'Murder you.' Tars said as she saw the amount of food her aunt brought home. It was early morning and completely awkward between her and Olive as they hadn't mentioned anything about what happened earlier. Tars was viewing the classic example of how messed up her life was.
'It's for tonight honey, no need to be so stingy.'
'It cost more than your weekly salary though.' Tars pointed out as she lifted the receipt.
'I know,' sighed Liz and she smiled at the food, 'but first impressions are good.'
Tars gave her a rather blunt stare and began to speak in a final tone using Kiribati. Fact was, they were in a equatorial, pacific country, they had been living there for two years beyond a decade now but still, Liz and Olive were clumsy with her Kiribati. They regularly practiced with Tars now as Liz frankly had more trouble in her job than in her saccharine drinking problems and Olive had been labelled as dumb and blonde first day in school.
Liz smiled tightly when she finished pairing and making sense of the words she managed to get.
'Tiaki.'
'Tia' has the sound of the first two letters in sun and literally means 'done'. It is added with the 'ki', which has the same meaning as 'ass' and yes, the body part, in the Kiribati language. Sa+ki = 'Not.'
'Ngkana.'
'Ng' as in the sound one apparently makes (in Kiribati that is) when eating pandanus (which is rather comic because Kiribati people were said to come from the land's in the east that could be either Korea or China or another and in all, it is not very hard to say 'Panda nuts' ) or so said. Kana apparently has the same meaning of 'eating' or 'ate' and has, rather disappointingly, no relation to the katana which would be a nice and of course, funny touch to the earlier reference to the east countries. Ng+Kana= 'when'
'Ko.'
Ko....hmmm…. ko…. No satire there, just a regular Kiribati word for 'you.'
And then the rest was lost under the fact that Liz had her attentions life span of seven good seconds, three for focus and four for hearing the usual 'blah, blah, bleh,' of a usual lack of care. But she still got it, even though what she actually got were three words.
Tars sighed when she saw the look Liz had. She wondered if Liz ever noticed that people knew when she wasn't listening enough to care. She had that usual face that looked straight at you, nose in your direction, ear peeved and cocked but eyes that were looking up-down-side-front-side-up-down and side, completely missing your speaking, foaming mouth.
'The usual sign of the cross.' Tars sighed, 'No positives results this time.'
Liz focused her eyes back to Tars and Tars counted the expected but still hated three seconds before the eyes wandered off again. Tars knew that Liz wanted to listen but either this was a disorder or just some really weird eye routine. She had wondered one time how Liz was able to even keep her job, to drive the car evenly, well, even!
She had been looking at her book on that day, not reading but thinking and her eyes suddenly caught sight of the gaudy red outfit that Liz wore along with her blonde hair. She had sighed and went back to her book wondering why she was even wondering.
Liz was beautiful, cheerful and easy going and when that didn't work, one male only had to look below her collarbones for her to keep her job. Olive had inherited that but thankfully, whoever her father was, he had probably worn off some of his brain cells after the miscellaneous night and the brain cells had rushed into Olive and popped out of Liz nine months later. But even despite that Tars had trouble, a lot of trouble, trouble the size of the fact that Olive had tried to eat the toaster some time ago. By accident of course but, still, it was a toaster.
'Liz.' Tats chided her aunt and when the eyes focused back to her; 'Not when you have done your first impression seven times.'
It was said very rapidly, very, very fast. Liz blinked before smiling sheepishly much to the relief of Tars. Thankfully she kept her mind in the subject they started on. There were some days when the last second's topic could be buried and left with the dead coral underneath their island.
'It's for my office party dear, I have to.' Liz said and fired up the oven.
If Tars had ten cents for every time she sighed, it be a known fact that she could breathe out money. But then again, she had kicked balls yesterday so maybe she was the one who initiated the money pouring out of another person's mouth, that is if vomited family jewels were considered money in Kiribati.
'Why don't you tell me what happened?' Zeal whined.
'Because its none of your business.'
'I want to make it mine!'
'You can go tell Olive then.'
'I want to hear it from you!'
'Maybe sometime.'
'Really?'
'When I give a crap.'
Zeal pouted.
'Stop that.'
His lips went tighter.
'Its creepy.'
He almost fell for the trick, Tars didn't find anything creepy, she expected everything to be the way it was. His lips had slackened for a few seconds only to return with a puppy eyed look.
'Ha.'
He realized that the inexpert puppy eyes were her bias fuelled, hated item. Liz used it. So did Olive. With two of the most expert puppy eyers that never failed, Zeal was only ruining it by being male and incompatible with Olive and Liz. Tars hated puppy eyes on anyone who didn't know how to use it. If you had the cake why would you eat the bread?
She walked away with something on her face and when Zeal caught up with her he almost burst out laughing.
'What the hell is that?' he asked her.
'What?' the thing on her face was off by then but there was still some residual amounts close to her cheeks and chin.
Zeal leaned forward and continued to scrutinize her before his eyes widened.
'You smiled.' He said much to the surprise of both of them.
By then it was gone from Tars face.
'I didn't.' she neutrally said and walked around him back to the classroom.
'Do it again!' he said.
'Why?'
'Its creepy, I want to take a picture and give to the people who sell out the creepy-pasta stuff.'
'Jokes on you then.'
'Why?'
'It doesn't exist in this world, that creepy thing.'
'Well that wouldn't explain that I saw it!'
'You didn't.'
'I did.'
'You didn't.'
'I did.'
'You didn't.'
'I did!'
Tars stopped and looked at him straight in the eye, her face had a strange expression on it. Zeal looked down and found that a smirk was on it. He looked up again in shock but Tar was already long gone by then.
'Tars Anderson!' the teacher called out.
Tars raised her hand.
'No, I don't need that, go to the principal's office.'
The whispers started then, some who knew what she did were stunned, some who didn't presumed that being unneeded was a sin until corrected.
'Yes?' asked Tars as she sat on the chair with that stony eyed look.
'Its says here that you physically abused a male student during school hours.' The principal flipped over the page.
'Yes.'
'Is there a reason on why you did that?'
'Yes.'
'Care to explain?' the principal said after a while in the silence.
'Not really.'
The principal took down his eyes from the folder and looked at the presumably fourteen year old sitting across him.
'How old are you?'
'Fourteen.'
'IT says here that the male was sixteen, downgraded due to his grades and an athletic star.'
'Of course he was.'
When the silence was undisturbed again the principal sighed.
'Try to keep this type of manner outside of school and hopefully without the indication that you came from this school.'
'Yes.' Tars stood and took the outstretched detention card and walked out.
'So?' asked Zeal when she came out.
'Why are you here?'
'I heard the announcement.'
'There was no announcement.'
'Then you can ponder on how I came to be here by yourself then.'
'Ok.' She walked away.
Zeal sighed and followed her.
'How did it go?'
'No more, early afternoon babysitting due to two weeks of detention.'
'Who do you babysit?' he asked with a confused expression.
'My aunt.'
He cocked his eyebrows in surprise, 'Do you have to make everything so difficult for me?'
'Difficult how?'
'Well, you keep making everything so vague and slightly disturbing.'
'Your fault for listening to me.' She shrugged and turned left in the t-shaped intersection.
'Actually it's a little bit entertaining-'
'Then keep listening.'
He sighed and looked at the girl next to him. She liked walking, she liked making him run around in circles, she liked making everything so disturbingly qualified as entertaining. He refused to believe otherwise, even though it was clear that it was.
IT was just another character of a human being, more specifically the quality of an angel -- the dead but over-glorified human -- such as he. He didn't believe that she didn't care about him. If he did, it would be that he was not as handsome as he actually was.
'You kicked the guy in his balls.'
'I did.'
'Was it because that girl was there?' he threw his mind back to the girl who sometimes read with Tars, 'Are you a lesbian?'
'He hurt my sister.'
'That was your sister!' He had been watching in the sidelines.
Tars looked sneakily to the side, 'If you say so.'
'Wow, I knew he would be a horn dog first time I saw him in the gate but I didn't know that he would actuall-'
'Shut up, I meant Olive.' Tars was tired of the rambling considering that it wasn't that interesting anymore after she had played with him, 'Go back to your class, why are you still here?'
'I like you.' He smiled undaunted.
'So you say.'
'No, I honestly, really like you.' He grinned, 'I want to be your boyfriend.'
For once she stopped walking for what seemed to be an indefinite amount of time.
He smiled proud of himself for receiving such an action from her-
'Do you like my sister?' she asked and continued walking, face back to its original route of forward.
'Huh?'
'Its unnecessary for you to try something like that when you honestly like my sister better.' She told him evenly without a miss in her stride. 'I can always give you her number if you wish. Its free and without charge as I really don't like this kind of scenario.'
She pulled out a slip in her uniform and gave it to him as they continued to walk. 'She is free on Tuesday's and Fridays.' She told him and left him to ponder.
When she reached the corner, she stopped walking and set her face back to peek at him. She wasn't stupid, she may not be used to this… confession-fake confession but she wasn't nervous or flustered. She in fact had acknowledged mutual feelings.
It was just the fact that…
She looked down on her feet and breathed out.
She was a coward. But a rather smart one at that.
With him there was no guarantee, there was no way to see, there was also no intended rhyme back there.
But the fact remained that he liked her and she liked him.
But what also remained was that only one of them was going to walk out of it unscathed…
And it sure as hell wasn't going to be her.
She inhaled again and continued to walk away, not completely oblivious that the corner she was standing in had a window and her shadow had stood there on the corridor wall, rather awkwardly as a reminder that she needed not to make things so dramatic. IT moved as she did and walked as she did but all while displaying itself widely everywhere, making her presence known.
While he was still standing where she left him.
'Thank you.' Olive said awkwardly that night.
'Welcome.'
Olive smiled and went back to her room, closing her door while Regina glared at Tars from the inside of the room.
When the door closed Tars walked off to the opposite direction and opened her own door, hesitating when she heard the speculations from Regina inside the room. She shook her head and closed the door, falling instantly asleep when she felt her head colliding with the pillow.