Chapter Text
There was a chill that ran down through Kazutora's spine. He didn't like how the three old ladies' hollow gazes followed his every move.
He could sense their watchful eyes fixated on him intensely. Even as he sat inside his high school campus' measly decorated cinder blocked walls, a large window and two lanes between him and the sinister old women, he felt the elders' bottomless stare pulsating through his nerves that his hands began to twitch.
It shouldn't have felt that unnerving, considering the three old ladies sat outside his school building, pushed farther back by the crossroad, a fair 10-metre interspace away from him. That was about the length of a yellow school bus, but Kazutora sensed their powerful gazes even at that distance.
"Look who's spacing out. You're losing your head again, Hanemiya," a hard baritone voice chirped behind him sarcastically and he didn't have to check over his shoulder to know who the owner of the voice was.
Tetta Kisaki was Yancy Academy's school bully for reasons Kazutora guessed highly likely involved inflating the ego. Yancy Academy was a high school for "children with needs" and Kisaki being there in the same space as Kazutora meant the former wasn't any better than the latter was when it came to mental performance. Kisaki probably thought if he started picking on others, he'd be the better one, so he made it his life mission to torment Kazutora's dyslexia and make fun of his ADHD.
Kazutora could've sworn he heard Kisaki mutter another "loser" before walking out dejectedly after having received no reaction from his subject of spite. Frankly, Kazutora would've decked him right then and there if he wasn't too fixated on the three old ladies knitting under the hot sun across their school building.
The elders rested on a bench outside in a tight huddle. The one on the centre spun a huge ball of blue thread towards the old lady who sat at her left, dispensing the yarn as both the elders on either side started knitting socks large enough to fit four Tetta Kisaki's inside. Kazutora had no idea what the giant socks were for. Big Foot? Maybe Godzilla. If it was for sale, he would've bought it to sack Kisaki after lights out in their dorm.
He watched closely as the ladies spun and spun, stitching their threads into Big Foot's sock with their bony arms and silvery hairs pushed back by a white bandana. They appeared ancient enough for Kazutora to begin wondering how old they were. All the while they knitted their blue yarn, their eyes continued to zoom in on Kazutora. He wasn't sure how they were doing it, but they seemed to spot him clear as day even with the distance and window panes obstructing their line of vision. Maybe they just really had good eyesight. Good for them.
Kazutora would've already left the three ladies alone to tend to their knitting (and he had already ignored his lunch tray long enough to start to feel hungry), but a harsh glint that hit his peripherals made him focus back on them.
The third lady, the one on the right, had stopped knitting. Slowly, she fished out a giant pair of scissors, golden and flashing under the sunlight, her austere eyes in contrast to the scorchingly bright tool, still trailed on Kazutora. That must've been what caught his attention; the golden scissor glinted again, stroking his eye as he blinked.
The woman readjusted her huge scissors, positioning its blade towards the blue thread the three of them spun. They gave the black-and-yellow haired lad a cold hard look, just as the third lady gradually, but cleanly cut the yarn into two. He wasn't sure how, but even as he was perched two lanes, a window pane, and a nine-inch thick wall away from the old ladies, he heard the snip! the scissors made as transparently as he could hear Kisaki's infuriating laughter in the background.
Was that possible... to hear such a delicate sound as a snip! from such a wide distance?
And just like that, the three old ladies stopped moving, gazes still lingering on Kazutora's motionless form. They stayed there, watching him silently, hands now on their laps. He didn't know what to make of it. He had several weird experiences growing up, but this one had taken the cake for him.
"Tell me they aren't looking at you," an unacquainted voice had suddenly spoken. Kazutora whipped his head to see a boy around his age (maybe younger—he never saw that face in any of his classes), blond hair and an undercut, staring at him as if he had just grown an extra head.
"Um..." He stammered, uncertain if the boy meant what he thought they meant. "I don't know what you're—"
"Do you see them? Are you seeing them?" Blondie asked in a state of panic, breathing falling short as their mouth ran with questions. Their teal eyes were wide with fear, pulling Kazutora into a state of apprehension. "What did they do? Are they looking at you? How can you be seeing them? What did they do?"
The latter noticed how they said What did they do? twice—he assumed it might have been the more important question.
Lifting his hands for Blondie to see, Kazutora demonstrated the same snipping gesture the old lady had made a minute ago. Instantly, he regretted it, because Blondie seemed like they were about to pass out.
"Oh, gods," Blondie muttered, a palm clutching their forehead. They turned towards Kazutora, a flash of bewilderment painfully visible in their bluish-green orbs. "Are you sure? Like, really sure?"
"Uh..." Kazutora had always had a hard time dealing with panic whether within him or someone else's. He shuffled awkwardly. "There are three of them. There's a blue yarn and a giant golden scissor. The right one cut the thread."
"And they were looking at you?"
"Yes."
"Sweet Athena." Blondie had gone paler every minute. "How are you seeing them? You're not supposed to see them."
"I'm sorry." Kazutora held up a hand. He was awfully perplexed at how much the boy was panicking right in front of him and how it mattered whether he saw the three old ladies or not. He planned to wait for Blondie to calm down, but Kazutora didn't really fancy how he was blasted by a dozen questions by someone he hardly even knew. "Who are you?
"I should be asking you that."
"Look, Blondie—" And he said that with spite. "—I don't know what you're on about, but I'm not having you act all mad as a hatter in front of me. You're making me anxious. Are you high?"
"What?"
"I could tell you on, you know, to Principal—" Kazutora threatened as he shifted his gaze past the cafeteria's entrance and let it rest on the large plaque bolted atop the oakwood door just across. He tried to read the name on the sign, but he was dyslexic, so the letters only formed a bunch of mumbo jumbo in his head. Plus, he never really bothered learning the name of their principal for his two years in Yancy Academy; he didn't think it was actually relevant.
"You can't read English." The Eureka! tone in Blondie's comment made Kazutora snap his head back towards the boy. His brows furrowed as he glanced curiously at the slim lad that stood in front of him, mulling over him like they had him all figured out now.
"You have a hard time reading English. It floats off the pages, doesn't it?
He shivered. Kazutora really wasn't liking Blondie anymore.
"That's why you're here," said the blond stranger. "Did they diagnose you with ADHD too?"
That caught the older student's full attention. His ears rang and he felt a brow twitch as he turned to face Blondie fully, biting his tongue from snapping a snide remark.
"Don't you think that's rude to ask?"
"Have you had any weird moments—any at all that seemed unexplainable by science?" Blondie was on a roll now, a tad bit calmer than they had been earlier and they seemed to be onto something. "Any strange encounters?"
Kazutora did remember being chased down Manhattan by a huge shadow wearing trench coat in the middle of the day when he was 10. It was probably just some big guy hiding himself under coats and hats as he wasn't comfortable being seen by the crowd (although Kazutora could've sworn the big guy had no face).
There was that one time he played hide-and-seek with the other kids at the orphanage too. The closet seemed like a good idea that moment, so he slid inside the dark acacia cabinet and waited. But the moment he took a step forward to escape, he had somehow brought himself to the nearby cemetery, the closet gone, the orphanage's light amidst the distant night sky being the only solid source of illumination, and the feeling of his skin burning as the last sensation he felt before passing out.
He long ignored those memories; he was probably just being stupid. Maybe I made those up.
But Blondie's questions and tone pushed Kazutora to take a double check on everything that had happened so far. If he had to wager a guess, he betted Blondie might've experienced the same peculiar events, and he couldn't tell whether he fancied the idea or not.
Still, stubbornly, he answered, "That's none of your business."
But Blondie wasn't listening anymore. "I need to talk to Chiron."
Kazutora's forehead creased.
"The horse?"
"Centaur," the freshman corrected, face twisting into an expression plenty offended, staring at Kazutora as if he had just uttered the most unforgivable slur ever. "Do you not listen to your Latin class?"
"Right," the older murmured, shifting uncomfortably on his spot. To be fair, he did listen to his Latin class—it was probably the only class he ever did put effort to understand and pass. Aside from the fact that ancient stories and mythologies genuinely piqued his interest, Latin and Greek texts on their books were far easier for him to read than English. They didn't float off pages.
He had thought it was a genetic thing, but no one could really prove him right or wrong on that matter; no one, not even the sisters at the orphanage, knew about his parents.
Still, it muddled Kazutora how an ancient name such as "Chiron," the wisest centaur in Greek mythology, happened to slip into his and Blondie's conversation. Did anyone name their child "Chiron" in this generation? Kazutora thought the world was all about Harry or Draco nowadays.
In retrospect, "Chiron" was a pretty good name.
"Where are your parents?" Blondie inquired. "Who are your parents?"
Kazutora absolutely resented personal questions, especially if it was asked by someone he didn't even know the name of. But, he thought, maybe it was dire information for Blondie at the moment, judging by their disoriented (figuratively) eyes and stiff figure, an aura of blazing urgency emanating from them. Defeatedly, the black-and-yellow head sighed.
"I don't know," Kazutora answered truthfully, getting up to dispense his unfinished lunch tray. Blondie followed him around like a duckling tailing its Mother Duck. "I was put into an orphanage before I turned one year-old."
"You don't know your mother? Your father?"
"No." He awkwardly rubbed his palms together. "The sisters at the orphanage don't know either. My parents never really left anything. Except me. On the doorstep."
There was a quick momentary silence between them, Blondie debating whether to say anything about the sob story or pretend they never heard it and get a move on with their questions. As they grasped Kazutora's uncomfortable shifting from his heel to toe, they best decided the latter was the wiser move.
"So, no one knows about your parents?" The younger-looking stranger appeared to be in a difficult position in comprehending the information. "Not even if they're alive or not?"
Kazutora nodded. Blondie sighed.
"This is going to be tough." They ruffled their golden locks roughly, as if an attempt to shake the riddles off their head. They fixed their steel glare back towards Kazutora, an apparent new flame of determination glinting in their teal eyes. "I'm Chifuyu. Pack your bags. You're coming with me to Half-Blood Hill."