His voice was firm, shoulders tense as he reached out, softly grabbing her hand and leading her back to the bed, letting her seat beside him as he glanced over at her, a small broken smile filling his lips, no…that wasn’t Ricardo…that wasn’t Ricardo’s smile.
"My name is The Story Teller, I was the one you first met here, the one with the rose in his hair, with the red cape"
He took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. “…Ricardo…is a very sick boy, mentally wise and now, physically too, you read it too…on how they treated him back at home. Bullied everyday, being called a freak, a mistake, a monster, a sinful child. Hell they called him a child of an affair…it’s not true…but from how so many people told him everyday…even he started to believe it”
He closed his eyes, continuing on. “His genes did something somewhat surprising and took the genes from his grandparents and from other generations, earning him with very dark skin, red hair and light blue eyes, this was all natural. It was odd, a genetic disorder people called it. And what’s worse, he looked nothing like his parents….actually…” Ricardo reached to his drawer beside the bed, grabbing his phone and unlocking it, showing the screen save to Leilani.
"Those two young adults are Rikki’s parents, completely nothing alike, so soon, it made sense to Ricardo that it might be true…after all, he was just a little kid. With the constant bullying, Ricardo started having episodes of depression at only the age of what…7…8..? And without him knowing, because of the constant trauma that everyone caused him, he developed a borderline personality disorder, along with anxiety which caused him to be delusional. That’s when me…or we I should say, were first born. After finding his diary, his parents got Rikki a…therapist you could say, it’s him right there."
Ricardo pointed at the third man who was crouching down with a grinning kid Ricardo. “…It must be weird…to be listening to all of this, but I want you to know all of it, we all do. In any case…this is Ricardo teacher, he taught him everything he knows now about being a carnivalist…he was Ricardo’s only friend for a while, his parents loved him…but…they were just so busy with work, they’re very important people after all. And because of that, Ricardo could never cause trouble or his family name would be ruined…so he could never stand up to anyone. But his teacher did, he stood up for Ricardo, he got so emotionally attached to him…” He breathed out heavily, covering his face with right hand as he gritted his teeth.
"…Valentino…he came along, he became Ricardo’s bestest friend, his only true friend, he became incredibly dependent on him and I don’t think Valentino minded that much…but then…aha…Mana came along…he made everything bad…he made Ricardo’s life hell…and just when he seemed it couldn’t get worse, Mana tripped him. Ricardo doesn’t remember this…but Mana…he fucking tripped him, and Ricardo fell into the road just as a car was coming…and then…and then Valentino…he…pushed Ricardo out the way…and…"
His shoulders, shook, even if he wasn’t fully Rikki, it was still painful…
"…Ricardo never got to see Valentino, Mana didn’t let him, no one let him, they all blamed him…aha…we don’t even know if Valentino ever made it out alive or not…but Ricardo seems to think he killed him. He was at breaking point here and we were growing more and more developed and well…the breaking point happened somewhere a month after Valentino was ran over"
He motioned to a picture at the back of his diary, tugging it out and showing it to Leilani. It was a picture of smaller Ricardo and his teacher…but wait…w-wait something was wrong…why…was his teacher…missing an arm….?
"Ricardo was attacked while walking home, beaten to the ground, his teacher came to his aid and well…he lost a lot…a barely conscious had to carry a unconscious bleeding man across town, screaming for help, but nobody helped, nobody, he had to drag himself over to a telephone machine to get an ambulance"
He looked down. “…His teacher lost his arm in the fight…and Ricardo…well he lost all self control, he broke, he turned…into that…and we became…separate identities…we tried to stop him…so the best we could do…is to make him forget…make him forget about the pain, and in time, Ricardo forced each one of us back into his head until he wore ‘our’ outfit. There’s a lot of us….me, The Story Teller, The Royal Plague, The Fateful Flowers, Monarch’s Justice, Clouds Lullaby, La Muta Servetta, Il Giocoliere Delle Stelle, Justice’s Rebellion, The Prince’s Mourn, Death Judgement…and then..there’s the Rotten Chesire…there’s most likely to be more that we don’t even know about…”
Ricardo glanced over to Leilani.
"Rotten Chesire was the one responsible for what happened with the murder and trial. He was the one at the last trial…though I think a bit of Ricardo slipped in through, he wouldn’t usually hug people…"
Ricardo let out a deep sigh as he covered his face.
"Lately…everything is breaking down..and we can’t make him forget a lot anymore…we’re loosing control and we’re all mixing with him again…and its just…"
"…Please…don’t blame him…"
He fell down onto his knees on the floor, bowing deeply in front of Leilani, forehead pressed up against the ground. “P-please…it’s all our fault…it’s…ours…Ricardo is a small broken child who’s torment will never end it seems…and even so…and even so…”
His shoulders shook as a small whimper came out.
“We do not want to our story to end…we do not want die,we don’t want Ricardo to die”