FACADE ( the GazettE Tale )

Chapter Eighteen : Bare Thy Core

"Your brother is your father?"

Aya and I had been staying here under the tree at the garden. When the bell rang for lunch break, I asked her to come with me. At first I couldn't find any right place to go where there wasn't any students murmuring of why we're together. I was losing my hope of finding a place, then we found this. Only a few students come here and we were away from the judging eyes of them.

"Yes."

I told her she could ask me anything she wanted to know about me and the first thing she asked was about my parents.

Her brows furrowed, she was puzzled by this. "Matsumoto Takeshi?...He's young."

I already expected her to say something like that but I still chuckled as I shook my head. "Trust me, he's not."

"How old is he?"

I pulled my leg up and put both of my elbows on either of my knees. "Two thousand and nine."

Aya's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. She blinked at me. "That.... Old?"

"Yes."

I saw her hesitated. Opening and closing her lips suddenly.

Knowing what she was thinking, I said. "I'm five hundred thirty two."

"Oh." She looked down and toyed her empty lunch box in front of her. I told her to eat her food first before asking me things, she might lose her appetite after hearing what I have in store.

"You look very young."

I nodded and leaned my head on the tree trunk. "I stopped aging when I was eighteen. Both me and Byo."

She bobbed her head then asked. "What about Carmela? Umi?"

"Carmela is born like us while Umi... Byo changed her into a Royal."

That triggered her interest and looked at me with curiosity visible in her eyes. "Changed? Royal?"

Nodding, I answered. "Something bad happened to Umi when she was still human... She was dying that time and Byo can't think of anything to save her but to change her into one of us."

Before I continued, I took a deep breathe. "Our kind has two divisions. Royals and Regulars. It's like Noble and Peasant, Rich and Poor, Master and Slave... Royals are stronger, faster, powerful while Regulars are weak as humans."

It took Aya some seconds to process this. "You're a Royal."

"I am."

Traveling her eyes back to her lunch box, she asked again. "Tell me about your mother."

My mother.

"I wasn't able to meet her. Father said she was ended by another Royal after she gave birth to Byo which was a few days after she gave birth to me."

Father said she was a very affectionate and a beautiful woman. He wasn't able to keep a photograph of her or anything that she owned but his description of her features made me imagine that she was a truly pretty lady, she could've been a great mother.

"Ended like... Killed? You can.. die?" Aya's eyes found mine and asked like a whisper.

"We don't die per se. We stop existing. Humans can't end us but our kind can end each other. Also, there's a human group called Hunters. They hunt us and are trying to end our kind."

"They can?"

"No, I don't think so. But I heard they captured a few of us and they're using them as experiments to know what could kill us. Apparently there's nothing yet."