I am walking slowly in this god forsaken cold. The snow
sends chills down my spine there thousand souls in this gray
long city of building lurking in the shadows, yet I am not
scared.
I will not get caught. How could I get caught anyway? When
they all close their windows, afraid from their own shadow
and will dislike anyone with gun as so many have in this
city. Yes, this is the perfect place for this, I hate this
city
But this cycle must come to a peacefully end and this seems
the only place to end it

In my mind I smile, remembering the song ''New York, New
York'' and in ironic comment my mind picks this line ''if I
can make it there, I can make it anywhere''.
As I look down at my gun, yes this is the perfect place to
die
And here I am again, alone at this snow alone and broken as
I once felt.

The rest of my thought was blank and maybe that is why, it
was a bit too late when I heard a man running toward my way.
I didn't really see him in this god forsaken cold until his
last footstep before falling into my place. Shocked and
surprised my gun fell down. I did nothing, just watching is
this guy going to kill me? After all it would just make it
easier.
I lay my gaze on him:
He was wearing big green poppy coat and a red sweater. You
could understand his slimy by the difference of them both.
His face was of a man who aged to quickly, his gray hair
only helped more to the image.

I thought he would take an action but all he did was to
stare with his small olive eyes.
At first he looked at my clothing, my long slim figure in
the night coat. All my appearance seems to be made of black
fabric and pale skin. He then moved into my cold marmalade
eyes, these eyes shocked so many with their beauty, but I
could see by his shaken body and frighten look that he had
seen more than just the beauty; the same seed of violence
that had been discovered by Aizawa. Yes, my eyes are the
eyes of a murderer. The man took his bag and ran. But
instead of running from the police sirens it seems he went
toward their direction. Is meeting an honest soul in the
city is really that scary?

If only I could be in peace with my torn soul. If I could
truly be only a beast then maybe this would not needed, but
for now I feel no other choice. Dead or alive, I go farther
into this riddle and open my personal Pandora box.

I walk around for hours as the skies are getting darker and
darker with the help of the human air pollution it seems the
sky starting to get impossible shade of black.
This used to be a dangerous alley.  The neighborhood and
street around it in most still are, but the lone building
that is here is where it all began for me. This building has
shattered. Number 26 I finally found the building. It seemed
so much bigger when I was a kid, so much more frightening
and yet I still find myself trembling in front of the
opening door at the hallway. "Oh well a man can get excited
before his death" I think to myself as I try to calm my
spirit. But how can I really get calm in here? This I don't
know, but I do know
This can be the only place to end it and so quietly yet
shaking I enter the hall.

The place was so quite that my footstep on the wooden
stairways sound as if it disturbed the silence of unsleeping
ghosts and made it even more clears to me that I am the only
living human being in this building. The only other sound in
the area was the sound of police sirens, sounds of warn and
alarm, but for now this is the safest place. I wonder where
the police was back then.

A big black graffiti "WE OF DE HOOD" decorated the stairway
wall.
I stand at the edge of the hallway and stare at this place.
Chaos would not describe how this place looked, all the
windows were broken and the glass lay everywhere, doors were
broken or stayed on the floor, some kept their wooden burnt
fabric but the burn was easily seen on the golden plastic
locks that lost its peaceful round character and in each
place that was not cracked yet on the wall, there was a
graffiti to cover it up. Graffiti, the media of the young
and the poor, a last cry out of those who did not know how
to shout, and what to say only wrote there name in big
italic style. This willingness to shout for help to tell
your last thought even if you might be minute before your
death; as an author I can sympathize with this. I too will
shout my last word and for that I carry with me a small
brown suitcase. Inside is my most valued poison: a pen, a
note book, a last cigar to ease the pain and a lighter to
bring last minute of light. With them I will write my
greatest work yet, my suicide note.

Yet I hesitate. My steps in this place are slow since this
place bring such memories and no matter how much complete I
feel with my decided mission, here with my past here I
cannot complete, I enter the room where it all started with
a small but firm grip on the door I walk inside.

The room was in horrible state as all of this building, it
looked shattered.
The covering of the floor were torn apart, the walls were
cut, the doors were half broken, in big raging graffiti's
everywhere one wrote "see me" and in other wrote "love me".
Both close to the green wooden sofa which was cut marked and
graved name upon.
At least the windows were intact and kept the snow outside.
I walked toward the sofa looking at the names marked on the
walls and wondered how many murders have been here? How many
screams? How many last night's of passion and how many
rapes? My legs hit a red bottle. I look at the label "Romani
of 1959" yes I remember this label, I remember that
night...

At that dreadful night my small trembling legs of a young
teen boy hit the same bottle.
Mr. Kitazawa, my tutoring teacher which I adore was drunk to
no doubt. The bottle was one in many. Kitazawa's eyes were
red and weird looking. This was not the soft kind of look he
always had and in that day my role model was ruined. I did
not know the guy that appeared before me. "Let me go" I
shouted in fear and confusion.
He came closer to me as I ended up against the wall
"teacher?" I mumbled quietly not quite getting how a man can
change so much. "Please stop calling me that" he said as he
pulled his face closer to my jeans sniffing the air around
my jeans.
I had an erection. He smiled and move his face closer to my
face "Eiri, I am really glad you have always been a good and
honest boy." But I did not feel good nor did I feel honest.
I felt dirty and shameful but he was my big role model the
kindest older person in my life and the first person whom I
had an attraction to. "Stop it" I beg tilting my head with
shame, embraced from his sexual gaze upon me. "Why? You have
always watched me?" And it was true I always did watch him
but, I was so confused.
"This is what you wanted" he stated this with wide open eyes
and till this day made me tremble in guilt. Remembering this
day is so hard, I slowly find myself sitting in a corner
with my legged cross.
No matter how hard I try to avoid this I still remember this
all too well.
Two guys appeared from the door. They were big with muscles,
but something seemed out of the normal shaped in them, their
eyes were covered by sunglass in the mid night and yet you
could see a spark of sadistic thrill inside them knowing
they're going to hurt a little boy. They bribe my teacher; I
could not believe it but him just comment and left them to
do with me as I please. "Now be a good boy" one of them is
saying but all I can see is the gun he puts inside his
pants. My mind went blurry, not capable to handle.  I acted
on subconscious taking the gun from the guy pants shooting
into the air I remember one shot my teacher, he died. The
two others went outside fearing that the cops will hear the
shots, I remember crying near Toma who felt too responsible
to it all

I know he did not do it for the money. Ten dollars is cheap
anyway, you turn it.
He just hated me. This was the look of pure hatred and
distaste he just hated my different sexuality. "If you hated
me so much, you should have just told me so. There was no
reason for you to die, Mr. Kitazawa."
I say this out loud I know no one can hear me. I know I am
the only one here, but I can't keep it inside anymore. I
must let the word outside from me, if only it could erase
the feeling.
"The one who should have been erased... was in fact me"
I look at the black gun and know soon I am going to finished
the erasing process just a little more.

I take out my "Black Devil" cigarette and light it up. Then
I see it, small, kitsch and merely a machine printed, but
there was hope.
On my lighter there is a picture taken not so long ago at an
amusement park of me and Shuichi Shindou. The size of his
smile is the same as the pink bunnies smile. Well, actually
a bit bigger. Even I found some relief and let go of a small
suggestive smile. What is with this kid what in him that
makes me gasp and shake in amazement even after those
thought and memories of my repressed childhood?

As I stop wondering about that I note that the ground base
of the room is shaken, the floor sounds as if there is going
to be an earthquake suddenly. A hole is made and from that
hole and into the top jump what seems to appear as a giant
brown round ball with a yowling sound. One might think it is
a vengeful ghost of a great dog, but then it is open in mid
air and from it jumping my lover Shuichi in what seem to be
a huge brown Dalmatian dog custom. He then land on the side
of the room. As he barely breathing he says "I have finally
found you! Yuki!" in determent voice. His mask's nose shone
in bright red and the yellow glass brightening from his
eyes. "S..Sh...Shuichi" My head was screaming "Oh dear lord!
Lowly school girl outfit, other kimono feminine and now
huge dog suit. I should totally find his designer and kill
him so my mental scared brain would rest in peace". But I
guess considering the reason did not seem to be the time to
note this. "You! How did you get here?"

"Shut up!" he said with angry face and slammed his faces
masks for no apparent reason but anger itself. "That doesn't
matter!", actually it was quite the matter to me. I did my
best to fall from the face of the earth, I was sure I could
die peacefully and for once to not be part of other peoples
scams.
"You disappeared without even letting me know!"
My Shuichi was angry. In all the time we spent this year I
saw him in different faces and emotion. Needy, lovable,
bragging, childish, helpless, sad, bored, interested and
almost always a young, energetic, happy and cheerful person.
It was the first time I ever saw him angry and even now he
keeps his optimistic spirit. Did he really think I just ran
away or maybe he's too afraid to lose me? But why? I have
done nothing but am an ass to him. He steps closer and take
out a piece of note book paper "Look!" As I take the paper
he continues to explain "That time in the park my lyrics
that got blown away by the wind...I finished it! Look at
it"

So this is what he came for. Only to show me a song "You
always act like this" I say it cynically but my smile is
true "You don't think about the other person at all. I use
to be like that too" yes I also was a bright carless jumpy
boy with no worries but my own desires. Shuichi seemed
surprised to know that but truth is, as much as it annoys
me, I like him for what he reminds me. "That's how I also
pushed Kitazawa into a corner...And killed him" and here I
am, at the same place this time the table will turn and I
will die but he stops my thought. "Don't be ridiculous!" he
shouts as he leaning toward me for our final kiss, our mouth
meet with such passion and the small costume tail is waving,
even now minute before death I can't say no to him

He looks upon my eyes and speaks much too fast and speedy
for me to replay. As if he will miss a line then I will be
no longer here to listen, things he thought about it all
along.
"So what if I pressure you into a corner?! Don't think you
can get away from me! You can run or you can die, I will
search for you and find you! I'm never letting you get away
from me! Because I love you"
There he said the word that scared him the most to tell me.
Three words that are shameful to say in the Japanese culture
and even more shameful to be reject; and then it hit me,
after years and years of grip that the only thing I did to
Kitazawa was to love him a foolish, stupid and pure first
love. The same idiotic love that the perky energetic pink
haired young boy is sending to me.
Love, the thing I didn't really believe existed any more

I looked at the page again the words were written in clean
and neat letters
"Amidst a noisy crowd of people
The murmured words melt away
Scattered at my feet
Are memories that become blurred by it?
I wander aimlessly and the brilliant lights of the town
Glaring one way
Illuminate me, on the verge of freezing
The cold time brings dreams from the skies
And they slip through my fingers
Counting my wishes, when I wake up"

No, it still sound like a crappy teenage high school love
poem.
"Zero talent"
I do not understand pop songs at all. Yet I smile and know
when he will sing it, it will sound brilliant and sparkly.
Because his voice shows his inner side just like I let my
guard down only in writing.
"You still have zero talent" I smiled to him with all my
heart. As I said that I am glad that he will still need me
for something more as he smiled to me. As the noise rose
from K's US army friends and their chopper.
I know I have been saved by this helpless lover boy with the
sound of angels and the will of the devils.


It is the early morning of Japan when I go to the cemetery.
On the stone it said "Here lays the body of Yuki Kitazawa".
"I hope to heaven his soul is gone"
I lay those white lilies around on his grave and bow
It been long time and in all it I always regretted he died.
I will always remember him as my first love. I forgave him
long ago. Vengeance only poisons the body as my Buddhist
father says. And now I am finally willing to forgive myself
"Good bye Yuki" I whisper toward him and start to move.
I then meet Toma, my brother, which is always guessing my
moves. I look at him then keep moving as he stares quietly,
I just don't know what to say

"Eiri san" he looks at me frightens "where are you going?""
"Home" I smile and see the relive on his face. I really have
a lot of problems with this older brother of mine but you
can't say he do not care

Home I think to myself and for once in a long, long time it
felt like home.
As an author I could not ignore the irony just as I was
about to give up and die, only then I started to live. Isn't
life amazing?