Damien stared wide-eyed at his sister's bare back. He last saw her shirtless a month ago at the gym, but he didn't remember seeing this horror then.
Pressing on her spine through the white buster she was wearing, he bit his tongue, trying hard not to say anything about the fading scar. It looked jagged as if a wild dog with protracted, sharp, and zigzagging teeth had pierced her delicate skin and ripped it.
"Hmm, that feels good. Go a bit up," Ahara moaned and he obeyed her request. She was lying on a futon with her back facing up so Damien could massage it.
This was their daily routine—a bonding session at night in their cozy living room after eating. Today, Damien had decided to reimburse his sister's hard work by giving her a massage, but the last thing he expected to see was a huge scar on her back.
'How did she get it?' He wondered, scrunching his brows at it.
He knew she worked as an instructor at a gym, but none of the exercises she trained her students with or the tools she used could leave a scar as painful-looking as this one.
Not able to hold it in anymore, Damien released the grip on his tongue and stopped massaging the dark spot. "Ahara, what is this?"
Ahara slowly turned her head to look at her brother. Her gray eyes glistened in the bright light like clear soapstone, her long white curly hair flowing down the tiled floor at her sudden movement. She had a slender yet athletic body thanks to her career and caramel skin that made white hair look ethereal on her. Not to mention the angelic face whenever she smiled.
"What is what?" She asked in a gentle tone akin to a mother's.
Damien drew in a breath, readying himself for the confrontation he was about to have. He never liked fighting with Ahara, it pained him more than his pinky toe hitting a door corner—but this was a question he had to ask.
If Ahara was being bullied, then he was going to help her. Thanks to his unbelievably unique genes, he looked older than most kids his age. At sixteen he was already taller than most college boys, and since he visited Ahara at the gym, he had decent muscle. He was strong enough to assist her with chores and heavy objects at least, but not old enough to work yet.
Fuck sixteen, he wanted to be eighteen already so he could change roles with her and be the one to make money whilst she rested. But that was a feat he'd have to face two years from now. At the moment, he had to keep her safe from whatever had caused that ugly scar on her back.
Damien cleared his throat and pointed at her spine. "You have a scar on your back."
Flipping around and standing, Ahara snatched her blouse from the black leather couch beside them and put it on, her face stoic. "I fell on a metal dumbbell at work," she replied scratching the back of her neck and avoiding eye contact.
Damien narrowed his eyes at her, opening his mouth to ask another question, but before he could, Ahara beat him to it.
"Whoa! Look at the time. Don't we have a parent-teacher meeting to attend tomorrow? You better go to sleep early or else it'll look like I'm not taking good care of you tomorrow when you wake up with puffy eyes."
Damien looked at the clock hanging above the TV. It was indeed late; 10PM to be exact. They had been watching anime a while ago before he noticed Ahara looking stiff and offered to massage her. Little did he know they'd end up being weird around each other like this.
"So you're not going to tell me what really happened to you?" Damien asked, trying hard to mask the tremble in his voice, but Ahara heard it either way.
She stopped scratching her neck and sat back on the futon next to him in a flash, taking his hands in hers. "I fell on the dumbbell Damien. My boss took me to the hospital and as you can see, I'm fine, no need to worry, okay? Now be a good boy and go to sleep before it's too late."
But Damien couldn't believe her. How could a dumbbell leave such a ripped scar like the one on her back? He wanted to ask, but he didn't want to stress Ahara, she had enough responsibilities to do that for her.
His entire upbringing was loaded on her at the young age of eighteen when his parents died in a car accident. He didn't remember the full details, but he at least knew he was there when the accident happened eleven years ago.
As for Ahara, she was old enough to remember, but she still bore all the pain and decided to take care of Damien either way.
Ever since then, it has always been the three of them—including a white parrot named Silky who happened to be his parent's favorite pet when they were still alive according to Ahara. Ahara was the one who played the parent role for him when he was still a kid, she was the one who taught him everything he knew, the one who fought the bullies in school for him, and the one who shaped his entire life.
She was his only family, his role model, and his heart.
That's why he so desperately wanted her to open up to him, but it seemed she still thought of him as a child. Deciding not to annoy her, Damien closed his mouth and swallowed the rest of his questions.
"Okay. Good night sis."
Ahara beamed, waving at him as he entered his Otaku-themed room with stickers and character art plastered on the cream walls. "Don't forget to—"
"Put on my noise blockers? I know, you keep telling me to do that all the time, it's a motto at this point."
"That's a good boy," Ahara laughed as she wrapped the futon and put it back in its bag.
Damien rolled his eyes playfully at her, opening the small cabinet drawer next to his bed and rummaging inside to search for the little black ear pods, but they weren't inside as he had thought.
Scowling, he pulled the entire wooden box out and threw its contents on the floor, flipping each one of them with his foot, but he still couldn't find any noise blockers.
Then it hit him.
He had given them to the old lady at the old people's home down the block where he often volunteered to clean after she complained about the cats making noise at night.
"Now what?" Damien whispered to himself.
Any moment now, Ahara would be coming inside his room to kiss him goodnight thinking he was already sleeping. He couldn't be seen standing in the middle of the room like this after promising her that he was going to sleep.
Ruffling his black curly hair, Damien pushed the contents he had dumped on the floor under his bed with his foot and flopped on top of it, thinking. It took an entire twenty minutes of dead silence and fake meditation for him to finally come to a conclusion and sleep whilst covering his head, leaving just enough open space for Ahara to kiss his forehead.
He was just in time to make his decision because no sooner did he finish tucking the corner of his duvet around his head did his door creak open as Ahara tiptoed her way into the room.
"Are you asleep?" She whispered. Damien clenched his jaw, trying hard not to smile at his sister's cute cunningness.
He could feel her figure hovering over him for a moment before finally feeling her lips on his forehead.
"Goodnight, Damien," came the sweetest tone he had ever heard from her. Then a large weight flopped on top of his body, and he felt Ahara squeeze him tight. Opening his eyes under the duvet, Damien fought hard not to hug her back.
Ahara only gave him tight hugs when she was nervous. He was about to stop faking his sleep and ask her if she was afraid to sleep alone when she spoke.
"Wish me luck. I'll be back before dawn."
BADUM!
Damien's heart pounded on his chest so hard he had a hard time trying to breathe for a mere second. His blood rushed all over his body and he snatched his duvet away, leaving it to drop mercilessly on the floor as he tried to follow Ahara, but he was too late.
CLACK! Came the sound of their front door closing and Damien immediately knew Ahara had left him.
He rushed into the living room and peeked through the window, but Ahara was nowhere to be seen.
'Maybe she's already downstairs,' his gut told him.
It was a ridiculous thought since they lived on the fourth floor and it'd need a speed master to reach the ground in the mere seconds Ahara had left the house, but he rushed back to his room either way and checked the front of their building complex through his window.
To his surprise, Ahara was indeed on the ground floor stretching and doing poses that looked like yoga on the lawn outside.
Convincing himself that she is a gym instructor and such speed should be expected from her, Damien opened his window so he could call out and ask Ahara to wait for him.
But right as he was about to open his mouth and call out, she stretched her legs twice and vanished like the wind—in the blink of an eye.