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Edited: I dont know why I always tend to do this: publish something, then proof-read.
That was my life.
I don't really know how it all started: I was a kid, he was a kid, she was a kid. Regardless of how unfair it seems, life takes you places, and is quite unfair to you when you are experiencing poverty. I guess, that was the only thing the pushed me toward my dream: my poor, single mother, who barely lived off the little child support. I can remember it as it was yesterday: my mom, with her beautiful, raven hair down, in her worn and torn dress, staring out of the window into sweet darkness of the night. I did not understand her back then, but now, I do. Yes, for once I understand something. It took me getting drunk, throwing up all night, and sitting in the window frame, staring into that sweet, comforting darkness to understand.
As I said, we were really poor: not at the point where we had to dig the garbage cans, yet it was fairly close: you see, Salivation Army was just starting to grow it's roots. Norkio... was a sweet kid. She liked me, and she even comforted me when I had nowhere else to go. The only person I ever loved and treasured. Or, one of two people. Yet, that is the best way to phrase it: she was one of those two people who would never let go of me, no matter how hard I cry or fight; she would just hold me close and comfort: pat my back and whisper those sweet nothings while I sank into the darkness of yet another color-less dreams. I think that's why I love crayons that much: they have colors. Pink, red, orange, blue, purple... Many-many colors. Whenever I buy a fresh pack, I always throw away the gray one. Because it is the only kind of dreams I ever head. I wish I could just take the crayon pack with me... I tried sleeping with crayons: they, however, never appeared in my dreams. Those betraying little bastards.
I was a kid back then: a sophomore with no friends. Nobody liked me: I was the most unpopular kid in the school, and even the geeks and nerds had been treated better then I: I always had about ten more cuts or sore spots then the bottom of high school food chain.
It was then.. yes, I remember, then, we had a new student. She was blonde, pleasant, her smile always lit up the classroom, and her pretty turquoise eyes always seemed to have a little sadness in them, yet I failed to notice that flaw. Whenever she talked to her girlfriends, I was there, whenever she ate lunch, I was at the table behind her, whenever I had to go to the bathroom, I wanted to cry, because I would miss the precious moments of admiring her. She was pretty: really pretty, but at the average level. There were more beautiful females at our high school, her breast was as big as a ten-year old would have it, but she was the focus point of my attention. She was the goddess as I knew it. I never managed to talk to her though: with time, she noticed my attention, and her girlfriends gave her these wired looks. The giggled behind her, and the guys around her gave me these frightful looks: enough to scare me to piss my pants. But hell, I never stopped: I fallowed her home once: it was a little after four, not dark, ye she was alone. It was wired from the beginning; she never was alone, yet I never had any suspicion at the time.
Before I go on, I would like to point out that we all lived in the very poor block of Tokyo, and our school did not have enough teachers, let along, uniforms. It will help you understand as I go on.
…Knowing her name would have been nice. She wasn't in any of my classes, and I was afraid to get close enough to spy and find it out.
…Hell, how I blame my lack of socializing back then. If I talked to at least ONE person a day, I would have known…
She reached the corner, turned. After I waited a few seconds for her to get far enough so she doesn't get a feeling that I was stalking her, and turned as well.
She was gone, I was grabbed, and beaten the shit out of. The guys – the one that always hang around her – kicked me so hard, I was sore fore the rest of the fallowing week. They called me something senseless, something I never gave a reason to call me. Somewhat, I am thankful to them for that accident.
It was good that I was kicked off to school the next day anyway.
People laughed as I walked down the hallway with a black eyes and my lip stitched. The first period wasn't to start in the next ten minutes, yet, I had my books and was heading towards my first class, as I had the books knocked over, and I flew face-first into the wall.
It was the guys from yesterday: that girl's friends. They were among the most popular kids of the school. They laughed, and soon, the whole hallway was laughing. I wanted to disappear right there and then, instead, I rubbed my face, and started to pick the books up, as I got another blow in my ribs. I was about to stand up, yet, one of the boys picked me up by collar, and spit in my face. He was about to hit me in the face again, yet, his hand stopped inches away from it. He looked back; dropped me, and the whole word suddenly went silent: it took me moments to realize that the whole corridor just shut up.
There she was: behind him, holding his elbow and not letting him finish his punch. She looked at me and smiled with that tender smile of hers, nodded, and then turned her head to face the boy. She stared blankly at him for a second, then grabbed his shoulders and turned around completely. It only now occurred to me that she was about an inch taller then me; yet about a head lower then the guy. She looked at him, tenderly, just as she looked at me seconds ago, then she smiled. It was that beautiful smile of hers: gentle, beautiful, and it could literally freeze the sunlight. She traced her finger down his cheek, onto his cute nose – yes, the looks were the main propriety of his popularity – and, turned around to leave, without saying a word. I saw him relax a bit, then, all of the sudden, she turned around, and punched him right in that beautiful nose of his, forcing blood out, and sending him flying into the wall. The whole hallway gasped, and she keeled down beside him, he, covering his face with his hands. She covered her mouth, gently forcing away his hands away to see what she had done. "I'm sorry", she whispered in that funny voice of hers, feminine, yet, boyish. She took out a cloth tissue, whipped his nose up a little, then, fallowed by another gasp, hit him harder, again, in the same, apparently broken nose.
Silently, she took out another tissue and wiped her hand, dropping both fabrics on the beaten male, and turned around to leave for good.
All without leaving that sunlight-freezing smile.
The whole school went flying with rumors, as I, with several more stitches, sat in class. It was the last block before lunch, PE, and nobody seemed to dare to even think about playing a little "dodge-the-basketball" with me. Not that I was unhappy about the missed opportunity.
Anyway, the bell was due to ring in thirty minutes, dismissing the equal number of teenage, male killers out to do the unsuspecting world, yet the door, suddenly, flew open. The teacher wasn't even there. Then, it was her: the blonde beauty. She was fallowed by at least seven tough, HUGE guys. It surprised me: what the hell was she doing with grade ten guys during PE class. In guy's uniform. With a little bump in her pants.
Oh god.
I stared blindly at HIM, while he approached me, and all of those "little boys" behind him. Grinning. He stood several inches from me, staring me right in the eyes. Moments later, he grinned to, folding his arms and adopting a huge mock in his eyes.
Apparently, the whole PE class went silent, and I heard the door slam; somebody just ran out of the class to run the halls and yell on top of their lungs to come to the PE department, small gym.
I stared at her.. him. Now I understood why those guys from the day before called me that senseless thing: "gay".
I never knew SHE was a HE.
And there HE was, staring in my eyes, arms folded, grinning and mocking silently. I just stood there. Unable to find words, I stood there, dumbforded and silly.
He examined me, checking me out from head to toe. Not in that way checking out checking out, yet in a… summer camp penis comparing "checking out" checking out. As if I was any competition of some sort.
Meeting my eyes again, he moved himself closer to me, his nose centimeters away from mine. I could feel his warm breath; Apparently, I had this scared look in my eyes. He thought something, and touched my hot nose with his cold one. I think I started shaking, because he moved away immediately, freeing his hands and grasping them behind his back.
He closed his eyes, grin twisting into thaat warm smile, and he opened his eyes again. I swear, he was about to state something, when the speakers rang with the voice of the principal.
"TOHMA SEGUCHI, PLEASE COME TO THE HEAD OFFICE IMMEDIATELY. TOHMA SEGUCHI, HEAD OFFICE."
The voice was somewhat furious, yet, soft at the same time.
The boy in front of me rolled his eyes, loosing interest in me, turned around and stranded heading towards the exit.
"Tohma?" One of the big guys spoke, while the other six remained on their positions, yet watching the blonde boy walk away.
'Tohma', I thought. 'Tohma… Seguchi…? '
He stopped, halfway from his destination,
"Treat him to lunch", he said neutrally, "I'll be right there".
He was gone, the bell rang, and I was dragged away from the changing room as soon as I had my pants zipped down.
To my surprise, the big guys dragged me out of the school building to some wired café, ordered some food, shoved "my" order that was done for me, in my hands, and made me follow them to the large table, where six or so pretty girls waited. Tohma's girlfriends.
They forced me to sit down, and for the next ten or so minutes, everybody sat in awkward silence. I just stared at my meal, admitting that it was by far the best one I ever had – so much better then stinking school's cafeteria food.
I noticed that the place wasn't full; in fact, our group of fourteen was the only people there, but the lady behind the counter and some wired man, tracing down something in his notepad. I found the man quite interesting, yet, I quickly shifted my interest after the door slammed open.
A cheerful smile lit the room, as he, Tohma, entered it. He headed right to our table, looking at me directly, and not noticing anything else.
"Are you expelled?" one of the cute girls inquired, rising her brow slowly.
"Not just yet", he stated, not breaking our eye contact.
When the door slammed open, I could have sworn that he was furious, yet, at appeared that he never was: quite literally, that smile of his was his trademark of some sort.
He walked right to me, looking down at my sited corpse, and knelled down without braking the eye contact.
I shivered again, as he put his hand on my lap, stoking down my leg. My eyes went wide and watery: I had no crush on a GUY, regardless of whatever I thought of him as a girl. He, however…
…stood up and looked at everyone around the table, loosing all interest in me.
" SHE will be here soon. Tell her… I finally took her advice and banged my head against the wall until all of the bullshit flew out, yet, unfortunately, my brain fall out as well and I was unable to meet her and satisfy her curiosity".
He smiled, and, without a word, picked me up under my arms and dragged me out, leaving my nice meal behind.
We walked down the streets, which where remarkably clear compared to the street I lived on at the time, and our school ground. Really, back then, I never knew other places.
So we walked, in silence, which was quite comforting for a change. And then it hit me: I had to go back to school!
… So was he, but then, he hadn't showed any intention of doing so. I wanted to ask him, but, for some reason, I was scared, as if he will turn into a giant eagle and feed me to it's kids.
It was getting late, though: the class was to start in five minutes, yet, we still walked. We wore his smile, and, I noticed that people around me were dressed nicely: way better then I was.. Tohma, did not blend in, either: his outfit was too good for the people around us. So they stared, at me, especially: I wore my old, torn and dirty jeans and a shirt with short sleeves and little holes in it. Trying to ignore that, I managed to squeeze out a couple of words.
"Um.. m-my n-next class is.. is going to start in.. well.. five minutes… and.. I was wondering…" I was cut off by his reply.
"Well, that's quite good your next class, isn't it? " He turned around, targeting that… playful, this time, smile at me.
"Um.. don't you.. don't you think.. we should… go.. go back?.." I questioned, fearing the answer.
"No, I do not think we should go back. I don't think so at all". It was amazing how he talked: as if he was above all of the living things; so smart and so well-mannered.
I looked down at my feet for the lack of will to look back at the people who were looking at me. It was silent again, and I thought why I shouldn't just turn around and walk back. I never was late to a single class in my entire life. My mind was immediately read, yet, the sin of being late was replaced with a greater sin:..
"You haven't ever cut a class before, have you? What kind of a sophomore are you? Geek or nerd, which one?"
His smile faded, as he walked, staring right through all of the people in front of him. I winced at the sudden change of mood, looking down at my old sneakers, as they moved in order to make yet another painfully slow step. My eyes watered, the left one causing some pain from the little incident last night. I think that and the stitch, band-aids on my bare arms and the messy hair created even more reasons for those people to stare at me.
That moment made me hate silence for the rest of my life. I wanted to fill it in with something, to clear my mind of every painful thing on in… I started humming softly… just random notes.
He stopped in his tracks immediately. I walked a few steps and stopped also, turning around to see him. He just sized me with his beautiful eyes.
"You sing?" He asked.
I never sang before. Come to think of it, I never even tried.
"I.. I don't know…" I looked back at him, feeling hot in my cheeks.
He grinned. Immediately, he spun around on his heels and walked back, giving me a sign to follow. His gentle smile was back on his lips, glowing as it never did.