I stood up in shambles and Aya took the opportunity to ask

"Where are your parents?"

I sighed a bit and grabbed a chair to sit down in. I answered

"It's around 16:30 right now. That makes me want to ask; Why aren't you a.s.suming that they're working? I'm guessing it's because I told you vaguely some stuff earlier, right?"

Aya looked down at the ground in guilt and said

"So they're at work, huh. Well, that's good to hear."

I looked at Aya right in the eye and said

"Did I say that?"

Aya got a surprised look and said

"Not really, but I a.s.sumed that based on what you said."

I got a smile on my face and said

"That's why you shouldn't really a.s.sume things. You usually end up in some embarra.s.sing situation, or you're just wrong. I would know."

Aya quickly retorted

"But you said th--"

I interrupted her and said

"Sshhhhh"

Aya pouted and asked in a pa.s.sive aggressive tone

"WELL, Where are they then?"

My smile got turned upside down. That's to say that I frowned if you didn't understand. I said

"Basically… They're dead.

Some things happened and I ended up inheriting the money they had saved. That's why I live alone in this house."

Instead of Aya saying something, this time Ibuki said something, terrified

"Did you… Kill your parents?"

Everyone got a terrified look on their faces as they turned their heads towards me in antic.i.p.ation.

- It's joking time! Of course I didn't kill my own parents, they died in a car accident. But I want some vengeance for what I've had to endure today.-

I looked up and got a certain insane look on my face. Even though I hated acting school, I did learn a couple of things about doing certain things.

"Looks like you've got me cornered there, Mr. Detective. But, because it's come to this I'll spill the beans; Yes, I did in fact murder them. I was tired of their relentless abuse so I took the matters into my own hands."

Everybody instantly moved 3 steps back, except for Narino who stayed at the same spot. The girls started panicking

"This is insane! How could you? I can't believe this..." Aya said in a state of uproar. The others chimed in and started insulting me.

- I mean, this is quite good for the balance of my mental state. Of course, I'm being insulted for something I didn't do, but it's a good change of pace from feeling s.h.i.+t over being praised for nothing. But as all the great minds say, 'everything bad must end', truly sad.-

I started laughing, as a way to subtly tell them that it wasn't as they thought. I made sure that the laugh didn't sound maniacal. But before I had the chance to reveal it myself, Narino said

"Ha ha ha… Very funny joke indeed, Kenjiro."

The way she said it was incredibly pa.s.sive aggressive and didn't really sound like she enjoyed the joke. Makes sense though, it was a terrible joke.

Aya was the first one to react

"Eh? Was that a joke, Kenjiro?"

I replied

"Indeed it was, 'Mr. detective'. I was a quite excel---"

But I was interrupted by the dual colored drill-haired girl named Narino

"How can you joke about that? We're talking about your parents here! How could you even bring yourself to say something as horrible as that? You're HORRIBLE, Kenjiro!"

The girl had tears slowly but surely dripping down her cheeks. The whole situation had taken a big change after the words uttered. Narino had an utterly sad face and after a couple of seconds of deafening silence, she sprinted away and outside.

- Don't you think I already know that, little Narino? I've always had a problem communicating with people and my, at best questionable, sense of humor and behavior are probably the main reason.

But maan… This sure is really awkward now when she left like that. Everybody's staring at me like crazy, and not even in a good way.

How do I fix a situation like this…?

Well, there's one sure fire way to fix it.-

I chuckled awkwardly and said

"Well then everybody, I've got a situation to fix and a relatively short amount of time to do it."

The other girls just nodded while I walked out of the room and started approaching the front door.

Instead of just straight out opening the door and just waltzing out there, I decided to peek out the door first to get a grasp of the situation.

What I found upon peeping out the tiny keyhole was a female with blue hair looking down at the ground in a reflective and melancholic way. Those seductive eyes that I had seen earlier today were now looking down at the ground in a way I didn't think I'd seen before.

I slowly opened the door to no reaction, I then proceeded and calmly said

"Hey, Narino. Mind if I sit down next to you? Don't worry, I'm serious right now."

Narino simply turned her head and looked at the spot next to her and said

"Go ahead..."

I quietly approached and sat down in a casual manner and looked out to the street in front of us. No one was outside right now, so it was pretty darn quiet. I looked Narino straight in the eye and said

"Look, I'm really sorry for what I said and did earlier. I don't necessarily expect you to forgive me, at least not right now because I could hear in your voice that a bad experience somehow related to the joke has happened in your life and I somewhat understand what someone making fun of an experience like that can feel like. I know that I'm a horrible person and that I make bad jokes, It's been a part of me for a while now.

What really disturbs me about this is that I made someone who actually matters sad. I can make fun of myself how much I want to, because who the h.e.l.l cares about me, right? But when it starts affecting other people, who matter, I draw the line. Not only that, it's unacceptable to make a girl, or anyone actually, cry. Guess what? I just did it. I guess it's something else to tick on the 'why Kenjiro is a bad human'-list.

If it makes you feel any better, please do hit me."

Narino looked away and said

"Violence isn't going to help me. I don't like hurting people.

My parents… They were murdered by some psycho when I was 8. I still don't understand why they had to leave this earth. They were the kindest parents anyone could have, they hadn't done anything bad in their lives. So why did they have to leave? It doesn't make any sense, No one benefited from the event..."

I put my hand on her shoulder and said

"I'm truly sorry for your loss, even though I'm 9 years late. But on that note, I'm not doubting that your parents were kindhearted and good people but I don't think you quite understood my family. Of course, I would never even think of murdering them or anything like that and I'm not saying that they necessarily deserved to die. But, they were truly awful people and awful parents. The way they treated me, partially resulted in me receiving this mindset I have, made me regret being born onto this planet and overall made me feel like s.h.i.+t. No normal parent, let alone human, would ever do something like that, right? But they weren't quite normal. They were always drinking and they also had substance abuses.

I remember once, my mother had been sleeping til' noon and woke up. I was going around the house cleaning and doing ch.o.r.es as I had been instructed to do. The first thing my mom went for was a bottle of vodka. Upon downing half a bottle, she then grabbed a knife and started screaming at me

'Oi, Kenjiro! We barely have money, you're gonna have to get a job.'

She said whilst pointing the knife at me. At this point, I'd almost gotten used to it so I simply complied.

Although this incident was quite horrible, it didn't really have the same mental shock and impact as the 'Rejection Incident' had on me.

Well, that's it for my pointless rambling."

I turned around and faced the street again, strangely enough, with a smile. Perhaps it was because I was finally free from the tyranny and pain I had experienced back then or maybe I actually was a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t.

I turned around once again to see if I messed up and if Narino was p.i.s.sed at me. But she was looking at me really fascinated and interested. In the background, I heard some quiet whispers

"Who would've known Kenjiro had it so rough?"

"I know, right?"

"But for some strange reason, I feel like I have some more respect for him after this whole apology."

I stood up and walked towards the door, I quickly said to myself

"For f.u.c.k's sake..."

But this time, I wasn't alone so my self-speaking habit was in a perfect situation to be discovered. Whilst turning the door handle, I said

"Look here, everyone. Could I ask you to insult me instead of praising me?"

I opened the door and revealed 4 suspicious girls right by the door.

"Eh..." Ibuki quietly said

"We weren't listening to your personal apology, if that's what you thought." Aya said in a confident manner.

"Look, Aya…

At least try, I'm practically begging you here." Anami said while prostrating herself in front of Aya.

"Do I also have to say somethi--" Sora tried to say before getting interrupted by Anami who said

"No."

…

"We're leaving now! See you tomorrow, Kenjiro!" Aya announced before leaving with the others.

After half a minute, the only sound I was left with was the sound of nothing.

-It isn't really a sound as it is just nothing. But still, it really feels great to finally have a moment of silence after a hectic day like today. A h.e.l.l of a lot of things happened, and I still don't want these powers. Oh, that reminds me! I have the power that I upgraded. I can totally try it out right now. -

After getting a genius idea like that, I started moving towards my room.

- I said that I lived here alone, but that's only half-true. Through what I said, one would also probably a.s.sume that I bought this house and owns it and that's also half-true. The truth is that this house on paper belongs to my uncle, but the money used to buy it was my parent's savings. One might wonder how they managed to save money while buying alcohol and drugs all the time, but they started saving money 5 years ago in hopes of one day buying a house in New Zealand. I don't know why, but during the later years, around when I was 12, they started having a strange obsession with New Zealand. My uncle is actually a very nice person but usually doesn't stay here in the house. He works a lot and is quite often on business trips to different places and when he actually gets some free time, he travels somewhere because he's really into traveling. He usually visits me on Christmas and stays until New years eve, he also usually comes around 1-2 weeks during the summer vacation to stay. He also visits on some random days in the year. He's really cool, so I can't wait until Christmas when he presumably will be coming again. -

I walked into my Anime poster-covered room and sat down on the chair and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen.

But even though I had slept earlier, I still felt significantly tired.

So tired that before even being able to put my pen down on the paper in front of me, I pa.s.sed out.

This had been a long day indeed, but finally, the torture was over.