Okay, so this is coming along better than I'd hoped. Have a nibble.
Oh, and Bob? I've had a helluva time getting this thing to come out as something that is NOT a wall of text. Is there any way we can get indents to work on here? Tabs? Or how about just giving us the option to attach files like PDFs?
================================
Alone at last.
That’s what Benjamin thought to himself as he unpacked his things.
It isn’t that he didn’t love his family. He did. But his step-father was a very hard person - he had very little patience for dreamers like Benjamin. Especially when they were as blazingly intelligent as he was.
It really was infuriating if you were someone like his stepfather. At eleven years old Benjamin had a 12th-grade reading level as well as an intuitive grasp on mechanics that was the envy of some engineers. He was also highly active - he couldn’t sit still for a minute and needed constant stimulation to keep his focus on any one thing.
Such a mind should be applying itself more diligently, his stepfather felt.
Instead, little Benjamin personified The Beatles’ The Fool on the Hill - day after day, alone on his own metaphorical hill, a smile on his face, and his eyes watching the world around him and sussing out how it all really, truly worked beyond the cliched facades.
Wheels within wheels. Gears within gears. All of them turning at a frenzied pace with seemingly little rhyme or reason. If you put an electroencephalograph machine to his head, it would probably fry the poor machine’s delicate detection circuits. He spurned homework in favor of fantasies and yet he always placed in the highest scores in his tests.
And on top of it all, like a maraschino cherry on a sundae, was how the boy related with his mother.
As far as his stepfather was concerned, it bordered on being obscene. But it was simply something that his step-father could not wrap his head around.
Simply put, he and his mother were like soul mates.
Few people believe her, but Miranda Thames swore up and down that little Benjamin smiled at her the moment their eyes met - not even fifteen seconds after he was born.
The first four years of his life they were always together. Benjamin and Miranda against the world, struggling through it all one step at a time. Just the Two of Us by Bill Withers was Miranda’s theme song for them.
They could read each other like a book and were always able to engage each other in conversations with shocking depth and nuance for one involving a young child.
And yet, Benjamin was glad that he was alone.
Part of it was his step-father. The other part were his utterly unbearable half-brothers.
Oh, he had a half-sister as well, but she was merely annoying at times.
His brothers on the other hand... Well, Benjamin was glad that he wouldn’t have to dodge thrown objects - up to and including the good carving knife that was only brought out for events like Christmas and Thanks giving.
He was also glad that he would now have a safe place to keep his models. And his fish. This was the fourth beta his mother had bought for him - one with a beautiful red and blue sunburst pattern. Because he’d gone and devoured his tank mates - a handful of neon tetras - his mother had dubbed this one ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’.
At least Hannibal was now safe from the predations of his siblings and the absolutely sociopathic fates they had in store for just anything Benjamin would call his own.
Alone at long last! he thought giddily to himself as he set the tank up on the desk. Hannibal was still unsettled from the trip but was game enough to come out of hiding now that everything had stopped moving.
It all started with the school therapist who noticed Benjamin’s tendencies - particularly a pronounced tendency to flinch when people got close to him. One discovery led to another. Specialists were called in. His step-father’s security clearance in the Air Force came into the picture.
And now everyone was in therapy.
His mother, his step-father, and all of his brothers. Him as well, but it was decided that some... space was needed between himself and his family. Such was the grievous emotional scars that time as well as distance was needed to heal the wounds. Put that together with his incredibly capacity for learning (if it was approached properly) and a perfect idea was hatched.
A boarding school.
Specifically, one that prepared American children to enter a Japanese high school and later, college as well.
So it was that Benjamin now had his very own room. It was tiny, but cozy, with plenty of shelves for him to put his books and models. He was even allowed to have his fish as well.
He had classes that were high-intensity and thoroughly engaging. There was homework, but it was bearable. The fact that it was all in work books just like in Japanese schools helped.
He didn’t really have friends yet, even though he’d been at the school for several months now. He was shy that way. And he didn’t know it himself, but he was intensely hetero-romantic - he’d only ever form strong emotional bonds with members of the opposite gender and and few others if any at all.
But the students were encouraged to go outside and play like other Japanese children. This helped with the immersive experience in learning Japanese and got them to socialize as well. Each of them had an ID card on a lanyard that they were told to NEVER take off when they were outside. It also had a card they were to show to a police officer if they ever got lost.
Alone at last...
It felt so refreshing and liberating to think that.
...But someone to talk to might be nice.
================================
Benjamin’s days started out sluggishly. He had an alarm clock, sure. But there was also Dorm Parents that made sure everyone was awake and, in the case of children like Benjamin, had taken their medication.
It had been discovered over the course of Benjamin’s psychological evaluation by a very sharp-eyed medical student, had something known as Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. It was nothing terrible, but it does make life inconvenient. Simply put, he got his best sleep between the hours of four in the morning to noon time, and there was nothing that could be done except to enforce a strict sleep schedule and provide whatever assistance was needed.
In his case, since he was already diagnosed with ADHD, that assistance came in the form of Adderall.
“Ben-kun, you can’t sleep in today. You have classes,” said the Dorm Mother in Japanese - a very nice Japanese lady named Kaori. She and her American husband worked at the school as Dorm Parents and Teachers. Kaori had just had a daughter who had taken a liking to Benjamin - whenever the infant was particularly upset over something, Benjamin had the peculiar knack for settling the tiny girl. But then, after having to take care of so many brothers, it only stood to reason.
Simply put, after one month the young boy had quickly occupied a spot of fondness in Kaori’s heart.
That still didn’t make waking up all that wonderful of an experience.
Ben groaned as he stretched, pulling his blankets down. “Ohaiyo Kaori-sensei,” he mumbled dully.
The woman chuckled at the boy’s grudging. “I have your pills here, Ben-kun. Come over here so you can take them.” It was an old tactic, but an effective one. Give them a reason that they could not refuse to get out of bed. In this case, Benjamin had it made abundantly clear to him that he absolutely had to take his pills every morning.
So, heaving a great put-upon sigh that only eleven-year-old boys are capable of, Ben slowly levered himself out of bed, trudged to his desk where the Dorm Mother had set the pills and a disposable cup full of water, and made the pills disappear down the hatch along with the water.
Kaori patted his head as she collected the cup. “Breakfast is almost ready, Ben-kun. And I think Nanami-chan wanted to say good morning to her onii-san. So hurry up, get dressed.”
##
Ben sluggishly got dressed. The Academy demanded that students wear a uniform for classes because the same would be expected of them when they made it into a Japanese high school. And this despite most elementary schools not having the same requirement. The administrators simply felt it was best to start developing the habit as early as possible.
Before Ben could sit down in the dorm’s dining room, Kaori came and plunked little Nanami in his arms, who cooed and squealed happily the moment she recognized Ben’s face.
It never failed to put a smile on Ben’s face to see how affectionate the newborn was towards him.
The infant’s father, Vincent, watched with a small smile of his own.
“The boy’s gonna be a heckuva father when he grows up,” he said quietly to Kaori as she sidled up to him.
“The girl that goes for him is going to be one lucky girl,” she countered. “Let’s get them fed, Vin-kun.”
##
Classes were… Well, not quite boring.
Everything moved quickly because there was so much to learn. Japanese schools are so far ahead of American schools, and on top of that there was the language itself to learn. Japanese was relatively simple, but the writing system put the lie to that.
There was a lot of interaction. In addition to Kaori-sensei, there were several teaching assistants helping students that were having trouble. Which was a necessity because they only spent twenty minutes on any particular topic. And rather than focus solely on that topic, the lessons were designed to build on to things already learned. They incorporated new knowledge into what was learned in previous lessons, keeping the older material fresh in their minds.
Two hours of school work, then recess, another two hours, then lunch, another two hours, final recess, and then the last two hours as a study hall period do do homework and review.
After all that, Benjamin had two extracurricular activities. For one, his family had found him a dojo that taught Okinawan Karate. Benjamin was well liked by the Sensei and his Senpai for the zeal he took the to the mat and how seriously he took the philosophies. He advanced rather quickly and in a few months he had already earned his blue-belt.
He could only do that two days out of the week, so the others he spent in the music club learning the Viola. He had at first wanted to learn the Violin, but once he heard the range of the Viola he changed his mind pretty quickly.
Then there was dinner, and he was free to spend the rest of the evening doing as he pleased until bedtime. Usually this involved working on a model kit that his mother bought for him, practicing either Karate or his Viola, or spending time playing with Nanami-chan while Vincent-sensei and Kaori-sensei graded their work books.
Then he would take a Melatonin tablet to help him sleep, take his turn in the bath, and then go to bed.
This was the pattern for five days a week, with Saturday being a half day - just like Japanese schools - where they had a review of the week’s lesson and several tests. After lunch, they were turned loose into Juuban, carefully advised that they should stay in the ward unless accompanied by a Dorm Parent or one of their own parents. The security guards at all the rail stations, as well as all the bus operators and taxi drivers all knew to watch for the young foreign students, and they did so vigilantly because they didn’t want anything to befall the young children. Juuban was well known as a safe place where children could wander freely.
True freedom would come once they turned thirteen, and then they were given the special ID cards that let them wander wherever they pleased.
Benjamin had no problems with that as he had plenty in Juuban to explore. There was one place in particular that he wanted to see - something called the Hikawa Shrine…
================================
Benjamin loved being in Japan.
He felt every bit of being a stranger in a strange land, and his adventurous spirit simply ate it all up.
He wanted to try all the strange but delicious smelling foods.
He wanted to breathe in all the smells of the mountains and the beaches.
And he wanted to see all the beautiful temples and shrines.
He blushed as he noticed a couple of high school girls were looking at him as they passed by each other. They giggled - not in a mean way. It was just that the boy, obviously one of those Americans who are so famous for their confidence, was blushing bashfully at the two older girls.
They thought he was adorable and found it pitiable he wasn’t older - more than a few girls at their school fantasized about being swept off their feet by a handsome American transfer student.
Benjamin amended his previous thought: And meet as many of these girls as possible. Maybe I’ll meet my own ‘Yuki’.
Ben sighed at the thought. When you got right down to it, The Karate Kid - Part II was an incredibly romantic film.
Miyagi-sensei getting the letter about his father, He and his student going to his old village in Okinawa, the reunions between his old rival and his old love. And then there was Daniel LaRuso, along for the ride and, like Benjamin right now, a stranger in a strange land. He met a beautiful Japanese girl named Yuki, the niece to Miyagi-sensei’s wife, and they fell hopelessly in love with each other.
What a wonderful dream that would be.
Benjamin didn’t think it strange at all to have thoughts like these at the age of eleven. He was a dreamer, encouraged by his mother to always dream, and that was that.
He then spied a sign. It was mostly in Kanji and he quickly reached into his messenger bag to retrieve his map - he was not bad at all with orientation and navigation.
The map, of course, was entirely in Hiragana - all part and parcel of the immersive learning experience. In fact, English was discouraged from being used at the Academy as much as possible. It was difficult, but it meant that Benjamin was making strides towards adopting Nihongo as a second language.
Quickly, Ben found where he was on the map, verified that the Kanji on the sign where the ones for his destination, and double-checked the tiny Hiragana characters printed over the Kanji.
Yes, the Hikawa shrine was definitely up these stairs.
With the irrepressible energy and exuberance that are the hallmarks of ADHD, Benjamin practically flew up the stone steps, neatly avoiding slower moving adults and teenagers, and eliciting a startled yelp from one out of four passers by.
To which Ben would toss a quick “Gomen!” over his shoulder.
It was fine, though. Benjamin was still by and large considered a child, and children had a lot of leeway in Japan.
In less time that it took most people to even trudge up ten of those steps, Ben was already at the top, barely even winded from the exertion, and looking around eagerly.
The shrine grounds were of a modest size. Barely more than a quarter of an acre. Dominating the center was the shrine itself, all heavy wood timbers, rustic and distinctly Japanese in its architecture. Behind that were several smaller buildings of a traditional Japanese style. If Benjamin was reading his map of the shrine correctly, these were the restricted buildings - the living quarters, the bath house and the storage shed for the people that lived here and maintained the shrine.
Benjamin got his camera out. It was nothing special - a basic 35mm Nikon. But it did its job well so long as Ben was being mindful of the shutter speed and light levels. He began to work the camera - the only electrical component to it was the flash. Everything else he worked himself - the focus, the winding of the film, and most importantly, the timing of the shot.
Benjamin had burned through half a roll of film when suddenly someone spilled over him from behind, knocking him down with a yelp of surprise and getting tangled up in their limbs.
As he quickly got himself untangled from his impromptu dance partner, he made several quick observations.
Skirt! It’s a girl! Be careful about where my hands and eyes go!
Seifuku from the middle school nearby - she’s older than me!
Oh wow. I never knew a Japanese girl could have blond hair like that and make it work for her… she’s pretty.
The girl stood over him, but not by much. Tsukino Usagi was short, even for her age. But she had the petite and athletic dancer’s build to go with her height. Her luxuriously long blond hair was gathered into two buns on either side of her head with twin-tails left to stream down from each one. And she had beautiful vividly blue eyes, that gave a person the impression of looking down into the deep sea.
“Gomen nasai!” said Benjamin hurriedly as he bowed to the girl. “I should be more careful!”
The girl looked like she might complain at first, but then relaxed once she realized he was being completely earnest.
Besides, she reflected, if Minako hadn’t distracted me just then, I might have actually seen him.
“Daijobu, daijobu,” replied the girl in an easy-going tone as she waved it off. “Really, it’s okay…” Usagi trailed off as something occurred to her. “Wait a minute… are you an American?”
“Yes yes!” replied Ben. “I am American. I am from Texas.”
“Texas!” cried out one of the other girls.
Rumors had abound about the strange and dusty place called Texas that was like America, only distilled and concentrated. New York had its great city. California had its cliffs and coastlines. But Texas was everything that America stood for and then some.
“So cooooooooool!” said Usagi, drawing out the last syllable. “My name is Tsukino Usagi, and I’m in class 2-D of Juuban Municipal Middle School. How about you?”
“My name is Rodes’ Benjamin. I’m in Class 6-C of Juuban Preparatory Academy for Foreigners.”
“Heeeee-eeeeeeh!?” said all the girls at once, for it was well known that the school was an elite-level academy, one intended only for the brightest of the natively English-speaking children in Juuban.
Suddenly, Usagi pulled all her friends together in a huddle. Benjamin looked on, puzzled as the girls all murmured unintelligibly to each other. Soon enough, though, they came out of their huddle and the one with blue hair stepped forward.
Ben gulped a little. With that small smile she was so pretty and it was making him a bit nervous no matter how much he liked being around girls.
She then hunkered down a bit so she wasn’t looking down at him, and Ben automatically felt a bit better.
“Neh, Rodes-san. Usagi-chan has a big English quiz tomorrow, and we all could use a little extra help. Would you mind helping us with our study session?”
He couldn’t believe it! They wanted his help!? This was more than he could have dreamed of! The only way this could be better was if one of them had a little sister - he didn’t even imagine that he’d have a chance with one of these girls, but he wasn’t gonna turn this down. Not in a million years!
“Sure! I’d love to!”
“YATAAAAA!” cheered Usagi as she suddenly grabbed his hand and started dragging him at speed over to the Shrine’s living quarters. “C’mon Rodes-kun! We got a lotta work to do!”
================================
Soooooo.... thoughts?
Oh, and Bob? I've had a helluva time getting this thing to come out as something that is NOT a wall of text. Is there any way we can get indents to work on here? Tabs? Or how about just giving us the option to attach files like PDFs?
================================
Alone at last.
That’s what Benjamin thought to himself as he unpacked his things.
It isn’t that he didn’t love his family. He did. But his step-father was a very hard person - he had very little patience for dreamers like Benjamin. Especially when they were as blazingly intelligent as he was.
It really was infuriating if you were someone like his stepfather. At eleven years old Benjamin had a 12th-grade reading level as well as an intuitive grasp on mechanics that was the envy of some engineers. He was also highly active - he couldn’t sit still for a minute and needed constant stimulation to keep his focus on any one thing.
Such a mind should be applying itself more diligently, his stepfather felt.
Instead, little Benjamin personified The Beatles’ The Fool on the Hill - day after day, alone on his own metaphorical hill, a smile on his face, and his eyes watching the world around him and sussing out how it all really, truly worked beyond the cliched facades.
Wheels within wheels. Gears within gears. All of them turning at a frenzied pace with seemingly little rhyme or reason. If you put an electroencephalograph machine to his head, it would probably fry the poor machine’s delicate detection circuits. He spurned homework in favor of fantasies and yet he always placed in the highest scores in his tests.
And on top of it all, like a maraschino cherry on a sundae, was how the boy related with his mother.
As far as his stepfather was concerned, it bordered on being obscene. But it was simply something that his step-father could not wrap his head around.
Simply put, he and his mother were like soul mates.
Few people believe her, but Miranda Thames swore up and down that little Benjamin smiled at her the moment their eyes met - not even fifteen seconds after he was born.
The first four years of his life they were always together. Benjamin and Miranda against the world, struggling through it all one step at a time. Just the Two of Us by Bill Withers was Miranda’s theme song for them.
They could read each other like a book and were always able to engage each other in conversations with shocking depth and nuance for one involving a young child.
And yet, Benjamin was glad that he was alone.
Part of it was his step-father. The other part were his utterly unbearable half-brothers.
Oh, he had a half-sister as well, but she was merely annoying at times.
His brothers on the other hand... Well, Benjamin was glad that he wouldn’t have to dodge thrown objects - up to and including the good carving knife that was only brought out for events like Christmas and Thanks giving.
He was also glad that he would now have a safe place to keep his models. And his fish. This was the fourth beta his mother had bought for him - one with a beautiful red and blue sunburst pattern. Because he’d gone and devoured his tank mates - a handful of neon tetras - his mother had dubbed this one ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’.
At least Hannibal was now safe from the predations of his siblings and the absolutely sociopathic fates they had in store for just anything Benjamin would call his own.
Alone at long last! he thought giddily to himself as he set the tank up on the desk. Hannibal was still unsettled from the trip but was game enough to come out of hiding now that everything had stopped moving.
It all started with the school therapist who noticed Benjamin’s tendencies - particularly a pronounced tendency to flinch when people got close to him. One discovery led to another. Specialists were called in. His step-father’s security clearance in the Air Force came into the picture.
And now everyone was in therapy.
His mother, his step-father, and all of his brothers. Him as well, but it was decided that some... space was needed between himself and his family. Such was the grievous emotional scars that time as well as distance was needed to heal the wounds. Put that together with his incredibly capacity for learning (if it was approached properly) and a perfect idea was hatched.
A boarding school.
Specifically, one that prepared American children to enter a Japanese high school and later, college as well.
So it was that Benjamin now had his very own room. It was tiny, but cozy, with plenty of shelves for him to put his books and models. He was even allowed to have his fish as well.
He had classes that were high-intensity and thoroughly engaging. There was homework, but it was bearable. The fact that it was all in work books just like in Japanese schools helped.
He didn’t really have friends yet, even though he’d been at the school for several months now. He was shy that way. And he didn’t know it himself, but he was intensely hetero-romantic - he’d only ever form strong emotional bonds with members of the opposite gender and and few others if any at all.
But the students were encouraged to go outside and play like other Japanese children. This helped with the immersive experience in learning Japanese and got them to socialize as well. Each of them had an ID card on a lanyard that they were told to NEVER take off when they were outside. It also had a card they were to show to a police officer if they ever got lost.
Alone at last...
It felt so refreshing and liberating to think that.
...But someone to talk to might be nice.
================================
Benjamin’s days started out sluggishly. He had an alarm clock, sure. But there was also Dorm Parents that made sure everyone was awake and, in the case of children like Benjamin, had taken their medication.
It had been discovered over the course of Benjamin’s psychological evaluation by a very sharp-eyed medical student, had something known as Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. It was nothing terrible, but it does make life inconvenient. Simply put, he got his best sleep between the hours of four in the morning to noon time, and there was nothing that could be done except to enforce a strict sleep schedule and provide whatever assistance was needed.
In his case, since he was already diagnosed with ADHD, that assistance came in the form of Adderall.
“Ben-kun, you can’t sleep in today. You have classes,” said the Dorm Mother in Japanese - a very nice Japanese lady named Kaori. She and her American husband worked at the school as Dorm Parents and Teachers. Kaori had just had a daughter who had taken a liking to Benjamin - whenever the infant was particularly upset over something, Benjamin had the peculiar knack for settling the tiny girl. But then, after having to take care of so many brothers, it only stood to reason.
Simply put, after one month the young boy had quickly occupied a spot of fondness in Kaori’s heart.
That still didn’t make waking up all that wonderful of an experience.
Ben groaned as he stretched, pulling his blankets down. “Ohaiyo Kaori-sensei,” he mumbled dully.
The woman chuckled at the boy’s grudging. “I have your pills here, Ben-kun. Come over here so you can take them.” It was an old tactic, but an effective one. Give them a reason that they could not refuse to get out of bed. In this case, Benjamin had it made abundantly clear to him that he absolutely had to take his pills every morning.
So, heaving a great put-upon sigh that only eleven-year-old boys are capable of, Ben slowly levered himself out of bed, trudged to his desk where the Dorm Mother had set the pills and a disposable cup full of water, and made the pills disappear down the hatch along with the water.
Kaori patted his head as she collected the cup. “Breakfast is almost ready, Ben-kun. And I think Nanami-chan wanted to say good morning to her onii-san. So hurry up, get dressed.”
##
Ben sluggishly got dressed. The Academy demanded that students wear a uniform for classes because the same would be expected of them when they made it into a Japanese high school. And this despite most elementary schools not having the same requirement. The administrators simply felt it was best to start developing the habit as early as possible.
Before Ben could sit down in the dorm’s dining room, Kaori came and plunked little Nanami in his arms, who cooed and squealed happily the moment she recognized Ben’s face.
It never failed to put a smile on Ben’s face to see how affectionate the newborn was towards him.
The infant’s father, Vincent, watched with a small smile of his own.
“The boy’s gonna be a heckuva father when he grows up,” he said quietly to Kaori as she sidled up to him.
“The girl that goes for him is going to be one lucky girl,” she countered. “Let’s get them fed, Vin-kun.”
##
Classes were… Well, not quite boring.
Everything moved quickly because there was so much to learn. Japanese schools are so far ahead of American schools, and on top of that there was the language itself to learn. Japanese was relatively simple, but the writing system put the lie to that.
There was a lot of interaction. In addition to Kaori-sensei, there were several teaching assistants helping students that were having trouble. Which was a necessity because they only spent twenty minutes on any particular topic. And rather than focus solely on that topic, the lessons were designed to build on to things already learned. They incorporated new knowledge into what was learned in previous lessons, keeping the older material fresh in their minds.
Two hours of school work, then recess, another two hours, then lunch, another two hours, final recess, and then the last two hours as a study hall period do do homework and review.
After all that, Benjamin had two extracurricular activities. For one, his family had found him a dojo that taught Okinawan Karate. Benjamin was well liked by the Sensei and his Senpai for the zeal he took the to the mat and how seriously he took the philosophies. He advanced rather quickly and in a few months he had already earned his blue-belt.
He could only do that two days out of the week, so the others he spent in the music club learning the Viola. He had at first wanted to learn the Violin, but once he heard the range of the Viola he changed his mind pretty quickly.
Then there was dinner, and he was free to spend the rest of the evening doing as he pleased until bedtime. Usually this involved working on a model kit that his mother bought for him, practicing either Karate or his Viola, or spending time playing with Nanami-chan while Vincent-sensei and Kaori-sensei graded their work books.
Then he would take a Melatonin tablet to help him sleep, take his turn in the bath, and then go to bed.
This was the pattern for five days a week, with Saturday being a half day - just like Japanese schools - where they had a review of the week’s lesson and several tests. After lunch, they were turned loose into Juuban, carefully advised that they should stay in the ward unless accompanied by a Dorm Parent or one of their own parents. The security guards at all the rail stations, as well as all the bus operators and taxi drivers all knew to watch for the young foreign students, and they did so vigilantly because they didn’t want anything to befall the young children. Juuban was well known as a safe place where children could wander freely.
True freedom would come once they turned thirteen, and then they were given the special ID cards that let them wander wherever they pleased.
Benjamin had no problems with that as he had plenty in Juuban to explore. There was one place in particular that he wanted to see - something called the Hikawa Shrine…
================================
Benjamin loved being in Japan.
He felt every bit of being a stranger in a strange land, and his adventurous spirit simply ate it all up.
He wanted to try all the strange but delicious smelling foods.
He wanted to breathe in all the smells of the mountains and the beaches.
And he wanted to see all the beautiful temples and shrines.
He blushed as he noticed a couple of high school girls were looking at him as they passed by each other. They giggled - not in a mean way. It was just that the boy, obviously one of those Americans who are so famous for their confidence, was blushing bashfully at the two older girls.
They thought he was adorable and found it pitiable he wasn’t older - more than a few girls at their school fantasized about being swept off their feet by a handsome American transfer student.
Benjamin amended his previous thought: And meet as many of these girls as possible. Maybe I’ll meet my own ‘Yuki’.
Ben sighed at the thought. When you got right down to it, The Karate Kid - Part II was an incredibly romantic film.
Miyagi-sensei getting the letter about his father, He and his student going to his old village in Okinawa, the reunions between his old rival and his old love. And then there was Daniel LaRuso, along for the ride and, like Benjamin right now, a stranger in a strange land. He met a beautiful Japanese girl named Yuki, the niece to Miyagi-sensei’s wife, and they fell hopelessly in love with each other.
What a wonderful dream that would be.
Benjamin didn’t think it strange at all to have thoughts like these at the age of eleven. He was a dreamer, encouraged by his mother to always dream, and that was that.
He then spied a sign. It was mostly in Kanji and he quickly reached into his messenger bag to retrieve his map - he was not bad at all with orientation and navigation.
The map, of course, was entirely in Hiragana - all part and parcel of the immersive learning experience. In fact, English was discouraged from being used at the Academy as much as possible. It was difficult, but it meant that Benjamin was making strides towards adopting Nihongo as a second language.
Quickly, Ben found where he was on the map, verified that the Kanji on the sign where the ones for his destination, and double-checked the tiny Hiragana characters printed over the Kanji.
Yes, the Hikawa shrine was definitely up these stairs.
With the irrepressible energy and exuberance that are the hallmarks of ADHD, Benjamin practically flew up the stone steps, neatly avoiding slower moving adults and teenagers, and eliciting a startled yelp from one out of four passers by.
To which Ben would toss a quick “Gomen!” over his shoulder.
It was fine, though. Benjamin was still by and large considered a child, and children had a lot of leeway in Japan.
In less time that it took most people to even trudge up ten of those steps, Ben was already at the top, barely even winded from the exertion, and looking around eagerly.
The shrine grounds were of a modest size. Barely more than a quarter of an acre. Dominating the center was the shrine itself, all heavy wood timbers, rustic and distinctly Japanese in its architecture. Behind that were several smaller buildings of a traditional Japanese style. If Benjamin was reading his map of the shrine correctly, these were the restricted buildings - the living quarters, the bath house and the storage shed for the people that lived here and maintained the shrine.
Benjamin got his camera out. It was nothing special - a basic 35mm Nikon. But it did its job well so long as Ben was being mindful of the shutter speed and light levels. He began to work the camera - the only electrical component to it was the flash. Everything else he worked himself - the focus, the winding of the film, and most importantly, the timing of the shot.
Benjamin had burned through half a roll of film when suddenly someone spilled over him from behind, knocking him down with a yelp of surprise and getting tangled up in their limbs.
As he quickly got himself untangled from his impromptu dance partner, he made several quick observations.
Skirt! It’s a girl! Be careful about where my hands and eyes go!
Seifuku from the middle school nearby - she’s older than me!
Oh wow. I never knew a Japanese girl could have blond hair like that and make it work for her… she’s pretty.
The girl stood over him, but not by much. Tsukino Usagi was short, even for her age. But she had the petite and athletic dancer’s build to go with her height. Her luxuriously long blond hair was gathered into two buns on either side of her head with twin-tails left to stream down from each one. And she had beautiful vividly blue eyes, that gave a person the impression of looking down into the deep sea.
“Gomen nasai!” said Benjamin hurriedly as he bowed to the girl. “I should be more careful!”
The girl looked like she might complain at first, but then relaxed once she realized he was being completely earnest.
Besides, she reflected, if Minako hadn’t distracted me just then, I might have actually seen him.
“Daijobu, daijobu,” replied the girl in an easy-going tone as she waved it off. “Really, it’s okay…” Usagi trailed off as something occurred to her. “Wait a minute… are you an American?”
“Yes yes!” replied Ben. “I am American. I am from Texas.”
“Texas!” cried out one of the other girls.
Rumors had abound about the strange and dusty place called Texas that was like America, only distilled and concentrated. New York had its great city. California had its cliffs and coastlines. But Texas was everything that America stood for and then some.
“So cooooooooool!” said Usagi, drawing out the last syllable. “My name is Tsukino Usagi, and I’m in class 2-D of Juuban Municipal Middle School. How about you?”
“My name is Rodes’ Benjamin. I’m in Class 6-C of Juuban Preparatory Academy for Foreigners.”
“Heeeee-eeeeeeh!?” said all the girls at once, for it was well known that the school was an elite-level academy, one intended only for the brightest of the natively English-speaking children in Juuban.
Suddenly, Usagi pulled all her friends together in a huddle. Benjamin looked on, puzzled as the girls all murmured unintelligibly to each other. Soon enough, though, they came out of their huddle and the one with blue hair stepped forward.
Ben gulped a little. With that small smile she was so pretty and it was making him a bit nervous no matter how much he liked being around girls.
She then hunkered down a bit so she wasn’t looking down at him, and Ben automatically felt a bit better.
“Neh, Rodes-san. Usagi-chan has a big English quiz tomorrow, and we all could use a little extra help. Would you mind helping us with our study session?”
He couldn’t believe it! They wanted his help!? This was more than he could have dreamed of! The only way this could be better was if one of them had a little sister - he didn’t even imagine that he’d have a chance with one of these girls, but he wasn’t gonna turn this down. Not in a million years!
“Sure! I’d love to!”
“YATAAAAA!” cheered Usagi as she suddenly grabbed his hand and started dragging him at speed over to the Shrine’s living quarters. “C’mon Rodes-kun! We got a lotta work to do!”
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Soooooo.... thoughts?