About When You Gonna Learn

Any topics discussed here are solely based on the author's opinion and are not intended to offend anybody in any way.

The idea took shape when I was on the 12 hour plane ride between Hong Kong and London. I can't remember in which direction.

I can't seem to write in third person narrative, although I enjoyed writing about Ran a lot. The relationship between Youji and Ran… to me, it's love but not much in a shounen-ai sense. There's this tension between them which is somewhere between sexual love, work partners, companions, brothers… but I can't put my finger on it just yet. I'll try to illustrate it in another fic.

The bit where Youji poured two cups of coffee, one for himself and another for Asuka (which Ran took and drank) is thanks to one of the scenes in the anime when Youji sat at the coffee shop. But I do wonder how it'd feel to watch the coffee go cold, untouched, and then to pour it away. I don't know if this should be called romantic or silliness. When Youji spoke to the girl (the one who often visited the punk) though, I do truly think that to have something/someone to believe in can sometimes be a blessing. How many of us will die happy? We couldn't choose to be born or not, but we can usually choose the way we live.

I envy those people who have a belief because they can spend their lives living out their beliefs and die contentedly. I don't believe in most things. Religions, purposes of life… to me, they're all very silly. I don't think we're born for any particular reasons at all except that a sperm has got into an egg and there's another living thing after 9 months. To me, religion for most people is because they cannot live knowing that they're born for no reasons. They want to think that there's more, they don't want to die - hence they say there's life after death. They invent ideas they cannot even visualise themselves and say that this is because we're only human.

No - I'm not saying that religions are bullshits. They can be true but I choose not to believe. What I'm trying to say is, a lot of , if not most, people choose to believe because of fear. Fear of death, fear of feeling that there is no purpose, etc. Why do I think that? Because I feel that there're only 2 options - you believe totally or you don't at all. If you do, you believe in everything to do with the religion, and as a consequence, you will devote your life to it. That is what a 'belief' means to me. On the other hand, if you don't believe, then you don't do anything with it. There's no grey area to this. You believe in one bit but aren't sure about the other? It means you have doubts and doubting means you're not believing it, really. So why are there so many religion believers who do not live like they're supposed to, as a believer? Because they only followed their god(s) out of fear. They don't really believe in all of it. To give you an example, most of the Christians I know don't even follow the Ten Commandments, which are supposedly the basics of their religion. 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself', as Jesus said in Luke's Gospel - how many Christians constantly remind themselves of this? Maybe it's hard to do but how many of them even try? How many people actually think of the meaning of the Lord's Prayer when they say it in Sunday mass? So why do they want to call themselves believers?

Back to the girl… I liked writing about her, the punk and Youji. They're like philosophers, and there's no right and wrong in philosophy. Was the punk wrong in ignoring the girl, or was it the wrong decision to take her with him on the run? Who can tell? Nobody can tell what the future holds - she might find love again if he left her, she might not. So I can't really say if the punk did the right thing or not. That's why I often act according to my instincts - what I heard is that the normal thought process has many steps, we go through all the possibilities then finally draw a conclusion. An instinct is when all these intermediate steps are skipped or shortened and we arrive to a conclusion very quickly. Sometimes thinking for too long gives the wrong answer… (Hey, never go back and change your answer on the exam paper if you're not absolutely sure you were wrong! Changing an originally correct answer to something wrong… we've all done this before, yeah?) Well… one thing I'm very sure about the punk though is that I want his hair. *L* I want my hair very short, in turquoise or some form of blue. Even if I can't get the colour I'd love to have it much shorter than now (my hair is about an inch below earlobes).

Where Omi said 'Aya-kun, the pain would go away, as long as there isn't a scar…' I wrote it for myself. Ran's misunderstanding of Youji can be forgiven because Youji had intended to make things that way. I often feel misunderstood. Too much expectations, preconceived ideas about me, uncaring words and gestures - intentional or unintentional… we all feel these things. I'm not moaning about my life because I often feel very lucky to be me, but you and I are both scarred at one stage or another. Scar of wounds not properly treated or wounds beyond treatment. So I just felt like putting it there as a simple reflection of the fact that time is often limited when one wants to correct his/her wrongs. Do it quick.

Ran… he's very lovable, isn't he? I'm a bit jealous of him, really. Youji, Ken and Omi all took their time to understand this young man and plainly love him for the way he is. Like him, I'm not a talkative one. Not that I'm no good with words, but very often I just don't feel like speaking. I don't see the necessity in spoken words most of the time. I don't have Ran's luck, though. Not many people even attempt to see who I really am.

Youji doesn't like sharing his pain for three reasons. One, he doesn't like being sympathised. Two, fear of rejection. Three, he doesn't want to burden anyone. I wrote him like me. I am hardly ever sympathetic of anyone and I don't like being sympathised. Sympathy weakens people most of the time. You feel sorry for someone, you help them do their job, but at the end of the day, you aren't doing him a favour because the experience he is supposed to learn by overcoming this difficulty has been taken away by you. I know people who feed on other people's sympathy to survive and I really really don't like this.

I won't make it. Leave before the smoke chokes you.
No. Please don't leave me behind. I was lying. I don't want to be alone.

How many of us say one thing and think the other? When we say 'Nevermind,' and 'Doesn't matter' when it does matter? Why do we do it? Because we think for the best of other people? Because we want to be seen as heroes afterwards for such sacrifices? Because we want people to feel that they owe things to us?

I just wanted to be with somebody. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to be forgotten. And no, I didn't want them to hate me. I lied.

And how many of us can be like Youji and finally admit that what we said isn't what we want?

12 to 25? Why did they ever bother to tell the temperature? It was like 'I predict when I flip the coin I would get a head or a tail'. How useless could the forecast people get?

Oh, this is just my complaint on the weather forecast and other general things being useless. I often sit and watch TV with my father and complain that what they said are common sense - this is practiced on news program mostly. Politicians, financial specialists etc just use big words to say little things that in fact are common sense. Try it, sit and watch a program that is focused on an analysis of… a particular news issue or something similar. Think of the words they say and you'll see that half of it is stuff that anybody should know and the people on TV are just desperately trying to sound intelligent.

Ken and the salad bar - I don't actually know if there're Pizza Huts in Japan! And even if there are, I doubt that they have the Ice Cream factory which Youji mentioned. They have it in London Pizza Huts though. Anyway, after learning their lesson of people making bigger salad bowls using sliced cucumbers, Pizza Hut now give out plates instead of bowls and use cubed cucumbers. *L*

That's all. As I've said in the beginning, any topics discussed here are purely my own opinion, so please do not feel offended or upset in any way if you disagree with me. I tried not to generalise too much, but I'm only human, too. *L* Do write to me if you feel like making a discussion, but sorry, nothing on the 'religion' topic please. I've studied it enough and have formed my solid opinion on it. Moreover, discussions regarding religion are like those about shounen-ai - there's never an end to it.