Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Pain is not an Option-Chp Finale

This time, Watanuki’s palm landed squarely on Doumeki’s face. Not only that, he rammed his fists at his chest as hard as he could, tears beginning to stream out of his blue eyes. The bell on his bracelet tinkled every time he hit out at Doumeki. The archer didn’t seem to want to fight back though. He just let Watanuki hit him again and again, letting him vent out his anger.

“Doushite? Doushite?! DOUSHITE?!” Watanuki yelled at every hit he made. “Why can’t you just say it? Why can’t you just tell it straight to my face? Why did you hit me and rape me? Why did you rob me of my virginity? Why? WHY?! You hurt me, did you know that? You hurt me really bad! Itai yo! ITAI YO!!!”

Doumeki, after many poundings later, reached out and hugged Watanuki close to his chest. He stroked his back and hushed him to calm him down, but it didn’t stop him from sobbing.

“I hate you…I hate you…I hate you…!”

“Hai, I know. Gomenasai. I never wanted this to happen. I wanted to confess to you properly and brace myself for an acceptance or a rejection, but you were so intent on Kunogi-san and kept accusing me of trying to take someone that I barely have any interest in that I…I just lost it. Gomenasai…”

This was the first time he had ever heard and seen this new side of Doumeki. Not the stoic, uncompassionate, cold archer who didn’t give a damn about anything but himself, not the crazy, angry, flying-off-the-handle fiery son of a bitch who hit him black and blue, but the gentle, tender-speaking teenage boy who want nothing more than to make amends and apologize for everything he had done. It was almost too good to be true as Watanuki slowly lifted his head to meet Doumeki’s amber eyes. He saw a hint of sincerity and passion in them and he knew that Doumeki’s telling the truth. He could see that the archer truly loved him and would probably continue to pursue him even if he had properly confessed to him and got Watanuki’s rejection as a reply. He was the only one who could see through his screaming and shouting as the insecure little boy he was and would accept him regardless of what he was. He was the only person who would willingly lay down his life before him regardless the danger of the situation and help him with every fiber of his being. He’s Doumeki Shizuka the archer, stoic and stone-faced, and that’s just the way he was.

“It hurt…What you did to me…it hurt…”

“Gomenasai…”

Watanuki soon felt Doumeki’s soft lips on him. These were the lips of a man who would sacrifice his soul for a moment like this. The lips of a man who would love and cherish him forever and throughout many lifetimes. He couldn’t lie to himself any longer—he had wanted this for so long.
And, oh, how great they tasted.

Doumeki slowly set Watanuki down onto the tatami floor and removed his clothes, his lips never leaving its claim on Watanuki’s. Watanuki helped Doumeki remove his clothes and soon, they were both as bare as a baby’s bottom. Doumeki’s breath slightly hitched when he saw the bandages around Watanuki’s body and gave him a horrified Did-I-do-this-to-you look. Watanuki looked away sadly, not wanting to meet Doumeki’s hurt eyes. Doumeki slowly lowered himself to kiss the bandages, trying to ease the pain of every part he had landed his fists on and reminding himself of a deed that he would never repeat ever again as long as he lived.

“I’ll be gentle.”

After that reassuring words and a couple of foreplays later (which include giving each other a blow-job and Doumeki fingering Watanuki to prepare him), Doumeki lifted Watanuki’s hips a little higher and guided his own manhood towards the blue-eyed boy’s opening. This time, instead of rudely entering him, he inched himself inside bit by bit, hearing Watanuki’s ecstatic moan echoing throughout the room. He thrust at a slow and steady pace, plucking at Watanuki’s nipples which were the only ones not covered by the bandages. Watanuki let out one moan and groan after another as he felt Doumeki inside him, moving in a rhythm so much better than what he had felt before.

“Do…Doumeki…kimochii…”

Doumeki got slightly fired up by Watanuki’s soft words of satisfaction and increased his speed and the depth of his thrust just a little bit. Watanuki reached up and dug his nails onto his shoulder, moaning even louder as he felt Doumeki’s length hit something inside him that sent waves of unadulterated joy and adrenaline into his whole body. Was this what they call the sweet spot? He had to feel it again.

“Ne, Doumeki…Harder…Deeper…”

“Are you sure?”

“Hai…Just fuck me…”

“Aishiteru, Kimihiro…”

The archer obliged, thrusting harder and deeper into him, aiming for the sweet spot over and over again. Watanuki couldn’t control himself any longer. His moans and groans got louder and louder to the point that he could even wake up the dead. Doumeki lowered himself and claimed his lips, trying to quiet him down as he continued to hit the sweet spot over and over again. Watanuki kissed him back possessively and fisted his hair, letting out more muffled moans between kisses. Doumeki could feel from the tenseness of Watanuki’s abdomen muscles that he was going to come soon. He decided to speed it up by stroking teasingly at Watanuki’s length. That sent Watanuki to the edge. Within seconds, he came, splattering his semen all over Doumeki’s hand and abdomen. A few more deep thrusts and Doumeki came too, letting out a strangled moan, probably suppressed.

Both boys lay flat on the floor, waiting for the final tremors to subside. Doumeki mustered whatever strength he had left and brought Watanuki into his embrace. Watanuki reciprocated, hugging the archer back with shaking arms still recovering from the tremors.

“Did I hurt you?”

Pain is not an option. It’s how you deal with it that’s important.

“Ie. It feels much better than that day.”

“Gomenasai…”

“Heiki ne. I forgive you, Shizuka, but at one condition.”

“What is it?”

“That you will pay for what you have done to me, by loving me as you claim you do.”

“Hmm.”

“You promise?”

“Ah.”

Watanuki Kimihiro knew that this was going to be the type of attitude he had to endure once he had thrown his obsession over Kunogi Himawari out of the window and accepted Doumeki Shizuka into his life, but he didn’t mind. Yuuko was right. Pain was not an option. It’s how he dealt with the pain that’s important.

And it felt good.

Pain is not an Option-Chp 5

Watanuki heaved a long sigh as he read the list of ingredients he needed to get for yet another one of Yuuko’s impossible sake-complimentary cuisines. After his unexpected ‘ordeal’ that night in his bathroom, Watanuki found it even harder to live life the way he normally does, well, being chased after restless spirits aside, that is. One look at Doumeki sent shivers down his spine and memories of his unnatural behaviour began swarming in his brain like bees over honey. He avoided him as much as he could at school, running or looking away every time he caught sight of him or notice Doumeki come over to want to say—or do—something to him, and stayed away from any mission given by Yuuko that had to involve Doumeki in it, despite the fact that any refusal of missions would result him into household chores coming in threefold.

He never gave him any chance of approaching him. Not a single chance, for there was no way he wanted history to repeat itself again. One intrusion and one near-miss was enough for him to handle.

He knew this was very cowardly and avoiding people was not the wisest and mature thing to do, but he’d rather be away from the problem than facing it head on. He wasn’t much of a sucker for confrontations anyway. He began to consider the option of transferring to a new school altogether and quit working for Yuuko and let his gift of ghost-seeing—his curse was more like it—settle itself.
“Teme! This is ridiculous! I’ve faced countless of benign and malignant spirits throughout my childhood and now here I am cowering away from a mortal! What’s gotten into me?!”

Watanuki didn’t need a genius to tell him that he was afraid to face Doumeki. He was terrified of his temper and horrified at the possibility of him pinning him onto the wall or onto the ground in some closet or toilet or something and be shagged senseless again. He was afraid of pissing him off again with one of his careless rant and end up having to endure another series of beatings. He had never felt so afraid of anyone before. The last time he was that afraid of a person instead of a spirit was the big bully in his grade school, yet he managed to keep that kid out of his hair by telling him that he had the spirit of a dead dog he had tortured to death following him around. Doumeki was different. Nothing scared him, nothing surprised him and there sure hell is nothing that can provoke him to do anything.

Until now.

As he continued window shopping and hunting for ingredients, he passed by a bread and confectionary shop and saw dozens upon dozens of heart-shaped chocolate decorated with all kinds of icing imaginable set in display for tons of schoolgirls to admire and squeal at. He noticed the advertisements outside the shop and realized that Valentine’s Day had arrived and that it had actually been two weeks since that fateful day when Doumeki asked him about the date of Valentine’s Day and the horrible aftermath. He doubt he’d get any chocolates this year; he had never got any ever since he reached puberty and he had been distancing himself from Himawari as well, though it pained him to do so, just to avoid seeing that son of a gun because he knew he’d show up if she was around him and that he—the man with ‘a million faces’—be the first to receive chocolates from her. He heaved another long sigh again as he continued to admire the chocolates quietly along with the schoolgirls. So near, yet so far… Kuso… he thought grudgingly.

Suddenly, he felt the presence of something familiarly cold. He turned and saw that it was one of those suicide spirits unable to pass on because of their sinful act of taking their own lives. It was looming over a pharmacy shop billboard and staring at him with its empty sockets, looking rather eerie and malicious. It seemed as if it was bent on wanting to take over someone else’s body so that it can continue to live on in this world like it had never died. Definitely not one of those friendly spirits, Watanuki thought.

Careful not to arouse attention, Watanuki slowly inched his way out of the bread and confectionary shop he was in and left, pretending not to notice the spirit’s presence. As soon as he got his butt off the bench, the spirit jumped off the billboard and zoomed in front of him in a split second, its socket eyes glaring intently at his blue ones. The hair behind his neck began to stand on its end as he could smell the foul breath of decay emitted from the spirit’s mouth. He tried to back away slowly but the spirit kept coming close to him, its empty sockets never leaving him and its mouth form on its misty face into an eerie grin that spelled trouble.

Give…me…life…

That was all it took for Watanuki to take to his heels. He ran and ran, trying to get away from the suicide spirit whose sole intention is to live again in his body. He tried swerving here and there and going into any possible junction he could find to lose it, but it didn’t show any indication of leaving him alone. He hit numerous people and almost got run over by cars but that didn’t seem to slow it down. In fact, it was getting faster and faster by the minute. Watanuki could feel the cold touch of its fingers as it tried to reach its jugular and its decaying breath wrapping around him like a stain that just wouldn’t go away.

Without warning, he suddenly bumped into what seemed like a broad chest. He felt arms embracing him and suddenly the spirit dissolved into thin air, letting out a high-pitched shriek as it disappeared. He was relieved at the unexpected help and buried his face onto that broad chest, gasping for breath and trying to regain his composure.

“Oi, daijobu ka?”

Watanuki’s eyes widened in horror. He recognized that voice anywhere. He looked up and saw that the owner of the voice was none other than Doumeki Shizuka, the guy he had been trying to avoid almost everyday!

“Was it another spirit?” Doumeki asked stoically. No, Watanuki thought. Anyone but him…

“Ha…Hanase…” Watanuki whispered tentatively.

“Hmm?” Doumeki sounded surprised. He had expected Watanuki to yell.

“Hanase…Don’t touch me…”

Watanuki inched his way out of Doumeki’s embrace, pushing him away ever so softly. He still refused to make any eye contact with him. Seeing him didn’t exactly made his fear go away anymore than it did when the spirit was gone. He was about to leave when Doumeki suddenly reached over and grabbed him by the wrist and gave him an intent stare. He expected Doumeki to give him his viciously angry look he saw in their previous ‘uneventful’ conversations, yet this time his eyes were showing hints of…concern? Worry? Apology?

Before he knew it, the archer had led him quietly towards the temple shrine and sat him in the room where they had their Hyaku Monogatari that fateful summer night. Doumeki disappeared and came back with a tray holding two cups of green tea. He offered Watanuki a cup before drinking from his own. They sat there in silence for quite a long time until Watanuki couldn’t stand the thickness of it all.

“Anno…Doumeki, why am I here? Why did you bring me here?”

Doumeki looked at Watanuki, the cup never leaving his lips. He took one last sip before setting it down and replying, “Gomenasai.”

“Nani?” Watanuki thought he had heard something that would never exist in the archer’s vocabulary.
“I wasn’t feeling myself that day. I didn’t expect it to end like this.”

Like hell you didn’t, Watanuki thought, but he didn’t dare to say it out loud.

“It’s just that you constantly rant and rave and don’t really care what anyone else has to say and always jumping into ridiculous conclusions. I guess I…I just had enough of it.”

“You didn’t have to rape me,” Watanuki braved himself to say it, bracing himself for the worse.
“Like I said, I didn’t expect it to end like this. I was going to tell you sooner or later, but you never gave me the chance.”

“Tell me? About what?”

“I just got so angry somehow. I didn’t know what came into me. My grandfather did say that if I don’t break, my bottled-up feelings would catch up with me sooner or later. Guess you trying to break me didn’t turned out the way you expected.”

“Doumeki, what is it exactly you wanted to tell me about?”

Doumeki let out a silent sigh and dug his pocket, fishing out what seemed like a small box. He handed it to Watanuki and said, “Here. I was going to give it to you today.”

Watanuki took the box and eyed at it suspiciously. What was inside this box? A trap? A bomb? A prank gift? He couldn’t tell from Doumeki’s stoic expression to hint him what was inside the box. Looks like he had to find out for himself whether he liked it or not. He slowly opened the box and braced himself for the blow but it didn’t come. Instead, inside the box was actually a bracelet for men that had tiny rubies and a small tinkling bell that hung near the clasp. Watanuki took out the bracelet and admired the bracelet for a while when he realized that on the surface of the bell was an engraving of a Chinese word that translated as ‘Love’.

“Here, let me help you put it on,” Doumeki said as he came over towards Watanuki. Watanuki almost flinched when he felt Doumeki’s skin touch his when the archer helped him put on the bracelet on his left wrist. Why the sudden gesture? Why the sudden change of attitude? Why all this?

Doumeki must’ve noticed the questions in Watanuki’s eyes when he said, “This is a bracelet my grandmother used to wear as a wedding gift from her Chinese mother when she migrated here to marry my grandfather. It was supposed to be some sort of good luck charm that can keep away spirits because the rubies and the bell have been blessed by a Chinese high priest. My grandfather said the spirits cannot stand the sound of the bell. That’s what kept them away from harming my grandmother; to them, it sounded like nails on the blackboard.”

This was the first time Watanuki had heard Doumeki speak that much during the times they had been together. Watanuki asked tentatively, “Anno…doushite, Doumeki? I don’t understand…”

“It was a rather bad way of me trying to confess to you. I wanted to wait for this day to come to give you this and tell you how I feel, but…”

“H…How long have you…?” Watanuki began to understand what it was all about: the question of how long till Valentine’s Day, the beating, the raping, everything. Doumeki looked away, a slight red flushing through his tanned skin.

“Since…Since the first time I met you…”

SLAP!!!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Pain is not an Option-Chp 4

Watanuki gulped down the can of cappuccino latte he bought from a vending machine with great gusto and heaved a sigh of relief. He had spent the rest of his remaining school hours leaving early and lounging around in the park till sundown. He had thought of going to Yuuko’s shop to do his usual duties but he remembered that he had two days off, which included today, so he might as well make use of this golden opportunity. Screw the attendance. There was no way he was going to stay another minute in school with Doumeki around.

From the corner of his eye, he could see dozens upon dozens of tiny little spirits fluttering about him, wanting to stick to him like glue. He decided to ignore it. Spirits and ghosts have been hovering around him ever since he could remember how to walk and talk anyway, so what difference would these tiny insignificant spirits make anyway? At least they’re tiny, he thought as he leaned back on the bench he was sitting on.

“Yo.”

Watanuki jumped at that familiar voice. The ever stoic, cold Doumeki was standing right beside him, holding his schoolbag in one hand and another bag and a few books in the other. As usual, the spirits disappeared as soon as Doumeki’s presence was made known. Watanuki jerked backwards when Doumeki held out the bag and books to him.

“You forgot your stuff.”

“Ah…Hai…” Watanuki said nervously as he hastily snatched the bag and books away from him. How dumb he could be, leaving his stuff in school in plain sight for Doumeki to see without even realizing it? He must’ve been really desperate to escape to allow this clumsiness to happen.
“Kunogi-san helped you wash your bento case. It’s in the bag.”

“I, uh, I gotta go. Sayonara,” Watanuki said, barely even acknowledging what Doumeki said. He quickly went off, walking as fast as his legs could carry him, but somehow he realized, after a few moments of speed-walking, Doumeki was right behind his tail. He wanted to run but he was afraid it would arouse Doumeki’s inner beast to pursue him with ferocity, so, swallowing hard and gathering his wits, he spun round and faced his stalker.

“Naniyo? What is it you want? Why are you following me?”

Doumeki did not reply, but continued walking towards where Watanuki stood. The latter noticed his eyes were slowly filled with emotions that reminded him of yesterday’s incident. He backed away tentatively until he realized he was pinned to the wall in a secluded area by the archer’s pressing aura. Doumeki slowly propped one hand against the wall right beside Watanuki’s face and glared intently with his amber eyes at the tiny cook’s deep sea-blue.

“Why do you avoid me?”

“Nani?” Watanuki pretended to act dumb, when in truth, he was very well aware of what he was being asked.

“You heard me,” Doumeki’s tone of voice meant business, giving him the Don’t-mess-with-me kind of warning. Watanuki wanted to scream at him to leave him alone and flail his hands about as usual to tell him to get the fuck away from his face, but somehow being up close and personal with his rapist made his guts all watery.

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Doushite?” Watanuki flinched as Doumeki’s fist slammed the wall, barely hitting his ear. “After all I’ve done for you, why do you hate me so much?”

“Y…You know what you did…” Watanuki’s voice quivered as he struggled to give him a straight answer.

“Nani? This?”

Without warning, Watanuki felt Doumeki dangerously close to him, his crotch behind his pants close to his. Watanuki barely even had the chance to retaliate—to take a breath, even—as he felt their manhood rubbing ever so slightly at each other. He bit hard at his lower lip, fighting the urge to let out an involuntary moan as he realized his body was actually sexually aroused by the soft rubbing. He felt Doumeki’s hands slowly creeping down to his wrists and holding him there in place as he continued to rub shamelessly against him. Colour began to grow on Watanuki’s cheeks and the temperature about it was more than he could bear. His head was getting dizzier as his cock hardened behind his pants and his breath grew shorter and quicker, and though his body strained to fight this adulterated feeling inside him, deep within his heart and mind, he wished this sudden ecstasy would never end.

It was the pain of Doumeki’s hand clutching his wrists tightly that slowly brought him back to his senses. He let out a sudden sharp gasp, alerting Doumeki as well. The archer stared at him as if trying to remember something, then slowly his eyes began to show realization of what he was doing and his face crawled back to its original stoic and cold expression. His grip on Watanuki’s wrists loosened and his distance between him and Watanuki lengthened as he gathered himself back to his normal self.

“Anno…Watanuki…”

Watanuki didn’t let him finish. Instead, he banged his head with his books and shoved him further away with his bag before he took to his heels, running away like the way he used to when he was being chased by the everyday oppressing spirits. He dared not look back to see if Doumeki was chasing after him or not.

Even when the lusty feeling around his manhood dissipated, his heart surprisingly could not.

--:--

Watanuki came back to his senses when he realized when he was under running hot water of his shower. After another shocking experience with Doumeki’s uncharacteristic self, fear, shock and unwanted lust drove him all the way home and his mind was in a complete shutdown as he went about with his business mechanically. Without even knowing, he had cleaned his house, made a call to a restaurant to send Yuuko’s dinner to her house, cooked and ate dinner, did his homework and finally getting ready to shower before bed. Whether it was due to self-denial or shock due to that evening trauma, his mind had totally blacked out and was oblivious to whatever he was doing until the steam and wetness hit him like a mallet through the head.

As soon as his mind worked its way in figuring out the reality around him, the memories of Doumeki began swimming back into it: Doumeki snapping at him and hitting him like a punching bag, him being forced against the shelf as Doumeki unzipped his pants and rudely intrude him, Doumeki’s nonchalant face the next day as he reached for his bento as if nothing had happened, Doumeki following him and threatening him, Doumeki standing so close to him, rubbing himself against him without any shame in the world and awakening the most taboo of feelings of desire he never thought existed within him…

‘Again with the desire!’ Watanuki thought, horrified with whatever he was thinking. “What am I thinking? I could never want this! Never! It’s impossible! That stupid cold statue violated me! I could never want this sort of insanity!”

Pain is not an option. It’s how you deal with it that’s important.

Again, Yuuko’s uncompassionate words rang into his head. Pain. What does that have to do with whatever he was feeling right now? Yuuko had said that he did not appreciate whatever Doumeki had done for him and all he did repay his kindness with yelling, ranting, raving and endless jumping into conclusion, added with a few flying off the handle and total ignorance, if possible. She made it sound like he deserved whatever pain Doumeki had inflicted on him. She kept saying that he wasn’t dealing with the pain right and that he was channeling all the pain into blaming it all on Doumeki when he should be looking into himself to see the reason why he had to endure all this pain.

In the end, she was trying to say that it was Watanuki’s fault Doumeki acted the way he did.

As he applied soap onto his body and was moving towards his private area, the feeling of Doumeki rubbing against him came back in folds. His amber eyes that burned with emotions never shown before in public bore into his subconscious mind with the force of a bullet train. Those eyes…those crazy fiery eyes that spoke of nothing but rage, hate and contempt towards him…those eyes that could burn through his skull within minutes as he glared into his blue ones like a predator would to its prey…those eyes that revealed the true feelings behind the façade of cold iciness that was Doumeki the archer…those eyes…

Before he knew it, he had his fingers close towards his opening, teasing it. Though horrified, he couldn’t stop himself from continuing, slowly inching them closer and closer until almost a quarter of them were inside him. As he continued fingering himself, ignoring the soreness that lingered slightly after the incident in the sports equipment room, his mind involuntarily wandered to that evening in the secluded wall. Slowly, the phantom feeling of Doumeki’s manhood rubbing against his returned, and when he closed his eyes, the feeling returned in tenfold, as if he was really there with him. He could feel him materializing in front of him now: holding him down, pinning him onto the wall, moving his body up and down slowly, the feeling of his manhood rubbing softly and seductively against him; his eyes staring deep into his, his lips coming closer and nibbling at his ear lightly, then sucking tenderly at his neck until finally reaching to his own lips to claim them…

“Ku…Kuso…!”

Watanuki immediately went limp as he realized he had come. The stain of his essence ran down all over his thigh and his fingers were actually all the way in. Gasping for breath, he noticed the reality of the situation—he was actually turned on, turned on by the very actions that made him fear the archer in the first place. The pain of his rude intrusion into him and the pain his heart felt when he was being played for a fool actually aroused him. Watanuki groaned both in fear and exasperation as he buried his face in his knees.

“What the hell is wrong with me…?”

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Pain is not an Option-Chp 3

“Ne, Watanuki-kun. Why isn’t Doumeki-kun with you?”

Watanuki had expected this question to come out of Himawari’s mouth. In truth, he had been trying to avoid the archer all day, and he was rather relieved to be able to survive the day till recess without any confrontation. He almost couldn’t sleep last night because of the aches and pains on his body despite the fact that Maru and Moru had helped applied medication on his sores. He could only lie on his back to prevent from traumatizing the bruises on his body and wound he sustained due to the virginity break of his butt yesterday evening. He dreaded going to school for fear of meeting Doumeki and bringing back those painful memories, but he had to go. He had been absent for almost a week last week after getting bruised and battered from a hectic case of helping Yuuko do an exorcism on a kid who had been messing around with Ouija games. He couldn’t afford to put anymore bad merits on his school attendance.

“Ah, anno, I can’t say. I haven’t seen him the whole day,” Watanuki forced a smile to convince the girl that nothing was out of the ordinary. His face ached just doing that.

“You didn’t even make bento for him,” Himawari said as she eyed at the single half-eaten bento in Watanuki’s hand. It was obvious that she had expected him to have an extra bento on his lap or by his side.

“Ah, hai, I, uh, kinda forgot. Ah ha ha…I guess I had a late night last night, what with Yuuko-san and all…”

“Did something happen between you and Doumeki? Have you had an argument?”

Watanuki was at lost of words. How could he tell her that he had been raped by the guy she had admired more than she did him? How could he explain it to her that it was Doumeki’s fault he’s in a mess right now? How could he even mention the incident that led to this unwanted desire…

Desire…?

Why would he even desire for Doumeki to take him? How could he even have that kind of thought cross his mind? Doumeki raped him, for goodness sake! He pinned him down, tore off his clothes and raped him of his virginity! He had dirtied him both body and soul! How could he even desire this sort of outrage? Has he gone mad? Had the trauma he had sustained yesterday evening got into his mind and messed up his brains? He couldn’t have wanted it, could it?

Pain is not an option. It’s how you deal with it that’s important.

“Ah, speak of the devil.”

Watanuki’s head shot up to see what Himawari was talking about. There, coming closer towards them is the guy that he had been avoiding all day. The guy that he thought he had trusted. The guy he thought would not harm a fly even if he wanted to. The guy whom he thought had no emotions at all whatsoever. The guy who suddenly showed his true colours and scared the pants out of him. The guy who had almost punched the lights out of him and made his harsh intrusion into him. The guy who practically left him for dead and didn’t bother to apologize or explain his actions.

Doumeki Shizuka.

“Ohayo, Doumeki-kun. We were wondering where you were the whole day,” Himawari greeted cheerfully as the archer made his way to sit on the grass under the tree they were under, sandwiching Watanuki between him and her.

“Aah,” Doumeki replied in his usual I-don’t-give-a-damn way. His eyes shifted towards Watanuki who was staring intently at his half-eaten bento. The blue-eyed boy didn’t seem to want to make any eye contact with him. In fact, tiny beads of cold sweat and a slight hint of shivering could be seen on Watanuki, his eyes showering a great deal of fear at Doumeki’s presence.

“Anno, doushite, Watanuki-kun? Daijobu deska?” Himawari asked worriedly as she noticed Watanuki’s sudden change of mood.

“B…Betsuni…” Watanuki replied, his voice betraying him.

“You didn’t make me bento today.”

Watanuki stood up abruptly as he saw Doumeki’s hand reach over to take a piece of tamagoyaki from his bento, dropping the lot onto the grass for ants to pick on. He didn’t hear Himawari’s worried and confused ‘Doushite, Watanuki-kun?’ question. Everything around him seemed to blur and fade out of existence as he watched in terror at Doumeki looking at him with eyes that could hide his deepest, darkest secrets even from the most powerful psychics and mind-readers. He knew those were not his real eyes. The emotion beneath those eyes was all too vivid, too scary, and too horrifying to imagine. He knew that beneath the stone façade, there laid a beast sitting on a ticking time bomb waiting for the right moment to burst out from its prison and overtake the body, and when it’s released, nothing in the world could ever hold it back. He had experienced firsthand on how the beast showed its fury.

Without a word, he took off, leaving Doumeki and Himawari behind. Himawari tried to call after him but he paid no heed. There was nothing in the world that could keep him from running away from the archer and his upcoming fury. Facing a thousand spirits following his tail was much more of a comfort than this.

He had to get away from him.

Fast.

Pain is not an Option-Chp 2

It was a painful journey from the school to Yuuko’s shop. The sun was already beginning to disappear into the horizon as Watanuki hobbled his way to his workplace, holding his much sorer left arm. He didn’t bother to clean up the mess in the sports equipment room. Let some other lackey to do the work. He wasn’t in the mood or physical shape to clean after his other classmates who had their turn using the baseball equipment. He had a job to do, though he wasn’t sure if he was fit to complete it. Even his arms were sore as it is from Doumeki’s tantrums.

“You’re late, Watanuki.”

Watanuki flinched at the unconcerned voice that came from the other side of the sliding door of her smoking room. He wasn’t in a mood for arguments.

“Sunimase, Yuuko-san. Something came up in school. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Go take a bath.”

“What do you want for din…Nani?”

“Go take a bath, Watanuki, then come in here. I assume you know where the bathroom is.”

Watanuki didn’t expect Yuuko’s order of the day. Usually she would put up that cute smiley face or call out delightfully from her smoking room for Watanuki to make insane, impossible sake-complementary cuisines that sometimes he had to refer to a pocket cookbook to figure out what she wanted. This time Yuuko sounded like as if it was a matter of life and death, and he wasn’t even on a mission. Yet there was no figuring out the witch. You may as well know her for all your life and she still keeps you guessing. Might as well go in and face the music.

Quietly, he made his way to the bathroom to clean himself. Trust the witch to be into aesthetics when he saw that it was one of those traditional bathtubs made out of wood where you have to heat the water with firewood. It was filled to the brim and steaming perfectly, as if expecting Watanuki to come in and inviting the boy in with its bubbly noise it made. He took off his ragged clothes, stepped inside the bath and scrubbed himself from head to toe, trying to get rid of the smell of sex on him. He couldn’t believe he lost his virginity in a way he had hardly expected to be. He had never felt so dirty before in his entire life. It was worse than being hit by a whole bus load of spirits or being dumped with garbage by a garbage truck, if he ever had been dumped with stinky trash before. He scrubbed so hard and so desperately that his skin stung at the touch. If he hadn’t paid attention, he would’ve scrubbed himself raw to the point of bleeding.

After being done with his bath, he was surprised to be held on each hand by Maru and Moru (I hope I got their names right) as soon as he got out of the bathroom and was led gently towards Yuuko’s smoking room all the way towards the dressing board veil where Yuuko often stood behind to change clothes while he waited hand and foot on the other side with her sake ready. The witch, who was lounging on her oriental couch as usual, watched silently and smoked her pipe without a word. Mokona was waiting behind the board veil, sitting beside a huge black box that had a gold carving of two dragons spitting fire at each other. Maru and Moru sat him down beside Mokona and took off his bathrobes, stripping him bare. Watanuki felt a little awkward at first, but remembering that they were used to helping their mistress dress and watching her naked all the time, he relaxed a little as he let the two girls and the small black ball of fur help him with his wounds.

“If it is any consolation to you, Watanuki, he wasn’t being possessed by spirits or anything. His feelings were real.”

Watanuki flinched, not because of the medicine applied to his bruises, but by Yuuko’s remark. He should’ve known that the witch would know what happened to him without even having to witness the situation or have a first glance at his condition. Or else why the sudden red carpet treatment? But how could she know what was going through his mind on trying to rationalize Doumeki’s sudden actions?

“Hitsuzen, Watanuki. It isn’t the best way to describe it, but it’s a fact.”

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” Watanuki muttered grudgingly.

“Of course not. I would never imply that,” Yuuko replied in a half-smiley tone. “I’m just thinking out loud. Anyway, you should’ve been nicer to Doumeki-kun. He’s had it as bad as you did.”

“Are you saying that whatever happened to me is my fault?!” Watanuki was enraged. How dare she accuse him of something that stone-faced boy did?

“I wouldn’t say it’s entirely your fault. Besides, like the expert says, ‘No matter how provocative or seductive someone may be, if anyone lay a finger on that someone and makes the first move, then the person making the first move would be the one at fault’. But honestly, Watanuki, think about the things he had done for you. Think of the arm he almost sacrificed when you’re on the Angel-san case. Think of the 10 long hours him digging and waiting for you under the pouring rain when the ame-warashi asked for your help. Think about the little return he asks from you for such big favours he did you. He never asked for more, and yet you go around yelling and screaming and complaining like you don’t appreciate him or anything. Even calm and collected guys like him get hurt, you know.”

“Are you saying that I deserve this? Are you saying that the pain I just went through is nothing compared to his?”

“Pain is not an option, Watanuki. It’s how you deal with it that’s important, and you are not dealing it right.”

Watanuki fell silent as Maru and Moru finish up with the last bandages on his torso. He knew Yuuko was right in a way. Doumeki had been enduring most of the beatings when they were sent on missions, and he had not uttered a single word of pain or discontent about it. He had said nothing more than a passive ‘Aho’ or ‘Hm’ or ‘Urusai’ to every single rant and rave he made at him, and never even bothered to fight back whenever he argued with him because he knew fighting would only make matters worse and that action speaks louder than words. Even when he refused to thank him for his efforts during missions, he just brushed it away without forcing the issue. All he wanted was an extra bento for lunch. That’s all he asked for. He never required him to do anything that was beyond his cooking skill range and never asked him for payment of silver and gold of some sort, and he never blackmailed him or bargained with him to do his bidding. Just a lousy bento and they’re even.

He knew that. He knew all that. But still…

“You can have the day off today and tomorrow, Watanuki. Go home and take a rest. Just help me make a call to any restaurant and order a take-out for us before you leave.”

“Hai,” Watanuki said as he got up slowly. Maru and Moru gave him a set of new clothes to wear while they disposed of the ragged ones. He had no idea where the girls got clothes that fit his size and all, and he probably didn’t want to know it either. It can very well be one of those payments Yuuko collected for a wish granted. He wore it without any protests and picked up his school bag. He dialed the number of one of those well-known sushi restaurants and ordered bento for four before heading towards the door.

“Watanuki.”

The boy stopped in his tracks, not facing Yuuko who was standing three feet behind him and bracing himself for anything the witch had to say.

“Think about what I said.”

Watanuki’s heart ached at her words. He had expected her to say something nice like ‘Be careful on your way back’ or ‘Do you need Mokona to follow you home’ or ‘You can spend the night here if you want’, but then again, a kind word from Yuuko was wishful thinking. He nodded wordlessly and made his way out of the door and into the streets, turning left towards his home.

He barely paid heed to the tears that accompanied him all the way back to his apartment.

Pain is not an Option-Chp 1

Started: 08-02-06 Completed: 02-03-07

PAIN IS NOT AN OPTION

Silent breaths filled the darkness of the sports equipment room. Occasional sounds of balls rolling and falling could be heard as a silhouette of a figure slowly put on his glasses and tried to get up, holding the baseball shelf for support. The figure winced at the soreness of every part of his body and shivered, not out of cold, but out of fear and dismay.

As he slowly put on his ragged clothes one by one, Watanuki began to think back how this could ever happen. He felt so dirty, so ashamed and so…whore-like. How could this ever happen to him? Why was it that bad things always revolve around him? First his parents died trying to protect him, then he started seeing spirits and be chased by them every single waking moment of his life, then he had to work his butt off for an insufferable and insatiable witch who promised to get rid of his unwanted gift yet have no intention of showing any effort in fulfilling her side of the bargain, then he gets paired with the guy who never spoke more than one word and had been a pebble in his shoe everyday without fail, then there’s Himawari who fails to notice every time he tries to shower her with his undivided love and attention…and now this. Could his life get any worse?

It happened a few hours ago after their P.E. lessons, the last period of the day. As usual, since they were the most athletic and best scored players in the team, he and Doumeki had to stay back to put away the baseball equipment back into the sports equipment room. He complained as usual about Doumeki’s arrogance and show-off attitude during the game and Doumeki replied him in his usual blatant and less-than-one-syllable way. Himawari had often find it funny and amusing to see him screaming his head off like some lunatic who escaped from a madhouse and Doumeki looking and talking to him like none of anything is his business, and she always complimented at how close their friendship were, which often made him rather annoyed. If only she knew what he really felt about that insufferable know-it-all of a Doumeki.

Once they’ve carried the equipment into the room, Doumeki inquired about how far it was till Valentine’s Day. Watanuki hadn’t expected that question coming out of his mouth.

“It’s coming in about two weeks’ time. Why do you ask?”

“No particular reason.” Doumeki replied briefly as he put the box of baseballs into the shelf.

“You’re not trying to expect anything from Himawari-chan now, are you?” Watanuki growled, his eyes glaring at him in total suspicion.

“Hm.”

“What does that suppose to mean?”

“Need I spell out everything secret that is going through my head for you?” Doumeki asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh no! I know what you’re thinking! You’re thinking of going to ask Himawari-chan to make chocolates for you on that day, aren’t you? You know that Himawari-chan is a nice person and would do anything to make people happy! You’re going to prey on her kindness and steal her away from me! I knew it! I knew it!”

Watanuki was going into one of his screaming fits, jumping into conclusions again. Typical.

“What makes you so sure that you’re right?”

“Of course I’m right, you baka! I know I’m right! You’re always showing up at unnecessary moments when I’m having my quality time with Himawari-chan, showing off that so-called genius mind of yours and bragging about how you know things just because you’re raised by your good ol’ grandfather in that stupid shrine, making me look like a fool in front of her! You always swallow up the food that I make especially for Himawari-chan and you’re always circling around us like a vulture in a raw meat buffet, making her fawn all over you instead of me! It’s obvious! You want Himawari-chan all to yourself and you just can’t wait to watch me drop dead in front of your face and take off with her right under my nose!”

“Urusai. Your shouting in this room is making the effects even worse,” Doumeki said as he plugged his ears, obviously used to the ranting and raving but still showing a hint of irritation in his voice.

“I’ll shout all I want! I hope you go deaf by the time I’m done with you!” Watanuki screamed even louder, his hands flailing about in his way of emphasizing his point and his spit flying all over the place. “You’re insufferable, irritating, selfish, good-for-nothing, show-off, womanizer, stupid and a jerk-off and you know it! I don’t even know why Yuuko thought of pairing you with me on missions anyway! What exactly does everyone see in you? I bet that—”

“URUSAI!”

Before he knew it, Doumeki’s palm suddenly landed squarely at his cheek, sending his glasses flying and him landing butt first onto the ground and knocking over the trolley that kept the baseball bats and gloves. Watanuki was shocked speechless, his cheek red and throbbing in pain. Was that Doumeki? Watanuki thought, his mind set into denial. It couldn’t be! It couldn’t be! Doumeki never had outbursts before. He never laid a finger on anybody. The only thing he ever does was scolding me with his passive voice and giving me sarcastic replies. He never used violence. Not once! What’s gotten into him?

“Nandateyunda, Doumeki? What is your problem?”

“Do – you – ever – shut – up?” Doumeki growled, saying the words one by one as he closed in on Watanuki who was still on the floor trying to get up on his feet.

“Dou…Doumeki…Doushite…?”

Do you ever shut up??

Watanuki had never seen Doumeki like this. It was a side of him he had never seen before. It wasn’t the Doumeki who would look at him with his stone-faced expressionless features and talk to him like he didn’t bother to raise his voice for the likes of him. It was the Doumeki filled with emotion and an aura that could kill, with eyes screaming bloody murder and gritted teeth bared out for him to see. He has his fists clenched real tight; so tight his knuckles were going white, and red was flushing over his tanned face. He was letting out short breaths of anger and was ready to beat Watanuki into a pulp. If he wanted to, he really could.

“Doumeki…”

“Urusai! Urusai, urusai, urusai!!!”

Without warning, fist after fist landed on the tiny thin Watanuki. His blows were strong, like sledgehammers ramming onto every inch of his body. He tried to scream for help and begged him to stop, but the blows came harder. He tried to fight back but his hits pale in comparison with Doumeki’s who had been a strong archer longer than he was a cook. All he could do was hold onto the pain and tears that were threatening to burst out of his blue eyes and cringe into a fetal position, praying that Doumeki’s rage would stop.

After what seemed like forever, the blows finally stopped. But the aggression had not end there. No sooner Watanuki relieved himself of the fetal position than Doumeki suddenly reached over and grabbed him by the collar. He picked him up like an abusive father would pick up a defenseless child and rammed him against the baseball shelf. With one hand gripping firmly on his jugular, Doumeki literally tore off Watanuki’s uniform: jacket, shirt, pants, underwear, all of them. He hastily threw the torn garments onto the ground and forced Watanuki to face the shelf. Watanuki’s eyes widened in horror as he heard the sound of Doumeki’s pants being unzipped and a forceful intrusion that might as well tear him in half.

Watanuki let out a strangled yelp as the archer forcefully thrust into him, pumping his manhood with great gusto. Doumeki made a hush almost as loud as a spitting snake and closed his mouth tight, while the other hand held his waist in position. He was being raped. He knew he was. And there was nothing he could do except let out one muffled scream after another as Doumeki continued to thrust, the latter more painful than the former. He could feel himself bleed inside out. He tried to push the archer away but he was no match for him. Doumeki was the strong, macho man and everyone’s favourite. He was the teachers’ pet and the females’ adoration. He was the school’s pride and joy of an archer and most probably the apple of his family’s eye. Who would pay attention to a freak who sits somewhere in the back of the class constantly hounded by irritable spirits and never stood out much in either academics or sports and was never favoured by anyone else but a witch and her assistants as their personal slave cook? No, he could never fight him. Never.

Finally, Doumeki came to an abrupt stop. Watanuki felt something warm bursting inside him. Doumeki had come. He came and left his filthy seed inside him. Moments later, Watanuki involuntarily came too. Both of them slid to the floor, waiting for the final tremors to subside. This was the first time he came in his 17 years of life. It was supposed to feel good. It was supposed to be ecstatic.

It wasn’t.

It hurt badly. Real bad.

Doumeki unceremoniously pulled out and pushed him away. Watanuki dared not look up. He dared not even speak. He just waited until Doumeki cleaned himself with whatever he had, pulled up his pants and stomped out of the room before he began to painfully recollect himself and regain composure.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Battle Orchestra-Chp Finale

CHAPTER FINALE-THE DUEL OF A LIFETIME

All the cartoons and animes were seated in the cafeteria to have their dinner. All the cartoons and animes were pretty much the same old hostile attitude towards each other. They were either exchanging venomous looks at each other or glare at each other in the face before someone else that was more calm and collected or rational comes and drags them away. They ate their meals in silence so that no one would suddenly come up some wise-guy catch to start a fight.

This wasn’t the time to fight. Not now. Their fight is on stage, where the public will see their abilities and be the judge.

Our Asian agents Misbun Sidek, Mat Gempak and Pak Cik Din were pretty amazed when they came into the cafeteria. They expected a hot fight as soon as the West and the East meet but judging by the glares and silent treatment, they were impressed.

“Looks like we don’t need to be their peace maker for tonight, do we, guys?” Mat Gempak said as he took his seat after getting his food.

“Nope, not necessary,” Pak Cik Din replied. Misbun only smiled and shook his head. He was still being mysterious and all even though every staff was beginning to doubt that the West and the East would ever make peace after this orchestra.

“Are you really, really sure that this duel is going to settle their score between themselves?” Mat Gempak asked, still worried about the whole thing.

“We’ll just wait and see,” Misbun smiled and popped a spoonful of mash potatoes into his mouth.


All the people from the reality world came ushering into the Great Music Hall. The humans range from the creators of the East and West characters to the members of the West and East animation staff to the other important people of the animation organization and finally to the public, which is the viewers. Anime and cartoon characters both young and old came to see the big feud between the East and the West. When the public heard wind about the feud, the tickets were sold out almost immediately within 24 hours of its sale! Now that’s what I call a great sale!

Everyone chattered excitedly as they tried to find their seats in the Great Music Hall. They were all excited to see their favourite characters go into action. It was a new thing for them to see their characters playing instruments and indulge themselves in serious art for a change and they wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Backstage, everyone was pretty much nervous about the whole duel thing. Some of them were beginning to have second thoughts about the whole issue.

*In the West*

“I don’t think I wanna go out there, guys,” Ron said as he peeked from the closed curtains at the hundreds upon hundreds of people out there taking their seats. “I’m suddenly experiencing a serious case of stage fright!”

“Me too, me too!” Rufus agreed as he burrowed deeper into Ron’s pocket.

“There’s no turning back now, guys!” Kim Possible exclaimed in horror at her boyfriend’s sudden change of attitude. “We’ve already agreed into this and we have gotta go out there and show the East who’s boss!”

“But…are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Daphne asked. “I mean, there has got to be other ways to settle this fight. We don’t have to take such drastic measures.”

“What do you mean drastic measures?” Cat (CatDog from ‘Nickelodeon’) asked, surprised. “Competing in this type of feud is perfectly civilized and non-violent. What’s so drastic about it?”

“Yeah,” Dog, his conjoined brother agreed. “It’s just an orchestra competition. It’s just a simple matter of win or lose. What’s wrong with that?”

“Well…I didn’t want to tell you this because I didn’t want your spirits to be down and be pressurized by the whole thing but…” Mickey hesitated, scratched his ear and finally said, “Well…if we lose, our ratings go down. And when our ratings go down, it’ll be the end of us.”

“WHAT?!” Everyone exclaimed, their eyes as big as saucers.

“What exactly do you mean by ‘the end of us’?” Eduardo demanded, his face looking as if he would take the ecto-gun and blow Mickey up into smithereens.

“You know how our lives and our existence depend on the ratings. If no one likes us anymore and no one is interested to watch our shows anymore, we’ll cease to exist. We’ll disappear into thin air, disintegrate, and fade away…well…in a crueler way…die…”

“DIE?!” Johnny Bravo exclaimed as he almost fell onto his knees. “I’m too handsome to die! I haven’t got enough chicks yet, man! Oh Mama, why does this have to happen?!”

“Now you tell us!!” Donald Duck squawked. “Do you mean to tell us that if we don’t win this contest, we’ll die?!”

Mickey didn’t dare to reply.

“Even if we raise the white flag now, the humans will think of us as cowards and will hate us for it. We’ll die all the same,” Sam said as she and her girlfriends Clover and Alex looked at each other uneasily.

“But if we win, we’ll end up killing the East,” Bubbles whined. “We’ll be murderers!”

“I don’t usually say this but…” Mickey hesitated again before saying, “we’ll have to risk it. It is a necessary evil. We cannot just die.”

The silence that hung over them later was way unbearably thick.


*In the East*

“The day for us to beat those worthless West baka-s have arrived!!” Goku exclaimed with much excitement, resulting to a loud thwack by Sanzo’s holy fan.

“Don’t be so enthusiastic, you bakasaru! Your confidence is just gonna wear you down! I don’t want to see you falling asleep in the middle of the competition!”

“Sanzo, just let him be,” Gojyo said as he gulped down his last can of beer. “He practically never runs out of batteries.”

“Is everyone all set and ready to play for our lives?” Hakkai asked cheerfully as usual.

“HAIT!!!” Everyone exclaimed with their instruments held up high in the air.

“Are you sure we should do this?” Ayashi suddenly asked. “I’m beginning to have second thoughts.”

Everyone glared at her like she just announced something horrible and unforgivable. Toru stood protectively in front of her in case they want to pounce on her and turned to her, asking, “Why do you have to say that? We’ve already gotten this far. Why the hesitation all of a sudden?”

“I just…don’t think that this is necessary. It’s too cruel…”

“Well, it’s too cruel to let the West win and get us killed in the process!” Usopp exclaimed.

“She’s right,” the sudden agreement from Luffy immediately turned heads towards him.

“Why do you say that?” Sanji asked with Nami in his arms.

“If we do this duel and we win, we’ll kill the West in the process because they will lose their ratings and cease to exist.”

“Yeah, so?” Tasuki folded his arms, unconcerned.

“Then what’s the difference between us and the West? I bet they want to do the same thing and get us killed. But if we do this, what difference does this make us compared to them?”

Everyone was at lost of words.


“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!” Mat Gempak and Pak Cik Din, who were the MCs, stepped out to the stage and were fighting for the mike. As they fought for it, they finished each other’s sentences, sending the humans into peels of laughter.

MG: Thank you one and all…

PCD: To come to this glorious hall to…

MG: Witness this glorious performance!

PCD: Do enjoy the orchestra performed by…

MG: Our most talented characters from both…

PCD: The East and the West!

MG: We’ll let you be the judge to see…

PCD: Who’s the best among the two!

MG: So without further ado…

PCD: Let us give a warm welcome…

MG: To the East anime and the West cartoons!

As soon as they finished, the humans clapped and cheered as the curtains unfold. The West was sitting at the right side of the stage while the East sat at the left. They were amazed to see which of their favourite characters was handling which piece of instrument. Half of the Disney characters were handling the wind instruments like the trombones, trumpets, flutes, saxophones, clarinets and tubas, while the other half were handling the cellos, violins, guitars, banjos, electric guitars and a huge harp together with some of the Cartoon Network crew. Half of the Nickelodeon was in charge of the drums and the other half were in a mixture with the Cartoon Network handling miscellaneous instruments like the piano, xylophone and chimes. The East, on the other hand, were about much of a mixture of everyone handling instruments like the qin, the wind chimes, flutes, the cello, the Chinese xylophones and the drums. They were all glaring at their opponents as if they were about to eat them alive.

Soon, the orchestra began. The West started first with some theme songs from their show like ‘Scooby Doo’, ‘Dexter’s Laboratory’, ‘Totally Spies’, ‘Kim Possible’ and ‘CatDog’. The East fought back by a few theme songs from their show like ‘Samurai X’, ‘Cooking Master Boy’, ‘Slam Dunk’, ‘Ranma ½’ and ‘Ayashi No Ceres’. Then the West rebutted back with songs from ‘The Weekenders’, ‘The Powerpuff Girls’, ‘The Flintstones’ and ‘Tom & Jerry Kids Show’. The East again threw them back with songs from ‘Strange Dawn’, ‘One Piece’, ‘Vandread’ and ‘Here & There, Now & Then’. The West shot back again with their theme songs from their animation movies like ‘Beauty & the Beast’, ‘Aladdin’, ‘Pocahontas’, ‘The Lion King’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’. The East wouldn’t give up and had their songs from their OVA like ‘You’re Under Arrest’, ‘Fushigi Yuugi’, ‘Jigoku Sensei Nube’ and ‘Oh! My Goddess’.

The fight was hectic. Everyone watched in awe and excitement as the West and the East fought to defeat each other with their songs. They were going back and forth with each other, from ‘Archie’s Weird Mysteries’ to ‘Dragon Ball’ to ‘Road to El Dorado’ to ‘Doraemon’ to ‘Hercules’ to ‘Gensomaden Saiyuki’ to ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’ to ‘Shaman King’ to ‘Mulan’ to ‘Rave’…the list goes on. They both were playing for their lives, playing for their existence and playing for their place in the animation world. Neither of them wanted to die and become forgotten by their humans they have given their service to for so long. None of them want to disappear and cease to exist for the rest of their lives. None of them want to have the feeling of fading away into nothingness and become lost in the world of emptiness where there is no life and no death and no one to care for you. None of them wanted to be parted from this world and stop serving their beloved humans. And certainly none of them want to be out of the children’s—those lovely children—eyes forever, never to be remembered and never there to brighten their days.

But then, none of them wanted to kill their opponents…

They suddenly stopped, much to the amazement of the humans watching. The silence was so thick, but no one attempted to make a sound lest missing out what would happen next. Mat Gempak and Pak Cik Din stared in astonishment at their sudden reaction. Misbun smiled mysteriously, as if expecting this to happen. The West and the East stared at each other in complete silence. It had dawned to them that none of them wanted their opponent to be killed. All they wanted was to have a fair duel to see who wins or lose. None of them expected that this duel will cost them their lives. None of them expected that whoever wins, either side will die. They didn’t want to kill. They didn’t want this tragedy to happen at all.

Suddenly Miaka, who was playing the qin, struck a note. Tamahome stared at her before playing a note on his flute. Chichiri followed suite by playing the wind chimes. Then it was Sakuragi playing the Chinese trumpet, followed by Rukawa playing his flute. Slowly the West also joined in, from Ron playing his trombone, Kim with her flute, Johnny Bravo with his electric guitar, Velma with her violin and Goofy with his banjo. One by one, the crew from the East and West played their instrument, slowly and spontaneously making a song that no one had ever heard before. The song was neither from the East’s theme songs nor the West’s. it was a whole new song which just came from a combination of them. Even Hakkai and Mickey, after staring at each other, finally raised their conducting sticks and began to conduct the song that was out of the ordinary.

Everyone was really moved by the song, including the children who came to listen and also our Asian agents. They played of their lives in their field of entertainment. They played of how they felt when they were first created. They played of how they felt when they were given life by the humans who watched and loved them. They played of their happiness and sadness, of the wonders they could do to brighten up and excite their fellow viewers through their stories and adventures. They played of romances that bloomed within them as their show carried on to entertain their viewers and played of gratitude that if it weren’t for the support of the viewers, they wouldn’t have discovered love between themselves and wouldn’t have lived till today. They played of the good times and the bad times and most importantly, they played of their love and thanks to those innocent kids who never tire and never failed on them.

When they ended, there was another silence. The East and the West suddenly felt exhilaration and a satisfaction that their score was finally over. They realized that ratings were not something they can just simply hold as a contest, not when it concerned their lives. They realized that they were pretty equal after all. They finally smiled at each other and gave their compliments to each other through eye-contact.

Almost abruptly, everyone present in the hall stood up and cheered, almost clapping their hands raw. They hollered and shouted with excitement and even whistled. Happiness and tears were all over their faces as they yelled their congrats and compliments out loud.

“They are just so cool!”

“Yeah! Sugoi!”

“They were so great, so cool! I…I can’t decide! They both are so good at this!! I can’t express how cool they are!!”

“The East and the West rocks, dude!”

“I’m amazed! They actually did it without our help! We didn’t have to draw them any special talents to play!”

“I’m so glad this is over!” Mat Gempak shouted in the midst of all this commotion. “I didn’t think they’ll pull through anyway!”

“You knew it all along, didn’t you, Misbun?!” Pak Cik Din asked. “You knew all along that this was going to happen, didn’t you?!”

Misbun only smiled as he went up stage and took the mike. He waited until the commotion died a little before asking, “Well, friends. Did you enjoy the show?”

“YES!!!” Everyone exclaimed, forcing those on stage to wince and cover their ears.

“So, what do you think? Who is the best among the two?”

Everyone quieted down and muttered among themselves. It was written on their faces that none of them was able to decide. Finally one of the staff from Disney said, “I don’t know, Misbun. We really can’t decide. They were all really good.”

“Yeah,” someone from the anime company agreed. “They started out to be fighting among themselves but to think that at the end of the show, they had a combined song. We…we really can’t decide.”

Everyone nodded and muttered their agreement. They really couldn’t figure out whether the East was better or the West. Misbun smiled and said, “Then we’ll have to consider this a tie, shall we?”

“YEAH!!!” everyone replied before cheering again.

“Well, guys,” Misbun said as he turned to the cartoons and the animes. “Are you satisfied now?”

They all nodded sheepishly. Goku suddenly laughed out loud and pounced on Sanzo, demanding a congratulation kiss. Sanzo wanted to shoot him with gun at first, but finally turned his back on everyone and kissed Goku. Soon, all the couples of both East and West grabbed each other and kissed. Johnny Bravo was the most enthusiastic and show-off of all. He held Velma way near to the ground (like in those dances) and kissed her, sending her swooning. Dexter looked at him in distaste but was consoled by his sister Dee Dee and Mandark.

“Chill out, Dexter,” Dee Dee said. “There are still other girls in the world right for you.”

“Yes, Dexter. I can introduce to you a lovely female specimen later,” Mandark agreed.

The whole feud ended gracefully.


“Our ratings are better!”

Our ratings are better!”

“Here we go again.”

The characters of the East and West were bickering again about their ratings in the conference room. Some people just never learn. Mat Gempak, Misbun Sidek and Pak Cik Din groaned in exasperation.

“What is it this time?” Mat Gempak asked. “Wasn’t the orchestra duel a lesson enough for you?”

“No! Come to think of it, a tie isn’t so good after all!” Timon replied.

“We want another duel!” Giant exclaimed. “Something that wouldn’t affect our lives and force us to give in to each other and will not have another tie!”

“Any ideas? We have to stop them fighting like this!” Pak Cik Din asked. For once, Misbun shook his head and shrugged, obviously no ideas at the moment.

“OK, guys!” Mat Gempak sounded really tired of all this nonsense. “You want a fight? I’ll give you another fight! One that won’t concern your lives, if that’s what you want!”

Everyone looked at him eagerly.

“Cooking.”

Battle Orchestra-Chp 4

CHAPTER 4-LAST MINUTE PREPARATIONS

The West gathered in their orchestra room very early in the morning for one last practice. They made sure that none of them made a single mistake in their theme songs and were surprised themselves when some of the theme songs they practiced came out pretty perfect without any flaw at all. After the practice, Mickey the conductor was very pleased indeed.

“Well, my friends, I guess we have actually done a great job in this practice. Remember, we have to do our best on stage if we ever want to win the ratings that we deserve from the humans in the reality world. I heard many are coming to watch us tonight and will be the judge.”

“I thought you didn’t care about the ratings,” Donald Duck said slyly in his duckish squawk.

“Heh heh,” Mickey scratched his head sheepishly. “Well, so far we have been practicing very, very hard, and I shudder to think that our efforts would be wasted and have the humans favour the animes. So…”

“We get the drift, Mickey,” Shaggy said as he sat, as usual, with Scooby sharing a long sandwich. “Like, we wouldn’t want to let those chinks get in the way of being the most liked cartoons by our fellow humans.”

“Uh-uh, no way!” Scooby agreed with his mouth full of food.

“What if they don’t like us?” Courage the Cowardly Dog, the worried wart, whimpered. “What if those animes really are good and the kids don’t like us? What’ll we do? What’ll we do?”

“Stupid dog! You’re worrying over nothing! Of course we’ll win!” Eustace scowled and would’ve hit his guitar on Courage’s head if it weren’t for his wife Murielle who stopped him.

“He is right,” Cow said worriedly as she squeezed Chicken’s shoulder. “What if they don’t like us? What if we don’t play good, Chicken? Would it be the end of us, Big Brother?”

“That’s why we have to give our best performance to them and show them what we’re made of. There is no way we’re gonna give up our ratings to a 3rd class animation like them!” Clover replied vainly.

“OK then, my friends. Let’s do another practice and let’s break a leg on stage later!” Mickey said as he tapped the board with his conducting stick enthusiastically.

Soon the orchestra room was filled with their music.


Everyone of the East sat at their places, staring at their instruments blandly without moving an inch. They seemed pretty tense and testy. None of them were willing to pick up their instruments and practice for the last time. Hakkai, the ever high-hoped and cheerful git, noticed immediately and tapped the board with his conducting stick.

“Come on, people, get a move on! Dozo, dozo!”

No one attempted to move. Hakkai brought a chair to sit down and folded his arms.

“Alright, guys. What seems to be the problem?”

“I think we’re going out on a suicidal mission,” Luffy, the ever energetic rubber boy, looked worried and uneasy for the first time.

“Why do you say that?”

“I’ve heard rumours about the judging. If we lose, we will cease to exist,” Sailor Moon said with a glum on her face as she let herself be in the arms of her darling Mamoru and Luna on her lap.

“Annou…if we actually lose, the ratings and credit will all go to the West, and we will soon be forgotten,” Kyoko (Jigoku Sensei Nube) said, fearing for the worst. “And if we are forgotten, our lives will be gone. We will cease to exist. We will disappear into thin air and never be able to live again.”

“I don’t want to disappear! I haven’t have time to be with Haroko!!!” Sakuragi ranted in the background, but was surprised that Akagi didn’t aim a punch on his head. Rukawa looked at him coldly, but was unable to hide his worry about disappearing from the face of the earth.

“Matte, matte! Choto matte, everyone,” Hakkai tried to calm his fellow colleagues down and brighten up their spirits. “Just because of one rumour, you turn into soggy ramen? Come on, guys. This is not like you. These few days you were playing pretty good, and you guys are really making progress. You’re not giving up, are you?”

“We wish we could share your optimism and all,” Kindaichi said unenthusiastically, “but you don’t get much of a courage when you hear things about dying and ceasing to exist, never to return to bring joy and laughter to the humans.”

“Well, if you guys give up now and not wanting to show up for the orchestra performance, we would cease to exist just the same, because we are going to considered as ‘chickens’ by the humans,” Hakkai replied calmly.

“Yes, but…” Ranma tried to reply, but couldn’t. He was pretty upset about the whole thing.

“Besides, if you don’t try, how would you know that we will not be liked by the humans? How would we know that our songs are better than the West or vice versa? Our songs are much popular than the West—just look at those humans downloading our songs from the internet rather than the West’s. What do we have to lose? If we don’t try, we might as well be dead, right here, right now.”

“Well, you got a point there,” someone from Vandread replied sheepishly.

“We have to be out there to know if we are worthy of all the ratings from our fellow humans,” Hakkai replied as he got off his seat and reached for the conducting stick. “Remember, we may not know what will the future brings, but we can change it for the better and for our advantage.”

“Well, what are you bakas waiting for?” Sanzo threw away his cigarette and picked up his Chinese guitar. “Let’s get started before Hakkai here talks until the end of time.”

Everyone finally picked up their instruments and prepared to start their practice. They seemed pretty upbeat now that Hakkai had given them reassurance and a little bit of confidence.

“It is the fight for our lives and for our existence,” Hakkai tapped his stick and raised it above his head. “Ganbatte, everyone!”

Soon, their orchestra room, too, filled with music.


As time passed by, the clock struck, signaling dinner time. Misbun stared out of his office window and he could see, at the Great Music Hall where the competition will be held, stood quite a number of humans waiting outside the gates long before it was time to open and let them in. Misbun smiled and drew the curtains.

“It is time.”

Battle Orchestra-Chp 2

CHAPTER 2-THE WEST

Cartoons of the West were all gathered in the orchestra room, picking the instrument of their choice. They couldn’t believe that they actually agreed upon Misbun Sidek’s decision to an orchestra duel with the East animes. They were too dumbstruck at that time when Misbun came with the decision that the meeting adjourned without as much as a small protest. Now they were in the orchestra room trying to practice a song that would be good enough o defeat the East and claim a name in their rightful place as the highest rated cartoons of the animated world.

“Alright, alright, places everyone,” Mickey stood at the conductor stand and tapped the board with his conducting stick. “Everyone, find an instrument that you can play and then we’ll all come up with a nice piece of song to beat the animes, although I don’t think this duel is good.”

“This duel is so not the drama,” Kim Possible groaned as she took a flute. “Cheerleading is much easier than this!”

“You said it, KP,” Ron agreed while taking a trombone, followed by Rufus the mole rat from his pocket.

“I cannot believe that some Asian cartoons can just boss us around and ask us to compete in this primitive nature!” Dexter grumbled as he picked the xylophone. “Why couldn’t he say anything about competing in science?”

“That’s a good duel,” Velma (Scooby Doo) agreed while she took a violin.

“I hope these weird instruments don’t do anything to my hair,” Johnny Bravo said as he took the electric guitar in his hands. Dexter gave Johnny a sideways glance. If anyone remembers one of the Cartoon Network’s commercials, Dexter has a heart for Velma, yet Velma was undeniably in love with Johnny.

“Ah-hyuck! I love playing things like these! I don’t mind Mr. Sidek giving us this kind of competition!” Goofy replied as he took out his prized banjo. A family heritage, no doubt.

“Dad, you’re always up and about for anything,” Max replied exasperatedly while he and his best pal PJ took an electric guitar each.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Max (Mighty Max) said as he took another electric guitar while passing the drumsticks to Norman, “my missions to defeat SkullMaster or this.”

“I’d say that it’s most likely the missions that are kinder,” Virgil commented.

“Alright, everyone,” Mickey’s voice came out in the middle of the hectic orchestra crowd. “Have you guys got the instrument you can play?”

“YES!!!” Everyone hollered, sending Mickey falling over his feet by the impact of their voices.

“Alright, let’s try these few pieces, and then we’ll decide which to play for the orchestra.”

The cartoons started playing. First it was a real wreck that they had to take several breaks just to let Mickey’s stressed-out heart rest. But after a few practices (and less wreckage of tunes), they got the hang of it.

“OK, everyone. It is decided. We’ll play our cartoons’ theme songs and also those major theme songs for our animated movies. I personally think Beauty & the Beast and also Hunchback of Notre Dame’s theme song is cool.”

“No kidding!” Daffy Duck said in the midst of his spraying saliva. “The first few tunes from…whaddaya say? Symphony something! Ugh! That’s terrible!”

“OK then. We’ll take a break then, have a dinner or a snack or somewhat, or does anyone have a show to run later? Alright, after everything said and done, you will all gather here to play.”

Everyone groaned when Mickey mentioned the practice, but they didn’t protest. Could be because of their bet and grudge towards the East animes. One by one, they left the orchestra room. Some stayed behind to play their instruments or experiment some other instruments to see if they were suitable to their capability.

“Hey, Velma, you got any shows today?” Dexter asked, feeling hopeful.

“No, nothing much. Scooby and Shaggy had to go on some tour with Fred and Daphne, and I wasn’t interested, so our show had to be postponed,” Velma replied.

“Then would it be OK if…”

“Hey Velma, Carl was supposed to hang out with me at Pop’s but he ditched me for some ‘pretty’ cousin of hers,” it was Johnny Bravo, wincing as he said the word ‘pretty’. “Come with me?”

“Sure, Johnny,” Velma said dreamily as she followed behind him without waiting for Dexter’s protests. Dexter sighed and walked off to find his co-actor Mandark to pass the time. He found it hard to confess how he felt for Velma, his intellectual equal. He didn’t what to say and he didn’t how anyway.

So far, apart from this poor soul who was unable to confess, there are other people who were already an item out for a dinner or supper or getting ready for a show. For instance Arnold and Helga holding hands as they head for the cafeteria, Kim Possible and Ron practicing their lines for their show together (and sucking up on each other in the process), Belle and the Beast out in the balcony of the orchestra room watching the sunset, Aladdin and Jasmine sharing a milkshake at a coffee shop just outside of the building, Kylie and Eduardo having their little ‘private time’ before their show starts and Archie sharing his extra large sundae at the cafeteria with Betty and Veronica.

Later that evening, as planned, the cartoons of all stations, namely Disney, Dreamworks, Pixar, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Warner Bros. came to the orchestra room to play their pieces.


“Are you sure that they can make peace through this duel?”

The new Asian executives Mat Gempak, Misbun and Pak Cik Din passed by the orchestra room to check the cartoons out and see their progress. They were playing pretty well for starters, and they never asked for any special effects or special talent to be given to them from the humans. It was all on their own. They’ve never seen them more determined than ever.

“Is the ratings all that matters to them? I think they’re doing pretty fine with the ratings. At least none of their shows are getting ripped off. The kids still like them…” Pak Cik Din’s words were cut short by the raising of Misbun’s hand.

“The ratings are their life and their winning bread. Without it, they will cease to exist, just like when my other comic ‘sibling’—the ‘Smashing Omni’ did,” Misbun replied, a slight bitterness in his words. “It co-existed with me and my brothers in our comic series, and they shared their life with us. But when it started to go solo, no human was interested, and their ratings immediately fell. My brothers and I watched as they disappeared out of sight right in front of our eyes. We couldn’t do anything, because it was the ratings that kept us alive.”

“I’m…so sorry,” Mat Gempak said apologetically. “I’ve never experienced such things before; because all my members are still around…I didn’t know…”

“To them, the ratings mean everything,” Misbun replied. “Without it, it’ll be the death of them.”

“Then…how is this duel going to stop them from fighting for ratings anymore? I mean, if either side wins, one of them has to cease to exist…” Pak Cik Din was beginning to worry.

“Yes, that’s right!” Mat Gempak began to worry too. “We’ve already made our announcement to the reality public about this duel! If the humans start choosing sides, either side would die, and it’ll be our fault and…”

“Let’s go take a look at the animes, shall we?” Misbun only gave his co-workers a mysterious smile before turning towards the other wing of the building.

Mat Gempak and Pak Cik Din had no choice but to follow suite. They simply can’t keep up with Misbun’s mysterious behaviour forever.

Battle Orchestra-Chp 3

CHAPTER 3-THE EAST

The orchestra of the East is totally not the same as the West. All the instruments are really Chinese style and are totally the different design than the West’s. There wasn’t an electric guitar, to start with, and the keyboard was like a piano with only strings but no keys (by the way, in Chinese, it’s called a qin) and the only Western instrument available there was a cello. Aside from that, it’s all Chinese, Chinese and more Chinese instruments.

The conductor for the East anime team was no other than Cho Hakkai, the little ol’ good-natured cutie. Adjusting his glasses, he said with a smile (as always) and said, “Hait, hait (OK, OK). Places, everyone, and pick an instrument. Dozo, dozo (please, please)!”

Everyone did as they were told, chattering loudly. Goku and Gojyo fought for the Chinese drum, resulting into a loud, painful thwack from Genjo Sanzo’s famous fan. Sakuragi and Rukawa fought for the Chinese trumpet, resulting to hard bashes on the head by our famous ‘gorilla’ Akagi. Tamahome and Tasuki fought for the chimes and had to be pacified by both the calm and collected Chichiri and the tough guy Nuriko. In fact everyone was fighting for an instrument and was pacified by another person that the whole orchestra room was pretty much a warzone for a full 10 minutes before they finally settled down on an instrument they could agree on. Hakkai and his faithful shoulder companion Hakryu the dragon couldn’t help but let out a sweat drop.

“Alright, everybody. Got your instruments? Now let us begin.”

Unlike the West, the East animes knew immediately what they wanted to play: their own theme song. But then another problem arose—neither anime wanted their theme song to be played last. The argument started all over again, from Vandread to Fushigi Yuugi to Doraemon to You’re Under Arrest to Akazukin Cha Cha to Ranma ½ to Gundam, etc, etc…Even Genjo Sanzo’s famous Spirit Ascending Gun couldn’t shut them up; it made things even worse.

Suddenly the whole orchestra team was set alight for a moment there. There was a blinding flash, a scorching heat for a split second and then a thick layer of silence. Everyone was burned as black as soot but the instruments were untouched. The silence lasted for a full 2 minutes before the team turned slowly towards the ever smiling Hakkai with a very bright aura glowing on his left hand and Hakryu letting out a dragon laugh.

“Now that I have your attention…” Hakkai said as he dug out a piece of blank paper and a pencil. “It seems that if you carry on like this, we’ll never make it for the orchestra duel, so I’ve come up with a fair and square plan. Now I will write numbers in sequence and put them in this box here, and one person from each of their show will come up and draw. Simple enough? Fair enough?”

Everyone nodded, too dumbstruck to talk after being burnt into a crisp toast. Hakkai counted all the anime shows mentally and wrote the numbers in the paper. He then dropped the numbers one by one into the spectacle box he put his glasses in, gave it a shake and opened it again for the members to take it. One by one a representative from each show came to take a number. Some cheered when they got a favourable number and some groaned. It was expected, but they accepted it just the same. None of them wanted to argue; they didn’t want to become a human charcoal.

Soon, everyone was back in their places with their instruments in their hands. Hakkai tapped the board with his conducting stick and counted “1, 2, 3” before waving it, conducting his orchestra team into playing their songs right. The songs started out quite bland and out of practice but slowly they kinda got the hang of it.

Finally, after they played their songs for a few times, Hakkai saw the watch on his hand showing that it was time for quits. He tapped the board, signaling everyone to stop. They put down their instruments, looking quite buffed out by the practices.

“Hait, everybody. We’ll call it quits for now,” Hakkai said with his usual smile on his face. “Do whatever you want, but come back later tonight. We need to practice some more. There are some songs that you need to tighten a little.”

“What?? Come back again?! I don’t wanna!!” Goku protested.

“Yeah! Why do we have to come back and practice?” someone from Gundam yelled in the background.

“Well, I don’t know…” Hakkai smiled even wider as his hand started to glow again. Immediately, everyone punched the Gundam wise guy and agreed to come back tonight. Hakkai smiled and said, “That’s good. We have to work hard to defeat those West cartoons, you know. Practice makes perfect. Besides, we agreed to do this, didn’t we?”

Everyone mumbled in reply as they left the orchestra room one by one. Like the West, some of them stayed back to play the instruments and test it out to either pass their time (‘coz they don’t have a show) or just for fun. Goku immediately ran towards Sanzo and grabbed his arm, begging him to take him to the cafeteria.

“Harahate-ne (hungry), Sanzo~!” Goku whined lovingly. He had always loved this demented monk to the core and was always with him even when there wasn’t a show going on. Gojyo saw them and huffed, walking away to a gorgeous chick from the You’re Under Arrest show. He was used to them.

“Urusai (Shut up),” Sanzo said as he gave a whack on the little monkey’s head with his famous holy fan. Goku was unperturbed.

“Harahate-ne~!! I wanna eat sushi, tempura, ramen, sashimi…”

“Go away before I blow your brains out,” Sanzo’s gun was on his forehead now, but Goku was used to his threats. He looked at his beloved monk with those watery puppy eyes and smiled forlornly.

“Aishiteru-ne (I love you)~”

The safety pin on the gun was released.

“Aishiteru, Sanzo~! Harahate~!!”

Sanzo stared at the suicidal Goku for a few moments before sighing and wrapped his arm around Goku’s waist as he and the little monkey walked out of the building towards a genuine Japanese restaurant. That was one of his weaknesses: he eventually wouldn’t be able to resist Goku’s temptation.

Besides this loving (occasionally getting at each other’s throats) couple, there had been other couples trying to spend their free time sucking up on each other, like Ranma and Akane practicing their instrument together, Ayashi and Toru walking towards the cafeteria with their baby in a pram, Nobita and Shizuka practicing their lines for the show, Tamahome and Miaka going out on a double date with Chichiri and Tasuki (yes, these two are couples as well) and Reka and Shal (Strange Dawn casts) trying to help Berey to ask Yuko out so that they, too, could go out on a double date.

But, as promised, that night the anime casts came back one by one to practice their music until late in the night.


“Are you really, really sure this duel is going to work?” Pak Cik Din asked skeptically as they peered into the orchestra room to check out how the East was doing.

“Yeah, Misbun,” Mat Gempak agreed worriedly. “What if they don’t kiss and make up? What if something goes wrong, like the humans taking sides and one of the team has to be eliminated…?”

“They will make peace,” Misbun replied, smiling mysteriously. “Trust me on this one.”

Battle Orchestra-Chp 1

Started: 07-15-03 Completed: 08-01-03

CHAPTER 1-MEETING FOR THE DUEL

The world of the cartoons and anime was in total disarray. Cartoons of the West were having disagreements with the animes on their ratings for their shows.

“Come on, guys, admit it! Our ratings are far better than your silly old-fashioned 2-D features!” Sha Gojyo, from Genzomaden Saiyuki, yelled and banged the table of the conference room.

“Excuse me, Mr. Know-It-All!” Max, Goofy’s son, banged back at him, louder than before. “You guys have some 2-D features too, like Slam Dunk, for instance, and I don’t see your ratings going up!”

“You watch your mouth, you punk, or I’ll…!” Sakuragi growled as he was ready to pounce on him from his side of the table but was pulled back by Kokure, Miyagi and Mitsui. Sendoh grinned in the background and Sakuragi’s team was excited to see a fight going on.

“Besides, we have also embraced the 3-D features, like Treasure Planet, Toy Story and the recent one Finding Nemo. And our ratings got up quite well!” Mickey tried to reason with them.

“Hah! That didn’t last very long, did it?” Tasuki, from Fushigi Yuugi, waved his fiery fan at them. “You should check out our Final Fantasy: Spirits Within! Now that’s what I call a good rating!”

“Yeah, but if it weren’t for the sound dubbing from our side,” the Beast (Beauty & the Beast) growled, baring his fangs, “you wouldn’t have a great international rating now, would you?”

“We did most of the anime work! You guys just stepped in and put in your voices! You didn’t do much in contributing to the artwork of the features!” Doraemon and Nobita argued in unison.

“Oh yeah? Well, you guys butted in the artwork that was purely our idea to create it!” Clover, from Totally Spies, argued back in her outspoken way. “Look at us now! I am so anime-d by you guys! We had a feature of our own and yet all our attitude and style are practically polluted by your Japanese anime features.”

“Mind you, you guys came here to Japan to learn our way of creating funny, fast-moving and great features, not us!” one of the crew from Vandread yelled at the background. “We didn’t ask you to come over and learn our art so that you can apply it to your features! You’re lucky we didn’t sue you guys for it!”

“Furthermore,” Hiroshi, from Jigoku Sensei Nube, challenged, “if it weren’t for our knowledge, you Spies would’ve been bland and uninteresting 2-D cartoons!”

The fight began to get pretty heated up, from Kim Possible’s arguments to Ayashi No Ceres’ rebuttal to Donald Duck’s yapping protests to Rave’s loud yelling to Scooby Doo’s howls to Akazukin Cha Cha’s squeals. It was like a great war between the East and the West as they both shouted their disagreements. If this scene was made into a TV show, you could see fire in the background as the two parties compete to out-talk each other.

“SILENCE!!!!!”

Everyone stopped abruptly, including Genjo Sanzo who was about to pull out his gun to silence everyone. They all turned to the people across the conference table. There, sitting at the end of the table, were the people who were in charge of holding this meeting. They were new executives who monitor the progress and the ongoing situations of the cartoon world. They were no other than our local Malaysian comic and cartoon characters, namely Mat Gempak from Gempak magazines; Misbun Sidek from the Anak-Anak Sidek comic book and Pak Cik Din from Ujang magazines.

“Thank you,” Mat Gempak said as soon as the conference room was silent enough and that all have taken their seats. “Now that I have your attention, let us all continue our meeting like we’re supposed to and not get at each other’s throat.”

“It has come to our attention that you have some doubts of whose shows’ ratings are better, the East or the West,” Pak Cik Din said as he acknowledged both sides. “Really, there is no doubt that both of you have done a great job in entertaining the humans in the reality world, but really, you don’t have to fight amongst yourselves. All of you have done a perfectly good job.”

“Thanks, Mr. Din,” Goofy, our resident simpleton chuckled absent-mindedly. “We’ve been trying very hard to impress those kids…”

“Come on, Dad, you can’t be satisfied with that,” Max groaned. “We are doing so much better than those cheapskate animes and we sure that were far better than all of them combined. They’re just jealous of our recent success in the new movie ‘Finding Nemo’ and are trying to say that they’re better just to psychologically trick the humans out there.”

“We did not!” Detective Conan’s team shouted. “It’s true that your show sucks and it’s only a piece of cake compared to our standard features! You guys can’t even act in a comic right!”

The fight would be even more heated up if Mat Gempak hadn’t cleared his throat deliberately loud enough to pacify them.

“People, people. There’s no need for a fight. You have done your share of the work fine for the community of humans. Why would you want to fight?”

“BECAUSE WE KNOW WE’RE BETTER THAN THEM!!” the East and the West shouted in unison, forcing the meeting chairpersons to cover their ears.

“So what is it do you want that can make you change your mind about each other?” Pak Cik Din asked exasperatedly.

“We want a duel!” Archie yelled. “A duel that can determine us fair and square!”

“Yeah! We want the greatest duel that can show these numbskulls who’s the big guy around here!” Luffy and Zoro said in unison.

“We want a fair duel!!!” For once, the East and the West agreed on something.

“Alright then,” Misbun, who was silent throughout the whole meeting, said with an air so mysterious, everyone including Mat Gempak and Pak Cik Din turned to look at him.

“What do you have in mind?” Katsuya (Jigoku Sensei Nube) asked.

“I have a perfect duel that can both challenge your skills and also prove your worthiness in this field and also dare you to see if you have the guts for it. I’m sure it’s something you guys have yet to master or encounter. It depends on you now, and that means no help from humans whatsoever. You have to do this yourselves.”

“Come on, man! Stop speaking in riddles! What’s the big duel?” Chicken (Cow & Chicken) asked.

“You guys are going to compete in orchestra.”

Confession-Chp Finale

The beeping of the heartbeat machine was moving steadily and her breathing was pretty much regular. Helga was sleeping peacefully with her breathing mask on. She was, for the first time, not tying her hair in two pony-tails, but was spread decoratively all over the white linen pillow. She was wearing a hospital gown of blue, something Arnold had never seen her wear before. Her closed eyelids covered her blue eyes as she slept peacefully throughout the hours.

The doctors told them that besides a few broken bones on her arms and legs, she also had a serious fracture on her back caused by the cable swing. She will need a really, really long time to heal and rehabilitate herself to walk and coordinate herself again, although a fractured spine seldom has any chance to heal. What’s worse was that after the surgery, although she lived through it, she had slipped into a coma. No doctors were sure when she was going to wake up. So even if there was a chance to cure all the broken bones on her body, a long time lying on bed without any activity would deteriorate the muscles and bones so bad, recovery is almost impossible.

Arnold was sitting beside Helga’s bed, staring at her sleeping body supported by the breathing gadgets and tubes stuck on both her wrists. Arnold took her hand and stared at Helga. Time seemed to stand still between them. It was like this moment would never go wrong, as long as Helga didn’t know that he was there so that she wouldn’t shoot showers of insults on him, although he hoped she would. At a point, he wanted Helga to wake up, to see him in front of her and know that he loved her for so long.

“Helga, I know you can hear me but you just can’t wake up right now,” Arnold whispered as he laid his head on the bed. “But I just want you to know that…I’m grateful for you trying to save me and I thank you for that. You were really brave, you know that? That’s what I love about you: you often just bustle in and do what you think is right for you. You don’t care about what other people think. You are just…so…brave. And to think they thought you’re just a…”

As Arnold continued to chit-chat with Helga, the rest of the gang who were hiding behind the ward door were totally speechless at what they heard.

“Did you just hear what I heard?” Gerald tried very, very hard to suppress his excited voice.

“Yeah! I mean, I just can’t believe that Arnold is actually…” Stinky cringed, unable to continue.

“He’s gotta be crazy to like Helga! I mean she is such a total jerk!” Harold was in fits of denial.

“Helga is not a jerk, at least not very!” Phoebe protested. “She just saved us from being crushed into a pulp!”

“Yeah, but…no offence, Phoebe, but I just can’t get over the fact that Arnold is actually having a crush on P.S.118’s biggest bully in the school history!”

“So what? Helga had a crush on Arnold longer than…” Phoebe was so bent on defending her best friend that she accidentally revealed Helga’s life long secret. She cupped her mouth in horror at what she had done.

“What?! Helga too?!” Everyone was so surprised at what they heard coming out of Phoebe’s mouth that they almost forgot to lower down their voices.

“Well, I mean she does have a little crush on Arnold…and…I gotta go…” Phoebe backed away slowly before quickly dashing away from the ward, prompting the very, very curious number of Arnold’s classmates taking to their heels and chasing Phoebe, demanding an explanation.

Whether Arnold had heard them or not, the noise didn’t seem to mind him at all.

He only wanted Helga.


“You have to go home, shortman. Your Grandma misses you.”

“I don’t really think so.”

It had been two month since the incident happened in the funfair. The funfair was declared closed due to that accident and was forced to move out of the neighbourhood by people who had lost their children in the swing twister crash. Ever since Helga has been hospitalized, Arnold went to her ward everyday to visit her, not wanting to miss a second of her, for fear that he wasn’t there if she ever wakes up. Most of the people in P.S.118 knew about his crush with hlega and vice versa, but he didn’t want to care. He only had his mind on Helga. He would stay at the ward until late in the evening and sometimes way till the night when the nurse had to remind him over and over again that visiting hours are over. He would go home reluctant, his footsteps echoing down the lonely road and Grandpa Phil would always be at the dining room with his cold dinner (sometimes supper if Arnold was able to persuade the nurse to let him stay until about 11.30 at night).

Finally, he couldn’t stand a single minute without seeing Helga. He had made the hospital his second home. Everyday, after school, he would dash to the bus stop to catch the earliest bus to the hospital downtown (where Helga was) and stayed with Helga in the ward until visiting hours were over. He would hide either at the toilet or in the janitor’s room or even the boiler room until the lights were almost out. Then he would creep back into Helga’s ward and sat beside her, continuing to whisper words to her about his day at school and when he got tired, he would either sleep in a sitting position with his head propped on the bed or sleep under Helga’s bed until the next morning. He will then sneak out before he was discovered and caught the morning bus to go to school.

He never ever wanted to go back to the boarding house anymore. He was content just sitting there beside Helga and talk to her with yearning for her to wake up. No matter how much Grandpa Phil or his best friend Gerald or his other classmates begged and coaxed, he wouldn’t budge. Only once in a while, he went home to ask for some money so that he could buy food from the vending machine or the shop outside the hospital. He couldn’t just live off outside food forever, so Grandma Gertrude made some homemade food for him and Grandpa Phil would take it to the hospital for Arnold to eat. Still he wouldn’t leave. He wanted to be by Helga’s side and have the first-hand to see Helga wake up.

“You really, really have to come home, shortman. Look at you. You’re becoming paler by the minute. You have to come home and have some proper rest.” Grandpa Phil was really beginning to worry.

“I’m fine, Grandpa. Just fine,” Arnold replied absentmindedly, being at the state of denial he was.

“Your Grandma would kill me for this.”

“Just don’t tell her then.”

Grandpa sighed and left the basket of food as usual for Arnold to eat. Another day, another fruitless attempt to persuade his grandson to come home. If his son and daughter-in-law were around, they would surely blame him for not taking good care of their child.

“Grandpa?” Arnold’s voice suddenly came out of the blue.

“Yes, Arnold?” Grandpa spun round, feeling hopeful.

“From now on…don’t send me meals anymore. I can feed myself. Tell Grandma that.” Arnold was staring straight at Helga while he was saying that. Grandpa Phil was shocked for a moment, but seeing Arnold’s face exceptionally serious and solemn, he didn’t dare to protest any longer. He just nodded and left without a word.

Arnold didn’t even attempt to say goodbye.


Arnold staggered down to the vending machine. He hadn’t eaten properly for a few days now. His money was almost running out and he resolved to only drinking (not beer, mind you!) either coffee or hot chocolate or anything drinkable from the vending machine. He forced himself not to take so many trips to the vending machine as he didn’t want to attract attention from the nurses, and he didn’t want to go running home asking for money because he didn’t want Grandma Gertrude to worry about him and fuss over him like he was a 5-year-old. More importantly, he didn’t want to miss Helga’s awakening.

“I still have…5 50 cent coins…I can get me a hot chocolate or something…” Arnold muttered to himself, not sure whether he was talking right. He went closer to the vending machine and, with trembling hands, slipped in a 50 cent coin for a $1.50 worth of a cup of hot chocolate. He was about to slip in the second 50 cent coin when he saw a couple of nurses walking side by side with a doctor, looking quite anxious and busy.

“What was her condition?”

“I’m not sure, doctor. She suddenly fluttered her eyes and her heartbeat had increased quite abruptly. It’s a miracle. She wasn’t in a condition to at least wake up in such short hour…”

“Yes. You did say her chances of waking up would be like about 40%, wasn’t it, doc?”

“Well, I was wrong. The Lord sure works in mysterious ways. Come on, girls. We have to attend Miss Pataki before we lose her again!”

Pataki? Helga Pataki? His Helga Pataki? Were they talking about her? Helga has finally awakened! She has finally awakened! How could he ever walk out of the ward just to get some stupid drink and not stay put in the ward to see her awake? How stupid could he get? Now he couldn’t see her wake up first hand! He completely forgotten about the vending machine and was about to take to his heels and run to her ward when all of a sudden, he felt weak all over. his lack of food intake was wearing his body down—he wasn’t getting much nutrition like he was supposed to. His legs turned to jelly and he found himself collapsing onto the floor—hard. Still, he forced himself to at least get up and crawl. His body was wearing down even more, and when one of the attendants noticed him and tried to help him, he shrugged him off, determined to get to the ward himself. He had to see Helga. He can’t fall now! He had to see Helga! He had to…

Helga’s blue eyes were the last thing on his mind…


Arnold saw himself standing in the midst of thick mists. He didn’t know where he was or how he got there, but he knew that he was supposed to find Helga.

“Helga?! Helga~!!! Helga, where are you?!”

“Right here, Arnold! I’m right here!”

Arnold moved towards her voice, both of them calling at each other so that they knew where they were going in these thick mists. He couldn’t see much, but he could make out an outline of a girl with two pony tails and a large ribbon. He held out his hands and could feel hers as their fingers intertwine with each other.

“Helga, I’m so glad you’re alright!” Arnold sighed in relief, grabbing her by the wrist and hugged her close to his chest.

“I’m so glad I’ve found you, Arnold!” Helga sighed too as she hugged him back.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time, Helga, but I never found the courage to do it…Helga…I…I love you! I loved you since the day you gave me that kiss during the play! I found myself unable to hate you, unable to despise you, even unable to live without you anymore! Helga, please don’t leave me again! I can’t stand the idea of letting you out of my sight!”

“I’m afraid I can’t promise you that, Arnold,” Helga suddenly loosened her hug and replied with a sad tone in her voice.

“What…What do you mean? Why can’t you?” Arnold asked in surprise.

“Because…” Before Helga could answer, she was gone. Disappeared into thin air. Arnold suddenly was unable to feel Helga in his arms again. He felt so empty, so lost, and so lonely in the middle of the thickening mists. The silence was suffocating. It was so silent that not only you could hear a sewing pin drop, but even a grain of sand. He fell onto his knees with tears trickled down his cheek. He tried to suppress it, but he just couldn’t shake off the depressing, ultimately devastating feeling inside him. Was he forever to endure Helga’s absence? Was he forever going to lose sight of her? He finally drew in a long breath and wailed in agony.


“HELGA~!!!! HELGA, DON’T LEAVE ME, HELGA~~!!!!”

“I’m here, you football head! Stop yelling! I’m here!”

Arnold’s tears and Helga’s voice shook him awake. Arnold opened his eyes to see Helga staring back at him with…worried eyes? He sat abruptly, taking Helga by surprise. He laid his hands tentatively on her cheeks and touched her to see if she was really there. She let him do that for a few seconds or so before pushing his arms away irritably and grumbled, “Hey, football head! Are you trying to give me a facial or something?”

Arnold looked at the rest of her from head to toe. She was sitting on a wheelchair with a number of pillows supporting her weak back. The tubes and the breathing mask were gone, but she was still in her hospital gown and her hair was still loose, resting gently on her shoulders. Her arms and legs were in casts and didn’t look too pretty, but she still looked appealing to him all the same. That was when he realized he was dressed in a hospital gown.

“How long have I been asleep?” Arnold asked, rubbing the sleep off his eyes.

“For almost five days,” Helga replied scornfully. “For a minute there, I thought I might have transmitted my coma viruses to you! The docs said you haven’t been eating for days now, and they started sticking those tube things on you to feed with. Your grandparents were here yesterday.”

“Oh…” Arnold replied, looking down, suddenly very interested in his knees.

“I also heard loads of stories from your grandpa, about not going home and all…”

Arnold looked up, quite shocked to be found out by someone he didn’t dare to let know of.

“And also…when you’re asleep…I’ve heard you talk in your dreams…”

Now he felt really embarrassed. He muttered, “You’d think I’m a real idiot, wouldn’t you?”

Helga moved her wheelchair closer to him and said, “You don’t have to do this for me, you know. If…If you…like me so much, you don’t have to…spend your days 24/7 in this ward just to see me wake up. You have a home and yet you don’t go home! Sometimes you’re just down right stupid!”

“I know, but…” Arnold had to gather more courage to blurt it all out. “If I don’t do this, I won’t get first hand in seeing you waking up. I…I want to be the first person you’ll see when you come out of your coma…so that…”

“So that you can make me barf at first sight?”

“No! So that…you’ll know that I’m doing this because…I love you.” There. He said it. You should see his face—as red as a tomato.

There was a long silence between them before Helga finally took a deep breath and muttered enough for him to hear, “I, uh, I also…have…a crush on you. Ever since pre-school. I was told that…if I were ever to treat you like I can’t stand the sight of you, you would understand that I…I love you too. I could never tell anyone. It’ll ruin me. It’ll ruin my reputation, my pride, my…”

Arnold stopped her raving by laying a finger on her lips. He took her chin gently and placed his lips on hers, kissing her like she did him during the ‘Romeo & Juliet’ play. He fondle his tongue on hers, guiding her as he kissed her more deeply, tasting every inch of her mouth inside. It felt so tantalizing to the taste. He wanted to savour more of her flavourous lips but Helga tore him away within seconds, her face flushed and looking breathless.

“I just want to know if you like me. That’s all I need to know,” Arnold whispered as he caressed her cheek gently. Helga would’ve flung her arms around him if they weren’t broken. Arnold noticed and wrapped his arms around her instead. She couldn’t hold herself any longer—she burst into tears and let out muffled wails on his hospital gown, wetting it. Arnold didn’t mind. He held her even closer and stroked her soft blonde hair. He kissed her forehead and rocked her body to and fro, whispering sweet nothings until her wails slowed down to silent sobs.

Things were definitely going to work just fine for them in the days to come.