Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction ❯ Trial By Tenderness ❯ Part 19 - Dispersions ( Chapter 19 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Part 19: Dispersions



August in Beijing was clenched in humidity and dirt as gusts from the west brought a regular haze, yellowing the blue sky with dust and casting the campus with a wayworn appearance. It was almost as bad as a BeiDa winter. During my second stay at the University, I thought it was ludicrous when December rolled around and I observed the old professors walking around between classes with kerchiefs wrapped over their noses and mouths. But I soon learned why. In the winter months, almost all the campus buildings relied on antique coal furnaces for heating. The result was an air leavened with so much soot that I ended up wearing a mask to keep from blackening my lungs towards bronchitis.
There had been no breakthrough in my first two meetings with Chancellor Wang regarding the liaison with N.I.T. My dissertation efforts seemed mired in the library stacks that I frequented with dismaying regularity. On top of all of this, Dr. Zhao had scheduled me to give a guest lecture on the parallels between Western mercantile cultures and its transformative impact on Meiji-era Japan consumer philosophies and the impact of capital economies on the present situation in the 'enterprise-free' zones of southern China.
Great.
A talk on business--a topic that I was disenchanted with and disinterested in. Frankly, I didn't give a shit. In my mind, the science of making money reduces itself to a contest to see who is the greediest. People of all faiths bow down to mammon while they mouth praises to the deity of their locality. All this while believing that the poor and homeless in their city do not exist. Out of sight, out of mind. There's no such thing as the starving children of the disappeared.
I had long ago concluded that a plenitude of reasons existed that justified why the philosophy of business ethics isn't exactly a flourishing branch of economic science or philosophy itself.
However, I could empathize with their request. In the first decade of this century, China's growing influence in the Asian Rim economic sphere was substantive; it made good sense on the behalf of the faculty of BeiDa to expose the future leaders of the nation to the study of capitalism.
But why ask *me* to lecture on business, a topic far removed from my *real* scholarly efforts? Even worse, my talk had been arranged for the evening before I was scheduled to fly out to Dunhuang to encounter whatever it was that I was supposed meet up with there.
The cool night air was a welcome relief to the humidity of the day. Despite the new air conditioning system, the Shao Yuan dorm still seemed to hoard the most humid air of the day...far into the evening. I was watching the one of the 'modern' CTV channels. BeiDa's dorms were equipped with digital cable TV, subscribing to about one hundred seventy stations. The TV content varied substantially: from classical Beijing Opera performed to exacting traditional standards; to the many war-time dramas depicting the struggles of the People's Army against the Japanese and Kuomintang; to shows from Hong Kong's many cable channels. Ever since the reunification of Hong Kong and the PRC ten years ago, Hong Kong TV had been in great demand by viewers because of its richer variety of entertainment. Because of the detente between China and Taiwan in 2004, many of the channels were Taiwanese as well.
I remembered the first time I came to BeiDa and experienced Chinese TV. One station broadcast a weekly show that screened clips from Hollywood movies while the commentators made jokes about the Americans and the dramatic situations. I thought this was hilarious, turning the grandiose American cultural icon of Lollywood on its ear. Leave it to the Chinese...
I scanned the channels, looking for the promised "Star Trek: Voyager" reruns that were supposed to be on right now. The Chinese have a penchant for transforming just about anything into a morality play; their translation of "Star Trek: Voyager" highlighted ethical dilemma, serving the spirit of the original series quite well.
That's when I saw *her*.
I was channel surfing after the 9pm Beijing news when a women's fashion show caught my eye. It wasn't the show so much as it was the spokesmodel. She was dressed in a modern-looking business dress with Western leanings. She wore a black beret with a fake diamond cluster in front shaped in a star...an imitation of the Mao hats popular in an earlier chapter in China's history. Her white blouse was smartly offset by a silken jacket and a black midi skirt. Long bright platinum-cum-white hair curled around her tan face and her long legs were wrapped in gray hose and white calf-high boots. I almost choked on the Kuan Yin tea I was savoring. It took me less than a second to recognize her.
Urd.
Absolutely the *last* person I wanted to see! Absolutely the last person I *expected* to see. Absolutely the last person that should be on *Chinese TV*.
I was glad that my roommate from Ceylon was out partying, because I must have looked like quite a sight; my jaw hanging agape in stupefaction, my eyes red-eyed wide with surprise. I was paralyzed, except for my right hand, which somehow vacuously released the teacup.

*Crash!*

The sound of shattering ceramic sent my thoughts into overdrive. How the hell did Urd get to China? Was she following me? After the initial buffet of shock, bevies of assumptions raced through my brain. I was at once disgusted, paranoid, fascinated and fearful. Urd definitely could screw up my dissertation. My heart had jumped when I saw her, on Chinese TV of all things. It was like I was being chased down by a female embodiment of Fate. Or one of the Dirae. I suddenly felt trapped in my room.
This was *too* much of a coincidence! My conscious dissolved into an anarchy of loud bursts.
"Could she be...*stalking* me?" I wondered. Urd could blow my whole cover. Not that I had anything to hide...I only had a million things hanging over my head. An inverted Black Forest of Damoclean swords straight out of the Yama King's hell. My dissertation, the N.I.T. liaison, this damned lecture tomorrow. Everything.
Even though there are 18 million people in Beijing, Urd *knew* that I planned to go to BeiDa.
"She *could* find me, after all, she's a Goddess," I reasoned, feeling a crackling shiver of fear which reminded me that I wasn't that much different than the shattered teacup on the cement floor.
After she betrayed me by impersonating my therapist, I didn't ever want to face her or the others again. I just wanted to be alone, isolated with my pain. Actually, isolated *away* from my pain...a disconsolance that was comfortably contained in Makuhari.
"Wherever you go...there you are," my mind reminded me. Pseudo-Dionysius's theory of being was often miscited, credited to anyone from Johnny Carson and Tiny Tim to Sonny Bono and Albert Einstein.
The sight of Urd was causing me to disassociate.
I reflected on the recent past. I had flatly refused all calls from Japan except from Dr. Kintaro. It tore my heart apart each time I checked in at the lobby of Shao Yuan only to find that I was getting two or three calls a day from Makuhari. But Urd's betrayal had sold my soul down the river...I could never face Keiichi and Co. I felt a wash of empathy for them: trying to locate me...and probably worried sick about Urd.
I hate keeping secrets. I dislike being selfish...but I *had* to protect myself from more emotional pain. I'm usually very candid and open with my life...except for the noir-realms of my innermost pain. The pain that Urd had pried out of me. The pain that by all rights was mine to chose whom I shared it with; mine to decide who heard about it and who didn't.
Strange, this impulse to parcel out feelings that, ideally, would be best dispossessed from my life.
All my friends in Makuhari probably knew about my taints by now. The industry of my aspirations had been too real...and now I didn't have a chance to advance their completion. To them, I'm probably habited by my disabilities and flaws, rather than the fertility of my potential.
My heart seemed like a hyperstatized, abstract concept now. I was numb...as numb as I could get without a narcotic. Seeing Urd on my TV had somehow added a deep-freeze to the numbness.
"It's been a rough day," I reflected as I carved a stick figure into the floor with a broken shard of porcelain.

* * * * * * * *

Keiichi held Belldandy in his arms, feeling her body shudder in staccato nudges against him as he caressed her long brunette hair.
She was crying again.
Every day since they had returned home from their travels, Bell-chan would knock on the shoji door to his bedroom, then come in and collapse in his arms, beset with tears. In the past week, they had traversed all over southern Honshu: Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Kobe and their environs. There was no trace of Urd. They both were exhausted from the combination of heavy traveling and the emotional toll of not obtaining any leads about Urd's whereabouts. Prudently, they decided to take a week off before going off further southwest to Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Shimonoseki.
Every time Belldandy spent any time in her room, Urd's absence would confront her like a silent, horrible spectre. She tried to brace her spirits in the face of Urd's absence, but eventually her resolve would cave in and she would feel the full thrust of her loss.
"Urd is my *only* older sister," she would tell herself right before the tears came. She had know Urd all 240,000 years of this cycle of her existence. Every divine year of her physical age was actually ten thousand mortal years...but time was no longer the same.
Time was treating her contumely.
Skuld had taken to sleeping in her "Skuld Labs" room; each morning Belldandy would bear a reluctant witness as Skuld would sadly drag out her futon bedding and silently shuffle down the hall to hang it over the railing. The futons had been Urd's chore in the past...a fact which broke Belldandy's heart. Urd had always taken care of the bedding for the house. Skuld rarely talked to anyone these days, except Banpei-kun.
Wherever Belldandy looked, she was reminded of Urd. The dining room was bereft of sake bottle caps that Urd would stack on the table. The sister's bedroom had many photos on the walls and in their photo albums of Urd hamming it up. The living room brought back memories of Urd calling down lightning and blowing a hole in the roof on several occasions. The TV in the sister's room sat silently. Her clothes hanging in the closet. Her shampoo in the bathroom. Her walkman resting unused in the living room. Dust on the wooden criss-cross frame of the shoji door to her 'Castle' room.
"It's too much for a person to bear!" Belldandy mourned as she looked at Keiichi, her eyes haunted by Urd's absence.
Keiichi regarded his beloved. He had assumed that nothing could break her good-cheer...her zest for life. But since Urd's disappearance, Bell-chan's mood had been melancholic the past few days. This was extremely unnerving for Keiichi. He tried to buoy her up, but her dampered spirits couldn't resonate with his forced optimism. Now here she was again, crying into his shoulder.
It was almost like a chain reaction. Skuld would break down and run into Belldandy's arms, crying her head off...then Bell would seek him for solace and cry into his arms.
"Who do I go to when I want to cry?" Keiichi reflected with mixed feelings. Guilty at his selfish whim...yet resentful towards the mutiny of serenity. He felt like he was bearing the brunt of *everyone's* pain...as well as his own grief-fraught emotional state. He found it increasingly tasking to offer a reassuring smile to Bell-chan and Skuld.
He had his own pain. He missed Urd, too. The house somehow seemed *too quiet* without the boisterous elder Norn. Much more quiet than one person's absence should make it. He wished Urd was here so he could slap her in the face and yell, "What the hell did you think you were doing, disappearing like that?"
Reining in his thoughts, Keiichi wondered how Megumi and Genji were doing. They had been energetically searching Hokkaido and northern Honshu. He was surprised by their endurance; yet he suspected that they were either afraid to come back and admit defeat or they were falling in love and using the search as an excuse to elope all over Japan.

* * * * * * * *

By the weekend, everybody was upset at the fact that all their phone calls to Beijing had been unanswered by Cevn. The Japanese Consulate knew that he was at the University, but the BeiDa officials could only promise to forward messages to him. Cevn apparently had instructed them to flatly deny any contact with him. They phoned several times a day, but the switchboard operator told them in broken Japanese that Cevn had refused their calls.
Keiichi was steamed about this...it seemed that Cevn had simply decided to sunder all ties with them. His anger flashed strongly one day; the binder of one of his tech manuals bore a ding as the result.
He had reluctantly overruled Megumi's suggestion that she and Genji fly to Beijing. He had thought that it might be better if Belldandy and he went. But his beloved Bell-chan was an emotional wreck. Who wouldn't be *this* distraught with the unexpected loss of her older sister.
However, Belldandy had temperately suggested that Cevn wouldn't avoid them unless there was a good reason. She further suggested that it was quite possible that something had occurred, which had really hurt him or upset his feelings. The result was his refusal to talk to them.
"In this aspect, he is reacting like Skuld...by withdrawing," she had noted.
Then last night, much to Keiichi's surprise, Skuld had half-pulled half-dragged her futon into *his* bedroom and slept between Bell-chan and he. Her weary eyes disclosed that she had been crying for Urd. Skuld told a surprised Keiichi and Belldandy in a hoarse voice that she wanted to sleep in a room with somebody...anybody...to avoid feeling so consumed, so alone by her pain. Her face brightened only slightly when Keiichi smiled and assured her that she could sleep with them anytime she wanted to.

* * * * * * * *

"Bell-chan, do you think Skuld will sleep here again tonight?"
She looked at him; her incomparable blue eyes still reddened from tonight's bout of grieving Urd's disappearance.
"Oh, Keiichi, she's not a bother is she?"
"Why would you wonder that, Bell? Of course not! In fact, last night, I thought for a moment...that this must be what it would be like to have a child. A little one sleeping between us. Although Skuld is not a child, it seems like she really needs to be around some adults like us right now."
Belldandy smiled briefly at the romantic inclination of Keiichi's imagination, then started crying again, her sadness twinned by her missing sister...and something else.
"I...I didn't think...snff...that she would take Urd's disappearance so hard. She really seems like a candle whose light has gone out," she managed as she grabbed Keiichi tightly.
"Keiichi...I'm so scared that Urd is going to be *gone forever*!"
"No! I can't accept that...I hope..er..I think that we'll find out something about your sister soon," Keiichi replied, at a loss to say anything more encouraging. He thought it was so crazy; the sister Skuld fought the most with...seemed to arouse such deep-held emotions in the youngest Norn. There must be a lot of love there.
Belldandy looked at him and spilled her sadness. "Keiichi, I mi..miss my Big Sister! Will she ever come back? You have no idea...snff...how much I miss her! Whenever I was sick in Yggdrasil, she was always the first one to summon a Proctor. Once, when I almost flunked one of my trainings, she snuck me the answers to the test.
"You...almost *flunked*?" Keiichi said, taken aback by Bell-chan's sudden confessions. Belldandy nodded her head and continued.
"Urd used to describe to me about the wonders of having a boyfriend, encouraging me...that I would find the love of my heart's desire someday. She's always so compassionate to Skuld, even if Skuld didn't understand why Urd was so hard on her sometimes."
She continued, shifting into storytelling mode.
"One time, when we all were young, Urd took Skuld and I to one of the tallest crystal buildings in Yggdrasil. Skuld was just a toddler then and I was almost Skuld's age. It was windy...the air tingled with sheets of electricity and other arcane energies. Skuld was so afraid that she squeezed my hand until it turned red. I felt a little bit afraid myself. We could see so many of the floating cities, cloud spheres and parks. But Urd was so confident; she didn't seem bothered by anything. She stood right at the edge of the crystalform...and said that as long as she was our older sister, she would never fall down. That *we* would never fall down, the three of us...so we should aspire to reach our highest good. Suddenly, I didn't feel afraid. I felt so calm inside. I looked at Skuld; she was giggling as the wind whipped her hair...which was pretty short then. Urd materialized three peach blossoms and gave Skuld and I each a blossom to hold. We pledged...snff snff...we promised that we would never be separated, then let the wind catch our blossoms and carry them away. I like to imagine that they are still in Yggdrasil, riding the currents of the wind.
"D..do you think she broke her promise to Skuld and I, Keiichi?" she asked. Keiichi looked at Belldandy, who was innocently lost in her expression of remembrance.
"How could I possibly answer a question like *that*?" he wondered to himself, overwhelmed. His heart screamed "NO! She didn't break her promise!"...but his soul was daunted. It was like giving a Christmas gift to someone who had everything. He looked into her eyes and saw his own reflection swimming on the surface of her pupils. She seemed so fragile right now. Her eyes quivered with uncertainty.
He leaned forwards and kissed her on the lips. From somewhere deep within, he felt a surge of confidence.
"Belldandy...I *promise* you that we'll get Urd back! As Urd promised you back then, I promise you now! Urd isn't gone, she's just separated from us for a little while...only the Ultimate Force knows why. But I pledge to you upon all the love that I have for you...that we'll find your sister and bring her back safe and sound! And you know me...I *keep* my promises!"
Belldandy listened intently to Keiichi's words.
"Keiichi, this is why I love you best. Sometimes you have the courage of...well...of one of *us*!" she said, cheering up a little bit despite her troubled thoughts. Inside of her heart she marveled to herself.
"I don't know how you do it, my dear, but your faith once more has rescued me from the depths of despair," she said in a quiet voice, deliberately loud enough for him to overhear.
Belldandy had chosen right when she decided to fall in love with this young mortal. But she knew *that* already. Still, it was incredibly comforting to hear his voice frame the words of confidence she needed so desperately to hear.

*Tap Tap*

Keiichi motioned for Belldandy to open the sliding door, figuring that it was Skuld. Bell stood up and slid the door open to reveal her younger sister standing forlornly with a blanket and a futon. Skuld silently dragged her futon and placed it between his and Bell's bedding, then made her bed. Mini-Banpei whirred into the room and stood attentively at the head of Skuld's futon bed.
After Skuld had climbed under her blanket, Bell returned to her bedding and climbed under the covers. Keiichi had instinctively pulled his covers up chin-high as soon as Skuld was in the room, feeling somewhat awkward with her presence. He lay on his back and looked at the ceiling fan...it still felt strange that Skuld was sleeping *here*, in his room.
"Thank the Lord that I have a large bedroom!" he mouthed silently between breaths.
Skuld rolled on her side to face Belldandy and started sobbing. Keiichi instinctively reached out and gently rubbed Skuld's shoulders through her pajamas. Her back felt as stiff as steel tension wires. His heart filled with a surge of empathy for her. Belldandy looked past Skuld for a moment and caught his eye...she smiled at him in gratitude at his kindness, and then she pulled Skuld close to her, resting her chin on the top of Skuld's head.
Keiichi massaged Skuld until her shoulders stopped shaking from the force of her sobbing. He was pretty sure that she had fallen asleep. Bell-chan was asleep too, lightly breathing as she hugged her younger sister. When he stopped, Skuld surprised him by rolling over and giving him a sweet kiss on the cheek, whispering a shy "thank you" to him. She rolled back over and nestled in her sister's embrace.
"It's so weird how things have turned out," Keiichi thought.

* * * * * * * *

"I would like to introduce our visiting faculty member from Japan," Dr. Zhao announced me to the audience with formal enthusiasm. There was a round of polite applause from the filled assembly room. I was always put off by the fact that applause was given *before* a speaker actually took the podium. Did that imply that before-applause and after-applause meant the same thing?
People are weird all over the world.
I had given numerous speeches as an addict in recovery. Speeches and public testimonies were part and parcel of the recovery process: they served to inspire and unify the listeners. To remind them that the miracle of recovery that works itself in the life of the speaker is also at work in everyone's lives, so long as they don't mess with the gift of living clean from drugs.
Academic speeches on the other hand were a whole different matter. Instead of addressing a receptive audience who was mostly interested in emotional empathy with the speaker, academic speeches were met with an audience bent on employing their critical faculties. I suspected that Dr. Zhao had arranged this as a dry run for my dissertation. At least this audience couldn't argue too much, as I was only allotted an hour for my talk, then a second hour to field questions.
Time flies when one gives a speech.
I concluded my speech with the standard proratios, then opened it up for questions from the floor. I usually picked from the rear of the audience first...as I had found that those listeners who crammed into the back of the room were there more often because of personal interest rather than perfunctory obligation.
A woman stood up, dressed in a student dress.

* * * * * * * *

Urd had finished her latest video shoot a little early today. After finishing several bottles of pijou in her flat, she decided to do some sightseeing. She caught a bus to the northeast part of Beijing and simply wandered around, relishing in the nightlife. After visiting a few alleyway bazaars, she entered a bookstore and looked at the large coffee-table books filled with beautiful pictures of China. Carefully leafing through a book detailing the sights of Beijing, she noticed a chapter on Peking University, or BeiDa as the locals called it. Something itched in her memory, something about the university and someone she knew.
BeiDa. Cevn.
Cevn. BeiDa.
She slapped the book down and cursed herself. She had been in this city two weeks while *he* had been here too! She was torn between her desire to beat him over the head and scream at him for walking out on her versus gravely and humbly apologizing to him for her betrayal. Whatever she did, she felt a strong impulse to see him, even if he probably didn't want to see her. She felt that it was tragicomic that the only person she really knew well in the Beijing was the person who was the angriest with her on the whole Earthrealm.
"I may have hurt him, albeit inadvertently, but he needs to get over it. If you can't float with the best, you'll sink with the rest," she said to herself. As she thought of Cevn, her new-old feelings returned...full force.
"I *have* to see him, even if I'm a little drunk. Actually, I'm going to be wired with excitement by the time I see him. Maybe I should get another couple bottles to take the edge off," she told herself. "Besides, he can't be *that* emotionally hurt!" She finished the bottle of strong jiu and left it on a shelf in the bookstore.
She ran out into the street and hailed a cab. It turned out that she was only a few miles from BeiDa. She alighted from the cab and briskly walked towards the big gate. Several Red Guardsmen approached her with an official air, probably to check to see if she was a student. She smiled sweetly at them and ran her hand across the leader's cheek, disarming him from his intended ID check.
"Kiss me, you fool!" she whispered in Japanese as she passed the ornate gateway.
She milled about the campus as the 9pm nightfall descended. There were little groups of students sitting on the grass in circles all over the campus. She noticed that there was a filled auditorium on her left; she could hear some kind of a speech being given. Curious and attracted by the crowd, she walked up to the building...and recognized Cevn's voice.
A shiver went down her spine as she heard him talking about what the mortals called commerce philosophy. Her desire to see him heightened with each word. She felt a little bit homesick at the sound of his voice, but she swallowed *those* feelings down. She couldn't face her sister and Skuld after what she did to Cevn. What if they found out? How would Keiichi and Megumi think of her, knowing that she took advantage of their mortal friend?
"Besides, I don't want to be there if Kami-sama decides to check up on my little mortal charge and finds out that he flew the coop because I meddled in his life!" she said aloud randomly to a student passerby, who looked at her with a mystified expression.
She felt apprehensive for some reason, so she quickly downed the last bottle of jiu that she had stashed in her handbag, much to the amazement of several students milling nearby. They cheered her as she finished it in record time. Urd nonchalantly tossed it in the bushes and walked in the back door of the building. She found an open seat in the second to last row. Almost all the young male students were gaping at her with open admiration, an attention that she relished.
She listened to his speech while her mind raced. The academic minutiae of his lecture were turgid bubbles of thought, as far as she was concerned.
Ignoring the speech for more important matters, Urd formulated a plan of attack.
"What do I say to him? When do I talk to him? What if he freaks out? Well...*so what* if he does?" she asked herself. She decided that the best tactic would be the direct approach. Urd felt her heart pulse as she saw Cevn up at the podium.
"How come he gets to be such a celebrity all of a sudden?" she asked out loud in a derisive voice. One of the girls sitting by her shsshed her, then whispered that Cevn was a visiting scholar from Japan.
"Hmmph, *him* a scholar?" she replied flabbergastedly.
After an extremely boring half an hour, it was over. Cevn opened the floor for questions and Urd raised her hand.
"Finally, it's time for some *real* action!" she thought to herself.
"Watch this, kids!" she said to the students nearby as she raised her hand up high.
He pointed right at her and her heartbeat picked up a pace.

* * * * * * * *

I watched the female student stand up, then felt my brain empty of all the relief I had felt when I finished my speech. She wore an embroidered chambray shirt with gathered sleeves, a pair of jeans and a nice girlish hat...but her face was unmistakable. I could almost imagine seeing the greens of her eyes.
It was Urd.
She was here, in this building, live and direct! Possessed of an out-of-body perspective, I felt my body stiffen with anxiety as an inadvertent gasp escaped my lips. An emotional riot was going off in my gut as my knees turned jellyfishy.
"Why do you thin' the Chineesh economy recoilsh from the injection of poshitive elementsh that the attractive Western economy offersh? An' also, hee hee...on a more pershonal note, shpeaking of recoilin', why are you sho d..damned afraid of *women*, Mr. Guesh Scholar? Like the Chineesh economy, you recoil from the attractive onesh! Or mebbe, er...you sho inject 'em with your elemensh..."
A gasp from the audience followed her question.
Shitshitshit!
Urd had tried to say "elements" as "jinxiang"...but instead said "jingzi". Sperm. My all-too-familiar fear of women and sex jumped up my throat as I contemplated how to get the hell out of here. The only exit doors were stagefront. Ahead...which would bring me closer to Urd! No way could I climb down off of this dais. I grabbed the podium tightly, trying to feel shielded by its bulk.
I was looking right at Urd over thirty rows of faces filling the auditorium...whose crowd of students and faculty were gasping as one at her rudeness. My mind raced for a response. My blood felt like refrigerant coolant. This was my worst nightmare come true! Urd was obviously drunk; her voice reeked of intoxication and frustration.
"As for the first question...." I gave the standard scholarly spiel in an attempt to interpose purpose on chaos. Urd didn't buy it one bit.
"Quit avoidin' the point, Cevn! Why...are...you...afraid!" she interrupted me with a scream of anger. Two Red Guards immediately caught up with her and promptly escorted her out of the auditorium. I turned and looked at Dr. Zhao, my eyes asking for a release from this hell. He sternly pointed at the audience and I shakily called on the next querant. I wondered if it was routine for audience members to try and heckle the speaker during a speech in BeiDa as I resumed the role of guest lecturer.
Finally it was over. I felt that I had acquitted myself as best I could, considering the attack that Urd had made. *If* it was an attack. Yet...it seemed like a cry for help instead. Several students and faculty surrounded me after the speech for additional information and exchange of opinions.
"Who was she? She's obviously not a student," several students asked me. One girl sat down next to me on the edge of the stage after the crowd thinned down and tried to calm me down. She looked like a Chinese Skuld, with two long braids of hair down her back. But she was fully adult in every sense of the word. I could tell that she was a 'soft' Chinese; possessed of a restraining personality.
Her voice was calming, but I was in a state of shock from what Urd had done; her words fell deaf on my ears. I was no longer in my body...I was disconnected from my being. I shook my head to try and regain my perspective, and then I conversed with her.
She told me her name was Lin. She was an economics student who was planning to write a book on Western business theory. Then I remembered that she had asked me some challenging questions about the appropriateness of applying Keynesian economy philosophy to 21st-Century Western economies. As we talked, I felt my anxiety gradually recede. Then out of the blue, Lin asked me if Urd was a spurned ex-girlfriend.
Once she said this, I freaked. I immediately became suspicious that Urd's 'drama' was an attempt to gain my forgiveness, albeit in a sick and twisted manner. I quickly excused myself and ran out the door. Once again, my inner feelings resulting from the childhood abuse had locked me up into a tremendous pressure of raw fear. I felt sad for Lin...she was just trying to help me calm down...and I had run out on her. Dammit...why did I have to be so contrary because of my past?
"Cevn...wait! I'm shorry about wha' I did! But ish your fault that I'm here!"
I turned around towards the direction of the shouting...to see Urd walking towards me.
"The Red Guards let her *go*?" I stammered incredulously.
"G..get away from me! Leave me the hell alone, Urd! G..go back to Japan, go do whatever you want...but don't include me! Go away! I don't want to be with you, here or anywhere else!" I screamed; all sense of propriety dashed against the rock-hard mold of my tainted heart.
"God, you don't know how goo' it ish to shee a familiar fashe here, honey!" she said, ignoring my warnings. She walked up closer to me.
I pushed her firmly away, a cloud of ethanol floating defile in the air around her. She had been hitting the bottle heavily.
"Urd, I told you once that I *never* want to see you again! You just can't get it through your stubborn head that I don't care about you anymore! Get out of here, before I call the Red Guards and have you arrested!" I screamed.
Urd's face felt flat at my threat. She was drunk on whatever intoxicant she could obtain in Beijing. She started pitching insults at me. I turned around and started walking towards South Gate. Then she accented her angry tirade by pitching an empty liquor bottle at me. My walk transformed into a dash.
I ran away from her, hearing her shouts of "loosher" fading in the background as the bottle crashed against the sidewalk. This was too unreal to be shocking or embarrassing. I ran and ran and ran until my chest hurt. I had run the dozen or so miles to Tiananmen Square. I collapsed on the ground next to a stairway and dozed off briefly.

* * * * * * * *

"GENJI! Why don't you hang your towel up after taking a bath!? Do you know what it is like to have to pick up some lazy person's *wet* towel that was left on the rinsing floor before I can wash myself? It's...gross! You're acting just like some Old Japan male pig!"
"Well excuse me...I didn't know that putting the towel in the hamper was a requirement while staying in a hotel. Isn't that the maid's job?" he shot back, fully intent on arguing.
Megumi turned red in the face.
"Do *I* look like a maid?" she shouted, her cute-but-livid face framed between the doorframe and the partly open bathroom door.
"Hmmm...well on second thought, since you *have* been picking up my towels..." Genji replied sarcastically. Megumi angrily stepped into the main room of their hotel room, towel coiled in hand.

***Snap!!!***

"Ouch! H..hey that towel's wet! You could...**whip**...really hurt somebody with that!" he quickly retorted, scampering as Megumi chased him down, snapping him with the wet towel she had found on the tiled floor next to the bathtub.
"Four days in a row I reminded you! Nicely! About leaving the towel on the floor! Four days!" she said, emphasizing each sentence with a crack of the wet towel.
*Crack*
"Hey this isn't even fair! Why don't you give me the towel *you're* wearing so we can be even!" he replied tauntingly.
"Hmph!" Megumi said, insulted by the idiocy of his request. She was wrapped in a long bath towel...and she wasn't one bit embarrassed as she stood in front of her traveling companion. She had emerged angrily from the bathroom, totally upset at Genji's disregard for common decency. After all, they had to share the furoba.
Suddenly, sharing a bathroom with a man seemed very unattractive to her. She chased Genji around the room, snapping at him with the towel in a blind rage, no longer in the mood for a bath. In between snaps, Genji made a playful grab at the bath towel she was wearing and accidentally grabbed a corner, partially loosening it. It slipped down her front, momentarily exposing her bra. Genji's eyes almost popped out their sockets as Megumi hastily pulled the towel back up and adjusted it, tying it in the front.
"That does it! From now on, we're in separate rooms buddy!" Megumi said angrily.
"Serves you right! You shouldn't be wearing a towel...you should be wearing that bathrobe you packed! Then this wouldn't have happened!" he replied, somewhat embarrassed by the slip of his hand.
"Errrr!" Megumi growled. Then something in her snapped.
Looking at him sharply, Megumi let her towel slide off, watching Genji's eyes widen with appreciation as he saw her in her underclothes. She wadded it up and tossed it in his face...which was an easy target since he was paralyzed into staring at her.
"There! Are you happy, you *pervert*?" she said, then turned tail and walked into the bathroom and slammed the door. Genji stood rooted to the floor in shock. The curves of her body were heavenly...but her scowl was abrasively hellish.
Finally, he remembered to breathe.
Genji was confused. Megumi had been totally fun to be around the first week and a half. It was like they were on some romantic adventure in a faraway land...or an extended date with no chaperones. He felt a strange mix of sensual lust and loyal friendship towards her. Then things gradually started changing. Megumi started acting different. It was hard to describe, but she had become demanding and controlling...and *very* moody.
"Now she wants to be in separate rooms...but then she pulls her towel off and stands there in bra and panties in front of me!" Genji said to himself. He almost felt lucky, getting to see her feminine glories. Shocked as well, as he had never seen a *real girl* in bra and panties.
"Is she mad at me or what? What is with her?" he wondered as his eyes were drawn towards the bathroom door. His mind carried the afterimage of Megumi several minutes into the future, freeze-framed by his startled shock.
"Megumi is so beautiful...and so arrogant!" he concluded as he heard the water splash on.

* * * * * * * *

Megumi reflected on what she had just done.
The previous week, Megumi and Genji had begun to get on each other's nerves due to the rigors of their travels. Megumi had almost called it quits because Genji was just...so unreasonable! He was trying too hard to impress her. Then at other times, he seemed so callous. She sensed that Genji, for his part, felt that her own edginess was causing him to feel like he was walking on eggshells.
She closed her eyes and concentrated as she rinsed...
They both knew that something else was contributing to their raw nerves. But neither could put a finger on it, however. Megumi knew that Genji had grown up with his sister, Sayoko. So he was supposed to know how to conduct himself around a woman.
"But, it seems that being with me...is a whole different thing," she though despairingly. Megumi had grown up with Keiichi, but she was accustomed to sharing living space with her older brother. So why was Genji acting so...*ignorant*?
She poured the last ladle of rinsing water over her head, then eased herself slowly into the bathtub; the hot waters grabbing her in their relaxing embrace. She relished these moments: away from Genji, away from the weighty matter of finding Urd. Her cares soaked away into the clear, hard water. The water in Sapporo was markedly different than the water she was used to back home. It had a fuller taste...a little bit of a mineral tanginess to it. She could smell it in the air above the bathtub. Unaccustomed to the harder water, her skin had dried slightly at first. But once she applied oil to her skin after soaking in the bathtub, that took care of things.
Megumi recalled the memories she had about the guys she had dated in the past. But being with Genji was *different* in so many ways. It wasn't like a date anymore. She should have realized that she was woefully ill-prepared to spend three weeks with him! During their stays in hotel rooms, she started noticing little things about him; like how he folded his clothes and what he liked to eat. Some of these habits were downright funny, while others irritated Megumi to the max. She also noticed that he was sometimes less careful about being neat than she would have been, especially with things like folding futons and washing dishes. She was thankful that the maid service at the various hotels and inns they had stayed with were diligent about such matters.
"Why am I getting so uptight around him?" she said out loud in a quiet voice.
"I really, really like Genji a lot. But lately I've been a bitch towards him. Why? He must think that I'm a horrible person, putting on such airs," she told herself. Megumi screwed her face up into a scowl of concentration, trying to find a resolve to her concerns.
She looked through the window to see two butterflies flitting around each other, seemingly going in circles.
"Circles. That's what it feels like. Like Genji and I are just going in circles. Circling around Hokkaido. Circling around each other with these little arguments we've been having," she said in an elegant voice. She continued watching the pair of butterflies weave a colorful strand of patterns in the air. They, with a natural ebb, they flew off in opposite directions. She giggled at the revelatory simplicity of it.
"Ye Gods...why didn't I think of this? Genji and I...we've been living together for three weeks, with only a single weekend for a break. We *can't* simply fly off in different directions when we need time to be alone! What's more, we've been living like a married couple...same room, same bath, same car. Yet we haven't really gotten to know each other...we've been *forced* to get to know each other. I wonder if this was what Belldandy had in mind when she paired us up?" Megumi said to the now empty window. She paused and smiled wistfully, running her hands through her wet hair.
"That's it! We're falling in love...the *real* love. The love where one accepts the other, faults and all. And right now, we need some time away from each other. At least, *I* need time away from him. Desperately!" she whispered. She sighed and smiled brightly at the morning sun.
"So this is what the real deal is!" Megumi thought to herself. Dreamily, she stepped up out of the tub...and slipped.

* * * * * * * *

Genji was laying on his hotel bed, wondering how things could be getting so insane between Megumi and he.
"Could it be that we've simply been around each other too much? How could she know that Sayoko and I each have our own bathroom, with a housemaid to clean up after us? We just don't know enough about each other," he mused in frustration.
He walked over and looked out the window, watching the Sapporo cityscape. Their hotel was situated right on the O-dori, the wide central thoroughfare that bisected Sapporo. He watched as the central park between both broad avenues milled with pedestrians.
*Aiiieeee!* he heard a scream from the bathroom, followed by a loud thud.
"MEGUMI!" he screamed as he rushed to the bathroom door.
"What do I do? Do I open it or not?" he asked himself. Deciding to take the path of least resistance, he pounded on the door instead.
"Are you all right? I'm right here by the door!" he said, then cursed himself. Of course he was right by the door...no, he had reached across the room and knocked on it with his 12-foot long arms!
"Megumi, please say something if you're okay?" he shouted. He put his ear to the door and heard a low groan. His mind hurdled his embarrassment as this was an intensely awkward situation for him. "Do I walk in on her, or wait until she comes out? What if she's hurt really badly? What if she's *naked*?" he wondered, then cursed himself again...for thinking about sexual stuff at a time like this.
"She's right...I'm just a pervert!" he admonished himself, red-faced with shame.

* * * * * * * *

Megumi was dizzy, sprawled out on the floor. The ceiling and walls were spinning and she saw sparks of light dancing across everything. She had slipped on the wet tile floor next to the tub and hit her head on the edge of the basin. She couldn't move for a moment, but she could faintly hear Genji's shouts of concern. She reached around behind her head and withdrew her hand to see that it was red with blood. She tried to stand up and ended up sitting back down against the edge of the bathtub.
"Meguuuuuumi! Are you okay in there?" the voice shouted through the door.
"I fell down...I have a bump on my head the size of Mt. Fuji and I can't stand up. But I'm all right...I think," she replied.
Megumi flashed on how embarrassing this must be for Genji. It was almost funny, this bizarre scene. He must be freaking out right about now...
"This, just a few weeks after that damned 'Demon Rally' of Mara's," she grumbled aloud.
"Owwww...what did I do to deserve this?" she thought with a private frustration as the bathroom stopped spinning.

* * * * * * * *

Genji heard Megumi's faint response and felt a mixture of relief and concern. He dashed over to the intercom and paged the front desk to obtain the address of the nearest hospital in Sapporo. With over 3.5 million inhabitants, there had to be one close by.
He went back to the bathroom door, just as Megumi opened the door and collapsed in his arms. He could see a trace of blood trickling behind her left ear onto the towel she was wrapped in.
"That does it. We're going to the hospital. Can you dress yourself?" he said. Unexpectedly, he felt a huge wash of relief as he held her in his arms; but he also felt unexpected tears tracing his eyes.
"Why am *I* crying?," he wondered.
She nodded her head and glanced towards the bathroom. Genji looked at her in bewilderment for a second, then realized what she was directing him to do.
"Tell me when you're ready," he said as he pulled the bathroom door shut behind him. He looked at the paper with the address of the closest hospital. It struck him in an odd sense that he wasn't mad at Megumi any longer. Instead, he felt a deep concern for a girl that was becoming a bosom friend.
"Why *am* I crying?" he asked again in a whispered voice as he wiped under his eyes with a handtowel.
"I'm ready...but don't blame me if I don't look anything like your typical evening date," he heard her say weakly. He opened the door and saw that Megumi was sitting on the futon in a T-shirt and jeans, rocking slowly because of the pain. He gently pulled her up and reached around her waist to support her as they walked towards the lobby. Megumi was almost unable to walk...he struggled with the effort to keep her from falling down. It was pleasant the way that she was leaning against him, however.
At the lobby, a ring of concerned hotel staff saw them out to their car. The lady at the desk gave Genji a hand-drawn map to follow. They were on their way on the hospital almost before they knew it. The two discussed how Sapporo people are so friendly compared to Tokyoites.
As they were driving, Genji wondered if some unseen force was trying to tell them that it was time to go home and take a break.

* * * * * * * *

"Hello? Oh, hi Genji. How's things? WHAT? She got a concussion? What the hell happened? Oh...she slipped in the bathroom! I..is she okay? I thought you were supposed to take care of her! It's all you're fault that my *little sister* is hurt! You *idiot*! I knew I should have never trusted her around an lamer like you..."
Genji mentally envisioned the phone call to Keiichi with no small degree of trepidation. He felt responsible for her accident, which had brought a commensurate level of guilt. Megumi had gotten hurt, and it was his fault.
"What to do?" he wondered, looking up and down the cabinets in the ER out of sheer boredom. The time lingered as they awaited the doctor's pronouncement.
After a long wait, the doctor returned. She had taken extensive x-rays of Megumi's head, and pronounced that she had a minor skull fracture and a concussion. She prescribed several medications to reduce the pain and swelling and advised them to return to Makuhari as soon as possible.
Genji was afraid to call Keiichi, afraid of raising the ire of Megumi's older brother. His sempai, as far at the N.I.T. Motor Club was concerned. But mainly Megumi's *older brother*.
"Aren't you going to call and let them know we're coming back a couple of days early?" Megumi asked as he headed out the airport rental lot to pay for the car.
"No...besides they'll get to see you soon enough. Back in a flash," he said with a forced smile.
Megumi felt like some kind of samurai warrior with the compress over her bump and the cloth bandage wrapped around her head. While Genji was gone, she reached under the wrap and pulled out as much hair as she could to cover it.
"He must think I'm a total fool, getting hurt like this! What a embarrassing mess!" she reproached herself as she watched his approaching form. He had a wheelchair.
"What is *that* for?" she asked, cocking her head to the side because it *hurt*.
"*This* is for young ladies who are wounded in battle on distant shores," he said good-heartedly.
"Your chariot is ready, miss," he said with a theatrical gesture, tapping the back of the wheelchair seat.
Megumi's reluctance to ride in that *thing* dissolved when she noticed how hard he was trying to cheer her up. She smiled at him, the first time since they had left the hotel. He was really trying to bear up with the circumstances.
"If he thinks I'm his girlfriend, then he must think I'm a klutz too," she chided herself as they drove towards the airport in Chitose.

* * * * * * * *

Genji upped their seating to first class for the return trip. Once the airplane took off, Megumi leaned against his shoulder and promptly fell asleep. They were flying to Narita, where he would get her car and drive them home.
About a half an hour before landing, Megumi woke up to see that Genji was asleep. She shook him lightly and sleepily asked him if he was okay.
"What? You're asking *me*? You're the one who got hurt," he said, touched by her concern.
"Genji, I was thinking...about us. We've been out looking for Urd for the past two weeks, without a break. I noticed that it's been hard for us to get along the last few days. I was thinking..."
"...that it was due to the fact that we've been stuck with each other, you and I. I hardly know you...and now it seems like I've been living with you. You feel this way too?" he finished. Megumi nodded her head as much as her headache would permit.
"Ouch," she said in a low voice.
"Well, you *have* been living with me...I mean we've shared everything in the past two weeks," Megumi said.
"Well *almost* everything," Genji said with a red face.
"What do you mean by that, mister?" Megumi teased with a mock indignant voice.
"Eh, heh heh, you haven't shared my toothbrush," he smiled at her.
"I didn't quite hear that...you said 'I haven't shared your futon?' What a unusual thing to say," she said in a low whisper.
"I said *toothbrush*!" Genji replied with red-faced embarrassment.
"And *I* said futon!" Megumi countered urbanely.
"Megumi..." he answered in a quiet whining voice.
"Shhh, you don't have to tell everyone on the plane, Genji! I *said* futon. And I meant it. Even though you don't always pick up your towel, the rest of you is pretty wonderful! You really rose to the occasion today, my gallant daimyo-knight!" she offered with as much honey as she could put into her voice.
"If you share a futon with me, something else will *really* rise to the occasion," he teased back.
"Hmmm, we'll have to wait and see about that. I did say *futon*...not love hotel," she replied with a pseudo-coquettish voice. Megumi was impressed with how quickly he returned her sexual double-entendre with a remark of his own. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
"Genji, I think that I'm falling, even though I'm up in the air. Or maybe something is lifting me up in the air...besides this plane," she whispered in his ear.
"I think you've already fallen, Megumi," he whispered back privately. Megumi felt her heart do a double beat at this.
"Yes...I think I've fallen for you, Genji," she whimsically thought to herself.
"Genji, I have a confession to make..." she said. She could sense that his heart had skipped a beat, since *she* was taking the initiative. Megumi leaned close to his ear again.
"When I was trying to snap you with the towel, I was trying for your cute little butt!" she said, then pulled her head back and eyed him for his reaction.
Genji looked at her; momentarily disappointed as he was expecting her to make a love confession.
"But after I wiped out in the bathtub, the blow to my head made me see things more clearly. I used to think that I was in love with you, but now I *think* I'm in love with you, Genji. Do you understand what I mean?" she asked.
Genji looked at her light brown eyes, speechless in the face of her admission and all the formidable beauty behind it. He was dazed as he saw the curve of her chin, the bridge of her nose, her two eyebrows tapering off to their points, the slight pout of her mouth...
Megumi paused, catching her breath, and continued.
"I've been wanting to date you for the longest time, Genji. In fact, that was the reason Cevn-sensei took us to the Noh play...so I could get to know you better. I really think you're a great guy! Even if you have some sloppy habits that need to shaped up. But...I can live with that," she said.
"But, even though I was attracted to you...it wasn't until today that I realized that it's more than attraction that I feel, *here*," she said as she put her hand over her heart. She watched his face closely as he alternated between fear and embarrassment and joy. But mostly nervousness.
She smiled, welcoming his response to her.
"Megumi...I..I think that I love you too. In fact, I..I more than think that I love you. Y..you can figure out the rest later," he admitted with more than a major bout of high anxiety.
"God, I'm so stupid...you've probably *already* figured that out! No, I didn't mean that *I'm* stupid, I meant..." he corrected his blatant solecism, his discomfort rising with each utterance.
Megumi did her best to choke down a giggle in response to his gaffe, then smiled encouragingly at him, inwardly amused by his awkwardness.
"I meant, about how I feel about you! I've never told anyone this kind of stuff before. But...l..let's get you home where you can rest," he added, his confidence almost exhausted after its battle with his nerves.
Megumi felt a whooomp where her heart was in her chest.

* * * * * * * *

I woke up in Tiananmen Square with a representative of the ever-present Red Guard standing over me. He asked me if I was drunk...which seemed to trigger something.
I burst out into laughter. It was so comically absurd. Urd coming in and disrupting my talk at BeiDa. My running the 15 kilometers to Tiananmen in the middle of the night...as if that would make the pain of seeing her go away.
So I told him that I had been possessed by a ghost and that I was the reincarnation of Chairman Mao and that I had been instructed to tell all the children in China to buy skateboards. The look on his face was priceless. He was too stunned to tell me to "move along!"
I got up, smiled at him and walked to the bus stop and caught the first bus to BeiDa.
I noticed a clock tower as the bus passed it.
"Damn! I have to be at Capital Airport by 10am. And it's 6 in the morning already!" I thought in a panic. As soon as I got back to the dorm at 7:15, I started randomly shoving papers and t-shirts in my travel bags.
"This is what I get for procrastination!" I grumbled as I looked around the room with the anxiety that accompanies haste.
"Where were they?" I near-shouted, waking my roommate.
Dunhuang would be even hotter than Beijing, which would be near unbearable because of the aridity of its climate. Anything more than a thin T-shirt would be too much. I looked at the scarf Belldandy had made me...and thanked her silently for her gift as I packed it.
I sighed in sheer relief as I gathered the missing items...cave passes and clearances that I had received from Dr. Zhao. I furtively packed all sorts of crap in the bag with a final flurry.
I barely made it. Capital Airport was very busy, full of the usual hawkers and crowded conditions. I joked with myself that the next time I came to Beijing, there would be gangs of Krishna devotees selling incense and literature. I had respect for them...at least they were trying to increase world peace by spiritual means.
The plane was hot, as Chinese domestic flights don't turn on the AC until the plane is airborne. It was an old Tupulenov widebody. I was amused to see the "No smoking" signs in Cyrillic and Hanzi...signs of an earlier era of cooperation between the two Communist superpowers.
I looked over my itinerary. I would lodge at a CTB hotel in Dunhuang, then visit the caves over the next few days. The China Travel Bureau hotel room would serve as my office for a week. I wouldn't be getting the tourist treatment; instead I would get full access to the cave system and the grottoes. I had read several texts detailing the acme of the cave system, but I still didn't know why I was compelled to come here, of all places.
There was so much I wanted to learn. I knew that Dunhuang was one of the most important centers of trade along the old Silk Road. It was an intellectual and spiritual nexus, alongside being a commerce crossroads. This was the rich and fertile battleground of all faiths, where the Islamic iman and the Syriac Christian could debate with the Taoist recluse and the Buddhist abbot. The metallect faculty was at work in my mind, underlying my curiosity with an almost magnetic attraction to this place.
Who knew what adventures lie ahead?
Somehow, my dissertation was converging. I was reluctant to use metallectual capabilities...in fact I resisted that new part of my mind, which seemed to synergize unknowables into cogences. It just didn't seem fair that I *knew* so many thoughts and ideas! Beyond this, I lacked trust in my own ability to explain myself. How could I explain the God's Language to my fellow scholars?
"How many ways can one create the sound of rain on a synthesizer?" I thought, than I immediately became homesick. I wanted to go back and tell them that it was only a dream that bluntered my resolve to create a new life in Japan....that I had left Makuhari behind and that I was deeply sorry for disappearing from their lives. Then cold, hard reality hit me and I felt nauseous. How much impact could a deep betrayal have? Why couldn't I just let it go?
Too bad that life isn't a process of pretenses: pretending to be real; pretending to feel; and pretending to love. No matter how many times I escaped into myself during the beatings, the sexual abuse, the drugs, the starving and the death of my wife...I still had to encounter *me*. I had been given one last chance by Urd...a wish...a new family...and Urd had killed the only iota of hope I held onto.
Airplane or not, I was going to Dunhuang.

* * * * * * * *

"Megumi, what happened!" Keiichi gasped in shock. His little sister had a cloth band wrapped around her head. He looked accusingly at Genji until he noticed that Megumi had put her hand in his, somewhat protectively. Genji had fear written across his face, along with...sadness?, Keiichi observed.
"Keiichi, I'm so glad to be back home! I slipped in the bathroom at the hotel we were staying at in Sapporo. Genji took me to the hospital. I'm all right, I just need to rest for a few days," she said, barely managing a smile despite her throbbing headache.
Belldandy hovered over Megumi with a worried mien. She ran her hand over the bump on the back of Megumi's head.
"Oooh, you must have really fallen down hard to make such a big bump," she said gently. She silently encanted a spell and the throbbing in Megumi's head subsided considerably. Megumi looked up at Belldandy in surprise, momentarily forgetting that she was a Goddess who could perform such 'miracles' whenever she felt the whim.
"We didn't find any traces of Urd. We looked all over Sapporo...in fact we drove a few thousand kilos. Tomakomai, Hakodate, Takigawa, even Wakkanai. I don't even want to spend another evening in a hotel, especially after what happened to Megumi," Genji said while looking at the ground.
Keiichi looked at the expression in Megumi's face and adjudged that her attraction to Genji had grown during their stay in Hokkaido. "With good reason too," he observed to himself while Megumi explained how he had taken her to the hospital. Despite the easy humor of the incident, Genji had basically behaved like a gentleman during the bathroom accident. He felt his respect for Genji increase as Megumi described how he had exerted himself in their effort to locate Urd.
"Well, it looks like Belldandy and I are going to go way south to Nagasaki, Shimonoseki and Kyushu," Keiichi said reluctantly. He went over and put a hand on Genji's shoulder and squeezed it.
"Thanks for taking care of my little sister, Genji. I really mean it...your helping her means a lot to me. But we need to *talk* about this...the sooner the better," Keiichi noted as he proffered a hand for a Western-style handshake. Genji raised his face and looked at Keiichi in surprise. He grabbed Keiichi's hand and shook it firmly.
Keiichi forced a smile, but he was apprehensive about giving Genji 'the lecture' he had planned to deliver to Megumi's next boyfriend. A lecture that had assumed a rich gravity, especially after that crack about condoms Megumi made when Bell's sisters left a couple of years ago.
Yet, he was deeply disappointed that no one had found any trace of Urd. He was hoping that she had fled to the north, but this hope was dashed. According to Genji, they had performed a thorough search of Hokkaido.
Megumi could tell that her brother's spirit was downcast. But when she saw the hollow expression on Skuld's face, it nearly brought her to tears. Even Belldandy's cordiality seemed to be strained under the influence of the loss of her sister. She knew that Belldandy and Skuld had been limbing out on the hope that she and Genji would find some clue that would lead them to Urd. Strangely, she felt guilty that the news she brought was not good news.
Megumi disliked being the center of attention, but at least her injuries had provided an excuse for the others to focus on something other than Urd and Cevn's disappearance. She was disheartened when they told her that Cevn was at BeiDa, but wasn't returning their calls. Her feminine intuition told her that the cause of Cevn's evasiveness had something to do with Urd. It was *too* much of a coincidence that they had both disappeared without notice. In this, she agreed with Belldandy.
"I'm totally tired...I need to get to sleep," she said, diplomatically extracting herself from the crowd of Keiichi, Belldandy, Skuld and Tomohisa. She walked with Genji to her room, and gave him a lingering passionate kiss.
"That's for being such a good guy, Genji. The doctor said that I'll probably be sick to my stomach for a couple days...so don't you ignore me!" she kidded him.
"It's bedpan patrol for you, buddy!" she said with the giggle of a woman who 'owned' her man.

* * * * * * * *