Chapter Three - Mixed Fortunes

Unluckily for us, we weren't to have that tent for very long. Two nights in, a paparazzi was on our property and got hit by a meteor; (my parents had been having problems with them since they were rather popular, and what better way for the local rag to take it to my parents than show that their son was living on the streets). The meteor took out our tent and our only method of cooking anything: our firepit. This proved to be a boon in disguise as just as we reacquired another firepit with our funds that we had from River's fishing and my dumpster-diving, we ended up finding out that the assessment on the gigantic meteor came in and we were §13,000 richer. Which meant that we could start on a very basic home...at least that meant that we could get out of the elements.

We started the first module of what would be our "modular" home...and that's where we ended up sleeping. We used a lot of glass in our construction of the home and well, what ended up happening was that we ended up with glass walls, which meant that we were really "on-display" for all to see. Luckily we were in an area with no neighbours.

We were able to save a few pieces of furniture from our salvage and dumpster-diving which helped to allow us to decorate a few items...and we were able to save up enough to buy ourselves a semi-decent table with two chairs.

The highlight of our days was our time together. River and I enjoyed the cookout with the fire-pit that we replaced. And we roasted her daily catch over a comforting fire. It provided some time together where we could unwind from the stresses of the day.

Our view towards Vancouver Downtown was impeccable and if we got a second story on that house, the view would be even better.

Evidently the Earth was going through a nasty little cosmic storm of meteors, because we got hit again. That pesky paparazzi Evan Blanco (or whatever the hell his name is) always seemed to be found on our property. We didn't have money for a fence, but he got singed...then he got burned when he returned to the property to write up another trashy article, the miserable bugger.

At least the gigantic meteor netted us about §3,900 this time around, it wasn't as valuable as the previous one. but we were lucky enough still, our replacement fire-pit got through unscathed and I managed to find a Tiberium in the dumpster the very next day, which netted us §42,000. Thank goodness, it appeared as though our luck was turning. Maybe my decision to leave my parents house with River wasn't so rash after all and I headed over to Aleister's who had just opened up in our neighbourhood to cut up a few gemstones...

We had bought bikes earlier, and started using them to get around from place to place. Considering the costs of SkyTrain (even though we'd hopped a few here and there especially to get out into the burbs - dodging the SkyTrain attendants and Translink cops (no I don't do this in reality, I pay my fare)) and the taxi, there was no way we were going to cough up good money that we could use on ourselves on taking a mode of transportation that cost us an arm and a leg. I'd rather get a car or ride a bike, plus since I'm not sociable, I hate getting on the bus with a bunch of people I don't know. So River and I biked everywhere.

Having shelter was nice, but it attracted the types that wanted a quick buck without working for it. It was barely a night in to living at our new house, we sold a few items to pay for a burglar alarm and boy, was it a good investment. Aldo Farrar (your friendly neighbourhood larcenist) decided to show up and tried to pilfer something from our home. Thanks, Richmond RCMP for deciding to get around to showing up "when you felt like it". As it was, I decided that enough was enough and knocked him out and kept knocking him out whenever he came to. Finally he had enough, gave up the goods and left, hopefully for good, but I doubt it. Let's just say I don't like being woken up involuntarily by the alarm and whoever does so, if they have no legitimate business being in my house, after being put in a considerable amount of pain, will get their hind-end handed to them.

With the additional funds that we'd received from those two gigantic space-rocks, we managed to get a cow and two chicken coops. Since the plants went dormant we were able to move them closer to each other in order so that we could make an orchard instead of having randomly scattered apple trees all over the property. As the son of a gardener, I hastily learned that you don't move a plant or tree while the sap is running through the roots, it's a great way to kill a plant if you do. So we waited until winter. (AN: I'm going to utilize this stipulation in any of my FARM-acy's that I do. No moving plants until they're dormant...if you stick 'em in a place where you made a mistake...tough beans...)

It certainly seemed as though our luck was changing. We were out of the elements and into a home, though nothing more than a glorified 1 room with a separated bathroom, by some fortuitous turn of events. Thank goodness...being out in the snow with no tent for shelter would have ended our lives real quick. We were grateful just to have a roof over our head - we'd make our home fancier...later...

Chapter Two - "We'll Weather the Storms Together"

...and so we left "the only home that I knew". I was definitely scared, but I knew deep-down that it was the right thing to do. As River's fiance, I knew that I needed most of all, to protect her from what I went through. She loved me, and she didn't deserve any of that abuse. And I wasn't about to let my mother abuse River as she'd abused me. But despite all that, the first step was the hardest. It was leaving the only refuge I had known, whether it was abusive or not. The world was an unknown quantity and I was for the first time, setting foot outside my comfort zone. My sole comfort was that River and I had each other.

It was a hard first few days on the street. The only thing that we had was a tent and a property. River was pretty upbeat for being unceremoniously cast out on the street, but we were young adults and we needed to make our way in this world without the help of my parents, not that they would help out anyways. We dumpster dove to gain goods to sell for food and ended up sneaking showers at my dojo (my parents shoved me into Sim Fu because well, even though my mother was hell-bent on beating me down, they weren't going to let any other kid pick on me).

I had my share of fights; some I came out the loser, some I came out on top. All I can say, was I tried to give as good as I got. You know the old saw, where a guy comes out of a bar looking like he'd just been in a war, another guys says, "What the hell happened to you?",

"Oh, some guy decided to run his mouth, so I shut it for him.".

"Hell, man, you look like hell...",

"You think that's bad, you should see the other guy..."

The first night out, River and I took comfort in each other's arms. Yeah, I know, it was a risk...but we needed solace. We were in a tough spot and well, sometimes, you just need each other's comfort.

The next morning we headed out, since during the night we'd talked that instead of the both of us getting stinking, that River should do fishing so that we could make sure that we all had something to eat...and we'd sell any surplus that we had. I'd be the one going into the dumpsters trying to find stuff for us to sell, because invariably, there was always someone who had left something that could be repaired and auctioned off. At least then only one of us would have to run daily to the showers to shower off.

When we were done, we met up back at our lot and threw some fish on the fire pit to make sure that we ate. We needed to keep our strength up. Because in Vancouver, it rains...a lot and just being constantly wet and cold can sap one's energy quickly. And if you end up in a hypothermic situation, you're done.

...and well, afterwards we crawled into the only refuge from the elements that we had. And hoped that our garments would dry out by morning.

...a faint hope at best considering the torrential downpour. Considering that we only had a couple thousand simoleons from our two day effort, it didn't look as though we were going to make decent shelter before winter.

Chapter One - The Teenage Years (Part 2)

As a teen, I was no angel (I disrespected my parents, I talked back to them, I cut classes, I skipped out on doing homework and got into trouble for that), but compared to those who used drugs, committed crimes, I WAS an angel. No brushes with the law, no experimentation. I used humour as a crutch and became the class clown. Nothing ever made any sense at all and my viewpoint around school was, "why should I bother trying anyways? Nothing I do ever measures up to my uncle...the golden child"...if I can't reach his aptitude, then to hell with it. Yeah, you could say that my self-esteem took a major pounding.

With the amount of kvetching my mother did, I had to get away from her for a while or I'd end up going insane. Finally, I just decided that practicing my piano for seven hours a day would keep her from talking to me. So as soon as I got my homework done, I headed to the piano and practiced. It worked; it kept her away because at least I was practicing.

My best friend from elementary school decided that he was going to hang out with the cool kids...and well, I was not one of them, so he turned on me (maybe it wasn't as bad as it sounds, but the way it felt back then...people do like being with the popular crowd and well, he was popular when compared to me - I wasn't sports-minded and if you weren't athletic...well...you weren't a part of the in-crowd).

So I decided to hang out with some new friends who weren't in the in-clique and we got picked on. But well...that's the way life is. The in-crowd generally tend to be a bunch of self-serving hind-end inversions that most of those who are looking in on the in-crowd want to be like them hoping and praying, in vain, that they'll be noticed, brought into the in-crowd so that they could, in turn, dump all over those who weren't so fortunate. Life's like that, everyone plays nice until they get what they want. Sure, the choices I made on school were my choices and I live by them, but having to get verbally slammed continuously every day by my mother from the time I was a kid to the time I made the choice that "enough was enough"? That was a choice?

When you get woken up at two in the morning to be screamed at because you said something that, after the fact, your mother took exception to, or mainly because she didn't like your attitude; and to be shown the door and told to leave when you're thirteen years old, that's not something that you expect. Your entire foundation gets rocked to the core because your sense of security, your sense of well-being gets shattered. Goodness knows, I've asked myself these questions over and over again. "What was it that I said? What did I do?" A child's sense of security is knowing that their parents will stick by them. Those who don't have that live in a world that scares them and no one who hasn't gone through that can understand that kind of fear. In that kind of world, you don't dare to step wrong. You fear making mistakes and you don't ever dare to make one...because you don't attempt to try anything.

It just so happened that someone special came into my life...roughly about the time that I aged up to young adult. And well, things worked out between the two of us, so I proposed and well, that sent my mom through the roof. She basically threatened us and told us if we didn't annul the engagement, she'd throw the both of us on the street.

...so there comes a time in one's life when you don't want to deal with that stuff any more. So we packed our bags and headed out of the house. Hey...life on the streets was better than life at home. It may be rough but at least, I'm not getting psychologically battered. Hell, the cops don't believe you - you don't have a mark on your skin at all...so therefore, you can't have been battered and I wasn't going to subject my fiancee to that. Hell, we could find our way...without my parents. Do...or die trying.

Chapter One: Life at the Start (Part I)

“It couldn’t have been that bad because you turned out great.”

Nobody asks for life to be given to them. From the choices that were made for them, before they became a sentient human being to the fact that the zygote and sperm were non-sentient molecules bunched together relying only in innate biological urges to procreate and create life - everything stemmed from urges. And how I came into being...well, it was because two people wanted their lives to mean something: to give someone else some "satisfaction" before they died; namely her dad who was pressuring her to have a kid so he could have a grandkid. After all, Grandpa Torahide was approaching his early 80s and he'd had a hard life...especially with the internment during the 40s and now being diagnosed with throat cancer...

well, since my Mom was the first one married, she got the full weight of the "need to have a grandkid" pressure square on her shoulders while she was trying to start up a career. You could say she certainly wasn't happy about that. You talk about the mother of all guilt trips...my mother had gotten the guilt trip of her life. "After all that Dad did...the least you could do is make him happy...He's in the twilight of his years and I don't know how much longer he's got." And well, that was that... y'know...Me: I don't think that's a good enough reason for bringing someone into the world that you're going to resent the hell out of.

But of course...family pressures mounted and well, Mom and Dad did the good ol'...yeah...whatever... and well...

I'm sure that made for some awkward moments, all things considered. "Yeah, Mom...Yasunobu and I did the deed...and in about 9 months you're going to be a grandmother." Grandma and Grandpa were from a generation where that kind of stuff wasn't talked about at all. I'm sure the look on her face was one for the ages.

In fact, frankly, I don't think either of them were prepared for the commitment that a new life would bring. Both were getting their careers started. My mother was a high-school teacher teaching English and Social Studies and well my Dad...he started in the science career after moving over from Japan in '56 and it'd taken 13 years for them to work their way up...in their careers. And just when things were going swimmingly, well, neither of her older brothers had done anything in terms of getting into a relationship at this point in time...and well, there wasn't anything in the way of a baby coming from those two anytime soon.

I'm sure throwing up her guts every morning for 9 months didn't help soothe my mother's feelings towards me.

Evidently I showed up late to the party by several weeks. And that extra time in my mom's belly didn't endear me any. Frankly, it's probably uncomfortable as heck, and well, I wouldn't know, because I'm the wrong gender to know what that feels like.

Well, my arrival was a mixed bag of reactions. Both Hideki and Michihiro were ticked off that they weren't the ones who had provided the "first-born" grandchild. And my mother felt put-upon because of the fact that her career was being stymied by having to raise a child that was in all aspects a burden. My grandfather was kind of annoyed that the oldest son wasn't the one to give him the first-born grandchild, but he seemed to warm to the fact that I was the one that showed up. Not that it would have mattered much if any of the others had provided the kid.

At least there was one person who was glad to see me...

As a toddler, life was the usual, I got shafted off on my grandmother and she ended up taking the last few years of her life trying to raise me while my mother decided that her career as an educator was much more important to her well-being. What it was was that it gave her one more tool to use in mentally bashing me over the head with: "I had to quit my career to take care of you."

At least she was the only one that made me feel as though I was wanted.

When I was two years old, cancer finally took my grandpa and well, what can you do, that's life. Grandma was heartbroken, but she had a grandkid to take care of. My mother was too busy with her career and the kid she'd never really wanted in the first place. And Mom and Dad were making plans to move out anyways.

As a child, I was continually berated and told how s-tupid I was. "Why aren't you as smart as your uncle? He was deemed second in the whole country as far as grades were concerned, I guess you're too incapable of learning anything." So what do you do. I guess since it was Mom telling me all this, I figure, "What the heck, it must be true." So I started looking for ways to live up to what my Mom thought of me "You're lazy, you're s_tupid...you're no-good for anything..." Nowadays we know those words can cut deeper than a scalpel, back then it was just "parenting". I sabotaged my own progress. Why should I succeed? Negative feedback was better than no feedback at all. Hell, what my mother wanted was absolute perfection, be better than my uncle, and that wasn't possible by any stretch of the imagination. So if that was the case, then eff it, why bother?

Comparisons may be fine when you're comparing two inanimate objects, but don't bother doing that when you're dealing with a living, breathing human being. You're not going to get the result you're expecting. Better yet, just keep your opinions to yourself.

To the outsider, the family was the typical ideal family, kid getting good grades (for fear of getting screamed at), mother and father together, but no one was able to see the undercurrents behind all of this. All the so-called "parenting" was kept behind closed doors and never talked about. That was purely forbidden.

Besides, if the kid doesn't go to school with bruises on him and no-one talks out of fear of utter retribution, then it can't possibly be happening, right?