[multichapter] Space Wonderland; Chapters 4,5,6
Title: Space Wonderland
Pairings/Characters: Fujigaya-centric. As we go on with the story there will be some Yokoo/Fujigaya. Miyata/Tamamori are there in the background acting cute and tsun fom the very beginning. All of kisumai are in it, and also ABC-Z, Takizawa, Sekuzon as side characters.
Genre: AU
Rating: PG with some NC-17 chapters later on.
Summary: Fujigaya finds himself on a planet and he can only remember his name. A space circus finds him and the people of the circus offer their help with his amnesia. In the last part, Miyata and Tamamori helped Fujigaya finding the spaceship he supposedly used to get on the unnamed planet, but they only found a hoverbike with seven pairs of roller skates inside and that Fujigaya had actually been a stowaway in their spaceship before loosing his memory.
A/N: This story is long and full of plot. I had to write 50k of words for nano, and I could only do it this way. I still hope it doesn't feel too long or redundant. No beta, so it could be still full of awkward English and weird things. Comments are extremely appreciated, thank you.
Chapter 4
Fujigaya had been staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. Nothing interesting happened during that time. The purple and white stripes were still there, the dust that covered them, untouched. There was not a single sound in the room. The few pieces of furniture in it, lay still, surrounded by the dim light of the lamps. There hadn’t been signs of life in the corridor outside either. Fujigaya had checked around, but there was nothing interesting to see, since he was confined in such a small, almost empty room. He decided to sleep, but his mind was too awake to let go of the bunch of thoughts that was crossing it.
One of the haunting thoughts was Takizawa’s disappointed face when he found out he was a stowaway. Fujigaya hated how he had been a disappointment for someone who had shown him kindness, even though he was basically a stranger. But Takizawa had also been the one defending him from the other’s attacks. Kawai made a big fuss about it, saying that if he had known Fujigaya was a stowaway, he wouldn’t have spent so much time taking care of him and waiting for him to wake up. Kitayama maintained a cool stance, but Fujigaya could see he wasn’t happy about it too. Yokoo’s face looked as scary as the face of a murderer. Even Nikaido and Senga showed their disapproval. The first echoing Kawai’s accusations, while the second belted up in a forlorn, condemnatory silence.
Being a stowaway in space was no laughing matter. It was against the intergalactic laws and what’s worse, it could have put everyone in danger. What if he tried to enter a planet without the necessary documents? He could have caused trouble to all the people travelling with him. They could have been accused of hiding him. Fujigaya reckoned that the self he didn’t have memories of, must have been desperate to have stowed away on a spaceship like he did. In the end, Takizawa accepted his apologies and decided to talk to the crew to smoothen things over.
No one knew why Fujigaya had sneaked into the spaceship, but it was quite hard to blame him for anything, when he himself had no idea of the reason why he acted like that in the first place.
Takizawa told him that he needed time to talk about what to do with him with the crew. The space traveler code was quite harsh regarding stowaways. Usually people who illegally boarded a spaceship were abandoned where found or handed over to the authorities of the next destination. But Takizawa smiled reassuringly, and told him he would do his best to convince the crew that this case was different. Fujigaya felt the pity in his words, and he didn’t quite like it. Okay, he had lost his memory, but he had also been found guilty of a crime. How could that man trust him just because he seemed to be a different person from the stowaway that was hiding in the spaceship all this time?
How much time could have that been? Judging from the condition of the emergency room, it mustn’t have been more than two weeks. Miyata said that the last planet they visited was Skallar 15 and it was exactly two weeks away from the unnamed planet.
Maybe, Fujigaya thought, he was from Skallar 15 and he was running away from something. He tried to plunge deeper into his thoughts, but he couldn’t remember a thing. However, his memory loss was a minor problem at present, considering that, depending on what the crew decided to do with him, he was threatened of being abandoned on that planet, or maybe, spend months in jail on Xylos and be marked forever as a law infringer.
While he was thinking about what would be his fate, the curtain covering the entrance of his tent-room opened, and Kawai sneaked inside.
“Hey,” he announced, going to sit at the edge of Fujigaya’s bed.
“Hey,” Fujigaya repeated, pulling himself up on the mattress.
“Takizawa is still talking with the crew. I just...” Kawai paused, looking off to his side a bit embarrassed, “I just wanted to say sorry for before. I really don’t like stowaways. But it looks like you’re more surprised than us to find out you were one.”
“It’s not a position I expected to be in, to be honest.”
“I don’t know why I have this feeling that you’re not a bad person. Maybe you were cornered and had no other choices but to embark on our spaceship.”
Fujigaya grinned bitterly thinking how harsh Kawai had been just one hour before. He realized that Takizawa must have been very good at making people reason.
“Look, I don’t need pity. I lost my memories, it’s true. But what I did is deplorable. I feel sorry that I can’t give you an explanation either.”
“But... we can’t punish you for something you don’t even remember having done.”
“Even if he doesn’t remember, it doesn’t change the fact he’s done it,” Yokoo said entering the tent and stopping before the bed, arms crossed.
“Yokoo, aren’t you being a bit too cruel? Come on! The guy lost his memories.” Kawai tried to laugh it off, but Yokoo just narrowed his eyes in a not forgiving way.
“Anyway, it’s time to go talk with Takizawa. We have all agreed about what to do with you.”
Fujigaya stood up and followed the other two.
Takizawa was waiting for him in the Bubble. A silent audience was sitting around the ring. Fujigaya hadn’t met most of them yet, but he noticed the familiar faces of the people he knew already, all staring at him.
“We decided not to leave you here,” Takizawa said, and Fujigaya sighed in relief. “I don’t know what you want to do next, but we need to be in Xylos within the next ten days. ”
Takizawa paused and Fujigaya held his breath.
“We also decided not to surrender you to the authorities. Once there, you’ll see a doctor for your memory. Until we reach Xylos, you can stay with us. We can’t bring you back to Skallar 15. The permission to land this spaceship is quite difficult to obtain, especially if we don’t intend to do shows. But we can check the lists of missing people, and if someone is looking for you and you turn out to be from Skallar15, you can probably travel back from Xylos. Unfortunately our researches so far didn’t show that someone is looking for you. On the bright side, you’re not a wanted criminal as well.”
“Thanks,” Fujigaya muttered bending his head forward.
“But we can’t take you around on our spaceship for free.”
“Oh, well, I don’t think I have any money with me. I can check in the hoverbike but...”
“We checked your overbike and found something we are interested in inside it.”
Fujigaya raised an eyebrow. “The roller skates?”
“Exactly.”
“But I...”
“I know you lost your memories and you have no idea why those roller skates are there. But how about this? You give us the skates and we help you.”
“What will you do with the skates?”
“What a silly question, my dear. We’ll use them to perform an act, that’s what we’ll do!” Takizawa turned to look at the audience, raising his arms and smiling like a kid who has just received a new toy.
“If so,” Fujigaya paused until Takizawa’s eyes were again engaged with his own, “can I be part of the act too?”
--
Fujigaya returned to the tent and found Senga with a bowl of soup for him to eat. He considered himself lucky that those people didn’t abandon him, after all. He felt kind of lost there, but considering his amnesia, maybe he would feel lost about everywhere. He first needed to think about his own survival. He had no idea why there were roller skates inside the hoverbike, but if those could guarantee him a place to stay, he was happy to trade them in.
Furthermore, he had asked Takizawa to stay and be part of the circus, even though he knew nothing about circuses. He even asked to be part of an act! Fujigaya had no idea whether he would be actually able to do it or not, but he wanted to try be part of a circus show. After all, he had no other place to go at present, and these people had been helpful and kind even with a stowaway like him, not abandoning him and allowing him to stay till his complete recovery.
Of course Takizawa had imposed conditions over his stay. If he wanted to stay, he had to work for the circus. He had to be part of it and do his best. Fujigaya thought that no one was looking for him, he was nobody, but he wasn’t afraid of working hard.
“Fujigaya-san? Your soup is getting cold,” Senga said, nudging him away from his thoughts.
“Ah, yes, right,” Fujigaya took a spoonful of soup and almost choked biting the bread.
“Nervous? Well, I understand if you are.”
“I’m not nervous. I can totally skate! After all, why would I have seven pairs of roller skates in my hoverbike if I couldn’t?”
“Yes, but you lost your memory.”
Senga had a point. He didn’t know if he could actually skate or if he was just carrying those skates for another reason. Moreover, assuming he could skate, he had no idea if his body would remember how to do it.
“Can I tell you a secret? Not many people here can skate. So we could just learn together. You’ll just need to show Yokoo-san that you can stand on them or...”
“Yokoo-san?!” Fujigaya squirmed, letting the spoon drop in the bowl with a splash.
“Yeah, he’s the only one who can skate quite decently. Apparently, he had a skating act in the circus he was with before.”
Fujigaya certainly didn’t expect that the person who was supposed to test his ability with the skates and therefore, his suitability for the circus performance, to be Yokoo.
“Why it has to be him? He hates me!”
“I don’t think so,” Senga laughed. “He’s just a bit difficult. It can take a while to get to know him, but he’s not a bad person.”
Fujigaya pouted looking at Senga. He sincerely hoped his first impression to be wrong, but even those reassuring words, couldn’t erase Yokoo’s menacing eyes from his thoughts.
--
The next day, Senga and Kawai introduced him to the other people in the circus. Fujigaya did his best to remember everyone’s face, name, and position in the circus. Not a hard job at all considering the peculiarity of the characters that populated the spaceship.
There were the acrobats, Tsukada and Goseki. Tsukada struck him with a friendly first impression, at least until he started jumping around doing silly things and introduced him to his muscles. Goseki looked a more complex character, and Fujigaya couldn’t help but notice a noble air around him.
There was Totsuka, the illusionist, who promptly made a rose appear in his hand just to make it disappear in thin air when Fujigaya was about to grab it. His smiling face was childlike, and apparently his behaviour was too.
Hashimoto, the clown, was a big boy of twenty years old who looked at least five years older given his height and his well built body. But it took two seconds to realize that his brain was probably five years younger than his actual age.
They all greeted Fujigaya, as if he already was one of them. Takizawa wanted him to prove his physical strength before letting him perform, but he said there was no problem for him to stay until he recovered his memories. There were lots of roles in a circus that didn’t involve performing. Fujigaya had said that he wanted to try skating, his confidence rising up from his subconscious. He was ambitious and eager to be part of the show and not just someone on the background.
As Fujigaya looked around the ring at the others practicing, his determination faltered. They were all amazingly skilled. Kitayama was flying on the trapeze tossing Nikaido around. Senga went to join them, swiftly climbing up the ladder and cutting the air on his trapeze. Goseki was rope walking suspended between the two upper rings, no safety net between him and the ground far below. Tsukada was bending his body in a way that Fujigaya didn’t think possible for a human being. Yokoo was dealing with a huge striped beast, with fangs and a long furry tail, making it jump on platforms and ending up riding on it. Miyata was juggling flaming torches, then he threw them high above him and sliced them with three knifes he took out of nowhere. Tamamori was Totsuka’s assistant in his illusion number. So that place had already being taken. Fujigaya wondered if they needed someone else to be the knife thrower’s target or to stand in the cage while roaring motorcycles circled around him.
Fujigaya sat down on a corner and couldn’t keep his eyes away from the hectic movement of the circus, but he was feeling inadequate. What could he do to fit in that place? Maybe he should just start adapting to the idea that he would have to take care of their laundry or other chores.
Senga and Nikaido were practicing with their motorbikes now, so Kitayama had nothing to do until Yokoo had finished with his animals. He went to sit next to Fujigaya, gazing at his worried expression.
“Something wrong?”
“I was wondering if you needed a cook. Or a handyman... or...”
“Can you cook?”
“I don’t think I can, but,” Fujigaya nodded in the direction of the ring, “still better than doing that.”
Kitayama laughed heartily and patted Fujigaya’s back. Fujigaya didn’t expect he would do so with that much strength, but he didn’t draw back like the first time the other tried to touch him. Maybe he had realized he could actually start trusting these people after all.
“Don’t worry about that, I’m sure you’ll find something to do here. Besides, you can skate right?”
“I think I can.” Fujigaya wasn’t exactly sure he could, but he seemed to know a lot of things he didn’t remember to have learnt. At least, even if he couldn’t rely on his memory, he could still trust his instinct and unconscious knowledge. Somehow his body seemed fit and quite strong. His senses were certainly awake and he knew he could move with a certain deftness. But would that be enough?
“Are you going to roller skate now?”
“I think I’ll do it later. Apparently I’m supposed to prove I can skate to Yokoo,” Fujigaya said sounding wry.
“Be nice with him. He’s been kind with you.”
“Are you referring to when he hit me with the butt knot of his whip or to when he wanted to kill me because he found out I was a stowaway?”
“He didn’t want to kill you.”
“Did you see the look in his eyes? Because to me that translates as ‘run as fast as you can before I catch you’”
Kitayama laughed again then stood up in front of Fujigaya.
“He was the first one to take care of you after he hit you. I supposed he felt guilty to have reacted on impulse. But you know, he deals with beasts so he’s accustomed to threaten them and punish them when they can’t behave.”
“I’m not a beast!” Fujigaya yelled, turning his head to stare at Yokoo who was too busy jumping hurdles with his tiger to notice him.
“I thought you were the one who took care of me? And Fumito?” Fujigaya added, fairly annoyed by Kitayama’s giggle at his reaction.
“Me? No, I just entered the room to swap place with him when you came back from the dreamworld.”
“I didn’t know,” Fujigaya conceded, “but still doesn’t change the fact that he hit me and that probably doesn’t like me at all.”
“Not everyone can like you.”
Fujigaya pouted and looked again at the ring, where Tsukada and Goseki were now jumping around Hashimoto, while he tried to imitate their skilled backflips and somersaults, resulting in several miserable falls. He wasn’t a bad acrobat too, despite the fact that his acrobatic acts were meant to amuse the audience.
“Do you want to go and meet the rest of the crew?” Kitayama asked, revealing a strip of skin between his belt and shirt as he stretched his arms over his head.
“Are there still people to meet?”
“Yes, you still didn’t meet our pilot and co-pilots.”
The control room of the ship was located above the living quarters, in the top part of the spaceship. It was a wide room, with three seats facing a huge window. In front of it, there were panels full of screens and buttons. As expected, piloting that big spaceship mustn’t have been easy. Taking a better look at the controls, Fujigaya was again amazed at the technology of the spaceship. There was a surprising amount of stabilizing sensors and gravity boosts that made it easier to have a smoother journey, including landing and take off, but still, the pilot must have been a very skilled one. He was surprised the ship could land easily on a planet without using a skyport, but that had to be expected, since the spaceship itself was the circus and it needed to land in a large area that could be easily reached by people.
“This ship is amazing. How can a circus afford such technology? There are things here that can be seen only on battle spaceships.”
Suddenly the airlock door flung open and a young boy wearing a blue coverall entered the room with a can of juice in his hand.
“Kitayama-san! You know I don’t like it when people sneak in the main deck when I’m not there!”
“Sorry, sorry. I thought I could find you here. You spend more time in this place than in your room.”
“Who is this? The new one?”
Fujigaya looked at the innocent face of the kid staring up at him. His skin seemed like porcelain and his hair were of a charming natural shade of light brown.
“Ah, I wanted to introduce you to our new circus member, Fujigaya Taisuke. Fujigaya, this is our pilot, Marius.”
“Pilot?!” Fujigaya jerked in surprise and stared at the young boy in disbelief.
“Another one that doesn’t believe it,” Marius announced, sounding bitter. He placed his juice on the panel and dropped his weight on the pilot chair.
“Hey, give him credit. You must admit it’s unusual for a pilot to be so young. Anyway, to answer Fujigaya, yes, he is our pilot and he’s brilliant. Got problems with that?”
But Fujigaya was already leaning towards the chair to ask Marius questions about the ship. Soon the two of them were chatting merrily about engines and speed, and Marius told him how he used to be a hoverbike pilot in races since he was five years old.
“I’m glad you are already getting on well, but I believe it’s time for Fujigaya to go and practice with his skates. Yokoo doesn’t like when people makes him wait.”
“God, he must hate you then,” Marius observed. He didn’t intend to sound sarcastic, he was just pointing out the fact guided by a natural naivety.
“See you later, Marius,” Fujigaya waved at the boy, sending him a sweet smile as he walked backwards till he reached the airlock door.
“Your pilot is so cute!”
“...”
“What?”
“And I thought most people would be shocked to find out they are carried around on a spaceship by a twelve year old. Shori and So, the co-pilots, are very young too. Takizawa found them on Jakran 11.”
“Jakran 11?”
“Yes. That place is quite famous for hoverbike races. There are a lot of orphans exploited for races on that planet. Small pilots run faster. Of course it’s extremely dangerous. Those three are quite the genius types when it comes to racing and engines though. Marius learnt to pilot spaceships in a month.”
“That’s impressive.”
“Apparently they were trained with simulation softwares for that. To make them improve with the hoverbikes too. They are good mechanics as well. We’d be lost without them.”
“I guess you can focus on the performance thanks to them taking care of the ship.”
“Exactly. And before they joined us, Takizawa and Kawai used to pilot the spaceship. You have no idea how sick they made us feel.”
--
Chapter 5
The roller skates where a technologically advanced model. The back circular blade wheels were bigger than the rubber ones at the front and the cushions had pressure points to stop the wheels from moving just pinning the feet on the ground. The movable air-jets could function as brakes or as a boosting system. The stabilizing side wings added stability for jumps and give the boots a stylish shape. Plus, their pink colour was cute, Fujigaya thought as he was fumbling with the straps of his skates, slow on purpose, enjoying the view of Yokoo nervously tapping the wheels of one of his orange skates on the floor, impatient.
“Hey, I haven’t got all day. I need to go and feed the beasts.”
Fujigaya grinned, his face hidden between his knees; then he got up, the skates finally in position. He stepped on the sand, not daring to turn on his skates just yet.
“So? You don’t even know how to switch these on?”
“I was waiting for you to do it first but,” Fujigaya said. He pressed his ankles together and rotated the little wheel on the right skate with the screw on the left side. The skates lit up, the wheels started grinding on the ground, but they were not moving forward yet as Fujigaya was pressing on the brake pressure system to keep them still. Yokoo followed the same process, but with a push of his right leg, he dashed forward, the wheels spurting sand everywhere as he spun around in the ring.
“Woah, those are fast! I’ve never seen a model so advanced before. The range of gripping controls is incredible,” Fujigaya said, starting to move slowly on his skates.
“Aren’t those supposed to be yours? You should know already.”
“Pardon me if I lost my memory.”
“But you remember the old models well, it seems?”
“And it also seems that my body remembers how to use these,” Fujigaya dashed forwards then did a u-turn drawing a crescent on the sand.
“That’s all you can do?”
“I haven’t seen you doing much more than me.”
“I’m not here to be tested. You are.”
“Shall I assume my master doesn’t know how to use these?”
Yokoo frowned, then launched himself fast around the ring. He drew closer to the barrier and when he reached it, in a matter of instants, he placed the wheels on it gliding up till the edge. He used the barrier as a ramp to leap in the air, spinning around before landing again in the sand, onto his feet.
“Impressive. So you can actually skate,” Fujigaya clapped his hands sarcastically.
“Let’s see if you can say the same.”
Fujigaya ran towards the barrier, but instead of skating on his side like Yokoo did, he jumped on top of it and started skating around on its edge. When he reached the end of the barrier he jumped, did a somersault, and landed on the sand.
Yokoo ran towards him and with a jump, he passed the barrier to reach the seating area. Fujigaya skated backwards, then, taking a flying leap helped by the air-jets, he followed him. They started jumping among the rows of seats and slid down on the railings, perfectly timing their spiralling movements not to bump into each other.
Feeling the air against his face and scoffing at gravity, made Fujigaya feel as energetic and alive as ever. A smile was painted on his face all the time as he danced in the air and grinded on the rows of seat and every surface available. His eyes met with Yokoo’s several time. Those black, sharp slits were not threatening anymore, they were just the perfect complement for the pleased smile Yokoo had on his face.
“Not bad,” Yokoo said when they came to a halt. “Maybe we should start building an appropriate set for better stunts. We could use platforms, and slides. We should build higher ramps!”
Fujigaya didn’t expect that even a person like Yokoo could show so much excitement and was taken aback by the smile that lit his face when he was talking about the things they could do during their roller skates act.
“Maybe we should teach the others to skate first,” Fujigaya observed, then started giggling at the face Yokoo made for having forgotten such an important detail.
“Right. We should hold auditions or something. Let’s see who wants to be part of our skating act. With all the wannabe diva here, I bet there will be a queue.”
“I didn’t know you could make these faces too, Yokoo-san.”
“What faces?”
“Sorry, I mean... you are smiling and getting all excited, and that’s the first time I’ve seen you like this. I didn’t think a serious person like you could do that. Maybe because I had seen only your scary face so far.”
“What do you mean by scary face?”
“This! The face you are making now.”
“It’s not scary, it’s just my face. Am I scary?”
“I think you are too sometimes,” Kitayama remarked while walking down the stairs. Fujigaya hadn’t noticed him entering the Bubble.
“I’m glad you two are getting along now.”
“We are not getting along!” Fujigaya shrieked. Yokoo pouted and twitched his head to one side.
“By the way Kitayama, how about trying the roller skates? We need people for our act,” Yokoo suggested.
“Mh... why not? It sounds fun.” Kitayama moved in front of Fujigaya and stood there waiting.
“What?”
“I need the skates.”
“Go and get another pair, the pink ones are mine.”
“Tsk, you’re so stingy.”
“Aren’t you just been lazy? Come on, go get them, they are in the back,” Yokoo urged him.
Kitayama walked deliberately slowly and lazily, twitching his lips in disapproval. Yokoo and Fujigaya exchanged an amused smile behind his back then waited in silence till he came back, rolling unsteadily on the skates.
“I used to have some of these when I was a kid. How do you turn them on though?”
Fujigaya demonstrated and Kitayama switched the skates on. Immediately the skates wheels started to move, sending an unprepared Kitayama to the ground, on his butt . Yokoo and Fujigaya bursted out laughing while Kitayama grunted and massaged his back trying to get up.
“It’s not funny.”
“You have to apply pressure on the inside of your boots to keep the wheels from rolling. Here, at the back, use your heels. Press those muscles in your calves,” Fujigaya explained and finally Kitayama managed to stand without rolling away.
They spent the rest of the afternoon teaching Kitayama and laughing when he was too bold and tried difficult things even if he hadn’t still managed the basics yet. He looked eager to learn and his body was essentially well trained, so he managed to get the grip of it quite soon.
Nikaido and Senga entered the Bubble, showing curiosity and asked to try the skates too. Senga had a good coordination and managed to move skillfully in the electric blue skates he had chosen to wea. Nikaido had the audacity of a daredevil despite the fact he looked scared to put on his green skates at first.
Yokoo whispered to Fujigaya that those three would learn how to skate better than them in no time, but Fujigaya just laughed at this statement, and whispered back a “they wish” smiling at Yokoo with a new feeling of camaraderie.
The next day, everyone was excited about the roller skates. Tsukada tried to roller skate too before deciding it wasn’t for him. Hashimoto wanted to include the roller skates in a clown act but Takizawa replied telling him that no, he couldn’t use those expensive roller skates just to fall on his butt and make people laugh. He certainly didn’t need them to result funny.
Five people practiced in the Bubble the next day as well. Fujigaya and Yokoo were still dispensing advices to Kitayama, Senga and Nikaido, but they had improved visibly since the previous day and looked like they were having fun.
Fujigaya and Yokoo decided to start with the basics stunts as the three of them were beginning to feel impatient.
As they prepared a ramp, Fujigaya noticed Tamamori and Miyata at the side of the ring. Tamamori was pushing Miyata, exhorting him to interrupt the preparations and to speak.
“Ahem,” Miyata cleared his throat loudly, “I was wondering if me and Tamamori could join you.”
“Good! We really needed a helping hand with these ramps,” Kitayama said, waving his arm to call them in the ring.
“Eh no! Actually... Miyata!” Tamamori’s cheek flushed red and he pushed Miyata in front of him, asking him to talk on his behalf.
“We meant to say we want to join you in the roller skating act.”
“You?!”
Everyone was surprised by the declaration. Fujigaya noticed that Tamamori was red to the tip of his ears.
“What’s wrong with that? They can try if they want.”
Everyone turned to look at Fujigaya. Apparently he was missing the point.
“We want to try. We’ll do our best. Right, Tama?” Miyata smiled at Tamamori that was clenched to his arm. He nodded determined.
“Can we?”
Kitayama moved forward and checked their faces, as if he wanted to make sure it wasn’t a joke.
“It’s okay for Miyata. But Tamamori, are you sure? You are telling us that you finally decided to be the active part of an act?”
Tamamori nodded.
“I want to be part of an act. I want to show what I can do.”
Later Fujigaya asked Senga for an explanation about what happened with Tamamori, and why they were all surprised about him wanting to be part of the act. He said that they tried uncountable times to convince Tamamori to have his own act or at least be part of an act and not only as a target or an assistant and he had always refused. They didn’t know why, maybe he wasn’t ambitious, maybe he didn’t like to test his limits, maybe he was just lazy. Senga said they were happy that thanks to Fujigaya that boy came out of his shell. Fujigaya smiled puzzled. He said that he didn’t do anything and it was just Tamamori’s decision. And now it was his turn to prove that he was able to meet the expectations.
--
They spent another day on the unnamed planet and when they were ready to depart for Xylos they still didn’t have a skating act ready, but they definitely had people who wanted to improve and it made it feel possible to have a skating performance ready soon.
Tamamori was helpless at the beginning. His long limbs tangled on themselves like he didn’t have any control on them. Fujigaya lost his patience with him several times, but he couldn’t tell him to leave. Not when everyone thought that he was the one that gave Tamamori the courage of showing what he could do. And also because Kitayama would kill him if he did. Kitayama had told him that from now on, they should all work together for this act. There were seven roller skates pairs and now they belonged to seven people. Fujigaya and Yokoo didn’t look convinced at first, but then Fujigaya looked at Tamamori’s face as he smiled at his sparkling new yellow skates even if he barely knew how to use them. He decided to work with these people, like Kitayama said, and do his best to keep them together. He watched Tamamori getting onto his feet again, pulled up by Miyata standing in his purple roller skates.
“I don’t need you help,” Tamamori said before faltering. Miyata grabbed his arm just in time so that he didn’t end up on the ground again.
“Come here. I’ll hold your hand.”
Reluctantly Tamamori let Miyata’s hand wrap his own hand, and followed his steps around the ring. Miyata had a serene smile on his face and little by little, Tamamori’s confidence built up as he spun round and round, faster and faster.
Fujigaya wondered why Tamamori trusted Miyata so much even if Miyata himself was still uncertain on roller skates. Maybe that trust was also the reason why Tamamori let Miyata throw knives at him, and he never budged, never batted an eyelid. He saw Miyata improve too when Tamamori put his trust in his hands, as if this was a motivation to do even better.
Fujigaya was lost in his thoughts and didn’t notice Kitayama by his side.
“Hey, me and Miyata yesterday thought it was a good idea to get a sample of those leaves to examine, so here they are.”
Fujigaya took the small jar that Kitayama was holding in front of his face.
“Thanks.”
“Technically they should be just leaves. But better to have someone check them on Xylos. They might have something to do with your amnesia.”
“They are just leaves.”
Fujigaya thought that Kitayama might be actually right, but he didn’t want to give him credit for that. After all, what was this nervous feelings every time he looked at those leaves? And why he didn’t remember anything else about the moments he lost his memories apart for those leaves?
“We’ll be ready to go in half hour,” Shori, the co-pilot arrived and announced with a smile, just when they were all leaving the Bubble. “Even if we are big enough for a smooth departure, I still suggest everyone to go to the seating hall and belt yourself up. After all, it’s not like we are leaving from a skyport. It might be a bit bumpy.”
“I’m sure Marius will drive us away from this place without problems,” Kitayama said, patting the young boy’s shoulder. “And I feel safe only in my bed, so that’s where I’ll be.”
--
Chapter 6
The stars were shining far in the distance. The silence wrapped everything as it usually did in space. Fujigaya was sitting alone in the observation deck. They have been traveling for three days. The Bubble had been sealed and it couldn’t be used since there was no air inside.
The routine to which Fujigaya was already getting accustomed to, had been broken and he found himself with nothing to do but stare at the stars.
Everywhere on the spaceship looked bleak. The people just hung around with nothing in particular to do. Sometimes he saw Tsukada and Senga working out, but there was nothing much to do apart from that. Without the Bubble, the spaceship wasn’t as big as it looked before.
But it was big enough not to meet people if someone found the right spot. The observation deck was the right place at the moment, even safer that his room, in which Kawai often barged in uninvited to ask to play the same card game for the nth time. Maybe, Fujigaya thought, he should have let him win sometimes, at least the stupid competition would stop.
Sometimes on the deck there was Totsuka, engaged in scribbling something on a notebook or daydreaming while looking at the stars. Sometimes Hashimoto trailed behind him and interrupted him in his peaceful activity with questions about the stars and planets, or to tell him the names of constellations he was looking at. Totsuka never sent him away, but gently corrected him on the names of the constellations and planets.
“No Hasshi, there is no such thing as the T-rex constellation.”
“But I can totally see it!”
Kitayama had spent three days locked in his room and he was coming out of it only when it was meal time. Fujigaya suspected that he spent the time in space in hibernation so that he could work at full power when on land.
Nikaido and Senga appeared to spend the time jumping each other and pulling pranks and they didn’t stop even after Goseki scared them for the rest of their lives when they tried to pull a prank on him.
Takizawa was holed up in his private room too, but he often came out for a chat with the others and to raise the generally bored mood of the spaceship.
Marius and the co-pilots didn’t have much to do once the autopilot was set either, but they didn’t move far from the control room and that was their playground.
He hadn’t seen Yokoo around too. He thought that when he wasn’t in his room resting, he spent most of the time with his beasts, trying to calm them down because they got quite upset after spending a long time in their cages.
Fujigaya sighed and wondered why he found himself thinking about those people and worrying about them. He stood up from the bench he was sitting on and decided to go back to his room. Passing in front of the control room, he decided to say hi to Marius and went in, just to find Yokoo there. He was telling the three of them to rest a bit, and eat more vegetables, and just walk out of that room once in a while. How could they spend all their the time in that room just playing video games and eating junk food?
Fujigaya announced he was there with an irritating giggle and told Yokoo to calm down and leave the kids be.
“Yokoo-mama likes to take care of us, Fujigaya-san,” Marius intervened before Yokoo could shot a beam from his eyes and kill Fujigaya.
“I see. Yokoo-mama have you got a minute? I’d like to discuss something with you.”
Fujigaya ruffled Marius hair and then walked out of the room, followed by Yokoo.
“Is it about the act?” Yokoo asked as they walked along the corridor.
“Mh no, actually I was wondering why I hadn’t been introduced yet.”
“To whom?”
“To your beasts.”
Yokoo stopped with a bewildered expression on his face.
“Are you sure you want to see them? You look scared as hell every time one of them is out for training.”
“I think it’s time to get used to the fact that in a circus there are scary animals. Not that I want to touch the lizard thingy.”
“It’s not a thingy, it’s a skandish dragon. Her name is Brall.”
Fujigaya asked himself if he was doing the right thing, but then concluded that, yes, even bonding with Yokoo was something necessary to his survival in the circus. Luckily after their first clash they had managed to get on pretty well. Fujigaya still thought Yokoo was scary sometimes, but he knew he wasn’t harmful and he meant good whenever he had something to complain about. After all, it was true that Nikaido was careless and annoying, or that Kitayama had that selfish way of doing things sometimes. And Fujigaya secretly thought Yokoo was right in confronting them most of the times, especially since he wasn’t able do it himself. After all he was only a newcomer, even though he was teaching them all how to skate, he definitely didn’t want to abuse his power.
“Brall,” Fujigaya repeated the name in front of the cage of the skandish dragon, looking into the blue, glimmering spheres of its eyes, and gulping.
“This is Thush, and he’s a striped toriagon from the planet Ysh89.”
Fujigaya walked among the cages looking at the animals and mildly registering the informations that Yokoo was providing him.
“Did you buy them?”
“Actually, I found them and caught them. Or better, they were quite happy to follow me. Some of them were injured and I took care of them. Like the daliesh.”
The daliesh were the ones that looked something between horses and deer, Fujigaya remembered them. The new species that had been born in space were a lot, but they somehow could relate with their Earth relatives. A fuzzy reminiscence of a book with a picture of a daliesh filled his mind. Then he remembered fire, and himself putting the skates on.
“I think I remember something...”
“Really?!”
“It’s just all confused. I remember this book with a daliesh image in it and someone throwing it in a fire. I remember roller skates. I can’t recall anything else.”
Yokoo sighed and and slipped a bunch of hay in between the bars of the cage to feed the daliesh.
“It would be great if you could remember. At least you could go home.”
“Are you telling me that you don’t want me here?”
“Don’t be silly. I never said that.”
Despite Yokoo’s words, Fujigaya maintained an outraged look while picking up a bunch of hay to feed the other daliesh.
“Fine. I know you don’t like me.”
“How could you say that?”
Fujigaya didn’t answer. He was wondering why he was behaving that way. Didn’t he decide this would be bonding time with Yokoo? And yet he managed to mess up everything. Yokoo stared at him in silence then moved on to feed the other animals.
--
Later, Fujigaya was sitting in the canteen with Tamamori, eating pouches of pudding and listening to the other’s rant about Miyata.
“And now he’s again in Kitayama’s room wasting his time watching stupid animation. I can’t believe it! Especially since he’s so annoying with me all the time...”
“Tama, Tama, stop. Hang on a minute. Why am I listen to this? Weren’t we talking about roller skates?”
“Yes, but then you asked me about who styled my hair and...”
“And we ended up talking about Miyata?”
“Did you lose your memories again?”
“It’s that suddenly it looks like I’m your love advisor. And I don’t even understand how did we get there, I didn’t ask you about Miyata. What kind of relationship do you two have? I mean, you always manage to bring up the subject of Miyata even if...”
“We don’t have a relationship!”
Tamamori pouted and left the room leaving his half eaten pudding pouch on the table. Fujigaya sighed thinking about what was wrong with him. People were actually trying to bond with him and he was still keeping the distances, thinking only about roller skates, and his memory and whatever else.
“Don’t be mad at yourself. It’s difficult to share with the others when you have nothing to share.”
Kitayama was now sitting in front of him, eating the pudding that Tamamori had left.
“Just so you know, I have a lot to share, okay?”
“See? This is what’s wrong with you. You send people away with your behaviour. Your tongue is poisonous and you sting like a bee.”
“I don’t want to be lectured by you. You are always doing things half-heartedly with your lazy attitude. And you always think about yourself first. And you’re a showoff.” Fujigaya attacked, even if deep inside he knew that what he was saying wasn’t exactly true. He just wanted something to use against him, because the way Kitayama always treated him like a newbie annoyed him to no end.
“I’m a showoff?! How about you then? Always trying to demonstrate you can do better than us even if you just arrived. And wanting to be part of an act too. Takizawa-san had no choice but to accept because he wanted your stupid skates and because he pitied you. You were a stowaway!”
“Look who’s poisonous now,” Fujigaya said with scorn. Kitayama reached to grab his shirt above the table and they both stared intensely at each other.
“It’s enough, you two,” Yokoo said entering the room and going to place his hands between them. They both backed off and Kitayama looked away. Yokoo stared at Fujigaya until he was forced to look away.
“Okay, I’m sorry. Maybe I’m a bit too upset by the whole situation.”
“Fujigaya, we are past the phase in which you are all confused and upset,” Yokoo explained. “You’re just being whimsical now. Whatever you might think of us, we are not your enemies. We don’t want you out of here. You are part of the circus now, right Kitayama?”
Kitayama sighed and emitted an annoyed “right” as an answer.
Fujigaya knew he was in the wrong. He knew these people were actually accepting him, and he was the one not accepting them after they had been so kind and understanding.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s got with me.”
“Maybe,” Yokoo suggested, “it’s just your personality?”
“But I treated Tama as I didn’t care about his problems with Miyata.”
“Well, go and say sorry.”
“Hey, what problems with Miyata? They never have problems,” Kitayama asked.
“And they don’t have a relationship, or so said Tama,” Fujigaya said.
“That’s what he says to everyone and it means they actually have one,” Kitayama smiled.
Later he told Fujigaya the story of Miyata and Tamamori, and how they joined the circus. Fujigaya had to admit that even if he didn’t show it much, he had been eager to know from where the mutual trust of those two came from.
--
Pairings/Characters: Fujigaya-centric. As we go on with the story there will be some Yokoo/Fujigaya. Miyata/Tamamori are there in the background acting cute and tsun fom the very beginning. All of kisumai are in it, and also ABC-Z, Takizawa, Sekuzon as side characters.
Genre: AU
Rating: PG with some NC-17 chapters later on.
Summary: Fujigaya finds himself on a planet and he can only remember his name. A space circus finds him and the people of the circus offer their help with his amnesia. In the last part, Miyata and Tamamori helped Fujigaya finding the spaceship he supposedly used to get on the unnamed planet, but they only found a hoverbike with seven pairs of roller skates inside and that Fujigaya had actually been a stowaway in their spaceship before loosing his memory.
A/N: This story is long and full of plot. I had to write 50k of words for nano, and I could only do it this way. I still hope it doesn't feel too long or redundant. No beta, so it could be still full of awkward English and weird things. Comments are extremely appreciated, thank you.
Chapter 4
Fujigaya had been staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. Nothing interesting happened during that time. The purple and white stripes were still there, the dust that covered them, untouched. There was not a single sound in the room. The few pieces of furniture in it, lay still, surrounded by the dim light of the lamps. There hadn’t been signs of life in the corridor outside either. Fujigaya had checked around, but there was nothing interesting to see, since he was confined in such a small, almost empty room. He decided to sleep, but his mind was too awake to let go of the bunch of thoughts that was crossing it.
One of the haunting thoughts was Takizawa’s disappointed face when he found out he was a stowaway. Fujigaya hated how he had been a disappointment for someone who had shown him kindness, even though he was basically a stranger. But Takizawa had also been the one defending him from the other’s attacks. Kawai made a big fuss about it, saying that if he had known Fujigaya was a stowaway, he wouldn’t have spent so much time taking care of him and waiting for him to wake up. Kitayama maintained a cool stance, but Fujigaya could see he wasn’t happy about it too. Yokoo’s face looked as scary as the face of a murderer. Even Nikaido and Senga showed their disapproval. The first echoing Kawai’s accusations, while the second belted up in a forlorn, condemnatory silence.
Being a stowaway in space was no laughing matter. It was against the intergalactic laws and what’s worse, it could have put everyone in danger. What if he tried to enter a planet without the necessary documents? He could have caused trouble to all the people travelling with him. They could have been accused of hiding him. Fujigaya reckoned that the self he didn’t have memories of, must have been desperate to have stowed away on a spaceship like he did. In the end, Takizawa accepted his apologies and decided to talk to the crew to smoothen things over.
No one knew why Fujigaya had sneaked into the spaceship, but it was quite hard to blame him for anything, when he himself had no idea of the reason why he acted like that in the first place.
Takizawa told him that he needed time to talk about what to do with him with the crew. The space traveler code was quite harsh regarding stowaways. Usually people who illegally boarded a spaceship were abandoned where found or handed over to the authorities of the next destination. But Takizawa smiled reassuringly, and told him he would do his best to convince the crew that this case was different. Fujigaya felt the pity in his words, and he didn’t quite like it. Okay, he had lost his memory, but he had also been found guilty of a crime. How could that man trust him just because he seemed to be a different person from the stowaway that was hiding in the spaceship all this time?
How much time could have that been? Judging from the condition of the emergency room, it mustn’t have been more than two weeks. Miyata said that the last planet they visited was Skallar 15 and it was exactly two weeks away from the unnamed planet.
Maybe, Fujigaya thought, he was from Skallar 15 and he was running away from something. He tried to plunge deeper into his thoughts, but he couldn’t remember a thing. However, his memory loss was a minor problem at present, considering that, depending on what the crew decided to do with him, he was threatened of being abandoned on that planet, or maybe, spend months in jail on Xylos and be marked forever as a law infringer.
While he was thinking about what would be his fate, the curtain covering the entrance of his tent-room opened, and Kawai sneaked inside.
“Hey,” he announced, going to sit at the edge of Fujigaya’s bed.
“Hey,” Fujigaya repeated, pulling himself up on the mattress.
“Takizawa is still talking with the crew. I just...” Kawai paused, looking off to his side a bit embarrassed, “I just wanted to say sorry for before. I really don’t like stowaways. But it looks like you’re more surprised than us to find out you were one.”
“It’s not a position I expected to be in, to be honest.”
“I don’t know why I have this feeling that you’re not a bad person. Maybe you were cornered and had no other choices but to embark on our spaceship.”
Fujigaya grinned bitterly thinking how harsh Kawai had been just one hour before. He realized that Takizawa must have been very good at making people reason.
“Look, I don’t need pity. I lost my memories, it’s true. But what I did is deplorable. I feel sorry that I can’t give you an explanation either.”
“But... we can’t punish you for something you don’t even remember having done.”
“Even if he doesn’t remember, it doesn’t change the fact he’s done it,” Yokoo said entering the tent and stopping before the bed, arms crossed.
“Yokoo, aren’t you being a bit too cruel? Come on! The guy lost his memories.” Kawai tried to laugh it off, but Yokoo just narrowed his eyes in a not forgiving way.
“Anyway, it’s time to go talk with Takizawa. We have all agreed about what to do with you.”
Fujigaya stood up and followed the other two.
Takizawa was waiting for him in the Bubble. A silent audience was sitting around the ring. Fujigaya hadn’t met most of them yet, but he noticed the familiar faces of the people he knew already, all staring at him.
“We decided not to leave you here,” Takizawa said, and Fujigaya sighed in relief. “I don’t know what you want to do next, but we need to be in Xylos within the next ten days. ”
Takizawa paused and Fujigaya held his breath.
“We also decided not to surrender you to the authorities. Once there, you’ll see a doctor for your memory. Until we reach Xylos, you can stay with us. We can’t bring you back to Skallar 15. The permission to land this spaceship is quite difficult to obtain, especially if we don’t intend to do shows. But we can check the lists of missing people, and if someone is looking for you and you turn out to be from Skallar15, you can probably travel back from Xylos. Unfortunately our researches so far didn’t show that someone is looking for you. On the bright side, you’re not a wanted criminal as well.”
“Thanks,” Fujigaya muttered bending his head forward.
“But we can’t take you around on our spaceship for free.”
“Oh, well, I don’t think I have any money with me. I can check in the hoverbike but...”
“We checked your overbike and found something we are interested in inside it.”
Fujigaya raised an eyebrow. “The roller skates?”
“Exactly.”
“But I...”
“I know you lost your memories and you have no idea why those roller skates are there. But how about this? You give us the skates and we help you.”
“What will you do with the skates?”
“What a silly question, my dear. We’ll use them to perform an act, that’s what we’ll do!” Takizawa turned to look at the audience, raising his arms and smiling like a kid who has just received a new toy.
“If so,” Fujigaya paused until Takizawa’s eyes were again engaged with his own, “can I be part of the act too?”
--
Fujigaya returned to the tent and found Senga with a bowl of soup for him to eat. He considered himself lucky that those people didn’t abandon him, after all. He felt kind of lost there, but considering his amnesia, maybe he would feel lost about everywhere. He first needed to think about his own survival. He had no idea why there were roller skates inside the hoverbike, but if those could guarantee him a place to stay, he was happy to trade them in.
Furthermore, he had asked Takizawa to stay and be part of the circus, even though he knew nothing about circuses. He even asked to be part of an act! Fujigaya had no idea whether he would be actually able to do it or not, but he wanted to try be part of a circus show. After all, he had no other place to go at present, and these people had been helpful and kind even with a stowaway like him, not abandoning him and allowing him to stay till his complete recovery.
Of course Takizawa had imposed conditions over his stay. If he wanted to stay, he had to work for the circus. He had to be part of it and do his best. Fujigaya thought that no one was looking for him, he was nobody, but he wasn’t afraid of working hard.
“Fujigaya-san? Your soup is getting cold,” Senga said, nudging him away from his thoughts.
“Ah, yes, right,” Fujigaya took a spoonful of soup and almost choked biting the bread.
“Nervous? Well, I understand if you are.”
“I’m not nervous. I can totally skate! After all, why would I have seven pairs of roller skates in my hoverbike if I couldn’t?”
“Yes, but you lost your memory.”
Senga had a point. He didn’t know if he could actually skate or if he was just carrying those skates for another reason. Moreover, assuming he could skate, he had no idea if his body would remember how to do it.
“Can I tell you a secret? Not many people here can skate. So we could just learn together. You’ll just need to show Yokoo-san that you can stand on them or...”
“Yokoo-san?!” Fujigaya squirmed, letting the spoon drop in the bowl with a splash.
“Yeah, he’s the only one who can skate quite decently. Apparently, he had a skating act in the circus he was with before.”
Fujigaya certainly didn’t expect that the person who was supposed to test his ability with the skates and therefore, his suitability for the circus performance, to be Yokoo.
“Why it has to be him? He hates me!”
“I don’t think so,” Senga laughed. “He’s just a bit difficult. It can take a while to get to know him, but he’s not a bad person.”
Fujigaya pouted looking at Senga. He sincerely hoped his first impression to be wrong, but even those reassuring words, couldn’t erase Yokoo’s menacing eyes from his thoughts.
--
The next day, Senga and Kawai introduced him to the other people in the circus. Fujigaya did his best to remember everyone’s face, name, and position in the circus. Not a hard job at all considering the peculiarity of the characters that populated the spaceship.
There were the acrobats, Tsukada and Goseki. Tsukada struck him with a friendly first impression, at least until he started jumping around doing silly things and introduced him to his muscles. Goseki looked a more complex character, and Fujigaya couldn’t help but notice a noble air around him.
There was Totsuka, the illusionist, who promptly made a rose appear in his hand just to make it disappear in thin air when Fujigaya was about to grab it. His smiling face was childlike, and apparently his behaviour was too.
Hashimoto, the clown, was a big boy of twenty years old who looked at least five years older given his height and his well built body. But it took two seconds to realize that his brain was probably five years younger than his actual age.
They all greeted Fujigaya, as if he already was one of them. Takizawa wanted him to prove his physical strength before letting him perform, but he said there was no problem for him to stay until he recovered his memories. There were lots of roles in a circus that didn’t involve performing. Fujigaya had said that he wanted to try skating, his confidence rising up from his subconscious. He was ambitious and eager to be part of the show and not just someone on the background.
As Fujigaya looked around the ring at the others practicing, his determination faltered. They were all amazingly skilled. Kitayama was flying on the trapeze tossing Nikaido around. Senga went to join them, swiftly climbing up the ladder and cutting the air on his trapeze. Goseki was rope walking suspended between the two upper rings, no safety net between him and the ground far below. Tsukada was bending his body in a way that Fujigaya didn’t think possible for a human being. Yokoo was dealing with a huge striped beast, with fangs and a long furry tail, making it jump on platforms and ending up riding on it. Miyata was juggling flaming torches, then he threw them high above him and sliced them with three knifes he took out of nowhere. Tamamori was Totsuka’s assistant in his illusion number. So that place had already being taken. Fujigaya wondered if they needed someone else to be the knife thrower’s target or to stand in the cage while roaring motorcycles circled around him.
Fujigaya sat down on a corner and couldn’t keep his eyes away from the hectic movement of the circus, but he was feeling inadequate. What could he do to fit in that place? Maybe he should just start adapting to the idea that he would have to take care of their laundry or other chores.
Senga and Nikaido were practicing with their motorbikes now, so Kitayama had nothing to do until Yokoo had finished with his animals. He went to sit next to Fujigaya, gazing at his worried expression.
“Something wrong?”
“I was wondering if you needed a cook. Or a handyman... or...”
“Can you cook?”
“I don’t think I can, but,” Fujigaya nodded in the direction of the ring, “still better than doing that.”
Kitayama laughed heartily and patted Fujigaya’s back. Fujigaya didn’t expect he would do so with that much strength, but he didn’t draw back like the first time the other tried to touch him. Maybe he had realized he could actually start trusting these people after all.
“Don’t worry about that, I’m sure you’ll find something to do here. Besides, you can skate right?”
“I think I can.” Fujigaya wasn’t exactly sure he could, but he seemed to know a lot of things he didn’t remember to have learnt. At least, even if he couldn’t rely on his memory, he could still trust his instinct and unconscious knowledge. Somehow his body seemed fit and quite strong. His senses were certainly awake and he knew he could move with a certain deftness. But would that be enough?
“Are you going to roller skate now?”
“I think I’ll do it later. Apparently I’m supposed to prove I can skate to Yokoo,” Fujigaya said sounding wry.
“Be nice with him. He’s been kind with you.”
“Are you referring to when he hit me with the butt knot of his whip or to when he wanted to kill me because he found out I was a stowaway?”
“He didn’t want to kill you.”
“Did you see the look in his eyes? Because to me that translates as ‘run as fast as you can before I catch you’”
Kitayama laughed again then stood up in front of Fujigaya.
“He was the first one to take care of you after he hit you. I supposed he felt guilty to have reacted on impulse. But you know, he deals with beasts so he’s accustomed to threaten them and punish them when they can’t behave.”
“I’m not a beast!” Fujigaya yelled, turning his head to stare at Yokoo who was too busy jumping hurdles with his tiger to notice him.
“I thought you were the one who took care of me? And Fumito?” Fujigaya added, fairly annoyed by Kitayama’s giggle at his reaction.
“Me? No, I just entered the room to swap place with him when you came back from the dreamworld.”
“I didn’t know,” Fujigaya conceded, “but still doesn’t change the fact that he hit me and that probably doesn’t like me at all.”
“Not everyone can like you.”
Fujigaya pouted and looked again at the ring, where Tsukada and Goseki were now jumping around Hashimoto, while he tried to imitate their skilled backflips and somersaults, resulting in several miserable falls. He wasn’t a bad acrobat too, despite the fact that his acrobatic acts were meant to amuse the audience.
“Do you want to go and meet the rest of the crew?” Kitayama asked, revealing a strip of skin between his belt and shirt as he stretched his arms over his head.
“Are there still people to meet?”
“Yes, you still didn’t meet our pilot and co-pilots.”
The control room of the ship was located above the living quarters, in the top part of the spaceship. It was a wide room, with three seats facing a huge window. In front of it, there were panels full of screens and buttons. As expected, piloting that big spaceship mustn’t have been easy. Taking a better look at the controls, Fujigaya was again amazed at the technology of the spaceship. There was a surprising amount of stabilizing sensors and gravity boosts that made it easier to have a smoother journey, including landing and take off, but still, the pilot must have been a very skilled one. He was surprised the ship could land easily on a planet without using a skyport, but that had to be expected, since the spaceship itself was the circus and it needed to land in a large area that could be easily reached by people.
“This ship is amazing. How can a circus afford such technology? There are things here that can be seen only on battle spaceships.”
Suddenly the airlock door flung open and a young boy wearing a blue coverall entered the room with a can of juice in his hand.
“Kitayama-san! You know I don’t like it when people sneak in the main deck when I’m not there!”
“Sorry, sorry. I thought I could find you here. You spend more time in this place than in your room.”
“Who is this? The new one?”
Fujigaya looked at the innocent face of the kid staring up at him. His skin seemed like porcelain and his hair were of a charming natural shade of light brown.
“Ah, I wanted to introduce you to our new circus member, Fujigaya Taisuke. Fujigaya, this is our pilot, Marius.”
“Pilot?!” Fujigaya jerked in surprise and stared at the young boy in disbelief.
“Another one that doesn’t believe it,” Marius announced, sounding bitter. He placed his juice on the panel and dropped his weight on the pilot chair.
“Hey, give him credit. You must admit it’s unusual for a pilot to be so young. Anyway, to answer Fujigaya, yes, he is our pilot and he’s brilliant. Got problems with that?”
But Fujigaya was already leaning towards the chair to ask Marius questions about the ship. Soon the two of them were chatting merrily about engines and speed, and Marius told him how he used to be a hoverbike pilot in races since he was five years old.
“I’m glad you are already getting on well, but I believe it’s time for Fujigaya to go and practice with his skates. Yokoo doesn’t like when people makes him wait.”
“God, he must hate you then,” Marius observed. He didn’t intend to sound sarcastic, he was just pointing out the fact guided by a natural naivety.
“See you later, Marius,” Fujigaya waved at the boy, sending him a sweet smile as he walked backwards till he reached the airlock door.
“Your pilot is so cute!”
“...”
“What?”
“And I thought most people would be shocked to find out they are carried around on a spaceship by a twelve year old. Shori and So, the co-pilots, are very young too. Takizawa found them on Jakran 11.”
“Jakran 11?”
“Yes. That place is quite famous for hoverbike races. There are a lot of orphans exploited for races on that planet. Small pilots run faster. Of course it’s extremely dangerous. Those three are quite the genius types when it comes to racing and engines though. Marius learnt to pilot spaceships in a month.”
“That’s impressive.”
“Apparently they were trained with simulation softwares for that. To make them improve with the hoverbikes too. They are good mechanics as well. We’d be lost without them.”
“I guess you can focus on the performance thanks to them taking care of the ship.”
“Exactly. And before they joined us, Takizawa and Kawai used to pilot the spaceship. You have no idea how sick they made us feel.”
--
Chapter 5
The roller skates where a technologically advanced model. The back circular blade wheels were bigger than the rubber ones at the front and the cushions had pressure points to stop the wheels from moving just pinning the feet on the ground. The movable air-jets could function as brakes or as a boosting system. The stabilizing side wings added stability for jumps and give the boots a stylish shape. Plus, their pink colour was cute, Fujigaya thought as he was fumbling with the straps of his skates, slow on purpose, enjoying the view of Yokoo nervously tapping the wheels of one of his orange skates on the floor, impatient.
“Hey, I haven’t got all day. I need to go and feed the beasts.”
Fujigaya grinned, his face hidden between his knees; then he got up, the skates finally in position. He stepped on the sand, not daring to turn on his skates just yet.
“So? You don’t even know how to switch these on?”
“I was waiting for you to do it first but,” Fujigaya said. He pressed his ankles together and rotated the little wheel on the right skate with the screw on the left side. The skates lit up, the wheels started grinding on the ground, but they were not moving forward yet as Fujigaya was pressing on the brake pressure system to keep them still. Yokoo followed the same process, but with a push of his right leg, he dashed forward, the wheels spurting sand everywhere as he spun around in the ring.
“Woah, those are fast! I’ve never seen a model so advanced before. The range of gripping controls is incredible,” Fujigaya said, starting to move slowly on his skates.
“Aren’t those supposed to be yours? You should know already.”
“Pardon me if I lost my memory.”
“But you remember the old models well, it seems?”
“And it also seems that my body remembers how to use these,” Fujigaya dashed forwards then did a u-turn drawing a crescent on the sand.
“That’s all you can do?”
“I haven’t seen you doing much more than me.”
“I’m not here to be tested. You are.”
“Shall I assume my master doesn’t know how to use these?”
Yokoo frowned, then launched himself fast around the ring. He drew closer to the barrier and when he reached it, in a matter of instants, he placed the wheels on it gliding up till the edge. He used the barrier as a ramp to leap in the air, spinning around before landing again in the sand, onto his feet.
“Impressive. So you can actually skate,” Fujigaya clapped his hands sarcastically.
“Let’s see if you can say the same.”
Fujigaya ran towards the barrier, but instead of skating on his side like Yokoo did, he jumped on top of it and started skating around on its edge. When he reached the end of the barrier he jumped, did a somersault, and landed on the sand.
Yokoo ran towards him and with a jump, he passed the barrier to reach the seating area. Fujigaya skated backwards, then, taking a flying leap helped by the air-jets, he followed him. They started jumping among the rows of seats and slid down on the railings, perfectly timing their spiralling movements not to bump into each other.
Feeling the air against his face and scoffing at gravity, made Fujigaya feel as energetic and alive as ever. A smile was painted on his face all the time as he danced in the air and grinded on the rows of seat and every surface available. His eyes met with Yokoo’s several time. Those black, sharp slits were not threatening anymore, they were just the perfect complement for the pleased smile Yokoo had on his face.
“Not bad,” Yokoo said when they came to a halt. “Maybe we should start building an appropriate set for better stunts. We could use platforms, and slides. We should build higher ramps!”
Fujigaya didn’t expect that even a person like Yokoo could show so much excitement and was taken aback by the smile that lit his face when he was talking about the things they could do during their roller skates act.
“Maybe we should teach the others to skate first,” Fujigaya observed, then started giggling at the face Yokoo made for having forgotten such an important detail.
“Right. We should hold auditions or something. Let’s see who wants to be part of our skating act. With all the wannabe diva here, I bet there will be a queue.”
“I didn’t know you could make these faces too, Yokoo-san.”
“What faces?”
“Sorry, I mean... you are smiling and getting all excited, and that’s the first time I’ve seen you like this. I didn’t think a serious person like you could do that. Maybe because I had seen only your scary face so far.”
“What do you mean by scary face?”
“This! The face you are making now.”
“It’s not scary, it’s just my face. Am I scary?”
“I think you are too sometimes,” Kitayama remarked while walking down the stairs. Fujigaya hadn’t noticed him entering the Bubble.
“I’m glad you two are getting along now.”
“We are not getting along!” Fujigaya shrieked. Yokoo pouted and twitched his head to one side.
“By the way Kitayama, how about trying the roller skates? We need people for our act,” Yokoo suggested.
“Mh... why not? It sounds fun.” Kitayama moved in front of Fujigaya and stood there waiting.
“What?”
“I need the skates.”
“Go and get another pair, the pink ones are mine.”
“Tsk, you’re so stingy.”
“Aren’t you just been lazy? Come on, go get them, they are in the back,” Yokoo urged him.
Kitayama walked deliberately slowly and lazily, twitching his lips in disapproval. Yokoo and Fujigaya exchanged an amused smile behind his back then waited in silence till he came back, rolling unsteadily on the skates.
“I used to have some of these when I was a kid. How do you turn them on though?”
Fujigaya demonstrated and Kitayama switched the skates on. Immediately the skates wheels started to move, sending an unprepared Kitayama to the ground, on his butt . Yokoo and Fujigaya bursted out laughing while Kitayama grunted and massaged his back trying to get up.
“It’s not funny.”
“You have to apply pressure on the inside of your boots to keep the wheels from rolling. Here, at the back, use your heels. Press those muscles in your calves,” Fujigaya explained and finally Kitayama managed to stand without rolling away.
They spent the rest of the afternoon teaching Kitayama and laughing when he was too bold and tried difficult things even if he hadn’t still managed the basics yet. He looked eager to learn and his body was essentially well trained, so he managed to get the grip of it quite soon.
Nikaido and Senga entered the Bubble, showing curiosity and asked to try the skates too. Senga had a good coordination and managed to move skillfully in the electric blue skates he had chosen to wea. Nikaido had the audacity of a daredevil despite the fact he looked scared to put on his green skates at first.
Yokoo whispered to Fujigaya that those three would learn how to skate better than them in no time, but Fujigaya just laughed at this statement, and whispered back a “they wish” smiling at Yokoo with a new feeling of camaraderie.
The next day, everyone was excited about the roller skates. Tsukada tried to roller skate too before deciding it wasn’t for him. Hashimoto wanted to include the roller skates in a clown act but Takizawa replied telling him that no, he couldn’t use those expensive roller skates just to fall on his butt and make people laugh. He certainly didn’t need them to result funny.
Five people practiced in the Bubble the next day as well. Fujigaya and Yokoo were still dispensing advices to Kitayama, Senga and Nikaido, but they had improved visibly since the previous day and looked like they were having fun.
Fujigaya and Yokoo decided to start with the basics stunts as the three of them were beginning to feel impatient.
As they prepared a ramp, Fujigaya noticed Tamamori and Miyata at the side of the ring. Tamamori was pushing Miyata, exhorting him to interrupt the preparations and to speak.
“Ahem,” Miyata cleared his throat loudly, “I was wondering if me and Tamamori could join you.”
“Good! We really needed a helping hand with these ramps,” Kitayama said, waving his arm to call them in the ring.
“Eh no! Actually... Miyata!” Tamamori’s cheek flushed red and he pushed Miyata in front of him, asking him to talk on his behalf.
“We meant to say we want to join you in the roller skating act.”
“You?!”
Everyone was surprised by the declaration. Fujigaya noticed that Tamamori was red to the tip of his ears.
“What’s wrong with that? They can try if they want.”
Everyone turned to look at Fujigaya. Apparently he was missing the point.
“We want to try. We’ll do our best. Right, Tama?” Miyata smiled at Tamamori that was clenched to his arm. He nodded determined.
“Can we?”
Kitayama moved forward and checked their faces, as if he wanted to make sure it wasn’t a joke.
“It’s okay for Miyata. But Tamamori, are you sure? You are telling us that you finally decided to be the active part of an act?”
Tamamori nodded.
“I want to be part of an act. I want to show what I can do.”
Later Fujigaya asked Senga for an explanation about what happened with Tamamori, and why they were all surprised about him wanting to be part of the act. He said that they tried uncountable times to convince Tamamori to have his own act or at least be part of an act and not only as a target or an assistant and he had always refused. They didn’t know why, maybe he wasn’t ambitious, maybe he didn’t like to test his limits, maybe he was just lazy. Senga said they were happy that thanks to Fujigaya that boy came out of his shell. Fujigaya smiled puzzled. He said that he didn’t do anything and it was just Tamamori’s decision. And now it was his turn to prove that he was able to meet the expectations.
--
They spent another day on the unnamed planet and when they were ready to depart for Xylos they still didn’t have a skating act ready, but they definitely had people who wanted to improve and it made it feel possible to have a skating performance ready soon.
Tamamori was helpless at the beginning. His long limbs tangled on themselves like he didn’t have any control on them. Fujigaya lost his patience with him several times, but he couldn’t tell him to leave. Not when everyone thought that he was the one that gave Tamamori the courage of showing what he could do. And also because Kitayama would kill him if he did. Kitayama had told him that from now on, they should all work together for this act. There were seven roller skates pairs and now they belonged to seven people. Fujigaya and Yokoo didn’t look convinced at first, but then Fujigaya looked at Tamamori’s face as he smiled at his sparkling new yellow skates even if he barely knew how to use them. He decided to work with these people, like Kitayama said, and do his best to keep them together. He watched Tamamori getting onto his feet again, pulled up by Miyata standing in his purple roller skates.
“I don’t need you help,” Tamamori said before faltering. Miyata grabbed his arm just in time so that he didn’t end up on the ground again.
“Come here. I’ll hold your hand.”
Reluctantly Tamamori let Miyata’s hand wrap his own hand, and followed his steps around the ring. Miyata had a serene smile on his face and little by little, Tamamori’s confidence built up as he spun round and round, faster and faster.
Fujigaya wondered why Tamamori trusted Miyata so much even if Miyata himself was still uncertain on roller skates. Maybe that trust was also the reason why Tamamori let Miyata throw knives at him, and he never budged, never batted an eyelid. He saw Miyata improve too when Tamamori put his trust in his hands, as if this was a motivation to do even better.
Fujigaya was lost in his thoughts and didn’t notice Kitayama by his side.
“Hey, me and Miyata yesterday thought it was a good idea to get a sample of those leaves to examine, so here they are.”
Fujigaya took the small jar that Kitayama was holding in front of his face.
“Thanks.”
“Technically they should be just leaves. But better to have someone check them on Xylos. They might have something to do with your amnesia.”
“They are just leaves.”
Fujigaya thought that Kitayama might be actually right, but he didn’t want to give him credit for that. After all, what was this nervous feelings every time he looked at those leaves? And why he didn’t remember anything else about the moments he lost his memories apart for those leaves?
“We’ll be ready to go in half hour,” Shori, the co-pilot arrived and announced with a smile, just when they were all leaving the Bubble. “Even if we are big enough for a smooth departure, I still suggest everyone to go to the seating hall and belt yourself up. After all, it’s not like we are leaving from a skyport. It might be a bit bumpy.”
“I’m sure Marius will drive us away from this place without problems,” Kitayama said, patting the young boy’s shoulder. “And I feel safe only in my bed, so that’s where I’ll be.”
--
Chapter 6
The stars were shining far in the distance. The silence wrapped everything as it usually did in space. Fujigaya was sitting alone in the observation deck. They have been traveling for three days. The Bubble had been sealed and it couldn’t be used since there was no air inside.
The routine to which Fujigaya was already getting accustomed to, had been broken and he found himself with nothing to do but stare at the stars.
Everywhere on the spaceship looked bleak. The people just hung around with nothing in particular to do. Sometimes he saw Tsukada and Senga working out, but there was nothing much to do apart from that. Without the Bubble, the spaceship wasn’t as big as it looked before.
But it was big enough not to meet people if someone found the right spot. The observation deck was the right place at the moment, even safer that his room, in which Kawai often barged in uninvited to ask to play the same card game for the nth time. Maybe, Fujigaya thought, he should have let him win sometimes, at least the stupid competition would stop.
Sometimes on the deck there was Totsuka, engaged in scribbling something on a notebook or daydreaming while looking at the stars. Sometimes Hashimoto trailed behind him and interrupted him in his peaceful activity with questions about the stars and planets, or to tell him the names of constellations he was looking at. Totsuka never sent him away, but gently corrected him on the names of the constellations and planets.
“No Hasshi, there is no such thing as the T-rex constellation.”
“But I can totally see it!”
Kitayama had spent three days locked in his room and he was coming out of it only when it was meal time. Fujigaya suspected that he spent the time in space in hibernation so that he could work at full power when on land.
Nikaido and Senga appeared to spend the time jumping each other and pulling pranks and they didn’t stop even after Goseki scared them for the rest of their lives when they tried to pull a prank on him.
Takizawa was holed up in his private room too, but he often came out for a chat with the others and to raise the generally bored mood of the spaceship.
Marius and the co-pilots didn’t have much to do once the autopilot was set either, but they didn’t move far from the control room and that was their playground.
He hadn’t seen Yokoo around too. He thought that when he wasn’t in his room resting, he spent most of the time with his beasts, trying to calm them down because they got quite upset after spending a long time in their cages.
Fujigaya sighed and wondered why he found himself thinking about those people and worrying about them. He stood up from the bench he was sitting on and decided to go back to his room. Passing in front of the control room, he decided to say hi to Marius and went in, just to find Yokoo there. He was telling the three of them to rest a bit, and eat more vegetables, and just walk out of that room once in a while. How could they spend all their the time in that room just playing video games and eating junk food?
Fujigaya announced he was there with an irritating giggle and told Yokoo to calm down and leave the kids be.
“Yokoo-mama likes to take care of us, Fujigaya-san,” Marius intervened before Yokoo could shot a beam from his eyes and kill Fujigaya.
“I see. Yokoo-mama have you got a minute? I’d like to discuss something with you.”
Fujigaya ruffled Marius hair and then walked out of the room, followed by Yokoo.
“Is it about the act?” Yokoo asked as they walked along the corridor.
“Mh no, actually I was wondering why I hadn’t been introduced yet.”
“To whom?”
“To your beasts.”
Yokoo stopped with a bewildered expression on his face.
“Are you sure you want to see them? You look scared as hell every time one of them is out for training.”
“I think it’s time to get used to the fact that in a circus there are scary animals. Not that I want to touch the lizard thingy.”
“It’s not a thingy, it’s a skandish dragon. Her name is Brall.”
Fujigaya asked himself if he was doing the right thing, but then concluded that, yes, even bonding with Yokoo was something necessary to his survival in the circus. Luckily after their first clash they had managed to get on pretty well. Fujigaya still thought Yokoo was scary sometimes, but he knew he wasn’t harmful and he meant good whenever he had something to complain about. After all, it was true that Nikaido was careless and annoying, or that Kitayama had that selfish way of doing things sometimes. And Fujigaya secretly thought Yokoo was right in confronting them most of the times, especially since he wasn’t able do it himself. After all he was only a newcomer, even though he was teaching them all how to skate, he definitely didn’t want to abuse his power.
“Brall,” Fujigaya repeated the name in front of the cage of the skandish dragon, looking into the blue, glimmering spheres of its eyes, and gulping.
“This is Thush, and he’s a striped toriagon from the planet Ysh89.”
Fujigaya walked among the cages looking at the animals and mildly registering the informations that Yokoo was providing him.
“Did you buy them?”
“Actually, I found them and caught them. Or better, they were quite happy to follow me. Some of them were injured and I took care of them. Like the daliesh.”
The daliesh were the ones that looked something between horses and deer, Fujigaya remembered them. The new species that had been born in space were a lot, but they somehow could relate with their Earth relatives. A fuzzy reminiscence of a book with a picture of a daliesh filled his mind. Then he remembered fire, and himself putting the skates on.
“I think I remember something...”
“Really?!”
“It’s just all confused. I remember this book with a daliesh image in it and someone throwing it in a fire. I remember roller skates. I can’t recall anything else.”
Yokoo sighed and and slipped a bunch of hay in between the bars of the cage to feed the daliesh.
“It would be great if you could remember. At least you could go home.”
“Are you telling me that you don’t want me here?”
“Don’t be silly. I never said that.”
Despite Yokoo’s words, Fujigaya maintained an outraged look while picking up a bunch of hay to feed the other daliesh.
“Fine. I know you don’t like me.”
“How could you say that?”
Fujigaya didn’t answer. He was wondering why he was behaving that way. Didn’t he decide this would be bonding time with Yokoo? And yet he managed to mess up everything. Yokoo stared at him in silence then moved on to feed the other animals.
--
Later, Fujigaya was sitting in the canteen with Tamamori, eating pouches of pudding and listening to the other’s rant about Miyata.
“And now he’s again in Kitayama’s room wasting his time watching stupid animation. I can’t believe it! Especially since he’s so annoying with me all the time...”
“Tama, Tama, stop. Hang on a minute. Why am I listen to this? Weren’t we talking about roller skates?”
“Yes, but then you asked me about who styled my hair and...”
“And we ended up talking about Miyata?”
“Did you lose your memories again?”
“It’s that suddenly it looks like I’m your love advisor. And I don’t even understand how did we get there, I didn’t ask you about Miyata. What kind of relationship do you two have? I mean, you always manage to bring up the subject of Miyata even if...”
“We don’t have a relationship!”
Tamamori pouted and left the room leaving his half eaten pudding pouch on the table. Fujigaya sighed thinking about what was wrong with him. People were actually trying to bond with him and he was still keeping the distances, thinking only about roller skates, and his memory and whatever else.
“Don’t be mad at yourself. It’s difficult to share with the others when you have nothing to share.”
Kitayama was now sitting in front of him, eating the pudding that Tamamori had left.
“Just so you know, I have a lot to share, okay?”
“See? This is what’s wrong with you. You send people away with your behaviour. Your tongue is poisonous and you sting like a bee.”
“I don’t want to be lectured by you. You are always doing things half-heartedly with your lazy attitude. And you always think about yourself first. And you’re a showoff.” Fujigaya attacked, even if deep inside he knew that what he was saying wasn’t exactly true. He just wanted something to use against him, because the way Kitayama always treated him like a newbie annoyed him to no end.
“I’m a showoff?! How about you then? Always trying to demonstrate you can do better than us even if you just arrived. And wanting to be part of an act too. Takizawa-san had no choice but to accept because he wanted your stupid skates and because he pitied you. You were a stowaway!”
“Look who’s poisonous now,” Fujigaya said with scorn. Kitayama reached to grab his shirt above the table and they both stared intensely at each other.
“It’s enough, you two,” Yokoo said entering the room and going to place his hands between them. They both backed off and Kitayama looked away. Yokoo stared at Fujigaya until he was forced to look away.
“Okay, I’m sorry. Maybe I’m a bit too upset by the whole situation.”
“Fujigaya, we are past the phase in which you are all confused and upset,” Yokoo explained. “You’re just being whimsical now. Whatever you might think of us, we are not your enemies. We don’t want you out of here. You are part of the circus now, right Kitayama?”
Kitayama sighed and emitted an annoyed “right” as an answer.
Fujigaya knew he was in the wrong. He knew these people were actually accepting him, and he was the one not accepting them after they had been so kind and understanding.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s got with me.”
“Maybe,” Yokoo suggested, “it’s just your personality?”
“But I treated Tama as I didn’t care about his problems with Miyata.”
“Well, go and say sorry.”
“Hey, what problems with Miyata? They never have problems,” Kitayama asked.
“And they don’t have a relationship, or so said Tama,” Fujigaya said.
“That’s what he says to everyone and it means they actually have one,” Kitayama smiled.
Later he told Fujigaya the story of Miyata and Tamamori, and how they joined the circus. Fujigaya had to admit that even if he didn’t show it much, he had been eager to know from where the mutual trust of those two came from.
--