“Let’s Fly as the Bird’s Do…” Chapter Seven

5/10/01

By: Hikari

E-mail to: [email protected]

Site: http://www.geocities.com/hikari_nanase/

Notes: Music theme to chapter: “Falling Away from Me” by: Korn.

 

~*~*~*~

 

            Love is a funny thing… Fickle really… Sometimes you think of it as lust…

 

…Maybe that’s what it is…

 

Have you ever sold yourself to bondage? Letting a stranger use your body as they wish? It leaves such a cold feeling inside. You feel foreign hands roam about your naked body… Touching you in places most sacred…Consented rape…

 

 Just cold.

 

 It’s not like you killed someone… Then again, the very act kills YOU. Suicide. You’re flirting with suicide. To become a slut or pimp is one thing… But to be sealed from love is worse…

 

~*~*~*~

 

            Either spring decided to pass the ritual equinox, or summer completely absorbed the season with its unbearable heat. The climate had been peculiar as of late. Winter didn’t have the intense winds or piles of prickly frost- no. This year it was pleasant, the snow had fallen to the earth delicately and caused no more than the reddening of cool cheeks. The fall beforehand had dropped the leaves, as usual, however the air was modest. One would not fear going out for a walk in a simple shirt or sweater- those alone were enough for needed warmth. Now spring, it was as if it never came, but had passed by unseen. In truth, this was the season, and it displayed within the blossoming of flowers and feverish romance. As for the weather… It baked.

 

            Kurama opened the door- wincing a little as the metal handle frankly burnt his hand- and entered the hall. It felt wonderful to step in. The air-conditioning blew back his hair in that instant, freshening his visage by a scale. Astonishingly, the everyday commotion he was accustomed to did not meet with his senses. In fact, his very appearance created a wave of silence that washed over the once clamoring students. At the time, he made no business of it- he could care less. The weekend had gone by fleetingly, two days of recreation plus the much needed Sunday for convalescence. Within his own mind, he could hear whistling. Happy whistling. It was another day and it felt good to live… Good to breathe and stroll down the school building.

 

            As he walked, whispers emitted from all over- clouding around his ears, and yet not making much definite sense. The only few words he could clearly recognize were: ‘Did you…?’ ‘I can’t believe…’ and other odds and ends.

 

            Stares were jabbing into his back- he felt them. It was a sharp sensation, almost as though he were stripped of all his clothing… before them all. Such a feeling leads only to pitiful shame… and yet Kurama thought in contradiction to his emotions. There was no need. His intuition was off today. Simple. After all, what could be expected after an exhausting two days of outing?

 

            Making a turn to his locker, Kurama fingered his combination- rotating to the right, then to the left, and then to the right again. Readying to pull the lock open, the redhead stopped at noticing several shadows crowding around him on the white tiled floor. They were surrounding him. It was only so conspicuous because of the unmistakable outlines of humanly figures- bunched together and swaying as the tall brown grasses do.

 

            As he took his eyes away from the ground, Kurama turned and smiled haphazardly. His grin melted away. The faces around him sent messages of impending darkness, disposed to fall over his shoulders at any moment.

 

            That’s when it happened. Someone, a person he had no history with whatsoever, slapped him hard on the ass and whispered into his ear.

 

            “…So… How’s your anal partner?”

 

            The redhead nearly jumped at that. Electricity. He reacted with immeasurable stun. “What- what are you talking about?”

 

            “You fucked up gay lord! You went ass-licking!”

 

            “I- I would do no such thing…”

 

            “Yeah, sure! Now we know why you keep your hair so long- you wish you were a girl so you could get your man laid!”

 

            “Fag!”

 

            “Fag!”

 

            The metal of the locker banged loudly as it met with the rushing of his back. Meekness somehow poured over his demeanor. Retaliation would have been his first impulse, but the first onslaught of shock from earlier still lingered throughout every fiber of his being. They found out. All of them. They KNEW. 

 

            “Fag!”

 

            “Fag!”

 

            Their jeering swallowed his eardrums. The same chant over and over: FAG. It was just a word, a three-letter word at that, but it stung. Kurama bowed his head down- somewhat hoping his hair would hide the dreaded manifestation of his face. Peering through the fine strands, he saw many girls looking on from behind the gang of boys. They did nothing- merely looked on and watched as the teens battered him with cursing. To the far left, the redhead spied a face of a friend. Without a doubt it was Saito Arisu. Yes, the fine and smooth long white gold hair… the aqua marine eyes. Her beautiful face had gone pale, and her skin seemed to shiver uncontrollably with what Kurama perceived to be as moroseness and resentment. Then, as if it couldn’t have gotten any worse, Shidou joined his girlfriend’s side- staring emotionlessly at him as the barrage of verbal abuse continued.

 

            “If you start sticking your tongue down some guy’s throat, why don’t you just get a vagina while you’re at it!”

           

“You moron! If he keeps his dick, he can play with himself, easy! Why do you think gay guys are gay?”

 

            “What do you keep in your locker, Shuiichi? Lubricant?”

 

            The crowd laughed. The hateful kind of laugh, where one would go so far as to shoot himself first before becoming the new hunchback of Notre Dam.

 

            Kurama felt his lips trembling wildly, innumerable questions trafficking his head in concurrence. ‘How did this happen? Why? Everything was going so well… Why must they do this to me now? Who started this? I want to cry, but I refuse to… Why do I need to cry? They’re the ones who are fools… But how is it, then, that I am the one outnumbered?’

 

            “Open his locker!”

 

            “Open his locker!”

 

            “OPEN HIS LOCKER!!!”

 

            Pushing him violently to the side, another student pulled at the already set lock. With this, the locker door was forced open as a waterfall of tampons and lipstick tumbled out of the dark cabinet. The items spilled onto the floor loudly- plastic rods spinning around in circles and coming into counter with peoples’ feet. They gasped and yelled- disgusted. Some of them even jumped away as if they would somehow be contaminated.

 

            “Those don’t belong to me!” The redhead cried with earnest. “Someone must have planted them there! I swear it!”

 

            “I don’t believe you…”

 

            “Me neither… For all we know, you USE those tampons to masturbate!”

 

            “Gross! Man, pick up your shit before someone slips and gets hurt because of you!”

 

            “I ALREADY told you! Those don’t belong to me! And what makes you even THINK that I’m a homosexual?”

 

            The last line was tragic denial. It wasn’t until shortly after that Kurama realized it, and when he did- it hit him with such a pang he had to lean against the wall he was thrown to. To his further consternation- Shidou walked up to him silently, reaching for some crumpled piece of paper tucked within the folds of his pocket.

 

            “This does.” Shidou said stringently. He handed him the paper, his head angled down and his amber eyes aiming straight up. He changed, Shuiichi’s friend changed. The face was the same, however… there was an impression of coldness that emanated from his frame.

 

            Unfolding the paper, green irises widened at the print out. “The… arboretum…” He whispered. “Where did you get this?”

 

            “It’s… all over the place, Shuiichi. I received mine from e-mail… Just about everyone else got it the same way.” At this point, Shidou forced himself to be as kind as possible- the effort of this indisputably showed. “This… This is a joke… Right?”

 

            Kurama still stared intently at the paper.

 

            “Shuiichi?” He went back to his original tone. “It IS a joke, right? The guy you were with the other day…”

 

            The redhead swallowed. This person, the one talking to him now, was a friend searching desperately for the truth. He couldn’t lie to him. Lies ruin everything. That’s how it was with his mother- forbid the same would happen between him and Shidou. The answer, Kurama knew, would be one the other would not want to hear… But what else may he do? Deny his lover?

 

            “He’s…” He has the chance- he could lie out of it. No. It wouldn’t work. The evidence was plainly too pure in fact. No. Never deny the truth. Never deny the one you love, for then what there was… will never be again…

 

            Karma.

 

            “He’s… He IS… more than a friend-”

 

            “Did you kiss him?” Again, his friend was urging him on hastily. The pressure was extreme. So bad it was, Kurama felt his insides being incinerated, and his bones being crushed from both sides.

 

            “I… won’t deceive you…”

 

            The bell rang and many departed- they heard what they needed.

 

            “I see…” The dark haired one turned- figure somewhat bent over in what could be disappointment. Arisu followed after him, her black shoes tapping at the flooring almost musically. She turned back to Shuiichi, her hair flying in a thin sheet against the atmosphere. Her eyes had deepened. They were oceany, and the tears she suppressed only furthered that image.

 

            Now being the only ones in the hall, Kurama had to be the one to bring to sum enough courage to walk to her. Arisu stood at wait, uneasy of what to think in the latest of revelations.

 

            “We’re… still friends, right?”

 

            “I… don’t know.” Balling her fist, she clutched onto the hem of her uniform. “Gomen nasai… But I feel as though I don’t know you at all anymore...” She looked down to her shoes- absently swallowing the tension in one gulp. “Do you remember, when we first met? And it seemed as if we knew each other inside and out when we spoke to one another? Now… It feels like I lost that…”

 

            Kurama found his teeth chittering. Suddenly, it felt so icy. “I’m still the same person.”

 

            “Maybe, but…” The blonde wasn’t too sure as to what to say. She was already late for class, but what was important to her at present was that her number one friendship was at stake. “But… I thought… Listen, when I received that letter, I refused to believe it- I never thought of you to be perverse… However- ”

 

            “Is THAT what you think I am?” He interrupted emotionally. “Arisu… You and Shidou are my closest friends here- I’m not sick, I’m just like everyone else… Only…”

 

            “That’s not my problem, Shuiichi-kun. Don’t you see? I noticed three months ago that you were hardly communicating with me… You already know how Shidou is; he’s always busy when we’re not going out. I want to talk to you whenever I get the chance, but recently, you haven’t been around- not even for a study date. Just last Monday, I called if you wanted to come to Shidou’s volleyball game. You never called back. It wasn’t bothering me at first, but now that I know what’s going on… Well…I feel bad that you haven’t at least told me you were seeing someone… You didn’t have to give me the specifics, just give me a reason as to why our friendship is deteriorating…”

            “Arisu…”

 

            “No. I’m not finished. What leads me to believe that you’ve done something perverse is the fact that you keep everything so secret. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much I honestly DON’T know about you. I can’t be friends with someone who’s just a stranger…” Finishing, she sighed. “I better go. I’m five minutes past due.”

 

            The redhead watched as the girl walked in the opposite direction, and headed for the flight of stairs. Looking to the ground, a vulgar mess of womanly items and melted lipstick covered the floor. Unable to face first period, Kurama knelt down to gather everything into a pile, and disposed of the heap at a nearby trashcan.

 

What occurred this morning- it happened so fast it nearly blinded him with it’s cruelty. The bruise on his back was only beginning to swell, and it felt so sore- it hurt to lay back against his chair in the second hour of school. The whole day he was ridiculed- over and over in an endless cacophony of swears and beatings. In biology, tubes filled with dog sperm awaited him at his desk- a piece of paper taped to them reading: ‘Shuiichi’s FAVORITE subject’. Math was the same, on the whiteboard- written in block letters- was: ‘Shuiichi can’t multiply the way rabbits do!’ Then there was Language Arts. The teacher had been reviewing the paintings on the projector from the early Renaissance to compare them to the poetry written in that era. Eventually, the next slide was a sculpture of David in the nude. A student cried: ‘Turn it off! Turn it off! Otherwise you’ll turn HIM on!’

 

Lunch in itself was a nightmare. Avoiding it was just the only sane thing to do- lest he be splattered with trash or ignored by his own companions. So he sat, on the roof of the school- watching the cars blaze by through the fence wrapping around the building’s edges. Binding his fingers around the criss and cross patterns of metal, he heaved a heavy sigh. The wind blew his scarlet red bangs to the side, nature’s way of caressing his forehead as a mother would. Kurama’s eyelids lowered despondently. Today felt unreal- as if all the events were experienced at a dreamlike state. He could almost watch himself- see himself be battered by those who once knew him. Now he understood, how Caesar must have felt on the night of his death… Et tu? Shidou?

 

He drew closer to the fence, his clean face touching the cold steel.

 

Et tu? Arisu?

 

*****

 

            Running home was not an option. Instead of dodging mobs of girls, he was now escaping for the good of his life. The last thing he wanted to end his day- was to be jumped by a random gang of men who had to prove the ostensible ‘purity’ of the generic testosterone. Kurama had seen some of the feats his classmates had performed. The mildest of all were effortless name-calling. The worst, however, were too monstrous to even been mentioned.

            The door banged behind him on his way inside his own household. With speed, he ran up the stairs and locked himself within his room. The redhead huddled in a corner- shaded from the sun- and brought his knees as close to his chest as he could possibly achieve. Kurama sobbed quietly, allowing the tears to spill from his eyes in soundless streams.

 

            There came knocking on the door, followed later by Shuiichi’s mother’s voice speaking softly through the wood.

 

            “Shuiichi-kun, daijoubu ka?”

 

            “…Hai!…Hai… Daijoubu…”

 

            Eying the shadow of Shiori’s presence- from beneath the gap of the door and the carpeting- he noticed his mother hesitate before she finally decided to leave her son be. She must have distinguished the breakage in Shuiichi’s voice. The few words he uttered struggled coming out of his lips, and the quality of it was austerely weak. When he needed to be alone, however, there was only one thing she could do… and being the kind of mother she was… Shiori always did it.

 

            Kurama brought his head back, resting it in between the juncture of two walls. Pulling his palm over his tired complexion, strands of hair came up with his fingers- dripping with cold perspiration. Staring at the ceiling he choked:

 

            “Why is this happening to me?” Sensing that his right hand was hardening, he pounded it fervently against the soft carpet floor. “Who… Who would do this…? Why?”

 

            His fingers groped above his forehead, and around his scalp, tugging at his locks with aggravation. “WHY?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!”

 

            More tears trickled from the corners of his eyes unceasingly- some of the drops disappearing into his clothing.

 

            “Why…”