Jiji no. 8

Central Palace

Blood. One human—or even other living entity—would not be able to live without that sticky red liquid flowing onto the veins. It should be considered as the symbol of life. It was. Yet, with the blood on his hand, Holder was shaking. He was screaming. And panicking. His whole body was filled with unexplained trauma which makes him shook and fall with that feeling of heaviness. He felt uneasy. Blood must be the source of life. But he was shaking and screaming and panicking when he saw the blood smeared all over his hand. His vision is bland—dark and blur. And when he removed his shaking bloodied hands away of his sight, he saw a thing looking at him in the front. Heads. Hundreds of them, looking at him with their phantasmic, remorseful eyes. As if he was the one who killed and murdered them. He saw the horrible-looking severed head of Mr. Sandler at the front of the pile of heads.

He shook, and said, ‘No!’

Then a ghoulish voice appeared on his head, and said, ‘yes, we did it.’ And he would reply ‘no, I did not! Never!’ and then the ghoulish voice would say again, ‘fool! We did it!’ with a traumatic, monstrous laugh.

He can hear the ghoulish voice erupting near his left ears, with its harsh tune. And when he looked at it, he saw his father grinning in the gleam of dark nightmare.

“AHHH!” Holder quickly jerked up from him lying on the bed. He frantically breathed, and his drowsy eyes were wide open from fear. Sweat trickled down from his forehead, and neck, and nape and back.

What a nightmare he had.

He was not yet fully recovered from the fearful nightmare, when the door from his new, comfortable room opened. Professor Zen Maxxes appeared.

When the professor saw him, she stopped midway with curiosity, and asked, “what happened to you?”

She might probably saw cold sweat running down his bare chest.

“Uh, nightmare,” Holder said. He brushed the sweat running on his neck with the use of the back of his hands. He licked his dried lips, and then looked back at her again. “Very frightening nightmare.”

“I can see that,” the professor said. “Your aura is heavy. And down. And dark. Looks to me like you’re about to kill someone.”

The professor then walked inside. She sat at the bedside chair, and crossed her legs. At the table, she grabbed a new and neatly folded white t-shirt, then threw at Holder’s face.

“Wear some shirt. You shouldn’t be showing your ‘muscular’ body to an unmarried woman.”

Holder gasped from what she told. He covered his bare chest with the use of his still-shaking hands, and looked at the professor with conspicuous stare.

“T—Turn back,” he said.

“What ?” the professor asked, annoyed.

“I—I said turn back, I’ll change clothes.”

“What? Hey, what are you, a woman?!”

“I said turn back!” Holder said, embarrassed, not really sure of what stupidity he was speaking.

“Gosh,” she grabbed the metallic bottle beside her, drank, and then turned her back to him. “You're more a woman than me.”

“Wh—Who knows,” Holder said, “you might be fantasizing a naked me, knowing that you once liked my father, and that maybe to fulfill your desire, you would do it to his son instead.”

“WHAT?!” She quickly jerked and looked at him with disbelief.

“AHHH! PERVERT!” Holder, with panic, threw a pillow at the professor, which flatly landed at her disbelieving face.

The professor sighed and then turned her back. Holder smiled. He won. One point for him, zero points for the professor.

He knew they were not playing a game. They were just insulting each other. And for that, Holder had to take a winning credit for the recent’s event. He won a point.

But who knows, maybe she was indeed, attracted to her that she secretly dreamed of him in one bed, and having those things couples are doing every night. Age doesn’t matter wasn’t it? He was eighteen, she was twenty eight. But nah, Holder doesn’t want to think of that. He wasn’t even attractive to begin with. He knew nothing about men’s styles, or about how to look cool while walking, or to project handsomeness (like those men squinting their eyes and biting their thin lips. How he wish he had the confidence to mimic the boy’s signature handsome looks) or even to take care of his own neatness. He was mostly full of dusts and dirt, and had no enough knowledge about maintaining that ‘boystar’ kind of looks.

“Just to make clear of myself, Holder, I am not having a crush on you. Gosh, you’re too young.”

Holder giggled. He wanted to push the fun he made with her professor. “You said you had crush with my Papa, right? That was ten years ago. You are twenty eight, and deducting the time my Pa died, you are back then eighteen years old. And you had a crush at a man whose age is mostly thirty five years old. I’m eighteen, Professor.” He tried his very best not to laugh hard as he told those trick-fun words. He then bit his lips to hide it. He was already done with wearing his cloth. And when the professor looked at him with red and furious face, he winked, and seduced him by moving his eyebrows up and down.

Professor Zen Maxxes, insulted, drank from the bottle she was holding, and grabbed papers from the inside chest pocket of his laboratory coat. She threw it at Holder with grudge.

“There. Those are your schedules today. Check whose your instructor in different lessons, and find the training places you would go to in order to get that trainings. Go. On. Your. Own. Do not ask help for me. Every late, there is a punishment. You only have thirty minutes left with you. Bring Jiji or you would not receive other trainings. Is everything clear? Alright, yes, everything is clear. No question. Yes, no question.” Then, angrily, she stomped her feet towards the doorway. Before she could close the door, she added, “And by the way, to make things clear, I would never-EVER try to hit you despite how good looking you are!”

She shut the door with a loud bang, and then left Holder laughing.

“But you said I am good looking!”

He was laughing and enjoying the fact that he managed to irritate the professor.

But when he saw what was written on the paper she threw, his laugh suddenly went off.

“Wh—What is this?” panic started to creep in. He remembered what the professor told: there would be punishments if by the trainings that he was scheduled, he would be late.

He only have twenty minutes. Nineteen.

He quickly crept away of the comfortable bed he had slept. He even stumbled and thumped on the floor from panic.

“Jiji! Where are you, Jiji?” he called in the room.

Eighteen minutes.

“Hey, Jiji, where are you?” his voice sounded pleading. He bit his lower lip, and regretted what he did with the professor. He wished he hadn’t irritated the professor so that he would not be panicking just like right now. Karma stroke back to him. And it damn was fast.

He found Jiji at the drawer of the bedside table. He was looking cute as he reshaped his body, fitting in a corner where there is still spaces left from the piles of boxes and containers.

“Jiji!” he said.

Jiji drowsily opened his eyes. He purred, and when he saw Holder looking at him, he jumped and whined joyfully. His eyes were filled with excitement and readiness for the day, despite the fact he had just woke up.

Quickly, he grabbed Jiji, hugged him, and started to head outside. Ah, he forgot the papers. He went back to the room, and collected the papers his professor threw to her earlier.

Seventeen minutes.

He was ready to head to the place where the training would be held, but he had two big major problems. As he look at the alley where he erupted outside of the room, he almost fell weak. The alley was insanely long. And the exit—which then he saw the light—was utterly far. It would consume at least three minutes before he could reach the main door of the alley. Another problem that he had, was the fact that on his schedule, it states his first instructor was a certain blacksmith found at the heart of the central kingdom. And . . . he was not familiar with the kingdom. He was still inside the palace, and he never had a chance to tour the whole place yet. Not even at the grand hall, or at the other places—except of course at his room, at the project Neptune, and the yellow sculptures found on another room. Aside from that, he had seen no more of the palace.

Now how would he be able to look for this certain blacksmith if at the central palace, he would be lost.

“Jiji, let’s just do this,” he said, then ran. He quickly strode towards the exit while Jiji was above his head, enjoying the fast wind they met from his fast running.

When he broke from the exit of the alley, the brightly-lit sun was shining from above. Holder squinted for a little while, and when he finally adjusted, he saw that he was standing in the middle of a garden.

“Hey, I never thought this would take more than how I expected it,” Holder said, disappointed. He now only have ten minutes left before that class from the Blacksmith would start. Looking from the paper, the course was about sword-wielding, archery, and explosive making. Wow, intense course for the first morning of his first day. He wonder what could be the punishment his instructor would give, knowing that he is late for today.

He saw the gate where he could take an exit from. Well, it was actually not a gate, but a huge arch made of green leaves coiling and recoiling with its elastically growing body, and with flowers of different color hanging from above.

Jiji excitedly purred, and then pointed at the direction of the arc.

“Alright, let’s go,” said Holder.

They ran, and passed through the arc were guards were standing firmly beside the foundations of the arcs, not even dared to blink even when wind with dusts came through them. He passed through another garden. This time, the plants growing from that garden were trimmed and shaped as walls, forming a labyrinth. He was just glad that he did not enter the labyrinth for it would consume him another couple of minutes—perhaps hour—finding back the exit again. Instead, he turned left, and travelled beside the outside leafy walls of the labyrinth.

When he was finally outside, away of the palace, he was already tired and panting. One minute left. Great, he will be really late, thanks to his professor whom he just irritated earlier. He heard the bursts of the busy noise of the Central Kingdom. People talking, screaming from the stalls as they offer their products to the people, the sound of the cart wheeling to the glassy-like cemented road, children running and playing everywhere, and the busy people walking in and out, left and right, and in different random directions he wasn’t sure he could pinpoint where.

Jiji jumped, and landed on the floor. Holder was still catching his breath as he bent his back, and his palms were laid to his knees, supporting his tired posture. He was tired from running. He saw Jiji looking above with fascination gleaming on his eyes. It gasped in excitement as he scanned the whole place.

With that, Holder followed the direction of where Jiji was looking.

This was the first time to witness the look of the inside of the Central Kingdom.

And he looked like a child lost in the wanders of his imagination.

His mouth hanged open. His eyes shone, saying how he was amazed by this world.

Up above, there were butterflies flying above, coated in blue and green, peacefully fluttering their wings, sprinkling majicules to every corners of the kingdom. There were birds too—eagles and doves—but they seem to be busy, as if they were professionally working, not just freely flapping their wings in the sky. Above, there also floats blue and greenish crystals, radiating a beautiful illumination of aurora lights in the sky, even though it was morning. Sen crystals. Holder is sure that the crystals floating above were Sen crystals, for this is where the beautiful butterflies are collecting their majicules which they spread all over the kingdom. All those, were because to maintain the magic dominance of the kingdom—to make everyone healthy and free from anxiety of having scarce majicule in the body. Unlike Bevin. Bevin almost died from losing large amount of majicule in his body. Had he not bought Sen pill for him, he would be dead by now. He felt sad for the kid who had to suffer the cruel life in Hem. The place were definitely very different from the region of Hem. If Hem is a community of huts and bamboos and leaves and crops and mud and tired people from their everyday work, the Central Kingdom was a place with sparkles and glitters, concretes and bricks and paint, with almost foreign-like incredible things working for people who was smiling brightly to each other, not having problems if whether they would be tired or not. Everyone here in Central Kingdom has only small work to do, and there were tools and equipments and foreign moving objects made of metal which helps them in their works. These people, they work less but live more. The people in Hem, however, work more but lives less.

How unfair their system was.

A small jiggly thing snuggled at his feet. He looked at it, and saw Jiji looking at him, and pulling his pants.

And then oh s**t! He forgot the scheduled training! He was late! Five minutes. Guess he would be welcoming a punishment.

But the more problem he should deal is that . . . where would he find that certain blacksmith who would train him? Central Kingdom is huge. And he was just a small ant.