The White Knight
"You know, Hanako-chan, not long ago, I was spending some time in a psychiatric hospital like this. You can guess why. People tend to notice when you suddenly aren't yourself any more. You're not the only one, Hanako-chan. There's more of us.
We all were in the Dark Kingdom, we all remember the same things, word for word, fight for fight."
"Can you prove it?"
***
Companion piece to "Market day" - don't worry if you haven't read it, the situation should be self-explanatory. You don't have to know PGSM, but it helps. :)
I have other plans for Hannah, but they're going to take a while. In the meantime, here's a little backstory.
Rating: Teens and up
Warnings: mental health issues, sexual topics, family breakup, teen age, PGSM
The White Knight
Johanna wouldn't have gone to the cafeteria, but there was only so much boredom you could endure in the hospital ward before caving in to everything that sounded even remotely interesting. So she had let her room mate push her to get some serious flirting done in the hospital's main attraction - an ugly room with even uglier tables that looked naked despite their plastic flower center pieces. The place was busy with equally bored patients and awkward visitors, and the cake tasted like nothing.
Johanna regretted that she had spent what little allowance she had on cake. How was it even possible to screw up a simple apple pie? Or had the meds messed up her sense of taste? It was possible. Everything in the hospital tasted lame.
And of course she wasn't interested in what had brought her room mate here, which was checking out the boys.
Her room mate was swooning over "that cutie over there", and Johanna glanced dutifully over to the guy who had started playing the battered old piano that stood in a corner.
Her eyes opened wide.
Hair so blond it had to be bleached.
Slim back bent over the keys, hands moving like they had a mind of their own.
He looked so familiar. Too familiar.
Johanna blushed, much to her embarassment.
"Holy shit, isn't he hot?" squealed her room mate. "Johanna, look at you, even you think he's hot!"
Was it only Johanna's imagination, or had the piano player's back straightened for a moment when he had heard her name?
Stupid Johanna, how crazy do you have to be to believe that everything happens because of you? That's why your head doesn't work right. Are you really so egoistic that you think that the whole world revolves around you...?
The tune of the piano changed. Johanna recognized the melody instantly, and got goosebumps. She knew that piece, she knew those hands that played it, she knew that way that player moved his whole body to the music. And she knew that this. Was. Not. Possible.
She shot up so abruptly that her chair almost fell over.
She ignored the questions of her room mate about what was wrong with her. Probably everything, if you heard Dark Kingdom music in real life.
She had to make certain.
She went over and stood next to the piano so the player would notice her. He gave her an eerie absent minded smile. Blue eyes, not grey ones. His face was unknown to her. But that smile... not so much.
She returned the smile because she didn't want to be rude.
"What's that you're playing?" she asked him. She had no idea where she got the courage to talk to a stranger. But his smile was nice, and her fears were pushing her.
"That's Chopin, my favourite composer," the piano player answered in Japanese.
Johanna stared at him.
"You can still understand Japanese, can't you?" asked the piano guy.
Johanna nodded.
"Hai," she breathed.
The piano guy stopped playing, turned to her and gave her a bright smile.
"Hello, Hannah. Nice to meet you," he said, still in Japanese. "Took a while to find you."
Johanna didn't know what to say. No one called her Hannah. No one spoke Japanese to her. No one was looking for her.
"You know who I am?" asked the piano guy with an encouraging smile.
"You're Zoisite," said Johanna astonished. Speaking Japanese felt so weird with this mouth.
"Yes, I am. I also go by the name of Heikko. Listen Hanako-chan, Marina got your email. She's very worried about you. She sent me here to help you. So, what can I do for you?"
That was... unthinkable. That stupid mail, sent by a stupid girl.
"Hannah?" asked Heikko. "Did you understand what I just told you?"
Johanna shook her head.
"Why would anyone care?"
"Marina cares a lot for you."
Johanna was embarassed to feel her face become all hot. Just what she needed, looking flustered when talking to a boy. In front of the whole room.
"But why? I only met her once. She was very nice, but she doesn't know me at all."
Now Heikko's smile vanished.
"Hannah, Marina is Beryl."
That made Johanna forget everything else for a moment.
"Marina... is Beryl-sama? No! That's impossible! She's not a like her at all."
Heikko shrugged.
"Well not that bad, no. But she's the Queen of Darkness no less. Didn't you read her blog before you mailed her? She's telling the whole world about Queen Beryl because she was hoping to find you this way."
"I'm not online much. I just... like her books."
Johanna didn't like the amused grin that admitting to like Marina's books got her from this guy, but she would ignore that. Yes, she loved Marina's books, and she was not going to apologize for that, no matter how embarassed she felt to say it.
"She gave me her card when I asked her to sign a book. She was signing books in a bookstore. She said I could call her if I wanted to talk."
"It's good you made contact. Marina feels terrible for you being trapped with her in the Dark Kingdom. We don't know why you've been drawn in. You're not typical. Listen, out there, there's a whole bunch of guys like me and you who remember every second they spend in the Dark Kingdom when Beryl summons them. And she can summon us whenever she wants.
We're the Shitennou. We've been in the Dark Kingdom together, Hannah."
"But... it's all in my head!" protested Johanna. "That's why I'm here!"
"And where has it been before it got into your head?" asked Heikko. "Look, I don't understand it either. But I'll try to explain it as good as I can. How about we go outside and take a walk in the garden?"
Johanna nodded quickly. She wasn't keen at all to have the whole cafeteria watching her, the plain looking little girl in unmodern clothes, chatting up guys she'd never see before. Not that it was likely anyone understood Japanese, but Johanna felt so horribly exposed speaking it that she wouldn't have been surprised if the whole cafeteria was already inside her skull.
Stupid Johanna, stop it. Stop it. That's crazy talk.
So she went outside with the piano guy, and they slowly walked between the flower beds, which were empty at this time of the year. Johanna wrapped her unflattering, but warm and cozy cardigan tighter around herself. Away from the piano, the piano guy looked more ordinary. Well. If you considered a fashionably dressed, undeniably cute boy talking to so-not-the-boy-magnet-thank-God Johanna to be ordinary.
Being seen with him was awkward, but it was nice walking with him. She liked the sound of their steps together on the gravel path. Sitting down with him on a bench at the far end of the garden was somehow okay, too. The garden was safe, she'd still be in plain view where no one could attack her unseen, but there wouldn't be listeners. Still, she had to be careful. If he somehow came from the Dark Kingdom, and not from Marina, he would try to lure her back.
"You know, Hanako-chan, not long ago, I was spending some time in a psychiatric hospital like this. You can guess why. People tend to notice when you suddenly aren't yourself any more. You're not the only one, Hanako-chan. There's more of us.
We all were in the Dark Kingdom, we all remember the same things, word for word, fight for fight."
Johanna took a deep breath. It sounded so good. After all, there was something oddly real about the Dark Kingdom that even her doctors couldn't explain. Knowing a foreign language, all of sudden, for example.
She was speaking Japanese, right now. Or was it a trick?
"Can you prove it?" she asked.
"I can try," said Heikko. "One of the last things I remember of you is how you came to my room. Do you remember the ceiling in my room?"
Johanna wasn't convinced. Actually, she was offended that he thought she would believe that.
"I told my therapist about that ceiling. It's somewhere in my files. You could have read it."
"Okay then," said Heikko. "Ask me something that you told no one. Something that only the two of us would know. You didn't tell anyone about our little deal, did you?"
Johanna froze in shock. For a second, she seriously wanted to die. "Of course not! Are you crazy?"
Heikko chuckled. "Yes, I am. But I don't know if that counts for much if I will ever have to explain that I thought you were older, and a boy. How old are you, Hanako-chan?"
"Fourteen."
"Fourteen, oh fuck! Hope I haven't spoiled the game for you now."
"Don't worry," said Johanna as cool as she could, although her heart was beating so loud that it probably drowned the words. But there was no way she would let him patronize her like this. "You weren't that bad."
Heikko laughed out loud, not one bit as hurt as Johannah had feared.
"Tell you what, Hanako-chan, I do hope you remember the same deal as I do, or I'll be really screwed here."
He slapped his forehead.
"Okay, baaad choice of words... gotta keep myself together... okay, secret time, Hanako-chan. Jadeite came to my room because he wanted a favour. Your turn: What was the favour Jadeite wanted?"
"A soul-flight."
"Right. And Zoisite asked for..."
He leaned towards the girl and murmured something in a very low voice.
Johanna nodded, embarassed, but determined not to do anything uncool. She did remember it, after all. Very well, actually. And she had come to terms with it insofar as her head stopped spinning when she thought of it.
Heikko grinned.
"And this is how it went," he added, and again murmured so low that she had to listen very carefully.
That was one way of putting it of course... Johanna snickered nervously.
Is he reading my mind? What would be worse, if he's from the Dark Kingdom, or if he's reading my mind? Is he even real? How can he possibly be real and know about things I told no one?
"Okay, Hanako-chan, I can see we remember the same deal. That's because we were both there. I can't explain it, I can't even understand it, I really wish I could, but I can't."
"It shouldn't work this way. These can only make sense for crazy people."
"Yes."
"Then it can't be real. Jadeite is a boy," said Johanna. "He's real in Tokyo. I'm not him. It can't be real."
Or maybe you can't be real. You look way cooler than a real person anyway. A real person that would talk to me. Oh please, dear God, don't let me imagine a guy like him, talking to me like that. Please, I'd rather be back in the Dark Kingdom being harassed by him there than talk to imaginary pretty boys in this world. He has to be real! He has to!
"Does it feel real?" asked Heikko.
Johanna looked away.
"M-hm."
And stop reading my mind, asshole.
Heikko sighed deeply.
"Hanako-chan... it's complicated. Yes, it's probably all real, but yes, you have to be pretty, hm, complicated yourself to get it. I mean... there's us here, and there's what we did in subspace, and there's what we are in Tokyo. Who can tell which of it is fake or real?"
"This here. This is real."
"What if it's not?"
"If Metallia-sama is real, we're in big trouble. The whole world."
"I'd worry more about the princess."
I bet you do, thought Johanna.
"Yes, but..." She searched for memories, words, thoughts to describe how a sane person would see it. "This world is... bigger. Not so cold and doomed. There are thousands of ways it could go. That means it's more real."
"Yes, I guess it must be. The subspace dimension makes a lot of sense. That's never a good sign. Reality is weirder than that."
"No, reality is the part where things make sense. I mean here, we have a sense of good and evil, right and wrong, right?"
"I don't know about that, Hanako-chan. You're asking the wrong guy. But I'd never trust the world to fit into some neat pattern. That's not healthy."
Johanna didn't like that at all. She thought of herself as someone who was more open minded than anyone she knew, but she still was a moral being. And she had a feeling that this guy was missing the point somehow. And she had seen the fear in his eyes for a moment. A fear she knew. The fear of being lost.
Real. He's real. He's not as cool as he wants me to believe. He's human.
"But music comes in neat patterns," she said stubbornly. "And the music is real in both worlds."
Heikko laughed again.
"And the guy who plays it is crazy in any case. But I like the way you're thinking, Hanako-chan. Think for yourself. We need that."
Johanna was embarassed.
Compliments, uh.
She was also relieved he wasn't mad at her for challenging him.
"Hanako-chan, what is it you need help for?"
"I don't want to go back home," said Johanna quickly, before she could lose her newfound courage again. "I mean, I love my parents, and they mean well, but... they can't deal with this... you said Beryl-sama can summon us again? This will go on for longer?"
"I think so. I'm afraid she's already too strong for the Sailor Senshi to stop her."
"Then I can't go home again. They said... they're very devoted to their faith, to following the will of God... they said they'd rather see me dead than watch me serving a demon. I don't know what they'll do. I don't know what I'll do. Last time, I picked up a knife, and I was this close to hurting... someone. I love God, too. I don't like demons. I don't want to be evil. But what if I can't stop these things from happening?"
She turned her head away.
"No, don't listen to me. I'm stupid. Only silly girls want to run away from home. I'm just being emo, right?"
"Hanako-chan, you don't have to give me reasons or apologize for what you're feeling. If you say you don't want to go back there, it's good enough for me. Do you understand that?"
Johanna didn't dare to answer. It couldn't be right.
Heikko didn't get mad, but he didn't let her get away either.
"Hannah, look at me. Look right at me. Did you understand that I am here to help you with whatever it is you need?"
Johanna looked at him out of the corner of her eyes and nodded.
She couldn't really believe it, but she couldn't afford not to believe it either.
"You want a new home?"
She nodded again.
"OK, we can arrange that. First of all, who is your lawyer?"
Now that sounded a lot more realistic than everything she would have expected.
"My lawyer? I'm not old enough to have a lawyer yet."
"Oh, you'd be surprised what you can have when Marina has any say in it. You definitely need a lawyer, because there's legal stuff coming up with this and you need someone to sort it out. Someone who understands about your situation. I'll give you the phone number of Mrs Messerschmidt, Marina's lawyer."
He took his wallet and a ball pen out of the pocket of his jacket and took out a crumpled bill where he scribbled a telephone number in Berlin on. On money! Okay, to Johanna, the new Euro bills didn't look like real money. But still!
And now he expected her to take it?
"You can't give me money..." she breathed.
Heikko didn't pay any attention to that, just held the bill towards her, and Johanna had no other choice than to take it before anyone saw them.
"I'll give that back to you when I don't need it any more," she murmured.
"Don't bother, you need it, I provide it, that's the deal, remember? It's Mrs Messerschmidt's private cell phone number. She's a friend of Marina. She'll take your matters very serious, I promise you that. Call her as soon as possible. Tell her who you are and what you want, and she'll take care of it.
Second, you need a place where you can stay. Berlin would be ideal, because we could look after each other and all be in the same hospital when we're summoned. That lawyer will give you a safe address, or I can take you to me or Marina. Personally, I think you'd be better off with Kunz though."
"Kunzite?"
Heikko grinned. "No, the human. Less annoying, but only slightly. Unfortunately, he's currently not avaiable. Tried to break out of Beryl's grip again, that bull-headed old idiot. Broke about every bone in his body, and still got himself summoned. Promise me you won't try that, Hanako-chan. Believe me, it's way too dangerous."
Johanna nodded. That unknown stubborn man touched her heart, and he sounded very familiar.
"But most of all, you need money," Heikko continued. "Yes, you do. Legal money, and lots of it. I don't t get you out of here so you can be a homeless kid begging for food money in the streets. Here, take a good look at my wallet."
Johanna did so reluctantly, the eye-watering colors and the slightly obscene kanji were quite forbidding.
Heikko took the ball pen again and wrote her name on the seam of the wallet.
Hannah Koslowski. Hannah again, he really seemed to be fond of that. Johanna liked it when he said it, but it looked weird when written out. And he had misspelled it. And it had no business on his wallet.
Heikko smiled at her.
"See, now it's officially yours. There's a card in it that gets you access to Marina's bank account. The PIN number is two-eight... oh shit, I always forget it. I wrote it down in hiragana somwhere in the wallet, you can look it up. You can read hiragana? Thought so.
Use it to get any money you'll need for food, clothes, a ticket, a taxi, a place to stay, whatever you need. And I mean it, Hannah. A helicopter in Hawaii, a palace on the moon, a crowd of bodyguards who also paint your toenails. Whatever you need. Marina has a lot of money, and your safety is worth a lot to her. Do you understand that?"
"You can't give me your wallet," said Johanna.
Heikko put an arm around her.
"Yes, I can," he whispered into her ear.
That brought him close enough to her to slip his wallet into the pocket of her cardigan.
Johanna was unable to move. A guy she'd never seen before had just hugged her. No one hugged her. What would he do next?
But he just let go of her and gave her a sweet smile.
"And it's not my wallet anymore. If I am the one who gets you to a safe place, fine, we can use it together. But if I get summoned before I can see you again, that wallet is your life insurance, okay? It contains everything that you'll need to go wherever you want. It took a lot longer to find you than I thought, and I don't know how much time I have left, so this is the best I can do for you right now, and it won' t hurt me, don't you worry."
"But... everyone will think I've stolen your wallet. And... I can't take money from strangers..."
"I wrote your name in there, I told you, it's yours now. I'll deny that I've ever seen it. Hannah, you asked Marina for help, and here it is, in your pocket. She said I am to do everything it takes to make sure you're okay. And I will. My wallet? Doesn't even begin to cover 'everything'. I'll do a lot more for you, Hanako-chan. It's tough enough that the Shitennou are trapped. But we human Shitennou in this world, we need to keep it together as good as we can."
Johanna didn't object. That was a part she understood. But it was too good to be true. It was too much like the stories that the other girls dreamed up, about the distant relative - or worse, the celebrity - who would so totally come to their rescue.
Heikko let his gaze wander over the garden, his eyes clouded over in a way that Johanna was uncomfortably familiar with and she saw his fingers play silent notes on his legs.
"I'll be here every day," he said. "We can do some plotting. We can pretend to be romantic."
Okay. Too good to be true stopped right here.
"I'm not straight," said Johanna coldly.
"Who cares? I said pretend, okay? Nobody takes a girl in love serious, it's the greatest disguise ever. Have my wallet, travel to look for me? That's considered normal at your age."
"It's not."
He just smirked.
"You'd be surprised with what you get away with when you're just a hormonal teenager."
Johanna blushed, but she held her head up high.
"I don't want to be hormonal with you. I went through all this because I pretended to be something that I'm not. I'm not a girl who gets hormonal with boys. And I don't want to be."
Heikko snickered, and it was the cold snicker of Zoisite. "No complaints from me if I don't have to pose as a pedophile creep to cover your ass, believe me. And that's a cute coming out line if I've ever heard one. Marina will be so proud. But let's not be sidetracked here. This is all about keeping you out of trouble. This is all about you needing my help here. Anything else you need? While you're in here? Or right now?"
Johanna shook her head.
"You sure you don't want to leave this place with me right now? We could walk out of the door and no one would stop us. We can be in Berlin tonight."
Johanna stared at him in panic.
"No! No, I can't do that... I really... really appreciate it all, but... I can't take your wallet. Really, you don't know the trouble I'll be in if we're found out... and it's just not right... I'll put it down right here and leave, okay?"
Heikko raised an eyebrow. "If you do that, then I'll take it to the reception and tell them I saw you losing it. It'll be back on your nightstand before dinner. But I'm one hundred percent certain someone will be rifling through it before handing it over to you and wonder what an innocent little lesbian girl like you needs all those condoms in her wallet for."
"Nani?" Johanna was so outraged she couldn't even be embarassed. Automatically, she pressed her arm against the wallet in her pocket.
"So you're keeping it then?" grinned Heikko. "Very good. And the correct answer, by the way, is: 'Because the sex toys you can find here in this place are so unsanitary.' Believe me, I've been to enough places where everyone's mental, including psychiatric hospitals, and it's always true."
Johanna let out a nervous laugh.
"Stop being so disgusting."
Heikko sighed. "Sorry. I keep forgetting you're so young now. Fourteen, shit. Of course little girls don't go anywhere with strangers. I forgot. Oh, man. I'm being all knight in shining armour here and all people see when they look at us is a pervert."
You give me money and condoms, what do you expect, thought Johanna. She smiled though.
"I see you in shining white armour," she said "Quite a lot."
It was the first time she made a joke about 'seeing things'.
Again, Heikko laughed, and it was the warm laugh he had had earlier, not the cold Dark Kingdom filled sneer.
"Yeah, why does this not lift my ego as much as it should?" he complained. "Okay, Hannah, tell you what, you go and make that phone call to your lawyer and your rescue will be arranged by a professional. If you want a more respectable escort than me, she can arrange that too. And if you need me before that, check if I'm here, or give me a call on my cell phone. Number is in my wallet, I can never remember it.
Marina is trying right now to buy us some time by keeping Beryl from summoning the two of us. But we don't have forever. Nephrite's in charge of operations at the Dark Kingdom now, and well, you can imagine how long it'll take Queen Beryl to be fed up with that."
That made Johanna grin for a moment.
"Okay, see you tomorrow. If I don't come here tomorrow, don't wait for me and get your ass out of here. Take good care of yourself, Hanako-chan, okay?"
"Okay."
***
Johanna was trying to sound convincing when she answered all the excited questions of her room mate. Yes, she had thought she knew him, but it had been a mistake. She didn't know him at all. It was just a coincidence that she understood his language. No, it wasn't Chinese, it was Japanese. No, she hadn't been to Japan. She had just watched a lot of anime.
No one would believe that. Not even the people who knew that Johanna's family didn't even have TV.
But after Johanna had assured her room mate like, the twentieth time, that she didn't have any interest in that guy at all, that she was just after the language practise, and that she would be just so happy if some other girl got happy with him, she finally got rid of her.
Johanna dashed back to the ward and looked onto the bathroom plans. No one had claimed the tub for now, so she wrote her name onto the bathing plan with shaking hands, told the nurse that her belly was aching again and she would like to take a hot bath. This allowed her to lock a door behind her for a while.
While the water filled the tub, she took the wallet out of her pocket to have a closer look at it. Was it really real? It was heavy in her hands and made her hands feel like something that didn't belong to her. Most probably real. Definitely ugly.
It smelled of a guy's cologne, and cigarette smoke. Ew. She would have to do something about the smell or no one would ever believe this was hers. The good part was that there was so much stuff in it that it hardly closed!
Yes, there were condoms. He hadn't been bluffing. They felt squishy in their packaging. Ew.
And there was the bank card.There were lots of other cards, many with 'Heiko Kretzschmer' on them, she would have to put those in an envelope and send them to him so they wouldn't be in her wallet. There were lots of colorful flyers for music clubs, some featuring DJ Heikko - ha! He really seemed to think that an additional consonant made all the difference - those would have to go, too. She got nervous when she didn't find the PIN number for the bank card, but there were just so many bits of paper in this wallet, that it took her a while to find the number. It said 'number for Marina's bank card' in hiragana even. Johanna couldn't believe anyone could be so careless. It wasn't really hard to look up some hiragana, anyone could decipher that. She would have to make a safer notice. Johanna tried to memorize the number, but she was too excited.
The longer she went through the wallet, the more excited she got.
The wallet was full of treasures.
There were a set of keys in the coin compartment! A modern safety key, and some older ones. Heikko's place? But why would he carry his house key in his wallet? A spare key for someone else's apartment? Perhaps there would be a hint in the wallet? Hadn't Heikko written down everything else? Perhaps she shouldn't get rid of a single thing. It could all be hints. She'd just have to pretend she was DJ Heikko's biggest fan. Oh no.
The best thing though in the wallet were the fotographs. Heikko with his family, judging from the resemblance. Heikko naked (tastefully, done by a professional fotographer obviously, and hot damn, he was pretty, for a boy, but still - eeek!). Heikko sitting together with Marina and another guy at a table, and they were laughing happily into the camera. That guy could be Kunzite or Nephrite! Had Heiko put it into the wallet for her to find? Anyway, a private picture of Marina! She looked so happy! And so beautiful!
Heikko had mentioned Marina an awful lot. Of course he had realized that she reacted to that. Heikko was a nice guy, but he was a big manipulator, too. Could she trust him?
Finally, Johanna put the wallet back into her cardigan's pocket. She undressed, avoiding to watch herself in the mirror. She didn't much like the timid girl that looked out of that mirror.
She soaked in the wonderful hot tub. That tub was a lot bigger than the one at home, and great to relax in. Plus, she didn't have to clean the bathroom here, ever, just not leave it filthy.
There was another problem. A huge problem. She hadn't told Heikko how little time she had. Today was Friday. On Monday, she was scheduled to leave the hospital. Her parents would pick her up, and expect her never to speak in tongues, bow to an invisible queen or threaten people for the sake of a demon again. If Heikko was right - and even if there was only a slight chance that he was - it could happen again, and then... She didn't want to be such a disappointment, becoming her parents worst nightmare once more. She didn't want to hurt anyone. And she couldn't go through any more of those 'cleansings' and 'purifications'.
Even if she wouldn't be summoned again... her parents had come to the conclusion that their mistake had been to spoil their daughter too much, that she needed a firmer hand, stricter guidance, not be allowed to stray from the right path again. They had told her about the new rules. And she, Johanna, who had always been a good and faithful daugher, and always tried her hardest, caught herself thinking that if this was what it took to keep sane, she'd rather sell her soul to Queen Metallia and call it a day.
And she still loved women. That was a big problem, too. She could have another breakdown if she couldn't suppress it. And she didn't want to. Not anymore. But her parents wouldn't understand that either.
'Look, Johanna, you shouldn't say you'll never touch a man. I know you don't want to tell us what happened, but if there was a man who has done something wrong to you, you can't blame all men for it. You need to trust the Lord that he had it all in his plan, that it will all turn out for the best. I pray for you that He will give you the strength to forgive whoever made you so bitter.'
That had made her so mad. Her parents thought she had been abused, and all they had to say to that was asking her to forgive? She hadn't been abused. And if she had, she wouldn't have forgiven it. Especially not now that she had spent some weeks here and heard from the other girls what it really meant, and what it did to them.
And her parents thought she'd listen to this version of 'Be a good girl, because bad things happen to bad girls' and nod gratefully?
Marina said it in her books. How sexualized violence was used to keep women down, how the threat of it was used to keep lesbian girls in check. It was all true. She hadn't believed it at first, but man had she learned first hand, and she saw more proof of it every day. Knowing that somewhere out there was even one single person who understood her and didn't want her to change who she was had made all the difference in the world. God loved you and would forgive you eventually, and that was all very well, but if there hadn't been Marina's kindness, she wouldn't have made it.
Heikko was right, she trusted Marina.
But could she trust Heikko? Apart from the picture in his wallet and the bank card with Marina's name on it, there was no proof that he was connected to Marina. There could be a thousand reasons why he was fluent in Japanese. He could take her who knows where. He could be dangerous. She hadn't asked him enough questions to make sure he was really Zoisite.
But he knew about the deal.
Johanna let herself sink into the tub so that her face was covered with water.
Then she suddenly laughed out loud, making bubbles stream past her face..
She was so happy that Jadeite wasn't really dead and she didn't have his imaginary blood on her hands. So it seemed he would soon need her again,
Jadeite, straight as a flagpole... she had a feeling she had a bad influence on him.
I owe you one, boy.
She got out of the tub, and dressed. The wallet was heavy in her pocket.
If the wallet was real, so was the guy it belonged to. But perhaps she had imagined the part about the deal, because she wanted to believe him so much.
She made a face to herself when she combed her hair in front of the mirror.
'It's all your story, Johanna, and it has to tell you something...'
Oh man, why did therapists never have anything useful to say about demons and magic and being born from stone in subspace?
So, the crazy, story-telling and probably-real-in-Tokyo part of her head came up with sexual ideas about Zoisite again? Heikko meant... boy-sex?
That could only mean one thing: To stay away from him, no matter how nice he seemed.
This guy, Zoisite or not, was dangerous.
She wouldn't let anyone take her anywhere. If she wanted to do this, she would have to do it on her own.
Berlin. She could go to Berlin and see Marina.
If Marina confirmed Heikko's story, she'd believe her. And if there was no such thing as the Dark Kingdom, Marina could probably tell her what to do about it. She said she would be there if Johanna wanted someone to talk to.
Yes, she wanted to talk to Marina.
She could try calling her. And that lawyer.
She knew that Heikko was right: She had to call that lawyer as soon as possible. But it was so scary. Calling her, asking her to hide her, to cut her off from her family.
But going home was scary, too.
Could she choose right now to trust Marina, and Heikko, and who knew who else, all of them people she didn't know and who would probably just tell her not to be so stupid when she turned up and asked them to protect her...
But there was the wallet. Heikko had given her everything he had, more or less.
And there was Marina. She had gotten her mail, and sent help! Or was it all just wishful thinking?
Now, story-wielding crazy brain, what do you have to say to that? What would Jadeite do?
For a moment, she had a vision of a crystal dagger, sharper than a razor. What a pretty shiny thing, and so useful.
Suddenly, Johanna had the greatest idea. The perfect solution to anything.
She didn't have to go home at all. On Sunday night, if she was still here, if that lawyer couldn't help her, or if she hadn't dared to call her or to leave, she could smash a window and cut her wrists on the broken glass. That wouldn't kill her (the other girls in here had explained her in detail about the different techniques), but they wouldn't send her home after that. They'd keep her at the psychiatric hospital for as long as she was behaving like this, and she'd do it again, and again, if she had to.
The only bad thing about it was that it meant that Heikko was right again. Teenage girls got away with a lot of shit.
No, that wouldn't do.
She smirked at herself in the mirror.
Johanna Koslowski would never leave this place. She was a good girl. She played by the rules.
And look where it got you, poor girl. Do you really want to stay in here forever?
But Hannah Koslowski, Hanako-chan for her friends, owner of a precious hideous wallet, was one of the Shitennou - not afraid to fight dirty, not afraid to be mentally instable, not afraid to fall in love.
She could go anywhere she wanted.
We all were in the Dark Kingdom, we all remember the same things, word for word, fight for fight."
"Can you prove it?"
***
Companion piece to "Market day" - don't worry if you haven't read it, the situation should be self-explanatory. You don't have to know PGSM, but it helps. :)
I have other plans for Hannah, but they're going to take a while. In the meantime, here's a little backstory.
Rating: Teens and up
Warnings: mental health issues, sexual topics, family breakup, teen age, PGSM
The White Knight
Johanna wouldn't have gone to the cafeteria, but there was only so much boredom you could endure in the hospital ward before caving in to everything that sounded even remotely interesting. So she had let her room mate push her to get some serious flirting done in the hospital's main attraction - an ugly room with even uglier tables that looked naked despite their plastic flower center pieces. The place was busy with equally bored patients and awkward visitors, and the cake tasted like nothing.
Johanna regretted that she had spent what little allowance she had on cake. How was it even possible to screw up a simple apple pie? Or had the meds messed up her sense of taste? It was possible. Everything in the hospital tasted lame.
And of course she wasn't interested in what had brought her room mate here, which was checking out the boys.
Her room mate was swooning over "that cutie over there", and Johanna glanced dutifully over to the guy who had started playing the battered old piano that stood in a corner.
Her eyes opened wide.
Hair so blond it had to be bleached.
Slim back bent over the keys, hands moving like they had a mind of their own.
He looked so familiar. Too familiar.
Johanna blushed, much to her embarassment.
"Holy shit, isn't he hot?" squealed her room mate. "Johanna, look at you, even you think he's hot!"
Was it only Johanna's imagination, or had the piano player's back straightened for a moment when he had heard her name?
Stupid Johanna, how crazy do you have to be to believe that everything happens because of you? That's why your head doesn't work right. Are you really so egoistic that you think that the whole world revolves around you...?
The tune of the piano changed. Johanna recognized the melody instantly, and got goosebumps. She knew that piece, she knew those hands that played it, she knew that way that player moved his whole body to the music. And she knew that this. Was. Not. Possible.
She shot up so abruptly that her chair almost fell over.
She ignored the questions of her room mate about what was wrong with her. Probably everything, if you heard Dark Kingdom music in real life.
She had to make certain.
She went over and stood next to the piano so the player would notice her. He gave her an eerie absent minded smile. Blue eyes, not grey ones. His face was unknown to her. But that smile... not so much.
She returned the smile because she didn't want to be rude.
"What's that you're playing?" she asked him. She had no idea where she got the courage to talk to a stranger. But his smile was nice, and her fears were pushing her.
"That's Chopin, my favourite composer," the piano player answered in Japanese.
Johanna stared at him.
"You can still understand Japanese, can't you?" asked the piano guy.
Johanna nodded.
"Hai," she breathed.
The piano guy stopped playing, turned to her and gave her a bright smile.
"Hello, Hannah. Nice to meet you," he said, still in Japanese. "Took a while to find you."
Johanna didn't know what to say. No one called her Hannah. No one spoke Japanese to her. No one was looking for her.
"You know who I am?" asked the piano guy with an encouraging smile.
"You're Zoisite," said Johanna astonished. Speaking Japanese felt so weird with this mouth.
"Yes, I am. I also go by the name of Heikko. Listen Hanako-chan, Marina got your email. She's very worried about you. She sent me here to help you. So, what can I do for you?"
That was... unthinkable. That stupid mail, sent by a stupid girl.
"Hannah?" asked Heikko. "Did you understand what I just told you?"
Johanna shook her head.
"Why would anyone care?"
"Marina cares a lot for you."
Johanna was embarassed to feel her face become all hot. Just what she needed, looking flustered when talking to a boy. In front of the whole room.
"But why? I only met her once. She was very nice, but she doesn't know me at all."
Now Heikko's smile vanished.
"Hannah, Marina is Beryl."
That made Johanna forget everything else for a moment.
"Marina... is Beryl-sama? No! That's impossible! She's not a like her at all."
Heikko shrugged.
"Well not that bad, no. But she's the Queen of Darkness no less. Didn't you read her blog before you mailed her? She's telling the whole world about Queen Beryl because she was hoping to find you this way."
"I'm not online much. I just... like her books."
Johanna didn't like the amused grin that admitting to like Marina's books got her from this guy, but she would ignore that. Yes, she loved Marina's books, and she was not going to apologize for that, no matter how embarassed she felt to say it.
"She gave me her card when I asked her to sign a book. She was signing books in a bookstore. She said I could call her if I wanted to talk."
"It's good you made contact. Marina feels terrible for you being trapped with her in the Dark Kingdom. We don't know why you've been drawn in. You're not typical. Listen, out there, there's a whole bunch of guys like me and you who remember every second they spend in the Dark Kingdom when Beryl summons them. And she can summon us whenever she wants.
We're the Shitennou. We've been in the Dark Kingdom together, Hannah."
"But... it's all in my head!" protested Johanna. "That's why I'm here!"
"And where has it been before it got into your head?" asked Heikko. "Look, I don't understand it either. But I'll try to explain it as good as I can. How about we go outside and take a walk in the garden?"
Johanna nodded quickly. She wasn't keen at all to have the whole cafeteria watching her, the plain looking little girl in unmodern clothes, chatting up guys she'd never see before. Not that it was likely anyone understood Japanese, but Johanna felt so horribly exposed speaking it that she wouldn't have been surprised if the whole cafeteria was already inside her skull.
Stupid Johanna, stop it. Stop it. That's crazy talk.
So she went outside with the piano guy, and they slowly walked between the flower beds, which were empty at this time of the year. Johanna wrapped her unflattering, but warm and cozy cardigan tighter around herself. Away from the piano, the piano guy looked more ordinary. Well. If you considered a fashionably dressed, undeniably cute boy talking to so-not-the-boy-magnet-thank-God Johanna to be ordinary.
Being seen with him was awkward, but it was nice walking with him. She liked the sound of their steps together on the gravel path. Sitting down with him on a bench at the far end of the garden was somehow okay, too. The garden was safe, she'd still be in plain view where no one could attack her unseen, but there wouldn't be listeners. Still, she had to be careful. If he somehow came from the Dark Kingdom, and not from Marina, he would try to lure her back.
"You know, Hanako-chan, not long ago, I was spending some time in a psychiatric hospital like this. You can guess why. People tend to notice when you suddenly aren't yourself any more. You're not the only one, Hanako-chan. There's more of us.
We all were in the Dark Kingdom, we all remember the same things, word for word, fight for fight."
Johanna took a deep breath. It sounded so good. After all, there was something oddly real about the Dark Kingdom that even her doctors couldn't explain. Knowing a foreign language, all of sudden, for example.
She was speaking Japanese, right now. Or was it a trick?
"Can you prove it?" she asked.
"I can try," said Heikko. "One of the last things I remember of you is how you came to my room. Do you remember the ceiling in my room?"
Johanna wasn't convinced. Actually, she was offended that he thought she would believe that.
"I told my therapist about that ceiling. It's somewhere in my files. You could have read it."
"Okay then," said Heikko. "Ask me something that you told no one. Something that only the two of us would know. You didn't tell anyone about our little deal, did you?"
Johanna froze in shock. For a second, she seriously wanted to die. "Of course not! Are you crazy?"
Heikko chuckled. "Yes, I am. But I don't know if that counts for much if I will ever have to explain that I thought you were older, and a boy. How old are you, Hanako-chan?"
"Fourteen."
"Fourteen, oh fuck! Hope I haven't spoiled the game for you now."
"Don't worry," said Johanna as cool as she could, although her heart was beating so loud that it probably drowned the words. But there was no way she would let him patronize her like this. "You weren't that bad."
Heikko laughed out loud, not one bit as hurt as Johannah had feared.
"Tell you what, Hanako-chan, I do hope you remember the same deal as I do, or I'll be really screwed here."
He slapped his forehead.
"Okay, baaad choice of words... gotta keep myself together... okay, secret time, Hanako-chan. Jadeite came to my room because he wanted a favour. Your turn: What was the favour Jadeite wanted?"
"A soul-flight."
"Right. And Zoisite asked for..."
He leaned towards the girl and murmured something in a very low voice.
Johanna nodded, embarassed, but determined not to do anything uncool. She did remember it, after all. Very well, actually. And she had come to terms with it insofar as her head stopped spinning when she thought of it.
Heikko grinned.
"And this is how it went," he added, and again murmured so low that she had to listen very carefully.
That was one way of putting it of course... Johanna snickered nervously.
Is he reading my mind? What would be worse, if he's from the Dark Kingdom, or if he's reading my mind? Is he even real? How can he possibly be real and know about things I told no one?
"Okay, Hanako-chan, I can see we remember the same deal. That's because we were both there. I can't explain it, I can't even understand it, I really wish I could, but I can't."
"It shouldn't work this way. These can only make sense for crazy people."
"Yes."
"Then it can't be real. Jadeite is a boy," said Johanna. "He's real in Tokyo. I'm not him. It can't be real."
Or maybe you can't be real. You look way cooler than a real person anyway. A real person that would talk to me. Oh please, dear God, don't let me imagine a guy like him, talking to me like that. Please, I'd rather be back in the Dark Kingdom being harassed by him there than talk to imaginary pretty boys in this world. He has to be real! He has to!
"Does it feel real?" asked Heikko.
Johanna looked away.
"M-hm."
And stop reading my mind, asshole.
Heikko sighed deeply.
"Hanako-chan... it's complicated. Yes, it's probably all real, but yes, you have to be pretty, hm, complicated yourself to get it. I mean... there's us here, and there's what we did in subspace, and there's what we are in Tokyo. Who can tell which of it is fake or real?"
"This here. This is real."
"What if it's not?"
"If Metallia-sama is real, we're in big trouble. The whole world."
"I'd worry more about the princess."
I bet you do, thought Johanna.
"Yes, but..." She searched for memories, words, thoughts to describe how a sane person would see it. "This world is... bigger. Not so cold and doomed. There are thousands of ways it could go. That means it's more real."
"Yes, I guess it must be. The subspace dimension makes a lot of sense. That's never a good sign. Reality is weirder than that."
"No, reality is the part where things make sense. I mean here, we have a sense of good and evil, right and wrong, right?"
"I don't know about that, Hanako-chan. You're asking the wrong guy. But I'd never trust the world to fit into some neat pattern. That's not healthy."
Johanna didn't like that at all. She thought of herself as someone who was more open minded than anyone she knew, but she still was a moral being. And she had a feeling that this guy was missing the point somehow. And she had seen the fear in his eyes for a moment. A fear she knew. The fear of being lost.
Real. He's real. He's not as cool as he wants me to believe. He's human.
"But music comes in neat patterns," she said stubbornly. "And the music is real in both worlds."
Heikko laughed again.
"And the guy who plays it is crazy in any case. But I like the way you're thinking, Hanako-chan. Think for yourself. We need that."
Johanna was embarassed.
Compliments, uh.
She was also relieved he wasn't mad at her for challenging him.
"Hanako-chan, what is it you need help for?"
"I don't want to go back home," said Johanna quickly, before she could lose her newfound courage again. "I mean, I love my parents, and they mean well, but... they can't deal with this... you said Beryl-sama can summon us again? This will go on for longer?"
"I think so. I'm afraid she's already too strong for the Sailor Senshi to stop her."
"Then I can't go home again. They said... they're very devoted to their faith, to following the will of God... they said they'd rather see me dead than watch me serving a demon. I don't know what they'll do. I don't know what I'll do. Last time, I picked up a knife, and I was this close to hurting... someone. I love God, too. I don't like demons. I don't want to be evil. But what if I can't stop these things from happening?"
She turned her head away.
"No, don't listen to me. I'm stupid. Only silly girls want to run away from home. I'm just being emo, right?"
"Hanako-chan, you don't have to give me reasons or apologize for what you're feeling. If you say you don't want to go back there, it's good enough for me. Do you understand that?"
Johanna didn't dare to answer. It couldn't be right.
Heikko didn't get mad, but he didn't let her get away either.
"Hannah, look at me. Look right at me. Did you understand that I am here to help you with whatever it is you need?"
Johanna looked at him out of the corner of her eyes and nodded.
She couldn't really believe it, but she couldn't afford not to believe it either.
"You want a new home?"
She nodded again.
"OK, we can arrange that. First of all, who is your lawyer?"
Now that sounded a lot more realistic than everything she would have expected.
"My lawyer? I'm not old enough to have a lawyer yet."
"Oh, you'd be surprised what you can have when Marina has any say in it. You definitely need a lawyer, because there's legal stuff coming up with this and you need someone to sort it out. Someone who understands about your situation. I'll give you the phone number of Mrs Messerschmidt, Marina's lawyer."
He took his wallet and a ball pen out of the pocket of his jacket and took out a crumpled bill where he scribbled a telephone number in Berlin on. On money! Okay, to Johanna, the new Euro bills didn't look like real money. But still!
And now he expected her to take it?
"You can't give me money..." she breathed.
Heikko didn't pay any attention to that, just held the bill towards her, and Johanna had no other choice than to take it before anyone saw them.
"I'll give that back to you when I don't need it any more," she murmured.
"Don't bother, you need it, I provide it, that's the deal, remember? It's Mrs Messerschmidt's private cell phone number. She's a friend of Marina. She'll take your matters very serious, I promise you that. Call her as soon as possible. Tell her who you are and what you want, and she'll take care of it.
Second, you need a place where you can stay. Berlin would be ideal, because we could look after each other and all be in the same hospital when we're summoned. That lawyer will give you a safe address, or I can take you to me or Marina. Personally, I think you'd be better off with Kunz though."
"Kunzite?"
Heikko grinned. "No, the human. Less annoying, but only slightly. Unfortunately, he's currently not avaiable. Tried to break out of Beryl's grip again, that bull-headed old idiot. Broke about every bone in his body, and still got himself summoned. Promise me you won't try that, Hanako-chan. Believe me, it's way too dangerous."
Johanna nodded. That unknown stubborn man touched her heart, and he sounded very familiar.
"But most of all, you need money," Heikko continued. "Yes, you do. Legal money, and lots of it. I don't t get you out of here so you can be a homeless kid begging for food money in the streets. Here, take a good look at my wallet."
Johanna did so reluctantly, the eye-watering colors and the slightly obscene kanji were quite forbidding.
Heikko took the ball pen again and wrote her name on the seam of the wallet.
Hannah Koslowski. Hannah again, he really seemed to be fond of that. Johanna liked it when he said it, but it looked weird when written out. And he had misspelled it. And it had no business on his wallet.
Heikko smiled at her.
"See, now it's officially yours. There's a card in it that gets you access to Marina's bank account. The PIN number is two-eight... oh shit, I always forget it. I wrote it down in hiragana somwhere in the wallet, you can look it up. You can read hiragana? Thought so.
Use it to get any money you'll need for food, clothes, a ticket, a taxi, a place to stay, whatever you need. And I mean it, Hannah. A helicopter in Hawaii, a palace on the moon, a crowd of bodyguards who also paint your toenails. Whatever you need. Marina has a lot of money, and your safety is worth a lot to her. Do you understand that?"
"You can't give me your wallet," said Johanna.
Heikko put an arm around her.
"Yes, I can," he whispered into her ear.
That brought him close enough to her to slip his wallet into the pocket of her cardigan.
Johanna was unable to move. A guy she'd never seen before had just hugged her. No one hugged her. What would he do next?
But he just let go of her and gave her a sweet smile.
"And it's not my wallet anymore. If I am the one who gets you to a safe place, fine, we can use it together. But if I get summoned before I can see you again, that wallet is your life insurance, okay? It contains everything that you'll need to go wherever you want. It took a lot longer to find you than I thought, and I don't know how much time I have left, so this is the best I can do for you right now, and it won' t hurt me, don't you worry."
"But... everyone will think I've stolen your wallet. And... I can't take money from strangers..."
"I wrote your name in there, I told you, it's yours now. I'll deny that I've ever seen it. Hannah, you asked Marina for help, and here it is, in your pocket. She said I am to do everything it takes to make sure you're okay. And I will. My wallet? Doesn't even begin to cover 'everything'. I'll do a lot more for you, Hanako-chan. It's tough enough that the Shitennou are trapped. But we human Shitennou in this world, we need to keep it together as good as we can."
Johanna didn't object. That was a part she understood. But it was too good to be true. It was too much like the stories that the other girls dreamed up, about the distant relative - or worse, the celebrity - who would so totally come to their rescue.
Heikko let his gaze wander over the garden, his eyes clouded over in a way that Johanna was uncomfortably familiar with and she saw his fingers play silent notes on his legs.
"I'll be here every day," he said. "We can do some plotting. We can pretend to be romantic."
Okay. Too good to be true stopped right here.
"I'm not straight," said Johanna coldly.
"Who cares? I said pretend, okay? Nobody takes a girl in love serious, it's the greatest disguise ever. Have my wallet, travel to look for me? That's considered normal at your age."
"It's not."
He just smirked.
"You'd be surprised with what you get away with when you're just a hormonal teenager."
Johanna blushed, but she held her head up high.
"I don't want to be hormonal with you. I went through all this because I pretended to be something that I'm not. I'm not a girl who gets hormonal with boys. And I don't want to be."
Heikko snickered, and it was the cold snicker of Zoisite. "No complaints from me if I don't have to pose as a pedophile creep to cover your ass, believe me. And that's a cute coming out line if I've ever heard one. Marina will be so proud. But let's not be sidetracked here. This is all about keeping you out of trouble. This is all about you needing my help here. Anything else you need? While you're in here? Or right now?"
Johanna shook her head.
"You sure you don't want to leave this place with me right now? We could walk out of the door and no one would stop us. We can be in Berlin tonight."
Johanna stared at him in panic.
"No! No, I can't do that... I really... really appreciate it all, but... I can't take your wallet. Really, you don't know the trouble I'll be in if we're found out... and it's just not right... I'll put it down right here and leave, okay?"
Heikko raised an eyebrow. "If you do that, then I'll take it to the reception and tell them I saw you losing it. It'll be back on your nightstand before dinner. But I'm one hundred percent certain someone will be rifling through it before handing it over to you and wonder what an innocent little lesbian girl like you needs all those condoms in her wallet for."
"Nani?" Johanna was so outraged she couldn't even be embarassed. Automatically, she pressed her arm against the wallet in her pocket.
"So you're keeping it then?" grinned Heikko. "Very good. And the correct answer, by the way, is: 'Because the sex toys you can find here in this place are so unsanitary.' Believe me, I've been to enough places where everyone's mental, including psychiatric hospitals, and it's always true."
Johanna let out a nervous laugh.
"Stop being so disgusting."
Heikko sighed. "Sorry. I keep forgetting you're so young now. Fourteen, shit. Of course little girls don't go anywhere with strangers. I forgot. Oh, man. I'm being all knight in shining armour here and all people see when they look at us is a pervert."
You give me money and condoms, what do you expect, thought Johanna. She smiled though.
"I see you in shining white armour," she said "Quite a lot."
It was the first time she made a joke about 'seeing things'.
Again, Heikko laughed, and it was the warm laugh he had had earlier, not the cold Dark Kingdom filled sneer.
"Yeah, why does this not lift my ego as much as it should?" he complained. "Okay, Hannah, tell you what, you go and make that phone call to your lawyer and your rescue will be arranged by a professional. If you want a more respectable escort than me, she can arrange that too. And if you need me before that, check if I'm here, or give me a call on my cell phone. Number is in my wallet, I can never remember it.
Marina is trying right now to buy us some time by keeping Beryl from summoning the two of us. But we don't have forever. Nephrite's in charge of operations at the Dark Kingdom now, and well, you can imagine how long it'll take Queen Beryl to be fed up with that."
That made Johanna grin for a moment.
"Okay, see you tomorrow. If I don't come here tomorrow, don't wait for me and get your ass out of here. Take good care of yourself, Hanako-chan, okay?"
"Okay."
***
Johanna was trying to sound convincing when she answered all the excited questions of her room mate. Yes, she had thought she knew him, but it had been a mistake. She didn't know him at all. It was just a coincidence that she understood his language. No, it wasn't Chinese, it was Japanese. No, she hadn't been to Japan. She had just watched a lot of anime.
No one would believe that. Not even the people who knew that Johanna's family didn't even have TV.
But after Johanna had assured her room mate like, the twentieth time, that she didn't have any interest in that guy at all, that she was just after the language practise, and that she would be just so happy if some other girl got happy with him, she finally got rid of her.
Johanna dashed back to the ward and looked onto the bathroom plans. No one had claimed the tub for now, so she wrote her name onto the bathing plan with shaking hands, told the nurse that her belly was aching again and she would like to take a hot bath. This allowed her to lock a door behind her for a while.
While the water filled the tub, she took the wallet out of her pocket to have a closer look at it. Was it really real? It was heavy in her hands and made her hands feel like something that didn't belong to her. Most probably real. Definitely ugly.
It smelled of a guy's cologne, and cigarette smoke. Ew. She would have to do something about the smell or no one would ever believe this was hers. The good part was that there was so much stuff in it that it hardly closed!
Yes, there were condoms. He hadn't been bluffing. They felt squishy in their packaging. Ew.
And there was the bank card.There were lots of other cards, many with 'Heiko Kretzschmer' on them, she would have to put those in an envelope and send them to him so they wouldn't be in her wallet. There were lots of colorful flyers for music clubs, some featuring DJ Heikko - ha! He really seemed to think that an additional consonant made all the difference - those would have to go, too. She got nervous when she didn't find the PIN number for the bank card, but there were just so many bits of paper in this wallet, that it took her a while to find the number. It said 'number for Marina's bank card' in hiragana even. Johanna couldn't believe anyone could be so careless. It wasn't really hard to look up some hiragana, anyone could decipher that. She would have to make a safer notice. Johanna tried to memorize the number, but she was too excited.
The longer she went through the wallet, the more excited she got.
The wallet was full of treasures.
There were a set of keys in the coin compartment! A modern safety key, and some older ones. Heikko's place? But why would he carry his house key in his wallet? A spare key for someone else's apartment? Perhaps there would be a hint in the wallet? Hadn't Heikko written down everything else? Perhaps she shouldn't get rid of a single thing. It could all be hints. She'd just have to pretend she was DJ Heikko's biggest fan. Oh no.
The best thing though in the wallet were the fotographs. Heikko with his family, judging from the resemblance. Heikko naked (tastefully, done by a professional fotographer obviously, and hot damn, he was pretty, for a boy, but still - eeek!). Heikko sitting together with Marina and another guy at a table, and they were laughing happily into the camera. That guy could be Kunzite or Nephrite! Had Heiko put it into the wallet for her to find? Anyway, a private picture of Marina! She looked so happy! And so beautiful!
Heikko had mentioned Marina an awful lot. Of course he had realized that she reacted to that. Heikko was a nice guy, but he was a big manipulator, too. Could she trust him?
Finally, Johanna put the wallet back into her cardigan's pocket. She undressed, avoiding to watch herself in the mirror. She didn't much like the timid girl that looked out of that mirror.
She soaked in the wonderful hot tub. That tub was a lot bigger than the one at home, and great to relax in. Plus, she didn't have to clean the bathroom here, ever, just not leave it filthy.
There was another problem. A huge problem. She hadn't told Heikko how little time she had. Today was Friday. On Monday, she was scheduled to leave the hospital. Her parents would pick her up, and expect her never to speak in tongues, bow to an invisible queen or threaten people for the sake of a demon again. If Heikko was right - and even if there was only a slight chance that he was - it could happen again, and then... She didn't want to be such a disappointment, becoming her parents worst nightmare once more. She didn't want to hurt anyone. And she couldn't go through any more of those 'cleansings' and 'purifications'.
Even if she wouldn't be summoned again... her parents had come to the conclusion that their mistake had been to spoil their daughter too much, that she needed a firmer hand, stricter guidance, not be allowed to stray from the right path again. They had told her about the new rules. And she, Johanna, who had always been a good and faithful daugher, and always tried her hardest, caught herself thinking that if this was what it took to keep sane, she'd rather sell her soul to Queen Metallia and call it a day.
And she still loved women. That was a big problem, too. She could have another breakdown if she couldn't suppress it. And she didn't want to. Not anymore. But her parents wouldn't understand that either.
'Look, Johanna, you shouldn't say you'll never touch a man. I know you don't want to tell us what happened, but if there was a man who has done something wrong to you, you can't blame all men for it. You need to trust the Lord that he had it all in his plan, that it will all turn out for the best. I pray for you that He will give you the strength to forgive whoever made you so bitter.'
That had made her so mad. Her parents thought she had been abused, and all they had to say to that was asking her to forgive? She hadn't been abused. And if she had, she wouldn't have forgiven it. Especially not now that she had spent some weeks here and heard from the other girls what it really meant, and what it did to them.
And her parents thought she'd listen to this version of 'Be a good girl, because bad things happen to bad girls' and nod gratefully?
Marina said it in her books. How sexualized violence was used to keep women down, how the threat of it was used to keep lesbian girls in check. It was all true. She hadn't believed it at first, but man had she learned first hand, and she saw more proof of it every day. Knowing that somewhere out there was even one single person who understood her and didn't want her to change who she was had made all the difference in the world. God loved you and would forgive you eventually, and that was all very well, but if there hadn't been Marina's kindness, she wouldn't have made it.
Heikko was right, she trusted Marina.
But could she trust Heikko? Apart from the picture in his wallet and the bank card with Marina's name on it, there was no proof that he was connected to Marina. There could be a thousand reasons why he was fluent in Japanese. He could take her who knows where. He could be dangerous. She hadn't asked him enough questions to make sure he was really Zoisite.
But he knew about the deal.
Johanna let herself sink into the tub so that her face was covered with water.
Then she suddenly laughed out loud, making bubbles stream past her face..
She was so happy that Jadeite wasn't really dead and she didn't have his imaginary blood on her hands. So it seemed he would soon need her again,
Jadeite, straight as a flagpole... she had a feeling she had a bad influence on him.
I owe you one, boy.
She got out of the tub, and dressed. The wallet was heavy in her pocket.
If the wallet was real, so was the guy it belonged to. But perhaps she had imagined the part about the deal, because she wanted to believe him so much.
She made a face to herself when she combed her hair in front of the mirror.
'It's all your story, Johanna, and it has to tell you something...'
Oh man, why did therapists never have anything useful to say about demons and magic and being born from stone in subspace?
So, the crazy, story-telling and probably-real-in-Tokyo part of her head came up with sexual ideas about Zoisite again? Heikko meant... boy-sex?
That could only mean one thing: To stay away from him, no matter how nice he seemed.
This guy, Zoisite or not, was dangerous.
She wouldn't let anyone take her anywhere. If she wanted to do this, she would have to do it on her own.
Berlin. She could go to Berlin and see Marina.
If Marina confirmed Heikko's story, she'd believe her. And if there was no such thing as the Dark Kingdom, Marina could probably tell her what to do about it. She said she would be there if Johanna wanted someone to talk to.
Yes, she wanted to talk to Marina.
She could try calling her. And that lawyer.
She knew that Heikko was right: She had to call that lawyer as soon as possible. But it was so scary. Calling her, asking her to hide her, to cut her off from her family.
But going home was scary, too.
Could she choose right now to trust Marina, and Heikko, and who knew who else, all of them people she didn't know and who would probably just tell her not to be so stupid when she turned up and asked them to protect her...
But there was the wallet. Heikko had given her everything he had, more or less.
And there was Marina. She had gotten her mail, and sent help! Or was it all just wishful thinking?
Now, story-wielding crazy brain, what do you have to say to that? What would Jadeite do?
For a moment, she had a vision of a crystal dagger, sharper than a razor. What a pretty shiny thing, and so useful.
Suddenly, Johanna had the greatest idea. The perfect solution to anything.
She didn't have to go home at all. On Sunday night, if she was still here, if that lawyer couldn't help her, or if she hadn't dared to call her or to leave, she could smash a window and cut her wrists on the broken glass. That wouldn't kill her (the other girls in here had explained her in detail about the different techniques), but they wouldn't send her home after that. They'd keep her at the psychiatric hospital for as long as she was behaving like this, and she'd do it again, and again, if she had to.
The only bad thing about it was that it meant that Heikko was right again. Teenage girls got away with a lot of shit.
No, that wouldn't do.
She smirked at herself in the mirror.
Johanna Koslowski would never leave this place. She was a good girl. She played by the rules.
And look where it got you, poor girl. Do you really want to stay in here forever?
But Hannah Koslowski, Hanako-chan for her friends, owner of a precious hideous wallet, was one of the Shitennou - not afraid to fight dirty, not afraid to be mentally instable, not afraid to fall in love.
She could go anywhere she wanted.