Natsuki sat down on the couch with a jar of mayo with a beer and a magazine. “Okay. I'm ready, Tate. So, tell me the reason behind Shizuru's insanity.”
“I guess you heard the rumors about her, I assume.”
“Yeah. About her attacking everyone in school with a bat.”
“That part is true. And the reason why is because growing up, her parents were abusing her mentally and physically at the age of six. Shizuru didn't know why her parents were treating her that to her, and according to her family background, her mother was a drug addict and her father was an alcoholic which kinda left Shizuru with a few......problems when she was born December 19th.”
“Problems?”
“While we were looking at Shizuru's files, it says that from the doctors she visited, she has ADD, ADHD, Mild Asperger Syndrome which is also known as Mild Autism, and Multiple Personality Disorder,” Tate explained.
Natsuki was surprised to heard the conditions Shizuru has. “Shizuru has all that?”
“Yeah. Didn't you notice?”
Natsuki began thinking during her time taking care of Shizuru. “Well, come to think of it, that would explain her saying my name in the third person along with her repeating a few words more than once, though. But I thought it was because she was just, well, insane, you know?”
“Well, that's slightly understandable. Anyway, when Shizuru was nine, she was token to an orphanage after a neighbor heard yelling one night coming from Shizuru being beaten by her drunken father. And during that time in the orphanage, the nuns told us that Shizuru was a quite handful when she was having one of her episodes and didn't know how to calm her down. Shizuru had to stay away from other children because of her sudden eruptions, along with hitting someone continuously after that person was picking on her. However, the nuns were able to calm her down during the time she was at the orphanage by putting her in a room by herself with a TV and something for her to draw and write with, along with having a private tutor teach Shizuru. It helped her for seven years when she was adopted at the age of sixteen. The adopted parents of Shizuru noticed that Shizuru didn't really smile that much during her years of going to Fuka Middle School. They saw that Shizuru didn't really come back with any friends or hung out with anyone because Shizuru told her parents that she prefered to be alone. But around her fist year of Fuka High School, Shizuru's parents saw Shizuru smiling again. They asked her why and she said, 'Because I met someone today. Someone......different.'”
“I see.” Natsuki sighed with a slight smile on her face. “I guess it happened when she saw me, huh?”
Tate lightly laughed through the phone. “Yeah. I guess from being around Shizuru for a while, you've seen how childish Shizuru is whenever she's around you. However, as you saw a few months ago when Shiho punched you, Shizuru has a slightly horrid temper when it comes to anyone hurting you in any way.”
“Yeah. I remember,” Natsuki dipping a potato chip in mayonnaise, “I thought I was going to lose my grip when I was holding Shizuru down.”
“Yeah. Anyway, because of Shizuru meeting you, she was able to gain some of her sanity before it was lost. Then, one day, something happened.”
“Was it when she attacked the school with a bat?”
“Yes. We thought it was from you, but we found out that it wasn't.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We've found out that the reason Shizuru snapped like that was because other people were telling her how you and Shizuru couldn't be together for a lot of reasons known to other people who saw you guys together. She tried to ignore them, but things became worse when she saw her real parents again in an alleyway of the school who told her how Shizuru's a failure for having those feelings towards you, Natsuki,” Tate said.
“So, I guess because of all that pressure, along with her having all those other problems and conditions she has, she snapped, huh?” Natsuki said.
“Yep. But who could blame her. When Shizuru came here, she told us that one of her personalities were arguing with the other personalities in her head about how her feelings were false and how she should just forget about you, Natsuki.”
“How many personalities does Shizuru have, anyway?” Natsuki wondered.
“Well, according to what Shizuru told us, she has twenty,” Tate said.
“Twenty?!”
“Yeah. Well, it was twenty until Shizuru told us that she killed 13 of them. Were you expecting three or four personalities?”
“Well, no. I was just expecting to have just one. But seven?!”
“I know your reaction. When Shizuru told us that, we were surprised that she's not talking like a loon in those cartoon shows.”
“Yeah. But I didn't know she had Twenty of them. How many does she have now?”
“Last time we asked her in therapy last week, she told us she has seven.”
“Seven?”
“Yeah.”
“.........” Natsuki was quiet on the phone for while reflecting on what Tate told her about Shizuru. 'I didn't know Shizuru was that unstable. Why didn't she tell me this when I met her? I'm gonna have to ask her when I see her again.'
“Hey, Kuga.”
Natsuki snapped back to reality hearing Tate's voice. “Oh. Sorry 'bout that.” She apologized asking,
“Hey, Tate.”
“Yeah?”
“.........Does Shizuru know you're telling me all this stuff? You know.....to me?”
“Yeah. We asked Shizuru if it was okay to tell you about herself and she said it was just in case something happened to Shizuru.”
“Okay. That's understandable. Is there anything else I should know about Shizuru?”
“Hmmm, let me think. Oh! I almost forgot! Shizuru did wanted me to ask you if you wanted to know a little it about Haruka since you guys are all friends now.”
“Haruka considers me her friend?”
“Yeah. Haruka told us this during her therapy session with her anger before she took her medication,” Tate said.
“I don't have anything else to do tonight except homework, so yeah, I want to know a little bit about Haruka. Uh......does Haruka mind?”
“Nah. She doesn't care either way. You know her pretty well to know that.”
“True, true.” Natsuki laughed.
“But what about your homework? Midori's gonna be pissed if you don't do your essay based on that book you read called To Kill a Mocking Bird.”
“I told her that I'll read the book. I didn't say I would do the work,” Natsuki said.
Tate sighed. “Honestly. You never seem to do anything you don't like.”
“Eh, don't care what that Ijiwaru (bitchy) teacher says tomorrow or not. It's just a stupid essay that's worth only ten points. Anyway, about Haruka?”
“Oh, yeah. When Haruka was just an infant, her father was abusing her the way Shizuru's drunk father was to her. Her mother went to rehab a few times when she was pregnant with Haruka during her third trimester because she was on drugs and needed help to become clean before her daughter grew up with any health problems. It helped. However, Haruka was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was seven, if you were wondering why Haruka doesn't like reading anything aloud in front of other people,” Tate said.
“That would also explain her mispronunciation of words whenever she's talking to us along with other people. But why is she in the asylum?” Natsuki wondered.
“I'm getting to that, woman. Anyway, because of what she has, Haruka was picked on during her time in preschool by other children. The teachers didn't help that much where she lived either and as she grew up with other people calling her stupid, reading illiterate, and lack of knowing any vocabulary, she became to develop an anger problem which caused her to get into fights during there fifth year of elementary school. And the more she grew up with that stuff because of her disability of reading, the angrier she became with the people calling her stupid and dumb. Yukino would help Haruka expand her vocabulary with the best of her ability, but Haruka was still being harassed by other people since she was the only one in Fuka High School who has Dyslexia and couldn't read that well like the rest of her classmates. Her anger grew so bad that she almost killed someone.”
“Haruka almost killed someone? Who?”
“We don't know who though because the group she attacked moved after that, but it happened when Haruka was in her last semester of her high school. Yukino was being picked on because of her quiet disposition. Well, Haruka stepped in and told them to leave her alone. They told her to stay out of it and how she's one to talk because of what she has. She tried to calm down, but they kept talking like that about her and Yukino, that's when she snapped. Haruka grabbed the closest thing that was near her, which was a glass bottle, and smashed it against some guys head and began to beat the crap out of him along with some of his friends who tried to take Haruka.”
“Big mistake, I imagine?”
“Yeah. Really big mistake. Haruka took all of them down and was about to kill one of them for what they said to Yukino until a few teachers came and pinned her down. It took more people to pin the blonde woman down.”
“More than Shizuru when she snapped?”
“Yeah. Just by two people because the teachers didn't want to get that close to Shizuru because she had a bat and was attacking everyone. Including the teachers who were nice to her,” Tate explained, “But Haruka refused to calm down and one of the teachers had no choice but to knock her out.”
“With what?”
“The nurse didn't have anything to paralyze Haruka, so the teachers had to literally knock her out by using a heavy object. It took the three times to do that without knocking her into a concussion.”
“That sounded painful.”
“It was when she woke up in the asylum because of her anger. But as you can see, she's improving with the help of you and Shizuru.”
“That's good. By the way, I keep hearing Haruka and Shizuru talk about this teal-haired woman who almost looks like me when they were going up against Windbloom last year in soccer. Do you know anything about someone like that, Tate?” Natsuki wondered.
“Not that much. A friend of hers named Miya Clochette told me her name is Tomoe Marguerite and that she has an average case of what Shizuru. Well, except having ADD and ADHD.”
“You mean this Tomoe chick has Autism and Multiple Personality Disorder also?”
“Yeah. But the only difference is that Tomoe's is a bit more severer than Shizuru's, along with the Multiple Personality Disorder. Tomoe's personality can change from happy to psychotic in less than a minute while Shizuru, depending on what the situation is, won't change that fast.”
“And the Autism?”
“I don't know. Miya told me this, and I don't remember what she said.”
“Soka (I see). Well, thanks for informing me about Shizuru and Haruka, Tate.”
“Don't mention it. If there's anything else you need to know about them, just tell me and I'll give you what I have on their file,” Tate said.
“I'll keep that in mind. Later.”
“Bye.”
Natsuki hung up her phone and sighed who looked at her clock to see what time it is. 'It's two am.' Then looked at her mayonnaise jar. 'And I'm out of mayonnaise. Kuso (damn).'