Nine
It was an understatement to say that Ruri wasn't feeling too thrilled with life as she sat on a bench waiting for the Shuttle-Train to come. Knowing that all this unpleasantness in her life was part of a Nergal scheme only served to amplify it. That idiot Akatsuki had once again proved his total disregard for the feelings and emotions of others. It was so like him to do something like this. Ruri wasn't even surprised by his inconsiderate actions anymore.
Still, this time it was her who would pay the price of them. That annoyed her, but there was little she could do about it. All she could do for now was bear it and see what the future brought. Regrettably, the only thing the future was bringing at the moment was her ride to school.
The Shuttle-Train pulled into the station with a whoosh and its automatic doors opened to the sounds of the conductor instructing people to board. Shouldering her schoolbag, Ruri walked over and got onto the packed carriage. This was a regular part of her routine now, catching this train every morning and evening to travel to the town in which her school was situated. It would take ten minutes to get there and then Ruri had a whole day of school to look forward to.
As the train doors slid shut behind her, she sighed dejectedly. It occurred to her that she'd been doing that a lot lately.
* * *
Morning lessons came and went slowly and it was time for lunch. In complete contradiction to the common school-girl attitude, Ruri found the breaks more oppressive then the lessons. She didn't mind free-time if she'd earned it after doing something strenuous and purposeful, but lessons for an eleven-year old didn't fit into that category in her book. Besides, what was she supposed to do with a whole hour for lunch?
Like she'd done every day so far, she'd bought a pack of two sandwiches with a bottle of mineral water from the cafeteria and had made her way into the playing area behind the school so that she could eat them in the sunshine. She wasn't feeling hungry just yet and still had fifty minutes of her break remaining, so she decided to read a bit more of her book. It was getting exciting – Paul Atreides was just about to ride a sandworm for the first time.
She'd barely sat down when she detected commotion in the centre of the playing area. A small ring of children had gathered around a few figures, who Ruri couldn't see from her position. Closing her book she walked over to get a better look.
She recognised Mikoto in the centre, with three of the larger kids from the higher years. They'd taken her lunch money and were taunting her to jump for it, while the children surrounding them laughed at her feeble efforts. Ruri was shocked - she'd been under the impression that Mikoto had been too popular for this treatment.
"Please!" Mikoto pleaded desperately. "I need that!" She jumped again, but still couldn't reach the note dangling from the older boy's hand.
Her oppressor laughed. "Come on! You can do better than that!"
Mikoto made one last great effort and almost managed to touch it, but the bully yanked it higher at the last possible moment. The plaited girl lost her balance and ended up on her front, to the amusement of the surrounding rabble.
It surprised Ruri to see Leon among this crowd of onlookers, laughing with the rest of them. She sidled over to him.
"Aren't you going to help her?" she asked. "I thought she was your friend,"
"Shut up robot!" Leon turned away from her and put his attention back on the show.
Ruri shook her head in despair and turned to leave. Just then, Mikoto burst from the ring, sobbing hysterically. Children's laughter followed her flight. Ruri watched her go, then looked back to the crowd once more. They were murmuring together and laughing nastily. She shook her head again.
"They're idiots," she murmured to herself. "All of them are idiots."
* * *
Mikoto felt absolutely pathetic. Image meant everything to her, being an eleven year-old girl, and this humiliation had left her self-esteem in ruins. Damn those bullies! They'd taken more from her today then just her lunch money.
She sat alone in the corner of the playing area, out of sight of the general crowd, and sobbed pitifully to herself. She didn't know how she could ever face any of them again after what had happened. It just wasn't fair! She was meant to be one of the ones laughing at the side, not the one caught in the middle as the butt of the joke. That was meant to happen to other people!
It just wasn't fair…
Just then, she sensed someone approaching her. She tried in vain to blink back her tears, so that she wouldn't appear weak and pathetic to whoever this was. Although she wasn't able to clear the dampness from her eyes, she looked up to face the newcomer anyway.
She'd expected Leon, or another of her crowd. But instead, it was that strange Ruri girl who stood before her, wearing that static neutral expression of hers. Perfect, just perfect! Had she come to gloat? That was the last thing she needed right now.
Though her throat was choked up, she managed to force out some bitter words. "What do you want?"
Wordlessly, Ruri extended an arm to her, holding out a chicken sandwich. Seeing this stunned Mikoto into silence. Was she offering this to her?
"Take it," urged Ruri when she saw her hesitate. "I don't want it,"
Pride and hunger battled inside of the purple-haired girl. After a few seconds, her stomach emerged victorious. With a trembling hand, she took the sandwich from Ruri. She opened it and examined the contents suspiciously, but there was nothing visibly wrong with it. Putting the bread back on, she looked up to Ruri again. That weird girl hadn't altered her expression all.
"Why?" she asked, her voice just a croak now.
"If you don't eat now, you'll be hungry all afternoon," Ruri replied simply.
"That's not what I meant," Mikoto replied, looking down at the delicious-looking sandwich in her hands. "Why are you giving this to me after I've been so mean to you?"
Ruri shrugged. "Well, I'm not going to eat it. Two sandwiches are too much for me and it would be very inefficient to just throw it away when you haven't had any lunch yet,"
"Oh," she peeped. Swallowing her pride (which by itself couldn't satisfy her hunger), she murmured, "Thank you,"
"You're welcome," replied Ruri with a slight bow. With that, she turned to walk away.
"Um, Ruri?"
"Yes?" Ruri stopped and half turned around.
"Um, you can sit here if you want," For a wonder, Mikoto's tone was actually shy.
Ruri turned around to face her again. "Okay," She slowly walked back over to her and sat down beside her against the wall. Mikoto, absolutely starving by now, sank her teeth into the gifted sandwich, while Ruri next to her unwrapped her own. They were silent a moment as they focused on their respective lunches. Surprisingly, it was Ruri who broke the silence.
"Do they do that to you often?" She made it sound like a perfectly innocent question.
Mikoto hesitated, not really wanting to talk about it. But she did reply honestly in the end. "They do bully me sometimes. That's the first time they've actually stolen my money," She grimaced with hatred as she added, "Damn them all to hell!"
"Hmm," Ruri murmured. "Bullies can be a nuisance,"
It took Mikoto several seconds to see the hidden meaning in that, and when she did, she turned on Ruri indignantly. "Hey, what's that supposed to mean? Are you saying I'm a bully?"
"Are you saying that you aren't?" Ruri's composed tone reinforced her accusation. "My definition of a bully is someone who uses their stronger position to worsen the life of another,"
"Hmph," Here came Mikoto's classic wrinkled nose face. "You don't know anything. What they do to me is much worse then what we do to you."
"Whatever," Her unconvinced reply was as calm as still water.
Mikoto scowled darkly at her, appearing a bit like the Mikoto which Ruri had come to know. She took an angry bite of her sandwich, temporarily forgetting who had given it to her in the first place. Beside her Ruri nonchalantly ate her own, the very picture of serenity. It was as if she hadn't said anything at all.
Now despite her appearance and actions, Mikoto was neither a stupid girl nor a completely heartless one. Ruri's words had cut deep into her mind and she wasn't able to discard them. She wished now that she could go back over to her own crowd and start talking and laughing with them, to distract herself, but her own mind was merciless. The undeniable truth was that she lashed out at others because of the torment in her own life. As it hurting someone else would ease her own pain. She'd picked on Ruri because she was new and different, and no child likes change. But she'd never considered the fact that the strange girl, for all her differences, was in the same boat as her. She too didn't have parents, she would share that same emptiness in her own life. Just like her, she was just a child, alone in a harsh world that had betrayed her.
In that moment, as she looked down at her sandwich in her hands, Mikoto's life took a real turning point as she realised that she wasn't the only one capable of being hurt. She bullied Ruri, just like those older kids bullied her. Except that she was worse because her victim didn't have any friends to lean on.
With a sudden cry, she brought her head forward and buried her eyes in the palms of her hands. Ruri looked down at her curiously.
"My God!" whimpered the purple-haired girl. "I'm a monster, aren't I?"
"Not really," said Ruri. "I just think you're a little confused."
Blinking several times to stifle the fresh tears, Mikoto murmured, "I've made things so hard for you haven't I?"
Ruri shrugged indifferently. "I've coped,"
"I've been so horrible," sobbed Mikoto, smearing tears across her face with her hands.
"No, you're not a horrible person," said Ruri. "I think you just bully me as a defence mechanism. You're not inherently evil."
Mikoto did not reply, but bowed her head forward again, as if she hadn't even heard her. She began to sob again, although more lightly now. Ruri looked down to her, unsmiling. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to upset you."
* * *
"Are you feeling better now?"
"Yeah," said Mikoto, taking a slug of the soda which Ruri had bought for her. The pair had moved to the picnic tables just outside the cafeteria and now sat opposite each other at one of them. Only a few other children were still sitting around here, with most of the others being over in the playground now. Having eaten, the purple-haired girl had cheered up a little, though dried tears still rested on her cheeks.
"It's stupid that you of all people should comfort me," Mikoto said, staring intently at the half-empty plastic bottle in her hand.
"If people don't forgive, then they just keep fighting. And fighting only ever leads to yet more fighting," stated Ruri. "I've learned that from experience."
"Huh. Right." murmured Mikoto. She took another swig of soda, put it down on the table and suddenly brought her head up.
"Hey Ruri, how come you know so much?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"You know what I mean. You're always going on and on with this philosophical tripe. And you always get full marks in every class. So how come you're so smart?"
Lowering her head, Ruri murmured, "I was created this way."
"What do you mean by that?"
"It's like I told you the first night I was here. I was born and raised in a lab. For my entire life, I've been trained to be a crewmember of the Nadesico."
"Wait, you're not saying that's actually true, are you?"
"It is true," said Ruri. Mikoto eyed her dubiously, clearly still doubtful. Ruri wondered what it would take to convince her, then remembered something.
"Here, look at this," She brought up her left hand and pulled down the sleeve of her uniform, revealing the metallic string of implants that ran along her arm. They shone brilliantly in the sunlight.
"What the heck?!" Mikoto gasped, her blue eyes widening in amazement. "You, you have those implant things?"
Ruri nodded. "Yes. I needed the IFS in order to control the Nadesico."
"Wow," murmured Mikoto, her mouth hanging ajar in disbelief. "Wow, you really were aboard a space-ship!"
"Yes, I was," Ruri was glad they'd finally established that.
"Oh wow," Mikoto repeated. "That's just unbelievable! You're like an astronaut!"
"Well, yes."
"But if you were on a space-ship, then what on earth are you doing here now?"
Ruri had asked herself the same question a million times over the past few weeks, but gave Mikoto the logical answer. "When the war ended, the Nadesico was decommissioned and the crew was disbanded. Being a little girl, there was nowhere for me to go." She didn't mention the fact that Akatsuki had offered her a chance to return to the stars.
"What, so they just put you in an orphanage? Even though you used to be part of a space-ship crew?"
"Yes,"
"But what about your parents?"
"My parents," Ruri repeated. Oh, the deal with her parents was such a fiasco. She'd had three sets of parents and yet she'd never had a real mother and father. Her genetic parents were the king and queen of the neutral kingdom of Peaceland, whom she'd rejected a while back on the grounds that she didn't know them enough to feel any family connection, and that the Nadesico needed her more then they did. She'd also had foster parents, who'd both been employees of Nergal and set up her training as a crewmember. Finally, there was that image of a perfect mother and father congratulating her – their supposed daughter. That picture had permanently engraved itself in her mind and Ruri still felt a great emotional connection to it, despite the fact that those parents didn't actually exist.
"I'd rather not talk about my parents," she said eventually.
"Oh right. I see," said Mikoto. "Not many kids at the orphanage talk about their parents. Most can't even remember them." She gave a slight shrug. "As for me, mine both died in an air crash when I was three."
Ruri couldn't think of how to react to that, but felt she should say something. "I'm sorry," she managed in the end.
"Don't worry about it. I barely knew them really. I've been in the orphanage for as long as I can remember, so I've gotten used to it." Mikoto smoothed out her skirt. "So what was it like onboard the Nadesso?"
"Nadesico," Ruri corrected her. "It was hard-going, but in a welcome kind of way. No matter what challenge we faced, we faced it together as a crew and because of that we always had faith that we would triumph in the end."
"Aw, that must have been so cool! So you were all like really good friends then?"
Ruri paused, then nodded slowly. "Yes. Yes we were."
"So where did they all go if you came here?"
"Well they were detained by the UEAF when we returned to Earth. They are paying the price for the extreme actions we carried out in order to end the war."
"That means they're in prison right?"
"Essentially, yes."
"Huh. That sucks."
"I suppose it does." Ruri murmured. "But there's nothing I can do about it."
"I guess not," said Mikoto. "Wow, you've lead such an interesting life," she continued. "I'm jealous. My life's been pretty boring."
"You shouldn't be jealous of me," muttered Ruri. "I would have dearly loved to have been a normal girl."
"Oh come on! You got to pilot a space-ship! That's like every kid's dream!"
"I'm sure it's over-rated. Besides, you have something which I can never have."
"What's that?"
Ruri bowed her head and lowered her lids, concealing her eyes. "I don't think you'd understand if I told you."
Just then, they heard the bell ring, signalling that five minutes remained before lessons began. Children from all around the playground swarmed back towards the school, including Leon, who stopped by their table.
"Hey Mik, ditch the freak! You coming to class?"
"Just give me a second," Mikoto tipped the last of her soda down her throat and then hurled the empty bottle into a nearby trash-can. Gathering her things together, she stood up before Ruri.
"Look, thanks again for lunch," she said.
"That's all right."
"So I'll see you later, okay?"
"Yeah, sure,"
"Okay, seeya!" Mikoto gave her a slight smile before walking off with Leon. Ruri watched them go before standing up herself and walking to her own class. That had been the first proper conversation she'd had with someone for a long time. It seemed as though she'd made a friend today, from a very unlikely source. But the source didn't matter, at the moment she'd take any friend she could get.
