His whole point in coming to the far side of town had been to hit the only Satellite Café in all of San Francisco before they stopped selling the drink he liked for summer. Which is why he gets really annoyed when he almost completely forgets to grab his favorite Toasted Marshmallow Hot Cocoa beverage on the face of the planet because his family decided to load him down with all kinds of other errands.
"You have to run by the organic grocer there and get me some vegetables," his mother says as she makes out a quick list and gives him thirty dollars.
"Oh!" Ferrara calls, tumbling down the stairs in her clumsy way, "can you grab some of those awesome brownies from that gay bakery on 17th?"
"And since you're headed that way," his papa says with his thick Italian accent, stealing the pen from his mom and writing an address down, "I'll call in an order for the car parts I need to Chez and you can pick it up."
Mike had sighed, taken the list and the money and called "Chow Papa," and then been handed car keys by his dad, so it wasn't all bad.
Only he has his arms full by the time he gets to the Café and finally gets to order his drink, with bags of groceries and a box of specialty European spark plugs and gay brownies. He has a hard time paying for the drink, and a harder time balancing all his days' purchases on one arm, but it's all worth it as he takes a drink of the frothy, not too hot not too cold warmth that is totally worth the thirty minute drive.
He says a quick thanks to the barista, and heads out the door, around the two Great Danes tethered to the tree and nudges past the bike rack to the side, and he is wondering where he put his keys when he looks up just as someone says "whoa!"
He ends up on the ground, his drink spilled all over him and the guy he crashed into, his bag of groceries ripped open. As usual, Mike does the opposite of what most people would do in these situations; he laughs. "Oh man, sorry dude," he says, eyeing the guy he's bowled over.
His blue and white sports hoodie is soaked with the hot chocolate, and Mike watches him look down disgustedly and then back up with an unamused face.
"Pay your dry cleaning?" Mike offers as he stands, tries to get his bags back in order, hopes his dad's car parts aren't ruined. His sister's brownies might be a little smushed, but that's not going to matter to her, not when he holds her head under his arm and screams "noogie" if she complains.
"Its fine," the guy says, going to pick up his own backpack and taking the hand Mike offers him. "I wasn't watching where I was going, sorry."
"Totally my fault," Mike says obligatorily, because his mother has taught him manners, and you don't let the obnoxiously attractive guy you've just run over take the blame for it.
The guy lets Mike pull him to his feet, and when they're both standing Mike gets a look at his face. He pauses, because obnoxiously good looking had been a passing observance, but now that he really looks at the guy, he sees something familiar about him. Mike catches the guy's eyes, and they both look at each other like they're thinking the same thing.
It's that moment, the one when you meet someone from a past life, and you just know they were important somehow, but you can't remember why. Mike has a brief flash of a memory involving a lollypop, but it's gone very quick, and he realizes he should drop the handsome stranger's hand.
"Sorry," he says again, awkwardly, and then, "Do I know you from somewhere?"
The guy gives him a weird look, with a raise of his eyebrows, and Mike remembers he's holding a box of gay brownies and probably shouldn't sound like he's hitting on this guy that quickly.
"Seriously?" The guy says, and Mike is about to backtrack and make some kind of manly getaway excused when he says, "You stole my lollypop and you don't have the decency to remember my name?"
Just like that, it clicks. Mike has a flash of this guy, only much, much younger, and Mike, sitting in a room with some other kids, and Mike totally had yanked the lollypop right out of his mouth. He has a vague memory about it getting stuck in someone else's hair, but now he at least knows who this guy is. "Kevin? Kevin Duhaney?"
"Mike," Kevin nods, gives Mike a small smile. "I thought that was you," he adds, gesturing to Mike. Mike thinks he might want to be offended, but lets it go.
"Whoa, long time," Mike agrees, ignoring the gesture. "God, we were what, five when you moved away?"
Kevin nods again. "Something like that. How's your family?"
Mike grins, thinking back to the pictures in the baby book, where Kevin appears at a couple of early birthday parties. They'd been neighbors when they were little, or something, Mike thinks. He doesn't exactly remember. "Good, yeah, no complaints." Mike says, and then adds as an afterthought, "you?"
"Good," Kevin agrees, nodding. Mike nods too. "Yeah, we live up in the heights now," he continues, gesturing behind him.
"Very cool," Mike says, uncertain. There's a brief silence, and Mike gestures to Kevin's jacket. "I really am sorry about that," he adds.
Kevin waves it off. "Par for the course, if I remember right."
Mike raises an eyebrow at the challenge. "What," he asks suspiciously, "you want me to go get you a new lollypop, too?"
Kevin cracks a smile at him, shakes his head. "I don't know," Kevin jokes, "It might bring back too many bad memories." Mike laughs. This is totally flirting, Mike thinks as he watched Kevin duck his head, check his watch. Mike's about to ask for his number, see if he wants to hang out sometime and catch up when Kevin's face changes, and he looks back at Mike seriously. "Hey, I've got a swim meet to get to, so I have to run-"
"Oh yeah, no dude, go," Mike says quickly, side stepping out of his way. "Sorry I mowed you down."
Kevin waves it off. "No big. Say hi to your parents for me."
"Yeah," Mike agrees, waving as Kevin trots off down the sidewalk. "You too!"
He stands there staring after the guy for a long time, trying to call more memories of his childhood to mind and mostly failing. He thinks he remembers his mom and Kevin's dad being BFF's, but he could be wrong… why had they moved away again? He can't remember that, either.
When he gets back to the house (after getting himself another tasty beverage and devouring it before it could be spilled), his sister immediately steals the brownies from his bags with no complaint. His father comes in, gives him a quick affectionate kiss on the cheek for the errand, and disappears out to the garage. His mother is the only one who notices that his nice green and white shirt is stained, and asks about it as they put the vegetables away.
"Yeah, about that," Mike says, putting the large red tomatoes in the refrigerator drawer. "Do you remember the Duhaney's?"
His mom looks up, wide eyed. "The Duhaney's?"
"Yeah," Mike gestures with the squash he's holding. "They used to live across the street from us or something when I was little?"
His mother nods slowly, eyeing the strawberries as though they are very interesting. "Yeah, sure I remember them. What about them?"
Mike shrugs, watching her. "I spilled my drink all over myself knocking their kid down on the street," he says, tossing the paper bags into the recycling.
"Kevin?" Maria asks, sticking her head in the refrigerator. "Oh, he was a sweet boy," she says casually, "How was he doing?"
"Fine," Mike says, biting into an apple from the counter. "Said to say hello to you guys."
"I hope you told him to do the same to his parents," his mom counters, and Mike nods.
"You're being weird," he tells her a minute later, when she gets a sort of faraway look on her face and absently starts cutting carrots for dinner.
She looks up, startled, and then gets an expression that is the mirror of Mike's own 'neiner-neiner' face and laughs. "You're always weird," she counters, "Who are you to judge?"
Mike laughs, dodges her hands when she reaches out to try and tickle him. "Okay, fine. But something was just going on behind those eyes of yours."
Maria purses her lips, narrows her eyes. "So Kevin," she asks, going back to dicing the carrots, "what else did he say to you?"
Mike shrugs, thinks back to the lollypop incident. "He was annoyed that I had to gall the steal his lollypop when we were kids and not remember who he was," Mike jokes.
His mother laughs. "Oh, I remember that!" She says, giggling. "You took it right out of his mouth, licked it, and stuck it in-" she breaks off abruptly, then gestures and her smile fades a little bit. "Another little girl's hair," she finishes awkwardly.
Mike gives her a look, another 'you're being weird, ma' look, but she waves him off.
"You two trade numbers or anything?" She wants to know as she starts shooing him out of the kitchen so she can cook.
"No," Mike says, nearly done with his apple, "but I should have. The boy got hot."
Maria laughs again, lifts her foot and boots him on the butt out the door. "I don't want to hear another word come out of your mouth," she warns, but there's a twinkle in her eye. "Now go practice your sword technique!"
"Ah, ma!" Mike complains immediately, knowing that every time he practices it's an excuse for the peanut gallery known as his siblings to convene and give him 'feedback'.
"Be a good boy and practice," she says, her eye glinting at him, "and maybe you see Mr. Hot-Stuff against someday, hmm?"
Mike makes a mental note to kill his mother when he shows up after getting the call and Kevin turns to him and says "You're the red ranger?" with a voice that sounds so incredulous that Mike wants to spill his hot chocolate all over him again.
It's probably what makes Mike add the "mighty" to his description of himself, in an attempt to defend his dignity. His lollypop stealing dignity.
Later, when they're introduced to Ji and the Shiba house, it clicks. This was where Mike had stolen the lollypop from Kevin, and Emily! It had been Emily's hair he'd stuck it in. He catches Kevin's eye, see's the happy grin on his face, and Mike grins too, because clearly they've just had the same thought.
He realizes suddenly why Kevin had seemed important, somehow, that day, more so than just a boy he'd once picked on. More so than just a hot guy he'd run into on the street. Their parents had been rangers together, and he and Kevin… they'd been friends as kids.
They all meander into the kitchen, where Ji explains how things will work there, and Mike sees it. The jar of candy sitting on the counter. With an amused grin, he pulls it over towards him and pulls out a green lollypop. He nudges Kevin, who's stepped up beside him against the counter and offers it to him.
Kevin gives him that same look he'd given him that day on the sidewalk; 'seriously?'
Mike shrugs, opens the lollypop and plops it into his own mouth. His mom is going to get an earful.