Himitsukichi

The classroom is filled with the boisterous sound of students loudly talking. Everyone seems to be excited for the weekend. Can’t say I blame them. The new school year only just started, and the summer heat hasn’t died off yet. I am not part of the noise, however. I was up late last night out with friends, and the fatigue is really hitting me. The fact that my seat is by the window, and I can feel the sun’s afternoon warmth only makes me even more sleepy.

“Alright class, settle down please.”

The history teacher Sister Adelaide enters the classroom. Unfortunately for her, none of the other students have heard her and are continuing with their noise.

“E-hem! It is time for history class, so quiet down!”

She raises her voice to try and get the class to calm down, but to no avail. My classmates aren’t getting quiet, and one of the boys even brandishes his middle finger towards Sister Adelaide. This is the last straw for her.

*Thud*

“Quiet! All of you! Right now!”

She furiously slams a textbook onto the desk while yelling at the top of her lungs. It’s more than enough to quiet down the class and wake me up. All the students rush to their seats and settle down in a flash, but it’s not enough to quell Sister Adelaide’s anger.

“Damiano! Come to the front of the class!”

She points a ruler at the boy who gave her the finger. His face has been drained of all color. I don’t know what he was expecting, he should’ve seen this coming. He’s violently shaking and petrified by fear.

“I said, come to the front of the class!”

Another thud sounds out from another textbook being slammed down. This is enough to get Damiano moving. He slowly but surely makes his way up to the teacher’s desk. Sister Adelaide looks at him with pure disgust as he does so.

“Pull your trousers down and bend over.”

Damiano looks like he’s about to burst into tears as he knows what’s going to happen. As he starts unbuttoning his trousers, I can’t help but feel baffled by his actions. If you hate punishment that much, why go out of your way to upset a teacher like that? What a moron. Once his pale buttocks are out, some of the students start snickering and whispering to each other.

“I suggest the rest of you keep quiet, unless you want to be punished too.”

Sister Adelaide is able to get the class to quiet down again and she walks over to Damiano with her ruler in hand. The sound of the ruler slapping against Damiano’s skin soon fills the room. It’s a light punishment, only ten lashes. Regardless, Damiano’s rear end is quite red by the end of it and a few tears are falling down his face. He gets redressed and then somberly walks back to his desk.

“…Now that we’re through with that delay, let’s get started.”

Sister Adelaide begins to write on the blackboard and proceeds to start class normally, acting as if nothing had happened.

“Today, we’re going to be discussing the history of the Vatican. Specifically, how LOVE managed to steal it away from The Catholic Church.”

Ah, I know about this, my father told me about it years ago. The Vatican was once the most vital area to The Church long ago. Where all high ranking members lived. To make a long story short, the wealthy elites behind the creation of LOVE despite being atheists knew that they needed to gain control of the most holy spots on the planet if they wanted to control most of the world’s population. It was surprisingly easy for them; all they had to do was bribe the members of the Roman Curia to let them kill the then current pope and then install a new pope who would act as a puppet for LOVER politics.

Soon enough, the pope declared that Vatican City would become a province of LOVE, which lead to disarray among Catholics. Although groups such as Old Catholics and Sedevacantists used to be controversial among Catholics, once LOVE took over the Vatican, every Catholic outside of LOVE had to deal with the Protestant nightmare of high amounts of branching off into various different groups. Where I live, we simply refer to our church as La Chiesa cattolica italiana Disapora It’s essentially the church for Italian Catholics who aren’t from LOVE and are far from our motherland of Italy.

According to the history books, the story goes that roughly 200 years ago, millions of poor farmers in Italy left the country in the hopes of finding better pastures. My ancestors ended up moving to the United States, a large country that prided itself on its freedom and being a “melting pot” of various people from all over the world. Unfortunately, those values turned out to be a lie. Italians living in America were violently discriminated against and seen as slimeballs who did nothing but engage in criminal activity. We were only accepted and given “freedom” once we could be stereotyped as charismatic crime bosses in entertainment.

Not only that, but as the years went by, we slowly lost more of our culture as Italians in America stopped speaking out native language and started to be seen more as just “typical white Americans” who use a lot of hand gestures. The “melting pot” did nothing but melt away our identity. In a strange way, the destruction of the old world was a bit of a blessing for us. Sure, we’re still far away from Italy and our chances of getting to return are slim, but thanks to the formation ofHOME and our state specifically, we’ve managed to rebuild some of our innate culture that was lost to Americanization. Italian has become the mother tongue again (although we do learn English in school if only to communicate with the PearlCoin members who visit), we started to celebrate holidays and traditions that had become forgotten in diaspora and have even made sure to give our state a special Italian flair in terms of how our building look.

The story of our state is always told with a deep reverence here and while there are aspects of it that do impress me, I’m not swooned with deep emotion every time someone brings it up. Don’t get me wrong, I like being Italian and I think it’s neat that my birth language is the same language as my homeland, it’s just…well, what’s the point of being excited about being Italian when I know I’ll never get to visit Italy? I once learned in class that international travel used to be a common luxury in the old world, but that was no longer the case after the collapse. These days all air and sea travel is controlled by either LOVE government officials or members of cryptocurrency groups, and you have to be insanely wealthy if you want to be able to use one of their planes or boats. Sure, there are cars and motorbikes, but those are illegal in HOME and even if they weren’t, it’s not as if I can drive across the Atlantic Ocean.

“…Marco…Marco!”

The sound of Sister Adelaide’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts, and I can see that she’s standing right in front of my desk. This isn’t good.

“…For how many years were the Papal States active?”

Oh, good. A question that I know the answer to.

“Approximately 1,114 years Sister. They ended in 1870 with the capture of Rome which would then be followed by the unification of Italy in 1871.”

Sister Adelaide gives an annoyed sigh and heads back to the front of the classroom to continue the lesson. You see, unlike Damiano, I’m not an idiot and I know how to avoid punishment. I like to learn, but I also find school boring, so I usually do all of my studying at home and then use class time to daydream and sleep. I don’t know what it is about school that makes learning new things so painfully dull, but I guess it doesn’t matter as long as my scores are good.

The rest of the class goes by without any further incident and the bell signaling the end of the school day chimes loudly. I quickly gather my school supplies before leaving the classroom. I know Gloria doesn’t have anything to do this afternoon, so I figured I’d pick her up. Her classroom is right across the hallway from my classroom. I peer my head in the class and wave at girl with silky blonde hair and she joyously bounces up to me.

“Marco!”

Gloria wraps her arm around mine and we walk out of the school building.

“You’re not with you friends today?”

“I was with them almost all last night. I just want to get some sleep.”

“That’s not healthy Marco! You shouldn’t abuse your body like that!”

 Gloria lightly admonishes me for my poor sleeping habits. Gloria and I have been romantic for a few months now. We’ve known each other since childhood as my family likes to sell crops to her family’s shop, but it was only recently that Gloria confessed her romantic feelings for me. And although I don’t feel the same strong level of romantic affection as she does, I do like her enough that I accepted her feelings with no problem. While both of our parents aren’t fully sure if they want us married, they’re not against our relationship either. Plus, being Gloria’s lover has helped to quell rumors that some students were spreading about me being a homosexual.

“Look, I like to be with my friends, and sometimes that means staying out late. I don’t do it all the time, and certainly not multiple days in a row. I’ll be getting plenty of sleep tonight.”

I give Gloria a light kiss on her forehead. She holds my face as I do so.

“Um…You…You can kiss me on the lips you know.”

She stares at me with a hopeful look on her face. To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea for me to be Gloria’s first kiss, but if she really wants it, then I’d probably be hurting her by not doing it.

“…Alright…”

I lean into her and the two of us share our first kiss together. It’s a light kiss, no need to go any further than necessary. Although our kiss was light, the two of us can’t help but gaze into each other’s eyes for what was probably only a minute or two but felt much longer.

“We…We really need to hurry home.”

Gloria breaks the silence, and we continue on our way. It’s odd. I’ve read about first kisses in stories before and have heard others talk about them. From the way adults go about it, getting your first kiss is a powerful moment, only topped by losing your virginity. And yet, that kiss with Gloria, while it felt nice, didn’t feel powerful. I don’t feel like I’ve gained anything new from it, and I don’t really understand what was so special about it. Gloria seems to feel the opposite of me though. She looks spaced out, her face has a slight blush on it, and she can’t stop fiddling with the rosary beads she’s wearing.

“Umm…So Marco, I know your birthday was two weeks ago…It’s just…”

Gloria stops suddenly and starts looking through her bag.

“I…I’ve been making you a gift for the past few months and I finally finished it!”

She pulls out a small patchwork stuffed bear from her bag. The stitching is awkward, giving the bear an odd mix of colors and patterns. Its ears are different sizes and the eyes are…”unique”, to put it politely. It’s obviously the work of a novice and would unnerve most children.

“I’ve been practicing making toys before, but this is my first completed project!”

Gloria beams in pride, not caring about how rough the bear looks.

“Thanks…You really didn’t need to do this you know.”

I graciously take the bear from her. Although the bear may be unpleasant to the eyes, it’s still a (late) birthday gift from Gloria and more importantly, the first toy she’s made. It’d be cruel to reject it.

“Of course I didn’t need to do it! I just wanted to!”

She grabs a hold of my arm again, and we keep walking. We talk a little about our day before arriving at the small farm that is my home. I can see my older sister Isabella waving to us.

“Hello you two! How was schoo-ghek!”

As she comes to greet us, she notices the stuffed bear in my hands and stops in her tracks.

“Um, Marco…What is that thing?”

Isabella is trying to stay composed, but it’s clear that the bear is creeping her out.

“It’s a late birthday present I made for him!”

Gloria answers her question before I can say anything, seemingly unaware that my sister doesn’t like how the bear looks at all.

“O-Oh really? Well, th-that’s so sweet of you…”

Isabella does her best to compliment Gloria, though I can tell that she’s struggling and wants to run away screaming from the bear.

“I can’t stay to talk unfortunately. My mother’s sick with a cold, so I need to help father out at the store. I’ll see you two later!”

Gloria waves goodbye and walks off into the distance back to her home. Once she’s out of eyesight, Isabella whispers into my ear.

“You can throw that disturbing bear away if you want. I can even make up a story if you need it.”

…I know the bear isn’t great to look at, but is this level of animosity really necessary?

“I’m not going to do that; this is a gift from Gloria!”

“…Alright, I understand, just-just try to keep it out of sight, will you? We wouldn’t want to be giving Dina and Erica nightmares now, would we?”

So she says, but it’s obvious she’s more concerned about herself having nightmares rather than our younger sisters.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

I head inside of the house. Here, I can see my mother preparing dinner, and my father sitting in front of the fireplace reading a book.

“Hello Marco. How was school?”

Mother looks up from the vegetables she’s cutting to greet me. Father sets his book aside to do the same.

“It was fine. One of my classmates was foolish enough to think giving Sister Adelaide the finger wouldn’t end poorly for him. Nothing too interesting happened beyond that.”

My father starts to grimace a bit. At first, I thought it was perhaps that he was reminiscing about a painful experience with Sister Adelaide in his youth, but then he started walking closer and examining the bear Gloria gave me.

“…Marco, would you mind telling me what the hell that thing is?”

“It’s a gift from Gloria. She made it as a late birthday present.”

Father frowns as he examines the bear, scratching his beard.

“…Look, I know Gloria’s excited about learning to make toys, but she needs to understand that you’re too old for that kind of thing. You’re practically a man now. There’s no need for you to own a toy bear, and especially not one that looks like…that.”

“I understand, but I just can’t throw it out either.”

I head to my bedroom. Because I’m the only boy amongst my siblings, I have a bedroom all to myself while my sisters share a different one. I place the bear on a desk, take my shoes off, and lie in bed. The weariness of being out late last night gets to me and I soon fall asleep.

Life has always been simple for me, but it wasn’t always easy. While my father and I have a good relationship now, that wasn’t always the case. When I was little, I couldn’t really get along with other boys my age, so I chose to spend time with my sisters instead. My father really didn’t like this, especially since I liked to crochet with Isabella. Yet when I tried to get along with the other boys at school, it always ended with me being pushed in the mud, punched in the face, or both. I didn’t know why they disliked me so much, but looking back I understand now that it’s because I was a bit of a moron as a child and didn’t really understand the difference between “being feminine” and “being masculine”. It’s not that I disliked “boy activities”. I always wanted to join the other boys, whether it be playing tag in the forest or squishing random bugs. It’s just that I had a terrible habit of being too open about my enjoyment of “girl activities” such as crochet and picking random flowers in the outdoors.

It wasn’t until I was about ten years old that I finally understood that was the reason why I was so disliked by other boys. I realized that if I were to get along with the other boys, then I needed to start hiding my enjoyment of “girl activities” and stop hanging out with my sisters so much. Of course, this was a slow process, but after getting into a fight with another boy and pushing him headfirst into horse manure, I was finally accepted by the other boys. Getting male friends also made my father happy, and that was the most important part. Honesty is the worst policy, and the hyper individualism of the old world is what led to its eventually collapse and the creation of the horrid state of LOVE. If society doesn’t approve of you, then it’s up to you to change yourself for society. Forcing society to change for you is the epitome of selfishness, especially if you don’t represent the majority.

A loud knock at my bedroom door stirs me awake, and the door opens revealing Dina and her messy hair.

“Dinner’s ready Marco!”

Author’s Note: Holy shit I finally made another chapter of this fucking story after God knows how long. Not only were there the typical issues of procrastination and laziness, I also lacked a general motivation to write more, but I guess posting my writing online has given me that motivation I needed. Still, it is a bit stressful trying to flesh out the HOME part of this world a bit more (especially trying to portray Catholics when I grew up protestant). I actually have a bit of my own personal ‘bible’ to use for writing this story and I’ve actually been changing a lot of what I originally wrote in there because it wasn’t satisfying. On a final note, I want to make it clear that I didn’t invoke the whole thing of the pope being killed by LOVE because of Pope Francis’ recent death. That is merely a coincidence.

“…You’ve never been inside this house before?”

Ariel and I are standing in front of the front door to the abandoned house. After spending several minutes in silence together, Ariel said she wanted to go inside for more privacy, and I reluctantly agreed to it. I think it should be fine if she goes in first and deals with all the potential spider risk itself.

“No. Never felt like it.”

That’s a lie of course, but she doesn’t need to know that. With no hesitation, Ariel turns the doorknob and manages to open the door with no difficulty. She practically bolts into the house, apparently not caring about how dusty the house looks. I watch her explore the living room for a few seconds before I decide to cautiously enter as well. There don’t seem to be any spiders in the living room at least. Ariel turns to me once I enter.

“Why were you at the park?”

She has a suspicious look on her face. I can’t say I entirely blame her. It is just a tad too coincidental to see someone you know suddenly come at the right moment with a rock to throw against your attempted molester. I figure that the best way to respond to this is to act like she’s being the weird one.

“I was at the park because I like to hang out at the park sometimes. I don’t know why you’re acting like that’s a problem. Pretty sure that’s an ungrateful way to act towards the person who saved you.”

She doesn’t seem convinced by my reasoning, still looking at me with disapproval.

“But then how did you know we were getting…’intimate’? And you know, I get that Mr. Richards was getting pushy, but you really didn’t need to throw a rock at him, that wasn’t necessary!”

Even after everything that’s happened, she’s still defending the guy. How sad.

“Because I happened to notice a young girl being taken into the woods by a much older man, thought it was weird, and it turns out I was right. And yeah, what I did was necessary. The way things were going, he was going to force himself in you before you could even get your handcuffs out.”

Her disapproving look softens a bit and changes into a mixture of confusion and pity.

“…I think you mean well Gray, but you’re rather violent and that bothers me. I was considering telling my parents about when you shoved me to the ground, but I decided to be nice and keep it a secret, but I still don’t know if that was the right decision.”

I can feel a vein throbbing in my head at her accusation, but if I raise my voice at her, that’ll only encourage her false belief that I’m violent. So, I stay quiet as she keeps talking.

“Everything’s been crap ever since I came here, and Mr. Richards’ been the only person whose ever really understood me…and now I’m pretty sure he hates me.”

She looks dejected. Somehow, despite all the shit she’s pulled against me, I can’t help but feel some pity for her. I’m not delusional enough to think that I can “fix” her or anything like that, but I figure that if this girl’s going to force herself into my life, then I should at least put in some effort in keeping her from doing even more stupid shit.

“Oh, you’re not from here?”

I speak as if I didn’t overhear her classmates talking about it.

“…Y-Yeah…Can you keep a secret?”

She walks towards me with a nervous look on her face.

“Yeah.”

“…Are you sure? You’re not lying to me again, right?”

Is she still mad at me about that? Geez, the only reason I did that was because of her. But fine, I’ll pretend I was the bad guy for now.

“I’m not lying. If I break my promise, you can kill me.”

That response makes her step back.

“K-Kill you!? If you’re suicidal, you should just kill yourself like a normal person!”

“…I’m not suicidal. I’m just trying to emphasize how serious I am. You can decide what you want to do to me if I break my promise.”

Ariel stares at me for another minute before deciding to talk again.

“…You probably don’t know this, but Brenton’s not my real brother and the family who took me in have nothing to do with my real family.”

“That doesn’t shock me. The two of you really don’t resemble each other at all.”

I lean back against the wall of the house as she continues to talk.

“Umm…Out of all the things I need you to keep a secret, I especially need you to keep the jobs of my new parents a secret the most.”

“Sure.”

She’s back to looking unsure.

“…You better be telling the truth, okay!? If word got out about what my new parents do…I-I don’t exactly what would happen, but it would be pretty serious shit, I know that.”

Judging by how distressed she’s acting; I have some good theories as to what her new parents might be doing for a living.

“Well, given how freaked out you seem, I can presume your current parents are involved with the PearlCoin Organization in some way?”

“…Those guys? N-No…It’s um…It’s more like…”

She keeps stammering and it’s getting on my nerves.

“Look, I get that you’re worried about bad things happening to you, but I can’t help you unless you tell me exactly what’s going on.”

She becomes silent for another few minutes before speaking again in an unusually (at least for her) meek tone.

“…I um…My new parents…They’re part of a group…that um…”

I have a pretty good idea of where this is leading, but I decide to not interrupt her and wait for her to finish.

“…I…IwasborninLOVEandmyHyperactiveNarcissismwascausingmymothersalotoftroublesoIwasgon

nagetsenttoamentalhealthcenterbutIdidn’twanttogoandonthedayIhadtoleavethecarthatwassup

posedtotakemetherewaslateandnooneelsewasaroundsoIunzippedmyoutdoorssuitsoIcouldseew

hatwasgoingonandIsawsomepeoplejumpingintoaholeinthestreetand-“

She takes a deep breath in the middle of her rapid fire tangent. I decide to take advantage of the moment to interject.

“Okay, I’m gonna need you to speak more clearly. I’ve only been able to catch maybe four words that have come out of your mouth so far.”

It took about 40 minutes for her to explain everything. Ariel’s story is somewhat unusual, but not all that strange either. She was born and raised in a trauma victim residential tower for women in LOVE. Although she was loved dearly by her two mothers, issues started to arise when a crack was found in the wall in her family’s personal room when she was five years old. It can’t be overemphasized just how strong the propaganda about “the spores” is in LOVE. It’s to the point where there are no windows in residential towers and when a citizen is being transferred from one residential tower to another, they’re required to wear suits that cover their entire bodies including their faces in order to prevent them from ever getting a real glimpse at the outside world. So as you can imagine, a crack in any room in a residential tower, especially a personal room is more than enough to cause a freakout.

According to Ariel, all the residents of the floor had to be quarantined in medical rooms for a week while the entire floor got “fumigated” and the crack in her room got fixed. “Fumigations” are the proper response for incidents like this in LOVE, but of course it’s all fake. According to ex-LOVERS who were involved with higher ups of the government, the “fumigations” consist of nothing more than machines making a fake fog with dry ice. The people on the upper echelons of LOVE’s society and especially the government workers are more than well aware that the entire narrative of the “deadly spores” is bullshit. They just continue to push it either because they like how it benefits them, or they’re terrified of the consequences of trying to speak the truth (those consequences being getting sent to a mental health care center for an immediate lobotomy).

Regardless of the actual truth, this incident led to Ariel being viewed in the same vein as someone with leprosy in the old world. She was banned from leaving her family’s personal room and her mothers were required to get weekly medical checkups. Furthermore, her mothers became victims of severe persecution from other members of the residential tower. Usually, the persecution came in the form of insults, but physical altercations would also occur.

“…The others liked to spray or dump water on my mothers. As a way to ‘rid them of spores’…”

Despite these hardships, life remained as normal as it could be. Since Ariel was barred from ever leaving her family’s personal room, she had to be educated via an online school program and would receive visits from a nurse once a week to check on her vitals. She did well in her education and was praised by her mothers and online teachers for her inquisitiveness and desire to learn more. But the older she got, the less admirable those traits became.

For one, she started to become curious about those strange creatures known as “men” and started to read up about them. This caused strife with her and her mothers, but because LOVE (surprisingly enough) has no laws against citizens in single sex trauma victim residential towers studying and reading up on the opposite sex, there wasn’t much they could do about it. Ariel wasn’t just curious about men though. She was curious about the outside world, and more importantly, why she never seemed to feel all that ill despite the incident with the crack in her wall.

That’s when she started to break laws. When she started bringing up these questions to her nurse, the LOVE POINTS for her family’s personal room began to drop. Anything that could be even remotely interpreted as “spores denial” will always guarantee a massive drop in LOVE POINTS with no exception. Although her mothers tried to get her to stop, Ariel just couldn’t stop saying things that the government didn’t like.

“…I don’t get what I was doing wrong. If the spores weren’t affecting me, then that could mean a cure for the spores is possible, right? Something better than the medicine treatments? But saying that only got me in trouble…”

Most people would agree with her logic, the problem is that she still doesn’t seem to understand that there was never a “spores problem”. To be fair, Ariel’s attitude is a pretty common one among people who escape LOVE. Most escapees from LOVE were born raised with the idea of “the deadly spores” being so deeply ingrained into them, that when they go through a similar incident, they don’t immediately think “the spores aren’t real”. Rather they become of the belief that they’re immune or that the spores affect people differently. This might sound inoffensive to an outsider, but the problem is that once these citizens start having these beliefs, they start doing things like questioning the monthly medicine treatments, which is a grave sin in the society of LOVE.

Ariel’s behavior started to cause so many problems that her family’s LOVE POINTS were getting to the point where getting evicted and forced into a regular residential tower was becoming a possibility. In desperation, her mothers brought in a psychiatrist to examine Ariel. This led to Ariel being formally diagnosed with “Hyperactive Narcissism” and being told that she would need to be treated at a mental health center. While your average citizen of LOVE may not know the truth of the mental health centers until they get sent there, they do still know it’s something to fear, if only because of the fact that people who go to mental health centers never come back.

Ariel was uncomfortable with the prospect, but she had no choice but to obey. The day she had to leave for the mental health center started normally enough. Her mothers helped dress her in her outdoor suit and some government officials came to lead her outside due to the suit blinding her sight. However, when she was led outside, she heard a sound that she thought was that of a car crash and the government officials ran off leaving her confused.

After waiting for according to her “what felt like forever (probably a few minutes or so in reality), Ariel decided to unzip the top part of her outdoors suit to see what was going on. What she saw was a mess of destroyed vehicles in the street with government officials freaking out. Not too far from that she saw some people crawling into what she didn’t know at the time was a manhole. Due to a mixture of not wanting to go to the mental health care facility and being confused by the chaos going on, Ariel decided to make a run for it and climb down the hole too.

It turns out that on the same day Ariel was meant to go to the mental health care center, the plans of a group from the territories known as LB (LOVE Bombers) were also going off to help someone completely unrelated leave. Although LOVE’s infrastructure is based off highly advanced technology, it still suffers from the fact that most power grids tend to be interconnected.

While the upper class areas of LOVE have backups to their power grids, this isn’t the case for most citizens. Thus, a pretty common tactic for escape assistance groups from the territories and dissidents from LOVE looking to escape is to find a way to hack into the main power grid and cause a power outage in all buildings and vehicles in the current vicinity for long enough that escape is possible. And so Ariel made her way into the sewers. While her appearance wasn’t expected, she was accepted by LB along with the guy who was their main target in helping escape. She then obediently followed them in the sewers for the next seven hours.

“…I didn’t really talk much the whole time, but my mind was racing. I-I mean, for the first time in my life I saw men right in front of me…”

Once they arrived at the LB headquarters, there were some issues that needed to be worked out. Not only was Ariel’s arrival unexpected, she’s also young without any parental guardians with her. Letting a girl like her live on her own in the lawless territories was something that no sane person in the group was going to allow. After a few days of deliberation, a couple involved with the group decided to take her in. That couple obviously being Brenton’s parents. An agreement was made for her to live with the family until adulthood and that’s who’s she’s been with for the past month and a half.

“…You know, I was so amazed by what I saw when I first arrived here. The forest, grass, flowers, bugs and animals…But I think those are the only things that I like about being outside of LOVE.”

After that final sentence, she plops herself down on the nearby tattered couch. I decide to follow along and sit down with her, and I continue the conversation.

“So, what don’t you like about being here?”

“Well, I don’t like my new family for one. My mom and dad are pretty annoying compared to my two mothers and Brenton’s a dweeb! I was excited about going to school at first because I wanted to know what it was like to be around other kids my age, but it turns out they’re all shitheads who hate me for no reason! I just wanna go back home but I know I can’t…”

She looks down for a few seconds before piping back up.

“That’s why I’m looking to get a boyfriend or at least a fuck buddy! That way I can move out from my new family and stop going to school! It’s tough though because a lot of the men around here don’t take me seriously because of my age. But I don’t wanna be with boys my age, they suck! …I was getting so close with Mr. Richards too…”

She gives me a frustrated glance before continuing.

“You know, I did consider you as a possible option for a boyfriend but you’re just too violent and I can’t risk becoming a victim of domestic violence…Well, I-I guess I still wouldn’t mind becoming friends with benefits with you…”

The next glance she gives me is shy yet flirty. I respond to her as honestly as I can.

“There is no way in hell that will ever happen.”

“O-Oh come on, you don’t need to be so harsh about it! Especially after you ruined my relationship with Mr. Richards!”

She really doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation she’s in, does she? I’m finding myself getting increasingly exasperated with her.

“I saved you from getting taken advantage of by an older man. I’m sorry you don’t like kids your age and your new family but pursuing older men like this is only going to end with you getting hurt even more.”

I get up off the couch, leave the abandoned house and start heading back to my apartment. Surprisingly, Ariel didn’t stalk me at all on the way back, I guess she decided to stay at the abandoned house. Whatever the case may be, I don’t care. I’m not interested in helping random teenage girls with their problems. Perhaps it’s morally wrong to think this, but I can’t help but wonder if it would’ve been better to let her get molested.

But then again, she’s not a regular kid, is she? I know from my time reading articles on pursuitspecial and reading forums on PSDS that there’s a bit of a recurring theme among people who were born and raised in LOVE. Kids aren’t allowed to be kids in LOVE. The government treats them like miniature adults the moment they’re out of diapers. Part of indoctrinating the children with the government’s propaganda involves having all the toys and children’s programming be about the same complicated philosophical/political topics that are taught in the education rooms (albeit, with the obvious bias towards LOVE’s own system).

Close bonds between children and their parents are also generally discouraged, to the point where once a citizen reaches a certain age (that varies from province to province), they’re required to move out of the personal room they grew up in and move into a new one. The government states that this is to encourage individual independence and prevent parents from treating their children like property, but the truth is that kids not being close to their parents makes it easier for them to see the government as their parents and thus much easier to indoctrinate. Come to think of it, the way she was talking, Ariel did seem to have a strong bond with her mothers despite growing up in such a culture, didn’t she? She really is an odd kid.

The rest of the evening and night went by without anything else of note happening. The next morning also went by without any issue. I decided to go make a visit to the abandoned house before work. To look over Marisa’s grave of course. When I arrive, I see the same ginger girl whose been bothering me for the past week come out the front door.

“Oh, you’re here!”

That’s right, it’s Saturday. Somehow despite our last interaction ending on a sour note, she still seems excited to see me. She’s also carrying around a piece of paper.

“…What’re you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I came to hang out.”

While talking, she hands me the piece of paper.

“I took what you said to me yesterday into consideration, and I think you do have a point. I grew up not knowing anything about men, and while I’ve been studying them as much as I could for the past year, I’ve only been living among them for a month and a half. If I’m to get a proper, loving boyfriend who treats me the way I deserve to be treated, then I need to get a better understanding of men. So, I wrote out some questions I have regarding men’s behavior, thoughts, physiology, and…their anatomy.”

She blushes a little while saying the final bit of her tangent. Looking at the paper, there are about fifty questions or so written down. Some of them are basic things that you’d expect a girl ignorant about men to be curious about, others are about overly specific things that few men have ever thought about in their entire lives. The fact that each question is highly detailed, and many use medical/scientific terminology that no one uses in daily life leaves me both disturbed and impressed by how much effort she’s put into researching men. After a few minutes of going over the questions in my mind, I figure I should give her something resembling a response.

“…Look, I know you weren’t around men for most of your life, but you can’t learn everything from just asking me random questions or reading stuff on the internet. If you want to understand the opposite sex, then you need to spend more time around them. But you also shouldn’t be wasting your time with random older men either.”

She eyes me suspiciously.

“…Are you telling me to hang out with the boys from school? Because I’m not doing that! On my first day in school, this asshole boy tricked me into going into the boy’s changing room after gym class! Ever since then, all the boys do is say really mean and gross shit to me and treat me like a slut!”

There are tears welling up in her eyes as she spits her words at me. It’s clear at this point there’s no way my message is going to get through to her. So I relent.

“…Fine, do what you want. I don’t have time to argue. I have to leave for work soon.”

She immediately flashes back to looking happy.

“Oh! I’ll come hang out with you there too!”

I give up. I can’t stop her from following me.

“We haven’t got any new releases since the last time you were there, you’d be bored.”

“…I don’t think I’ll be bored. Besides it’s better than going home. I really can’t go home right now.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Well, I got into an argument with Brenton because even though I’ve told him a million god damn times not too, he always hogs the living room TV even when it’s my turn to use it. So as revenge, I deleted the save data on one of his video games. He got really pissed, and I ran out of the house and came here.”

My brother would’ve murdered me if I did something like that to him as a kid.

“…Yeah, it’d be good for you two to make up.”

“Well, we can make up once Brenton apologies as I have nothing to apologize for!”

This is what my life’s become, huh? Being forced to become friends with a random bratty teenage girl. Still, for as annoying as she is, there is something oddly pitiful about her that makes me feel something resembling guilt about abandoning her. I guess I’m just that spineless.

Author’s Note: The last of the backlogged chapters of LOVE for now. Which means I need to get back into writing for real. There’s a lot that caused me to stop writing. Part of it was feeling like the group I was a part of wasn’t achieving any real progress, part of it was nerves because the next arc is going to be a bit different from the previous arcs (flashback arc, not from Gray’s POV), and part of it was distraction and general laziness. I can’t honestly give a good time frame of when I’ll be starting up on the next arc, but I hope I can at least get some more of this story out before the end of the year at the very least.

Friday has rolled around, and I still haven’t been able to think of a real plan. It’s currently 11 AM, so there’s still a few hours before any of the schools lets out for the day. It’s not too out there to think that Ariel’s not the rebellious type who plays hooky, right? After all, she told me straight up that she follows a curfew that her parents have set up for her. But then again, just how did she manage to meet that guy and get so close to him in just a week?

…I need to gather more information if I want to be able to do something. It would be best to try and figure out who that guy Ariel was with is, but I have no idea where to even start on getting that information. Back in the old world, governments would use things such as social security numbers in order to keep track of citizens, but that really isn’t the case anymore unless you live in LOVE, and even then, they can no longer keep track of you if you manage to escape.

I hate to say it, but I may want to try looking at one of those child molester vigilante websites. As much as those groups fail far more often than they succeed, there’s still a chance I could potentially find the information I need from them. What these websites do is create profiles of people they suspect to be child predators and dox them in the hopes of delivering justice. Not only do these websites suffer from the same problems that already plague general vigilante communities, but after these websites managed to garner something resembling successes, the smarter child predators began to put in more effort in disguising themselves and keeping their information online more private.

In short, if I’m to get any useful information from these websites, not only does the guy that’s hitting on Ariel need to be dumb enough to be public about his intentions, someone from the local area not only needs to be aware of it, but also needs to be the type of person who posts to these sorts of vigilante websites. Well, I did see him kissing her at the park, so I guess the “he’s dumb enough to be public about it” qualification can be safely checked off.

I decide to go to the most well known of the vigilante websites, pedowatch.xyz. It’s been around for longer than I’ve been alive and has gone through many controversies throughout its existence. The most notable of these controversies was “The Gunweeb War”. It started when members of pedowatch were basically accusing any and all otaku of being predators due to them enjoying “pedo shit”. This led to a lot of innocent people being harassed, if not outright assaulted and killed for no other reason than their hobbies. Eventually, members of the otaku community decided that enough was enough, proceeded to dox the members of Pedowatch, and after the first revenge killing of a particularly abrasive member, war was declared by both sides.

Now it’s not like the Pedowatchers weren’t armed themselves, but there are several reasons why this conflict isn’t referred to as “The Pedowatch War”. Although the war started off with both sides on equal footing and having an equal amount of supporters, it turns out the members of Pedowatch had underestimated the Gunweebs greatly and the Gunweebs were slowly, but steadily winning more battles. You see, “Gunweebs” also known as “Military otaku”, are a group of people who’d strongly embraced the anarchistic nature of the territories after the fall of the old world due to the fact that they could own and use any weapons they wanted whatsoever. Compare this to your average member of Pedowatch, who was more unlikely to be knowledgeable about warfare tactics nor even so much as own a gun.

Then there was the fact that due to the doxing, it was discovered that the admin of Pedowatch was a thirty year old woman in a relationship with a thirteen year old boy she had met via Pedowatch. This revelation caused Pedowatch to bleed followers and lose support in the war. Although she tried to go into hiding, the Gunweebs eventually sniffed her out and killed her, ending the war. After the war, Pedowatch got a new admin who erased all the current profiles on the website, made new rules that forbade minors from joining the website and required users to have better arguments for why a profile should be up beyond “they like anime porn”.

Despite those changes, the damage done to Pedowatch’s reputation from this conflict was catastrophic. To put it into perspective: This war occurred only a year before I was born, and even as an adult I can still easily find people online who refer to Pedowatch as “the group that gets mad about people jerking off to Bomba-chan as a way to cover up their own child molestation”. It doesn’t help that even with the current administration, there still have been cases every now and then of false accusations from the website ruining a person’s life. Still, it’s been a long time since the war and defenders of the current Pedowatch have started to make their voices heard. And I guess those defenders are why I decided to go with the website compared to all the other vigilante websites.

The website has a somewhat bland looking interface, which I guess makes sense given that the goal is to resemble sex offender registries of the old world. It would seem to be that despite the negative reputation it garnered after the war, Pedowatch has an active userbase (even if that userbase is only 5,000 people). A quick glimpse at the database shows that it has many entries and is still being updated as recent as the current hour. There’s also a forum on the website where users discuss database entries and if/how they should be edited, not too unlike something you’d see on a wiki.

Of course, I can’t just spend all day (or week, given by how many entries there are) looking up individual profiles if I’m to stop something bad from happening. Thankfully, the website has a rather versatile system to help locate profiles of people in your area. Although the concept of “states/provinces/governates/etc.” are no longer a thing in the territories, the old world concept of area codes still are and they’re incredibly useful for ordering stuff online. Turns out area codes are also useful for helping me get a listing of all suspected child predators on Pedowatch.

After typing in the area code to where I live, three profiles popped up. While I didn’t recognize the first two profiles, the third profile was immediately recognizable as the guy from the park. His name is Dick Richards and he’s an English teacher at the local middle school. I don’t recognize him from my time in school, but according to the profile he only started working there two years ago. The profile itself is recent, only having been made five months ago and with the top of the page having a box reading “All information on this profile is just rumors. If confirmed to be false, this profile will be deleted”.

The profile goes on to detail about how there are rumors from the families of young girls concerned that this new English teacher is doing unsavory things with their daughters. The main point of contention raised is how he sometimes takes “problem” female students (and only the female ones) out on “counseling sessions”, with claims of students referring to it as his “harem”. However, no one’s been able to get any concrete proof of him doing anything yet. I mean…I guess I got some concrete proof when I saw him kissing one of his students. But I’m pretty sure me logging in to make a post about it would just be seen as another rumor since I don’t have photographic evidence of the incident. At least I know who the guy is now.

The question now is what I should do with the information I have. Again, I can’t talk to Ariel, because I highly doubt she’s going to listen to me and I have no interest in becoming a member of Pedowatch and turning into a child predator vigilante. Maybe I could try warning her family? She and her brother do seem to be regulars at the store, so maybe I could talk to Mildred and have her say something to the brother. It could work…Unless Ariel’s brother hates her. That’s a possibility. Once the time for school to get out comes, I decide to head to the park. If nothing else, I’d like to prevent anything bad happening in the park.

When I arrive at the park, I can see a homeless woman passed out on one of the benches. I myself go ahead and take a seat on another bench far away from not only the woman, but also from general human sight. I didn’t bring anything with me, so outside of spacing out, staring at nature, and daydreaming, there’s not much for me to do. A shame that phones in the Territories don’t have the same fancy games and internet features on them like the phones in LOVE do. I could at least be doing something on my phone if that were the case. Since school’s out for the day, I can hear random kids walking by the park and chatting. Most of it goes through one ear and out the other, but a conversation between some girls catches my attention.

“…Hey, did you hear what happened with Ariel?”

“Oh god, what’d she do this time?”

“During gym class, she took Elizabeth’s clothes out of her locker and dumped them in a mud puddle outside!”

“What a freak, I always knew there was something wrong with her when she transferred here last month.”

“My sister knows her ‘brother’. You know he was an only child until last month. Wonder what happened to her real family?”

“…I bet she ran away to go suck dick. Why else did she go wander into the boy’s changing room on her first day here?”

“I share English class with her. She’s become a member of Mr. Richards’ harem. Guess even whores gotta start from somewhere.”

“You think she’s fucking her new ‘brother’?”

“Totally.”

The group of girls laugh loudly as they talk. There’s a lot to be taken from their conversation. That Ariel is adopted, doesn’t seem to be liked all that much by her peers, and the fact that middle school kids are just as awful today as they were when I was in middle school. Something tells me that it’s going to be a while before Ariel passes by the park, and even then, there’s still a chance she might not come around. At least not without that guy. Let’s see, when I saw them at the park before it was around 3:30 PM, and it’s currently 2:20 PM…So I still have about an hour to wait before considering giving up.

The more I learn about Ariel, the more I question the rabbit hole I’ve found myself crawling through. I thought she was just some random obnoxious kid at first, but the more I learn about her, the more I feel as if I’m stepping into a minefield by getting involved with this. But then again, it’s not like I’m really doing anything with my life, so fuck it. Why not spend time on helping out a girl who may end up killing me as a way of saying “thanks”. I probably won’t get anything out of it, but it’ll help stave off thoughts about being miserable.

It takes about a half hour or so before the sounds of students chatting and walking diminish. I see the homeless woman wake up not too long after. She seems dazed and is shaking, most likely suffering from some sort of drug withdrawal. She stands still for a few seconds before stumbling out of the park and leaving me all alone. While checking the time on my phone, I finally hear familiar voices.

“…I heard you caused a commotion in gym class today, what’s that about?”

It’s him.

“Well, there’s this girl Elizabeth, who’s a total cunt! She put itching powder in my uniform, so I returned the favor by throwing her clothes into the mud!”

And of course, she’s also there.

“You shouldn’t swear so much Ariel, men don’t like that.”

“R-Right, sorry.”

I keep my focus on my phone, making sure to not turn around to the voices. Confronting the two of them when they’re just talking is a bad idea, and I can’t risk having Ariel recognize me. I need to wait until things get really bad before I step in.

“Well, it’s not like the teachers can do anything about it, but that girl may try getting back at you, so watch out.”

Depends on the school and territory really, but yes, the school staff around here really don’t give a shit about interpersonal drama between students unless said drama leads to a student trying to murder others at school. The only real “punishment” I recall ever occurring during my time in school is that teachers would kick you out of class if you were being too noisy. This really wasn’t much of a punishment though and many students would purposefully get loud in class just so they could play hooky or skip a period they didn’t like. I myself purposefully got kicked out of class once because I really needed to pee, and I had a teacher who was strict about bathroom breaks.

“Everybody at this whole damn school has been against me since my first day when they tricked me into going into the boy’s changing room!”

Listening to this conversation is making me uncomfortable, but I know that I can’t just leave either.

“Listen, Ariel. You’re a beautiful and smart young lady. The other kids know that and are jealous. You can’t let them get to you. Come here…”

Silence overcomes the park. Even though I’m still not looking their way, I have the strong feeling that they’re kissing again. After a minute of silence, I can hear more talking. However, their voices are so low I can’t make out what they’re saying. After a minute or so, I can hear footsteps walking…into the forest. I think now would be a good time to get up and do something.

I get up from the bench and walk towards the trees by the park while making sure to stay as quiet as possible. It would seem to be that they didn’t go too far out into the forest, because their voices are audible as soon as I approach the trees.

“…It’s okay just lie down on the grass.”

Has this seduction of Ariel been going on since she started school here, or just this week? Either way, this guy’s disturbingly good at seducing young girls.

“A-Are we really doing it here? We don’t have any birth control, what if I get pregnant?”

“It’s okay, they sell abortion pills at the pharmacy.”

He responds to her concerns nonchalantly, as if this isn’t the first time he’s had this conversation. There’s a silence before he talks again.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you’re nervous. A girl’s first time is always difficult. How about we get you relaxed?”

This is followed by the sound of ruffling clothes. I can’t tell who’s getting undressed, but I have the strong feeling that I should start getting ready to intervene. I look around for something I could use as an improvised weapon. There are small rocks scattered all over, with a particularly large one a few inches away. I decide to go ahead and try to pick up the larger rock. The conversation between Ariel and the teacher continues.

“Umm…I-I think I just don’t want to do it here. I want my first time to happen somewhere more romantic.”

“Nonsense. It doesn’t matter where you make love, it’s always romantic by the nature of the act.”

It takes some difficulty, but I manage to pick up the large rock and carry it in both arms.

“…If you’re too nervous about sex, we can just do something lighter for now. How about giving me a blowjob?”

I quickly mentally prepare myself. Then I force myself through the trees and pop out on the other side, seeing Ariel and the shirtless teacher together. I have no time to pause, so I throw the rock in my arms at the teacher, which managed to land on his left foot.

“Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

He falls down to the ground to hold his foot. Ariel looks at me confused. I walk up to her and offer my hand.

“Let’s get out of here.”

She nervously takes my head and we run out of the forest and park. After a few minutes of running, I decide to stop simply because I can already tell that this is too much physical exertion for me today. Ariel’s still holding onto my hand.

“…Let’s go to that abandoned house. And you don’t need to hold my hand anymore.”

She timidly lets go of my hand. While we walk to the house, I can feel her grabbing onto my jacket. I decide to not say anything about it, even though I know it’ll look weird to strangers who come across us. The walk to the abandoned house is done in complete silence, with neither of us saying anything to each other. Once we get there, the both of us sit on top of Marisa’s grave and the silence continues for a few more minutes while Ariel still keeps clinging to me until she finally breaks the silence.

“…I knew that was you at the park.”

Author’s Note: Just one more chapter before this arc is done. Something I’m hoping to achieve with this series is to be able to discuss serious subject manner without coming off as preachy or miserable. Am I succeeding in that? Who knows?