Chapter 6 - A Little Fun Never Hurt Anyone

            The hours passed by like the eyes of weary Gulf watchers. Everybody waited by both sides of the arch and people-watched until boredom fell. Pawla and Ivey had to be separated twice for playing rough and accidentally knocking passersby over. Akira was forced to grab Ivey's leather leash from her bag and hook it up before any more damage could be done. Ivey was withdrawing from the energy she needed to create.

            The sun eventually disappeared behind the edge of the horizon and left darkness across Alaska. A ringing bell reverberated in the distance. Groups of people from within the log walls cheered and clapped for the beginning of the Siberian dancing event.

            Eagle commenced a role call to make sure the group was still in tact while they waited for the time to come, as Akira and the others eventually wandered off somewhere closeby due to their impatience. Eagle ran the group like a captain and nobody took his spotlight.

            "Everybody find a partner!" Eagle shot Jessica a glare and raised his hand toward her with his palm facing the visible celestial bodies. They hung like chandeliers, or in rare cases, mistletoe for dancing lovers. He walked toward her with innocent intentions. "May I have this dance, Beautiful?"

            Jessica accidentally let a half smile slip from the compliment. She shrugged her shoulders and straightened her face back up. "I guess so."

            Akira nodded approvingly at Eagle, who just winked and took Jessica' hand toward the arena. Yura shuffled forward so that he was now side-by-side with Akira. He watched the two start to dance slowly with their hands clasped together at shoulder-length. Akira could hear Jessica say, "I wish you would've told me about this earlier. I would've worn my eggshell dress."

            Sooner than later, Stefano grabbed Sean without warning and brought him out to the edge of the giant circle of dancing. Sean didn't have any problem with it since Jessica and Eagle were dancing with grins on their faces, surely a first for everyone. They eventually joined those two and switched off partners; they had begun to square dance.

            Yura fell down to the ground on his behind and crossed his legs with a mild look on his face. Akira joined him and rested her head on the wooden planks they sat against.

            Yura let out an eager laugh as he watched Stefano and Eagle trade back to their initial partners. Eagle's face lit up when Jessica laid her head on his shoulder. "They sure are cute."

            "Who?"

            "Eagle and Jessica. Look at them." Yura nodded his head in their direction. They each had their eyes closed while their bodies swayed back and forth classily. "I wish we could be like that."

            Akira gazed off into the crowd with the words he just spoke repeating over and over again in her head. Eagle looked in their direction with his chin above Jessica' head and mouthed the words "come on" while throwing his head back in his own direction. Akira didn't notice. She imagined herself dancing with Yura, her head on him with her hands on his chest.

            The words spoke like a broken record that she couldn't turn off no matter how hard she tried. "I wish we could be like that."

            Yura undermined her concentration by standing up and grabbing his possessions. "Well...talk about awkward." He laughed sheepishly and blew a breath of air out with power. He walked away from the entire Minuet. "I'm sorry, Akira."

            Akira didn't dare to watch him slip away. All she could bear to do was listen to his footsteps pat the grass and dirt underneath him until they eventually escaped her way of hearing.

            She rested her head on her arms like she did on the bay and watched Jessica and Eagle fade into the crowd to soon be unseen. By this point, Stefano and Sean were break dancing in the middle of it all flanked by a couple of interested bystanders. They were all so happy. They were all having a good time with each other. "I wish we could be like that."

            No more time was wasted. Akira got up and left the Minuet without telling anyone where she was going. She felt for the second time already that she had done or been doing something wrong. Almost twenty-four hours earlier, the same thing happened, except she was on the transmitting end this time. She didn't feel worried upon leaving the grounds. She was just upset.

            Akira didn't necessarily know where to look for him in the first place. The location of his tent was out of her knowledge and she wasn't going to let anyone else know what had just happened. Her first step was leaving the area to find a map of some sort.

            She originally started walking down the stone path they all came from with her natural fixed gait. She stopped a man carrying spruce logs on his back held together by thick rope.

            "A wise-looking man." "Excuse me. Sir?"

            The man turned sideways and smiled tenderly. "Hello, Stranger. What can I do for you?"

            "Well, I...hmm." She pondered a way to set a question up. "Do you know who a man named Yura is? Tall-ish, green eyes, all of his teeth, fingers, hair...well, do you?"

            "I...can't say I do." He rubbed his chin and adjusted the logs so that they weren't slipping off of his shoulders. "I can help you find his tent number, but that's all."

            "Please do."

            The man puffed out his cheeks. Letting the air out, he walked distrustfully and hesitantly west of where they were facing. Once they passed the small bazaar playing some loud tribal music, they arrived back at the main entrance again. The field of tents spread before them in a seemingly formal layout. Akira recognized where she was, but grew curious as to how he could help her find his tent without knowing who Yura was.

            He suddenly took a sharp left toward the uninhabited dispensers that held a few placards and posters nailed to its sides. He stopped abruptly and pointed to a specific notice smack-dab in the middle. "Here's a list of all the tents. They're ordered by number and surname."

            How didn't I know that? "Thank you so much, sir." The man left while Akira scanned for Yura's name.

            Peter Linter, Alex Lire, Yura Litvinenko! Whoa, wait. Litvinenko sounds extremely familiar. Did my father ever mention that name? It slips right off the tongue, and I know exactly how to pronounce it.... Was there a Litvinenko that was a friend of the family? If not, he was an enemy of some sort...God, where did I ever hear that from? I would never ask at a time like this, of course, but now I've got a sudden urge to mistrust. I don't like it at all.

            Tent 227 was small. A black tent with only three threads of rope and no Velcro or zipper holding it closed. It looked as if it belonged to a supernatural highbrow, witch, or something similar. Akira expected to walk into a crystal ball on a pedestal with two dark hands hovering overhead.

            She walked in fearlessly. Yura was carelessly writing in a notebook with what Akira perceived as red ink. He didn't look back to see who had just entered his tent uninvited.

            "This won't be as hard as you think, if you came for the reasons I think you did." Yura continued to write in the notebook balancing on his lap. "You don't have to apologize for anything. I shouldn't expect everything to go my way. I like you, but I can get past it."

            Akira sat down at the far end of the interior of the tent and commenced into a knee-to-chest position. She could see the expression on his face as he wrote away. She still didn't say a word to him. She hadn't since before he told her what he told her.

            Yura noticed the fact that she still wasn't speaking. He quit writing and turned his head with a smile on his face. "I want to assist you. Your mother, everyone else you want to help...."

            Akira and Yura shared a glance for a good ten seconds. Her face rested expressionless. Yura's turned upset. "Are you giving me the silent treatment? You came all this way for me to make amends, didn't you? What do you want, for me to perform hara-kiri? I've got a sword, but..."

            His arms hung lifeless on either side of his body. Akira laughed under her breath. "Yura, don't get dramatic. Look, I don't even know if I can trust you yet, let alone give in to your possible feelings of spontaneous infatuation. I've got my reasons, all right?"

            He nodded knowingly. "I understand."

            "Good...good."

Akira - POV

            The rest of the Festival was just a tense collage of awkwardness. Yura and I settled back to the Minuet and danced with each other when everybody else we knew had already gone back. It was better like that, anyway. Alone. I didn't want Eagle to taint me of my freedom and my ability to bond with a gentleman as a friend and only that. We had a courteous man take our picture and hand it to us on the spot. I slid it in the inside pocket of my wallet and left with Yura still next to me as he was for the whole early night.

            I walked back to Jessica' tent and she was up that night, crying while hugging a pillow against her chest. I did a bit of research and found out that she had only run out of blue nail polish to match her favorite evening dress. I learned to ignore her petty reasoning and fall asleep beside her.

            I woke up at ten that bittersweet morning. I felt obliged to pack my things, wake Yura and Eagle up, and start heading home just like that. I could just start feeling how sore my thighs and feet were following the journey on foot with Yura. I wished and wished that Eagle had brought a car so that we didn't have to walk anymore. I didn't expect anything that happened upon awakening.

            The wind wasn't hostile when I walked to Eagle's tent. The air was much chillier than I had expected it to be, but the wind chill was only five below the actual temperature. The tents weren't visibly moving when I got Eagle and Yura up out of bed.

            I gave them time to pack their things and their tents while letting them know that I had allowed them both to come with me back to the cabin so we could figure out a strategy to winning over what I wanted and/or needed.

            Yura didn't seem too thrilled when I told him he could come. It was as if he had expected me to say yes. In all fairness, though, I hadn't grown any more skepticism when it came to his mannerisms. I just learned to accept that it was who he was rather than who I thought he was. I had nothing against Eagle, either. He was irritating, but innocent of any crime.

            It was eleven o'clock. I climbed aboard Jessica' car with me and Eagle's dogs resting in the trunk. Jessica was at the steering wheel, Eagle was riding shotgun, and I was positioned comfortably in the back with Yura on my left. I don't know how it came to that exactly, "that" being the entire group coming along, but it happened. Stefano was in a separate car just behind us, as Sean couldn't come due to his family visiting the area religiously.

            To be honest, I was excited for a good road trip. I hadn't been in a car in years. Jessica had channel 99.3, an 80's and 90's punk station, playing at an extreme volume that wasn't necessary while listening to "Don't Call Me White". Eagle took a liking to it and threw his body around with no coordination whatsoever. Yura looked at me as I looked at him. "I feel like I'm watching "1,000 Ways To Die"."

            ...A minute, at most, had passed since then...

            ..."In a way," I started an easy conversation and grabbed a juice pouch that I had gotten from the Whalefest out of my bag. I received everybody's attention. "I'm thankful you guys came along. At least to the cabin while I train."

            "No problem, Akira." Jessica replied with her eyes fused to the expressway headed north. "You're the first person I've ever loved."

            She said that with a great amount of nonchalance. She didn't even hesitate.

            I saw Eagle from the corner of my eye peeking back through the space between the headrest and the seat itself. "Oh, come on, Akira! Say "I do!"."

            "Bag it, Eagle, or you go in the trunk."

            He turned back around and picked up the small children's guitar lying still halfway underneath his seat, one that he had brought with him to use around the campfire. He had to unbuckle to get full access to the instrument still in it's leather case. I was curious, in some intrigued way, to hear him play for the first time in my life. I had never seen him hold an instrument before, and when he unzipped the box and laid the black, four-stringed acoustic loveliness on his knee, he was somehow complete. He suddenly wouldn't be himself without it.

            He took a spring-filled capo and placed it on top of the first fret. He started to play a song that he should have played back at the fire. It was something we could all folk out to.

            He started to sing in a voice that reminded me of a 70's country singer I'd never heard before. "Me and you singing on the train, me and you listening to the rain. Me and you, we are the same; me and you have all the fame. We need, indeed, you and me are 'we'."

            I watched him from behind with a familiar glint in my eye. The one I had when I saw my first crush, when I first saw Ivey at the shelter, even when Yura comforted me that night. My brain started to work again. The gears brushed the cobwebs out of their positions, grinded up mold and mucus, and started up like it used to do. My world was opening up to familiarity, and I was enjoying it all at once.

            I took every word into an "Eagle and I" aspect. I actually imagined him singing that song to me, sitting beside me at my windowsill with a cheerful expression on his face, each of his hands moving back and forth with suave, and a few metal bracelets on his wrists jangling as they did so. He was washing my feelings ashore, and that was something I hadn't considered to be good nor bad.

            The way we made up the day before...it was a clear silent agreement to let him go on the expedition with me.

            "Me and you singing in the park, me and you light candles in the dark. Me and you we are the spark, we'll watch that light just make an arc. To say someday, there will be a better way."

            I noticed Jessica occasionally turn her head toward him with a smirk I'd never seen on her face. She would occasionally whisper a few of the words that she obviously knew and then look back at the road. I don't know why, but whenever I saw her do that, it was like she was stealing my man. Thoughts like, "I knew him first" kept appearing, but I had never ever thought of him that way. Jessica, apparently, always had.

            She swayed along with both of her hands still on the steering wheel. She smiled for every second.

            While looking at her, I started to fall for her, too. I remembered when she cared for me two nights earlier. She was calm and collected, patient, caring, and even understanding. She talked to me, complimented me, hugged me. She took time out of her own sleep schedule to comfort me. That was my definition of real love, and she played the part so well. My fixation transitioned from Eagle to her.

            I soon started to think about us two together. There were so many things that just clicked when we talked. She made me realize who I wanted to be, who I was, and what made me who I was. She sat with me for a good amount of time and invited me into her tent for a place to sleep. Lying next to her felt special, even if I was a good two feet away and it meant nothing to her; it was cozy and tranquil. I will never forget that night.

            "Me and you are waiting for the dawn, me and you and all the places we've gone. Me and you sitting on the lawn, me and you just singing a song. A rhyme to shine and to pass the time."

            Yura's face was turned toward the window while keeping a beat with his tapping feet. He still wore those boots he had been hiking with, and for some naïve reason, I was preparing for him to pull a gun out of his bag and shoot me or something. No matter how hard I reasoned with myself, I couldn't help but think he was something he didn't seem. I knew I had fooled myself in the past by believing in someone like him, and taking another one of those chances was way too risky.

            He was cute, a bit sensitive, and even caring, unless it was all just a mask, anyway. I just found it skeptical that he wanted me to travel to Anchorage with him, and how he knew that was where I was headed. Of course it could have all been coincidental, but I hadn't any idea how fat the chances really were. My father believed in bad luck and kismet. I was raised to live with that fear, as well.

            "Me and you singing to all, me and you we're not so small. Me and you can stand up tall, me and you just having a ball."

            I set that fear aside. In that weird and wonderful moment, I loved all three of them at once.

            "Happy to be, you and me."