SUMMER
I WAS walking around the outside of the gym with Micah after he had done the pull-up test when Vee came limp-jogging over to us. "Hey," I said. "Where've you been?"
"I accidentally slept in," he responded, out of breath. He must've run here from his house. He was wearing black jeans and a T-shirt that had a picture of a male masked figure, one half of which was wearing a black robe and had scars and open wounds covering the visible skin and the other side wearing a white robe and had perfectly smooth bronze-colored skin. The white-robed side was holding up a silver ring with keys hanging off of it, while the black-robed side was holding a silver-bladed knife. Both sides were wearing a gold mask, and black stuff dripped out of the mask on the black-robed side. The words 'There Is A Hell, Believe Me, I've Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let's Keep It A Secret.' were on the back, along with the words 'Bring Me The Horizon. October, 2010.' Vee's hair was messier than it was yesterday, so I assumed he hadn't had time to try to comb it. He raised his hand to run his fingers through his bangs and I noticed that the scars on his wrists looked like they'd been reopened recently.
"What?" He asked me, seeing the odd look I was giving him.
"Nothing," I lied. I didn't want to hurt his feelings like I had the first time I saw his scars. "I just spaced off for a second there."
He nodded, but I don't think he was convinced. "So what are we doing today?" He asked. "More pull-up tests and walking?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Speaking of," Micah said, walking beside Vee. "How did you get over forty pull-ups?"
I rolled my eyes and Vee chuckled. 'Oh, Micah.' I thought. I caught Vee watching the small Asian boy that Seth ordered around like a slave— Drew— with a certain interest and smiled to myself.

ANNA
Gwen and I walked into the Practice Room after school to find Octaveus passed out on the floor. His muscular arms were spread out away from his body, like he was going to give someone a hug, and his legs were positioned so that it looked like he'd fallen. His long, fluffy tail was curled beside him. His messy black hair was fanned out over his pale face. Someone (probably Jessie) had thrown his grey Fall Out Boy jacket over his chest, making it so that Gwen and I were unable to see his shirt (if he was wearing one at all; you never know). He was wearing grey sweatpants with an elastic cuff on the ankles, so that they didn't get caught on anything and so that he couldn't trip over them. (That used to be a big problem when he was younger. Not to be rude, but he wasn't— and still isn't— the most graceful of Choronuses. Then again, he does limp so at least he has an excuse for being clumsy.)
Gwen quietly walked around to his right side while I crouched in front of his face. His lips were parted slightly and I could see a glint of white from his fangs. He had an interesting way of breathing when he was sleeping; he inhaled in through his mouth and exhaled in long, held-out puffs from his nose. He'd occasionally inhale deeply then pause for a couple seconds before he exhaled.
"Why does he breathe like that when he's sleeping?" I whispered to Gwen. She looked at me and shrugged.
"Don't know. He's always breathed like that when he's unconscious."
I nodded and looked down at him again. I noticed a small red line on his bottom lip. "Um, Gwen?"
"Yeah?"
"Is his lip supposed to be bleeding?"
She raised an eyebrow and leaned over him to look. "Oh. You know what? I don't think he's sleeping."
"What? How is he not sleeping?"
"Jessie probably hit him on the head with something. . ."
"How do you know for sure that Jessie hit him and he's not sleeping?"
"He talks in his sleep."
She got up and looked around the room while I stared at her incredulously, then looked back down at Octaveus. Now that I looked, I noticed that besides his split lip, there was a long red mark on the side of his face. I carefully moved his hair away from his forehead and noticed that his eyes were not, in fact, closed, but instead had rolled up in his head. I winced in sympathy and turned back to Gwen.
She had moved to look at the wooden weapon racks on the west wall of the room and was looking at an empty space on a rack of long wooden rods. 
She finished looking at the training staffs and went over to the large mahogany closet of their family's weapons. She opened it and I shifted to see inside. (They usually never go into that closet so that the weapons are kept in mint-condition in case of a battle, so I've never seen their weapons of choice.) I saw that inside the closet was divided into five sections, each section divided by a slab of wood. There was a long, thin shelf above the divisions; there were little bronze plaques above each section, each plaque engraved with a name. I got up and walked over to Gwen. She acknowledged me with a flick of her ears as I stood beside her and looked into the closet.
Since the weapons had been kept in this closet for who-knows-how- long, all of the weapons were in perfect condition. I scanned the different divisions with my eyes, looking at all of the different weapons stored inside. In the third section, a double-bladed sword hung from two pegs in the back wall of the closet. The blade glinted silver and had a gold hilt with a leather grip. I looked at the plaque above the section, and saw that it was Jessie's. I looked in the next section, and had to do a double-take. Inside the fourth division was the most beautiful staff I'd ever seen. The rod was six-feet-and-five-inches tall, made of painted white wood, and topped with a carved blooming lotus blossom, which was painted light pink gradient. The length of the staff was decorated with carved green vine-and-leaf designs that wound all around the staff until about halfway down, where there was a leather grip. There was a small hole in the top of the lotus blossom, and the tip of a silver blade stuck out the top.
Gwen caught me staring at the staff and said, "That's Oc's. It used to be a regular staff, but he wanted to decorate it."
"He painted it?" I shook my head to resist the urge to touch the polished wood. "It's beautiful." I looked at the next division and noticed that there wasn't a weapon.
"Why don't you have a weapon?" I asked Gwen. She looked at me.
"In France, you didn't get a weapon until you were thirteen, during a coming-of-age ceremony. My parents didn't do the whole ceremony for Jessie and Oc, but they wanted to follow the tradition with the weapons." I nodded in understanding. Gwen shut the closet as quietly as she could and peered behind it.
"Yep." She said and slid her arm behind the weapon closet.
"What?"
"Jessie knocked him out." She pulled her arm out from behind the closet, two halves of a broken training staff in her hand. The broken ends of the staff's two halves were bent outward like they'd been snapped over something round. I winced in sympathy again and glanced over my shoulder at Octaveus. He'd started to make little wheezing sounds when he exhaled. Gwen and I walked over to him again and Gwen placed one hand on his chest to make sure he was still breathing. She watched him for a couple seconds, then got up and went over to the piano.
"I guess we'd better wake him up now." She sighed.
"How do you wake someone up if they aren't sleeping?"
She stood by the piano and turned back to me. "When it's Octaveus, there's always a way to wake him up." She pressed the G note on the piano.
Octaveus shot up, almost hitting me in the head with his head, and his jacket flew off of his chest. "AAAAHH-- BLACK PARADE." He blinked and looked around. He was wearing a black tank top under the jacket. His tail twitched, curling and uncurling itself on the floor next to him. He flipped his head to get his hair out of his eyes and rubbed his hand over the red mark on the left side of his face. He saw me sitting next to him and smiled at me.
"Do you have any idea what just happened?" He asked me. I shrugged. Gwen rolled her eyes and played the G note again. Oc's head immediately swiveled toward Gwen.
"Hey!" He shouted at her. She smiled at him. He scowled and started messing with his hair, grumbling about messing with his music choice.
"Hey, it's not my fault that seemingly everyone has heard Welcome To The Black Parade." Gwen said matter-of-factly, hearing him grumbling.
"O-oh, that's why it sounded familiar." I said. Gwen rolled her eyes mockingly and Octaveus smirked.
"What are you doing with your hair?" I asked him, mock critically. He paused, his hands still in his hair, and looked at me.
"I'm fixing it." He went back to running his fingers through his hair.
"Stop it," I swatted his hands away from his head. "You look fine." He smirked and lowered his hands to his sides again.
"Fine," he sighed and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "But since we're on the topic. . ." He tapped the screen a few times and music started playing out of his phone. He clicked the volume button up all the way, restarted the song, and held it out to me. March-tempo piano music started playing, and the first note I heard was a G. I looked at the phone screen and read the artist of the song.
"My Chemical Romance?" I asked Oc, raising my eyebrows. His cheeks flushed slightly.
"What? They're a good band, okay?"
"I'm not saying they're not," I said defensively. "I've only ever heard that one song."
"Well, then," he tapped his phone again, and the music stopped. "I shall introduce you to the band." He pulled out a pair of earbuds and plugged them into the phone, handing me one earbud and keeping the other for himself.
"Why did you plug in the earbuds?" I asked, gladly scooting closer to him and taking the earbud from his hand. "You played the other song out loud."
"Gwen doesn't like my music," he said, shooting a mocking glare at her.
"Why doesn't she like your music? It seems fine to me," I said.
"Two main reasons: one, my music is all either depressing or really loud or both; two, she doesn't like a lot of profanity."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "What sort of profanity are we talking about?"
He shrugged. "Oh, you know, just the usual cuss words every verse. . . and other things." He saw the look I was giving him and raised his hands in defense. "Hey, you can't possibly stay in a house with me and Jessie in it and not expect there to be some sort of profanity." He tapped the screen on his phone and music started playing through the earbuds. A guy's voice started singing over the music:

Gravit-ay
Don't mean too much to me
I'm who I've got to be
These pigs are after me, after you-u

Run away
Like it was yesterday
And we could run away. . .
And we could run away. . .
Run away. . .
Run away . . .
Run away. . . From here!

"What song is this?" I asked Octaveus.
"Bulletproof Heart." He said calmly.
"Sounds depressing," Gwen commented from her place by the piano. She had sat down on the piano bench and was fidgeting with the music book.
"It's not, actually," Octaveus said. "And stop messing with my music book. You're gonna rip the pages."
Gwen rolled her eyes at him and, making sure that he was watching, dropped the book on the floor next to her. His lip curled and he scowled at her, just as the door opened and Jessie walked in.
"Did I interrupt something?" He said, seeing me and Octaveus on the floor.
"He was just showing me a song on his  phone," I said, taking out the earbud, my face burning. Octaveus muttered something in French at Jessie as he removed his earbud, and judging by Jessie and Gwen's reaction to it, I don't think I want know what he'd said. 
Jessie's ears flicked back and he snarled something in French back to Octaveus. Oc's pupils immediately narrowed to slits. He bared his teeth at his brother and I could feel the muscles in his shoulders and arms tense. A low growl rose from his throat. I could practically see the tension growing between the two boys. That's the bad thing about liking a Fleur boy; they're all short-tempered.
Soon their growls had intensified into snarls, and Octaveus rolled himself onto his knees, crouching low to the ground. His fangs flashed white in his mouth, his black claws sliding in and out of his fingertips as his legs tensed. Before I could try to stop him, he launched himself at Jessie's chest, knocking his brother to the ground. Who knew that he had enough strength in his hips to literally throw himself at someone? The two boys grappled on the ground, Jessie crying out when Octaveus's claws struck his shoulders. 
Gwen got up from the piano and backed herself against the wall, her green eyes wide. I turned away from the fighting boys and quickly bolted over to her side. Just as I reached her side, I heard a blood-curdling shriek and a loud snap. I whipped around to see what had happened.
Jessie had Octaveus pinned and was holding one of his brother's arms behind his shoulder blades, pressing his face into the floor using his other hand, his knee planted in the younger boy's spine. Jessie dug his heel into Octaveus's leg, and Octaveus let out another high-pitched cry in pain. The fur on his tail spiked, making his tail look twice it's normal size. He screamed something at Jessie in French and Jessie let go of him, stepping back. Jessie's shirt was ripped on the shoulders and his arms were covered in bleeding scratch marks, and one that looked suspiciously like a bite mark. Octaveus rolled himself onto his back and I saw that his right leg was twisted at an unnatural angle. His muscle shirt was ripped down the middle, showing his pale chest, and he had multiple claw wounds on his arms and shoulders. His pale, handsome face was twisted with pain, but he managed to bare his teeth at Jessie, who responded with a hiss.
As soon as the boys stopped threatening to kill each other, I sprinted over to Octaveus' side. He'd given up on acting vicious and was sitting on the floor, clutching his dislocated leg and whimpering in pain.
Jessie paced back and forth along the weapon racks, inspecting the scratches on his arms and cussing Vee out in French. Gwen hovered around Jessie nervously, as if she was unsure whether or not he would turn on her, but he seemed to only be angry at Octaveus. Octaveus was rocking back and forth slowly, his body tense with pain from his dislocated leg. His leg was still twisted at an unnatural angle, so his knee was facing outward.
Suddenly Gwen's mom-- whom I call Alice-- walked into the room, a half-angry, half-worried look on her face. 
"Go do you chores," she barked at Jessie, who didn't even try to argue and left the room. She then came over to kneel on Octaveus' other side, Gwen following.
"Move your hands," Alice said to him. He had his hands clutching his leg just above the knee. He moved his hands when his mother said to, and I noticed that his hands were shaking. He braced his hands on the floor behind him as his mother braced her hands against his leg, then swiftly ripped his leg in a half circle so that his knee was facing the correct way. Vee shrieked in pain when she set his leg, but then his face relaxed again.
"Be careful with your leg for the next couple days," Alice said to him, then got up and left the room. Octaveus tested his leg before standing up, inspecting the scratches on his arms and chest, and limping out of the Practice Room.

OCTAVEUS
I limped into my room and took off my tank top, cursing under my breath. Jessie had ripped it into a vest, and the edges of the rip in front were red. I grabbed the gauze I had taken from the First Aid kit in the bathroom and used it to wipe the blood from the cut that now ran down my sternum. Thankfully it wasn't deep, but it stung like hell. My recently dislocated leg didn't feel too good either, and I was limping heavily on it. I cussed under my breath again and decided that it wasn't worth bandaging the cut if it wasn't even deep enough to leave a scar. I didn't even bother with the scratches on my arms and shoulders and just flopped down on my back on my bed.
I stared at the ceiling and suddenly thought of the dream I'd had earlier in the week; the one of the tunnels collapsing. 'I know that wasn't a nightmare,' I thought to myself. It was too real. Besides, if it had been a nightmare, I wouldn't remember it so vividly. 'What was it then?' Choronuses can't see the future, so it couldn't be a sort of vision. Maybe I was lucid dreaming? I didn't know I could lucid dream. 'Or maybe my brain's so messed up that it made up the scariest, realist event it could find to haunt me.'
Then I thought of the dream of the cute Asian boy. That dream wasn't haunting me in the way the tunnel collapse one was; in the tunnel collapse I had felt scared for my life. In the other one, I hadn't felt scared; I had almost felt excited. I'd wanted him to get close to me, wanted him to touch me. 'What the hell is going on with me?'
I've never been one to fantasize about strangers; I wouldn't even let you hug me unless you were a close friend and I trusted you. But I didn't even know the Asian boy, and I'd had a dream of him, in that dream I'd wanted him to touch me, and wanted to touch him back. I've never felt like that for anyone before, yet I see this kid one time and boom! Now I feel like that. And the thing is, every time I see him around school I get the same feeling of desire I had in the dream. And since when did I want to grope guys?!
'Am I gay?' I thought to myself. I've never had these thoughts about another guy before. Then again, I'm having them now, and I've never felt attracted to girls this way in my life.
I swear, I'm not gonna be able to handle this for seventy or so more years. Why must life be so complicated and confusing? Why can't it just be 'you live for a while, then you die'. Why must there be all these feelings and emotions?! . . . And secrets. Hopefully, I will have one less secret to keep soon.