It's something I've been at on-and-off, and wrestling with it is part of what's been keeping me occupied lately (among other things like trying to help my family move from Baltimore to San Antonio).
I'm only about half-way through at this point in time and having to redo everything, even with having all my original material back, is a tiresome process. A bit of feedback on how this is looking would be great, especially with how Zeke comes across as a character and my switch to a 3rd Person POV. (I hate 3PPOV because it just feels so damn impersonal.) So, here's my WIP on Chapter 1...
A teenage boy looks through a portal on a Boeing? ?747-400? ?airliner as it passes over the coastline of Japan.? ?Despite being a healthy and active sixteen year old,? ?he looks young for his age.? ?His face is narrow,? ?his cheekbones high and prominent,? ?and his complexion is dark.? ?This is natural,? ?though,? ?given his close relation to sturdy Native American stock.
His name is Ezekiel.
His father is not the source of his Native-American heritage, but that is not to say that he isn't an impressive specimen himself. At nearly seven feet in height and with a build like a power-lifter, he towers over his son, even while sitting down. On and off again he wonder if his son will ever have a monumental growth spurt where he'll finally bear some resemblance to him. For now, he is only his mother in looks.
In mind, he is neither. His father, Mathieu Darkwood, always told Zeke that he must be his own man and decide for himself what he wants to be. Zeke took this to heart and became the idealistic iconoclast that sticks out like a sore thumb. Of course, it was a somewhat painful experience, as the nail that sticks up the most tends the get hammered down the hardest. Zeke, however, would prove his mettle time and again with the sort of stubborn will that both sides of the family were known for.
In the end, Zeke became the sort of person that kept to himself for the most part. He would gladly lend a hand where needed, but never lent his input. His ideas were either too radical for anyone's taste, or he had simple common sense advice that nobody wanted to hear - especially not from some runty little kid that spoke slowly, clearly, and with no particular accent.
That last particular bit couldn't be helped. If you had to ask him where he was from, then you were usually rewarded the with question: "Recently or originally?" The life of a military child is not an easy one.
Mathieu was a Naval Officer - one who was to take command of a guided missile destroyer out of Yokosuka, Japan. He had started out as a fighter jock, but an accident early on in his career left him with a left hand with virtually no strength in it and a change in life plans.
So, he became a surface sailor and fell in love with the Destroyers - small, fast ships with firepower that was beyond the proportion of their size.
Mathieu saw it as a sort of gift to his son - Zeke had never been to Japan and it took a bit of doing to make this assignment happen. For the most part, Mathieu had been on the East Coast. Getting to Japan meant getting an assignment to the West Coast first due to the expense of moving someone out there to Asia. It was worth it though to see the look on his son's face as he studied the landscape down below.
"Everything is so squared away," murmured Zeke. "All the landplots... they don't follow the contours of the land like they do in America."
"The Japanese are very orderly like that, son. They have to be with so little useful land available to them and so many people to feed and house."
There was a brief moment of silence, which Zeke broke by saying, "Thank you for bringing me here, Dad."
Mathieu smiled. "For you son, it's nothing."
*********
When Darkwoods get together to plan something out they treat it as a military action? ?-? ?no detail is overlooked.? ?So it was that the settling in process was mostly uneventful and patently orderly.? ?Contingency plans were made in advance just in case something went wrong,? ?such as the household goods not arriving in a timely fashion,? ?or if there was a delay in getting the place they wanted out in town.
For Zeke, it was his enrollment into a Japanese school.
Some bureaucrat in the school system took one look at his name and immediately 'lost' the paperwork. Nobody else knew that for certain, but we can all rest assured that Karma would get hers in the end. For Zeke, it was a disappointment, but one for which they had planned on. A duplicate of all the needed forms was held in reserve and would be submitted for the next term's enrollment cycle.
That meant that Zeke would have all the time he could want to go out, explore, and familiarize himself with the area before he had to bother with school.
Of course, as the maxim goes, there are no coincidences.
It was a late-winter day where the cold still had a stranglehold on the land, but sunlight would cast enough warmth to make it bearable. The air was clear and clean from the passing of a storm that night, which meant that now would be a good time to find a nice spot with a high elevation, with a camera and a good line-of-sight to Mount Fuji.
As Ezekiel waited patiently for the train to come, a short, elderly man on the platform across the tracks caught his eye - he wore the robes of a Shinto priest.
Part of Zeke's interest in Japan had to do with Shinto. Not so much the religious aspects itself, but the 'witchcraft' involved in it. While Celtic knot work held the beginnings of seal craft, no one else took it to the level that Shintoism did. Perfectly drawn, a seal, or a 'fuuin' was said to be able to contain or drive off evil spirits and encourage positive energy flow.
It would be obvious at this point; Zeke considers himself to be a pagan, but not simply because he became disenchanted with other religions (in fact he actually has a great deal of respect for other reputable religions). It had to do with a calling he had, and why every morning he had to cover the marks on his face with concealer.
While the man's garb grabbed Zeke's attention, his apparent condition held it. It was subtle, but if one knew the signs to look for then it was plainly obvious. Despite the chilly nip in the air, the man was sweating profusely. He breathed heavily and seemed utterly exhausted. And then, of course, was the pallor in his face.
Zeke was about to go and summon help for the man, but he had suddenly pitched forward, off the platform's edge and down to the tracks below.
The timing could not have been worse: the train on the elderly man's side was already pulling into the station.
With barely a second thought, Zeke ran and slapped the red SOS button that would stop a train and summon immediate assistance. But Newton's Laws of Inertia applied here. Zeke already knew this and was already over the edge of his platform by the time the other would-be passengers started screaming in horror.
With no time to be gentle, Zeke grabbed the elder by his robes and swung him clear, just before the train barreled through the spot where he had been, brakes screeching the whole way through.
The immediate danger averted, Zeke then checked on the old man. He was bleeding from a cut on his head - probably from when he took his header into the tracks. Zeke had first aid training and practical experience from his summers spent in the wilderness with his Native-American grandfather. This leaped to the fore as he lifted his jacket and sweat shirt and ripped off a piece of his undershirt. Zeke used it to tie a quick compression bandage on the man's head, all while being careful to move his head as little as possible. If he did have a spinal injury then moving him the way he did probably didn't do him any favors other than making sure the train didn't kill him outright - but that was no excuse to get careless after the fact.
Once the bandage was in place, Zeke noted with grim humor that he looked like he was wearing a crude hachimaki.
"Get help!" called out Zeke to the observers on the platform using his crude, but effective Japanese. Two of them responded with clipped affirmatives, one running to guide the first responders and the other gesticulating and shouting in Japanese to indicate where they were.
Zeke, meanwhile, checked the man's pulse. To his unsurprised dismay, he found it to be weak and erratic.
Heart attack.
As soon as the first responders arrived, Zeke began to explain everything - heart attack victim, fell into the tracks and hit his head, possibility of spinal injury. The two first responders (transit police, actually), thanked him tersely and politely asked him to stand aside. Zeke knew better to interfere more than he had already, but stopped just short of taking someone's helping hand to get out of the tracks. The old priest was awake now - a very good sign - and looking right at Zeke. The man's eyes clearly indicated that he was in a great deal of pain, but through that Zeke could also see gratitude... and possibly recognition as well? Zeke wasn't sure, but he got the feeling that the elder somehow knew him.
"Are you coming up or not?" Zeke snapped out of his reverie and took the offered hand of another transit cop.
"Thank you," said Zeke as he dusted himself off - cleanly as the Japanese are, some places are just impossible to keep clean.
"You stupid foreigner!" came an outraged voice from the crowd of onlookers. Zeke blinked as the crowd parted for another elderly man - tall, balding, and liver-spotted with eyeglasses that only enhanced his glower. "You Americans are all the same! You always make such a mess out of everything!"
"Please, grandfather," urged one of the police officers politely. "This young man may have saved that priest’s life."
The angry man was quick to reply: "And because of him all the trains are going to be late today!"
"Please be reasonable, grandfather. It would have happened anyway."
"Americans are nothing more than dogs that should be thrown out of our land!" And the proverbial knives had come out. From there, the rant only continued to spiral out of control as he began to go on about foreign military forces poisoning their culture and nuclear pollution from US Navy ships.
The transit police decided that it would be a good time to remove Zeke from the scene to better defuse the situation.
From the platform Zeke was led through the concourse and into the offices of the station - beyond the customer service counters and into the heart of the station itself where the paperwork was handled. There was no one inside and Zeke was asked politely to wait and not touch anything. It was a messy space. Cramped desks were littered with barely organized stacks of paper.
Moments later two more men entered the room. Both were just past middle-age. One of them was another transit police officer, though from the insignia Zeke could tell that he was likely the one in charge of all the officers at the station. The other man had on a uniform that slightly echoed that of the rest of the station’s staff, but was simpler yet more business-like. This, Zeke realized, must have been the Station Keeper.
The police officer stood to the side while his counterpart had a seat and gestured for Zeke to do the same. As Zeke dragged another office chair over, the Station Keeper pulled out a cigarette and lit it, politely puffing away from Zeke.
After his first long drag, he sighed and began to speak in perfectly understandable English,
"Son, you've caused me no end of trouble today." Zeke was about to speak in his own defense, but the older man beat him to the punch. "No, no. I understand that the situation couldn't be helped. It certainly could have been worse.
"The thing is that accidents do happen. It's not desirable, but so are a lot of things about life. But what sets this apart from other situations is that you, an American, got involved. Now the media will set their teeth into this issue and not let go until every last bit of information is squeezed out of it.
"That said, there's a few things I need to ask you, just as a formality in these circumstances. Your name?"
"Darkwood, Ezekiel," replied Zeke flatly.
"Darkwood is your family name?"
"That's right."
"Odd name if you don't mind my saying so."
Zeke gave the Station Master a perplexed look.
The middle-aged man just smiled. "My wife's an American, so I tend to spend all my holidays over in the USA."
"It's usually the other way around," said Zeke.
"I know," the manager replied matter-of-factly. "Most Japanese men prefer their women to be meek and submissive - not at all like American women. It's so rare to find a Japanese woman who is spirited like an American. They tend to keep you guessing - it's pretty fun sometimes, but I digress.
"Your age?"
"Sixteen," answered Zeke.
The Station Keeper’s eyebrows rose and he eyed Zeke carefully - he could usually pick out the ones that were lying about their age from how they behaved. Zeke, though, carried himself more like a confident eighteen-year-old instead of the young and uncertain fourteen-year-old he resembled. Boggled, the man went back to his questioning.
"How long have you been in Japan?"
"Just a month. My father is in the Navy," said Zeke, hoping it might help matters.
"Ah, I see then. Should we try contacting him?"
"No, he's out with his ship already."
"Hmmmm. What about your mother?"
"She passed away when I was five. I'm pretty much living on my own right now."
"Oh! My apologies."
"It's alright. It was a long time ago."
"Alright then. Now for the question that everyone is going to want to know about: why did you do something so dangerous?"
"That's easy. I cannot accept that someone is in peril when I am able to do something about it. People talk all the time about something terrible happening and nobody doing anything. I do not want to be one of those people that don't do anything."
"And if something happens to you?"
"Then at least I will be remembered as someone that tried his best."
The Station Keeper scoffed good naturedly. "You know what, I think I'm gonna tell my kids about you and what you did today. Heaven knows that we need more good examples like you.
“Oh, just one more thing for the police report. I’m going to need your home address - it’s just what you would call a formality.”
I sighed to myself. It was a formality, something for the official record. Reluctantly, I gave out my address, but when I said that I was in Juuban, the station master gave me a startled look.
“That noisy place?” he said.
I blinked. “Is there something wrong?”
“You haven’t heard? A few years back they had a bunch of incidents with fights between monsters and some crazy magical girls.”
“Oh, I think I heard about this before. I was just fourteen, though, so it’s a little foggy. Was there anyone hurt?”
“A few, but no fatalities. But what’s really worrying is that there’s been a recent incident that sounds just like what happened back then. You be careful, kid. The last thing I want to see in the newspaper your name in the obituary.”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. The trains should be moving again. Kurita-san will make sure that you aren’t hassled on your way out.”
With that we got up and bowed to each other, and then I was escorted out the office. But instead of going to the platform, I instead opted to go home - this was the sort of thing that just ruins a day.
*********
People are inherently curious.? ?The Japanese are no different? ?-? ?only they're not as nosy.? ?Therefore,? ?it comes as no surprise that they have a large,? ?though not always effective,? ?media machine.? ?For the longest time,? ?only the surface events mattered? ?-? ?never mind the cause and effect.
That was starting to change these days, but as with any change in Japan, it was a slow thing in action.
Not slow enough for Zeke’s liking.
When the doorbell rang and he looked through the peephole, Zeke groaned at the site of a nondescript Japanese man, double-checking a note pad, moving his pen through it as though it were some kind of stylus.
Make no mistake, Zeke loved to entertain company when he had it - it was the Libran and the Raven inherent in him that made him a natural host. He was happy to talk about this, that, and the other thing, and all while seeing to the needs and comforts of others.
His disconnect with society in general was strictly because he was on such a different wavelength. Being an avatar was a pain in the ass.
However, he did not like the attention of journalists, for few of that particular species of human ever really seemed to get things straight. It was all about the story and the sensationalism. If it bleeds, it leads.
The old man was right, thought Zeke ruefully. The press was going to seize this in its jaws and not let go until they knew everything.
That was all he needed.
His wariness of the press was a trained behavior. The Avatar of Raven did not need to go around whoring for attention. Thus, in an act that could only be called sadistic, Zeke's Grandfather hired an army of fake reporters to hound Zeke whether he was on reservation land or not. At the time, Zeke was still shy - his sunny demeanor eclipsed by the violent passing of his mother - and the false reporters had no problem forcing Zeke to flee.
Zeke rapidly developed a very healthy dislike for reporters, and it took him years to readjust his views to the point where he would consider speaking to one.
With a sigh, Zeke pushed the button and the door slid open.
The man's head jerked up with an audible "Ara?" He quickly reclaimed his composure, though, and began by saying,
"Konichiwa. Are you Darkwood-san?"
"Yeeeesss," said Zeke cautiously.
"Good! Good! I am Hagino Kenishi of the Juuban Press Club. May I ask you a few questions?"
Zeke nodded. "Let's get started. I assume you already have the basic information about me since you already know where I live."
"Yes, the rail line was very forthcoming with that information."
Zeke rolled his eyes at that. "Last time I give out my address," he grumbled. "Okay then, so what would you like to know?"
"If you please, Darkwood-san, we want to know the story from your eyes."
"Alright then, no problem." Zeke then recounted his story in as much detail as he could muster. Kenishi seemed to be impressed about how Zeke had jumped in at the last moment and got the priest out of harm’s way.
"Thank you, Mister Darkwood," said Kenishi once Zeke had finished recounting the events. "Now everyone wants to know: why did you do it?"
Zeke blinked. "Because it was the right thing to do," he answered.
Kenishi seemed puzzled, but jotted down the answer.
"Sorry, Darkwood-san, but I wish you to elaborate."
Zeke thought about that for a moment. Americans, in comparison to the Japanese, are odd in where they draw the line between selfish and selfless behavior.
"Alright," said Zeke. "I understand that American can seem strange to the Japanese - sometimes even offensive. However, in cases like this most Americans have this mindset that these matters are not someone else's problem. We don’t care that we’re not qualified rescue workers. We do not stand by when someone is in trouble like that. We act out of compassion and it is often with very little thought. It is simply an automatic reflex. Only the most jaded among us lack this reflex."
Kenishi nodded and scribbled characters in his note pad, a satisfied expression on his face.
"We were told that you are here because of family and school. Can you explain more?"
"Yes," answered Zeke readily - he'd been expecting a question like this. "My father is an officer in the US Navy. More than that I shouldn't really say. I'm also here because I wish to expand my knowledge in various subjects in engineering, and I also wish to study Shintoism up close in its native country."
Kenishi seemed to be impressed with that, and then made a sour face at something in his note pad.
"What's wrong?" asked Zeke.
"Someone back at the press club wanted to know if you have a girlfriend."
Zeke snorted at that. He really wouldn't mind finding a girlfriend, but he was also in no rush to complicate his life.
"Look, isn't it obvious that I don't have anyone in my life right now?" said Zeke testily. "I got here barely a month ago and I just finished settling in. There's no one else my age here. You're a reporter. Do a little footwork next time."
Kenishi blushed at that and scribbled a short note. Zeke figured he'd probably get ribbed for that one.
"I think that's all everyone needed to know about," said Kenishi. He was about to bow when Zeke stopped him.
"Wait."
"What?" replied the reporter curiously.
"Should I expect more reporters?"
"Ah," replied Kenishi with a smile. "Our press club is the only one in Juuban. Any newspaper that wishes to run this story will get it from our club."
"I see. Thank you very much."
"You're welcome, Darkwood-san. Good day." And with that he bowed, turned and left.
Zeke sighed heavily and palmed the button, shutting the door as he went back to the couch to plunk himself down.
While the guarantee that this was the only reporter he'd have to deal with was a relief, he despised the idea that people were going to know where he lived and what he'd done.
He just about felt like he would hide in the apartment for the next three months, or run screaming across the Pacific - whichever got to him first, the nerves or the panic.
Hino Rei is a very reserved girl.
There is a reason for this, though. Hino Rei has a very short temper and an image to upkeep. As the daughter of a wealthy and affluent politician she has a duty to maintain her decorum.
However, that about the only duty she feels she owes to her father. After all, the man pretty much dumped her at her grandfather's doorstep after her mother passed away and only showed up on her birthdays.
Just to keep up his appearance as a dutiful father.
She is also torn about her path in life. Part of her wishes to be a simple Shinto Priestess, taking over for her Grandfather in due time. Another part would like to be a world-famous singer and actress and tour the world. The two simply do not mesh well together.
Thinking about it puts her in a foul mood, but the only thing that makes her moods even worse is being hassled by the other boys (and sometimes even a few perverted men). It couldn't be helped much. Rei was beautiful - a tall and athletic beauty of a Japanese girl who had just come into her womanhood, with long black hair (she preferred to stand out by not dying her hair) and dark eyes that smoldered.
Of course, that just meant that she attracted a lot of attention from the opposite sex (and sometimes even the same sex). The real root of her issue with men is laid squarely at the feet of her father and the company that he keeps. In Rei’s mind, men are chauvinistic pigs who do not deserve her attention any more than decorum allows.
So, it is only natural that she is repulsed by what she has to do right now.
Standing there in front of the apartment building, Rei notes that it is actually a very nice place - very new and modern with electronically controlled doors and rooms so spacious they bordered on being cavernous, even by a foreigner’s standards.
Rei swallowed her pride. She had to do this - karma demanded that she pay some form of gratitude to the strange foreign boy that saved the life of her grandfather (the man may be a lech, but he was the lech that actually bothered to raise her, so she wasn't entirely heartless about her elder’s fate).
Although she did wonder why someone who seemed to live such a comfortable life would even bother.
Carefully balancing the curry she asked her friend and much better cook prepare for her, she used her free hand to ring the buzzer.
Zeke had been laying low after his encounter with the Japanese media-machine, so he was a bit leery of answering the door when it rang for the second time that afternoon. Inwardly he shuddered at the thought of more reporters, but his insatiable sense of curiosity made him at least get up and take a look through the peek-hole to see exactly who it was.
He was mildly surprised when he saw the girl in a school's sailor uniform holding a dish, and wondered if this was some sort of belated welcome-wagon. Seeing no threat, he pushed the button to unlock and open the door, still marveling at the automatic sliding door.
Rei blinked at the boy who opened the door. From what she understood, he was supposed to be sixteen, not fourteen.
"Please excuse me for the interruption, but does..." Rei suddenly cursed herself for forgetting exactly how the name went - she hated those weird foreign names. She quickly stole a glance at the address she had tuck in her hand with the curry. "Da-ru-ku-wu-do-san... live here?"
"Yes," answered Zeke, "father no return one month."
FATHER!? thought Rei incredulously. "I don't think I am looking for your father. Is your name..." she stole another glance at the paper, every millisecond burning like the hottest shame. "Eh-zi-ki-eh-ru?"
"Yes, that me," replied Zeke, puzzled. He only hoped that this girl wasn't offended by his broken Japanese. "Something be wrong?"
"You're kidding!" said Rei, surprised that this boy was sixteen. He was too small and too... young looking. For her, he looked like he was just starting junior high school, not high school.
"No, I him," said Zeke with some chagrin. "You think I too young."
"Yes," answered Rei, somewhat tersely.
"My mother. She twenty-five when I born, but look eighteen."
Genetics, thought Rei immediately. Youthful appearances must run in his family.
"The man you saved at the train station was my grandfather," said Rei as she started to come to terms with his appearance. She then held out the curry with both hands and bowed to Zeke. "Please, accept this meal as a token of my gratitude."
The smell of cumin reached out and grabbed Zeke's nose with, for him, was the force of an enraged gorilla, making him nearly swoon.
"Curry rice!" said Zeke almost breathlessly. He then sniffed again. "It smells good!" For Zeke, there were few things better than a good curry - spicy, but not so much that it overpowers the flavor of anything else that might be added.
Rei just wished that Zeke would take it already. The smell was starting to drive her nuts as well - she hadn't had much to eat since she heard that her Grandfather had been hospitalized. Zeke accepted the curry graciously, but as she was about to say goodbye her stomach picked that moment to make its empty status known in an uproarious manner.
Zeke, ever the charitable soul, considered the weight of the dish, and then looked to Rei.
"Come in. Eat," he offered.
Right away, Rei’s hackles went up. The idea of sharing dinner with this boy sounded too much like a first date, especially someplace as intimate as his own home.
"No, I can't possibly intrude," said Rei nervously.
"No. You eat," said Zeke. "You bring food. Not right making you starve." And then his eyes took on a slightly haunted look, as though he was recalling some painful memory. "Hunger hurts bad."
Rei looked at him and felt her gaze drawn to his eyes. There, she saw genuine concern. Inside, part of her railed and screamed at the danger of sharing a table with this boy. But her stomach was starting to cramp painfully from being empty for too long. She could go to a fast food restaurant, but Makoto’s cooking was far better than any restaurant that she'd been to - even most of the gourmet ones her father took her to on her birthdays paled in comparison.
"Alright," Rei relented.
Zeke smiled. "Please, come in. Rest."
Zeke took the curry inside and disappeared around a corner. Rei followed him inside and found a spacious room with a huge sliding glass door that led out to the patio and offered a nice view of Tokyo. A modest-sized flat-panel television hung on the wall to her left with the entertainment center below it. On the opposite wall was a tall bookshelf, but it was only partly filled with books. She then took note of the packing cartons - a few empty and collapsed down, the others filled with more books. A couch faced the television, but in the space between stood a kotatsu - a table with a heater underneath to keep your legs warm and a quilt running all around the edges to trap that heat.
As she took off her shoes, she noticed that he did have a set of guest slippers. As she put them on, however, she was surprised to see the absolutely enormous slippers that were set aside and wondered who on Earth could be that big.
She went to the kotatsu and touched the table-top. It was warm. After being out in the cold with only a wool skirt and leggings to keep her warm, she decided to accept his hospitality and settled herself at the table, sighing as the warmth began to seep into her bones - she had to fight to repress a sigh of relief. A moment later Zeke appeared with a tall ceramic cup which he placed in front of Rei wordlessly, but with a warm smile. It was hot green tea - served as it should be. Rei sipped at it, grateful for the added warmth despite it coming from a boy.
Zeke went back to the room - presumably the kitchen. He then came back with a tray that had spoons, two tall crystal tumblers filled with ice cubes, and a white pitcher. With little ceremony, he set the tray down, transferred one of the glasses to its appropriate place at her setting, then filled it with water from the pitcher causing the ice to crackle loudly. Without a word he disappeared once more.
It was only after she set the glass down that she noticed the papers strewn across the table top. She studied them from where she sat, curiosity gnawing at her. The words were English, but there were hand-drawn sketches as well - things with squared shapes, things with sweeping curves, and things with neat and orderly patterns.
That was when Zeke came back with two plates, loaded down with Makoto’s curry. He set one down before her and the other at an empty side of the table.
It was like being waited on at a restaurant, only your waiter was enjoying the meal with you.
This is so weird, thought Rei to herself as she eyed the boy warily.
"Itadakimas," they said together. This caused Rei to blink in surprise at Zeke, but she mentally shook it off and got started on the meal - it was actually taking restraint on her part just to keep from bolting it down, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to eat quickly.
Zeke took his first bite and sighed as he savored it. "Wow. Best curry rice ever."
Score another point for Makoto, thought Rei, but she offered no comment.
"May ask what name is?"
"Hino Rei," she replied curtly. Zeke's smile turned to a thoughtful expression - he was picking up the vibe clearly enough.
She clearly doesn't want to be here, thought Zeke to himself. But she still felt obligated to bring this meal to me to thank me for what I did.
He eyed her furtively, but she did not look up.
She's beautiful, he thought. It would be shameful if she didn't have a boyfriend.
Zeke then noticed that she was looking at his papers - her brows were hunched over her eyes in an expression of intense scrutiny.
"That school work," said Zeke, solving the mystery for her.
Rei gave Zeke a sharp, yet curious look. "School work?"
"Yes. Distant study course. Mechanical engineering."
"Engineering? Well, I suppose you will get a good job that way," she replied dismissively.
Zeke shrugged "More like hobby."
Rei frowned. "How can something like that be just a hobby?"
Zeke sighed. "Have higher calling. Not I wish for, but no choice." Rei said nothing and Zeke decided to drop the bomb shell. "You have great power."
If Rei’s previously look had been sharp before, then this one was meant for decapitation.
Zeke raised an eyebrow. "You deny?"
"It's none of your business," said Rei curtly.
Zeke sighed and decided to face confrontation with confrontation. "Why you angry?"
Rei glared at Zeke openly now. "Because I am sick of men like you trying to woo me."
Zeke gave her a shocked look, then returned her glare with interest. "If ugliest man of world bring food, I share meal. This hospitality - good manner! I no date you. You pretty, yes. Prettiest girl ever. Maybe good person, but ugly attitude."
Rei gaped at him as her paradigm attempted to shift without a clutch.
She did not like boys. Not since Kaidou. She made a regular habit of shooting down boys. But never before had one returned fire with such incisiveness and accuracy.
Zeke, for his part, followed through by holding the silent glare a moment longer, then said,
“Leave or finish food. I no care. Button open door. Door close when leave.”
He then scooted back, turned around and settled himself into a comfortable position as he began to meditate, which came as a further surprise to Rei.
Helpless to look away, she watch as he breathed. It was like as though there was a violent storm all around him - she could feel it in his aura - power that had no desire to be contained, let alone be harnessed. And there in the middle, in a fragile yet peaceful center was the boy.
Suddenly the words he had said about having a calling came back to her.
She had completely underestimated him. The spirits had left their mark on this person, that much was evident. No human went around with that much untapped power unless the spirits favored that person for some reason. This boy, had he been raised as a priest, could easily be Rei’s equal.
Looking for an excuse to continue watching, she began to finish her meal. There wasn’t much left because she had eaten so quickly - she had been too hungry. So, she now took her time with it.
When she finished the storm around the boy had quieted. Instead of a violent storm, it simply loomed around him, ominous and threatening. From its behavior it seemed as though that rather than fight with it the boy had reasoned with it instead, talking it down to a more manageable level.
Still in a foul mood, but no longer snappish, he stirred and turned to her once more, but said nothing as he began to eat again.
“You’re not like others,” said Rei.
Zeke raised an eyebrow as he gave her a warning look.
Rei said nothing more, she only looked at him expectantly.
Zeke sighed. “Issues,” he said. “Control difficult. Hope Shinto teach better control.”
Rei sighed at that. She didn’t like the idea of what she was about to say, but this meal was supposed to be a repayment of the debt that was owed. And she had spoiled it.
“My Grandfather can teach you. As soon as he is well enough to do so.”
Zeke expression softened. “Grandfather is well?”
“Yes. It was a minor heart attack. He will be able to leave the hospital in a week.”
Zeke sighed. “I glad.” He then turned a more sober look to Rei. “If Grandfather wish, I go learn.”
“Very well then,” said Rei, who then finished off the last of the curry and set the spoon down, intoning, “Thank you very much for the meal.” Without another word she got up and began to make her way out.
Zeke got up and opened the door for her. “Thank you, Hino-san.”
Rei regarded Zeke with a neutral expression. With no other ideas, he bowed to her and she returned the gesture. That ritual completed, she turned and left.
Zeke sighed and palmed the button, closing the door. With little else to do, he decided to finish the rest of his curry.
If nothing else, it was really good curry.
I'm only about half-way through at this point in time and having to redo everything, even with having all my original material back, is a tiresome process. A bit of feedback on how this is looking would be great, especially with how Zeke comes across as a character and my switch to a 3rd Person POV. (I hate 3PPOV because it just feels so damn impersonal.) So, here's my WIP on Chapter 1...
A teenage boy looks through a portal on a Boeing? ?747-400? ?airliner as it passes over the coastline of Japan.? ?Despite being a healthy and active sixteen year old,? ?he looks young for his age.? ?His face is narrow,? ?his cheekbones high and prominent,? ?and his complexion is dark.? ?This is natural,? ?though,? ?given his close relation to sturdy Native American stock.
His name is Ezekiel.
His father is not the source of his Native-American heritage, but that is not to say that he isn't an impressive specimen himself. At nearly seven feet in height and with a build like a power-lifter, he towers over his son, even while sitting down. On and off again he wonder if his son will ever have a monumental growth spurt where he'll finally bear some resemblance to him. For now, he is only his mother in looks.
In mind, he is neither. His father, Mathieu Darkwood, always told Zeke that he must be his own man and decide for himself what he wants to be. Zeke took this to heart and became the idealistic iconoclast that sticks out like a sore thumb. Of course, it was a somewhat painful experience, as the nail that sticks up the most tends the get hammered down the hardest. Zeke, however, would prove his mettle time and again with the sort of stubborn will that both sides of the family were known for.
In the end, Zeke became the sort of person that kept to himself for the most part. He would gladly lend a hand where needed, but never lent his input. His ideas were either too radical for anyone's taste, or he had simple common sense advice that nobody wanted to hear - especially not from some runty little kid that spoke slowly, clearly, and with no particular accent.
That last particular bit couldn't be helped. If you had to ask him where he was from, then you were usually rewarded the with question: "Recently or originally?" The life of a military child is not an easy one.
Mathieu was a Naval Officer - one who was to take command of a guided missile destroyer out of Yokosuka, Japan. He had started out as a fighter jock, but an accident early on in his career left him with a left hand with virtually no strength in it and a change in life plans.
So, he became a surface sailor and fell in love with the Destroyers - small, fast ships with firepower that was beyond the proportion of their size.
Mathieu saw it as a sort of gift to his son - Zeke had never been to Japan and it took a bit of doing to make this assignment happen. For the most part, Mathieu had been on the East Coast. Getting to Japan meant getting an assignment to the West Coast first due to the expense of moving someone out there to Asia. It was worth it though to see the look on his son's face as he studied the landscape down below.
"Everything is so squared away," murmured Zeke. "All the landplots... they don't follow the contours of the land like they do in America."
"The Japanese are very orderly like that, son. They have to be with so little useful land available to them and so many people to feed and house."
There was a brief moment of silence, which Zeke broke by saying, "Thank you for bringing me here, Dad."
Mathieu smiled. "For you son, it's nothing."
*********
When Darkwoods get together to plan something out they treat it as a military action? ?-? ?no detail is overlooked.? ?So it was that the settling in process was mostly uneventful and patently orderly.? ?Contingency plans were made in advance just in case something went wrong,? ?such as the household goods not arriving in a timely fashion,? ?or if there was a delay in getting the place they wanted out in town.
For Zeke, it was his enrollment into a Japanese school.
Some bureaucrat in the school system took one look at his name and immediately 'lost' the paperwork. Nobody else knew that for certain, but we can all rest assured that Karma would get hers in the end. For Zeke, it was a disappointment, but one for which they had planned on. A duplicate of all the needed forms was held in reserve and would be submitted for the next term's enrollment cycle.
That meant that Zeke would have all the time he could want to go out, explore, and familiarize himself with the area before he had to bother with school.
Of course, as the maxim goes, there are no coincidences.
It was a late-winter day where the cold still had a stranglehold on the land, but sunlight would cast enough warmth to make it bearable. The air was clear and clean from the passing of a storm that night, which meant that now would be a good time to find a nice spot with a high elevation, with a camera and a good line-of-sight to Mount Fuji.
As Ezekiel waited patiently for the train to come, a short, elderly man on the platform across the tracks caught his eye - he wore the robes of a Shinto priest.
Part of Zeke's interest in Japan had to do with Shinto. Not so much the religious aspects itself, but the 'witchcraft' involved in it. While Celtic knot work held the beginnings of seal craft, no one else took it to the level that Shintoism did. Perfectly drawn, a seal, or a 'fuuin' was said to be able to contain or drive off evil spirits and encourage positive energy flow.
It would be obvious at this point; Zeke considers himself to be a pagan, but not simply because he became disenchanted with other religions (in fact he actually has a great deal of respect for other reputable religions). It had to do with a calling he had, and why every morning he had to cover the marks on his face with concealer.
While the man's garb grabbed Zeke's attention, his apparent condition held it. It was subtle, but if one knew the signs to look for then it was plainly obvious. Despite the chilly nip in the air, the man was sweating profusely. He breathed heavily and seemed utterly exhausted. And then, of course, was the pallor in his face.
Zeke was about to go and summon help for the man, but he had suddenly pitched forward, off the platform's edge and down to the tracks below.
The timing could not have been worse: the train on the elderly man's side was already pulling into the station.
With barely a second thought, Zeke ran and slapped the red SOS button that would stop a train and summon immediate assistance. But Newton's Laws of Inertia applied here. Zeke already knew this and was already over the edge of his platform by the time the other would-be passengers started screaming in horror.
With no time to be gentle, Zeke grabbed the elder by his robes and swung him clear, just before the train barreled through the spot where he had been, brakes screeching the whole way through.
The immediate danger averted, Zeke then checked on the old man. He was bleeding from a cut on his head - probably from when he took his header into the tracks. Zeke had first aid training and practical experience from his summers spent in the wilderness with his Native-American grandfather. This leaped to the fore as he lifted his jacket and sweat shirt and ripped off a piece of his undershirt. Zeke used it to tie a quick compression bandage on the man's head, all while being careful to move his head as little as possible. If he did have a spinal injury then moving him the way he did probably didn't do him any favors other than making sure the train didn't kill him outright - but that was no excuse to get careless after the fact.
Once the bandage was in place, Zeke noted with grim humor that he looked like he was wearing a crude hachimaki.
"Get help!" called out Zeke to the observers on the platform using his crude, but effective Japanese. Two of them responded with clipped affirmatives, one running to guide the first responders and the other gesticulating and shouting in Japanese to indicate where they were.
Zeke, meanwhile, checked the man's pulse. To his unsurprised dismay, he found it to be weak and erratic.
Heart attack.
As soon as the first responders arrived, Zeke began to explain everything - heart attack victim, fell into the tracks and hit his head, possibility of spinal injury. The two first responders (transit police, actually), thanked him tersely and politely asked him to stand aside. Zeke knew better to interfere more than he had already, but stopped just short of taking someone's helping hand to get out of the tracks. The old priest was awake now - a very good sign - and looking right at Zeke. The man's eyes clearly indicated that he was in a great deal of pain, but through that Zeke could also see gratitude... and possibly recognition as well? Zeke wasn't sure, but he got the feeling that the elder somehow knew him.
"Are you coming up or not?" Zeke snapped out of his reverie and took the offered hand of another transit cop.
"Thank you," said Zeke as he dusted himself off - cleanly as the Japanese are, some places are just impossible to keep clean.
"You stupid foreigner!" came an outraged voice from the crowd of onlookers. Zeke blinked as the crowd parted for another elderly man - tall, balding, and liver-spotted with eyeglasses that only enhanced his glower. "You Americans are all the same! You always make such a mess out of everything!"
"Please, grandfather," urged one of the police officers politely. "This young man may have saved that priest’s life."
The angry man was quick to reply: "And because of him all the trains are going to be late today!"
"Please be reasonable, grandfather. It would have happened anyway."
"Americans are nothing more than dogs that should be thrown out of our land!" And the proverbial knives had come out. From there, the rant only continued to spiral out of control as he began to go on about foreign military forces poisoning their culture and nuclear pollution from US Navy ships.
The transit police decided that it would be a good time to remove Zeke from the scene to better defuse the situation.
From the platform Zeke was led through the concourse and into the offices of the station - beyond the customer service counters and into the heart of the station itself where the paperwork was handled. There was no one inside and Zeke was asked politely to wait and not touch anything. It was a messy space. Cramped desks were littered with barely organized stacks of paper.
Moments later two more men entered the room. Both were just past middle-age. One of them was another transit police officer, though from the insignia Zeke could tell that he was likely the one in charge of all the officers at the station. The other man had on a uniform that slightly echoed that of the rest of the station’s staff, but was simpler yet more business-like. This, Zeke realized, must have been the Station Keeper.
The police officer stood to the side while his counterpart had a seat and gestured for Zeke to do the same. As Zeke dragged another office chair over, the Station Keeper pulled out a cigarette and lit it, politely puffing away from Zeke.
After his first long drag, he sighed and began to speak in perfectly understandable English,
"Son, you've caused me no end of trouble today." Zeke was about to speak in his own defense, but the older man beat him to the punch. "No, no. I understand that the situation couldn't be helped. It certainly could have been worse.
"The thing is that accidents do happen. It's not desirable, but so are a lot of things about life. But what sets this apart from other situations is that you, an American, got involved. Now the media will set their teeth into this issue and not let go until every last bit of information is squeezed out of it.
"That said, there's a few things I need to ask you, just as a formality in these circumstances. Your name?"
"Darkwood, Ezekiel," replied Zeke flatly.
"Darkwood is your family name?"
"That's right."
"Odd name if you don't mind my saying so."
Zeke gave the Station Master a perplexed look.
The middle-aged man just smiled. "My wife's an American, so I tend to spend all my holidays over in the USA."
"It's usually the other way around," said Zeke.
"I know," the manager replied matter-of-factly. "Most Japanese men prefer their women to be meek and submissive - not at all like American women. It's so rare to find a Japanese woman who is spirited like an American. They tend to keep you guessing - it's pretty fun sometimes, but I digress.
"Your age?"
"Sixteen," answered Zeke.
The Station Keeper’s eyebrows rose and he eyed Zeke carefully - he could usually pick out the ones that were lying about their age from how they behaved. Zeke, though, carried himself more like a confident eighteen-year-old instead of the young and uncertain fourteen-year-old he resembled. Boggled, the man went back to his questioning.
"How long have you been in Japan?"
"Just a month. My father is in the Navy," said Zeke, hoping it might help matters.
"Ah, I see then. Should we try contacting him?"
"No, he's out with his ship already."
"Hmmmm. What about your mother?"
"She passed away when I was five. I'm pretty much living on my own right now."
"Oh! My apologies."
"It's alright. It was a long time ago."
"Alright then. Now for the question that everyone is going to want to know about: why did you do something so dangerous?"
"That's easy. I cannot accept that someone is in peril when I am able to do something about it. People talk all the time about something terrible happening and nobody doing anything. I do not want to be one of those people that don't do anything."
"And if something happens to you?"
"Then at least I will be remembered as someone that tried his best."
The Station Keeper scoffed good naturedly. "You know what, I think I'm gonna tell my kids about you and what you did today. Heaven knows that we need more good examples like you.
“Oh, just one more thing for the police report. I’m going to need your home address - it’s just what you would call a formality.”
I sighed to myself. It was a formality, something for the official record. Reluctantly, I gave out my address, but when I said that I was in Juuban, the station master gave me a startled look.
“That noisy place?” he said.
I blinked. “Is there something wrong?”
“You haven’t heard? A few years back they had a bunch of incidents with fights between monsters and some crazy magical girls.”
“Oh, I think I heard about this before. I was just fourteen, though, so it’s a little foggy. Was there anyone hurt?”
“A few, but no fatalities. But what’s really worrying is that there’s been a recent incident that sounds just like what happened back then. You be careful, kid. The last thing I want to see in the newspaper your name in the obituary.”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. The trains should be moving again. Kurita-san will make sure that you aren’t hassled on your way out.”
With that we got up and bowed to each other, and then I was escorted out the office. But instead of going to the platform, I instead opted to go home - this was the sort of thing that just ruins a day.
*********
People are inherently curious.? ?The Japanese are no different? ?-? ?only they're not as nosy.? ?Therefore,? ?it comes as no surprise that they have a large,? ?though not always effective,? ?media machine.? ?For the longest time,? ?only the surface events mattered? ?-? ?never mind the cause and effect.
That was starting to change these days, but as with any change in Japan, it was a slow thing in action.
Not slow enough for Zeke’s liking.
When the doorbell rang and he looked through the peephole, Zeke groaned at the site of a nondescript Japanese man, double-checking a note pad, moving his pen through it as though it were some kind of stylus.
Make no mistake, Zeke loved to entertain company when he had it - it was the Libran and the Raven inherent in him that made him a natural host. He was happy to talk about this, that, and the other thing, and all while seeing to the needs and comforts of others.
His disconnect with society in general was strictly because he was on such a different wavelength. Being an avatar was a pain in the ass.
However, he did not like the attention of journalists, for few of that particular species of human ever really seemed to get things straight. It was all about the story and the sensationalism. If it bleeds, it leads.
The old man was right, thought Zeke ruefully. The press was going to seize this in its jaws and not let go until they knew everything.
That was all he needed.
His wariness of the press was a trained behavior. The Avatar of Raven did not need to go around whoring for attention. Thus, in an act that could only be called sadistic, Zeke's Grandfather hired an army of fake reporters to hound Zeke whether he was on reservation land or not. At the time, Zeke was still shy - his sunny demeanor eclipsed by the violent passing of his mother - and the false reporters had no problem forcing Zeke to flee.
Zeke rapidly developed a very healthy dislike for reporters, and it took him years to readjust his views to the point where he would consider speaking to one.
With a sigh, Zeke pushed the button and the door slid open.
The man's head jerked up with an audible "Ara?" He quickly reclaimed his composure, though, and began by saying,
"Konichiwa. Are you Darkwood-san?"
"Yeeeesss," said Zeke cautiously.
"Good! Good! I am Hagino Kenishi of the Juuban Press Club. May I ask you a few questions?"
Zeke nodded. "Let's get started. I assume you already have the basic information about me since you already know where I live."
"Yes, the rail line was very forthcoming with that information."
Zeke rolled his eyes at that. "Last time I give out my address," he grumbled. "Okay then, so what would you like to know?"
"If you please, Darkwood-san, we want to know the story from your eyes."
"Alright then, no problem." Zeke then recounted his story in as much detail as he could muster. Kenishi seemed to be impressed about how Zeke had jumped in at the last moment and got the priest out of harm’s way.
"Thank you, Mister Darkwood," said Kenishi once Zeke had finished recounting the events. "Now everyone wants to know: why did you do it?"
Zeke blinked. "Because it was the right thing to do," he answered.
Kenishi seemed puzzled, but jotted down the answer.
"Sorry, Darkwood-san, but I wish you to elaborate."
Zeke thought about that for a moment. Americans, in comparison to the Japanese, are odd in where they draw the line between selfish and selfless behavior.
"Alright," said Zeke. "I understand that American can seem strange to the Japanese - sometimes even offensive. However, in cases like this most Americans have this mindset that these matters are not someone else's problem. We don’t care that we’re not qualified rescue workers. We do not stand by when someone is in trouble like that. We act out of compassion and it is often with very little thought. It is simply an automatic reflex. Only the most jaded among us lack this reflex."
Kenishi nodded and scribbled characters in his note pad, a satisfied expression on his face.
"We were told that you are here because of family and school. Can you explain more?"
"Yes," answered Zeke readily - he'd been expecting a question like this. "My father is an officer in the US Navy. More than that I shouldn't really say. I'm also here because I wish to expand my knowledge in various subjects in engineering, and I also wish to study Shintoism up close in its native country."
Kenishi seemed to be impressed with that, and then made a sour face at something in his note pad.
"What's wrong?" asked Zeke.
"Someone back at the press club wanted to know if you have a girlfriend."
Zeke snorted at that. He really wouldn't mind finding a girlfriend, but he was also in no rush to complicate his life.
"Look, isn't it obvious that I don't have anyone in my life right now?" said Zeke testily. "I got here barely a month ago and I just finished settling in. There's no one else my age here. You're a reporter. Do a little footwork next time."
Kenishi blushed at that and scribbled a short note. Zeke figured he'd probably get ribbed for that one.
"I think that's all everyone needed to know about," said Kenishi. He was about to bow when Zeke stopped him.
"Wait."
"What?" replied the reporter curiously.
"Should I expect more reporters?"
"Ah," replied Kenishi with a smile. "Our press club is the only one in Juuban. Any newspaper that wishes to run this story will get it from our club."
"I see. Thank you very much."
"You're welcome, Darkwood-san. Good day." And with that he bowed, turned and left.
Zeke sighed heavily and palmed the button, shutting the door as he went back to the couch to plunk himself down.
While the guarantee that this was the only reporter he'd have to deal with was a relief, he despised the idea that people were going to know where he lived and what he'd done.
He just about felt like he would hide in the apartment for the next three months, or run screaming across the Pacific - whichever got to him first, the nerves or the panic.
Hino Rei is a very reserved girl.
There is a reason for this, though. Hino Rei has a very short temper and an image to upkeep. As the daughter of a wealthy and affluent politician she has a duty to maintain her decorum.
However, that about the only duty she feels she owes to her father. After all, the man pretty much dumped her at her grandfather's doorstep after her mother passed away and only showed up on her birthdays.
Just to keep up his appearance as a dutiful father.
She is also torn about her path in life. Part of her wishes to be a simple Shinto Priestess, taking over for her Grandfather in due time. Another part would like to be a world-famous singer and actress and tour the world. The two simply do not mesh well together.
Thinking about it puts her in a foul mood, but the only thing that makes her moods even worse is being hassled by the other boys (and sometimes even a few perverted men). It couldn't be helped much. Rei was beautiful - a tall and athletic beauty of a Japanese girl who had just come into her womanhood, with long black hair (she preferred to stand out by not dying her hair) and dark eyes that smoldered.
Of course, that just meant that she attracted a lot of attention from the opposite sex (and sometimes even the same sex). The real root of her issue with men is laid squarely at the feet of her father and the company that he keeps. In Rei’s mind, men are chauvinistic pigs who do not deserve her attention any more than decorum allows.
So, it is only natural that she is repulsed by what she has to do right now.
Standing there in front of the apartment building, Rei notes that it is actually a very nice place - very new and modern with electronically controlled doors and rooms so spacious they bordered on being cavernous, even by a foreigner’s standards.
Rei swallowed her pride. She had to do this - karma demanded that she pay some form of gratitude to the strange foreign boy that saved the life of her grandfather (the man may be a lech, but he was the lech that actually bothered to raise her, so she wasn't entirely heartless about her elder’s fate).
Although she did wonder why someone who seemed to live such a comfortable life would even bother.
Carefully balancing the curry she asked her friend and much better cook prepare for her, she used her free hand to ring the buzzer.
Zeke had been laying low after his encounter with the Japanese media-machine, so he was a bit leery of answering the door when it rang for the second time that afternoon. Inwardly he shuddered at the thought of more reporters, but his insatiable sense of curiosity made him at least get up and take a look through the peek-hole to see exactly who it was.
He was mildly surprised when he saw the girl in a school's sailor uniform holding a dish, and wondered if this was some sort of belated welcome-wagon. Seeing no threat, he pushed the button to unlock and open the door, still marveling at the automatic sliding door.
Rei blinked at the boy who opened the door. From what she understood, he was supposed to be sixteen, not fourteen.
"Please excuse me for the interruption, but does..." Rei suddenly cursed herself for forgetting exactly how the name went - she hated those weird foreign names. She quickly stole a glance at the address she had tuck in her hand with the curry. "Da-ru-ku-wu-do-san... live here?"
"Yes," answered Zeke, "father no return one month."
FATHER!? thought Rei incredulously. "I don't think I am looking for your father. Is your name..." she stole another glance at the paper, every millisecond burning like the hottest shame. "Eh-zi-ki-eh-ru?"
"Yes, that me," replied Zeke, puzzled. He only hoped that this girl wasn't offended by his broken Japanese. "Something be wrong?"
"You're kidding!" said Rei, surprised that this boy was sixteen. He was too small and too... young looking. For her, he looked like he was just starting junior high school, not high school.
"No, I him," said Zeke with some chagrin. "You think I too young."
"Yes," answered Rei, somewhat tersely.
"My mother. She twenty-five when I born, but look eighteen."
Genetics, thought Rei immediately. Youthful appearances must run in his family.
"The man you saved at the train station was my grandfather," said Rei as she started to come to terms with his appearance. She then held out the curry with both hands and bowed to Zeke. "Please, accept this meal as a token of my gratitude."
The smell of cumin reached out and grabbed Zeke's nose with, for him, was the force of an enraged gorilla, making him nearly swoon.
"Curry rice!" said Zeke almost breathlessly. He then sniffed again. "It smells good!" For Zeke, there were few things better than a good curry - spicy, but not so much that it overpowers the flavor of anything else that might be added.
Rei just wished that Zeke would take it already. The smell was starting to drive her nuts as well - she hadn't had much to eat since she heard that her Grandfather had been hospitalized. Zeke accepted the curry graciously, but as she was about to say goodbye her stomach picked that moment to make its empty status known in an uproarious manner.
Zeke, ever the charitable soul, considered the weight of the dish, and then looked to Rei.
"Come in. Eat," he offered.
Right away, Rei’s hackles went up. The idea of sharing dinner with this boy sounded too much like a first date, especially someplace as intimate as his own home.
"No, I can't possibly intrude," said Rei nervously.
"No. You eat," said Zeke. "You bring food. Not right making you starve." And then his eyes took on a slightly haunted look, as though he was recalling some painful memory. "Hunger hurts bad."
Rei looked at him and felt her gaze drawn to his eyes. There, she saw genuine concern. Inside, part of her railed and screamed at the danger of sharing a table with this boy. But her stomach was starting to cramp painfully from being empty for too long. She could go to a fast food restaurant, but Makoto’s cooking was far better than any restaurant that she'd been to - even most of the gourmet ones her father took her to on her birthdays paled in comparison.
"Alright," Rei relented.
Zeke smiled. "Please, come in. Rest."
Zeke took the curry inside and disappeared around a corner. Rei followed him inside and found a spacious room with a huge sliding glass door that led out to the patio and offered a nice view of Tokyo. A modest-sized flat-panel television hung on the wall to her left with the entertainment center below it. On the opposite wall was a tall bookshelf, but it was only partly filled with books. She then took note of the packing cartons - a few empty and collapsed down, the others filled with more books. A couch faced the television, but in the space between stood a kotatsu - a table with a heater underneath to keep your legs warm and a quilt running all around the edges to trap that heat.
As she took off her shoes, she noticed that he did have a set of guest slippers. As she put them on, however, she was surprised to see the absolutely enormous slippers that were set aside and wondered who on Earth could be that big.
She went to the kotatsu and touched the table-top. It was warm. After being out in the cold with only a wool skirt and leggings to keep her warm, she decided to accept his hospitality and settled herself at the table, sighing as the warmth began to seep into her bones - she had to fight to repress a sigh of relief. A moment later Zeke appeared with a tall ceramic cup which he placed in front of Rei wordlessly, but with a warm smile. It was hot green tea - served as it should be. Rei sipped at it, grateful for the added warmth despite it coming from a boy.
Zeke went back to the room - presumably the kitchen. He then came back with a tray that had spoons, two tall crystal tumblers filled with ice cubes, and a white pitcher. With little ceremony, he set the tray down, transferred one of the glasses to its appropriate place at her setting, then filled it with water from the pitcher causing the ice to crackle loudly. Without a word he disappeared once more.
It was only after she set the glass down that she noticed the papers strewn across the table top. She studied them from where she sat, curiosity gnawing at her. The words were English, but there were hand-drawn sketches as well - things with squared shapes, things with sweeping curves, and things with neat and orderly patterns.
That was when Zeke came back with two plates, loaded down with Makoto’s curry. He set one down before her and the other at an empty side of the table.
It was like being waited on at a restaurant, only your waiter was enjoying the meal with you.
This is so weird, thought Rei to herself as she eyed the boy warily.
"Itadakimas," they said together. This caused Rei to blink in surprise at Zeke, but she mentally shook it off and got started on the meal - it was actually taking restraint on her part just to keep from bolting it down, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to eat quickly.
Zeke took his first bite and sighed as he savored it. "Wow. Best curry rice ever."
Score another point for Makoto, thought Rei, but she offered no comment.
"May ask what name is?"
"Hino Rei," she replied curtly. Zeke's smile turned to a thoughtful expression - he was picking up the vibe clearly enough.
She clearly doesn't want to be here, thought Zeke to himself. But she still felt obligated to bring this meal to me to thank me for what I did.
He eyed her furtively, but she did not look up.
She's beautiful, he thought. It would be shameful if she didn't have a boyfriend.
Zeke then noticed that she was looking at his papers - her brows were hunched over her eyes in an expression of intense scrutiny.
"That school work," said Zeke, solving the mystery for her.
Rei gave Zeke a sharp, yet curious look. "School work?"
"Yes. Distant study course. Mechanical engineering."
"Engineering? Well, I suppose you will get a good job that way," she replied dismissively.
Zeke shrugged "More like hobby."
Rei frowned. "How can something like that be just a hobby?"
Zeke sighed. "Have higher calling. Not I wish for, but no choice." Rei said nothing and Zeke decided to drop the bomb shell. "You have great power."
If Rei’s previously look had been sharp before, then this one was meant for decapitation.
Zeke raised an eyebrow. "You deny?"
"It's none of your business," said Rei curtly.
Zeke sighed and decided to face confrontation with confrontation. "Why you angry?"
Rei glared at Zeke openly now. "Because I am sick of men like you trying to woo me."
Zeke gave her a shocked look, then returned her glare with interest. "If ugliest man of world bring food, I share meal. This hospitality - good manner! I no date you. You pretty, yes. Prettiest girl ever. Maybe good person, but ugly attitude."
Rei gaped at him as her paradigm attempted to shift without a clutch.
She did not like boys. Not since Kaidou. She made a regular habit of shooting down boys. But never before had one returned fire with such incisiveness and accuracy.
Zeke, for his part, followed through by holding the silent glare a moment longer, then said,
“Leave or finish food. I no care. Button open door. Door close when leave.”
He then scooted back, turned around and settled himself into a comfortable position as he began to meditate, which came as a further surprise to Rei.
Helpless to look away, she watch as he breathed. It was like as though there was a violent storm all around him - she could feel it in his aura - power that had no desire to be contained, let alone be harnessed. And there in the middle, in a fragile yet peaceful center was the boy.
Suddenly the words he had said about having a calling came back to her.
She had completely underestimated him. The spirits had left their mark on this person, that much was evident. No human went around with that much untapped power unless the spirits favored that person for some reason. This boy, had he been raised as a priest, could easily be Rei’s equal.
Looking for an excuse to continue watching, she began to finish her meal. There wasn’t much left because she had eaten so quickly - she had been too hungry. So, she now took her time with it.
When she finished the storm around the boy had quieted. Instead of a violent storm, it simply loomed around him, ominous and threatening. From its behavior it seemed as though that rather than fight with it the boy had reasoned with it instead, talking it down to a more manageable level.
Still in a foul mood, but no longer snappish, he stirred and turned to her once more, but said nothing as he began to eat again.
“You’re not like others,” said Rei.
Zeke raised an eyebrow as he gave her a warning look.
Rei said nothing more, she only looked at him expectantly.
Zeke sighed. “Issues,” he said. “Control difficult. Hope Shinto teach better control.”
Rei sighed at that. She didn’t like the idea of what she was about to say, but this meal was supposed to be a repayment of the debt that was owed. And she had spoiled it.
“My Grandfather can teach you. As soon as he is well enough to do so.”
Zeke expression softened. “Grandfather is well?”
“Yes. It was a minor heart attack. He will be able to leave the hospital in a week.”
Zeke sighed. “I glad.” He then turned a more sober look to Rei. “If Grandfather wish, I go learn.”
“Very well then,” said Rei, who then finished off the last of the curry and set the spoon down, intoning, “Thank you very much for the meal.” Without another word she got up and began to make her way out.
Zeke got up and opened the door for her. “Thank you, Hino-san.”
Rei regarded Zeke with a neutral expression. With no other ideas, he bowed to her and she returned the gesture. That ritual completed, she turned and left.
Zeke sighed and palmed the button, closing the door. With little else to do, he decided to finish the rest of his curry.
If nothing else, it was really good curry.
