Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:07:08 +0200
From: A.K. <andrej@andrejkoymasky.com>
Subject: A Proud Furosha 1/8 (beginnings)

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A PROUD FUROSHA
By Andrej Koymasky © 2010
Written on July 1, 2002
Translated by the Author
English text kindly revised by

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USUAL DISCLAIMER

"A PROUD FUROSHA" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic
scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family,
opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to
read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or
because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed
guest.

-----------------------------

Chapter 1 - How someone can lose everything

In my language "furosha" is written with three ideograms that means
"person who fluctuates on the Waves" or "wandering person". But in
reality this term means a person without a family (accepting him),
without friends, without a home, in short deprived of everything, and
therefore also without a job - in a few words a dreg of society. A
tramp, a barbone, a vagabundo, a clochard... how do you say it in your
language?

I am exactly a furosha.

When in the past I happened to see one of them, I asked myself how a man
could lower himself to being like that. I now know perfectly.

Ah, who am I? My name is Kenzaemon Kusakabe, but now the other tramps
know me as Ken Kinoshita. I am twenty-three years old, but when this
story began, I was twenty-one. I lived in Chuoku, Tokyo, in an ancient,
big and beautiful house of the Edo period and owned a new Subaru.
Instead I am now living in Shinjuku, in a park, in a nice tent, and own
an old little handcart.

I was saying, I was twenty-one years old. I was studying at the Todai
(the prestigious State University of Tokyo) and moved in the fashionable
society. My folk were rich, but above all they were the official tatami
(straw matting used as a floor covering in a Japanese home -ed.)
providers of the Imperial House, therefore they enjoyed a good prestige,
were amongst the elite of the traditional craftsmen of Tokyo and of
Japan, and their tatami were requested by important families and famous
Temples.

When I was seventeen, when I attended high school, I understood I am
gay. During a school trip to Nara, my maths teacher caught me while I
was masturbating. I presumed I was alone, as my roommate and all the
others, students and teachers, went out to wander around as it was our
half day of free time. I instead remained in the hotel since, while I
was about to go out with the others, at the reception I was informed
that my father called and would call again at three p.m. so I went back
to my room. I was feeling bored, so at a certain point, sitting near the
window, I opened my trousers and started to beat my meat, just to kill
the wait. But I didn't think to lock the room's door.

The maths prof went back to ask me if I could lend him my digital
camera, as his own had some problems. So, coming to the seventh floor,
he got to my room and, without knocking, he just came in.

I stood up, embarrassed, and the trousers slipped down to my ankles. He
looked at me. Without uttering a word, he locked the door with the key
and came in front of me. I anxiously tried to pull up my trousers.

But he seized my wrist, blocking me, and severely told me, "Don't move,
Kusakabe!"

I looked at him, scared. He had a serious, hard expression.

"So, our model pupil masturbated, eh? Look in my eyes, when I talk to
you! Good, good, good... Don't you have anything to say?"

I was trembling, terribly embarrassed and also somewhat scared, and
shook my head.

"Do you know that if I inform the headmaster, you would be expelled from
our school? And that of course the reason would be known by everybody?"

I looked in his icy eyes and shook my head again.

"So, then, what should we do, now, Kusakabe? Would you rather I first
call your father or else the headmaster? Or possibly tell all the others
when they come back to the hotel?"

I shook again my head, trembling.

"No? What no?"

"Please..."

"Please? Please, what?

"I... I will never do it again."

"Liar. Who has the vice of sex, never stops. What should we do,
Kusakabe?"

"Please, don't report me..."

"But you deserve a punishment."

I reflected. I bent down, slipped out the belt from my trousers still
around my ankles on the floor, and offered it to him:

"Lash me... but don't tell anybody..."

"Lashing you? A so young, so smooth, so handsome body... Bah... Undress,
Kusakabe, get naked."

Thinking that I would get out with some lashes, I complied at once, and
hurriedly stripped off. He was looking at me, impassive. When I was
naked, he ordered me to lie on the bed, on my belly. I obeyed again,
mentally preparing myself to get the lashes. He, my belt in his hand,
drew near the bed and passed the other hand on my back, on my buttocks
and he stopped there, groping them for some time. I had my head turned
towards him and could see him standing close to the bed, still, and his
hand lingering there, although I was scared, it was giving me an
agreeable feeling.

"You have a nice little arse, Kusakabe, it is really like that of a
girl. It would be a pity to spoil it with a thrashing, wouldn't it? No,
no belt lashes." He said letting my belt fall on the floor, "I can think
of a better punishment I can give you. A punishment you will not forget
as long as you live. Do you like sex? Good. This will be my punishment -
I will treat you like a girl... or rather like a cheap whore, as you
deserve."

I didn't understand what he meant, until one of his fingers slipped
between my buttocks and started to push on my anus...

"No... please..." I moaned squeezing my buttocks with all my strength,
but without daring to escape him.

He laughed lowly, a cold laughter, anything but joyful. His finger
pushed more. I saw that with the hand that was earlier holding my belt,
he was now opening the fly of his trousers. I don't know what happened
inside me, but all of a sudden I became aware I wanted to see his cock,
and was looking, waiting, fascinated. He pulled it out, half erect, not
big but long, the head smooth and darker than the rest, and behind it
two big balls hanging in their sack.

He moved his pelvis towards my head, without stopping teasing my anus
with one hand, and with the other he raised that peg of meat towards my
face, "Suck it, Kusakabe, make it become nicely hard and above all, wet
it well with your saliva, if you don't want to suffer too much when I
push all of it inside your small whore's arse!" he dryly ordered.

I was watching that snake of pinkish meat slowly but relentlessly move
towards my face, towards my lips. I felt quite subjugated by it. I
opened my mouth, he put a hand on the nape of my neck and pulled my head
towards his cock. I felt its tip brush against my lips, then push. I
opened my mouth more and felt the warm, firm meat column invade,
penetrate, slip inside my mouth and become harder.

"Don't let me feel your teeth, girl!" he said.

Going on to pull my head and to push his finger into my anus, he started
to fuck my mouth, at times reaching my throat.

"Move your tongue, suck, whore!" he ordered.

I obeyed. His finger in my backside was annoying me a little, but I was
enjoying his pole inside my mouth... I liked it a lot. Also the smell
emanating from his groin was new, unknown, but... intoxicating. Smell of
male, smell of sex, smell of desire...

He went on for some time fucking my mouth, than he pulled it out and
said, "Good, now stretch your buttocks well, Kusakabe. And I advise you
to relax, if you don't want to feel too much pain, as I will anyway push
it entirely inside you and will break in your nice girlish arse! Did you
understand?"

I didn't answer.

"Did you understand, whore?" he almost yelled, harsh.

"Yes... professor." I then murmured.

He disappeared from my visual field, I then felt my bed yield under his
weight, he kneeled between my legs forcing me to spread them well.

"Stretch apart your buttocks, whore!"

I obeyed - I moved my hands to my buttocks and spread them as much as I
could. Then I felt him come down on me.

I was scared, and yet I wanted to be fucked! I felt the tip strongly
push against my flesh ring, and at once felt pain and pleasure weirdly
mixed. Instinctively I squeezed my sphincter.

He said in an upset tone, "Don't squeeze, idiot! Push as if you were
constipated, and relax. It would be better for you, as I will not stop
until I have pushed all of it inside you! The more you squeeze, the more
you will suffer. I don't care if I hurt you."

I tried to do as he told me and he started to enter inside me - it was
like if he was dilating me to the point of tearing the muscles of my
hole. The pain became sharp... but also the pleasure. Instead of a
continuous pressure, he was now giving me short and strong stokes.

I heard him say, at each of his pushes, "Yeah, so... Yeah, so... Yeah, so..."
in an unceasing litany.

He penetrated, invaded, filled me little by little, keeping my arms high
above my head, against the pillow, prisoners at my wrists. I have never
been a masochist, and yet I liked that pain! Or to better say I liked
what he was doing to me, therefore I accepted the pain. I finally
managed to relax and he all of a sudden sank completely inside me. I
threw out a loud moan, and instinctively raised my pelvis to meet his
push. I could feel the buttons of his waistcoat on my back, the tiny
teeth of the open zipper of his trousers against my buttocks, and into
my hole dilated to the point of spasm that hard, hot, firm meat column.

He let go my wrists, seized my shoulders and, pushing onto his arms and
knees, started to go up and down in top of me, hammering inside me with
such a force to make my bed rock. The strong and fast brushing of that
hot piston of meat inflamed my anus, but gave me such pleasure that I
felt my cock harden and throb under me, against the sheet.  Part of me
wanted that torture to end soon, but part of me wanted that pleasure to
never end.

Finally his hands left my shoulders, slipped under my belly pulling me
to himself, almost raising me, while he pushed with fury, as deep as he
could inside me, and unloaded with a set of strong contractions,
flooding my guts and letting out a long, raucous moan.

It was in that moment that I thought, with incredible lucidity, "I love
too much having a cock in my hole - I am gay!"

For some seconds he kept still. He was lightly panting. I was again
feeling the tiny teeth of his zipper biting my buttocks. He then pulled
out of me with a dull "pop!" and I felt a last pang of pain and a great
feeling of emptiness. I didn't move. I felt him get off the bed.

"Dress, now, Kusakabe."

I got up without looking at him. At each move I could feel the pangs of
pain down there at my backside. I dressed myself.

He came in front of me and said, "For this time all ends here. I will
not report you; I think that you will not forget so soon this
punishment. But remember, I will keep an eye on you - your next wrong
move, you will not get out so cheaply! If you are not able to restrain
yourself, do those things only when you are in your room, on your futon,
alone. Or even better locked in the toilet of your house.  You should
not do that either at school or in public places where other people can
see you! Is that clear?"

"Yes..." I whispered.

"More aloud!"

"Yes, professor!"

"And look for a girl, it is healthier!"

"Yes, professor!" I answered, but thought that a girl didn't have a good
cock to make me enjoy, first in my mouth then into my arse!

He went out. I shut the door, this time with the key, opened again my
trousers and started to furiously beat my meat, recalling how much I
enjoyed that so-called punishment.

Up to then, I never thought about women or men - we just joked about the
girls with the mates, at times with vulgar words, but after all I never
felt attracted, never interested in the girls. Well, to the boys
neither... at least up to that day. While I was masturbating, for the
first time I started to think with whom, amongst my schoolmates,
teachers, acquaintances I would have liked to repeat that experience.

I just came when the telephone rang. It was my father. He told me that,
after the school trip, I should not to go back to Tokyo with my class,
but had to stop in Kyoto. He already booked a room for me at a hotel,
and informed the headmaster I would go back on my own. The headmaster
would inform the teacher in charge of us. In Kyoto, the day after my
arrival, I should call one of his acquaintances, go to his house to
fetch a parcel for my father, then take the night bullet train where he
already booked a seat for me, and whose ticket I would find at the
hotel's reception.

The following day I was continuing to feel pain in my anus each time I
walked, stood up or sat down, but I managed to do so that nobody could
be aware of it. The math teacher acted with me as if nothing happened
between us, and I did the same with him.

When the visit to Nara was over, we went to the station and left. But I
stopped in Kyoto, while the others were going on to Tokyo, and went to
the hotel. I settled in the room booked in my name. I went to eat supper
to a nearby small restaurant. It was nine p.m. I didn't feel like going
back to the hotel. So I decided to have a walk. I didn't know Kyoto at
all, so I just wandered around, being careful to be able to find the way
back. I reached the bank of one of the two rivers, near a bridge. I
asked myself if I had to cross it, but decided not. I walked along the
bank, then sat down. There were several passers-by along the gravelled
shore, in spite of the late time.

After some minutes somebody sat near me. I didn't look at him.

Then a low, warm voice he asked me, in English, "Do you speak English?"

I turned - he was an American, about twenty-five or thirty years old,
blond, his hair cut very short, a sparkling smile and eyes the colour of
ash.

"Just a little..." I answered hesitantly, returning his smile.

We introduced ourselves. He was a marine on leave, his ship was moored
in Kobe. He was in Kyoto for four days and had still three free days. He
asked me who I was, what I was doing there. He seemed surprised I was in
Kyoto alone. Or possibly, more than surprised, he seemed agreeably
interested...

We chatted for about an hour, side by side, about several things, at
times looking at each other, at times looking at the river in front of
us.

Then, all of a sudden, he said me, "You are so handsome!"

"Thank you."

"I want to kiss you!"

"Here?" I asked him amazed and alarmed.

"Why not? Nobody is here now. And nobody knows us, anyway!" he answered
smiling to me, and seized my arm pulling me to him.

He kissed me! On my mouth! I felt his tongue inside my mouth and felt
ablaze! It was my first kiss, and I loved it. I loved it too much. He
leaned a hand between my legs, fingering me there, and felt I had a
hard-on.

"You're a hot boy!" he whispered, pleased. He kissed me again, then
stood up, taking me up with him with an arm around his waist, and said,
"Come with me..."

I followed him without the least hesitation. He didn't take me to his
hotel, but to a love-hotel. When we were in the room, he hugged me and
kissed me again, and I felt his hard-on pushing against me. He undressed
me and himself, and I let him do it, glad for my luck. And while he was
undressing me, he caressed, kissed all over, licked, and sucked me
making me become incredibly aroused. He had a massive body, but without
the least hint of fat, manly, beautiful! When we were both totally
naked, he took me in his arms, raising me bodily and deposited me on the
bed.

"You are so beautiful, Ken! I want to fuck you!"

I would have liked, but it was still hurting, so I said, "No, please..."

"Why? You'll like it!"

Trying to express myself as well as I could, I said, "I like fuck. But
was fucked hard two days before and I feel hurt."

"Oh, poor boy! I understand. Well we'll just do a sixty-nine, ok?"

"Sixty-nine? What that is?"

He didn't answer, explain to me - we simply did it, lying on the bed,
side by side. How did he do it! He licked, sucked, gently bit it, he
licked and sucked my balls, fingered them... and I tried to do the same to
him. It was really good sucking and being sucked at once. He meanwhile
gently brushed and squeezed my nipples so incredibly increasing my
pleasure. I came all of a sudden, with such intensity as I never
experienced before, and was amazed when I became aware that he was
drinking all my seed! I didn't yet finish unloading in his mouth when he
came in mine and so I too tried to drink it - it had a weird but good
taste, lukewarm, sweet-sour, creamy...

He turned and kissed me on the mouth, so I also felt the taste of my
seed - it was different, lighter and sweeter...

"You are my third Japanese boy, but by far the best one..." he told me.

I felt happy.

We washed, put back on our clothes and left the hotel, we said goodbye.
I went back to my hotel. While I was falling asleep, I thought it had
been a pity I could not let the handsome marine fuck me. Anyway it had
been great having his cock and then his seed in my mouth and mine in his
- it was really good being gay! I never really thought about gay people.
I of course knew they existed, but amongst mates we talked about them
with little smiles of irony, and anyway I had never been aware I was one
and even less I could enjoy gay sex so much. If I anyway enjoyed the
"punishment" fuck I got from my teacher, I could feel that with the
marine there had been something else than just sex, rude sex like with
the teacher. I guessed that the cock of the marine in my arse would have
given me less pain and more pleasure, not because it was smaller that
that of my teacher, but because the American had another attitude. The
teacher wanted to give me pain, not the marine, who instead wanted to
give me pleasure.

I had to find somebody with whom to make love, more than to have sex.

For several months, I daydreamed about nice males with whom to have sex,
but I didn't know where and how to find one. Of course with my mates I
was continuing to make comments about the girls. But now, looking at
some of my naked mates in the showers or at the public baths, I got
hard-ons that I was not always able to hide.

Once a schoolmate told me laughing, "Kusa-kun, don't fantasize too much
about girls, it can harm you!"

I too laughed, but I laughed because I thought, "If you know about whom
I'm really fantasizing..."

I wasn't thinking of him, but of another of our mates who was more
developed than us all... More than my class-mates, I felt attracted by
older boys or young men already ripe... Without letting my parents know, I
started to go to the public baths to look at naked men. But it was
surely not there I could find a partner.

I was eighteen and was near finishing High school, when I finally
decided to go to Shinjuku Nicchome, where I heard that was the gay
district. I don't remember exactly if it was January or February, but it
was still really cold. At first, besides the fact that there were no
women around, it didn't seem different from other amusement districts -
there were dozens of signs of pubs and clubs from which it was not
possible to understand if they were gay or not... I then saw on a corner
of two streets a bookshop that was exposing only gay books and
magazines! I went in somewhat hesitant, I have to admit, and started to
thumb through them - pictures of naked men, often having sex, gay novels
and, what hit me, ads of people who wanted to find a mate, a friend, or
a gay lover!

After much back-and-forth I decided to buy three magazines - Sabu, Adon
and Barazoku. They put them in a plain envelope, but I hid them all the
same them in my rucksack. Going back to the station I had the feeling
that everybody was looking at me... Travelling back home, I asked myself
where I could hide them, where I could read them in safety. My folk
didn't use to rummage in my things, but I was feeling like at home I
didn't have a safe place. I was already close to home, when I got the
solution - as I said our house was a large building of the Edo period,
and in spite of that fact that some parts inside had been remodelled,
especially the kitchen, the toilets and the bathroom, it was mainly
still in the style of the Tokugawa times.

Some parts of the house were no longer in use, or to better say, they
were used as storage, and I remembered that there was a small room that
I discovered while playing hide and seek with my brothers and sisters.
It was accessed from the mizuya (preparation room - ed.) of the tea
room, through a room where were kept, on the wooden shelves, the tea
utensils accumulated in generations of my family. As soon as I had free
way, I took an electric torch and went there. I found in the small room
a good hiding place; before putting the three magazines there, I thumbed
through them.

A few days later I decided, using the three coupons in the magazines, to
put three ads in them. I took inspiration from the other ads and more or
less I sent this text - "eighteen y.o. 172 cm, 65 kg, no experience,
looks for twenty-five to thirty y.o. to lead him in the ways of gay
love", or something alike. As an address to which the three magazines
would send the eventual answers, as I of course could not receive them
at home, I had rented a postal box at a private organisation in
Adachiku, called Eggplant.

When I went to check my post box, there were already several answers, I
went to check about once each week, and soon I gathered about forty
letters. I was really excited. Some had also a picture, or a telephone
number for a fast contact. Some were romantic, others pornographic,
there were all kinds. I answered all of them, mainly saying "no, thank
you", but in a few answers I talked a little about me and asked more
details. I was still hesitating to make a personal contact.

But, when my school year was over, I decided to try to meet five of my
correspondents. Two were a real disappointment and I let the thing die.
With three of them, we met again. Katsuo was a bank clerk, thirty-two
years old, married, a close guy, but very hot in bed; I went to his
house when his wife was out, and he was the first one to penetrate me
again after that only time with my teacher. He liked to take me, making
me go on all fours. It was no more painful, just a little annoying, and
I loved it a lot. Kenichi was a young opera singer, he was twenty-four
years old and had a likeable expression. He was still living with his
parents therefore we were going to a love-hotel, that he always paid
for. He liked long preliminaries but then nobody could keep him back any
more. He was the first man I penetrated and I liked this also a lot. We
started sucking each other in turns, then to penetrate each other,
several times in turn. Kenichi liked to take from in front and I too
liked that position much more. The third one was Toshio, a twenty-eight
year old guy. He was the son of a famous poet (an acquaintance of my
father, I later discovered) and he worked as a manga (comic books - ed.)
designer for the girls. He lived alone in Bunkyoku.

Gradually Toshio conquered me and we became lovers, so I stopped meeting
Katsuo and Kenichi; Toshio and I met about three times each week, and at
times we also spent some week ends together. Toshio liked to undress me
and to be undressed by me, kiss, make sixty-nines, be taken and take me.
He taught me to prepare the anus of the other with the tongue with long
licking, before penetrating. At first I didn't do it so willingly, but I
gradually came to like it more and more. Toshio always directed our long
sex sessions. When I stopped to sleep at his place, it happened about
once in a month, he liked to wake me up during the night giving me head,
or taking me. With Toshio we also were going to the pubs, the karaoke of
Nicchome, to dance in the gay discos, to the movies, to the restaurants
and we also did short trips to Yokohama, Nikko, Kamakura, and so on.

Toshio was very elegant and really sexy, and he just had to look at me
in a certain way to arouse me and make me want to have sex with him. I
would never have been to say no to him. Well, it didn't in fact happen
so often. But at times I was feeling a little tired, so I told him no,
but he was able to make me change my mind with extreme easiness.
Something that Toshio liked very much was having sex during meals. I
mean, one of us sat at the low table and started to eat, while the other
one, lying under the table, sucked him; this was the hors d'oeuvre.
Then, after the one who ate got his first orgasm, we swapped parts - one
ate and the other sucked him; that was the sweat, Toshio said.

Another thing he liked, but we did it only three times, was to take me
to the King's College, to chose a boy he paid, take him to his home
then, while one of us fucked him in the arse and the other in the mouth,
we two kissed and caressed each other all over the body until we reached
orgasm.

I was happy, I was fitting very well with Toshio and was in a way in
love with him. Well, I mean, I think we both were in love with each
other, even though we never said so to each other.

As I said, I was attending the Todai. I was now of age and my
relationship with Toshio was proceeding finely. At times I still went to
buy a gay magazine or a book that I went then to hide in the little
unused room, where I was keeping also the letters and all the other
things concerning my secret gay life.

I was twenty-one years old when my father decided to remodel the tea
room with all the dependences, therefore also the small room where I hid
my gay things. He didn't talk about it with us, or possibly he said it
one time when I was not present; be as it may, one morning while I was
at the university, he went to that small room to empty it, checking what
to keep and what not, and so he found the box where I hid all my things.

When I went back home, my brother told me that our father was waiting
for me at his workshop. As I didn't suspect anything, I went there
quietly. My father didn't face at once the subject of his discovery.
With his dry and rough tone, as usual, nothing odd in that, he told me
that as I was now twenty-one years old, it was time to think about my
marriage. Then he proposed to me some names of girls of families we
knew.

I had already thought that sooner or later that day would come, and I
had decided I didn't want to marry - I wanted to live my gay life
freely, and not to take an innocent girl for a ride. I had discussed it
with Toshio, and he agreed with me. I was therefore prepared, so I said
my father, as I had decided, that I was still too young and didn't want
to think yet about a marriage.

He told me that what I wanted to do or not to do was absolutely
irrelevant, therefore to choose one of the girls he proposed to me, and
that within the year my marriage would be celebrated. I insisted, he
insisted and I felt he was losing his patience.

So, trying to give me courage and to show resoluteness, I said, "I can't
marry a girl. I am gay."

"I know." he said taking out from a drawer my letters and showing them
to me. "But this doesn't change anything. If you like fucking a boy or
being fucked, it's just your business. But you will marry, sire
children, and carry on the name and the work of the family."

"But I am not at all interested in women, I don't want to have sex with
them. I am gay!" I repeated, determined.

"Kenzaemon! Either you marry and sire children as I'm telling you, or
you will not be any more part of this family, and everything goes to
your younger brother, is that clear?"

"I can't marry..."

"You can; everything is possible to one who wants. And you would surely
not be the first or the last faggot who gets married and has children!"

"So, then... I don't want." I dared say.

He stood up, gave me my letters (not the magazines and the books, who
knows why?) and without raising his voice, without rage, he said, "All
right - now you go out of this house and will never again set foot on
it. I disinherit you, you are no longer part of this family."

I felt my head whirl. But I also felt I could not yield.

I too stood up, and said, hesitantly, "All right. I just go to prepare
my luggage..."

"No, nothing inside this house belongs to you. You go out, so, as you
are."

"But..."

"Should I call the servants to have you thrown out?"

"No... you don't need to..." I answered and went out forever from my house.

On the street I asked myself what to do. I wandered for some time, then
at evening I decided to go and ask for help from my uncle, my father's
brother, who always had a weakness for me since my childhood. He
welcomed me, I just told him that I refused to accept to marry a girl
that my father proposed to me, and so he threw me out of my home. He
told me not to worry, that everything could be settled, and that in the
mean time I could stay at his place. We had supper together, I chatted
for some time with my cousins, then went to sleep.

The following morning my uncle came to wake me up at seven o'clock. He
told me that my father had called him. He scolded me for not having told
him the real reason, that is that I'm gay; that he really regretted, but
I had to leave his house - at that point I wasn't any more a member of
the family. He also told me not to try with other relatives, as my
father had informed all the family his decision. "And also your mother's
family." he added when I was going out.

"Either you go back to your father, apologise and obey, or it will be
better you don't show any more with any of us." he concluded before
shutting the door of his house.

I was feeling strong, I would not yield. Full of anger, I went away. I
then thought of Toshio - he would surely help me. I called him with my
cell-phone but nobody answered. Well, he was at work, I thought. I
wandered. I had little money in my pocket, about thirty thousand yens. I
had to look for a job. The university... I had just to forget about it -
without the money of my father I would surely not be able to pay for it.
Moreover all my books and notes remained in my room, at home.

I ate a cheap ramen as dinner. I bought a magazine with job offers and
started to call - if they asked to write, I had to first ask Toshio if I
could give his address. Three told me they had already found someone.
The fourth one told me to come to their place for an interview and gave
me his address. When they heard my family name, they asked me if I were
the Kusakabe of the tatami... I confirmed. They asked me why I was looking
for a job at their place. I answered that as I decided to live by
myself, I needed a job. They asked me where I was living at present. I
answered that I was still looking for a place, that possibly I would
live for some time at a friend's home... With extreme kindness and
deference they made me understand that they couldn't of course interfere
in my family's problems, and that I should find a better job... with the
help of my father.

Finally Toshio answered. I asked him if I could go to his place, without
telling him on the telephone the reason. He said he was waiting for me.

When I got to his place, I explained to him all that happened to me and
asked him if I could stay at his place, at least until I found a job and
earned enough money to rent a place, and also if I could give his
address in the answers to the job offers.

He accepted, but he said, "You should not go against your family."

"But you too told your father you didn't want to marry, didn't you?"

"It's different. First of all he didn't try to force me to marry, or
else I would have obeyed. And second, in my family we don't have a
tradition to carry on - my grandfather was a surgeon, my father is a
poet, and I am a designer... For you it's different."

"I didn't choose to be a Kusakabe!"

"But you are, you can't help it."

"I was!" I answered, embittered.

I went on searching for a job, giving as my address that of Toshio, but
without too much success. And I became aware that Toshio became quite
cold towards me.

After some ten days I was at his place, one morning while we were eating
breakfast, he said, "Ken, I would really like to give you a hand, but
with what I earn it's hard to support two, you can understand... And my
neighbours find it weird that I am hosting you so long... I am sorry not
to be able to do what I would like for you..."

He too was ditching me.

"I understand, Toshio. Thank you for what you did up to now. And forgive
me for the annoyance I gave you..."

"I am really sorry... Let me have your news, once in a while..."

This, translated, meant - between us all is over. So I went away also
from his house. And for the first time I realised I was really put on
the street.

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CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 2

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In my home page I've put some more of my stories. If someone wants to
read them, the URL is

http://andrejkoymasky.com

If you want to send me feed-back, or desire to help revising my English
translations, so that I can put on-line more of my  stories in English
please e-mail at

andrej@andrejkoymasky.com

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