"Confessional"

[Hiroshi-sempai]

Title: "Confessoinal"
Author(s): Me, Erin. ^_^
Rating: 18+
Content Warnings: Murder, rape, prostitution, child molestation, violence, death, D&s, schizophrenic hallucinations. You name it, really. It’s not a particularly disturbing story unless you have a vivid imagination, because nothing is described too graphically.
Size: 16 pages, 7,278 words.
Spoiler Warnings: Hiroshi's entire background.
Notes: I wanted to do a kind of summary of Hiroshi’s life on the streets, and this felt like a good way to do it. You won’t find any mention of Cliche High or other CH characters in here (except a couple of vague exceptions, but there are no names), this is all Hiroshi’s street life. And it all belongs to ME! XD

Divided into parts, due to the 10,000 character limit on posts.

[Hiroshi-sempai]

Hiroshi sat on the wooden pew at the back of the church, eyes gazing off in the direction of the stained glass windows above, but not really seeing them. His posture was relaxed, and he did not shift at any time. He seemed almost catatonic.

It was this position, this lack of movement that caught the priest’s eye. He didn’t appear to be very old himself, perhaps only mid twenties. He approached the other young man carefully, not wanting to startle.

“Are you all right?” He asked, resting his hand on the pew and leaning towards Hiroshi ever so slightly.

“I’m not a Christian,” Hiroshi said suddenly, taking the priest by surprise. He fell silent again as soon as the words escaped, and the young priest blinked a few times before finding his voice again.

“Well,” the young man said, his tone joking, “No one’s perfect.”<br>
“That’s certain, and I even less than anyone,” Hiroshi replied, still staring off into nothingness. The priest began to feel a little uncomfortable. He tilted his head at Hiroshi, and then invited himself to sit next to the other man.

“Something you want to confess?” He asked casually. Hiroshi smirked and chuckled a little, turning his head to the side and looking at the priest for the first time.

“Confess? I don’t think you have the time or the stomach to hear all of my sins.”<br>
“I like long stories,” the priest smiled, persistently. Hiroshi lifted an eyebrow at him, then looked down and laughed a little again.

“Well, I suppose if you really want to know, we’re going to have to go back about eight years...”<br>
~~~

I was ten years old, waiting at school after soccer practice for my parents to pick me up. I sat there on the curb for about two hours, watching people go past. Both my parents worked, you must understand, so I thought that something must have happened and they were running late. Never once did I suspect they had forgotten me.

I knew they always went home before they came to pick me up, and I also knew the route they used to drive to school off by heart. So I figured that if I walked home, I could meet them there, or I might see them along the road as they were coming. Either way, it didn’t bother me very much because we only lived a couple of kilometers away.

So I began walking home, along the route that we always drove. I was in high spirits...I’m not sure exactly why, maybe it had been a really good practice or something. It doesn’t matter, at any rate. I don’t play soccer anymore.

I rounded a corner, and I saw a car crash. Now, I’m not sure what it is about destruction that humans—particularly ten year old boys—find so interesting, but I wanted to see it. So I went towards the crowd that had gathered around, and I pushed between people and crawled beneath them until I was close enough to see the wreckage.

I remember it very clearly. It was a huge crash, three or four cars. I’m not sure the exact number. I remember thinking how glad I was that my parents weren’t involved.

Ah, but I was wrong.

As I looked, I saw the paramedics zipping up a black body bag—those look just like they do on TV, did you know that?—and loading it into a vehicle of some description. That held little interest for me, though looking back I think I can guess who was in it.

Then I was distracted by something else. The paramedics were pulling a body out of the wreck, a beautiful woman whose corpse had been mangled almost beyond recognition. I recognized her, of course. I would know that beautiful blonde hair anywhere in the world, just as I would know those kind, maternal blue eyes.

But the most beautiful golden hair in the world was stained red with blood. Like some kind of psychotic dye, the blood soaked into the strands of her hair and trickled across her body, droplets falling to the ground.

I could tell you about my mother’s hair, but I believe you’re here to listen to my sins, yes? Well, I was innocent in all the memories I have of my mother and that golden waterfall. So we will skip that...all you need to know is that I loved my mother very much, and she loved me, and her hair was the most beautiful thing I had ever known. To see it red and sticky with her blood was so horrifying, I completely forgot that the thing most people do in such a situation is to scream.

I didn’t scream, I didn’t cry. Instead, I simply stood there. Watching as they pulled her out...her left arm was completely gone, her lower body was hanging by a thread. I watched for several minutes, but then I started to feel dizzy and sick, and I knew I had to get away.

So I started walking. I didn’t have a destination in mind, at first. I just walked, even ran sometimes, trying to get away from the horror that I’d just seen.

I didn’t go home. That’s worth mentioning – in the last eight years, never once have I returned to the house that I had lived in with my family. At first it was just because it was too painful, but now it’s become a kind of tradition. Now I don’t do it because it feels like another time, another life.

At any rate, eventually I thought I could go to a church. It’s rather ironic that it was actually this church I came to. You weren’t here at the time, of course. It was another priest that was here then.

~~~

“That was Lawrence, wasn’t it?” The young priest asked, interrupting. “He was arrested before I moved here. He was a child molester, wasn’t he?”<br>
“That’s him,” Hiroshi replied, nodding. “And yes, he was a child molester. He liked little boys.”<br>
“How do you know that?” The priest asked, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Hiroshi smiled sadly at him, then returned his attention to the stained glass windows across the way.

~~~

I came here and asked Lawrence if it was true churches gave sanctuary to people who needed somewhere to hide. He seemed surprised at that, and asked me why I needed to hide.

I told him that I was scared, and that I had nowhere to go because my parents were dead.

Something about saying it out loud finally made me start crying, and he hugged me and told me that it was all right; he’d look after me. He told me that he’d even give me money if I did some things for him.

Well, to a newly homeless boy, that was like hearing God himself speaking. I thought I was onto a great thing.

For a while, I was.

At first he gave me odd jobs like sweeping floors and cleaning windows. He’d send me on errands, and give me a couple of dollars for each job I did for him. I spent all that money on food, and I slept here in the church.

~~~

“It’s changed a lot since then,” Hiroshi said, looking around as though for the first time. “I guess that’s your doing?” He asked. The priest laughed a little and nodded.

“I kind of like the new look,” Hiroshi smiled, “Not nearly as dark and unwelcoming as it was back then.”<br>
“Thanks for the feedback,” the priest replied with a little mock bow.

~~~

For a few weeks, errands and cleaning was all he asked me to do. Gaining my trust, I suppose.

Finally, of course, he couldn’t take it much longer. He took me out the back—there used to be a shed out there, I can see it’s not there anymore—and he told me that he’d pay me five dollars if I let him give me a massage.

I thought that was a pretty good deal. You would too, if you were ten years old and starving. So he started rubbing my shoulders, but of course didn’t stop there. He touched my arms, my chest, my sides, my stomach...he didn’t go lower than that, at least not the first few times. For a couple of weeks, it became common enough - five dollars for a massage.

Eventually, he gave me ten dollars and told me to take off my clothes. To his credit, Lawrence never raped me. He never fucked me. I don’t know about any other boys he might have been buying off the streets.

The price went up, and so did what I was told to do. Fifteen dollars meant he’d be fondling me, and twenty dollars meant I’d give him a blowjob. I suppose in a sick and twisted kind of way, I have that old pervert to thank for my present ‘oral skills’. He tasted rancid, however.

~~~

Hiroshi paused for a moment, deep in thought, or memory, or both.

“I’m glad he got arrested,” he said finally. The priest nodded emphatically.

“Yes,” he replied, “he was an evil man.”<br>
“Oh, he wasn’t the worst,” Hiroshi laughed, “I’ve met men who would have turned old Lawrence into their personal fuck toy in a matter of seconds. No, he was just an old man with a kink...I’m not really sure he was evil.”<br>
“I find it surprising you can say that about a man that did that to you.”<br>
“Oh, I suppose I’m just a pretty forgiving guy,” Hiroshi grinned, though it wasn’t from humour. “Besides, as I said, I’ve met much worse.”

[Hiroshi-sempai]

Eventually, I realized that I was a whore. I didn’t know the word prostitute back then, but I knew some people made a living by doing sexual stuff with other people for money. When I realized this, I thought to myself: Why stay with Lawrence if I could earn more money by doing this on the street?

So, I left the church. I had been there for a few months, and I left the relative safety of its walls to become, as the phrase goes, ‘a street bum’.

It wasn’t all prostitution, however. As it was, I never had sex with any of my customers. Blowjobs, hand jobs, whatever, but no fucking. I also picked pockets, kept lookout for thieves, all kinds of odd jobs that a homeless kid can do. I lived that way for several months. It wasn’t fun, or pure, but in a way it was more wholesome than the life I’d end up being dragged into.

A couple of months after my eleventh birthday, I happened upon some thugs up a dark alley. Sounds cliche, doesn’t it? Well, I can’t help that. A lot of the work I’ve done in life has been up those dark alleys, and often with street thugs.

I offered my ‘services’ to these idiots, and they saw a perfect opportunity to keep themselves a little pet. They dragged me back to their ‘gang pad’, as they’re called, and locked me into a kitchen.

I suppose the ironic thing here is that the gang they belonged to was also the gang I ended up being a part of later in life. But we’ll get to that later. Right now, let’s focus on the eleven year old boy who’s locked in a kitchen.

I was pretty damn scared, let me tell you that. I had no idea what was going on, or why it was happening, or how it would affect me in the long term. As it turned out I had little to worry about...I ended up doing the same things for the gang that I’d been doing for Lawrence, only I wasn’t getting paid for it. My ‘payment’ was merely being fed and sheltered. That was it, for a long time.

After a couple of months of living like that, I was allowed to come and go as I pleased as long as I always came back. So I began to earn a little money on the streets again, and went ‘home’ every night.

There’s nothing much interesting to tell you there for a while. I just lived. Well, maybe not lived. I existed...but it was better than the alternative, and I was hoarding up enough money to stay healthy.

So let’s skip forward a few months. Almost a year, in fact. A year in which I had begun to ‘learn the ropes’ of being a gang member, and had been getting ‘experience’ on the outside as well.

I’m now twelve years old. Hitting puberty. Now, adolescence is a tough enough time when you’ve got a normal life...can you imagine what it was like for me? Ironically, however, I coped just fine. Perhaps other things outweighed the whole puberty thing.

I had saved up my money and joined the local library. That probably strikes you as funny, trying to imagine a street tough guy like me in a library. It will probably amuse you even further to know that the only books I borrowed from the library were about cooking, science, art and music. I never had an interest in fiction...I still don’t.

Using these books, I began to teach myself how to cook, and of course about art, science and music. All these subjects fascinated me then, and still do now. Although now, admittedly, I spend more time on cooking and music than I do on art and science.

Living in a kitchen has its good points. I could experiment—oh, don’t give me that look. I never once made anything blow up.

I believe I’ve gotten sidetracked. Where was I? Oh, right, twelve years old.

I don’t remember what I was doing at the time, but several of the gang members came in to see me. I assumed they wanted the usual services, but when I got on my knees, one of them grabbed my hair and tossed me across the room.

~~~

“I’d like to see them try it now,” Hiroshi growled. The priest blinked, then looked Hiroshi up and down a couple of times, finally noting the well-toned muscles laced around the six foot two frame.

“I take it you’ve grown a lot since then,” he said quietly.

“That’s an understatement,” Hiroshi replied. “I wasn’t a runt by any means, but there were a lot of boys out there bigger than me. I suppose in a way I have the last laugh, but at the time...well...”<br>
~~~

They tore my clothing off me. I’m not sure exactly how many of them there were...three, or maybe four. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. The point is that when I was twelve years old, I lost my virginity.

I’m sure I don’t need to give you details about the rape. You can imagine it for yourself. All you really need to know from my point of view is that it was horrifying and painful. So very, very painful. You probably can’t imagine that kind of pain, and I’m not sure I want you to. It was suffocating, it pushed my limits.

They left me there, broken and bleeding on my beloved kitchen floor. I couldn’t get help, of course...I couldn’t go to a hospital. So I just had to hope things would heal on their own.

Eventually, they did. I don’t have any scars, thankfully...well, not physical ones. I still get flashbacks every now and then.

Now, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but not all rape victims become isolated and reserved. Not all of them retreat into a shell and try to lock the world out. Instead, some of them go hopelessly promiscuous in an attempt to block out their assailants’ faces with the faces of others.

It’s not a healthy way to cope, but it worked for me.

At first, I did go isolated and reserved. I didn’t speak unless spoken to, and my replies were always short and to the point. I closed myself up...but it didn’t heal me. I wasn’t coping this way.

When I was newly thirteen, I met a girl named...named...oh, do you know? I’ve forgotten her name. It’s not important, anyway. I met a girl, and I lost my virginity consensually. That opened a whole new can of worms, and I began sleeping around with anyone that would have me.

I did it for money, a lot...but sometimes I just did it for the hell of it. Even now, I continue that way. I do sleep with people for money when I need it, but generally I just like sex, so I fuck anything that moves, to paraphrase someone I know. I don’t discriminate on age or gender or anything like that. I am, to be perfectly honest with you, a completely shameless slut.

~~~

“I’m not proud of that,” Hiroshi said, eyeing the priest out of the corner of his eye. “I like it, but I’m not proud of it. Figure that one out, if you will.”<br>
“I can draw some conclusions,” the priest said, his expression unreadable.

[Hiroshi-sempai]

At any rate, I was beginning to get some reputation within the gang by age fourteen. I had begun taking part in some gang beatings, and other violent activities. I’d also begun working out, and I’d changed my diet to be healthier. You probably can’t tell by looking at me, but I’m actually something of a health nut.

I’d also taken to wandering around the city’s underworld a little more randomly. I’d pop up and bluff my way into meeting people, and by doing this I’ve created for myself quite an impressive network.

One day, I met a woman named Sally. That was her street name, at least. I didn’t know and I still don’t know her real name.

By this age, considering my experience, I too had a street name. When I first started out I was just ‘Hiro’, because it was a convenient part of my real name. But after my rape, I’d been branded ‘Kitsune’, which as you might be aware is the Japanese word for a fox. I was called that, because apparently I was as soft, quick and sleek as a fox. I’ve kept the name, and I still use it when I’m whoring myself out.

Anyway, back to Sally. I met her one day by accident; I was actually trying to meet her brother, who was a drug dealer. Now, I had no interest in drugs – I actually think they’re disgusting, which is largely why I was looking for this guy. I wanted to give him a beating.

Yes, I was a naive little shit at that age. But I think most of us are.

Sally was something like an angel. She was in her early twenties, and she bopped me over the head and told me I was interrupting, and that I’d have to wait until her pie was done. Having an interest in cooking, you can imagine my delight at meeting her. I finally had someone to talk to about things that interested me.

Sally became something like a sister figure to me. I suppose it’s no surprise that she vaguely resembled my mother – I’ve always had an interest in blonde women, which is something I’m sure Freud would love to analyse. Of course, Sally had more freckles, and her eyes were brown, and she was just the other side of being overweight.

I began spending a lot of time with her. I’d see her every day, sometimes. We would cook, and talk, and joke with each other, and she was the first real friend I ever had. Perhaps, she was the only real friend I ever had.

Then one day, she just disappeared. I had no idea where she went. I searched the city for her, calling in a lot of favours from friends in an effort to find her. Eventually, I did.

Her brother had shot her and then himself. Their bodies hadn’t yet been moved from the hotel room it had happened in. I called in more favours, looking for information on what had happened.

Apparently, her brother had called her from the hotel and told her he needed her help. Now, Sally was the kind of person that would go to a convicted killer and still help them, so of course she went to see what her brother needed help with. He was in the middle of a bad trip, and was waving a gun around. Bang, bang, first her and then himself.

Her body was...the expression on her face reminded me immediately of my mother, and of the car crash four years before.

Something went snap in my mind. I didn’t cry, not at first. I ran home—‘home’ at this point was still the kitchen at the gang pad—and crashed into several walls on the way. Once there, I began to hallucinate. Voices, screams in my ears, and blood – blood all over the walls and on my hands.

I screamed, and curled up in a ball, and then I began to cry. The hallucinations continued all that night, and even some into the next day.

It’s actually pretty rare to have a sudden onslaught of hallucinations like that. Normally they build up over time, beginning as very minor and building up to a storm. But for me, they just all exploded at once, and it very nearly drove me mad.

Well, I suppose in a way it did drive me mad. Since then I’ve read enough mental health books to know that I have schizophrenia. At first I thought it was just post traumatic stress disorder...because every time I’d hallucinate, I’d be reliving my mother’s death. But there are a few other things that set it apart – I do suffer catatonic phases, for example. Those are, thankfully, quite rare.

~~~

“Are you being treated for it?” The priest asked suddenly. Hiroshi blinked at him for a few moments.

“Treated? With drugs?” He snorted. “I refuse to take any medication for things like that. You can’t heal someone’s mind with pills. Besides, I keep it under control through other means.”<br>
“Other means?” The priest enquired.

“Yeah,” Hiroshi nodded, “things like herbal remedies to keep my body healthy, as well as working out. Of course, I also have my art and music therapy.”<br>
“I see,” the priest replied quietly.

~~~

Sally’s death was what triggered my schizophrenia at the young age of fourteen, and it was also the moment that I stopped looking for close friends and relied only on acquaintances and sex partners. You can imagine how lonely I would have been were it not for some people I met a year or two down the track from that moment.

I continued working within the gang, and became quite an important member of it. The head of the gang at the time was called Miles, and he began to work with me a lot. This is important, for an event I’m about to relate to you.

Skip forward a few months. I’m now fifteen, and I’ve become strong and well-known in our fair city’s underworld. Miles tells me that he knows this guy by the street nick of ‘JJ’ that’s looking to hire young kids like us, so he was going to go meet JJ and he wanted me to go with him.

We met JJ in some abandoned building. Well, it wasn’t really just ‘some’ abandoned building...it was the same building that I now live in. But at the time, it was alien and strange.

JJ was there, with his bodyguard, a man known only as “Mike”. Mike was a very scary guy then, and if you met him today you’d still want to shit yourself. He’s huge—almost seven feet tall, and he’s built like a brick house. He scared the bejesus out of me at the time, and frankly I still shudder when I think about him. He was trained military – I’m not sure exactly what kind of military, and I’m not sure I want to know. It’s probably something like special ops or something. He’s really fucking scary.

JJ told us that he was looking for kids to get some experience as hit men. Miles and I just stared at him for minutes, until Miles told him that he was out of his fucking mind.

Like a thunderbolt, I heard the crack of a gun. I didn’t know where it came from, and I didn’t know where the bullet went, until Miles fell over backwards as he stood right next to me.

Now, JJ is not the sort of guy that gets his hands dirty. He has everyone else kill people, he has everyone else embezzle things, he has everyone else do any of his dirty work. He controls it all. He is the living embodiment of the evil underworld boss—he looks the part, too. He’s always immaculately dressed in a business suit. From this, it will be obvious to you that JJ did not kill Miles.

Mike, however, was holding a gun that I swear was still smoking.

I was scared out of my wits. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone die, nor was it the first time I’d seen the product of murder. But it was the first time anyone had been killed right before my eyes.

I was too frightened to panic. I just stood there, staring at Miles’ corpse. JJ had that evil fucking smirk that I’ve come to know so well on his face, and he walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Kid,” he said to me, “I’m an expert, and so is Mike. Here’s the deal. You come work for me, do a hit when I tell you. Mike will teach you the basics. You can still work your gang and such, but when I call you, your ass is mine.”<br>
I didn’t reply at first. I was still in shock. I must have ended up looking somewhat defiant, however, because JJ continued in a much sterner tone.

“Boy,” he said—he’s always called me ‘boy’, ever since—“If you don’t do this, we’re just going to frame you for Miles’ murder. You won’t convince anyone that it wasn’t you, the way we do it. The best you could hope for would be to get off on an insanity plea.”<br>
Well, what do you say to that? Of course I agreed, and JJ gave me a mobile phone that I still have. From that moment, I began my career as a hit man.

~~~

The young priest looked shocked.

“As a...”<br>
“Hit man, yes,” Hiroshi said, repeating himself clearly enough to be understood. “I told you that you might not have the stomach for this story in the beginning. Changing your answer?”<br>
“No,” the priest replied firmly. “I want to hear it all.”<br>
“Famous last words,” Hiroshi murmured amusedly.

[Hiroshi-sempai]

I didn’t start killing right away, of course. I probably don’t need to tell you that when I went home from Miles’ murder, I had another schizophrenic episode. It was a bad one—as bad as the first one I’d had.

The gang needed a new leader. I was up for ‘nomination’, of course, but I couldn’t take it. I urged a friend of mine named Joey to take it up. He did, and he’s still in charge today. We’re still good mates, too, we exchange information and do each other favours quite often.

Around this time, I couldn’t be a part of the gang anymore. I had to get out, and I wasn’t sure why. So I left, going nowhere in particularly and being homeless for the first time in four years.

I went back to the building I’d met JJ in, and found that the bottom floor had a kitchen, a bathroom, and something that would have once been a bedroom and living room, but was missing a wall and was now just the one room. That became my home, and I still live there.

I was nearing my sixteenth birthday, and I realized I needed a new way to make money since I wasn’t in the gang anymore. I continued in prostitution for a while, then I found a new career – one that’s proven a lot more lucrative in the long run.

Cage fighting.

It’s a brutal kind of sport—if you dare call it a sport at all—and it’s something that you simply cannot get into half heartedly. You have to fight with every ounce of your being, or you will lose. It’s as simple as that.

I did lose. A lot, at first. I stumbled home with broken ribs and cuts and bruises and pulled muscles and fractures and all sorts of horrible things. However, I never had any serious injuries, which is something I’m very grateful for.

Like anything, however, the more you do it, the better you get. After a while I began to do better in my fights, and on the sixteenth birthday, I won my first cage fight ever. I continue to win after that, and I have never lost since.

Through all this time, JJ was often checking on me and was pleased that I’d gotten into cage fighting. He told me he’d seen me fight a few times, but I had never seen him in the audience – although admittedly it’s pretty hard to see anyone through the bars and grating of the cage.

In cage fighting, you’re supposed to have a catchy name for the announcer to use. It’s a little like wrestling or boxing in that respect, only the injuries are worse and there are no penalties. Me, I’d only ever used my street name ‘Hiro’, because ‘Kitsune’ was far too cutesy for such an event.

After one fight, I was relaxing with some people afterwards, and Joey came up to me. He complimented me on my fighting, and told me that he’d been betting on me so he was even gladder that I had won.

He asked me why I hadn’t taken another street name. I told him it was because I felt a street name worked best if it grew on you, instead of picking one out randomly. He agreed with that, and we sat around drinking for a while.

“You know,” he said to me, “You were a real animal in that cage. I’ve never seen you like that before.”<br>
I was going to reply, but a beautiful tenor voice from above me said a single word – “Tier”. It was a soft voice, but somehow everyone heard it.

I looked up, and standing up on a catwalk above me was a guy that could have been my twin if not for the eyes. We looked eerily identical, only his eyes are blue and he doesn’t part his hair the way I do.

I asked him what the hell tier meant.

He jumped down and flopped next to me, helping himself to a beer and grinning at me in such a way that I could have sworn he was my twin. He told me that tier was the German word for ‘animal’.

There were enough people around to hear this revelation that I didn’t have to do a thing. Tier became my new street name, and it’s the one I’m best known by.

~~~

“I know you now!” The priest exclaimed, sitting upright. “Often I’ve had people tell me about a guy out there on the streets named ‘Tier’. They say he’s brutal, has no morality whatsoever...” he trailed off, looking confused again.

“I don’t look the part, do I?” Hiroshi asked with a chuckle. “And I do have morality, depending on who I’m dealing with. The less morality the person I’m dealing with has, the less I have. It’s pretty simple that way.”<br>
“But you...” the priest seemed at a loss. Hiroshi shrugged, looking back up at the windows again.

~~~

The guy who looked so much like me turned out to be a nephew of the Yakuza leader, Hitoshi Seki. Hitoshi Yoka was this boy’s name, and he was the first friend I’d had since Sally. His street name was ‘Quill’, because of his beautiful calligraphy.

There was more to him than first meets the eye, however. Hitoshi had an uncanny ability to know exactly what someone’s deepest fears were, and through this was his form of manipulation. I often asked him how it was done, and once we trusted each other enough, he told me.

You see, Hitoshi Yoka is psychic. He could read minds. I often told him not to read mine, and he did his best, but as he once told me: “It’s hard not to listen when people are screaming.”<br>
Hitoshi and I became good friends, and we often call each other ‘brother’. He wasn’t the last friend I made, however.

Hitoshi introduced me to another boy, the same age as me—Hitoshi is a year older, you see—whose name was Hirei Yoi. He, too, looks similar to us, only he has this weird hair-over-one-eye thing going on. His street name is ‘Hawk’, because he’s known for his sniper work with—of all things—a crossbow.

The three of us became good, close friends, and we worked together often. Hawk, Quill and Tier, the three people in the underworld you definitely don’t want coming after you.

Hitoshi also had a girlfriend who was psychic—girlfriend, I suppose, is a relative term. Rose is intersexed, you see. But she identifies as a girl, so we all treat her as such. She is as kind and wonderful as anyone ever could be—even if she was a little rough around the edges sometimes, especially when it came to being tactful or diplomatic.

You’ll notice I use present tense when referring to these three people. That’s because they are still my close friends, and I love them very much.

~~~

Hiroshi blinked, then laughed.

“I’m getting really off track here, aren’t I?” He asked, running a hand through his hair.

“I have time,” the priest replied, smiling also.

“Still, you’re here to hear about the bad things, are you not?” Hiroshi said, raising his eyebrows. “As much as I’m sure all this about my friends is interesting to you, it doesn’t tell you anything about the beginning of this discussion, which was my sins. Oh, I have a lot more left to tell. I should get on with it.”<br>
“No rush,” the priest said, stretching a little and getting comfortable again.

[Hiroshi-sempai]

Remember JJ? Well, I had indeed been working with Mike to a certain degree, and I’d been reading a lot about forensics. JJ figured I was ready to make my first kill.

The idea was exciting and yet scary as hell.

JJ wasn’t stupid enough to let me screw it up on my own. He was going to give me a partner, and my first kill would also be a joint kill.

So he called me to another building, somewhere else, where he gave me the white folder that had all the information about my target. He told me I’d be working with another kid my age, and that surprised me. I had been under the impression I was the youngest person JJ had working for him. I was actually wrong—the person I was paired with was a year younger than I.

So, I was introduced to Kobayashi Aya.

If a demon and a cobra had a child inside a snowball, Aya would be it. She is cold—icy even—she is evil, and she is deadly. She is as beautiful as she is a bitch, and I immediately fell in love with her.

I won’t give you any details on the murder. All you need to know is that after that, JJ gave me the nickname of Poltergeist, and it became yet another street name—although not one that I used with my face, but in name only.

~~~

“The name rings a bell,” the priest said thoughtfully.

“It would,” Hiroshi replied. “It’s become a kind of story to scare children with. Sort of, ‘if you’re not a good boy, the Poltergeist will murder daddy!’ or something like that. It began as rumours in the underworld, and has just gone from there. It’s kind of annoying that I’ve become a celebrity and I can’t even soak in the exposure.”<br>
“Aya and I ended up in a relationship,” Hiroshi continued, deep in memory. “The first relationship I’d ever had, and so far it has been the only one I have ever had. It was definitely a D&s relationship—“

“Dee and ess?” The priest asked, pronouncing the letters as though they left a strange taste in his mouth. “What does that mean?”<br>
“D&s stands for Domination and submission,” Hiroshi replied.

~~~

Aya was my Mistress, and I was her slave. It was as simple as that.

She controlled every part of my life. She told me what to eat, what to wear, when to sleep, absolutely everything. I did nothing without her permission, and she always gave me enough orders to keep me busy.

She wasn’t a particularly bad Mistress. But we weren’t in love.

I liked being in that relationship. I liked being submissive, and I liked being controlled. What I didn’t like was her. But I didn’t care. I had someone to look after me, someone to tell me what to do, someone who could play the mother figure for me. Though it might interest you to know that Aya has black hair, not blonde.

Again, Freud would have a field day in my head.

This relationship continued for several months. Then, one day, I woke up and Aya wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. She had completely disappeared.

I still don’t know what happened. I’ve not seen her since.

~~~

“I’m not ashamed of that relationship,” Hiroshi said pointedly. “She wasn’t the right person to do it with, but I enjoyed every moment of the relationship.”<br>
“I can understand why you would like being submissive,” the priest replied. “In a way, I am submissive to my God.”<br>
“Yes,” Hiroshi agreed. “But don’t think that I’m always submissive. The few times I’ve had a chance to experiment with power exchange, I have always been dominant. Aya was the only person I trusted enough to submit to. Or maybe she was the only person that I didn’t trust myself to dominate.”<br>
“We must be nearing the end of your tale,” the priest said, a look of realization on his face. “After all, you must be nearly seventeen by this point in your story, and you don’t seem much older than nineteen to me.”<br>
“I’m eighteen,” Hiroshi nodded. “When it comes to the major sins in my life, I think we’ve pretty much covered them all. Except one, but I’m not ready to share that one just yet.”<br>
“Oh?” The priest asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“It involves someone I know at school,” Hiroshi replied vaguely.

“You’re still at school, then?”<br>
“Yes,” Hiroshi nodded. “I still go to school. I’ve always gone to school, when I could. Obviously I had to take months off here and there, but I keep going. It’s a kind of sanctuary for me.”<br>
“That’s understandable,” the priest nodded. “An escape from your sinful life.” There was a note of amusement in his tone, and Hiroshi laughed.

“Yes, my sinful life,” he chuckled. “Five of the larger sins, and so many small ones.”<br>
“Five?”<br>
~~~

Over the next two years, I murdered a total of five people. That’s my tally.

I don’t particularly want to share the details with you. All you need to know about it is that murder is terribly messy, and it wrecks havoc on your nervous system. You start getting paranoid, and you start to question your own humanity.

After every murder, I went home and I had a schizophrenic episode. Eventually, the episodes started to come more often, not just after a murder, but even when something to do with murder was brought to my attention.

Recently, I’ve been having these episodes once or twice a month. It’s a concern, but I can’t do much more than I’m already doing—and don’t suggest medication, because I refuse to take it unless things get so bad I can’t handle it.

I do regret the murders. I feel like I’m going to die myself from all the horror at what I’ve done. There are times when I feel it would be better to simply shoot myself rather than assist JJ in ruining another family. The only problem there is that I’m not suicidal, and I could never be.

The worst part about being a murderer is that I keep imagining what my parents would think if they knew. How ashamed, how upset they would be.

But what else can I do? I can’t tell anyone without condemning myself, and I can’t possibly leave JJ’s service because he has enough evidence to convict me himself. So I’m stuck in a rut of murder, lies, sex and cage fighting.

I’m also deathly afraid of who the next one will be. I hate killing, I hate it when JJ sends me those white folders. I just keep hoping that after the next one it will all end—you see, JJ can’t use people past a certain time. The more you kill, the greater your chances of being caught. The number varies from person to person, depending on how good they are. I guess I must be pretty good since JJ hasn’t called me off yet.

I’m just hoping that six will be the end.

~~~

“My gun holds six bullets, and there are six letters in the word ‘murder’,” Hiroshi said. “It’s a nice enough pattern that it keeps me sane for now.”<br>
“What if he doesn’t call you off after the sixth one?” The priest asked.

“I don’t know,” Hiroshi said softly, looking from the stained glass windows down at the floor instead. “I don’t know.”<br>
There was a long pause between the pair of men, even the organ at the front of the church was silent. Finally, Hiroshi shifted, turning to look at the young priest fully.

“You understand, of course, that you can’t tell anyone what I’ve told you,” Hiroshi said, the implications clear.

“Your sins are safe with me,” the priest replied, with a little bow of his head. Hiroshi quirked an eyebrow, then shrugged and stood up.

“As long as we have that clear,” he said, stretching his arms up and behind his head. “I’m sorry, but I need to go. I have things to do and people to seduce. Add another tally on my chart of lust sins, would you?”<br>
“Oh, I think we’ll leave the next one off the record, what do you say?” The priest said with a smile. He stood up as well, moving out of the way so Hiroshi could leave. “You’ve got enough chalk marks on your wall.”<br>
“Yes,” Hiroshi replied softly. “Five too many.”<br>
“Six bullets in a gun, six letters in the word ‘murder’,” the priest said, echoing Hiroshi’s words in such a tone that it almost came across as comforting. “One day your suffering will end.”<br>
“Either an angel is going to land in my lap,” Hiroshi said, “or I’ll shoot myself. Those are the only ways I see it ending. But I’m naturally very optimistic, so I’ll keep an eye out for that angel.”<br>
“Perhaps a blonde one,” the priest offered with a smile as Hiroshi left the church.

~~~

END

[Winter]

*knows that this really should have been typed a very, very, VERY long time ago. However ...* Uhm, ok, no wonder Hiroshi's fucked in? O_o;; Aiya, that's disturbing. But yay and good muchly. ^.^