Title: The Whitest Days 1/? Author: ebonbird (ebonbird@h...) Summary: Ken is sixteen. Date: January 18, 2001 Archive: No Forward: No This story is exclusive to the gatch mailing list. Please do not forward or archive this story. All comments are welcome. Music that fed this story: The Sun Always Shines on T.V. - a-ha, Lovefool - The Cardigans, It's a Fine Day (ATB mix) - Opus 3 & Miss Jane, Venus As A Boy - Bjork, Da Girls Dem Sugar – Beenie Man; The Spy Who Loved Me - Aimee Mann, The Spy Who Loved Me - Carly Simon; Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground; Girls and Boys - blur, living a boy's adventure tale - a-ha, i've been losing you – a-ha ******************** 1. "dear, I fear we're facing a problem." --the Cardigans "Lovefool" Hana nobo were the peach flower blossoms, white ones, simple, plain and abundant, that filled Ken's hands like moth wings. He dropped them by the armful into the stream flowing beneath a slate bridge in MacArthur Park. They floated among paper dolls of pink and whites and crimsons and greens. Dolls thrown by girls and their families. Crude clay dolls made round, plopping sounds as they hit the water. Occasionally, a clump of peach blossoms softened the impact; or a clay doll landed on a paper one and drowned it fast. On Doll Day, always on the XXX week of March, families with girls Went to watersides and cast dolls into the water. They cast dolls Into water with the hopes of deflecting bad happenstance from their sisters and daughters. Ken sank into the sight of petals kissing their slow flowing reflections with full eyes. His face was reflected on the dull iron shimmer of the water in the moss green shade of the stone bridge. The heaven of white flower petals he rained down on it covered his expression, and carried him downstream. Above his reflected head and shoulders he could see the frost fuzzed tips of cherry trees yet to bud. It was early March, but still very cold, not Spring enough. The scent of blooming plum trees made bearable by smells of spring - softening earth and thawing ice run-off. The bucket of white blooms came from florists who'd separated pink peach flower blossoms from the white. The pinks were in high demand in early March because of the Doll Festival was coming. Even though Jun had moved out thirty days before, Nambu had elaborate dolls display up at his country-house and the bayside mansion. Air pollution was low today, for whatever reason, and chill cut-outs of blue sky were visible beyond the branches above him. They showed gray and silver against the blue. High. Ken thought as he looked down at his and the sky's reflection in the water. He tilted his face. His mouth became slack, opening as he lifted his gaze heavenward. His hands rose level with his shoulders. His buttocks tightened, his legs stretched, his feet arched until he perched on his toes, all the while his eyes unblinking. In a plane, any plane, he would be above pollution, above the clouds even, falling in sunlit purity, too fast for the earth to catch him with gravity. Clear glass canopy over him, holding him while with wonderful smoothness of motion he glided through space, sunlight and shadows playing on his banking, wheeling wings. His attackers thought they had him where they wanted him, the pretty-boy cadet tossing flower rejects into the water, the one in the good jacket and better shoes, acting weird enough to keep the families who had come MacArthur Park to float dolls down the stream and thus prevent disaster from befalling their daughters, edging away from the bridge where he stood. They'd averted their attention away from him even before the angry, humming young men arrived with an eye to do the private school boy damage. Ken broke three arms. The boys didn't press charges. Nambu would arrange to cover their medical bills. He always did. Ken would be penalized for fighting in uniform. He would be asked to formally withdraw from the flight academy. If so, this time, maybe, he would. Lowtown earned its reputation with its broken streetlights, empty phone booths, and busses and cars that zipped through traffic signals yellow and red. It also smelled. The police avoided it but Jun had chosen to live there. Ken watched her walk, noted that her legs, long for her height, looked uncommonly fine beneath her short skirt and shorter coat. Bait, Ken thought. She's looking like complete bait. Soon as Jun moved out she started wearing stupid things. He would have been happier to see her in a girl's school uniform, though in this section of Utoland City that had even worse connotations than the plastic skirt and furry jacket. Five blocks from the underground Jun slipped into an alley. Ken almost called out to her but she had her keys out. He heard them jingling. She found the right one on the second try. "You might as well come out, Ken," she said. "Gotta work on that 'shadow that slips in unseen.'" he said, at her shoulder. She squeaked in starlement and jerked. Her sparkled hair fanning out as pivoting, she grabbed him and forced him against the door. "Or maybe not," Ken gasped. "Hey." She pouted, her arm still across his chest. She had on make-up and smelled of at least three kinds of smoke and hard sweat. The guttering fluorescent sign cast a double outline on her features, blue-gray and black. Ken smiled, opening his hand and loosening her grip with the side of his palm. She let go of the fistful of shirt easily and gazed up at him. "I didn't expect you on my right," she said. Ken shrugged. "I wanted to see where you live." He leaned against the door, "This it?" "Yes. It's good to see you." Her eyes were happy, making him smile back. "You coming in?" "I, uh, have to get back. Nambu's going to worry. You know how he is." She nodded hesitantly. "You can still come back," Ken said. Jun dissected and reassembled him with a look. "But you don't have, to," he blurted. Heat was creeping up the back of his neck and his heart did an odd lurch. He almost apologized but her wide set eyes held him silent - that, and what he knew. Three weeks before he stood at the big picture window above Nambu's driveway, his nails scoring his biceps as Jun struggled with the heavy door of Nambu's stretch limousine. Barefoot, she'd pushed open the back door of Nambu's limbo. His bright pink lab coat was wrapped around her and she hadn't appeared to be wearing much under it. Her face had been horrible. She'd been so determined not to cry, but the tears kept coming down and there'd been a fading print of a large hand on her cheek. "I miss living with you," she finally said. "And Ryu. And Jinpei." Her tongue, pale, licked her heavily glossed lower lip. "They're coming over tomo--" "Can't. Homework." Her eyelids lowered. Her too wet, too shiny lips parted and her nose wrinkled. When she looked up at him, her eyes were bright. "Okay," Jun's eyes were sometimes blue and green. Green and brown. Green and gold. But they were just eyes. "So I'm leaving. Now." She nodded once, drew on a corner of her mouth. "You going to let yourself in?" Ken asked. She turned her back on him, turned the key in the lock, opened the door, stepped over the threshold and turned towards him. Her head was tilted down, and her hair, straight, sheeted over her face dark and sparkling. "Goodnight," Ken said. Jun bobbed her head up and down, without making eye contact with him, whispered, "Night," and shut the door. Ken lowered his chin to his neck, placed his tongue over his lower lip, and looked to either side of him said, "Weird girl." He started home before realizing that he was by himself in Lowtown. Much later, back at home – the bayside mansion - in the first aid room Nambu kept on the ground floor, Ken sat on the examining table. Dressed in the same pants and shoes he had been wearing earlier that evening, he was whistling and kicking his heels while unwinding a make- shift bandage from his arm. His whistling never changed tempo, not even when he began to peeled the material from where dried blood glued it to his skin. After he'd bandaged himself up, he gave himself a tetanus shot and went outside to watch the sun rise over the bay rather than return to bed. On the third day of only Ken, Ryu, and Jinpei training in the sublevels of the ISO, Ryu – prompted by Jinpei – asked for Jun's whereabouts. Nambu told them that Jun was undergoing special training. At the end of that morning's training module, Ken bowed to Nambu, as did Ryu and Jinpei. Unlike Jinpei and Ryu, however, he remained silent. By dinner time, it was clear, that in regards to Nambu, Ken had stripped all honorifics from his speech. Joe returned to Utoland earlier than expected. Ken encountered him in Nambu's waiting room. He would not have recognized Joe if not for the way he slept, all quiet angles and slack features, his fingers gripping his arms, closing them across his chest, his mouth open. His skin had burned to a strange brown - Ken waited for Joe to come home. He and Joe had exactly two important discussions when Joe came home. They sat the wrong way at a picnic bench, propping their elbows on the table – dipping hands into the sack on the bench between them. So they didn't have to see the changes in one another. "So," Joe said, when his hand dipped into the sack and came up with empty wrappers. "Chicken wings it is." They faced each other when Joe came back with the still crackling, grease-hot food. "So," Ken said, "gun-running in Kashmir?" "Not us. We were there to see who did what." "You mean we're not running guns in Kashmir?" Joe expression became unreadable, and Ken could read Joe but not always. It wasn't like that between them. It wasn't like that for Ken with anybody. And Joe smiled. Half-assed, but it was there, and he said, "you've been thinking." Ken nodded, his eyes closing. Joe said, "That's good to know. Kashmir was bad. Our part – my part - wasn't all good." His nostrils flared and he swallowed repeatedly. Guilt. Or something too close to it for his comfort. "Tell you what," Ken answered. "If we were the ones running guns, and I'm not -" "And you're not saying we are," Joe grinned. "If we were in charge," he raised his hand poised his fingers to snap hem. "It wouldn't be happening, one way or another." Joe replied. And they'd slapped one another's thighs, and reached for chicken wings, and laughed a little in companionable silence. "Lowtown's a bad place, Joe." Ken said. The second important conversations was about Jun. Joe's, "No one's gonna molest Jun," had Ken studying his face extra hard. "What?" Joe asked. "Choice of words," Ken replied. "When I heard Jun moved out, I came soon as I could. I wanted to make sure she was okay." Joe paused. Ken waited. Joe continued, "I followed her from work, late at night." "Like I did," "Like you did, but it was in the morning. And there were some kids, school toughs skipping, and they were hassling. They got off with her at her stop and they were talking a lot of shit -" "Like?" "Race shit. Like, `where'd she get eyes like that?' "I come outta nowhere. Told `em, `From our father. I cut his out for disrespecting her and ate them with sanbal oelek on toast.'" "They ran?" "After I beat `em up. Nothing she couldn't do." ******************** 2. "go on and fool me." --the Cardigans "Lovefool" Ken sat across from Joe in the commissary, trying not to look confused. For the third time that morning a female Ken suspected he was supposed to know gave him a funny look as she walked past their table. Ken looked away and rubbed the rim of his ear with his finger. He knew it was his time of the month. But pheromones and readiness did not explain the intense component to the stares he'd been catching all morning. "You forgot, didn't you?" said Joe, his voice an uncertain bass. Ken repeatedly pinched at his nostrils with his thumb and forefinger. "You're clean," Joe drawled. His newest thing was drawling when exasperated. Ken checked the button fly of his pants and found it closed. Joe unwrapped one of the several cellophane packaged white- chocolate animals and inserted it into his mouth. He chewed with his mouth open. Ken ignored him and examined his facts: he didn't have snot hanging out of his nose, and his fly wasn't undone, and he didn't look any different than usual. What was with the expectant looks he was getting? Joe sucked on his teeth loudly. Ken glared at him. "How many women gave you cookies and sweets and chocolates on Valentine's day this year, Ken?" Joe asked sweetly. Ken shut his eyes tight and brought his forehead on the table hard, startling nearby diners. "Shit," Ken said into the table. White Day. Valentine's Day was the 'one day in the year' when women could express their appreciation for the men in their lives by giving them sweets. White Day was the day those men paid `em back. On Valentine's day Jun had given him home-baked cookies. She had baked every guy she knew cookies, but she'd sprinkled red candy hearts on top of the chocolate glaze on his -- not Ryu's, or Joe's, or even Jinpei's or the Doctor. Not her coworkers at the cold lab, or that guy who was supposedly her boyfriend - and no one else's. Ken had noshed on enough of those cookies to know. They'd tasted bad, of course, but there'd been a certain nuttiness to the aftertaste that very well with hot coffee - and she hadn't been the only girl to give him stuff. Ken glanced at his watch: he had so much candy to buy, and so little time. Get out. Pick up some candy. Bring it back. Deliver it and Jun was way out of his way and, well - Jun was going to be disappointed, and the little prickle of anger that accompanied that thought was dulled by the realization that his oversight - he was never thoughtless - was going to hurt every woman who'd been so good as to get him cookies, or a cake, or a --- with lectures and simulator hours and training he barely had any time for himself let alone friends. Friends. Sometimes, when Ken looked at Jun it was like something was squeezing him right around his heart. He didn't want to kiss her, or hug her -- none of that. But sometimes, he really wanted to make her smile. She was so smart. It was funny weird, and a little funny ha, that, as smart as Jun was, she thought that he was the guy to make her happy. Ken hoped not, because when he looked at her --and even when he didn't -- and gave the idea of them some thought, he didn't want to. Even if he really liked her smile. It was hard not hugging Jun, or being careful not to touch her hands. He was a really physical person and sometimes he got a little angry that he had to change that for her, 'cause she'd take it the wrong way and, 'big problems for everybody.' But Ken didn't want to hug her and he really didn't want to kiss her. As much as he dug her smile and that stupid way of talking really girl when she was acting super-butch there were things about her that made him go, 'Nunh-unh. Not gonna go there.' She dreamed too much. It would be crowding out the all the colors of her eyes if he forgot that she had a humongous crush on him and acted like, well, a bud. Yeah, he guessed she was pretty, but it wasn't anything he'd get excited about. The girls that gave him that deep down warm itch were . . . different. There was Neet when they lived in Guam. Quarter-Japanese, half-Hawaiian, Chamoro girl with her small (his thumbs almost bracketed her belly-button!) waist and the really strong, really toned stomach she liked to show off with her tiny little cropped tops. Neet wore her straight super-black hair in brushy pigtails low on the back of her neck. They went swish swish when she turned her head, like skinny koosh balls. She whispered to her friends a lot, right in front of him, holding her hand with all its bracelets in front of her face to hide her braces -- her green eyes all speckled with gray, coffee-and-milk freckles splattered across the nonexistent bridge of her nose -- as she pretended not to be going out with him. Aside from that tiny waist Neet was shaped like a boy, and she didn't talk much and she moved like one; slouched a lot, and let her knees drop low when she walked. But when she danced she moved like all the girls who'd ever made a guy want to marry them for the way they moved, like belly-dancers and free-style gymnasts and Indian chicks swirling around Indian countrysides in crop-tops, two piece dresses or fancy jeans and bustiers as they smiled and gestured their way through huge dance numbers about love. Flips and somersaults and cartwheels and handstands Neet would go into, and all Ken wanted to do was watch her. Even though it was stuff he could do blindfolded with one arm broken, he couldn't help but stare. And all the while she was moving, to whatever was playing or her own internal beat, her face so serious like she was studying. But her happy was in her hands and in her shoulders, and sometimes when she'd pulled off a seriously difficult move, in a little smile that came and went so quick it was hardly any proof she knew how damn good she was at all. He never got that feeling with Jun. Ever. One day she was the kid to beat. Not the fastest or the strongest, no, that was him - but not by far. She made him sweat for every sixteenth of a second, every inch up the rope, every medal, every honor, and she did without the effort that made him want to throw up, and made his face white and ripply with the refusal to puke - and she did this barely breaking a sweat. One day Jun was the kid to beat. The next, she was this skinny, good-natured brain who wanted to kiss him. He pushed himself off the table and felt himself make a face. He stretched with a satisfying snap. Joe, who'd been sitting across from him, practicing his super- cool danger man poses, arched an eyebrow more dramatically than needed. Ken's rubbed his face, disguising a nose twitch. Joe, who didn't miss anything, tried to growl, "What?" but his voice decided to surprise the both of them by booming. "Aren't you a little old for that?" Ken asked innocently earning a perfect glare. "What'd you get Jun for her birthday?" "Jun has a birthday?" Taking the look on Joe's face to mean that Joe thought him an ass, Ken availed himself of the opportunity to practice understanding and examined his question for obvious stupidities. Okay, maybe it was stupid of him to have said so, but it wasn't like Jun knew with any certainty what day she'd actually shown up on planet Earth. "You're an ass," Joe said. Nobody understands my sense of humor, Ken thought. "Jinpei decided Jun's birthday is White Day." Joe said. Ken scowled. "You could have reminded me." "Try returning my messages." Ken looked away from Joe's decidedly disagreeable face and looked for pleasantness in his surroundings. A young women was walking past their shadowy section of the East dining hall with a tray in her hands. Ken noted the healthy amount of food piled on it, including the tall coffee and huge slab of cake, and her round little hips. Nice. She couldn't have been much over 1.5 meters, even in her heeled boots. Her face unremarkable, her hair dyed light, sorta brown, sorta blonde, red dyed wisps of it pulled forward over the full cheeks of her sharp face. Her skin wasn't great, she probably smoked like a migrant worker, but her dark eyes were shrewd. Joe, who was leaning his chair off the ground, had a straw in his mouth. He smirked when he saw where Ken's eyes were going. "Xiao-Chen Lu. Nice." Joe said. "You want I hook you up?" Scowling at him, Ken hooked his foot around the leg of Joe's chair and pulled it back to the ground. "No." "She's a nice girl." Ken crossed his arms over his chest. "Have you been with her?" "What?" "If you haven't been with her, sure I'll go out with her." "You're offensive." "Tell me you haven't been with her." "Men don't answer that." Ken rolled his eyes. Joe pursed his lips. "Listen, Ryu and I are goin' over tonight. I got her something. Ryu got her something. You get her something and you come." Ken told himself he was not going to get angry. He was not going to get angry. Super cool danger man smirked. "Can't," said Ken. "My father left me an airstrip." "You mean the kind you land planes on?" "Yep. Thought I should go see it today. And I have a simulator module this afternoon. The class is starting flight dynamics and I've got some things to do before then." "Can't argue with flight school," Joe said. "You need a ride to the airstrip?" "I'll take the bus in, thanks." Joe snorted. "Suit yourself." ***************** 3. "...always should be someone you really love." --blur "Girls and Boys" "Chocolate?" Ken squeaked hopefully at the cashier in the gift shop. He frowned momentarily at the sound of his voice. "I'm very sorry," responded the cashier, "We're out. White day." He pulled out his wallet, opened it and coaxed five bills into his hand. "Nothing in the stockroom?" "Nothing. So sorry," she said. "That's really too bad. All my chocolate melted in my car. My g - my aunt is going to be heartbroken." The cashier wrinkled her nose at him blankly, then grinned. "I've seen you around, and I've seen you around the base with your girlfriend." She smiled, "You two been together long?" Ken blinked. The cashier spoke of Jun, of course, but like most people she assumed it was romantic. "Since we were kids. But it's not like that." Knowingly the cashier replied, "Only because I love love I'll help you out. I do have one bag of Hershey's kisses, but I was reserving it for another customer." "Thanks." With a sideways glance, she rang up the bag of candies and named a price three times the amount on the register display. "For me?" squealed Dr. Nambu's assistant, Bea, putting her hands to her fair cheeks. "Oh, Ken, thank you!" He shrugged, "It's the, well, I appreciate you, and you're always . . ." he shrugged placing the five Hershey kisses he'd knotted in pink cellophane on her desk. "Happy White Day," he mumbled. Beatrice folder her arms flat on the table, looking up at him with dancing eyes. "You're such a good boy, Ken." "Thanks." He wasn't going to kick the carpet next to her desk. "You really are." She batted her eyelashes at him, revealing the false folds she'd had cut into her eyelids. She had to be thirty, at least, and maybe five Hershey kisses was immensely stupid of him. "You're such a dear child," she purred through her teeth. "It was nothing. Really." Tilting her right shoulder, she folded her right hand below her chest, flipped her free arm up at the elbow and extended her index finger. Her smile became feline. "You remembered; far from nothing." And Ken, as intended to, thought, nice rack. There were several awkward moments where Ken thought that maybe he'd said that out loud, but they were forgotten when Bea placed an enormous, fancy wrapped package on the desk. It was shining white, shining, covered with sparkling spirals and tied off with an white lace bow shot through with kiwi-gummi green threads. "You're going to be seeing Jun, aren't you?" asked Bea. "Yes." "Will you make sure Dr. Nambu's gift gets to her?" Ken fled, with a promise to get the gift to Jun and mumbled words that he had more White Day gifts to give. After he'd dispensed with the bag of candy, Ken wondered what it was about him that affected women the way it did. He'd started out giving five candies a piece, and a smile and thanks. He felt very grateful whenever he couldn't find a female on his list and could leave a post-it note with a to: and from: written on it with a single kiss. A bag of candy wasn't going to cut it for Jun, Ken realized, walking to the main exit. He wore his sunglasses, so as to avoid any other glances. He hoped the chocolate swirled through the white chocolate wouldn't turn around and be a burden to him. His feelings, for everyone really, were mostly platonic. It was a little funny, sad, and a little funny, haha, that he could only count on the finger of one hand the girls that he really liked romantically. He tugged on the lace bow adorning the package Bea had given him to give to Jun. He needed Joe. Balancing the gift package in his right hand, he dug a red cellphone out of his pocket with his left. Knowing the placement of the numbers by memory, he dialed Joe. ***************** 4. "Nothing is wasted, only reproduced" -- blur "Girls and Boys" Ken went against the current, outpacing the suited people milling through the ISO's main entryway to start the business day. Ken balanced Jun's gift on his palm, pizza style, and placed his other hand against the pristine smoked glass door, ignoring the brushed metal handle. The energy coiled at the base of his spine tingled out of his gloved hands and he pushed the cantilevered doors open into the morning. Wincing, he reached into his breast pocket with his index finger, pulled free his sunglasses and snapped them open. He put them on one-handed and trotted down the stairs. Joe leaned against a London racing green coupe with his arms folded across his chest. From behind his sunglasses Joe smirked at Ken, ignoring the uniformed security guard's demands that he move the car. Ken glanced over his shoulders and faced the relentless sky. Venus sparkled above the horizon and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Every shadow shadow he could see was sharp-edged. Visibility had to be a hundred percent. 2.5 was getting louder by word. "-whose car it is, you cannot park here!" "We're leaving now." Ken told the guard. "What's that?" Joe asked, as Ken set the gift-wraped package in the tiny backseat. "I thought you needed to get something for Jun?" Securing the package with the seatbelt, Ken answered, "I do need to get Jun a present." Ken's stomach rumbled. "Do you have any food?" "No, I don't have any food. We just ate breakfast." "I'm hungry." "You sound like Ryu." Joe said, hopping over the door and into the driver's seat. He reached over and unlocked Ken's door. "What's with the present?" Tightly, "Nambu's assistant asked me to take it to her." "Bea," Joe leered."What a rack on that woman." "Will you do it?" "And what about the present you have to buy Jun?" Ken fastened his seatbelt, "We're still getting it --" "I'm not loaning you any money." "--I'm not so sure I'll be able to come by tonight. I'll give it to her tomorrow or, or, you can give it to her tonight. "I still have a module this afternoon and coach might let me practice." For a beat Joe glared at him, four months in the field adding to the weight of Joe's eyes. Four months of field experience Joe had over Ken. And those months, Ken knew from eavesdropping on Joe's dreams, were darker than dried blood, but that wasn't the reason for Joe's stare. While Joe had been gone he'd written a letter a day, five a week: one to Jun, one to Jinpei, one to Ryu, one to Ken and one to Nambu. He managed to call on birthdays and sent timely gifts. "Say it." Ken breathed. Joe turned on the car radio, set the volume loud enough to drown out thought and muttering under his breath, drove Ken to Utoland's only Mannings. Ken found nothing in Mannings, the chemist variety store, that either he or Joe thought suitable for Jun's birthday. At Joe's insistence they tried the nearest Sa Sa Cosmetics. "How do you know there's one nearby?" Ken asked. "It's not really that close, but it's got the best inventory." Once inside, Ken reeled under the assault of dark pink carpeting and striped pink wall hangings, purple pink vases and mauve pink 'buy 3 get 1 free' signs. Long waist-high black laquer shelves of lipsticks, nailpolishes, perfumes, and lotions made dizzying barriers to the 'special gifts' section, but Ken made it there without breaking or spilling a thing. Joe stood in front of a display counter, holding long, white, stiff sample tabs between the knuckles of his left hand while he sprayed colognes in the air and sniffed into the clouds. The person who offered Ken help had a perfect oval of a face, dark almond shaped eyes, and pale skin made flawless and white by thick makeup. Her tea dark hair was pulled back in an French knot and long twisty locks of it dangled from her temples. He was staring. "Would you like some help," she asked politely. "Uh - Yes!" "He needs a gift for a friend, a good friend," drawled Joe from his shoulder, "and he doesn't know what to get her." Ken shrugged helplessly. "'Cause she's a girl," Joe confided. Ken elbowed him. Joe anticipated the movement and grabbed the attacking arm. "So anyway you could help would be appreciated." The salesgirl's closemouthed smile stretched. "She's one of my best friends." "What does she like?" "Pink?" Ken said. "He's not sure," Joe said simultaneously. "Joe." Ken said, at the end of his patience. "If you need me, 'Florence'," Joe said, reading her name tag. "Florence," Joe said, caressing her name, and smiled. "I'll be in the men's section." Ken watched Florence the shopgirl watch Joe saunter away. When she returned her attention to Ken her eyes were sparkling. He supposed he would have seen a blush if it weren't for all the make-up she was wearing, but she did have her own cute thing going for her. Ken bit back a smile and gave her a knowing look. "Well," he said. "I was trying to think about something a girl would never get for herself." "We have some very nice jewelry?" "NO!" Florence leaned back on her heels. "Not even a watch?" Ken shook his head, "Something less . . . it's complicated. I don't want to make it more complicated." Florence raised a slim finger to her lips. "I think, I think I'm going to have to refer you to this little place off of Rope Walk. Do you know how to get to Rope Walk?" "My friend does." "There are lots of little things, some antique, some not, but you'll be sure to find something there that you'd like for friend who is a girl but not a girlfriend." * * * The drive was a fairly long one, taking them out of Utoland City. Joe drove quickly but carefully along Bird of Paradise Causeway where grown men - who would have been working if work was to be had - fished. The sun shone so hard that Ken shielded the top of his glasses with his hands and let wind sling his hair into his face. As loud as the radio played, the wind snatched it away faster than enhanced hearing. The thirty minute voyage was interrupted by the carphone ringing. Joe turned down the radio volume. It was Nambu demanding to know their whereabouts and what Joe was doing with his car. "Taking Ken to go buy a present for Jun." Joe said. 'Oh. Today is her birthday, isn't it?' "You already got her something, Hakase," Joe said with a grin. "Dinner's at 0700 if you want to come." Ken and Joe were out of their element in the Antique District. But Florence the shop girl had given surprisingly good directions. The shop was filled with hat racks, fancy door knobs, and desk accesories. The standing time pieces, especially, caught Ken's eye but he was fairly certain that Jun would only take one apart. Blown glass vases and crystal bowls, essential oil diffusers and stained glass candle holders sparkled prettily as well, and Joe gravitated to those, but Ken was certain that those were things Jun already had. None of them moved him honestly he noticed a small and sparkling chunk of crystal. "How much is that paperweight?" Ken asked, pointing over the proprietor's shoulder. The proprietor was a large man who spoke with a heavy American accent. He wore a headband with a light attached to it, and the thick skin of his face was heavily seamed. "Oh, that's another time piece," Bangerter replied, taking it down. "Carved rose quartz base, precision time keeping equipment. See those squiggles? They're stylized hearts cut into the crystal. You're holding two pieces of fused semi-precious stone. Clear as water. You're looking at a true object of art young man." The star-shaped gleaming pink face of the watch was abalone, the silver-blue blue swirl numberals were carved from paua shell, the three tiny hands glimmered like silver. Jun could probably never take apart because it was so beautiful, and if she wanted to she just might not be able. "The time piece is Cartier." Bangerter said, squinting at him. Ken had no idea what he meant. Translated into real money it was worth more than Ken was prepared to pay. He could probably pick up a crystal clock at Shoemart and be done with if for a whole lot less. Joe said nothing as they left the store, Ken empty-handed. They walked in companionable silence, Ken rummaging in his pockets for stray hershey's kisses, when they reached the Shoemart discount department store. They found Ken's present to Jun in the home furnishings section; a pink tinted glass clock with a plain white face silver plated numerals and hands. "It's nice," Joe said of the pink tinted glass clock Ken bought while the salesman wrapped it in four long layers of floral printed tissue. Ken told Joe he'd take the bus into Utoland proper. Joe didn't ask if Ken would make it to Jun's dinner or not. ***************** 5. "his wicked sense of humor suggests exciting sex" ~~Bjork 'Venus as a Boy' The electrics made a soft whining sound when they accelerated and decelerated, and it amused Ken to figure out velocities and trajectories in his head. When he got on, there were two girls sitting side-by-side near the front of the bus. One had blue hair and fantastic legs, shown off by her tiny shorts. Had it been a hot day, the vinyl seats would have scalded her butt, Ken guessed. The other, who'd done something retarded to her hair, wore enormous jeans and a backwards baseball cap that had the cartoon frog, Kero Kerope on it; an oversized green banded Kero Kerope watch circled her tiny wrist; a light green Kero Kerope back-pack rested on the knees of her dangling legs and a green sparkle stud was set at the right corner of her wide-set black eyes. Ken took a seat in the back, pushed his shades onto the top of his head and waited. He knew he wouldn't have to wait for long. He never did. What happened to young girls with class? He hadn't had many girlfriends, but Neet had been indefinable, elusive, she kept so much hidden. He hadn't known how crazy for love-stuff she'd been until they'd not-dated for a week. And then there was Dalila Lina Hanan, whom he'd met the summer before he'd gone to Guam in Boracai. She'd been Deena to the Americans, Dalilalina-kun to everybody else - except him. Ken couldn't put two words together when she smiled at him, and she had a smile for everybody. So he'd scowl and run away, so that people, even Ryu, who'd leaned over and whispered 'bowel movement' the first time he saw her and got an elbow in his fat stomach for the insult, thought Ken couldn't stand the sight of her. Her name meant beautiful tender mercy. Ken could not say hello in American, Japanese, Arabic or anything. Anything. And he was good with languages. Once he managed to poke two of his fingers up by his waist when she looked over at him from her swim locker and he blushed. For a hot minute she'd tilted her head, the rope of her strange hair down over her yellow Dive Camp Boracai T-shirt, and then she'd smiled, knocking him out with how white her teeth were in contrast to her purplish lips. Dalilalina-chan's skin was beautiful. And yes, it was dark brown, but not the color, as Ryu who was usually so cool implied, of shit. She smelled like cookies. Dalilalina-chan had something that was hair on top of her head, but Ken couldn't figure it out. When she ducked her head beneath the waves her hair didn't soak straight, and it didn't soak curly. Water beaded all over the top of her head like mercury. He wanted to touch it. She was skinny and tall, and her belly button was like someone had snipped off the top of a fishhook and pushed it against her stomach. Small, he saw it at Intro to Scuba when Dalilalina-chan's sister, Falaq, took them snorkeling by Borocai. She wore a green two-piece covered with shimmery light green outlines of fish. The last day, after he'd received his diving certificate from Dalilalina-chan's sister, he'd sat at her table, kicking his legs as he tried to figure out exactly what it was about the way she did handstand jumps off the dock that made the back of his neck so hot, and other parts of his body so . . . other things. When she got up to go to the bathroom he decided to take a leak, too, and between the girls and guys bathrooms, beneath the high poplars told her that he 'really, really liked her'. She'd liked him, too. Rolling her eyes and whirling in a half circle, hands clasped together and held to her chest. Ink-drop eyes opened wide. "Really? Really, really, really, Ken-chan?" She had the cutest accent, country girl, from living on the USAF Okinawa base. And he'd nodded so hard it'd made him dizzy. Deena giggled and they skipped the rest of dinner. Walking down to the shore of the beach and sat facing each other, pushing sand up onto one another's toes as the sun went down. Twelve years old and he finally figured out why Joe was such an idiot when it came to girls. Ken's face hurt so much from all that smiling, and when she took his hand in hers and kissed his cheek, he promised himself then and there that liking a girl and her liking him back was the best kind of secret in the world. Both of them were good kids and it was the last day of camp, so neither one of them got into trouble for skipping dinner. When the Small World bus came to pick him and the other ISO camp kids up, Ken cried --- inside, where no one could see, but his chest hurt all the same. After a minimum of nudging, Short-shorts and Froglover flopped down into the double-seater across the aisle from him, with giggles and a flouncing of jackets and legs. Public transportation, Ken reflected, was indeed the way to get laid. They stared at him, whispering to one another. *Oh God, are his eyes really that blue?* *Do you think he's Japanese?* *Blue BLUE eyes, stupid. He's not Japanese.* Leaning his head against the windows, Ken let his eyes go increasingly blank. He fixed an image of Dalilalina-chan in his mind. She had one eye shut tight and the other peeking just a little as he'd leaned in for a kiss, his fingertips on her soft cheek, just like he'd seen in the movies. *Do you speak Japanese?* Froglover asked. Ken raised his arms over his head. Stretched. Short-shorts leaned against Froglover and snickered. Ken slouched lower in his seat and let his thigh jiggle a little in his tight jeans. Froglover shrieked into her hand. *Don't look! Don't look!* admonished Short-shorts. And Froglover said back something rude and very cute and pretty racist. Ken snorted, tilted his head at them, mouthed in perfect Japanese, "I understand my language perfectly well." For one glorious moment Froglover and Short-short's went big eyed and wet-opened mouth. "You speak Japanese!" they chorused in English. In Japanese Ken replied, 'I didn't see when I came in, but I've been wondering if your seats are as cute as your faces.' Short-shorts covered her face with her hands, yanked her feet onto her chair and screamed. Froglover leaned forward, bleached hair flopping forward into her wide true-black eyes. She had a mouth like a butterfly on its side. "Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked. ***************** 6. "And I had so much time to sit and think about myself And then there she was, like double cherry pie Yeah there she was, like disco superfly" -- Marcy Playground 'Sex and Candy' Guys had them, too --times of the month and it was his. He also told himself that he was only sixteen and really couldn't be expected to behave differently, not when opportunity slid her foot up his leg and onto his crotch. His name was Ken Washio, and he liked to think that all things considered, he was a really nice guy. Her name was Aoi Shimura - he'd been calling her Froglover -- and she kissed like a girl, a girl who was way less experienced than she talked, a girl who was very young, and not particularly gentle. And he didn't want love-marks. Ken pulled his head back. Pushed on her throat gently with three of his fingers when her mouth followed his and brushed his knuckles softly against the pulse in her throat. They were on her futon, a big one, in her parents' room. She, and Short-shorts had bought him a coffee and brought him there. Short-shorts was probably watching them through a hole in the wall or closed circuit television. Pervert, he thought, and kissed her. Her eyes fluttered shut, and he moved his hands to keep them shut. She was a sight. Her fried hair was a mess, bleach on top of perm and very dry, but he was loving the smell of it. All of her was apple scent KissMe, her hair, the crook of her neck, the crease of her chest against her arm. So he did, put his mouth all over her, seeking the KissMe apple pulse and there was another smell of something flowery and powdery from the make-up hastily blended at her jaw-line. She was just one good flowery scent on top of the other, powdery, flowery, overwhelming, and she was so hot for him he could smell that, too. She caught him looking. "What?" she asked, scratching below the green sparkle jewel by her right eye with her babyish ring finger. Ken couldn't help but smile at her uncertainty. She crossed her arms over her chest as if she were shy of being naked. He was, not shy, no, but bare like ready for the bath. "What?" she asked, even more bashful and he grinned wider. She'd touched him all over with a hurried, grasping, greedy series of touches and his clothes had gone the way of her shirt when she'd pushed him on the futon on the floor. He kissed her. Balanced on his left leg and arm, his knees touching her along her legs. He waited for her fingers, bloodless as they gripped her shoulders, to go back to their normal color. He alternated touching her thigh and hip with touching himself. Their skins were studies in porcelain but they were far from the same. He could tan, she never would, but where the sun hadn't touched either of them she was illicit pinks and hidden reds and he white as jade. She ate up his kiss, leaned in for seconds and thirds. She shifted her weight towards him, released herself. Her hands, falling from her shoulders, left fading finger marks on her skin. The she was touching him, too. Their knees bumped, his were scarred. Bearing down on his thighs with her palms she pushed him onto his back and got her leg over him. He grinned, grabbed her thigh and pulled it higher over his leg, brought his hand to a point on her knee, opening it slightly. She wasn't ticklish but his chest was making her crazy and she was dipping her head to suck on his curves and dips and hollows. Proud with muscle it invited the good stuff, reverence and play, his pecs more of a mouthful than the nipples atop flat skin that were her breasts. She found a spot he'd hadn't been aware was sensitive, a mole which he decided, as his head lowered and a groan built in his breast, had to be another nipple and oh, he put his hand to the back of her head, and held her there. The hotter it got, she got, the more her natural odor burned through the perfumes. And her mouth circled and fluttered in that same spot. And her small hand was over his. And cold wound out from around the almost nipple like microscopic barbed wire and he bucked up off the floor, nudged her thigh with himself. She froze a little, from the waist down, but he wasn't feeling it. Fingers hard enough to mark on the back of her neck he babbled, "Hard, harder, yes, girl. Oh, Aoi, aoi, aoi, do me, bite, harder." She did. He had his arm beside her head, and her eyes were so into him, and he was pulling on himself, and they were still mostly side to side and he was ready to mount up. Her racy, lacy panties were caught around one ankle. He liked it there, stroking between her smooth, oh so soft, inexpressibly soft, killer fantastic legs with the palm and the back of his hand. She'd liked it, was liking it, hadn't expected to like it so much, and she was trembling more from hesitation than on the verge of the big O. "I can't do this," Aoi blurted. Okay. She was a tease. He said, "Fine." "You're mad at me?" Hell yes, he thought, but said, "Don't worry about it." "You are mad at me." He ran his fingers through his hair. "You're putting me in a tight spot." he admitted. Her eyes downcast, she brushed his knuckle with the tip of a green painted finger nail. Her breathing was still a little wonky. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm really sorry. "Hey," he whispered. A drop of sweat rolled down his nose, by the curve of his nostril and landed on her cheek. He brushed it dry with his thumb. "It's okay." She immediately started sucking on that thumb - then other, dizzying things, and her hand got busy, real busy, but still hesitant, still a little shy. The same girl who'd been frankly staring between his legs, wanting to figure what he had going on in his jeans had an uncertain grip. He broke their kiss wetly, taking her hand away. "Are you sure," he said slowly. "Because if you're not and we start again, I'm going to be furious." She took him in hand, biting her lip at the feel, and heat and hardness of him. "Harder?" she asked. "Relax," he said. "Don't worry about me." And he caressed the upper wing of her butterfly mouth with his. She reached for him again. He whispered, "No. We don't have to," while running his fingers along her sides, resting her fixation against her hip. Her eyes were wide. Her hand reaching for it. "Slow down," Ken said. Her palm lighted on his stomach, stayed, then along his side, onto his chest and over his nipple. He turned on his back guiding her atop him. Her legs were tightly closed alongside his leg, but her scant chest pressed into his. Sooner rather than later she had a leg up over him, and was kissing him hard, her eyes squeezed so tight he was sure she was enduring rather than enjoying. Until she pulled sharply away from his questing fingers, her legs scissoring closed on his hand. "I just," she said. He counted to ten, and when he was still angry he opened his eyes and studied her outrageous, overgenerous mouth which was closing around him. His head whipped back at the feel of her so hard that when it hit the futon he saw lights. He swore but she was good, and the pain faded with all the blood rushing to his lower anatomy. One of her arms circled his back, the other braced on the floor, and she locked her legs over his. Then she was up, and lying atop him, her hands planted on either side of his face as she wriggled and kissed his taste back into his mouth. It was close, very close, and he was butting up against her, almost but not quite slipping into her, his hands on her hips as he let her renegotiate this thing. But when he thought he was in, and was going to stay in, she grabbed hold of him and literally palmed him. She shifted her weight off of him and onto her knee and kneeled up. "What the hell?" he asked his eyes snapping open. "I'm sorry, I can't. I'm . . . " He sprang up, still hard, and with the flat of his foot shoved her onto her knees. He was on her before she could get up. Reached underneath her right arm, grabbed her left wrist, and pulled it across her ribs/chest and back to her right side. He leaned on her left side, and pushed slightly sideways pinning her arm underneath her body while pushing at her standing elbow with his knee. She shrieked. "YES!!" he cried, throatily then hissed into her ear, "Shut up." He hoped Short-shorts wasn't as much of a pervert as he'd thought. Pinning the girl's left hand with his knee, he pulled her right arm under and across her body. When both her hands were pinned beneath his knees and he was straddling her back, erection digging into her backside, he asked her. "Just how stupid do you think I am?" She coughed, sobbed really, into the futon and he shook his head, reached for the telephone cord connecting the phone to the wall. Ripped it out, and tied her hands together behind her and forced her chest into the ground. It took seconds. She'd had plenty of opportunity to get away from him but she hadn't taken any of them. She probably didn't know the first thing about self defense. "I could do anything I want to you, right now," he said conversationally, and leaned forward making it harder for her t o breathe. Her breath hitched. She was going to scream. "Hold that breath," he said, "Or I'll hurt her too." She held that breath. "How often do you play this game?" he asked conversationally. Pick-up some ass hole and torture him, throw back into the street all hard and shit." "I wasn't-I just-we just-I-you-please-don't-" "You keep their clothes as trophies?" She moaned, "I'm sorreeee." He slipped his hand between her legs and found her still wet. He grabbed her mound and squeezed. She swallowed a yelp and began to pant. She was going to hyperventilate herself into unconsciousness. "Shhh," he said, "shhh, shhhh. I won't hurt you, Aoi. Just want you to calm down, think about what we're doing, okay?" "No, no, no, I'm a virgin," - Ken laughed -"Please-" "Call your friend." "She's not supposed to come in -" he squeezed his handful of her hard. "HURRY!!" Aoi shrieked and the door burst open. Short-shorts, Risa! That was her name, coming in with a tennis racket of all things raised too high above her head. Ken planted a foot in her gut and sent her against the wall, knocking loose a glass framed print. Risa didn't get up. Aoi wept in earnest while he tied up Risa-Shorts-shorts. "You silly bitches," he said standing over both of them when he'd knotted their bonds as well as the slippy cords allowed. "Do you have any idea how dangerous this kind of shit is? Picking strange men off the street?" Hard breathing. A quiet sob. "What if I was a psycho or something?" Neither girl was in any condition to respond. They were shaken. Shaking. Aoi was moaning quietly, shutting her eyes and appealing to the gods, probably. Risa, still in short-shorts, was quiet. Tea was the next course of action. He'd go to the bathroom. Jerk off. Make them some tea -- "It was my idea," said Risa-Shorts-shorts. "Let Aoi go-" Aoi was shivering. Ken narrowed his eyes, reaching for her wrist to take her pulse. It was thready and her eyes were rolling back into her skull. "Shit," he said and started untying her. "Aoi, Aoi, it's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you." "You were gonna, gonna kill me, us," Aoi hiccuped, she was shaking, too. "Do I look like a murderer?" Ken asked, undoing her bonds, still hard as a rock, leaking pre-cum and beyond annoyed at the pair. "If I was serious about hurting either one of you I would not have tied you up with telephone cord. Look at Risa's ankles, it's already coming undone." ******************** 7. "the crazed and lonely looks the mirror's sending me these days" -- a-ha "the sun always shines on t.v." After shutting the bathroom door the second time, Ken pressed his ear against it, listening for movement from the other side. He heard footfalls. The floor shifted beneath his feet. He heard footfalls moving on. Realizing he held a warm tea cozy in his hand, he chucked it away violently. The bathroom walls of Aoi's or Risa's -- or was it Nina's? -- apartment compressed the chemical-floral scented air him. He pressed the light switch and amber tinged light surprised him with its artificiality. The sound of the whirring fan that had started when he had turned on the light only made it more crowded. His reflection . . . He stared at it like it didn't belong to him. He stared at the blue eyes - his mother's eyes, thick dark-brown hair - black in the bathroom's poor lighting, there was nothing wrong with his nose, chin, forehead - his skin good, but dirty. Lipstick on his chin, foundation and smeared eyeshadow discoloring his chest and stomach. He sniffed hard, harder. Tendons stood out on his neck as he brought up phlegm. He spat into the sink without looking away from his eyes. He turned his chin, his mouth adopting a disgusted set when he spied a long blemish, not lipstick but the beginnings of a hickey, along his throat. Using his wrists, he turned on the hot water, let the steam rise up and eat away at his reflection before leaning his face into the moist hot air. With the flat of his wrist he pressed down on the soap pump. Soap jetted out of the transparent spout, liquid, long and white. He jumped back, not fast enough and soap streaked across the sink, across his stomach and arn. He followed the path of the soap from pump, to sink, to him, and to the door where it appeared as a yellowish smear. "Shit," he gritted, holding onto the sides of the sink and fighting sudden dizziness. When it passed he was rubbing his goose-flesh arms, his ear pressed against the bathroom door. 'Condoms,' he realized and in a fury punched the top of his head. He restored darkness and silenced the fan with a flick of his index finger on the light switch. It was quiet on the other side of the door. He turned on the lights, plunged his hands into the steaming water. It hurt before his hands went numb. His hands clean and sopping, he reached for the toilet tissue. He balled masses of it in his hands then dumped the wet wad into the trash. He grabbed feet of tissue and wiped down his smeary chest, scrubbed out his pits. He reached for the teal towel suspended from the clear wall rack, He hesitated, his mind full of everything he'd been doing, and what he'd been about to do; cyanic lips; sickening offers; tea. He took the towel in hand, dampened it and swabbed down his face, neck, hands, everything. By then the water he used was cold. His shirts went on post haste, the flimsy white cotton-blend sticking grey on his damp spots. His jeans felt wrong as he pulled them on. He could barely get them past his knees. He hopped up and down, forced them higher and higher until he got them over his butt. He glared at the fly, which was an obscene v-shaped frame over his redwings on blue underwear. All his jeans were button-fly; most of the buttons long gone. Turning his back to the mirror over the sink he jumped high and looked over his shoulder. A green and white kero kerope label beamed at him from his denim covered right cheek. He yanked down Aoi's pants fast enough to rip off leg hair. That hurt. He struggled into his pullover, stuffed his arms into the sleeves of his roomy jacket, fixed his collars and estimated the size of the bathroom's window. In socks, shirt, jacket, but no pants, Ken padded out of the bathroom. He passed the kitchen/family room and saw no sign of the girls. The door leading to the outside hallway was closed. There he picked up his shoes by their tied laces. In the bedroom, on the big futon folded up against wall, was the sad pile of his jeans. He hefted his jeans. They were lighter by his wallet and he knew the girls were gone. He slapped his jacket pocket and was glad to feel his cash and VIP Utoland Credit card. Snatching up his shoes, Ken pelted for the bathroom. He went through the door shoulder first, leapt for the bathroom windowsill, tossed his jeans four floors down, grabbed his shoes by their laces, and followed. The wind tearing through his hair and against his kicking legs was brisk. Wonderful. He landed as he should, his sock dragging on the asphalt and coming off his heel. A cat nosed near the dumpster and an old man was pissing in the corner. He wet the cat as he turned to stare at Ken who only grinned and pulled on his jeans. Ken ran, his shoes swinging from his crooked left arm. ******************** 8. "the sun always shines on t.v." -- a-ha 'the sun always shines on t.v." From the twenty to the eighty blocks, all of Harbin Street's bright blue telephone booths had water-resistant telephone books. Having dialed the telephone number for the front desk of the Academy, Ken pressed the phone against his shoulder with his ear. He hoped he had left his cell-phone in Joe's car but he doubted it. Having dialed the number four times before and getting a busy signal each time, he was certain that Aoi and Risa had taken it along with his wallet. The ringing stopped and someone picked up the extension. "Good afternoon. Marshall School," said a woman. "Miss Sessions, this is Ken Washio. Would you please put me through to Instructor Bennings' voice mail?" Silence. "Miss Sessions?" He heard three clicks and a dial-tone. One ring, two rings, three rings, four. A taxi with a broken muffler pulled up beside him. Noisome smoke sank to the ground and stickied over the sidewalk, gathering around Ken's feet. He lifted one foot. Five rings. The taxi pulled away from the curb. Six rings. A light drizzle began, microscopically beading Ken's hair. It caught and reflected the bright sunlight, sparkling on his head and eyelashes, dampening his shoulders. "Speaking," said Instructor Bennings. "Sir, this is Ken Washio." "What can I do for you?" No cadet, Ken thought. Fine. Deep breath. "I was wondering if I could reschedule this afternoon's module, sir." "That's most irregular, Washio." ". . . I know sir, but something's come up. My wallet's been stolen and I'm without transportation." Ken's hand was gripping the curved side of the telephone booth. The red on red lcd displayed 12h01. "That does put you in a difficulty. And where are you, son?" Leaning against a phone booth as far as a person could be from the Marshall School and still be on the island. "Harbin Street." "Harbin Street?" "Y-yes, sir." "I don't need to tell you that if you hadn't been suspended you wouldn't be on Harbin Street with neither wallet nor transportation." "No sir," Ken did his level best to keep his voice respectful. "You don't." "But I am! Washio, the terms set by the disciplinary committee were very clear." "I'm aware of that, sir." "I don't think you are," Instructor Bennings said. "If you cannot make it to your 1:30 make-up, you have your guardian contact the Dean's office." "I - " "What is it? Speak up!" Ken depressed the hook with his finger, listened to the three-beat interrupt tone. He hung up. His weightless hand pressed the phone over his finger, and his finger slipped out from under it. Looking upwards toward the rain, suddenly, Ken longed to be kissed. * * * Ravenous, Ken cut through Casca Park, heading for a kisatsen that made excellent omelets. Casca Park had a race track, a baseball diamond, and a water-ski course. From late spring to early fall people skied around one of the smaller lakes in a wide oval that corresponded to the motorized zip-line suspended from poles set on shore. Ken skirted the very edges of the lake. The grass was silvery. It hadn't been very long since it had been covered by snow. He headed for a stand of creaking bamboo. The sky above him was clear. The sun blazing. He knew that if a pilot flew high enough, he could see the stars at noon; but his longing, unusually sharp that day, was tempered by memories of searching for early Spring herbs with his mother on the first warm day of the season. A year ago, he would have stopped and found some bamboo, but the thought of the taste was somehow off-putting. A little after 1220, Ken slid onto a stool in the corner of the shadowy kisatsen that was on the south side of Casca Park, just off Harbin Street. "Hey," said the server, tapping her order pad once with her pencil, "Rice omelets?" "Yeah," Ken answered. "Two coming right up." He grinned, revealing uneven teeth, "I almost didn't recognize you out of uniform. You cutting class, again?" he joked. "You got me," Ken said with a grin nowhere near as genuine as it looked. "And your little girlfriend?" Ken shook his head, as if unsure of whom the server was asking. "The girl cadet with the big appetite." Ken chose that moment to look over his shoulder and check out the other diners. He failed to recognize any of the patrons, but usually at that time he was in school. Ken righted himself and saw that the server had gone to place his order. The server had to have meant Shizumi Park, a second year honor's student, like himself, and one of three girls attending the Marshall School. Both omelets came and he devoured the first, hardly tasting it. Good Afternoon Utoland blared on the television. The speaker's voice was the sort that most people stopped to listen to. It loosened up dour expressions eye muscles first. The scenes the voice spoke over were grim: bombed out suburbs, warped metal spiderwebs that were really twisted play grounds, broken communication towers and melted railroad tracks, shorelines and beaches dreary with pollution, plowed over fields, stagnant streams, and crystal clear lakes. '. . . first in Lampur prefecture, the rice bowl of Utoland archipelago . . .' spoke the voice. Diners nodded grimly, or kept their faces blank; drank their drinks, or pushed them away according to their temperament when saddened. 'It was my home.' Then they saw her, the speaker. One of her arms ended in a smooth taper where her elbow should have been. One of her eyes was the color of yogurt and higher than the other. A patron waved at a server to raise the volume and she did. Resonant but gently modulated, the speaker's voice continued holding the kisatsen's attention with its charms. 'I was born in Lampur prefecture. I am the only survivor of my village.' Pushing a cold rice omelet with his fork, Ken growled inaudibly. 'I was found in the ruins of Lampur prefecture by a non-governmental organization volunteer.' "Turn that shit off," Ken said looking at his plate. 'Not only did my patron save my life but she gave me a hope and a future. Today, I am a waste management technician. Without me Utoland City might be a very different place. Projects like the International Science Organization's subsidized foster home programs give people like you a chance to enrich the lives of people like me and together, we make a better world.' "Turn it off!" Ken cracked and boomed. A man three times Ken's mass, with a tired face and an even more tired way of talking, rebuked Ken with a look over his shoulder. "Son," he said. But Ken was starring at Nambu on the television screen, handsome and bearded as he walked through classrooms, factories, and farm lands by the magic of television technology: 'We have come a long way since the bad times, but among the young are still the orphaned, the abandoned and the scarred. The work is not yet over. Contact the International Science Organization about giving a child a hope and a future, today.' Ken wrapped up his rice omelet in his paper napkin. Ketchup from the rice filling stained the napkin pink. He put his payment on the counter and left. ************* 9. "it's a fine day, people open windows the leave their houses just for a short walk" ~~Miss Jane "it's a fine day" Walking was good, especially in congested pedestrian traffic. It wasn't flying; stick pulsing in his right hand, throttle pulling in his left, and rudder beneath his feat, but Ken was rising out of himself nonetheless as he rushed. Step, juke-step, sprint-walk, skid, he was almost, but not quite running, fairly flying along the sidewalk, while rush-hour traffic coughed and stamped in both directions on Harbin Street. Not a year ago he'd been eating his way through Harbin Street with skinny, weak-eyed Shizumi Park. A sophomore like him but only a - BANG! BANG! BANG! Ken's head whipped in the direction of the sound of clanging garbage pail lids announcing a ready batch of Bang-Bang chicken. Fried with onions and garlic and stewed in a tangy vinegar sauce, the scent of it called to him, and Ken's foot turned towards the food cart where the vendor continued to clang the garbage lids, and small crush of people jostled with one another for service. He crashed into a thickset flower vendor who stumbled. Roses cascaded from his arms and a flurry of rose petals swirled in the air. Pink, and red, and white and peach, starring into the shower of colors, Ken shouted, "Sorrysorrysorry!" He steadied himself by laying the heel of his hand on the shorter vendor's shoulder then lunged, catching several bouquets in his arms. Slender thorns pierced through his jacket and two shirts, scoring his skin. He thrust the bouquets at the vendor and pelted for the bus stop around the corner because his internal clock was telling him that he had seconds to catch his bus. His feet lead his sprint as he whipped around the corner. The rubber soles of his shoes grabbed and caught the sidewalk surface as he turned that corner and his momentum flung him forward. The bus, exhaust chudding from it's muffler, was in train of pulling away from the curbside stop. Ken's thighs and calves bunched beneath the comfortable confines of his jeans and he leapt atop the bumper, his fingers and hands finding their own place on the smooth metal surface of the bus, the way limpets did to ships' hulls, their smooth, brittle shells, vulnerable to high speed and collision, but inside those shells the limpets clung oblivious to the size and speed with which they moved, holding onto the foreign surface with slender tenacity. Clueless in their strength, oblivious in their inadequate protection. The Marshall Academy (October 19, 2001) Ken arrived at the Marshall Academy. The bus dropped Ken off a ways from the front gate of the Marshall Academy. He didn't even stop to tie the loose shoelace on his shoe. He sprinted, arms pumping, his face red with exertion but came to a jarring walk before he figured the cadet at the guard booth could hear or see him coming. His bangs had swung forward, into his face and he swept them off his forehead with a hooked gesture, squared his shoulders, and presented himself at the box. Ken, being a 2nd year student, was really too young to have stood guard at the box – it was a station reserved for graduating senior cadets, but Ken took a proprietary interest in the Cadet who greeted him. Ken didn't salute (didn't he). Ken considered saluting. Had he been in uniform, he would have had to. The cadet watched him. Ken watched the cadet. The measuring, veiled weight in the cadet's glance put Ken at ease. The boy could barely weigh Ken in regards to himself, for all that Ken had entered the Marshall Academy very late – as far as all the other cadets were concerned – where most had begun attending at the age of four, Ken was a neophyte. New to the academy as of last year, new to The way of life it represented for all that his father, and his grandfather, and his grandfather's father had attended the academy – with distinction. Tall boy, with a face raw from spots that had been sliced off with a razor, his collar cutting into the skin of his neck, his shoulders straight within the narrow confines of his buttoned and beribboned jacket. Keichi – Kano, Hasaguwa Ken didn't know the upperclassman's name, and didn't care. He presented his id card without before the cadet demanded it. The cadet bracketed it between his grey gloved hands, his mouth pursed and he cast a considering look at Ken. Ken still refused to salute. Bemused, the cadet exited the green painted booth, physically lifted the orange bar behind the black iron bars of the book looking gate, and pushed the gate open. Ken walked through, he stepped on carefully raked gravel – the driveway kept immaculate by cadets on punishment (mostly underclassmen being hazed). Tall thin trees, feathery poplars, their shirred leaves shifting from pale green, to darker as the wind blew through them, lined the wide and sweeping drive that led to the main building. The grounds in this part of the academy were perpetually shaded but the gravel drive lead to an open courtyard, bordered by the great wings of the main building. Ken walked right up the stairs and made his way to the Gymnasium. Located in Yuanlie Center, it held the Olympic size swimming pool, dive platforms, and training pool. Ken wen there automatically, since he first went there at the beginning of the school day. Since his suspension, he had not been at the Academy but as he was an Air Self Defense Forces Cadet, arrangements had been made for him to continue his simulations. His grades would be hurting – the suspension had removed much from him, but his grades had been high to begin with. The rest of the students in their class had started at the age of four - just like most students ever to attend the academy. And it had been known since the 6th grade, which students would go to Ground Self Defense, which would go to Sea Air Defense, and which would go to Air. Air was reserved for the best, those who had distinguished themselves from childhood, those whose parents already served in Air Defense. Ken was an upstart, for all that his family name 'Washio' appeared again and again in the historical roles. Most of the young men at the academy had been attending one type of military school or another since their fourth year - and they all knew each other's abilities and achievements. Ken had been with his mother. Who'd been dying. And two years after her death, on his fifteenth birthday, he prevailed upon his guardian, Kozaburo Nambu, to enroll him in the Academy. "So I can honor my father. So I can walk in the steps of my father, and be trained in the same traditions that produced him!" Ken walked through the silent halls of the academy. Class was in session. As he walked past closed doors with their rectangular windows set above the door knobs, students who glimpsed him walking by nudged those nearby them discretely. Outside the entrance to the gym, between the door for visiting teams and the Academy athletes, was a lighted glass case that held the most recent trophies. The two biggest trophies, proper cups they were, holding crowiding one another on the central shelf, were for swimming and cross- country - Ken had not been captain that year, but he had lead both teams to victory. "Upperclassman Washio!" blurted a scrawny cadet, standing in the shadows of the opposing team door. "Upperclassman Washio! You're back." Ken scowled without looking at his classmate, "We're in the same grade, Sabu." His profile cut the dimness around him, Sabu's chest was tight with excitement. His words tripped over one another, "Daigo said you weren't coming back, he's been …" "Beating you up?" "Oh, no, not me," exclaimed Sabu. "He leaves me alone now, but ever since you left it's been, oh, who am I kidding." Sabu stepped forward, licking his thick lips. "You've got to come back. You can't let them kick you out like this, you, you, you're the best thing that's happened to the academy and…" "Sabu," Ken broke in quietly. He was studying his hands. "Do you ever wonder why I'm not going to school here with the rest of you?" "It's only for a little while? There's rumors that say you beat up – but that's just rumor, you wouldn't ever…" "It's true about me beating up those prospective students, Sabu." Ken leveled Sabu with a gaze and Sabu blanched. "Stay away from, Sabu. I'm trouble." ***** *** Ken runs into his old girlfriend Shizumi Park. He's cold. She's disappointed, but colder. *** Ken gets on the flight simulator, it's like he's been flying ever since he was suspended. When he exits he runs into some horrible student, one that' makes a comment about the girl like an ashtray. It takes two people to pull Ken off of him. *** Nambu confrontation. Nambu speaks, Ken listens and trembles. Conversation is about Jun – but indirectly. *** Ken goes to airstrip. Loses himself in fixing it up. Ken realizes he doesn't have Jun's gift. Ken goes back to ropewalk, or he gives up. Maybe he gets gasoline instead for his plane, he's going to take Jun flying. Maybe build tension by having nothing going on. *** *** Ken is attacked by the Devilstar assassin sisters of Aoi Shimura. They've been tracking him all day. They catch him. *** Somehow – I'm going to have to add robotoyaki. Also, the restaurant scene with her when he finds her. Also, there's that final scene of him holding his hand out to Jun – he's going to take her flying. 'speed down the runway, open the throttle, and lift up into the blue..."