The morning sun rose into the air. Lazy clouds playfully floated on the horizon as the sun reluctantly resumed its post.

"Morning," Hajrudin shot with an insincere tone while waltzing into the kitchen. After taking a look at him, Bianca turned her head away. A bashfulness came over her as she thought of his heroics from the night previous. Hajrudin sighed, grabbed a coffee cup, and turned on his coffee machine.

"I would've mistaken you all for a bunch of corpses given the silence," he snickered to himself, taking a sip of his coffee; he looked around the room with disappointment. "All of us have a gimmick, aye? I'm the tank, Bianca's a bitch, Santiago is a twink..."

He pointed at the hooded teen fumbling with his phone. "And you're the quiet fucker sitting in the back of the class." Ryo looked up at Hajrudin with a silent mockery to his gaze.

"Whatever, man; I dropped out." He spoke with an apathetic attitude. "Never really cared about school anyway."

Ryo brought his fist to his cheek and made an audible huff. He then immediately turned his attention to his phone. Hajrudin sighed, saying something quite scathing and insulting under his breath. Suddenly, a quick and painful migraine attacked Hajrudin's head.

Like the static on an old T.V., a memory bubbled to the surface in the back of Hajrudin's mind.

"H...Aj....S.....Save!!" The voice was cutting in and out. Although unidentifiable, Hajrudin knew it was a child's voice.

"Please..." As the memory continued to play, it became clearer and clearer.

"HAJ!!!!!" The voice screamed, bounding in Hajrudin's mind like booming explosions and resounding gunshots. He gasped and dropped his mug. The small helpless cup fell to the ground, its liquid contents spilling onto the floor. Hajrudin's eyes went wide as he struggled to catch his breath. The room filled with awkward stares as everyone's eyes were drawn to Hajrudin. Santiago placed a hand gently on Hajrudin's shoulder, a look of sincerity in his eyes.

"You ok?"

"Don't fucking touch me!!!" Hajrudin slapped Santiago's arm away before shoving him. Hajrudin huffed and puffed like an overheated computer. He tried to catch his breath. He shook his head and began to speak, his eyes still wide and dilated.

“I’m going to smoke,” he announced as he made brief but intense eye contact with Bianca. He snickered and pushed his way past Santiago.

“Um...what the actual fuck just happened?” Santiago asked, looking around the room on the brink of tears. “I d-didn’t do anything wrong, did I?” Santiago questioned as tears welled in his eyes. Bianca put an arm around Santiago’s shoulder and slowly led him out of the kitchen.

Poking his chest, she calmly began to try to rationalize what happened.

“Buddy, no; no, you’re fine. Haj is….in a mood today,” Bianca voiced in a soft tone. She gently sat Santiago down in a chair in the living room. “I’ll be right back; I’m gonna go talk to him.”

“O-Oh, OK.” Santiago nodded and turned his vision away from Bianca, shifting his gaze to the ground. Bianca stormed away, anger pulsing off of her like the flares that shoot off the sun. She threw open the front door and proceeded to point at Hajrudin with an angry righteousness in her voice.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?!” She screamed.

“A lot, honey,” Hajrudin chuckled.

“You can’t just be soft and then a bastard the next day! That’s not logical!” Bianca struggled to voice her feelings into words.

“Listen, I have my reasons for showing my emotions.” He suddenly knelt and met Bianca’s gaze, his eyes piercing into her soul. “I didn’t break my fucking arm defending you, just to be demeaned later.”

Bianca met his gaze with similar intensity. “You didn’t, but you can, at the very least, not be an asshole.”

“Sorry, sweetheart; this is my normal.” Hajrudin laughed to himself as his hands shook. He averted his eyes and took a drag of his cigarette.

“So I shouldn’t just be happy that you saved my life?” Bianca shifted her gaze to the ground.

“Look. OK, I’m not an asshole. I’m a realist, alright?” Hajrudin stated with a nonchalant and plazie tone. “I only do things when I know it’ll benefit me.”

“That’s a lie!” Bianca shook her head vigorously. Clenching her fists, she trembled with a violent anger. “Didn’t you tell me that ‘you’ve walked in my shoes’ before? Huh?!”

“Yeah, I have. And then I said, ‘you should walk in mine,’ and ‘being a bitch ain’t gonna help anybody, little miss Daddy’s girl.”

“YOU WERE HIS FIRSTBORN!!!” Bianca screamed, tears streaming down her face. Her voice raspy, cracking, and hoarse. “HE LOVED YOU MORE!!!!”

“No, he loved the thought of me,” Hajrudin said, punctuating his sentence with a gruff exhale, followed by a plume of grey smoke.

“He loved and adored you - the first daughter. Daddy’s... precious little princess that he needs to protect.” Hajrudin’s eyes welled with tears as he continued to speak with a low tone. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

“Did he mourn like I mourned when Galliard died? Did he cry like I cried when I left my mom?” Suddenly, he grabbed Bianca’s shoulders and glared deeply into her eyes as tears filled his eyes. “Huh? Did he?” He dropped to his knees, his cigarette falling out of his mouth.

He made an odd croaking noise as he tried his best to force down his bottled up emotions. Bianca extended her hand, only to quickly draw it back. She shook with a thousand different emotions, emotions she couldn’t express with words.

She clenched her fists and knelt down. She didn’t think before taking her next action - she just did. She threw a punch, and it connected against Hajrudin’s cheek harshly.

Hajrudin staggered backward before falling onto his rump. He held his cheek and glared at Bianca with volcanic anger.

“The hell is wrong with you, you titanic bitch?!” Bianca didn’t respond; she held her head low. With her eyes fixed to the ground, she sniffled. Tears splattered against the ground.

She shook her head and spoke in a low, sorrowful tone.

“You really think my life with dad was all peachy keen, don’t you.” Her fists still clenched tight, she slowly lifted her head and met Hajrudin’s gaze.

“Yeah, he loved me, but life was always hellish.” After she said that, Hajrudin stood up and snickered brazenly.

“Oh, like you know anything about pain! Did you have to watch your best friend die in front of you? Have to receive a letter telling you that your mom passed away and you never went to see her? Huh?” Hajrudin exhaled a large plume of scalding steam from his nose, seething. “Well?”

“No! No, Haj- I don’t know pain like that, but I know my pain. And you’d better be fucking almighty before you can critique my experiences!” Bianca pounded on her chest like a war drum. “But what I do know, is that life fucking blows! It’s hard and it sucks. Alright? But pushing people away and being mean and rude for no given reason is terrible.” Bianca grabbed Hajrudin’s collar. “How can you be so cold?”

“I’m not cold, as you saw last night!”

“Oh! But I thought you only do things if they benefit you?” Bianca spat venomously.

“Alright, my dears; that’s quite enough.” Nathaniel, with one hand, pulled Bianca off of Hajrudin and scowled with a fatherly frustration.

“I do say, I am highly disappointed in the both of you. Such unsightly behavior. We’re a family; not a band of thugs that will betray each other.” Nathaniel shook his head.

“I will have no choice but to punish you.”

To Be Continued!