sure that she’d died of blood loss nearly five months prior.

That lightness that only affected the body and made her feel like she was about to leave her mind behind with every airy step she managed to take. One foot in front of the other and naturally the body follows, it’s just walking. So Erica walked, stepped, and misstepped her way right into the infirmary where the nurse realized that she had a fever of one hundred and three and a green tint to her skin. Erica, however, remained unaware of it for the most part. There were periods of awareness that Erica took little note of as she descended into deeper and deeper slumber.

When asked how she was feeling in her brief snatches of consciousness, the answer always came out as the same, “I’m fine.” Regardless of how impossible it was for her to move or how bad she looked and sounded. Erica still felt light, airy and perfectly fine when she could be bothered to feel anything. But it was soon apparent that she wouldn’t be inclined to do so for some time and was left alone to sleep for the rest of the day.

When she finally woke up school was over and her mother had decided not to pick her up earlier in the day so someone else took care of it. Who exactly she didn’t know until her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room around her. Just as she was trying to place it a light flashed when the curtains were separated to reveal the setting sun, glowing radiantly straight into Erica’s face. That’s when she found herself, lying under more blankets than necessary, in her own room and that there was a boy standing against the light shading part of her eyes from the sun’s glare.

“Sorry, I couldn’t really get a good look at you without the light.”

“I’m fine.” Erica croaked her voice hoarse and barely audible. She knew who it was by the silhouette but had hoped her fever was deceiving her. But the voice she heard issuing from that boy’s form put it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Hughes.

“I doubt that.” The boy replied dismissively. “I knew that the spare key you loaned me would come in handy.” Erica said nothing. “Don’t talk you sound like you should be resting as much as possible.”

“Why—“

“I’ll explain if you’ll be quiet for me. Can you do that please?” He smiled. Erica frowned in return and nodded slightly. “Alright. I asked my aunt to pretend she was yours so that no one would snoop into why your mom couldn’t come and no other emergency contacts were to be found. It worked out fine and she dropped you off here with my spare key and I came here to make sure you were fine not long after. You’ve been asleep for nearly six hours. Is everything alright?” He asked.

Though Erica would like nothing better than to say that nothing was alright, her voice wouldn’t any longer allow it and her heart couldn’t take it. Telling him anything would spark the same reaction anyways.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” He’d say with a concerned look. If you said nothing he’d pry, if you told him the specifics he’d become apologetic and try to see if there was indeed anything he could do. If neither got him anywhere he’d get emotional. He’d start raising his voice thoughtlessly or thinking really hard in silence. But with this situation he’d never be able to think of anything. He’d come to his conclusion long ago and the matter was closed. Erica sighed.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” He asked despite not having an initial response. Erica nodded slowly. He didn’t know there was a problem so everything was fine. It wasn’t his problem so everything was fine. There was no solution to the problem so everything was fine. Everything in the world was perfectly fine.

“So I heard you talked to Kira yesterday.” Erica’s thoughts froze where they were. She looked at him cautiously as her enfeebled form would allow. “Yeah, she said you had something to say to me. I was going to ask about it today but then you suddenly collapsed in the hallway so I never got a chance to ask. I know that it’s pointless asking right now so I’ll wait for you to get better. When you’re all healed up you’ll tell me right?” He was making another promise. Whenever he wanted some assurance that everything was indeed as fine as it was he’d ask you to promise that he was right and that he’d have his world as stable as possible. It was understandable to want stability, but Erica couldn’t provide it. She nodded slowly again.

“I never got a chance to say it before since you were either busy or I was busy but now that we’re together for more than thirty seconds I’d like to tell you that I like what you’ve done with your hair. It looked nice longer, but I think that this suits you better. It’s more, no muss no fuss. Like you. You never stood for anything you didn’t like. Even when we were kids, you’d always be the one protecting me from the bigger kids, it’s kinda embarrassing really.” He paused and looked at Erica thoughtfully. He never reminisced before, so Erica wasn’t sure what to make of it with her mind as clouded as it probably was.

The only thing that she knew was that he was taking pity on her again. He wasn’t the type to simply say something nice. He did nice things for you when he could and took everything else for granted. It was charming when he did it. He only resorted to using words when it was out of his hands entirely. The fact that he’d turned away from her only confirmed how much he was absorbed in thinking about what he was saying.

“What happened to those days? We’re in our second year of high school now, a month in almost, too. It feels like everything has gotten away from me so fast, you know?” He turned back to face her. Erica took the cue and shook her head. If anything had gotten away from her it hadn’t been without her notice, and it hadn’t been only just now. It felt more like everything was snatched up and then slowly pried from her last remaining grip on it. But she still held her fist tightly closed despite the fact that she knew they she’d lost her hold of it long ago. So she turned her head away slightly, under the pretext of shifting to a more comfortable position, to avoid his eyes. He’d know there was something wrong if he saw hers and she knew it.

“You’re a really strong person. You always seem to know where you’re going and what to do. When I first met Kira and found out about my family and my past I wasn’t sure if I could take that first step forward but you convinced me to take it and I never looked back after it. I seriously wonder how you do it. Even when I was fighting I always thought of what you would do in a given situation. Weird, huh?” By this point the girl wasn’t sure whether to nod at him or feign sleep. He’d, for the first time in his life, opened up to her and told her exactly what was going on in that fluff filled head of his.

It was only made all the more strange by the soft, subtle tone he’d taken on. Erica slowly turned her head that two inches back towards him to check if he was looking. He was, pity filled eyes and all. Like a kindly attendant or concerned stranger, but never a close friend. They couldn’t look at each other like that anymore. He’d just described the last times when they were friends moments earlier. It was impossible for them to understand each other anymore. So she nodded at him earnestly. Than them talking like this, nothing could be weirder.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked uneasily. Erica wasn’t sure if she looked worse than she thought or if he knew more than he was letting on. So again she nodded slowly. The sound of the front door opening could be heard.

“Alright. That’s good.” He smiled. “Get well soon. I think you’re mom is home so I’ll let myself out. If you need anything, I’ll always be around so give me a call.” For the final time the weakened girl nodded at him. “Bye.”

And Erica was alone for a moment. She had time to think again, just like in the hospital. Erica didn’t feel like thinking anymore though, nothing had caused her greater pain than her thoughts. She wished she could cast them away and live without them, but it didn’t seem possible. So she sat still as possible in body and mind as her mother bumbled around outside for a few minutes before entering with a tired look on her face. She’d been worried. She was energetic by nature and never showed fatigue after returning from either of her shifts unless something was wrong.

“I’m sorry.” Erica whispered as loud as she could before the woman had a chance to speak. This altogether seemed to go unnoticed though because the woman took no notice of it and took a seat on the side of the bed and examined her daughter in silence.

“Are you alright?” She asked.

Erica remained still and just stared at her. It wasn’t pleasant seeing the normally carefree woman in such a state so Erica didn’t even know what to do at first.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come get you myself.” She said nervously as if she were on trial making up excuses for keep from paying a traffic ticket.

“It’s fine.” Erica wanted to say. But the words wouldn’t rise, no matter how she tried. So she just kept staring at her mother, thinking of how she could communicate.

“You’d probably just say that you’re fine if you could talk wouldn’t you?”

Erica nodded.

“Honestly. You’re one strange kid. Every time I expect you to cry, you smile and every time I think you need me, you say that you’ll do it alone. It’s not exactly a vote of confidence in my parenting.”

Erica looked away momentarily. It didn’t escape her mother.

“I know I haven’t exactly done right by you in the past. But I do try you know, it’s just really hard for a person like me to care for someone else.” It sounded bad, and she knew it, but that was the way of things and they were both well aware of it. Erica closed her eyes and left them there. Thinking was hard enough a task without that sad face putting it all in a muddle.

“You look tired. Just make some kind of noise if you need me, alright?” And before the girl had a chance to make any manner of response, her mother was on her feet and in half that time she was out the door. She really wasn’t cut out to be a parent.

Erica would have laughed if she felt it was possible, but it wasn’t and all she could do to stop herself from going mad with thoughts was fall back to sleep. Sweet untroubled sleep.

Crit/review if you want, I'll appreciate it. Thanks for your time citizens.

Side Note: I've got one more chapter planned. After that this either stands or falls based on whether I can decide which way I'd like this to go and if I can actually come up with anything at all. Whichever way it goes I'm sure it won't be any loss to the community.

Look at the guy I've not talked to in twice a dogs age. Just felt like remedying that little injustice. So how's it on your end of the world?

Other week I was saying rather loudly how stupid the Snuggie was in my opinion and then I stop only to hear the person directly posterior to me saying how much they loved theirs. It was slightly awkward.

That felt... inspirational.

Hamlet is a corruption of Olaf. Blame the Irish.

Knowing how to draw shadows makes everything look better. This looks good. Not like Gurren Lagann at first glance or maybe at all but undeniably well done. Kinda falls off a bit at the body but I still like the sum of its parts. Nicely done.

As always, I've got few complaints over the letters stuck together to form words that are in turn stuck together to make a coherent set of sentences that you've got here. The story is admittedly more on the cliched side of things but I don't see a problem with that or with the overflowing pathos. Best selling author of all time Charles Dickens got away with the sentimental style, so why not anyone else? So that's my opinion of the plot straight up. Grammatically, I thought it could use some work but it wasn't really distracting from the writing so it was fine. I'm not really a fan of the super familiar style, but it's fine too. Every time you come back after a long break you show that you've not gotten too rusty over the break but there are signs of oxidation. Any issues I might have with this are the kind that only get resolved by continuous writing and feedback anyways. I'm done. Hope that wasn't too strange and incomprehensible sounding.

That French chef nearly killed Sebastian in The Little Mermaid. I hate those Gauls.

Undastand. Undastand. The concept of love.

Not a literary masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but that's not what you're going for, you seem to be going for catharsis and were that to be the aim then you'd be hitting the nail on the head. It's very emotionally driven and it works. Grammar hasn't proven to make reading dificult and you set the time, place and general setting without ever really saying much. I know it's easier to write short than it is to write long, but it doesn't detract from what you've got here. It's a short blurb so I'll treat it like one, one I really liked.

Thinking logically solves some real life problems, but thinking referencially solves all internet problems.

If a body finds a body coming through the rye, what does the first body do to the second?

At what age did I die?

Why must the good die young?

What is this feeling?

Where ever you go?

Wait, what?

Am I right?

Well I know this goes against my policy since three people decided to enter this month already but **** it I already wrote it. TMBG get a tip of the hat and I get a wag of my finger. Bad me.

Spoiler

The Name of This Town on My Desktop


I bit into the sandwich slowly; contemplative of myself and ever thoughtful of its composition. I was sitting in the middle of the theme park, where I happened to work as a manner of accountant, on a bench eating my home made meal thinking about who had been sitting on the bench before me. The seat had still been warm when I first sat down and by degrees I’d reached sensory and thermal equilibrium with it. I was in a sense a part of the bench, as was I part of everything in the park I looked out upon as my head turned giving the effect of an IMAX movie’s panning.

I placed all of the money where it had to be to buy the benches, the girders, the stone, the brick, the rebar, the dozer time, all of it was arranged by yours truly. As a result I started to see the buildings and attractions with price tags over them as I walked around, even the ones from before my time I had long ago calculated the value of minus the deflation of traveling backwards through time, of course.

It was hard to believe that only four years ago I’d been graduating from my state university and accepting the offer to work on the construction project that was the park around me. I’d for some reason, as I just mentioned, accepted the offer. It, at the time, seemed like a good gig: the pay was ridiculous for a student, who hadn’t even begun grad school and I would have the personal pleasure of bringing civilization to my home town.

I was almost happy the old man they had working on this place before me keeled over and died of heatstroke. God rest the poor man’s soul. This was all at the time. I now realize that being a higher up accountant for all intents and purposes means that I never go anywhere.

I live in the park’s offices, I eat in the park on my lunch break, I shop with the townies that I’d always disdained, by the way, and what’s more I never see a single new person for more than a day, oftentimes only a few seconds. So my way with numbers pretty much put me in the pickle that I was crunching on right now. Ironic? Please, irony is funny, this is just sad. I’m 26 years old and I’m wondering if the mayo in my sandwich is still good because the whole thing just tastes a bit funny.

It could be the 96 degree weather, it could be anything, but I know that it all stems from the fact that I’m stuck here for life and I’m never going to find a girl that doesn’t either get all hot and bothered over my number crunching skills or just call me names both in front of and behind my back.

Grim? Please, grim is when it looks like a storm, please Lord, Vishnu, Zeus and whatever wrathful deities lie beyond my horizons, strike me down now.

“Break’s over kiddio.†Vernon, who stood before me with a particularly smug grin on his mug, was three lefts from nowhere Green Mountain State, USA. I hated him with a passion.

“I’ve got,†I inspected my watch momentarily. “Three minutes left.â€

“Round that back down to zero Dr. Eggman. They’ve got an issue with some numbers and I seem to recall a certain little boy being great with them.†He said without once dropping the pretentious tone or the grin. On the contrary, the longer one allowed him to flap his lips, the more his undesirable characteristics waxed greater.

“Can’t I just pretend you never passed me and that it’s not my problem until I get back?†I told him without the slightest attempt to hide my irritation. I knew he resented me for getting a better job than him by one position despite his higher level of education. He insists to this day that I was somehow the one who orchestrated the whole thing. I just got lucky that I lived here in nowhere Alabama and that the company valued my familiarity with the home field for some ungodly reason.

“I’d support that. Just thought I’d waste what’s left of your lunch screwing with you.†He informed me without compunction. I was half ready to drop my sandwich and juice drink and strangle him to death. But this number I did round back to zero.

“Thanks.†I said in the hopes that he’d go away now that he’d had his fun mocking me. But he wasn’t about to let this chance to make me feel ridiculous go by. Not because it was uncommon that he could so much as he could never give up any chance to make anyone look or feel like a fool. So he stood there, with his mocking grin and his mocking words, mocking me.

“I see the vulture in your eyes and he’s looking for chicks to feast on.†He said mockingly as he always did.

“You come from an even smaller town even farther from somewhere than I do and yet you always somehow find a way to get on my ass about wanting to go somewhere and start living. Can’t you understand at all where I’m coming from?†I tried on several occasions before this to appeal to his sense of humanity and as with all times before I was sorely disappointed in myself for trying.

“This is the life. What could be better? My wallet full of St. Patrick’s Day bread and a hotel room full of prostitutes.†He laughed jovially and leaned down to hang his lanky arm over my stockier shoulder. For what I could tell, he was dead serious.

“You’re a fucking capital fellow you know that?†I said with a quick shove to his shoulder that sent him on his way.

“I aim to please.†As his footsteps began to fade into the general shuffle I heard it: the sound that would, probably, change my life. It was a bunch of indistinct chatter over the loudspeaker that I wouldn’t have found so indistinct had I been paying attention. All I knew was that it was calling a name. Someone had to go down to the information office near the front entrance to the park. The name that was called… it sounded female. That got me thinking, well, less thinking than running.

“Vernon! Tell them I’ll be a little late when you get back.†I called to him as I dashed past the fellow. He probably wondered what I’d been injecting, smoking, or snorting recently, but he was nothing if not a reliable messenger of bad news. So I took off as fast as my office atrophied legs would carry me towards the information center near the front entrance to the park.

I wasn’t entirely clear on my goal in finding this person who I presumed would be a girl or what I would do once I found her, but it’s safe to say that it didn’t matter because I never stuck to my plans anyways. As I overcame that initial thought block my head cleared and my running became my focus. Let me clear up any doubts you may have if you weren’t paying attention. I’m not athletic, coordinated, or able to move around as I want in the slightest.

So I did feel quite the fool as I blundered past parents with their kids and the odd college student until I reached the empty home stretch. In the middle of the day almost like magic the corridor from where I stood near the kiddy land and the front entrance was cleared. I wasn’t sure if it was that fewer people came and left at this time or if everyone was just walking around elsewhere. Either way, this wasn’t the case today. There was a small crowd of people directly between me and the information center and that surely wouldn’t do.

So I did what any rational person chasing down an unidentified person they’d never met would do. I edged by carefully. Carefully. Careful el why. And I made it by without a problem or even that much of a delay. If whoever I was looking for was in her right mind I’d beat her there. Unless of course she, I don’t know, happened to be closer to the office than me.

As I approached the desk inside the sliding glass doors a saw a brown haired girl or rather woman walked out the doors past me. We almost collided in a semi-humorous slapstick manner before disentangling our trajectories and making peace with a series of awkward smiles and nondescript apologies. She was pretty cute. The height of irony would be that she was who I was looking for. Imagine that. I quickly discarded the thought though and hopped up to the desk before anyone else appeared to steal my place and asked the woman behind the desk who had been called for. I made up a little bullshit over how there was a mistake up at some other office, I flashed my ID badge and she pointed at the beautiful young woman who I’d just narrowly avoided bumping into.

If you’ve seen that picture of that cartoon with his hand through his face in extreme face palm then you know what I wished I could do right then. I thanked the kindly woman manning the desk and ran like my life depended on it out the door. I looked around quickly, hoping against hope that I’d remember the back of the woman’s head in the small dispersing crowd that I’d just passed. Lo and behold I’ve found her; facing me as close to dead on as she could without actually looking at the loser in office threads with noticeable spots of sweat growing all over.

“Hey!†I called out to her, soon realizing that it meant absolutely nothing among so many people that neither of us knew. So I ran again without taking my eyes off her for a second. Odd as it may sound, this is when the thoughts I’d been ignoring decided to start creeping back into my mind. I wanted to freeze up and stop dead where I was then walk back to my office and make up some bullshit about getting sick from bad mayo as an excuse, pretend none of this ever happened and live on like I had been for the last twenty six years of my life. But that’s what I couldn’t force myself to do. I’d been meek and shy and complacent long enough. If I wanted something to start for me, I’d have to start it. So I started it with a bang.

The woman had already begun turning towards the entrance, exit in her case, by the time I could start running and the distance between the two of us couldn’t be spanned by a mortal man that hadn’t run for as long as I hadn’t. So I thought quickly.

“Security!†I called out without thinking at all. If I wanted to catch up with her, it wouldn’t be me doing the catching. “That woman there, she stole my wallet!†It was the height of lame but it got their attention when I started frantically waving my ID badge at them. That got me everywhere that day. The long and short of it are here: She was caught and thrown into the security office for questioning, which I held off to talk to her first with a little more ID badge magic. So here I am staring dumbly at the girl that I knew I was supposed to meet somehow. She’s staring back at me awkwardly too. So here I go.

“I’m so sorry.â€

She remains silent.

“It’s all my fault for ruining your day and I don’t know how to make it up to you but let me at least explain myself and get you out of this mess I’ve got you into.â€

She nods.

“I’ve pretty much spent my entire life not doing things because they were silly or stupid for some reason or another. Today I half heard your name over the loudspeaker and decided I’d meet you because it was one of the ridiculous things that I’d never have done before I guess. I met you and…well, I don’t actually know what I think is going on but it seems like I†fallen for you in my own weird loser way. I’ve got so much more incomprehensible nonsense I want to say but I think that I’ve put you through enough. I’ll have you on your way in five minutes. I hope you can forgive me for this.†I pause and walk towards the door but then stop. “If I may ask one thing of you though. What is the name I half heard over the loudspeaker?â€

She answers. “Ana Ng.â€