The following was a conversation among old (and new) friends as they went home together...
"I should've paid more attention to Suzuka-chan. If I had, then none of this would've happened. I abandoned her when she needed me the most. I only wish that she could forgive me from beyond the grave," said Natsuko.
"Natsuko-chan, you're the person who's the least at fault among us three. Stop saying such silly things," said Miyako.
"But I'm the one who hurt her the most, Miyako-san! She would've never considered harming herself if I'd been there for her. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the real reason why she...!" trailed off Natsuko.
"No. No, that's not it. I assure you that it's not the reason," said Miyako.
"Natsuko-chan, I shouldn't have driven her away from you. I'm sorry I acted so cold towards Suzuka, even though she was your best friend for the longest time. I'm sorry for bullying her all that time too," said Hiromi.
"But you changed so much, Hiromi-chan! And you never bullied Suzuka-chan since then," said Natsuko.
"It's all my fault. I've been bullying her all throughout grade school. You two were her closest friends. I shouldn't have said such a thing to her while she was at her lowest," insisted Miyako.
"So you're not going to pull crazy stunts like that anymore, right? Jeez, Miyako-chan, you've always been such a drama queen. How the heck will I be able to face your parents the next time we meet if they found out I almost let you hurt yourself with that box cutter?" asked Hiromi.
"I'm sorry I dragged you into this. You were always there to look out for me, weren't you, Hiromi-chan?" said Miyako with a half-joking eye flutter that made Hiromi gag.
Demon Sword
A Yuyu Hakusho/Rurouni Kenshin Crossover Fan Fiction by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
Everything has come full circle.
Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and St. Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallup, Studio Deen, and ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.
Chapter 31: Homework Never Ends (Part 6)
At the Shibuya Station, after Hiromi, Yusuke, Natsuko, and Keiko stopped Miyako's suicide attempt caused by her guilt over driving her classmate Suzuka to the edge...
"Thanks again, Urameshi-san!" Natsuko waved back at Hiromi and Yusuke before the doors of her train closed, the late Suzuka's worn, dog-eared diary tucked safely underneath her armpit.
Even Puu waved back at the bespectacled female with his tiny flippers while he was cradled by an unseen Sayaka.
On that note, the ferry-girl trainee also bid the nerdy teen farewell by waving her clipboard around... although Natsuko never really met Sayaka and the little girl was invisible anyway.
Miyako had already left long ago, promising to go straight back home to her parents and facing whatever punishment they had in store for her for running away.
Yusuke made it a point to make sure they didn't pass through any art or office supply stores in case the blonde girl considered purchasing another box cutter... a fact that led Hiromi to kick his shin as soon as she found out what he was up to, but better be safe and insensitive than sorry, he always said. At least Miyako got a laugh out of that.
"I guess it's time for you to go too, huh?" Yusuke said to Hiromi for the sake of breaking the ice. After that non-argument they had regarding art supplies, Keiko's friend had been strangely quiet in seeing both her friends off. "Which train will you be taking?"
"Yusuke..." he heard Hiromi beckon.
"Eh?" That was odd. Why was she calling him by his first name? Granted, he only knew her by her first name, but... "What is it, Hiro...?"
His head reeled from the gunshot-like force of the megaton smack that came out of nowhere. The world spun around him, his neck craning as far as it could before he did a midair tumble and landed face-first on the train station platform.
The only other times he experienced such vertigo was when he was punched to near oblivion by Toguro Ototo after killing Genkai, got into a mountain-breaking fist fight with Sensui after he turned into a demon, or when Yomi blasted him with an unnamed youki technique that disintegrated his shirt and nearly broke the floating island they were fighting on at the time in half.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?" Yusuke screamed minutes after the fact; he only regained his bearings that exact moment. "You're not still mad about the box cutter thing, are you?"
"You're insufferable, you jackass! Who the hell do you think I am?"
Wait. Something wasn't right. Hiromi had already hit him before, and she hit like a girl (Well, duh). The slap he received just now didn't come from any ordinary girl. That forehand that won many a volleyball game was unmistakable.
"KEIKO! When did you possess poor Hiromi's body?" exclaimed Yusuke before he glared at the innocently whistling Sayaka and the ear-flapping spirit beast. "And you! Why didn't you tell me what was going on?"
Sayaka made an apologetic chopping motion with her clipboard. "Big Sis gestured at me to keep quiet, Big Bro! Sorry!"
"Hiromi" squeezed her face as though she had sucked a lemon and shook her throbbing hand around as if she were swatting imaginary flies. "Man, that hurt, but it felt good too! It's been a while since I was able to do that."
While pokerfaced, Yusuke quipped, "I hope you realize how perverted that sounded," as he got up.
He promptly went down again after his girlfriend used Hiromi's knee to crush his testicles. It didn't matter if you were A-Level and above, a groin attack hurt. This was a universal truth. In order to not get sidetracked any further, Keiko went straight to the point with her ensuing tirade.
"You have some nerve acting all nonchalant after ditching me and Natsuko-chan back at the cafe! What's the big idea? How can I not be angry after what you did earlier? Isn't my getting good karma by helping all the poor unfortunate souls out there the whole point of our ghost-busting missions? Even if what we dealt with earlier wasn't technically 'supernatural', you could've at least told me so instead of leaving in a huff with one of my friends!"
Oh. So that was what she was angry about... Of course, Urameshi knew exactly why he left Keiko alone with Natsuko and Puu to finish a mission that turned out to be a non-supernatural-related wild goose chase by himself. It was because of what Gein, one of the Chojin's many lackeys, told him at the roof of the hospital where Keiko stayed.
Gein claimed that the missions they were going through at present were all for nothing. The circumstances behind Yusuke's death and Keiko going comatose were totally different, and exposing Yukimura's tainted astral projection to other ghosts would only help spread her bad karma and jaki everywhere.
"That was a pretty good slap. It really woke me up. It's been a while since you gave me one of those whoppers, Keiko. It really takes me back."
"What? That's your answer? I demand an explanation, mister!" Despite herself, Keiko blushed through Hiromi's puffed-up cheeks. 'Has it really been that long?'
"What's there to explain? I'm a dumbass. I'm a leap-before-you-look kind of guy."
He was an idiot for believing Gein's lies. Although the path to recovering Keiko from the brink of death and despair was fraught with peril, she never once gave up, and somehow, she was able to fulfill her missions regardless of their challenges.
"Bad karma" his ass. If there was anyone who could get out of this predicament and turn around her misfortune into something positive, then it was Keiko Yukimura.
Yusuke got up on shaky legs and dusted himself off. "I thought you couldn't handle yourself with your missions to collect good karma, but you proved me wrong twice already. I'm glad you're acting more like yourself. Let's keep on doing our best from now on so that you can finally wake up."
For a couple of minutes or so, Keiko was at a loss for words. "W-What's with this change in attitude? And wipe that stupid grin off your face! Are you making fun of me? Are you some sort of masochist?"
Yusuke chuckled. "Oh, Keiko, can you please leave Hiromi's body already? It's already dark, and she should be home by now."
"F-Fine."
Hiromi blinked. "What just happened, Urameshi-kun? Where are we? Why does my hand hurt?"
"You blanked out there for a couple of minutes, Hiromi! You must've had a lot on your mind. We've already sent Miyako and Natsuko off. It's about time you got home too."
"Yeah, you're right. My head feels light and warm. I hope I'm not coming down with anything."
"Well, a lot of things happened today. It must be stress-related."
"Why are you acting so happy all of a sudden? Did something good happen while I was out of it?"
"Heh. You could say that."
From behind Hiromi and Yusuke, Keiko's skin glowed like a neon-pink fluorescent bulb while Sayaka hid her giggles by pressing her face behind Puu's back.
Early Friday morning at a small apartment tucked away somewhere in Ueno District's Taito Ward...
He was in his room, staring at a door with a 1989 anime wall scroll calendar he wouldn't throw away and replace with a newer one because of how well-made it was (or so he told himself). His odd job as a convenience store clerk wouldn't start until the nightshift, and the sun was still up.
He didn't even bother looking at the clock hanging to the left of the door because it was broken, its face perpetually stating it was eight o'clock. Not that he needed to know the time anymore, but still. Besides which, at least it told the correct time twice in a given day.
'Stupid clock. I should fix that,' he always noted to himself even though he never did. He never bothered with clocks or watches. He just went to his nightshift work at the convenience store when nighttime came and lounged around until his shift arrived. He had nothing better to do.
"What had become of my life?" was what he would've asked had he still cared about the current state of his so-called existence. At the far left of his basement was a wall full of scholastic relics from his childhood: Spelling bee trophies, books about Turbo Pascal and Turbo Basic, a retro Epson QX-10, his three-year-old MSX TurboR, stacks of three-inch floppy disks filled with programs and games, and so forth.
On his immediate right were cartridges full of Famicom and Super Famicom games as well as imported NES and SNES games; an entire library of them, in fact. At the center of the room was his television set, a Betamax unit, a VHS player, a Laser Disc player, and a CD player as well as his Famicom, NES, Super Famicom, and SNES gaming consoles.
Below that were a variety of wires, a surge protector, and octopus connections galore linking his different consoles and video players together. Tucked away in the far left corner of his room was a cupboard, fridge, electric oven, stove, plates, cups, tray, and sink; a kitchen that barely took up a fraction of the space that his collection did.
Behind him were stacks of comic books and volumes of manga series featuring lighthearted romantic comedies. The remaining nooks and crannies of his room including the uppermost shelves were filled with VHS tapes, Betamax tapes, and laser discs of his favorite animated series, with a small portion of them housing live-action films both local and foreign.
'Speaking of which, I haven't contacted the Twin Otaku yet. Then again, after that scandal their family went through because of their brother, I'd rather not.'
By "Twin Otaku", he meant the two rich high school kids from Shinjuku Yamabuki High who shared his interests in computers, gaming, and anime: Akahito and Ennosuke Shimamura. They were two of five quintuplet brothers, in fact.
He wasn't privy with the details surrounding the incident, but he did watch the news coverage and the case's supposed connection with the infamous Kanji Killer. Even though the suspected boys' names weren't publicly released by the media because they were minors, most of the people who knew the Shimamuras figured out that it was the quintuplets who were involved.
The Shimamura Brothers were among the mainstays of the Akihabara (also known as Akiba) scene, and they had an even wider collection of otaku-related goodies that put his to shame because their father was a steel and construction magnate; they had an unfair advantage in disposable income and all that.
Even if he were to sacrifice food and rent for the sake of games, tapes, and software (and he already was doing just that anyway), he still couldn't match their gigantic collections.
Akahito was arguably the nerdiest and most dedicated of the three otaku. He particularly specialized in collecting Gundam series garage kits (also known as resin kits that were basically do-it-yourself polyurethane scale model figurines portraying various living creatures or other pop culture icons that need to be assembled and painted by hand) and the latest anime shows available.
The largest tape collection Akahito ever had were of the different Gundam shows (a must for any avid Japanese animation fan), or at least the serious ones not featuring the "Super Deformed" style. He had been looking forward to taping the latest Gundam series to be shown in the coming month because it had been roughly two years since the last show was broadcast, and it was going to be directed by his favorite director to boot.
Nevertheless, the Shimamura quintuplet whom the store clerk could relate to the most was Ennosuke. It was simply because, like him, he was (at least, until recently) more interested in animated love comedies and harem anime, which were shows that the far too serious and Char-obsessed Akahito would usually scoff at as garbage that was "killing" the local animation industry.
"The only worthwhile anime shows right now are the best of the Gundam series and Legend of the Galactic Heroes! You're collecting stuff made for little kids and girls!" Akahito would insist. However, his fellow otaku brother paid him no heed.
From Urusei Yatsura to Kimagure Orange Road, Ennosuke had them all, tirelessly compiling every animated romantic comedy known to man and buying the official release VHS tapes whenever possible.
Meanwhile, half of the tapes that the Taito resident had were loaned, borrowed and never returned, or otherwise recorded and pirated on a separate videotape from the Shimamura quintuplet's own respective collections.
'Akahito typically looked down on our obsession with 2D Love... and he shouldn't be one to speak, seeing his own protectiveness of the character Sayla Mass when we speak ill of her. What was there to not like about two-dimensional fictional women who didn't exist in the real world?'
It was this air of whimsy that attracted Ennosuke and the store clerk to such perfect girls in the first place. They were unlike their flesh-and-bone counterparts who could never be as cute, stunning, flawless, ageless, demure, beautiful, shy, fanciful, quirky, and perfect as they were.
If it were only possible to marry 2D Girls, he would do so in a heartbeat.
The doorbell began ringing. Dammit, he didn't want to get up. His head was throbbing from last night's overnight Sailor Moon marathon. Could they just go away? Maybe if he kept quiet, they'd leave...
As his eyes traveled to the floor, he saw the brochure regarding a special gathering place in Aokigahara he got from Ennosuke's other quintuplet, Houjo, and a business card belonging to a certain "Earth Club" organization.
Where did it all go wrong?
When he was a child, his life was filled with disappointments. His high expectations and the disappointing reality never ceased to cause him grief. He wasn't able to get great grades. He barely made any friends. He fell in love with his Science Club advisor ten years his senior although she already had a boyfriend and she was a grunge chick who was out of his league to boot. His childhood crush was taken away from him by a far superior rival as well.
Were those valid enough reasons for him to get stuck in this goddamn rut? Whatever happened to his intentions of going to Tokyo University? Whatever happened to cram school? Whatever happened to getting a job in the promising field of information technology? When was the last time he went out aside for part-time work?
Maybe it was after his parents cut him off their will upon discovering that he had long abandoned his dreams of entering any university and had become a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) subsisting on cup ramen, anime, and lies.
When exactly did he start getting obsessed about anime love comedies anyway? It all started because the girl who dumped him for a six-footer hunk of a man with deductive skills to rival that of Sherlock Holmes incidentally watched those shows quite a lot, and it became a habit of his as well. Yes, it was as pathetic as it sounded.
As the trio of an astral projection, a half-mazoku, and a spirit beast (Sayaka had already gone back to the Spirit World to report their latest exploits) made their way back to the Urameshi ramen cart in order to handle the deluge of late-shift, drunkard customers...
"Ah, Puu! Don't eat that ramen! That's for the customer, you stupid bird!" Yusuke berated his spirit beast as he made another fresh batch of ramen anyway. "Go play with Keiko for now!"
"Yusuke, you should go home and rest. Skip the late shift. Don't overdo it," Keiko said, her anger at her boyfriend's earlier transgressions replaced with worry over his health.
"I don't feel tired at all," reassured Yusuke as he turned his back on his customers and talked to his girlfriend's ghost. "Stop being such a worrywart. Those hospital bills won't pay themselves, y'know."
"Oh. Is that so? Excuse me then." Keiko bowed her head and smoothened the last dress she wore before she was attacked and rendered a vegetable by Seiryu. "I'm sorry to be a bother."
Yusuke patted Keiko on the head and ruffled her hair... or at least the area it occupied, since she was untouchable. "Some people don't die even if they're killed. I believe you're one of those people. I wasn't able to kick Seiryu's ass for you, so the best way to pay him back is to make sure you lift his curse!"
Keiko hid her face away from her boyfriend and grabbed her warm cheeks. Who knew Yusuke could be so... dependable? Then again, wasn't he the person who was always there to rescue her whenever her life was in danger? He never really changed in that regard.
He then grabbed hold of the area her ghostly butt occupied, which prompted her to lift a rock and pummel him with it. After Yusuke climbed to his ramen stand's counter with a bloody grin on his face, his customers started paying their bills.
"We'll be going now. Keep the change."
"Thanks for your generosity, Mister Customer! Come again!"
"Who was he talking to back from behind the counter anyway?"
"Who knows? I don't care. His ramen is delicious."
"What a weirdo."
"Excuse me."
"Welcome to our humble establishment! May I take your order?" greeted Urameshi automatically while wiping his bleeding face with a towel. His eyes then bugged out at what he saw.
Who was this svelte woman with thin-rimmed glasses that made Natsuko's spectacles look like binoculars? She looked around Shizuru's age or maybe older, Yusuke reckoned.
Although dejected, stressed-out office drones serving as Yusuke's customers were par for the course at this late an hour, working girls wandering around in ramen shops in their lonesome was a rare or even nonexistent sight. 'Or maybe she's a streetwalker...?'
"Would you mind if I just hang out here for a bit?" asked the bespectacled beauty with a wink. "I'm not really hungry right now."
"I don't mind at all. What's a pretty young lady like you doing out here so late in the evening?"
"'Young', eh? You're too kind, kid."
Yukimura sighed, her arms crossed as Urameshi talked to the mysterious, purple-haired woman with cute glasses.
"Aloise."
"Eh?"
The junior-librarian-looking female put her elbows on the counter, then put her hands on her cheeks. "My name is Aloise."
"Alice? Sounds foreign," remarked Yusuke. If that was the case, then this was the second gaijin-looking girl he'd met in one day. Where were all these tourists coming from? However, she didn't look anywhere as foreign as the blonde, blue-eyed, and nuttier-than-a-fruitcake Miyako.
"No, no. It's Aloise."
"Eloisa?"
"Aloise."
"Elisa?"
"Aloise."
"Louisa?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
"No."
Aloise giggled, and Yusuke followed suit. 'What are we laughing about?' he thought. He then felt a chill down his spine from behind him. "Ah, Keiko... It's not..."
"It's Aloise, Yusuke. You know, like the name of the girl Nello fell in love with in the Dog of Flanders series," informed Keiko while pinching her boyfriend's ear.
After recuperating from the aural assault, Yuske confessed, "The only thing I remember about that cartoon is the dog and the boy both died. So sad... Poor Patrash and Nello," as he wiped a tear from his eye.
"It's not just an anime! The story came from a book, you illiterate boob!"
"What are you doing there, all huddled up and whispering at the darkness?" Aloise asked with a smirk.
"Oh, just thinking aloud, Lisa."
"Oh, we're back to that, huh?" Aloise's lips curved upward.
"So tell me, why is a teenaged brat like yourself working at a ramen cart during the midnight shift? Don't you have school tomorrow? Did you impregnate your girlfriend, so you're now forced to support your love child?"
Keiko's face turned as bright as a train station light, as though she were warning pedestrians of an approaching train. "L-L-Love child? I-I-Impregnate?"
"HEY! Knock it off. I don't go to high school because I chose not to go. I'll have you know that I learned more from the school of hard knocks than nine years of sitting around in boring, old, and dusty classrooms!" Urameshi retorted.
"So you chose to become a ramen cook? Well now, that changes everything! Congratulations on your career in the food service industry."
With flared nostrils and a scowl, Urameshi yelped, "What's it to you? Cooking is a noble profession, and I'm not the bookworm type. Got a problem with that?"
"Not at all. Lower your expectations, find happiness, I always say."
As Yusuke cocked his fist back at the woman with tears in his eyes (the same reaction he had when Botan revealed that his self-sacrifice to save a boy from being run over by a car was pointless because the child was fated to remain unharmed with or without his help), Keiko spoke up.
"Yusuke doesn't need to finish high school or college to be a contributing member of society! Don't you dare look down on him because he isn't going to some fancy high school and has no plans of going to college! There's more to a person than his grades!"
Even Yusuke was moved by the impassioned outburst Keiko gave. The ghost girl then covered her mouth and slinked away from the scene. 'Ah, what am I saying? Of course she can't hear me.'
The bright glint on Aloise's glasses hid her facial expression from the couple. "Well said. I get it now. I apologize for being so facetious. I'm sure you're a wonderful cook, Yusuke-kun."
His mouth flat and his face frozen, Yusuke uttered, "What. Faucet? Delicious?"
"Please don't prove your girlfriend wrong," berated Aloise with narrowed eyes and a scowl.
"Yusuke, facetious means she didn't mean what she said right now," informed Keiko, which prompted Yusuke to nod and say, "I see."
A pregnant pause occurred. It was so quiet that the flap of moth wings could be heard all around as the insects flew towards the nearby lights of buzzing streetlamps. A dog also howled from a distance.
The pair did a spit-take as pots, pans, and other cooking utensils clattered everywhere. "Eh? EH? You can hear Keiko talk?"
Aloise shrugged. "Yeah. I heard her talk. She can hear me talk too, so why can't I hear her?"
"B-But she's a..." Urameshi trailed off.
"It's perfectly all right." Aloise grabbed Yusuke's hand and thrust it straight into her heaving breasts. Instead of grabbing anything soft and plump, it instead passed right through her, as though he were stabbing her chest. "See? I'm a ghost too."
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" screamed Keiko.
"Don't feel insecure. It took me a while to get them as big as this."
"IIYAA!"
Then, for the first time ever, a pot and a kettle joined forces to defeat a common foe instead of bickering over their own faults and hypocrisies, clanging repeatedly on Urameshi's head as though it were New Year's Eve and they were out to scare off (ironically enough) ghosts with loud noises.
"LET HER GO! LET HER GO NOW!"
"Dammit, Keiko, I'm not really touching anything but air! Technically speaking."
"Ouch! Keiko-chan, that really smarts!"
Surprisingly, Keiko was fair but firm in the sense that she also slapped Aloise for pulling such a lewd stunt. Ghost-to-ghost contact proved possible, so her slap made impact. To Keiko's chagrin, the glowing hand mark on the mischievous spirit's face didn't faze her one bit.
"You two are so cute! Ah, young love," the glasses-wearing, bobcut-sporting soul drawled at the lively couple, specifically at Urameshi. "Hey, Keiko-chan... Can I borrow your boyfriend for a little bit? I have a favor to ask him."
"NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! Only heaven knows what you're going to do to him!" was Keiko's instantaneous answer as she grabbed hold of her significant other, unaware that she was separating soul from body by doing so.
Consequently, Yusuke's flame-like soul began leaking out of his mouth. The black-and-blue teenager then grabbed and stretched his face as though it were a rubbery mask. "Don't you think you've already caused enough trouble, Elise?" he weakly asked.
Aloise exhaled through one of her nostrils despite having no actual, functional lungs to speak of. "You're never going to get my name right, are you?"
Early Friday morning at a small apartment tucked away somewhere in Ueno District's Taito Ward, around noon or so...
That doorbell grated on the store clerk's nerves, so he picked up the Aokigahara brochure and looked sightlessly at it while his mind wandered elsewhere.
Then again, in retrospect, it was no wonder he was desperately clinging to the ideal of pure love from a fictional character who always had the purest of intentions, an innocent outlook, and a untainted heart that appreciated every gesture of kindness provided to her by the protagonist.
A 2D girl was never uncouth, ugly, plain, vengeful, disgusting, imperfect, scary, or petty, and even if she were, she'd do it in a manner that made her quirky instead of flawed.
She was never driven by lust, and even if the protagonist wasn't the most handsome or dashing of heroes, she'd still fall for him because of how much he loved her and how much he was willing to sacrifice to be with her.
What a bunch of bull.
'Purity of love? Virginal, perfect, and immaculate girls? Don't make me laugh. Girls are just as immature, petty, and flawed as boys in more ways than one.'
What was love anyway? Not the song, but the concept. This so-called thing called love was either driven by the universal instinct of humans to mate for the continued survival of the species or was nothing more than the effect of dopamine that came from A10 neurons.
Anyway, the purity of the store clerk's love for 2D was quickly exposed as false as soon as a depressed Ennosuke started collecting cuckolding adult animation videos, novels, and comics while he was having girl troubles with one of the students at his school.
After the store clerk watched a cuckolding adult anime about a girl who got caught cheating with another man she had sex with every weekend by her childhood sweetheart made him realize how shallow his affections for these fantasy females were. He hated them since then.
The way she ground her hips as her lover thrust himself into her was in stark contrast to how listless and stiff she was when having sex with her actual boyfriend.
The bitch, after getting caught, even had the audacity to whine and cry about how her lover never smiles at her like her boyfriend did. The ending wherein the girl killed the boyfriend after discovering she was pregnant, only to find out later that it was the baby of her other lover, which prompted her to live happily ever after with him, practically made his heart sink right into his stomach.
Before he noticed it, the doorbell had stopped ringing. 'Finally. Some peace and quiet.' His mind wandered again as he tossed the brochure and business card aside.
The cuckolding genre of erotic anime and manga was a controversial topic among the Akiba denizens. Those virgins claim that it was somehow wrong and disgusting, even for a medium that encouraged such bizarre fetishes as tentacle rape and plain-old rape. Provoking sexual jealousy among a crowd of losers that had no right to feel such things made him laugh so hard, he could cry.
After watching the notorious cuckolding tape, he completely understood why it had such an impact on him. It was a lot more brutally honest than his previous escapist experiences with childish 2D Love. It made the concept of pure love a joke that he could never take seriously. The pain of betrayal was a lot more real to him than flights of fancy over girls that didn't even exist.
For one thing, how many times had he masturbated to the 2D girls he so adored, imagining them turn into sex-crazy sluts desperate for his attention? This wasn't the first animated dirty movie he watched. For another thing, why did her betrayal of the main character turned him on so much when he first watched it?
He voraciously consumed each and every cuckold anime, manga, light novel, and not-so-light novel he could get his hands on, which meant reading several (Japanese-translated) works that probably started the whole movement, such as "Venus in Furs" by Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (the Father of Masochism) and "The Confessions of Wanda von Sacher-Masoch" by Sacher-Masoch's wife, Aurora von Rumelin, who revealed how her husband made her do forced cuckolding sessions with various men while he watched.
One positive thing that these cuckolding videos, comic books, and books had on him was how they helped him get out of his shell and start talking to real-life, three-dimensional women. Why be afraid of getting your heart broken when your fetish was exactly that?
He reveled in talking to and chatting up women, particularly those who were out of his league or already attached to someone else. He entered the so-called friend zone with ease and willingness. He even cleaned himself up and attended group dates.
He met and befriended many girls with boyfriends, got rejected by them, stalked them, watched them have intimate relations with their lovers, and pleasured himself to the forbidden private scenes while remembering the innocent conversations he had with them earlier.
If the mere sight of him creeped them out enough before he could get to steps two to five, all the better; he had his heart crushed from the start. Before long, he craved the feeling of having his feelings trampled by others.
He had become a masochist, and not the kind who was into bondage and S&M play; the pain he longed for was emotional, the kind that made his heart sink and exposed how much of a worthless, pathetic worm he truly was.
He always knew that there was something wrong with him. But it was okay. It was a victimless crime, wasn't it?
Whoever it was that rung the doorbell was knocking at his door this time around.
"Go away. I don't want any." He picked up the brochure and business card with his forearm and frowned before stretching his long sleeves to hide the multiple scars.
"Please open up." It was a small, gentle female voice. "I need to talk to you, Kurogane Makoto-kun."
How did she know his name? Curious, he opened the door.
A chestnut-haired angel with fierce, sharp brown eyes, a gentle smile, and a stuffed penguin with spiky hair and flopping bunny ears appeared before him.
"You want me to do what? That's a rather tall order, ghost lady. All this after insulting my choice in careers, no less!" said Yusuke with a smirk and a shake of his head while he went about closing his ramen stand after the nightshift was finally over.
Aloise bowed low on the ground, taking care not to pass through the concrete because of her ghostly constitution. "Please accept my humble apologies for my terrible joke earlier, Teenaged Ramen Cook Supreme, Master of the Culinary Arts!"
Urameshi's eyebrow twitched. Why were her apologies pissing him off even more than her direct insults? "Now listen here...!"
The proposition that the bespectacled Aloise offered to Keiko and Yusuke entailed helping her save the life of a grown man... a ronin who failed his university exams and had turned into a reclusive hikikomori NEET at that... who contemplated suicide because of her dumping him for another guy, or so she claimed.
"He already attempted to take his life twice. I don't want it to become three times the charm," Aloise said.
She'd heard about Reikai's spirit detectives and ghosts doing good deeds for other ghosts in order to get a chance at revival or redemption.
Coincidentally, a few months later that year, the movie "Hearts and Souls" starring Robert Downey Junior would tackle that same premise.
However, in order for Yusuke to somehow keep Makoto from intentionally kicking the bucket, he had to dress in drag and pretend to be a woman because... Aloise apparently hated his guts at first sight or something. He had no clue.
"Why should I dress in drag? Why can't I just pummel this creep you dumped until he begs me to spare his life?" asked Yusuke. "Why do we even need a girl?"
"Because he's taken a dark turn, and the only people he's been responding to positively these past few weeks were women. It can't be helped," explained Aloise.
"Why couldn't Kurama be the girl? I bet he'd be better than me at cross-dressing. He already halfway looks like a girl," said Urameshi.
Keiko reasoned, "You saw how scary Kurama got the last time the topic came up. Besides, he's kind of busy with Chojin-related stuff right now, isn't he?"
Yusuke grumbled; the last time someone was required to cross-dress for a mission, he was the one who ended up doing it (see Yuyu Hakusho Volume 19 Chapter 171 for further details).
"I don't want to dress up in drag... again," Yusuke stated plainly.
Keiko tugged at her boyfriend's sleeve and, as soon as he turned towards her, looked at him with wide, moist puppy-dog eyes. "Can you do this for me? Saving a person's life will get me good karma, right?"
Dammit, Keiko. "Okay," Yusuke grumbled before something important occurred to him. "Wait. We can't do this."
Keiko pouted. "Why not?"
"If I'm the one who saves this guy's life, then you're not the one who'll receive the good karma, right?" he pointed out.
"Oh." The couple had already explained the details surrounding their good deeds to ghosts (gather good karma for Keiko to overcome the negative energy surrounding her astral body), although they didn't reveal the cause of it (an old enemy of the Spirit World came back from the dead blah, blah, blah...).
After a few minutes, Yusuke grabbed Keiko (or beckoned her to follow the direction of his closed fist lest it passed through her wrist) and said to Aloise, "I guess that's that. It was nice knowing you, Aloe Vera or whoever. Good luck saving that guy whose life you ruined!"
"H-Hey, wait a minute! At least get my name right!" This time it was Aloise who had a pair of googly eyes.
Yusuke "let go" of his girlfriend and harrumphed. "I'm just kidding. There's a way for me to help out while letting Keiko gather positive karma for herself... and it's called spiritual possession."
Aloise beamed. "That's right! She can possess your body for about thirty minutes and talk Makoto-kun out of committing suicide! That's brilliant! As expected of our resident Einstein! What? Don't give me that look, I'm actually praising you!"
Yusuke turned his head away and snorted. "If you really want me to go save your ex from offing himself, then why not have an actual girl do it? Maybe Keiko should possess another girl instead of going through the trouble of making me cross-dress! That actually makes a lot more sense than your half-baked plan, Lois!"
Aloise tapped a finger on her lips. "That's because Mako-kun is a bit of a pervert. Are you really comfortable with the idea of having him jump on your girlfriend while she's inside a female body? No self-respecting boyfriend would. Besides, you'd be troubling some other girl too by making Keiko possess her."
"And having him jumping on my dick is somehow okay, you crazy bitch? NO SELF-RESPECTING MAN WILL EVER SACRIFICE HIS BODY TO ANOTHER DUDE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES EITHER!"
Early Friday morning at a small apartment tucked away somewhere in Ueno District's Taito Ward, around noon or so...
"Hello, I'm Kei... Yu... Yukiko. It's nice to meet you, Makoto-kun," said Keiko while controlling the body of her (surprisingly cute as a female) cross-dressing boyfriend.
The half-demon wore Keiko's uniform from Daiichi All-Girls High School (an outfit he sold to some middle-aged weirdo after his girlfriend stiffed him on the bill for the same mission where he was tasked to cross-dress) and a brown wig.
It never ceased to amaze and aggravate Keiko how Yusuke's muscular frame could somehow fit through her clothes.
"..." Makoto stood there, his cheeks as red as an apple and his body shaking like a leaf.
'Ugh. Keiko. He's totally checking us out and fantasizing about my body naked. He can't take his eyes off my chest, my legs, or the hem of your skirt,' said Yusuke from within his mind, speaking from experience.
'Yup, I've seen that perverted look before,' replied Keiko as she rolled Yusuke's half-lidded eyes while Makoto was lost in Lala Land. She asked, 'Why are you still conscious, Yusuke? When spirits possess living beings, shouldn't the original soul be unconscious or something?'
Urameshi did the mental equivalent of a shrug. 'Must be my demon blood or Rando's Kugai curse. Who knows? I sure wish I was unconscious right now.' The freelance Spirit World Detective blanched.
'Gross, he's drooling now! If he lays a hand on us, he'll be eating through a straw for the rest of his life.'
'R-Relax, Yusuke. I'm kind of eating through a straw right now, you know,' reminded Keiko with a blush and a downtrodden look on the cross-dressing Yusuke's face that sent its unintended recipient, Makoto, into convulsions.
'T-Through no fault of your own. It'll be his fault if that's how he ends up as after I'm done with him,' was Yusuke's lame attempt at covering for his insensitivity.
From above them, both Aloise and their designated ferry-girl, a rather bemused Sayaka, ("Why is Big Bro in a dress? How is this going to help Big Sis's karma? Can somebody explain to me what's going on?" the seemingly ten-year-old soul reaper had asked Aloise in vain) urged them on.
"Go right in before he asks too many questions!" said Aloise.
"I'm sorry for intruding!" Keiko pushed her way through the apartment with ease as Makoto fell to the floor like axed timber. He at last found the confidence to demand, "Who are you? What do you want? How do you know my name?" although his voice still cracked in the end.
They bumped into each other and landed in a compromising position wherein Yusuke's crotch was right atop Makoto's nose.
'Oh, my underwear! I mean, Yusuke's underwear! I mean, my underwear that Yusuke's wearing!' Keiko felt "Yukiko's" cheeks grow warmer and warmer as all the blood rushed to his head and other... extremities.
'What if he sees Yusuke's 'thing'? We'll be done for! Wait, I'm inside Yusuke's body, which means... his thing...!'
'Hey, Keiko! It's called a penis. On that note, stop thinking about... it!' cried Yusuke from within his consciousness.
'LIKE I ACTUALLY WOULD!' Yusuke's nose started to bleed, disproving Keiko's innocence. 'W-What's going on? Yusuke, why is your... thing... swelling up? You pervert!'
'Y-Y'know why, you idiot! It's reacting to hearing a girl talk about it! Like I said, stop fantasizing about my penis!' yelped Yusuke.
'THEN STOP TALKING ABOUT IT, YOU IMBECILE!' cried Keiko.
Yusuke's pupils dilated and his nose flared as a private memory between him and Keiko replayed itself in his mind from his girlfriend's point of view. 'Oh. You like it when I do that, huh...'
"IIYYAA!" Keiko got up and slapped the person nearest her, which unfortunately meant instant pain for Makoto, the guy they were supposed to rescue.
On the bright side, the random act of violence spared the reclusive nerd from having an up-close-and-personal look at Urameshi's salami surprise.
Like in Disney's Dumbo, Puu flapped his floppy ears to fly before landing atop Makoto's head. "Puu!" He chirped while he rubbed his feet on the guy's messy morning hair. "...A-And is your stuff toy alive? W-We don't allow pets in the building!"
'This guy in particular is quite easy to read. Just look at the junk inside his room; they're all tapes and comics about animated romantic comedies. He's also a bit of a nerd. Reminds me of my grade school friend, Suekichi,' said Yusuke telepathically to Keiko while retrieving Puu from Makoto's noggin (to learn more about Matsuo Suekichi, read Yuyu Hakusho Volume 2 Chapters 15-16).
The surprisingly androgynous half-demon then stated aloud in a pinched, Michael-Jackson-like voice quite unlike Keiko's intonation, "This is a... stuffed toy imported from America! It's quite realistic and cute, isn't it? It's actually a prototype, and it's expected to hit stores around five years from now, after they've worked out its bugs."
"I-I see." Makoto again stumbled around, murmuring to himself, "What's going on?" while "Yukiko" invited himself in and slipped into the nearest house slippers he could find at the entrance of the apartment.
'Now what?' Keiko asked no one in particular, but her boyfriend answered her question anyway.
'Act cute and cuddly. Men are simpleminded creatures. Right now, he's shocked that an actual female entered his apartment. He's also confused why a sweet-sounding girl like yourself would insist on entering his abode, so the idiot may get the wrong idea and try to get into your... well, my underpants.'
'Act cute and cuddly? You actually think I can do that at the drop of a hat? Honestly.' Nevertheless, Keiko gave it the old college try.
"H-Hi, Makoto-kun. I just came here because..." She scanned the room using her boyfriend's eyes and twenty-twenty vision, locking on to a brochure underneath the recluse's feet. She grabbed hold of it immediately. "B-Because of that! I'm an agent for this... company."
"Yukiko's" eyes turned into saucers as Keiko and Yusuke read the contents of the brochure, which hinted at an all-expenses-paid trip straight to Aokigahara, which was Japan's Sea of Trees or, as it was more infamously known, the Suicide Forest. It was called as such because it was a popular place for suicides since... forever.
Aokigahara was located on Mount Fuji's northwest base, and it was commonly associated with the youkai of Japanese Folklore. Incidentally, according to Hinageshi and her encyclopedic knowledge of all things supernatural, the creepy forest had portals leading straight to Reikai's Purgatorial Sector and right in the middle of Makai's Gandhara, which was the city that Yomi (one of the former Three Kings) himself founded.
What kind of sick and disturbed travel agency booked vacations to grisly places like Aokigahara?
Keiko looked over Yusuke's shoulder and saw Aloise with a blank, neutral expression on her bespectacled face while from behind her, Sayaka flipped on the pages of her own Book of Fate to probably learn more about this Makoto fellow.
'This is a suicide pact,' Yusuke and Keiko realized.
"You're from the Earth Club, huh?" Makoto's shoulders slumped as he sighed while nodding to himself. "I'm surprised at how organized you people are regarding this... business. I guess you're all used to this by now. Come on, Yukiko-san. Take a seat over there while I make tea."
"Uh, Makoto-kun..." Yukiko began.
"I haven't made up my mind on whether I'm going to that meeting or not. Maybe we can talk it over, if you don't mind?" informed a calmer Makoto with a faint smile.
"S-Sure. Thank you. Sorry for the trouble," said Yukiko while taking a seat on the couch right in front of the television.
"It's no trouble at all, I assure."
'That's surprising. He went from a drooling reclusive pervert who can barely talk to girls without stuttering to a rather nice and amiable fellow,' thought Yusuke, and Keiko replied, 'Maybe it's the likelihood of death that suddenly made him so brave.'
Yukiko froze as Makoto sniffed the air around the brunette, waving his hands towards his face and letting the scent of perfume waft through his widened nostrils.
'I take it back. He's a total pervert. Maybe we should let him die.'
'Could it be? Could this be real? What is this cute, tomboyish girl doing in my room? Her voice is so angelic!' was what Makoto initially thought before discovering the insistent tomboy's true intentions. Her build reminded him of the bodies of women volleyball players or swimmers; slight yet smoothly muscular.
She also smelled of a mix of perfume (just a hint of it) and... men's cologne? A perfect blend of masculinity and femininity; it was quite intoxicating. On the other hand, there was one other reason in his head why a girl would smell like men's cologne. She probably had a boyfriend.
Although she was a bit rough around the edges, she still sounded so sweet and innocent. Then again, he had to wonder how many times had she been ravaged by her lover? Was she really all that pure, or was it all an act she used against men to manipulate them or hide her own flaws through their fantasies?
Maybe he could hit on her and then get slapped or even jailed as she called him a disgusting pig that no woman would ever want. Or, if he were lucky, she'd act friendly towards him until his heart got the wrong idea, and then one day, in the hotel district, he could peep on her while she had a raunchy rendezvous with the man she truly loved.
Ah. His newly formed bad habit shone through again. There was no time for that. The nice lady went all the way to his apartment to talk business, after all.
Yukiko bit her lip and looked at Makoto as though he stripped nude and poured oil all over his body then and there.
'Was it something I said?' he speculated.
"I didn't realize the Earth Club actually sent their representatives to the houses of their prospective clients. That's a bit of a hard-sell tactic, isn't it? Houjo-kun wasn't kidding when he said that you guys were pros," was Makoto's attempt at breaking the ice.
"To tell you the truth, we... aren't in the business of forcing our clients to enter a contract with us unwillingly. If anything, I'm here to stop you from going through this the best I can in case you aren't all that sure about it."
She shifted her seat and swiveled right in front of him so that they were face-to-face. "If you don't mind, I'd like to hear why you want to... avail of our services. Maybe after you've talked things through, you can come up with a decision with a clear head and an open mind."
"You're kidding, right?" Makoto laughed out loud.
"With all due respect, Miss Yukiko, my apartment should speak for itself why I'm considering to 'avail of your services'. I'm almost thirty, I'm a NEET, I'm a recluse, and I've failed to become a contributing member of society because of my inability to enter a university for four years straight, opting instead to concentrate on using my not-so-disposable income to buy creepy anime and manga series to escape the pressures of real life. If that's not a good enough reason to leave this cruel world, I don't know what is."
Yukiko stood up from her seat, clenched her fists, and said, "S-So what? So what if you're obsessed with your hobbies? Is that a valid enough reason to end your life? Don't all these shows and comics make you happy? Doesn't your love for these cheerful stories about everyday life prove that you haven't lost hope? I'm not one to judge, but if the only love you've found is through fiction that makes millions of people laugh and forget their problems, isn't that enough?
"No, of course not." Although Makoto didn't shout the words, they still carried a quiet enough impact to make Yukiko's knees buckle and compel her to sit back down the couch. "You're right, though. For the longest time, I've been depressed, and watching or reading those inspiring comedies helped tremendously in filling the void in my life. But..."
"...But what?"
"...Their lies about happiness and pure love sound false to me now. It's naive innocence. Charming yet dangerous when applied to real life. I won't be fooled any longer."
"...How?" she asked.
"What? Pardon?"
"How could your own collection of videotapes and comics lie to you? You must have watched or read them hundreds, maybe even thousands of times! You yourself admitted that they've been with you through thick and thin. Have they really betrayed you? You haven't even thrown them away, have you? Maybe it's you who's betraying their message of hope!"
"If you truly think that, then read this." Rummaging through the back pile of his manga library, Makoto produced a comic book called "Premium" (in English) and handed it to her. Yukiko hesitated from picking it up at first, but she eventually did so anyway.
Her jaw dropped as she flipped through the pages nearly every half-second, her eyes darting back and forth so fast it seemed like its edges were playing ping-pong with her iris. She read quite quickly, and in under ten minutes, she finished the graphic novel, her face warm and her arms wrapped tightly around her body as she avoided eye contact from Makoto.
He wasn't surprised by the reaction. The manga he handed her was an erotic comic depicting a similar scenario to the one they were having right then; an otaku together with his lovely angel of a neighbor who invited him to her apartment to have a nice chat about their daily lives, when suddenly her ex-boyfriend knocked on her door. She thrust her neighbor into her closet to hide him, afraid that her former lover would see her with another man.
One thing led to another, and before the sap of a nerd knew it, the girl of his dreams and her former lover had gotten back together, making love right in front of him while he was trapped in the closet. After the deed was done and the ex-boyfriend left, no matter how many times his neighbor apologized to him, his catatonic mind wouldn't register her words.
Just thinking about it made him hard. "That manga is my truth at present. How can you see redemption from filth such as me? Nerds regularly rage at comics like this, which exposes a huge double standard. If it were a man who had multiple lovers, no otaku would bat an eye, but if it were a woman who did it, those stupid virgins would be rioting."
"I completely understand." Yukiko put down the book on a nearby coffee table. "But this isn't news to me. I already know boys will be boys."
"R-Really?" Makoto's nostrils flared. Why wasn't she running for the hills? An otaku just made her read a cuckolding fantasy comic book. Did that mean she wanted to...?
"Makoto-san, boys will be boys, so if it's okay with you..." the Yukiko in his fantasy said as she took off her uniform and posed at him in her panties, bra, and gartered stockings.
"You have no sense of tact or delicacy, though, showing such books in front of a pure maiden," said the real Yukiko, which shattered his dreams in a hurry.
Makoto winced at the slap that never came. However, he reeled from a different kind of attack. "You're a sad, lonely man... aren't you?"
"Y-You weren't able to figure that out as soon as you entered my apartment? As soon as you realized I'm thinking about being part of a gathering of people out to do a suicide pact in Aokigahara? You're stating the obvious. You should stop trying so hard to save someone as disgusting and depraved as I am, Yukiko-san."
"I don't care about your sexual fetishes. That's your own business. As far as I'm concerned, it has nothing to do with why you want to end your life. If you're lonely and you want a friend, then why couldn't I be one to you?" asked the angel who'd come to save him, undeterred by his flaws and shortcomings.
"Don't be nice to me. You'll regret it."
"Eh?"
"Just now, as you asked me to be your friend, because I'm so hungry for love and affection, I totally thought that I've fallen in love with you."
Yukiko turned red from head to toe, her grit mouth gnashing her teeth in a manner unbecoming of a lady for some reason. She was a tomboy and a shy girl at the same time. How lovely!
"You haven't really fallen in love with me. Don't be silly, Makoto-kun. You barely know me."
"Of course, I have! That's how desperate I am. Why else would I hand you adult manga depicting a lovely girl visiting an otaku? It's the exact same scenario we're having right now. I have no intentions of being your friend. Even though I've only met you, I want you to be mine."
"I-I don't know what to say."
"Like you said, I'm a sad, lonely man." Makoto plopped down on his couch. "The mere hint of a girl's presence will have degenerates like me come running like dogs. I haven't collected all this junk because I believe in the purity of love. I gathered them instead so that I have material to jack off to."
Finally, the slap he'd been expecting for a long time now came crashing down his cheek, twisting his neck to the point of nearly breaking it.
"Wake up and stop acting so spoiled," Keiko told the pitiful man before her. Her slap was so fierce that the wig on Yusuke's head almost flew off. "You should stop trying to push me away. I know that we're strangers, but I meant it when I said I want to be friends with you."
"Friends? Don't make me laugh. Why would you even care about...?" An even stronger slap on the other cheek silenced Makoto instantly and made him lose his bearings for a second or two.
"You still haven't told me why you want to commit suicide," Keiko said while Yusuke wished he could clap his hands at his girlfriend's moxie.
'I thought for sure that she'd leave by the time he made her read an adult comic book, but she's still at it. At this rate, she could work for a suicide hotline.'
"What the heck do you want me to say? I was being completely honest with you! Any girl that suddenly enters an otaku's room would provoke the same reaction!" Makoto shot back.
"Ah, I made you mad. I'm so sorry. Can I have my tea now, if you don't mind?" With an apologetic chop, a grin, and a wink, Keiko sat back down the office chair, put her hands on her knees, and crossed her legs.
"I'm sorry about for slapping you earlier. I guess that manga of yours agitated me more than I thought it would."
"...N-No problem. I'll get it right away." Flustered yet docile, Makoto obeyed Keiko's suggestions, the heavy air of contempt lifting as he busied himself preparing tea for the first girl to ever enter his home.
'Huh. You have him wrapped around your pinky finger. You even kept him from kicking you out of his apartment,' Yusuke marveled before shuddering inwardly. What if Keiko had been manipulating him the same way without him realizing it? 'Um, so what's next?'
'I don't know, but I sure wish he were more honest with himself,' Keiko thought while taking a sip of the herbal tea brought to her.
'He sounded plenty honest to me. I mean, think about it. A girl entered his apartment unannounced, and like a typical virgin, he made a complete ass out of himself. No wonder Alicia dumped him.'
'That's the thing. There's more to it than that.' Keiko's eyes brightened as she asked, "Hey, Makoto-kun..."
"I'm sorry about showing you that manga and sexually harassing you just now!" apologized Makoto, his head bowed low enough to make crisscrossing imprints of the tatami mat on his forehead. "I wasn't lying about falling in love with you, though. You're like my guardian angel!"
'See? He's a nicer guy than we thought,' was Yukimura's smug remark to Urameshi. To Makoto, she reassured, "I don't mind. I'm not so sheltered as to not know how men are."
Makoto got up and grinned from ear-to-ear, his ears seemingly brimming with steam, which almost made him drop the tray he intended to return to his miniature kitchen.
'Ah, see, by saying that, he now thinks it's totally okay for him to fantasize about you sexually. He's probably dreaming about you right now. Naked. You should pick your words carefully, Keiko,' Yusuke commented, and Keiko retorted, 'No, he's not! He's just relieved we aren't fighting anymore!'
Once Makoto came back down to earth, Keiko asked, "What was your first love like, Makoto-kun?"
'God dammit, Keiko! What did I just tell you? Pick your words carefully! He'll totally misunderstand you!' Yusuke yelped from inside his shared mind.
"M-My first love was my Science Club advisor. Unfortunately, she was an X Japan fan, and I was more of a Turbo Pascal fan myself; that, and she was ten years my senior and she already had a boyfriend. It was never meant to be."
'Oooh, first love! First love! Hey, Yusuke, who was your first love? Was it me?' Keiko teased Yusuke.
'Y-You idiot, concentrate on the mission!'
"S-So who was your first love, Yukiko-san?" asked Makoto.
"Ah, me? Well, my first love was my childhood friend, of course. He's gross, uncouth, had hygiene problems, threw snot balls at me, flipped my skirt, and was a total brat who was always getting into fights because of his parents' messy divorce. For the longest time, I was his only friend..."
To Be Continued...
Next: Aloise's secret.
May kailangan pa ba akong sabihin?
Abdiel