CHAPTER SEVEN
Strange Trouble
She is lovely, and more than lovely: she is astonishing. Darkness abounds in her, and she is inspired by everything deep and nocturnal. Her eyes are two caverns in which mystery vaguely flickers, and a sudden glance from her illuminates like a flash of lightning -- an explosion in the dark of night.
I would compare her to a black sun, if only one could conceive of such a star pouring forth light and shadow. But it is the moon, rather, to which she is more readily likened; it is the moon that has marked her indelibly with its redoubtable influence; not the stark white moon of romantic idylls, that icy bride, but the sinister, inebriating moon suspended in the depths of a stormy night and brushed by racing clouds; not the peaceful, discreet moon visiting the sleep of guiltless men, but the moon ripped from the heavens, defeated and rebellious, that the Thessalian witches cruelly compelled to dance on the terrified grass. In her little skull dwell a tenacious will and a love of prey. And yet she makes one dream of the miracle of a superb flower blossoming in a volcanic soil.
There are women who fill men with a desire to conquer them and have their way with them; but this woman inspires a longing to die slowly under her gaze.
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"What are you doing?" Yuki demanded of her, as the men emerged from the car. As the yakuza emerged.
She offered up that siren's smile. "Oops."
"What the hell do you brats think you're doing?" One of the yakuza demanded in evident irritation. His face was contorted into fury and the backdrop of flame gave him a multifold menace.
Regardless, he had nothing on Kozue. She recognized it in him; unfulfilled arrogance. He felt like a big shot, thought he deserved to call the shots, but he was stuck as an underling. The others radiated similar forms of frustrated irritation and they put all their resentment into the times when they could freely be violent. He was angry about the car, about the insult of the action, but he was also piling all those other irritants onto his fury.
But in the end he was nothing more then a puppet to whatever fool was head of the yakuza clan he belonged to. And that made Kozue laugh.
"Is she laughing at us?"
"You little bitch, do you know who we are?"
She laughed; her whole body shook with the sounds of mirth. Her head thrown back, her hair rippling, her mouth parted in and her lashes black against the paleness of her skin. She looked like something preternaturally beautiful. With a freedom that seemed like strength and power. But wasn't.
"I didn't know it would explode like that. That was fun!" She smiled and stepped forwards. Her eyes half lidded in a sultry expression, one arm sashed across her stomach and the over bend over her chest so that she could bury her fingers in her hair. "You're yakuza aren't you? Normally I would apologize with my body." Her lips curved. "But now that I've got a tough boyfriend, I don't have to."
"Amatsuka!" Yuki looked at her, taken aback. "What are you doing?"
"Tough is he? He looks like a brat to me."
Kozue turned her back on them, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Go easy on them Yuki. They're just yakuza trash."
"Who's trash!" One of the two who'd ridden the motorcycles pulled a pair of nine-sectional chains from his belt. "Little punk."
Kozue stepped back out of the way as he charged. Yuki dodged the sweep of the chains narrowly, feeling the coldness of the metal as it swung pass his chuck. A dug avoided another swipe and a kick to the stomach made the man stumble backwards unsteadily.
"What the hell?"
"So the kid knows some stuff. Let's teach him more."
A ripple of violence went through the group and Yuki took a step back. Eight of them. Could he take down all eight? There was a possibility but he couldn't be sure. And he couldn't fight and keep an eye on Kozue at the same time. He glanced around but the streets were empty. People had recognized the yakuza and had made themselves scarce, unwilling to get involved and possibly be the target of the clan's displeasure. His eye caught on one of the motorcycles.
"You're gonna regret this ya little punk!" Yuki dodged the swipe of a brass knuckled fist, moving to the side and grabbing Kozue's wrist.
"Let's go!"
"Hey!"
He kept her as close to him as he dared, lashing out with an elbow to neatly break the nose of one of the men in his way before swinging a leg over the motorcycle. He felt Amatsuka's hand fist the back of his coat before he tore the bike away from the curb. The bike tilted unpleasantly and he had to work to keep it balanced. Riding a motorcycle wasn't as easy as it had appeared.
"What were you thinking, Amatsuka!?"
"What? You're not having fun?" She laughed, tossing her head back, unaffected by his unsteady control of the bike. "Oops. Company!"
Yuki glanced in the mirror. Two riders on the other motorcycle behind them, the passenger wielding a knife that gleamed with ill intent. Kozue laughed again, sticking her tongue out at them; devil's advocate. He sped up as quickly as he dared, taking a corner sharply. The bike leaned, Kozue threw her hands up as he straightened, her hair whipping wildly about his face.
"You didn't tell me you could ride a motorcycle."
"I can't." He admitted distractedly, eyes on the tiny review mirror.
"You're a natural." She curled fingers around her copper locks, forcing them behind her shoulder. "Oh! Turn here!" She tightened her hold on his shirt, tugging him towards the right.
Yuki swerved the bike, cutting across a line of cars that blared their horns at him in protest as the ford in the lead narrowly missed the back wheel. The two yakuza were forced to brake or risk plowing into the hood of the car and he watched them become a pin prick in the mirror.
"That was dangerous." He rebuked once their persuers had vanished from sight.
"So? Everything is dangerous, Yukinie. This right, here."
She pointed and he followed the direction of her finger. The city fell away, the towering heights of corporate buildings giving way the modest dwellings of small houses with white balconies dim lit curtained windows. The road narrowed, no longer allowed to be wide due the railing that separated it from sea line of the coast. The water glittered underneath the setting sun which pained parts of the ocean's surface in an orange glow. The cold evening found the beach unpopulated except for the gulls that swooped low over rising tide in search of a meal that washed up from the marine depths.
"I use to come here a few years ago." Kozue smiled at the scenery.
Yukie was surprised, more at the fact that she had told him then at the confession itself. "With who?"
She made a sound of dismissal. "No one of consequence. Stop here."
He pulled the bike over at her direction and followed her down to the beach. Amatsuka had slipped off her shoes to move barefoot across the sand, her approach sending a flock of seagulls towards the air in a flurry of snowy feathers. With her hair unbound and her face turned rapturously towards the sea she didn't appear nearly like the threat she had proven herself to be.
Memories were fine with her. Recalling pain and loss was the same to her as coffee was to people when they woke up in the morning. Motivator; potent substance to encourage drive. Footprints criss-crossed over the terrain into the distance and a child's shovel had been left half buried in the sand. She walked over and dug it up, silky gold grains sliding over her fingers and back to their source.
"Sohma Yuki."
"Yes?" He was at her shoulder.
"Did you ever build sandcastles when you were little?"
He was silent for a moment and then finally admitted. "No."
Kozue smiled, because it was the answer she'd been expecting. She couldn't imagine such a refined person, even as a child, to much around in the sand with other screaming children.
"Neither did I."
"What did you do when you came here?" His tone was quizzical; he didn't bother to hide his curiosity.
"Watched boys, told secrets, silly things."
"Why'd you stop?"
You're a freak. No one really likes you.
It's your fault everyone failed!
Just disappear already.
The voices were a scream in her air which she silenced by shutting the door on everything that the shoreline had called to the forfront of her conciousness. She had to shut the look the beach itself away to do it and the entire landscape lost it's luster then. The sea stopped shining, the sand was no longer crushed diamond, and the sun was just a distant ball of flame and gasses. Nothing more.
"I grew up."
"I always think I would have liked to play on the beach like other kids. I use to watch them when they made castles or buried each other or went swimming. I envied them. Because they could play like that without concern when I couldn't."
"Because one wrong step, and poof." She turned back to look at him.
"Yes."
He watched the sea the way she had before. With murky eyes that painted all things in nostalgic splendor. Painfully lovely.
Kozue moved behind him, looping arms around his waist before he acknowledged her intent. She felt the warmth of cloth and skin under her arm for a brief moment and then it was gone. The change was less shocking the second time. A human boy and then smoke, like a magician's cheap trick, and a tiny gray mouse took his place among discarded clothing and empty shoes. She crouched down so that she was nearer to him.
"Are you always so off guard?" She didn't know why she bothered speaking. She'd never asked if he could understand her when he changed.
She reached out, closing her hands around his small body, soft fur warming her palms and his whiskers tickling her fingers tips. She carried him over to where the shovel had been partly submerged and laid him in the small indentation made in the sand and started to sweep the grains back over him. He let out a squeak of protest, attempting to escape however she pushed him back gently with a fingertip she he teetered back into the little ditch again.
"Just stay still." She demanded, injecting as much impatience as she could into her voice. Maybe he couldn't understand her words but even animals could comprehend tone.
She piled the disturbed sand over his diminuitive form until all but his gray head was buried, a little mouse shaped mound against the vastness of the beach. The last rays of the sun made beady black eyes gleam, watching her with human stoicism as she sat back on her heels.
"I'd try to shape a mermaid around you like in movies, but sculpting isn't my greatest talent." She traced hair around the shape of his small head with her fingernail. "This probably isn't the same, but burying you in your normal form would take to long, and ruin your uniform. I--"
The little mound trembled, quaking like a frightened child and then in an explosion of sand that flew in all direction, tangling in her hair, the rodent was gone. Sohma Yuki sat up with the ethereal grace of Venus rising from the ocean waves. Kozue sighed and turned away in jealousy and modesty, tossing his clothing over her shoulder.
"What were you saying?" He asked behind her amid the rustle of fabric.
"I think, I like you better as a rat." She stood up, brushing sand from her skirt. "Let's got back to the city. I have ballet practice."
