Part 2: Um, still no spoilers, so never fear. Again, comments always appreciated.
I was
sixteen the first time I fell in love. I suppose you might consider that somewhat of a late start for someone
with the reputation that I have, but despite my outrageous flirting, I tend to
shy away from strong emotions. It's
much easier to let things and people go if you don't become deeply attached to
them. Of course, when I did finally
fall for someone, I fell hard. 'Hitting
the ground after a ten-story jump' hard. 'Ken-ken's cookies' hard. 'Trying to get anything other than revenge through to Aya when he's in a
"Takatori, shi-ne" mood' hard. Yeah, that hard.
She was so beautiful and so very, very young. I suppose I was young too, but I didn't feel
it. My youth had slipped away in that
fractured afternoon moment three years ago. Since then my father had died, stabbed to death in a prison yard brawl. I declined to go to the funeral. No one in my new school knew about my past,
assuming that my parents had died in an illness or accident, and I preferred to
leave them with their assumptions, rather than deal with the suspicion, fear,
or pity that I knew would greet me if I told them the truth. But I see I have digressed from the story
again. I was talking about my first
real love. Her name was Tamura
Meiko. I could go on for hours about
her silken hair or her dark eyes that I endlessly compared to a summer night's
sky. But you probably don't care to
hear about the hopelessly sappy maunderings of a man about his first love.
She
was in my class at school; a cheerful, warm-hearted girl who laughed at all my
jokes, even the really corny ones, and when she smiled up at me I felt that I
would do anything for her. We went
everywhere together, those first few weeks. I hadn't laughed that much since my mother died. Just thinking about Meiko made me want to
smile. Really smile, not one of the
fake smiles that I used as my shield against the world. It was a wonderful time for me. But unfortunately, far too brief. Like everything else good in my life. . . .
. Gah, enough bitterness. I'll leave
that to those who are better suited for it (not to name any names).
Of course, it was only a matter of
time of time before her parents decided to check up on me, to find out more
about this brash young boy who was presumptuous enough to dare to date their
only daughter. They contacted my
grandmother, who was more than willing to fill them in on the sordid little
tale of my past. You'd think she'd have
some sympathy for her own daughter, right? Wrong. My mother came off as
little more than a second-rate whore, running off with her sleazy alcoholic
boyfriend just to rebel from her parents. I don't know much about my mother's past other than what little my
grandmother mentioned, but I know my mother, and after having lived with my
grandmother for all those years, I can see why anyone who offered a
smidgen of love would seem attractive by comparison.
So Meiko's parents' forbid her from
associating with me anymore. I guess
they thought that manslaughter was inheritable too. I was a bad influence on their precious daughter. Huh, she was the one who had to teach me
how to French kiss. And on our second
date too! I'd say she was the bad
influence. Wink.
When I found out, I tried to talk to her, to tell her that we
could make it through this. I was so
sure that love would win in the end. All we had to do was stay strong and stay together. Surely her parents' anger would disappear in
the face of our love? Blah, blah, all
that typical teenage star-crossed lover stuff. But if I was young and idealistic, then she was much more
practical. Too practical, it seemed to
me. I've always been a romantic. I begged; I pleaded with her to run off with
me, where we could be happy together. But through it all she held firm. She popped my foolish dreams with a few simple words. "I'm really very sorry, Youji, but . . .
well, after all, it's just a crush. It's not like we're in love or anything."
It felt like she'd ripped my heart
out of my chest, ground it beneath her shoes and danced a jig on top of
it. (See, I bet you didn't know I was
so good with words; if I wasn't so good at killing I could have been a
writer. Smirk.) I don't remember what I said to her. Presumably, I just laughed it off. 'Don't let 'em see you crying' has always
been one of my unofficial mottoes. It's
funny, but if you smile a lot, then people will leave you alone more. All those people who sulk in their corners
constantly angsting are really just silently screaming out to everybody 'Ask
me! Ask me why I'm brooding!' But nobody ever stops to question if the
smiling person really is as happy as he appears. But I'm sure you don't really want to hear my theories about
emotional faรงades. Of course not. Not when my
fucked up personal life is so much more interesting.
Of course, my grandmother was happy
about the rejection. Anything that screwed
up my life made her happy. Revenge by
proxy on my dead mother. I certainly
had never done anything to her. I tried
to avoid her as much as possible, preferring to hang out at the neighborhood
bars. I know what you're thinking, but
I looked older than I really was, and even if they did suspect, I always spent
my time nursing a beer or two over in the back corner quietly, so nobody ever
kicked me out.
After that, I tried to avoid Meiko
as much as possible at school, and whether she was glad for it or sorry, I was
never able to tell. She started dating
somebody else, some guy her parents could approve of, and whose father didn't
kill his wife in a drunken rage. She
seemed happy enough with it, so I suppose that should have been enough for me,
but I know I would have gladly gone back to her if she'd shown any interest in
me. Ah, I've always been a fool when it
comes to women.
And there've been a lot of women in
my life, I freely admit that. The girls
at school still didn't know about my past and they were more than eager to
sympathize with me over the breakup. I
must have dated my way through over half the entire female population at my
high school that year. And, no, I know
what you're thinking, but it wasn't for the sex. Believe what you will about me, but I didn't lose my virginity
until the ripe old age of eighteen. I
won't mention her name (a true gentleman never does), but she was older than I
was. Not by that much, but enough so
that she knew what she wanted and how to get it. I met her at one of the neighborhood bars. I was pondering what I was going to do with
my future, certain only that I did not want spend any more time than was
necessary living in my grandmother's house.
I'd noticed her walk in, of
course. I notice every pretty woman in
the area. It's just one of those
special skills of mine, the ability to recognize and instantly locate every
pretty woman in the area. Not quite as
marketable as the ability to cold-bloodedly strangle the life out of a man, but
much more enjoyable for me and everybody else involved. Very much more enjoyable.
So she sat down beside me at the
bar, and we started talking. I know it
sounds like something I stole from a cheesy paperback novel, right? Especially the part where she invited me back
to her place, but I shit you not, this actually happened to me. Is it really that hard to believe? I mean look at the rest of my life and tell
me if it doesn't all read like the storyline from a really bad movie.
So I went home with her (hell, wouldn't
you?), and she taught me quite a few things that night, not all of them about
sex, either. She didn't tell me much
about herself, and I appreciated her reticence as an excuse for my own. We didn't take anything for granted or
expect anything deeper out of it, and all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was luckier than a lot of people, I guess,
in that. And even though we never
really saw each other again after that, I never resented her for using me or
tried to contact her again. We both
knew it wasn't meant to be anything more.
Aw, I've disappointed you, I
bet. You wanted to hear all the juicy
details about my "first time," right? Too bad. You want graphic sex
scenes, go check out some of those pages Omi surfs around late at night when he
thinks none of the rest of us are paying attention. God, was I ever that hentai at his age? Probably even more so, which is why I don't kid him about it as
much as I could. Only once or twice a
week, max.