YOOOO!! I am Trav-Smash-69 (As if you didn't know that) Just so you guys know, I don't own Shaman King, Tao Ren, or any of the characters. (If I did, I would be posting it in a book, not on this site. ) Just so you know, yes I am a male, since for some reason most Tao Ren stories are written are by females. Please rate & review I LOVE YOU!
All day
Staring at the ceiling; making
Friends with shadows on my wall
His heart beat in his ears. As it pounded much harder than normal, he felt his shirt shake a bit.
Strange I know, he wasn't himself on this day. His feelings had once again got in the way.
Teeth grinding against teeth; nervous insomnia was taking over. His hand grabbed the remote, with the glare of the tv's flashing colors, showing on his face in the dark room.
He sat curled on the couch, a blanket around him, his finger pressing that channel button repeatedly, passing a multitude of stations, not finding one he was interested in; cartoons, weather, news, and about fifty music video channels that never played music videos.
Even worse, he happened to come across a show that made him feel sickened; Ninja Warrior.
They had some odd reality shows, with 'Who wants to Marry a Millionare,' 'Survivor: Some Random Place,' and sometimes as odd as 'Flavor of Love,' but Ninja Warrior took the cake. It was a disgrace, he thought, of true Ninja's that existed in Asia.
But of course, he was a Shaman, so why let that bother him?
Ice skating. Click. Basketball. Click. Ripley's Believe It Or Not... much more interesting to the sardonic male, as he sat, cutting down everything he saw. He'd already seen this one though, so he clicked past it again.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Blink. More disgrace. Click.
Oh look, a gossip show on VH1, full of celebrities begging for your attention, through babies, marriages, horrible break-ups and well as the marriages that last two minutes, and who can forget the drug scandals, rehab, and the plastic surgery rumors. Who cared anymore? His mind was wandering everywhere, and never where he wanted it. Click.
Lifetime. God damn this channel to Hell and back. The golden orbs stared at the screen intently. He seemed to find more interest in this than his own life, though they seemed to always mirror. With his recent seperation, he found comfort in watching other people go through the same agony on such a station, full of movies about REAL things; not some movie about people in a heist, fake badly dubbed kung fu movies, or the occassional romance film about a couple that seperate and get together after so many years, that would never even happen, and only half of it was based on the book.
All night
Hearing voices telling me that I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something
The rest was jammed in there to make for a more interesting movie, and the real idea is then, lost. He found no real intelligance in the world anymore.
Here he sat, unable to sleep, and simply thinking of everything BUT the problem he wanted to think of. Another click.
A slender pale milk-colored digit rose to tuck a tress of purple behind his ear as he continued to click through the stations, but to no avail. His hair was thick, and so it promptly moved back into place.
He made it to a late night soap opera.
Three, two, one... the kiss happened, before someone in the show happened to walk in at that very moment, which made for a more interesting plot.
I mean... what would be interesting about finally two people being together with no drama? What's so interesting about the real world, eh? Click.
The last click did it. The blinding television screen was off, and the male sat in complete darkness, and silence. The beating of his heart was no longer in his eardrums, and the silence had become most unwelcome. The insomniac slowly realized that he looked rather idiosyncratic.
He had his arms wrapped tightly around his knees that had buckled early on and were now pressed against his chest, and he was rocking back and forth, as if suddenly a cerebral breakdown was about to occur.
He finally let himself roll to the side, laying upon the couch with capacious eyes. The twenty-two year old needed to shut his voluminous eyes and get to sleep, but his mind withheld him from slumber.
Throe was exhibited in his otiose optics, but still they never closed... this youth felt troubled, he did.
O h but,
I'm feeling like I'm headed for a
Breakdown
And I don't know why
If you want a story of love and devotion, with a perfect family, and a bountiful plethora of joy and friends... go somewhere else.
Click that back button.
If you want me to tell you that the male in this story, finally got to sleep for at least a second, please second guess yourself.
This isn't the kind of story you're gonna want to read. It leads a life of rather depressing entitys.
He sat up and his blanket fell from his body; feet shifted beneath him against the hardwood floor as he was soon found standing by his window, looking out at the busy city outside the complex he stay in.
How enticing.
He wish his remote could click that away too, to something more interesting, but the world doesn't work that way. He couldn't take his remote and press rewind, to change his life. He couldn't forward ahead, to see how things might effect him. He couldn't pause to think about what was about to happen in his life. Even more... he couldn't click to a different scene.
He couldn't click from happiness to sadness.
He couldn't click from tragedy to comedy.
He couldn't point it at his family and click them to someone else. He couldn't. He couldn't point his remote at his ex girlfriend, and make her love him again, and he sure as hell couldn't go back and mute himself... perhaps stop himself from saying some things he shouldn't have said.
She was the only one who knew the other side of him. Otherwise he was a clown, putting on a mask and a show for all to see. He was good. Too good... at acting his part.
hose unfortunate to know, thought he was crazy it seemed. He didn't know if he knew himself anymore at times. From all the times sitting alone in the car with her, making love, to all the times wishing she were gone and wishing he never said 'I love you.' He needed this drama like he needed a needle. He just didn't.
His mind wanted to agree with everyone else. He was crazy. He was. But that would be taking the easy way out; to plead insanity, when he knew better than that. If he somehow had found someone else to see the other side of him, then maybe it wouldn't be all that shocking that he rarely got sleep, and that he was always tired and desperately running from something.
But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay a while and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But soon enough, you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be...
He could remember all his old times with her. It was different. He knew what love was, and could easily acknowledge it. He was a totally different person.
All the times he was happy. They were jolly times... that now mocked him with their cruel indifference.
They now haunted him, with smiles and regular behavior that he now lacked. The pictures and movies playing in his mind that he now wished he would forget.
Now the girl that he just left, probably doesn't even know him anymore.
His friends had grew quite distant from him and his mind was having a hard time comprehending it.
He was always a bit alone... aside from the fact that love was nothing that went around in his family, besides from his sister. But with her death, it brought pain... quelling he desired, just to see the outcome.
His spirit guardian wasn't the same around him. He was more than just submissive now. He rarely spoke to him, afraid that he would be overstepping his boundries once again.
He couldn't remember the last time he was happy, truly, even when it was minutes ago. He was jolly, of course, when he spat in his love's face, claiming to never having loved them, but it didn't last. He thought getting rid of her would make him feel better. But it didn't. It never did. He was always full of hate at some end, he just needed a way to redirect it.
Fighting was usually how he did that, but always fighting with ruthless anger, was also a flaw. He wanted to leave his complex and go for a walk, but it seemed to never cease to amaze him, how his friends had begged him not to leave it and do something reckless.
On the ride from Beijing to Tokyo, he had to constantly look away from the people on the train. At the station, he had to end it finally with his former love, spitting out words of hate and spite that he didn't expect would leave his lips. His dirty embouchment... shame on him! He knew better than to say such things.
Therefore everyone there had heard his little heartless speech and were thus conversing amongst themselves over it... or so Ren thought that. That's when it began. Paranoia. He figured that he was now the center of the universe, that everyone was watching what he did for countless flaws. It didn't feel good.
...Me, talking to myself in public
Dodging glances on the train
And I know, I know they've all been talking 'bout me
I can hear them whisper...
He rubbed his wrist slowly, his fingers coming across the paper with laminate on it to make it look fancy; the hospital wristband with his name on it.
How did he get it?
Many people that day decided to be rather judgemental, and who ended up going to a mental institution for a day for a psychiatric evaluation?
Him of course.
His eyes rippled over the words of a doctor, so horrible in nature, he wondered where he got his cursive skills from. His eyes then gravitated over his name, Tao Ren.
He didn't recognize his face with this name. He couldn't be in this predicament. He wasn't Tao Ren. This male had been thinking to himself, over the fact that possibly, he was in over his head, and losing his mind. This couldn't be.
He was now talking to himself. "I've made a mistake... but I know I can fix it," he muttered, his mind clouding. His hand shifted around in his pocket, a bit wildly before he finally came across his cellphone. His shaking fingers grabbed it and he opened it up, punching in the numbers needed for her phone.
He had tried to block out and forget everything having to do with her, and it would prove to not work... except in the case of her phone number. He now couldn't remember what it was. But Ren was determined. He would punch in numbers all night until he could remember. His insomnia wasn't letting it's grip. His guilt and self-hate brimmed in his soul. The days were shorter and the nights were longer. Ren's eyes glared down at the phone as he continued to press keys.
Once he reached a number, he would listen long enough to hear the person's voice. If it wasn't hers, he hung up without a second thought.
His teeth once again, grinded together, reminding him of the dream he had a few weeks back of his teeth falling out, that scared the living hell out of him, was indeed merely a dream. Ren thought of googling the meaning, or even going to wikipedia, but why waste time on a site with customizable words that anyone could change to their will to suit their opinions.
Ren was getting calls back.
The people he had called and hung up on were now calling. His eyes were drawn down, and he could only imagine the words they would have to say to him, a complete stranger, that may have pissed them off. Ren seemed to fall into a small mode of scitzophrenia, and he chucked his phone out the window, breaking the glass, and letting the phone fall to the outside.
Ren bit his lip tightly and he couldn't help but grin slightly. That let out some of his tension. His eyes closed some before his grin soon scared him. His hand had come over his face before he pulled the now shaking curtains to his features, and he closed them, making the broken window invisible to him.
...And it makes me think, there must be something wrong
With me.. Out of all the hours thinking
Somehow
I've lost my mind
But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay a while and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
Ren contimplated his sanity then. It seemed that what had happened, ended up being the last straw.
He was alone all of his life, but nothing like this. His sister was always there. Bason was always there.
But now, he had drifted so far away from them all. His friends that he thought he had... had been pushed so far away from him that it was now hurtful to even think of them.
But now he found that the violent things, made him feel a bit better. Throwing his phone from a tall building, crashing through a window, made him grin for the first time in forever. With finally everyone shut out from him, he was trying to find anything to bring him back to how he once was.
He was never this bad. Ren didn't know how he could've let himself get this bad. His eyes drifted toward his shadow on the wall. He had a better time recognizing that, then he did his own reflection. He was just a shadow of what he used to be. Ren found himself to be rather pathetic.
"What would Nee-san say to you right now," he asked himself before whispering, "Why would she care anymore?" Ren's oculars, with a dark golden shade, seemed to twitch some at the thought of ever seeing her again. He was falling apart. He couldn't face her. She was the closest thing he had to a real mother, since he wasn't close to his real one.
She wouldn't want to feel like a failure, because of his sudden fails. He didn't want her to think of him that way. How would she deal with the fact that he had to go to a looney bin for a day?
He was sleeping in his bed soundly, when he heard a banging on his door.
Paranoia sunk in.
People WERE watching him, and they were now out to get him.
Scitzophrenia sunk in.
Something bad was about to happen, and he needed to stop it. He didn't want to be taken away. He didn't want to die... mentally, emotionally, psychically.
His hand gripped onto his chest, before grabbing the expensive vase to his right. It had writings of love, all carved in chinese. His love had given it to him. He didn't know why he still had it with him. Perhaps he had forgotten about it, or maybe it was because he wanted to at least still keep it there as a reminder of the senses of security that she brought him sometimes.
Chucking the vase at the door, he screamed as loud as he could. "Leave me alone!! I don't love her!! I never loved her!! Stop watching me!!" But of course, that was a dream.
He was busy screaming in his sleep, causing the neighbors in the rooms in the complex around him to call 911, not knowing what was going on.
That day, Ren was awoken to the feeling of a needle, and a jacket being placed on him, before he felt an odd hugging feeling. It felt good. He liked it; like someone was finally there to comfort him... but they were his own arms in the jacket, coming around him. He then spent the rest of the day, in a calm cell, while people talked to him and evaluated everything he did.
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But soon enough, you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be
I've been talking in my sleep
Pretty soon they'll come to get me
And they're taking me away
Ren hated it, and he didn't know what to do do anymore. He loved her with all his heart, but he lied. "I never loved you! You wish I loved you," he had screamed. He had yelled in her face. He had done things that no man should ever do... not even to another human being, much less someone that indeed, he loved.
He walked back over to his couch and sat down, wrapping the blanket back around him with an insinuating glance toward the remote. He was just unwell, and he needed time to heal.
He bit his lip tightly when he felt a small tear begin to well up.
No, Tao Ren didn't cry... but he wasn't Tao Ren anymore. He wasn't strong anymore. He was bitter and full of hate, and that made him weak. The tear that fell solely from his right eye, solidified his thoughts. That tear, also made him weak. He wasn't Tao Ren anymore.
Tao Ren wouldn't have let this happen. Tao Ren wouldn't have picked up that clicker once again; and Tao Ren wouldn't have let himself lay in his self-hatred, and turned on the television once again... ignoring his phone even though he knew... she was calling.
His wishes were answered, she was calling him back to talk to him. Ren wanted to talk. But his phone was smashed on the concrete... fifty flights down.
Drama. Click. News. Click. Disney Channel. Eck. Click.
What's the point anymore?
Click.
Just click your life away.
Click.
With nothing to watch; click, and nothing to take away the pain; click.
Ren needed a sudden burst of feeling. His remote was his phone, and the television was a window to the outside world.
As the remote knocked into the television, hard enough to break the screen, Ren smiled, feeling how the sudden bursts of light from the TV had soon been silenced. And as the sun rose, he sighed.
Time to sleep.
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay a while and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be...