Prickly

The kid had stood out the moment he set foot into Sun Garden. He had been small and sly with thick lower lashes and a weariness of the world that had contorted his every step. Midorikawa had seen many kids with chips of various sizes on their shoulders pass through the Sun Garden doors, but something about this kid was different.

Hitomiko stood up and their conversation stilled (which meant that he already owed this kid one). "It's the new arrival," was the only explanation she offered before she glided off to help him with his bag and to take him to his new room. She was as efficient as ever, he could give her that.

It was still too late for the rest of the room though. The laughter and chatter had cut like the power going out the moment the kid has shown his face. It wasn't that he had arrived with a bad temper, either. In fact, the kid's face had been so blank that Midorikawa's heart had skipped when he first noticed it.

But that was precisely it. It was his general aura, aloof and unapproachable, wanting so fervently to be ignored. It sucked you in. You couldn't help but stare.

"So how's your final year, Midorikawa-kun?" Hiroto broke the silence and his voice reverberated loudly around the playroom. Midorikawa wasn't sure if it was because he was oblivious or because he was too observant, but either way, the conversation was rapidly being steered back to unwelcome territory.

"It's fine," he replied, in a more appropriate volume of voice, gaze still fixed on the child plodding across the room. At anywhere but Hiroto, really. "If all goes well, I'm set to graduate with a Merit." Of course, though the older man hadn't made a big fuss about it, he knew that Hiroto had graduated with a Distinction. Not that grades mattered that much when it came to your success after university, but it sure was funny how little things changed.

"Have you thought about what you're going to do after university? It's jobhunting season, isn't it?"

'I know you've thought a lot about what you want me to do after university,' Midorikawa thought, but kept it to himself.

"There are a few companies I'm interested in," he began cautiously instead. "Nomura, Mitsubishi…" he listed off the various corporations that had been at the job fair he'd popped into on a whim the other day. It had been a good experience. The free gifts for joining the companies' mailing lists had been tempting. The rumours of the fresh graduate salary packages flying around the nearby café had been even more so.

Hiroto's eyebrows rose. "That's quite ambitious. Those are pretty big companies."

Midorikawa shrugged and smiled. "Well," he said, hoping his voice sounded much lighter than he felt, "better aim high than not try at all, right? I mean, after the people here spent so much time and effort into raising me, I have to make something out of myself."

He fixed his gaze onto Hiroto then, though he wasn't sure exactly what type of expression he was making. "You get that too, right?"

"Yes, of course," Hiroto replied, but it was too automatic and too practised. Midorikawa ended up leaving that day feeling even less sure of everything than before.

Hiroto wasn't around the next time he visited. Busy with work, he'd said.

Midorikawa didn't envy him. He knew that it was crunch time for the Kira Corporation right now. The shareholders' meeting was coming up and no doubt Hiroto was rehearsing his speech and making last-minute adjustments to his presentations.

So this time, it was just Hitomiko opposite him. She had served him sencha, her favourite. They were drinking silently.

It was incredibly awkward.

Midorikawa didn't know why he still came back. He loved the place, sure, but it had changed completely from the place he had grown up in. Hitomiko had done renovations upon becoming the manager of Sun Garden, and every single leaking pipe and crack in the wall had been fixed. It was better for the kids living there now, but for Midorikawa it just wasn't the same. And, of course, the kids he'd grown up with had either spread to all four corners of Japan or changed completely from the cute little beans he remembered. They weren't running around the grounds around them playing tag or hide-and-seek anymore. No, he reflected ruefully, they were too old for that now.

He took another sip from his cup and set it back down on the table. Though Hitomiko had just refilled it, it was already running low again. Midorikawa cast his gaze around and it settled on the kid from last time, who was quietly reading by himself in the corner.

"That's Kariya, the new kid," Hitomiko said, noticing his shift. "Come to think of it, he arrived when you were here last time."

"How's he settling in?"

Hitomiko smirked. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

She called Kariya over, and the boy came over without any fuss. He introduced himself, and Midorikawa did likewise before pointing to the book that was now closed in his hands.

"What are you reading?"

Kariya shrugged. "Nothing special," he said, showing Midorikawa the cover. (It read The Outsiders. A translation of an English book, and pretty hefty for a child not even out of primary school to boot.) "I found it in one of the shelves. It was the most interesting looking one."

Now that Midorikawa thought about it, he remembered that one of the kids he'd roomed with at some point over the years had been obsessed with foreign literature. He'd put money that this was one of the books he'd left behind.

"You're thinking of Shuuji-kun, aren't you," Hitomiko said, her tone becoming amused. "I remember this was one of his." Kariya turned towards her, his mouth opening slightly, and Hitomiko explained, "Midorikawa used to live here."

Kariya was silent for a few moments. Midorikawa could see the gears turning in his head (which, to be honest, was a pretty welcome break from how you could never figure out what Hiroto was thinking).

Then Kariya turned back to him.

"How did your parents die?"

The question threw Midorikawa completely off guard. You didn't just ask someone you had just met that. But they were both orphans, and Kariya had just arrived at the orphanage. He knew how important a question this was, so he would give it the respect it deserved.

"I don't know," he answered truthfully. "I was too young."

The light went out of Kariya's face faster than you could switch it off. He shrunk into himself again and started to rustle the edge of the book with his fingers.

"How are you finding Sun Garden, anyway?" Midorikawa asked in what he hoped was a pleasant-sounding voice. "What have you been up to since you got here?"

Kariya shrugged. "Not much." He turned away. "I mean, what's even the point, anyway?"

He wandered off without even excusing himself, but Midorikawa didn't have it in himself to feel offended. He could sympathise with the kid. He'd seen a lot like him in his time at Sun Garden. Though, he had to admit, never before at that age.

"That child has been angling for adoption ever since he got here," Hitomiko said quietly once Kariya had left the room. "He probably made more effort than usual because he thought you were a potential adopter."

What? Did he look old enough to be a father? He wasn't even out of university!

It had to be the glasses. Midorikawa resolved to make an appointment with the optometrist at the next available opportunity.

"Maybe he's shy," he said. "It must be hard to make new friends too at that age."

"Maybe you're right," Hitomiko said. "But the kids have been trying, and he just brushes them off. He doesn't seem to want to talk very much. He's certainly got a prickly personality."

"Hm," Midorikawa said. "Prickly, huh?"

One of the first things Midorikawa did the week after that was to buy a cactus. He had looked online and balked at the prices, but once he realised that his university probably had a Weird Plants Society (okay, with a different name) it had been an easy task to actually locate it and obtain one of the spiky things. Apparently it wasn't a high quality specimen at all, but if Midorikawa couldn't tell how exactly he doubted an eleven-year-old would be able to notice the difference.

He brought it on his next visit to Sun Garden. Well, to hide it he also brought most of the kids little presents, but the only reaction he really paid attention to was when Kariya suspiciously inspected the pot.

Midorikawa hadn't wrapped it. He'd heard that the spikes didn't regenerate and hadn't had the faintest idea of how to wrap it without catching them. He didn't want to be the one that ended up ripping off, or having to watch Kariya rip off, half the spikes along with the wrapping paper.

"Thanks," Kariya said in a voice that could dry seaweed. His face was almost as blank as it had been the first time Midorikawa had seen him.

Midorikawa's heart flopped. He had no doubt that the cactus would be going into the trash bin the moment he turned his head.

"Did you know that cacti are surprisingly hardy?" he said. "You don't actually have to try very hard to take care of them. But when you see them grow and bloom flowers, it's actually really satisfying. I used to measure my cactus every day and keep a diary of how much it grew."

Okay, the last bit hadn't been true. Midorikawa had never owned a cactus. He had got a little carried away.

Kariya's eyes flickered over from the cactus to him. His gaze was thoughtful, with a little bit of scepticism mixed in his eyes and the quirk of his eyebrows. "Oh really," he said, his tone less dubious this time. He looked almost interested.

Midorikawa widened his smile, perhaps in reaction to his sinking heart.

God damn it, he realised, he had to buy a cactus of his own now.

The next time Midorikawa visited Sun Garden, he was fighting to keep a relaxed pose and a straight face. Easier said than done after getting off the phone with Hiroto.

Hiroto had stopped dancing around the issue of his future. He'd switched to the direct approach. Maybe he had been meeting up with Gouenji on the sly.

"You should come work for Kira Corporation," Hiroto had told him. For about the ten billionth time.

"I've already applied for a lot of grad schemes," Midorikawa had replied, quite a bit less serenely than after the first time he'd been told that.

Hiroto had hummed. "You probably wouldn't do well at graduate schemes."

"Excuse me? I'm a History major. I don't know if you've read the paper recently, but that shit is complicated. I'm sure I can handle whatever they throw at me."

"No, it's not that," Hiroto had backpedalled, but Midorikawa had stopped listening. Why should he, when Hiroto never did? The conversation had deteriorated. He had ended it to save them both any more suffering and strode into Sun Garden.

Kariya was waiting for him, giving only a small grunt at Midorikawa's greeting. He seemed to be in a peculiar mood too.

Midorikawa knew why, of course. You'd have to be blind to miss the streamers and farewell banners plastered all throughout the front lobby. (Come to think of it, Hitomiko had said that Sun Garden was seeing a higher adoption rate lately. Maybe it was the economy.)

All his frustration over his own situation slipped away. "Chika-chan was adopted the other day, wasn't she?" he asked, gently. "Did you ever talk to her?"

"No way," Kariya said flippantly. "She's a girl."

Then he grew moody again.

"I don't get it," he finally said. "I've been showing my face whenever an adult comes by. And I'm not stupid. I read a lot, I'm good at sports, I can play music. I'm a great kid."

Midorikawa stayed quiet. Kariya was in no way a bad kid, that was for sure.

"So why has it been so long?" Kariya finished. His voice cracked. "Why doesn't anyone want me?"

It was Kariya's age. Midorikawa had never seen a child older than eight get adopted. Eleven? Might as well unpack and let loose, because you'd be staying for a long while.

But of course he didn't say any of that.

"You are wanted," he said instead, and he was surprised at how strong his voice was. "Sun Garden wants you."

Kariya sniffed and gave a small cough, clearing his throat. "Of course Sun Garden has to want me," he said. His tone was patient, like he was explaining how to add numbers to a small child. "It wouldn't be a very good orphanage if it didn't accept orphans."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. Hiroto and I grew up here just fine. Why do you want to leave so much?"

"I just don't want to stay here," Kariya said. "It's like…" he stared at the floor, cheeks pink. "This just feels like a place I have to pass through."

"That's not true at all," Midorikawa said immediately. But he was oddly conscious of his heartbeat and the echo of his own words.

"Anyway," Kariya said, "you wanna see Spikey Spike?"

"'Scuse me?" Midorikawa felt his smile freeze. But the name had slipped out of Kariya's lips so earnestly and smoothly. To even let a smile at the ridiculousness of the name slip out would crush the kid and make Midorikawa want to throw himself into prison just to stave off the guilt. Especially considering the mood they had both been in just before.

"Spikey Spike," Kariya said, giving him a strange look. "You know, my cactus. He's really cool!" He perked up and took Midorikawa's hand, dragging him off to the direction of the rooms. "He sprouted flowers, you know!"

What? Flowers? Midorikawa couldn't even get his stupid cactus to last a few hours on his windowsill without getting burnt, much less care for it well enough for it to grow flowers. Half of him wanted to accuse the kid of lying, earlier sympathy be damned.

But the little plant on Kariya's desk in his room looked much, much better compared to how it had been just weeks ago, when he'd first dropped it off. Its skin was a rich, dark green, shiny and unblemished and firm to the touch, not squishy like his own, and its spines stood strong and straight. And, of course, there were the flowers, three of them clustered at the top of the cactus, with petals as white as the nighttime moon.

"This is really beautiful," Midorikawa said, and he was only half-aware that the words had slipped out.

Kariya's ears turned pink, and the expression on his face became a curious mix of sheepish and haughty.

"Well, duh," he said. "Spikey Spike's the best."

Midorikawa was going through his rehearsed answers to the most common interview questions, and quite a few of the more obscure ones, too, for about the hundredth time when his phone rang.

It was Hitomiko. She rarely, actually never, called, so he picked up in a flash.

"You have to come," she said the moment he opened the line. "Something's happened and Kariya is inconsolable. You're the only one who can help."

Midorikawa didn't quite remember what exactly happened after that, but he had never rushed faster, been more conscious of every single red light, or felt so weightless until he reached Sun Garden. Then the exertion of the past forty minutes caught up to him. But he couldn't focus on that. There was something more important.

He knocked on Kariya's door. Dread was starting to pool at his stomach.

There was no answer.

Midorikawa knocked again, three sharp raps. "Kariya? You in there? It's me."

There were some shuffling sounds, and then the door swung open to reveal Kariya and a mess.

Ah. So it was this.

Ceramic shards of the same colour as the cactus pot and a healthy smattering of dirt were strewn all over the floor, and on one edge of the mess, the cactus lay on its side in two pieces. Midorikawa looked up at Kariya, and the boy immediately put his hands behind his back. Midorikawa looked back down and his sharp eyes caught the droplets of blood staining the rug immediately.

"What happened?" His tone of voice dropped. "Did someone do this?"

Kariya hesitated, and Midorikawa could see the decision he made at that moment.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "It was an accident."

"Hmm," Midorikawa said, unconvinced. Kariya was obviously hiding something, but that didn't matter right now.

He fished a magazine out of his bag. It was the winter issue of the university student magazine, looking quite the worse for wear after having ridden around in his bag for the better part of the last two weeks. He still hadn't read it and probably never would. But hey, this was a much better use for it than wiping up coffee spills.

He tore its pages out and used them to gingerly pick up the cactus pieces. Aside from having been split from each other, they actually looked fine. At the very least, they didn't look dead. He set them off to a side before turning back to Kariya and the mess.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, and from behind his back, Kariya brought out his shaky hands. His lower lip was trembling and there was a distinctly unhappy turn to the edges of his mouth. He looked like he was about to cry at any moment.

"I'm fine," he said. "It's just a scratch. Is Spikey Spike dead?" His voice was bleak.

"No, I don't think so."

Kariya's eyebrows rose. Clearly, he had expected an answer to the contrary. Midorikawa knelt down to take a better look at the mess, and Kariya asked, "Will he die?"

"No," Midorikawa murmured. "Not if I can help it."

He started to clean up, getting alcohol wipes and a few band-aids for Kariya while he was at it. In between disposing of the shards and vacuuming up the dirt, Kariya gave up the full story.

Some of the boys had been fooling around like usual, and they'd broken into his room. The standard rough and tumble had ensued. The cactus had been a casualty.

"They like to make honking noises. Like a truck," Kariya said. His face was flushed and he was looking determinedly at the floor. "I think they think it's funny."

Upon hearing that, Midorikawa felt heat rise from within his core and streak through every part of his body, straight to his ears and the top of his head and down to his fingers and toes. It was a feeling he hadn't had for a long time.

"I know it was an accident," Kariya continued glumly. He looked over at the two pieces of cactus sitting on his desk, their previously smooth skin patchy and their previously sleek spines bent or broken off. "I know they say I never talk to them."

Midorikawa's fingers twitched, and he had to concentrate to keep his breathing soft and even.

"Who are these kids exactly?"

A few weeks after the incident, Midorikawa dropped by Sun Garden again on the way to the Kira Corporation headquarters. He had a meeting with Hiroto in just over two hours. He had made his decision.

He was going to take Hiroto's offer of becoming his personal assistant. Jobhunting had been an experience he never wanted to repeat again. Preparing for the same questions ten different times with each company having their own unique twists and requirements, just to score a desk job where he wouldn't have any real responsibility, had stopped being appealing after the cactus debacle. Actually, if Midorikawa were to be honest, it had never really appealed at all.

So he would work for the Kira Corporation. But he would do it on his own terms. He would tell Hiroto that he wanted a more involved role in Sun Garden. God knew Hitomiko needed the support, too.

But that was a conversation for the future. Right now, he was watching the kids run around, waiting for Kariya and Spikey Spike to return.

Kariya appeared, holding the re-potted cactus in both hands. He had taken good care of it. Apart from the scab mark running down its side, it looked like it had never seen an accident, much less been in one. A swarm of children surrounded him, looking his plant up and down and all over.

"This is sooooooooo cool." A girl who couldn't be older than eight came up to him, dragging a friend along with her and pointing at the cactus. "It's so cute!"

The friend crossed her arms and the expression on her face was less than thrilled, but that didn't stop the girl from looking up at Kariya. "Can you teach Tomoyo how to grow these too?" she asked.

Kariya shrugged, feigning nonchalance despite his flaming ears. "That's the guy who got me this," he said, pointing over at Midorikawa. "And well, yeah, why not? If you can stay patient for long enough, anyway."

Normal people would have bristled and walked away. But the kids at Sun Garden were used to him by now. Tomoyo laughed, her voice sounding like bells, and hugged him.

As Tomoyo skipped away, her attention caught by some other thing, Midorikawa got up. He went over to Kariya, since the kid was frozen to the spot and didn't seem like he was going to come over any time soon.

"Seems like you're going to be staying a while, huh?"

The flush started spreading into Kariya's cheeks.

"I'm not leaving just yet, that's all," he said. "I gotta make sure Spikey Spike is okay first."

"All right." An overwhelming feeling of satisfaction started to flow through Midorikawa's veins. He didn't even try to keep it out of his voice.

Kariya's mouth scrunched up, and he turned even redder, if that was even possible. "But I'm not becoming Kira Masaki, got that?"

Midorikawa's smile broke into a grin, just for a brief second. Then he eased his features back into their perpetual smile.

"I'm still Midorikawa."

When he got home after the conversation with Hiroto, he spotted the extra piece of Kariya's cactus (he was not going to use the name Spikey Spike any more than he had to, that was for sure) still lounging on his windowsill. The piece had dried up a little, and the broken edge had scabbed completely over.

Midorikawa's gaze slid over to his own cactus sitting next to it. On a whim, he found a knife and sliced a piece off both his cactus and Kariya's. The liquid from the plant coated the knife in a light sheen, and Midorikawa twitched the blade back and forth, watching the reflected light dance around. Then he found some paper and string in a nearby drawer, bound the two pieces together, and left them to graft.

The End.

Notes: Thanks for reading! Please leave a review if you liked it! I tried to include a few little details that go deeper into Kariya/Midorikawa's lives, that may not be apparent at first glance, so try rereading and see. If you think you notice something, leave it in the review! I'd love to hear about your thoughts while reading it. (Also, this fanfic might have been a little too "real" with the mention of graduate schemes and such... I'm sorry. Let's say it's derived vaguely from personal experience.)