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Her name is Moon River. She’s one of many girls who received that name right after birth by luck, encharged with the task of always looking after the then recently-colonized moon.
In ages past, and not that long ago, if Moon River’s hard history classes payed off, traditional values controlled the societies of the world. Religious stories, folklore, the beliefs of what was right for those conservative, old people shaped up the lives of the next generations before the birth of science. She heard of vestal virgins in ancient Greece, she heard of nuns and sisters from modern times...
She supposed that since after the war, when all those things just died, society just had to produce one more category of pure female guardians.
It was pretty stupid, really.
Moreover, those pure little girls were spoiled with anything anyone could desire as long as they were good company to their visitors. Not the strictest of lives after all.
She was born in the poor countryside of the United States. She remembers her childhood of merry times in the fields and rivers, and her voyage up to the moon, even though she’s not supposed to. Moon Rivers are, after all, born anew when they set foot for the first time on the noblest of all satellites. Their life rotates around the moon, just like the latter does around the mother planet.
Life on the Moon was amazing. The peaceful quiet, the beautiful and oh-so-nostaglic view of her homeplanet, the everyday visits from a high class public who would gift her pearls and gems… But it was still a jail of sorts.
When she was first taken to the palace-sanctuary where she would spend the rest of her days, Moon River had run around in a fit, escaping the hands of her caretakers, breaking jars and tearing down paintings in every corner. They’d eventually caught up to her, hoisting her up in the air, and just succeded in doing so because she was laughing so hard that it started to get very hard to breathe.
She lived her life leisurely. She had good food, clothes, a room of her own. She desired to leave, and yet, not really.
And then David appeared and everything burned.
-
Moon River stands in the Executioner’s office entrance. It was such a pain to point out exactly where the office would be, as it was known this team operated all around the world and beyond, but she knew she had the pre-requisites to be considered a dignified customer, even if her request was a rather odd one. Her tiny fortune was more than enough.
As an elegant woman living in the dark side of the moon, more so being a Moon River, it would be a scandal if it was known she was looking for such services, she thought as she pushed her long hat over her eyes. Well, public opinion was never really her number one concern.
It was mid-autumn in the North hemisphere, and if they were all living half a century ago it would be freezing. But then again, ever since the peak of the global warming no one on Earth had ever needed a coat. It was a pity really; she owned such fashionable long coats back home.
Only in the moon or Mars could a person feel the cold now. That is, if they could even afford the trip up there.
Casting her grey eyes upwards from the huge dark-tinted sunglasses, Moon River caught a glimpse of her home. It was sundown in New York, and a shy half-moon peeked from in-between the old, rusty buildings like a cautious child.
“If I keep on stallin’”, she thinks to herself, her delicate gloved fingers dancing around the solid door, “I’ll certainly make a fool of myself”. The two hidden cameras had not escaped her sight.
In fact, she didn’t much care if she was in this shady corner of the universe. Her real fear was the certainty that she’d meet Mondo again, and with him the impending feeling of her heart being squeezed tight. But she’d yearned for this moment a long time ago, even if they would meet today for another reason other than get re-acquainted.
She composes herself, sticks her pointy pretty nose up and inhales sharply. Then she pushes the door in and climbs up the stairs in her hurried pace.
-
So, Mondo looks like he has changed too much.
The audience room in Bryan’s Executioners Office is small and dimly lit, and the ceiling fans work lazily. Everything is strangely quiet.
As she sits across of him and his team, her heart breaks up a little. She can almost feel her eyes shine too bright; not because she’s requesting the death of her lover, but because Mondo’s right there, and yet he isn’t.
He’s wearing such a form-fitting suit that it would make any eyes wander. Moon River can’t help but entertain the idea of them walking down the street side by side, with their arms linked like when they were just children. It’s just he would match her so well in so many ways…! There’s also a new thing about him, and it’s bizarre to think of pointing it out, when it’s so blatantly obvious that his left arm was now a huge, bulky, dangerous prosthetic.
He also leans back on the wall behind his superiors, the boss and the vice-president – Mr. Roses and Ms. Squall, respectively –, and side to side with a young girl who came later to her audience, stumbling in and fumbling with her strappy purse (so much so that she forgot to present herself), with his arms folded in nonchalance. But his eyes were wide and attentive. Even if he was at such a line of work, and even not having seen each other in years, he still cared for her.
Moon River tells the Executioner team she wants David dead. She had rehearsed this moment so many times, dreamt with it even, but when she finally pronounces the words she fells calm, deathly calm.
Mondo seems intrigued, he recognizes the name. Moon River remembers that Alice, one of David’s past lovers, had become a target of Mondo’s some time ago.
Of course, the poor soul didn’t live to tell the story.
Of course, it was better that way.
Alice, with her crazy ideas and kind heart, was turned into a monster by David. Her chess companion and french teacher’s mind was distraught and maddened by that fiend of a man, and she was kicked out of his palace and back to the Earth, to her sister’s place.
Mondo had yet to look away from her since she came into the room.
Moon is aware that she must be doing the same thing to him, from the way the other people in the room seem tensed up. Not the girl, though. She looks a bit dense, clinging to Mondo’s silver colored arm in hopes of catching the man’s eyes so he could explain what’s going on. Moon River smiles a little, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
She had been apart from her childhood friend for a long time. Only the two of them knew where the other had come from, Mondo Zappa knew her secret, Moon River knew his.
They had been through the same in the past, their homes broken into and their families killed or taken to slave their lives away. They had found solace in each other, two poor kids who dreamt of a better future together, never knowing if they would eat every night, had their first time together under that big cherry tree, closer than anyone else in the entire world, galaxy, universe.
But then she had been scooped up by an old man, her godfather in this life of opulence, who took her to the dark side of the moon and taught her how to be who she was now: an elegant, refined lady whose behavior was meant only to entertain those rich men. A modern day geisha, a luxury doll. She fulfilled her destiny as she came to the moon, but she was also raised to marry this kind gentleman, which she ended up doing. He died shortly after, thank God.
Although she could never be truly spiteful when thinking of herself and her position, because she knew her ways, her beauty, and her merry personality – never allowing herself to be just a ghost of a person. She was always lively and honest, and her success came from her own merits.
But she knew that just as she was trained into becoming a fine lady, Mondo would be still on Earth being raised as an assassin. Every short piece of news she could gather from Earth helped her keep up with his misadventures. That tender boy became a towering man trained to kill in a movement as swift as water. She would most likely never see him smile again.
Plus his body is now all corded muscle and sharp ends, like the marbled statues of Adonis, a deity in flesh and blood.
“Oh yeah, that’s right…”
What made her finally break the eye contact and look down to her hands was the sudden memory of the reputation Mondo carried along with that of an unprecedented killer. Actually, one such reputation that outstanded the latter, so many where the girls who gossiped about him and looked forward to spend their time and money with him. She would have never have expected that he’d become a gigolo of sorts, but such was this man’s way now. She knows he only does what he desires.
However, she still felt uncomfortable, even if it indeed was none of her business. Mondo, like he always did before, without a fault, noticed her and just seemed to know.
And then, he said the price to pay for this job would be just a kiss. It made her sad to see him use such a trivial thing in front of his team, in hopes of being suave, like he was used to do this, like he thought he knew what she wanted.
But still, Moon River wanted David dead, and she had missed Mondo dearly, so of course she agreed to such a stupid request.
He went to the moon right away.
-
It turns out the mission was a failure.
-
Moon River wanted David dead for many reasons.
For one, evil bastards don’t deserve to live. Especially evil bastards swimming in money and powerful contacts who could bail him out of jail before he even put a foot inside a cell.
David was also just so mean to girls. She had pitied him initially, allowed herself to go out with him and trying to get to know the real man behind the cold womanizer he played himself to be in the parties he threw on his palace in the moon.
David’s past girls, much like Alice, had all met dreadful fates. David’s enemies misteriously vanished or appeared dead, their corpses drifting about in space, often all chopped up. A shiver runs up her spine as she remembers the time she caught a severed foot drifting about in his property.
Such an amazing man was actually a power-hungry demon. He wanted to own the universe and eat it up.
But Moon River had spent years of her life learning how to survive in dire situations, so she played her cards carefully. She managed to fake an urgent back pain, and claiming the best doctor would be on Earth, she could go away and arrange for his assassination. She just had the time to grab her makeup and her favourite designer dress before her quick departure.
But David was too powerful, too smart. Even Mondo, executioner extraordinnaire, failed his mission, and came back to Earth with a rigid stance and a harsh grimace. He was so upset.
Moon River was surprised, but couldn’t even muster up the strength to show it. “Where will I go now? I can’t go back”, she thought. David would know it had been her to request his assassination, and he wouldn’t just let it pass.
Mondo immediately offered his place. The Asian girl besides him mumbled something like ‘but our place is jam-packed already’.
Moon River hesitates. She thinks for a good time.
But she just says yes.
Because right now, she would only feel safe near him.
-
Leaving Mr. Roses and Ms. Squall behind them, Mondo, the young girl (Mika, she said with a big smile and a bright blush) and Moon River all left the old building and went on to the man’s apartment.
Mondo didn’t seem to care about showing off his beautiful Japanese katana. It was an impressive sword with a hilt so long it almost seemed to scrape the ground. ‘Gekkou’, it was called. Something to do with the moon, she recalls.
His and Mika’s home was just across the Manhattan Island, and the Japanese girl was very pleased to shower her with the details of her life as she hovered all around her, of how she and Mondo would never walk by foot to their place and catch a flying cab instead, and of how he was always so mean to her when she wanted to have ice cream after work.
She made Moon River smile and Mondo’s temper start to show, as he told her, as calm as the ocean, she could damn well go get ice cream anytime she wanted that he’d never care. Mika’s eyes positively twinkled as she left them behind to strut over to the nearest ice cream parlour. And so, Mika left Moon River and Mondo walking side by side in Central Park, very quiet and feeling the wind blow by, as his tie flew over gently.
The warm-colored leaves crowded the gardens.
There were ducks in the lakes, there were families strolling by, there were couples playing with their robot pets.
Mondo and Moon walked slowly, and when she finally gathered up the courage to finally look at him, he looked back.
It was like time stopped. They were walking, the leaves kept on falling around them, and the last rays of honey-colored sunlight danced on Mondo’s dark red eyes, sculpting with shadows his handsome face.
She could feel his breathing like she could feel her own. Could he feel it too?
Then Mondo just smiled. A lovely, awkward smile, as if he was 14 all over again and they were playing in the river and making up fantastic stories while searching for the constellations above. She smiled back, the way she never did anymore, with her teeth showing and her eyes cranking up.
It felt so wonderful, that when they automatically looked back to the pathway, as a robotic dog ran towards them just to speed off in the oposite way, Moon River felt doomed.
She asked about Mika, and Mondo told her the kidnapping survivor’s story. And it all went along from there. They were talking quietly, peppering their conversation with a smile and a longer glance here and there. It was so nostalgic, and even if they hadn’t seen each other in so long, it was like they had just been parted for just a day. They talked about everything, but chalked up topics so massive that they were almost tangible in Moon River’s fingertips. The sun had disappeared when she was talking about life on the moon. The moon’s reflection was bright in the lakes as he talked about his arm - Musselback.
She joked it was a wonderful name for a pet and then they laughed together as robotic bees drew circles around them.
He became a kind and crisp-clean suited gentleman. Yet he didn’t behave like everybody’s dream of a man, like all the other top-hatted, crisp-clean suited gentlemen she’d met. Just like her, Mondo was still that dusty kid who was so sure of himself, who would never take shit from anyone else. He was as tough as he was all those years ago. It made her heart fill up with joy, to the point that she thought she’d cry if she was still able to. Their time apart changed both of them anyways.
They were walking closer, and she briefly toyed with the idea of touching his hand, just the lightest of touches with her fingers. He would definitely hold hers.
But she quickly brushed off that thought.
When they got home, Mika smiled up at them and presented them bowls of white rice with sautéed vegetables and seafood. And just as Moon River expected, of course there was a plate full of soft-boiled eggs.
-
She wakes up at night, in the guest room’s bed of that minimalist apartment, because she somehow hears Mondo call her.
She lies back down to bed, it could be her imagination, but she hears him call for her again.
So she stands up, tightens a pink nightrobe around her, and makes way to Mondo’s room.
Her long brown hair is falling free down her back, she’s missing her beauty rolls and pins. She also cleans her face of any makeup every night before sleep. So now she feels naked.
She knocks on his bedroom door, and doesn’t wait for an answer to enter.
Mondo was asleep. “Oh dear” she thinks “if he keeps on sweatin’ like that he’ll die of dehydration.”
He was having a nightmare, a very bad one. His face scrunched up as sweat trickled down his face. He could’ve told her he was just running the marathon that she would’ve believed.
He kept on calling her. “Moon River. Moon River.” Dreaming with her.
It genuinely scared the woman.
If she allowed herself to be honest, of course she would like to stay with Mondo and his cute little sister/cheery pet figure and take care of him whenever he needed for as long as she could, to know him again. But the idea also disgusted her to no end.
For better or for worse, both Moon River and Mondo Zappa were known around the imaginary human belt of space, news of their deeds travelled around all the planets mankind had ever laid hand on. And they were very different, but they were free.
Moon River could never allow herself to feel trapped. Fluttering about, charming everyone, changing her companies hastily, as hastily as a planet spinning around itself.
She knew Mondo was free, exactly like her, and lived on his own accord. He had built his life up from the shambles of war to become what he was. He was free to do what he wanted, to risk his life everyday in the hardest situations, to share his body with those gorgeous, famous women around the world.
So much like her, yet so very distant. Two halves of the same coin. So the realization of her love for him, or rather the fact that she still loved him after all those years, hit Moon River like an arrow. An arpoon. Digging it out would kill her.
She wakes up from her musings and tries to shake Mondo up.
He only opens his eyes minutes later, and by then she’s already standing away from his bed.
He’s confused, and asks her questions so obvious that she knows he wants her to reassure him his nightmare is over. He also does something that gets her off guard, when he asks when exactly had they met. It’s strictly forbidden to Moon River to ever talk about her past life on Earth, so she’s stunned. But she shouldn’t because, after all, it was Mondo she was talking to.
Time passes slowly. A heartbeat. Two.
Mondo holds out his hand, reaching for her cheek.
-
She can’t help but care, ask him what happened, if he’s alright.
He says he is okay.
So she is too.