Magic Touch

Magic Touch Magic Touch   By Amanda and Tenchi Kaze   Chapter Two   Dorian looked uom hom his homework when he heard the sound of movement outside the door. 'I wonder if that's Mira. He sure took a long time to get back...' The boy stood, padding over to the door and pulling it open.   A trembling hand pushed the door to the room open the rest of the way. Mira stepped inside, wiping blood from his nose. He was covered in bruises, slouching a little with a hand over his stomach. His left eye was puffy, the skin around it now dark purple. "Sorry... I'm late," he gasped, sounding out of breath.   "Good gods Mira!" Dorian exclaimed, leading Mira over to the bed quickly and laying him down. "What in the world happened to you?! This hasn't happened for weeks now! I thought that bully Altair had gone away!" he said worriedly, heading for the small kitchen to fetch the first aid kit.   "No, he's just found a new target, and it happens to be me." Mira sat on the bed, examining his wounds. "And the best part is, he made me agree to let him continue the beatings after classes are over.... every day from now on."   "WHAT?!" Dorian exploded, nearly dropping the first aid kit on his way back to the bed. "Are you nuts? How could you agree to something like that? It's suicide!"   "It's better than having him use magic on me, Dorian! That was his other threat!" Mira turned away, staring at his feet. "And what can he do without using magic? He can beat up on me all he wants, but he wouldn't be able to go far enough to kill me. Anything worse than a few bloody noses or black eyes would get him suspended from the academy."   "Then that's all the more reason NOT to go along with what he wants! If he'll be suspended for doing something that bad, I doubt he'd do it. He's bluffing just so that you'll get scared into coming!" Dorian opened the kit as he yelled, pulling out a small ice pack and letting Mira put it on his black eye.   "Well, he'd contibothbothering me even if I didn't agree," came the reply. "There's really no good choice when it comes to this sort of thing."   "Yes, but to go willingly? To just let him do that?" Dorian protested as he began to tend to Mira's bruises.   "Dorian, please, just let me do this. I don't like it either, but I don't have any other option right now!" Mira snapped, suddenly irritated with his roommate.   Dorian was about to say more, but closed his mouth as soon as he had opened it. It wasn't often that Mira got mad, especially not at him, and he didn't like it when Mira did get mad. "All right, fine. I still don't like it, but I won't force you not to go..."   "If you're done," Mira said, removing the ice pack from his eye, "I really need to get some rest. I feel like hell." He stretched out on the bed, closing his eyes. "I just want to be alone for a while."   Silently, Dorian nodded, packing up the first aid kit. After putting it on the nightstand, he quietly retreated into the bathroom, the only other room in the small dorm, and began to run a bath for himself.   Mira drifted into an uneasy sleep, not looking forward to what the next day would bring: classes, disappointment, and pain.   Dorian sighed as he stripped off his dark blue school uniform, stepping into the tub of warm water. 'I really hope he knows what he's doing. I hate seeing him get hurt...'   ******   Mira woke up the next morning with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He wasn't looking forward to seeing the alchemy professor again, and the thought of going to any of his classes made him shudder. However, it was slightly comforting to know that academy courses would take his mind off his upcoming beating.   Dorian moved around the kitchen part of the room quickly as he fixed breakfast for the two of them. "We have to eat quick, or we'll be late!" he called over his shoulder once he saw that Mira had woken up. "I'm just making some quick plates of toast and cheese."   "Sounds good," Mira replied, standing and taking his plate from Dorian when the toast was done. He took a bite, feeling a little better with something in his stomach. "You make a great breakfast," he told Dorian as he ate.   "Thank you," said Dorian, though it sounded more like "Fan' foo'" because his mouth was full of toast. Finishing quickly, Mira grabbed his books from the kitchen table, heading for the door. "Come on, we'd better get going. Professor Smythe will kill me if I'm late for Ancient Magics."   Dorian already had his bookbag slung over his shoulder as he finished his last bit of cheese. "I know how he is about tardies, though I bet no one's as bad as Professor Andross. She'll have my head for breakfast on a silver platter if I'm a minute late for Runic Studies!"   "Have fun. I'll see you after cl-- I mean, about an hour or two after classes." With that, Mira headed for Ancient Magics, his books clutched to his chest.   Dorian winced a bit, having hoped that the subject wouldn't be mentioned that morning. 'At least he didn't say anything about it directly,' he thought, rushing off down the hall for Runic Studies.   As Mira walked down the hall toward his classroom, Altair and Nain passed by with a venomous sneer apiece, thought they didn't speak to him.   Nain playfully slapped Altair on the back, grinning. "Have fun later," he whispered. "Think up a new mode of torture for him... and tell me about it later." He separated from Altair, heading for his first class of the day.   Altair chuckled to himself, imagining up various scenarios in his head. "I don't think that will be too hard," he said under his breath, laughing quietly as he entered the classroom he was headed to.   ******   The day seemed to fly by, and even the classes Mira hated most seemed to last only a few minutes. When the three o' clock bell rang, he gathered his things, heading directly out the door and around to the back of the building. He stood in the middle of the grassy area, seeing no one around. "Altair! I'm here, just like you asked!" he yelled, listening to his own voice as it echoed across the wide-open space.   Altair smirked to himself, having hid himself behind a particularly thick cherry tree, listening to Mira yell. 'Just a little longer,' he thought, waiting for the right moment to make himself known.   "Altair!" Mira screamed louder this time, surprised that the bully had not yet showed up. "Where are you? You must be looking...forward to seeing me."   The bully waited, waited, waited. Finally, when Mira was near the tree and had his back turned, he stepped out silently, grabbing the end of Mira's braid without warning and yanking it hard to pull Mira to the ground. "Surprise," he said, sneering down at Mira from above.   "So that's...ow!... where you were," Mira said, preparing himself for a hard punch or kick. "Nain isn't with you?"   Altair shook his head, not letting go of Mira's braid. "He wanted to study of all things. Dunno why, because tormenting you is ever so much more fun," said the bully, pulling up roughly on the braid and making Mira stand up again.   "I take it you're going to start with a punch again," Mira said, cringing. He didn't bother putting up his hands to defend himself. It would be useless against Altair anyway.   "You think I would do something as boring as doing things the same way every time?" said Altair in faked shock. "You insult me. Today, I am finding your hair to be quite an interesting plaything." With lightning quick moves, he pulling on Mira's braid in a way that made the boy spin around him in a circle. "Heh, look, it's a Mira-Go-Round!" Altair laughed, swinging the boy around faster and faster.   Mira grew dizzier as the bully spun him around, stumbling as he went. He tried his best to keep his balance, but after a few minutes the strip of ribbon holding his braid together came off in Altair's hand, and Mira was sent flying. He hit the ground hard, one elbow scraping across the cement as his dark hair fell down his back and over his shoulders.   "Woops. Did I do that?" Altair said with mock innocence, holding up the hair ribbon. He walked over to the place where Mira had fallen, bending down. "Here, let me help you up!" he said, channeling some magic power through him as he reached down to lift up Mira. The extra power allowed him to lift the other boy into the air and throw him hard against the trunk of the cherry tree.   "Ugh!" Mira cried, feeling like every bone in his body had instantly broken. He slid down the trunk and slumped to the ground, moaning. Despite his best efforts not to cry, a few tears slid down his cheeks from the intense pain.   "Aw, little Mira's gonna cry,"d Ald Altair. He walked toward Mira and lifted up his chin so that the boy was face to face with him. "You know, even with that frikkin' ugly black eye, you're still one of my prettiest targets." He laughed, watching as more tears trailed down the boy's cheeks.   "I'm not... going to be pretty after a few days," Mira managed to snap back. "And I'm... going to run out of...excuses for my wounds. They won't believe that I fell on... the stairway next time." His eyes reflected intense disgust.   Altair shrugged. "And so what if they don't? There are plenty of other nasty characters around the school, and one of the last people the professors are going to suspect is me. Who do you think they're going to think beat you up: some guy in third year who's big on brawn and short on brain, or the handsome, intelligent, gifted Altair Veda?"   Mira didn't have an answer for that. Instead, he hunched over, avoiding Altair's gaze, although the motion sent a wave of pain through his body. He gritted his teeth against the hurt.   At this, Altair growled, punching Altair hard in the side. "Answer me, kid! It's rude not to say anything when someone asks you a question."   Mira gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. "N-No one would... suspect you, okay?!" he growled, the strike almost knocking him over. "...Are you happy now?!"   "Quite," said Altair, smiling cruelly as he stood up. "Go geurseurself cleaned up. You'll need it for tomorrow." With one last kick to Mira's stomach, Altair flipped some stray hair from his ponytail back over his shoulder and walked away as if nothing had occurred.   Mira stayed next to the tree for a long while, only able to stand after about ten minutes of rest. He was still reeling, holding his side. With a soft groan, he started the long walk back to the dorms.   ******   Later, when Mira finally made it back to the dorm room and had opened the door, Dorian was already standing there waiting. "I have the first aid kit," said Dorian, showing Mira the white box in his hands. "Do you need some help with the stuff in it?"   "I would...appreciate it," Mira muttered, collapsing on the bed. "I don't think I could fix myself up on my own."   Dorian nodded, opening the box and starting to tend to Mira like he had the previous day. "Geezus, he even decided your hair ribbon wasn't sacred?" the boy muttered, looking at all of Mira's long, dark green hair spread out across the bed.   "That was an accident, I think," the boy murmured in reply. "I'm not worried about it. He can keep it, for all I care. As a souvenir of what he--" He paused, wincing as Dorian tended to a particularly painful bruise.   Tentatively, Dorian undid the buttons of Mira's uniform jacket and began to take care of the bruises on his stomach and sides. He wasn't aware of it, but his cheeks had turned a slight shade of pink as he swabbed one of the bruises with a medicated piece of cotton.   "Ouch!" Mira hissed in pain as Dorian worked. "He got me pretty badly, didn't he? It feels like I got run over by a truck." He ran his hand over one of the bruises. "He does a thorough job."   "Does he ever. I'm having trouble just finding all the places he hit you," said Dorian, finishing with the last of the large bruises and starting on the smaller ones.   "Tomorrow you'll probably have an even harder time," Mira said, wincing again. "He's probably going to make it worse. Today was pretty mild compared to what he could do."   "What about the teachers and other students, though? They're definitely going to ask about your nasty injuries, and you're going to have a harder and harder time covering up what's going on," Dorian said, taking out some cloth bandages and wrapping up Mira's scraped elbow.   "I think tomorrow I'll stay here in the room. Say I'm ill or something." Mira sighed, realizing that even that plan was futile. "But I can't do that every day..."   "You should at least take tomorrow off, I think. You need some time to recover your lost strength," said Dorian, finishing with the bandages and packing up the first aid kit. "As for the other days... I guess you'll be getting more and more used to it, much as I hate to admit it, so you won't have to rest for as long..."   "Yeah... that's the worst part." Mira closed his eyes, putting an arm over his face. "I'm sorry you're going to have to keep fixing me up like this, Dorian."   "Don't be," he said. "I don't mind doing this for my best friend."   "I appreciate it. You're... you're too nice to me." Mira fell silent then, his body still. Soon enough, he had fallen asleep as he had the day before.   Softly, Dorian brushed a lock of green hair out of Mira's face. He whispered, "I don't mind one bit..."