But what had not been so clear was that in some ways, he was supremely under confident. That didn't mean that he didn't have a really big ego, but like most people, he had his own weaknesses, real and imagined. Of course, that was to be expected.
Growing up, he'd never had what could be called a 'normal life'. He'd been raised with the knowledge that there was only one thing that he could do in life, and that was to be a martial artist. Any straying, or failure, even if only percieved, was unacceptable. Unless he was doing something that impressed his father, all he got was yelling and insults. Added to the fact that he constantly moved, and had rarely lived with a roof over his head, he'd never learned how to socialise like everyone else. He'd known that he was uneducated, and it had gotten to the point where he had points where he'd wondered why anyone would want to waste his and the teacher's time with trying to educate him. His mother was a non enitity in his life for most of it, so he'd never really known her. Plus, a lot of the people around him came along to do him bodily harm.
Essentially... he had considered himself nothing more than the best martial artist he could be. What was covered by a lot of bravado was the fact that he'd felt comfortable expressing his emotions, as when he did, he either embarrassed himself, or got insulted. It was hard fitting in for him, as he'd never learned how to join in with the group. Instead, he'd just fought or insulted what he couldn't deal with. For most of his life, he'd been the 'cocky outsider', and he'd been forced to like it.
However, a simple accident had changed that. He hadn't realised that he was speaking in proper Japanese, and was proving to be more open than he had for a long time. All the self recriminitions were gone, and he was a whole lot happier than he'd been in years. The education he'd been forcibly trying to ignore was easing into his mind, and the constant self-doubt was waning, if not gone. Essentially, he was free to relax into a role of his own choosing. Years of what his life had done to him, including the stuff that his father had accidentally and purposely done, was reset, so that he was simply more balanced.
Of course, that resulted in a sudden rise in his sense of self-worth and openness, so he was pretty much... overcompensating. It wasn't doing any harm as of yet, but it was definately not hiding the secret of his change very well.
He didn't realise that, and simply looked up at the sky, seeing more lights and wonders up there than he'd ever done before while:
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(Posted Thu, 18 Nov 2004 07:25)
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