Let’s Talk About Crystals, Baby

For the life of her, Kira failed to remember the last time she’d been in this close proximity to another living person. The steed had been a tool; he didn’t count. She held no attachment to the man convulsing in the snow, dark red splotches forming beneath the skin where his muscles had ripped themselves apart during the chase.

But Arata’s laughter was a hammer and nail to the eardrums. Detangling unsteady limbs she rose off the body, staring down at the joyous wielder as mirth bled into the air as heat, light of independent thought returning to those almond eyes.

Up close, he sort of resembled a sloth, the same stuffed variety winnable in claw machines once all better prizes layering the surface had been picked.

“You know,” he said, leaking tears, “most guys would give their left nut to have such a pretty girl tackle them.” Laughter again, this time his own, echoed through the playground up until she sunk a foot into his thigh.

Then another, and a third, each successive blow morphing his smile further into a furious scowl.

“I’m thinking of taking both as penance for the last twelve hours!” She stopped to breathe and for his face to relax. “I could make you slice them off and gift them to me yourself!” Another kick punctuated her derision.

Cheeks blooming red as an Oni mask, Arata scrambled to his feet, hands balled into fists as though he intended to fight back. A vein pulsed threateningly in the boy’s forehead, beating like a miniature heart contained in skin-toned plastic wrap. Pressed under the sufficient knife edge of a kiss, it would have popped.

Swallowing down injected emotion, a calm tinge swam back into his face. “I told you not to go home.”

“I had plans. Plans which have now blown up, no thanks to you.” Voice rising higher, she stole the red he’d dispensed himself of, slathering it across her skin like paint. “I had people waiting for me!”

“Must be nice.”

Her rage stumbled at that, at the suddenly downcast eyes and short kick at a pile of snow reminiscent of a child discovered mid-pillage of the cookie jar, in anticipation of punishment. “On any other day, maybe. Your Don paid me a visit.”

If the news came as any surprise, it didn’t show. She’d hoped for a dumb expression of shock, an overdramatic heel turn, as was his wont – should have been Arata’s wont at this revelation – but she received only a blink. The shrug could have passed for a trick of the faulty sunlight.

“He wants you bad,” she added.

“Tell him I’ve never been into men.”

The talon in her pocket was growing more attractive an option with every word out of his mouth. It was cold against her fingertips. It practically purred when caressed. “He was willing to shell out for my schooling. Every note. After he threatened my family if I didn’t bring you in.”

Like watching a pot of water on the stove, that face never changed. No response boiled to the surface. His ponytail waving in the breeze had more emotion.

“So.” Arata limped away, leisurely, without a care for attack, to the playground. Crossing the desert saturated with sand, wet sand and snow, he took a seat on the facsimile of a cow with a skull deformity, legs amputated and replaced with a thick iron spring. Foot kicked up, he pulled a piece of crimson-tinted glass from the sole of his shoe. “Is this the part where I run?” A smile crept into his features. His eyes left her for a moment, sweeping over the area, at shadows and bushes, before coming back to Kira and pulling the second piece.

White spattered his vision with cold and dull pain. Kira stood shaking, hand chilled by the snow. There hadn’t been any nearby stones to mix in, and for that she cursed her luck.

Arata wiped rivulets from his eyes. “Is that a ‘yes?’” he asked.

“For how you’ve ruined my life – yeah, I should! I was this close, Arata. This close.” She pinched two fingers for emphasis, imagining the grape of his head bursting between them. “Because of you my interview was ruined! You might not be aware of this, but you can’t undo the first impression you make on a university.”

He nodded, display consideration for her words with an uncharacteristically delicate motion. “How is this my fault, though?”

Snowfall filled that gap following between them, white piles raising atop the girl’s shoulders denoting the tick of moments she spent frozen like sand fallen through the narrow tunnel of an hourglass. In later days she wouldn’t recall how the seconds passed, only that one moment she stood motionless and was shrieking at the top of her lungs the next, the playground’s roundabout facilitating hers and Arata’s impromptu game of chicken.

“Just go home!” he shouted back, keeping the handholds of the steel discus directly in the screaming girl’s path so she couldn’t simply vault the roundabout to strangle him. “Don’s a problem. I get it. Just go home and let me handle this! We’ll work it out like men. He likes those!”

“You say it like it’s so damn simple!”

“Simpler than my life. I can’t go home at all!”

“Neither can I!” She grabbed the handles to tug them aside, but Arata held them fast. By the smirk in his eyes he was having fun, and that only infuriated her more. “There’s nothing for me here! Nothing! Least of all a ho–”

Home, she thought. But the spoken word stayed unfinished, sounding like one third a sarcastic impression of Shinjuku’s departed jolly marketer.

This was Arata’s home. Not the country – the ward. He didn’t intend on leaving it, either.

So averse to change, Arata had gone on record at the Don’s hideout saying as much.

She was still in those crosshairs, her family’s collective lives at risk until Arata – five, maybe six feet away looking mighty stabbable – was laid at his feet. But even if she followed through on betraying her friend, she was still out one university acceptance.

Home? Home to what?

Walls lined with a plethora of corpses frozen with chemicals and splayed out by push pins, always staring with sightless eyes. Preserved as their jailor withered. Placed near her window was the long fibrous body of the arcte coerula in its larval stage, beside that its chrysalis, and beside an adult with dusted wings fully formed. Allowed every dead moment freedom only to glimpse at what lay beyond.

Wetness touched her eyes, but she was too angry to wipe them away.

“Then don’t!” Arata shouted. “And don’t turn me in before I’ve had a chance to explain.”

She tried to tear the handles from his grip again, voice straining with the effort. Failed again. Sighing, she let her hands drop. “You get one chance.”

Face ablaze with good cheer, Arata pulled the crystal out from under his shirt by one blackstone end. “This number can solve all our problems. After what I’ve seen, believe you me when I say I’d present you my testicles twice over before letting another take this crystal away.” He held it above his head, ostensibly to let her see the catalyst for their woes in complete detail – a show of proof no deceit was underway. Facets portioned the dark spots in his eyes. Light reflected off the shaven edges played upon the roundabout, like spotlights.

“So, you saw the old man too?” she asked. Her stomach roiled against the memory, and against the impassive stare Arata fixed her with. For the first time she acknowledged the winter day, shivering, cold most pointed against her throat where the necklace rested.

“Can’t say I know a thing about whatever old fart you saw,” he finally replied. “What I saw…” He paused, as if searching for the words. “Well, it was worth sleeping in a janitor’s closet for. Shredding myself on broken glass. Going without rest. Every inconvenience has been worth keeping this in my hands.” That hand quaked, knuckles whitening. “If the Falcons knew what they let us steal, they’d come crawling here in force. Forget their sneakiness – there’d be a real siege.” He smiled widely, showing too many teeth for a grin meant to comfort.

“Quit being a creep and get to the point.”

“Gladly! This crystal contains all the knowledge necessary to attempt your interview as many times as you need and undo every mistake we’ve ever made in the last day. The last month. The last decade.” He held it up until it eclipsed the sliver of light visible through clouds thicker than a cosmic joke.

“Time, Kira. I was shown the ritual to control time itself. So do me a favor, and don’t go home ever again.”