Just Strangers
A Mawaru Penguindrum Fanfiction
by Tomoyo-chan
Disclaimer: I do not own this beautiful beautiful series. Kunihiko Ikuhara does.
They were strangers who met as children.
Shoma disliked the meetings his father always dragged him to. They were long and boring and no one wanted to play. Sometimes he was the only child there. Most of the adults talked about things he didn't understand. Things about frozen worlds and flames and never amounting to anything. He didn't like it. That was before he met the boy with the same eyes.
For once when he arrived there were children. A girl, a little younger than himself, was holding a toddler in her arms. He smiled at her when she glanced over, but she only narrowed her blue eyes and turned back to the man talking at the front of the room. Sitting next to her was another boy. He too was watching the man.
Shoma made his way around the back of the room. Luckily the boy was standing at the end of a row, the last one in the room. He figured they were about the same age, and about the same height too. He pulled on the sleeve of the matching jacket his father had brought home for him one day. The dark-haired boy looked over at the interruption and that was when he found they had the same unusual sea-foam-green eyes.
Shoma gave the biggest smile he could at the boy, but he too turned back dismissively when Shoma didn't say anything. His father was speaking at the front of the room - when had he started speaking - getting louder in his passionate speech. Shoma tugged on the boy's sleeve again.
This time he was ready. "You want to play?" he whispered.
"No." The sleeve was tugged out of his hands.
Shoma's eyes furrowed. He wanted to know this boy who shared his eyes.
"What's your name?" He didn't bother to tug this time. The boy didn't bother to turn his head to answer.
"Kanba. Shouldn't you be paying attention?"
Shoma shook his head. No, he never paid attention. But the boy obviously didn't want to play, so he retreated back around the room, grabbing one of the apples placed on a table there, before slipping on his shoes and heading outside.
He would play alone then, he didn't need the frowning girl or the green-eyed boy to play with him. He would make his own fun, his own friends.
After Himari came to live with them, Shoma spend a lot less time alone.
Himari was fun. They ran around the yard, and had pillow fights his parents always scolded them for. She helped Mom cook, and dinnertime was always better with the two of them laughing at everything. Sometimes Shoma worried that someone would come and take her away, her real mom maybe, but most of the time decided that she wouldn't have ended up at the child broiler if someone wanted her.
Dad still took the two to meetings a lot, but now Shoma and Himari would stay out on the balcony and play there. Once in a while he would see the boy and the girl and the baby, but he didn't ask them to play. They would say no, and he had Himari anyway.
After one meeting, he remembered seeing his father talking to Uncle as everyone put their coats and shoes on. He had run over, wanting to ask if Father would take them to the park on the way home, but was stopped by a call of his name.
Turning, he saw his father waving him over, Himari at his side. Confused he glanced back at Uncle, but he was standing alone now. He was sure Dad had been over there. His steps were slow as he made his way back to his dad, glancing back in confusion once or twice.
"Shoma, get your shoes on. We have to stop by the grocery store on the way home."
Shoma wasn't sure what he had seen, but he didn't see it ever happen again.
Two days later, his mother was dressing him in a dark suit. "Why do I have to wear it. I don't like it," he whined as she tried to tie a neat tie.
"One of Dad's friends from the meetings died. We are going to pay our respects."
Shoma settled down after that. His grandfather had died last year, and everyone had been very still and silent and sad for a while. He had been too. You weren't supposed to fidget around dead people.
The casket had been closed, so he never figured out who had died, but he had noticed the green-eyed boy sitting near the front of the room. The other little girl and boy were missing. He hadn't seen them in a few weeks.
His father had gone to talk to the boy for a few moments while Shoma held on to his mothers' hand. Himari fidgeted at his side in her little black dress, so he held her hand to stop her. His father walked back holding the boy's hand. Shoma thought he had been crying.
"Shoma, Himari, Kanba here will be staying with us from now on. You and Shoma have been such good friends, soon you'll be just like brothers."
Shoma wondered where his mom got the idea they were friends. They had spent all of one afternoon together, and Kanba had simply stared at him for an hour and a half while Shoma waited for his mom to come back with Himari.
How could they be brothers, if they were just strangers with the same eyes?
So my friends and I had this small theory that Kanba and Shoma's dads were twin brothers, hence why they have the same eyes. Some creative license has been taken to make this fit. I also haven't watched this series in a few months, so I may have forgotten a few things.
I've been feeling very accomplished, publishing not just one but two fanfics in the past two days, on the days they were written even.
~Tomoyo-chan