Vanya watched her from afar. She was never alone, and there was never a single element of her uniform out of place. Every day she was like a doll that walked mechanically into school, and mechanically into a car driven by her father's men. Her name was Rodionova Alyona Tarasovna. The name of the school they went was one he could never remember. It was "private" in the sense that the government had no say in any of its practices, but they allowed anyone from the neighborhood in.
It was Alyona's father who paid to keep that going, along with the sports equipment, school cafeteria, and sometimes even the uniforms the children wore. Communism ended years ago everywhere else in Russia, and as far as Vanya could tell the government in Moscow could only answer shrugs and shouting. His father was in well with Alyona's father, albeit with the job of traveling to Europe to record western shows and buy movies for bootlegging. He was a still a peasant compared to the princess that he shared classes with.
He opens his eyes. It was early in the morning and the teacher is droning on about something boring. The snow was falling outside and all that kept the window from becoming his pillow was the cold. He chances a glance over at Alyona, perched in the middle of the room. She keeps a thin and colorful paperback book under her textbook. He adjusts his glasses, trying to get a good look at it while he's unnoticed. The language is unfamiliar to him, and the characters cartoonish.
"Rodzyanko!" the teacher bellows at him, causing him to immediately straighten up.
"This is the 2nd time you've fallen asleep this class, cleaning the room will do you some good toward waking!" the man says loudly before going back to his posturing lecture.
Vanya just nods and takes sneers from his peers.
Whatever.
The bell rings. He stays behind to clean up and notices messes were left to keep him here longer. He takes the chance to draw a mechanical diagram of his class. He liked drawing people as machines, making them functions made it easier to get through a conversation.
Vera was a good example:
-Large head, large eyes: adapted for pleading to higher powers.
-Messy, long brown hair: An attempt to look pretty, but gives a higher chance she's given pity.
-Thin: He's heard the girls chatter about her vomiting her meals up at home. Desperate to please, even at the cost of her health.
She was the classes other go-to laughing stock besides himself before Alyona had her bullies put in the hospital. She can read and speak English better than anyone else in the class so she was used to read American websites. She wasn't particularly impressive on tests or homework, her mother has a job in the Russian Embassy in England which keeps Vera and her siblings fed.
The solution to her was to talk gently and confidently. It meant you wouldn't face Rodionova's wrath and could still influence her.
He starts drawing Alyona:
-Long, orderly hair: Statement of status, a concealed Tiara to mark her as above the masses
-Sharp, thin tongue: an instrument of verbal laceration for whipping people into doing her bidding. Her greatest skill was her ability to project word as indisputable reality.
-Pale, porcelain skin: She must be without blemishes or have to admit she was technically on the same level as himself. Her pride would never allow that.
He finds himself putting far too much detail into her face before her notices the book she was reading is laying on the ground. He scoops it up and tucks it away after looking at the strange language. It looked Chinese but had vibrant colors and pictures like an American cartoon.
May as well give it back, he can't even read it if he wanted to.
Vanya normally takes the bus back home, and as he sits freezing in a Russian winter outside of the schools arts building he has to remind himself that he's doing this just to give a book back to a girl who could have him beheaded on a whim. He'd been out here for what seemed like an eternity, clarified by his watch to 30 minutes. He notices a pair of big beady eyes at the door, partly curtained by brown hair.
Vera cracks the door open and shivers a bit.
"V-Vanya, why are you sitting out here? I've been watching you for-"
"Yeah, 30 minutes, I know" he says with a sigh.
"Rodionova is still in there? Don't they cut the power to this building after hours?"
Vera squirms in place and bites her lip: "She... uhm... convinced them to leave it on so she could use the computers...."
The two awkwardly look away from each other. Neither was a social butterfly.
"VERA! I can't read this it's-" Alyona starts as she rounds a corner, the top button of her uniform undone and her apron off. Her hair was tied back messily and she had a coffee stain on her sleeve.
"Rodzyanko, we were just locking up and doing some cleaning" Alyona says as she crosses her arms.
"You left behind a paperback...." he says offering it forward. Alyona seems more fixated on the snow around him than the book before she grabs his arm and drags him inside.
"Idiot! That was a pristine issue! Do you know how hard it is to pay shipping invoices in a language you're still learning?!" Alyona says as she quickly snatches it from his hands.
"Sorry, I didn't realize it was rare...." Vanya mutters as he sits down, a radio in the computer room crackling to life.
"...It's a record snowfall, and a large temperature drop to be expected in the next few hours. Even the busses won't be able to run in the cold..."
Alyona looks toward Vanya and scowls: "The computer room is warm, just don't say anything stupid or think this is some kind of favor, ok?"
He walks through the building behind Vera and Alyona to where the school kept its computers. It was odd seeing her so hunched over after leaving the paperback on a desk.
On the screen was a website that was desperately trying to load some blurry something, and moving slow as molasses. A pile of floppy disks sit on the floor.
"Vera, it's not moving is it?" Alyona says with dread in her voice.
"I-I... don't know..." Vera says back in a mousy voice.
"The wind and the snow are probably slowing the rate at which the computer is receiving information, which was already slow since..." Vanya says before trailing off. He got the sinking feeling the look Alyona was giving wasn't a good one.
"Keep going" she insists.
"The lines my house are being used constantly anymore, and I am not waiting months to read this. I will owe you a favor if you can fix this"
A favor from Rodionova was basically a golden ticket to whatever you wanted. Her father could get anything from cars to piles of cash to people he liked. The way she said it sounded different from how she would do it in the public eye.
She's at his level, for a moment she's descending the staircase of rank to speak to him at eye level. Vanya knew how she looked when she was doing charity work, but this had to be how she looked when she was bargaining.
"...We'd need to drag a heater out to where the phone lines are and have someone keep it upright" he says, expecting to be told to go find a heater and sit on it for block's princess.
"Vera, copy it all in sequence and make to mark the floppies. Vanya, outside with me"
With her.
With her.
He just nods weakly and grabs his coat.
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcwFPCxIup4 ]
It took two people and a flashlight to just find the phone line, let alone to keep the snow off so they could point the heater at it. Alyona tilts it forward as the snow and wind whip her scarf around while Vanya keeps it braced from the other end. Alyona starts sneezing sooner than him while they both shiver and chatter their teeth.
"W-W-Why is this s-s-so important to y-y-you?" he asks quietly.
"SPEAK UP RODZYANKO!!" Alyona yells in a demanding tone.
He's too tired and cold to think about hesitating.
"WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU!!"
"BECAUSE I NEED TO STUDY!!"
"STUDY WHAT!?"
"JAPANESE!!"
"THE SCHOOL HAS-"
"I ALREADY FINISHED THE LANGUAGE BOOKS! MY TUTORS ARE ALL AMATEURS! MANGA IS THE ONLY WAY I'LL LEARN TO READ PROPERLY!!"
"WHAT THE HELL IS A MAYNGA!?"
"YOU'RE SAYING IT WRONG!!"
"WELL WHAT IS IT!?"
Alyona doesn't have a quick answer, just chattering in place and sneezing the moment she opens her mouth.
Vanya see's her face all red and flushed as she bites hard on her own lip.
"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" She yells over the storm.
Vanya didn't question her, just focusing on the job he was conscripted into and the favor he was owed.
He's about to lose himself in thought when Alyona starts to lose her grip in her mittened hands, a sneeze causing her to lose her balance in the winter storm. Some part of Vanya moves to catch and hold the heater as it burns his hands. He clenches his teeth as the seconds he is holding the thing feels hours. Alyona grabs the handles on the back and looks toward as he yowls in pain from the cold wind hitting his burns.
"TOUGH IT OUT!" she yells, struggling to lift the heavy heater on her own at the angle needed to keep the phone line under its effects.
Vanya held the front end up with his bent elbows, keeping his hands in tight fists for God knows how long. It was agonizing, but he saw his drawing of Rodionova rendered outdated. He was seeing how she functioned internally now, not just her outer shell. She could push she small, frail body farther on willpower alone than some of the athletes in their class could do intentionally. Her crown was never even there, the illusion of it just hid a person who did nothing in half measures even if it meant hurting others or herself. Her tongue was too sharp, unable to express being nice and honest as it finally had some of the venom on it blown away in a storm.
Vanya was probably just delirious, but it didn't make it any less real at the moment to him.
Vera runs out and shouts something about filling every disk, and helps them move the heater back inside.
Alyona shivers a bit as she wraps Vanya's hand's with bandages after cleaning the wound. Vera had been in the girl's bathroom since she saw his burns forcing Alyona to take charge of the injury. The two of them were exhausted and stuck.
"...Go to a clinic tomorrow" Alyona says awkwardly.
"Y-Yeah, I will..." Vanya says in kind.
"I mean it, and if they try and charge you remind them this block is under communism" Alyona says ardently.
"...Why the hell does this mean so much to you? They're just chinese books..." Vanya asks with little confidence.
Alyona would usually never answer a question so pitifully said to her. Normally she'd insist whoever asked speak up if they have some problem with her.
Nobody said those problems out loud if they knew what was good for them.
But Alyona was functioning differently as she didn't even meet Vanya's gaze.
"...They remind me there's something better than this place out there. A real utopia, not just one that got sold out from under our feet" she says in a vulnerable, almost weak tone.
"I'll never get there... but I have a few years to dream."
"Russia is... bad but there's worse out there" Vanya says.
"You're all so quick to just accept oppression and humiliation, like the people doing this see you as anything more than a number and bribe to kick up the chain" Alyona says, gritting her teeth with anger.
"Just because it could be worse, doesn't mean you stop fighting. I...."
"A cartoon taught me that, one from Japan. They don't have wars, their gangsters have real chivalry, they're free to think and do as they want"
Vanya pulls his bandaged hands away from her as the wind howls outside the window to the computer room. Her own hands droop down lazily.
"It... must be a really good cartoon then" he says, trying to be... supportive? She's the biggest, richest bully in the whole of Saint Petersburg, why does she need his support?
"...Do... you want to watch it?" she asks, a hopeful glint in her eyes as she stared up at him.
Vanya weakly nods, too tired to overthink the invitation. Getting close to Rodionova felt wrong, like he was climbing a rickety ladder with rusting bolts. All he could do is try get out of this without making a powerful enemy for life and save his own skin.
Vanya was forced to sit in the passenger seat of the car that picked him, Alyona, and Vera up from school. The big man driving had insisted and Alyona was quick to to put him in the "buckshot zone" as the guard called it in a low voice. He could hear the girls behind him chattering and was almost glad to not have opportunity to fumble having a conversation with either girl. Alyona might bite his head off if he said the wrong thing, while Vera was just a shivering nutcase of every insecurity he knew of.
The car pulls up to the Party Hotel, an old soviet luxury hotel for diplomats and Communist party bigwigs. It was probably the tallest building in the city when it was finished, but that was about a year before communism fell. Everyone just kept calling it the Party Hotel since whatever name it technically had was too much of a mouthful for most to remember. As the three students enter the building its markedly clear that Rodionova's owns the whole thing, as the staff is mostly rough looking men in the lobby. Where Vanya is trying to not shake with the fear that this is some ploy to use him as leverage over his father, Vera is perfectly calm.
Vanya wanted to scream at her and ask how she could be so calm about all of this before it hit him that it wasn't her first time here. He felt like he was being led to an abattoir in the basement before he sees Alyona press the button for an elevator to go up.
"You're safe here, Rodzyanko. There's no better bunker in all of Saint Petersburg." Alyona says with pride. She was back to wearing the shell she took off last night. Her internals were well guarded, and she was putting on a show.
"That's.... comforting" Vanya says with less enthusiasm as the elevator arrives. As they went up to the penthouse, Vanya see's Saint Petersburg from its former peak. The city was grey under the winter clouds, some light snow falling as each house had it chimney smoking to make a bubble of livable space. The people on the ground looked like featureless ants skittering around in slow motion. He finds Vera looking down at the city besides him.
"...You're lucky, you're above them now" she says, her voice drained of emotion as she speaks in a whisper.
The boy gives her a look with a raised eyebrow.
"I-I don't know why she likes me either. I'm not smart, or pretty, or strong...."
She clutches her cross necklace. Rodionova despised the Christian holidays, still coming into school during Christmas and Easter, and Vera was openly religious. Vanya had always figured she'd simply find a nunnery to hide in for the rest of her life and leave school.
"...She's nice, under all the spikes and armor. D-Don't overthink this" she says. as the elevator arrives at the penthouse on the top floor. It would have been saved for if Gorbachev were ever here, but he probably never even stayed here once. Alyona walks by framed and preserved fragments of Soviet murals, pieces of art, even some sculptures which point up to the stars like they were nothing.
Why wouldn't she, he thought. She lived in the lap of luxury as the block's princess. Of course she's not easily impressed.
Vera too pays the valuables little mind as they go to the second floor. The view form the plate glass was stunning if not for the urban decay already present below them.
"Vanya!" Alyona shouts at him, causing a blonde woman, likely the girls mother to peak her head out of a room and try to shush her. Alyona gives her a short glare and she backs off. It takes a second for all of it to register as Vanya runs his hand over his face.
"Sorry, the view it just-"
"You can come and see the view from here anytime, you're earning the privilege watching anime in my room. Don't touch anything, is that understood?" Alyona asks rhetorically.
Vanya just nods: just what this needed, to get more awkward.
Her room was smaller than her expected, though the racks of frilly doll dresses took up lots of space alongside an expensive computer. Explains how she knew how to use one so well. Vera sits on pillow on the floor by Alyona as the blonde girl rewinds a cartoon on a tape. There was a pillow next to Vera he was about to sit on before he gets another order from Alyona.
"Close the door before you sit, I don't want any of us to be disturbed" she says, her attention elsewhere.
Vanya is about to get the door before he notices 2 eyes looking at him with extreme intensity. The man was wearing a grey suit with a red tie and was mostly bald. The man looks down on Vanya.
"Alyonushka, Why did you bring Rodzyanko's boy here?" he asks her. She stops her rewinding obediently.
"To watch cartoons with me and Vera, is there a problem with that?"
"I need to speak to him alone" he says, Vera giving him a nod. Was he supposed to feel safe getting isolated from the only person here who didn't break limbs for a living?
The man takes Vanya down to the kitchen of the penthouse, and sits him down.
"You're the first boy she's brought here. As her father I have to ask if you two are close"
Close? Did he mean dating? As if he had a chance of pulling that off!
"No! She just wanted to show me one of her Japanese cartoons, I really should just get going if-" Vanya says before getting another glare.
The man cracks a smile, and relaxes: "Oh, apologies. I figured she was at the age where a boy might try and get closer to her. You would be the first one I have to set straight"
"Taras Rodionova. As long as you remember your reason for being here, then we shouldn't have any problems"
Vanya feels more on edge than before, but just tries to ignore the beating in his chest.
"Does... she invite other girls over often?"
Taras shakes his head casually.
"Not that me or her mother are aware. She's studious in her off-time, prefers to be in her room with all of her oriental things"
"And she isn't... arranged?"
"That is none of your business, Rodzyanko" the man says, the mob boss part of him speaking.
The message was loud and clear: do not think he suddenly had a chance with her.
The group is glued to the screen as the main character looks over a graveyard of dead lunar colonists, perished in the early years of colonizing the moon for the opulence of earth. He reflects on the horrific violence caused by the fight for freedom from the earth's yoke as the last breaths of life leave his grandfather. The alien spaceship that had given the early colonists a chance at survival had even been callously attacked. The final shot is of the graves in front of a view of Earth from the moon as the credits begin to roll.
Alyona gets a cocky look on her face as she notices both of her friends impressed by her selection. Dallos was a more recent acquisition but it was something she'd always heard about as the first about as the first OVA.
"I... didn't expect for a cartoon to have such a serious story" Vanya says.
Vera just nods in agreement as Alyona looks toward the boy: "Japanese Cartoons are much more mature and meaningful than anything made in Russia or the west, I have many more as well. There's one called-"
"I-I think my parents expect me home at some point before midnight, and the busses are always a bit late Alyona..."
"Then I'll copy some episodes onto some tapes. They're not the best quality and the fansubs are a bit... unreliable but if you liked this then You'll love Mobile Suit Gundam"
"Thanks" He says in an unsure tone.
"I-I-I think I should head home too..." Vera squeaks out.
Alyona sighs: "You've stayed later before why not sleep over?"
"B-Because... mom is home from... from England and will have to head back in a week..."
Alyona nods, a bit of selfish irritation in the gesture.
The two children are driven back to their home by one of Taras's men, and don't speak a word to each other. Vera occasionally steals glances at Vanya as she grips onto the strap of her bag for dear life. Vanya tried to focus on looking out the window as he sat on the other end of the back seat. Nothing good could come from getting closer and owing Alyona for cartoon tapes, yet he did want to see more. He'd seen and read science fiction before but it was always blindly hopeful, there was something strangely comforting about showing a grassroots revolution and its effects on the people in such a setting.
Everything won't be fine, but we have to face it anyways and remember why were doing any of it: that was the message that Vanya took from Dallos.
He glances over to Vera as she mutters a 'goodbye' and heads toward her building, a nicer block of apartments with lots of garages and thus cars. Vanya just nods back to her as she scampers off and he's driven to the dirtier parts of the city where his family lived. He looked up to his apartment and noticed only one light was on. Dad was probably out drinking tonight, and mom was probably doing the same in a different spot across the city.
The elevator was still broken, so he walked up the 5 flights of stairs need to reach home. As expected, it was empty and quiet. Both of them would come home around the same time very late at night and pretend they didn't see each other or smell the alcohol on their breath.
Vanya's room was small, and cluttered with books of old drawings by actual engineering books. He looks at at the ceiling as he lays on his bed under the dim light of an old lamp. Every adult he knew seemed so eager to just give up and ignore all the problems around them. How was he any different? He was just as lonely as he was last year.
Alyona was dangerous and volatile.
She could have him and his family killed with a few words.
But she was also just as lonely. Only the class loser stuck with her for more than appearances. She acted bubbly and confident but it strained her to move with the shell on, like she was trying to wear clothes several sizes too big and just pretend they didn't sag off of her.
He had a solution to his own problem, and a solution to someone else's. He'd stick this out longer and a make a friend with hazard signs on her shell.