WARNING: Dark content and some language. Beware of R Rating

Chapter Eight: Perfection

*Hiiro looked at her, thinking how evil she was. She was a bad, bad, evil girl! “Hnn.” It was a desperate attempt to shut her up, and he knew she wouldn’t fall for it.

“Say, or grunt, whatever you like, but you’re going to fall!”

“No.” He told her, beginning his tricky move.

“Yes, you will. You won’t be perfect anymore. You’ll have lost.” And the world blackened. Hiiro’s senses shut down and for a moment he was numb. Perfect… he wasn’t perfect, no, not by a long shot. He hadn’t been perfect since the day he had first lost his temper and beaten Duo. He had nearly killed his best friend. And then he wavered, brushing his back against her leg.

Serena watched as the man beside her started to make his move. Just as he was about to move, it seemed as though he had frozen. She could see his muscles tense and the fire that had been lighting his oceanic eyes died. Had she caused the death of his surety? Of his fever to win? She watched on as he faltered and tipped. But he didn’t fall- she did.

“Ahh!” She cried out as she went down. Hiiro, who had just regained control of himself, turned his head in time to see Serena tip and wobble, and then collapse below him. Only staying up long enough to see her hit the floor, he gave way and soon afterwards fell to land beside her on his back. They lay in a strange silence for a moment, Serena breathing heavily and Hiiro still trying to come to terms with himself.

“You win.” She breathed finally to him.

“No. I lost a long time ago. I am not Perfect.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye, and noticed he seemed to be in his own little world.

“No one’s Perfect.” She finally said to him.

“I was.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I would have hated to meet you when you thought you were Perfect.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if you have an ego this big now, it must have been larger than life back when you thought you couldn’t screw up.” She stated frankly, rolling onto her side and propping her head on her hand. Hiiro stay lying still, but a few moments later he rose to match her position.

“You are sarcastic.” He stated at point blank.

“It’s the only thing I’ve never failed at. I’m getting good at failing though- maybe one day I’ll fail at that.”

“Very sarcastic.” Serena wanted to gasp. How could he remain so, so stoic all the time? His voice, his face, everything was so monotonous. She had never met anyone like him. She had the strangest urge to grab his shoulders and shake him up, throw him around, and get him off balance. So she leaned over and pressed her lips against his.

Hiiro sat still for a moment, silently shocked. She was… her lips were… on his? And they were soft and warm and sweet and… good. Everything he had been worrying about- Duo, humanity, imperfection- everything dripped from his mind and was replaced by a searing heat. She was so warm that her heat was burning his to his very soul. Every place her skin met his he felt nothing but burning bliss. Her lips were soft and gentle against his cool mouth. So good, so good… so good that he finally kissed back.

Serena was enjoying this. He was just sitting there; in shock, she knew. She had done it! Thrown him off balance, shaken him up. And when his lips finally began to respond, she felt herself lose it. What? No! He was supposed to be scared, to back away! But here he was, kissing her back and… suddenly she couldn’t concentrate. Her thoughts wouldn’t think straight. They jumbled up in a tangled mess and he brain dimmed. How soft, how cool… never had she met such a wonderful kisser.

His lips were tender and slow, pressing back against her own. As they kissed, she found herself relaxing. But her heart speed up. She was flushed, hot, bothered. Such an overwhelming warmth flowed through her very skin. Even her ex boyfriend, whom she had dated for five years had never evoked such passion.

Since him, she had hated being touched. Since her mother’s boyfriends she had hated being touched. Being used roughly the way the other men she had known had taken its toll on her over the years. But everything she had built up over those years just seemed to melt away under the heat of the soft lips upon hers. Stop. When had this gone from her bothering him to him bothering her?

Serena balked and pulled away from him. For a moment they sat there, breathing hard and staring at each other. Neither spoke for a moment, afraid of what the other might say and how the other might react.

“Why did you kiss me?” Hiiro finally asked. His stoic face was no longer plain, but now smirking and shocked at the same time. Serena wanted to laugh at his shocked face. Had that been his first kiss?

“I-” She stopped. What could she? Suddenly her real reason didn’t seem good enough. It seemed cheap. She couldn’t tell him that it had been a joke. Quite frankly, she wasn’t sure herself that it had been a joke after he had started kissing back. Yes it was. It was a cruel and sick joke- one she should be damn proud of.

Hiiro’s eyebrows rose when she cut her sentence off, and the sweetly innocent and confused look melted from her face. They went down in consternation when her visage was instead replaced with a dark, sick smile.

Just one thought about her joke, and Serena knew she needed the perfect finish to finish off the Perfect boy. So she gulped hard, swallowed her air, and began heaving. When the rancid bile began to rise in her throat, she let her eyes roll back into her skull and watched through half slitted eyelids as a creamy white substance spurted from her mouth.

The last thing he saw was her eyelids shut and her body lurch forward. Then he was covered in a sickeningly sticky and disgusting smelling goo. Chunks of unidentifiable food landed all over his face, hair, and shirt. The warm slime dripped over him, and the nauseating stench burned his nostrils. Quickly he sat up, wiping at his face frantically with his hands.

“Bitch!” He whispered darkly.

“Did I get that on you? I’m so sorry about that…” His puke covered eyes narrowed, and the death glare radiated utter hatred and loathing in her direction.

“You sick bitch.”

“Which is why I’m in a mental hospital!” She began laughing hysterically. Hiiro growled monstrously and lunged for the girl. She barely had time to stop laughing before her vulnerable neck was in his grasp. Then the only sounds she began to make were gagging noises. Hiiro had the urge to throttle the girl.

He wanted to slam her brutally up against the wall. He wanted to beat her silly- punch her in the stomach, break her perfect nose, blacken her eyes, snap her stick thin arms in half. He wanted to knock her teeth out, split her lips. He wanted to bite her, make her bleed. He wanted her blood. The only thing he saw was red as thoughts of revenge and hatred coursed through her veins. Then he remembered Duo. It was all he could do to restrain himself.

But Serena had an idea of her own. Her hands clasped around his were trying to keep him from clenching down around her neck any harder, her feet struggling to find a soft spot to kick him, only finding air and floor. So instead, she hocked back as well as she could and spat in his eye.

Hiiro instantly dropped his hands from her neck. Serena, who had been pushed against the wall off the floor, fell to Hiiro’s feet gasping for air and feeling her neck, as if she needed to make sure it was still whole. Once she was sure she was in one piece, she began.

“You sick bastard! Don’t touch me!”

“Hnn.” Hiiro, who since he had dropped her and turned around, could not bare to look at her. He was still seething with anger, and smelling her spew was not helping. He was afraid he would lose his temper again and try to hurt her again. Just another example of how insane he was. He was no longer perfect. He couldn’t control his emotions around a little girl. It just showed how much he had truly fallen from grace.

“What is with you!” Serena yelled angrily. “You can’t put on any emotion all day, then you suddenly try to kill me, and now you’re back to being indifferent? You’re crazy!”

“I signed myself in. You were dragged in.” He muttered.

“Shut the hell up!” She screeched. “You don’t know a damn thing about why I’m in here!”

“You’re a spoiled little bitch. What’s there to know? You’re psycho.”

“I am not the one who tried to kill!”

“You threw up on me!”

“So? You want to be a fat little piggy? It figures! But I don’t!” She screamed. Suddenly her body lurched forward, and she spat up again on the floor. This time, though, there were no chunks of food. Everything that came up was pure stomach bile. She had nothing left in her stomach to throw up.

Hiiro turned around when he heard her gagging again and watched as she puked all over the floor. The room was beginning to reek of rotted food and stomach acid. The yellow green puke began to puddle around the shaking girl, and he could see her face was pale with beads of sweat rolling down her temple. She was really sick…

Turning from the site, he let her stay there a moment longer, and when it was obvious that she wasn’t stopping, he made a decision. Briskly walking towards the door, he took a look at the lock, the decided just to kick the door out. Two kicks later and the heavy oak door split into splinters from the force of his kick and sprang open. Four nurses who were strolling down the hall turned and rushed towards him.

“Serena’s sick.” He mentioned quietly. They ran in, and he strolled out, not caring what happened to the girl after this point. He needed a shower. He needed to rid himself of her nauseating stench, he vile germs, and the one sweet memory that she had left him of herself.

Serena had finally been able to stop herself from lurching when four nurses ran into the room. She had though she had seen Hiiro kick down the door, but she had thought it was just a hallucination…

“Oh my god! Get Bertha, quickly!” One of the nurses yelled. Another fainted, and still a third had to sit for a moment because she was dizzy from the overwhelming odor of putrid puke. They surrounded her, and Serena tried to shake them off.

“I’m fine! I’m fine!” She yelled over and over, but her throat stung and her eyes burned and watered from her purging. It was hard form her to breathe- every breath was a labored inhale of sickly tainted air. Her head spun, and though she felt as though she were going to collapse, she still managed to kick and scream at the nurses who came to take hold of her.

“Let me go! I’m fine!” She even managed to bite one of the nurse’s hands that came down to cover her mouth. The taste of the coppery tinge of blood made her aware that she had broken skin, but wasn’t sure if she had just bit her own lip, or if it was the other nurse’s blood she was tasting. But it didn’t matter. She was slowly losing this battle.

By now Bertha had come and was directing them to hold her down. Serena was babbling incoherently as they placed the straightjacket around her arms and wrapped her in it tightly. All she could do was struggle and make it hard for them. She struggled as they lifted her. She struggled as they walked her down the hall, in front of all of the other patients. She struggled as they carried her into a room she had been in twice before. She struggled even harder when she realized where they were.

“No! No! No! No!” She repeated. Her legs kicked and twitched as the men strapped them down tightly to the cold hard table. Her arms flailed and the men’s grips bruised her delicate skin as they forced it to the table and tied them down. Then they placed a metal plate between her teeth, and she screamed harder. The last thing Serena saw out of the corner of her eye was Nurse Bertha, Big Berga, leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.

Bertha, her job done, hurried out of the room. As she shut the door, she heard Serena’s pathetic screams for help. Then she saw the shockingly bright light from the cracks around the door. Four more times the shocks lit up the doorway- and then there was silence in the room.

Bertha slid down the door and sat on the floor. A single tear rolled down her high cheekbone. Serena wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t fair. She knew in her heart Serena wasn’t insane. But circumstances had led to the petite blonde acting as if she were mad- and now they were shocking her to try to make her normal, to try to jolt her back to reality. It wasn’t fair…*

~~~Well. I creeped myself out writing this. Actually, this is toned down from what I wanted. But I figure, it is rated PG-13 (not that anyone pays attention to that) Anyway. I could really use feedback on this one everyone! PLEASE REVIEW! Much love, Vixen~~~

PS: Someone asked if I had seen Girl, Interrupted. Funny you should ask. I only saw that movie for the first time two nights ago on TV… great movie. Very depression, though not near as much as Requiem for a Dream. I swear- that movie robbed me of my innocence! My advice to all of you is: “NEVER WATCH REQUIEM FOR A DREAM!” Seriously. Don’t.