I thought when I left you that I had gotten rid of you.
I wish that I could simply yell at you. All those years where I didn't say a thing, I want to revoke them in one violent moment. I want you to know everything you did to me, all those horrible, tiny little things. Instead I'm writing this...
Because I know what they all think.
"Poor child...horrible past...grandfather too demanding...probably raped...evil man...so sad..." I see their looks of pity. They have no idea. And I knew as I wrote that how clichéd, how utterly foolish that sounds. There will always be people who contradict that statement. They will say they understand, that they can imagine. That they've gone through the same thing.
Only that last one I could possibly believe, coming from the right person.
The only thing wrong with my life, my past, is the absolute pressure to be perfect.
You cared about me, after a fashion; fed me, clothed me, paid for my expensive lifestyle. You were nice, even. Supportive. Besides the whole 'take over the world' thing, of course. You were ambitious, vain, proud. I don't think those are huge flaws myself, considering what else is in this world. The only thing I ever hated you for is the pressure.
Your imperfect childhood made you move to the other end of the spectrum. Just like the heat of the desert kills, so does the cold of the blizzard. At the same rate, even. You wanted me to be the opposite of your, burning, chaotic life. You made yourself matriculate, intelligent, refined to a fault in your old age. You made me the way you wished your childhood was, and I appreciated it.
Until I met someone who lived the same sort of life you despised.
His room was not organized, not clean, not possible in our home. Even as I was in his room his grandfather yelled at him to clean it up. But there was no real threat there. There was nothing inbred in Takao making him automatically obey orders. And yet, his family, small as it was, worked in harmony and love. Takao could get in a screaming fight with his grandfather over the stupidest of things and in the end they would still sit down to supper together and laugh over it all.
If I ever attempted a similar chaotic action with you I would simply be stared at for the duration of my explosion, told that I shouldn't do such things, and left alone. You would make me feel bad simply by pressing the button you had long ago implanted in me. That one cannot do well in chaos. That letting free reign to your emotions will only make you loose control and without control you will not be successful. The idea of perfection as a forced peace and that success is the most important thing in the world. A spoken "try your best" and a silent "your best is nothing less than perfect".
And don't think I didn't know it.
So, when I finally got off on my own, away from your control, in charge of myself where you couldn't touch me, I found myself still following your guidelines to perfection.
Even though I sometimes let a bit loose, letting Takao, Rei and Max order in and leave the garbage in the room when we left, for example, the big things still strangled me.
They still do, even though you're gone, but I'm learning to live with them. But we'll get to that when we get to that. Might as well do this the organized way, I suppose.
So, when I had found out more about the four other boys I was travelling with than I had ever really wanted to, and still hadn't repaid them in kind, I thought I was doing fine. As long as I could go back to you in the end without any sort of blemish on my record. I even fell for your ruse of perfection as far as to abandon the team that was "dragging me down". When, if I had stopped to think on my own I would have realized I had grown and gotten stronger during the year I had spent with them more than I ever had restricting myself to a strict routine of training.
It seems as though pushing yourself to the limit doesn't always work, dear grandfather.
So, since you know the story as well as I do, I won't tell it over, but it suffices to say that I made the best choice for myself in the end and you continued on your path of icy-cold perfection.
I pity and sympathize with Yuri for being your pet project, a perfect representation of what you always wanted from me. I only had the mask of ice, Yuri was ice.
I would like you to know that we've managed to make him loosen up, as well as all those young children you imposed your ideals on. He's a painter now. A very imperfect job, don't you think?
But I digress. One thing that tends to happen to me when I take the time to talk about myself, one fault you never had chance to realize I had and, concequencely, smother.
I crossed a thin line when I left my team for Black Dranzer. A line between being like ice and being ice. I was confused by the possibilities of an imperfect life, a life where i could do what I wanted, whether it was perfect or not. I re-immersed myself in the idea of perfection and tempered myself into the perfect, frozen weapon.
I didn't realize that I had crossed that line, indeed that there was such a line, until I realized that I was actually putting your idea of perfection before my own life. Then I snapped. Unable to withstand the pressures any more I almost left this world.
I thank god that my team-mates, my friends, didn't do the proper thing. That they had it in them to actually tell me that they cared for me. It got through all the ice that had hardened around my heart to the little seed of chaos that they had planted in there for me before and made it bloom into something wonderful.
I don't know if you would have done as much, were you in their place.
Just so you know the whole of it, the night after was the one where Takao first kissed me, my first kiss.
The fact that he had waited until after I had sorted out my feelings of myself and had gotten over my initial weakness to tell me he liked me endeared him to me. It gave me a chance to think of the possibility of doing something completely unprecedented in oddness, the idea of going against nature and the majority's idea of perfection to let myself be in a relationship with someone of the same sex as me.
I still had enough of an ice-mask to make sure Takao didn't blab about our relationship to every reporter he saw, but I couldn't blame him, later, when I wanted to shout to the skies that this person who had beat Yuri as effectively as he had beat my (your) ice wall was mine.
So, I left you and the perfection ideas behind and went on a very wild and very random trip called life. I had a wonderful time, getting to know myself and all my little quirks that had lain hidden for so long, along with every inch of Takao: mind, body and spirit. It is an amazing thing to come to know a person better than you know yourself and, despite their faults, care about them beyond anything else.
I never had any contact over the past few years with you. I regret that somewhat, I would have liked to show you how much I had changed. I would have liked for my daughter (yes, you heard right) to have met her great-grandfather who had lived to be so old, in such misery. Takao's grandfather is still around, although Takao has taken over the running of the dojo that he so loved. I think it sad that you never met someone who made you want to leave your icy shell and take a risk; take a chance in the middle of the spectrum.
I look around and see so many people here for you, grandfather. Yuri, Ivan, Sergei, Boris (even though he claims he only came to make sure you were dead), Stanley Dickenson (who jump-started this whole thing, little knowing where it would go), Takao's father (whom I know you met during the court proceedings), Max, Rei, Kenny, and of course, Takao and our daughter Lydia.
Although i must admit I am surprised so many people showed up - and I was expecting to have to do this by myself - I am ultimately sure that right now, no one is truly mourning you. You had your time, and now that you have reached it no one cries for you.
Because I am very sure that no one here so strictly adheres to your ideals of perfection to keep from shedding a tear on your behalf, should they wish to do so.
~`~,*|*`~,~
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