(insert disclaimer here)
Monkey see, Monkey do
Part I: The Long Trip Home
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Oh my god, who does Hana think she is? She knows I'm working on this. She knows I have a schedule to keep. Oh sure, I got locked in the closet on ACCIDENT.
Sheah. Right.
Oh, and that "romantic interlude"? Don't get mad at ME for false advertising. That's the way it happened! I'm not altering it to suit your disgusting, vulgar tastes. So, you know what, Hana? You want something more "juicy"?
Bite me!
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CHAPTER 5: Rocket to the Moon
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"Yulie! Ryo, put him down," Cye cried, exasperated. Ryo turned around and smiled. Bending over, he let Yulie slide off his shoulder. Rain pounded against the pavement, making even Cye's impatient shout seem oddly shushed.
They stood under the overhang that jutted out over the entrances of the stores, though they were still sprayed by occasional wind-blown rain. Cye hurried towards Ryo and Yulie, having spotted them as they exited the pet store.
"Yulie, what were you thinking?" He admonished as he approached. Embarrassed, Yulie scuffed his foot on the concrete sidewalk and half hid behind Ryo, but Cye was having none of it. He stepped around Ryo, quashing Yulie's attempt to hide. "Well?" he demanded primly.
"Um…wanted ta go with Chou," Yulie mumbled, barely audible over the storm.
"Oh, did you? What about us?"
"Ch-chou said--" Yulie was trying to whisper, to sound small, cute, but he found himself having to raise his voice to be heard.
"I bet he did!" Cye "hmph"-ed dramatically. "I think we are going to go home now."
"Aw, come on, Cye…" Ryo started. Cye slowly turned towards Ryo.
"Yes, Ryo?" he asked very pleasantly. Ryo gulped.
"Well, I mean, he's fine and we found him really quick…so we don't have to be all mad?" he guessed. The storm nearly drowned out his hesitant speech.
Cye watched him silently for a few moments in a manner that Ryo found a little intimidating.
"You had a rather -- unstructured -- childhood, Ryo," Cye declared finally and strode into the storm.
"What?"
"Um…I think he's in kind of bad mood, Ryo?" Yulie offered. With a shrug, Ryo sat on the edge of the curb, sticking his feet out into the parking lot. Rain splattered his sneakers and jeans.
"Yeah, but he's right, you know? You can't just do that. If you want to go somewhere--fine, but just tell us?" Ryo pleaded.
"Well, that was kinda the point…" Yulie explained.
"Huh?"
"You know…so…um…" Yulie blushed. "So you wouldn't know where I was."
"Oh," Ryo said. Yulie felt suddenly guilty. Shyly, almost stealthily, he snuck up behind Ryo's right shoulder.
"Um…" he began and jumped suddenly as lighting flashed across the sky with a thunderous crash. Ryo looked up.
"Why'd you want to do that?" he asked Yulie.
"Chou--"
"You seem to say that a lot. What's he got to do with anything, Yulie?" Startled, Yulie saw that Cye had rejoined them and was leaning against one of the brick pillars that held up the overhang. "Yes?" Cye prompted.
"M'sorry," Yulie whimpered and, to his embarrassment, started to cry.
"There's no need for that. Listen, Yulie," Cye said kindly, "I'm sorry if I was a bit snappy, but if you want to come with us you have to listen to us. Just running off like that is dangerous. We didn't know where you were and were worried, okay?" He shot a glance at Ryo. "Right?"
"Cye was totally freaked," Ryo agreed.
Cye smiled wanly. "Well, Ryo wasn't worried at all, I suppose. He hoped you'd been run over and was already planning your funeral, in fact!"
Yulie stopped in mid-sniffle. "Wh-what?"
"I did not," Ryo denied. With a reassuring grin, he reached out and lifted the distressed younger boy onto his shoulders. Yulie managed a small smile through tears. "Cye's just evil. Come on let's go!"
All together again and mildly content, they began walking back to Mia's jeep.
~~~~
Sage wasn't waiting in front of the school. It was completely deserted, as it should have been on a Saturday evening. Kento slowed the van to stop by the curb and squinted through the rain-splattered glass for a glimpse of his absent friend. Uncertain, the van crept forward past the front exits and windows, but still with no success.
At the far right of the building there was a diminutive figure huddled against the wall. A miserable girl in a damp school uniform, the required skirt looking pitifully inadequate against the cold and rain. Kento stopped in front of her. He rolled the window and called out into the rain.
"Hey! Uh…no, wait--" When she didn't respond it occurred to him that to talk to him she'd have to get up and come into the storm. Feeling like an ass, he hurried to roll up the window before the inside of the car became too wet, and fumbled the door open. The door finally closed behind him, and he walked uncertainly towards her, realizing too late as he passed between the shelter of the car and that of the overhang, that he'd forgotten to put up his hood.
She looked up lazily as she heard him approach, dripping. Her eyes widened slightly and she abruptly sat up straighter. Perhaps she'd thought he was someone else. Kento had thought she looked miserable and wretched when he'd seen her from the car, but now she looked confident and sure as she watched him with a superior detachment. She ran a hand through her black hair and it suddenly didn't look nearly so mussed as it had. Kento stopped, mildly shocked by the transformation.
"Hello?" she inquired with minimal politeness. He coughed sheepishly, getting up his nerve again.
"Yeah…er…I'm looking for a friend of mine. Have you--" he managed. Her eyes were studying his face, and as if she'd just now recognized him, her eyes narrowed. He didn't have the faintest idea who she was.
"Sage got picked up," she snapped. Her poise wasn't as sure or confident as it had been a few moments before when she'd pulled herself together. Kento blinked.
"Uh…did he? Did you see by who? Were they--" She waved a hand and shut him up.
"No. Actually, yes. He got picked up by that one, the…" Her eyes searched the parking lot for an answer, "the soccer player. You know?" she said finally.
"Ryo," Kento agreed with some relief. "That's good. Thanks." He threw her a final wave and grin and jogged back to the van, pulling his hood up as he ran.
The girl watched him go, her body slumping back into dejection. "Yeah. Just freakin' great," she snarled angrily.
The van was already gone.
Kento pulled around the side and hopped out again. There was still one thing he had to do. Pulling open the side door, relieved it was unlocked, he dodged a janitor's cart in the middle of the hall, and made a grab for the pay phone by the entrance. He shoved in a few coins and dialed Mia's number.
Mia's worried voice answered on the first ring. He reassured her with a laugh, embarrassed for both his own worry and hers.
"Dude, he got picked up," he told her in response to her nervous questioning. "Yeah, I guess they're fine. No worries. Yeah, bye."
But when he dialed the second number, Cye's cell phone still didn't answer. Shaking off a sudden chill, he pushed open the door and walked back into the rain.
~~~~
Rowen held out the car keys towards Mia, face the picture of innocence. "Mia, please?" he asked sincerely, watching her with an earnest expression.
Until Mia favored him with an icy glare, and his angelic expression broke into a puppyish whimper. Unimpressed, Mia turned and left the poor, sincerely pleading Ronin of Strata standing desolately by the couch. Desperately, he pursued her and rushing past her, dropped to his knees in front of her still clutching the keys.
"Pretty, pretty pleeeeeez?" he begged. "It'll be awesome! Honest." He raised the keys in supplication.
"Rowen, are you capable of acting seriously?" Mia demanded archly.
"No. Of course not," he replied easily, but even so rose from the floor, briefly dusting off his jeans. He cleared his throat and met her eyes in what was --finally-- a satisfactorily serious manner.
"Alright," he said. "You're beyond bonkers over this storm-- Kento's called, given everybody a clean bill of health. Sage got picked up, right? But you're still bonkers. So lets do something, yeah?"
An emotionally-scarred-after-having-her-heart-toyed-with Mia sniffed miserably. "Bonkers?"
"Well, yeah. Worried."
"I --" she started. Rowen wasn't paying attention. He reached into his pocket and fished out the pair of black sunglasses. He slipped them on and gave a cocky grin.
"So. We's going?" and he tossed her the keys.
~~~~
In the few minutes Sekhmet had had to deal with her, the aging woman at the register proved herself not only to be of an extremely poor temperament but also to possess a basic inflexibility when confronted with anything other than the norm. It haunted him with visions of the destruction his venom armor could wreak on her little counter in the sea of clothing racks. If only he let it.
If only.
It was too much to bear. Sekhmet could not stand crowds of people. The presence of the hundreds of unknown shoppers wandering continuously in and out sent a perpetual shiver down his spine. He could not stand having people near him whom he had not expressly permitted to be there. He could not handle this.
And Kayura was determined to play psychiatrist here and now. She was angry with him and his refusal to deal with his horrible guilt. She was angry that he would drag her down with him into his depression. And she was angry that she obviously couldn't do anything about it, especially after her complete and utter failures with both Cale and Dais.
Kayura was determined to force his hand. To force his hand by unsettling him so badly, by overturning his self-control so thoroughly that he could no longer continue the status quo. Maybe he needed it. Maybe he really ought to learn to let go of those disastrous years -- disastrous centuries. Forget the blame. Maybe.
But he could not -- could not -- do it like this. It was closing in on him. He'd been thrown in to an impossibly small room that was closing in like the death and irrevocable judgment that waited inevitably in his future…
Behind him, dozens, hundreds, thousands of feet clacked, slammed, thundered on the false marble floors, stampeding towards him.
The overwhelming stenches and mirages of color and clothes and hats and shoes and dishes and microwaves and the twenty percent off all-purpose new and improved fry pan from Paris surrounded him.
Someone stepped on his heel and forgot to apologize.
The woman behind the counter chattered like an angry, neurotic squirrel as she snatched up his only English money, two pounds and a 50 pence coin.
He still did not have half the cost of those horrible earrings.
Kayura stood by his side and smiled beatifically up at him when he looked at her.
Pushed beyond his limits, pushed so far that it forced him to act, Sekhmet's hand closed around Kayura's wrist like a vise as he spun on his heel and led the both of them out of the store for good.
~~~~
"Oh, well this is lovely," Cye said, surveying the damage. Rain dripped miserably onto his face. He tightened the hood of his raincoat.
"That isn't what I'd call it…" Ryo ventured next to Cye. Both he and his young hanger-on were soaked to the skin. Yulie hiccupped wretchedly.
"Sarcasm is lost on you, Ryo," Cye snapped. Ryo turned to him, exasperated. Yulie, on his shoulders, turned with him, not paying attention to anything but his grip on Ryo's hair.
"You're like extra sweet today, you know?" Ryo said. Cye actually blushed.
"Sorry," he said. Ryo paused uncertainly.
"Oh… uh…don't worry. It's cool," he said, freeing one hand from Yulie's leg and waving the problem away. Cye cleared his throat guiltily.
"So…are we walking?" he changed the subject.
"Yeah…"
"Walking?" Yulie sniffled from Ryo's shoulders. "Do we have to?"
"Hey, you've got a ride!" Ryo laughed. Yulie made a face that could have been a smile and visibly tried to cheer himself up in front of two of the people he most admired.
"Yeah. A really lame, slow ride," he managed to joke.
Somehow happy again, they turned and walked back the way they had come, leaving behind Mia's little red jeep and the miniature lake that had sprung up around it drowning the wheels and much of the front bumper as the front sank into softer mud. Turning their backs on misfortune, the shipwrecked trio went in search of greener, dryer pastures and maybe a pay phone would be nice too.
~~~~
Impatiently, Sage pushed his body up off the bleacher. He thumped down the bleacher steps ungracefully and stood for second at the bottom, staring at the empty gym. An inexplicable irritation welled up in him. He hurried out, not even turning as the door slammed shut behind him.
The school was deserted. He'd been there to help Minako with an English project, but they hadn't gotten anything done. All she'd wanted to do apparently was fight with him for ridiculous and childish reasons.
He took a deep breath.
When they'd started the library had actually been reasonably full for a weekend. One of the advanced science classes had already handed out a project and several students were researching. There'd been practices for several sports in the gym.
But now the school was deserted. It was eerie.
Feeling stupid for getting creeped out by his own high school, Sage covered the emotion by striding forcefully down the hallway towards the exit. He didn't even slow down at the next door, just held his hand out, arm locked, and let it slam into the door with all the force of his angry walk. The door swung frantically away from him.
At the next intersection he took a left and was shocked abruptly out of his daze to see Kento at the exit, pushing down the handle of the door and halfway out in the rain.
Sage called out in surprise.
Kento turned in equal surprise. "Dude, I thought you got picked up!" he called down the hall. Something flashed across his face before he settled into happiness at meeting his friend.
Sage stopped and frowned. For a second, Kento hadn't seemed happy to see him. He'd seemed scared, but scared of what?
~~~~
"Ooh, and then left here!" Rowen gushed. Obediently and with no small irritation, Mia turned her grandfather's car onto the indicated road. The storm threw down the rain so fiercely that even the quickly moving windshield wipers barely helped.
They'd been doing this for twenty minutes. Obviously, Rowen had had someplace quite specific in mind when he'd suggested they do "something", but he refused to tell her! It was almost enough to make her forget to feel sorry for herself.
"And then a right…" The old car turned onto another unfamiliar road lined with closed shops and restaurants. The pouring rain obscured even the closest storefronts, yet it barely seemed to hamper Rowen's vision.
"Here! HERE! Turn in here!" He cried and turned to smile proudly at her. "Tadaaaaaaa! Are you ready to par-TAY?" he whooped. Curiously, Mia shifted the car into park and leaned over the steering wheel. Peering through the dark rain, she just could make out the sign over the entrance, but that was ridiculous. It was a…?
"Rowen," she said skeptically, "that's an IHOP."
End Chapter 5.
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Same deal.
Lacking an ability to judge my own work, I'm asking you for your opinion; do you think this thing is worth continuing?
Melee
P.S. I went on the uber (insert umlaut) road trip and then to D.C. for two weeks. Sorry for delay. Getting close to school time. Do not know if I will get to even start Chapter six for a month or two. Hope you can wait. Thanks.
Oh, more reviews! Oh, returning readers! Oh, oh, oh!
Thank you for giving Minako and Mimi a clean bill of health. Minako will continue to play a supporting role (although I think she only appears once more), and as Mimi said herself she's the intro girl and there's no promotion in sight.
BrokenSymmetry: Oh good. I love Cale, too. About his age, wouldn't he be 21? Well, maybe he _looks_ 21, but he's over 400, right? As such, when he decides to play mortal, his age is somewhat arbitrary. Cale didn't want to be so young that people would disregard him, but his young appearance means he can't be _too_ old. Originally he wanted to be 56 so he could act like an old geezer if he wanted to, but Dais pointed out that no one would believe it, so Cale moved it down to 34.
maryd: Hello again. You're review is so _specific_! (I love it!) Cale definitely should have started small, but I think if I ever get around to explaining these mysterious hints I keep dropping (I'm so clumsy) it will make more sense. And here's your Kayura and Sekhmet newsflash, even if it was brief…
dawning_light_2000: Thanks. I'm glad it seems to be getting better as it goes along!
Kmoney: Oh goodie, I do manage to be totally random. I was hoping so.
Tategami: In this case, that randomness appears to be confusing for some; I will have to keep that in mind.
Krystal: Yes, that's right. Lets just ignore my glaring errors. I LIKE that. Or as my friend and I prefer: they're not mistakes, they're "metaphors".