Ok, I have a very mild obsession right now…see if you can guess what it is…also, if you’ve noticed, toshiya’s become my favourite victim at the moment…I don’t know why. Maybe I’m just sick of all the usual victims the jap girls use (hyde, ryu, ino, etc)

Note: although it’s really only semi-AU, _none_ of this is meant to be realistic, so don’t go complaining about all the inaccuracies ^^; it’s set around 1994, just so certain characters can have their long hair ^^; I made one jrocker into a girl in order to fit the plot, and also so I could have something to laugh at while I typed this up.

Warning: Sex, violence, the usual.

bgm: bucktick, sads, switchblade symphony, radiohead, x japan

********

I first saw her from across the street, outside the recording studio. Buck-Tick were recording that day; that was the reason both of us were there. I hadn’t seen her before; this was the first time I’d come here. I knew she was doing the same thing as me though, as I could see the band’s name emblazoned on her t-shirt.

I watched her from my place, sitting on footpath on the edge of the car park, and she ignored me. Obsessed fans can often be hostile towards one another; I knew that from the way I’d been treated by others. As for me, I didn’t want her being there. I wanted to be the only one that he saw.

But something about her drew me in. Her clothes? I think maybe I just liked her boots. Maybe I just respected her because she had gotten there first. Whatever it was, I just sat and looked at her, and she smoked and looked at the ground, or at me, I don’t know, I couldn’t tell from under her beanie.

It was a long wait, but I’d expected that. After a while, when the sun was finally starting to get low, the door opened and he came out. They left by the back way, as I’d thought they would, to avoid fans. I saw the object of my affection immediately, dressed in long black clothing despite the heat, his hair falling down his back. Atsushi Sakurai.

As he passed the fan, he nodded. She nodded back.

I just looked on, stunned. Atsushi acknowledges this girl? He wouldn’t nod and smile like that to any fan! Most likely he’d despise them, I would have thought. I stood up, after I’d had my eyeful of Atsushi getting into his car. The fan had already started walking off down the road, and I had to catch up.

“Hey.” I said, but she kept walking. Dressed all in black with spikes everywhere. Her hair was blonde, though. I could see it sticking out from under the hat.

“….” She turned the corner. She was heading towards the station, I saw before I called out again. I was going there too, so she couldn’t accuse me of following. I kept walking after her.

She ignored me all the way there and into the station, where she bought a ticket to Ikebukuro. Which is where I was going anyway, so I followed her through the station and onto the train as well. She sat down; I stood next to her. She really didn’t seem to notice I was there at all, looking out of the window opposite us.

Finally I said, “Are you Atsushi’s fan?” A pretty stupid question considering she was wearing a Buck-Tick t-shirt and carrying a lunchbox covered with pictures of him.

She ignored me.

“Don’t ignore me, please. I’ll leave you alone if you answer one question. Please?”

Finally she sighed, and looked up at me, revealing a small, pretty face. “What?”

“How did he know who you were?”

“He recognised me.”

“You’re there often?”

Nod.

“I’m Toshiya. What’s your name?”

“Kyo.” She looked away, out of the window.

She didn’t want to talk to me. I looked away as well. Fans were cruel to each other. I decided to get off the train after her and lose her in the station.

Then she said, still looking away: “I know where Atsushi’s house is.”

“Really?” Surprised, and forgetting how she was meant to be treating me, I sat down next to her. It being the opposite direction than most rush hour traffic was going, the train was pretty empty. “How?”

She turned back to me. “I’ve been following him for a long time. But I never went there. I didn’t want to scare him. He’s nice to me, you see.” Oh. She was showing off, that’s why she was talking all of a sudden. Not that I could say I minded that much.

I’d been looking at her face as she talked, and falling in love. She had white powder on and eyes covered in black. But something in her face seemed natural, appealing. Definitely not hard to look at.

“This is my first time.” I said. “But I liked him for…let’s see…four years.”

“Six.”

Why couldn’t fans be nice to each other, I thought to myself then, and be happy they liked the same music, rather than seeing each other as rivals? I wanted to talk to her, but she was only interested in bragging. Although, this was better than nothing.

The train reached the station. “Good bye…” I said shyly, deciding to lose her there.

“Mm.” She walked off. I waited until the train was empty and people began to pour in for the reverse trip before I got off, to be certain of not running into her.

Then what she’d said finally sunk in, when I couldn’t be distracted by her anymore. A fan that knew where Atsushi lived?! If she wasn’t lying, I’d have to make it my life’s purpose to get that address. I didn’t care if it killed me.

So I hung around there after that. I decided I wanted to be friends with that girl, but after talking to me that one time, she kind of ignored me for a while. I didn’t mind too much though. I would sit next to her on the train and she would ignore me, and I’d ignore her, and we’d pass the time that way. And of course, I’d follow her to the recording studio, and stand next to her. If I offered her a cigarette, she’d take it. I was going through two packs a day at this rate, but I didn’t mind, of course.

The first time I followed her there, at around five o’clock, she said quietly: “They’ll come out soon.”

Not five minutes later, they appeared. There was a small car park behind the studio that the band parked in. No fans but us. Heaven.

She nodded to them again.

“…Kyo...”

They even knew her name! Afterwards, on the train back into Ikebukuro, I could see why. She showed me a techou filled up with photographs, like an album. There were pictures from all of Buck-Tick’s tours from about six years back, most taken from the front row. She’d also obviously talked her way back stage, because there were plenty of those photos, too. Also pieces of paper, where she had written a lot of notes. And Atsushi’s autograph.

“Where’s his address?”

“In my head.”

I think she was being nice to me now because I’d paid her train fare. Following a band around must get expensive.

Every day after the studio, instead of heading home, she’d go into Shibuya. In fact she seemed to spend most of her time there. She’d hang out on the second or third floor of one of the game centers, sitting on the steps. I followed her there, because she didn’t seem to mind that much. It became a habit over the first couple of days. I almost forgot about Atsushi’s address, and just concentrated on hanging around this fan.

She knew a lot of people there. They’d come and talk to her while I was sitting there. A guy with pink hair who I’d seen a bit took her aside once when we were sitting in a game centre, and asked her who I was. She told him my name and then said ‘he’s harmless.’

He came back over to me and said: “I like your hair.”

I’d dyed my hair blue and always wore it down even though it was waist length and got messy a lot. I smiled at him.

“Where do you live?” She had sat back next to me on the steps; he stood in front of us. It was the game centre with the livehouse on the third floor, and you could always hear faint music coming from one band or another. Still, this floor was relatively deserted, which is why she came here.

“Hibarigaoka.” I told him.

He looked at Kyo. He was very pretty, and wearing even more makeup than I was. He sucked on his cigarette before saying to her: “You could stay with him. That’s pretty close.”

She turned to me. “Where are you living right now?” I asked her.

“Lots of different places.” the guy answered for her, and laughed. “Ne, Kyo. It’s close, trains wouldn’t cost much.”

“Don’t be rude.” she mumbled to him.

“You could stay for a few nights if you want…” I said shyly, because to tell the truth, I’d never had a girl sleep over before. “My apartment’s only small, but we have a spare futon. I live with my elder brother.”

“Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead.” A lie.

They both looked away. I did too.

“What would you be expecting in return?” she asked finally when the silence had passed.

The guy laughed. “What are you hinting at, Kyo?”

She glared at him coldly. “No, I mean, do you want me to pay anything?”

“No…if you want to, it’s ok. Really. We have room.” I couldn’t help looking her up and down. She expected to have to pay?

She smiled at me then. It was the first time I’d seen her do that to anyone. I felt like I was going to melt.

And that’s how a fellow Buck-Tick fan ended up staying at my house.

She moved in the next evening. I’d cleaned off half of my room and put the spare futon down, which meant that the other half was now covered in a double layer of magazines, CD’s and clothing. I’d made sure to leave a distinct space between the two beds. At first I’d thought she should stay in the living room, but I figured my brother wouldn’t like that, seeing as I hadn’t told him about her yet.

She dropped her bags down on the futon, sat down, and looked at me. After I’d fed the fish that I kept next to the window in my room, I sat down on mine. Her futon – the only spare one we had – was a pale cream colour and decorated with little pink roses. It didn’t match the room, her bags, or her at all. Seeing where I was looking, she looked down as well, and laughed.

I laughed too, a bit nervously. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ve slept on a lot worse before.”

“Where’s your family?” I asked.

“Kumamoto. I came here to get to the recording studio. It’s not as easy for me as it is for you, it seems. Can I smoke in here?”

“Of course.” Out of habit, I picked up the packet lying on the floor next to my futon and offered it to her. “You must really like them, na…” I said, still nervous, because I’d never really talked about it with her.

She took a cigarette and lit it. “Mmm…”

“I don’t know if I could have kept it up for that long, without cracking, I mean…”

“What do you mean?”

“The way they all know you, and you know At-chan’s address…I’d have gone there by now, or stalked him, or something…”

She sighed. “Actually, to tell the truth, I have kind of been getting sick of it lately. Sick of building up this relationship, I mean. I want to exploit it. It has to happen sometime, right?”

“Then, you should talk to him one day…”

She laughed. “I have talked to him!”

“Arrange a meeting then!”

“Yeah, like he’d agree….”

“He might with you.”

“Well, what would we do, go bowling?”

I laughed at the thought. “No…I don’t know…I’m not thinking straight…”

“Let me guess, you can only think about bedding him?” She was eyeing all the posters on my walls.

I laughed again at that, so hard I fell back on the bed. “You too, I bet!”

She laughed as well. “That’s right. We can have an orgy.”

I lay there looking at the ceiling. I really do think he’s beautiful.”

“Mm…”

I kept quiet then, as usual. Because I’d never revealed the extent of what I feel for Atsushi to _anyone_. They wouldn’t understand, just like my brother didn’t understand. I don’t think even she knew quite about my interest. Collecting merchandise was one thing. But it wasn’t what I was. A rock fan I’d known in high school had carved “X” into the back of her hand with her own fingernail. I felt more on her level.

Even Kyo couldn’t know how long I spent thinking about him, or that I cried listening to his voice or that I even collected the doujinshi comics that the other fans wrote. Because she wouldn’t know what it was like to desire so much more beautiful than yourself and not be able to get to them.

She wouldn’t understand; she was far too beautiful herself. It would be more like loving an equal to her. To me, he was much higher. Like some sort of beautiful god I’d follow to the end of the world.

I quickly got used to having her there. In the mornings we’d sleep. In the afternoons we’d go to Shibuya together. I got to know a lot of the people there. The pink haired one was Kaoru, and he worked in the game centre. He seemed to be one of her closest friends, and he talked to me a lot. A lot of the girls did too, although usually we just talked about clothes and hair and stuff like that.

Later we’d go to the studio. We could have gone in the morning as well, but it took a while to get there and it would have disrupted my sleep, since I worked late most nights at a bar near my house. While I worked, she either came home early or stayed at Shibuya for a while. She was always home when I arrived.

Basically, we were spending all our time together. Which was great with me. I felt I could spend the rest of my life thinking about her and I’d be fine.

Which is not to say I didn’t still feel the same way about At-chan. It was different. Me and Kyo just admired him together.

My older brother, who I shared the apartment with, didn’t notice she was staying with us until the second night. He came home from work and saw her sitting in the lounge room watching TV, walked past her and came up to me as I was getting some food in the kitchen.

“Who’s that?”

“Um…my friend Kyo…she’s staying here…” I mumbled nervously. The two of us had never exactly gotten on well. He made me pay half the rent, for one, which I’d never been happy about.

To my surprise though, instead of getting angry, a look of absolute happiness spread over his face. “Your girlfriend? Oh great! I’m so happy that you’ve finally met a girl!”

“…what do you mean?”

“I just knew you’d grow out of that phase….”

“What phase?” I asked, getting annoyed. “I haven’t grown out of anything. And she’s my friend, not my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, right. Fine. If she’s not, you should get one soon.”

“Why?”

He shook his head and wouldn’t even answer me, a smile on his face.

“What’s wrong with the way I am now?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” He didn’t even look at me, just walked past me and out of the room.

Fine then, I thought to myself as he left. Make me feel like a freak….

“We could kidnap him.” I said to her at the studio one day, a few weeks after she’d moved in.

“Yeah right. You treat all the people you love this way?”

I grinned at her. “Just kidding. But wouldn’t it be fun?”

“Wouldn’t the other fans tear us apart?”

“We could rent him out.” I laughed. “And get an income at the same time!”

She laughed too at the thought, and then the door opened. We both turned, surprised, because it was still too early for the band to be leaving.

Atsushi had come out, and was leaning against the wall about three metres away from the two of us. We both must have looked great, staring at him with our mouths wide open.

I knew there were other exits to this place. And plenty of other places to smoke, and plenty of other people that worked in the building, who we sometimes saw going in and out. So my first thought was that this was just a big coincidence and that I was the luckiest person in the world.

“Hello” she said to him, being the one that was standing closer.

I nodded very shyly. I think I was blushing. I’d never seen him this close before, not even at all the front row lives I’d been to. I could see that he didn’t have any makeup on, not that he needed it. I couldn’t stand being this close. I either had to run or crack and jump on the guy.

“Cigarette break?” Kyo asked.

“Mm.”

Shaking, I reached into my pocket and offered him one of mine, taking the excuse to step closer. He shook his head. “Not my brand.” But his voice wasn’t unfriendly. I must have stood there for a second just looking at him, and trying not to shake. I felt Kyo slide her arm through mine, as if making sure I stayed in place and didn’t pounce on the poor guy.

“How’s it going then?”

He was a lot nicer to her, and smiled. “Almost finished.” He spoke more quietly than I’d expected, his voice almost shy. I was sure I was going to faint.

At that instant, the door opened again. “Oi, At-chan!” Another member? I looked hopefully, but it was only a sound tech or something. “You’re needed.”

“Damn…” I heard him mutter. He threw down the cigarette, and smiled apologetically to Kyo. She smiled back and waved him off, and he went back inside.

I collapsed against the wall, almost fainting. “Oh god…”

She laughed at me. “I was worried you’d hurt the poor guy!”

I couldn’t even talk.

“Let’s go home, ok? We’ve seen enough.”

As we were heading back to the train station, I began going psycho, jumping up and down and shaking.

“Kyo.” I finally found my voice. “You have his address right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tonight. Let’s go do it tonight.”

She looked at me blankly. “Oh, kidnap him? No, I don’t think we’re ready for that…”

“Not kidnap him! Go to his house. You said you wanted to, didn’t you?”

“Why tonight, though?”

“I don’t know!” I jumped up and down. “I’m just so excited now. I wanna do it…”

She looked at me doubtfully.

“Please...”

“It’s easy for you to want to. It’s not your reputation on the line.”

“He’ll never know we’ll there. We can like, try to see him from the outside.”

“Like a pair of stalkers?”

“Yeah! Who cares? He won’t know!”

We stopped while I bought the train tickets. “Can’t you just see him every day, up close, at the studio?”

“This is different. We’ll be at his _house_. He _lives_ there.”

She just looked at me blankly again. “I don’t understand you at all.”

“Come on. We can buy binoculars and spy on him.”

She finally started to look vaguely interested, and bit down on her lower lip. “And ring on his doorbell and run away giggling?”

“Yeah!” I was jumping up and down again, which was making the few other people in the station give us looks.

“Ok then. Tonight’s as good as any other time, I guess. We can go there from the city. Now calm down.” she said to me, taking my wrist and pulling me off grumpily. “You won’t get anywhere acting like that.”

“What if you saw him in the shower?” We were giggling like a pair of little kids. Even she had gradually gotten more excited on the way over here. I knew she’d thought about this a lot before, and I think I’d finally given her an excuse to do it.

Atsushi’s house was in one of those incredibly expensive suburbs quite near the centre of Tokyo. It was large and set back from the road, although not the enormous mansion I’d been expecting. There was a high fence and gates, but at least no barbed wire or anything like that. This guy mustn’t have much of a problem with fans.

“I can’t see him….” We were sitting in a tree across the road, a situation which we both couldn’t help finding incredibly funny. There were a lot of tall trees inside the fence, which made it hard to get a good view of the house.

“Give them to me.” I looked through the binoculars, trying to get used to the limited vision.

“Can you see anything?” She was sitting next to me and slightly lower down, leaning against me lightly, her shoulder warm against my arm.

“Not yet…” I finally focused in on what looked like a room of some sort. He must have been staying away from the windows, because I couldn’t see anyone. “Wait, I think I see a television on….”

“He watches television?” I felt her breath as she giggled.

“I can’t see him…just this little light.”

“Give me another go.” She snatched them back. “I can’t believe you’re making me do this…” she mumbled to herself.

“You wanted to.”

“Can you zoom in with these things?”

“No! What do you think I am, a millionaire? They’re cheap ones.”

“…I think I see him.”

“Really?” I couldn’t help shivering. Suddenly, for no reason, I was terrified we’d be caught. I looked down at the street around us. Only darkness and silence.

“Yeah…it’s a figure.”

“Let me see.”

“Wait.” She looked through the binoculars a second longer, and then suddenly put them down and turned to me. “Let’s go in.”

“What!?” The word came out before I thought about it.

“Come on. I want to. We’ll go to the gate and ring the intercom.”

 I wasn’t sure if I was up to that. Hadn’t she been the one that hadn’t even wanted to come here?

“Come on…” she said again, already sliding off the branch, taking the binoculars with her. I could see her blonde hair reflecting the streetlights, the rest of her in shadows.

Sure, he recognised her. But I recognise people I wouldn’t let into my house or even talk to, and I’m not even famous. Should I try to stop her before she blew the whole relationship?

“Kyo…But…” I called as she began to walk off.

She turned around “Stop being such a wimp!” She seemed to be forgetting that I was the one that had convinced to do this.

“Don’t call me a wimp.” I looked at her angrily. “I’m being reasonable.”

“You’re being boring! Come down here.”

Reluctantly I slid off the branch and landed beside, feeling the blood rush back into my legs painfully after being in the same position for such a long time. “But don’t blame me when we get arrested.”

We crossed the road and went over to the tall gates, where there was the usual intercom set up. She looked at me. “Do you want to ring it?”

“Don’t you?”

She shook her head.

“Fine. But only because you asked me to.” And only because her relationship with him was more important than mine was.

“_Sure_ that’s the only reason.” She smirked, disbelieving.

The gates were made of iron, and seemed even higher and even more foreboding up close. I was nervous, to say the least. What if he called the police? She looked perfectly calm, standing beside me. I reached out for the intercom button and pressed it without looking at it.

A short pause, then “Dochirasama desu ka?”

I couldn’t mistake the voice I’d heard in a thousand songs, lives and videos, even over an intercom.  And as I’d thought before, this guy obviously hadn’t had many fans try to track him down. No cameras out here, no dogs. And he answered his intercom.

For a second I stood there, not knowing what to say. “Um, it’s a visitor…”

Another pause. Then he asked again “Dare desu ka?”

From behind me, Kyo was laughing silently. Suddenly I felt her push past me. “Atsushi-san.”

Who’s there?” he asked for a third time.

“Fans.”

“Not interested. Go home.”

“Yes you are. Let us in.” I blinked. How could she sound so demanding? Like she had a right to be in his house.

“…who is it?” he asked. I couldn’t help laughing this time as well. For someone who wrote such beautiful poetry for a living, he sure wasn’t high on the eloquence scale.

“It’s Kyo.”

Silence.

“Who’s the guy with you?”

I smiled at her.

“My friend Toshiya. You’ve seen him.”

Another pause. Then: “I can’t let you in.”

“And why’s that?”

“I’m busy…I have to work tomorrow.”

This girl was good. He was making excuses for not letting a stranger into his own home.

“Meet me tomorrow, then.” she said. “At the studio. Then we’ll go home. Right Toshiya?”

“Oh…un…” I mumbled.

There was a moment of silence, and then he said “Ok then. I’ll meet you.”

“Toshiya too?”

“Yes, if you want. But not at the studio. Want to meet somewhere else?”

“Is there a bar around here?”

“…can you drink?” He laughed.

“Of course.”

“There’s a bar only a few streets from here we could go to… ”

“That sounds fine. But if you don’t turn up there, I’ll have to come back here and harass you some more.”

He laughed again, cutely. They worked out a time, and he gave her some brief directions. They said goodbye, and the intercom clicked off.

I’d just stood there like an idiot the whole time, but it had probably been the best thing I could have done. I was pretty much useless, but she’d managed to –

“You did it!” I screamed at her and hugged her without thinking about it. I pulled back. “That was great…”

To tell the truth, she looked even more shocked than I did. It seemed to be just sinking in. She grinned up at me. “Hey, you helped.” she said, sounding slightly dazed. “I couldn’t have done it alone, I don’t think. Come on.” she said, quietly. “Let’s go back home and celebrate.”

We burst into my room an hour later, and immediately fell down on my futon yelling and hugging, something we’d been doing all the way home since we’d got into Ikebukuro and her disbelief had worn off. “Pass me the bottle….” She took a swig out of the bottle of vodka we’d bought on the way home as a celebration.

“Oh…some of it got on the sheets...”

“Don’t worry…” I giggled.

“You’re drunk!” she said to me, laughing as well.

“So are you!”

“Not as much as you…” Then she lifted herself up onto her elbow. “Hey, are we going to have sex?”

I blinked. “What?”

“No…let me guess, you’re still a virgin?” She fell back on the bed. “I’ve been in here a lot when you were at work. I saw all your stuff…” She gestured to the piles of obsessive junk on the floor. “You really love him, don’t you?”

“Mm.” I looked down. My hand was still over her waist. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to…”

“You can really fall in love with someone just through their voice?”

“I…I thought I was in love with you.”

“You can’t be in love only after just a few weeks.”

She was wrong. You can fall in love in a day if you’re lonely enough. I hadn’t even realised how lonely I was until I’d met her. I’d always just thought of Atsushi, and that had been enough.

I looked over her head at his poster on the wall behind her. “I never really thought about anyone besides him…not for years.” I admitted.

She nodded. “So you’re saving yourself for him. That’s fine with me. I’m sleepy.” She proceeded to scull the rest of the bottle, and then dropped down onto the bed.

I slid closer, and held her, feeling awkward, because I’d never even held a girl this close before, besides my mother. Nicer than I’d expected, actually, like having a really big teddy bear.

 I think I even fell asleep before her.

 “Kyo….” I clutched her hand tight when I first saw him come in the following night. “I’m so excited…”

“You’re crazy.” she laughed, and then waved as he spotted us.

“No, you are!” I watched Atsushi come towards us. He wasn’t wearing any sort of disguise, which I thought was a bit dangerous, especially in a crowded place like this. It wasn’t like he blended in with the general population. He had a bit of makeup on today, as well, I could see – powder and a bit of eyeliner.

He came over to our booth in the corner right away. My other hand, the one holding the cigarette, was shaking so much I could hardly bring it to my mouth. Half in happiness, half in plain raw lust. I had to look away. I concentrated on the table in front of me, unable even to raise my eyes to his level.

“You wanna get some drinks?” Kyo mumbled to me.

I nodded and stood up. “Um…what do you….” I couldn’t even look at him properly as he reached the booth. He looked like a god. Of course, I’d seen him this close before, but this was completely different. He knew I was there, and I was meant to be; I could speak to him.

He named some drink or other, and I stumbled past him. “Excuse me…I’ll be right back.”

When I came back she was already talking with him. I couldn’t understand how she did it, but then again, she didn’t really have a reason to be shy. I felt like a big ugly lump next to the two of them, but I tried to hide it.

I can’t remember the next few hours as well as I should, because I was drinking too much. But he was very polite and reserved, almost shy really. Very different to anything I’d seen of him. Kyo was the one that was being rude and embarrassing him. After we’d drunk a bit, though, he got more open, and then they began to flirt. Openly.

“So...” she said at one point. “You agree to meet any random fan that presses your intercom button?”

He smiled. They were sitting opposite each other, me next to her. “No. You’re an exception. By the way, who did you have to bribe to get my address?”

She grinned. “That’s my big big secret.”

They just stared directly at each other for a second, not saying anything. I could literally feel all the lust collecting in the air. I was sure all the other people in the bar could feel it too. I couldn’t help but wonder where exactly this was leading.

When he went off to the bathroom, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I grabbed her and kissed the side of her head to whisper to her. “Kyo, I can’t even look at him without…” I had to keep looking at my hands.

“I’m going to try to get him into bed.”

I laughed. “Can I have him next time?”

“Sure.” He came back to the seat about then.

I was pretending not to care, but of course the laugh had been forced.

What the hell had I been expecting, I thought as I looked at the two of them.

I was hurt. And jealous, of both of them. Even Kyo had practically admitted that I was a bigger fan than her. And she was getting all the damn attention, and I shouldn’t have expected anything more.

No, it was worse than that. It wasn’t Atsushi – I hadn’t really seriously thought he’d give me a second glance. The reasons were obvious enough. He was a guy, after all, and he just didn’t have that sort of interest.

I could live with him not sleeping with me. I just didn’t want them sleeping with each other. But they were going to; she was going to give me up for him, and our whole relationship had been like that like that from the beginning, I just hadn’t admitted it.

“I’ll go home then…” I whispered into her ear.

She looked guilty. But she nodded, and I slipped out of the booth. “I’m leaving.” I said to him. “Nice meeting you.”

He smiled and raised his hand idly from the glass where it was resting, looking evil. I left.

And the more I thought about it then, the more I realised that all relationships were like that. We all form them just to gain something, like I’d done with her. And we would give them up for the same reason, like she’d just done with me.

And it wasn’t a nice thing to discover. Although I’d got to meet him, although I’d sat across from him for hours and had even spoken to him and should have felt like the luckiest person in the world, I cried on the way home.

It was noon already, and I’d realised soon after waking up that I’d forgotten to call the bar yesterday to tell them I couldn’t come in. I’d been too excited then even to think of it. I pulled myself out of bed, dreading what was going to happen. Perhaps I should go and see them in person? I didn’t even have the courage to do that.

I sat up to look at myself in the mirror across the room. Terrible. I hadn’t taken my makeup off and it had all collected under my eyes, making me look like a junkie at best. My hair was all greasy and the blue was starting to grow out to a point where it didn’t look deliberate anymore.

No time to fix that, though. I quickly wiped my face off and pulled on the same clothing I’d removed the night before.

My room looked empty. Why was that? Oh yeah, there was meant to be someone sleeping there, that’s why. I stood up too quickly, and immediately wanted to throw up. Fuck, my head hurt. And for what? I’d lost my girlfriend to the guy I wanted to sleep with.

How many guys could say that?

I couldn’t face anyone in person today. I was going to lock myself in my room and contemplate life and stare at the wall. And sleep. But I had to ring first.

Please make it be ok, I thought to myself. I needed this money.

“Moshi moshi?”

“Hi, it’s Toshiya….” My voice came out a lot weaker than I’d expected.

“Toshiya! Where were you last night? It was a Saturday, you know how busy we were – ”

I held the phone away from my ear because the voice really hurt my head.

“— Are you listening to me? Toshiya?”

“Yes…”

“Do you have a reason you weren’t there?”

“…Not really…..” I said softly, feeling too sick and too depressed even to lie.

There was a long pause on the other end. “…Perhaps you’d better come down here.”

An hour later I was in Shibuya, in the third game centre I’d stormed into looking for her. There she was – I’d known she’d be here, probably bragging to all her stupid friends. “Kyo!” I yelled angrily.

She was there, sitting with a group of people. She turned to look, and I stormed over there. “I just lost my damn job!” I yelled at her.

She looked up at me blankly, taking in the anger. “So? What’s that got to do with me?” she asked, defensive.

“What did I lose it for? So you could leave me alone the whole night? You abandoned me!”

She stood up to face me, or as close as she could get to facing me with her height, and laughed. “What are you saying? You expected me to stay with you over him? You’re living in a dream world.”

Of course it was unreasonable to say it, but I was too angry to think of that. I thought she could have apologised for last night, instead of acting so cruelly. I said “You just used me!”

“_I_ used _you_?!” She laughed out loud.

“As a scapegoat in case something went wrong. That’s why you took me with you to spy on him!” I’d had a lot of time to think about this on the train over.

“Oh yeah? And I guess you stood next to me because you loved my company. Nothing to do with using me to get to Atsushi!”

“That’s not true!” I said, although it wasn’t entirely false.

“I can’t believe you’re angry at me. I can’t believe it.” she said, and her voice went all low and angry. “You got to meet him _because of me_. You’d be _nowhere_ without me. I was doing you a big favour because I felt like being nice. And you blame me. Fuck you.”

“Why did you bring me along just to dump me?”

“Because I only wanted you there at first. Because you’re _nothing_ to me.” she hissed.

Silence. For a second I was terrified she’d seen inside my mind at the exact moment she’d said those words, that I’d revealed it on my face, and that she knew exactly how much she’d hurt me. “I thought we were friends.” I managed to say.

She’d calmed down slightly after she’d spoken. “We had something to accomplish together.” she said more quietly. “Now we’ve done it. I don’t think we really have a need for friendship anymore, do you?”

“…fine…” The shadow of a voice. I felt like ice. All the warmth going out of my body and the world. I just turned away.

Her words playing over and over again in my head as I went down the stairs and out into the street. Using me….she really was just using me…..what for? Someone to stay with? That was the obvious one. Maybe someone to blame if we got in trouble with the police? I hadn’t considered that one so much before. Sheer company? Sex? Did it really matter? She’s gone, she’s fucking gone.

This is all your fault, I thought as I walked through the streets. I came to an empty parking lot behind a building and sat down next to some vending machines. You thought she was your friend. Of course she put up with you and was nice to you, but it was only because she was using you. She has no need for you anymore.

I put my head against the plastic side of the machine and began to cry. The person I’d been depending my whole life on had hurt me and wasn’t going to apologise, and I didn’t even have a job anymore.

It was starting to get dark. I didn’t have anywhere to go, and I didn’t want to go home and face sleeping alone once again. I sat and watched the streams of people in the street next to the parking lot. All happy couples, groups of friends. I sat and watched them bitterly, and then I thought of something.

This wasn’t all my fault. If we’d been boyfriend and girlfriend and she’d left me for another guy, it would have been him I’d been angry at, for stealing her. And that had almost happened in this situation, right? The one I should be angry at wasn’t myself or her.  It was the guy who’d barely looked at me the whole night I’d been with him.

I played with my hair and thought about it. I’d known her for only a couple of weeks; he’d been part of my life for years. I had to put unimportant thoughts out of my head and concentrate on what really mattered in the situation. He’d ignored me. I’d lost my job and my friend just so he could ignore me. This was the thanks I got for being his fan? I was a bigger fan than she was anyway!

“I know I’m not attractive,” I said to myself. “But you could have at least looked at me. I really love you and you don’t even care. You didn’t even look at me.”

I wanted to go and hold _him_. I wanted him to comfort me, although I knew that could never, ever happen. I started to cry harder, and then in my head, an idea began to form. There _was_ something I could do, after all.

I couldn’t stop crying, even after I’d reached my destination. My eyeliner would be all over my face by now, I knew. I tried to wipe all the tears and makeup off my cheeks and concentrate. I’d prepared myself before I left home. I had everything I needed, including the object I’d put into my pocket, and I could get over the fence easily. I just had to calm down and wait.

There were lights on in Atsushi’s house, so he must be home. I’d used the binoculars to try and see what he was doing, but I hadn’t been able to find him anywhere. What did rock stars do when they were at home, anyway? Did he have a maid? Perhaps someone else had turned the lights on in there.

I wondered how much money he had.

I didn’t have Kyo to help me get inside this time, so I had to figure it out myself. Oh well, no need to do it the polite way. If I stood on my bag, I could just reach the top of the high brick fence.

I left my bag there on the footpath, and pulled myself up by the spikes on the top. If they’d snapped off, I would have probably been killed, but they held and I was able put my foot between them and pull my body over without stabbing myself. I almost dislocated my arm on the way down, but I managed to reach the garden with minimum pain.

The garden was full of big trees that looked creepy even though it was summer and they still had all their leaves. A thousand stalkers could have hidden in a garden like this. This guy probably liked being scared at night. I stood under one near the door, and thought about whether to knock or try to break into the house. I decided on knocking, because I figured he’d probably have some security system set up in there.

“Please let me in….” I tapped softly on the large wooden door, then a bit louder. I started to cry again then. I didn’t know why.

I waited for a little while. Then a voice, sounding worried, called from inside.  “…Who is it?”

“It’s Toshiya.”

Silence. I stood there, and heard some noise inside, away from the door. Was he calling the police?

“Atsushi-sama!” I yelled into the door. “If you get me arrested, I’ll kill myself, I promise I will!” I began to sob.

Finally there was another noise, closer to the door. A lock being undone. Then the door opened.

“Toshiya, why don’t you go home?” he said calmly. Talking as if to a child. He didn’t even have the chain on. He was a lot bigger than me anyway.

I shook my head. I couldn’t stop sobbing.

He must have felt sorry for me then, because he looked at me for a second, and then his voice became kinder. “….Why don’t I call you a taxi home.”

I shook my head again, and then I jammed my foot in the door he was holding open. His expression changed; he looked annoyed.

“I just want to talk to you.” I managed to sob out.

He shook his head, and leant it against the door, closing his eyes. That’s when I pushed forward, taking him by surprise. He stepped backwards as the door opened, and I fell on top of him, knocking him over.

He cursed and took a handful of my hair and pulled me off, throwing me down on the floor beside him.

“That’s it.” He stood up and grabbed my arm, and pulled me with him down the hallway. “I’m calling the police.”

“Don’t…” I reached down into my pocket. “Please…” He ignored me and pulled me into the living room.

I took the out the knife I’d put there earlier. “Atsushi-sama….” Then I pulled my arm free and grabbed his hair, pulled his head back and put the knife against his throat.

I don’t think he felt it there straight away, or didn’t think about it, because he tried to throw me off. But I already had my arms around him and my hand buried in his hair.

I pushed the blade harder against the skin. “Don’t!” I felt him breathing hard against me, but he didn’t speak.

“Put your hands in front of you. Please.” I added. Without speaking, he did as I said. From behind him, I couldn’t see his face. The room was quite dark.

“Thank you.” I said. I had my dog-collar necklace on, and I reached up to take it off. The spikes were pretty blunt, and I didn’t think he could hurt me with them.

I started to undo it. His breathing had slowed down a bit, but his whole body was stiff. I got the collar off and wrapped it around his wrists. It took me awhile to do it up with one hand, but when I did, it fit tightly enough to restrain him.

I led out of the hallway and over to a couch in the living room, and sat him down. The light wasn’t on in here either. Finally he spoke: “What are you going to do?”

His hair was falling over his shoulders and down his front. I knelt down in front of him. I was still holding the knife, and now I pressed the tip against his chest.

“Don’t be scared. I really just want to do you a favour.” I wanted to smile for him, but only another sob came out. “I’m sorry….” I said, and tried to calm down.

“You fucking should be sorry! What right do you have to break into my house?!”

I pushed the knife forward angrily, and felt it go through his shirt and into the skin. “Shut up!!” I yelled. “I lost my best friend, I lost my job because of you!! She won’t even talk to me!!” I wiped more makeup off my face. When I saw what I’d done to him, though, I started to cry again.

“Atsushi-sama, I’m sorry…” I pulled the knife backwards. “I’m so sorry, it was a mistake.” I tried to push all my hair out of my face. “I’ll make it up to you…”

When I started to undo the button on his pants, he shrieked and pulled away. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

“What’s wrong? I’m trying to do you a favour!” I undid the rest of the buttons. “Lift your hips up.”

He had closed his eyes again, and put his head down. But he did as I said. I pulled the black leather pants down to below his knees with one hand, and leant forward. He didn’t move.

I kissed the inside of his thigh.  The flesh was smooth and white and perfect. I pushed his legs open more, and kissed upwards.

“Toshiya…” he mumbled. “Don’t do this.”

I was angry. “What’s wrong with you? I’m doing this for you!! For you, don’t you see??” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I haven’t had much practice with this, I’ve only been told about it. Sorry if I do it wrong.”

He didn’t respond.

I pushed the legs open further and pulled his pants down more, so I could get to it. I had to slide one hand under his leg and wrap it around his waist to get close enough. I kept the tip of the knife pressed on his stomach. Then I began to lick. He didn’t move; he was holding his breath. When I pressed my tongue against the tip hard, he inhaled sharply.

I smiled. Then I put my mouth around it. He moaned, although it sounded more like discomfort than anything else.

“Stop it.”

I pulled backwards. “I’m going to give this to you until you take it, Atsushi-sama, so stop resisting!”

Then I put it back into my mouth and began to suck. He was groaning now. I was doing my best, stroking him with my other hand as well. The knife I’d put down on the ground. He finally started to respond, and I felt him begin to get hard in my mouth.

It took a while, at least ten minutes, but he eventually came into my mouth. He was gasping just before it, and threw his head right back. “Toshiya…”

I’d swallowed all of it, to be nice. “Gochisou sama...”

He looked at me, angrily, and I could see sweat on his face. “Let me up now?” Those dark eyes glowing coldly. I could tell he thought I wouldn’t.

I smiled and picked up the knife, folded the blade back in, and put it back in my pocket. Then I undid the collar for him. Before I could even put it back on my neck, he’d thrown me backwards.

“Ow!” I was sprawled on the carpet. I watched him stand up and do up his pants.

“I won’t hurt you, if you get out right now and don’t come back.” he said to me angrily. I tried to sit up, but he pushed me back down with his foot and pinned me there with it on my chest.

I nodded. “I can leave.”

He took his foot off my chest, grabbed my arm, and yanked me upwards painfully, so I was standing in front of him. The eyes were burning with anger. I liked that. It made him look even prettier, I couldn’t help thinking. “Out. Now.”

“I’ll leave.” I said. “But…”

“What?!”

“Who’s to say I don’t…you know…go to the media? About this. They’d be interested, wouldn’t they?”

Now he looked at me blankly, in shock. I could still see the fine layer of sweat on his face, his disheveled hair. His hand was digging into my arm, tight enough to draw blood.

“…Is that what this is about?” he asked finally.

I shook my head. “No. But I don’t want to leave.”

He was so angry. Maybe hurt as well. He looked ready to grab me and shake me, then stopped, let go, and turned and punched the wall instead. Then he leant his head against it and didn’t say anything.

“Atsushi-sama?”

“What do I have to do then? To stop you telling?” he asked softly.

He was a good person. He could have beat me up, but he didn’t. No threats, no violence, just acceptance.

I was smiling thinking about what I could get him to do. Finally I’d been able to stop crying. I’d forgotten all about what had happened before, actually.

He turned to me, and his face went blank with shock as he interpreted my expression.

“No.” he said. I was laughing.

“Not _that_.” I couldn’t help laughing more. “You don’t have to do anything. Just let _me_ do it. Yorokobasasete ne.”

His face went even paler than it already was. I thought I really loved him at that moment. He looked so scared.

“What’s wrong? I’m doing you a favour here, if you’d just take it!”

He was still leaning against the wall. He shook his head. “It’s not a favour.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a guy.”

For some reason, that made me want to cry again. I could feel the tears coming up into my eyes. I was reminded of what had happened. “Why did you want Kyo and not me? Aren’t I pretty enough?”

“That’s not the point – ”

“I’m not pretty enough for you? Is that it?” I was crying again now.

“For god’s sake Toshiya, calm down!”

“I’d have a sex change if you wanted it.”

He turned his head back to the wall.

“Aren’t I pretty?” I demanded.

He turned and looked me up and down. “Onna dattara…you could be…”

“You can do whatever you want.”

“I don’t want to do anything.”

I began to cry.

He seemed too angry to respond.

“Atsushi-sama…” I began to claw at my forearm with my left hand, which I have a habit of doing whenever I’m upset. I stood there sobbing. He ignored me.

“A person can feel violated, you know…” he said, and then turned his head towards me. “Toshiya, you’re making yourself bleed. Stop.”

I just cried and dug my nails in harder, seeing it seemed to distress him.

“You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Who cares?” I sobbed. “I live for you. If you don’t want me, I can die right now.”

He was shaking his head again.

“If I disgust you that much, at least kill me…I don’t wanna do it myself…”

“So it’s fuck you or kill you?” he asked, bitter.

“Whatever you want…”

He finally straightened up. “Fine…” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. His face still white and blank, he came towards me and took my arm and led me down the hall.

“Where’s your bedroom?”

He took me there, leading me up the stairs.

I’d calmed down a bit now, and I smiled at him as I gestured for him to lie down on the double bed.

“If you just lie there, I’ll do everything. If you want to do anything, I don’t mind.”

He lay down. His hair looked so smooth, I wanted to touch it straight away. I knelt on the bed and crawled over to where he was lying, and reached out and stroked his face.

He had his eyes closed again.

“Don’t be like that. This is for you, don’t you get it? Now, do you want me to do anything special? Just say it.”

“….”

“Have you ever….done this with a guy before?”

“…yes.”

“Who?”

“I’m not going to tell you so that you can have something else to blackmail me with.”

I laughed. “This is my first time with anyone, you know. That’s why you have to tell me what to do.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m fifty-eight.”

He ignored the answer. “…I’m at least ten years older than you.” he mumbled.

I was stroking his neck, and his face. He was so beautiful. I couldn’t look away. I had the same feeling I’d sometimes had while looking at Kyo. When something is so beautiful but you don’t know how to express how you feel, and let out the feeling. I kept touching his skin harder and harder, I wanted to get inside it and live in the beauty. I didn’t know how to tell him.

I just said “You’re beautiful. I have so many pictures of you, you know, and I’d look at them and cry because I couldn’t touch you.”

“…..”

“Please don’t ignore me.” I sat on top of him. “Is this ok? Do you want to be on top?”

“….no, it’s ok.”

I undid his shirt, and ran my hand down the side of his chest. “Please tell me what you want me to do. You don’t hate me that much, do you? Please…”

He shook his head, annoyed, and then reached up and grabbed my hair, which was falling in front of me.

“!?” He pulled me down to meet his face and looked into my eyes.

I let my eyes move down to his lips and back to meet his own.

“Kiss me?”

He didn’t take his eyes off mine, but pulled my head down more, my lips to his.

Yatta!! I stuck my tongue into his mouth, knowing I still had his taste on me from before, and wrapped my arms around him tightly.

He pushed me under him. I was so excited I was panting already.

“Do you know how it’s done?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“You know where – ”

“Un.”

“Ok.” He sighed. “First of all, you need something to wet it, ok? Or else it will hurt.”

“Ok.”

I opened my mouth, and he put his fingers in. I covered them with as much saliva as I could. He pulled them out. Then I helped him in taking most of my clothes off.

“…..”

“Does it hurt?”

“Does it matter?” I was shifting around, uncomfortable. “Just do it, if you want to.”

“More.” I spat on his hand again, and he rubbed it over himself. I could hardly breathe with anticipation that was half excitement, half fear.

He held me tighter, and pulled my body down onto himself. He mainly had to force it. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t scream. I didn’t want to ruin it for him. I bit my lip.

He was holding me so tight it hurt, and was breathing hard. “Do you want me to move?” I asked.

He shook his head. He’d begun to move his hips a bit. It still hurt, but it was more discomfort now than anything else. I held him tighter.

“You’re so tight.”

“Is that good?”

“Yeah…” His voice was dreamy. It felt like he pushed in further.

“If I move then…” I shifted a bit to the left, which caused my muscles to clench a little. He moaned.

“Atsushi-sama…” I was so happy to make him feel this way. I leant up to kiss him. How could I have been mad at him? I felt so worthless next to him, he could do what he fucking well wanted.

He said my name once near the end. He was wrapping his fingers around my hair and pulling it quite painfully. I felt him come. His face filled with happiness. I was so happy as well, just to see him that way.

I kissed his neck as he pulled out of me, and he rolled over to let me on top. Then he just lay there for a while. I lay on him, feeling the smooth skin damp with sweat, the silky hair.

Finally, I said “…Do you want to do it again…?”

I woke up before him. He lay there sleeping beside me for a long time, unaware he was being watched. I was burning the image of him sleeping there on his side into my mind, so that I could draw it later.

He woke up and saw me sitting there on the sheets, watching him.

“Toshiya….” Looking like someone with the mental equivalent of a hangover.

“Good morning!”

He sat up quickly, and pulled the blankets around him almost up to his neck. The image was so cute I almost laughed out loud. He was too late anyway; I’d already seen all of him, and in great detail.

I’d already taken care to put my clothes on, and had had time to observe the room properly for the first time. It was nice. Big. Dark. I’d like a room like this, with a double bed, and lots of space. Not like the one I had now.

“I thought it was a dream…” Atsushi mumbled.

“Nope.” I reached for the bedside table. “Cigarette?” He took one, and lit it. I saw him grimace as if in pain, and push the blankets away to look down at his chest, seeing the small cut in the middle of it where I’d accidentally shoved the knife in. He looked back up at me. Then down again.

“Would you…let me get up and get dressed?” he asked quite timidly.

I nodded and stood up. “I’ll be downstairs, ok?” I bounced out.

I could see more of the place now, in the daytime. Wooden floorboards, dark velvet curtains. A nice wooden staircase. The house was rather empty, actually. He obviously didn’t spend enough time here to worry about decorating properly.

I went into the downstairs bathroom to touch up my eyeliner with the pencil I usually kept in my pocket. It really hit me then, as I looked in the mirror: I’m in Atsushi’s house, putting on eyeliner in his bathroom. It didn’t seem real. Nothing seemed real.

I heard him emerge from the bedroom and come down the stairs, and stepped outside. He had clothes on now, although he hadn’t brushed his hair. He looked at me, and then walked past without a word.

I followed him. “Atsushi-sama? I’ll give you my number and address, if you give me yours. Then if I break my promise and go to the media, you’ll know where I am to kill me.”

“Forget it. I don’t need it.”

I looked at the ground, having a sudden picture of everything I’d pushed away over the last twelve hours breaking its boundaries and rushing back. “I really wanted to see you again.”

“The deal’s over.” He looked straight at me. But he didn’t seem angry any more. I did like him this better this way.

“I love you.” I told him. I grabbed his shirt.

“No you don’t.” He looked away. I let go and went to write down my phone number and address using the pad that was by his phone and my eyeliner pencil. I handed the piece of paper to him. “Please. If you ever want anything. Anything. Atsushi-sama…”

“What?”

“I’ll let you do anything. You can kill me if you want to. If you ever feel like it, you won’t have to pay for it or anything, I’ll be there, ok?”

He looked down at me. It did seem a lot different saying these things now, in the daylight. But he took my pencil, and then my hand, and wrote the phone number down on the back. “You know the address.”

I was so happy. I threw my arms around him and kissed him next to his mouth. He pushed me away, but gently. “Don’t call me…if I need anything I’ll contact you.”

I nodded.

“I’ll call you a taxi home.” I sat in a chair in the living room and watched him as he made the phone call. Thinking he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Of course, Kyo could be the most beautiful woman.

I decided I’d die for either one of them happily. Even if they both hated me.

Atsushi hung up, and asked me if I’d remembered all my clothes. Acting like my mother or something. I told him I was sure. Seeing the way he was looking at me, I was wondering if he was ashamed. He seemed sad about something. Maybe I seemed younger in the daytime.

I could see that he really didn’t know what to do as we waited for the car. He even offered me breakfast. I just shook my head and smiled at him, and watched him. He sat down in another chair near me and looked away, out of the window.

When the taxi arrived, I waited until he’d gone to the door before standing up. I didn’t want him to see how much that hurt. His eyes just then had been distant, sad. Very different to last night.

I hugged him goodbye. Then I went out by the gate.

Kyo was sitting, as usual, with the pink-haired guy, Kaoru, the one who she’d told I was harmless. I went and sat with them and glared at her. I’m not hurt by you anymore. Just angry.

She ignored me, but Kaoru smiled.

“Guess who I fucked last night.”

She just raised her eyebrows. Kaoru, still smiling, asked “Who?”

“Atsushi.”

“Yeah right.” she said.

“It’s true. Look.” I held up my shirt to show her the marks on my chest that he’d made during the second time.

“Anyone could have done that.”

I dropped my shirt and narrowed my eyes. “Anyone? You should know I wouldn’t let anyone but you or Atsushi do that to me!”

“Yeah, whatever.” I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not. She got up. “I’m going to go get a drink.”

“That true?” Kaoru asked me after she’d gone.

“Of course. I have his phone number and everything.”

He laughed. “Congratulations, then. Don’t expect her to be jealous, though.”

“I just want us to be even, so she’ll talk to me again….” I admitted. I was chewing on my nail.

“Even after what happened?” I realised he must have seen the fight, or she’d at least told him about it.

“Yes. But I thought it wasn’t worth losing our friendship over a little fight.” I said. Of course I didn’t mean it. I had realised how little our friendship really consisted of, but I’d also realised that I was so lonely I’d still settle for empty shells of relationships. And so it was worth trying to retrieve it.

“Just stick with it.” he said. “I think you can do it. It worked last time, right?” He laughed again.

She came back then, empty-handed. “Wanna go drinking?” she said to him, as if she’d just changed her mind.

“Sure.” he said, and then turned to me. “Toshiya?”

So I went with them, half just to annoy her, because she was still ignoring me. I wasn’t going to give up, even if she hurt me again. And I didn’t care how pathetic that made me.

And she was trying, as well. At the bar, she soon left me and Kaoru alone to drink, and went off to talk to and flirt with a bartender she barely knew. At first I tried to ignore it, but after a while I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“She’s doing it deliberately…” I said to Kaoru, who was sitting next to me in the booth. “How come she’s so cruel? Do you know what she said to me?”

“Yes. I heard. I don’t think she meant it. It’s ok.” He smiled at me, supportive.

I sat there looking at her, and began to cry. “Kyo!”

Kaoru grabbed me and put his hand over my mouth. “Don’t embarrass yourself. You’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk.” I really wasn’t. I’d only had a few beers. I really was crying. She was deliberately hurting me. She hadn’t even looked at me.

I put my head down on the table and cried.

“Look, is that going to impress her?” Kaoru asked.

“Nothing will impress her…” I sobbed.

“Stop crying. Just ignore it. She’ll stop it eventually, I know her.”

He’d convinced me. I sat up, breathing shakily to stop the crying, and wiped away the smudged eyeliner using my compact mirror.

“It looked good like that.” He smiled.

I shook my head. “Too slutty.”

“But you like looking slutty, don’t you? Whenever you walk down the street here all the Ojii-san’s heads turn to look at you, I’ve seen it.” He laughed.

“Not that slutty.” I didn’t know where this was heading. He was looking straight at me, eyes fixed on mine. It made me feel trapped, but for some reason, I couldn’t look away.

“You don’t want to make her jealous?” he asked, tilting his head in Kyo’s general direction.

“No. No, I only want her.” He’d edged right up to me. I moved away, up against the wall. His hand wrapped around my waist. I couldn’t help looking around to see if anyone else in the bar had noticed. No one had.

It did feel good though, I had to admit. Warm.

Hesitantly, I rested my head on his shoulder.

“They have rooms upstairs.” he whispered into my hair. “I know the owner of this place. Want to get one?”

It took me about three seconds to decide. I nodded. “Yes.”

He kissed me first, very gently, and then took my hand and went up to the bar. The girl there laughed when he asked and led us up a staircase at the back of the place, refusing his money, as I wondered just what exactly was I doing. I don’t think she even noticed my gender, or didn’t care at all. And I didn’t know if Kyo had even noticed the two of us.

Kaoru led me inside, holding my wrist. I got nervous then – this had happened so quickly. A minute ago I’d still been in the bar, crying over a different person than the one I was about to sleep with.

There was a double bed in the middle of the room, which he led me over to. He sat me down on it, and kissed me again. I started to hug him, expecting him to keep kissing me, but he pulled away and started undoing my shirt.

“Take your pants off.” As I did what he said, he removed his own clothes. Then he lifted me up around the waist and pulled me towards the headboard, sitting me in front of it. He sat behind me, and grabbed my hair.

“Ow! Kaoru – ” He covered my mouth with his own, holding my head back by the hair. His other arm was holding me down. I couldn’t even yell.

Finally he pulled his mouth away, and then I felt it against my lower back, gradually moving back upwards. He was still holding me in place, his hands around my waist and chest.

 I knew he was about to do it, already. I remembered what Atsushi had said. “Kaoru…” I was struggling. “Wait! You’re meant to use a lubricant…”

He ignored me, and shoved it in. I screamed, and the shame of doing that afterwards was worse than the pain. I could feel him tearing everything open that had healed after the sex with Atsushi. I bit my lip because I didn’t want him to hear, but I couldn’t stop the moans coming out.

He ignored me. It was like he didn’t have any reason to treat me as a human being anymore. He just held me there. His arms tight across my chest, his lips sucking lightly on the back of my neck. My hair was falling over my face, and I was glad about that, because I didn’t want him to see the pain I was in.

I just sat there limply, biting my lip to stop myself screaming.

After he’d finished, I got up. I hadn’t even come. I pulled my clothes on, then turned and just looked at him with as much disgust as I could possibly express on my face, and ran out.

There were toilets in the bar. I went to the women’s one, which looked emptier, and locked myself in one of the stalls and cried and cried. There was blood this time, a lot of blood, and I was getting cramps. I sat down on the concrete floor next to the toilet, and must have stayed there for over an hour.

I kept telling myself that it was ok, he didn’t mean it, everyone has bad experiences like this. Everyone.

A voice kept creeping into my head.

Even Atsushi?

The next day I just stayed at home and lay on my bed, looking at the spot where Kyo’s stuff had been vacated. I brought the phone into my room and looked at it. I knew Kyo wouldn’t ring me. But I wanted someone to, anyone.

When I thought about Atsushi I began to cry. He’d only touched me because I forced him to. I was sure they both hated me. I hated having too much time to think, but I couldn’t go anywhere. It hurt even to sit up. That pain was bearable, but I hated being reminded of exactly what had happened.

On the second day I lay there thinking about Kaoru. I was replaying the event over and over again in my mind, from beginning to end.

What if Atsushi had felt the same way? I was sure I hadn’t hurt him physically, but what if he’d hated it as much as I’d hated it with Kaoru?

‘People can feel violated…’ he’d said to me. But I hadn’t listened, of course, because I was a terrible person, who didn’t even deserve to live, and deserved everything that came to him.

I wanted to cry with guilt when I thought of what I’d done. I wanted to stab myself. Why was I so stupid? Why had I even done it? I couldn’t think straight. Would I even be happy if I just had Kyo, without Atsushi? I hadn’t thought about that before.

I was living just on comforts. I lay there listening to my Buck-Tick CD’s and eating chocolate and candy. I watched hours and hours of television. I wanted to stay inside forever, and never have to leave the house and face anyone again. Kyo hated me and I couldn’t face Kaoru at all. And there was no one else I could turn to.

The next day, my brother got home when I was lying on the couch in front of the television and lost his temper, yelling at me for sitting around and not doing anything.

“I’m sick!” I yelled at him.

He pointed to all the empty food packets lying around. “Yeah, right. If you’re not going to look for a new job, you can cook every night. I’m not going to work and cook as well!”

“I can’t move! I hurt my leg!” I screamed.

“Stop being such a baby! You’re seventeen!” He went over to the couch where I was lying and grabbed my wrist. “Get up.”

I pulled it away and began to cry. I covered my face with my arms.

“You’re such a baby!”

“Leave me alone….” I sobbed.

He pulled my arms away and picked me up. “Stop crying. Do I have to slap you just to get some sense into you?!”

“Leave me alone!” I hit him on the side of my head with my palm, hard. He slapped me, and punched me in the stomach. I fell over and couldn’t stand up. I just lay on the ground and cried.

He looked guilty. He was twice my size, after all.

“Toshiya, I’m sorry.”

“I hate you.”

He knelt down and tried to turn my face towards him. “Go away.”

“I’ll go get some ice.” he mumbled. As he was heading into the kitchen, the doorbell rang.

“Yes, who is it?”

The door opened, and Kyo came in.

Straight away I tried to hide myself, because I was huddled in the corner wearing old clothes, my hair was messy and unwashed, and I had no makeup on. Plus a bleeding lip.

“Come in.” he said. He came out of the kitchen with an ice pack.

She took her boots off, which took quite a long time, and stepped up into the house. “I just came to see Toshiya…” she said quietly, looking at me.

He was standing me up and pressing the ice against my cheek. I couldn’t be bothered trying to stop him. I just stood there, miserable.

“Has something happened?”

“He’s hurt himself. Can you hold this here?” He gestured to the ice, and she took it, and held it against my face.

“Kyo…”

“You disappeared. I wondered what had happened?” But looking at her face I knew she knew exactly what had happened. Had she known about what Kaoru planned to do? That was too terrible even to think about.

My brother had made a quick exit. “…I thought you hated me.” I said to her.

She sighed. “I _don’t_ hate you.”

“What you said. And you were avoiding me.”

“You said it first. And then you were being annoying! Lying to me…”

“I wasn’t lying.” I mumbled, feeling my face starting to go numb.

“Serious?”

I nodded as much as I could. “I slept with him…”

“Wow.” She did look suitably impressed then. “Toshiya, Kaoru said he –”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I said, although I was curious about what he’d told her. Had he bragged about it? I wanted to throw up. How could I have trusted him?

She looked away, then got the idea and changed the subject. “I came here because I wouldn’t have seen you for a while. I won’t be going to the studios for a while.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve got what I wanted for now. I thought I might go back to Kumamoto for a while. Or something. Just a break.”

That was so like her. Taking what she needed and throwing the shell away. A good attitude, except when the shell happens to be me. Then she softens her conscience by coming to say goodbye.

“You won’t see me again, will you.”

“Toshiya….” She sighed again, biting her lip. “I didn’t mean that. I’ll come back”

I didn’t know if I believed her.

She took the ice away, because my cheek had gone suitably numb. “…Are you okay?”

“I want to die.”

“No you don’t.” She kissed my cheek, standing on her toes and pulling me down to do it, because she was a lot shorter than me without her boots on. “Whatever’s happened, it hasn’t been your fault.”

But she didn’t know about what I’d done. She didn’t know that it was my fault. Only I knew.

I let her hug me and say good-bye, feeling numb. I really didn’t know if I’d see her again. She would probably walk out of the door and forget all about me. Not even knowing if I decided to die.

The next Monday, I decided I should try going back to the studio. Although I was ashamed of what I’d done, I thought at least I might have a chance to apologise, if I had the guts. Or at least get a look at him, and convince myself that he was okay.

I’d been out only once before that, to go to the local shrine near my house. I took the money my brother gave me to buy food with, and bought enough to feed him only. I put the rest in the box at the altar and wished that Atsushi would forgive me and that I wouldn’t feel so bad about myself. I also prayed never to have to see Kaoru again.

This time, instead of the footpath or the wall, I leant on the fence next to where his car was parked to wait for him. The first day I went, I caught sight of him he came out with the others and he ignored me, not even looking in my direction. That was enough to satisfy me, though. If the same thing had happened to me, I’d be mad as well.

I turned up the next day as well, and the day after that. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do, other than sitting around moping. Again, he acted as if I was invisible. But then on Thursday, he came out at least fifteen minutes before he usually did, and all by himself.

Without Kyo there, there were no other fans around. I was still sitting beside his car, and I looked up at him as he walked past me and went around to the driver’s door. Then he turned to me, looking at me pointedly before getting in.

Oh. He’d come out alone on purpose. I stood up from where I’d been sitting against the fence and went over to him, wondering if this was a joke and he was going to suddenly drive off before I could reach the car.

I opened the door and bent down to see him.

“Want to get in?”

I must have looked at him blankly for a second, before I managed to nod and sit down in the passenger seat. I’d worn a short dress that day, for no real reason other than that it was hot. I knew my legs weren’t bad though, and to take advantage of that I didn’t bother pushing the skirt down after I sat down.

Next to me, Atsushi was smoking a cigarette. Seeing him up close again, I couldn’t help reaching up and touching his hair.

“It’s dirty.” I ran my fingers through it. “Do you want me to wash it?”

“Maybe later…”

I wrapped my fingers around the long strands, pulling it slightly, and smiled as head moved towards me. I liked this controlling him. I reached my hand down.

He grabbed my wrist. “Not in here.”

“Why are you seeing me again?” I asked, finally getting to what I’d been wondering about.

He ignored me, and just kept smoking.

“I would have thought you – ”

“Be quiet.” he said absently, and put out his cigarette and started the car. I shrugged, and we sat there in silence. He asked me if I could drive, and I said I couldn’t. I was still having crazy thoughts, like maybe he was driving me to the police, because he’d changed his mind. But we eventually pulled up in front of his house.

He invited me in, and we went into the kitchen. I could take a closer look around now. Empty, as I’d observed before. I saw in one of the rooms, next to a large stereo system, a collection of CD’s that would have filled my entire apartment. 

“….Do you want anything to eat?” He seemed so different from the other night. Back to his usual self, kind of nervous, uneasy, like he’d been the first time I’d met him. He wouldn’t really look at me.

I hadn’t eaten anything that day because I’d been saving my money and spending it on wishing for him, so I said yes.

“I’ve only got instant noodles.”

“That’s ok. It’s better than what I usually eat.”

He got the food out. “You look so skinny. Are you from a proper home?”

“Yes. But I don’t have a job right now.”

He remembered what I’d said to him as I said that, I could tell, because he winced. He didn’t ask me anything else, just stared out of the window as the noodles heated up, smoking. Occasionally he’d look at me, his eyes uncertain.

“You’re nervous.” I took the food he offered me. “Why did you bring me back here?”

He looked down. “I said I didn’t want to answer those questions.”

“But I thought you hated me.”

“Let’s go in here to eat.” He had to turn the light on, because the sun was starting to get low. We sat down at the table and ate. I finished long before him, because I was so hungry. He looked at me watching him eat, and then silently pushed me the bowl, and chain-smoked while I ate his as well.

“I feel like I’m feeding a street kid.” he mumbled. “Food and board in exchange for – ”

“Let’s go upstairs.” I cut off his words, and stood up. And almost reluctantly, he followed me.

“You do remember what I offered you, right?” I laughed. “Of course you do. Or else I wouldn’t be here.” He came out of the bathroom, and knelt down in front of me.

“I told you to be quiet.” But his eyes didn’t really have the strength of his words.

I smiled, and he leant forward to kiss my neck.

“You’re very pretty…” he mumbled. “But I don’t really like the thought of you naked…”

“I don’t have to be naked.”

He put his arm around my waist and began to push me back on the bed, then stopped and pulled back. I had stiffened up instinctively.

“Sorry…” I mumbled. I lay down. “Do you want me to move, or just lie here?”

“Have you ever slept with _anyone_ but me before?”

I shook my head. “I _told_ you…” Kaoru didn’t count, of course. It wasn’t like I’d had an active part in it.

“Ok then. I’ll tell you what to do?”

I nodded, feeling like I was about to have a doctor’s examination, the way we were both acting.

He sat on the bed. “Take off your clothes? Leave the dress on though.”

He watched me as I took off my fishnets and then all the jewelry that could have spiked him. I felt like I was being paid to strip or something, and couldn’t help smiling flirtatiously at him as I did it.

“Can I watch you as well?”

“No.” He took my face in his hand as I laughed, and pushed me back again. Weird. Was he really so scared of me being a guy he couldn’t bear me to take the dress off?

I helped him take his top off, anyway, and then started on the pants. He didn’t seem to mind me doing that, and let me push them down until he could get them off himself. Naked, he pulled me on top of him, and pushed my body back so that I was sitting up. I straightened up to sit on his hips, my dress still covering everything he didn’t want to see.

“This way?” I got the idea. I wasn’t that stupid.

“Yeah….can you do it?”

“Mm.” I knew it was going to hurt. I thought of Kaoru then, and felt all the excitement go out of my body. I had to get it out of my head.

I tried to concentrate on the man lying under me, resting one hand on his chest while I stroked him with the other. It only took a minute to get it hard enough, and then I could get it in. The same feeling. Strange. Uncomfortable, but not as painful as I’d expected.

“Toshiya….” he moaned as I began to move back and forth, knowing he liked that. His eyes were half-open as he gazed up at me. What did I look like to him, I wondered. Male? Female? Maybe he’s deluding himself, or maybe it’s something else I haven’t figured out. What was he trying to get with this?

He came. I didn’t. After I’d gotten off of him he turned over, and started looking around on the bedside table for a cigarette. I rolled onto my back and lay there and laughed.

“What?!” He turned back sharply to look at me.

“Nothing…”

“No really, what were you laughing at?”

“You.”

“Why?” He looked hurt.

“I was just thinking about how last time I said you could do _anything you want_ with me and the best thing you can come up with is just normal vanilla sex.” I laughed out loud again.

He got angry. “What the hell do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know, I just thought you’d have more of an imagination…”

“I _do_. Just not with underage males.”

“Ha.” I sat up and turned away, and felt him grab my arm. He pulled me back down onto the bed.

“I don’t have any ideas. Would you like to suggest something?” He was definitely angry now. He caught my face with his hand and held it still.

“Didn’t you ever have something you always wanted to do?”

“No. Actually, not all of us spend our lives fantasizing about sex with young boys.”

“Ha!” I said again. I couldn’t help squirming, because the grip was uncomfortable. “I’m old enough, and _you’re_ the one that brought me here. I meant, something you wanted to do with _anyone_? The person’s sex doesn’t matter.”

He thought for a second. I got sick of waiting and pushed him away. I sat up. “Fine then.” But he grabbed me and threw me back down. My head bent uncomfortably when I hit the bed, but I just smiled again, because I wanted to make him angrier.

“Are you M or something?”

“Maybe,” I said, even though I didn’t know what that meant.

He pulled me up and held me there sitting in front of him, as if I’d fall if he let go of my shoulders. His eyes moved up and down over me as if he was wondering where to start.

I shook my hair off from where it was resting on my shoulders, and tilted my head back to expose the neck. He got the hint, and began to kiss it.

Then he bit down, sucking the blood up towards the surface of the skin. I moaned. That was better.

“You wanna hit me….?” I mumbled

Silence.

“You must be angry at me. I did some horrible stuff, right? I’ve even been rude to you. I feel bad about it…”

He broke off, pulled back and looked at me. I sat there, absently clawing at my arm. It was getting dark; he couldn’t have seen that well.

“I really mean it.” I said. I did.

 “Fine.”

I kissed him, and he took my hands and brought them together in front of me. “…I’m going to tie you up.”

“Mm.” I let him pull me up gently and lead me from where I was sitting on the bed to the floor next to it. I knelt down and watched as he took my stockings off the floor and used them to tie my wrists to one of the slats of the wooden headboard.

I was kneeling facing the side of the bed, my shoulder close to the wall. I knew in this position he could drag me onto the bed if he wanted to. Clever.

“Have you done this before?” I smiled at him.

“Be quiet.”

“Or what?”

He pressed his lips against the back of my neck in response, moving back down along the top of my spine. I lay there against the bed laughing softly.

Angry, I felt his nails dig into the skin on my waist through my dress. He slid a hand underneath it then, and I gasped at where it rested.

He laughed quite cruelly as I squirmed. He’d never so much as touched me around there before. “…how’s that?” he asked.

I could only moan in response.

“I’m going to rip your dress.”

I nodded, out of breath, and squirmed again as he took his hand away in order to rip the small black dress down the back, breaking the straps as well. I couldn’t help shivering as the halves gave way, the skin finally exposed.

“…what are you going to do?” I put my head down on the bed and turned to him and forced a smile.

“Quiet.”

“Fuck me again….”

“I said _quiet_.” He took my head and turned my face away so that I couldn’t see him anymore. Then I felt his fingers, tracing along my lower back. “…still want me to hit you?” The voice was close to my ear.

“Yeah…that would be nice.”

“Okay. But not your face. I don’t want to hurt you too badly.”

“Okay.” I put my head down into the sheets, scared now, although I wouldn’t have admitted it. He’d stood up and was looking around for something. I kept my head down until he came back, and then felt his fingers on my back again, as he took the hair that hung there and moved it so that it fell down my front.

“Okay?”

“Mm…”

A sharp cracking sound, and then pain exploded along my back. I yelled in surprise and instinctively reached to touch the injured flesh, but my wrists were stopped short an inch from their original position.

He’d dropped down on his knees next to me, anger gone now. “Are you ok? I didn’t hurt you did I?”

A pretty stupid question considering he’d just hit me with what felt like a belt. But I shook my head and laughed at him, and told him it was nothing.

And so he got up, and continued.

I had no idea how anyone could possibly have enjoyed it.

I’d never realised how sensitive the skin on the back was. Every blow stung like the belt had ripped the skin off. I wanted to scream but I knew it would make him stop, so I held my breath.

After a while I was choking from lack of air, and I knew I had to let in my breath without screaming. I managed a short gasp, squeezing my eyes shut. I wasn’t going to cry. And when I gasped, I heard him give a short laugh; whether he was mocking me or thought I was enjoying it, I didn’t know. But he was enjoying it, I knew, and I wasn’t going to put an end to that.

It came down again, and I wished I couldn’t feel pain so that this could go on forever.

Again. I screamed. Fuck. I bit down on my lip to stop any more coming out, but tears were beginning to come to my eyes, and it was harder and harder to keep it all in.

Once more, then once more again, while I bit my lip, controlling my screams, but my whole body was shaking with every blow and I was on the verge of collapsing. I was praying that he’d stop and praying that he’d go on at the same time.

Maybe he noticed what I was feeling, or maybe he just got sick of it, but he hit me once more and then stopped, and sat down on the bed next to me. My face was buried in the sheets, because I didn’t want him to see the state I was in.

“Toshiya…..” He picked me up under the arms and pulled me up onto the bed, and flipped me over on my side where I lay with my eyes closed.

“Did you really enjoy that?”

I nodded, glad my hair was half-covering my face and that I still wasn’t facing him, because I so close to crying. I couldn’t even feel if I had any skin left on my back at all. It felt like it had been torn off, but I couldn’t feel any blood on me or the sheets. Then again, I couldn’t exactly feel much at all.

I must make sure he thinks I like it. Or he’ll feel guilty. He stopped when I cried out before. He has to enjoy it and think he’s not hurting anyone.

But he’d also enjoyed it when I was yelling near the end. I’d heard him. Maybe he just needs a bit of encouragement, and then I can stop pretending.

I felt him touching my hair.

Perhaps he’d like it more if I screamed and struggled a lot? But he’d stopped when I did that. Strange guy, he’s civilized. But he must like it, or otherwise he wouldn’t have taken up my offer and come back for more.

I had a horrible thought suddenly of seeing my hair all matted with blood, and had to open my eyes. Darkness, and him sitting behind me. It’s scary, this darkness. Like the whole world’s pressing in on us.

I forced a sound out of my throat as I turned weakly to face him. “Anything else?” My voice sounded weak to the point of breaking. I thought about him throwing me across the room, hitting me…

“Didn’t you ever want to beat someone up?”

He looked down at me for a second, and then stood up.

I watched him from where I was lying, surprised. “Where are you going?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. You really are.” he said quietly. He was standing up over me, next to the bed, and I felt him gently pushing me onto my stomach.

What’s wrong with you? I wanted to ask. “But you just enjoyed that….”

Silence.

“I know you did. Don’t feel bad. Just let yourself do it.” I was trying not to let my voice shake as he touched the skin of my back. I really just wanted to cry. Would he like it if I cried?

“Fuck me.” I told him.

The fingers tracing along the skin suddenly pressed harder, and I whimpered.

“Do it.” I said, knowing full well my pleas sounded insincere, but not caring. I felt him sit back down on the bed.

He continued to trace the injured skin, using the palm of his hand now.

I lay there trying to control my breathing.  I didn’t want it to sound shaky. I wasn’t going to cry.

You deserve this anyway.

It’s true. I do.

His other hand, feeling a lot colder than my skin, slid down my body as I lay there face down and still tied up, eventually reaching in between my legs and spreading them open.

“Oh…..” His fingers went in. I cried silently into the sheets. He was quiet. The room was so dark, he could have been a phantom.

He pulled them out. I bit my lip because I knew what was going to happen. I could cry right now and turn over and tell him to stop. And I knew he would. But he was enjoying this. I’d have to take it.

It wouldn’t have hurt that much when he did it, but at the same time he was resting his weight directly on my back, which I’m sure was turning black and purple. “Atsushi….” I kept yelling. I’d never been in such pain before.

What’s wrong with you? Something in my head was saying. This is _Atsushi_, you’d happily let him torture and kill you, can’t you appreciate anything?

Yes. This is better than nothing.

I love it. Because it’s him.

He wrapped one arm around my chest, pulling me closer. “Atsushi…” I sobbed. “I love you…I love you…” I must have repeated it a hundred times while he fucked me, even as he held me tighter and I couldn’t breath because of the pain, and I fainted.

When I woke up the next morning, his legs were wrapped around me, holding me in place. The first thing that I felt was nausea. I lay there for a while, thinking that I was just feeling fatigued from the lack of sleep last night, but it gradually became worse, and I had to get up and run to the bathroom.

I lay down on the cold floor, breathing hard, not knowing if I was going to throw up or not. Why did I feel this sick? I couldn’t remember anything after passing out last night. I thought I had woken up after that, but the memory kind of blurred into nothingness.

I heard Atsushi knocking on the door. “Toshiya? Are you ok?” He opened it. “What’s wrong?”

“I feel sick…” I moaned. I sat up because I was ashamed of him seeing me lying there, and pulled my knees up to hide myself, leaning against the tiled wall. The coolness felt so nice on my skin.

“Ohh…” I heard him say, and I realised he must have seen my back. Not that I’d seen it yet. He came into the room and knelt down in front of me.

“Toshiya, I’m so – ”

“Be quiet.” I said. “You’re not.” I wasn’t in the mood for listening to apologies. I knew he’d liked it.

“Don’t sit like that. It must hurt you.”

Yeah, it should be hurting me. But I didn’t feel anything. In fact, there was no pain anywhere on my body, which didn’t really match up with the memories I had of last night.

“What’s happened to me?” I asked.

“I gave you something.”

“You gave me something?” I was terrified. I didn’t know what he meant. “What did you give me?” I wanted to shrink away from him suddenly.

“That’s not important. But you’ll often feel sick when you first use it, so don’t worry about that.”

I wanted to cry. Suddenly my body felt cold instead of warm, and I pulled away from the tiles. “I can’t remember anything.”

“That’s normal as well. Don’t worry…”

What had he done after I’d fainted?

I was so scared, and sick. I pressed myself against the wall away from him and watched his face go all hurt.

“Toshiya, I’m sorry. You said it was okay last night. I didn’t know you wouldn’t like it.”

“It’s not your fault…” I mumbled, trying to pull my mind together. “I’m just cold.”

“Oh! You must be. Why don’t you have a shower and warm up?” He stood up, and I saw him standing there as if thinking about something. “I’ll get you something to wear. I have lots of dresses, you can choose one if you want.” He smiled at me. I wanted to cry because he was being too nice to me and I’d been selfish and had gotten mad at him.

I nodded and wanted to tell him to kill me right there, because I was too low even to exist. But I didn’t even want to bother him with that, so I let him leave, and then got into the shower.

The bathroom was quite western-style, the cabinets and things all in there as well as the bath. When I’d warmed myself up enough I went and looked in the mirror, after taking a quick look at the extensive collection of makeup lying on the counter.

Hm. My face was okay, although my neck was a bit bruised. I couldn’t see my back, at course, nor could I feel anything. I put on some of his eyeliner, wrapped a towel around me, and went out into the bedroom.

He was smoking and waiting for me, and immediately showed me to his wardrobe and a bunch of dresses that probably would have cost at least ten times more than the one he’d ruined. I took a black one.

“Take another one.”

I hesitated, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I did as he said, and put one on while he used the bathroom.

It did look very nice. I examined myself in the full-length mirror in his bedroom. Only a bit too big as well. The man had good taste. Of course, I hadn’t expected anything less.

He ordered in some ramen for breakfast, since in reality it was past lunchtime, and ate silently, looking distant again. I put my head down on the table next to my bowl and ate that way, because I was so tired. He glanced at me a few times, and then would look away, distracted.

Finally I asked, because I knew it would bother me if I left without knowing. “Why did you ask me here again?”

He kept looking away.

“Really, why? You wanted to hurt me? You want free sex?”

“Yeah.” He looked straight at me. “That’s it.”

“Oh.” I ate some more. “I thought you’d be angry after what I’d done, that’s all.”

“Why do I have to justify this?”

“I’m sorry…..” I mumbled.

“I liked you when you were here.” he said. “I liked your hair. And what’s more, I liked the way you were. Are.”

“What do you mean?”

He smiled, but not kindly.

I sat up, uncomfortable suddenly. I wanted to ask him again, but what was there to explain? I felt nervous.

“Just eat your food.” He gestured to it, and turned his eyes away again, staring off into space.

I did as he said.

********

“…it hurts.”

“It hurts today?”

“Mm.”

I went to kiss him then. Usually I never wanted to kiss Atsushi; I don’t know why. Kissing was for lovers – girlfriend and boyfriend-type lovers. I knew most prostitutes wouldn’t allow a kiss on the lips. Not that that had anything to do with me, I wasn’t a damn prostitute. But it seemed to show that we weren’t in love.

But I kissed him then to shut him up, because he still had the habit of talking to me like a doctor at first. I didn’t want us to be apart, separate, each seeking our own pleasure. That’s not the most enjoyable way to do it.

I wanted it to be the most enjoyable for him. Not for me, I still didn’t really enjoy this at all.

“…harder…..”

“Really?”

Stop talking to me. Just do it.

He broke away and began to kiss my neck, seemingly waiting for me to answer. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer, which caused his teeth to clamp down hard, breaking into the skin just below my ear.

“That’s better...” I moaned as he sped up.

“Toshiya….”

I was moaning in pain; it really did hurt. But I think he thought it was pleasure. Let him think what he wants. I kept his mouth pressed against my skin, not letting him go, his tongue moving over the wound.

His nails broke through my skin as he came. He’d drunk a bit beforehand this time, so he didn’t seem to mind hurting me as much. I liked him better this way, although he still took a lot of coaxing. We had a long way to go.

I slid myself out from under his body, and sat up and looked down at him. His body was white and slender, although not too small in frame, and from what I could see, absolutely perfect. I bent down to run my tongue along his collarbone. “Tired already?”

He laughed. “Just for a while. I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.”

“You’re twenty seven!” I laughed. I kissed the centre of his chest.

“You’re never going to tell me your age, are you?”

“I keep telling you!”

“Yeah right.” He laughed slightly bitterly, and turned his eyes away.

“So, what do you want to do?” I smiled and sat up, changing the subject.

“With what?”

“With me. With this.” I shook my hair back over my shoulders, gesturing to my body. “Tell me! I want to know.” I’d been doing this to him since that night.

He let his eyes move up and down me a bit. “I want it…all of it...”

I laughed. “And when it’s yours?”

He took my wrist. “Really wanna know?”

“Yeah…”

He kissed the side of my hand. “Cut it open.” Traced down my chest. “Tear you to pieces, cut your throat.” He laughed, the side of his thumbnail drifting along my neck.

I laughed as well. Yes, it’s the same feeling he’s getting, when you find something beautiful – you want to smash it, just because it’s there and it’s beautiful and there’s nothing else you can do to express that. I knew we could understand each other.

“Then no one else could have you…”

I knew he must have found me beautiful, if only on the surface. Of course that’s got little to do with real beauty, and he must have known that. The real beauty was in him, inside his head, coming out in his voice and his eyes. I had nothing like that…

“And what do you want to do with me?” he asked.

“I’m doing whatever I want to do whenever I want. See?” I brought the hand clutching my wrist up to my mouth and licked it. “No more….” And I put my leg in between his.

He laughed, and grabbed me and pulled me down under him again, running his mouth along my neck, which was now almost purple from all the times I’d gotten him to bite it.

Three, four, five times. It had built up. Once, maybe twice a week, we did this. He wasn’t recording regularly these days; most of the work was over. In fact, he’d said to me, he was as free now as he’d ever be, because at this stage he didn’t have to write anything or tour. He could see me all he wanted.

So after our first meeting he’d taken to ringing me up at home, in the daytime, when I was alone. I don’t think he realised that I did almost nothing else besides sit around waiting for him to call. I never left the house besides sometimes running down to the nearest shop, and always leaving the answering machine on when I did even that.

When he rang, I’d catch the train down to his place, and there we’d have sex. Nice, uncomplicated sex. And I was getting better at it as well. I could tell when he was in the mood for me to act normal, or when he just wanted me to lie there like a doll. He liked me to pressure him, though; he liked the way I acted. I could tell that simply because he kept calling.

The fourth or fifth time I’d gone to his house, when I was just about to go home, I’d mentioned something about how much I hated not having anything to listen to on the train.

“If someone’s staring at me or acting strange, it’s so much harder to ignore them…” I’d said, because I usually just babbled on to him about anything. He was good at listening and not talking.

“Why can’t you listen to music?”

“My walkman broke. I had it for too long anyway, it was really old. And I can’t buy a new one without any money.” Looking for a new job was out of the question, of course. What if Atsushi rang while I was working?

“Hm. Wait.” I’d been putting on my boots, and watched as he went to a cabinet near the living room and pulled out a Discman that could have been brand new. He had come back and handed it to me. “Take this one.”

I’d looked at him in shock. “No. I can’t take it. Here.” I’d tried to hand it back, but he had already stepped back into the house, and I couldn’t follow him in with my boots on.

“Forget it. I have a few.”

“Atsushi – ” But I hadn’t wanted to annoy him, so I’d shut up and just bowed to him. Then left feeling guilty as hell. It didn’t mean anything to him, of course, but what was I getting this in exchange for? I got uncomfortable when I thought about things like that. How would others judge me if they knew what I was doing?

Between the times when we were together, I would sit there for hours and think about him. I was kind of ashamed even doing it – how the hell would we ever end up together? But I couldn’t help it.

I invented situations and worlds for us, stupid fantasies. Staying together forever I in a house far far away. Strange images of him wearing a black dress and drinking red wine out of a glass. My fantasy was always to hold him, for some reason, to hold him and comfort him, as if he needed it. I wanted him to put his head against my body and close his eyes. I wanted him to speak to me and to not have to open my mouth again, because nothing I said was worth anything.

But his voice was beautiful, more beautiful than anything else in this world, and it made me want to shrivel up and die next to him. But I could live with that feeling, if only he permitted my presence. I loved him more than I ever had before.

A few weeks after we’d started seeing each other, he asked me to come to the studio at the usual time, because he was going to be there that day, fixing up some stuff. I turned up and waiting outside the back door.

Pretty soon he came out and stood in the doorway, holding the door open. “Toshiya, we might be a while longer.”

“That’s ok. I can wait here.”

He shook his head. “It’s too hot out here. Come in, you can stay in the waiting room and have a drink.”

“But – ”

“You’ll just have to pretend to be a girl. Just don’t draw attention to yourself and they’ll assume it’s my new girlfriend.”

“But – ” I said again. How does someone ‘pretend to be a girl’? Confused, I crossed my arms over my chest. Luckily I was wearing a t-shirt that day that wasn’t that tight.

“You’ll be okay.” he said, only slightly doubtfully, as he pulled me inside into the air-conditioning. “You’re so skinny no one will think it’s strange.”

He had to take me through a long corridor and past a few rooms before we got to the front of the building. There were two women working behind the reception counter there, and I was sure in a second that they knew all about me and my relationship with him. I shivered, and not just because it was cold in there.

“Here, sit down and wait for a while. There’s a vending machine over there, here’s some money for it. I’d give you one of the private rooms, they’re nicer, but there’s a chance someone might come in.” He spoke hurriedly, and quickly rushed off, leaving me with a few 100 yen pieces.

I sat there uncomfortably, not looking at the receptionists, because I didn’t want to know how that had looked. I couldn’t speak either; they’d know I was a guy. Luckily, they seemed to be ignoring me.

I saw then, looking out the glass doors, a security guard at the entrance. The back exit couldn’t be opened from the outside. It truly was hard for a fan to get in here. I should feel privileged, not uncomfortable.

It took him almost an hour to come back out, and during that time I’d managed to purchase and drink two cans of beer without talking to the receptionists. Not that I even liked beer; I just wanted them to think I was older than I was.

“I’m so sorry about that…” he said as he pulled me out of the place. At the car, he stopped and turned to me. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head. “I don’t really like people these days.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know…” I just hadn’t interacted with someone besides him for so long that other humans had began to become strange animals that scared me. The most I ever spoke with them was when I would by food at the local grocery.

All I could think about when I was alone with other people was the way they would judge me if they knew about what I was doing, and it seemed they did indeed know. I could see it in their eyes.

We got into the car. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Are you feeling ok, anyway?”

I looked at him sulkily. “You know, you could stop talking to me as if you’re a doctor or something.”

“Hey, you’re the one that’s always calling me ‘Atsushi-sama’ as if you’re my slave or something.”

I pouted. “Fine. Atsushi then.”

That’s better. He smiled and started the car, turning the air conditioning up. “Hey, wanna go for a drive today? I feel like driving.”

“Sure.” No one had ever taken me on a drive before. I didn’t know anyone old or rich enough, and my family had never even owned a car.

He put a CD on, some American 80’s band I’d vaguely heard of, and we drove without talking, which was the way I liked it.

“Where are we going?” I asked after a while.

“Out of the city.”

“That’ll take hours.”

He shrugged. “I like to leave the city sometimes.”

“Haven’t done it for years…not since my school excursions.” I mumbled.

“Ok then. We’ll go somewhere really out of the way.”

An few hours later, when the sun was setting, we pulled over to the side of the road. We’d gone into the mountains of some prefecture or another; I hadn’t been paying enough attention to know which.

“If you go down that road, you’ll get to a temple.” he told me. “So there’s not much traffic down here.”

“You come here often?”

“A few times. The forest’s nice if you want to be alone.”

The forest didn’t exactly look nice now. The trees seemed to go up forever and made me think of fairytales and giants hidden among them. I was never really one to feel close to nature.

I turned to him then, and smiled, guessing his motives. “So you could really do anything here, and no one would ever find out about it.”

He was lighting a cigarette. “Yes, I could.”

I laughed. “Kinky. What did you bring me here for?”

I thought he actually looked a bit hurt then, but his face changed straight away, and I could have imagined it. “Ok then. Get out of the car. We can use the back seat.”

I turned and looked at it doubtfully. “Is there enough room?”

“We can keep the door open.”

“Okay.” I opened the door, and was surprised at the air that hit me. I hadn’t breathed air this fresh and clean for as long as I could remember. “Ah, it’s so nice!”

“Isn’t it?” He smiled at me. I remembered what I was doing, and opened the back door and sat sideways on the seat.

“Come here…” I said to him.

He knelt down in front of me, which must have been painful on the rough ground. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked, as if we’d never had sex before.

I made a face at him. “What do you think? Where are the drugs when you need them? You’re all wimpy and nice today.”

“Not when I’m driving…” he said. “But do you want some?”

“Yes. Yes yes yes.” I’d long since understood why he hadn’t told me the name of the powder he kept giving me. Because otherwise I’d go and try to get it through some other source. Clever. This guy was amazingly good at acting like my parent.

“Ok then.” He got up and took a bag from behind a bunch of stuff in the glove box. “It’ll take a little while, wait.” I watched him kneel down and prepare something on the ground.

“What’s this?” I asked when he came back, looking at the syringe in his hand. He’d given me drugs four or five times, but I’d always taken them through the nose, so I’d thought it couldn’t have been heroin – didn’t you have to inject that? “Is this the same stuff?”

“Kind of. It works quicker this way.” he explained. “Hold out your arm.” I felt him wrap something around it, making the arm below the tie go numb. “You should feel it within a couple of seconds this time.”

And I did.

We kept driving after that. He’d always take me out into this same place in the forest, at night when there was no one else around, and we’d have sex in the back seat. In the pitch darkness, and with no humans around for miles, he worried less about me being a guy or any sort of appearance he had to keep up. We could do whatever we wanted.

Sometimes we’d do it on the bonnet, or even on the ground once or twice. After a while I began to play with him, just to make it more fun. I’d take him all the way out there and then pretend I didn’t want to, and make him angry. Never angry enough, though; he never attacked me. I wanted him to push me down, and tear my clothes, but he always just looked hurt in the end, until I felt sorry for him and gave in.

I did train him well though. Until he couldn’t tell anymore if I was playacting or serious. I’d pretend to change my mind, way past the point of no return in terms of sex. I’d got him up to the point once or twice where a casual passerby would think a rape was going on. It really was quite amusing to imagine how it appeared.

And I don’t know why I liked it. What am I saying? I didn’t like it. During our entire ‘relationship’ I hadn’t come once, although he’d tried vaguely a couple of times. I’d always stopped him. At best I felt nothing, at worst, it was plain painful.

But deep down I did like it. I liked the look on his face, the sound of his voice as he said my name, the way his whole body tensed up as he came, as if he was dying from pain. The smell of him, the taste of him. It was enough to make the pain worthwhile. More than enough.

We stopped once at a Korean restaurant in a small town we were passing through, because he was well into the habit of feeding me. I always accepted it, as well. We were talking about something stupid, and he’d kicked me under the table a bit harder than he’d intended.

I grabbed at my shin. “Fuck! That really hurt you know.”

“I’m sorry…” He took my hand. “An accident?”

I pouted at him.

“Anyway, I was under the impression that you liked pain.”

Like pain? What? Oh yeah, this guy thinks I’m the kind of freak that enjoys it.

“What sort of freak would like pain?” I asked, to annoy him, because I couldn’t be bothered keeping it up anymore. Maybe he’d enjoy it more if he knew I didn’t like it. What was the point, anyway, of hurting someone if they like it? You’re doing them a favour, not the other way round.

Those eyes fixed on me intensely like they always did. “Then….”

“Then what?” I was impatient already with the conversation, and began to eat one of the strange vegetable dishes he’d ordered while I waited for the meat in the centre of the table to cook.

He was distracted by that, and began to eat as well. After a pause he said “Well then….why do you always insist on….you know, you want me to hurt you.” I could see the blush on his pale skin. I was really missing the Atsushi I’d known in the car and in the forest over the last couple of weeks. It’s amazing the difference surroundings can make on a person.

“What sort of crazy person are you?”

“What?” He sounded hurt.

“Ok, I’m sorry.” I told him. “I don’t see how anyone could like pain. But I know one person enjoys it better if they’re in control and can hurt the other person.”

“What? Toshiya…” He was leaning back in his seat now, everything else forgotten. “I thought you wanted it because you liked it!”

“Are you crazy?” I asked again, and began to laugh. “But as long as you like it, I’m happy. Although I did pretend to like it at first, when you were still shy and everything. But I don’t have to pretend so much recently, do I?”

He was shaking his head. “That’s…”

“It’s true though, isn’t it? You do enjoy it better this way.”

“What...what makes you say that?”

“Well, we’re here aren’t we? If you didn’t like that type of sex you wouldn’t be seeing me.”

He looked away, and I smirked. “Where are we going after this?” I asked, bringing the conversation back to our usual topic. “The car? What about a hotel this time? Or just on the ground? That would be fun…”

He just shook his head and looked down at his food, and didn’t say anything for the rest of the meal.

I got home the next morning after he dropped me off at the end of my street. I wouldn’t let him go near the apartment building, so I had to walk the rest of the way. I staggered into the apartment, dragged my boots off, and collapsed onto the couch, where I sat and thought about going to sleep.

“Toshiya?” My brother’s voice came from the kitchen.

“I’m home…”

“Where have you been?” He came in, and I saw he was dressed for work; it was that late? I hadn’t realised.

“Out. With a girlfriend.” That was my usual excuse, because it seemed to make him happy.  But this time he just looked angry. He stood next to the couch and glared at me, looking just like a bossy parent. “You should tell me when you’re going to go out. You’re meant to be cooking, remember? And why don’t you look for another job? You must be out of money by now…”

I’d forgotten how energetic he got in the morning. I didn’t even have the strength to answer him properly, let alone argue. “Mmm…” I mumbled, closing my eyes. My head hurt.

“What’s happened to your neck?” he asked suddenly, and that woke me up a bit.

“Nothing.” I said, too quickly. Of course today had to be the day I’d decided to pull my hair back.

“No, really, are you okay?” His voice was all nice and concerned now.

“Yeah, it’s nothing at all…don’t you have to get to work?”

But he came closer. “Let me see…god Toshiya, who did that?”

“Who do you think?” I said, covering the worst of it with my hand and looking away. “My girlfriend, of course.”

“You have a pretty vicious girlfriend…” he said, but seemed to accept my explanation, so I let him kneel down and pull the hand away to look at my neck. “The skin’s broken here…you should disinfect it.”

“Mm, I will.” I closed my eyes again.

He turned my head to the other side, and pulled the top of my shirt down over my shoulder, exposing a bit of my chest. “Toshiya, this is really bad. Why’s she doing this to you?”

I opened my eyes to glare at him. “It’s none of your business. Can’t you leave me alone?” He didn’t move back and I lifted my arms in order to push him away, but he grabbed one of them and held it.

There was a short silence, but I was too sleepy then to really grasp what was happening, until he said “Toshiya.”

“What?”

“Toshiya. What the fuck is this.”

“Leave me alone. It’s none of your business, I said.”

“None of my business?” He yanked me forward by the arm he was holding. “Explain this. How long have you been doing them?”

“Doing what?” I asked sleepily.

He grabbed me and shook me roughly. “Drugs. Doing drugs!!”” he yelled.

His fingers were digging into my skin, but it didn’t real hurt. I looked from the scars on my arm – which really were starting to get numerous, come to think of it – back to his angry face. Then I decided to get angry as well. I broke my arms free and shoved him away. “Leave me alone. None of this has anything to do with you.”

He was shaking with rage. I don’t think I’d ever seen him that angry before. He must really have had something against drugs. “Where are you getting the money from?” he asked. “Stealing? Oh, I know, you’re selling yourself. That makes it all clear. Is that where you got the money for the Discman as well?” He’d found it? That one was definitely going to be hard to explain.

He grabbed me by the neck, and I yelled in pain. “You’re out all night, and you come home all beat up, and I don’t question it because I _trusted_ you.”

“No…” I said angrily. “You’ve got it all wrong!”

“Who gives you the drugs?  Your pimp? Fuck Toshiya, how could you?” To my surprise, I saw that he was almost crying, which was strange because he was still holding my neck as if he wanted to kill me.

I wanted to explain, but you can’t really make excuses for needle marks, and there was no way he was knowing about me sleeping with a guy ten years my senior. Even if what he thought was worse.

So of course I did all I really could do, and that was cry. I pulled his hand off me and dropped down to the ground.

He seemed to take it as if I’d admitted I was guilty, and knelt down beside me. “Toshiya…” he said more gently, all calmed down now. “It’s ok, don’t worry about it. Just tell me exactly what’s happened and how this all started, and go and get me all the drugs you’ve got in your room. We’ll get rid of them.”

I shook my head. “No…I don’t have any.”

I could tell he didn’t believe me. But he went on anyway.

“Toshiya. Tell me what’s happened, and we can get you some help.”

“No.”

“What?!” He grabbed my arms again. “I’m trying to help you!”

“I don’t need your help. Just leave me alone, I’m fine!” I tried to pull my arms away. “Let go, you’re hurting me!” Angrily, I slid one leg out from where I’d been sitting on it and kicked him away.

“Just fuck off! Let me have my own life!” I tried to back away towards my room.

“I’m not living under the same roof as a goddam junkie, Toshiya. You’re not staying here unless you come clean. I don’t share my house with prostitutes!”

I began to cry harder.

“I pay all the rent now, I can kick you out. And I will, unless you tell me _who’s_ been giving you the drugs, and promise never to see them again!”

“I _won’t_!!” I yelled at him.

“Then get the fuck out!”

“I will!!” I screamed and stormed into my room. I pulled out my bag and shoved some random clothes into it while he watched from the doorway.

I did up the bag and walked past him into the living room to retrieve the contents of my smaller bag and my lunchbox. “You’ll never see me again!” I screamed at him. “I’m going to go and jump off a building, and you’ll wish you’d done this to me!!”

“Threatening suicide again?” He laughed bitterly, all the kindness gone now. “Toshiya, you’ve been doing that since you were twelve. Give up.”

“FUCK YOU!!” I hit him with my bag as I walked past him and out the door, still crying my eyes out.

I don’t think he’d fully expected me to leave until I got to the door. His voice went all gentle again. “Toshiya. You don’t have do this. Just tell me…” he said as I was putting my boots back on.

I couldn’t stay here with him anymore, not after he’d used those words with me, called me a junkie and a prostitute.

And why did they hurt so much? Because it was exactly true of course. I was nothing more, no matter how much I denied it or ignored it or didn’t think about it or told myself it didn’t matter because I had him. The outside view still doesn’t change. The reality doesn’t change.

I just wanted to disappear.

I slammed the door after me, ignoring him, and cried all the way out of the building and to the train station. I didn’t even know where I was going. I leant against the wall in the crowded rush-hour station and cried, and the people ignored me because I looked like a junkie.

Atsushi. He was my only hope now. I had nowhere else to go. I had to wait until the evening before contacting him, though. Then I could just trouble him for board, and he wouldn’t have to worry about entertaining me for the whole day.

I spent the whole day asleep in one of the stalls in the women’s toilets in the station, curled up on the floor with my head resting on my bag. In the evening the cleaners came in, and I had to leave. The day was one thing. I knew finding a place to stay the night would be completely different.

Atsushi had told me never to call him, as I could remember all too clearly. I’d convinced myself easily enough in the morning, but when it came to actually doing it, I began to get doubtful. I must have stood there in the phone box, debating it over with myself, for over fifteen minutes.

Had things changed since he told me that? Of course they had. But maybe I was assuming too much. I was still just a groupie to him, wasn’t I? And groupies don’t ring up and ask for board.

But what was the alternative? To tell the truth, I was terrified of spending a night on the streets. There were homeless people everywhere that I was scared of, and they’d probably taken up all the good sleeping spots already, if I could ever convince myself to sleep in the open. And who else could I stay with? Kaoru? Yeah right.

I told myself how ridiculous I was being and that I should just give up. He said don’t call him. What part of that don’t you understand?

You don’t mean anything to him, and he owes you nothing. What the hell are you thinking, asking him for _board_? He could be doing anything.

Fuck that. I wasn’t sleeping outside. I could at least try. What’s the worst that could happen?

I dialed the number that I’d long since memorised, and waited.

“Hello?”

A male voice that definitely wasn’t Atsushi’s. Without thinking, I slammed down the phone, and stared at it in horror. Who was the guy who answered?

It was a Thursday night, nine pm. Who would be at Atsushi’s house at this time?

I left the phone booth quickly, as if being there was somehow incriminating. And then my mind went to work, telling me exactly what that guy was doing there. He was probably Atsushi’s best friend, and they were probably even sleeping together. Or worse, that it was another fan, and he had a thousand other people who he was sleeping with, and I meant nothing to him, or anybody, and nobody wanted me anymore and that I should just die.

Fuck. Those voices had a habit of coming up at the exactly wrong time. Blocking everything out when I most had to think.

What were my options? I could go home, but then I’d have to tell him about it, and there was no way I was doing that. That left me with a choice of trying to bother Atsushi again, or finding somewhere to sleep that wasn’t too cold.

You’re expecting free board as well as free food? What about all the other presents he gave you? What’s it all in exchange for? Your brother was right; you’re nothing but a whore.

I hated my brother for putting such ideas in my head. Atsushi hadn’t given me things, deliberately; he’d only done it when I was in need. Didn’t he owe me _something_?

The voices and the images wouldn’t go away, though.

And no. He owed me nothing. In fact, I owed him a million times over for even turning my way once.

I caught the train into Ikebukuro, simply because there were more buildings and more people there than in my suburb, and left the station. I didn’t have anywhere to sit down, so I just began to walk.

I wandered and thought and I could only hear his words again and again: ‘I’m not living under the same roof as a goddam junkie…’ So stupid, I should have known it all along.

 What really crushed me was that I didn’t have Atsushi with me on this. He had other people besides me, people a lot more important to him; I could see that now. And I had no one – I’d lost my friends, my job and now my family, everything, just for him.

And I didn’t even mind, because I loved him so much. It almost gave me some sort of pleasure deep down when I realised how bad my situation was. A kind of joy came over me when I realised just how deeply I had fucked everything up.

Not joy, actually, just a nice refreshing numbness. There’s a point when you realise you just don’t care anymore, about anything.

You’re an idiot, a voice in my head said. You’re going to kill yourself because you missed a phone call. How stupid.

But someone as stupid as me shouldn’t live, right?

Self-hatred isn’t a nice thing. It feeds on itself, I knew that by now. You realise how stupid you are for hating yourself, and that makes you hate yourself more. And everyone else tells you how stupid you are for it too, and that just makes it worse and worse until you can’t think anymore.

I was trying to get my thoughts straight and figure out what to do as I was walking the streets. It was a good way to stop thinking about the cold as well. It was surprisingly cold for the beginning of autumn, and I hadn’t expected it enough to bother taking my coat. I got cold too easily these days.

The only other people around were the ones returning from all the bars I passed. Mostly older men, and smelling of alcohol and looking at me as if I was the one making a tragedy of his life. I ignored them. I didn’t cry, I just thought, and I didn’t really know where I was heading until I reached the Ishikiri Bridge.

I looked over the side so that the parts of my hair that had come loose fell over the railings. If I died here and didn’t leave a note, no one would think to connect it with Atsushi except for Kyo and Kaoru, and they wouldn’t care enough to tell my family about him. He’d probably never find out about it, so he wouldn’t feel guilty.

In fact, the only ones that would feel bad were my family; my brother and my parents who I hadn’t seen in years anyway. And they’d probably gotten over it already. My parents certainly had. And as for my brother, it must have seemed to him like he’d lost me years ago.

I took the strap off over my head and set my box and bag down carefully on the ground, then climbed up on the railing, hanging on to the post next to me.

I looked down into the water, and could hardly see anything, just blackness. If I stared long enough, a few faintly reflected streetlights. If I looked up, there were no stars there either. Either it was cloudy, or the city lights were blocking them out.

 Was the fall enough to kill me? I couldn’t swim very well, certainly not well enough to get to the shore from the centre of the river. But I didn’t want to drown, I really didn’t. And what would my body look like? That scared me. Would it be all puffed up and blue and horrible?

What if Atsushi or Kyo saw it, for any reason?

“There must be a more elegant way to kill yourself.” I said aloud, because there was no one around anyway. I’d heard slitting your wrists was the way that left your body looking the nicest. Finding a razor might be a problem, but I could figure out a way. My knife was in my pocket, as it always was these days, but the blade wasn’t sharp enough to do. I hated knives.

Try Atsushi again.

What was this? A nice voice in my head? I got down off the railing, because of course I’d never had the guts to go through with it from the beginning. My brother had been right on that one, I should have just realised that from the beginning. Deep down, I was just too scared.

“Hello?”

It was his voice this time.

I opened my mouth to speak, and burst into tears.

“…who’s there?” he asked.

“…it’s me…”

“Toshiya?”

“Atsushi…I’m so sorry…I shouldn’t call you…but I got kicked out of my house and…”

“It’s okay.” he said gently. “Where are you now?”

“I’m near the Ishikiri Bridge…I’m so sorry…”

“It’s ok…you want to come here?” Hearing me crying, he repeated “It’s ok, it’s ok” a few times. “Look, you can get a taxi here. I’ll pay when you arrive.”

I sobbed. “Thank you…thank you so much…”

“It’s okay. I’ll be waiting here.” He hung up.

An hour later I arrived at his house, having cried my eyes out during the entire trip. The taxi driver was nice and politely ignored me, and let me run inside to get the money for him. Of course, by the time Atsushi saw me, my eyes were all red and I must have looked terrible.

“Toshiya…” he said. “Is it that bad? What happened?” He hugged me.

“Nothing…it’s not that…it’s just you’ve been so nice to me…” I burst into fresh tears. “I don’t deserve this…”

“Ohh…” He laughed softly as he held me. “Is that all? Don’t worry about it. It’s okay, I promise.” He tilted my head back to wipe the tears away. “It’s cold tonight, isn’t it? You can sleep in my bed.”

I couldn’t even answer him. “Come on.” he said, and led me upstairs.

“Atsushi…”

“Mm?” He led me into his bedroom and sat me down on the bed. It was unmade, and the room was dark; he must have been asleep when I rang him.

“I rang you before, and someone else answered…”

“Oh really?” he said as got into the other side of the bed and gently pulled me down to lie beside him. “Just a friend ne, we were talking about music and stuff.”

“Is he the guy you slept with?”

“Toshiya…”

I broke down crying again. “I’m sorry…you’ll have to forgive me…I’m so stupid and rude…”

“No, it’s ok. Don’t hurt yourself.” He pulled my hand off of my arm where I was trying to scratch the skin, and wrapped it around him. “Let’s just go to sleep, ne?”

I nodded and tried to breath steadily. He took my face in his two hands then and held it there silently, looking at me in the faint light. I closed my eyes, because his gaze was too penetrating, and I couldn’t face it. And I think I fell asleep that way.

We’d slept together, without having sex. That was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. It was still pretty early, because I’d already had too much sleep the day before. I lay there with him beside me for what could have been hours. Feeling mildly disgusted with myself. What on earth had I done to deserve this?

Around eleven o’clock, he finally woke up, and this time he smiled when he first saw me, and held me close to him. I let him, uncomfortable, because I wasn’t used to this at all.

“Atsushi…” I said, and stroked his hair. “Why don’t I go and make breakfast?”

“Mm. Okay.”

I managed to extract myself from his grasp, and headed downstairs. Screw breakfast, lunch was more interesting. I tried to think of something to make from the limited range of foods in his kitchen.

He came downstairs after a while and saw me cooking. “I’ve gained myself a housewife…”

“Quiet.”

“Wanna go for a drive later?”

I stopped what I was doing for a second. ‘Drive’ with us meant sex, really. Violent sex. Oh well. At least things would go back to normal and I wouldn’t have to feel guilty like I had in his bed.

But before that, there was a lot of time for me to get guilty again. It was like he’d mentioned the drive just to pre-warn me that all the events of the day, however friendly they seemed, meant nothing.

First, as we were eating, I told him what had happened, leaving out the part about the names my brother had called me, because I didn’t feel like talking about it. He looked incredibly guilty at that, and said it was all his fault, and that I could stay here for as long as I wanted.

“Thanks…” I said, looking at the ground, uncomfortable. “But I’m worried… about my house without me there…”

“What about it? You’re worried he’ll go through your stuff?”

“Huh? Oh no, it’s not that. Actually…”

“What?”

“It’s these pet fish I’ve got. I’m afraid he’ll forget to feed them. Usually I do, you see.” I laughed. “It sounds stupid, but I’m worried about it.”

He laughed as well, and got up to hug me then, but too roughly for it to really be comfortable. “Ne, I understand. I’m sure he’ll remember…and you can always go and get them and bring them here.”

To try and get it off my mind, he showed me his CD collection after lunch, and we talked about some of the bands whose CD’s I owned. He showed me all the other stuff in his house, including all his instruments and equipment.

We even ended up playing video games together all afternoon, for god’s sake. The way he was treating me, we could have been best friends.

It was already dark by the time we reached the usual place, although luckily it wasn’t as cold that night, because he quickly led me out of the car. I noticed in the moonlight that we’d parked a little further along, where there was a small clearing a little back from the road.

“Hm.” I said, and gestured to the clearing. “We’re going to do it over there?”

“That’s right.” He led me over. “There’s a full moon tonight, won’t it be pretty if we’re outside?”

I looked up and saw it for the first time. Amazing. The night sky was so much clearer outside of Tokyo. I must have gazed up there for a long time, because he grabbed my wrist and gently pulled me deeper into the forest, among the first of the trees. We were far back from the road now; I could hardly have seen the car even the daytime. The only noise I could hear was the faint buzzing of insects.

I sat down on the grass, and reached up to take off his shirt.

He took my hand away. “Not tonight.” he said, smiling, his face dark.

“Okay…” He pushed me back, and I just lay there as he lifted up my shirt and undid my pants, pulling them down past my knees. I lay there half naked in front of him, a bit embarrassed, because I knew in this light you could see everything.

Then he bent down to kiss my chest. Strange, that. I lay there waiting for him to move my legs apart, or take off his clothes, or anything, but he just kept kissing me.

It was quite nice, though. I lay there for a while, and kind of drifted off, and let him do whatever he wanted.

His other hand slid in between my legs, and began to stroke gently, copying what I’d done to him so many times.

It was only when I felt myself starting to get hard that I began to protest. “Hang on. Let me do it.” I tried to reach up and push him away, but he took my wrists and held them with his free hand.

“No. Not tonight. Tonight it’s your turn.”

“What?! No…” I said, but only very weakly, because I didn’t really want him to stop, not at all.

“Shh…relax.” He came up and kissed my neck gently, his other hand still at work. I was close to coming now, I could feel it. “Stop…” I wouldn’t let myself.

His whole weight was on me, and I felt his own hardness, pressing against my leg. I realised then just how much he was enjoying seeing me like this, and that’s what really pushed me over the edge. I gave up all resistance, and broke my hands away to hold him tight.

 “…what was that like?” he asked me softly when it was over.

I’d lain back on the grass, panting. I couldn’t answer.

“That was your first time, right?”

I nodded.

“Good?”

I could only nod, although in the aftermath I wanted to cry out of guilt. Why was he giving this to me? I wanted him to stop. I looked at him pleadingly, sure he could see it in the unusually strong moonlight.

He laughed softly. And at that second he looked like pure evil. “No, I won’t stop. I won’t stop until I’m finished.” Then he slid down, and wrapped his mouth around the flesh.

I screamed. “Atsushi, no! It hurts…” It truly did, it was way too soon after coming and the area was still sensitive. It hurt just to have him touch it. “Stop…”

He took his mouth off long enough to talk. “No. Not until we’ve made up for all the times you missed out.” He laughed evilly again, and continued.

An hour later.

He must have done it five or six times, maybe more, I was past counting. No matter how much I begged, he ignored me and just kept going, alternating between hand and mouth. Wiping the semen on the grass beside us. I’d been in tears since about the third time, and now I just lay there, sobbing quietly.

“No…..stop…..”

He laughed at me as he kissed my stomach.

“Please……I’ll die……I’ll dehydrate or something…….Atsushi, no….”

He ignored me, and I felt the warmth closing around me again. I moaned in pain, it was just too sensitive, I felt like I’d die. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists down on the grass around me, pulling out the few blades that remained there. Everything in my vision was turning red, blocking out all other feeling.

I knew he wouldn’t stop until I came again. I had to give in. I let my mind call up any vision it wanted to, anything to get me hard. I felt his lips draw back as he laughed softly, and knew it was working.

“No….” The time dragged on, it could have been a minute or an hour, I didn’t know. “Atsushi~~mou~~”

He sucked harder.

“Ahhh…….” I came in his mouth and fell back on the grass crying. My body was drenched with sweat and I could hardly breathe.

“Once more?”

“Please……” I moaned. “Please stop…….shinjau yo….”

He laughed.

“Atsushi….” I began to cry harder.

“Ok, ok then. No more.” He laughed gently, kindly, and picked me up in his arms and held me. I couldn’t help crying from the pain and exhaustion. He held me to his chest, stroking my hair and laughing softly.

“Atsushi…that was cruel…” I sobbed. I twisted to try to pull most of my clothes back on.

“I know you liked it, though. Ne?”

I cried into his chest. “You’re so cruel.”

“Sh, don’t cry. Just calm down a bit.”

We stayed that way for a while, until I had most of my breath back. “Are you ok?” He stroked my hair back from my face gently, and wiped away the remainder of the tears from my eyes.

“Mm.” I nodded.

“Good.” He kissed my lips. “Want to continue?”

Something in his embrace was becoming uncomfortable, but I didn’t say anything. He took my hair and kissed me. His hand came up and took my face and opened my mouth. “Mmm…”

He fell back in the grass, pulling me on top of him, and hand wrapping gently in my hair and pulling me closer. He broke the kiss. “Toshiya…”

I lay there and stroked his neck. “We really should go back to the car…” I said to him, feeling doubtful about all this.

He smiled at me, gently, and took my face again and kissed it, then my mouth.

Then I realised what it was that was making me uncomfortable. I didn’t like all this kissing. It was like we were lovers.

“Toshiya…” he said again and kissed my cheekbone, then my ear, biting gently in between the silver rings.

“….what?” I wished those thoughts had never come into my head. I hated them. I didn’t want him to love me. The whole idea disgusted me.

Him loving me? Suddenly I was getting angry, instead of guilty, as I remembered what we’d been like over the last twenty-four hours. And then he gives _me_ sex.  The goddam gentle kisses and caresses he was giving me were fuelling it as well.

He couldn’t love me. That was wrong, so damn wrong. I didn’t know why it disgusted me so much to think about it. He was very very high and I was very very low, so I was meant to love him, but him loving me was wrong. He was meant to despise me, because I was low, the same way Kyo despised me. They could love each other, but they couldn’t love me.

I tried to push myself off him, but he was holding me tight. I got so angry then, I could have killed him. “Let me go!” God, this is so wrong.

He sat up, confused. “What is it?”

“This is all about sex, right?”

It took him a moment to get what I was talking about. “What….?”

I was so angry I was almost crying. “This is all about sex! This relationship, is, about, sex!!”

He misunderstood my anger, taking it to mean the exact opposite of what it did. So he said something like “It’s more than that now.”

“No….no….” I said. I was holding my face in my hands. I still had my knife in my pocket. I pulled it out, and flipped out the blade.

“Toshiya…” He looked so surprised. I grabbed him by the hair, pulled his head backwards and shoved the knife against his neck. I put my knee into his back and held him there that way.

“This is all for sex.” I said firmly.

He nodded. I felt his body go all cold and motionless again.

“You don’t love me, do you?”

He didn’t answer for a second, and I pressed the knife harder against his skin.

“Say you don’t love me…”

“I don’t love you…” he repeated emptily.

“You hate me, don’t you? Say it. Say you hate me.” I growled, hating myself as well. I’d been in his bed that morning enjoying his company! What was wrong with me? He’d even fooled me into this as well.

“I hate you.” Atsushi repeated.

“You despise me. You only want to hurt me. Say you wouldn’t love me if I saved your life a thousand times over.”

He repeated the words. He was shaking. I crawled off him and stood there shaking in anger and looked at him. He looked weak, hurt. He sat up and looked back at me. His eyes were full of pain.

No. He wasn’t meant to be weak. He was Atsushi, he was meant to be strong. I hated him. So weak he’d fallen for me. Let me into his house when I didn’t belong there. Done everything for me, hurt himself for me. And now he would forgive me, even for this.

“Why are you looking at me like that? You’re so fucking weak, I hate it! You’re bigger than me! Why don’t you get angry? I’m right here! Overpower me!” I dropped the knife. In fact, I threw it in his direction. I wouldn’t have minded if he’d decided to cut me open. Death can be beautiful.

He stood up to face me and then I remembered how I’d got my brother so angry all that time ago, angry enough to hit me. I slapped his face, hard. Then I spat on him.

He grabbed me so hard the force made us both fall backwards.

He tore off my clothes. The grass was painful as it scraped against the bare skin. This time, I was fighting and struggling and yelling. I bit him and scratched him. He grabbed my wrists and held me down and fucked me. I think I kept yelling at him all through it how weak he was, because it was true, I wanted him to be stronger, strong enough to tear me apart and kill me with his rage.

He bit me hard on the shoulder and the side of my face. I was struggling so much, it must have hurt him too. Finally he clamped his hand around my neck and held it there. I couldn’t move anymore, I could hardly breath. I lay there quietly then, until he’d finished.

He just lay on top of me as I was bleeding all over, his breathing gradually slowing down. We lay there. I didn’t talk.

Finally he spoke. “Toshiya…”

“Mm…”

“Don’t you ever think about your happiness?” His voice was flat, dead.

“My happiness doesn’t mean anything to me. All I want is for you to be happy.”

He took his hand from around my neck and gazed at me angrily. “Do you think I enjoyed what’s happened here? Do you think I’ll go home and be happy about what I’ve done!?”

I didn’t answer.

“What makes me happy is if the other person is happy. Why is that concept so alien to you?”

I shook my head, or as much as I could manage to. “It’s wrong. You couldn’t be happy with someone like me.”

He pulled out of me then. Without thinking, I cried out in pain. “Then we don’t belong together.” he said quietly.

I lay there in the grass as he sat beside me, because I couldn’t even sit up.

“…You’re all I have.” I said softly.

He stared off at nothing and didn’t answer.

“…I’m so sorry I bothered you…” Knowing how empty my voice was now.

“I could get you a job, a good job somewhere, and we could break it off there… Then I wouldn’t have abandoned you. I can’t just leave you like you are now.”

He meant the way I was mentally, but it seemed to remind him, and he turned and looked as me as I lay there.

“Oh, Toshiya…” he said. He was in tears. “Oh god. Look at you. I raped you. What am I going to do now?”

I wanted to cry as well. I didn’t feel angry anymore. Just kind of empty. Because I still loved him, and he still didn’t hate me, he was sorry for me, and everything was completely and utterly screwed. And I didn’t even have the energy to get angry again. I just wanted it to end.

Ignoring the pain, I sat up, pulling on the remainder of my pants, them being the only part of my clothing that still resembled anything but rags. Atsushi just watched me, dumbly. Disgusting, him looking at me like that.  But I didn’t want to hurt him, just for this sympathy to be over so that he could see what I really was.

What was it he said about the first time he saw me? Why hadn’t he hated me…?

Because he’d liked the way I was, or something like that. And something else…

The moon had gone behind a cloud then. Finally, it was something like nighttime again. I walked some distance away, and was fumbling around on the ground for the knife I’d thrown down before, because the grass was longish and it was hard to see.

Atsushi got up then and said something else, and tried to grab at me, as if guessing what I planned. I lunged at him as if I’d already found it, and fooled in the darkness, he fell back. I snarled at him while going back to searching, and at that instant I felt it under my fingers – felt it cut me, because the blade had come out when I’d thrown it and I’d grabbed it too hard.

I picked it up and held it at him and saw the metal flash and gleam in the remnants of moonlight.

He just looked at me. I couldn’t see him very well but I could see his eyes, see that this time he wasn’t going to plead with me to stop; he was past really trying to help me, I’d stopped that, or at least I was about to.

“GET BACK!” I screamed, and when he moved back only slightly, I went at him and kicked him backwards myself. Didn’t do much; I didn’t have shoes on. I turned and walked off and leant against a nearby tree and reached the knife up.

“What the fuck are you doing?!!!” There was no concern now, just anger. It was finally working. The left side of my head felt so light now. I picked up another bunch of hair and hacked at it with the knife. It hurt, it really did.

“Stop – ” I threw the handful at him and grabbed another. It fell at his feet, lifeless and almost gruesome now, the way an animal’s body loses its beauty when it dies.

I hadn’t felt the air on my neck this way for as long as I could remember. I smiled because he was on his knees and I thought I’d have the last laugh.

“Still love me now?”

“You’re crazy. You’re fucking crazy!!” He stood up. He looked crazed right now, ready to kill. The remorse gone, at least.

I wasn’t going to cry again, and get his sympathy. Doing anything to take attention away from my eyes, where the tears were forming, I lifted the knife again and shoved it into my palm.

I felt him grab me then, and the knife was twisted out, and thrown away. It hadn’t gone all the way through anyway; I wasn’t strong enough. I felt him pick me up violently and hit me, screaming stuff into my face that I couldn’t understand. He threw me down, and hit me again, dragging me up again by what was left of my hair.

“You bitch, you fucking bitch…you’re crazy, why the fuck did you do that?!” But he was screaming, more insane than I’d ever been. I think he was crying. He picked me up and shook me and threw me against the tree behind me, and slapped my face again and again until I went limp in his arms.

But he didn’t stop, he just kept hitting me and kicking me, until I was unconscious or he was exhausted, I can’t remember which one came first.

I’m so weak and hopeless, and he’s so strong and so bright. I felt that now. I could see him shining from where I was lying on the ground looking up. Was that him in the sky? It must have been. I lay there and thought about how beautiful he was.

And so close…he was finally where he belonged.

********

“Osoi na…”

I was standing at the window that faces the street and chain smoking and waiting for her, because even though the evening sun on the window was bothering me, I didn’t have anything else to distract me from being alone.

“He’s unstable, very unstable.” Atsushi had repeated me their words at the hospital, because he’d been my ‘friend’ to them who had found me like I was. He never once looked at my face as he spoke. “I’d recommend…” The pills they gave me had nothing to do with my injuries. The doctors thought my hand had been some sort of suicide attempt. What did they think I was, stupid? I threw the pills away.

He’d said to me afterwards, coldly, that he’d get me a room. That was the last time I saw him.

I thought he meant he’d pay for me to stay somewhere for a while, but he actually bought me a place. It’s in Tokyo still, near the center, and not that small, so it must have cost him a lot. I don’t think I’ll be staying her for that long though; it seems tainted. I still don’t know if he bought it to make himself feel better or to keep me quiet about everything. I haven’t contacted him, because I know he’s got no desire to talk to me, which is fine.

Anyway, it didn’t matter. I went to my old apartment in the daytime when I knew my brother would be out, and took my futon and stereo and anything else I thought I needed. Including my fish, which luckily were still alive, although one of the biggest ones was spending a suspicious amount of time floating around the surface. I put them all in the new apartment.

At first it was bad here, when I was all alone. I was cold and in pain and didn’t really have anyone or anything, and it was hard every day to find an excuse just not to kill myself. The main one was that I was still so scared of someone seeing my body after I’d died. If I could have destroyed myself completely, I would have, but I couldn’t find a way. I didn’t want to end up all cold and hard and disgusting like that half-dead fish. So I just lay in bed, and thought about things.

I knew I needed a change. I hated everything about the boy who had begged a rock star to cut his wrists open on the way to the hospital, and who had stood on a bridge ready to jump in and sink and drown in the water. I couldn’t stand seeing him in the mirror and reflected in the eyes of people I looked at.

So I sat on the floor in the bathroom on the first day I could move and cut my hair into a reasonable style, up above the ears. Then I sold all the clothes and jewelry I didn’t want anymore. I didn’t want anything see-through or fishnet, so I ended up with almost nothing, just a few coats and stuff. With the money I got I bought new clothes; suits and stuff that covered up the flesh instead of exposing it, and some nicer jewelry and makeup. And as soon I could walk and I’d healed up enough to be presentable, I went into the first place with a ‘help wanted’ sign and got a job behind the counter of an accessories store.

I’m living off that salary now. I still don’t have a telephone or anything to cook with, but that’s ok. I think that Atsushi’s somehow given me a chance, and I can figure everything out now. Just with some time to think first.

I rang Kyo from a payphone down the street a few days ago and found out she’s coming back to Tokyo.

“Where are you going to be staying?”

She laughed. “On the floor of someone’s house, most likely.” By the sound of her voice, I think she still thought I was mad at her.

“I have a room here now, a new one, if you want to share…” I’d said shyly.

“That would be great.” She had sounded friendly and happy enough for me to wonder what her motives were. This girl really should hate me.

She said that this time she’d pay board if necessary, but I told her she didn’t need to. I was glad enough she’d just agreed to come, and maybe even live here.

I’ve been preparing for her to come since then. I still don’t have a spare futon, but I figured I could sleep on the floor if necessary. I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of us sharing. It would imply she actually liked me or something.

I even went down to the am/pm today and bought two meals for us to eat. I’ve been living off that place, unhealthy as it is. At first when I came from the hospital, I kept getting sick and cold all the time, which I’d put down to the drugs, or lack of them. I’d been too scared even to leave the house in case I went pursuing some. I’ve ended up smoking a lot more and eating candy to try and make up for it.

I think she’ll probably come today. But I don’t know if she’ll stay. I’ll have to deal with that later. As for now, I’m once again living by just dealing with the little things – I get up, I listen to music, I go to work, I eat, I sleep. I make myself happy by buying chocolate or cigarettes, or by going to Shibuya to look at clothing and the girls that hang out there. Sometimes I’m happy just to have a shower or go to catch the train, because these things are necessary, and they make me feel purposeful. I put his picture on my wall, as well. Makes me proud, in some strange way, as if it means I’m over him.

She probably won’t stay. The sun was beginning to set, making the room painfully bright. I was still standing there, looking at the almost empty street. And after a while I finally saw her coming from the bus stop down the road.

I tried to have a look at her through the sunlight that hurt my eyes. She hadn’t changed much from when I’d last seen her. Her hair had grown out a lot, and she hadn’t redyed it. I also saw she wasn’t wearing the usual band t-shirt. Which was a good sign, because I didn’t want to talk about all the old stuff for now. I wanted her to see me as a new person. One that still wasn’t good enough for her, I’ll never be good enough for her, but at least someone different.

Because every day I look in the mirror to convince myself that the past is gone and that I’ve changed, that I can forget the scars on my body and get rid of the memories, and that the old Toshiya died when I cut off my hair. I can’t continue otherwise.

And that even though I don’t deserve her and I’ve done stupid things, with her, I can change.

And things can be different this time.

 OWARI