Outlaw Star: Forgotten Dreams 5- Explanations
I'm back. Last time we found out how Jim's stay at the hospital was during his recuperation. He made a new friend, the anemic Yuki Munoh, who died shortly after her introduction.
To Kate-chan: I liked Yuki too. ;.; Hey, I'd love to read your fic! I'll do that! Sasaki's Little Sis- Heh, heh... You make me smile... MalletWielderofDoom: Umm... No, Gene isn't Kokurando. Jim saw Kokurando in a dream. Sorry if that was hazy! That WOULD make a nice plot twist, though...
Today Jim goes home! He finally lets Gene in on how he became an orphan. We also get to discover where Gene was while Jim was in the hospital, and the two get into their very first argument. The very first of many, that is.
Okay, here's number five! We're on a roll!
Jim stared out the window, the summer winds gently swaying the sakura tree outside. He let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes, turning his head to Yuki's bed.
'When I open my eyes, she'll be there,' he told himself. He slowly drew the air out and opened his eyes.
She wasn't there.
"Geez, I don't even know why this is affecting me so much. I barely even knew her. I mean, sure she was nice to me, but still..." The door opened wide and another nurse came in to change the sheets on his bed.
"Oh, James. It's so nice. You'll be going home today. Your big brother, Gene is already in the waiting room, but we can't let him in yet- hospital policy," she said briskly as she left with the old sheets.
"Uh, he's not my..." Jim started, but she was already out the door.
At exactly 5:50 AM the doors for visitors opened.
"Can I help you sir?" the over-excited receptionist asked to the still half-asleep Gene.
"Uh... Yeah. I'm here to sign Jim Hawking out. I'm his legal guardian, Gene Starwind," he told her, his hand behind his head.
"Oh, Mr. Starwind. James has been asking about you all morning. I'll get the paperwork and we'll bring him out."
Within minutes all had been taken care of and Jim was released into Gene's care once again.
The car ride home was oddly quiet, like three weeks ago when they had first met. Until Jim spoke.
"Why did you pick me?" he asked in a hushed voice, looking at his feet firmly planted on the floor of the car.
"What?" Gene asked, glancing over at the boy.
"Why did you pick me to adopt? You didn't even know me," Jim repeated, messing with the flowers Yuki had given him. Gene shrugged.
"Do I need a reason?"
"I just wanted to know. When you're confined to a bed for two and-a-half weeks you start to think."
"I don't know... I guess you reminded me a lot of myself when I was around your age."
"Is that a good thing?" Jim asked innocently, raising his eyes to the redhead.
"Ha, ha. The truth is, you had personality. The other kids were just... Kids. You stood out. You were loud, you were spunky, you were tough..."
"I was pretending. I'm not really like that at all. You need to hold down the fort if you want to survive in a place like that. If you're too soft, the others will just walk all over you. It's competition for everything. Attention, clothes, toys, even food. Really, I cried almost every night. I know I must've said a billion times that I didn't care about finding my family. That I didn't care about being adopted. That I just wanted out. I was lying."
"... Kid..."
"Gene. I'll tell you about my past now."
It was around 6:00 in the morning. The sky was set ablaze in a beautiful red and yellow and orange sunrise.
The boy was no older than five years old. His horribly dirty hair was matted to his forehead with caked blood. He rose from the wreckage, burning fire, littered with twisted metal, discarded bodies... The searing pain ripped though his arm.
His soft blue eyes held tears of pain and confusion, yet he chuckled lightly. He made his way out of the graveyard, limping to one side. He pushed himself on until he couldn't walk anymore.
He sat down on the dirt road and felt something hard in his back pocket. He pulled out a tiny picture of a man, a woman, an older boy, and a younger boy, himself.
The older boy, about eighteen years old, bore the same sapphire eyes as he did, but in place of his blond hair, the boy had bright red hair, the color of fire.
He closed his eyes after returning the picture and fell back on the ground. It was all so confusing. Who were the people in the picture? Who was he? What was that place back there, where he had emerged from under an iron case?
That's when the two old men found him. When they asked his name, and where his family was, and how he had gotten so beat up, his answer was always the same; I don't know.
The men didn't know what to do, so they took him to the nearest orphanage. Lucky Dagg Orphanage.
The boy was stripped of his belongings and was adorned with the attire of an orphan, doomed to wear the same shirt for weeks on end.
When he asked a nun where the picture that he had found in his pocket was, she harshly told him they had sold the frame to buy cigarettes for themselves and tossed the picture out.
The boy ran outside in disbelief and dug through all the trash bins outside before an older orphan had taken him inside and comforted him.
He lived in the orphanage for seven more years. Seven years and 2,555 unsuccessful escape attempts.
"And then that's about where you came in," Jim concluded as Gene helped him out of the car and in the house. "What were you doing when I was at the hospital?"
"What do you mean? I was there," Gene said, putting two pieces of bread in the toaster.
"Yeah, but one time I woke up and you weren't there. You didn't come back either." Gene sighed and sat down in a chair, setting a piece of burnt toast in front of the boy.
"I was tracking those Yukuzo guys down. Turns out they were just petty crooks, so I took care of them."
"You... You killed them?" Jim asked quietly. Gene didn't respond. "Gene... Why? ... Answer me!"
"I had to make them pay."
"Gene, killing is wrong!"
"They almost killed you!"
"Like you'd care anyway! You'd just lose that hundred bucks!"
"I did care! I was scared you'd die and I'd never see you again! Believe it or not, kid, I like you."
Silence.
"It's Jim," the boy remarked, rising awkwardly from the table and heading for the door.
"You won't get very far," Gene spat through a mouthful of toast.
"I'm taking your ship."
Gene spit the toast out onto the table.
"Geez! Why can't you get over the fact that you can't pilot the thing? Come here..." Gene murmured as he picked up Jim and carried him off.
"Hey, where are we going? What're you doing?" Jim cried. Gene opened the closet door and dropped Jim on the floor.
"You'll stay there until you stop messing with my ship," Gene instructed as he shut and locked the wooden door.
"No, wait! You can't leave me in here! I'm scared of close spaces! I'll stop, I promise! Let me out!" Jim frantically screamed, pounding on the door with his fists.
"Hey, let go! Come on, let go of me!" Jim shouted, struggling in the nun's arms.
"Until you can learn to behave, young man, you'll stay in the Solitary Confinement," she replied as she threw him into the tiny closet. It was dark and there was only enough room for him to sit with his knees pulled to his chest. He was only let out when another nun came to put another disobedient child in.
Nearly one week later.
Over his time at Lucky Dagg, Jim was sentenced to Solitary Confinement almost eighty times.
Gene had to listen to a few more hours of Jim's outburst before the boy finally settled down.
"I'll let him out in the morning..." Gene mumbled as he climbed into his bed.
Jim was curled into a ball on the floor, his eyes squeezed shut as tight as possible.
"Man... This is unfair... Forget unfair, this is illegal..." he whispered. "I've got to get out of here..."
"Well, kid... Have you learned your lesson yet?" Gene asked as he turned the corner into the living room, scratching himself.
The door had been broken down. Jim was gone.
Gene ran outside in his boxers and wife beater just in time to see his beloved ship with the "FOR SALE" sign in the window lift off from the ground.
"Not again!" he cried. The ship wobbly sped off, but didn't get far. It went down in a plain not one mile from Gene's apartment. "..."
Bum, bum, bum! Have I done it AGAIN? Is Jim dead AGAIN? It'd be a short story...
I've got to share with you something funny that happened last night. Yesterday was the Fourth of July, Independence Day. I had just gotten back from the fireworks display downtown and was outside talking with my friend Matt. This really annoying girl, Belinda, from down the street walks up, barefoot. Her family had been setting off illegal fireworks since June.
"Where was you at?" she asked me.
"I was watching the fireworks."
"You went and saw them? Them suck," she replied.
I, being a natural wisecrack, asked, "Them do?"
OH MY, GOD! It was hilarious! Matt was cracking up. Belinda was clueless.
Okay, so, to tell you the truth, I have no idea what's going to happen next time. I haven't thought it that far through yet. So, I'll be as surprised as you all will. Let's call it suspense, shall we?
So, until next week, this has been the Chocolate Usa-Usa! Later!