Ainako: I fail at naming.


The bus was not meant only for me. It went to another address just a few blocks away from my home and picks up another. A boy, probably 15 or 16, with a look of a troublemaker. He spat at the direction of his home, a liquor shop, before angrily climbed up the bus and sat across me. His hair is dyed bright gold and wore a skull t-shirt. Numerous piercings decorated his left ear.

"Seeing something interesting, girlie?" he said when he noticed me observing. I shook my head as fast as humanly possible and hide my eyes. I heard a sound of a lighter being lit when the emotionless woman yelled "Can you not read the NO SMOKING sign, Masato Kuroki?" The boy, Masato, snickered. "No, ma'am. My teacher forgot to teach me how to read those. I was to be sent away right before he could." The woman stomped towards Masato and pointed he pretty large hand gun at his face. "Fine, fine." Masato said as he placed his cigarettes and lighter on the opened palm of the woman officer. He did not say anything else afterwards, only watching the moving view with a sad look on his face. Of course. He must have been as devastated as I had, to have everything pulled away from you in a blink of an eye. I could have sure I saw tears coming down his cheeks before it instantly wiped away by the smallest of gesture.

The next location was an apartment somewhere near the city. The bus stopped and there was no one waiting outside the entrance like the usual procedure I supposed. The officer woman stepped down and went inside the building. A few minutes later, a siren of an ambulance was heard and the white vehicle produced four personnel carrying a stretcher. The officer woman came out of the building along with them with then an occupied stretcher, a white sheet pulled over to the head of a stiff body. The officer climbed up the bus again and explained with her partner, the driver. "The third candidate, Nanami Suzuki, has been confirmed dead by suicide. I think this is all the day's work. We shall head immediately at the quarantine."

Quarantine. Somehow it sounds as if it sounds a lot like Isolated Prison, or Asylum. No one knows what happened to those who had their Gate power awakened except that they would be swept away and relocated to somewhere at the other edge of Japan. Rumors even said some was sent out of the country to the barren desert or the savage nowhere of the tundra. I was once the one to not care so much about the Invalids. Sending them away to the middle of hostile lands seems to be the safest methods. They cannot kill anyone out there, except among themselves. I had the strongest urge to hit myself in the face for being so ignorant.

The trip to the Osaka's NRA Quarantine took a whole two hours. The female officer and her partner surprised me with a stop for lunch by a river. She handed me a generous box of bento and a canteen of weak tea. Masato grumbled for a can of beer instead before being shut up again with now a large shotgun by the big driver. The lunch was quiet, except for the small talk shared between the two officers. I hesitated to strike up a conversation with Masato, but he spoke first.

"Were you disappointed?"

"Huh?"

"I was expecting today to be the worst day of my life, but instead it's the most boring."

"Oh. Yes. It seems so."

"That Nanami whatever must have gone through a lot. I don't know death or anything, but to me some things are not as bad as you afraid of it can be."

"… I envied her somehow."

"What, you want to die too?"

"Well. Almost, but suicide was never one of my plan." My plan. It's almost too funny to think I still hold dearly to my plans even when I know everything had been shattered to hopeless pile of rubbish.

"I'm glad you don't."

"Hmm?"

"If not, I'd be bored to death on that bus, having that plastic lady pointing her puny gun at me. Or the big dufus there."

Masato cleaned up his bento box and stared at the river. I cleaned up mine and decided to stay beside him. He might be one of those pretend ego type of guy, hiding his true nature behind a rough, troublesome persona. And people like that, from what I have observed, are better friends than anyone else in the world. Whatever Masato was looking at over the horizon, I cannot see it, so I look over the slow moving river instead. The breeze still carries the tell-tale sign departing winter, and it made me shiver a bit. A thick leather jacket was placed on my shoulders, and Masato went back to his staring to the nothingness. Empathetic and gentle, instead of rough and rude – those were the true nature of this boy. Had everyone he knew before saw these inside of him, I cannot help but wonder.

We reached the quarantine by afternoon. The building was a large white block of bricks with numerous officers and guards standing by at every inch of open space. I saw many more busses like ours at the arrival area, and I can see the many like us goaded out like goats into the facility. Masato decided to keep his head and went along as programmed. Inside, we were guided to a hall much alike my school's hall and later many men in white coats and some in maroon military armed with weapons entered the hall and called out names. One by one was grouped in an order unknown to me and guided again out of the room. To my relieve, Masato is still grouped with mine. I held his hand almost unthinkingly when he neared me, but instead of shoving it away, he held on. Perhaps he, too, was looking comfort from someone he had already known.

When our group has done assembling, we were goaded to another room some walks away. Here would be all the nightmare began again. The first sight of the large machine with a protrusion of a cylinder like opening large enough for a hand sent my spine to shrills. Masato held me in his chest before I realized I was crying horribly. He shushed, but there is no stopping what will come next. I will be branded officially as a Gate user. My life as I know it will all end. I was afraid.

We were given drugs to kill the pain, but they had the heart to tell that it would not kill all the pain. They also explained why they wouldn't use a usual tattoo for this method – tattoos can be removed, or someone would go so far to deliberately amputate their hands just so to be rid of the branding. This method however infuse some kind of a tracking nanomachine into one's blood in addition of the visual marking. With a simple blood test, the identity of a Gate user will be known right to the date they were discovered. There was some other matters they explained too but I have not the heart to listen anymore. When the briefing was done, every officers and men and women in lab coats take their places and called our name one by one again.

I forced myself to watch Masato's turn to be branded. He shoved his right hand into the machine, and when he nods that he was ready, the men in coats switched some buttons on and a bright red beam of a laser came from the protrusion. Masato threw his head back, every vein on his body seems to be at the brink of popping out of his skin. He did not scream in pain like the ones before him. He must have wanted to ensure me that it will not hurt so much. I almost cried again for this stranger's kindness.

When it was my turn, I tried to think of something else aside from the coming pain but it did not work so well. My spine seemed to shake as if my hand were pulled away by a monstrous force. The five second of pain seemed to find no end. I forgot how to breath, I forgot who I am. The last thing I remembered was the men in coats nodded and announced my newly acquired ID and Masato catching me from hitting the floor as I collapsed in a helpless pile.

The first thing I saw when I woke up was Masato's relieved face. We were in an infirmary of some sort and me on a nice warm bed. He explained we were to make ourselves at home for some time here, run some tests, before being relocated. I just sighed when he mentioned that. Whether I wanted it or not, I am going to be sent away from here, and possibly parted away with this gentle boy. I noticed he is still holding my hand, probably from when I collapsed, and he pulled away as if burned. He blurted out some nonsense excuse I just can't help but laugh at him. And thank him from the bottom of my heart.

Our days at the quarantine were peaceful. We were given five meals a day, and two checkups to see if any of us is at the brink of madness. I heard one or two did over at the next facility. There were screeching emergency alarms all around the building and guards headed to their posts. We were to couch on the floor until were told otherwise. Masato, very closely next to me eyed every corners of the room as if expecting some of those monsters to burst in any moment. I tried to calm him and the some new-found friends sharing the same dormitory. A vibration of an explosion and gunshots was felt from the walls, and I fear it must have been bad. I prayed for any holy entities that listen to make everything well again. And as instant as it has begun, it ended. I decided to put my head at ease by reading in the reading room provided in the facility. Masato want no part of that – he certainly does have no talent in reading – and went out to fill the time elsewhere. Probably out at the small garden. It was very late when I yawned for the hundredths of times, and the patrolling matron announced it's time for the lights to be out.

The few more days afterwards were as languid as any other day ever since arriving at the quarantine. New candidates came but we were never allowed to meet them. Instead, the earlier candidates were moved to another room further away. It was not long when the awaited day comes. The old fear creeps again.

They gathered us inside the hall where we first arrived and called out names. We were to be thoroughly checked and double checked for any sign of bursts and led away outside. Busses were lined in the middle of the large courtyard, and I found myself in a different circle than Masato. He was to get on his bus first, but he break away from his line and went straight towards me. I lost all control of myself when he kissed me firmly on the lips, like the teary goodbye scenes in many romance movies. He whispered me to be safe and never to give up hope. I said almost the same thing to him too. When he was pulled away by the officers on guard, he shouted that he will find me no matter what it takes, or how long. I shouted back that I will do the same thing too. I can only cry on the shoulders of a motherly lady of my group, and she whispered that all will be well. Again, I am thankful of the kindness of another stranger.


End note; I am never the type to write action scenes, thus I avoided them. But expect one or two in the future. Be prepared for the lameness.