bluejeans07

This one I'm rather proud of, so if you feel like reading only one of my compositions for Rhapsody, I hope it's this one. ;)

Word count: 947
Jesse finds out Ryuu's background.

You know, when I first saw him, I didn't think he was so different. Sure, he was quiet, knew too much about trig (he was already into the double angle identities bullshit while the rest of us were still struggling with sin A= adjacent side/hypotenuse or whatever), but there are a lot kids who're quieter than others, not to mention a lot of smart Asian kids. I thought he was one of those guys at first, someone a bit 'too cool' and 'too smart' for a public high school, someone who knew his way around the world and back again.

I guess that's what intrigued me about him in the beginning, I wanted him to show me that road to infinity that I was so sure that he walked on his entire life. Hell, give me a map, show me the road to Aotearoa* or Timbuktu or some other place with a really awesome name and more sheep than people and I'd go there in a heartbeat. That's what Ryuu was like to me when he was still Amaury Bloom, the silent half-Japanese, half-something boy that sat at the back of class and never raised his hand, and got a hundred percent on all the tests so that the fucking grading curb didn't exist. To me, he was something that was filled to the brim with knowledge and secrecy that I put a deerstalker on my head and stuck a meerschaum pipe in my mouth to try to solve the Mystery of the Amaury Bloom (yeah, I think I suck at titles too).

I'd love to say that solving the mystery was, "Elementary, my dear Watson" but in actuality, it was by complete accident. I solved it by falling out of my fucking peach tree, shattering the screen on my iPod (I'm still amazed that that happened), and nearly scared my new neighbor half to death by landing right in front of her in her backyard. I skinned my elbows and got a rather impressive scratch on my forehead too, so she pulled me right up and promptly marched me into a tidy kitchen to patch me up.

She told me her name was Vicky, and she was a really nice lady, curly red hair, brown eyes, and I swear she had the most awesome hands in the world, like pianist's hands that were slender, cool and gentle as they swabbed the blood off of my forehead and elbows. Vicky had moved in here with her husband and son two weeks ago, they were still getting settled but they already really liked it here. After she patched me up, she gave me a pat and showed me to the living room to the front door (I told her I could've jumped the fence but she wouldn't have it, typical mom reaction) when I saw The Picture. Really, I don't know how I noticed it, it was a small, black and white photograph that was lying among half empty boxes and bubble wrap, but I stopped in time from nearly stepping on it and picked it up from the ground.

Amaury stared out at me from that picture with round, blank and empty eyes. When I heard Vicky come up behind me, I handed her the photo and told her that he was in my class. There was a small, enigmatic smile on her face as she took the photograph from me, stroking it gently with an elegant finger before telling me about him, her beloved son. Birth mother was sixteen when she was raped by a foreign man on the streets of Tokyo. Sent to the orphanage as soon as he was born, without a name. One of the caretakers called him Ryuu, 'dragon', fully knowing that he will have difficulty that he will need to soar above. A boy who had nothing, no possessions, parents, or even a name to call his own. He was someone that no one wanted because they didn't want to mop up the spilled blood, so he stayed at that orphanage, watching the others come and go as the only one that stayed. Vicky and her husband had decided to adopt a child, a baby... and then they saw him, fourteen, handsome, vacant eyes, silent demeanor. It was apparently love at first sight.

So mystery solved and yet I had done absolutely nothing to solve it. I couldn't stop thinking about him, the boy who had seemed to be brimming with the illusion of having so much. Why didn't I see it sooner, if at all? But I supposed after someone gets that good at hiding the fact that he has nothing, he gets used to being the only one naked, like that dream everyone gets that you're standing in a hallway and you're buck naked, and everyone knows it and they're laughing and they're staring. It's no dream for him, it's a reality, a lifetime of being naked like an empty jar.

When I saw him at school on Friday morning, there was no one else there. He was walking down the stairs from the library, I was heading towards the vending machines to get a coke, and our eyes met for a minute. They always seemed to soften around me, so that gave me a burst of courage and ended up blurting, "Hey, Ryuu. Your mom has gorgeous hands."

Smooth. Reeeeaaaal smooth, I know.

There was a long moment of silence that felt that went on forever. I wanted to sink between the cracks in the pavement and DIE. And then... Ryuu simply nodded, gave me a small smile and said, "I know."

We've been together ever since.

*Aotearoa: Maori name for New Zealand.