Noriko and Jennie

[x-kaminari.livejournal.com]

Hanging out in the waiting room while the teachers decide her fate, Noriko is stumbled upon by Jennie and they manage a conversation, more or less.



Noriko was doing better - after Shrio had taken her to burn off some of the excess energy she'd realized the truth that most of the twitching now wasn't from withdrawal. But that didn't mean she was actually still as she lay on the couch in the waiting area, her stockinged feet twitching rapidly as she paged through the stacks of magazines she'd found. She couldn't read them, of course, but you didn't need to be able to read to enjoy a fashion magazine. Yes, she was doing better, but things still weren't great, she knew, as suddenly a spasm overtook her, the resulting rip decapitating the model on the page and Noriko almost screamed with frustration. "Kuso!" Launching the magazine across the room she covered her face with her hands, almost vibrating with the effort of being still.

Improbably, or not depending on whom you'd ask, the magazine that Nori had chucked across the room only just narrowly avoided hitting another girl in the head. The girl paused, startled, and blinked. Then she shrugged and bent to pick up the magazine. She flipped it over and checked the contents. Then blue eyes flicked to the Japanese girl in the waiting room. "I know, skirts with egg bottoms make me want to do that too," she said, and then added the magazine to the stack of boxes in her arms.

"He?" At the voice Noriko pulled her hands down and blinked back at the girl who'd appeared. "Aa, gommen. Sorry. I... not to see you."

"Ah, no worries," Jennie waved a hand airly. "I've had worse chucked at me recently." The girl pursed her lips and looked at Nori for a moment. She had to curb the impulse to clap her hands together and squeal about how cute the new girl was, all young and tough looking at the same time. She sat down on a couch near Nori and set one of the kleenex boxes in her hands on the end table. "So, how you settling in?" she asked.

Noriko's eyes widened - the tone was clearly friendly, which was a nice change, but the words... if that was all meant to be English, she was screwed. She thought she'd caught something that sounded vaguely familiar and hesitantly tried to respond. "Anou... I'm fine, sankyuu anju?" The way the words ran together, they almost didn't sound like English anymore, and it was clearly a phrase she'd learned by rote.

Jennie raised her eyebrows. Oh dear. She probably couldn't speak English very well. She chewed on a bottom lip, considering for a second. She didn't know any Japanese, and she didn't think Nori would know any of the languages Jennie spoke. Poorly.

"Not so much with the English, are you?" she said, enunciating clearer than she normally did.

Noriko sighed, picking up enough of the meaning to realize what the girl was getting at and appreciating the change in clarity. Shaking her head, Nori thumped her head against the cushion under it. "No, I not English good. I name is Kikuchi Noriko," she added.

Jennie tried to repress a grin. "Somehow still more intelligible than some people I know." Ack, did Japanese people shake hands? Jennie racked her brain for memories of Japanese suckers in Vegas. There was lots of bowing, she remembered. Jennie figured it was best to not attempt anything unless Noriko did it first.

"I'm Jennie Stavros," Jennie said. "Call me Jennie."

Oh, they'd learned that one! She remembered that from last year in school. "Jennie," she repeated, smiling. "Call me Nori." Admittedly, her 'l's sounded almost exactly like the 'r' in her name, but it was clear enough. "Yoroshiku," she added. Bowing while lying on her back wasn't even possible, let alone polite, so she sat up, crossing her legs under her on the couch and nodded her head at Jennie.

Jennie returned Nori's nod, and then laughed. "Nori. S'cute. Pleased to meet you, Nori." Jennie really hoped she didn't sound like many Americans trying to talk to someone who could barely speak English. Moronic. "Uh... letsee, something simple. Ah! How are you liking it here?"

Thank gods, simple verbs. Nori wrinkled her nose, flopping back on the couch, her body language universal to teenagers everywhere. "Not like. Hospital very not like. Isha te nani...? Anou... Doctor very not like."

Yeah," Jennie mirrored Nori's expression of distate. After this summer, she could now understand the inherent dislike of the medlab so many students carried. It was different when you woke up down here and couldn't leave. "I know. But many people ...started out down here." Jennie pointed down to indicate the medlab. "When you move upstairs," Jennie pointed upwards. "It's much better. No Doctor." Jennie tried to mimic Dr. Voght's expression of distate, and then stuck her tounge out.

It was a close enough mimicry that Nori got it, although she shrugged. "Votto-sensei not bad. Hokano wa... Another doctor is... very not like." Then, without preamble she added, "Up is... what?" She pointed at the ceiling. "Is school?" Again, a look of distaste.

Voght not bad? Jennie gave Noriko a look of 'are you serious?' But then, Noriko probably didn't have much experience with Voght's blood drawing techniques. Back when she'd had her final round of bloodwork done after her experience with Campbell the good doctor had not heeded her warnings that she was going to faint.

"School is not bad, no, seriously,--" Jennie added. "It's..." she trailed off looking thoughtful. "It's ..different. Not like normal school. Sometimes it's fun."

"Is very different." Nori hadn't even been upstairs - the headmaster had shuffled her down into the medlab as soon as they'd got in - but already she knew that. In a way, she missed her old school. Certainly she missed her friends.

In way, Jennie was looking in a mirror. Her arrival at the school and her circumstances were very different (she was one of the rare privileged that did not arrive via the medlab, for one) but she, like the girl sitting in front of her and the countless other kids who were or who would be in Nori's position, had left an entire life behind to come to this place. And it had changed her, for good or for bad. For every horrible thing that had happened, for every scar on her person and in her mind, there were other things that balanced them. Moments of complete happiness, achievements, friendships. She couldn't even imagine returning to Las Vegas now, or at least returning and being recognized.

Now how did you explain that to someone who could barely understand you?

Jennie brushed her bangs out of her eyes, and then extended that hand forward. It had a small semi-circle of raised pink scar tissue on the wrist, like a bite from a strange animal. Above it, just below the line where her palm started, was a tattoo. One that Jennie had gotten not long after her first mission as a trainee. The word χάος in black ink. Chaos in Greek. It's twin would go on her other wrist when she recieved her blacks.

"This," Jennie tapped the scar. "Sometimes it's bad." Then she tapped the tattoo. "Sometimes it's good. Very good. It's a balance. Different."

Noriko's eyes widened as Jennie drew her attention to the small tattoo, and then her face shuttered. She sat very still for a moment, the sudden absence of any movement was stunning compared to the ongoing fidgeting of before. Slowly, though, her shoulders unknotted, and she reached over to push up the sleeve on her left arm, eventually revealing a small red and green rose on her bicep, not looking at Jennie's face as she did so. "Can bad. Can good," she said quietly. "Can both. Is understand."

"More good than bad here," Jennie said, ducking her head until her eyes met Nori's, giving the younger girl a smile of encouragement. "I would not be staying here otherwise. Trust me." Jennie didn't comment on the tattoo, even though she admired it. Nori's uncomfortableness meant to Jennie that that was forbidden territory. "It's safe here," Jennie added, then her lip twitched. "Safer, anyway."

"Safe te nani? What safe?" She meant just what did the English word mean, but, truth to tell, she wasn't that clear on the concept itself, either.

Jennie frowned, looking at her wrist. She fingered the scar for a moment before looking back up. "Safe? No bad people. Crazy people, strange people, sick people, but not bad. Or evil." She wanted to say that no one here would hurt her. But Jennie couldn't say that without becoming hypocritical. "Less hard, here. Easier."

"Easy..." Noriko said quietly, mulling it over, remembering the page in her dictionary. Yasashii ~ easy, kind. "Easy is good."

"I mean, the English but may be hard, but," Jennie sighed. "Other things are easy. You never have to worry about eating," she patted her stomach for emphasis.

Not having to worry about where the food was coming from was definitely a good thing, and Noriko nodded. "English very hard," Nori said with a sigh. "Mou... gakkou School wa?" Well, the grammar was entirely Japanese, but there was a universal tone to the way teenagers talked (or rather, bitched) about school that translated.

"There was ...no school for me, when I first came to school here. Not for a long time," Jennie said, frowning, trying to make it as simple as possible. "I not like school, it was too easy. Here, they made school just right for me. I finished in June. I am in college now," there was a smidgen of pride in her voice at that as well. High school dropout to Freshman at NYU. Who would have thought?

"Nori mo. Nori not school, also. But not too easy. Abunai. Danger." She pointed at her nose as she said this.

Jennie laughed, "I was a danger, too," she brushed her bangs out of her eyes again. "No home, either. My mother threw me out. I lived with my friend."

"Nori mo. Kedo... Takeshi not friend. But live house." Not that she really wanted to get into the situation with Takeshi. At all.

"Ahhhh," Jennie said, "I had those too," she sighed. "I got lucky, and met Julia. Then I did not need those friends." That was a million years ago anyway. The stupid things she would do when she wanted a place to sleep for the night that wasn't a couch or a floor. "Another good thing about the school. No bad 'friends.'"

Noriko made a thoughtful noise. She was still kind of doubtful, but certainly if all the things Jennie was saying about this place were true, maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing ever to stay.

"You'll see," Jennie said. "And you will make up your own mind about this place. Just... try to be careful whenever you leave the grounds." There was a wry twist to Jennie's mouth. She stood and picked up the kleenex boxes she'd set aside to talk to Nori. "Now I resume my duties... unless you want something to do?"

Whoops. Words one could (and did) get lost in. But Nori was tired, at least mentally if not physically, and just shook her head.

"Alrighty. I'll finish up and then go bother Shiro for something for you to read. He's also from Japan. I hope he can help you out." If nothing else he might be persuaded to play translator. Jennie nodded at Nori again from where she stood, an acknowledgement of a girl who at least empathised with what Nori might be feeling.

Noriko smiled. "Un. Shiro shiteru. Shiro is know. Sankyuu."

"You're welcome."