Empty

The porch was covered in dust. Ramon Cortez sat in an old wooden chair looking out over the highway that stretched on endlessly a mile away from his house. The noonday sun made it nearly impossible for him to make out the individual cars as they passed by.
     Something inside his shack clattered, and the sound of a young woman muttering followed shortly after.
     His bony, leathery hands gripped the ends of the armrests as he foisted himself out of the chair and stepped inside. His patched-up clothes rustled slightly as he stepped through the barely furnished living room and looked into the kitchen.
     A tall, thin, Japanese woman was standing still, staring at a pile of broken glass on the floor. Her feet weren't cut yet, but the shards all over the floor made it dangerous for her to try and leave until it was all cleaned up. Her delicate blue eyes and shoulder length blonde hair were angled downward while she stood.
     "Don't worry Tamiko," he said, "I'll clean it up."
     His voice was thick, rough, and had a thick Hispanic accent.
     "Okay." She mumbled.
     His heart ached whenever she spoke. He didn't know who she'd been before she was taken in by Japan's Twister Weaponization Program. All Percy had been able to scrounge up was the name 'Tamiko,' and an old receipt of purchase from a yakuza group that had gone defunct a decade ago. No other information on the girl existed.
     He knelt down and carefully swept up all the glass with the broom he kept in the corner, making sure to avoid cutting her. It took several minutes for him to finish his task, and even when he'd done so, he went to her bedroom and retrieved a pair of sandals for her to wear. 
     She slipped them on and bowed slightly.
     "Thank you." She whispered.
     "Yeah, no problem." He said with a shrug. "If you want water, we have plastic cups too."
     "I know." She said, with the slightest hint of indignation. "I like the glass ones more."
     He smirked back at her playfully. 
     "Well, I don't like having to buy new glass cups every time I go into town."
     "Too bad." She replied, and went to grab another glass cup from his cupboard. He watched as she went and filled it with water, before she carefully raised it to her lips and drank from it slowly. 
     He smiled when she put it down on his kitchen counter without any issues.
     "See? I'm fine." Her hand shook slightly as she let go of the glass.
     He looked at her slightly trembling hand, and at her subdued personality, and smiled genuinely at her despite it all.
     "Hi fine, I'm Ramon."
     Tamiko blinked at him a few times, then shook her head and slowly walked past him towards her room. When she had closed the door to it, he sighed and sat down in the living room.
     Really, he'd given her his bedroom and had opted to sleep in the living room ever since she'd arrived, but it wasn't nearly as hard on him as Percy seemed to think it was.
     His cellphone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered the call.
     "Yes? Who's calling?"
     "The only man who bothers to call you anymore."
     "Aw come on Percy, you know Mark still calls me sometimes."
     An unimpressed sigh came from the cellphone.
     "What's happening? How's Junnosuke doing?" He asked eagerly.
     "I'll inform you that, despite everything that the doctors said, Junnosuke Arai is making a full recovery from his Twist Removal Surgery. He's been complaining about constant headaches, and of course his sister Rikka has been filling his head with all manner of nonsense about what you did, but he's doing well."
     Ramon smiled.
     "I'm glad to hear that. Tell him I said hi."
     "I'm afraid your forbiddance from entering Japan also includes an express command against communicating with any citizens still within the country." 
     "Oh, right." Ramon scratched his bald spot. "When is that gonna be removed?"
     "Quite possibly never. They wouldn't want to risk you or Tamiko returning."
     Ramon whistled.
     "Their loss. They don't get to have any of this anymore."
     "You complete buffoon." 
     The two of them chuckled slightly, before falling silent.
     "There is one other piece of information you should be made privy to," Percy sounded less eager, "I'm afraid you've been removed from the Twisthunter Task Force. Effective immediately."
     Ramon leaned back on his old couch and looked up at the ceiling of his shack.
     "You told me that was the most likely result of this whole thing. Still, it took them three months to reach that conclusion. Glad to know they actually thought about it for a while."
     "Yes, well, the fact of the matter is, I am no longer your superior, and so I will have no further reason to call you after this point in time." Percival said with an air of importance.
     Ramon rolled his eyes.
     "You're still coming over to help me build Tamiko an actual room next week, right?"
     "Of course."
     "Thought so." He sighed playfully. "You're always so dramatic, man."
     "I have a flair for it, what can I say?"
     The two of them spent a while longer shooting the breeze about their time working together for the Twisthunter Task Force. 
     They talked for long hours, and the sun that had been high in the sky gradually went lower and lower until Ramon's shack was bathed in the golden rays of sunset. When that happened, Ramon told Percy his final, professional goodbye, and hung up his cellphone. 
     He stood up, stretched, and walked over to Tamiko's bedroom. He knocked on the door twice and spoke pleasantly.
     "Hey Tami, what do you want for dinner?"
     There was a quiet mumble from the other side of the door, and he opened it when she refused to speak up any louder. She was laying on the bed with her limbs outstretched, looking up at the ceiling with a blank expression.
     He breathed deeply. He knew that the Twist Removal Surgery for her had been particularly arduous, and the fact that she wasn't complaining about the constant pain she must have been feeling made him feel very proud of her. He smiled and sat down on the foot of the bed silently, then looked at her.
     "Do you want to go for a run before we have dinner tonight?"
     She looked up at him slowly and did something that made his heart soften the way he imagined it would when a daughter admired her father.
     She smiled at him.
     A few minutes later, Ramon Cortez' shack was empty, and the two of them were running through the Texas wilderness together.