C4: Worse Things

It had been a few hours since I woke up, though I was still thinking about the same thing, over and over. I had many questions to ask my Mom, though I was pretty sure she had some questions to ask from me too.

I walked towards the kitchen table to get my breakfast, and that's when she decided to ask me about the other night.

"Yuji... Where were you yesterday? Why were you so late?" She asked me, straightforward. There was no way of her knowing about my encounter with a Jedi, though she may be suspecting me for something else.

"Late? What late... I mean, it took a a few hours in the Dump. You don't know what it feels like to be beaten by the Roths and those other shit-heads," I grumbled as I sat down on the chair. "Plus –"

"And you made this much?" She showed me our unit bank. (It was somewhat of a watch that kept track of every unit both me and my Mom makes.) That read "50,000!"

How the fuck? I was utterly shocked. I couldn't believe my fucking eyes. Just, what was happening?

"I –" then, the thought hit me. Yes... Of course. It must've been Anju or the Mandalorian. They must've air dropped the units to my watch when I was in their hideout.

"Hmm...? How did you even make this much?" What a happy look on her face. She was definitely happy for me. Well... That did mean we weren't gonna starve for the next 6 months or so.

"Haha! Woohoo!" She cheered. Seeing my mom laugh and chuckle was relieving than no other. I couldn't just ruin the moment for her. I smiled at her and said, "Of course... Now you know how skilled your son is!"

We chuckled and laughed at breakfast and talked about how we're going to enjoy some too. I hid the truth about the other night from her, just like she hid the truth about the Jedi from me.

/ / /

I left the house just after taking my breakfast, just like Anju asked me to.

Knock! Knock! I knocked on the door of the house the two was living on. I knew the way to it because it was familiar to me now. "Anju...?" I called out to her.

"Wait! Coming!" Her voice came down the hallways and the sound of hurried footsteps came.

She opened the door.

"Huh... You came this early?" Anju asked from me as I stared at her bed head. Her hair was messed up and she was wearing a baggy white shirt with some hearts on the middle. Guess she was a classic girl after all.

"Of course... I thought rebelling against the Empire was important," I said, with an awkward smile.

"Wait wait... Lemme just — Lemme just brush my teeth and come back," she muttered as she wiped her mouth from the back of her hand and stumbled back into the house, mindlessly.

As she stumbled away from the door, I shook my head in disappointment.

I turned around to see whether any of the Stormtroopers or any droids were spying on the hideout, but there was nothing there, except for some guy jogging along the road, uphill.

"The fuck?" I asked myself, before gazing at the figure for some time. Who was he?

Finally, the guy reached the lawn. "Umm... sorry, but... who are you —"

"Koge. Don't freak out. I don't really follow our Mandalorian code. If I did, I wouldn't have survived," he gave me a pat on the shoulder before entering the house.

I stood there, just gazing at the hill.

"Jeez... is everything I have been told a lie now?"

/ / /

"Finally," the woman came walking down the stairs while getting into her coat. She literally took 30 minutes to take a bath. Until she came back, we were watching the TV, me and Koge.

Koge gazed at Anju with his usual dead eyes and said, "Oh... you done? Thought it took longer for you to scrub that ass clean."

"Haha... Shut up, Koge." She stood before me and Koge, and looked down at me. I gulped, seeing that bossy face of hers. Though, the unnecessarily tight black suit she was wearing was just... unnecessary.

"Is that your suit?" She asked me, raising an eyebrow.

I looked down at my shameful white shirt and those brown leather pants I was wearing. "Ugh... What am I supposed to wear? It's not like I have any armour in my totally regular cupboard."

She chuckled. "Oh God kid... I..." she stared at me once again. "On second thought, that's perfect."

"Huh?" Both me and Koge was so confused, the words came out of both our mouths at the same time. She kept staring at me while rubbing her chin. "Yes... Perfection. A regular kid. I mean... Why not? No one will think a kid living on poverty is a Jedi.. right?"

Ugh... that hurt.

"Hmm... That's true." The Mandalorian agreed.

Dude???

I was like... why? Why does these people not know the pain of the people living in poverty? I looked down and started to wonder, if these rebels are truly fighting for freedom.

Anju saw the look on my face at that moment.

"Now, Yuji, I came from the gutters too. It was a planet called, Earth. It's on the other end of the Galaxy, and trust me on this one kid, it is not... good. Not many of us live so rich, in comfortable places... I mean, I was thrown into this space army because my dad was fucking two women at once and he didn't have any money left after walking to the court twice. That's just fucking life, kid. And after I came to space... we had to do what we had to do. But... never forget your kind. You have to do something for their sake too. Don't forget em' no matter what! Like we gotta, ugh..." she started to wonder for a while and instantly ended the conversation. "Yeah that's right, we all came from the gutter."

The fuck... Didn't she just skip the part where she had to serve the mother planet? Did... wow.

"Now now, straight to the plan," Koge said, standing up to take the centre of attention.

He walked around the table and stopped at the front of the table, in front of the TV. The talk show with Jimmy Kimmel was on.

"Hmm... Yuji, you must be wondering how it all came to this. How we're going to save the Galaxy from an Empire. I have an answer to that. Pride, glory, power... everything comes with a price, you know. Everything. Even the power of the Galaxy. The first thing about this is, the society. The society is ever changing, with all carbon based life being self-centred. I mean everything, even the Sith Lord. Even your brother Goku and your sister Yume. The Vader Twins...."

I was listening.

"You see, if we... Dig out a person who could do a great bit of hacking, we can even hack into the Deathstar or steal one of their ships. One great ship with a huge amount of weaponry only means that we get a whole army of rebels. In order to take out the whole Empire, we need to collect the other rebels, persuade those mindless fuckers who serve the Republic like nothing ever happened. I mean..." he turned around, only to point at Kimmel behind him. "Change the channel," he said.

I took the remote and changed the channel and the news came on.

"Today, the new Siths had arrived at Planet Shimo to reconstruct their peace trinity with the Empire. Since the war, the factions from Shimo had been in bad conditions with the Empire, but, finally... the rebelling had stopped. The conflicts had stopped. The Sith Lord had arrived in Shimo in the early morning to discuss the matters, and she has left the Planet with peace, and unity," the news reporter said as the scenes switched to some camera recording taken on the Planet Shimo when the ships of the Siths landed.

Click! Koge switched off the TV like he was instantly pissed. I knew that expression of his. It was the face of hate.

Koge turned around and gazed at my face. "Kid... you see that? The Sith Lord... she's taking everything. Everything and everyone is on her hands. And before you know it... everything... POOF, gone!" He said. "Now, kid... tell me, do you want that to happen, or do you want to run outside and be free. Fuck the girl you want. Let your Mom see you bring her a kid, see your daughter run across the field as the wind blows against her hair, and she think... "What a fine day to breath my last breath..."

I couldn't think about anything at that moment. In my head, it was all playing out like a Saturday night movie. A daughter, putting a smile on my Mom's face. "I —" I spoke, but, my lips were frozen.

"Speechless, aren't you?" Koge asked me.

I looked up at Koge, and said nothing, still. Anju was gazing at me too, from the side. "Ok ok, kid... it's life. You get to have a kid, see him or her run around... and then — ha..." she sighed upon thinking this as her face turned darker. "Yes — Life," she said again, and placed her hand on my shoulder. "You don't want to loose anything like that... do you?"

What was she expecting?

"Of course not," I said.

"Good! Let's start getting our asses to trouble now... we must show you around the basics, kid. Without the basics, you're useless." Koge said, making his way to the door.

However, I wasn't really used to their convos of this rebel style stuff... so..

"Ugh, what are the so-called Basics?" I asked.

Anju turned around and said, "Of being a Jedi, and the world... you don't know anything about the negative side, kid."

What? How though... I have been living on the negative side of the society this whole time. What part of it is not negative?

"But... what are you talking about? I was living as a poor rat in the streets, with no... life. What is not negative —"

"Oh God, you're so... little," Anju said in a pitiful tone. "We'll show you kid, just, tag along."

I was... shocked. 'How could the world be crueler than this?'

Soon... I would be seeing something much worse? Even the very thought of something worse, made me shudder.