The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

A Real Kick to the Balls

Previously: "Of Two Minds on One Matter, Part 2" 

Will gives you a look of surprise. You nod. But even after Will has thrown his arms around him, Justin only raises a skeptical eyebrow.

Justin isn't much taller than Will, but he's got a lot more mass, most of it muscle. He hardly sways on his feet after he's planted them, even with Will trying to twist him into a headlock.

Things probably wouldn't have gone well for Will, if you hadn't kicked Justin in the nutsack.

Roth gasps and goes so limp that he slips out of Will's arms and flops to the ground. "The fuck?" he breathlessly demands.

"Hey, what's going?" a hard voice calls. You turn to find Tackett, his face lit up with alarm, frowning at you and Will. Hennepin and the girl are standing behind him.

"This isn't any of your business!"

"Like hell it isn't!" Tackett runs up to kneel next to Roth.

"Just keep back," Will warns. "This is private stuff we gotta talk to him about!"

"So talk to him! Jesus!"

"We know what you did, Justin!" you yell at the prone Roth. "You need to fix it!"

"What did he do?" Hennepin yelps.

"This isn't—!"

"What's the fucking matter with you?" the girl yells.

"Back off!" you order. "All of you! He's not gonna talk about it in front of you! We're not gonna talk about it in front of you!"

"Talk about what?" Justin groans.

"You know what! So tell your friends—!"

* * * * *

It all falls into a shambles of yelling and cross-talk. But Will finally gets it across that you and he and Justin had some kind of "business" after school that went screwy. But that only causes more confusion—which makes you even more furious—when Tackett and the others insist that Justin couldn't have been with you, because he was with them from the moment they all left school. "He helped us and Keith find Gary," Tackett tells Will, "then we all drove out to Karl's, and then Emily came by and we came out here!"

"Then you're all in on it!" you scream. "You're all covering for him!"

"Covering for what?" Tackett turns very red. "What the fuck are you—?"

"You know what! And you fix it or—!"

There's a lot more screaming and yelling—except from Justin, who hunches on the ground with watering eyes—before Will takes you by the arm and hauls you back to the car.

"I didn't know you had it in you, Will," he says after you've driven away. (But this time he's behind the wheel, as he says you're "too pissed off" to drive straight.)

"Had what in me?"

"Had it in you to be so ... um ..."

"Pushy?"

"I mean, you were really going to kick their asses."

"You bet I was!"

"Well, that's what I mean. You just don't seem like— Well—"

"What?"

"Nothing! Never mind!" He raises a placating hand. "This is just, um, a side of you I didn't know you had."

You sink into your seat and are quiet the rest of the way back to Westside.

* * * * *

There seems nothing else to do, once you're back up at the school, except to return to each other's homes. Will is unwilling, and asks if the two of you can go off someplace. Or, at least, if he can accompany you back to the Saitos.

"You're grounded," you bluntly remind him.

His eyes pop. "What are you talking about?"

"You're grounded. I'm grounded. 'Will Prescott'"—you make air quotes around the name—"is grounded."

"What for?"

"Don't you remember?"

"How could I remember something that happened to you?"

You return him a long stare. "Don't you—? Don't you remember the stuff that happened to me?"

"No! What stuff? When?"

"Today. Yesterday. Whenever."

Now he stares at you.

And that's how you learn that even though you can remember everything that Yumi knows—all the way back to when she was a little girl, even—she can't remember a goddamned thing that you did if she wasn't there to see it with her own (original) eyes.

"Oh, Jesus!" he exclaims when you confess to knowing her inside and out. He claws at his face. "You— Pervert!"

"Hey! It wasn't my fault! I didn't—!"

"Are you sure about?" He turns very red. "You—! So you get inside my head, and inside my—! And you steal everything from me! Everything!" he screams. 'And you—!"

"I didn't steal anything!"

"Everything!"

"I'm a victim here too, you know! I didn't want—! Yumi!"

He falls to the ground with his face buried in his knees, and you crouch beside him. "I wanna kill myself," he moans.

"Oh, Jesus!"

"Well, why not?" he howls.

"It's okay. It'll be okay," you repeat, and gingerly try to massage his bony shoulders as he quietly weeps. "We'll find Justin again, tomorrow, and—"

"You already kicked him in the balls!"

"We'll figure out something. For now, um—"

You don't know how to finish that sentence.

It turns out you don't have to, though. While you're still grabbing at possible formulas, Will raises a tear-stained face, then abruptly heaves himself to his feet. Though his cheeks are still wet, his jaw is set. "Come on, you better tell me how to get to your house," he says.

"Are you sure? Are you okay?"

"No." He wipes his eyes. "But I will be. God damn it. Let's get it over with."

* * * * *

You give Yumi a quick run down of what to expect at your house: Who will be there, what to expect from them, and tips for skating through the evening and night with a minimum of fuss. As for what excuse to give for being so extravagantly late getting home— Well, there you're at a loss, and tell her to improvise something about staying late to help a friend with classwork and then getting "kidnapped" when they went to went to run a "short" errand.

"You'll probably get grounded for another day or week," you warn her, which earns you a black look and the sarcastic retort, "Are you sure you didn't set this thing up, to get out of being grounded?" which you reply to with a sour look of your own.

Then, after he's driven away ... Well, it's getting on toward dinner time, and you suppose you ought to put in an appearance at Yumi's place.

She lives west of the river, not far from the country club, in one of the newer and nicer developments, so you've nothing to dread there. Her parents are sober and respectable, much like your own, so you've nothing to dread there, either. In fact, there's nothing to dread at all, except—

"Better wipe the cum off your mouth before you go inside," your big brother jeers as you're getting out of the car. Mokichi is just wheeling the trash bin down to the curb for morning pick up. "Mom can tell the difference between that and chapstick, you know."

"Just get in the dumpster with the rest of the garbage," you retort as you stalk past. He snickers.

Inside, you wave to your mom as she's setting the table, and apologize for almost being late, before heading down the hallway to dump your book bag in your bedroom. You glance around, even though it's all familiar to you. It's a small room, done up in peaches and whites, and very tidy. There's a twin-size bed, a short dresser with a mirror rising from the back, and a corner desk with a built-in bookshelf. The laptop is asleep.

Out in the hallway, you are almost run over by Yumi's little sister, Chiho, as she dashes from her bedroom to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

All of it is, simultaneously, very strange and also very familiar.

Supper, which is some kind of Cajun dish of chicken, vegetables, rice, and hot spices—the Saitos' diet is not stereotypically "Japanese"—is filled with inane chatter, mostly between Mokichi and his parents as he gossips about the college track team he's on—who they're dating and how it's screwing up their heads just before a big and important meet. Normally Yumi would make some cutting remarks, but you keep quiet. As for Chiho, well, she never talks at the table.

After dinner, as you three kids are cleaning up, Mokichi asks what you did after school.

"I was sucking off a bunch of boys, didn't you hear?" you retort.

Mokichi gives you a sidelong look. Too late you remember that Chiho is standing on the other side of him, packing away food for the refrigerator while he rinses and you load the dishwasher. But he only says, "Was it anyone I know?"

"No!"

He goes through a few more plates and glasses before off-handedly adding, "I just thought it might've been some guys up on campus, is all."

You give him a dark look. Is he trying to say he spotted you at the college when you were up there earlier?

"I don't know what business it is of yours," you reply, and he doesn't say anything else about it.

But he has poked at embers that are still burning. You didn't get a chance to have a real one-on-one, um, "talk" with Justin because his friends got in the way. Maybe you should try again to find him tonight.

And this time have that talk alone.

Next: "Shocks to the System" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"