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With a gasp, I awoke, and regretted sitting up as my lungs locked, and I rolled out of bed, gagging as I hit the floor, twisting my ribs into a torturous position. I yelled, but not loud enough to attract attention to my room. Nobody in the household paid any attention to noises in the night. And it was hardly night anymore – four in the morning was the normal time that the house awoke. Dad worked early morning shifts as a guard at some prison, but he never talked about it. Sure enough, I heard him tramp down the stairs, and turn right into the kitchen, as I struggled for breath on the floor. These dreams I had, they happened every single night, but they weren’t always like this. His name was Kytsu. He was sixteen, like me, and yet he had accomplished so much more than I ever could. He was a swordsman, a soldier, and I knew his life better than I knew my own, but that may be due to the fact that, below eleven years of age, I couldn’t recall a single thing.
As I struggled to regain a regular breathing pattern, I heard mum pitter past my room, following dad. The next up would probably be me, but I didn’t like talking to my parents, either of them. I would just stay in my room until the last possible moment, before making a mad dash downstairs, grabbing something to eat, then running out the door, chasing after all four of my sisters. They know now not to wait. But, today, I didn’t want to wait, dreading the awkward moments of time in the kitchen, around my parents. I got dressed quickly and haphazardly, checked my timetable before packing the right books, or the ones that I could find at least, and slid out of my room and across the hall to relieve myself. I stuck a dab of toothpaste on my tongue, swished it around my mouth with water, then crept back to my room, gagging at the taste, before climbing out the window and onto the downstairs verandah roof. It was a jump to the ground from there, and then a jog around the back of the house and over the fence, into the vacant lot behind our house. After a tackle through a thicket of farmers friends, I made it to the road, picking the sharp spines from my thighs.
The sky was cloudy, and a hard wind blew down the road, and I wished that I brought a jacket, but oh well. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and turned right down the street. It took a while to walk to Phin’s house. The accumulating clouds looked ever more menacing at every step, and considerably more grey. It would rain before we got to school.
Phin’s house was dark, as it should be at this hour. Glancing at my watch – four thirty. I jumped the fence and walked over to his window, tapping insistently at the glass, before the curtains were yanked open, and almost yanked off. Phin squinted out of his room, saw me, glared, and opened the glass.
“Did anybody ever tell you how much of a d**k you are Uriah?” Phin sneered as I clambered through his window, falling heavily on the floor. He didn’t bother even helping me stand.
“Oh, once or twice,” I answered. Phin laughed quietly.
“Uri, you’re such a d**k.” He didn’t even bother asking why I was here before seven in the morning. He knew I had problems with my parents, and that I had trouble sleeping, but he only knew the basics about the dreams.
“Phinehas, stop complaining, you weren’t asleep anyway.” Phin grinned slyly.
“I wasn’t, you’re right. So, how did things go last night?” He sat down at the chair at his desk and turned his monitor back on. The computer screen glowed brightly in the dark room. He was on some chat site, and typed something quickly. I dumped my bag and sat on the edge of his bed. Phin flicked his light hair out of his eyes, and stared at me as I reclined on the clothes on his bed.
“Not so well.” Last night had been a hassle. I had been talking to Phin when dad had burst into my room, yelling and berating. He called me an idiot. He called me a failure. And then he had hit me. I touched the cut on my cheekbone, surrounded by a swollen bruise. “Dad was off his rocker.” Phin leaned back on his chair and patted me on the knee, in mock sympathy. I stiffened. I hated being touched. Phinehas knew that. He purposely touched me to piss me off. I batted his hand away.
“He was pissed?”
“Completely off his nut. Two bottles of whiskey.”
“Yep, that’d do it. Did you put anything on that?”
“Naw, it’ll be alright.”
“Mate, it’s all bloody!” Phin leaned forward. “I’ll get a wet cloth. You can’t go to school looking like that.” I sighed, and he stood and left, creeping amongst the house, and coming back with a heated flannel. He sat on the bed next to me, and I shied away. “Oh stop being so god damned people phobic, you ********,” he swore, and then dabbed at my cheek. It stung, and I snatched the cloth from his hand.
“I can do it myself,” I almost snarled.
“Ah, Uri, never a morning person, are you?” Phin laughed again, and there were three loud thumps from the room next to Phin’s bedroom.
“Shut the ******** up!” came the drawled expletives of Phin’s mum, and another voice of a moaning woman. Phin’s mum was a lesbian, and she had never married. Her partners were varied and changed almost from week to week. I didn’t find this weird. My family did. They were all homophobic. Phin chewed his lip, then picked up his bag, threw in a few school books, and turned off his computer.
“Come on, let’s go pick up Aki,” he whispered, opened his door, and we both forwarded out of the room, walking quietly to the kitchen. Phin provided me with something for lunch for the day, and we left.
The wind had picked up outside, and I wrapped my arms about me as we walked, hair blowing in our eyes. Aki lived closest to the school, so we always made our way there last. It wasn’t that far. We always walked, because whenever we got on the bus, at least one hard missile was projected towards our head, usually a brick, or somebody’s bag, filled with textbooks, and bricks. The kids from Dara were vicious, and rebellious, and hated our small trio with vehemence. We never understood why. Aki was Japanese, and they were extremely racist against her. Phin and I were born and bred in Dara, so we weren’t foreign. Phin was hated because of his openly lesbian mum, and I was just generally disliked. Eh, not that we cared.
“If you want to stay at my place any night, you’re welcome,” Phin said in an odd display of affection.
“Yeah, I know, but I’d rather it be me than my sisters.” The only son, I was hated by my parents, and when I thought about it, I didn’t know why. But I didn’t want my sisters to be hurt by our raging father.
“Aw you’re so protective.” Phin batted his eyelids, and I kicked him in the shin.
“And you’re such a perv.”
“You know you enjoy it.”
“What’d happen if your mum found out about the websites?” Phin pretended to consider it.
“She’d hang me. What about your folks?”
“They’d probably skin me alive before cursing me to eternal damnation.” Phin nodded. It sounded reasonable. He laughed quietly. Phin never really did laugh loudly, it was just his way. It took forty minutes to walk to Aki’s place, but even then, it was only almost half past six. Her parents were never up this early, so Aki always set her alarm to go off at six, so she could do whatever she wanted before they woke up.
We walked through the Japanese-style garden, and around the back of the house, where Aki’s room was. The curtain was open, and we stood at the window, watching as Aki turned the page of a book covered in brown paper. She always covered her books in paper, so nobody could see the erotica, especially her parents and teachers. They both thought that she was such a golden child. With a snap, she closed the book, pushed her glasses up her nose and stared out of the window, right at us. And we had been so quiet with our approach as well! She picked up her bag, hugging her book close to her chest, and exited her room, flicking her long, straight, black hair behind her shoulder. Phin pushed me into the wall as he raced around the house, trying to beat Aki to the front door. I followed, after recovering, but I couldn’t run as fast as Phin could, him with his long legs. Phin beat Aki. She opened the door to find him lounging in the door frame. I came up, just as she pushed him out of the way, and closed and locked the door. None of our parents minded that we left without telling them. Aki took one look at me, and she gasped, clasping an elegant hand to her small mouth.
“Uri!” she exclaimed, and Phin sniggered. He always found my nickname amusing, because it sounded like everyone was calling me ‘yuri’. “Uriah Itzal,” she said, acting a little more dignified this time. “You really must tell somebody about this, child care workers? They can have him taken away, you know. Or they can move you out.” We hit the footpath.
“I’m not allowed to tell anybody,” I admitted. Phin shook his head and sighed.
“You told us,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but you guys are my hoe’s,” I reasoned, getting a slap from Aki.
“Yeah, and you’re such a ******** pimp, hey Ur?” Phin said, laughing at being called a hoe. “You’re more of a prostitute anyway. I should be the pimp in our relationship.”
“Yeah, because all the women just hang off you. Nice bling you got there, boss.” Aki glared at us both.
“Getting off topic, aren’t we?” she clicked her fingers in Phin’s face. “And you’re both my hoe’s, as far as all this business is concerned.” Phin tossed his head back and laughed. “Uri, why can’t you tell anyone about all of this?”
“The house is leased in dad’s name,” I told her. “If he’s taken away, we lose the house. If we’re taken away, we still won’t have anywhere to live, because mum doesn’t work, and none of us kids can get a job that can allow us to even think of afford a house.” Aki gasped again.
“Uriah, that’s terrible! So, you have to suffer for the sake of your family not living on the streets?”
“Yes Akemi, that’s right.” I yawned. And then the first drops of rain fell onto us.
“Aw ******** s**t hell god damn it!” Phin yelled, breaking into a run. Aki squealed, hugging her book closer to her chest and hunching over to protect her sweet hetero-sex. It was getting close to summer, the rainy season, and that also meant Christmas, and the end of eleven years of school – year ten was coming to an end. We had already done our School Certificate, so school was pretty pointless. We had already wagged quite a bit, but today we had decided to go, just for the sake of it. We weren’t in the same classes as each other, well, Aki wasn’t because she was so smart and we were so stupid, but she came into our classes anyway. The teachers didn’t give a rat’s a** about us.
We reached the school, dripping wet, our bags and everything in them saturated, and Aki protecting her book. I pushed my wet hair out of my eyes and pulled my shirt off my back.
“Find a classroom?” I suggested. They both nodded. Since we were ‘responsible year ten kids’ we were allowed in the classrooms unsupervised. Having Aki, who was very trusted amongst the teachers, was rather a good advantage as well, because nobody questioned her. She knew what she was doing…
We took up residence in an English classroom, Phin and I taking our shirts off and laying them across a desk. It was seven now, so we had two hours. Aki turned the heaters on, and we proceeded to take absolutely everything out of our bags and lay them on the tables, close to the heater, so perhaps they could dry eventually. Standing back, Aki scrutinized us both.
“Uri, you’re so damn thin!” she claimed. “Look at you, you should eat more! I can see your ribs!” She poked me in my chest, and I pulled back sharply. Phin was laughing.
“Do you hate everything that I am?” I asked her, folding my arms, almost protectively.
“Not everything,” Aki replied.
“Would you two ******** get a room?” Phin swore.
“We have, you just chose to come with us!” Aki snarled, smiling at the same time. We were always so cruel to each other, and yet it was all as a joke.
“You’re only bitter because you’re still a virgin,” I snapped. Phin laughed. He was always a laugher. Even if he was being paid out something severe, he still laughed. And he could lie like a b***h.
“And you’ve been laid now Uri?” Aki sniggered.
“Alright, alright, we’re all virgins here, nothing to get all sissy over, you bitches,” Akemi settled, ending the brief argument. He then slapped me on the back, making me gag and lean forward on the desk.
“Oh look what you did, you left a mark!” Aki exclaimed. Phin stuck his rude finger up at her, also poking his tongue out in the process.
“I forgot to ask if you dickheads are welcome to spend the night at my place. My parents, or more, mum and her whore of a girlfriend, have decided to go to a hotel tonight, and it was either they go, or I go. So I kicked them out, yeah?” Phin paused and scratched his head, messing up his hair. “Hey, I look like you, Uri!” I scowled at him.
“Yeah, I’ll come over tonight,” I said. “I’ve just got to get some stuff from my house, tell dad I’m going out, you know.”
“I’ll come too! But I also have to tell my parents first. They won’t let me out unless I tell them where I’ll be. Is it alright if you two play the part of females for a night?”
“I though they already were,” came an idiotic remark from the doorway, followed by a few shrill giggles. We all looked over and saw our ‘arch enemies’, Kila Darius. The rotund blonde had her three lackeys behind her, all giggling at her statement, - the bitchery. School hierarchy dictated that they had power to b***h, start rumours and generally pay us out, seeing that we were at the bottom of the social ladder.
“Oh ******** off!” Phin snapped, glaring at the peroxide-blonde and her goons. They just giggled. Did they ever stop their insistent giggling?
“Sorry,” Kila said, pronouncing it that ‘sor’ and ‘ry’ were two words. She tossed her dyed hair behind her shoulder, glaring through her already narrowed eyes at Aki and I, her eyes lingering over my bruise and cuts for a little longer, before a smile pulled at the corner of her forever-sour lips, and she paraded out of our doorway, her circus troop following and gossiping behind her. They were all clones, and, oh, how we hated them all! Aki spat on the ground, and Phin an I looked at her like she had done the most ridiculous thing in the world. That was most unlike the young Japanese girl.
“That b***h leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” Aki explained. Phin looked at me, and also spat. I held my tongue, thinking the habit disgusting.
“Stop being such a sissy, Uriah,” Phin said, slapping me again.
“Oh ******** off Phinehas,” I replied. Aki sighed as more people filed past the room, peering in to ‘check up on us’.
“Let’s go find somewhere else to sit,” she ordered more than suggested. Phin and I both agreed, shrugging on our still saturated shirts, and filing out, walking three abreast in the corridor with Aki in the middle, still hugging her book close to her. Life was, once more, as it should be.

Chapter Two – Phin comes out?
Phin and I waited outside the house as Aki walked in. We heard her yelling in Japanese, and her mother replying. Then all was silent. Aki came out several minutes later, hugging her pillow close to her chest. She smiled at us.
“With a small bit of persuasion, I managed to convince mum that you two were not the baka-dickheads that I normally hang around with and were, in fact, respectable, young, straight ladies.” I looked over at Phin, who throw a ‘floppy wrist’, standing on his back leg and dosing his somewhat medium length hair over his shoulder.
“Oh Uriah, darlink,” he pronounced, sounding rather English.
“Yes Phiny lass?” I asked, throwing the same pose.
“Whatever shall the lovely missus Hikari think when she finds out what ******** mongrel scumbags we are.” And with that, he tackled me to the ground. I landed with the wind knocked out of me, and Phin pinning my legs and arms to the ground, on the stones. Aki stood back and was laughing hysterically. “I want you in me,” Phin whispered as I struggled to get up. He then laughed, so I knew he was joking. I knew he was only kidding around anyway. He always said it, to everyone and everything. Well, he certainly jumped off me when Aki gasped, and we heard unintelligible yelling from the Hikari homestead. I rolled onto my feet and we ran out of there before we were caught out, and Aki was grounded.
Compared to Aki’s place, my home looked like a freak bomb had hit it. There were spider webs everywhere, the grass and garden was overgrown, and things that were probably important were falling off the house. We had to battle a path up to the front door, and enter the kitchen silently. I gestured for Phin and Aki to wait, but they didn’t heed my warning, and followed me into the lounge.
Mum was in one of her funks. We called it a funk, but it was more like a stupor. She just sat on the lounge, sometimes for days on end, just staring out of the window, drooling, showing now emotion, and no sign that she even knew we were there, or talking to her. When she awoke, she acted like nothing had happened. We stopped questioning it a long time ago. It was just normal for our mum to do that. And I had no idea where dad was. Gesturing for Phin and Aki to be quiet, I turned and crept up the stairway, down the hall and then to my room. They entered, and I closed the door behind them.
“Where are your sisters?” Phin whispered.
“They don’t get home till later, to avoid dad,” I replied in a regular tone of voice. Aki had been to my house before, but I don’t think she had ever seen my room. She stared at the dark stain on the floor, and the ones above the bed, and on the sheets.
“Oh Uri, how can you live here?” she said quietly, sounding like she’d burst into tears.
“I Just do. And if you start getting all soppy, I’m gonna box your lights out,” I told her, and she smiled, taking a seat on the bed.
“Well, this is certainly a lot different to what I expected from you, Uri. Where are all the posters of naked girls?” Phin laughed, and flopped back on my bed, reaching underneath the mattress and withdrawing a vast collection of anime Japanese porn. Aki gasped. “Hentai! Gimme!” she exclaimed, dropping her pillow and reaching for them. Phin and I both laughed. Then Phin pulled out one.
“This is his favourite,” he said, waving the image of the vastly-breasted woman in Aki’s face.
“I can see why,” she agreed, grabbing it and flicking through quickly, laughing and pointing.
Well, we were just laughing, just having a bit of fun, when I heard the stomping. They were fast, and they came quickly up the stairs.
“Holy s**t, quick, get the ******** out of here. Get outta the window, now!”