Remember Me This Way
by Quickening
Episode 1:
A Green Sky? The
Storm of the Centuries!
“You didn’t bring your umbrella, did
you? Did I not tell you that it was supposed to rain today? Did you actually listen to me? Noooo…”
At the scolding remarks, Aneko
Johnson turned her gaze from the large window through which she was gloomily
staring to make a face at her best friend, Chase London. “Okay, Mr. Future-Weather-Person, let me
remind you that you told me it would
only be spring showers. Spring showers means
light sprinkles and baby ducks and rainbows in the sky. That…” She pointed out the window, glaring at the
dark, thundering maelstrom which roared just on the other side, “…does not look like ‘spring showers’ to me,” she finished darkly.
Chase shrugged. “So I was a little off in my
calculations. It happens,” he replied
lightly as he pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose, regarding his friend
through pale blue eyes that glittered with amusement.
Aneko rolled her own cerulean-colored eyes
at him and smacked him lightly across the head, then reached down to yank on
the short tail of red hair bound at the nape of his neck. “A little off? You’re
comparing a light spring rain to Hurricane Bertha out there. You might as well compare Gilbert the Guppy
to Moby Dick,” she snorted.
“You have such a gift for
exaggeration,” Chase murmured distractedly as he turned back to his computer,
long fingers deftly tapping keys as he opened a webpage on his browser.
Aneko raised an eyebrow, somewhat
miffed at her sudden dismissal. If there
was one thing she didn’t like, it was being ignored, especially by him, and especially over some glorified
typewriter. “Now what are you looking for?” she demanded, leaning over his
shoulder to look. As she bent forward,
the silver dragon pendant she wore around her neck swung forward to pat Chase
lightly on the cheek. He blinked at the
touch of the cool metal against his skin, turning his gaze to see what had hit
him. His lips curled up in a smile when
he saw the necklace, still as shiny and new-looking as the day he’d given it to
her, seven years ago.
“I can’t believe you still wear that
thing,” he sniffed, reaching out to flick his finger against it and setting the
little dragon to swinging from its chain.
The tiny emerald set in its eye flickered in the light of the computer
monitor.
“Of course I do!” she huffed,
looking insulted. “It was the first
present you ever gave me, and it’s my favorite necklace! I never
take it off.”
He glanced up at her through lidded
eyes and smirked. “Never ever?” he asked slyly, cocking an
eyebrow at her suggestively. She
squeaked and blushed as the insinuation hit home, smacking him on the head
again, not so lightly this time.
“Pervert,” she muttered, although she was grinning. He chuckled and turned his attention back to
the computer, inwardly pleased that she so obviously cherished something he’d
given her such a long time ago.
“Hey, dork. You didn’t answer my question,” she reminded
him, tapping his head with a finger. “What’cha lookin’
at? It ain’t
porn, is it?”
He shot a mock-glare at her. “Now
who’s being the pervert?” he snorted.
“You know me better than that!”
She grinned at him. “If you say so…” she replied in a singsong
kind of tone.
“I do say so, and if you must know, I’m
looking at a site about the history of
“Again?”
she questioned, her brow furrowing as she tilted her head to one side and
stared at the screen. “What do you find
so fascinating about ancient
“You mean Hitokiri Battousai?” he supplied
dryly.
“Yeah. That guy. What’s the
big deal about him, anyhow?” she asked curiously.
“You mean other than the fact that he was
the most famous hitokiri in all of
There was a moment of silence, and then came
a skeptical snort. “You talk like you
were actually there or something,”
Aneko muttered, somewhat uncomfortably.
She suddenly wished to change the subject to something
less…strange. This wasn’t, she recalled
uneasily, the first time that Chase had gone off like that, muttering about the
past just as though he’d lived in it.
He’d told her stuff like this before, about the assassin and such, and
quite frankly, it always managed to freak her out. When Chase got like that, it was as though he
was another person altogether, and when he got like that, Aneko always wound up
feeling weird as a result. She didn’t know what it was, exactly, but his
stories always managed to trigger something in her mind. It felt like something was tugging at her
brain, like a forgotten memory fighting to surface, or sometimes an overwhelming
impression that whatever Chase was talking about, it was absolutely true.
That scared her, and it normally gave her a headache when she tried to
ignore the feelings of déjà vu, so her usual course of action was simply to
change the subject. That,
or to say nothing at all.
Chase glanced at Aneko from the corner of
his eye as the silence stretched on, noting the slightly-glazed expression that
seemed to always appear whenever he tried to tell her about the past. He frowned, disappointed at her response. Or rather, the lack of it. “Are you okay?” he asked, a little concerned
at the strange emotions flickering through her eyes.
She blinked down at him, then forced a smile
to her lips and rose to stride over to his bed.
“Just fine,” she replied flippantly, forcing a bit of normality back
into the situation. “Aside from the fact
that I’m once again shoved to the back-burner for a bunch of dead guys,” she added with a haughty
sniff. “I mean, how flattering is
that? Computer Nerd Boy rears his ugly
head.”
“Hey, now that isn’t nice,” Chase
replied with a slight smile, more than used to his friend’s melodramatics. “My head is not ugly.”
“Just filled with rocks,” Aneko
complained, flopping down onto the bed and idly tossing a baseball into the
air. She contemplated throwing it at him;
decided it wouldn’t be worth his wrath if she missed (as she was
more-than-occasionally prone to do) and hit his precious computer instead. Chase could be downright scary when it came to that glorified lump of plastic and
microchips.
She huffed a deep, exaggerated sigh
and cast a pout at the back of his head.
“You know, I come the whole
way over here so I could whine to my heart’s content about getting dumped in a
public diner in front of everyone by
some two-timing jerk—expecting to get
some sympathy from you in return, of course—and instead I get to hear you
prattle on about Hikotori Buttsoid
or whatever his name is…”
“Hitokiri
Battousai,” came the disgruntled response.
“Whatever. The point
is, I came over here so my best friend
could shower me with some TLC and maybe some of that Death by Chocolate ice
cream I know he has stashed in the
basement freezer, and so far he hasn’t even asked me how I feel!”
“Oh, yeah,” came the vague
response. “You did break up, didn’t
you? Who was it again? Bob?
Bruce? George?”
“Bill,
Chase. His name was Bill,” she growled, clenching the ball so hard that her nails left
grooves in the worn leather. “And
‘breaking up’ is a nice way to
describe the way he treated me today!
Good grief, could you at least pretend
to be sympathetic to my plight? You
know, act like the best friend you’re supposed
to be?”
Chase sighed and swiveled around in
his chair to face her, his eyes regarding her with tender concern. “Look, Aneko, I know you’re upset,” he began,
his tone gentle and sympathetic. “But you know that I have never liked Bill. I already knew he was a jerk, and he was
never right for you from the beginning,” he finished firmly.
She snorted and rolled over, turning
her back to him. “Well, that’s nothing
new. You never like any of the guys I date,” she grumbled, scowling at the wall.
Chase held back a smile. “That’s because they’re never the right one
for you,” he replied. “Come on, you’ve
been through three boyfriends this year alone…”
“Only two, thank-you-very-much,” she
snapped. Then, under her breath, “Donald
didn’t count as any kind of a boy, whatsoever…”
“I heard that,” Chase teased, poking
her in the side.
She yelped and squirmed away, trying to slap
at his hand, which was quickly removed from her reach. “How do you know that they weren’t right for
me, anyway? Did you suddenly turn into
Dr. Freud or something?” she asked snidely.
“It isn’t like you have any
experience in dating, Mr. I-Hate-Anything-In-A-Skirt. I’ve known you since sixth grade and never once have you had anything that even resembled a girlfriend! People are starting to talk, you know. I mean, a gorgeous senior like you,
dateless? It’s practically unheard of
around here! Half the school thinks that
you’re gay, and the other half thinks…well…that you’re gay!”
Expecting to get an indignant remark out of
that, Aneko was surprised when he merely laughed at her. “People will gossip no matter what I do,” he
replied easily. “If they want to think
I’m gay, who cares? I know I’m not and
that’s all that matters. Besides, I
don’t hate everything in a skirt. I like
you, don’t I?”
She pondered that for a moment, then smirked
and held up one finger. “Ah hah!” she exclaimed. “But when was the last time you actually saw
me in a skirt?”
Chase blinked, opened his mouth, then closed
it again and gave a little laugh, shaking his head. “Okay, okay.
You win that one,” he conceded.
“Thank you,” she smirked, leaning back and
crossing her arms smugly. Then, she suddenly
frowned and sat upright. “You don’t
suppose that’s it, do you?” she asked abruptly, gazing at him worriedly.
He blinked, confused. “That what’s
it?”
“That…it’s why they don’t like me?” Her voice was suddenly very small. “Maybe it’s ‘cause
I’m not…girly enough for them. Bill
said…he told me I’m too much of a tomboy.
Of course, that was right after I told him to go to hell and dumped his
milkshake over his head after I caught him making out with Emily Baker in the
back booth of the diner…”
“He was making
out with someone? In
a public area?” Chase was
furious. “That
two-timing jerk! How dare he do
that to you!”
“Thank you for finally taking my side,” she replied dryly. “But as I was saying, what if he’s
right? What if I’m not girly enough for
the guys? I mean…Emily Baker could be a
super model! No wonder all the guys
practically trip over their own feet to be near her. She wears makeup and dresses in nice clothes
and her hair is always so shiny and gorgeous and…and model-y. Good grief, the girl’s practically a walking
Pantene commercial! It’s not fair!” Pouting, she raised a hand to her lips and
stuck her thumb in her mouth, absently gnawing on her nail as she pondered.
Chase sighed and reached out to gently
remove her hand, thus saving the nail-tip from being completely chewed
off. She blinked at her hand, then
grimaced. “See what I mean?” she
cried. “I bite my nails! They’re all…raggedy and short! Geez, no wonder I can’t get a decent boyfriend,
with my nails all chewed up and me always wearing jeans and running around like
a…like a guy!” She huffed in disgust. “That’s it!
Tomorrow I’m going to go out and reinvent myself! No more Tomboy Aneko! I’m gonna
splurge my savings and buy a nice wardrobe with clothes I can actually wear in
public without somebody thinking I just wandered in off the street! I’ll get some makeup and then maybe I’ll get
my hair cut and…”
She was stopped abruptly when Chase’s large
hand came up to cover her lips, and she blinked at him, surprised to see a very
stern expression on his handsome face.
Chase usually didn’t wear such an expression, preferring an easygoing
smile or a thoughtful look, never a frown.
But whenever one did
appear—especially if it was aimed at her—she knew she was about to get a
lecture.
“You are going to do absolutely no such
thing, because there is absolutely nothing
wrong with you,” he told her, very firmly.
“If these guys you pick up can’t love you for who you are, then they are
not worthy of you in the first place.
You’re a very special woman, Aneko, and the reason those idiots couldn’t
see that is because none of them were the man you are ultimately destined to be
with.”
Aneko sniffed a little, feeling her throat
clog up at the enthusiastic speech.
Chase always knew just the
right things to say to make her feel better, and if there was one thing she
could say about him, it was that he was a complete romantic at heart. He was always going on about “the right one”
and destiny and two people being born for each other and never being happy
until they found each other and good grief, no wonder everyone thought he was gay!
A wavering smile touched her lips at the thought. What normal
guy ever thought like that, anyway, she wondered. Not that she was complaining or anything. She
thought it was sweet that Chase had romantic sentiments like that. It was really too bad that she didn’t agree
with them. Destiny was all well and
good, but in this day and age, it unfortunately took a back seat to more
important things, like how much cash a person had or how attractive they were.
Bill had been very attractive. He was also quite rich. Aneko sighed and slumped again. Maybe that’s
why he dumped her, she thought gloomily.
Her family wasn’t exactly known for having money rolling out their ears
or anything…
“Are you listening to me?” Chase’s scolding voice cut into her musings
like a knife, and she blinked owlishly up at him.
“Nothing wrong…not worthy of me…haven’t found Mr. Right,” she repeated like a mantra.
Chase rolled his eyes at her. “You know, for somebody who wants advice on
their love life, you certainly aren’t very good at taking it,” he complained.
“I never said I wanted advice,” she grumbled back.
“I want sympathy. There is
a difference, you know, but heaven forbid I should get any of that out of you…”
Chase sighed and knelt beside her on the
floor, resting his head beside hers on the pillow to stare into her eyes. “You’ll find him,” he whispered, reaching up
to tuck a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. “You never know…” His voice dropped suddenly, his eyes turning
soft as he continued in a low murmur, “He may be staring you in the face and
you don’t even realize it.”
Aneko didn’t reply, mostly because she
hardly knew what to say. The way he was
looking at her made her…uncomfortable.
Yeah, that was a good word. Definitely uncomfortable.
Her stomach was suddenly fluttering like crazy and her body kept
flushing hot and cold as he continued to search her face with his gentle,
seeking gaze. It was as though he was
looking through her or something, or that he was seeing something that wasn’t
really there, or trying to get her to
see something that she couldn’t. His
tone was vague, mysterious, as though he was hinting at something that she
couldn’t even begin to—or maybe just didn’t want
to—guess at.
The overall effect was…well…it was completely not-normal, and she sought
to find some way to break the moment…the spell…that she suddenly found herself
trapped in, before her entire world turned upside down.
It was that feeling again, she realized with a sort of panic. That feeling she got when he talked about the
past…only this time it was stronger than before. The gentle tugging at her conscience had
turned into a hard tug-of-war; a forgotten memory trying hard to stay buried,
even as Chase’s probing gaze sought to bring it to the surface of her
mind. It was something important, she
sensed, something…life-altering. She had
the bizarre, overwhelming feeling that, if the memory failed in its struggle to
stay buried, her world as she knew it would inexorably change. She was entirely uncertain as to whether this
was a good thing or not.
But then, as suddenly as it had begun, the
moment was over.
Chase was pulling away from her, effectively
ending the unusual atmosphere as he rose to his feet and went back to his desk,
once more bringing up his browser and searching for more documents. Time started again, and the feeling of
almost-remembering faded to the back of her mind, leaving her to stare at his
back dazedly and wonder what in the world had just happened. She took a deep
breath and silently commanded her slightly-erratic pulse to calm down, feeling
her flushed face gradually cool as the dark blush left her cheeks. She was grateful to Chase for giving her time
to compose herself and regain her scattered thoughts…but she was also beginning
to feel a little foolish. After all,
there was no reason to have gone off the deep end like that. It was just Chase, for heaven’s sake!
“So, um…”
She coughed, trying to rid her voice of the strange hoarseness in its
tone. “So did you find anything that’s
actually interesting in there?”
Chase’s smile was sly as he continued to
stare at his monitor, not really seeing what was on the screen. He was far more interested in what Aneko was
thinking at the moment. “It’s all very
interesting,” he replied calmly, just as though the last few minutes had ever
occurred. “You should come over here and
read this. Hitokiri Battousai was quite
fascinating.”
“About as fascinating as getting
teeth pulled,” she retorted, striving desperately to get things back to
normal. “You know my thing isn’t ancient
history, Charles.”
He grimaced at the name; she knew
how much he hated it. Chase was so much
more…suave. She’d tried Chuck once, just
to tease him, and then burst out laughing and added that it brought to mind the
evil doll from the Child’s Play movies.
He even fit the description, with the red hair and the blue eyes. Chase—who was less than
amused, to say the least—had then proceeded to pull Aneko into a headlock and
start tickling her until she swore she’d never, ever call him that again.
“Well, this is a part of your history, too, Neko-chan,” he retorted, using
his own nickname for her and grinning at the face she made. “You are
half Japanese, after all,” he pointed out.
“You should at least know where your roots stem from.”
“Now
you sound like my grandmother,” Aneko grumbled, smacking the ball against the
ceiling. “And I’m only a quarter Japanese. Mom is half. Besides, I’ve never even been to
“It’s a part of your culture,” Chase
explained with a patient sigh. “Most
people take pride in their culture, you know.”
“My culture is American,”
Aneko insisted stubbornly. “Besides, you
wanna talk roots?
I’ve got so many roots in my family tree it’s amazing nobody trips over
‘em. And if
you make one crack about me and tripping, I’ll pound you so hard you’ll be
eating through your knees for the
rest of your life,” she threatened, tossing him a warning glare.
Chase grinned and closed his
mouth. The girl knew him too well.
“Let’s see…” she continued. She began ticking off points with her
fingers. “There’s some English in me
somewhere, from my mother’s father’s side, and I’m pretty sure my great
grandfather on my dad’s side had a little Cherokee Indian in him…and I think
some German, too. Or was it Swiss?”
“I dunno. Sharp cheddar, maybe?” Chase
interrupted with a smirk. He grinned at
the exasperated glare she threw at him.
“Okay okay.
Bad pun,” he conceded, holding up his hands.
“Anyway,”
she huffed, “then there’s my great grandmother, who emigrated from
“I get it, I get it,” Chase
interrupted with a chuckle. “You are the
proverbial soup-pot of gene splicing.”
“Chase! That’s gross!” Aneko
protested with a laugh. “But yeah,
you’re right. Wouldn’t shock me in the
least if I found out I had ancestors from
“So…” Chase
began innocently, “which of those ancestors is the one who left you the nasty
temper?” He laughed at her outraged yelp
and dexterously caught the ball he knew she’d throw at him, almost without even
looking at it. His reflexes were
amazingly quick; it was as though he could sense things coming at him before
they were even there. It was a skill
that Aneko had always secretly envied, along with the inherent grace and regal
poise that seemed to ooze from every pore in his body. She herself was more than a bit of a klutz;
to be as graceful in movement as Chase was something about which she could only
dream. Her state of grace was managing to move from one end of a room to
the other without tripping over stray carpet lint.
Aneko sighed and sat up, once again
glancing unhappily out the window. “I
guess I’d better head home,” she grumbled.
“It’s getting late and I’m not supposed to let Jonah alone in the
house. He’s bound to be back from soccer
practice by now since it’s raining.”
Chase looked at her in concern. “Wait a moment ‘till I find my keys,” he
stated. “I’ll drive you over.”
Aneko laughed. “Good grief, Chase, I only live two minutes
away!” she replied. “It’ll take longer
for you to drive me since you have to go around
“I know, but I don’t want you
running around in this weather. It’s
dangerous out there,” Chase insisted as he began searching through his pockets
for his car keys. “Now where did I put
those things…?” he mumbled, picking up a pair of dirty jeans lying on the floor
next to his hamper.
Aneko wrinkled her nose. “And exactly how long have those been there?” she questioned
teasingly, waiting for his retort. When
none was forthcoming, she pursed her lips, then added slyly, “Well, they
haven’t gotten up to walk around on their own yet, so it couldn’t have been too
long since you threw them there…” When
he still didn’t answer she rolled her eyes in disgust. “You know, ever since we became seniors,
you’ve just been no fun anymore,” she complained.
“Or maybe I’m just attempting to
teach you how a mature person reacts
to insults,” he retorted; his voice came out slightly muffled, as his entire
head was now under the bed. Aneko
smirked and gave his backside a tap with her foot. Then, standing up abruptly (and ignoring his
pained grunt, since his back happened to be under her feet), she snatched
Chase’s beat-up umbrella from the corner of the room, her own stuffed-to-overflowing
backpack from the bed, and headed to the door.
“Well, you keep right on looking for
the lost treasure, although I really doubt it’s in the Twilight Zone there, and
while you’re doing that, I‘m heading on home to make sure Baby Brother hasn’t
blown up the house by now. Ciao!” she
called out, hurriedly leaving the room before he could protest.
Chase popped his head out from under
the bed, scowling at his bedroom door as it closed loudly behind her. “Geez! That girl is so stubborn,” he grumbled to
himself while peering out his window.
Sure enough, not a moment later did he see the top of a red umbrella
bobbing toward the strip of woodland that separated his large yard from that of
his best friend, her mop of chocolate brown hair whipping around beneath it in
the wind. He frowned in concern as the
sky growled, wondering if he should go after her, just to make sure she made it
home safely. He could just grab his…
His thought stuttered to a halt, and
his scowl deepened. “Hey!” he shouted
indignantly through the window. “That’s
my umbrella!”
As though she’d heard him, Aneko
turned around suddenly, strands of dark hair blowing in shocking contrast
against her porcelain cheeks, and grinned up at the window, waggling her
fingers and making a face at him, before turning back around again to continue
on her way home. Chase just sighed and
shook his head, unable to keep an answering grin from spreading across his
face. He hoped, not for the first time,
that his best friend would never change.
~~~{~@ ~~~{~@
~~~{~@
Aneko stubbornly clung to the
umbrella handle as the wind threatened to tear it from her grasp yet again,
grumbling as the rain blew in stinging sheets against her unprotected
skin. She was beginning to rethink the
wisdom of turning down a ride in Chase’s car as the sky flashed and thunder
rumbled ominously overhead. She didn’t
fancy getting turned into Kentucky Fried Aneko by a stray lightning bolt. “So of course
you choose to take a shortcut through a freaking forest,” she muttered. “Real
brilliant plan there, Einstein. No wonder Chase worries about your health
so much.”
The sky flashed again, causing her
to jump and look up. This early in the
spring, the trees had hardly begun to bloom, and she could see the roiling sky
looming over her head, colored a pale, sickly-looking green. She blinked.
“Okay. Now that is just downright freaky,”
she muttered, shuddering as what seemed like yet another bucket of icy water
managed to find its way down the back of her shirt (of course she’d left her jacket at Chase’s house…). The umbrella, she suddenly noticed, had
turned completely inside-out, and was therefore pretty much useless. She scowled at the thing. It was practically as old as the dinosaurs;
no wonder it gave out on her! It had been doing that for years. Well, she knew exactly what she was getting Chase for his birthday this year. The sky flashed again, followed by a crack of
thunder that nearly split her eardrums.
Throwing dignity to the wind, Aneko let loose with a loud shriek. Think
later. Walk faster, you dolt! she commanded herself, turning her
fast walk into a slow jog.
Of course that was exactly when her body decided that she
was long overdue for a klutz attack.
Before she’d taken more than five steps, her
foot unerringly managed to find what was probably the only tree root sticking
out of the entire length of the well-worn path stretching between their two
homes. With a startled squawk, Aneko
found herself sprawling face-first into the wet dirt. She lay there for a full minute, spitting out
words that would have made her proper, Japanese grandmother die in scandalized
horror (if she hadn’t already died,
of course), as the rain soaked the parts of her back that weren’t covered by
her pack, and the muddy earth soaked her front.
“Forget my temper!” she
finally screamed at nobody in particular as she struggled to her knees. “Which one of my bloody
ancestors gave me two left feet?!”
She growled out more profanities as she
struggled to said feet, gripping a slimy-wet tree branch for support. She dimly wondered if the Discman and the
brand-new cell phone she had stuffed into the side pocket of her pack had
survived the soaking, and then a sudden roaring drowned out all other thought
as she raised horror-filled eyes to the green sky above.
She knew
it was coming. A sixth sense told her that what was about to happen
would not be good in any way, shape, or form.
But it didn’t tell her soon enough, and even as she was hastily yanking
her hand away from the slippery wet tree, a brilliant flash lit the entire
landscape, like a camera flashing in slow-motion.
Like everything flashing in slow motion.
She felt her entire body spasm erratically,
a part of her mind dully thinking that she probably looked a bit like a marionette
puppet with its strings being cut. And
then, she was filled with a strange, hot tingling that was a surprisingly
pleasant sensation for being what was probably several million volts of pure
electricity racing through her entire body.
It isn’t as painful as I thought
it would be, she thought hazily, even as the world around her turned white.