Don't Look, Then Don't Look Again
The heat of the day, added to the slow burn of simmering rage. Temperatures rising from within and without.
You could just about always count on a football game for certain things and unless the team figured out that they had to get the ball to Kanna a lot more, just about none of them would be offense. But a proper field needed to take up a certain amount of space, which was steadily scaled up as the players headed towards adulthood. And if the game was being run correctly, then it was pretty much guaranteed to take up a minimum amount of time.
Saikawa took out her phone, activated the screen just long enough to look at the homescreen display clock, then forced herself to put it away for twelve endless eternities before checking it again and somehow, a dozen emotionally-measured infinities kept working out to roughly three minutes.
She went back for another drink, as the sun continued to beat down on steaming bleachers and heated forehead. Then another.
Shortly after that, the natural consequences caught up with her. She exited the toilet area just in time to hear the last fading echoes of cheers, because of course Kanna had scored a goal while she'd been in there and Saikawa had missed it. The sensible thing to do was blame the foreign boy. Even with the heat, there was no way she would have drank that much if she hadn't been trying to empty out the vending machine's most crucial stock.
(Scoring meant Kanna had gotten a shot past the boy. This proved the beautiful girl to be the stranger's superior. Forever.)
She stomped back to the bleachers, carrying everything with her because there was no way she could abandon Kanna's possessions and the boy's stuff pretty much had to come along too: the alternative was not having lunch. And then she plopped back down on the too-hot seat, made herself watch the game through focusing almost exclusively on Kanna...
Her dress is dirty.
Kanna liked to remain clean. Elegant, which was another reason why the white-haired girl preferred complicated dresses. But it was a game, and so she was running around in a dirty dress without a care.
They could always go back to Miss Kobayashi's apartment to change. Or... Kanna usually had at least a little money and when it came to clothing, a trip to the shopping arcade meant --
-- she didn't want to think about it. She didn't have to. It was so much easier to just sit on what was starting to feel like a blistering surface and dedicate herself to not looking at the boy. She couldn't risk so much as a single glance. It felt as if a mere instant of having her attention resting on his stupid face would send every last degree of heat lancing out through her pupils. Burning him where he stood, until there was nothing more than fast-scattering ashes in the goal and as a little bonus, that would allow Kanna to more easily score --
-- she was allowed to have fantasies like that. Saikawa didn't believe she could actually do it, and that would have been the first sign that chuni was taking hold. When it came to the power fantasies inherent to Middle-Second Syndrome, Saikawa firmly believed that they were all stupid and would remain so even when she reached the crucial school year. A real fantasy would be to dream of doing ordinary things. That which just about everyone else could manage, while Saikawa continued to struggle.
Like making friends easily.
(Kanna was enough, but -- Kanna had pretty much been an accident.)
Like making friends at all.
(Why would Kanna want to stay with someone like her?)
She watched the game, as much as she could. Felt the heat rise on endless waves of anger and frustration, carefully twinned to inadequacy. And she waited, because she always waited for Kanna.
She might have to wait for years before the right moment came. The perfect second in which to confess. But confession took words, and when it came to speaking...
What would be a real power to claim from dream? That was easy. Knowing what you were going to say before you said it.
Not after.
The game ended without injuries. Heat effects from having to sit on something which the summer had turned into a giant outdoor kotatsu weren't considered to count.
The football match had consumed well over an hour, and Kanna wanted to eat. She and the boy sat down in the bleachers, with neither seeming to truly feel the heat. And Saikawa had been ready to move, prepared to sit between the two and prevent contact, but -- there wasn't time, and she wound up on the edge of proceedings, with the boy between her and the one she loved. This maintained even when the others sat down for the second time, because Kanna had felt the need to walk the foreigner through his first vending machine purchase.
"There's no vending machines where he comes from," Saikawa didn't quite ask.
Kanna looked at the boy, whose slightly-scrunched features were demonstrating the foreign version of an awkward look. Whispers went back and forth.
"Older ones," Kanna finally said. "Just scales and counterweights."
Maybe he doesn't have a phone because he can't figure out how to turn one on. Saikawa had already decided that for the boy and his unseen sister to not have phones was a demonstration of irreconcilable strangeness, and she had made that observation as an expert: someone who'd had her own for less than a month.
Bentōs were distributed. The foreign boy got sweet and sour pork with pineapple-based sauce and more of the acidic fruit in a side compartment. This pleased Saikawa immensely, because she hated the dish and presumed that anyone with taste would feel the same way --
-- and naturally, she was dealing with a boy.
The current best way to describe his eating was 'indiscriminate', if only because she was saving 'completely uncivilized' for a special occasion. He didn't bother to thank anyone before starting on the meal: that most basic act of manners was something which needed to be explained to him.
Chopsticks? He could hold them. For short periods, most of which ended when he moved his fingers in just the wrong way and wound up flinging the slim pieces of birch to distant regions: unfortunately, going far enough to retrieve them didn't take him home. But during those times when he wasn't balling up his hands and trying to press them against the wood as if it might do something, he could absolutely hold the chopsticks. Holding any food with them was a lost cause.
He didn't really go from box compartment to compartment. He visibly savored the flavors, and then he mixed them at seeming random to see what else he could get. Inquires were made regarding napkins, which put him on the explaining end because if you were making so much of a mess while eating that you needed to wipe your face, then you were probably hopeless with chopsticks, using your fingers, and taking far too much food at once. He qualified on all three counts. 'Napkins' failed to materialize, and wouldn't have helped with his decision to lick out the corners of the box. Which was utterly disgusting, even if it was something Miss Elma did all the time.
(Saikawa had to reluctantly admit that the boy wasn't quite as bad as Miss Kobayashi's coworker. Miss Elma would have tried to claim any leftovers from the other two boxes, usually before anyone else had finished eating. And then she would have tried to mooch refreshments from the sidelines. There was also a rumor which claimed you could get anything from a vending machine for free if you just knew its master code, and Miss Elma was going to keep accosting jihanki restockers until she finally found the one who would give up The Secret.)
The Ramune (which hadn't even been Saikawa's favorite, so he had no taste) gave him some trouble. There was a certain art to keeping the marble out of the way while drinking, and he didn't have it. The boy kept flicking his tongue tip into the bottleneck, trying to dislodge the glass. (His tongue was too narrow. It was also slightly pointed.) And he dealt with the carbonation about as well as any boy, which meant he burped a lot and then pretended it had been funny.
The multiple horrifying displays finally wrapped up. The boy belatedly thanked the air for the meal. Then he did it again while adding Miss Tohru's name, and looked around as if he was expecting her to appear right there.
"We should go to the shopping arcade," Kanna softly said. "If you're ready."
The boy didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked out across the park, green eyes darting from one playing field to another. Watching kids as they ran, shouted, kicked and swung and dodged for their lives.
Saikawa also took a quick survey. The adolescent delinquents had never returned, but it was best to keep an eye out. Especially when there weren't any adults around. And it wasn't as if the boy would be much good in a fight. She wasn't much good in a fight, not when the opponents were that much larger and heavier. But she just kept challenging...
...she had to look strong in front of Kanna. She needed to defend the one she loved...
"This is..." he half-whispered. "This is so weird..."
"What's weird?" Kanna quietly asked. Thought about it. "Is it weird or 'wicked'? You should learn when to say 'wicked'."
"The weird part," the boy evenly spouted absolute nonsense, "is in it not being weirder."
Saikawa silently turned over the poorly-voiced Japanese in her head a few times, trying to figure out if it made any sense when the words were placed in a different order. Kanna just nodded once, and the long bangs bobbed along.
He abruptly shook his head, as if trying to dislodge a thought.
"I can't stay," he muttered to himself. "She's expecting me back. I can't..." Another head shake, followed by a slow breath. "What do we do with the boxes?"
"The bentōs? Rinse until they don't smell," Kanna instructed. "Take them along. I'll bring them home. Chopsticks in the garbage. The red-sticker can. We'll find one before we leave here."
(For Kanna, this represented an unusually long speech. But the boy clearly needed to have the most fundamental basics explained, and Saikawa certainly wasn't going to do it.)
"Rinse them in the bathroom?" the boy said, and Kanna nodded. "Okay..." He very carefully stood up. "Where's the bathroom?"
"I'll show you. We should all go," Kanna calmly decided. "I need to brush some dirt off. You wash your face. And then it'll be the shopping arcade."
"Okay," the boy repeated. The girls stood up: Saikawa quickly glanced back to make sure none of her clothing had seared itself to the seat. "Bathroom..."
They wound up waiting for him outside the door.
And waiting.
Saikawa fought the urge to tap her toes with impatience. That was the sort of thing which summoned spirits of poverty to haunt you. The river serpent was more than enough trouble.
"You're still mad," Kanna decided.
"Am not."
"You've been angry since we started," the white-haired girl placidly observed.
"Am not," felt insufficient.
"You haven't talked to him. At all."
There was a certain demonstration of affection in emulating the one you loved and when you loved Kanna, that meant blatantly stating the obvious was just tribute.
"He's not my friend."
Immediately, "I want --"
"-- I want him to finish," Saikawa huffed. And wished for the chance to take Kanna's hand, but they were each holding a freshly-rinsed bentō box and the boy had the backpack.
Stupid boy.
"What's he even doing in there?" Saikawa demanded.
"Boy stuff," Kanna concluded.
"Then boy stuff takes forever now," Saikawa concluded. "Unless..."
The half-smile which manifested on her face would have done Ilulu proud. It was somewhat crooked, and just a little twisted.
Saikawa took out her phone again. Noted the time, created a baseline number based on her father, and then waited. It took nearly four times that duration before the boy emerged, bearing a clean box and an expression of utter confusion: the latter was heavily etched into brown features.
She just barely managed to hold back the smirk. Not being able to figure out basic toilet controls was the most foreigner thing ever.
Kanna kept leading the boy across intersections, and did so while holding his hand. At one point, a car stopped a little too close to the crosswalk, and the foreigner's head whipped to the right just before --
-- it hadn't been a shout of anger, and there hadn't been any vocal facets of scream in the sound which furiously emerged from his open mouth. It had almost felt like he was trying to roar...
Foreigners could be very weird. It was all of the little cultural things. Roaring was probably something Samoan. The movie had already demonstrated the use of war cries. And after it happened, Kanna stayed that much closer to him. Whispering.
They passed homes, and he stared at just about everything. Gardens made him slow down. An outdoor koi pond froze him in place for most of a minute, and then Kanna had to explain why he couldn't just go onto someone else's property and feed the fish. Bicycles continued to be an endless source of fascination, to the point where a fuming Saikawa started to wonder if Samoa had gotten around to discovering the wheel.
There were times when they saw other kids, usually passing by on the other side of the street. The boy began waving to them and when the first confused girl started to cross the street to see what he wanted, Kanna had to teach the foreigner about casual greetings. Which left him trying to offer small head bows to everyone else, and he always looked so surprised when someone returned the gesture...
She was forcing herself to count off every minute. The boy was going to leave before dinner. Go home. And once he was gone, it would all be normal again. Just her and Kanna, because that was how it was supposed to be --
-- except that she didn't know where he lived. Maybe he'd just moved into the area. The boy could show up over and over again, across the course of the summer. And once school started? He could potentially show up every weekend, always hanging around Kanna and staying close to her constantly and... holding her hand.
Worse: having her hold his.
Kanna liked him. She'd said so.
If she likes him more than me...
Why had Kanna ever liked Saikawa to begin with? Why would anyone want to be around a girl who was so hopeless? Whose arms were too skinny, with a forehead which was possibly too high and a habit of dropping batons...
She watched Kanna lead the boy through the city, from what seemed to be her assigned position: five paces to the rear. The white-haired girl was pointing things out, explaining details he might have missed. Staying close. Guiding and teaching and holding his hand.
And with every step the two took together, she hated him all the more.
They reached the shopping arcade, and it came as a relief. The long, wide street had an east-to-west alignment, allowing it to receive sunlight for the entire day. It didn't offer any true relief from the heat while you were out in the open -- but the stores would have air conditioning.
The boy looked up at the sign over the arcade's entrance. He seemed to examine it for just a little too long, and Saikawa wondered if he was capable of reading any of the words.
"Why is there a moon?" he asked. "Is it open at night?"
"Most places are open until ten at night," Kanna said. "Moons can mean a lot of things. I think this one means someone wanted a moon on the sign."
He smiled. "More things should night open," the inexperienced speaker twisted the sentence. "I know
ikutsu ka no ponī who feels that way..."
Saikawa, who was seldom in the position of having to translate her own language, felt her eyebrows climb halfway up her forehead.
...some pony?
She'd been studying English since the third grade, as the curriculum dictated. There was a sudden question as to whether she was that bad at speaking it.
"We go inside," Kanna told him. "I think you'll like the stores."
The first stop was at the vending machines. Kanna wanted to get a treat, and the arcade had what was still a fairly rare type of jihanki: the kind which dispensed snacks made from bugs. Kanna's fascination with insects stretched into the culinary, and she was always on the lookout for cricket crackers and imported barbecued waterbugs. Saikawa, who dearly wanted to love everything about the world's most beautiful girl, mostly tried not to look and, when they were working on their biology school assignments together, always had to remind Kanna that 'crunchy' wasn't a teacher-approved genus.
After that, they explored -- for that value of 'they' which meant Saikawa and Kanna knew where everything was, but the white-haired girl had to show the boy around. And he continued to have his attention caught by the strangest things. Like the butcher shop.
Saikawa didn't understand why he wanted to look at the butcher shop so closely, and dearly wished he would go anywhere else. Just for starters, you couldn't actually head inside. The glass display cases took up the whole of the entrance, and everything behind them was the butchery area. So the best anyone could get for coolness was whatever came over the top of the case -- and while that was chillier than most of what was in the arcade, the air current also carried a distinctive collection of scents.
"In the open?" he half-whispered as adults and kids moved around them, with the butcher occupied by a rather complicated order. "They just keep it where anyone can see and smell --"
He's not a vegetarian. The boy had eaten sweet and sour pork. With pineapple. For Saikawa, it created a certain basic doubt as to whether he was human.
"They eat a lot of meat here," Kanna softly replied. "The Lady Tohru buys from Mr. Tatsuta all the time."
"...she does?"
"Yes."
"And not fruits and vegetables."
Kanna gestured in the appropriate direction. The boy's too-green eyes tracked the pointing finger, and a curious gaze eventually found the produce shop.
"Oh," the boy said. "But... it's just right here..."
"It's good to have meat," Kanna decided. "Mr. Tatsuta gives the Lady Tohru extra pieces all the time."
"Why?"
Kanna pondered the question.
"Because," the girl bluntly said, "he thinks she's pretty. So if he gives her extras, then she buys from him more. And he can keep looking at her."
She is pretty.
Kanna was the most beautiful girl in the world, and Miss Tohru was an adult. Far too old. But most people saw beauty in the blonde foreigner. Saikawa did too. Just as long as she looked directly --
-- don't --
"We won't pick up anything," Kanna stated. "The Lady comes through here nearly every day. And we don't have insulated bags. Unless you wanted something?"
He paused. Looked over the selection carefully, then shook his head. This was followed by removing his backpack and fishing around inside it for a few seconds, reaching past the empty bentō boxes. He extracted something in a closed fist and before Saikawa could try to get a look at it, stuck it in his mouth.
His face suggested that he was sucking on a piece of candy. This was followed by a rather loud crunch. A little bit of edged purple appeared along his lips, and the narrow tongue quickly reclaimed the fragment.
Foreign candy. Saikawa clearly hadn't dug far enough into the backpack. It had to be a better snack than raw meat, although she wasn't sure how it compared to cooked bugs and had no intention of finding out.
"There's more stuff to see," Kanna told him. "Come with me."
With me. Not 'with us'.
And then Kanna took his hand again.
They stopped in the manga shop, and it took nearly an hour before they could get the boy out. Kanna had to keep telling him that it was rude to try and read whole volumes in the store, especially when he was mostly just examining the pictures. There was also a quick lesson on not being allowed to open anything which was in a sealed plastic bag, because those were for adolescents, adults of dubious taste, and the sort of otaku which Saikawa's parents kept warning her about. Which occasionally felt unfair, because some of the bagged stories were clearly about girls who wanted to get married someday -- but it wasn't so long to wait, and Saikawa had reluctantly held off on acquiring illustrated advice.
The foreigner, being a boy, was naturally attracted to anything which had people punching each other. This gave him what was effectively an endless selection to deal with -- on a very limited budget. The process of narrowing it down to what he actually wanted to purchase had Saikawa on the verge of summoning poverty spirits again.
At one point, he seemed to give up on trying to isolate the things he wanted most. The boy put several volumes in a stack, then started to walk away from the girls. He was clearly heading for one of the more shadowed parts of the store, and Saikawa wondered how Kanna would feel about her delinquent 'friend' getting arrested. It was so obvious that he was about to try and slip everything into his backpack, and the stress of the upcoming theft had his lips pursed into a tiny circle --
"Pay for them," Kanna softly said. "Just the ones you like most."
He stopped. His shoulders sank.
"I was just thinking about it," he told her. "That's all. I wasn't going to do it."
"You'll visit again. You can pick up more next time."
He's going to visit again.
"I don't know when I can come again," the boy told the nearest bookcase. (He wouldn't look at Kanna, and Saikawa took it as an insult.) "Or maybe it's 'if'. There's always stuff happening at home. It could be a really long time. I might never --"
And in the instant before hope suffused Saikawa's body, Kanna stepped forward. Raised her right hand, and gently rested the palm on the boy's left shoulder.
"You'll come back, Spike," she gently told. "I'll make sure." And ever so lightly, she squeezed his shoulder.
He looked back at her. Green eyes went wide with hope.
"You pinkie-promise --"
"I swear."
And Kanna smiled.
She likes him.
She smiles for him.
I have to work so hard just to see anything and
she smiles
for him
The next few stores floundered by. Saikawa had very little sense of them, mostly registering each as a place where the waters of future rejection could continue to fill her lungs.
At one point, they wound up in the rockhound shop. Kanna needed to do a surprising amount of talking to get the boy out of there, and hand-holding wound up being added to cautious yanks. Most of the boy's money stayed behind, to keep company with the majority of his more advanced vocabulary. He had what seemed to be an expert's knowledge of gemology, a professional interest in rock-cleaning tools, and the proprietor watched him being not-dragged away with open regret.
The produce stand mostly saw him examining apples. He would raise a specimen, hold it against the sunlight, rotate it a few times, then put it back down. Nothing was up to his standards.
The hairdresser didn't interest him. The green tinge along the raised ridge meant Saikawa hadn't expected it to.
And then there was the clothing store.
The clothing store was where it all went wrong.
There were several reactions which could have been reasonably expected from a boy in a clothing store for kids and because Shouta had come to the arcade with them a few times, the one Saikawa knew best was abject boredom. Shouta had a known response to the presence of display racks: he would look for a circular model, then slip into the center hollow and play a game on his phone. There were two ways of getting him to leave: you peeked into the private space and told him everything was finished, or you did the same thing while asking him how you looked in an outfit. Either way, he was out the door.
The foreigner looked around with open curiosity. He ran his hands along sleeves, checked the stitching on cuffs. But he had no interest in buying anything.
"I can't use it," he told Kanna. "Not once I go back. Besides, she'd be insulted."
"She?" the beautiful girl asked.
He smiled a little. "She makes all of my clothes. She wouldn't be happy if anyone else did it. And mass market..." His entire body shuddered. "I really don't need that lecture."
"Not your sister," Kanna checked.
"No." With a hint of shyness, "I still haven't told you about all of them yet. Maybe later."
Saikawa, who was hanging back by a skirt display, patiently waited for her anger to set it on fire. He has a girl who makes all of his clothing, and he --
Maybe it was his mother.
Except that he didn't live with his parents.
"I should look at a couple of things," Kanna said. "For fall. You don't mind?"
He shook his head. "I'll just look around."
"Don't go far."
"I won't."
He turned away, wandered off. And that meant Saikawa had Kanna to herself again, if you didn't count all of the other kids in the store, the adults who ran the place, and the cat who occasionally wandered in from the stationery shop. The cat wasn't always welcome. It shed.
"Saikawa," Kanna softly said. "Help."
'Help me get out of here before he comes back' --
-- she likes him, she holds his hand, she's smiling and laughing...
Her mouth felt oddly dry. She probably needed another drink.
"Help -- with what?"
"I don't want to stay very long," Kanna said. "It's his time. But Kobayashi wanted me to try a dress and tell her about it. So I'd have something for fall."
"And what do I have to do?"
"Tell me how it looks. How I look." Very directly, "It has to be cute. Always cute."
It's always cute.
And Kanna always looked beautiful. Just as long as Saikawa --
I didn't really look at what she picked up in the manga shop.
I don't know what I can get to wear that she'll like...
"Saikawa," Kanna quietly said. "Come." And began to move towards one of the racks. Something which had a Sale designation at the top, because Kanna worried about how much her mother made. A single parent with two girls to raise, just about everything Ilulu wore had to be customized or it wouldn't fit right, Miss Tohru collected a salary, and Kanna knew that her own tastes leaned towards the expensive side. She was always trying to find ways of getting dressed up at a lowered cost.
Saikawa followed.
(She wanted to spend an endless lifetime in following.)
(But the boy...)
And then she saw exactly where Kanna was heading.
Blues and blacks and golds. Lace trim, here and there. And Saikawa was intimately familiar with all of it, because --
-- she looked at those last year.
We were here last summer. She looked at them, and she decided that she didn't want one because it was too much money.
It's on sale because that's last year's stock and
she's going to look at the same size
she's the same size as last year
she isn't any taller or anything, she's exactly the same
her mother has to know
she must have seen
another few months and they'll see a doctor
it has to be a doctor
she doesn't even look any older --
Her heart ached. And she was scared, so scared for the one she loved, she hurt too much to watch, almost too much to move, and she felt her legs come to a stop, her head started to turn because she couldn't look, but Kanna wanted her to be there on a day when the boy felt like he was everywhere and always in the way and shoving Saikawa out --
-- she started to look back.
Stopped, at exactly the wrong moment, in the instant when the pain paralyzed her heart.
In a position which left her looking at Kanna out of the corner of her eye.
No --
It happened again.
There are shadows in the closet. Her bed has an elevated mattress, with formal space underneath: enough room to hide, or -- sufficient space for something else to hide. And when you look at those shadows, if imagination takes over for a girl who knows river serpents are real -- you can start to see things. Shade becomes shape, shape acquires intent, and intent produces the illusion of movement. When you know that the strange exists, the shadows begin to reach.
But they're just shadows. If you make yourself look closely at them, it's all you might ever find. Just a place where the light moves aside and makes space for dreams to take over. That's what her parents taught her. Saikawa isn't afraid of what she sees in the dark.
It's what comes out in the light.
When did it start? At some point after the first time Miss Lucoa took Saikawa for a private talk, and -- she can't remember what the older Magatsuchi sibling had said. She's tried, and it just won't come to her. If she tries for too long, her head starts to pulse. Like something just under the surface is trying to force its way out.
They're beautiful. They're all so beautiful. Just as long as she's looking directly at them.
And if she doesn't... if she catches them from exactly the wrong angle...
It doesn't last long, and she can't try to focus on what she's seeing. Focusing means careful examination and at the instant she brings the whole of her attention to bear, it all goes away. And she can't try to do it on purpose. It's just about always in the little moments, the quiet times when it feels like everything is normal and
then
something
slips.
Miss Tohru has hazel eyes: all gradients and fine shades. They're beautiful, and remain so until the moment she sees them from exactly the wrong angle. And when that happens...
Normally, the maid's hair is blonde. Most of it remains so. But as you move down the length, the shade begins to change. Warm oranges start to phase in, intensify until the very tips of the strands threaten to enter fire-reds. Fingers elongate, just a little. The nails become far too long, sharp. Shadows cluster at the top of the head, form a quartet of short, outward-curving vertical horns. And the eyes...
The eyes still have gradients to their colors. The top of the iris is a hot red: the bottom is more of a brilliant yellow. They seem to glow from within, and that quality is reflected and refined through the pupils. The pupils are vertical slits.
Miss Tohru's eyes are on fire.
Mr. Fafnir's mahogany eyes deepen. Become pools. You can fall into his eyes, and you might never come out because what's under the surface ripples like lava. There's even a choice of places for demise, because there's one set of eyes behind the tiny glasses. And another above, and another below. The air around him smolders when he talks, and the world ripples against the force of his disdain.
Ilulu? Her teeth are still white. They're also edged. Everything ends in a point. The half-crooked smile shows off a mouth full of rending fangs. She has her own horns: one on each side of her head, tight curls, like a ram, ending in wicked points. Violet eyes become furious, saturated pink as the pupils go vertical: deep auburn hair takes on a lighter shade of the ocular hue. And her body...
Take a small, powerful flashlight. Spread the fingers of one hand. Place the bulb against the web of skin between index finger and thumb, and the skin will glow.
Ilulu's hands are mostly normal. (There are times when a finger will seem to be pointing in the wrong direction, or has too many joints.) But move up to the curves, and any exposed skin displays something very much like that radiance. Only hotter. It's as if there's fire being kept inside, and it boils. It threatens to erupt through the shells, and any moment of anger has her clothing a mere second away from being fully ablaze.
Miss Lucoa...
...her hair is a little like that of the maid, only the color initially shifts from blonde to green, then phases into blue. There's only two horns, and the cap always seems to have room to let them through.
It truly starts with the eyes.
Heterochromia: one green, one amber. The green remains so. The amber becomes yellow, and sets itself up in the center of a huge black circle. The irises turn into mazes. Paths twist across green, wind their way around yellow. None of them are constant. The trails keep shifting. You can get lost in her eyes, and it might take a lifetime to find your way out. And her body... it feels as if she's just barely contained within her own skin. It creates the sense that a tremendous entity has been compressed into a human-shaped space. All of her movements acquire invisible, exponential weight. She takes a step, and the world only fails to shake because she's told it not to do so. There is something very much like a goddess walking the earth, and she would prefer that the planet failed to notice.
...Kanna...
...Kanna...
...the hair is no longer white. Greyish-purple at the crown of the head, the lightest shade possible. The colors suffuse and saturate as they move down the strands: pass through the glass beads (which glow now and again), reach the tips, and that's where the purple becomes pure. There are four horns, starting just above and in front of the ears: two point up and crest the top of the skull, while the two pointing down barely reach the cheekbones. All of the tips are blunted.
Sometimes there's a shadow at the base of her spine. If she's standing or sitting close to an outlet, sparks crawl up her back.
And the eyes...
...still blue. They're just blue all the way in. The color exists in rings. There's barely any white to Kanna's eyes: just a tiny fringe at the absolute edge, and then you get the first circle. Then another. Even the pupils are blue. They're also just as vertical as Ilulu's and Miss Tohru's.
Only for a moment. Every time. And then instinct takes over. There's a choice of two kinds. Saikawa has tried to look more closely, but that's focus and it makes everything go back. The other...
She can't look at it.
She can't.
She can't see Kanna that way. Not for long.
The vision is too b --
-- she was in another part of the store, and didn't know how she'd gotten there. Back against the wall. Kids staring at her, along with a few adults. It was probably because of her breathing. Too deep and too shallow, all at once. Everything going in with deep gulps, emerging as too-fast panting.
i have
i have to
i need
i can't just keep
There was an adult coming closer. The woman probably wanted to see if she was all right.
every time
every time and i can't
But the boy got there first.
He was right in front of her. Close, too close, and the emerald eyes were filled with concern.
"I saw you go by," he said. "You looked..." Stopped, visibly searched for vocabulary as Saikawa's palms pressed against air-chilled drywall and the adult, seeing that someone who apparently knew her was on the scene, began to veer away.
"...you don't look all right," the foreigner finished. "Do you want me to get Kanna? I can bring her right over. Or I can take you to her --"
His right arm came out. Reached forward, coming closer in order to put the limb behind her back, they were almost ribs-to-ribs in a parody of a hug and he carefully grasped her left hand --
"DON'T TOUCH ME!"
She didn't truly hear her own words. (She never did, not until it had ended.) It was just everyone else who picked up on the shout: kids recoiling, adults pulling away, and the foreign boy jumping backwards as if he'd just touched the purest of flame.
He came down about half a meter away from her, eyes wide and frightened. She immediately decided he was still too close, and pushed herself off the wall. Strode forward, just to watch him back away. And all the while, the words kept coming.
"Who ARE you? You just show up out of nowhere, from the capital of Nowhere, and she likes you, she likes a BOY, a stupid older BOY who doesn't even BELONG here! Why --" and there was something hot on her face, hot and flowing "-- did you even come? You just show up and she says you're her friend when she can have any friend, any at all and I CAN'T, it's just her, I'm supposed to be WITH her, she's supposed to be MINE and she's holding your hand and smiling and laughing and why can't you GO AWAY? WHY DON'T YOU JUST STAY WITH PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU? I DON'T WANT YOU HERE! I DON'T WANT YOU NEAR HER! NOT WHEN IT MEANS THERE ISN'T ANY ROOM FOR ME --"
There was a tiny gasp, somewhere behind the foreign boy's back.
It was a familiar sound.
Saikawa's eyes focused. Found Kanna three meters behind the boy. Her right hand had come up. Covering her mouth, and blocking the rest of the horror.
Adults stared. Children reeled. Saikawa, who had eyes for only one person, stopped talking.
She heard her own words.
The foreign boy turned. Spun on his right heel, nearly sent himself into the ground. Got a hand on a rack, jerked himself upright, recovered his balance, and then he ran. Pounding footsteps quickly carried him out of sight.
The consequences began.
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Well, Saikawa done goofed, but she does have a point.
Regardless of the fact that it was not intentional, Kanna was side-lining Saikawa.
Along with that, Kanna was letting her emotions show around Spike, whom she had met for, what? A few days? A week? Whereas it seems like she's still keeping up her "Walls," when it comes to Saikawa, her friend who she has known for about a year (Though we, the readers, know why that is).
Either way, Saikawa should apologize to Spike since he was just trying to help calm her down from her Panic Attack, and Kanna should apologize to Saikawa since she's the one who decided to change there plan's last minute without giving Saikawa a heads up, along with throwing Saikawa off to the side and making her feel like she's second-rate compared to Spike.
Skylark of Space (E E "Doc" Smith 1928).
Credited as the first novel with FTL travel. There's a scene where they're trying to eat & having trouble with the alien silverware.
The aliens are staring because Richard Seeton is doing a chemical analysis on the food (to see if it's poisonous).
Richard "... My first summer job was in a lumber camp. I can eat faster with a spatula than I can with a knife and a fork. Just watch what I do & copy me."
Spikr's (lack of) table manners are on a similar level?
It just builds up and up, the pressure had to vent sometime. Just after a panic attack sounds about right.
It's starting to sound like all the messing with her memory is starting to have long term psychological consequences.
Oh no bro
a few reason I side with Saaikawa here.
First off a many commentors have pointed out that Kanna basically side lined Saikawa here and thats no good.
Second as ALSO mentioned by commentors the memory ediiting by others on her to remove memorys of "odd happenings" Seriously how the hell is that faiir when Chloe is full in on the whole story?
As to Spike, i fully admit he did not do anything wrong throughout the story, and Saikawa really should at the least applogize to him for her outburst, understable and justifiyed as it might be. I am hoping Saikawa is finally let in on everything in this story as it is only fair to her.
Looking forward to updates!
It should be fair to say that Saikawa is more in love with the idea of Kanna than with the real Kanna (and unless explicitly ruled out, given the glamour at work this could be more literal than for most!)... As young (immature? juvenile? nonhuman timescales break language, okay?) as they all are, I struggle to see the discussions necessary to stabilize matters working...
It is definitely fair to say that Saikawa has a few areas of her personality to work on.
I have no sense as to which direction this story is headed!
Dark situation. I feel bad for all of them. Thank you for the story so far.
Spike may actually recognize some of this. It’d hardly be the first time he saw repressed fears and anxieties burst from being buried under incredible pressure. But some of what came out hit very close to home, and I can hardly blame him for needing time and space to compose himself. Whether Saikawa gets the same…
I imagine there are several beings in Equestria who could reciprocate. That feeling that friendship is some finite resource in a zero-sum game, that you are fundamentally broken in some way and only a few precious anomalies can and ever will look past it…
Yeah, these two can have some very deep conversations if Saikawa can ever bear to interact with Spike again. Poor Kanna. She has her work cut out for her with sorting this out. And that’s before dealing with the dragons in the corners of that poor girl’s eye…
Kanna just placed a Divine Draconic Oath at least on a par with a Pinkie Promise?
I think Mr Fafnir might be having Cupcakes.
Either that first comma should be a period, or the word "just" shouldn't start with a capital letter.
Poor Saikawa. Hopefully things will work out for her and Kanna.
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It's quite simple really, Chloe can keep a secret, while Saikawa is too easily excited and can't keep her mouth shut when she is in that state of emotion. The girl is a chatterbox when it comes to the idea of Kanna, so if she found of Kanna was a dragon Saikawa would never shut up about her.
Kanna's struggle with loneliness is a big part of who she is.
Spike, being a dragon like Kanna, just gets her in a way Saikawa probably never will. They're in the same mental age group, both grappling with the unique challenges of being young dragons. Kanna doesn't have the experience that humans age fast like tohru or the other dragons do.
This probably is not the intended reaction, but I really don't like Saikawa here. The determination to take what she has no right to, the demand that Kanna be what Saikawa wants her to be rather than what she chooses to be... that level of possessiveness both irritates me and quite honestly scares me a bit. The message I'm getting from the story so far is "Saikawa is a borderline psycho, and Kanna needs to take out a restraining order against her post-haste". It's why I was happy to see her blow up at the end of this chapter, felt like a case of the stalker showing her true colors before it was too late for her victim.
I have no sympathy for Saikawa, because she chose not to engage. From the start she was hostile to Spike's presence and whild being a kid can excuse some actions the continued active decision to not involve herself is her own fault.
Nice detail with Spike being interested in the geology and rock cleaning tools. Back in Equestria, tools like that he can use with his hands must be rare or not ideally sized for him.