Wide Eyes (Open)

Iona had the feeling she was being watched. She turned around, and saw a child. "Hello," she said in the language and mannerisms deemed appropriate by her new home, "--oh."

Her eyebrows raised. The child's features were not Japanese, but European. A sense of familiarity washed over her for the first time in months, at the sight of features which she recognized, though she did not know the girl to whom they belonged. She'd never seen her before in her life, but still...

"De yeh speak the Queen's English, wee lass?" she asked, returning to her native language in homes of finding someone, anyone to talk to...even if they were obviously still a bairn.

"Guid," Iona said, "Because Ah din't."

Hands upon her hips, she smirked. Most of her fellow Brits wouldn't exactly call her rough, accented, slang-laden manner of speaking "English" anyhow.

She stepped forward.

"Yer a Yank, Ah'll bet yeah?" she affirmed. An American was close enough, she guessed. Better than an Englishman, even if her experience with Americans mostly consisted of them being far too impressed and fascinated by her accent.

She lowered herself into a low squat so that she was on the younger girl's level. She wrapped her arms around her knees as she smiled at the girl.

"Sae what's a wee lass doing oot here, might I ask?" she said, "Ah donnae think mah Ma wouldda been happy to hear Ah was loitering aboot  ffflipin' ground zero, right?"

She'd begun to say something else that started with "F" (instead of "flippin'") but caught herself. The wee bairns back in Glasgow might have heard it all before, but she needed to be more polite here. Americans still thought the "C" word was offensive, after all, whereas Iona's friends used it as a term of endearment. Her eyes flicked off to the side, apologetically.

"Ah heard from mah Da, so Ah did," she said, "Ah also herd aboot yon school frae him wis burned down. If ma Da knew Ah wis here, Ah'd be dead Ah would."

Iona cocked her head to the side. She smiled in the way she reserved only for children. Few people older than twelve deserved one.

"My name's Iona," she said, "What's yours?"

Iona thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She looked over the younger girl's shoulder. She saw a man approaching--a short Japanese man wearing sunglasses (even though the sky was overcast). Surely he was just passing by, though. She looked back to the girl.

"Ah'll bet we look lit a right pair a eejits standing here next to a bloody ruin," she said.

Iona laughed, peals of laughter cut through the air, grasped at the eardrums harshly. Loud, boisterous and as rough and as uneven as the the lowland hillside. Sharp, smoky and a little grating, but nonetheless possessed of a certain warmth, like a sparsely populated, but peculiarly dingy tavern thick with the smell of cigarette haze.

In fact, the smell was on her breath and it clung to her clothes. She did like her nicotine the old fashioned way, and illegal given her age. She smelled like that metaphorical tavern which characterized her voice and her laughter.

"That's right!" she affirmed. "Ah'm dead chuffed to meet ya, Kira."

Footsteps. Iona's smile melted, only to resolidify as a scowl.

"Excuse me, sir," she said, in Japanese, "It isn't nice to sneak up on people."

Iona was never good at the whole "respect" thing. That was as much deference for her elder as she could muster. As far as she was concerned, the balding, sunglasses-wearing man was a threat until proven otherwise.

The man surprised her by responding in English:

"Please forgive my rudeness," he said, "I was wondering what two young girls were doing near a condemned building."

Iona rose to her feet, warily. She stared at her small frame reflected in the black surface of his out-of-place sunglasses. She could tell she wasn't doing a great job of behaving as she was expected. It just wasn't in her programming, try hard as she might.

"Nothing, sir," she said, speaking English but dropping the heavy accent and slang. "We were just looking around. We're new to the city and we were curious."

She felt like a traitor whenever she adopted this 'proper' way of speaking. She reminded herself of the posh, upper-class types from Edinburgh (the ones that referred to their Neds by the loftier "Chav" moniker). Effing wide-Os.

"Yes," he said, "I suppose you would be. Strange things have happened here, after all."

The man produced from his suit pocket a silver cigarette lighter. From another pocket he retrieved a package of cigarettes. Iona stared at the package a moment before catching herself. She hadn't smoked in hours. It bothered her that she'd gotten addicted. She was sure she wouldn't. It was only recently that she noticed she'd get cravings after a while. It wasn't like that before. A year ago, she'd smoke with her friends, or she wouldn't. It didn't matter. It was social. Now her brain seemed to hone in on it as a strong, physical need. Her smoking had only increased when she was forcefully removed from her friends and social smoking partners and relocated in Japan, despite a stronger social incentive to quit.

The man flipped open the lighter head, placed a cigarette in his lips, and was about to light up when he noticed Iona's expression.

"Bad habit," he said, knowingly, "Apologies. I can spot a fellow addict. I'm observant in that way, but little girls should not smoke."

Iona remained silent. She wanted to demand he tell them just what he wanted from them, for it was clear to her that informing them that their location and her addiction were both dangerous was not it. She waited for him to speak, for it was clear by his poise--like a horse chomping at his bit for the gates to open at the start of the race--that he wanted to.

He responded to her silence by beginning to pace. As he did so, he flicked the silver lighter open and closed. Flick. Flick. Flick. Iona resisted the urge to cock an eyebrow at this, as was her usual reaction to such strangeness.

"No one knows what happened here," he said, unlit cigarette still balanced on his lips, "Not really. The reports are numerous and conflicting. Do you know what I think?"

Iona didn't answer. She didn't know, and wasn't certain whether or not the man was speaking rhetorically.

The man ceased to look in their direction. He began scanning the walls of the ruins--or at least that's what Iona thought he was doing. It was hard to tell given the sunglasses that masked his eyes. All the while, the man continued to flick, flick, flick that cigarette lighter. He would flick the lighter a few times, turn his head, then his body, and walk in a direction for a bit as he flicked the lighter some more. Then, he would stop and do it all over again. He did this about five times. It was beginning to drive Iona mad. She wanted to take that lighter and shove it down his throat.

"As I mentioned before," he said, "I am observant. I think something is being covered up. Not a gas leak or whatever the official reports say. Something happened here...something is being..." The man's head snapped to the left suddenly, and he stared at a ruin wall shadowed by a hanging roof. It was a very specific spot he continued to stare at. Iona thought he appeared like someone might if they saw an animal of some kind moving out of the corner of their eye.

"...hidden."

"Because someone has to know," said the man, still fumbling with his cigarette, "I'm not going to rest until I find out who it is. My name is Minoru Hashimoto. I'm a detective."

Iona scoffed. It was the way he said it: clearly, she was supposed to be impressed. She wasn't. Not with this balding man. Not with his nervous lighter-flicking. What the heck was his deal?

"You laugh now," said Hashimoto, "but I'll get to the bottom of this. I've got a very important client."

"And I should care...why?" said Iona.

"You are very rude," he said, "You speak our language, show ignorance of our customs. I know of your kind. How you escaped the Europe's bottom rung I'll never know, but you're here now. We're all here, and some of us are hiding something..."

Hashimoto was still looking around the place. Iona looked to Kira. There was something about the way she was looking, at the exact place where Hashimoto was looking, that made Iona want to step in.

"I think it's time you left, sir," she said, as politely as possible, "We obviously don't know anything."

The man glared at Iona, but she did not budge. She had to look up to meet his eyes, she being so short, but she did so. She didn't stop glaring at him. She was determined to make him blink first.

"Very well," he said, "I'm off. But if you do see anything strange--"

"I'll be sure to report it to the police," she said.

"Tch," said Hashimoto, and began walking away.

Iona checked around to see if he was truly going before turning to Kira.

"What a creep," she said, "If we were in Gorbals he would have gotten his erse kicked--I mean, his butt kicked."

"Ah left mah butt kicking shoes at home," said Iona. She smirked.

What precisely had gotten into Iona, she didn't quite understand. She wasn't a confrontational person, at least not when she didn't have at least three other friends for backup. And they were all kicking someone on the floor together. She just hated to see kids being bullied by adults. And that man certainly struck her as some kind of bully.

Iona was reminded of her aunt and uncle's children. There was a slight pang in her chest at the thought. A single breath, and then it was gone.

"Yis awrite?" she asked, "He was making ya nervous, right? Me too."