[center][h1][color=black]T[/color]OTSUKA [color=black]R[/color]YUSEI
[color=black]戸[/color]塚 [color=black]竜[/color]星[/h1][/center]
[hr][right][color=gray]how much longer need i suffer this hell?
i want out. i want out. i want out.[/color][/right][hr]

[indent][color=c0c0c0]"Can't be helped. I've always liked redheads."[/color]

Another quip to add to the pile, although it was good to see his comments were at least worthy enough that Shiori cared to bring them up. She didn't give him much of a chance to revel in it, though. Her next inquiry was pretty sobering, as if he hadn't just been ruminating on his parents and the increasingly strained relationship he had with them. What was he supposed to tell her? That they didn't want him anymore? That the big, lumbering delinquent who had bashed some kid's face in on the first day of school had some whiny sob story to tell? That his [i]tragic[/i] lack of familial love had led him down a dark path, and this was his chance at redemption? He'd never hear the fucking end of it if he admitted even a quarter of how he felt to this girl, and considering the year was just now beginning, he didn't know if he could stomach twenty-two months of her mockery. Well, more mockery than she was already wont to dispense.

[color=c0c0c0]"Folks got sick of me causing trouble, decided I needed to go live somewhere else,"[/color] His eventual answer was short and nonchalant, figuring it was truthful enough to sate her curiosity without belying how much he actually cared, [color=c0c0c0]"I'm staying with my gramps at his place now. Probably gonna continue until I finish high school. After that, fuck knows what I'll do. Not staying, that's for damn sure."[/color]

Maybe it was his tendency to punish imagined slights, but she had cut him a little too close to the root on that one, so he decided to return fire with a question of his own. Plus, it'd help move the subject away from him and back onto her, where he preferred it. 

[color=c0c0c0]"How about you? Got any kinfolk to keep you trapped here? You do seem like a good, wholesome, family oriented gal."[/color][/indent]