New Points of View
You had first seen him at the playground, trying to make a snowman out of sand. You were six and he was four, and you being such an older and thus wiser boy had to go over and set this little moron straight.
“You know you’re supposed to make snowmen out of snow, not sand, right? Sand is for sandcastles.”
He doesn’t even look up at you as he replies, “Who said?” while continuing to pat the wet mound of sand in front of him into a round shape.
“It’s in their names,” you say, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, which it was. Now he looks up at you, and you’re held by an intense storm-grey gaze.
“Sometimes names are just names,” he shrugs, breaking eye contact as he returns to his unseasonly sculpting, “Mommy says if you don’t look beyond a name you’ll never see anything worth seeing.”
You are unsettled, first because your attempt at asserting your intellectual and worldly superiority doesn’t seem to be working, and secondly because you’re not quite sure you understand what he just said. You stand there, uncomfortable for a few minutes before he looks up with a disarmingly childish smile, the intensity unfitting of a boy younger than you gone, and asks, “Do you want to build a snowman with me?”
You nod and kneel down to help him round out his mound.
~*~
You keep seeing this kid at the playground, everyday you walk from the bus stop back home from school (you were so proud your mom thought you were old enough to walk the two blocks by yourself now), and you walked just a bit faster to get home, beg your mom to let you go play at the park, before rushing out again. Everyday, the two of you would build a sand snowman and gather twigs and stones for arms and the face, and leaves for hair. You didn’t know why this kid was so insistent on making snowmen, but you went along with it anyway because he looked so damn happy while arranging the pebble mouth and the particular slant of a twig you were using as eyebrows to give your newest snowman a comically shocked expression. By this time it was getting late, and you had to get home, so you say goodbye to the kid and trot off back to your house just down the block, never wondering why he never seemed to be similarly worried about getting back home.
~*~
It’s been several weeks now since you’ve met the boy, and you’ve found out quite a bit about him. You now know he builds snowmen all the time because he loves snow. You know his favorite season is winter and that he doesn’t let a thing like lack of snow keep him from building snowmen. You also know his name is Yuki, and that he’s half Japanese, from his mother’s side, and that he was named for snow. It explains his fair skin and pitch black hair. You also know you can’t stop staring when his eyes dance with the power of his grin after you two have finished another snowman.
All this you learn in the weeks you’ve known him, and today you learn something else.
You had gone to the water fountain to get more water, but when you came back you don’t find Yuki alone. There are three boys clustered near him and the snowman you two were building; you recognize them as Aaron and his two best friends, Jack and Guy from your class. They were the coolest boys in your grade because Aaron’s birthday was earlier than anyone else’s so he was already seven. And even though you see they clearly have ill intentions for Yuki, you hesitate to rush in because you don’t want to be picked on when you go back to school the next day. But when you see them shove Yuki into your half-completed snowman, and kick sand at him, you drop the pail of water and dash toward them.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
Aaron’s eyes turn toward you, surprised, “Jesse, you know this kid?” His face was twisted in distaste, as if reluctant to even talk about the boy he was picking on. You remember his status at school, and what yours could be, and hesitate again. “Uhm, sort of. I see him around this playground sometimes,” you try to shrug off like it was no big deal. But inside your heart was beating faster, more painfully. You try hard not to look at the boy silent on the ground, those eyes you knew were storm-grey downcast.
“Well, you better not get too near him,” Aaron sneered in Yuki’s direction, “My mom says his mom is a no good home-wrecker and that he’s a bastard.” Kicking more sand at Yuki, he laughed maliciously, “But even if he wasn’t, he must be stupid anyway. What kind of idiot makes snowmen out of sand? Sand is for sandcastles.”
He turns toward you, the look in his eyes expectant and in an instant you had to make a life altering decision. You desire to defend Yuki and his snowmen were overridden by your desire to become friends with Aaron and fear of what would happen if you became his enemy instead. You try to mimic his cruel sneer and force out, “Yeah, making snowmen out of sand is stupid,” and do not look at the boy on the ground, who still hasn’t made a sound. You focus instead on Aaron, whose expression was satisfied and his gaze appraising.
“Hey, let’s go get my mom to buy us some ice cream from the ice cream man,” he offered, and started to walk away with Jack and Guy, knowing you’ll follow. You do, and risk one glance back at the boy you know you’ve abandoned. He still hadn’t looked up, or moved at all even. You’re too far away and had not looked close enough to see the fat drops of tears splash onto his shorts.
~*~
You stop hanging out at the playground so much and spend more time with Aaron. He’s accepted you into his circle and now all the other boys think you’re cool, too, and the girls are giggly and shy around you like they are around him. You don’t care about the girls, though, and just think it’s a good thing that they don’t try to play those embarrassing games with you like they do the other boys. There were privileges to status.
One day you, Aaron, Jack, and Guy were at the playground, though, and see Yuki, still building his snowmen. He wasn’t alone and you don’t know why seeing another boy smile at him and having him smile back the way he used to with you makes you feel like something lodged in your chest was twisted. Something takes over you, and you stomp towards them, a hard glint in your eyes and a cruel twist in your lips as you kick down their snowman, and laugh at the other boy’s shocked expression. Yuki says nothing as you destroy the sand construction, and stare at you blankly, no trace of a smile left. You taunt him, just to fill in the silence left by your actions.
“You don’t learn, do you? Maybe being a bastard has left you with no sense,” you toss out with little regard for the impact of those words. You had heard Aaron use it and figure you should, too, now that you’re part of his group. Something flashed in Yuki’s eyes, but it was gone quickly and somehow you were disappointed he doesn’t react more. You turn to the boy who cowered nearby and kick some of the remains of the snowman at him, making him flinch. It makes you feel good.
“Are you this dork’s friend? Are you a bastard, too? If you’re not, you shouldn’t hang around him, you know. He’s no good.”
The boy looks up at you with frightened eyes and darts a guilty look at Yuki as he shakes his head and scrambles away. You snort and walk back to Aaron, who was laughing and pointing at Yuki with Jack and Guy. When you reach them again they slap you on the back and congratulate you on putting the bastard in his place. You look back, and even though you feel sick from having destroyed Yuki’s snowman, you feel something loosen in your chest when you see him alone.
~*~
You continue to pick on Yuki when you see him at the playground, but only when there’s someone else with him. Pretty soon no one plays with him anymore because they’re scared of you, and you feel strangely satisfied.
When a new school year starts, you see Yuki dropped off at school by a petite, slender woman with the same dark hair as him and the same almond shaped eyes, though hers were a warm chocolate chip cookie brown. They’re just outside the gate and you can see Yuki gripping the woman’s hand hard. She leans down and smoothes a hand over his hair and down his cheeks and gives him a reassuring smile. She says something and Yuki’s expression softens and his petrified tension unwinds a bit. She kisses his forehead and he returns the favor, going on his tip-toes to reach the top of her head, and then she straightens up and leaves with a last comforting pat on his back.
At recess, when you stomp over to Yuki and the boy who was sharing crackers with him, laughing together on the bench near the slide, you try not to remember the hesitant hope in his eyes when he turned away from the retreating figure of his mom and walked into the school yard that morning.
~*~
Aaron thinks it’s funny how you pick on Yuki and has built up a bit of admiration for you. You’re glad he’s satisfied with your bullying him so that he doesn’t do it himself, because you don’t know what would happen if you were to charge Aaron down to shove him away from the boy you’ve claimed as your own. Because in a twisted way, Yuki was yours. Even though you’ve ruined any chance of being friends with him, you weren’t going to let anyone else be his friend, either. And even though you bully him, you’re determined that only you get to do it, because Yuki was yours. You were his first and only friend, and now you were going to be his only bully.
This continues throughout elementary school and middle school. By now everyone knows to steer clear of Yuki, afraid of incurring your wrath, and by extension, Aaron and his gang’s. You take a sick sense of satisfaction knowing you’re the only one who really interacts with Yuki, even if it was negatively. You’re the only one in Yuki’s life. But then you leave for high school and you’re afraid the bubble of isolation you’ve built around Yuki would break down. Someone else will eventually be drawn to the power behind those storm eyes, someone else will overcome the barriers set by you, curious enough to talk to him when they see a hint of his brilliant smile slip, because you won’t be there to stop them. It would be two years before you see Yuki again.
But you were foolish for worrying. You see him two years later, a freshman in your high school where you reigned as one of the most influential juniors with respect even from some of the seniors. He is still alone, still isolated, and even more heart-wrenchingly beautiful. By now, after dating a bunch of girls and kissing a few of them, you realize you like boys. That was ok, though, because Aaron, who was still your best friend after all these years, was bi. What wasn’t ok was that after seeing him in the cafeteria, sitting by himself with a box of sushi and a paperback novel in his hands, you realize you like one boy in particular. The boy with snow in his name and a storm in his eyes.
~*~
Besides the discovery that you have feelings for the boy you’ve tormented practically all his life, nothing much changes. You reassert for the benefit of a new crowd at high school your dominance over Yuki, and make it clear he was to be ostracized. But high school is a bigger, more complicated place. Some people manage to stick by the quiet boy who loved making snowmen out of sand. You couldn’t keep tabs on Yuki all the time, especially since you two were in different tracks. He was an art buff, a sculptor, while you were in basketball and science. Despite all your best efforts, he makes two staunch friends, a girl from his ceramics class and another boy from track and field. You are frustrated, but deep down you feel relieved. You haven’t seen Yuki really smile since that day you saw his mom drop him off at kindergarten.
~*~
His freshman year passes and you’ve pretty much met all expectations people who knew you from elementary school and middle school had concerning Yuki. By now your heart isn’t in it anymore because before, the bullying was your way of being with Yuki. Now, no matter what you do, he has other people in his life. Bullying him would just reaffirm for you how strong their friendship was, and that hurts you more than anything you could do to Yuki.
Senior year comes for you and now you have little time to spare chasing down Yuki to terrorize him like you did in elementary. You focus on college applications and last ditch efforts to score higher on the SATs before sending in your scores. You see little of Yuki, but you do still see him. At lunch, with his two friends, with their ribald joking and his quiet smile, eyes lit up like lightening in a storm. You see him in track while you practice with your varsity team on the outdoor courts. He flies as he jumps hurdles, and you wonder when he became so graceful. You turn back to your team and drills and try not to think about how you traced the sweat rolling down the side of his face and down the collar of his shirt.
You see him late after school, after practice has let out for both teams and you had stayed back to practice free throws and try to clear your head. He had stayed, too, it seems, but to finish something up in the ceramics room. You walk by the room on your way to your locker and see him at the potter’s wheel, eyes gleeful as he creates a familiar shape out of clay. You watch him, entranced by an expression you haven’t seen since the playground. He makes a set of three circular hollow vases, each smaller than the one before it and almost completely spherical but for a small opening at the top. You walk away as he works on the last and smallest sphere, knowing he’ll sculpt a face on it and stack the three together when they’re dry. You also know he’ll probably fashion a clay top hat to set it all off. And you know he’ll have that crazy bright smile on his face the whole time he’s making his snowman, just like all those years before.
~*~
You’re not aware of yourself anymore. Everything has stopped, time, space, your heart. You don’t even register the melting snow trickle down the back of your neck or seeping into your shoes the longer you stand there, watching Yuki. You realize now you’ve never known him at all. You’ve never seen him truly smile. You’ve never seen him. Because the person in front of you is someone you don’t know. The person in front of you is some radiant creature, immortal and too pure for you to ever have thought you owned him.
It was winter, Yuki’s favorite season, and it had snowed a good two feet last night, holding up pretty well through to after school where more than a couple of people indulged in the first snow of the year and let loose some stress with snowball fights. As you walk by your peers, shrieking in their transformed innocence, you spy Yuki, and were no longer able to move. His smile blazed, eyes shining with light uncontainable. He was laughing, pure and free, in a way you’ve never heard before. He caressed the snow sculpture he was molding with such care and attention you nearly moan as you imagine his hands running over you in such a manner. You had thought he was happy making sand snowmen, but that was because you’ve never seen him making real snowmen.
But it’s not only the sight of him that has stopped you in your tracks. Yuki wasn’t alone in his endeavors. He was with his usual two friends, the girl and the boy, and while that wasn’t unusual, what froze you where you stood was how the boy wrapped his arms around Yuki and tucked his head near his neck, nipping lightly at an exposed earlobe. You could see Yuki gasp and squirm before mischief glinted in his eyes and he smashed the handful of snow he was about to pack onto the snowman in the boy’s face. The girl stood by them and rolled her eyes, fighting back a smirk as she continued her work on a snow woman of Barbie proportions. After standing there in shock for a few more moments, the boy shook the snow out of his face and tackled Yuki, who had squirmed out of his hold in the interval. Yuki yelped and the two of them went down with a soft crunch of snow, away from the snowman to keep from harming it.
You couldn’t watch anymore. The pain that was building in your heart and in your gut had finally snapped you out of your daze and you turn away from the sight as fast as you can and head for home. You’re breathing hard as you reach the parking lot where your car was, and once you were in your car, you ignore the moisture you feel on your face. It’s just the melting snow, you say to yourself, over and over again.