Mini-story: "Forgiveness", Mini-story: "Forgiveness"

[Brent Dax]

Forgiveness by Brent Dax

[edit]Forgot to mention: this story may not make much sense if you haven't read Memory. The link for it is in the next paragraph.[/edit]

Yes, this is in fact a sequel to Memory, which a lot of people apparently thought was good or something. ;^) I doubt I can live up to that story again, but we'll see. The original disclaimers still apply:

In reply to:

---

This is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a speculative mini-story, in that it involves MT characters several years in the future (perhaps five), but doesn’t follow a storyline Fred would ever possibly take. I was told that this probably wouldn’t be welcome in CW, so I’m posting it here.

Warning: This story involves grave bodily injury to one major character. It is not described graphically, but if you don’t want to read about such things, please don’t read this.

---

I was originally planning to save this for my 250th post, but I got impatient, so pretend I've just made Addict. ;^)

--

There were very few sounds in the room: the soft whir of computer fans, the low rumble of the heater, and the quiet sounds of pencil meeting paper. Tap, swish. Tap, swisssssh. Tap, swishswishswishswishswish . . .

Nodding to himself, Piro lifted the pencil from the paper and moved on to the other eye. Upper line . . . lower line . . . iris . . . pupil . . . highlight. . . . He was just about to start shading the iris when he heard a knock at the front door.

Setting the pencil down, Piro reached for the cane leaning against the drawing board and stood up. Pain flared in his right knee, but the artist ignored it, instead leaving the office and walking towards the front door. Click . . . click . . . click . . . click . . . click. Reaching for the doorknob, he opened the door.

“Good to see you again, Largo.”

--
The lines came fast and furious. Upper line, lower line, iris, pupil, highlight. Upper line, lower line, iris, pupil, highlight. No time for shading—shading required patience, and Piro was getting impatient in this little room that reeked of antiseptics.

His arm was just about the only part of his body that wasn’t hurt. Bandages, splints, and casts crisscrossed his body. He could move, but not a great deal. Every breath set off cracked ribs; every shift in position fired pain receptors throughout his body. And forget about walking—both legs were broken.

Yet that’s all he wanted to do—walk out of this hospital. He didn’t care anymore if he stayed in Japan or went to America—he just wanted out of this room . . .

He slammed the sketchbook shut, wincing with the pain shooting up his left arm.

“Why did this have to happen? Why me? Why did Largo have to put me here?”

The smell didn’t answer.
--

Largo was surprised when he saw the interior of the house. It was spacious, a mix of dark hardwood, blue carpet, and deep-colored drywall—a little pocket of America in Japan. A semicircular staircase led to the second floor.

“You too, Piro,” he said, grinning.

“Come in,” Piro invited, “it’s freezing out there.”

Indeed, Largo felt fifteen degrees warmer when he stepped into the house. (When did I start thinking in Celsius?) It had stopped snowing yesterday, but the weather was still cold and cloudy in this part of Japan.

Piro closed the door behind him and turned around.

Click.

“Let me take your coat,” he told Largo.

“Sure . . . thanks.” He shrugged the coat off and handed it to Piro.

“Just take a seat in the living room. I’ll be right back.”

Largo took a few steps and crossed from the hardwood of the hallway—

Click.

—to the carpet of the living room. He looked around—

Click.

—and decided to sit in one of two red—

Click.

—chairs. That clicking was so distracting—

Click.

—and so incriminating.

Click.

A moment’s pause as Piro put the coat away; then the clicking of cane on floor started again.

Click.

A short reprieve as he passed over a patch of carpet.

Click.

Click.

The carpet of the living room ended the sonic torture.

Piro walked to the other chair and sat down in it, leaning the cane against its side.

--
“Today’s lesson will be held in the computer lab. Follow me.”

The students had thoroughly learned the phrase ‘follow me’ by now, so all of them got up from their desks. A few grabbed backpacks, but most realized that they would not be going far. The group walked down the hall, down a flight of stairs and into the lab.

The lab consisted of twelve tables with four computers each on them. A teacher’s station with a computer stood near the door. Cables were all neatly tied away. Sunlight flowed into the room, but at an angle that wouldn’t cause glare on the screens.

A stack of Quake III Team Arena CD-Rs was piled on the teacher’s station, and Largo picked them up. “You are to install this game and play it. Form games and teams as you see fit. Converse in English throughout.”

He handed a disk to each student as they entered the lab, avoiding their eyes. A few of them started murmuring to each other about Great Teacher Largo’s strange behavior the past few days. Largo didn’t complain—they were doing so in English, after all.

Miho and Ping were at the back of the group, and even without looking at them, he could sense their misery. He handed them their disks and sat at the teacher’s station, watching the students and thinking about someone miles away.
--

“So, I heard about your victory in London. Congratulations.”

Largo seemed to snap out of wherever his mind was. “Huh? . . . oh, thanks. It wasn’t that hard.”

“Sixteen rounds of three genres and then a Quake IV deathmatch with Miho? That’s hardly a cakewalk, Largo. The ’net was predicting she would win.”

“I only won by a single frag,” Largo replied. “That’s hardly a resounding victory.”

“You weren’t supposed to win at all. A close win is better than a loss.”

Largo shrugged without replying. Piro frowned. When did he become so passive?

--
“Two months?”

“That’s what the nurse said. They can move you to a nicer room in a week, but until then, you’re stuck here.” Largo walked around the hospital bed. “Dude, I . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say . . .”

Piro closed his eyes, not responding.

“Look, I . . . I have to go to work. Class starts in twenty minutes.”

“Go,” Piro said tonelessly. Largo nodded and left.

Piro was too miserable to reflect on the coldness in his voice.
--

This is stupid. I came out here to talk to him for the first time in three years and we’re sitting here in silence.

Largo forced himself to speak, saying the first appropriate thing that came to mind. “How is Kimiko?”

Piro seemed to become more animated at her mention. “She’s fine,” he smiled. “She’s in town today—apparently an intern scribbled all over a few files and she needs to re-record them. She said to relay her apologies.”

Largo nodded, smiling a bit. “Tell her it’s quite alright. I’ve had to abandon friends on short notice sometimes.”

Piro seemed to be about to reply when a two-tone sound from the office got his attention. “That’s an e-mail. Hold on a second—I’ll be right back.” Piro grabbed his cane, stood up, and started walking towards the office.

Largo visibly cringed as soon as Piro’s back was turned. He was walking, which meant—

Click.

—the slow torture of the cane—

Click.

—was back.

Click.

--
It was ten minutes before Largo left the chair. He walked around, noting the students’ skills and giving a few pointers now and then.

“The first rule of Quake is that if you stop, you die.”

“The first time you’re shot, turn and start running backwards. That way you can fire at your opponent without stopping.”

“The railgun requires a very accurate shot. Try using the shotgun next time.”

“Look for people camping the flag.”

“Guard doesn’t make you invincible.”

“Excellent use of the proximity mines.”

“When you see a flash of color at the edge of the screen, pay attention—it could be another player.”

Nevertheless, the students noticed the lack of enthusiasm in his voice, and more whispering ensued.

Finally, Largo reached Ping and Miho, at an otherwise empty table. He bent down next to Ping as she fragged herself with the rocket launcher. “The rocket launcher is a terrible close-range weapon, Ping.”

“<Oka>—er, okay, Largo-sensei.”

“And drop the ‘sensei’. If you want to be formal, it’s ‘mister’ in English.”

“Sorry, Largo-mister.”

“Er...Mr. Largo.”

Ping’s face tinged red. “Oh. Sorry, Mr. Largo.”

Largo smiled despite himself as he moved to Miho’s station. She was racking up frags at an incredible pace, yet her frag count was in the single digits. It only took a moment to see why, as she was soon dropped back to the main menu.

“How many times have they kicked you?”

“Eight.”

Largo frowned. This wasn’t right—she didn’t deserve to be shunned.

He turned to the class. “Wrap up your games. They end in five minutes.”

Whispers spread across the room, but Largo ignored them.
--

Sitting in the chair and setting the cane aside, Piro shook the screensaver off and opened his e-mail program. The top message in his private account was from Yuki.

Piro double-clicked on the message and started reading it. In reality, though, his mind was farther away, back in the living room with Largo.

What’s going on with him? Why is he acting so miserable?

“Because of something I let you put off.”

Piro blinked and tilted his head up, to the top of the monitor. “Wow . . . I haven’t seen you in . . . well, at least two years,” Piro said.

Seraphim was perched on the monitor, with her laptop open on her thighs. “That’s because you’ve become a self-regulating case, Piro. You’ve been doing well on your own. But I let you get away with this for far too long.”

“Get away with what?”

Seraphim sighed. “You don’t remember? Well, let’s see if I can call it up for you.” A few keystrokes on her laptop, and—

--
“Piro, you’re making a big mistake.”

“Whuh?” He opened his eyes to see Seraphim sitting on his stomach.

“Largo feels terrible, and you’re making it worse.”

“If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here,” Piro argued.

“He knows that, Piro. You don’t need to rub it in. He wasn’t trying to put you here.”

“Yeah, he was just trying to kill me,” Piro grumbled.

“No, he was trying to kill a zombie,” Seraphim replied, sighing. “I warned you that something like this would happen if you stayed around Largo long enough. You put yourself in a dangerous situation,” she reminded him. “You have no right to blame Largo or Miho for what happened to you—and believe me, their own blame is sufficient.”

“I guess,” he admitted.

“I know you can’t forgive Largo yet. I’ll let you get away with that—for now,” she conceded. “But at least try to be nice to the guy. He didn’t really want you to get hurt.”
--

—was it?”

Piro started at the unexpected voice of Largo. “Huh?” He glanced back to the top of his monitor, but Seraphim was gone.

“The e-mail—who was it?” Largo asked.

“Oh, that was Yuki.”

“Yuk—oh, the ‘Piro-sensei’ girl.”

«‘The Piro-sensei girl’ is on her second popular series.»

Largo blinked a couple times before responding. «I hate it when you do that.»

“Hey, it’s better than changing <in the middle of a sentence>,” Piro grinned.

Largo grunted. “What was the message about?”

“She was returning a script,” Piro replied. “We’re critique partners—we check drafts of each others’ work and give advice.”

Largo nodded, taking the chair in front of Piro’s drawing board. He glanced at the sheet of paper and its half-finished drawing. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Just random characters,” Piro replied. “Today’s a day off for me, but I felt like drawing something. And I was waiting on Yuki’s reply before I started drawing that comic, so I couldn’t get started early.”

Piro reached for his cane, but stopped when he saw Largo flinch. He sighed and let his hand drop to his side.

Seraphim’s voice seemed to whisper in his ear. “You know what you need to do, Piro. I leave it to you to do it.”

--
Largo started the setup process on the two other computers at Miho’s and Ping’s table. While they were installing, he wrote and compiled a quick-and-dirty mod. When the installation was finished, Largo set up the computer across from Ping as a team deathmatch server, installing the mod.

Moving to the computer across from Miho, he started the game and connected to the server.

Largo has entered the game for the blue team.
Miho has entered the game for the blue team.
Ping has entered the game for the blue team.

Slowly, the rest of the students connected, only to find they were all on the red team.

Miho glanced up from her computer in amazement. Largo nodded to her and turned his attention to the screen.

“3. 2. 1. Fight.”

Hoshi almost dodged Largo’s rocket.

“Blue leads.”
--

Piro’s sigh told Largo that the gig was up—Piro knew how uncomfortable he was.

Damn.

“Largo . . .”

“I’m sorry, Piro,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry I—“

“Don’t be,” Piro interrupted him.

“What?”

--
When Piro awoke, the window was dark. His sketchbook and pencil were sitting on a table next to his bed.

It had been two weeks before they could move him, but the room was much better. Many of his more superficial injuries had healed, but one knee had been shattered and reconstructive surgery had only been partially successful. He would be able to walk again, but only with a cane, and he wouldn’t be able to run.

Largo had fallen asleep in a chair next to him, as he had taken to doing recently. He looked very tired, and Piro suddenly felt sorry for him—he had been working hard to support both himself and Piro, thanklessly.

As Piro watched his friend sleeping, a thought occurred to him. They would be in Japan for a long time, and Piro would be bed-ridden for a while, leaving Largo as the only one able to communicate with the outside world. And he was missing an important skill to survive in this country.

Piro grabbed his sketchbook and pencil and flipped to an empty page. In his all-caps, illegible handwriting, he began scrawling notes on how to teach Largo Japanese.
--

“Look,” Piro demanded. “Not a day goes by when I don’t wish my knee was back to normal, when I don’t wish I didn’t need to take eight hundred milligrams of Motrin to get farther than my bathroom.”

Largo’s expression was a mixture of confusion and guilt. He started to say something, but Piro wouldn’t let him.

“But you know what?” Piro asked. “That’s a small price to pay. I have a beautiful wife, good friends, and a job I never dared to dream of. I’m happy, Largo, and I would have flown away from here and destroyed my chances at that.” He shrugged. “All in all, it worked out pretty well.”

--
Kaori was railed by Miho.
Largo: 570p /v/1n9!
Hoshi was in the wrong place.
Largo: |)4m//.
Ping was gunned down by Kaori.
Kaori was telefragged by Ping.

“Blue wins.”

Largo pushed back from the computer and stood up. “Class, we took” —he glanced at a clock—“five minutes to win a fifty-frag game. And we were massively outnumbered. Remember not to let your grudges guide you, or you will be defeated.”

It was time to leave, and the students filed out of the room. Miho and Ping were last again, but Miho paused as she filed by Largo.

“Thank you,” she whispered.
--

“Largo, you made a mistake. But I forgive you.”

To say that a weight was lifted off Largo’s shoulders would be a cliché—but an accurate one, for that was the sensation he felt. For the first time in four years, his guilt was gone—and it was a wonderful feeling.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

[nuvan]

Wow.

Not really much more that can be said, except that I hope you will write another sequel.

Extremely Amazingly Astoundingly Excellent work. This is by far one of the best fanfics I've ever read for anything else i've read (Comic/Manga/Book/Movie/etc...)

[jeffknight]

*CROWD CHEER!!!! CLAPS!!! WHISTLE!!!*
I GIVE IT A TWO THUMBS UP

[Lost_Esper]

Oi, Keep it coming!!! An awsome follow up to your last one! You have skiils, that is undesputable!

-Me

[Caduceuskun]

Excellent.

[MageArcher]

started off strong with a well-built theme, and took it from there. from the style alone it is easily recognisable as a sequel to memory, and does it justice on nearly all fronts. you have a strongly emotive style of writing, and this is exactly the right forum for it.

in short: more. i demand it.

[Derian Hatcheter]

Alright, Brent Dax, you had better come up with another one by the time you reach 250, or stop posting at 249 until. kidding

Very good, and a worthy follow up to Memory.

(Crap, I'm approaching 500. Better start thinking of something.)

[Absalom Draconis]

Pretty good. This is good enough to be drawn up as a bit of a "sequel" to MegaTokyo in fact, though goodness knows if anything like this'll be the real ending. I wouldn't put it completely past RL Piro though.

[cutelildrow]

*sniffle sniffle * *bawl*

*just reaches for more tissues, too choked up to talk*

[Nixoxygenate]

Nore fan-fic goodness. Congrats again, Brent!

[Psieye]

And so the name Brent Dax was remembered in the SD Hall of Fame as a great Extrapolator.

Heh, I almost feel like an old forumite, seeing (forum time-wise) younger talent take up positions I 'retired' from. Especially when they do it better

Excellent! Ah, the bar will have been raised very high by the time I can freely spend time on the forums again after my exams. What will the future hold? Whatever else, may it hold more outstanding Speculative Mini-Stories by Brent Dax!

[Lazyass]

Exelente! Brilliant! I haven't read something this good for ages!
I know I might be stating the obvious.....but this is real talent!
I hope your write more and go far.

[Saotome35]

Kick-ass dude! I really like it make more sequels for those waiting on the forum boards! I will be one of those waiting!

[ErekLich]

Wow. You have real talent. For the sake of the world, make something of it.

[codepoetica]

And I thought Memory was good. Wow.

You wield the word masterfully. The smell didn’t answer. BAM. How much more alone can you get.

I'm glad for the lack of speculation on Kimiko, and her relation to Piro. Keeping this a Piro-Largo relationship(, with the comparison to Largo-Miho), is what seperates these pieces from fanfiction.

Beautiful work! I'm looking forward to what you come up with on the 250th.

[Tohya]

Very well done, You needn't of worried about keeping up with 'Memory' you surpassed it.

[Momoku]

Oh wow, you are amazing. You have a real talent for writing.

[elyscape]

Whooo... And to think you didn't believe this was as good as Memory... What foolishness, Brent. What foolishness.
Too good... Must counter...

Wow. That's amazing. Fricking amazing.

I'm also approaching my 250th post (this makes 185) and I've got something I'm working on (see my loc) that will (hopefully) blow all your socks off. But not like this did. Arrrrr...

Go, Brent. Go and make good things. We can only hope your talent is used to maintain the balance, rather than shift it.

I apologize if my ranting confused anyone. Heh.

[GreenBirdR0x0rZ]

That's amazing.

The only suggestion I have is to maybe make the jump cuts a little more obvious. The first one threw me for a few seconds.

And the smell line was great.

[Ike Bart]

Nice work again with the story focusing on Piro and Largo. I wish I could practice my FPS skills playing against the Blue team in this story. I'd be lucky if I could frag Largo.

[AncestralHamster]

Damn fine work, sir.

[Brent Dax]

Thanks for all the comments, everybody. 'Tis a real morale booster to see people enjoy your hard work. :^)

...but c'mon! I'm good, but not perfect! ;^) I must have messed something up--what have I done wrong? Don't be shy, it'd be pretty hard to hurt my feelings at this point...

[McFinnigan]

Both this and 'Memory' are archived on my site as worthy additions.

Have some stars (;

McF

[Buttnose]

awesome... I loved Memory, and now Forgiveness is added to my favorites.

[Psieye]

If you REALLY want something negative, then I guess I could pick on the cliche of assuming Yuki will become an artist But even that's a minor point because creativity isn't necessarily about avoiding cliches - it's about what you do with storylines

I guess other things can be attributed to shock character development and long-term extrapolations.