June (TW for disordered eating, assault, mentions of murder)
I heard Hue and his mom come home, Hue running up the steps to my bedroom door before he stopped. He slid a note under my door.
"Are you there? I won't bother you. Just tell me you're there."
It was written sloppy and rushed.
I jotted, "Yes." and slid it under the door again. Hue grabbed it, paused, and walked away. I could hear him crying, and soon him and his mom talking in the hallway.
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I woke up in the morning. My head felt like it got bashed in with a hammer.
Now and then, Hue's mom would knock and try to open my door, but I wouldn't open it. Hue was at school. His mom told him she would keep him updated if I came out or not, like I was a rare animal in a zoo. It infuriated me. I thought the more she knocked and shook the handle. Those thoughts consumed my mind like wildfire, and by the end of the day, there was nothing left to burn. Between Hue knocking and his mom trying to persuade me to come out, I didn't have a single straight thought.
I grabbed the diary off my nightstand and re-read it to get my thoughts back on track. Zoning out while playing with the corners of the pages, I noticed some were folded. It wouldn't have mattered, except I noticed that the pages with folded corners were the only ones with seemingly "accidental" pencil marks on the pages. Sometimes they faintly underlined letters, sometimes entire words, but all were done in a matter that didn't draw too much attention to them. Grabbing a pencil and a notebook, I wrote down the letters and words scattered throughout the pages:
the, f, U, b, r, d, u, e, s, o, a, i, key, n, o, r, red.
None of it made sense, except for the single capital letter; U. Whatever it said, it started with U. The rest was a mystery.
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Hue
Even though I had told everyone it wasn't true, people still talked. Mina corroborated everything Cas said, and they let everyone know that June was at the cottage. For most, they were on June's side.
I waited all day for June but he never left his room. It was silent. He hadn't eaten since dinner Wednesday night, and now it was Friday night. With his door still locked, he wouldn't respond to anything. I tried to slide the few snacks that would fit under the door to him and waited to hear him come and take at least one.
What I heard instead was his door unlocking. June came out looking pale.
I grabbed his arm and was pushed off without a word, ignoring me and going down the steps. Following him, he walked into the kitchen with a still blank expression and asked my mom, who was making dinner, what time the library closed. She looked like she had seen a ghost. She obviously had not expected to see him.
"Uh... the library? Come sit down and eat something. You must be hungry." As she spoke, June turned towards the front door and started to leave.
"Where are you going? You need to eat something." He turned to look me in the eyes and pulled out the snacks I had left for him.
"Library. I'm going to the library, so don't follow me. If you do, then maybe I'll kill you." He had a crazy look in his eyes, one that sent a shiver down my spine.
"Cause that's what I am, aren't I? Just a murderer with his murder mother."
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June
I was starving. As I walked out the door, I was prepared not to wake up again.
I didn't want to.
Right now, all I could think about was getting to the library. I spent hours studying the words and letters, but all I got was "Use." I needed to find a clue. I needed to find something that could lead me in the right direction.
But the library was closed when I got there.
I rested my head on the glass door and hit it with my fist. Even though the library would still be there tomorrow, I wanted to cry. I couldn't understand, and I hated myself for that. There was so much unknown to me, and I felt it all finally falling on me. It was suffocating, and I felt the only way to breathe again was to unravel everything.
The school.
The school had to have something.
I raced there as fast as I could. I felt the effects of not eating for days; the snacks only gave me so much energy.
Arriving at the school, I felt fatigue clawing at me. I sat on a bench outside the entrance but ended up lying down, succumbing to the effects of not eating. My head felt like it was a thousand pounds. My legs felt like they couldn't carry me any further, and my arms felt useless; I didn't have the energy to lift them.
As I lay down, I heard voices that I recognized from school.
Mina's "bodyguards."
It didn't take long for them to notice me.
"Hey," one pointed, "isn't that the June kid? His mother killed her brother June Sekin."
"Huh, yeah, I guess it is. Didn't Mina say to take care of him when we saw him?"
"I don't know if we should. The kid looks really sick. Maybe we shouldn't-" the voice cut out sharply as I heard the third boy get hit.
"You're too soft. If you want to stick around here, you better do as we do. Come on, it will only be a couple of kicks," the first boy spoke again and laughed.
I heard them walking over and stood up to walk away, but one of them quickly grabbed the collar of my shirt.
"Where do you think you're going? Afraid?"
"No, I just have better activities to do than deal with you assholes." I kicked the one holding me, causing him to lose his grip on my shirt.
"Assholes? But isn't that what you're mommy is? Just a murdering asshole." The second boy punched me, knocking me to the ground. They were all bigger than me; there was no way I could beat them, but anger was rising inside me.
"My mom didn't do anything. Why don't you go back home to your whore mother and-" I saw the first boy's face drop with anger in his eyes.
"I wish I could, but she loved June Sekin. You know what he told her? That your mom was the reason he didn't want to live. After he died? She blamed herself. It was your mother's fault, but my mom blamed herself. After she had me, she couldn't take it anymore and hung herself. I wonder what your mom would feel if she lost someone she loved." The first boy walked towards me and pulled me up so that I was standing, and punched me again. He laughed.
"I'm going to kill you."
The other two boys quickly ran forward to hold him back.
"Bro, stop. You are taking it too far now." The second boy sounded terrified of his friend.
"You're going to get us all in trouble. Let's go."
The third boy cowered in fear as the first boy turned to them. He punched them both.
"All you need to do is shut the hell up. You got it? Now help me get this sack of shit to the rooftop. I was terrified. As I attempted to get up again, I suddenly got blinding pain in my head. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything as they dragged me to the rooftop.
"But him in the corner where nobody will see him. Over by the pipe," the first boy instructed, "I'm going to the supply closet."
I think I sat there for an hour, unable to move as the two boys waited for their "boss." I could feel my phone buzzing in my pocket, but I was scared they would notice if I moved to take it out. When the first boy finally arrived, he called the other two over to discuss something. I took that as my chance.
It was Hue. He had listened to me and not followed. Now he was scared because it had been 3 hours since I had left. I looked at the time; 1:30. I opened his messages and attempted to type, but they had already seen the glow of my phone screen. Frantically I typed "Hesolp" and sent it before they took it from my hands.
"Shit. Unsend it right now. You," the boss pointed at the third boy, "take the phone and throw it in the water. If you attempt any funny shit," he mimicked the action of cutting his throat, "you're dead along with him." He took the phone and ran.
"What are you going to do? I didn't do anything wrong. I won't tell anyone. Just let me go." I pleaded with them, but they only laughed in my face.
"My mother didn't do anything wrong either."