Themocaw's Saki Pseudo-Route

[lvrr325]

We never did find out why the fashion club broke up the first time. Hisao didn't have the nerve to ask her.

The way she just happened to have a wig and clothes that would fit him, though, I half expected her to try to turn him into their model or dress dummy or something like that. Some sinister motive to control him. Make the other girls think he's not into girls. Or maybe she's just into guys in drag. The directions that could have gone are endless.

What is written here is outstanding, though, and would work just as well as any of the actual work in the game, it comes off like a route I'd have enjoyed.

[themocaw]

Was flipping through the KSG pastebin and found something that I'm pretty sure I wrote, although I forgot to author tag it. I thought I'd repost it here as an apology to the 'renai for not finishing this fic.

-----
Saki meets me at the bus stop, smiling and waving cheerfully as she sits down on the bench. Her ever-present steel crutch is resting on the bench next to her, propped up like a hunter's rifle or a witch's broom.

She looks pretty. Saki always looks pretty. It's one of the things that everyone talks about. Her hair is always nicely styled, and her earrings are always tasteful. Right now, she's wearing those small garnet ones that she seems to really love. At least, she seems to wear them all the time.

"Hi, Ikezawa!" she calls out. "Ready for our trip?"

"Y-yes. Of course," I say.

"Sit down. Let's just enjoy this day together," she says. "Don't worry so much about the whole newspaper thing, and let's just have some fun, okay?"

"A-all right," I stammer, trying to smile as best I can. Saki nods back pleasantly, and we wait, in silence, for the buss to arrive.

It's my first assignment as a member of the school newspaper staff. Natsume wants me to start off by taking over the bi-weekly column on the various school clubs: she used to do it herself, but since being promoted to chief editor, it's hard for her to find time to do it. Me being the new member of the club, she was only too glad to pass it off to me, and with good reason. The next club on the list, as it turned out, was the Fashion Club.

Which is why I'm sitting at the bus stop waiting for the bus into the city, so I can spend the day there with Saki Enomoto.

I'm trying to keep this professional, despite her reputation as a horrible soulless bitch. There are a lot of questions I'd like to ask Enomoto-san, but I don't know if I should. Especially after the stories I heard in the girls' locker roo-

"Spinocerebellar Ataxia," Saki says abruptly.

"E-excuse me?"

"You were going to ask me what my disability is. Spinocerebellar Ataxia. The part of my brain that coordinates my neural signals is breaking down. It makes me clumsy, and it forces me to lose coordination. Eventually my muscles will degrade and I'll stop walking. After that, I'll stop breathing. Then I'll die. I probably have about twenty years left, at the most." She shakes her head. "I could have a mid-life crisis right now if I wanted to, you know."

"I. . . I see."

I'm not sure how to respond to that, and an awkward silence settles between us.

Saki shakes her head and laughs nervously. "Wow. He was right."

". . . excuse me?"

"N. . . nothing. Just something. . . someone told me once."

"Hisao?"

Saki seems surprised to hear that name. She glances over at me, and then nods in understanding. "You're in his class, right?"

"Y-yes," I admit.

"I guess you heard, then. About the breakup?" She laughs curtly. "If you want to go after him, be my guest. He's pretty good in bed, you know."

I gulp nervously and look down at my hands, feeling my cheeks redden.

"I'm sorry," Saki says. "I shouldn't have said that."

". . . said what?"

"What I did." She shakes her head. "Damn, he really was right about me, wasn't he?"

She seems gloomy. I don't know what to say to her. But she seems to want to talk about Hisao. . . so I decide I might as well start there.

"What did Hi. . . what did Hisao say?"

Saki shakes her head. "He used to say that when I don't want to talk about something, I make the other person feel as uncomfortable as possible. So they'll stop trying to talk to me." She laughs, and her laughter has the same bitter tone as before. "That was right before I called him an asshole and broke up with him."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because just before he told me that, he also called me a bully, a tease, and a two-faced bitch. And the shitty thing is, I think he was right." Saki shakes her head. "I'm sorry," she says. "I shouldn't be burdening you with this. You don't want to talk about my love life. You want to talk about the Fashion Club, right?"

"A-actually, I wouldn't mind hearing a little more," I say. "You seem to want to t-talk about it. . . maybe I can help?"

Saki laughs out loud at that. "You? Help me? The girl who's famous as the shyest girl in the school? Help me?"

"D. . . don't underestimate me," I retort. "Anyway, you're the one who's pouring out her heart to the shyest girl in the school."

She looks over at me, and her eyes are dark and sad. "You've gotten stronger," she says. "I used to see you in the library sometimes, last year. You wouldn't even look at anyone when they tried to talk to you. Now you're slapping a total stranger for making fun of you. Not bad."

"I. . . I had some help from L-lilly. And a little bit from Hi-hisao. . ."

Saki nods silently. "He's gotten popular since he broke up with me, huh? On the student council and everything. Becoming a real big man around the cripples, isn't he?"

"You shouldn't use that word," I say firmly. "It's rude."

"It's what we are. Cripples. Broken like a cart that only has one working wheel. Useless. Broken."

I should stop. I shouldn't let Saki drag me down like she did Hisao. But I can't seem to leave her alone.

Maybe it's because of what Lilly did for me. I see someone like me in her, but while I was shy and scared, Saki is. . . angry. She's angry with something. The world, her life. . . everything.

I want to at least try to help her. It's the least I could do after what Lilly has done for me.

"Hisao's a nice person," I say. "He cares for people a lot. He's helped me out a lot, too."

"Yeah, I know," Saki says. "He tried to help me too. He couldn't, though. Some things you can't help someone else with."

The bus pulls up to the bus stop. Saki slips her forearm through her crutch's brace and stands up. "Still want to go into town with me?" she asks. "I don't mind if you decide not to."

"I'll come along."

Saki nods. "Then let's go."

-----

The bus trip passes in silence. Saki spends all her time staring out the window. I'm too busy trying to think about what I should say to her.

I glance over at her, at her honey-blonde hair and her big, brown eyes. She's so pretty, not like me. She reminds me a bit of Lilly in her looks, but while Lilly always looks so refined and gentle, Saki's filled with this sort of pent-up energy. She's always moving, I notice, her leg bouncing up and down, her hands tapping on the windowsill.

She's a person that wants to be in motion constantly.

"Hisao made the Fashion Club what it is, you know," Saki says. "I'm the one that ran it, but he's the one that made it grow. When he and I first restarted it, there were only five members. Now we're up to fifteen. Do you know why?"

"N. . . no?"

"Because Hisao's good with people. He's a bit insensitive sometimes, and he has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth at the worst times, but he's honest and kind. At least, he tries to be. People like him. They joined the Fashion Club because he was there. When he left, a lot of people left too." Saki touches her earrings and sighs. "I can't do that. I can't. . . deal with people. I try the best I can, but they don't like me, you know. Maybe I was a bit jealous of that."

"Maybe you should. . . shouldn't try so hard?"

"Maybe. It doesn't matter right now. That period's over."

Saki lapses back into silence, and she goes back to looking out the window as the world passes by.

-----

"How is Hisao, anyway?" she asks, a few hours later.

I look up from my hamburger and drink. Saki is sitting across from me. On the seat next to her is a large canvas bag filled with her purchases: some lengths of cloth, some thread and needles, a new device of some sort that I'm not certain serves a useful purpose.

"He. . . he's doing well," I say. "He's helping Misha and Shi. . . Shizune. . . with the student council these days."

"That's good. Something serious like that's a much better fit for him than something like Fashion Club."

Saki gazes out the window at the people walking by.

"Is he dating Shizune yet?"

"Shi. . . Shizune?"

"She likes him, right? I could tell, back when we were dating. I would see her with him, and she would give him this Look. It made me really jealous. I was kind of a bitch to her because of it." Saki sighs. "I guess now there's nothing between those two getting together, huh?"

"A. . . actually. Shizune did ask Hisao out a week or so ago. But he said no."

"That idiot. What the hell is he waiting for?"

"I. . . I don't know. Maybe for you?"

"If he is, he's an even bigger idiot. What good is it waiting around for a bitch who doesn't care about people at all? The best thing for him to do is forget about me. He can't live his life while still holding onto his past like that."

"What about you?"

"What?"

"We've been together for three hours, Enomoto-san," I say. "And this whole time you've talked about Hisao almost constantly. Why can't you let go of your past?"

"Because I don't want to," Saki says. She picks up one of her french fries, only to drop it onto the tray as her hands betray her. Annoyedly, she picks up her plastic fork and stabs it into the fried potato morsel before popping it into her mouth. "I liked who I was when I was with him. I miss that Saki."

"Then you should go talk to him."

"No. Not after the way I treated him the last time I met him. I couldn't bear to face that again."

Her voice trails off as she continues eating her lunch.

The rest of the meal passes in silence.

-----

Night has fallen by the time we return to Yamaku.

"I hope you got enough for your article," Saki says. "I'm sorry if I wasn't more interesting."

"I think I've gotten enough," I explain. "Thank you."

"No problem," Saki says.

She turns to walk away, leaning heavily on her cane, with her odd, slightly drunken-seeming gait. My hands are clenched into fists at her side.

It was easier for me when I didn't know Saki. I could imagine her as being this horrible person who made Hisao's life a living hell. I could imagine her as being a cold-hearted bitch who did what she did to him out of pure malice.

But now that I've come to see her a bit more closely, I understand.

Saki's just like me. She's someone who has been hurt very badly by life, and like me, she's retreated from it. But while I tried to hide from my pain, she's attacked it. She holds it at bay by being as aggressively forward about the things that hurt her as she can. But as much as she talks about them, it seems to be she's never really accepted them. She talks about her illness all the time. . . but I don't think she's ever really faced it.

I don't want to sympathise with her. I don't want to like her. I liked it better when I could just hate her.

I turn back towards the newspaper club room to type up my notes from today's trip.

I know that most of it is stuff that I'll never publish.

After all, students read this column to find out about clubs. They want to hear about what the Fashion Club is really like.

They don't need to find out about the true face of Saki Enomoto.

[Bagheera]

Argh! I feel like there's a part 2 to this, where Saki and Hisao hash things out. The story seems less like a post-bad end coda than it does a "well that sucked, but neither of us want things to end like that, so . . ." sort of thing.

Or maybe I'm just an incurable optimist, heh.

[nemz]

Well the way things were going, I'd say the breakup was completely inevitable. My guess is that the breakup should be the end of act 2. Act 3 would be about either giving up on her (neutral end) or deciding to start dating the REAL Saki, which would lead to act 4 and either a good or bad end. This Hanako scene would fall somewhere in act 3.

[Bacon Elemental]

Well the way things were going, I'd say the breakup was completely inevitable. My guess is that the breakup should be the end of act 2. Act 3 would be about either giving up on her (neutral end) or deciding to start dating the REAL Saki, which would lead to act 4 and either a good or bad end. This Hanako scene would fall somewhere in act 3.

I think the bad end comes before the neutral and good end, as Hisao refuses to touch up on the subject of her unusual behavior. He carries on, in what themocaw says, a destructive relationship because all he has is her.

[Mirage_GSM]

@nemz:
I wouldn't call her the "Real" Saki... Maybe the "new" Saki?

And I think mocaw explained what he was going to do with this story a few posts earlier.

[nemz]

ah, so he did. oh well.

[SemisoftCheese]

As someone who stumbled upon this in November, cried there was no ending, and discovered the plot holes filled now, tears of joy sprung to my eyes.

Thanks, themocaw.

[SemisoftCheese]

Given that I loved this story so much, and wanted to see it through, I wanted to take a crack at finishing it off. I don't write often, but I thought I'd post this (one scene I've written) and see what you guys thought. If you have anything to say--criticism, praise, or even just a few words of commentary, I'm all ears. If the response is positive enough, I'll try and finish off the route.


>Insist

“Saki, how do you know Mutou’s brother!?”

A brief flash of annoyance rolls over her face. Then her voice, as sweet and saccharine as ever, rolls out.

“Darling, it’s nothing worth worrying about.”

Then she pulls me sweetly in for a kiss, with lips so soft they could be pillows in Zeus’s bed. I close my eyes and enjoy the warm sensation of her body pressing against mine.

I don’t care about Mutou’s brother anymore. I don’t care about anyone except for the warm figure pressing herself against me.

So this…. this is what it means to be in love.


Under Your Spell

It’s raining. Rain pelts down at Yamaku. It always rains here, even when it’s not raining. But only in the sense of the soul.

Off in the distance, I can see a tiny figure doing laps around the track. Emi. I grin. It’s refreshing to know that at least one person in this world knows their purpose: to run the hell out of life.

As for me, I’m currently walking in the rain to nowhere. I don’t know how Saki convinced me to join the Fashion club considering all I wear is the school uniform: green khakis (correction by Saki: Chinos), a white shirt, and a heavy black tie. I doubt it’ll ever change, they give girls far more leeway in the dress code at Yamaku as opposed to the guys.

But yes, back to the matter. I am late to fashion club, and Saki will cast me into the 9th circle of hell for this.

I open the door to the main hallway, sprint past a tragically overloaded Yuuko, up the stairs, and stop in front of a door.

I feel bad for not helping Yuuko. But if I’m any later for this meeting, I might end up with a can of instant coffee stuck up my ass.

I open the door. Inside sits a reasonably irritated Saki, Kurosawa, and a dark haired girl waving a stump around in the air. Miki?

All heads turn as I enter. There is a flash of irritation in Saki’s eyes.

“Darling, you’re late.” A statement, not a question.

“Sorry, I had to go help Yuuko.” A tiny white lie that might save me.

“And what was Yuuko doing that was more important than my club?” She’s a little more than irritated now. Guess that lie was useless.

I can see why Saki is angry. She’s been working so hard to get Fashion Club up and running again, and here I am, her boyfriend, late and soaking wet because he had to help someone else out. The one person she thought she could count on, late.

But I’m angry too. What right does she have to own me like this? I’m her boyfriend, not her goddamn toy. I’m a human being and I have rights too.

As things are about to come to an absolute cold-war standoff, the door barges open.

“~WAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!”

“Enooooo-Chan, this isn’t a sanctioned meeting! You kn-ow that we can’t let you meet” singsongs Misha.

And as always, a dark clump of hair pops out from behind Misha’s drills. Shizune. If looks could kill…

I look to the girls. Kurosawa looks confused. Saki looks furious.

Thankfully, Miki steps in.

“Hey guys… it’s cool. Just a meeting of a few girls and one lovely Nakai to discuss the latest fashions. You know. Skirts. The kind of stuff Hisao loves.”

Thanks, Miki.

Shizune signs furiously. Misha looks at her, then to Miki, then back at Shizune. She is clearly uneasy with assaulting the easygoing Miki. Shizune amplifies this with a pointed gesture at the end. Girl means business.

[SemisoftCheese]

“But Miki-chaan… this meeting isn’t sanctioned by the Student Council!” Misha ends on a point, gaining momentum like a snowball rolling down a hill. Shizune rolls her eyes. I think she’s used to this by now.

Saki opens her mouth. Uh oh. I see a predatory glint in her eyes. The kind of glint that makes a peregrine falcon dive at 200 miles per hour to catch an unaware, pink-drilled rabbit.

“Yes, Misha, this is a meeting of Fashion Club. Would you like to join?”

Misha is confused.

“But Eno-chaan… this meeting is unsanctioned by the student council…”

“That’s okay, we’ll make an exception for you,” says Saki sweetly. Sweet like the Oompa Loompas when they drowned Augustus Gloop.

“But… but… you can’t meet….”

Saki, like the expert predator she is, goads her into the killbox.

“It’s okay Misha, we’ll be really quick. I promise. One topic on the agenda today, that’s it. And we’d be honored if you’d come and sit with us. I’ll be sure to stop by the Student Council tomorrow to get approval and forms in triplicate.”

Misha looks surprised. Shizune, for once, looks pleased. They both sit down.

Saki smiles sweetly at all of us, lingering on Misha. Misha squirms a little. This isn’t Saki trying to make her nervous. This is a bear toying with its food.

“So today’s agenda… is pink hair.”

“Lately, both Vogue and People magazine have been trashing the use of non-natural hair dyes, calling them both unnatural and uncouth. It’s one thing to be a fake strawberry blonde, but how about a fake pink starburst?”

My mouth hangs open. She continues.

“Of course, I’m not of that opinion. But I did read somewhere that the perfectly beautiful Brittney Spears almost dyed her hair once… and Anna Wintour, head of Vogue magazine, said she would have looked better if she cut it all of it off and went bald.”

By this point, Misha has stopped signing to Shizune. But Shizune is sharp enough to get what’s happening. She starts to rise, but Saki motions her down gently.

“After all, who would even think of dying their hair any color but their natural one? The next step would be to get fat, eat yogurt, and stamp papers all day.”

Misha looks like she’s on the point of tears. Her brown eyes well up like pools of chocolate sadness. I don’t think anyone’s been this mean to her before. With her cheerful demeanor, I doubt anyone’s even considered it.

I am shocked. Miki looks pretty peeved. Kurosawa looks like she wants to curl into a ball and roll away into a corner.

Look, I’m no big fan of the student council. Shizune takes her job way too seriously, and Misha needs a volume knob installed. But this isn’t criticism. This is cruelty. This has to stop, girlfriend or no. I start to rise. But it’s too late. The damage has been done.

“~WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH”

Misha bolts crying from the room, fleeing into the hallway from the Saki-Falcon.

Shizune rises angrily. She looks like she’s about to punch Saki’s lights out, but she seems to think better of it. Angrily raising a finger at Saki, the unspoken threat can be heard in the room. She’ll get her for this.

Shizune storms angrily out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

A silence hangs in the room. Everyone, excluding Saki, is in shell-shock, while Saki herself seems to be preening in what can only be the look of a well-fed, fresh-off-the-hunt falcon.

A few minutes pass. Kurosawa breaks the silence.

“Saki… why’d you do that?”

“Why not? They were bothering the club we worked really try to set up so they can satisfy their stupid self-need for a government. As if ruining other people’s work justified their existence,” say Saki curtly. The falcon has spoken. End of conversation. Kurosawa the mouse retreats back into her den, thankful for not having been eaten.

However, another bird appears on the scene. The great condor of Miki.

“Saki… whatever they wanted, I don’t think you should have gone that far, y’know?”

“Why? It’s my club. I do what I want. Student government is a club, not actually a government, no matter what they say.”

“Sak-ster, you made Misha cry. She’s about as harmless as a blind baby bat. She’s basically just a translator for Shizune, and even if she meant what she said, you had no right to make that assumption.”

Miki’s voice has lost its California surfer drawl. Her voice is sharp, crisp, with no detectable accent. She’s so easygoing that seeing her like this is frightening.

“Listen, Saki. I came to your stupid club because I thought you were a nice person and you lend me clothes sometimes. I’ve seen you lash out at most people on campus, including your boyfriend over there, but I brushed it off because I thought you were a good person inside. Because I thought you were just like me—with a chip on your shoulder because you have a cane, just like how I’m without a hand. A chip because they will stare and you can do nothing about it. Someone who was looking for a friend. Not someone who would verbally assault Mikado for the hell of it.”

Miki looks down at her stump. She smiles bitterly, but then her mouth forms a hard line. She stares Saki full-on in the eyes, the deep purple clashing with Saki’s steel-brown eyes. A gaze that pierces right through Saki’s heart—sees through her and back.

Miki gets up to leave. She punches her stump into her palm, perhaps in frustration.

“Later, Kurosawa, Nakai, Enomoto.”

She opens the door and walks out.

I don’t get back to the dorms until late that night. Saki draws out the meeting, talking about skirts and ties and dresses, with Gucci’s butterfly collection oddly pairing perfectly with Legno’s Tokidoki line. I pretend to nod and listen. She pretends that everything’s ok.

Being in love seems like an awful amount of work.

[Mirage_GSM]

If you have anything to say--criticism, praise, or even just a few words of commentary, I'm all ears.

Well, for one thing it would be common courtesy to ask the author of the story you're highjacking for permission first.
If you want to write a Saki-story, why don't you start one yourself?

As for the story itself - why would Shizune object to other clubs having a meeting? That's the purpose of clubs, isn't it?

[SemisoftCheese]

So I was hanging out in KS Generals, and the question of whether any other writers can pick this up came up.

The answer is yes. Anyone who has the inclination to do so can pick up from where I left off. If you've got the time and energy I don't, then go for it and more power to you. Feel free to use my ideas or not. Feel free to use or ignore anything that's already been written.

I thought this was an open invitation, but if it meant to ask for permission, I was in error and I'll delete my post.

[Bagheera]

So I was hanging out in KS Generals, and the question of whether any other writers can pick this up came up.

The answer is yes. Anyone who has the inclination to do so can pick up from where I left off. If you've got the time and energy I don't, then go for it and more power to you. Feel free to use my ideas or not. Feel free to use or ignore anything that's already been written.

I thought this was an open invitation, but if it meant to ask for permission, I was in error and I'll delete my post.

I read it the same way.

[Kitsune Spirit]

It's a deadfic which I assume means that the author either got bored of writing, or no longer has the time for it. Unless he specifically posted something about letting anyone continue the story, then it's generally good artistic manners to ask the author first.

[themocaw]

It's deadfic. However, in the interests of making sure that people don't get confused or angry you might want to start your own thread.

Basically, keep writing it, you have my blessing, but people might feel better if you put it in a different thread, linking back to this one.