Aleine drove down the highways away from Shoyo, ignoring all form of speed limits and pedestrian crossings like always. It's amazing the cops haven't come down on me yet, she thought with a smirk. Maybe because they don't want to cross anyone who drives a Ferrari? All the better! That way I can do whatever I feel like doing. This is SO much better than New York.
If there was one thing Aleine despised, it was being forced to conform to the norms and conventions of other people. All throughout her life she had been forced to do what her parents, what her teachers, had wanted her to do, and she was sick and tired of doing everything their way. If I didn't do anything I might have lost my personality totally. I'd just be a walking brainwashed copy of THEM. She shuddered. I DEFINITELY don't want THAT to happen.
Being born in the high and elite circles of what was upper-class New York may have seemed wonderful on the outside, but once you got inside, it wasn't exactly all it was cracked up to be. It was all about images, and money, and who looked younger than whom, and who made more money than whom. There were unspoken rules as to what a girl could and should do, and their choices for their future were limited. The most they were supposed to aspire to were to be the wives of rich corporate magnates or politicians.
But Aleine didn't want that. She NEVER wanted that. She wanted the freedom to be who she wanted to be, without the constraints that were often put on her and her friends. She knew that the others felt the same way; that's why they went on this trip to Japan in the first place. They wanted to be an entire world away from their parents and the world they had grown up in. They wanted a chance to be who they wanted to be.
Yeah, be who we want to be…without having to always look over our backs to see if our parents have caught us, Aleine thought with a scowl. There was once a time she wasn't the way she was. In fact, she was the exact opposite. She was always smiling, with a tendency to laugh even at the smallest things. She was pleasant and easy to get along with.
But everything eventually fell apart. Her parents were constantly arguing, and at the age of six Aleine found herself trapped in the middle of a messy divorce. It didn't help that it was also a very high-profile breakup, since her father had been a former movie star before he had made it big in real estate, and her mother was a popular model before she got married.
But I wasn't alone in having that sort of trouble. Jesse had been caught up in a situation quite similar to that, but hers had been more along the lines of an international scandal, when her father had been caught cheating with the United States Ambassador to France. As a method of escaping reality – and partly to get her parents' attention – she joined up with a biker gang for three years. Fortunately, she didn't get in trouble for that, and was soon back in the good graces of her family, who, fortunately, hadn't split up.
Aleine hadn't really cared that time when her parents were breaking up. After all, she had other people who cared dearly for her. Like Damien…and Alex… Damien was her older half-brother, her father's son by another woman. Even then, though, Aleine loved him as she would a real brother, and he had been her 'support system' throughout the rest of his life.
Until he died, though, Aleine thought bitterly. It had been a mystery that had not been solved yet. The police speculated that he had been assassinated, but for what reasons and by whom was not yet figured out.
But what hurt the most was that he had died right in front of her. They had been walking along Ninth Street, looking for the nearest ice cream shop. It was summer that time, and even the air-conditioning indoors was not enough to cool them off. At Aleine's insistence, the two of them went out to buy some ice cream. When they were a good distance away from the apartment building where they lived, there was a rushing of air, and then Damien jerked forward, slumping onto the pavement, with a bullet hole on his back and running right through to his heart.
Aleine had been totally devastated by the loss of her brother. During that time she blamed herself for what happened, and wouldn't get out of her room. The only one who managed to bring her out of hiding and face the world again was her best friend, Alex.
Aleine's heart gave a painful twinge when she remembered the only guy best friend she ever had in her entire life. They had been friends for quite a while, so when they eventually learned that they were engaged to one another, it didn't seem so bad. After all, getting married to my best friend didn't seem like such a bad idea…especially when I started to have a crush on him…
However, it seemed like it just wasn't meant to be. When she was thirteen, Aleine was kidnapped by a drug syndicate, and held for a ransom of twelve billion dollars. Alex somehow found out about it, as well as her location. He went there, and attempted to rescue her. Unfortunately, he got shot just before he could reach her, and died in her lap.
That was the final blow for Aleine. Though she no longer locked herself up in her room, she locked up her heart. She then slowly put on masks and facades to hide who she really was and to keep away any pain. She adopted a cold and a basically I-don't-give-a-damn attitude so that she wouldn't build any lasting bonds with anyone. Jesse and the others WERE her friends, and she had a bond with them, but it was only because they had almost similar situations, not because they really understood her.
And now that do'aho is making it all the worse for me, Aleine thought as her eyes narrowed. When she had first seen Mitsui, she couldn't help but be reminded of both Damien and Alex. He had Damien's easygoing nature, and Alex's smile and looks. Seeing all those qualities together in one person only served to hurt Aleine more.
So she did what she often did whenever she wanted people to stay away from her: she lashed out at them. And since Mitsui reminded her of the two most important people in her life, she wanted to make him go the hell away. Thus, she gave him 'special treatment'; meaning, she often treated him like dirt. Stay away from me, Mitsui Hisashi. You aren't going to get anywhere with me…
Or is that really what you want? Her heart's snide reply made Aleine convulse involuntarily and grip more tightly on the steering wheel. She wanted Mitsui to stay away from her and leave her alone, but the problem was that a part of her didn't want him to do that. The soft, sensitive side of her that she had pinned down and cornered in the farthest reaches of her spirit was calling out to her with a vengeance, begging her to stop shunning Mitsui and learn to get along with him for her own good. He's exactly what you need now, it shouted at her. You've been mourning for Damien and Alex for far too long! And besides, would Alex want to see you so unhappy?!
Aleine swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, and shook her head. Jeez Aleine, get a grip! And with that she continued her driving, not caring where she went or how long she drove.
* * *
Mitsui sighed as he wandered up to his room, his ears automatically blocking out the sounds of his parents arguing for the umpteenth time that week. Just stay the hell away from them when they're like that, Hisashi, he told himself. You wouldn't want to get caught in the middle of it.
If divorce were legal in Japan, he was certain that his parents would have gone that way a long time ago. Theirs was an arranged marriage, and it seemed that neither one was happy with the choice of spouse. For as long as he could remember, his mother and father were at odds with each other, disagreeing about everything, even the smallest things. Somehow, in the midst of all their fighting, they managed to have him, but that was the end of it. He didn't get any other siblings for the rest of his life.
Not that I mind, though, he thought as he slid into his room and lay down on the bed. He was used to being alone, since he was an only child. Though his mother cared for him and loved him like any mother would her son, she didn't have a lot of time for him. She was always away somewhere, attending to some corporate meeting or other. His father worked abroad, so he didn't get to see much of him either.
And so it was that Mitsui Hisashi grew up with no siblings, raised by an aunt who never got married, but who loved her nephew all the more so because of that. He didn't grow up into a spoiled brat, fortunately, but his aunt's constant doting didn't do anything nice for his ego.
But playing basketball managed to deflate it somewhat. He had to learn the value of teamwork, and that victory wasn't the result of only one person's efforts. But when he was named MVP in junior high, his pride shot up to record heights.
Then he hit a hard wall when he got that knee injury. Because of his pride he refused to accept that he was, in fact, stoppable instead of unstoppable, and that only made things worse. It was a downward spiral from there. First coming in late for classes, then skipping them entirely, then not coming to school, and then dropping out for a time…and then returning as leader of a gang. No one recognized him anymore as the MVP player who had joined up with Shohoku. He was just another troublemaker, and a very dangerous one at that. They shunned him, they hated him, and it only hurt him more.
But he got some sense knocked into him – literally and figuratively speaking – and he was once more back in the team and in their good graces. It felt like getting a second chance at life. And this time, he had promised himself, I won't mess it up.
Still, even if he had these new friends and was back doing what he really loved to do, there was still a little bit of him that felt lonely. And that side of him often kicked into gear whenever he saw couples walking down the street past him on his way home, or when he saw Haruko chatting with Sakuragi. His heart craved for THAT kind of companionship: the affection of a girl. Initially, he just laughed at himself, believing that he was going soft and that it wasn't good, often putting it down in psychological terms as a mother complex, since he didn't exactly have the love of his own mother around him often.
But all his theories got tossed out the window when Erin and the rest of them came. These six girls were WAY different from all the other girls he had encountered. Most of them were like Haruko: soft, prone to giggling, and basically NEEDED someone else in their life to steer their life for them. It wasn't like that with Erin, Jesse, Melina, CJ, Ciel and Aleine. They weren't prone to giggling, they were far from soft, and they sure as hell didn't need anyone to run their lives for them. They did what they wanted, not caring what other people would think of them; as long as it was fun for them, then they'd do it.
Still, Mitsui didn't find himself getting attracted that much to any of them. Oh sure, they were beautiful – it'd be only a blind man that didn't see that – and they were pretty cool where the attitude came in, but that still wasn't enough. He felt that they wouldn't be able to understand him for who he really was.
Except if we're talking about Aleine… Mitsui groaned at the thought of the girl whom he had nicknamed "Snow Bitch". Well that's exactly what she is, he told himself defensively. Why she has to pick on ME all the time is beyond me. What did I ever do to her that I deserved to get treated like this?!
When he had first laid eyes on her that day she sauntered into the gym of Shohoku High, Mitsui knew that there was something completely and utterly different about her. Oh sure, she would stick out a like a sore thumb amongst the throng of girls who studied at Shohoku, but even when she was with her friends, she still stood out. It might have been her ethereal beauty: her long, flowing silver hair, her icy blue eyes, and her soft pale skin…but Mitsui soon realized that it wasn't just her beauty alone that attracted him. He was quite perceptive of the pain of others, and he knew that Aleine carried something really painful and heartbreaking all the time. What it was exactly he didn't know.
We're kindred spirits, she and I, he caught himself thinking one day. We've both had a rough time with life, and I guess that's what is pulling us to each other. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together…but I wish she didn't have to be so unlikable and unapproachable.
He sighed, and rolled over in his bed, burying his head in his pillows. Well, whatever. For the meantime, I'm just going to play her game the way she wants to play it.