Chapter 4

"This is delicious" Gumi exclaimed as she bit into the rice that had been prepared for her by Rin.

The small blond blushed at the compliment. "Thanks, I tried my very best to make it good for you…"

Gumi could only smile brightly at the girl, "When did you learn how to cook?"

Looking down, Rin replied softly, "My mother taught me…"

Gumi was silent for a moment, before she asked, "What happened to your mom, Rin?"

The blond could only stare at her feet, blue eyes twinkling with pain and sadness. "I don't want to talk about it…."

Gumi nodded, she understood how much the subject seemed to bother the younger girl so though she was curious she decided it'd be best to focus on something else. "Nice day outside, right?" she murmured, changing the subject.

Rin chuckled, "It's snowing out there, Gumi"

"…..I knew that" The green head muttered. "At least it isn't anything like a blizzard"

"True…" The blond nodded in agreement.

Quickly finishing her meal, Gumi rose to her feet and stretched. She never had something that good to eat in her life, or at least that she could remember. It made her feel satisfied for once.

"You seem to be in a better mood" Rin remarked, smiling at the green head.

"Yeah" Gumi returned the smile. "It's all because I have such a wonderful friend to brighten up my day"

The blond head's smile grew wider as she asked, "You really think that I'm a great friend?"

Nodding softly, the older girl murmured, "You've shown me nothing but kindness, Rin of course you're a good friend"

Rin was beaming with happiness. "And you're a wonderful friend too" was what she replied.

. . .

"Can't you believe that it's already December?" Rin had asked one winter day. The blond had been living with Gumi for about two months and she had become a part of Gumi's daily life. The girl was currently baking a cake, which was something Gumi had remembered eating before. The familiar scents made her feel happy and a bit excited, though she tried to keep a calm façade.

Rin had been bringing all different types of food to the house during the past 2 months. Gumi hadn't even known that many types of food even existed, and as delightful as it was to eat such delicious foods, Gumi couldn't help but start to wonder if taking all this food was such a good idea. Rin said she had been obtaining the food from people she knew on the streets, but Gumi wondered where exactly the street people were getting such items. The green head felt like this wasn't going to bode well, but when she had shared her concerns with the younger teen, Rin just told her that everything was fine and that would be that.

Very slowly, Rin removed the small cake from the old oven, causing Gumi's thoughts to falter.

"It's almost ready" the blond smiled. "We have to give it a couple minutes to cool, we don't want to burn our tongues now do we?"

"Rin….." Gumi started hesitantly, "Are you sure taking all this food is ok?"

"I told you, it's all fine, you should stop worrying" Rin nonchalantly replied. "Aren't you happy to be fed?"

"I am…" Gumi murmured. "But…it's wrong to have your street friends steal for you"

"Its fine" Rin remarked, "As long as I pay the back nothing will happen"

"What if you can't pay back" Gumi anxiously asked, "What'll happen to you then?"

Rin was silent for a bit, her lips were formed into a slight frown, but it quickly changed into a smile as she said, "I can deal with it"

"I'm not sure, Rin…." Gumi whispered.

"You can trust me, Gumi" The blond murmured. "You do trust me….right?"

Nodding lightly, the green head quietly replied, "I do trust you…"

"Good!" Rin brightly exclaimed, "Now enough with that, the cake is about ready to be frosted!"

Gumi watched in silence as her friend, butter knife in hand, delicately dipped the silver item in a tub of thick creamy icing before gently spreading it along the surface of the light vanilla cake. It looked absolutely beautiful; the smell of the hot cake was just delightful. As amazing as it looked, Gumi for once didn't feel too hungry as her worries suddenly left her feeling sort of sickish.

Rin seemed to take notice in Gumi's loss of appetite. "Stop worrying, Gumi" She flashed the green head a reassuring smile. "Everything will be alright!"

Gumi could only nod; she felt weary and didn't want to argue with her blond friend.

Rin's cheery expression took on a more concerned one. "You're looking really pale, are you seriously that worried about this?"

Replying with another meek nod, Gumi tried to focus her gaze on the blond, or what had been the blond but was now only a blur of yellow.

"GUMI?" was the last thing the green head had heard before she suddenly plunged into darkness.

. . .

Whispers. Whispers that blended with the wind surrounded the trembling girl as she sat on her knees, fresh tears of red rolled down her eyes as the voices laughed and mocked her.

"Please…..stop" She whispered, hands clutching her ears, hoping that it'd help block out the scary voices, but no. They only just got louder.

Blackness surrounded her like she was being bathed in the night sky. Her whole body felt cold and numb as she pitifully sobbed. They told her she was worthless, a failure to society. Not meant to be here. She wanted oh so badly for them to be wrong, for someone to save her. In the end she always would turn out alone.

So alone.

A sudden gasp escaped from her lips as she felt something warm and slimy crawl down her wrists. She stared down only to be greeted by the sight of her bloodied hands. Her soft breathing started to quicken as her shocked eyes widened.

"Your soul is stained red" A voice hissed, dripping with a venomous hatred that burned through the girl.

"No…." She whispered. "Leave me alone!"

"Stained red…..oh so red….." One by one more voices joined in as they repeated those lines, over and over and over again in a simultaneous fashion.

"Stop…" She whispered, once again clutching her ears, ignoring the feeling of blood against them. "STOP!"

Blood started to form around her, causing her breathing to become labored. She gasped and panicked as more and more red surrounded her. "HELP!" She yelped as she jumped to her feet, turning around in hopeless circles only to see more and more red.

"Stained in red…" The voices malevolently stated as the girl started coughing as if the red was some form of smoke.

"No…." She gasped, choking and crying. "No….stop…." "Stop…" "STOOOOP!" her pleas did nothing as the red suddenly fully surrounded her.

Silencing her.

. . .

Gumi's eyes quickly opened to the sight of a worried Rin. The poor blond looked completely anxious as she stared down at her friend.

"Are you okay?" She quickly asked as Gumi slowly sat up, a small pain throbbed in her head.

"What happened?" She quietly asked. All she could remember was everything fading to black, then red, then black again, but that was it, it had hurt her head too much to try and remember anything more.

"You fainted!" Rin exclaimed. "So suddenly too, you gave me such a scare!"

A small groan left Gumi's paled lips, her head was killing her and Rin's loud babbling wasn't helping her in the slightest.

Rin noticed that her friend was still looking quite pale. "Wait here, Gumi" She murmured, "I'll be right back"

The green head sighed as she watched Rin quickly leave, she noticed that she was currently in her bed, a small red blanket covered her from feet to chest and for a reason Gumi didn't quite know, this bothered her a lot. Removing the blanket and pushing it to the floor, Gumi shivered. She felt like she was forgetting something important, yet even as she searched through her mind she couldn't remember anything. She decided not to think about such troubling thoughts and instead wondered why she head fainted. She had been feeling just fine before, but now she felt completely awful.

Rin scurried back into the room, immediately thrusting a thermometer into the shivering green head's mouth.

A small moment of silence passed with the blond staring intently at the small thermometer.

Beep! The small ring signaled that the object was done its work. Rin tried to grab at it, but Gumi beat her to it.

The older girl let out a sigh as she read the numbers on the instrument.

"Well….?" Rin inquired. "What does it say?"

"…..101….."

A gasp escaped from Rin's mouth. "Oh no, a fever!" She placed her tiny hand on the older girl's forehead. "What can I do for you, Gumi!" She averted her gaze to Gumi's face. "Do you want water, or some soup?" Gumi opened her mouth to say something but was abruptly cut off as Rin blabbered on. "Are you feeling hot….cold?"

"Rin….." Gumi murmured, a bit annoyed at how paranoid the younger girl was acting. "It's only a slight fever, I just need some rest, that's all"

Rin nodded. "Right…..of course….I'm sorry"

The green head couldn't help but smile. "Don't worry Rin; I'm not going to die"

Rin smiled back, but she still looked a bit unsure. "I know…."

"You don't need to worry about me" Gumi whispered. Even though Rin's frantic behavior was a bit annoying, she still couldn't help but feel a twinge of happiness that the younger girl seemed to care about her so much.

"I'll let you rest now" The blond quickly whispered. "If you need me, just call, ok?"

Gumi only nodded, showing that she understood. She watched Rin slowly leave the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. She stared at the door for a moment before averting her attention towards the window. It wasn't snowing anymore it seemed. The sky looked clear, at least from Gumi's perspective. In her position she could barely see much. Only a bit of the sky and a small tint of a tree that was bare of its leaves but still stood tall and proud showed.

The green head had never really liked the winter. She hated the cold it brought and it never helped that the house was never very warm during the season. In fact, sometimes it felt like her house was colder than it was outside. The temperature outside was a freezing 33 degrees. She could compare her house to an igloo! She wondered if Rin would agree with her, she imagined sharing this information with her blond friend.

"That's silly" The imaginary Rin giggled. "It's not THAT cold, stop complaining"

Gumi sighed. She knew she should be feeling happier having Rin here to keep her company. However, the feeling of sadness still never left her. She always tried her best to hide it, but sometimes it was hard to hide such feelings.

"Why can't I feel happy?" She wondered aloud.

Author's Note: Oh lookie here, I updated. Okay, well finally this story is starting to go somewhere. I actually was getting a bit bored of this story, but I took time to write it anyway. (Thank you Amber!) So anyway, today left me feeling in a happier mood, I got project diva extend today AND I LOVES IT! I always use Luka XD Also, we started watching a movie called Mean Girls in HS 101, I like it so far :D well anyways, thanks for reading everyone!