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wtf_hollowWhoops, little hiccup there, thanks to my failure to properly check my reference sources.
I would like to understand how I can somehow crank out like 11,000 words in five days on this completely ridiculous caper, and yet still go into total vapor lock on stories that anyone else in the world might be interested in. What we're seeing here, is that most perplexing and elusive of all writing laboratory specimens: the story that writes itself.
Also, I've given up trying to restrain it. Just gonna let the whole mess roll downhill and see where it ends up.
In other news, I am a gigantic dweeb. Watch, I'll prove it:
1.5
God, he was longing for this to be a bad dream.
Arai raced across the park, heart pounding, the cold breeze stinging his eyes and lungs. He took a hard right at the playground jungle gym, gravel spraying from under his heels, vaulted over the teeter-totter, dodged a rusted park bench, a water fountain, eyes on the blinking red stop lights at 6th and Grant.
He reached the crosswalk, slowing to a jog across the street, billowing his sweatshirt out to circulate some air on his skin, furnace-hot. He resisted any urge to look behind him, sure he’d given his followers the slip when he’d scrambled up and over the fence to the Festival Meadow, where music acts played in the summer, and old folks showed up to do tai chi at daybreak.
It wasn’t his alleged ghost that had spooked him, but a pair of people he didn’t recognize. A black guy in a ball cap, with sharp determined eyes, and a petite girl with red hair and a smile that made the back of Arai’s neck prickle, both of them about seventeen or eighteen. They’d flanked him coming out of the ice cream shop, asked if he went to Hawthorne, in a tone suggesting they already knew he did.
Given his past experience, Arai took an adverse view to strange people flanking him, especially when they were bigger and/or older than him. And maybe their intentions were totally benign, and maybe not, but when the redhead asked if he had any friends on the basketball team, Arai put his head down, said sorry, he had to take off, had to be home by nine.
Then he’d rushed into the street, barely dodging in front of the downtown trolley, and ran like hell across the West Side, back toward his own neighborhood, where the familiar sights of the historic Main Street district—old shop signs and cobblestone streets--felt almost like a homecoming.
But even reaching his home territory didn’t totally reassure him. The instant he’d taken off running, it was on the premonition that whatever dire situation had been set in motion from day one of all this business with the Ghost, it was now quite likely coming to a head.
Because of course it would happen when he was on his own, all his friends in the world occupied elsewhere. Of course the Ghost’s predictions would now come bearing down on him, like a runaway freight car.
**
“Hmm. Very, very interesting indeed,” said Roy Mustang’s pal Hughes, inspecting Arai’s anonymous locker notes. “The handwriting’s not ringing any bells, but I can look into that.”
He angled the paper this way and that, studying it against the light coming through the classroom windows, peering closely at the paper’s surface, then flipped it down on the table and studied the message some more.
“Interesting compositional style, too. Almost poetic.”
“If you’re into psycho stalker haiku, sure” said Ed.
Arai just ate his brown bag lunch, wondering why on earth Ed had picked this guy, to show the notes to. When he’d walked in, Hughes had been proudly showing Ed a whole album of photos on his phone, of his little sister’s latest art project.
And then Hughes put down the note, lined up alongside the other two, rested his elbows on the work table, and started talking.
“I think we can safely say the author is operating solo. Likely an upperclassman, I’m thinking maybe transfer student. You won’t find them in any teams or clubs, they’re used to keeping a very low profile. Their class professors don’t even notice them, I imagine. Assuming they go to classes.”
“Bet L knows who it is,” Ed mused.
Hughes granted him a nod. “L knows things about us all, before we know them ourselves.” He looked sort of wistful at the idea, for a moment, before sighing and straightening his square-framed glasses.
“Granted this is a small sample size, not a lot of data to work with. But provisionally, I’m going to say your friend isn’t in immediate trouble. The messages aren’t escalating, there’s no leverage mentioned, like you see with blackmail letters. No explicit threats or demands. Of course I’ll be doing some research, and if I turn up anything to make me think otherwise, I’ll let you know.”
“You really don’t think this guy has accomplices?” said Ed. “How’s he supposed to know when Arai’s alone? He can’t actually be everywhere.”
Hughes cocked a sharp half-grin at him. “The way gossip runs in this school? He doesn’t need accomplices.” He looked to Arai. “You mind if I hang on to these, for a bit?”
Arai left off chewing the straw on his juice box. “Yeah, sure. Can I ask something?”
“By all means.”
“You mentioned all the stuff that’s not in those notes. But uh, why do you think I’m getting them?”
“Mmm, very good question.” Hughes leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest. “Bear in mind, we can only guess at this point. But what I’m seeing here, is someone calling themselves a ‘ghost’—isolated, invisible to most people--trying to make contact with the living. Someone who, to their mind, might be able to relate to them?”
“Creepy. As. Fuck,” Ed grumbled.
**
Two blocks from his uncle’s grocery, Arai’s shoulders loosened up some, and he started considering how he might update Ed with this latest encounter, with a minimum of shouting down the phone, on Ed’s part.
Then a lot of shouting started up for real, off in the dark, maybe twenty or thirty yards distant.
Closer by, heavy footfalls, coming on fast from the alley behind the old Fairlane's Shoes store, resolved into a big figure, running hard.
Broad shoulders, dark jacket, dark hair flying loose: Arai recognized the guy hauling ass toward him, in the same instant he realized the dude was looking back over his shoulder, paying no attention at all to the path in front of him.
“Hey!” he barked, sidestepping too late, as the guy swung his head around, eyes wide, tried to stop, and plowed right into Arai, tumbling them both into a pile of cardboard boxes and recycling bags piled on the curb.
The guy landed on his back, breath punching out of him in a low “hunnff”, when Arai sprawled half over him. He must have taken a knock to the head somewhere in there too, because when his eyes opened, glimmering in the streetlights, he blinked up at Arai, all bewildered, and said, “Steve?”
Arai stared back at him in equal breathless bewilderment. “Who the hell is Steve?”
**
The Judo dojo was blessedly pin-drop quiet, after the frenetic noise of the lunchroom. Arai knelt at the wooden table across from Morinozuka, socked feet tucked under him, sipping the toasty-smelling popcorn tea Morinozuka had shared from his thermos.
“I’m sorry I missed you yesterday,” said Morinozuka.
“Me too. I mean—.” Arai had to hesitate there. Was it too soon to say stuff like, I missed you to Senpai? Too presumptuous?
“Things are weird,” he finally sighed. “Except for you. I always feel better, around you.”
There was Morinozuka’s quiet little smile, like those tiny winter flowers you sometimes saw, peeking up from a smooth patch of snow. That smile was becoming one of Arai’s most favorite things in all the world.
“Me too,” said Morinozuka.
And Arai didn’t want to care about his weird life right now, he wanted to see Senpai smile some more. So he said, “You and the club are doing that Judo seminar tomorrow? Tell me about it?”
They passed the rest of lunch that way, Arai learning all about rank testing, and the special coaching they got from guest instructors. It was actually pretty interesting.
But then when they were cleaning up their lunch stuff, Morinozuka got quiet and serious again.
“You said earlier, that things were weird. Does that mean you feel unsafe?”
Arai had to consider that some. “I don’t think so? I just hate not knowing what to expect, y’know? Plus, Ed took me to see Hughes yesterday—he’s a friend of Mustang-senpai, on the school newspaper, I guess. And he said something that….I dunno, made me see the whole thing differently.”
“How so?”
“Those notes in my locker, Hughes had this idea about the person who wrote them. That maybe they were getting in touch, because they thought I might understand them? And in one way, it seems weird. But I also keep thinking it seems pretty sad? I mean, if that’s really true, I feel bad for the guy.”
“I see what you mean,” Morinozuka said quietly. “If that really is the case, this person sounds very unfortunate.”
He gave Arai a look that was both warmly appreciative, and deeply concerned. Hesitated a second, then reached out, laid his warm hand atop Arai’s, on the table.
“I can’t discourage you from doing what you believe is right. But I also hope you’ll be careful. Please, don’t forget to let someone know, if you need help.”
**
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-08 10:17 pm (UTC)It's really distracting, trying to read whilst your head is exploding and making that whoosh sound.
I'm gonna be screaming inna minute, aren't I?
<b>Saturday, 8:34pm</b>
Date: 2020-01-08 10:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-08 10:35 pm (UTC)Also, it makes me inordinately happy that this also suggests a weedy, asthmatic ball of hellfire for a Steve in this story, rather than giant and slightly- but not entirely- more chill Steve. Don't know why, but a good rabid Chihuahua Stevie is always a fun time. Especially paired with Murder-Muscle-and-Thighs-For-Days-But-Mildly-Confused Bucky. Not that I'm assuming. But I'm totally assuming.
There's so much I want to flail about (criminal profiler Hughes!! Stoically wise Mori!! OMG L NEEDS SCREEN TIME!!), but I'm so scattered I'm having trouble finding traction on anything specific. Mostly, I think I want to howl and beat my fists on my chair arms. (I just scrolled back up to the first part. It's not really helping that impulse.)
This isn't a story. It's a goddamn ecosystem. Ha!!