RASPY WISPS OF FOGGY ASHEN CLOUDS EXHALED FROM HIS LIPS. An eternity of stress weighed off upon his shoulders as he lit the umpteenth cigarette, gassing the house with the inherent odor of a smoker. The coughs that wrung out echoed like scraping asphalt, dry and haggard as the little girl who propped herself on the kitchen stool made the flapping sounds of flipping pages in a grocery sale packet.
She was no older than the age of nine, eyes crinkled, squinting and scanning the numbers she had grown up to nitpick for the perfect price of things.
Carefully, the young child slid herself off of the tool, ever so slightly her height until she had reached the fridge and filled a clear glass cup with water. "Here." The brunette offered, standing on her toes to place it onto the kotatsu table where her elder brother sat.
However the mistake she had made that night was staring into the bloodshot eyes of a man who was by blood, her sibling.
"Get lost, kid." With that, he had swiped the glass cup off out of his sight as it tipped over the table, the rim of the cup hit the top of the child's head and the rest of the water spilled onto her clothes with the cup luckily hitting the ground and splitting into three pieces that she'd carefully pick up and dispose of.
However that wasn't her only mistake that night.
Offering her elder brother a cup of water in the first place was also a mistake. He knew what going through a pack of cigarettes a day would do to him, at least in that aspect he was no fool— for he thought his body was resilient as he also dabbled in illegal drugs.
Anari had grown accustomed to letting her big brother make his own decisions as she did hers. They were but two strangers living under the same roof with an invisible wall separating any contact of acquaintancy.
Rubbing the soon to be formed bruise on her head, she made her way quietly to her room, living like a dead rat as she had promised.
Anari, although nine, found herself with no anger to be let out, none to her brother .. and none to herself for allowing it to happen. Young, but nonetheless burned out of any hatred she may hold, gone ever since she realized, what was the point?
She was a singular being in a large world with no specific talent .. so if she were to get angry .. what difference would it make? They classify anger as a negative emotion, yet negative does not mean that it's necessarily bad, and in the long run, positive doesn't mean good.
Who was she, to get mad at herself in a future already decided for her, a past already ironed solid, and a present set in stone? And if she were to have some type of anger .. what was she to do with it except transfer the bottomless well onto a white sheet of print paper followed by the spectacles of lead.
For Anari was like a boiling pot of water, simmered down into nothing but vapor.
This was a reality she accepted wholeheartedly.
"Oi .. Anari!" The sound of snapping fingers severed her train of thought from her consciousness as the toffee haired girl flinched.
Blinking sea-foam green eyes adjusted to their surroundings as the nine year old girl slowly felt herself getting nudged into the tattoo parlor. "Hey, you sure about this?" The male, much taller than she was, yet the same height, had questioned.
"Well .. it's for free right?"
He snorted whilst his friends chuckled. "That's the spirit!"
"On the temple..? Are you sure about this kid?" The man who held the needle gun in his hand had tested for verification one last time. Anari held a thumbs up to the boy named Draken, who also was her cousin. Whether that fact was true or not, was entirely irrelevant.
Draken and his group of friends had gone to the tattoo parlor in order to get the boy his first dragon tattoo. Amusingly enough, Draken also meant dragon.
Anari on the other hand, just a tad bit hesitant to get a tattoo, was referred a second option instead—
The smell of bleach hit her nose instantaneously as she would bid her muddy brown hair goodbye. The last resemblance she held to her brother.
"Anari you shouldn't just get things because they're cheap or for free. Since you look so small and scammable, you're likely going to be a targetted victim." Mitsuya lectured her once more. At this rate it would be hard to differentiate the fact that they were the same age. Luna and Mana played with the girl's freshly dyed hair, finding it bright and colorful.
"If I were that stupid I would be dead by now. I'm still a miserable rat squirming around." Anari remarked brutally as Draken smacked her clean over the back of her head as she hissed, hitting his thigh in retaliation. "Don't do that! I still have a bruise and it hurts!"
"What're you going to do 'bout it? You're so small and weak I could bench your weight." Anari exalted a huff. The girl was a coupon fanatic and an extreme cheapskate. She even stole the coupon papers in Mitsuya's mailbox not so secretly. She ate canned foods for a living and although she wasn't a pre delinquent like Draken— the girl had some type of spit fire.
The male grinned, however the expression quickly diminished when his phone rang. Reading the caller ID, Draken's brows furrowed.
"It's them." He grabbed his sleeveless jean jacket sitting on the back of the chair as he slipped it on. "Look after her for me, will you?" Draken nodded his head toward Mitsuya who was drying a cup with a rag.
"Don't go. You're strong, you can stand up to them, Ken." Draken only chuckled, taking his leave. The three of them all knew, although Draken was strong, he had lost his fight against the Sameyama middle schoolers and now they were using him as their gofer.
It was a cruel unfair world they lived in.
Although Anari believed god existed, or at least a small fragment of her did .. she was a believer of Deism, the belief in which god did exist, but did not intervene in the world or human life for that matter. But slowly she was losing faith, slipping into atheism.
Either way there was not a single difference it made.
"Yaya. Teach me how to knit! I want to make a scarf for Draken incase he gets cold in the winter." Mitsuya blinked once, and then twice, only to find Anari's face unwavering as he chuckled, drying his hands and grabbing the knitting tools to begin the lesson.
Draken made a reputation for himself amongst his middle school by beating up other kids and looking down upon them for he had every right to do so. And with that fear, he had earned respect. His dragon tattoo was infamous practically, although it had originally belonged to Mitsuya who was currently in the stages of growing out his lavender hair to cover it, as per Draken's request.
Three years ago, when Anari was six, her father had gone to jail for attempted murder against her mother and her boyfriend. Their aunt and uncle had abandoned them leaving behind some good amount of cash that lasted them for about a year, it was around that time when Anari's elder brother began drug dealing in order to make a source of income, not just for his sister but for himself.
Draken, who grew up with Mitsuya was born in the red light district of prostitution. Anari who was being chased, near kidnapped after she had accidentally entered a gang's territory and caught their eye had sprinted through the streets of Shibuya and unintentionally found herself in the red light district.
Perhaps it was pure coincidence but after she had taken a sharp turn down an alleyway, a boy yanked her arm through the doorway and slammed the door shut, running all the way up the stairs to the second floor of the building, dragging her along like a rag doll.
And it was pure coincidence that the week prior to the accident, Draken was scourging through some photos his mom had left behind— in which there was a letter addressed to her by a man named Shinto, discerning about his two children and an estranged wife who had an affair. According to the letter, the man was his uncle.
Clipped to the corner was a picture of two siblings. A girl with adequate length hazelnut hair and aquatic blue-green eyes and a small scar below her eye. And what seemed to be her older brother, darker brown hair and chocolate brown eyes, bags that resembled those of an insomniac.
And it was just a matter of chance that Draken happened to be taking out the trash that exact night and time, enough to catch the face of the girl who was quickly running down the street— and it matched that of the picture's.
Although he wasn't sure why he did it— or what on earth possessed him to, he saved the young girl who from then on was known to be his cousin, although the only solid evidence of proof they had was a simple letter and picture.
The word family meant nothing to him— by blood anyway. Anari at the time was just a quiet girl who would take time out of her day to make messy bento boxes for Draken in recompensation for the salvation of her life.
Mitsuya was a solid familial figure for the girl, having an equal eye for Anari as he did his two younger sisters, as he had even sowed the girl her very own dress that she cherished for as long as she could before growing out of it.
Anari didn't mind the business Draken and Mitsuya did, nor the beatings they ensued. She only minded when they came back battered and bruised, whining and complaining when she dabbled alcohol on their wounds, reading off an article on the internet on how to treat scratches.
In the now bleached blonde's opinion, she was never too cautious— she was just careful and sure, valuing her life because of the people within it who gave her memories to dream of forever. Thus she did the best she could to stray away from drugs and alcohol, learning the basics of self defense at the very least from Draken.
Some could say she was living in a delusion of her own expectation .. and her response would be, "is that wrong?"
Anari was a child with a scary amount of logic that revolved around her world, sometimes it was pure wishing, other times, she just wanted to be a child, daydreaming in another time and space.
"Dra .. ken?" The syllables of his name were uttered slowly as his attention was faced behind.
Beside her cousin was a boy even shorter than she was. Although Draken was respected and feared both, he made a point to berate those weaker than him and that he disliked— thus he didn't have many friends, Mitsuya aside.
He had blonde hair, just like Draken. It made the two of them look more related than Draken and Anari did. Said boy donned a black and white bomber jacket with matching track pants and a lollipop in his mouth. A posture slouched and arrogant, along with a void within his pitch black eyes.
"You know her?"
Draken nodded his head. "That's my cousin Anari .. or we think we're cousins at least, but who gives a shit?"
"Family huh."
The girl ran toward him peeking over his shoulder. ".. You have friends?"
"I'll hang you upside down by the toe and watch the blood flow to your head." Draken shoved her shoulder lightly. Genuinely, knowing him, he was most likely serious, so she'd rather not test it out.
"So you're Anari .. you're a—"
"—pipsqueak." She cut the stranger off.
Maybe it was because he just watched Mikey beeline and take out Sameyama in one kick and was still idolizing him .. but Draken's eyes looked like they were about to bulge out of his sockets, watching Mikey take a few steps toward Anari.
"Your clothes are all nice and look brand new, keep slouching like that and you'll get back pains .. but what's with you being so .. tiny?" Tiny in actuality was just two inches shorter than Anari who was already poked and prodded by Draken to be small .. or it was just the fact that Draken was excessively tall and buff for his single digit age.
"And also .. only mental people eat the grape flavored lollipops .. it's nasty." She scrunched her nose up in distaste.
"You seem underwhelmed, do you know who I am? Considering you're Ken-chin's cousin and all?" He tossed the lollipop stick into the trash can behind them, landing a perfect shot.
When silence was met with his question, the boy upped himself close to her face as a shadow casted over his eyes. "I'm Mikey-sama from Seventh Elementary."
"What nine year old runt gives himself an embarrassing honorific like that?" Anari continued. Draken found it a miracle that his cousin was still standing.. while taunting the invincible Mikey at that.
"You gotta problem with me?"
"No. Do you have one with me?"
"No. You should learn how to have social awareness. Read the atmosphere or else you'd be digging your own grave." With that warning, Mikey had ended his greeting with a farewell, allowing Anari to take Draken to the grocery store with her so it made it seem like she wasn't just some nine year old girl unsupervised ripe for a kidnapping.
The supermarket was having a flash sale for canned foods, in which Anari stocked up on, adding them into the basket one by one.
"I told you, his name has never rung a bell. I'm not like you, Ken-chin." Anari mocked teasingly, only receiving a scoff in return, she ducked her head quickly, avoiding a right hook. Draken never spared mercy for even his cousin-- as he said before, it didn't matter if she was or wasn't related to him by blood.
He had already lived this long not knowing or being connected with family. One shrimp so harmless wouldn't hurt.
"Hey! Don't call me that!" Although Draken was .. unusually tall for his height, his voice still sounded like that of a child's as it echoed throughout the store. Anari stuck her tongue out at him, "oh is it only reserved for your idol?"
Anari fished the sloppily cut out coupons from her pocket along with some wrinkled pocket money, handing it to Draken so he could pay in her stead.