Andrew Vale, 18, high school senior (themes: harem, , highschool, slower start)

I don't remember my dad. Oh I have memories of him from when I was a tiny thing, holding his hand or being carried on his shoulders, but I can't trust they're real. I can trace every one to the thin photo album my mum keeps of her memories of him.

Don't get too worked up about it, I don't. Couldn't give two craps about my old man except that he left my caring mother to take care of me all on her own in a foreign country. Dad had come by her family's restaurant and the two of them fell madly in love. With a bit of persuasion of her parents, a sweet talking nature and a dangerous glint in his eyes, my father got permission to marry my sixteen year-old mother, and I was born six months later. That last part isn't something mom mentions very often, and certainly not to strangers.

Mom followed him back to the States and supposedly we were happy for a few years. Then dad was killed. Offed by some organized crime connected people. My mom was offered witness protection, instead she took me back to Japan. She fit right back into a Japanese life — half-Japanese but didn't look it, not with her porcelain skin and silken black hair. Her hefty breasts stood out, but not so much that she didn't fit into Japanese society like a glove. Not like she was a Japanese Adult Video star or anything. . ..

Let's just note that my mom works at a hostess club and leave it at that. And I guess you should know her name, Asami.

I wasn't teased so much as just isolated as a kid. I'd inherited a lot from my dad. Grown up I have a swimmer's build that I keep by actually being on the swim team, but as a nobody thin kid all I looked like was a chestnut-brown curly-haired gaijin. My mom, always worried about me, didn't know any way to solve my childhood problems except raising me in a more foreign environment, so we eventually moved back to the States. We stayed near a heavy Japanese community, and suddenly I could make friends my own age from all walks of life, but our costs went up dramatically even as my mom's job prospects stayed on the uneducated side of things. Higher rent, private school costs, I learned to cook and shop as efficiently as possible to cut every penny of cost out of our lives. But my life improved.

Then in middle school our purpose scores were measured. My school was renowned for accurate scores. They didn't rely on the Department of Social Corrections, but were partnered with the LaRose Institute, one of the think-tanks that had successfully lobbied for the Life Plan Correction in the first place. My score came back as unknown. Unreadable. Undetermined. It didn't matter too much for a while as kids got used to their labels, and either took it as a reason to change or accepted their fates. Eventually though, the strange non-score became so easy to make fun of. Behind my back people called me Question Mark. Or just Mark if they thought they could be funny to my face. I. . . may have earned some of the reputation behind my resting scowl-face when kids did that.

I've still got a few friends, mainly in swim club, but nobody tries to get to know me, and I just don't bother trying to make them. Now I'm heading into my last year of private high school, which for us starts in January — graduates are encouraged to take a partial gap year, or head to Japan for university, we're that heavily influenced by the Japanese immigration in the area. Most of the students aren't Japanese though, and those that are are mostly third or fourth generation at that.

Swimming's the only thing I'm great at, that and taking care of the house — especially the shopping and cooking, and the dishes that mom hates so much. I'm just average at school, though I excel at group work, and yeah I have few friends. I'm sure most people would look at me and think I don't have any great dreams.

They'd be wrong. I have one goal, and everything I do will see me succeed at it. I will be the CEO of the most future-looking company in the world. Nothing will stop me from leading it to the top, and then doing it again, and again, until the corporate world knows my success as the personal power of a person it needs to watch every second or risk falling too far behind to ever catch up.

But for now I've got to finish up my senior year of high school.