Post by Freyalise on Dec 10, 2012 4:36:42 GMT -5
His ejection from his father's impossibly warm rental Jaguar into crunchy inches of Canadian snow was his last wake-up call to the gravity of the situation: Stranded in a stranger country than America, bitter wind blowing right through the holes in his flimsy cable-knit sweater, staring down the entrance to the new future.
The departing pep-talk with his father was brief and blunt. "You get this chance once, son. Listen well. Your first goal is to catch up your grades, however possible. The second is to continue academic excellence until your graduation. The third is to make this education work for your talent. Whatever you do, try to make me proud." An awkward beat of pure eye contact while the motor hummed, and then they set to the swift task of unloading the backseat of the luggage and the guitar and leaving Kazu's whole package on the curb.
Instead of thinking of the combustion occurring in his father's vehicle, he instead focused on a memory of a song as he trudged through the windy cold, up the salted steps, and onto the shiny floors of Spiritus.
Grateful to feel warm air on his ears and fingers, he rubbed his hands together and looked around; no activity, not even lights on in rooms further down the corridor.
Obviously he wasn't early, there was just no one on shift. "Must be an event somewhere else."
The solitude pricked a thrill in his gut- Alone, but not scary. The only eye on him was probably a camera, but he had no fear on his first day. Squeaking down the hallway to a large polished wood desk, he rifled through papers and cabinets until he found his thick file under "New Transfers." Putting things back where he found it, he took his file with him to a bench, where he proceeded to change out his shoes to his slippers.
Included in his sub-folder 'Spiritus Orientation' was a packet of rules, regulations, uniform codes, class syllabi, a teacher index, lunch menu... "Oh for fuck's sake, I just need a map..." He flicked through page after page until he found something close- A poorly copied but still legible, black and white of Spiritus grounds. Someone had crossed out a few locations and scribed in new names, but the boys' dorm was quite plain to see. Kazu padded down hallways and high-stepped in a silly way, because no one was looking. He felt a little Monty Python in that moment; He made himself giggle, which was strange to hear such a throaty echo in a school so grandiose.
Looking up and around, he couldn't decide if it was hideous in a "House of Usher" way or if it was awesome in that "Set of the Munsters" way. Old looking wallpaper, deep varnished wood floor, heavy curtains and austere flower arrangements between doors. "Seriously, it's like Land of the Eternal Funeral Parlour in here...."
The dorm hallway was upon him, then the door, and once he was inside he thought he was free of the labyrinth... but no. At least his destination was a staircase upwards, and after two trips of lugging his crap he was finally in the senior dorm.
"And it's empty too. No stoners, no maid, no one." He pulled out the newbie's packet and consulted the calendar for December-- The Annual Snow Ball. His soul smiled for a minute-- It was still early, everyone was enjoying themselves whereever they were, and Kazu got his last little taste of privacy.
First thing he did was search his backpack for his last pack of smokes from the outside world. Prohibited since his stay in rehab nearly a full year ago, Kazu could never find a moment to get to the store... but Yuki found a way. After scolding her for using her friends' older sister, he promptly lit up and gave her a hug.
He found them, nearly bent and crammed in the very bottom of his bag, under the journals and miscellaneous home-brand ingredient jars. Pulled a whole one, then patted his body for a lighter... Realizing he didn't have one, he looked for his gunpowder jar. Finding salt instead, he unstoppers the bottle and pours a crude little triangle on the floor. He touches the finished glyph and the salt combusts, hot enough to cherry his smoke. Sparks fall on his hand but he hastily smothered the fire with his backpack and inspected the damage. The wood was faintly branded and he frowned, before he rubbed the surface with his fingertips. It was a cleansing effect: the black scar left the wood and the shiny varnish re-appeared, as it was before. He grabbed the rest of his smokes and his duffle bag, fixing to chainsmoke and take a hot bath.
"Maybe even read." He inspected his visage in the mirror and saw jetlag and built up stress, a greaseball of travelled ick. He was glad no one human saw him walk through the door, a hot mess as proud as you please. His dad wasn't overtly supportive, it's true, but did he have to say 'Make me proud' and leave the 'or else' silent? Searched nearby cabinets and found fresh fluffy towels, stealing two for himself.
Fighting the urge to mess with his blackheads, he drew a bath and unpacked his toiletries. Small little bottles of shampoo and a bar of hideous Irish Spring, nail clippers and a sandpaper file, a loofah and a silly little headband to keep the soap out of his eyes. Sighing, he turned on the fan to whisk away his smoke, lighting a new one with the butt of his old one, discarding it into the sink. He squeezed one little bottle into the bath to make it suds, then stripped down, keeping his smokes high and dry.
Once inside the tub he had a moment to just sit and take it all in, and it hit his mind hard. The bathroom had a weird glow, the sink was a peculiar height and the piping looked weird, even though he was sure he was just paranoid. The one comforting fact was that the bathroom was the only place that looked lived in, his stuff ignored. Toothbrushes, other soaps, sponges and poofs on hooks, it was all kind of weird.
Kazu drowned his thoughts as he shampooed his hair twice, lathered his body and showered to rinse off. Truly, he was so impressed with the hot water heater's capacity he forgot to light another cigarette and just enjoyed the water until he was a prune.
Dried and dressed in his warmest pajamas, Kazu set to the task of unloading his stuff in privacy. Bottles of his homemade ingredients went into the night-stand- Vitriol, Kazu's Famous Gunpowder, vinegars, sulfurs, and a precious ounce of Aqua Vitae in a titanium flask, engraved with a poison skull.
As his fingers left the bottle his body felt a lingering lust for it-- He sat there and placed packets of powders and herbs in neat rows, plastic bottles of home-made pills with the labels out, trying to ignore the urge. Finishing his task calmly he looked around for a glass, then poured himself a tall water. Fingertips pressed on the sides of the glass as he concentrated on transmutation. Water was so fundamental that he had no problems turning it to wine. Red swirled from the edges inward until he could smell the odor.
Despite the "seemingness" of the authenticity of the wine, he knew it was simply a basic chemical change. That smell was synthesized simply to make the drink more appealing. There was no heart or artistry involved, just straight chemistry, so the wine definitely had a mild acidity and a faint grape after-taste as it aerated.
None of these reasons was stopping Kazu from drinking his wine and unpacking into his dresser.
All he could hear was silence as he worked, trying not to stub his toe and get totally frustrated as he un-folded and re-folded his casual clothes. Once he was done with the small bag of clothes he snooped around in the other dressers for his uniform-no doubt they wanted him somewhere he didn't want to be. Most were empty, which was tedious. A few were obviously someone else's, but he found his new uniforms almost all the way at the head of the room. Far away in some cold dark corner, not his style, and he was already halfway done unpacking. He carried his clothes in a pile and folded them neatly, swigging the last of his glass in the process.
Taking a break for a smoke, Kazu laid on his bed and stared up at the ceiling- so much different than the popcorn ceiling of his room back in California and the soothing blue of the Utah clinic. Finding that he didn't want to waste what little energy he had left, Kazu lit his smoke with the snap of his fingers and some gunpowder, unpacking the last of his bags.
Neat stacks of books, thin leather bound volumes with no name, recently bought curriculum textbooks, scads of loose paper, all stacked neatly in one pile. He up-ended both bags and pens skittered around on the floor, along with papers and stuff. Getting on his knees to collect them all was a pain, but worth it.
An envelope had slid under a nearby bed, his father's pen stiff when he scrawled 'Kazu' on the front. He opened it and a few things fell out-- call cards, credit cards and a key.
"Well with an incentive like that, I just have to read the note."
But it was short, all business. Explained the call cards totaled to two-thousand minutes- mail back the used cards to receive more. That explained the key- a P.O. box in town held the lock, so he could mail his family to ring for the FBI or to send more Mexican coca cola. Whatever. The two credit cards had a limit of $100 each, with no option to make cash withdrawls or any nonsense like that. It was for soap, food and new pens, and that section was starred and underlined. Understanding his dad was keeping a financial leash on him, he half scoffed and half stared in incredulity.
Kazu got up to make another glass of wine, then returned to learn how to use his safe. His very precious thin journals went in first, his passport and visa second.
Staring at the abbreviated collection of his possessions, Kazu felt empty in his gut. He saw phantasms of his posters from home on these walls, but mostly he wished for his radio and his old view back. "How did I fuck my life up this badly?" He was posing a rhetorical question to himself, and it was stupid, so he drank more. He knew how. Experimental drugs, rebellious teenager with super talent goes nuts with the glory of power and no one to hinder him. The joke was on him, and it was multi-faceted. The punchline made his head hurt.
But the bright side was shining on him, too. He was still getting used to it- Not having to hide meant being in a situation where he was considered "normal" to an acceptable freak-ordained degree. He wouldn't have to flunk a chemistry test periodically to hide his brain, he could just breeze it and be done. Plenty of free time saved because he wouldn't be stuck in traffic trying to get somewhere, and there was nowhere to go, so alchemy and academics wouldn't suffer.
He stood by the window and nursed his drink, surveying the blanketed grounds, the view of the snow-topped grove that separated Spirtus from a warm looking building, what he assumed had to be Veritas. The map lied, the distance was quite a bit longer than indicated. Watching the snow was hypnotizing him into sleep, and he knew he had to sleep, very soon. but there were still things to be done.
First was the matter of smoking the rest of his cigarettes before getting them confiscated. Two were left so they went quick, and afterwards he collected the filters in the box and burned it to white ashes in the tub. Once that terrible burn was erased from the porcelain, he set about washing out his glass with water and keeping it near his nightstand, sweeping ashes under beds, and making sure he got all his weird knick-knacks put away. His guitar slid neatly under his bed for lack of a better place, his luggage stacked inside each other and his dad's parting gifts under his mattress, Kazu climbed into bed.
It was soft, it was warming already to his body, and he couldn't help but luxuriate on a mattress that didn't double as a torture rack. He poked his hand once more into his nightstand and pulled the bottle of mixed pills, searching through the multi-colored selection until he found a white diamond-shape, something to knock him out quick and hard. With luck he'd sleep off the jet leg, visit the administration building after breakfast and meditation. Swallowing the pill dry, he buried his eyes in the pillow and counted the Fibonacci sequence until his mind went black. Hours would go by until Kazu's mystery roommates would discover him sprawled out and ignorant in dreamland.
