Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou - But I Stood In The Background
A KareKano Fanfiction By Cheshire Grin
Disclaimer: [ insert appropriate "I don't own Kare Kano" comment here]
Note: Here the story starts on a new track and we won't see Maho in this chapter. This is where the other character I had been planning to introduce comes in, Asaba Hideaki.
* * *
Chapter 2 - Weakness makes you whole
Well, boys and girls, especially girls, welcome to another day in the life of the one and only Asaba Hideaki.
Sigh.... Why do I always start things like that. That's just me I guess. Or so I'd like to think. The fact is I just have no idea how to start a diary. It's been such a long time since I've kept one. I'm not sure why I've started again after all these years, not sure why I feel the need to write these things down but it's there nonetheless.
It's a pity that I've never been very good at writing. That's Arima's department, he's always been much better at this sort of thing. Still, I guess it doesn't matter very much. Its not like anyone else is gonna read this, and I couldn't ask Arima to write this for me. He's already got enough problems of his own.
Well, there I go, rambling on about Arima when I had intended to talk about myself. I've never been able to concentrate on one thing for very long. I suppose that's why I've never been any good at school. Something always ends up distracting me. Usually something with long hair and a skirt.
There's so much that I want to write down here, things are crowding around in my head, events, memories, needs, desires......
I guess I'll start at the beginning. That's probably a good place to start, or so my mother always tells me. So lets start again shall we.
* * *
Ever since I can remember I've always fought with my father. Throughout my entire life he's been there, in the background, constantly. Always seeming to be better than me, smarter, stronger, angrier. There's something about him that just makes me angry. It's not something I can describe; a facet of his personality perhaps that just seems like the antithesis of my own. I'm fairly certain that he sees the same thing in me.
Don't get me wrong, he's not evil and he hasn't ever beaten me or anything like that. In fact... he's really a nice enough guy in his own way, not that I would ever tell him this mind you, but he's too much of a different person.
That's not really surprising I guess, we're all vastly different, everybody is. If it wasn't like that everything would be pretty boring. We wouldn't have much fun would we. Imagine a world full of millions of Asaba's. Or even worse, a world full of millions of Miyazawa's, all the same. The thought makes me shudder.
If Miyazawa ever reads this....
I really need to stop getting sidetracked. I also need to stop writing in pen!
The fact that I was trying to get across is that my father and I are totally different people. Not just a little or even a lot. Totally. Everything we do seems stupid and unnecessary to the other. I don't really hate him, I just can't stand him. I think he feels the same about me. At least I hope so...
I'm not sure what started it all, I'm not even sure if anything did. Maybe it was always there.
My father is a hardworking guy. He's really clever in the accounting type way, good with numbers and figures and especially money. He's tall, overly responsible and kind of introspective. He's a lot like Arima actually... But nothing like me.
I've never been the responsible type. I don't think I've ever even considered planning anything for the future. It just doesn't seem to matter. I've always believed that what will happen will happen, regardless of what I think about it. I just try to live in the moment and enjoy it while I can. True... It doesn't always work out to be that enjoyable but.... I just wouldn't feel comfortable any other way.
So I guess you can see how my father and I were pretty much destined to disagree. Nothing we ever did was enough to satisfy the other. Pretty soon we stopped trying altogether. We ended up prowling around each other like two tomcats around a dead fish, keeping our distance, silently watching and disapproving, waiting for the other to make a move.
That's why I left.
I guess I just couldn't handle it. I couldn't continue to stand up to him. I didn't want to. I was not really strong enough to force the issue or to keep myself on a level he couldn't reach me. I didn't want to be like him, didn't want to be him and I sure as hell was not going to let him make me that way.
So I started looking for a way out. I probably wasn't even aware I was doing just that when I started. I started glancing at apartments in real- estate shop windows as I walked home from school. Soon those glances became more and more interested. My mind just started to absently consider it. Could I afford it? Could I manage? What would it be like to live by myself?
The ideas were attractive. I've always thought of myself in a mixed fashion. In many ways I'm a child, full of energy and interest, distracted by everything... wanting to be a part of everything. In other ways I'm grown up and mature. The way I look at people tells me that. The way they make me feel. Girls in particular. The desires hidden just behind the mind's eye. The things I want.
I've always wanted everyone to love me. I was gifted with good looks from early on and at sometime during adolescence the girls I knew became very interested in me. I attracted a kind of following. At that time I didn't really want a relationship. I wasn't ready for one. I was miserable and lonely and I felt unloved. The fan clubs that grew seemed to fill the gap. I had all these pretty girls around me all the time, vying for my affections, loving me.
I felt like I could say to my father, "Hey! Look at me, I know you don't love me but they do. It doesn't matter anymore. I don't need you to love me because other people do now."
I liked feeling like that. It gave me strength when nothing else could. It was a strength I desperately needed.
My body, my father, my personality. They've never made me feel strong. Never. Because I'm not strong. I'm beautiful but I could never fight for someone. I can try and ignore my father but I can't deal with him. I'm friendly but that's because I could not push anybody away.
The adoration gave me strength. It gave me something that I could say was mine. It gave me something that I could be, a niche that I could escape into and a blanket I could pull over myself and hide under.
It was a safety that just wasn't there at home. Home felt like a battlefield. I felt like I was fighting my father to try and make him love me. Fighting myself so he would love me. I didn't want to be a soldier. I've never wanted to fight anybody.
So when I looked at the apartments in the shop window I found the last door to my own life. I could distance myself from my father; take away the need to fight him.
The last step needed to escape. It scared the crap out of me. But I wanted to take it. I already knew I was going to try. I just needed a way.
For a few weeks I did nothing. I just considered it, rolling the thought back and forth in my mind, wondering how to arrange it, whether I should and whether I even could for that matter.
What would I say? How could I convince my parents to let me move out? How could I afford it? I had no job. I was still a student. I had never worried about money much before. My parents gave me a reasonable enough allowance and I had never really needed any more than that.
Quitting school to look for work was unacceptable. My parents would never let me and if I did it anyway I would never hear the end of it. I would also lose the one thing that made me feel better about life, my crowd of adoring schoolgirls. Besides, who would hire someone my age full-time? So that wasn't an option, what was left?
Unfortunately I couldn't think of anything.
My chance came a week later when a rather unsavory rumor came out at school. Apparently a teacher had gotten a little too involved with a student and was not quite as cautious about it as he should have been. There was a huge fuss over the matter that ended with the teacher being sacked and the student expelled.
Now, I couldn't care less if a student and a teacher had a relationship. I mean, as long as they're happy, right? It's not like the world is gonna come to an end because of a little age difference, is it?
The school board seemed to think otherwise however and strangely enough, so did my conservative parents. They started discussing sending me to another school.
I didn't like the idea at first. All my beautiful flock of admirers, what would happen to them? But I eventually realized that this could work in my favor. If my new school was far enough away... I would have the excuse I was looking for. Besides, I could get a new flock of adoring girls at the new school. No problem.
So I started my campaign. I found a school a bit further outside the city that had a good enough reputation to reassure the ol' parental units but not so prestigious as to exclude my obvious lack of academic talent. I subtly started mentioning little worries and concerns about hectic inner city life to my parents. I told them that I was distracted, that I couldn't concentrate, that it was too noisy.
"What a pity," I mentioned one night over dinner, "that we have to live so close to dad's work. It would be much nicer if we could live out in the suburbs where it's more calm. Even the schools are better out there."
That was all that was needed. I had planted the idea and over the next few days it cropped up more and more in my parents conversation. It wasn't long before they broached their ideas with me.
"We're thinking about enrolling you in a school a bit further away." Mum said one night. "I'm sure you must find it hard to study here with all the noise and pollution. What do you think, honey?"
"That's a great idea!" I replied straight away and started telling them all about the school I had heard about.
They were a little hesitant at first. I think what I was suggesting was a little further away than they had planned. It would make commuting a bit difficult, they said.
This was the big moment.
"What if I boarded somewhere closer?" I said.
"Well..." They looked at me silently.
"I've gotta learn sometime, right?" I went on. "For college.. I mean. Why not start now and get in some practice?"
My mother was obviously chewing it and not liking it. My father looked aloof and disapproving. They weren't going to let me. I just knew it.
"We'll think about it, ok dear?" Mum told me.
Great. Just great. That was parent language for "No, but we won't tell you that. We'll just wait and hope you forget about it."
I had to do something. If I left it alone now then they would just put me off again and again with similar sentiments. They would put it down to a momentary childish whim. I had to keep going, keep pushing, keep insisting.
'No!' said a little voice inside. 'I won't, I can't. He'll just wear me down like he always does. He'll give me all the heartlessly logical reasons why I shouldn't, the cold calculated list of problems and dangers like he always does. I can't.'
I shoved it away quickly, refusing to be put off. I couldn't abandon this last road. I had nowhere else run to.
"No" I said. "I'm going. I don't care what you say. I don't care what you think. I want to go."
"Silence!" My father who hadn't said a word up till now started in on me.
"Don't be stupid Hideaki. How can you live by yourself? You're much too young. What makes you think you could do this by yourself? You know nothing about living on your own."
"Why not! What's wrong with it?" I shouted back, suppressing the voice inside me that was screaming at me to back down.
"Where should I start?" Father replied in his calm and maddening way. "You don't have a job, you can't cook, you can't clean, you don't even know how to wash your own clothes!"
"So... I'll learn!" I returned furiously.
Back and forth it went for hours, both of us shouting at each other, refusing to back down. It seemed that all the anger that had accumulated over the last few years came out now. The topic itself became almost meaningless, anger providing enough reason on its own for the antagonism.
I was determined to outlast him however. I had backed everything on this. It was my one chance to be free and I couldn't, literally couldn't, let it go.
Eventually he made the mistake I was hoping for.
"Fine!" My father shouted. "Go and do it then. Go and prove me wrong if you are so clever!"
"But, dear.." Mum interrupted.
"No." said dad fiercely. "If he thinks he needs it so badly then let him try. He'll understand soon enough."
He gave her a look that promptly shut her up. "Go do it then" He repeated, glaring at me.
He was the ultimate father figure personified in that moment, silently telling me how wrong I was and how right he was by this sudden contemptuous dare. 'I KNOW you can't do it, you're just too stupid to realize it, but you'll learn.' he seemed to say. 'I'm never wrong. That's why I'm your father. You'll never be right.'
"I will." I stated quietly, trying desperately to put as much conviction into my words as he had. "I will."
* * *
Fortunately they didn't abandon me completely. I had left myself far more open than I should have in my anger. I had no money of my own. I couldn't really afford to live by myself.
Dad gave me a strange sort of beneficial contempt. Within a couple days he announced that he had gotten me an apartment close to the school and I could leave whenever I wanted to. He could even call the movers over on the weekend if I liked.
He was daring me again, provoking me. He seemed to smirk while arranging all this, as if he knew I couldn't do any of this by myself, as if he was giving me these handicaps because he pitied my stupidity.
"Sure, the weekend is fine" I said, not saying anymore than that because I had a feeling that he might be right.
* * *
The weekend came faster than I was ready for but I somehow kept my resolve.
My father withdrew me from one school and enrolled me in another, paid for my apartment and called the movers to truck my stuff to my new home. Everything was perfectly civil. We were trapped in this colossal dare now, my father arranging and paying for it all, even giving me a larger allowance, because he felt he had to keep up the perfect parental model and also to seemingly give himself a bigger space to say 'I told you so! Even with all the help I gave you, you still couldn't do it" when I failed.
I kept myself sounding overly confident and cheerful, trying to say 'Well, I don't really need it but thanks for the help. I'll prove you wrong, don't worry about that.'
I knew I was wrong about that, knew I was just as helpless at the moment as he said I was, but I also knew I couldn't admit it to him. I had to keep playing his game till the end. I found I was just as trapped in his dare as he was.
But that didn't matter. It had all worked out the way I wanted it to. I had moved home and school. I had taken the last step. I would be just as popular at this new school. I could stop having to be strong when I wasn't. I would gather a new flock of girls to hide under. I could be weak again. I could be me.
Yeah... just another day in the life of the one and only Asaba Hideaki. No problem.
End Chapter Two
Well folks, that seems to be the prologue part of the story out of the way. The next chapter will go back to Maho and explore the events of her life just before the beginning of the series. Thanks for reading and of course let me know what you think.
Cheshire Grin
A KareKano Fanfiction By Cheshire Grin
Disclaimer: [ insert appropriate "I don't own Kare Kano" comment here]
Note: Here the story starts on a new track and we won't see Maho in this chapter. This is where the other character I had been planning to introduce comes in, Asaba Hideaki.
* * *
Chapter 2 - Weakness makes you whole
Well, boys and girls, especially girls, welcome to another day in the life of the one and only Asaba Hideaki.
Sigh.... Why do I always start things like that. That's just me I guess. Or so I'd like to think. The fact is I just have no idea how to start a diary. It's been such a long time since I've kept one. I'm not sure why I've started again after all these years, not sure why I feel the need to write these things down but it's there nonetheless.
It's a pity that I've never been very good at writing. That's Arima's department, he's always been much better at this sort of thing. Still, I guess it doesn't matter very much. Its not like anyone else is gonna read this, and I couldn't ask Arima to write this for me. He's already got enough problems of his own.
Well, there I go, rambling on about Arima when I had intended to talk about myself. I've never been able to concentrate on one thing for very long. I suppose that's why I've never been any good at school. Something always ends up distracting me. Usually something with long hair and a skirt.
There's so much that I want to write down here, things are crowding around in my head, events, memories, needs, desires......
I guess I'll start at the beginning. That's probably a good place to start, or so my mother always tells me. So lets start again shall we.
* * *
Ever since I can remember I've always fought with my father. Throughout my entire life he's been there, in the background, constantly. Always seeming to be better than me, smarter, stronger, angrier. There's something about him that just makes me angry. It's not something I can describe; a facet of his personality perhaps that just seems like the antithesis of my own. I'm fairly certain that he sees the same thing in me.
Don't get me wrong, he's not evil and he hasn't ever beaten me or anything like that. In fact... he's really a nice enough guy in his own way, not that I would ever tell him this mind you, but he's too much of a different person.
That's not really surprising I guess, we're all vastly different, everybody is. If it wasn't like that everything would be pretty boring. We wouldn't have much fun would we. Imagine a world full of millions of Asaba's. Or even worse, a world full of millions of Miyazawa's, all the same. The thought makes me shudder.
If Miyazawa ever reads this....
I really need to stop getting sidetracked. I also need to stop writing in pen!
The fact that I was trying to get across is that my father and I are totally different people. Not just a little or even a lot. Totally. Everything we do seems stupid and unnecessary to the other. I don't really hate him, I just can't stand him. I think he feels the same about me. At least I hope so...
I'm not sure what started it all, I'm not even sure if anything did. Maybe it was always there.
My father is a hardworking guy. He's really clever in the accounting type way, good with numbers and figures and especially money. He's tall, overly responsible and kind of introspective. He's a lot like Arima actually... But nothing like me.
I've never been the responsible type. I don't think I've ever even considered planning anything for the future. It just doesn't seem to matter. I've always believed that what will happen will happen, regardless of what I think about it. I just try to live in the moment and enjoy it while I can. True... It doesn't always work out to be that enjoyable but.... I just wouldn't feel comfortable any other way.
So I guess you can see how my father and I were pretty much destined to disagree. Nothing we ever did was enough to satisfy the other. Pretty soon we stopped trying altogether. We ended up prowling around each other like two tomcats around a dead fish, keeping our distance, silently watching and disapproving, waiting for the other to make a move.
That's why I left.
I guess I just couldn't handle it. I couldn't continue to stand up to him. I didn't want to. I was not really strong enough to force the issue or to keep myself on a level he couldn't reach me. I didn't want to be like him, didn't want to be him and I sure as hell was not going to let him make me that way.
So I started looking for a way out. I probably wasn't even aware I was doing just that when I started. I started glancing at apartments in real- estate shop windows as I walked home from school. Soon those glances became more and more interested. My mind just started to absently consider it. Could I afford it? Could I manage? What would it be like to live by myself?
The ideas were attractive. I've always thought of myself in a mixed fashion. In many ways I'm a child, full of energy and interest, distracted by everything... wanting to be a part of everything. In other ways I'm grown up and mature. The way I look at people tells me that. The way they make me feel. Girls in particular. The desires hidden just behind the mind's eye. The things I want.
I've always wanted everyone to love me. I was gifted with good looks from early on and at sometime during adolescence the girls I knew became very interested in me. I attracted a kind of following. At that time I didn't really want a relationship. I wasn't ready for one. I was miserable and lonely and I felt unloved. The fan clubs that grew seemed to fill the gap. I had all these pretty girls around me all the time, vying for my affections, loving me.
I felt like I could say to my father, "Hey! Look at me, I know you don't love me but they do. It doesn't matter anymore. I don't need you to love me because other people do now."
I liked feeling like that. It gave me strength when nothing else could. It was a strength I desperately needed.
My body, my father, my personality. They've never made me feel strong. Never. Because I'm not strong. I'm beautiful but I could never fight for someone. I can try and ignore my father but I can't deal with him. I'm friendly but that's because I could not push anybody away.
The adoration gave me strength. It gave me something that I could say was mine. It gave me something that I could be, a niche that I could escape into and a blanket I could pull over myself and hide under.
It was a safety that just wasn't there at home. Home felt like a battlefield. I felt like I was fighting my father to try and make him love me. Fighting myself so he would love me. I didn't want to be a soldier. I've never wanted to fight anybody.
So when I looked at the apartments in the shop window I found the last door to my own life. I could distance myself from my father; take away the need to fight him.
The last step needed to escape. It scared the crap out of me. But I wanted to take it. I already knew I was going to try. I just needed a way.
For a few weeks I did nothing. I just considered it, rolling the thought back and forth in my mind, wondering how to arrange it, whether I should and whether I even could for that matter.
What would I say? How could I convince my parents to let me move out? How could I afford it? I had no job. I was still a student. I had never worried about money much before. My parents gave me a reasonable enough allowance and I had never really needed any more than that.
Quitting school to look for work was unacceptable. My parents would never let me and if I did it anyway I would never hear the end of it. I would also lose the one thing that made me feel better about life, my crowd of adoring schoolgirls. Besides, who would hire someone my age full-time? So that wasn't an option, what was left?
Unfortunately I couldn't think of anything.
My chance came a week later when a rather unsavory rumor came out at school. Apparently a teacher had gotten a little too involved with a student and was not quite as cautious about it as he should have been. There was a huge fuss over the matter that ended with the teacher being sacked and the student expelled.
Now, I couldn't care less if a student and a teacher had a relationship. I mean, as long as they're happy, right? It's not like the world is gonna come to an end because of a little age difference, is it?
The school board seemed to think otherwise however and strangely enough, so did my conservative parents. They started discussing sending me to another school.
I didn't like the idea at first. All my beautiful flock of admirers, what would happen to them? But I eventually realized that this could work in my favor. If my new school was far enough away... I would have the excuse I was looking for. Besides, I could get a new flock of adoring girls at the new school. No problem.
So I started my campaign. I found a school a bit further outside the city that had a good enough reputation to reassure the ol' parental units but not so prestigious as to exclude my obvious lack of academic talent. I subtly started mentioning little worries and concerns about hectic inner city life to my parents. I told them that I was distracted, that I couldn't concentrate, that it was too noisy.
"What a pity," I mentioned one night over dinner, "that we have to live so close to dad's work. It would be much nicer if we could live out in the suburbs where it's more calm. Even the schools are better out there."
That was all that was needed. I had planted the idea and over the next few days it cropped up more and more in my parents conversation. It wasn't long before they broached their ideas with me.
"We're thinking about enrolling you in a school a bit further away." Mum said one night. "I'm sure you must find it hard to study here with all the noise and pollution. What do you think, honey?"
"That's a great idea!" I replied straight away and started telling them all about the school I had heard about.
They were a little hesitant at first. I think what I was suggesting was a little further away than they had planned. It would make commuting a bit difficult, they said.
This was the big moment.
"What if I boarded somewhere closer?" I said.
"Well..." They looked at me silently.
"I've gotta learn sometime, right?" I went on. "For college.. I mean. Why not start now and get in some practice?"
My mother was obviously chewing it and not liking it. My father looked aloof and disapproving. They weren't going to let me. I just knew it.
"We'll think about it, ok dear?" Mum told me.
Great. Just great. That was parent language for "No, but we won't tell you that. We'll just wait and hope you forget about it."
I had to do something. If I left it alone now then they would just put me off again and again with similar sentiments. They would put it down to a momentary childish whim. I had to keep going, keep pushing, keep insisting.
'No!' said a little voice inside. 'I won't, I can't. He'll just wear me down like he always does. He'll give me all the heartlessly logical reasons why I shouldn't, the cold calculated list of problems and dangers like he always does. I can't.'
I shoved it away quickly, refusing to be put off. I couldn't abandon this last road. I had nowhere else run to.
"No" I said. "I'm going. I don't care what you say. I don't care what you think. I want to go."
"Silence!" My father who hadn't said a word up till now started in on me.
"Don't be stupid Hideaki. How can you live by yourself? You're much too young. What makes you think you could do this by yourself? You know nothing about living on your own."
"Why not! What's wrong with it?" I shouted back, suppressing the voice inside me that was screaming at me to back down.
"Where should I start?" Father replied in his calm and maddening way. "You don't have a job, you can't cook, you can't clean, you don't even know how to wash your own clothes!"
"So... I'll learn!" I returned furiously.
Back and forth it went for hours, both of us shouting at each other, refusing to back down. It seemed that all the anger that had accumulated over the last few years came out now. The topic itself became almost meaningless, anger providing enough reason on its own for the antagonism.
I was determined to outlast him however. I had backed everything on this. It was my one chance to be free and I couldn't, literally couldn't, let it go.
Eventually he made the mistake I was hoping for.
"Fine!" My father shouted. "Go and do it then. Go and prove me wrong if you are so clever!"
"But, dear.." Mum interrupted.
"No." said dad fiercely. "If he thinks he needs it so badly then let him try. He'll understand soon enough."
He gave her a look that promptly shut her up. "Go do it then" He repeated, glaring at me.
He was the ultimate father figure personified in that moment, silently telling me how wrong I was and how right he was by this sudden contemptuous dare. 'I KNOW you can't do it, you're just too stupid to realize it, but you'll learn.' he seemed to say. 'I'm never wrong. That's why I'm your father. You'll never be right.'
"I will." I stated quietly, trying desperately to put as much conviction into my words as he had. "I will."
* * *
Fortunately they didn't abandon me completely. I had left myself far more open than I should have in my anger. I had no money of my own. I couldn't really afford to live by myself.
Dad gave me a strange sort of beneficial contempt. Within a couple days he announced that he had gotten me an apartment close to the school and I could leave whenever I wanted to. He could even call the movers over on the weekend if I liked.
He was daring me again, provoking me. He seemed to smirk while arranging all this, as if he knew I couldn't do any of this by myself, as if he was giving me these handicaps because he pitied my stupidity.
"Sure, the weekend is fine" I said, not saying anymore than that because I had a feeling that he might be right.
* * *
The weekend came faster than I was ready for but I somehow kept my resolve.
My father withdrew me from one school and enrolled me in another, paid for my apartment and called the movers to truck my stuff to my new home. Everything was perfectly civil. We were trapped in this colossal dare now, my father arranging and paying for it all, even giving me a larger allowance, because he felt he had to keep up the perfect parental model and also to seemingly give himself a bigger space to say 'I told you so! Even with all the help I gave you, you still couldn't do it" when I failed.
I kept myself sounding overly confident and cheerful, trying to say 'Well, I don't really need it but thanks for the help. I'll prove you wrong, don't worry about that.'
I knew I was wrong about that, knew I was just as helpless at the moment as he said I was, but I also knew I couldn't admit it to him. I had to keep playing his game till the end. I found I was just as trapped in his dare as he was.
But that didn't matter. It had all worked out the way I wanted it to. I had moved home and school. I had taken the last step. I would be just as popular at this new school. I could stop having to be strong when I wasn't. I would gather a new flock of girls to hide under. I could be weak again. I could be me.
Yeah... just another day in the life of the one and only Asaba Hideaki. No problem.
End Chapter Two
Well folks, that seems to be the prologue part of the story out of the way. The next chapter will go back to Maho and explore the events of her life just before the beginning of the series. Thanks for reading and of course let me know what you think.
Cheshire Grin