Katsunari winced as Yuuki roughly pulled her arm. "Ow!" she yelled. "Yuu-chan, my fistula!"
Yuuki grimaced. The artificial access on her wrist had been created to facilitate her hemodialysis, and consisted of an artery and vein fused together so her blood vessels would enlarge and the flow through them would rise high enough to make the procedure possible. While the process had kept her alive long enough to eventually receive a transplant, it had also permanently disfigured her arm, which not only had the unnatural bulges of her large blood vessels but also countless scars from the gauge-20 needles used on her. Many times Ka-chan had warned all of them not to compress the pseudoaneurysm, as doing so was painful and potentially dangerous to her.
"Sorry, KatKat," he apologized, letting go of her, a penitent look on his face.
"I know you!" the woman with the long braided hair was saying to Juna. "You're that strange girl who can fly!"
The girl with the fall of black hair on either side of her face put a hand behind her head and laughed sheepishly. "Ohayou, Ma'am."
"And you two... must be the ones my friends chased through the park."
"What are you doing here?" Yuuki asked coarsely. He was a tractable enough person, but his many run-ins with authority figures had made him somewhat leery of being around them.
"I was going to ask you that." The woman frowned and turned to Juna. "What was your name again?"
"Juna." She introduced Katsunari and Yuuki, then repeated the latter's question, adding a respectful "If you don't mind my asking" afterwards.
"I'm going to that farm," said the woman, pointing to a low house in the distance, an old wooden structure amidst fields of green and yellow. "Oh, by the way, my name's Miyuki Kobayakawa."
"Oh, really?" asked Katsunari. "That's where we're going too, isn't it, Ariyoshi?" The name slipped out before Ka-chan realized it, and she flinched inwardly at the possible consequences of her doing so.
Juna nodded, aware of Ka-chan's blunder but not knowing what to do about it.
"Want a lift?" asked the policewoman. "It's kind of a long way there." The Avatar watched her glance drift over to Katsunari and her thin, frail-looking body.
"Thank you, Officer Kobayakawa." She bowed and glanced at the car, which resembled a cadaverous F1 racer turned roadworthy street vehicle. It bore the logo 'Ariel Atom' on the side of its dark-blue and steel-gray monocoque shell. "Ka-chan? You can sit in Yuuki's lap, I guess."
"What about you?" Although she didn't want to admit it, Katsunari was relieved at having been saved the trouble of walking such a long distance. She was already panting, but wanting to look like she was just as fit as everybody else, didn't complain about her tiredness.
"I'll manage," said Juna. And I won't have to face that vision that's sure to come up when I touch that car, she sent silently at her friend.
"Oh, I think you can sit here here," said Officer Kobayakawa, patting the hood before her, opening the car's front and exposing a tiny storage space. "It's a bit uncomfortable, I know, but don't worry, I won't drive fast."
It would have been ungracious to refuse, so the three climbed aboard, and after they were finished arranging themselves the Atom resembled not so much a sports car as a vehicle laden with refugees from some unknown war. Juna sat on the dash just in front of Officer Kobayakawa, her legs sticking in the storage compartment, the raised hood covering her lower body like a stiff carbon-fiber blanket. Yuuki sat shotgun, and the embarrassed Katsunari wound up sideways on his lap, her legs dangling out of the side of the car.
The low-slung car made its slow way to Mr. Ikeda's farm.
"My cousin begged me to accompany him here," the policewoman explained during the trip. "He saw an ad in the newspaper advertising for work to be done on an old aircraft engine, and being the aviation nut he is, just had to see it."
"Yeah, that's Mr. Pagot, I guess," said Juna. "I don't know who else around here would need work done on an old aircraft engine."
They exchanged a bit more chitchat until they came to the barn, whereupon the teenagers dismounted. They could see three men inside the open doors. One was standing on the dolly-stationed plane's wing, engrossed with its engine. Another was standing beside the open cockpit, while the third man was busy arranging some crates against the far wall of the barn.
Katsunari saw the barrel-chested man standing by the red seaplane and stopped in her tracks. Yuuki noticed the slightly awestruck look on her face and waved a hand in front of her face.
"And you were complaining about me noticing other girls," he said dryly, lowering his hand.
"But... but he's so handsome," KatKat breathed, clasping her hands in front of her chest. "Juna, introduce me, please?"
"Alright," said her friend, smiling with obvious mirth at Yuuki's discomfiture. "Tough luck, Yuuki-kun. Now I guess you know how Ka-chan feels every time you ogle another girl." She turned and walked away, towards the man beside the airplane, and Yuuki rolled his eyes.
Who is she to talk? he thought with parts unkindness and parts pity. He could relate to the pain of giving a loved one up, as he was preparing himself to do many years ago, when his beloved KatKat was on the verge of death, walking with it and talking about it day by day with a tired familiarity that even now wrenched his heart in remembrance.
After Juna had introduced Katsunari to Marco Pagot, Miyuki Kobayakawa gestured to the thin, worksuit-wearing man working on the S.21's engine. "And this dead-to-the-world person is my cousin, Youtarou Kobayakawa." She saw that said man was still ignoring the new arrivals, so she took hold of a float and jiggled the plane until he stood up and took notice. "Oh, hi," was all he said, revealing a young, grimy, sloe-eyed face with a distracted expression before he ducked back into the recesses of the engine compartment.
"Things are looking up," said Marco to no one in general. "As soon as this plane gets fixed, I can go flying with Curtis and Nausicaä-hime again."
"Oh, Pagot-sensei, I was about to tell you..." Juna said, "I got shocho's permission to bring Nausicaä with me to the city. It's for her health."
"Oh?" Marco's face took on a grim cast. "I knew she was sick, but the old man told us to go on looking for the portal. How is she now?"
"She's fine, for the moment." A look of concern passed over Juna's face. "But I don't know how you can travel together looking for the portal anymore."
The Italian aviator was quiet for a long while. "Don't worry, I'm sure something will come up. I'm sure shocho won't let us down. Especially since it's her."
------oOo------
Deep in a wooded area somewhere in the folds of the Nagoya Eastern Hills, in the Forest Experience zone of the 2005 World Exposition site in Aichi, two girls, one 6th-grader and one 4th-grader, were admiring the wooden structure set up before them. It was sometime in the month of March in the aforementioned year, and the cherry blossoms had just started to appear on the trees in Tokyo.
"Gee, oneechan," said the 4th-grader, wiping her hands on her blue jumper, "it really does look like our house."
"Uh-huh," the elder girl agreed with her. "Only the trees around here look different."
"Yeah. I wonder if there are any Totoro around?"
"Maybe. You wanna go exploring?"
Before the little girl could answer, a voice called from behind them. "Children," it said, "it's time for us to go!"
"Oh, mother," said the elder girl pleadingly, "can't we stay just a bit longer?"
"Darling," the woman said, leaning out of the window of the strange animal/vehicle she was riding in, "the Nekobus still has lots of passengers to carry, and you're holding it up."
"Oh, alright." With a sigh the girl took hold of her sister's hand. "Come on, Mei. Mama says we have to get home."
The little girl looked hopefully up at her. "No more side trips, Satsuki-neechan?"
Satsuki shook her head mournfully. "I guess not."
"Oh well." The little girl Mei began to skip towards the bus, pulling her sister along. "It would be rude of us to keep all those Totoro waiting for their ride. Besides, I'm getting hungry."
They boarded the Nekobus, and as soon as they had settled in their seats--or rather, the seats had settled around them--the signboard on the front of the creature with the orange fur, huge Chesire-cat-like grin and rat-shaped headlights switched to read 'Home.' Then the 'bus turned and galloped off on its eight legs into the forest, along with its titillated and excited passengers. As it vanished into the trees, Mei leaned out the window and yelled, "Bye, house! See you sometime! I promise to bring some sooties to make you feel less lonely!"
On top of the house's low gabled roof, two small figures waved back. "Goodbye!" the larger, older one said in an aged voice. It resembled a puff of deep-green fur with a mouth, wide-set eyes, and tiny feet and arms.
"Goodbye! Goodbye!" said its younger companion, similar in appearance but smaller, and with dot-like eyes and fur of a light-green color. "Hope you'll visit us again!"
They waved until the Nekobus was gone, as if it never were there in the first place, and the wind blew a soft "I'll be your love..." through the surrounding trees. They listened to the quiet gurgle of the nearby stream for a moment, then the older one turned to leave.
"Come, Kiccoro," he said. "We must go and greet our other guests."
"Okay, ojii-chan," the Forest Child Kiccoro answered. Then he followed his grandfather Morizo's example and disappeared from sight by walking over to the other side of the roof. As they did, the trees seemed to sigh in momentary farewell.
"Time passes by
And life will never be the same
But don't let your dream fall to the ground
Don't let your pain take over the sky
Because there is tomorrow
And I'll be there to love you..."
------oOo------
That evening, back at Katsunari's cousin's apartment, Juna was sitting by the large storm-glass windows in the living room when an exclamation from Katsunari caused her turn around.
"My, that looks quite fetching on you," the short-haired girl said, giggling. Ensconced in the safety of the apartment, she had discarded her face mask. "Don't you think so, Juna?"
"I agree," said Juna, blinking and shaking off her vision of a Tokyo aglow with atomic fires under the night sky. She forced herself to smile. "It looks nice."
"Hmm?" said the person they were talking to. "Are you sure you're not just kidding me?"
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(Posted Mon, 21 Mar 2005 23:07)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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