Baq agaiiiiin...we have a 17 POVhere! Double squee! So we get to see what
our lovely little android is up to in that head of his...whether he wants
to charbroil someone or roast them on a spit or slow bake them...
I'm really friggin' hungry. Forgive me.
Dad is watching LoTR in the other room. So I have to say something obligatory. Ahem. JUUNANAGOU IS MY PRECIOUSSSSSS!!! AND WE WANTS HIM!!!!! Thank ya. Cough.
And again...Italics = /word(s)/
So, continuing our story...
**
"What in the /hell/ did you put into her drink /this/ time?" Juri asked and Eva would only smile.
"You probably don't /want/ to know," Eva said, and slung the coat over the back of her couch. "Let's say it's expensive and leave it at that."
Reece groaned. When she woke up she was going to have the mother of all migranes.
"Make her drink lots of water and don't let her get away with not drinking it," Eva said and yawned. "She won't feel dehydrated but that's what that stuff'll do to you. Take her upstairs to her own room. The last time I let her sleep off a drug down here she barfed all over my floor and left me to clean it up."
"Where'd that guy get to?"
"Juunana?" Eva muttered absently, "Went back in his room."
"Oh," Juri said and shrugged. "Thank God. I didn't like him much. If I ever tried to say anything to him he'd just look at me and it'd scare me shitless. His eyes just don't...didn't look like normal eyes!"
"/Right/..." Eva said blandly. "Wha'd'you mean?"
"I mean, his eyes are /blank/. They're fucking empty!"
"No emotion or what?"
"Well, that's part of it," Juri said, and hefted Reece a little; the girl wasn't a living stick. She moaned. "But they've just got this /look/. I couldn't tell you what it was but there's something fucking /wrong/ with that son of a bitch."
"Well I thought he was nice," Eva defended.
"You thought he was /nice/? What the fuck makes you think he's /nice/?!"
"Not /nice/ in the conventional way," Eva said. "But I think he was at least making an effort. To not start anything, anyway."
"And how could you tell /that/?"
"It's my /job/," Eva stated bluntly. "Go and take Reece upstairs before she starts to wake up."
Juri rolled his eyes. If Eva didn't want to say something, Eva wasn't going to say anything. If she had a secret she would take it with her to the grave, on pain of torture.
"Whatever...good night, Eva-chan."
"Bye," Eva replied and Juri shut the door behind himself. The door had an automatic lock.
*
The morning came too early for all involved.
Eva woke up sprawled on her couch, long black coat covering her like a blanket. She sat up, and threw the coat over the couch and ran into the shower, cursing her hangover to hell and back. It was already ten and she had until noon to make it to Theed and complete the transaction.
~
What kind of sick ningen tradition was it to barge in on people and assume that they were welcome?
The jinzouningen glared with barely concealed contempt at his latest guest. This one seemed even less perceptive of his ire than even the Reece ningen last night.
He was looking all around Juunana's apartment as if totally amazed that a building could have a room with a ceiling, X number of walls, and a floor in it.
"Oh, wow!" the ningen exclaimed, seeming totally enchanted. Juunanagou stared holes into his back, wishing he could satisfy the urge to rip off the man's head. "I've never been in this place! You know, the rumors always were Tanaka had an entire forest in here! Whenever he opened his door the hall always smelled funny for hours after it."
"Intriguing," Juunana stated dryly.
"No, really. The whole place smelled like weed."
"No, really. /Intriguing/," Juunanagou said with as much sarcasm as he could stuff into three words.
Outside, Juunanagou heard Eva's door slam wide open, something crash, and Eva's 'colorful' voice cut straight through the cheap drywall.
"Where's /she/ off to so fast?" Juunana said in a flat voice, more to himself and out of un-admitted jealousy than curiosity.
The ningen glanced at him. "Oh, /Eva/? I'd rather not /ask/ her," the ningen shuddered and passed back into his happy-happy mood. "This really is a nice place. Guess I was wrong about old Mr. Tanaka all those years."
"Why wouldn't you ask her?" Juunanagou asked, interest slightly pequed at the ningen's flinch.
"Well..." the ningen obviously looked pained, and obviously didn't know that Juunanagou had gone out with Eva and company last night. "Nobody...well, nobody knows what she /does/. And when you're living in an apartment tenement like this, well, we all /know/ each other. She's lived her a while, longer than /me/, and she doesn't really associate with /anyone/."
"So /what/?" Juunanangou demanded. Maybe she just doesn't /like/ any of you, he thought with an acid smile. I can see why, if that's the case.
"And...well, some of the really old people here say...say..." The ningen trailed off and leaned into Juunanagou's face, and whispered, "Don't tell /anyone/ I told you this, but...I've heard Eva's in with the /yakuza/. Not too high up--but not a person to cross with, you get me?"
"The /yakuza/?" he repeated, incredulous. Eva was anything but a killer. She might have her strange points but Juunanagou couldn't imagine her staring down the length of her arm, gun pointed at a random head, executing another ningen in cold blood; no matter who told her to do it.
The ningen brushed a strand or two of long, dark brown hair behind his ear and smiled charmingly. Juunanagou stiffened, and the ningen changed the subject. "Soo, Mr. Gou. What brings you to the slums?"
"I'd have to kill you," the android said, only half-joking in a dry sort of way.
The ningen smiled again. He was by far too happy. I didn't do my job well enough, Juunanagou thought irritably. Damned ningens.
"In that case I won't ask you again until you tell me on your own," the ningen said and turned to the door. "It was nice meeting you, Mr. Gou. If you have any questions or need to know anything, just ask for Gaia Hirano. That's me. I've got the room three down the hall from you," he said.
And with that his visitor dissapeared and closed the door.
I suppose that was who Reece was talking about last night, he thought drearily. The ningen transvestite.
~
"I can't /believe/ you were almost late," a tall, stringy man with shocking orange hair said. He glared down at Eva with extreme dissaproval.
"You could if you were me," Eva muttered.
"Which I'm /not/," the man said, at least seven years Eva's elder and thrice her equal in the field. "With /Reece/, I presume?" The sarcastic edge in his voice betrayed his intolerance of Eva's friend.
"Yeah," Eva rolled her eyes. "Her boyfriend, and my new nieghbor. I felt really bad about draggin' his ass along when he didn't wanna come."
This man had always scared Eva, even if she had been able to overcome it a little through the years. He just had this kind of abstract, innocent expression that Eva knew was a blatant lie.
The transaction was beneath the old bridge that connected East and West Theed before the androids turned it into a virtual cataclysmic wasteland. "Are you ready?" the man asked, glancing down at her with piercing black eyes. "I hope that damned gun of yours won't stall this time."
"I--er--"
"I have no need for /incompetents/," the man snapped harshly. "It's a yes or no question, Evangeline."
"Yes!" Eva said, forcing a confident syllable.
"If you make it through this one alive, I'll get you a new one, how does that sound?"
Eva was well aware of how strange the question might have sounded to anyone else but her face lit up. "What kind?"
"Don't push it," the man said coolly.
He stopped and stared straight ahead.
They'd never so much as trusted her with the keys to where they kept the toilet paper.
It was her job to make sure, under any circumstances, that Rice Nimitz came back alive and breathing, preferably in one piece.
It was a strange, scared feeling but she was pushing it into the back of her head. Even though she knew five men would be hidden 500 metres away, military grade automatic rifles targeted on the other runner, the sense she might not outlive the next five minutes was crushing.
If something happened to Nimitz when she was daydreaming, she had no idea what they would do to her for her negligence.
Theed Bridge had once been a really beautiful bridge. Eva had never seen it in one piece but in the newspapers she collected there were gorgeous pictures of it's opening day. It had been a massive, double-deckered four laned highway suspension bridge, with a tower on each side and cables holding it up. It had been hailed as a marvel of the century, linking East and West Theed, which had been historically rifted by the three-kilometer- wide river that ran straight throught the heart of the metropolis.
Well, it /had/ been. Until the androids blew it up.
~
Juunana's head jerked around and suppressed the instinctive urge to fire on the door. Haven't these /idiots/ had enough of me?!
Whichever ningen was out in the hall hadn't stopped banging on his door in all the time he took to cross the living room (if you could call a run down space like that such a nice name) and open the door.
/Reece/.
His eyes narrowed dangerously as he gazed down at the ningen with a malicious stare. Of all the ningens he'd been forced to meet, from the fat woman in the muumuu to the creepy transvestite, this one was the most aggrevating.
The curly-haired girl stared up at him with wide eyes. "You got any idea where Eva is?"
"No," I sneered bluntly.
Juunanagou glanced to the side as her 'boyfriend' came up behind her, panting. "I--sorry...she's all pissed off at Eva," he tried to explain and tried to drag Reece away.
Reece jerked her arm out of his grasp and stuck her face in Juunanagou's. "Geroff, Juri!" she snapped. "Look, I know you know where she went! So go on and tell me!"
"I don't know where your stupid little friend ran off to," he snarled. "What makes you think /I/ know?"
Reece glared at Juunanagou with all her might (it was a laughable effort compared to his).
"Reece, stop it," Juri snapped and Reece turned around on him.
"Don't tell me to stop it!" Reece said.
"//I just did!//"
Reece opened her mouth to reply, but Juri didn't give her the chance. He glanced at Juunanagou, tilted his head at him in a silent apology, and yanked Reece down the hall.
Juunanagou slammed his door shut and stalked back into his room. What had he been doing, again? Oh, right. Trying to figure out how to pay bills.
**
Ok, people are naturally wierd. They will always be wierd. There is no such thing as a 'normal' human being. Some of us just stray farther from the pack than others. And there really are such things as transvestites. Rocky Horror Picture Show RAWKS, baby!!!
Oh, and...I did say Reece was based on a friend of mine, right, didn't I? Yup...I'd say that was pretty in-character for my friend...*cough* Scary, neh?
Plus. The people in Juunanagou's apartment building think his name is Juunana Gou. Juunana=1st name, Gou=2nd name. Go figure.
Please R&R, won't you please, this can't be THAT bad!!!! *cries*
Thank you, Kim!! *huggles* You reviewed!!!
I'm really friggin' hungry. Forgive me.
Dad is watching LoTR in the other room. So I have to say something obligatory. Ahem. JUUNANAGOU IS MY PRECIOUSSSSSS!!! AND WE WANTS HIM!!!!! Thank ya. Cough.
And again...Italics = /word(s)/
So, continuing our story...
**
"What in the /hell/ did you put into her drink /this/ time?" Juri asked and Eva would only smile.
"You probably don't /want/ to know," Eva said, and slung the coat over the back of her couch. "Let's say it's expensive and leave it at that."
Reece groaned. When she woke up she was going to have the mother of all migranes.
"Make her drink lots of water and don't let her get away with not drinking it," Eva said and yawned. "She won't feel dehydrated but that's what that stuff'll do to you. Take her upstairs to her own room. The last time I let her sleep off a drug down here she barfed all over my floor and left me to clean it up."
"Where'd that guy get to?"
"Juunana?" Eva muttered absently, "Went back in his room."
"Oh," Juri said and shrugged. "Thank God. I didn't like him much. If I ever tried to say anything to him he'd just look at me and it'd scare me shitless. His eyes just don't...didn't look like normal eyes!"
"/Right/..." Eva said blandly. "Wha'd'you mean?"
"I mean, his eyes are /blank/. They're fucking empty!"
"No emotion or what?"
"Well, that's part of it," Juri said, and hefted Reece a little; the girl wasn't a living stick. She moaned. "But they've just got this /look/. I couldn't tell you what it was but there's something fucking /wrong/ with that son of a bitch."
"Well I thought he was nice," Eva defended.
"You thought he was /nice/? What the fuck makes you think he's /nice/?!"
"Not /nice/ in the conventional way," Eva said. "But I think he was at least making an effort. To not start anything, anyway."
"And how could you tell /that/?"
"It's my /job/," Eva stated bluntly. "Go and take Reece upstairs before she starts to wake up."
Juri rolled his eyes. If Eva didn't want to say something, Eva wasn't going to say anything. If she had a secret she would take it with her to the grave, on pain of torture.
"Whatever...good night, Eva-chan."
"Bye," Eva replied and Juri shut the door behind himself. The door had an automatic lock.
*
The morning came too early for all involved.
Eva woke up sprawled on her couch, long black coat covering her like a blanket. She sat up, and threw the coat over the couch and ran into the shower, cursing her hangover to hell and back. It was already ten and she had until noon to make it to Theed and complete the transaction.
~
What kind of sick ningen tradition was it to barge in on people and assume that they were welcome?
The jinzouningen glared with barely concealed contempt at his latest guest. This one seemed even less perceptive of his ire than even the Reece ningen last night.
He was looking all around Juunana's apartment as if totally amazed that a building could have a room with a ceiling, X number of walls, and a floor in it.
"Oh, wow!" the ningen exclaimed, seeming totally enchanted. Juunanagou stared holes into his back, wishing he could satisfy the urge to rip off the man's head. "I've never been in this place! You know, the rumors always were Tanaka had an entire forest in here! Whenever he opened his door the hall always smelled funny for hours after it."
"Intriguing," Juunana stated dryly.
"No, really. The whole place smelled like weed."
"No, really. /Intriguing/," Juunanagou said with as much sarcasm as he could stuff into three words.
Outside, Juunanagou heard Eva's door slam wide open, something crash, and Eva's 'colorful' voice cut straight through the cheap drywall.
"Where's /she/ off to so fast?" Juunana said in a flat voice, more to himself and out of un-admitted jealousy than curiosity.
The ningen glanced at him. "Oh, /Eva/? I'd rather not /ask/ her," the ningen shuddered and passed back into his happy-happy mood. "This really is a nice place. Guess I was wrong about old Mr. Tanaka all those years."
"Why wouldn't you ask her?" Juunanagou asked, interest slightly pequed at the ningen's flinch.
"Well..." the ningen obviously looked pained, and obviously didn't know that Juunanagou had gone out with Eva and company last night. "Nobody...well, nobody knows what she /does/. And when you're living in an apartment tenement like this, well, we all /know/ each other. She's lived her a while, longer than /me/, and she doesn't really associate with /anyone/."
"So /what/?" Juunanangou demanded. Maybe she just doesn't /like/ any of you, he thought with an acid smile. I can see why, if that's the case.
"And...well, some of the really old people here say...say..." The ningen trailed off and leaned into Juunanagou's face, and whispered, "Don't tell /anyone/ I told you this, but...I've heard Eva's in with the /yakuza/. Not too high up--but not a person to cross with, you get me?"
"The /yakuza/?" he repeated, incredulous. Eva was anything but a killer. She might have her strange points but Juunanagou couldn't imagine her staring down the length of her arm, gun pointed at a random head, executing another ningen in cold blood; no matter who told her to do it.
The ningen brushed a strand or two of long, dark brown hair behind his ear and smiled charmingly. Juunanagou stiffened, and the ningen changed the subject. "Soo, Mr. Gou. What brings you to the slums?"
"I'd have to kill you," the android said, only half-joking in a dry sort of way.
The ningen smiled again. He was by far too happy. I didn't do my job well enough, Juunanagou thought irritably. Damned ningens.
"In that case I won't ask you again until you tell me on your own," the ningen said and turned to the door. "It was nice meeting you, Mr. Gou. If you have any questions or need to know anything, just ask for Gaia Hirano. That's me. I've got the room three down the hall from you," he said.
And with that his visitor dissapeared and closed the door.
I suppose that was who Reece was talking about last night, he thought drearily. The ningen transvestite.
~
"I can't /believe/ you were almost late," a tall, stringy man with shocking orange hair said. He glared down at Eva with extreme dissaproval.
"You could if you were me," Eva muttered.
"Which I'm /not/," the man said, at least seven years Eva's elder and thrice her equal in the field. "With /Reece/, I presume?" The sarcastic edge in his voice betrayed his intolerance of Eva's friend.
"Yeah," Eva rolled her eyes. "Her boyfriend, and my new nieghbor. I felt really bad about draggin' his ass along when he didn't wanna come."
This man had always scared Eva, even if she had been able to overcome it a little through the years. He just had this kind of abstract, innocent expression that Eva knew was a blatant lie.
The transaction was beneath the old bridge that connected East and West Theed before the androids turned it into a virtual cataclysmic wasteland. "Are you ready?" the man asked, glancing down at her with piercing black eyes. "I hope that damned gun of yours won't stall this time."
"I--er--"
"I have no need for /incompetents/," the man snapped harshly. "It's a yes or no question, Evangeline."
"Yes!" Eva said, forcing a confident syllable.
"If you make it through this one alive, I'll get you a new one, how does that sound?"
Eva was well aware of how strange the question might have sounded to anyone else but her face lit up. "What kind?"
"Don't push it," the man said coolly.
He stopped and stared straight ahead.
They'd never so much as trusted her with the keys to where they kept the toilet paper.
It was her job to make sure, under any circumstances, that Rice Nimitz came back alive and breathing, preferably in one piece.
It was a strange, scared feeling but she was pushing it into the back of her head. Even though she knew five men would be hidden 500 metres away, military grade automatic rifles targeted on the other runner, the sense she might not outlive the next five minutes was crushing.
If something happened to Nimitz when she was daydreaming, she had no idea what they would do to her for her negligence.
Theed Bridge had once been a really beautiful bridge. Eva had never seen it in one piece but in the newspapers she collected there were gorgeous pictures of it's opening day. It had been a massive, double-deckered four laned highway suspension bridge, with a tower on each side and cables holding it up. It had been hailed as a marvel of the century, linking East and West Theed, which had been historically rifted by the three-kilometer- wide river that ran straight throught the heart of the metropolis.
Well, it /had/ been. Until the androids blew it up.
~
Juunana's head jerked around and suppressed the instinctive urge to fire on the door. Haven't these /idiots/ had enough of me?!
Whichever ningen was out in the hall hadn't stopped banging on his door in all the time he took to cross the living room (if you could call a run down space like that such a nice name) and open the door.
/Reece/.
His eyes narrowed dangerously as he gazed down at the ningen with a malicious stare. Of all the ningens he'd been forced to meet, from the fat woman in the muumuu to the creepy transvestite, this one was the most aggrevating.
The curly-haired girl stared up at him with wide eyes. "You got any idea where Eva is?"
"No," I sneered bluntly.
Juunanagou glanced to the side as her 'boyfriend' came up behind her, panting. "I--sorry...she's all pissed off at Eva," he tried to explain and tried to drag Reece away.
Reece jerked her arm out of his grasp and stuck her face in Juunanagou's. "Geroff, Juri!" she snapped. "Look, I know you know where she went! So go on and tell me!"
"I don't know where your stupid little friend ran off to," he snarled. "What makes you think /I/ know?"
Reece glared at Juunanagou with all her might (it was a laughable effort compared to his).
"Reece, stop it," Juri snapped and Reece turned around on him.
"Don't tell me to stop it!" Reece said.
"//I just did!//"
Reece opened her mouth to reply, but Juri didn't give her the chance. He glanced at Juunanagou, tilted his head at him in a silent apology, and yanked Reece down the hall.
Juunanagou slammed his door shut and stalked back into his room. What had he been doing, again? Oh, right. Trying to figure out how to pay bills.
**
Ok, people are naturally wierd. They will always be wierd. There is no such thing as a 'normal' human being. Some of us just stray farther from the pack than others. And there really are such things as transvestites. Rocky Horror Picture Show RAWKS, baby!!!
Oh, and...I did say Reece was based on a friend of mine, right, didn't I? Yup...I'd say that was pretty in-character for my friend...*cough* Scary, neh?
Plus. The people in Juunanagou's apartment building think his name is Juunana Gou. Juunana=1st name, Gou=2nd name. Go figure.
Please R&R, won't you please, this can't be THAT bad!!!! *cries*
Thank you, Kim!! *huggles* You reviewed!!!