"Taichi, tell us about our dear friend, Koushirou, and your victory."
Taichi nodded glumly, for he had won the martial arts competition to go to China. He was set to leave in two weeks. He stood stiffly from his chair and bounded over grimly to the front of the classroom. "Koushirou was also known as Izzy, short for his last name, Izumi." Taichi sighed heavily; he could feel tears coming, "Izzy was my closest friend after Matt died. Jyou was going to college, Mimi wasn't even in the country and Sora had just broke up with me. TK was in a kid's prison for reasons I'd rather not talk about and certainly were not true, and my little sister and her boyfriend, Ken, ran off together. Yolie moved to America with Mimi. Izzy and Sora, they were all I had left, and really, Sora only hung out with us for… hell knows why." Taichi blinked and stated hastily, "Excuse my language." The teacher nods, deep into Taichi's speech.
"And then I started noticing how Izzy acted around me. Even though I realized he was starting to fall in love with me, or he already was, I knew without a doubt that I couldn't love him back, and that he wouldn't say anything. I never meant to hurt Izzy, emotionally or physically. I hurt him both ways, though." Taichi could feel the tears sliding down his face, and all of the people in the room realized he had forgotten they were there. Their faces no longer showed disgust and hatred.
"When I heard Izzy had committed suicide, I looked it up, I asked his mother. I cried for two hours at Mrs. Izumi's house when she told me the reason was me. She comforted me, too, I mean what the hell was that? I killed her son, and she comforted me." Taichi viciously wiped away his tears. "He died at 10:56 PM. The nurses checked on him at 8:00. The one on duty said she heard the window open in his room around 9:20. According to the cops and the people who look at his body to see cause of death, hepulled up onto the windowsela and pushed himselfout the window at 9:26 PM. He died at 10:56 PM. Fuck that. Figure him, conscious as the cops said, on the fuckin' sidewalk and then in the hospital's care for an hour and 30 minutes. I wish I had had a gun in my pants when I had talked to the nurse in charge of Koushirou." Taichi banged his fist on the desk. "Fuckin' bastards." He wiped his face again.
"Koushirou was perfect. Well, to me, at least. He was super-duper smart. He was… he attracted a lot of girls, it seemed like." Some of the girls in the class nodded dreamily and smiled. "He was a really good friend, too. Even if he was distant sometimes. I mean, he did at least try to help us. Sometimes it wasn't good enough, but no one is absolutely perfect. Izzy was under so much stress from everyone anyway." Taichi shrugs. "I loved him. Really did. Not the way he loved me, though. Izzy was actually quite easy to make smile and happy. In all of our pictures together he was smiling. Its like I made him happy."
Taichi paused and his face paled before he whispered to himself,
"All he ever needed was me."