Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Synthetic Emotions ❯ Phase 08: The Lessons We Learn ( Chapter 8 )

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Synthetic Emotions

By: Melissa Norvell

Phase 08: The Lessons We Learn

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As Eros walked through the school, he couldn't help but notice how many people noticed him now since Asagi's defeat in the arena. Everyone seemed to be friendly or wave at him and people he didn't even know would come up to him and compliment him or ask him about their battle. He wondered if Asagi had gotten this much appreciation when he had gone undefeated.

"Hey!" He suddenly heard a female voice from behind him. Turning, he saw the girl. She was simply a normal looking Japanese school girl with black hair and dark eyes. The girl wore a happy expression.

"I saw you fight Asagi yesterday, you were awesome!" She complimented him.

"Thank you," Eros bowed.

"No problem! I just wanted to compliment you on a job well-done!"

The Syntacom looked over his shoulder to see three other girls approach him. They seemed like the high-society types and from what he'd gathered from being at the school this long, they were quite popular. One of them had snow white hair that was poofed up and flipped out on the bottom like one of those 70's hairstyles. She had large blue eyes and a yellow headband. She seemed to like yellow, seeing as her jewelry and other accessories were also of that color. The girl next to her had long, wavy black hair and dark purple eyes with long lashes. Her skin was a milky white and her hair pulled back into a half-ponytail and held up with a purple and white jewel-encrusted clip. Beside her was a smaller girl with a light frame. She had long cotton-candy pink hair that was pulled into a low ponytail. Her long, cheek-length bangs hung to either side of her face and her slanted deep brown eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

"Hey there," the white-haired girl said in a dark and seductive voice.

"You were totally awesome yesterday," the black-haired girl spoke.

"We'll definitely support you in any tournament from now on," the pink-haired girl smiled.

Standing a few feet from them, within earshot of their comments Aroura approached Eros. She knew the three girls who were around him. They were in the popular crowd and were very snobby and catty towards her. The black-haired girl decided that she should warn Eros of them after they left. Annoyance crossed her usually calm features simply at the sight of these so called 'girls'.

'What? He has an instant fan club already?' She mentally remarked, seeing the way they all crowded around him and clung to him as if he was going to protect them from some sort of harm. It was all too overdramatic and it made her sick. Eros was her friend and she found him first.

"You're so new here and to rise to the top so quickly is a definite plus," the wavy haired girl said.

"I'll say! I was wondering if you were with anyone?" The sly white-haired one asked, hoping that he'd be free. After all, it was only right for the school's most popular girl to date the school's most popular guy.

"Yes, I'm with Aroura," Eros replied simply. It seemed like an innocent question and he really didn't get the underlying intentions that the blue-eyed girl had.

"What!?! That little nobody!?" She drew back in shock at such a thing. Someone as unpopular as punk-rocker Aroura with a cool guy like Eros. This was simply unheard of!

"We're not going out," Aroura told her through gritted teeth from a few inches behind her. The girl stood bolt straight, as if the anger rising had frozen her stiff. Her fists were clenched by her sides as a million insults whizzed through her head but for Eros' sake, she decided to merely keep them thoughts. A vein popped out of her head. 'What does she mean 'little nobody'?'

"Thank god, that could really ruin your reputation," the pink haired girl told him almost in a sigh of relief.

"He's my cousin, you ditz."

"It must be really sad to be related to you. I mean you hardly compare to a man like him," the black haired girl gestured a hand to Eros as if he were a prized trophy.

"Yeah, he's totally cool and you're totally a dork," the pink-haired one agreed.

"Only the very best deserves you," the white-haired girl smiled at him with red painted lips as she wrapped her arms around his as if she were his girlfriend on display for the whole school to see.

Looking at all of them like that made Aroura feel a little out of place, it was three against one and she knew that Eros wouldn't help her and if he did, it would be in a bad way. She simply frowned and looked a little sad. Eros' grey eyes watched the expression on the girl's face and wondered to himself what was wrong and why her body posture and mood seemed to change drastically.

"Oh god! Anything but those three preps," Mariko commented from her short distance away as she crossed her arms and glared down the offending girls as if they'd disappear if she willed it hard enough. Asagi stood by her side in a similar fashion, arms crossed at his chest.

"So what? He won one fight. How does that make him so popular?" Asagi asked. One fight didn't rectify that you were the best in the entire school and should be handed medals and loved by the masses. He found the whole thing childish and just some little uproar that gave the short-haired boy a boost to popularity.

"Well, he is good-looking so naturally the girls would be attracted to him," the blonde stated as she stared at Eros from a distance. No one could deny that he was particularly striking compared to the other men in her school. He was charming and good-looking though a little hollow but what did it matter? He had a lot of talent to back him up.

"Do you think so?" Asagi looked to the girl beside of him.

"Huh?" She looked back at him.

"Do you think he's attractive?" The spiky haired man asked.

"Well duh, why else would I say it?" Mariko rolled her eyes.

"Uh…" Narrow lime green eyes widened slightly as Asagi felt himself at a loss for words. Why did he question her like that? He hoped that she didn't think he was jealous or something. To be truthful he didn't mean it that way but he knew her defensive nature of accusing him for things he didn't say or do. 'Not now! Not like this!' He thought as a sharp and nearly paralyzing pain shot through the right side of his head.

"What? Are ya offended or somethin'?" Mariko fumed, beginning to get irritated at the fact that he wasn't responding.

The metallic clanking of his weapon hitting the ground could be heard as he clutched at the side of his head in agony. The man let out a pained noise in response to his seizure-like headache. Mariko shouted out his name and ran to him, putting his strong arm around her shoulder. Large, expressive eyes looked to him in concern as she spoke to him. "Asagi! Asagi! Are you alright?" She asked, trying to keep him braced against her but it was no use, the man's knees buckled and his form slowly slumped over and slid down her as he still held the side of his head, clutching at what seemed like an imaginary wound.

"What's wrong? What can I do to help?" Mariko asked her face close to the pained man's cheek.

"I'm fine," Asagi replied simply and stood erect once more. The pain was immense but not enough to make him faint yet. His hand was still on the side of his head and he struggled to see clearly. Everything looked like a blur to him and it all began to shift to one side as if he had lost his equilibrium. His eyes were half-lidded as he tried to will the images to stop drifting but it was no use.

"Do you need to sit down? Was the fight too much for you?" The blonde girl continued to ask. Something was wrong with him. Maybe it was fatigue? If he didn't tell her she couldn't possibly know, so playing 20 questions seemed like a good option about now.

"Mari…ko…" Asagi got out in a whisper as he lost all consciousness and fainted.

"Damn!" The short-haired girl below him cursed. She finally realized what happened to him and caught him before he hit the ground. Although he was taller than she was, Asagi was light for a man so she didn't have to struggle as much to hold him. "Gotcha…although I don't know what to do now…" Mariko said to herself.

Suddenly, she could feel nostalgia of something he'd said earlier overtake her senses. 'I just have these headaches, always in the side of my head. It feels like someone is sending shockwaves into my brain. Sometimes when I do, I can't remember the last three hours of my life or my past as a child.'

Mariko's eyes widened at this realization. 'Does this mean…He won't remember me?' A slight sorrow reflected itself on her facial features. She had worked all of this time to get him to so much as pay attention to her and now his memories of her will be erased. It would be like she never existed to him. Being erased from someone's life was a very painful thing and any impact the person made would be lost in time.

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"Yeah, it was really cool! You should have seen his face when he jumped like that!" The white haired girl giggled daintily and Eros laughed in suit. They seemed to be engaged in a jolly conversation and the Syntacom actually did find some of their jokes and humors stories funny but some he simply played along with. He had remembered that Aroura told him once that it was rude not to laugh at another person's joke when everyone else was laughing.

'Anyway…' Aroura thought to herself in irritancy at the school girl's constant babbling around Eros. She turned to begin walking away from the group when she saw that Asagi was collapsed a short distance away. Red eyes locked their gaze to see his form, which was slumped over on the short-haired blonde's. "Oh my god!" She threw her hands over her mouth in surprise and worry.

Eros' keen hearing managed to pick up the girl's worry as he turned his attentions to her. "Aroura…What's wrong?" He asked in the same monotoned voice. He noticed Asagi and Mariko and saw Aroura headed over towards the two of them. The synthetic human ran through the group of girls, who stopped laughing and turned their attention to the retreating form. 'Isn't that Asagi?' He thought as he noticed that the form seemed familiar.

"Hey, nice jo-ob!" Sonata had been walking by him but was quickly shoved out of the way. Stumbling, he tried to regain his balance but tripped and fell flat on the ground. The short-haired martial artist pouted to himself. "Well, that's a fine how-do-you-do."

"What happened Mariko?" Aroura asked as she finally came to a stop by the two.

"It's okay guys. He just fainted…He does it often," the last part of her voice seemed to hold a tiny amount of sorrow to it. It was almost as if she felt a little sorry for him in his condition.

"Is that normal?" Eros asked.

"Yeah, does he have seizures?" Aroura continued to question.

"I don't know…He…He told me once that he had headaches that were so bad that they made him pass out and when he did…He didn't remember the last three hours of his life…" The blonde's voice sounded concerned.

"How horrible! What are you going do?" Worry crossed the black-haired girl's features. She hadn't dealt with this kind of situation from any of her classmates and something like this was a big worry to her. Poor Asagi…Especially the fact that he couldn't remember the last three hours of his life every time he had one of those headaches. Aroura didn't know what she'd do if Eros were like that.

"I'm going to take him back to my house," Mariko answered. It obviously wasn't safe for Asagi to stay at school in his condition.

"What about school?" Eros wondered how she'd get away with skipping classes.

"I'm already failing and I can't just leave him here," the blonde looked determined. She didn't really care about her school work anyway since she usually skipped the classes she didn't like to make out with other men. Failing grades meant nothing to her.

"I'll get the homework for you, okay?" Aroura told her.

"Thanks," Mariko turned around with a face of worry. 'I just hope he'll be alright.'

'Mariko…' The black-haired girl thought sympathetically as she watched her friend walk away with the ill man's form leaning on her for support.

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Asagi lay in bed in a trance-like sleep beneath the light blue covers. He was placed in Mariko's room so the girl could keep a better eye on him. Hopefully he'd wake up soon. The tough girl had taken a wooden chair and moved it to the side of the bed, turning it backwards and sitting in it. Her green eyes watched over him as he lies. She closely examined the contradictory look of peace that graced his features.

She propped her head up on her hand and cocked it at the man. 'Who are you? I barely know you…You're unlike anyone I've ever met. You're really good at martial arts.' A smile crept upon her lips. 'When you came here, you practically owned the Sayatouya Marital Arts Club…and now that I think about it, you're not like anyone I've ever met in a lot of ways. You're almost superhuman yourself and you don't act like any human…' Her thoughts trailed as she found herself touching his smooth, tight skin. 'But you feel real…' Her feminine hand then touched his forehead. 'You're clammy like a human…' Her gaze went to a cut on his arm, which was delivered from one of the many exchanged attack between he and Eros. 'You even bleed.' Her finger lightly traced the small flesh wound.

Eros stood in the crowd, talking to them as usual while Aroura stood a few feet away from the group. Red eyes monitored the robot's progress and conversations with her school mates. The girl frowned to herself. She couldn't tell him but it felt a little lonely not being involved in his life as she had been when he first attended school. Aroura was always with him to show him the way but ever since he won the initiation, his popularity was through the roof. They existed in two different worlds once before and now they were on two different lifestyles as well. It felt as if he were growing farther away from her protective wing and growing friendship with each passing day.

'I should be happy, right? He's got it a lot better than me.' Aroura tried to look on the positive. At least people didn't think he was some sort of freak like her, right?

"What are you doing on the edge of the crowd, Aroura?" A kind male voice remarked from a short distance behind her.

"Hyobe, hey," she turned, her one red streak swung over her shoulder as she smiled at the pretty boy.

"Seems Eros is popular after that fight," Hyobe's gaze fell upon the Syntacom, encased in school mates, both men and women. "If I weren't so into my looks at the time, a wind can kill a man's hair in those stands; I'd say the whole school was there."

"I guess…" The tone in his friend's voice sounded distant and rueful.

"Do you not like it that Eros is popular with the ladies?" Hyobe figured that she was being over-protective of her cousin and knew how she felt about the popular girls around her friends. She was always trying to tell them that they shouldn't risk being used by their manipulative games and that they seldom loved you back. Perhaps she feared this with Eros.

"It's not like that. It's just that," her frowned deepened, "they might not know how to handle his condition. He needs me to stand by his side and I can't do that when they keep shoving me away." She lied but she didn't want them to find out that he was a Syntacom. Who knows what they would do or how they would react.

"Then shove them back."

"I don't want to damage his status. I'm such a loser and all."

"You're most certainly not a loser. I think you're quite the winner."

"That's so cliché."

"You have such a kind heart that you'll sacrifice your own feelings for his sake. That's a winning quality," Hyobe attempted to cheer his saddened friend up. When that didn't work, he attempted to change the subject. "Have you seen Asagi? I wanted to talk to him."

"Why?"

"Everyone's so busy with Eros that they don't really take the time out to notice that Asagi has far more skill then Eros and while he didn't win, it wouldn't be right to just shut him out like that. He made a mistake, it's only natural. To error is human," Hyobe thought that the spiky-haired man was a very honorable person and needed to be praised for the effort he put forth. It wasn't like Eros had beaten him badly. It was a small mistake that caused him to lose and not the huge upset that everyone made it out to be. People really blew it out of proportion.

"He's with Mariko."

"Mariko?"

"Yeah, he fainted or something. I think he might have been having a seizure."

"Oh my!" Kisame was drawn back by hearing such horrible news as she walked past them. She knew that she shouldn't have listened in but couldn't help hearing something like that. "That's serious! I hope he's alright. Do you know if it's from the fight?"

"No, Mariko said that it happens often."

"We should go over there after school and talk to him," Kisame wanted to get to the bottom of his mystery and check on him to see that it wasn't anything serious.

"If Eros isn't too busy…I guess."

"Did you say Mariko went home?" A male school mate asked.

"Yeah but-" Aroura tried to explain but before she knew it he was gone and seemed to be headed towards the direction of her house.

"Thanks! I knew she wouldn't let me down!"

"I shouldn't have said anything," the girl remarked ruefully after she realized that it was some guy who wanted a make-out session with her. Asagi didn't need that and to be truthful neither did Mariko. Mariko needed to not be bothered so she can take care of the ill man.

"I wish they'd leave her alone," Kisame frowned and crossed her arms. Men were always bothering the blonde and sometimes Mariko didn't really want to do things with them.

"Yeah, especially with Asagi there. He doesn't need that."

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The still curious girl ran her hand along Asagi's face, caressing every feature in curiosity. Asagi murmured her name as he turned his head. His cheek landed on the girl's hand, which was now pressed firmly against his skin. This caused her to blush. Shortly after, there was a rapid knock on the door, which caused her to flinch. Sliding her hand out from under his head, she walked to the door to see the man that Aroura had been speaking with earlier.

"Oh, Sawamura, what are you doing here?" She didn't expect to see him at her house and until now had forgotten that she even had arrangements with this guy.

"Just came for a little promise…You said you'd comfort me," he smiled.

"Right, come in," she replied, letting him in and shutting the door behind her.

The sound of the door shutting caused Asagi to open his eyes.

"Where am I?" He asked faintly as he sat up and looked around the room. "I thought I was supposed to be getting ready for the tournament." The man hopped out of bed and shakily walked through the hall. The pain was an acute throbbing and bothered him slightly but not as much as before. He clutched the side of his head in agony and stumbled down the hall, nearly running into the wall a couple of times. "Ugh…My head…Am I at Mariko's place? Did I black out?"

"Well, you know…" He could hear the girl in question speak.

"Mariko…" He uttered and walked towards the sound of the voice.

"You sure no one is here. I could have sworn I saw a guy sleeping in your bed," a male voice remarked.

Mariko lay on the couch, kissing Sawamura's neck passionately but in a hollow manner that held no deep emotion. "Don't know where you got that from." She said in a semi-erotic tone against his neck. "Even if there was, he doesn't mean anything to me."

Asagi's eyes narrowed. 'So that's it?' A deep-set anger rose within him upon hearing the girl utter those words so carelessly and callously. It was as if their friendship or his existence meant nothing to her. 'And here I thought you were different.' He thought angrily as he opened the door to see the two of them in a compromising position on her couch. Sawamura was lying on top of her and Mariko was below him with disheveled clothing with her arms tucked under his arm pits and kissing his neck lightly. Asagi could barely hold on to the door he was so weak and his growing anger caused his vision to slightly blur at the sight of the two of them.

"A-Asagi…This is your girl?" Sawamura asked in surprise. He didn't know that Mariko belonged to him or even that they lived together. He was beginning to regret the fact that he even asked her to make out with him now. Asagi was going to kick his ass!

"What?" Mariko didn't anticipate the fact that he'd wake up and had momentarily forgotten about him. She'd finally made him her friend and now that he'd seen what was happening, she was sure that he'd think of her as nothing but a slut.

"You…It was all a front…You…How could you say that? That's low, even for you," the spiky-haired man looked down at her with disapproving, yet sad eyes. His eyebrow twitched with the mix of emotions he felt but it came off more as a look of irritation with hidden sorrow, locked in lime green tints then a look of any one emotion.

"Wait, what did you hear?" The blonde asked in a fright. She'd wondered if he had heard what she said about another man lying in her bed.

"So, I mean nothing to you?" He seethed but his voice was calm.

"Asagi..." Mariko's face turned from paranoid to worried and sad. 'Why? Why do I feel so bad? Those eyes…He looks so miserable almost as if he's in pain…Of course he's in pain! He had one of those killer headaches! It's not like he remembers that well…Besides, what's he even thinking? It's not like I love him…But still…he heard me…'

"I…I hate you…" Asagi managed to let the words escape him before his form went crashing to the ground in front of the two. The pain and emotion was just too much and he'd fainted from all of the mental anguish and fatigue.

To Be Continued…