Kit and Kin   by poetheather

 
Takeshi Saito was a quiet student who kept his head down in Ravencrest High School trying to get along. But strange things happen in this small town and the spotlight finds those who would rather hide. So Takeshi finds himself pulled from his happy geek corner to somewhere else, somewhere he is not sure of.

January 23

Maggie walked up to her, cocked her head in confusion and asked, “Hey are you okay?”

Maeko blinked a few times at the voice, a bit startled and she struggled to try to get the smile off her face, “Like, yeah… I’m totally fine.”

Maggie looked at her, clearly not believing her. Maeko looked back challengingly and said, “What?!”

Maggie shrugged and spread her hands, “I don’t know. You were acting all funny and now your acting all funny in trying to cover it all up. That seems kind of suspicious is all.”

“I just feel good right now is all.” said Maeko, trying to make it seem less interesting than it really was.

“Even with your girlfriend being back in California?” asked Maggie, being a bit more perceptive than Maeko wanted to deal with.

“I guess. There were some good moments.” She replied trying to change the topic before Maggie figured things out. That’s just what she needed today, someone else figuring things out.

“Okay. So, just to let you know Wallace wimped out. He said he had something to do, but I know he doesn’t have anything planned because the game he’s in only meets on the weekend. And his online gaming is later in the evening. So, I think he needed some space.” reasoned Maggie.

“Uhm… okay.” Maeko wasn’t sure what to say to that. She was aware of all of that as well, but to say it all like that… harsh. Was this how girls talked? Was this the big secret of how girls talked, that they were so brutal? It was still too early to tell.

“So since lunch was so disappointing, as usual, I figured that we could start with Mario’s. That’s this great pizza place downtown, that has other Italian food as well, but their pizza is really tasty. A lot of us go there after school to hang out and stuff. Its pretty popular.” said Maggie.

“I could go for some ‘za. That lunch was pretty sad.” admitted Maeko, who had to concede that her new taste buds were a bit too sensitive to be overly fond of the cafeteria’s food.

“And all you had was the chef salad. That is better than some of the stuff. Some of the other stuff is way worse. Though, rib day is usually pretty good, if you can get any. There are some people you have to fight off with a stick. Some of the guys and girls in that school are like wild animals when it comes to rib day.” Maggie laughed.

Maeko joined in on the laughing but she was kind of worried. Did Maggie know about the Unseen? How? Should she ask her Haha about her? That sounded remarkably like she meant one thing while she had said another. “That’s crazy. Really? Are the ribs that good?”

“I have to admit they are pretty tasty. It’s like the only decent food that the cafeteria makes so I guess their real quality is masked by how bad the food is the rest of the time.” The two girls laughed over that. “So what were Cindy and Tracy talking to you about?”

Maeko shrugged, trying to play it off in order to make sure that Maggie could not figure out the real reason. “We sort of hit it off in gym. They invited me to do something this afternoon but I said I was busy.” Maggie blushed slightly at this. “So we made some plans for tomorrow. I hope that’s not a problem.”

“No, that’s fine. There both pretty nice girls. They aren’t any of the ‘real’ trouble makers in town. Now let’s hurry. I hope Misty is at Mario’s, she’s really nice and I think you’ll like her.”

Maeko vaguely recalled Misty, the school slut who had been getting better thanks to Kelly and Maggie taking the time to be her friend. She had never dealt with Misty as Takeshi, one of the benefits of being a nerd was that the sluts never had an interest in you. So maybe the girl wasn’t as bad as she had heard. It’s not like that was much of a stretch and was worth checking out. “Sounds fine. I can’t wait to meet her.”

The two of them made their way downtown and headed towards the restaurant, barely taking time to window shop at a couple of stores, most notably the shoe store. The warmth inside was nice and they stomped the snow off their shoes, taking off their coats. A girl waved at Maggie and Maggie waved back grinning, “Come on.”

In one of the corner booths sat Misty, all by herself, drinking a soda, clearly trying to not be seen by some of the other people in the place. When she saw Maeko, she put on a friendly smile, saying, “Hey Maggie. Who’s this?”

“Misty, this is Maeko. Maeko this is Misty.” introduced Maggie with a slight flourish.

They said their helloes as the two girls sat down, with Maggie on the inside. Maggie looked at the two of them and then snickered. Maeko looked over with one eyebrow raised, and asked pointedly, “What?”

Maggie was trying to contain her giggles as she answered, “We’re 3M. Get it?”

Misty started snickering over that and Maeko groaned, dropping her face into her hands. “That was hella bad.”

“Good one Maggie.” said Misty, clearly entertained with the bad joke.

Maggie had a very satisfied grin on her face and casually plucked up one of the menus. Maeko looked up and sighed. “Okay. So what’s good here?”

“The pizzas are excellent as are the calzones. The hoagies are pretty good as well. Their pasta isn’t bad but not as good as their pizza. Basically, it’s all good.” answered Misty happily. “Oh, their White Pizza is really good and their all meat is excellent. But again, you can’t go wrong with any of their pizza.”

Maeko nodded, as if she didn’t already know this. While she did kind of want a slice of the All Meat like Takeshi used to get she needed to help her cover more, especially after getting caught so clearly by Cindy and Tracy. It made her a bit skittish with regards to her cover. She looked over the menu and decided to go with the Tangy Italian, which had Italian sausage, green peppers, green olives and capers. She’d had it before and had enjoyed it, so maybe her new taste buds would as well.

Misty decided on a White, which came as no surprise, and Maggie got a Pesto Supreme, which had tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, green peppers, feta and mozzarella with pesto on it. Maeko, who had never tried that one before said, “Hey is there any way I can try some of that one?”

“Sure. I’ll trade you a slice. Misty, want to get in on this deal?”

The girl thought this over and then grinned. “Oh yeah, that sounds like a great plan. Lots of tasty pizza without having to explode. Sounds like a deal to me. Our own little buffet.”

The other girls laughed. When the waitress came over, they ordered their pizza and sodas and sat back. Misty asked, “So you are new in town, hunh?”

“Yeah. I am staying with my half-brother’s family because my Mom is making me batshit insane right now.”

Maggie shook her head. “To be fair, if what you told me Saturday is the reason, she has a bit of a point.”

“That’s a crap reason. There was nothing wrong with my girlfriend!” protested Maeko, purposefully misleading the issue to get a read on Misty.

“I meant the drugs.” sharply whispered Maggie. “That was dumb and you know it.”

“Well… yeah, but that doesn’t mean my Mom was right. I hate her so much right now I could just scream.” Maeko clenched her fists and they trembled with simulated anger.

Misty reached out and rested a hand against Maeko’s closed fist gently. “Maeko, I know I don’t know you and we just met and all, but holding on to anger doesn’t help. Just let it go and move on with your life. You’ll feel better in the long run.”

There was something in Misty’s eyes that told Maeko that Misty knew what she was talking about. She kind of wanted to know what that was all about but was also a lot hesitant to find out. Anything that could give a girl that kind of slightly sad, slightly haunted look could not be a good thing. Perhaps it was best to not poke her nose in a potential hornet’s nest. “I… thanks. I’ll think about that.”

“Anyway,” dragged out Maggie, obviously trying to get the subject back on track yet again, “why don’t we tell you stuff about the town? Do you have any questions to start with or should we just talk?”

“Well, I know there is the college, so this town is not as hella far from civilization as my home. But what else is here?”

“Well, we have all sorts of nice cute shops, some decent things to do by and large, and other things are not too far away if you need something that the town doesn’t have.” stated Maggie. She then added, “The Library is really nice.”

“Library?” scoffed Maeko.

“Yes Library. It is actually really nice and pretty modern for a town of our size. It has lots new stuff and a collection of older stuff. They even have a good collection of online resources available. So, that is really cool. They have nice classes as well that they offer. So, no the Library does not suck.” said Maggie, clearly working herself up in her defense.

“Well okay. Sorry to have doubted you.” replied Maeko, raising her hands in surrender.

“Good.” Their sodas arrived. “Now I thought about heading over to the comic shop once we're done here. They also have some cool collectables, some games and other neat stuff. It isn’t that geeky. There is also a kind of weird metaphysic New Agey shop as well but let’s skip that.”

“Sounds good.” said Maeko, before taking a sip of her soda through her straw. She had noticed that a lot of girls seemed to use straws and decided to use one, as she hadn’t when she had been Takeshi creating another difference. True, it was kind of a superficial difference, but even little things like that helped cement things in people’s minds and in her own.

Soon enough the pizzas arrived. The girls dove into their food, sharing slices and talking about all sorts of things. Maeko found it interesting and fairly familiar with the conversations he had had with the guys. That commonality was relaxing her quite a bit with them, and making her feel more connected to the two of them. This was kind of nice, to hang out with these two. She had known that Maggie was nice before but had not really hung out with her, but the girl really was very cool in her opinion. She absolutely needed to correct that friendship oversight on her part. And Misty was not bad either. She was still trying to get a feel for the girl, as Misty was still clearly hurt by the earlier rumors about her and the way some of the kids still treated her. Maeko acted like she didn’t know those things and that seemed to help, that she was taking the girl at face value with no preconceived ideas.

Maeko did like that she was also being taken that way as well, without the weight of Takeshi’s geekdom hanging around her neck dragging her into a set of actions. She was able to just relax and kind of just be herself and not have to worry if she was coming across as geeky enough or weak enough or if she was masking her strength enough to sell the role she had chosen to play. No, all she had to worry about was if she was Californian enough, which all in all was not too bad comparatively. And pretending to be mad at Aunt Chiharu… that was actually kind of fun. Her haha thought it was hysterical, as the idea that Chiharu had slept with Grace was funny. Chiharu had even played up that fact which had made her mother a touch uncomfortable with the play flirting and everything.

No, there were good and bad things about all of this and she was by and large with the tradeoffs. Sure being a girl was different, but at least she hadn’t fainted like her mothers. That had been funny. In gaining these interesting abilities it had come at a cost, one that she was ultimately okay with. She hadn’t wanted to be a girl, but if her parents had taught her anything it was that girls were just as capable as guys. One unexpected good from all of this was the fact that she would be able to get closer to Dana. That she was a lesbian was unexpected and now Maeko was even more pleased with the transformation due to the possibilities. The thought made her smile.

“Who you thinking about?” asked Misty coyly, breaking into Maeko’s drifting thoughts of her and Dana on a picnic on a warm spring day.

“Uhm… no one.” Maeko replied with a blush that quickly filled her face.

Maggie giggled at the sight, “Thinking about your punk girlfriend?”

“What? No. I don’t… Shut Up!” Maeko buried her face in her hands as the girls laughed happily over that, clearly amused with her. Her face burned with embarrassment. “I hate you guys.”

“Right, I totally buy that. Where would you be in this town without us? Besides us, you only know Wallace and The Terrible Twosome.”

Misty looked a bit stunned, “Wait, she knows Cindy and Tracy?”

Maeko looked up, a bit surprised at the tone Misty used, “Yeah, I met them today. Why?”

The girl groaned, rubbed her closed eyes and then asked quietly, “You haven’t met Malice have you?”

“Misty.” chided Maggie.

Maeko knew who Misty was talking about but acted clueless. This might be a way to get some intel that helped fill out more about Misty. “Who’s this Malice?”

Maggie shot Misty a look. “She’s a girl that Tracy knows and her real name is Mary. Has a pretty big attitude and is kind of mean to some people, hence the nickname. She and Misty really don’t get along and she picks on Misty a good bit. Misty is a bit tired of dealing with her. That and Misty and Tracy don’t get along that well either. I don’t know what it’s all about, but it started this fall. No one is really talking about it.”

Misty looked down at the table, clearly uncomfortable with all of this. Maeko reached over and rested a hand on the girl’s arm. “Hey, I just met you and I think you’re nice. I don’t care what some witch with a B thinks about you, your cool with me.”

Misty and Maggie both reacted to her calling Malice a bitch pretty severely. Misty leaned forward and hissed out, “Quiet, someone might hear.”

Maeko played confused, as she tried to process this. Then it hit. The girl’s last name. Crap, that wasn’t what she had meant. But wait how did Misty and Maggie know? Did they know? “What, all I did was call her a bitch? Is that a crime or something? Is she going to come over here and fuck me up?”

Maggie scanned the room really quick and sighed in relief, “Ah… maybe. Malice has a hell of a temper and can be kind of vindictive. She has started a lot of fights with people over things and never really seems to lose. She is not an enemy you want to have.”

“Right. Don’t poke the psycho. Got it.”

Misty took a big drink of her soda and sighed, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Maeko needed to change the topic, “So once we’re done here, were to?”

“I think the comic store would be a good place. You want to join us Misty?” asked Maggie.

“Nah. I think I’ll just head home. I’m still getting bothered by guys who think I’m easy and I’ll put out just ‘cause they ask. Ugh! If I’m home they can’t do that and I can relax. You would think that they would have gotten the damn message after this long that I’m not that girl.” Misty grumbled the last part.

Maggie grabbed her hand and held it tight, smiling at the girl. Misty looked a bit teary eyed but smiled back. “We can chat later, kay.”

“Kay. Thanks.”

“What are friends for. Now let’s finish up. There are a few pieces left.”

Maeko had the last of her pizza and Misty had the last of Maggie’s and Maggie had the last of hers. Once that was done they went up and paid, hugged each other and headed off their separate ways. Maggie and Maeko did some window shopping, looking at the nice clothes at several stores and commenting what they thought would look good on each other. Maeko was convinced that Maggie could dress a bit hotter and maybe start to take over socially, as she was a lot cooler than she had remembered.

There were a couple of stores with art and decorative tchotchkes that were worth commenting on, some with interest, and some with laughter. They walked past the dojo and Maeko remembered Cindy’s poke about wanting to spar her. Maybe she should ask her haha if that would be okay. It might give away the family secret of their Art, but if she fought Cindy alone with no one else watching it should be okay, because then telling someone would not be the same as experiencing it. She kind of felt a connection to Cindy, as the first non-family person to have seen her and Maeko sort of trusted her. Of course, that was a bit of a technicality, but still the idea held.

A bit further on they reached the comic shop. Maggie walked in first and as Maeko entered she noticed that they were almost the only people in the store. That was a bit out of the ordinary for some time after school, but occasionally happened, especially as it was two days before the new releases came in. Mikaela, smiled at them, but then seemed to notice something and stared at Maeko in an odd way. It was like she was suspicious of her or something. But why?

They looked at things and she played her part, slightly bored and not too interested in all of these things. She drifted away from Maggie, heading over to look at some of the action and anime figures, ignoring the sounds of Mikaela fiddling around behind the counter. There were some new ones since the last time she had been in and that was cool. She had wondered about getting some but was now wondering if Maeko would be interested in owning things like this or not. That was a pretty irritating place to be, standing there unsure of your own wants and desires.

“Can I help you?”

Maeko spun around and there was Mikaela, standing just a few feet behind her, with a toothy half-grin. She had not heard the young woman approach and that bothered her a little. That was almost never an issue as she was always aware of her surroundings. Either the girl was really good or she was really distracted. She wasn’t sure which was worse. “Uhm… yeah, sure… like, so my friend Maggie,” She gestured towards the girl. “Said that I might like to get some stuff here but I’m not sure what. I mean, like, I trust her but I don’t know, you know?”

Mikaela sniffed and then smiled knowingly at her, “Yeah, I know. So let me see if I can help you pick some things out that I think you just might enjoy.”

“Sure.” Maeko was feeling a little uneasy about the way this conversation was turning. Mikaela was looking a bit too happy and sure for her comfort. Besides she wasn’t asking her anything about her interests or anything as she was heading over to the racks. Once she stopped there, she turned to face Maeko and said, “You strike me as someone who might really enjoy these. I think this new episode of Season Nine of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is really enjoyable and then there is this Star Wars comic. I haven’t read it but the write up says the story is pretty decent.”

Maeko cut her eyes over to the woman. Those were things that she had been planning on picking up and should have been in her box. But it wasn’t as if Takeshi could come and pick them up. That was a bit too specific a choice. Buffy she could kind of follow, but Star Wars?

“Also here is The Defenders: Tournament of Heroes. The premise is also really fun and a touch odd. And if you like the Halo series, the Halo comic is pretty good as well but if you have never played the game don’t bother.”

Now Maeko really knew something was up. That was two more of the comics Takeshi had on his draw list and were likely in his box. Mikaela was four for four and that was practically impossible for just random guesses. She had to know it was him. That was the only way she could know any of this. What the hell?

“Catwoman and Wonder Woman are also fun reads you might enjoy, so you might want to check them out. That is just what comes off the top of my head right now. There are also some fun manga as well. Wednesday Usagi Yojimbo comes out, which is a lot of fun as well. So what do you think?” Mikaela looked her right in the eyes when she asked that.

Maeko swallowed heavily. He had been thinking of getting Catwoman but wasn’t sure and wasn’t sure if reading Wonder Woman was worth it. As Takeshi she had asked Mikaela her opinion of the titles. And Takeshi had been collecting Usagi Yojimbo forever, so that could have been an easy one to remember. What the hell was going on? How did Mikaela know that? “Uhm… that sounds good to me.”

“Are you good with those titles? There are a couple of others that might be fun as well.” There was a gleam in Mikaela’s eyes that was a bit friendlier and less aggressive, like the girl was relaxing more.

“Sure. If you think I will enjoy them I am willing to try them.” Maeko tried to spin her words to come across as a little ditzy but wasn’t sure how successful that was going to be. This whole situation was making her more and more nervous.

“Great! Think you might want one of the action figures?”

“You mean the dolls?” Maeko knew that was usually a big trigger terms with some of the people who collected them, which is why she used it. Takeshi would never had made that mistake.

Mikaela started laughing. “Don’t let some of the guys here you say that but yes.”

“Uhm… not right now. I think I’m gonna look at the posters right now.” finished Maeko awkwardly.

“Sure. I hope you find something you like.”

Maeko all but scampered over to the poster rack and began flipping through them, trying to avoid the piercing gaze that kept watching her. How? How in the hell? She had not done anything to give herself away. She knew that with complete surety, so how had Mikaela done it? There was no doubt in Maeko’s mind that somehow the woman at the comic store had figured out that she had been Takeshi with no clues. What the hell was she supposed to do against something like that? If someone could just, guess with no clues, there was no defense. Maybe she could get her haha to help her learn a better masking glamour that could better protect her? She needed to do something. This whole situation was getting ridiculous.

There were a couple of posters she liked that fit the new her and the interests she actually had outside of covers and roles, so she definitely wanted to get those. She looked in her purse and she did have enough cash to get them, thanks to the money that he haha had given her that morning, knowing that she was going to be hitting Mario’s and then probably here. Needing nothing else at the moment, she went over to Maggie and said, “Hey, I’m gonna call my Aunts and have them pick me up. Okay?”

“Okay. Did you get anything?”

“Some comics and some posters for my room. Thanks for bringing me here.” said Maeko warmly.

“No problem. I look forward to seeing you in school tomorrow.”

“Me too.” Maeko reached out and hugged Maggie. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

Maeko headed over with some trepidation to the counter and put her poster tubes down and the comics. Mikaela’s smile was quite friendly at this point and asked, “Find everything you need?”

Maeko nodded, not trusting her voice.

“Great. Well, I look forward to seeing you later. Maybe we can talk a bit or something, so I can get to know you a bit better. I like to get to know my new customers. Makes my job easier.”

Maeko was pretty certain that was not what she meant at all but the shift in attitude from aggressive to friendly was confusing her. “Thanks. I guess I’ll see you later then? Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too Maeko. You take care.” This was the friendly Mikela that she had been used to as Takeshi. This whole situation was making her crazy. All she seemed to know was who she was and confirmed it by offering her certain titles, which she took. Maybe Mikaela had been looking up the draw list before she came over to talk to him? Maybe? She really was terrible at this whole secret identity thing.

Maeko headed outside, happy that she was all alone on the street and called her parents. The day had been a little too crazy for her and she kind of wanted to go home, bundle up in blankets and drink coco. To hell with this day! Sure she got great news about Dana, but was the rest of it worth that one bit of good? She shook her head, fighting of the stress driven tears that were trying to come out now that she was alone. All of this was just so overwhelming that she wanted to huddle up somewhere safe and the cold street was not it. The phone rang and her mother answered, “Hello?”

“Mommy, can I come home?”