To Try and Live Vicariously
0
Jericho Antares
FAKKU Writer
A short story I'm working on to brush up on flaws Uzumaki cited in another work. Critiques are welcomed and encouraged, even if they're brutal.
"Eyes up, we've got an Apache inbound."
"What's its bearing?"
"Here, it's marked."
"Can you take a shot from here?"
"No, the backblast would get all of us. We've gotta relocate."
"Where?"
"That building across from Bravo would do the trick."
"Fuck! Alright, let's try it."
The three men emerged from the pre-fab house and into the street of the town as the Apache's engines grew steadily louder. Each of them sprinted as fast as they could toward the house, but not before the unmistakeable thumping of the Apache's chin cannon rang out in the air above.
"Shit, he sees us!"
"You think?"
The men began to serpentine, a desperate gamble to avoid the 20mm explosive rounds. The support gunner at the rear, however, took a mis-step, or maybe just got unlucky, and a shell landed right behind him, throwing his limp body forward into a tree, which he mercilessly slammed against and fell to the ground with finality.
"Fucking figures, they kill me, the goddamned medic. Anyone else and I could've fucking picked them up, but no, they have to kill me."
"Thrace, shut the fuck up! I Let me get some fucking sleep!"
A voice groaned from the bed across the room. Joshua Thrace looked away from the LED television that played Battlefield Bad Company 2 and rubbed his eyes, not quite fully registering what happened.
"What?"
A man with a matching buzz cut to Joshua's sat up in his Navy issue cot and emphasized his words with his hands, "Shut. The. Fuck. Up."
"What? It can't be any later than--"
"It's 12:30, Thrace. That's 12:30 AM. Morning, you know? As in, "when people should be asleep"."
"Alright, the Xbox is turning off." Joshua said slowly as he held down the controller's guide button and thumbed the cursor up to 'Turn off Console' and pressed the 'A' button, "See? I'm done."
"Can't wait 'till you get the fuck out of here, man, honestly. When do you graduate again?"
"Already did. I'm catching my plane tomorrow to my post assignment."
"Well where ae you going? Rather, how far away from you do I get to be?"
"I'm stationed at Yokosuke"
"Yoko-what?"
"Yokosuke. Get some rest, if you're complaining about it so much. Night."
The man mumured something before tossing over in his cot and steadying his breathing. Joshua, on the other hand, unplugged his Xbox and packed it with the rest of his essentiall belongings. Andrews Air Force Base, he'd miss it. He wouldn't miss the disgustingly corrupt USN Information Specialist C-School, though. He zipped his bag with a sigh and looked to the clock on his desk, which blazd through the dark with a steady red 12:32 AM. He smiled at how absorbed he had gotten in the game and laid down on the fixed sheets of his own bed. His eyes focused on a spot on the ceiling before he closed his eyes and emptied his mind. Within minutes, his breathing became the long steady breaths of a sleeping man.
"Once again, United Flight 658 bound for Tokyo is now boarding. Please have your boarding pass ready upon approaching the counter." A female voice rang in the concourse. Joshua jumped as he woke from his light sleep and he quickly fished through his NWUs (Naval Work Uniform) for his boarding pass. With a satisfied smile he pulled the paper from his thigh pocket and stood. He grabbed his luggage with his free hand and approached the counter. The stewardess received him with a trained smile, which he returned genially.
"Hello, sailor. Will you be staying in Japan long?" She asked in a light accent, an easy topic for idle conversation everyone felt they needed to make when talking to someone from the military.
"For the forseeable future, yeah." Josh politely responded as she handed him his pass back. He accepted it with a nod and a word of thanks, then proceeded down the ramp and onto the plane, then all the way down to economy class, where he shoved his luggage into the overhead compartment and took his seat. He took out his G1 phone and fliped it open before accessing his chat log with his Bad Company squad, aka his friends back home.
'On plane now. To the land of the rising sun!' He typed quickly, his thumbs skittering across the small keyboard easily. The log sat idle for a few seconds before his friend David replied.
'2 step process to you staying my best friend. 1: bang a miko. 2: send pics.'
'Lol, I'll see what I can do. Gonna turn off my phone so no one has to annoy me by telling me to.'
'Alrite call me once you get over the jetlag.'
'Wilco, out.'
With that he closed his phone and held down the ignore button until the screen flashed the T-Mobile logo and turned off.He placed the phone into his pocket and adjsted his shoulders before closing his eyes, ready to grab more sleep. A couple minutes passed before he heard the tell-tale sign of someone taking a seat next to him.
Joshua surreptitiously opened his left eye slightly and angled his head to see a middle-aged salaryman next to him. He began to return to his initial position before the man noticed his movments and smiled.
"Navy, right?"
"Yep"
"My father was in the navy. Gunner's mate. How 'bout you?"
"I look at cute lil' pitchers (pictures) for a living." Joshua said dismissively. The man smiled still, not sure how to respond as Josh shifted his weight once more and went to sleep, his belt fastened across his lap.
"Can't believe you qualified for a housing allowance. What loophole did you crawl through to get that?" The Chief Petty Officer behind the reception desk at Yokosuke Naval Base asked Joshua with piqued interest. Josh only shrugged and smiled.
"Only the best, sir."
"Got a place picked out, or are you gonna stay on base for a little while you peruse?"
"Got somewhere slated right now. Thanks for the offer, though."
"You have fifteen days of leave before you have to report. Welcome to Yokosuke, Thrace."
"Thank you,sir." Joshua said happily as he snapped off a salute and walked out of the office. As soon as he left he smelled salt and felt a warm sun on his neck. This was already a couple steps up from Andrews. Only short side was...
"Rudimentary Japanese." he muttered to himself. Sure he liked the culture and everything, but he could just never get the time to learn anything other than the basics. This would be troublesome. With a sigh, he took out the piece of paper with his address printed on it and frowned at his lack of foresight to look into its location and print out a map. He looked around and waved down one of the men that walked by him. He figured if they worked on base, then they have to be able to speak some English.
"Uh, good afternoon, sorry to sound rude, but do you speak English?" (Italics mean the word/phrase is spoken in Japanese. If you know the word then feel free to substitute, but I won't, because I don't want to have to look up the full-fledged sentences that will be used later.)
"Yes, sir."
"Beautiful, thank you. Could you kinda direct me to where this is, then? Feel free to just write the directions down if they're too difficult to verbalize." He said as he handed the man the paper. The man looked at the paper and frowned before looking back to Joshua,
"Pen, please."
Joshua acquiesed quickly and the man began scribbling on the paper with impressive speed. Thirty seconds later, the man handed the paper and pen back to Josh with a smile.
"Wow, thanks. Good afternoon."
"Good afternoon." The man said before continuing on his way. Joshua looked at the piece of paper and saw arrows next to strings of kanji. At the bottom of the paper, scratched in English was 'Match the kanji to street signs. Good luck.' Josh smiled at the man's gesture and began following the directions immediately, first to the base's west gate. For the entire duration of the walk apart from general glances at street signs, Joshua's eyes were glued to the directions. After a twenty minute walk, he came upon the apartment building. He smiled and folded up the directions before shoving them in his pocket and climbing the stairs before him. He ascended to the third floor and stopped in fron of the door with no placard on it. He took the key the landlord had shipped him two weeks ago from his pocket and stuck it into the lock. It slid in smoothly and he twisted it. The door clicked quietly and swng inward, revealing an unfurnished apartment.
"Gotta start somewhere." He reassured himself before stepping inside and dropping his bags, which landed with unexpected force. His whole body tensed at the loud noise and he swore at himself. Literally not even in the apartment for ten seconds and he's troubling the neighbors. "Well shit."
He didn't hear a broom prodding his floor, so he gathered that either his downstairs neighbors didn't care or weren't home. Either way he was lucky. Joshua glanced around the entrance and took off his shoes before stepping up into the main body of the apartment. He strode through the living room and past the kitchen and into one of the two bedrooms the apartment had. It was nice, especially for the price. It was his whole housing allowance, though, and that's supposed to support families, so it kind of made sense. He walked into the larger of the two rooms and smiled impishly.
"Oh yes, I can see it now, Cali King size bed right here, wall mounted TV right there, my xbox tucked in a nice cabinet right below. Yes, I see perfection in this room, maybe I can even get--"
His train of thought was brutally de-railed by a knock on his door. He unintentionally jumped in shock and turned toward the noise. Nearly a second passed before he realized what it was that was making the noise. He quickly made his way to the door and answered it. There was a loud pop and a clump of party streamers landed on his shirt. In front of him, a girl as tall as his shoulders and her black hair pulled back into two short pigtails stood with her arms outstretched, her eyes closed, and an empty party popper in her hands.
"Congratulations!"
"Uhh, thanks?"
The girl cocked her head at his reply and opened her eyes. She jumped slightly when she saw his clavicle and angled her head up. When her almond eyes met his, Joshua couldn't help but smile at her deer-in-the-headlights look. "Hi." He said, still unable to control his smile. He could have sworn she saw some kind of glint in his green eyes, because she smiled too, maybe it was just because of the blatantly awkward situation.
"Hi"
The girl, whose name turned out to be Kirimiya Masaki, or 'Masaki-san' to Joshua, sat in the Seiza position on the carpeted living room, shifting her weight periodically to allow circulation to her legs. Joshua smiled at the gesture of respect before a whislting teapot brought him back to the task at hand.
In the kitchen Masaki's teapot whistled insistently until he turned off the stove and removed the pot. His thumb carefully pressed down on the edge of the pot's top, flipping it open and letting out a puff of steam. He dipped a green tea bag into the water and closed the top again before placing the pot on a tray (also Masaki's) and walking out into the living room.
"Thanks for letting me use all of this to serve you tea. I guess I owe you."
"It's no trouble, though I did expect you to have a little more to move in with." Masaki replied with an almost non-existant accent as he poured her a cup of the now mixed tea.
"If you don't mind me saying, your English pronunciation is incredible. Did you live in America at all, or maybe even visit for a while?"
"Actually, I learned English before I learned Japanese." She said casually before delicately blowing on the cup, the green liquid inside rippled and the steam dissipated in response. "I moved here when I was eight, and I had to play catch-up with my kanji and hiragana."
Joshua nodded slowly before taking a sip of his own cup. He immediately regretted it. His tongue felt like it was on fire and his face twisted in pain.
"Ah!" was all he managed before he stuck his burnt tongue from his mouth and placed the cup down. Masaki-san chuckled at his reaction and slowly sipped from her own cup.
"Of all the things you learn in the Navy, common sense isn't among them, Thrace-san?" She said with a smile. Joshua smiled and shook his head, careful not to let his scalded tongue brush against any other part of his mouth.
"They're not much on common sense in the Navy." He said matter-of-factly. This elicited another bout of laughter from Masak.
"Will you be okay?"
"I'll get by. Thanks, though. We've gotten off to a very awkard start, if I do say so myself."
"Well it's not often an American moves in around here. In honesty I expected another university student. I usually take it upon myself to welcome the new tenants."
"Well thank God for that. If someone who couldn't speak English as well as you do stopped by, this would've been an even more awkard welcome."
"Maybe it's fate." She said with a smile.
"Maybe." Joshua agreed with an impartial shrug, letting the conversation diminish into a surprisingly comfortable silence. Masaki took another sip of her tea and exhaled a breath of hot air, apparently pleased with the taste. Josh looked down at his own cup and scowled. Masaki looked at him and the edges of her lips curled in a sly smile.
"You know it isn't the tea's fault. You were just impatient and didn't even blow on it or anything. It's your own fault."
"I still wanna blame the tea if it's all the same. I think I'll exact my revenge by passing it through my system. That should teach it."
"That's a bit cruel, isn't it?"
"Such is the destiny of tea, sad though it is."
The two shared a laugh over this as Joshua picked up the cup and took a drought from it. It still burned his throat, but her could tolerate it, especially considering the full flavor. He'd have to pay pretty well to get tea of this caliber back home. He exhaled smoothly as he set the cup down and shrugged in his shirt uneasily. The military clothes made him feel strange in the comparatively casual conversation.
"Are you alright?" Masaki asked after he shrugged three more times.
"Would you excuse me for a minute? I'm sorry, but something's bothering me."
"Um, sure." She said cordially, still unaware of what bothered him. He nodded in thanks and stood awkwardly, one of his legs asleep from sitting in the Seiza position. He stumbled over to his bag and leaned on the wall it rested on for support before looking back to Masaki.
"I admire your endurance, Masaki-san. I can't feel my left leg and I've only been sitting, what, ten minutes?"
"Better circulation comes with time." She consoled him from the floor. Joshua bit his cheek and waited a minute for the blood to return to his limb. Once he at least got the "pins and needles" feeling, he picked up his bag and walked into the main bedroom, closing the door after him.
Once inside, he quickly walked to the mirror in the adjoined bathroom and critically studied his face. His eyes lacked the sunken look now that he had caught up on his sleep. That was good, and then his barely longer than regulation brown hair was hard to mess up even if he tried. Yeah, he looked alright, if he were to be the judge of it. Only problem was the blue, grey, and white digital camouflage that covered the rest of his body. He unbuttoned the shirt and untied the boots before taking both off, the pants following suit. He paced around the room in his boxers before opening his bag and taking out a pair of dark blue jeans and a shirt with a graphic design of two blue hands cradling a double helix. He put them both on and gave the shirt a cursory smell test before looking at himself once more in the mirror and smiling.
"I'm not a narcissist, I just understand the value of presentability." He assured his reflection before leaving the bathroom and bedroom. He casually walked down the hallway and emerged back into the living room to find Masaki leaning on a wall looking at a ceiling. Her arms were wrapped around her legs and he could swear her saw a glint of her underwear through the folds of her pleated skirt.
"Sorry for the wait." He said in a level tone, trying to ignore the sight. Masaki jumped and adjusted her position, clearly flustered. Joshua fought the urge to smile and finally suppressed it, but simply ended up staring at her. Masaki shrank slightly under his gaze and blushed, pushing her skirt down. Joshua fumbled for the right words, but realized that he had pretty much blown his first impression. In a last ditch effort, he simply bowed low and used some of the little Japanese he knew.
"I'm sorry."
"No, I thought I'd be able to hear your footsteps, and I acted oddly your home."
"Let's not try to take blame from eachother, alright? I should've made my presence known, and I apologize. Maybe . . . maybe it's best if you leave for now. Feel free to stop by any time, though."
Masaki looked at his downcast face and nodded slowly. She took the teapot and poured the rest of its contents into the sink, then collected the cups and tray and headed toward the door. Joshua followed her to the threshold and stopped.
"For the tea: thank you, Masaki-san, and once again, I'm sorry. I'll act with more tact next time."
"I--Okay. Bye." She said with a hurt expression on her face. Josh closed the door and sighed.
"She is too considerate for how stubborn she is. Though I suppose I have no room to talk." He muttered to himself. Two people like that in an awkward situation and they both end up feeling like crap afterwards. It was a surprisingly volatile combination. Despite neither being truly intent on causing harm, they both end up hurt, like two cold hedgehogs.
That's all for the intro. More will be posted as it is completed
"Eyes up, we've got an Apache inbound."
"What's its bearing?"
"Here, it's marked."
"Can you take a shot from here?"
"No, the backblast would get all of us. We've gotta relocate."
"Where?"
"That building across from Bravo would do the trick."
"Fuck! Alright, let's try it."
The three men emerged from the pre-fab house and into the street of the town as the Apache's engines grew steadily louder. Each of them sprinted as fast as they could toward the house, but not before the unmistakeable thumping of the Apache's chin cannon rang out in the air above.
"Shit, he sees us!"
"You think?"
The men began to serpentine, a desperate gamble to avoid the 20mm explosive rounds. The support gunner at the rear, however, took a mis-step, or maybe just got unlucky, and a shell landed right behind him, throwing his limp body forward into a tree, which he mercilessly slammed against and fell to the ground with finality.
"Fucking figures, they kill me, the goddamned medic. Anyone else and I could've fucking picked them up, but no, they have to kill me."
"Thrace, shut the fuck up! I Let me get some fucking sleep!"
A voice groaned from the bed across the room. Joshua Thrace looked away from the LED television that played Battlefield Bad Company 2 and rubbed his eyes, not quite fully registering what happened.
"What?"
A man with a matching buzz cut to Joshua's sat up in his Navy issue cot and emphasized his words with his hands, "Shut. The. Fuck. Up."
"What? It can't be any later than--"
"It's 12:30, Thrace. That's 12:30 AM. Morning, you know? As in, "when people should be asleep"."
"Alright, the Xbox is turning off." Joshua said slowly as he held down the controller's guide button and thumbed the cursor up to 'Turn off Console' and pressed the 'A' button, "See? I'm done."
"Can't wait 'till you get the fuck out of here, man, honestly. When do you graduate again?"
"Already did. I'm catching my plane tomorrow to my post assignment."
"Well where ae you going? Rather, how far away from you do I get to be?"
"I'm stationed at Yokosuke"
"Yoko-what?"
"Yokosuke. Get some rest, if you're complaining about it so much. Night."
The man mumured something before tossing over in his cot and steadying his breathing. Joshua, on the other hand, unplugged his Xbox and packed it with the rest of his essentiall belongings. Andrews Air Force Base, he'd miss it. He wouldn't miss the disgustingly corrupt USN Information Specialist C-School, though. He zipped his bag with a sigh and looked to the clock on his desk, which blazd through the dark with a steady red 12:32 AM. He smiled at how absorbed he had gotten in the game and laid down on the fixed sheets of his own bed. His eyes focused on a spot on the ceiling before he closed his eyes and emptied his mind. Within minutes, his breathing became the long steady breaths of a sleeping man.
"Once again, United Flight 658 bound for Tokyo is now boarding. Please have your boarding pass ready upon approaching the counter." A female voice rang in the concourse. Joshua jumped as he woke from his light sleep and he quickly fished through his NWUs (Naval Work Uniform) for his boarding pass. With a satisfied smile he pulled the paper from his thigh pocket and stood. He grabbed his luggage with his free hand and approached the counter. The stewardess received him with a trained smile, which he returned genially.
"Hello, sailor. Will you be staying in Japan long?" She asked in a light accent, an easy topic for idle conversation everyone felt they needed to make when talking to someone from the military.
"For the forseeable future, yeah." Josh politely responded as she handed him his pass back. He accepted it with a nod and a word of thanks, then proceeded down the ramp and onto the plane, then all the way down to economy class, where he shoved his luggage into the overhead compartment and took his seat. He took out his G1 phone and fliped it open before accessing his chat log with his Bad Company squad, aka his friends back home.
'On plane now. To the land of the rising sun!' He typed quickly, his thumbs skittering across the small keyboard easily. The log sat idle for a few seconds before his friend David replied.
'2 step process to you staying my best friend. 1: bang a miko. 2: send pics.'
'Lol, I'll see what I can do. Gonna turn off my phone so no one has to annoy me by telling me to.'
'Alrite call me once you get over the jetlag.'
'Wilco, out.'
With that he closed his phone and held down the ignore button until the screen flashed the T-Mobile logo and turned off.He placed the phone into his pocket and adjsted his shoulders before closing his eyes, ready to grab more sleep. A couple minutes passed before he heard the tell-tale sign of someone taking a seat next to him.
Joshua surreptitiously opened his left eye slightly and angled his head to see a middle-aged salaryman next to him. He began to return to his initial position before the man noticed his movments and smiled.
"Navy, right?"
"Yep"
"My father was in the navy. Gunner's mate. How 'bout you?"
"I look at cute lil' pitchers (pictures) for a living." Joshua said dismissively. The man smiled still, not sure how to respond as Josh shifted his weight once more and went to sleep, his belt fastened across his lap.
"Can't believe you qualified for a housing allowance. What loophole did you crawl through to get that?" The Chief Petty Officer behind the reception desk at Yokosuke Naval Base asked Joshua with piqued interest. Josh only shrugged and smiled.
"Only the best, sir."
"Got a place picked out, or are you gonna stay on base for a little while you peruse?"
"Got somewhere slated right now. Thanks for the offer, though."
"You have fifteen days of leave before you have to report. Welcome to Yokosuke, Thrace."
"Thank you,sir." Joshua said happily as he snapped off a salute and walked out of the office. As soon as he left he smelled salt and felt a warm sun on his neck. This was already a couple steps up from Andrews. Only short side was...
"Rudimentary Japanese." he muttered to himself. Sure he liked the culture and everything, but he could just never get the time to learn anything other than the basics. This would be troublesome. With a sigh, he took out the piece of paper with his address printed on it and frowned at his lack of foresight to look into its location and print out a map. He looked around and waved down one of the men that walked by him. He figured if they worked on base, then they have to be able to speak some English.
"Uh, good afternoon, sorry to sound rude, but do you speak English?" (Italics mean the word/phrase is spoken in Japanese. If you know the word then feel free to substitute, but I won't, because I don't want to have to look up the full-fledged sentences that will be used later.)
"Yes, sir."
"Beautiful, thank you. Could you kinda direct me to where this is, then? Feel free to just write the directions down if they're too difficult to verbalize." He said as he handed the man the paper. The man looked at the paper and frowned before looking back to Joshua,
"Pen, please."
Joshua acquiesed quickly and the man began scribbling on the paper with impressive speed. Thirty seconds later, the man handed the paper and pen back to Josh with a smile.
"Wow, thanks. Good afternoon."
"Good afternoon." The man said before continuing on his way. Joshua looked at the piece of paper and saw arrows next to strings of kanji. At the bottom of the paper, scratched in English was 'Match the kanji to street signs. Good luck.' Josh smiled at the man's gesture and began following the directions immediately, first to the base's west gate. For the entire duration of the walk apart from general glances at street signs, Joshua's eyes were glued to the directions. After a twenty minute walk, he came upon the apartment building. He smiled and folded up the directions before shoving them in his pocket and climbing the stairs before him. He ascended to the third floor and stopped in fron of the door with no placard on it. He took the key the landlord had shipped him two weeks ago from his pocket and stuck it into the lock. It slid in smoothly and he twisted it. The door clicked quietly and swng inward, revealing an unfurnished apartment.
"Gotta start somewhere." He reassured himself before stepping inside and dropping his bags, which landed with unexpected force. His whole body tensed at the loud noise and he swore at himself. Literally not even in the apartment for ten seconds and he's troubling the neighbors. "Well shit."
He didn't hear a broom prodding his floor, so he gathered that either his downstairs neighbors didn't care or weren't home. Either way he was lucky. Joshua glanced around the entrance and took off his shoes before stepping up into the main body of the apartment. He strode through the living room and past the kitchen and into one of the two bedrooms the apartment had. It was nice, especially for the price. It was his whole housing allowance, though, and that's supposed to support families, so it kind of made sense. He walked into the larger of the two rooms and smiled impishly.
"Oh yes, I can see it now, Cali King size bed right here, wall mounted TV right there, my xbox tucked in a nice cabinet right below. Yes, I see perfection in this room, maybe I can even get--"
His train of thought was brutally de-railed by a knock on his door. He unintentionally jumped in shock and turned toward the noise. Nearly a second passed before he realized what it was that was making the noise. He quickly made his way to the door and answered it. There was a loud pop and a clump of party streamers landed on his shirt. In front of him, a girl as tall as his shoulders and her black hair pulled back into two short pigtails stood with her arms outstretched, her eyes closed, and an empty party popper in her hands.
"Congratulations!"
"Uhh, thanks?"
The girl cocked her head at his reply and opened her eyes. She jumped slightly when she saw his clavicle and angled her head up. When her almond eyes met his, Joshua couldn't help but smile at her deer-in-the-headlights look. "Hi." He said, still unable to control his smile. He could have sworn she saw some kind of glint in his green eyes, because she smiled too, maybe it was just because of the blatantly awkward situation.
"Hi"
The girl, whose name turned out to be Kirimiya Masaki, or 'Masaki-san' to Joshua, sat in the Seiza position on the carpeted living room, shifting her weight periodically to allow circulation to her legs. Joshua smiled at the gesture of respect before a whislting teapot brought him back to the task at hand.
In the kitchen Masaki's teapot whistled insistently until he turned off the stove and removed the pot. His thumb carefully pressed down on the edge of the pot's top, flipping it open and letting out a puff of steam. He dipped a green tea bag into the water and closed the top again before placing the pot on a tray (also Masaki's) and walking out into the living room.
"Thanks for letting me use all of this to serve you tea. I guess I owe you."
"It's no trouble, though I did expect you to have a little more to move in with." Masaki replied with an almost non-existant accent as he poured her a cup of the now mixed tea.
"If you don't mind me saying, your English pronunciation is incredible. Did you live in America at all, or maybe even visit for a while?"
"Actually, I learned English before I learned Japanese." She said casually before delicately blowing on the cup, the green liquid inside rippled and the steam dissipated in response. "I moved here when I was eight, and I had to play catch-up with my kanji and hiragana."
Joshua nodded slowly before taking a sip of his own cup. He immediately regretted it. His tongue felt like it was on fire and his face twisted in pain.
"Ah!" was all he managed before he stuck his burnt tongue from his mouth and placed the cup down. Masaki-san chuckled at his reaction and slowly sipped from her own cup.
"Of all the things you learn in the Navy, common sense isn't among them, Thrace-san?" She said with a smile. Joshua smiled and shook his head, careful not to let his scalded tongue brush against any other part of his mouth.
"They're not much on common sense in the Navy." He said matter-of-factly. This elicited another bout of laughter from Masak.
"Will you be okay?"
"I'll get by. Thanks, though. We've gotten off to a very awkard start, if I do say so myself."
"Well it's not often an American moves in around here. In honesty I expected another university student. I usually take it upon myself to welcome the new tenants."
"Well thank God for that. If someone who couldn't speak English as well as you do stopped by, this would've been an even more awkard welcome."
"Maybe it's fate." She said with a smile.
"Maybe." Joshua agreed with an impartial shrug, letting the conversation diminish into a surprisingly comfortable silence. Masaki took another sip of her tea and exhaled a breath of hot air, apparently pleased with the taste. Josh looked down at his own cup and scowled. Masaki looked at him and the edges of her lips curled in a sly smile.
"You know it isn't the tea's fault. You were just impatient and didn't even blow on it or anything. It's your own fault."
"I still wanna blame the tea if it's all the same. I think I'll exact my revenge by passing it through my system. That should teach it."
"That's a bit cruel, isn't it?"
"Such is the destiny of tea, sad though it is."
The two shared a laugh over this as Joshua picked up the cup and took a drought from it. It still burned his throat, but her could tolerate it, especially considering the full flavor. He'd have to pay pretty well to get tea of this caliber back home. He exhaled smoothly as he set the cup down and shrugged in his shirt uneasily. The military clothes made him feel strange in the comparatively casual conversation.
"Are you alright?" Masaki asked after he shrugged three more times.
"Would you excuse me for a minute? I'm sorry, but something's bothering me."
"Um, sure." She said cordially, still unaware of what bothered him. He nodded in thanks and stood awkwardly, one of his legs asleep from sitting in the Seiza position. He stumbled over to his bag and leaned on the wall it rested on for support before looking back to Masaki.
"I admire your endurance, Masaki-san. I can't feel my left leg and I've only been sitting, what, ten minutes?"
"Better circulation comes with time." She consoled him from the floor. Joshua bit his cheek and waited a minute for the blood to return to his limb. Once he at least got the "pins and needles" feeling, he picked up his bag and walked into the main bedroom, closing the door after him.
Once inside, he quickly walked to the mirror in the adjoined bathroom and critically studied his face. His eyes lacked the sunken look now that he had caught up on his sleep. That was good, and then his barely longer than regulation brown hair was hard to mess up even if he tried. Yeah, he looked alright, if he were to be the judge of it. Only problem was the blue, grey, and white digital camouflage that covered the rest of his body. He unbuttoned the shirt and untied the boots before taking both off, the pants following suit. He paced around the room in his boxers before opening his bag and taking out a pair of dark blue jeans and a shirt with a graphic design of two blue hands cradling a double helix. He put them both on and gave the shirt a cursory smell test before looking at himself once more in the mirror and smiling.
"I'm not a narcissist, I just understand the value of presentability." He assured his reflection before leaving the bathroom and bedroom. He casually walked down the hallway and emerged back into the living room to find Masaki leaning on a wall looking at a ceiling. Her arms were wrapped around her legs and he could swear her saw a glint of her underwear through the folds of her pleated skirt.
"Sorry for the wait." He said in a level tone, trying to ignore the sight. Masaki jumped and adjusted her position, clearly flustered. Joshua fought the urge to smile and finally suppressed it, but simply ended up staring at her. Masaki shrank slightly under his gaze and blushed, pushing her skirt down. Joshua fumbled for the right words, but realized that he had pretty much blown his first impression. In a last ditch effort, he simply bowed low and used some of the little Japanese he knew.
"I'm sorry."
"No, I thought I'd be able to hear your footsteps, and I acted oddly your home."
"Let's not try to take blame from eachother, alright? I should've made my presence known, and I apologize. Maybe . . . maybe it's best if you leave for now. Feel free to stop by any time, though."
Masaki looked at his downcast face and nodded slowly. She took the teapot and poured the rest of its contents into the sink, then collected the cups and tray and headed toward the door. Joshua followed her to the threshold and stopped.
"For the tea: thank you, Masaki-san, and once again, I'm sorry. I'll act with more tact next time."
"I--Okay. Bye." She said with a hurt expression on her face. Josh closed the door and sighed.
"She is too considerate for how stubborn she is. Though I suppose I have no room to talk." He muttered to himself. Two people like that in an awkward situation and they both end up feeling like crap afterwards. It was a surprisingly volatile combination. Despite neither being truly intent on causing harm, they both end up hurt, like two cold hedgehogs.
That's all for the intro. More will be posted as it is completed