I am walking slowly in this god forsaken cold. The snow sends chills down my spine there thousand souls in this gray long city of building lurking in the shadows, yet I am not scared.
I will not get caught. How could I get caught anyway? When they all close there windows, afraid from their own shadow and will dislike anyone with gun as so many have in this city. Yes, this is the perfect place for this, I hate this city
But this cycle must come to a peacefully end and this seems the only place to end it
In my mind I smile, remembering the song ''New York, New York'' and in ironic comment my mind picks this line ''if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere''.
As I look down at my gun, yes this is the perfect place to die
and here I am again, alone at this snow alone and broken as I once felt.
The rest of my thoughts were blank and maybe that is why, it was a bit too late when I heard a man running toward my way. I didn't really see him in this god forsaken cold until his last footstep before falling into my place. Shocked and surprised my gun fell down. I did nothing, just watching is this guy going to kill me? After all it would just make it easier.
I lay my gaze on him:
He was wearing big green poppy coat and a red sweater. You could understand his slimy by the difference of them both. His face was of a man who aged to quickly, his gray hair only helped more to the image.
I thought he would take an action but all he did was to stare with his small olive eyes.
At first he looked at my clothing, my long slim figure in the night coat. All my appearance seems to be made of black fabric and pale skin. He then moved into my cold marmalade eyes, these eyes shocked so many with their beauty, but I could see by his shaken body and frighten look that he had seen more then just the beauty; the same seed of violence that had been discovered by Aizawa. Yes, my eyes are the eyes of a murderer. The man took his bag and ran. But instead of running from the police sirens it seems he went toward their direction. Is meeting an honest soul in the city is really that scary?
If only I could be in peace with my torn soul. If I could truly be only a beast then maybe this would not needed, but for now I feel no other choice. Dead or alive, I go farther into this riddle and open my personal Pandora box.
I walk around for hours as the skies are getting darker and darker with the help of the human air pollution it seems the sky starting to get impossible shade of black.
This used to be a dangerous alley. The neighborhood and street around it in most still are, but the lone building that is here is where it all began for me. This building has shattered. Number 26 I finally found the building. It seemed so much bigger when I was a kid, so much more frightening and yet I still find myself trembling in front of the opening door at the hallway. "Oh well a man can get excited before his death" I think to myself as I try to calm my spirit. But how can I really get calm in here? This I don't know, But I do know
this can be the only place to end it and so quietly yet shaking I enter the hall.
The place was so quite that only my footstep on the wooden stairways sound as if it disturbed the silence of unsleeping ghosts and made it even more clear to me that I am the only living human being in this building. the only other sound in the area was the sound of police sirens, sounds of warn and alarm, but for now this is the safest place. I wonder where was the police back then?
A big black graffiti "WE OF DE HOOD" decorated the stairway wall.
I stand at the edge of the hallway and stare at this place. Chaos would not describe how this place looked, all the windows were broken and the glass lay everywhere, doors were broken or stayed on the floor, some kept there wooden burnt fabric but the burn was easily seen on the golden plastic locks that lost its peaceful round character and in each place that was not cracked yet on the wall, there was a graffiti to cover it up. Graffiti, the media of the young and the poor, a last cry out of those who did not know how to shout, and what to say only wrote there name in big italic style. This willingness to shout for help to tell your last thought even if you might be minute before your death; as an author I can sympathize with this. I too will shout my last word and for that I carry with me a small brown suitcase. Inside is my most valued poison: a pen, a note book, a last cigar to ease the pain and a lighter to bring last minute of light. With them I will write my greatest work yet, my suicide note.
Yet I hesitate. My steps in this place are slow since this place bring such memories and no matter how much complete I feel with my decided mission, here with my past here I cannot complete, I enter the room where it all started with a small but firm grip on the door I walk inside.
The room was in horrible state as all of this building, it looked shattered.
The covering of the floor were turn apart, the walls were cut, the doors were half broken, in big raging graffiti's everywhere one wrote "see me" and in other wrote "love me".
Both close to the green wooden sofa which was cut marked and graved name upon.
At least the windows were intact and kept the snow outside.
I walked toward the sofa looking at the names marked on the walls and wondered how many murders have been here? How many screams? How many last nights of passion and how many rapes? My legs hit a red bottle. I look at the label "Romannee of 1959" yes I remember this label, I remember that night...
At that dreadful night my small trembling legs of a young teen boy hit the same bottle.
Mr. Kitazawa, my tutoring teacher which I adore was drunk to no doubt. The bottle was one in many. Kitazawa's eyes were red and weird looking. This was not the soft kind of look he always had and in that day my roll model was ruined. I did not know the guy that appeared before me. "Let me go" I shouted in fear and confusion.
He came closer to me as I ended up against the wall "teacher?" I mumbled quietly not quite getting how a man can change so much. "Please stop calling my that" he said as he pulled his face closer to my jeans sniffing the air around my jeans.
I had an erection. He smiled and move his face closer to my face "Eiri, I am really glad you have always been a good and honest boy." But I did not feel good nor did I feel honest. I felt dirty and shameful but he was my big roll model the kindest older person in my life and the first person which I had an attraction to. "Stop it" I beg tilting my head with shame, embraced from his sexual gaze upon me. "Why? You have always watched me?" And it was true I always did watch him but, I was so confused.
"This is what you wanted" he stated this with wide open eyes and till this day made me tremble in guilt. Remembering this day is so hard, I slowly find myself sitting in a corner with my legged cross.
No matter how hard I try to avoid this I still remember this all too well.
Two guys appeared from the door. They were big with muscles, but something seemed out of the normal shaped in them, their eyes were covered by sunglass in the mid night and yet you could see a spark of sadistic thrill inside them knowing they're going to hurt a little boy. They bribe my teacher; I could not believe it but he comment and left them to do with me as I please. "Now be a good boy" one of them is saying but all I can see is the gun he puts inside his pants. My mind went blurry, not capable to handle. I acted on subconscious taking the gun from the guy pants shooting into the air I remember one shot my teacher, he died. The two others went outside fearing that the cops will hear the shots, I remember crying near Toma who felt too responsible to it all
I know he did not do it for the money. Ten dollars is cheap anyway, you turn it.
He just hated me. This was the look of pure hatred and distaste he just hated my different sexuality. "If you hated me so much, you should have just told me so. There was no reason for you to die, ."
I say this out loud I know no one can hear me. I know I am the only one here, but I can't keep it inside anymore. I must let the word outside from me, if only it could erase the feeling.
"The one who should have been erased... was in fact me"
I look at the black gun and know soon I am going to finished the erasing process just a little more.
I take out my "Black Devil" cigarette and light it up. Then I see it, small, kitsch and merely a machine printed, but there was hope.
On my lighter there is a picture taken not so long ago at an amusement park of me and Shuichi Shindou. The size of his smile is the same as the pink bunnies smile. Well, actually a bit bigger. Even I found some relief and let go of a small suggestive smile. What is with this kid what in him that makes me gasp and shake in amazement even after those thought and memories of my repressed childhood?
As I stop wondering about that I note that the ground base of the room is shaken, the floor sounds as if there is going to be an earthquake suddenly. A hole is made and from that hole and into the top jump what seems to appear as a giant brown round ball with a yowling sound. One might think it is a vengeful ghost of a great dog, but then it is open in mid air and from it jumping my lover Shuichi in what seem to be a huge brown Dalmatian dog custom. He then land on the side of the room. As he barely breathing he says "I have finally found you! Yuki!" in determent voice. His mask's nose shone in bright red and the yellow glass brightening from his eyes. "S..Sh...shuichi" My head was screaming "Oh dear lord! loly school girl outfit, other kimono feminine and now huge dog suit. I should totally find his designer and kill him so my mental scared brain would rest in peace". But I guess considering the reason did not seem to be the time to note this. "You! How did you get here?"
"Shut up!" he said with angry face and slammed his mask for no apparent reason but anger itself. "That doesn't matter!", actually it was quite the matter to me. I did my best to fall from the face of the earth, I was sure I could die peacefully and for once to not be part of other peoples scams.
"You disappeared without even letting me know!"
My Shuichi was angry. In all the time we spent this year I saw him in different faces and emotion. Needy, lovable, bragging, childish, helpless, sad, bored, interested and almost always a young, energetic, happy and cheerful person. It was the first time I ever saw him angry and even now he keeps his optimistic spirit. Did he really think I just ran away or maybe he's too afraid to lose me? But why? I have done nothing but be an ass to him. He steps closer and take out a piece of note book paper "Look!". As I take the paper he continues to explain "That time in the park my lyrics that got blown away by the wind. I finished it! Look at it"
So this is what he came for. Only to show me a song "You always act like this" I say it cynically but my smile is true "You don't think about the other person at all. I use to be like that too" yes I also was a bright carless jumpy boy with no worries but my own desires. Shuichi seemed surprised to know that but truth is, as much as it annoys me, I like him for what he reminds me. "That's how I also pushed Kitazawa into a corner...And killed him" and here I am, at the same place this time the table will turn and I will die but he stops my thought. "Don't be ridiculous!" he shouts as he leaning toward me for our final kiss, our mouth meet with such passion and the small costume tail is waving, even now minute before death I can't say no to him
He looks upon my eyes and speaks much too fast and speedy for me to replay. As if he will miss a line then I will be no longer here to listen, things he thought about it all along.
"So what if I pressure you into a corner? Don't think you can get away from me! You can run or you can die, I will search for you and find you! I'm never letting you get away from me! Because I love you"
There he said the word that scared him the most to tell me. Three words that are shameful to say in the Japanese culture and even more shameful to be reject; and then it hit me, after years and years of grip that the only thing I did to Kitazawa was to love him a foolish, stupid and pure first love. The same idiotic love that the perky energetic pink haired young boy is sending to me.
Love, the thing I didn't really believe existed any more
I looked at the page again the words were written in clean and neat letters
"Amidst a noisy crowd of people
The murmured words melt away
Scattered at my feet
Are memories that become blurred by it
I wander aimlessly and the brilliant lights of the town
Glaring one way
Illuminate me, on the verge of freezing
The cold time brings dreams from the skies
And they slip through my fingers
Counting my wishes, when I wake up"
no, it still sound like a crappy teenage high school love poem.
"Zero talent"
I do not understand pop songs at all. Yet I smile and know when he will sing it, it will sound brilliant and sparkly. Because his voice shows his inner side just like I let my guard down only in writing.
"You still have zero talent" I smiled to him with all my heart. As I said that I am glad that he will still need me for something more as he smiled to me. As the noise rose from K's US army friends and their chopper.
I know I have been saved by this helpless lover boy with the sound of angels and the will of the devils.
It is the early morning of Japan when I go to the cemetery. on the stone it said "Here lies the body of Yuki Kitazawa".
"I hope to heaven his soul is gone"
I lay those white lilies around on his grave and bow
It been long time and in all it I always regretted he died.
I will always remember him as my first love. I forgave him long ago. Vengeances only poison the body as my Buddhist father says. And now I am finally willing to forgive myself
"Good bye Yuki" I whisper toward him and start to move.
I then meet Toma, my brother, which is always guessing my moves. I look at him then keep moving as he stares quietly, I just don't know what to say
" Eiri san" he looks at me frighten "where are you going?"
"Home" I smile and see the relive on his face. I really have a lot of problems with this older brother of mine but you can't say he do not care
Home I think to myself and for once in a long, long time it felt like home.
As an author I could not ignore the irony just as I was about to give up and die, only then I started to live.
Isn't life amazing?