Shintaro took a deep breath. There he was again. But this time, this time, he will be strong enough. He pressed his lips together after taking another slightly deeper breath. He crouched as he rigidly left on the floor the bouquet he had carried from home; he secretly asked Mary for them, they will last longer this way. They're not that different from real flowers, right?
His vision started to blur.
Fuck. No.
He promised himself he wouldn't cry. Not this time.
"I…" – Shintaro assured between quiet sobs- "I will visit you again."
He stood up and proceeded to walk away, while he washed away the tears that formed on his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. Shintaro decided to take a last look at her grave before going back home, when something caught his attention at the corner of his eye. There was a dirty plush on a grave near him. He doesn't know why, but he feels the urge to approach to it.
"Did a small kid die?" - He asked himself even if he didn't really care. Shintaro sighed as he slowly approached the grave, looking at it with his dark rotten eyes.
Oh.
Right.
That cheerful guy that was always with Takane was called Haruka, right? He remembers hearing something about that he had an attack, just like Takane.
He left his hand caress the surface of the cold grey stone. Did they consider him a friend too? His sight slipped to the dinosaur plush again. It was so dusty. Haruka would never let it look like that. "Do you mind if I take this with me?" – He asked, like hopefully waiting for an answer. "It will just be for a few days, maybe not even that. Okay?" – He said as he carefully grabbed the unclean triceratops toy, and after wondering for some seconds, he decided to head back to the base and wash it.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
How do you even wash a plush without deteriorating it? Do they need special treatment? He had to look around the internet for a while until he found useful information and he put the washing machine with only it. Doesn't matter how many times danchou said to not to turn it on when it was empty, but today was a special occasion.
While he waited for the washing machine to finish, he realized that Ene has been really quiet. More like she didn't bug him at all, not even once today. Maybe she overheard when he told his sister that he would go to the cemetery today. The small house was very calm too, but the reason for it was known by Shintaro. Momo was going to make a few recordings for the TV soon, so Mary and Kido wanted to help with choosing the outfit. Hibiya was kind of forced to go and help Seto with some issues related to his job and Kano simply vanished, once again.
Time went by and finally the washing machine stopped. Shintaro quickly took the stuffed toy from inside and put it on the kitchen table. It was soaked and everything will be a mess but he could clean it later. During this process he realized that the plush not only was dirty, but also has a couple of tearings. If he only knew that before washing it… He recalled of one of those cookie boxes with a sewing kit inside on the hands of someone. Shintaro went looking for it but in the moment he had it in his hands he realized that he didn't have any idea about how to sew. He decided to try anyway, in the internet there are a surprisingly high amount of tutorials.
Just as he was going back into the kitchen, he heard something already there. Footsteps. He left the box on the sofa to have his hands free and carefully approached the kitchen's door. "Shintaro I saw you before coming into the kitchen. You won't surprise me." - The familiar voice of the android made him relax and let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Well but I didn't hear you. I thought you were out- maybe helping Seto and Hibiya or who knows."-Shintaro says and he enters the kitchen again. "Seto didn't want me to go because he knew I would end up doing my part and Hibiya's, or so he said…"- Konoha answered, looking curiously at the stuffed toy, and before Shintaro could say anything he asked "What happened to it? Is it hurt?" Shintaro sighed at the innocent android. "Yes it is. It was going into surgery right now."- He said with his usual ironic and boring tone. Konoha grabbed the toy. "Will we be able to keep it afterwards?"- He said looking at Shintaro with eyes shiny with hope, for once his expression changed slightly.
"Konoha…"