Flight of the Clay Bird (or The one where Kenji goes fast)
Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 1:40 pm
Kenji woke up to a loud beeping noise next to his bed. It took a great deal of effort to comprehend that it was something he never had blast his ears since grade school. An alarm clock. With a trembling arm, he slapped the plastic device to silence it and removed his sheets. An engine gunned in his chest as he squinted to read the time. 5:30 in the morning. In around thirty minutes it would be a time of reckoning, a liberation day for mankind as much as himself. Today he would finally face his adversary head on, proactively, a true piercing offensive on their turf. Today Kenji will race the track star, Emi Ibarazaki.
He hopped out of bed and immediately donned his glasses. On the floor adjacent to it lay his antiquated raiments of battle. Kenji frowned with effort as he slipped on his old track clothes-a white shirt and blue running shorts three sizes too small. His name lingered on the fringes of his shirt in faded marker pen. It reminded him of a time, Kenji reminisces as he digs for a pair of his uniform shoes, when he was with his girlfriend. In a world nearly dominated by women, there will be no time for love. He must take to the skies like the majestic emu during the twilight, like they were born to do while nobody is watching. Who says they can't fly?Feminists.
The air was cool, and the mustiness of his room escaped Kenji's nose as he headed down to the track with a can of coffee in his grasp, shielded by a cloth napkin he stole from The Shanghai. Kenji's spirit burned, fueled by the caffeine, which in turn was bought with the money he set aside to pay back Hisao. He knew in his heart that Nakai understood what it means to sacrifice for a cause.
Emi was not prepared to endure Kenji today. "K-Kenji! What's...what's up?" she said in a panic.
Kenji tried to put his hands into his pockets, but they were too big to fit all the way so he holstered his index and middle fingers instead. For a moment, Kenji gave an expression as if had already won the race and was about to give his victory speech. Suddenly he gave up that masculine image and shifted into his casual stance. "I'm here to run." said Kenji without a hint of malice. Indeed, with his spectacles concealing his eyes, it seemed that way to Emi. Provoking hostilities now would destroy any hope of crushing her under the heel of his purple running shoes.
"Ah...great" Emi said in pained enthusiasm. "I'm so glad for you!"
Completely misreading her tone, Kenji said nothing and planted himself on what he saw as the starting line - a blur of black with white elements. The texture of this surface, Kenji realized, would be just the place for Emi to put land-mines or spring plates. He heard her call to him. "You're not gonna stretch?"
Stretch? And give Emi an opening to pummel his backside with her wheelchair? He answered with a flat "No."
Emi was too far away for Kenji to see her, let alone discern her facial expression. It readily became visible to him when she neared her face to his and glared at him. "But you're gonna get cramps if you don't!"
"I stretched before I got here." said Kenji. Crisis averted. Once again his expert guile challenged the female instinct and won. Kenji grinned in triumph.
Emi didn't buy it. "Come on, get in the spirit! This is for your health!"
"Spiders don't have to stretch their legs." said Kenji. "Didn't know that huh?"
"Just do it!"
A flip switched inside Kenji's brain. His mystic eyes lost their ambition, and the idea of stretching felt like a good, strangely meaningful idea. "Okay, sounds cool."
Taken slightly aback from his concession, Emi blinked. "Okay" she echoed, unsure whether her encouragement worked or not.
Back onto the track again. Kenji remained on guard as he jogged on the lane next to Emi's. Hers is a deadly killing technique, so they say. A charging assault could come at any time, from any direction. The space portals could be set up anywhere. So he kept pace with her, an easy feat, waiting for the opportunity to spring into action. For a moment recognizing Kenji as one capable of rational thought, Emi asked him if he was up for the exertion of a sprint.
"Enough...enough of this! I came here...to...go fast!" replied Kenji between breaths. He stopped jogging, and Emi followed. With a challenging finger, Kenji forced on a look of confident swagger. "I came...to race you! Ibarazaki!" The heat of the late morning sun charged his body as he thought of himself surrounded by a flaming aura from those manly animes like Fist of the North Star. A large gong blasted the air nearby.
Giving no thought to it, the competitive side of Emi manifested itself into an impulse to accept his challenge. She immediately grinned in Kenji's image. "Okay, sounds cool!"
"I just said the same thing earlier, you can't do that."
"What?"
"That's a one second head-start."
"No way! You can't be serious!"
"How about a foot over the starting line?"
"Are we gonna race or what?" The anticipation was causing her a little bit of distress.
"Fine." said Kenji sternly. "I guess I can let that one slide, since we are in an honor-bound duel." He walked over to the starting line.
The absurdity of Kenji's continued presence started to sink in. However, Emi could not back down from this challenge as the fastest thing on no legs. She sighed heavily.
Kenji squinted to see the white starting line. For once he didn't care about how tainted the sport of running was. He is going to beat back the tide of femininity with a dynamic application of MANSPEED. The open war against feminism starts...!
"Who's calling to start?" asked Emi, already crouched in the starting position.
Kenji frowned hard as he bent forward. "Dammit. Don't you track people always have wristwatches?"
Emi sighed. "I got one right here." She fiddled with it and started a countdown timer. "You'll hear a beep after ten seconds...from now."
Kenji readied his body. He removed his glasses. Of course now he might be vulnerable to the iris scanners set up in the trees, but Kenji figured he'd be going too fast for them. They probably set up a weather machine somewhere nearby as well, as a strong gust of wind passed by to herald the battle.
Kenji heard the beep and started running. The first thing to leave him was his sense of hearing. Next was his sense of time. Fatigue and pain briefly washed over him, but that was quickly shed as well. The blur of color that was his vision became disassociated with his brain, seeing everything and nothing. Its an entirely manly feeling he concluded. Its familiar. Soon even his chaotic rambling ceased, recognizing that he was leading the charge to a manly revolution. After so long being on the defensive, all he wanted to do now is ATTACK.
Suddenly it was apparent to Kenji that he had passed the finish line and with it the whole track entirely. He skidded to a stop on the turf in a cartoonish fashion. Emi stood nearly five yards away as if she had only walked the distance. Her expression was smoldering faintly with curiosity. "You have good form." she said absently as Kenji stumbled over to her, his breathing ragged.
"I used to be fat once." rasped Kenji. "Went on a terrible ice cream binge like cats do when they go feral. So I started...running." The pair of them walked over to the bleachers. "That was while I was with...phew... my girlfriend. We ate Neapolitan together." Flabbergasted at Kenji acting sociable, Emi focused on her breathing as the boy retrieved his glasses and dropped the question. "So who won?"
"I did" said Emi without any discernible tone.
Kenji instantly turned red with anger. "GODDAMMIT!" he yelled. Putting on his glasses, Kenji began to pace back and forth. Now faced with the harsh reality that beating the track team's star runner in a footrace was in fact not a plausible outcome, the weight of his responsibility as a soldier of masculinity threatened to crush him there and then. "This won't work...we're in trouble..." Kenji mumbled.
Emi laughed nervously. "H-Hey, it wasn't that big of a lead. You'd be perfect for the track team! Really!"
Join the fucking track team? And experience that dreadful slipping of purpose again? "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Emi."
"Let me do what?"
"Nothing. I just like saying that. The point is I can't have the luxury of running away from myself like that."
"Running away?"
"Don't you understand!? We're rivals now as we've always been. Like clean teeth and plaque. Ours is an eternal struggle."
Emi shrugged and smiled weakly. "I have a lot of rivals already, so one more won't hurt." Her excitement for another potential running partner won over her aversion to Kenji's oddities. Dealing with Rin taught her much about that. "Does that mean you're coming back tomorrow morning?" she asked eagerly.
"No. It's too dangerous out here. I know your game. You'll run me near unconscious and then use a leather belt to..."
Before he could blow her entire fitness plan open, Emi conveniently remembered her date with the nurse. "Omigosh! I'm late! Gotta run! Seeya!" With that, she made her escape behind the bleachers, a cloud of dust in her wake.
"Crazy bitch tried to kill me." Kenji mumbled. He had survived a direct encounter with one of the deadliest Feminist agents in Yamaku. Would be a good reason to celebrate with pizza. He walked forward through the dusty air and was suddenly assaulted by a metal object to the face. Kenji rolled backwards and screamed in pain. "EMI YOU FEMINIST BITCH!" He clawed around like a feline, kicking up more dust. After plenty of swipes at nothing, his hand found the would-be assassin. A metal beam supporting the bleachers. He grasped it and lay there, too tired to get up.
He hopped out of bed and immediately donned his glasses. On the floor adjacent to it lay his antiquated raiments of battle. Kenji frowned with effort as he slipped on his old track clothes-a white shirt and blue running shorts three sizes too small. His name lingered on the fringes of his shirt in faded marker pen. It reminded him of a time, Kenji reminisces as he digs for a pair of his uniform shoes, when he was with his girlfriend. In a world nearly dominated by women, there will be no time for love. He must take to the skies like the majestic emu during the twilight, like they were born to do while nobody is watching. Who says they can't fly?Feminists.
The air was cool, and the mustiness of his room escaped Kenji's nose as he headed down to the track with a can of coffee in his grasp, shielded by a cloth napkin he stole from The Shanghai. Kenji's spirit burned, fueled by the caffeine, which in turn was bought with the money he set aside to pay back Hisao. He knew in his heart that Nakai understood what it means to sacrifice for a cause.
Emi was not prepared to endure Kenji today. "K-Kenji! What's...what's up?" she said in a panic.
Kenji tried to put his hands into his pockets, but they were too big to fit all the way so he holstered his index and middle fingers instead. For a moment, Kenji gave an expression as if had already won the race and was about to give his victory speech. Suddenly he gave up that masculine image and shifted into his casual stance. "I'm here to run." said Kenji without a hint of malice. Indeed, with his spectacles concealing his eyes, it seemed that way to Emi. Provoking hostilities now would destroy any hope of crushing her under the heel of his purple running shoes.
"Ah...great" Emi said in pained enthusiasm. "I'm so glad for you!"
Completely misreading her tone, Kenji said nothing and planted himself on what he saw as the starting line - a blur of black with white elements. The texture of this surface, Kenji realized, would be just the place for Emi to put land-mines or spring plates. He heard her call to him. "You're not gonna stretch?"
Stretch? And give Emi an opening to pummel his backside with her wheelchair? He answered with a flat "No."
Emi was too far away for Kenji to see her, let alone discern her facial expression. It readily became visible to him when she neared her face to his and glared at him. "But you're gonna get cramps if you don't!"
"I stretched before I got here." said Kenji. Crisis averted. Once again his expert guile challenged the female instinct and won. Kenji grinned in triumph.
Emi didn't buy it. "Come on, get in the spirit! This is for your health!"
"Spiders don't have to stretch their legs." said Kenji. "Didn't know that huh?"
"Just do it!"
A flip switched inside Kenji's brain. His mystic eyes lost their ambition, and the idea of stretching felt like a good, strangely meaningful idea. "Okay, sounds cool."
Taken slightly aback from his concession, Emi blinked. "Okay" she echoed, unsure whether her encouragement worked or not.
Back onto the track again. Kenji remained on guard as he jogged on the lane next to Emi's. Hers is a deadly killing technique, so they say. A charging assault could come at any time, from any direction. The space portals could be set up anywhere. So he kept pace with her, an easy feat, waiting for the opportunity to spring into action. For a moment recognizing Kenji as one capable of rational thought, Emi asked him if he was up for the exertion of a sprint.
"Enough...enough of this! I came here...to...go fast!" replied Kenji between breaths. He stopped jogging, and Emi followed. With a challenging finger, Kenji forced on a look of confident swagger. "I came...to race you! Ibarazaki!" The heat of the late morning sun charged his body as he thought of himself surrounded by a flaming aura from those manly animes like Fist of the North Star. A large gong blasted the air nearby.
Giving no thought to it, the competitive side of Emi manifested itself into an impulse to accept his challenge. She immediately grinned in Kenji's image. "Okay, sounds cool!"
"I just said the same thing earlier, you can't do that."
"What?"
"That's a one second head-start."
"No way! You can't be serious!"
"How about a foot over the starting line?"
"Are we gonna race or what?" The anticipation was causing her a little bit of distress.
"Fine." said Kenji sternly. "I guess I can let that one slide, since we are in an honor-bound duel." He walked over to the starting line.
The absurdity of Kenji's continued presence started to sink in. However, Emi could not back down from this challenge as the fastest thing on no legs. She sighed heavily.
Kenji squinted to see the white starting line. For once he didn't care about how tainted the sport of running was. He is going to beat back the tide of femininity with a dynamic application of MANSPEED. The open war against feminism starts...!
"Who's calling to start?" asked Emi, already crouched in the starting position.
Kenji frowned hard as he bent forward. "Dammit. Don't you track people always have wristwatches?"
Emi sighed. "I got one right here." She fiddled with it and started a countdown timer. "You'll hear a beep after ten seconds...from now."
Kenji readied his body. He removed his glasses. Of course now he might be vulnerable to the iris scanners set up in the trees, but Kenji figured he'd be going too fast for them. They probably set up a weather machine somewhere nearby as well, as a strong gust of wind passed by to herald the battle.
Kenji heard the beep and started running. The first thing to leave him was his sense of hearing. Next was his sense of time. Fatigue and pain briefly washed over him, but that was quickly shed as well. The blur of color that was his vision became disassociated with his brain, seeing everything and nothing. Its an entirely manly feeling he concluded. Its familiar. Soon even his chaotic rambling ceased, recognizing that he was leading the charge to a manly revolution. After so long being on the defensive, all he wanted to do now is ATTACK.
Suddenly it was apparent to Kenji that he had passed the finish line and with it the whole track entirely. He skidded to a stop on the turf in a cartoonish fashion. Emi stood nearly five yards away as if she had only walked the distance. Her expression was smoldering faintly with curiosity. "You have good form." she said absently as Kenji stumbled over to her, his breathing ragged.
"I used to be fat once." rasped Kenji. "Went on a terrible ice cream binge like cats do when they go feral. So I started...running." The pair of them walked over to the bleachers. "That was while I was with...phew... my girlfriend. We ate Neapolitan together." Flabbergasted at Kenji acting sociable, Emi focused on her breathing as the boy retrieved his glasses and dropped the question. "So who won?"
"I did" said Emi without any discernible tone.
Kenji instantly turned red with anger. "GODDAMMIT!" he yelled. Putting on his glasses, Kenji began to pace back and forth. Now faced with the harsh reality that beating the track team's star runner in a footrace was in fact not a plausible outcome, the weight of his responsibility as a soldier of masculinity threatened to crush him there and then. "This won't work...we're in trouble..." Kenji mumbled.
Emi laughed nervously. "H-Hey, it wasn't that big of a lead. You'd be perfect for the track team! Really!"
Join the fucking track team? And experience that dreadful slipping of purpose again? "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Emi."
"Let me do what?"
"Nothing. I just like saying that. The point is I can't have the luxury of running away from myself like that."
"Running away?"
"Don't you understand!? We're rivals now as we've always been. Like clean teeth and plaque. Ours is an eternal struggle."
Emi shrugged and smiled weakly. "I have a lot of rivals already, so one more won't hurt." Her excitement for another potential running partner won over her aversion to Kenji's oddities. Dealing with Rin taught her much about that. "Does that mean you're coming back tomorrow morning?" she asked eagerly.
"No. It's too dangerous out here. I know your game. You'll run me near unconscious and then use a leather belt to..."
Before he could blow her entire fitness plan open, Emi conveniently remembered her date with the nurse. "Omigosh! I'm late! Gotta run! Seeya!" With that, she made her escape behind the bleachers, a cloud of dust in her wake.
"Crazy bitch tried to kill me." Kenji mumbled. He had survived a direct encounter with one of the deadliest Feminist agents in Yamaku. Would be a good reason to celebrate with pizza. He walked forward through the dusty air and was suddenly assaulted by a metal object to the face. Kenji rolled backwards and screamed in pain. "EMI YOU FEMINIST BITCH!" He clawed around like a feline, kicking up more dust. After plenty of swipes at nothing, his hand found the would-be assassin. A metal beam supporting the bleachers. He grasped it and lay there, too tired to get up.
