Chapter 18
Resurrection

Natsumi wandered down from her bedroom wearing her houserobe and slippers. Her stomach was complaining and she knew that if she began to cook, soon everyone else would crowd into the kitchen and complain to be fed also. She surveyed the shelves of the refrigerator, but beyond some leftover salmon, shrimp and fried calamari, there was little with which she could retreat to her bedroom and serve herself cold. Dinner the night before had put more than enough seafood in her belly. She sighed, dithered over the limited possibilities, including starvation, and decided. I guess I'll have to cook for everyone?

The whole-grain flour and buckwheat came down in hexagonal plastic canisters from the top of refrigerator, where the humidity was dry and the temperature was warm. the baking soda came from a cabinet and the cream of tartar was in a small flask next to it. The arrowroot powder was next to the left and she used this instead of the rice flour in the large canister to the back of the splashplate. The sea salt was imported and featured a girl with a parasol walking in the pouring rain above the advertising slug, "when it rains, it still pours". Powdered milk in a canister went to the island. Four chicken eggs came from the cooler shelf. A big mixing bowl was retrieved from the cabinet under the preparation island. She combined the dry ingredients in practiced guessed amounts, measuring by eye and instinct. the eggs were beaten to a froth, mixed with water and added last. She beat the mixture with a wooden spoon, mixing in olive oil a dab at a time until the batter was bubbling with released carbon dioxide and slick with retained lipids.

The griddle heated in short order and she smeared it with a daub of lard. She poured, poured, poured: three perfect flapjacks. She waited until the periphery of the liquid disks dried and the centers bubbled. A rich buttery smell filled the kitchen. She flipped the disks and waited again until they were perfectly cooked. She stacked the three flapjacks on the plate and set them on the kitchen island. To the right of the plate was Fuyuki's baseball glove and a bottle of leather polish. to the left was a drying customized gunpla - Keroro's monthly contribution to Mama's magazine. Natsumi ignored both the sportsgear and the froggy paraphanelia and set the plate squarely in the middle. She poured three more flapjacks onto a fresh smear of grease and slipped over to the fridge. She decorously organized the breakfast spread, Karo syrup, Vegemite, and honey behind the first plate on the island.

She flipped and fried the second batch, which joined the first on an adjoining plate. She had just poured the third batch when a plaintive meow sounded from outside the sliding glass door. Natsumi looked down to where a pert white-furred face, sweetened with a pale pink muzzle, pink ears and nose peered in the glass pane. The cat reached up with a paw and patted at the door with spread pads. The meow came again, higher pitched and longing. Natsumi flipped her third batch. The cat yowled her frustration at being excluded from the pleasant domestic smells.

"Okay! Okay!" exasperated Natsumi. She slid open the door. "I haven't seen you since last Christmastime. Where have you been?"

Giroro's former pet meowed, put her front paws tentatively on the stoop then up onto the guide rails. She meowed again questioningly as if to ask permission for entrance.

"Sure, come in." Natsumi giggled, "just don't steal the silverware. Okay?" She backed off from the sliding glass panel. "Here kitty-kitty-kitty. Here kitty-kitty-kitty!" she called.

Nika meowed over her shoulder and scampered in and before Natsumi could slide closed the door behind her, six chubby, newly-sighted kittens toppled through behind their apparent mother. They scampered after Nika, who sat, licked one curled paw and then looked up at Natsumi coyly. Natsumi looked at the feline family, who were strangely unafraid of the house, the linoleum floor or the towering red-headed human. Natsumi smiled down at Nika's pride, "Okay, kitty, you've been biz-zay."

Nika meowed her assent and Natsumi went hunting for the leftover salmon in the refrigerator.

As Natsumi fed the cat and her kittens and prepared the remaining flapjacks, she did not know that Nika would disappear later that summer and so would most of the male kits: all except one, and that only two of the three females would stay. Natsumi did not know that her mother would be the first to rise that morning, nor did she know that Aki's magazine foray had been so successful that all the money Mama had borrowed from Natsumi's college account would be paid by the autumn. Natsumi did, however, know that Mois - who really liked flapjacks, but slunk away with her plate so she could share them with Saburo - was and would still be fornicating with Natsumi's former beloved throughout the winter and on afterwards. Natsumi did not know that Kururu and Hanene were sleeping, just sleeping, together and would be until the following spring. Keroro came up for breakfast and recovered his latest creation. Fuyuki galloped down from upstairs and took his glove with his plate.

Natsumi watched them all eat: kittens and cat, child and adult, and ever-present Keronians and she sighed contentment. She had just buttered and sweetened her stack of four, when Saburo came from the forward den with Mois' empty plate. He set the china and the accompanying silverware neatly into the sink. He tipped his cap at Natsumi as if nothing at all were different and turned on sandaled heel. He strode towards the foyer and front door. No "thank you", no apology for being a hormonal jerk, no excuses or promises at all: he's going home. He'd take Mois with him if he could.

A tiny kitten, a ball of reddish-yellow and orange fluff, dived at Saburo's leg and nipped his Achilles tendon. The teenage boy yelped and the clever kitten bolted out of range and returned to the kitten-tangle around the foodbowl before Saburo could identify him. Saburo looked at Natsumi questioningly and Natsumi shrugged and waved her ex-boyfriend away. She was thankful when he left without further word.

She cut one forkful of flapjack, chewed and swallowed. The little orange tabby mewed at her and she mumbled a "thank you."

Suddenly flapjacks tasted good again.

After the final flapjack had been consumed and the last plate washed, the Hinatas and the frogs dispersed. Nika led her little pride out into the backyard. Natsumi found herself watching after the white cat's orange tabby son, who was bouncier and braver than the other kittens. She smiled as he stalked an imaginary mouse through her tomatoes. The time has come to do something about Saburo, she thought resolutely. That kitten is a signpost from the universe.

----

Natsumi was cleaning her room. Not so much cleaning as emptying. Out with the old in with... well... damn near nothing. she thought as she boxed yet another picture of Saburo. There were so many hidden in her room, in the house, in the everywhere. Mois, bless her little, octuple chambered, alien heart had seen fit not to display Saburo's picture anywhere. Presumably, she kept her own collection of photographs down in the base. She certainly snapped enough of them with her darling pink camera.

A year had passed since Natsumi had declared that Saburo would someday be sick of Mois and her free candy, but nothing had changed in the interim. At first, she had winced whenever she saw the two of them together in the art district. At first, she had wanted to die whenever he laughed at the stupid Angolian's inane jokes. At first, she wanted to throttle him whenever she saw him, but the urge to do so had faded. He seemed happy and somehow his happiness and his absence made Natsumi happy. She found happiness in her garden especially at harvest time, and in her long walks in the park whether in sun or leaves or snow, and in the her job at the pet store after school and on breaks, and in pictures of reptiles and amphibians she was unintentionally collecting from Allan-sama's pet-trade magazines.

The shelves of her bookcase were becoming untidy and overflowing. There wasn't room on her walls for the posters she wanted to hang. And today, somehow, became the day that she decided she would give up. First change yourself and then change the world.

Her journal was full of pages and pages of poems about, and for, Saburo. She tore them out one by one, but she knew better than to throw them away. She neatly stapled them and slid them into a manila envelope and dropped them into the box in the center of her rug. Next came the books of poetry - both Saburo's published ones and the books he'd given her to read. I should give these back, but they're gifts, damnit. I'm not looking to hurt him. I just don't want to see him every time I sleep. She replaced Kunikida Tetsuo with social pet care manuals, Lord Byron with environmental sciences and Tayama Katai with global warming. Down came Yaichi Aizu, collected works, Li Po, and slimline selections of Coleridge and Yeats. She stored them away carefully stacked over her own poems.

Next came the posters. Down came the classic heavy metal: Slayer, Ozzy Osbourne, and Saigon Kick. Down came the "famous book covers" calendar, Down came Saburo's show schedule. Up went a movie posters for "Ferngully" and "My Side of the Mountain" and "Lion King", and collages of rare and endangered animals. She rolled the old posters, fastened them with tape and elastic and slid them into a cardboard art tube. She capped the end and surveyed the room: it already looked brighter.

The pile in the center of the rug grew as she worked her way through the house: cleaned the shelves, her doors, the living room walls and the refrigerator door. She gathered every book, every kitschy coffee mug and every grinning photograph and trundled them up the stairs. The pile reached nearly to her knees. What shall I do with all this? she grimaced. Her inner voice giggled back, Pour petrol on it and strike a match? Just don't stand on top! Even Natsumi had to giggle at the perversity, but it reminded her to add her collection of matchbooks from the clubs where Saburo read. Now I am definitely done. There's some room in the closet.

She opened the closet door and a field hockey stick sized for a fourth year fell from the pile and nearly struck her on the forehead. She ducked to one side and then peeked around the corner. The pile was hip deep - there was layer upon layer and the bottom-most strata appeared to date from first year. Natsumi sighed. I knew my packrat ways would catch up with me someday. Well, move out the top and clean out the bottom. She wrestled the last two years off the pile and moved the bundles and loose papers to one side. She slid the much more compressed pile off the bottom and then slid the new into the space of the old. She marked her new box "Saburo Shit" and loaded it on top with the label facing the back wall and the "Danger: Fragile" label facing outwards and upside down.

"That's apropos", she murmured. Now to take care of this trash. She opened a recycling bag and set it on the floor next to the pile. She took the first 2 centimeters of haphazardly arranged papers and glanced at each one in turn, a very few went on the save-pile to the left, the rest were stuffed into the ever-burgeoning sack. Funny drawings she'd done - save. Badly written book reports - trash. Sports Achievement certificates - save. A two year old strip of photographs of her and Koyuki with Mois torn out - save. Two more segments and she was down to the Spring of two years previous. The next two centimeters slipped around oddly as she moved it into her lap.

A wooden picture frame slid from the middle and the corner cracked against her ankle and landed picture down on the carpet.

"Ouch!" Natsumi looked down: the legend "Hirosumi Event Photography" was embossed in small gold leaf letters across the green felt stand attached to the back of the frame. She reached out tentatively. She knew what the frame's opaque backing hid. She knew what she would see if she turned the frame over. She grabbed the frame with both hands and without turning it over, tossed the frame in the trash, stand, backing, picture, glass and all. Such was the force of the toss that she heard a crack and the tinkling of a shard of glass.

She returned to her sorting: photographs of her and Fuyuki and rare ones of Mama-dono - save. A folder of origami -save. A study on Frog biology - she dithered and then saved it. More sports awards and a medal from Parent's Day - save. Two pieces of cardboard... the contents of which fluttered out as the two halves separated. A pressed red carnation and an envelope lay on her lap. I don't remember this. Natsumi thought.

She opened the envelope and retrieved the neatly folded papers. The first words were "My Dearest Natsumi": neat block kata-kana interspersed with Keronian phonetics. She shook and her hands gripped the paper - an instinct said TEAR IT. Her fingers and eyes would not obey. She drifted to the second line of characters and the third and...

My Dearest Natsumi - whom I can no longer call mine
I must leave your presence on this, the evening of my greatest failure. I knew not of the plans of the platoon and would not have wished them on you had I known. Had I known, I would have stopped them. I would have saved you from their predations. To my great shame I have failed you and you do not even wish now to speak to me, though I hope you will read:

Natsumi laid the first sheet on the floor next to her. She read:

I fell for you, Natsumi, the day you fought your way through all my defenses and offenses and threw me to the ground. I admired you. I thought of you always as my greatest enemy, but then as my greatest love. And even now as I strain to see all those things that brought us together, I see only that which tore us apart.
This is not the carnation I wore the night my suit exploded and you carried me home to your bed nor even the carnation I was to wear to dinner the next night. This is a carnation, one of many, I was to give to you in the park. I went there to... apologize, to explain, to tell you everything I felt, but again I was too late and failed. I found you happily in the arms of another and I know now the truth. I know now that Koyuki was correct: I can never make you as happy as a Pokopenian... as he will.

Saburo, Natsumi thought coolly, as she set the page aside. You were wrong, Giroro. He couldn't make me happy either. She read the last page.

These then are my greatest shames: I failed myself. I failed my clan. I failed every military tradition I was ever taught. I loved the enemy. I was foolish in my desire. I was selfish in my love and never thought of what you might really want. I fooled you into believing that I was what you needed. I cannot correct the mistakes I've made, nor change the foolish things I've done, nor does it seem you can ever forgive me - and for this I blame you not - for I cannot forgive myself. I shall not impose myself on you any longer. My greatest shame is not that I could not save you from the bomb, but that I could not save you from myself.
I shall hope that someday you will remember me at my best and forgive me.
-Giroro, fomerly: Keronian Regimental Platoon A12 assigned to Sector Terra One, identification: G66

Natsumi felt the lump rise in her throat and squelched the moisture at the corner of her eye. She dove across the pile of unsorted papers and searched through the bag of trash to recover what belonged there no longer. She took the frame from the nest of papers, flipped it over, and then over the cracks that marred the glass, she traced her thumb around the smiling, proud red warrior's face. The tears would not be denied and a single one splashed onto her own image: a smiling younger Natsumi, who was no-one she recognized anymore - not even in her own mirror. She hugged the picture to her chest and sat, crosslegged, head bowed. Her shoulders shook with sobs. Tears flooded down her cheeks as she rocked back and forth.

How could I have been so blind? He never did anything wrong. Why was I so suspicious? I was so stupid. Stupid. Stupid! STUPID! He always listened to me. Why didn't I listen to him? She tilted the frame from her chest and looked down her shirtfront to Giroro's face. How can I even tell you I forgive you, Giroro? Natsumi sobbed, "I don't know where you are, you stupid frog!"

The sun was setting before Natsumi crawled over to the papers and continued her sorting - her reddened eyes and face still messy with tears and mucus. The picture, broken glass and all, was proudly displayed between her terrarium and a red rabbit plush with one eye loved off.

----

Aki sat slumped forward on her elbows on a British-style, high-backed and wing-armed, barstool at the far end of the badly recreated Irish pub. Her back faced a frosted glass partition, etched with the phoneticized name "Rick's" and the entire pub could be seen by peering over her mug of chilled Kirin. For the previous two hours the staff of Koubupla Publications had celebrated their first year of operation in a private room. Business partners and advertisers had also been invited and had attended. The staff and guests had networked, eaten, drunk, and as the alcohol reached their brains: sung karaoke. Aki, by contrast, had greeted and introduced, eaten only sparingly, drunk not at all, and listened to the art staff murder various Western rock classics. She called cabs and made certain everyone had gotten home. By the time her assumed duties as hostess and den-mother/caretaker were complete, she was weary of the social rigours. She'd co-opted a barstool in the public room, ordered a beer, and put on her best do-not-disturb face.

And no-one had disturbed her even as the occupancy switched over from staid businessmen to raucous college students, even as the music had shifted from vintage disco era to neo-modern electronica, even as the lighting had dimmed, the amplifiers had cranked to 11, and the patrons had been reduced to deafened silence or boozy shouting. "and just think," she muttered into her beer. "I used to be one of them. Now they all pass me by like I'm their grandmother." Do I really look that old? she mused. She leaned far forward and turned her head to regard her reflection in the mirror behind the bartop. She still looked twenty-ish except for the hint of crowsfeet and the crease of a single laughline. She raised her chin: she did not yet have a double chin like her own mother or a wattle over her larynx like her deceased father. Her jet black hair was not yet infested with gray - just a few stray pale hairs easily hidden or pulled. Maybe if you look real close, she sighed agreement with herself and swallowed another gulp of lager.

Her self-examination was interrupted by the passage of some girls down the long end of the bar. They retreated from the small dance floor like a tiny herd of gazelle: they clumped together for mutual protection, one was always scanning the crowd. There were four of them - all in their 20-something years. Two were older and taller: a sylph dye-job red head who minced as she walked, almost floating on air; and a raven haired muscular girl, with anatomically wide hips and proportionally large breasts. The two younger looked almost too young for the pub: a tiny bleach blond, with hair feathered out like a peacock; and an impossibly shorter girl with platinum hair ornamented and fastened with a single barrette. They were giggling and whispering and pointing as they turned the corner at the bar's end and entered the lavatory.

Meeting in the Ladies Room. Aki thought with amusement. They remind me of the girls, well, except for the hair colors. How long will it be before Natsumi is coming to a place like this? Three years? Four? She drained the last of her Kirin and considered ordering another. Maybe never? She isn't as social as she used to be - doesn't go to parties or go out to the district anymore. I could blame that Hanene, but... She flagged down the bartender by raising her glass and he obligingly pulled another draft lager for her. ...it is not all that girl-frog's fault, and that gun helped my daughter more than hurt her: she's so dedicated to her environmental causes now. I guess I'm glad they couldn't fix her.

Koyuki left. That's a shame. I always wondered if she was part of Kururu's accident? Where's she living now? Tokyo, with her older brother and his wife, I think? Did Natsumi say Koyuki was going to a business-trade school? Do they still write each other? Call each other? Text each other? Are they still friends?

Mois though? I wish Saburo wouldn't be hanging around to see her, but at least he's out of my hair. She always has that little 'I got laid" grin on her face. Aki laughed in her suds. I wonder if the Father of the Lord of Terror has conniptions about his daughter jungle fucking an ape. I guess once the taboos came down there was no reason to put them up again?

The door to the ladies room opened and the four girls, with their makeup freshly reapplied and their hair freshly brushed made their way back towards the dance floor. The bleach blond with her peacock wave was out in front of the gaggle, striding determinedly: a woman on a mission. Aki nearly snorted beer through her nose. I've seen that look before. Sometimes in a mirror. She craned her neck and looked into the bar mirror again. Not tonight though.

I'm still not sure about this Momoka and Fuyuki thing, but we did finally have the talk - about being a responsible gentleman and keeping his pecker in his pants? He was actually polite about it and told me not to worry - that he was saving that for a special day. I don't think he meant marriage, but maybe... Aki practically chugged her next couple of gulps. I wish he wouldn't go shooting with Paul, but his grades have stayed high just like he promised, and he started up his club at school again. How many members did he say there are? Ten now? And he made the baseball team. Aki giggled. My cerebral son has become a well-rounded athlete and my athletic daughter has gone braniac on me. I wonder if she was serious about going to coll....

And there was a buzzing in her pocket, felt but not heard. She knew what it was - not her mobile phone - but the frog's gift of Christmas past. More of a curse, really, this proxidater. I set it to a really high 90% match and it still detects a "mate" once a month? On the metro. In a bar. In traffic. I guess my tastes aren't all that uncommon? She dug into the pocket of her jeans and reflexively clicked the button to silence the vibrating alert. The deft motion was surely observed by her opposite, whose own proxidater had similarly alerted him.

She waited, but did not have to wait long. The bartender slid a shot of 90 year old Scotch whiskey next to her beer and announced, "From the gentleman." He hooked his thumb in the general direction of the long end of the bar, where sat any number of more dedicatedly drinking college students. Aki scanned the line of possibles. There were a couple of 20 year old boys, a few grad students, some with obvious dates, a few without.

She pushed the shot and the beer to the bartender. "I always wanted to Depthcharge expensive Whiskey." The bartender obligingly dumped her plebian Kirin lager, lowered the shot glass into the empty double and refilled with a stronger imported stout. He topped the concoction with an apple and orange slice and added a dash of salt. He tucked in a straw.

Aki raised the now refilled glass in the general direction of the unknown gift-giver and toasted the possibles all as a group. She was gratified when the one who rose and began to pick his way to her end was neither a pimply faced barely-out-of-diapers youth nor particularly ugly. He had some muscle tone about him, looked about 25, and wore stylish green tinted spectacles. Probably a maths student, she appraised, judging by his gait. Not a real geek though. He might be good for a night. She slid into the empty seat closer to the wall.

"May I join you?" he asked politely and then in the manner of all Proxidaters he added, 'I think we might have a lot in common."

"Indeed," Aki nodded, "We both want to get laid." She enjoyed his reaction. He didn't jerk back in shock. He didn't go wide-eyed in surprise. He merely slid confidently into the proffered seat next to her as if she'd said nothing at all.

"Well, there is that," he admitted, as he sipped his Maker's Mark and seltzer, "But maybe we can get to know each other first?"

I guess I'm not going home tonight. Aki admitted. This one might be good for two nights.

----

Natsumi dragged herself to Kisshou Upper School the next day. Mama had worked all through the night and left a message that she wouldn't be home until Wednesday: the issue was having layout problems, again. Natsumi was not concerned. She had other thoughts crying for attention. She sat, rigid, in her chair. The homeroom students milled around her and avoided her. Her hair was loose and unbound and as jumbled as her mind. How can I find that frog? Even just to say I'm sorry? Even if he turns me away?

The final bell rang and the remainder of the ninth years tried to squeeze through the door simultaneously even as Sensei Kahu closed the door. The room was their prison for the next twenty minutes and they seated themselves until after attendance was taken. The girls broke to the side of the room nearest the chalkboards and the boys migrated to the opposite to hold court in front of the windows. Natsumi Hinata's desk chair was squarely in between: girlish laughter assaulted her left ear and boyish taunts and hoots assaulted her right.

Over the din she heard, plain as the breaking of wind at a temple, one obnoxious boy's observation, "Man oh, man, did you see that Giroro last night? That guy can kick all their asses!"

Her head snapped right and her body followed. She rose too quickly and upset her chair. Her textbooks fell to the floor with a ceremonious WHUMP. She was heedless of the spilled pile and ground her homework underfoot without even a thought to the cleanliness of her shoes. A smear of drying dirt obscured the chicken scratch of a night's mathematical labor. She stalked the voice.

Three boys were huddled around a glossy magazine, not drawn nearly so tightly as they would be if they were laughing over pornography. One, a brazen delinquent named Tojo, whose forelock always obscured the left lens of his glasses, looked up as another flipped the page. The boy whose back was to Natsumi let out a low whistle. Tojo elbowed his magazine carrying companion. "Lookit what we have here", he drawled. "The Devil's come down to Georgia."

Natsumi resisted the urge to aim a throat strike at her tormentor that would have sent Tojo coughing if not sent him to the morgue. Even the devil knows when not to be stupid. She smiled her best, and she hoped, sweetest smile and asked, with a voice that had worked so many times on Saburo, "What are you reading?"

Tojo's face fell. He had been expecting a retort or perhaps a hasty retreat. After all, no girl dared cross the midpoint of the homeroom. Who did Natsumi think she was anyhow? "What business is it of yours? Get back to your side, hellbitch."

Natsumi shrugged the slightest shrug the boys had probably ever seen and she was calm, not in the least tensed. They were taken completely by surprise when her hand flashed between them and nimbly plucked the magazine from the carrier's unready fingers. She turned her back to the boys and glanced at the photo-adorned cover that proclaimed "XWF: The Most Dangerous Men in the World". She nearly laughed out loud. She did laugh out loud. A wrestling magazine???

Tojo was the first to move and Magazine Boy the second. They approached her from either side. "Hey! Give that back!" screeched Magazine Boy as Tojo made a wild grab for the periodical Natsumi crushed against her bosom.

She raised her foot high, and the two centimeter heel smashed down, raked across Tojo's shin and speared his canvas shoe at the metatarsals. He yelped and fell backwards. His hands flew to his throbbing foot and scraped tibia. She wheeled on Magazine Boy and smiled the same sweet and gentle smile as before, but her eyes glinted with devil fire as she asked, "Do you want some of this?"

Magazine Boy put up his hands as much to protest as to protect himself and he backed slowly away.

Natsumi peeled the magazine from her chest and looked at the page the boys had been "reading". There were photographs: large ones, small ones, in a mosaic around a central spread: Giroro, his man-equin barechested and wearing loose fitting silver lame shorts, was bringing both arms down. They had just released a much heavier man, who had crashed to the canvas and flattened like moist dough under a rolling pin. The flattened man's blood and sweat were flying in all directions and yet the frog's face was serenely effortlessly clear. The caption read "Champion Giroro and his infamous Hyperspace-Slam".

It is him, Natsumi gasped privately then stifled a giggle at her luck. I don't believe it! The bell that announced first class rang and Natsumi, with her eyes still glued to the images of the wrestler frog in the biomechanical suit, wandered between the desks to recover her books.

"Hey!" called the third boy, who up until that moment had said nothing. Natsumi turned and appraised him as if wondering how she might best skin him and cook him for dinner. He gulped, but continued, his voice quavering, but placative, "Can we have our magazine back?"

Natsumi turned to the third page, where her mother had taught her the publishing information always resided. She ripped the slick from the magazine fold like a hungry tigress disemboweling a gazelle. She glanced at the sheet to be certain she had what she wanted, sneered and tossed the remainder into Magazine Boy's face.

"Thank you." she curtsied.

Natsumi gathered her books from the floor, crammed them haphazardly in her tote and strode through the open portal. Her face was no longer cool. Her hair seemed to have discovered the same bounce as her step. She looked at her reflection in the sunglazed doorway window. A smile was on her face: a smile she had not seen in years, a smile she thought had existed only in a framed photograph. The smile converted to a laugh as she heard a girl behind her taunt "Tojooooo, you can pick up your balls on the way out!"

Coincidences are wonderful things, aren't they? Natsumi thought and she power strode all the way to Advanced Chemistry class.

----

Saburo stood at the headrest of the padded table. Mois was prone upon it, her pert breasts pressed against her brassiere and were flattened against the padding by the restraining strap across her shoulders. The center section of the table was raised and the head and foot declined so that her back was concave and un-arched. A keening started then muted to a bumblebee whine. Her shoulders strained at the straps. She gritted her 36 tiny teeth over a muted scream as the vibrating needle again touched the skin of her lower back. Her left hand gripped the bar under the couch. Her right hand crunched down on Saburo's left. He lowered himself to look into her agonized leaking eyes. He smiled at the tears streaming down her cheeks and squeezed back with equal force. I'm cutting class and you have no class, he thought, and it is well worth it don't you think? Mois smiled wanly through her sniffles.

Mois' braided plastic, cyan and pale pink purse had been deposited on the seat of the padded chair near the interior door of the studio. Within was the false identification that Saburo had made for her: a careful drawing made with Kururu's pen and then made real with a click of a switch. The horimono-shi had cursorily checked the document. He had been much more interested in studying the tattoo rendering  Saburo had also produced. He'd set a price a little on the high side for the four sessions of inking, but agreed he could start immediately. Mois had stripped to her underwear - brassiere and boxer shorts - and lay herself upon the table. The inks chosen by Saburo were black and a special florescent blue that would glow yellow under ultraviolet light.

The artiste had begun by mirror photocopying the art and then mimeographing it into a stencil print. He washed his hands up to the elbows with antimicrobial soap and donned a pair of thick disposable latex gloves. He positioned the art and at Saburo's approval of the location and orientation, he swabbed Mois lower back with camphorous witch hazel and pressed the transfer to her flesh. The astringent had evaporated before the horimono-shi peeled the paper back, leaving a perfect outline on the girl's lower back. He remarked to Saburo on the oddity of the image. Of course he didn't recognize the vertical silhouette of the stylized Lucifer Spear, though he could clearly read the numeric pun of Saburo's full name "623-326" set into a pair of horizontal cartouche on either side. Satisfied with the transfer, the artisan set the original on an easel and immobilized Mois with a vicious pull of the thick cloth belts, which he secured with a few turns of a wicked-looking sawtoothed seatbelt winch.

The winch and the straps were the only visible ugliness in the sanitary room, which likely doubled as an examination room on other days. The countertops were shiny clean. The needles came fresh from a plastic sleeve and the palette came from an autoclave. The two inks were in pre-loaded capsules. The room even smelled sterilized.

Mois whimpered and squinched her eyes shut as the needle traced the border of the crescent over her spine and then continued down the outline of the staff. Each fearful whimper, as much an indicator of the fear of pain as the pain itself, was music to Saburo's ears. Not that I like to hear her suffer, he mused silently as Mois' nails once more bit into his palm, but she makes the same sounds when we screw and her teeth bite my neck then as her nails do my palm now. He grimaced as her fingers flexed hard enough to draw blood. There's a poem in there somewhere.

There was a brief respite while the horimono-shi daubed away a trickle of blood that was partially obscuring the stencil. He permitted Mois a minute to catch her breath before he resumed: this time inking the outline of the right hand cartouche and the numbers within the lozenge. His eyes were lazy, but his hand was sure and handled the needle with an inborn confidence.

Mois clenched her teeth and whined nasally. Saburo merely smiled neutrally. When perspiration shone on her forehead, he required only a moment to produce a handkerchief to wipe away the moisture before it beaded and dripped over her transparent eyebrows and into her already reddened eyes. Don't I play the role of a good, caring, observant boyfriend? He wiped a dribble of mucus from her nose. I wonder if I'd be so conscientious if she weren't spreading her legs every time, before I even ask? I really don't love her. I don't think I ever did, but she's fun. More fun than Natsumi ever was.

He tucked the handkerchief into his back pocket and with one outstretched foot inched a chair close to sit. His eyes were at her level and she looked not so much into his eyes as passed his eyes. She wasn't seeing him as the needle buzzed and cut. He saw her, though, an alien girl, who wanted to be marked forever and dedicated to him; a two thousand year old girlchick, who was in lust with a Pokopenian; a forever teen, who cried freely.

And her tears aroused him.

----

If my commander had explained how much maintenance Pokopenian arm candy requires, Giroro grumbled under his breath, I'd have remained alone. I do not understand her addiction to this retail therapy. He looked over to the changing room door and stretched his legs inside the man-equin, which caused the biomechanical legs to similarly stretch. He slouched, relaxed, but ready to come to attention when Charlene emerged wearing her latest potential acquisition. She shall spin like a child's toy and insist I inspect her from every angle and then tell her how much I like her choice, which I always tell her, even when I care very little. I know this is a battle I cannot win.

Across the fitting area Steve "the Genius" McGurp, an ex-wrestler, was similarly slumped and awaiting his wife. Before the Amazing Bulk, he had held the XWF championship until his numbers had dropped and Sir Jeff had dropped him with, as Steve described, an amazing, but not obscene pension. Giroro had seen pictures of the man in his prime. His muscles had deteriorated to loose folds and his once tight belly carried a considerable pouch of fat. If I stay for another decade, will anyone suspect the man-equin? My body will not age as does theirs. Maybe, by then I shall need a new suit anyhow?

"How long does it take two women to try on clothes?" complained Steve rhetorically. "They've been in there for hours."

"They have been in there for only forty-eight minutes," Giroro corrected.

"Well, it seems like hours," grunted Steve in return. "I hate shopping, but at least I'm not the one trying on the mountain of clothes she brings."

Giroro mirrored the thought in his head. I am also so fortunate that the Arm Candy Unit sleeps in her own bedroom. She has never noticed the microseam in my sternum. She accepts that I prefer her not to touch me.

Charlene in all her blond, thin, hipped, pendulous breasted glory emerged from the changing room. dressed in a tight clinging drape and filmy evening gown - black fabric, with some sort of shimmering addition. She looks like a starry sky. Thought Giroro, I've seen her in worse and much less practical. He watched her turn with practiced grace in dart-toed high-heels. She moved as though to unseen music. He applauded respectfully. "Is this the one?" he asked with a tilt of his head and a long languid blink.

Charlene smiled, her pearly whites untarnished by stain or cavity and perfectly aligned. "I like this one," she admitted, "Does it look good? Do you like it?" She flirtatiously lay a hand on his palm.

He squeezed her fingers and flipped his hand over hers in a dominance gesture and then with a growl, released her. "Of course it looks..." he paused for the idiom: parching, blazing, broiling, sweating, "hot. Positively nitroglycerin." Charlene looked perplexed and Giroro looked back with equal perplexity. She's wondering what I said. I'm wondering what I said wrong.

Steve added helpfully from across the aisle, "He means it looks dynamite. Nitroglycerin is what's in dynamite." As they both stared at the once beefy mountain in surprise, he added, "It was on Modern Marvels last night. Doesn't anyone watch the History Channel? Sheesh."

Charlene shook her head and turned her attention back to Giroro. "It does need a stole," she insisted. She pouted at him like a five year old requesting another ice cream on a humid day. "Can we go to the fur factory next?" she begged.

Giroro nodded his answer to the question that wasn't really a question. He knew full well that a "no" or a complaint would be met with begging and pleading and more touching and more flirting. Better just to give in before she makes a scene.

Steve collected his wife, who had found nothing to purchase, while the salesgirl boxed Charlenes purchases and promised to have them waiting when the coterie returned from Flemington Fur Factory. She grimaced when Charlene said that was their next stop. "Those activists have been protesting there all week. Be careful."

----

Kururu hung by both hands from the grip of the big wrench - not his big pipe wrench, but his really, really big wrench that was only a centimeter shorter than he and intended to torque nuts the size of his head. He bounced on his toes until the pressure gauge beeped. Hand-snogging a project in the nuts, he cackled, is easiest when you talk nice to it.

He stepped back on the scaffold to admire his handiwork. The nut was one of six on a gigantic left shoulder, which in turn was connected to a 10 meter wide expanse of sheet metal chest, and opposite a similarly toughened right shoulder. Between the two shoulders was connected a neckless frog head fully 25 meters across. Giant crystalline eyes faced enormous camera pupils with high definition imagizers behind them. Perfect! he congratulated himself and threw the switch to lower his work platform to the ground.

The motorized scaffold peacefully and with only the smallest mechanical complaint passed the cluster of decorative, to-scale, medals and insignia, which marked the robot as a Sergeant Major like himself. Enormous geared motors, hidden in the chest could turn the head, raise the arms, turn and bend the waist and even stiffly move the legs. There were no knee joints. He was most proud of the feet. At the heels they contained two antigrav boosters, which supplemented the four Saturn-class rocket motors in the robot's sculpted backpack. Not only could the robot fly, maybe, but in any event it would fire up with a very visible gout of skin-searing flame, lung-throttling smoke and a deafening roar that would make enemies cower in terror.

The technology was all local and fully 50 years old, and, even Kururu had to admit in his evil little heart, it had been fun to play with the ancient Pokopenian tubes and resistors and capacitors, even if he did have to hide a nano circuit here and there to add voice controls. The scaffold settled with a rough clank and shimmy at the concrete floor of the Construction Hangar. The project was definitely low-budget: he'd had to cannibalize metal and glass from the Digger, and the Submarine, and the Operations Shuttle and Keroro's wig's curling iron. Half disassembled vehicles were scattered about the hangar.

Kururu looked up proudly at the robot. It was powerful. It was well built. It might be able to fly. "Take that Johnny Socko, kukukuku," he laughed mirthfully.

His laughter was interrupted by the swish of automatic doors far above. "What the hell!" Keroro's voice was strident and shocked. The green frog clambered down the metal stairs from the catwalk, taking some two at a time, all the way to floor level. "What have you done?" He surveyed the remains of their attack craft. "My beautiful submarine. The Digger. My curling iron! They're all in pieces."

Way to state the obvious, Kururu giggled and said as much.

In his high panic, the Sergeant was stuck between tears and fury, "What did you do?!?"

"Given our extreme budgetary constraints for new projects: I built this!" Kururu declared. "Pochito!" He pressed the button and circuits clicked. Martial music played. Spot lights and floods blazed, peeling away the darkness and revealing the robot from shiny golden heels to wide golden head. Fittings glistened. Eyes glowed. Black fairings and joints faired and jointed. "Say hello to the tallest robot ever made on Pokopen! I call it Sergeant-Major Plot Device!"

Keroro's eyes widened and he cautiously approached. He stood at Kururu's side and watched the spotlights play over the beautiful frog shaped metal beast. The robot was 60 meters high and the head was lost in the darkness at the apex of the hangar. Keroro's words failed him, he could say only "Wow" and he kept repeating that word with increasing frequency and volume.

The green frog finally recovered his speech faculties and still awed he asked, "What can it do? Can it destroy a city?" He was excited by the prospect of Osaka or Tokyo in flames.

Kururu considered and then drawled "Nooooo."

Keroro looked askance at the inventor frog. "Can it maim monsters and annihilate our enemies?" he asked hopefully.

Kururu thought. "Nooooo," he drawled again, this time with a shake of his head.

Keroro's eyes and hands pleaded with his hacker. He whined his exasperation, "Can it even make a decent cup of tea?"

Kururu shook his head decidedly, "No, definitely not!" he declared.

"Then what does it do?"

"It is my greatest invention," Kururu insisted, rubbing his greasy hands with glee. "It is Major Plot Device! It just sits there, looks impressive, and fills up space!"

"Oh." The green frog paused, disappointed, and looked up again to admire the hacker's handiwork. The robot was still impressive, if only for height. "We're never going to mention this again are we?"

Kururu giggled, "Nope."

More art by Luna Obraz

----

The squat, white building was fronted by a gaggle of twenty or so protesters, who shouted catcalls over the construction sawhorses that fenced them from the main entrance. They waved signs bearing slogans like "Fur is Murder" and "What if a Fox wore you?" There was a nearby patrol vehicle in which sat a pair of bored police officers. One had his window open so as to listen for trouble, but he looked as though he might fall asleep. Trouble had not been in the offing.

Giroro noted the police officers, ignored the crowd and with his teeth properly gritted he had marched Charlene inside. The scent of fur dandruff and loose hairs within the store was overpowering and his eyes went almost immediately bloodshot. His nostrils shortly filled with mucus. He snuffled as a salesperson, a haughty woman with graying hair and a prim, professional suit, offered her assistance to Charlene. She looked with distaste at Giroro, and it was only then that Charlene noticed his distress.

"Oh you poor dear," she said, "Are you allergic to fur?" At his nod and sneeze she continued, "Why don't you go for a walk, Giroro? I'll be okay. I'll ring you when its time to get me?"

He had nodded thankfully, exited, and soon was out of earpad-shot of the protesters. The streets were clean and the sidewalks well kept, but they failed to erase the feeling of dreariness from the quaint downtown that had seen better years. Still it is a good place to walk. No-one recognizes me here. Giroro thought. There were park benches every quarter block or so and most were occupied. First he passed a couple who were more interested in each other than in a passing wrestler, then he passed a tired old dwarf Pokopenian, with a pot-belly and stubby limbs, who stared out at the street with blind eyes. His cane leaned against the park bench and his assistance canine curled at his feet.

Giroro heard the inevitable recognition. The call came from behind him, "Giroro, dude its been so long!" He abruptly halted, his man-equin had almost tripped. The voice had been human sounding, if somewhat slurred, but the words were not American Pokopenian or even Japanese Pokopenian. Shockingly, the words were Keronian. Giroro turned. He half expected to see a member of the Keroro platoon. He braced himself to run in case there were Keronian military police had come to arrest him. He had already located, but not withdrawn, his parabellum in subspace, just in case they were armed. He turned and saw no-one or at least no Keronian.

The dwarf on the park bench waved to him. Giroro blinked, Its just an old Pokopenian... a very... he blinked again and the dwarf had morphed into a child with his dog. Another blink turned the child from male to female. Giroro shook his head in disbelief. The child changed again into a slightly heavyset almost black-purple Keronian and the dog clarified into a big fluffy alien sheep with a long undocked tail. The Keronian waved at him and the sheep wagged its tail. They both looked overjoyed to see the red warrior.

Or at the very least enthusiastic... Giroro approached and as he drew closer, recognition dawned on him as well. His jaw dropped.
"Bo?" he asked incredulously and walked quickly to the seated Keronian. "Bo?" he asked again.

The purplish Keronian smiled lazily up at him and drawled drunkenly, "Giror-o-o-o-o, man-n-n-n, d-u-u-ude, I thought it was you. I haven't seen you since Columbia!" He looked up and down the man-equin, "Man, you haven't changed a bit."

You certainly have, Giroro thought, but did not say. Gone was Bo's leather helmet, replaced with a sash of knotted white cotton that kept implanted, shaggy dun-colored hair from falling in the frog's bulbous brown eyes. The skull symbol of the assault division had been replaced with a silvery Pokopenian symbol: a circle surrounding an upside-down cross with the crossbar broken downwards. Gone was the bandoleer replaced with a matching tattoo. As Giroro watched, the frog subspaced a plastic baggy, opened it and removed a handrolled cigarette, which he lit on the glowing bio-electric lightbulb growing at the end of sheep's tail. "Thank you Bah," he said to the sheep. He took a long and languid drag and then offered the lit tube of herb to Giroro, "Hey, man, want a hit of this?"

Art by Origamigryphon

Giroro shook his head, "Isn't Kerijuana illegal?" Even when Bo was fighting, he'd smoked Kerry-Jane. I guess some things don't change. I wonder if he still tries to forget the battles and wakes up screaming? He didn't desert on principle it was the nightmares and the drugs. Columbia was not so bad as other battles.

Bo shook his head, "Sure is... on Keron, dude, but here they call them Cloves and you can buy 'em in any supermarket." He took another drag until his reddened eyes were improperly defocused. He stubbed out the butt on the bench and flicked the remains into a trash bin.

"So, is this how you spend your time, soldier? Puffing away and abandoning your duty to Keron?" asked Giroro.

"And surfing and playing the guitar for spare change and hitching. Man, Pokopen is a great place to hide from the MP. They haven't found me yet." Bo nodded agreement lazily, obviously enjoying the high from the clove cigarette, and just as obviously unconcerned over Giroro's dig at his questionable character. He dug back just as lazily, "But, hey, dude, you should practice what you preach. From what I seen, you ain't exactly fighting for Keron either. Those fake fights are gonna dull you, but then you were already kind of dull - all that honor and discipline crap." He laughed.

True enough, Giroro hrumphed silently, I abandoned my post in ignominy, but he has no need to know. No-one does. What can I say to him, when I am no better? At least I am making something of my shame? At least I can go back someday? At least I'm not a derelict? Giroro opened his mouth to answer, but was saved by the musical tones of the mobile phone at his hip. A quick check confirmed a text message from Charlene. "I am pleased to have seen you, Bo," he lied. "I must return to mission status green." He was thankful when Bo wordlessly waved him away.

The jog back to the furrier took less than 10 minutes. Giroro was anxious to leave Bo and his remembered past behind him, but the thoughts nagged, He was once a warrior like me and one day his hearts weren't in it anymore and he quit. And my hearts aren't in it, or at least that's what I told Keroro. Will I be Bo someday? Just another heartless ex-warrior washed up on the shores of Pokopen? Are my skills already dulled by the scripted combat? He slowed only as he approached the barricaded protesters, who were still protesting loudly, and still hooted at him as he entered the double glass doors in the window-less white building. Charlene was waiting for him, already wearing her purchases: a white fox fur stole over a skin tight leather jacket. He took her hand and led her through the door.

The noise - boos and hisses assaulted his earpads - the protesters seemed louder now. He and Charlene had not stepped three paces from the door before he heard over the din. "Fur is MURDER, bitch!" and he glimpsed the lobbed latex projectile for only a scant microsecond before it exploded over Charlene's new stole and her hair, dousing them both with a splash of thin red fluid. The crowd cheered instantly as Charlene screamed.

Giroro sniffed. Ink? He noted that the police were already in motion, one to tackle the ink-grenade thrower and the other to confirm Charlene's status. The officer ambled over and escorted them out of the crowd. Charlene looked at the officer like a rabbit frozen in the headlights of an oncoming truck just a second before it was converted from a rabbit into a road pizza. She was too startled to cry.

And I was too startled too act. I let happen to Charlene-arm-candy what happened to my beloved Natsumi.

----

Fuyuki didn't quite understand why Paul insisted on practicing kenjutsu in tight-fitting, off-white, starched canvas clothing. While the fabric was cool and absorbed perspiration, it was untreated and itchy; his well-worn and cotton linen gi was much more comfortable and allowed easier range of movement, but perhaps the limitation and discomfort was the point of the exercise. In his right hand he held a bamboo simacrulum of a katana sword. The fake edge was tinged with red ink. In his left hand he held a short wakazashi similarly smeared with blue ink.  The inks made the evaluation of combat results easier. Neither tool was standard, as Paul had explained, the two swords technique was born not in Japan, but in the Arabias and only in the sixteenth century had the technique arrived as "Niten Ichi": the two heavens as one.

Practicing with Paul was no heaven at all. He was still taller than Fuyuki and his reach longer. He could slash more accurately and block with more agility than his age would indicate. Fuyuki's shoulders arms, chest, belly and hips were smeared with thin lines of ink, while Paul had only a single slashmark on his short sword arm. None of the "injuries" had been critical enough to halt the "battle". Paul's motion was smooth and easy and he wasn't even breathing hard as he feinted left, then right, slashing first one way and then the other, while Fuyuki was panting and almost stumbling over his own feet. Paul advanced and suddenly Fuyuki's feet couldn't take the strain anymore. He backpedaled, but his left foot caught on the edge of the practice rug and he tripped over his right. He toppled forward. Paul was already bringing his long sword down for a cutting stroke across Fuyuki's back that would not only mark ink, but likely bruise flesh and muscle.

Where strategy and learning failed, instinct and familiarity took over. Fuyuki rolled left onto his belly and stabbed blindly upwards with the katana. The blunt end of the sword caught on the edge of the blocking wakazashi and slid over it to poke Paul squarely in the navel just above his athletic supporter.Had the blade been real Fuyuki would have eviscerated his teacher and friend. As it was, the force of the blow caused Paul's well-controlled breath to whoosh out of his lungs. Fuyuki rolled back and smashed the wakazashi across Paul's extended bare wrist. The sword fell from the nerveless fingers.

The boy was on his feet in a scant second. He kicked Paul's katana away to the wall and leveled his own sword at his teacher's face.

"Yield?" he asked the "mortally" wounded Paul.

His teacher sheathed the wakazashi and bowed and Fuyuki returned the respect, but he was already grinning.

And, surprisingly, Fuyuki noticed, so is Paul.

----

Giroro's man-equin was propped in a corner, the chest cantilevered open to disgorge its passenger. The former occupant, the crimson Keronian warrior, lay on the flimsy Murphy bed and stared at the ceiling. There were cracks in the plaster and they spidered out in all directions. There were water stains from leaks long patched in 50 year old plumbing. His sensitive earpads could detect the buzzing of an almost short in the ancient AC wiring. The 60 hertz flicker of the florescent tubes was even more annoying and brought pain to his retinas and his hindbrain. He closed his eyes.

Everything is good, he repeated mentally, like a mantra chant. Even after a year as a star of the XWF, he needed to convince himself. My new Leader insists my numbers are high and my moneys reflect that fact. I cannot walk to the replenishment center without a Pokopenian demanding an autograph or a flash of light in my eyes. And sweetening my arm has had the predicted effect: there are more women at my matches; I can hear them cheering. He opened his eyes again and looked again around the one room apartment that he'd first rented after joining the XWF as a B-card. So why do I still come here when something goes wrong? The furry garment can be carefully cleaned and so can Charlene's hair. I should not feel as I do.

He'd long since moved all the important items to his much grander A-card apartment. The perpetually disassembled skimmer had gone from the shallow standing closet here to the deep walk-in closet there. He'd pawned most of his Keronian military gear and personal effects that could not be safely stuffed into subspace. Most of the new items his arm candy had bought for him, or with his money, if not consent, were nicer. He'd saved important un-replaceables, like his first-aid kit, whose small supply of medical nanitess could repair the biological subsystems of the man-equin more quickly than it could self-repair - but these were safely stored at the new apartment. Except for the Murphy bed and a hot plate his poverty-stricken, rented demesne was bare. "So why do I come here?" he repeated.

The timer pinged on the hot plate and he rose to remove the aluminum can of beef flavored stew from the burner. He dumped the prepared contents into a shallow bowl and discarded the cylinder into the sink that the kitchen and latrine shared. The reddened metal sizzled and the can rolled across droplets of water from the dripping faucet. Drip. Sizzle. Drip. Sizzle. He placed the bowl on the shelf next to the hotplate, turned and triggered the Murphy bed, which flipped back into the wall to reveal beneath: a low, unadorned table cobbled together from a television tray and an old stool and similarly threadbare seating mat made from a restaurant drop linen. Giroro sat crosslegged on the mat with his bowl, selected a pair of throw-away chopsticks from his collection and picked at the English stew.

He remove his bandoleer and clicked open the hidden compartment in the centermost section. He arranged the metal links so that the compartment was vertical and the photograph within clearly visible and faced him over his stew. The photographic stock was crumpled in the corner and the pigments were somewhat faded by five years in the stuffy receptacle. Close to his heart, Natsumi was red haired and pigtailed and just barely over fourteen. I wonder how the years have changed you? Did you grow as the health manual said you would? He munched thoughtfully on a metallic infused, mushy carrot round and then used the next to mop up a dollop of the thin brown gravy. He chewed reflectively, I worked so assiduously to overcome the strength of the sight of you Natsumi, the might of your scent, and the power of your touch? Would I have to do so again? Do you look now as when you did when were overcome by the California Girl gun?

He ate in silence, rose and washed his bowl in the sink. He rinsed out the can and replaced it on the hotplate, which he unplugged. the room had no windows, so he peeked out the spyhole into the dingy, empty hallway. He quickly donned the bandoleer, secured himself in the man-equin and levered the chest closed. The sensory foam enclosed him and he was once again one with the suit. He slipped on his necklace and peered through the spyhole again and then safe in his human disguise, he doused the lights and slipped out into the hallway. He locked the door behind him.

He was walking to the stairs in the tenement, when the thought completed. I know why I come here. I come here so that I don't forget from where I came or why. You will never forgive me, Natsumi for I have not yet forgiven myself.

Tonight was the third anniversary of the grape bomb. Tomorrow was a flight to Los Angeles, on the advice of Sir Jeff, to meet with a Hollywood entertainment director from Galifrey Film Enterprises.

----

Natsumi was in a rush to be home. Fuyuki was somewhere with Paul, but she neither knew where nor particularly cared. Her mind was on her tote and the address of the XWF on the printed slick. She raced through the gate, up the walk, up to her porch, burst through the door and slammed it behind her. She threw her coat atop Keroro and kicked him out of habit, and happiness, and for good measure, then tore up the stairs to the sanctuary of the room and the sun dappled surface of her writing desk. She opened the top drawer and removed five sheets of her limited supply of fine writing paper with matching yellow envelopes. From the bottom drawer she fetched a bottle of India ink and her calligraphy brush. From her tote she removed her notebook and a ballpoint Biro and opened to a fresh page.

She turned in her chair and hooked her ankles together. She hunched over the notebook and waited. She tapped the pen on the page and bit her lower lip. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and considered moving to her bed. She doodled a series of interlocking squares in the margin of the page, added hearts and squares and waited for inspiration to strike. Soon she had filled the entire margin with geometric shapes and not a single word had been written. Just put down some words, Natsumi. She chided herself.

Dear Giroro, frog of my heart,

I miss you. I miss you terribly, but I only just found out where you are. I read your letter and it touched me. I never let you tell me how you felt and I never knew you felt as if you had failed me. I was young, and I was stupid, and I chose wrongly. I don't know if you can forgive me, but I...

Natsumi trailed off the page. She read through the draft, twice. It's too sappy and beggy, she decided. He'll never respect it. How did he say it, dancing is like hand-to-hand and love like a war? She tore out the page, wadded it up and tossed it towards the blue recycling receptacle. She started again on the next clean sheet.

Champion Giroro -

I see you've done well for yourself, but you left a battle behind you and it is not like you to run from battle. You know your target, but you do not know fully my heart. My heart is an unknown country, Giroro: even I haven't mapped it, but it is ripe for conquest, waiting for a bold warrior to take. I would surrender to you now, but not without a fight. Come to me, my froggy, let's make this battle one to remember and...

And I'm losing it. Natsumi snorted. This isn't a love letter. Its a declaration of war. Once again she ripped the sheet from the binder, crumbled it into a ball and threw it toward the recycling. The wad bounced off the rim and landed slightly under her desk. She started afresh. "This is tougher than I thought," she muttered under her breath. "why can't I just tell him the truth? straight and direct?" She set the pen to paper again:

Please come home Giroro. I'm lonely without you. I was a spineless bitch and I took the easy choice when I should have chosen you - to listen to you and believe you. I've been hurt so much in the last year. Saburo didn't love me and he's with Mois now and I'm all alone. You were the only frog I ever trusted and I need that trust now. Please, please come home?

Oh poo, I'm not that desperate am I? Natsumi grimaced. Her third false start met the same fate as the prior attempts: rip, tear, wad, toss. What was it about us? About me and that frog? He saved me many times and I saved him too. I could sleep next to him and feel safe. He never made me feel forced. He always listened to me and i... that's it isn't it?!? Trust and listening!

She put her pen to the lined paper again and this time the words flowed smooth and fast and easy. They were exactly what she wanted to say. She uncapped the India ink and poured a bit into the calligraphers bowl. She dipped the nib of her brush-pen and set about the task of carefully transcribing the letter onto the thick manuscript sheets. Each character had to be perfect and she deliberated before applying each scratch or dot of ink. one by one the words were transformed from Biro scrawls to traditional pictographs. She added her signature first in Kana, then with great care a second time in Keronian. While the ink dried, she addressed the envelope care-of the magazine to Giroro.

She thought to seal the sunny apology with a lipstick kiss, but that's too corny, even for me.

----

The yellow envelope had not lived an interesting life. That's not to say that interesting events had not befallen it, but it certainly could not in any sense be said to be alive. It had been born, if such things can be said to be born, at a paper manufacturer in Boise, Idaho, USA as a long roll of uncolored paper. The roll was shipped to a desktop supply manufacturer outside of New York City where it was dyed, cut, folded, treated with adhesive and then boxed with 10 identical brothers in cellophane wrapping, whereupon it was thrown in a giant crate and shipped, first to the other side of that country, and then to the other end of the planet on a merchant vessel.

If envelopes had memories, it would remember first being unpacked, then uncrated, then stacked with cousins in similar wrappings in a stationery vending machine outside an Oknawa postal drop. If it had memories, it would remember the package being purchased, taken home, opened and stored in the drawer of a desk by a redheaded girl. Over the years its brothers had one by one vanished, gone to the great beyond as the other envelopes said, if envelopes could speak. If the envelope had any feelings, he would have felt rising fear and panic as his turn came, as the red head removed him from the desk and marked him with ink and a stamp and dropped him in the maildrop right next to the very same vending machine.

His great adventure had begun. First he was taken from the maildrop by a collector, then he was sorted by address and delivered in three days to the mailroom of a magazine publisher, who specialized in sports magazines, whereupon he was sorted again and joined several 100 other envelopes in a box. The envelope waited patiently for the box to be opened as within the enclosure he reversed the journey early in his life. He was shipped to San Francisco and then transported to New York City. He was finally delivered, along with his compatriot envelopes to an office building outside Manhattan. The box was opened in the mailroom of the XWF. The other envelopes were placed in mail slots, one at a time, except for the yellow envelope. He was set aside on the table and put into a manilla envelope and brought upstairs to the head of security.

The envelope - if it could track time, which lacking a watch it could not - had been on the move for two weeks.

----

Two weeks in Los Angeles had done Giroro no good and he'd been happy to return to New York City. He had desired sleep, long and immediate, but the private party room for an early dinner at Provo's was Charlene's, idea and the guest list was also her creation: some of her friends from the advertising and fashion industry and some of Giroro's acquaintances from work. Giroro waited for Sir Jeff to inevitably arrive, but the jolly promoter had stepped in for only a moment, congratulated Giroro on the movie contract and then excused himself. "Work to be done!" he had declared with a smile and a laugh and then he was gone. Dinner had continued without him. 

Giroro had sat at the head of the long table so the "friends" could offer a toast of champagne to his health and success. Charlene hung on the bio-mechanical arm of his man-equin and smiled and giggled at all the appropriate times. The official XWF photographer seemed to enjoy making her laugh so that he could photograph her smile.

A jaunt to window shop with Charlene had also been Charlene's idea. They'd taken a cab to Fifth Avenue and Giroro permitted himself to be led from store to store and from window display to window display. He was stopped six times to sign autographs and have tourists photograph him. He wished the day would end. The rich food hadn't sat well in his stomach. He'd avoided the champagne, but the smell of fermented grapes on Charlene's breath was equally nauseating. The cab ride back to their spacious flat seemed interminable.

He remembered only one detail of the evening: a display window at FAO Schwarz and an articulated red rabbit plush, far more expensive, but unfairly identical to one from long ago. He'd stood there and contemplated it while Charlene had simply walked passed. She'd come back for him and had to haul him away by one arm.

If she hadn't come back; I'd be there still. Giroro thought as he shed the man-equin in his private bedroom. I wonder if Natsumi has hers still...

Giroro, wrestling champion, actor, and personality drifted off into a fitful sleep.

----

The sun was glistening off the Hudson River at a low afternoon angle. In a few short hours it would set behind the Palisades. The only difference the  retreat of the solar disk into redness and than oblivion would make to Sir Jeff would be an adjustment in the angle of the dustless venetian blinds and the lighting of the recessed incandescent ceiling bulbs. Both processes would occur automatically and the paragonal self-promoter and billionaire media mogul would not even notice. He had barely looked up from the accounting summaries he'd been reading all afternoon. He had paused only to glad-hand a visiting politician, receive a phone call from the wardrobe mistress about the costume designs for the yearly Whamiversary event, and eat a hasty lunch of an Italian sausage sandwich.

He flipped the next page of summaries, which were written less in English, which he could read, and less in legalese, which he could tolerate, but instead read as though it were written in math, translated into English, and then proofread by an impatient lawyer with hemheroids. "Bloody Sarbanes-Oxley Rules," Sir Jeff grumbled. "If I have to put my name on it; I'd better read it, twice." His grumbling was interrupted by the sudden buzz of the interoffice intercomn. Without looking up from the table of allocations he was studying, he tapped the acknowledgement, "Yes. Sara. What is it?"

Sara's voice was nasal and tired, moreso than usual. "It's Security, Sir..." She sneezed loudly, "excuse me... allergies." She sniffled and continued, "Security just sent up an FYI-FYEO. Should I send it in?"

Sir Jeff chose not to complain that once again Sara had pronounced the abbreviation: For Your Information, For Your Eyes Only, instead of reading it a letter at a time or expanding it into words. He considered. He did need a break from the figures and tables and charts that showed where the various entertainment properties' moneys were going. He slapped closed the accountant's binder and tapped the button again and held it, "Yes, Sara. Send it in and call down to Smyth. Tell him I want to see the contracts for Giroro's movie appearance. Thanks love." He switched off.

One of the pair of thick wooden doors opened presently and a mail clerk, awed to be in the Big Office, entered. He wordlessly released the sealed manilla envelope to Sir Jeff's outstretched hand and stayed long enough to have the delivery reciept signed before backing out the cracked open door. Jeff checked the wax seal before unwinding the red binding threads and cracking open the folder. Within was a sun-yellow envelope, carefully lettered in hand-drawn brush calligraphy. The international postage cancellation was Japan, dated three weeks earlier. The addressee was Giroro, care-of the official XWF fan magazine. The return address was Osaka, Japan. A sheet of paper accompanied the unsealed envelope: an English translation of the carefully scribed Japanese letter.

My Giroro, who I should have trusted,

This letter was a long time in coming. It should have been written - no, said - earlier than  today, earlier than when when I found your farewell letter lying lost in my closet. I know you blame yourself, but it was my fault. I know I immediately blamed you, lumped you in with the rest, and chose not to listen to your words. I regret that now. Can you forgive a hot-headed devil? Not only for shunning you, but for refusing to listen to the words of your heart and her own?

Come back, my warrior frog? Please, come back back. Let's start over.

Sir Jeff frowned deeply. This was indeed the contact he had dreaded: the mysterious Natsumi - the ghostly name that had disrupted a simple script a year ago - was a real, live girl and as he feared, someone with close ties to his star-face. Sir Jeff gritted his teeth before coming to a decision. He pulled to him the ashtray he used for the occasional celebratory cigar. He folded the letter in half and then quarters and set it inside, atop the lutescent envelope. A quick flip and flick of his gold-embossed XWF-logoed Zippo lighter at each corner set the whole to fire. 

"Sorry kid," he explained to the flames, "Giroro's my moneymaker and everyone has to eat." He flipped the blaze to assure the missive's total consumption.

Natsumi's letter and the yellow envelope was soon reduced to unidentifiable ash.

----

Natsumi-dono. There is no important mail I tell you." protested Keroro. He was carryng an armload of colorful advertising flyers, envelopes, and, of course, two thick manga pulps, all of which he'd scooped as a bundle from the front gate.

"How would you know what's important stupid frog?" shrieked Natsumi. She bonked him on the head with one fist and as his eyes bulged and knees collapsed, she stole all the loose paper from the green Keronian's arms so that he held only the manga. "Next time only take your own mail!"

Natsumi pounded up the stairs with her precious prize. I'm sure Giroro must have written by now. Almost a month has passed. Its got to be here. She was on her bed in a flash and sorting the mail from her left, across her lap, to her right. She tossed each advertising flyer into the trash. She inspected every postcard, every envelope. All were addressed in Japanese. None were hand-addressed.

Not one was from the XWF or Giroro, though the wrestling magazine had seen fit to send her a subscription card. She choked back tears and swept the collection of junk mail onto the floor as she pounded her pillow and cried. "He doesn't forgive me. He won't forgive me!" She sobbed into her pillow. "I was such a fool."

"I was such a fool."