Kiri: Chapter 1

“I really want to thank you for this.”

Startled, Ryo looked up from the English report he was grading at the brunette teacher sitting across from him. With a wry smile, he shook his head.

“That’s alright. I only had one class to attend today anyway,” he said, pushing his glasses up higher on his nose with his middle finger. “I never have any problems coming to visit you. You always were my favorite teacher, and I enjoy helping.”

The woman shook her head and laughed gently. “Ryo, you should have gone into political science instead of creative writing. You would have made a brilliant politician.”

Making an awkward expression at that thought, the Asian boy shook his head. “Ms. Daniels… Now tell me honestly. Do you think the political world could have survived me?”

Laughing again, the older woman shook her head. “Heaven forbid. The literary world is already going to have their hands full with you, I don’t think politics would have lasted a week.”

Grinning at his favorite high school teacher, Ryo turned back to work on the paper before him. A literary critique of Childhood’s End. The points were well stated, but the spelling and grammatical mistakes were horrendous. With great regret, he marked the final grade at a C+. He knew that if the girl actually took the time to correct the mistakes, Ms. Daniels would give her a B+ if not an A-. He hoped she would make the effort. Hers had been the most interesting and well-stated paper so far.

Ms. Daniels, sitting across from him and grading another class’s reports, had asked him early this morning during his daily run if he could stop by this afternoon. Helping her had always been a pleasure for him. She was a new teacher at Snider High School when he entered her class his senior year. He had been disgruntled at the time, dissatisfied with the teachers at the school. He had had an intense desire to learn, but sometimes he felt hindered by his classmates, especially in English.

The enthusiasm she displayed in her classroom, however, quickly changed his mind. She seemed to take so much enjoyment in teaching and tried to make learning equally fun for her students. Ryo was very quickly surprised to find that she had succeeded as well. Hers was a small classroom, fitting only about twenty students comfortably, and she would take the time to speak with each student individually at her desk, which was usually stacked high with papers and books.

During one such session, the cheerful woman had learned of Ryo’s passion for writing. He had been careful to keep it hidden from everyone, having been taught at a young age by his teachers that fictional stories were worthless. He was very startled therefore when she asked to read some more of his work. He had been a light scarlet as she had read through a folder containing his current story, a fantasy piece about mer-folk.

She had read his story though the entire class period as he sat shifting uneasily in the hard wooden chair by her desk, feeling the eyes of his classmates turned on him from time to time. After the final bell rang for the day, she put the papers and propped her elbows on the desk. He waited patiently for her to speak, not being constrained by the bus schedules as his father had already helped him buy a car. She had seen her students out the door before turning her warm gray eyes in his direction.

Her next words had changed his life forever.

“It’s good.”

She had waited for the words to sink into his stunned mind as she sat back down behind the cluttered desk at the back of the room again. Finally, Ryo had turned his wide, blue eyes on her, his bottom lip trembling as he started to stutter a thank you.

“But it can be even better,” she had continued with an affectionate smile.

That’s when he had first developed his adoration of Ms. Daniels, as she scooted her chair around to sit beside him and lay open the folder. Patiently, she discussed the plot of the story with him, eventually going up to the dry-erase board to plot out what they said.

“You write well, Ryo,” she had said as she tapped his paper with her marker. “You just need to learn how to keep things from rambling too much. See here and here? These topics aren’t really related to what’s going on in the story. It’s a little like writing a report for class. You have to know what you’re wanting to say, and then find the best way to say it.”

Ryo’s cheeks had pinked slightly, and he had nodded. That had been the first lesson she had given him for writing, and by the end of the year, one of his stories had been printed and circulated though the school. He had gotten a lot of criticism for the work but also a lot of praise.

The criticisms had stung, but Ms. Daniels had pointed out that not everyone would like his writing. She helped him sort though the remarks made by his peers and the faculty to find the ones that would help him with his further works. Ryo was majoring now in Creative Writing thanks to her.

Laying aside the final paper, Ryo stretched immensely, arching his back over the wooden desk. He yawned slightly scratching his head, careful not to mess up his tight black ponytail. Opening his eyes, he found the teacher staring at him with a bemused smile on her face.

“Tired yet?”

Nodding, he stacked the papers neatly. “It’s hard to read some of them. I feel like I’m reading a child’s work.”

“You are, in a way,” Ms. Daniels replied, propping an elbow on her still cluttered desk as she took her own break from her papers. “You always wrote at a higher level than the majority of your classmates. Bad social skills though, if I recall correctly.”

“You don’t need social skills to be a successful writer,” Ryo retorted.

“Of course you do!” The brunette rolled a piece of paper and hit him over the head lightly. “There’s book-signings and promotional tours. How are you ever going to convince the masses that they should read your work?”

“Mystery and intrigue,” the young man said with a grin, smoothing a few fallen strands of black hair back. He was delighted to hear her laughing softly. “How is your husband?”

“Mark’s doing great, and Brittany turned two last month,” the woman beamed. She had been married when she came to the school, a fact Ryo had learned a few months after school had started. Her pregnancy in the spring of his senior year had been a shock to the entire school.

Pulling out a small photo album from her purse, Ms. Daniels handed it to her former student. Flipping though it, Ryo stopped on a picture of the grinning two year old up to her elbows in cake.

“She looks like her daddy,” he said laughing as he handed it back to her.

“And acts like him, too,” she said with a chuckle. “I swear he spoils her worse than her uncle, if that’s possible.”

Ryo started to speak but was cut off suddenly as a young student rushed into the room and slammed the door behind him. The boy leaned back heavily against the wooden door in a manner of listening, his chest heaving with exertion.

Barely a second past before Ryo saw two other boys looking in though the window. One of them cursed loudly then called though the door, “You got lucky today, St. Cloud. Next time you’re not going to have a teacher to hide behind, and then your ass is ours.”

Ms. Daniels was on her feet in an instant and hurrying to the boy. “Kite? What’s going on? Who was that?”

As the boy turned to face her, Ryo was startled to see a wide, highly amused, although a little bit sheepish grin on his face. His hand darted into his auburn hair, and he laughed slightly.

The Asian man took the brief moment to study him closely. At first glance, Ryo had thought he was still in junior high, but the more looked, the more obvious it was that the boy was older than that. He did look young though, wearing a pair of high-cut blue shorts and a red and orange tee shirt with a hood. His hair was just above shoulder length and currently in disarray from his flight, and when he opened his eyes to meet the teachers, Ryo was presented with living emeralds.

“Kite.” There was a warning note in Ms. Daniels’s voice that Ryo usually associated with parents and children rather than teacher and student. The boy’s grin faltered slightly and he sighed.

“It’s nothing really, Skye,” the boy said, smiling at her encouragingly. “We just had a little falling out, ‘s all.”

“Falling out? ‘Your ass is ours’ is a falling out?” The teacher demanded as Ryo propped up, curious at the boy’s familiarity with her. Perhaps they were cousins. He could detect a slight resemblance between the two, and that would explain why he had hidden in her room in the first place.

To Ryo’s amusement, the boy laughed again, rubbing his right hand up and down his left biceps. This time, however, there was a definite note of unease in the laugh.

Ms. Daniels sighed heavily and pulled the boy into a warm hug. He was short, barely coming up to her cheekbone, and he turned his head to lay his cheek on her shoulder.

“They’ve started rumors about me again,” Kite said softly. Ryo could see his bottom lip tremble slightly. “They’re saying that Daddy thought I was a girl when he—“

“Kite!” The teacher squeezed him tighter. She pulled back after a moment to press her lips to his forehead. “Don’t let them get to you. They don’t know anything.”

“Yeah, I know,” the boy said, looking up at her with a smile as though he had not been close to tears a moment before. His green eyes shot over to Ryo suddenly, and he stepped back with an embarrassed grin.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I completely forgot about you,” Ms. Daniels said as the Asian rose to his feet. He walked forward smiling at them both.

“It’s okay,” Ryo replied, with a mild smile. “I was just about ready to leave anyway. I needed to take care of Kyon-Kyon before he destroys my apartment.”

“Well, before you go, let me introduce you. I honestly can’t believe you’ve never met before, and then I’m going to ask you a favor,” Ms. Daniels said, smiling. “Kite, this is Ryo Sahara. He was one of my best students here.”

“The one who wrote ‘Ring of Lies’?” the boy asked turning an awed expression on to the college student.

The brunette woman nodded. “The very one, and Ryo, this is Kite St. Cloud, my brother.”

Inside, Ryo hadn’t felt this stunned since Ms. Daniels had first read his stories, but outwardly, he merely smiled and shook the youth’s slender hand. He was quite honestly amazed that his voice was as calm as it was when he said, “It’s very nice to meet you.”

“Now, for my favor,” Ms. Daniels said cutting into his shock. Ryo withdrew his hand as quickly as he could without seeming rude and turned a curious gaze on his former teacher. She smiled brightly. “Could you drop Kite off at work? I’m going to be here for another couple of hours trying to get this mess done, and he needs to be at work soon.”

Kite’s face fell into a halfway grimace. “You can’t take me today?”

“Sorry. I want to get this done so I can spend the weekend with you,” his sister said appealingly. With a slight droop of his shoulders the auburn haired boy nodded slowly. “Can you, Ryo?”

Thinking about it for a moment, Ryo nodded. “No problem. If you’re ready we can go now, Kite.”

“Let me get my bag real quick,” the boy answered running out the door.

“Thank you so much,” Ms. Daniels said smiling at Ryo in relief. She went to her desk and pulled out a five-dollar bill from her purse. “For gas.”

Ryo tried to refuse the money, but soon found himself standing outside the school with Kite beside him and the cash in firmly in his right hand.

***
End Chapter 1
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