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Sep. 28th, 2006 02:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Another one of those original fiction posts. This one was for class, but it's still in progress and quite dear to me. If anyone has constructive crit for it it'd be really awesome, since I have to revise it for later <3
This thing is twelve pages long, so be forewarned.
Akira was intelligent for six years old, and as an intelligent child, he knew the best thing to do right now was to sit very, very still.
The garden party his parents were holding for every well-off family in the region was going just wonderfully without him, and he was glad enough of that. His shady hiding spot in the hedge gave him a pleasantly distant view - the pattern of petal-like dresses and mint-colored suits flowing gracefully together in a slow, refined flutter. The party was for families; mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, tightly knit groups held together by love and affection and blood, but mostly by money. Akira’s own mother stood tall at her elegant six foot one, the centerpiece of the festivity. Her bright yellow dress was an act of awesome bravery almost vulgar for someone her age, but the thing was too impressive a fit on her slim figure and too well-matched to her pale pink complexion for anyone to find the words to object. Her smile was bright and large and her ankles were adorned with the pearl-shine straps of her springtime sandals, deceptively common looking: the shoes had cost more than the dress.
Akira shivered. His legs and lower back were still burning, even though he’d instructed them not to. He extracted his attention away from his own discomfort, learned instinct denying its existence. He was more inclined to focus on the dessert table. Beautifully manicured, the table was laid out with dark cakes and syrupy tarts, cubes of cold gelatin and tiny light éclairs, their papery skin fine enough to melt when you placed it in your mouth, smoothing the chocolate icing and the cream filling together and creating a miracle in flavor. It was comforting to think about these things.
His assessment of the pastries soothed him, and he started to contemplate how he could get some. He thought it’d be nice to have something to eat, but he would rather not have to talk to anyone attending the party. He tried to pull his small hands deeper into the sleeves of his perfect white dress suit, the fit of the jacket too even and exact for a child who was more comfortable wearing garments that would cover his hands. Because of his tiny build, he had been able to enjoy this effect from his sleeves for many years. That was before he turned four, when his parents realized that they should be getting clothing custom-cut for their stubborn son who had the nerve not to grow fast enough.
He was snapped out of his slow meditation by a harsh hissing voice, a wash of bright yellow suddenly coming into view as his mother’s presence pushed itself forcibly on all of his senses.
“Akira, what are you doing here? I’ve been asked about you three times already, this is humiliating! Go and entertain our younger guests!” A hard hand with a stiff gold ring on it dragged the small boy to his feet, causing him to stumble uncomfortably in an effort to pull himself away. He nodded without meeting his mother’s eyes, using an unnaturally smooth stride to force himself out into the sunlight and the flower-dance of everyone’s lightly colored clothing reflecting it brightly. As he walked he made an effort to be subtle about his single-minded goal of the dessert table, spilling out an expressionless “Nice to see you”, here and a “Thanks for coming”, in another direction. There was a balding, damp sort of man sweating in the sunlight near where the boy emerged from the hedge. Akira took the long way around; it was important to avoid him.
He had almost reached his desired destination when he was accosted by a girl. About his age, but taller, her bright blonde ponytails bounced cheerfully as she boldly intersected his path, a small china plate laden with a fluffy piece of strawberry shortcake already in her hands.
“Hi! Um, hello. What’s your name? That’s a handsome suit.”
Akira stared back at the girl without either interest or dislike. His face was so often schooled into a blank expression that he wore it even when blankness was inappropriate. After a slow moment he remembered that he was obligated to answer her greeting, even though his eyes wanted to wander to the piece of cake in her hands, which seemed the more appealing subject of attention. The girl couldn’t be eaten and tasted, after all.
“Akira. My mother is hosting this party…thank you for coming.”
The girl, who had begun to pout at his silent pause, brightened again.
“I love parties! Is it your house? My house’s garden’s not as nice as this. You even have a fountain here! A fountain with fish!” She swayed and fidgeted as she held herself back from releasing an improper waterfall of words. He didn’t really mind listening to talkative people, but responding to them was another thing. The girl was watching him expectantly, interested, but also anxious for him to finish up with his turn so that she could better continue her tirade of conversation.
“I don’t mind parties. I want to get some cake.” This was the wrong thing to say, Akira reminded himself mechanically. He should be responding to the girl’s words, not mentioning selfish desires. It was rude.
“I’ll get you some! I love the trays here. Hold this!” The girl energetically thrust her cake plate into Akira’s exposed hands, not waiting for a response before she quickly made a trip of her own to the dessert table, gathering up a second dessert plate and several treats of her choice.
Akira’s mouth tightened in visible displeasure at this. He had not told the girl he wanted to receive cake. He had told her he wanted to go and get some himself. He was quite good at it, and was baffled as to why she’d do something as stupid as getting it for him. When she returned with her hands full of the new dish and several fingers sticky from the icing she’d run into, he wasted no time in reporting his annoyance this time.
“I can get my own dessert. I didn’t want you to do it. Don’t do it again.” The girl’s flinched immediately, as if her face had been hit sharply by how unappreciative his blunt response was.
“S-sorry, just …I like these best. I wanted to...” Her offense had quickly melted into puzzlement, and she stood confused, her ill-presented gift starting to sag in her hands. Akira collected himself, already feeling a sour and obligatory regret seeding itself in his chest. He took the plate from her, balancing it in his small palm as handed her own back to her, not quite able to find words to tell her how sorry he meant to feel. The gesture seemed to work, though, and the girl’s buoyant personality bounced back at once from its slight deflation.
“I won’t do it again! Momma always says I need to think more. Want to come to the kid’s area?” Akira nodded in courteous response, his gaze wandering over his shoulder at the woman in the yellow dress. He was feeling her eyes like twin bee stings, even though she didn’t seem to be watching him. He followed the girl as she started to bounce right through the thick of the crowd, the very last path he would have chosen to take. The senseless route took them too close past the sweaty little man, and Akira was forced to shrink down and try to seem more like part of the girl’s skirt. The man’s suit was a powdery gray, and he fidgeted with his sleeve as wet, congested gasping interrupted his speech. His impression was one of live slugs writhing around inside abused intestines.
After a rush of ducking, dashing, and barely avoiding various silk-clad body parts, the two children finally emerged at the fountain. Here there were clumps of children in various sizes, all either playing or talking together, according to age. If you were older than about eight, you were talking; if you were younger, you were playing. Everyone knew that. Even Akira knew that, and he most often made a point of neither playing nor talking. He didn’t know most of the children here well enough to call them by name. One boy stood out to him just slightly, a brown-haired and well-grown child with a grumpy face and a bit of a braggart attitude, sitting with a group of his friends at one of the child-sized tables quaintly put together for the party. Akira might have been more willing to drift closer to the boy, because he was pretty sure they were classmates, but his escort called on his attention again.
“Do you like jump rope? How about a tea party? You’re not exactly like a daddy, but we could still play house. Oh! You wanted to eat your cake!” Her face was the very picture of childish concern before her bright attitude returned, and she busied herself with pulling a seat out for him. Akira did, in fact, want to eat his cake. He wanted very much to eat his cake and not be bothered or pressured by the responsibility of keeping this overbearing character entertained. A stream of yellow fluttered in the corner of his vision. He sat down.
She had started talking about school, because that’s all the children his age seemed to want to talk about. They were all enthralled with the structure, fascinated by new experiences, and in love with the uniforms. The uniforms were a major topic, because every school had a set and all the children loved to compare them. The girls especially liked to discuss them, and this one was no exception. But when asked his opinion on the designated clothing for first-grade boys, all he could come up with was that the pants were too short, they made his knees feel cold. He avoided mentioning that he wore his jacket all the time, even sometimes when the teachers told him not to.
Akira was able to remain placid and calm until the cake was gone. Once it was, though, he was left without distraction from his growing sense of irritation towards the girl. She was bubbly. She was full of words and actions. She kept saying and doing things, playing with her hair, tying and retying the sash bow around her waist, picking up a skipping rope and twirling it artistically in the air. She did all this – and she talked. She talked about her life, her family, her pet dachshund, her teachers. She seemed to love her teachers. He asked her to change the subject.
“Don’t you like your teachers, Akira? Do you like school? I love it.”
“I like learning. I’m learning world history right now and it’s very interesting.”
“I don’t learn that…what’s it about?”
Akira’s parents might have thought it was good planning for later life for their first-grade son to learn complex subjects, but that didn’t mean he was adept at explaining them to curious children.
“It’s…fine.”
“Oh…then why don’t you want to talk about school?”
“I just don’t.”
Luckily, she was just as eager to talk about her doll collection, and things got more comfortable. She started describing the different outfits in as much detail as her juvenile brain could come up with, not having the actual things on hand to show him. She gave him a lot of “if you could see it” and “it goes something like” accompanied by hand gestures of various sorts, trying to somehow articulate to him what he couldn’t see.
That was when her friend appeared. This new girl was a year or two older, however, taller, and skinnier as well. Instead of childish and playful, her voice was sawing, nasal, and loud. To hear it was an assault to the ears, especially if you preferred the quiet. When she arrived, she was crunching loudly on pieces of hard candy clenched in both of her fists, slightly damp with sweat and the secretion of the lumps of sugar. Akira liked hard candies himself, but he thought it was a terrible sort of waste to chew them when you could enjoy the flavor of it much longer if you cradled it in your mouth and tongue more gently. The noise made him start to simmer, his hands searching fruitlessly for a passage back into his inadequate sleeves.
“Hi, Mari! Who’s this? Hey, what’s your name? What’s your name? Don’t you talk?” She apparently expected him to respond while the words were still rushing out of her mouth, pushing herself into his face and dropping half of her sugar stock with a careless clatter. Akira kept his eyes cast down, shrinking as if feeling physical pressure from the sucrose on her breath, too suppressed to remember his courtesy. She started jabbing at him with her fist, quick to become irritated with his silence.
“What’s your name, I said? Can you even hear me?”
“Hrr…mm.” Akira was, at least, able to keep his voice down. Real words, however, were too much to ask for.
His original escort must have noticed something was wrong by this point, because she was on her feet now, trying to pry her larger friend away from the smaller boy.
“He doesn’t like that! He’s just quiet, we were talking!”
“Just pretty quiet, huh? I think he’s being rude! Why won’t you answer me, kid? Why won’t you—”
There was an unmistakable change in the quiet boy, his dark eyes out of focus as he sank his teeth into the repulsive girl’s hand.
“Grr…rrghh…”
“Ah…” Freckled eyes widened and the bully jerked her hand away with a vibrating yowl, trying to comprehend the fact that there was actual blood running down her arm.
“He bit me! He bit me for no reason!” Outraged, the skinny girl drew her hand back in a violent motion, screeching in alarm. Loud as she was, though, her shrieks were suddenly drowned out by the wailing of the younger girl, who, apparently traumatized at the sight of blood, was unleashing an insurmountable uproar of anguish that made every flurried head at the party start to turn. Akira had thought it was quite bad enough with just the two girls hounding him. Now he could feel everyone’s eyes upon him, murmured concern and interest starting to ripple though the crowd. Oversized whites widened in the eyes of the man in the powder-gray suit. He took careful note of the small droplets of blood on the young boy’s lower lip, shining brightly for a moment before the child hastily brushed them into a smear on his pristine white sleeve. The girl’s crying perpetuated for a few endless seconds, and then a yellow dress descended upon them in a fury of simpering tones and tut, tut, tut.
“Oh no sweetheart, he couldn’t have! This must be a misunderstanding, I’ll get you a bandage and a treat right away, oh you poor dear! Darling, please see to this poor young lady, I need to attend to our son.” Akira’s father materialized from the crowd as if he had been invisible the entire time. He communicated to the bleeding, freckled apparition in a series of coughs, saying that she had best come with him; he’d show her into the house. Akira watched her walk away in a fit of angry noises, the first girl apparently having pushed herself into the crowd in an effort to find her own comfort. His mother then turned to the next order of business - placate the crowd.
“I’m terribly sorry, everyone! Please, don’t let this keep you from enjoying yourselves, after all, the band is just about to arrive, and we wouldn’t want to spoil our afternoon waltz! We’ll have little Miss Kayli patched up and all smiles in no time.” With a gracious flourish, her body language invited everyone to turn their eyes away, please, as she gently took the hand of her son and only child. Such a maternal image was she, carefully guiding her boy down the back path around to the side entrance of the mansion, assuredly to chastise him for his childish disturbance and then, businesslike, change his stained coat for him and slide him back into place at the party, a lesson newly learned.
A sharp sound cracked once against the kitchen wall, the mother’s temper becoming a hot pink handprint on the boy’s pale cheek.
“Go to your room immediately,” her voice hissed, “I don’t want to see you until tonight. You know what you did.” Recovering from the hit without so much as a whimper, Akira turned his back on his mother. He climbed the stairs with his body feeling much too heavy for six years old, much too weary on twelve hours of sleep. His cheek stung. His chest ached. His legs still felt like they were going to give out, small thighs shaking as he attempted to lift himself up one step after the other, palms and fingers pressed tightly to the cold banisters. When he finally completed the voyage to his room, it was yet another adventure to climb onto his bed, his legs slipping as he attempted to get purchase on the slippery sheets. After achieving the mattress, he lay very still, grateful for the way his curtains stifled the noise outside, feeling blessed by the softness of his quilt and pillows. The room smelled faintly of lemons. A maid had just been in to clean.
The gracious hostess was beside herself.
“Professor, I just don’t know what to do with him! You’ve been doing such a good job teaching him his schoolwork – at least that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about, thanks to your lessons our Akira is adequately intelligent. But his behavior, just atrocious! It’s…it’s not fit for society! Do you know any way…is there anyone you could refer, perhaps?”
Professor Umata adjusted his thinly-framed glasses, shoulders hunching just by natural posture up to nearly past the tips of his ears. His eyes carried a wide, frightened look, as if he was constantly being caught doing something he shouldn’t. There was a small dark spot of sweat between his shoulder blades.
“R...refer…I don’t know any behavior specialists myself, but I could search some University resources…In the meantime I could have a few words with…with the boy, if you like. Perhaps my methods,” he gasped, shutting his eyes as he willed himself to continue his sentence, “my methods of discipline would have a better effect on him; being his tutor and all…I know his learning style best.” His hands moved as he spoke, fuzzily demonstrating that he wanted to fiddle with something, anything, but having nothing available to grope at. The mother’s expression was faintly skeptical, more unimpressed than disapproving. She waved her hand airily through the air, and gave a suffering sort of sigh.
“Yes, that must do for now…I’m sure you could help him better than we could, that child does nothing but ignore us when we talk to him. Besides, we’re both very busy people!” Her face was distraught with the pain of being mistreated by her child. She was strong and tragic as she implored for help. Umata’s frightened face creased into a weak and frightened smile.
“Well then…I’d better go and see him now…so soon after the incident, it’ll have the best effect…from what I know of behavior studies, that is, y-yes?” The significantly lacking gesture of pushing up the corners of his mouth was returned with a full and gracious smile from the yellow dress. She was so full of warmth that no one could possibly doubt her sincerity.
“Of course, Professor. Please, go on up to his room, I sent him there to think over what he did. He’ll be delighted to see you, I’m sure. Let me know how it goes!” If Umata had been holding a wine glass, he would have dropped it, his fingers snagging on themselves in a fumbling motion completely out of his control. Keen as she was, the woman just couldn’t understand what was making him so nervous. Perhaps he had taken fancy to her; she’d been noticing a certain quickness to his breath and a flush to his cheeks, the dampness of sweat making itself steadily more visible through his powder-gray suit.
Akira laid himself out on his back, small clever eyes glittering at the cloth canopy of his four-poster bed. The curtain was pulled and tied tight as he could get it, his palms rubbed raw from straining with the straps. He wondered calmly whether he could keep the cloth secured tight enough, and could continue to be alone in this bed without interruption or invasion. He wondered, for those times that he was alone, if he would ever stop thinking about sweet voices spitting harsh words, violent blows and total silence, a bead of sweat dripping down a fleshy, paunchy cheek, vividly frightened eyes. He wondered about freedom.
There was a knock at the bedroom door.
This thing is twelve pages long, so be forewarned.
Akira was intelligent for six years old, and as an intelligent child, he knew the best thing to do right now was to sit very, very still.
The garden party his parents were holding for every well-off family in the region was going just wonderfully without him, and he was glad enough of that. His shady hiding spot in the hedge gave him a pleasantly distant view - the pattern of petal-like dresses and mint-colored suits flowing gracefully together in a slow, refined flutter. The party was for families; mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, tightly knit groups held together by love and affection and blood, but mostly by money. Akira’s own mother stood tall at her elegant six foot one, the centerpiece of the festivity. Her bright yellow dress was an act of awesome bravery almost vulgar for someone her age, but the thing was too impressive a fit on her slim figure and too well-matched to her pale pink complexion for anyone to find the words to object. Her smile was bright and large and her ankles were adorned with the pearl-shine straps of her springtime sandals, deceptively common looking: the shoes had cost more than the dress.
Akira shivered. His legs and lower back were still burning, even though he’d instructed them not to. He extracted his attention away from his own discomfort, learned instinct denying its existence. He was more inclined to focus on the dessert table. Beautifully manicured, the table was laid out with dark cakes and syrupy tarts, cubes of cold gelatin and tiny light éclairs, their papery skin fine enough to melt when you placed it in your mouth, smoothing the chocolate icing and the cream filling together and creating a miracle in flavor. It was comforting to think about these things.
His assessment of the pastries soothed him, and he started to contemplate how he could get some. He thought it’d be nice to have something to eat, but he would rather not have to talk to anyone attending the party. He tried to pull his small hands deeper into the sleeves of his perfect white dress suit, the fit of the jacket too even and exact for a child who was more comfortable wearing garments that would cover his hands. Because of his tiny build, he had been able to enjoy this effect from his sleeves for many years. That was before he turned four, when his parents realized that they should be getting clothing custom-cut for their stubborn son who had the nerve not to grow fast enough.
He was snapped out of his slow meditation by a harsh hissing voice, a wash of bright yellow suddenly coming into view as his mother’s presence pushed itself forcibly on all of his senses.
“Akira, what are you doing here? I’ve been asked about you three times already, this is humiliating! Go and entertain our younger guests!” A hard hand with a stiff gold ring on it dragged the small boy to his feet, causing him to stumble uncomfortably in an effort to pull himself away. He nodded without meeting his mother’s eyes, using an unnaturally smooth stride to force himself out into the sunlight and the flower-dance of everyone’s lightly colored clothing reflecting it brightly. As he walked he made an effort to be subtle about his single-minded goal of the dessert table, spilling out an expressionless “Nice to see you”, here and a “Thanks for coming”, in another direction. There was a balding, damp sort of man sweating in the sunlight near where the boy emerged from the hedge. Akira took the long way around; it was important to avoid him.
He had almost reached his desired destination when he was accosted by a girl. About his age, but taller, her bright blonde ponytails bounced cheerfully as she boldly intersected his path, a small china plate laden with a fluffy piece of strawberry shortcake already in her hands.
“Hi! Um, hello. What’s your name? That’s a handsome suit.”
Akira stared back at the girl without either interest or dislike. His face was so often schooled into a blank expression that he wore it even when blankness was inappropriate. After a slow moment he remembered that he was obligated to answer her greeting, even though his eyes wanted to wander to the piece of cake in her hands, which seemed the more appealing subject of attention. The girl couldn’t be eaten and tasted, after all.
“Akira. My mother is hosting this party…thank you for coming.”
The girl, who had begun to pout at his silent pause, brightened again.
“I love parties! Is it your house? My house’s garden’s not as nice as this. You even have a fountain here! A fountain with fish!” She swayed and fidgeted as she held herself back from releasing an improper waterfall of words. He didn’t really mind listening to talkative people, but responding to them was another thing. The girl was watching him expectantly, interested, but also anxious for him to finish up with his turn so that she could better continue her tirade of conversation.
“I don’t mind parties. I want to get some cake.” This was the wrong thing to say, Akira reminded himself mechanically. He should be responding to the girl’s words, not mentioning selfish desires. It was rude.
“I’ll get you some! I love the trays here. Hold this!” The girl energetically thrust her cake plate into Akira’s exposed hands, not waiting for a response before she quickly made a trip of her own to the dessert table, gathering up a second dessert plate and several treats of her choice.
Akira’s mouth tightened in visible displeasure at this. He had not told the girl he wanted to receive cake. He had told her he wanted to go and get some himself. He was quite good at it, and was baffled as to why she’d do something as stupid as getting it for him. When she returned with her hands full of the new dish and several fingers sticky from the icing she’d run into, he wasted no time in reporting his annoyance this time.
“I can get my own dessert. I didn’t want you to do it. Don’t do it again.” The girl’s flinched immediately, as if her face had been hit sharply by how unappreciative his blunt response was.
“S-sorry, just …I like these best. I wanted to...” Her offense had quickly melted into puzzlement, and she stood confused, her ill-presented gift starting to sag in her hands. Akira collected himself, already feeling a sour and obligatory regret seeding itself in his chest. He took the plate from her, balancing it in his small palm as handed her own back to her, not quite able to find words to tell her how sorry he meant to feel. The gesture seemed to work, though, and the girl’s buoyant personality bounced back at once from its slight deflation.
“I won’t do it again! Momma always says I need to think more. Want to come to the kid’s area?” Akira nodded in courteous response, his gaze wandering over his shoulder at the woman in the yellow dress. He was feeling her eyes like twin bee stings, even though she didn’t seem to be watching him. He followed the girl as she started to bounce right through the thick of the crowd, the very last path he would have chosen to take. The senseless route took them too close past the sweaty little man, and Akira was forced to shrink down and try to seem more like part of the girl’s skirt. The man’s suit was a powdery gray, and he fidgeted with his sleeve as wet, congested gasping interrupted his speech. His impression was one of live slugs writhing around inside abused intestines.
After a rush of ducking, dashing, and barely avoiding various silk-clad body parts, the two children finally emerged at the fountain. Here there were clumps of children in various sizes, all either playing or talking together, according to age. If you were older than about eight, you were talking; if you were younger, you were playing. Everyone knew that. Even Akira knew that, and he most often made a point of neither playing nor talking. He didn’t know most of the children here well enough to call them by name. One boy stood out to him just slightly, a brown-haired and well-grown child with a grumpy face and a bit of a braggart attitude, sitting with a group of his friends at one of the child-sized tables quaintly put together for the party. Akira might have been more willing to drift closer to the boy, because he was pretty sure they were classmates, but his escort called on his attention again.
“Do you like jump rope? How about a tea party? You’re not exactly like a daddy, but we could still play house. Oh! You wanted to eat your cake!” Her face was the very picture of childish concern before her bright attitude returned, and she busied herself with pulling a seat out for him. Akira did, in fact, want to eat his cake. He wanted very much to eat his cake and not be bothered or pressured by the responsibility of keeping this overbearing character entertained. A stream of yellow fluttered in the corner of his vision. He sat down.
She had started talking about school, because that’s all the children his age seemed to want to talk about. They were all enthralled with the structure, fascinated by new experiences, and in love with the uniforms. The uniforms were a major topic, because every school had a set and all the children loved to compare them. The girls especially liked to discuss them, and this one was no exception. But when asked his opinion on the designated clothing for first-grade boys, all he could come up with was that the pants were too short, they made his knees feel cold. He avoided mentioning that he wore his jacket all the time, even sometimes when the teachers told him not to.
Akira was able to remain placid and calm until the cake was gone. Once it was, though, he was left without distraction from his growing sense of irritation towards the girl. She was bubbly. She was full of words and actions. She kept saying and doing things, playing with her hair, tying and retying the sash bow around her waist, picking up a skipping rope and twirling it artistically in the air. She did all this – and she talked. She talked about her life, her family, her pet dachshund, her teachers. She seemed to love her teachers. He asked her to change the subject.
“Don’t you like your teachers, Akira? Do you like school? I love it.”
“I like learning. I’m learning world history right now and it’s very interesting.”
“I don’t learn that…what’s it about?”
Akira’s parents might have thought it was good planning for later life for their first-grade son to learn complex subjects, but that didn’t mean he was adept at explaining them to curious children.
“It’s…fine.”
“Oh…then why don’t you want to talk about school?”
“I just don’t.”
Luckily, she was just as eager to talk about her doll collection, and things got more comfortable. She started describing the different outfits in as much detail as her juvenile brain could come up with, not having the actual things on hand to show him. She gave him a lot of “if you could see it” and “it goes something like” accompanied by hand gestures of various sorts, trying to somehow articulate to him what he couldn’t see.
That was when her friend appeared. This new girl was a year or two older, however, taller, and skinnier as well. Instead of childish and playful, her voice was sawing, nasal, and loud. To hear it was an assault to the ears, especially if you preferred the quiet. When she arrived, she was crunching loudly on pieces of hard candy clenched in both of her fists, slightly damp with sweat and the secretion of the lumps of sugar. Akira liked hard candies himself, but he thought it was a terrible sort of waste to chew them when you could enjoy the flavor of it much longer if you cradled it in your mouth and tongue more gently. The noise made him start to simmer, his hands searching fruitlessly for a passage back into his inadequate sleeves.
“Hi, Mari! Who’s this? Hey, what’s your name? What’s your name? Don’t you talk?” She apparently expected him to respond while the words were still rushing out of her mouth, pushing herself into his face and dropping half of her sugar stock with a careless clatter. Akira kept his eyes cast down, shrinking as if feeling physical pressure from the sucrose on her breath, too suppressed to remember his courtesy. She started jabbing at him with her fist, quick to become irritated with his silence.
“What’s your name, I said? Can you even hear me?”
“Hrr…mm.” Akira was, at least, able to keep his voice down. Real words, however, were too much to ask for.
His original escort must have noticed something was wrong by this point, because she was on her feet now, trying to pry her larger friend away from the smaller boy.
“He doesn’t like that! He’s just quiet, we were talking!”
“Just pretty quiet, huh? I think he’s being rude! Why won’t you answer me, kid? Why won’t you—”
There was an unmistakable change in the quiet boy, his dark eyes out of focus as he sank his teeth into the repulsive girl’s hand.
“Grr…rrghh…”
“Ah…” Freckled eyes widened and the bully jerked her hand away with a vibrating yowl, trying to comprehend the fact that there was actual blood running down her arm.
“He bit me! He bit me for no reason!” Outraged, the skinny girl drew her hand back in a violent motion, screeching in alarm. Loud as she was, though, her shrieks were suddenly drowned out by the wailing of the younger girl, who, apparently traumatized at the sight of blood, was unleashing an insurmountable uproar of anguish that made every flurried head at the party start to turn. Akira had thought it was quite bad enough with just the two girls hounding him. Now he could feel everyone’s eyes upon him, murmured concern and interest starting to ripple though the crowd. Oversized whites widened in the eyes of the man in the powder-gray suit. He took careful note of the small droplets of blood on the young boy’s lower lip, shining brightly for a moment before the child hastily brushed them into a smear on his pristine white sleeve. The girl’s crying perpetuated for a few endless seconds, and then a yellow dress descended upon them in a fury of simpering tones and tut, tut, tut.
“Oh no sweetheart, he couldn’t have! This must be a misunderstanding, I’ll get you a bandage and a treat right away, oh you poor dear! Darling, please see to this poor young lady, I need to attend to our son.” Akira’s father materialized from the crowd as if he had been invisible the entire time. He communicated to the bleeding, freckled apparition in a series of coughs, saying that she had best come with him; he’d show her into the house. Akira watched her walk away in a fit of angry noises, the first girl apparently having pushed herself into the crowd in an effort to find her own comfort. His mother then turned to the next order of business - placate the crowd.
“I’m terribly sorry, everyone! Please, don’t let this keep you from enjoying yourselves, after all, the band is just about to arrive, and we wouldn’t want to spoil our afternoon waltz! We’ll have little Miss Kayli patched up and all smiles in no time.” With a gracious flourish, her body language invited everyone to turn their eyes away, please, as she gently took the hand of her son and only child. Such a maternal image was she, carefully guiding her boy down the back path around to the side entrance of the mansion, assuredly to chastise him for his childish disturbance and then, businesslike, change his stained coat for him and slide him back into place at the party, a lesson newly learned.
A sharp sound cracked once against the kitchen wall, the mother’s temper becoming a hot pink handprint on the boy’s pale cheek.
“Go to your room immediately,” her voice hissed, “I don’t want to see you until tonight. You know what you did.” Recovering from the hit without so much as a whimper, Akira turned his back on his mother. He climbed the stairs with his body feeling much too heavy for six years old, much too weary on twelve hours of sleep. His cheek stung. His chest ached. His legs still felt like they were going to give out, small thighs shaking as he attempted to lift himself up one step after the other, palms and fingers pressed tightly to the cold banisters. When he finally completed the voyage to his room, it was yet another adventure to climb onto his bed, his legs slipping as he attempted to get purchase on the slippery sheets. After achieving the mattress, he lay very still, grateful for the way his curtains stifled the noise outside, feeling blessed by the softness of his quilt and pillows. The room smelled faintly of lemons. A maid had just been in to clean.
The gracious hostess was beside herself.
“Professor, I just don’t know what to do with him! You’ve been doing such a good job teaching him his schoolwork – at least that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about, thanks to your lessons our Akira is adequately intelligent. But his behavior, just atrocious! It’s…it’s not fit for society! Do you know any way…is there anyone you could refer, perhaps?”
Professor Umata adjusted his thinly-framed glasses, shoulders hunching just by natural posture up to nearly past the tips of his ears. His eyes carried a wide, frightened look, as if he was constantly being caught doing something he shouldn’t. There was a small dark spot of sweat between his shoulder blades.
“R...refer…I don’t know any behavior specialists myself, but I could search some University resources…In the meantime I could have a few words with…with the boy, if you like. Perhaps my methods,” he gasped, shutting his eyes as he willed himself to continue his sentence, “my methods of discipline would have a better effect on him; being his tutor and all…I know his learning style best.” His hands moved as he spoke, fuzzily demonstrating that he wanted to fiddle with something, anything, but having nothing available to grope at. The mother’s expression was faintly skeptical, more unimpressed than disapproving. She waved her hand airily through the air, and gave a suffering sort of sigh.
“Yes, that must do for now…I’m sure you could help him better than we could, that child does nothing but ignore us when we talk to him. Besides, we’re both very busy people!” Her face was distraught with the pain of being mistreated by her child. She was strong and tragic as she implored for help. Umata’s frightened face creased into a weak and frightened smile.
“Well then…I’d better go and see him now…so soon after the incident, it’ll have the best effect…from what I know of behavior studies, that is, y-yes?” The significantly lacking gesture of pushing up the corners of his mouth was returned with a full and gracious smile from the yellow dress. She was so full of warmth that no one could possibly doubt her sincerity.
“Of course, Professor. Please, go on up to his room, I sent him there to think over what he did. He’ll be delighted to see you, I’m sure. Let me know how it goes!” If Umata had been holding a wine glass, he would have dropped it, his fingers snagging on themselves in a fumbling motion completely out of his control. Keen as she was, the woman just couldn’t understand what was making him so nervous. Perhaps he had taken fancy to her; she’d been noticing a certain quickness to his breath and a flush to his cheeks, the dampness of sweat making itself steadily more visible through his powder-gray suit.
Akira laid himself out on his back, small clever eyes glittering at the cloth canopy of his four-poster bed. The curtain was pulled and tied tight as he could get it, his palms rubbed raw from straining with the straps. He wondered calmly whether he could keep the cloth secured tight enough, and could continue to be alone in this bed without interruption or invasion. He wondered, for those times that he was alone, if he would ever stop thinking about sweet voices spitting harsh words, violent blows and total silence, a bead of sweat dripping down a fleshy, paunchy cheek, vividly frightened eyes. He wondered about freedom.
There was a knock at the bedroom door.
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Date: 2006-09-28 10:00 pm (UTC)I can't critique it right at this moment, I need to come back and re-read it in a little bit but, OMG.
By the way, I'm in love with the hand-biting scene. :D
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Date: 2006-09-29 01:21 am (UTC)I'm eternally glad XD Though I still think that scene needs more work.
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Date: 2006-09-29 03:13 am (UTC)The way you described Umata made me gag. a little. because he is gwoss... :(
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Date: 2006-09-30 05:33 pm (UTC)As for the story--I also love the hand-biting scene; but I can sympathize with what you're feeling (I've written a few stories off and on, and I often think to myself "it needs more work"). Still, I think it's very well written, the timing and description all flow together perfectly. But I could also say the same thing for the rest of the story--everything fits together well, making it easy to read and pleasant to read.
Most of all I really like the characterization...you give everyone a clear personality and great attention to detail without going overboard. I want to keep reading more past the ending (hint :D).
I think you can't go wrong with this. But if you do plan on revising it, it could only get better; since there's nothing wrong with working on it until it fits your vision. I look forward to whatever you decide to do next.
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Date: 2006-10-03 03:41 pm (UTC)