• Chapter 2 Camping
    Robyn checked out of the hotel the very next day. He actually did stay the night, but it felt like he left for the whole night. I didn’t feel him around at all. It was like he was just like a patch of dandelions or a group of children on the street that you don’t bother noticing. Or even when you’re tapping your feet and you don’t notice. I felt like he was there, I just didn’t bother to notice him.

    But I did see him leave town.

    He was just walking. Everyone knew about what happened yesterday and were too afraid of approaching Robyn and myself, so they just watched him leave like he was a superhero leaving the citizens behind, or like he was one of those Europeans just walking by. But everyone knew he was leaving. And I think I was the only one upset.

    I ran up to him, and, like yesterday, he flung around and his claymore was at my shoulder again. I felt my shoulder go numb.

    Robyn groaned. “My god. Are you following me?!”

    I shook my head as fast as I could. He stared at me like he didn’t even know me and said, “Don’t follow me past this point. You’ll end up killed if you do.”

    He was threatening me! He must have been. Why else would he try to scare me…?

    I heard cries and screams coming from behind me. My feet felt like something had slashed them. And I heard a long heavy laughter. I tried to turn around, but Robyn, using that huge foot of his, kicked me to the side.

    “Go, kid! Get out of here!” Robyn yelled. He flung his claymore down to his feet, prepared to fight.

    A shadow flung from underneath the ground and flew up into the air. A man with dark hair and red eyes appeared. He had a long grey cape that twirled behind him, and a claymore was on his back. The same one as Robyn’s.

    “Long-time-no-see, Robyn.” The man laughed.

    “Robyn!” I called, “Who is that?”

    Robyn had ignored my question and focused on the man. The man laughed and said, “Who’s the boy?” He looked at me, and the minute he did I felt something inside of my body. Like I was being possessed. I could have sworn that worms were crawling through me head.

    “Oh, I see. He’s your little toy.”

    Robyn leaped at the man with a speed I’ve never seen before. He swung the claymore at the man once and in no time, the man vanished.

    “We’ll meet again.” He yelled.

    Robyn looked annoyed. Like he’s been through a sense of dé·jà vu for the fourteenth thousandth time.

    “I always do that…” Robyn whispered.

    I approached Robyn slowly.

    “I hate that man.” Robyn says, like he’s said it many times before. “The same thing happens over and over again. He shows up every now and again and he starts to antagonize me. I attack him not even a minute while he’s here, and he flies off.”

    He looked up like he just wanted to shout, “What do you want with me?!” or even “Leave me alone, you cold blooded…!”

    “Sorry,” Robyn murmurs. “I said too much.” Robyn started walking away, leaving me behind. His long hair just flowed behind him. His claymore just stuck out of the sheath on his back, and the yellow and red sun waved over his face as he headed north of town. He looked like a great samurai.

    I followed.

    He whipped around and I thought he was going to try to kill me with his claymore again, but he didn’t take it out this time.

    “Would you stop following me, dang it?!”

    Robyn continued walking and I followed. Soon we were out of town and in the woods. The sun was still out but it scared me to know that I was about twenty feet away from Robyn so that I could get killed by that man that follows him around.

    I wondered what that man meant when he said I was Robyn’s toy. I really don’t understand those middle-aged folk-jokes. I didn’t see the man’s face too well, he didn’t look much different than an ordinary man. The only thing was his laughter and his cape. Luckily his laughter wasn’t maniacal, just downright loud and annoying.

    Robyn didn’t have a cape. I wondered why he didn’t. Anyone who’s cool has a cape, and a really neat one too. Robyn was an interest to me, I wanted to know more about him. I wanted to know why he was so mysterious. Why he always looked so sad and determined. He was always frowning, like he was sad or upset or something, and he always walked so differently. Like he was after something. I wondered if he was just mad at himself for walking around on his own.

    “Kid, go away.” Robyn demanded. He didn’t turn around or anything really. He just stopped and let me catch up a little then said that. “Go, or I make you go.”

    “I can’t go back now. The sun is setting! And I’ll be all alone.”

    “Fine!” Robyn yelled back. “But tomorrow you’re leaving! You got that, kid?”

    “My name’s not kid!” I yelled. But Robyn ignored me and just continued walking.

    “Keep up or you’ll get left behind.” He said. He always says something then just makes it a sentence. He never just stops for a moment for a comma or something. He’s so demanding.

    I followed him until we came to a stop. The ground was flat and off- trail. There were too many trees in the area to see the hiking trails. Robyn threw the claymore into the ground and started building a fire. He tossed dirt and wood into a pit that I helped. I gathered rocks and made a circle with them. Robyn had some kind of little red stick that made a clicking sound and a little flame hovered over the tin. I pointed at it.

    “What is that?” I asked.

    Robyn stared at me for a minute and started to say something then just said, “Nothing.” He quickly put the tin away into a pocket.

    “Well, if it was nothing then why did I see it?”

    “Pardon?”

    “I mean, you said it was nothing, but I saw it so it is something. Unless it’s actually called nothing, then that’d be a weird name for something. I mean, who calls an object nothing? Why would they~?”

    Robyn put his two pointer fingers on my lips and said, “You really do talk too much.”

    Without thinking I immediately said, “Are you gay?”

    He laughed that maniacal laugh and said, “No, I’m not. It’d be interesting if I were, though.”

    I walked around the little campus for a while then came back with a stick.

    “Hey, Robyn? Do you think I can work on my swordsmanship with this stick? I want to be good like you.”

    He stood up and said, “Enough said. I really don’t care what you do, but all that stick is good for is beating the crap outta somebody.” He sat back down after looking and observing at the stick.

    I looked at the long and thick stick in my hands. And I put it down on the ground. I sat down right next to Robyn while he poked at the fire he started.

    “I’m really a wimp.” I moaned. “I’ll never become good right now.”

    Robyn stood furiously. “Shut up and get that stick ready, kid.”

    “My name’s not~!”

    “JUST DO IT!”

    I stood up, just like he ordered me to, and picked up the stick. He said he’d be right back and walked away. He told me not to sit back down or else. I wanted to ask about “or else” but I kind of didn’t want the answer, so I didn’t bother asking. He walked into the woods and made me wait for about twenty minutes for him to come back. I couldn’t sit down because he was so tricky that I didn’t know when he’d be back, and I didn’t want to know what’d he do to me if I sat back down. But after twenty minutes, I figured it was safe enough to. I mean, I’m used to walking around and stuff, but what’s the point in standing if you have to wait forever?

    And so, when I sat down on a stump, that I didn’t realize was there, I started thinking. How old was Robyn? Why did he let me come with him? Why is he like himself? And what was with him when I started talking about that fire tin thing? These are all questions that made me a little bit upset. No, that’s not it. I was more, disturbed. I felt like he was hiding something. Maybe something happened in his childhood and he doesn’t want to remember? Then why would he travel? Was he running away from somewhere? What was his problem? Whatever it was, it had something to do with that man. I didn’t know a lot about those two, but one thing is for sure: they are not friends. But then, why chase after each other? Why not~

    WHACK!

    Pain rushed into my head as I started to bleed. Blood rushed down from my hair and into my face. I tried avoid it going into my eyes. I used my hands to wipe away the blood.

    “I told you not to sit down, kid.”

    I turned around to see Robyn smirking like an evil escort. Like the kinds you hear in ghost stories or something. In his hand was a huge stick much bigger than the one I had. I stood frantically and tried to back away from him.

    “R-Robyn, what are you going to do with that stick…?” I asked carefully, like I was trying to approach a scorpion with seven heads.

    He walked towards me slowly with the stick in his hands and said, “Never let your guard down, and never drop your weapon.” He jumped at me with less than half his normally speed and I sprinted at the stick I had before. Robyn twirled around and leaped at me again with the stick and tries to whack me with it. But I go into defense mode and block his attack using my stick. He’s really strong. When I blocked his attack, he backed away a few feet. He had this huge smile on his face…

    “Geez, kid. I thought you were actually a wimp.” He said in a ditzy way that made me sick. “I was really close to having some fun with you, kid. Try not to lie next time, okay?” And he sprinted off at me again and I was able to see an opening to swing at him. He jumped at me with his arms over his head and I saw where I could hit him. I swung at his stomach and made the perfect hit.

    I can’t believe I found out why he wears such heavy clothing…

    “Eep, that’d hurt somebody any day.” He said as he rubbed his stomach.

    I found that I was rubbing mine too, for the fact that it was growling. I tried to ignore it, but that was the least that I could do. I love my karma. It wasn’t really I was ignoring it, but more that Robyn heard it.

    He giggled. Or so I think it was a giggle. It was more of a much smaller laugh than what he usually does.

    His picked up his claymore and flung it in my direction. I thought he was going to kill me. Instead, it hit something. An animal. It was a lizard looking thing, but it was edible.

    “Will that do?”

    * *

    Robyn’s cooking skills were horrible. He didn’t know how to put anything on a stick to roast. How did this guy live? He also didn’t know when it was burnt or when it was actually edible or anything. I wanted to ask about it, but instead, I ignored it and cooked it myself.

    It tasted good! It tasted really good! Especially for something that looked like fried turd. When I handed Robyn a piece of it, he just looked at it then took a bite. He waited a while then took another bite. Then another. Then he stopped eating it then put it in his pocket.

    “Does it not taste good?” I asked. Robyn shook his head.

    “No, nothing like that.” He said in a higher voice. “I don’t need too much right now. I ate before I left your village.”

    “It’s called a town! Not a village. Geez, you really are weird. You don’t call me by my name, you call a town a village…”

    He poked around at his pocket. “Here, Kowaii.” He said. A little squirrel thing came out of his pocket. It was cute, but it wasn’t really a squirrel.

    “Kowaii just loves it when I feed her warm food.”

    “What is that thing?” I asked.

    Robyn looked at me like I offended him and said, “‘That thing’ is called a hamster, genius.”

    “My name isn’t genius it’s~!”

    “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Your name isn’t kid. Fine, Moriko.”

    “Stop it!”

    Robyn laughed, not manically like he normally does, but he laughed.

    I looked at him carefully, observing his face. Trying to understand what was behind that mask. What was it about him that made him so weird?

    “Hey, Robyn?”

    “Hmm?”

    “Why are you traveling in the first place?”

    He stopped playing around with Kowaii and looked at me with a serious face.

    “Why do you want to know?”

    I was surprised he actually answered.

    “Because there’s always a reason for something, and you don’t seem to show much of why you’re traveling. Travelers always have a goal or goals.” Which is so true. “I just want to know why you’re here.”

    Robyn didn’t answer to that. He poked the fire a bit and said, “I’m going to sleep. If anything happens, if you hesitate to wake me up, I’ll poke your head off.”

    “I’m sorry, did you say you’ll poke my head off? That’s even a threat.”

    Robyn whipped around and said, “Don’t underestimate the poke.”

    He picked up his claymore and stuck it deep into the ground. He sat down and leaned against it. I don’t see a point in telling him of any danger that would occur, he’d sense it at least.

    “Oh, yeah.” He said, “Before I forget, the reason why I’m traveling is because I’m just starting over. That’s all.”

    I started to ask about that but instead kept quiet. I then opened my mouth and said, “Have you ever met anybody that you were so in love with, you’d marry them?” But when I looked he was sound asleep. I swear I could hear him silently snoring.

    I stoked the fire and stayed up all night. Or, at least I tried to.