On the sixth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me
six open books
[Title] Exposed
[Fandom] Malory Towers
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] What Sally really hates is how everyone can tell that she's miserable. Prompted by sabethea, who wanted angsty Sally fic.
What made it worse was that Sally was sure everyone knew.
It wasn’t exactly true, what she’d said, about not having friends before. She wasn’t stupid. She had had people whom she could sit next to at lunch, or walk home with. But they’d never seen her cry - she’d always been jolly careful about that. They’d never seen any of the feelings stuck inside her. This had been fine, then. Safe. At home there was her mother, and Sally was her special girl.
Now something had gone wrong. Lots of things. Mother must know how she felt; that was why she’d sent her away. And the other girls could tell something was wrong with her. She had wanted to be closed off. To be someone who didn’t need to make friends because soon she would be going home. Instead, she was a pit of fury and everyone could see; she knew from the way they looked at her. Mother would know too. The only thing she’d ever been truly good at was hiding her real self. Now the new baby had taken away even that.
[Title] Business Venture
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] PG-13 for language, mention of sex including dubious uses of it
[Notes/Summary] Mitsuko has a proposition for Hirono.
The two of them are in Hirono’s bedroom getting not wasted, but lightly buzzed. The wine is so cheap it sets even Hirono’s teeth on edge. Mitsuko doesn’t seem bothered by it. Hirono’s tipsy enough she says out loud, “This shit’s terrible, how come you’re so cool about knocking it back?” and Mitsuko just gives her one of those sweet smiles and says, “Well… I’ve had way worse in my mouth.”
And they both crack up at that and everything’s okay. Though kind of weird because you don’t laugh much with Mitsuko. Smile, sure - checking out each other’s pedicures, or seeing one of the girls who cries really easily walk into the classroom and realise she’s on her own with the two of you, or one of you brings back that joke about Pizza-Face Minami you had going the other day - but not proper spewing-up laughter.
Hirono tries to cool it and Mitsuko glances at her from under her eyelashes and then does the obvious move with the neck of the wine bottle. Hirono shrieks, “Hey, I’m drinkin’ out of that too, and god knows where your lips have been -” and then wonders if she’s gone too far as Mitsuko’s eyes widen.
“Kidding,” she says, to be on the safe side. “You’ve got too much class for… for…” For whatever she was going for. Fuck, she doesn’t know.
“Oh, bullshit.” Mitsuko smiles again, lazy. Rolls onto her stomach, kicking her legs up a little. “I’m not offended, Hirono.”
Hirono shrugs like she doesn't give a shit, but she knows she kind of does. Like. You keep an eye out for people like you, you know? You've got to know who's unimportant, who's got your back, and who's really fucking dangerous.
Hirono's got pretty good about working this stuff out. Most of the people in school are unimportant. Yoshimi's got her back (though not if someone pushes her too hard, Yoshimi'll fold like a, like a magazine). Mitsuko? Well. Hirono was friends with Yoshimi 'cause, in their first week of school together she figured tiny little Yoshimi was a soft touch and shook her down for money, and Yoshimi put a cigarette out on the back of her neck at lunch the next day, and they kind of bonded, and she still has the little white scar. She has never even tried to get one over on Mitsuko. Not even as a joke.
“You do it too, right?” Mitsuko says.
“What?”
“You know.” Sucking off the wine bottle again. “I mean, you're not scared of guys, right? And there's fuck-all ways to get anything you want in this place.”
Hirono shrugs. See, Mitsuko is making her feel like there's a right answer here, and like it's important to guess what it is. No one's ever made her feel like that. Well, not for years, anyway.
“Nothing major,” she says. “I mean... you let a guy touch your tits, he'll buy you at least one drink.”
“You're not a virgin, are you?”
“Fuck, no!” She laughs at that, but Mitsuko only looks like sort of... pitying. Like she thinks it might be a lie? It's not a lie. “I've... fucking lost count. Like you said, there's fuck-all else to do. Just, I don't get 'em to cough up, either. Why are we talking about this?”
Mitsuko looks kittenish. Innocent. “Well... I was just gonna ask if you wanted to come in on a business venture with me, is all.”
Hirono blinks and covers her awkward by grabbing for the wine bottle. The liquid burns her throat. Okay, okay, so this is good, right? Another thing about Mitsuko is she doesn't waste time kissing up to people she doesn't respect. (Well. Unless she wants something out of 'em but that's just guys mostly.) To tell the truth, Hirono's kind of freaked out by having Mitsuko's respect. She's tough, sure, but Mitsuko is... Mitsuko has done some very bad things.
Well, so what? Hirono's done some stuff as well. What, she's scared? She's not scared. She knows Mitsuko (in a she-knows-not-to-mess-with-Mitsuko kind of way). She knows what she's getting into, and she has been strapped for cash. Mitsuko's like... like water. You dunno what's down there but you can see you're gonna go deep. Okay. Fine. She'll dive.
“Why not?” she says. “I could use the money.”
Mitsuko grins at her. “Knew you would. And you've got balls, you know? In a manner of speaking. You won't bail on me.”
“Damn straight I won't.”
“Let's talk to Yoshimi about it tomorrow,” Mitsuko says, and Hirono kind of doesn't want to think about Yoshimi. She was kinda enjoying it being just her and Mitsuko. Yoshimi hasn't got balls.
“You... want her in on it too?” she says. Wrinkles her nose. “Yoshimi's cool but... I dunno...”
“Well, I thought she was cool.” Mitsuko rolls her eyes a little. “And we're her friends, right? I don't want to, like, leave her out. I mean, that's pretty junior high, and... we're so past that, aren't we?”
That's true. Hirono wants to know why the fuck they insist on keeping her cooped up in a classroom for so long when she learns fucking nothing and she clearly has all the skills she needs to survive in reality. Sometimes, if she happens to be on her own, surrounded by the unimportant people, she feels like she's talking a whole different language from them. Which is a great way to drive yourself crazy.
And god knows she doesn't want to end up in the middle of a fight between Mitsuko and Yoshimi.
“Right,” she says, taking another gulp of wine. “Let's talk to her. I mean it'll be just like a party, right? I'm sure she'll be cool with it.”
[Title] Working to Live
[Fandom] Battle Royale (manga)
[Rating] PG for brief mentions of violence and the sex industry
[Notes/Summary] AU in that more people survived the Program. Four survivors have made it to America.
Kayoko got the cleaning job about two months after they made it to New York. Lucky break. With her English being so bad (like she would've studied harder if she'd known within a year she was going to be a refugee fleeing a death game and all) and with her looking like a little kid, it was amazing anyone was willing to pay her for anything. Noriko got a job way quicker. Her English was pretty strong, plus she spent the voyage brushing up on it while Kayoko spent it making out with Sugimura - with Hiroki, they are so beyond first names by now, nearly dying together does that - and pretending the rest of her life wasn't happening, because she's an idiot.
Still, despite that, she has a job in the warm and that pays her actual money, if not very much, and doesn't require her to take her clothes off. She'd been thinking, she'd been thinking if she didn't find something soon then she was gonna have to... And she didn't want to, she was thinking she'd made it through the Program without any of the guys in class trying anything, and it wasn't fair, but the four of them were all hungry like all the time and she couldn't just live off everyone else. (They would probably be thinking she'd be used to it. Because of helping out in her mum's bar. She was really angry about this, too, even though no one ever said anything.)
But she got the cleaning job and at least she already knew how to clean stuff. It's an upstairs office, lots of phones and desks, she's not totally sure what they do there and she probably doesn't want to know. It's dim and chilly and she gets freaked out sometimes when she walks in because she's not so good walking into strange rooms alone. Because of, you know, the whole Program thing, and even though it's pretty unlikely someone will be in the shadows with a gun, you never can tell when everything's going to go really bad. Lucky it's a small office that doesn't take her long to clean because it means she can freak out or cry or whatever without running out of time. Sometimes she stands at the doorway too scared to go in, clutching a dustpan and brush like it's her assigned weapon, and sometimes she's fine until halfway through dusting a desk she'll just start sobbing and have to stop and sit down on one of the swivelly chairs and try not to leave tearstains on the keyboards.
But then she gets over it like she always does. Plus, if she's already freaked out on her own at work then she won't usually freak out at home in front of Hiroki and the others. She lost it a little when they were still in Japan, and when they were on the boat, but then they actually made it to America and she was like Right, got to keep it together. Hiroki had only come to find her in the game because he'd fallen in love with the girl who liked flowers and kittens and goofing around. It'd have to suck if he realised he'd somehow managed to pick up this, like, complete basket case.
Besides, she's the one who doesn't take anything too seriously. Shuuya says the inspiring things and Noriko says the kind things and Hiroki is quiet and strong and she's the goofy, cute one. Got to make them think she's still that through and through. An open book, she tells herself. Easiest to think like that, pretend there's nothing but what people see.
Noriko started working at the Asian food shop only a few weeks after they'd arrived, when she was still in a daze that they'd made it there at all. She was being stupid. At the time. She was feeling not so happy, and she'd gone into the little supermarket because it was making her think of home. Even though she knew thinking of home would make her feel even worse. But she'd been hoping maybe it wouldn't. That seeing onigiri or sushi would let her kid herself none of it had happened.
Anyway, she got to come back to the apartment and tell the others she'd got a job and they were all really pleased, everyone said she was amazing. It was a man and his wife who owned the store and she didn't say the man had offered her the job because he fancied her. Shuuya would've lost his temper, said she shouldn't have to put up with her manager staring at her chest or putting his hand on her butt whenever he wanted. He would've been impassioned and outspoken and after it all nothing would've changed because actually, she does have to put up with it if she wants them all to be able to eat.
It's not so bad, anyway, because his wife's always there too and she gives both of them a dirty look if she thinks her husband's making it too obvious. And the work itself is okay. Noriko is good at smiling and saying please and thank you and come back soon. Like the smiling ladies in department stores back in Shiroiwa. She pretends she's one of those women, shiny-haired and nothing to worry about but making the customer happy. Her manager's wife probably thinks she's doing it to flirt, but Noriko is getting pretty good at pretending she didn't notice the no-doubt sarcastic comments in Chinese made behind her back.
And to be honest she thinks if she didn't keep on being The Perfect Employee it would all come crashing down everywhere. Because she's supposed to have faith. She thought she did have faith. She had it back on the island, when she had no guarantee she wasn't about to be shot dead. Now, when she's more or less safe and more or less free, now she starts thinking that everything is black and awful underneath?
She can't do that to Shuuya. When she manages to cheer him up, she almost feels like herself again, like it was all worth it. If he sees how horrible everything looks inside her head, he'll be devastated. They're in the land of the free and the home of rock and roll and she still has faith in him and she's not going to take even a bit of joy away from him. Her heart is open and her hope is strong and she really wants you to have a nice day. If she keeps this up enough, she thinks she'll end up actually believing it.
Hiroki still works on the construction site, where he's just one of many foreign guys getting paid cash in hand with no questions asked. But then a few weeks ago this hole-in-the-wall gym opened up on his route home. Hiroki didn't mean to go in. He wasn't looking for a workout and he definitely wasn't looking for a fight. But the owner was trying to make a name for himself, and when he heard Hiroki was a bona fide Japanese martial arts “expert” he said he'd pay him to teach people the moves.
When he's there, in a room smelling of sweat, trying to explain in English - or dumb show, if the guy he's teaching has as little of the language as he does and no Japanese - he's very rarely there. Sometimes the noise of feet on mats and grunting and crashes is knocking him back to his own classes, and no one's dead and he's about to walk out of the door back to what used to be his real life. Sometimes he's thinking how long ago that was, how long since he was the pupil; feeling like he's doing a bad impression of a teacher, sweaty-palmed and stammery and doesn't know anything.
Sometimes he's back on the island and the sweat is blood and he can smell it and instead of the grimy mats and the futzy sunlight there's Kiriyama slumping to the ground with his eyes still open. Blood and other things spattering the grass. That's the worst because then throwing the lightest punch feels like a route back to all of that, and he always leaves wondering what the hell is wrong with him. After you've killed someone, you should want to give up anything to do with fighting, right?
Except he can't. Before this, when it was just the building work, he was feeling like if someone just shoved him a little he'd crumble into bits. If speaking in his native language could make him turn red and stutter, speaking in English was a total non-starter, which made him feel even more useless. Noriko could scrape by, and Kayoko and Shuuya made up for their lack of skill with enthusiasm, but he was just silent and surrounded by words he didn't know. Earning money by sparring is kind of on the same level as finding a workplace where everyone speaks fluent Japanese. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed feeling useful.
Strength and sensitivity, his teacher had said. The two complementing each other. Hand in hand. But it's different now. The strength is there to stop the sensitivity. Kayoko trusts him too much. She tells him she's so grateful he's there, that he always makes her feel like they're going to make it. Shuuya and Noriko shake their heads and marvel at how he's still the same strong, silent Sugimura. He doesn't know how to tell them he's not strong, not any more, and the silence is killing him.
Shuuya knows busking's not a long-term viable career path but at least it's something that doesn't require him to communicate complex concepts in English. And while he's not exactly making minimum wage he is at least contributing something to the electricity meter and the bulk rice budget. You've got to tell yourself this when it's freezing and you can't feel your toes and still you're making yourself walk to another spot where there might be more people rather than just going somewhere warm.
The other three clubbed together to get him the guitar. It's battered and bits of it keep threatening to fall off and he sounds like a wind-up toy more'n anything else but they bought it for him like all his big talk about rock and roll was more than just talk. Like he'd saved their lives through the magic of rock and was going to fix everything with a few power chords. Every dollar someone throws in his direction is a way of repaying them for buying into that lie.
He does better than some because he's young and not bad-looking and manages to take a shower most days if the plumbing's not busted. And because he plays what he's realised people call the classics, the golden oldies on the easy listening radio stations, so a lot of grown-ups get nostalgic for their youth. And, let's not beat around the bush here, some people find an Asian guy singing with a really bad English accent hilarious. Shuuya calls out to them, exaggerating his shitty pronounciation, Thank you very much! Have a nice day! and then if he says something in Japanese like Laugh all you want, I'm still the one with the dollar that only makes them snicker more.
He tells this kind of story back at home, too. Paints himself as the scrappy one, the one who can't keep his mouth shut and always comes up with a smile and an inspiring slogan that he really believes in. Nothing wrong with that. He needs something to believe in, too. And it's pretty easy, faking being himself, because it looks so obvious. Everyone thinks they're seeing all they need to see.
He can't start saying now how scared he is. That they'll get deported. That someone from the Greater East Asian Republic will come looking for them. That one of them will get sick or hurt. That they'll be miserable and he won't be able to fix it. That the money really will run out and they'll end up freezing to death. The fears are eating away at him but he's not going to admit it. He got them this far on hope, so admitting there's none left in the tank will help no one.
six open books
[Title] Exposed
[Fandom] Malory Towers
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] What Sally really hates is how everyone can tell that she's miserable. Prompted by sabethea, who wanted angsty Sally fic.
What made it worse was that Sally was sure everyone knew.
It wasn’t exactly true, what she’d said, about not having friends before. She wasn’t stupid. She had had people whom she could sit next to at lunch, or walk home with. But they’d never seen her cry - she’d always been jolly careful about that. They’d never seen any of the feelings stuck inside her. This had been fine, then. Safe. At home there was her mother, and Sally was her special girl.
Now something had gone wrong. Lots of things. Mother must know how she felt; that was why she’d sent her away. And the other girls could tell something was wrong with her. She had wanted to be closed off. To be someone who didn’t need to make friends because soon she would be going home. Instead, she was a pit of fury and everyone could see; she knew from the way they looked at her. Mother would know too. The only thing she’d ever been truly good at was hiding her real self. Now the new baby had taken away even that.
[Title] Business Venture
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] PG-13 for language, mention of sex including dubious uses of it
[Notes/Summary] Mitsuko has a proposition for Hirono.
The two of them are in Hirono’s bedroom getting not wasted, but lightly buzzed. The wine is so cheap it sets even Hirono’s teeth on edge. Mitsuko doesn’t seem bothered by it. Hirono’s tipsy enough she says out loud, “This shit’s terrible, how come you’re so cool about knocking it back?” and Mitsuko just gives her one of those sweet smiles and says, “Well… I’ve had way worse in my mouth.”
And they both crack up at that and everything’s okay. Though kind of weird because you don’t laugh much with Mitsuko. Smile, sure - checking out each other’s pedicures, or seeing one of the girls who cries really easily walk into the classroom and realise she’s on her own with the two of you, or one of you brings back that joke about Pizza-Face Minami you had going the other day - but not proper spewing-up laughter.
Hirono tries to cool it and Mitsuko glances at her from under her eyelashes and then does the obvious move with the neck of the wine bottle. Hirono shrieks, “Hey, I’m drinkin’ out of that too, and god knows where your lips have been -” and then wonders if she’s gone too far as Mitsuko’s eyes widen.
“Kidding,” she says, to be on the safe side. “You’ve got too much class for… for…” For whatever she was going for. Fuck, she doesn’t know.
“Oh, bullshit.” Mitsuko smiles again, lazy. Rolls onto her stomach, kicking her legs up a little. “I’m not offended, Hirono.”
Hirono shrugs like she doesn't give a shit, but she knows she kind of does. Like. You keep an eye out for people like you, you know? You've got to know who's unimportant, who's got your back, and who's really fucking dangerous.
Hirono's got pretty good about working this stuff out. Most of the people in school are unimportant. Yoshimi's got her back (though not if someone pushes her too hard, Yoshimi'll fold like a, like a magazine). Mitsuko? Well. Hirono was friends with Yoshimi 'cause, in their first week of school together she figured tiny little Yoshimi was a soft touch and shook her down for money, and Yoshimi put a cigarette out on the back of her neck at lunch the next day, and they kind of bonded, and she still has the little white scar. She has never even tried to get one over on Mitsuko. Not even as a joke.
“You do it too, right?” Mitsuko says.
“What?”
“You know.” Sucking off the wine bottle again. “I mean, you're not scared of guys, right? And there's fuck-all ways to get anything you want in this place.”
Hirono shrugs. See, Mitsuko is making her feel like there's a right answer here, and like it's important to guess what it is. No one's ever made her feel like that. Well, not for years, anyway.
“Nothing major,” she says. “I mean... you let a guy touch your tits, he'll buy you at least one drink.”
“You're not a virgin, are you?”
“Fuck, no!” She laughs at that, but Mitsuko only looks like sort of... pitying. Like she thinks it might be a lie? It's not a lie. “I've... fucking lost count. Like you said, there's fuck-all else to do. Just, I don't get 'em to cough up, either. Why are we talking about this?”
Mitsuko looks kittenish. Innocent. “Well... I was just gonna ask if you wanted to come in on a business venture with me, is all.”
Hirono blinks and covers her awkward by grabbing for the wine bottle. The liquid burns her throat. Okay, okay, so this is good, right? Another thing about Mitsuko is she doesn't waste time kissing up to people she doesn't respect. (Well. Unless she wants something out of 'em but that's just guys mostly.) To tell the truth, Hirono's kind of freaked out by having Mitsuko's respect. She's tough, sure, but Mitsuko is... Mitsuko has done some very bad things.
Well, so what? Hirono's done some stuff as well. What, she's scared? She's not scared. She knows Mitsuko (in a she-knows-not-to-mess-with-Mitsuko kind of way). She knows what she's getting into, and she has been strapped for cash. Mitsuko's like... like water. You dunno what's down there but you can see you're gonna go deep. Okay. Fine. She'll dive.
“Why not?” she says. “I could use the money.”
Mitsuko grins at her. “Knew you would. And you've got balls, you know? In a manner of speaking. You won't bail on me.”
“Damn straight I won't.”
“Let's talk to Yoshimi about it tomorrow,” Mitsuko says, and Hirono kind of doesn't want to think about Yoshimi. She was kinda enjoying it being just her and Mitsuko. Yoshimi hasn't got balls.
“You... want her in on it too?” she says. Wrinkles her nose. “Yoshimi's cool but... I dunno...”
“Well, I thought she was cool.” Mitsuko rolls her eyes a little. “And we're her friends, right? I don't want to, like, leave her out. I mean, that's pretty junior high, and... we're so past that, aren't we?”
That's true. Hirono wants to know why the fuck they insist on keeping her cooped up in a classroom for so long when she learns fucking nothing and she clearly has all the skills she needs to survive in reality. Sometimes, if she happens to be on her own, surrounded by the unimportant people, she feels like she's talking a whole different language from them. Which is a great way to drive yourself crazy.
And god knows she doesn't want to end up in the middle of a fight between Mitsuko and Yoshimi.
“Right,” she says, taking another gulp of wine. “Let's talk to her. I mean it'll be just like a party, right? I'm sure she'll be cool with it.”
[Title] Working to Live
[Fandom] Battle Royale (manga)
[Rating] PG for brief mentions of violence and the sex industry
[Notes/Summary] AU in that more people survived the Program. Four survivors have made it to America.
Kayoko got the cleaning job about two months after they made it to New York. Lucky break. With her English being so bad (like she would've studied harder if she'd known within a year she was going to be a refugee fleeing a death game and all) and with her looking like a little kid, it was amazing anyone was willing to pay her for anything. Noriko got a job way quicker. Her English was pretty strong, plus she spent the voyage brushing up on it while Kayoko spent it making out with Sugimura - with Hiroki, they are so beyond first names by now, nearly dying together does that - and pretending the rest of her life wasn't happening, because she's an idiot.
Still, despite that, she has a job in the warm and that pays her actual money, if not very much, and doesn't require her to take her clothes off. She'd been thinking, she'd been thinking if she didn't find something soon then she was gonna have to... And she didn't want to, she was thinking she'd made it through the Program without any of the guys in class trying anything, and it wasn't fair, but the four of them were all hungry like all the time and she couldn't just live off everyone else. (They would probably be thinking she'd be used to it. Because of helping out in her mum's bar. She was really angry about this, too, even though no one ever said anything.)
But she got the cleaning job and at least she already knew how to clean stuff. It's an upstairs office, lots of phones and desks, she's not totally sure what they do there and she probably doesn't want to know. It's dim and chilly and she gets freaked out sometimes when she walks in because she's not so good walking into strange rooms alone. Because of, you know, the whole Program thing, and even though it's pretty unlikely someone will be in the shadows with a gun, you never can tell when everything's going to go really bad. Lucky it's a small office that doesn't take her long to clean because it means she can freak out or cry or whatever without running out of time. Sometimes she stands at the doorway too scared to go in, clutching a dustpan and brush like it's her assigned weapon, and sometimes she's fine until halfway through dusting a desk she'll just start sobbing and have to stop and sit down on one of the swivelly chairs and try not to leave tearstains on the keyboards.
But then she gets over it like she always does. Plus, if she's already freaked out on her own at work then she won't usually freak out at home in front of Hiroki and the others. She lost it a little when they were still in Japan, and when they were on the boat, but then they actually made it to America and she was like Right, got to keep it together. Hiroki had only come to find her in the game because he'd fallen in love with the girl who liked flowers and kittens and goofing around. It'd have to suck if he realised he'd somehow managed to pick up this, like, complete basket case.
Besides, she's the one who doesn't take anything too seriously. Shuuya says the inspiring things and Noriko says the kind things and Hiroki is quiet and strong and she's the goofy, cute one. Got to make them think she's still that through and through. An open book, she tells herself. Easiest to think like that, pretend there's nothing but what people see.
Noriko started working at the Asian food shop only a few weeks after they'd arrived, when she was still in a daze that they'd made it there at all. She was being stupid. At the time. She was feeling not so happy, and she'd gone into the little supermarket because it was making her think of home. Even though she knew thinking of home would make her feel even worse. But she'd been hoping maybe it wouldn't. That seeing onigiri or sushi would let her kid herself none of it had happened.
Anyway, she got to come back to the apartment and tell the others she'd got a job and they were all really pleased, everyone said she was amazing. It was a man and his wife who owned the store and she didn't say the man had offered her the job because he fancied her. Shuuya would've lost his temper, said she shouldn't have to put up with her manager staring at her chest or putting his hand on her butt whenever he wanted. He would've been impassioned and outspoken and after it all nothing would've changed because actually, she does have to put up with it if she wants them all to be able to eat.
It's not so bad, anyway, because his wife's always there too and she gives both of them a dirty look if she thinks her husband's making it too obvious. And the work itself is okay. Noriko is good at smiling and saying please and thank you and come back soon. Like the smiling ladies in department stores back in Shiroiwa. She pretends she's one of those women, shiny-haired and nothing to worry about but making the customer happy. Her manager's wife probably thinks she's doing it to flirt, but Noriko is getting pretty good at pretending she didn't notice the no-doubt sarcastic comments in Chinese made behind her back.
And to be honest she thinks if she didn't keep on being The Perfect Employee it would all come crashing down everywhere. Because she's supposed to have faith. She thought she did have faith. She had it back on the island, when she had no guarantee she wasn't about to be shot dead. Now, when she's more or less safe and more or less free, now she starts thinking that everything is black and awful underneath?
She can't do that to Shuuya. When she manages to cheer him up, she almost feels like herself again, like it was all worth it. If he sees how horrible everything looks inside her head, he'll be devastated. They're in the land of the free and the home of rock and roll and she still has faith in him and she's not going to take even a bit of joy away from him. Her heart is open and her hope is strong and she really wants you to have a nice day. If she keeps this up enough, she thinks she'll end up actually believing it.
Hiroki still works on the construction site, where he's just one of many foreign guys getting paid cash in hand with no questions asked. But then a few weeks ago this hole-in-the-wall gym opened up on his route home. Hiroki didn't mean to go in. He wasn't looking for a workout and he definitely wasn't looking for a fight. But the owner was trying to make a name for himself, and when he heard Hiroki was a bona fide Japanese martial arts “expert” he said he'd pay him to teach people the moves.
When he's there, in a room smelling of sweat, trying to explain in English - or dumb show, if the guy he's teaching has as little of the language as he does and no Japanese - he's very rarely there. Sometimes the noise of feet on mats and grunting and crashes is knocking him back to his own classes, and no one's dead and he's about to walk out of the door back to what used to be his real life. Sometimes he's thinking how long ago that was, how long since he was the pupil; feeling like he's doing a bad impression of a teacher, sweaty-palmed and stammery and doesn't know anything.
Sometimes he's back on the island and the sweat is blood and he can smell it and instead of the grimy mats and the futzy sunlight there's Kiriyama slumping to the ground with his eyes still open. Blood and other things spattering the grass. That's the worst because then throwing the lightest punch feels like a route back to all of that, and he always leaves wondering what the hell is wrong with him. After you've killed someone, you should want to give up anything to do with fighting, right?
Except he can't. Before this, when it was just the building work, he was feeling like if someone just shoved him a little he'd crumble into bits. If speaking in his native language could make him turn red and stutter, speaking in English was a total non-starter, which made him feel even more useless. Noriko could scrape by, and Kayoko and Shuuya made up for their lack of skill with enthusiasm, but he was just silent and surrounded by words he didn't know. Earning money by sparring is kind of on the same level as finding a workplace where everyone speaks fluent Japanese. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed feeling useful.
Strength and sensitivity, his teacher had said. The two complementing each other. Hand in hand. But it's different now. The strength is there to stop the sensitivity. Kayoko trusts him too much. She tells him she's so grateful he's there, that he always makes her feel like they're going to make it. Shuuya and Noriko shake their heads and marvel at how he's still the same strong, silent Sugimura. He doesn't know how to tell them he's not strong, not any more, and the silence is killing him.
Shuuya knows busking's not a long-term viable career path but at least it's something that doesn't require him to communicate complex concepts in English. And while he's not exactly making minimum wage he is at least contributing something to the electricity meter and the bulk rice budget. You've got to tell yourself this when it's freezing and you can't feel your toes and still you're making yourself walk to another spot where there might be more people rather than just going somewhere warm.
The other three clubbed together to get him the guitar. It's battered and bits of it keep threatening to fall off and he sounds like a wind-up toy more'n anything else but they bought it for him like all his big talk about rock and roll was more than just talk. Like he'd saved their lives through the magic of rock and was going to fix everything with a few power chords. Every dollar someone throws in his direction is a way of repaying them for buying into that lie.
He does better than some because he's young and not bad-looking and manages to take a shower most days if the plumbing's not busted. And because he plays what he's realised people call the classics, the golden oldies on the easy listening radio stations, so a lot of grown-ups get nostalgic for their youth. And, let's not beat around the bush here, some people find an Asian guy singing with a really bad English accent hilarious. Shuuya calls out to them, exaggerating his shitty pronounciation, Thank you very much! Have a nice day! and then if he says something in Japanese like Laugh all you want, I'm still the one with the dollar that only makes them snicker more.
He tells this kind of story back at home, too. Paints himself as the scrappy one, the one who can't keep his mouth shut and always comes up with a smile and an inspiring slogan that he really believes in. Nothing wrong with that. He needs something to believe in, too. And it's pretty easy, faking being himself, because it looks so obvious. Everyone thinks they're seeing all they need to see.
He can't start saying now how scared he is. That they'll get deported. That someone from the Greater East Asian Republic will come looking for them. That one of them will get sick or hurt. That they'll be miserable and he won't be able to fix it. That the money really will run out and they'll end up freezing to death. The fears are eating away at him but he's not going to admit it. He got them this far on hope, so admitting there's none left in the tank will help no one.