Future Talk
Chapter 07:
"Happens All the Time"
I am a small person. This smallness is a product of my genetics, a tough pregnancy, and a much-too-early birth. People pick me up all the time because I'm tiny and weak and pale and light enough to throw into any pair of willing arms, and I thought, before everything happened, that I was used to being tossed around like a rag doll. I mean, it happens to me all the time. All. The. Time. 'Can I carry you up the stairs, Dani?' 'Do you need help, Dani?' 'That looks heavy, Dani, let me get it for you, Dani!' It's handy when I actually need help, well-meant-but-annoying when I don't, and downright infuriating when people won't take the hint and leave me a-freaking-lone. Still, I'm used to it and I can play off my irritation with a grateful smile and plenty of well-practiced thank yous.
But still: why me all the freaking time?
I hated Hiei in that moment, hated him so much I could have screamed. But, as things were, all I could do was hold onto the back of his cloak and pray that the shoulder digging into my solar plexus wouldn't leave me bruised and contused like an apple that had been used in a game of major league baseball. Hallways rushed past us and we overtook Genkai before I could catch my breath well enough to scream: "Put me down right NOW, dammit!"
However, the phrase came out in English so the only response I received was a particularly painful bounce in Hiei's strep. Genkai just snorted when Hiei fell into step beside her, and with a wave of her hand she told him to put me down.
He did, and none to gently I might add. But to his credit he kept a firm grip on my upper left arm, holding me so I could lean on him (or, rather, so he could hold me up by the single palm's-breadth of contact we shared) for support when it came time for me to step with my left foot. Luckily, though, we did not have to walk more than a few steps, because Genkai soon fished a key from some hidden pocket in her robes and opened a locked room with a western style door.
"Please stay in here," Genkai said, face utterly impassive as she watched Hiei escort me inside. The only emotion she betrayed came when Hiei abruptly let go of my arm mid-step, sending me careening to the ground with a pained cry. I caught only the briefest glimpse of her wince as I fell; my hair tumbled about my face as I lay, exhausted, on the hard wood floor. Footsteps—presumably Hiei's—moved away from me. The door shut a moment later and the lock clicked back into place like the tolling of a funeral bell.
I did not stray from my spot on the floor for a long time. The wood felt cold beneath my palms and bare legs, and I enjoyed the sensation because it counteracted the flaming ache in my left foot. But then my body started to hurt from the awkwardness of my fallen stance, and so I sat up cross-legged in order to get a better look around.
Not that there was much to see, mind you. A tiny, cell-like room with no windows, an empty bookcase, and two doors constituted my prison, and with a grunt I stood up and hopped to the door Hiei had not taken the time to shove me through. I hoped, vaguely, for an exit, but when the door turned out to belong to a small junk closet I didn't feel all that disappointed. I hadn't been hoping very hard, you see, so it was only with a mild sort of sigh that I propped myself against the wall facing the door.
Staring contest time, I thought. I'll sit here until they come back for me. That'll show 'em. I thought about it for another second and did a mental facepalm. Crap. What am I supposed to be showing them, exactly?
My tailbone started to ache from sitting in one position for too long, so with yet another weary sigh I got on all fours and crawled to the door. "Is anyone out there?" I called in Japanese as I rapped my knuckles against the wood, and when I did not get an answer I assumed that I was alone. Either that, of course, or I had a guard who had no intention of speaking to me, and since that made me mad, sad, and lonely all at once I decided that I was simply alone. I crawled back to my spot against the wall and pulled my knees to my chest.
I had no way to tell time without a clock or the sun (the only light I had came from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling), but I assume I sat there for at least an hour—replaying events in my head and practicing Japanese to the empty room—before boredom overtook me and made practicing Japanese feel, well, banal. I laid down on the floor and rolled around for a bit, singing songs from various musicals as I stared at the wood on the ceiling. Spamalot's "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life," whistling portions and all, made the quiet of my cell almost bearable, but soon even that grew wearisome when I had no one to play Patsy's part and make a fun harmony with me.
"I miss home," I said when I stopped singing, remembering the way my fellow music majors would always lend a voice or three to whoever asked. Had I busted out that song in the cafeteria I would have wound up with a ten-part a capella choir and six guitarists in less than a minute. Dear God, I need something to do, I thought, and then I remembered the closet. I smiled like Christmas had come early. Bingo!
I crawled to it and opened the door to the sight of a wooden rocking horse with a broken-off tail and a green vase as tall as my thigh with a giant crack down one side waging a valiant battle against clutter. These two objects seemed to be holding back an avalanche of other junk, and with a grin I stood up and yanked at both of these pieces as hard as I could. I landed on my butt (of course) when they both came free, and with a yelp I skittered backward as the rest of the stuff came cascading out onto the floor. Vases, scrolls, old books, three faded seat cushions, a small stuffed reindeer, a wooden box, papers, a streamer of those men-holding-hands cutouts that I used to make as a kid, a lonely boot, a flower pot, a wind-up toy shaped like a green robot, a metal sculpture of a pony... and that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg (although this iceberg was more than a little dusty). I began to poke and paw through the kitsch, extracting the seat cushions for my own personal use, and that's when I saw the cane.
Score.
The wood was scuffed and chipped, but the red-painted staff with an engraved grip fit my height and looked sturdy enough to hold me. I took a few laps around the room with it, giggling at my find, and then I noticed another object that could prove useful.
A drum. A small goblet drum made of whitewashed leather and pale wood.
Now there was something I could put to good use.
I took the drum and settled against the wall, cushions tucked beneath and behind me as I held the drum tight between my knees. I start with a simple beat using first the side of my hand and then my entire palm: chik-chika-CHONK-CHONK! The beat progressed like a wild thing, raging out of control the moment I let it free. I went slow and then fast, and then I double timed everything and half-timed it again. I tried beatboxing along with the rhythm for a little while, but I was never much of a beatboxer and soon gave that little diversion up. My adrenaline pumped the way it always did when I made music, and the sound of two hands smacking against leather had never sounded so sweet.
To me, the voice of the drum sounded a lot like Bye bye, boredom!
I love drumming. I was good at it, too, having been in drum line in high school and the member of a drumming class in college. The rhythm, the feel of the instrument beneath my hands, the sound as it pulses against my eardrums... oh, wow, I love drumming. I don't love it it as much as some other instruments, mind you, but drums are ambrosial despite being such simple things. They're the first instrument created by humans, the first thing to provide a creative balance to life aside from the beauty of a human voice...
I started singing not much later, mapping out a string of little wordless notes to the beat of my hands on the drum. My hands led me somewhere my mind couldn't yet see, but pretty soon the song I had been edging towards came out in full force, and the odd appropriateness of it made me grin.
What's wrong with the world, mama?
"Where Is the Love?" sounded half like a prayer and half life a vicious demand when I sang it. Maybe my mood was too dark for the song thanks to being locked up in a tiny, dim room with nothing but a rocking horse and a stuffed reindeer for company, but I still had fun with the song. I didn't have the best voice, of course (being a music major doesn't make me a fantastic singer), but I felt more than a little pleased with myself as I angrily spat the lyrics that the original singers tended to coat with happiness and sunshine. After all, those lyrics were cynical, speaking of war and hate and starvation...
I let myself get lost, for a time. Two revolutions of the song passed before the door to the room burst open and I saw Kuwabara staring at me like I was some sort of freak of nature. My voice faltered, cracked, and dropped off into oblivion as we stared at one another, and then he plopped down onto the floor and leaned toward me.
"Go on," he said, eyes narrowed.
I hesitated.
"Come on, play," he said, miming out beating on a drum when I didn't start. He saw the reindeer lying next to my feet and picked it up with his gigantic, calloused hands. "Please?" he asked as he tucked the toy into the crook of his elbow. He looked so much like and overgrown child at that point that I could not muster up the courage to say no, so I started a rather bare rendition of Michael Jackson's 'Billy Jean.' When I finished, Kuwabara smiled and said: "Mou ichidou! One more time!"
I went through a whole playlist of songs: Top 40 hits and obscure indie folk pieces, rap tracks and country blues, R&B crooners and hard rock ballads, all tweaked to fit into my vocal range as well as the range of the small drum. Kuwabara got pretty excited during a few of them, swaying around and egging me on when things got intense. But my small voice got rough after a while, and when I finally ended Matt and Kim's "Good Old Fashioned Nightmare" with a croak he let me have some peace.
"I've never heard any of those songs before," he said, eyes bright and eager as he slowly enunciated his words for my benefit. He seemed like such a loveable goofball that I couldn't help but smile back at him, and I felt myself opening up to his cheerful personality and personable expression. "Did you write all those yourself?"
I shook my head.
"Oh. Well, you have good music in A-me-ri-ka, even if I can't get the words."
I laughed at the labored pronunciation of my country's name. "Thank you. I love music."
"Well, hey, you're good at it," he said. "You know, I think you're OK."
I stared at him.
"The others are saying you're a spy, but I think you're OK." He grinned. "I'll stick up for you if they ever decide to switch guard duty and let me back into the meeting."
"Meeting?"
"To decide what to do with you." He leaned in close. "All Kurama could tell us was your name. Dah-nee, right?"
"Dani," I said, stressing the flat 'a' on the first syllable as much as I could. "Da-a-a-a-nee."
"Dah-ah-ah-ah-nee?"
This went on for quite some time, but he had trouble getting it. I gave up eventually, resigning myself to a life as 'Dah-nee' (or, more accurately, Donny) for however long I was going to be in this world... which was shaping up to be a long time.
"Well, as long as we're on the subject of names, I'm Kuwabara," Kuwabara said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Like I said before, I think you're OK. But the others aren't so sure, especially Hiei." Just before I frowned I remembered that I had not yet been told Hiei's name, so I tried to look confused. "Oh, you know, the guy with the red eyes and spiky hair," Kuwabara clarified. My resulting grimace must have spoken volumes because Kuwabara reached out to pat my hand in sympathy. "Don't worry about him, though: that shorty's got a permanent case of stick-up-the-ass."
I laughed, unable to help it. "I may have picked up on that," I told him, and I made a slicing motion across my neck. "Sword."
"He's like that with everybody at first. You'll get used to it."
"I'll get used to death threats?"
It was Kuwabara's turn to giggle. "Well, you'll get used to that shorty, at any rate." Then his look turned serious. "But you gotta tell me where you came from, Dani. You showed up on a bad day."
Fishing time, I thought. "Bad day?"
My new friend reached up to rub the back of his head. "I can't tell you much," he said to the ceiling. Damn, I thought. "But we're all on edge, and you're..." He hesitated.
"I'm what?"
"Well, you're an odd coincidence. Today's the one day you shouldn't be here, and yet here you are." He shook his head, searching for simple words to explain things that were anything but simple. "We've been patrolling the forest day and night since yesterday, and you didn't show up until Kurama found you sitting on a log. No one can figure out how you got here." Another pause, and then: "Unless you want to tell me, of course. If you got here on accident, I could vouch for you."
That made me stop to think, and then I berated myself for not coming up with a plausible story before people started asking questions. Just how much should I reveal to the detectives?
Kif, we have a conundrum.
By my reckoning, I had two options. The first was to make up some bullshit story about my innocence that seemed plausible enough to appease the detectives. But there were many, many drawbacks to that plan. I could mix up the details if I wasn't careful, which could poke holes in my story that might prove irreparable. Or I could make up a story that got me sent away from the temple—if I pretended to have family or a life in this world I could be sent away to find them or something, right? And what if the family I made up was actually real and I happened to fit into the role of their long-lost-college-roommate's-step-niece or something equally ridiculous?
No, that option was definitely out. The second option presented itself: faking amnesia. I could probably do that with some success, but... oh, god, Hiei. He could read my mind, making both amnesia and a story impossible. Koenma had, after all, only placed blocks on memories of our meeting and Yu Yu Hakusho itself...
Dammit, Koenma, I thought. Way to ruin all my plans through freaking OMISSION.
"You OK?" Kuwabara asked when I said nothing, and I nodded at him.
"I'm not sure how I got here," I tentatively began, and then a third, hidden option—an option so devious and unexpected, an option so incredibly simple that it would have put the devil himself to shame—suddenly popped into my head.
In that moment, I knew exactly what I was going to do.
I was going to tell the truth.
NOTE:
Oh, cliffy!
All songs belong to their writers/performers, not to me! "Where Is the Love" belongs to the Black Eyed Peas and "Good Old Fashioned Nightmare" belongs to Matt & Kim; "Billy Jean" belongs to the incomparable Michael Jackson.
The phrase "Kif, we have a conundrum" is from a Futurama episode, and I hold no claim to it, either.
I love Kuwabara. Yu Yu Hakusho would not be the same without that loveable goon. I'm going to do my best to portray him well, so please accept Kazuma Kuwabara for the awesome character than he truly is.
Many thanks to my reviewers: Tomoshibi-chan, c00ki3b4ndit, Dirge of Chaos, xSugarcoatedxStarlightx, ShadowFireFox13, VampireOnFire, rain chant, DoilyRox, TwilightFever-FutureCullen, colbub, crossyourteez, and heve-chan!
