Where We Come From, Where We're Going
The Wanajima Residence
When Akito woke up, he found himself in a wartank.
He sat up and tapped the wall—his too-long nails clinked light and sharp on the hatch-textured metal. He never remembered to cut his nails unless told. Who cared? What did they do? But no one had said anything to him about it for two weeks, at least. Kaito certainly hadn't checked his hands for long nails, or to see if they were clean before mealtime, or anything else.
At first, he thought he would hate the new walls. But it wasn't too bad. His leg against it had warmed the surface through the night so that he didn't even feel the steely cold anymore. It had kept him awake and awkward for the first few minutes. Pressing up against a wall when he slept was also new and strange. In his old room, he had a bed in the middle, a rug on the right that ran to his dresser and floorboards on the left that streaked to his door.
He didn't have a room anymore.
Kaito had shown him his area, a cot beneath a window with a few shallow shelves at his toes. There, Akito had already displayed the few dolls he had kept with him when traveling. Everything else was still in boxes, and Kaito was outside lifting them and taking them inside right now.
The little stuffed figures were bears, dogs, and one fish with three slits on either side of its face and pointed felt teeth. They all had punk icon patches sown onto them with wide stitches, like the kind you saw on people recovering from surgery. Only they were bright colors and fashionably crooked. Skulls, flames, and scars mottled the toys people had bought Akito, plain from stores.
Akito had loved the way the alterations looked on Kaito's jackets, which were leather and reeked of strange, dizzying smells after he came home from what he liked to do, going to concerts and clubs. Before he went out , Akito would bury his face in Kaito's front to feel his brain get muddled by the stench of Kaito's cigarettes. If he tried that after, however, his sensitive nose easily picked up on spilled drink, someone else's heady perfume or cologne, or sour sweat wafting from an embroidered spider.
Kaito would usually shove his head away and pet him with a heavy-handed reluctance. Sometimes he would have overestimated himself and the shove would be more like a clumsy swipe and the pet a slow-fingered scratch. Then Akito would watch his brother stumble through the pitch-black hallways, smelling of beer and other people, to his own room.
In the day though, if Akito begged really hard and didn't mind risking a few irritated punches if his timing hadn't been quite right, Kaito would sit at the edge of his bed and stick his needles in Akito's animals, pulling neon sinews out of their torsos until Akito had the Jolly Rogers he wanted on his teddy bears.
Kaito always looked heavy and kind of dirty when he came back late at night, but he usually looked light and clean when he sowed. The chunkiness of his hide outerwear and the many beads in his hair would be gone, the purple rings under his eyes cleansed by sleep and hangover pills. His long, pale hair, which had been damp and wiry tendrils plastered to his forehead and tangles at the nape that could have come from a mauling, would be shampooed out. It fell straight and smooth past his shoulders, bare because he'd only be wearing an undershirt and boxers. As Akito gamboled over his pillows, wrestling with Kaito's one toy, a huge eye-patched alligator, Kaito'd contemplate his design, balancing a stuffed animal in one hand.
Whenever Kaito was ready to start, Akito would abandon the cloth reptile and tumble his way closer. He bunched up his knees on Kaito's black sheets, staring enrapt as his older brother's thumb and index finger summoned monsters and creepy little symbols on his toy's skin. If Kaito got stuck, he would look up and around at his posters, checking to see if he was getting a detail right. Or he would ask Akito to pick something he saw in the room's decoration to make next.
But that had been some time ago and when they both had had rooms.
When Akito looked out from the bed in his area, he stared straight into the living room. He didn't like how his mattress was so small that he could only turn over once on it, when his old bed had allowed him to flop around and around in it, laughing hysterically, until Kaito came in to throw his latest creation at him and tell him to stop acting crazy. But he hadn't said anything to Kaito about it.
The hummer was different from the last place they lived. Kaito no longer had his jacket or alligator. Akito didn't know where they were now, but he hadn't caught sight of them as he helped Kaito pack. He doubted they were somewhere outside now. Kaito didn't go out and come back intoxicated in the early hours anymore, either. Right now he was out there, perfectly sober, getting things in order for the house. There was no alcohol in the fridge in the kitchenette for him to drink later. There wasn't anything in it, yet. Kaito had dropped a bag of packaged breads and milk from the convenience store onto the table when they walked in with their traveling bags. It was Akito's breakfast and lunch, he said. Him? He never ate breakfast, and he'd eat during his lunch break at work. Akito should stay home and be good; he had toys to play with.
Work.
Akito hadn't known Kaito worked.
Yeah, I do, Kaito told him, taking a long drag on his cigarette and squinting at the trailer appraisingly. I'm a police officer. Go in and check out our new place, Kaito told him, while I take care of some things out here.
There hadn't been much to see, but Akito took up all of the afternoon left to do it. He'd tried to take a bath first, because he'd learned to always do that after a long trip, but there had only been one knob for the water temperature and he kept burning and freezing himself until he decided to let hot and cold run separately until he could mix by hand.
When he was done, he had explored the hummer from one end to another. He went up to the front and fiddled with the buttons on the dash and jerked the steering wheel around, but Kaito had the key, so nothing happened. The back of the hummer taken up mostly by a steel door that looked like it had been taken from a warehouse. There was an upstairs, not like the kind of upstairs Akito was used to. You had to climb up to it from rungs attached to the wall. It looked like an air-vent from the outside and was like a cupboard on the inside. You couldn't stand in it, but there was enough room for a futon.
When it became dark, Kaito came in with a folded comforter and pillow on the table he was carrying, and told Akito to get some sleep.
Akito thought he wouldn't, for all the questions he had about their new home, but he was unexpectedly tired and drifted off to the sound of Kaito still bringing in the heavy furniture by himself.
He didn't know how many hours he slept, but now that he looked out, he couldn't think that the trailer looked like the inside of an empty box anymore. There were already chairs, cabinets, and weights scattered across the floor, deeply shadowed by night. Only the walls were blank, a bare metallic gray.
He heard Kaito's breathing behind him before he saw him. Akito made a noise that was between a yelp and a gasp as a heavy box was dropped onto his lap. He instinctively made a grab for it before it fell off the bed and spilled its contents. A blinding flash of light caught him jerking up his chin, expression full of surprise and reproach.
Kaito shifted to the bedside, sitting down on the floor, waving a Polaroid in one hand and gripping the camera in another.
"Nii-san, what are you doing?"
Kaito snorted. He looked dirty again, but that was just the dust and sweat of moving.
"What are you whispering for, idiot? No one here cares." Kaito said back, although his voice was also quiet.
"It's late." Akito retorted automatically.
"Yeah. Maybe. But that doesn't matter so much now." Kaito laid a hand on Akito's head. It was strong, and steady.
"I know this place isn't as big as our last." He said, looking around absently. "Things are different now. I'm going to be the one looking after you now. What do you think?"
Akito didn't look him in the eyes as he fiddled with the lid of the box. Kaito didn't reek of parties any more. That strong, acrid smoke smell, that sting of sweat—it was all him.
"What is this?" he asked instead. He pulled off the top and looked in. He blinked. He pulled out a pair of dark blue shoes with wheels on the bottom. "Are these…?"
"Air-treks."
Akito didn't say anything.
"Every kid wants a pair nowadays. I'll be working all day from now on, but I can teach you afterwards." At Akito's questioning look, Kaito nodded, as if to say: "Yes, I know how."
"I like them…I like them a lot, nii-san. Thank you." Akito broke out into a wide smile and hugged the shoes to his chest. Another flash had him seeing spots.
Kaito got up, walked to the wall opposite of Akito's bed, and with the roll of duct tape that had been hanging on his wrist, put up the two pictures next to each other. One had Akito glaring out, surly at having a heavy box dumped on him when he was only half-awake. The other was of him grinning delightedly, the Air-treks held close, untied laces strewn on the sheets, box open with tissue peeking out, and lid next to him.
"Anyways." The space around Kaito's mouth flickered as he lit a new cigarette. "Do you want to sit up front with me when I drive to work tomorrow?"
It took Akito a few minutes to understand what he meant. "Oh! You're…you're going to drive the trailer to the, um, station?"
"It's more like a HQ…But yeah. In case you haven't noticed, our house is also our car now." Kaito came to sit on the edge of his bed. Akito scooted over to make room.
"You're too young to be on your own for long. I thought this through, you know. You have to stay in the hummer, but there'll be space for it there. I'll be close if you need me."
Akito tugged on the front of his brother's shirt and buried his face in it. Kaito inhaled several more times, giving Akito time to stop. When he was done, Akito laid back down, curling around the roller blades as if they were a teddy bear. Kaito pulled the covers over him, using a corner to wipe Akito's face before going out to bring in the last few boxes.
The start of a new series. The title is from a project that my mentor did. (She's a professional public artist.) The purpose of this fic, like that project is to explore "Where we come from" and " where we're going," examining what it means to know the place you started from made you the person you are and influenced the place you went next. It might have impacted your choice or gently directed you onto an unavoidable path. As such, I will be writing about the residencies of other Air Gear characters and their families.
Many, many thanks to Inochi no Fushigi for being a great beta reader for this story and being all around supportive!