Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own KOF, Fatal Fury or related characters. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.
Sore ga Ai, Deshou?
Chapter Ten: Food, Glorious Food
Andy heard voices. That could only mean one of two things, either he was finally succumbing to dementia from lack of food or was close to the villa! He followed the direction of the voices and as he drew closer the sounds of human speech grew clearer until he could discern clear words. He broke out into a run. Sprinting through the trees he came out on the far side of the training field.
The blond ninja-in-training just barely remembered to pull off his tabi before entering the house and sprinting down the nightingale floor, creaking, chirping and squeaking as he went.
"Who's making that irritating racket!?" Saichi all but shouted, sticking her head out the kitchen to scold whomever it was that was barreling down the hall, making the floors wails with his passing.
Andy nearly smacked into her, only just barely managing to stop himself before the collision. "Saichi-san!"
"Oh, its you, puppy." The old woman crossed her arms over her sagging breasts. "And here I thought you were one of the quiet ones. When'd you get back anyway?"
"Just now." The boy answered hurriedly trying to see around her to where the other women of the family were preparing what looked like lunch. "Ya got anything to eat?" He swayed on his feet slightly, the past three days of not eating catching up with him.
"Lunch isn't ready for another hour." The old woman informed him.
"Oh, please?" The boy pleaded. "As a reward for completing the Course?" His stomach gave a loud rumble that could have easily been heard back out in the training field as if to add exclamation to his plea.
Saichi's eyebrows raised in surprise. "That, puppy, was impressive. But rules are rules." The woman shook her head. "Besides, it would just make Hanzo-dono look bad if his protégé couldn't wait one hour for lunch. No dice."
Andy placed one hand on the frame of the kitchen's sliding door in an attempt to steady himself, his vision beginning to sway in reverse to the swaying of his suddenly unsteady legs. "Just one little onigiri?" He made one final bid.
"Just one little hour."
He was going to try and continue arguing but the room suddenly tilted and Andy had one brief moment to wonder 'How did I get on the floor?' before blacking out completely.
Saichi nudged the unconscious boy with her toe. "Crap."
…
Mai walked along the beach pretending to be looking for shells or pretty rocks or whatever it was the people collected of the beach. She really wasn't all that interested in what she found, she was interested in perpetuating an excuse to avoid Koinosuke. He found the idea of collecting broken bits of shell or pebbles to be beneath him (but then again, lots of things seemed to be beneath him).
Nagare, in a vain attempt to get Koinosuke and Mai together, had insisted on training on the beach close to the water –close to were Mai was examining the sand around the dock for dead muscles. She would sneak covert glances at them every now and then, gauging where Koinosuke was in his koshijitus in comparison to her own level of ninjitsu or Andy's koppoujitsu.
She didn't think he was anything special, at least, not anything special compared to herself (of course, that could also just have been her bias against him talking).
It was one of these covert looks that she happened to notice Saichi coming toward her at a rapid pace (well, rapid for her). The old woman stopped just short of Mai.
"Sumimasen, Hime-sama." She began. "You were so helpful carrying luggage for me, would you mind helping me get something else up the stairs?"
"Sure." She was more than happy for any excuse to get farther away from her fiancé and his scheming grandfather. She set her pale of shells and sea stones on the dock and followed Saichi back into the house. "Wha'd you need to be carried?"
"Well, it's not exactly a 'what'."
They stopped just short of the kitchen and Mai notice the figure sprawled on the floor, clad in a dark forest green tunic and trousers with red-orange flames as trim, his blond hair thrown over his face obscuring his features. Still, there was only one natural blond on the whole island of Hagi.
"Andy!" Mai rushed to the boy's side. "Daijoubu desu ka!?" She shook his shoulder in an attempt to wake him but it had no effect.
"Would you mind helping me get him up to his room so that the Doc can look him over discreetly?" Saichi asked. "I figured if would only make Hanzo-dono look bad if it became public knowledge that his only apprentice had collapsed immediately after returning from the Course."
"Of course." Mai understood how much appearances mattered in her family. It was nice to know that she and her grandfather had Saichi as an ally. She hooked one of the unconscious boy's arms over her head and stood, taking as much of Andy's weight as she could and just dragging the rest of his body along the polished wood floor.
He was slightly taller than her and so his feet dragged across the ground making odd screeching-chips on the nightingale floor as the trio crossed to the stairs. Saichi lifted the blond fighter's legs as they ascended the stairs releasing them only to open the door for Mai when they reached his room.
"Special delivery." Mai muttered when they entered.
"The Hell happened to him?" Kazutaka asked, looking up from a sudoku.
"No idea." The girl replied while laying Andy out on a futon that Saichi hurriedly laid out for him.
Saichi called the Shiranui family's doctor to examine the unconscious Bogard. After taking the boy's pulse, temperature and asking Saichi to explain to him what had happened before the boy had fainted the Doc sat back and gave a small snort of derision. "The idiot's just faint with hunger."
"I should have just let him have an onigiri." Saichi muttered.
"Is that all?" Mai asked. "So he'll be alright?" She sat on the floor between Andy and her father. "That's a relief."
"Hm. I suppose the hakujin has become a sort of older brother to you." The Doc smiled. "I'll fix him up with an I.V. and then Saichi-san can fix him something more substantial when he wakes up."
"Thank you." Mai nodded.
"Well, I guess that's my cue to get my sorry ass back to the kitchen then." Saichi huffed and exited.
"Neh, Kazu, how's the leg?" Doc asked after she had gone, intentionally nudging Kazutaka's bad leg with his toe.
"Itai! Stop that you annoying-" He paused, glancing at his daughter before deciding it was better not to use the word he had been about to say. "I'll slap you with a malpractice suit so fast you won't be able to say 'not guilty'."
"Meh, you seem fine." The Doc shrugged.
"Oh, real great diagnosis there, Doc."
At this point Mai stood. "Sensei," she addressed the family doctor, "shouldn't you be getting that I.V. for Andy right now?"
"Of course, Hime-sama." He bowed politely. "See ya later, Kazu."
"And bring me some crutches when you do!" Kazutaka shouted after the retreating doctor. "I'm sick of laying in bed all day."
"You do seem allot better, 'Touchan." Mai observed. "You've got more color and energy."
"I told you it was just a flesh wound."
"Really…?" She poked his leg through the blanket.
"Ittai!" Kazu all but shouted. "Urg! Don't you start!"
She giggled softly at her father's expense. He probably was just fine and only playing up the injury because he had an affection for the theatrical and dramatic.
"So, how was your first day as an engaged woman?" Kazu asked in retaliation. Mai just groaned but offered no real response. "Hey, you poke my wounds, I poke yours."
…
The first thing Andy noticed in his waking moments was a stabbing pain in his arm, as if someone had jabbed a needle in the inside of his elbow and just left it there. Upon opening his eyes he found that that was exactly what someone had done. An I.V. hung from a stand next to his futon and was feeding some yellow-orange liquid directly into his veins.
"That bad, huh." He muttered to the ceiling.
"Finally awake, are you." Kazutaka's voice drifted to him from across the room. He was folding paper into various animals, vehicles, and shapes.
"What happened?" The boy asked while sitting up in bed.
"You decided to go anorexic on us in the middle of the Course. Not the smartest thing to do if you ask me, but if you were trying to test your endurance I'm impressed that you made it to the villa at all." Kazu replied as he unfolded the fold he'd just made and folded the paper back over the crease in the opposite direction.
"Urg." He laid back down on the futon. "So, now everyone in the family is now accusing Hanzo-sensei of wasting time and resources on teaching the family's techniques to a weak hakujin that can't even run a simple obstacle course. Great."
Kazu looked up from his origami. He hadn't expected the boy's first worries to be of his master's standing in the family, but rather of what his master would think of his apparent "failure" at the Course. Andy's misaligned priorities just showed how much he was being influenced by the family's stupid political bullshit.
"Actually, they don't know you're back yet." Kazutaka returned to his paper creation. "Saichi is very discreet and Mai-chan and the Doc can be when they want to. Mai was very upset that you fainted, by the way."
"I can't imagine why." The boy replied. "I'd think she'd be happy about it. It'd be one more thing she can throw in my face whenever she starts trying to banter with me. How could the family not know I'm back? I fell in front of the kitchen that was full of women. Don't tell me the Shiranui women don't gossip." Than Andy paused. "Is Hanzo-sensei upset with my weakness?"
Ah, there was the concern for his master's opinion of him. Any normal apprentice under any normal master would have asked that first. But Andy, under Hanzo's training in this stuffy and oppressive atmosphere was having his priorities skewed. He feared for his master's appearance and standing first and his master's opinion of him second. That wasn't the way martial arts (or anything for that matter) should be taught.
"Chichi-ue is just glad you're alive." Kazu said. "And like I said, Saichi can be very discreet. Imagine the looks that'll be on people's faces when you go down for dinner this evening as if you've always been here." He gave a short laugh. "I wish I could be there!"
"Why can't you?" The boy asked in utter confusion.
"I'm lame." He said, and the author didn't at all mean that to be a double entendre about how OCs are lame. Kazu pulled his blanket away just enough for Andy to see his heavily bandaged leg. "No stairs or walking for me. Though, if you want my opinion I'm fine and could walk if that over controlling quack would just give me some crutches!"
"Um… Kazutaka-sama, he probably isn't letting you up because you need to stay off your feet. He is a doctor after all." The blond ninja-in-training reminded him.
"T'ch." Kazu just scoffed.
…
Doc carefully withdrew the long I.V. needle from the inside of Andy's elbow and dabbed at the spot with a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic. The American ninja hissed as the stinging solution sent a stab of pain up his arm.
"Well, kiddo, looks like you're good to go." The Doc announced, tapping off the wound.
"Thank you." Andy muttered as the Doc released his arm. The boy went over to his travel bag and began pulling out the clothes he intended to wear to dinner. Since none of the other Shiranui knew he was here he wanted to make his entrance a good one, one he thought Hanzo-sensei might appreciate.
"Hey, Doc, how 'bout some crutches?" Kazu asked again.
The Doc regarded him for a second then held up and hand and asked, "How many fingers am I holding up?" As soon as he said this though he changed the number of fingers he was holding up and kept changing them at a rapid pase.
"Stop being an ass!" Kazu snapped. "You know I'm fine. You just like keeping me at your mercy, you schadenfreudian bastard!"
"Flattery will get you nowhere."
"Can I ask a question?" Andy asked as he pulled his dirty green tunic over his head and tossed it into a dirty laundry hamper in the corner.
"Sure." Said Kazu.
"You just did." Said the Doc.
"What's up with you two?" The boy unfolded the clean white tunic he'd chosen to wear and slipped it over his head. "You fight like my brother and I used to back when we were still together."
"We grew up together." The Doc said as if this were obvious.
"And this ass is just jealous because I actually got away form the family for a while and he didn't." Kazutaka jabbed a thumb at Doc as he said this.
"T'ch. As if! I love this family! What's not to love? Can't you feel the love?" The Doc scoffed. "No, if I'm jealous of you at all, Kazu, its because you got a hot and sexy wife for a while and all I got was… a medical license."
Andy began to regret asking. This obviously didn't concern him and he should have known by now not to stick his nose where it didn't belong. He tried to finish dressing as quickly as possible and excuse himself from the room.
"Ha! The truth comes out!" Kazu shouted.
"Don't flatter yourself. The only reason you got such a fine piece of ass was because I wasn't there to steal her out from under you. You know how women just can't resist rich young doctors."
"I'll just be leaving now…" They didn't even seem to notice Andy as he left. That was fine, let them continue their banter, it was no concern of his.
He slipped out, shutting the door behind him as silently as he could and made his way downstairs. The nightingale floor made its usual made its usual chirping and creaking sound as he passed over it and Andy couldn't help but wonder if there were a way for him to walk on the ground floor of the Hagi villa without making such an irritating racket. Saichi had once told him that it was for stealth training, he wondered if anyone had ever succeeded in walking silently on the floor and he wondered if he could learn it.
It would be a very useful skill when he finally returned to South Town to kill Geese and in the mean time it would certainly ease his stays here at Hagi. There was just something wrong about your own footsteps irritating the crap out of you. Andy liked things quiet. He supposed it was because of his somewhat rough childhood in South Town that made him crave the blissful serenity of silence but he wasn't going to get any of that ever if he was constantly making a creak-chirp sound with every step he took.
Andy slid open the dining room door and entered, announcing his presence with a soft, "Please excuse my tardyness."
"You're up!" Mai exclaimed in jubilation but her cry was drowned out by Nagare's baritone.
"When the blazes did you get here?"
The boy paused, considering how best to respond when Hanzo beat him to it. "I didn't know we were in the practice of teaching our ninja to announce their presence, Nagare." The old master muttered over the rim of his teacup. "But perhaps I was wrong. Andy-kun arrived earlier this afternoon. I'm surprised you hadn't notice yourself, you must be getting old."
The dining room erupted with laughter at the irony of Hanzo's jibe, because Nagare was the younger of the two. He bit the inside of his cheek, most likely to keep from saying something he would regret and took a long sip from his own teacup. "T'ch."
Andy took a seat next to his master and Saichi served him a bowl of rice with steamed vegetables and sliced pork. 'Food! Glorious food!' "Itedakimasu!" He said with just a bit too much enthusiasm.
"'Touchan still can't come down?" Mai asked, leaning forward slightly to see Andy from around her grandfather whom sat between them.
The blond ninja-in-training hurriedly swallowed the mouthful of rice and vegetables he'd been chewing to answer her question. "He and Doc-sensei were arguing about women and degrees when I left so I have no idea."
"Oh, I see." She looked back down at her meal.
They lapsed into silence after that, Andy trying his best not to eat too quickly and appear slovenly and Mai eating slowly and daintily, the perfect picture of the ideal Japanese woman. All the wile the rest of the family played through their standard script of mealtime conversation.
"So-and-so made good progress today."
"Oh, thank you. We're quite proud of him/her."
"Wasn't the weather nice today?"
"Yes, it was ideal."
And so on…
That was until Shizune paused in her meal to address Master Hanzo. "Hanzo-donno," she smiled that coy smile of hers that Andy had come to know meant she was planning something, "since Mai-chan is engaged to my Koinosuke-chan now I think she should spend the rest of the summer with us after we leave from Hagi. What do you say?"
This shouldn't have been news for Andy, he's known that Shizune and her father had been pushing the marriage between Mai and Koinosuke for a while, the fact that they had become formally engaged during his absence shouldn't have come as a shock to him. Yet, for some reason, he found himself choking on his rice.
Hanzo patted him hard on the back until his coughs subsided then pushed the boy's teacup into his hands. "Here, puppy, drink something and for the love cripes, eat slower!"
"Hai, Sensei." He gasped after a couple swallows of tea.
Mai's eyes had gone wide with horror upon hearing Shizune's proposition. She was now staring fixedly at her grandfather, awaiting his decision. She didn't want to spen the remainder of the summer trapped in a house with Koinosuke, his self-serving mother and ambitious grandfather.
"I don't know…" Hanzo began slowly.
"Of course, we'll have her back to you before school starts." Shizune added quickly. "We can't have the future head of the clan missing her studies, now can we."
"No, no we can't." Hanzo agreed, his eyes flicking between her and Nagare, studying their features and how they held themselves for any ulterior motive, he knew one was there but couldn't see it in their faces. His eyes flicked briefly to Mai, he already knew her feelings on the matter but still needed to weigh her discomfort against keeping up good family relations. "But I think this is a question better suited for her father."
Shizune's lips curled into a second smile, this one sly. Telling her to ask Kazutaka was just delaying the inevitable. "I think you're right. I apologize for my impertinence."
…
After dinner, Hanzo-sensei pulled Andy to the side and hissed in his ear, "Meet me on the training field after your meal has settled."
The boy only nodded before Mai came breezing by and latched onto his arm, pulling him away across the nightingale floor and out into the garden. "Follow me." She hissed as she dragged him along. Andy, for his part, felt a bit like a rag doll. She released him only when they were outside, the sliding screen shut behind them.
Mai lay down on the grass looking up at the summer stars. Andy just stood over her in utter confusion. Did she want something from him or was she just practicing to be head of the family by ordering him around uselessly?
He was about to turn to leave when she said, "Tell me how horrible it was in South Town."
Andy paused and stared at her dumbfounded. "Why?"
"To remind me that life isn't as bad as it could be." She answered matter-of-factly. "To bring me back down to Earth and put me in my place. Remind me that I'm a pampered princess and my problems aren't that bad in the grand scheme of the universe."
"Are you okay?" He sat beside her on the grass.
"I got engaged yesterday while you were away."
"Congratulations?"
"Don't be an ass." She rolled over onto her elbow to glare at him.
"Should you be using that word?" How was it that her eyes could shine like that in dark with nothing but dim starlight to reflect off them?
"What are gonna do? Run and tell my daddy or Ojisama?" The she sobered and rolled back onto her back. "'Touchan can't do anything for me anymore and Ojisama… Ojisama's always caught between a rock and a hard place."
"I'm sorry." And he truly was. As annoying as Mai could be at times he did kinda like her (in a big brother sort of way) and it did bother him to see her sad.
"Tell me about South Town." She urged.
Andy was silent a moment, he watched the bright yellow and orange chrysanthemums sway in the cool summer breeze and remembered how hot the summers were in South Town. True, they didn't have the same humidity that Japan was cursed with but with the heat of summer came the stink of warm sewage cooked in the sewers that ran beneath the city, heated by the summer heat, the fumes wafted up out of ever grate and man-hole on the East side.
He much preferred the humid summers of Japan to the pestilent summers of South Town.
"Well?" Mai urged.
"Summer wasn't as nice there as it is here." He began. "The city wasn't exactly the cleanest place in the world and the summer heat just made it worse. By the way, did you know that average rate of murders is higher in the summer than any other season? I can't speak for the rest of the US but in South Town I blame that on the waste…"
Mai propped herself back up on her elbow to listen to Andy's tales of poverty and woe.
…
As ordered Andy reported to Hanzo-sensei on the training field after Mai had finally released him from his story telling. He stood at attention before his master awaiting orders.
"At ease, puppy." Hanzo waved off his overly stiff gesture of obedience and discipline. He held out a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied off with rough twine to Andy.
The boy accepted the item and regarded it curiously. "My birthday's not until next month, Sensei."
"It's not a birthday present, it's a 'try not to starve yourself to death in the middle of a training exercise' present." The old man huffed.
"Oh." Andy quickly unwrapped the packaged to fine seven little mochi balls, or at least what looked like mochi balls inside. "What are…?"
"A combination of ginseng, rice, flour, and potatoes that's been soaked in sake for three years." Hanzo answered. "We call them 'Hunger Pills' and if it weren't for them I don't think I ever would have made it out of Manchuria, least not alive. I'll have Saichi teach you how to make them yourself tomorrow, but for tonight put them away."
The boy obediently retied the package and stowed it in his pocket.
"Tonight," Hanzo continued, "we step up your training. You're a good fighter, Andy, but I'm not teaching you just how to fight. I'm teaching you how to achieve your ends whatever they may be however you can. Either by strategy, trickery or subterfuge."
Andy nodded.
"You've already mastered the three most basic parts of combat, that of Te, Ude and Kata. Now you will begin to learn higher skills, those of Kakejin and Ashi."
Again, Andy nodded, though he didn't know what either of those two words meant.
"We will begin with Kakejin."
…
Kakejin, Andy quickly learned was a training exercise where the trainee was hung from a strong tree branch (or in his case a bar that had previously been used for pull-up) while wearing sacks of stones round his shoulders and waist for an undisclosed time (although Hanzo-sensei assured him that it would be no longer than eight hours… 'great').
The purpose of this exercise was to raise the trainee's endurance to a level necessary for hanging from ceilings and rafters for long periods of time while lying in wait for a target… like Geese Howard.
Finally, for the first time since coming to Japan he felt like he was actually progressing toward his goal, not just progressing but moving towards a goal, his goal.
…
The following day was the first of Obon and Andy was glad for the training that Hanzo had given him last night for there was to be no training during the three day long Lantern Festival, the celebration for the dead. Andy felt his resolve to defeat Geese and avenge his father renewed and in ever Obon practice he participated in he renewed his promise to see Jeff's murderer brought to justice.
On the eve of the third day, when everyone gathered on the beach to set their lanterns floating on the gentle waves of the sea to guide the spirits home, Andy whispered his promise aloud.
Whispering in English, he vowed to see to it that either he or Terry killed the man that had killed their father and hurt so many others in his rise to power. The kingpin of South Town had stepped on so many to get to the top but the higher he climbed the farther he would fall and Andy intended to be there when he did.
He set his lantern, Jeff's lantern, to drift on the gentle waves of the summer current and wished Jeff a safe journey back to the afterlife.
…
The family's stay at Hagi concluded, Doc finally gave Kazutaka the crutches he so desired and the man was finally able to leave his room, Saichi gave Andy a recipe for a simple variation of the 'Hunger Pills' Hanzo-sensei had given him, in the end Hanzo and Kazu had given into Shizune's request and Mai went home with them for the remainder of the summer. She returned her father and grandfather's waves of 'fair well' with a very rude hand gesture that he didn't even know she knew.
And so the three men, well, two and a half men returned to the house in Mino minus their precious little princess.
"How long has it been since its just been us guys?" Kazutaka asked after throwing his travel bag down in the entrance hall and leaning his crutches against the wall to sit down and remove his tabi.
"Never." Answered Andy.
"Since your mother died." Answered Hanzo.
"Ya know what that means?" Kazu looked up ginning.
"No?" Answered Andy.
"Absolutely nothing." Answered Hanzo.
"It means we can walk around in our underwear and just leave our dirty clothes wherever and belch as loud as we want to and-"
Kazu was cut off suddenly by Hanzo reaching into the sleeve of his haori and removing one of his concealed fans, the old master then proceeded to smack him up side the head with his own fan.
"Just try and do any of that and you'll be out on your ass faster than you can say 'exiled'."
"Hai, chichi-ue." Kazu instantly demurred.
…
Kakejin an actual ninjitsu training technique (go ahead, look it up). Roughly translated it means "the hanged man" and is pretty accurate to what I described in the narrative.
Likewise, the Hunger Pills were also a real thing. There are several types, the two most common ones being the recipe mentioned in the narrative and one made from honey, grains (like wheat), carrots, rice and sake. There is also a thing called a Thirst Pill meant to stave off dehydration. They're made from pickled plums, sesame seeds or leeks.