First Second: Wild Adapter
by Mitsima
11/1/04
Here echoes the first second that ticked forever ago. Like the light of stars that don't reach your eyes until after millenniums of travel and the death of them perceived a thousand years too late.
They say that if you were to wake up one day on Jupiter the sun outside the window would be just another star pockmarking the sky- though brighter than the rest.
Eight o'clock in the morning hit and triggered the radio alarm. "Good morning, Yokohama! Are you still tired? Ready to leave home? Ready for school? Ready to par-taaaay? Well, wherever your life's headed on this beautiful day, tune into 88.5 FM and soothe-" Your aching soul, but those were Komiya's thoughts that day and Kubota had been somewhere else.
Now Kubota was on the balcony smoking, staring blankly into the realm between here and there, and listening to the rain hitting the tin awnings of the building across the street. And the radio news continued unhindered in the background without a hand to put a stop to it all. Not that it really occurred to him that he had a duty to put a stop to anything; because everything to Kubota was like the sun from the point of view of a Jupiter sky gazer.
And so he floated there in space. He stared out into it until his cell phone broke through and reached him. Kubota looked at the screen: 'Komiya is calling,' it read, belting out obscure electronic melodies.
Komiya is calling. But from where? Komiya is calling. He looked at the phone good and hard before setting it aside to light another cigarette. 'Wait a bit,' he told the ringing phone. 'One more cigarette and then back to work. Things can wait.'
Three cigarettes later, eight thirty rolled around. Kubota went back inside, changed, and put on his coat. Pocket check: wallet, cell phone, gun, grocery list. Good. Turning up his collar, he stepped out into the rain (a new umbrella was quickly added with mental ink to the crumpled piece of gum wrapper that sufficed for the creation of short lists. More gum also jotted down because he planned for more grocery trips in the future).
Walking through back alleys, he looked at the small flowers that grew through the pavement cracks. The city never really bothered to re-pave the roads back here and Kubota doubted that they were even on the map, given that the street names either didn't exist or had been torn down without being replaced. So in truth he didn't really live anywhere. He was nowhere except for where he was standing at any given moment- but the feather light fantasy of laying his head down on Komiya's lap grazed the part of his mind allotted for sensual things and tugged at his chest just a little bit because that would have been a nice place to be at any given moment.
Even though that was Komiya's fantasy. His phone rang again.
'Komiya is calling,' it said.
'Just a second,' Kubota said. 'Impatient for company, are you? But no, you're not. Said it yourself that last time. You're not.'
The bell hanging above the door rattled as he walked inside the shop. It was cold, he noticed.
"Trying to cut down on heating bills, Koh-san?"
Koh looked up from his newspaper and wondered about the odd look his young employee gave him just before speaking. He shrugged it off.
"It's broken and an acquaintance will come within the week to repair it. Until then, periodic cups of tea are sufficient." the man lifted his cup to emphasize the point just made. "Nevertheless, for someone who grew up in the mountain provinces, this is only a minor discomfort. You're early."
"Mnh."
Always broadcasting your bad mood, aren't you? Koh thought, because after all you're still a child. Just quieter than the rest. He used one elegant hand to slide the paper bag across the counter.
"Shinko Pier," he said. "It shouldn't take too long this time."
"Thanks." Kubota took it and with a nod left the way he came: quiet with his mind light years away.
But it did take a long time because when the delivery boy looks like nothing more than a high school punk playing the yakuza game, the customer decides erroneously that it would be easy enough not to pay. Then dump the body, they all thought. That was their last thought and the high school punk playing the yakuza game didn't even bother with the bodies.
Kubota returned home, getting off at a different stop and walking a different path than the one he took getting to the pier. Midway through he took a stray turn, got on a bus just to shop for groceries in the better part of town way on the other side. (At that point his followers gave up). He bought gum, curry, four packs of Seven Stars, and a newspaper which he decided not to read until safe in his own apartment in the rundown part of town.
Kubota had to round the police station on that particular route back, but he crossed the street and passed it that way to avoid problems.
By the time he reached his front door at five p.m. it was raining even harder than before but the feeling of being soaked to the bone barely reached him, like the sun to a Jupiter star gazer. The sound of it all hitting the tin roofs created a real ruckus and it was stupid of him to have left the balcony door open because now there was a little puddle two feet in diameter amorphously crawling across the linoleum floor as if it were a living creature suddenly deprived of bones.
Tonight's specialty was curry- but not just any curry. Curry with vegetables. Who ever said he didn't live healthily?
While the stove heated, he turned on the electric kettle and took out the day's newspaper. 'Who ever said coffee didn't go well with curry?' he thought, flipped the page, and pushed his glasses up. Pushed away again that passing fantasy of laying his head down on Komiya's lap, the boy's legs tensing beneath his weight. And hadn't he called? Where was he calling from? The kettle turned itself off and as Kubota reached up to snag a mug his phone rang again.
'Komiya is calling.'
Perhaps I've waited long enough. Kubota brought the phone to his ear, but didn't wait for the person on the other end of the line to speak first.
"He's not here," Kubota muttered before dropping the phone into the curry pot and conjuring a new fantasy of sending the men who shot down Komiya (and raided his pockets)- no, not even that. He'd have the entire gang if he could- of sending them to a real hell instead of leaving them to simmer in spicy curry.
The date on the newspaper was January 17th, 1997.
5:34 p.m. the clock ticked too loudly.
Echoes of that voice behind the door, shouting forever ago reached him again and he hunched over the boiling pot where the phone had floated up. 'Komiya is calling,' it still said.