Chapter 7 — What The Fuck
And thus begins Chapter Seven.
Now, children.
Professor Nuo had retired.
Mith had graduated.
Some woman was sitting on his lap.
Brotherhood objective
complete.
Which meant I was finally free to return to the original Manipal curriculum.
Me.
The council sighs.
Naturally.
I stood near my beloved wall.
Scanning.
Not deer.
Not headlights.
This was familiar territory.
Crowd.
Dance floor.
Groups.
People drinking.
People kissing.
People making decisions tomorrow would have to process.
The usual.
And then
I saw something
very far from usual.
The council looks up.
Woman.
Yes.
Children.
Woman.
Dancing.
Asian looking.
Hoodie.
Pause.
The council immediately looks toward Nuo’s hoodie doctrine.
Not my kind of hoodie.
Important.
The Unbegun Hoodie serves one primary sacred purpose:
concealment.
What lies beneath?
Nobody knows.
Mystery.
Perhaps human anatomy.
Perhaps muffins.
The hoodie protects both wearer
and public.
Her hoodie?
Different philosophy entirely.
Tight.
Low cut.
Off one shoulder.
A garment that did not say:
Please disregard the body beneath me.
It said:
Yes.
There is a body beneath me.
You may notice.
The council nods.
Confident.
Very.
She knew she looked good.
And appeared perfectly comfortable with the possibility that everyone else knew too.
Now.
Another relevant Nuo weakness.
Children.
Asian looking women.
Specifically
Japanese women.
The council checks evidence.
Was she Japanese?
Absolutely no fucking idea.
Good.
Archive law.
Story Nuo’s ethnographic methodology consisted primarily of:
Eyes see person.
Brain yells category.
Actual nationality?
Could have been from anywhere.
Maybe Northeast India.
Maybe somewhere else entirely.
Mizo?
Naga?
Perhaps.
Japanese?
Possible, I suppose.
Known?
No.
But inside Story Nuo’s extremely sophisticated classification system
JAPANESE WOMAN SPOTTED.
The council stamps:
SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY:
APPALLING.
PERSONAL ENTHUSIASM:
HIGH.
Good enough.
Children.
She was attractive.
Extremely.
But attractiveness alone was not what stopped me.
She could fucking move.
Most drunk Dee Tee dancing?
You know it.
Feet vaguely alive.
Torso occasionally involved.
Arms performing seventy percent of the labour.
Everyone collectively trusting darkness to conceal technical deficiencies.
Not her.
Children.
Movement.
Actual movement.
Hair flying.
Body following music instead of merely surviving near it.
Then
splits.
Pause.
The council checks Nuo’s flexibility.
Can Nuo perform splits?
Children.
If both legs ever travel that far apart,
please call emergency services.
This woman moved in ways my skeleton considered theoretical.
Flexible.
Controlled.
Confident.
Very clearly operating several dance software versions ahead of me.
And then came the inevitable calculation.
Attractiveness.
Body.
Movement.
Confidence.
Nuo.
The council runs numbers.
Result?
Out of my fucking league.
Decisively.
Not:
Maybe with Bongo.
Not:
Perhaps if I make her laugh.
No.
Children.
There are moments when even Nuo’s confidence encounters mathematics.
This was one.
I looked at her
and immediately understood:
Not happening.
Which
was fine.
Important.
Because by this stage of Manipal,
bonk was no longer the mythical treasure it once had been.
I’d bonked.
Several times.
Enough that the male brain emergency broadcast system had quieted down.
The council opens ancient male programming.
ATTRACTIVE WOMAN DETECTED.
MUST SUCCEED.
No.
Not really anymore.
If bonk?
Excellent.
If no bonk?
Meh.
Life continues.
Children.
An early prototype of the philosophy you’ve already seen in Kovalam.
Opportunity naturally appears?
Sure.
Nuo may happily inspect it.
No opportunity?
Also fine.
There will be food.
Games.
Dogs.
Perhaps drugs.
The universe contains multiple recreational departments.
So I did not approach her.
I didn’t even seriously consider approaching her.
Bongo Protocol?
No.
Waste of premium ammunition.
The council gasps.
You’re not even deploying the legendary bait?
Children.
A fisherman does not cast toward an aircraft.
Wrong ecosystem.
I had accepted reality.
Instead
I moved closer.
The council pauses.
You just said
Observe.
Children.
Observe.
Like seeing a supercar.
You cannot afford it.
You are not going to buy it.
You have no business asking for a test drive.
But perhaps you walk slightly closer and go:
Ooooo.
Fancy.
The council reluctantly accepts.
So I closed some distance.
Found wall.
Lean.
Probably cigarette.
And watched.
No fantasy.
No elaborate internal scene where she suddenly discovers Nuo’s irresistible hidden qualities.
Nothing.
Just
very attractive woman.
Very good dancer.
Waw.
Simple.
And children
that is precisely why what happened next broke my brain.
She moved closer.
At first?
Nothing.
Dance floor moves.
People drift.
Crowds compress and expand.
Maybe coincidence.
Then
closer.
Toward my wall.
Toward me.
The council looks around.
Perhaps somebody behind Nuo?
Reasonable hypothesis.
Story Nuo likely checked spiritually if not physically.
But no.
She was dancing
next to me.
Very next to me.
Then
on me.
Pause.
Children.
Grinding.
On Nuo.
The council freezes.
NUO?
Yes.
The muffin adjacent hoodie creature.
Me.
Now.
Let us understand my mental condition.
Five minutes earlier:
Out of my league.
No attempt required.
Observe supercar.
Suddenly supercar reverses into showroom spectator.
The council loses composure.
I stood there trying to process the unexpected development.
Perhaps she mistook me for somebody else.
Perhaps the lighting had created a severe visual malfunction.
Perhaps she had lost a bet.
All reasonable theories.
But whatever the explanation
she remained there.
Dancing.
Against me.
And then
children
she took my hand.
My actual hand.
The council confirms limb ownership.
Nuo’s?
Nuo’s.
And pulled me away from the wall.
Toward
dance floor.
Pause.
No.
The council already knows the problem.
Children.
I do not dance.
This has been documented.
Repeatedly.
Nuo does not dance.
Nuo
pinballs.
There is a difference.
Dancing requires:
rhythm,
coordination,
intentional movement,
some understanding of what one’s limbs are doing.
Pinballing requires:
music,
momentum,
poor spatial awareness,
and faith.
Children.
At sufficient intoxication or chemical assistance,
I can bounce around a dance floor with enormous confidence.
Pinball.
Beautiful.
Functional.
But here?
I was buzzed.
Not obliterated.
Not in Goa.
Not running some alternate operating system.
And this woman
could actually dance.
So there I stood.
On the dance floor.
Hand recently abducted.
In front of a very attractive,
very flexible,
very confident,
Story Nuo classified Japanese woman
who had somehow invited me to dance
using primarily
her ass.
The council looks at Nuo.
Response?
System failure.
Children.
Complete.
I couldn’t dance properly.
I knew that.
But now
I couldn’t even pinball.
Because pinball requires surrender.
You cannot surrender while your brain is screaming:
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?
So I stood there.
Probably moving just enough to avoid being mistaken for furniture.
She danced.
I attempted
human movement.
The council reviews footage that does not exist.
Mercifully.
And inside my head?
Shock.
Disbelief.
Confusion.
Children.
I had approached the evening with ordinary expectations.
Mith visit.
Weed.
Dota.
Dee Tee.
Teach brother Manipal nonsense.
Watch brother graduate.
Then perhaps I find someone.
Perhaps not.
Normal.
All of that?
Setup.
Prologue.
Even Mith’s glorious Dee Tee initiation?
Prologue.
Because children
the Eighteenth Wandering had not actually begun yet.
Not really.
We were merely positioning pieces.
Mith.
The pub.
The alcohol.
The dance floor.
The wall.
All roads required to place Nuo
at exactly one point in Dee Tee
at exactly the right time
to notice one woman
he considered so far outside his probability range
that he didn’t even bother trying.
And then
she came to me.
The council becomes interested.
There.
Yes.
That.
The anomaly.
The first event that pushed this night out of routine Manipal life
and toward
Archive.
Story Nuo did not know it.
Of course not.
He was too busy trying to remember whether knees were supposed to bend while dancing.
But Present Nuo can draw the line.
Everything before?
Prologue.
Mith’s arrival.
The hug.
The three day free trial.
Dota.
Weed.
Dee Tee.
Fisherman training.
Bongo Premium Access.
Graduation.
Necessary.
Fun.
But not yet Wandering.
Then
woman.
Dance.
Grinding.
Hand.
Pull.
And Nuo
leaving the wall.
Children.
There.
The first true step.
Not toward a city.
Not onto a train.
Not away from home.
Three metres,
perhaps.
Wall
to dance floor.
That was enough.
Because Wanderings have never cared about distance.
The council nods.
And this one begins
with a woman I never intended to approach
reaching out
and taking my hand instead.
Story Nuo’s thoughts?
Not destiny.
Not cosmic alignment.
Not:
The universe has selected its emissary.
Please.
Protect the idiot.
Always.
Story Nuo was thinking something much more appropriate.
Children.
What the fuck?
Exactly.
I stood there.
She moved.
I malfunctioned.
And somewhere nearby,
Mith was presumably continuing his own graduation festivities,
completely unaware that Professor Nuo had been dragged into an advanced course
for which he possessed
zero qualifications.
The council checks curriculum.
DANCE:
Failed.
FLEXIBILITY:
Failed.
CONFIDENCE:
Temporarily offline.
ATTRACTION:
Catastrophic.
BONK EXPECTATION:
Previously zero.
CURRENT UNDERSTANDING OF SITUATION:
None.
Excellent.
Children.
Now
we may begin.
Thus concludes Chapter Seven.
The Return Of Nuo’s Quest.
The Scanning.
The Woman.
The Tight Hoodie.
The Complete Rejection Of Unbegun Concealment Philosophy.
The Asian Looking Face.
Story Nuo’s Wildly Unscientific Japanese Classification.
The Actual Nationality:
Unknown.
The Dancing.
The Hair.
The Splits.
The Theoretical Flexibility.
The Calculation.
Out Of My Fucking League.
The Decision Not To Try.
The Bongo Protocol Remaining Holstered.
The Supercar Observation Method.
“Ooooo.
Fancy.”
The Approach That Came From The Wrong Direction.
Her Moving Closer.
The Grinding.
The Hand.
The Dance Floor.
Nuo’s Complete Lack Of Dance Ability.
The Failure Even To Pinball.
The Shock.
The Disbelief.
And
The Line.
Children.
Everything before this?
Prologue.
Mith’s initiation into the Manipal way of life.
A brother’s three day free trial.
Necessary setup.
But the Wandering itself?
It begins here.
With Nuo leaning against a wall,
admiring a woman he had already decided he had absolutely no chance with
and that woman crossing the distance herself.
She took my hand.
Pulled me onto the dance floor.
And Story Nuo thought:
What the fuck?
The council opens the file.
The Eighteenth Wandering has begun.
