Foreign
A/N: Eugh. . . Just reading the first chapter over again made me shiver. It's been a long time since I wrote chapter one and then worked on chapter two. Once I started reading chapter two, I realized what a piece of junk it was and decided to write a different chapter two. Suffice to say, Alice is not going to be a major character in this story anymore nor is the weasel zoanthrope I had planned a while back. I must apologize for the first chapter. In my youth, I liked to "experiment" with my writing and the effects were as bad as Neil Young's techno and rockabilly albums. More babbling: How on earth do you use the career characters in the other modes in BR4? And a little discovery I made when playing BR4. . . Kenji with his hair down looks a lot like Sasarai and Luc (Before Suikoden 3 for Luc, of course). So then, on with the story.
Chapter 2: No more Marc Bolan song titles
Among the night, there was a feeling of complete obscurity. Yugo had to admit, there was a child sleeping on his couch, covered in blood and without a name. His plans had not worked out as he would have liked. In fact, they had been completely ruined. Yugo had expected to live as a hermit in his little cozy house. No one to hold a promise to, no one to take care of but himself. It seemed like a strange dream. Eventually, he had to wake up and face reality: there is just no way to live by yourself. Fate has a way of totally screwing that up.
So he had a one-minded quiet child who feigned innocence in his house. At least that was Yugo's impression on the child after spending four hours telling the kid that he couldn't have another blanket. It's not like it was the end of the world. Well. . . The blanket incident had shown Yugo that even children can be two-faced. Frankly, he was impressed with the child's age. He didn't know many fourteen-year-olds who could stand being covered in blood through the whole night.
In those awkward four hours, Yugo had grown somewhat of a respect for the child. The boy didn't angst over his ordeals as the kids in the orphanage had. He didn't cling onto Yugo's leg for support nor did he ask questions about Yugo's life. His eyes retained a winsome glaze while he searched the room for clues to Yugo's past. It was almost as if he were treating the older man's life like a game, putting puzzle pieces together and inferring what he thought to be truth. His eyes were caught on a picture Yugo kept by his phone. Mostly on that little table, there were pictures of friends he had known from the orphanage but the child's eyes had been caught by one in particular.
"That's Alice", Yugo explained. It was the only remedy for the child's curiosity; he obviously couldn't hide it. Curiosity killed the cat but Yugo couldn't exactly pin a cat-like attitude onto the child's sharp rodent features. He had an angular face, one that Yugo couldn't compare to the soft and puffy cheeks of a cat. "She's a friend of mine. We grew up together, sort of like you and your little friend."
"She's not my girlfriend. . ." the child growled.
"I didn't say she was. And before you say anything, Alice is not my girlfriend either."
The child's curiosity subsided and he took more of an interest in his surroundings. He inspected Yugo's couch, Yugo's walls and Yugo's phone, expecting some surprise out of the normal decor. He settled for a sigh and a glare in Yugo's direction.
"I asked you a question earlier", the child uttered under nearly closed lips. "I asked what should I call you and you never answered me. Do you not have a name too? Am I supposed to think of a name for you in two days? Am I-"
"My name's Yugo and that's all you need to know. If you stay longer than two days than maybe I'll tell you a bit more. . . but other than that you aren't welcome to information regarding myself or my life." Yugo hadn't been around children for such a long time that he almost completely missed the pout expressed on the canvas of the child's face.
They sat in silence for nearly an hour. It wasn't as if Yugo suffered over the silence. He greeted it proudly, hoping there would be more time for silent moments. Yet with children, there were no silent moments. Yugo loved children, especially when they smiled and laughed. He just couldn't stand teenagers who wanted to be adults way too early in life. Yugo had been a teenager once and it only happened once. It wasn't going to come back to him even if he had wasted it flirting with a girl he now considered his sister. Then again, the word "wasting" was very powerful. He didn't completely hate his teenage life. There had been some good with the bad and one of the good had been a pact with Alice that if he were ever in trouble she would come to his aid and vise versa. Alice had been one of the first friends he could consider a best friend.
Without really thinking, Yugo grabbed his phone and dialed a number he had to memorize ever since Alice caught the flu three years ago.
"What are you doing?" the child questioned.
"Calling the doctor's office. You'll get your shots and then I can send you away to school. You won't get bothered over there and I won't have to deal with you anymore. As long as you're on school grounds, they can't touch you."
"But. . . I thought that schools were where you were watched on all day long like big brother and you didn't have any rights to your own opinion or what you wanted to say. He told me that high school was terrible, that I would be stuck in a flock of idiots."
Slowly, Yugo placed the phone on the small coffee table and eyed the child suspiciously. "Who is 'he'?"
"You aren't welcome to information regarding myself or my life."
Yugo growled loudly enough that the child scooted further back into the old dingy couch. "Look kid, I'd love to help you get out of this little mess you're in, trust me on that. And in order for me to help you, you have to help me. You have to give back in order for me to find a way to allow you to live without. . . whatever it was that you were in. Expired children. . . I thought I had heard everything."
"What. . . what are the schools really like?" The child's eyes were wide with interest.
"They're a lot bigger than you think they are but most of them are going bankrupt or have closed down due to financial issues. There are dorms, I have heard, on the school grounds and they provide you with everything you need for a certain price. You can get books and you can study in a nice quiet place. . . It's really pretty nice. I stopped going to school when I was nineteen so they might have changed. But for you", Yugo waved his hand in the air, "they'll protect you over there. As long as you promise to do your work and pay every bill, the school will protect you from anyone or anything outside of school walls."
"Do they wear uniforms?"
"Yes but if you tell them about your situation then maybe they'll let you off on a waver."
The child looked as though a blow had been hit to his shoulder. He recoiled quickly, eyes of glass soon returning to a young shrewd face. "Why do you want to help me? What's in it for you?"
"A clean couch all mine again." Yugo had grown up with many different teenagers. Most of them had often yelled and screamed at him for the comment he had just made. More than often, they would give Yugo the silent treatment. But this child was so much different from any of the other teenagers Yugo had known. The child held his head back and laughed, emanating warmth and life just from one blissful vocal chord. Yugo had to smile.
Listening more to the jovial vocal music bounding upon his humble abode, Yugo picked up the phone and dialed the doctor again, this time staying on the phone. He kept his eyes on the child as he spoke to a young nurse, booking an appointment for two days into the future. He cautiously set the phone down and approached the small child.
"You're going in two days from now. They're going to give you a few shots. . . It's your basic physical." The word physical almost seemed like an alien to the child. He slanted his brows and tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Let's see here. . . They weigh you in, they take your height, they give you some shots, they give you a blood test, they take your temperature. . . you get the point, right?"
"The gist of it. Are you going to sleep now?"
"Maybe. Why do you ask?"
The child shrugged innocently. Yugo could guess that innocence was one of the child's best disguises. He wasn't one to brag himself. Alice had caught him many times with his hand caught in the cookie jar and he could never lie to her hard accusing expression of malcontent. Vaguely, he felt an itch at his ear, mostly from bad memories. Not truly bad memories but major pain that he felt after Alice had decided that he was doing something bad.
"Good night", he muttered more out of necessity than care.
Yugo left the child alone on the couch. The kid reminded him of all the times Yugo had spent in the orphanage. Yugo also feared spending time with a child who had no father figure to speak of. It awakened some strange paternal instinct inside of him, locked away long ago when he decided he would never have a spouse or children for that matter. Once again, fate was coming to slap him in the face and he knew it. There was a pure reason why this child was with him. Yugo couldn't answer it himself, but there was a true and gut feeling that he was supposed to have this child in his house, that he was supposed to name him. . . and even worse, he felt as though he would keep this child. He didn't need a child to think about. It was bad enough with Alice calling him and both of them trying to pretend they had never dated before. It was bad enough that Yugo found his mind wondering to who he could have married to end up with a child that looked like the one sleeping on his couch.
There was an incessant burning on Yugo's throat. He tried to strangle it by rubbing on it but it would not go away. Sighing, Yugo gave up quickly and crawled into his bed. As he slept, he thought of all the different names he had thought of for a baby boy, as if he had a wife and she was going to have a baby soon.
**
"Are you going to tell me about yourself now?"
"I can't. You haven't even named me yet."
Yugo smiled graciously to have been given the spotlight. Over the few days, he had learned to appreciate a child's presence, whether the boy was a teenager or not. The child spent most of the day occupying himself with the books Yugo owned. The very next day the boy had begun studying Norse mythology. Every now and then, he would ask Yugo a question like, "Why did Freya have so many lovers?"
"Back then, mythology was like entertainment. You know what soap operas are, right? Well, they're stories about certain characters who always have emotional problems and have to work on them slowly while crying and in angst all the time", Yugo would answer.
"It's kind of odd how entertainment has become society's gods now. . ."
Every question, Yugo was even happier to answer and give insightful advice back. Each time, the child would surprise him with one last sentence after Yugo's answer. It was odd that a child could give Yugo feedback that seemed so precoscious.
"I settled for three names last night. . . But I think I've settled on Kenji. It's simple and Japanese. You are Japanese, right? You speak Japanese?"
"Actually. . . I don't." Yugo's one look of interest goaded the child on. "I was born in this small northern region of Japan, a farming region you could say. We spoke a completely different dialect up there. The winters would get really cold, so we would barely open our mouths to speak and soon gained a whole language from it. It's called Zu-zu-ben. If your first language was Japanese, then I'm pretty sure you wouldn't understand me."
"How'd you learn how to speak English?"
"He taught me."
Silence enveloped the two. Yugo had learned not to question about this "He", for Kenji would clam up and not speak to him for a whole afternoon. Yugo had already tried twice. By now, he let it go and allowed the child a moment to reflect silently on the man who used to own him, or so Yugo supposed. It had been a while since he had spent some time with Kenji without mentioning this "He". It seemed as though every second of the child's life revolved around this man.
"Did you have parents?" Yugo asked without thinking.
"Of course I did. Everyone has parents." Kenji lowered his head idly into the darkness as he mused calmly on Yugo's question. "Or do you mean something else? Are you asking me if I was raised by my parents?" Yugo nodded quickly, awaiting the answer with dire consequence. He should have never asked the question. If Kenji answered yes then Yugo wouldn't know what to do. He'd have to confide himself in trying to act exactly like Kenji's old parents.
"No, I wasn't raised by my parents. I was never named, obviously. He took me to the laboratories as soon as he found me. . . when I was about two years old. He let me spend summers at my 'home' but I never really found the time to make friends or find my parents. The older villagers taught me how to harvest different crops but that was about it. After ten years, the management changed on the laboratories and then I was stuck in there all the time. I wasn't supposed to live past fifteen but I escaped."
The snow fell quickly outside. Yugo could see it build up from the window he had. As his eyes fell upon the young child he had taken in, he realized that there was something incredibly wrong about the boy's whole exterior looks. Now that the child had his head pointed towards the light, Yugo could see the yellow that dominated brown in his irises. His smile faded into a taut small line and he felt as though the child knew what Yugo looked upon. The child's eyes widened past fish eyes and immediately, Kenji covered his face with his hand. It proved no good: Yugo spotted the fingernails which looked more like claws than any human nail.
"So what exactly did they do to you at the laboratories?"
Kenji barely peeked through his black claws. The small winsome smile that had once contaminated his face had been stolen. "You remember when there was that huge epidemic of a strange virus back in 2066? The only way to really save people from the disease was to give them this antibiotic. The people were cured but there was a small problem involved: the men and women who had taken the antibiotic had strange effects on them after they had been cured of the disease. They changed into monsters and eventually withered away in a society outside of the human race. Once all of the first generation had died, everyone thought they were safe. What they didn't know was that the effect of the antibiotics had somehow carried on into their children and their children's children.
"That's when this 'natural selection' came in. They started collecting us and putting us in these little colonies, experimenting on us and eventually killing us before we could change into 'monsters'. That's why they call us 'expired children'. I've still got a year left. . . but already I-well. . ." Kenji held out his hands to Yugo showing off the claws and the light reflected the yellow in his eyes that had been taking over the soft brown irises. "They've been looking for a panacea but it's just not going to work. Not while I'm still alive, anyway. They'll probably find a cure after I'm dead and gone.
"But don't worry. It's not as if I'm scared of changing or being dissected. I'm not mad at the scientists. . . I'm more angry at the virus. At least angry enough to question about it. Why did it come about in the first place? Where did it come from? And why did the antibiotics have such a strange effect on all of us? I never did like the colonies, though. They're dark and eerie and there's monstrous looking equipment all around. But the scariest thing is that they-"
"Still keep the dead bodies of those who have changed in big tubes with blue liquid", Yugo finished. "I know."
If Yugo had kept his gaze on Kenji, he would have seen an expression of shock like a lightning bolt had hit him. "How do you know?" the child hissed, throwing his claws in front of him. He could slice Yugo in half with those claws.
"I really don't know how I know. The moment you mentioned the virus, it kind of clicked in my head. It's not like it matters if I know the interior layout of the laboratory, anyway. Listen, we need to leave soon and it's snowing outside. If you look in the closet to your far right, there's a few jackets in there. Find one that fits you. We're going to go out to the hospital."
"Oh joy", Kenji muttered underneath his breath. Still, he obeyed like a good boy and grabbed a jacket that was too big for himself.
**
Technology surrounded him. He could smell it and he could feel it, all around him. The assistant at the sign in desk was using a computer, the woman right next to him was using her cell phone. Yugo was going to go insane. He could hear the young woman at the desk, tapping away. At each tap of the keyboard, Yugo twitched quickly. Sometimes he got chills, ranging from a small finger suddenly shivering for no reason to his whole shoulder shaking incessantly. Somehow Yugo had known he didn't want to take Kenji to the hospital but it was the right thing to do. What he wanted more than anything else though was to leave now.
A young woman walked back into the hall, carrying a clipboard with her as she admired her nails. She stopped in front of the poor technophobic Yugo and smiled like he didn't look as though he just came out of a mental institution. "Mr. Ohgami", she screamed at the top of her lungs and searched the bleached white walls for anyone who would match the description for a name like "Ohgami".
Yugo stood up before he had to hear her voice again and, just like in his younger years of schooling, called, "Here".
"Ah, Mr. Oghami, if I could have you come this way, please." At least she was polite.
Yugo followed her but kept his eyes away from the terrorizing smell of metal and technology as he passed each open white door. "I should explain to you", the young woman spoke calmly as she led Yugo, "of what happened when we tried to give your child his T.B. shot."
"What did he do? What happened to him?" Yugo uttered without giving the woman space to speak.
"Well, it's the funniest thing, really. I guess the little guy has a fear for shots or something. Has your child ever taken karate or any type of those Asian fighting arts you Japanese have?" She really wanted to get on Yugo's bad list. Yugo could stand for her oblivious ignorance but stereotyping was something Yugo did not take lightly.
"If you could explain to me exactly what happened then I'm pretty sure that I could help you."
"Well, because of your little Kenji, Dr. Bergman has a broken arm. He was about to give Kenji his T.B. shot and something happened. He just disappeared for a second and the next thing I knew, the doctor was crying in pain. Then he disappeared again. I was really scared for a minute, I swear- Mr. Oghami?"
Yugo left the woman behind as he rushed over to the fourth room on the right. The doctor was sitting on a revolving chair, nursing his injured arm as an assistant tried to grab something inside of the medicine cabinets, underneath the white sink. The assistant ripped his arm out of the cabinet, holding it to his chest. Further investigation proved Yugo that the blood on the man's hands were from scratch marks.
"Move", Yugo instructed the assistant and shoved him out of the way. Yugo fell to his knees and peered closely into the cabinet. With barely enough light, Yugo could see Kenji's yellow eyes flash brightly.
"Kenji. What on earth are you doing there?" Yugo would have added extra words of anger were it not for the pure fear that rotated in Kenji's eyes. He hadn't gone to the hospital in over four years and then he had to come back only to get in trouble.
"They tried to give me a shot!" the boy hissed virulently. "You never told me they were going to give me a shot! You told me they were going to weigh me then take my height and then other stuff but you never mentioned the word SHOT!"
"I did too tell you that you were going to get a few shots. You just weren't listening to me and-shit. . . Kenji, look, just get out from under there, all right? We'll go home right now." Yugo prayed that would get the kid out of the cabinets. Last thing that he needed, besides a kid, was trouble with the hospital which would probably land him straight in the middle of a financial problem that he could never dig himself out of.
"We'll go home?" Kenji asked in a testy voice.
"Yes, we'll go home."
Slowly, Kenji pulled himself out of the medicine cabinet and shook off the dust that had been hiding in there with him. As soon as one of his eyes fell to the doctor, he smiled viciously, leaving Dr. Bergman to quiver in fear. "Kenji", Yugo called to his child, "let's go home before I tear you to pieces."
"Wait!" the doctor shrieked before Yugo could exit the door with Kenji in tow. "He needs to have his shots! Do you know what the world outside is like? It's full of viruses just waiting to kill little Kenji here. He needs his vaccinations!"
"Dr. Bergman, do you want another broken arm?" The doctor didn't answer but still Yugo continued. "Then sod off."
Yugo dragged Kenji through the halls not even thinking that he may have hurt the boy's arm. Kenji struggled against the confines on his arm, whimpering at the pain. Kenji tried scratching at Yugo's hand but it failed miserably. He even tried biting Yugo's hand off. Before he even knew it, Yugo had stopped and let go of Kenji's arm. Kenji clutched his bleeding arm closer to his body. He hadn't noticed Yugo puncture his arm but it still hurt terribly.
"Kenji, I'm really sorry. . . I didn't realize that I made your arm bleed. I just get really. . . paranoid around technology. It makes me flip. Are you all right?" The voice that came out of Yugo's throat sounded as if it wanted to be caring but couldn't quite act as well as Yugo's eyes could. "Kenji? What happened back there?" Yugo placed one cold hand on Kenji's head and let if fall affectionatly to Kenji's warm cheek. Kenji rubbed his cheek into Yugo's tender gesture, almost forcing the man to completely pull his hand away from the boy's young face.
"It's okay, Kenji. We're going to go back home. I'll never take you to a hospital ever again. I-" Yugo yipped loudly like a wolf before he could finish his sentence.
The man who had bumped into Yugo was odd looking for an older man who may or may not have been working in the hospital. He pulled on his neon green goatee and grinned wickedly with the aura of a strange Rocky Horror Picture Show cast member floating about him. "Extremely sorry about that I am", he mumbled and giggled extatically. He walked over to the water fountain at the end of the hall, pretending as if he weren't eavesdropping.
"As I was saying, Kenji-"
"I know", Kenji muttered. His fear had slowly dwindled away inside of him ever since the older man had rammed into Yugo. "You know, I forgot to tell you since we got in the hospital. You look like shit, you know that?"
"I love your direct approach to people, Kenji." Yugo ruffled the hair on Kenji's head before taking the child's arm and escorting him out of the hospital.
The water fountain stopped flowing as soon as the push button was released. An older man who had been drinking water suddenly grinned like the cheshire cat and wrapped his coat tightly against his thin body. "Looks as though I may get a toy back, don't you think so you beautiful and handsome man you?" he cooed to his reflection in the water fountain. "Looks as though he may."
A/N: Eugh. . . Just reading the first chapter over again made me shiver. It's been a long time since I wrote chapter one and then worked on chapter two. Once I started reading chapter two, I realized what a piece of junk it was and decided to write a different chapter two. Suffice to say, Alice is not going to be a major character in this story anymore nor is the weasel zoanthrope I had planned a while back. I must apologize for the first chapter. In my youth, I liked to "experiment" with my writing and the effects were as bad as Neil Young's techno and rockabilly albums. More babbling: How on earth do you use the career characters in the other modes in BR4? And a little discovery I made when playing BR4. . . Kenji with his hair down looks a lot like Sasarai and Luc (Before Suikoden 3 for Luc, of course). So then, on with the story.
Chapter 2: No more Marc Bolan song titles
Among the night, there was a feeling of complete obscurity. Yugo had to admit, there was a child sleeping on his couch, covered in blood and without a name. His plans had not worked out as he would have liked. In fact, they had been completely ruined. Yugo had expected to live as a hermit in his little cozy house. No one to hold a promise to, no one to take care of but himself. It seemed like a strange dream. Eventually, he had to wake up and face reality: there is just no way to live by yourself. Fate has a way of totally screwing that up.
So he had a one-minded quiet child who feigned innocence in his house. At least that was Yugo's impression on the child after spending four hours telling the kid that he couldn't have another blanket. It's not like it was the end of the world. Well. . . The blanket incident had shown Yugo that even children can be two-faced. Frankly, he was impressed with the child's age. He didn't know many fourteen-year-olds who could stand being covered in blood through the whole night.
In those awkward four hours, Yugo had grown somewhat of a respect for the child. The boy didn't angst over his ordeals as the kids in the orphanage had. He didn't cling onto Yugo's leg for support nor did he ask questions about Yugo's life. His eyes retained a winsome glaze while he searched the room for clues to Yugo's past. It was almost as if he were treating the older man's life like a game, putting puzzle pieces together and inferring what he thought to be truth. His eyes were caught on a picture Yugo kept by his phone. Mostly on that little table, there were pictures of friends he had known from the orphanage but the child's eyes had been caught by one in particular.
"That's Alice", Yugo explained. It was the only remedy for the child's curiosity; he obviously couldn't hide it. Curiosity killed the cat but Yugo couldn't exactly pin a cat-like attitude onto the child's sharp rodent features. He had an angular face, one that Yugo couldn't compare to the soft and puffy cheeks of a cat. "She's a friend of mine. We grew up together, sort of like you and your little friend."
"She's not my girlfriend. . ." the child growled.
"I didn't say she was. And before you say anything, Alice is not my girlfriend either."
The child's curiosity subsided and he took more of an interest in his surroundings. He inspected Yugo's couch, Yugo's walls and Yugo's phone, expecting some surprise out of the normal decor. He settled for a sigh and a glare in Yugo's direction.
"I asked you a question earlier", the child uttered under nearly closed lips. "I asked what should I call you and you never answered me. Do you not have a name too? Am I supposed to think of a name for you in two days? Am I-"
"My name's Yugo and that's all you need to know. If you stay longer than two days than maybe I'll tell you a bit more. . . but other than that you aren't welcome to information regarding myself or my life." Yugo hadn't been around children for such a long time that he almost completely missed the pout expressed on the canvas of the child's face.
They sat in silence for nearly an hour. It wasn't as if Yugo suffered over the silence. He greeted it proudly, hoping there would be more time for silent moments. Yet with children, there were no silent moments. Yugo loved children, especially when they smiled and laughed. He just couldn't stand teenagers who wanted to be adults way too early in life. Yugo had been a teenager once and it only happened once. It wasn't going to come back to him even if he had wasted it flirting with a girl he now considered his sister. Then again, the word "wasting" was very powerful. He didn't completely hate his teenage life. There had been some good with the bad and one of the good had been a pact with Alice that if he were ever in trouble she would come to his aid and vise versa. Alice had been one of the first friends he could consider a best friend.
Without really thinking, Yugo grabbed his phone and dialed a number he had to memorize ever since Alice caught the flu three years ago.
"What are you doing?" the child questioned.
"Calling the doctor's office. You'll get your shots and then I can send you away to school. You won't get bothered over there and I won't have to deal with you anymore. As long as you're on school grounds, they can't touch you."
"But. . . I thought that schools were where you were watched on all day long like big brother and you didn't have any rights to your own opinion or what you wanted to say. He told me that high school was terrible, that I would be stuck in a flock of idiots."
Slowly, Yugo placed the phone on the small coffee table and eyed the child suspiciously. "Who is 'he'?"
"You aren't welcome to information regarding myself or my life."
Yugo growled loudly enough that the child scooted further back into the old dingy couch. "Look kid, I'd love to help you get out of this little mess you're in, trust me on that. And in order for me to help you, you have to help me. You have to give back in order for me to find a way to allow you to live without. . . whatever it was that you were in. Expired children. . . I thought I had heard everything."
"What. . . what are the schools really like?" The child's eyes were wide with interest.
"They're a lot bigger than you think they are but most of them are going bankrupt or have closed down due to financial issues. There are dorms, I have heard, on the school grounds and they provide you with everything you need for a certain price. You can get books and you can study in a nice quiet place. . . It's really pretty nice. I stopped going to school when I was nineteen so they might have changed. But for you", Yugo waved his hand in the air, "they'll protect you over there. As long as you promise to do your work and pay every bill, the school will protect you from anyone or anything outside of school walls."
"Do they wear uniforms?"
"Yes but if you tell them about your situation then maybe they'll let you off on a waver."
The child looked as though a blow had been hit to his shoulder. He recoiled quickly, eyes of glass soon returning to a young shrewd face. "Why do you want to help me? What's in it for you?"
"A clean couch all mine again." Yugo had grown up with many different teenagers. Most of them had often yelled and screamed at him for the comment he had just made. More than often, they would give Yugo the silent treatment. But this child was so much different from any of the other teenagers Yugo had known. The child held his head back and laughed, emanating warmth and life just from one blissful vocal chord. Yugo had to smile.
Listening more to the jovial vocal music bounding upon his humble abode, Yugo picked up the phone and dialed the doctor again, this time staying on the phone. He kept his eyes on the child as he spoke to a young nurse, booking an appointment for two days into the future. He cautiously set the phone down and approached the small child.
"You're going in two days from now. They're going to give you a few shots. . . It's your basic physical." The word physical almost seemed like an alien to the child. He slanted his brows and tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Let's see here. . . They weigh you in, they take your height, they give you some shots, they give you a blood test, they take your temperature. . . you get the point, right?"
"The gist of it. Are you going to sleep now?"
"Maybe. Why do you ask?"
The child shrugged innocently. Yugo could guess that innocence was one of the child's best disguises. He wasn't one to brag himself. Alice had caught him many times with his hand caught in the cookie jar and he could never lie to her hard accusing expression of malcontent. Vaguely, he felt an itch at his ear, mostly from bad memories. Not truly bad memories but major pain that he felt after Alice had decided that he was doing something bad.
"Good night", he muttered more out of necessity than care.
Yugo left the child alone on the couch. The kid reminded him of all the times Yugo had spent in the orphanage. Yugo also feared spending time with a child who had no father figure to speak of. It awakened some strange paternal instinct inside of him, locked away long ago when he decided he would never have a spouse or children for that matter. Once again, fate was coming to slap him in the face and he knew it. There was a pure reason why this child was with him. Yugo couldn't answer it himself, but there was a true and gut feeling that he was supposed to have this child in his house, that he was supposed to name him. . . and even worse, he felt as though he would keep this child. He didn't need a child to think about. It was bad enough with Alice calling him and both of them trying to pretend they had never dated before. It was bad enough that Yugo found his mind wondering to who he could have married to end up with a child that looked like the one sleeping on his couch.
There was an incessant burning on Yugo's throat. He tried to strangle it by rubbing on it but it would not go away. Sighing, Yugo gave up quickly and crawled into his bed. As he slept, he thought of all the different names he had thought of for a baby boy, as if he had a wife and she was going to have a baby soon.
**
"Are you going to tell me about yourself now?"
"I can't. You haven't even named me yet."
Yugo smiled graciously to have been given the spotlight. Over the few days, he had learned to appreciate a child's presence, whether the boy was a teenager or not. The child spent most of the day occupying himself with the books Yugo owned. The very next day the boy had begun studying Norse mythology. Every now and then, he would ask Yugo a question like, "Why did Freya have so many lovers?"
"Back then, mythology was like entertainment. You know what soap operas are, right? Well, they're stories about certain characters who always have emotional problems and have to work on them slowly while crying and in angst all the time", Yugo would answer.
"It's kind of odd how entertainment has become society's gods now. . ."
Every question, Yugo was even happier to answer and give insightful advice back. Each time, the child would surprise him with one last sentence after Yugo's answer. It was odd that a child could give Yugo feedback that seemed so precoscious.
"I settled for three names last night. . . But I think I've settled on Kenji. It's simple and Japanese. You are Japanese, right? You speak Japanese?"
"Actually. . . I don't." Yugo's one look of interest goaded the child on. "I was born in this small northern region of Japan, a farming region you could say. We spoke a completely different dialect up there. The winters would get really cold, so we would barely open our mouths to speak and soon gained a whole language from it. It's called Zu-zu-ben. If your first language was Japanese, then I'm pretty sure you wouldn't understand me."
"How'd you learn how to speak English?"
"He taught me."
Silence enveloped the two. Yugo had learned not to question about this "He", for Kenji would clam up and not speak to him for a whole afternoon. Yugo had already tried twice. By now, he let it go and allowed the child a moment to reflect silently on the man who used to own him, or so Yugo supposed. It had been a while since he had spent some time with Kenji without mentioning this "He". It seemed as though every second of the child's life revolved around this man.
"Did you have parents?" Yugo asked without thinking.
"Of course I did. Everyone has parents." Kenji lowered his head idly into the darkness as he mused calmly on Yugo's question. "Or do you mean something else? Are you asking me if I was raised by my parents?" Yugo nodded quickly, awaiting the answer with dire consequence. He should have never asked the question. If Kenji answered yes then Yugo wouldn't know what to do. He'd have to confide himself in trying to act exactly like Kenji's old parents.
"No, I wasn't raised by my parents. I was never named, obviously. He took me to the laboratories as soon as he found me. . . when I was about two years old. He let me spend summers at my 'home' but I never really found the time to make friends or find my parents. The older villagers taught me how to harvest different crops but that was about it. After ten years, the management changed on the laboratories and then I was stuck in there all the time. I wasn't supposed to live past fifteen but I escaped."
The snow fell quickly outside. Yugo could see it build up from the window he had. As his eyes fell upon the young child he had taken in, he realized that there was something incredibly wrong about the boy's whole exterior looks. Now that the child had his head pointed towards the light, Yugo could see the yellow that dominated brown in his irises. His smile faded into a taut small line and he felt as though the child knew what Yugo looked upon. The child's eyes widened past fish eyes and immediately, Kenji covered his face with his hand. It proved no good: Yugo spotted the fingernails which looked more like claws than any human nail.
"So what exactly did they do to you at the laboratories?"
Kenji barely peeked through his black claws. The small winsome smile that had once contaminated his face had been stolen. "You remember when there was that huge epidemic of a strange virus back in 2066? The only way to really save people from the disease was to give them this antibiotic. The people were cured but there was a small problem involved: the men and women who had taken the antibiotic had strange effects on them after they had been cured of the disease. They changed into monsters and eventually withered away in a society outside of the human race. Once all of the first generation had died, everyone thought they were safe. What they didn't know was that the effect of the antibiotics had somehow carried on into their children and their children's children.
"That's when this 'natural selection' came in. They started collecting us and putting us in these little colonies, experimenting on us and eventually killing us before we could change into 'monsters'. That's why they call us 'expired children'. I've still got a year left. . . but already I-well. . ." Kenji held out his hands to Yugo showing off the claws and the light reflected the yellow in his eyes that had been taking over the soft brown irises. "They've been looking for a panacea but it's just not going to work. Not while I'm still alive, anyway. They'll probably find a cure after I'm dead and gone.
"But don't worry. It's not as if I'm scared of changing or being dissected. I'm not mad at the scientists. . . I'm more angry at the virus. At least angry enough to question about it. Why did it come about in the first place? Where did it come from? And why did the antibiotics have such a strange effect on all of us? I never did like the colonies, though. They're dark and eerie and there's monstrous looking equipment all around. But the scariest thing is that they-"
"Still keep the dead bodies of those who have changed in big tubes with blue liquid", Yugo finished. "I know."
If Yugo had kept his gaze on Kenji, he would have seen an expression of shock like a lightning bolt had hit him. "How do you know?" the child hissed, throwing his claws in front of him. He could slice Yugo in half with those claws.
"I really don't know how I know. The moment you mentioned the virus, it kind of clicked in my head. It's not like it matters if I know the interior layout of the laboratory, anyway. Listen, we need to leave soon and it's snowing outside. If you look in the closet to your far right, there's a few jackets in there. Find one that fits you. We're going to go out to the hospital."
"Oh joy", Kenji muttered underneath his breath. Still, he obeyed like a good boy and grabbed a jacket that was too big for himself.
**
Technology surrounded him. He could smell it and he could feel it, all around him. The assistant at the sign in desk was using a computer, the woman right next to him was using her cell phone. Yugo was going to go insane. He could hear the young woman at the desk, tapping away. At each tap of the keyboard, Yugo twitched quickly. Sometimes he got chills, ranging from a small finger suddenly shivering for no reason to his whole shoulder shaking incessantly. Somehow Yugo had known he didn't want to take Kenji to the hospital but it was the right thing to do. What he wanted more than anything else though was to leave now.
A young woman walked back into the hall, carrying a clipboard with her as she admired her nails. She stopped in front of the poor technophobic Yugo and smiled like he didn't look as though he just came out of a mental institution. "Mr. Ohgami", she screamed at the top of her lungs and searched the bleached white walls for anyone who would match the description for a name like "Ohgami".
Yugo stood up before he had to hear her voice again and, just like in his younger years of schooling, called, "Here".
"Ah, Mr. Oghami, if I could have you come this way, please." At least she was polite.
Yugo followed her but kept his eyes away from the terrorizing smell of metal and technology as he passed each open white door. "I should explain to you", the young woman spoke calmly as she led Yugo, "of what happened when we tried to give your child his T.B. shot."
"What did he do? What happened to him?" Yugo uttered without giving the woman space to speak.
"Well, it's the funniest thing, really. I guess the little guy has a fear for shots or something. Has your child ever taken karate or any type of those Asian fighting arts you Japanese have?" She really wanted to get on Yugo's bad list. Yugo could stand for her oblivious ignorance but stereotyping was something Yugo did not take lightly.
"If you could explain to me exactly what happened then I'm pretty sure that I could help you."
"Well, because of your little Kenji, Dr. Bergman has a broken arm. He was about to give Kenji his T.B. shot and something happened. He just disappeared for a second and the next thing I knew, the doctor was crying in pain. Then he disappeared again. I was really scared for a minute, I swear- Mr. Oghami?"
Yugo left the woman behind as he rushed over to the fourth room on the right. The doctor was sitting on a revolving chair, nursing his injured arm as an assistant tried to grab something inside of the medicine cabinets, underneath the white sink. The assistant ripped his arm out of the cabinet, holding it to his chest. Further investigation proved Yugo that the blood on the man's hands were from scratch marks.
"Move", Yugo instructed the assistant and shoved him out of the way. Yugo fell to his knees and peered closely into the cabinet. With barely enough light, Yugo could see Kenji's yellow eyes flash brightly.
"Kenji. What on earth are you doing there?" Yugo would have added extra words of anger were it not for the pure fear that rotated in Kenji's eyes. He hadn't gone to the hospital in over four years and then he had to come back only to get in trouble.
"They tried to give me a shot!" the boy hissed virulently. "You never told me they were going to give me a shot! You told me they were going to weigh me then take my height and then other stuff but you never mentioned the word SHOT!"
"I did too tell you that you were going to get a few shots. You just weren't listening to me and-shit. . . Kenji, look, just get out from under there, all right? We'll go home right now." Yugo prayed that would get the kid out of the cabinets. Last thing that he needed, besides a kid, was trouble with the hospital which would probably land him straight in the middle of a financial problem that he could never dig himself out of.
"We'll go home?" Kenji asked in a testy voice.
"Yes, we'll go home."
Slowly, Kenji pulled himself out of the medicine cabinet and shook off the dust that had been hiding in there with him. As soon as one of his eyes fell to the doctor, he smiled viciously, leaving Dr. Bergman to quiver in fear. "Kenji", Yugo called to his child, "let's go home before I tear you to pieces."
"Wait!" the doctor shrieked before Yugo could exit the door with Kenji in tow. "He needs to have his shots! Do you know what the world outside is like? It's full of viruses just waiting to kill little Kenji here. He needs his vaccinations!"
"Dr. Bergman, do you want another broken arm?" The doctor didn't answer but still Yugo continued. "Then sod off."
Yugo dragged Kenji through the halls not even thinking that he may have hurt the boy's arm. Kenji struggled against the confines on his arm, whimpering at the pain. Kenji tried scratching at Yugo's hand but it failed miserably. He even tried biting Yugo's hand off. Before he even knew it, Yugo had stopped and let go of Kenji's arm. Kenji clutched his bleeding arm closer to his body. He hadn't noticed Yugo puncture his arm but it still hurt terribly.
"Kenji, I'm really sorry. . . I didn't realize that I made your arm bleed. I just get really. . . paranoid around technology. It makes me flip. Are you all right?" The voice that came out of Yugo's throat sounded as if it wanted to be caring but couldn't quite act as well as Yugo's eyes could. "Kenji? What happened back there?" Yugo placed one cold hand on Kenji's head and let if fall affectionatly to Kenji's warm cheek. Kenji rubbed his cheek into Yugo's tender gesture, almost forcing the man to completely pull his hand away from the boy's young face.
"It's okay, Kenji. We're going to go back home. I'll never take you to a hospital ever again. I-" Yugo yipped loudly like a wolf before he could finish his sentence.
The man who had bumped into Yugo was odd looking for an older man who may or may not have been working in the hospital. He pulled on his neon green goatee and grinned wickedly with the aura of a strange Rocky Horror Picture Show cast member floating about him. "Extremely sorry about that I am", he mumbled and giggled extatically. He walked over to the water fountain at the end of the hall, pretending as if he weren't eavesdropping.
"As I was saying, Kenji-"
"I know", Kenji muttered. His fear had slowly dwindled away inside of him ever since the older man had rammed into Yugo. "You know, I forgot to tell you since we got in the hospital. You look like shit, you know that?"
"I love your direct approach to people, Kenji." Yugo ruffled the hair on Kenji's head before taking the child's arm and escorting him out of the hospital.
The water fountain stopped flowing as soon as the push button was released. An older man who had been drinking water suddenly grinned like the cheshire cat and wrapped his coat tightly against his thin body. "Looks as though I may get a toy back, don't you think so you beautiful and handsome man you?" he cooed to his reflection in the water fountain. "Looks as though he may."