Judge by the Cover_High School, Drama & Deadly Vices

by Melissa Abigail

  Ryu took a long drag, the cigarette's butt-end bright red and gold. Birthday, huh? He supposed it was something worth acknowledging. For one, it was one of the few days he didn't have to work and was allowed to do whatever he wanted. It was also one of the few days that Seth was even around anymore.

  "Sure. Let's do it," said Ryu, passing an eye over Kevin who gave him a look of desperation. Without fuss, he handed Kevin the rest of his pack.

  The walk to O'Brien's Thrill & Chill Hub wasn't a long one. Aside from being close enough to the Academy to be a convenient hang-out, it was also one of the few places of its kind where they didn't check ID upon entering. None of the boys were there for bottle service, but O'Brien's bowling alley, billiards, state-of-the-art mini-arcade set-up, and easygoing vibe was a draw that made it one of the busiest spots in town.

  Ryu never knew how to feel at times like this.

  He did love it: the exhilaration of knocking over all ten pins in one strike, the wicked laughter he'd share with Cody and Seth on the third time Kevin would send his white ball airborne and render the pool table a disaster, and even Jackson trying to impress them all with his near-perfect accuracy during a round of darts. Ryu and his boys did have memories here as infrequent as those visits were. These were times where he could be normal for once, normal until they walked out the door, parted ways; they to the comfort of their detached houses and mid-sized mansions—Ryu off to a place even they didn't know. The place he had called home for the past ten years.

  "Hey, Seth! How does it feel dating a goody-two-shoes, for real? Be honest," asked Cody. He slurped at fingers stained with remnants of orange nacho cheese that looked like a matching accessory to his bad dye job.

  Seth laughed, tips of his ears brightening as they often did when this topic came up.

  "What can I say? It's good, man. Things are good."

  "So when you gonna hit?" Jackson teased with a lopsided grin.

  All save for Ryu hooted with laughter at Jackson's comment, banging their fists against the table and taunting Seth as he rolled his eyes.

  "I know the answer—never!" crowed Tim. He slapped Seth on the back. "It's all right, dude. I've got you. I know some girls. She won't even have to know, trust."

  Ryu averted his gaze elsewhere. A set of college students took turns hurling balls in the next lane over. Ryu dug his chin into his hand. It was a bad joke. They all knew Seth wouldn’t take Tim up on such an offer. He was crazy about his girlfriend, and it didn't make a difference to him what the others said about it. It didn't even matter what Ryu said about it, and he was Seth's best friend. Gabrielle did seem kind of shy, kind of quiet… kind of, well, boring. So what was the appeal? Even her friend, Haruna, with her predictable, superficial, obnoxious, Coach bag–toting self had more personality. As a matter of fact, a plain boiled potato was more interesting than Gabrielle.

  "Yo, Ryu! We're going out for a smoke. You coming?"

  Ryu glanced back to the others. Cody and Seth were on their feet, pulling on their jackets while Tim, Kevin and Jackson were already heading for the door.

  "Mind if I get one off you? Gave my last to Kev," Ryu muttered dryly.

  They regrouped just by the front patio, shivering a little, but nonetheless holding their cool as if the night air wasn't a single digit above zero. Ryu squatted wordlessly against a slab of raised concrete as his light grew smaller and smaller. The boys and their conversations reminded him of the kind of idle talk his brothers, Albert, Bradley, Clyde and Dan, would have. About video games and movies. About their latest music download. About how much they'd benched at the gym the other day. About some prick teacher that had given them detention or threatened them with suspension. But these guys were different. When they talked about their problems, they sounded so small. Being grounded for not taking out the trash? Having their credit cards suspended? Having some girl publically throw "shade" at them online? Ryu thought those would be great alternatives to his problems. When they talked about trips they wanted to go on, places where they wanted to be, schools they were applying to, the lives they saw for themselves after graduation, it meant something. They had a future to look towards and a past worth holding onto. A real family. Status. Freedom.

  Not knowing what led to it, the guys were once again talking about girls. Ryu glanced over as Tim and Kevin boasted about the "hotness" of Jackson's older sister, Tina. Tina Noh left the Academy the year before to become a legit Pop Idol in Seoul. Jackson, as usual, got heated, insisting they refrain from even thinking about his sister. Somehow all that talk about sisters led to talking about other Academy girls, back to Seth and his girlfriend and then to some of the popular faces in their classes. A grinning Cody had eyes glued to his cell phone. He then passed it to some of the others. Ryu craned his neck to look and froze at the sight of it; it was unmistakably the photo Cody had snapped of Haruna crawling stupidly on all-fours the time she had slipped in the hallway.

  "You still have the picture?" laughed Kevin, who was the last to see it. "Perfect blackmail right there."

  “Yo, don’t you think Haruna is pretty hot, though?” Cody said, directing a look to Tim who everyone knew had a "preference" for Asian girls or at the least the concept of them. Haruna was hardly Asian as far as Ryu was concerned, but apparently she was just "Asian enough" for Tim.

  Tim stroked his lip. “Like, yeah. I mean, she’s got such a beautiful face and this nice, nice skin. So smooth and soft-looking and like… just amazing.”

  “It’s a shame she’s always got that face set on resting-bitch-mode,” Jackson sneered.

  “Tim, what’s with you and skin, though? That's just creepy,” Kevin muttered, shifting a tuft of side-swept hair from his eyes.

  It was beyond creepy. Ryu gave the guys a caustic glare.

  “Don’t you have anything better to talk about?” Ryu grumbled.

  “Come on! You think she’s hot too, right? Attitude, aside,” asked Tim.

  “Nope,” replied Ryu, then he took another long drag.

  “You're kidding? How can you even argue that? She’s a ten, hands-down," Cody protested while Kevin bobbled his head in agreement.

  “Yeah, they say she’s a gifted student. And I agree—she’s gifted in all the right places, amirite?" Tim snickered and he, Kevin, and Cody exchanged fist bumps and chuckles. Ryu noticed his cigarette had reached its limit, and he tossed it to the pave.

  He too had reached his.

  “I’m going. See ya.” Ryu rose to his feet with his hands in his pockets.

  “You’re leaving, bro? Why?” Tim asked, looking surprised by his sudden declaration.

  “I know why. There isn’t a single girl who could be good enough for this dude,” Jackson said behind a cloud of smoke. He spat off to the side and regarded Ryu darkly. “Sometimes I wonder about you, bro.”

  “Wait—are you calling him gay?” Kevin asked, looking dumbfounded.

  “We got a real genius over here,” Jackson quipped snidely. He glanced shrewdly at the others. “But real talk, when has he ever shown interest in anyone? And LG's are practically lining up for this asshole?”

  LG's. Juniors who loved to date seniors, "little girls" with too much make-up and not much between the ears. Ryu never understood the fascination with them. So, the boys were rendered speechless, likely pondering on Jackson's accusation. Ryu snorted, and his lips tugged into a smirk. He'd always suspected Jackson had a problem with him. It looked like the guy was finally showing his true colours.

  “Oh, so you wonder about me, eh?" Ryu said. He stuck out his chin, nodding towards the sky. "Then go right ahead, Jackson. Let your imagination soar."

  "Ryu! Wait up."

  Ryu had moved off. He consciously picked up pace, not turning back to acknowledge Seth. Ryu started up the street for the nearest bus stop. Still, he heard the jogging footsteps and soon felt Seth's long arm on his shoulder pulling him back. Ryu rounded on him, roughly shouldering him off.

  "What?"
/>
  "Come on, bro! Why are you just running off like this?"

  "I can't take anymore. Tim is bad enough but that punk Noh—"

  "So you're leaving just cause of some stupid stuff Jackson said?" Seth smiled. "You know he's just messing around, right?"

  "He doesn't know who he's dealing with, I swear—"

  "I know—instant suicide," Seth laughed, wiggling his brows.

  Ryu didn't smile. He just wasn't in the mood to fool around. Seth seemed to register this at last, for his ever-smirking face gradually mirrored Ryu's seriousness.

  "I know this isn't really about him or the guys."

  Ryu lifted a brow. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah," Seth echoed. "I don't get why you're still holding a grudge against Haruna."

  Ryu felt his chest tighten and the slow beginnings of his blood boiling like the contents of a Crockpot.

  "I don't know what you're talking about." Ryu suddenly had an overwhelming desire to find that bus stop again.

  "Come on! Don't be like this, man. We're best friends. What's up with you?" Seth shouted at him, again reaching, pulling him back. Ryu cursed under his breath.

  "Fine! You wanna know? She knows! She knows where I live!"

  Seth drew back his arm, and his brows shot to the sky.

  "Oh. Oh. You mean she knows about—that?"

  Ryu sighed wearily and rubbed at his temples.

  "Nah, she hasn't a clue. But I know she's going to ask questions."

  "Well that explains it then," Seth said, giving a weak shrug.

  Ryu gave him a curious glance.

  Seth clarified, "Elle's been telling me that Haruna's seemed miserable lately. It has to do with you, doesn't it? Like, earlier today? What was that even about?"

  "I agreed to meet up—what's the big deal?"

  "What's the big deal? She shouldn't have to force you to care. Isn't that project worth, like, half your entire grade?"

  "Twenty-five percent—and so what? I have bigger, way bigger problems. So what if I flunk out? And as for her, I'm sorry. I've got zero sympathy."

  "Fine, if that's how you want it. But Elle is always telling me that Haruna's a thoughtful girl who works incredibly hard…"

  "I don't want to hear this, Seth…"

  "For once just hear me out, okay? You can't keep going on like this! You don't have to be her friend, but you need to let things go already. Don't do it for her—don't even do it for me. Do it for yourself!"

  Neither of them spoke again for a solid minute as they watched each other.

  Seth heaved a sigh.

  "I know you're not this kind of person. You promised. You promised me back in grade seven, right? We'd survive this school and graduate together. I don't wanna hear nothin' about you flunking out. Never again."

  Ryu lowered his head. "I shouldn't have said it."

  Ryu had forgotten making that promise.

  He wished he hadn't.

  "Just… think about it, 'kay?" Seth sighed. "Oh, and happy birthday, man. Really."

  Ryu didn't speak further. He turned around and walked. As Ryu headed for the bus that would take him back to Wood Valley Crescent, he could hear Seth finally move off as well, back to the others at O'Brien's. The night was as cold as it was dark, unusually so, even for that time of the year. Ryu overlooked a stranger who waited at the stop. The longer Ryu stood waiting the more he felt the tension build, and the more he regretted leaving. By the time the bus had come and he had boarded, he'd almost forgotten what had gotten him so annoyed in the first place. The truth was that even if he never could fully relate to his friends from the Academy, he wanted to be around them. He needed them. He didn't need to spend heaps of cash or talk about vacation plans in December. He just had to watch them do it. Living vicariously through them was morphine: intoxicating. He loved it. He hated it. It gave him the strongest high. It left him weightless, like pain was merely a word and an experience that was someone else's. But like morphine, when it was all over, it was just that: over. A moment in time followed by a spate of unpleasantness; pangs of pure regret that left him never wanting to go back to it, lest he be reacquainted with its brutal fall-out on repeat.

  But Ryu always went back. Because if he didn't, the pain would eat him alive.

  Ryu stared out the window, expressionless, watching the dark shadows and city lights fly by in blurs. So he was finally seventeen-years-old. He wondered at what point being a whole year older would begin to feel like something that mattered. So far, he was still the same person he'd always been. Without fail, for as long as he could remember, he always felt like this on his birthday: empty and hopeless. He'd been seven-years-old when he'd first touched down on Canadian soil. Before then, he'd been left in the care of a woman who he'd later discover to be his father's wife. His father wasn't his real father. He was just the man who owned the orphanage. The one who really took care of Ryu from the day he arrived was the one who'd made Ryu his protégé. Katsuo Kazama, the house guardian.

  Ryu scanned his wrist for the time.

  It was already quarter past nine. He could picture Katsuo's churlish face as he entered, telling him that he was "late." In spite of his harsh demeanour, Katsuo was the one person Ryu trusted without fail. Katsuo had known Ryu's real, late father. They'd been buddies, best friends. And Ryu had thought of Katsuo as his uncle or godfather since he was a toddler. It was a privilege none of the other boys who had passed through Tengoku's walls ever had. Most of the boys were just kids from the streets. Kids whose parents didn’t want them, or kids who didn’t want their parents. Some were kids who hated living by the rules and wanted “excitement." Some were kids who’d been wards of the State seemingly forever, victims of what they called “Foster Care Hell," with nowhere else to turn but determined to be victims no longer. Some were kids with habits they didn’t know how to break.

  Most were just kids who didn’t belong anywhere.

  Tengoku stood like the unwavering, solitary beam of a lighthouse amid a vast, black ocean.

  This place was somewhere.

  When Ryu had first come to Tengoku, there were already a few boys there. Over the years, Ryu had also watched them leave because either they'd turned eighteen, they'd gotten arrested, or worse. It was only in the last year that he could truly call his current "family" stable.

  But anyone would be a fool to think this place was just an orphanage. Heaven? It was everything but.

  CHAPTER seven

  year of the dragon

  Everything looked good. Haruna hoped—no—believed Saturday was going to work out. There was no reason why it shouldn't. So unsurprisingly, Saturday didn't go quite as she had hoped.

  It must have been the way of the universe.

  The sunlight's orange glare against Haruna's shuttered eyelids woke her. She lifted herself from the downy softness of her bed and calmly observed her room through bleary eyes. It was Saturday, but something felt off. She sleepily looked to her clock and blanched.

  "Ten-thirty? I overslept?"

  Haruna jumped to her feet and flung her sheets away, in a frenzy darting across the room searching for a change of clothing. She rarely ever got up past eight o'clock, but she'd been worn-out. Not only had she slept like a log, she also forgot to set her alarm. She had to meet Ryu at 10 AM—two hours before she'd be meeting Mani at noon!

  Marie wasn't home, but she had left a note stating she would be in a meeting for "consulting." Despite this, she had set aside some waffles she had made before leaving. That and two twenty dollar bills, Haruna’s allowance for the week. Haruna pocketed it, not bothering with breakfast as she headed out the door. She was going to a restaurant anyway.

  Once at the diner, Haruna checked her cell for the time: Eleven-thirty.

  She was late, horribly so, but still Ryu was nowhere in sight. She fell into a state of silent panic, fearing the worst. He came and having not seen her, left. Great. Haruna was left staring into space wondering what the next move
was. It wasn't like the pair had exchanged numbers, so she had no way of contacting him. She pocketed her phone, deciding she might as well order something and sit. That's when her phone suddenly began to vibrate. Mani. She clicked it on and saw a number she didn't recognize. She opened the message and silently read:

  It's Ryu.

  Haruna frowned. "How did he get my number?"

  Another message followed:

  Running late. Got caught up with stuff. Will be there in a few.

  She rolled her eyes. So here she was thinking she'd been the one to screw up things when as it turned out—he hadn't even shown up at all. She checked for the time once again and saw that it was quarter to twelve. There was no choice left but to make the call. That is, to call Mani to cancel. Wanting to explain as little as possible, Haruna hastily settled for a text:

  Sorry, let's call off our date. I’ll see you at the church later.

  Shortly after she hit send, the phone rang and with a fluster she answered, dreading the conversation.

  "Hey, babe. What's up?" Well. He didn't sound upset.

  "You… got my text, right?"

  "Uh, about that. What do you mean 'call it off ’?"

  "Well something came up, so…"

  "That's too bad since I'm already here."

  Haruna jerked her head upwards and watched as Mani strolled through the door. She gave a resigned sigh and cancelled the call. Mani was early. Punctuality was one of his best qualities, but unfortunately, not today. Right away he spotted her seated at the high table off to the side and walked over. Confusion was written on his face.

  "Hey…" she started.

  "Yeah, yeah, enough of that," Mani said, cutting her off and pulling out a stool to sit beside her. "What were you going on about? I mean, I see that you're here."

  Haruna peered tensely out the window facing the sidewalk, envisioning the awkwardness that would ensue if Ryu were to walk in at any moment.

  "Mani, the thing is—you know that assignment I have for English class? It's going to be due in a couple weeks. And it's been difficult trying to meet with Ryu…" She sighed. Now she just had to tell him that Ryu had arbitrarily decided to meet on this particular day and that she had stupidly neglected to mention a thing about it sooner. Mani began to chuckle. She turned to him with raised eyebrows.