2020-06-15 Stoner Park
Stoner Park
Location: Stoner Park
Date and Time: June 15, 2020, around Noon
Summary: A little banter in Stoner Park, the most bleak park of Sawtelle.
Under the blistering noonday sun this park could really be a bleak and dismal place. Too hot and too dirty for anyone to really want to spend time here, the loneliness of this city planning disaster offered a more melancholy form of reprieve in the form of quiet decay. A short walk away from the busy streets of Osaka's business corridor, the cushion of houses and apartments allowed for some silence. Sitting under a dying magnolia was Ran Yoshida. Their glare that swept the apartment complexes and urban developments of offensive suburbia was half concealed by big metallic sunglasses. Clutched in their palms was a fourty-four ounce clear plastic cup filled three thirds full with milk blue-purple fluid of which jelly candies bobbed up and down. They clutched their prize possessively, as it only offered some small reprieve from the summer heat.
True, the Stoner park appeared bleak in the harsh light of the mid-day and clearly needed a touch of nature that even the internees of Manzanar didn't want to miss, and for which they had painstakingly dug a garden out of the dead ground of the Owens Valley. But it still offered some things for the community. Like the pool (a bucket or two overchlorinated), sports courts (in need of a new surface), and benches (masterpieces of hostile architecture). Ok, there was little redeeming for the place but the sheer, faint possibility that some day it might change. Or at least offer someone a reprieve. Or a place to sit in the sun. Though, neither was really the reason Riko was using the park at the almost hottest time of the day. Sports shoes on the feet, a loose grey T-shirt, and shorts clung to her body as she used the only part of the park that really was good: the paths. Because those allowed to jog along.
It could have been better here in more than a few ways. Instead of these sad magnolias and suffering Japanese maples, there could have been a healthy forest of coastal oak or cypress. Ran would nevertheless sit and appreciate the shade the wilting tree, kicking their feet back and forth in the dusty patch of dirt. Of all the sparse figures in the park, one seems to catch Ran's attention. Copper hair... and it didn't look dyed either. On the woman's first pass around the looping path, they'd get a glance. On her second she'd get a longer stare. Ran didn't look like anyone who spent too much time paying attention to other people. No, their aesthetic specifically looked 'self-absorbed'.
Or there could be a little basin dug with shovels into barren sand and given shape by skillfull hands that shaped concrete and rocks into a resemblance of a river. A hint of nature, even if it was artificial. It would just liven up the place... or dry up, gathering dead brown plant matter and only tell about its attempt to sooth tortured souls by its dead presence and the marks of who made it. Because in Rikos headspace, she tried to calm from a picture that didn't seem to let go of her or sleep the last night. Or rather two pictures. So she doesn't really notice the stare on the second round, but the third does give her pause, her feet slowing as she turns the head to answer the look for a few short moments. Then it retrns back forward. But the direction of steps changes soon after, around a light post and back the path she just came, towards that bench with the bubble-tea girl.
Ran hadn't yet been exposed to the horrors of Manzanar and probably thankfully so. Places like that were deeply cursed, even when hope persisted in fragile yet meaningful ways. On the third pass Ran gets curious enough to attempt something. Perhaps coming to this park was fortunate indeed. They give Riko a long assessing look this time, scrunching their nose.
Riko on the other hand regularly faced them. Not because she had a class trip or two there and saw the desolate state the few remains of the camp are now in. No, it was the nightmares that one of her ancestors had there that haunts her dreams. When people lived there, put into barracks, and facing the constant wind. Wind that wasn't down in LA today. Especially not in stoner park. As the eyes of the unknown girl stay on her even after the direction change, she slows, finally coming to a walk and ultimately a stop just some yards away from the bench, breathing faster from the exertion.
Ran kicks their feet in the dirt as the woman comes to a heavy breathing stop. Behind their mirror shades Ran contemplates. Only a fool ignored the circumstance of luck. Though Ran was yet unsure if this was a good fortune or a bad one. They take a long slurp from the cup they'd been nursing this whole time. "Kakko ee de." That didn't sound like English. In fact that didn't sound like the well-groomed dialect of Tokyo of Chiba either. The organic street slang of Osaka and Kyota sounded so terribly foreign here, even among Japanese predominant neighborhoods.
Ran reaches up to twirl a braid, contemplating their next move. "Who does your hair," even when speaking English the street-kid's accent was thick and their tone was like a sassy chirping cricket. "It looks so good and not even fake!" They crack their lips to reveal a yaeba smile.
Riko's breath stopped a short moment at the heavy dialect, her eyes darting up to the shaded eyes. As she parts her lips to speak, it's an American accent on the Japanese words. One that is pretty much local to the neighborhood and its expatriates. "Satsueijo," she replies the Film Studio. Only when Ran switches to English, she follows. "That's because that is my hair color. Some people just are natural redheads. Even Japanese. Rare but it happens."
Ran tilts their had at Riko's first reply. The urchin takes another deep slurp from their sugar milk tea slurry muttering: "Homna..." They kick their feet the space of contemplative silence. The boba tea the slurp from has a label on it that indicates that it was acquired just on the edge of Koreatown's nigh cyberpunk sprawl. "You must have some luck in that case." Some luck. Those words seem to stand out for some reason.
"To be one in a million Japanese people to have red hair. That is luck. I didn't say lucky," Ran corrects. "Lucky implies it is good, no? If you enjoy your looks, then I suppose it is lucky then." Ran catches Riko eying their drink. With two hands they hold the drink out in offering to her. "You want some?" Another snaggle-toothed smile. There was a smear of berry blue lipgloss. Just think! Riko could spoil her whole work out with just a sip of this blue potion! No one was ever intended to consume anything this sugary. "It's Taro, Omae," Ran grins. "Too late to get one all for yourself from this place now. It'd be dark by the time you got to the shop."
Riko lift a hand with a little headshake at the offer, the palm towards the drink. "Too bad, but I wouldn't want to steal your drink. Tare, hm? The idea of purring marinde into a drink is a little strange I must admit..." Trying to alm her breath a little more, she makes a few steps but then shakes her hair out a little. "Well, as an extra it helps to stick out just enugh so one could be thought to be more aerican. Who'd thought?"
Ran retracts the drink. It was Taro. A kind of sweet potato. Better than it sounded. "Hmmm. I do suppose blending can be good. If not a little boring. It's better when you can do both!" The strange urchin stands up from their spot a little, looking towards the dipping Sun. "Time for the beach," they seem to assert. Pursing their lips Ran prepares to give a parting warning to the fox. The Urchin's tone is like that of a teenager telling a ghost story to a younger sibling. "Don't go try to go getting your own one of these! You won't get there in time. It will be dark. Koreatown isn't safe when the night falls. There dangerous folks there that might also take notice of your red mane." Ran would start to scamper off after that. If Riko wasn't already out of breath, Ran might have been easier to catch.
Riko shudders at the claim that Koreatown wasn't safe after nightfall. Which in part was true for all of LA. But following a stranger wasn't really her thing at the moment, so it is more a stare from dark green eyes after the leaving girl, a tiny bit of confusion on her face. Who was that to randomly warn her?
