I forgot to say that the title came from Norah Jones' sophomore album. I also plagiarized a line from Rilke, and the repeating "timid hands held a decent animal" and "kissing the lipless" are references to The Shins.

CARNIVAL TOWN Version 1.2

In which Sendoh Kisses Haruko & Meets His Past Self

The one-shot of it all never damned his volitions and merely cultivated Sendoh's seeming victory against the seer. No sooner did he realize, too, how effortless it was to squeeze into her and be a transient in her life, a passer-by of the heart. Their encounter was brief he reckoned; and he had to admit that it only took a gesture of introductions before he left her with time, and her brother, too.

At one time he had that mock game against the Shohoku, he pined her more than anything. Almost. There was an attraction not to the romanticized descriptions of the body but the romanticized heart, a visionary that he considered one of the reasons as to why Shohoku almost won the game that time. He took it as a challenge; the variable in his experiment, and even had the help of Hikoichi. Their first so-called date made him the fifth wheel he also recalled; her brother, Ayako and Miyagi were bodyguards against his reputation.

Now here they are at the all-too-familiar place, Akira and Haruko; dusts move against their footwear, the former motioning the lass for the benches. The playtime tunes of the carnival are no longer heard by the two but the skipping heartbeats. Dewberries could never taste any sweeter, the spike-haired thought as Haruko spoons her last in the can. "This is the troupe's last day," she mutters with a saddened look.

"It is. That's why I brought you here."

She smiled. "It's a nice place they've set up in here,"

"It definitely is. There's a feris wheel up ahead with a good view,"

"Right," she cheered, drinking her water.

Akagi Haruko, a lass meant to serve the lad's purpose, is an antagonist to him. Unbeknownst to the so-called victory that the latter has predicted, Haruko is a mystic herself; an analyst of emotions through which Hanamichi was the first patient, and his brother being the second. It was something that she did not define by the limits of the words, nor was it exactly the attitude that escaped her body like a shining light. A dreamer, a hopeful; a pure heart that is to be tainted the moment she entered the entrance for the larger-than-life wheel. He sits beside her and she fidgets; a sign of an anxious pleasure perhaps?

"How's life?" He asked monotonously, staring at her.

"Uhm... same old I guess. I thought I'd never pass my exams,"

"But you did." He continued her statement, earning a smile. "How's the basketball team?"

If it wasn't for monotony, he thought. "I'm sure they've been making progress?"

They hear their cubicle making a swooshing murmur against their audition, almost like grazing the grounds. They feel like flying again. "They've been fine, more things are coming their way."

A glint in her eyes; the moment he's been waiting for. His left arm make its way to her shoulders, and he can actually feel cold as his skin reaches contact on those soft cotton pink blouse, his fingers exploring her skin. She's warm-blooded with a skin of a snow; he thought, and as his timid hands held this decent animal before him, never could it get any colder.

"Sendoh-san..."

"Akira," he whispers, and time loops like their own ferris wheel ride.

"Right," she says. "...Akira."

There was a silhouette of woe that reasons for its synthesis with her voice never earned a single clue for him to decipher. Why should he bother anyway? Here before him is a decent warm-blooded creature that signified vitality even in an utter of a breath, and she should be happy enough to relinquish herself to the rules of the leviathan that is him. He tries to find the depths of this seeming contradiction between a responsive body and an unwell heart (almost a calloused voice for him), but why is he to accomplish such a task when his goal was to dry her wet blanket? Maybe because from inexperience?

He smirks at her, and she can almost feel his warm breath. If it is, then it's not right of a time.

"Why are you so pensive?" he finally jokes, and she makes a heartfelt laugh. Bodies separated in time for the view. "Look," he points out at the vastness of the world that is Kanagawa.

She stares. The amassed whiteness of the clouds that hid the cosmic blueness of the sky and the glimmering stars can be seen from afar. The toothed structures are grunge to the majesty of the night, and if it were not from the white lights that sauntered the darkness from below, she would be led to assume that it was a void of pure obscurity. "A great view," she says.

But it wasn't for the spike-haired. Ants are the people strolling around the carnival as he immerses in the void that are the dim pavements outside it. The flouncing neon lights as the booth follows gravity make his head reel like the jabbing harshness of a downpour against his back. Somehow, there was an oddity in it all that pains him every millisecond of his sight grazing them; like a growing need to be ogled the way he stares at the people. But there was no one to watch him; even Haruko appears to be one of them, too, despite the parallel height they're in. It swooshes again.

"Is it lonely to be too high?"

He kisses her suddenly, a probing mouth against her responsive body. But with an unwell heart he feels like kissing the lipless.

Their bodies part in time for the ride to stop. Their booth stands at the very top and the winds are cold. "I'm sorry..." she whispers. "I never really kissed anyone before."

"'Twas okay," he assures her. "Sorry too for kissing you just like that."

But he wasn't rueful, not in the least; it was a victory. Their cubicle starts to move down. His interest, too, started to dwindle like the spike-haired lad has kissed her too many times it became repetitive. But it wasn't from the dullness that made him discover the clue she's been giving him; there was truth which lay hidden behind those words. The way she called his name; it seems she was addressing someone else. I never really kissed someone meant I was reserving my first kiss to someone else; but he wasn't rueful at this, not in the least.

"You really like him, don't you?"

His arm rests on the window, his head on his hands as he looks at her, smiling. Haruko is purity as she nods her head.

"I'm sorry," she mutters between her sighs, and it's the most authentic gesture of the night.

"No need. I already knew."

"You knew?" Her head swivels up to throw an inquisitive look.

"And y'know he doesn't like you," he digresses, not smiling at all. A pang of guilt rushed through him afterwards. It swooshes again.

"I know," she smiles. "I can see right through it everyday."

"That doesn't sound good at all,"

"But the more I see it the more I... like him."

What purity she has, he thought. Only a naïve romantic can think too optimistic for her own good. A welling feeling unknown to him has suddenly surged.

"Does he know?"

"I think so," she bitterly smiles, "...and that what makes him beautiful."

But how? Beauty is something that reaches contact with the fervor of the senses, something that the senses delight to own; a master to the slaves called the senses. And why not handsome by the way?

When the double doors opened they started to leisurely walk along the hazy outlines of the carnival; he turns his head to see the seer's marquee. He's not lonely like what her so-called mystical assertion told him to be; in fact, he enjoyed her company despite the subtle hints of rejection. A feeling of lightness that a description would render it futile.

It now occurs to him. Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which she's still able to endure. Somehow, the lightness has turned into sympathy on account that she herself is lonely. For any romantic is always lonely and always recuperates through loneliness itself; an enduring cycle that translates the feeling into a dualism. She is a positive loneliness.

"But you do know someone else likes you." It was more of a fact than a question.

"Huh? Me? Someone else likes me?" she says, flushed.

"Yes. Would you believe it now? Someone does," he assures her, picturing how flushed would a certain redhead also be.

"But I'm not even pretty..."

"You might get surprised when you look at the signs."

And with that he rests his case. A variable like Akagi Haruko didn't sound as bad as it did the first time; she was as enjoyable as any other sweets, easy to swallow and thus forget (to taste another). His mind documents the data. He takes her home, and her brother was waiting for her. An exchange of goodbyes, and the lass offered him a heartfelt sigh, something that resembled divine illumination. He tendered her nothing on the other hand; after all, she was a body conquered.

So the spike-haired walks for home with an accomplished look. The seer is a piece of fib waiting to victimize others; and it's a good sign that it was the troupe's last day. A thought occurs, and he headed for the carnival to prove his point.

But no sooner did he realize how exhausting it was go there. The entrance felt like a narrow bridge, a dangerous pathway. There he saw Schinichi Maki, and the usual tan of a body almost led Sendoh to assume he was a foreigner. An all-too-familiar alien looks at him, puffing his nicotine out; something he thought Maki would not dare do.

The Kainan captain walks towards him. "What're you doing here?"

He smiled, yet again. "What are you doing here yourself?"

"I thought to pass by. They only come once a year,"

"Right."

"Kiyota and others are inside. Wanna join us?"

"I'd rather not."

"Suit yourself," he says as he puffs. "How are you?"

"It's been long–" both of them said. Maki smirked. "Well," the captain has spoken, "Some things never change,"

"I see one," Sendoh mocked, pointing the other's cigar.

"A past time I learned from the team. And we're supposed to be the good guys."

"I hear you're doing well?"

"Barely. The team's getting too rowdy for me to control. Among other things."

Among other things? He musters enough strength to reply, and he wondered why it took long for his psyche to register the words. Silence crept up, paralyzing him. The residues of lightness are turning into weights that chain him down like an anchor; turning into nervousness. A self-styled past self; what was the rousing dynamic which reeled his head just now?

tbc.