Apple Core
By Jillian Storm
(Disclaimer: Perhaps I should call this the never-ending story . . . at least, it
certainly can seem that way, but while the muses prompt me, I will follow. Part
Twelve of my on-going misadventures of the alternate reality Road Rage
Theater and Company comprises characters from a handful of different anime
series: Rurouni Kenshin, Utena, Gundam Wing and Cowboy Bebop. The lyrics
accompanying this particular segment are from the Catatonia song "Apple Core"
a rather short tune by the spunky European band. Once again, Catatonia
breathes life into my imagination. This is a short one—but I suddenly have two
particular stories in mind and needed to finish this one so that the next chapters
could come more quickly!)
Faye crossed her leg toward Shin and took his near hand with both of hers. It
was opening night of the Summer Spotlights and the two of them were sitting in
the back near the far aisle. Faye had seen all of the scenes more than any one
person would care to unless they were paid, but seeing them with the auditorium
lights out and only the stage lighting to illuminate the actors still managed to
make her stomach do flip flops. Shin patted her tight knuckle embrace with his
opposite hand, in an attempt to be reassuring which made her all the more
nervous fearing that he were only appeasing her.
The scene that had given her the most trouble had been a quick sketch with
characters played by her own brother, Sanosuke Sagara, as well as Dorothy
Catalonia and Trowa Barton—seasoned actors and refugees from the splintering
Glass House Theater. The dynamics between the three when pitted against her
own stubbornness had ended up with a rather stiff and dangerously violent
volley of slanted dialogue. Watching them between her fingers, Faye kept
hearing "marmalade" syllables under the current of their voices.
Shin snorted, a quick repression of amusement responding to something said on
stage and Faye tried to capture or remember what it might have been. Then she
heard other genuine snickers of amusement from the audience sitting directly in
front of her. Glancing up, she noticed that the actors were gaining momentum
from the attention of the audience. She comfortably slouched forward, the deep
purple colored folds of her dress collecting around her midsection.
The curtains closed after the threesome on stage took a prepared bow.
"You must have tamed them somehow, that was incredibly fun." Shin
whispered close to her ear. Faye smiled, still uncertain but truly wanting to
believe him. Perhaps directing wasn't so bad, but she wouldn't be able to eat and
keep the food down for several hours even after the show, of that she was sure.
Even as the lights came on and she and Shin slipped out quickly in order to
worm their way backstage, Faye hesitated to feel any true sense of
accomplishment. Perhaps three talented actors could have pulled anything off
even when getting lousy direction.
She slipped her arms through Shins and after seeing Hajime Saitou coming from
the opposite direction, began intently studying the buckles of her fashionable
boots.
"Good work, Valentine." Saitou glanced down at her a moment as he passed,
then continued onward without changing his traditionally dour expression.
"Faye, you're cutting the circulation off to my arm," Shin finally protested,
trying to pry her individual fingers from his muscle.
"Did you hear that?!" Faye yelled jubilantly. "I did great! Did you hear him?"
Her face twisted into the expression of someone drinking something sour they
weren't expecting, her voice lowered, "Good work, Valentine." She beamed,
"Ah-ha! Broadway, here I come!" She lifted a fist triumphantly and pulled her
companion along the hall with a swifter step.
Don't be so hard on yourself...no...
"What are you doing?" Juri asked after considering her words carefully. "It's
almost four in the morning."
"What are you still doing here? I waited, thought about going to the parties . . .
didn't get any farther than this."
Without explanation, Shiori was sitting on the sidewalk in front of the front
glass display of the Road Rage just to one side of the main entrance on the
corner. Her legs were curled up and wrapped tight with the circle of her arms.
The younger girl's expression hidden in the lamplight and ever-present glow of
the display full of advertisements and posters.
Juri had just left the building, letting the door slip closed and clicking locked-
shut again. "I was talking to Mikage." Shiori didn't move, and hadn't attempted
to the entire conversation, letting her chin rest against one knee. Seeming quite
small and foolish alone near the street. Juri took a step closer. "Why didn't you
go to one of the parties. It's not safe for you to just sit here . . ." She wasn't sure
how to continue.
"The moon looks sick tonight." Shiori sighed. "Not unlike how I feel. I can't
pretend to celebrate when everything in this God awful theater makes me feel
like puking. I hate acting." She added with venom.
"You're a good actress." Juri said, "Don't talk like that."
"I don't know who I'm trying to fool." Shiori's response clipped short. "I've
been thinking. Perhaps I don't belong here. It's not like I'm irreplaceable . . ."
"Don't say that." Juri reached out automatically, to console the girl.
"Don't touch me!" Shiori cried out, pulling away, but staying curled tight. "I . .
. I can't stand it!"
Juri's fingers snapped back, and her eyes widened with surprise. The hostility
was unexpected. "It's late. You're not yourself." Juri surmised, speaking
mostly to herself.
Shiori laughed bitterly, "Not myself? Not myself. Who the hell are you to tell
me what I'm like?"
Hovering, uncertainly, Juri watched Shiori transform, unlacing her arms,
stretching out her legs. Planting her sneakered feet and standing up with a
confident spring, Shiori shook out her hair and turned sparkling eyes toward the
other woman. Then, Shiori's eyes narrowed, appraising Juri's sincere and
confused bewilderment.
"Don't look at me like that." Shiori's voice was even different, the sickly sweet
element dripped over each word.
"What happened?" Juri whispered.
Shiori shrugged, and began to move away. "Doesn't matter." One moment in
shadow, the next in a ray of streetlight, then again swallowed by shadow, Shiori
left Juri alone.
Don't be so hard on yourself...no...
If the situation was uncomfortable, Trowa was able to hide it faultlessly well.
The way his eyelids always seemed to droop with half asleep ease, and the
steady glass to mouth to table to mouth motion of his hand worked away the
minutes like a steady metronome. After the show, he'd put on a simple dark
turtleneck and jeans, allowing him to blend into the smoky atmosphere of the
International Velvet, the regular celebration spot of the Road Rage crowd. A
silent, steady counterbalance to the company seated to either side of him.
Sano had nearly given up on breaking Trowa's iron resolve to conveniently
forget his stepsister Catherine Bloom's telephone number, home address,
frequent customers and usual company. "I'll follow you where ever you go, lurk
about in your dreams and unravel this mystery if it's the last thing I do!" Sano
said, seemingly to himself, gnawing on a toothpick as Trowa merely took
another sip of his beverage. The younger actor shook his fist dramatically, but
simply earned an amused "humph" from Saitou as the director blew smoke at
him across the table.
On Trowa's other side, Dorothy Catalonia sophisticatedly draped herself across
her chair, somehow her silver-white and gold presence sparkling like a jewel in
the otherwise dark and secretive comfort of the establishment. She seemed to
glimmer in a fluctuating syncretism with the constant music. Otherwise,
Dorothy was incredibly bored.
"Wanna dance, babe?" She leaned toward Trowa, catching him in the process of
dropping his defenses as his glass returned to the table. Trowa's lips twitched
negatively; however, before he could respond verbally, Dorothy slapped the
table. "Tonight, I'm *not* going to take 'no' for an answer." In what could have
been argued as an unladylike manner, Dorothy pushed her chair back from the
table with an obnoxious screech of movement. "C'mon." Dorothy propped one
hand on her hip and waved him up with her other, almost as if she were mentally
commanding his response.
Trowa obligingly, unfolded from his chair, perhaps mumbling some apologies
from under his breath but no one heard or responded.
"What do you want?" Trowa asked, standing awkwardly motionless after
Dorothy's ethereal body language pulled him to the farthest side of the room.
Dorothy appraised his comment for a moment from under a flirtatiously
innocent gaze. "None of that now, Trowa dear, you were the one who wanted to
talk to me, wasn't it?"
"Stop playing." Trowa grabbed Dorothy's arm as she began to slide closer to
him, pretending to dance. His fingers loosened as they settled down by her
waist. "I do have one question for you. What's this sudden interest in the Shiori
girl?"
"My, my, my." Dorothy batted her eyelids, playfully, but with unspoken
seriousness a strong undercurrent between them. "Why have you a sudden
interest in such a trifle?"
"I'm asking for a friend." Trowa said, the anonymity a transparent veil for the
truth. He knew he was concealing nothing Dorothy had not surmised for
herself.
"Since when have you had friends, Trowa?" Dorothy asked sweetly, their
compromise and friendliness being tested to a new limit. She didn't approve of
being taken lightly. "You don't simply call in favors for just anyone now, do
you?" She tried to break the expressionlessly cool look Trowa had locked on
her. "I'm so curious why you'd waste the effort of asking me for something . . .
for a woman you hardly have known."
"Some people don't play our games." Trowa said, the slowness of his words
perhaps indicating his diminishing patience. "Not all actors like to play with
their lovers until they're exhausted or broken." Dorothy raised her eyebrow,
continuing to act surprised. "Juri's mistake is that she cares too much for anyone
who appears earnest. I don't know what Shiori's intentions are, but I think we'd
all rather her intentions remain untainted . . . uninfluenced."
Dorothy laughed, tossing her hair and her appearance of amused contentment
did cause Trowa to frown. "Don't look so confused, dear heart!" Dorothy
laughed again, "You are so beautifully sensitive, don't you know?" Stretching
luxuriously, Dorothy pulled him into the thick of the dancing anonymity.
"Watch more closely, you'll see not everyone is as clawless as you imagine them
to be." Pulling his head closer by twisting her fingers into the back of his hair,
Dorothy whispered, "Not everyone is as you are." Nothing else was said.
"What was that all about?" Nichol asked pointedly when Dorothy stopped back
by the table some time later in order to take a few sips of her drink.
Dorothy studied him a moment over the edge of her glass, her grey blue eyes
thoughtful. Then she simply said with a gleeful jab, "Nothing, sweetie. But at
least Trowa dances."
Don't be so hard on yourself...no...
"It's a rather experimental process of procedures, again, but it seems to be my
best shot at this point." Ruka paused, "I wonder how much I'll look like a naked
bunny when I'm hairless."
"You'll lose your hair?" Julia tried not to sound discouraging as she scrambled
to keep the smile on her face, even though he obviously would never see it over
the telephone.
Ruka laughed, which reassured his listener more than anything else he'd said for
the entire conversation. "Honestly, Julia, they don't have much of a clue as to
what will really happen to me, but they can sure dream up a whole slew of
horrible things in all of the pre-surgical interviews and round-table
brainstorming conferences." Ruka laughed again, this time however sounding
more put on than honest, "I'm the guinea pig, of course, still it's a bit
demoralizing to the survival instinct to listen to half of these academic chaps
refer to me, while I'm in the room mind you, as the 'test subject' or 'sample'."
"Oh dear," Julia again found herself at a loss for words, and tore her eyes away
from Spike who, from his end of the couch, was glaring at her expectantly for
clues since up to that point her side of the conversation had been relatively
cryptic. "How long will this all take? Are you ever coming back to us?" She
reached up to hold the telephone's receiver in both hands, to keep them from
trembling.
The initial silence seemed an eternity, "If all goes well, I could expect to be back
after observations and recovery are complete. It's not going to be years, but . . .
the most optimistic projections, from that Groucho Marx look-a-like I told you
about, are about six months."
"Six months." Julia repeated, a bit dazed and also for Spike's benefit so that he'd
no longer feel obligated to jostle her seat cushion.
"Six months," Ruka repeated as if they were his lifeline. "It seems rather
miraculously short, or long, depending on which end of things you're coming
from. But it is the optimistic report." His tone fluctuating from careless
reassurance to a betraying weariness.
"Hang in there, darling." Julia tapped into her maternal instinct for strength.
"Spike and I are so proud of you, being so strong."
Ruka's laughs seemed to come too easily and on cue. "Thanks. Oh, and I don't
know when I'll be free to call as often. I need to know . . . how's Juri?" He
added the final thought, quickening his pace with each word.
"Well, she's fine. Fine, really. Yes, she's . . . fine."
Don't be so hard on yourself...no...
By Jillian Storm
(Disclaimer: Perhaps I should call this the never-ending story . . . at least, it
certainly can seem that way, but while the muses prompt me, I will follow. Part
Twelve of my on-going misadventures of the alternate reality Road Rage
Theater and Company comprises characters from a handful of different anime
series: Rurouni Kenshin, Utena, Gundam Wing and Cowboy Bebop. The lyrics
accompanying this particular segment are from the Catatonia song "Apple Core"
a rather short tune by the spunky European band. Once again, Catatonia
breathes life into my imagination. This is a short one—but I suddenly have two
particular stories in mind and needed to finish this one so that the next chapters
could come more quickly!)
Faye crossed her leg toward Shin and took his near hand with both of hers. It
was opening night of the Summer Spotlights and the two of them were sitting in
the back near the far aisle. Faye had seen all of the scenes more than any one
person would care to unless they were paid, but seeing them with the auditorium
lights out and only the stage lighting to illuminate the actors still managed to
make her stomach do flip flops. Shin patted her tight knuckle embrace with his
opposite hand, in an attempt to be reassuring which made her all the more
nervous fearing that he were only appeasing her.
The scene that had given her the most trouble had been a quick sketch with
characters played by her own brother, Sanosuke Sagara, as well as Dorothy
Catalonia and Trowa Barton—seasoned actors and refugees from the splintering
Glass House Theater. The dynamics between the three when pitted against her
own stubbornness had ended up with a rather stiff and dangerously violent
volley of slanted dialogue. Watching them between her fingers, Faye kept
hearing "marmalade" syllables under the current of their voices.
Shin snorted, a quick repression of amusement responding to something said on
stage and Faye tried to capture or remember what it might have been. Then she
heard other genuine snickers of amusement from the audience sitting directly in
front of her. Glancing up, she noticed that the actors were gaining momentum
from the attention of the audience. She comfortably slouched forward, the deep
purple colored folds of her dress collecting around her midsection.
The curtains closed after the threesome on stage took a prepared bow.
"You must have tamed them somehow, that was incredibly fun." Shin
whispered close to her ear. Faye smiled, still uncertain but truly wanting to
believe him. Perhaps directing wasn't so bad, but she wouldn't be able to eat and
keep the food down for several hours even after the show, of that she was sure.
Even as the lights came on and she and Shin slipped out quickly in order to
worm their way backstage, Faye hesitated to feel any true sense of
accomplishment. Perhaps three talented actors could have pulled anything off
even when getting lousy direction.
She slipped her arms through Shins and after seeing Hajime Saitou coming from
the opposite direction, began intently studying the buckles of her fashionable
boots.
"Good work, Valentine." Saitou glanced down at her a moment as he passed,
then continued onward without changing his traditionally dour expression.
"Faye, you're cutting the circulation off to my arm," Shin finally protested,
trying to pry her individual fingers from his muscle.
"Did you hear that?!" Faye yelled jubilantly. "I did great! Did you hear him?"
Her face twisted into the expression of someone drinking something sour they
weren't expecting, her voice lowered, "Good work, Valentine." She beamed,
"Ah-ha! Broadway, here I come!" She lifted a fist triumphantly and pulled her
companion along the hall with a swifter step.
Don't be so hard on yourself...no...
"What are you doing?" Juri asked after considering her words carefully. "It's
almost four in the morning."
"What are you still doing here? I waited, thought about going to the parties . . .
didn't get any farther than this."
Without explanation, Shiori was sitting on the sidewalk in front of the front
glass display of the Road Rage just to one side of the main entrance on the
corner. Her legs were curled up and wrapped tight with the circle of her arms.
The younger girl's expression hidden in the lamplight and ever-present glow of
the display full of advertisements and posters.
Juri had just left the building, letting the door slip closed and clicking locked-
shut again. "I was talking to Mikage." Shiori didn't move, and hadn't attempted
to the entire conversation, letting her chin rest against one knee. Seeming quite
small and foolish alone near the street. Juri took a step closer. "Why didn't you
go to one of the parties. It's not safe for you to just sit here . . ." She wasn't sure
how to continue.
"The moon looks sick tonight." Shiori sighed. "Not unlike how I feel. I can't
pretend to celebrate when everything in this God awful theater makes me feel
like puking. I hate acting." She added with venom.
"You're a good actress." Juri said, "Don't talk like that."
"I don't know who I'm trying to fool." Shiori's response clipped short. "I've
been thinking. Perhaps I don't belong here. It's not like I'm irreplaceable . . ."
"Don't say that." Juri reached out automatically, to console the girl.
"Don't touch me!" Shiori cried out, pulling away, but staying curled tight. "I . .
. I can't stand it!"
Juri's fingers snapped back, and her eyes widened with surprise. The hostility
was unexpected. "It's late. You're not yourself." Juri surmised, speaking
mostly to herself.
Shiori laughed bitterly, "Not myself? Not myself. Who the hell are you to tell
me what I'm like?"
Hovering, uncertainly, Juri watched Shiori transform, unlacing her arms,
stretching out her legs. Planting her sneakered feet and standing up with a
confident spring, Shiori shook out her hair and turned sparkling eyes toward the
other woman. Then, Shiori's eyes narrowed, appraising Juri's sincere and
confused bewilderment.
"Don't look at me like that." Shiori's voice was even different, the sickly sweet
element dripped over each word.
"What happened?" Juri whispered.
Shiori shrugged, and began to move away. "Doesn't matter." One moment in
shadow, the next in a ray of streetlight, then again swallowed by shadow, Shiori
left Juri alone.
Don't be so hard on yourself...no...
If the situation was uncomfortable, Trowa was able to hide it faultlessly well.
The way his eyelids always seemed to droop with half asleep ease, and the
steady glass to mouth to table to mouth motion of his hand worked away the
minutes like a steady metronome. After the show, he'd put on a simple dark
turtleneck and jeans, allowing him to blend into the smoky atmosphere of the
International Velvet, the regular celebration spot of the Road Rage crowd. A
silent, steady counterbalance to the company seated to either side of him.
Sano had nearly given up on breaking Trowa's iron resolve to conveniently
forget his stepsister Catherine Bloom's telephone number, home address,
frequent customers and usual company. "I'll follow you where ever you go, lurk
about in your dreams and unravel this mystery if it's the last thing I do!" Sano
said, seemingly to himself, gnawing on a toothpick as Trowa merely took
another sip of his beverage. The younger actor shook his fist dramatically, but
simply earned an amused "humph" from Saitou as the director blew smoke at
him across the table.
On Trowa's other side, Dorothy Catalonia sophisticatedly draped herself across
her chair, somehow her silver-white and gold presence sparkling like a jewel in
the otherwise dark and secretive comfort of the establishment. She seemed to
glimmer in a fluctuating syncretism with the constant music. Otherwise,
Dorothy was incredibly bored.
"Wanna dance, babe?" She leaned toward Trowa, catching him in the process of
dropping his defenses as his glass returned to the table. Trowa's lips twitched
negatively; however, before he could respond verbally, Dorothy slapped the
table. "Tonight, I'm *not* going to take 'no' for an answer." In what could have
been argued as an unladylike manner, Dorothy pushed her chair back from the
table with an obnoxious screech of movement. "C'mon." Dorothy propped one
hand on her hip and waved him up with her other, almost as if she were mentally
commanding his response.
Trowa obligingly, unfolded from his chair, perhaps mumbling some apologies
from under his breath but no one heard or responded.
"What do you want?" Trowa asked, standing awkwardly motionless after
Dorothy's ethereal body language pulled him to the farthest side of the room.
Dorothy appraised his comment for a moment from under a flirtatiously
innocent gaze. "None of that now, Trowa dear, you were the one who wanted to
talk to me, wasn't it?"
"Stop playing." Trowa grabbed Dorothy's arm as she began to slide closer to
him, pretending to dance. His fingers loosened as they settled down by her
waist. "I do have one question for you. What's this sudden interest in the Shiori
girl?"
"My, my, my." Dorothy batted her eyelids, playfully, but with unspoken
seriousness a strong undercurrent between them. "Why have you a sudden
interest in such a trifle?"
"I'm asking for a friend." Trowa said, the anonymity a transparent veil for the
truth. He knew he was concealing nothing Dorothy had not surmised for
herself.
"Since when have you had friends, Trowa?" Dorothy asked sweetly, their
compromise and friendliness being tested to a new limit. She didn't approve of
being taken lightly. "You don't simply call in favors for just anyone now, do
you?" She tried to break the expressionlessly cool look Trowa had locked on
her. "I'm so curious why you'd waste the effort of asking me for something . . .
for a woman you hardly have known."
"Some people don't play our games." Trowa said, the slowness of his words
perhaps indicating his diminishing patience. "Not all actors like to play with
their lovers until they're exhausted or broken." Dorothy raised her eyebrow,
continuing to act surprised. "Juri's mistake is that she cares too much for anyone
who appears earnest. I don't know what Shiori's intentions are, but I think we'd
all rather her intentions remain untainted . . . uninfluenced."
Dorothy laughed, tossing her hair and her appearance of amused contentment
did cause Trowa to frown. "Don't look so confused, dear heart!" Dorothy
laughed again, "You are so beautifully sensitive, don't you know?" Stretching
luxuriously, Dorothy pulled him into the thick of the dancing anonymity.
"Watch more closely, you'll see not everyone is as clawless as you imagine them
to be." Pulling his head closer by twisting her fingers into the back of his hair,
Dorothy whispered, "Not everyone is as you are." Nothing else was said.
"What was that all about?" Nichol asked pointedly when Dorothy stopped back
by the table some time later in order to take a few sips of her drink.
Dorothy studied him a moment over the edge of her glass, her grey blue eyes
thoughtful. Then she simply said with a gleeful jab, "Nothing, sweetie. But at
least Trowa dances."
Don't be so hard on yourself...no...
"It's a rather experimental process of procedures, again, but it seems to be my
best shot at this point." Ruka paused, "I wonder how much I'll look like a naked
bunny when I'm hairless."
"You'll lose your hair?" Julia tried not to sound discouraging as she scrambled
to keep the smile on her face, even though he obviously would never see it over
the telephone.
Ruka laughed, which reassured his listener more than anything else he'd said for
the entire conversation. "Honestly, Julia, they don't have much of a clue as to
what will really happen to me, but they can sure dream up a whole slew of
horrible things in all of the pre-surgical interviews and round-table
brainstorming conferences." Ruka laughed again, this time however sounding
more put on than honest, "I'm the guinea pig, of course, still it's a bit
demoralizing to the survival instinct to listen to half of these academic chaps
refer to me, while I'm in the room mind you, as the 'test subject' or 'sample'."
"Oh dear," Julia again found herself at a loss for words, and tore her eyes away
from Spike who, from his end of the couch, was glaring at her expectantly for
clues since up to that point her side of the conversation had been relatively
cryptic. "How long will this all take? Are you ever coming back to us?" She
reached up to hold the telephone's receiver in both hands, to keep them from
trembling.
The initial silence seemed an eternity, "If all goes well, I could expect to be back
after observations and recovery are complete. It's not going to be years, but . . .
the most optimistic projections, from that Groucho Marx look-a-like I told you
about, are about six months."
"Six months." Julia repeated, a bit dazed and also for Spike's benefit so that he'd
no longer feel obligated to jostle her seat cushion.
"Six months," Ruka repeated as if they were his lifeline. "It seems rather
miraculously short, or long, depending on which end of things you're coming
from. But it is the optimistic report." His tone fluctuating from careless
reassurance to a betraying weariness.
"Hang in there, darling." Julia tapped into her maternal instinct for strength.
"Spike and I are so proud of you, being so strong."
Ruka's laughs seemed to come too easily and on cue. "Thanks. Oh, and I don't
know when I'll be free to call as often. I need to know . . . how's Juri?" He
added the final thought, quickening his pace with each word.
"Well, she's fine. Fine, really. Yes, she's . . . fine."
Don't be so hard on yourself...no...