Hi^^
And although it´s a little late, Happy New Year to all of you :)
First, I want to apologize for this taking so long, but I wrote this chapter twice, because i found the first version not that good, so I wrote it completely new. And here it is and I hope all of you will enjoy^^
And again, thanks to the best beta in the world, bloody-miss-alice! Thanks for your beautiful work and for being so patient with me ;)
Soooo, here´s Chapther 12, please enjoy reading =D
Disclaimer: I don´t own Uragiri wa boku no namae wo shitteiru.
He lays on his back, one arm behind his head, while the other one lights up the cigarette between his lips. The couch beneath him is old and worn out and smells of Marihuana. He lets the lighter drop to the ground and takes a deep pull, closing his eyes. It's loud in the attic or rather top floor of the most popular club, disco, skate park or whatever it really is in Tokyo. Or at least in the other side of Tokyo.
The music that is played here on the top floor is some kind of Hardcore-Rap, fast, hard and furious, and the volume beats right through your body, make it tremble and tense and leap uncontrolled with that almost unbearable wish of moving, dancing, jumping, just to get the anxiety out of your blood and muscles. The music changes between rap and hip-hop he used to like and some mainstream crap he used to hate, but now it doesn't make any difference to him anymore. To him, the music is no fun anymore. It is no more than a torture to him, now.
With thirteen, he had wanted to belong to all those people here so badly. He sees himself, so young, teaching himself b-boying and how to take other's wallets perfectly, quiet, fast and absolutely self-conscious, as if born to be a criminal.
So many nights without sleeping, without resting, without eating. Always caught in a haze of heat and drugs and abused and exhausted endorphins that set free whenever he steps into a room where music is played. The elder teens would make him feel like he'd belong to them, despite his age. They'd give him the attention he needed so much, the feeling of being still there, of them liking him, respecting him without having a single clue about his past. He'd b-boy every night, his acrobatic feats and dizzying moves impressing and stunning the people so they wouldn't get their money to give him quickly enough out of their pockets and wallets.
He tries to remember clear details of some nights, but the edges of the hours and days the past three years blur and he loses focus on all those sceneries he sees before his inner eyes. But shit, how he has loved his life at that time.
Young.
Aggressive.
Provoking.
Fast.
Untamed.
Wayward.
Free.
The music was the rhythm of his heartbeat, the heat and the blaze that followed the reason of his existence. There was nothing he'd needed beside that. Oh, damn it. So many nights feeling alive.
So many nights of straining his body to the edge, until he wouldn't be able to walk anymore; losing sleep due to the constant and maddening ringing in his ears, this so-called tinnitus. He would have lost weight and hadn't always have the money to buy something to eat, so he'd smoke joints, one after another, forgetting his empty stomach, forgetting the growing and terrifying exhaustion of his body, even forgetting himself.
He had loved and hated it at the same time. He had tried to put it into some kind of frail balance by cutting himself, by letting his life flow out of his tired body and watching it. He would start resting again, he'd spend a few nights far from other people, but he would never be able to really sleep and he'd ask himself at the same time, when the last time had been since he has really slept and rested and got up with a smile on his face. He has strained his body to the limit and far, so far beyond.
And still, he doesn't stop. He can't stop.
Even now, as he listens to the sound of a very familiar song, his body tenses up, wanting to do what he has forced it to do for so long. He resists that urge and blows the smoke of his cigarette into the room filled with it already. He opens his eyes.
A few elder guys he knows sit on the sofas next to the one where he's stretched out, playing cards.
A girl steps into the room, sitting down somewhere in a corner, pulling up the sleeve of her shirt and injecting herself heroin. The room seems to quiver in rhythm with the music that is played in the lower floors. He even feels the sofa vibrating slightly and his muscles clench painfully and out of his control. He grits his teeth.
Down there, life is going on, overflowing everything and everyone.
But dead he lays here, waiting for the end that wouldn't come so soon.
...
He leans his shoulder against the wall of the alley, close to the end, his gaze locked on one of the most impressive buildings he has ever seen. His arms are crossed in front of his chest; the left sleeve exposes a svelte wrist and a slim hand with slender fingers. But there's something wrong. The fingertips are slightly reddish and the inner side of the wrist is bruised, long, even welts reach from there beneath the fabric to his elbow. It's not really evident on his pale skin, but if one would look close, no one could miss the sight.
The boy doesn't move, only watches silently the scenery in front of him, with an unreadable gaze, but the way his amber eyes narrow and his body remains completely motionless even as the beat of the music overwhelms it with a force that makes one's spine ache and blood boil, show that he doesn't like what he sees and that he wishes to be somewhere else, anywhere, just not here and that he wonders at the same time why he has gone to this place at all.
Really, Hyde Park is impressive, no doubt. It is something between a club, a disco, a skate park, a dealer's trading point and a place where gambling and illegal car races are quite common. The walls of the building are all covered with colourful graffiti, but now, at the end of the day, the shadows that fall from the enlightened windows and the spotlights that are installed in one row on the left and right side of the entrance, make the wall look darker now, despite the glowing colours, darker and treacherous. Most of the windows are broken or cracked and the roof doesn't look that stable anymore. Sure, since the building is already a couple of years old.
In front of Hyde Park there's a huge amount of space, kinda like a plaza, circled by all those other empty buildings, where the black windows and broken doors look like screaming faces. Beside the fact that people are often taken into those buildings and come out hours later and aren't the same anymore, burned-out cars pile up in front of them, black and gray from the ashes and the grime. That's what happens when someone loses a car race here. His car is burned down, and all those people watch and cheer, humiliating the loser even more and damaging his pride in a way it's no miracle that he comes back and tries again once he's picked up the pieces of his ego and put them back together. It's a vicious circle without escape.
Once you're in, you'll stay until you die.
Right now, there're no cars standing in one row in front of the entrance, yet, waiting for the signal to start, and he believes that the races start later at night, when the roads are emptier and Tokyo half-asleep and half-awake with a certain watchfulness that is still always too slow. And yet, outside in front of the open entrance of Hyde Park, a crowd of people stands and smokes and talks and laughs, but every time a voice drifts to him through the sick beating music, he hears no real joy in the laughter. But maybe it's only his imagination.
His amber eyes are still locked on all those people. They're mostly older teens or young adults that don't know what do to with their live and throw it away in a place like this.
He frowns as two guys start beating each other up, probably because of the girl that stands next to them, her fingernails boring into her face as she tries to calm the boys down, but they don't listen and continue hitting each other until blood flows and knuckles and noses crack and the girl starts crying, terrified and worried, without anyone that cares looking at them. It'd be no different if the three were alone there, since that's how much attention and concern they get.
Not far from them, a man in dark clothes leans against the wall in the shadow of the building, selling his stuff to two teen girls that try and fail to look older than they actually are. But he believes the guys won't mind their age in the end, anyway…
He grimaces and scans the area again and then he sees something that makes his stomach turn and his lungs clench in pity, so hard that it hurts to breathe.
A young woman, not much older than him, maybe nineteen or twenty, with thin and short clothes, high-heels and sparkling, cheap accessories hanging from her wrists, her neck and her ears. She wears make-up to cover the bruises on her face, but to his eyes, they're still as evident as a black spot in a sea of white, just impossible to miss.
She's not the only one, there're so many women like her, walking around on the plaza, talking to all kinds of guys. Some disappear with a male or sometimes even two in the building, swallowed by the heat, by the lights, by the noise and he can't see them anymore. He looks them in the eyes, from afar, and they look so tired. The way they smile is forced, their laughter sounds like a desperate yell. And their eyes, they are so empty. So completely out of life.
Really, she's not the only one, and he believes that to those males over there, those women don't make any difference, to them they're surely all the same, but that young woman is the one that notices him and walks over, tiredness making her look so much older, fatigue and the endless wish of sleeping and never wake up again.
...
He pulls his cell out of his pocket and checks what time it is. He grimaces. His last joint was four hours ago. He keeps telling himself that he's no junkie, but those are just lies wrapped lamely in consoling words of his own weak word pool that make the truth even more obvious, because he is. He is addicted and he gives a damn about it. After finishing his cigarette he has lightened up the next one immediately, without thinking about it.
He takes a shallow pull and feels the smoke settling bit by bit in his throat and on his tongue, where an awful taste lays; he wants to choke and spit it out. Suddenly, there's someone entering the room. The type of young women he always avoids wherever he is. Shit, if she'd decide to go searching for a client here, he'd get out of this room faster than an eye could see.
He slowly raises his head, only so far that he'd be able to watch her. He rolls his eyes as she walks directly towards him, a weird expression ghosting over her face. She is only a few years older than him, but already now, he sees that something is eating her up from the inside.
"What is it?" he asks with a raspy voice he hasn't used for a few days now. He sounds far ruder than he's planned to, but there's no help, honestly. She stops next to the couch he's resting on, her empty eyes focusing on him.
She remains silent instead of directly getting to the point.
He swallows his usual answer whenever he's asked by a girl or woman like her and frowns.
What the heck is going on?
...
"Piss off!" he snaps as she has ended.
"Listen, Renjou…"
Of course she knows his name, even though he doesn't know hers, because it changes every day or week or guy.
"I said piss off! I don't care about him, tell him to go home and never come back, got it?" he hisses.
A pain, so sick and mad and searing like an infected wound, only a thousand times worse, claws into his soul. It has been like this ever since that evening. He grits his teeth and again he feels as if his inside was ripped in two and those two parts apart, one dying and the other watching helplessly.
She narrows her eyes, but then she turns around, leaving the room without another word. He sits up, one hand running through his locks and then digging into his neck, where he welcomes the hurt he can at least control.
The elder guys next to him have stopped playing cards during the conversation and now they look at him with a nasty curiosity in their eyes. He ignores them. Then, one of the guys stands up and walks over to the window, slightly moving the curtain. Undoubtedly he watches the woman go back to him.
"Is that the guy she was talking about?" the guy asks and the tone in his voice makes him stop in motion, raising his golden eyes to glare at him.
He doesn't answer, but a healthy storm starts churning in his mind. He looks the elder one in the eyes and sees an expression he has seen so often already.
He runs way too often into one of his victims and the helplessness and the rage he always feels when seeing them, hurts as much as an open wound in saltwater; it burns and burns and leaves countless inner scars. And all he can do for them is asking them if he should call a doctor or bring them somewhere to a place where they could rest or gods, he'd even bring them directly to a psychiatrist, if they wanted, but those people never show any sign of listening to him or understanding him at all.
Too deep is the shock and the pain and the feeling of being dirtied for the rest of their lives.
Too deep the feeling of having met someone so cruel…so cold…so horrid.
It's not like those guys are either into one gender or the other. It's more like here, in this world, it doesn't make any difference to them anymore. They are so many and their victims are alone. They have strength and their victims are weak, at least weaker than they are. They know perfectly that no one will harm them if they'd do what they've done so often already. They take whatever and whoever and as much as they want, until they're satisfied or bored and search for their next toy, uncaring of the person, the human, they leave behind.
And yes, those things happen where he lives.
Out here, in a world where only the strongest set the rules for playing.
This place does he call home.
Underlined by sarcasm and black-coloured with bitterness.
He's certain that the boy he has used to call 'friend' only three weeks ago is able to defend himself. If anything, he'd be the one to knock those bastards out. But still, his stomach and nerves start rebelling as he sees the elder guy watching him, probably fantasizing sickly in his mind already. Just thinking of those assholes laying only a single hand on him makes him want to punch their lights off their eyes immediately.
The guy at the window turns around to him, his reddish eyes, hazed by drugs and hormones already, glow now with a well-known, hated, perverse hunger.
"I'm surprised ya know such a boy, Renjou. Well, if you don't wanna talk to him, I will… Damn, he's better looking than most women that run around in Hyde Park right now…"
Don't you dare…!
The rush of his blood sends waves of adrenaline through his body.
Touch him once and I'll make you regret it for the rest of your pathetic life…
Those and other, even more exaggerated thoughts bleed across his mind. He doesn't answer that bastard, only jumps up from the couch and runs down the stairs. He'd give that idiot an earful for coming here and then he'd tell him to fucking go home and never come back to see him again.
...
"Are. You. Fucking. Mental?" the blond hisses as they finally stop walking in an alley not far from Hyde Park, but well hidden in the shadows between empty houses and walls.
He has no reason to answer that and that's why he remains silent, their eyes boring into each other. The taller boy doesn't seem to expect a reply, anyway, he only grimaces and his gaze lowers to his cheek, where the bruise is still as evident as the day he has gotten it.
Sure, he could've easily dodged the blow back then. But he has let the boy hit him.
And well, since that day, the bruise hasn't gotten better at all.
The silent stretches out between them. They look away from each other, eyes strangely lighter than usual, but there's also a hard and cold expression sketched upon them and makes it hard to tell what they think right now. But at least it's obvious that neither is about to leave anytime soon and that could one definitely call a beginning.
"What's with your arm?"
That question sounds more like an annoyed hiss, but it his heart skips a beat nevertheless, since it's already a miracle that the blond has noticed. And moreover, has cared enough to even ask. He looks down at his left arm.
"I overdid it at practice. You know that I do archery".
Silence follows and a quiet relieved breath that is released by the one in front of him.
"…Yeah. Forgot it, sorry".
...
Which is a lie.
He hasn't forgotten a single word that the brunet has told him during the time they've spend together.
But he's way too proud and too stupid for his own good, so he tells the smaller boy and himself a lie that colours the silence gray and makes the air taste like acid.
Oh man, why is he never able to be honest with himself? It almost seems like the 'bad' is already nagging at him from the inside, as well. The brunet's gaze is locked upon him, again, unreadable and distant, but he can feel that he's still here.
And that this time, his eyes are only on him.
No one else.
Damn it… I'd give anything for believing you…
If it´d be just true… if he could only escape the street…If there was a way to leave all this behind…
"Hey, honestly- " he starts, but the elder interrupts him.
"Listen. I know that you don't want to hear it, but- "
Now he's the one being interrupted, but not by him but by the buzzing sound of a cell. They both flinch, but he does more than the boy in front of him. The brunet reaches one hand into his pocket and answers the call. And he's surprised to hear slight annoyance in his usually calm voice, mixed with resignation and a 'Haven't- I- told-you?'-tone.
The boy listens most of the time, but when he does answer, he talks so fast that he can't get what he says. And after a few minutes he hangs up. He looks at him and raises his eyebrows. The brunet puts the cell back into his pocket. Then he sighs silently and meets his gaze. But instead of saying something, he seems to decide otherwise and just turns around and starts walking down the alley, leaving him completely speechless and confused.
"Hey! Wait, dude…!"
The elder has almost reached the end of the alleyway, as he stops, glancing at him over his shoulder.
"What the hell's wrong with ya?" he snaps.
"I thought you don't believe me"
"You…! What-? Why the heck is that important, now?"
Amber eyes narrow and a freezing calmness takes over. "Are you coming with me or not?"
He frowns. "Where are you going to?"
A smirk appears on the flawless face before him. "To a place where I will fight some evil demons, you know?"
It sounds like a ridiculous and lame excuse for getting rid of him. But… Why would he invite him to join, if he'd intend to go home?
"Are you scared?" the voice carries a hint of mockery within.
He grimaces annoyed "'Course not!"
"Good" the brunet smiles mischievously. "Follow me then."
To be continued...
So, I hope you liked it =D
BTW: There really is a Hyde Park in our area, it´s a disco, but not such a 'bad' place like I described the Hyde Park in here. All I did was 'borrowing' the name ;)
So, please Review^^