Amputations

Part Seven: Different names for the same thing

Every Thursday afternoon, I had to wait for my siblings after school. Just as I had the first time, I waited in the drawing classroom. But I really did not draw very much when I was in there; the upperclassman, Haku, was always there as well. Despite my predispositions about making friends, there was something about him that attracted me, like a moth to a flame. The more we were together, the more intrigued I became.

We talked about many things but never ourselves. Haku asked no questions and I did the same. It seemed we were comfortable just talking about school or music but if something personal came up because of it, it was always pushed aside by a quick change of subject. Through that method, I suppose we did become friends. Strange though it was, we seemed to have a lot in common and (from my point of view) enjoyed each others' company.

After meeting with him for three weeks, we finally decided to go somewhere instead of that classroom. Haku wanted to go outside "to get some fresh air" as he put it when he really wanted to smoke a cigarette. While it surprised me that he smoked at first, I pushed away any curiosity (Kankurou picked up the habit when he was fifteen so it really was not a big deal) and just let him do as he pleased. Really, if Haku had said he wanted to go to the bathroom and shoot up some heroin, I would not have cared. I liked him and I was not about to loose him as a friend over something so frivolous.

I followed him outside. It was the middle of October, so the temperature was pretty cool. Haku lit up a cigarette and held the pack out to me. "Do you want one?" he asked.

Kankurou had never offered me one before. He had always said that it was a dirty habit and someone like me should not do it. I was about to say no but then I wondered that if I did not take one, would Haku still like me? Going against everything that had been drilled into my head in primary school, I accepted a cigarette. I had seen people smoke before so I figured it could not be very difficult and that it probably tasted all right.

Haku handed me his lighter. After fumbling with it for a few moments, I managed to light it up. I could feel his eyes on me the whole time. "Have you ever smoked before?" he asked me, a slightly amused smile on his lips.

"No, I just thought I'd try it," I replied, trying to appear casual. Smoking had seemed so taboo according to the teachers in school and now it seemed like it would be something simple, something to just try. I did not think I would get addicted. Like every other teenager, I thought I would stay unaffected.

Before I put it to my lips, Haku put his hand on my shoulder. It was the first time he had ever touched me. His fingertips sent tingles through my arm. "Just don't swallow the smoke, ok? It'll make you sick," he said, always full of strange, yet obvious advice.

I nodded and stuck the cigarette between my lips. Slowly, a bit nervously, I inhaled. My eyes watered as the smoke filled my lungs, nicotine infiltrating my supposedly healthy body. It did not taste good and really, it did not feel too good either; because after a moment, I was coughing and doubling over. It was definitely the most embarrassing situation I had been involved with in a long time.

Haku did not laugh at me though, like I thought he might. Instead, he just smiled and said, "It'll take a few times to get used to it, but after a while, it starts to feel really good." As if for an example, he took a drag and exhaled, smoke flowing from his mouth and up into the crisp fall air. He made it look so easy.

I tried and tried again and after a while, it did start to feel good. My body began to adjust to the nicotine and I relaxed.

Outside, under a browning tree, we began to talk about ourselves. Cigarettes had broken the ice. "You're a freshman, right?" Haku asked as he sat down, leaning back against the trunk of the tree. He looked up at me from that position, his dark eyes studying me. I wondered what he was thinking.

"Yeah, I am," I said as I sat down next to him, "Why?"

Haku shrugged. "Just curious," he replied, "I'm a junior and I know your brother, Kankurou." Of course. Of course they knew each other. They were probably even in the same drawing class. A feeling of dread seeped through my veins. There was no telling what sort of things Kankurou had told him. He had no shame in spreading embarrassing stories about Temari, me, and occasionally even himself.

I frowned and glanced over at him. "He hasn't told you anything about me, has he?" I asked, trying to make myself sound as indifferent as I could. The look on my face probably gave everything away though.

"No, not really," Haku said, "Just that you're a bit of a mean kid…But I don't really see that." It did not surprise me that Kankurou had told people that I was "mean" as he had put it. Truthfully, I was a mean kid so in that sense I did not care that he had told people I did not know that. It was the least of my problems.

"Oh," I said simply. There was no point in denying it.

My answer did not seem satisfactory for Haku. "Do you think you're a mean kid?" he asked, fixing me with an inquiring gaze. His dark eyes were as unreadable as they ever were. It was as if he had put up some sort of barrier between other people and himself. In that aspect, I thought we were alike.

I really was not sure if I should answer that question honestly. I knew the things I did to people were mean, even cruel on occasion. But I had only met Haku recently and I did like him very much…I did not want to lose him as a friend, or whatever he was, that quickly. "I don't know," I replied, "Some of the things I do aren't really…nice but it's not like people have been very nice to me, either." Of course, in most cases, I brought things upon myself.

Haku mused over my words, thoughtfully taking a drag on his diminishing cigarette. His face held little emotion but in his eyes, I noticed a change. It was as if my words had brought back some old memory of his. "Well, I won't make assumptions about what's happened to you," he said, his eyes flicking over to the scars on my forehead for a split second, "But I certainly don't think you're a mean person."

Our friendship continued in that fashion. We revealed very little about ourselves. All I knew about Haku for a long time was that he was originally from up north and was now living on his own in a small apartment close to the school. Like him, I revealed very little as well. I told him I had grown up here and that my Mother had passed away when I was young, so now I lived with my Father and my siblings. Haku did not seem too curious about what happened to my Mother. I don't know if it was general lack of interest or if it was because of the fact that he never had parents of his own, as I later came to discover.

I did not think that Haku could have any sort of questionable reputation but when Temari found out I had become friends with him, she did not take it too lightly. She confronted me about it one day when Kankurou had gone off with his friends from the basket ball team. We were walking back to our house and she said she had something that she wanted to talk to me about. Normally, Temari stayed out of my business, so my first thought was that it was just something that involved school.

She looked down at me, her turquoise eyes showing a bit of apprehension. Looking back, she probably did not want to confront me, considering my tendencies for violence. "I heard you've been hanging around with that Haku kid," she began slowly.

"Yeah…So?" I asked, failing to see the point of this conversation. Haku and I never did anything bad, really; we just sat outside and smoked cigarettes. I hardly saw anything wrong with that. But I suppose Temari was a bit more level-headed than I was and probably knew something bad would come of our relationship.

My retort did not make her happy. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You don't know anything about Haku, do you?" she asked, trying hard to stay patient with me.

"Not really, no," I said. There was no point in lying about that but I was still failing to see why my friendship with him was worth discussing. If there was some sort of problem, I thought that she should have brought it up sooner than that. It had been months now since our first meeting.

Temari sighed and shook her head slightly. "Well, I'm not one to spread rumors or anything," she said warily, "But just be careful around Haku, ok? I don't think he's really as nice as he seems to be." If I had known then that my sister was much more talented at reading people than I thought she was I would have taken her words to heart and distanced myself from Haku. The unfortunate reality, however, was that I thought that she was full of hot air.

"I don't care if he's not nice to everybody or not," I said indifferently, "He's not mean to me, so there's no point in telling him to leave me alone." This was the stubborn part of me speaking. Temari's warning did nothing but irritate me.

I saw her role her eyes. "Just don't be surprised if something weird happens," she said, a bit ambiguously.

And that was all that she said about Haku for a long time.

What she meant by "weird" was beyond me. Truth be told, at that time, I thought Haku was the most normal person I had ever met. Temari and Kankurou both had their own strange kinks and Haku had yet to reveal any of his. Even after Temari's warning, I looked at him no differently. I ignored my sister and told myself that Haku was just like everybody else that he wanted friends, and was maybe a little desperate if he wanted to try and be friends with me.

For a while, I was able to believe that.

If Kankurou knew about my friendship with Haku, he chose to stay quiet about it. That was his way with more or less everything though. Unlike my sister or me, he was a fairly easygoing guy. Nothing really ever seemed to bother him. I often wondered how he could go through life by just shrugging and saying "Not my problem." Occasionally, I envied his carefree attitude. I wondered that if I was like him, maybe I would not have the problems that I had.

Such a thought was stupid on my part. My problems were ones that had formed from complex incidents. They were not about to go away so easily.

The end of the first semester of high school was another turning point in my life. By that point, Haku and I began spending more time together. Aside from our weekly meetings on Thursdays, we spent the weekends when he was not working together as well. Most of the time we went out around town, until one day Haku called me and asked me to come to his apartment; apparently he had a cold and did not want to go out anywhere.

I obliged and wrote down the directions as he dictated them over the phone. Temari, who was also at home, gave me a wary look the whole time. As soon as I put the phone back on its cradle, she decided to put her two cents in.

"Don't do anything you'll regret later," she said.

I was starting to get sick of her cryptic bullshit.

"You're not my Mom, quit telling me what to do," I retorted childishly as I grabbed my jacket and headed toward the door.

Temari grabbed my shoulder and forced me to turn back around. "Don't," she said harshly, "Don't you ever say something like that to me again." There was something else in her voice but at the time I was too absorbed with my own issues to realize what it was.

She was worried about me.

(Author's Note: Whoo! New Chapter. Hopefully more will happen in the next one. Haha. I bet this was boring! Sorry!)