That was a fact known to me since the second year of elementary school. I had lived with it to the point where I hadn’t had to repeat it in my head for the last couple of years. This day, though, is proving to be a challenge even for me, the undisturbable Jake Holland.
It all started this morning, even before we got to the school. No, wait, it started yesterday, after I went to bed. See, I just came to Kyoto thanks to my mom, who wanted to come work, and live, with her sister. We arrived last week, and now I’m stuck here living with my aunt and my cousin, Kabi.
He’s not quite the bad guy, I mean, I’ve known far worse back in America. I used to hang out with him every day, before I moved to L.A. with my dad, so I somewhat know the guy. A little out of his mind, but quite approachable and chill. Or that’s what I thought. But it looks like he went nuts at last.
He stayed in his room the whole week, just came out to eat and go to the bathroom. It seemed like he hadn’t even realized we were living in the same house. My aunt said he wasn’t always like that, but sometimes he got into something, and when that happened he forgot about the existence of everything else.
From my point of view that was just perfect, I concluded some time ago that having interpersonal relationships is just a bother. He was making it effortless for me to follow the “You will get along with your aunt and cousin, or else I’ll leave you with your dad” that my mom used as a—sadly effective—threat before coming… until last night.
I was asleep before midnight for the first time after we got there, having this awesome dream about something that I don’t remember at all, when my door slammed open.
“Jake, Jake!” he said. He shouted.
I jumped out of the bed and grabbed my baseball bat to fight the house thief, police riot, bear, or whatever was breaking into the house to cause such turmoil.
“You have to see this! It is working!”
“What is? Are you feeling well, Kabi?”
“I am not Kabi, I am Karmin Phoenix, but that is a secret… well, that is not important now, come!”
I looked at him, his hair was as messy as my room, and his eyes… his irises were red instead of the usual purple-gray. He looked like a mad scientist that had built a giant robot. And for a split second I thought maybe he had, and maybe I was going to be the pilot. I followed him to his room, looked at the direction he was pointing and there it was…
“Your computer…”
He looked at me with a smirk, then laughed dramatically, while still pointing at the screen that showed something like a shiny ring. I’ve heard you shouldn’t contradict a person suffering from insanity, so I played along:
“It’s interesting… that animation… thing…”
“Nice one, Jake, you still have it in you. Now let me log in.”
He typed a password in a box under a word written with Greek letters, then pressed enter. A new page loaded, it looked like a message board. A hideous one. At the top it read “Elysium”.
“Behold! Elysium is now working! Let me show you!”
He made me look at how he posted a new message like implying message boards were a new discovery. It’s 2015, dude. He wrote a lot of mumbo-jumbo and then, after he clicked “post,” nothing posted.
“I—wait a second, let me try again,” he said, and repeated the procedure with identical results. “In the name of Freyja! This is just not possible! It was working a minute ago! There must be a logical explanation… Yes, yes… I can check the… But there is nothing wrong here… Or here… Oh! could this be a test for me the great Karmin—”
I would have laughed at his despair, but it seemed as fun as laughing at a child who had just dropped his ice cream, and it was late. Like almost-morning late. So, instead, I interrupted his rant.
“Hey, dude… Tomorrow is the first day of school. I’m going to sleep and you should do the same…” I said, but then I thought I was coming across as too responsible, “or do whatever you want, just shut up and let me sleep.”
He wasn’t listening again, though. I went to sleep, and he was still there when I woke up, being forced into the shower by his mom. He was quiet again until we were almost at school.
“I get it! It is a sign, Jake,” he exclaimed, and his eyes shined red again.
From the way he looked at me, it was clear he was expecting me to ask him about it. We were too close to school, though, and I had a reputation to build as someone to be feared. Being labeled as a “weirdo” wasn’t going to be helpful.
“It is a sign, I have to first gather a group of allies before the power for Elysium is granted to me. We are going to find them. I will see you after the entrance ceremony,” and he went inside the school before I could say anything.
I won’t bore you with the details, but I got stuck in class 1-3, and was touring the school with them, led by some third year students, when Kabi found me. He proceeded to tell me his brilliant plan, which involved making a new club, where we—yes, we—would recruit new allies. That, of course, would make us worthy of the power of Elysium.
I told him I was not interested in joining a club, any club. Neither I had the intention to go with him, but the tour was useless, stupid and as boring as watching a presidential speech.
“This is building B,” while pointing at a building with a big B on the front and the like. As you can see, following Kabi to the teachers’ room didn’t seem like the worst of ideas.
Quoting my mom, Morihata, our junior high, is “not known for winning any prizes. A mediocre school, the perfect place where even you can do well.”
It was in this place where Kabi went up to his teacher, on the first day of school, and told her he wanted to create the Elysium Society for World’s Fate.
He was, of course, received with enthusiasm. The teacher was all “Wow, this guy is so interested in standing out since even before the classes start, he must be a prodigy!” but the cheers didn’t last much.
“So you’re saying the club will be about Greek mythology?”
“Not exactly, it is more about Norse mythology, but we will not be talking much about mythology in there. We will be focused in finding what Freyja is expecting from me to grant me the power to create Elysium.”
“Norse mythology, then… where are the other members?”
I would have complained about being called a member of this nonsense, but I had thought joining it could be a good move at the end. I wouldn’t have to join a club when my mom went “you have to do something in your free time, achieve more,” or any of those stuff that parents always say. Plus it would be the same club as Kabi, which would make it look like I was getting along with him… and then I would just skip the club, as he clearly didn’t care about anyone but himself anyway.
“There is no more, but that should not matter, for this is neither an anime nor anything similar.”
We got kicked out of there and asked to come back until we had at least five members because there were not spare rooms for every couple of people wanting to create a new club.
And of course this was not an anime. If it were I’m sure we would have spent a couple of episodes recruiting people, and then maybe we could get some female classmates in bunny girl costumes.
Instead we are here, executing Plan Beta, as Kabi named it.
“I know my way around here, do what I told you and we will be set,” he said a couple of minutes ago.
There’s a teacher—or some other adult, not that his title matters—walking toward the scene of the crime. Kabi’s face down on the floor, with a puddle of red liquid coming out from below his head. I know I can outrun the teacher with ease, since now there’s a crowd around us and I can push my way through it. A teacher would have to be all like “oh, could you excuse me? I need to pass. If you were so kind to move it’ll be sweet.” You know, stuff that I would never say.
And I would have done that, and then I would have laughed at both of them. Kabi trying to hide his fake blood and that teacher trying to hide his authentic anger. I would. I even have a route, between the girl with glasses and the fat boy. I could even throw her over that other guy and watch how he gets infatuated with her later, just for the fun of it. I could do that and much, much more, but she saw me.
She is standing there, behind the crowd, her eyes on me. She saw me beyond recognition, she could have enough info to write a novel about me by now.
In this situation I have no other option but to cooperate—the sole word sends a shiver down my spine—and follow Kabi’s stupid plan. I stop myself, with a big effort, from punching a random bystander, try to look as worried as possible, and, after what seems like a decade, the teacher gets here and starts talking.
“What’s going on here? Is he okay?”
“He fell from the ladder, maybe we should take him to—” but then he sees the red paint.
“Oh god, he’s bleeding,” then to nobody in specific in the crowd, “quickly, get the nurse!”
I spend an additional three eternities waiting for the nurse, then, as soon as he hears her voice, Kabi starts his part of the act.
“No. Do not worry… I am fine,” he says, standing up with the help of the wall. He then sways on his feet a couple of times before falling directly on his face. Not a bad performance, it had to hurt a lot.
I’m told to go to the teacher’s office and Kabi gives me a thumbs up while he’s lifted on a stretcher. The blood coming out of his nose appears to be real. He must be so proud of himself, the little bastard.“Your friend will be fine, it looks like you were helping him with the ladder, what happened?” the teacher asks me inside his office.
“This idiot fell on purpose just to attract the attention of the professorship, I hope you make him pay in the form of public punishment of some sort.”
But if that’s my reply, Kabi will drag me again for something even more stupid. Plan Gamma, for sure. So instead I go as scripted.
“He’s actually my cousin. He was fixing the door of that unused classroom even though I tried to explain to him that the empty classroom wasn’t the only problem. We needed to be five members, no matter how incredibly much he wanted to have this club. No matter how committed he was to get started already on a project that would put Morihata on the map. But you know, he never listens to anyone or anything but his own convictions.”
The teacher listens, paying much more attention than I expected, and then he nods and tells me to go to class, he’ll check on Kabi.
So, I’m waiting for the next class, social sciences, when Kabi passes next to the door, makes eye contact and gives me a thumbs up. Could that mean…?
Just after that, a teacher, the one I was talking to, enters the classroom.
“Good morning, freshmen. I’m the teacher in charge of this class, Mr. Watanabe. Before I ask you to introduce yourselves, let me tell you the one thing I expect from all of you at Morihata: Conviction.”
So that’s what you meant when you said you knew your way around, you little shit. I can’t hide a smirk. We’ve got our club.
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