Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Mystic Wings ❯ The Guidance Counselor ( Chapter 13 )

Chapter Thirteen

The Guidance Counselor

 

After Hitomi scared the living daylights out of the kitchen staff and beat up two of Dilandau's henchmen, she fled into the night, and into the arms of a very angry Allen. He was furious at her for what she had done. He held onto her upper arms and shook her while her crystals silently dripped from her white knuckles onto the pavement. She was glad Allen didn't notice. She knew she had frostbite for what she had done - the price she paid for being inexperienced.

 

Allen wasn't upset that she had been the cause of two young men having to see an underground doctor, but that she had shut him out of the fight completely. He didn't understand how she had been able to accomplish what she had, but he insisted that they flee the scene immediately, just in case some of Dilandau's `other friends' came out to take revenge.

 

One thing was for sure, Hitomi could never come back to The Voltage Room, and she didn't care. Now she was completely convinced that the road to finding Van did not start there. Van said that he would come back to her. She'd have to trust that.

 

Hitomi got on the back of Allen's motorcycle and tried to understand the expediency in which they had to leave, but she was having a hard time keeping herself awake. After they had ridden a block, Allen stopped and put her in front of him on the bike, because she kept sliding around. She was so tired and she was losing her balance.

 

She leaned back on his chest and warned drowsily, “Don't hit on me, Allen, or I'll …”

 

“I'm sure,” he said gently, smiling his amused half-smile. “Like I could really steal Van's girlfriend.”

 

But Hitomi was too tired to answer, or even realize what it was he had actually admitted to knowing. Her eyes felt so heavy.

 

Hitomi didn't know how long they drove, but soon the motorcycle stopped and Allen was carrying her with her knees and ankles draped over his forearm. He placed her in the front of a vehicle. It smelled funny, and it roused Hitomi's senses enough to wake her up.

 

“Where are we?” she asked, when Allen got into the driver's seat. Then Hitomi recognized it. It was the old truck that had been parked behind Van's house. “Didn't this burn up along with the house?”

 

“My motorcycle was parked at the house too, and it didn't burn, either. The fire department got there in time. They saved everything.”

 

How had they gotten there so quickly? Hitomi guessed that it was because she had called for an ambulance and the building was on fire by the time they got there. Then the ambulance personnel called the fire department. That had to be it.

 

“Why wasn't the house saved then?”

 

Allen shrugged. “The Dragon Slayers know how to burn a building down properly. That's okay, though. We know how to do that, too, and we've torched plenty of their buildings. It was just a little payback.”

 

“Where are we going?” she asked, focusing on the road.

 

“Back to The Voltage Room,” he answered steadily.

 

“Are you crazy?” Hitomi questioned. “You were the one who insisted that we get out of there A.S.A.P.!”

 

“I know, but I want to follow Dilandau home at the end of the night. I want to see where he goes. That might lead us to one of their houses. That was my original plan B, if you'd have bothered to listen to it, but you were too hyper to get your gun off.”

 

“I didn't shoot anyone,” Hitomi said, defending herself. “Did you hear any gun play?”

 

Allen shook his head, confused. “Then how did you …?”

 

“I'm not the kind of girl to shoot men in cold blood. I wouldn't do something like that!”

 

“Then how did you take those guys down?”

 

“I'm just a good fighter,” she answered, hoping that Allen would drop it.

 

Luckily, he did. He concentrated on his driving until they pulled up behind the club. A lot of the action had gone down in the time they had been away. The line up was gone. Hitomi looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost 2:00 a.m.

 

Two in the morning! She was totally screwed! It was the end of the road. “Allen,” she started, “I am going to be in so much trouble with my parents. I'm sorry, but can you take me home now?”

 

“No way!” He pulled a toque out of the glove compartment and put it on. “You said you'd help me, and right now that means sitting there quietly like a good girl. I'll talk to your dad and make him understand if he gives you any grief.” He took out a pair of binoculars and looked at the back entrance through them.

 

“You think you'll even get a chance to talk to him? Talk about egotistical!”

 

“It can't be that bad!”

 

“Oh, yes it can be. I was missing for four months. My dad thinks I'm a delinquent.”

 

“Are you?” Allen asked, taking the binoculars away from his eyes and looking at her seriously.

 

“No!”

 

“Then you should be able to convince him that you were late for good reason,” he said, returning to watching The Voltage Room.

 

Hitomi sat there. The last drinks call was probably not until two thirty. Great! She sat there with the vague orange light from the streetlights coming through the passenger side window. There was no way this was going to work out, and every time she turned around she was making things worse and worse with her dad.

 

***

 

It was ages before Dilandau left the club, and Hitomi was coming unglued with anxiety with each passing second.

 

Allen tried to calm her down by talking to her about what happened in the club. “You know,” he said, “I really didn't expect anyone to turn into Van. I didn't believe you when you said Dilandau had been able to do it, but …”

 

“Now you see that I wasn't lying,” Hitomi said nervously.

 

“I didn't think you were lying, but I'm not as surprised as you seem to be. I've seen a lot of weird things since I met up with Van, so this is nothing,” he said in an extremely self-assured manner.

 

Hitomi didn't like the way he turned her into a child with those words. She suddenly didn't feel like talking to him anymore.

 

So, they sat, mostly in silence outside the club until Dilandau came out with a couple of his henchmen and got into a car. He was a little drunk, so they were driving him. After that, it seemed to take forever to drive to the place where Dilandau was getting dropped off.

 

It was a little house and all the lights were off. Allen wrote down the address and reassured Hitomi that he wouldn't be doing anything explosive that night. He was tired, and she was losing more and more of her mind with each minute that she wasn't home. They watched Dilandau stumble in with a couple of his friends on either side of him before they finally drove away.

 

When Allen stopped the truck outside Hitomi's condo complex, he asked her, “Do you want me to come in with you to explain things to your dad?”

 

“No,” Hitomi said gloomily. She was doomed. It was after four a.m. “If you come in, he'll just kill you too, and that's no good. So, when are you going to head back to Dilandau's house?” she asked, unbuckling her seatbelt.

 

“I'm not sure. I have to check the place out first and make sure I know what I'm dealing with before I go in. I also have to make sure that Celena is really there. I'm not breaking in if she's not there.”

 

Hitomi yawned and got out of the truck. At least he wasn't an idiot.

 

She bid him goodnight and went up the walk. She didn't get further than the lobby though, because that was where her father was waiting for her.

 

“Where have you been, young lady?” her father asked. His face was red and he was standing there in his pajamas and night coat.

 

Luckily, Hitomi had had plenty of time to think up a lie. “I'm sorry, Dad. Allen had trouble with his motorcycle, and we were stranded. We had to walk back to his place and borrow his parents' truck. That's why it took so long.” She said all this humbly and quietly, like a truly repentant child.

“Then why didn't you call from his parents' home to let us know that you'd be late?”

 

“It was only midnight then, and I was still going to be early. I didn't know we were going to have trouble with the truck, too,” she said, knowing she was getting in deeper. She didn't have as much experience lying as Van.

 

She thought that might pacify her father, but he was looking at her like he didn't believe her.

 

“You heard the engine to that clunker, right? It'll be a miracle if Allen gets home safely!” she exclaimed, trying to walk past her.

 

“Well, did you have a good time?” he asked her, not losing a shade of his red flush.

 

“No!” Hitomi answered, whining. “How could I have had a good time when two vehicles broke down in one night? It was cold out, Dad, and I think I got frostbite on my hands.”

 

He didn't look like he believed her, until she showed them to him. They were indeed very white and patchy.

 

“I had to help fix the truck when it broke down, and Allen didn't have any mittens for me to wear. I didn't have any fun at all!”

 

Her father stood holding one of her hands. “It wasn't that cold out tonight! What have you been doing?”

 

“Nothing,” she denied instantly.

 

“Nothing, really? Weren't you wearing a skirt when you left with him?”

 

Crap! Yeah, she had been wearing a skirt and she had forgotten it in the back of Allen's motorcycle. Oh, Marlene wasn't going to like that one bit. Hitomi took a deep breath and looked for the words to explain something to her dad. “Dad,” she started, “Marlene dressed me, but I knew that Allen was probably coming on his motorcycle and I would have frozen to death if I hadn't taken a pair of pants along with me. I just didn't want to hurt Marlene's feelings, so I wore what she gave me out of the apartment. Do you understand? You don't even believe me, do you?”

 

He didn't look like he was going to buy that answer. He had been on extremely good terms with Marlene since the mess with Hitomi, and it was going to be hard to convince him of anything if she brought Marlene into it.

 

“You know she's not exactly fond of me right now. I wanted to do something to make friends with her again.”

 

He changed the subject and asked, “So, this guy, Allen. Do you like him?”

 

“You were watching from the lobby. You must have seen that I didn't hug him or kiss him before I got out of the truck. Tonight has not been a good night, and this was our first date.”

 

“Do you want to go out with him again?”

 

“I don't know. What happened tonight wasn't really his fault, but it was such a flop that I doubt he'll ask me again. He was really embarrassed. He wanted to come in to apologize to you, but I wouldn't let him.”

 

“Really?” It didn't sound like her father believed that either. “I'm sorry, Hitomi, but it really feels like you're keeping something from me. You'd better fess up.”

 

Hitomi took a deep breath, about to drop her bomb. She wasn't going to tell him about her detention until Sunday, but decided that now was as good a time as any. Besides, it was going to be bad whenever it was, and the sooner she told him, the less it looked like she was trying to keep secrets from him.

 

“I got two weeks of detention for skipping class,” she admitted, and waited for him to explode. When he didn't she kept on going, “An old friend turned up at my school. He's already graduated with the rest of my class from my old school, and he asked me to go talk with him for a few minutes about Millerna. So I went.”

 

“No good, Hitomi. You shouldn't lie. Marlene already told me that it was a huge story at school and the guy you ran off with was Allen, and I know he didn't go to your old school. After you left tonight, Marlene said she had been wondering what he looked like. She had only heard about his long hair and motorcycle. She didn't know you had detention, though.”

 

That little ...! Hitomi couldn't believe that Marlene had told on her. The little tattletale! She had no reason to tell, but she just did - FOR NO REASON! Hitomi was so angry with her little sister she could hardly breathe.

 

Then her father caught her attention. He was walking away from her and he was saying in the lowest voice, “I'm very disappointed in you.”

 

The words fell on Hitomi's heart like an anvil. Tears fell down her cheeks and she swayed on her feet. This was worse than she could have possibly imagined.

 

***

 

Hitomi sat in detention on Monday afternoon. She didn't have any homework to do, and after spending a very frosty weekend with her family, she was starting to think of things in a more realistic way. She had bus fare in her pocket that her father had given her, since he wouldn't be picking her up after her detention. She twirled a pen between her fingers and for the first time in her life considered moving out on her own. Van had left her plenty of money. When she saw the balance of his account, she almost choked. After the insurance money came in and the money from the sale of the land, there was just over two hundred thousand dollars. She didn't think it was a good idea to buy another house without Van's permission, but she thought she could at least rent an apartment by herself until he came back if living with her family became unbearable, and it was fast becoming so.

 

Marlene had been furious that Hitomi had left the skirt behind, and Hitomi had been livid with Marlene for telling their parents about Allen. Her father had not spoken to her at all, except for the moment he spoke to her and gave her bus fare. The silence he treated her with was painful. And her mother was obviously torn as to how she ought to behave.

 

Hitomi plopped her head on her desk and tried to concentrate on how to fix her problems, but it was difficult since everyone else who was in detention was staring at her like she was their god. Niether Amano or Yukari had detention, so she was stuck with all these people - none of whom were her friends. She either wanted to tear her shirt sleeve off so they could all get the good hard look at her tattoo they had been craving, or else turn around and tell them off.

 

In the end, she did neither, but was called in to have a word with the principal. His name was Principal Voris, and he was as bald as the picture of Lord Grava Asturia, but Hitomi tried to put it out of her mind as he made her an offer. He had heard about the school shooting she had been involved in and was convinced that she wasn't really a bad girl, but a girl in serious need of help. He said that he'd cut her detention in half if she would be willing to meet with the school counselor.

 

Getting her detention cut in half sounded like a great idea, so she agreed. Hitomi had heard something about the guidance counselor from Yukari about how the faculty had recently asked him to cut his hair, and how he had. He wasn't popular with the teachers, and was even less popular with the parents, but the students liked him a great deal. He seemed to be able to get through to some of the rougher boys (not that Lord Grava Asturia High really had rough boys). There was a girl who faked being a schizophrenic in order to spend time with him in his office. She was that far gone on him. Hitomi didn't care about any of that. She knew he'd probably ask her all kinds of questions, but she decided to put up with it in order to get along better with her father. He might even be happy to hear that she'd decided to cooperate with a counselor; a sign that she wasn't a complete delinquent. And getting her detention cut back was the cherry on top - if not the ice cream, too.

 

The principal gave Hitomi his office number and told her that he was staying after school hours in order to talk to her.

 

Hitomi walked down the hall slowly to find his office. The principal said she'd only have to meet with him for as long as she was in detention for that day, and then she could go home. He also mentioned something about the two of them working out a time for them to meet on a regular basis.

 

“Fine,” Hitomi thought as she walked.

 

Then she found it. The letters said - Mr. F. Raevendorf. This was the place.

 

Hitomi knocked on the door politely, and opened the door once she heard the man call for her to enter.

 

“You must be Hitomi,” he said, rising from behind his desk and shaking her hand.

 

Hitomi looked at him. She had never seen him on campus before. He seemed to be a relatively young man, probably not even thirty-five. Hitomi didn't know what he looked like before, but now his hair was cut quite respectably, and he was wearing a white collared business shirt with no suit coat.

 

“Hi,” Hitomi said, taking the chair he offered her.

 

He looked at her with clear brown eyes. “Do you want to start, or should I?” he offered.

 

Hitomi hesitated. “I've never seen a counselor before. Don't you normally give kids advice on what college they want to attend?” Hitomi asked, looking around the room for some diploma or something to prove he was legitimate. She didn't see anything. His office wasn't really decorated, except for a selection of framed black and white prints.

 

“Sometimes,” he agreed. “But I'm also a certified psychologist, so we can talk about anything.”

 

“Anything?” Hitomi repeated, regarding him skeptically. He'd be lucky if he got her to talk at all.

 

“Of course. I understand that you received detention for skipping gym class?” he said.

 

“Not everyone who skips class is asked to have a meeting with you?” Her guard was coming up. She didn't like the warm look in his eyes, or his invitation to trust him. Both of them put her on edge.

 

“No,” he agreed. “But I understand you should have graduated last year, but failed to because …”

 

“You seem to `understand' a lot about me,” she said rebelliously, not wanting him to comment on Millerna. To have a person so obviously ignorant of the truth comment on the situation seemed like a profanity, and Hitomi wouldn't have it.

 

“I see,” he said, seeming to appreciate her attitude. He had a notebook open on his desk, which he promptly closed. He hadn't been poised to write anything, but with the book closed he looked like he wasn't going to force her to talk, but he was definitely going to encourage it. “What would you like to talk about? As I said, we can talk about anything.”

 

“You're here to help me?”

 

He nodded. “I hear you joined the track team,” he commented, seeming comfortable enough to change the subject.

 

“It was stupid,” Hitomi admitted. “I shouldn't have bothered. I'll be out of here at the end of the term, anyway. I probably won't even be able to compete. And now I'm in detention, so I'll miss practice.”

 

“I could make arrangements for you to …”

 

“Like I said,” Hitomi interrupted. “It was stupid. I won't get to compete, because all the meets are in the spring semester. So, there's no need for you to go out of your way for me.”

 

“But I want to help you,” he insisted.

 

As he leaned forward, the afternoon sun shone on his hair. He had product in his hair, and Hitomi could smell it. She couldn't decide if it smelt good or not, but either way, he didn't smell like an adult. He smelled like a teenager, and these kids went by sense instead of smarts. Maybe that was why the kids trusted him, but it didn't win any points with Hitomi.

 

“If you're going to analyze me,” she challenged, “then you'd better just start asking me questions, but I'll warn you right now that I'm not talking about what happened last spring,” Hitomi said, referring to the school shooting.

 

“Fine,” he said, opening his notebook again. “Okay, I thought we could start by talking about your tattoo. There must be a story behind it.”

 

“You knew about it? Well, I guess that's no surprise,” Hitomi yawned.

 

“May I see it?”

 

Dang it! Everyone had seen it! He might as well see it, too. She unbuttoned her cuff and pulled her sleeve up. She saw now what Allen meant when he questioned her as to whether or not Van had authorized it. If she had spoken to Van before getting the stupid thing, he would have instructed her to get it somewhere more personal instead of where she was constantly a walking billboard, advertising a rebellion that she didn't exactly foster.

 

“Wow! That's really well done! Where did you get it?” Mr. Raevendorf seemed interested, like he wasn't going to criticize her for her choice, but instead attack the problem from an open-minded perspective.

 

Hitomi bit her lip and shrugged in response. She was getting more uncomfortable by the second. He hadn't done anything specific to set her off, but there was definitely something about him - something that she didn't feel like she could trust.

 

“There has to be a story behind that!” he exclaimed excitedly.

 

“No story,” Hitomi said stiffly, covering her arm back up. “I just liked the picture.”

 

His expression said that he didn't believe her.

 

“Look, Mr. Raevendorf, I … am not interested in attending college,” Hitomi stuttered.

 

He looked puzzled. “I wasn't thinking of talking to you about your career plans, Hitomi. You know as well as I do that that's not the purpose of this session.”

 

“But I'm not comfortable …” she trailed off, feeling exactly like a rat in an aquarium.

 

“Is it the room? I know it isn't ideal, but if it's that I might be able to find a different venue for our next session.”

 

“You're acting like this is going to be a regular thing.”

 

“I thought that's what you agreed to when you came.”

 

Hitomi thought for a second. She couldn't talk. Van had spent weeks teaching her not to talk, and talking to his man about anything that happened to her seemed too difficult to accept. “If that's the agreement,” she said quietly, “than I'd rather go to detention.” She picked up her bag and moved to the door.

 

He got up and came around his desk, towards her. “What's making you uncomfortable? Of course, the things you've been though are terrible, but I want to help you learn to deal with them. I don't know your whole story and I don't want to judge you. Please give me a chance and confide in me a little.”

 

Hitomi's eyes didn't give him an inch.

 

“Besides, we don't have to talk about it right away. I don't want to push you, and we can take things slowly.”

 

“I don't want to take things slowly. I just don't want to talk about it.”

 

“Then why did you make that deal with Mr. Voris?”

 

Hitomi caved. His voice sounded like something … she couldn't say what it was, and she decided to answer him truthfully. Maybe it was the pure logic of the question. “I wanted to get out of detention. Don't get me wrong. I really don't care about the time that I'd spend there, but my father isn't pleased that I broke the school rules, and I …”

 

“Wanted to do something to help make things up with him?” Mr. Raevendorf finished for her.

 

Hitomi wasn't impressed, but she managed to say weakly, “Yeah.”

 

“What if I got you off?”

 

“I don't want you to do favours for me. I don't want to owe you, or anybody else, anything. I'm leaving,” she said, turning the door handle.

 

“Well,” he said, stretching his arm out and holding the door shut.

 

Did most teachers prevent their students from leaving a room? Hitomi sucked in her breath. She wasn't afraid, because she knew she could take care of herself, but she was definitely creeped out.

 

“Just remember,” he said, peering into her eyes quite intimately, as though he knew something about her that she did not. “Just remember that I'm here if you want to talk. My door is always open.”

 

Then he moved away from the door and let Hitomi pass through.

 

She was ruffled, but she managed to walk back to the detention room with a little poise.

 

Who was he?