Oct. 10th - ShinRan Week Day 6 - Topic/Prompt: Ran Day

Ran was busy preparing food, as her six year old son would come home from school soon, when the telephone of the Kudo mansion rang. She set aside the plate in her hand and answered the call.

"Hello, this is Ran Kudo?" She said into the phone.

"Kudo-san, this is Kenji Kodama." The voice on the other side said. Ran eyes widened a bit. Why was the principal of the Teitan Elementary School calling her? "I'm calling because of your son, Shiro..."

"Is he okay? Did something happen to Shiro?" Ran quickly asked.

"He is fine, don't worry. Nothing happened to him; this is more about something he did." Principal Kodama explained. "I'm afraid your son has assaulted another student. Would you please come to the school, so you can pick him up and we can talk about it?"

"Sure..." Ran ended the call. 'Shiro assaulted someone? He's a little troublemaker like Shinichi, but he wouldn't do something like that!' She thought.

Ran wrote a notice for their daughter Reiko, who went to see her friend, Sonoko's daughter, after school, so that Reiko wouldn't wonder where everyone was if she came home first. Shinichi and their second son Yuichi were off buying materials for Yuichi's pre-school art project, so they wouldn't be home in a while. After the note was written, Ran hurried out of the door and made her way to Teitan Elementary School.

There were three people in the office when Ran entered: her son Shiro, who was pouting, his classmate Kou, who had red eyes from crying and a red mark on his arm and the principal who greeted Ran. He explained the situation: Shiro supposedly punched Kou on the arm because he doesn't like him; after that, Kou came to the principal in tears. No witnesses.

"Your son has already admitted that he doesn't like Kou-kun." Principal Kodama explained.

Ran looked at her son. "Is that true?"

Shiro shifted a bit on his seat under his mother's scrutiny. "Yeah, but no one in class likes him, Mom! He's a jerk who treats nobody with respect! But I didn't hit him, you have to believe me! I can explain what happened..."

"Please, I'd like to hear it." Ran said.

"Kudo-san, honestly. Your son clearly hit that child, don't let him waste our time." The Principal groaned.

"No, that's not it...my Mom yelled at me last night and told me to stop bullying my friends...but I've never bullied anyone before, right!?" Ran heard her own voice say in her memories.

"No, no, let him talk. There were not witnesses, so we should hear him out, right?" Ran answered the principal.

"Alright, so it started to rain yesterday before school was over." Shiro began to explain. "You gave me some extra money so I could buy some ice cream on the way home, but because of the rain I wasn't in the mood for ice cream. So I still had that money today and talked with some of my classmates about it, because we maybe wanted to get some ice cream today instead. But Kou-kun heard that and when we were alone later, he demanded that I 'borrow' him the money, because my parents wouldn't notice if I didn't have it anymore. I refused and he pushed me; I pushed back and he stumbled backwards into some lockers, which is why he has a red mark on his arm. Kou-kun said he'd get back at me for this. Later, I heard some flicking noises in the bathroom, I'm sure he flicked his own arm so it would get more red; and before a teacher picked me up and brought me here, I saw tiny shards of glass near the principals office. Kou-kun had some stink bombs in tiny glass capsules from a prank shop with him recently, so he probably used one of them to make his eyes tear up. And here we are."

'He's truly our child...' Ran thought.

Principal Kodama shook his head. "Do you really believe that kind of story?"

"Depends on whether or not the story is true." Ran answered and looked at her son. "Is it?"

"Yes, I swear!" Shiro answered with a steady. Ran looked at him for a moment longer, but he didn't falter.

"Alright, then I think we're done here. Let's go home." Ran said.

"Wait, that's it?" The principal asked.

"Yeah, I think so. Or did the school want to punish him without witnesses or any precedent of him bullying someone?" Ran argued.

"N-no...we can't punish him in this situation, but I thought you would, once I explained the situation..." Principal Kodama said.

"Well, I won't. Come on, Shiro, we're going. Having a nice day, Principal Kodama." Ran said with a smile and left the school building with her son.

Outside, that Kou boy ran after them. "You really not gonna punish him?!" He yelled.

"Don't yell at my mother like that, you jerk!" Shiro yelled back.

Ran knelt down and grabbed the shoulders of her son. "No, I will punish him." Ran said to Kou.

"Really?" Kou wondered with a grin.
"R-really, Mom?" Shiro worriedly asked, looking at Ran.

"Yes, really. I'm gonna punish him by..." Dramatic pause. "...buying an extra large portion of ice cream for him."

"Yay! Let's go, Mom, let's go! See you tomorrow, Kou-kun!" Shiro said and almost dragged his mother off the schoolyard. "That Kou guy...he's so bothersome..." Shiro sighed while they were already well on their way to the 'punishment' promised. "But I'm glad you believed me, Mom. The principal and the teacher who dragged into that office were so dismissive of my story..."

"Well, even if I didn't believe you or if I had believed you were lying, I wouldn't have said anything in that office and still defended you, that is my job as your mother. But there wouldn't have been any ice cream in that case." Ran said.

"Really? What would you do instead of ice cream?" Shiro was curious.

"We would've gone home, waited for your father to come back from shopping with Yuichi and then the two of us would've slowly wrung the truth out of you." Ran said with a smug grin.

"S-sounds...unpleasant." Shiro gulped.

"Parental duties." Ran simply said. "You'll understand one day."

They bought some ice cream at a nearby shop and went home, Shiro used the time to tell his mother about how his day went apart from the stuff she already knew. They went around a corner, when suddenly two teenagers appeared in front of them and blocked their way.

"These are my brothers." Kou said, who suddenly appeared from behind the two brutes. "They are going to make sure you won't refuse to give me your money in the future and they'll gonna make sure you old hag will be a better mother in future!"

"Old hag?!" Ran exclaimed. She wasn't really sensitive about her age, unlike her mother-in-law, but somehow it didn't feel right to be called old hag when she was only 29. The two teenagers walked towards Ran and Shiro. "Here, hold my ice cream." Ran said and gave her son her cone.

Two minutes later

The two teenagers were on the ground, wheezing and squirming in pain. Kou didn't expect this, so he tried to run away, but Ran grabbed him by the collar and held him up like a kitten. "So, I guess my son did tell the truth then, right?" Ran asked the boy, who hastily nodded. "Then apologize to him." Ran told him and held Kou in front of Shiro.

"I-I'm...sorry." He said and Ran slightly shook him. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Shiro straightened. "I accept your apology." He said with a mockingly polite tone in his voice.

That was enough for Ran, so she dropped the little jerk on top of his brothers. Shiro gave his mother her ice cream back. "You're really the best, Mom!" Shiro said with a smile and the two of them went home.