 |
Gen2: Her Return
“What the hell? She’s too fast! This isn’t right at all! How can this be happening?” Thoughts such as these raced through the mind of Ginta Harada, school jock (Or should that be, “school jerk?”), as he watched his friends get their asses whooped by a laughing, maniacal teenage girl. Her startling green eyes flashed in glee as she took on her schoolmates and single-handedly over-powered all seven boys.
Ginta stood rooted to the ground a few feet away from the scuffle, unable to look away due to morbid fascination, his dark eyes taking in every gory detail as the girl tore through his counterparts without the aid of any weapons, her long, raven hair whipping around her small body like a sleek, graceful animal, encircling her in a ribbon of hair. She seemed then to be moving in slow motion, enjoying herself fully, taking great pleasure in rearranging their arrogant faces.
Then, suddenly, in one horrifying moment, he realized that she had finished with them and was now making her way, inch by inch, in his direction. He zeroed in onto her face and gave an uncharacteristically pathetic squeal: the expression on her face was enough to send him into shock. Her lips were twisted into one sick smile and her eyes seemed to almost spit green fire. Ginta had never seen any woman look so evil. Men, he had seen with auras of such frightening malice and he had never even flinched in their presence, but women? Never! It just wasn’t normal!
“What’ll it be, you a*****e?” she sneered venomously. “I warned you the last time: leave Iori alone.” The last bit was almost growled as she approached him and all he could do in answer was stutter uselessly before collapsing into a much undignified heap at her feet as his consciousness slowly drained away.
She grunted in disappointment before swinging round to locate the one she had rescued amidst all the bodies on the basketball court.
“Iori?” she called, and heard a pitiful groan from somewhere in the melee. She ran over and kicked out of the way one of the unconscious punks who was slumped over her cousin.
“Thanks,” he muttered on his belly, rubbing his head from either pain or disbelief. “Are you aware that what you just did wasn’t exactly normal for girls your age?” Or girls in general, he thought. She told him to shut his face the hell up and gave him a little prod in the forehead with her sneaker-clad foot, then offered him her hand.
“Ow! It’s true!” he groaned as she yanked him to his feet. “Hey, easy! You just aren’t human.” He received a sudden elbow in his stomach for that remark and doubled over in sheer pain. “Sorry. Sorry,” he gasped, throwing up his hands in total surrender. “Now let’s leave this carnage you brought on---” He had to duck as she swung at him with her clenched fist. “---Before you’re caught and suspended once again for fighting.”
They left the basketball court and approached the taps outside the changing rooms for him to get cleaned up. He had been dragged out of the classroom by Ginta and his friends who wanted to punish him for---
“Hogging all the female attention in the school,’’ he informed her, quoting Ginta from earlier on. “Kitsune, what the hell is wrong with people? I can’t exactly help it if I look this way.” And he wasn’t just being smug. Iori had unusual features, being Japanese-American with brooding chestnut eyes and smooth platinum hair, with locks that ended in shiny jet-black tips that he had razored to give him a spiky look; because of his unique appearance, he was often the focus of attention wherever he went, including at school. Almost everyone believed that he dyed his hair and refused to accept that it was his natural hair-colour. He often got into trouble with the teachers on a morning and with the discipline committee of the school because of it, and he faced a constant barrage of physical attacks from the male half of the student body for attracting alot of ogling from the second half of the school, the girls.
“It’s too bad you’re such a wimp,” Kitsune pointed out rather callously, making him choke under the running water from the pipe. “I’m tired of coming to your rescue. I’m not your own, personal knight in shining armour. What will happen to you on the day I get sick or--or take a school holiday? You have to grow a backbone, Sasaki!”
He sighed sadly, acknowledging silently that she was right. This had been the third time for the week that she had come to his aid, and quite frankly, he, himself, was becoming tired and frustrated of having to rely so heavily on his best friend and cousin, Kitsune.
“God! I can’t let Kenji or Keichi hear about this. They’ll laugh me to death!” he whimpered. For answer, she had sniggered, but when she read the melancholy glittering in his eyes, her expression softened. This was her cousin who was more like her brother because the two of them had grown up together in the same house. She, of all people, could understand how deflated he felt. She knew that not being able to defend himself since he was sick all the time gnawed at his ego.
“Come on, Iori,” she said more gently, “Let’s go home. Dad told me that your Mom sent you a package from Rome.” She knew that the news would immediately lift his spirits and it did, because at once, his face lit up and he beamed his pearly whites at her.
8 Years Later
Just then, as she was crouched on her old bedroom window-sill for the first time since she had left home, staring at her cousin once more in the face, she could not believe that this was the same kid. He was taller than she was and had grown into his arms, which had always been too long and thin for him back then. He wasn’t exactly muscular but he was lean, with a wider frame than she remembered, wearing ash-grey office slacks and a deep purple sweater-vest with the sleeves scrunched up to the elbows. He was bare-footed and his sleek platinum and black hair was wet and clinging to the sides of his face.
She had not recognised him when he had first sauntered into the room, and she had tensed every muscle in her body, poised to defend herself if it came right down to it. His eyes and hair had been concealed by a towel that was draped over his head.
“I see you’re still as surreptitious as ever,” he had said with a deep, rumbling laugh. “Kitsune.” Then he had removed the towel and slung it across his shoulders and she had realised who he was, with a shock. Both of them took a few, quiet moments to size each other up and right then, Kitsune was slowly sliding off the window sill to stand before him at full height.
“Okay...” she began a sheepish explanation, putting out her hands in front of her. “I know this looks suspicious: me, wearing all black and sneaking into the house through an upstairs window, but I assure you it’s not like I’m here to steal or anything.” Actually, she was but he didn’t really need to know that right then.
She saw his jaw tighten in displeasure and his chestnut eyes had hardened into twin basalt stones. “Is that all you can say?” His words were softly spoken, but were tinged with ice. “We haven’t seen each other in eight years and that’s how you greet me?”
“I’m sorry.” Her face fell. “But I thought that I wasn’t welcome here anymore. I didn’t know how you would react to seeing me again. I think it’s better if I leave.”
He laughed, totally amused. “You? Running away?” he asked in disbelief, and she could tell he was still smiling without even looking up. “Neechan.”
Gen 2: Her Return (Part II)
Her eyes darted up to his face upon her hearing the term of endearment coming from his lips. It had been quite a long time since she had last been called “big sister” by him, or by anyone else for that matter. She closed her eyes, savouring the reverberations of its phonetics deep within her cavernous heart, that one little word jarring her long-suppressed memories of happier times in her childhood, growing up there in Warruko City, in that house that had brought her child’s mind such innocent elation, and with her cousin. When she reopened her eyes, she was unaware of the melancholy that reflected out of their sea-green depths and contrasted with the smile that curved her mouth into soft lines.
“I always told you that I should be the one calling you ‘niisan’, Iori,” she reminded him softly. “But you never really listened.” She cast her eyes to a side, resolving inside to do what had to be done, regardless of the immediate consequences. She forced herself to remember her mission, chanting it over and over in her head to give her the strength necessary to complete her task. “I didn’t come here to reminisce, th--“ She couldn’t complete her sentence, to spill what she really had returned for, since he had come up to her so suddenly and wrapped her up in an embrace that threatened to break her into two, both physically and emotionally. He smelled of chocolate and cherries, and of home....
“I said I wanted my hug, onna,” he stated matter-of-factly, his chin resting on her head and his arms holding her so tightly that her lungs could not draw breath. When did he get so strong? “I’ve missed you, Kitsune.”
Sputtering against him, she clenched her fists and pounded down against his shoulders, fighting for air. Laughing knowingly, he gave her one more rib-bruising squeeze, extorting a pitiful squeak out of her before releasing her, and she stumbled away from him, gasping as air filled her lungs once more and the burning sensation in her chest dissipated. “Were you always this scrawny?” Her chin shot up once more at his gentle teasing. “Didn’t you used to have more meat on your bones?”
Scowling darkly, she eyed him from head to toe once more. The Iori she knew was still in there. It surprised her and slightly pissed her off that he had gotten taller than her. He had always been lanky, but now, there was no hint of his sickly state, and his body was leaner with a bit more brawn than he had ever possessed before. He was still as pale as ever, but he appeared healthier than she had always known him before. And she knew why.
“And I thought that you would never sport a purple sweater vest?” she returned with a slanted brow. “Where’s all the Goth garb? I thought that you would have thoroughly revolutionized corporate work attire by now.”
Chuckling softly, he spun round and tossed his butt down onto the bed. “Trust me, neesan, I have my days.”
|
 |
Reply
But like I told Undead, my ideas are all super cliche...