SB Side Story - Red

This is a side story for Sword Art Online: Snow and Bells.

Red
“Hey, Daddy? Can you tell me the story of your eyes?” Claire, my daughter, asks me.

I scratch my head, remembering the time.

“Didn’t I already tell you how?”

“You did, but never the story. How you were when you were a kid.”

I raise my hands in defeat.

“Okay, Okay.”

-

It was just an ordinary day after school. My usual routine was to eat at a fast-food restaurant and to head home. But that day, the day I had my eyes tattooed, was obviously different. These two guys, with punk mohawks and full of tattoos, came up to me.

“Hey, kid. Wanna change the colors of your eyes?”

“Don’t want to, don’t care.” I said, without even looking at the two bastards.

I keep walking. And then, an arm wraps around my neck and a hand is put over my mouth. I attempt to scream, but the hand over my mouth is muffling it. The guy drags me into his shop.

As I struggled, I couldn’t help, but notice how colorful the shop was. I’ve had always imagined it being dark. There were designs on the walls of different kinds. Tigers, dragons, guns, you name it. These guys finally took me to one of the chairs. It was extended to where someone could lay on it. They slammed me onto it, and strapped me down with buckles. Huh. How convenient. And finally, they put duct tape over my mouth. They were actually smarter than they looked, keep in mind. One of the guys goes and sits down. He sighs in pleasure, like a guy relaxing on a plane trip.

“Get relaxed as much as you can because you’ll be feeling….pain. Ahahaha!”

This guy was obviously crazy. Similar to how I am when I’m in battle. Except, this guy likes torture.

But, at the moment, I was afraid. Who wouldn’t? If they knew someone was going to stick a needle through your eyes.

“Now, I haven’t done this before. You should be lucky!” But I didn’t. This made my situation even worse. And so, I watched the guy as he gathered the paint and the needle. I’ve heard about eye-tattooing before. Well, just the needle part anyways.

“Hm...your eyes are fierce...so maybe a red will do. Yes, yes. Hey, hold his head straight will ya?”

One of the guys that dragged me in here came up and clasped his hands around my head.

The artist got up and cracked his neck. He checked to see if the syringe worked then, he aimed for my iris. When he injected it, I screamed. It was painful at the beginning, but it calmed down.

“Ooh. Look at the cloud forming. It’s covering his iris.”

Then he moved on to the next. Painful. But less pain later. It was finally over, so I can breathe again. I was shivering from the experience.

“Let him loose.”

“What?”

“Let him loose. It’s fine. Nothing’s bad happened as far as I can tell.”

The guy let me go as his upperman was talking. In a shot, I got up, but then I saw my reflection.

“Uwah…”

I actually looked….good. I wanted to strangle the guy...but this was holding me back. When I saw, I ran off. And I never saw these guys again. I stopped walking by their shop for fear.

Everyone at my school stared at me in awe. My parents didn’t care. They never did. The outcome was better than I expected.

-

“And so, Claire, that’s why people say not to talk to strangers.”

“Okay. But, you really don’t know what happened to them?”

“Nope. Not that I know.”

That time, if I had a chance to go back and do it, would I keep my eyes the way they are now?