'A scar?'
Damien stared wide-eyed at his sister's back which he was massaging. He'd last seen her shirtless a month ago at the gym, but he didn't remember seeing this horror then—a jagged scar that looked as though someone had used a bread knife, no, a chainsaw on her delicate skin.
"Hmm, that feels good," Ahara mumbled when Damien pressed on it, moving her hand to the white buster she was wearing and pulling it down to cover her horrendous wound after she felt her brothers hands lingering there for a while.
'How did she get it?' Damien wondered, skillfully moving his hands down to Ahara's spine and pressing on it delicately.
Ahara let out a hum of approval, oblivious to what was happening in her brother's mind as she praised his massaging skills.
If she hadn't shifted her position to comfortably sleep on the sleeping bag, her buster wouldn't have moved and Damien would've completely missed the scar on her back.
The boy knew his sister worked as a gym instructor—he often visited the place for exercises—which is why he knew that none of the equipment she used in her training sessions could leave a scar as painful-looking as the one on her back. The only answer to such a horror was one:
She'd been involved in some kind of fight. A bloody one.
Not able to hold it in anymore, Damien stopped massaging her and sighed. Confronting Ahara was never an easy feat because she was always so secretive, but this was a secret he had to know about.
"Ahara, what happened to you back?" He asked, already hearing her reply in his head before she spoke.
Ahara snapped her head to look at Damien, her white braids whooshing in his face so fast that he had to fall on his ass to dodge it. Sometimes Damien wondered where his sister got so much of her strength. It didn't fit her slender athletic build at all.
Then again, she was a gym instructor.
"What are you talking about?" Ahara quipped in a rushed tone akin to a mother's, her grey eyes glistening with curiosity.
The hint of surprise in them didn't miss Damien's attention though. Pair it with the way she suddenly sat up and hid her back by the black leather couch; the boy instantly cemented the thought that his sister had some sort of secret she was hiding from him.
His gut never lied. It was his ultimate trump card to reading people—and it was yet to let him down.
Drawing in a large breath, Damien asked the million-dollar question that'd been bugging him since he noticed the jagged scar on his sister's back.
"How did you get the scar on your back by the shoulder bone or whatever it's called?"
If Ahara was being bullied, then he was going to help her. He'd never been in a fight before thanks to her overprotectiveness, but if getting scathed was the price he had to pay to help his sister get revenge on whoever hurt her, then so be it. At fifteen and a half years he was already taller than most college boys, and since he constantly visited the gym, he had decent muscle.
Not to mention, he was the best in every physical education class at school. Fighting was something he was bound to be good at from all that martial arts training.
"I fell on a dumbbell at work," Ahara mumbled under her breath, scratching the back of her neck and avoiding eye contact.
Damien narrowed his eyes at her. 'She's lying.'
However, before he could counter her lie with facts, Ahara stood from the sleeping bag and pointed at the clock by the fireplace.
"Whoa! Look at the time. Don't we have your parent-teacher meeting to attend tomorrow? You'd better go to sleep early or 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. It was indeed late—10PM to be exact, but he still couldn't leave Ahara without learning the real truth behind her scar.
"So you're not going to tell me what happened to you?" The boy asked, trying hard to mask the tremble in his voice, but Ahara heard it either way.
She sat back on the futon next to him in a flash before placing her hands on top of his and saying in a low soothing voice:
"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 didn't believe a word she said. He couldn't. How could a round dumbbell leave such a ripped scar?
He wanted to force the real answer out of her but he didn't want to stress Ahara. The responsibilities piled on her shoulders already did that for her. She was the breadwinner of the house—had been since the accident that took away their parents eleven years ago.
Damien no longer remember it but he knew Ahara did since she'd been 18 when it happened. That alone was enough to stress her, but then she had to take care of him, to pay the rent and see that they were well fed and clothed—not to mention the parrot named Silky that they kept in the kitchen whom Ahara was too attached to let go of.
The boy didn't remember seeing any relatives come to assist them, nor did Ahara talk about having any relatives whatsoever. She was his only family, his role model, and cliche as it might be—his heart. However, it seemed she still viewed him as a kid and never let him know exactly what was going on with her—even if it looked as life-threatening as the jagged scar on her back.
Shaking his head, Damien swallowed the rest of his questions and stood. They had enough time to finish this miserable conversation later, so why force his sister to speak when she clearly didn't want to, right?
"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow then. Good night sis."
Ahara evidently relaxed, sighing as she waved at her brother who smiled whilst making his way to his room, a bit proud he'd decided to let her off the hook.
"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," Damien cut her, opening the door that led into his otaku-themed room.
"That's a good boy," Ahara laughed.
She'd already finished wrapping the sleeping bag and was heading into her room as well.
Damien rolled his eyes at her after closing his door before heading to the small cabinet by his bed and rummaging inside the drawers in search of the little black noise blockers—but they weren't there. 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 an 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—sleeping whilst covering his head but leaving just enough open room 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 laugh at his sister's cute cunningness. Moments later, he felt her figure hovering over him before finally, her lips clashed with his forehead.
"Goodnight, Damien," came her sweet tone before a large weight flopped on top of his body.
A hug.
Damien opened his eyes in an instant, wondering whether to hug her back and blow his cover. Ahara only gave him tight hugs when she was nervous.
"Wish me luck on today's hunt. I'll be back before dawn."
THUMP!—went his heart as Ahara let go of him and left his room in a flash.
Damien's blood rushed all over his body as he snatched his duvet away, leaving it to drop mercilessly on the floor so he could follow Ahara to her room and ask if she was okay.
But he was too late.
CLACK!
The front door closed before his eyes and when Damien rushed into the living room to peek through the window, 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 of their housing complex building, but the boy was hopeless so he rushed back to his room and checked the front gates of their complex through his window. To his surprise, Ahara was already on the ground floor stretching and doing poses as if readying herself for takeoff.
'What the! How did she get there so fast?!'
Convincing himself that she's a gym instructor and such speed should be expected from her, Damien opened his window so he could call out and ask her to wait for him. But right before he opened his mouth, Ahara stopped her stretching and dashed outside the gate—vanishing like the wind before her brother's eyes could even blink.