Attack on Titan Fanfiction – Goodbye, Hange Zoe: Chapter 3

Girls Like You

The terrible thing that happened was, somehow, Tetsuya’s then girlfriend Satoko Watanabe found out about their one-time tryst. He was promptly dumped. 

“I planned to propose to her after college, once I get a job with a good company,” he’d told Karina. Satchan was the love of his life, he’d told her, weeping like it was the end of the world. But because of Karina he’d be alone forever, he’d said accusingly.

She hated herself like never before then, and was genuinely sorry. But no amount of apologising on her part could bring the young couple back together again. Relationships are like Humpty Dumpty, she reflected at the time. Once broken there was no way to mend them.

“You’re such a bitch,” Satoko had spat in her face, during the time she’d gone to find the girl so she could explain how everything was her fault and that she shouldn’t blame Tetsuya. 

While they weren’t friends they were casual acquaintances, having had a nomikai or two together with the gang. Satoko, campus beauty queen at Tetsuya’s university and only daughter of a well-to-do rural don, had been secure enough in the strength of her relationship with him that she didn’t see Karina as a threat. To her she was one of Tetchan’s numerous otaku pals. Until that terrible night.

“I’m so, so sorry, from the bottom of my heart,” Karina begged for her understanding. The two girls sat inside a small café in Ochanomizu, a neighborhood in Tokyo known for its musical instrument stores as well as the various universities that had their main campuses there.

Running her finger around one part of the coffee cup saucer, Karnina continued, “I was completely tanked and lost my bearings. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but please forgive Tetchan.”

“You didn’t even love him the way I did,” Satoko riposted, voice heavy with reproach as she sliced off a piece of cake with her fork but didn’t bring the portion to her mouth. They each ordered a slice of the café’s famous cheesecake to go with the coffee, but neither of them actually felt like eating.

“If I could take it back, I would,” Karina said, pleading, eyes welling with tears, the guilt and shame tearing at her insides.

“You only fucked him to prove that you could. He’s just one of your conquests, isn’t he?”  Satoko replied, throwing her a look of extreme disgust. With enough coldness to freeze the hot cups of cappuccino she added, “Girls like you, you’re really good at that, aren’t you?”

Girls like you. Karina was a haafu, half-Japanese on her mother’s side, half-British on her father’s. For some reason, that stereotyping insult was like a dagger through her heart. She had no comeback, and didn’t even try to come up with one. She had reached the pinnacle of all that was hateful about her kind: considered to be exotically attractive by contemporary Japanese society, outwardly pretty but callous on the inside, a loose canon in more ways than one. Never in her life had she felt like the purest kind of shit.

She found herself pleading once more, “I know I’m shit but please, Watanabe-san, take Tetchan back. He’s the farthest from shit. It was all my fault…”

“I’ve a family secret, and I’m gonna tell you ‘cause while your pussy will take any willing cock, I trust you know when to shut your trap,” the other girl said.

Karina stared at her, puzzled, but found herself saying, “I won’t tell anyone.”

“When I was in middle school, I had a cousin ten years my senior,” Satoko began. “I called her Nē-chan. She married her college sweetheart. Turns out, he was a serial adulterer. Cheated on her with his secretary, his exes, what have you. Nē-chan found out but she was too entrenched in old family traditions and playing the role of the long-suffering devoted housewife to ask for a divorce. So she grit her teeth, the poor masochist. But she killed herself after I entered high school, when she found out about the latest woman he cheated with. Any ideas who that could be?”

Shaking her head, Karina simply stared at her untouched food. 

“He fucked my Nē-chan’s very own younger sister. Can you imagine?”

Again shaking her head Karina, appalled, whispered, “That’s horrible…”

“A few months before she hung herself, I had a chance to talk to Nē-chan. She told me, ‘Never sell yourself short, Satchan. Never make excuses for any man. You deserve the very best in life, full stop. Never ever think otherwise.’ It was during hina-matsuri. She visited to give me some of her most beloved dolls.”

“I’m so, so sorry to hear that,” was all Karina could whisper. “But Tetchan will do no such thing, I’m sure of it…”

Satoko’s laugh was mocking, derisive. “Once a cheater, always a cheater, was what Nē-chan told me. She said she should’ve seen the warning signs when they were still dating at university.” With a finality in her voice she added,  “So no, I’m not taking Tetchan back. Don’t take me for a fool.”

“You’re not foolish in the least. But Tetchan made one drunken mistake. He’s truly sorry and knowing him…”

“Are you telling me to lower my standards?” the girl interrupted her, sculpted eyebrows raised.

Karina found herself once again tongue-tied, unable to find anything to say to that. “No…”

“Then get out of my sight, cunt,” Satoko told her, dripping venom. “I never want to see your ugly face again for as long as I live.”

Karina then had to return all of the comic books Tetsuya had lent her. But he blocked her on all of his social media accounts and on his phone and refused to see her, so she had to do it through a mutual friend, Masato.

“Tetchan says he wants his Shingeki no Kyojin book covers back as well,” he informed her. So Karina handed the boy the plastic covers that were sized to fit perfectly the tankobon or paperback volumes the manga was published in.

“Ask him if he wants the Hange keychain back, too,” she told him.

That night Masato texted her, “He says you can keep the keychain.”

It had been two years since they graduated from university. Everyday she waited to hear from their mutual friends the happy news that Tetchan found someone new, and that he’s now happily married to this wonderful woman. She wanted to hear the news that this new wife was better in every way than Satoko, and that Tetchan was ridiculously happy.

Karina wanted to hear such news so that her happiness for him would make her feel a bit better about herself. But no such news came. Instead, Tetsuya had attempted suicide a year after graduation. He explicitly asked their friends to tell Karina she was not welcome to visit at the hospital. 

After recovering, he left the large stock brokerage firm he worked for in Tokyo and went back to his hometown in Kumamoto. He’s currently learning the ropes of the business to take over his father’s modest ironworks factory, Masato informed Karina. But there was much resentment from his older brother, who by virtue of birth order was supposed to inherit the entire business, not to mention plenty of disappointment from their father, who forked out a lot of money for a Tokyo education for his younger son in hopes that he could become a well-paid sarariman in the Big City, only to have him return to town broken and morose. Deeply depressed, there was no happy marriage in sight for Tetchan, more’s the pity, Masato had told her. 

And thus, whenever Karina was reminded of the Akira manga, Tetsuya’s face came up with a vengeance like it was yesterday. The remorse and self-contempt was such that she found herself no longer willing to form close platonic friendships with guys, because she might just destroy them in a drunken stupor. 

Men are fragile, she thought. For every unfeeling jerk there’s one that’s like a crystal vase waiting to be shattered. Girls like her, they seemed to inadvertently attract the latter.

Why was the pain always still fresh? For how long did she have to be filled with regret? When will it all be water under the bridge, a thing best to be forgotten? She thought of the friends she lost—those who sided with Tetsuya—and shuddered. If she could turn back time and refuse that invitation for a nightcap at his apartment, she would. The self-hate was ever present.

She had been genuinely sorry, but a few years on, in hindsight, there were times when she wondered why all the blame fell on her. It wasn’t like it was a one-way street. She didn’t get raped like Casca in Berserk, nor did she rape Tetsuya the way the girl Saeki did to the boy Kasuga in The Flowers of Evil manga. 

It takes two to tango. Why was it that boys were considered to be slaves to their sexual appetites thus making it the girl’s job to resist?

But at the time she was so desperate to fix things she willingly took all the recrimination. As if Tetsuya was an innocent victim and she was the devil woman. 

Unburdening herself to the new friends she made at her place of employment who didn’t know her back at university could help, as they may be able to look at the situation more objectively. But it wasn’t an option really. What if she’ll get an unpleasant reputation via word of mouth?

She couldn’t tell Asuka because she was her precious friend. It was Asuka who helped open her eyes to the joys of the complex world of yaoi. Karina had developed a keen interest in the BL or Boys’ Love genre since the height of eruri, ereri and erejean craze around 2013-2015, but she never really got her feet wet. It was through her friendship with Asuka, a red-blooded fujoshi, that she was able to indulge in what she discovered to be an amazingly sensual and mind-expanding universe.

No, she couldn’t tell her because one time, when their friendship was still new, Asuka over a few glasses of wine ranted about bitchy women and cheating men. 

It had been a cool and pleasant autumn evening at Kagurazaka, a Tokyo neighborhood known for its cobblestone lanes lined by small, charming restaurants and their loyal customers, some of whom come all the way from other prefectures to indulge in the area’s culinary delights.

A new trattoria had recently opened there, pre-COVID19, and the owner-chef was said to have trained at Firenze (Florence) and other places in the Toscana (Tuscany) region. Karina promptly made reservations. After sharing a few dishes, Asuka opened up about a painful period in her life. 

She had been the victim of a philandering husband who impregnated another woman, a co-worker in his office, she confided. It was an early marriage leading to a speedy divorce six months later, while Asuka was pregnant with their baby. The extreme stress of the breakup led to a miscarriage. Asuka blamed the adulterous woman as much as she blamed her ex-husband, if not more. In her eyes, cheaters were the lowest of the low, the scourge of human relationships.

Against this backdrop, how could Karina open up about the biggest mistake of her past? It would break her heart if Asuka ever thought ill of her. She chose their friendship over personal catharsis.

Back at the oyster bar, Asuka wondered about the rush of memories that caused a shadow of pain to flit across her friend’s face. No explanation about that Akira thing, not today. When then? Sighing, she fished into her purse.

“Here, luv, this’ll cheer you up,” Asuka said, tapping on her iPad. On the device was a Yashiro screensaver, the protagonist in the BL manga Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai.

“Ah, Yashiro!” Karina exclaimed, making a kissy face and holding the device in front of her puckered lips before hugging the tablet to her chest and cooing, “I love Yashiro sooooo much.”

“As much as Jean-bo?” 

Karina cocked her head to one side. “Not exactly. Yashiro’s my favourite gay character. Jean’s my favourite bisexual character. Hange’s my favourite non-binary character.”

“Who’s your fave straight character then?”

“Kanda Shōtaro,” Karina replied softly but without hesitation. That look of sadness on her face was there once again but flashed by like a heartbeat. 

Kanda was one of the protagonists of Akira. 

Eating the last piece of grilled oyster, Karina changed the subject back to her precious ongoing manga. “What about you, Asuppi, what kind of ending would you find unforgivable for Shingeki no Kyojin?”

Thank you so much for reading! Please take a moment to share a thought or two in the comment section below. Your comments give me life and are a real source of encouragement. xoxo, hana

Next – Chapter 4: Tokyo Nights

Back – Chapter 2: Secrets

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