Anything But Ordinary

1

"Jedi are forbidden attachments," Masayoshi said, with conviction.

"Mmhm." Gotou said, one leg folded under himself, elbow on the table, chin in his hand. He wasn't really listening, because this was at least the fifth time that the tow-headed, wide-eyed country kid had started in on this line of reasoning in the three days they'd been trapped together in this crummy transport ship. Gotou had stopped keeping count of a lot of things, but the time until they dropped out of hyperspace at their destination was not one of them. "Jedi are forbidden a lot of things, kid."

Masayoshi's head whipped around. He'd been talking at Gotou more than with him, and Gotou immediately regretted engaging. Masayoshi leaned forward in the jump seat, blue eyes wide and glittering slightly. "So you know about the Jedi?"

Four alarm klaxons went off in Gotou's head, but he was in too deep now. "Just stories. You know as well as I do that they died out a long time ago." He looked away from Masayoshi, at the opposite bulkhead wall, and thought idly to himself about how much nicer it was when he ran these supply runs solo, without the nagging voice of a passenger. "I don't get why you're so obsessed with them anyway, they've been extinct for longer than you or I have been around."

"Because they were heroes ," Masayoshi said, insistent. He looked smaller than he was, folded up in the jump seat, wearing older, ill-fitting clothes. It was quite the different look from the holodrama idol that Gotou knew him to be – well, at least that was the case before things had taken an abrupt nosedive in the career department. That sort of happened when you got on the wrong side of an occupying army.

A former model and holodrama actor who had to ship off-planet in a hurry, and found the one transport ship who didn't ask any questions in an entire launch bay. Another in a long list of Gotou's recent regrets. He didn't ask questions if the credits were good, but he was starting to get the idea that maybe he should.

"Well, the Jedi won't save you if the First Order's propaganda machine gets a hold of you," Gotou said idly, scratching his jaw with a finger. He wondered for a moment if there was a bounty, then felt a little ashamed at the thought. Gotou wasn't exactly wanting for money, he made a meager living in a transport ship but it was enough to get by on, and he kept his nose out of interplanetary affairs as best he could.

"They don't need to save me!" Masayoshi said. His voice had shifted to slightly indignant. "I'm gonna be one!"

Gotou straightened, just a little. He looked square-on at Masayoshi, then couldn't keep the snicker in any longer. "You?" Gotou somehow managed not to break into outright gales of laughter, but only by a little bit. "You, a Jedi? " Another suppressed chuckle. "Doesn't that require, you know, a little..." he grasped around for the term a bit, then raised his hands and wiggled his fingers. "Woo~woo?"

" Woo-woo?" Masayoshi repeated, scandalized. "And why can't I be one? He folded his arms and glared at Gotou, insulted at the insinuation that he wasn't capable. "I'll have you know I've been training for this sort of thing for a very long time!"

"Really," Gotou said, dryly, unimpressed. He wiggled his fingers again, but did not say 'woo-woo.' Because he'd probably laugh. Again. "Exactly how have you been training to be something that's been extinct so long your daddy probably never even saw one?"

Masayoshi's brow furrowed, drew in tight. Gotou inhaled his words a little, winced, but didn't retract them. There were so many shattered families in the galaxy that it seemed a miracle that one would have surviving family members. "I never knew my dad," Masayoshi said finally. "My grandpa raised me. He believed in them. The Jedi, that is."