Let's Play With Tatsuya-kun
Once upon a time, there was a boy named Kaname Tatsuya. He had a mother whom he loved, and a father whom he loved, and an older sister whom he loved, though he loved the bright and pretty colors that came from his older sister's PS3 most of all. And one day, when his older sister had invited her friends over for a Dog Drug Reinforcement pajama party, he crashed their girls-only caucus because he wanted to jump and stomp on the fancy dance pad too — it was his favorite game. The six sweaty girls in pajamas (for even Hitomi had come over) ended up inviting him to stay, and took turns feeding him cookies, Kyouko being the first to offer him sugary sustenance. "Want one?" she said to him, and instantly he was smitten not only with the cookie but also with her, and started calling her Kyouko-nee-chan, much to Kyouko's annoyance. Kyouko then resumed kicking the other girls' asses at Dog Drug Reinforcement, though she found she could no longer kick ass as efficiently as before, owing to Ta-kun sticking close by her side, and jumping and stomping randomly on the dance pad beside her, much to Kyouko's annoyance. Kyouko picked him up and patiently growled at him through gritted teeth, saying, "Listen little fella, I'm trying to kick ass at this game here, so would you kindly stand aside and go eat a cookie⁉" And Ta-kun happily responded with a declaration of "I love you, Kyouko-nee-chan!" and reached forward and gave her a kiss on her nose. Kyouko blushed heartily, and the other girls all laughed, except for twinbraids Homura, who was only capable of snickering timidly. So Kyouko resigned herself to realizing that she had already kicked all the ass she would kick at this game tonight, as Ta-kun attached himself to her like the little brother she never had — or ever wanted. Having a little sister had sucked enough for Kyouko, what with all the fighting over who got to take a bath first, all the cayenne pepper she'd found mysteriously rubbed into the crotch of every pair of her panties in her dresser one day, and all the trouble she got into whenever she made her little sister cry by doing things like taking her Tootsie Pop and getting to the center in three licks, or farting in her general direction. Of course, watching her little sister get murdered by crazy drunk Dad had sucked too, and so once the party had wound down, and little Ta-kun had fallen asleep by Kyouko's side, Kyouko began remembering times when she and her sister had likewise snoozed the night away together in the same bed. And she also remembered other things, like times when they had shared the same ice cream cone, or times when they actually shared a bath and washed each other's backs. So Kyouko eventually decided that perhaps it wasn't so bad after all to have this small Kaname attached to her, like a replacement sibling of a sort. She even wondered if he would wash her back in a bath...though perhaps he wouldn't have the attention span for it at his age. She also doubted that the older Kaname would approve of the idea.
Yet soon Kyouko began hearing the soft rustling sounds of girls sliding clothes off their bodies, and sliding into each others' futons, and realized that the older Kaname was busying herself with Homura — all while her own little brother slept in the very same room. Kyouko then decided that it hardly mattered what the older Kaname would have thought about the bath idea, but now was no time for such musings. Thoughtfully she took it upon herself to take the smallest Kaname to his own sleeping quarters, carefully stepping over Hitomi who had her pillow stuffed over her head to keep out the gently squishing night noises. And so it was that the sleeping Tatsuya was carried unawares by Kyouko through Kaname House, and the last words she heard him mumble cutely in his sleep as she set him in his crib were "Kyouko-nee-chan..." — and Kyouko blushed and frowned and bared a fang and clenched her fists and did her best to keep her -dere from showing even though no one was watching. She did not return to the lesbian sleep chamber that night, but instead retired to a posh hotel room, and freely daydreamt of sharing taiyaki with Ta-kun, because eating was more fun than taking a bath.
Little did Kyouko realize, however, that the very next week, Tatsuya would be by her side once again, and she would be sharing taiyaki with him just as she'd imagined. It was a lovely sunny Sunday, and the birds were singing and the bees were buzzing as the two of them sat together atop a grassy knoll, having a picnic by the riverside. The Kaname girl had pleaded with Kyouko, hands pressed together in apology, to please watch him for her for just a couple of hours, since her parents were out today on a "business trip" and she wanted to take the opportunity to invite Homura over to her house for a "study session" and she remembered how little Ta-kun had taken such a liking to her last weekend. Well Kyouko was not one to stand in the way of a girl and her hormones, and the intense sexuality of the females of the Kaname household was well-known to her. But more importantly, this was her chance to spend more time with Ta-kun, away from the snickering faces of her magical peers, and so she eagerly accepted with both a smiling heart and a complete poker face. "I guess...but you owe me for this, you know!" she had declared with pointed finger, and ten minutes later she was gleefully giving Ta-kun a magical piggyback ride through the city, finally being honest with her -dere and leaping and flying about the buildings as Ta-kun squealed and giggled with joy. They then chased Faustian butterflies together in a park, if butterflies could ever be called Faustian, and they fed pieces of Pocky to the fishies in a pond, being sure to lick all the chocolate off the Pocky first. And when Tatsuya got chocolate all over his face Kyouko enjoyed indirect kisses as she licked her fingers, wiped his face, then licked her fingers again to repeat until his face was clean. Appropriately, the fishies in the pond were koi.
Now they were by the riverside, eating taiyaki and dango and whatever other sweets Kyouko pulled out from behind her back. "I ruvf dahgo!" Tatsuya declared, with two of the dumplings in his mouth at the same time. Kyouko smiled at him and then looked up into the sky. "It's such a beautiful day," she sighed, and Tatsuya swallowed and looked upward too, following her gaze. He jumped and waved at the heavens, saying, "Hi, Mr. Sun! I love you!", and Kyouko chuckled and said to him, "You love everything, don't you?" Tatsuya said "Eh?" and looked puzzled, so Kyouko led him with an example. "Well, do you love these ants?" she said, teasing him slightly, and pointing to a few of the crawlers trooping along a blade of grass. And Tatsuya was oblivious to her tease of course, and he stooped down and said to them matter-of-factly, "Hi Mr. Ants, I don't love you as much as I love dango," and Kyouko laughed. "What about your Mommy?" she said next, and Tatsuya cried happily, "I love Mama!", to which Kyouko added, "And your Daddy?", and Tatsuya cried happily, "I love Papa!" Tatsuya continued on unprompted, saying, "And I love Nee-chan! And I love Kyouko-nee-chan too!", and he went up to her and gave her a big hug. Kyouko returned the hug, warmed to her core, and found herself saying, "I love you too, Ta-kun!" but somewhere inside of herself, a voice cried out in protest. What am I saying⁉ This isn't like you, Sakura Kyouko! Get a hold of yourself...don't go crazy just because he's so cute and adorable and pure and, and...
But before she could think of more adjectives to add to her conjunctions, Tatsuya looked up into her eyes with a beaming face. "Kiss on lips!" he cried, and he puckered up and closed in on Kyouko. "E-Eh⁉" Kyouko stammered, and she backed up while Tatsuya explained. "Mama says 'I love you' and we kiss on lips!" he said. "I kiss Kyouko-nee-chan too, okay?" Yet Kyouko had been unprepared for such a moment as this, and she flushed red like her Soul Gem, and her skin began prickling all over as thoughts passed like flurries through her heart. It's just a kiss, right? He's just asking for a simple, innocent kiss like he would from any of his family, right? So it's okay, isn't it? After all I'm kinda like family, sort of? I'm his Kyouko-nee-chan...so it should be okay...? It's not like I'm doing anything wrong or bad; but then...why is my heart pounding so much⁇ Why does my body feel like it's heating up? It's just a kiss — a small kiss, that's all!
"O-Okay," gulped Kyouko, and before she knew it, their lips had met and pressed together in a sweet pucker, and a warm glow had flared weirdly across her body, and before she could get used to the feeling, their kiss ended. Tatsuya parted and cheered "Yay! We did it!", and turned about and ran off excitedly, but Kyouko could only stare dumbly after him and wonder what exactly just happened to herself. Is this what it's like to be a shotacon? a stray piece of her reasoning whispered to her, but it quickly evaporated. No, shotacons were perverts — pedophiles. She was not like that. I was just a little embarrassed, that's all...that's why my body was reacting that way, thought she. But it was innocent...there's nothing wrong with kisses like that with kids his age. Yet still she felt a twinge sweaty, and still her heart raced.
"Kyouko-nee-chan! Come on, Kyouko-nee-chan!" Tatsuya called happily from further down the riverbank, completely unbothered by it all. And Kyouko began to consider that perhaps she was over-thinking things, that perhaps she should simply flow with it if it made her happy. That's right. I didn't do anything wrong. And he's the one who started it anyway, and he's perfectly fine. So Kyouko stood up and, deciding to be honest with herself once more, let her feelings go where they pleased, and she chased after Tatsuya with joyous heart, and Tatsuya tried to scamper away from her, thinking they were suddenly playing a new game, though he was soon caught. "Gotcha!" squealed Kyouko, and Tatsuya squealed back in surprise and delight as he was scooped up and squeezed snugly. Kyouko rubbed her face against Tatsuya's, and her voice bubbled up in six shades of girly. "Kyaaa! You are so cute and adorable and huggable! Hauuu! I'm gonna take you home with me!"
"Kiss me again!" she suddenly said, and turned him about to face her. And Tatsuya was only too happy to oblige, thinking his Kyouko-nee-chan was acting really funny right now, and if he kissed her, maybe she would do more funny things. Their lips met again, and Kyouko embraced the thrill that ran through her, not knowing from what part of herself such crazy emotion could have sprung forth, and not caring either, just letting her body go, even letting her lips part open as if wanting to take Tatsuya further in —
—that is, until she heard Mami's refined voice practically at her shoulder:
"What are you doing?"
Kyouko nearly dropped Tatsuya, breaking from him and looking caught-in-the-act. Mami's deadpan eyes bored into Kyouko's, and Kyouko could not hide her fear and shock, and her face and neck flushed while her words spluttered forth. "Wha-what are you doing here⁇ Where'd you come from?"
Mami's lips grew into a classy smirk. "My, my, what's with that reaction?"
"Mami-nee-chan! Mami-nee-chan!" Tatsuya cried, and he squirmed in Kyouko's arms and Kyouko quickly set him down before she really did drop him, and he rushed to Mami and Mami stooped down to receive him, and together they met in a hug. "Hi, Ta-kun!" beamed Mami, talking sweetly to him in a higher octave, and prattling away at him as he occasionally prattled back, letting him touch her springy curls of hair, and enjoying his smiling face — while Kyouko could only watch speechlessly.
Mami-nee-chan⁉ Kyouko suddenly felt stupid. Why had she thought that she was Tatsuya's only 'nee-chan' outside of his family? But I never heard him say that at the DDR party, so, why...? Yet still, she began to feel a need to keep the intruding Mami away from him, in spite of the fact that Mami and Tatsuya were being perfectly friendly with one another.
Though still shaken by Mami's sudden appearance while she was enjoying Tatsuya, Kyouko did her best to put up a bold front, and she stepped toward them and tried grumbling at Mami. "Hey. We were having a picnic here, you know."
Mami looked up at Kyouko coldly from where she crouched, while Tatsuya was fascinated with watching miniature magical buttercups floating out from the ring on Mami's hand.
"Ta-kun," Mami said, turning back to him, "Kyouko-san and I are going to talk about big-girl stuff now, so I want you to play with this for a little while, okay?" And she pulled out her golden ribbon and whirled it into a bouncy springy toy. It bounced and bounced in front of Tatsuya, and Tatsuya watched it with bobbing head until he giggled and reached out for it, and it bounced away from them and off into the field while Tatsuya gave chase.
Kyouko got a sour feeling about the proposed "big-girl talk", so she tried throwing the first metaphoric punch. "So why are you here? Don't have anything better to do than interrupt people enjoying a pleasant afternoon? Why don't you go hunt some familiars or something?" she spat, purposefully suggesting familiars as opposed to witches.
Mami stood up and calmly faced Kyouko, smirking. "Not only was the Higurashi reference you made earlier completely uncalled for and totally unfitting to your character, but also I don't believe you are a suitable babysitter for Ta-kun," she said.
Kyouko narrowed her eyes, but inwardly that sour feeling worsened. "Who made you the judge of that?" she said.
The smirk on Mami's face widened. "Kissing a three-year-old boy mouth-to-mouth? I never would have figured you for a shotacon—"
Kyouko burst out and cut Mami short. "I am not! There's nothing wrong with what I did! It was just a simple innocent kiss! That doesn't make me into...into someone like that!"
"So you say...yet why are you so defensive all of a sudden, I wonder? Eheheh—"
"And for your information, he kissed me first!"
"I know, and I watched you practically swooning after he'd kissed you. Not exactly a typical reaction for a 'simple innocent kiss'."
"What⁇ You — how long have you been watching me⁉"
"And that second kiss, my, my...you were even opening your mouth some."
"Now you're just lying! I was NOT opening my mouth at all!"
. . . . . . . . Was I?
"Can't remember from being caught up in the passion, huh? Sorry, I know what I saw."
No! I didn't! I couldn't have...!
But Kyouko was starting to sweat uncomfortably. She couldn't respond, and looked away, and Mami pounced, seeing the uncertainty clouding over Kyouko's eyes.
"Oh? Are you remembering now? See, that wasn't so hard..."
Shit...shit! I did, didn't I? I wanted to...I tried to...! But I couldn't help it! I couldn't stop myself! What's wrong with me...what the hell is wrong with me⁇ I didn't mean to be like...but still I was...!
"...Maybe now you'll apologize for calling me a liar? That was very rude of you, you know," Mami said.
Eventually, Kyouko began to recover herself from remembering things more clearly, and she fired back with what little composure she had left. "S-So what? I don't care w-what you saw or what you didn't see! What do you want? Just spit it out already or l-leave us alone!"
"Come now, Sakura-san. I can't leave you and Ta-kun alone after what I just saw. Who knows what you would do to him next? Heh heh heh—"
"Shut up!"
But Kyouko didn't sound convincingly fierce, so Mami didn't shut up. "Anyway, I already told you: I don't think you should babysit him anymore for now. So I want you to let me take him, and I will take him home."
"No way. Madoka asked me to watch him, so it's my job. Besides, Madoka and Homura are having hot schoolgirl sex right now, so you can't take him home."
"Then I'll take him to my apartment for a while. I'll feed him some cake," Mami grinned.
"I said no."
Yet Mami noted that Kyouko was no longer her usual peppery self. She seemed unnerved and oddly vulnerable — and Mami was both weirded out and amused by it at the same time.
"Sakura-san, think of it this way — think of it as me trying to help you."
Kyouko looked distrustful. "Help me? With what? I'm not asking for your help."
"Well, you don't really want to be a shotacon, right?"
"I'm not one."
"Because you were feeling ashamed of your behavior with Ta-kun, right?"
"I was not. You're making a big deal out of nothing..."
"True, your deviancy is pretty small at this point, so if I—"
"I'm not a deviant!"
"—so if I take temptation away from you now, that'll give you a chance to think things through and change your course before you go any farther down this path. You see?"
"Will you just leave me alone? Just go away...we were doing fine until you showed up."
"On the other hand, Sakura-san, if you don't agree to let me take him, I'll have to tell his family about you. Including Kaname-s — I mean, Madoka-san."
"Tell them what? That I gave him a kiss? They'd just laugh."
"That you gave him a passionate open-mouthed kiss."
Kyouko gloomily looked to where Tatsuya was playing in the distance. He was bouncing along on the ribbon-toy now, riding it as though it were a bouncy horse. Kyouko felt as if she'd dirtied the wonderful thing they'd had going because of her idiot self.
"Aren't you going to tell them anyway?" Kyouko said.
"I'll let you have a bit of grace, if you do the right thing," Mami smirked. "I won't say anything if you let me take Ta-kun now."
Or we could just fight it out and give Ta-kun quite a show, thought Mami, but that wouldn't be very fair. You look so out of sorts right now that I could probably stomp your ass easily, heh.
Kyouko grew quiet, and did some more dispirited gazing at Tatsuya's play. It wasn't as though any real consequences were going to happen to her even if his family did find out, she knew. Kisses weren't reported to the authorities. Yet most likely they would not easily trust her to be around him again, and she would not get to see him much anymore, if at all. And the part of herself that had grown attached to him would suffer. She began to consider that maybe she didn't deserve to spend time with him anymore, anyway...that maybe she'd lost the right to do so —
— No, she wasn't going to think that way. She was being given a chance to have her mistake overlooked, and she should seize it. She'll be able to put this embarrassing day behind her, and things will stay the same, and she will get to have other happy times with Ta-kun. And she wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
"...Fine. Take him," Kyouko finally said. "But I get to tell him goodbye."
And so, Kyouko and Mami caught up to Ta-kun, and Kyouko explained to him that he was going to go with his Mami-nee-chan to her apartment now, and she gave him a cheerful bye-see-ya-later, as cheerful as she could manage, and Ta-kun was excited about going with Mami-nee-chan, for he remembered that Mami-nee-chan had Wii games, and every single one of them was his favorite game. Mami and Tatsuya then departed, with Mami carrying him, and Kyouko watched them go until they were out of sight. She sat down, alone in the grassy field by the riverside, and began rapidly shoving taiyakis into her mouth, and when her stomach could not take any more she pounded her fist on the grass, and drew her knees up to her chest, and stared blankly down at the ground. And she sat still for a long time.
