Author's Note: This is the first time that I've ever written a story using the first person's point of view. Hopefully, I've managed to do Ryu justice though if I were to really analyze his character, it might take more than this short story to do it in. Copyright ©July 27, 1999 by Silver Rayne™

Bóku wa yuku nó wa iyá da
By: Silver Rayne

As seen through the eyes of Ryu Hoshi:

How many times have we been through this? Time and again he argues with me and I still haven’t gotten the message. Perhaps I am as dense as he says I am. Maybe I don’t listen…don’t show enough compassion. He has problems. I have problems. We all do but sometimes I’m not so sure how to handle them. Then there’s this. Yes, we fight. In fact, I’d like to know one rational couple that doesn’t do the whole emotional routine once in a while. We’re only human.

Still, it was another pointless matter. My lack of comprehension again? I think not. Ken-chan is quick tempered, easily offended. How could I notice signs of his discontent if there were none to be found?

And now I sit out here, drinking in the curious stares of these outsiders. They roam past our garden gates, flashing cameras here and there. Focusing in on my moody face, knowing full well that happiness does not sell.

Who am I talking about? Those simple minded reporters, the media, them and their bleeding hearts. It is not their own that I speak of, rather the hearts of poached prey that fell beneath them. They don’t care why I look this way. Why my frown refuses to turn upside down. Blast Ken-chan and his idiotic humor. I don’t think frowns turning upside down are funny at all. When he says it, he has this cute way of grinning at me and looking just a bit smug. Like he’s won me over on something. But it’s a different story when I say it, it feels like I just swallowed a moth ball. Sure, I can appreciate a good joke like any other man but I feel like a fool trying my hand at it.

Here they come, pressing their snooping cameras as close to the gates as they can without getting electrocuted. Stupid bastards! The whole lot of them are nothing but greedy merchants willing to sell their souls to the devil. All for a story which would promote their career and make them so much more popular.

Hah! Look at what popularity did to us. I can’t sit in the yard without someone trying to capture me on film. They treat me like a celebrity and grant me even less privacy. I have Ken’s parents to thank for this. Bringing their son up in an atmosphere that reassured him of this fate. They are wealthy and successful too, more than us in some cases and I don’t need to deny that Ken doesn’t care. My koibito cares very much about ambitions and striving to be all you can be. The great American dream. There’s nothing wrong with it, in fact I think it’s wonderful that he feels that way. But when it rules his sleeping hours with nightmares and tearful approximations of failure; that is when I have had enough.

So, what did awful Ryu do this time to upset his love? Damn, you’re going to laugh at this. I asked him to leave his job and career, to move back to Japan with me. Maybe you’d better not laugh because it isn’t so funny now that I think about it. I implied that his aspirations meant nothing to me, not even the sacrifices he has made. It was not my intention to belittle him but my mouth does not interact with my brain much. Ken-chan keeps telling me about tact and various ‘nice’ ways to approach touchy subjects. What he failed to mention is what qualifies as a ‘touchy’ subject.

Now here I am, debating over whether to kick down the door or smile politely at these bothersome lenses honing in on my facial expressions. My arm is getting tired from supporting my chin as I lean onto my hand, bent over on the steps of the front porch. Just staring out towards the gate. I never could disguise my brooding from Ken-chan. He can read me easier than a book with enlarged text. But if that is so, why can he not see that I only want what is best for the both of us.

Just last night we had been holding hands, freshly exhausted from making love repeatedly after the evening news. As I moved my fingers over his, I began to truly appreciate my luck in finding this wondrous man. The feeling of warm gold beneath my thumb truly hung over my heart. An engagement ring, plain and simple but a symbol of my love for him. I can still remember our wedding as if it were yesterday. It didn’t make my proposal to him any less special. Both events have equal value in my recollection of how our love came to be. His wedding band is a lot heavier on his slender finger, crested with diamonds and bearing two small loops forming a heart. I could not have been more eager in my life to part with a material object. Usually I couldn’t care less about what underwear I select for the day. But this was different. I needed to see the wedding ring on Ken-chan’s finger, not in a box which was pale in comparison to what it housed.

Our vows were exchanged in a family setting, only the immediate family of Ken-chan’s were invited. There did arise some confusion as to what sort of ceremony we were going to decide upon. Let’s just say that finding a priest that didn’t mind joining a Buddhist ceremony with a Catholic one was not easy. Half the time I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to walk down the aisle or offer thanks to Buddha. I’ve never been married before. This is my first time and I’m certain that there is plenty of room for mistakes. Besides, I’ve been watching some of those western television shows that Ken-chan is so fond of. Well, not really, he just turns it on and sits down to relax after a hard day’s work. Don’t think for one minute that I push myself any less than he does. I refused employment in his overseas corporation because it isn’t what I’m interested in. I teach martial arts and self defense to underprivileged kids and single mothers. It’s what I enjoy, helping others.

Ken-chan never lets me forget what an honorable man I am. No, I am not smirking…not much. He plays this game of his to boost my ego but I never take the bait, in reference to my ego. As for his game, I would participate even if I came home close to midnight and about ready to drop. It isn’t really a game as I’m sure you’ve probably already figured out. Closer to an immature version of hide and seek, once I’ve found him… the rest is my business.

How can I come close to explaining how…utsukushíi Ken-chan is. The word hardly does him any justice. He’s just so…yasashii, makes me want to devour him at times. Now look, I’m resorting to my native tongue just to find relative terms for what I think of him. Nothing will ever come close to describing my koibito.

This all brings me back to what I’m doing sitting outside when I could be consoling my love inside. Away from the media and everything else. Just take him in my arms, lead him upstairs and whisper my undying devotion for him. We wouldn’t even need to go to bed, we’ve never had any trouble with making out wherever and whenever we please. Not to say I’m into exhibitionism, we barely exchange a kiss in public. I don’t like it but Ken-chan dictates that this is the way it must be.

I married a man who used to spend twice as long getting to his destination just to avoid the public catching a glimpse of him. The wealthy and beautiful playboy son of Mr. and Mrs. Masters, friends of the president himself. We take even longer moving about than we ever did while dating. These targeting eyes scour us with even more speculation and suspicion since our marriage. Ken Masters, married to a man? A poor, laborer, Japanese man at that. The difference in cultures was of great perpetual interest to these people. How odd that Ken should fall in love with a Japanese man as his father had married a Japanese woman. This turned out to be just a comparison of one generation to the next. But did I ever get scalded with hot oil over the other parts. First one being a nobody, the second proved to be the highlight of Ken’s life. He had married a man.

For months I had prepared Ken-chan, instructed him on how to pass a blind eye over the black attention of his bloodthirsty fans. My love has a hot temper as I have already told you and the last thing I wanted was for him to explode under the stress. But the spotlight remained constant on him, intensely burning him for weeks after our honeymoon in Europe. He of course snapped, needless to say in a very public place with sufficient footage to ruin his reputation permanently. I couldn’t bear to see him taken apart like that for defending me. I wouldn’t allow it to happen, not to my koibito. And so I went on a minor killing spree of my own. I was charged afterwards for destroying several cameras with a small hadouken. You see, my ki has a bad temper too, it doesn’t like to see Ken-chan hurt. I could hardly blame it when the film went up in smoke.

Back to my life as a poor man. I am not as insignificant in the world’s eyes as you may presume me to be. In fact, I’ve been up there in the headlines many times over. This Shotokan master still has many tricks up his sleeve. Achieving great feats is no stranger to me. But Ken’s society doesn’t view karate as a career or anything spectacular. It’s a sport, a hobby, an art, but not a job. So, here I am as a nobody doing something that only us simpletons can relate to.

What of Ken’s parents? Good question. Even now I can’t say for sure what they think of me. Do they despise me for corrupting their obedient, young predecessor? Am I a perverted man for desiring the companionship of another man? Or are they too afraid to use the good dinnerware and silver cutlery when I come over for dinner? Maybe it’s all of the above. They’ve never been mean to me or acted in any condescending manner but their lack of hatred doesn’t make up for their distance. A long barricade exists between Ken-chan and his parents but he won’t tell me if it was recently built or had always been present. I’m left wondering; did I cause this undefined friction? Should I feel ashamed or guilty as a result of it?

Maybe…just maybe I should go back into that house and demand that Ken-chan face me like an adult. When our argument ended, with me refusing to give an inch, he pushed me out the door. Just opened it wide and gave me a nice shove, making me land flat on my ass. I keep reminding him that he’s incorrigibly sexy and cute when he gets mad. Those cinnamon brown eyes of his become darker with the force of his emotions and his eyebrows furrow together in the most adorable fashion. I only reveal these things to him when we’re making love. At any other time it just seems…inappropriate. I wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea and think that I was interpreting his actions as weak. My dear koibito has such a lust for strength and power. Not in the physical sense but more of a hold over me. He likes to use a lot of body language and charm to lure me into his intricate spider webs. They must take a long time to create because he gets me every time. There have been many times when I’ve fallen for one of his elaborate pranks and then wound up in a very erotic predicament.

On one occasion, Ken-chan had me called home from work during one of my lunch breaks. The butler told me that my love was experiencing headaches and vertigo. It nearly stopped my heart because the night before we had argued and I let him sleep on his side of the bed, alone. Usually I have my arm draped over him, keeping him warm and close during the night. I get cramps on one side sometimes because I refuse to turn onto my other side. I don’t want to let him go, not for the briefest of moments. He can shift around and cuddle against me, or curl up with his back pressed to my chest. But I won’t move, not unless I become extremely uncomfortable. I’ve had worse sleepless nights of insomnia back in Sensei Gouken’s dojo. And it’s all worth it in the end to be rewarded by the presence of this beautiful man trustingly resting with me as his bodyguard.

Back to the argument; Ken-chan accused me of being insensitive due to the fact that I discarded what I presumed were a pile of rubbish under our bed. Turns out that those bits of paper were keepsakes from our wedding. I hadn’t taken a good look at the newspaper clippings and thought (like any good husband would) that someone had forgotten to pass them onto the recycling bin. What I didn’t know was that the press coverage of our wedding had reached many parts of the world. Ken-chan felt partially flattered that our personal lives were that universal. He bought some foreign newspapers with articles of our union included within them and cut them out. I’ve been told that a couple had pictures in black and white. Faded newsprint from being handled too many times. Most of them were in languages only my koibito would understand. Chinese I can wade through but French, German, and Spanish…let’s just say that I don’t like to order from a menu that calls snails ‘escargos’. Ken-chan knows all this, I let him take charge of situations that are above my call and duty obligation.

Anyway, the other night was terrible and I spent it tossing and turning without the feeling of warm skin under my hands. No long hair to stroke, or cheek to kiss good night, not even a gentle hug underneath the blankets. When I got out of bed, Ken-chan lay there and mumbled something about me being a… I won’t repeat it. The day went by miserably with me lingering on how wrong it had been for us to fight like that. I felt bad for not apologizing and even for tossing those clippings in the first place. Sometimes I need a good kick in the head to get my emotions in gear. But when I got that call, there wasn’t one emotion that wasn’t functioning.

I made it home in record time considering that a group of school girls had spotted me underneath my baggy sweater, sunglasses and baseball cap. I guess that I stand out too much, unlike Ken-chan who can be annoyingly quiet and shy most of the time. He blends into the background, especially while with me. I have this attitude about me that speaks of confidence and indifference. But Ken-chan usually has his eyes downcast, doesn’t have a quickened, forceful pace as I do. He doesn’t like to be seen whereas I couldn’t hide if I wanted to. It’s just in our personalities I suppose which is fine by me because I can become incredibly jealous when anyone gives him anything more than a superficial glance. Well, when I got upstairs and to my bedroom, there he was. Apparently he had intended to seduce me in order to make up if the sheets he was wrapped in were any indication. They hung a little too snugly to his exquisite frame and I forgot my fear and anger in a second. But he had changed his mind because that look turned to guilt and shame for what he had done. What he had resorted to just to get my attention. It made me feel so low and despicable, for having my beloved grovel in this fashion because he was afraid of me leaving. Of losing me. How could I be so selfish?

That was one of many days where we didn’t need to wait until dusk to make love. I made sure that he understood never to get my attention by trickery again. So long as it didn’t turn into cruelty, he could still run around in his underwear for me to catch him. That much I did not mind. But after that day, I promised him I would be more considerate and consult him before removing anything from the bedroom that required our mutual consent.

And here I am again, locked out of my home because I had not kept my promise. I feel like I don’t belong here at times, that I don’t deserve to have him. This is one secret that I will never reveal to him. Ken-chan is deathly terrified of me leaving him, of me just walking out one day and never coming back. I did it once and lived to regret it. The damage I had to repair was so great that I thought he would never learn to trust me again. Those were the old days, when the idea of fighting another world champion martial artist would have me vacating the country for that opportunity. I disappeared plenty of times as his friend but only once when we were dating. Big mistake! Believe me when I say that there is no battle greater than with that of your beloved. No level of Shotokan training could have saved me from the mental thrashing he unleashed. His words hit so hard that he nearly made me cry. Nearly. I’ve cried less than four times during my adult life, all of them included some injury to Ken or the fear of losing him. He doesn’t know this but I’m more afraid of losing him than he is of me leaving. But, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave him. I never could and therefore never would.

Why did I want him to move to Japan with me? Because of this undesired fame that keeps following us. We can’t do anything under the public eye without it being documented and logged for further blackmail. Two days ago had been the last straw for me. We were eating outside a tiny restaurant in the middle of nowhere, halfway through the meal and enjoying it. Ken-chan mentioned that the evening had been one of the more romantic ones in a while. It was quiet, dark, and peaceful with no disturbances to spoil the mood. Like all good things, it did not last. I got up to use the bathroom and had barely reached my destination when some flimsy dark airhead had sprung out of nowhere. What was I supposed to do? My first instinct yelled out for me to push past her because I recognized that look on her face. But I froze and that was when she did it…kissed me squarely on the lips. I wanted to slap her, to grab her by the shoulders and curse her for being a lousy whore. That was when I felt but did not see the cameras on me. It was another setup and if I reacted to it, nothing good could possibly come of it. I hit her, I go to jail. I show discontent, it gets interpreted as a wicked abnormality. For all they have are the pictures and not the dialogue. They can make me out to be a perverted old man molesting a girl hardly over the age of sixteen. I’m not old, still lingering in my twenties and this girl is nothing more than a tramp. So I walked away.

The media is still filled with stories of how the poor husband of Ken Masters Hoshi is having an affair. They say that Ken-chan is not good enough for me so I go searching elsewhere for my kicks. Do you know what my love’s parents think of all this? They are disgusted, of that I have no doubt. But they are more embarrassed of our union than anything else. Not embarrassed for us…but of us. How fitting. And that is why I want to pick up everything and go. Take Ken-chan away from all of this, to a place where he can begin anew and lead a normal, peaceful life. But he isn’t like me, I have to realize this before I truly offend him. He can’t reassemble his life in a land which is not his home. I am the wanderer, the vagabond settled down to the companionship of a wonderful man. I can come and go as I please and adapt to any place that is necessary, he cannot. What I asked of him was selfish for we are both going through this ordeal. He is not getting hit on any less than me. And a decision with so many consequences that affects us both should not be made by me alone.

I have to go back inside, to apologize, ask for his forgiveness. You can’t imagine how hard it is for me to say those two words, “I’m sorry.” I’m a very proud man but not without his faults. Ken-chan should be listening to me say these things instead of me keeping them where he can’t find them. We should share everything, not just that queen sized bed we both sleep in.

The door isn’t locked. My legs are aching from scrunching myself up into a tight ball while thinking. I have a bad habit of being in a constant state of readiness - too tense.

I open the door and enter, grateful for the air conditioning and fresh scent of our home. It always smells like something different when Ken-chan is experimenting with plants or flowers for the living room.

“Ken-chan! Koibito!” I call out and wait, hopeful that he has not gone to bed. I don’t want to discuss this while he’s exhausted and grouchy.

“Ryu.”

He approaches me from behind the staircase, still upset like the way I had left him. But he isn’t angry anymore. He’s sad. I can see it in his eyes, the way he walks, how he pronounces my name. And it’s a really bad thing when there are only two ways you can pronounce ‘Ryu.’ Either with a excited pitch to the ‘u’ as Ken-chan always uses or with a bored tone to that exact vowel. He sounds exasperated since he chose the latter to work with. This won’t be easy.

“Koibito, gomen nasai. I wasn’t thinking…it was just an idea. A stupid one. I never meant to insult your self worth or anything else.”

“But you sounded pretty serious.”

“About the other night…”

Ken-chan rolls his eyes and comes a little closer, smiling a bit when he notices I’m rubbing my sore backside. Those steps are not cushions you know, really bad for my back and posture…among other things.

“I don’t think you’re cheating on me. You never would. We won’t go to that restaurant again.”

There is that fear again. He thinks I’m going to leave him over an error not even made by him. To think that I would get up and go to Japan, leaving my second heart behind…it’s too sickening to contemplate.

“It’s hard sometimes, to live this way.” I reach for him but he takes a step backwards. He’s enjoying this, making me suffer until I admit entirely what a fool I am. “But for you, I would walk the ends of the earth on hot coals with ice in my stomach and needles in my spine.”

He cringes and I take some satisfaction from that.

“You don’t need to get so…violent in your description. But…when you talk like that, it makes me think that you’re…unhappy.” His eyes waver for a moment, forcing me to acknowledge how far I pushed him.

“Unhappy?” How clear does he have to make it for me?

“With me.” His voice sounds so small, so far away. I’ve wounded my koibito, it pains me to see him this way.

“That is far from the truth, Ken-chan. I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth. Most of the time I wind up sticking my foot in there.” He grimaces at that image, I have to bite the inside of my mouth to keep a straight face. What a terrible time to pick to laugh. I add a couple of nails into my palms for good measure. I have to remain compassionate and sensitive or I’ll offend him more. “I love you. With all of my heart. We will stay here and I won’t bring it up again.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want? I don’t want you to be unhappy, Ryu. We can compromise on this. Don’t lie to me just so you don’t hurt my feelings.”

“I’m not lying to you. I thought it over and this is where we belong. We have families and friends here, well your family at least. I like my job and you like yours. Coming home to you is my reward for all the hard work I put in every day. I wouldn’t want to change this, maybe get rid of all those pesky news channels but that’s it.”

“And I’m sure you’re just talking nonsense right now and mentally undressing me.”

“Yes and… what did you say?” I give him one of those looks that says, ‘you sneaky creep’ but then take it back. I can’t stop the smile that breaks through my barriers, forming into hysterical laughter. The tension proved to be too much for me. I hold out my arms and Ken-chan flings himself against me. Not much more is said since we’re too busy making out in the hallway.

When I finally press Ken to the wall, kissing him, and thrusting into him in upwards motions, he begins to cry. Not from pain but from an exalting joy shared by our souls entwining. He doesn’t make much noise, only slight whimpering and gasps at all the right places. I can’t help but think I’m one hell of a lucky guy just as he takes hold of my hand and kisses it, tracing the wedding band on my finger. Sometimes, our thoughts are on different wavelengths but at times like these, our hearts are always synchronized.

The End

Translations: Bóku wa yuku nó wa iyá da = I don't want to go / Utsukushíi = beautiful / Yasashii = sweet of disposition / Gomen nasai= I am sorry / Koibito = sweetheart / Hadouken = wave motion fist / Shotokan = martial arts style / Ken-chan = suffix added onto names as a term of endearment (ex. Ken-darling) /