[Ichi]
+ Journal Entry, Ichi +
My name is Motomiya Daisuke, though I have also been known by the shortened Americanised version of my name, Davis. I am 11 years old, and, to make things interesting, I was not ever supposed to have been born.
All my life I have been ignored, beaten, or yelled at. No one ever seems to want me anywhere near them. I have been laughed at, yelled at, made fun of, beaten up, and ordered around. And that's just by my father…
Our neighbours, family members, and friends respect my parents. Everyone loves them, and of course, everyone refers to Jun as 'The Motomiya Princess'.
Jun. My parents couldn't be bothered thinking of a name for me, so she got to. She called me Daisuke after the character of a book she was reading, and Akaidra after the Enemy in the same book (Which was a red Dragon).
No one ever notices me though. And when they do, it's normally not a good thing. I'm the 'Black sheep' of the family, kept around so as not to spoil their image. I'm the one all the blame for Jun goes to. I'm the one they forget in crucial moments. I'm the one they could do without.
I'm the 'Motomiya Brat', the 'Mistake', the Soccer player, the Jerk, the idiot, the goggle boy… and the list goes on. Those are also only from my parents and Jun. To tell you about the people I call 'friends' at school would not only be a waste of my time, but would also require more detail. And I'd rather not go back to any of that right now.
Everyone has something their afraid of, everyone has had some sort of experience in their past which caused them to fear something in the present. Jun's afraid of escalators, because when she was six she tripped and fell on the last step. Mom's afraid of my dad, because of the business he leads, and lies he tells. My friend Hikari is mostly afraid of the dark. I know that her brother, Taichi, for some reason is afraid of Vampires, and one of my teachers if afraid of the automatic Pencil sharpener.
My dad… he isn't afraid of anything. He always has a calm, cool demeanour about him that causes people to turn and look. He's always collected and charming to everyone, to his boss and friends, and especially to the police. In fact, some of his best friends are actually policemen, or relations of someone who works for the government.
Me, I'd say to anyone who asked that I wasn't afraid of anything, not even a great large creature like a Vampire or a Dragon. But I'd be lying, with all the accuracy and charm only the son of a Motomiya could have. But to tell the truth, to you I would say, I am afraid of everything. I am an utter coward, even afraid of my own friends.
I was afraid of Hikari, thinking she'd become one of those high-class girls who always looked down on me and made fun of me, to my face. But she didn't.
In fact, the first time I met her she'd only just been dropped off at school and had instantly came right up to me, seeing I was a new kid. She was so very friendly, and bright and wonderful. That scared me even more than what I'd first thought. She'd laughed at the fact I wore goggles, sure, but she told me all about her big brother Taichi, and how he wore goggles too.
We were fast friends, she and I. For once I had a true friend, who actually saw me for who I really was; just a nice guy with a seeming obsession with soccer – which isn't actually true, but I'll get back to that later.
Then of course, as always, she made friends with people who hated me. Hell, everyone hates me, I can tell. But Hikari… she didn't hate me, at least not that I could tell. And for that reason I was afraid of her. I was so afraid of her, that I became very protective of her, like I did with all my friends and family.
That's my weakness you see? I am so possessive of everything I have – and even some that I don't – that its driven to a point that I'm almost like an obsessive-compulsive. Not that I care, not that anyone could ever actually notice.
My other weaknesses are that if someone were to ask me a question; an accurate, deep question, I will answer it. There is no simple, or deep personal question I will not answer. I would actually tell my friends that I was afraid of them, if they asked. But they don't.
The other weakness is that I can't help but follow orders. If someone were to tell me, no, order me to do something stupid like wear a dress, or sing a song in a girls voice. I will do it. Down to the last letter, I will always follow orders. There are, however, some things I wont do. Like if someone orders me not to take orders. There's an oxymoron for you.
Only one person in the whole universe can order me to do something like that, and he's my dad.
You can't order me to commit suicide – doesn't that take some kind of free will or something? – Again only my dad can order me to kill myself.
You see the pattern here? Of course you should, because though I'm afraid of everyone, and probably everything, there is my greatest fear. There is the one thing in this world, and the next who I would never, ever disobey or even think of doing anything other than loving. He's my father.
I love my father very much, as well as all my family. They are all I have next to broken friendships, and an existence that should not be. I am, what people would call, an excuse for a better life.
'Darker the darkness, brighter the light' everything has to be in equilibrium.
I am the darkness, who balances out the light in the group. I'm only one of them as an extra, a balance, a number to fill out. When I'm sad, everyone else is happy; when I'm hurt, people are healing; when I'm dying, people are living.
Because I exist others can truly enjoy life, and call it their own. When I die others will be born to a life of absolute happiness, because I had existed.
It's a comforting thought really, knowing that I am the reason that others are happy.
I am the reason that others can fully appreciate their own free will, I am the reason that when it rains people can laugh, and I am also, sadly, the reason the game 'Truth or dare' was created. Okay not really, but you see I am part of a long line of people who have served as a balance for the rest of the world. I mean come on, there's no way I, one kid, can be the balance of dark and light for the whole world!
It's almost like a group effort, our tormented souls bringing peace to others.
Nice to be a part of something, no matter how stupid, or worthless. At least I actually have a reason for my existence.
Now I know I must be carrying on, telling you about my pathetic life and all it stands for. But you see I'm not done, yet.
You see this? You see what I have here, covering my face? The thing I can take off and practically hold in my hand, the reason no one ever asks about me, about my home life? This mask is one of my best creations. You see I'm an artist, a poet, a writer and a lyricist. I actually have a website I made myself and everything I have is on there. It's called Calu Cali; it means 'Changing Light'. I made it up myself. It used to be a quiet mantra, which I would tell myself night after night. It worked too.
But I digress. This mask here, it is a perfect version of my odd sketches and paintings. I crafted it from when I was very small, from reading books, watching people and TV. I would watch everyone's smallest expressions, reactions, moods and personalities.
I had almost completed it when I met Taichi. Most of my mask was diverted from him. My lust for Soccer: Taichi; my hard-headedness: Taichi; my imitation of an idiot who couldn't get a B even if his life depended on it: a slight exaggeration of Taichi.
But that's not true either. I've been getting straight A's ever since I was old enough to get such a grade. My parents tried to get tutors to work with me, ignoring my A+'s and my college-level work, and saying I could do better. It came to a point where I asked one of my tutors – all of which were nice and probably good friends if they'd hung around long enough – if there was such a grade above an A+. She told me that an A+ is the best anyone could ever hope for. It was 100% and an Excellent rolled into one. She told me that to get higher than an A+ would mean becoming perfect, and no one is perfect.
I know I'm not.
All of them were nice to me, thinking my parents were the stupid ones, and asking my father –the wrong person to ask in my opinion – if I could be given someone else who taught a much advanced course of work. My dad simply said he'd think about it and gave me a Tutor below the last, thinking they were trying to bump me off onto someone else because of my stupidity and lack of attention.
Hell I bet I'm even smarter than he is! But I'd never say anything of the sort… not out loud, anyway.
I bet your wondering what my parents do for a living. Hell half the time I want to know that myself, but inside I know, I always know…
Dad works in an office building, doing Kami knows what with his computer in his office on the fifth floor. I know this because I visited him once. I think he helps make models of buildings, or something.
But I know what he really does, all those people he meets either at work, or in the alley outside the apartment, or even down near the hospital. Once he even went down to the church and the school, but that was when we still lived in Osaka.
My dad makes, finds, steals and sells drugs. Not your everyday nicotine/steroid combinations, but the good strong stuff you see used in hospitals, but only in emergencies. He sells the smaller stuff too, as well as some stuff he's cooked up himself. After he's sold it, anyone who ends up in the obituaries has nothing to do with him. They bought it so it's their fault.
My mom works at the hospital. She has the job of ordering and cataloguing all the medicine and supplies and things for the hospital. That's how dad got all his good stuff. Of course their many suppliers, as well as the hospital, want to know how come their supplies for the major drugs are always low in the reference, but almost always showing up on the order list.
It's sad, to those who don't fully understand it, anyway. Now Jun, she's innocent to this you see. She thinks her dad has a nice office job, and her moms an assistant doctor, or whatever. She doesn't know the background dirt. She doesn't know about some of the 'errands' dad sends me on to get some of his things. She doesn't know why I'm the only one who's ever visited our dad at his office, or why dad and mom are hardly ever home. Not that she ever is anyway.
Jun is Dad and Moms little angel. When she asks for something, most of the time she will get it, and those times when she doesn't, she'll probably get something better.
She has all the friends at school, and the 'good' grades, as well as the praise and love that I am not allowed to have. If Jun gets a B on her project or paper she's lavished with praise and gifts. When she gets an A, or perhaps an invitation to somewhere extra-special, she's given whatever she wants at all, whenever.
If I get an A Dad just tells me to do better. If I get invited into one of the 'smart clubs' at school dad rips up the paper and tells me I'm not worth it. If I win a prize for even the biggest thing he laughs and jokes, telling me that I shouldn't have entered in the first place.
It's sad. But I love my sister very much, and praise her along with my parents. Even if she gets an F I praise her good work, and tell her how much better she'd done than everyone else, only the teacher was too stupid to see it. I give her the attention and support she doesn't give me, and in return she tolerates me living in the same house as she does. When we lived in Osaka she had to put up with me living in the same room as her.
If anything were to happen to my family – be they killed, arrested, or simply vanish – I'd probably kill myself to stop the pain. Fact is I can't live without my family, no matter how many friends I make, or even if I fall in love.
I guess that's a little strange, but to explain this I'd have to tell you one thing: I can't hate. Whenever I have this urge to say I hate someone I just mentally beat myself up, so that I don't say it. Oh sure I can get angry at people, and even feel a slight tint of hatred, but I won't show it, and I won't say it; So therefore you'd have to believe that I simply can't hate.
Sure I hate some things, and would actually say so, like the cold, or some music, or movies, or maybe a web page I've found, or a comic, or even a type of food or drink; Half the time I wouldn't say so of course, but if someone asked me I'd tell them. And there we go, back to my weakness of answering questions again.
Some people think I'm self-centred and think about no one but myself, despite my 'obsessive-compulsive' actions of protection. But you see I actually believe that.
I believe that if I'm trying to please someone, then I'm doing it for myself. I believe that if I do something like return someone's wallet – all money untouched – or if I help someone out, that I'm doing it for myself.
That's just a fragment of the way that I think.
I can prove myself to be a lot worse, and maybe more, if given the right ridicule and amounts of time on my own.
Now about the soccer thing, you see my dad has this rule about my Christmas and birthday presents –no parties, because I'm a boy, and boys don't have parties… I think. On my birthday or at Christmas time I will be asked a question about a certain thing, and from that I will get a 'present'. On my fifth or sixth birthday Dad asked me if I liked learning things, and I said "yes".
With that I was allowed to go to school, and that was my present.
When I'm seven dad asks me: "What sport do you like in school." Now at the time Soccer was a real major thing to play at gym, or after school. I knew a bit about it, and thought it looked like fun, and so I answered: "I like soccer". With that I got a soccer ball for Christmas, as well as enrolment on the soccer team on my birthday. It was the first time a single question had spawned two presents.
Dad asks me on my eighth birthday (Probably out of ideas for anything else): "What do you like doing, when we go down to the beach?" I'd only ever been to the beach twice in my whole life, and had enjoyed going out into the water, and playing in the waves immensely. "I like swimming." And he gave me my first pair of goggles. Now you see ever since about a few months ago I'd been finding I really enjoyed taking the swimming classes with everyone else. I mean, you gotta learn how to swim sometime. Over a period of a few years I grew to love swimming, and tolerate soccer. But I wasn't allowed to change my sport, because if dad asks a question, and you answer it, you're not allowed to change the answer, regardless of age or experience.
So as I finish this entry I say now, my life is a worthless trash pile, and according to decisions I've made, I'm even worse in then when it all started.
Like a quote I found in my inbox says: 'We are born wet, starving and cold, and then things just get worse.'
Hikari has her friends, and a brother who loves her very much. She can do without my protection, and probably my friendship. She's a tough girl, and it probably wont faze her as much to know one of her friends is dead, then if I'd gotten any closer.
I'm glad I got to meet her, if only for a little while. Tomorrow is our first day of 7th grade school, the year 2002. For Christmas I was asked, "What's your favourite colour?" I'd answered: "Indigo". I'd gotten an Indigo coloured backpack. Not funny.
I hope I don't hurt anyone by taking my life… or at least trying to, again. Jun's out at one of her 'Fangirl' parties where she and a few of her friends – including her best friend Inoue Momoe – got together to worship and praise their obsession. Last I heard it was over a certain blond singer from a band called Teenage wolves. Heh. I bet it's this guy named Ishida Yamato. He bought two of my songs off the Internet. I go under my Middle name Akaidra – which, strangely, means red Dragon, which is my other online name – and my initials M. A. D., or the Mad One as I've been known in chat rooms.
That's what I do. Sell my pictures, stories and lyrics online.
Yet another thing that'll suffer from my death… oh well…
Goodbye to the world,
And goodbye to my life
I love you Neesan,
I love you Tou-sama and Kaasan
No one will cry,
When I go and die
No one will care,
When I am not there
Good-bye.
~ M. A. D / ~Red*Dragon~ / |~AkaiDra~|
+ End Journal Entry +
~*^*^*~
Motomiya Daisuke leaned heavily against the sink in the bathroom, pouring the faint traces of wine and beer into the glass of water. He'd gotten the wine and beer from the bottom of unfinished glasses lying around over about three days.
He pulled some Night-capsules out of the cupboard and carefully read the back. He then found what he was looking for, smirked and reached in to get the aspirin.
He never used the Night-capsules because they had a certain chemical or whatever that he was allergic to. It was also found in certain types of pasta, specifically noddles, but never in rice, or dough.
He then sat in the shower, so that the blood and stench would be easier to wash away; Typical Daisuke, always thinking of everyone's opinions and reactions, even when he was about to kill himself.
He then took out the sharpened blade he'd stolen from the kitchen. He carefully held that between his knees as he downed 5 or 6 aspirin, and three nightcaps. He then put both down and lifted the knife, slicing down into the skin of his left wrist. He whimpered in pain, but bit it back as he swapped hands and cut the other, but not as deeply. The aspirin and Night-capsules were to make him drowsy, so that he wouldn't feel the pain of the knife. The alcohol was to give him a little bit of strength through the numbness to actually cut his wrists.
He would have sliced again if the knife hadn't fallen from his grip and clattered against the steel of the shower floor. He watched in absent fascination as his blood slowly inched across the silver surface, melding with the water droplets still left there.
It looked pretty, making abstract patterns around his knees, down his arms and soaking into his White shirt. He only wore the shirt and a pair of shorts, not wanting to bother his mother with too much cleaning afterwards.
Through his haze filled mind he thought he heard someone enter into the apartment and stumble through the hall. They came to the bathroom and pushed it open, reminding Daisuke that he hadn't locked it, so as not to get his father angry if he had to replace the lock.
The intruder smelled of smoke, and alcohol, perfume and vomit, as well as a number of other putrid things. He instantly knew it was Jun, home early from her party, and drunk stupid. She wasn't one to get drunk, and so when she woke up with a hangover she'd get quite a shock. It was lucky someone had taken her home early, so she wouldn't get into too much trouble.
In her drunk, haze filled mind she realised there was someone who'd swallowed something they shouldn't have, and had wounds on their wrists. In her drunken state Daisuke wouldn't have been surprised if she thought that it was actually herself with the cut wrists. She lifted Daisuke's unresponsive body and dragged it to the toilet, slapping his back a few times before he started to throw up into the toilet. She probably thought it was herself throwing up the contents of dinner and the beer she'd drunk. Or perhaps she thought she was back at the party, helping a friend out.
Either way, after Daisuke was certain the pills, the faint watery alcohol and all other contents of his stomach were now staring up at him from the porcelain bowl he felt Jun wrapping towels around his wrists, letting the blood soak them even more than his shirt.
He tried to protest, telling her that Kaasan would be angry. After all who wants to clean blood soaked towels? But his Neesan didn't listen and instead gave him what was probably a loose hug before she threw up on the floor and swayed as she stood. She then stumbled and clawed her way through and into her room, shutting the door behind herself.
Daisuke was left shivering on the bathroom floor, pale, frightened, weak and confused.
Eventually – about an hour later – he started to move around. He flushed the toilet and cleaned up the vomit and the blood. He poured out the alcohol-water and put away the night-capsules and the aspirin. He cleaned his wounds and wrapped them in a thin bandage, not enough to help the wounds heal, or soak the blood, but enough that they were covered and would eventually heal.
Daisuke had tried numerous times to commit suicide in many ways, always someone, either one of his parents or Jun, would find him and stop him. Eventually he began to stop himself and wrap the bandages. They were always thin and few, so no one would see them under his sleeves, under his wristbands. In fact that's what he had them for, a present for his tenth Christmas, from his mother.
He then took off his shirt and put it with the towels in a bucket, which he then filled with warm water and some detergent. He went to his room – after cleaning himself off – and took up his wristbands, to hold the bandages down. He then took his pyjamas and went to the bathroom again.
He took off his shorts and added them to the bucket, cleaned himself off again, and got dressed into the yellow pyjamas. He then left the bathroom and went to bed.
That is how it went. Yet another failed attempt at suicide.
"Cowardly Daisuke." He muttered to himself. "Now if you had tried just after Jun had left, instead of debating wether or not to actually do it, you'd be dead and Jun wouldn't have even noticed you lying in the shower." It was true, no matter how sad. "You Bakana Baka, Daisuke. Stop trying to do stupid things!" [Stupid Idiot] He then nodded to himself defiantly, rolled over, avoided his wrists, and tried to sleep.
And anyway, who knows what the new school year would bring. Maybe Hikari might still need him. Maybe he'd make some new friends; maybe Jun actually did know it was him in the bathroom.
Then again, maybe Daisuke was kidding himself.
"Why can't people just let me die in peace?" He was almost completely dead, mentally anyways…
A/N: Just a quick heads-up for other chapters! Between [and] are Japanese translations, K?? Okei!! Also in Japanese schools they work on a similar term-basis to England… I guess (I don't use or understand either) but they only get Sunday's off from school. (0.o Ow…)
Update (19/11/03): I have gone through and re-written a few parts of the story/Journal and also the Authors Notes. Now if you are reading this I have finally re-posted this on Fanfiction.Net, and I will be spending more time writing to update more ^_^ not to worry all is well land under control!!