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But he said that you were behind, Slowpoke~

Brogurt wrote:But he said that you were behind, Slowpoke~

We are behind because of some unexpected things that popped up on my end, but we finally got started on it and will hopefully be able to share the first part fairly soon.

Wrote this quickly for a little Secret Santa thing I participated in.

But... How On Earth Will This Ever Work?


I step out of the lab, unbelievably disoriented and slightly tipsy from the chemicals that just surrounded me in a cramped tube.

Everything just feels... massive?

After a few more moments, my world stops spinning.

But one thing that certainly doesn't change is the scale of the surrounding objects. To me, this is certainly a very frightening experience to say the least. It's as if I've been...

No.

No, Nurse, you son of a fucking bitch.

“Nuuuuuuurse!” I slap my hands up to my mouth at the shrieking tone that erupts from my throat.

My voice is as high pitched as a god damn cartoon mouse!

“Emi, did it work? Em –“ He abruptly stops as he rounds the corner. Might I add, that Nurse is now about three or four feet taller than me, leaving me astonished by the tremors that shake my body from his massive footsteps.

I stare up at him in disbelief, bouncing up and down in place.

“You said nothing could go wrong! You said that it was just a little test, something that would decrease or increase a persons height in a minor way!”

He reaches back behind his neck with a quite panicked, not to mention very embarrassed, smile spreading across his face.

“W-Well you see, Emi... I really haven't done too much research in depth on the possible side effects of the transformation process.” He shuffles on over to a computer, crunching a couple of numbers into it as I continue to boil over in frustration.

“You better be able to fix this, you asshole!”

“I promise, I'll be able to fix it when - ”

Before he can finish his false promise to me, a distinct hiss arises from the second test capsule, making me jump around in fear of what may walk out of it.

That's probably because I completely forgot about Rin also participating in these tests with me.

Thump.

“Ouch. Why is this thing so small now?”

My eyes go wide in amazement. Ducking her way out of the capsule, Rin emerges.

Now there's not just one problem; there's two!

Standing at an easy, yet still astounding, height of at least nine, maybe even ten feet in the air, Rin shakes her head around from side to side.

“My head feels like it's been turned inside out.” She mumbles out loud, attempting to look up at her own skull.

Nurse takes a few cautious steps forward, his extremely slow pace confusing Rin.

She grins, an expression that only really ever shows when she's about to say something extremely stu-

“Nurse, why did you shrink everything? Or maybe I'm inside of my own mind and should be painting. You're going to make it hard to make a woman feel good when you're so small, you know.”

Yeah, that really should have been expected.

“Rin, down here!” I call to her, waving my hands around as she crouches down and raises an eyebrow at me.

She practically grimaces at the painful confusion and unfathomable thoughts that roll around in her head. She then stands back up, basically looking disgusted.

“But Nurse, I thought you said that she was supposed to be my arms. How can she be my arms if she's all tiny and stuff.” She groans as she flops down on the ground, nearly knocking me off my feet by the sheer force of the impact.

I tug at my twin tails in frustration.

He slowly backs away once again, scratching the back of his head.

“I think the two of you should just stay here for a bit. This is something that I, uh... maybe I should go speak to the boss man about this one.”

I hold up a my hand, making him stop in his tracks.

“What exactly do you expect us two to do, then? Just sit here this... this just absolutely stupid amount of bullshit you've put us through already!”

He smiles in a very apologetic manner as he turns away once more, heading back through a doorway.

“Just stay here and talk for now. I'll let you know what's going on when I get back.”

The door slams shut behind him, leaving one very confused Rin and one very pissed off Emi behind him.

I turn my head to her, still simmering in my own rage.

“Rin, aren't you angry or anything?”

She looks at me with absolutely clueless eyes, her eyebrows practically twisting into a knot.

“I don't know what being angry is really. I'm just not sure how I'm going to get changed when you're so tiny and won't even be able to put my clothes on me.”

--

I step onto the other side of the door and wipe the back of my hand across for my forehead, a very proud smile spanning across my face.

Standing on the other side of a one-way window is Mutou, who has more or less been my boss for this little 'experiment'.

He said I should be the one to actually talk to them with the impending outcome, simply because of my standing with the two – well, much rather, one – of them.

He continues to stare through the glass as I step over beside him, the two of us having devious looks of approval set as our expressions.

Emi continues to blow up, her tiny body bouncing up and down as she exerts her true feelings to Rin.

“Well, my friend, you've done a good deed today. I assume everything went according to plan in there?” He speaks to me, his deadpan voice just adding to the ultimate feel of being a somewhat 'evil' doctor.

“Absolutely. They actually bought into the idea that it was some kind of malfunction.”

“Excellent.”

I do have one burning question to ask him, however.

“I must ask though, Mutou. When do you plan on changing the two of them back?”

He turns to me and smirks.

“Who said anything about changing them back?”

Tornado Warning


My eyes sting.

It's almost like someone's just been standing in front of me, tossing dirt and sand into them. I can't tell if it's the rain drops free-falling out of the clouds or tears of my own trickling down my cheeks, but either one seems appropriate.

My wife stands with her arms wrapped around me from behind, resting her chin on my shoulder as I continue my staring contest with the slab of stone in front of me.

Her breathing is light, almost soothing in a time of frustration and regret, in my ear. It's always had that sort of calming effect, something that I would honestly say is one of her greatest qualities.

The ability to calm me down.

The ability to keep me sane upstairs at a time where it's a nearly impossible challenge.

My eyes trail down to my feet, a glimpse of my mixed light and dark gray sweater vest causing a slight distraction.

It's what he would have wanted me to wear.

He always complained during our debriefs about how I could pull off such a hideous and feminine look as powerful and high ranked being.

I was his right hand man, just those few short years ago.

A sudden clearing of the throat from Lilly brings me back to reality, her shortened blonde hair, a much different style from the days of high school and even university, tickling the back of my neck as she brings her lips close to my ear.

“I will be in the car, okay? Don't be too long, as hard as I know this is for you. It's getting rather late.”

She trails her fingers along my arm until she finds my hand, gripping it rather intensely. I return the gesture, though in a much more weak manner than what she had.

“Okay.”

I try to pull my hand away from hers, but she doesn't let go.

“You will get through this, Hisao. I promise with every ounce of my body that I'll be there every step of the way.”

She finally releases me, reaching into her bag and pulling out her retractable cane, using it as a guide down the cobblestone path to the car.

Once she's finally into the vehicle and without of earshot, I turn my body back to the grave before me.

Why?

Why did it have to end like this? Through all of the struggles we overcame, through everything that this man had to fight through just to live and lead our army to a victorious outcome at the end of the war, he had to die of something so small.

At least, in my mind, it just seems like a roadblock.

Cancer? Like he would have said, and I quote him on the topic of illness and weakness: 'Illness is for the weak and weakness is for the ill. If you can stay out of either category, you will never be involved with the other. It's all a controlled mindset, so you best break your shit out of it.'

Those words have stuck with me for, what has it been now? Five years? Seven?

I can't remember, honestly.

All I envision anymore is the bullets pushing out of the barrel of a gun. The sound correlates with lightning, nearly sending me into a fit every time we get a storm during the summer.

Yet, through my own learning process, I've fought through it.

I have no weakness. I will not allow myself to, especially not in the public eye.

The only person who knows my little secret is Lilly, and that's because she's the woman, and the only one at that, that I can honestly say that my life is entrusted to.

I remember meeting her again as our troops were touring through Northern Japan. She had been hiding out with her sister, mother and father, the latter two just coming in for a visit as the war had begun to blow up into a full on conflict.

Not all women were like them.

Not even all men were trustworthy by the end of my time that I served.

I've heard it all over the years.

'Maybe we should have just surrendered. We lost X amount of men and Y amount of resources, yet they make us suffer just to get their freedom. What if the feminist ideals are the best for us all? Damn man, maybe joining in on this resistance bullshit was a bad idea.'

The rain continues to fall around me, even picking up in the volume as I can feel the wetness soaking through my vest and dress shirt.

The ground is beginning to turn to mud; and maybe that's what it deserves.

What I deserve.

I'm showing my weakness right now. Tears don't come out of a man who has any amount of strength left in his body.

But, I really have no strength left in me. The years of war and hard discipline have left me mentally and physically exhausted, even if I only am a now middle-aged man.

I crouch down, the position made greatly uncomfortable from my somewhat tight pair of black dress pants.

Drops of rain splash off of the tombstone as I begin to cry even harder.

It should have been me.

The second in command. The nice guy who 'never got anyone ready for the war', according to some of my equal ranking officers.

Everyone saw me as that guy who was there for comfort. I fought in battles, scars remaining on my legs and arms from shrapnel and near-death experiences with bullets.

They represent who I am. A hardened veteran, but that man who never became hardened enough to not care about those around him.

I took two bullets for soldiers that I saw as family.

I see those scars as reminders that there are people who owe me their lives just as much as I owe them my own.

The people who I still fight and live for today.

I reach my hand forward and rub dirt off of the engraving on the tombstone, a bittersweet smile finding my lips as I read the lines aloud.

“Kenji Setou – Commander in Chief, The Freedom Resistance. 1989-2025.”




“Tornado Warning” is a song produced by Hammock

I am trying so, so hard not to laugh. I'm failing, I don't know why. Just the whole seriousness of a post feminist war...

Tokoz wrote:I am trying so, so hard not to laugh. I'm failing, I don't know why. Just the whole seriousness of a post feminist war...

Yeah, that was the goal with that one. Make some people feel bad, make other people laugh. Was certainly an interesting thing to write.

3159khz Transmission


“So she's gone, just like that?” Kenji flops down with his back pressed against the fence of the rooftop, the red sky evening sky above finally beginning to fade to black.

Stars are starting to show themselves from behind a sparse amount of cloud coverage, the air changing to a bit more a chill. I let out a sigh and stretch my arms far up above my head, continuing to stare into space.

“Yeah. Just like that,” I respond, no real form of anger or regret showing in my tone. It's not to sound like I don't care that Lilly got on a plane and is going back to Scotland. In fact, I feel like complete shit about the entire scenario still.

I let out a huge yawn as Kenji pulls the top off of his bottle, taking in a moderate amount of alcohol with one big swig. I haven't slept well in days, and I'm finally beginning to feel it have a toll on my body. I finally give in and take a seat down beside my hall mate, leaning my head back against the fencing.

“I told you, man. A woman really can't be trusted. With as much damage as they can do in their plans to take over the world, the worst thing they can do is break your damn heart,” he rambles on, letting out a longing sigh. I've heard some... stories, I suppose you could say, about Kenji possibly having a relationship with a girl at some point. I'll be damned if I ever figure out who, but it really seems like he still feels something about that whole scenario.

I choose not to say anything, continuing my staring contest with the darkening horizon. Lilly's up there, somewhere in that sky tonight. On an airplane home to a place she doesn't belong, to a place that has no understanding of who she is or what she wants to be in life.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, selfish even. I had envisioned the two of us being together for longer than what we were, no matter the circumstance. Now, I'm sitting here with a blind kid, who I think I can finally call my friend, with a bottle of whiskey on the rooftop of our school.

“You think I did the right thing?” I ask out loud, more of a rhetorical question for myself than for something that I want him to answer. I don't think there was a 'thing' that I really did in this situation however. In fact, that's what I did to try and solve the problem.

Nothing. I sat back, said my goodbyes and did nothing.

I also felt nothing. Is that really possible? Feeling nothing is almost like an empty feeling, and yet I can't say that I feel angry or upset about the situation. In fact, I'd say that this feeling of nothingness is just exactly what it is.

My parents used to tell me that the right one for me would come along someday. I feel nothing because, I guess that she wasn't the right one. I think this whole situation has had more of a negative physical toll rather than emotional.

“The fuck do you think I am, some kind of prophet? I can't tell you if what you did was right or wrong, man. That's up for you to decide,” Kenji replies, sounding awfully tame compared to what I was originally expecting from this discussion. He sets the alcohol bottle on my lap, leaving an open invitation for me to drown myself with the sorrows of whiskey.

But I don't feel sorrow. I don't feel regret, or anything. With that, I decide to just leave the bottle there, opting to do nothing with it.

Nothing at all.

Is this depression? It's an empty feeling inside. It's not good or bad, happy or sad... it's just nothing. Thinking of all of this, I almost sound like I'm depressed.

But how can I be depressed if I haven't had any major negative reactions to her leaving? I initially thought I would be more upset than Hanako was when the day finally came for Lilly to take her leave. I was completely wrong in the end, as there were no tears or even attempts to make her change her mind.

I just let her go, like a dandelion in the wind.

All of those memories of the trip up to the summer house, the trips to the city, the afternoons in the tea room... none of them are necessarily gone. Thinking back on them actually makes me feel happy, but not overly so. I don't feel bittersweet about them, wishing that they would come back and happen all over again. More that I just take them as they were: positive memories from my days at a school for disabled kids.

Now there's something. I suddenly feel a bit of sadness, looking back to my days before Yamaku.

“I miss how things were before I came here,” I calmly state, closing my eyes and thinking back to the days I spent playing soccer with friends or spending some time at the arcade downtown. I remember this feeling when I first arrived here, not having any friends or knowing what I wanted to do with myself.

Now I miss home. As boring or repetitive, maybe even meaningless as it had once felt to me, it now feels like where I wish I was.

“Man, the fuck are you going on about now? You've got so much going for you here with friends and all of that shit, and now you wish you could go back home? That makes even me feel bad, dude,” he replies with a tad bit of hurtfulness in his tone.

To me, what he said really doesn't mean anything though. I get that this is just a momentary phase, but I just wish I could go home and see everyone again. They left me while I was in the hospital, but I mean... who wouldn't? I understand it's supposed to be a friendship thing, that we're all supposed to be together until the end. But, in that sense, life moves on with or without preparation for what's going to lie ahead.

I never tried to get closer than what I was with any of my friends. That's a big time regret, because it cost me in the long run. I didn't move forward at a quick enough pace.

Now I'm caught in the dust and still losing position in the race. I lost my friends because of a heart attack, I lost my girlfriend because of my own selfishness and lack of preparation. It might sound silly, but maybe that's what it is; I don't feel anything at all because it's not how I feel about situations. Moreover, it's how I feel about myself.

Right now, I absolutely hate myself. If I could kick myself in the ass for every time I'm done something stupid in this whole learning process while growing up, I would have enough bruises to cover the entire thing.

Silence still remains between the two of us as he takes another swig from the bottle.

Maybe normalcy is what I want in life. I want to be normal, even if there is no such thing; I just want to be your average kid who doesn't have to jump through hoops just to live his life. I just want to be along for the ride, not be the conductor of the train.

My thoughts are quickly interrupted as Kenji clears his throat.

“Let me tell you something, Hisao. I may sound like a fucking idiot sometimes to you, even if I'm not at all, but sometimes it's all fun and games. I do my thing because it keeps me from falling back into some depressed moron that I used to be. Maybe my way isn't a good way of doing it, but I'll be damned if it isn't fucking awesome,” he pauses for a moment, seemingly gathering his thoughts.

“Let me tell you what my father told me, literally the greatest advice to exist on this god-forsaken planet: he told me 'son, there's gonna be some times where you feel like shit. You're gonna wish you were dead or something crazy like that, and you're going to wish you could go back to the days when you were younger. But, to move forward, sometimes you gotta go back and reflect on your own mistakes and bullshit that has come from it. Once you come to terms that you're better off from in at least one single way, you'll feel like the better person from it.' So take that for what it is, but shit man, don't get depressed over some fucking whore and what you used to be. That shit makes you better each and every day, even if you don't feel it at first.”

I'm lost for a moment in the silence. Looking up into the crimson shades that are slowly fading in the distance, it feels like I've come back to the present.

I finally feel it. It's not nothing anymore, just something. It's something positive, maybe not necessarily happy or life changing, but just... something. It makes me feel a bit more whole as a person, as if I just had a minor realization.

I think I know what it is now.

Everything that has happened in the past is just a learning experience. Painful, exciting, saddening or infuriating... everything teaches a lesson. Maybe Lilly and I just weren't meant to be, rather our relationship was just preparing us for something better in our futures, even if that means we were never meant to be together for the rest of our lives.

I may miss my friends back home, I may miss that old lifestyle that I used to have. Yet I can't get down on something that's already happened and is in the past. Relationships, friendships, just in general moving forward, are going to come and go.

I know there's someone out there in the future. It could be 20 years down the line, or it could be in two weeks.

The important thing is that I need to be myself and not worry about the repercussions. I just need to feel like me, and nothing else.

I stand up from my seat, a small grin forming across my face. From behind me, Kenji speaks up.

“You leaving already?” I turn around and look at him, finally taking my eyes away from the horizon and coming back to reality.

“Yeah. You should come with though. Let's round the guys up and take a trip this weekend, I'm feeling adventurous.

He pops up to his feet with a big grin on his face, giving me a big smack on the back while holding his bottle in his off hand.

“That's my boy!”

I take a step towards the stairs leading down from the roof, feeling rejuvenated. Some things just aren't meant to be. Yet, they happen to make every individual stronger.

I just need to be me.




3159khz Transmission is a song by Sorrow.

Enjoyed this story quite a bit. Given my own struggles to place Kenji, I like seeing any attempt to put his antics into a context.

Also couldn't help but chuckle at this:

YourFavAnon wrote:I know there's someone out there in the future. It could be 20 years down the line, or it could be in two weeks.

Yes. Yes it could.

dewelar wrote:Enjoyed this story quite a bit. Given my own struggles to place Kenji, I like seeing any attempt to put his antics into a context.

Also couldn't help but chuckle at this:

YourFavAnon wrote:I know there's someone out there in the future. It could be 20 years down the line, or it could be in two weeks.

Yes. Yes it could.

I like 20 years. Seems about right. For Hanako.

Appreciate the feedback. Back around the end of high school last year I was struggling pretty bad to come to terms with the fact that everyone has to move on from friends (not all, but some) when they progress on and what not. So this was really fun for me to write simply because I just applied some things I've learned over the past year or two and applied it to a situation that might seem like it's a black hole the person in it. I hope to get back to writing some things periodically again, just haven't had as much of a drive to write as I used to. Today I got the urge though, so I went with it.

Anyways, thanks for reading.

YourFavAnon wrote:Appreciate the feedback. Back around the end of high school last year I was struggling pretty bad to come to terms with the fact that everyone has to move on from friends (not all, but some) when they progress on and what not. So this was really fun for me to write simply because I just applied some things I've learned over the past year or two and applied it to a situation that might seem like it's a black hole the person in it.

Very cool! That's what writing's about, right?

I hope to get back to writing some things periodically again, just haven't had as much of a drive to write as I used to. Today I got the urge though, so I went with it.

Yeah, this is one of the first things I learned when I started writing: when you have the urge to write, DO NOT IGNORE IT!

dewelar wrote:Yeah, this is one of the first things I learned when I started writing: when you have the urge to write, DO NOT IGNORE IT!

Well, I used to have the drive pretty constantly, however with college, work, video games etc, the drive has kind of died. But yeah, it feels nice to write every once in a while still.