(sorry guys. I'm not going to be able to update my other stories. Lost files when computer temporally crashed. But now I just have this. Sorry for bad English!)
Takeo sat down rubbing his wrist gently. He sighed as Dempsey collapsed onto a wooden box close by him. He looked up at Takeo who had not even flinched. He just kept his wrist.
"Hey, Tak. What's up? I had to ditch Richtofen. He actually took out his gun on me. It's not really fun anymore when he tries to kill quickly."
"I'm just thinking. "
"About what Tak?" His voice traveled. Takeo knew that Dempsey was a friend, but he did not really want to tell him. Though he knew Dempsey would never let him continue without telling him something.
"My wrist hurts. That's all."
"Don't pull the shit. I can tell your thinking of someone. Who?" Dempsey always tried to pull your thinking of someone to see if he wasn't the only one lonely. But the thing was Takeo was thinking of someone. No use lying.
"Well, I am thinking of a girl I used to know."
"Girl? I wanna think about a girl. Hurry up and tell me!" Dempsey was always willing to listen to a story about a woman. But he was thinking of a different story. "Was she hot?"
"Is that all you ever think about a woman for?"
"uuuhhhhh…. Yeah."
"Well, yes she was "hot". We were childhood friends though. And now that I am able to really thinking about how important lif-"
"Hurry up tak and tell me about her. How do meet? And did she have any sisters?" Dempsey made a dorky smile, but Takeo just sighed.
"We meet when we were children. By a Sakkara tree in between to hills that looked my family house and some rice patties."
I was chasing a tabby cat. It was really fast cat, and it was highly reactive to my katana swing down and cut half of its stripped tail off. It took off, but I needed the whole tail. It was easy to fallow, the blood tail it left was very easy to spot in the grass. I, childishly, swung randomly at it whenever it slowed down. I was enjoying the fun of it. I did not notice the cat was heading to a small girl. But it was and jumped on to her shoulders and hissed at me.
I looked up at her. She was a small girl, she hung her head, and looked very pale. Her hair was shaggy and dirty. Though her coat was large, the rope tying it around her waist defined just how truly thin she was. Her eyes were a deep hazel. She looked at me and was taken back. But then she filled with rage when the cut cat tail waved in front of her face.
"Did you do this to this cat?"
"Well, of course I did!"
"Why? What did this cat do to you?"
"The cat did nothing. It's just important that I get its tail. So can you set the cat down?" I asked politely like mother had taught me. But she stubbornly held the cat near her chest and even turned slightly away from me.
"No! This cat is nice!"
"Just set it down. I'm not going to kill it! I'm just going to take its tail!"
"But it hurts them!" She was really getting on my nerves, but as a child it was hard to get mad, and stay mad.
"It does?"
"Yes, silly. The cats run from you because they are hurting. They are different than people. Instead of crying to their mother, they run from what caused their pain."
"How do you know that?"
"I love cats. I could spend my whole life with cats. They are nice animals, and pretty ones to!"
"Well, my name is Takeo Masiki! Nice to meet you!" I held out my hand for her to take. It wasn't the proper way to greet someone, but my parents were not around. I was thinking it would be alright if we were kids. She bowed, but before I could set my hand back down she took it.
"I'm Mosuto Yageki. It is nice to meet someone my age. All the children where I live chase off the cats, and they are a lot older than me. They often pick on me. But you seem just to pick on cats."
"Yeah, at least you have kids where you live. At my house I'm the youngest of five brothers. But my father holds me up to the highest of them all. He says that I am a natural with sword play. He told me one day I will be an honorable samurai for the emperor."
"A samurai? For the Emperor?" She said. She seemed to have forgotten the fact the cat was hurt because of me. I had surely forgotten about her getting on my nerves.
"Yep, I have to train real hard! You should come and watch sometimes! If you have nothing to do."
"Well, my mother says I have to grow a little bit more before I can help her and the others in the fields. So I'm sure she'll let me watch." I grabbed her shoulder and started to drag her to the training yard. She held on to the cat and tried to hurry with me. I was excited to show off to someone who wasn't part of the family. I showed no response but I did take notice to how week she was. She had a hard time running with me. It also took a lot out of her to hold to the cat for so long.
When we arrived I raised up my katana. She just sat quietly nearby and watched, petting the cat, often looking at the cat's nubbed tail "to make sure he was alright." She seemed to come by everyday to watch after that. I had also started to invite her over more often as well. It seemed she was by the tree or watching me. I never had once wondered much about if she ever ate until I decide to have a picnic with her one summer.
She seemed to eat more than I did. It wasn't my place to ask but...
"Do you ever eat?" She looked up at me she stopped for a second.
"Well, not much. My mother and father don't have enough yen. They try their best to get some food for the three of us. But most of the time, we don't eat. They tell me not to worry, but I can see my parents aren't happy at all."
"Wait, so you're poor?'
"Yeah, aren't you?"
"I don't think so. My family has enough money to feed all of us well."
"I guess you're lucky then. That's what my parents said to me when I told them about you."
"Really? They said that I was lucky?" She nodded her head and for once I saw her smile, but not just smile. She truly meant it.
"They called me lucky too. They said it was really rare for a person of the Masiki family to befriend someone of our family status whatever that means. They called you lucky saying that befriending me might give you a chance of being fair when you grow old."
"Fair?"
"Yeah, like you care for people who are not lucky."
"Well, I'm not sure about that. I mean you're lucky, I care about you. I mean you are my friend. I don't care about my family much, and they are not lucky."
"You don't care about your family? Why? They are best friends in the world." She said happily. At the time, though I loved my family, I did not care for them much. But she cared deeply about her family.
"I'm not sure why. I have a really big family, so I guess it would be hard to care for them all."
"Well that's true."
"Here." I handed her the last rice ball I had packed. "You need it more than I do Mosuto."
Years went on. Every day during the spring and fall she watched me train and even train with me. Every summer we went swimming in a small creek thought we found after losing ourselves in the distant rice fields, every winter I invited her into the house to stay warm. I never let my parents see her; she would often hide if a member of my family walked by.
When we older the kids but younger than teens, I started watch her work every winter. Though it seemed to wear her out. She had always told me that she loved it. She often compared it to how I loved to train. She was also happy that with her working as well, her family was able to eat once every day. A good sized meal she called it, it was just enough food to stay a healthy weight though.
I wasn't supposed to but I would sometimes give her yen for her. But she would often just add it to her family funds. I was a little frustrated she wouldn't spend it on herself, but I got over it when I realized that she lived for her family. She truly loved them, one more thing we did not share.
"I'm not sure exactly how to thank you. It really means a lot to me."
"It's my gift to you. Please, there is no other way to think me other than just saying it."
"But those are just words. You are giving me money, for my family."
"So what, I have plenty of money, so those words are actually worth more." I never told her why those words meant to me. She was my escape, from my pursuing family. My family always told me what to do, and never one rewarded me with anything. Yet she was always greeting me with a hug, and a smile. See let me rest on her shoulder after long hours of training.
Though I didn't like her working, I was happy to see that she was growing at least a little bit stronger. She was able to keep up with me when we ran around. She had also adopted the nubbed tail cat, who still hated me. I had finally decided that Mosuto would be my one only good friend. Nothing more, nothing less.
That changed quickly as we grew older. I became even more needing of her company. As my father started to really make me work and train and do everything for him and "the family name", I grew closer to her. She was able to work even more, but she always made sure she had time to see me. Mostly at night.
I had become a rebellious teenager, she had as well. Every night I waited for her by the Sakkara tree in a black cloak. She would also wear a clock and we would to her house, where a farm horse named Youei. We would ride off into the city. From there we roamed around doing nothing of much importance. For me, she was a break from my Close minded, strict, and sometimes abusive family. For, well, she would tell me it was nice to not have to worry about anything. She could focus on being happy.
I actually started to fall in love. Though I never wanted to admit it, for that would be crazy. I feared that I would be pushed out of my family even more. I didn't want to disgrace them, although they were getting on my nerves. So, for my own personal rebellion I would let Mosuto wear the family tunic my mother had made me wear once I was honorable enough. She just liked how I 'kept her warm at night' and I liked parading her around with my family name on her. I guess I was unconsionly trying to marry her. Hated my family, but loved the respect to the name, and watching her walk around with it on her back. She was childhood friend, and I had fallen for her, without admitting it her.
"So, I was just thinking about, the time I could have told her that I loved her. And if I did, how I wouldn't have felt the urge to go to Germany and get stuck in this mess. I also would have been happy and not as lonely." Takeo had finished his story find out that he had collected a crowd. Both Nickoli and Richtofen had come over to hear the story.
"That was interesting." Nickoli said finishing off another vodka bottle.
"Very, I should have known you knew someone. I often noticed you looking off in the distance deep in thought." Richtofen kept babbling on about how it all made since but he eventually grew quiet. Dempsey scoffed.
"At least you can remember." He said fairly load toward Richtofen to shut him up. He reached inside his pant pocket and pulled out a torn picture. "I remember this girl only slightly. Can't even remember her name or if we were a thing. I really just don't know. But I know we used to flirt. A lot."