A Precious Memory

Japan is an old country, a nation bound by its ancient cultures but is also pushed forward by its desire to not be left behind by others.

In the millenium of its existence, Japan has never been very welcoming of other ethnicities into their lands, and that is how they have stayed mostly demographically homogenous for the centuries of its inception.

This is mostly due to the Japanese people's fear of the unknown, the fear of uncertainty that the outsiders brought in once they let these people from the external extremes outside their island inside.

But it was only these recent centuries that they have started accepting other people's, though at the bare minimum. And although, it was mostly the people from the West that they quite accepted.

But the feeling of isolation was still something that Westerners felt despite being the practical beauty standards here.

---

"Enso-kun! I like you! "

A kindergartner girl told Enso of her puppy love.

"Can I be your gwirlfwend?"

The little girl was already trying to pronounce something that was not quite fitting for her age as of yet.

"Yes!!"

And Enso, being the most innocent one of the two happily accepted, thinking that she was just going to be her girl "friend".

And so after that childish confession, he have always been clung to by the little girl, up until he finally moved on to the elementary grade.

It was only the moment he hit the elementary school that he finally realized what a girlfriend meant. Immediately after, he went and straightforwardly dumped the girl. Although he didn't really consider it dumping since he was never serious about it.

"I don't want to be your bwoyfwend anymore"

He stated nonchalantly.

...

"Okay!"

The girl immediately accepted and moved on to find her new bwoyfwend.

It turns out that she also wasn't that serious about it, this also implies that Enso was actually more knowledgeable about it than her.

But Enso didn't feel down from hearing that since he actually wanted that to happen.

And just like that, throughout his elementary school, he had several girlfriends that he never became serious about. Confessing to him, him dumping them, this was the cycle of the relationships he went through during the time of his childhood.

---

Coupled with the Japanese people's habit of alienation was their majority's, mostly the elderly's case of homophobia. Funnily enough, homophobia was actually something that didn't originate from their own ancient culture, it was a mindset that entered their civilization through the Westerners' cultural dominance.

Homosexuality was actually something that many ancient Japanese people widely accepted. There were even gay samurais that existed, and also gay prostitutes that catered to many men's curious desires.

---

For Enso, the moment middle school hit was the time of budding puberty, there were now even guys asking him out.

"Enso-kun! I just thought that you were cute! Want to go out with me?"

Was the first boy to boy confession he had.

"Eehhh?! Is that even possible? We're both boys!"

Was his honest reaction coming from his own innocence.

Hearing this, the boy who wanted to rizz him up became tear-eyed and said-

"You- you!! You're a homo!"

The frustrated boy shouted something untrue due to his emotions.

And everyone of his classmates who heard that instantly looked at Enso in disbelief.

Enso, being at the center of the attention, was flustered, but because of his innocence, he quickly called out-

"What's a homo?"

And after that people all around started laughing at Enso for his innocence while also glaring at the boy who confessed to him.

Many then went up to him and told him about homosexuality, saying stuff such as-----it is a gender called to boys who also like boys, and many further added that it was okay to be a gay, most of them were girls.

While the others, mostly boys, were saying that homosexuality was an act of sin against God, it is a mental disorder, a state of being sexually curious and more.

Being opened to this topic brought a large amounts of knowledge into Enso's brain, but it also connected a lot of dots within.

You see, he had this childhood friend whom he has been with since the kindergarten days. Someone that always stuck with him through needleholes. Someone who made his belly ache which made him not go to school for many days on end because he thought that he was just having a constipation just by looking at his face. It was Ren.

Now, knowing about Homosexuality, Enso's world expanded, and many of his questions were answered. And one of those answers were-

"I love him?"

He said to himself as he looks at Ren's display picture in Line.

He didn't really care about being ostracized while loving someone, what he really cared about was what Ren's future reaction to his sincere feelings.

---

After realizing his feelings at a young age, Enso became more and more clingy to his beloved childhood friend.

And as the years passed going up to high school, the two of them were always together, looking like the healthiest best friends in the world.