Sorcerer Hunters Fan Fiction ❯ Tropicana ❯ Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Merely days later, I was violently bouncing along in the backseat of my brother's green and very unreliable Jeep after a good hour and a half in an airplane. Air travel was indeed the safest in my belief and in statistics, so I had not minded the trip at all. I thoughtfully took along a few newly released novels off the Glace Bestseller List and contented myself with them until I reached the crowded airport. To my relief, my Niisan soon rescued me, and we vacated the premises hurriedly.

As we rumbled along in the Jeep, one brief look at the scantily clad but tan populace roaming the littered and cracked sidewalks told me that Miami Beach was simply not a place that I would want to live. I shuddered in silence as my brother jabbered on about how I much fun I was going to have here in Florida. I could feel the sun already scorching my pale and delicate skin, and I grimaced. A lot of good my Oil-of-Olay was going to do down here, I thought bitterly.

"Anyway, Marron-I thought we'd go to the beach today," my brother continued, me hearing him really for the first time. My ears stung at the word "beach." Surely he was kidding.

"Uhm..couldn't we just stay home," I said, hope evident in my voice. "I have a book I want to finish and-"

"Aww, you could read on the beach! C'mon, Marron, it'll be great! We'll meet some women," my brother smiled at me in the rearview mirror, his black eyes dancing. I looked away, my frown deepening. I hated beaches. They were nothing but loathsome locations in which barely clothed women and men lounged in damaging U-V rays and got skin cancer. Beaches were also loud, bright places, and I rather preferred lonely, quiet and dank places to spend my rather sporadic free time.

"You're too pale anyway," my brother went on. "What you need most is a hot girl and a nice tan." Ugh, I thought. Tans-how disgusting.

"I'll do the deciding on that, Niisan," I told him as the car suddenly lurched again.

"Man, I should get that checked out," my brother shook his head cheerfully at the 1996 Jeep. "Well, I guess you will," my brother agreed. "But if you get a hot date, be sure to get her friend for me," he winked.

"Niisan," I said darkly, "You already know how I feel about that," I whispered quietly but with enough force that he could hear it easily.

"What?!" My brother whirled around to look at me briefly. "Marron," he eyed me coldly for a second, "Are you saying that you're gay?"

My face must have turned from pale vanilla to cherry red. "No, Niisan," I managed, my voice shaking, "I'm just saying that I'm..not really that outgoing." My brother, somewhat satisfied with this, faced forwards again and continued to drive the Jeep.

"We're coming up to my apartment soon, Marron. You can put on your swimming trunks, then meet me back in the car." He said this in a monotonous tone, almost robotlike. He had always hated the idea of homosexuality and its association with me, even though I had told my brother countless times that I was not a homosexual, simply a shy person. My brother refused to believe this, and attributed homosexuality to my being a bachelor at 24 years old, and I did not appreciate this. I wanted to point out informingly that he, too, was a bachelor, but being a good brother, I kept my mouth shut. My brother Carrot constantly chased women to no avail and was your general pervert, but he scorned me because I never gave anyone, male or female, a second glance, really. I had always considered there being more important things than trivial matters such as love. My brother also thought my immense feminine beauty, which I actually thought of rarely, was an indication that I obviously had a male preference. I shook my head at this thought. A while back, it hadn't helped when Gateau..

I abandoned this thought abruptly and opened the Jeep's sticky side door. Things were different now; our opposition had ceased to exist. The members, including me, of that elite group known as the Sorcerer Hunters, had all gone their separate ways, and I knew not where any of them had resided, besides my brother, for the last three or so years. I wondered sometimes about my old job as a Hunter..it seemed so intangible and such a fragile job, with nothing at all permanent and obvious. I had enjoyed it immensely.

Pushing the past into the back of my mind and the sticky green car door closed, I slowly trudged up to my brother's little apartment to alter my attire. More importantly, to prepare for those sinister rays..