Of Tanks and Petticoats

Chapter 1

Before I met Loli, I’m sure you can guess what my life was like, right? You probably think I lived in a big house in Tokyo with a rich dad and doting mom, right? No? Well, I do believe it’s fair to say that those of you who said ‘no’ were so correct that it made me cry a bit. My life was completely the opposite of that.

                My mother died when I was four and my father has failed at life ever since. We were poor, dirt poor. Okay, comparatively poor when you compared us to our neighbors in Shinjuku. I was content living in Tokyo, truly, but my father- nay, my failure of a father (We’ll call him MPU, or Male Parental Unit, for now) moved us the cheapest place on earth: a backwater little town on the outyist outskirts of Ibaraki-shi called Momoyama, peach mountain. Sounds cute, right? Hahaha- wrong!  It’s filled with… hm, the American equivalent of hillbillies; in shorter terms, its hick and out of style. Worst of all, if you are a Lolita like me it’s filled with bosozoku, yanki, and every single other delinquent type out there on the market today. The best part is that I am one of three -wait, that one thing is a girl, right…- make that four girls in the whole school. The others are (a Home schooled or (b in private schools. I also happen to be the only one that looks normal. Oh, joy; not fun, by the way.

                Outside of school, I am a Lolita: a complete rococo addict. In Tokyo, Lolita is a type of fashion worn by girls (and occasionally boys) modeled after Rococo and Victorian dresses, skirts, and blouses worn by noble ladies with lots of lace and cute prints, often accompanied with knee high socks, a bonnet or large bow for head gear, and Mary Jane’s with heels and a cute well placed bow or other decoration, boots with scalloped edges and bows or flowers, or the coveted Rocking Horse Ballerinas shoes. That is true Lolita. The fashion was my drug and my lifestyle. I had a dignified sense of taste most of our Yanki residents couldn’t grasp. I had an occupation to match my style: in the more townish Ibaraki, I work part time as a seamstress for money to buy my clothes. Ms. Oyamada, my boss, sends my designs to here Harajuku branch since I design Lolita as well as wear it. I occasionally do Kodona and Dandy (Think of it as the boy version of Lolita) along with Aristocrat (‘Grown Up’ Lolita in a sense) clothing as well. The regulars to that branch often sent me requests for designs and patterns they’d like to see me make. It made me feel like a celebrity!

                When I’m not working, I’m at Café du Elegantè: the only bakery in Momoyama. It was owned by my dear Yoshino, an Elegant Gothic Aristocrat with a passion for anything with lace or related to Malice Mizer. She was the only person that grasped that some people had a taste for the finer things in life and not just motorcycles, knickerbockers, and kamikaze coats. With the two of us being lost souls spirited away from Tokyo by fate being sick and twisted, we were a pair made in heaven.

***

                Here’s where the description of my life ends and the real story begins. It started out like a regular day. I was scurrying, not running, away from the massed group of boys wanting to ask me out as I was heading home from school. I was almost home free when someone yanked in me into an alley, “Wah!” as it was my first instinct to kick out I did without hesitation.

                “Ow! Watch it you useless frilly-ass little punk!” It was Yuko, my Yanki comrade in arms-friend-creature, and she was glaring at me while messaging her shin while her short black hair hung lazily over her face. She was decked out in worker pants, a tank-top, and that oversized kamikaze coat her dad had given her. Oh god, why was her style so profane? “I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me for some grub, but after that I don’t think I-.”

                “Of Course I’ll come with you, Yuko,” I would do anything to get me out of the house and away from the MPU, even if it was only for an extra hour or two.