Suicidal Love Story Volume 1:Cherry Tree Chapter 2

Kaoru Kirishima. He was beautiful. He was intelligent, wise and a role-model figure I looked up to.
He had beautiful white skin for a Japanese man. Black eyes that somehow glint reddish brown; he had a feminine face with slim eye brows, black raven hair with a complimentary cool hairstyle. Despite that he was a pretty boy; he was a total bad-ass. I was told he was a flirt with the girls and was a heart throb, the kind of boy who could steal your girlfriend's heart or make your boyfriend question his sexuality. Despite being a flirt, he toyed with the girls; he was never interested in them as he once told me. In terms of being attractive, I and him both was considered attractive yet both was never interested in relationships.  "Girls, they only drag you down" he once said, however I would learn that Kaoru's mother once committed suicide and his father raised him. The only women he considered to be of aid and useful to him was members of his own family. His sexist opinion did not seem to matter to me.

He had a dark aura when he was angered. He was a man to be feared. It's as if you were standing in a room with Gaara of the sand village. His entire presence captivated me. I'd come to have some sort of bromance and a man like crush on him. Kaoru Kirishima was the coolest of us all and an exceptional martial artist, he knew how to ease someone to calm them down and bring them fear if so.
"Treat others equally, just because someone looks different and weak, don't be fooled" those were some of his words. He was an intellectual, wise and I would hang on every word he says. He told me to control my anger and taught me to meditate. His techniques were different from any teacher I had known.  

"I've had teachers but the real thing is being self taught" He spoke to me as we had discussions. He believed that the ultimate in martial arts and greatest fighting style was all of them. He taught himself new techniques that would no else know. Styles where you can learn and steal other martial arts moves then fuse them.  He called this the ronin style, named after the ronin samurai of Japan who had no master to obey. This kind of style meant that you cannot be taught by others only yourself. We talked and I understood it.

Every week, we would join up and train our bodies to deal with pain and conditioned our legs and feet to endure impact. This was akin to shaolin training, punching woodblocks or brick walls. The kind of thing you see in old school movies.
Despite this high school was the same, now I know what you're thinking. How come I didn't go into a fight? For one, if I did then every other brain dead idiot would challenge me and see it as a threat to them if they didn't. If you're strong you had to prove it or else you were weak. Being smart enough, I rather let others think I'm weak than to fight silly gorillas. Although some people thought of me as rather cocky, they would catch only a glimpse of my capabilities.

School was a boring chore; I lived for the moments with my new gang of fighters. We go and spar, have intellectual discussions and in most times joke and have fun. One day Kaoru had an idea.

"How about we have our own street fighting tournament?" the others began to talk about it. He told me about the Boss method; it was the same thing as the cock of the chickens in high school. Who was the toughest in high school? Kaoru thought he bring all the cocks from each of our school and let them fight it out in a tournament that would be orchestrated by us. I thought the idea was humorous. If one was to win the tournament, they would become the big boss.

Eventually rumours began to spread and my dojo found out about this, one of the students heard Richard talk about it and so our sensei found out. She was disappointed, yes she was a woman who taught us how to fight and she was indeed a bad ass and a good looking woman. She spoke to us individually, when it was my turn she told me not to come to the dojo again however she told that by now I already learned what she needed to teach me. "I have nothing more to teach you" she spoke in a calm and pleasant way. She told me in order to improve myself and be a better martial artist I had to find another teacher and learn some more techniques. That was the way it was for me since I had a burning desire to learn. I finally said my farewell to her.

Sadly this was only the beginning. Kaoru and the others planned the tournament and I was beginning to have doubts. This was not going to be a spectator sport, if you wanted to watch you had to join in. One day Kaoru with a smirk upon his face spoke "How about this? Battle Royale! Since we're all fighting we'll have it like a king of the hill thing" the idea was interesting and so I accepted it. The tournament became King of the hill but I would know it as BRT. I was supposed to let people know of this in my high school however I don't think they were worthy. When they fought, they clenched their fist so hard and brought too much power into their punches. A better fighter would use that power against them and not only that too much power made them sluggish. It is easy to catch a punch let alone two.  I was told why I had no recruits and I simply told them it would be far too easy. Kaoru said my school was a joke.

Kaoru went up to me one Saturday morning, showing me his pocket knife "Where you'd get that?" I asked. He told me he got it from boy scouts training, if this was true or not I would not know. He flicked it around, "Don't use a weapon, only a fool would   trust his weapon, a gun could run out of bullets and a knife can easily be held against you, your enemy can kick it out of your hand or nudged it into your chest"
As he said this he waved it around across my face, "Hey, quit that!" I covered my face with my hand, as I did it he slit it open and blood leaked out of the palm. It was not too deep but I had to get it sorted out, I told my parents I slit it on a broken tree branch while climbing. At this moment Kaoru apologised, he was only joking and didn't mean to cut me. We were stupid teenagers at the time. Kaoru was scary to others but to me and a few others, we looked up to him as a big brother.

As the days progressed, Kaoru told me not to enter the tournament because he feared I get hurt. I told him I could handle it but instead he grabbed and twisted my arm. His fingers clenching onto my wrist, the burning sensation was raw and it felt as if my arm would break, I looked at him in defiance, I could handle it or so I thought, only for him to twist deeply into the skin, As I winced in pain he looked at me in sorrow. "You're not ready".

I gritted my teeth in anger. He spoke again in his silky voice "if you think this is painful, you're not ready. As you're friend, I beg you. Don't enter this tournament". I yielded and so I told him I won't enter.

Eventually the day of the tournament came. After school I went straight to the abandoned factory to see what was going to happen. I entered the vicinity to notice Kaoru, a group of boys and two people attacking him. Most of them were on the floor writhing in pain. Kaoru was literally beating the blood of these two people standing to face him. Richard came up to me and told me that it had already ended. Actually, this tournament was never a competition to begin with. Kaoru planned it all. Bring these people to come to us and so beat those up to a bloody pulp to show them what a true fighter looked liked. Naturally we had those begging to teach them how to use martial arts. I almost enjoyed the sight of it. Kaoru had someone pinned onto the floor. He had his foot into his face. "I could crack your skull in" he spoke with bloodlust and his beautiful face contorted into anger like a snarling wolf, I hated it when he made that expression. "Hey, that's enough" I spoke. Suddenly a great sense of remorse and compassion overwhelmed me.  The boy was crying with bloodstains on his face.

"Enough Kaoru! He's learned his lesson" I spoke as I grabbed him. Out of some kind of force of habit, he moved my arm in a circular motion and I in turn, grabbed his and shoved it away. This began to become some kind of fight. The gang watched us with surprise.  Kaoru's eyes widened and could not believe that I was going toe to toe with him. We eventually stopped and I kneeled towards the crying boy who was probably a year older than me. "How dare you" I heard Kaoru spoke. Suddenly a foot came into my face and with quick reflex I caught it with my hand. It was Kaoru's foot! However his second one came in lightning fast and hit me in the eye. I was on the floor and Kaoru looked down on me. I could not remember what he said, all I remember was that I was in a rage, I used my other leg to sweep him to the ground and thus we began to have a fight. The others stormed in and stopped us.

This infuriated Kaoru and he slaughtered one of the members of our gang with a furry of fists; the guy slumped to the ground. Kaoru spoke directly to me. "When the first drop of rain falls, we fight".
It was on now, I had to face him!