Chapter Text
The motions have become all but second nature by now.
Mono gently switches off the blaring alarm clock. Brushes his teeth with toothpaste that stings just a little too much. Puts on his little wrinkled uniform and blazer. Cooks breakfast. Eats said breakfast. Aimlessly watches his Father on the TV. Shuts the front door to his apartment door with a resounding thud as he ambles down the stairs and onto the cracked footpath.
The Pale City can be described in a variety of ways, with varying degrees of venom from outsiders, but pale was certainly and apt name for it. Clouds constantly loomed in the sky and grey, cracked concrete seemed to coat every surface possible. But it isn't bad; it's close to school. It's usually never hot, or sweaty, or sticky. And there's Six.
He met Six about a year or two ago, probably. It feels like they've always been best friends — which is when Six juts in to say "It hasn't been that long, idiot" — but his perception of time has always been a little off-kilter, so he understands. Mono ran into her by chance, during a sulk up in a tree at night he still doesn't remember the cause of, where he had the honor of watching Six bite her mother and kick dirt into her eye whilst in a rage. To her credit, she made it fairly far, only to be so shocked when seeing his form so dangerously high up, — "You looked really stupid, that's all. Who climbs trees that high for no reason? What if you fell?" — and was consequently caught. She probably still hasn't forgiven him yet.
The concrete footpath melds into a earthy, dirt track. Ducking beneath the occasional jutting tree branch and carefully stepping over gnarled roots, the clearing comes into view soon enough. Six's house is looming, daunting and grandeur, yet shabby and dirty. Battered red lanterns hang listlessly on the rim of the roof, and the paint on the wooden pillars is sullenly flaking off. There's a scattered arrangement of ceramic, mini ladies dressed in robes — kimonos, were they called kimonos? — dotted around the perimeter, along with scattered shards of broken statues and pots around, almost certainly a result of a unsavoury fight between a certain mother and daughter. For a family so filthily rich, their house was… unkempt.
Six is waiting impatiently for him, leaning against an old, carved wooden pillar shadowing the entrance of the back door. She glares at him with dark eyes, hooded by her bright yellow raincoat — which is definitely against the school uniform policy, but really, who cares? — and kicks a chunk of gravel in his direction. It harmlessly hits his leather shoe.
"You're late," she notes, the corners of her mouth etching up her face.
"Nope," Mono replies, smiling. "I'm on time. Like always."
He wordlessly stuffs a handful of colourful, wrapped sweets into her pocket, routine as always. She immediately unwraps two and tosses them in her mouth.
Mono heads back up the beaten dirt pathway with Six in tow.
Today is a Monday. Mono doesn't particularly care for Mondays; Mondays means another week of school to slug through, more Bullies (with a capital 'B'), and less time to hang out with Six before she inevitably gets in trouble for eating too much or speaking too loudly, trivial things like that. Mono really, really doesn't like her mother. Hate is a strong word, though. He forgot who told him that. Six hates her mother, though. He knows that much.
Too soon, the dirt melds into concrete, and the concrete melds into the old stone tiles of the school.
Mono is limping, running jaggedly into the thick woods as his breath sharply gets shallower and shallower. It feels like the air's been sucked out of his lungs. Or punched, more like.
He stumbles to a halt before deciding in a spontaneous jolt of wild panic to scrabble up the trunk of a tree. Mono feverishly lunges higher and higher, bloodied fingernails digging into the crackling bark. Finding a sturdy branch is easy enough, and his swings himself upon it, clutching the thin fabric of his shirt and wheezing painfully. He's safe. Far away.
He doesn't quite recall how long he spends there, huddled among the foliage, but at some point his breath does get a little steadier and Mono eventually comes to the conclusion that wow, he is actually quite high up, and oh no, he might fall. But it is quite comfortable, so he decides to take the risk and shuffles awkwardly around until he's hunched up to survey the dark woods below. The height gives him a nice view. And he can keep lookout.
Speaking of lookout, he does see an odd figure, gasping and hunching with exertion; but it's not him, and even if it was, the image of him climbing such a tall, rickety tree with his lanky limbs seems so absurd and implausible that he decides to refrain from freaking out and potentially falling off the tree. Which would result in him being very dead.
Curiously, he peers down at the girl down below, a small child with knobbly knees and a bright yellow raincoat — what a pretty raincoat, it's so bright! But probably terrible camouflage if you were running away — panting for breath and looking around listlessly. She lightly taps her way across the dirt and broken twigs, barefoot like him, and surveys her surroundings with wariness, poised to run again. And then she sees him.
Reasonably, she lets out a little yelp and steps back, and Mono has half a mind to clamber down and apologize as she gawks upon him shock.
But then, a crashing noise akin to a bull ploughing through the bush roars through the forest and Mono decides it would probably be wise to stay put and not make any noise. Unfortunately, the girl does not quite get that chance.
The noise, as it turns out, was not a bull, but a sleek and very angry lady dressed in deep brown robes bulldozing past the trees to grab the girl with the bright yellow raincoat and drag her —presumably — back on the dirt trail she came from.
Obviously, the girl is not very pleased about this, and wildly flails as the both exchange punches and Mono is fairly certain she bites the Lady's finger at some point.
Is this a kidnapping? Mono wonders. Am I witnessing a kidnapping? This might be a kidnapping. It really, really looks like a kidnapping.
The final straw comes when the girl kicks up a hefty amount of dirt into the Lady's face as she let out a frenzied scream of frustration, finally managing to haul her back onto the path by her hair and away from the thick of the woods.
Well. Curiosity killed the cat. And would probably kill him.
After a quick glance to make sure the pair was far enough to be out of earshot and he wasn't there to catch him, he clambers carefully down from the towering tree and plods after them, vaguely following the dirt trail they went down. Mono hasn't ever gotten this deep into the forest before, but the trees seem to thin out rather growing thicker.
Eventually, the trees fan out to bushes, then shrubs, and then dull yellow blades of grass, swaying gently in the night breeze as he stands in front of what he can only describe as the most run-down manor he's ever seen. Did they even have electricity here?
Mono carefully paces the perimeter of the clearing before determining no, there aren't any cameras, and searches for any sign of the girl with the yellow raincoat.
There is none, save for a gentle, tinkling tune of a tinny song. A music box?
He follows the music, taking mind to stay in the shadows until it reaches its peak outside a dirty, cracked window, a small wooden pole jamming the sliding mechanism. Peeking up on his toes, he can see the girl, hunched up on a mattress and slowly twisting the crank of a tin music box, painted with a large eye that seems to glare judgmentally at him. The room is filthy; there's scribbled crayon drawings scattered across the stained rug, shattered plates, books, a battered black school bag, plastic bottles and all other sorts of junk. A bucket holding dripping water from the ceiling is positioned near the bed.
Unwisely — how many unwise decisions has he made tonight? — he gently raps on the glass.
The girl stops cranking her music box with a jolt, leaving it to topple over and fall on its side with a sad, musical plonk.
Scrambling to the window, she surveys him with wariness before motioning to the wooden bar blocking the sliding window.
Get it out, she mouths.
Raising an eyebrow, he obligingly removes the wooden bar and slides the window to the side, finally eye-to-eye with the girl.
"You're the guy in the tree," is the first thing she says.
"Yeah," he replies. "I saw you get dragged away. Are you kidnapped?"
The girl picks at her chapped lips.
"Kind of. That's my mother." There's a wavering note in her voice. "Hey, catch me."
As Mono awkwardly holds his arms out, she leaps out of the window with practiced elegance and lands in his hold. Mono places her on the grass.
"You climbed that tree," she reiterates. "That's really high up, you know."
"I…I didn't know at the time. Why are you running away again so soon? Won't you get in trouble?"
"I'm not running again now," she sighs, "just stretching my legs. If I run away again, she'll lock me up 'till morning. And I won't be able to go to school."
She eyes him up and down.
"Hey, you were running away too, right? And you're bruised. And your fingers are bloody, too. What's up with that?"
Mono opens his mouth to respond… and then trails off as he realizes he entirely forgot why he was running away in the first place. Why was he here again? Why was he so panicked?
"I dunno," is the response he brilliantly comes up with. "I forgot. I forget a lot of things. By the way, I'm sorry for getting you caught."
The girl gives him an intrigued look.
"You're weird," she decides. "What's your name?"
"Mono," he answers, shifting on his feet. "And you're…?"
"Rokka." A beat. "But no one calls me that. Just Six is fine."
Mono blinks. Six is an odd choice of a name, but it isn't like his is any better and all the people who lived here had all sorts of weird names anyway.
"Okay. Sure." He tilts his head. "Why Six?"
"Why Mono?" She jabs back. "It's just generation junk. I'm the sixth generation to run the… shop. So Six."
"Alright. Hey, you go the school near the lake, right? We can go together. I have… I have candy. Do you like candy?"
"You're late," the Teacher snaps, the corners of her mouth pulling down in a frown.
Your face vaguely reminds me of a bullfrog and your eyes are creepy and I don't like you, Mono wants to say.
"Sorry," he says instead. "Won't happen again." Six grunts behind him.
She rolls her eyes fair, this isn't the first and certainly won't be the last and marks down something on their attendance reports — which, to be honest, wasn't going to be read anyway, so — and points to their seats in the front of the class.
"Sit," she says. They sit.
Today's lesson is something about the human body. Mono zones out for most of the lesson, but the practical where they all got to put on rubber gloves and poke a odd-smelling cow's heart she got from the butchers was pretty fun. But probably not for RK. Mono feels a little bad for him.
"Oi," he whispers, nudging the blue-clad boy next to him, sweater draped over his uniform. "You good?"
By now, RK is turning a particularly vibrant shade of green.
"Uh-huh," he mumbles, waving his arm dismissively in a fake motion of nonchalance. "Nope, nope, all good, just… yeah."
"Y'know, I have no idea how you're a die-hard vegetarian and related to Six at the same time. How does that make any-"
"MONO! RYOUSUKE! QUIET!"
They shut up. Mono hears Six and Raine cackling and giggling respectively near them.
Lunch break is more peaceful than usual.
Once upon a not-that-long-ago time, Bullies probably would've beaten the snot out of him and Six for sitting so close to the swings, their 'territory', but with Raine and RK nearby — mostly Raine, that Bully with the ridiculously curled hair and smudged lipstick is infatuated with her — they always seems to keep a wide berth.
Mono likes them. He's not as close to them as Six, but they were still cool.
Despite the notable chill today, Raine is still wearing her thin school blazer in place of any other comfier, cosier jumper or jacket, along with her usual bright red ribbon in her plaited hair. Even Mono has a dark blue cloak tucked beneath his own school jacket. Still a model student, it seems. Frankly, it's a miracle they haven't been a terrible influence on her.
Six was the one who had introduced RK and Raine to Mono; RK was apparently Six's "cousin, but nobody in the family wants to admit it, because they're all cowards who think they're too good for him." They'd gone over to his house once or twice to hang out, but his grandma — who was Six's grandma as well, and in turn, the Lady's mother, wow, small world — was really, really creepy and hated the lot of them. Or in turn, hated Six's mother, and by extension, Six and RK and anyone who had anything to do with her. So they decided not to stay there anymore. RK mentioned something vaguely about exiling and family businesses. He forgets. Either way, she doesn't like Six or RK at all, and that meant he didn't like her.
Raine on the other hand, wasn't related by blood; just the daughter of a pair of business owners that supplied the Lady's floating ship-restaurant-thing — The Mouth? Mound? Maw? Again, he forgets — that had gotten close to Six. They stayed at her house most of the time because her parents were nice and smiley and had good food, but they would still tip off Six's mother if she ran away because they always listened to her, and would never give Six as much because the Lady wanted her on a "strict diet". Or something. It was more like starving, anyway. So he still didn't like them. Raine is nice, though. She gave Six her raincoat, and Six likes her raincoat. He's a bit jealous of them, though, in a funny way. They've both known Six much longer than him.
Anyway, lunch here is longer than most other schools around; they start late, so Mono can sleep in, but they have no recess. A double-edged sword. He doesn't mind, though: longer lunches in place of recess means he only needs to make two meals instead of three.
Mono hands Six an onigiri, a handmade ham-and-cheese sandwich and a mandarin he bought when they were on sale at the supermarket the other day. She gobbles both down in less than a minute and then stuffs the mandarin into her mouth, skin and all.
He himself nibbles on another ham sandwich he doesn't quite have the appetite for, so Mono just hands it over to Six as she eyes it hungrily. Raine has some sort of fancy, Korean bento box — courtesy of her parents — whilst RK chows down on some sort of egg-vegetable. Thing. Six steals a bite of Raine's fishcake slices that she pretends to not notice.
"You know," RK grumbles, "she never takes my food. I mean, I don't want her to take it, but what's wrong with it? This," he waves his little egg-spinach-tomato-mushroom-capsicum thing, "this is delicious. And-" he tries to stifle his laugh, "and cruelty-free."
Six snorts loudly. "Your cooking is terrible. And has way too many vegetables."
RK lets out an indignant huff. "I saw you eat that mandarin peel! How is that any better than this?"
"That peel tasted delicious. In fact," Six declares, "I'd rather eat you than your stupid, um. What is that?"
RK's face borders on both alarm and offense. Raine laughs and laughs.
"If it's anything," she grins, "I like your vegetable thing. Your choice of greens are very… unique!"
"Would you eat it?"
"No."
Mono nearly spits out the water he's drinking.
"It's okay, RK!" He offers cheerily. "I can teach you how to cook!"
RK lets out a deep, heavy sigh. The corners of his mouth twitch.
School's out.
The sun has finally began to dip down in the sky, and Mono and Six wave off Raine and RK as they trod home. Looks like it's just the two of them.
"Ice-cream?" He asks her.
Six lets out a wistful little sigh, eyes trailing long the horizon. "Can't. I'd kill to have ice-cream, but…"
She trails off.
"Tomorrow, then?" Mono questions.
"Yeah, yeah," Six grins. "As long as you break me out."
Mono raises an eyebrow. "What'cha do?"
"Nothing! It's just, y'know how she is on Mondays. And the fact that I smashed a really ugly pot this morning."
"Oh. Oh yeah, it's all good," Mono mumbles. "I'll get you out tomorrow."
"Wonder what she'll try this time," Six sighs, kicking at the gravel as she steps onto the dirt track back home. "Glue?"
"Maybe. Hey! I'll get you two ice-creams tomorrow. Double-scoop."
Six points her finger back at him as her figure fades among the shadows of the bush, grinning.
"I'll hold you to that. Double scoop?"
"Double!" He calls back, waving his arm. "See you tomorrow!"
A faded "Bye!" trails faintly from the bush.
Mono sighs, looking down at his scratched-up leather shoes. Time to go home. Home, to his big, sad, empty apartment.
Grasping the leather handles of his bag, Mono marches home in silence. It's beginning to get colder and colder, and the sun creeps down lower as cars and trucks angrily honk at one another. Some of the streetlights are broken.
It starts to rain. Damn it. He forgot his umbrella.
Speeding up his walk to a jog, he hurries to his apartment block before he gets drenched — the weather isn't kind, here — and ducks into the door of the apartment foyer, dripping only slightly onto the tiles.
The elevator is broken, as usual. Joy.
Slugging up the stairs, Mono finally reaches his floor and jiggles the key in the lock before the door sadly opens with a weak, creaking noise. He shuts the door behind him.
The apartment, like usual, is just as big and empty as he always remembers it. A constant in his life. Mono doesn't particularly feel like eating, so he simply showers and changes into his pyjamas — plain grey silk, with a fancy white tag — and sits in front of the television.
His father is always on there, at exactly 7:30pm, talking about mundane things — the weather, the latest gossip, recent news, concerts, that sort of thing — and Mono quietly watches, his figure bright and artificial on the television screen. He had made sure they had the best one available on the market.
Mono's Father hadn't stepped foot in this apartment block for what, a year? Two? Just wads of cash and checks with fat numbers on them that would make anyone's eyes water. He earned good money, in the television. Mono is lucky; he has good food to eat, nice clothes on his back and all the money he could ever dream of. And still.
And still.
The channel changes. It's some random cooking show; no Father. Mono switches off the television.
His Father didn't even live here anymore; he lived in the center of the city, where the signal tower and all the television show production centers were at, for convenience. Mono supposes he could've followed him, but to be honest, he'd thrown a fit about being able to stay here, with Six and Raine and RK, with the beach and the ice-cream store he likes, and the lake he swims in, sometimes. His Father didn't protest; he didn't want Mono there to be a distraction from his job anyway, and he can take care of himself.
There was also probably another reason he wanted to stay rather than move with him, one that nicks his brain, but you know. He forgets.
Brushing his teeth with the same toothpaste that stings just a little too much, he tucks himself into perfectly made, king-sized bed and, out of habit, checks the messages on the digital phone humming on the bed stand next to him.
To his shock, there's a message: not from Raine, or RK or Six — she's not allowed a phone, anyway — but from his Father.
Heart jolting in his chest, he picks up the phone and holds it to his ear.
"Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?" His voice tunes, in his artificial, jovial sort of way, muffled and a little grainy. There's probably someone still in the room with him. "Son. I'm heading back to the apartment on Thursday. For checks, things like that."
Thursday, Thursday… three days away. Three? Only three!?
"See you then," he remarks briskly. The message ends with a bright click! And Mono sets the phone back in half disbelief. He vanishes with no words for a year, and suddenly he wants to check up on him?
His stomach broils uncomfortably at this, but even if the visit isn't really for him, he's excited. His Father being back — even just for the night — means the house won't be so empty, and he'll get to see and talk to him. In person!
To be honest, he's sort of forgotten what he was even like.
Setting the phone back in its holder and gazing at he blank ceiling of his room, Mono wonders if the day will come where he'll no longer need the TV.