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"Damnit Amani! You're early! What have I told you about that!? If you expect to get paid for being early you're dead wrong!" yelled a large, out of shape man.
"Sir, I was only five minutes early--" "Don't sass mouth me you ungrateful little brat!" the man boomed, cutting off Amani's words. "For that, you're losing your first out of pay. Now get going!" He shoved Amani out into the main part of the gym, causing him to stumble and nearly fall. With a depressed look about him, he made his way to get to his duties. |
Tessan's eyes had started to droop closed, but they flew open as she heard the loud, angry voice, though unable to hear the words. "Well, I might as well go see what he did wrong, because it's most likely him that's in trouble..." she said quietly, walking out of the door to go in search for Amani.
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Amani stood in the corner of the gym, picking up weights that had been left out by inconsiderate gym members. It became apparent by the size of a particular weight that he was lifting that he was much stronger than he looked.
He looked absolutely miserable, though he knew he had to get his work done. He was only going to work here for however long it took for him to find another job to replace it. Sure, he held down several jobs, but he was afraid to let go of even one of them, should he and his brother fall into even harder times. |
Brodie usually found it easy to avoid people even in the school's halls, but that was mostly because most of them avoided him. He must have been distracted today, or just damn tired. Whatever the reason, he felt himself run into another person while he was looking the other way.
When he heard what he assumed was an apology- her voice was rather quiet- he mumbled his own, "Sorry," and was about to walk away, until he heard the girl say his brother's name. He had been used to people mistaking him for Terry, there was definitely a resemblance between the two. But it hadn't happened in a while, so he was caught slightly off guard. He stumbled over a half sentence as he turned to face her, he might have seen her through the halls a couple times, but nothing more than that that he could remember. He alternated between looking up at her eyes and to his left, he felt a bit awkward and wasn't sure what to do. Which was kind of how he felt when this sort of thing happened before. "Ah, I'm sorry to disappoint, but..." He turned to face her completely. People could usually tell the difference between him and his brother after a closer look. "I'm not, well-" |
Adalia shivered in her damp clothes. Although she wasn't human, and wouldn't get seriously ill from the cold it sure wasn't pleasant. She found herself regretting the fact that she hadn't felt that she needed any worldly possessions and was basically a soul-reaping hobo.
Testing out the door that led from the roof of the building to the inside, she was glad to find it unlocked. Peering cautiously through, she inched her way in after not seeing anyone around. 'Now, who'll be the generous human who'll 'loan' me some items?' she thought to herself as she readied herself to be intangible. --- Elizabeth stared at the boy infront of her for a moment, taking in his features with joy. She thought to herself that perhaps it had all been a horrible nightmare. Terry had never died, it was all just a nightmare. The girl found herself filled with immeasurable joy. However, as his mouth moved to open and she listened intently to his voice he said, "Ah, I'm sorry to disappoint, but..." He turned to face her completely. "I'm not, well-" "...Terry." she said again, but this time with a smaller voice. After seeing his face completely she saw the small differences from the one she had hoped him to be. "...well, ummm...." she stumbled over what to say as she looked at the watch on her wrist. "I guess homeroom is starting soon...so..." |
Kay's eyes opened slowly, but not all the way. "Ita...?" she called weakly, looking up at him the best she could.
"What is it, Kay?" he asked, sitting up and looking down at her. "I don't want to die..." she said with tears forming in her eyes. "I'm doing the best I can to make sure that doesn't happen, Sweety. I'm trying." "I know..." |
Tessan took long strides and came to stand beside him, smiling somewhat sadly. "Hey...I'd offer to help and all but...floating weights is never a good thing," she said, not knowing what to say about the look on his face.
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"Even if you were visible, you'd only get me in trouble for helping me. He'd probably dock my pay another fucking hour," he muttered darkly, though he spoke using the shadows rather than his voice. Luckily he was skilled enough with the element of darkness to do such a thing. If he was caught talking to himself he'd surely be yelled at.
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Nodding slowly, Tessan thought, 'I see...he was the one getting yelled at...' "Why do you work here if they treat you this way?" she asked, sitting down on the bench of a bench press, tapping her feet softly to a tune in her head.
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"Because we need the money. We're old enough to live on our own. We don't need Andrew and Shozii's charity anymore. But... Zaitsu gets sick, and he gets hurt easier than I do. He works three jobs, I work four. I keep trying to get a fifth but he won't let me drop out of school. We have bills to pay. Zaitsu works instead of going to college. I'm... I'm trying to save up enough to send him back to school. He feels so useless and I hate it. I want to carry my own weight. I'm quiting here as soon as I find another job. I can't handle it here for much longer." Once again, he'd spoken through the shadows to the reaper.
He didn't miss a thing while communicating with her. No, he finished moving the larger weights and moved on to putting the smaller weights where they belonged. "You might not want to sit there. It's covered in sweat and the asshole that always uses it refuses to disinfect it like he's supposed to. Not that the owner gives much of a shit." |
Tessan quickly jumped up, wiping her skirt off with a disgusted look on her face. "Well that blows, like an elephant. He should care more. Do the other people who work here get treated the same way you do?" she asked, wondering if it was safe to sit on anything else.
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"I get treated the worst. Don't ask me why. I actually do my job, unlike half the idiots here," he replied, pulling a spray bottle and a rag from his waist. He sprayed down the bench where Tessan had been sitting with a rubbing alcohol and water solution and wiped it down.
"You can sit back down now," he told her, moving to wipe down some more gym equipment. |
"I'll wait for it to dry first," she said, and then a mischievous smile crept over her face. "Could I bother the people here? Especially the boss man? Please? Pretty Please?" she asked, running over to him, holding her hands together.
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His eyes met hers, a worried look on his face. "You're going to get me fired... It doesn't matter what you do, it'll just get blamed on me..." He sighed and reached up to brush his long hair out of his face and shook his head a little.
"Yeah, go ahead," he said, sighing a second time and closing his eyes. He turned around and got back to work. |
Tessan bit her lip, trying to decide if she should or not. Walking over to stand beside Amani, she said, “I could make it look like it couldn’t possibly be you. Like, oh, I don’t know…a ghost? Floating things…make it look like he’s going crazy or something? And if I get you fired, I’ll make sure I get you another job-a better one!”
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The reaper slowly crept through the hallway wary at the thought that a human could walk down the hallway at any moment. While she was aware that they wouldn't be able to see her she was used to being alone, so the thought of being caught in a closed space with humans made her feel very claustrophobic.
But as she wasn't getting any dryer, she decided to go through the nearest door hoping that there was no one inside. 'Well...isn't this place...pleasant.' she thought to herself as she was greeted by a tiny room with barely anything in it. Hearing a strangled cough nearby, the reaper turned her head to see that she wasn't alone in this room. Even better, she thought as she swiftly and quietly made her way to the pair, Seems like I'm not getting a break from my job today. Staring at the girl before her, Adalia did not have to take out her list to confirm that this girl would be dying shortly. She glanced at the man beside her who was holding the girl's hand in his, obviously holding back his pain. This is going to be a messy one. she thought as she inched her way toward the pile of blankets nearby, hoping no one would notice if they happened to get a little damp. |
He glanced over at her, the look in his eyes still clearly saying that he was against it. "Go for it." He went across the gym over to a large stack of water bottles and began putting them in a glass-front display refrigerator for the gym goers.
"Ita...? My throat hurts..." He nodded and let go of her hand, getting up to take their cracked coffee pot from the old coffee maker and make her some tea, though he added cold water to it to keep it from burning her. Returning to her side, he sat on the edge of the bed and propped her up with one arm behind her back. Lifted the mug up in front of her, he allowed her to reach up and guide it, not wanting her to choke should she get too much tea in her mouth if he were to put the mug to her lips. After taking a small drink, she sighed and leaned against her brother. Itami sat the mug down on the chair he'd been sitting on, then wrapped his arm around her. "I don't want to go to the clinic tomorrow..." she whimpered. "Kay, you have to... You'll never get well if you don't," he said softly, kissing the top of her head. "I'm never going to get better..." Itami winced, looking as though someone had just stabbed him through the heart. "Don't say that, Kay. If you think like that, then you'll make it true. Please don't think like that..." |
Frowning that he still didn't approve, Tessan sat down to try and decide what to do, keeping it to herself so Amani really wouldn't be a part of it. 'Well...I could always carry something he was working on away, right in front of his eyes. Or I could carry a bucket of water over to him and dump it on him, and I can laugh, and if he says something aloud, I can just be like, 'Hah, puny human, smarten up, or I will really come for you...' and then make myself partially visible...' she thought to herself, a grin spreading across her face.
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"Homeroom. Right," he said as he turned his head away again, he noticed how quickly the happy look on her face disappeared. Brodie couldn't help but feel bad, even he really couldn't help not being his brother. She was, after all, probably just another of Terry's friends, or just some stranger who hardly even knew about himself. 'But, she did look awfully happy when she thought I was him.'
As if on cue, the bell rang loud and clear. A few minutes to get to class, "Well, I'll just..." he turned fully and walked down the hall. He walked quickly with his eyes forward and focused so something like that wouldn't happen again. Fortunately, he got there relatively early. His first teacher, Mr. Nickerson, wasn't very strict with tardies. Brodie noticed that he was the first one in class as usual, when he walked in the door. |
Amani glanced at Tessan's voice, an uneasy feeling in his stomach. He could tell she was plotting something, and it most likely involved him. He got picked on enough, the last thing he really wanted was to be the target of her pranks.
Sighing, he shook his head and went into a back room to organize the messy shelves full of different supplements. Once the rest of the classroom had entered the room, a man who was leaning against the corner by the windows whistled loudly. "Alright, listen up. You have two minutes to find a stopping place in your conversations, to write out all your silly little notes, and to get to your proper desks. If you want to sit next to a friend today, that's fine. But I won't tolerate disruption in the classroom or disrespect," he announced over the chatting voices. He stood up fully and walked behind the desk, leaning forward with both his hands on the top. Once the two minutes had passed and the class had settled down, he continued, "Any notes passed without permission will be set on fire, the author and the recipient of the note will both have to do something humiliating in front of the entire class. So if you want to pass a note, ask. If I say no, then take that for my final answer and don't try to pass it behind my back. I will catch you." He took a breath and stood up fully again. "Now, as you all undoubtedly know - and if you don't, you must live under a rock - Terrance Fisher's, your classmate that died recently, will be having his funeral this Sunday. I expect you all to be there to pay your respects. And anyone who is disrespectful or gossips during the service will be forced to write a twenty page essay on death in multiple cultures and how they respect their dead that'll be assigned on Monday and due on Tuesday. Now, you're all probably wondering who the hell I am. Mr. Nickerson had to go out of town for a family emergency and won't be back for at least a week. I'll be your substitute in that time. My name is Mr. Marez." |
Quickly standing up, Tessan almost ran to where she and Amani had come in. After searching for a few moments, she found a bucket in the cleaning closet, a smile of satisfaction on her face as she marched to the bathroom with it.
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Amani moved around the back room of the gym, arranging things and cleaning up messes as he found them. Should the boss find them, he'd undoubtedly get blamed for the messes and have his pay docked even further.
If anyone who knew him saw him working here, they'd be shocked at how miserable he was. |
A few students jumped at the loud whistle, the whole of the class silencing at once. Several girls raised their eyebrows with sudden interest in the unexpectedly new face. This was very different from what they were used to. Brodie's eyebrows were knitted together in thought, he knew something was familiar about this man the second he heard his voice.
As soon as Terry was mentioned, Brodie felt several eyes on him, as well as a few eyes that diverted away from him. It seemed he wouldn't have to tell anyone about the funeral anyway, and he expected them all to be there even if the substitute hadn't practically made it an assignment. Something about how he said it- something about how he said things in general reminded Brodie of something, he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. Until, of course, he looked the teacher in the eye. Those bright orange eyes caused Brodie's to widen in shock and disbelief. 'Shozii?!' he mouthed the name as he still stared at the man. |
Walking out with the bucket filled to the brim, Tessan concealed it to be able to roam around and find the manger's office without the bucket being seen. And so began the wandering.
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"Alright. Let's get started then," he said, his eyes scanning over the class in front of him. "Since Mr. Nickerson didn't have the opportunity to prepare a lesson plan to follow, he told me that I'm free to teach what I want. Therefore, since it seems to relevant, we're going to talk about death today. Now, who here has had a death in their immediate family that has happened in their lifetime that they can remember?"
Amani's boss sat behind his desk, leaning back in his chair and smoking a cigarette, though he certainly shouldn't have been inside the building. "Sir, if I may ask," the employee sitting across the desk from him and eating lunch began, "whay are you so rough on that boy?" "Eh?" the boss replied, swiveling in his chair a bit to better face him. "'Cause idiot punks like him need to learn early on in life that they're worthless scum. He'll never make anything of himself, and he shouldn't go around imposin' on people an' wasting their time!" "Isn't that a bit biased? I mean, I know he's young, but he really does work hard here." "Ehhh." He waved his hand in a dismissive manner and turned the chair off to the side. "He's a worthless lil' nobody." |
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