Tinkle

Chapter Eight

Everything was upside down. Literally. Well, only in my eyes, of course.

"She loves to hang upside down.", Ben pointed at me, as my mom giggled at the young boy's comment. “Is she okay?”, he asked with genuine concern.

She likes it when she's with young people. She just felt like one of them.

"She gets more weirder after that thing with Jack.", Jorge also commented, not bothering that my mom was there, or if I can hear him. Mom would just laugh at every comment about me, she seemed to like weird comments about her weird daughter.

I just rolled my eyes at them.

I crossed my arms as I kept my legs' grip on the metal bar on the horizontal bar of the playground, the sun warmly beams softly on my skin. Young kids hang in here aside from the monkey bars, and I am surprised and far more glad it could hold at least my weight.

It's early and we're on a picnic at the playground of the park. It's too early, so there's only few people around. Some kids preferred swings, seesaws and slides.

It's their idea to bring me outside after the not-so-serious healing—and sleeping—session with Jack, who joined the small picnic. I didn't butt in to their fun talk, I was too busy to organize my chaotic thoughts.

Somehow, I've gotten close to the boys, which mom was glad about because she said I finally made friends with people. Which, I barely do although I am friendly. I am friendly but I don’t really fancy befriending unless needed. And that needed situation was ever since they’ve gotten in danger.

I don't know, but the top thought I had, like a pinned post on a twitter page, was about Evan.

He's like a mysterious magic book no one have yet opened.

I don't know why Jack told me not to befriend with him, or to not be too close to him, or trust him. He didn’t tell any reason why, he just felt like I shouldn’t. But that advice brought me to be more curious about him.

One, when I first met them back at the convenience store, the bell tinkled first at him. I didn’t know about the very first tinkle I had that day, but I am suspecting it was also Evan because he showed up on my dream. But the part where the boys were brought in danger, I couldn't remember that part.

Maybe the effect of the time pause. That one minute out of my life that was permanently deleted is an important fragment of my memory. That's why I hated using that time pause.

Two, when I used the time pause, I don't know why he was able to move when everything else was frozen, literally in a time pause!

And three, his silver bell bracelet. Sure, it must've been a coincidence that he's wearing something like David and I got, but it can never beat the guts that lingered with my theories.

It's not that I needed to stay away from him. He's one of my friends. I think I shouldn't trust him that fully. It’s safe to anticipate any unusual behavior and occurrence which he could be involved.

If my suspicion was right, there's a chance that I am befriending with the son of the destruction deity. I need to interrogate him some time. I sighed and shut my eyes in frustration.

I gripped my hands on the metal bar gently and carefully positioned to jump off the metal bar.

I sat in between mom and Ruben and took a slice of cake and brought it in my mouth.

"Really? That's cool!", Ben chirped, amazed about whatever Jack was talking about.

I watched them as they talk about random things, which I found bored about.

"Uh, I need to go to my part-time job later, so we need to go home shortly.", I said.

I was about to peak when something, I mean someone, appeared right behind Kurt.

My eyebrows furrowed, which brought confusion to the boys so they took a look at me.

David turned to his right where I was looking at, and he was a bit surprised.

I stood up and walked away from the boys. They won't be able to see him, but I tried to look normal since there are some people around.

I went behind a big tree and sat under its shade.

"What brought you here?", I said, dropping down the honorifics.

He's one of the people on my hate list. "Is that how you greet your grandfather?", he asked. I smiled as truly as I could, but I couldn't.

"What brought you here, grandpa?", I asked and tried to sound as calm as I could.

He sat beside me and sighed. "I'm here to talk to you.", he said, hint of desperation in his voice.

I didn't speak, so he continued, "Don't you know how chaotic it was every time you try to meddle with our work?", he asked, more like scolding me.

"You know that our responsibility is to collect the souls. If it's their fate to die, they'll die. What could we collect if you stop the fate written on their wrists? A single saved soul is a heck of a pile of paper works.", he paused and continued, "Even if you try and stop it from happening, it will still happen soon still.", he scolded.

I sighed at him. "But it's also my fate to stop someone from dying when this tinkles.", I said and lifted my necklace. "You're the one who gave it to me.", I said.

"That's why I'm here to get that back. It was never meant to be yours. It was my choice because I believed it will protect you because you’re an offspring of a grim reaper.", he said, which made me stood up.

"You gave this to me, why are you suddenly getting it back from me?", I asked.

"The higher ups told me to get rid of it.", he said and stood up, he held my arms by both of his hands and sighed, "Also, you'll be in danger if you continue to use it.", he said.

My eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.

"If I get rid of that, you'll live a normal life.", he said as he let me go. "Think about it, Seoji. I'll give you a week to decide.", he said before he faded like a black smoke.

I sighed as I sat back under the tree.

I looked up at the sky as I close my eyes.

I felt a hand on top of my head so I opened my eyes and looked up at a boy looking down at me with a serious face. His background was too bright because of the blinding light scattered up the sky, so I his face came out against the light, which didn’t help me to recognize his face right away.

“Are you okay?” he asked. I didn’t answer, because I couldn’t. Out of all people, it was him that I least expected it to be.

“You…” I only said, the next words couldn’t be found. He squat down to my height as I confusedly stared at him.

"Do you want to know who I really am?", he grinned slightly drawing his face close to mine.

I gulped down and stared at his brown eyes.

Evan…who are you, really?

to be continued...