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(READ FIRST: The following is a scene from the Jet Set Radio, cut from the main thread due to the fact that it strays from the original concept of the RP. This scene is rated PG-13 for: implications of sexual activities and mild language. Abuse comes in the bathroom scene.

(You don't need to read this to understand the next part, but it does prove for some background information.)

The Voice that echoed - Part 0 - Unrecorded History

'It's been a while...Ayame. I missed you.'

--

His voice - no, Keisuke's voice - sounded just as demanding as he first did when he asked her out in Kogane a year ago. A tad rough, but there was a certain something in his voice that drew her toward him, something in his tone that had her agreeing, with smiles on, on a date first. They hit it off immediately, their conversations going from art to their suckish parents to even her life as a drugee. Echo had been worried she would scare Keisuke off when she told him she sold and did drugs, but those worries had been banished when he had leaned close to her and whispered that he didn't mind, that he smoked and drank, and that he thought her given name was more beautiful than her nickname.

Echo should've known not to trust him so quickly, but that attraction she felt towards him, it was overwhelming. She felt that not even Dmitry, with his honest words and sex drive that seemed to attract women to him, who had tried to talk her into sex the first time they'd met, could win a night with her. Dmitry wanted quick pleasure. Echo wanted that same pleasure, but with a commitment attached, which Dmitry avoided. The two of them wanted different things. But Keisuke, he made her think he wanted what she want, so after another date, they had had sex.

--

'Meet me in the ladies' restroom in 5. I just want to talk.'

'Talk? Well, alright...what am I suppose to tell them?.'

'Make up something. Just get in there.' A kiss to her ear as he grinded against her. 'Don't make me wait.'

--

So Echo had asked him to stay with her, if he wanted to something more. Keisuke complied. So they were official, and it made Echo feel happier and almost higher than any time she had ever smoked weed. It was different, but they were together.

Or so she had thought.

After another night together of sex, Echo asked him if she could tell her friends, within and outside the gang, about their relationship. Surprisingly to her, Keisuke got very angry at that notion, telling her that it would only cause her problems in the future. Echo didn't get angry. She couldn't even remember a time when she actually yelled at someone, much less get angry at them. So she surprised herself when she got aggravated over the fact that she couldn't tell anyone. He calmed her down, saying he didn't want anyone to 'label' (what kind of bull was that?) what they had, and that was that.

After their 4th time together, however, things got...out of hand. Keisuke had a bad tendency to lounge around her apartment when she went off to work and skate, nearly trashing the kitchen and living room when he got a hold of the occasional alcohol unit. When he did drink, and smoke weed that he wasn't suppose to, he got angry and tended to yell at a tired Echo when she got home. When Echo told him she didn't feel like having sex, Keisuke accused her of being a frigid b***h.

Echo felt tired, that he was such a verbal and loud drunk. And with each passing time they spent together, she had the sinking-lead feeling that this wasn't really a relationship. It was a give-and-take, at it's worst.

However, what really took the cake, and made Echo kick him out of her apartment, wasn't him freeloading or making it seem like it was her fault that their relationship(?) was deteriorating; it was how jealous he could be when he saw her talking with...just about anyone. She remembers one night, around last winter, when Michiko walked her home after smoking a joint with her, still in her 'Chico' disguise. The minute she walked in, after the boss was down the block, Keisuke went ballistics.

Threw an empty bottle at her, and everything. It was one of the only times she was scared of someone she trusted. Echo wasn't one to acknowledge her mistakes, but when she did, she knew not to make them again. So, while they went out to the convenience store in the spring, she met up with Rina and Dmitry while Kei was in the bathroom.

As expected, Kei saw Echo talking with Dmitry and went they got home (separately, under Kei's insistence), they argued; Keisuke on the basis that 'he didn't like those 'weirdos', Echo telling him that those weirdos were her friends and that she wouldn't leave them for him. More arguing, and after a drunk Keisuke threw a lamp at her, she attempted to kick him out, refusing to see him again.

But he didn't. Keisuke told her it was over when he said it was over. He told her he'd call the police on her for smuggling illegal drugs, and afterwords find a way to bust her gang in the process. She believed he could, if he could trick her into having sex with her for so long.

This didn't bode well with Echo, so she spent less and less time at home. Finally she decided to take time off from her usual selling locations and go sell in other places, hoping he'd be gone when she left for Shibuya.

--

Back to the present, Echo was currently sneaking past the 'DO NOT ENTER' signs posted near the restroom Keisuke wanted to meet her in. Before putting the key in and pulling at the door, Echo paused to think about what was going to happen in the next few minutes.

Keisuke was still here, in Tokyo, like she dreaded. He saw her walk in with other guys, Jun and Dmitry. And now, after saying she didn't want to see him again, she had agreed to talk with him in a locked bathroom. By herself.

Echo slipped the stolen key into the lock and turned it. What had driven her into making such a stupid decision, to agree to talk with an alcoholic who, if she had stayed with any longer, would've done more worse than throwing a lamp. Like abuse. Or maybe even rape.

Pushing the door enough to fit herself through, she thought to herself that maybe it was hope. Or something else. With that thought in mind, Echo entered the restroom to seal her fate.

- TBC -

Part 0 End