Disclaimer: I own very little.
A/N: Written as a crackfic for a mini-doujin I drew after all my friends told the best part of the doujin was the Tree Dan was sleeping under. Basically, it's a little AkuDan snippet told by Tree.
The Boy
The boy always arrives around this time of the day.
It's not exact, of course, but then, his perception of time isn't exact. He just knows the sun is high and warm, if it's not cloudy that is, and around this time, the boy always arrives.
There have been many people who've come to see him, over the years, but for some reason none of them has ever been as special as this boy. The boy talks to him, and sometimes he even thinks the boy might hear his answers, the way he smiles and nods and then continues talking. It makes him forget all the times he's alone and forgotten, all the times someone just passes by without even glancing at him.
Of course, there are days when the boy doesn't arrive at all, and those are the days he feels sad, drooping and wilting, because if they boy doesn't come no one will. He's alone, and waiting for the next time the sun is high and bright, because if the boy doesn't arrive now he surely will next time and that is what he waits for.
The boy doesn't only talk, of course; he draws sometimes, too, and does so fairly well. He can't make sense of the things the boy sometimes writes on his drawings, but he does know something about art, and he knows the sketches are very good for someone of the boys age. He gives encouraging comments, and whether or not the boy hears him he smiles anyway, and the boy leans back against him and draws some more and everything is all right.
Sometimes the boy sleeps, just for a while, on the days he looks tired and worn and tells he's spent most of the night before awake, writing or reading or doing something he doesn't quite understand. He always tries to tell the boy he should get more sleep but that's the one thing the boy will never listen to, he'll just sleep for a bit and then go again, ready to face more challenges. He always makes sure the boy can sleep in peace, undisturbed, guarding his sleep like a mother would a child – or a lover another.
The boy's such a sweet child, and soon he won't be a child anymore, and his voice is like music when he laughs and talks and pets him gently. Whenever the boy looks at him he feels warm, and he finally realizes he just might be in love and it isn't good at all since he has no chance, he will never have a chance.
The boy is sleeping, one day, resting peacefully against him, when someone walks up to him. It's someone he doesn't like, smoking a cigarette that smells so awful, and looking like the kind of a person who would hurt others just for the fun of it. He prepares to guard the boy, not that there's much he could do, but the other person doesn't seem to will ill, instead taking a look at the boy's drawings. He wants to tell how great the drawings are, how skilled and life-like, and then he takes another look at the person and realizes this is it, this is who the boy has always been drawing. This is the one who could take the boy away from him.
The person doesn't say anything, doesn't wake the boy, just stays there, crouched, and looks through the pictures. After a while the boy moves, and the person looks at him, startled, but the boy settles again and the person continues looking at the pictures. He makes a face at some point, as though displeased, and finally reaches for the pen the boy has dropped on the ground.
The person hesitates, a pen over one open page, and he wants to reach out and whack the pen away from him but he can't, obviously. Then, suddenly, the person takes the cigarette and presses it against the page, and he would cry out if he could, no not that not the boy's picture. And then the pen's on the ground again, and so are the drawings, and the person walks away like a predator stalking their prey.
He's restless and he rustles a bit, and maybe that's what shakes the boy awake, since the next moment he's yawning and rubbing his eyes and waking up. Then the boy notices the misused sketchbook, and he tenses, waiting for the boy to be upset and so very very sorry he couldn't protect the boy during his rest.
The boy takes a look at the open page, then, his mouth slightly open as though in shock, and he worries oh he worries and he so much hopes the boy won't be upset. Then the boy smiles and hugs the sketchbook, hugs it like the boy would sometimes hug him, and the smile on the boy's face is brighter than any he has ever seen before.
It's that person, he now knows, that person that will take the boy away from him, and one day the boy will walk away and not return, and when the boy stops visiting him he knows it'll be that person's fault.
He wants to cry, he really does, but he has no tears, and even as his leaves rustle in the slight wind he wishes he could just reach out and take the boy and never let him go.
As it is, he will just stand there and watch the boy smile and wish it were enough.