Greatest of Ease
                                by Ken Arromdee


    It all seemed so long ago to Ataru.  It was just the other day that he
had first met Ryunosuke at the beach.  And soon she arrived in the class, a
new student who captured the hearts of all around her, both male and female.
It was a terrible thing her father had done.  Ataru, who was proud of being a
boy and who liked girls so much, could hardly imagine what it would be like to
be forced to pretend otherwise.

    The memories of Ryuunosuke's final day of life swirled through his head.
If there was only something he could have done...  something any of them
could have done.  It had been a typical day...  some gadget of Lum's was
causing trouble.  He could barely recall what it was...  it just wasn't
important when there was a human life at stake.

    Ataru had been hiding from Lum, from that gadget whose name he couldn't
remember, when the phone call came.  "Come out" said Lum.

    "No, you can reach me from there!" he yelled back.

    "Ataru... please.  That's not important any more."  The sorrow in her voice
was, unmistakably, genuine.

    "What is it, Lum?"

    "It's Ryuunosuke.  She's barricaded herself at the top of the fifth floor
of the school.  She left a suicide note...  she's going to jump out the window
and kill herself."

    Kill herself?  Ataru had been zapped, fried, mind-controlled, and punished
in just about any way an Earthman involved with aliens could be.  But he had
always bounced back.  "That's impossible!" he said.

    "Ataru, she needs us."

    "But she's...."

    "Megane read the note to me over the phone.  Can you imagine what it must
have been like for her?  Day in and day out, she had to act in a way completely
alien from what she knew she was inside.  She was put under unbearable pressure
by a father who let his own wishes rule his daughter's life.  Nobody can
withstand living a lie like that forever.  It must be the only way she feels
she can be at peace."

    "I... see."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Lum and Ataru flew and ran, respectively.  They could see her, huddled
against the wall on the outside of the same building in which they had shared
months of laughter and tears as schoolmates.  Even from as far away as the
ground, Ataru could see Ryuunosuke shaking and sobbing as she looked down,
not certain whether to reject or accept the embrace of final release from all
of the problems of her life.

    There had to be some way to convince her that, however seductive death
must seem to someone whose life was full of pain, it was the wrong way.  The
right way was hard; it was full of rejection; but ultimately the rewards of
friends and family, of school, eventual graduation, and an entire existence
in the world of adulthood afterwards, were something that was too precious to
discard.  "No, Ryuunosuke!  Don't jump!  Think of how everyone will feel!
Think of yourself, even!"

    Ataru was not the only one.  Mendo was there, yelling at her too; all his
riches were worthless against the failure of will of one teenage girl who was
raised as a boy.  Shinobu, so strong in some ways, but crying at the thought
of her classmate's death, desperately hoping some of her emotion could get
through to her.  Ran...  Ran who Ryuunosuke had idolized when they had first
met.  Nagisa, who was happy with his own strangely parallel life, who might
have loved her.

    It was useless.  Ryuunosuke's final words could have been something about
dying as a girl and not a boy, but they weren't.  The last phrase that passed
through her lips was "I'm sorry", as she plummeted out of the window and down
to the ground.  Maybe it did occur to her that her death would not only end her
own life, it would create horrible memories for everyone else, who whenever
they thought back to Tomobiki High would forever recall the short-haired
crossdresser who took her own life.  Ataru couldn't bear watching, but he
couldn't bear to look away either, and his eyes followed the girl right down
to the moment she hit the ground.  There was a sickening thump, and then all
that was left was a pool of blood and a limp sack of clothes, bones, and flesh
that was once a living, breathing, human being.

    The funeral was a week later.  The priest's words tried to comfort the
audience, but Ataru couldn't find any comfort in them.  A girl was dead!  A
girl who couldn't even be a proper girl.  Maybe her father would now realize
what he had driven her to...  but it wouldn't matter any more.

    As the coffin was buried, Ataru cried.  A rare display for Ataru, and an
even rarer display because it was on Lum's shoulder that he was crying.  Funny,
he had always thought girls were supposed to be more emotional.  "It was a
waste", he said to her.  "She didn't have to die!  If we had just known, if we
could have supported her in some way..."

    "I know", said Lum.  Ataru could see that she was crying too, the salt of
her tears conducting her natural electricity such that they blazed like the
setting sun.  "If only there was something we could have done."

End.

Note: I wrote this mostly because I've seen far too many stories of this
type.


             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'