Soooo you ever wonder like how Naoki ended up as emotionally capable as a brain dead squirrel? Because, I sure have. This will be mostly a collection of oneshots of Naoki's childhood. It will be updated occasionally. Enjoy and review pls.
"Okay, honey, do it again."
His face twisted around, confusion and frustration flashing in his eyes. Noriko's hand automatically went to her three-year-old son's head, smoothing out emotions before they started, hushing tears before they happened. "Why, mama?"
She glanced up at the psychologist and the pediatrician and the mathematician that sat in the identical couch across from them as they drilled him with questions. Forcing him to recall facts or do equations in his head. Every time he would answer something right, they would scratch something on their clipboards. And every time she had to subject herself and her son to the sound of pens scratching against paper, the more she wanted to pick up Naoki and storm out of the room and straight into a sweet shop where she could watch him smear ice cream all over his beautiful face and watch his big, brown eyes dance with a sugar rush.
They were being barbaric. They were treating him like a lab rat.
Naoki's eyes kept wandering to toy bucket that sat in the corner of the room. He was growing bored and restless, like a three-year-old was allowed to. "I don't want to." He whined and slouched, forcing the overalls he wore up so that he looked like a turtled retreating into his shell. "I'm tired."
She looked over at the scientist sitting and then down at her watch. It was almost four. They had been here since one. "How much longer do we have?" She said. "He hasn't had a nap today and-,"
"Not much longer, Mrs. Irie." The psychologist said and pulled his glasses off of his face.
"If you do this one thing for me, I promise we can get ice cream afterwards."
He straightened on the couch. "Really?"
Noriko smoothed out his hair over his forehead and smiled down at him. "Yes, really."
"Okay," He said. "three point one four one five nine two six five three five…"
He was special. That's what the other mothers would say when he could already write full sentences in kanji when the other kids were still figuring out how to hold a pencil. He was special. That's what his doctor said when Naoki started to lecture him on the chemical composition of amoxicillin instead of playing with the blown up latex glove like most toddlers did. He was special. That's what Shigeki said when he handed Naoki a toy and instead of playing pretend with it, he completely disassembled it and then put it back together again.
Noriko sighed a little at her son. He was special, but not in the way everyone else thought. All they saw was raw intelligence, a knack for memorizing and a wit that exceed his years. What they didn't see was the way his eyelashes intertwined together when he slept in the afternoon sun, or the way he chased around frogs in their backyard, beaming with pride when he caught one and held it up for her inspection. They couldn't see the way he would tangle himself up in her legs when she was trying to make dinner in the kitchen, asking questions on why the sky was blue, but the sea was green, or why flowers only bloomed in the springtime or why he had to brush his teeth twice a day but only brush his hair once.
"What's the square root of pi?"
"One point seven seven two four five three eight."
"What is the equation for acceleration."
Naoki took a deep breath in. "So, the acceleration is the change in the velocity, divided by the time. Acceleration has a magnitude and a direction. The direction of the acceleration does not have to be the same as the direction of the velocity. The units for acceleration are meters per second squared."
"Incredible," The mathematician breathed. "His IQ must be off the charts."
"You must enroll him right away in a preparatory school right away." The pediatrician nodded. "He's going to-,"
"No," Noriko cut him off. "He's not going to school until he reaches the correct age to."
The doctors looked dumbstruck. "But, you have a genius on your hands." The mathematician said.
"No, she's right." The psychologist piped up, pulling off his glasses again. "Robbing him of being a child will only do him a disservice. He is still developing."
Noriko breathed a little sigh of relief and looked down at her only son who had taken to entertaining himself by snapping his overall buckle over and over. "He needs to enjoy being a child."
"Then why are we here then?" The mathematician asked. "If you are not going to use him to his full potential."
"Because," She said. "I'm hoping to figure out where this is coming from. Shigeki is intelligent, but this is a level that goes beyond."
The doctors shifted in their seat. "Sometimes children are born gifted." The psychologist shrugged. "It is not a matter of origin, its what becomes of it."
"Will it affect him, socially?"
"Well, hyper-intelligence has been reported in children with high-functioning autism, but we would have to run a set of different tests for that."
Noriko could feel herself panic a little. Intelligence only got you so far in life. If he had something, a developmental disorder or something, that would prevent him from making friends or experiencing joy or finding love. Intelligence wasn't worth not being able to live your life.
"We could bring him in another time if that's something you would like to discuss with your husband." The pediatrician nodded and turned his attention to her boy. "In the meantime, I think you owe somebody some ice cream."
Nariko smoothed out Naoki's hair again, trying to also smooth over the momentary anxiety. He was special. That was for sure. However, they only saw how special he could be when she just wished they could see that he was absolutely perfect right now.