Results Day
(A/N: random AU fic)
Why was this taking so long? You looked for your name, found the results on the same line and then went away to get really, really drunk. And yet he'd been standing in line for… must have been at least an hour.
Kaneda glowered.
But assume it took another half an hour to get to the front of the queue… that meant in thirty minutes time, he'd be done with the Eighth District Vocational Training School forever!
And in thirty-one minutes time?
"Can't they just tell us straight out?" Yamagata muttered. "It's not like we've got the results they wanted us to."
"You could've got lucky," Kai said.
"Yeah. Pass everything for spelling my name right."
"Could you manage that – ow –"
Tetsuo had been silent since they'd started queuing.
The guy in front of Kaneda shambled up to the board. Like everyone else, he ran his finger down it to find his name. Like everyone else, he read quietly for a few seconds.
Like some of the others, he punched his fist in the air and yelled, "Yeah!"
"Nerd," Yamagata muttered. "So get on with it, Kaneda."
"Are we actually going to make something of ourselves?" Kai said. "Become useful and productive members of society? Prove we've learnt decent human values?"
"Whatever happens," Yamagata said, "we never have to hear all that crap again."
Kaneda marched towards the list.
First his own name.
"Guys," he said, "your leader has achieved… five fails, but passed general studies."
"Because Miss Asakawa fancied you," Kai said.
"Of course… Kai, you got… three fails and three passes."
"Better watch out," Yamagata said, shoving him. "You nearly achieved something there."
"Yamagata… congratulations!"
"Huh?"
"Once again, you got six straight… fails."
"Hooray for Yamagata the Great," Kai said.
"And Tetsuo, you got four fails and two passes."
"Beat you at least," Tetsuo muttered.
The four of them stared round at the clusters of students weeping, hugging their parents, high-fiving everyone they could reach or making preparations for ritual hara-kiri.
"We'll never fit in, will we?" Yamagata said at last.
None of them needed to answer.
Reflections
(A/N: Takashi, Masaru and Kiyoko are not mine, they are © Katsuhiro Otomo)
It was true, of course, Masaru was right; they couldn't live outside, none of them, and Takashi knew that now. People's faces smirking down – the icy air – rats out of the corner of his eye – his dungarees and jacket grubby and smeared with dust. They'd taken them away now, given him new ones.
The air smelling of petrol, of smoke, of rancid water, of old noodles. The lights, millions of them blotting out the sky. Clumps of dust and cobwebs clinging to the edges of everything. Music blaring from cars and shops. The roars of engines. People screaming. Millions of bodies around him, suits and cotton skirts, knees catching his hips, the corners of briefcases smacking his spine.
The toy train clicked and hummed as it made its way round the track at Takashi's feet. It looked silly now. He'd seen the real trains, bursting into his vision, stinging grit and hot air as they rushed past him, the rattles of their wheels like gunshots echoing against the sky.
Stories. The man on the screen had been thrown into a tailspin as the bullets raked the edge of the wing, and now he would never come home from the war, never see the homeland again, and Takashi had watched, his own face reflected into the background. There was more to life than Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and Once Upon A Time There Lived…
Even before he'd come to this place he'd known there had been other stories. Astro Boy! Space Rangers! Night Warriors available in a limited range of action figures. There had been a playground. Running feet. You're it, I caught you, you're dead! Things hadn't always been so quiet. Outside this room with its humming air and its silent murals things were still loud.
The real world would burn him up. The sky screamed down and there weren't any trees, just the hard pavement sending aches up his feet and ankles.
He had seen a few children, their parents yelling at them, or their faces pressed to the windows of the cars, watching the traffic, watching him? Had he been that loud once? Able to run that fast? Their skin had been smooth and shiny in the lights, their hair like little drops of ink. He was a ghost-child next to them.
At night now he lay awake and wondered if he could hear the real world buzzing around him. Masaru and Kiyoko could still sleep. And Masaru had been outside as well. He had felt the cold air and seen the city spilling over the ground. Didn't he sometimes wonder?…
Kiyoko dreamt all their dreams and felt their confusion, but it was different for her, no matter how many psychic echoes she felt. If she went out into the real world, surely it would close over her head like icy water and she'd never be seen again. For her it was sensible not to long for something else.
For all of them it was sensible, really. Here there were pills and clean sheets and smooth floors and quiet rooms. Here there were three square meals a day, mushroom soup, tinned fruit, water empty of everything. Home. This was home, a warm, happy word.
Would the rest of the world break through and sweep it away?
(Did he want it to?)
No, of course not. For both questions. Every day would be identical, like the same day reflected through millions of mirrors. They would never see Akira again and the memories of the real world would fade in his head until they disappeared against the pale blue walls of the nursery.
Was that good?
He glanced over at Masaru, who was sitting by Kiyoko's bed. The two who were so close to him they were almost one. One life reflected.
And yet…
"I thought you of all people would understand," he murmured.
A small fracture in the mirror's surface. One of the lives was different now.