“For being the ‘responsible’ one here, you sure don’t act like it in the mornings. What’s the deal there, little miss pervert?” I began our almost daily banter while we walked to her car in the garage. She sighed before answering. “Do I really need to answer that? I mean most boys your age would kill to be in your shoes, having a bodacious beauty next to them in the mornings. Seeing a gorgeous damsel in their bed the first thing, and what’s more, having the dame caress your body as if you’re lovers. Oh man, I better stop, I’m getting hot here. Maybe we should just skip first block and you bang me in the car here.”
She was playing, or so I hoped, but then again it was Rina. And then I noticed her hand over her nose. Rina watches a lot of animated shows, and from that she developed the nasty habit of developing a nosebleed if she got too excited. This told me that she was imagining some perverted scene playing out in her devious little mind. “You’re showing your true colors again you prissy little perv.” I made sure to reinforce the fact that I knew what her mind was doing and that I would not be following suit. I thumped her on the head lightly so she wouldn’t try anything in public. Her eyes took on that big puppy dog look as if she was begging. “One more thing, shouldn’t this be the other way around? I mean, really, a woman with a teenage boy’s mind and a boy with almost no sex drive?”” She blinked at me as if I was revealing something massive and powerful. “Girls get horny too.” She quietly said as she unlocked the doors.
“All I’m saying is that it seems almost like a reversed moment here.” I try to wrap up that part of the day’s events. “And all I’m saying is that you should be grateful that a gorgeous, radiant female chose to grace your room and allows you to buy her breakfast.” Her pompous attitude deserved a little deflating. “Where is such a woman?” I pretend to gaze around, looked at her, and laughed. Smartassery has no start button in the mornings, it’s a passive skill acquired from years of training. She hit me on the head obscenely hard and muttered about me being insensitive and ungrateful, but started the car anyway. We got to our favorite morning diner, and instead of ordering the usual, Rina buys the most expensive thing on the menu as retaliation for this morning’s jab. But was I really that much in the wrong? Is it truly inappropriate to deflate a bloated ego? Any which way you slice it, I’m paying yet again for her temper. Maybe that’s a chick thing?
We had minimal speech through our meal, I paid, and we left before any other patrons could get up the nerve to try wooing Rina. Truthfully though, the uniforms were what brought about the major unnerving. Women wore a white blouse, a blue-ish (teal maybe?) skirt with matching jacket, some form of socks (approved were stockings, knee highs, and those minimalistic ones), and a specific style of tennis shoes. She was a knock out in the form-fitting uniform, especially when the male counterpart was wearing a blue dress shirt, a matching aqua jacket, aqua pants, and (my personal touch to the uniform) school approved flip-flops. We had about a half hour to get to school, and that meant we should get moving. We parked in the far lot, and walked to the large building which housed all of our core learning facilities. I walked up to my storage unit, and pulled out my greatest treasure. A genuine paper book, all the way back from the early 1990’s. In a world where all of the content you consumed was transmitted to a terminal that you carried about your person, books (text or otherwise) were obsolete. Holo-interfaces be damned, this was a grand feeling, holding that book in my hands. This book had been a gift from my late grandfather, who had gotten it from his grandfather, who had inherited it on a journey to Luna. I spent the next few minutes reading, reveling in the story this held. The decrepit paper was nearly falling apart, but I loved every second I had with it.
Placing it back in my storage unit I began my walk to class. I had five minutes to make bell, and I still had to keep a lookout for any possible attacks. Contrary to popular belief, even after man colonized the stars, bullies still existed. And here to demonstrate for us this age old principle of learning, we have our major morons. “Oi, dweeb, you better got our homework. Or else we got some problems with you.” And now to become the terror. “Firstly, the correct way of saying that sentence is ‘Hello intellectual being, do you have for us a copy of the assignment, or do we have a problem of miscommunication?’ And secondly, I do not have homework in any of my classes, let alone from your remedial ones.” Yes, that was beyond stupid. No, I do not regret it. Yes they will likely attack me now. No, they will not beat me, because I will use my superior intellect to outwit them, or I will embrace the idea of picking my battles and run away.
The first fist came forward before I could make a genuine decision, but I slid under the arm attached to the hand and popped my elbow into the face of the barbarian. While he stood there holding his nose, I made a run for class. Hope stood that I could likely avoid them for the better portion of the day. Best avoid conflict, best run and hide. But as I got nearer to the class, my English teacher stopped me. “I can see you were fighting again. Have we not told you to stop that in the school? What explanation do you have this time dear boy?” The jolly teacher tried to be stern, but really he knew I was not an instigator without reason. “They made a mockery of the English language professor, and when I tried to correct their atrocious speech, they attacked me. I simply defended myself and ran away in the confusion.” I bowed my head and made my way into the class after he rolled his eyes at me. The day dragged on from there until third passing where a rumor spread about a vandalized locker. I followed the trail of rumors to my own unit. I found my book, the thing I cherished most in this world, the last memento from my grandfather, torn to shreds in front of my locker.
I’m sure you know of that saying about your blood boiling when angered, but let me tell you now. Lava only flows violently after an eruption, and this event blew the top off my mountain of level-headed calm. I entered what would later be known as “hunting mode” to the people who knew me best, I took to the rafters and almost literally flew across the school to the more rundown sections where the bullies hid and the cameras didn’t work. I took about four minutes to find them, and even less to prepare my surprise for them. I dropped from the shadows above them and began laying into the stupid apes; blood flew as my frenzy took control of the tight area. I faded back to my normal self after they had all been incapacitated, covered in blood and anger spent; I fled the equivalent of the school’s ghetto. I made it to a bathroom without being seen on any cameras, and I washed myself off. I had a spare set of clothes hidden on campus that I would go and find so I couldn’t be pinned for whatever damage happened to the pathetic excuses for humans I had dealt with. Leaving the washroom I nearly ran headlong into Rina. “You, with me, now!” she grabbed my hand as I noticed her other hand carried a bag. We took the most unconventional, but unmonitored route to one of my hiding spots.
She began trying to strip me of my bloodied uniform as I questioned her about finding this hiding spot. It was supposedly Rina-proof! My pants were switched in record time, and my shirt and jacket were discarded. She pushed me down and tried to appear dominant just as we heard a noise from outside the corridor. My bloodied clothes hidden by the slanted girder I was pushed against, we turned to see a group of Discipline Committee thugs and their leader. The look on their faces as they got a clear view of Rina and I were masks of shock, horror, and some of enticement. “Can we help you? Or are you going to stand there and make this rather awkward for us?” Rina tried to draw fire with her own sass, but really it was a thin veil.
Their leader stepped forward, and without any sense of tact, forced Rina and I apart. She glared between us as she used her extended baton to make us break away. “How long has this particular rendezvous been going on? And will you please put on a shirt, for the love of all that is good!” I complied by dragging the cloth items out of the bag Rina had brought as our favorite little vixen tried to lie her way out of trouble. “We were here since the last five minutes or so of last period. We didn’t do anything, I just prefer kissing Cero without a shirt, or if his shirt was open and waving behind him…” she had on her “anime face” (or that’s what she calls it, her and those ancient Japanese shows)which meant only that we were seconds away from a nosebleed.
The disbelief on everyone’s faces was clear; I was suspect of illicit actions on campus. “So you’re trying to tell me that he didn’t just beat the living breath from the goon squad down the way? They’re in comas, and it was his locker that they attacked. Explain that.” I looked at her with feigned surprise. “What? My locker was what? Oh please no, they didn’t get my…” I let my voice trail off in a hollow manner and tried to push forward as if to run to see what had happened. I was stopped by the biggest member of their little troupe. Another girl held up the remains of my precious book, and I felt another wave of sorrow and depression and utter hate rack my body and I fell to the floor. I felt tears run down my face, it was a horrible thing, but the whole group saw my reaction. Rina walked over and held me close to her, the committee members looked as if they bought the story since my reactions were not forced. They took testimony from Rina and I, and then they left. I gathered all of my stuff together, and placed the hidden clothing in the bag.
“Thanks.” I finally managed a word. Rina held me tightly, I knew that if I fell apart here that she would sit and let me cry. She would hold me and not judge or manipulate me, and most of all, she wouldn’t hold it against me if I tried anything on her. But I couldn’t let myself fall to pieces. “It was his, huh?” she whispered to me, almost as hollowly as I felt. I nodded, and her arms grew tighter on my jacket. I felt warmth seeping into my jacket’s shoulder, I knew she hurt as much as I did. She cried for the both of us, I supported her as she had me just moments ago. As her sobs became weaker, I told her we should go home. She pulled herself together and told me to go on ahead, that she’d catch up. She tore off in another direction and I made my way home through the park nearby.
Upon getting home, I opened the fridge to see that as per her usual trickery, Rina had replaced everything in the box and added whatever she had felt necessary. Thanks to that, we had the fixings for her favorite meal, piroshkis and curry. I set the oil on to start bubbling, and I put the rice in the cooker. I went to change into home clothes, and then resumed my duties in the kitchen. Roughly forty-five minutes later I heard the door slide open, and I knew she was back. I had the table set and the food was almost done, so I was glad she’d made it on time. “Table’s ready, wash up and sit down. I’ll bring out the food.” But instead of hearing the bathroom door open, or the kitchen sink run, I felt an embrace and a hard rectangle near my stomach. I turned around as she let go, and she stood there holding what seemed to be a book. “I did my best to fix it, and the rest of the team helped me gather all the pieces… I know how much it means to you, and I know I can be difficult at times, but please, don’t lose yourself because it got damaged. He wouldn’t want it that way.” I saw more tears run down her face as she said this, so I walked over and hugged her to my chest. She trembled and sobbed until the timer went off on the last batch of the dumplings. “Thank you. I know he wouldn’t want me to lose my way, and it’s you I’m worried about.” I said as I got everything set on the table. I held her, kissed her head and let go; something I rarely did unless the situation warranted it. And we went to sit down.
After eating, we went our separate ways for the night, I took the book’s remains and set them in a case in my room. I’ll never be able to read this again, I won’t be able to lose myself in the pages, no more smell, no more anything with this. I had to leave the memory of my grandfather in the past now, I’d be on my own. I was saddened by this, but I knew I could face the day tomorrow if I tried. I undressed and went to sleep. The next time I woke up it was probably about half past noon. I heard all sorts of racket from the kitchen, which leads me to the one logical conclusion. Rina is trying to cook. Options? One: Roll over and go back to sleep. Two: Get up and help the poor girl navigate her way around the utensils. Well, sleep it is. Or so I had hoped. Then she burst through the door clad in nothing but an apron, crying for some unknown reason.
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