Personally, my favorite part of this entire story is the end of this chapter with Angel and Cass.
~Saya
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5
C O U S I N
Bree and I were sitting in one of the abandoned rooms in the orphanage the next morning. She was lightly strumming her acoustic guitar while I looked over the most recent lyrics Faye had written.
"Fuck!" Bree growled as she screwed up again. Less than a second later, Amy poked her head around the door.
"I heard that," she informed Bree, who blushed. Then she glanced around the room until her eyes lit upon me. "Angel," she said, her blue-grey eyes lighting up, "the proprietor wants to see you. Actually, there's someone else here to see you."
I tipped my head to the right in curiousity. "Someone's here to see me? It's Sunday, not to mention that people rarely come for someone our age." I may have sounded pessimistic, but I was only stating facts.
"I think it's a relative," Amy added.
My curiousity piqued, I stood and tucked the papers back into my folder. "Can you take this back to my room for me if I'm not back before you leave?" I requested. Bree nodded and I left her and Amy.
It took me a few minutes to reach the proprieter's office, since it had been moved when our favorite part of the orphanage had fallen to disuse. That was before we'd come, of course, but when we'd discovered the abandoned wing, we'd practically adopted it. I knocked warily, unsure what to expect.
The proprieter opened the door, then stepped aside to admit me. Behind him I saw a tall boy with thick, messy black hair, dark brown eyes, and silver framed glasses. He was wearing a black v-necked t-shirt and plain blue jeans. A nervous smile graced his features. I didn't see any resemblance that could be attributed to family.
"Hi Angel," he said softly. His voice was deeper than I would have expected. "I'm your cousin, Eric Oguri."
"Hello," I said formally. Eric and the proprietor frowned, but I paid it no mind. Perhaps that was something I'd picked up from Oliver, but my usually distrusting nature had become increasingly so. Eric looked uncomfortable. My conciousness nudged at me, reminding me that this was apparently my cousin. That would take some getting used to if it was true, considering I'd lived all of my memorable life with not blood-relation family.
The proprietor attempted to smooth over the situation. "Angel, why don't you spend today getting to know Eric. You can introduce him to your friends."
I resisted the urge to simply stare at him. Did I look five? Instead I chose to disregard the patronizing nature of the comment. "Right. Sure," I muttered, then looked up at Eric. There was confusion in his warm dark eyes. They were a little too much like Oliver's for my liking. I turned away and motioned for Eric to follow. "Why don't we go meet Bree?" I suggested, my mind on the lyrics I'd tucked into the folder.
Eric followed me quietly. I led the way quickly, albeit not so confidently, to the room I'd left Amy and Bree in. Three heads turned when I opened the door. Amy was still there, and Sam had joined them. Their eyes widened at the sight of Eric as he poked his head over my shoulder.
"Angel...who's that?" Amy asked when they recovered from the surprise.
"Eric Oguri," I replied, trying to hide my hesitation and nervousness, "He's...my cousin."
Suddenly my friends were all smiles. One of us had family outside the orphanage. Unfortunatly I couldn't muster the same enthusiasm. In fact, I was more nervous than excited. I shook it off as adversion to change and introduced my friends.
"This is Bree, Sam, and Amy," I said, gesturing. "And Justin," I added as Amy's brother leaned through the doorway.
"Hi?" Justin said questioningly. Then he spotted Eric and understood. His confused frown transformed into a grin. "Hey," he said more warmly.
We all gathered the stuff we had and left the room. Cass was laying on her stomach on her bed in our room when I stopped by to drop off my lyrics folder. She looked up as I opened the door. I tossed the folder onto my bed and motioned for her to follow me out. She whined loudly but put down the book and came anyway.
"Cass, this is my cousin, Eric Oguri; Eric, this is my friend and roommate, Cass Schwarts," I rattled of without feeling. Cass shook Eric's hand with what was more discomfort than politeness. Faye was finishing up an assignment for one of our classes, so we left her alone. Instead, we went down to the game room and activated one of the bigger TVs. We were lucky enough to have the room to ourselves, and we turned on the most violent video game Justin could find in the stack. I rolled my eyes at him, but he just grinned.
We spent hours taking turns at the game. At some point Faye joined us. She was controlling her character in a battle against Justin's when Oliver entered the room. Eric's eyes widened when he turned to see the other pale-skinned boy. I waited quietly to see the reaction.
"Oliver?" he asked loudly, surprised. Oliver's eyes widened to match Eric's as my cousin stood and strode over to him.
"Eric?" he asked in equal surprise. The two boys embraced in obvious friendship. There went my theory. Again though, it was the perfect anime sweatdrop moment. I waited for them to explain. Instead, Oliver leaned in and whispered something in Eric's ear. His brown eyes widened in absolute horror. Maybe my theory wasn't quite as nullified as I suspected...
Eric released Oliver and looked over our group, and I noticed that sadness had crept into his features. He caught my eye and fear for myself flooded through me. Then Eric forced a smile and I pushed down my emotions. Eric walked back to us and sat cross-legged between me and Sam. Oliver followed and sat on my other side.
The rest of the day passed in much the same way.
My jacket wasn't thick enough to block out the chill of the night air. It may have been summer, but the nights were still too cool for my liking once the sun goes down.
"You get cold easily, don't you?" Oliver's voice asked from behind me. I spun to find him wearing a loose black jacket and keeping his hands in his pockets, the front of the jacket unzipped to reveal a plain dark blue t-shirt. He also wore black jeans and black converse shoes. I disregarded the question, focused on one of my own.
"How do you know Eric?" I asked suddenly. Oliver looked confused, but not hostile.
"My family and yours are old friends. I probably should have mentioned it before this," he admitted.
"So Eric is definitely my cousin?" I asked for confirmation. Oliver looked at me as if I was being stupid. He even went so far as to roll his eyes.
"Of course, Idiot," he sighed, sounding more affectionate than demeaning, "What made you think otherwise?"
I blushed. "I'ono. I'm just...not used to actually having family..." I attempted to explain. Oliver ruffled my hair, seeming completely relaxed for once. I smiled, equally relaxed. He moved closer and slung his arm around my shoulders. I rested my head on his shoulder, content for the moment.
"Oh, by the way," Oliver said suddenly, his tone ruining the mood, "I think Eric likes Sam. And she probably likes him too."
Ignoring the fact that girls were usually more observant about relationships than guys, I stepped away, completely destroying the already ruined mood. "What? Where is he?" demanded.
Oliver frowned, appearing truly disappointed. "He and Sam are back in the game room," he answered quietly. It wasn't like Oliver to be quiet or willing, but Sam was the object of my concerns at the moment. I brushed past Oliver on my way to find Sam.
They were in the game room, as Oliver had said. I spared a moment to wonder at Oliver's sudden sweetness, then turned my attention to getting Eric's attention. In the end, I had to hit him in the back of the head with a ball of crumpled notebook paper, aiming carefully so as not to hit Sam or Justin. Eric turned and I motioned for him to join me in the hallway.
"What is it?" Eric hissed quietly.
"Do you like Sam?" I asked, blunt, concerned, and trying not to let my mind stray to Oliver. Eric looked caught off guard. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out. The action quickly got to me. "You look like a retarded fish," I told him bluntly.
The got his mind working again. "Yes," he answered finally, not beating around the bush. If I weren't consumed by concern for Sam, I would have smiled with satisfaction at my sucess in getting a straight answer out of this idiot of a cousin. It led me to my next order of business, in which I stretched up and leaned forward until I was only inches from Eric's face.
"Hurt her in any way and I swear I will fucking kill you," I threatened in a whisper of a growl.
Eric looked surprised, confused, and concerned. I doubted I would ever understand his expressions or motives, but they weren't important at the moment. What was important was getting a response to my threat about Sam's welfare.
"You don't need to worry about Sam, Angel," Eric finally said, his voice calmer than I had expected. He ruffled my hair much like Oliver had only minutes earlier. "Keep an eye out for yourself though, Princess."
With that he walked away. leaving me to ponder another use of the word "princess" as my nickname.
Whe classes ended the next day, I found myself waving goodbye to Bree, Faye, and Sam. They were going into town to see Cole, Kristian, and, to my surprise, Eric. Sam and Eric were going to a movie, while Bree, Faye, Cole, and Kristian...well, to be honest, I didn't even want to know what they'd be doing. Maybe we'd get lucky and it'd just be something like laser tag.
Cass and I, on the other hand, were lounging around our room. There were several books strewn across the floor, as we were both readers who happened to enjoy dissing popular books, and upbeat music was blaring from the boombox in the corner.
"The main character in this one is so pathetic. She's one of those 'sparkle-loving twits,'" I commented, holding up one of the crappy romance novels that had been stuffed in the back of our bookshelf.
Cass looked up to see which book I was holding up. "Most heroines in books like that are," she commented, "I can't believe anyone liked that series."
"Believe it," I sighed. Then one of my favorite songs came on and I jumped up to dance. Cass joined me and we danced our way around the books scattered on the carpeted floor, for once not caring about anything else that was going on in our lives.