"An Evening with…Saori"

by Furor Scribendi

2008 Scribendi Productions

September 10th

The key rattled in the knob but the door would not open. Grunting could be heard as a body slammed against the door. Once, twice, thrice. It then flew open suddenly and Saori Shikijo almost went sprawling onto the cluttered floor of her apartment

Regaining her balance, she shut the door and dropped the homework assignments on a nearby chair. But the chair already had junk on it and the paperwork was scattered with the rest of the trash that was strewn all about the floor of her modest abode.

She went into her bedroom, and carefully took off her clothing. Her room, just as messy as the rest of the place, had a dressmaker's model standing to one side. She placed her clothing onto it and meticulously cleaned off the lint and hairs of the day.

A nearby roll of masking tape was used to lift off a variety of debris and detritus from the outfit. She grabbed a brush and took care of any stubborn items, and then made an examination for any stains or spots on the garment, necessitating a trip to the dry cleaners. When it was perfect, she carefully hung it up, placing it in a garment bag. She treated her clothing very delicately, in stark contrast to the rest of her apartment, which looked worse than any dorm room or frat house.

Throwing on a tank top, she made her way to the kitchen, where she got a beer from the fridge and drained it. "Ahhhhh! The nectar of the Gods," she remarked as the last of it was gurgled down. She let the empty can clatter to the floor. As she went for another beer, the phone rang. She got it by the third ring.

"Hello, Ms. Shikijo. Oh, hi, Mom. What can I do for you? Pick up Shiori tomorrow? Uh…why can't you? I mean….Look, you send her to Shirakiku Girls Academy, a very prestigious private college affiliate. I was sent to Hiritsu #4 Junior High, where I now teach. OK? It gets to be a bit mortifying. Then it was Cromartie High. No, I'm not complaining…that much, but it's about…. They can't drop her off and…of course I love my sister, but…a new term has started for me and…..all I have is the Vespa to pick her up! That is a bit of a cozy ride for one, much less two."

Saori began to play with a beer can on the floor with her toe as her mother spoke to her, the expression on her face getting more and more sour.

"OK…yes…but I…that is…what about…I mean…after all and…all right, you win. I'll pick her up after my school gets out and bring her to my place. The absolute earliest I can get there is 4:30. Let her know that. Fine, you can retrieve her from here. See you tomorrow." As she hung up the phone, she looked about the apartment. Garbage dumps were better organized. She would have to clean up, as Shiori was such a neatnik. But where to start? It would have to be the sink.

As she approached it, she looked unhappy. There must be a week's worth of dishes in there. She sighed. "If I only had a maid. A maid!?" She stomped on an errant beer can, crushing it flat.

"I bet that flat-chested tart would love it if I called her over to assist me! 'Help me, Obi-Wan Mahoro; you're my only hope.' Bah!" Saori clattered to the bottom of the sink, plugged the drain and started the hot water. "Sure, she would clean this place up, but I would never hear the end of what a slob I am. I am a very busy woman with a lot of things to do and having to keep things tidy is not one of them."

The sink filled with soapy water and she began to wash the dishes. "I would probably end up throwing her out a window anyway. Her sparkling personality and happy demeanor would drive me crazy. And those endlessly annoying cheerful tunes. 'I see a little pebble, lying in the road, if I should trip over it, I would plunge to my flaming doom at the end of the bottomless chasm!' Grrrrrr!"

The more she thought about Mahoro, the harder she scrubbed the dishes. Every piece of grime reminded Saori of Mahoro and it was attacked with a fervor bordering on zealotry. Even the most stuck-on food fragments were no match for the anger of Saori. She began to think of what it was like when Mahoro did the dishes…..

The evening dishes were being done as Mahoro sang her happy tunes. "There hardly is a reason, for one to be that glum, for all you need is a reason in your heart, and you will be happy, happy again."

Dish after dish was done with economy and efficiency. She then sensed Suguru behind her. "Mahoro, I could watch you wash dishes all day long. You seem to make it almost fun to do," Suguru burbled.

Not turning about, Mahoro spoke. "There is no reason why any job needs to be 'work', as long as you have the right attitude, it can all be fun." Just then, Suguru came close and put her arms about Mahoro.

"Other things can be fun as well, Mahoro, like making the bed."

Mahoro laughed, "You are such a naughty, naughty boy, Suguru…….."

Saori threw her scrub brush into an empty sink, the clattering bringing her out of her fantasy realm. Sooner than she had considered, the sink was free of dishes. Looking over to the dishes in the rack, they looked as good the day she had bought them. She rinsed the sink down so it, too, was sparkling.

With the dishes washed and drying, she began to pick up all the trash scattered about. "I have to admit, she did do an excellent job with the Misato 'Haunted House'. I mean, it was like a completely different home; so neat and trim. Almost like something you see in those better homes magazines. But, I wouldn't want her here, anyway. She would comment that I drink too much beer and that, as a teacher, I have to set a good example for the students.

"And to make matters worse, Shiori is almost the same. Talk about two peas in a pod! She is always getting mad at me for drinking too much and dressing improperly. I know she will report back to Mom and Dad about how I treated her. I just can't seem to catch a break, no matter what I do." Bag after bag was filled with the recyclables until the floor could be seen. Bag after bag of recyclables were piled by the door.

Each of the rooms was freed of debris as Saori went on. "I just lead an involved life. I'm sure Einstein didn't have a neat house. And what about the great poet Basho? I bet he didn't have someone complaining about his mess, as he composed another classic haiku, like 'old pond, a frog jumps, the sound of water'. So why am I treated so much differently?"

With the last of the floor cleaned, she grabbed a broom and swept everything up, generating a rather large pile of dust, food bits, random hairs and other detritus. She even took the extra step of going out onto the porch and shaking the rug free of its mess, as she coughed the entire time. She raised a cloud of dirt and grime and the rug was pounded against the railing. "I hope my downstairs neighbors have their doors closed," she muttered as the beating continued. Eventually, all the bags were taken down to the waste area.

Wiping her brow, she was a bit embarrassed at the sheer amount of trash she had generated. "Maybe I shouldn't let things get too out of hand. Perhaps I can make just a bit of extra time each week to stay on top of it all." With that task completed, a mountain of bags at the trash pick-up spot showing her results, she came back up to attend to the rest of the apartment. She put books back on the shelves, but was muttering the entire time.

"What makes Shiori so special that she gets to go to the Academy? Hirutsu? Was that even a school? All the work I had to do to get where I was and she…she gets everything! I can't do much about her, but I can do something about Mahoro. I can out-point her when I need to. Suguru needs a real woman to show him the way to adulthood, not her! 'Dirty thoughts are bad.' Well, what other kinds of thoughts are worth considering?"

Heading into the bedroom, clothing was either put into drawers or the dirty clothes hamper. The bed was made, even though she would be using it later that evening. As she worked on the bathroom, she slipped into one of her salacious thoughts about Suguru….

It was a lovely candlelit dinner, with just the two of them. The balmy evening weather drifted in through the opened porch door. Saori was wearing her violin dress, which clung tightly about her. Suguru's will was crumbling as she turned on the charm.

"I…I…I….." Suguru was having a hard time getting his thoughts out as Saori came close, to give him a bit more food.

"I made this dinner, especially with you in mind," she purred. She brushed against his drink and it spilled into his lap. "Oh, my, I am such a klutz. Let's get you dried off before you catch a chill." She took him by the hand and led him towards the back area.

"No, that's OK. I'll be fine. It's only a little tea and…" His protests fell on deaf ears as they entered the bedroom.

"Now, let's get you into something a bit more comfortable," said Saori, as he helped Suguru out of his soaking pants. "Oh, my, it went all the way through. We do not need you to be getting a fever now, do we?" She went to a drawer and pulled out a pair of silk shorts, hanging them off of two fingers for him to take. "This might be more to your liking. Come along; change out so we can dry those things…."

"Ms. Shikijo? Is this even…proper?" Suguru was sweating profusely.

Saori began to unbutton his dampening shirt. "Of course it is, but if you are going to get that sweaty, let's give you a real reason for it."

Suguru then collapsed into her cleavage. "Yes! Yes! Show me the way! Show……"

Saori then looked about the room. Neat and trim, nothing was out of place at all. How could this have happened? she pondered. She heard the clock chime. It was still rather early, so she then stared over to the pile of laundry. She rubbed her chin in thought. She could get it all done tonight, and use the time in between loads to restock the fridge. Maybe even have a small dinner for the family done up. That would show Mom, yes!

She grabbed the clothes and her supplies and headed to the laundry room. It was deserted, for a change. Great! She took over three machines, got them going, and then headed to the store for a few items.

As she prowled the aisles, she sighed. She could not figure out how Mahoro made even simple dishes taste outstanding, but there was no way she would ask for the recipes. Even though she had made it into the finals of the Cooking Shogun Roadshow, Mahoro put on such a magnificent performance that her tuna stroganoff was a distant second. Runner-up again. She furrowed her brow in disappointment.

Shikijo pondered for a fleeting moment having Mahoro come over and cook for her, but, as long as Mahoro tolerated the near-nightly visits from her, she would never really go hungry and there was no need to really learn much more than was necessary.

It wasn't that she was that shabby of a cook; there was just no time to do it, much less the time to really do it properly. I mean, if I was a maid and could spend all day doing this or that, my meals would rival the top restaurants in all of Japan, she thought. Grabbing the basics to at least keep Shiori happy, she headed back home.

By the time she returned, the washing was done, so the drying could commence. Groceries were put away and she went to the dining room table and began to correct the test papers, which somehow were stacked neatly on the table. "Odd, I don't recall doing that." What was really going on around here? Gremlins? Kindly spirits? Perhaps she was actually living in an alternate reality and had been sucked through a vortex.

Sitting down, she began going through the papers. She started shaking her head 'no'. "I cannot believe that I am that bad of a teacher that they do not understand the concepts. This student is about as smart as a sack of doorknobs." When she got to Suguru's test, she laid that aside, pondering it. "He could really use some private tutoring………"

There was a knock on the door of Room 2-4. "Come in," called out Saori and Suguru entered. There is a lamb-like innocence to him, she thought.

"You….wanted to see me?" He was nervous.

"Yes, it is about your last test grade. Please shut the door." He shut the door and came over to her desk. She laid the paperwork out and had him look at it. "Please sit down at my desk. Now, what do you see wrong?"

Suguru was puzzled as he stared at the test. "Uh….this says I got them all right? I don't understand. What could be wrong?"

Saori leaned in to present her fulsome self to him. Suguru's eyes fluttered. Where to look? Look at her eyes and be mesmerized or stare into the depths of her cleavage. His glasses began to fog over as Shikijo spoke. "This is what's wrong: all work and no play make Suguru a dull boy. You need to take a break from this hard work. You need to….relax."

"But….but Mahoro helps me relax." Suguru swallowed hard.

"You need someone a bit more…..experienced, to help you relax in a special way. And that someone is me." Oozing charm from every pore, she stared deeply into Suguru's eyes. "Someone who knows the way." She began to trace her fingers about the buttons on his shirt.

"Uh, the way of the Ninja?" Suguru didn't know what to do, especially when Shikijo undid one of his shirt buttons.

"The way a growing young boy thinks and what he REALLY needs…………"

The door banged open. "Dirty thoughts are bad!"

Saori turned about to see Mahoro standing there, her hair horns twitching. "If anyone is going to show Suguru the way to being a man, it will be me, not some dried up old radish!" She then removed her maid outfit in a swift, single movement to reveal herself in rather provocative underwear.

"Is that your game? Well, I can play it, too!" And she removed her clothes as well. Mahoro gasped as Saori was very revealing in her undergarments. Saori made a fake yawn as she leaned towards Suguru. "If you want to walk the runway and put on a fashion show for him, we can, but you will come up a poor second." Saori turned to Suguru. "And what do YOU think, Suguru-kun?"

Suguru, stared at the both of them, then passed out………..

DING!

Saori looked up. All the papers were graded and stacked to one side, ready to take to school tomorrow. "Uh…..laundry!" She went down to see the clothes still spinning about. With nothing else to do, she watched the clothes jump and dance. She sighed. "Why do my clothes get more fun tumbling about than I do?"

The buzzers went off and she took them out and folded them in the room, bringing them up in the basket. Nice and warm, they were all put away. But she felt funny. Something was out of place. She did a tour of the apartment. Everything was done. Done?

One could enter the apartment and not trip over something or feel that if you fell down, you would be lost forever in a sea of trash and beer cans. She did a slow inspection of everything to see that there was nothing out of place or unattended to. A glance at the clock revealed it was done in record time. There was even a little time left to go to the bathhouse and clean up.

She sniffed under her arms. "Whooooooooo! My deodorant has failed me. I certainly can't be in my finest form. How can I rock when I reek?" Gathering up her bathing supplies, she headed out again into the fall night.

As she walked towards the baths, she was lost in thought. She still could not understand how it was possible everything was done. Fully done and completed. Things were set up for the following day so she didn't have to rush about and feel forced. All throughout her bath, she thought and thought and thought. It just did not add up.

As she soaked in the waters, barely feeling the luxuriousness of it all, she was deeply immersed in her thoughts. There just had to be fairies or sprites or some other kind of mystical woodland creatures that helped her along? Did the laws of time and space get altered? When she gets back home, would she discover that she really had lost a week of time and Shiori was hopelessly waiting for her to arrive at the Academy?

She toweled off and got dressed, still deeply immersed in her thoughts. She walked the quiet streets back to her apartment, still deeply immersed in her thoughts. She entered her apartment and locked the door, still deeply immersed in her thoughts. She got ready for bed, still deeply immersed in her thoughts.

As she was drifting off to sleep, she snapped awake and got up to look around one more time: under beds, in closets, around the bookcase, through the kitchen, a veritable tour of the apartment, still stunned at all she was able to accomplish all that she did in a mere evening.

Satisfied that it wasn't a fantasy or her imagination, she crawled back into bed. With the light turned off, she lay in the darkness, waiting sleep to overtake her; however, one thought kept going through her mind: "This is definitely strange."

MAHORO'S SYSTEMS WILL CEASE TO FUNCTION IN 312 DAYS

End Notes

Out of all of the people Mahoro knows, Saori is the most interesting. There is so much not known about her and a variety of clues leads one to believe that she may be an android or alien.

Now, we know that androids can drink and get drunk (seen in both the manga and the anime), but never have a hangover. Also, she never really seems to age (as seen in the final episode). Plus, comments Mahoro makes during the Dark Arts Festival adds to this suspicion that she is definitely not what she appears to be.

I have decided, for this story, to treat her like a real person and not an alien or android.

In fact, if you never read the manga, you would not know that she has two sisters, much less a really younger one (the same age as Suguru). Now, how old the older sister is (Yes, Saori is the child in the middle) is never mentioned and I didn't bother to bring the eldest daughter up at all for this tale. How much do you honestly know of her? Some things, sure, but you know just enough to know you don't know enough.

But the youngest sister is only mentioned in the manga, as is the academy. In fact, the episode in Season Two, where they go looking for a bomb on campus, actually has its roots in the manga for this time in November.

Shirakiku is actually a Vesper-caliber academy and a Management (or Keepers) rogue member had planted 50 bombs on the campus. 48 were found, but the last two were very stubborn. Mahoro was asked to enroll as a student to facilitate the discovery of the bombs. This "event" took place over a 10-day arc (November 17th to 26th).

The reference to Cromartie High School is that it is another manga/anime and that is one weird school. I do not think it is co-ed, but it just seemed like a good fit for her and her odd happenings.

The violin dress? Although this is a bit early in the overall story line, in one of the later manga stories, Saori goes to the park in the evening to play a violin. Although Mahoro and Suguru never actually see her, it is Saori doing a masterful execution of her instrument. She wears a special dress for just that occasion, thus I have dubbed it the violin dress. If it was black (OK, the manga is in black and white, but it is implied that it is another color) you would have called it a cocktail dress. It is certainly that style.

I chose the date that I did, as I wanted school to be in session, but that she is a bit unaware of the true machination of Ryuga at this time. The time line is a bit uncertain, but key points are known.

Ryuga saves Chizo on 8/31 (and the firefight on the roof of the Green Star Refined Sake building is later that same night), Mahoro pulls the gun on Ryuga at the school on 9/13 and the lunch at Suguru's house is on 9/21, which sets into motion the day at the theme park in Yokohama (9/22) and the Big Hospital Fight (in the early morning hours of 9/23.)

I did find it rather odd that she lives in an apartment that has no bath/shower. Perhaps this is a cultural thing and the bathhouse is more than just a place to bath and catch up on the latest gossip, but I just cannot see myself, naked, in front of a bunch of other people, naked. It's like high school gym class all over again (except no one is snapping a towel at my butt.)

As to the haiku poem she quotes, some of you will say that it is not the proper beats, and that it true, for that is the English translation. The original version, with the proper beats, goes: furuike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto. This is considered one of Basho's most famous haikus, if not THE most famous.