Young Writers Society

“Relax,” Ramien whispered softly as he pressed his hoodie into his little bother’s shoulder. “The pain will subside. You just need to try to forget about it, okay?”

Miki lifted his chin slightly and wiped his nose on the back of his hand again, leaving a dark liquid streak on it. He drew in a double breath and stared blindly at the wall from behind the vibrant red cloth covering his eyes.

Ramien dropped the hoodie. Jaith gasped as he stared at the revealed marks crisscrossing Miki’s abused back. The twelve-year-old’s shoulder blade bled down his back, leaving a half-dried rusty streak down running down his back to his waist. Jaith’s eyes lowered, and he stared dumbly down at the bloody sleeves of the hoodie used to absorb the blood from Miki’s nose and bleeding shoulder blade.

“Do you want music?” Ramien questioned as he gently pressed his hand into Miki’s shoulder blade.

Miki’s back tensed into a rigid straight line. He stared out blankly at the wall from behind the red blindfold, his quivering lips conveying the emotions he desperately tried to conceal. He lifted his chin in a stiff nod.

Ramien nodded. Lowering his hand from Miki’s back, the older brother wiped his hand off on his hoodie. His narrow eyes flashed up to Jaith’s face as he stood up.

Jaith met the slitty eyes. He slid his hand across the sofa and enclosed his fingers around Miki’s phone lying beside him. Ramien narrowed his eyes. Jaith lowered his gaze as he stood up and held Miki’s phone out to Ramien.

Ramien shot his arm forward, but Jaith retracted the phone.

“Ramien,” Jaith whispered softly, his eyes fused to the Xiakai boy’s unyielding glare. “I’m not trying to fight, okay, but Miki’s bleeding a lot. I don’t think we should try to handle this on our own.”

Ramien narrowed his eyes and snatched Jaith’s wrist. Prying Miki’s phone from Jaith, Ramien stepped back. “Don’t act like I haven’t noticed,” he shot back.

Jaith lowered his gaze and bit his lip. Pushing his glasses farther up on his nose, Jaith lifted his eyes again. “It looks really serious, Ramien.”

Miki frowned and lifted his blindfolded face fearfully to his older brother’s face as Ramien sat down beside his little brother and unwrapped the earbuds from the phone.

“So, what do you think we should do?” Ramien retorted, flashing an ugly glare over his shoulder. “Call titiqui and ask him to take Miki to the hospital?”

Jaith nervously crossed his arms and lifted his lips into an awkward half-smile. “Yeah,” he admitted after a moment.

Ramien tossed his eyes in a circle as he pressed something on Miki’s phone and handed his little brother his phone. “Don’t play pretty words with me, Jaith Esadowa. Be lucky you have a mom who would take you to the hospital if you broke your fingernail. Not everyone is as fortunate as you.” Ramien’s eyes returned to Miki, breathing unsteadily as he gazed up at his brother from behind the blindfold.

Jaith frowned and lowered his arms to his sides. “If titi-Uncle Leo realized how bad it is, he’d—”

“You learn not to ask too much when you’re in our situation,” Ramien shot back, lifting Jaith’s shirt from beside him and slipping it over Miki’s shoulders. “You ask too much, people turn their back on you. It’s how it goes when you’re relying on people who don’t really care.”

“Uncle Leo does care!” Jaith retorted, starting toward Ramien. “Mom cares. I care. How can you not see that?”

Ramien shook his head, his arms sliding into a crossed position against his chest. “Why was it that when Miki first came here titiqui never mentioned taking Miki to the hospital? He’s bleeding a lot less now than he was when he first came here.”

Jaith frowned. His gaze lowered to the floor. “Titi…qui…does care,” he murmured. His gaze drifted to where Miki sat, feeling along the wire of his earbuds for the earpieces. Jaith’s eyes lifted. “He does care.”

Ramien did not respond. Jaith’s gaze wandered back to Miki. His phone lay on the floor. He had slid the earpieces in and was nervously clenching the blue circle pendant to his chest. His other fingers nervously turned the red feather earring in a slow circle.

Lifting the hoodie from the floor, Ramien turned back to Jaith. “Asking for a thousand-dollar ambulance ride is asking a bit too much.”

Jaith nodded distantly as Ramien stepped past him, his attention drifting from Ramien to the live Xiakai performance Miki was listening to. Something instantly struck Jaith as familiar. His eyes scanned the line of Xiakai performers, but it was not them that caught his immediate interest. It was the pentagon.

Below the performer’s feet a giant cement pentagon lay spread out. The three edges behind the performers seemed to point to the end of a cliff. Iridescent water droplets rose behind the pentagon and dotted the edge. Beyond it, a gently slanted rock slope formed the background.

Jaith stepped closer, a different image racing wildly through his mind. A clear creek ran through a valley bordered on one side by a slope of flat stone. Miki sat sobbing at the very edge of it. Above him and across the creek, three jagged edges of a cement pad lay on top of a rocky cliff…edges so large and spread apart that perhaps when viewed from the other side the immense cement structure was in fact…a pentagon.