Yet another thunderclap rang out all through the house, making the young boy huddled in his bed squeal in alarm and slap his hands over his ears for the umpteenth time. Lightning flashed outside the covered window, creating elongated demented shadows that crawled along the walls.
The small boy shook, head in his arms, while the rumbling continued to fade in the distance, like the end of a landslide. But then all was calm for a moment, silence except for the rythmic music of rain falling over the world outside and the occasional fearful sniffle of the pitiful figure wrapped in his blankets.
His occasional snuffling was replaced with frantic wimpering when yet another bolt shot across the night sky, the resulting boom nearly shaking the house. He clutched desperately at the golden circular pendant hung about his neck, much too large for him and adorned with a stylized eye and five cone-shaped dangling points.
There was a noise like an exasperated sigh when the figure appeared, as though nothing could be more troublesome. For all his whining the child didn't seem to be bothered by the sudden appearance of the other boy, despite the fact that he was almost completely transparent and was hovering a few inches above the ground as he approached the bed.
"Kid," the spirit growled, an expression of extreme annoyance on his translucent face. "Stop your pathetic crying."
The younger boy shrugged the blanket off his head and shoulders, shaking his mane of silver locks free and looking up at the other with a tear-streaked face. "B-but..."
"You're too old to be whining over something as stupid as a thunderstorm," the ghostly figure said slowly, locking crimson pools with the child's gentle brown orbs.
Nervously, the boy in the bed chewed on the tip of his thumb, shuddering but keeping quiet when another rolling thunderclap sounded through the small room. He cringed. "B-but it's scary.."
"Thunder isn't what you need to be worried about." Suddenly the specter's hands were on either side of him on the bed, leaned very close with a horrifying glint in his eyes. His lips were raised off his teeth in a snarl. The boy leaned back, drawing the blanket up to his nose. "Thunder is just a sound. I'm the scary thing here, brat. If you don't quiet down I will give you something to be scared of."
That certainly silenced the boy. He nodded fervently and tucked his head into his shoulders while the spirit backed away with an approving glare. "Go to sleep," he ordered, and the younger one lay back with the blanket covering every visible inch of him.
He faded from view. The boy huddled beneath his comforter, shaking soundlessly, in a huddle of fear in the center of his bed. The next time the thunder boomed he didn't make a sound.
Ryou walked down the street, hand-in-hand with his father on the way to the grocery. The weather was awful and it looked like it was about to start raining any minute, like a tear in the sky was just waiting to rip all the way and shower them all.
Quiet thunder had started in the clouds, the sky too bright to see lightning, but the noise betraying its presense anyway. Another louder one sounded out as drops began to fall from the sky. The boy and his father ducked under an awning, looking up at the sky together.
The father squeezed his son's hand reassuringly. "It's okay Ryou, it'll be over soon."
Ryou squeezed back, but stared blankly up at the sky. "I'm not scared."
The man looked back down at the boy with a surprised smile. "Oh? I thought you hated thunder."
With a shrug, Ryou idly fingered the pendant around his neck. "There are scarier things."