Chapter 7
Elaine waved the card over the reader next to the exit, heard a little chirp, and tried for the door. The handle would rotate, but the door wouldn't budge. Thinking she hadn't gotten to it fast enough she tried again. And again the door remained locked. She glared at the little card reader as she went to scan yet again, noticing the words flashed from a green 'Ready' to a green 'Enter Pin.' Upon further inspection the panel below the words swung out, revealing a number pad.
She hadn't even noticed anyone entering a pin before. Although, they had always stood between her and the card reader when they opened the door.
In a last futile effort, she stretched herself with one arm holding the handle down, and the other just reaching the box. Maybe she could trick it. She waved the card, heard a chirp, and then-
"What are you doing?"
She jumped back several paces, nearly dropping Sonoko's special badge. She also may have shrieked, a little.
Hand holding in her heart which had just tried to escape, she realized it had just been another kid. No way was he even in high school.
"I'm trying to get back outside, but the stupid door won't budge." She grumbled, yanking on the handle to illustrate her point.
He crinkled his forehead at her and her explanation. Maybe he was a bit older than Elaine thought before; he was about half a head taller than her even if his voice didn't sound older. Nervously, she eyed the odd straps he wore over a violently neon-green sweatshirt. She'd mistaken the straps as a backpack before, but now noticed they wrapped around each of his legs as well.
"Do you work here?"
"Kinda," he reached to rub at the back of his neck, only to realize he was holding some sort of round metal clips in his hand. "My older brothers are here servicing the windows; I'm just helping." He seemed to catch himself then as he looked at the items in his hand, suddenly bowing and speaking more formally. "I'm terribly sorry to have startled you, Miss."
"It's no big deal," she answered, thinking she may have just avoided trouble after all. "You look busy so I'm just gonna go-."
"Don't you want help opening the door?" He asked, dropping the deferential language just as quickly as he'd picked it up.
"But it's not working," she mumbled, skirting the fact that she really shouldn't be able to get through the door.
"Hmm, well if you've forgotten your code usually these things have a bypass. Like if you punch in one number a bunch of times."
"Really?" she perked up.
"Here, try it again."
She scanned Sonoko's badge once more and waited as the boy pressed zero a bunch of times. Sure enough, the card reader flashed green and Elaine was able to pull open the door.
"No way!" She ran through, not believing her luck.
This was a different side of the building, but the city still thrummed with the energy and color that made it seem so alive. She imagined the city as a hundred bonfires worth of electricity that she could feel by merely standing close to it.
It would buzz against just the side of her that faced the view, most intense on her exposed face and hands. She took in that imaginary sensation along with the brush of the wind and sighed in bliss.
Her nose was tickled a bit by a smell like candy; it seemed like something make-believe but wasn't.
"So, why did you need to get out here anyway?" That boy's voice asked from behind her. She spun about, finding he had come through the door as well. The metal clips in his hand before had been replaced with something small and plastic. He brought the kazoo like object to his lips, then blew out a cloud of smoke. That was the sweet smell, like a big puff of candy smoke.
She scrunched her face up and thought about scolding him for being way too young for that sort of thing. But maybe she didn't really have room to talk; she probably shouldn't mention when other people did bad things when she was just as guilty. He noticed her grimace and tucked the smoke kazoo back into his pants pocket with a shrug.
"Well if you're not sneaking off to smoke then I don't get it."
"I'm not sneaking at all!" She protested.
"Guess I owe you an apology then, Ms. Suzuki. I must have got it wrong." He bowed again, but when he straightened out he was grinning wildly.
The confusion on her face turned to embarrassment as he offered Sonoko's badge back to her.
"I'm sorry," she shuffled her feet under the pressure of his grin. "I didn't mean to lie. I wanted to come out here to take pictures of the view."
"Seriously?" He let out such a laugh that it must have come all the way from his toes. "That's a lot of trouble for just that."
"So what, it's important!" She turned sharply on her heel and walked further along the guardrail, away from him.
She wasn't even going to look back until she heard some weird metal clanking sounds. When she did turn back he was pulling himself up on top of the metal guard rail. He hadn't even hesitated.
"Don't you know that's dangerous?" She started reprimanding him without even thinking about it this time. "You need to get down from there."
"But, Ms. Suzuki I can't do that- whoa, just yet," he glanced down at her as he spread his arms out, his smile just as uncertain as his footing.
"That's not even my name!"
He wobbled to the right but caught himself. It hurt to watch; each time he nearly lost his balance her chest scrunched up like a fist.
"Okay, Ms. Not Suzuki. I still can't come down yet-"
"Yes, you can!" Elaine shouted the obvious, trying to figure out how she had gotten herself into this. If anything bad happened to him it would be her fault. She shouldn't have been so careless to leave the door open behind her; she shouldn't have snuck off; she shouldn't have even taken Sonoko's security badge in the first place. Knowing all that wasn't helping anything, yelling wasn't either but that didn't stop her from repeating herself. "Get down."
"Nooo," he drew out, "you're supposed to ask 'Why not?'"
"-aargh! Fine. Why not?" Elaine huffed.
"Because-" his voice wavered once again, and his uncertain smile turned to her as if seeking reassurance. She had no faith at all in his ability to keep from plummeting to his death; a fact she wasn't even trying to hide from her expression. "I have to make it up to you, for laughing about the pictures. So I thought I'd give you something interesting to put in them. You went through all the trouble of getting out here, the pictures should be worth it."
She was so stupidly nervous that all she could think about was how horrible his form was, and how he wasn't coordinated enough to be up there, and how he had leapt into this anyways.
It came out as, "That's stupid." And then, "you should get down now."
"C'mon please." He still didn't relent. "Let me make amends. The longer you argue the more time I'll be up here- feeling like an ass."
"Fine," she said. Her hands trembled as she bent to unclip a few of the charms from her shoelaces and hook them together, "but if you do this again I'll- push you over myself."
She meant to sound snarky, like she wasn't at all worried, but only sounded small. Even to her own ears. He was the fearless one, jumping atop the rail at a whim. She was just the girl who'd had to scoot her way to the edge.
She dangled her charms over the top corner of the frame and snapped a few shots of his stupid wobbly legs and his utter lack of core strength before announcing, "I've got them."
He hopped down, and Elaine finally let go of the ball of worry she'd been twining somewhere deep in her stomach. She braced her hands on her knees as she waited for it all to settle.
"Wow, that was crazy!" He exhaled on an entirely different kind of rush than Elaine was settling down from.
"That was awful." She shoved him.
She couldn't remember planning to shove him; One second he was stepping out in front of her, exclaiming about how cool he thought he was, and the next thing she knew she had pushed him and her voice had raised an octave or two. Did her lungs burn like she had been running or was that only in her head? Her ears were strangely warm too. Why did he have to be such an idiot?
She hadn't shoved him very far, but he'd backed up a step or two on his own as well, only to come to a hard stop as he reached the end of a line.
"I wasn't in any danger, see?" He turned a bit, looking over his shoulder in a fruitless attempt to see his own back. She hadn't noticed the scrunchy cable that ran from the harness at his back to a bar on the rail until now. It connected to each with metal clips just like the ones she'd seen him holding; he unhooked them both now and stashed the short length of cable in the pouch of his sweatshirt.
"That wasn't a very nice prank," She reprimanded, no longer caring if it was the appropriate thing to do. "I was really scared for you."
"Really?" His voice cracked in genuine surprise. "Ah, I mean. But you don't even know me."
He lowered his voice in a way that brought to mind how Sonoko had lowered hers to imitate that thief she talked so much about.
"Well, whose fault is that? You're the one who got all caught up in my business with your 'What are you doing?'s and following me out here." Elaine said, growing huffy. "You never even introduced yourself."
"It's Touma."
"Well, I think you're a bully and a show-off, Touma." She swiped through the pictures she'd taken. She hated to admit they were really pretty cool. A boy silhouetted against all those city lights. The danger, the heights, the atmosphere; it was exactly the type of photo she liked best. She wasn't about to admit it to Touma. Without saying anything else she turned and started walking away.
"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" he asked, trailing after her yet again.
"No," she shook her head, and pointedly didn't look his way.
"Well, can't you at least show me the pictures you took?" He held out his hand and she pretended not to notice. "How do I really know you took them if you won't show me?"
"Because I did." She kept walking.
"Then prove it. Unless you can't since you're just lying again."
She groaned, "I'm not." She pulled up one of the shots and shoved her arm out to show him.
"Cool! Guess you were right about the view. Is there just the one?"
She held back a scoff at his lack of faith in her professionalism. "No, of course not. There's- hey!"
Elaine had been pocketing her string of charms so she could scroll through the pictures for Touma when he'd snatched her phone. "Give it back."
"I will- just," he held her at arm's length, her phone far behind him in his other hand. "Tell me your name first."
"No way I'm giving it to you now, bully." She didn't give any warning before stepping on his foot and lunging again for her phone.
It tripped him and he staggered back, but his arms were just too much longer than hers. Between her reaching and his pulling away, they stumbled into a chase. Soon they were running, rounding corners, tramping up a set of metal stairs to another level of the roof.
All the while names were slung back and forth; he was a no-good bully; she was violent; he was a jerk; she was a liar; he was a thief; but so was she.
Their clambering halted at that. He'd turned about at the top of the metal staircase, and she stopped short of him. She had stolen the security badge in the first place, and lied about it, and shoved Touma just for showing off.
She was right before, it didn't feel right to call Touma out when she wasn't any better. She had just started to piece together the words for a very difficult apology when a stranger came up behind Touma at the top of the stairs.
Elaine figured she and Touma were probably in the way since the metal stairs were pretty narrow. "Umm," she gestured behind Touma, about to suggest that they should come the rest of the way up, but didn't get the chance. Touma turned back just in time to be cuffed on the ear, and any words Elaine had planned came out more as a gasp.
Author's note: You may have noticed Touma refers to Elaine with the name Ms. Suzuki after reading Sonoko's name badge. From there you might have inferred that Sonoko is not yet married in this story. However, although the story is written in English, it is understood that the characters are speaking in Japanese (unless otherwise stated). In Japanese, the honorific Touma more than likely would have used there was -sama, (as he is, somewhat mockingly, being respectful) which unlike its English equivalent is gender-neutral and doesn't change depending on a person's marital status. Further, even if you were ruling out the cultural differences in honorifics he uses her Maiden name; Suzuki which also might have made you think she wasn't yet married. Which okay fair, that's a possibility. However, since Sonoko comes from a very affluent family whose family name is deeply tied to their business interests, it wouldn't be unheard of for her to keep her family name [Her sister, who is married in canon, goes by Suzuki instead of her husband's last name; and her sister's husband still goes by his father's last name.], or even for Sonoko's husband to take her last name as well. This might even be the more likely option as to my knowledge, the current generation of the Suzuki family has no male heir to inherit the Suzuki name or financial group, and there is some precedent for affluent families adopting in their daughter's husbands so they can inherit the families assets and take over businesses in Japan. Regardless, whether Sonoko is married by this point in the story or not, she is going by the last name Suzuki. All this is to say that it could go either way because unlike the marital status of certain other characters in this story, Sonoko's is not plot-relevant. Now the real question here, did I spend way too much time fussing over the implications of a detail I confess has relatively little relevance to the overall plot? Yes, yes I did. Is that what took me so long to post these three chapters? No, that would be chapter 5.
