Last Dance With Shinobu-Chan.
By Project Pegasus
Chapter VI, Part II: And then She Kissed Her, Her Only Love . . .
***
In deep meditation, Motoko sat with her legs crossed. The strain of the last few days traced its lines across her face. Shinobu was going to the prom with that worm, Keitaro, she thought. To her, he was hardly a man, and she couldn't find a single reason that the residents of Hinata Sou were falling for him. Was she the only one who could resist his revolting and insidious infection, she wondered. She felt revolted by how cowardly and perverted he was. Before he arrived uninvited, she had been the "man" of the house, and even now, she was more of a "man" than he could ever be.
Biology and society had played their pack of tricks: even though she had shown more strength, will, courage, and dedication than he ever could, by virtue of what was between his legs, he had gotten the better of her. It was an outrage and a crime! Before practice, while taping her breasts close to her body, she imagined all that she could accomplish had she been born a man. Her hands were not at all feminine. They were a remembrance of her father's hands and her grandfather's hands and his father before him. How she wanted to purge the last remnant of femininity from them until she could uproot a tree with the virility of her masculine heritage alone. Why should the fact that she was born a woman prevent her from gaining everyone's respect?
It was Keitaro who was feminine! Why should he be considered the "man" when she was like a bull? He was inept, and kept everything hidden. She knew he pleasured himself while thinking about Naru; one morning, she heard them screaming at one another when Naru caught him in the act. Meanwhile, she had never kept anything suppressed. She had despised Keitaro from the beginning and let everyone know it, including him. When she was angry and frustrated by his behavior, she would let him know it. Nothing was hidden.
And poor Shinobu. Motoko had always warned Shinobu of Keitaro's perversions, that as a man he only wanted one thing from her. At times, in her mind, she would play out rescue scenes where she was the warrior from an ancient myth saving the innocent maiden from the evil demon. She had tried to train Shinobu well, but it was evident to her that she was still young. Shinobu would have to make her own mistakes. But even so, Motoko had found Shinobu so impressionable when she first arrived. As a young girl, she was on the verge of blooming: like melted wax, her shape was still taking form. Motoko had longed to be a part of Shinobu's transfiguration from an innocent child to a young woman. She wanted to see something of herself in Shinobu. Instead, Shinobu had chosen to abandon her for Keitaro! It was obvious that she had lost Shinobu to an inferior rival and there was nothing she could do about it.
What was the demon she saw in Keitaro? Was it simply the fact that he was a man? Deep inside, she had always been fearful and resentful of men. No matter how strong and skilled she was as a swordswoman, men would still own every institution of power in the country, leaving her powerless, prone, and helpless, just like men liked to have their women, Motoko reasoned. Gone were the days when wielding a katana with insurmountable fury could bring one status, honor, and power. Greedy, lustful, weak men, she thought. It was she who was masculine and ascetic, a warrior who had mastered the katana in a time when men were honored for holding a petty office job. They were indolent and slothful, like . . . like a pack of turtles.
Perhaps that's why turtles had always frightened her. Something about their luridly phallic heads poking out from their shells, erect, self-serving, and ready to withdraw when they were satisfied with what they had accomplished. Turtles, she shivered. Yet there was something almost fascinating about them, just as there was about Keitaro. Keitaro, she thought languidly to herself. Lately, she had been . . . No it wasn't true. Motoko attempted to steer her mind to another subject, the clothes she still needed to fold back in her room, the legend of Achilles and Panthesilia she needed to read for her world literature class, trigonometric equations. But as much as she evaded it, the more it became undeniable.
But why, she wondered. Surely it wasn't because he was attractive or worthy as a mate. No. It went deeper than Keitaro, deeper and more suppressed then even her feelings for him. At the core of her emotions, further past Keitaro was the silent, submissive image of Shinobu-chan. It was a set of emotions that Motoko wanted to disown, disavow as not her own. But even though they were repressed to the furthest recesses of her mind, they could never fade because they were so familiar. Whenever these emotions for Shinobu confronted Motoko, worming their way through the elaborate fortresses of Motoko's frail psychological defenses, she quivered as the emotions whispered in her ear, embraced her and washed over her trembling soul. This sensation Motoko felt for nobody else except Shinobu, it was like a lit match within the lips of a shivering tulip.
But why was she now manifesting feelings for Keitaro, she wondered. Shinobu from almost the beginning had loved Keitaro most of all, and she was the most deeply injured by his original lie to her, that he was a Todai student. He could reach her as a brotherly figure or even as a lover. If Motoko could only make Keitaro love her, then she could know what it would be like to actually be Shinobu, assume her identity and penetrate her mind so thoroughly that it would seem as though Shinobu and she were one person. Even if Motoko lusted after Keitaro, it was ultimately Shinobu that was Motoko's the highest aim. She shifted uncomfortably; she felt as though she were losing control. Who was she? Who was she? Who was she?
End of Chapter VI, Part II
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