AN: All my experience with the army I gained through watching "Hair, the musical" about 37 times. This information is probably very wrong, and very unrealistic. oh well, deal with it or don't ^^
Chapter 5.
7 Years Earlier.
The air was dusty and grey, in the early evening dusk. A weak sunset painted the space between the wreckage and skeletons of buildings. Ken was walking with his hands in his pockets. Thinking, amid the broken, silent chaos of the last battle scene. Both sides had pulled back, and the site had been evacuated months ago, taken over by his side and temporarily forgotten as the line was pushed over. It was eerily deserted, the whole place gave Ken a distinct feeling of being out-of-place. But no one told him it was off-limits, and everyone had the afternoon off, which all of the soldiers did about once every month.
It was a good 30 minute walk from the army base he had been restationed by. It was far from pleasant, as probably most army bases are. An atmosphere of grey. The grey of steel, the grey of morning. The grey of despair and death, like the way the sky was most of the time here. He looked up at the sky. Faint traces of red and orange were quickly dissappearing with the sun. Ken was dressed in a black tshirt, and camoflauge pants. He didn't really like camoflauge. But he didnt have anything else, really.
Usually he spent these afternoons off with Brad. The two of them had become good friends over the last few months. They looked after each other. But, lately Brad had become more and more secretive. There was something big he was hiding. He had been called off-duty much more often, unpredictably, to dissappear for hours, no one seemed to know where. Least of all Ken, whose inquiries were always ignored or dismissed. It was beginning to be somewhat of a rift between them. He was worried. When Brad came back he always had to take the rest of the day off, and was allowed to do so, being mentally tired, and irritable as all hell.
It was the reason Ken was here alone. Brad was off doing some unexplained work somewhere, and he was left to himself. Solitude was highly overrated. Sure it was peaceful, it gave him time to think. But he liked to be around people. He liked the reassurance of being in a group, or at least near one. In case. Even in battle, it helped his morale. He started to walk back towards the base. It was late, and there would be a headcount before curfew.
Brad had returned by the time Ken got back, and was lying down on the uncomfortable standard-issue cot-like beds that lined the walls of the room that them and about 12 other men shared. The two were alone in the room, it was still about an hour before it was required for everyone to check back in, and fall back into normal, relentless routine. Brad sat down on the precisely made bed across from his, not caring that it wasn't his, causing the springs to creak a little. Brad opened his eyes.
After a moment, Ken spoke.
"Did I wake you up? Sorry."
"Mm."
He closed his eyes again. Ken knew he should leave him alone. But...
"Brad..."
"What?"
The response was toneless, and Brad's eyes were still closed.
"Anou...I'm worried about you. When you come back from this shit, whatever it is, you always seem so.."
Brad sat up, cutting him off with a look, and picked up his glasses from the little metal folding table that lie between every other bed. He put them on, and looked directly at Ken, the serious expression he wore making Ken feel cold inside.
"Look, its not something I can take lightly enough to just tell you. If it was, I obviously would have told you already. Leave me alone about it."
Ken looked truly hurt for a few seconds, and then anger took it's place, seeming a natural substitute. More of a mature emotion, or thats what it seemed to Ken. He narrowed his eyes a little.
"I just.."
There was a tension in Ken's voice, that was hardly ever there when he talked to the older American. Brad leaned back against the wall, pulling his eyes away from Ken and letting them rest on the place where the ceiling merged into the cream colored wall on the opposite side of the room.
"Don't. It would be selfish of me if I told you. It would put you in danger..."
"No, its not telling me thats selfish. You just don't want to worry. Fine. I don't want to know."
He bit back the urge to tack some derrogative word onto the end of that last phrase, and instead stood up and walked out, stiffly. Brad watched him, with a sort of slightly sad calm. It was the first fight they had ever gotten into, but he felt he was doing the right thing. After a while he decided to stop thinking about it so much and resume his nap, ignoring the guilt that Ken's heated words stirred in him.
One week later.
Ken winced and dove for cover as an aerial bomb dropped, about 15 feet from where he was standing, throwing up dirt and little peices of concrete. He rolled smoothly back onto his feet, under a broken slab of concrete balanced about 5 feet from the ground, suspended amid rubble. This was a more dangerous situation then he had been in thusfar, and though it wasn't the front lines, where most of the casualties appeared, guerrilla work was just as perilous, for the lack of boundaries. There wasn't a line drwn across the middle of this concrete jungle, his job here was to pick off stragglers from the other side, and avoid getting blown to small pieces by the bombers, who were continuing to level everything still managing to stand upright.
And nothing much was, really. It was a little overcast, the bright midday sun having passed behind a large cloud cluster. Disconsernable masses of twsted metal supports rose into the sky occasionally, and glass and conceret littered the ground. There was an occasional car, peeking out form the debris, but it was a rare sight. The rest of the troops were further ahead, a few were randomly seleced to backtrack and make sure they hadn't missed anyone. Ken had found two of Persia's, and shot them. His hands still tingled from the backlash of the rifle and the numb feeling that killing always carried for him. He placed the gun on the ground for a moment, long enough to readjust the red bandanna that was tied around one his left upper arm. Red, Takatori's color. Persia's supporters wore white, and they occasionally were called the Whites.
"Hidaka, come in."
The staticky buzz of his communicator flickered to life with this message. He pressed the talk button and responded in the affirmative.
"We're regrouping, get back to the front."
"Hai."
The radio went silent. He scanned the area again, then picked up the gun, starting to jog back to where the rest of the small patrol he was with were stationed, keeping a constant eye on the skies. However, after that last spree of bombs which almost caught him, it seemed to be quiet again. A gunshot, very close to him. He whipped around to catch a figure retreat into shadow behind another building. He looked ahead, and hesitated to disobey the order, but ran after the retreating man anyways. It would be worse if there was trouble later over this. He staked out a good place to shoot from, behind a wall, about 4 feet in height. He placed the barrel of the gun on the wall to steady it, and fired three or four shots at the place that the enemy had dissappeared to.
The figure ran for a second cover, while shooting at Ken to cover the move. He ducked behind the wall, and avoided the shots neatly. Then he ran after the man, the afternoon sun finally emerging from the cloud it was behind, and making the stacks of whitle concrete dazzlingly bright, and hard to focus on. He found another cover, and looked for the offender. Silence. He waited.
After about 5 minutes, and no traces whatsoever of the other person, Ken gave up, and decided to check back with the rest of the troops, and the leutenient that was stationed with them. Something would be contrived to handle the situation. He started to walk back, quickly and trying to be silent, and as inconspicuous as possible, so as to avoid being trailed. A few minutes away from the post, he heard the crunch of a footstep behind him, and he turned, alarmed. Damn. He hadn't heard anyone follow him...He raised his gun and squinted against the sunlight...
A searing pain ripped through the muscles in his right arm, and he yelled out a little, stubling back, and trying to catch his balance. He simultaneously saw the gunner aim for a second shot, and felt a loose peice of gravel beneath him give way. A shot rang out.
Strong hands grabbed his good arm, and hauled him to his feet. The man who was shooting at him slumped to the ground, surprise still etched into his features. Ken turned around, and sighed in relief as he saw Brad's familiar face looking down at him in concern. In that moment any anger he might have harbored for the American simply melted. He had saved his life. But, Ken's words of gratitude were cut off by the look that had passed over Brad's features. Dark, worried, serious and maybe a little afraid. He was unfocused for a few moments, then he seemed to snap out of it, looked at Ken, his eyes clear and troubled.
"...Run."
He grabbed Ken's arm again and broke into a run. Ken stumbled after him, confused but unquestioning. The look scared him. He had only seen Brad like that a few times, and it was always a matter of life and death. A few moments after they started to run, Ken heard he planes. He didn't look up, because the ground was so uneven, but her heard them distinctly, roaring overhead. A high, keening whistle of a falling bomb. Then a deafening silence, followed by a wave of heat that threw him off of his feet. The worlds seemed to slow, the ground coming up to meet him with painful clarity. It was shattered by the loud explosion that followed, and Ken skidded and rolled about 10 feet on the loose chunks of gravel.
The arm he had been shot in sent needles of firey pain through his body, and he closed his eyes tightly, curling in on himself, fighting the sting of multiple scrapes that were slowly making themselves known to him. He cried out a little as he was shook.
"Ken.. Ken, are you all right?"
He peeled his eyelids open, and squinted up at the older, dark-haired man, propping himself up painfully on one elbow. Then closed them again as Brad's arms encircled him, in relief of his being all right, or just a sort of protective instinct. Brad sighed.
"D-damn...That was really close."
Ken's voice cracked a little, his heart was still pounding. He looked back, then, towards the place that they had come from, towards the place where the rest of the troops were camped out....And his eyes widened in shock. Fires were burning here and there. Everything was blackened. Completely obliterated, for about a 40 foot radius.
"The troops...."
Mental pain was surfacing now. It was the first personal loss Ken had suffered since he had been here. He felt numb again, through the pain of his injuries.
"They didn't make it. I saw it coming too late..."
"You saw it?"
Silence. Ken glanced at him, concern in his brown eyes. Brad was just looking at the scorched earth and dust, with an expression was unreadable. When he felt Ken's eyes on him, he clamped a mask of impassiveness over whatever had been there before, and looked at him.
"You're shot.."
Ken's voice had an edge of desperation. His need to know was more then the pain. The bullet had gone through cleanly, and the bleeding had stopped already. He didn't even think that any bones were broken, and that was a surprsing streak of luck. So for now, he needed an answer.
"I'll be fine, its not bad. Brad...how did you know?"
Brad dropped his arms from Ken and leaned back on his hands, looking down. His glasses had gone missing, most likely having fallen off or broken in the explosion. His hair had grown out since he had first met Ken: It had been cut short for the military, but now his bangs were almost long enough to fall into his eyes, though it was still sort of short in the back. He was surprisingly untouched, though a little scratched in a few places. Not bleeding too much. His voice was even when he finally spoke.
"I have precognition."
Ken's eyes widened in surprise. It was truly an answer he wasn't expecting. Insane, but strangely logical. Things he hadn't understood clicked into place like smooth machinery. It was a useful tool in a war, being able to see the future. And Brad's gut feelings about things did have an uncanny way of always being right...
"....I see."
Brad hung his head just a little. He was distressed, and Ken could detect it, flaws in his facade of emotionlessness showing through. His lips were pressed together a little, and there were slight creases on his forehead, just short of deeping into a frown. It was of course to be expected. Ken could almost feel his guilt over the deaths of their commrades.
"Those trips...Takatori has been trying to train me. Its not as useful as you might think, I can't control it. I occasionally have visions, and I wont know how soon in the future they are going to occur. Often they're completely useless. Sometimes they are enough to save a life."
Ken nodded. Brad rubbed the place on the bridge of his nose where his glasses usually sat, distractedly. He had generally bad vision, being farsighted. Ken noticed. He had always wondered how Brad was drafted without 20-20 vision. Maybe he had memorized the chart or something...it would be like him.
His thoughts were pulled away from that as the older man stood, looking down at him.
"Can you walk all right? We need to get back to the base and report this."
Ken nodded, and stood, the sun passing behind another cloud, leaving everything in dim uncertainty once again.
*
The Present.
Work. Damn. Ken glowered at the sidewalk as he walked, just putting one foot in front of the other. Work was not what he wanted to be occupying his thoughts right now, having so much to work out, that was of far more importance. However, Brad has insisted that he tie up all loose ends. He was always a believer in prescision, and Ken admitted (though a little grudgingly) that he agreed.
Ken worked these days at an obscure law firm, filling out monotonous paperwork, typing reports. Nothing special, nothing challenging. Enough of a paycheck to pay his rent and eat well. The building was squat, a dark brown, and practically windowless. Ugly to say the least. The walls and hallways were all done in shades of unobtrusive beige. Glass doors opened onto the interior. The whole place was just a little cramped. Ken stood before the glass doors, studying his reflection in the glass. A casual suit, dark brown slacks that reminded him a little too much of the color of this building, a white button-doen shirt with a black sportscoat over it, and a wheat-colored tie. He was still wearing the srtand of pearls, but it was hidden neatly by the collar of the shirt. It wasn't so bad, the buisnessman look, but it always thought it made him look a little older then he really felt. He was only 28 after all. His hair was combed neatly, though he always avoided gel, his hair having a tendency to fall into place nicely on its own.
He squared his shoulders and walked inside. He wouldn't be staying long, he was going to quit, quietly and without raising too much attention to it. Personal reasons he would say, as explaination. And that should be enough for them. He felt a bit elated over all of this, after the inital shock reaction was wearing off. His life was serving a higher purpose again. This was the kind of stuff he used to thrive off of, when he was younger, and didn't know that there was no 'glory' or 'grandeur' in the cold truth of war.
Perhaps it would be too late when he learned the same of revenge.
But this was not on his mind. He walked in, on time, checked into the office of his supervisor, apologized for the few days he had been absent, and then resigned his position.
About an hour later, he re-emerged, after filling out a slew of release forms, a free man. It did feel good. He had hated that job for as long as he could remember. He had always told himself that if he ever didn't make into the National League, he would teach soccer instead. He loved children, and soccer. It would have made him happy, but he just couldn't find an opening. It wasn't a position very in-demand. He shook the sentiment off. It didn't make a difference now, anyway.
He turned a corner, onto a side street he always took as a shortcut, and to avoid a major intersection, where he always got stopped at the light. And then he stopped in his tracks. A sleek black car was stretched across the alley, parked right in the middle of the road. A man wearing dark sunglasses was leaned against it, his eyes fixed on him, and another was standing by the wall, a ways away, also in dark glasses, and a hat. The car windows were tinted, there might have been two others, but it also might be Ken seeing the worse scenario. Both men were looking at him. He backed up a few steps, silent, wary.
Then the taller of the two, formerly leaning on the car, started to walk towards him. When he started backing up, he stopped, and threw a glance with some encrypted meaning to the younger of the two, and he reached in his coat for something. They were both in black. Ken didn't stick around to see what kind of weapon the younger one was about to aim at him, and he turned and broke into the run. The last thing he saw was the pavement coming up to meet him, a sting, like a wasp's, in the back of his neck. He instinctively reached back, as he hit the ground, seeing nothing but darkness, and his fingers touched a thin length of glass and metal, with raised ridges like a throwing dart. Then, nothingness.
Omi smirked.
AN: I think my original style is falling apart too much so...expect something really off the wall in the next chapter! muahaha... Review pleeasseeee! ::bows to all her lovely reviewers thusfar:: You make my life worth living.. ::sniff::
Chapter 5.
7 Years Earlier.
The air was dusty and grey, in the early evening dusk. A weak sunset painted the space between the wreckage and skeletons of buildings. Ken was walking with his hands in his pockets. Thinking, amid the broken, silent chaos of the last battle scene. Both sides had pulled back, and the site had been evacuated months ago, taken over by his side and temporarily forgotten as the line was pushed over. It was eerily deserted, the whole place gave Ken a distinct feeling of being out-of-place. But no one told him it was off-limits, and everyone had the afternoon off, which all of the soldiers did about once every month.
It was a good 30 minute walk from the army base he had been restationed by. It was far from pleasant, as probably most army bases are. An atmosphere of grey. The grey of steel, the grey of morning. The grey of despair and death, like the way the sky was most of the time here. He looked up at the sky. Faint traces of red and orange were quickly dissappearing with the sun. Ken was dressed in a black tshirt, and camoflauge pants. He didn't really like camoflauge. But he didnt have anything else, really.
Usually he spent these afternoons off with Brad. The two of them had become good friends over the last few months. They looked after each other. But, lately Brad had become more and more secretive. There was something big he was hiding. He had been called off-duty much more often, unpredictably, to dissappear for hours, no one seemed to know where. Least of all Ken, whose inquiries were always ignored or dismissed. It was beginning to be somewhat of a rift between them. He was worried. When Brad came back he always had to take the rest of the day off, and was allowed to do so, being mentally tired, and irritable as all hell.
It was the reason Ken was here alone. Brad was off doing some unexplained work somewhere, and he was left to himself. Solitude was highly overrated. Sure it was peaceful, it gave him time to think. But he liked to be around people. He liked the reassurance of being in a group, or at least near one. In case. Even in battle, it helped his morale. He started to walk back towards the base. It was late, and there would be a headcount before curfew.
Brad had returned by the time Ken got back, and was lying down on the uncomfortable standard-issue cot-like beds that lined the walls of the room that them and about 12 other men shared. The two were alone in the room, it was still about an hour before it was required for everyone to check back in, and fall back into normal, relentless routine. Brad sat down on the precisely made bed across from his, not caring that it wasn't his, causing the springs to creak a little. Brad opened his eyes.
After a moment, Ken spoke.
"Did I wake you up? Sorry."
"Mm."
He closed his eyes again. Ken knew he should leave him alone. But...
"Brad..."
"What?"
The response was toneless, and Brad's eyes were still closed.
"Anou...I'm worried about you. When you come back from this shit, whatever it is, you always seem so.."
Brad sat up, cutting him off with a look, and picked up his glasses from the little metal folding table that lie between every other bed. He put them on, and looked directly at Ken, the serious expression he wore making Ken feel cold inside.
"Look, its not something I can take lightly enough to just tell you. If it was, I obviously would have told you already. Leave me alone about it."
Ken looked truly hurt for a few seconds, and then anger took it's place, seeming a natural substitute. More of a mature emotion, or thats what it seemed to Ken. He narrowed his eyes a little.
"I just.."
There was a tension in Ken's voice, that was hardly ever there when he talked to the older American. Brad leaned back against the wall, pulling his eyes away from Ken and letting them rest on the place where the ceiling merged into the cream colored wall on the opposite side of the room.
"Don't. It would be selfish of me if I told you. It would put you in danger..."
"No, its not telling me thats selfish. You just don't want to worry. Fine. I don't want to know."
He bit back the urge to tack some derrogative word onto the end of that last phrase, and instead stood up and walked out, stiffly. Brad watched him, with a sort of slightly sad calm. It was the first fight they had ever gotten into, but he felt he was doing the right thing. After a while he decided to stop thinking about it so much and resume his nap, ignoring the guilt that Ken's heated words stirred in him.
One week later.
Ken winced and dove for cover as an aerial bomb dropped, about 15 feet from where he was standing, throwing up dirt and little peices of concrete. He rolled smoothly back onto his feet, under a broken slab of concrete balanced about 5 feet from the ground, suspended amid rubble. This was a more dangerous situation then he had been in thusfar, and though it wasn't the front lines, where most of the casualties appeared, guerrilla work was just as perilous, for the lack of boundaries. There wasn't a line drwn across the middle of this concrete jungle, his job here was to pick off stragglers from the other side, and avoid getting blown to small pieces by the bombers, who were continuing to level everything still managing to stand upright.
And nothing much was, really. It was a little overcast, the bright midday sun having passed behind a large cloud cluster. Disconsernable masses of twsted metal supports rose into the sky occasionally, and glass and conceret littered the ground. There was an occasional car, peeking out form the debris, but it was a rare sight. The rest of the troops were further ahead, a few were randomly seleced to backtrack and make sure they hadn't missed anyone. Ken had found two of Persia's, and shot them. His hands still tingled from the backlash of the rifle and the numb feeling that killing always carried for him. He placed the gun on the ground for a moment, long enough to readjust the red bandanna that was tied around one his left upper arm. Red, Takatori's color. Persia's supporters wore white, and they occasionally were called the Whites.
"Hidaka, come in."
The staticky buzz of his communicator flickered to life with this message. He pressed the talk button and responded in the affirmative.
"We're regrouping, get back to the front."
"Hai."
The radio went silent. He scanned the area again, then picked up the gun, starting to jog back to where the rest of the small patrol he was with were stationed, keeping a constant eye on the skies. However, after that last spree of bombs which almost caught him, it seemed to be quiet again. A gunshot, very close to him. He whipped around to catch a figure retreat into shadow behind another building. He looked ahead, and hesitated to disobey the order, but ran after the retreating man anyways. It would be worse if there was trouble later over this. He staked out a good place to shoot from, behind a wall, about 4 feet in height. He placed the barrel of the gun on the wall to steady it, and fired three or four shots at the place that the enemy had dissappeared to.
The figure ran for a second cover, while shooting at Ken to cover the move. He ducked behind the wall, and avoided the shots neatly. Then he ran after the man, the afternoon sun finally emerging from the cloud it was behind, and making the stacks of whitle concrete dazzlingly bright, and hard to focus on. He found another cover, and looked for the offender. Silence. He waited.
After about 5 minutes, and no traces whatsoever of the other person, Ken gave up, and decided to check back with the rest of the troops, and the leutenient that was stationed with them. Something would be contrived to handle the situation. He started to walk back, quickly and trying to be silent, and as inconspicuous as possible, so as to avoid being trailed. A few minutes away from the post, he heard the crunch of a footstep behind him, and he turned, alarmed. Damn. He hadn't heard anyone follow him...He raised his gun and squinted against the sunlight...
A searing pain ripped through the muscles in his right arm, and he yelled out a little, stubling back, and trying to catch his balance. He simultaneously saw the gunner aim for a second shot, and felt a loose peice of gravel beneath him give way. A shot rang out.
Strong hands grabbed his good arm, and hauled him to his feet. The man who was shooting at him slumped to the ground, surprise still etched into his features. Ken turned around, and sighed in relief as he saw Brad's familiar face looking down at him in concern. In that moment any anger he might have harbored for the American simply melted. He had saved his life. But, Ken's words of gratitude were cut off by the look that had passed over Brad's features. Dark, worried, serious and maybe a little afraid. He was unfocused for a few moments, then he seemed to snap out of it, looked at Ken, his eyes clear and troubled.
"...Run."
He grabbed Ken's arm again and broke into a run. Ken stumbled after him, confused but unquestioning. The look scared him. He had only seen Brad like that a few times, and it was always a matter of life and death. A few moments after they started to run, Ken heard he planes. He didn't look up, because the ground was so uneven, but her heard them distinctly, roaring overhead. A high, keening whistle of a falling bomb. Then a deafening silence, followed by a wave of heat that threw him off of his feet. The worlds seemed to slow, the ground coming up to meet him with painful clarity. It was shattered by the loud explosion that followed, and Ken skidded and rolled about 10 feet on the loose chunks of gravel.
The arm he had been shot in sent needles of firey pain through his body, and he closed his eyes tightly, curling in on himself, fighting the sting of multiple scrapes that were slowly making themselves known to him. He cried out a little as he was shook.
"Ken.. Ken, are you all right?"
He peeled his eyelids open, and squinted up at the older, dark-haired man, propping himself up painfully on one elbow. Then closed them again as Brad's arms encircled him, in relief of his being all right, or just a sort of protective instinct. Brad sighed.
"D-damn...That was really close."
Ken's voice cracked a little, his heart was still pounding. He looked back, then, towards the place that they had come from, towards the place where the rest of the troops were camped out....And his eyes widened in shock. Fires were burning here and there. Everything was blackened. Completely obliterated, for about a 40 foot radius.
"The troops...."
Mental pain was surfacing now. It was the first personal loss Ken had suffered since he had been here. He felt numb again, through the pain of his injuries.
"They didn't make it. I saw it coming too late..."
"You saw it?"
Silence. Ken glanced at him, concern in his brown eyes. Brad was just looking at the scorched earth and dust, with an expression was unreadable. When he felt Ken's eyes on him, he clamped a mask of impassiveness over whatever had been there before, and looked at him.
"You're shot.."
Ken's voice had an edge of desperation. His need to know was more then the pain. The bullet had gone through cleanly, and the bleeding had stopped already. He didn't even think that any bones were broken, and that was a surprsing streak of luck. So for now, he needed an answer.
"I'll be fine, its not bad. Brad...how did you know?"
Brad dropped his arms from Ken and leaned back on his hands, looking down. His glasses had gone missing, most likely having fallen off or broken in the explosion. His hair had grown out since he had first met Ken: It had been cut short for the military, but now his bangs were almost long enough to fall into his eyes, though it was still sort of short in the back. He was surprisingly untouched, though a little scratched in a few places. Not bleeding too much. His voice was even when he finally spoke.
"I have precognition."
Ken's eyes widened in surprise. It was truly an answer he wasn't expecting. Insane, but strangely logical. Things he hadn't understood clicked into place like smooth machinery. It was a useful tool in a war, being able to see the future. And Brad's gut feelings about things did have an uncanny way of always being right...
"....I see."
Brad hung his head just a little. He was distressed, and Ken could detect it, flaws in his facade of emotionlessness showing through. His lips were pressed together a little, and there were slight creases on his forehead, just short of deeping into a frown. It was of course to be expected. Ken could almost feel his guilt over the deaths of their commrades.
"Those trips...Takatori has been trying to train me. Its not as useful as you might think, I can't control it. I occasionally have visions, and I wont know how soon in the future they are going to occur. Often they're completely useless. Sometimes they are enough to save a life."
Ken nodded. Brad rubbed the place on the bridge of his nose where his glasses usually sat, distractedly. He had generally bad vision, being farsighted. Ken noticed. He had always wondered how Brad was drafted without 20-20 vision. Maybe he had memorized the chart or something...it would be like him.
His thoughts were pulled away from that as the older man stood, looking down at him.
"Can you walk all right? We need to get back to the base and report this."
Ken nodded, and stood, the sun passing behind another cloud, leaving everything in dim uncertainty once again.
*
The Present.
Work. Damn. Ken glowered at the sidewalk as he walked, just putting one foot in front of the other. Work was not what he wanted to be occupying his thoughts right now, having so much to work out, that was of far more importance. However, Brad has insisted that he tie up all loose ends. He was always a believer in prescision, and Ken admitted (though a little grudgingly) that he agreed.
Ken worked these days at an obscure law firm, filling out monotonous paperwork, typing reports. Nothing special, nothing challenging. Enough of a paycheck to pay his rent and eat well. The building was squat, a dark brown, and practically windowless. Ugly to say the least. The walls and hallways were all done in shades of unobtrusive beige. Glass doors opened onto the interior. The whole place was just a little cramped. Ken stood before the glass doors, studying his reflection in the glass. A casual suit, dark brown slacks that reminded him a little too much of the color of this building, a white button-doen shirt with a black sportscoat over it, and a wheat-colored tie. He was still wearing the srtand of pearls, but it was hidden neatly by the collar of the shirt. It wasn't so bad, the buisnessman look, but it always thought it made him look a little older then he really felt. He was only 28 after all. His hair was combed neatly, though he always avoided gel, his hair having a tendency to fall into place nicely on its own.
He squared his shoulders and walked inside. He wouldn't be staying long, he was going to quit, quietly and without raising too much attention to it. Personal reasons he would say, as explaination. And that should be enough for them. He felt a bit elated over all of this, after the inital shock reaction was wearing off. His life was serving a higher purpose again. This was the kind of stuff he used to thrive off of, when he was younger, and didn't know that there was no 'glory' or 'grandeur' in the cold truth of war.
Perhaps it would be too late when he learned the same of revenge.
But this was not on his mind. He walked in, on time, checked into the office of his supervisor, apologized for the few days he had been absent, and then resigned his position.
About an hour later, he re-emerged, after filling out a slew of release forms, a free man. It did feel good. He had hated that job for as long as he could remember. He had always told himself that if he ever didn't make into the National League, he would teach soccer instead. He loved children, and soccer. It would have made him happy, but he just couldn't find an opening. It wasn't a position very in-demand. He shook the sentiment off. It didn't make a difference now, anyway.
He turned a corner, onto a side street he always took as a shortcut, and to avoid a major intersection, where he always got stopped at the light. And then he stopped in his tracks. A sleek black car was stretched across the alley, parked right in the middle of the road. A man wearing dark sunglasses was leaned against it, his eyes fixed on him, and another was standing by the wall, a ways away, also in dark glasses, and a hat. The car windows were tinted, there might have been two others, but it also might be Ken seeing the worse scenario. Both men were looking at him. He backed up a few steps, silent, wary.
Then the taller of the two, formerly leaning on the car, started to walk towards him. When he started backing up, he stopped, and threw a glance with some encrypted meaning to the younger of the two, and he reached in his coat for something. They were both in black. Ken didn't stick around to see what kind of weapon the younger one was about to aim at him, and he turned and broke into the run. The last thing he saw was the pavement coming up to meet him, a sting, like a wasp's, in the back of his neck. He instinctively reached back, as he hit the ground, seeing nothing but darkness, and his fingers touched a thin length of glass and metal, with raised ridges like a throwing dart. Then, nothingness.
Omi smirked.
AN: I think my original style is falling apart too much so...expect something really off the wall in the next chapter! muahaha... Review pleeasseeee! ::bows to all her lovely reviewers thusfar:: You make my life worth living.. ::sniff::
