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Lenne managed to make a decent meal out of the scraps available in Shuyin's cabinets and refrigerator. He apologized, said he had meant to go grocery shopping but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Lenne understood, was happy to be able to care for him in any capacity—even if it meant throwing together a meal of instant ramen and steamed vegetables and stale rice crackers.
Somehow she made it taste good. Or maybe it was palatable because they were together. Maybe that's what love was: a distraction that made rotten food seem better.
There were many things around to distract Lenne these days. She crunched one of the crackers between a set of fine white teeth and thought back to her visit with her parents. Being with them meant more work on the experiment, the one of which she was the main test subject. The experiment, of course, was the source of her fatigue. She was better at handling the sessions now, but the preliminary procedures had worn her out enough to sleep for days. She now only slept a day at most.
"So you'll be back at school tomorrow?" Shuyin asked.
Lenne looked up, smiled, and nodded. Her lover went back to slurping ramen noodles through his lips, and her thoughts returned to drifting.
Her father and mother were military research scientists. Shuyin would be furious if he knew that. He hated the military, having lost his older brother, a captain in Japan's Imperial Air Force, seven years ago during a skirmish in Korea. That brother had been his only family, and the loss meant growing up at fifteen, meant gangs and drugs, meant enough brushes with death that it was a miracle Shuyin was around to breathe.
Her mind had taken her very quickly back to Shuyin. Lenne looked at him, noticed his downcast eyes serious even as he devoured his food. These dark eyes soon rose—did his spine tingle when her eyes were upon him, just as it was with his eyes on her? Shuyin's expression softened, but the hard lines of his jawbone could not be remolded no matter how much he wished to please her.
Lenne tilted her head and let her eyes tell him what he wanted to know: that she loved him, that his happiness was her happiness, that she wanted him never to leave. Shuyin shook his head with half pretended embarrassment, and his shining blond hair shifted around a handsome tanned face.
He pushed back from the table and stood, a snap decision made. "I'll go buy you some ice cream."
"I have to leave soon—" She stopped. He would have his way and there was no point in delaying herself further by playing the silly, teasing game they often indulged in. She reached out her arm instead.
He squeezed her hand between calloused, athlete's fingers.
"Hurry," Lenne urged softly. True, she had to leave for the concert soon, but what she wished for more was to be with him as much as possible in the time they had left.
The man obeyed, and she watched him go. Why did it hurt so much anytime she saw his back? Every time he walked away, for whatever reason?
She was being paranoid, that was it. No point in worrying about what might happen, Lenne. Worry about what is happening, and what you can do about it.
Lenne got to her feet quickly. She patrolled the dim apartment, straightening things here and there until the large room was in nearly perfect order. She removed and folded the shirt of Shuyin's she had been wearing (he had simply donned another before eating), and hunted down her own sweater.
In the small bathroom, she clicked on the light. The long bulb in the light fixture above the mirror hummed as it brightened, and she was left to confront the reflection of her half-naked self in the mirror. The room seemed terribly sterile. The fine white tile put in shortly before Shuyin's rental was far too bright and shiny. It reminded her of the room in the research lab where she was always taken, where she was directed to lay on a examining table and stay still as they strapped her down.
Lenne turned around slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the mirror. She studied the tiny puncture marks forming a complex pattern on her back. Her mother had promised that they would soon fade—perhaps within hours—but now it had been more than a day and the dots of whitish skin seemed as permanent as ever. It wouldn't be the first time Mother had lied, but… What kind of injections had they given her? Why weren't these scars like any of the others?
Was this what Father had been talking about? He had failed at privately telling Mother that the experiment was "nearing completion" and "the final test is fast approaching." Lenne had overheard that kind of talk before and nothing had ever come of it, no matter how apprehensive she had allowed herself to become.
This time seemed different. Mother had been acting as serious as Father.
The sound of the door banging shut in the next room was enough to dislodge the image of her mother's frowning face from Lenne's thoughts.
"Lenne? Where are you?"
She reached out and struck the toilet lever, causing the appliance to whoosh into action. She ran the sink for a moment too before pulling the sweater on and pressing the switch to make the overhead light hum off.
Shuyin was at the bathroom door when she opened it. He presented a dripping chocolate ice cream cone. The young woman bent forward and licked her first taste. Her lover used his free arm to take hold of her waist and pull her body against his. Together they slurped and bit the ice cream and cone until it disappeared, and then Lenne used her tongue to clean off the remaining stickiness from Shuyin's fingers.
He inhaled sharply, bent his head down and captured her lips with his chocolate-flavored mouth. Lenne found herself blushing beneath his passionate kiss. To be outright desired in this manner was sometimes overwhelming—perhaps because she felt the exact same way toward him.
"I have to go," she tried to say, but her words were garbled thanks to his tongue.
"No, you don't," he begged, his plea equally distorted.
She wove her arm out from their tangled embrace and her hand found its way to his. She intertwined their fingers before taking a small but meaningful step backward. "Do too."
"Do not." He dove at her, and his lips fell to her neck and he buried his face beneath her hair. Her waist was in his possession again. "Do not, do not," he repeated, his breath warm and moist on her skin.
"You want my agent after you? You remember what happened last time."
He released her in a second, and the woman stumbled a little in her surprise.
"Shuyin?"
"Go." He softened his tone and added, "Only because I don't want to get you in trouble again."
She smiled her thanks before collecting her belongings. Sunglasses went over eyes, boots over feet. "'Bye, baby."
"Lenne…"
"Hmm?"
"Promise you'll be at class tomorrow?"
"I promise."
"And after?"
"After we'll study."
"Whatever you want."
The next week passed without incident. Local incident, anyway; there were five hundred more dead in South Africa, twice that many in Germany. Lenne went to her room and cried the second night, the night of the day the fighting took a thousand lives. She cried and prayed to whatever god could possibly be left, and she worked past her pain enough to return to the living room and share dessert with her aunt and uncle.
Afterward she went back to her bed and sat, a pillow between her back and the carved headboard. She sat wearing her pale sky blue pajamas, her legs stretched out, her feet bare and toes free to wriggle. She clasped her hands over her chest and thought more about all the people dying in the war, even though she really didn't wish to.
It hurt so much to think that everyone who died probably loved and was loved by as many people as any other human being on Earth. In the seconds before dying, the victims must have thought of their loved ones. There must be tremendous sorrow in knowing that you will never again be with those people for whom you care most.
The survivors now had a pain to carry the rest of their lives—however long those might last. The husband of one of the victims in Africa had started a riot and had ultimately set fire to his own village. His pain had driven him mad and he had taken more lives in the process of revenge. He killed and destroyed until the authorities finally shot him dead.
Lenne pulled her legs to her chest and hugged them tight. She rocked back and forth. If somebody killed her, what would Shuyin do? Would he feel so angry he would no longer care about anything else? Would he go on a rampage? Oh, God, what would become of him if something happened to her?
She remembered the night eight years ago when she had seen the last test subject—the last one left beside herself—die. He had gone into spasm, jolting incessantly within the restraints. The observing scientists only scowled at him, did not even bother to sedate him and grant him a moment of peace. His body came to a stop and the bank of monitors blared the same low, morbid tone until her mother stepped in and angrily shut them off. Mother had happened to glance up then, had seen the terrified twelve-year-old Lenne watching, had proceeded to chase the child out.
Lenne suddenly and unintentionally imagined herself kicking and screaming, cutting her ankles and wrists on the metal cuffs that bound her to the examining table in the lab. Father and Mother would scowl down at her as the other scientists had scowled at that poor boy. One of them, perhaps, would feel enough pity to administer a sedative. Her eyes would close and her body fall limp. Shuyin would hear of her death and rush into the research base and destroy everything in sight.
It was far too easy to imagine him behaving that way. She forced her eyelids open.
The experiment wouldn't kill her. If she had been weak, she would have died a long time ago like everyone else. No, her body was perfectly suited for the experiment. That's why she'd been the focus for almost eight years. It wouldn't kill her, or else she would have died a long time ago.
The woman reached one slender arm around and ran her fingertips over the bumps on her back. They marks hadn't disappeared, and her mother's annoyed reply to Lenne's message had instructed her to "just deal with it."
Lenne retracted her arm and clasped her hands together once more. She rested her chin on her knees and stared straight ahead. The injection sites, the chemicals in her body… They could make her ill for days, wear her out to the point of exhaustion, but they couldn't kill her. The experiment was one thing in the world against which Lenne could be strong.
She now felt more confident. She looked at the three-dimensional photograph next to her bed and smiled. The picture showed her engulfed in Shuyin's large, powerful arms. Behind them was the stadium, where he had just led his team to another victory. He looked cocky and protective, but his eyes were warm with love. Lenne was laughing in the picture, proud of his accomplishment and grateful for his embrace.
She wouldn't die, and Shuyin wouldn't be driven to madness like that poor man in Africa. She could do something about the world. It would be small, but it would be something.
The songstress left her bed for the desk near the closet door. She activated the keyboard, which rose from within the metal surface of the table. The vertical holographic display screen shone to life. Lenne accessed her system, entering her password. Once inside her private files, she opened up her 'Lyrics' folder. She started a new document, and the cursor did not blink long on an empty page.
Right now, her music was the only tool she had to use to do something for the people of the world she still loved. Lenne closed her eyes and thought. In a few moments she was humming to herself. She heard her song and pictured herself dancing to it. It would be an energetic, uplifting number. It would be about living. It would be about loving. It would be about Shuyin.
Five…four…
Lenne stood very still in the center of the circular crystal stage. Around her the crowd screamed with anticipation at being the first to hear her new single. Around the world viewers were watching her concert online.
Three…two…
Her dark blue outfit was showing millions of fans much more skin than Shuyin wished them to see. The ruffles of the collar tickled her neck with their brand-new stiffness. Her incomplete gloves were strapped with black leather to her arms and wound around her hands. Her miniskirt was short and black, but one side of it was covered by fabric light blue and long that swayed as she walked. It would move much more once she started to dance.
One.
"What can I do for you?"
Her prerecorded voice echoed through the great concert hall. Lenne threw back her head and her shimmering brown hair spread out about her shoulders, soft as it settled back onto the backs of her bare arms and shoulders. The spotlight covered her in a blinding white light and Lenne launched into her dance, holding her hip with her free hand and stepping forcefully but gracefully across the stage. She spun, the long side of her skirt standing straight out as she did so.
"What can I do for you? I can't hear you!"
Her back up dancers appeared on stage. The idol held the microphone to painted lips and began to sing. Would any of her listeners see through to the true meaning of the song? Or would they fall in love with a seemingly brainless pop hit?
"The world of real emotion has surrounded me…"
It didn't matter in the end, as long as it made people happy.
"I won't give into it…"
Still, Lenne wanted them to listen. She wanted to be heard and wanted to listen to their feelings in return.
"Now, I know that forward is the only way my heart can go…"
Most importantly, she wanted him to listen.
"I hear your voice calling out to me…"
Shuyin was in the front row. If only the house lights were on, she would see his eyes carefully following her back and forth across the sage.
"You'll never be alone…"
The crowd was deafening. Lenne spun again, clapping her hands together in time with the beat. Her smile was huge as well as authentic. The end of the song was near, and she put all her energy into this finale of her concert. Digital fireworks boomed behind her. The spotlight disappeared and she was left in darkness.
There was another boom, followed by a crash. Both were unrehearsed. The stage had been bombed. With only shattered glass beneath her, Lenne fell straight down.
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