Life At 16 - 03/XX - AoiXRuki, RukiXAoi
Title: Life at 16
Chapter: 03/XX
Author: akichuu
Fandom: the GazettE, alice nine.,
Pairings: AoiXRuki, RukiXAoi, ToraXRuki, ReitaX??, possibly more to come.
Theme: 030: Misery in the Dusk - Ayabie @ 50stories
Rating: For now, PG-13
Genre: AU (high school), fluff, romance
Warnings: Un-beta-ed mistakes, OOC-ness.
Disclaimers: I only own my funky brain and the amusing ideas it spews on daily basis.
Summary: High school: the epicenter of a human child’s adolescence, the most extreme twist in the roller coaster ride of life; the three years of the most remembered acts of foolishness, of teenage melodramas and adventures. Ruki, a 16 year old high school boy, gives us VIP seats to witness the many quirks of his daily life and the dilemmas of his youth as he reveals them in his journal. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Comments: Forgive me for the long delay (computer crashed and everything… T_T). It’s been quite frustrating. But here I am, here’s the new chapter, where Ruki’s life is taking a wrong turn to a road that leads toward a deadly cliff (poor thing...). Click and read (and comment, as always :P) to find out!
Read at your own cost!!! ~ socialriot's Personal Journal
Entry number: 773
Date: July 1st, 2008
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I am currently abusing my keyboard. You’d think so if you saw how I’m utilizing it; I’m practically assaulting the keys with my fingers, tapping them away with hopes that the sounds I make might be loud enough for people outside my room to hear. This is crucial, you have to know, because I need to sound like I’m working seriously hard on something with the computer, and I cannot afford any kind of intrusions under any kind of reason. Why is that, you might ask? Well, it’s because I’ve recently informed Mama that I have a very important assignment to work on and if I don’t get it done by tonight, I’ll be screwed for life. Well, not for life, probably just for the rest of my high school years, but it’s almost a hundred percent true.
No, I didn’t lie to her, absolutely not! As a matter of fact, I do have a Biology report that is due tomorrow, an essay with a theme ‘Inherited Genetic Retardation’ or something that rhymes with that. It isn’t as vital as what I’ve told Mama, I won’t flunk the subject and risk myself repeating second year if I don’t stack the essay on the desk tomorrow morning, though I do intend to work on it straight away, right after I finish doing this report of today’s happenings. I can always rely on an old friend to back me up, an old friend that will fulfill whatever I want. An old friend who has all the answers I need and will provide them with merely a submission of the appropriate keyword and a strike of the Enter button. With the help of this certain old friend, I’ll have the essay done in no time.
However, it is very important for my wellbeing that Mama thinks her son is currently struggling for his bright academic future, thus he will be better off undistracted for the rest of the night. I needed to make it clear that I couldn’t help her out tonight.
I can’t say how petrified I was when Mama showed up much too early to be normal tonight, coming home from her gallery with a grin slapped across her face-a grin I’ve become awfully acquainted with. There’s no doubt as to what she intended to do and I’ve learnt well of what to expect when she put on that look upon her face. She did seem quite disappointed when I ran off from her, but for this once I’d rather break my mother’s heart than violating mine, any further than the violation it has suffered today.
Mama and her sudden burst of creativity often scare me. In my previous entries I think I’ve mentioned quite a lot of occasions where I couldn’t find a way out of her demand, and couldn’t avoid getting dragged into her studio where I had to spend hours sitting (or standing, depends on what she asked me to), staying as inhumanly still as possible while she let out her inner urges of expressing her ideas on the canvas. I won’t be complaining this much if only she is a little bit more merciful towards the people posing for her; but she hates it when her model stirs when she’s working. Imagine not moving the slightest inch of your muscle, not talking, and not falling asleep for hours, and then tell me that I’ve been cruel, making up lies to tell my own mother.
And with that, comes the issue of her painting-that style of hers that she likes to call ‘Modern Expressionism’. I can never bring myself to appreciate the way she painted me. Does she really look at her son that way, as nothing but myriads of paint blobs on the canvas? Am I printed in her incomprehensible mind as a mess of colors, an object contrived of frenzy brush strokes? Where is my nose or my mouth supposed to be? I look like Swamp Thing (though not green, but mostly yellow, or orange with the slightest bit of pink) in some of those paintings. If I dared staring at them for too long, I could be sure I would suffer from nightmares.
I’m sorry, Mama. Scold me if you want, but I prefer it much more if only you’ve taken example from Michelangelo or Raphael, masters that consider Realism is the best way to convey an artist’s desire to capture the world and plaster it on a canvas. If only you’ve had it in your heart that I would love it very much to be painted like the way Botticelli painted his angels and saints, and not doodles without a discernible form like the ones you’ve made of me.
It might just be that abstract-oh, forgive me; ‘Modern Expressionism’ isn’t my choice of style. Or it might be that I simply don’t understand how my mother’s brain works-well, I doubt anyone understands how her brain works! Her mind is, as yet, the hardest mystery of the universe I’ve tried to comprehend.
In any case, I can never enjoy her artwork, and tonight is just not the night for me to start trying to enjoy it.
You see, it’s crucial that I begin today’s story as soon as possible, before it chooses to cramp the space inside my head, where it might become a cancer and give me a premature death. Today has been long and stressful, and unlike last night, I haven’t yet had anyone calling me bringing me good news tonight. Thus, it seems that I’m bound with this misery for the rest of the evening. But, even though all I want to do now is to curse the entire world and damn its populace to hell, I will try not to do so, while I let you know what is burdening my mind.
This morning, you could tell what a sweaty summer it was going to be this year when you felt how hot the early sun was, and how mercilessly clear the sky appeared. I was quite pleased to finally get the chance to don my summer uniform, but it turned out that even the shirt still felt too thick for the weather. As I walked across the yard toward the school building, I could feel the fabric sticking to my back from the sweat, and it was horribly uncomfortable. It was all I could do to force myself not to sprint right back to Tora’s car and lock myself in it with the AC running. Even in the insane heat I knew what a felony it would be against Mother Nature if I was to drill more holes on the ozone layer when we’d had enough UV in the atmosphere to fry us alive.
Oh, despite common belief, I actually do pay attention to global warming issues! Do you think I’d like it much if I wake up one morning, finding my house and my entire collection of designer’s clothes and shoes sinking underwater? No, thank you. Until it is completely inevitable, I (along with, I believe, a whole bunch of the population of polar bears and Eskimo people) would rather have both Poles of the earth stay frozen.
Anyways, as I reached the class, it became obvious that I wasn’t the only one deciding to act like a spoiled brat for the day. The classroom was nearly moist, not only with sweat, but with everyone’s complaints about the weather. The classes do have air conditioners (the kind that were environmentally friendly, I assure you), and I think the kids’ parents had paid enough to keep the air circulation system running well. Nevertheless lessons became twice as boring and teachers looked almost as bothered as we students were. Somewhere amid Math hour, a horrible sleepiness attacked me with full force. Unfortunately I couldn’t comply with it and let myself fall asleep; thanks to our Math teacher who was feeling bright all of a sudden and thought we needed a little algebra quiz to cool our heads off. Halfway through the impossible task of discovering the x and y and the absurd formula that bound them together, my mind wandered, thinking about physical education class. I couldn’t imagine how dreadful it would be to be doing anything physical in this heat. What would it feel like doing three rounds run under the scorching sun? That would be slow murder, don’t you think?
By the time lunch break came, putting an end to a rather blurry hour of Home Economics (blurry; because I had completely lost control and fallen asleep on my desk), I was already dying to go home. Tora picked me up-almost literally-from my seat; but before he ever managed to drag me to the cafeteria (he said he was starving to death, but that couldn’t be right; I saw him discreetly munching a whole double cheeseburger right before I fell asleep!) the first horror of the day approached me. The horror that went by with the name: Nakano.
I had never even had the chance to scream “help!” before Tora ran off and cruelly left me behind, very quickly disappearing from sight.
While cursing Tora for his heartless act of abandonment, I watched Nakano walking toward me. He was smiling his rather innocent, baby-like smile that made his cheekbones rise up and his glasses shift over the bridge of his nose. I smiled back, but somewhere in the back of my head I could foresee something discomforting coming my way. After all, what else would Nakano need of me, except for the matter that involved me, such as Japanese History assignment? And that assignment meant, to me, a nightmare I’d love to postpone dealing with until the very last minute; a nightmare that was otherwise known as Shiroyama.
“Matsumoto, about the assignment,” Nakano began, not even bothering with any decent prelude. “Do you have some spare time this weekend?”
I was about to answer when Nakano held up a hand and, to my utmost horror, called for Shiroyama. I’m sure I blanched when I looked at the aforementioned kid and saw him getting up from his seat, walking toward us. He had that surprised look on his face, as opposed to looking bored like he used to, and when he got close enough and laid his eyes on me, the infamous smirk that he had shown me just the other day suddenly returned to his lips. Seeing that, the hate in me burst to life in an instant. It became so reasonable in my head, all of a sudden, the act of killing this boy and scraping his smug face against the asphalt.
“Well, I was thinking that maybe Friday, after school, we can meet up and start working on the assignment,” so said Nakano, and it seemed as if I had made a positive reply to his previous question-which I hadn’t. But he merely grinned, oblivious to the dagger-sharp death glare I was sending him with all my might. “I’ve talked, briefly, with Shiroyama,” Nakano continued, “and he completely surprised me with his knowledge in Kabuki.”
When Nakano held Shiroyama’s shoulder, I saw a look on Shiroyama’s face that seemed to be saying, “What’s this hand doing touching me?” and it was so clear I didn’t think anyone could’ve missed it. But miraculously, Nakano also missed this, making me think that maybe this kid needed his eyes re-checked. Smart brains don’t mean good eyesight… or better judgment, in this matter.
“I think we’ll finish the assignment quickly,” Nakano said, still grinning. “Now that I’ve done some research on it myself, I find it oddly interesting. It’ll be lovely if I have the chance to discuss it to some further extent. How is it that you know so much about Kabuki, Shiroyama?”
I turned my attention to Shiroyama, just in time to find him staring at Nakano with quite a funny gaze. It looked as if he wanted to push Nakano as far away as possible from him, but was having a hard time to decide if it was okay do that.
“Well, I just happen to know a bit,” Shiroyama answered, shrugging his shoulders and looking relieved when Nakano lifted his hand from his shoulder. Nakano seemed to expect him to explain a little bit further, but Shiroyama had relapsed from that intent gazing back to his trademark bored expression, clearly not interested in joining this little chit-chat Nakano had initiated. Well, for once, he and I agreed on something. I dare say he also wished he could zap Nakano and obliterate him from the face of the earth, at that moment.
“We’ll have the time to talk, Shiroyama, and I’m looking forward to it,” Nakano kept on blabbing. And then he suddenly turned his attention to me. “So, Matsumoto,” he grinned even wider (if that was even possible, since he had already been grinning from ear to ear, practically splitting his face in half), “Friday afternoon, after school? Will you be available by then?”
I supposed I didn’t have any other choice, so I answered reluctantly, “Yeah, I guess so.” I repeated to myself, over and over again, that the sooner I got on with it, the sooner I would be freed from all this horror. Of course, the possibility of mutilating them to small dice chops and dump their remaining in a sewer somewhere was still there in my head. I suppose, when there’s no other choice left, I could just do that and live happily ever after.
“Excellent! I’ll see you both Friday, then!” With that, and a very delighted look on his face, Nakano strutted off from his spot.
And just as I thought Shiroyama would immediately follow Nakano and return to that dreary, solitary world of his, he didn’t. No, this particular boy didn’t just get up, off and leave my personal space alone; instead, he stood there in front of me for one minute longer, smirking, staring at me, consequently getting to my nerves.
“See you Friday, Matsumoto,” he said, and then he grinned-yes, the first grin he had ever shown me in my entire life. Not to mention the first words that I had ever heard coming from him. It was so shocking I only realized my jaw was hanging so far loose from my skull after a minute or two. Before I managed to come up with any kind of response, Shiroyama had slipped away from my sight.
I had no idea how long I had been standing there, gaping like an idiot, until Tora re-entered the classroom and shoved a plastic wrapped melon-bread into my face. I must say, it was thoughtful of him. But this gesture of kindness did nothing to extinguish the urge in me to beat the crap out of him, in order to emphasize just how much I did not like the way he had left me so thoughtlessly. Just what kind of a friend did that, leaving me right when I was in dire need of him?
Earlier tonight, he complained over the phone about the gigantic bruise I had created on his arm. I told him he deserved that and more. He was lucky I hadn’t had anything ‘heavy and dangerous’ anywhere in my reach when I began beating him with all my might.
After lunch break, I tried focusing my attention to whatever the teachers were talking about, just to fail, quite miserably. All I could think about was Friday, and how I was supposed to survive through that day and get back home to my mother, alive-or sane, at least. And then I tried to distract myself with drawing stuffs on my notebook. Well, I’m not a famous artist like my mother (and definitely not sharing the same style she goes by with), but I can draw pretty well, and I do make remarkable artwork, if I may say so myself. It wasn’t long before two whole pages were filled with sketches of hideously dismembered body parts and some quite detailed, intricate schemes of murder. At a corner I think I’d drawn Kai’s head (you’d be surprised to see the accuracy with which I’d depicted his face), severed from the neck, his eyeballs dangling down from the holes and his nearly non-existent brain leaking from the nose.
Yes, I know. I have a gruesome mind and I’ve fed it too much with R-rated horror movies. But to tell you the truth, even I was quite appalled when I looked at the outcome of my momentary ‘artistic’ mental vacation. Could you blame me, though, if you knew the depression I was going through at that moment?
This distraction method I had come up with was proven effective to ease my mind a little, and the hours passed before I knew what was going on. I had almost jumped off my chair when the bell that signaled the end of the day rang. Tora, expecting me to be permissive already (did he really think I would forgive him that easily??), took my hand and was just about to pull me to my feet, when suddenly, the anathema of my teenage life appeared before me; a huge, blinding grin beaming on his face. Yes, it was none other but my forever-loathed enemy: Kai. And unfortunately, his head was still finely attached to his neck, though I wished he would’ve taken that form I had drawn of him in my book.
“Takanori-kun, you’re not leaving yet, are you?” he chirped happily.
“As a matter of fact, he is,” Tora answered for me. I guess he was trying to make up for ditching me earlier. The glare he threw at Kai was quite impressive, I must tell you! He used to be able to make smaller kids cry with that specific glare, you know.
Kai wasn’t deterred. “Ah, but he can’t!” he said. “The core committee needs to have a meeting now. We only have a few days left, as you might already know it.”
Yes, I did know that. But did I give a damn? No.
“The girls can do that,” I replied spicily.
“Well, they can’t do the planning all by themselves, Takanori-kun… and with your brilliant mind, I believe the class will have the best stand history has ever seen!”
Do not get fooled by the cheesy pick-up line. Kai made it sound so obvious that he was mocking me, not complimenting me, despite the honey-sweet words. And looking at the expression that was plastered on his face, I was seething before I could control myself.
“Go irritate someone else, Kai, I’m not in the mood today,” I hissed. I dug my fingers into Tora’s arm, which was all I could do to hold myself from pouncing at Kai with full force and knock him off his feet.
“But, Takanori-kun, they need you!” Kai put forth a very, very fake puppy dog look. I was definitely not impressed. “They have high hopes in you, my friend. If you would just sit down with them for a moment, contribute an idea or two…”
Oh. How tacky. Since when am I his friend?
“Ask Shiroyama to do that, I don’t think the core committee would miss much the loss of one head.”
“Oh, certainly yes, Shiroyama is going to participate too-Yuu-kun!” Kai called out-while I cringe in distress. “Yuu-kun, you will join us to talk about the class stand, will you not?”
I was quite surprised to find Shiroyama still in the room, leaning on his desk. And what shocked me the most was the time when he shrugged his shoulder, approving Kai’s request. “I can’t stay long, though,” he said.
How on earth could he, of all people, be interested in a worldly matter such as this? I thought he needed to isolate himself from other humans in order to survive!
I hate to admit it, but at that moment, I was actually depending on him to refuse. He ruined my last hope for an escape-because if he, too, declined, then Kai would at least have an idea of how uninteresting this matter was, so uninteresting it did not deserve the smallest fraction of my time.
“There, see?” Kai grinned even wider. “Even Yuu-kun is participating in the meeting. It won’t be long, I promise!”
I wanted to say he’d had Shiroyama already; he should be content with that because there was no way I’d be interested to help. But then he continued, saying something he really shouldn’t have.
“Now, now, Takanori-kun, you can’t be saying that you’re actually avoiding the duty you’re appointed to do… What will everyone think if they find out the brother of the Chairman of the Student School Board is ditching a responsibility we’ve fully trusted him with…?”
Oh! That devious imp! That snake-tongued, angelic-faced demon! How dare he bring that up?! Simply for this cheap tactic he used, I will make sure he dies a painful death. That, I guarantee with everything I got.
Tora was muttering a profanity or two, not quite under his breath, and when I looked at him, he seemed very much ready to grow a couple of fangs and suck Kai’s blood to dry. I knew if I let him, I would have what I wanted (which was: Kai, properly dead), but then it was not at the right moment, and very much not at the right place. So I held him back, clutching his arm so tightly I must’ve left dents in the form of my fingers on his skin.
“Very well,” I said, “I’ll stick around and see how this goes. If it gets boring, I’ll know who to blame.”
There must’ve been lethal sparks of hate coming from my eyes, flying across the distance between me and Kai, and if only I could burn a person with merely a glare, Kai would’ve been fried to ashes by now.
I hated him. I hated the whole situation, but I knew better than to deny him this time. He played his role well (that is, as a sneaky, two-faced bastard) that even I had to compliment him. He knew it to heart that I wouldn’t-couldn’t risk Reita’s name be tainted.
Long story short, it was the most boring two hours of my life. Have you any idea how long it could’ve taken for two girls just to decide what color to paint the backdrop with? While they kept going back and forth from pink to violet (I heartily digress voting for either choice), I was struggling to remain awake and propping Tora’s dozing head on my shoulder at the same time. I couldn’t believe just how much consideration they had to put on this simple matter; “Violet brings out other colors more vividly,” so said one, and “Pink makes the atmosphere more cheerful,” said the other.
When I couldn’t handle the boredom (and the uselessness of the whole squabble), I finally spoke up: “Why can’t you just pick something in between and get on with it?”
I didn’t expect them to take my advice so well. But against all odds, they did.
Aoyama squealed, “You’re a genius, Takanori-kun!” and Komori shrieked, “We’re so lucky to have you here!” and both agreed on purple-which, I thought, wasn’t any better than the previous two choices. I merely looked at them, sincerely thinking they had lost their minds.
I chanced to glance across the desk to find an amused looking Shiroyama-or at least, that’s how I thought he would look like when he felt amused-aiming his gaze at me. He had that smirk curling slightly on the corner of his lips again; I could just hear the laughter bubbling inside his throat. I glared at him, daring him to laugh if he cared that less about his future wellbeing. But before long, he turned his sight sideway to Komori-who was just starting yet another boring and useless topic: ‘For the background prop, should we use yellow lilies or red roses?”
Up to the point where they finally decided on white daisies, they had wasted another hour.
I jolted up from my shallow sleep when Shiroyama suddenly got up from his seat, and it was four thirty when I looked at the clock.
“Excuse me,” he mumbled, “I have things to do.”
After throwing another smirk in my direction, he was soon out of our sight. No one had the chance to ask what ‘things’ it were that he needed to do and how it was more urgent than this meeting; no one even complained that he hadn’t contributed one damn idea during the supposedly team discussion. Why was he ever picked to be in this team anyway? If he was just going to sit there, looking bored all the time, what’s the use? I’m guessing that Kai picked him just to irritate me, like he knew it would. Kai knew I’d never been quite acquainted with Shiroyama, and he wanted to see how much disturbed I could be in dealing with someone as ignorant and otherworldly as this particular kid.
Well, if Kai had been around for the whole meeting, he would’ve had a pleasant sight, because I was infinitely disturbed. Not just because of Shiroyama and his world of boredom, but also because of those two, most irksome girls I’d ever encountered in my life.
However, I need to thank Shiroyama because with his departure, he opened up a hole for me to sneak through and escape from this Round Table of Hell. Following his example, I got up from my seat (causing Tora to slip from my shoulder and bump his forehead on the chair) and said I was going too. Family stuff, I reasoned; blah, blah. The girls didn’t say anything. If they didn’t buy my hoax, they certainly didn’t show it.
The biggest horror is that I still have approximately nine more days to the day of the festival, nine more days of facing the same threat that is otherwise known as the core committee. If one day is enough to put me in this level of stress, what will nine do to me? Kill me? As a matter of fact, I can just see myself at the end of all of this, resting silently under a marble tombstone. Matsumoto Takanori, a young man of 16 years old, ruefully taken from his life: too early, too tragically. Not by an accident, not by murder, but by an acute stress attack. It’ll look fascinating on Sunday’s newspaper’s mortuary section.
So there you go: the story of my disastrous life. You won’t say that I was exaggerating when I said my problem was far more urgent than that Genetic Retardation-whatever-essay, now would you?
Just now, the thought of Reita and the idea he’d mentioned to me came across my mind. He said, the other day, that for the initial, necessary arrangements, he needed to make appointments with appropriate accomplices. Oh, he has a whole book of names, haven’t I told you that? Some are of the people from whom you’d rather stay as far away as possible, though how Reita came to know them, I have no idea. Sometimes I think he has taken far too much example from Papa… Let’s just hope he doesn’t get into as much trouble as Papa did.
I need to call him otherwise my head is going to explode. I don’t know why he hasn’t contacted me today, when I’d already told him to keep me updated by the hour. He just isn’t much of an attentive brother, I suppose.
With this, I’ll end tonight’s entry. There might be the question of how I’m feeling right now. To answer that: I’m feeling quite frightened for the moment, and the feeling grows worse whenever I think about what tomorrow may bring me. But life goes on, as someone has wisely stated, and you just don’t have the power to stop the world from spinning-unless you’re God. Well, as we all know, I’m not God, and I don’t think I ever want to be, so it is all I can do to greet whatever fate has had to offer me when it comes knocking on my door tomorrow morning.
And I-speaking of the devil! My phone is ringing; it’s Reita.
Need to pick this up. See you tomorrow, then.
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--- Post Entry ---
--- Log out of journal ---
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A/N:
- Ah… the long wait… I know. I’m really sorry. In my diary entry I’ve mentioned about my computer crashing down, so I couldn’t do anything for days. It taught me a lesson to be more careful and not taking home a virus infected removable disk. Both my sister and I are quite paranoid now, so we update the antivirus regularly (should’ve done that, months ago, eh?).
- Well, now that Ruki and Aoi have made contact (however brief and insignificant that contact was), what will become of them? Moreover, what will become of Ruki’s mental state, once the whole School Festival ordeal is over? Oh… and let’s not forget about the Japanese History assignment, shall we…?
- Reita and Ruki shall make an evil payback-so evil they deserve high ranks in the Devil’s list.
- By the way, the new single is AWESOME. I cried to Without a Trace, I really did… for a very personal reason, the lyric breaks my heart.
- Adieu for now; until Ruki writes another story of his teenage life. :D
My 50stories AoiXRuki project list is here
My other fanfics list is here
Chapter: 03/XX
Author: akichuu
Fandom: the GazettE, alice nine.,
Pairings: AoiXRuki, RukiXAoi, ToraXRuki, ReitaX??, possibly more to come.
Theme: 030: Misery in the Dusk - Ayabie @ 50stories
Rating: For now, PG-13
Genre: AU (high school), fluff, romance
Warnings: Un-beta-ed mistakes, OOC-ness.
Disclaimers: I only own my funky brain and the amusing ideas it spews on daily basis.
Summary: High school: the epicenter of a human child’s adolescence, the most extreme twist in the roller coaster ride of life; the three years of the most remembered acts of foolishness, of teenage melodramas and adventures. Ruki, a 16 year old high school boy, gives us VIP seats to witness the many quirks of his daily life and the dilemmas of his youth as he reveals them in his journal. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Comments: Forgive me for the long delay (computer crashed and everything… T_T). It’s been quite frustrating. But here I am, here’s the new chapter, where Ruki’s life is taking a wrong turn to a road that leads toward a deadly cliff (poor thing...). Click and read (and comment, as always :P) to find out!
Read at your own cost!!! ~ socialriot's Personal Journal
Entry number: 773
Date: July 1st, 2008
=============================
I am currently abusing my keyboard. You’d think so if you saw how I’m utilizing it; I’m practically assaulting the keys with my fingers, tapping them away with hopes that the sounds I make might be loud enough for people outside my room to hear. This is crucial, you have to know, because I need to sound like I’m working seriously hard on something with the computer, and I cannot afford any kind of intrusions under any kind of reason. Why is that, you might ask? Well, it’s because I’ve recently informed Mama that I have a very important assignment to work on and if I don’t get it done by tonight, I’ll be screwed for life. Well, not for life, probably just for the rest of my high school years, but it’s almost a hundred percent true.
No, I didn’t lie to her, absolutely not! As a matter of fact, I do have a Biology report that is due tomorrow, an essay with a theme ‘Inherited Genetic Retardation’ or something that rhymes with that. It isn’t as vital as what I’ve told Mama, I won’t flunk the subject and risk myself repeating second year if I don’t stack the essay on the desk tomorrow morning, though I do intend to work on it straight away, right after I finish doing this report of today’s happenings. I can always rely on an old friend to back me up, an old friend that will fulfill whatever I want. An old friend who has all the answers I need and will provide them with merely a submission of the appropriate keyword and a strike of the Enter button. With the help of this certain old friend, I’ll have the essay done in no time.
However, it is very important for my wellbeing that Mama thinks her son is currently struggling for his bright academic future, thus he will be better off undistracted for the rest of the night. I needed to make it clear that I couldn’t help her out tonight.
I can’t say how petrified I was when Mama showed up much too early to be normal tonight, coming home from her gallery with a grin slapped across her face-a grin I’ve become awfully acquainted with. There’s no doubt as to what she intended to do and I’ve learnt well of what to expect when she put on that look upon her face. She did seem quite disappointed when I ran off from her, but for this once I’d rather break my mother’s heart than violating mine, any further than the violation it has suffered today.
Mama and her sudden burst of creativity often scare me. In my previous entries I think I’ve mentioned quite a lot of occasions where I couldn’t find a way out of her demand, and couldn’t avoid getting dragged into her studio where I had to spend hours sitting (or standing, depends on what she asked me to), staying as inhumanly still as possible while she let out her inner urges of expressing her ideas on the canvas. I won’t be complaining this much if only she is a little bit more merciful towards the people posing for her; but she hates it when her model stirs when she’s working. Imagine not moving the slightest inch of your muscle, not talking, and not falling asleep for hours, and then tell me that I’ve been cruel, making up lies to tell my own mother.
And with that, comes the issue of her painting-that style of hers that she likes to call ‘Modern Expressionism’. I can never bring myself to appreciate the way she painted me. Does she really look at her son that way, as nothing but myriads of paint blobs on the canvas? Am I printed in her incomprehensible mind as a mess of colors, an object contrived of frenzy brush strokes? Where is my nose or my mouth supposed to be? I look like Swamp Thing (though not green, but mostly yellow, or orange with the slightest bit of pink) in some of those paintings. If I dared staring at them for too long, I could be sure I would suffer from nightmares.
I’m sorry, Mama. Scold me if you want, but I prefer it much more if only you’ve taken example from Michelangelo or Raphael, masters that consider Realism is the best way to convey an artist’s desire to capture the world and plaster it on a canvas. If only you’ve had it in your heart that I would love it very much to be painted like the way Botticelli painted his angels and saints, and not doodles without a discernible form like the ones you’ve made of me.
It might just be that abstract-oh, forgive me; ‘Modern Expressionism’ isn’t my choice of style. Or it might be that I simply don’t understand how my mother’s brain works-well, I doubt anyone understands how her brain works! Her mind is, as yet, the hardest mystery of the universe I’ve tried to comprehend.
In any case, I can never enjoy her artwork, and tonight is just not the night for me to start trying to enjoy it.
You see, it’s crucial that I begin today’s story as soon as possible, before it chooses to cramp the space inside my head, where it might become a cancer and give me a premature death. Today has been long and stressful, and unlike last night, I haven’t yet had anyone calling me bringing me good news tonight. Thus, it seems that I’m bound with this misery for the rest of the evening. But, even though all I want to do now is to curse the entire world and damn its populace to hell, I will try not to do so, while I let you know what is burdening my mind.
This morning, you could tell what a sweaty summer it was going to be this year when you felt how hot the early sun was, and how mercilessly clear the sky appeared. I was quite pleased to finally get the chance to don my summer uniform, but it turned out that even the shirt still felt too thick for the weather. As I walked across the yard toward the school building, I could feel the fabric sticking to my back from the sweat, and it was horribly uncomfortable. It was all I could do to force myself not to sprint right back to Tora’s car and lock myself in it with the AC running. Even in the insane heat I knew what a felony it would be against Mother Nature if I was to drill more holes on the ozone layer when we’d had enough UV in the atmosphere to fry us alive.
Oh, despite common belief, I actually do pay attention to global warming issues! Do you think I’d like it much if I wake up one morning, finding my house and my entire collection of designer’s clothes and shoes sinking underwater? No, thank you. Until it is completely inevitable, I (along with, I believe, a whole bunch of the population of polar bears and Eskimo people) would rather have both Poles of the earth stay frozen.
Anyways, as I reached the class, it became obvious that I wasn’t the only one deciding to act like a spoiled brat for the day. The classroom was nearly moist, not only with sweat, but with everyone’s complaints about the weather. The classes do have air conditioners (the kind that were environmentally friendly, I assure you), and I think the kids’ parents had paid enough to keep the air circulation system running well. Nevertheless lessons became twice as boring and teachers looked almost as bothered as we students were. Somewhere amid Math hour, a horrible sleepiness attacked me with full force. Unfortunately I couldn’t comply with it and let myself fall asleep; thanks to our Math teacher who was feeling bright all of a sudden and thought we needed a little algebra quiz to cool our heads off. Halfway through the impossible task of discovering the x and y and the absurd formula that bound them together, my mind wandered, thinking about physical education class. I couldn’t imagine how dreadful it would be to be doing anything physical in this heat. What would it feel like doing three rounds run under the scorching sun? That would be slow murder, don’t you think?
By the time lunch break came, putting an end to a rather blurry hour of Home Economics (blurry; because I had completely lost control and fallen asleep on my desk), I was already dying to go home. Tora picked me up-almost literally-from my seat; but before he ever managed to drag me to the cafeteria (he said he was starving to death, but that couldn’t be right; I saw him discreetly munching a whole double cheeseburger right before I fell asleep!) the first horror of the day approached me. The horror that went by with the name: Nakano.
I had never even had the chance to scream “help!” before Tora ran off and cruelly left me behind, very quickly disappearing from sight.
While cursing Tora for his heartless act of abandonment, I watched Nakano walking toward me. He was smiling his rather innocent, baby-like smile that made his cheekbones rise up and his glasses shift over the bridge of his nose. I smiled back, but somewhere in the back of my head I could foresee something discomforting coming my way. After all, what else would Nakano need of me, except for the matter that involved me, such as Japanese History assignment? And that assignment meant, to me, a nightmare I’d love to postpone dealing with until the very last minute; a nightmare that was otherwise known as Shiroyama.
“Matsumoto, about the assignment,” Nakano began, not even bothering with any decent prelude. “Do you have some spare time this weekend?”
I was about to answer when Nakano held up a hand and, to my utmost horror, called for Shiroyama. I’m sure I blanched when I looked at the aforementioned kid and saw him getting up from his seat, walking toward us. He had that surprised look on his face, as opposed to looking bored like he used to, and when he got close enough and laid his eyes on me, the infamous smirk that he had shown me just the other day suddenly returned to his lips. Seeing that, the hate in me burst to life in an instant. It became so reasonable in my head, all of a sudden, the act of killing this boy and scraping his smug face against the asphalt.
“Well, I was thinking that maybe Friday, after school, we can meet up and start working on the assignment,” so said Nakano, and it seemed as if I had made a positive reply to his previous question-which I hadn’t. But he merely grinned, oblivious to the dagger-sharp death glare I was sending him with all my might. “I’ve talked, briefly, with Shiroyama,” Nakano continued, “and he completely surprised me with his knowledge in Kabuki.”
When Nakano held Shiroyama’s shoulder, I saw a look on Shiroyama’s face that seemed to be saying, “What’s this hand doing touching me?” and it was so clear I didn’t think anyone could’ve missed it. But miraculously, Nakano also missed this, making me think that maybe this kid needed his eyes re-checked. Smart brains don’t mean good eyesight… or better judgment, in this matter.
“I think we’ll finish the assignment quickly,” Nakano said, still grinning. “Now that I’ve done some research on it myself, I find it oddly interesting. It’ll be lovely if I have the chance to discuss it to some further extent. How is it that you know so much about Kabuki, Shiroyama?”
I turned my attention to Shiroyama, just in time to find him staring at Nakano with quite a funny gaze. It looked as if he wanted to push Nakano as far away as possible from him, but was having a hard time to decide if it was okay do that.
“Well, I just happen to know a bit,” Shiroyama answered, shrugging his shoulders and looking relieved when Nakano lifted his hand from his shoulder. Nakano seemed to expect him to explain a little bit further, but Shiroyama had relapsed from that intent gazing back to his trademark bored expression, clearly not interested in joining this little chit-chat Nakano had initiated. Well, for once, he and I agreed on something. I dare say he also wished he could zap Nakano and obliterate him from the face of the earth, at that moment.
“We’ll have the time to talk, Shiroyama, and I’m looking forward to it,” Nakano kept on blabbing. And then he suddenly turned his attention to me. “So, Matsumoto,” he grinned even wider (if that was even possible, since he had already been grinning from ear to ear, practically splitting his face in half), “Friday afternoon, after school? Will you be available by then?”
I supposed I didn’t have any other choice, so I answered reluctantly, “Yeah, I guess so.” I repeated to myself, over and over again, that the sooner I got on with it, the sooner I would be freed from all this horror. Of course, the possibility of mutilating them to small dice chops and dump their remaining in a sewer somewhere was still there in my head. I suppose, when there’s no other choice left, I could just do that and live happily ever after.
“Excellent! I’ll see you both Friday, then!” With that, and a very delighted look on his face, Nakano strutted off from his spot.
And just as I thought Shiroyama would immediately follow Nakano and return to that dreary, solitary world of his, he didn’t. No, this particular boy didn’t just get up, off and leave my personal space alone; instead, he stood there in front of me for one minute longer, smirking, staring at me, consequently getting to my nerves.
“See you Friday, Matsumoto,” he said, and then he grinned-yes, the first grin he had ever shown me in my entire life. Not to mention the first words that I had ever heard coming from him. It was so shocking I only realized my jaw was hanging so far loose from my skull after a minute or two. Before I managed to come up with any kind of response, Shiroyama had slipped away from my sight.
I had no idea how long I had been standing there, gaping like an idiot, until Tora re-entered the classroom and shoved a plastic wrapped melon-bread into my face. I must say, it was thoughtful of him. But this gesture of kindness did nothing to extinguish the urge in me to beat the crap out of him, in order to emphasize just how much I did not like the way he had left me so thoughtlessly. Just what kind of a friend did that, leaving me right when I was in dire need of him?
Earlier tonight, he complained over the phone about the gigantic bruise I had created on his arm. I told him he deserved that and more. He was lucky I hadn’t had anything ‘heavy and dangerous’ anywhere in my reach when I began beating him with all my might.
After lunch break, I tried focusing my attention to whatever the teachers were talking about, just to fail, quite miserably. All I could think about was Friday, and how I was supposed to survive through that day and get back home to my mother, alive-or sane, at least. And then I tried to distract myself with drawing stuffs on my notebook. Well, I’m not a famous artist like my mother (and definitely not sharing the same style she goes by with), but I can draw pretty well, and I do make remarkable artwork, if I may say so myself. It wasn’t long before two whole pages were filled with sketches of hideously dismembered body parts and some quite detailed, intricate schemes of murder. At a corner I think I’d drawn Kai’s head (you’d be surprised to see the accuracy with which I’d depicted his face), severed from the neck, his eyeballs dangling down from the holes and his nearly non-existent brain leaking from the nose.
Yes, I know. I have a gruesome mind and I’ve fed it too much with R-rated horror movies. But to tell you the truth, even I was quite appalled when I looked at the outcome of my momentary ‘artistic’ mental vacation. Could you blame me, though, if you knew the depression I was going through at that moment?
This distraction method I had come up with was proven effective to ease my mind a little, and the hours passed before I knew what was going on. I had almost jumped off my chair when the bell that signaled the end of the day rang. Tora, expecting me to be permissive already (did he really think I would forgive him that easily??), took my hand and was just about to pull me to my feet, when suddenly, the anathema of my teenage life appeared before me; a huge, blinding grin beaming on his face. Yes, it was none other but my forever-loathed enemy: Kai. And unfortunately, his head was still finely attached to his neck, though I wished he would’ve taken that form I had drawn of him in my book.
“Takanori-kun, you’re not leaving yet, are you?” he chirped happily.
“As a matter of fact, he is,” Tora answered for me. I guess he was trying to make up for ditching me earlier. The glare he threw at Kai was quite impressive, I must tell you! He used to be able to make smaller kids cry with that specific glare, you know.
Kai wasn’t deterred. “Ah, but he can’t!” he said. “The core committee needs to have a meeting now. We only have a few days left, as you might already know it.”
Yes, I did know that. But did I give a damn? No.
“The girls can do that,” I replied spicily.
“Well, they can’t do the planning all by themselves, Takanori-kun… and with your brilliant mind, I believe the class will have the best stand history has ever seen!”
Do not get fooled by the cheesy pick-up line. Kai made it sound so obvious that he was mocking me, not complimenting me, despite the honey-sweet words. And looking at the expression that was plastered on his face, I was seething before I could control myself.
“Go irritate someone else, Kai, I’m not in the mood today,” I hissed. I dug my fingers into Tora’s arm, which was all I could do to hold myself from pouncing at Kai with full force and knock him off his feet.
“But, Takanori-kun, they need you!” Kai put forth a very, very fake puppy dog look. I was definitely not impressed. “They have high hopes in you, my friend. If you would just sit down with them for a moment, contribute an idea or two…”
Oh. How tacky. Since when am I his friend?
“Ask Shiroyama to do that, I don’t think the core committee would miss much the loss of one head.”
“Oh, certainly yes, Shiroyama is going to participate too-Yuu-kun!” Kai called out-while I cringe in distress. “Yuu-kun, you will join us to talk about the class stand, will you not?”
I was quite surprised to find Shiroyama still in the room, leaning on his desk. And what shocked me the most was the time when he shrugged his shoulder, approving Kai’s request. “I can’t stay long, though,” he said.
How on earth could he, of all people, be interested in a worldly matter such as this? I thought he needed to isolate himself from other humans in order to survive!
I hate to admit it, but at that moment, I was actually depending on him to refuse. He ruined my last hope for an escape-because if he, too, declined, then Kai would at least have an idea of how uninteresting this matter was, so uninteresting it did not deserve the smallest fraction of my time.
“There, see?” Kai grinned even wider. “Even Yuu-kun is participating in the meeting. It won’t be long, I promise!”
I wanted to say he’d had Shiroyama already; he should be content with that because there was no way I’d be interested to help. But then he continued, saying something he really shouldn’t have.
“Now, now, Takanori-kun, you can’t be saying that you’re actually avoiding the duty you’re appointed to do… What will everyone think if they find out the brother of the Chairman of the Student School Board is ditching a responsibility we’ve fully trusted him with…?”
Oh! That devious imp! That snake-tongued, angelic-faced demon! How dare he bring that up?! Simply for this cheap tactic he used, I will make sure he dies a painful death. That, I guarantee with everything I got.
Tora was muttering a profanity or two, not quite under his breath, and when I looked at him, he seemed very much ready to grow a couple of fangs and suck Kai’s blood to dry. I knew if I let him, I would have what I wanted (which was: Kai, properly dead), but then it was not at the right moment, and very much not at the right place. So I held him back, clutching his arm so tightly I must’ve left dents in the form of my fingers on his skin.
“Very well,” I said, “I’ll stick around and see how this goes. If it gets boring, I’ll know who to blame.”
There must’ve been lethal sparks of hate coming from my eyes, flying across the distance between me and Kai, and if only I could burn a person with merely a glare, Kai would’ve been fried to ashes by now.
I hated him. I hated the whole situation, but I knew better than to deny him this time. He played his role well (that is, as a sneaky, two-faced bastard) that even I had to compliment him. He knew it to heart that I wouldn’t-couldn’t risk Reita’s name be tainted.
Long story short, it was the most boring two hours of my life. Have you any idea how long it could’ve taken for two girls just to decide what color to paint the backdrop with? While they kept going back and forth from pink to violet (I heartily digress voting for either choice), I was struggling to remain awake and propping Tora’s dozing head on my shoulder at the same time. I couldn’t believe just how much consideration they had to put on this simple matter; “Violet brings out other colors more vividly,” so said one, and “Pink makes the atmosphere more cheerful,” said the other.
When I couldn’t handle the boredom (and the uselessness of the whole squabble), I finally spoke up: “Why can’t you just pick something in between and get on with it?”
I didn’t expect them to take my advice so well. But against all odds, they did.
Aoyama squealed, “You’re a genius, Takanori-kun!” and Komori shrieked, “We’re so lucky to have you here!” and both agreed on purple-which, I thought, wasn’t any better than the previous two choices. I merely looked at them, sincerely thinking they had lost their minds.
I chanced to glance across the desk to find an amused looking Shiroyama-or at least, that’s how I thought he would look like when he felt amused-aiming his gaze at me. He had that smirk curling slightly on the corner of his lips again; I could just hear the laughter bubbling inside his throat. I glared at him, daring him to laugh if he cared that less about his future wellbeing. But before long, he turned his sight sideway to Komori-who was just starting yet another boring and useless topic: ‘For the background prop, should we use yellow lilies or red roses?”
Up to the point where they finally decided on white daisies, they had wasted another hour.
I jolted up from my shallow sleep when Shiroyama suddenly got up from his seat, and it was four thirty when I looked at the clock.
“Excuse me,” he mumbled, “I have things to do.”
After throwing another smirk in my direction, he was soon out of our sight. No one had the chance to ask what ‘things’ it were that he needed to do and how it was more urgent than this meeting; no one even complained that he hadn’t contributed one damn idea during the supposedly team discussion. Why was he ever picked to be in this team anyway? If he was just going to sit there, looking bored all the time, what’s the use? I’m guessing that Kai picked him just to irritate me, like he knew it would. Kai knew I’d never been quite acquainted with Shiroyama, and he wanted to see how much disturbed I could be in dealing with someone as ignorant and otherworldly as this particular kid.
Well, if Kai had been around for the whole meeting, he would’ve had a pleasant sight, because I was infinitely disturbed. Not just because of Shiroyama and his world of boredom, but also because of those two, most irksome girls I’d ever encountered in my life.
However, I need to thank Shiroyama because with his departure, he opened up a hole for me to sneak through and escape from this Round Table of Hell. Following his example, I got up from my seat (causing Tora to slip from my shoulder and bump his forehead on the chair) and said I was going too. Family stuff, I reasoned; blah, blah. The girls didn’t say anything. If they didn’t buy my hoax, they certainly didn’t show it.
The biggest horror is that I still have approximately nine more days to the day of the festival, nine more days of facing the same threat that is otherwise known as the core committee. If one day is enough to put me in this level of stress, what will nine do to me? Kill me? As a matter of fact, I can just see myself at the end of all of this, resting silently under a marble tombstone. Matsumoto Takanori, a young man of 16 years old, ruefully taken from his life: too early, too tragically. Not by an accident, not by murder, but by an acute stress attack. It’ll look fascinating on Sunday’s newspaper’s mortuary section.
So there you go: the story of my disastrous life. You won’t say that I was exaggerating when I said my problem was far more urgent than that Genetic Retardation-whatever-essay, now would you?
Just now, the thought of Reita and the idea he’d mentioned to me came across my mind. He said, the other day, that for the initial, necessary arrangements, he needed to make appointments with appropriate accomplices. Oh, he has a whole book of names, haven’t I told you that? Some are of the people from whom you’d rather stay as far away as possible, though how Reita came to know them, I have no idea. Sometimes I think he has taken far too much example from Papa… Let’s just hope he doesn’t get into as much trouble as Papa did.
I need to call him otherwise my head is going to explode. I don’t know why he hasn’t contacted me today, when I’d already told him to keep me updated by the hour. He just isn’t much of an attentive brother, I suppose.
With this, I’ll end tonight’s entry. There might be the question of how I’m feeling right now. To answer that: I’m feeling quite frightened for the moment, and the feeling grows worse whenever I think about what tomorrow may bring me. But life goes on, as someone has wisely stated, and you just don’t have the power to stop the world from spinning-unless you’re God. Well, as we all know, I’m not God, and I don’t think I ever want to be, so it is all I can do to greet whatever fate has had to offer me when it comes knocking on my door tomorrow morning.
And I-speaking of the devil! My phone is ringing; it’s Reita.
Need to pick this up. See you tomorrow, then.
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A/N:
- Ah… the long wait… I know. I’m really sorry. In my diary entry I’ve mentioned about my computer crashing down, so I couldn’t do anything for days. It taught me a lesson to be more careful and not taking home a virus infected removable disk. Both my sister and I are quite paranoid now, so we update the antivirus regularly (should’ve done that, months ago, eh?).
- Well, now that Ruki and Aoi have made contact (however brief and insignificant that contact was), what will become of them? Moreover, what will become of Ruki’s mental state, once the whole School Festival ordeal is over? Oh… and let’s not forget about the Japanese History assignment, shall we…?
- Reita and Ruki shall make an evil payback-so evil they deserve high ranks in the Devil’s list.
- By the way, the new single is AWESOME. I cried to Without a Trace, I really did… for a very personal reason, the lyric breaks my heart.
- Adieu for now; until Ruki writes another story of his teenage life. :D
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