Chapter 11
"Is that your boyfriend up there, Hitomi?" said a soft, breathless female voice.
Hitomi looked to the side, saw Van, and, as she was too tired to answer in complete words, grunted in answer. The subject of Van was completely dropped as a series of sighs followed the grunt as Amano Schezar sprinted past them. Yukari sat up and glared at the sighers, who discreetly averted their eyes.
Hitomi and a group of other track athletes, whom she had just recently become loosely friendly with, lazed behind the football post of the Astroturf football field in various positions of exhaustion and weariness (except Yukari, whose exercise only extended as far as running out with cups of water). After a grueling practice that coach insisted on having, all they could do was lie down and watch the boy's varsity track team practice around them as they ran on the track, which ran around the football field.
The football field itself was being used as well by the varsity football team. Because of this, there had been a series of collisions between track athlete and football which was followed by an apologetic football athlete eager to get a close up look at the scantily clad girls in mere sport bras, tank tops, and mini-shorts. Contrary to the football athlete's expectations, this kind of incident did not put him in any kind of favor with the scantily clad girls as they were not only scantily clad girls, but athletic scantily clad girls who really needed to concentrate on their jogging as they were being timed. Therefore, they could not return the football athletes' excessive flattery and could not find it in their hearts to enjoy the flattery but distracting attention. It did not help that the coach made them rerun the laps that the football athlete had interrupted.
In short, the girl's track team did not like football players anymore.
"Is that guy grabbing his dick?" pondered a girl.
"He's pointing at it too," observed Hitomi, rising up on an elbow.
"I wonder why?" asked another girl.
"He's trying to imply something I expect."
The football player had a rather suggestive look on his face and raised an eyebrow at the track players.
"You think he's on a steroids?" asked Millerna as she fanned herself in the heat.
"Nah, probably crack," said Yukari.
There was a whooshing sound and a bottle of water suddenly smacked the perverted football player in the head. He was helmeted so unfortunately the bottle did little physical damage. To his pride however, it seemed to have made a permanent dent. He turned to the side and shook a fist with hand and made nasty gestures with the other to a figure sitting in the bleachers.
Hitomi looked over at this figure in the bleachers and grinned. "Good old Van," she commented as the standing Van stuck up his middle finger at the football player and sat back down. Hitomi giggled and added breezily, "that's why I love him," as a collective sigh swept among the girls.
The coach yelled that they could leave. Groaning from sore muscles and legs, they limped back to the locker room.
Hitomi met Van outside the girls locker room as usual and they walked
back to the parking lot, fingers entwined. When they approached the
parking lot, Hitomi said, "Oh motherfu—"
.
-- Dilandau had been in an especially dark mood for the rest of the day after spitting on Kanzaki's new bike. He had taken comfort in the thought of destroying the motorcycle and had fallen into a deep state of contemplation and planning, devising what exactly he would do to it and how. His mind took on new paths of thinking. Why should he completely destroy it? He could just rough it up, force Kanzaki to live with a run down bike. In fact, why not etch some words into it? Swear words? Nah, that was such an amateur thing to do. He could write a message on it. MOUSE could work, or maybe HAIRY or maybe… Then again, Kanzaki could always repair the bike or even exchange it for a new one if it was still in running condition. Yes, Dilandau decided at last, he had to destroy it completely, ruin the engines, rip up the handles, slash the seat, and all that other good stuff.
A small part of his mind did question his violent fixation on Kanzaki. Was it really necessary? It was just as Celena said, the only thing to be avenged was Dilandau's pride, not his reputation. After all, he could just as easily gain back the respect of his gang in a regular old brawl.
Dilandau's dark mood was still dark by the end of the school day, but it was a comforting kind of darkness: the kind that would instantly be repaid in full. Too bad the vice-principal just had to catch him smoking in the hallways and give him after school detention. And Dilandau had been lucky: normally the VP would have suspended him, which was the corporal punishment for bringing cigarettes on campus, perhaps the VP was just distracted. In any case, lucky or not, Dilandau had been detained from blissful revenge by an hour-long detention.
By the time he was released, Dilandau was almost ballistic with the thought that his revenge would have to wait a day more. To his pleasant surprise, Kanzaki's silver motorcycle was still in the parking lot. Unable to contain his pent up rage and pleasure, Dilandau flipped out his knife, dashed over to the bike, and began his work.
It was a miracle that Kanzaki's bike was here at all, so Dilandau wisely decided to deal with the engines first. Clenching his knife, gleefully he made the first slash at the metal over the engines and growled when his knife barely managed to dent the metallic surface, much less puncture it.
Of course. It was an Escaflowne brand after all. Escaflowne Motorcycles produced top quality stuff. It wouldn't be easy to trash up an Escaflowne bike.
"Stupid, stupid," Dilandau growled, landing a sharp kick on the bike with every "stupid." His mood worsened as the kicks did not make any damage at all, they merely left dusty footprints on the surface of the metal. Yes, he was being very stupid. His eagerness made him rash. Right, he had to think this out carefully.
No. To hell with thinking. Kanzaki wasn't worth the effort. No matter how well made the bike was, even an Escaflowne could succumb to brute force if he was strong enough.
Dilandau squatted down in front of the motorcycle and, despite his previous thoughts, contemplated. It was foolish to go for the engines first. With Fanel around, Kanzaki could easily have fixed it. No, Dilandau should have taken care of the tires first. Then the engines would be useless.
Right, down to business.
He repressed his urge to slash wildly and proceeded to business with a set grimness. First he merely brought the edge of blade next to the rubber tire and delicately pressed. The blade sank into the rubber, but it made no scratch. The rubber resisted the blade and bounced back up. Dilandau hissed in frustration but he forced himself to remain calm. Then he started to slice the tire on the same place. Back and forth he sliced until the slicing became sawing. It took a long while for the tire, as it was made to be strong and lasting, but with patience and tolerance, eventually the knife bit into the tire. Smiling in triumph, Dilandau forcefully dragged the blade down the tough tire, creating a long gash. The tire gave a squeak and air squeezed out of the tire until it wilted to the ground.
Dilandau grinned as the motorcycle sank down toward the front. Perfect. One tire down.
His grin vanished as he scanned the parking lot for any onlookers. There was no way Dilandau was going to waste any more time on the remaining tire, but if the tire was so much trouble, how much work would Dilandau have to put on the entire bike?
"Aw shit."
A small voice in his head wondered if satisfying his pride was really worth it. He told that voice to shut the hell up and proceeded back to the task at hand.
Dilandau decided to start destroying the simple things first: parts that were more easily replaceable (than the motors for example) but still damaging to the bike.
The leather seat was easier than the tires. Dilandau merely ran the sharp point of his knife up and down the cushion until he had reduced the leather into black ribbons. He shredded the plushy handles of the bike until the rubber covering hung off the handles in pealing strips. Then Dilandau glanced down at the gas valve and gave it a good kick, denting it to such an angle so that the pipe was bent in half. He slashed at any other small part of the bike he could see. He even ripped up the other tire in his frenzy. When he paused to take a breath, the motorcycle, before shining and sleek, now looked as though it had just gone through a paper shredder. But still, he scrutinized the bike for any small detail that hadn't been touched by his knife yet, Anything he could find before he had to move on to the important bits.
The important bits consisted mostly of the parts that made up of the engine, a bunch of springs and metal and motors and stuff that Dilandau didn't really like to think about at all. He pushed the destruction of those bits last because he wasn't familiar with them, and therefore, he had no idea how to about destroying those bits. For example, if he slashed this bulky-looking metal thing, would that then make this part utterly useless? Or would it make the bike explode in his face? What about this bunch of wire? If he cut them, would the whole engine fall apart? What about…
As he stood there, Dilandau pondered how to carry out the next part of his revenge. The steel surrounding the engines looked unbreakable and certainly unslashable. How did one go about slashing up the unslashable? How could one destroy something that one didn't understand? (And since when did he start addressing himself as "one?" This revenge stuff was definitely doing something to his head. He mentally chalked down another reason to hate Kanzaki.)
Experimentally, he pressed his knife down onto the steel surrounding the engine. His knife glanced off. Dilandau then brought down the knife in a vicious slash. He appeared to have made a small scratch, but it proved to be only a patch of dust when he rubbed it with a finger. Frustrated, he kicked the motorcycle with such a force that he knocked the bike over on its side.
"Fuck!"
Dilandau kicked the fallen motorcycle some more. He only stopped when he realized that he was only putting dusty shoe marks on the bike with his kicking. His already burning mood only became charred and crisped.
Goddamnit why did this have to happen to him? Why wasn't his revenge falling through? Why was his outlet for revenge and anger denied to him?
All his thoughts and plans were being turned against him. The irony was almost beautiful. Dilandau had put such faith in his knife, the knife that threatened Kanzaki and slashed off her hair, but now a motorcycle was repelling his knife. Not just any old motorcycle, it had to be an Escaflowne motorcycle, the very best one. Dilandau thought his knife could outdo the best motorcycle, but it couldn't. When Dilandau failed in destroying the motorcycle, he had failed in exacting his revenge on Kanzaki. Without even lifting a finger, Kanzaki had taken away his pride, again.
When he had even started thinking about worthless crap like irony? And using "one" as the subject of a sentence? When had he become so scheming and how did he become so dangerously thoughtful? He was being almost intelligent. (Being intelligent meant thinking about shit like atoms and the meaning of life. He didn't have time for that crap.) Kanzaki wasn't worth the effort of being intelligent! It was mental, absolutely mental. Why had his mind insisted on damaging the motorcycle in the first place? Because it would be satisfyingly ironic with wonderfully subtle complexities, he remembered. (Subtle complexities? What kind of phrase was that? What was he, an English Literature professor?) Dilandau cursed the gods of irony. He didn't need shit like irony running the way his mind worked. He should have just enacted his revenge by beating up Hitomi. Dilandau had no qualms about hitting girls, if anything, he thought they deserved it more than guys did. The way they screamed those high pitched squeals and not lift a fist to defend themselves, it was disgusting. But no, he wanted to do his revenge in the classy way, with irony. Fuck, again, when he had become so fixated on irony? He hadn't even been aware that the word was in his personal vocabulary.
Dilandau savagely kicked again, his breaths came in deep, hard gasps. An image of Celena slithered into his mind. He imagined Celena's horrified face and then imagined what she would say about his pitiful revenge. He felt sick with guilt and angry at his guilt. After all, he hadn't given any promise, whatsoever, to Celena about not avenging himself. Damn, he was becoming more and more disgusted with himself.
His hand instinctively reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and he flicked out his lighter. With smooth and easy practice, Dilandau flicked the flame on, and off, on and off…
His gaze wandered down to the shit at his feet. His finger froze at the lighter for a moment, flame tingling and bright. Finger still in place, Dilandau bent down, his face blank and mind numb. His mouth twitched.
Dilandau observantly noticed a dribble of oil leaking out of the motorcycle. He couldn't for the life of him pin point the exact location of the leak but that didn't bother him. Trancelike, Dilandau brought the flame close the dribble of oil and watched as the oil caught a twisting tendril of the flame. He gazed entranced as the flame trickled up the line of liquid oil and smoothly traveled into the leak and into the engines. A corner of his mouth twitched again as the tendril of flame sprouted into a blaze of bright fire.
Calmly, Dilandau stood back as the motorcycle began to shoot out sparks.
Perhaps beating up Kanzaki wouldn't have been the best way to about with revenge.
This was funner.
The
part of his mind that seemed to be possessed by ironic shit reminded
him that "funner" wasn't a word (it was "more fun," not "funner") and
Dilandau mentally repeated it with hyper glee just to piss off that
part of his mind.--
.
"—cker."
"What the hell is that?" Van wondered. "A bonfire?"
Hitomi said nothing. The burning lighter in his hand all but gave Dilandau's identity away to her.
She was beginning to get a sick feeling in her stomach and wanted to leave, get out, escape. She looked around for the Mystic, found it, and closed her eyes.
The Mystic lay in a pit of burning metal and oil. A rubbery stench wafted into the air and smoke swirled up high into the air. Dilandau stood there flicking his lighter on and off, a dark, silver tipped shadow braced against the bright burning of the fire. Over the cackling of the fire, he chuckled manically to himself.
Hitomi could only stare as her motorcycle burned. She heard Van beside her mutter. To him, having been raised around motorcycles, this burning symbolized a terrible sin. She wondered what it was to her.
She felt Van slide an arm around her. Hitomi leaned against him with sudden exhaustion. She vaguely heard Van speaking into his cell phone but she didn't listen.
"I called the police," he whispered in her ear once he snapped the cell phone shut. "They'll be here in a minute."
Hitomi nodded numbly. She walked out of Van's grasp and slowly approached the fire. She stopped next to Dilandau.
"I only had it for one day," she said softly. "I only rode it twice."
Dilandau glanced sideways at her at the sound of her voice, clearing noticing her for the first time. He grinned, baring his teeth to her. Then he began to laugh, his eyes widening with a crazed, manic gleam.
"It's so ironic isn't it?" he cackled. "I'd knife you now but I don't think I need to bother, do I?"
Hitomi balled her fists but crossed her arms to keep herself from lashing out at him. There was a knife by his feet and a lighter in his hand. Dilandau seemed to be in a calm mood, but it was unstable. She had no doubt that he really would draw her blood if he felt like it. It was not a good idea to provoke him.
Hitomi wondered at her own steady calmness. She felt like breaking down into tears at the sight of her burning Mystic. It wasn't just her motorcycle burning away. It was her passion, her childhood dream, and her happiness. When you get down to it, it was just something made of metal manipulated to suit her needs. But it made her happy. Was it just shock preventing the tears from coming? Or was it the rational side of her mind telling her that a hunk of metal wasn't worth crying over? Or both?
Dilandau was watching her. "Don't have anything to say, little mouse?" he said patronizingly. "No? Nothing? I'm disappointed," he said sadly, shaking his head. "This would have felt so much better if you swore at me or something."
"Why?" Hitomi asked softly.
Dilandau laughed. "Then I'd be comforted by the fact that I brought down someone who can cuss as well as me!" he screamed gleefully. "You shouldn't have embarrassed me Hitomi Kanzaki. This is what happens to those who cross me!"
"Cross you?" Hitomi gave a weak laugh. "Oh please. You just don't like it when people defend themselves against you. You hate it when they make it hard to walk all over them. You only want people to lie down before you feet so it's easy for you because you're too weak to make them. I wasn't even trying to go against you that night. I just wanted to be free from it all."
Dilandau began to laugh. He laughed as though he had nothing better to do. He laughed because there wasn't anything else he could do. He was still laughing when the police arrived.
Hitomi's feet took herself to the side as the white foam from the fire extinguisher sprayed unto the fire. She watched quietly as the cops left their squad cars and walked toward the teenagers. As Van walked forward to speak with them, Hitomi shifted her glance back to the smoking heap of metal. Vaguely, she wondered what her mother would say when she returned home without her motorcycle. She spent a moment pondering as the world around her melted away.
It seemed like only a moment since the cops had arrived, but when Hitomi glanced back to the people, she found only Van standing over her, a concerned expression on his face. Dilandau and the police had disappeared. The Mystic had stopped smoking.
"What happened?" Hitomi asked, looking around.
"The cops took Dilandau away. I told him that he was the one who caused the fire and damage, but they said they couldn't charge him for that since they had no proof. They could, however, arrest him for possessing a weapon and cigarettes on school grounds," Van explained. "Then Dilandau himself confessed that he did, so…" He shrugged.
"Well," mumbled Hitomi to herself.
Van squatted down so that he was level with Hitomi's face.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
Hitomi was not entirely sure of that herself. Van, of all people, knew what the Mystic meant to her. He knew that it wasn't just a vehicle, or a mode of transportation.
In answer to Van's expecting face, Hitomi shrugged.
"You'll have to take me home then," she said mock-cheerfully.
Van frowned at her change of mood.
"Hitomi," he said, gently taking her arms. "You don't have to be so calm." He lifted one hand from her arm to flick away a stray strand of hair. "Don't hide from me," he said, leaning forward, nose touching hers.
Hitomi looked into Van's soft, caring eyes and sighed. She leaned her forward against his.
"You don't have to be so worried," she reassured him. "Nobody was hurt, only the motorcycle. You got all the insurance taken care of so I don't have to worry about all the damage costs. I won't be stranded at school because I have you here. And it's not as if I had it long enough to become attached to it…" Hitomi's lip quivered. She squeezed her eyes shut and forcefully regained her composure.
"There's nothing worth crying over. It's only a motorcycle," she said. "Nothing to fuss over. Nothing," she repeated.
Van looked sadly at Hitomi. She couldn't actually see the sadness but she felt it when he kissed her.
"What's the matter with you?" she snapped irritably when they broke apart. "I told you, I'm fine! There's no need to be depressed about it."
"Hitomi, I know you. You can't just brush this off, it's impossible," Van whispered.
"Van, it's only a motorcycle. What, do you expect me to cry? It's a motorcycle for god's sake! It's not worth crying over!" Hitomi snapped.
Van sighed and rested a hand in her hair.
"Don't isolate yourself," he said. "What good will it do you? You've already cut your hair away. Just come out."
"Who are you to say that to me?" Hitomi shouted. She tried to pull away but she couldn't shake off Van's firm grasp on her arms. "Just… just leave me alone…"
Van
did just the opposite. He drew her into the warmth of his arms, picked
her up, and walked toward the Black Escaflowne. Hitomi gripped his
leather jacket and cried silently.
.
A/n. Lookee here I updated! Well, some author's notes... the first part, at the track practice, may seem pointless, and it very well may be, but I had fun writing it, but I did have a some sort of a point. It gives a little insight into Hitomi's social life and improvements. The second part, with Dilandau, was also quite fun to write, and it had a definite point ::collective gasp:: The final part was...hard to write. I guess that was because all my creative juices were squeezed out with Dilandau's inner dialogue... so the final part has sort of a minimalist approach to it, if you can call it that anyway...
Anyway, this fanfic is almost finished! I hesitate to say that it has one chapter left... I hazily remember in an earlier chapter I had said it was almost done (but then I went on to write more chapters, so apparently I had lied). This time it's definitely near The End. I think just one more chapter, but don't hold me to it...
Reviews are appreciated.