(As translated from volume two of Keiichi Sigsawa's Kino's Journey, with gratitude to the Baka-Tsuki Project.)
Overprotection
— Do you need it?
It was their second day in the country.
While on her way to pick up Hermes at the car park after lunch, Kino encountered a bickering couple in front of her bike. They appeared to be a married couple in their thirties, and beside them stood a boy, about ten years old and looking more than a little lost.
The father said, "that's why I'm telling you - you're being overprotective."
The mother retaliated with, "no! You are being stubborn. This is for his own good."
The three were blocking her way to Hermes. Kino began by clearing her throat. "Ahem!" But before she could manage to say, "excuse me, may I pass through and get to my bike behind you?" the father noticed her and asked, "what do you think?"
"Huh? About what? I didn't hear the conversation." Kino cocked an eyebrow, amused by the sudden question. But before the father could explain himself, the mother interjected, "this stubborn man insists that our boy doesn't need a bullet-proof vest."
"Why would he need something like that?" asked Kino.
"The war, of course! Our son is joining the army," replied the father.
"War?"
"Yes, it broke out a few months back. It is the first one we've had since the country was founded. The army has been recruiting soldiers for the front lines. My son will be joining them today. Not to boast, but he will make a fine soldier, probably will return a hero too! But this foolish wife of mine keeps insisting that he wears a bullet-proof vest. What nonsense."
"Honey, the vest will protect our son from shrapnel."
"He just needs to crouch down to avoid that, not to mention there are trenches to take cover in."
"Even so, it will protect him from all sorts of things. He can't be a hero if he gets hurt; our son needs to be able to do his best to become a hero."
"But won't the vest be heavy? He can't move freely if he's bogged down. Also his squad will ridicule him if he's the only one wearing one."
"All he needs to do is say it's a gift from his loving mother."
After listening to the parents, Kino glanced at the boy and said in a carefully neutral tone, "why don't you ask the boy's opinion?"
"Oh... you're right! What do you think, Timmy? You will listen to mommy, won't you?" The mother bent down to gently place her hands on his shoulders.
The father also squatted down next to him, and held up an encouraging fist. "Come on son! You are a man, right? Real men don't need this junk."
"Don't worry, Mommy and Daddy will respect your decision."
"That's right, boy!"
The boy answered with a quaver in his voice, "I... I don't wanna go to war."
The father immediately stood up and said in a hard voice, "we're doing this for your own good!"
The mother also stood up and stared down at her son. "You need to join the army and become a hero. That way you will be able to enter a good college and university, and then you will get to work for a large company. Don't you understand? We are doing this for you. Didn't you say your friends in class are joining too? You don't want to lose touch with them, do you?"
"But... Johnny's parents won't let him go."
The mother began to raise her voice at her son. "What Johnny did is not our problem; you should decide for yourself."
"You shouldn't compare yourself with others."
The poor boy's face went pale with terror after this outburst from his parents. The mother took out a brand new bullet-proof vest from her bag. The small vest was still wrapped in plastic, with a piece of card attached which read, "to our brave young soldiers! Specially designed to reduce stress to the shoulders. Now with adjustable height to suit growing children. Ideal for long term use."
She half-squatted to place one hand behind her son, gently urging him. "Put this one on and let's go to the recruitment center. Don't be scared. Mommy will be with you."
"See? Like I said, you're being over protective."
"I just want the best for our son!"
"I know. Just stop overdoing it."
And so the bickering began anew. In the midst of it, the boy timidly said again, "I don't wanna go."
"Not again! You must have inherited that cowardice from your mother's side."
"What? Ooooh! He's as stubborn as you are, you old mule!"
Again the boy protested, now almost crying, "I... really... don't want to go!"
Kino interjected, her voice still carefully controlled, "maybe you should rethink this, with the boy."
The parents gave Kino a horrified and insulted look.
"Why don't you mind your own business? This is a family matter."
"Yeah, this is our problem! We really are doing this for our child."
"Right," Kino nodded. "I'll do that."
"Come on." The mother grabbed the boy's hand and began to drag him away. "We should head to the recruitment center before it's too late. We'll decide about the vest once we get there."
"Let's go, Timmy."
Kino watched as the parents dragged their son away.
She shook her head, and then turned back towards Hermes. The motorcycle greeted Kino with his wispy voice as she kicked up the stand.
"Must have been tough."
Kino answered honestly before hopping onto Hermes. "Yeah. It was."
Overprotection II
— Canticle
Gia skipped back toward the garage, carrying her old gear in a burlap sack and whistling a cheerful "doo-wop" tune Christine had taught her on the road. The sun was just starting to set, early morning for her these days. They'd stopped at a town to drop off their cargo. Turned out the place was in a state of war. Who was at war with whom, and why, she was foggy about and she didn't particularly care.
The black market in the area had been very pleased with the delivery – weapons she presumed, but Gia had deliberately resolved never to ask what they were carrying. The man had volunteered good prices on some interesting new toys. She'd purchased a much better bullet-proof vest, complete with trauma plates and relatively concealable. She'd found a clever little capsule that could be hidden inside the mouth, anchored between the teeth. When bitten, it became a kind of blowgun spraying incapacitant. Sneaky and dangerous, and illegal in most places, something she'd need to manage.
As she walked back to the garage, she found a trio, obviously a family, standing in the lot bickering. They didn't matter except they blocked her car's path to the exit. They had no idea as Christine was a level down – even when the car was quiescent people instinctively avoided crossing in front of her radiator. Still, it was annoying that people could be so oblivious.
"Why can't you be brave like your older brother?" Gia heard the mother say.
"But the bullet-proof vest didn't do Timmy any good!" The father announced, exasperated. Gia's ears perked, and she stopped to listen.
"Oh, just because of that you refuse to take any precautions at all!"
"Excuse me, young lady!" The father said. "Are you eavesdropping?"
"Oh!" Gia smiled her gruesome smile. "You happen to be in the path my car has to take to get out of this garage. Would you mind?"
"Of course!" The man nodded and escorted his wife and son to the side.
"Forgive me for asking," Gia ventured. "Did you say you were buying a bullet-proof vest for your son?"
"That's right," the mother confirmed.
"No," the father said at exactly the same moment.
The little boy remained silent.
Gia rummaged about in her bag. "I could sell my old one cheap 'cause I just replaced it with a much better one. He looks about my size if we let out the clasps at the waist."
"That's very kind of you, miss," the mother said. "But only the best for my little boy."
"Now wait just a second!" The father countered. "How much?"
Gia mentally computed the exchange rates and figured a little depreciation on her used vest. Then she automatically doubled the result and quoted it.
"We'll take it," the father said. Then to his wife, "are you satisfied now?"
"No!" the mother shouted helplessly. But Gia didn't want to let the deal slip away; she accepted the money and handed over her old armor.
"Dear... apple of my eye and love of my life," the husband said to his wife in a tone that said she was anything but, "Timmy was shot in the head. Even the best bullet-proof vest—"
"—would have made him keep his head down!" the woman said without much in the way of logic that Gia could follow. But she wasn't about to argue the point with a bereaved mother.
"The war?" Gia asked.
The father nodded.
Gia looked to the boy... for a boy he was, just on the cusp of adolescence. "Do you want to go?" she asked kindly, but directly.
The boy's eyes widened for a moment...
"Otto hasn't spoken a word since his brother-" then the woman broke off...
...because the boy shook his head emphatically "no."
"Son!" The father said, shocked. "You must be brave, like Timmy!"
Unnoticed, Gia started trembling like the lid of a pot set over a fire too long.
"And wear your bullet-proof vest!" The mother said urgently.
"Oh, I do not fucking need this!" Gia exploded. "You've both been brainwashed by the state to gut your own children on the altar of so-called patriotism. How about not sending him to the sausage-grinder? Huh?"
"How dare you!" the mother husked!
"Young lady," the husband sputtered, "I should report you to the police for such talk."
Gia started walking down the ramp. "Yeah yeah, sedition. Blasphemy. Heard it all before. That's why I keep moving. You shitters're both hopeless and to hell with you." She gave them an obscene gesture as she descended the ramp.
"Oh," the wife said from the depths of her hissy-fit. "If only I was a man I'd—"
"You'd what? Send your son to fight me? Hey kid!" Gia stopped and waved to the boy. "Get yourself captured soon as you can, 'kay?" With a wink and a mimed gunshot, she vanished around the corner. She half-hoped the father would follow her so she could laugh at his mad scramble from Christine's onrushing grille, but no such luck.
"'Washes the ground with silvery tears.' Y'know," Christine interrupted their usual karaoke "doing things like that's gonna get you killed some day."
"Yeah, but at least I'll die without regrets," Gia answered breezily while they cruised at just over the posted speed limit. "And you wanna know something? It feels great. Swear I've discovered the secret to happiness. If I hadn't told those shitters off I'd have been grouchy all night. Maybe I should become a guru and write one of those self-help books?"
"How to Make Enemies and Piss People Off?"
Then a sad look crossed Gia's face, momentarily distorting her usual insipid smile. "But I didn't make any difference. The boy's still gonna get carted off to the front. All I did was blow steam. Talk's cheap." She felt the little hairs on her neck bristle, and knew before she looked that she'd see her own parents' faces in the rear view mirror.
"True," Christine was genuinely trying to reassure her driver. "But maybe what you said'll save the boy's life. At least you tried, and that means all the difference to you. To me too. Now more from your diaphragm this time, hun."
"You're a strange creature, Christine. Y'know that?" Gia patted the steering wheel.
"Huh! People think of my sisters and me – if they think of us at all – as monsters. Once upon a time, the Furies were the dealers of justice and retribution. Now we're forgotten." The voice had turned wistful, even sad. "'...And to fight for a cause they have long ago forgotten.'"
"'Then she'll be a true love of mine,'" Gia sang in counterpoint. They had reached the city limits, and the safe embrace of a moonless night awaited them. Gia pressed harder on the accelerator. "And yet, you call yourself evil," she mused aloud.
"I am what I am, and can't be anything else. It's the world that changed."
"...at least I'll die without regrets."
.