[gokusen ii] where you stop your story
“The best stories have no ending,” Hayato read in a book once. It was a quotations book, given to him by his third grade teacher when Hayato had had to transfer schools again. Inside, it was full have weird sayings like ‘never rely on the glory of morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law’ or ‘the reverse side also has a reverse side’–which, first, duh, and second, wtf? Hayato thought the book was pretty stupid, and threw it in the back of his closet, and forgot about it for a long while. Later, after he met Ryu, after that beginning of beginnings, Hayato had considered giving the book to Ryu. Ryu was quiet and sullen a lot of the time, and he played hooky when Hayato suggested and he bullied teachers because that made the gang laugh–but Ryu was intelligent, too, and liked that sort of poetic sissy stuff. Hayato thought maybe Ryu would better understand the book; but then he figured that used books weren’t very good presents and Yabuki’s weren’t cheap like that anyway and besides, Ryu probably wanted a set of stink bombs more than anything.
(Hayato doesn’t think about Ryu’s cleverness in the same way that he doesn’t think about Ryu’s family. Ryu’s different, Hayato recognizes, everyone recognizes. Ryu isdifferent, set apart by his wealth and station and silence; but, thinks Hayato, not where it matters. Ryu’s not different like that.)
-
Hayato forgets Ryu’s birthday some years, never red-circles any date on any calendar, never keeps track of which month and which week. Ryu doesn’t mind: his birthday has always been solemn affairs, family dinners at fancy restaurants, expensive entrees and stiff conversation, the whole thing an interrogation on “what have you done with your life so far?” The answer has always been never enough.
Hayato forgets Ryu’s birthday, but gives him gifts anyway. The gifts mark no special occasion, do not really mean anything but “I want you to have this”: Hayato gives them to Ryu because it is a Saturday, because the sun is bright, because summer has begun, because Ryu’s hair glints red even in the fluorescence of the classrooms. Hayato gives them to Ryu because he wants to, because gift-giving to Ryu should be a reason onto itself.
-
Yankumi hadn’t been the first to ask them about their future plans, though she does get more answers out of them than her predecessors. Still, most of those answers were either, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t care.”
“I will go to university,” Ryu told her, quiet and slow like glaciers. She asked him which university and what he planned to major in. He sat back in his chair and looked out the window, silent and far away.
“Odagiri-kun,” said Yankumi, patience stretching long and thin like strands of taffy. “There must be some more details to this. Have you been going to cram school? How are you preparing for the entrance exams? Have you given any thought as to–”
He looked away from the window and focused back on her. He had a way of speaking, very removed and remote and quiet like the moon. “I will go to university,” he said again, and then: “I will go to Canada.”
-
Hayato never courted any girl in high school, not like Take with his barista-lady. Hayato never visited any girl day after day, never mooned about any girl’s beautiful soul, never offered to get beat up for any girl.
Hayato’s bruises were for Ryu, one way or another, either caused by him or in defense of him; but Ryu’s. The rest of it all, the visiting and the mooning and the beautiful soul crap–
(“i’m not a girl, you asshole,” ryu told him, and hayato didn’t try to hold any doors open for him again.)
-
let’s go to karaoke, take says, one march afternoon when the air is still cold with the lingering winter, but spring blooming underneath that. the sky is blue, prescient of summer; and the sunlight drips like warm golden honey over their skin. let’s go to karaoke, says take, eyes bright and smile brighter yet, bouncing a little on his toes, full of merry energy. hyuuga rolls his eyes, tells take that he is lame, that he is a girl, that karaoke is lame and for girls and real men go bowling, retard.
“no, i want to go to karaoke too,” hayato announces abruptly. e-eh? stutters hyuuga, while tsucchi cackles from behind his fan, and ryu smiles, faintly amused. “you shut up,” hayato tells hyuuga, and hyuuga fake-punches him–because hayato’s not the boss, even if he sort of is. none of them think about their group dynamics too much, too full of laughter and nakama-ship instead. they walk, fanning across the streets of shibuya, loud with noisy chatter.
these are their days of endless spring.
-
And one day, Ryu will go away, will go on a plane and fly across an ocean. They will all go their own separate ways, bound now by other duties and responsibilities and loyalties. There will be jobs, and maybe wives one day; children after that and mortgages, taxes to pay and lawns to mow and they never quite forget 3-D, but the remembrance will fade, will pale. One day, they will grow up, spring melting into summer and fading into autumn. One day, one day–
But not yet today. Tomorrow, tomorrow, they know; but today, Hayato pins Hyuuga into a headlock and Tsucchi shouts abuse; Take laughs and tells them not to hurt each other too much. And Ryu meets Hayato’s eyes over the clamor, faintly exasperated but more affectionate; he means you retard but he also means don’t change.
–
Yankumi’s speeches–after she finishes kicking ass–are always sort of dorky, but her teary eyes are sincere each time. “You guys,” she says, each time, and neither Hayato nor Ryu nor Tsucchi nor the rest of the gang understand how she can pack so much emotion into so common a phrase. “I’m so proud of you,” she says, and “Your friendship is strong,” and “I knew you’d come through for each other,” and “Let’s run off into the setting sun!”
“I’m pretty sure she reads too many shoujo mangas,” Hyuuga decides. They straggle behind Yankumi, who is heading off, one fist raised, into the blazingly crimson sunset.
“It’s a nice ending, though,” Take says, mild and cheery, “Happily-ever-afters always end with riding off into the sunset.”
“Huh,” says Hayato. He has one arm thrown over Ryu’s shoulders and is limping a little, but looks speculative anyway. He glances over at Ryu, sly and wicked, “Ne, Ryu-chan. Is this our happy ending?”
“Fuck off,” Ryu tells him, to the laughter of the rest of their friends. And Hayato laughs too, because theirs isn’t a fairy tale, theirs isn’t a love story; theirs isn’t anything, really, to be so labelled.
-
(but later, after they have seen their friends home, after the stars begin to peek out from the night sky, when it is just hayato and ryu, side by side on the sidewalk–
this is life, you know, ryu says, quiet and certain. we don’t have an ending.
and hayato laughs, calls him a romantic sentimentalist, and does not disagree.)
