I'm being torn apart. My flesh rips open, I lose control over my limbs. All I can do is keep my eyes shut, but I can't even do that because I am looking him in the eyes.

To know and to realize he is here, watching the process as I unfold on the spot. Why is he here? Does he really have to be? Even though I had wished for him to witness the growth of my power, to acknowledge how I had become his boss for a change, I'd never expected it to be like this. I don't want him to see me naked like this. Because you can see my insides. They're all over the place. God, make it stop, I have to gather my insides and put them back together. I lose sight of the ground and of him, watching me in awe. He's terrified. And at the same time, I can see he pities me, as I pity myself.

I hear my own voice, screaming in pain.

The light before my eyes changes in thousands of different colours. I want to forget, and I do. All but him. He's the reason why I've become the way I am. But it's my own fault, I think. I believe I understand now what that old hag was trying to tell me.

Back at school, lessons have just started. I feel alone and out of place. The teacher is big. The other kids are smiling at me, but not in a nice way. I swallow. I try to see every boy's face to find out where I may be allowed to sit down. I walk up to a desk and sit down on the chair. Suddenly, everyone in the classroom starts to laugh. Someone says I can't sit there. The boy sitting next to me starts talking to other boys. I don't hear a word they're saying anymore. I get up quickly and move -

Children are all the same. When one of them throws a rock at me, they hope for me to turn around and get angry, or to cry in front of them. This time, they only hope I'm gonna bleed on the ground. Because their shoes are hard as steel, I can't help but to cringe and humiliate myself as they kick me in my stomach. I think to myself, this is not normal. Normal people would help me. All these stupid kids do is stand there and laugh. I'd help them if they were lying behind the school yard, taking kicks from other kids.
'HEY!'
A voice appears from a few steps away and some of the losers step aside. Despite of my efforts to lie still and take it in silence, I look up.
'What the hell do you think you're doing? Stupid idiots.'
The boy has made it to the middle of the circle and looks down at me. Kaneda Shoutarou. Something stings right through my entire body.
'Tetsuo!' He turns around in a flash and hits one of the losers, yelling 'I didn't know you were letting them go this far!'
I watch from my place on the concrete and see their blood drip next to me. They scatter and before I know it, I'm surrounded by friendlier faces. Kaneda asks if I can get up by myself and I jump to my feet immediately, wiping some blood from my mouth. The bell rings and I spend the rest of my hours at school sitting next to one of my new friends, laughing - as if nothing had happened...

We ride our motorcycles. We're after another gang and they need to be taken care of. I try to follow him as he jumps over a small gap. I barely make it. He laughs as I try to keep up with the others again and yells -

I watch the eerie moon as I walk back from his home, high above me, situated in a huge apartment complex deep in the suburbs of western Neo-Tokyo. I'm unable to release myself from the feeling that I can never be his friend. Yamagata, maybe. But I'm no guy like Yamagata, at all. The others had gone off to get some sleep - it was three in the morning after all - and I had been hanging on the couch, right there, next to him. He had a couple of video games that kept our attention with them for a few hours even after three. I remembered the next day would be a school day. I stuffed that useless fact away in the back of mind and pressed the buttons like crazy, determined to win. But I was chanceless. I had never in my life owned a video game. Kaneda had stolen them all from game stores, or had gotten them from other Capsules who had stolen them from game stores. I kept on bringing that up whenever he kicked my ass, so when he handed me over a game disc I realized it must've gotten through to him. I grinned, put it in my pocket and said I had to get back home. He refused to look at me, as I refused to look at him. We mumbled some goodbyes and here I was, on the haunting, cold streets...

We played that one disc he had given me last year at my place. I sleep on the fucking floor cause I can't afford myself a bed and we had to sit on an old rug I had found underneath a lantern. The only thing properly installed was my game system. My entire room was fucking illegal, but I had nowhere else to go. So that night some cops pulled over in my street. Kaneda has really keen ears, so he heard them way before I did. I was lucky he was there that night, cause the cops were after me. We found that out after we were on the pavement and my tv was thrown onto the streets below.
'Those bastards' I yelled or something like that. I was freaking out all over the place: where else was I supposed to go? He grabbed my shoulders and tried to calm me down, saying I could bunk in with him for a night if I wanted to.
And hell I wanted to. And my grin probably gave that away. The streets were cold as always. We stood in the shadows of the stupid slums around us. Everyone seemed to be awake still. There were voices and noises everywhere. Some were staring at my broken tv. I even saw one guy gather the shattered plastic from the corner of my eye. My eyes were locked to his. They seemed to be growing, surrounding all of me. But he was only getting closer, hesitantly, not like him at all. He kissed me, and it was way too short. Before I knew it, he had ran off to to his quarters of the neighbourhood, and as I ran after him I almost fell cause I had gotten all -

For the second time that night, I suck him off, and I suddenly realize how many girlfriends he's seeing, like, all the time. He says I'm different from them, but I can't read his mind. The idea of Kaneda screwing some slut is killing me.
'What's wrong?' he hisses as I stop to breathe. 'Get on with it.' I do as he says, as I always do. He comes in my mouth and I swallow everything, as I always do.
As I'm curled up against him and he turns off the light I decide to ask questions, like how often he sees Tomoko or Masako or whoever he likes to fuck. He doesn't enjoy it.
'Godamn, Tetsuo, you're the jealous type, aren't you?'
'I'm just curious.'
'No you're not. Listen up, if these bitches were any more important than you, they'd be sleeping here instead of you, right? I fucking gave you a house here. Some gratitude would be nice.'
I just can't shake the sense he's only using me. It's not fair. I love him, can't he ever treat me as an equal and love me back? Maybe I should just leave, but where would I go? I have no other -

At half past three at a Thursday night half of the gang is together in a bar where we use to go before we pass out and we help each other reach home. Yamagata and some others have already given up - they hardly ever make an all - nighter - and I'm hanging on a bar, my head hidden in my arms. I'm so high I'm not tired at all anymore and constantly thinking of Kaneda. 'I love you' I mumble time after time, somewhat confused because the bar doesn't say anything back. Then, after half an hour, I realize I need him with me right now. I'm gonna walk up to him - which will be tricky - and say 'let's go home'. I don't care about his girlfriends anymore, I don't care if he addresses me as if we're still in first grade, I have completely forgotten he never tells me he loves me. I make my way through the stupid biker girls and the drunken idiots, trying to find my dearest friend in the world, trying to find my Shoutarou.
There, somewhere in a corner of the shitty bar, I see him. But something's wrong, there's some stupid biker chick with him, wait a minute, they're making out, she's all over him, I can almost see their tongues, and he's touching her everywhere, she closes her eyes, I have to do something...
Next thing I know, we're outside, rolling over and smashing each other's faces in. The biker girl has disappeared. Kaneda yells something at me about pills and me being crazy, and everything about him makes me so fucking angry, I could kill him right there on the spot. I hit him on his mouth, he groans and his lips turn red. He pushes his knee against my balls and I almost faint. I go limp, the sky becomes blurry and I feel my cheeks becoming wet and warm. Kaneda has stopped moving and just stares at me, then lowers himself slowly until he's on top of me. He whispers my name, and then kisses me with his eyes shut. I sob, it lasts forever. His body is so warm against me. My hazy mind is grateful, but knows something isn't entirely right.
He doesn't say he's sorry. 'I'm going home,' is all that comes out of his mouth. I can sense he's still angry. He gets up and walks out on me. I continue lying on the street. I have been on the ground so many times in my life, I've kind of gotten used to the feeling...

Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda...

Shoutarou, my only friend, Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda, Shoutarou. I can't live without Kaneda unless I destroy him, and then I'll be all alone, the highest, the only. I'll show them I've become stronger than anyone, even Kaneda, in the end, and then I think I'm gonna blow my brains out or overdose on those annoyingly small pills. The pain in my brains is fucking killing me, and my mind is stuck on his name, repeating it endlessly like a nightmare you get when you got the fever. If my skull had been smashed open by a piece of metal, and the bone would snap and shatter, and my naked brain would be pulled apart piece by piece, slowly and torturous until it was all one big bloody mess, it couldn't have felt worse.

Help me.

The pain wears off, but I'm falling, over and over, every fucking second. After that, the pain is back for another good beating. I pretend to be able to channel the beating, enormous force that rolls around inside of me. No one has ever seen me as I swallow my daily, an incredible amount of pills, gagging, desperate and on my knees. I'm afraid the power might explode. And if it does, I'll explode with it. I see my new arm is already throbbing every once in a while. It hurts like shit.

KANEDA KANEDA KANEDA KANEDA KANEDA KANEDA KANEDA KANEDA KANEDA, FUCKING HELP ME. I LOVE YOU, BUT MY ARM IS GROWING, IT'S FUCKING SCARY AND I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS. I LOVE YOU. I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU. I THINK I KILLED KAORI JUST NOW. SHOUTAROU. SHOU – TA - ROU! HELP ME!!!!!

Fuck it. Kill me. Kill me, Kaneda. I see you're holding a huge gun in your hands. Guess what. I surrender. I never had you in the first place, while you had all of me.

You can take my life, too, if you want to.

I am nothing without you. I belong with you, I belong with Shoutarou.

I am Tetsuo.

Monday, the 20th of April, 2009

5.35 PM