ABOUT ENEKO

[attr="class","omapponestatusimg"]

[attr="class","omapponestatus"]

[attr="class","omapponepersonality1"]SUBJECT TEMPERAMENT

[attr="class","omapponelikes"]

[attr="class","omapponelikes"]

[attr="class","omapponemisc3"]

[attr="class","omapponemisc4"]

[attr="class","omapponemisc1"]

[attr="class","omapponemisc2"]

[attr="class","omapponemisc2"]

[attr="class","omapponebio1"]

I. [ REDACTED ]

One of your earliest memories comes from when you were very young, no older than four years old. It’s hard to remember specifics like that. How old you had been in this kaleidoscope memory or where it had taken place are a mystery to you. Yet, everything else had been bright and so very vivid. You can perfectly picture the scene in your mind, from the song that had been playing ( a cover of the song joyride by roxette ) to the smell of your mother’s perfume ( made of up citrus and sea salt with undertones you can’t place ). [break][break]

Knees pulled up to your chest, you are forced to sit there whilst everything moves like a blur around you. It’s both light and dark, a pitch black room highlighted only by beacons of blue and purple shining down on a stage and its lone occupant ( your mother ). [break][break]

She’s the one singing. [break][break]

Every time you remember, the children’s film you’d watched at the time always flooded your thoughts. Your mother may not have flaming red hair, but you always thought that her voice reminded you of that story of the mermaid with the beautiful voice. [break][break]

Except, instead of her voice being stolen by a wicked witch, she was being kept in a cage and made to perform like dutiful songbird. It was eerily like the tale of the nightingale and the emperor who’d coveted its sweet singing voice. It made you wish for your mother’s captor to reach a similar fate as the one in the story, or even better, to find something better and free his ma. [break][break]

Your wishes always went unanswered. [break][break]

As you watched your ma sing, ( i hit the road out of nowhere. i had to jump in my car and be a rider in a love game, following the stars ) you remember a large hand roughly landing on the top of your head, and you remember flinching underneath it. You can’t remember if it was because of the sudden contact or the person who touched you that made you scared of, but you’re glad you don’t remember those parts. But despite noy looking at him, you already know what’s there. Tattoos with meanings you don’t understand yet and bright eyes sickeningly similar to your own[break][break]

You remember the man touching you laughing, loud voices, the sting of cigarette smoke in your eyes and the song coming to an end as you began to tear up. You remember wanting to be somewhere else. [break][break]

The man’s voice interrupts your daydreams of a place very far away ( oi, you thick? fuckin’ answer me when I talk t’ you ) and another voice, followed by laughter ( your kid an eejit or somethin’, boss? ) and his response, rough and dangerous, making the air on your arms stand on end ( shut up, ya sniveling cu- )[break][break]

Then you remember your ma. She had you in her arms and it was only then that you realised that you were trembling. You reach up and quickly wrap your arms around her neck, your fingers catching on her hair ( long and deep black like coal ) and she tucks your face into her neck. And it’s like you’re no longer there anymore, you’re safe. You’re suddenly in a different place in entirely, with only your mother’s familiar perfume and her voice muffled through your hair ( sweet eneko, don’t cry ). [break][break]

That is the end of your oldest memory. [break][break]

Sometimes, it feels more like a dream than a concrete event that had occurred in your life. It has the same fuzzy edges and softness that came with most dreams, but it always felt steeped in truth ( the fear, the smoke, that man ).
[break][break]

II. [ 2001 ]

Six years is how long you stayed in Ireland. Six years was how long it took until your mother finally grew tired with the life she’d married into. [break][break]

Though, you often cite yourself as the final straw that urged her to back her bags ( you, and your broken arm and the deep cigarette burns on your arms she’d uncovered ). You remember the trip home from the hospital, dry tears staining your cheeks and the smell of plaster and the leftover steril scent of hospital clinging to your clothes. Your ma’s white knuckled grip on the steering wheel, you got your wish. But like all good things, it came at a price.[break][break]

When you pack your things and leave that house behind, picked clean of everything you may hold dear, it is not just the city that you leave. [break][break]

III. [ 2002 ]

Try introducing yourself. Your mother is encouraging, and you try for her.

Your words are clumsy and you know -- you know you aren’t pronouncing it correctly. But you stutter through the sentence laid out in front of you in neat handwriting because you have to. Your words are disjointed and they don’t sound at all like how your mother did when she said it for you.[break][break]

But still, she smiles at you and pats the top of your messy hair. You’ll get the hang of it, En.[break][break]

You’ll get the hang of it.

[break][break]

IV. [ 2005 ]

The children taunt you ( neko? is that your name? why don’t you sound like one then? -- what a stupid name ) and you lash out like a stray caught in a corner. Words still aren’t something you’re adept enough to wield yet, so you ball up your fists and let them speak for you. You win some fights, but you lose countless others. [break][break]

When your ma sees you, she clicks her tongue at you. She caresses your cheek, light and soft, carefully avoiding the swelling bruise on your jaw. [break][break]

Your ma had always reminded you of the fairytales she used to read to you when you were young, about beautiful women with ivory skin and ebony hair with mighty hearts held within fragile ribcages. But there is a quality to your mother that no story has ever really captured before. Those princesses and fair maidens had always needed someone to rescue them. Your mother isn’t like that. ( your mother, with her golden voice and spine of steel )[break][break]

You want to be like that. Strong. So when she asks what happened, you lift your chin high and say ( nothing happened, was just playing ) while blinking through the tears. She looks at you with dark, critical eyes. But she doesn’t ask you again.[break][break]

V. [ 2008 ]

The boys puffed out their chests and strutted like preening peacocks, boasting about their positions in a gang, one that people often whisper about behind closed doors, if they dare to speak of it at all. ( yakuza ) They’re loud in their bragging, so proud and full of bravado as they sneer at you, but you don’t feel fear. Instead you spit at the ground, mere inches from their feet. ( bullshit ) You snap.[break][break]

They don’t take well to your rudeness. [break][break]

They’re the ones who box you in, they’re the ones that snap insults so close to your face that you can smell their breath and they’re the ones that shove you against the wall. ( you’re the one who throws the first punch ) [break][break]

It’s not a pretty fight ( though, when does a fight ever look like anything other than an ugly combination of fists and blood? ). There are two of them and only one of you. They are big and almost high school age. You are scrawny and barely beginning to grow. You have no friends to help you in the war you’ve started. No one wants to be friends with a foreigner, with your clumsy Japanese and the trash fire of a reputation. Rumours surround the boy with the blue eyes ( a good-for-nothing, a delinquent, a disgrace, a criminal -- the mother, did you hear about the mother? ).[break][break]

Even your mother isn’t safe from the scathing remarks. They’re made by your teachers, your neighbours, by anyone who knows that she is alone and that she is raising you. She works so fucking hard and even she isn’t safe from the criticism aimed at you, precise and deadly as sharpshooter wielding their favourite rifle. ( she doesn’t deserve insults like that, she doesn’t deserve those judgemental gazes just because of you -- its because of you ) [break][break]

So you are alone in your fight, and it was lost the second you decided to start it. [break][break]

When it’s over, ( when your ribs ache and your mouth is bleeding and your face is bruised ) you curl up on the ground, the sky darkening and the air growing cold until you can finally pick yourself up off the ground. When you get home, you lie to your ma and say that they looked worse than you. [break][break]

It’s during that fight where you lose your front tooth and your left eye turns black.[break][break]

VI. [ 2012 ]

There in the dark, through the smoke and dim spotlights shining down on you, you see ( her ).[break][break]

You’re seventeen and far too stupid to care about the fact that you should be at home. You’re singing into a microphone and the smell of smoke feels like haunting, but you feel more alive than you have in months. [break][break]

( that’s when you meet the yakuza girl ).

[attr="class","omapponeplayerimg"]

[attr="class","omapponeplayername"]

call me
KILEO

[attr="class","omapponeplayer1"]

[attr="class","omapponerenown"]

15%