52.i Wondrous and True

~ Ham Song ~

For this part, Dear Traveler, let’s fast forward a little in time. A week had passed since Ritsu started training for the wondrous and true trial. Bodhi continued to keep things basic. They had Ritsu focus on breath control, identifying and absorbing different sources of natural energy, and getting better at transforming his staff with light mode.

At first Bodhi insisted on training Ritsu alone, but after all of the begging and harassment from Seven and Ham Song, the monk finally relented. So at the start of week two, Sun Seven and Ham Song began to join the other two for their sessions on the roof of the Lunch Hero.

Ham Song had just wanted to be in the company of his beloved monkey king, but Seven’s true motivation made itself known when he hauled a mini cash register and portable receipt dispenser up on the rooftop.

The gold-toothed monkey spirit was ready to capitalize on Sun Ritsu’s ever-growing fan base. He did everything from bottling up Ritsu’s sweat and selling it for cash to charging for photo ops at the end of the day.

“It’s five notes if you’re looking to be in a polaroid with our handsome Sun Ritsu. Ten if you want his trainer in the shot too.”

From where they were overlooking Ritsu’s form, Bodhi barked over their shoulder, “I’m not posing for that crap.”

Without looking back, Seven lifted a finger and adjusted. “Ah, I meant seven notes if the pig is in the shot.”

Ham Song grumbled something about the unfairness of his picture being worth less than Bodhi’s, but otherwise, he didn’t complain. Not when he had a basket of free lunch heroes to work on throughout the day.

The three young grass spirits talking to Seven asked what was so special about the pig.

“You see,” Seven waggled his eyebrows, “he’s our champion’s Lucky charm. Isn’t that sweet?”

Seven went into an elaborate recounting of how Ritsu had taken pity on Ham Song and rescued him from the jaws of mountain trolls.

Ham Song wanted so very much to yell at the lot of them that it didn’t happen that way, but he knew that he would only go ignored.

Besides…

Ham Song glanced over at Sun Ritsu, who was trying very hard and sweating so very much in order to follow Bodhi’s instruction and get better at wielding that stubborn staff.

Who am I to step on Ritsu’s path towards greatness?

The pig kept his mouth shut and let Seven weave his overzealous tales in order to swindle those poor teenage spirits.

Ham Song had another reason for not drawing too much attention from the Lemon Lime sponsor. A few days ago, Bodhi had pulled him aside to speak privately. He learned that Bodhi had reason to believe that Seven was betraying them to a company called Next Dimension, Inc.

“Wait a minute…” Ham Song’s bristly eyebrows converged at the familiarity of the name.

Bodhi gave a grim nod. “Yeah. The same company that gave us the paper spaces and nuked all those spirits under the new bridge over by the Heavenly River.”

“Sweet immortal peaches,” Ham Song growled, his mouth already frothing. “If that Seven is playing us all for some endorsement from this Next Dimension menace, I’m going to shred him a new one.”

Bodhi calmed him down with a couple of pats behind the ears. “Take it easy, pig. We can’t know for certain until we have hard evidence. So for now, just keep an eye on him.”

Ham Song was going to do better than that.

If the guy is a false friend, then he’s already too good of an actor.

Ham Song and Bodhi both agreed to keep their suspicions between themselves. Sun Ritsu had enough to focus on. Plus, he would probably botch the whole investigation.

Ham Song told the monk to focus on training Sun Ritsu and leave the rest to him. Then he waited for a chance where he could slip into Seven’s room and go through some of his stuff. Yes, it was intrusive, but if it meant protecting Sun Ritsu from a potential slimeball, Ham Song was willing to bust up any spirit’s privacy.

Well, one afternoon Ham Song got his chance. He and Seven were on the way to sit in on Ritsu’s rooftop training sessions. They almost never left at the same time as Ritsu and Bodhi. Sleeping through the morning in a comfortable, all expense paid bed was not something the spirits wanted to pass up.

“Shoot.” Seven paused and patted the crinkly pockets of his tracksuit. “Left my calculator in the hotel room.”

Ham Song volunteered to fetch it for him.

“You’re a real pal, Hambro!” Seven declared happily before sending the keycard Ham Song’s way. The pig caught it in his mouth much like a dog would catch a frisbee and took off back towards the hotel before Seven could change his mind.

In truth, Ham Song was rather surprised that Seven would trust him this way.

Maybe he wants to show me that he has nothing to hide.

Plus, the sun clone probably didn’t expect that Ham Song would bypass the calculator and rummage through his personal belongings. Which, as soon as the heavy door shut behind him, that’s exactly what the pig went about doing.

Seven had his things spread out between an old school gym bag and the dresser drawers provided by the hotel. Ham Song left no stone unturned. With his fleshy, triangular snout, he dug, flipped things over, and smelled everything as deeply as he could.

The first interesting thing he came across was a paperback copy of Losing Loved Ones to the Lake: How to Heal from a Reset.

Without any care for preserving the pages, Ham Song used his tusk to flip and shake up the book until something fell out.

The pig scrutinized an old polaroid of Seven and what appeared to be a common grass spirit holding up cans of lemon lime soda and grinning idiotically at the camera. They each had an arm wrapped around each other. The background looked like a boardwalk of some kind.

Whatever it was, was useless, so Ham Song hiked it over his shoulder.

He thought that was the end of that when he spotted yet another stray object jutting crookedly from the pages of the book. Ham Song fished it out and set it flat on the bed to study it better.

It was a business card from none other than Next Dimension.