"Home sweet home," I breathed, collapsing on the couch. Home, so much more comforting and, well, homely than the hospital. That place had seemed so foreign to me, with all its sterility and people coming in to check on me every fifteen minutes. But home!! Oh, I had missed it so; the last time I'd been there was the day of the disastrous Boomer attack, a little over two weeks ago.
"Are you hugging the couch, Yumeko?" Linna joked, noting that I was clutching to it with all of my limited strength.
"Yes," I admitted nonchalantly. "What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing, the sight just looks a bit amusing."
"If you were in the hospital for half a month, you'd probably be hugging your couch, too."
"Yeah, probably," she admitted, laughing.
"Look at all this mail for you, Yume," Mom said, pointing to the kitchen table; it was piled high with unopened envelopes and letters. "It's all from well-wishers."
My eyes widened. "No way can I go through all that."
"Nobody said you had to. I bet a lot of 'em aren't even expecting a reply, anyway. They probably just wanted to send you their best wishes and stuff."
"Was I plastered all over the papers or something?"
Mom scratched the back of her head. "Both of us were. In fact, I heard that in England, there was a four-page article talking about just the two of us, and only in a two-sentence paragraph at the end did they mention there was also 108 people killed and another two-hundred injured."
"And people say there's favoritism in the media," Linna said dryly.
Nene slowly looked around at all the mail that hid every table in the apartment from view, her eyes like saucers. "Think of all the trees that were sacrificed for this mail!!" she said, half-joking.
We all doubled over in laughter in response.
"Oh, the poor trees!" I giggled.
"I don't even think I can see the carpet," she said, looking down.
"You're wrong. I can see a patch of it there, and there…" I said, pointing to the tiny patches of carpet that poked through all the papers.
"Oh ha ha."
"So, Yumeko," Linna spoke up, "when do you plan on going back to school?"
My eyes widened. "School? How can I think about school?"
"Well, I've learned that one of the keys to recovery is getting back to a normal routine as soon as possible, and I think that you getting back to school will really help. All your friends are there."
"All?" I repeated sourly. "Aside from Michiko, I have no real friends there." I suddenly realized something: in the two weeks I'd been in the hospital, Michiko hadn't come to visit me once. What was up with that? I mentioned that to Mom.
"She said that she was sick with the flu," Mom said, "and she didn't want to get you sick when you were trying to recover."
"That's just like Micchan to do that," I said, grinning as I called her by the nickname I'd used for her when we were little. "But she also knows that I wouldn't have cared the least about getting sick if it meant spending a little time with her."
"She cares about you too much to do that," Nene said softly. "Besides, with all that bedrest you had in the hospital, that flu could've developed into pneumonia. I think she knew that."
"Suddenly, school DOES sound like a good idea, aside from all the make-up work I'm gonna have to do," I admitted. "Even though I'm gonna probably make an ass of myself hopping around on those crutches."
"That's why Sylia's set up some therapy sessions," Linna said.
"She did?"
"Of course," Mom said. "Five days a week, you're gonna do some exercises to get your leg back into shape." She grinned slyly. "And hopefully, you WON'T have to make an ass of yourself on those crutches. We could have you walking with a brace in no time."
I paled. "Why am I not looking forward to that…?"
"Nobody said it was going to be a smooth ride," Linna said, grinning much like Mom was. "It's probably going to seem more like hell on earth to you than therapy."
"Couldn't be any worse of a hell than what I've already been through."
A few days later, the therapy sessions began. Oh boy, would I be eating those words I'd said to Linna, for at her gym, she, Mom, and the others seemed to be on a mission to give me as much pain as humanly possible. The 'hell on earth', as Linna called it, started out when she had me get onto the sit-up bench. After strapping on my new brace, she helped me onto the bench, which was at a sixty-degree angle or something, but still bent enough so that I practically fought tooth and nail against going on it.
"C'mon, you baby," she teased as she put my feet in the proper place. "See, that's not too bad, is it?"
"Easy for you to say," I snapped, my leg heavily protesting this treatment, even though I hadn't even started doing any sit-ups yet.
"Just sit up and try to touch your feet with your hands," she said.
"My leg hurts as it is!! What do you think THAT would do to it?!"
"Yume, you want to walk again, right?" Mom asked calmly.
"Well, yeah, but this isn't what I had in mind in order to be walking again."
"Just think about that Boomer that did this to you. Think about getting it back for what it did. Just like you did after that other Boomer shot you in the shoulder."
"Right now, all I'm thinking about is getting some morphine for my leg," I said. "PLEASE give me some of that."
Mom held up the medicine bottle of morphine and said, "You want this?"
"Yes, yes, please."
"After you do the exercises."
"WHAT?!"
"The pain you have right now is nothing compared to what it's gonna be like after you're done working out that leg. Once you're done, I'll give you the morphine."
"Shit," I cursed, looking up at my feet. Touch my feet, ha, I thought. They have no idea what they're asking for. I stretched my arms behind my head, and with one move, I practically threw them towards my feet, slowly easing my way up to a half-sitting position. My leg, already in indescribable pain, only protested more. My stomach, not quite fully healed either, did likewise.
"Ah…ah...oww!!" I yelled, wincing as I edged my way closer to my feet. "I don't think…I can do this!!"
"A little more," Nene cheered, although my hands weren't even past my knees, let alone close to touching my feet.
"It…hurts!!" I whimpered, biting my lip to keep from screaming. After a few more seconds of straining, I finally let out a cry and fell back, hitting my head on the bench.
After Linna helped me off of the bench, Mom said, "You tried. That's ok, we'll try that again some other time."
"I never want to do that again," I groaned, putting my hand to my pounding head. The concussion was still bothering me, and hitting my head on the bench certainly hadn't made it any better, either. I snatched my crutches and started hobbling towards the vending machine when I heard somebody come up behind me.
"C'mon, that couldn't have been the best you could do," I heard a guy tease.
I turned around and snapped, "You don't have a… Leon!!"
"Huh?" Linna and Nene said, turning around.
"Leon, it's been forever!!" Nene exclaimed, clapping her hands together and running towards us. "How've you been?"
"I've been ok," he said, grinning. "How are you ladies doing?"
"Helping Yumeko with her therapy."
"How're you, Priss?" Leon asked, looking at Mom, who was walking towards the four of us.
"I'm fine," she said bluntly.
"Come to see me suffer?" I joked.
"Yep," he said, laughing. "I heard you got out of the hospital a few days ago."
"Yeah. Thank God they released me on the second of April and not the fourth. Talk about bad luck," I laughed nervously.
"Priss," he said suddenly, looking at her, "can I talk to you for a sec?"
"What for?" she asked suspiciously.
"Nothing that she needs to hear," he said, indicating me. As Leon started to walk to the other side of the gym, Mom reluctantly followed him. What does Leon need to talk about?, I wondered, eyeing him.
"Looks like he's still got a schoolboy crush on her," Linna said.
"No kidding. Stubborn guy," Nene agreed.
"I don't think he's trying to hit on her," I said, noticing the too-casual way in which Leon was acting. I watched as Leon was talking and Mom turned her back on him and said something. He went up behind her and put one hand on her shoulder and one on her side, and suddenly, Mom just freaked out. After she jumped in surprise to his move, she reflexively elbowed him in the chest, making Linna, Nene, and me all jump in surprise.
"What the…?" Linna wondered.
Mom strided back towards us, looking positively shaken up. "Let's go," she ordered.
"What happened, Mom?" I asked.
"Nothing. Let's go," she repeated, heading towards the door. I blinked with confusion as I watched her. What was so weird about Leon putting his hands on her shoulder and side that made her react like that?
"I told you, it's nothing," she said when we were all in Linna's car, heading back to Sylia's penthouse.
"Looked like a whole lot of 'nothing' to me," Nene mumbled.
"Is he the one that attacked you?" I asked, knowing full well how she'd react.
"Is he…hell no!!" she snapped, getting shaken up again. "I'd rather have him be your father than who your real father is though."
"Then what was so bad about him putting his hand on your side?" Linna asked when we stopped at a traffic light.
Mom grumbled and pulled the side of her shirt up, revealing a thin scar. "Take one guess what this is from."
I gasped. "You were…?"
Nene leaned over her seat at Mom and asked, "That guy that attacked you…he stabbed you there?"
Mom closed her eyes and felt the scar with her fingers. "Why else would I have reacted like I did with Leon back there?" she inquired in a low voice. "It was the same move that…that…"
"That 'he' made," I finished, looking out the window.
Mom nodded slowly.
"Are you sure about this?" I asked, gazing at the beige-and-brick building that was Kiiroi Hi Senior High. I didn't feel ready to come back to school at all. Sure, it'd been over three weeks since I'd last been there, but my last year at this school had just begun. And knowing that, well, God knows how much homework I'd have to catch up on. Ugh.
"You'll do fine," Mom tried to assure me, gently ushering me towards the front doors.
"Easy for you to say. Y'know how much homework I'm gonna have to catch up on?!"
"No," she said, grinning, "but I'm sure your teachers will understand that you're not gonna be able to make it all up right away."
"I have to make up the finals too."
"Don't worry about all that."
I sighed and walked through the front doors, Mom holding them open for me. I was just about to continue through when all of a sudden, a loud beeping noise stopped us in our tracks. I yelped and nearly fell down with surprise.
"You carrying your gun or something?" I whispered as everyone else stared at us.
"No."
"What's going on?" a campus officer asked, walking up to us.
I scratched the back of my head, leaning on my crutches. "Ah, well, I dunno." Then it hit me. "Oh, right!! That rod!!"
"Rod?" he repeated, confused.
"Yeah," Mom said. "Yume had a rod and plates put in her leg."
"And one in my face," I added, pointing underneath my eye, which still had some faint bruising.
"Walk through, ma'am," he told Mom. She shrugged and walked through the doors again. The metal detectors didn't beep. "Ok, you're clear. I'll take care of your daughter from here."
I looked back at Mom. "Mom, you sure I can handle this by myself?"
"You'll be fine," she said, turning back and exiting the school. I sighed.
"Can I help you get to your locker?" the officer asked.
"No, that's alright," I said, shaking my head.
"There you are!!" I heard a high-pitched voice squeal in delight. I turned around and saw a girl standing there, books in hand, her black blond-streaked hair in a ponytail.
"Michiko!!" I exclaimed.
"You're…you're really here!" she said, getting tears in her eyes. "I…was so afraid that…"
"I'm made of tougher stuff than that," I joked. "You know that!"
"Darn it, Yumeko," she said, walking over and giving me a gentle hug, "how can you joke around like that after…after being shot and stuff…?" Michiko then just let loose, and started crying on my shoulder, hugging me tighter. What could I possibly say in response to that?
"Hey, hey," I said. "Don't worry about my leg, ok? I'll be able to walk soon enough, and then I won't need these crutches anymore."
"But…"
"And besides, right now, there's no time to worry over it, 'cause we're gonna be late for class if you don't let go of me!!" She and I both laughed.
"I suppose so!" Michiko let go and led the way to my first class. Maybe Mom's right, I thought as I followed Micchan. Maybe it'll all be ok.
It took a while to get used to my new schedule. For one, I only had half-days at school, because I had to go to my therapy sessions in the afternoon. Not like that mattered though; for me, it meant half the homework!! But of course, I'd be getting tutored for those classes that I couldn't be at school for, but oh well.
My first class was Japanese literature instead of calculus. Boy, did I learn to hate that class quick. The teacher gave each of us a few pages to read out of a chapter, and told us to summarize it. Just looking over those few pages made my head spin. What the hell were they talking about?! Guess that's what happens when you start reading a book at chapter ten instead of the beginning.
"Miss Asagiri," I heard the teacher suddenly call out, "could you summarize pages 111 to 115?"
"Um…" I scratched the back of my head, skimming through those pages for the sixth time. What exactly was I supposed to say? "Well, they…"
"Did you even read them?" he said impatiently.
"Yeah…"
"I gave you fewer pages than everyone else. You should be able to sum them up."
"Well, how am I supposed to understand what's going on if I haven't even read the nine chapters before this one?!" I snapped.
"DON'T talk back to me!!" he shot back, getting in my face. "I am the teacher, I am the one that—"
"Leave her alone!!" Michiko suddenly yelled, jumping out of her desk. Everyone looked at her in surprise. "Look at her! You're scaring her half to death!! You don't even know what she's been through!!"
"Uh, Michiko…" I started to say, my face stark white. "I'm…I'm ok, really…"
"Miss Ishiodori, do you want to go stand in the hall?" he inquired.
"No, I just want you to stop scaring Yumeko!!"
"This is not your concern!" he barked, slamming his fist down on my desk, making me yelp in surprise. I put my hands to the sides of my head and started shaking my head. Calm down, Yumeko, I told myself, trying to keep myself under control. This bastard's not the Boomer that nearly killed you…he's not the one that cut you open or stomped on you…
"I must agree," the boy across the aisle from me suddenly said, a boy with long black hair tied back in a ponytail. "The girl does look quite scared."
"Mr. Capri, this is your fourth day here. I don't think you want your record to be messed up already here, do you?"
The new boy eyed me, as if telling me not to freak out. "What does my record have to do with the present situation here?"
"Enough!!" I yelled, gripping my legs with my hands in an effort not to punch the teacher. "Look…can't we just drop this whole thing? It's…it's stupid to be yelling over something so trivial."
Michiko sighed and sat down while the teacher stood back and let out a sigh. "You're right, we let this get out of hand. I'll give you a chance to catch up on the book. Now, can anyone here explain pages 111 to 115?"
After class, as everyone else was leaving, I hobbled over to the boy on my crutches and thanked him.
"It's no problem at all," he said coolly. "You just looked scared out of your mind. I know what you've been through."
"You do?" I asked.
"Your friend's been blabbing about it ever since I first started coming to this school. Kinda hard NOT to know about you."
"What's your name?"
"Boh."
"I think you'll like it at this school," I said, hardly meaning it at all. "Do you have Mrs. Sasaki?"
"Yeah."
"You'll like her. She's much nicer than this bozo of a literature teacher."
"She seems like it," Boh said, grinning. "Maybe…maybe we'll see each other around, then. I have to get to my next class." He brushed past me and walked down the hallway.
"Wow, he actually seemed nice for a moment there," Michiko said dryly, walking up next to me and peering down the hallway at Boh.
"What do you mean?" I inquired as she led me to my next class.
"He just started at this school four days ago, and already, everybody tries to avoid him. He's been so cold, doesn't say a word to anybody, mostly keeps to himself. I don't like his gaze, either. Those grey eyes of his just send chills down my back."
"You make it sound like he's an assassin or something," I joked.
She sighed. "Well, maybe I am a little on edge, after what happened to you and all, but…I just don't like Boh. He's weird."
"He's probably just shy. He's only been here four days, after all."
Michiko shook her head. "He certainly doesn't seem shy to me."
Late April would normally be my favorite time of year. It was the time that there were the tryouts for the school gymnastics team. It was always fun to see who could prove they were really worthy to be on the team; after all, several people thought gymnastics only consisted of a bunch of 'fancy flips'. But oh, the looks on their faces when they'd see the balance beam and the uneven bars!!
This year was the first year that I wouldn't be trying out for the team; I could barely take a step on my own without falling down, even with the brace, let alone do a double half-twist in mid-air. And for me, the girl who'd won the national championship for 'Kihi' Senior High last year, it was, needless to say, depressing.
"C'mon, you lazy butt!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs from the sidelines as I watched a girl try to balance herself on the balance beam. "Keep your feet on the beam!!"
"Y'know," Linna said, embarrassed, "you, of all people, should know that yelling breaks their concentration."
"With all the girls I've seen try out so far, there's no way the team's gonna even get to the regionals this year, let alone the nationals!" I clenched my hands into fists and waved them in the air. "C'mon!! You can do better than that!!" I yelled as the girl did a very sloppy back-handspring.
"You're probably not helping that poor girl's confidence any."
"Maybe not, but…hey!! She fell off!!" I slapped my hand over my face. "Now if I were down there…"
"Take it easy," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "You don't have nearly all your strength back."
"Damn it, I KNOW they can do better…!" I grumbled as I watched the next girl try her luck on the balance beam.
"Ow!" the girl yelled as she fell off after a few simple flips, making me jump to my feet in response.
"C'mon, don't make me come down there!!" I hollered, waving my fists like crazy. The girl, rubbing her back, looked up at me. I grabbed my crutches and hobbled down the stairs towards her.
"What can you do? You're on crutches," she pointed out when I reached her.
"That means nothing," I said, smiling. "Get back up there."
She hesitantly did so. "And now what?"
"You're just nervous because you're being judged on your every move. So Step One is, stop being so damn nervous."
"B-but how?" She immediately stepped off the beam.
"Pretend you're not being watched. Just stare straight ahead, don't look around. Doing that'll only cloud your mind and won't allow you to concentrate. Step Two, remember to breathe. That's not gonna help when you're doing those back-flips."
"Anything else?" she said, looking a little annoyed.
"Yes. Stop being so tense. Having your muscles all tight and clenched like that is not going to be permitting much movement. You look like you have a chance to get on the team, but you just have to relax. It's not like your life depends on whether you mess up or not."
"But…look at you! You won at Nationals, and you were at the World Championships too!"
"Your point?" I said nonchalantly.
"You wouldn't have done all that if you messed up at the beginning, so how can you tell me my life doesn't depend on it?!"
I grinned. "I meant that it's not a matter of life or death. Gymnastics isn't a life, it's a hobby, at least to me. And just because I can't walk at the moment doesn't mean I'm not gonna keep going at it."
She just stood there for a moment, blinking, as if she thought I was out of my mind for saying what I had. Then, she let out a sigh and smiled. "Well, if you say so," she said.
"Clara, you started up gymnastics before I did," I pointed out. "You should've been the one to go to Nationals and stuff."
"Are you still going to try?" one of the judges suddenly asked.
"Um, yes," Clara responded, without looking back at him. "Well, Yumeko, if you really think I'm gonna make the team, then I'll give it my all."
"I'm not going to be able to be on the team this year, so do it for the both of us," I encouraged, playfully slapping her on the back. Once she gave it another shot, I went and sat back down and watched the rest of the girls try out.
"What the heck was I SAYING?!" I wondered aloud as Linna and I left the gym and headed towards the front doors of the school. Me, telling someone else to calm down and relax? That sounded like something that Sylia or Linna would do, not me. "I sounded like a damn philosopher or something…"
"Too bad you rarely take your own advice," Linna quipped. "Speaking of which, we still need to do your therapy for today. Just because you stayed a couple extra hours at school to watch the tryouts doesn't mean you can skip therapy."
"I know," I said, stopping and looking down at the brace on my leg. A month and a half since that Boomer summit attack…didn't seem like that long. Every day, when I woke up, I felt like I could just jump out of bed and do the things I could always do, but whenever I tried to take a step with my left leg, the reality would hit me like a ton of bricks.
I yelled in rage and threw down my crutches on the floor.
"Hey," Linna said, "what's wrong?"
I stood there, clenching my hands into fists, gritting my teeth. "I…I can't resign myself to a life on crutches…I won't let myself!" The tears started burning underneath my eyelids.
"Nobody said you'd spend the rest of your life on crutches. That's why there're the therapy sessions."
"I have to walk again!!" I swore. "Brace or no brace, I have to walk!!" I took one step forward with my good leg, then took another one with my left one. I cried out in pain, barely managing to stay on my feet. I took some more steps, but once I tried stepping with my bad leg again, I fell down, the pain flaring up in my leg.
"I…I gotta…" I said, the tears starting to run down my cheeks. I forced myself up again and took another step, only to fall down again.
"Don't push yourself," Linna said, looking slightly impressed at the fact that I was at least attempting to walk.
"It's the only way I'll be able…to walk again…" I said, pushing myself up to a sitting position, blinking away the tears. "I told those doctors in the hospital I'd be walking fine in two months. Two months!! And six weeks later…I can barely even take a step…" I let loose right there, letting the tears come. Linna bent down and put her hands on my shoulders.
"Listen, Yumeko. It's not being fair to delude yourself into thinking that you can recover that fast. It's going to take some time. Even Priss knows that a lot of wounds don't heal within a week or however soon you want them to heal up. You can't make your body heal faster than it's able to. You learned that the hard way, remember? When you were exercising your shoulder so much, even though it wasn't ready?"
I sniffled. "Yeah, but…but that's just me being my impatient self… I can't stand being crippled for very long! I want to be able to help everybody out."
"Look, if you tried to jump into battle right now, you'd only be a liability to the team. You know that. It's best to rest up and let yourself recover for as long as is needed. And if that means you're out for four months, well then, so be it. Sylia would tell you the same thing, I'm sure."
"It's…it's just not fair!!" I yelled, slamming my fist into the floor. "I hate this!!"
"It's ok to feel how you feel," Linna assured me, then suddenly brightened. "Besides…why do you think you have a brace now, even though you can barely walk?"
"I dunno, why?"
"Well, nobody said you had to go straight from crutches to walking with a brace. You should try walking using both."
"Both?"
"Yeah, you know, using the crutches while trying to walk using both of your feet. It'll exercise your leg, and it'll make sure you don't fall down after two steps, either."
I chuckled. "That's true…I never tried that…"
She grinned and crossed her arms. "Well, you should, silly. It just might speed up your recovery a little bit."
"You're right, it might. But…"
"Still worried that you might look like an idiot?"
I nodded. "Yeah…"
"You shouldn't worry about that. There's no such thing as recovering 'gracefully'. If it helps you recover a little faster, then what you look like shouldn't matter."
"You should listen to her," I heard Boh say behind me. Linna and I looked up and saw him standing nearby, leaning against some lockers.
"And how long have you been standing there?" I inquired, annoyed.
"Just got here, actually." He walked over towards us and bent down. "You're Miss Yamazaki, correct?" he asked Linna. Both of us blinked in surprise.
"Uh, yeah," Linna said. "How did you know?"
"Yumeko's been talking about you."
No, I haven't, I thought. How would he know Linna's name if I never mentioned her in front of him?
"Yumeko's never mentioned you," Linna said.
"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" he teased, eyeing me. I scowled.
"This is Boh," I said quickly. "He's new to Kihi."
Linna and Boh stood up, Linna bowing slightly. "It's nice to meet you."
"Same here," Boh said, bowing his head. He then looked down at me and said, "That floor must be quite comfortable."
"Actually, it is, thanks," I replied dryly, smirking.
"I'd love to stay, but I have a job to go to," he said, turning to walk down the hallway. "Hope you, ahem, get back on your feet soon, Yumeko." He then strided down the hallway, tossing his jacket over his shoulder before walking through the front doors.
"He's a nice boy, isn't he?" Linna asked as I stood up, picking my crutches up off the floor.
"He's all right, I guess."
"How long has he been here?"
"A couple weeks. He says he moved here from Pyongyang."
"He speaks Japanese pretty well for a Korean boy."
"He says his mom is Korean and his dad is Japanese, so he's fluent in both languages."
"Can he keep up with you in English class?" she teased, getting a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
"He's doing ok, I suppose. He doesn't volunteer to speak much in English class, or in any of the classes that I have with him."
"What classes do you have with him?"
"Are you trying to see if I have a crush on him or something?" I inquired suspiciously.
Linna smiled innocently. "Well, you're talking about him so much—"
"Only because you wanted to know about him," I responded, hobbling down the hallway on my crutches.
"Don't forget to try to walk with both the crutches and your feet," she reminded me as she followed.
"I gotcha, I gotcha."
"I'm sorry you weren't able to be on the team this year, Yumeko," Michiko said while the two of us were eating lunch in the cafeteria a few days later.
"It's not…not the end of the world," I tried to assure myself as I took a bite of my sandwich. "There's bigger things to worry about."
"Like the Olympics? Are you still gonna try out for those?"
I nodded. "They're not for another year and a half. By then, my leg should be fine."
"How's your therapy been, by the way? I haven't been able to come over and help you with that. Been able to walk at all?"
"With just the brace?"
"Yeah."
"I can only manage a few steps still, but walking with the brace and the crutches has been helping." Guess Linna's advice wasn't so bad, after all. The first few days I'd tried that, it hurt like hell, as can be imagined, but I forced myself to do it. Pain only lasts for so long, but a physical disability can be there for a lifetime. I couldn't let myself just give up and go hobbling around on crutches all my life. I knew that the path to recovery wouldn't be lined with roses or anything, but it was still harder than I'd imagined.
"Just gotta keep at it," she encouraged, snatching up some udon noodles with her chopsticks and slurping them up. "No pain, no gain, right?"
"No kidding," I said, my leg suddenly starting to throb. I bent down and took off my brace, rubbing the sore spot and practiced bending my leg, wincing when I did.
"Is that as far as you can bend it?" Micchan asked, bending down for a closer look. "That's not much."
"True, but it hurts too much to bend it any more than this," I replied, noting that the most I could bend my leg without yelling in pain was only a mere 20 degrees. "Wanna see the scar?"
She swallowed her noodles. "Uh, sure."
I rolled up my pant leg as far as I could, biting my lip to keep from crying out when I tugged it over the part where I'd been shot. A big red mark, about four or five centimeters in diameter, sat there above my knee. "I'd show you the other side, but I can't lift my leg that high."
"It's…it's just a red knot," she said, her eyes getting wide. "I can't imagine how much that must've hurt."
"Probably a good thing," I said dryly, rolling the pant leg back down and putting my brace on again. "Not something I'd wish upon anybody, even Tsubasa."
"I'm so sorry, Yucchan," she said, shaking her head to get the tears out of her eyes. "I…I'd have taken that for you if given the option."
I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. "Hey, don't get all emotional on me. You're gonna make me cry."
"I can't stand the thought of you getting killed, I just can't. When Priss first told me that you were in the hospital, I just freaked out. I was hoping that…that it wasn't bad, but…but then I found out you nearly bled to death, and that you went into cardiac arrest twice, and…"
"I try not to let it go to my head," I admitted, though it did disturb me a bit to learn that my heart had stopped twice, although that certainly did explain why I dreamed about floating to heaven and seeing my dead grandma.
"I don't know how you do it. I'd probably have been confined to a loony bin from all the trauma and stuff. I'd be having panic attacks and be paranoid about everything."
"You say that, but you never really know unless you actually go through something like that."
"That's true…"
"You bastard!!" I heard a boy yell behind me, and then came the sound of crashing chairs as he tackled another boy. Micchan and I jumped at the sound.
"What the…?" Michiko wondered aloud, startled. I turned dead pale as I remembered something else from the episode at the convention center: the Boomer kicking me in the head, sending me crashing into a wall. It hurled its fist at me, and I'd barely jumped to the side in time to avoid being hit as its fist went crashing into the wall instead of through my skull.
The crashing of more chairs as the two boys wrestled on the floor only made that memory more vivid for me. I put my hand to the side of my head, still stuck in that memory, feeling for the cracks in the helmet that I wasn't even wearing at the moment.
"Yumeko?" I heard Michiko say as she put her hands on my shoulders and shook me. "Yumeko? You ok, Yucchan?"
I blinked and looked up at her, my face blank. I slowly shook my head and stood up, as if in a trance, and walked slowly towards the two wrestling boys. When they eventually got up and started wrestling on one of the tables, I clenched my hand into a fist and spoke.
"Hey, you…" I said.
The boy who'd started the fight turned around, and once he did, I punched him right in the face. Other kids who were watching the fight all gasped as he fell down to the floor, putting a hand to his cheek. Michiko jumped out of her seat and took a step back.
"You bitch!!" he snarled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pocket knife. As he made the switchblade pop out, another image flashed in front of my eyes: the second Boomer doing that same move with its lasersword before attacking me and slashing me across the stomach.
The next five minutes after that, I don't remember.
"Harder, Priss!!" Linna barked at me while I was punching away at the punching bag. "C'mon, I've seen you hit Boomers harder than that!"
As she stood behind it and held it still for me, I stood back, made my hand into a fist, and swung at it, my fist pounding into the bag. I jumped and kicked it like I would have if I had my Leg Bombers, then went punching at it again.
"Can't wait…to get back at Genom for what they did," I panted as I punched again, sweat streaming down my face, making my bangs stick to my forehead.
"I know you want to get them back," she said, eyeing me. "I don't like what they've done, either. But you gotta work harder than this."
"Damn them!!" I cursed, ramming my fist into the bag again.
"Here, c'mon." Linna walked a few steps away from the bag and then stopped and turned towards me. "Come at me."
When I just stood there and didn't do anything, she sighed. "You need to let out all that pent-up energy. C'mon, spar with me." She got into a fighting stance, waiting for my move.
"Remember, you asked for it," I remarked, getting into my own stance, then started to run at her. I swung my fist at her head, but she parried it with her arm. In anger, I started coming at her with everything I had, swinging my fists at her like a madman. She merely stood there and parried them, a sly grin on her face. I stood back to catch my breath, then went forward and did a spinning kick. Linna managed to dodge that too, doing a few back-handsprings before starting on the attack herself, swinging her fists at me in much the same way I'd done. I mimicked what she did and parried them, though one or two blows did hit me in the head. She then ducked down and did a spinning swipe, using her leg to knock me off my feet. I yelped and fell down hard on the mat.
"Can you get up?" she asked mockingly, standing over me with an evil grin.
"I'm fine," I grumbled, pushing myself to my feet.
"You can go hit the showers now. I gotta lead a lesson real quick."
Being covered with sweat and such, I reluctantly agreed and went to the showers, and spending a God-awful long time in there, just standing there and letting the hot water pour over my body. Felt good to just stand there and do nothing for once, to just relax.
Once I got out, I dried myself off and got back into my regular clothes, but once I was about to leave, Linna came running to me, telling me to wait.
"What now?" I asked, noticing the worried look on her face.
"Yumeko's school just called," she said. "They said she got into a fight during lunch."
"Just when I was gonna go pick her up, too," I quipped.
She shook her head. "It's serious. From the way they described it, it sounds pretty bad."
"Is she ok?"
"Yeah, SHE'S fine. But the other kid…the person that called me said that she nearly strangled the other boy to death before they were finally able to break up the fight."
"Oh God," I mumbled. I knew about what she had done to that one girl at school the day after getting her wrist broken and shit; she'd simply been pushed too far. If what Linna had been told was true, then Yume must have had a blackout similar to that one. I started to run out the door when Linna yelled.
"Wait!" she called out. "I could go with you!"
"No, that's ok," I said. "I'll handle this." After I put on my helmet, I climbed onto my motorcycle and sped off towards Yume's school. Damn it, what had happened now?!
I sat there on the couch outside of the principal's office, Michiko sitting next to me. What had I done, exactly? I remembered that other boy pulling out a knife, but everything after that was a blur. I really did it this time, I thought with dread as I looked at the bandage wrapped around my hand.
"So…what did I do, exactly?" I asked Michiko.
Her eyes widened. "You don't remember anything?"
"No. I just blacked out. I don't even know how I got this," I said, pointing to the bandage on my hand.
"Well…after that boy pulled out that knife, he leaped at you…and you just freaked. I didn't believe it when I saw it, and I still don't, but…you slapped the knife aside, like it was nothing."
"Really?"
"Yeah. That's how you cut your hand. But you didn't even seem to notice it. You just…leaped on him and started pummeling him. You sure you don't remember any of it?"
"If I did remember, I wouldn't be asking how I got cut, right?"
"Well, yeah, I guess… Doesn't that hurt?" she asked, pointing to my hand.
"No."
"It sure looks like it hurts."
"Compared to getting shot, it doesn't hurt."
Michiko chuckled nervously. "Yeah, compared to that, I suppose it wouldn't."
"So what did I do then?"
"Other kids were cheering you on while you were pummeling him. Go figure. I just stood there in shock. I knew I couldn't jump in, because you were half-insane then. But anyway, you put your hands around his neck and just started squeezing."
I paled. "Um…did I…say anything funny…?"
She blinked as she thought for a moment. "Yeah, you did. You were saying something like, 'Don't you hurt my mom anymore' or something like that."
"Just wonderful," I groaned.
"I figure it's just because you're so protective of her, and that…that maybe at that moment, you were just so caught up in your memories of the convention center exploding that…"
"I don't like seeing Mom hurt," I admitted nonchalantly.
"I wouldn't like seeing my mom hurt either," she concurred. "Well, you strangled that kid till he passed out, and then I managed to pull you off of him. Then you just started screaming and crying, saying stuff like 'Get away from me!!' and 'No! Leave me alone' and stuff. I've never seen you so scared and freaked out like that before."
"I didn't…hit you, did I?"
Michiko shook her head, making me let out a sigh in relief.
"I can't control myself when I black out. I don't know what I'm capable of…"
"Try telling that to the principal," she groaned. "Fat chance he'll believe any of what you've told me."
"I'm probably gonna get expelled or sent to a mental institution or somethin'. I nearly killed him and I didn't even know it."
Our conversation was interrupted when the door to the office opened, and through the door stepped Mom. I looked up at her, my body starting to shake.
"Mom, I…"
"What happened, Yume?" she asked immediately.
"I…I blacked out again…I nearly killed him…" I stared down at my hands, not believing I nearly did kill someone with them.
"So I heard. What happened to your hand?"
"She slapped away the knife the other boy pulled on her," Michiko said, cutting in. "You would've had to see it to believe it."
"How's he doing?"
I pointed to the principal's office. "He's all right now. He's in there. I think he's gonna get expelled for bringing that knife, but I dunno what's gonna happen to me." I sighed with dread right as the door to the principal's office opened up. When that boy emerged, he glared at me, his face covered with bruises. I laughed nervously and scratched the back of my head. "I think I can explain…"
"You--!!" he yelled, charging towards me suddenly. A school administrator that had been in the office with him darted forward and held him back.
"Come on now, Eiji," the lady said, pulling him back. "Calm down."
"That bitch!!" he snarled, struggling to get free.
"He doesn't learn, does he?" Michiko mumbled, looking on in wonder.
"I guess not," I agreed.
Once the administrator led him out of the office and down the hallway, the principal walked over to Mom, Michiko, and I, saying, "Yumeko, your turn."
"How sad that you're on a first-name basis with the principal," Michiko groaned as the two of us stood up. Mom leaned over and grabbed my crutches and gave them to me. I stood there with them for a moment, then dropped them to the floor.
"Yume?" Mom asked, curious.
"I don't want to use them," I said, taking a step forward with my good leg, then my bad one.
"Sometime today," the principal quipped, stepping aside.
"Yumeko, you're walking!!" Michiko said in awe, putting her hand over her mouth.
"Hardly," I responded, waiting a few seconds before taking a few more steps. I held my arms out to my sides to keep me steady. Mom grinned as she watched.
By the time I got inside the principal's office and was sitting in one of the chairs, my leg was throbbing, and the pain made my eyes water, but it felt good in a strange sort of way. Felt good just to walk on my own again. As the principal sat down in his chair, Mom sat next to me, and Michiko was about to sit in the last remaining one when he said, "You don't need to be here. This is not your concern."
"It IS my concern," Michiko replied, not moving. "Yumeko's my friend, and besides, I saw what happened. She doesn't remember any of it herself."
Principal Vermotti raised an eyebrow. "Yumeko, you don't recall anything?"
I shook my head. "No, I don't."
"If I recall, that's the same thing you said after you were in a fight with Ana Kuramoto."
"But it's true!" Michiko protested.
"I wasn't speaking to you," Mr. Vermotti snapped. "Now, can you explain what happened?"
"I can't. Like I said, I don't remember anything that happened after Eiji pulled that knife on me," I repeated. "Michiko can explain it better than I can."
"So…why can't you remember anything after that moment?"
I fidgeted, not believing that he was asking this. "Well, it made me remember something that happened the night the convention center exploded, and I…I blacked out." I heard Mom let out a sigh next to me.
"What did you remember?"
I blinked, the palms of my hands starting to sweat. "What did I…"
"Yes."
"I…I remembered when I got THIS!!" I snapped, lifting up my shirt, revealing the long scar on my stomach. Mom looked away. "That should explain it!!"
"And how did you get that?" he asked, unabashed.
I paled, then scowled, pulling my shirt down. "Is this a quiz show or something?"
"Well, I need to know so I can figure out why you blacked out when Eiji pulled the knife out, if that's what you did. It must've been something horrible if it made you react in such a manner as to nearly asphyxiate him to death."
"There was nothing pleasant about it," Mom interrupted. "Everything that happened that night was horrible. Why force Yume to bring it up again?"
"Because we need to assess whether or not your daughter will need psychiatric help to deal with the trauma."
"I don't need no help from any stupid doctors!!" I snapped. "I've seen more doctors than I ever cared to see."
"Yume has the support of me and her friends," Mom said calmly. "She doesn't need to see any quack about this. It's something she'd rather not discuss for obvious reasons, so why not just let it be?"
I looked at her curiously. Mom sounded so cool and calm about all this; it was like she'd rehearsed it out in her head two thousand times. Wasn't she concerned that our identities as Knight Sabers might be exposed if we said the wrong thing by mistake?
"Another thing I've been wondering about, Miss Asagiri," Mr. Vermotti said.
"What's that?" she asked.
"In the past few months, it's come to the attention of the school administration…"
Oh God, I thought, trying to swallow the lump in my throat that had settled there. Here it comes…
"…that Yumeko's been coming to school with some unusual injuries, starting in about November, I believe. One day, she came to school with a cast on her wrist…"
"She told me it was from a bike accident she had," Michiko said.
"Um," he said, looking down at some papers in a manila folder that he held. "And about a week after that, she had her right arm in a sling."
"Yume and I were over at my friend's apartment, and the Boomer that had gone on a rampage came stomping through the complex," Mom explained. "Linna and I stayed inside, but Yume tried to make a break for it and ran into the Boomer, and she got shot."
Michiko and I both nodded. "She has the scar to prove it," Michiko said, pointing at my shoulder. I pulled on the neck of my shirt and showed him the scar.
"Well, that would explain it. But…you also happened to be near the convention center when it exploded?"
I paled even more than I already had, and slowly nodded. "Some luck of the draw, eh?" How in the world had we gotten so far off course from what I'd come in here for? Nobody was even mentioning the fight anymore. And not to mention that Mr. Vermotti looked like he wasn't buying our excuses very well, although the explanation for why I came to school with my arm in a sling wasn't actually very far from the truth. My body went numb as I got more nervous about it.
"Miss Asagiri, I believe that you need to take better responsibility for Yumeko here," he said, setting down the folder on his desk. "I understand perfectly well that you want her to have some freedom, but that doesn't mean you can let her be reckless and go chasing Boomers just for the thrill of seeing them in person."
"I don't chase Boomers!!" I yelled, although that was exactly what Mom and I did when duty called. Mom started to look a little annoyed at the fact that the principal was accusing her of being a negligent parent. Couldn't blame her one bit. And the longer this dragged on, the tighter my chest became. It was at the point where it felt like my heart stopped. I sucked in a breath, trying to calm myself down.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
"I'm…I'm ok," I said. Mom looked over at me and put one hand on top of mine.
"You sure you'll be ok?" she asked, concerned. I nodded slowly.
"I just…need to get some air. It's…a bit stuffy in here," I lied, starting to stand up.
"Stay seated until we're finished, Yumeko," Mr. Vermotti said.
"I can't breathe," I snapped, putting my hand to my throat and squeezing my eyes shut. Another flashback was coming to me: when the Boomer had strangled me to unconsciousness. Remember, you're not there anymore, I tried to remind myself. It's not real, it's not here. The Boomer's dead, it can't do anything to you anymore…
"I think we should go," Mom said, noticing I was trembling like crazy with the memory.
"We still need to figure out what to do about what happened today, Miss Asagiri," Mr. Vermotti reminded her, unfazed by my panic attack.
"I don't see how you can be dwelling on that when Yume's being eaten alive by her flashbacks," Mom barked.
"Yumeko, you ok?" Michiko asked, looking more than a little concerned.
"No," I groaned, still trying to get my breath back.
"Well, Yumeko," Mr. Vermotti said, "whether you acted against Eiji of your own free will or not, I believe appropriate action must be taken. I've decided to suspend you for a week, to let you think about what you did, and to learn to control—"
"I can't control it!!" I yelled. "How am I supposed to know what makes me black out and what doesn't?! Once I black out, I can't control what I do!! Michiko's said it enough times; she was there!! She saw that I went nuts when Eiji pulled that knife out!! It's not my fault that…that…" I put my hand to my stomach, feeling the scar underneath my shirt, trying not to let the memory engulf me again.
Michiko looked down at her feet and fidgeted. "It's true… You can't punish Yumeko for something she didn't have any control over. She's traumatized, you can't punish her for being traumatized. It's…it's not right!" Her eyes started welling up with tears again. "I'd say getting all the injuries that Yucchan's gotten is enough punishment, not to mention the flashbacks and everything else…"
Mom leaned back in her chair and nodded slowly in agreement.
"Michiko…" I said, looking at her.
Mr. Vermotti sighed and put the manila folder on his desk. "Well…I'm not entirely made of stone, you know, as much as you seem to think that I am. I think we can work something out."
"Good," Michiko said, sighing. "Yumeko's already missed nearly a month of school. The last thing she needs is to miss another week because of this."
"Got a point there," Mom agreed, folding her arms behind her head and leaning back against the wall.
"That…went better than I thought," I said, letting out a sigh in relief. After some talking, Mr. Vermotti decided not to suspend me after all. Thank God Michiko was there with us, or I would've had a hard time explaining why I'd attacked Eiji out of panic.
"No kidding," Mom agreed, starting up her bike. "Then again, how many people would've believed you? Not many."
"When do you think…think I'll be able to go into battle with you and the others again?" I asked in a low voice as I got on behind her.
She sighed. "Not for a while. You need to get your leg healed up first before you can even consider it."
"That's gonna take forever though."
"And besides, your leg isn't the only thing that you need to let recover."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you need to let yourself recover emotionally, too. C'mon, if you freak out at the sound of falling chairs, how do you think you're gonna react out there with real Boomers?"
I contemplated that for a few seconds, then hung my head and sighed. "I…guess you're right about that…"
As we got farther away from the school and eventually were on the highway, I asked Mom something else.
"Weren't you afraid back there? About the principal suspecting that we're Knight Sabers?"
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she thought about it for a couple of seconds, then said, "Is that what you're scared of?"
"Well…he certainly did seem to be a bit curious about how the hell I got all those injuries over the months."
She chuckled. "I suppose I didn't tell you it when you first joined, but you gotta learn to be a good liar. A bad lie is only going to make people want to keep an eye on you to see what you're doing."
"Speaking of which…I don't think Michiko's buying everything I've told her. I think she's starting to get a bit suspicious herself. I mean, how convenient is it that I seem to be at the scene of several of the Boomer attacks? And to 'get into a bike wreck' a week before I was shot the first time?"
"You're telling most of the truth, though, with that story. You weren't in your suit then, so there's not much to have to make up."
"Yeah, but…when you were still an underground singer, didn't the band get suspicious when you kept showing up with weird bruises and stuff?"
"I wouldn't show up, period," she admitted flatly. "I'd just call in and say I wasn't able to perform that night."
"Wouldn't they still…?"
She laughed. "They had to put up with it. Being in the band was our main source of income then. And besides, I was the lead singer, and still am. They couldn't throw me out if they wanted to!"
On a whim, I started singing some of the lyrics to Mom's Konya wa Hurricane song. "Big City kodoku na Heart To Heart…"
Mom chimed in, and we both sang, "Minna ai no mayoigo. Big City namida wa Day By Day, nemurenai omoi o yusaburu dakeee!!"
We kept singing like that, all the way to Linna's gym.
