First of all St. Giles is a co-ed boarding school housing the outcasts of society. Here typical students were usually hagejuhin, ai-no-ko or burukumin, those who were born outcasts of society and often, except for most of the burukumin, cast out of their own family. Of course it is of no surprise that there were about eight St. Giles Catholic Schools all over Japan, after all St. Giles was the Patron Saint of Cripples and Outcasts, where better to shovel those who had no other place to go in order in a token attempt to turn them productive members of society. It was also known that most of their high school level students also were employees of the Ministry of Lunar Affairs- even those who were not hagejuhin.
Naturally for Kodachi Kuno that was no exception, while in some respect she at least knew her parents and was allowed to keep her family name- thanks to her late mother's will, those were the only things that she had to show where she came from. Still she counted herself lucky, 200 years ago a hagejuhin girl born to her rank and status would often be abandoned and left to die of exposure. Such were seen as worthless children who could not even be married off; someone who even the knowledge of her existence could bring disgrace in the eyes of high society, that is if they weren't torn to pieces during the next full moon by their own family.
So overall she was fortunate enough, she had a home in the boarding school until she was done with the mandatory two-year college that all MLA personnel had to attend to gain the skills for their main work functions outside of their mandatory once a month dog-catching or kennel monitoring duties. 'That and I don't have to go around with a mixed name like those who were fully disowned, what would I have to call myself Kodachi Domonic or Kodachi Xavier, on the other hand Kodachi d'Arc has a certain ring to it.'
"Ms. Kuno I assume my lecture on the Conquest of Silla is boring you?" the nun teaching the class asked wistfully, "If so would you find polishing the Tea Services later more exciting?"
"No Sister Catherine, I was just thanking my dearly departed mother for her generosity." Kodachi explained, "Also Empress-consort Jingû is traditionally viewed as the regent until her son Emperor Ôjin's ascension, not the Fifteenth sovereign as you explained earlier."
“Um, Akane,” Ranma asked as Akane ended her cell phone conversation with her mother, “Why did you need to call your mother, should she not already know what is going on in your home.” Seeing the youngest of the Tendo’s visibly deflate Ranma began to apologize. “Oh, I’m sorry I did not know that your parents were no longer together.”
“My parents aren’t divorced Ranma, my mother has to live and work down in Fukuoka because of her job with the Ministry of Lunar Affairs. You see two years ago she caught a couple of lunes that were going at it in Shakujii Park,” Akane began a story that was all too familiar to her, “She actually brought them both in at once joined at the knot. The real problem started when the sun came up, it turned out mom had caught the son of Dietman Hama and his mistress. Now Dietman Hama was in the middle of arranging a political marriage between his son and the daughter of Chairman Oto in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to cement a political alliance between their two families, naturally after this debacle the omai was called off.”
“Now Hama wasn’t going to let an injury like this go without some measure of revenge on my mother for his family's loss of face, so he used his connections to get a hold of my mom’s records and then called in a few favors to get her promoted to chief of the MLA’s Fukuoka Office. Since our home was all we really had and is ancestral property our families roots are down too deep to simply all get up and move, and high-ranking members of the MLA don’t get much in the way of vacations, so we have to wait to go on vacation to her to even visit her.”
“Still it isn’t like this is forever, Chief Matsumoto said that he’s retiring next year and plans to recommend kaa-san for his position.”
“Are you sure that this Dietman Hama won’t get in the way of your mom coming back to Tokyo?” Ranma asked out of concern for this girl who was rapidly becoming her friend.
“Oh don’t worry about that,” Sayuri interjected, “That affair, and the discovery of a slush fund of Hama’s a few months ago, have pretty much ended any influence that he had outside of his own position in the Diet here in Tokyo. Right now everyone is distancing themselves from him as much as possible. So Ranma tell me about this food court that your family is opening?”
“Oh it’s nothing much, mainly a collection of yatai and miniature food stalls like those at one of your festivals with a small stage for a little entertainment. In order to make things a little interesting have different people manning each stand on a rotating schedule throughout the week so their daily menus change from day to day, so what is available at one stall one day changes by the next. We also have an open-air teashop, a mini-café and are in the process of renovating the old bathhouse next door to open back up. We plan to use their boiler room to double as a smoke house.
“Geez, Ranma you sound like a commercial!” Sayuri remarked at the young transfer student, “What’s with all the rotations anyway?”
“Sorry, the best form of advertising is word of mouth and we can’t afford the other kind.” Ranma laughed, “The rest of the time the venders will be providing entertainment near the back of the area. Plus by rotating like that we figure that we’ll get more repeat customers since people get tired of eating the same thing several days in a row.”
“Honestly that idea isn’t too bad, trying to ensure that there is enough mixture of familiarity and deviation to keep up a steady amount of patronage isn’t too bad of an idea.” Noticing her friends staring at her as if she had grown a second head Akane responded. "What you think that with having Nabiki as a sister that I would not pick up a few things."
“Yes,” Ranma smiled back, “And it also ensures that we free up enough people to vary up the types of entertainment that we offer the customers.”
“So Ranma what sort of things do you do for your family’s business?” Yuka asked out of curiosity.
“Well for my booth I make fresh-sliced stir-fry cooked to order at the grill, on the crock station my specialty is Cioppino,” the daughter of the Saotome family replied, “And for entertainment I’m an animal handler and trainer, mostly just monkeys, dogs, and cats.”
“How do you train cats?” Akane inquired now interested.
“Oh the cats aren’t for the act,” Ranma admitted, “They’re to keep vermin away from the dining areas and the rubbish bins.”
“Why do you have such a large family operation?” Akane asked out of curiosity. “And why operate all this outdoors?”
“It saves on building costs, utilities and having to keep it up to code.” Ranma sighed, “Besides it makes it cheaper if circumstances require us to move.”
“Why would you have to move?” Sayuri asked, “Do people really have that much against the Ainu opening a business?”
“Akane,” Ranma sighed, “My family is not Ainu, we are Romani who came over from Archangel after the war.”
Meanwhile at Furinkan, in the Second Year classrooms Nabiki was half-listening to her teacher elaborate on the political sub-text of The Tale of Genji while pondering their mysterious new transfer student. While she had failed to receive any new information from him during lunch, thanks to the crowd that he created with that free-sample obento of his, she already suspected because of his name.
‘Okay his family will be running the new open-air food court and his name is Ryoga Saotome.’ Nabiki thought while piecing the puzzle together, ‘So either he is Genma Saotome’s son who I might end up engaged to, or one of their relatives since a family operation on this scale would likely be mined out to the level of second cousins once removed. Either way I might as well ask him before I have to go to the kempo club after classes in an hour, who knows if I’m lucky I might be able to weasel a discount out of him too.’
“Tendo-san,” her Literature teacher Satoro-sensei asked, “would you have anything to add about the lack of names used ilea of rank or vague descriptions of clothing by Murasaki Shikibu-san?”
“Yes sensei,” Nabiki replied while standing, “Part of me always wondered why a lady of the court couldn't have substituted the names of animals and flowers for the men and women within the court according to match the characters personalities since it would have helped to draw the reader further into the story with a richer sub-text?”
“Very interesting idea Tendo-san,” Satoro-sensei remarked, “Just remember that although it is the springtime of your youth please keep your mind focused on the lecture.”
“Hai-sensei,” the middle Tendo daughter chimed back.
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(Posted Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:41)
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