Distortion

"Tell me everything."

Kaia glared at the boy seated on a wooden box in front of her, his hazel brown eyes focused on her deep blue ones as he continued to drink his juice, a cocky smile on his lips.

They were in the storage room, at the back of the school, having a staring contest.

Earlier,

Kaia was on her way out of her classroom for lunch when she saw a very familiar silhouette with a head full of fluffy black hair talking with a group of other students at the end of the hallway.

She made her way through all the other students and tapped him on the shoulder.

Please be him. Please be him. Please be him.

Kaia almost squealed with happiness when she saw that it was him, however, he didn't share in her enthusiasm.

He looked at her in horror and would have run away if she didn't have such a tight grip on his arm.

She smiled at his friends and dragged him away to the storage room. His friends cheered him on, giving him a Look. The whole time he kept apologising and protesting but she completely ignored everything he had to say.

Though, when she pushed him into the storage room, his demeanour and expression changed. He suddenly looked more confident, and a lot more irritating.

"Oh, hello." He sat down on a crate, the smile never leaving his face. "What can I do for you?"

This is going to be a task.

"You came all the way to this school to find me? I have to say, I am flattered." He crossed his left leg over his right and relaxed back, juice box in hand. "People don't usually do this much for me."

Kaia rolled her eyes and took her phone out.

"You told me my lifespan last time, didn't you?"

"Oh! You can't talk? No wonder you never called out to me when you chased me. It was hard to outrun you, you know? Are you on the track team? You should be."

Kaia slammed her feet on the space just beside him, she had no time for this. He definitely is a different person from the guy she dragged in, even his eyes looked different and his accent changed but she didn't care.

"How did you know?" She typed out.

"Know what?"

"My lifespan."

He shrugged his shoulders, "Lucky guess?"

Kaia sighed and blinked her eyes, "You're lifespan is . . . blank?"

The first boy, the boy she brought in, came back with his wide-eyed expressions. He looked so excited, he was practically glowing.

"You- you can see my lifespan? You're like me!"

"If she was like you, her lifespan would be blank!"

"That's true . . . How did you see my lifespan?"

Kaia stared at him, getting more and more confused as the conversation continued.

"Why is your lifespan blank?"

"I ASKED you the question first. Answer that." He snapped at her.

"Ran, calm down. How about this, you ask a question, we answer and we ask a question, you answer. Ok?"

"Fine." Other him mumbled.

"Ok. Sure." Kaia felt a headache coming on, if she didn't know about DID, she really would think he is crazy. "Why is your lifespan blank?"

"You first? Fine. We don't know."

Kaia narrowed her eyes at him.

"Ignore him." The soft boy is back. "We have this trinket passed down from generation to generation, our father gave it to us on our thirteenth birthday. That was two years ago, I think. After that day, we suddenly could see people's lifespan and when we saw ours, it's blank. Oh, and we couldn't get hurt anymore."

"Ok. Ok. Our turn. How can you also see our lifespan?"

Kaia scrunched her face up. This is going to be tricky to explain. Should she tell them everything? Can they be trusted? Does she even have an option?

"Wait! Before you answer that, answer this one: why are you so weird? I don't mean weird-weird, but . . . well, something is so off about you. Almost like you don't fit in with everything here. Does that make sense?"

"No. You sound like an idiot."

"Yes."

They stared at Kaia, their expression demanded an explanation from her but she is still wary of him and his counterpart.

"It's a very, very long story and . . . I don't know how long we have to talk."

Just at that moment, they heard the bell ring, lunch break is over. She still has so many questions, what's she going to do now? If they leave this room, he might disappear again.

"Then when can we talk again? After school? No. I'll have to stay back for another couple of hours after school for club practices." He also looked like he didn't want to leave the conversation at this.

Panicking a little bit, he also started to think. After the second bell rang, he made his decision and went up to her.

"Ok. Here, take my number. Call me where you want to meet up. We'll meet up then. Don't forget."

He ran out the door as fast as his legs would carry him. Kaia stared at him disappear again, but this time, she clutched her phone tight, she had the means to bring him back.

Now, just how much is she willing to tell him?

♣

"Hey! New girl! Come here."

Kaia looked at the group that called her. There were kids that just radiated the 'I get whatever I want' air. She ignored them and went back to laying her head on the desk.

Her mind's gears turned as she thought of what she should do, the noise of the classroom did nothing to help her growing irritation and the fact that this was the last period made her more nervous because she's still blank.

Maybe she should just tell them everything. Hiding or cutting anything out isn't going to make her story add up at all. Yeah. That would be the best course of action.

A hand slammed on her table startling her out of her thoughts. She looked to see the group standing around her.

Here we go again.

"Hey! Didn't you hear us call you? Are you deaf and mute?" A girl spat out.

"Count blind too. It's like she couldn't see us wave at her."

Kaia yawned. Their attempts to intimidate her were nothing compared to the high school students she met. She felt chills run up her back as the memory flashed through her mind.

"Hey! Are you even listening?"

"She's just as deaf as she is mute. Hey! Listen when we are talking!"

She reached out and grabbed Kaia's face, pulling it to look at her.

"Listen when we talk to-"

Kaia felt her body shake when the girl grabbed her face. She looked at the hand on both sides of her cheek. With her body still shaking, she looked at the girl with wide eyes, her breathing getting ragged. She could hear ringing in her ears as the girls laughed. In a flash, everyone's face distorted into hideous deformities, worse than her's was. They looked at her, eyeballs popping out.

Where am I? Why do they all look like that? Why are they staring at me? Where am I?!

Kaia felt bile rise to her throat as the faces continued to deform and look at her.

"Aww~ what's wrong? Scared now?" She sneered at Kaia, smiling triumphantly.

"Kaia! Let's-" Max walked into her classroom and saw the girls gathered around Kaia, one of the girls reached her hand out and grabbed her face. Kaia looked like she wanted to throw up and he could see her body shaking from where he was standing.

She hates anyone touching her face.

When he entered the classroom, everyone turned their attention from that group to him. Even the girl that held Kaia's face had the audacity to smile at him with her hand still on Kaia's face.

"Oh! It's Max."

"Hi, Max."

"Kaia." Max made his way to her, pushing past the desks and students.

Like waking up from a nightmare, Kaia gasped and slapped the girl's hand off her face and ran out the door, not even seeing Max. He tried to run after her but someone grabbed onto his arms.

"Hi, Max. Remember me?" The girl that touched Kaia's face grabbed onto his arms.

Max turned his head to look at the girl, his gaze was anything but friendly. She flinched when she saw his expression.

"D-don't look at me like that, Max. You're making me nervous." She tried to joke, lightly hitting his arm.

"Your hands."

"My hands? Oh, so you noticed. I've been told that I have the prettiest hands, ever. Look."

She proudly held her hands to his face to inspect them. But Max's expression only got darker.

"They are dirty."

"W-what?" The girl's confidence faltered with every second she spent standing next to Max.

He looked at her in contempt. "You dirtied Kaia. Don't EVER touch her again with those dirty hands. Not one of you. Otherwise, you're going to hear from me." He threatened the entire class, then took her bag from her desk and went after her.

♣

After a few minutes of searching, Max found her crouched down in the far corner of the school, just behind the storage room, puking her guts out. He felt something burning in him as he looked at Kaia in pain, a mix of emotions.

"Kaia." He walked to her and patted her back.

"Max." She gagged out, her voice thick with pain and disgust. She signed, "Why am I-like this? Why am I like this?!"

She started to throw up all over again.

"It's ok. It's ok. I'm here. It's ok." He said as he continued to pat her back. Unable to look at her in this state, he turned away.

"I'm sorry." He mumbled too low for her to hear. "I keep failing to keep my promise. I'm so so sorry."

♣

Kaia lay on Max's lap while he smoked, they sat on the footpath just outside the school's back gate.

Max had carried her out that way because not many students know about the back gate and he wanted her to be away from as many people as possible.

"Feeling better?" He asked as Kaia continued to lay on his lap, smoke coming out with every word he spoke.

She nodded her head. "Can we stay like this for a while longer?"

Max laughed, taking a deep breath of the cigarette, "Of course."

"Did you contact, Aliya?"

"Yes. I told her that I had extra classes and you joined a club."

"How did she take it?"

"She was very excited to be walking home alone." Max smiled, the smoke filling the air around them.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"You must be worried about Aliya but because of me, you're stuck here." She looked up at him again. "I'm sorry."

Max held the cigarette in-between his index and middle finger as he looked down at her and smiled. "Don't worry. Aliya learned everything she needs to know from me. She's smarter than she lets on, remember when she lied about the cat to Shia."

"I know." Kaia smiled at the memory. "Her story was so believable I would have believed it if I didn't see it happen in front of me."

"She can get herself into trouble as easily as she can get herself out of it. The people we should actually be worried about are Caitlyn and Faith, maybe Aliya also. They're too good-natured for their own good."

"I admire that about them. To be so kind in a world like this is not something most people can do." She looked back at him, a sly expression on her face. "That makes them even stronger than you."

Max shrugged, "I agree, I can't beat them at many things like on the seesaw or the slide or the swing. Wait. Are you sure you're the same age as them? You seem like an old woman in a kid's body. You're now even two grades higher than them, same with Caitlyn. When did my Kaia become so smart?"

Kaia playfully slapped his arm. "Stop teasing them and me. I've always been smart. I just didn't show it. By the way. I thought you quitted smoking, Max." Kaia narrowed her eyes at him, focusing on the half-smoked cigarette.

"I've been trying to. When things get too stressful, this is the best I can do to calm myself down." He took another puff of the cigarette and continued to talk. "I love Aliya and sir and ma'am so much that's why I'm trying this hard to be good. But who you were will always be there."

Kaia reached up and played with his hair, with the sunlight now, it is bluish. "It must have been hard. But, you know that they love you no matter what."

Max blew out smoke and smiled, "I know. That's why I try so hard for them. I don't want to shame them."

Kaia grabbed his face and made him look at her. She then pulled the phone out of her skirt pocket and began to write, "You're a good person, Maximilian. No matter what your past says."

Max could feel the sides of his face, where she had touched him, become hot as she said that.

Clearing his throat he said, "Come on. Don't use my full name."

Kaia laughed a deep throaty laugh when he said that. She knew how much he hated his full name but it's still funny to tease him this way.

"Let's go now." She wrote. "Help me up."

Max took one last puff and flick the remainder of his cigarette to the ground. He, very difficultly, helped Kaia up and stepped on the still-burning cigarette.

"Let's go then."

They began to make their way back home when they heard someone shout.

"Hey! Mute girl!"

Both of them turned around slowly and Kaia face palm when she saw the black floof standing there, waving at her. What's worse is that this is the cockier floof and he didn't look friendly at all.

Not to mention, Max is already being pushed to his limits with his emotions today and he does not look happy one bit.

Kaia rolled her eyes at the spectacle that was about to transpire in front of her.

Well, great. This is going to be fun.