PartOne:

there are kids, and then there are idiots

"How about it? You, me, and the ferris wheel. Maybe even a bit of cotton candy." A young boy of about fourteen years scuttled around, attempting to talk to the busy carnival mechanic. The older woman was dressed in a light-blue denim-jumpsuit - one consisting of short cut-offs and sleeves rolled up and pinned to the shoulders.

Mika stopped herself from rolling her eyes and violently spun around to face the pestering kid. "I already told you, Jin, I'm too old for you." She tried to appear intimidating, but it was hard to do when she was only a couple inches taller than he was. Rather than getting the nervous or respectful reaction she would have liked, Jin instead cheekily smiled and leaned forward, attempting to bring his face closer to the nineteen-year-old's. His eyes crinkled into slits, long eyelashes brushing against each other.

The face, though not unattractive (it was quite rather the opposite), made the female technician want to grimace. A sigh escaped her lungs; since when did the happy-go-lucky kid she knew turn into such a greasy flirt? "Your smile is making me uncomfortable," she spoke honestly.

As if he was just aching to push her buttons, the child coolly spun around, brushed his hair back, and snapped, pointing at his crush. "I can't help it. You're so pretty, I can't not smile."

"That can't be good for you. You should stop hanging around me so much." Mika replied in curt monotone and began to walk off, knowing that he'd follow. They had gone through the routine so many times; she knew that Jin was almost impossible to shake off. She usually didn't mind it and answered all the boy's seemingly innocent questions, until he started to ask things like 'will you go out with me' and 'did it hurt when you fell from heaven.'

She took long strides (well, as long as her short legs could reach) over the brittle grass and dirt, making her way to the opening of the partly covered mechanic's tent. She had lifted the burlap flap up and was about to enter, but instead of taking a step in and seeing the various tools and parts in front of her, the young woman found herself confronted with a wall of human skin, muscle, and bones. "Oomph!" She squeaked.

Looking up, Mika found herself practically pressed against the body of Kai, her coworker and fellow mechanic. "Oops! Sorry," she took a step back, looking into the man's eyes - two pools of dead black that seemed to both reflect and capture. She couldn't tear her gaze away, confronting him with her own set of brown irises. "I was just going in to get the toolbox." Mika didn't know why she had felt the need to explain what was obvious; something about the guy before her made her feel awkward. They had only started working together the previous summer, and had not had any time to get to know one another better - there was always too much to do, too many things to be fixed. The only things she knew about him were what she had heard through the mouths of the other carnival residents - and none of those tidbits were very positive.

"Okay. I'm going to the ferris wheel; it's stuck again," he plainly answered back, holding up the wrench in his hand before sidestepping past the short girl and walking away.

Mika stood still for a moment, thinking. Something about Kai and his statement had pulled at something in her mind - it bothered her. She spent a few more seconds in furious thought before realizing that there was no way on earth Kai could possibly use a single wrench to fix a problem as massive as the carnival's gigantic ferris wheel.

She spun on her heels, whipping around to see his back a good thirty feet away. "Yah!" A loud bellow escaped her small lungs, startling all the customers within hearing distance. She had put all her effort into being heard - and it didn't go to waste. Her coworker had stopped, and turned to acknowledge the source of the shout. "Wait," She commanded in the same volume.

Mika wasn't sure if Kai would really wait for her, so she dashed inside the tent, quickly grabbed the rusty toolbox from among the rest of the clutter, and ran out after him, the metal tools clanking against the tin walls of the container. She had been so fast that Kai had only taken a few more steps before she caught up to him, panting. "I'm coming too." Although her lungs burned and her muscles tightened, the girl matched pace with the boy's strides, refusing to let him walk away from her.

He continued walking, but looked at her with (what seemed to Mika) a questioning expression.

"You can't handle the ferris wheel with only a wrench," she explained, almost in a condescending tone. She glanced at the tool in his hand with distaste. "There could be more things wrong than just a loose bolt."

He didn't answer, but looked away from her and kept his gaze on the path ahead. Mika fell silent as well. As she walked, she noticed that Jin had stopped following her - the kid had mysteriously disappeared sometime during the exchange with the taller man. Realizing this, the female mechanic smirked. If Kai had managed to scare the little pest off, she needed to start spending more time with the guy.

A perceptive and detail-oriented person, Mika noticed that as they walked past the various flashy attractions, Kai didn't seem to acknowledge much. That was why the slight turning of his head and the roving of his eyes when they passed the freak tent intrigued her. She watched his pupils dart to and fro, as if he were searching for something - or someone.

"Who are you looking for?" It wasn't as if she didn't know - Mika had heard her carnival buddies speak of Kai's interesting hobby: he was known to lurk around the tent and simply stare at the freaks. 'A literal freaky ,' as one of her close friends had called it.

As soon as he realized that his companion had been watching him, Kai turned his face away, looking at his hands, feet, shoulders - anywhere but at Mika. She immediately felt bad for making him feel uncomfortable, and resolved to shut up until reaching the ferris wheel.

A short while later, they reached the ride. The sun had started to set, and the sturdy black silhouette of the spoked frame stood against the gradient and color of sky. Mika looked up at it in awe, admiring the prettiness of such an attraction. Although it wasn't the largest ferris wheel, it was a perfect, almost quaint model for their rather little carnival.

Waiting in front of the machine was the operator of the hour, a vested young man who looked so terrified that Mika momentarily wondered if he had had anything to do with the stalling of the wheel. All it took her was one sharp glance before the guy started babbling, trying to explain how the wheel froze in the middle of a round. From what he spilled, Mika could gather that after a few unusual sparks started coming from the control box, the poor operator stopped the ride. Apparently when he tried to start it again, the gears just made an awful clanging noise and the wheel wouldn't turn. Looking up at the hanging carriages, Mika saw that most of the customers were still on the wheel, unluckily.

"Okay, let's go," she nodded to Kai and headed to the electrical switch-panel of the ferris wheel, located at the platform where the ride's operator controlled the machine. She wanted to get this fix done quickly; there were a bajillion other things that she had to attend to today.

She watched (nervously) as Kai screwed off the side of the panel and checked all the wires and circuits inside. Though she really wanted to jump in and help him out, Mika knew that she couldn't take charge of everything - and that Kai should have been more than capable of checking for incongruities and the like. "Nothing seems to be wrong here," he finally told her, running a couple of fingers through the front of his bangs.

"Nothing to cause the sparks?" She was confused. Usually something had to be off with the panel for it to spontaneously malfunction that way. However, she didn't have the patience to investigate further right now, and had to go onto step two of ferris wheel maintenance.

"Something could be wrong with the gears," Kai suggested what Mika had already been thinking. And without saying anything else to her, he walked back in the direction of the mechanics' tent.

Standing at the base of the wheel, Mika had to crane her neck back some ways before being able to properly catch sight of the gear wheel system located a little more than fifteen feet above the ground, attached to one of the vertical support towers located at the left and right sides of the wheel. The top of the tower touched the wheel's rim on a tangent, giving enough contact so that the gears would've been able to push the wheel and propel its revolution.

The mechanic inwardly groaned. Though the gears weren't at the very top of the wheel, the system of rungs that led up to them were still far enough to require a ladder, and once at the top of the rungs she would need a harness - or some very good balance. It was going to be a rather complicated setup that Mika simply didn't have time for.

However, as she looked up at the targeted gears, a plan began to form itself inside her head - the risks versus benefits were calculated, the confidence gurgled up from the bottom of her stomach. Maybe there was a way that would be less of a hassle - it was a crazy idea, but Mika told herself that all she had to do was trust in herself.

Kai returned, a ladder underneath his arm. Turning to him, Mika spoke blatantly and brusquely. "There's no need to get anything else; I'm going to climb up and check the gears on my own." Her eyes met his, and she set her jaw. Knowing he couldn't stop her, her coworker just stared - and Mika took it as permission to go ahead. She grabbed a wrench, an old rag, and a pair of pliers, stowing them all in her overalls' pockets. Disregarding any more laments coming from the standby ferris wheel operator, the short woman pulled her suspenders tighter and walked to the base of the support tower, where Kai had already placed the ladder. Stepping in front of her subordinate (she had been at the fair longer than Kai had, she reasoned), the young mechanic made bold movements to propel herself up the steel rungs. "Keep it steady for me," she called down to the wavy-haired guy before continuing to climb to the top of the ladder, balancing booth feet on the flat top.

Once properly settled at the top of the ladder, Mika set her hands and feet to work climbing up the metal rungs attached to the side of the support tower. Rather unused and uncleaned, they were dust-coated and a bit slippery, but the young woman was able to keep a firm enough grip and steady enough footholds to reach the top, where the gears sat. Now that she was close to the setup, she was able to see what the problem was. For some reason there was a key that had gotten wedged in between the small gears. As she got to work pulling it out with the pliers, Mika briefly (and bitterly) thought of what kind of idiot would have dropped a simple key while riding a ferris wheel. It wasn't even a fast ride! As soon as she was able to wrench out the key - the bent metal formed an upside-down "L" - she tucked it safely in the old rag and put it back in her pocket.

"I've fixed the problem," she called out in her small voice, preparing to descend from the elevated position. She came down without much trouble. Though she had gotten somewhat used to the initially dizzying height and cold metal beams, Mika felt a surge of relief as soon as her feet touched grass.

But all those good feelings disappeared as soon as she remembered Kai's presence. Suddenly embarrassed by her display of brash, dangerous action (she was supposed to be the responsible and rational one between them), the limber girl lost face, choosing to look at her nails, her shoes, her shirt - anywhere but at the boy. She became awkward - not sure what to say to the man - so instead, she faced the control panel instead, tentatively deciding to give the on switch a try.

The sound of the machine started up and slowly, the wheel before them began to turn again. "There, that's done," Mika noted aloud to herself more than anything, but gave the now-relieved operator a cordial nod before briskly walking away.

Unfortunately, she did not make her escape unnoticed. Kai followed her, ladder in tow. Though he was walking slower than before, his lanky legs still managed to keep time with Mika's quick little steps. She didn't dare look back at him, but she somehow felt his presence behind her - it seemed to be catching up and coming closer every step she took. Soon he caught up to her, matching pace. Though she was tempted to turn and look at his face, the nervousness in her prevented it.

"That was interesting." He said it nonchalantly, as if bringing up a topic as basic as the weather or the color of his shoes (they were a scuffed, dirt-stained off-white).

His simplicity unnerved her a bit. Was he trying to insult her? Just making a comment that didn't need to be answered? Mika couldn't read his expression, but she felt embarrassed - the thing she needed least was a coworker poking fun at her for yet another thing that made her stand out. "It's weird, I know," the short woman grimaced, quickening her pace.

He effortlessly kept up, and turned his head to stare at her with his black eyes. "Why do you say 'weird' like it's a bad thing?"

The female mechanic whipped her head around and stared back, slightly agape. It was the first time the young man had said more than one un-work-related line to her - and not just a lame "okay", "yep" or statement of something obvious; he had asked her a question that actually seemed to require an answer. They were actually in conversation.

Mika blinked, snapping out of her astonishment and thinking about Kai's words. She floundered around looking for a proper reply to him, trying to put her thought process into a coherent sentence. "Um. I don't know. Weird just.. isn't normal."

His expression didn't change - it was as if he had ignored her answer and was waiting for a better one. And Mika couldn't answer again because she didn't have a better answer. So they just spent thirty seconds looking at each other with blank faces and closed mouths - both expecting the other to speak, and neither willing to talk first.

Finally, unable to bear the awkward silence, Mika broke eye contact and looked down into her pocket instead, from which she procured the rag and the key she had discovered. "Oh, yeah, um, here." She held the object out to him for inspection. "This was what was causing the gears to stick."

He peered at it for a second with a still unreadable expression. Then, without saying anything, he plucked the key from her fingers. Apparently he saw no reason to stick around anymore and simply his heel and left, stowing the key in his own pocket and walking away.

His leaving was uncalled for, and left his shorter coworker confused, if not just a tiny bit miffed.

Her displeasure carried over into her steps, which quickened as they traversed past the rows of booths. Mika decided to discuss the found key with the ticket booth vendor, hopefully getting new signs up front about being careful with ones' possessions.

While she was in the midst of her thoughts, a familiar shining-eyed, cocky-smiled angular face popped up in the front of her field of vision and stopped her in her tracks. "Hey, you're just in time," it spoke. "I need your help re-rigging -"

"I can't, Chen; I'm busy. I've got something to talk to the ticket vendor about and I'm on my way there right now. Why don't you ask Kai," she cut the darts operator off with a sad smile.

"Come on, Mika. You know the guy's a grade A weirdo. No way in hell I'd ever ask him." He huffed, running a hand over the back of his neck. "Whatever, I can wait; I'll just do what I can for now. But come on over when you've got time. Please," he added after seeing the warning flash in his friend's eyes.

Nodding, Mika lifted a hand in farewell as she began to walk away. The corners of her lips didn't quite reach their full potential as she gave out a half-hearted smile, her eyes flickering with doubt. And before she could stop herself, the words came out of , under her breath. "Is being weird such a bad thing?"

from your (adjective) ticket vendor:

ing ferries wheels and ing fatal plot flaws though. this chapter took forever to write because of them. criticism and comments are always desired and appreciated. i need to know how to make this fic better. 

this chapter, like the one before it and many others that will follow, is an introductory one (if you haven't guessed already). i'm inching into the plot for all these, setting up character qualities and gradually bringing in the extensive cast of characters. if you ever get confused, feel free to ask me questions through comment.

i also can't believe my comeback took longer than both of exo's. i need to write faster.