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chapter seven
mugen road
"Stop making fun of me!" I pouted as Dan and Chiharu collapsed into another fit of laughter as I struggled to use chopsticks. I had never learned when I was younger, and now it was kicking me in the ass
"Naomi, bring her a fork or something." Dan chuckled. "She's never gonna get it."
"I'm North American, cut me some slack!" I shot back as I watched a chicken ramen noodle fall off the wooden chopsticks. "By the time I go back home, I'll have figured it out, I swear."
"Aha!" Dan shouted, jumping out of his seat. "The foreigner admits she's American!"
"North America is a continent, Dumbass." Noboru corrected with a laugh. "Canada is in North America."
Defeated, Dan didn't respond, simply sitting back in the booth.
After the previous night, I expected things to get weird between me and Tetsu. Surprisingly, they didn't. Neither of us mentioned it, and we went on with our lives. I was grateful for that, not wanting to make things awkward with the only person who was offering me somewhere to stay.
I wasn't even sure how it had happened, how I had fallen asleep like that. I assumed it was jet lag, the most likely option. But I was rattled. I always was after a really deep, unexpected sleep, especially since I wasn't usually one for naps. I must have been exhausted.
"Back in Toronto, I was in court administration." I said, in response to Yamato's inquiry about where I worked. "It could get very intense sometimes. When I was first starting out, back in New Mexico, I worked divorces for about a year before I was promoted to criminal court, and let me tell you, it was better than Judge Judy."
"You went from divorce straight into major crimes?" Tetsu mused "That's a big difference. Is it really like they show on TV?"
I chuckled. "Sort of. I went from divorce court to smaller criminal proceedings, usually mainly robberies and level one assaults. From there, my promotion was to homicides and violent crimes, which is when my job really got interesting. As a court clerk, I handled most of the paperwork: summoning juries, preparing jury lists. I mainly deal with lawyers as the go between with the judge. Should a jury be sequestered, which is essentially their total-"
"Isolation from the rest of the world." Noboru finished. "I went to law school."
I smiled at the boy before continuing. "Exactly. Should the jury be sequestered, the court clerk has to stay with them at the hotel, which can be a total nightmare. A friend of mine, Kiana, she had a jury that was sequestered to the local Motel Six for a week and a half after the trial, cut off form the outside world while they tried to come up with a verdict on a sexual assault case. Everybody hates being sequestered. They take the TV's out of the rooms so you can only watch a pre-approved DVD with the rest of the jury, and the takeout is from the same three fast food places the entire time. You can't call home unless you're in the presence of a court officer. It's the same for clerks. Isolation."
