Ken Ichijouji Part 2

by Youkaiko
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They let me go.

I tried my best, for such a long time, to work hard and provide money for the family. That is the function of the salaryman. Yet, the inside, the Ken, has his own feelings and expresses that through yaoi fanfiction. Such is the way of the salaryman, being two people at once.

Boss whispered to me. He said that there were boxes at the end of the hall. Miyako yelled at me. She screamed about how I wasn't the man she married. They built up inside of me an invisible anger.

So I left. I've been gone for two days, because I couldn't take it anymore. I stayed at a hotel in the company of another woman, a friend from work. We didn't sleep with each other, we simply sat around and talked about our individual fandoms.

There is a sence of complacency in my life. Perhaps being fired was not so bad. However, I can't stay in this hotel indefinately. I have to go home, to my children. To my wife. But do I want to? Do I want to go back to the world of the salaryman and be two people? Is it my fate to go back to the plight of the modern Japanese man? Perhaps it is Miyako who should work, and me that should stay home.

Perhaps it is me that should become an undivided self. I would like to regain the vigor of the boys I have written about. But it isn't the sexual looseness, the unbridaled freedom that I want. That is an extreme that is unnecessary and possibly dangerous. After all, countless times in history we have teetered to opposite poles. Be Eastern, be Western, be straight, be gay, be masculine, be feminine, be strict, be unrestrained, be guilty, be innocent. It is impossible to be both or neither. It is only black or white.

Where does that leave me?

I have to challenge my destiny by being in the middle of the "ura" and the "omote" and accepting not the condition of my life, but the condition of myself.

Until then, I have to get a part-time job.

"...and I'm sorry, Mr Jones, it's time."





Author's note: I thought I'd write another Ken being introverted chapter. However, I also wrote it based on my research of Japanese culture. Being a gaijin, though, I don't think I'll ever learn much. _