Chapter Three - "Seeing in A New Light"
Part One
Senior year was going by at a frantic pace. There were plenty of things to keep River and Haruo occupied. Yearbook club, debate club, martial arts club all combined to make things interesting often resulting in a late afternoon before leaving the school to walk home together.
River made other friends as did Haruo as they strove to make the best of the year that was to be their final year in high-school.
Christmas and New Year went by considering the mind-numbing amount of time they'd had to study before the midterms that culminated in the tests being written just before they broke for winter break but now the holidays had long been over - February had gone by just as quickly; in fact March was nearly three weeks in; there were buds on the trees and thee was a flowery scent in the air as they walk to school in the morning and from school in the afternoon.
The transition from December's winter solstice to spring equinox had gone by without them realizing it River knew she had done well; Haruo was less certain. Some of the questions involved had clearly stumped him. He knew that he wasn't going to get out of school on the honour roll, that was for certain.
And of course his inability to make honour roll was all the incentive that Mayumi needed to keep up her relentless persecution of her son resorting to dire pronouncements of skepticism in his ability to even function in the world; no unconditional love for that no-good for nothing spawn of hers. Mayumi intended to make absolutely certain that the scion of her flesh made certain to know just what she was sacrificing for his ungrateful rear-end. If he wasn't going to perform to her expectations, she would have preferred to have replaced him but that would have raised eyes from the Ministry minions and brought undue attention where it wasn't needed.
River realized with some horrified surprise that it was possible for herself to have such a capacity to hate someone, but she absolutely loathed Mayumi with every fibre of her being for what Mayumi was doing to Haruo. River wished that Haruo would just move into her third of the triplex to get away from Mayumi after all they had a spare bedroom. But Mayumi would have a fit and she would impugn River's reputation all over town as the deflowering wanton harlot who took the innocence of her son or some other bullshit like that. River snorted in disdain at the thought of that witch taking a shot at her reputation then smiled a devilish smile at a delicious thought. If she would deflower his innocence , it would be within the sanctified bonds of marriage. And they both would be at the same time as River wasn't the kind of wanton woman that Mayumi considered her to be.
Of course the thought of her and Haruo being an item startled River even though the implication of that thought was that she'd considered Haruo as a potential life-partner. And the longer that thought percolated in her mind the more enticing it got.
During the classes they had together, they sat side-by-side. River paid attention to the teacher's instruction but it seemed as though her attention would stray to her friend sitting beside her diligently trying to understand his lessons unaware of what his closeness was doing to her.
River sighed, elbow on her desk right cheek cradled in the palm of her hand trying to listen to the teacher but a little imp that resided in her head kept dragging her attention away from today's lesson plan and towards the student sitting beside her now that the genie was out of the bottle it wasn't going back in again. At least not without a crowbar and a pitchfork. It also didn't help that the next class was biology 12. She rolled her eyes.
But right now it was maths and she had to pay attention to that or her grade point average would slip and that wouldn't do well for her chances at obtaining a scholarship to the UBC Baccalaureate of Fine Arts (BFA). Even if math and sciences were not needed in a fine arts degree, making sure her marks were in the top tenth percentile would do wonders for application to the University of British Columbia and quite possibly obtain a scholarship to continue her studies further with a Master's degree. The potential was there at least.
She couldn't help but look over at Haruo again who was intently staring at the blackboard trying to make heads or tails out of the curriculum that was being presented to him. At least he wasn't banging his head off the desk. That action might kill brain-cells. River couldn't help but smile as she saw Haruo shoot a look of frustration at the wall clock as if willing the minutes to go by faster and heard him mutter softly under his breath, "I can't make heads or tails of this damned calculation!" She knew that she was going to have to help him with homework again when they got home. At least today was Friday and Fridays meant Yasunobu, Molly, Mom, Haruo and she would go to Hogan's for dinner. Mayumi wouldn't be there, thank goodness, they could eat in peace.
River figured that Mayumi, on the other hand, preferred to stay home, cook her own meals and presumably inflict psychological torture on poor unassuming Sandi French. River was absolutely certain that Mayumi was enjoying the full-on psychological torment of an infant. It fed her soul and replenished her evil-ness and frankly she didn't give two hoots about whether or not Molly would have to spend thousands of simoleons on therapy bills for poor little oft-neglected Sandi - especially with puting her in the hands of *gasp - horror* Mayumi. That was an unspeakable crime.
Mayumi Chikamori was more than happy. Giving the ne'er-do-wells in her class six pages of lines single spaced in neat cursive should shut the little pint sized urchins quiet for another six hours.
While the scratching of pencils diligently doing lines were audible, nothing else was, no speaking, no whispering, not a single uttered sound, hell, her pupils were afraid to breathe lest they incur her wrath.
In the meantime even though Mayumi had the quiet she wanted; the terrified souls who were trapped in the classroom hoping against hope that they would be released from their personal hell come day-end. For them there was no reprieve. They were in elementary school and they had no class schedule. Mayumi was their teacher for the whole year. And who knew what horrors would be perpetrated on the students come day-end when detentions were handed out?
In fact it was spoken about in hushed tones that Mrs. Chikamori, their teacher, boiled the students who were unlucky enough to get detention.
"You know why little Ricky Sparks isn't here any more? Mrs. Chikamori chopped him up into little tiny pieces, cooked him and fed him to her dogs..."
"James, she doesn't have dogs..."
Horrified looks all around, "That's even worse...man, don't ever get detention or you may not survive."
It often got back to Haruo about what was being said about his mother but after the abuse from his mother, he just tuned it out. Let his mother have to deal with the repercussions of her foul personality by herself.
Mayumi wasn't paying attention to the students; she already knew who she was going to single out for detention. Now to bring their hopes for dismissal at the bell crashing to esrth. "Miraj Alvi! Bella Bachelor! Mortimer Goth, Harry Stanton, Malanie Elles, Kevin Fortin. You all have detention."
A pity that miserable McIrish tart wasn't in my class or she'd be getting detention too. Mayumi thought to herself realizing that River had long since aged out of the grades that she was assigned by the school administration to teach. Then I'd have had that young twit in my hands and I would have been able to get that woman whats-her-name; oh, Fiona McIrish, all worried about her daughter's academic prospects. Now that's another useless woman if I ever saw one. She cackled under her breath.
She also knew that staying late for detention would also mess up the plans for her husband, her son, Fiona, Molly and River to go eat dinner out tonight. Even though never in her wildest nightmares would she ever deign to consider joining the group for dinner; she still relished the thought of throwing a monkey wrench into their plans.
Mayumi never showed up for those occasions. Hobnobbing with the likes of the Mcirish family was beneath her, according to Mayumi. Having to trade how-do-you-do's with some plebeian news reporter who was one step up from a paparazzi and a fast food restaurant cook. Mayumi held her nose in the air regardless of the fact that she usually ended up burning water and wouldn't be able to cook an exceedingly good meal; most of her meals came out scorched and blackened. Oh, no exceedingly wonderful specimen of human intelligence like her would consider stooping down to associate with people she would much rather wipe her dirty shoes on.
After all; that irresponsible excuse for a useless maternal cow would drop her little screamin’ demon in Mayumi's lap and ask her to look after the thing. Well even if the spawn was an irritant, at least she would get some amusement at the very least. And just so long as she was able to make it so that Molly would always regret having handed the little rug chewer to her. No coddling for Sandi. Maybe put her in the living-room in the playpen and put on Night of the Living Dead as a soother. Sandi could throw temper tantrums till Molly fetched her then Mayumi would shrug helplessly and say in saccharinely sweet tones, "I really don't know, she just wouldn't settle down for me today, whatever can you do." Oh yes, Mayumi was going to love psychologically twisting that little ankle-biter into a nightmare for Molly to parent.
The bell rang to signal end of class as Ms. Amberley announced,"Go over Chapters 15, 17, 22 to 26 and complete all even numbered problems. See you all on Monday!"
Haruo groaned audibly as he gathered up his work and stuffed his textbook and binder into his backpack. River hung back and said, "I'll help you with it at home." She received a thankful smile from him as they headed out the door. "I've got biology so I'll meet you afterwards."
Haruo had a study block which he used to try to study in the library. At least the corner of the library where he'd try to study was quiet with relatively little interruption. That way he would be able to at least attempt some of the calculations required from the assigned homework. Whether he could understand the work was another story.
Maybe a job in a bookstore like Divisadero was more in the cards: a simple time for money exchange and then writing books on his time off. He looked up at the library ceiling rolling his eyes again in barely restrained frustration. Math did not come easily to him and every calculation was a struggle. How did students manage trigonometric functions in the past with no calculators to assist them with the calculations. Graphing sine and cosine waves with a graphing calculator was pain enough. It would be even more so with only a pad of paper a compass and slide-rule. Despite his heuristic attempts Haruo was not finding any satisfaction in the head-wracking required to complete any of the problems and despite watching the clock's minute-hand make its way around the circumference of the minute indicators, the eventual result was that he was no further ahead than he was when he started.
When the bell rang he made his way to the front entrance of the school where he would meet River to begin their walk home. If they could get their homework done by five they would be able to be ready in time to go out to the diner by the time Fiona and Yasunobu got home from work.
"Hey..." Haruo felt a light touch of fingers on his arm and it wasn't River's voice or hand. "River has to clean up the frog dissection that we had to do today in class. So she told me to let you know that she'll be out in a few." Haruo turned to see Bebe Hart, River's biology class partner, standing by his side, a smile playing on her lips as she gave him a frank stare that did nothing to disguise her interest.
VJ passed by giving him a nasty look but didn't dare to start anything. The pounding he took in Grade Eight from Haruo's fists, elbows, knees and feet certainly stayed with that juvenile delinquent and well, VJ didn't want another brutal lesson in what Haruo would do to him if he ever got up the nerve to try to hassle Haruo ever again.
Michael Bachelor grinned as he walked by, "See ya, Monday, Bruce Lee!" Evidently anyone with a modicum of martial arts talent was monikered with the nickname of the late great martial artist of the Game of Death fame.
"So are you planning to go to prom with River?" Bebe asked him curiously giving him the once over; a rather admiring look on her face hinting at some level of interest beyond mere school-yard acquaintances.
The Hart family were well-known as her father, Gus, was known as the town mooch; always borrowing but never making good on his debts. It was reputed that Varg's had suspended his bar-tab due to overdue charges.
Her poor mother, Dorie was working a minimum wage job that barely made ends meet. It also didn't help that Gus, being off his gourd, made things even more difficult by racking up charges for things bought when the whim hit him.
Luckily for Bebe, she hadn't inherited that mendacious characteristic and was honest, hard-working and she planned on majoring in fine art and writing but with a journalism bent. It was fine to consider working for either the Vancouver Sun or Province.
"That had better be a yes..." River's exaggeratedly saccharine tone of voice right behind him made Haruo wince. When an overly sugary sweet voice was used, it was a warning signal. Well guess that choice was made up for him. No there was no-one else but his best friend who would be the one to go with him to the prom.
Haruo turned to look at River who stood there arms crossed and she had a satisfied smirk on her face, acknowledging Bebe's presence with a raised eyebrow, "if my mom deigns to let me go to the prom, I'll be asking River out." Haruo informed Bebe with a wry smile.
"I guess she's out from class now!" Bebe grinned, "Oh, of course." Bebe nodded as she acknowledged River's proprietary stance, a silent challenge between women that was a clear sign: Back off, he's mine; and that was clear that River had claimed him even if she wasn't entirely ready to admit it herself. And Bebe acknowledged it with a simple "...it wouldn't be proper to ask anyone else. You two have always been joined..." she paused as she looked back at River and winked at Haruo "...at the hip." She said suggestively as she laughed and River turned beet red with embarrassment.
0Was it so goddamn obvious? River rolled her eyes. "Thanks a lot, Bebe!" She muttered.
"No problem, River, any time, I’m waiting on Torao and I’ll see you guys later if we’re doing homework together tonight." Bebe smirked at River; turned on her heels, waggled her fingers at Haruo and said, "Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do." as she turned to see a waiting Torao.
River waved back at her as she and Haruo made their own way down the stairs. Once they were on their way out of earshot, River muttered, "She's so annoying sometimes...". Bebe was always quick to tease her friends, though gently as she had a good heart. River knew that but having her interest, that she wasn't ready to reveal yet, towards her friend exposed like that would annoy anyone if she was trying to be inconspicuous about her interest in s certain individual.
In any case, the walk smoothed her ruffled feathers and her disposition improved by the time they'd made it past the library and swung a left onto Redwood Parkway, Haruo, narrowly missed nearly being hit by a car, starting to head up the hill. Chatting about inconsequential matters also helped. When they got home they would deal with the task of doing their homework. Hopefully their homework would be done by the time River's mom and Haruo's dad got home. Presumably, Molly would be joining them at the diner.
They reached home and being latchkey kids, River and Haruo had no problem in determining that River's side of the triplex was the best place to study as the babysitter who would be minding Sandi would be here until Molly got home from whatever she was doing on her day off, perhaps going down to the pool and working on her tan.
River pulled out a can of Pepsi and passed it to her friend who accepted it gratefully then she made a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that they could both snack on while they sat at the table and did their homework. The math homework was the most time intensive and thus they tackled it first.
"Haruo, al-Kashi's theorem relates the lengths of the sides of a triangle to the cosign of one of its angles." River explained holding her pencil against the problem.
Haruo looked confused. " And I'm supposed to map the linear inequality of this equation; hang graphing a solution. i'm gonna be here all night." He looked at River with a pleading expression as he pondered his next move.
River looked at him indulgently. It wasn't as difficult for her to see the solution to this question but it appeared that Haruo had a learning deficit when it came to numbers and it was exceedingly difficult to understand any complex algebraic equations.
"Rearrange the equation so "y" is on the left and everything else on the right. Honmphh." River barely managed to clamp off calling Haruo...honey by covering her mouth as if to bite off a sneeze. That endearment would definitely cause a stir if it got out.
"...OK..." River still wasn't sure if Haruo got the instruction clear in his head judging by the glazed look in his eyes.
It was a frustrating hour and a half tackling all the pages that the teacher had assigned but eventually they both breathed a sigh of relief as the problems were finished. Homework went a lot easier from there and Haruo being a good writer fairly flew past his English 12 homework. Social Studies was a project that was due next Friday so they would have to stop by the city library and root through the index. cards to find the subject and related books; then it was a search expedition into the stacks. To find information that they would diligently copy the information to and if there was time would formulate the information in some order to be able to turn it into a viable report that they would get an A for.
"Are you taking chemistry this year?" River asked curious.
"No, Mr Foster said that he would give me a C- in Chem 11 if I never took chemistry again. I think he was scared that one of my mistakes would cause the entire chemistry lab to blow up." That frank admission caused River to laugh hysterically.
"What...did you do?" River asked when she could finally catch her breath.
Haruo admitted with a great deal of embarrassment, "Um...I just happened...to...uh...drop a chunk of cesium..,um...uh...in water." He winced as River's eyes began to widen and her mouth fell open.
"Just how big was that chunk?" River asked barely restraining herself but lost it completely when Haruo held up a hand with index finger and thumb about three inches apart.
Trying to catch her breath was completely futile as he added, "...they had to evacuate the lab." It took almost fifteen minutes for River to stop her cacchinating; tears of hilarity running down her cheeks.
If River remembered correctly, Mr. Nellis's Chem 12 classroom was in Mr. Foster's old room. At the beginning of the semester, Mr. Nellis had remarked dourly on a certain individual in the school, who would remain nameless for his own obscuration, who was careless around Cs. The instructor had mentioned that it was quite lucky in fact that the substance the clumsy student had been working with had not been trinitrotoluene or the school would not have a science lab to speak of. The maintenance people had not been able remove the burn mark from the lab counter.
"Oh my god..." she gasped wiping her eyes.
"...so no chemistry for me any more." He intoned melodramatically. "So much for my getting into atomic science." He said with a feigned melancholic look on his face.
River convulsed in helpless laughter...
...That was about the moment when Fiona walked through the door.
"Hi, Mrs. McIrish." Haruo said with a smile on his face as he looked up. River was still in stitches of laughter because every time she looked at Haruo and his entirely innocent expression, it would set her off again.
"Hello, Haruo." Fiona replied as she cheerily greeted him. She enjoyed the fact that River and he were such good friends for as long as they'd been. And even if Haruo's mother was a world class bitch, he certainly did not affect any pretentiousness in his behaviour. Fiona recalled the shy little toddler nestled in his father's arms, the happy-go-lucky boy who lived for playing in the park with her daughter, but also the high-school senior that he now was. And Fiona could see that there was a quiet reservedness; a guarded air about him; a distinct pain in his eyes that only someone with a penchant for digging past the surface details would be able to surmise about the teen standing before her.
It wasn't hard to surmise what was being said on the occasions where Mayumi raised her voice towards her son. The walls were thin enough to catch bits of stupid, can't do anything right, are you an idiot? And other oh-so-nice descriptives. Fiona seethed inside as she recalled the times that she'd heard Mayumi go off on her son; was it any wonder why there was always that hint of lingering sadness? But she wondered if he would deny everything that was happening to him. In the end she settled for taking him aside and saying, "It's always so nice to see you here, you know that this door is open to you if you ever need it." She put her hands on his shoulders and looked deeply into his eyes to try to convey to him that her side of the triplex would be his refuge away from Mayumi. She hoped he understood her meaning and took advantage of the fact that he could have this place as a refuge.
And it seemed as though he understood because his response was a soft "Thank you, Mrs. McIrish."
"Hopefully, your dad will be coming home soon. I'm rather looking forward to the meal at Hogan's."
Haruo looked over at River who nodded her agreement with her mother that she was famished. And Haruo's stomach making a vociferous complaint. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich was delicious but it had pretty much digested.
It wasn't too long till Haruo's uncle and father knocked on the door. Yasunobu apologized for being late. The boss had kept him for a while to go over business matters. Fiona reassured him that it was fine that she'd had her times of being late.
Molly had planned to meet them at the diner and asked to speak to the babysitter who would keep four year old Sandi occupied. Molly would bring home a kid's pack from Hogan's as a reward. Sandi was at the age where she liked to hop up on the chair and play. At least having the babysitter there already would keep Molly from having to utilize the malevolent ministrations of Mayumi and keep her adverse effects on Sandi in check.
And soon the five: Satoshi, Yasunobu, Fiona, River and Haruo were all headed down to Hogan's Diner to have a meal - or more accurately: to play gastronomical Russian Roulette - "Let's see, will you upchuck tonight or won't you? Come down to Hogan's Diner and find out."
Usually, while the rest of the family stuffed their faces down at Hogan's Diner, Mayumi was enjoying the full-on psychological torture of an infant. It fed her soul and replenished her evil-ness and frankly she didn't give two hoots about whether or not Molly would have to spend thousands of simoleons on therapy bills for poor little oft-neglected Sandi - especially with puting her in the hands of *gasp - horror* Mayumi. That was an unspeakable crime.
But at least tonight Sandi was safe in the arms of a caring babysitter and not in the hands of the evil Mayumi who's idea of child minding was to place Sandi in a playpen and put on Friday the 13th -why don't you learn your days, Sandi, oh dear. See the nice man in the hockey goalie mask and the machete? Evidently he likes to prune things. *hack, slash* ~screaming~. Yes, Mayumi should not have been allowed to have children...
...too late...
Down at Hogan's Diner.
Haruo was still trying to figure out what he wanted when Yasunobu's 1986 Toyota Camry pulled up into the parking lot at Hogan's Diner. Yasunobu's Camry was a nondescript brown with chrome trim.
Getting out of the vehicle, the family looked around at each other still trying to figure out what they were in the mood to buy for dinner before they would go in and sit down to look at the menu.
Jared Frio; the cook that night was taking a smoke break in front of the doors blowing smoke in the general direction of the patrons who were coming in and out of the diner. Most people knew Jared was a horse's ass and most ignored him, mainly because as a tough guy, Jared was not someone who anyone wanted to mess with. Most townsfolk, with the exception of Marty Keaton and Jack Bunch, actually feared him.
And Jared had not been challenged face to face by anyone...
...until today.
Haruo saw red when Jared blew smoke in his dad's face. And his voice lowered to a savage growl as River's heart leapt into her throat. Surely he wasn't going to take Jared, the town bully, on. But to her dismay, she saw Haruo square off.
She'd never seen Haruo challenge someone bigger than him before, not that he couldn’t and he’d had through second hand account during his Grade 8 days when he’d defended his classmates against high-school juniors; she'd only seen Haruo kick VJ’s ass and this wasn't just some student; this was a full grown young adult with some height and poundage on him. "Hey, why don't you blow that smoke somewhere else!?"
Jared Frio being the arrogant ass-hole that he was, decided to start something with Haruo; he looked over at another co-worker and sniggered; "kid thinks he can take me on; I could take his dad with one hand tied behind my back, I'm gonna turn the kid into a fucking pretzel." He then got up off the wall he'd been leaning against and smugly responded, "Listen, kid, I'll do what I want when I want; now why don't you fuck off and run along to your daddy before you get hurt."
"How about I make you!" Haruo growled, balling his fists, his eyes narrowing. River gave a supplication to a higher power to keep Haruo safe from harm. She figured that he may have bit off more than he could chew in fighting Jared who most people in town feared.
"Listen, pussy..." Jared gritted his teeth, "You want to try to take me on; I'll break your little scrawny body in half and your daddy can take you home in a doggy bag. So don't start something you can't finish." He started forward threateningly, "You picked the wrong guy to piss off. I gave you a chance, it's your funeral now!"
Haruo didn't show a single iota of fear as Jared, balling his fists the size of small hams and his eyes ablaze with anger; "You're really fucking stupid, aren't you?" Jared continued as he closed in on Haruo.
Satoshi and his father made a move to step forward and Haruo snapped, "Stay out of it! Dad, Uncle" o his father and uncle - he didn't need them distracting him and them potentially getting in the way of a strike or a full-force kick.
His breathing calmed and he centered himself as Jared advanced on him bringing his hands up. Crouching into a cat stance arms arms out stretched hands one behind the other as if he was going to beat on a muk yan jong.
Except that martial arts dummy that he was going to batter the living shit out of was one Jared Frio. And Haruo thought grimly as he sized up his opponent, dummy is the right term here - Haruo might take disrespect from his mother, but lord help anyone who crossed Haruo outside of the home. it didn't matter that Jared was an adult, he would get the full venom of Haruo's hostility and the devastating power of Haruo's five years of martial arts training, four of which were beating up a wing chun dummy. His eyes locked on Jared's advancing steps and nearing body as Haruo prepared to do battle.
"What you think you some kinda Bruce Lee; you gonna do some hi yah karate or something?" Jared sneered. "it's gonna take a lot more than that to stop me from stomping your ass."
Haruo grinned savagely as he dodged Jared who swung wildly as Haruo dodged each thrown punch. Build up a case for retaliation in self defense then...one over-extension by Jared and he struck a vicious counter-strike.
River saw Jared reel back blood streaming from his nose as he wiped his hand across he winced. His nose was shattered. "You got one lucky punch, asshole! Now I'm gonna mop the floor with you." And waded back in fists flailing only to be met by Haruo who stepped into Jared's charge.
The Muk Yan Jong was meant to teach blocks and strikes. Tangling up each of Jared's wild haymaker punches with effective blocks, Haruo's elbows, knees and fists connected with Jared's torso land they weren't weak teenage strikes, they were full contact body blows capable of shattering bone -anvils of steel inflicting untold measures of pain.
An audible snap prefaced a scream from the throat of the elder Frio brother as Haruo hyper-extended Jared's hand in a wrist-lock and snapped Jared's wrist.
Luckily they had BC medical so Jared's stupidity could be rectified by medical intervention.
But no-one said that stupid people couldn't be persistent. And finally, Haruo'd had enough, kicks, rapid punches on vulnerable points on Jared's body and finally a vitriol filled kick that started from somewhere around his knees; a spinning high hook kick that impacted Jared in the side of his head; snapped his head back and drove him insensate to the ground. Jared started it; Haruo ended it as River gasped. Jared wasn't saying much considering Haruo's spinning hook kick had knocked Jared out for the count. Nighty-night, Jared. Don't mind the canaries floating around your head - they'll go away eventually
Of course Haruo was still pissed off at Jared and River's eyes widened as Haruo started raining a staccato beat of body blows to the torso and rabbit punches to the face of Jared Frio while Jared's head was doing a great impression of a speed-bag bouncing off the brickwork while a crowd assembled having watched the entire fight from start to finish.
Satoshi finally pulled Haruo off Jared to prevent Haruo from pounding Jared's head into the pavement. As he was dragged away struggling against his uncle's firm grip, Haruo yelled at the prone, groaning mass bleeding on the brick, "Maybe that'll teach you not to blow smoke in other people's faces. Ya fucking greasy dirtbag!"
This was a side of Haruo that River had only seen once before aimed at VJ Alvi when Haruo had laid him out in the dirt but she could understand it. It was pent up rage at the way that he'd been treated by his mother and that rage needed an outlet.
Little did he know that Ethan, Parker also saw that fight and resolved never to cross Haruo ever again. The sheer violence that Haruo unleashed on Jared Frio, a man older than Haruo by five years and in the physical prime of his life meant that Haruo was more than capable of handling them when it came down to it.
"Well let's go in and eat, said Molly who had just joined them having seen Haruo's dispatching kick and subsequent scrambling of Frio's brain-cells.
The six now stepped over Jared's prone body, all avoiding Jared's head with the exception of Haruo who delivered a deliberate smack to the side of Jared's head with the instep of his shoe slapping his Jared's brain against the side of his skull knocking him out cold again. It was amazing that Jared hadn't suffered severe brain trauma.
River and Haruo had meatloaf and ordered milkshakes: River, strawberry and Haruo, chocolate. Fiona had a club sandwich, hold the cold-cuts; Molly had a cheese-burger and fries as did Satoshi. Yasunobu had a teriyaki burger.
At least Emma Hatch was on secondary at the grill since Molly was not on that day and well, Jared having suffered a concussion and would not be finishing his shift, the restaurant was lucky that they had a secondary cook on shift at the diner. Stiles having been at the diner for his nightly french fries, helped Jared to his feet and shuffled him off to the hospital where he would be treated for acute symptoms of concussion which would involve bed-rest for seventy-two hours.
Idle conversation was kept strictly to a minimum while eating and when they were done, it was back to the car and home.
As they pulled up on their triplex, Fiona wanted to know how Haruo was doing in school; whether he had any aspirations to do something with his life. Haruo had a lot on his mind after the fight with Jared and he didn't have a clue how to answer that kind of question at the moment that Fiona asked him. Of course being rather inclined to concentrate his studies on writing, he did aspire to be a well-respected author. There were a lot of things to talk about and in the late March air, it certainly felt as though they really needed to get inside the house and get warm. Finally Fiona, Satoshi and his dad had already gone into their respective homes. Molly had headed off to work as she had been called in due to a co-worker calling in sick.
River talked to him enthusing about how wonderful it would be to graduate and travel the world. After all it was something she really wanted to do. She also enthused about their house and how wonder-ful it was that they were living so close together and were able to see each other every day. After all, they had been together as friends for so long, it just seemed like a natural progression, to have a home that both families owned, enhancing their ability to stay together throughout their last year in high-school.
"I'm so glad it turned out this way..." River said softly as they looked at each other through the shadows of impending nightfall.
"Me too,". And it was at that very moment that they saw each other in a VERY different light - of course it could have been the dimming light of early evening, but was it something else entirely? And as they gazed at each other the realization of just how important the other was to their lives came over them.
They were so engrossed in talking about each other. that they lost complete and utter track of time. They talked about the future and Haruo talked about River and her aspirations and River talked of Haruo and HIS aspirations and they both came to a realization that their lives were rich and wonderful because of each other's contribution into each others' lives. They realized just how fortunate that they were in order to have parents willing to do what they had; Mayumi excepted and no matter what, they needed to pursue what their intended line of work was going to be. In the future.
Of course, all the aspiration talk led to them forgetting about the clock and then realizing that they needed to get to sleep if they were going to be functional the next morning...and Mayumi’s strident call of “Get your rear-end in the house or you’re going to be grounded for the rest of the month.” caused them to hurry inside their respective suites.
A Week Later
Bebe had come over from her side of the triplex and had hung out with River. And soon enough talk turned to boys...and Torao and Haruo. Bebe asked how Haruo’s ribs were doing as far as them being bruised by Jared’s full-force kick to the chest. Evidently he’d tightened his chest muscles to the consistency of a board and it appeared as though Jared’s kick didn’t do much to him whereas Jared was nursing a full-blown concussion due to his brain being bounced off the inside of his cranium, first from Haruo’s nasty hook-kick to the side of his head which had bruised his brain like the impact of a cauliflower falling off a food cart and the rabbit punches to the skull with the concrete pad backrest when Haruo was using Jared’s head as a speed-bag didn’t do him any favours. More or less, the doctor, knowing Jared’s reputation, told him to stay in bed for 72 hours and ultimately stop ticking people off. Like that was going to happen. Eventually, Jared would pick on the wrong guy and quite possibly end up in a coma. Fiona hoped that it wasn’t Haruo who would end up putting Jared into a coma, but self-defence worked out in mysterious ways.
“I don’t even know if he likes me in that way.” River protested when Bebe had forced the issue and talked about River always hanging out with Haruo. But to Bebe, her protests sounded feeble and forced. There was that glint in River’s eyes every time she talked about him.
Bebe smirked at her friend, “Well...if you don’t ask, you won’t know, will you?”
River winced as she said, “But...Bebe...it’s not like that...”
“Oh...sure it isn’t.” Bebe laughed. “You were talking all about him having taken Jared down and the fact that his fists were like steel hammers. I mean, nobody but your boyfriend takes down an adult, right? At least he’s tough enough to do so and nobody waxes eloquent on someone like that if they aren’t the slightest bit interested in them, right?” she shot River a knowing glance.
“But he’s not my boyfriend...” River rolled her eyes, “I mean...”
“Not yet, anyway...” Bebe smirked again.
River sounded frustrated, “Will you stop...Bebe, He hasn’t said anything at all...about liking me...”
“Other than spending every chance he gets with you...” Bebe interjected. “River, honey, you won’t know if you don’t ask...so...ask...him.” she shot River another knowing older more experienced in the world grin. “Besides, he’s a hunk, like his cousin...”
“Yeah, what about you and Torao...” River turned the tables on her friend. “So...what are you doing about your interest in Torao.”
“Well...he did mention that he was interested in me...and...well...” She raised an eyebrow hinting.
River shot her a look, “Oh...really?”
“Uh...huh...” Bebe nodded then wound up and tossed the million-dollar curveball at River, “So...tell me something...do you love...Haruo...” River’s silence was answer enough for Bebe. “Girl, you need to ask him...”
Listening to this, unnoticed by the stairs, Fiona reminisced back to when River was a small child playing with her best friend in the whole wide world and recalled just how innocent their play-times were together, playing with blocks or as they aged; playing with a soccer ball or tossing the old pig-skin around.
Deep down she knew that River was going to eventually develop emotional ties with someone and who better than someone that she’d known for practically all of her life. Fiona took a deep breath...exhaling, silently lifting up a prayer that River, when she fell in love, wouldn’t be hurt emotionally. Despite his deep-seated pain and anger from the abuse delivered by his mother, Fiona knew how protective Haruo was of his best friend. The only times he’d ever lifted a hand in anger was against those who would try to hurt his best friend or his family. Please, let this be a one and done relationship when she falls in love...and let them be together for life, unlike Caeden and me. She’d never truly recovered from the emotional pain that Caeden up and leaving had marked on her soul and she hoped that River would never truly know that kind of pain.
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