The Girl With A Past

"Hadassah Kawaguchi." Tori Quinones smiles down at me as she shuffles a stack of papers that detail pretty much my entire life. From my birth, the schools I've attended, how many tardies I've accrued, down to what landed my sorry behind in juvie. Tori has all my history bunched in her hands.

“Morning, Tori.” I say as I take the seat near her desk, tipping my Styrofoam cup of honey tea in her direction. Feet tapping away, I watch as my youth counselor’s eyes swing from the papers lining her cherry-oak desk, to her outdated laptop aglow with a yellowish tint. When her aquamarine eyes land on me, there’s something brewing behind them that gives me pause.

“What is it?” I ask, gently placing my cup of tea precariously at the edge of her desk.

Tori slides a paper coaster toward me, her face pleading with me to use the flimsy protector from doing harm to her desk. When I place my cup atop the coaster, Tori sighs as if she were holding in a breath.

“Hadassah.” Tori sweeps strands of her oil-black hair behind her ears. “I’ve summoned you today to talk to you about an offer you received from Captain Junpei Tokudaji.” Tilting forward, Tori waits expectedly for me to say something. Anything.

I stare blankly at her. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“Seriously, Hadassah?”

“Seriously, Tori.”

“Captain Junpei Tokudaji is the president of the Fujin-Oya Corporation,” she begins to explain, bouncing in her seat like a child. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Fujin-Oya Corp. Everyone in Tuntun Nippon should know that Fujin-Oya is solely responsible for keeping us wee-little earthlings safe from alien threats—”

Interrupting Tori with a loud sip of my tea, which I’ve added far too much honey too because it’s all gooey at the bottom, I say, “Yeah. Yeah. They make those godawful Mechas that destroy parts of Tuntun Nippon far too often.”

Those darn Mechas and their pilots are extremely careless when it comes to taking care of our great little country. Stars, if those idiots only knew how tiring it is to be assigned on cleanup duty after a battle in Shibuya. There is a lot of debris to clean up, and inmates across the island must assist in the maintenance and preservation of Tuntun Nippon. But, honestly, looking at it from their perspective, whilst in the midst of battle with our forever enemies, the Gorgons, I can understand why parts of the country are left in destitute states. Still, why can’t those pilots pilot their Mecha’s in assisting with cleanup and rebuilding? It’s not like it would take much effort on their end.

“Well, today’s your lucky day to have your very own Mecha, Hadassah.” Tori spins her laptop around so that I can see the screen. “Meet Captain Junpei Tokudaji.”

A grumpy-looking, burly, middle-aged man, garbed in a fitting, sleek black uniform, decorated on the left with gold, silver, and platinum badges telling a story of his bravery, heroism—and overall overqualification for his role as Captain. This dude looks like he can bench-press a Mecha with one hand tied behind his back.

Hair concealed under a white, feathered aviator cap, the Captain doffs his hat to me. “Ohayou gozaimasu, future Cadet Kawaguchi.”

Leaping from the chair, I knock my tea over as I bow deeply to the Captain as Tori yelps her annoyance at my clumsiness. “G-g-good Morning,” I stutter, realizing that I do, indeed, know Captain Junpei Tokudaji. He’s the reason I’m in juvie… Well, he’s not the single reason… My gang and I attempted to rob the Captain’s home, but we failed to do so successfully.

We were known as Red Roses. A villainous gang that terrorized the streets of Roppongi. As ruthless as we were, and as much harm as we did, we were just kids trying to survive. I was just a girl rebelling against the machine, changeling authority, getting into fist fights almost on the daily. The Red Roses were motivated by poverty. Simple as that. Lack of money for simple necessities and hunger pangs can drive the holiest person to do some criminal stuff.

But I was a fake amongst the Red Roses. I come from wealth. From a two-parent household. I attend the best schools. Never went to bed hungry. Never truly understood what my friends were going through.

With a shuddering breath as I remove myself from the chaos that was the night of the failed robbery, I come back to reality. Come back to looking at the man whose son tackled me to the ground and held me captive until the police arrived.

“Cadet Kawaguchi,” Captain Junpei Tokudaji says once more, alarming me. “I’d like to formally welcome you as a pilot—in-training, of course—with the Fujin-Oya Corp. As a Cadet, you’ll begin a ten-week training program designed to test you both mentally and physically. After your ten-week training, you’ll begin piloting your own Mecha and aiding them in battle under the Earth Defense Initiative. If you impress me enough, I might allow you some flexibility in partnering with engineers, the maintenance crew or other specialized fields in which you’ll learn a plethora of new and exciting things. All I need is a yes from you, future Cadet, and we can get this ball rolling.”

I stare on in equal parts horror and confusion, for a minute or two, contemplating what’s being offered. Then, like a match striking a fuse to a dynamite, that slowly trails its way to the blasting cap, I rage.

“Are you kidding me?” I scoff. “Being a pilot is NOT on my vision board, Captain. I can’t believe that you want me to join Fujin-Oya where I’ll likely meet my death in battle with the Gorgons? And you’re in agreement with this craziness, Tori?”

Instead of Tori or Captain Junpei answering, the familiar sound of my Father’s voice booms from the laptop’s speakers.

“You will do whatever Captain Junpei Tokudaji says you’ll do.” On the laptop’s screen, Father glares at me, his arms folded, brows scrunched. He and the Captain share the screen, divided by a thick vertical black line.

I feel like a child as Father casts his brown eyes upon me with a fiery disappointment that makes me wither to my knees. I haven’t seen Father in almost a year because he’s refused to be anywhere near his failure of a daughter. Father appears to be in good health, though: His tanned skin, tapered brown-gold eyes, and head of oil-black curls with not a hint of gray anywhere in sight, is exactly how I recall Father to look like. And nothing has changed in the year since. Equally as dapper as Captain Junpei, Father wears his mauve business casual suit, with a matching tie. This suit shows that he’s about to leave for work in the next few minutes. Father runs his own legal firm that handles huge medical cases. His job requires him to be serious, so serious that he forgets to flip his serious switch off a majority of the time.

“You have brought shame and dishonor to our family, Hadassah.” Father shakes his head, disgust ever-present in his voice. A disgust that rips salty tears from my eyes. “Is this display of weakness supposed to make me feel bad for you? Save your tears and channel that emotional energy into this new career that you will partake in.”

Through wet, clouded eyes, I choke out, “Don’t you care if I die, Father? Because you’re sending me away to my death.”

“Then you’ll die with honor.” Father’s words are blunt and spiked at the tips like a prickly cactus. Yet, this is who he is. One would think that eighteen years of having this man as my Father would toughen me up to his harshness.  But, alas, it has not.

A sob racks my chest as I curl into a tiny ball, wrapping my arms around my legs. I’m more that I appear unstable with my crying, and, perhaps, Captain Junpei will feel sorry enough for me he will make the executive decision to rethink hiring me for this role.

“My favorite daughter,” a calm, female voice softly feathers its way through the speakers. “No need to cry, dear.”

“M-mom?” Slowly, I unwrap myself from the ball I was in, and come to my knees, glancing up at the woman I love the most in the world. “Mommy!”

Afeni Orun-Kawaguchi, the best mother anyone can ask for. Through this teenage angst journey I’ve been on, she’s shown me so much grace and love and care, which I’ve shoved aside in favor of committing hoodrat shenanigans with my friends. Mom has always been in my corner, wielding her unconditional-love shield of motherhood. Of protection. But, after constantly protecting someone who just can’t seem to get themselves out of the hellhole they’ve landed themselves in, eventually…. Eventually, they call it quits. And when someone you love calls it quits on you after being on your side repeatedly after all the hell you’ve raised, it’s time to sink or swim.

And I sank. Sank to a place where breathing was near-impossible.

With my Mom here virtually, I take a big breath and smile through a shower of tears.

“Stop your crying, Ife-Ife.” Mom playfully wags her finger at me.

Wiping tears and snot away on my mandatory orange one-piece plastic garment, I retake my seat. “S-sorry about that.”

“We’re all human, here,” Mom says, sidling closer to Father on the loveseat they’re on.

Captain Junpei chimes in with: “Emotions are the one thing that can make or break us. With the training you’ll embark on, we offer meditation, yoga, and other forms of centering oneself. Why? Because we can’t have a weeping pilot on the battlefield… that would not pose well for the safety of the citizens of New Japan.”

I nod my head, understanding that the Captain is correct. When I got into fistfights, concentrating on taking down my opps was my goal. Crying after was a given.

“I understand how scared you are, Ife-Ife.” Mom’s brown eyes are sad, and I can only imagine that she’s trying her best not to imagine me blown to bits in a battle with the Gorgons. “However, Ife-Ife, you’ve exhausted all opportunities for reintegrating back into society as a… a regular person.” She cringes at her use of the word 'regular,' but I totally get it. 

I do…

Mom’s deeply-melanated skin is aglow with a peace she’s come to accept. Though her eyes are weary, I can tell she’s already accepted the fate that may lie before me. Accepted that she may never see me again.

“Hadassah.” Father intertwines the fingers of his left hand with Mom’s right hand. “There’s no negotiating here. You will join Captain Junpei’s brigade, and you’ll work your way back into being a law-abiding Japanese citizen. Is that understood?”

“Understood,” I say, with no ounce of protest in me. This is the bed I’ve made, and now I must lie down in it.

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” Tori says, handing a tablet strewn with legalese on the screen to me, “I’ll need you to sign a few things, and then you're free to go six months earlier than expected. Your new life awaits you, Hadassah Kawaguchi. Are you ready?”