Kit and Kin

poetheather

Takeshi Saito was a quiet student who kept his head down in Ravenscrest High School trying to get along. But strange things happen in this small town and 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. Just another day in Ravenscrest.

Chapter Two

January 18

Both Takeshi and Dana tumbled to the ground, a jumbled mass of arms and legs. Takeshi managed to twist himself around by wrenching his back so that he was the one who hit the ground first, keeping Dana from getting hurt. The end result left her elbow driving into his diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him, and his head bouncing off the floor with a loud thwack, making him see stars. Dana scrambled to her feet and looked down at him, worry clear on her face, “Oh my god! Are you okay?”

“Guh…” was about all that Takeshi was able to get out as he was at a loss for air. It was her. She was here tangled with him. “Gah…”

Dana smiled comfortingly, squeezing his bicep, and then looking a bit confused, “Can you help me up?”

He nodded, still trying to suck in air. Slowly he untangled the two of them and helped Dana get to a standing positing all in one continuous motion. She raised an eyebrow at that physical demonstration and said, “Thanks.”

Takeshi bobbed his head, eyes wide and mouth a bit slack, gasping out. “You Welcome.”

Dana blushed slightly as he released her carefully and said, “Okay. Well, I will see you in class.”

Takeshi watched her walk away from him, his hazel eyes tracking her movement until she was lost in the mess of students, some of whom had watched the whole thing. He shook his head, trying to clear it after that encounter, his heart racing and his palms sweaty. He trembled. They had touched. His skin felt electric. Closing his eyes he stood and shook with the magic of the feeling. She had smelled so nice. Delicate and wild all at once. It seemed to call something in him.

The first bell rung and that snapped him out of his trance. His eyes snapped open and with a yip of surprise he scampered down the hall, racing between people in his attempt to race the second bell. Somehow he made it into his class before his teacher closed the door on him. She was not known for having any sympathy for tardies, sending them to the Vice Principal instead, and after his experience just minutes before he really would rather not repeat his meeting with Mr. McC if he could help it.

His notes were rather disjointed as he kept thinking over and over about running into Dana, about the feel of her body against his, the smell of her hair, how warm and smooth her skin had been under his hands. With all that running through his head, how was he supposed to focus on something as obscure as World History, even if they were covering interesting stuff normally? Besides, he routinely got excellent grades in the class so he would be fine if he were a bit lax in his attention for one day. It’s not like he didn’t have a really good reason.

After that class finally ended and he slowly started to come back to earth, he wound his way through people on his way to gym. He had asked his moms to write him a note or something, as he did not want to have to deal with these Neanderthals and pretend to not be in the shape he was. In all honesty this was a class that was wasted on him and he could use it to take something else… something interesting. The only result he had gotten from his mothers was a group hug while they had snickered at him, with his haha saying, “Consider it a part of training, a ninja must be able to portray many faces to the world. This is one of them.”

His mom had started really laughing at that, earning a glare from kasa. Apparently, there was something to that laugh so Takeshi had asked about it and had only gotten an answer of, “You’ll understand when you are older.”

Sometimes his parents were completely mental.

In the locker room, he moved to his locker that was thankfully back in one of the corners. True it was a perfect place to box him in, which had happened a few times, but it had allowed him to change without people noticing his musculature. Granted, he was only fifteen and a day away from being sixteen, but he did have a fairly solid build that he hid under baggy clothes. And with it being winter, sweats made that particular task even easier to accomplish.

His parents had spent the money to get the maroon and white Ravencrest Rhinos sweats that were solid maroon with broad white stripes running down the arms and legs. On the back it said Rhinos and on the front over the heart it had a Rhino. They looked a bit dorky but they did the job. With it baggy, from being at least a size or two too big he looked rather dorky in it. The excuse he had been giving to the coach is that his moms thought he would grow into them. This did mean that he looked like all the other boys, only a bit more rumpled.

He used to have an ally in the class, since Trevor had been in there with him and they would sit in the back and make snide comments about some of the jocks while they did whatever they did. But now he was alone, stuck in a class with a few of the jocks that did not like him. Sure Mike was gone but that did not really reduce the field of antagonists by a significant amount. Bullying seemed to be more of the great American pastime than Baseball as far as Takeshi could tell. At least that seemed to be true among those who were bigger and stronger than others.

Today the chosen Litany of Pain pronounced upon them by the Coach was dodgeball. Takeshi groaned as others cheered. He loved dodgeball. He was great at dodgeball. His kasa had told him specifically that he was not allowed to be good at dodgeball if he was to succeed at his dorky cover that had been chosen for him. It was all his fault of course. He had been the one who had said proudly ‘I can be a geek!’ without thinking through all the ramifications that such a decision would have on his life. Sure he did have the geek cred but this… this special pain was one of the flaws in his otherwise brilliant plan.

As expected he was one of the last picked. That at least let him know he had been doing a great job in playing the geek boy. But now the fun and games began. In addition to having to barely miss balls that were thrown so pathetically slow in his mind that it was a joke, he had to deal with his own teammates shoving him from behind and the side. He took a carefully placed spill to the floor, looking like he banged his knee that stopped play briefly, but the coach only told him to man up and walk it off. That allowed him a few minutes reprieve but not much more.

The set up there allowed him to get himself in position so that three of the jerks that he had to deal with all threw at him at the same time. He curled up and they all hit, stinging slightly, one of the red balls catching the side of his face, knocking him to the floor where he banged his head slightly. As he lay there, he cursed his mothers several times over and over in his mind. He had to endure all of this bullshit in the name of training.

Seeing as he was now ‘injured’ with a big red mark on half his face, the Coach actually let him go change into his regular clothes and sit in the bleachers, to wait for the end of class. Takeshi pulled out a manga and started reading, happy to be doing anything else rather than sweating with the ignorant muscle heads. At least now he could drown his sorrow in the crazy adventures of Kaguya and that crazy all girls school.

When the bell rang, he moved quickly to his next class, Chemistry. That meant Dana. They weren’t lab partners or anything like that. No, if that were to happen he would probably have a heart attack and die. He realized yet again that he was completely messed up in the head over her. All he could do lately was think about Dana, dream about Dana, and fantasize about Dana in ways that would cause his mothers to be very upset at him for his objectifying of a beautiful woman in what seemed to be a sexual manner or at least partially a sexual manner if his dreams were taken into account. He wasn’t trying to be bad. It was not natural. He was clearly not natural. He was a freak. He was acting a bit insane and he knew it. If only he knew how to stop it.

Dana walked into the room and his thinking stopped with a screech and a crash. She was alone, as none of her usual friends were in this class. She had Chad Hermsdorf as a lab partner, which was a good thing as he was one of the smartest kids in the whole school. Not as smart as she was of course, but that meant that she did not have to work harder to carry him. He sighed, resting his head in his hands, eyes lazily focused on her.

She set her books down on her lab table and then turned, catching him looking at her. She smiled gently at him. His head slipped from his hand in surprise and he narrowly missed slamming it into the thick surface of his lab table. The trained reaction was to snap backwards, which had him overbalancing on his stool and falling backwards to the floor. He barely managed to control his fall enough to keep from hurting himself, avoiding banging his head on the floor for a third time in a little over an hour.

The class erupted with laughter at what he did. “Way to go dumbass!” “Smooth move loser!” “Spaz!” “What a retard!” “What an idiot!”

He lay there on the floor a moment, his face covered with his hands. He hurt, as he had fallen hard on his back yet again but not bad enough to need to go to the nurse. He had somewhat managed to break his fall but only somewhat. There was no way that he had not looked like a complete idiot in front of everybody. And this was going to get spread through the whole school by the end of the day. He only hoped that no one had been recording him with their phones as a YouTube video of that would be too much to bear. At least this would make his cover stronger. He groaned in frustration.

“Saito, are you okay?” asked the teacher from the front of the class.

“Yes sir.” Takeshi got to his feet, grumbling. He stretched some, with his hands bracing his lower back and then picked up his stool, putting it back into place.

The teacher shook his head, smiled and then said, “Well, if Mr. Saito can refrain from giving us any more impromptu physics demonstrations today, then maybe we can get to our actual classwork. Shall we?”

Takeshi just wanted to curl up and die. He put his head down and banged his head lightly on the table. His lab partner just snickered.

He hurried out of class once it was over, unable to even look at Dana in his embarrassment. The burning in his face was getting worse and he still had one more class with her. How was he ever going to manage it? He was busy stuffing his book and notebook into his bag as he was walking into the hall and walked right into David Westerburg. His stuff spilled to the floor.

“Watch it moron!”

“Sorry.” said Takeshi, wanting to avoid any trouble. After everything that had already happened with his day there was no way that he needed to face this sort of grief right now.

“Damn right you’re sorry.” growled Westerburg, leaning in towards him, to intimidate him.

“Hey David… you know you aren’t supposed to make a mess in the halls.” chimed in one of his two ever present testicles, Chip.

“That is a good point Chip. We should throw all this trash away.”

Takeshi groaned in resignation. This was going to suck but what else could he do. According to the rules his kasa had given him he had to go along with this crap. Westerburg grabbed Takeshi’s backpack and dumped it into the trashcan and then tossed him in on top of it all, pushing him down a little. His testicles, Chip and Steve, threw in the rest of his stuff on top of him. Thankfully they were not near the cafeteria and so the trash would mostly be paper and stuff, but that did not make it any better.

You would think it was comedy gold from the reactions of some of the students and from the three douchbags. He waited until Westerburg and his goons were on their way, high fiving each other and bumping chests like they had done something impressive. If only his kasa would let him go, but it was dishonorable to attack someone so unskilled. He would completely devastate Westerburg and his friends at the same time and that was wrong. But the thought did bring some succor as he dug his pens and his thumb drive out of the trash can. His bag had gotten a little wet from a Coke someone had tossed in there that had not been empty.

The second bell rang and he sighed in resignation. He still had to get a few of his books out and then make it to his class. Once he plucked the last of his things free of the trashcan, he headed towards his last class of the day. Thankfully it ended with Dana, so there was on an up note to things. That would help make this day at least be decent or at least end decent. He shook his head. He hated trashcans but seeing Dana would make everything better. He only wished he actually had the courage to talk to her and tell her how he felt, but his voice just seized up and he froze when he was around her. He was comfortable with the opponents his haha brought in for him to fight, doing the crazy missions she sent him on but yet talking to the girl he liked nearly gave him a heart attack. It wasn’t fair.

He entered the classroom and looked a little sheepish as everybody stared at him. The teacher waved him in as she kept taking roll. His seat was in the middle of the class and he had to move past several people who did not like him. He managed to not brush against any of them. Once seated, he got out his book and notebook, as well as his mechanical pencil. Now all he had to do was to at least pretend to pay attention to the class as opposed to what he really wanted to do which was watch Dana.

He knew he was an idiot and he knew he wasn’t fooling anybody. He also knew that he was not even being subtle. He knew from subtle. He was trained in subtle. His kasa had trained him in the art of subtle since he could walk but the problem was when he saw Dana his brains turned to warm tapioca, dribbled out his ears and there was nothing he could do about it except sit there in awe of here. She was just so amazing. Surely everyone saw how incredible she was? How could they not? She was just so cool and beautiful and smart and funny and he could just go on and on about her.

Slowly he began to randomly doodle, his pencil tracing spirals and gentle curves. Words slowly came to mind and he wrote them down, smiling slightly as he watched how the light from outside effected Dana’s hair in a different way than the fluorescent light did. And she always moved so gracefully, almost catlike. She was incredible, and beautiful and her eyes were something else. He drifted through class like this for a while, letting the poetry take him like it had for the last two years.

While he was sighing and focused on her or the page, he never saw one of the jocks next to him reach over and snatch the notebook. Takeshi snapped his head around and shot his hand out, just missing getting it back. The jock, one of the soccer players who he did not know, grinned as he stood, saying, “Hey, listen to this everybody!”

Takeshi shouted in fear, “No!”

“Mr. Edelston, sit down!”

The entire class was now watching this whole situation intently. Takeshi’s face was already burning red and he was contemplating actually just killing the boy in order to take back his notebook before he said anything. However, the odds were that he would get suspended or maybe even expelled for doing that.

“Fire crowns her glorious head
In flame licked tresses that curl
Waving in the wind, dancing red
Free from tangles or burls

Grey eyes gaze Athena wise
Her face clearly Goddess wrought
Yet she is greater than any prize
For a hero with trials unfought

O Dana, Goddess of my heart
I am forever your humble servant
Would that you would deign turn to me
Your great beauty effulgent.”

Most of the class was laughing loudly at him, some even pointing. Takeshi grabbed his backpack, snatched the notebook out of the guys hand and hustled out of the class. As he was trying to edge past two desks he locked eyes briefly with Dana, who was blushing and looked almost as embarrassed as he was. He hurt her. That hurt his heart. Fighting against tears he sped out of the class as the teacher called out, “Mister Saito, stop!”

Freed from the constraints of worry about what other people thought, Takashi did not care if anyone might wonder how a dork like him had gotten into much better shape than he had been in before. He raced to the exit at the end of the hall and slammed out of the door. At that moment, he did not care about the fact that he had none of the books needed for some of his homework or the fact that he could get in trouble. He just had to get out of there, away from the school and away from Dana who he had embarrassed.

Running at his best speed down the sidewalk, dodging icy patches, his thoughts were in turmoil. There was no way he could show his face in school again. After that poem was read his high school career was pretty much ruined. He would be mocked forever and if he showed up the beatings he endured would be worse than ever. In order to protect himself he would actually have to use his training. His mother and kasa would be pissed and his home life would be messed up because of that. Home schooling would be his only option if he wanted to have any sort of life any more. Also, he could never look Dana in the eyes again. Not after that.

There was a screech of tires and a horn honked. He cut his eyes over and jumped over a car that tried to hit him, one hand slamming into the hood. As he cleared things, landing on the other side he realized that maybe getting hit by the car would have relieved his misery but missing his party this weekend would have resulted in his parents killing him and he really did not need that in addition to the death of his social life. Tears burned down his face, the salt freezing a little on his face.

He wiped his face, choking back a sob, shaking his head, still running, barely paying attention to his surroundings. Why did that jock have to grab his notebook? Why couldn’t he do anything to stop people doing things like that to him? Why did that jackass have to read it aloud in class? Why did he have to love Dana so much that he had to write about her? Had he done this to himself? Had he set himself up for failure? This hurt so bad. His heart ached and all he could do was cry.

Why had this happened? He loved her and he could never see her again.