The fifth mask is revealed: see first installment for disclaimers.
~ * Mask of Arrogance * ~
I will settle for no less than perfection.
I keep telling myself that time and again, along with my definition of perfection. I've had all the particulars worked out for a long time, laid out nice and neat like so many other factors of my life. I've always had this long mental checklist of all the qualifications my ideal mate should meet.
First off, they should be female. That practically goes without saying, though I have gotten offers from… boys of that persuasion… in my school. I suppose I should be flattered, though the thought absolutely disgusts me.
Do I look like I'd be interested in something like that?!
Second, she should be absolutely radiant, with no flaws in her appearance whatsoever. After all, if she's going to become my constant companion, it will only work in her favor to look just as good as me.
I would so hate to completely overshadow my beloved with my physical beauty, after all.
Naturally, her personality is just as important. She has to accept my judgement in all matters as the final word, recognizing my decisions as law. I can't have her coming into my life and messing everything up with her own silly mistakes and errors in judgement.
It's best if she's very passive in nature, not confrontational at all. The fewer chances we have to get into arguments, the better – it would be such an annoyance being forced to show her she's wrong repeatedly.
She should be delicate and sweet, even a bit fragile at times – in need of my protection, so that she knows she can always flee to the shelter offered by my arms in her times of need, no matter how big or small the threat.
She should be willing to do anything I wish of her, immediately and without question. The faster she can get these tasks done, the better.
If she's very quiet and doesn't talk a great deal, so much the better – again, it helps to avoid arguments whenever possible. Big, vocal confrontations are definitely never a good thing.
Those are only some of the biggest, most important points of the mental index I've been keeping tabs on and developing for years. A nice list to be certain, with plenty of good points I've always felt were important to seek in a potential girlfriend and possible bride.
So you can imagine how it feels to find myself looking at somebody who meets very few of those requirements and still falling hard despite everything.
Oh, to be certain, it wasn't something that happened instantly, or a process I realized was taking place until it was too late. I still wonder if it couldn't have been prevented, if there was some way I could have recognized the course I was taking and corrected myself before it got this far.
Yet now, part of me doesn't want to correct it so that things go back to the way I thought they were. Part of me wants to fix it so that I could continue down this road without fear that past actions would prove my downfall.
For so long, I believed my sights were set on the perfect choice, the correct choice, the only real choice that could fit into my standards.
I'm referring, naturally, to my childhood companion Karin. She was supposed to be my ideal lover, the perfect girlfriend and bride material.
She matched up with so many of the points: a beautiful young woman with flawless pearl skin and silky hair the color of the dawn sky, peaceful-natured with a dislike for arguing and desire to see everybody around her in a wonderful mood.
All right, so she could be incredibly annoying at times with her naiveté and overly compassionate nature toward even total strangers and commoners. But I figured that with time and patience I could teach her the proper manner in which she should act.
Besides, she was simply too pretty to give up on, too close a match to my ideal to not warrant at least some effort toward helping her become absolutely perfect.
I always assumed she'd be mine. I tried to tolerate it when others appeared and tried to stake their claims on her, knowing mine trumped all of their lowly attempts.
Really, who were they trying to kid? Karin was mine, would always be mine, and with a little work, would be the perfect girlfriend, the most ideal wife for somebody of my fame and stature.
But a certain annoying commoner appeared and apparently decided his desires were more important than my plans. The little upstart quickly turned into a serious pest, always getting into my hair, disrupting my attempts to teach Karin how to discard her more annoying habits and generally making a nuisance of himself.
Even worse, he ended up helping to introduce somebody into my life that I never would have met otherwise. Somebody who then proceeded to completely shake my beliefs and make me question how much my checklist really mattered to me.
What an absolute pain in the ass – to use an expression widely known by commoners like them.
Commoners. It was thanks to Ikki that I started having more and more contact with people who weren't of the high class, who didn't attend private schools and have money to burn and could throw lavish parties in their mansions.
It was because of him that I met people who believed the best use of their time was to roam around in gangs and 'hang out' with each other instead of fine-tuning their talents and becoming the absolute best in whatever it is they happened to be skilled at.
If it weren't for Ikki, I never would have met the girl who would prove to be such a complete opposite of my ideal – and turn everything I believed in upside-down.
She wasn't breathtakingly beautiful – at least, not so much as to tear my attention away from Karin the instant she walked into my life and make me see her as the new standard of perfection.
In fact, I even saw fit to insult her looks several times, comparing her to various beasts and unattractive creatures.
She was violent and temperamental, extremely confrontational, appearing to even love getting into fights – especially when she won. And she always worked to win, even when it was clear she was dead wrong about something – needed to prove she was right despite of the truth of the matter.
She wasn't fragile or delicate, and could stand on her own two feet – but still had a small support network to fall back on in a crisis, though she hardly called it that. She didn't need a pillar of strength to carry her through – more a couple of braces behind her as reassurance, and to help get up should she stumble.
She wasn't a follower willing to do anything for her beloved – more a leader used to giving the orders and seeing results.
She wasn't quiet and withdrawn, but extremely vocal and opinionated.
She was nothing like what I'd imagined as my ideal girlfriend.
And she decided I somehow fit her concept of an ideal boyfriend.
I'm still not entirely certain how that happened. I hardly pictured myself as her type at that time: complete opposite, definitely, unreachable ideal, possibly, but somebody she could actually have? Not hardly. And yet, that was exactly how she appeared to approach the whole situation: like I was not only within her reach, but somebody she was going to have as her own, no matter what.
I did not appreciate her assumption.
Certain errors made on my part only aggravated the situation. Incidents where I thought I was striving toward cementing my ideal relationship with my dear Karin, only to discover too late something had gone horribly wrong. These mishaps always seemed to further benefit her whenever they occurred, further support her misguided belief that I was somehow meant to be her lover.
Maybe I should have paid more attention to those incidents, and how I started to feel when they occurred.
It was somewhat subtle at first, and whenever I noticed it, I immediately covered it up with a vocal denial and attempt to escape the uncomfortable situation. The last thing I wanted to do was entertain the notion that I could feel anything more than revulsion for a commoner… for somebody who was proving such a complete reversal of my much-vaunted ideals for a girlfriend.
If she touched me, I'd recoil, though the oddly electric feelings coursing through my skin wherever she made contact with my body was not exactly unpleasant.
If she cooed some sly comment, I'd scream, trying to drown out whatever thoughts her comments sent racing through my mind, because I wasn't certain I found what she proposed completely unpleasant.
If she turned those eyes on me and smiled…
Her eyes… are so unlike anyone else's that I've ever seen. Everybody else has such dark eyes, the colors all but vanishing into murky pools of shadow. Even Karin, whose eyes are normally a deep jade, sometimes seems to have a sudden shadow pass over her pretty, perfect face from time to time.
Hers are the only exception. Her eyes are always intense with color, an attention-grabbing shade of aqua green that pulls you in and traps you in their depths, never letting go once they've taken hold of you.
But I still did everything I could to resist them, and because of that now find myself faced with this rather unusual and certainly frustrating dilemma.
I fought tooth and nail against the notion that I might possibly become attracted to a commoner, a girl like her that was so different from what I had pictured as my perfect girlfriend.
Eventually, however, I came to recognize the truth: somewhere along the line, I had already fallen for her. Very badly, in fact.
But having spent so long acting as if I could never feel anything for somebody like her, I now realize that it will prove extremely difficult, if not impossible, to turn around and make an honest attempt at romance.
I've been having difficulty for some time now acting as if my heart and soul were still set on the conquest of Karin. To give that up now would not only be admitting defeat – that I may have wasted all these years pursuing her – but let commoners like Ikki and Rintaro move in on my childhood friend.
Even if she isn't my future intended, I can't help but shudder at the thought of her betrothed to one of those Hercules Beetle-loving losers.
Not only that, but I've spent so long acting revolted at my newly realized crush's every advance, how would it be received if I stopped pretending? Would it be seen as a honest attempt to start a real relationship – or just some cruel mockery intended to break her heart? How could I convince her or anybody of my sincerity?
Worse yet, will she have decided to move on, thinking I was forever out of her reach, and shift her affections to another, less worthy recipient?
For once, I have no idea how to approach the situation. I can only hope my hesitation to accept her advances hasn't cost me everything in the long run – that I can still convince her that yes, I have finally decided to make her my 'Robattle Princess'…