You get used to Ken Ichijouji after a while, you know?

No, I'm serious. You do. It's like...ok, it's like, at first all his little neurotic hang-ups are irritating as hell, right? Like the way he unfolds his napkin completely before putting it on his lap. He always hated that I would just leave mine on the table and use it to wipe off my fingers. I could tell by the way his eyes seemed to focus on my hands every time he and Miyako were over for dinner.

So, where was I? Oh, yeah. So, at first you hate the finicky way he does things, but you kind of understand it too. He's gone through so much shit (and he's going to hate me for telling you about this, but whatever) with his brother dying and the dark spore and then Wormmon and...shit like that. I always kinda understood that he's developed these little habits to cope, y'know? He doesn't alphabetize his bookshelf because he's anal; he does it because it makes him feel like he's got a better handle on the world. He can control his books, so everything's going to be ok.

Or something like that.

So, right, you hate it, but you understand at least a little. And then after being friends for, fuck, years, saving the world together, making it through university together, you wake up one morning, and it's like poof! Everything that used to drive you to the edge is suddenly endearing and cute and occasionally, completely fucking hot.

Oh, Ken wants me to tell you that it's absolutely nothing like waking up one morning and poof, but what does he know? He's got his own version of the story, so you can go read his take if you can get past him being all moody and circumspect. This is my version and I say it's like waking up one morning and poof, so there.

God, he's just trying to distract me...uh...oh, yeah! Ken being hot! Got it.

So, one morning, I'm fucking about in my dorm at Keio (don't ask me how I managed to pass the entrance exam, ok? It took about a year of Ken constantly stuffing knowledge in my head, and I just don't even want to think about it), wondering if I should blow off class in favour of going back to sleep, and I look over to this photo of the lot of us on my desk, and Ken's got his head tipped forward so that his bang are covering his eyes, and he's got one hand gripping his pant leg, like he always does when he's nervous. And, I'm looking at this picture, and I realize that I don't give a damn if Ken is always trying to hide behind his hair or behind a school uniform because that's who Ken is, and if Ken wasn't Ken, I might not like him as much.

Which I do. Like him, that is. Quite a lot.

Once you realize that, it's kinda hard not to pay attention all the time, and you've just gotta count yourself luck that he's in Law and you're in Business, so you don't have many classes together. Although it's not an absolute pan...pen...panacea (yes, thank you, Ken), right? Because you've had him tutoring you all through high school, so you can almost picture him in class, reading glass half-slidden down his nose and a book between him and the rest of the world. You can picture him, right there in your head, and when you start doing this during class, it tends to end up with you running to back to your room during break to sort of...get it out of your system.

Ken says this explains quite a lot about my grades first semester. I'd say it explains quite a lot about how much I slept around first semester.

Now, once you've realized that you've got a Big Thing for your best friend, you''re left with the dilemma of deciding just what to do about it. You could tell him because, hey, he's got the girly hair and the quiet politeness. I mean, really, if there's anyone in your life who is probably gay, it's Ken.

But even if he is, and there's still some doubt here because you've guessed wrong before (really wrong), you're still going to run up against some trademark Ken Ichijouji barriers. Because he's decided that getting close to people is a no-no, and you've told him this is stupid, but he's not budging. He's never had a girlfriend (or a boyfriend, for that matter) before, and you're pretty certain any confessions of undying lust, love, whatever, would be met with a hasty retreat.

And so, you go about your life like nothing's changed. You graduate and put Daisuke's Master Plan for Great Success into action. And Ken's right there beside you the whole way. When you open your first restaurant, he's at the opening party, and you think (because you're a little drunk) that maybe tonight you'll tell him and then the two of you can go back to your place and fuck and you can find out if every bit of him is as graceful as his fingers and if he's all dark violets and pale cream even under his clothes.

Ken's gone awfully quiet now; I think I've just embarrassed him. TP's also just said that he's not going to publish this if I get pornographic which got him a smack from Miyako whose convinced it'll be a best-seller, especially if I include pictures. Ken doesn't think that's funny, and I wonder how they managed to live together so long without killing each other. Oh well.

But then something goes wrong in Daisuke's Master Plan for Finally Getting Ken Laid. Or, well, he gets laid, but it's not you doing the laying. It's the purple-haired tart, and shit! Miyako stay away from the keyboard!

Ladsjfukm


I am NOT a tart. asdnfkadsfkj

Yes, you are! Anyway. So, he goes home with her, and suddenly, he doesn't want to see you anymore. He stops coming to visit you, and he won't answer your calls, and all the information you get about him is, like, third-hand from Hikari who heard it from Miyako. Because, suddenly, Miyako is the only one who knows shit about what's going on.

In the same position, a better man might've gone to see him and tried to find out what went wrong and where, but you've never been a better man and instead, you stop trying to call, and you shout your friends down when they try to talk to you about him.

Three years pass, and you aren't happy, but you're doing fine. You're good at control when you have to be; it might be one of the things you picked up from him over the years. He's got three kids now, and everyone's wondering when he's finally going to make an honest woman out of Miyako.

(Miyako would like you to know that she's never going to be an honest woman, and I think I speak for everyone here when I say, well duh.)

One day, you're not thinking about him like always, and there's a phone call, Sora's dead, and suddenly everything, your whole world, is completely whack. But not as whack as two or three days later when one of the evening shift hosts pokes his head into your office and says six magic and utterly unbelievable words: "A man named Ichijouji is here."

The rest of the story is Ken's, really, and you should totally buy his book when it comes out (plug, plug), but I guess I should fit some sort of moral into the end, so here goes:

Shit happens, but that's the past. You could die tomorrow (or maybe get kidnapped by some complete loon), but that's the future. Neither of those really matter because they aren't now. Now matters. Forget the rest.

Pretty insightful, eh? I guess another good moral would be that I, Daisuke Motimiya, am completely in love with Ken Ichijouji, but I think he already knows that.



I do, and I love you too.

See? Pretty cool, hunh?