Little did she know that he had just turned at the corner of the street they lived on and would be walking from the corner.
Oak Grove Street
Haruo walked quickly down the street as he approached the triplex. He hoped to slip into his room without anyone noticing.
As he got closer to his door he saw River poke her head out the door of her family's third of the triplex, "Haruo, I'm going to head down to the art supply store, do you want to come with me?"
"I'd love to but I have to put something in my room. Can you wait a few minutes and I'll go with you." He replied as he headed towards his door.
"Sure, I will..." River said waggling her fingers at him. "Honey, maybe we can go get something to eat at Hogan's too."
"Hopefully cranial-hindquarter inversion isn't working there today." Haruo muttered.
"I heard from Molly that he's under work probation. If he mucks up one more time he's going to get fired." She smirked.
Haruo growled, "It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy." He hoped that he wouldn't have to have another showdown with Jared Frio. He didn't like having to fight but if challenged, he would with no quarter given.
"Go on in and drop off what you needed to, hon," River told him so he headed upstairs.
"Just exactly where were you this morning?" Haruo groaned as a strident tone permeated his eardrums. "What have I told you about not saying anything about where you were going? You were probably out blowing money on arcade games, weren't you? That is an irresponsible thing to do. What do you plan to do when you have to go to university? Did you even bother to think of that? Are you incompetent?"
"For flark sakes..." Haruo muttered under his breath as he tucked the engagement ring under several layers of t-shirts and shut the drawer. He was beyond caring about what his mother thought of him. She had made it clear that she had never respected him. "Look, I had something really important to do!" Haruo shot his mother a sharp drop-it look.
"What are you looking at me like that for? I'm just concerned that you don't seem to do anything but waste money on that little tramp next door when you should be more concerned about your education."
"Enough! Mother! I'm busy and I have somewhere else to go today. Now shelf this until I get home." Haruo snapped, finally fed up.
"You watch your tone, young man! I'm still older than you and I'll give you what-...where do you think you're going?" She looked shocked as Haruo finally just brushed past her.
"Out!" Was his brief snipped reply. "Don't bother waiting up!"
Mayumi could only stand there gaping like a fish out of water vibrating with self-important, indignant outrage. "YASUBO!"
Yasunobu rolled his eyes, "Kare o oshi sugita...(you pushed him too far) dorehodo hisan'na koto suru ka. So'nani oshitara kare okoru yo. (How miserable are you going to make him? You push him so much and naturally he will get angry)." He shook his head. kanojo o sarubekidatta. (I should have left her). Haruo mo tsurete ikubekidatta (And I should have taken Haruo with me too). He turned to go down the elevator to see his son. Maybe he could slip him §50 on Haruo's way out the door.
"Hoi, Haruo kun..." he hailed his son, “goju doru" he said passing over some money. “Anata futari doka de tabenasai...". He nodded.
"Arigato, otosan." His son said and grinned at his father as Yasunobu ruffled his son's hair paternally. "We'll go eat somewhere. Thanks for the fifty." While River's mouth opened in shock, again? His dad was the one who always seemed as though he passed money to his son and in addition River also became the beneficiary of same act and River gave her surrogate dad a hug. Haruo's dad was so much like the father she wished she had.
Yasunobu watched his son's and River's body language and a small smile stole over his face. He quietly nodded as his suspicions were piqued. River and Haruo were certainly standing closer to each other than before. Well Mayumi's plans to make Haruo miserable were in the midst of being thwarted.
Toranu tanuki no kawazan'yō: he grinned widely. His wife should know better than to count raccoon dog skins before she'd even bought them. Now all her plans would mean nothing and Yasunobu wouldn't utter a peep. Whatever Haruo was going to do, he hoped that he would do it soon.
(End Chapter 5)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Haruo and River looked at each other; finally thanked Yasunobu and were on their way down to the art-shop that she wanted to go to downtown.
Another thing that had changed was the fact that they walked together arm-in-arm, as close together as they possibly could without making it impossible to walk without tangling up their stride. There was nothing to hide. Haruo didn't care what others thought. He knew River was his sweetheart and that was all that was needed to be known.
"I think we may need to take a taxi back if I get the easel today." River looked thoughtful. "It's going to be large and heavy. What I might do though is pick a sketchbook." She looked at him.
"Will you have enough to cover your stuff you're getting if you buy the sketchbook and whatever else today?" Haruo asked.
"I think so. We should check and see what time they close then maybe I can pay for the easel in advance and pick it up before the store closes. That way..." she stroked his arm gently, "We can maximize the amount of time we have to do other things."
"...and if you run across an interesting subject you can sketch it." Haruo said. "I've seen your pencil sketches, they're incredible."
"Thanks..." River snuggled up to Haruo as they walked down past the Bistro. It was about ten-thirty in the morning and things would probably be nuts in there getting ready for lunch rush. "...so what are you planning to do?"
"I don't know. Writing holds some passion for me. Though I can't afford a computer right now, maybe being able to write by pen and paper then maybe transcribe it onto computer at the library." he mused out loud.
The art store was not too far away and finally they were able to peruse the art supplies. This was certainly an art store. Haruo thought There were racks and racks of canvases, shelves with different sets of oils, watercolors, charcoal pencils and sticks, brushes, coloured pencils and other drawing implements that would help in making memorable drawings that others would buy.
Haruo was actually starting to enjoy the shopping for artist's supplies too. River asked sales staff about the quality of easels and was directed to a nice wood easel that to Haruo's impression of it was that it was built like a tank. It was definitely one where if they bought it, it would have to be brought home via taxi. That would tack about eleven to twelve simoleons. The easel she was directed to was worth §300.
After purchasing a lot of materials for drawing, painting and sketching, about ten canvases as well as the easel and an artist's portfolio carry case. Considering that the store was open till nine that night they decided to come back at eight-fifteen and then call a cab to get the materials back home. But at the moment, she opted to bring with her for the moment a sketchbook and a set of sketching pencils. The rest; she informed them that she would pick them up after eight pm. The store staff agreed to store all the materials until their return placing SOLD tags on all the merchandise purchased.
With that, Haruo and an ebullient River left the store. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this." River exclaimed as they walked along the sidewalk past the hospital towards the beach.
Haruo had suggested doing some sketching down by the water where as he'd mentioned there could be some interesting subjects to sketch and she could try out the different sketching pencils. River was eager to try them out, especially on a nice beach amidst the warm sand and moist salt-laden air with very few clouds floating in the sky. And River was more than happy to go down and see what she could sketch while Haruo sat beside her watching the waves rolling into.
To start off her art career she wanted to develop a good set of sketches from where she could take inspiration when it came to painting. "...after all..." she informed her boyfriend, "if I can draw inspiration from this and paint a painting that brings in at least §2400 it will go a long way to paying for some travel to some exotic destinations to paint. After all. One of our goals was to travel the world."
"Agreed..." Haruo said closing his eyes as he took a deep breath, sighing as he enjoyed the cool breeze coming off the water. It certainly cooled the temperatures that midday would bring. Being by the ocean allowed them to be able to stay relatively cooler than sitting in Central Park, with all its brick and concrete, which could potentially get to well over twenty-eight Celsius during the course of a June midday when the sun was at it's apex. He watched River pull out the sketch book from the bag and unwrap the new sketching pencils.
River enjoyed the feel of the new writing implements in her possession and as she delved into her creative imagination to see the world; her pencil in hand, started to make impressions of the world around her. Delving deep, her subconscious directing the movement of pencil along paper, her hand drawing broad lines back and forth across the page appearing as with no apparent focus in mind, the lines which at first not appearing much like a drawing, but eventually started to take cohesive shape as more and more details were added. River had always been a prolific doodler, her assignment books told the tale of a mind preoccupied with creative interpretation of the task-at-hand, her doodles marking the fact that those art shapes though random, were jogging her mind into a thought process leading to completion of her assigned work.
Haruo, on the other hand, had no such lofty ambitions. His whole goal that day was to enjoy the time spent with River by his side, his contentment was watching his girlfriend as she had a smile on her face, her pencil held in hand moving back and forth across the page drawing the scene of the beach around them, an idyllic summer midday at the beach; a few sailboats on the water, children running to and fro on the warmth of the sand squishing between their toes, running into the waves. He smiled again as his contentment increased seeing River smile as she started getting even more focussed on her drawing; to make it a source of inspiration for a painting that she was able to create as her skills in painting grew.
"I think this is a good start, what do you think?" River's sudden question startled him as he'd just settled into the beach lounger gazing out at the water and was rapidly getting sleepy with the warmth playing on his torso clothed as it was in t-shirt and shorts. He looked over to see her holding out the sketchbook which now showed a well illustrated scene of the beach, proportioned exactly in miniature, the curve of the landscape showing in the careful pencil-strokes on the sketchbook page, the people pictured showing a level of activity that seemed to jump out from the page and take a life of its own.
His eyes widened in absolute amazement as he stared at the absolutely beautiful monotoned black sketch-marks on the page which had culminated in a landscape image that was absolutely second to none that he'd ever seen. His girlfriend had a talent to be reckoned with and he was certain that she was destined for great things in the art world.
"So...what do you think?" River asked again wondering why her boyfriend was silent and looked so dumbfounded.
"It...it's beautiful," he stammered. "I mean it's stunning. The figures look as though they're just about ready to jump off the page and the detail in this sketch..." he stopped looking at River with an amazed expression "You have got..." he searched for a descriptive adjective, "incredible talent..." River's face brightened as he continued to look appreciatively at her work.
"You really mean that?" She asked softly looking over at Haruo with eyes gleaming at the praise, "You really think I have the talent to make it?"
Haruo leaned over, carefully, to make sure that he didn't jostle the sketchbook or mar any details as River tilted her head up. The book was closed without even glancing at it as their lips met in a passionate kiss. When they separated, more due to lack of oxygen than by mutual agreement, both of them, eyes glazed over with desire, whispered, "I love you..."
River reached out cupping the palm of her hand against Haruo's cheek, "...thank you for believing in me..."
"I always will, Sweetheart..." Haruo said softly, "You've always been there for me..." and she had. Any time he'd been frustrated by his mother's apparent abusive behavior, River had always been his sounding board and she'd kept him on an even keel. He was just starting to realize just how much River was an integral part in his life and how much she meant to him. What that also meant: his decision of that morning was borne out; that the ring that was now in his dresser drawer was rightfully bound for River's left hand ring finger when he found the right opportunity.
On the Sidewalk
Walking past the beach, Parker Langerak looked over and saw a sight that cut him to the core. His gaze had often drifted to River McIrish; she was the smart girl, a bit on the nerdy side but really cute. She often wore stuff that really didn't flatter her figure and she only recently started wearing make-up in high-school to attract guys or in particular, one guy which Parker realized...wasn't him.
He really had wanted to get to know her but she was always hanging around with Haruo, the Asian guy, who himself was a bit of a geek. Haruo was a loner and thus had always been fun to pick on.
Parker wouldn't dare to pick on Haruo now after seeing just exactly how Haruo went off on Jared Frio. He knew that Haruo was a blue belt in kung fu and he had pretty much made Jared eat pavement, not to mention Jared still suffered headaches and nightmares that had him waking up screaming according to Claire Ursine who lived across the street from the Frio Brothers.
He could not take his eyes off River reaching up to Haruo's face with the palm of her hand and seeing both of them fall into a passionate kiss which made his stomach churn and his heart fall to pieces. For Parker had an unrequited crush on River McIrish. She was the girl he knew that was head and shoulders above everyone else; the girl he had always aspired to have on his arm; the smart pretty girl.
But cruel fate had intervened and ended up taking away any chance of him ever having that opportunity of doing so. Three words burned into his psyche at that moment. River was Haruo's - they were destined for each other and nothing of this earth would separate the two. Parker sighed deeply, almost mournfully as he walked away not wanting to continue to look upon that painful scene.
Back on the Beach
"So did you want to head over to Hogan's now? Feeling kinda hungry?" Haruo asked.
River looked at her watch on her wrist, It was almost one in the afternoon and she started to hear the first rumbles of complaint from her stomach that it just might be a tad annoyed at her. She nodded as she looked over at Haruo. Had she been sketching for over an hour and a half since they'd left the art shop and walked down to the beach. Getting up off the beach chair, she said to Haruo, "I'm hungry, let's go eat out."
Haruo grinned back at her. "Hogan's or the Central Park Festival Food Kiosks?"
River narrowed her eyes and said archly, "I don't care which...I'm hungry!" She smirked at him. "Feed me." She took his arm after placing her sketch book and pencils back in the bag and they both walked towards the exit from the beach.
The walk back up the hill was a major pain as the road was, at least calculating rise over run, a 36% grade. Normally the town planners would have dealt with the potential problems it could cause. It was evident they were asleep on that day.
Haruo and River were definitely relieved to walk past EverFresh Delights Supermarket as the hill was quite steep coming back up from the beach. In fact Haruo thought the hill was steeper than Oxford Street in White Rock though it could be that the latter had far more distance needing to be covered in order to climb it. Hell, it could even be steeper than 100th Avenue rising from 272nd Street in Whonnock. Haruo thought, having walked that hill once or twice when Mayumi got the bright idea that her son should get some exercise; the sadistic bat.
He would much rather enjoy his afternoon and appease his rather famished stomach.
"You know what?" River advised him. Haruo looked at her in response and River continued, "why don't we just make it easier on ourselves and get a meal at the food kiosks? That hike up the hill made me hungry and I'm not sure if I'm up to heading all the way down to Hogans."
Haruo was perfectly fine with that idea. He was all for eating sooner. When they got to the kiosk, they each ordered onion rings, a pulled pork sandwich and a Pepsi-Cola. After all, they were famished and hot. The cola would cool them down. And they would figure out how to spend the rest of the day.
The rest of the day was spent in the park with River pulling out her sketch book again and sketching scenes that she would later commit to canvas with daubs of paint. Around eight o'clock in the evening, River packed up her sketch book and they headed off to the art store to pick up the items that she'd bought and the store called them a cab.
It would mean waiting, amidst the closing procedures of the store, at least fifteen minutes for the cab to arrive before they would be able to be on their way home.
Haruo brought the easel into River's side of the duplex they would set it up tomorrow. All the canvases were stacked in the corner of her room and she had brought the rest of her other purchases. "Thank you for coming with me..." River murmured as she moved in close to her boyfriend who smiled at her.
"It was worth it to spend time with you." Haruo said. Every moment that he had with her was a moment that he would cherish.
River leaned up and kissed him slowly wrapping her arms around him and drawing her body close to him, letting him smell her light perfume that she was wearing...just for him.
Reluctantly they parted for the pretense of his mother and father and having to take precautions to not be caught when they were sleeping in the same bed together at night.
Outside Hogan’s
"Look, Parker, Mom told me that you were out here moping instead of going to business school like you’re supposed to, What’s going on, what gives?" His dad looked sympathetic, but aggravated at the lack of motivation that his son was putting out in terms of trying to do what was needed to get ahead in life.
Parker let out a deep breath. His dad already had someone; tied down and happily married, while Parker didn’t have anyone. Yeah, sure, Parker could have anyone he chose, he was one of the popular kids in the school and girls were lining up, nearly tripping over themselves to date him, but the one he wanted was River and she was the one whom he couldn’t obtain. River was so easy-going however she knew what she wanted and where she was going and lately she'd made it clear that she was interested in no-one other than Haruo and when Parker had made some advances towards her, she had shut him down as kindly as she could. Look, Parker, you’re a nice guy...but you’re not the one that’s right for me. I really do hope that you find someone who’s good to you. And to top it all off, Haruo wasn’t someone he wanted to get on the wrong side of especially after hearing what happened to the older Frio brother.
And as much as he'd tried to make it seem as though he wasn't interested in who River McIrish dated, he was heartbroken. She was graduating this year and he still had an year to go, since he hadn’t buckled down and failed a grade. That made it so much tougher to swallow. He wasn’t graduating with his peers and he’d fallen an year behind not to mention losing the girl he had the biggest crush on.
“Son, you need to knock off with the moping. Losing a girl isn’t the end of the world, but it will be if you neglect your studies.” Dustin stated with some annoyance. “You need to find out what’s important in life and losing your future because of a girl isn’t the smartest move to make, is it?”
“Dad, you don’t understand...” Parker stated.
“Look, Parker, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. Look hard enough, and you’ll be bound to catch one.” Easy for his dad to say when he was married to someone, even if the marriage was on rocky ground. Lately Iliana had been straying with her eyes, if not her body and there was plenty of people who were talking about her dissatisfaction with the status quo of her husband just being a lowly education assistant, essentially someone who sat on the stairs outside and minded the kids. Diana was a toddler, Kaelynn was in elementary school and Parker was in high-school.
“What’s the point?” Parker asked morosely, “When you let the 15 pounder get away, you’ve lost it all...” he muttered, “If only she’d..."
Dustin interrupted Parker before he could really get going in his misery, "You’re not going to get anywhere by sitting on your rear-end and moping about it. What about that Hart kid?" he asked, not giving Parker any time to respond to the castigation.
"Bebe?"
"That's Gus and Dorie's kid, right?" Dustin looked up at the sky crinkling his brow for a long moment and scratching his chin, then gave Parker a contemplative look.
"...yeah..." Parker replied with a tone of non-committal. He wasn't interested. Bebe was a nice girl, but she had this weird thing about technology that he didn't really understand. He wished his father would drop the subject; plus she was already interested in the other Chikamori kid, Torao and he’d seen them walking hand in hand yesterday at school. Too late on that prospect too. “No...she’s hooked up with Torao...so she’s gone too...and she’s older than Torao...so...”
“Look, Parker, someone will come along...”
Parker snorted skeptically. His father was entirely too positive for his station in life after seventeen years. If he’d applied himself to what he had to do, his dad would have been the principal of that school and not that evil witch, Mrs. M. Chikamori who was constantly in the hallways castigating those whom she considered miscreants.
(End Part 1)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
River go all in with the artistic materials, crazy how big that sketch looks compared to her.
Sorry Parker move on and get a life of you own, she is taken!
Love Haruo underpants
Before River and Haruo went home, from hanging out at the park after finishing their homework, Haruo and River decided that it was in their best interests to consign all the croaking amphibians they’d managed to hook on the line at Central Park to the Elixir Shop. Mr Joseph, first name Moses, ran the shop and was a portly gentleman with unruly hair who had a ready smile for his customers as they came in to dispose of their wares.
He had a merry “Hello, Haruo; Hello River...” his booming voice carried clear to the door.
“Hello, Mr. Joseph, we’ve got some more toads.” River cheerily grinned at him.
“Oh...wonderful...” he rubbed his hands, “I’ll add them to the collection of toads we have on consignment.” He casually looked over the toads that Haruo and River had caught and nodded, “They seem to be quite the specimens.” Examining their size, the number of warts, the colour and the moistness of the flesh of the toad. River and Haruo had placed the catch in a cooler with pond water. “I’m very certain Mistress Matilda will like this one...” He didn’t elaborate as to who this particular person was and why she was collecting toads. No matter. If it improved Haruo and River’s fishing skill and kept them in fish, so much the better.
“All caught today...” Haruo informed him.
“Spectacular...” Mr. Joseph stated as he looked over the specimens. “They’ll be in the perfect state for the clients that wish them.”
Haruo nodded. “Great, then. We’ll see you tomorrow...with some more fresh ones.”
“Stupendous, I’ll be looking forward to it. You two have a good evening now...”
Haruo was startled looking at his watch. It was almost seven thirty in the evening. But at least their homework was done and they were headed back across the street to their house.
“River,” Haruo said to her as they both crossed the street heading towards the gate, “I know you’re probably gonna want to paint something, so...” He trailed off.
River smiled softly at him, “Yeah...I’ve been antsy all day thinking about the easel and I want to try it out. You don’t mind do you?” she looked at him searching for any annoyance at not being together for that evening. “I’ll see you at bedtime...” she looked at him, extending a hand to caress his forearm.
Haruo grinned at her, “I plan to do some writing tonight...so it’s a deal, see you at bedtime.” Kissing each other at the gate, they went their separate ways to their respective suites.
Haruo slid into his room, grabbed a blank notebook and started back downstairs. His dad was still in the kitchen finishing reading a gardening skill book, looked up from his chair as Haruo sat down beside him and said quietly, "Yūshoku wa reizōko ni aru. Tabete ne. (Your dinner is in the fridge. Make sure you eat, ok?)"
"I will, Dad, Thanks." Haruo gave his father a smile to which his father nodded in acquiesence; his son was nearly a young adult, he could do as he needed. "Nerumae ni hon no sukoshi kaki hajimeru. (I'm going to start writing my book before bed)" he informed his dad.
"Haruo-kun, osokumade amari okinaide ne. Nemuri ga hitsuyō ne. (Haruo, son, Don't stay up too late, OK? Sleep is important)." his dad stated as he turned to go to the elevator to wait.
"Yes, Dad..." Haruo nodded as he headed downstairs to the kitchen. Eating his meal and then opening up his notebook he pored over his plan of what to write. He really needed a computer for this to be able to do what he needed to do quickly and efficiently. But he didn't have the money to buy some fancy new computer; his dad was working in the gardening career and that didn’t bring in much and he wasn’t about to ask his dad to buy him a computer. Nor would his mother even bother lifting a hand to help him. She’d probably tell him to find some other occupation that would bring in money even if it didn’t suit him at all.
So after eating sushi, he decided to plan out his book. That way he could make some head-way on what he would formulate the outline for what he wanted to do with the direction of what his book was going to t: was he going to write a controversial novel or spill-all or keep it tame and for general audiences? What would he title it? Would it be something that people would want to read? All of these questions were hard to answer but he decided to sit and ponder the whole situation very carefully. If he wasn't careful on how he presented his first entry into the hallowed halls of literary prowess, his first foray would quickly become his last and his career as a writer would be dead in the water.
So what could he write about? It certainly wasn't-something that was going to be easy to put pen to paper and have a decent amount of stuff to publish if he could not find a subject to wax eloquent.
In the end, he was no further ahead then when he started.
Outside the Chikamori Home
Meanwhile during the time that Haruo was trying to figure out what subject his first ever book was going to be about; Mayumi was abducted by aliens; your stereotypical green-skinned, pointy eared variety. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. ~sarcasm~. Watcher: I'm sure the aliens won't be abducting her again.
When she was returned to her home planet, the aliens left her in haste, so hastily in fact, they forgot one of their own, one Qedef Qomiphash, the poor green guy stuck planet-side with a psychotic human female.
Qedef: "Where the hell are you going? You a******s!!!!"
Qedef: "Come back here, you green pieces of slime!!! Oh man, I’m so royally screwed."
They were not going to make the mistake of taking a blood sample - the likelihood of them all getting skewered by their own needles and being turned into green pin-cushions was very high. The sooner they got rid of that sleep-wear-adorned, deranged harridan even if it meant leaving one of their own to be poked, prodded and surgically experimented on , the happier those aliens were going to be. King Zlar'keyd'yoop of Galaxsima would not get overthrown, at least on their watch. Their ship made two points past light-speed and it was pedal to the metal all the way home. That encounter with a human was frightening. Was this true of all Canadians? Were they all psycho underneath that polite mask? If the Canadians found out that aliens existed would they get beaten to death with hockey sticks and pummelled with hockey pucks?
Maybe it was safer to just stick to ol'Jud Pickins off Route 66 in New Mexico. He may be an alcoholic hallucinating ol'coot but at least he wasn't as crazy as that old maple-leaf bat they'd just tried to pick up.
Mayumi was confused and agitated; a typical response for an alien abduction. After all when you are wandering around in your sleep-clothes, do you worry about alien abduction replete with alien probes in places unmentionable? It would be an unpleasant surprise. Maybe it might put her in a better disposition. Maybe it might cause her to re-evaluate how she was behaving and cause her to have a change of heart; maybe even treat people better.
Mayumi: "If I get my hands on that no-good-for-nothing slimy green alien I'm going to make sure he doesn't reproduce again!!!"
Qedem Qomiphash: ~gulp~ "oh...oh..." Qedem Qomiphash felt a slight trickle of moisture south of his midsection – That was going to make life difficult, did these humans know how to clean alien effluent from alien fabrics. It certainly wasn’t going to come out with Tide...they tried after robbing a AM PM on Hallowe’en the last visit.
Qedem: "I want to go home..." He looked over at the enraged woman, Maybe I can sneak past her...and get away.
Mayumi was incandescent, practically tap-dancing with rage. How dare those presumptuous alien creeps violate her, the esteemed educator in such heinous fashion. Did they even know who they were dealing with? She was going to do horrific things to them as soon as she revived from her stupor.
When she regained her wits enough to turn around, she realized that the majority of the greens were gone. Long gone and beyond the reach of her pitiful attempts at reprisal. She was disappointed until she cast her eyes upon a lone alien who was right behind her. Practically defenceless.
Uttering a caackle of malicious glee that nearly chilled Qedem to the bone, she cackled, "Oh...look what we have here...a little green far away from home..."
Qedem felt more moisture trickling into his undergarments. Perhaps that caf wasn't something that he should have drunk before joining his team on the surface. "Oh...no..." he muttered under his breath. Wasting no time in stripping off his armoured spacesuit, he stripped to his undergarments.
"Better start running, green..." her glare was malevolent.
The rhino’s charge made Qedem let out a small scream of terror and he whirled, running away as quickly as he could, which was a minor trot with all the snorting and wheezing coming from behind him, there was no way that she could catch up...if he let out his top speed. As it was he would prefer to conserve energy. And somehow he managed to get away from that Canuck harridan.
The fact that she couldn’t catch that green-pointy-eared alien infuriated Mayumi so much that she stomped back into the house ignoring a grateful Haruo and went up to bed still incensed by the fact that she had been so rudely violated by those whom she'd deemed so unworthy of her.
Haruo finally finished his planning of his book and went to bed, only to be woken up again not more than three hours later when Mayumi started screaming about the fact that there were dusty footprints on the floor of the kitchen. Poor River had to hide under the blankets of the bed and since Mayumi was on the warpath; she never even noticed and River escaped unscathed while Haruo was bellowing at Mayumi at the door. Apparently she had forgotten that she was the last person outside that day. And thus annoyed he told Mayumi to fix the problem herself, slammed the door in her face and went back to bed for another two hours.
.Oh, that incensed Mayumi to no end.
(End Part Two)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Bebe looked for her friend, Holly, at the park, she was by the Weather-stone; and she looked miserable. “Spill...” was the first word that came out of Bebe’s mouth.
“It’s Parker’s 🐸🐸🐸🐸 moping over River. It started when Haruo formalized his relationship with River and it snowballed from there.” Holly said, “I don’t know whether to kick Parker's 🐸🐸🐸🐸 or just break up with him over it. I just want to put him out of my misery.” she muttered acidly, “I thought we had something together, but with his pining over River McIrish...” she spat out the two words of the name like something unpleasant. “I don’t know if I can take it any more. To him, she’s Ms. Perfect and I’m getting sick of it. I like River, but when she’s the invisible third wheel in my relationship with Parker...it’s annoying.”
“We need to take care of this once and for all...” Bebe agreed. “Look, let’s go talk with Parker...if all else fails we can just pound some sense into him.”
Holly snorted, “Ethan’s about ready to do it...”
Bebe smirked at her, “The more the merrier...” The two young women stalked over to Parker "Hey, Parker, a word with you. Look, you need to knock off the pining over River, Look, Parker, you hardly looked at her for the entirety of high school." Bebe looked at him with an expression of utter disbelief as she stared at him after he'd stated his case, "You treated her as if she wasn't even there. What did you think she was going to do? Fall into your arms willingly and go 'oh Parker, you're the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me. Take me away and ravish me.'?"
By this time to Parker's annoyance Ethan Bunch was rolling on the ground at Bebe's sarcastic comment. And Bebe just had to rub salt in the wound. Parker's mouth twisted into a sour expression.
"Yeah, Parker, I'm sure she'd have an opinion about that." Holly looked over at Parker, her clipped tone telling Parker that she wasn’t impressed by his pining in the slightest, "I'm really sure that she'd want to be Miss. Ravishing Debutante hanging off your arm as a walking accessory and not have an opinion about any topics whatsoever."
"Who says I'd do that?" Parker sounded aggrieved. "Why would I do that?"
Ethan Bunch looked at him, "Hey, Hoser, you do that already in class, you always block out whoever is talking and try to talk over them."
"Do not..."
"Do too, you 🐸🐸🐸🐸-nozzle"
"You ever stop, bender?" Parker asked.
"Hey, at least I get off the bench, duster. They need to get the pan and broom and take some of those cobwebs off'ya, eh?" Ethan snickered.
"Shut up, hosehead. Good try last game in April? Eh, did a celly on an own-goal, ya goof!" Parker sniped, "Other team's goal is that way. Need a seeing eye-dog, eh? Next time, use your stick for a cane. Maybe you might find the right net. Gettin' chirped so hard, it's gotta burn, man..."
"Kinda hard when the goalie's blocking glove side, ya loser." Ethan gave back as good as he got, "I've heard better chirps out of a dead bird, eh."
"Bite me!" Parker gave Ethan the middle finger. "You on the other hand were going 'what the hell, ref, every time he blew when you stumbled off-side with the puck." Parker pantomimed flipping through a book. "Might wanna look up off-side in the rule book? Bunch, Doesn't mean what you think it does. It doesn't mean you can skate past the other team's icing-line before you get a whistle, hoser."
"The upshot is..." Bebe interrupted the hockey talk, "You weren't going to get anywhere with River and you're not going to get anywhere with her now, that she's dating. So like it or not, Parker, you're gonna have to deal with it."
Parker heaved a big sigh and muttered more to himself than anyone else, "I know, it just doesn't make it any easier."
At this Bebe looked away from him rolling her eyes skyward muttering "Watcher help me, I'm about two seconds from ripping him a new cavity on his posterior end.
Holly took a deep breath, paused for a long moment counting to ten before opening her mouth again affixing him with a serious stare that Parker realized had daggers behind it, "And Parker..." she gave him an aggrieved look, "...and what do you think I have to say about it? I thought we were dating?" She glared at him, "I think we should take a serious look at our relationship if you keep pining over Ms. Perfect!"
Ethan, by this time, was nearly rolling on the ground in stitches.
"Hey...shut up, 🐸🐸🐸🐸!" Parker snapped at him.
“Seriously, buttmunch, you need to take a serious look at what you’re doing to what you have with Holly...” Ethan said, not a trace of humour in his voice. “You hurt Holly and I’m gonna hurt you.”
Parker looked at the ground then over at Torao... “Hey... you got an opinion? Seems like everyone else volunteered theirs.”
Torao shrugged his shoulders. “My cousin’s got River. You muck up things with Holly, you’re an idiot and I’ll be helping Ethan beat the living tar out of you. So why don’t you go apologize to Holly for making her feel like she's being two-timed?” Torao looked over at Holly who looked like she wanted a piece out of Parker already. "Look you got a great girl in Holly, don't screw it up."
Chikamori Side of the Triplex
"OH FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!" Satoshi exclaimed. Fluent enough in English unlike his older brother, Yasunobu, from all his travels, exclamations in English were more prevalent for him. After all some exclamations of exasperation had no equal in Japanese. The sink geysered and Satoshi had to fix the leak before it flooded the entire main floor of the Triplex. Grabbing a wrench he went to work on shutting off the water main connection to the house then he had to get in with the nitty-gritty and start replacing pipe underneath the sink. This was going to be a royal pain in the posterior end. The hardware store had a p-trap connector of 1 1/2"
Satoshi knew that he would have to get the sink fixed before heading off to work. And it was going to be a chore and a half to complete; it would probably take a good three to five hours of scrambling to different hardware shops, trying to find the proper sized PVC fittings as well as the appropriate welding glue. The various pipe joins had to be estimated. He grumbled to himself, "This is supposed to be a brand new house!" Already there were problems; things were amiss like duct-work not giving proper ventilation which Mayumi conveniently pawned off on Satoshi to repair despite the fact that he had a job; sometimes electrical didn't work and that necessitated rewiring.
He wondered if he should just get himself ticketed as an all-around electrician/plumber/carpenter. Then he could at least be paid handsomely for the jobs he did because he wasn't making all that much as a stagehand in the music career and that was pretty much all he was doing: fixing electrical work, putting up staging (carpentry) and plumbing,- installing waterworks for the section of stage that needed it.
Frankly, Satoshi was disgusted, not only had the sink geysered thanks to corroded washers due to the fact that they had been installed incorrectly making a slow leak until the washer had snapped causing the resultant Old Faithful shower he'd received that morning., the PVC pipe had fractured at the bottom causing the resultant deluge of food remnants, smelly old dish water and other assorted detritus that had been originally trapped in the P-trap causing a backlog which was one of the reasons why the sink wasn't draining as fast as it should be. Normally all this stuff would have been shoved along the pipe out to the requisite sewer system in place by the township of Sunset Valley, however the logjam in the P-trap was caused by a defect in the pipe causing a logjam backing up the entire drainage system right at the P-trap.
Oh, Satoshi was having a really great day; he was so happy to learn this. They should actually be calling the guy who had originally done the plumbing at the time of build to do it but Mayumi was the type that expected every one else to suffer; not those directly responsible for the foul-up in the first place. After all, why inconvenience a certified trades-person whom she might have to call on for work needing to be done up to code when the inspectors were planning on doing an inspection, when her family was there and could be put to use. Otherwise they would just be eating her out of house and home with nothing to show for her hard efforts.
From eight to just before eleven in the morning, Satoshi laboured to fix the sink and finally got everything working. Finally he had time to breathe and partake in some brunch that he'd sorely missed that morning and this was just a grilled sandwich; not much of a brunch and a steaming hot cup of coffee, but at least something to take the edge off the hunger. "At least the 🐸🐸🐸🐸 fuse didn't go on the stove".he muttered to himself as he munched on the sandwich. Since his shift started at four in the afternoon, he had the opportunity to clean his plate and put it away. Otherwise Mayumi would have a complete conniption fit over a single dish left in the sink. Silly cow. He opted after to just get changed into work clothes and spend the hours before work over at the Central Park watching the goings-on at the Summer Festival.
(End Part Three)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
River was upstairs in her room along with Haruo as she was testing out the artists supplies. Together they had assembled her new easel and got it to function the way it was meant to. She planned to use her sketch done yesterday at the beach as a reference image for a beach scene done in oils that she hoped would look as alive as she'd managed to make it in sketch-form. The nice thing about pencil sketches was that not only were they good reference sources drawn from one's own artistic vision but also, as pencils, could be erased to correct a flaw. When she had to do the oil painting, she would get one chance to get a flawless painting.
River was certainly enjoying the new tools of her artistic career choice. She looked over at Haruo who had his head buried in a notebook busily scrawling away. "You look busy, sweetheart." River commented.
"Yup", Haruo replied, a bit preoccupied with his task at hand, scribbling industriously, "I have an idea for a book..." he trailed off as he continued the movements of his pen on paper. Every so often, he'd pause, look as though he was cogitating a thought, then go back to scribbling more lines of prose. River grinned in response. Haruo had always been an A-student in English 12. His creative writing had always earned him in the high nineties if not a perfect score of one hundred percent of any graded creative writing assignment. His acumen for the written phrase was second to none. Evidently Haruo was serious about a writing career and doing everything that he could do to make it a reality.
It would behoove them to get computers, River thought, when they had enough money to do so, and Haruo would need a large capacity hard drive in order to have enough space for all his research. But as far as MS-DOS was concerned that would be a problem. Frankly Wordperfect was starting to take market-share from WordStar and thus would dominate in a world that was starting to make the switch to IBM PC. River figured that would probably be the wise route to go.
River smiled again to herself; already she was thinking as if they were together as a couple long-since married; that they were pooling their money together: it's not his money or my money; it's OUR money she thought. She looked at her finger surreptitiously so that Haruo wouldn't notice and wishing that there was a ring on that finger already. It was a pleasant thought to think of herself as already spoken for. Come to think of it, River had pondered that Haruo had been a bit cagey about his reasons for going downtown so early in the morning yesterday. Did he have something in his pocket? Well she'd just have to wait and not ruin his surprise. She wasn't certain for sure, but it had to be something.
She had looked deep within herself to see if she could picture spending the rest of her life with him and her answer was a resounding YES with no hesitation at all. When he would pop the question; despite the witch of a mother in the background, he was worth it. And she would say "yes" wholeheartedly to linking her life with Haruo. He'd always been by her side; her constant friend for the past fifteen years so it was a natural progression from boyfriend/girlfriend to engaged-to-be-married and she was looking forward to moving along that path in their relationship.
Haruo, on the other hand, was working his way through a rather tough part of his story, completely unaware of the conjugal thoughts trickling through the synapses of River's head. Furrowing his brow, he followed the outline that he'd so painstakingly prepared the night before. With the direction of the plot in place it was a matter of writing connect-the-dots and having his characters work towards the ending while he, as the author, got to throw in red-herrings, plot-twists and other malodorous situations to forestall the eventual demise of the villains in the story as well as a few of the protagonist's sidekicks along the way. Making sure to milk the suspense for as long as possible but to not have the plot course affected to the point where the plot got thrown out the window was certainly a problematic situation but that came with the territory of being a writer.
River hoped that Haruo would have a successful career as a writer and she believed in him. After all, their family would need two incomes to make ends meet. They would work together as a team to make that a reality. River looked over with affection as she saw Haruo writing copious amounts of text in his notebook as he made progress through the novel he was penning. She thought that certainly was an industrious level of activity that he was exhibiting. She smiled again as she turned back to her own painting and continued to transfer details from her sketch at the beachside to the canvas in preparation for application of oils.
By the time that they were hungry enough to take a break for a late brunch around two in the afternoon, River had managed to get the details and start to arrange the oil paint tubes in preparation for the palette. Her selection of paint that she chose was a selection of sand, blue, grey, greens and other selections of colours that would compliment the landscape she was planning on painting. The individual colours would line the edges while the center would be where the colours would mix in order to achieve gradient of colours to signify shadow or light on the surface of the object. A must for the palette was white since that would inevitably be mixed to create lighter solutions for a certain colour while black would darken the shade. And that was the constant difficulty with paints as you had to know what colour would mix with another to make a certain shade of purple or pink or whatever colour.
River sighed; she'd insist that when they built their dream home that they have a dedicated studio so that they could keep all their crafts in that one area. Haruo would have his office where he could do his writing while she would have a cupboard in her space to store paints, thinners, canvases and other artist's items. To the side she would have a tablesaw and a router table so that she could custom frame her paintings. The thought of having such a place was appealing.
Chikamori's Side of the Triplex
At 6:30 in the afternoon, Mayumi stomped into the house, out of sorts and looking for a fight. Even though school was out Teacher Development Days were still in effect until the end of the month before she would be allowed to take her own summer holidays. If that wasn't irritating enough she had to contend with teacher evaluations that would determine if the faculty would retain the services of teachers who they found their teaching capabilities less than effective. To be called into the office of the district supervisor for Education and be told that they would be re-evaluating her performance as an educator this coming year if deciding to retain her services once her contract with that school was up was absolutely infuriating. Spot checks, as the age group of her students was too young to assign them evaluations of their own to complete as these would go beyond the "Did you like your teacher?" "Do you feel you learned something in her class?" All they'd get out of students barely past the age of preschool would be a wide-eyed nod and a " uh-huh" which would prove to be completely useless in any objective evaluation of a teacher's teaching abilities.
But of course to a narcissist like Mayumi, this kind of thorough evaluation of her ability or lack of was abjectly humiliating and infuriating. What right did the foul-up of a school board administrator think he was doing subjecting her to humiliation like that? He was a lesser being than her. He should be grovelling at her feet in abject obeisance begging her to continue to teach those snivelling little toe-lickers. How dare he think he had the right to cast judgement upon her perfection; her flawless performance. Frankly they should all be begging her for pointers on how to keep their classrooms in check, considering the rabble that pervaded their classes. One could hear the cacophony three hall ways over. She'd shut them up in an instant and then they would all cower in fear. Oh she would remember this, District Supervisor Don Mahoney, just you wait you bloviated sack of excrement. You will rue the day you crossed Mayumi the Great and Powerful.
She stomped into the living-room, heavy steps shaking the house, looking for her favourite scapegoat to persecute. She nearly screamed in outrage. Her miserable excuse for a kid had disappeared somewhere and was nowhere to be found for Mayumi to make his life an absolute misery. Thus she had no-one to take out her frustrations on which only served to put Mayumi in an even worse mood.
Poor Yasunobu after stopping outside to pay the bills after returning from outside after a day of hard work trying to harvest the plants and make sure that the fruits were ready to be sold, walked into a 🐸🐸🐸🐸-storm of epic proportions at around seven exactly. There was no excuse for jumping a hard-working Yasunobu like that but Mayumi did not care and she went off on him like a tactical nuclear warhead. What transpired was an argument that lasted three hours, which Fiona upon returning overheard and knocked gently on River's door to let her know that Haruo and River should prepare the extra room upstairs so that Haruo could stay the night. Fiona wasn't going to allow him to go back to a home that night that was in the midst of an argument that threatened to get violent.
Yasunobu, by about the three and a half hour mark, had finally had enough. "Kusobaba!" He roared, "musuko zettai gomi ni atsukatte, boku ga anatanomikata naru to kitai sho-ka? Bakayaro ka? (Stupid woman, you treat our son like garbage, yet you expect me to back you? Are you stupid?)"
Mayumi sputtered in outrage. She'd never been spoken like that to by her husband. She'd extremely miscalculated the fact that she'd thought of him as a milquetoast always willing to do her bidding. She shrieked, "Dōshita sonani boku ni hanasu ka! (How dare you speak in that way to me!)"
"Aete, anata no musuko o jūbun gyakutai shita. Atama yokattanara, zutto mae ni anata to rikon surubeki ja, musuko o tsurete Nihon ni kairubeki ja ta.(I dare, you've abused your son enough. if I had been smart I'd have divorced you a long time ago and took my son with me back to Japan but that choice is no longer mine) Shikashi, sono sentaku mohaya boku no monode dewanai!"
Mayumi's look of hate was enough for Yasunobu,"aMohaya jibun jishin kappuru to minasanai koto saizandekin kara tabun, korekara wa betsu heya neru kata ii da ne. (It's better if we no longer consider ourselves a couple from now on and maybe it would be better if we slept in separate rooms)."
"Kore wa wasurenai yo! (I'm not going to forget this!)". She screeched.
"Kitai shinaide!" Yasunobu snapped, "(I wouldn't expect you to!)" and walked out of the living room and upstairs to pack his things in order to move his stuff out of the room that he formerly shared with Mayumi.
Mayumi shook with rage, seeing red, stomping outside, she let out a screeching howl of anger. How dare this pathetic worm of a husband stand up to her; Mayumi the Great. Did the pathetic little louse realize just what he was doing? How dare he tell Mayumi that he was going to split up with her. She had expected to do that to him if anything. She was outraged that he had taken the initiative to move out of her room and into a private room at the other end of the second floor. Mayumi would have the entire room, Yasunobu had just vacated, to herself but that didn't appease her any. Where did he learn to have the backbone to stand up to her like that? She needed to find out and stamp it out before everyone else got the bright idea of rebellion. Mayumi was so enraged, she vowed to make Yasunobu’s and everyone else’s life a living hell.
By the time that Yasunobu retreated upstairs, Satoshi had come home from work, noting that Yasunobu was not usually sitting at the dinner table, he headed upstairs to find out what was the matter. Hearing noise coming from the spare bedroom, he poked his nose in the room. Mayumi was already in what was now her room sulking.
"Nani ga okota node-ka? (Shpuld I ask what's going on?) Satoshi asked clearly rattled by the sight of his brother's now room and the possessions of his that he was slowly moving in to the room. He wondered what was going on as his brother looked rather angry and frustrated.
"Mayumi to bunru suru. (I'm separating from Mayumi)" Yasunobu said shortly, but then elaborated. "Suiteiru san-kai shinshitsu idō suru to, kanojo ni-kai ni tomaru. (I will move to the third floor; she will stay on the second) Kanojo musuko hihan suru hodo boku gaman shinai. (My wife criticises my son and I won't put up with it.)"
"Hihan suru? Karakatteru no. Tsuma anata no musuko o hihan shita dakedanai gyakutai shimashita, Yasukun! (Criticize? Are you kidding me? Your wife has been abusing your son, not just criticizing!)".
Yasunobu nodded, he knew that he had given Mayumi too much slack in her leash and in doing so; he'd created a monster who thought she was a goddess whodeserved to be exalted by all those around her and he was paying the price for his blindness.
"Bunri yoi daiippodeahou. Musuko hahaoya ni gyakutai sarenai yō ni suru hitsuyō ne (Separation is a good first step but you're also going to have to make sure your son no longer has to be abused by his mother.), "Satoshi pointed out to his brother.
"Watashi shi-teiru, Satoshi, Haruo; kare saru koto ga dekiru jidai ni chikazuiteru. Umaku ikeba, kare wa shin'yū to shiawase mitsukeru koto ga dekiru. (I know, Satoshi, Haruo is getting to the age where he is able to leave the nest. Hopefully he can find happiness with a close friend.)" Yasunobu said smiling a slow grin. "Kimochi ga aru River to issho ni nareba totte yoi pātonā desho. (i have a feeling that River, if they get together, will be a good partner for him)" Yasunobu thought after letting Satoshi know that hopefully, Haruo and River would figure it out for themselves.
Satoshi was in agreement and he figured that Haruo and River were destined for each other. He'd seen how close the two of them were and that pairing was no coincidence. River had the strength and internal fortitude to stand up to anything Mayumi could dish out at them and that River would block any attempts of Mayumi's to get at her son. But it didn't stop him from wishing that Mayumi would meet her end in some painful fashion. It would be a fate for that evil hag that was richly deserved.
(End Chapter Six)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
This is really well written. Mayumi is such an unpleasant person, always angry, demanding and full of herself.. A divorce is perfectly understandable! A type of person I would not want to meet...
Well, no one ever said mornings were dull at the Chikamori/McIrish residence. In fact mornings were exceedingly early as the Chikamori family and their friends who lived at the same address went to sleep early and got up very early in the morning. Which was why Molly was in the Chikamori’s kitchen looking to make cinnamon rolls at 12:35 in the morning. Despite the fact that the appliances looked new, they were second-hand thanks to Mayumi cutting corners on the purchase giving orders to the contractors that they were to look for the cheapest possible price on the appliances. So thus half the appliances worked and the other half were just for show. Mornings generally were calm however things got heated when Molly, needing to use some good appliances to cook breakfast came over clad in her nightie which made Mayumi see red; not just at the interruption, but at Molly's presumptuous disregard for proper etiquette, dress and deportment around the oh so high and mighty Mayumi Chikamori; educator extraordinaire and highly regarded as being beyond the capacity of mere mortals such as the rest of her plebeian family and those whom they associated with. To her her family's friends didn't even register on the human scale let alone uneducated peon scale.
Hearing noises in the kitchen in the middle of the night or early in the morning; take your pick, Mayumi had gone downstairs to see what the noise was all about. Exiting the elevator she looked left.
Mayumi couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her appliances, her bowls, her mixing spoon...all of which was being touched by the little plebeian hands of that little tart next door. What exactly in the Sam Hills was this?
Mayumi saw Molly using her oven and went ballistic: stark-raving, bug-eyed, frothing at the mouth insane. "ARE YOU A TRAMP?!"she screeched at the top of her lungs while waving her hands in the air.
Molly looked at her as if Mayumi was psycho.
"Excuse me, I addressed you!" If Mayumi's voice was any shriller and louder, she could out-scream a fire engine. "The least you could do is answer, or are you as dimwitted as you are a tramp?!" Yes, Mayumi was making friends and influencing people. When the only response Mayumi got out of Molly was a raised eyebrow and a curled lip punctuating a sneer, Mayumi exploded, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?! You Botoxed street-walking harlot!"
"Just what...did you say to me?" ...luckily, Molly hadn't turned the stove-top on to make pancakes yet and she dropped the spatula on the frying pan. She looked at Mayumi with a disdainful look. "I dare you to say that again."
"Oh, I dare, you miserable 🐸🐸🐸🐸, first you walk into my house dressed like you got out of someone's bed ." Mayumi snapped. "Then you prance around in my kitchen nearly stark 🐸🐸🐸🐸 naked. You are nothing more than a worthless pole-swinging tart!" Mayumi screeched. "I think you'd drop trou for every-".
That was all Mayumi could get out before a resounding smack was heard as Molly's fist connected with Mayumi's face. The cat fight was on and Molly got in several good stomps on Mayumi's fingers which caused Mayumi to shriek in pain which brought down the rest of the family including Yasunobu and Satoshi who tried to figure out if he should cheer on Molly whom he had a major crush on. Satoshi nearly cheered Molly when she gave Mayumi a good solid uppercut, the crack of clenched fist meeting jaw pretty much made Mayumi see stars. Satoshi thought it was a pity that bag didn't get a concussion. Then Molly slapped the ever-lovin' crap out of Mayumi which seemed to be the right idea since Mayumi deserved a good slapping.
Mayumi was enraged and was in the midst of a tirade against Molly when Fiona came over from the McIrish side of the triplex trying to figure out just exactly what the ruckus was about that had awoken her. Mayumi screeched, "You people best remember that this is MY house..." Fiona decided not to interject herself into this argument and stood to the side listening and waiting for an opening but far enough away that she wouldn't get hurt if things got heated.
"Excuse me...you witch, this is YOUR THIRD of the house...not the whole house...Fiona paid for one-third of this home and the Harts have the other third!" Molly interjected heatedly as she got in Mayumi's face and threatened to make her into a pretzel.
"But it was MY Husband's good credit that got us that mortgage! So I'd shut your yap if I were you..." Mayumi hissed venomously as she got in a mean scowl. "Because we can take it all back if you aren't careful and I wouldn't care if you seven became homeless. It would serve you tramps right." Mayumi huffed and wiped her shoulder at Molly as if she was some disgusting bit of garbage that had been deposited on her neck.
That did it for Molly: the insults that she endured from Mayumi; the condescension and worst of all, the simple fact that this pathetic excuse for a human being would just as soon cast her son, her husband, her cousin and his son, and the rest of them out including her and her daughter, Molly had enough; seeing red, she pounced on Mayumi for the second time that morning. Mayumi, despite her evil and mean-spirited traits got the worst of it. Bruised and battered, Mayumi screeched, "You haven't heard the end of this, you 🐸🐸🐸🐸."
"Takes one to know one, you insufferable 🐸🐸🐸🐸!" Molly snarled clenching her fists ready and willing to make good on trouncing Mayumi and beating the ever-lovin' hamster droppings out of her. And she'd deserve every bit of that beating; that sanctimonious flea-ridden hag.
Satoshi wished Molly would knock his evil sister-in-law out. Because she seriously deserved nothing less than utter abject humiliation; forced to bend knee to those who were kinder and gentler human beings.. But the likelihood of that narcissistic witch even thinking of doing that in her wildest fever dreams was a complete fantasy. Satoshi knew that his brother had practically walked eyes open into a literal nightmare of a relationship. He had seen the woman when Yasunobu had first started dating Mayumi but no matter how sweet she played it, there was something vicious, cunning and evil about that woman. And Satoshi knew that his brother was making the right choice in cutting that malicious virago (in the worst possible definition of the word) loose to fend for herself, perhaps she would come to know that she would not be able to treat others in that fashion without consequences or maybe her karmic retribution would catch up to her. She couldn't be doing herself any favours with her current behaviour.
Yasunobu rolled his eyes as he realized finally the effect that Mayumi's temper-tantrum was having on the rest of the family and he thanked his lucky stars for having the guts to snap at her yesterday. She finally had trodden on Yasunobu's last nerve and he'd had enough of her 🐸🐸🐸🐸. And he was finally rid of the cantankerous old bat; maybe in his declining years he would find someone who would take care of him and be kind, gentle and sweet.
"AND how about you put some clothes on, you painted floozy!" screeched Haruo's mother at Molly who turned around and slapped Mayumi for the second time that morning...HARD.
(end Part One)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
“You really have no respect for anyone other than yourself, do you?” Fiona interrupted Mayumi’s continuing tirade putting a halt to the squabble between Molly and Mayumi. They both turned to look at her with questioning glances; like two different M&Ms: one being made chocolate; the other was nuts.
“Respect is earned; not given.” Mayumi snarked back at Fiona; her tone haughty and pedantic as though she was trying to explain a concept to a small and stupid child.
“Well, that certainly doesn’t surprise me, Mayumi...out of the likes of you;” Fiona shot back, “...considering you’ve done nothing to deserve the level of respect due a deity...of which you’re not.”
“You better watch your tone, Ms. Paparazzi hack, I have a Bachelor of Arts in History and Education; I was tops in my class and I was a Rhodes Scholar, so I have done a lot more with my life than you ever will...” Mayumi was incensed. “As a matter of fact, my mother and father taught me to never have a child out of wedlock, so I’m up on you on there...as...”
Fiona yawned, "Are you done your current volley of objurgation? Mayumi?" putting up a hand in the air and flapping it. "You're causing a breeze."
Mayumi hadn’t stopped bloviating, “...and I deserve every bit of respect that is owed to me...after all...I didn’t under go four years of intensive studying to obtain degrees in the Library Sciences as well as in Arts...to have you come in with your Certificate of Journalism by learning on the job. So who did you have to stir to get a job that you didn’t have the qualifications to do?”
Mayumi snorted derisively, "...maybe that begat your wretched spawn...who appears to be tied to mine." she snapped, "No matter...at least it gets rid of a useless kid that didn't meet up with expectation."
“How dare you insinuate that Ms. McIrish has done something untoward!!!” Haruo stormed in, incensed, before River or Torao could stop him. Despite his inadequacy in mathematics and the sciences, his marks in English were impeccable and he had a commanding grasp of the English language which stunned most of his teachers. “You have no business telling her what you did...that she did something morally reprehensible in order to get a job. You have some nerve.”
“This is between that tart’s mother and myself. You don’t need to involve yourself.” Mayumi’s high and mighty tone enraged Haruo further, causing him to grit his teeth and clench his fists.
“It becomes my problem when you refer to my girlfriend as a tart and her mother as unwholesome. Mother dearest.” the dripping sarcasm from his tone of voice on the vocative noun was quite apparent that he was making an equivalence to the matriarch actress of the Crawford clan.
Mayumi huffed, “I’m only telling the truth and you’d better watch your tone with me; young man...even if you hate my guts, I’m still your mother.”
The bitterness in Haruo’s tone was quite evident as he snarled, “Unfortunately...”
The sound of palm meeting face was sharp and loud. “How dare you...I gave birth to you, you ungrateful little snot.” The vicious words were more hurtful than the physical slap. “I went through sixteen hours of intense physical pain to birth you and this is the thanks I get?”
Fiona stepped forward; sheer anger and protectiveness over her daughter’s boyfriend suffused her features in an incandescent sheen of outrage. “This is the last time you will ever hit your son because he no longer lives here. By rights, I should report you to the Ministry of Children and Families.” she stepped forward, “But I have no wish to see my daughter’s boyfriend go into foster-care. I’m taking him into refuge. Contest me and I will report you and file for custody, terminating your rights to see him ever again.”
“What makes you think that a painted tart like you would ever get custody?” Mayumi scoffed, dusting off her shoulder, "What makes you think that the courts will believe you over me? You have got to be kidding me. You are nothing; a zero..."
“Live and learn, Mayumi, I have six eye-witnesses who saw the whole slapping-a-minor incident take place right in front of their eyes. Not to mention, the victim; as well. Would you care to keep digging a hole?” Fiona’s look was pure evil aimed at Mayumi, “And who knows what other garbage a nosy paparazzi investigative reporter can dig up on you. I’m sure with 51 years under your belt, there’s probably a lot of dirt there...that can be useful.”
She stepped forward, “Let’s see how you like it when you get a taste of your own medicine.”
Fiona’s right hand flicked out in a nice wide arc defined by the circumference of her arm length and made vicious impact with Mayumi’s left cheek, snapping her head sideways. “Perhaps you shouldn’t hit your child or someone bigger may come along and hit you.” Fiona snarled.
Yasunobu shook his head and stepped forward to confront Mayumi, "Kanryō shimai...(We are done); Anata ga boku no kodomo ni te o ageru ga modoru koto wa nai. (When you raise a hand to our child, there's no going back). Rikon ga kakutei suru made taizai ni sho. Shikashi, anata wa watashitachi no musuko no chikazuite ikenai. Anata kinshi sareru. (You can stay until the divorce is finalized; but you will not go near our son. It is forbidden)
"Kare mo boku no musuko... (He's my son also...)"
Yasunobu growled, "Anata ga kare o nagutta toki, Anata wa kare o hahaoya ni suru subete no kenri o hōkashita. (The second you raised your hand to hit him, you lost your right to mother him.)"
Bebe stepped forward towards Mayumi, no longer a teen but a young adult, equally as tall as Mayumi, responsible, holding down an occupation she planned to pursue to the very pinnacle. And this was something she had to do, and step forward she did; a seething look of anger; her eyes shards of green ice. She turned to Yasunobu, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Chikamori. Forgive me but this has to be said,” and turned back to Mayumi, “For most of his life, I’ve seen how he’s come to school, barely a shell of himself. I went to school with him, I saw him withdrawn and quiet on those days that you went off on him. I saw River comfort him; stand by his side. Mrs. Chikamori, you were the cause of that pain; you shredded his self-respect, his ability to have confidence in himself and his self-worth and the only reason why he's still here today instead of being a statistic for child-suicide is his circle of school-friends and his father, cousin and uncle. Nothing I see here tells me that you were a mother to him in the way that a mother is supposed to be.” she pointed a finger at him, “An abuser, maybe, but a mother? No. What you were was his tormenter.”
Mayumi tried to say something but Bebe cut her off at the pass with an emphatic wave-off.
"Whatever pathetic excuses you have, Mayumi, I'm not in the mood to hear them. In fact, when Ms. McIrish goes after custody of Haruo, I'll be happy to be a character witness." Bebe stated, her voice brittle and cold, "You have no valid excuses; in fact, you're a sorry excuse of a human being. In fact, if I were a biological researcher, I’d start questioning your links as a human being and whether you were an outlier or a change-child, because there is no question that you have a lack of humanity."
River stalked forward; eyes narrowed, teeth gritted. “You are a real piece of work, aren’t you?” she hissed. “I remember the first time that I knew that something was wrong. It was the day that you decided that you were going to give Haruo extra homework because you figured that he talked back to you.” she stared at Mayumi, ice-cold green eyes impaling Mayumi...with sheer hatred. “You were just looking to heap stuff on him to do just because...you wanted to get the point across to him that you were bigger than him and as such, you had control over his life; just for your own amusement.” River’s voice was seething with pent-up rage. “I knew that there was something wrong. I was too young to know just what it was...but that one time that he and I were toddlers playing, you took away his lollipop and made him cry, then just because he wouldn’t be quiet when you wanted, you took him and you put him in his crib. He was screaming his head off...and you ignored him...and all the while you had this smirk on your face as if you were getting enjoyment from his misery. Well, mark my words, Mayumi, I’m not going to let you hurt him any more. If you think you’re going to hurt him again, you have another thing coming.” River balled up her fists and glared at Mayumi.
Mayumi tried to step forward, and River snarled in a low growling voice, “I wouldn’t make that mistake a second time; because the next time, Hank will have you in cuffs and you’ll be cooling your heels at the local lockup.”
“He deserves better than a little trollop like you.” Mayumi sneered at her.
“Since when did you have his best interests in mind, you witch.” River’s sneer was equally ferocious. “If you didn’t care about him for the past eighteen years...don’t try to fool anyone that you care now.”
“How dare you...” sputtered Mayumi, “You are nothing but an insignificant...”
“An insignificant speck?” River asked? “Well, you’re talking to an insignificant speck...that has your son’s heart. And hates you. What makes you think that you’ll see your grandchildren if you speak about their potential mother in that manner.”
“You...are a harlot.” Mayumi seethed, “You have no right to take my son from me...”
“Oh...really. I took your son away from you. You make it seem as if he didn’t have any choice himself in matters of his own heart. You would control him that much.” River snarled. “And I’m going to say this...Mayumi, your shadow had better not darken our doorstep because you are not welcome...whereever he and I live from now on.”
"...because I will have you arrested if you come nosing around our house. And I'll be laughing when you are clapped in handcuffs...and dragged off kicking and screaming. You belong in a nuthouse and you should have been stuffed inside their rubber-room where you could pontificate to your heart's content without rational people having to subject themselves to torturous misery listening to your misguded ranting..."
"...Let me say it slowly so that it sinks in to your thick head considering it doesn’t seem possible, despite your post-secondary education that you have any cognition of what it means to be a rational, social human being; YOU are not welcome at our house...so don’t bother coming and knocking on our door. “
Yasunobu looked stricken but River turned to him and said, “Dad...on the other hand is welcome at anytime.” embracing Yasunobu and telling him that only his wife was subject to the ban.
...while Mayumi could only stand there and fume in impotent rage.
(End Part Two)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
It was remarkable to see how much Mayumi could vent; she just went on and on as if it was her that was being persecuted and not the other way around. As it was, their day was half over...before River and Haruo managed to escape the house. Pinochle Pond was a trudge up through rolling hills and eventually they came across a clearing where they could see a nice pond or more aptly described a small lake.When they finally found a place. River hung back a moment to see her boyfriend stand there looking out at the lake; his body tense; a dark shape in the spreading gloom of the late afternoon. He was silent. She hoped that he hadn't taken offence at the venom that she'd spewed at his mother. After all, Mayumi had deserved every bit of that vitriol directed at her. In fact, River had been surprised at just how much everyone else had vented at her which had provided the catalyst for her own venting. The silence just seemed oppressive and she had to fill the void with something.
River looked over at Haruo with a soft smile. "This has always been our place, hasn't it?" It was more a comment than a question.
"It has...", Haruo replied...causing River to sigh in relief. He wasn't giving her the silent treatment. They hadn’t discussed anything in the taxi on the way over to the pond. She wasn't sure just how Haruo would react when she'd unloaded on his mother all the vitriolic feelings that she’d been carrying around inside her at the way that Haruo was being treated by Mayumi. After a long moment, Haruo answered her, "We've been here a lot. And it seems so much more peaceful to me when we are here than at home." He looked out towards the lake, the air was still, not even a breeze to interrupt this moment as they stood contemplating the vista before them.
"I wish we could have this kind of feeling forever." River sighed wistfully.
"What you said today...to my mother..." Haruo said quietly; he didn't turn around. "You meant all of it." River wasn’t sure if the tone of his voice was flat, emotionless; all she could sense was a lot of pain coming from him. She wasn’t sure how to react to the statement. There was another long silence; a tense one as he stood there in the looming darkness, a silent figure in the gloom. She wondered if what she had said was too much but she felt that she’d needed to get it off her chest.
“Unless something happens to her...” he said all of a sudden startling River as it seemed that he had gone completely silent; a stone figure. “She’s always going to be around, sticking her fingers into everything that we do; trying to create havoc out of what little peace that we have. Do you really want to live like that?”
He turned to her and asked earnestly trying to convey the depth of his anguish at even getting River involved in the situation, "Can you think what your life would be if she decided to focus her anger out on you. She's tried to destroy me; and I can't sit by and watch her do that to you."
"If she wants to do that, she's going to have to do a lot better than just taking verbal pot-shots at me. Because if she does try to come at me..." River left the rest unsaid...she wouldn't think twice about making sure that Mayumi couldn't do it to anyone else, “The best that she can throw at me, is that I’m a harlot that I’m sitting here taking your innocence...and that doesn’t bother me in the slightest.” River assured him as she narrowed her eyes, thinking just how she could make Mayumi pay for that comment. But she couldn’t think as evilly as Mayumi could. Her good nature prevented her from it.
"So...you're saying you wouldn't run?" Haruo asked her. The fact that Mayumi had conditioned Haruo to the point that he was skeptical of everything so that he’d question if River would stand by him in his fight against being controlled, incensed River to depths of fury she didn’t know she had against Mayumi.
"Hell, no." River spat, "Why would I... Why would I abandon someone I love to her tender mercies just because she's a controlling 🐸🐸🐸🐸 who can't understand the limitations that most civilized people live under...who doesn't know where proper boundaries are and shouldn't have been let out of the insane asylum? Why should I foresake the man that I love just because of some little 🐸🐸🐸🐸 like that?" River's emphasis on the word tender was absolute dripping sarcasm. "I'm no weak wall-flower, Haruo. If she wants a fight, she's got one on her hands..."
Haruo looked absolutely flabbergasted with a small hint of a smile playing about his lips; the lips that River wanted to kiss at that very moment, "Well, gee, um, River...why don't you tell me how you really feel?" he asked. They both snorted with laughter.
"Thanks for sticking up for me, after she hit me..." Haruo acknowledged River's role in the whole "dump on Mayumi" day that they'd had... "in answer to your statement earlier..." he did a deep dive back to the first statement that she'd made after they got there. I wish we could have this kind of feeling forever making River have to think hard to remember what had been said, "Me...too..." he whispered, his warm breath on her lashes, as River and he stepped into each other’s arms in a tender embrace, “I love you, River, sweetheart...”.
"I love you too..." River said looking up at him. "...oh so much...". Their lips met in a tender kiss that seemed to make time stop for the both of them. River had her fingers running through Haruo's hair as they tightened their embrace. Their kiss deepened into a much more passionate one as River pressed her body into Haruo's as they hungered for each other's caress.
...and upon release ended up scratching her arm...
"🐸🐸🐸🐸...no-seeums." she muttered, "This is what happens after dark, the mosquitos and bugs eat you alive.” she swatted away a few more flying insects from a cloud of them. But a much more serious conversation ensued as their discussion turned towards the future. Their plans in the immediate future was to travel and see new places, but what sort of travels that the two of them planned and where they might go.
"I've always wanted to further my kung fu and eventually get my black belt." Haruo stated. "So I guess Shang Simla is also on the list." He grinned.
River nodded then gave him a poke, "And you...have to teach me kung fu too."...along with a sweet smile with each punctuated soft poke on you, teach, kung-fu and too.
"Yes, Ma'am". Haruo stepped back and gave her a salute along with a straight face but a merry twinkle in his eyes while River laughed. But a cloud passed over his countenance as he looked away for a brief moment.
"What is it? Love...". River asked. "Is there something wrong?"
Haruo sighed and for a long moment he gazed at the lake. Then startling River, he asked, "what do you think of my mother? He looked at her.
River was taken aback by the question.
"Just tell me the honest truth." He said.
"You really want to hear my honest opinion on her?" River asked.
"Trust me," Haruo said, "Your opinion is probably not something you haven't heard me mutter under my breath about her myself." His gaze continued to look out towards the lake...not meeting her own.
River stood for a long minute trying to think of a diplomatic way to couch her opinion of that insane old bat that was Haruo's mother. She turned the problem of doing so around in her head in multiple directions: upside down, at various different angles and side ways...but ultimately she failed; a look of disgust on River's face told everything about in how much esteem she held Mayumi. Simple was best: "To tell you the god's honest truth, sweetheart, I think she's a total narcissistic self-important 🐸🐸🐸🐸 who thinks that everyone in the entire world is at her beck and call." She paused for a moment. "I know that she doesn't think I'm good enough for you and frankly, she hates my guts." She said, a wry grin and a little bit of evil merriment in her eyes.
Haruo raised one eyebrow and nodded as if to tell her to continue.
"And frankly, as long as I can be a thorn in her side, by loving you, that'll give me absolute pleasure in putting one over on that hag." River stated, an malevolent smirk on her face as she just absolutely reveled in the idea. "Just watching her squirm, when I kiss you is the highlight of my day in 🐸🐸🐸🐸 her off."
That elicited a laugh out of Haruo; and it was a cue for him. He turned to her and said, "Well, I'm sure she's going to get one hell of a coronary out of this...then."
Not expecting that response out of her frank disclosure of how much she hated Mayumi's guts, River looked at Haruo, jaw open. Haruo had dropped to one knee reaching into his pocket and said, "How would you like to go on 🐸🐸🐸🐸 my mother off to no end for the rest of our lives?" He grinned up at her, a questioning look on his face, with an expectation of a reply.
"What?" River had a dawning realization of what was happening.
"River; you've been my friend; my best friend in the world for the past eighteen years. Through every stage of life we've been together. And I have had the most wonderful times in my whole life just being with you. You've made me more complete than I ever could have imagined." He said, reaching out to hold her right hand. We were friends all through high school, when I had tough times you were always there by my side. We found out that we cared about each other more than friends and that we wouldn't be complete without the other as we go into our lives as young adults trying to find our way and what our path in life is. We've confessed to each other that we love each other. Now, River Annette McIrish, will you do me the honor of joining your life with mine; to walk life's road together?" He lifted the box, opening it to expose the diamond engagement ring.
River held her hand to her mouth in shock; she hadn't expected this at all, at least not this quick. But in a split-second, she knew what all these years together meant and the future of her life was kneeling before her holding out what she had wanted in her life for all these years. Her companion of eighteen long years, her boyfriend and the love of her life had just asked her to marry him and to become his wife.
River rarely ever got emotional, but this was absolutely overwhelming. She knew that she loved Haruo and that he loved her but she wasn't expecting to find him moving from boyfriend/girlfriend status to engaged fiancé/ fiancée status that quickly. She was floored and happy and tearful at the same time; hell with happy; she was ecstatic.
Haruo was waiting and starting to worry when River enthusiastically started repeating, "Yes, yes...yes, I will...". Haruo then removed the ring from the box and slid it on the fourth finger of her left hand giving it a brief tender squeeze when he was done. "Oh, my God, is this really happening...?". River exclaimed as she looked down at the ring on her finger. "Am I...?"
"No...you're not dreaming this..." Haruo reassured her, "it's one hundred percent real."
River threw her arms around Haruo and gave him the most passionate kiss to date that she could have ever given him. And they held that kiss for as long as they possibly could; as snugly as possible, just drinking in each other's presence.
"Tell me I'm not dreaming this..." River said, still emotional, with happy tears running down her face, "I'm engaged, I really am engaged." She stared at her left hand hoping that the ring wouldn't disappear off her finger if she blinked. It didn't.
She clung to Haruo just basically babbling anything that came to mind as he whispered sweet "I love you" repeatedly in her ear and they lip-locked repeatedly to reassure each other that they had just taken the most significant step in their relationship that they would ever take at least until the marriage bed and having children.
Haruo couldn't look at River without wanting to kiss her. And well River was quite willing to accommodate that desire since it fed directly into her own desires. Of course she cursed the fact that they were reliant on oxygenation via their nostrils as she felt nothing more than to want to stay in Haruo's arms forever and kiss for as long as possible. Well love was an addiction, so they said and River and Haruo couldn't get enough of it. Especially now that River had said yes and they were betrothed.
How long had it taken to get to boyfriend/girlfriend and now with a herculean leap they just went from that to engaged to be married in the space of a few months but deep down, River knew that Haruo loved deeply and didn't want to let a chance like this get away. She was also overjoyed at the fact that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. As much as she hated to admit it, she felt that she wasn't as pretty as some of the other girls in school and to have her best friend who'd been with her for so long fall in love head over heels with her was just the icing on the cake.
He was silent about their relationship for so long over the years that she was afraid that she had been relegated to friend status only. Their heart to heart had really cemented their feelings for one another and opened up the both of them to this relationship and its possibilities and now the budding flowers had bloomed. River sighed as she snuggled into Haruo's embrace, 'Together, forever'; she thought. 'It would be everything' she dreamed of, '...and more'.
They spent several hours just drinking in the ambiance of Pinochle Pond and just enjoying each other's company; most of it being spent in each other's arms; nuzzling and just being as close to each other as long as possible
(End Part Three)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Note to Readers: This next section will take a while. I wrote these seven chapters in advance during a time when I had no access to a computer - thus everything was done via my imagination. I'll have to channel that into the following chapters. Part Four of Chapter Seven will take some time to bring out.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
River smiled a knowing smile as she brushed him lightly, her hand caressing his chest through the t-shirt, her voice a soft growl, "Oh, you don't know just how bad I want you right now...".
Haruo's eyebrows nearly met his hairline while his lips curled up in a wicked smile thinking of all the plays on those words that his erstwhile chaste mind, after having taken a rather direct path straight into the gutter, could come up with, no pun intended.
After a while, Haruo asked River, “Y’know...I was wondering...” he paused for a moment while, the pregnant pause causing River to raise an eyebrow in expectation of the continuation of his statement, “well...um...if you were hungry...”
“Are you?” River asked tossing the ball right back in his court.
“Uh...kind of...”
“Well, then don’t you think we should make our way back down and try and find something to eat?” River suggested, an impish look on her face.
Haruo smirked at her, “Yeah...maybe...we should, don’tcha think?”
River grinned back at him, “Yeah, I think we should...” she took his arm and they walked back down the trail to the road where they hailed a taxi which had parked there to wait for fares that were at the local watering hole.
Considering they hadn’t eaten since late morning, their stomachs were growling, eagerly demanding to be fed. All through the taxi-ride, it was embarrassing as one stomach growled and the other one growled in sympathetic response. Thankfully, the taxi-driver made no comment as they got out of the cab at Hogan’s.
When they got out, it appeared as though the food odours had attracted the local wildlife, since two raccoons were prowling the parking lot; whether they were looking for food the customers had dropped or not it wasn’t certain, but River and Haruo gave the raccoons a wide berth as they could be carrying diseases such as rabies, parvovirus and t. gondii otherwise known as toxoplasmosis. Although cute, these little ring-tailed ruffians were a royal pain as they would come around at night and knock over garbage cans; luckily the trash bins were a bit too high for them to get into.
“Awwww, honey, look...raccoons.” River gushed at seeing the little masked pests.
Haruo grumbled, “They’re walking petri dishes for parvoviralenteritis; sweetheart, I wouldn’t go near them if I were you.” he cautioned.
“How do you know all that? I thought biology wasn’t your best subject.” River, startled, looked over at him.
“I do read, y’know...” he grinned at her. “If Canadians were allowed to be on Jeopardy, I’d be a shoe-in...with all the useless facts my head is crammed with.”
River smirked at him, “So...Tom Clancy isn’t the only author you read...?” as they walked towards the restaurant doors. “Ever since you got the book Hunt for Red October...that’s all I’ve seen you carry around...”
“Hey... I read Red Storm Rising and Patriot Games.” Haruo said indignantly. “And Red Pheonix...that’s by Larry Bond, y’know.."
“I rest my case...” River had a triumphant grin on her face and nudged him shoulder-to-shoulder with an affectionate side-step towards him. Haruo put his arm around her waist and that was how they walked towards the Hogan’s Diner entrance. Though they may have had to split apart to get through the single opening door; the other was locked, they managed to go in and get seated.
Chikamori Residence – the next morning
Fiona had come downstairs to find Dorie at the door, “Dorie...what is it?”
“I just needed to tell you something, even though it’s kind of a shock...” Dorie looked over at Fiona, a look of concern etched on her face. She paused for a long moment, reluctant to continue, but finally, “It’s that...Bebe’s all grown up...and we feel that she needs her space. She’s making good money at work and well, we figured that it was finally time to let her be by herself. Y’know, gain some independence and spread her wings? Gus and I were planning to move out...and find ourselves another place.” Dorie didn’t say it, but she knew that Bebe was sweet on Torao and that eventually their only child would be a member of the most wealthy family in Sunset Valley. Despite Dorie’s reputation as absent-minded; she was observant, especially when it came to her only child.
“I understand, Dorie...” Fiona smiled at her friend, knowing that she was making a hard decision. A parent wants the best for their children, though sometimes the path of the child differs from what the parent wants and that is where the parent has to realize that when their child is old enough, it is their life to do with and the parent has to lay down the reins and watch from a distance as their child negotiates the trials of life. “It is hard to let go, isn’t it?”
“Oh, definitely...” Dorie had the hint of tears in her eyes and a catch in her voice. “They’re young for only a short amount of time and then you have to let them go. It’s hard, but necessary...” she sniffled a bit, “But it doesn’t make the decision any easier, for us at least.”
“Same here, Dorie, It’s the fact that we see our children as small tiny babies and then they grow up and don’t need us any more.” Fiona nodded acknowledging the pain and heart-ache that Dorie was going through. “I’m going to go through the same with River.” she said. “But at least I know that who she’s with is who she has been with for eighteen years.”
“Not like someone just off the street, right?” Dorie asked. “You at least know who his character is as a man.”
“And...he’ll be good for her...” Fiona replied, then contemplated the situation at hand that Dorie needed to have solved, “I think we’ll have to talk to Yasunobu about how we’re going to do the hand-over of the third interest...or is Bebe taking over your third of the mortgage?
“We managed to get a mortgage on a house just down the way. I guess the fact that we’ve been paying our third of the mortgage has affected our credit rating in a positive way. So what I think we’ll do is make sure that Bebe has enough to cover the mortgage for this month and next and we’ll cover our own mortgage; Gus has been a little more responsible with his work...the and he’s managed to get a raise so we’ll be fine and the two months of mortgage payments to help Bebe get a financial leg up, won’t harm us.” Dorie said... “The tough part is dealing with her leaving the nest.” she paused for a moment, “The only thing that I worry about is her being there in our suite completely alone.”
“Is Bebe seeing Torao?” Fiona asked. Dorie nodded. “Oh, so why not let Bebe and Torao room together and then that way, they have their own little space; at least until they figure out what they’re going to do with their own accommodations. If you’re planning it that way, perhaps, when she does find her own place, she can use that third interest of the triplex as a mortgage helper.”
Dorie smiled, “Y’know, Fiona, that’s a great idea. Then she and Torao can get a good leg up on life with a solid income helper...and the mortgage is only about §500.00 a month. And rents are skyrocketing here with the immigration and all that and all the people looking for a place to live.” Dorie paused for a moment and asked, “So what are you going to do with an empty nest?”
“Oh...Japanese families from what Yasunobu tells me is that they take care of their parents from the onset of elder status to the grave; it’s the Japanese way of taking care of their elders.” Fiona looked at her, “I don’t want to be a burden to Haruo and River, but at least I know that they’ll help if I run into financial issues. Right now I have this job and I have no desire to retire until I reach a pinnacle in my occupation.”
“Doesn’t that sound a bit onerous on the kids, though?” Dorie shook her head, “I wouldn’t want to make them feel like they had to take care of me...”
“I think it is, but Haruo feels differently. I guess...it’s the way that he was raised, that it’s expected.” Fiona explained, “It’s a family obligation to take care of family...no matter how we non-Japanese elders may feel about it. To me, a Westerner, it just reeks of entitlement to what I consider, sponging off our kids, but to each their own, I guess.”
“Heavens be to the Watcher, if he has to take care of that insufferable old bat of a mother...I feel so sorry for him.” Dorie commiserated, “I swear that last screaming match...yesterday took the cake.” she muttered, “I hate to say it, but it cemented our decision to move out though it puts Yasunobu in a bad spot. I hope he can forgive us, but I don’t think we can take any more of Mayumi’s ranting, it’s starting to affect our sleep...and in turn we don’t want to have it affect our jobs.”
“I understand, and I think Yasunobu will understand too.” Fiona countered letting Dorie know that it was going to be positive, “And I think you’re making a good decision to get away from all this. Mayumi’s ranting wasn’t something you signed up for to be part and parcel of the family dysfunction.”
“Well, if Bebe goes with Torao...and River goes with Haruo, then we’ll all be family dysfunction together.” Dorie laughed and Fiona joined in.
Yasunobu came in from harvesting the trees, raising his eyebrows when he saw Fiona and Dorie conversing in animated gestures and laughing, “Oh...hello, Dorie... How you, ne?”
“Oh, I’m good, Yasunobu...Gus and I needed let you know that we were intending on transferring our interest in the house to Bebe, now that she has a job. We were approved for a mortgage and we put in an offer on a house just down the road from you.” Yasunobu raised his right eyebrow even further, “The offer was accepted and we’re now the owners of the house at the end of the block...the one facing the street we’re currently on.” Dorie informed him.
“Oh...good. Nice house...lots more room than this. Good.” he nodded. “Bebe take over mortgage?”
“We’ll be paying her next two months then after that she gets to carry it.” Dorie stated, explaining what she and Gus were planning on doing. , “She’ll need some time to get her financial footing under her and well, Gus is doing well...and my political career seems to be going on an up-swing. So we can carry our own mortgage now. I just hate leaving you in a tough spot.”
“No...no...that’s ok... my son...he become writer or...try find job collecting. He show me gemstone he, Franz collect...don’t tell ex-wife.” he winked, “I sure he do good.” Yasunobu was the supportive father, Dorie thought, unlike his miserable shrew of an, what was it, ex-wife now. “I talk to lawyer, she no touch his money...mine...too...lawyer say he draw up paper...I go pick up tomorrow. So we be OK.”
“Well, that’s good to hear, Yasunobu, I just didn’t want us to end up leaving you in dire financial straits which it appears like this won’t. I’m glad to hear it.” Dorie stated. “I hope you and Haruo manage to get through this; meaning you and Mayumi separating.”
“Thank you.” Yasunobu nodded his head. “Good luck to you...neh...new house...”
(end Part Four)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
“Boy, oh boy...is this tight quarters...” Bebe turned to see her dad standing there.
“Yup...it’s pretty cramped in here. Just enough for my easel; maybe we should go downstairs where there’s more room.”
“Right.” Gus said as he turned to exit Bebe’s room and head for the stairs leading to the main floor of their suite. As they came down the stairs, they could see that Dorie was quite upset. Dorie and Bebe were quite close and as a parent, Dorie knew that this was Bebe’s time to leave the family nest; or more aptly, the family nest was removing her and heading elsewhere. But it didn’t make it any easier for the separation to take place. But what Dorie and Gus could see was that Bebe was sprouting into a young woman; one with a burgeoning career path in Education and that would be her calling for the rest of her life, unless some other interest came along.
“It’s come too soon...” sniffled Dorie as she could barely get the words out around a tight throat. “My baby girl is now a young woman.”
Bebe comforted her, “Oh...mom...I’ll be OK.”
Dorie said to her, “I know you will be, it’s just the mothering part of me that doesn’t want to let you go, but I know it has to be done. It’s your walk from here...y’know...walking the road of life. And my baby girl has taken the first steps...with a good occupation.”
There were a lot of tears and hugs; as packing had to be done so that Dorie and Gus could make the move to the new place where they would live. And Bebe promised that she would visit them whenever she had the time to.
Gus could barely contain himself; he had tears in his eyes when he told his daughter that, “You’ll always be my baby-girl...Bebe...”
“I love you, Daddy...Mom...” Bebe said as she hugged them both. “I’ll do you proud...Mom, Dad...we’ll make it.” she said, meaning her and Torao.
...and that was that. Dorie and Gus moved with stars in their eyes and a hope that they would be able to hold down their respective jobs and make a home for themselves in a housing market that was poised to skyrocket in land value. Meanwhile, Bebe was hitching her wagon to Torao’s and together they would make a life for themselves though what Torao planned to do for an occupation, yet he didn’t know. The younger three would have to finish school first and then they would have to figure out what to do for the rest of their lives.
That evening – Chikamori House
It was a full setting at the kitchen table that evening where a birthday cake sat on the table. Because Haruo...had taken his sweet time from the time that his mother let out that pained scream in the birthing room, It was 11:58 at night when he finally made his appearance. So it was fitting that on the celebration of his day of birth, he was sitting in front of a baked chocolate cake; specially baked for him by Molly. Mayumi, sulking upstairs didn’t bother coming down to help him celebrate; it was no big loss at any rate. None of the family members liked her, least of all the one that she gave birth to. After all the verbal abuse and mental twisting that Mayumi had inflicted on Haruo, he sure as hell didn’t want his mother to be at the celebration of his turning from a teenager to a young adult. That would just ruin his whole day.
As the family members who were important to him were there, Haruo grinned and said, “Well, I guess it’s finally here...” eliciting a few laughs. River stood beside him and slightly to the back. “I guess I’m supposed to blow out this cake, right?”
River smirked at him, “That’s the general idea...hon.”
Amidst the sound of noise-makers; Haruo leaned forward and blew out the candle; which would mark his moment in transition from teenager to young adult. “I don’t feel any different” he said, scant moments before the transformation hit. There were no words to describe the sensation of feeling like he was out of his body, then slammed right back into it. It was a dizzying feeling. He felt stronger; and there were physical changes as in height and body mass. And it appeared as though others noticed it too, particularly the other young adult in the room, Bebe.
“You look good...” Bebe said softly.
River raised an eyebrow, “Hey, get your own boyfriend...” She smiled at Bebe...”This one’s mine...permanently...” she said flashing the diamond on her left hand ring finger.
“Wait...what?” Bebe grinned at her, “He...” her question trailed off as she examined River’s engagement ring.
“Yup... last night...”
Bebe threw her arms around River in a hug, “That’s great news, girlfriend...so he’s now yours...locked up tight.” She looked over at Haruo appreciatively, “Well, he’s certainly filled out in all the right places...” she nudged her friend’s shoulder.
After the blowing out of the candles and the customary thanks for being here acknowledgements from Haruo, everyone got down to having a piece of cake. Yasunobu had expertly cut the cake into enough pieces for everyone and each person afterwards lined up in order to get a piece of that cake. The birthday boy, first; and then secondly, now that the cat was out of the bag, his fiancee got to take the second piece; then after that it was down the lineup in terms of getting a piece.
River tried to keep her eyes from wandering from her fork to Haruo. My goodness, her fiance had filled out into a man’s frame and that would only serve to set her ardour to flame; wishing that she, herself, was a young adult. But she would have to wait one more day as the labour contractions that had started in the morning of the 12th did not culminate in her birth until 12:02 of the following morning of June 13, 1970. Four minutes apart, but with his birth at 11:58PM of June 12, 1970; they were separated by the calendar falling on either side of the dates. Which meant that they would be sleeping in separate beds that night to not fall afoul of the law. Age of consent didn’t mean a thing when it came to rule of law and the Canadian Criminal Code.
Since home-schooling didn’t take a break on that day; River had to go with Torao to the City Hall to get their assignments so that pretty much put a halt to them staying for any further celebrations and Haruo, on the other hand, after dropping by city hall to sign some papers regarding a secondary occupation, he had in mind had a book to write, so life went on.
(End Chapter Seven)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Chapter Eight - A Different Kind of Peace (Part One)
A Watcher’s Wrath
Whether it was cosmic intervention or the Watcher’s Divine Wrath that ended the reign of terror, it was oft speculated with various theories being brought to the forefront; however there was only one definitive conclusion to be drawn from all this. Mayumi had it coming.
For years Mayumi had terrorized her family; with her narcissistic rages, her hypocritical crazy-making behaviour and her viciousness. Nearly driving her son to paranoia; she focused on him with her malevolent gaze – focusing all her energies into making sure that his life was a life of misery. It was quite apparent that her ultimate end-goal was to create a pawn from which she could extract anything that she wanted, whether that be unfettered adulation or economic benefits – Mayumi wanted a pay-day from her son and she was willing to do everything that she could to extract that pecuniary reward out of him including destroying him.
But as sand when squeezed in one’s fist, trickles out between the fingers; Haruo managed to sneak his way out. When Mayumi learned of the fact that Haruo had in fact proposed to one River Annette McIrish, Mayumi went apoplectic. Demanding that he rescind his proposal produced no action on his part; the worm had truly turned. The end result was that he told her that she should take a long walk off the nearest short pier; explaining succinctly that he’d had enough of her 🐸🐸🐸🐸 and that he was not going to take any more of it and that he was no cultured fancy-pants; that if she raised her hand to him again, that he would hit back; warning her that “I’m not going to put up with it any longer, if you hit me, I’m going to hit you back twice as hard.” And considering Haruo’s height and physical mass, that was not a threat to be taken lightly. Mayumi chose the wiser course of action which was to back down.
After all, as a young adult, Haruo was no longer bound to her dominion; he could do anything he wanted and frankly she could lump it as far as he was concerned. And under no circumstances was he going to follow Mayumi’s guidance any longer. He certainly was not going to call off the engagement, no matter how much Mayumi demanded it. The evil hag could pound sand as far as he was concerned. In fact, Haruo and River realized that this was the ultimate decision that they'd made; to go back from this would mean an entire dissolution of their eighteen years of friendship. They had committed to each other; for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, enduring all things that the world would throw at them till death do they part. The only thing they hadn't done yet was the formalizing of their vows and that would be after graduation.
All in all, for the rest of the family, it was something to look forward to as far as events were concerned. But if it was really for someone other than the couple getting married, it certainly seemed that way. Marriage was not only a union between two people but a celebration that all others were witness to; that others got a chance to be a part of. And for the cynical, it was a time to take bets on how long the conjugal bliss would remain. Evidently that little 🐸🐸🐸🐸, VJ Alvi, after hearing that marriage was looming on the horizon for his mortal enemy and his enemy’s girl, was running a line of 25-1 that the marriage would split in the first three months. It was tempting for Haruo to go beat his face in again. But as a young adult; there were other things to think about, like getting a job and providing for what would be Haruo and River’s family which at this point was two humans and a dog.
Mayumi was incandescent with rage...something that was usually her static state; if she kept it up she’d probably end up dying of a stroke or more favourably, a brain aneurysm. All her plans had come to naught and she was looking for someone to blame. She had counted on leeching off her son in her later years and was planning to set him up with a wife who would henpeck him enough that he’d capitulate if he wanted peace. Then she would tie her strings into his spouse and control him using her. And frankly she was furious that he’d broke the mold, unlocked his chains and fled. It was in that mood that she went storming out of the house in the middle of the night. There was nothing that she could do to reverse the damage to her future plans. She was done for.
But for all of her manipulative efforts and scheming, the one thing she did not count on was the weather nor astronomical phenomenon. Up in the heavens, the skies were dark and foreboding as a gloomy counterpoint to disastrous portent. The roiling clouds were backlit by lightning flashes intermittently flickering through dense, dark condensation. There was a crackle of electricity in the air that made the hair on one’s arms stand up and heart pound in primal fear. There was no calming of the nerves, being in fear of nature’s firework’s display was hard-wired into one’s primitive psyche.
Countless warnings by Environment Canada to others to not go out in a thunderstorm fell upon Mayumi’s deaf ears as she sought to escape the debacle of her own making. Fleeing across the street, she heard the thunderclap of a lightning bolt and was nearly deafened by a roll of thunder that was exceedingly loud. Evidently the bolt had fallen close enough by her, that the crackle of lightning and the boom of the thunder was nearly instantaneous.
That should have been warning enough that it was dangerous to go out in this particular thunderstorm, but Mayumi distraught at the dissolution of her plans was not paying any attention. At least until her hair stood on end and the prickly feeling of electrical discharge raised the hair on her limbs. And then a horrendous burning feeling cascaded through her in a deluge of pain. And in the back of her mind, she realized, I’ve been struck by lightning. Well, that wasn’t going to be all.
A thunderous crackle like a fighter jet screaming through the air, but at a much faster velocity than any earth-bound aerial vehicle flew through the air, splitting her eardrums and rendering her deaf crashed into the ground in a ball of incendiary flame. It was rather unfortunate for Mayumi that she happened to be standing right where the end target of the meteor happened to be. It was a mercifully quick end for a person who had been subjecting her family to years and years of mental torture. She never knew what hit her. In fact, her body was so pulverized into bits and incinerated that there was no way to find any human remains. All that would be left would be a tombstone to mark where and how she died.
What was left was pieces of meteor that lay in a circumference of over sixty feet. And that would be picked up by townsfolk for the family of the deceased to cover the funeral costs. How convenient was it to have a burial that was covered by the object that was responsible for killing the deceased?
With a clap of thunder, the Grim Reaper appeared above the gigantic space rock that had squashed Mayumi flatter than a pancake. He intoned the incantation that turned the remains into a spirit and Mayumi floated above the space rock. She looked around to gather her ethereal bearings and turned towards the hooded figure whose face wasn’t evident within the darkness of the hood. For all intents and purposes, Grim was faceless. His voice emanated as if from the very depths of a crypt. “It is time. Mayumi Chikamori, you are to come with me.”
For Mayumi, this was new horizons, death had opened up a retinue of opportunities for her and she was eager to get to the afterlife. And frankly she was planning an overthrow of the overlord of the dead. Grim looked into Mayumi’s eyes as she shook his hand that he’d proffered and saw the evil, malevolence behind them and his spine started to crawl. If only there was someplace else in the afterlife that he could have put her. And then Mayumi turned her back on him and made her leap into the headstone. On the one hand, once informed, Yasunobu was shocked at first, but not very surprised and very few in the family mourned her loss. River went over to get the headstone; half a symbolic gesture of victory over her husband-to-be’s hated nemesis and partly to recognize that despite the fact that they were enemies, Mayumi was still a family member and should be properly interred at the earliest possible convenience...as far away as possible.
Of course the fact that the Sunset Valley News-Leader published Mayumi’s unfortunate pulverization by asteroid and the subsequent economic benefit to the community as well as the Chikamori family who stood to gain almost §46,000 by conservative estimate depending on what the pieces of space rock sold for to research facilities across the country.
Depending on who one spoke to most thought that the cosmic punishment and subsequent removal from the planet by means of massive blunt force trauma was a good thing.
(End Part One)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
@Nikkei_Simmer: Have to say rest in peace, at least Mayumi spiced up the story with her unbelievable evil mind. Surely not many living in her proximity would mind to see her go. Yasunobu might even get a new partner and I am sure Haruo will get a better live, with her completely out of his world.
River tried to keep her eyes from wandering from her fork to Haruo. My goodness, her fiance had filled out into a man’s frame and that would only serve to set her ardour to flame; wishing that she, herself, was a young adult. But she would have to wait one more day as the labour contractions that had started in the morning of the 12th did not culminate in her birth until 12:02 of the following morning of June 13, 1970. Four minutes apart, but with his birth at 11:58PM of June 12, 1970; they were separated by the calendar falling on either side of the dates. Which meant that they would be sleeping in separate beds that night to not fall afoul of the law. Age of consent didn’t mean a thing when it came to rule of law and the Canadian Criminal Code.
(End Chapter Seven)
Oh, that is hilarious, such detail and minutiae. Born four minutes apart, but on separate days.
Oh, she died by meteorite this time. I remember last time it was by a mixture of water and electricity in the spa.
I'm a 48 year old married man, with a beautiful wife, a cat, and a simverted personality.My Sims 3 Pictures
Chapter Eight - A Different Kind of Peace (Part Two)
There wasn’t much gnashing of teeth or wailing at the news of Mayumi’s death from her family that she’d abused, yet there was time for introspection. Haruo spent some time with the stereo system, listening to pieces of classical music to come to grips with unresolved anger issues against his mother. It was his father who had provided him with that outlet into music and though his piano playing had lapsed, Haruo was still able to play at a level equivalent to 5 and perhaps with practice he would be able to progress of his own accord.
The next morning dawned to River’s and Torao’s aging up parties. Most everyone was still in their sleepwear, blinking tiredly like owls roused from their daytime slumber to gaze upon two birthday cakes replete with candles ready to be blown out celebrating the two teens’ progression from adolescent to young adult.
And from there they would progress to getting jobs and/or being self-employed (which is the next best thing to being unemployed ~sarcasm~). It was uncertain as to where they would end up finally in terms of a place to live, but after Mayumi’s death, it was clear to Yasunobu that he didn’t really want to stay in the house where Mayumi’s presence still lingered like a malevolent poltergeist. It was perhaps better to locate another place to live. Preferably far away from where they were currently so that the negative energies that existed near that area wouldn’t manifest into a haunting event.
Satoshi’s thoughts went to Molly and how good she looked. Of course his mind was wandering and not really paying much attention to the birthday celebrations of his brother’s son’s girlfriend and his own son.
River on the other hand was looking at the cake as if to say, If I eat that cake, that’s going to wreak havoc on my waistline. She was thin and lithesome, but had an inner core of steel, that much Satoshi and Yasunobu could deduce. And they were both happy that Haruo was going to marry River. Although, when exactly was still up in the air. They were still trying to come to a decision on whether they would end up going to university first and completing their degrees before tying the knot or just get married, then go. Haruo had nothing on his mind other than the fact that River looked very beautiful to him.
The noisemakers were making so much racket that it was surprising it didn’t wake up the dead in chronological order; which as Mayumi was the most recent decedent, it wasn’t something that was particularly wise to do.
River, on the other hand, was particularly happy about aging up today, since last night was extremely lonely in that bed without her Haruo to cuddle with. There was no hanky-panky, since they both were well aware of just what an unexpected pregnancy could do to their travel plans. But it certainly didn’t stop her fantasizing and her overheated imagination made her attempts to sleep absolutely miserable for that night. But now that she would become a young adult; those taboos fell away. She remembered her words to Bebe about wanting to wait...well, those words came back like unwanted pests to remind her that...once you give it away, you can’t get it back. Maybe you should wait? Oh bother.
Once everyone had assembled, River made a silent wish...then leaned forward and blew out the candles on her birthday cake. For a long time, while the cheering and noisemakers went on, nothing happened. And just as River was about to say something to that effect; the disassociating feeling kicked in and she felt like she was thrown out of her body... and just as quickly as that feeling came it was gone. She looked over to see Haruo who was gazing back at her with an enthralled expression. She was now taller and her hips and waist showcased a nice hourglass figure. And of course, Haruo was hooked; line and sinker. She was stunningly beautiful. It was lucky Phil wasn’t there as he would have heckled Haruo and asked him if he needed a mop and bucket to clean the drool off the floor. Then Haruo would have had to plant him...upside down...preferably.
Torao had blown out his candles and had aged up as well into a tall broad-shouldered young adult who looked just as handsome as his father, Satoshi. Albeit, he didn’t want to rock the long hair look and went for a nice short haircut. And now, he and Bebe had their whole lives ahead of them. Would the two couples match up together and start a joint farm/fishing lot so that they could earn money together? Both Bebe and River were good at painting and Bebe wanted to become a celebrated author so this would also mean that the two women would have their own self-employment.
Going to university was something that they would all have to sit down and discuss since if they were going to be self-employed, there wasn’t much use for a degree and could quite possibly be a waste of money. But then again, they would have to weigh the advantages and the disadvantages of having a degree and see if it was worth it to go and get their degree. Yasunobu and Satoshi were of the opinion that they wanted the four young adults to go to university and get their degrees. They had the time, they had the youth...so why not spend some time in university and come out with paper in hand that could be transferable to other occupations, should their attempt at self-employment not pan out. It was insurance; costly but necessary in today’s job-market. It would be something they would have to discuss together to see if it was in their plans to get further education.
After eating a piece of River’s birthday cake, Haruo had to go and hunt for a few gemstones that he would later cut and take over to the elixir shop. The proprietor there was still eager to see Haruo’s items that he was going to sell and even though they weren’t toads, the buyers who looked at the gemstones were always inspired to see what new cuts were available. Haruo preferred the spire-cut since he could maximize his earnings and buying a home for he and River to raise a family in was prime on his list of things that he wanted to accomplish.
Catching a taxi he went to a part of town where he was able to find a few gemstones that he was able to scoop up. From there he would return home, cut them and take them over to the elixir shop across the street. Mr. Joseph was still working in the store. He looked up from the cash register and smiled, “How are you doing? Haruo?”
“Oh, great...” Haruo returned, “Found a few gemstones, so any word from your buyers about the type of cuts they’re looking for?”
“Well, they certainly liked the quality of the cuts that you’re producing.” Moses Joseph stated, “I think I have another buyer who’s looking for a yellow sapphire...”
“Well, I just happened to find one; any idea on what cut he wanted?” Haruo asked.
Moses shrugged, “The last time he was in, he was looking for any cut.”
“Well, I’m going to be consigning this spire-cut yellow sapphire, so have your buyer take a look at it and see if it fits his requirements.”
“My goodness...that cut looks nice.” Moses exclaimed as Haruo handed over the gemstone. “It looks magnificent.”
“Good so you should be able to get a good consignment out of it.” Haruo nodded.
Moses glanced at Haruo with a look of wonderment. “You have certainly grown...Haruo, from consigning toads for my buyers to now dealing in quality gems.”
“Well, Mr. Joseph, couldn’t stay a kid forever.” Haruo grinned as he shook Moses’ hand. “So let me know if there’s any other gemstones and cuts that are on your buyers’ lists and I’ll do my best to see if I can fill them.”
“I certainly will, Haruo and...Haruo, one more thing...” Moses replied. Haruo was turning to go, when he paused for a moment to look back at him, “Call me Moses, you’re a young adult now...”
“Sure thing, Moses...I’ll see you tomorrow. I might have a couple more items that might suit your buyers.”
“I’ll contact them and let them know that they’re on your list to fill their orders.”
After he was done at the elixir shop, Haruo made his way across town to a park with a community garden and there he stocked up on fruits and vegetables. Perhaps he would be able to plant it at their new place which he knew that his father was looking for. From there they would springboard their options. Bebe and Torao would have the opportunity to do the same as what he and River were planning to do; marry and raise a family. And from there, the Chikamori family would grow into a large tree with lots of branches that needed taking care of as he was doing with the trees at the community garden and the fruits of that labour would plant the genesis of their garden at wherever they decided to set down their roots.
While Haruo was out toiling in the rain, River was working on her second painting. Getting the bright idea that painting was going to be her self-employment, she stopped just short of finishing the painting and headed out to city hall via taxi. Getting off at the corner right next to the city hall, she ran to get out of the rain; practically sprinting up the steps. Luckily for her it meant that she was able to avoid getting soaked. The permit process for becoming self-employed was relatively painless – no hidden fees, no surcharges and she was able to now earn money from commissions as soon as she made a name for herself. Making a name for herself, however, was going to be the big hurdle.
Some acidly stated that self-employment was a quick ticket to poverty, however River McIrish had a plan and that included a plan to get rich though it would be slow going. It would be quality paintings that she would make herself known for and that in itself bred exclusivity. City Hall was bathed in a light rain while the clouds formed a misty backdrop. If she had more skill she’d take a picture of the city hall and paint it from memory, however she still had a ways to go before being able to do that.
Because of the fact that Haruo needed to get his exercise skill up, he came back and started working on the treadmill. It was his hope to get from Level 4 to Level 8 before getting exhausted, somehow he managed to do so. Though River wasn’t too enamoured of his odour after his exercise. “Go take a shower...” she said, holding her nose, “You reek...”
“OK...ok...” Haruo rolled his eyes and headed to shower off.
After returning from his bathing duties, he walked back over to his fiancee, “So...do I smell any better?”
River purred, “Why, yes...you don’t stink up the room now.”
“Why, thank you... I love you too...I think...” Haruo smirked at her.
“Well...” River, a slight touch of merriment in her eyes responded as she took her fiance in her arms, “I love me too...” she teased.
“That’s reassuring...” Haruo grinned. A kiss ensued,
“Let’s get to bed, hon, we have a lot to do tomorrow.”
The Next Morning 1:45AM
Considering the time of the morning, it wasn’t surprising that Haruo was yawning his head off. “I heard there was a monster in the old mine...over near Pinochle Point.” River said, anxious that her fiance was planning to go hunt for some gemstones and metals down by the old mine.
“You believe that old wive’s tale?” Haruo asked incredulously. “I doubt there’s anything there but a bunch of rats that got lost from old man Racket’s barn.”
“Well, that’s what they told me.” She cautioned him. , “Just be careful.” And that was that. Haruo headed out in the darkness up to the old mine where there were gemstones that were said to generate.
After digging around for a while, he could find anything, but evidently out of the corner of his eyes he noticed two glowing yellow eyes. They were right, it’s a monster... his brain could barely comprehend what he saw. But instead of a growling snarl and a nasty monster breaking through the boarded up mine entrance and devouring him right then and there; a polite cough and a gravelly voice emanating from the mine posed a question.
“Excuse me? Do you know if the Vancouver Canucks won the Stanley Cup this year? I can’t get cable up here...”
(End Part 2)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Chapter Eight - A Different Kind of Peace (Part Three)
Haruo was struck dumb for a few minutes trying to remember what teams were in this year’s Stanley Cup final – all he knew was that it was short. “Uh...no...I don’t think they did. It was the Bruins and the Oilers. The Edmonton Oilers took it in four.”
“Oh...that’s really too bad;” the mine-monster said, “I’ve been rooting for the Canucks for 18 years since they came into the league.”
“Yeah, sorry about that...” Haruo told him, “Canucks never even made it in to the play-offs this year. With a 25–46–9 record and 320 goals against, I don’t think they would have had a chance, eh?”
“Yeah, pity...oh well, maybe next year. Thanks for the news...” and the eyes disappeared and lumbering footsteps headed back deeper into the mine. That was a strange conversation, Haruo thought, as he backed away from the mine and headed off back home; sometimes I wonder if I’m hearing things. When he got back to the triplex, he headed in to see River at the dining table eating some breakfast. Grabbing a plate of key lime pie, he sat down at the kitchen table.
“Did you find anything?” River asked him.
“Nope...tried looking around, but unfortunately nothing showed up.” Haruo told her; if he told her about the monster and the weird conversation he had, he’d probably get locked up in the insane asylum on a mental evaluation. “Hopefully, I’ll have better luck using the Collection Helper” The Collection Helper was the only thing that Mayumi left that was useful at any rate.
River nodded as she was eating her yoghurt, her fiancé would be working on his collecting skills which would translate into consignment items and considering that they would be able to get at least double the value of the consignment item. And when one took in a §37,000 Luminous gem, that translated into a lot of simoleons back. Franz had managed to get at least seven uncut Soulpeace gemstones out of the ground; estimated cut gem price was over §100K and if they managed to get double the price, they would be over §1M in value. So Haruo was sending in the lower value gems to build up his credit.
“I’m not sure if that will help us, because we need at least §80K to buy a new home. Prices have gone up quite a bit in recent years.” Haruo mentioned. “I feel like tossing in the higher-value cut gemstones too.”
“But then we’d get taxed out the ying-yang.” River commented, “We were trying to avoid having to send in the higher value gemstones that we have since the CRA would make us pay exorbitant amounts of tax.”
“True, there’s always that to consider.” Haruo speculated. “We have at least $1M in soulpeace gemstones if we cut it at the cut that brings in the most simoleons...but we’d get docked quite a considerable amount in income taxes. So you figure it’s best to save up slowly...”
“It probably would be wiser...” River commented while continuing eating. “The less we have to give to the CRA the better.”
“OK...so I guess that’s what we’ll do. What did our current bank balance say we were at?”
River looked over at him, “When I was at the bank yesterday depositing in my proceeds for the painting sale to Hogan’s in our joint account, I looked at our bank-balance, it was over §205,000.”
“That much?” Haruo was amazed. "I guess the last few gemstones that we consigned were real money makers."
"It appears that way.” River stated as she polished off the rest of her yoghurt and took it to the sink following Haruo who had polished off his key lime pie. Then she impishly looked over at her fiancé and asked, "So...what do you want to do this morning?"
“What did you have in mind?” Haruo asked slyly as he nodded silently to the door and mouthed the word, mailbox… meaning that he had to go make the bill-payment and get the mail.
“Something that might make my mom...and your dad go...ber...zerk…” she whispered as she followed Haruo out to the mailbox.
“Uh...huh?” Haruo replied getting a slight inkling of what River had in mind.
"Yeah...really..." River smirked at him. "Feel in the mood?"
“...in the mood for what?” Haruo had a feeling that he knew what was about to happen.
“...well...I’m feeling a bit tense right now…” River purred. Haruo’s eyes widened.
“Oh...really?” this was beginning to be a bit of a game. Haruo grinned widely as River took his hands and pulled him back inside the house. Grinning innocently at his dad who was still sitting at the kitchen table eating his breakfast, they ducked into the elevator and counted the seconds until the elevator reached the third floor.
“Oh...Haruo…” River sighed…a lot of heavy petting had ensued...once they’d gotten back in their room. But outside of that; nothing much else happened. Though there was much skin to skin contact, they didn’t want to take it any farther than that. They wanted their first time to be within the holy bonds of marriage. But there was nothing that said that heavy petting wasn’t allowed. “I love you…”. She whispered in his ear and drew him over her.
“I love you too, River…” he growled softly as he caressed her side as River pulled him to her and showered him with kisses.
River thought softly as she drank in another one of Haruo’s kisses, My mom would blow a gasket...if she knew what we were doing right now.
(End Part 3)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Chapter Eight - A Different Kind of Peace (Part Four)
Later on that Day
After taking a shower, separately, around nine in the morning, they found out that Bebe’s graduation ceremony was to take place that day, so Haruo and River got dressed up to go to the graduation. River was in a gorgeous burgundy red floor length evening gown with a hip-high split; she looked gorgeous in Haruo’s opinion. Haruo on the other hand was in a tuxedo so that he and River could be matching each other.
River called out to Haruo who gazed at her in enraptured bliss. “So...what do you think?”
“You look absolutely stunning...ly beautiful…” Haruo enthused as he stared at her hourglass figure...and the hip-high slit from where he could see her thigh almost all the way up to mid-hip. Needless to say he was very aroused. River was pleased that she could elicit such a reaction out of her fiancé.
Bebe smirked at him, “Woah… down, boy.” and looked innocent as Haruo flushed red with embarassment. Bebe knew exactly what Haruo was thinking about his fiancée and couldn’t resist teasing her two best friends who had finally gotten their act together and were headed down the nuptial path. She knew just how much Haruo cared for River and was glad that they’d finally managed to tell each other and she hoped that Torao would do the same eventually.
Haruo’s father called a taxi and everyone headed down to the City Hall where the graduation ceremony would take place. Fortunately for the family, it was a sunny day and no umbrellas were needed; in fact, for Bebe it was the perfect day for a graduation. Bebe had found a career path already; she was employed at the school where she’d graduated from – she was employed as a “playground monitor” for the kindergarten kids and from there, once she matriculated university and then had her convocation conferring her a degree in education, she’d end up moving up three positions to elementary school teacher, which would mean a §15 an hour increase in her gross pay making it well worth the money to go to university. It would mean she would be the first in her family to go to university as Gus and Dorie hadn’t gone. Dorie and Gus both had only high-school diplomas.
When they had reached the city hall they assembled to head into the graduation ceremony. They were all dressed in their finery for Bebe’s graduation and Dorie and Gus would attend on their own as they’d moved out of the house. Of course the timing for their arrival was strictly dependent on whether or not Dorie could be excused from her political work, but she would make an appearance and Gus was making sure that he could make it and still be able to get to his work on time as he started his shift as a food quality control inspector at one in the afternoon.
Graduation was a joyous time for most high-school students. And as usual, it was a typical graduation ceremony, long...hot and laborious, sitting through endless names being called up to the podium to receive their high-school diploma...and well, frankly, if you were a part of the band, endless repeats of Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 or otherwise known as Land of Hope and Glory...which has now been played in every American and Canadian high-school since God Knows When! (Watcher: ...and yes, I've been in a concert band that has played at our high-school graduation ceremony (way back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth - for you young sarcastic types - my graduation ceremony memories have faded into the nebulous recesses of time)...after 60 repeats of Pomp and Circumstance, your lips start feeling like mush...(especially if you play the trumpet)).
After listening to endless speeches and exhortations about bearing a torch for the future and all sorts of other enlightening stuff like that, the graduate emerged...exhilerated with diploma in hand and a deepening fire in her belly to do something meaningful with her life. (Getting a 9-5 in a soul-siphoning classroom teaching recalcitrant rug-rats (six hours of teaching, two hours of teacher prepwork and a whole bunch of marking papers or at Bebe’s current career level: chasing screaming post-toddlers around the school grounds and breaking up fights)...at Sunset Valley School for the Gifted (a wonderful representation of the calibre of teaching positions available to those within the British Columbia Teacher’s Federation) was in her future...WELCOME TO ADULTHOOD. Don't let the high-school door hit you in the patootie on the way out...(cheerfully pedantic) Buh-bye...now… See you on Monday morning, don’t be late.) and this is what you have to look forward to, Bebe...47 years of soul-crushing servitude...43, if you go to university...oh...by the way, Happy Graduation."
Yes, Bebe had ascended the mantle of young adulthood; the day in which she would receive her high-school diploma and be able to be a responsible young adult, a day in which she would be judged worthy to her betters and a day of celebration in her freedom from mundane high-school schoolwork; a release from the prison of everyday questions from her teachers, "Did you do your homework?"
No more pencils,
No more books,
No more teachers’ dirty looks,
When the teacher rings the bell,
Drop your books and run like hell.
The graduations were long and well, considering it was spring; starting to reach boiling temperatures; both outside and inside. Which meant two hours of listening to teachers and fellow students exulting over their freedom from having to teach or listen to lectures and verbal exhortations designed to give someone an emotional kick in the rear-end. Whether that would help or not remained to be seen. When the speeches were finished there was an uproarious cheer and not a few "Oh, Thank the Watcher, I'm famished..." comments coming from those who'd had to put posterior end in hard seat for the two hours that it took for everyone including the class valedictorian to finish jabbering on about existential matters such as "stepping forward to make a difference in the world" and all that good stuff, all of which would be crushed ruthlessly when they set foot inside their 9-5 cubicle. That's life. Welcome to young adulthood and maturity.
It was definitely inspiring to see the newly minted high-school graduate emerge from the city hall in graduate robes, her spirits merry and looking forward to taking the bull of life by the horns and wrestling it to the ground. Of course every so often the bull with catch you unawares with a hoof to the side of the head. But she'll learn...she shall learn...that...yeah...maybe it might be better to go to university and STAY there...getting as many degrees as she can.
After all most students get the hell away from school as quickly as they can and try to get themselves pertinent education on their way to a fulfilling career track. Bebe, on the other hand, had to endure endless, “Congratulations on your graduation, Bebe… I’ll see you at work, Monday, right?” She was wondering if she needed a vacation after all this. But of course having just started work, her first three months were a blackout period. She needed to have her rear-end at work...rest of her body accompanying it and pulling a full pay-period. The only other option for relaxing after high-school was putting her buttinsky in a classroom seat at a post-secondary educational institution of known repute: The University of British Columbia or (UBC) otherwise known colloquially amongst Lower Mainlanders as the University of Bumbling Confusion or “Where the hell is my next class? I have to walk from Neville Scarfe to the Irving K. Barber Learning Center in ten minutes and I have an advisory session about career tracks in early childhood education at the Berwicke Child Development Center then I only have fifteen minutes left to get my lunch at the SUB (Watcher: Student Union Building)??? ARE THEY EFFING KIDDING ME!??!!! WTH is this?” (Watcher: I have no idea...I was stuck at Sauder Business School for most of my time doing the Agent’s exam for my real estate Agent 9.15 license; I didn’t go for a degree.).
After the long and brain-deadening graduation ceremony; they headed over to the Summerhill Court Park (not the Central Park across from the where they could enjoy themselves and have a bit of a relaxing afternoon. Though there was a line-up at the concession stands; they finally managed to get themselves fed before relaxing by fishing. Yasunobu, on the other hand; ever the consummate gardener, headed over to the section of park that housed the community garden and started harvesting the plantables there.
Haruo, River and Torao tried to fish from the same section of bridge; whereas it was very lucky that they didn’t manage to hook each other with the barbed fish-hooks. Nothing like a trip to the ER at Sacred Spleen to get a fish-hook removal right after a wonderful day celebrating Bebe’s graduation. Needless to say...that would have capped off the day with a bit of pain after some pleasure.
As it was, they fished until dark and then slowly made their way back home. And River and Haruo headed to bed, where they spent some time snuggling before finally dropping off to sleep.
And...Franz...ate some food before curling up for bed as well...after a long day of trying to increase Haruo and River’s wealth...eventually they would have enough to purchase a home.
Elsewhere in the Lower Mainland
Two men were standing outside a home conversing animatedly over a subject of hot debate. Lamenting the demise of their sister, the two stood formulating a plan to resurrect the woman. There had always been the three of them and it hit hard that their sister was no longer with them.
“Do you think it was the son who did it?” Michitake Sugihara stated; he had always been suspicious of the motives of the younger Chikamori.
Hidekazu Sugihara looked over at his brother. “No...it was stated in the paper that she was killed going out in a meteor storm and she got struck by lightning then was hit by a meteor that landed directly on top of her.”
“I don’t buy the pat obituary in the paper saying that she died being struck by a meteor, it’s just too convenient. I still think that kid was involved. So how do we resurrect her...she needs to live a full life.” Michitake insisted, “There has to be a way to bring her back.”
“She always has hated you, you know that.” Hidekazu stated. “Considering the fact that you picked on her for most of her child-hood.”
“I’m trying to make amends, but she has always been headstrong. And brother, you are the same way in some respects.” Michitake replied, his lips pursing in a scowl. “I always knew that there was something money-grubbing about that kid and I intend to get to the bottom of it. I doubt I’m wrong.”
“Don’t you think it smells kind of fishy that there was no inquest done on the body. They said that her body was incinerated by the heat of the meteor that hit her?” Hidekazu was starting to be convinced of some sort of foul-play that was involved in the death of her sister. Was it murder? Kill one of the three Sugiharas and the other two would go after the perpetrator of the deed like a bunch of rabid chihuahuas.
“What about Yasunobu?”
“I don’t know if he’s involved, but he seemed to have come into a lot of money recently.” Hidekazu nodded, “Money that very well should have been ours. Do you have a plan?”
“Notify the police of the fact that the death looks suspicious and who do you think would be able to formulate such a result from an investigation?” Michitake replied.
“I have a friend who was a police commissioner with the RCMP. I’m sure he could make some quiet in-roads into re-opening the case to ensure that there was a finding of foul-play.”
“Grandmother won’t like it...She always had a soft spot for that kid and remember, she raised him to seven years old.” Michitake stated; playing devil’s advocate.
“Well, Grandmother isn’t here now, is she?” Hidekazu stated. “...and justice needs to be done for Mayumi.”
“I agree. Nobody murders our sister and gets away with it.” Michitake said decisively. “We need to bring those Chikamori scum down.”
(end Part Four)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Comments
Generation One
Chapter Five
A Day of Respite (Part Seven)
Little did she know that he had just turned at the corner of the street they lived on and would be walking from the corner.
Oak Grove Street
Haruo walked quickly down the street as he approached the triplex. He hoped to slip into his room without anyone noticing.
As he got closer to his door he saw River poke her head out the door of her family's third of the triplex, "Haruo, I'm going to head down to the art supply store, do you want to come with me?"
"I'd love to but I have to put something in my room. Can you wait a few minutes and I'll go with you." He replied as he headed towards his door.
"Sure, I will..." River said waggling her fingers at him. "Honey, maybe we can go get something to eat at Hogan's too."
"Hopefully cranial-hindquarter inversion isn't working there today." Haruo muttered.
"I heard from Molly that he's under work probation. If he mucks up one more time he's going to get fired." She smirked.
Haruo growled, "It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy." He hoped that he wouldn't have to have another showdown with Jared Frio. He didn't like having to fight but if challenged, he would with no quarter given.
"Go on in and drop off what you needed to, hon," River told him so he headed upstairs.
"Just exactly where were you this morning?" Haruo groaned as a strident tone permeated his eardrums. "What have I told you about not saying anything about where you were going? You were probably out blowing money on arcade games, weren't you? That is an irresponsible thing to do. What do you plan to do when you have to go to university? Did you even bother to think of that? Are you incompetent?"
"For flark sakes..." Haruo muttered under his breath as he tucked the engagement ring under several layers of t-shirts and shut the drawer. He was beyond caring about what his mother thought of him. She had made it clear that she had never respected him. "Look, I had something really important to do!" Haruo shot his mother a sharp drop-it look.
"What are you looking at me like that for? I'm just concerned that you don't seem to do anything but waste money on that little tramp next door when you should be more concerned about your education."
"Enough! Mother! I'm busy and I have somewhere else to go today. Now shelf this until I get home." Haruo snapped, finally fed up.
"You watch your tone, young man! I'm still older than you and I'll give you what-...where do you think you're going?" She looked shocked as Haruo finally just brushed past her.
"Out!" Was his brief snipped reply. "Don't bother waiting up!"
Mayumi could only stand there gaping like a fish out of water vibrating with self-important, indignant outrage. "YASUBO!"
Yasunobu rolled his eyes, "Kare o oshi sugita...(you pushed him too far) dorehodo hisan'na koto suru ka. So'nani oshitara kare okoru yo. (How miserable are you going to make him? You push him so much and naturally he will get angry)." He shook his head. kanojo o sarubekidatta. (I should have left her). Haruo mo tsurete ikubekidatta (And I should have taken Haruo with me too). He turned to go down the elevator to see his son. Maybe he could slip him §50 on Haruo's way out the door.
"Hoi, Haruo kun..." he hailed his son, “goju doru" he said passing over some money. “Anata futari doka de tabenasai...". He nodded.
"Arigato, otosan." His son said and grinned at his father as Yasunobu ruffled his son's hair paternally. "We'll go eat somewhere. Thanks for the fifty." While River's mouth opened in shock, again? His dad was the one who always seemed as though he passed money to his son and in addition River also became the beneficiary of same act and River gave her surrogate dad a hug. Haruo's dad was so much like the father she wished she had.
Yasunobu watched his son's and River's body language and a small smile stole over his face. He quietly nodded as his suspicions were piqued. River and Haruo were certainly standing closer to each other than before. Well Mayumi's plans to make Haruo miserable were in the midst of being thwarted.
Toranu tanuki no kawazan'yō: he grinned widely. His wife should know better than to count raccoon dog skins before she'd even bought them. Now all her plans would mean nothing and Yasunobu wouldn't utter a peep. Whatever Haruo was going to do, he hoped that he would do it soon.
(End Chapter 5)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Generation One
Chapter Six
"Life Around The Chikamori House" (Part One)
Outside the Chikamori Residence
Haruo and River looked at each other; finally thanked Yasunobu and were on their way down to the art-shop that she wanted to go to downtown.
Another thing that had changed was the fact that they walked together arm-in-arm, as close together as they possibly could without making it impossible to walk without tangling up their stride. There was nothing to hide. Haruo didn't care what others thought. He knew River was his sweetheart and that was all that was needed to be known.
"I think we may need to take a taxi back if I get the easel today." River looked thoughtful. "It's going to be large and heavy. What I might do though is pick a sketchbook." She looked at him.
"Will you have enough to cover your stuff you're getting if you buy the sketchbook and whatever else today?" Haruo asked.
"I think so. We should check and see what time they close then maybe I can pay for the easel in advance and pick it up before the store closes. That way..." she stroked his arm gently, "We can maximize the amount of time we have to do other things."
"...and if you run across an interesting subject you can sketch it." Haruo said. "I've seen your pencil sketches, they're incredible."
"Thanks..." River snuggled up to Haruo as they walked down past the Bistro. It was about ten-thirty in the morning and things would probably be nuts in there getting ready for lunch rush. "...so what are you planning to do?"
"I don't know. Writing holds some passion for me. Though I can't afford a computer right now, maybe being able to write by pen and paper then maybe transcribe it onto computer at the library." he mused out loud.
The art store was not too far away and finally they were able to peruse the art supplies. This was certainly an art store. Haruo thought There were racks and racks of canvases, shelves with different sets of oils, watercolors, charcoal pencils and sticks, brushes, coloured pencils and other drawing implements that would help in making memorable drawings that others would buy.
Haruo was actually starting to enjoy the shopping for artist's supplies too. River asked sales staff about the quality of easels and was directed to a nice wood easel that to Haruo's impression of it was that it was built like a tank. It was definitely one where if they bought it, it would have to be brought home via taxi. That would tack about eleven to twelve simoleons. The easel she was directed to was worth §300.
After purchasing a lot of materials for drawing, painting and sketching, about ten canvases as well as the easel and an artist's portfolio carry case. Considering that the store was open till nine that night they decided to come back at eight-fifteen and then call a cab to get the materials back home. But at the moment, she opted to bring with her for the moment a sketchbook and a set of sketching pencils. The rest; she informed them that she would pick them up after eight pm. The store staff agreed to store all the materials until their return placing SOLD tags on all the merchandise purchased.
With that, Haruo and an ebullient River left the store. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this." River exclaimed as they walked along the sidewalk past the hospital towards the beach.
Haruo had suggested doing some sketching down by the water where as he'd mentioned there could be some interesting subjects to sketch and she could try out the different sketching pencils. River was eager to try them out, especially on a nice beach amidst the warm sand and moist salt-laden air with very few clouds floating in the sky. And River was more than happy to go down and see what she could sketch while Haruo sat beside her watching the waves rolling into.
To start off her art career she wanted to develop a good set of sketches from where she could take inspiration when it came to painting. "...after all..." she informed her boyfriend, "if I can draw inspiration from this and paint a painting that brings in at least §2400 it will go a long way to paying for some travel to some exotic destinations to paint. After all. One of our goals was to travel the world."
"Agreed..." Haruo said closing his eyes as he took a deep breath, sighing as he enjoyed the cool breeze coming off the water. It certainly cooled the temperatures that midday would bring. Being by the ocean allowed them to be able to stay relatively cooler than sitting in Central Park, with all its brick and concrete, which could potentially get to well over twenty-eight Celsius during the course of a June midday when the sun was at it's apex. He watched River pull out the sketch book from the bag and unwrap the new sketching pencils.
River enjoyed the feel of the new writing implements in her possession and as she delved into her creative imagination to see the world; her pencil in hand, started to make impressions of the world around her. Delving deep, her subconscious directing the movement of pencil along paper, her hand drawing broad lines back and forth across the page appearing as with no apparent focus in mind, the lines which at first not appearing much like a drawing, but eventually started to take cohesive shape as more and more details were added. River had always been a prolific doodler, her assignment books told the tale of a mind preoccupied with creative interpretation of the task-at-hand, her doodles marking the fact that those art shapes though random, were jogging her mind into a thought process leading to completion of her assigned work.
Haruo, on the other hand, had no such lofty ambitions. His whole goal that day was to enjoy the time spent with River by his side, his contentment was watching his girlfriend as she had a smile on her face, her pencil held in hand moving back and forth across the page drawing the scene of the beach around them, an idyllic summer midday at the beach; a few sailboats on the water, children running to and fro on the warmth of the sand squishing between their toes, running into the waves. He smiled again as his contentment increased seeing River smile as she started getting even more focussed on her drawing; to make it a source of inspiration for a painting that she was able to create as her skills in painting grew.
"I think this is a good start, what do you think?" River's sudden question startled him as he'd just settled into the beach lounger gazing out at the water and was rapidly getting sleepy with the warmth playing on his torso clothed as it was in t-shirt and shorts. He looked over to see her holding out the sketchbook which now showed a well illustrated scene of the beach, proportioned exactly in miniature, the curve of the landscape showing in the careful pencil-strokes on the sketchbook page, the people pictured showing a level of activity that seemed to jump out from the page and take a life of its own.
His eyes widened in absolute amazement as he stared at the absolutely beautiful monotoned black sketch-marks on the page which had culminated in a landscape image that was absolutely second to none that he'd ever seen. His girlfriend had a talent to be reckoned with and he was certain that she was destined for great things in the art world.
"So...what do you think?" River asked again wondering why her boyfriend was silent and looked so dumbfounded.
"It...it's beautiful," he stammered. "I mean it's stunning. The figures look as though they're just about ready to jump off the page and the detail in this sketch..." he stopped looking at River with an amazed expression "You have got..." he searched for a descriptive adjective, "incredible talent..." River's face brightened as he continued to look appreciatively at her work.
"You really mean that?" She asked softly looking over at Haruo with eyes gleaming at the praise, "You really think I have the talent to make it?"
Haruo leaned over, carefully, to make sure that he didn't jostle the sketchbook or mar any details as River tilted her head up. The book was closed without even glancing at it as their lips met in a passionate kiss. When they separated, more due to lack of oxygen than by mutual agreement, both of them, eyes glazed over with desire, whispered, "I love you..."
River reached out cupping the palm of her hand against Haruo's cheek, "...thank you for believing in me..."
"I always will, Sweetheart..." Haruo said softly, "You've always been there for me..." and she had. Any time he'd been frustrated by his mother's apparent abusive behavior, River had always been his sounding board and she'd kept him on an even keel. He was just starting to realize just how much River was an integral part in his life and how much she meant to him. What that also meant: his decision of that morning was borne out; that the ring that was now in his dresser drawer was rightfully bound for River's left hand ring finger when he found the right opportunity.
On the Sidewalk
Walking past the beach, Parker Langerak looked over and saw a sight that cut him to the core. His gaze had often drifted to River McIrish; she was the smart girl, a bit on the nerdy side but really cute. She often wore stuff that really didn't flatter her figure and she only recently started wearing make-up in high-school to attract guys or in particular, one guy which Parker realized...wasn't him.
He really had wanted to get to know her but she was always hanging around with Haruo, the Asian guy, who himself was a bit of a geek. Haruo was a loner and thus had always been fun to pick on.
Parker wouldn't dare to pick on Haruo now after seeing just exactly how Haruo went off on Jared Frio. He knew that Haruo was a blue belt in kung fu and he had pretty much made Jared eat pavement, not to mention Jared still suffered headaches and nightmares that had him waking up screaming according to Claire Ursine who lived across the street from the Frio Brothers.
He could not take his eyes off River reaching up to Haruo's face with the palm of her hand and seeing both of them fall into a passionate kiss which made his stomach churn and his heart fall to pieces. For Parker had an unrequited crush on River McIrish. She was the girl he knew that was head and shoulders above everyone else; the girl he had always aspired to have on his arm; the smart pretty girl.
But cruel fate had intervened and ended up taking away any chance of him ever having that opportunity of doing so. Three words burned into his psyche at that moment. River was Haruo's - they were destined for each other and nothing of this earth would separate the two. Parker sighed deeply, almost mournfully as he walked away not wanting to continue to look upon that painful scene.
Back on the Beach
"So did you want to head over to Hogan's now? Feeling kinda hungry?" Haruo asked.
River looked at her watch on her wrist, It was almost one in the afternoon and she started to hear the first rumbles of complaint from her stomach that it just might be a tad annoyed at her. She nodded as she looked over at Haruo. Had she been sketching for over an hour and a half since they'd left the art shop and walked down to the beach. Getting up off the beach chair, she said to Haruo, "I'm hungry, let's go eat out."
Haruo grinned back at her. "Hogan's or the Central Park Festival Food Kiosks?"
River narrowed her eyes and said archly, "I don't care which...I'm hungry!" She smirked at him. "Feed me." She took his arm after placing her sketch book and pencils back in the bag and they both walked towards the exit from the beach.
The walk back up the hill was a major pain as the road was, at least calculating rise over run, a 36% grade. Normally the town planners would have dealt with the potential problems it could cause. It was evident they were asleep on that day.
Haruo and River were definitely relieved to walk past EverFresh Delights Supermarket as the hill was quite steep coming back up from the beach. In fact Haruo thought the hill was steeper than Oxford Street in White Rock though it could be that the latter had far more distance needing to be covered in order to climb it. Hell, it could even be steeper than 100th Avenue rising from 272nd Street in Whonnock. Haruo thought, having walked that hill once or twice when Mayumi got the bright idea that her son should get some exercise; the sadistic bat.
He would much rather enjoy his afternoon and appease his rather famished stomach.
"You know what?" River advised him. Haruo looked at her in response and River continued, "why don't we just make it easier on ourselves and get a meal at the food kiosks? That hike up the hill made me hungry and I'm not sure if I'm up to heading all the way down to Hogans."
Haruo was perfectly fine with that idea. He was all for eating sooner. When they got to the kiosk, they each ordered onion rings, a pulled pork sandwich and a Pepsi-Cola. After all, they were famished and hot. The cola would cool them down. And they would figure out how to spend the rest of the day.
The rest of the day was spent in the park with River pulling out her sketch book again and sketching scenes that she would later commit to canvas with daubs of paint. Around eight o'clock in the evening, River packed up her sketch book and they headed off to the art store to pick up the items that she'd bought and the store called them a cab.
It would mean waiting, amidst the closing procedures of the store, at least fifteen minutes for the cab to arrive before they would be able to be on their way home.
Haruo brought the easel into River's side of the duplex they would set it up tomorrow. All the canvases were stacked in the corner of her room and she had brought the rest of her other purchases. "Thank you for coming with me..." River murmured as she moved in close to her boyfriend who smiled at her.
"It was worth it to spend time with you." Haruo said. Every moment that he had with her was a moment that he would cherish.
River leaned up and kissed him slowly wrapping her arms around him and drawing her body close to him, letting him smell her light perfume that she was wearing...just for him.
Reluctantly they parted for the pretense of his mother and father and having to take precautions to not be caught when they were sleeping in the same bed together at night.
Outside Hogan’s
"Look, Parker, Mom told me that you were out here moping instead of going to business school like you’re supposed to, What’s going on, what gives?" His dad looked sympathetic, but aggravated at the lack of motivation that his son was putting out in terms of trying to do what was needed to get ahead in life.
Parker let out a deep breath. His dad already had someone; tied down and happily married, while Parker didn’t have anyone. Yeah, sure, Parker could have anyone he chose, he was one of the popular kids in the school and girls were lining up, nearly tripping over themselves to date him, but the one he wanted was River and she was the one whom he couldn’t obtain. River was so easy-going however she knew what she wanted and where she was going and lately she'd made it clear that she was interested in no-one other than Haruo and when Parker had made some advances towards her, she had shut him down as kindly as she could. Look, Parker, you’re a nice guy...but you’re not the one that’s right for me. I really do hope that you find someone who’s good to you. And to top it all off, Haruo wasn’t someone he wanted to get on the wrong side of especially after hearing what happened to the older Frio brother.
And as much as he'd tried to make it seem as though he wasn't interested in who River McIrish dated, he was heartbroken. She was graduating this year and he still had an year to go, since he hadn’t buckled down and failed a grade. That made it so much tougher to swallow. He wasn’t graduating with his peers and he’d fallen an year behind not to mention losing the girl he had the biggest crush on.
“Son, you need to knock off with the moping. Losing a girl isn’t the end of the world, but it will be if you neglect your studies.” Dustin stated with some annoyance. “You need to find out what’s important in life and losing your future because of a girl isn’t the smartest move to make, is it?”
“Dad, you don’t understand...” Parker stated.
“Look, Parker, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. Look hard enough, and you’ll be bound to catch one.” Easy for his dad to say when he was married to someone, even if the marriage was on rocky ground. Lately Iliana had been straying with her eyes, if not her body and there was plenty of people who were talking about her dissatisfaction with the status quo of her husband just being a lowly education assistant, essentially someone who sat on the stairs outside and minded the kids. Diana was a toddler, Kaelynn was in elementary school and Parker was in high-school.
“What’s the point?” Parker asked morosely, “When you let the 15 pounder get away, you’ve lost it all...” he muttered, “If only she’d..."
Dustin interrupted Parker before he could really get going in his misery, "You’re not going to get anywhere by sitting on your rear-end and moping about it. What about that Hart kid?" he asked, not giving Parker any time to respond to the castigation.
"Bebe?"
"That's Gus and Dorie's kid, right?" Dustin looked up at the sky crinkling his brow for a long moment and scratching his chin, then gave Parker a contemplative look.
"...yeah..." Parker replied with a tone of non-committal. He wasn't interested. Bebe was a nice girl, but she had this weird thing about technology that he didn't really understand. He wished his father would drop the subject; plus she was already interested in the other Chikamori kid, Torao and he’d seen them walking hand in hand yesterday at school. Too late on that prospect too. “No...she’s hooked up with Torao...so she’s gone too...and she’s older than Torao...so...”
“Look, Parker, someone will come along...”
Parker snorted skeptically. His father was entirely too positive for his station in life after seventeen years. If he’d applied himself to what he had to do, his dad would have been the principal of that school and not that evil witch, Mrs. M. Chikamori who was constantly in the hallways castigating those whom she considered miscreants.
(End Part 1)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
River go all in with the artistic materials, crazy how big that sketch looks compared to her.
Sorry Parker move on and get a life of you own, she is taken!
Love Haruo underpants
Generation One
Chapter Six
"Life Around The Chikamori House" (Part Two)
Chikamori Triplex
Before River and Haruo went home, from hanging out at the park after finishing their homework, Haruo and River decided that it was in their best interests to consign all the croaking amphibians they’d managed to hook on the line at Central Park to the Elixir Shop. Mr Joseph, first name Moses, ran the shop and was a portly gentleman with unruly hair who had a ready smile for his customers as they came in to dispose of their wares.
He had a merry “Hello, Haruo; Hello River...” his booming voice carried clear to the door.
“Hello, Mr. Joseph, we’ve got some more toads.” River cheerily grinned at him.
“Oh...wonderful...” he rubbed his hands, “I’ll add them to the collection of toads we have on consignment.” He casually looked over the toads that Haruo and River had caught and nodded, “They seem to be quite the specimens.” Examining their size, the number of warts, the colour and the moistness of the flesh of the toad. River and Haruo had placed the catch in a cooler with pond water. “I’m very certain Mistress Matilda will like this one...” He didn’t elaborate as to who this particular person was and why she was collecting toads. No matter. If it improved Haruo and River’s fishing skill and kept them in fish, so much the better.
“All caught today...” Haruo informed him.
“Spectacular...” Mr. Joseph stated as he looked over the specimens. “They’ll be in the perfect state for the clients that wish them.”
Haruo nodded. “Great, then. We’ll see you tomorrow...with some more fresh ones.”
“Stupendous, I’ll be looking forward to it. You two have a good evening now...”
Haruo was startled looking at his watch. It was almost seven thirty in the evening. But at least their homework was done and they were headed back across the street to their house.
“River,” Haruo said to her as they both crossed the street heading towards the gate, “I know you’re probably gonna want to paint something, so...” He trailed off.
River smiled softly at him, “Yeah...I’ve been antsy all day thinking about the easel and I want to try it out. You don’t mind do you?” she looked at him searching for any annoyance at not being together for that evening. “I’ll see you at bedtime...” she looked at him, extending a hand to caress his forearm.
Haruo grinned at her, “I plan to do some writing tonight...so it’s a deal, see you at bedtime.” Kissing each other at the gate, they went their separate ways to their respective suites.
Haruo slid into his room, grabbed a blank notebook and started back downstairs. His dad was still in the kitchen finishing reading a gardening skill book, looked up from his chair as Haruo sat down beside him and said quietly, "Yūshoku wa reizōko ni aru. Tabete ne. (Your dinner is in the fridge. Make sure you eat, ok?)"
"I will, Dad, Thanks." Haruo gave his father a smile to which his father nodded in acquiesence; his son was nearly a young adult, he could do as he needed. "Nerumae ni hon no sukoshi kaki hajimeru. (I'm going to start writing my book before bed)" he informed his dad.
"Haruo-kun, osokumade amari okinaide ne. Nemuri ga hitsuyō ne. (Haruo, son, Don't stay up too late, OK? Sleep is important)." his dad stated as he turned to go to the elevator to wait.
"Yes, Dad..." Haruo nodded as he headed downstairs to the kitchen. Eating his meal and then opening up his notebook he pored over his plan of what to write. He really needed a computer for this to be able to do what he needed to do quickly and efficiently. But he didn't have the money to buy some fancy new computer; his dad was working in the gardening career and that didn’t bring in much and he wasn’t about to ask his dad to buy him a computer. Nor would his mother even bother lifting a hand to help him. She’d probably tell him to find some other occupation that would bring in money even if it didn’t suit him at all.
So after eating sushi, he decided to plan out his book. That way he could make some head-way on what he would formulate the outline for what he wanted to do with the direction of what his book was going to t: was he going to write a controversial novel or spill-all or keep it tame and for general audiences? What would he title it? Would it be something that people would want to read? All of these questions were hard to answer but he decided to sit and ponder the whole situation very carefully. If he wasn't careful on how he presented his first entry into the hallowed halls of literary prowess, his first foray would quickly become his last and his career as a writer would be dead in the water.
So what could he write about? It certainly wasn't-something that was going to be easy to put pen to paper and have a decent amount of stuff to publish if he could not find a subject to wax eloquent.
In the end, he was no further ahead then when he started.
Outside the Chikamori Home
Meanwhile during the time that Haruo was trying to figure out what subject his first ever book was going to be about; Mayumi was abducted by aliens; your stereotypical green-skinned, pointy eared variety. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. ~sarcasm~. Watcher: I'm sure the aliens won't be abducting her again.
When she was returned to her home planet, the aliens left her in haste, so hastily in fact, they forgot one of their own, one Qedef Qomiphash, the poor green guy stuck planet-side with a psychotic human female.
Qedef: "Where the hell are you going? You a******s!!!!"
Qedef: "Come back here, you green pieces of slime!!! Oh man, I’m so royally screwed."
They were not going to make the mistake of taking a blood sample - the likelihood of them all getting skewered by their own needles and being turned into green pin-cushions was very high. The sooner they got rid of that sleep-wear-adorned, deranged harridan even if it meant leaving one of their own to be poked, prodded and surgically experimented on , the happier those aliens were going to be. King Zlar'keyd'yoop of Galaxsima would not get overthrown, at least on their watch. Their ship made two points past light-speed and it was pedal to the metal all the way home. That encounter with a human was frightening. Was this true of all Canadians? Were they all psycho underneath that polite mask? If the Canadians found out that aliens existed would they get beaten to death with hockey sticks and pummelled with hockey pucks?
Maybe it was safer to just stick to ol'Jud Pickins off Route 66 in New Mexico. He may be an alcoholic hallucinating ol'coot but at least he wasn't as crazy as that old maple-leaf bat they'd just tried to pick up.
Mayumi was confused and agitated; a typical response for an alien abduction. After all when you are wandering around in your sleep-clothes, do you worry about alien abduction replete with alien probes in places unmentionable? It would be an unpleasant surprise. Maybe it might put her in a better disposition. Maybe it might cause her to re-evaluate how she was behaving and cause her to have a change of heart; maybe even treat people better.
Mayumi: "If I get my hands on that no-good-for-nothing slimy green alien I'm going to make sure he doesn't reproduce again!!!"
Qedem Qomiphash: ~gulp~ "oh...oh..." Qedem Qomiphash felt a slight trickle of moisture south of his midsection – That was going to make life difficult, did these humans know how to clean alien effluent from alien fabrics. It certainly wasn’t going to come out with Tide...they tried after robbing a AM PM on Hallowe’en the last visit.
Qedem: "I want to go home..." He looked over at the enraged woman, Maybe I can sneak past her...and get away.
Mayumi was incandescent, practically tap-dancing with rage. How dare those presumptuous alien creeps violate her, the esteemed educator in such heinous fashion. Did they even know who they were dealing with? She was going to do horrific things to them as soon as she revived from her stupor.
When she regained her wits enough to turn around, she realized that the majority of the greens were gone. Long gone and beyond the reach of her pitiful attempts at reprisal. She was disappointed until she cast her eyes upon a lone alien who was right behind her. Practically defenceless.
Uttering a caackle of malicious glee that nearly chilled Qedem to the bone, she cackled, "Oh...look what we have here...a little green far away from home..."
Qedem felt more moisture trickling into his undergarments. Perhaps that caf wasn't something that he should have drunk before joining his team on the surface. "Oh...no..." he muttered under his breath. Wasting no time in stripping off his armoured spacesuit, he stripped to his undergarments.
"Better start running, green..." her glare was malevolent.
The rhino’s charge made Qedem let out a small scream of terror and he whirled, running away as quickly as he could, which was a minor trot with all the snorting and wheezing coming from behind him, there was no way that she could catch up...if he let out his top speed. As it was he would prefer to conserve energy. And somehow he managed to get away from that Canuck harridan.
The fact that she couldn’t catch that green-pointy-eared alien infuriated Mayumi so much that she stomped back into the house ignoring a grateful Haruo and went up to bed still incensed by the fact that she had been so rudely violated by those whom she'd deemed so unworthy of her.
Haruo finally finished his planning of his book and went to bed, only to be woken up again not more than three hours later when Mayumi started screaming about the fact that there were dusty footprints on the floor of the kitchen. Poor River had to hide under the blankets of the bed and since Mayumi was on the warpath; she never even noticed and River escaped unscathed while Haruo was bellowing at Mayumi at the door. Apparently she had forgotten that she was the last person outside that day. And thus annoyed he told Mayumi to fix the problem herself, slammed the door in her face and went back to bed for another two hours.
.Oh, that incensed Mayumi to no end.
(End Part Two)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Generation One
Chapter Six
"Life Around The Chikamori House" (Part Three)
Central Park, Summer Festival - Next Morning
Bebe looked for her friend, Holly, at the park, she was by the Weather-stone; and she looked miserable. “Spill...” was the first word that came out of Bebe’s mouth.
“It’s Parker’s 🐸🐸🐸🐸 moping over River. It started when Haruo formalized his relationship with River and it snowballed from there.” Holly said, “I don’t know whether to kick Parker's 🐸🐸🐸🐸 or just break up with him over it. I just want to put him out of my misery.” she muttered acidly, “I thought we had something together, but with his pining over River McIrish...” she spat out the two words of the name like something unpleasant. “I don’t know if I can take it any more. To him, she’s Ms. Perfect and I’m getting sick of it. I like River, but when she’s the invisible third wheel in my relationship with Parker...it’s annoying.”
“We need to take care of this once and for all...” Bebe agreed. “Look, let’s go talk with Parker...if all else fails we can just pound some sense into him.”
Holly snorted, “Ethan’s about ready to do it...”
Bebe smirked at her, “The more the merrier...” The two young women stalked over to Parker "Hey, Parker, a word with you. Look, you need to knock off the pining over River, Look, Parker, you hardly looked at her for the entirety of high school." Bebe looked at him with an expression of utter disbelief as she stared at him after he'd stated his case, "You treated her as if she wasn't even there. What did you think she was going to do? Fall into your arms willingly and go 'oh Parker, you're the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me. Take me away and ravish me.'?"
By this time to Parker's annoyance Ethan Bunch was rolling on the ground at Bebe's sarcastic comment. And Bebe just had to rub salt in the wound. Parker's mouth twisted into a sour expression.
"Yeah, Parker, I'm sure she'd have an opinion about that." Holly looked over at Parker, her clipped tone telling Parker that she wasn’t impressed by his pining in the slightest, "I'm really sure that she'd want to be Miss. Ravishing Debutante hanging off your arm as a walking accessory and not have an opinion about any topics whatsoever."
"Who says I'd do that?" Parker sounded aggrieved. "Why would I do that?"
Ethan Bunch looked at him, "Hey, Hoser, you do that already in class, you always block out whoever is talking and try to talk over them."
"Do not..."
"Do too, you 🐸🐸🐸🐸-nozzle"
"You ever stop, bender?" Parker asked.
"Hey, at least I get off the bench, duster. They need to get the pan and broom and take some of those cobwebs off'ya, eh?" Ethan snickered.
"Shut up, hosehead. Good try last game in April? Eh, did a celly on an own-goal, ya goof!" Parker sniped, "Other team's goal is that way. Need a seeing eye-dog, eh? Next time, use your stick for a cane. Maybe you might find the right net. Gettin' chirped so hard, it's gotta burn, man..."
"Kinda hard when the goalie's blocking glove side, ya loser." Ethan gave back as good as he got, "I've heard better chirps out of a dead bird, eh."
"Bite me!" Parker gave Ethan the middle finger. "You on the other hand were going 'what the hell, ref, every time he blew when you stumbled off-side with the puck." Parker pantomimed flipping through a book. "Might wanna look up off-side in the rule book? Bunch, Doesn't mean what you think it does. It doesn't mean you can skate past the other team's icing-line before you get a whistle, hoser."
"The upshot is..." Bebe interrupted the hockey talk, "You weren't going to get anywhere with River and you're not going to get anywhere with her now, that she's dating. So like it or not, Parker, you're gonna have to deal with it."
Parker heaved a big sigh and muttered more to himself than anyone else, "I know, it just doesn't make it any easier."
At this Bebe looked away from him rolling her eyes skyward muttering "Watcher help me, I'm about two seconds from ripping him a new cavity on his posterior end.
Holly took a deep breath, paused for a long moment counting to ten before opening her mouth again affixing him with a serious stare that Parker realized had daggers behind it, "And Parker..." she gave him an aggrieved look, "...and what do you think I have to say about it? I thought we were dating?" She glared at him, "I think we should take a serious look at our relationship if you keep pining over Ms. Perfect!"
Ethan, by this time, was nearly rolling on the ground in stitches.
"Hey...shut up, 🐸🐸🐸🐸!" Parker snapped at him.
“Seriously, buttmunch, you need to take a serious look at what you’re doing to what you have with Holly...” Ethan said, not a trace of humour in his voice. “You hurt Holly and I’m gonna hurt you.”
Parker looked at the ground then over at Torao... “Hey... you got an opinion? Seems like everyone else volunteered theirs.”
Torao shrugged his shoulders. “My cousin’s got River. You muck up things with Holly, you’re an idiot and I’ll be helping Ethan beat the living tar out of you. So why don’t you go apologize to Holly for making her feel like she's being two-timed?” Torao looked over at Holly who looked like she wanted a piece out of Parker already. "Look you got a great girl in Holly, don't screw it up."
Chikamori Side of the Triplex
"OH FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!" Satoshi exclaimed. Fluent enough in English unlike his older brother, Yasunobu, from all his travels, exclamations in English were more prevalent for him. After all some exclamations of exasperation had no equal in Japanese. The sink geysered and Satoshi had to fix the leak before it flooded the entire main floor of the Triplex. Grabbing a wrench he went to work on shutting off the water main connection to the house then he had to get in with the nitty-gritty and start replacing pipe underneath the sink. This was going to be a royal pain in the posterior end. The hardware store had a p-trap connector of 1 1/2"
Satoshi knew that he would have to get the sink fixed before heading off to work. And it was going to be a chore and a half to complete; it would probably take a good three to five hours of scrambling to different hardware shops, trying to find the proper sized PVC fittings as well as the appropriate welding glue. The various pipe joins had to be estimated. He grumbled to himself, "This is supposed to be a brand new house!" Already there were problems; things were amiss like duct-work not giving proper ventilation which Mayumi conveniently pawned off on Satoshi to repair despite the fact that he had a job; sometimes electrical didn't work and that necessitated rewiring.
He wondered if he should just get himself ticketed as an all-around electrician/plumber/carpenter. Then he could at least be paid handsomely for the jobs he did because he wasn't making all that much as a stagehand in the music career and that was pretty much all he was doing: fixing electrical work, putting up staging (carpentry) and plumbing,- installing waterworks for the section of stage that needed it.
Frankly, Satoshi was disgusted, not only had the sink geysered thanks to corroded washers due to the fact that they had been installed incorrectly making a slow leak until the washer had snapped causing the resultant Old Faithful shower he'd received that morning., the PVC pipe had fractured at the bottom causing the resultant deluge of food remnants, smelly old dish water and other assorted detritus that had been originally trapped in the P-trap causing a backlog which was one of the reasons why the sink wasn't draining as fast as it should be. Normally all this stuff would have been shoved along the pipe out to the requisite sewer system in place by the township of Sunset Valley, however the logjam in the P-trap was caused by a defect in the pipe causing a logjam backing up the entire drainage system right at the P-trap.
Oh, Satoshi was having a really great day; he was so happy to learn this. They should actually be calling the guy who had originally done the plumbing at the time of build to do it but Mayumi was the type that expected every one else to suffer; not those directly responsible for the foul-up in the first place. After all, why inconvenience a certified trades-person whom she might have to call on for work needing to be done up to code when the inspectors were planning on doing an inspection, when her family was there and could be put to use. Otherwise they would just be eating her out of house and home with nothing to show for her hard efforts.
From eight to just before eleven in the morning, Satoshi laboured to fix the sink and finally got everything working. Finally he had time to breathe and partake in some brunch that he'd sorely missed that morning and this was just a grilled sandwich; not much of a brunch and a steaming hot cup of coffee, but at least something to take the edge off the hunger. "At least the 🐸🐸🐸🐸 fuse didn't go on the stove".he muttered to himself as he munched on the sandwich. Since his shift started at four in the afternoon, he had the opportunity to clean his plate and put it away. Otherwise Mayumi would have a complete conniption fit over a single dish left in the sink. Silly cow. He opted after to just get changed into work clothes and spend the hours before work over at the Central Park watching the goings-on at the Summer Festival.
(End Part Three)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Generation One
Chapter Six
"Life Around The Chikamori House" (Part Four)
McIrish Side of the Triplex
River was upstairs in her room along with Haruo as she was testing out the artists supplies. Together they had assembled her new easel and got it to function the way it was meant to. She planned to use her sketch done yesterday at the beach as a reference image for a beach scene done in oils that she hoped would look as alive as she'd managed to make it in sketch-form. The nice thing about pencil sketches was that not only were they good reference sources drawn from one's own artistic vision but also, as pencils, could be erased to correct a flaw. When she had to do the oil painting, she would get one chance to get a flawless painting.
River was certainly enjoying the new tools of her artistic career choice. She looked over at Haruo who had his head buried in a notebook busily scrawling away. "You look busy, sweetheart." River commented.
"Yup", Haruo replied, a bit preoccupied with his task at hand, scribbling industriously, "I have an idea for a book..." he trailed off as he continued the movements of his pen on paper. Every so often, he'd pause, look as though he was cogitating a thought, then go back to scribbling more lines of prose. River grinned in response. Haruo had always been an A-student in English 12. His creative writing had always earned him in the high nineties if not a perfect score of one hundred percent of any graded creative writing assignment. His acumen for the written phrase was second to none. Evidently Haruo was serious about a writing career and doing everything that he could do to make it a reality.
It would behoove them to get computers, River thought, when they had enough money to do so, and Haruo would need a large capacity hard drive in order to have enough space for all his research. But as far as MS-DOS was concerned that would be a problem. Frankly Wordperfect was starting to take market-share from WordStar and thus would dominate in a world that was starting to make the switch to IBM PC. River figured that would probably be the wise route to go.
River smiled again to herself; already she was thinking as if they were together as a couple long-since married; that they were pooling their money together: it's not his money or my money; it's OUR money she thought. She looked at her finger surreptitiously so that Haruo wouldn't notice and wishing that there was a ring on that finger already. It was a pleasant thought to think of herself as already spoken for. Come to think of it, River had pondered that Haruo had been a bit cagey about his reasons for going downtown so early in the morning yesterday. Did he have something in his pocket? Well she'd just have to wait and not ruin his surprise. She wasn't certain for sure, but it had to be something.
She had looked deep within herself to see if she could picture spending the rest of her life with him and her answer was a resounding YES with no hesitation at all. When he would pop the question; despite the witch of a mother in the background, he was worth it. And she would say "yes" wholeheartedly to linking her life with Haruo. He'd always been by her side; her constant friend for the past fifteen years so it was a natural progression from boyfriend/girlfriend to engaged-to-be-married and she was looking forward to moving along that path in their relationship.
Haruo, on the other hand, was working his way through a rather tough part of his story, completely unaware of the conjugal thoughts trickling through the synapses of River's head. Furrowing his brow, he followed the outline that he'd so painstakingly prepared the night before. With the direction of the plot in place it was a matter of writing connect-the-dots and having his characters work towards the ending while he, as the author, got to throw in red-herrings, plot-twists and other malodorous situations to forestall the eventual demise of the villains in the story as well as a few of the protagonist's sidekicks along the way. Making sure to milk the suspense for as long as possible but to not have the plot course affected to the point where the plot got thrown out the window was certainly a problematic situation but that came with the territory of being a writer.
River hoped that Haruo would have a successful career as a writer and she believed in him. After all, their family would need two incomes to make ends meet. They would work together as a team to make that a reality. River looked over with affection as she saw Haruo writing copious amounts of text in his notebook as he made progress through the novel he was penning. She thought that certainly was an industrious level of activity that he was exhibiting. She smiled again as she turned back to her own painting and continued to transfer details from her sketch at the beachside to the canvas in preparation for application of oils.
By the time that they were hungry enough to take a break for a late brunch around two in the afternoon, River had managed to get the details and start to arrange the oil paint tubes in preparation for the palette. Her selection of paint that she chose was a selection of sand, blue, grey, greens and other selections of colours that would compliment the landscape she was planning on painting. The individual colours would line the edges while the center would be where the colours would mix in order to achieve gradient of colours to signify shadow or light on the surface of the object. A must for the palette was white since that would inevitably be mixed to create lighter solutions for a certain colour while black would darken the shade. And that was the constant difficulty with paints as you had to know what colour would mix with another to make a certain shade of purple or pink or whatever colour.
River sighed; she'd insist that when they built their dream home that they have a dedicated studio so that they could keep all their crafts in that one area. Haruo would have his office where he could do his writing while she would have a cupboard in her space to store paints, thinners, canvases and other artist's items. To the side she would have a tablesaw and a router table so that she could custom frame her paintings. The thought of having such a place was appealing.
Chikamori's Side of the Triplex
At 6:30 in the afternoon, Mayumi stomped into the house, out of sorts and looking for a fight. Even though school was out Teacher Development Days were still in effect until the end of the month before she would be allowed to take her own summer holidays. If that wasn't irritating enough she had to contend with teacher evaluations that would determine if the faculty would retain the services of teachers who they found their teaching capabilities less than effective. To be called into the office of the district supervisor for Education and be told that they would be re-evaluating her performance as an educator this coming year if deciding to retain her services once her contract with that school was up was absolutely infuriating. Spot checks, as the age group of her students was too young to assign them evaluations of their own to complete as these would go beyond the "Did you like your teacher?" "Do you feel you learned something in her class?" All they'd get out of students barely past the age of preschool would be a wide-eyed nod and a " uh-huh" which would prove to be completely useless in any objective evaluation of a teacher's teaching abilities.
But of course to a narcissist like Mayumi, this kind of thorough evaluation of her ability or lack of was abjectly humiliating and infuriating. What right did the foul-up of a school board administrator think he was doing subjecting her to humiliation like that? He was a lesser being than her. He should be grovelling at her feet in abject obeisance begging her to continue to teach those snivelling little toe-lickers. How dare he think he had the right to cast judgement upon her perfection; her flawless performance. Frankly they should all be begging her for pointers on how to keep their classrooms in check, considering the rabble that pervaded their classes. One could hear the cacophony three hall ways over. She'd shut them up in an instant and then they would all cower in fear. Oh she would remember this, District Supervisor Don Mahoney, just you wait you bloviated sack of excrement. You will rue the day you crossed Mayumi the Great and Powerful.
She stomped into the living-room, heavy steps shaking the house, looking for her favourite scapegoat to persecute. She nearly screamed in outrage. Her miserable excuse for a kid had disappeared somewhere and was nowhere to be found for Mayumi to make his life an absolute misery. Thus she had no-one to take out her frustrations on which only served to put Mayumi in an even worse mood.
Poor Yasunobu after stopping outside to pay the bills after returning from outside after a day of hard work trying to harvest the plants and make sure that the fruits were ready to be sold, walked into a 🐸🐸🐸🐸-storm of epic proportions at around seven exactly. There was no excuse for jumping a hard-working Yasunobu like that but Mayumi did not care and she went off on him like a tactical nuclear warhead. What transpired was an argument that lasted three hours, which Fiona upon returning overheard and knocked gently on River's door to let her know that Haruo and River should prepare the extra room upstairs so that Haruo could stay the night. Fiona wasn't going to allow him to go back to a home that night that was in the midst of an argument that threatened to get violent.
Yasunobu, by about the three and a half hour mark, had finally had enough. "Kusobaba!" He roared, "musuko zettai gomi ni atsukatte, boku ga anatanomikata naru to kitai sho-ka? Bakayaro ka? (Stupid woman, you treat our son like garbage, yet you expect me to back you? Are you stupid?)"
Mayumi sputtered in outrage. She'd never been spoken like that to by her husband. She'd extremely miscalculated the fact that she'd thought of him as a milquetoast always willing to do her bidding. She shrieked, "Dōshita sonani boku ni hanasu ka! (How dare you speak in that way to me!)"
"Aete, anata no musuko o jūbun gyakutai shita. Atama yokattanara, zutto mae ni anata to rikon surubeki ja, musuko o tsurete Nihon ni kairubeki ja ta.(I dare, you've abused your son enough. if I had been smart I'd have divorced you a long time ago and took my son with me back to Japan but that choice is no longer mine) Shikashi, sono sentaku mohaya boku no monode dewanai!"
Mayumi's look of hate was enough for Yasunobu,"aMohaya jibun jishin kappuru to minasanai koto saizandekin kara tabun, korekara wa betsu heya neru kata ii da ne. (It's better if we no longer consider ourselves a couple from now on and maybe it would be better if we slept in separate rooms)."
"Kore wa wasurenai yo! (I'm not going to forget this!)". She screeched.
"Kitai shinaide!" Yasunobu snapped, "(I wouldn't expect you to!)" and walked out of the living room and upstairs to pack his things in order to move his stuff out of the room that he formerly shared with Mayumi.
Mayumi shook with rage, seeing red, stomping outside, she let out a screeching howl of anger. How dare this pathetic worm of a husband stand up to her; Mayumi the Great. Did the pathetic little louse realize just what he was doing? How dare he tell Mayumi that he was going to split up with her. She had expected to do that to him if anything. She was outraged that he had taken the initiative to move out of her room and into a private room at the other end of the second floor. Mayumi would have the entire room, Yasunobu had just vacated, to herself but that didn't appease her any. Where did he learn to have the backbone to stand up to her like that? She needed to find out and stamp it out before everyone else got the bright idea of rebellion. Mayumi was so enraged, she vowed to make Yasunobu’s and everyone else’s life a living hell.
By the time that Yasunobu retreated upstairs, Satoshi had come home from work, noting that Yasunobu was not usually sitting at the dinner table, he headed upstairs to find out what was the matter. Hearing noise coming from the spare bedroom, he poked his nose in the room. Mayumi was already in what was now her room sulking.
"Nani ga okota node-ka? (Shpuld I ask what's going on?) Satoshi asked clearly rattled by the sight of his brother's now room and the possessions of his that he was slowly moving in to the room. He wondered what was going on as his brother looked rather angry and frustrated.
"Mayumi to bunru suru. (I'm separating from Mayumi)" Yasunobu said shortly, but then elaborated. "Suiteiru san-kai shinshitsu idō suru to, kanojo ni-kai ni tomaru. (I will move to the third floor; she will stay on the second) Kanojo musuko hihan suru hodo boku gaman shinai. (My wife criticises my son and I won't put up with it.)"
"Hihan suru? Karakatteru no. Tsuma anata no musuko o hihan shita dakedanai gyakutai shimashita, Yasukun! (Criticize? Are you kidding me? Your wife has been abusing your son, not just criticizing!)".
Yasunobu nodded, he knew that he had given Mayumi too much slack in her leash and in doing so; he'd created a monster who thought she was a goddess whodeserved to be exalted by all those around her and he was paying the price for his blindness.
"Bunri yoi daiippodeahou. Musuko hahaoya ni gyakutai sarenai yō ni suru hitsuyō ne (Separation is a good first step but you're also going to have to make sure your son no longer has to be abused by his mother.), "Satoshi pointed out to his brother.
"Watashi shi-teiru, Satoshi, Haruo; kare saru koto ga dekiru jidai ni chikazuiteru. Umaku ikeba, kare wa shin'yū to shiawase mitsukeru koto ga dekiru. (I know, Satoshi, Haruo is getting to the age where he is able to leave the nest. Hopefully he can find happiness with a close friend.)" Yasunobu said smiling a slow grin. "Kimochi ga aru River to issho ni nareba totte yoi pātonā desho. (i have a feeling that River, if they get together, will be a good partner for him)" Yasunobu thought after letting Satoshi know that hopefully, Haruo and River would figure it out for themselves.
Satoshi was in agreement and he figured that Haruo and River were destined for each other. He'd seen how close the two of them were and that pairing was no coincidence. River had the strength and internal fortitude to stand up to anything Mayumi could dish out at them and that River would block any attempts of Mayumi's to get at her son. But it didn't stop him from wishing that Mayumi would meet her end in some painful fashion. It would be a fate for that evil hag that was richly deserved.
(End Chapter Six)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Sub blogs: #01 Sunset Valley. #02: Lake Onebega #03: Sprottenham #04: Bewickton
Generation One
Chapter Seven - "Haruo and River"
(Part One)
Chikamori Side of the Triplex
Well, no one ever said mornings were dull at the Chikamori/McIrish residence. In fact mornings were exceedingly early as the Chikamori family and their friends who lived at the same address went to sleep early and got up very early in the morning. Which was why Molly was in the Chikamori’s kitchen looking to make cinnamon rolls at 12:35 in the morning. Despite the fact that the appliances looked new, they were second-hand thanks to Mayumi cutting corners on the purchase giving orders to the contractors that they were to look for the cheapest possible price on the appliances. So thus half the appliances worked and the other half were just for show. Mornings generally were calm however things got heated when Molly, needing to use some good appliances to cook breakfast came over clad in her nightie which made Mayumi see red; not just at the interruption, but at Molly's presumptuous disregard for proper etiquette, dress and deportment around the oh so high and mighty Mayumi Chikamori; educator extraordinaire and highly regarded as being beyond the capacity of mere mortals such as the rest of her plebeian family and those whom they associated with. To her her family's friends didn't even register on the human scale let alone uneducated peon scale.
Hearing noises in the kitchen in the middle of the night or early in the morning; take your pick, Mayumi had gone downstairs to see what the noise was all about. Exiting the elevator she looked left.
Mayumi couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her appliances, her bowls, her mixing spoon...all of which was being touched by the little plebeian hands of that little tart next door. What exactly in the Sam Hills was this?
Mayumi saw Molly using her oven and went ballistic: stark-raving, bug-eyed, frothing at the mouth insane. "ARE YOU A TRAMP?!"she screeched at the top of her lungs while waving her hands in the air.
Molly looked at her as if Mayumi was psycho.
"Excuse me, I addressed you!" If Mayumi's voice was any shriller and louder, she could out-scream a fire engine. "The least you could do is answer, or are you as dimwitted as you are a tramp?!" Yes, Mayumi was making friends and influencing people. When the only response Mayumi got out of Molly was a raised eyebrow and a curled lip punctuating a sneer, Mayumi exploded, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?! You Botoxed street-walking harlot!"
"Just what...did you say to me?" ...luckily, Molly hadn't turned the stove-top on to make pancakes yet and she dropped the spatula on the frying pan. She looked at Mayumi with a disdainful look. "I dare you to say that again."
"Oh, I dare, you miserable 🐸🐸🐸🐸, first you walk into my house dressed like you got out of someone's bed ." Mayumi snapped. "Then you prance around in my kitchen nearly stark 🐸🐸🐸🐸 naked. You are nothing more than a worthless pole-swinging tart!" Mayumi screeched. "I think you'd drop trou for every-".
That was all Mayumi could get out before a resounding smack was heard as Molly's fist connected with Mayumi's face. The cat fight was on and Molly got in several good stomps on Mayumi's fingers which caused Mayumi to shriek in pain which brought down the rest of the family including Yasunobu and Satoshi who tried to figure out if he should cheer on Molly whom he had a major crush on. Satoshi nearly cheered Molly when she gave Mayumi a good solid uppercut, the crack of clenched fist meeting jaw pretty much made Mayumi see stars. Satoshi thought it was a pity that bag didn't get a concussion. Then Molly slapped the ever-lovin' crap out of Mayumi which seemed to be the right idea since Mayumi deserved a good slapping.
Mayumi was enraged and was in the midst of a tirade against Molly when Fiona came over from the McIrish side of the triplex trying to figure out just exactly what the ruckus was about that had awoken her. Mayumi screeched, "You people best remember that this is MY house..." Fiona decided not to interject herself into this argument and stood to the side listening and waiting for an opening but far enough away that she wouldn't get hurt if things got heated.
"Excuse me...you witch, this is YOUR THIRD of the house...not the whole house...Fiona paid for one-third of this home and the Harts have the other third!" Molly interjected heatedly as she got in Mayumi's face and threatened to make her into a pretzel.
"But it was MY Husband's good credit that got us that mortgage! So I'd shut your yap if I were you..." Mayumi hissed venomously as she got in a mean scowl. "Because we can take it all back if you aren't careful and I wouldn't care if you seven became homeless. It would serve you tramps right." Mayumi huffed and wiped her shoulder at Molly as if she was some disgusting bit of garbage that had been deposited on her neck.
That did it for Molly: the insults that she endured from Mayumi; the condescension and worst of all, the simple fact that this pathetic excuse for a human being would just as soon cast her son, her husband, her cousin and his son, and the rest of them out including her and her daughter, Molly had enough; seeing red, she pounced on Mayumi for the second time that morning. Mayumi, despite her evil and mean-spirited traits got the worst of it. Bruised and battered, Mayumi screeched, "You haven't heard the end of this, you 🐸🐸🐸🐸."
"Takes one to know one, you insufferable 🐸🐸🐸🐸!" Molly snarled clenching her fists ready and willing to make good on trouncing Mayumi and beating the ever-lovin' hamster droppings out of her. And she'd deserve every bit of that beating; that sanctimonious flea-ridden hag.
Satoshi wished Molly would knock his evil sister-in-law out. Because she seriously deserved nothing less than utter abject humiliation; forced to bend knee to those who were kinder and gentler human beings.. But the likelihood of that narcissistic witch even thinking of doing that in her wildest fever dreams was a complete fantasy. Satoshi knew that his brother had practically walked eyes open into a literal nightmare of a relationship. He had seen the woman when Yasunobu had first started dating Mayumi but no matter how sweet she played it, there was something vicious, cunning and evil about that woman. And Satoshi knew that his brother was making the right choice in cutting that malicious virago (in the worst possible definition of the word) loose to fend for herself, perhaps she would come to know that she would not be able to treat others in that fashion without consequences or maybe her karmic retribution would catch up to her. She couldn't be doing herself any favours with her current behaviour.
Yasunobu rolled his eyes as he realized finally the effect that Mayumi's temper-tantrum was having on the rest of the family and he thanked his lucky stars for having the guts to snap at her yesterday. She finally had trodden on Yasunobu's last nerve and he'd had enough of her 🐸🐸🐸🐸. And he was finally rid of the cantankerous old bat; maybe in his declining years he would find someone who would take care of him and be kind, gentle and sweet.
"AND how about you put some clothes on, you painted floozy!" screeched Haruo's mother at Molly who turned around and slapped Mayumi for the second time that morning...HARD.
(end Part One)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Generation One
Chapter Seven - "Haruo and River"
(Part Two)
“You really have no respect for anyone other than yourself, do you?” Fiona interrupted Mayumi’s continuing tirade putting a halt to the squabble between Molly and Mayumi. They both turned to look at her with questioning glances; like two different M&Ms: one being made chocolate; the other was nuts.
“Respect is earned; not given.” Mayumi snarked back at Fiona; her tone haughty and pedantic as though she was trying to explain a concept to a small and stupid child.
“Well, that certainly doesn’t surprise me, Mayumi...out of the likes of you;” Fiona shot back, “...considering you’ve done nothing to deserve the level of respect due a deity...of which you’re not.”
“You better watch your tone, Ms. Paparazzi hack, I have a Bachelor of Arts in History and Education; I was tops in my class and I was a Rhodes Scholar, so I have done a lot more with my life than you ever will...” Mayumi was incensed. “As a matter of fact, my mother and father taught me to never have a child out of wedlock, so I’m up on you on there...as...”
Fiona yawned, "Are you done your current volley of objurgation? Mayumi?" putting up a hand in the air and flapping it. "You're causing a breeze."
Mayumi hadn’t stopped bloviating, “...and I deserve every bit of respect that is owed to me...after all...I didn’t under go four years of intensive studying to obtain degrees in the Library Sciences as well as in Arts...to have you come in with your Certificate of Journalism by learning on the job. So who did you have to stir to get a job that you didn’t have the qualifications to do?”
Mayumi snorted derisively, "...maybe that begat your wretched spawn...who appears to be tied to mine." she snapped, "No matter...at least it gets rid of a useless kid that didn't meet up with expectation."
“How dare you insinuate that Ms. McIrish has done something untoward!!!” Haruo stormed in, incensed, before River or Torao could stop him. Despite his inadequacy in mathematics and the sciences, his marks in English were impeccable and he had a commanding grasp of the English language which stunned most of his teachers. “You have no business telling her what you did...that she did something morally reprehensible in order to get a job. You have some nerve.”
“This is between that tart’s mother and myself. You don’t need to involve yourself.” Mayumi’s high and mighty tone enraged Haruo further, causing him to grit his teeth and clench his fists.
“It becomes my problem when you refer to my girlfriend as a tart and her mother as unwholesome. Mother dearest.” the dripping sarcasm from his tone of voice on the vocative noun was quite apparent that he was making an equivalence to the matriarch actress of the Crawford clan.
Mayumi huffed, “I’m only telling the truth and you’d better watch your tone with me; young man...even if you hate my guts, I’m still your mother.”
The bitterness in Haruo’s tone was quite evident as he snarled, “Unfortunately...”
The sound of palm meeting face was sharp and loud. “How dare you...I gave birth to you, you ungrateful little snot.” The vicious words were more hurtful than the physical slap. “I went through sixteen hours of intense physical pain to birth you and this is the thanks I get?”
Fiona stepped forward; sheer anger and protectiveness over her daughter’s boyfriend suffused her features in an incandescent sheen of outrage. “This is the last time you will ever hit your son because he no longer lives here. By rights, I should report you to the Ministry of Children and Families.” she stepped forward, “But I have no wish to see my daughter’s boyfriend go into foster-care. I’m taking him into refuge. Contest me and I will report you and file for custody, terminating your rights to see him ever again.”
“What makes you think that a painted tart like you would ever get custody?” Mayumi scoffed, dusting off her shoulder, "What makes you think that the courts will believe you over me? You have got to be kidding me. You are nothing; a zero..."
“Live and learn, Mayumi, I have six eye-witnesses who saw the whole slapping-a-minor incident take place right in front of their eyes. Not to mention, the victim; as well. Would you care to keep digging a hole?” Fiona’s look was pure evil aimed at Mayumi, “And who knows what other garbage a nosy paparazzi investigative reporter can dig up on you. I’m sure with 51 years under your belt, there’s probably a lot of dirt there...that can be useful.”
She stepped forward, “Let’s see how you like it when you get a taste of your own medicine.”
Fiona’s right hand flicked out in a nice wide arc defined by the circumference of her arm length and made vicious impact with Mayumi’s left cheek, snapping her head sideways. “Perhaps you shouldn’t hit your child or someone bigger may come along and hit you.” Fiona snarled.
Yasunobu shook his head and stepped forward to confront Mayumi, "Kanryō shimai...(We are done); Anata ga boku no kodomo ni te o ageru ga modoru koto wa nai. (When you raise a hand to our child, there's no going back). Rikon ga kakutei suru made taizai ni sho. Shikashi, anata wa watashitachi no musuko no chikazuite ikenai. Anata kinshi sareru. (You can stay until the divorce is finalized; but you will not go near our son. It is forbidden)
"Kare mo boku no musuko... (He's my son also...)"
Yasunobu growled, "Anata ga kare o nagutta toki, Anata wa kare o hahaoya ni suru subete no kenri o hōkashita. (The second you raised your hand to hit him, you lost your right to mother him.)"
Bebe stepped forward towards Mayumi, no longer a teen but a young adult, equally as tall as Mayumi, responsible, holding down an occupation she planned to pursue to the very pinnacle. And this was something she had to do, and step forward she did; a seething look of anger; her eyes shards of green ice. She turned to Yasunobu, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Chikamori. Forgive me but this has to be said,” and turned back to Mayumi, “For most of his life, I’ve seen how he’s come to school, barely a shell of himself. I went to school with him, I saw him withdrawn and quiet on those days that you went off on him. I saw River comfort him; stand by his side. Mrs. Chikamori, you were the cause of that pain; you shredded his self-respect, his ability to have confidence in himself and his self-worth and the only reason why he's still here today instead of being a statistic for child-suicide is his circle of school-friends and his father, cousin and uncle. Nothing I see here tells me that you were a mother to him in the way that a mother is supposed to be.” she pointed a finger at him, “An abuser, maybe, but a mother? No. What you were was his tormenter.”
Mayumi tried to say something but Bebe cut her off at the pass with an emphatic wave-off.
"Whatever pathetic excuses you have, Mayumi, I'm not in the mood to hear them. In fact, when Ms. McIrish goes after custody of Haruo, I'll be happy to be a character witness." Bebe stated, her voice brittle and cold, "You have no valid excuses; in fact, you're a sorry excuse of a human being. In fact, if I were a biological researcher, I’d start questioning your links as a human being and whether you were an outlier or a change-child, because there is no question that you have a lack of humanity."
River stalked forward; eyes narrowed, teeth gritted. “You are a real piece of work, aren’t you?” she hissed. “I remember the first time that I knew that something was wrong. It was the day that you decided that you were going to give Haruo extra homework because you figured that he talked back to you.” she stared at Mayumi, ice-cold green eyes impaling Mayumi...with sheer hatred. “You were just looking to heap stuff on him to do just because...you wanted to get the point across to him that you were bigger than him and as such, you had control over his life; just for your own amusement.” River’s voice was seething with pent-up rage. “I knew that there was something wrong. I was too young to know just what it was...but that one time that he and I were toddlers playing, you took away his lollipop and made him cry, then just because he wouldn’t be quiet when you wanted, you took him and you put him in his crib. He was screaming his head off...and you ignored him...and all the while you had this smirk on your face as if you were getting enjoyment from his misery. Well, mark my words, Mayumi, I’m not going to let you hurt him any more. If you think you’re going to hurt him again, you have another thing coming.” River balled up her fists and glared at Mayumi.
Mayumi tried to step forward, and River snarled in a low growling voice, “I wouldn’t make that mistake a second time; because the next time, Hank will have you in cuffs and you’ll be cooling your heels at the local lockup.”
“He deserves better than a little trollop like you.” Mayumi sneered at her.
“Since when did you have his best interests in mind, you witch.” River’s sneer was equally ferocious. “If you didn’t care about him for the past eighteen years...don’t try to fool anyone that you care now.”
“How dare you...” sputtered Mayumi, “You are nothing but an insignificant...”
“An insignificant speck?” River asked? “Well, you’re talking to an insignificant speck...that has your son’s heart. And hates you. What makes you think that you’ll see your grandchildren if you speak about their potential mother in that manner.”
“You...are a harlot.” Mayumi seethed, “You have no right to take my son from me...”
“Oh...really. I took your son away from you. You make it seem as if he didn’t have any choice himself in matters of his own heart. You would control him that much.” River snarled. “And I’m going to say this...Mayumi, your shadow had better not darken our doorstep because you are not welcome...whereever he and I live from now on.”
"...because I will have you arrested if you come nosing around our house. And I'll be laughing when you are clapped in handcuffs...and dragged off kicking and screaming. You belong in a nuthouse and you should have been stuffed inside their rubber-room where you could pontificate to your heart's content without rational people having to subject themselves to torturous misery listening to your misguded ranting..."
"...Let me say it slowly so that it sinks in to your thick head considering it doesn’t seem possible, despite your post-secondary education that you have any cognition of what it means to be a rational, social human being; YOU are not welcome at our house...so don’t bother coming and knocking on our door. “
Yasunobu looked stricken but River turned to him and said, “Dad...on the other hand is welcome at anytime.” embracing Yasunobu and telling him that only his wife was subject to the ban.
...while Mayumi could only stand there and fume in impotent rage.
(End Part Two)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Sub blogs: #01 Sunset Valley. #02: Lake Onebega #03: Sprottenham #04: Bewickton
Generation One
Chapter Seven - "Haruo and River"
(Part Three)
Pinochle Pond
It was remarkable to see how much Mayumi could vent; she just went on and on as if it was her that was being persecuted and not the other way around. As it was, their day was half over...before River and Haruo managed to escape the house. Pinochle Pond was a trudge up through rolling hills and eventually they came across a clearing where they could see a nice pond or more aptly described a small lake.When they finally found a place. River hung back a moment to see her boyfriend stand there looking out at the lake; his body tense; a dark shape in the spreading gloom of the late afternoon. He was silent. She hoped that he hadn't taken offence at the venom that she'd spewed at his mother. After all, Mayumi had deserved every bit of that vitriol directed at her. In fact, River had been surprised at just how much everyone else had vented at her which had provided the catalyst for her own venting. The silence just seemed oppressive and she had to fill the void with something.
River looked over at Haruo with a soft smile. "This has always been our place, hasn't it?" It was more a comment than a question.
"It has...", Haruo replied...causing River to sigh in relief. He wasn't giving her the silent treatment. They hadn’t discussed anything in the taxi on the way over to the pond. She wasn't sure just how Haruo would react when she'd unloaded on his mother all the vitriolic feelings that she’d been carrying around inside her at the way that Haruo was being treated by Mayumi. After a long moment, Haruo answered her, "We've been here a lot. And it seems so much more peaceful to me when we are here than at home." He looked out towards the lake, the air was still, not even a breeze to interrupt this moment as they stood contemplating the vista before them.
"I wish we could have this kind of feeling forever." River sighed wistfully.
"What you said today...to my mother..." Haruo said quietly; he didn't turn around. "You meant all of it." River wasn’t sure if the tone of his voice was flat, emotionless; all she could sense was a lot of pain coming from him. She wasn’t sure how to react to the statement. There was another long silence; a tense one as he stood there in the looming darkness, a silent figure in the gloom. She wondered if what she had said was too much but she felt that she’d needed to get it off her chest.
“Unless something happens to her...” he said all of a sudden startling River as it seemed that he had gone completely silent; a stone figure. “She’s always going to be around, sticking her fingers into everything that we do; trying to create havoc out of what little peace that we have. Do you really want to live like that?”
He turned to her and asked earnestly trying to convey the depth of his anguish at even getting River involved in the situation, "Can you think what your life would be if she decided to focus her anger out on you. She's tried to destroy me; and I can't sit by and watch her do that to you."
"If she wants to do that, she's going to have to do a lot better than just taking verbal pot-shots at me. Because if she does try to come at me..." River left the rest unsaid...she wouldn't think twice about making sure that Mayumi couldn't do it to anyone else, “The best that she can throw at me, is that I’m a harlot that I’m sitting here taking your innocence...and that doesn’t bother me in the slightest.” River assured him as she narrowed her eyes, thinking just how she could make Mayumi pay for that comment. But she couldn’t think as evilly as Mayumi could. Her good nature prevented her from it.
"So...you're saying you wouldn't run?" Haruo asked her. The fact that Mayumi had conditioned Haruo to the point that he was skeptical of everything so that he’d question if River would stand by him in his fight against being controlled, incensed River to depths of fury she didn’t know she had against Mayumi.
"Hell, no." River spat, "Why would I... Why would I abandon someone I love to her tender mercies just because she's a controlling 🐸🐸🐸🐸 who can't understand the limitations that most civilized people live under...who doesn't know where proper boundaries are and shouldn't have been let out of the insane asylum? Why should I foresake the man that I love just because of some little 🐸🐸🐸🐸 like that?" River's emphasis on the word tender was absolute dripping sarcasm. "I'm no weak wall-flower, Haruo. If she wants a fight, she's got one on her hands..."
Haruo looked absolutely flabbergasted with a small hint of a smile playing about his lips; the lips that River wanted to kiss at that very moment, "Well, gee, um, River...why don't you tell me how you really feel?" he asked. They both snorted with laughter.
"Thanks for sticking up for me, after she hit me..." Haruo acknowledged River's role in the whole "dump on Mayumi" day that they'd had... "in answer to your statement earlier..." he did a deep dive back to the first statement that she'd made after they got there. I wish we could have this kind of feeling forever making River have to think hard to remember what had been said, "Me...too..." he whispered, his warm breath on her lashes, as River and he stepped into each other’s arms in a tender embrace, “I love you, River, sweetheart...”.
"I love you too..." River said looking up at him. "...oh so much...". Their lips met in a tender kiss that seemed to make time stop for the both of them. River had her fingers running through Haruo's hair as they tightened their embrace. Their kiss deepened into a much more passionate one as River pressed her body into Haruo's as they hungered for each other's caress.
...and upon release ended up scratching her arm...
"🐸🐸🐸🐸...no-seeums." she muttered, "This is what happens after dark, the mosquitos and bugs eat you alive.” she swatted away a few more flying insects from a cloud of them. But a much more serious conversation ensued as their discussion turned towards the future. Their plans in the immediate future was to travel and see new places, but what sort of travels that the two of them planned and where they might go.
"I've always wanted to further my kung fu and eventually get my black belt." Haruo stated. "So I guess Shang Simla is also on the list." He grinned.
River nodded then gave him a poke, "And you...have to teach me kung fu too."...along with a sweet smile with each punctuated soft poke on you, teach, kung-fu and too.
"Yes, Ma'am". Haruo stepped back and gave her a salute along with a straight face but a merry twinkle in his eyes while River laughed. But a cloud passed over his countenance as he looked away for a brief moment.
"What is it? Love...". River asked. "Is there something wrong?"
Haruo sighed and for a long moment he gazed at the lake. Then startling River, he asked, "what do you think of my mother? He looked at her.
River was taken aback by the question.
"Just tell me the honest truth." He said.
"You really want to hear my honest opinion on her?" River asked.
"Trust me," Haruo said, "Your opinion is probably not something you haven't heard me mutter under my breath about her myself." His gaze continued to look out towards the lake...not meeting her own.
River stood for a long minute trying to think of a diplomatic way to couch her opinion of that insane old bat that was Haruo's mother. She turned the problem of doing so around in her head in multiple directions: upside down, at various different angles and side ways...but ultimately she failed; a look of disgust on River's face told everything about in how much esteem she held Mayumi. Simple was best: "To tell you the god's honest truth, sweetheart, I think she's a total narcissistic self-important 🐸🐸🐸🐸 who thinks that everyone in the entire world is at her beck and call." She paused for a moment. "I know that she doesn't think I'm good enough for you and frankly, she hates my guts." She said, a wry grin and a little bit of evil merriment in her eyes.
Haruo raised one eyebrow and nodded as if to tell her to continue.
"And frankly, as long as I can be a thorn in her side, by loving you, that'll give me absolute pleasure in putting one over on that hag." River stated, an malevolent smirk on her face as she just absolutely reveled in the idea. "Just watching her squirm, when I kiss you is the highlight of my day in 🐸🐸🐸🐸 her off."
That elicited a laugh out of Haruo; and it was a cue for him. He turned to her and said, "Well, I'm sure she's going to get one hell of a coronary out of this...then."
Not expecting that response out of her frank disclosure of how much she hated Mayumi's guts, River looked at Haruo, jaw open. Haruo had dropped to one knee reaching into his pocket and said, "How would you like to go on 🐸🐸🐸🐸 my mother off to no end for the rest of our lives?" He grinned up at her, a questioning look on his face, with an expectation of a reply.
"What?" River had a dawning realization of what was happening.
"River; you've been my friend; my best friend in the world for the past eighteen years. Through every stage of life we've been together. And I have had the most wonderful times in my whole life just being with you. You've made me more complete than I ever could have imagined." He said, reaching out to hold her right hand. We were friends all through high school, when I had tough times you were always there by my side. We found out that we cared about each other more than friends and that we wouldn't be complete without the other as we go into our lives as young adults trying to find our way and what our path in life is. We've confessed to each other that we love each other. Now, River Annette McIrish, will you do me the honor of joining your life with mine; to walk life's road together?" He lifted the box, opening it to expose the diamond engagement ring.
River held her hand to her mouth in shock; she hadn't expected this at all, at least not this quick. But in a split-second, she knew what all these years together meant and the future of her life was kneeling before her holding out what she had wanted in her life for all these years. Her companion of eighteen long years, her boyfriend and the love of her life had just asked her to marry him and to become his wife.
River rarely ever got emotional, but this was absolutely overwhelming. She knew that she loved Haruo and that he loved her but she wasn't expecting to find him moving from boyfriend/girlfriend status to engaged fiancé/ fiancée status that quickly. She was floored and happy and tearful at the same time; hell with happy; she was ecstatic.
Haruo was waiting and starting to worry when River enthusiastically started repeating, "Yes, yes...yes, I will...". Haruo then removed the ring from the box and slid it on the fourth finger of her left hand giving it a brief tender squeeze when he was done. "Oh, my God, is this really happening...?". River exclaimed as she looked down at the ring on her finger. "Am I...?"
"No...you're not dreaming this..." Haruo reassured her, "it's one hundred percent real."
River threw her arms around Haruo and gave him the most passionate kiss to date that she could have ever given him. And they held that kiss for as long as they possibly could; as snugly as possible, just drinking in each other's presence.
"Tell me I'm not dreaming this..." River said, still emotional, with happy tears running down her face, "I'm engaged, I really am engaged." She stared at her left hand hoping that the ring wouldn't disappear off her finger if she blinked. It didn't.
She clung to Haruo just basically babbling anything that came to mind as he whispered sweet "I love you" repeatedly in her ear and they lip-locked repeatedly to reassure each other that they had just taken the most significant step in their relationship that they would ever take at least until the marriage bed and having children.
Haruo couldn't look at River without wanting to kiss her. And well River was quite willing to accommodate that desire since it fed directly into her own desires. Of course she cursed the fact that they were reliant on oxygenation via their nostrils as she felt nothing more than to want to stay in Haruo's arms forever and kiss for as long as possible. Well love was an addiction, so they said and River and Haruo couldn't get enough of it. Especially now that River had said yes and they were betrothed.
How long had it taken to get to boyfriend/girlfriend and now with a herculean leap they just went from that to engaged to be married in the space of a few months but deep down, River knew that Haruo loved deeply and didn't want to let a chance like this get away. She was also overjoyed at the fact that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. As much as she hated to admit it, she felt that she wasn't as pretty as some of the other girls in school and to have her best friend who'd been with her for so long fall in love head over heels with her was just the icing on the cake.
He was silent about their relationship for so long over the years that she was afraid that she had been relegated to friend status only. Their heart to heart had really cemented their feelings for one another and opened up the both of them to this relationship and its possibilities and now the budding flowers had bloomed. River sighed as she snuggled into Haruo's embrace, 'Together, forever'; she thought. 'It would be everything' she dreamed of, '...and more'.
They spent several hours just drinking in the ambiance of Pinochle Pond and just enjoying each other's company; most of it being spent in each other's arms; nuzzling and just being as close to each other as long as possible
(End Part Three)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
What a (nice) change in moods, from all the talk about the abusive mother to a proposal.
This image made me laugh and scared me at the same time.
Now what a way to propose! Unfortunately they can't get rid of her it seems.
I enjoyed the description of the kiss too. Haha, being reliant on oxygenation through the nostrils.
Sub blogs: #01 Sunset Valley. #02: Lake Onebega #03: Sprottenham #04: Bewickton
I have to ask if its autobiographical because wow.... just wow.
@KevinL5275 - some of it draws from my actual life...but well...I haven't married River.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Generation One
Chapter Seven - "Haruo and River"
(Part Four)
River smiled a knowing smile as she brushed him lightly, her hand caressing his chest through the t-shirt, her voice a soft growl, "Oh, you don't know just how bad I want you right now...".
Haruo's eyebrows nearly met his hairline while his lips curled up in a wicked smile thinking of all the plays on those words that his erstwhile chaste mind, after having taken a rather direct path straight into the gutter, could come up with, no pun intended.
After a while, Haruo asked River, “Y’know...I was wondering...” he paused for a moment while, the pregnant pause causing River to raise an eyebrow in expectation of the continuation of his statement, “well...um...if you were hungry...”
“Are you?” River asked tossing the ball right back in his court.
“Uh...kind of...”
“Well, then don’t you think we should make our way back down and try and find something to eat?” River suggested, an impish look on her face.
Haruo smirked at her, “Yeah...maybe...we should, don’tcha think?”
River grinned back at him, “Yeah, I think we should...” she took his arm and they walked back down the trail to the road where they hailed a taxi which had parked there to wait for fares that were at the local watering hole.
Considering they hadn’t eaten since late morning, their stomachs were growling, eagerly demanding to be fed. All through the taxi-ride, it was embarrassing as one stomach growled and the other one growled in sympathetic response. Thankfully, the taxi-driver made no comment as they got out of the cab at Hogan’s.
When they got out, it appeared as though the food odours had attracted the local wildlife, since two raccoons were prowling the parking lot; whether they were looking for food the customers had dropped or not it wasn’t certain, but River and Haruo gave the raccoons a wide berth as they could be carrying diseases such as rabies, parvovirus and t. gondii otherwise known as toxoplasmosis. Although cute, these little ring-tailed ruffians were a royal pain as they would come around at night and knock over garbage cans; luckily the trash bins were a bit too high for them to get into.
“Awwww, honey, look...raccoons.” River gushed at seeing the little masked pests.
Haruo grumbled, “They’re walking petri dishes for parvoviralenteritis; sweetheart, I wouldn’t go near them if I were you.” he cautioned.
“How do you know all that? I thought biology wasn’t your best subject.” River, startled, looked over at him.
“I do read, y’know...” he grinned at her. “If Canadians were allowed to be on Jeopardy, I’d be a shoe-in...with all the useless facts my head is crammed with.”
River smirked at him, “So...Tom Clancy isn’t the only author you read...?” as they walked towards the restaurant doors. “Ever since you got the book Hunt for Red October...that’s all I’ve seen you carry around...”
“Hey... I read Red Storm Rising and Patriot Games.” Haruo said indignantly. “And Red Pheonix...that’s by Larry Bond, y’know.."
“I rest my case...” River had a triumphant grin on her face and nudged him shoulder-to-shoulder with an affectionate side-step towards him. Haruo put his arm around her waist and that was how they walked towards the Hogan’s Diner entrance. Though they may have had to split apart to get through the single opening door; the other was locked, they managed to go in and get seated.
Chikamori Residence – the next morning
Fiona had come downstairs to find Dorie at the door, “Dorie...what is it?”
“I just needed to tell you something, even though it’s kind of a shock...” Dorie looked over at Fiona, a look of concern etched on her face. She paused for a long moment, reluctant to continue, but finally, “It’s that...Bebe’s all grown up...and we feel that she needs her space. She’s making good money at work and well, we figured that it was finally time to let her be by herself. Y’know, gain some independence and spread her wings? Gus and I were planning to move out...and find ourselves another place.” Dorie didn’t say it, but she knew that Bebe was sweet on Torao and that eventually their only child would be a member of the most wealthy family in Sunset Valley. Despite Dorie’s reputation as absent-minded; she was observant, especially when it came to her only child.
“I understand, Dorie...” Fiona smiled at her friend, knowing that she was making a hard decision. A parent wants the best for their children, though sometimes the path of the child differs from what the parent wants and that is where the parent has to realize that when their child is old enough, it is their life to do with and the parent has to lay down the reins and watch from a distance as their child negotiates the trials of life. “It is hard to let go, isn’t it?”
“Oh, definitely...” Dorie had the hint of tears in her eyes and a catch in her voice. “They’re young for only a short amount of time and then you have to let them go. It’s hard, but necessary...” she sniffled a bit, “But it doesn’t make the decision any easier, for us at least.”
“Same here, Dorie, It’s the fact that we see our children as small tiny babies and then they grow up and don’t need us any more.” Fiona nodded acknowledging the pain and heart-ache that Dorie was going through. “I’m going to go through the same with River.” she said. “But at least I know that who she’s with is who she has been with for eighteen years.”
“Not like someone just off the street, right?” Dorie asked. “You at least know who his character is as a man.”
“And...he’ll be good for her...” Fiona replied, then contemplated the situation at hand that Dorie needed to have solved, “I think we’ll have to talk to Yasunobu about how we’re going to do the hand-over of the third interest...or is Bebe taking over your third of the mortgage?
“We managed to get a mortgage on a house just down the way. I guess the fact that we’ve been paying our third of the mortgage has affected our credit rating in a positive way. So what I think we’ll do is make sure that Bebe has enough to cover the mortgage for this month and next and we’ll cover our own mortgage; Gus has been a little more responsible with his work...the and he’s managed to get a raise so we’ll be fine and the two months of mortgage payments to help Bebe get a financial leg up, won’t harm us.” Dorie said... “The tough part is dealing with her leaving the nest.” she paused for a moment, “The only thing that I worry about is her being there in our suite completely alone.”
“Is Bebe seeing Torao?” Fiona asked. Dorie nodded. “Oh, so why not let Bebe and Torao room together and then that way, they have their own little space; at least until they figure out what they’re going to do with their own accommodations. If you’re planning it that way, perhaps, when she does find her own place, she can use that third interest of the triplex as a mortgage helper.”
Dorie smiled, “Y’know, Fiona, that’s a great idea. Then she and Torao can get a good leg up on life with a solid income helper...and the mortgage is only about §500.00 a month. And rents are skyrocketing here with the immigration and all that and all the people looking for a place to live.” Dorie paused for a moment and asked, “So what are you going to do with an empty nest?”
“Oh...Japanese families from what Yasunobu tells me is that they take care of their parents from the onset of elder status to the grave; it’s the Japanese way of taking care of their elders.” Fiona looked at her, “I don’t want to be a burden to Haruo and River, but at least I know that they’ll help if I run into financial issues. Right now I have this job and I have no desire to retire until I reach a pinnacle in my occupation.”
“Doesn’t that sound a bit onerous on the kids, though?” Dorie shook her head, “I wouldn’t want to make them feel like they had to take care of me...”
“I think it is, but Haruo feels differently. I guess...it’s the way that he was raised, that it’s expected.” Fiona explained, “It’s a family obligation to take care of family...no matter how we non-Japanese elders may feel about it. To me, a Westerner, it just reeks of entitlement to what I consider, sponging off our kids, but to each their own, I guess.”
“Heavens be to the Watcher, if he has to take care of that insufferable old bat of a mother...I feel so sorry for him.” Dorie commiserated, “I swear that last screaming match...yesterday took the cake.” she muttered, “I hate to say it, but it cemented our decision to move out though it puts Yasunobu in a bad spot. I hope he can forgive us, but I don’t think we can take any more of Mayumi’s ranting, it’s starting to affect our sleep...and in turn we don’t want to have it affect our jobs.”
“I understand, and I think Yasunobu will understand too.” Fiona countered letting Dorie know that it was going to be positive, “And I think you’re making a good decision to get away from all this. Mayumi’s ranting wasn’t something you signed up for to be part and parcel of the family dysfunction.”
“Well, if Bebe goes with Torao...and River goes with Haruo, then we’ll all be family dysfunction together.” Dorie laughed and Fiona joined in.
Yasunobu came in from harvesting the trees, raising his eyebrows when he saw Fiona and Dorie conversing in animated gestures and laughing, “Oh...hello, Dorie... How you, ne?”
“Oh, I’m good, Yasunobu...Gus and I needed let you know that we were intending on transferring our interest in the house to Bebe, now that she has a job. We were approved for a mortgage and we put in an offer on a house just down the road from you.” Yasunobu raised his right eyebrow even further, “The offer was accepted and we’re now the owners of the house at the end of the block...the one facing the street we’re currently on.” Dorie informed him.
“Oh...good. Nice house...lots more room than this. Good.” he nodded. “Bebe take over mortgage?”
“We’ll be paying her next two months then after that she gets to carry it.” Dorie stated, explaining what she and Gus were planning on doing. , “She’ll need some time to get her financial footing under her and well, Gus is doing well...and my political career seems to be going on an up-swing. So we can carry our own mortgage now. I just hate leaving you in a tough spot.”
“No...no...that’s ok... my son...he become writer or...try find job collecting. He show me gemstone he, Franz collect...don’t tell ex-wife.” he winked, “I sure he do good.” Yasunobu was the supportive father, Dorie thought, unlike his miserable shrew of an, what was it, ex-wife now. “I talk to lawyer, she no touch his money...mine...too...lawyer say he draw up paper...I go pick up tomorrow. So we be OK.”
“Well, that’s good to hear, Yasunobu, I just didn’t want us to end up leaving you in dire financial straits which it appears like this won’t. I’m glad to hear it.” Dorie stated. “I hope you and Haruo manage to get through this; meaning you and Mayumi separating.”
“Thank you.” Yasunobu nodded his head. “Good luck to you...neh...new house...”
(end Part Four)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Generation One
Chapter Seven - "Haruo and River"
(Part Five)
Bebe’s Room; Hart’s Suite
“Boy, oh boy...is this tight quarters...” Bebe turned to see her dad standing there.
“Yup...it’s pretty cramped in here. Just enough for my easel; maybe we should go downstairs where there’s more room.”
“Right.” Gus said as he turned to exit Bebe’s room and head for the stairs leading to the main floor of their suite. As they came down the stairs, they could see that Dorie was quite upset. Dorie and Bebe were quite close and as a parent, Dorie knew that this was Bebe’s time to leave the family nest; or more aptly, the family nest was removing her and heading elsewhere. But it didn’t make it any easier for the separation to take place. But what Dorie and Gus could see was that Bebe was sprouting into a young woman; one with a burgeoning career path in Education and that would be her calling for the rest of her life, unless some other interest came along.
“It’s come too soon...” sniffled Dorie as she could barely get the words out around a tight throat. “My baby girl is now a young woman.”
Bebe comforted her, “Oh...mom...I’ll be OK.”
Dorie said to her, “I know you will be, it’s just the mothering part of me that doesn’t want to let you go, but I know it has to be done. It’s your walk from here...y’know...walking the road of life. And my baby girl has taken the first steps...with a good occupation.”
There were a lot of tears and hugs; as packing had to be done so that Dorie and Gus could make the move to the new place where they would live. And Bebe promised that she would visit them whenever she had the time to.
Gus could barely contain himself; he had tears in his eyes when he told his daughter that, “You’ll always be my baby-girl...Bebe...”
“I love you, Daddy...Mom...” Bebe said as she hugged them both. “I’ll do you proud...Mom, Dad...we’ll make it.” she said, meaning her and Torao.
...and that was that. Dorie and Gus moved with stars in their eyes and a hope that they would be able to hold down their respective jobs and make a home for themselves in a housing market that was poised to skyrocket in land value. Meanwhile, Bebe was hitching her wagon to Torao’s and together they would make a life for themselves though what Torao planned to do for an occupation, yet he didn’t know. The younger three would have to finish school first and then they would have to figure out what to do for the rest of their lives.
That evening – Chikamori House
It was a full setting at the kitchen table that evening where a birthday cake sat on the table. Because Haruo...had taken his sweet time from the time that his mother let out that pained scream in the birthing room, It was 11:58 at night when he finally made his appearance. So it was fitting that on the celebration of his day of birth, he was sitting in front of a baked chocolate cake; specially baked for him by Molly. Mayumi, sulking upstairs didn’t bother coming down to help him celebrate; it was no big loss at any rate. None of the family members liked her, least of all the one that she gave birth to. After all the verbal abuse and mental twisting that Mayumi had inflicted on Haruo, he sure as hell didn’t want his mother to be at the celebration of his turning from a teenager to a young adult. That would just ruin his whole day.
As the family members who were important to him were there, Haruo grinned and said, “Well, I guess it’s finally here...” eliciting a few laughs. River stood beside him and slightly to the back. “I guess I’m supposed to blow out this cake, right?”
River smirked at him, “That’s the general idea...hon.”
Amidst the sound of noise-makers; Haruo leaned forward and blew out the candle; which would mark his moment in transition from teenager to young adult. “I don’t feel any different” he said, scant moments before the transformation hit. There were no words to describe the sensation of feeling like he was out of his body, then slammed right back into it. It was a dizzying feeling. He felt stronger; and there were physical changes as in height and body mass. And it appeared as though others noticed it too, particularly the other young adult in the room, Bebe.
“You look good...” Bebe said softly.
River raised an eyebrow, “Hey, get your own boyfriend...” She smiled at Bebe...”This one’s mine...permanently...” she said flashing the diamond on her left hand ring finger.
“Wait...what?” Bebe grinned at her, “He...” her question trailed off as she examined River’s engagement ring.
“Yup... last night...”
Bebe threw her arms around River in a hug, “That’s great news, girlfriend...so he’s now yours...locked up tight.” She looked over at Haruo appreciatively, “Well, he’s certainly filled out in all the right places...” she nudged her friend’s shoulder.
After the blowing out of the candles and the customary thanks for being here acknowledgements from Haruo, everyone got down to having a piece of cake. Yasunobu had expertly cut the cake into enough pieces for everyone and each person afterwards lined up in order to get a piece of that cake. The birthday boy, first; and then secondly, now that the cat was out of the bag, his fiancee got to take the second piece; then after that it was down the lineup in terms of getting a piece.
River tried to keep her eyes from wandering from her fork to Haruo. My goodness, her fiance had filled out into a man’s frame and that would only serve to set her ardour to flame; wishing that she, herself, was a young adult. But she would have to wait one more day as the labour contractions that had started in the morning of the 12th did not culminate in her birth until 12:02 of the following morning of June 13, 1970. Four minutes apart, but with his birth at 11:58PM of June 12, 1970; they were separated by the calendar falling on either side of the dates. Which meant that they would be sleeping in separate beds that night to not fall afoul of the law. Age of consent didn’t mean a thing when it came to rule of law and the Canadian Criminal Code.
Since home-schooling didn’t take a break on that day; River had to go with Torao to the City Hall to get their assignments so that pretty much put a halt to them staying for any further celebrations and Haruo, on the other hand, after dropping by city hall to sign some papers regarding a secondary occupation, he had in mind had a book to write, so life went on.
(End Chapter Seven)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Chapter Eight - A Different Kind of Peace (Part One)
A Watcher’s Wrath
Whether it was cosmic intervention or the Watcher’s Divine Wrath that ended the reign of terror, it was oft speculated with various theories being brought to the forefront; however there was only one definitive conclusion to be drawn from all this. Mayumi had it coming.
For years Mayumi had terrorized her family; with her narcissistic rages, her hypocritical crazy-making behaviour and her viciousness. Nearly driving her son to paranoia; she focused on him with her malevolent gaze – focusing all her energies into making sure that his life was a life of misery. It was quite apparent that her ultimate end-goal was to create a pawn from which she could extract anything that she wanted, whether that be unfettered adulation or economic benefits – Mayumi wanted a pay-day from her son and she was willing to do everything that she could to extract that pecuniary reward out of him including destroying him.
But as sand when squeezed in one’s fist, trickles out between the fingers; Haruo managed to sneak his way out. When Mayumi learned of the fact that Haruo had in fact proposed to one River Annette McIrish, Mayumi went apoplectic. Demanding that he rescind his proposal produced no action on his part; the worm had truly turned. The end result was that he told her that she should take a long walk off the nearest short pier; explaining succinctly that he’d had enough of her 🐸🐸🐸🐸 and that he was not going to take any more of it and that he was no cultured fancy-pants; that if she raised her hand to him again, that he would hit back; warning her that “I’m not going to put up with it any longer, if you hit me, I’m going to hit you back twice as hard.” And considering Haruo’s height and physical mass, that was not a threat to be taken lightly. Mayumi chose the wiser course of action which was to back down.
After all, as a young adult, Haruo was no longer bound to her dominion; he could do anything he wanted and frankly she could lump it as far as he was concerned. And under no circumstances was he going to follow Mayumi’s guidance any longer. He certainly was not going to call off the engagement, no matter how much Mayumi demanded it. The evil hag could pound sand as far as he was concerned. In fact, Haruo and River realized that this was the ultimate decision that they'd made; to go back from this would mean an entire dissolution of their eighteen years of friendship. They had committed to each other; for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, enduring all things that the world would throw at them till death do they part. The only thing they hadn't done yet was the formalizing of their vows and that would be after graduation.
All in all, for the rest of the family, it was something to look forward to as far as events were concerned. But if it was really for someone other than the couple getting married, it certainly seemed that way. Marriage was not only a union between two people but a celebration that all others were witness to; that others got a chance to be a part of. And for the cynical, it was a time to take bets on how long the conjugal bliss would remain. Evidently that little 🐸🐸🐸🐸, VJ Alvi, after hearing that marriage was looming on the horizon for his mortal enemy and his enemy’s girl, was running a line of 25-1 that the marriage would split in the first three months. It was tempting for Haruo to go beat his face in again. But as a young adult; there were other things to think about, like getting a job and providing for what would be Haruo and River’s family which at this point was two humans and a dog.
Mayumi was incandescent with rage...something that was usually her static state; if she kept it up she’d probably end up dying of a stroke or more favourably, a brain aneurysm. All her plans had come to naught and she was looking for someone to blame. She had counted on leeching off her son in her later years and was planning to set him up with a wife who would henpeck him enough that he’d capitulate if he wanted peace. Then she would tie her strings into his spouse and control him using her. And frankly she was furious that he’d broke the mold, unlocked his chains and fled. It was in that mood that she went storming out of the house in the middle of the night. There was nothing that she could do to reverse the damage to her future plans. She was done for.
But for all of her manipulative efforts and scheming, the one thing she did not count on was the weather nor astronomical phenomenon. Up in the heavens, the skies were dark and foreboding as a gloomy counterpoint to disastrous portent. The roiling clouds were backlit by lightning flashes intermittently flickering through dense, dark condensation. There was a crackle of electricity in the air that made the hair on one’s arms stand up and heart pound in primal fear. There was no calming of the nerves, being in fear of nature’s firework’s display was hard-wired into one’s primitive psyche.
Countless warnings by Environment Canada to others to not go out in a thunderstorm fell upon Mayumi’s deaf ears as she sought to escape the debacle of her own making. Fleeing across the street, she heard the thunderclap of a lightning bolt and was nearly deafened by a roll of thunder that was exceedingly loud. Evidently the bolt had fallen close enough by her, that the crackle of lightning and the boom of the thunder was nearly instantaneous.
That should have been warning enough that it was dangerous to go out in this particular thunderstorm, but Mayumi distraught at the dissolution of her plans was not paying any attention. At least until her hair stood on end and the prickly feeling of electrical discharge raised the hair on her limbs. And then a horrendous burning feeling cascaded through her in a deluge of pain. And in the back of her mind, she realized, I’ve been struck by lightning. Well, that wasn’t going to be all.
A thunderous crackle like a fighter jet screaming through the air, but at a much faster velocity than any earth-bound aerial vehicle flew through the air, splitting her eardrums and rendering her deaf crashed into the ground in a ball of incendiary flame. It was rather unfortunate for Mayumi that she happened to be standing right where the end target of the meteor happened to be. It was a mercifully quick end for a person who had been subjecting her family to years and years of mental torture. She never knew what hit her. In fact, her body was so pulverized into bits and incinerated that there was no way to find any human remains. All that would be left would be a tombstone to mark where and how she died.
What was left was pieces of meteor that lay in a circumference of over sixty feet. And that would be picked up by townsfolk for the family of the deceased to cover the funeral costs. How convenient was it to have a burial that was covered by the object that was responsible for killing the deceased?
With a clap of thunder, the Grim Reaper appeared above the gigantic space rock that had squashed Mayumi flatter than a pancake. He intoned the incantation that turned the remains into a spirit and Mayumi floated above the space rock. She looked around to gather her ethereal bearings and turned towards the hooded figure whose face wasn’t evident within the darkness of the hood. For all intents and purposes, Grim was faceless. His voice emanated as if from the very depths of a crypt. “It is time. Mayumi Chikamori, you are to come with me.”
For Mayumi, this was new horizons, death had opened up a retinue of opportunities for her and she was eager to get to the afterlife. And frankly she was planning an overthrow of the overlord of the dead. Grim looked into Mayumi’s eyes as she shook his hand that he’d proffered and saw the evil, malevolence behind them and his spine started to crawl. If only there was someplace else in the afterlife that he could have put her. And then Mayumi turned her back on him and made her leap into the headstone. On the one hand, once informed, Yasunobu was shocked at first, but not very surprised and very few in the family mourned her loss. River went over to get the headstone; half a symbolic gesture of victory over her husband-to-be’s hated nemesis and partly to recognize that despite the fact that they were enemies, Mayumi was still a family member and should be properly interred at the earliest possible convenience...as far away as possible.
Of course the fact that the Sunset Valley News-Leader published Mayumi’s unfortunate pulverization by asteroid and the subsequent economic benefit to the community as well as the Chikamori family who stood to gain almost §46,000 by conservative estimate depending on what the pieces of space rock sold for to research facilities across the country.
Depending on who one spoke to most thought that the cosmic punishment and subsequent removal from the planet by means of massive blunt force trauma was a good thing.
(End Part One)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
@Nikkei_Simmer: Have to say rest in peace, at least Mayumi spiced up the story with her unbelievable evil mind. Surely not many living in her proximity would mind to see her go. Yasunobu might even get a new partner and I am sure Haruo will get a better live, with her completely out of his world.
Oh, that is hilarious, such detail and minutiae.
Oh, she died by meteorite this time. I remember last time it was by a mixture of water and electricity in the spa.
Chapter Eight - A Different Kind of Peace (Part Two)
There wasn’t much gnashing of teeth or wailing at the news of Mayumi’s death from her family that she’d abused, yet there was time for introspection. Haruo spent some time with the stereo system, listening to pieces of classical music to come to grips with unresolved anger issues against his mother. It was his father who had provided him with that outlet into music and though his piano playing had lapsed, Haruo was still able to play at a level equivalent to 5 and perhaps with practice he would be able to progress of his own accord.
The next morning dawned to River’s and Torao’s aging up parties. Most everyone was still in their sleepwear, blinking tiredly like owls roused from their daytime slumber to gaze upon two birthday cakes replete with candles ready to be blown out celebrating the two teens’ progression from adolescent to young adult.
And from there they would progress to getting jobs and/or being self-employed (which is the next best thing to being unemployed ~sarcasm~). It was uncertain as to where they would end up finally in terms of a place to live, but after Mayumi’s death, it was clear to Yasunobu that he didn’t really want to stay in the house where Mayumi’s presence still lingered like a malevolent poltergeist. It was perhaps better to locate another place to live. Preferably far away from where they were currently so that the negative energies that existed near that area wouldn’t manifest into a haunting event.
Satoshi’s thoughts went to Molly and how good she looked. Of course his mind was wandering and not really paying much attention to the birthday celebrations of his brother’s son’s girlfriend and his own son.
River on the other hand was looking at the cake as if to say, If I eat that cake, that’s going to wreak havoc on my waistline. She was thin and lithesome, but had an inner core of steel, that much Satoshi and Yasunobu could deduce. And they were both happy that Haruo was going to marry River. Although, when exactly was still up in the air. They were still trying to come to a decision on whether they would end up going to university first and completing their degrees before tying the knot or just get married, then go. Haruo had nothing on his mind other than the fact that River looked very beautiful to him.
The noisemakers were making so much racket that it was surprising it didn’t wake up the dead in chronological order; which as Mayumi was the most recent decedent, it wasn’t something that was particularly wise to do.
River, on the other hand, was particularly happy about aging up today, since last night was extremely lonely in that bed without her Haruo to cuddle with. There was no hanky-panky, since they both were well aware of just what an unexpected pregnancy could do to their travel plans. But it certainly didn’t stop her fantasizing and her overheated imagination made her attempts to sleep absolutely miserable for that night. But now that she would become a young adult; those taboos fell away. She remembered her words to Bebe about wanting to wait...well, those words came back like unwanted pests to remind her that...once you give it away, you can’t get it back. Maybe you should wait? Oh bother.
Once everyone had assembled, River made a silent wish...then leaned forward and blew out the candles on her birthday cake. For a long time, while the cheering and noisemakers went on, nothing happened. And just as River was about to say something to that effect; the disassociating feeling kicked in and she felt like she was thrown out of her body... and just as quickly as that feeling came it was gone. She looked over to see Haruo who was gazing back at her with an enthralled expression. She was now taller and her hips and waist showcased a nice hourglass figure. And of course, Haruo was hooked; line and sinker. She was stunningly beautiful. It was lucky Phil wasn’t there as he would have heckled Haruo and asked him if he needed a mop and bucket to clean the drool off the floor. Then Haruo would have had to plant him...upside down...preferably.
Torao had blown out his candles and had aged up as well into a tall broad-shouldered young adult who looked just as handsome as his father, Satoshi. Albeit, he didn’t want to rock the long hair look and went for a nice short haircut. And now, he and Bebe had their whole lives ahead of them. Would the two couples match up together and start a joint farm/fishing lot so that they could earn money together? Both Bebe and River were good at painting and Bebe wanted to become a celebrated author so this would also mean that the two women would have their own self-employment.
Going to university was something that they would all have to sit down and discuss since if they were going to be self-employed, there wasn’t much use for a degree and could quite possibly be a waste of money. But then again, they would have to weigh the advantages and the disadvantages of having a degree and see if it was worth it to go and get their degree. Yasunobu and Satoshi were of the opinion that they wanted the four young adults to go to university and get their degrees. They had the time, they had the youth...so why not spend some time in university and come out with paper in hand that could be transferable to other occupations, should their attempt at self-employment not pan out. It was insurance; costly but necessary in today’s job-market. It would be something they would have to discuss together to see if it was in their plans to get further education.
After eating a piece of River’s birthday cake, Haruo had to go and hunt for a few gemstones that he would later cut and take over to the elixir shop. The proprietor there was still eager to see Haruo’s items that he was going to sell and even though they weren’t toads, the buyers who looked at the gemstones were always inspired to see what new cuts were available. Haruo preferred the spire-cut since he could maximize his earnings and buying a home for he and River to raise a family in was prime on his list of things that he wanted to accomplish.
Catching a taxi he went to a part of town where he was able to find a few gemstones that he was able to scoop up. From there he would return home, cut them and take them over to the elixir shop across the street. Mr. Joseph was still working in the store. He looked up from the cash register and smiled, “How are you doing? Haruo?”
“Oh, great...” Haruo returned, “Found a few gemstones, so any word from your buyers about the type of cuts they’re looking for?”
“Well, they certainly liked the quality of the cuts that you’re producing.” Moses Joseph stated, “I think I have another buyer who’s looking for a yellow sapphire...”
“Well, I just happened to find one; any idea on what cut he wanted?” Haruo asked.
Moses shrugged, “The last time he was in, he was looking for any cut.”
“Well, I’m going to be consigning this spire-cut yellow sapphire, so have your buyer take a look at it and see if it fits his requirements.”
“My goodness...that cut looks nice.” Moses exclaimed as Haruo handed over the gemstone. “It looks magnificent.”
“Good so you should be able to get a good consignment out of it.” Haruo nodded.
Moses glanced at Haruo with a look of wonderment. “You have certainly grown...Haruo, from consigning toads for my buyers to now dealing in quality gems.”
“Well, Mr. Joseph, couldn’t stay a kid forever.” Haruo grinned as he shook Moses’ hand. “So let me know if there’s any other gemstones and cuts that are on your buyers’ lists and I’ll do my best to see if I can fill them.”
“I certainly will, Haruo and...Haruo, one more thing...” Moses replied. Haruo was turning to go, when he paused for a moment to look back at him, “Call me Moses, you’re a young adult now...”
“Sure thing, Moses...I’ll see you tomorrow. I might have a couple more items that might suit your buyers.”
“I’ll contact them and let them know that they’re on your list to fill their orders.”
After he was done at the elixir shop, Haruo made his way across town to a park with a community garden and there he stocked up on fruits and vegetables. Perhaps he would be able to plant it at their new place which he knew that his father was looking for. From there they would springboard their options. Bebe and Torao would have the opportunity to do the same as what he and River were planning to do; marry and raise a family. And from there, the Chikamori family would grow into a large tree with lots of branches that needed taking care of as he was doing with the trees at the community garden and the fruits of that labour would plant the genesis of their garden at wherever they decided to set down their roots.
While Haruo was out toiling in the rain, River was working on her second painting. Getting the bright idea that painting was going to be her self-employment, she stopped just short of finishing the painting and headed out to city hall via taxi. Getting off at the corner right next to the city hall, she ran to get out of the rain; practically sprinting up the steps. Luckily for her it meant that she was able to avoid getting soaked. The permit process for becoming self-employed was relatively painless – no hidden fees, no surcharges and she was able to now earn money from commissions as soon as she made a name for herself. Making a name for herself, however, was going to be the big hurdle.
Some acidly stated that self-employment was a quick ticket to poverty, however River McIrish had a plan and that included a plan to get rich though it would be slow going. It would be quality paintings that she would make herself known for and that in itself bred exclusivity. City Hall was bathed in a light rain while the clouds formed a misty backdrop. If she had more skill she’d take a picture of the city hall and paint it from memory, however she still had a ways to go before being able to do that.
Because of the fact that Haruo needed to get his exercise skill up, he came back and started working on the treadmill. It was his hope to get from Level 4 to Level 8 before getting exhausted, somehow he managed to do so. Though River wasn’t too enamoured of his odour after his exercise. “Go take a shower...” she said, holding her nose, “You reek...”
“OK...ok...” Haruo rolled his eyes and headed to shower off.
After returning from his bathing duties, he walked back over to his fiancee, “So...do I smell any better?”
River purred, “Why, yes...you don’t stink up the room now.”
“Why, thank you... I love you too...I think...” Haruo smirked at her.
“Well...” River, a slight touch of merriment in her eyes responded as she took her fiance in her arms, “I love me too...” she teased.
“That’s reassuring...” Haruo grinned. A kiss ensued,
“Let’s get to bed, hon, we have a lot to do tomorrow.”
The Next Morning 1:45AM
Considering the time of the morning, it wasn’t surprising that Haruo was yawning his head off. “I heard there was a monster in the old mine...over near Pinochle Point.” River said, anxious that her fiance was planning to go hunt for some gemstones and metals down by the old mine.
“You believe that old wive’s tale?” Haruo asked incredulously. “I doubt there’s anything there but a bunch of rats that got lost from old man Racket’s barn.”
“Well, that’s what they told me.” She cautioned him. , “Just be careful.” And that was that. Haruo headed out in the darkness up to the old mine where there were gemstones that were said to generate.
After digging around for a while, he could find anything, but evidently out of the corner of his eyes he noticed two glowing yellow eyes. They were right, it’s a monster... his brain could barely comprehend what he saw. But instead of a growling snarl and a nasty monster breaking through the boarded up mine entrance and devouring him right then and there; a polite cough and a gravelly voice emanating from the mine posed a question.
“Excuse me? Do you know if the Vancouver Canucks won the Stanley Cup this year? I can’t get cable up here...”
(End Part 2)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Chapter Eight - A Different Kind of Peace (Part Three)
Haruo was struck dumb for a few minutes trying to remember what teams were in this year’s Stanley Cup final – all he knew was that it was short. “Uh...no...I don’t think they did. It was the Bruins and the Oilers. The Edmonton Oilers took it in four.”
“Oh...that’s really too bad;” the mine-monster said, “I’ve been rooting for the Canucks for 18 years since they came into the league.”
“Yeah, sorry about that...” Haruo told him, “Canucks never even made it in to the play-offs this year. With a 25–46–9 record and 320 goals against, I don’t think they would have had a chance, eh?”
“Yeah, pity...oh well, maybe next year. Thanks for the news...” and the eyes disappeared and lumbering footsteps headed back deeper into the mine.
That was a strange conversation, Haruo thought, as he backed away from the mine and headed off back home; sometimes I wonder if I’m hearing things. When he got back to the triplex, he headed in to see River at the dining table eating some breakfast. Grabbing a plate of key lime pie, he sat down at the kitchen table.
“Did you find anything?” River asked him.
“Nope...tried looking around, but unfortunately nothing showed up.” Haruo told her; if he told her about the monster and the weird conversation he had, he’d probably get locked up in the insane asylum on a mental evaluation. “Hopefully, I’ll have better luck using the Collection Helper” The Collection Helper was the only thing that Mayumi left that was useful at any rate.
River nodded as she was eating her yoghurt, her fiancé would be working on his collecting skills which would translate into consignment items and considering that they would be able to get at least double the value of the consignment item. And when one took in a §37,000 Luminous gem, that translated into a lot of simoleons back. Franz had managed to get at least seven uncut Soulpeace gemstones out of the ground; estimated cut gem price was over §100K and if they managed to get double the price, they would be over §1M in value. So Haruo was sending in the lower value gems to build up his credit.
“I’m not sure if that will help us, because we need at least §80K to buy a new home. Prices have gone up quite a bit in recent years.” Haruo mentioned. “I feel like tossing in the higher-value cut gemstones too.”
“But then we’d get taxed out the ying-yang.” River commented, “We were trying to avoid having to send in the higher value gemstones that we have since the CRA would make us pay exorbitant amounts of tax.”
“True, there’s always that to consider.” Haruo speculated. “We have at least $1M in soulpeace gemstones if we cut it at the cut that brings in the most simoleons...but we’d get docked quite a considerable amount in income taxes. So you figure it’s best to save up slowly...”
“It probably would be wiser...” River commented while continuing eating. “The less we have to give to the CRA the better.”
“OK...so I guess that’s what we’ll do. What did our current bank balance say we were at?”
River looked over at him, “When I was at the bank yesterday depositing in my proceeds for the painting sale to Hogan’s in our joint account, I looked at our bank-balance, it was over §205,000.”
“That much?” Haruo was amazed. "I guess the last few gemstones that we consigned were real money makers."
"It appears that way.” River stated as she polished off the rest of her yoghurt and took it to the sink following Haruo who had polished off his key lime pie. Then she impishly looked over at her fiancé and asked, "So...what do you want to do this morning?"
“What did you have in mind?” Haruo asked slyly as he nodded silently to the door and mouthed the word, mailbox… meaning that he had to go make the bill-payment and get the mail.
“Something that might make my mom...and your dad go...ber...zerk…” she whispered as she followed Haruo out to the mailbox.
“Uh...huh?” Haruo replied getting a slight inkling of what River had in mind.
"Yeah...really..." River smirked at him. "Feel in the mood?"
“...in the mood for what?” Haruo had a feeling that he knew what was about to happen.
“...well...I’m feeling a bit tense right now…” River purred. Haruo’s eyes widened.
“Oh...really?” this was beginning to be a bit of a game. Haruo grinned widely as River took his hands and pulled him back inside the house. Grinning innocently at his dad who was still sitting at the kitchen table eating his breakfast, they ducked into the elevator and counted the seconds until the elevator reached the third floor.
“Oh...Haruo…” River sighed…a lot of heavy petting had ensued...once they’d gotten back in their room. But outside of that; nothing much else happened. Though there was much skin to skin contact, they didn’t want to take it any farther than that. They wanted their first time to be within the holy bonds of marriage. But there was nothing that said that heavy petting wasn’t allowed. “I love you…”. She whispered in his ear and drew him over her.
“I love you too, River…” he growled softly as he caressed her side as River pulled him to her and showered him with kisses.
River thought softly as she drank in another one of Haruo’s kisses, My mom would blow a gasket...if she knew what we were doing right now.
(End Part 3)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Chapter Eight - A Different Kind of Peace (Part Four)
Later on that Day
After taking a shower, separately, around nine in the morning, they found out that Bebe’s graduation ceremony was to take place that day, so Haruo and River got dressed up to go to the graduation. River was in a gorgeous burgundy red floor length evening gown with a hip-high split; she looked gorgeous in Haruo’s opinion. Haruo on the other hand was in a tuxedo so that he and River could be matching each other.
River called out to Haruo who gazed at her in enraptured bliss. “So...what do you think?”
“You look absolutely stunning...ly beautiful…” Haruo enthused as he stared at her hourglass figure...and the hip-high slit from where he could see her thigh almost all the way up to mid-hip. Needless to say he was very aroused. River was pleased that she could elicit such a reaction out of her fiancé.
Bebe smirked at him, “Woah… down, boy.” and looked innocent as Haruo flushed red with embarassment. Bebe knew exactly what Haruo was thinking about his fiancée and couldn’t resist teasing her two best friends who had finally gotten their act together and were headed down the nuptial path. She knew just how much Haruo cared for River and was glad that they’d finally managed to tell each other and she hoped that Torao would do the same eventually.
Haruo’s father called a taxi and everyone headed down to the City Hall where the graduation ceremony would take place. Fortunately for the family, it was a sunny day and no umbrellas were needed; in fact, for Bebe it was the perfect day for a graduation. Bebe had found a career path already; she was employed at the school where she’d graduated from – she was employed as a “playground monitor” for the kindergarten kids and from there, once she matriculated university and then had her convocation conferring her a degree in education, she’d end up moving up three positions to elementary school teacher, which would mean a §15 an hour increase in her gross pay making it well worth the money to go to university. It would mean she would be the first in her family to go to university as Gus and Dorie hadn’t gone. Dorie and Gus both had only high-school diplomas.
When they had reached the city hall they assembled to head into the graduation ceremony. They were all dressed in their finery for Bebe’s graduation and Dorie and Gus would attend on their own as they’d moved out of the house. Of course the timing for their arrival was strictly dependent on whether or not Dorie could be excused from her political work, but she would make an appearance and Gus was making sure that he could make it and still be able to get to his work on time as he started his shift as a food quality control inspector at one in the afternoon.
Graduation was a joyous time for most high-school students. And as usual, it was a typical graduation ceremony, long...hot and laborious, sitting through endless names being called up to the podium to receive their high-school diploma...and well, frankly, if you were a part of the band, endless repeats of Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 or otherwise known as Land of Hope and Glory...which has now been played in every American and Canadian high-school since God Knows When! (Watcher: ...and yes, I've been in a concert band that has played at our high-school graduation ceremony (way back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth - for you young sarcastic types - my graduation ceremony memories have faded into the nebulous recesses of time)...after 60 repeats of Pomp and Circumstance, your lips start feeling like mush...(especially if you play the trumpet)).
After listening to endless speeches and exhortations about bearing a torch for the future and all sorts of other enlightening stuff like that, the graduate emerged...exhilerated with diploma in hand and a deepening fire in her belly to do something meaningful with her life. (Getting a 9-5 in a soul-siphoning classroom teaching recalcitrant rug-rats (six hours of teaching, two hours of teacher prepwork and a whole bunch of marking papers or at Bebe’s current career level: chasing screaming post-toddlers around the school grounds and breaking up fights)...at Sunset Valley School for the Gifted (a wonderful representation of the calibre of teaching positions available to those within the British Columbia Teacher’s Federation) was in her future...WELCOME TO ADULTHOOD. Don't let the high-school door hit you in the patootie on the way out...(cheerfully pedantic) Buh-bye...now… See you on Monday morning, don’t be late.) and this is what you have to look forward to, Bebe...47 years of soul-crushing servitude...43, if you go to university...oh...by the way, Happy Graduation."
Yes, Bebe had ascended the mantle of young adulthood; the day in which she would receive her high-school diploma and be able to be a responsible young adult, a day in which she would be judged worthy to her betters and a day of celebration in her freedom from mundane high-school schoolwork; a release from the prison of everyday questions from her teachers, "Did you do your homework?"
No more pencils,
No more books,
No more teachers’ dirty looks,
When the teacher rings the bell,
Drop your books and run like hell.
The graduations were long and well, considering it was spring; starting to reach boiling temperatures; both outside and inside. Which meant two hours of listening to teachers and fellow students exulting over their freedom from having to teach or listen to lectures and verbal exhortations designed to give someone an emotional kick in the rear-end. Whether that would help or not remained to be seen. When the speeches were finished there was an uproarious cheer and not a few "Oh, Thank the Watcher, I'm famished..." comments coming from those who'd had to put posterior end in hard seat for the two hours that it took for everyone including the class valedictorian to finish jabbering on about existential matters such as "stepping forward to make a difference in the world" and all that good stuff, all of which would be crushed ruthlessly when they set foot inside their 9-5 cubicle. That's life. Welcome to young adulthood and maturity.
It was definitely inspiring to see the newly minted high-school graduate emerge from the city hall in graduate robes, her spirits merry and looking forward to taking the bull of life by the horns and wrestling it to the ground. Of course every so often the bull with catch you unawares with a hoof to the side of the head. But she'll learn...she shall learn...that...yeah...maybe it might be better to go to university and STAY there...getting as many degrees as she can.
After all most students get the hell away from school as quickly as they can and try to get themselves pertinent education on their way to a fulfilling career track. Bebe, on the other hand, had to endure endless, “Congratulations on your graduation, Bebe… I’ll see you at work, Monday, right?” She was wondering if she needed a vacation after all this. But of course having just started work, her first three months were a blackout period. She needed to have her rear-end at work...rest of her body accompanying it and pulling a full pay-period. The only other option for relaxing after high-school was putting her buttinsky in a classroom seat at a post-secondary educational institution of known repute: The University of British Columbia or (UBC) otherwise known colloquially amongst Lower Mainlanders as the University of Bumbling Confusion or “Where the hell is my next class? I have to walk from Neville Scarfe to the Irving K. Barber Learning Center in ten minutes and I have an advisory session about career tracks in early childhood education at the Berwicke Child Development Center then I only have fifteen minutes left to get my lunch at the SUB (Watcher: Student Union Building)??? ARE THEY EFFING KIDDING ME!??!!! WTH is this?” (Watcher: I have no idea...I was stuck at Sauder Business School for most of my time doing the Agent’s exam for my real estate Agent 9.15 license; I didn’t go for a degree.).
After the long and brain-deadening graduation ceremony; they headed over to the Summerhill Court Park (not the Central Park across from the where they could enjoy themselves and have a bit of a relaxing afternoon. Though there was a line-up at the concession stands; they finally managed to get themselves fed before relaxing by fishing. Yasunobu, on the other hand; ever the consummate gardener, headed over to the section of park that housed the community garden and started harvesting the plantables there.
Haruo, River and Torao tried to fish from the same section of bridge; whereas it was very lucky that they didn’t manage to hook each other with the barbed fish-hooks. Nothing like a trip to the ER at Sacred Spleen to get a fish-hook removal right after a wonderful day celebrating Bebe’s graduation. Needless to say...that would have capped off the day with a bit of pain after some pleasure.
As it was, they fished until dark and then slowly made their way back home. And River and Haruo headed to bed, where they spent some time snuggling before finally dropping off to sleep.
And...Franz...ate some food before curling up for bed as well...after a long day of trying to increase Haruo and River’s wealth...eventually they would have enough to purchase a home.
Elsewhere in the Lower Mainland
Two men were standing outside a home conversing animatedly over a subject of hot debate. Lamenting the demise of their sister, the two stood formulating a plan to resurrect the woman. There had always been the three of them and it hit hard that their sister was no longer with them.
“Do you think it was the son who did it?” Michitake Sugihara stated; he had always been suspicious of the motives of the younger Chikamori.
Hidekazu Sugihara looked over at his brother. “No...it was stated in the paper that she was killed going out in a meteor storm and she got struck by lightning then was hit by a meteor that landed directly on top of her.”
“I don’t buy the pat obituary in the paper saying that she died being struck by a meteor, it’s just too convenient. I still think that kid was involved. So how do we resurrect her...she needs to live a full life.” Michitake insisted, “There has to be a way to bring her back.”
“She always has hated you, you know that.” Hidekazu stated. “Considering the fact that you picked on her for most of her child-hood.”
“I’m trying to make amends, but she has always been headstrong. And brother, you are the same way in some respects.” Michitake replied, his lips pursing in a scowl. “I always knew that there was something money-grubbing about that kid and I intend to get to the bottom of it. I doubt I’m wrong.”
“Don’t you think it smells kind of fishy that there was no inquest done on the body. They said that her body was incinerated by the heat of the meteor that hit her?” Hidekazu was starting to be convinced of some sort of foul-play that was involved in the death of her sister. Was it murder? Kill one of the three Sugiharas and the other two would go after the perpetrator of the deed like a bunch of rabid chihuahuas.
“What about Yasunobu?”
“I don’t know if he’s involved, but he seemed to have come into a lot of money recently.” Hidekazu nodded, “Money that very well should have been ours. Do you have a plan?”
“Notify the police of the fact that the death looks suspicious and who do you think would be able to formulate such a result from an investigation?” Michitake replied.
“I have a friend who was a police commissioner with the RCMP. I’m sure he could make some quiet in-roads into re-opening the case to ensure that there was a finding of foul-play.”
“Grandmother won’t like it...She always had a soft spot for that kid and remember, she raised him to seven years old.” Michitake stated; playing devil’s advocate.
“Well, Grandmother isn’t here now, is she?” Hidekazu stated. “...and justice needs to be done for Mayumi.”
“I agree. Nobody murders our sister and gets away with it.” Michitake said decisively. “We need to bring those Chikamori scum down.”
(end Part Four)
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~