Oh man.

Fairway

Tumeric

Chilli

Chestnuts (266g, 0.6lb)

Apricot (100g)

Pistachio (600g)

Streaky bacon (12 rashers)

Turkey (18lb)

Specialty market

Pancetta (0.6lb, 266g)

Merguez (24in)

Goose fat (3.3oz)

New Jersey

Pork mince (1000g, 2.2lb)

Brussel sprouts (1.33kg, 2.93lb)

Yukon gold potatoes (3.33kg, 7.34lb)

Chicken stock (800ml)

Lemons (6)

Onions (3)

Tomatoes (4)

Rosemary springs (4)

Parsley (1 bunch)

Sage leaves (1 large bunch)

Tuesday. Xingese cuisine day. Roy watches a private in the lunch line plop a scoop of fried rice – a mushy mound of gruel specked with bits of red and green something – on to his plate. Some staffer somewhere had the brilliant idea of trying to raise troop morale by introducing themed lunch days in the cafeteria. A quick glance at Wednesday’s menu tells Roy tomorrow is Drachman cuisine day. What a treat, Roy thinks, what a treat.

Meanwhile, a tall blonde sergeant standing in front of Roy in line says expectantly to his shorter, bespectacled friend’s, “Sooo, did you ask Lieutenant Milly out?”

“No,” Glasses responds curtly.

“Oh c’mon, what’s the matter with you Marv?” Blondie makes a face at his friend, “LT is totally into you, man.”

“Do you mind? She’s our commanding officer!” Glasses hisses back.

Roy shuffles mindlessly behind them in line, holding a well-worn brown plastic tray in one hand, his other tucked in his pants pocket. No stranger to the pains of the military’s non-fraternization rule, Roy silently extends his sympathies to Glasses. He and Havoc had been curating a list of potential dates for as long as Roy could remember: Charlotte from Investigations, Gretchen down in library archives, Jenna from the hospital, just to name a few. Her name, though, well, she’s always been different.

“Oh c’mooon, Marv,” Blondie drones on dramatically. “Who is going to know?” Blondie answers his own question, “No one, that’s who! Seriously, man, it is just one date. No one’s going to find out. Just ask her out.” Blondie’s voice rises above the cafeteria humdrum, turning heads and drawing hushed murmurs in the pair’s direction.

Glasses is beet red and growing redder by the minute. “If you don’t keep your damn voice down everyone is going to know!” He hurls a scoop of stir fry on to Blondie’s plate with such force bits of bell pepper and carrot splatter all over the tall sergeant’s uniform.

“Whaddya do that for? You know I hate carrots!”

“Oh yeah? I hate loud mouths!”

“Just one date, huh,” Roy mutters to himself as he scoops some fried rice on to his own place. No one’s going to find out. No one…

Much to Roy’s dismay, a small army of paperwork had invaded his desk by the time he returns from lunch. A tall pile of civilian claims for lost and damaged property from Fullmetal’s latest misadventures nearly touches the ceiling. Next to it looms three more stacks of paperwork: two years’ worth of expense reports, travel logs, and ongoing operations briefs awaited his review and signature.

“And,” Riza drops another heavy box next to Roy’s existing paperwork with a thud, “an urgent delivery from Lieutenant Colonel Hughes.” Without evening opening the box, Roy could already see pictures of Gracia and Elicia’s smiling faces peeking out from under the lid.

“All work and no play makes Roy a dull boy,” he mutters, “Can’t we do something fun for once, Lieutenant?” Roy gives an exasperated sigh as he moves Hughes’ “urgent” delivery aside and begins flipping through the expense reports. He cringes internally as he thumbs past his personal expenses, having accidentally charged three dinners at some of the city’s most expensive restaurants to his military account last Valentine’s Day.

“That is entirely up to you, sir,” Riza replies, resuming work at her own desk, “As long as you finish your paperwork.” A bemused smile crosses her lips when she sees the Colonel is already doodling on his reports. Well, he’s managed to do five minutes of work, she thinks with an internal sigh, that’s a new post-lunch record.

If not for all this damn paperwork and the damn anti-fraternization rule, Roy muses back at his desk, he could be out on a joy ride with Charlotte or at the movies with Gretchen or at the beach with Jenna. Jenna loves the beach. Maybe, Roy starts drawing a hawk on the corner of a report, maybe he could have dinner with Riza. If he remembers correctly from his days as Master Hawkeye’s apprentice, Riza was quite fond of sweets. Maybe they could go to that dessert place that opened up on the corner before going back to his apartment…

When it dawns on him just who he had been daydreaming about and where his train of thought had been going, Roy crumples the report in front of him and hurls it across the office in one sudden, violent gesture. The report bounces off several times on the floor before rolling to a stop at Riza’s feet.

Looking at the ball of paper on the floor and then back at Roy, Riza asks hesitantly, “Is there something wrong, sir?” She picks up ball and straightens out the report. Roy had managed to leave a comically misshapen doodle – an avian creature that looked more like a slug with wings and less like a hawk – in one corner. Perhaps the Colonel was frustrated with his lack of artistic talent, she thinks, choking back a small laugh.

“No! Not at all, Lieutenant!” Roy does his best to feign a hearty laugh, “I was just,” he spots the waste basket in the corner and blurts out, “just practicing my basketball shot! Haha! That’s all!”

Riza returns the paperwork to Roy’s desk with a raised eyebrow. The waste basket is nearly five feet away from her desk. “Please don’t use the rest of your paperwork for sports practice, sir,” she chastises before adding, “Though your shot – and your doodles – both need work, sir.”

Roy shoots his adjutant the widest, most harmless grin he could manage before mentally sighing with relief that she had not somehow read his mind – his cursed, daydreaming mind. The rest of the afternoon, Roy vows, will be devoted solely to finishing his paperwork. No more doodling. No more daydreaming. Just wo–

One date! Just one date, Roy, no one’s going to find out, Blondie’s voice finishes Roy’s train of thought.

“Oh goddamnit,” Roy mutters, one hand slapping his face, “Not this guy.” Determined to rid his mind of Blondie’s annoying voice, Roy begins furiously tearing through the nearest stack of paperwork.

C’mooon Roy! Blondie drones on in Roy’s head, who is going to know? No one! Just ask her out already. You know you want to.

No! Roy shouts back mentally. Working a pace he never thought possible, he tries to mentally stamp out his internal nemesis by attacking an the entire stack of expense reports and travel logs.

Roy, live a little! Who is going to know? I’ll tell you who: no one! Blondie’s voice dips and twirls across Roy’s thoughts, evading the Flame Alchemist’s every attempt to snuff out the annoying sound.

Seriously, man, if you aren’t going to, then maybe I’ll take a pass at the lieutenant, Blondie taunts. I mean, Riza is a sweet piece of –

“Oh for god’s sake, shut up already!” Roy stands up abruptly, slamming both of his palms down on his desk. Shockwaves from his abrupt movement threaten to topple the various stacks of paperwork he had just completed.

Riza jumps at the sound

They had known each other for so long they could practically read each other’s minds

Glasses is silent, his knuckles white and face beet red.

“Marv, learn to live a little, man! Everyone knows the drill: just one date doesn’t break the fraternization rule.” Blondie drops a heap of stir fried vegetables and noodles on Glasses’ plate, having finally reached the food. “One date rule, Marv, one date rule!”

At this point other voices join the fray. “Quit teasing him, Jake!”

“Yeah, one date rule! Ask her out Marv!”

“Milly and Marv, sitting in a tree…K I S S—!”

“Do it, Marv! One date rule!”

By the time Roy digs into his fried rice and stir fry, the entire cafeteria is chanting “One date rule!”

Riza greets him with paperwork as soon as Roy steps back in the office. A small city of paperwork had apparently found its way to his desk during lunch time. A neat stack of civilian claims for lost and damaged property from Fullmetal’s latest misadventures along with expense reports and travel logs waited for his review and signature.

“And,” Riza places one last file in front of him, ”

“By the way, Hawkeye.”

“Yes, Colonel?”

“Have you heard of the one date rule?”

“No, sir, I can’t say I have.”

“I overheard some enlisted men talking about in the cafeteria. It’s probably nothing.”

”

“You’re burning the roux, Boy!” Father’s voice booms from his office. “I can smell it all the way from up here!”

Pots and pans clatter in the kitchen. A small voice calls back, “I’m sorry, sir! I’ll make sure to watch the pot, sir!”

I tiptoe over and peek inside the kitchen from behind a half-open door. The new boy is standing on a step stool and bent over a pot of curry on the stove like a witch over her cauldron. The sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up to his elbows, sweat dripping down from his furrowed brown to his red cheeks. Around the stool lay a circle of discarded onion peels, carrot tops, apple cores, and potato skins.

Stirring the pot with a wooden spoon, the boy’s jet black eyes are focused intently on the pages of my mother’s old recipe book. The first task Father gives anyone who wants to be his apprentice is to make my mother’s curry from scratch. No one’s come ever come close to Father’s expectations, so Father has never taken an apprentice.

The boy raises the wooden spoon to his mouth for a taste and his lips pucker immediately. He runs both hands through his mop of raven hair several times in frustration before suddenly leaping off the stool and racing across the kitchen. Frantically flinging open cupboards and drawers, he mutters to himself – coffee, yogurt, flour – as he searches for ingredients, completely oblivious to my presence by the door.

As the boy reaches for the flour, Father’s voice rings out again, “Don’t even think about adding more flour, Boy!”

The boy jerks his hand away from the flour bag and shouts back, “Yessir!”

To my surprise, by sunset, the house begins to take on an unexpected aroma. The smell dredges up half-forgotten fragments of a mother I hardly knew. Sometimes I feel her presence in the house calling out to me as if to remind me that she – my mother – had once lived here, but nothing evokes her memory as strongly as the smell of her curry wafting through my room that night.

And, sure enough, later that night, Father takes an apprentice for the first time.

A familiar smell pulls Riza back to the world of the waking. Curry, she thinks as she rubs the sleep from her eyes, this is smell of my mother’s curry. She starts to twist her hair into a bun as she sits up on the couch but suddenly decides against it. No, she thinks, leaving her hair down, not quite her mother’s curry.

Soft amber light filters in through the doorway, throwing long shadows into the darkened living room. She wraps a sweater around her shoulders and heads down to the kitchen. Peeking through the doorway, Riza catches the glimpse of a man hovering over a pot on her stove, the sleeves of his white uniform shirt rolled up past muscled forearms to his elbows. A pair of white gloves rest on the kitchen table, a black overcoat hangs over the back of a chair.

“You’re burning the roux, Boy,” Riza says with a smile. Crossing her arms she rests her weight against the doorway. When they are alone, she calls him whatever she wants. Sir. Colonel. Boy.

“Huummh?” Roy looks up from the stove with a wooden spoon in his mouth, his jet black eyes meeting Riza’s amber ones momentarily before he shouts, “Coffee!” He may have stopped dropping vegetable peels and fruit shavings on the floor, but her commanding officer still stumbles around the kitchen for ingredients the same way he did when he was a kid. The corners of Riza’s mouth could hardly keep from curling into a smile when he triumphantly waves up a can of instant coffee in her direction. “Can’t forget the coffee,” he says.

“You always make my mother’s curry,” Riza muses, giving the pot a stir. The aroma reminds her of lazy childhood afternoons. A Sunday maybe, or a school day after she’s finished her homework, and Father finally lets Roy stop scribbling alchemy circles long enough to cook dinner.

“Hers is the only curry I’ll ever make,” Roy replies, adding with a slight grimace, “even after all that abuse from Master.” Father never said a single good thing about Roy’s curry, always criticizing this or that. Add more pepper, Boy! You’ve ruined the flavor, Boy! And Roy never stopped tinkering with her mother’s recipe, always adding this or that – chocolate or orange peels or anything that would make Father lose his mind.

“But of course, I’ve tweaked a few things here over the years,” Roy comes up behind Riza and wrapping his arms around her waist. Burying his face in her hair, he plants a string of kisses along her jawline and down the crock of her neck, his breath hot against her skin as he whispers, “Though I’m not sure Master would approve.”

Closing her eyes, Riza falls back into Roy’s embrace. If only she had known she would the rest of her life with Father’s only apprentice. “Do you remember,” she asks, reaching back to run her fingers through his hair, “what life was like before we met each other?”

“No,” he hums back against her collarbone, “life without you is not worth remembering.” His answer is so remarkably cheesy that Riza only laughs in response. The world shrinks to a small quiet moment in her apartment, and they stay like this – holding each other, swaying to the tune of a song only they can hear – for a long time.

Then, Riza breaks the silence: “What did you do this time, sir?”

Roy peels away from Riza like a turtle drawing back into its shell – he only makes curry when he knows he’s in trouble. Chuckling, he jabs his index fingers together in front of his face. “Well, you know those operations reports, the ones you told me to finish last week,” he begins meekly before trailing off.

She looks at him expectantly. He steals small glances at her while twiddling his thumbs. Lazy Colonel Mustang must have forgotten to file his monthly operations reports, again. And Lieutenant Hawkeye, his trusty adjutant, is going to have slog through bureaucratic nonsense to get those reports filed properly, again.

For an aspiring Fuhrer-to-be, Roy has a terrible poker face. He knows it is all his fault for slacking off on his work, so Riza squares her shoulders and chastises him with the most solemn sir-must-do-your-work glare she can muster. When Riza finally drops her gaze with a roll of her eyes, the normally imposing Colonel Mustang collapses on his lieutenant’s kitchen floor with a long sigh of relief.

“You really should do more of your work, Roy,” she reprimands again, giving the pot of curry another stir before ladling several scoops of rich curry onto two plates of fluffy white rice.

“Yes, Master Hawkeye,” Roy replies in his apprentice voice as he adds crimson flowers of red pickles to each plate of curry before setting both down on the table. He swears he hears the safety on Riza’s handgun click off as soon as the last syllable leaves his mouth. “Erm, I mean, yes, Riza.”

“Thank you for the meal,” Riza holsters her sidearm before adding, “Boy.”

But she relents and declares: “Apology accepted, sir.” W

Riza’s plate is practically spotless when she finishes the last bite of her food. And before either of them knows it, they fall back old habits by the sink: he washes, she dries. That had been their evening routine back then. Two kids standing next to each other by the sink, elbows and arms bumping into each other, water splashing and sloshing all over the counters and floor as they scrubbed dishes.

“Yessir,” Riza nods.

Decades later, the two of them are not doing much better – she with her injured left hand and he with his broad-shouldered frame too large for her tiny kitchen sink. From one look at the way the colonel is handling the dishes in the sink, Riza could tell Roy hardly does the dishes these days. All that cafeteria food for lunch and takeout for dinner.

A heavy bowl slips through Roy’s clumsy hands and into the sink with a large splashing, throwing soapy dishwater all over the countertop and floor. An stray droplet finds its way to Riza’s eye. “Will you please pass me a towel, sir?” she asks, cradling her head in the crook of her elbow, “I’ve got soap in my eye.”

Roy scrambles to find a clean towel in the kitchen, comes up with nothing, and dashes out into the living room to continue his search. Riza nearly doubles over with laughter when he finally returns and presses a crumpled napkin into her hand. “You’d make a terrible house-husband, sir,” she says, choking back laughter.

“I’m sorry, lieutenant,” Roy says with an exasperated sigh, “Let me finish up with the dishes so I can get out of here and stop ruining what’s left of your day.”

“No, it’s alright, sir,” she replies with another chuckle, dabbing her eyes with the bit of napkin.

For a second time that night, a silence settles between the pair. The only sound in the kitchen comes from hush of water gushing from the faucet and Roy’s sponge scrubbing against pots and plates. He apologizes every time his forearms bump into her hands, every time water rains down on their clothes from the sink.

When the dishes are done, the two find themselves standing in Riza’s apartment doorway. “I’m sorry I made such a mess of things today,” Roy says. He is tugging at the sleeves of his black overcoat, and Riza is failing miserably at trying not to smile. Her normally confident and self-assured commanding officer is standing sheepishly in her doorway, restlessly running his hand through his hair, looking at her expectantly from the corner of his eyes. He wants a sign from her that he has truly been forgiven.

She draws herself up and squares her shoulders, chastising him with the most solemn glare she could muster. You should be glad that no one was hurt today, sir. You should be glad you were not seriously injured yourself, sir, not mention what would happened had there been any civilians on the road.

Roy replies with the most innocent smile he could manage. He turns back towards her as he steps out into the hallway, “Please, just forget tonight ever—”

Before he has a chance to finish his sentence, Riza pulls him close by the lapel of his overcoat with her good hand, planting a kiss firmly on his lips. Their lips touch for the briefest of moments but Roy remains immobile in her hallway, eyes wide in disbelief, even after their bodies separate.

“Thank you for the meal, sir.”

She looks at him. He looks back at her. Silence fills the small space between them at the dinner table. Then, Riza’s brow furrows.

They had been on their way back to the office when a torrential downpour suddenly cascaded over the Amestrian countryside. Roy, with all of his distaste for precipitation, insisted they take the faster route back along a narrow, dirt road where the car sputtered wildly out of control in the rain and mud. Roy’s attempts to realign the steering wheel from the passenger seat only made matters worse, throwing the car off the road entirely where the vehicle threw itself unceremoniously into a tree.

From the looks of it, Roy must have brought her back to her apartment because she remembers nothing else after the car slammed into the tree. Her wrist injury, which Roy had also tended to, must have also been a product of the accident.

Back at the dinner table, Roy’s eyes are anxiously searching his lieutenant’s face for a sign of forgiveness. The colonel has a terrible poker face for a soldier aspiring to be a politician, Riza muses. The accident was all his fault, so maybe she should scowl and frown a little more to keep him on the line before letting him go.

But she relents and declares: “Apology accepted, sir.” When he hears those words, both hands rush to Roy’s face with a resounding smack as he sinks back into his chair with a sigh of relief.

“I’m surprised you still remember how to make this curry after all these years,” Riza remarks between mouthfuls of curry. She could not remember the last time she had curry since Roy’s apprenticeship ended years ago.

“I don’t think I can ever forget your mother’s recipe after all that abuse from Master,” Roy says with a pout. Father never said a single good thing about Roy’s curry, always criticizing this or that. (Add more pepper, Boy! You’ve ruined burned the onions, Boy!) And Roy never stopped tinkering with her mother’s recipe, always adding this or that. (Chocolate or orange peels or something that would make Father lose his mind.) But Father used to demand the dish at least once a week and Father’s only apprentice would oblige all too happily.

“And of course, I’ve tweaked a few things here and there,” Roy says, propping his elbows on the tables and leaning towards Riza with mischievous grin, “Though I’m not sure Master would approve.” Riza responds with a small laugh and a shake of her head. Some things never change.

Riza’s plate is practically spotless when she finishes the last bite of her curry. She starts to take her plate and spoon to the sink with her good hand, but Roy is quicker than she is and plucks them from her. “I wash, you dry,” he says, “Just like old times.”

“Yessir,” Riza nods. That had been their evening routine back then: he washes, she dries. Standing next to each other by the sink, elbows and arms bumping into each other, water splashing and sloshing all over the counters and floor.

“I’m sorry, lieutenant,” Roy says with an exasperated sigh, “Let me finish up with the dishes so I can get out of here and stop ruining what’s left of your day.”

“No, it’s alright, sir,” she replies with another chuckle, dabbing her eyes with the bit of napkin.

Roy replies with the most innocent smile he could manage. He turns back towards her as he steps out into the hallway, “Please, just forget tonight ever—”

“Thank you for the meal, sir.”

“Do you remember Maxwell?” Riza asks suddenly, blinking several times as she pats her eye with the napkin.

“You mean that snotty rich kid from town?”

She nods, “He used to say that to me all the time – that I’d make a terrible housewife. He kept going around telling people no one would want to marry me to make me their housewife in the first place.”

“That kid was a jerk.” The talk of Maxwell irks Roy and he begins attacking the crusty residue of curry inside a pot with a sponge. “That kid was a jerk,” he mutters again.

“Joining the military pretty much killed my marriage prospects, so maybe Maxwell was on to something,” Riza replies with a laugh and a shrug, setting down the napkin and picking up another plate to dry.

“No!” Roy barks, slamming his hands down suddenly against the edge of the sink, kicking up more dishwater. “That little jerk wasn’t on to anything at all! Any man should be happy to have you as their wife!”

Maxwell’s comments had never particularly bothered Riza – boys will always be boys, and they were all kids back then anyway – so Roy’s outburst catches her off guard.

“I-I-I,” Roy’s voice cracks, “I would be happy – more than happy – to have you as my wife!” Crap. The rational part of Roy’s mind gives his subconscious a ringing smack across the face. Crap, crap, crap, I said that out loud.

“Papa! Papa!” Riza Hawkeye bounces into her father’s study

“What is it, Elizabeth?” Berthold Hawkeye barely lifts his eyes from the page of his alchemy manuscript.

“I want to hear a story!” Riza tugs at her father’s trouser leg. A huge, expectant smile spreads across her face as she looks up at Berthold’s towering profile. “I want to hear the one about the alchemist and the lizard!”

Progression One

Angela, my boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend, is from Taiwan. When we go out to eat with my boyfriend’s family, she chats with his parents, even his grandparents, in Chinese. She is imbued with knowledge of Chinese culture and dining etiquette. She eats tiny portions and correctly refuses gifts the Chinese way before actually accepting them. Sometimes, I worry that my boyfriend’s parents approve of her more than they do me because she is more Chinese. She’s the one that pours tea for everyone else before refilling her own cup and I’m the one that doesn’t even drink tea because hot beverages burn my tongue.

Here’s a secret: If you ever want to eat at a Chinese restaurant, bring a Chinese friend and have them order for you. Make it abundantly clear that your companion is Chinese. If you’re feeling adventurous, have your friend order an item off the menu that’s handwritten and taped to the walls of the restaurant. It’s probably better than anything listed on the English menu. If you go to the right places, they will even serve you free soup – all because your friend is Chinese.

The Chinese came to America for the money, not a new way of life. Even as they start new lives overseas, the Chinese are still trying to occupy an exclusive society instead of assimilating. Chinese communities are most often described as tight-knit communities where the ins and outs, like ordering the right dishes, are unknown to foreigners who don’t speak and don’t understand the language. To the rest of the world, Chinatown must seem like a gathering of souvenir knick knacks and restaurants that serve orange chicken.

I don’t really speak Chinese and that’s the way my mother intends for it to be. When people ask if I speak Chinese, I say, with a grin and a nervous chuckle, “I speak a little.” That might even be a stretch, I can handle just enough Chinese to get around.

I never understood why a divorce or a separation should be so psychologically traumatizing to a child. Whenever people find out that I only live with my mother and that my dad lives out somewhere in Elmhurst, they give me that look of pity and mutter, “Oh, I’m sorry” as if there’s something to be sorry about. Maybe I wasn’t as perceptive a child as my mentally scarred counterparts. When my dad moved out,

My family is pretty normal. I was brought up by my grandparents who overfed me. My mother was getting her second, or third, PhD and my dad travelled a lot. I didn’t see a lot of my parent

For what it’s worth, my family is pretty normal. Granted, I’m not really being clear with what I mean by ‘normal’. I was brought up by my grandparents because my mother was busy getting a PhD and my dad was busy travelling. I don’t remember seeing much of them as a child. Then my grandfather died and my mother decided to move to America.

Why would I want a complete family anyway? There are more than eight million people in the world and I am a collector, gathering pieces from each culture with which to slowly build the mosaic of my cultural understanding
Whenever someone asks me if I speak Chinese, I say, with a nervous grin, “I speak a little.” I’m secretly trying to vindicate my mother’s decisions and how she wears my inability to speak Chinese as a source of pride when most Chinese parents shake their heads in dismay at how little their offspring speak of their native language. I’m always secretly trying to vindicate some aspect of my life to someone, especially the Chinese, because they find something wrong with every aspect of my life that I reveal to them. No, I can’t read or write Chinese. No, I haven’t been back to China since I moved here. No, we don’t really cook at home. No, we’re not really like you. And no, we don’t have a problem.

After a year’s worth of family gatherings, parties and dinner banquets, I’m still where I have always been, on the outside looking in, but I’ve become an expected guest – Allen’s girlfriend.

I’m still not comfortable saying anything to anyone in Chinese, but I’m not as frightened of the occasional conversation with his aunt or uncle or poking fun at the struggles between his younger cousins.

I’m not too broken up about it, though, not having eight million relatives. Sometimes I’m actually relieved. After a year’s worth of family gatherings, parties and dinner banquet, I’m starting to miss a Sunday morning at home, without half a dozen screaming children playing a video game somewhere or the shouts and yells of the adults gambling in the living room. Or, about being that odd half-family when tradition demands that it be a whole. All the roundness that Kingston observes in her life, “the round moon cakes and round doorways, the round tables of graduated size that fit one roundness inside another, round windows and rice bowls” (313) are absent from mine, allowing me to fill my life with shapes of my choosing.

Even after a year’s worth of family gatherings and banquet dinners, getting to know almost all of Allen’s relatives by name, I’m still where I have always been, on the outside looking in.
After a year’s worth of family gatherings and banquet dinner, it’s almost as if I’ve been inducted into their family. His dad traded his Honda for a Nissan Pathfinder so there’s room for Angela and I when we go to one of this ubiquitous gatherings.

The piglet lies face down on the oblong serving tray, the crispy skin and meat of its back exposed and sliced into rectangular portions.

The piglet rests on a tall, oblong serving tray that dominates the glass Lazy Susan at the center of the table. Face down, the meat along it’s is exposed and sliced into rectangular portions. The snout, a hard knob of skin the color of mahogany, is pointed at the elderly who are served first.

The exterior of a Chinese banquet hall may be misleading.

I don’t really speak Chinese. When people ask if I do, I say, “I speak a little.” I give a

My dad wants me to help him do some work at his office on Sunday, but it’s late Saturday night and I’m hurtling down the New Jersey Turnpike in the backseat of my boyfriend’s parents’ Honda. I’m on the phone, trying, in my broken Chinese

The car zips along the highway, past closed shopping malls and empty parking lots, towards their house, one of many newly built houses that, along with a man-made lake, comprised the town of Sayreville. A water tower with the town’s name emblazoned across the tank looms over the highway exit we get off at.

It’s late Saturday night and I’m hurtling down the New Jersey Turnpike in the backseat of my boyfriend’s parents’ silver Honda. I’m on the phone with my dad, trying to tell him one thing or another in my broken Chinese. Something about helping out with his work, something about the plans my mother and I made with him to go away for the weekend. Every once in a while, I give up completely and just use English, hoping he understands. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t, a strange sort of language barrier.

Later, Allen’s dad tells me that he is surprised by how good my Chinese is. He doesn’t exp

I moved my desk.

Do you love someone or are you in love with someone? Which is it? He doesn’t know. He’s never used that particular word to describe that particular emotion, an emotion he has never understood. He rationalizes that it’s not because he’s incapable of understanding it, it’s because he does

Where have you been all this?

I don’t know. Somewhere, I guess.

I want to thank my parents, but I’m never going to say it to them. I’m at that awkward age.

He is a little drunk and she is letting him get away with small touches an

Life is such a mess sometimes. He’s tangled up in her sheets, her limbs, her hair. He is such a mess sometimes.

He’s scared, a little too far gone to be called back but he’s holding the door open just a crack for someone to reach a hand through and wedge it open. He wants to be saved. That is his only truth and he knows it. He runs from it because it terrifies him that he needs to saved, wants to be saved and might never be. A sliver of light slips in from the outside, leaking into his abyss, a needle penetrating the skin of his nightmare.

She recognizes the sound instantly and instinctively as if she’s heard it a thousand times before. She is cradled in his trembling arms and hugged tightly to his heaving chest. He says something, an apology maybe, but all she hears as she slowly regains consciousness is the overwhelming sound of his heartbeat, the burning of a violent flame.

Time before they knew each other, time neither wants or needs to remember, like fading colors on a palette of broken memories: the estranged child of a brilliant but obsessive alchemist and the foster child adopted into a makeshift family.

When he was young, the first time he put on his uniform as an officer, the first time he buttoned up the jacket all the way, he thought that this blue -the blue of his uniform- was the most perfect shade of blue. It was a blue that matched the color of the sky, a blue on which he would build his dreams.

The little girl’s father had left her on the steps of the First Branch of the Central Library, disappearing into the labyrinthine bookshelves to research his sacred alchemy, things too difficult and too complicated for her to understand. The little boy was running an errand for his mother, the soles of his loafers pounding against cobblestone streets as he raced through the city, hands clutching a grocery list and pocket jingling with money.

This was before their beginning, a time in the distant past when nothing truly mattered and they were still young, childish even, unformed shapes waiting to be filled. And, a girl caught the attention of a boy with a charmingly disarming smile.

He tricked her, she realizes later, plain and simple. Back then, he had tricked her.

Perfect blue.

The first time he puts on his uniform as an officer, the first time he buttons up his jacket all the way, the first time he blouses his trousers over his black combat boots, he thinks to himself that this blue – the blue of his uniform – must be the most perfect shade of blue. The shade of blue that fishermen see in the ocean, the shade of blue that astronauts see in the sky, the shade of blue on which he would to build his dreams and the shade of blue that only an idealist and optimist would see in this country.

Then, he goes to war. And on the Ishvallan battlefield, the carcass of a land laid to waste by his very hands, he mourns. His uniform is covered in ash, sand and blood, it reeks of smoke and death and no matter how he tries after the war, he cannot walk away from the nightmare and he cannot see, every time he puts on his uniform, every time he buttons up his jacket all the way, every time he blouses his trousers over his black combat boots, the same shade of perfect blue.

A World for Two People.

She is already done with her work for the day, so she sorts through tomorrow’s pile of papers. He is rushing to catch up with yesterday’s work, frustrated and tired of the relentless amount of banal bureaucracy that is his daily existence. Occasionally he sneaks glances at his adjutant, but his eyes do not dare linger a moment too long; her senses and her eyes are much sharper than his.

“My God! It’s already dark out, Lieutenant.” He attempts to start a conversation, try to fish his way out of work. He swivels around in his chair to face the city nightscape and stretches, letting out a yawn.

“Focus on your work, sir. Or, we’ll be here even later.”

Trying to make his unhappiness as visible as possible, he sulkily refocuses his attention on first battalion’s planned night exercises at 0100 tomorrow. He begins to draw a small dog in the corner of the page. First, he draws the face and snout, punctuated by a small round nose and two eyes. Then, adding the characteristic arch of black fur over the eyes, he moves on to the body, the paws and finally the tail. For a few minutes, he is wholly absorbed in his doodle. He struggles, for several long hours and through several more dog doodles, before he is finished with even a half of his work and she finally relents.

“Yes!” He makes a noise that is half groan and half yawn, collapsing on top of his desk.

She lingers by the door, her black coat folded neatly over one arm, waiting for him to finish packing up for the night. The hallways are dark save for squares of moonlight cut by window panes. He throws on his own coat with a flourish and literally bounces out of the office. At first, she wants to remind him that there is still more work left to be done but she can only respond to the childish joy on his face with a beleaguered grin of her own.

Fetching keys from her uniform pocket, she locks the office door. As she turns to leave, suddenly, she feels his arms wrap around her waist, his arms coming to rest in the curve of her back. The moonlight casts a mysterious glow over her face, reflecting deliciously off her lips and amber eyes wide with surprise. In a smooth, almost trained, motion, he releases her hair clip, letting her hair fall to her shoulders and into his hand. He presses his forehead to hers, never breaking their steady gaze. She understands the look in his eyes, a look that too easily betrays what he really wants to say. So, she responds, reaffirming his unspoken feelings.

Finally, she closes her eyes, a gesture of submission and acceptance and mostly, of need and of want. He draws her close, her hair tickling his face and kisses her, gently, passionately, quietly, the sort of kiss that speaks volumes and nothing at the same time, the sort of kiss that lovers exchange when both are consumed by the entirety of the each other’s being, the sort of kiss that leaves no room for anyone else but them.

Quietly, he slips his ungloved hand into hers and as they leave headquarters for the evening, as the building dwindles to silence save for the sound of their receding footsteps, it feels as if this night, this world exists only for the two of them.

Look Over Here

He doesn’t remember what made him do it. He doesn’t believe in fate or destiny, or anything of that sort, but at that moment he felt the pull of something much greater than himself, a divine and magnetic attraction toward her.

“Hey,” he says, “look over here.”

As she turns to look, he gives her a light peck on the lips, catching her completely off guard. Her face is red and her lips gently parted. “What—”

And then, he does it again.

Oh, I’ve got less than a week left…

I hear my heart gently breaking. I hear the soft creaking of floor boards as my weight crosses a dark, moonlit room. I hear the whisper of my fantasies carried on a breeze. I hear your name roll of my lips, like poison I drink from my own mind, the vile creator of my torment. There is no one but you on my mind, there is anyone but you on my mind, I can think of nothing, not even for an infinitesimal second can I bring myself to think of anyone else but you. Just you, in all of your imperfect glory, in all of your imperfect existence and in all of your perfect being that I’ve crafted, a cocoon of my own mental fantasy and needs, constructed from nothing but pure lust and thought. I find myself enthralled by my version of your existence. It feeds my hunger, satiates my longing, and quenches my thirst for an everlasting emotional torrent of pain. I crave this need and need this craving. So, tell me something, tell me something, tell me something. At what point should I stop. At what point can I let the tears fall, let you go, cut the string, forget everything. At what point should I stop? At what point should I forget about all of this, forget and renounce this morbid life of love, forget and renounce all of this rich and vapid feeling, all of this emotion, all of this so called, all of this, all of this mess. When can I bury myself in this grave, because I’ve dug deep enough, I’ve dug deep enough. At what point, I beg, I plead, I ask, I need an answer, an answer and a goodbye. Cut the string for me, slit my throat, just don’t leave, just don’t leave. I hear my heart gently breaking. I hear you slowly stepping on the pieces of what’s left. I hear the soft, dying moan of what used to be me. I hear the shrill cry, the agony of a dying man, a dying ideal. I hear everything, I hear all of this, all of this, all of this superfluous noise. Yet, all I need, all I need, all I need is to just hear you.

What is it that makes me so digress?

And now, now that I’m alone, can I cry? I can cry just a little bit to myself? It’s not really even about you anymore. It’s about me. It’s always been about me. But sometimes, I like to think that it’s about you, but no, that’s a terrible.

Where are from, where are going, why are you here, why am I here, why do I need this so much, why do I need this so much, why do I need this like I need a drug, like I need a shot of Novocain?

I love you.

Can I even say that to you with a straight face? Can I even say that to anyone with a straight face and a straight meaning? Do those words mean anything more to me than just words? A symbolic representation of something that I’ll never feel, so elusive, so fickle, so fiendish and ghastly and horrid as love, something so bad, so wicked, yet I crave for, I crave for like I do life. Life. Life is horrid. Life is the feeling bubbling from chest, the feeling about to break from my ribcage like a wild animal, rip through flesh and bone and tear my soul to pieces, claws, claws, claws through this visage, this façade, this charade, this falsity I call myself and find me, find me in the center of everything, a tiny, tiny cowardly existence in the center of everything that is not myself and is, at the same time.

I feel like dying for you, not out of obligation, but out of curiosity and the need for experience. There is a tingling in my arms, my hands, and my mind is filled to the brim with just you. I see you and hear you and feel you and it’s all just you, a three letter word that means so much more. You, you, you, you, everything from words, letters, moments, sounds, just you, the pure simplicity of the world comes to in the form of a man, a man who means less to me as he is than as he is in my mind. If I never sat next to you, if I never met you, my life would not be any different. You’d simply be spared my presence.

Congratulate

Its international tell someone you like them month, according to Facebook. I hate Facebook.

I’ll find you in just a few moments. I’ll look for you in a few seconds. You’re always in the back of my mind, and try, and I try not to look in your direction, but my eyes find their way to you anyway. I try, try so hard to forget that I have but a few fleeting moments with you left. I try, try so hard to forget everything that I’ve said and done, everything about you. But, as much as I love the pleasure of pain, I’m unable to wipe this, these memories of you. As hard as I try, as often as I try, my eyes trace that unbearable three paces to your feet, my heart follows that awful longing to your face and I wonder, wonder how I’ll live without you, without your words, without your smile, without the moment of awkwardness I share with you, without you in general, general relativity.

I think

I’m going to be okay.

I really

hope that I’m going to be okay.

I actually

know that I’m not.

Are you

okay?

The promise of tomorrow is the promise of my broken heart.

More time with or without you is the promise of my broken heart.

I saw the Raconteurs today. One, two, two, words: Motherfucking awesome. ‘Nuff said.

God, that was some good fucking shit, good fucking shit.

Thumb caught in his belt buckle and a smile across his lips, he saunters slowly in her direction. It’s a quiet smile, a quiet moment and it’s a slow progression.

There are so many shades of black. I’ll say what’s on my mind. Mind numbing fear? Ear ringing noise? Heart breaking love?

Shades of Black

“Just jump.”

In. Out. In. Out. Slowly, slowly, it’ll come to her. Her breath is her metronome, the tartan track is her instrument, a stretch of maroon striped with white like the ivories of a piano, the strings of a guitar, the valves of a trumpet; it’s an instrument she knows well, her spikes dig lightly into the track. The sky is still, the light blue of summer hangs like a shirt left out to dry on the line. A bird cuts across her vision like a razor, ripples the stillness.

***

“On your six, don’t look. He’s walking this way.” High school romances, if there are such things, are the worst. She’s nudged in the ribs as she carries her precariously stacked plate of cafeteria food. She almost drops it out of surprise, and a little bit out of anxiety.

Lunchroom, seventh period, (unknowing) love of her life enters left. Perseus Holt, like a sickeningly wonderful nightmare, like a thunderstorm on a sunny day, like squeal of a dying animal, passes by guarded on both sides by his friends. Chatting, laughing, his presence, for even the brief moment that she feels a slight breeze from his passing, completely numbs her mind. Her friend, a bouncing bundle of fiery red curls, jabs her again and says, “God, Elysia don’t turn so red.”

They sit near a window. She shakes a packet of ketchup and rips it open, pouring the condiment over her fries. In a moment, she’ll look for him. In a moment, she’ll scan the crowded cafeteria, scan the sea of people for his light blond hair, his black (he looks good in black, he only wears black, and once a yellow shirt with the most absurd picture of a kangaroo) shirt, his slightly hunched form over some table, scan the room for his voice, catch a word or two. Only in a moment, only in a moment but she daren’t any earlier. This sacred treaty with herself she dares not break.

“How was the math test?” Katherine peels back the plastic tab of a fruit cup gingerly, trying not to spill the juice. Licking her thumb, she breaks the plastic wrappings of her utensil set against the table. “Heard it was pretty bad.”

“Awful,” Elysia replies, amber irises following Perseus’ path across the lunchroom before flickering back to Katherine, “How was your,” her voice acquires a playful edge as she picks up one of her ketchup slathered fries, “English skit?”

Katherine sighs slowly, rolling her eyes, “Alright, so, I told you about Johnny Woo?” She begins, feeling rather tedious about the retelling of her unfortunate English skit. Elysia nods, sucking her lips under her teeth, trying to suppress a laugh in anticipation of the story as Katherine continues, “Right, so we tell this kid, bring in his copy of the book, and guess what? He forgets, he forgets! So he makes up everything!” Emphasis on the two words, her hands grabbing at her hair, “he doesn’t just ask for another copy of the book, he could’ve just borrowed a book, he totally could’ve. Instead he deems himself this great,” hands waving, as if trying to pull words from the air like magicians do rabbits, “this great, great impromptu Shakespearean playwright and just makes up the rest of Hamlet!”

Elysia watches, but barely listens, her friend’s rant, her little fits of insubstantial anger are hilarious. Out of the corner of her eye, beyond Katherine’s wild gestures and flurry of words, beyond Johnny Woo’s inherent inability to understand what poetic meter is, she sees the Perseus. Strolling across the linoleum floor of the cafeteria, he brushes by a table of freshman girls who watch his every motion just as she does, and all cluster together after he moves on, the oyster shell of their clique closing as they whisper in a vicious frenzy among themselves. He approaches a vending machine, and she’s reminded by her own mental narration of the scene of some animal documentary she’s seen on TV.

The boy slots his quarters into the machine, she notes the slight pause, and enters the code for a can of Coke. Tucking his wallet back into his back pocket, he bends down to grab the refreshment. As he turns, a sudden hiss accompanies the opening of the can. Before he presses the chilled lip of the metal to his own lips, his light grey (or, where they blue? She couldn’t really decide, she never really got the chance, either) meets hers.

She ran over a deer once, on the highway, when she wasn’t a too particularly experienced driver (she still isn’t). Right before impact, like some sort of infernal judgment from her own invisible, sorely personally God, her own higher power burned the image of the poor doe, the white of its eyes, the muted gaze of fear, into her mind. She imagines, at this moment, that’s exactly what she looks like to him, a deer in headlights, but there’s nothing to run her over.

“I gotta go.” She says rather suddenly, cutting off Katherine.

“Really?” Her friends asks, checking her digital watch, one of those large, shock resistant, mud resistant, water resistant things that Elysia refers to as life resistant, 12:53 stares back at her, “It’s early.”

Elysia slings her backpack over her shoulders, places all of her random wrappers and napkins and her half-empty (or, half-full?) milk cartoon onto her Styrofoam plate. Katherine watches all of this curiously, following her rather flustered friend’s movement and sighs with an understanding nod and smile as she turns around to see the back of Perseus Holt, can of soda in hand, walking away.

“I don’t know why you worry so much,” Katherine remarks, eating her own fries, “I’ve been telling you this for, like, an entire year. Just the way he looks at you, the way you look at him, you have to see it for yourself sometimes. You two are like a pair of forlorn lovers separated by the vastness of the lunchroom. All you have to do is, one of these days, just go over and talk to him.”

“Don’t talk so loud!” Elysia squeaks shrilly, alarmed by the openness with which Katherine blathers about everything, she feels like a caged mouse, “people are looking at us!”

“Correction, people are looking at you,” Katherine nonchalantly waves a fry in her direction. She leans back in her plastic lunchroom chair, tipping it back so that it rested on the hind legs, giving her a perfect, albeit upside down, view of Perseus Holt staring at her beet red friend. “So is he.”

Elysia suppresses the need to just scream, to just yell till she looses her voice and to stop remembering everything, everything little glance, every little look, every one of these little moments, everything about him just drives her crazy, everything he does, he says, everything he doesn’t do and doesn’t say. “I’m going to the library.”

“You really should just go to him!” Katherine calls after her and retreats to her plate of food with a grin.

***

The sun, a livid, glaring white forces her to squint as she stares down the track. She wonders if he’s here, sitting with his group of friends, somewhere in the bleachers, under the same hot and oppressive sun, watching her. She cringes at that last thought, the same old anxiety in her stomach mixes with this morning’s breakfast, mixes with her rainbow of feelings for him, mixes with a certain dread and anxiety of an imperfect jump, a blender, a whirlpool of all the things weighing her down, draining into the emptiness of her self.

In. Out. In. Out.

***

She settles in a quiet corner in the back of the library, hidden well amongst shelves of ancient books with browning pages and worn covers, with marble inlays and gold etchings, torn copies of Scientific America that no one reads, catalogs of journals untouched and undisturbed for decades, with the soft whisper of central air condition playing gently in her ear. She settles, like the ocean after the quakes of a ship pass, like dust displaced by sudden movement,

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force this moment to its crisis?

I give up trying to channel my repressed emotions, I’m going back to writing like a normal human being.

The clinking of silverware and muffled footsteps wake her. The apartment is tiny and his noise becomes her noise. With a groan she gropes in the darkness for the digital clock and almost blinds herself with the green, electronic buzz of 2:03 blaring in her eyes. She tosses the clock back where she found it, sits up, blinks several times, looks around at the dark emptiness of the bedroom, follows a pair of car headlights as it throws rectangular patches of amber light up on the ceiling and thumps against her pillows and sheets in mild annoyance.

“Honey!” She calls out.

The response comes in the form of silverware against tiled floor and her husband’s little cries of surprise and fluster. The kitchen lights turn on.

“Are you okay?” She calls out again.

“Just,” her husband’s voices starts, “Good god! I mean, I’m fine, just fine, just fine. I just dropped some, some, uh, pot roast on the, the, uh, dog.”

“Oh, alright, come back to bed when you’re done. Don’t forget-” She turns over in the sheets, ready to enjoy the rest of her four hours of sleep when she realizes that, “You dropped the what on the what!?”

Riza and Roy Mustang, married five years, go through everyday as if it were their first.

Do I have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? God, I wish I did, every once in a while, I wish I were a lot braver than I actually am. I wish that I had a little less shame than I actually did, a little less face, and a lot more faith, a little less of everything and a little more of everything and every three or four, every five and six, a copy of my chemistry textbook so I won’t fail my test tomorrow. A copy of my life textbook so I won’t I fail my life tomorrow. A copy of my life, actually, just so I can laugh at myself later. Laugh at my little insecurities and little, and just everything.

I try really hard to avoid it. I try really hard to stop thinking about it. I try really hard to remember to try really hard to stop thinking, just stop thinking and maybe it’ll go away, maybe this feeling, this ache, this dull, dull ache, like falling on a hot, sticky sidewalk and scraping your knees sort of ache, would just go away, but it won’t, it doesn’t. And when he, the source of all my supposed misery, the supposed receiver of all of my romantic transgressions and occasional lustful fantasy, when he leaves, he leaves only more misery, in another form, another shape. There are only so many shades of black, but each is worse than the one before and each kills me more, and each is darker than the next, and in this case, need I, dare I, face the next? Need I seek the tragedy of a life that I haven’t lived? Need this be the end of my high school career, or half of it anyway, in tears and agony and some sort of heartbreaking confession on the last day of school. One that he won’t have time to digest and one that, pretty much, will be sorely mocked and forgotten, yet took almost all the courage I ever will have to make? Is this really all my life will ever, ever, ever amount to? A dull ache, a slight remembrance of what it all used to be like? And we just sit there, and I just sit there, and mourn the loss of a time, a simpler time in my life where I needn’t think for myself, where my allocation of time factored not into the way my life turned out, where numbers on paper, where tests and the rest of my life had no real, no substantial, play in any of my thoughts, mere shades and shadows and impending doom that the live in the moment type of people, like myself, just seriously ignored. Really? I only want to ask one question, direct one question at God, if given the chance, “Really?” And if he answers, “Really.” Then, I die happy.

People in your life are like seasons. My headphones are electromagnets. Of course, I learned that wonderful tidbit of information in class (next to him, oh, but of course), only today did I realize that, oh, yes, my headphones are fucking electromagnets. Fucking hell, that was amazing, the practicality of a class like physics smacked me in the head today and I thought about, again, of what it’d be like to be a physicist. To make absolutely no money whatsoever but to be continuously dumfounded and amazing by things like, “Christ, my headphones are repelling each other.”

I mean, what else am I supposed to devote my energy to, besides the obvious, besides the not so obvious, and the fact that my headphones repel each other. It’s cool, it’s insanely cool and I can’t get over it. It’s like the first time I tasted candy, I don’t even remember how cool that must’ve been. I don’t remember the first half of my childhood (the second part makes me think the first isn’t really worth remembering, so I don’t think I’m missing on much), but really, life is a nifty experience. To be or not to be? I’m going to fucking be. Underline that shit green, or whatever. Yeah, I’m going, how does that quote run, something about slings and arrows, or whatever. Yeah, hit me, hit me, bitches. Sure, whatever. I’m not really fond of Shakespeare. I just don’t really like him. Maybe it’s because I never really picked him up and read him, but, I’m not really fond of him. Dare I say it, I’m more of a modernist when it comes to my literary diet. Eventually, though, eventually, I want to put myself through classical literature. Train myself in ancient Greek, or something. It’d be awesome. Spectacular. Read not in my native language, read in the native language of the other half of me and write poetry and make allusions to myths and works, and John Milton, because I find that man to be seriously inspirational.

I’m going to fail that chem. Test.

That physics test.

That mandarin test.

That math test.

Forget about that paper.

I’m not gonna write anything, ever, ever again.

It was a terrible paper.

She’s going to be disappointed.

I hope to god she is, but I really hope to god she isn’t.

I’m gonna hand in one, with corrections, or whatever.

I feel like I should.

I should.

Life of a musician? How is that any different, except I sing about my god awful problems? How’s that any different than what I do now, except I put that all to music? How’s it any different!

Death must hate the human race. Poor man and his tedious job, he really must hate the human race.

3:53, not really sleeping again. Writer’s block of some sort, or just tired?

I’m like a trash can holding all the information.

I might go take a shower now. What is it, 4:40? Alright.

After I listen to this song two more times and my review sheet decides to print.

I’m gonna draw up my mandarin review sheet, tomorrow. Retrieve my bloody textbook, tomorrow. Think about stuff, tomorrow. And count the days, tomorrow, to the end of school, in my head, during that seemingly random…thing they have planned for us. That, orientation is not the right word, presentation is too casual, gathering is just strange (Magic, ha) and I’m stuck going to summer prep school. I’ve been in SAT but I’m in it again, with calc on the side. Hooray for the Asian parent. I want to apply to be a TA next year, my god.

Prom, semi-formal, SAT II, team dinner, Sex and the City? At least I’ll see Miles again, come next year, Villiger, States, Grands (maybe?) and wherever else. No, the other one’s not coming back on alumni day.

4:44, that’s an awful number, time…time reading, or whatever. It’s quite unlucky in Chinese.

He lives inside his headphones and he barely pays attention to anything, which, ultimately, might be the reason why he bumps into trash cans, streetlights, people, walls, pretty much everything. He ignores just about everything and turns up those giant round things, like parasitic clams clinging to his ears, all the way and air guitars every once in a while. People usually do this in the shower, or, when no one’s around, but that’s just the way he is.

One can’t really blame him, the way the world is, I suppose it’s dull for a guy like him. No one really even knows his name until he bumps into you, which is how we met. It’s a real surprise he can hear anything anyone else says, or that he listens to what other people, humans, have to say.

Headphones, kids, never wear headphones. Never associated with people who live entirely in headphones, it’s better to just keep walking, or not say anything. Of course, in my situation, saying something was inevitable, but really, stick to the normal side of things.

“My god, I’m terribly sorry,” I said rather hastily, I was carrying a large bucket of paintbrushes of varying sizes, running down a silent hallway halfway through fifth period, trying to appease my eccentric art teacher when, he, this kid with these giant, bulging headphones, turns a corner with his eyes closed, fingers mimicking, what I found out later to be Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze, some sort of a guitar solo and runs into me. Everything goes flying, me, my bucket of paintbrushes, the kid and his headphones.

What do you call these things? Introductory physics has its perks, namely the cute kid that sits next to me, so forgive me if I can’t classify the collision as elastic or inelastic. I start picking up the random pieces of, at the time, I thought to be my eternal damnation. Ms. What’s Her Name is going to have the largest fit ever, when she finds that her perfect (actually, these brushes were terribly shoddy anyway, public schools, what can you do?) paintbrushes were, for a lack of better words, not anymore.

“Uh,” he stood there, rubbing his head, headphones around his neck, apparently they came flying off when he fell, less damage done there, “Uh.”

“Uh!?” I almost screamed at him, I must’ve looked ridiculous. Back then, I used to wear these god awful plastic, red rimmed glasses and used to put my hair up in a bun, clipped in the back with one of those street fair shop artsy hairclips. I don’t remember exactly what I was wearing that day but it feels like a black tee with some band or another across the front, it’s not like I wake up in the morning and actually care what I dig out of my closet, which, by the way, looks a lot like a war zone. But, back then, I used to have a thing for cargos and oversized t-shirts, XXL for no good reason. It came out a lot harsher than expected, but I was pretty irritated, like a bad flu of an angry virus and we stood there, after that awkward exchange of “Uh’s!” just looking at each other.

“Uh.”

I snorted. He laughed. And we spent another good five minutes just laughing. (What’s his name, Oscar Wilde, was it? Had a quote that ran along the lines of something like laughter might not be the beginning of a good friendship, but it’s certainly a good ending to one. He, of course, is a lot more articulate than I am when it comes to these epigram things, so, I’ll leave it up to you to actually go find the quote. I’m not even sure how this is truly relevant to my story or headphone kid, that’s what I call him, even though I know his real name, but, it was a worthy side note. Hence, the parenthesis.)

“Holt. Perseus Holt.” Introduced himself James Bond style. I returned the favor.

“Jones. Lillith Jones.” If you typed our names into Microsoft Word, which is the only I communicate nowadays, over keyboard. Writing is overrated and my handwriting is illegible anyway, technology really saves my ass every now and then, and SparkNotes. Right, but if you type both our names into Word, they’re both underlined red. I like the way Word underlines things, it alerts me to all of my little faults, spelling mistakes and incorrect use of grammar and what not.

“Beautiful.” He replied, out of nowhere and with a deep tone of admiration. I stopped, half bending down, half getting up and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Say what?” I’m rather obtuse, I don’t think politeness is even a word in my dictionary. I say what’s on my mind, and sure, someday, someone will hate me for it, and I’ll get shot, that’s what they all tell me, but it’s not like I really mind that either. Better shot for calling someone out for what they are, better shot for saying what’s on my mind, than living a life of so called politeness, or mental repression.

I really don’t mind what you call me, anything but sugar pie or cuddles. He has a tendency to call me both, mind you, not out of affection. Never, ever, divulge too much of your pet peeves to anyone, or your annoyances, or, god forbid, your secrets. That sorta thing tends to fuck you over in the long run like no tomorrow. He calls me sugar pie on a daily basis. Sometimes I wished I didn’t break those wonderful headphones of his, or he might not have been around to hear me tell him all that stuff.

“Your name is beautiful.” He elaborated.

“Thank you,” I remarked slowly with an odd sense of appreciation on one hand, and on another, a strange sense of strangeness, for a lack of better words. “Your name is, uh,” I was digging for words here, harder than a mole digs his hole, “rather heroic.” I felt like an idiot. I barely remember who Perseus is except for the guy who rescued that chick, what’s her name? Andromeda? Like the star system, like the TV show.

“Wanna go out with me?”

Alright, I like surprises, but this was just weird. Not only was I seriously late for fifth period art, not only will I be killed by Ms. What’s Her Name when I return to fifth period art with all of her brushes messed up and in some sort of incoherent mess, but what the hell is this kid talking about?

“What!?” That came out louder than expected.

“Will you go out with me, Lillith Jones?” He repeated with a grin across his sheepish face and ran a hand through his hair. For the first time, I noticed he had this amazing strawberry blond hair and a set of pale, pale eyes that felt like ice cubes, for a lack of imagination.

“But why!?” Still exasperated over everything, I looked up seriously, from behind my red rimmed glasses, and kept looking.

“By the merit of your name,” was his reply and I just kept looking, and felt my mouth part slightly.

“Really?” I settled my weight onto my left leg, clutching a paintbrush I brought one of my fists to my hip and gave him another look.

“Really really,” he was awfully serious and the grin was replaced by a stern look of absolute determination. He was really animated for a guy who lived completely in a pair of headphones, who lived completely in music. Facial expressions, his eyes, the way he carries himself, totally unexpected. Never knew he existed until right about now, either.

“Convince me.” I challenged. I wanted to see what this kid had going, I mean, at this point, it was just really, really strange. Kid, headphones, paintbrushes, a date, late for class. God-motherfucking-damn.

No sooner had the words left mouth did I feel his hand grab mine and in this elaborate movement, one of those spin-twirl things they whip out at you in dance competitions, will all those people in their little dresses and shoes and costumes, he spun me around in the hall into his arms, I heard the paintbrush I was just carrying clattered against the linoleum floor (when did I even let go of it?), he dipped me back in his arm, I was certain he was going to bite me, like something from a cheap horror movie, on the neck. Then, his lips met mine and I almost screamed if not for the strange wonder I felt when I tasted, and don’t think I’m crazy, what felt like a sunrise on his lips, like the wonder of a crisp, red sunrise across the city. Totally fucking weird encounter, weird kiss, in the hallway. Fuck fifth period.

“Convinced?” He asked, looking at me as he cradled me in his arm, his strawberry hair falling into my eyes, grazing the slightly grimy lenses of my glasses. I couldn’t speak for a moment and just looked at him. I must’ve looked even more ridiculous, half wannabe tomboy, face (most likely) red as hell, in a large, extra, extra large AC/DC t-shirt from her father’s better days, with a curious expression of shock on her face. “Good.”

With that, he walked me down the hallway, away from my mess of paintbrushes, down the three flights of stairs, the north staircase, if I remember correctly and just right out the front door of the school, despite the curious glances of the security guards and whatever else’s that prevent kids from just waltzing right out of school. Mind you, we actually just waltzed right out of that building.

Perseus Holt. One serious fucking character right there.

“Oh, and my headphones are broken.”

“Uh!”

A Darker Than Black Snippet

According to episode 20, the only real difference between contractors and humans are their mental makeups. Contractors, their powers aside, are just people with a better grasp of reality, an emotional rationality that enables them to advance in life. They’re a tier above humans on the evolutionary ladder, better tailored to exploit the nature of life. Is life just about rationality and getting ahead, or are the mistakes and regrets we make as humans the reason why life is worth living? Maybe things like atonement, forgiveness, despair, love and dreams exist because we’re human. I said somewhere before, I think, that contractors and dolls and the Gate were like punishments, maybe they’re more like gifts.

Because it’s too short for a good post on my anime blog and I haven’t the mind to make it longer….