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31_days2005-08-02 11:49 am
starlighter.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-08-02 11:49 am
[August 2nd] [Weiss Kreuz] Summer Camp
Title: Summer Camp
Day/Theme: August 2nd/ A school of morality
Series: Weiss Kreuz, spoilers for the end of Gluhen
Character: Hidaka Ken
Rating: PG-13
August 2nd - A school of morality
Summer Camp
==================
On Saturday, someone in the mess hall, new and unfamiliar with the rules, tries to take Ken's rice bowl from him. Perhaps he is hungry, or cold - the days grow shorter and colder - or perhaps he is just stupid; the reasons matter little. He is big, burly, thick around the neck and shoulders, tattoos all over disproportionately skinny arms, with a face hovering somewhere between pouting, effeminate adolescence and the sulkiness of childhood - as unmarked as only a pretender would be. The rest have been here long enough to get used to Ken; there is a small bubble of insulation around him that the boy unwisely takes to be due to weakness, a result of bullying - old playground metaphors that taste dusty and awkward in Ken's mind, a relic of something very far away.
The boy - for he is little more - swaggers up to Ken's end of the table and, slamming his tray down, sweeps most of Ken's dinner off the tray and reaches for the rice. There is a sudden, immediate hush; Ken is still; and then the boy is on the floor and loud among the sounds of masticating mouths and the rattle of utensils is the ugly popping of cartilage, the crunching feel of the boy's shoulder dislocating under his hands, grinding his face into the floor amid the remains of his soup and vegetables. It takes him a moment to scream, but when he does, it comes out more as a howl, ringing off the tile with the screech of something torn and metallic, bloody. Out of the corner of his eye, Ken watches the guards approach, knees the boy expertly in the kidneys, and half-rises, his hands coming up to protect his head even as their night sticks go up. One pulls the boy - sobbing now, harsh and broken and plaintive - away, and the rest converge on Ken. He does not fight, merely goes down under the barrage, curls up quiescently - they are merely doing their job, and he his. As they lead the boy away, staggering, Ken turns so he catches the boy's eye between crossed and upraised arms and smiles, part feral, part paternal, tooth and fang exposed and gentle. It does not comfort the boy, it seems - he turns away shuddering, his tattoos angled strangely now but fear is etched more strongly yet on his face, and he cannot meet Ken's eyes, but quiets, his sobs now silent wracking shivers twitching through his body at odd intervals.
They lead Ken away after an almost half-hearted beating, routine, and leave him in a bare cell. He stretches, numbers the bruises they have given him, stretches out the kinks, shakes out the cramps in his arms, then sits down on the floor and crosses his legs, closes his eyes in a semblance of peace, relives the feel of the boy under his knee. For a moment, he is back in the training compound - After Kase, Before Weiss - besting his teacher for the first time, the slap of approval on his back; correct, well done, that's exactly right. He closes his hand slowly into a fist. He can almost feel the resistance of the bugnuk as he does so, so very like the soft pop of bone out of position, and for some reason, this makes him think of Ran - thin and pale and burning, somehow disjointed and that, narcissistically, he supposes, brings him back to himself. He opens his eyes to bare walls, iron bars.
Not bad, he thinks, for a first lesson.
Sunday is the same isolation, the same bare walls, smaller rations. He passes the hours doing drills, squats, push ups, chin ups against the bars with a grim, frenetic pace, repetitions until his muscles burn. He takes off his sweat-drenched shirt and sits, finally calm, dead center of the room.
Monday they let him out to do the gardens and give him back his jacket for the chill, because no matter what else he had been, Ken had learned a thing or two about plants, and because this is his punishment. Ken understands punishment, and penance. He listens to the voice of a visiting preacher, floating through the windows, and then stops hearing it at all. It isn't anything he does not already know, that he has not already learned before. He carefully shears off the strangling vines of a parasite allowed to grow too long, dropping the dead wood in a pile. His hands, encased in gloves of rough thick cotton, grow stained and sticky with sap as he carries them to the incinerator to be disposed of. The heat of the fire on his face reminds him of cement and mortar collapsing around him; the crackling of dry wood, beams above him snapping; distinct yet similar buildings falling with slow, fatal grace. He is twice burned, lightly, but continues feeding the fire until no more remain. The sun fades above the tree line; he walks back in slowly-deepening dusk, breezes cooling the heat left in his cheeks - he is reminded of a road somewhere in Odaiba, trailing a man - corporate espionage, if he remembers correctly, but again, the details matter little, if at all; he was a criminal and that is the end of it - slowly pacing him along it, patient and hungry, his hands closing and opening slightly, rhythmically, testing his strength against the bugnuk's weight. Lost in thought, he walks too slowly; the jailer shouts at him to hurry up.
Tuesday a guard comes for him, opening the door and stepping warily back, motioning him along. They don't quite know what to make of him - he is both model prisoner and the worst they have ever seen - he acquiesces rather than bows to their demands, as if, they think slightly incredulously, he has a choice in the matter, as if he obeys simply because it suits him. There is a ripple down the corridor he walks, the cells he passes taking note and falling still - the hive of bars vibrating, instinctively, with something not quite relief, not quite envy. Ken looks neither to the left or right as he walks; he expects nothing - he /knows/ where this ends.
Manx looks disappointed at his lack of surprise, but Ran merely hands him his bag with a perfunctory "there is work to do."
Ken hefts it, tests its weight, the shape of it; he knows it as well as the calluses on his palm, and finally, he is home.
"It has been," he tells them, "a good summer."
Day/Theme: August 2nd/ A school of morality
Series: Weiss Kreuz, spoilers for the end of Gluhen
Character: Hidaka Ken
Rating: PG-13
August 2nd - A school of morality
Summer Camp
==================
On Saturday, someone in the mess hall, new and unfamiliar with the rules, tries to take Ken's rice bowl from him. Perhaps he is hungry, or cold - the days grow shorter and colder - or perhaps he is just stupid; the reasons matter little. He is big, burly, thick around the neck and shoulders, tattoos all over disproportionately skinny arms, with a face hovering somewhere between pouting, effeminate adolescence and the sulkiness of childhood - as unmarked as only a pretender would be. The rest have been here long enough to get used to Ken; there is a small bubble of insulation around him that the boy unwisely takes to be due to weakness, a result of bullying - old playground metaphors that taste dusty and awkward in Ken's mind, a relic of something very far away.
The boy - for he is little more - swaggers up to Ken's end of the table and, slamming his tray down, sweeps most of Ken's dinner off the tray and reaches for the rice. There is a sudden, immediate hush; Ken is still; and then the boy is on the floor and loud among the sounds of masticating mouths and the rattle of utensils is the ugly popping of cartilage, the crunching feel of the boy's shoulder dislocating under his hands, grinding his face into the floor amid the remains of his soup and vegetables. It takes him a moment to scream, but when he does, it comes out more as a howl, ringing off the tile with the screech of something torn and metallic, bloody. Out of the corner of his eye, Ken watches the guards approach, knees the boy expertly in the kidneys, and half-rises, his hands coming up to protect his head even as their night sticks go up. One pulls the boy - sobbing now, harsh and broken and plaintive - away, and the rest converge on Ken. He does not fight, merely goes down under the barrage, curls up quiescently - they are merely doing their job, and he his. As they lead the boy away, staggering, Ken turns so he catches the boy's eye between crossed and upraised arms and smiles, part feral, part paternal, tooth and fang exposed and gentle. It does not comfort the boy, it seems - he turns away shuddering, his tattoos angled strangely now but fear is etched more strongly yet on his face, and he cannot meet Ken's eyes, but quiets, his sobs now silent wracking shivers twitching through his body at odd intervals.
They lead Ken away after an almost half-hearted beating, routine, and leave him in a bare cell. He stretches, numbers the bruises they have given him, stretches out the kinks, shakes out the cramps in his arms, then sits down on the floor and crosses his legs, closes his eyes in a semblance of peace, relives the feel of the boy under his knee. For a moment, he is back in the training compound - After Kase, Before Weiss - besting his teacher for the first time, the slap of approval on his back; correct, well done, that's exactly right. He closes his hand slowly into a fist. He can almost feel the resistance of the bugnuk as he does so, so very like the soft pop of bone out of position, and for some reason, this makes him think of Ran - thin and pale and burning, somehow disjointed and that, narcissistically, he supposes, brings him back to himself. He opens his eyes to bare walls, iron bars.
Not bad, he thinks, for a first lesson.
Sunday is the same isolation, the same bare walls, smaller rations. He passes the hours doing drills, squats, push ups, chin ups against the bars with a grim, frenetic pace, repetitions until his muscles burn. He takes off his sweat-drenched shirt and sits, finally calm, dead center of the room.
Monday they let him out to do the gardens and give him back his jacket for the chill, because no matter what else he had been, Ken had learned a thing or two about plants, and because this is his punishment. Ken understands punishment, and penance. He listens to the voice of a visiting preacher, floating through the windows, and then stops hearing it at all. It isn't anything he does not already know, that he has not already learned before. He carefully shears off the strangling vines of a parasite allowed to grow too long, dropping the dead wood in a pile. His hands, encased in gloves of rough thick cotton, grow stained and sticky with sap as he carries them to the incinerator to be disposed of. The heat of the fire on his face reminds him of cement and mortar collapsing around him; the crackling of dry wood, beams above him snapping; distinct yet similar buildings falling with slow, fatal grace. He is twice burned, lightly, but continues feeding the fire until no more remain. The sun fades above the tree line; he walks back in slowly-deepening dusk, breezes cooling the heat left in his cheeks - he is reminded of a road somewhere in Odaiba, trailing a man - corporate espionage, if he remembers correctly, but again, the details matter little, if at all; he was a criminal and that is the end of it - slowly pacing him along it, patient and hungry, his hands closing and opening slightly, rhythmically, testing his strength against the bugnuk's weight. Lost in thought, he walks too slowly; the jailer shouts at him to hurry up.
Tuesday a guard comes for him, opening the door and stepping warily back, motioning him along. They don't quite know what to make of him - he is both model prisoner and the worst they have ever seen - he acquiesces rather than bows to their demands, as if, they think slightly incredulously, he has a choice in the matter, as if he obeys simply because it suits him. There is a ripple down the corridor he walks, the cells he passes taking note and falling still - the hive of bars vibrating, instinctively, with something not quite relief, not quite envy. Ken looks neither to the left or right as he walks; he expects nothing - he /knows/ where this ends.
Manx looks disappointed at his lack of surprise, but Ran merely hands him his bag with a perfunctory "there is work to do."
Ken hefts it, tests its weight, the shape of it; he knows it as well as the calluses on his palm, and finally, he is home.
"It has been," he tells them, "a good summer."