Hoa came from a sedate Korean family, the kind that her friends enjoyed watching just for the weirdness value of a foreign culture in action. She was always artistic, always thinking, doodling on her jeans (which made her mother angry in that Korean-mom way, a lot of bluster but rarely any true consequences), pretending that sharpies were tattoo guns. She had one older sister and one younger brother, and was content to be the middle child so long as everyone left her to her own devices.
Nero ... Nero. Was aptly named though he didn't know it, had never known his father except that he had abandoned him and his mother. Nero's mother was, for lack of a better word, a raging zealot. She did not tolerate hooliganism or cursing, or in fact art or much creativity at all in her house. So much so that when Nero's elementary school was going to visit an art gallery nearby, she refused to let her son go on the trip for fear that they would be showing him 'heathen naked sculptures' and the like.
That the museum in question had a 'Religious Paintings of the 14th Century' exhibit there as well seemed to mean nothing to her.
Hoa and Nero had grown up near one another, but only when they were at school did they get to interact freely. Nero had to be back home immediately following classes, and his mother who had to work (hard she claimed, doing what -Nero didn't know) called him at his house every day at the same time. Should he not answer... there would quite literally be Hell to pay for it.
Nero attended Church every Sunday, though he wasn't really paying much attention even as a child. Hoa's family was loosely Catholic as well, but hardly would have gone to the same Church as Nero's mother. By the time the pair were in Junior High together, they were old enough to have managed to sneak away from school once in a while just so Nero could enjoy things like other kids.
And frankly, even when they were caught, the truant officers usually waved them off because they'd encountered Mrs. Bowden before. One of them commented (mysteriously to the kids, because neither had seen it) that she was rather a lot like the mother in Carrie, only a little less flakey. Had Mrs. Bowden known that her son was associating with 'foreigners' like Hoa and her family, she might have clamped down and home-schooled the boy.
It was when Nero turned thirteen that something started to happen. Hoa noticed it, but didn't comment while anyone was around. His brown eyes had turned rather red, slowly over the summer. That, and when he allowed his temper to flare, he seemed to actually smolder. His hands began to show an odd side effect, which even he was concerned over, that he had blisters form quite frequently.
Hoa would take a quick look around the class, to see if anyone else was noticing the effects, when he was bothered by a particularly tough math problem. But it looked like no one else in the class had seen, or perhaps they were too involved with their own work. This went on for the first few weeks of 8th grade, and into their first break session.
"My mom isn't going to let me go to camp, I mean, I haven't even bothered asking. She'll come up with something weird like 'there are demons out there and you'll get bitten by one' or something," Nero muttered, as they came to the corner where Hoa would turn left and Nero turned right. "I'd still like to go, but there's just no way."
"It's not fair," Hoa said, biting her lip and blinking at him with her big black eyes. "But I know, she'd get too worried. I mean... I wish she'd let you try out for baseball, I know you'd be better at it than those jock idiots."
Nero laughed, they knew it all too well - the boys that had tried out for their baseball team this year were slow, and even in their coach's opinion they should have gone for football instead. But Nero would have to endure both the next two weeks as well as any given afternoon alone: the school camping program would have Hoa out with five dozen others in the nearby camping grounds in the mountains, and even though he had a little more freedom in the afternoons knowing that his studies might keep him at school an extra hour or so, he wasn't allowed to try out for games and sports, nor other activities.
He was good at almost all of them. Chess, debate, basketball, even leatherworking and the like. But his mother insisted on having him home before she got there from work, and that meant the "five o'clock call" every time. "Why can't I just get a cell phone," he muttered, digging his hands into his deep pockets, and making Hoa pout for him.
"It'll be all right. I don't suppose it would be too cool if I called you from camp, huh?"
Nero laughed out loud, "no, no way! Not only would you be a girl calling me, but you'd be breaking camp rules too! You're supposed to be out in the 'middle of nowhere' for that!"
"Pff, nowhere's for nobodies." Hoa looked at the sky, it would be a nice two weeks, Summer was lingering and Fall hadn't quite bitten into their California locale just yet. They were near the central Valley, but along some strip of mountains that frequently got ignored. They were already in the middle of nowhere, to hear Hoa's sister complain about it. But Hoa, holding out her phone for emphasis, looked at her hand and then at Nero.
"But... if you had a phone... you could set it on 'vibrate' and she'd never hear it..."
"But you don't have an extra phone, do you?"
"My brother just got his taken away," Hoa said, "he was being a 'tard."
"Your folks'll notice it's missing," he said, glum.
"No, not if I just tell them why I need it," Hoa said. "Look, your mom's a nutter, but mine isn't. They know I hang out with you, if I can get you the phone I'll show you how to use it, and you can keep it somewhere safe. And if she finds it, well, then I'll get to talk to her when I call you."
Nero stood there, dumbfounded, and blinking. If Hoa didn't know better - and at this point she wasn't sure she did - she'd say he was steaming. She jumped over to him, glomped him for a moment, and then sped down the street to her house. Nero stood still, continuing to blink, as his hair sizzled.
***
The next day, Friday, was when the students who were able were headed out to the camp. They had bundled up their stuff, some with full on backpacking equipment but most with a sleeping bag and a rucksack or two (and one or two with expensive luggage that they complained would get dirty), and were waiting on the curb for the busses which would take them up into the hills.
The camp wasn't very far into the mountains, in fact it was a reasonably nice tourist destination when the other more popular places were full up for the season. There was a lake, complete with fishing and innertubing and rapids, kayaking and the like; it also had a nice set of timeshare cabins, those were being used by the school for the next couple weeks.
Hoa stood nervously and waited for Nero, he had to convince his mother that he'd forgotten something at school and needed it before his first class, so he bolted out of the house and was panting by the time he reached the school. Several busses were pulling up - they didn't have much time.
Hoa explained the basics, and switched the little buzzer to 'off', so it would only make a gentle and almost imperceptable humming vibration. It would be so different from anything he'd ever heard in his own bedroom, that Nero was positive he would recognize it. She showed him the phone list, should he need someone else to talk to, and how to contact her on her own phone. This one, her brother Tai's, had a "Dragonball Z" logo on it, while hers, well, Hoa had gone through several white plastic holders, drawn on all of them, and started selling them to other students.
Finally, they had to part, and Nero went to class. About an hour later, he felt a weird sensation in his back pocket - the phone. It was just between classes, perfectly timed, and it was of course Hoa trying out the system. He figured out how to answer, she was already bored, they laughed nervously and hung up.
The weekend came achingly slow, Nero took the typical ribbing from the sports-jocks and slipped away alone this time. It felt odd to him, because he and Hoa had walked together for so long. He realized that ... well, he wasn't old enough for that. He couldn't be. But...
But she was pretty. Prettier than her sister, and most of the girls in their age group. She held herself with simple style and grace, she didn't fuss about herself like some other girls. Nero was a little angry that he had never complimented her.
As he walked home alone, sullenly, he realized that she was always there with a big grin or a quick snarky remark, a buffer between the rest of the world and his miserable life. He'd never missed anyone so much, as Hoa on the first afternoon without her.
***
He had to find a reasonably good place to hide the phone, while he was at home. He thought about just leaving it on the desk - but he knew perfectly well that his mother would find it and toss it, or yell at him and make him sit and pray for an hour.
Not like she didn't already do that. He schleped himself home and answered the "five o'clock", his mother either didn't notice or didn't comment that he was somewhat subdued and quiet. She'd be home in an hour and a half, as always.
So in that time, he busied himself, and found a spot fourth-drawer-down, far back corner under the raincoat bag, it was folded up and unused until the Winter, so it wouldn't be a place that his mother would go digging until then. He'd never given her any reason to root through his stuff - but she did it anyway, on random occasions.
Sometimes at one in the morning, sometimes just before leaving for work. But the phone stayed there, he'd hear it easily because the side of the dresser was right next to his bed. He would bring it to school on Monday. He dearly hoped that Hoa would call. While he was waiting for his mother to come home and the inevitable prayers and lecturing, Nero studied and then did his chores. They were busywork, nothing more: dusting? There was no dust, ever. He broke out the vacuume and was in the middle of the hallway when his mother got home. And this time, she was actually even smiling when she saw her son diligently at work.
So that night went well. Nero had told Hoa all about his daily schedules at home, and she kept track of them somehow - her brain was squirmy like that. She knew whether they were going to have salad or rice, or if he had to clean the oven. Truth be told his mother was uninventful enough that she had kept to the same schedule of normal events all her life, and was not going to be put off from them now.
Obviously, Sunday morning was not the time for Hoa to call. But she called late in the evening, the first time she could really get away from the camp counceling and activities. They wouldn't take away phones, but they didn't encourage any down time to use them.
Silently the phone went off, and Nero slid his hand into the dresser, muffling himself with his pillow and comforter when he answered.
"I know it's late, how are you?" Hoa said, equally muffled. "I'm supposed to be asleep but there's two other girls calling their friends too, so I don't think it'll matter."
They chatted, Hoa gave a quick rundown of the stuff they expected the kids to do all week, from hiking and swimming and learning crafts to even making some kind of stage production which she was eager to start on. "I wish you could be here," Hoa said.
"I... I wish I could too..." He fumbled for words, "... thank you, Hoa, you're the best."
He knew just the beaming-smile that she wore, right then.
***
It got harder to tolerate life, for Nero, as their school year drew to a close and summer was coming up again. He wanted to force the issue of socialization, he was fourteen now and all the kids his age did things like played basketball and went to the desert for camp outs, and movies.
Movies, now there was something that Mrs. Bowden was adamant on. It was as though the Devil himself would come through the screen and throttle her boy - not that she wouldn't herself, if she discovered that he'd seen one or two on the sly. He'd kept Tai's phone, Hoa's father managed to meet up with Nero and arrange it, mostly because Hoa kept her cool about it all. She explained carefully to her folks just what it was that Nero was going through at home. While they weren't going to perk up and say 'come live with us!' they would never turn him down, either. Tai liked him, though he had to get his own phone again.
And of course, explain just what "Dragonball Z" was. Time passed, and Nero grew taller and odder. His hair, by the next year, had also started getting redder where it had once been quite brown.
All the while, too, Nero's 'glowing' problem seemed to get worse. So much so that finally some other students noticed it in Chemistry. They suspected he had a lighter on him, or something. But it wasn't, when he was having a bad day he just smoked like that. He didn't smell like tobacco, or pot, or even incense, he just ... well, burned.
Finally, at the risk of her wrath - because he knew by now that there wasn't any coming from any God or Devil - Nero stuffed his backpack with a sweater, lunch pack, and a towel, and said, "I'm going out, I'll be back in the afternoon," before his mother could leave for work.
This was Summer, a time when there was precious little for Nero to occupy himself when he was little - and now that he was almost fifteen this was the kind of thing that would come up in any home. He had to get out, somehow. All he wanted to do was walk around, maybe even go to the library, or the mall, he'd been dragged through that little mall ever since he was young, always to the same sedate Sears store, never ever to the more interesting places that it held.
Yeah, this time... After he'd gotten around the corner and had a good pace for walking, he headed toward the mall. He hardly knew the way, but he'd put some effort into learning what streets might head where. He pulled the phone out of its hidden pocket in the backpack, and called Hoa.
"I'm heading to the mall, you want to meet me there?" Nero asked, and there was a long, stunned silence on the other end. "Hoa? You there?"
"I'm here, I'll - I'll go, meet me by the bus stop, okay?" She said, and hurriedly got out of 'lazy Summer morning' mode. She dressed quickly and kissed her mother on the cheek as she rushed by, but took her own pack with art supplies and assorted 'things girls need'.
She got there first, the mall was slightly closer to her street than his. But Nero was enjoying his walk anyway, and Hoa took it in stride when they started walking together. They'd hardly walked apart, for so long. Nero had told her, finally just a few months before, that he thought the world of her. Nero was pleased then to hear that Hoa couldn't bear the thought of being around anyone else.
They weren't outcasts at school, though 10th grade was hard on both of them because it was filled with so much stuff to learn. They each had their own schedules, but by now everyone knew they were an item. Not just best friends, not just a casual thing, they were together. Once in a while some other guy would try and horn in on Hoa, and she would just laugh him off. If it ever got more serious than that, Nero would blow a gasket and scare him off with sudden strange pyrotechnics.
People thought they imagined it, it was easy to think that 'seeing red' while angry was an explanation. But it wasn't, Hoa knew.
While they were walking around, most of the stores hadn't opened yet, Hoa asked, "did you know you're glowing?"
"Oh crap not again," Nero said, and they stopped briefly to look at a reflective window. Nero stared at himself, and sure enough it was like his hair was on fire or something. He patted his head down, but it didn't stop.
Hoa started laughing, and Nero growled. "It's not funny!"
"It totally is," she said. She hooked her arm into his, and dragged him away from that window over to another. "Oh if only I could buy that," she looked at a dress, and Nero tilted his head. As the stores started opening, he was just as fascinated by their contents as she seemed, because honestly he'd never even been inside most of them. Sometimes if he was very good, his mother would stop at one of the fast food places and pick up a burger or whatever, but that was years ago. It was like she didn't feel like rewarding him for being a nice son, though it was harder and harder to do.
They reached one shop, and Nero's face grew serious. He stood blinking, his eyebrows started to fume.
"Oh my god, you'd look so good in that," Hoa said, of the mannequin in the Hot Topic window. It had a leather corset-like top, and some strappy belts strewn across its waist, and Nero couldn't tear his eyes from it either. But then he lowered that red gaze.
"I'll never be able to wear that, I ... And I can't afford it anyway, I mean it must be expensive."
"Probably, but - oh, well you don't get an allowance, that's right, but hey. I do." Hoa produced a limited-amount credit card that her family had been using instead of pawning cash off on their kids.
"But Hoa, I can't wear that anywhere!" And though he was still stuck on the attractive piece he wedged himself in the door of the store as Hoa tried dragging him in.
"You can at least try it on," she said, and that did it. He melted into the dark, loud store, and stood with his best friend in the world, as she chatted with the clerk. That clerk couldn't have been but a few years older than they were, but he already was covered in dark tribal tattoos and had several silver studs in his ears, nose and eyebrow. Obviously bewildered, Nero's expression brought a sudden laugh to the clerk.
"Don't let her corrupt you too much, kid, but by the looks of your hair and those funky contacts, you'll keep up." He took down one of the smaller outfits from its high shelf, and passed it off to Hoa. "I'm pretty sure she can figure this out, I don't know about you," he laughed again.
Nero was about to protest, he was supposed to try on clothing, but Hoa was coming in with him? Hoa laughed too, the dressing room was small but not so tiny that she couldn't examine how best to get the leather outfit on her friend. Nero, while he was still definitely enamored of the idea of being close with Hoa, was also still his mother's son: when she tugged on his button-down shirt and pulled it off him to put on the corsetry, he was blushing furiously. But he didn't say a word, and she was proud of him. He stuck it out, and finally after ten minutes of poking and prodding and tugging and buckling... She announced they were 'done'.
"Come on out, I want Jonesy to see you," Hoa announced, bounding out of the dressing room and into the main part of the store. It was only a typical day, there was maybe one other couple in the store, and they were possibly in their twenties trying to look cooler than they were. So Nero knew he didn't have much of an excuse to stop, and stepped from the small room. Beside the two dressing room doors, there was a short hallway with an employees' room that had a full-length mirror on it. He turned to see himself, almost for the first time.
No, it was for the first time. He knew that he'd changed over the last couple years. His hair and eyes, the way he stood. This leather outfit matched his hair, almost perfectly. The belts would look better over shorts - or, Nero inwardly snickered, over a kilt, but he'd never be able to swing that.
"Oh sweetie you look great," Hoa said, "we'll take it!" She slapped the plastic card from her wallet onto the countertop, not even once wondering whether she had enough to buy it.
Dumbstruck but more because he did think he looked pretty good this way, Nero merely nodded gently, still appraising himself in the mirror. It would probably take a little getting used to, and plus he'd have to figure out how to put it on himself, but ... Yeah, it looked good. He wore it out from the store, putting his shirt in his backpack and refusing a bag. Obviously, any bag coming home would be a target for his mother's curiosity and anger.
***
It had neared the end of Summer before Nero's mother figured out what that oddly strong scent was coming from her son's closet. When she discovered it was a leather corset, she of course, quite predictably, flipped her lid. Nero had been out in the yard digging a hole big enough to plant a shrub she'd brought home, when he heard her shrieking voice from his room upstairs.
He sighed, knowing this was inevitable. But in the last two months, he'd also become something more. He'd learned to focus - his mind, his energy, his body - in ways that his mother couldn't possibly understand. Instead of letting his temperature get out of control, when he was angry, he stored it up, imagining a place where all his power rested, and then later on he would stand outside on the back porch or past the corner of his house, and let off a gout of flame from his hands.
Or his eyes.
Or his mouth, that one surprised him. He belched what tasted like ash, for a day. Hoa also complained about that one a little...
So this day, he let this ire be tucked away to the brimming point. His mother was practically foaming at the mouth when he stood casually in the doorway of his room. A moment went by before she noticed him, and thankfully she wasn't nearly strong enough to tear the corset into pieces. Before she could speak clearly - it always took a while before she was calm enough to even just say 'go to your room' - Nero pushed himself off the doorframe and grasped the corset into his still-dirty hands.
"Well now that that's out in the open, I'll just get back to digging that plant hole for you," he said. He knew it wasn't going to work, but he didn't know which of her tactics to be on guard against. So he just let her scream at him.
Eventually, by the time the sun had nearly set and the hole remained half-dug, and Nero had gone through all the motions of a normal day (fixing up the dinner table, cleaning the kitchen counters, making sure the trash was out) she'd been following him around the whole time and was exhausted. Her voice was raw, and it looked like she might have even burst a blood vessel.
Nero cleaned his hands up, took his corset and went to his room, after taking a long obvious stare at the kitchen. It was time for dinner, he was hungry. As he went upstairs he heard her muttering to herself, but she did stick a pair of quick dinners in the microwave. Nero put the corset on, and the pair of shorts which he'd gone back to buy a few weeks later. His mother hadn't realized that when he said he was working for someone to get some pocket money, that this was the results.
"Here I thought you were being responsible and working--"
"Since when is earning my own money and doing back-breaking work irresponsible? I wanted it, I needed money." He paused, still standing near the dining table and watching as his mother folded her hands in a tight grip - a mockery of prayer at this point. He sat down, put a napkin over the corset's front (he didn't want to get anything on it, after all) and tucked in to his own dinner. He looked up and said quietly, "you'd rather I have stolen it? Or stolen money from you to get it? Or begged someone else?"
"But this is shameful," she started, but Nero held his hand up and stared at her with his intensely red eyes. Perhaps it was that she hadn't truly come to grips with the fact that her son had crimson-red eyes - eyes the color of embers, flames, the 'devils' color. But she froze, swallowed the bite of food still in her mouth, and stopped speaking.
"It's shameful why? I look good in it, it's a good fit. I don't go out and cause trouble at night, I've got a proper girlfriend that I want to be with for the rest of my life--"
"What?!" Mrs. Bowden exploded, "that's not right for such a young boy - you can't!"
"... of course I can, why would you say that? I'm sixteen years old. I've known Hoa since forever, and I know she loves me too." Maintaining this calm wasn't going to work for much longer. "She bought this for me, anyway."
"Some friend - some whore - bought you clothing, and you dress up for her? That's ungodly!"
Nero sighed and let his eyes flair with color, "mother... Hoa and I are friends, my best friend. My only friend, I think. And she's a beautiful, wonderful person and I never, ever want to hear you call her a whore again." The air around his face cooled momentarily, but the glare that he fixed on the woman was apt to bore a hole into her.
There was a long pause, and Nero noticed his mother's hand was trembling as she put her glass of milk to her mouth. After a moment, she emboldened again.
"You aren't ... homosexual then?" It was almost like she could hardly pronounce the word.
"Why would you assume that, because I'm dressing different?" Nero said, eyes narrow, and wondering how she'd react to that. He was slightly dizzy, and he knew that his hair had started to rise with the heat in him.
"Well the deviants that do one, do the other," she quipped - he hadn't heard that in a while, because the subject hadn't been brought up.
"So first I'm dating a whore, and now I'm gay..." Nero glanced around the room, "... Mother, I'm straight, and I like wearing something interesting. You know, me. My style. It's not yours."
"I know that all too well," she said, gruffly. "It shouldn't surprise me, you taking after your father."
She'd used that as an insult so often that he knew this was the last of the discussion he'd be willing to hold back on. He knew what was coming next, the tirade about how all 'that man' was good for was taking away her good name and blah blah blah.
Nero stood up, collected his dishes and put them into the kitchen sink, and while his mother was still busily yammering, she'd found her second wind of the day apparently, Nero left the dining room and went to his bedroom. He fixed up a pair of travel bags that he'd originally intended to use for camping - should he ever be allowed - and filled them with the clothing and personal supplies he knew he'd be needing.
And then he walked out of the house while his mother was washing her own dishes.
Hoa - female, age 17, 'gifted' with magical sight but not a witch (her name is pronounced 'wah')
Nero - male, age 17, pyrokinetic wizard (half blooded)