RE: [RFC][Sailor Moon][SI] The Final Dream
10-30-2017, 07:26 AM (This post was last modified: 10-30-2017, 07:27 AM by Black Aeronaut.)
10-30-2017, 07:26 AM (This post was last modified: 10-30-2017, 07:27 AM by Black Aeronaut.)
Short chapter this time, but it tidies up the aftermath of of Chapter 2.
There's been a raft of minor fixes - I went through the whole thing with with an e-reader with a read-aloud function. Fixed a few weird typos and tweaked things here and there for clarity and flow.
PDF file as usual, and I'm testing the waters with an Epub version as well. And also the new chapter on its own is behind the spoiler. Let me know what you guys think.
Part.pdf (Size: 140.85 KB / Downloads: 12)
Part.epub (Size: 693.31 KB / Downloads: 4)
There's been a raft of minor fixes - I went through the whole thing with with an e-reader with a read-aloud function. Fixed a few weird typos and tweaked things here and there for clarity and flow.
PDF file as usual, and I'm testing the waters with an Epub version as well. And also the new chapter on its own is behind the spoiler. Let me know what you guys think.
Part.pdf (Size: 140.85 KB / Downloads: 12)
Part.epub (Size: 693.31 KB / Downloads: 4)
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoiler
The Autumn morning dawned, crisp and cool. Autumn nights in Tokyo are cold and Rei, despite being a young woman of Juuban, is an old fashioned soul. Her home has no heating units. She barely tolerates the kerosene heater as it is a necessity. But at night, for safety reasons, the heater is turned off and Rei and her guests must rely on their heavy down comforters and their own body heat to warm them through the night.
Benjamin, though, is unique when placed among Tokyo natives.
He is primarily of Hispanic and Native American stock - hardy hot weather people who have a tendency for their bodies to radiate as much heat as possible in order to maintain their body temperatures.
This is not a trait that simply goes away when the weather turns cold. However, it’s not a disadvantage. Families are known for sleeping together in one bed during the cold season with a well stocked and thoroughly contained fire providing extra heat.
Human beings, no matter what phenotype or culture, tend to forget about their customs once taken by sleep. And in the midst of a cold night, once something warm is detected, gravitation is a natural result.
And so it was that Benjamin didn’t care about the weight of the comforter. It was cold out there, and he felt perfectly warm under the heavy bedding.
Benjamin began to stir slowly, and then stopped.
Wavy mahogany hair to his left. A mop of blue to his right. Warm breath from both sides.
And an arm from each side curled protectively around him. And as he focused a bit more, he found that he was neatly pressed between the two. There were parts of his mind that were screaming about what exactly the soft parts pressing against him were, but his brain wasn’t fully up to speed yet. So while he distantly recognized that fact, he just brushed it aside. He was warm, comfortable, and felt safe and secure. And never mind that the bodies of two beautiful girls three years older than him were pressing against him all over. They were all wearing pajamas, and besides that, they were his sisters now, right?
He decided to simply let himself melt into a puddle of bliss and keep sleeping.
So this is what love is like, he thought fuzzily to himself. I like having older sisters that love me.
##
Not long after, Rei rose up out of bed. While late-night sorties as Sailor Mars did take their toll on her, she could never abide sleeping later than eight AM on a Sunday morning.
She carefully stepped around her best friend, and slid open the shoji screen that divided her room from the guest room (usually used for their study sessions).
Groggily she took in the sight. And then her eyes slowly widened, her lingering sleepiness completely forgotten.
Rei moved as quickly as she could without making too much noise and started rocking her friend’s shoulder.
“Usa-chan! Usagi! Wake up!” she hissed gleefully into the petite girl’s ear.
“Nnnhh,” she groaned. “five more minutes mom. please.”
Rei rolled her eyes in annoyance and shoved her friend a bit more sharply.
“Usagi! Wake! Up! Now!”
“Whaaaat?” she groused as she squinted up at Rei.
“You have GOT to see this!” said Rei, barely keeping herself from squealing in giddy glee.
What? Thought Usagi to herself. Rei? Trying not to squeal? Okay, something is definitely up here.
Grudgingly, Usagi got up and followed Rei.
“Whatever you do,” she whispered in her friend’s ear, “Don’t. Make. Any. Noise.”
Just like Rei had before, Usagi now looked groggily into the room. Rei watched her friend carefully, and just before the laugh could explode from Usagi’s mouth, Rei’s hand darted with rattle-snake speed to cover her friend’s mouth.
Usagi shot a look at her friend and then pulled the hand away, wearing a huge grin on her face.
“Ben had a camera with him, didn’t he?”
Rei almost dropped to the floor as she covered her own mouth then to keep herself from laughing out loud, her eyes wide in a ‘Holy hell are you serious!?’ expression. Usagi did not often have these flashes of utter brilliance, but when she did they were doozies. Usagi herself mimicked her friend’s pose and rubbed her hands together gleefully.
Together, they quickly tiptoed to where everyone’s bags were left, found Benjamin’s, and carefully dug the camera out.
“I’ll do it,” said Rei.
“You sure? It looks kinda complex.”
“I think I can figure it out,” said Rei tentatively. “I mean… it’s definitely one of the newer styles… but it looks like it doesn’t have much electronics. You know how I feel about that.”
“Hey, just because I don’t know how to use a computer doesn’t mean I think they’re useless!”
Rei gave her friend a red-eye and then set to work on trying to figure out the device. It was more intuitive than Rei initially thought.
Granted, a lot of the finer features were rather esoteric to her, but she understood the basics. Wind the film. Aim the camera using the view finder. Make sure the shot is in focus by adjusting the lens. Hold steady and push the button.
Click.
“Gotcha, Ben-kun!” said Rei cheerfully as she wound the film and took another picture of Ami and Makoto snuggled up close to Benjamin. What added to the hilarity of the situation was that Minako, being on the outside of the cuddle, had snuggled up to spoon Ami. Rei made sure to get a close-up of that action as well.
Once she got all the pictures she needed, Rei tucked Ben’s camera back into his bag, just as she found it.
“What did you put it back for?” said Usagi.
“So that he won’t know until he gets that roll of film developed,” said Rei with a grin. “Now let’s wake them up. These pictures are only gonna be part of the fun!”
“Right!” said Usagi as she flashed a V-For-Victory sign. She decided on Ami first. Sweet, lovable, and completely adorkable Ami. In the few months that she had known her, Usagi had come to love her dearly. Which meant that she was of the opinion that her studious friend really needed to loosen up a bit. She had seen what becomes of girls like her, after all. They hardly ever had boyfriends.
“Oooooohhhh Ami.~ It’s time to wake up!” cooed Usagi in her friend’s ear.
“Nnnhhh,” replied Ami in disagreement. Usagi raised an eyebrow and tried another approach that she was sure would have the desired effect.
“Ami-chan! We gotta study for that quiz tomorrow!~”
Ami’s eyes shot wide open at that. “Study?”
Ami is never slow on the uptake. And that goes as well for when waking up. A mind like hers is a well maintained and thoroughly oiled machine. It started up, firing on all eight cylinders right away, and engaged first gear.
“Ben-kun!” she yelped. “What am I- KYAH!” The second reaction was prompted by Minako, sensing that her heat source was about to depart, latched on more tightly to her friend, dragging her back down into the bedding. “Wha? MINAKO!?”
Meanwhile, Rei and Usagi were trying desperately to remain standing. Unfortunately, they were also fighting a battle to keep from laughing out loud. In this battle of two fronts, one was bound to be a retreating action. Naturally, this was the bout against gravity.
“Nyuh?” murmured Makoto muzzily from her spot. “Wha? BEN-KUN! What am I… AMI!?”
“I can’t get her off me!” pleaded Ami helplessly.
“can’t get away this time, takuya-kun,” murmured Minako in her sleep.
Makoto, despite the fact that just seconds ago she had been snuggling Benjamin, sputtered and snickered at what she had just heard.
“She’s dreaming that you’re Takuya from Judy and Mary!?”
That did it. No longer able to hold it in, Usagi and Rei positively exploded into laughter, finally waking Minako and Benjamin.
It would take about twenty minutes to sort out the pile of tangled limbs and bed linens this caused.
##
Once everyone was sorted, Makoto got straight to work on whipping up an American-style breakfast - pancakes, sausage, eggs, and real hash browns.
Benjamin, though, despite the loving care was still slightly morose.
“What’s wrong, Ben-kun?” asked Usagi, ever so keen to sense her newly adopted brother’s moods.
“I feel kinda bad about last night.”
“Why!?” cried out Usagi, nearly gasping as she turned Ben so she could look him in the eyes.
“Because… I’ve been an inconvenience to you… that’s a bad thing here in Japan, isn’t it?”
Rei laid a gentle hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Maybe for other people,” said Rei. “But we’re all your big sisters now. This is no inconvenience for us.”
“So, we’re like ohana now?”
“Ohana?” said Makoto. “What is that supposed to be?”
“I learned about it when my family was in Hawaii. Ohana means ‘family’. And ‘family’ means no one gets left behind, or forgotten.”
The girls all mulled that over for a moment. It was oh-so-clear to them, even though there really wasn’t a word for it in Japanese. The closest word they could think of was ‘nakama’ and even that lacked the closeness that ‘ohana’ implied. Ohana was more than simply a friend or a trusted colleague. Ohana is people you love dearly and whose pain you would feel as acutely as they themselves do.
“I like it,” said Usagi softly. “It doesn’t really mean just family like mom and dad. It’s family that you pick. Family that you can trust. Family that you would never leave behind or forget no matter what happens. We’re ohana now.”
##
They spent that Sunday at Showa Park, simply having fun. Benjamin was slow to come around - his depression from yesterday still lingering. But the girls were all game and slowly and gently drew Ben out of his shell. As the shadows grew long, they returned to the Shrine where Makoto once again worked her magic in the kitchen and served up a hearty curry. Benjamin continued to shock everyone with his seemingly bottomless craw as he utterly annihilated half of it all on his own.
With their stomachs filled, Ami insisted on one final review of the weekend’s homework, much to Usagi’s lamentations.
After an hour of careful review, they all picked up their bags and went their separate ways from the Shrine. All except for Benjamin and Rei, who had promised Kaori that she would walk Ben back to the Academy every night.
Rei was contemplative as they walked together in silence. She thought that it would feel strange for her to be walking alone with the boy like this. But instead, she felt comfortable, protective even, of him. But something still was still stuck like a sliver in her mind.
Well, he did tell us all about how he was hurt by his family. I guess I should tell him about what my father did. Besides, despite all his fidgeting, he seems to be a good listener.
“Ben-kun.”
“Hmm?” said Ben as all his attention focused on Rei except for the bit he needed to keep walking.
“You know I don’t normally like to hang around guys, right?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Ben in surprise. His expression became worried. “Am I bothering you?”
“No, not at all, silly,” said Rei as she scruffled Ben’s hair. She had to admit - his hair felt nice to run her fingers through. “I actually like being with you. It’s kinda strange for me, but to me you really do feel like family.”
“But why only me?” asked Ben in mild confusion. “I mean… why do you not like other guys?”
Rei sighed and decided to plunge ahead. “You’re not the only one that’s been hurt by their father. When I was just a little girl, my mother died from a terminal illness.”
Rei stopped as Ben suddenly wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly.
“It’s… okay Ben-kun,” said Rei, taken aback by the sudden affection. She hugged him back briefly, then gently made him let go, which Ben did with only a little reluctance. “I’ve gotten over my mother’s passing. I was only four when it happened. But what truly hurt me was how my father treated me.
“I guess I should have seen it coming. Father was always so distant. No matter what I did, there was this sense that he was only indulging me for the moment. And he was always away at his job. So when Mother passed, he did not try terribly hard. At first he hired a caretaker. I admit, I became unmanageable because I wanted my father and not some woman pretending to be my mother. So my father did the next best thing. He left me with my grandfather at the shrine.
“Of course, that wasn’t all. My father had an assistant - a high school boy named Kaidou. He would come sometimes after school and tutor me. He was my first and only crush, as well as my first and last kiss. He pretended to love me, just as my father did. And once he graduated from high school, he worked for my father full-time and married some other daughter of a politician. She was older and prettier and more well educated than me at the time. Of course, I never saw him again.
“And that’s why I don’t like guys, Ben. For a lot of them, us women are nothing. We’re little more than just tools to them.”
“But I don’t think of you like that, onee-sama!” cried out Ben. “I could never treat you or the others that way!”
“I know, Ben-kun,” said Rei as she smiled down at him simply because she knew this to be true.
Benjamin could be extremely passive-aggressive - he had a definitive mean streak that, fortunately, only reared its ugly head when he was wronged by someone. And rather than explode right away, his anger would simmer and boil like a pressure cooker waiting for the perfect moment to blow its top.
Rei had seen all this happen on a day when they were not studying and all went out to get ice cream and let Ben burn off his sugar rush at the nearby park. It was a bigger, older boy. He said his dad thinks all gaijin should go home and the Ben should run home to his mother, then pushed him down to the ground.
Ben only glared hatefully at the boy, got up and cleaned himself off, then promptly went to work.
Who is that boy?
Where does he live?
What does he do?
Why does he do it?
He spoke with every child in the park not in the bully’s small clique of friends, and before long they all noticed that Ben was aiming to take him down. So it was that everyone gathered around when Ben called out the bully by name.
Then began to call him out for all the terrible things he’d been doing with shouts and imprecations from the other children mounting as Ben rattled off the charges, crushing the bully with guilt and the accusations of a dozen other children.
Faced with that, the bully and his friends ran away.
What was startled Rei the most about that was that Ben seemed to not even notice it! Using his passive-aggressive nature to stir up the others and turn them into a mob.
But towards her and the other girls? Never even a single sign of it.
Rei scruffled his hair again and Ben subsided.
“You’re very special to me, Ben-kun. You’re like the little brother I never got to have.”
“Well, I’m here now,” he said, beaming pridefully.
Rei chuckled. “Yes, you are.”
They reached the Academy and Rei received her badge from the guardsman, and she walked him over to his dormitory so he could check in with Kaori-sensei and Vincent-sensei.
Rei felt comfortable enough in their presence that she went down on one knee and gave Ben a goodbye hug. But Ben surprised her by sneaking in a small, chaste kiss between her right ear and her cheek.
Rei could only look at him in total surprise as he smiled at her, his grin holding warmth, love, and a hint of mischief before he cheesed it for his room.
Vincent laughed from his belly on up, full and loud. Kaori smiled and shook her head.
“Welcome to the family,” she said.
“But… He kissed me!”
“He’s Hispanic,” said Vincent once he got his mirth under control. “Kisses like that are normal between family members. He gives them to Kaori and Nanami all the time. Like my wife said, welcome to the family, Rei-chan.”
As Rei left the Academy, she was in a daze. But that was quickly giving away to a warmth that had nothing to do with embarrassment.
Ohana.
Family.
Little Brother.
Love.
Rei thought she had felt protective of the boy before.
Now, though, she knew without a doubt that she would turn anyone that hurt Benjamin to ash.
All beware the wrath of the Princess of Mars, for hers is quick and its fire is rivaled by no other.
Benjamin, though, is unique when placed among Tokyo natives.
He is primarily of Hispanic and Native American stock - hardy hot weather people who have a tendency for their bodies to radiate as much heat as possible in order to maintain their body temperatures.
This is not a trait that simply goes away when the weather turns cold. However, it’s not a disadvantage. Families are known for sleeping together in one bed during the cold season with a well stocked and thoroughly contained fire providing extra heat.
Human beings, no matter what phenotype or culture, tend to forget about their customs once taken by sleep. And in the midst of a cold night, once something warm is detected, gravitation is a natural result.
And so it was that Benjamin didn’t care about the weight of the comforter. It was cold out there, and he felt perfectly warm under the heavy bedding.
Benjamin began to stir slowly, and then stopped.
Wavy mahogany hair to his left. A mop of blue to his right. Warm breath from both sides.
And an arm from each side curled protectively around him. And as he focused a bit more, he found that he was neatly pressed between the two. There were parts of his mind that were screaming about what exactly the soft parts pressing against him were, but his brain wasn’t fully up to speed yet. So while he distantly recognized that fact, he just brushed it aside. He was warm, comfortable, and felt safe and secure. And never mind that the bodies of two beautiful girls three years older than him were pressing against him all over. They were all wearing pajamas, and besides that, they were his sisters now, right?
He decided to simply let himself melt into a puddle of bliss and keep sleeping.
So this is what love is like, he thought fuzzily to himself. I like having older sisters that love me.
##
Not long after, Rei rose up out of bed. While late-night sorties as Sailor Mars did take their toll on her, she could never abide sleeping later than eight AM on a Sunday morning.
She carefully stepped around her best friend, and slid open the shoji screen that divided her room from the guest room (usually used for their study sessions).
Groggily she took in the sight. And then her eyes slowly widened, her lingering sleepiness completely forgotten.
Rei moved as quickly as she could without making too much noise and started rocking her friend’s shoulder.
“Usa-chan! Usagi! Wake up!” she hissed gleefully into the petite girl’s ear.
“Nnnhh,” she groaned. “five more minutes mom. please.”
Rei rolled her eyes in annoyance and shoved her friend a bit more sharply.
“Usagi! Wake! Up! Now!”
“Whaaaat?” she groused as she squinted up at Rei.
“You have GOT to see this!” said Rei, barely keeping herself from squealing in giddy glee.
What? Thought Usagi to herself. Rei? Trying not to squeal? Okay, something is definitely up here.
Grudgingly, Usagi got up and followed Rei.
“Whatever you do,” she whispered in her friend’s ear, “Don’t. Make. Any. Noise.”
Just like Rei had before, Usagi now looked groggily into the room. Rei watched her friend carefully, and just before the laugh could explode from Usagi’s mouth, Rei’s hand darted with rattle-snake speed to cover her friend’s mouth.
Usagi shot a look at her friend and then pulled the hand away, wearing a huge grin on her face.
“Ben had a camera with him, didn’t he?”
Rei almost dropped to the floor as she covered her own mouth then to keep herself from laughing out loud, her eyes wide in a ‘Holy hell are you serious!?’ expression. Usagi did not often have these flashes of utter brilliance, but when she did they were doozies. Usagi herself mimicked her friend’s pose and rubbed her hands together gleefully.
Together, they quickly tiptoed to where everyone’s bags were left, found Benjamin’s, and carefully dug the camera out.
“I’ll do it,” said Rei.
“You sure? It looks kinda complex.”
“I think I can figure it out,” said Rei tentatively. “I mean… it’s definitely one of the newer styles… but it looks like it doesn’t have much electronics. You know how I feel about that.”
“Hey, just because I don’t know how to use a computer doesn’t mean I think they’re useless!”
Rei gave her friend a red-eye and then set to work on trying to figure out the device. It was more intuitive than Rei initially thought.
Granted, a lot of the finer features were rather esoteric to her, but she understood the basics. Wind the film. Aim the camera using the view finder. Make sure the shot is in focus by adjusting the lens. Hold steady and push the button.
Click.
“Gotcha, Ben-kun!” said Rei cheerfully as she wound the film and took another picture of Ami and Makoto snuggled up close to Benjamin. What added to the hilarity of the situation was that Minako, being on the outside of the cuddle, had snuggled up to spoon Ami. Rei made sure to get a close-up of that action as well.
Once she got all the pictures she needed, Rei tucked Ben’s camera back into his bag, just as she found it.
“What did you put it back for?” said Usagi.
“So that he won’t know until he gets that roll of film developed,” said Rei with a grin. “Now let’s wake them up. These pictures are only gonna be part of the fun!”
“Right!” said Usagi as she flashed a V-For-Victory sign. She decided on Ami first. Sweet, lovable, and completely adorkable Ami. In the few months that she had known her, Usagi had come to love her dearly. Which meant that she was of the opinion that her studious friend really needed to loosen up a bit. She had seen what becomes of girls like her, after all. They hardly ever had boyfriends.
“Oooooohhhh Ami.~ It’s time to wake up!” cooed Usagi in her friend’s ear.
“Nnnhhh,” replied Ami in disagreement. Usagi raised an eyebrow and tried another approach that she was sure would have the desired effect.
“Ami-chan! We gotta study for that quiz tomorrow!~”
Ami’s eyes shot wide open at that. “Study?”
Ami is never slow on the uptake. And that goes as well for when waking up. A mind like hers is a well maintained and thoroughly oiled machine. It started up, firing on all eight cylinders right away, and engaged first gear.
“Ben-kun!” she yelped. “What am I- KYAH!” The second reaction was prompted by Minako, sensing that her heat source was about to depart, latched on more tightly to her friend, dragging her back down into the bedding. “Wha? MINAKO!?”
Meanwhile, Rei and Usagi were trying desperately to remain standing. Unfortunately, they were also fighting a battle to keep from laughing out loud. In this battle of two fronts, one was bound to be a retreating action. Naturally, this was the bout against gravity.
“Nyuh?” murmured Makoto muzzily from her spot. “Wha? BEN-KUN! What am I… AMI!?”
“I can’t get her off me!” pleaded Ami helplessly.
“can’t get away this time, takuya-kun,” murmured Minako in her sleep.
Makoto, despite the fact that just seconds ago she had been snuggling Benjamin, sputtered and snickered at what she had just heard.
“She’s dreaming that you’re Takuya from Judy and Mary!?”
That did it. No longer able to hold it in, Usagi and Rei positively exploded into laughter, finally waking Minako and Benjamin.
It would take about twenty minutes to sort out the pile of tangled limbs and bed linens this caused.
##
Once everyone was sorted, Makoto got straight to work on whipping up an American-style breakfast - pancakes, sausage, eggs, and real hash browns.
Benjamin, though, despite the loving care was still slightly morose.
“What’s wrong, Ben-kun?” asked Usagi, ever so keen to sense her newly adopted brother’s moods.
“I feel kinda bad about last night.”
“Why!?” cried out Usagi, nearly gasping as she turned Ben so she could look him in the eyes.
“Because… I’ve been an inconvenience to you… that’s a bad thing here in Japan, isn’t it?”
Rei laid a gentle hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Maybe for other people,” said Rei. “But we’re all your big sisters now. This is no inconvenience for us.”
“So, we’re like ohana now?”
“Ohana?” said Makoto. “What is that supposed to be?”
“I learned about it when my family was in Hawaii. Ohana means ‘family’. And ‘family’ means no one gets left behind, or forgotten.”
The girls all mulled that over for a moment. It was oh-so-clear to them, even though there really wasn’t a word for it in Japanese. The closest word they could think of was ‘nakama’ and even that lacked the closeness that ‘ohana’ implied. Ohana was more than simply a friend or a trusted colleague. Ohana is people you love dearly and whose pain you would feel as acutely as they themselves do.
“I like it,” said Usagi softly. “It doesn’t really mean just family like mom and dad. It’s family that you pick. Family that you can trust. Family that you would never leave behind or forget no matter what happens. We’re ohana now.”
##
They spent that Sunday at Showa Park, simply having fun. Benjamin was slow to come around - his depression from yesterday still lingering. But the girls were all game and slowly and gently drew Ben out of his shell. As the shadows grew long, they returned to the Shrine where Makoto once again worked her magic in the kitchen and served up a hearty curry. Benjamin continued to shock everyone with his seemingly bottomless craw as he utterly annihilated half of it all on his own.
With their stomachs filled, Ami insisted on one final review of the weekend’s homework, much to Usagi’s lamentations.
After an hour of careful review, they all picked up their bags and went their separate ways from the Shrine. All except for Benjamin and Rei, who had promised Kaori that she would walk Ben back to the Academy every night.
Rei was contemplative as they walked together in silence. She thought that it would feel strange for her to be walking alone with the boy like this. But instead, she felt comfortable, protective even, of him. But something still was still stuck like a sliver in her mind.
Well, he did tell us all about how he was hurt by his family. I guess I should tell him about what my father did. Besides, despite all his fidgeting, he seems to be a good listener.
“Ben-kun.”
“Hmm?” said Ben as all his attention focused on Rei except for the bit he needed to keep walking.
“You know I don’t normally like to hang around guys, right?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Ben in surprise. His expression became worried. “Am I bothering you?”
“No, not at all, silly,” said Rei as she scruffled Ben’s hair. She had to admit - his hair felt nice to run her fingers through. “I actually like being with you. It’s kinda strange for me, but to me you really do feel like family.”
“But why only me?” asked Ben in mild confusion. “I mean… why do you not like other guys?”
Rei sighed and decided to plunge ahead. “You’re not the only one that’s been hurt by their father. When I was just a little girl, my mother died from a terminal illness.”
Rei stopped as Ben suddenly wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly.
“It’s… okay Ben-kun,” said Rei, taken aback by the sudden affection. She hugged him back briefly, then gently made him let go, which Ben did with only a little reluctance. “I’ve gotten over my mother’s passing. I was only four when it happened. But what truly hurt me was how my father treated me.
“I guess I should have seen it coming. Father was always so distant. No matter what I did, there was this sense that he was only indulging me for the moment. And he was always away at his job. So when Mother passed, he did not try terribly hard. At first he hired a caretaker. I admit, I became unmanageable because I wanted my father and not some woman pretending to be my mother. So my father did the next best thing. He left me with my grandfather at the shrine.
“Of course, that wasn’t all. My father had an assistant - a high school boy named Kaidou. He would come sometimes after school and tutor me. He was my first and only crush, as well as my first and last kiss. He pretended to love me, just as my father did. And once he graduated from high school, he worked for my father full-time and married some other daughter of a politician. She was older and prettier and more well educated than me at the time. Of course, I never saw him again.
“And that’s why I don’t like guys, Ben. For a lot of them, us women are nothing. We’re little more than just tools to them.”
“But I don’t think of you like that, onee-sama!” cried out Ben. “I could never treat you or the others that way!”
“I know, Ben-kun,” said Rei as she smiled down at him simply because she knew this to be true.
Benjamin could be extremely passive-aggressive - he had a definitive mean streak that, fortunately, only reared its ugly head when he was wronged by someone. And rather than explode right away, his anger would simmer and boil like a pressure cooker waiting for the perfect moment to blow its top.
Rei had seen all this happen on a day when they were not studying and all went out to get ice cream and let Ben burn off his sugar rush at the nearby park. It was a bigger, older boy. He said his dad thinks all gaijin should go home and the Ben should run home to his mother, then pushed him down to the ground.
Ben only glared hatefully at the boy, got up and cleaned himself off, then promptly went to work.
Who is that boy?
Where does he live?
What does he do?
Why does he do it?
He spoke with every child in the park not in the bully’s small clique of friends, and before long they all noticed that Ben was aiming to take him down. So it was that everyone gathered around when Ben called out the bully by name.
Then began to call him out for all the terrible things he’d been doing with shouts and imprecations from the other children mounting as Ben rattled off the charges, crushing the bully with guilt and the accusations of a dozen other children.
Faced with that, the bully and his friends ran away.
What was startled Rei the most about that was that Ben seemed to not even notice it! Using his passive-aggressive nature to stir up the others and turn them into a mob.
But towards her and the other girls? Never even a single sign of it.
Rei scruffled his hair again and Ben subsided.
“You’re very special to me, Ben-kun. You’re like the little brother I never got to have.”
“Well, I’m here now,” he said, beaming pridefully.
Rei chuckled. “Yes, you are.”
They reached the Academy and Rei received her badge from the guardsman, and she walked him over to his dormitory so he could check in with Kaori-sensei and Vincent-sensei.
Rei felt comfortable enough in their presence that she went down on one knee and gave Ben a goodbye hug. But Ben surprised her by sneaking in a small, chaste kiss between her right ear and her cheek.
Rei could only look at him in total surprise as he smiled at her, his grin holding warmth, love, and a hint of mischief before he cheesed it for his room.
Vincent laughed from his belly on up, full and loud. Kaori smiled and shook her head.
“Welcome to the family,” she said.
“But… He kissed me!”
“He’s Hispanic,” said Vincent once he got his mirth under control. “Kisses like that are normal between family members. He gives them to Kaori and Nanami all the time. Like my wife said, welcome to the family, Rei-chan.”
As Rei left the Academy, she was in a daze. But that was quickly giving away to a warmth that had nothing to do with embarrassment.
Ohana.
Family.
Little Brother.
Love.
Rei thought she had felt protective of the boy before.
Now, though, she knew without a doubt that she would turn anyone that hurt Benjamin to ash.
All beware the wrath of the Princess of Mars, for hers is quick and its fire is rivaled by no other.