Months passed by and Osamu and I only became closer. In order to bring him to his demise, I had to get close to him first. The hardest punches are thrown at close range.

Throughout highschool, we spent time together acting as a team to terrorize the younger, weaker ones. It felt.. Kinda good to see them get flustered and whine as we tortured or with held precious items from them. I knew I was only hanging around Osamu so that I could ruin him in the long run, but I did enjoy the activities I was introduced to at least a little bit.

The more I hanged out with Osamu, the more I learned about his father's true nature. Mr. Tanaka was married to his work first, family second. Often times, he wouldn't come home on "work," but Osamu informed me that really, he would just sit in his office, drink, and invite whores to his office. Needless to say, Osamu was an only child.. at least to his knowledge. He also informed me that his mother knew, but she refused to talk about it. She just served Osamu and Mr. Tanaka as lovingly as she could. It made me wonder if she saw lovers behind the scenes, too.

However, given this information, it's highly possible that Osamu just reached out to me for attention. His needy mistake.

As time went on, Osamu was introduced to whores and alcohol by his other friends. When he showed them to me (his only "true friend" at the time), I was a little cautious at first. There was such a dishonorable stigma around it among teachers that if they found out, I would have surely been exiled from school and sent back home.

..But Osamu and his group of friends thought it was cool and if I didn't partake in the merrymaking, I would be cut out of the loop and would lose every chance at ruining Osmau's life.

I had to choose which I valued more: School and escape from my parents, or revenge on Osamu.

After only a little debate, I chose Osamu's path.

And so, down the same gutter as Osamu, my life went. From there, it was booze, smokes, and women, all at the age of 16 and up (Omsau a wee 12). They were easy to come by and we burned through it like cars to gasoline.

~

Coming back to the apartments from our secret spot in the garden, we always have to sneak by the classrooms because they're on the first story and our apartments are on the top stories.

Since we're still drunk off our asses and know Osamu's dad had stayed for the night in his office, we decide to swing by his classroom to peek in and see what he's up to.

As we approach Mr, Tanaka's classroom from the outside, the sound of pretty, erotic moans spill out from the cracked window (it's a breezy, spring night). They're from a deep voiced woman, but she honestly sounds like she's having the best fuck in her life and therefore triggers our sex thirsty male minds, having us crave more.

Once we get to the window, we crouch under it as stealthily as we can and then lift up to our knees to peek inside. What I behold before my eyes I will never forget.

Splayed out face down across the grand piano is the culprit of the moans indeed, but what neither Osamu or I expect for it to be is a man. Let alone my math teacher...

Floodingly fast, my memories of the fonding looks Mr. Tanaka gave the piano came back with an entirely different definition. It was never because he enjoyed the playing, it was because he ways thinking of Mr. Ito under him at the piano just how he is now. It wasn't that Mr. Tanaka rented whores...

..It was that he's gay.

~

However, in the 70s, it was a common thing for a man who previously had a wife and child to realize he was gay during a midlife crisis. It was sort of mainstream in America, but I wasn't sure about Japan. I suppose since he spent so long in America, some aspects of the culture influenced him.

Obviously, his internal acceptance of himself being homosexual was one of them.

Of course, Osamu and I quickly ducked our heads and leaned up against the wall to take in everything we just witnessed. I'm sure much of the same thing was running through Osamu's mind. Maybe not. Maybe he felt in a way betrayed by his father. Maybe he felt lost.

How can I care?