Disclaimer: I disavow, deny, disclaim, disbelieve and dismiss any and all things pertaining to that ugly phenomenon known as 'reality'.
Drain Bramaged Inc. Proudly Presents,
A Mad-Hamlet Production...
Brutal Truth
She sat sitting across from me at our regular table. The bar was your standard one, dark, cozy, and a murmur of collected conversations gathering into the background to create an ever-present buzz. It wasn't bad enough to attract the wrong crowd, nor was it good enough to overcharge for watered down drinks. Add that to the fact it was within walking distance of where we both lived and it quickly became our little home away from home.
Right now though, I wanted nothing more than to get her away from our hang out and back to her actual home. She always got like this around this time of year. Every spring, just when the grey skies of March gave way to April, she'd go all to pieces.
Her hair hung listlessly, unwashed, unkempt. The black gleam had been covered by grime, grease and dust. Misplaced locks hung in front of her eyes but they were so clouded over with the effects of alcohol I doubt she'd have noticed the second coming, much less stray hair. She huddled over her drink, almost protectively then with a lurch held it out at arms length and with a loud exclamation of "Too duty!" downed it.
Just like the five before it, and the ten the night before, and the seven the night before that. Just like she had, these same three days as long as I had known her.
And she never, not once, had ever said anything about it.
I met her six years ago when she arrived in San Francisco from Japan. I myself had just finished my schooling and was teaching English as a second language. While her English was passable there was a lot of rough edges to be refined. I picked up pretty quick that she was different from the majority of my students. While most did study and concentrate on whatever task I had for them, she seemed to cling to every lesson with desperation. After a few weeks of regular lessons, twice a week, she came to me to inquire about the possibility of private tutoring. Normally my reaction was to politely decline as I had more then enough on my table already but she seemed quite earnest and, she was an excellent student. If you ask any teacher worth their salt they'll tell you what they love most is an eager student. I was no exception so I agreed.
For the first few weeks our meetings were quite what you would expect between a student and a teacher; but as the time passed our lessons began to edge away from just simple instruction and repetition involving vocabulary and grammar. We began to have real conversations, talking about ourselves, where we were in our lives and where we were going. I learned that she was majoring in acting and hoped to go onto theatre. I told her of my own plans to hopefully open my own language school one day. We discussed ethics, the latest news and, more than once, our conversations continued well past the scheduled lesson-time. She never talked about her past much, except to say that she had family back in Japan that she didn't talk too very often save her middle sister who she chatted with over the phone from time to time. I didn't pry much either seeing no real point.
Things changed one night after we had had a vigorous discussion regarding the ethics of group religion versus singular worship. She was gathering her things to leave and I really didn't want the evening to end. It had been a long time since I had had a regular social life and I suddenly had the urge to go out and have a beer. Something I had not done since leaving the university. I casually asked her if she wanted to 'go and have a drink.'
I had no idea what button I'd accidentally pushed but it must have cut pretty close to something nasty. For a minute she seemed like she was going to bolt out of my apartment, through the door if she had too. Then her fear turned to anger and I swear the temperature dropped several degrees in the general area. My mouth went on auto-pilot and blurted out, "Platonic..platonic..platonic..only platonic."
I entertain no delusions about my physical fitness. I have none. I don't exercise, I eat what I like and smoke. Just by the way she held herself I could tell she could wipe the floor with me and I did not want that at all. Pain and I have never really been too close.
One of the exercises I drum into all my students is the practice of 'the eternal homework'. I encourage them that, whenever and wherever, they come across a word they do not know that they immediately look it up in a dictionary, write down the definition in their mother-tongue, then the English definition and write three sentences using the new word. Not many stick with it very long but she was, as I said, different. The second I said 'platonic' she whipped out an English-Japanese dictionary automatically and looked it up. I saw her lips move as she read the Japanese equivalent and the subsequent English definition. I was quite nervous as I was pretty sure I would either be having a cold beer in good company soon, or a closed casket service.
With a snap she closed her dictionary and giving me an apologetic smile agreed.
I kept my word and we had a nice drink and continued conversation, just between friends.
A few weeks later we did it again, then even sooner after that. More months passed and we occasionally would see a movie, or go to a restaurant. I was there for her stage debut and gave her a standing ovation. (Even if I was the only one on my feet.) After that I never missed a performance of hers, even if the play was beyond my understanding.
Then the mystery began. The end of March rolled by and we had gone to our regular bar but, unlike her normal behavior, she proceeded to get blitzed out her mind. Occasionally she would break down and cry like a babe, clinging to me and all I could do was hold her, glaring at anyone who stared. The next night the whole episode repeated itself. Her toasting "To duty." and downing shots like they were going out of style. I merely sat there making sure she was, relatively, ok. After the third night I didn't see her for two weeks.
When she did call on me, she apologized and I asked if there was anything she wanted to talk about. She shook her head only to reply that, "This time of year always reminded her of a hard time." Then she invited me out to dinner, her treat, and we were back on track.
By then we were the best of friends and I had no intention of risking it by being nosy. Though I was curious. This happened every year that I knew her, at the same time.
She waved a waiter over and that snapped my thoughts back to the present. She ordered yet another Johnny Walker, straight up. I sighed and lit a cigarette, contemplating the coming duties ahead. Me practically carrying her the blocks to her apartment, dragging her up the steps, running a bath and, while she attempted to clean up a little I would force a few aspirin down her throat with four or five glasses of water so the hangover wouldn't be lethal. After she collapsed onto her bed I'd sit there for a few hours to make sure that, if she did vomit, she wouldn't choke to death on it.
Ah. Friendship.
My musing was interrupted when in a slurred voice she spoke up. More often than not she didn't speak at this time of year, being satisifed to only drown whatever sorrows she held in silence, all save for the repeated "To Duty." So I was a little surprised.
"You're my best friend you know that?" Her head was resting in her hands, which were themselves supported by her elbows on the table.
Regrettably on the polished surface her elbows tended to slide outward so her head would slowly droop then with a jerk she'd correct her position and the whole thing started all over again.
"After all this I think I deserve the title 'best friend'." I replied.
She continued as if I hadn't spoken. "My bestest buddy and I've never even told you why I put you through this hell."
I shrugged. "Not my business. I just want to make sure you're still around so I can keep being your bestest buddy."
She giggled but it was a scary giggle. More like a whimper in disguise.
"Well..do ya' wanna' know why?"
"Do you want to tell?"
Her head sprang up and she looked me right in the eyes. There was a fire there, dim, shrouded by alcohol but there nonetheless. Maybe..maybe she wasn't as drunk as I thought. Of course I didn't have her endurance. After six shots straight up I'd be a puddle.
"Yeah..yeah I do." She said.
"Ok…talk. I'll listen."
"Heh, you ever were the sweet talker." She sat up a bit straighter. "On this day, six years ago.."
"Seven." I corrected.
She looked confused.
"You arrived here a little over six years ago." I explained, "So I figure what happened occurred the year before."
These little nit-picky arguments of ours were sort of a trademark between us.
She scrunched up her face in seeming concentration.
"Six and a half?" She offered.
"I guess, this did happen before we met."
She nodded.
"Six and a half years ago I was to be married."
Ah. Jilted at the altar. That would leave pleasant scars.
"It took the longest time for me and my fiancé to admit our feelings to each other. Death in fact, or the near escape from it."
I nodded gesturing for her to continue.
"And then, just when I finally thought I had earned a 'happily ever after' an enemy revealed that my fiancé's family had descended from burakumin."
I shuddered ok I was wrong, this was much worse than having been jilted at the altar. Having to teach to many Japanese I had picked up a fair amount of knowledge of their society so I knew what she was talking about. That kind of mentality that was associated with thinking of others as 'inferior' for one stupid reason or another has always been a sore spot with me but I held my tongue.
"And?" I said.
"And my father refused to allow the marriage. I loved my fiancé so much but father threatened to kick me out of the clan. My oldest sister nearly had a fit when she learned she had been living with burakumin. I think that hurt most of all, I had never seen her angry before, she acted so hateful toward my fiancé, practically screaming that she would throw away everything in the house that had been 'contaminated' by them."
By this point tears had started to slide down her face but I made no move to comfort her. I merely waited for her to continue, lighting another cigarette in the silence and inspecting my, now quite warm, glass of beer.
After a minutes she resumed speaking. "Strangely enough my middle sister was the most upset at the outcome. She always was so cold, so emotionless seeming to love only money and trouble. Now, she got into a shouting match with father, about how wrong his decision was, how all that mattered was that I was, or had been, happy but he ignored her. He simply told me what would happen if I insisted the marriage continue. He said it would bring dishonor to our name and family line, how it was my duty to protect the dojo and clan. So, despite everything inside me screaming not too…" by now she was almost sobbing and had to choke down a few tears before continuing. "I did my duty."
She held out her newest drink up before her lips. "To duty." she almost snarled and chugged the drink. It took her a few seconds to recover. She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand.
"So," She gave that half-laugh, half-sob like before. "Whaddya think?"
By now my cigarette had burned out, mostly untouched and I was idly circling the rim of the beer bottle with my finger. I raised my eyebrows and gave her a stare. "You fucked up."
It was blunt. It was supposed to be. If you ask me what I think I tell you. It's another sore spot with me. She reacted as if I slapped her. I suppose I did, verbally at least.
Her hands scrabbled over the tabletop blindly looking for purchase, maybe another drink but she hadn't ordered one yet. She shot me a look of pure rage and through gritted teeth said. "You have no right to say that. I loved him but I couldn't abandon my family! Father would have kicked me out; the contamination of being related to a burakumin would have followed everything we touched from then on. Our neighbors would have shunned us; our friends would abandon us. Any children I or my sisters had would have almost no opportunities in life. I couldn't do that, I couldn't be that selfish."
I met her gaze and hated myself for what I said next.
"You fucked up."
She simply held my gaze for another second then looked away. I heard her mumble. "I wouldn't expect a gaijin to understand."
"I do understand." I replied, not put off by her statement. "I understand that you don't even talk to your family, I understand that you're not even in Japan anymore. That your life is here, in America so there goes your 'gaijin' crack. I understand that, essentially, everything you were afraid of happening happened anyway and you didn't even get your love out of it. Sounds like a shitty deal if you ask me and you did."
She sat there, like a puppet with its strings cut. Her head was hung so I couldn't see her face but the shaking of her shoulders told me plenty already. Finally in a quiet mewling voice that I had to really struggle to hear she said, "I thought you were my friend."
I reached across the table and gently held her hands in my own. She didn't pull away but didn't respond either.
"I am your friend. Its because I'm your friend I'm telling you this. I'm telling you how it is, or at least how I see it. I won't mince words; I won't try and beguile you with manners and false sympathy. You can trust that if I say something it's the truth or as close to it as I can get. I do this because I am your friend."
Still not looking at me she began to shake her head, "Just like him." She whispered. "You're just like him, the baka."
I didn't know whether to feel complimented or insulted.
"C'mon," I said. "Let me take you home."
I stood up and tried to pull her up as well but she shook me off.
"No. No, I'm fine. I can get home myself. I'm not as bad as last night."
"You sure?" I asked.
She nodded. "Yes. I'll be ok. Really."
I figured I'd blown it. My attitude toward honesty and opinions had destroyed friendships before and others it had strengthened to the point I had them still but then she gave me a large smile that reached even her eyes which was surprising considering she still had tears running down her face.
"I'm ok really." She said squeezing my hand for emphasis. "Can I call you tomorrow?"
"Uh, yeah sure." I was a little off center by this sudden turnaround in her behavior. "But not before seven ok? I got a hell of a lot of work to do."
"Right." She replied. "Thanks. For everything." She squeezed my hand again. I almost gulped. She was an attractive young woman after all but I didn't want anything to happen that we would really regret later.
"You're welcome. What are friends for?"
When she released my hand I headed for the door of the bar. I turned halfway around and asked, "Tomorrow right?"
She nodded again, "Yeah. I'll call you."
"But not before seven."
"Naturally." She replied and then gave a small laugh. A real laugh, an honest laugh.
As I walked by the bar I could see her on the other side of the huge window that looked out on the street. She had sat back down at 'our' table and seemed to be smiling as if she found something funny, some private joke all her own. Maybe, just maybe she would be all right.
The next day she didn't call.
A few days later I went to her apartment to check up on her. No one answered the door and when I checked with the building manager I learned that she had moved out. She was gone.
She had shared with me that burning pain that all people carry in one form or another and I, in my arrogance had now fucked up. It hurt. It hurt far more than I thought it would. It was only then I realized that I loved her, no not as lover, as a sister. Like the sister I had never had. She had been the best friend I had ever had and I had tossed her away out of some sense of 'honesty.' Now it was my turn to go to bars and drink questionable amounts of alcohol, loudly proclaiming "To honesty." Before downing each one.
Of course this couldn't go on forever. The pain lost some of its edge over time and I stopped bingeing. I threw myself into my work using it to try and forget what I considered one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I started to make some real money and, instead of using it to open a school of my own I instead went back to school myself. It was a hard life but satisfactory if not particularly happy.
Nine months passed and I received a letter in the mail. I didn't recognize the return address. It was from some business in Southern California called 'NabsCorp Exporting'. I opened it and a card fell out. It read simply:
"You are cordially invited to the wedding of one Akane Tendo formerly of Clan Tendo, to one Ranma Saotome."
Also taped onto the inside of the invitation were two additional envelopes. The contents of the first held a note and an airplane ticket:
"I owe you. Here's the airplane ticket to the wedding.
-Nabiki Tendo
PS. Get a haircut.
The wedding was in Hawaii.
The second envelope held a short note and an advertisement for a dojo opening near my neighborhood in a few weeks.
'The Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts.'
The note itself read:
"You're terribly out of shape, you drink, smoke and are in the habit of wearing the same shirt for days at a time. You're developing an unsightly gut and need to spend more time in the sun. Pale skin is such a turn off. At least you're not going bald. I'm not saying this because I hate you, I'm telling you this because I'm your friend and it's the truth.
See you soon and thanks again for being honest with me. I've missed you.
Love,
Akane.
I closed the envelopes wearing a huge grin. I knew the perfect wedding present for the two of them. I figure her fiancé could benefit from free English lessons for a year or two.
End
Authors Notes: That…THAT was fun. I got the idea for this LAST NIGHT can you believe it? I typed it up at work and am posting it now. A worthwhile labor over 'real' work I think.
Of course the inspiration for this was the few fics that used the 'burakumin' idea. 'Poison' by..er..um..damn..one sec…ah here we go.
By Susan Doenime was the first one I read. Terrible, awful, gut-wrenching, vile…great stuff!
The rest was inspired by a fic of similar nature by SKJAM (What a great alias.) and another one that it itself inspired a wonderful story called 'Path of the Wolf' which I am hoping is concluded soon.
I sorta borrowed elements from all these stories because in some Kasumi was the most repulsed by the burakumin and others it was Nabiki and/or Akane.
I don't buy Nabiki being like that. Her whole personality is one that rejects the 'old school' thinking of Japan. Part and Parcel.
Akane, in my opinion, COULD be pressured into going along but would not lean that way naturally. Yes, she values honor, yes she follows some traditions but she could never be the champion of a dojo if she went all the way with traditional thinking.
Kasumi would be a sheep.
There are stories where I like Kasumi and some where I tolerate her. But the whole 'Kasumi' thing just..bothers me. Maybe it's the pessimistic cynic in me. (Not only is the glass half empty but its probably acid rainwater too.) but she's like a suger cube that gets stuck in my throat. Sweet yes, but the sharp corners hurt.
The narrator is, for all intents and purposes me.
I suppose this could qualify as an insertion fic but not in the same way. I AM an English teacher (I teach Hungarians though, not Japanese.) I DO smoke, do no exercise and am..SOMEWHAT pale. (But I have thick, luxurious hair. Ooo…hello ladies.)
Also if you are my friend I will tell you the 'truth' whatever it may be. I call it like I see it and I can no more stop than I could stop being effected by gravity. Just like the narrator this has cost me more then one friendship. However the friends I do have are closer to me then family. I would die for them and they would do likewise. At least I hope so cause if that situation ever arises and they don't ..well…uh..lets move on.
If anyone gets horribly bent out of shape because this might be a self-insertion fic look on the bright side, I didn't become
all-powerful and go around seducing every female anime character in anime history while single-handedly fighting off the forces of evil, wearing a blindfold with one hand tied behind my back.
If anyone gets horrible bent out of shape for any other reason, email me, we'll discuss it and I promise to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, God help you.
This fic was a blast to write because, as mentioned, it just sorta popped up in my mind last night and practically wrote itself. A wonderful, wonderful experience. If reading it was even somewhat similar I'd love to hear about it.
Oh and for all you nitpickers out there it would be very easy for Akane to go to Nabiki and have her find Ranma for her. So there.
Bi-Daaahhh..
My that's shockingly immature behavior for a twenty-six year old English teacher.
COOL! Let's do it again.
Bi-DAAAAAHH!!!
I remain, as always,
Mad-Hamlet