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[NANO 2007][Catfish: Ghost Story]
HERE WE GO, DOING THIS SUPER-FAST SO I DON'T OVERTHINK IT AND STOP MYSELF. \o/ I think I'm probably going to post every other day -- that way, if/when I flub a day, I've got another to make up my wordcount! (haha, that may or may not actually happen; I have an amazingly good head start right now, but tht worries me for when the end of this month rolls around and I flag. Hopefully my second wind won't be long in coming!)
SO THIS IS IT. Part of the newest project from Catfish (which essentially means:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sharky_chan I am expecting you more than anyone else to hit me when necessary), Ghost Story. See how good I was, by NOT calling my half some really cheesy pun off West Side Story! /o/
Please feel free to tell me what I'm doing wrong or if I'm doing something right, which I am currently finding much less likely :B! I promise that I'll only sulk for a few hours before getting over it. XD
I am also not locking this because: a) it's going to be public in the end anyway, once I get it finished and the Catfish page up and running and b) I actually got some people who're not friended to me or vice-versa wanting to read the story, and. Like. Didn't tell me anything else, so guys, guys, feel free to illuminate me here. :|b
+++++
Kenichi Suzuki's grandfather died on a rainy Tuesday morning.
It happened quietly and calmly and with great dignity, just like the man himself; his breath caught once in his sleep, then slipped out into silence. Ken, slumped in a chair with a grade key balanced on one knee and a stack of quizzes for grading on the other, hadn't noticed till he reached to touch his grandfather's shoulder and felt it cold and stiff under his fingertips. Even after he realized he remained still for nearly half an hour, staring at his grandfather's smiling face as the rain slackened off into lingering gray fog. By the time he finally opened his cell to call his parents, it was past noon.
The funeral was small and quiet as well: the sort of thing would call *intimate* in polite terms and *stifling* in honesty. He stood with his family and watched the urn in his father's arms from the corner of one eye as the priest droned on, condensing his grandfather's entire life into a few soundbite paragraphs. Everything seemed very distant, as though the door would open at any minute and his grandfather would come shuffling in with his mild unfocused smile and the sun reflecting brightly off his bald head -- *ah, I'm sorry I'm late, I hope I'm not interrupting anything important.*
He could feel his grief like a physical thing, like a heavy lump in the bit of his belly, but even that felt distant, all locked up tight in numb denial.
Ken shifted his weight from one foot to the other in a slow rocking motion, trying to be as subtle as he could. His rented suit felt three sizes too small and the collar poked up at the back of his neck, itching horribly. His mind kept wandering aimlessly -- more than once he caught himself thinking about his cancelled classes and the wide-eyed uncomfortable sympathy of his classmates, his professors, his own students. Anything to distract from the low monotone of the priest's voice and his sister's crying and the lost floundering that would flare up, sharp as a knife, and then die away just as fast.
Any moment now, his grandfather would come wandering in. His father would frown disapprovingly and his mother would cry oh, how *could* you! and his brother would mimic their father while his sister would relax and finally stop crying--
His mother, Kanako, touched his shoulder. "Ken-chan," she said quietly. "We're going outside."
His body moved automatically, following the line started by father and brother. In deferrence to his mother he nodded, then fixed his eyes straight ahead.
Outside it was raining: a shower-light sprinkle that cut through the cold late-winter sunshine and turned the new grass and fresh earth shiny wet. Ken shielded his glasses from it and looked up, across the rows and rows of neatly lined headstones, to where his grandfather's open grave waited.
Just like that, his legs locked. He could feel his feet digging in until he was weighed down completely, frozen like stone in place. From where he stood he could see the piles of wet dirt and the lip of the open plot, which seemed to grow larger as his father drew closer to it, bearing the urn to its final resting place. The cherry tree planted nearby, its branches still mostly naked, seemed like a suddenly sinister thing, with spindly fingers and fat limbs reaching down to pluck his grandfather away--
"Hey, Ken," his sister Yuki said softly. She touched his elbow and leaned into his line of vision, peering up at him. Like their mother she was flushed and red-eyed, still blinking away tears every few seconds. "You okay?"
Ken sucked in a sharp breath of cold air. It hurt a little. He held it for a few seconds longer, then let it out slowly and nodded. "... I'm fine," he said. "Sorry."
He didn't bother to even try to dredge up a smile, but whatever she saw made Yuki's eyes lighten, just a little. She squeezed his elbow once and let go. Ken took another deep breath, then matched her step for step as they moved to catch up with the rest of their family. He kept his eyes focused on his feet, looking up only once when he passed by the old cherry tree.
Peeking from around the side of the broad dark trunk was a young woman.
She looked roughly Yuki's age, short and with dark hair pulled back into a severe bun. Her features were slanted and sharp, pretty in a vulpine sort of way. She met Ken's eyes easily, holding them without blinking until he almost stopped again to stare. At the last moment her mouth quirked into a smile and she pointed before she looked away herself, over to the plot itself, where the priest was muttering his last prayers and Ken's mother was dabbing at her already swollen red eyes with a soaked handkerchief. His father remained stoic as ever, though something twitched at the corner of his mouth as the urn was taKen from him and lowered into the open ground.
Yuki made a small, abortive sound and turned her head. Ken watched steadily without blinking, and wondered if this would be enough to make everything *real*, so that he could think *my grandfather's dead* without the strange hot ache of disconnect and disbelief in his throat. Yuki's hand found his and he let her squeeze it until his own fingers went numb.
Then it was done, the urn lowered out of sight. Ken flinched at the sharp crunch of a shovel digging into wet dirt. It sounded too loud and abrupt, out of place in the breathless waiting silence of the graveyard. He felt himself tense, ready to move forward and protest, and as though on cue, the rain picked up, growing harder and colder, almost slashing at the funeral party before it slackened off again. The sun remained shining the entire time, and scattered little prisms of color across the neat and simple headstone with his grandfather's name and the years of his life chiseled into it.
When Ken remembered to look over again, the girl behind the cherry tree was gone.
+++
Two days later the world was the same as it ever was: the sky was gray the whole day with the threat of rain without letting go, students protested their grades with a frevor they never applied to their studies, and the panhandlers loitering all the way from the I-5 bridge to University Way watched everyone passing with hungry calculating eyes. Ken pulled his coat tightly shut against the cold and walked fast with his head down, looking pointedly away whenever he was caught at a red light.
"Hey," slurred a pile of rags as Ken walked past the library. It stank so strongly of sour alcohol that it made his stomach turn. "Hey, hey Mister, you got any -- hey, you got any, got any grass? Mister? Hey, hey Mister, hey--"
Ken ducked his head lower into the collar of his jacket and kept walking.
"Hey -- hey! Hey, you fucker! You goddamn chink! You--" There was a thrashing sound behind him. Ken broke into a jog, refusing to look back. The man's voice followed him, spitting invective and growing louder with each step. Ahead, the green walk sign turned yellow, and Ken wondered distantly if he could make it if he ran--
"Hey!" said a different voice. "There you are, man, I was worried!"
Ken tripped to a halt and looked up. The girl from his grandfather's funeral waved at him with a smile. Today her hair was plaited into two braids which hung down in the front, each fastened by clear purple plastic hairties, like those a little kid might wear. She wore a long dark coat that brushed the pavement as she came towards him, the back flaring out like wings behind her. It should have looked ridiculous, or at least patently fake, but she pulled it off with remarkably genuine ease. Ken didn't move as she caught his arm and hooked it with hers. Up close her eyes were glass-bottle green, vivid enough that he suspected colored contacts. Behind him, the man's voice faded into dumb silence.
"I thought you weren't gonna show," she said. Her gaze darted over his shoulder for a moment, then back to his face. "So I told the others I'd come looking for you. I'd have called, but ..." She dug into her pocket and pulled out a cellphone, shaking it at him. "Battery's dead."
"Uh," said Ken. He blinked. "Right. Thank you ... ?"
"Nooot a problem," she trilled, and tugged at his arm, urging him further up the sidewalk. Bemused, he allowed it, though the top of her head barely broke even with his shoulder. Ahead, the light went from red back to green. "Come on, let's go!"
To his surprise, the panhandler's angry voice didn't follow them any further. At the crosswalk he almost looked back. The hand holding onto his arm squeezed suddenly, so hard that he let out an involuntary yelp of pain and yanked back from the iron grip. "Ow, what was that for--"
"C'mon, Ken," she said. She glanced up at him from under lowered lashes and the messy fringe of her bangs before puffing them out of her eyes. "Don't you know the stories? You can't look back. You'll regret it."
"What do you mean -- hey, look, I appreciate you cutting in before," he said, annoyed, "but that doesn't give you the right to drag me around, and how did you know my name, anyway?"
She laughed, still marching them forward; he was starting to get the feeling that it was less of him *allowing* her to pull him along and more like he wasn't being given a choice in the matter. "Like you were keeping it some big secret," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. "I mean, it was written all over your syllabus."
"Are you one of my students?" Ken asked, digging his heels in and pulling back against her grip. A moment later, though, he stumbled forward again, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. He tugged a little at his wrist and found her grip too solid to break. "What're you doing, following me around like this? Don't think I didn't see you before, hanging around in the graveyard--"
The girl waved an airy hand. "This is this, and that was that," she said. "We've already moved on. Didn't I tell you not to look back?"
Irritated, Ken bristled. "Look," he said. "No, really, thank you for helping me out before. But I don't even know who the hell you are, so if you think I'm just going to take some stranger's word for it that I should do what she says, that's going to be a bit of a problem. So if you'd just -- let me go --"
"Just a little bit longer, Ken," she said, absolutely serene. "Trust me on this one, okay?"
"Why the hell should I--"
Ahead of them the light turned red again. The girl stopped abruptly; Ken almost crashed into her before he stopped. Without letting go of his arm she twisted around to look back the way they came. When Ken tried to turn as well, however, she stepped on his foot and ground her heel against his toes.
"*Shit*!" he yelped in protest. He jerked back, stumbling until he hit the bridge's railing hard with his hip. The girl followed after his movements, still not letting go of his wrist; she followed him balanced on her toes and somehow managed to not trip over the tails of her long coat. Ken finally dropped to one knee, rubbing his injured foot as he glared up at her. "What the hell was that for?!"
"Your own good," she said brightly. "Didn't I tell you not to look back?"
Ken yanked at his arm again; this time, she let go easily. "What, and that's supposed to mean something?" He rubbed at his abused wrist, scowling. "I mean, why should I even--" He stopped, then deliberately turned his back to her, looking the way they had come.
It looked completely the same: cars sped past across the bridge beside them, headlights cutting through the thickening evening; down the road the flared skeletal arms of empty trees and tired houses gave way to the sharper lines of apartment buildings; off in the distance to either side of them the lights of the city of Seattle itself glittered in moving kaledescopic shards of color. Nothing was out of place from any other night.
He turned back and looked at the girl again. She had both hands shoved deep into her pockets, rocking from the balls of her feet to the heels and back again. She looked bored now, all semblance of friendliness vanished by his backward look. Ken drew himself up and crossed his arms.
"Well?" he demanded. "What was so huge and important that I couldn't look?"
"I dunno," she said. She shrugged and looked away, still rocking on her feet. "What were you so worried about?"
"What was *I*--" he gaped. "What do mean, what was *I* -- YOU were the one who --"
She shrugged, apparently fascinated with watching the city skyline. The lights from the oncoming cars reflected flatly in her eyes. "You bought it, didn't you?" she drawled before glancing at him sidelong and flashing a wide grin that seemed to show off each and every tooth. They looked sharp and white; nothing about her seemed particularly cute or harmless any more. "Gotcha."
For a moment Ken just gaped, unable to even form coherent words. The girl didn't seem terribly concerned by his abortive anger even when he drew himself up to his full height, though he had at least a foot of height over her and considerably more bulk. It was as like she'd completely filtered him out of her world, more concerned with the loose thread in her sleeve than his strangled silence.
"Better hurry home," she said abruptly. She looked up at him from under her lashes, still with that same unfriendly toothy smile. "It's getting late for good little boys to be out wandering around."
Ken opened his mouth, closed it, then pushed deliberately past her. This time he didn't look back at all.
+++
The next morning Ken woke to his cellphone going off. It jittered across his bedside table until he slammed a hand down on it, flipping it open after a few false starts and mashing it to his ear. "Whha?"
"*Ken*!" Yuki squeaked, high-pitched enough to make him once. "Oh my god, Ken! You're okay, right? Right? Please tell me you're all right and--"
"Yuki?" He pushed himself onto his elbows, but couldn't make himself open his eyes. "What?"
"You *are* okay," she said, and sounded so relieved that it stopped the immediate snide reponse. "That's good, I'm so glad -- MOM! MOM, HE'S OKAY!"
Ken held the phone away from his ear and waited; when Yuki didn't start shouting again, he brought it back and said, "Why wouldn't I be okay? I told everyone I'd be fine, don't you guys trust me?"
"No, no, it's not that," Yuki said. "Didn't you hear? It was on the news this morning! They found a dead body on the bridge!"
"A what where?" With a little more effort Ken managed to push himself to an upright position, groping blindly for his glasses. "A body?"
"On the bridge, you know," she said. "Up 50th? The one you walk home by? That bridge! They found a body, and it was all torn up! And Mom, you know, she was all 'but that's near where Ken lives, oh I hope he's okay' and stuff, so I said I'd call and check up on you but you're okay and you really don't know anything about it? At all?"
He finally found his glasses and slipped them on before he risked opening his eyes and squinted at the clock. "Yuki."
"Yeah?"
"It's only eight-thirty."
"I know," she said, sounding annoyed. "It's morning! I have to be at school in an hour." She made an outraged noise at the yawn he couldn't quite stifle. "Don't tell me you were still ASLEEP."
"Eight-thirty," he said pathetically. "I don't have classes till this afternoon, Yuki, give me a break."
"You JERK," she said with righteous indignation. "And here I was worried about you!"
"Thank you," he said, and didn't bother to hide his yawn this time. "Look, I know Mom's still not sure about the whole 'me moving out' thing, but seriously. I take care of myself. I'm not living in a bad neighborhood. It's fine."
"Yeah," Yuki said darkly. "Tell that to the dead guy. They were saying on the news, you know, that he was all ripped up -- it was like something tore him apart! But you're in the city so there aren't any animals that can do that. People are worried that it's going to turn out to be some sort of psycho serial killer. Ken, aren't you *worried*?" Her voice rose steadily as she spoke, colored by both anxiety and excitement. "I mean, this could be the start of something! Ted Bundy went to your school, you know--"
He pinched the bridge of his nose for a few moments. "Shit happens," he said. "And look, it really sucks that a guy got killed, that's really awful, but what the hell am I supposed to do? Parking sucks and I'm not going to pay for gas when rent is actually cheaper--"
Yuki huffed. "Sometimes you're such a *jerk*," she said, and hung up.
Ken rubbed his eyes. He looked at his phone, and then at the clock: eight forty-one.
"I think that was kind of uncalled for," he said aloud, his tone wounded, then got to his feet to head for the bathroom.
+++
"--I hear that it was a homeless guy who was on drugs and threw himself in front of a truck--"
"--Some psycho just probably decided to dump his victim out where everyone could see it. He's probably laughing at the police right now--"
"--Bet it was a hate crime, they say that the way he was found? Someone had to *really* want him dead--"
"--That is seriously creepy, man. My mom's freaking out, says she wants me to come home till they find who did it--"
"--It's not like there aren't a million bums hanging out on the Ave anyway, you could pick any of them off and no one would even notice--"
Ken unwrapped his burger with a sigh. He'd already seen twice the number of cops on campus in the past hour than since he'd started attending the University the previous year. His quiz section had been more than half empty despite the upcoming midterm, and the office hours following had been deserted; even the Chemistry Study Center had only a handful of students, huddled together at a single group near the door. They all looked up when he poked his head in, shuffling in their seats like startled deer, staring with obvious distrust until he ducked out again.
"Hey, strange," a familiar voice drawled. "Mind if I steal this chair?"
He looked up and stared. "What are *you* doing here?"
The girl from the night before pouted. She tugged the high stool out and hitched one hip onto it, leaning her elbow on the table for balance. "You're real nice," she said and wrinkled her nose. "Here I was all worried about you, and you're just blowing me off."
Ken gritted his teeth. "If you ask me," he said, "I've got every right to ignore some nameless girl who just showed up out of nowhere *at my grandfather's funeral*--"
"Are you *still* going on about that?" She sounded genuinely surprised and reached across to nick a french fry. "I thought we were already past that."
"And THEN," he went on right over her, straightening in his seat, "you show up last night, hang yourself all over me for no good reason, play some stupid 'don't look back' game and think it's *funny*--"
"Sen," she said.
"--to just bulldoze over me and -- excuse me?"
"Sen," she said again, and stole another fry. "My name is Sen."
"That's ..." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's not the point."
"Ah, but it was one of them!" She grinned at him and reached for his drink; he snatched it out of reach. "So now that's taKen care of, don't you feel better?" She swiped for the drink again.
"That was the least of my problems," he said. "Who are you, really? What do you want? And hell, after last night, what makes you think I'll even help you?"
"Because you're a really -- nice -- guy!" She flopped across the table and sank back after missing his drink a third time. She eyed him balefully for a moment then sat up with a sigh, folding her arms on the table and leaning forward. "Your grandfather was Daisuke Suzuki, wasn't he?"
Ken stopped and eyed her. "You'd know," he said blandly. "You were there at his funeral."
Sen leaned forward, her expression suddenly serious. "I admired him very much," she said. "He was a fantastic scholar, one of the best in the field."
"He'd tell you that's old news," Ken muttered. "He was retired for years by the time he -- I mean, he wouldn't even tell stories to me and my sister when we were little. Said we were better off reading the classics from better storytellers than he was." He looked aside and pushed his meal towards her; his appetite had evaporated. Sen, on the other hand, pounced on the meal like she was starving. When she cast hopeful eyes at his drink, he slid that across as well.
She took a long noisy drink, then gestured at him with the cup. "Now that I don't believe," she said. "Your grandfather had an amazing way with words. I've read his books --"
"He stopped writing long ago," Ken snapped. He began to shred the remains of the straw's wrapper. "After his wife -- died."
Sen paused, midchew. She swallowed. There was an odd speculative gleam in her eyes, like maybe she knew the part he wasn't saying aloud, obsfucating with the family's official version of events. "Died, huh?"
"A long time ago. Grandfather said he could never write anything else after her. That's why he switched from writing his own stories to--" Ken stopped and made a frustrated, abortive noise deep in his throat. "Look, just because I know your name doesn't mean I know who the hell you are. And none of this is any of your business, so--" He got to his feet. "Enjoy the food."
"Hey--" Sen leaned over and caught his sleeve. She gave him a wide-eyed sincere look, nibbling on the last of the stolen fries. "I'm sorry. Okay? I was just curious. Suzuki-sensei was someone I really looked up to, and I just hoped ..." She looked down, as though embarrassed by the confession, and her thin shoulders slumped.
Ken stared at her bowed head. He rubbed his forehead. He was not going to feel guilty about making a near-stranger upset when she'd been rude first, and for all he knew this was another game that ended with him pissed off as she feigned innocence. As flirting techniques went, hers really sucked.
To his surprise, she let go of his arm even before he could try to reclaim it, though she still didn't look up. In her other hand she swirled her drink listlessly; it was already empty enough that the ice sloshed and rattled against the insides of the cup. Ken himself felt frozen. Though the HUB was jam-packed at this time of day with noisy oblivious students, he felt self-conscious, like he'd stepped out into an unexpected spotlight just as everything else went dark. He cleared his throat and shifted his weight and tried to think of something to say.
Sen lifted her head. Her odd wistfulness had vanished, replaced by the same insolent cheer as before. "I was just hoping," she began, then sucked noisily at the dregs of her drink. "See, right before he died he was talking about maybe putting together some of his notes in a memoir format. I was going to meet with him so we could go through it, see what we could keep and what needed to be revised, but ..." She sighed, kicking her foot against one of the table's metal legs.
"You're an editor?" Ken raised an eyebrow. "Kind of young for that, aren't you?"
"Hey," she protested, then grinned again. "Nah, I'm not -- I'm just the assistant. I really am a huge fan of your grandfather's, though, so I was hoping--"
"... that you could con me into letting you take a look at Grandfather's notes?" Ken's voice was dry. "You'd have better luck with my dad. I just know the stuff he used to tell us, okay? I don't even know where they're kept -- we haven't gone through his belongings, yet ..."
"Oh," she said. She poked the tips of her index fingers together and gave him a coyly hopeful look. "If you *do* find them, though, I don't suppose you'd--"
"Not my decision," he said, and held up both hands. "Talk to my dad. The papers got left to him, so it's his decision about what he'll do with them. Sorry."
"Aww, come on!" She pouted, chewing on the end of her straw. "Can't you at least talk to him? I won't tell anyone! I promise!"
Ken shrugged. Before she could make another grab for him, he out of reach, weaving through the groups of chattering students to make his way for the door.
This time he did look back over his shoulder for her; she was still chewing on the straw and staring into space. A moment later a young man melted out of the crowd and approached her. He was tall and broad-shouldered with shaggy dark hair, and when he stopped by Sen, she looked up at him without surprise. They spoke briefly before she hopped off the stool and they walked off, side-by-side. Sen didn't even come up to her companion's shoulder, though she walked with the confidence to compensate.
Ken watched until they turned a corner and were gone.
SO THIS IS IT. Part of the newest project from Catfish (which essentially means:
sharky_chan I am expecting you more than anyone else to hit me when necessary), Ghost Story. See how good I was, by NOT calling my half some really cheesy pun off West Side Story! /o/Please feel free to tell me what I'm doing wrong or if I'm doing something right, which I am currently finding much less likely :B! I promise that I'll only sulk for a few hours before getting over it. XD
I am also not locking this because: a) it's going to be public in the end anyway, once I get it finished and the Catfish page up and running and b) I actually got some people who're not friended to me or vice-versa wanting to read the story, and. Like. Didn't tell me anything else, so guys, guys, feel free to illuminate me here. :|b
+++++
Kenichi Suzuki's grandfather died on a rainy Tuesday morning.
It happened quietly and calmly and with great dignity, just like the man himself; his breath caught once in his sleep, then slipped out into silence. Ken, slumped in a chair with a grade key balanced on one knee and a stack of quizzes for grading on the other, hadn't noticed till he reached to touch his grandfather's shoulder and felt it cold and stiff under his fingertips. Even after he realized he remained still for nearly half an hour, staring at his grandfather's smiling face as the rain slackened off into lingering gray fog. By the time he finally opened his cell to call his parents, it was past noon.
The funeral was small and quiet as well: the sort of thing would call *intimate* in polite terms and *stifling* in honesty. He stood with his family and watched the urn in his father's arms from the corner of one eye as the priest droned on, condensing his grandfather's entire life into a few soundbite paragraphs. Everything seemed very distant, as though the door would open at any minute and his grandfather would come shuffling in with his mild unfocused smile and the sun reflecting brightly off his bald head -- *ah, I'm sorry I'm late, I hope I'm not interrupting anything important.*
He could feel his grief like a physical thing, like a heavy lump in the bit of his belly, but even that felt distant, all locked up tight in numb denial.
Ken shifted his weight from one foot to the other in a slow rocking motion, trying to be as subtle as he could. His rented suit felt three sizes too small and the collar poked up at the back of his neck, itching horribly. His mind kept wandering aimlessly -- more than once he caught himself thinking about his cancelled classes and the wide-eyed uncomfortable sympathy of his classmates, his professors, his own students. Anything to distract from the low monotone of the priest's voice and his sister's crying and the lost floundering that would flare up, sharp as a knife, and then die away just as fast.
Any moment now, his grandfather would come wandering in. His father would frown disapprovingly and his mother would cry oh, how *could* you! and his brother would mimic their father while his sister would relax and finally stop crying--
His mother, Kanako, touched his shoulder. "Ken-chan," she said quietly. "We're going outside."
His body moved automatically, following the line started by father and brother. In deferrence to his mother he nodded, then fixed his eyes straight ahead.
Outside it was raining: a shower-light sprinkle that cut through the cold late-winter sunshine and turned the new grass and fresh earth shiny wet. Ken shielded his glasses from it and looked up, across the rows and rows of neatly lined headstones, to where his grandfather's open grave waited.
Just like that, his legs locked. He could feel his feet digging in until he was weighed down completely, frozen like stone in place. From where he stood he could see the piles of wet dirt and the lip of the open plot, which seemed to grow larger as his father drew closer to it, bearing the urn to its final resting place. The cherry tree planted nearby, its branches still mostly naked, seemed like a suddenly sinister thing, with spindly fingers and fat limbs reaching down to pluck his grandfather away--
"Hey, Ken," his sister Yuki said softly. She touched his elbow and leaned into his line of vision, peering up at him. Like their mother she was flushed and red-eyed, still blinking away tears every few seconds. "You okay?"
Ken sucked in a sharp breath of cold air. It hurt a little. He held it for a few seconds longer, then let it out slowly and nodded. "... I'm fine," he said. "Sorry."
He didn't bother to even try to dredge up a smile, but whatever she saw made Yuki's eyes lighten, just a little. She squeezed his elbow once and let go. Ken took another deep breath, then matched her step for step as they moved to catch up with the rest of their family. He kept his eyes focused on his feet, looking up only once when he passed by the old cherry tree.
Peeking from around the side of the broad dark trunk was a young woman.
She looked roughly Yuki's age, short and with dark hair pulled back into a severe bun. Her features were slanted and sharp, pretty in a vulpine sort of way. She met Ken's eyes easily, holding them without blinking until he almost stopped again to stare. At the last moment her mouth quirked into a smile and she pointed before she looked away herself, over to the plot itself, where the priest was muttering his last prayers and Ken's mother was dabbing at her already swollen red eyes with a soaked handkerchief. His father remained stoic as ever, though something twitched at the corner of his mouth as the urn was taKen from him and lowered into the open ground.
Yuki made a small, abortive sound and turned her head. Ken watched steadily without blinking, and wondered if this would be enough to make everything *real*, so that he could think *my grandfather's dead* without the strange hot ache of disconnect and disbelief in his throat. Yuki's hand found his and he let her squeeze it until his own fingers went numb.
Then it was done, the urn lowered out of sight. Ken flinched at the sharp crunch of a shovel digging into wet dirt. It sounded too loud and abrupt, out of place in the breathless waiting silence of the graveyard. He felt himself tense, ready to move forward and protest, and as though on cue, the rain picked up, growing harder and colder, almost slashing at the funeral party before it slackened off again. The sun remained shining the entire time, and scattered little prisms of color across the neat and simple headstone with his grandfather's name and the years of his life chiseled into it.
When Ken remembered to look over again, the girl behind the cherry tree was gone.
+++
Two days later the world was the same as it ever was: the sky was gray the whole day with the threat of rain without letting go, students protested their grades with a frevor they never applied to their studies, and the panhandlers loitering all the way from the I-5 bridge to University Way watched everyone passing with hungry calculating eyes. Ken pulled his coat tightly shut against the cold and walked fast with his head down, looking pointedly away whenever he was caught at a red light.
"Hey," slurred a pile of rags as Ken walked past the library. It stank so strongly of sour alcohol that it made his stomach turn. "Hey, hey Mister, you got any -- hey, you got any, got any grass? Mister? Hey, hey Mister, hey--"
Ken ducked his head lower into the collar of his jacket and kept walking.
"Hey -- hey! Hey, you fucker! You goddamn chink! You--" There was a thrashing sound behind him. Ken broke into a jog, refusing to look back. The man's voice followed him, spitting invective and growing louder with each step. Ahead, the green walk sign turned yellow, and Ken wondered distantly if he could make it if he ran--
"Hey!" said a different voice. "There you are, man, I was worried!"
Ken tripped to a halt and looked up. The girl from his grandfather's funeral waved at him with a smile. Today her hair was plaited into two braids which hung down in the front, each fastened by clear purple plastic hairties, like those a little kid might wear. She wore a long dark coat that brushed the pavement as she came towards him, the back flaring out like wings behind her. It should have looked ridiculous, or at least patently fake, but she pulled it off with remarkably genuine ease. Ken didn't move as she caught his arm and hooked it with hers. Up close her eyes were glass-bottle green, vivid enough that he suspected colored contacts. Behind him, the man's voice faded into dumb silence.
"I thought you weren't gonna show," she said. Her gaze darted over his shoulder for a moment, then back to his face. "So I told the others I'd come looking for you. I'd have called, but ..." She dug into her pocket and pulled out a cellphone, shaking it at him. "Battery's dead."
"Uh," said Ken. He blinked. "Right. Thank you ... ?"
"Nooot a problem," she trilled, and tugged at his arm, urging him further up the sidewalk. Bemused, he allowed it, though the top of her head barely broke even with his shoulder. Ahead, the light went from red back to green. "Come on, let's go!"
To his surprise, the panhandler's angry voice didn't follow them any further. At the crosswalk he almost looked back. The hand holding onto his arm squeezed suddenly, so hard that he let out an involuntary yelp of pain and yanked back from the iron grip. "Ow, what was that for--"
"C'mon, Ken," she said. She glanced up at him from under lowered lashes and the messy fringe of her bangs before puffing them out of her eyes. "Don't you know the stories? You can't look back. You'll regret it."
"What do you mean -- hey, look, I appreciate you cutting in before," he said, annoyed, "but that doesn't give you the right to drag me around, and how did you know my name, anyway?"
She laughed, still marching them forward; he was starting to get the feeling that it was less of him *allowing* her to pull him along and more like he wasn't being given a choice in the matter. "Like you were keeping it some big secret," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. "I mean, it was written all over your syllabus."
"Are you one of my students?" Ken asked, digging his heels in and pulling back against her grip. A moment later, though, he stumbled forward again, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. He tugged a little at his wrist and found her grip too solid to break. "What're you doing, following me around like this? Don't think I didn't see you before, hanging around in the graveyard--"
The girl waved an airy hand. "This is this, and that was that," she said. "We've already moved on. Didn't I tell you not to look back?"
Irritated, Ken bristled. "Look," he said. "No, really, thank you for helping me out before. But I don't even know who the hell you are, so if you think I'm just going to take some stranger's word for it that I should do what she says, that's going to be a bit of a problem. So if you'd just -- let me go --"
"Just a little bit longer, Ken," she said, absolutely serene. "Trust me on this one, okay?"
"Why the hell should I--"
Ahead of them the light turned red again. The girl stopped abruptly; Ken almost crashed into her before he stopped. Without letting go of his arm she twisted around to look back the way they came. When Ken tried to turn as well, however, she stepped on his foot and ground her heel against his toes.
"*Shit*!" he yelped in protest. He jerked back, stumbling until he hit the bridge's railing hard with his hip. The girl followed after his movements, still not letting go of his wrist; she followed him balanced on her toes and somehow managed to not trip over the tails of her long coat. Ken finally dropped to one knee, rubbing his injured foot as he glared up at her. "What the hell was that for?!"
"Your own good," she said brightly. "Didn't I tell you not to look back?"
Ken yanked at his arm again; this time, she let go easily. "What, and that's supposed to mean something?" He rubbed at his abused wrist, scowling. "I mean, why should I even--" He stopped, then deliberately turned his back to her, looking the way they had come.
It looked completely the same: cars sped past across the bridge beside them, headlights cutting through the thickening evening; down the road the flared skeletal arms of empty trees and tired houses gave way to the sharper lines of apartment buildings; off in the distance to either side of them the lights of the city of Seattle itself glittered in moving kaledescopic shards of color. Nothing was out of place from any other night.
He turned back and looked at the girl again. She had both hands shoved deep into her pockets, rocking from the balls of her feet to the heels and back again. She looked bored now, all semblance of friendliness vanished by his backward look. Ken drew himself up and crossed his arms.
"Well?" he demanded. "What was so huge and important that I couldn't look?"
"I dunno," she said. She shrugged and looked away, still rocking on her feet. "What were you so worried about?"
"What was *I*--" he gaped. "What do mean, what was *I* -- YOU were the one who --"
She shrugged, apparently fascinated with watching the city skyline. The lights from the oncoming cars reflected flatly in her eyes. "You bought it, didn't you?" she drawled before glancing at him sidelong and flashing a wide grin that seemed to show off each and every tooth. They looked sharp and white; nothing about her seemed particularly cute or harmless any more. "Gotcha."
For a moment Ken just gaped, unable to even form coherent words. The girl didn't seem terribly concerned by his abortive anger even when he drew himself up to his full height, though he had at least a foot of height over her and considerably more bulk. It was as like she'd completely filtered him out of her world, more concerned with the loose thread in her sleeve than his strangled silence.
"Better hurry home," she said abruptly. She looked up at him from under her lashes, still with that same unfriendly toothy smile. "It's getting late for good little boys to be out wandering around."
Ken opened his mouth, closed it, then pushed deliberately past her. This time he didn't look back at all.
+++
The next morning Ken woke to his cellphone going off. It jittered across his bedside table until he slammed a hand down on it, flipping it open after a few false starts and mashing it to his ear. "Whha?"
"*Ken*!" Yuki squeaked, high-pitched enough to make him once. "Oh my god, Ken! You're okay, right? Right? Please tell me you're all right and--"
"Yuki?" He pushed himself onto his elbows, but couldn't make himself open his eyes. "What?"
"You *are* okay," she said, and sounded so relieved that it stopped the immediate snide reponse. "That's good, I'm so glad -- MOM! MOM, HE'S OKAY!"
Ken held the phone away from his ear and waited; when Yuki didn't start shouting again, he brought it back and said, "Why wouldn't I be okay? I told everyone I'd be fine, don't you guys trust me?"
"No, no, it's not that," Yuki said. "Didn't you hear? It was on the news this morning! They found a dead body on the bridge!"
"A what where?" With a little more effort Ken managed to push himself to an upright position, groping blindly for his glasses. "A body?"
"On the bridge, you know," she said. "Up 50th? The one you walk home by? That bridge! They found a body, and it was all torn up! And Mom, you know, she was all 'but that's near where Ken lives, oh I hope he's okay' and stuff, so I said I'd call and check up on you but you're okay and you really don't know anything about it? At all?"
He finally found his glasses and slipped them on before he risked opening his eyes and squinted at the clock. "Yuki."
"Yeah?"
"It's only eight-thirty."
"I know," she said, sounding annoyed. "It's morning! I have to be at school in an hour." She made an outraged noise at the yawn he couldn't quite stifle. "Don't tell me you were still ASLEEP."
"Eight-thirty," he said pathetically. "I don't have classes till this afternoon, Yuki, give me a break."
"You JERK," she said with righteous indignation. "And here I was worried about you!"
"Thank you," he said, and didn't bother to hide his yawn this time. "Look, I know Mom's still not sure about the whole 'me moving out' thing, but seriously. I take care of myself. I'm not living in a bad neighborhood. It's fine."
"Yeah," Yuki said darkly. "Tell that to the dead guy. They were saying on the news, you know, that he was all ripped up -- it was like something tore him apart! But you're in the city so there aren't any animals that can do that. People are worried that it's going to turn out to be some sort of psycho serial killer. Ken, aren't you *worried*?" Her voice rose steadily as she spoke, colored by both anxiety and excitement. "I mean, this could be the start of something! Ted Bundy went to your school, you know--"
He pinched the bridge of his nose for a few moments. "Shit happens," he said. "And look, it really sucks that a guy got killed, that's really awful, but what the hell am I supposed to do? Parking sucks and I'm not going to pay for gas when rent is actually cheaper--"
Yuki huffed. "Sometimes you're such a *jerk*," she said, and hung up.
Ken rubbed his eyes. He looked at his phone, and then at the clock: eight forty-one.
"I think that was kind of uncalled for," he said aloud, his tone wounded, then got to his feet to head for the bathroom.
+++
"--I hear that it was a homeless guy who was on drugs and threw himself in front of a truck--"
"--Some psycho just probably decided to dump his victim out where everyone could see it. He's probably laughing at the police right now--"
"--Bet it was a hate crime, they say that the way he was found? Someone had to *really* want him dead--"
"--That is seriously creepy, man. My mom's freaking out, says she wants me to come home till they find who did it--"
"--It's not like there aren't a million bums hanging out on the Ave anyway, you could pick any of them off and no one would even notice--"
Ken unwrapped his burger with a sigh. He'd already seen twice the number of cops on campus in the past hour than since he'd started attending the University the previous year. His quiz section had been more than half empty despite the upcoming midterm, and the office hours following had been deserted; even the Chemistry Study Center had only a handful of students, huddled together at a single group near the door. They all looked up when he poked his head in, shuffling in their seats like startled deer, staring with obvious distrust until he ducked out again.
"Hey, strange," a familiar voice drawled. "Mind if I steal this chair?"
He looked up and stared. "What are *you* doing here?"
The girl from the night before pouted. She tugged the high stool out and hitched one hip onto it, leaning her elbow on the table for balance. "You're real nice," she said and wrinkled her nose. "Here I was all worried about you, and you're just blowing me off."
Ken gritted his teeth. "If you ask me," he said, "I've got every right to ignore some nameless girl who just showed up out of nowhere *at my grandfather's funeral*--"
"Are you *still* going on about that?" She sounded genuinely surprised and reached across to nick a french fry. "I thought we were already past that."
"And THEN," he went on right over her, straightening in his seat, "you show up last night, hang yourself all over me for no good reason, play some stupid 'don't look back' game and think it's *funny*--"
"Sen," she said.
"--to just bulldoze over me and -- excuse me?"
"Sen," she said again, and stole another fry. "My name is Sen."
"That's ..." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's not the point."
"Ah, but it was one of them!" She grinned at him and reached for his drink; he snatched it out of reach. "So now that's taKen care of, don't you feel better?" She swiped for the drink again.
"That was the least of my problems," he said. "Who are you, really? What do you want? And hell, after last night, what makes you think I'll even help you?"
"Because you're a really -- nice -- guy!" She flopped across the table and sank back after missing his drink a third time. She eyed him balefully for a moment then sat up with a sigh, folding her arms on the table and leaning forward. "Your grandfather was Daisuke Suzuki, wasn't he?"
Ken stopped and eyed her. "You'd know," he said blandly. "You were there at his funeral."
Sen leaned forward, her expression suddenly serious. "I admired him very much," she said. "He was a fantastic scholar, one of the best in the field."
"He'd tell you that's old news," Ken muttered. "He was retired for years by the time he -- I mean, he wouldn't even tell stories to me and my sister when we were little. Said we were better off reading the classics from better storytellers than he was." He looked aside and pushed his meal towards her; his appetite had evaporated. Sen, on the other hand, pounced on the meal like she was starving. When she cast hopeful eyes at his drink, he slid that across as well.
She took a long noisy drink, then gestured at him with the cup. "Now that I don't believe," she said. "Your grandfather had an amazing way with words. I've read his books --"
"He stopped writing long ago," Ken snapped. He began to shred the remains of the straw's wrapper. "After his wife -- died."
Sen paused, midchew. She swallowed. There was an odd speculative gleam in her eyes, like maybe she knew the part he wasn't saying aloud, obsfucating with the family's official version of events. "Died, huh?"
"A long time ago. Grandfather said he could never write anything else after her. That's why he switched from writing his own stories to--" Ken stopped and made a frustrated, abortive noise deep in his throat. "Look, just because I know your name doesn't mean I know who the hell you are. And none of this is any of your business, so--" He got to his feet. "Enjoy the food."
"Hey--" Sen leaned over and caught his sleeve. She gave him a wide-eyed sincere look, nibbling on the last of the stolen fries. "I'm sorry. Okay? I was just curious. Suzuki-sensei was someone I really looked up to, and I just hoped ..." She looked down, as though embarrassed by the confession, and her thin shoulders slumped.
Ken stared at her bowed head. He rubbed his forehead. He was not going to feel guilty about making a near-stranger upset when she'd been rude first, and for all he knew this was another game that ended with him pissed off as she feigned innocence. As flirting techniques went, hers really sucked.
To his surprise, she let go of his arm even before he could try to reclaim it, though she still didn't look up. In her other hand she swirled her drink listlessly; it was already empty enough that the ice sloshed and rattled against the insides of the cup. Ken himself felt frozen. Though the HUB was jam-packed at this time of day with noisy oblivious students, he felt self-conscious, like he'd stepped out into an unexpected spotlight just as everything else went dark. He cleared his throat and shifted his weight and tried to think of something to say.
Sen lifted her head. Her odd wistfulness had vanished, replaced by the same insolent cheer as before. "I was just hoping," she began, then sucked noisily at the dregs of her drink. "See, right before he died he was talking about maybe putting together some of his notes in a memoir format. I was going to meet with him so we could go through it, see what we could keep and what needed to be revised, but ..." She sighed, kicking her foot against one of the table's metal legs.
"You're an editor?" Ken raised an eyebrow. "Kind of young for that, aren't you?"
"Hey," she protested, then grinned again. "Nah, I'm not -- I'm just the assistant. I really am a huge fan of your grandfather's, though, so I was hoping--"
"... that you could con me into letting you take a look at Grandfather's notes?" Ken's voice was dry. "You'd have better luck with my dad. I just know the stuff he used to tell us, okay? I don't even know where they're kept -- we haven't gone through his belongings, yet ..."
"Oh," she said. She poked the tips of her index fingers together and gave him a coyly hopeful look. "If you *do* find them, though, I don't suppose you'd--"
"Not my decision," he said, and held up both hands. "Talk to my dad. The papers got left to him, so it's his decision about what he'll do with them. Sorry."
"Aww, come on!" She pouted, chewing on the end of her straw. "Can't you at least talk to him? I won't tell anyone! I promise!"
Ken shrugged. Before she could make another grab for him, he out of reach, weaving through the groups of chattering students to make his way for the door.
This time he did look back over his shoulder for her; she was still chewing on the straw and staring into space. A moment later a young man melted out of the crowd and approached her. He was tall and broad-shouldered with shaggy dark hair, and when he stopped by Sen, she looked up at him without surprise. They spoke briefly before she hopped off the stool and they walked off, side-by-side. Sen didn't even come up to her companion's shoulder, though she walked with the confidence to compensate.
Ken watched until they turned a corner and were gone.
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But MAN, okay... writing a story takes so much more time than RPing smut with Kim. ToT Haha, well yeah duh, I know it's no easy task, and I have no practice or stamina in it, but still! I've been writing up a storm all yesterday and today and I'm no where near where I need to be! (But I AM writing, which is wonderful and fun and I suppose that's more important thant he word count.) ^o^;; It's taken a while to get to know my characters... longer than I thought it should since I've been poking at them for years now. :/
I'm a little afraid to post any of it tho, since I have NO idea how I feel about what I've written. I'm okay with crits on art, because I know how to fix those problems... but I have no idea what I'm doing here! ^.^;; I don't know how I'd handle the public scrutiny at this point, but gosh, my style of writing is so much more... kiddy than yours? I don't know how to sound any more mature, especially with a convoluted comedy story, so maybe that's okay? Hehe, I guess I don't read enough books... ^^
Maybe we can talk more later?
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Writing on your own is definitely harder than RPing anything, I think -- mostly because you've got to come up with all of it on your own, and if you fumble the ball a little, there's no one else you can lob it at quickly and say "here! do something!" But there's no penalty and no foul if you can't make it; I think the point of NaNo is to stop saying "I'll write [X] someday" and just sit down to do it -- that's what the value is for me. So if you're having a lot of fun, that's the most important thing!
I suppose posting would depend on whether you want this to be your end product -- d'you still plan on making Tengu Mountain into a comic someday? In that case, I'd say don't post the story itself, but just write it so you've got reference. If you're pretty sure that's not gonna happen, why not? People who've been following your LJ probably recognize the TM characters by sight, and I'm sure there are people who're curious about the story you hinted at. ^^ My writing style is hardly mature or even evolved -- but it's how I write, so I'll make what I can of it. \o\
I think people are doing Yunnie's tonight, but I'll log onto AIM when I get back, if you want to talk about this then. :)
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Oh, I have no intention of publishing Tengu Moutnain thru a publisher, ever. Not after TP tore apart Paradise Not Found and I decided not to bother pruning it to fit their needs. I'd self-publish so I have full rights to my stuff, I don't need it to be on bookshelfs or big name or anything.
So publicizing it now isn't the problem.... I'm just afraid of the comments I'll get on it. ToT I don't think I'm very good at writing at all, and I don't want comments to discourage me... but at the same time, I really want to share it with people who have been following my TM art and are curious about the characters. I need to just swallow my pride and throw it out there. ^^;;;
Naw, it's not like we need to talk TONIGHT, just sometime. ^^
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Honestly, in the end, I don't think posting writing is any different from posting art -- I suppose you've got to think of it as the same thing: you're guarenteed that there is going to be SOMEONE who doesn't like it, but whether or not they'll say anything is up in the air. Believe me, you're much more likely to get encouragement than DIScouragement, especially for NaNo.
I'm busy the rest of the weekend, but I'll try to be on soon, so just ping me whenever, okay? :D
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And I was wondering how the hell you got so much within the first day. Obviously, I was forgetting that you're magical. This reads very well and very, umm...I don't know, naturally? The way stories are supposed to, in the sense that it doesn't feel like a lot of things go on, but there's enough flesh to it that it feels...full. Or evenly-paced. Or just like it's all supposed to be there. I don't know, that quality is a bitch to nail down, and I admire you for being able to do it so effortlessly.
I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with reading you and writing mine all month, but I solemnly swear that I will come back to it in December.
Also, you used the adjective "abortive" three times. XD I don't know if it stuck out to me because I never see it used in narrative context and so it was maddeningly noticable, or if it was a recurring word in your head. I suffer from both on a constant basis.
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I hope you will continue to read, though! :D This is sort of like one of those stories I've been wanting to write forever, only now I finally have characters and a plot that really geled together. :3 NOW I JUST WANT TO SHARE IT WITH EVERYBODY~♥
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The only thing that stuck out at me was that whenever "taken" was in it, the K was capitalized for some reason. :|
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... oh, that was my mistake; I was trying to do a global replace for Ken's name, and forgot that, duh, it appears in regular words too. >____> FIXED NOW IN THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT. Thanks for that. XD;b
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Also, I think all of it works and flows really well except the homeless man scene. The conversation with Sen is great with its dark and foreshadowing undercurrents, but it doesn't really connect with the previous establishing paragraphs. I found it unexpected based on Ken's interactions with the homeless man.
Frankly I've never seen homeless people get belligerent when ignored (since most people ignore them and brush past, it'd be kind of pointless), so I thought that strange, especially since Ken himself got absolutely no bad vibes beyond him missing his grandfather and dealing with the grief.
Obviously something was happening on that bridge and will be revealed at a later part of the story, and while I'm happy to wait, the danger that Sen obviously perceived was not made clear (even taking into account Ken's very dense point of view). I'm not sure if my uncertainties are worth taking into consideration, but definitely I found the beginning of that scene the least strong and most unbelievable part of the story (which overall is thoroughly enjoyable XDXD).
But yes! I'm being as critical as possible because you asked me to! ;P;P. It's really a great start, and I can't wait to see more (maybe when you're in Austin, we can plan how the two stories will work chronologically? Or maybe I should get on AIM at some point >_>;;).
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The homeless man scene is based on something that actually happened to me -- except for the fact that I was WITH someone at the time when the man started yelling at us, and he ended up getting hit by a car while we were fleeing the crosswalk. (No joke: we were trying to speed up and get away, and then heard this horrible *screech* and *thud* and when we glanced back, he was rolling off the hood for a car -- and getting up, so it seemed the car had stopped in time -- and still yelling at how we were damn commies and he was going to get us, so. Uh. It wasn't very good-samaritan of us, but we booked it after that. I have actually been heckled quite a bit by the panhandlers and Ave rats in the area, though thankfully since I moved, I'm usually WITH someone if I go out at night.) There is actually some signifigance to the scene and what happens after, I ... am just still trying to figure out how to work that in without, you know, becoming an exposition dump. 8D But I will definitely try to tighten that scene up when I get around to the edits in December. :|b
If you want, I can send you the rest of what I have (nothing that actually deals with the bridge scene yet, though that based on my outline notes, that should be in the scene after the one I'm currently working on) as well as my notes. If you don't want to get on AIM, check your email more often! That would be easiest. XD
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o.@;; Dude, I must say, panhandlers in Boston are much...friendlier? Well, if it's based on real life, I guess I can't challenge the realism of it ^_~.
I can tell that the scene is highly important, and I'm sure you'll explain it in a way that is not "now it is time for some exposition! Let me recap what happened then explain why it is important!" XDXD. I guess what I wanted was more dealing with Ken's thoughts and sensations...dunno if that's possible though o.@;;.
Sure, e-mail tag sounds great! I don't want to bog you down too much, considering the sheer volume you need to write this month, but let me know when's a good time~!
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I needed SOMETHING for the scene, and -- when
Actually, that whole scene was one that gave me a lot of trouble; I had to rewrite and shift lines around a ridiculous amount, and I'm still not exaaactly happy with it, so. Something I can work on in the revisions! :Db I do have a plan, let's just see if I can execute it!
Nah, I'm actually ahead of schedule -- my goal tonight is to break 6000 words, and since I only needed to have something like 3333 words by tonight to be on-schedule, I'm okay. I'll take advantage of it. ;)
Email coming up! :D
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I am so incredibly excited for this story still, it makes me happy. T___Tb
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THERE WILL BE MORE DEAD BODIES COMING. Also some not-so-dead bodies, but Ken can deal! He's good at dealing. :|b (♥)
Reading in a writing break!
Re: Reading in a writing break!
Onward into the NaNo breach, eh? :3