Chapter 21: Little Talks
Even after he was gone, his words hung in the air and burned in her ears.
She was well aware that their argument attracted more than a few stares, but any hint of embarrassment died in the all-encompassing shadow of her anger. It overtook her almost entirely, and the only other thing she felt in its hold was the sharp pang that shot through her chest when Sho left.
It was hard to watch him go, but she knew chasing after him was pointless. Her temper would've done the talking for her, and nothing she wanted to tell him would've helped things. She couldn't make Sho stay any more than she could make him look for Teddie. Thoughts of the short blonde boy stirred faint traces of resentment, but they soon gave way to sympathy. As pesky as Teddie could be, he was never mean-spirited about it, and the way he had acted back in the café worried her.
Remembering the thinly-veiled panic in Yosuke's voice when she had answered Teddie's phone only heightened her frustration at Sho. She knew he and Teddie didn't get along, but it felt wrong that he was so angry with her for wanting to find a friend. The argument may have been prevented if Yukiko had agreed to letting Yosuke find Teddie on his own, but that wasn't an option, no matter how much Sho-kun may have wanted her to choose it and no matter how much she was enjoying her day with him.
Knowing that standing out in the cold would accomplish nothing, she turned to go back inside the café to pay for the bill. When she turned around, she saw a small white object lying on the sidewalk not too far from the café's entrance. After she approached it, she saw that it was a box wrapped in plain paper and knotted with twine. She looked around, expecting to see someone running up any second to claim it. But when no one came, Yukiko picked up the box so it wouldn't be stepped on.
Has the owner noticed that it's missing yet? Did Sho-kun see it when he came out here…?
Suddenly her mind went back to sitting across from Sho-kun in the café. Before Teddie had interrupted them, he had been looking down at the space next to him. That was when Sho had said her name, as if he was about to tell her something. As she tried guessing what it was, another memory came to her: when he went outside to talk to Yosuke-kun, Sho had taken his jacket from his seat and carried it with him. With a renewed sense of clarity, Yukiko remembered telling Sho that yesterday had been her birthday, and earlier in the week he had seen the cards and the flowers that her friends had given her as gifts.
Her anger slowly ebbed away, leaving her to feel Sho-kun's absence all the more, and she thought about calling him as soon as she got her phone. She let the possibility that he wouldn't answer weigh on her before she cast it off and took a moment to breathe, taking in the December air and filling her lungs with its bracing cold. The sensation stung slightly, but it reinvigorated her. Lightly gripping the box, she continued walking toward the café, unsure of what she was going to say if Sho-kun picked up his phone.
Although she left in a hurry after paying at the register, she was calmer and more focused on what she needed to do. She couldn't forget about being mad at what he had done, but she still wanted to find Sho-kun. That could happen before or after finding Teddie, but she was going to make it happen no matter what.
Yukiko wasn't leaving Okina without Sho.
Whenever he needed to clear his head, looking at the sky usually helped. Roofs were the best places because they were so high above it all, detached from the rest of the world and everything that occupied it.
Sho focused on the silhouettes of faraway buildings that stood against the grey of the late afternoon, the wind picking up around him as he tried to get rid of the things in his head. Being this high should've cleared his mind for him. He should've been able to forget about the troubles below, forget about the people down there and all of their problems. But he couldn't stop his eyes from searching the crowds below for a red headband or a figure clad in a red dress and white jacket.
As if he felt his head was crammed enough already, the word left his lips before he could stop it. "Idiot." Sho knelt down from his standing position, sinking onto the cold cement. For good measure, he pounded his fist against the roof. "Idiot. Idiot, idiot, IDIOT!"
Suddenly, his cell phone vibrated in the pocket of his jacket. When he took it out and raised it to eye-level, it was as he suspected: "Princess" was spelled out on the screen as his cell continued to shake in his hand.
For a second, he thought about answering, but he decided against it. Even if some part of him did want to hear her voice, what could he say that would possibly make things better? His mood darkening as quickly as the sky, he stowed his phone away, and after three more rings, it went silent.
The temporary calm was soon broken by the clamor of his thoughts. For not having much of a plan, today was going so well that he couldn't have imagined it going any other way. The movie they went to was more than decent, the food was good, they played tricks on each other at the bookstore. They were even having fun just talking at some boring café, where he had planned to give Amagi her gift…
Wait...
His back straight and his shoulders tight, he immediately searched the other pocket of his jacket. When he didn't feel the corners of the box or hear the rustling of the paper it was wrapped in, his hand was about to search the other pocket when he realized that it couldn't possibly be there. He would've felt it earlier when he put away his phone.
His first instinct was to yell, but instead, all his frustration and self-loathing took the form of uncontrollable laughter. It overtook his body as he laid his back against the roof, his shoulders shaking and his chest heaving with the ragged motions. Not caring if anyone would hear, he laughed until he couldn't any more, and when it finally stopped, his lips were wound up in a grin so tight that it almost hurt his face.
"Heh…typical. Everything's gone to utter shit."
"And what a shame it is."
He had made sure this roof was empty before deciding to rest here, so hearing the other voice should've surprised him, but it didn't. Maybe it was because it sounded so familiar. When Sho turned on his side, he saw a boy who could've been his twin. He didn't have a wig to hide his red hair like Sho did, but his face was almost a perfect reflection of his own. Unlike the night Sho saw him standing under Amagi's window, his scar wasn't dripping red and his weapons were nowhere to be found. The predatory look in his eyes was absent, and he had a collected air about him that Sho found reassuring.
He was so close that Sho could reach out to take hold of his arm, but he didn't. He was afraid that if he did try to reach out to him, he would disappear. So he said nothing and stared at the other boy, who was laying with arms outstretched and a wry smile on his lips.
"You did everything she wanted to do, went everywhere she wanted to go. She was happy, and so were you. You were even going to give her the gift you bought for her."
He was talking about the thing Sho had picked out for Amagi after several bouts of indecision standing in that old blacksmith's store. The thing he felt so embarrassed to buy, but he went with it anyway because he was so convinced that she would like it.
"She said the best part of birthdays was seeing someone open their presents. I wanted her to open it to see if she was right, but that'll never happen now." Sho's hand curled back into a tight fist at his side, the memory of losing Amagi's gift rekindling his temper. "It's lost, and I don't have any damn idea where it is."
"It isn't your fault; you were interrupted. If it hadn't been for that abomination, the girl would've opened your gift. If it hadn't interfered, she'd be with you right now."
Without asking, Sho knew that the "abomination" was the bear. He had never associated that word with him before, but he still agreed with Minazuki on one thing: had the little idiot never walked into the café, Amagi's gift wouldn't have been lost.
"He's always getting in the way…actually, it's not just him. Her parents keep her on a short chain, so she's always doing stuff for them. Whenever we hang out, it's always in her room or in mine. And when we go somewhere, the town's so frickin' small that we're bound to run into her annoying friends."
His anger had been stoked to a full-on flame. His chest burned from the feeling of it, the blood rushing hot in his veins and pounding in his ears. He sat up, too worked up to keep lying down, and continued to vent in front of a patient Minazuki. "I never get to hang out with Amagi on Sunday unless it's at her inn . So it figures that the ONE weekend we go somewhere, her friends find a way to screw it up!"
An annoying jingle began to play from the right pocket of his jeans. He had been so angry after arguing with Amagi that he had carried the bear's phone off without realizing it afterward. When he took it out, mulling on the earlier temptation to throw it off the roof, he was unsurprised when he saw Hanamura's name on the lit-up screen. Sho guessed that if he wasn't already on the train to Okina, he was at least waiting for it.
When he shut the phone off, he felt Minazuki's eyes watching him. "Pitiful, isn't it? They're all a flock of timid sheep, incapable of thinking for themselves. Whenever one of them roams away, the rest go into a panic and force each other to find their lost companion."
Like he had always done in the past, Sho found comfort and vindication in his words. Minazuki was always looking out for him, quick to point out when everyone around Sho was at fault. "I can see that, but why can't Amagi?!"
"Because she's dependent on them, too." Minazuki said coolly. "She has relied on her allies for so long that she can't fathom doing anything that would upset them. Why do you think she dropped everything when Hanamura wanted to look for his meddlesome pet?"
From underneath the white-hot anger, something cold and sharp began to claw at the surface, and Sho couldn't ignore it. It was faint but persistent, keeping him from believing Minazuki. Then, the breath almost left him when he realized that he had felt this same sensation before with Amagi and her friends. Never in a thousand years did he think he would feel it around Minazuki, but it was there and it wouldn't go away.
"It's…it's not like she left as soon as Hanamura talked to her. She came outside to check on me."
Sho was surprised hearing himself speak against Minazuki, and the boy looked just as startled, if not more. He was sitting straight up now, resting his arms against his bent knees. The smile had left him, and his eyes were fixed in a cold glare, the same one he always had when he was serious.
"She followed you because she needed more information. You had taken the phone away from her, remember? To keep Hanamura from ruining the childish party her friends wanted to throw her."
Sho fell silent, thinking over Minazuki's answer. Minazuki continued to talk over his thoughts, articulating the worst of Sho's fears in a voice that never broke from its calm, steady pitch. "You did so much to make this day perfect for her, and she repays you by wanting to go off to find some sorry abomination of a Shadow. In spite of every act of kindness that girl has done for you, she is no different than the rest of her pathetic flock. She can't think of anything that isn't related to the fools she calls her 'friends'."
His words cut more than expected, especially when Sho understood that "anything " included himself. Before he was proud to have Minazuki to rely on because he was always one step ahead from everyone else, always putting together some scheme. But right now, Sho didn't want to believe him, and he let himself wrack his head for anything to prove him wrong.
It was abrupt when it finally came to him, but he held onto it as soon as it appeared in his mind: the bottle of melon-flavored soda that Amagi had bought at the movie theater. It seemed like such a dumb thing to remember, but it meant so much to him at that moment.
"She knows what kind of soda I like. She doesn't ask because she always remembers. And even if she acts mad about it, she lets me steal her food."
"She works at an inn. Being considerate of such things is second nature to her."
After that memory came the phantom touch of Amagi's hand clasping his. "Whenever something's bothering me, she notices it. I don't know how, but she always does and she's never afraid to tell me."
"Is that really so significant? She's been around you long enough to read your moods. You're paying her family for lodging, and she's doing her due diligence as a hostess. You're her guest, after all."
"I'm NOT just a guest to her! I'm—"
"Her boyfriend. Is that what you were going to say?"
His voice remained even, but Sho could pick up the animosity that hung off his words. Before Sho could say anything else, Minazuki stood up, his eyes as frigid as the smile that was now on his lips. "You're under the impression that such a title is meaningful. May I remind you that you used to think the same of 'Dad'?"
"Stop." As soon as he uttered his warning, Sho was on his feet, his eyes exactly level with Minazuki's. "Shut up right now."
"Seeing him smile was worth all the scars, the pain, the crushing loneliness you felt in his absence. You would've done anything for him, and all it got you was an extended stay in a hospital in some backwater town. That man turned his back on you, Sho. It is only inevitable that the girl will do the same."
"I said SHUT UP!" He was shouting now, and his hands were gripping the collar of Minazuki's shirt. He felt real enough when he grabbed him, and the other boy didn't make any motion to move, not even when Sho tightened his hold. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about!"
No signs of panic crossed Minazuki's features, his pale face instead wearing an expression of mild interest as he stared unblinkingly back at Sho. As he fought back against the longing to punch him, another memory of Amagi stayed Sho's hand. They were back in the café, and he had noticed her staring at him again, just as she had done earlier at Yasoinaba Station.
You have really nice eyes. I like seeing them whenever I can. She was smiling when she said that, and the blush on her cheeks almost matched the color of the flowers on her dress.
"I could never tell when that Ikutsuki bastard was lying through his teeth. But whenever Amagi says the weird stuff she does, I believe her! She isn't like Dad. She ISN'T!"
He didn't let go of Minazuki's collar, but his fingers slackened a bit, and the memory of Amagi's shy smile lingered in his mind. "She hasn't broken a promise to me. Not a single one! And whenever she looks at me, I feel like I'm the only thing she sees right then and there!"
The apathy on Minazuki's face broke with another smile, this one different than the others. The sight of it was sad, and it embodied an understanding of things that Minazuki could see that Sho couldn't. "If you really believed all of that, why did you leave her?"
Perhaps it was shock that finally loosened his grip. Sho didn't know, but his hands were no longer clutching onto the boy's shirt. Not bothering to straighten the rumpled fabric, Minazuki looked back at him with that sad, kind smile. "It's because you knew you couldn't win. As soon as she mentioned finding Hanamura's pet, nothing else was important to her. Not even you."
He couldn't bring himself to look at Minazuki anymore. Hallucination, monster, nightmare, or whatever he was, he was making sense, and the realization grew with the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.
"No matter how much she says she cares about you, she'll always care about them more."
Something inside of him was slowly breaking, and the earlier desire to prove Minazuki wrong dissipated like smoke. As if he knew the effect of his scathing words, Minazuki placed a hand on Sho's shoulder. The contact was solid and cold to the touch.
"The worst part of all this is that she hurt you, and she can't see it. She can't see why you're so angry, or why you ran away. You know why that is, don't you, Sho? It's because for all her pretty little words and smiles, she'll never be able to understand you."
In a last-ditch effort of defiance, Sho shrugged his hand off his shoulder and looked him dead-on in the eyes. "You don't know her, so quit pushing that shit on me."
"But I know you," Minazuki said with an air of finality. For as livid as he felt, Minazuki was that much calmer, and it amazed and infuriated him. "I know what you were and what you will be. And unlike that girl, I will be by your side through all of it."
Right then, pain erupted from behind his eyes and shot out through every nerve. Static slowly built up in his ears before unleashing a screeching wail that tore at his very being. Sho clutched his hair, trying to focus on anything but the agonizing pain. The effort brought him to his knees, like some force was pinning him against the ground. He tried to keep his eyes open all the while, only able to see the sneakers that Minazuki wore as the pain knocked him onto the cement senseless.
And suddenly, the pressure was gone. He was slow to get back up, but when he was standing again, he saw that he was alone. As his heartbeat regained its normal pace, everything Minazuki said hung over him like a poisonous fog that he couldn't break from.
No matter how much she says she cares about you, she'll always care about them more.
The longer he let those words burn into his memory, the more he feared that Minazuki had been right. Real or not, he said the things that Sho had been thinking when he left Amagi. Worse yet, that boy had said them in a voice that was undoubtedly Minazuki's, and that only reminded Sho about how his former guardian had never been wrong in the past.
He tried to recall Amagi's smile, but all it did was bring him pain. Echoes of their argument mingled with the fading static in his ears, and Sho remembered Amagi's insistence on finding her friend. In that respect, Minazuki had been right: Amagi had chosen her friends over him. Sho couldn't win that battle, and he doubted that he ever would.
His hand went out to the pocket of his jacket once more, taking out his cell. The lightness of his other pocket reminded him of the missing present, and this time he felt numb to its loss. It was gone and he had little chance of recovering it, just as he had with reconciling with Amagi. He threw away that opportunity the second he ignored her earlier phone call.
He gazed at the yellow star charm that dangled from his cell. It was probably the only thing he would have to remember the time he spent with her. He thought about yanking it off his phone and throwing it away, but he couldn't do it. Maybe after some time had passed, he'd be able to get rid of it then.
As he wondered how long that would take, his phone pulsed with light. Instinct pulled at him and took hold of his fingers, forcing them to flip the screen open and open his inbox. There, he found a message waiting to be read. Shaking from more than just the cold air, Sho opened the message, and he could hear Amagi's voice.
You don't have to pick up. Just please let me know that you're OK.
It was straightforward, much like Amagi herself. Without much effort, he pictured the downcast expression on her face as she typed, and he wondered how long she would wait for his response before moving again. It hit him that even after how he blew up at her, even after all the things he said, Amagi wasn't giving up on him. She may have been looking for the bear, but she was worried about him, too.
Minazuki was wrong, and so was he.
She's thinking about me. She's thinking about me right now.
As he waited for the right words to come to mind, or at least for the courage to write her back, he put his hood up and peeked over the edge of the roof. People crowded the sidewalks, moving in a jumbled but steady stream. Once again, Sho looked for Amagi's red headband. Maybe she would be making her way through this area, and that would spare him the frustration of not knowing what to write.
A few minutes passed without any sign of the girl, but something else did catch his eye. Even when he was surrounded by taller people, the bear's striking blonde hair was easy to spot in a crowd.
The back of his head hit the brick wall with a thud. The pain was almost blinding but Teddie still tried to squirm out of his attacker's grip, hoping to break away. When that didn't work, he tried prying the punk's fingers off of his shirt, but all that earned him was another slam against the wall. Green stars exploded in Teddie's vision as his attacker kept him trapped, fixing him with a glare from underneath the knit cap he wore over his head.
"Check his wallet."
Teddie heard rustling from behind them as his attacker's lackey did as he was told. "Nothing good. Just a couple yen and a bunch of candy wrappers."
The frown that appeared on his attacker's face made him more intimidating. "What about the bag?"
A different voice spoke this time, sounding just as apprehensive as his friend's. "Just some comics and more candy."
The stars had faded, and Teddie could see the other two boys that stood behind their leader. One of them was holding the chocolates he had bought from earlier. As one of the lackeys held it up, Teddie's efforts to escape redoubled. "Hey, give that back!"
The leader made an angry noise and turned his attention back to Teddie, tightening his grip on his shirt. "Did I say you could talk?"
"Yeah, shut your trap." The boy with Teddie's wallet said. "It's bad enough that all you've got is junk."
"It's NOT junk!" How could these hooligans say such a thing? The nice lady at the store had given him a discount on that chocolate! And those comics were the last ones on the shelf! He was sad that he had become separated from his new friends, but his treasures made up for that loss, and he didn't want to lose them.
"You're just too thickheaded to see how valuable it all is!"
He never heard a reply when his feet left the floor, and the dark alley and everything in it became a blur as the wind rushed past him. The world stopped when he crashed into a garbage can, the lid coming loose and rolling away with a rattle. It had been cold, but that didn't make the stench of trash any better as it filled Teddie's nostrils. As he sat up from the split plastic bag and its rotting food, Teddie realized his earmuffs were missing, but those didn't seem important right now. The gang leader loomed over him, reaching into the bag that his friend had just been holding.
"None of your junk is worth keeping, kid." Teddie watched as he dropped his chocolates onto the ground, and he couldn't stop the cry that left him when he slammed his foot down. The chocolate squeezed out of their wrappers, smearing the plastic bag as the boot came down on it repeatedly. When he was done, his attacker kicked the ruined chocolates away, scraping the heel of his boot against the cement.
"See? It all falls apart." His comics were the last thing left, and now the bully had them in his grip. His friends stood back, watching with amused grins as their leader began to tear the pages.
He really ought to have tried running, but the sound of ripping paper cut through the fear in his heart. He had never seen these boys before, so it was mind-boggling to think that they could be so mean. When Teddie thought about the gang doing the same to other people, pointing them out in a crowd and then stealing their things, a fire lit up inside of him.
"Friends are supposed to do nice things together, like eat snacks and watch TV and look at cute girls! They don't take stuff that doesn't belong to them or hurt other people! You're the worst kind of villains, and your hearts are just as ugly as your faces!"
The two boys exchanged a look, like they were confirming if what Teddie had just said was true. He honestly thought their faces were rather plain-looking, but their cruelty made them ugly in his eyes. On the other hand, their leader was uninterested in Teddie's opinion, having finished ripping the comics in half and chucking the pieces to the side of him. "Tch. You're too little to talk big, dumbass. Guess I'll have to teach you a lesson 'bout minding your manners."
Fear crept back into Teddie as the leader took another step closer to him. He was so frightened that he almost didn't notice the dark shadow that fell right behind the other two punks. He thought it may have been a trick of the light, but then he saw that the shadow had hands, which clamped onto the boy nearest to it. The boy turned around but he didn't have time to yell; a fist went across his jaw with a loud crunch, and he fell limply like rag doll after the shadow pushed him aside. Shouting a curse, the boy's friend moved to confront the attacker, but again, the shadow was too quick. It whirled around and rose its long leg in a spinning kick that struck the other punk in the face, sending him reeling back and crashing onto the ground.
Someone had come to help him! Before Teddie could celebrate this stroke of good luck, another notion struck him: what would Sensei do at this very moment?
The leader turned his head at the noise. "The hell are you idiots doing back there?" His tormenter was temporarily distracted, giving Teddie more time to think.
Sensei wouldn't run, just like he wanted to do. No, he would've stayed, especially if another person had shown up to help.
No longer caring about how much his back hurt, Teddie leapt onto his feet and lunged at the lead bully, taking hold of his arm and biting down on his hand. When his teeth sunk into his skin, the leader shouted in pain. He tried to wrench his hand away but Teddie hung on, even when he saw his attacker raise his free hand to punch him. He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the impact, but after several seconds, it never happened. He heard the leader cry out again in agony, and the sound of it startled Teddie enough to open his eyes.
He was close enough to see now, so Teddie had no problem recognizing the jet-black hair that fell back in messy waves and the bright blue eyes behind the thick-framed glasses. Even with his disguise, Sho-boy was a scary sight as he held back the lead bully's fist. His victim looked over his shoulder, his expression fixed between shock and rage. "Who the shit—"
The leader was cut off with a lightning-fast punch to the nose, and that was when Teddie let go. A loud snap broke the air, followed by a string of angry curses. Just as the leader tried to recover, Sho-boy sent him stumbling back with a well-placed kick to his stomach. The air knocked out of him, the leader hung onto his sides, like he was keeping himself from falling apart.
Sho approached him leisurely, his eyes filled with anticipation. "Aww, what a letdown. Not so tough without your buddies, are ya?"
"You…you son of a bitch…"
"What was that?" Sho-boy's mouth pulled back in a challenging smirk. "You gotta try again. I don't speak 'prick' very well!"
The leader's right hand left his side to grab something in his jacket. Teddie saw a thin flash of silver flick spring up from a red handle, and then the punk leapt at Sho. Teddie cried out, but he didn't have to: Sho-boy saw it coming and sidestepped the attack. The blade went past his cheek as Sho moved in closer to its owner. It had barely registered to the leader that he had missed when Sho's fist struck across his jaw. His groan was muffled by a sickening crunch, but the thud his body made when he fell back echoed off the walls of the alley. Sho had hit him so hard that he dropped his knife, which had landed nearby one of the recovering punks. When the fallen boy tried reaching for it, Teddie winced when he saw Sho's sneaker stepping over his hand. The boy cried out against the pavement as Sho bent down to pick up the weapon, and then he was making his way toward the fallen leader.
Sho knelt over him and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket. As he stood up, he pulled his victim up from the ground. Except for a few attempts at feeble struggling, the leader didn't fight back; he looked every bit a broken puppet with his arms hanging at his sides. The knit cap was askew at an angle over his horror-stricken face, white save for the blood that slowly trickled down his nose.
An intimidating smile lit up Sho's pale features, and he brought the knife up to the leader's face. "No use carrying 'round this thing if you're no good with it! It might bite you in the ass!" For extra emphasis, he rested the tip of the blade between his victim's eyes. "See my point?"
The leader's lips pulled back and Teddie could see how tightly his teeth were gritted, like Sho-boy had applied just enough pressure on the knife to make him grimace.
Teddie watched in shock and fear as Sho moved the knife and held it against the bully's throat. His grin was gone now, replaced by something cold and angry. "The next time you losers decide to gang up on someone, you better make damn sure no one's watching!"
The leader's eyes widened, and Teddie saw Sho-boy move. He was afraid that he was actually going to use the knife, but then Sho's forehead slammed against the leader's face. When he let go of his jacket, the bully dropped back against the ground and laid there, knocked out cold.
The other two guys didn't move if they heard what happened to their leader and if they were playing dead, Teddie thought their act was very convincing as Sho moved past them. When he glanced up at the boy who saved him, Teddie was relieved and surprised to see that the murderous look on his face was gone. What was there instead was a cross between impatience and annoyance.
"Get up."
It took a short while for Teddie to find his voice. "B-but my things…"
Sho-boy rolled his eyes. Remarkably, his glasses remained intact even after he head-butted his opponent. "I don't have all day! Either get up or I'm leaving you here!"
He sounded like he was going to make good on his threat, so Teddie scrambled back onto his feet. He quickly found his fuzzy earmuffs from the scattered garbage and hurriedly put them around his neck. Unfortunately the chocolates had been a ruined mess, and there was nothing salvageable to take back. The pieces of the comic were scattered against the dirty pavement, but they were in better shape than the candy. It didn't feel right leaving them there, so Teddie moved quickly and grabbed what he could. He could always put the comic back together with tape and staples when he returned to Yosuke's.
When he was done, Sho-boy was already leaving. As Teddie ran to catch up, he threw one last look at his former tormenters. None of them got up to move.
Teddie turned away and fell in behind his savior. As they left the alley, the streets slowly became more crowded. The street lamps were brighter here and the air was filled with laughter and the excited chatter of shoppers. All the good sounds made Teddie feel better, and he slowly gained the courage to thank the person who saved him. "Thank you, Sh…I mean Souji!"
The tall boy didn't spare him a look. "How the hell did you end up there? Where were the girls you were with earlier?"
"When we were leaving the bookstore, I caught a heavenly scent and followed it to a candy shop. I didn't look back to see if they were behind me or not, which is too bad! They were all so nice to me!"
When the boy didn't say anything, Teddie glumly thought back to the ruined chocolates. "After I bought the candy, I was so focused on finding the girls that I didn't notice those guys were watching me."
Again, Sho didn't respond. The lack of conversation and his grumpy expression stirred Teddie's confusion. He was aware that he wasn't Sho's favorite person, so why did he save him?
The sidewalks became more crowded as they passed the bookstore where he and his friends had shopped at. Unable to stay quiet, Teddie spoke up. "Why did you help?" Sho's only response was a stern look of disapproval, but Teddie persisted. "I didn't think that you were happy to see me at the café."
"Do you ever shut up?" Sho snapped as a few young men swerved from his path to avoid bumping him.
"You could've just left me there!"
"Don't make me regret that I didn't."
"But I wanna know!" Teddie felt guilty about treating his savior this way, but his curiosity was too strong. He did his best to keep up with Sho's pace, his questions giving him cause to stay close. "You don't like me beary much, so what you did doesn't make any sense!"
This time, Sho actually stopped and Teddie almost stumbled over his own feet in surprise. When he regained his balance, he found his savior's eyes fixed in a glare that threatened to hurt Teddie more than the bullies tried to do.
"You're right— I DON'T like you, but you've already caused enough headaches by ditching Hanamura today. Someone had to end it!"
The mention of Yosuke's name highlighted the absence of another friend. Teddie looked around, expecting to see a girl with long black hair emerge from the crowd. "Where's Yuki-chan?"
"Hell if I know."
"Didn't you two split up to look for me? She didn't say where she was going?"
"No, because all she could talk about was finding you!" Sho was yelling, but Teddie heard the hint of gloom underneath the angry words. "After Hanamura called, Amagi went on and on about wanting to look for your worthless ass. She wouldn't shut up about you, so I got sick of it and left!"
His first impulse was to scold Sho for leaving behind a lady, but he was reminded again that this boy was still the one who saved him. If he really did dislike Teddie as much as he said, he would've just left him in the alley, and the chocolates wouldn't have been the only thing the bullies stomped. Teddie brainstormed the reasons, and when his head began to hurt like it did after he ate too much ice cream, a light bulb flickered on when he thought of the person Sho had just mentioned.
"Did you help me because of Yuki-chan?"
Surprise overtook the angry look on the boy's face, and his mouth opened, but no words came out.
"That's it, isn't it?!" Teddie asked, encouraged by Sho's reaction. "You may have been mad at Yuki-chan, but you saved my fur because she was worried about me!"
The bright glow from the store lights and street lamps couldn't hide the red that flushed across Sho's cheeks, and Teddie knew he had his answer. He was proud for a few seconds until he saw the dejected look that soon passed over the boy's face.
"It doesn't matter. She won't want to talk to me after all this."
Despite the hostility of their past interactions, Teddie wanted to comfort him, to tell him that he was wrong, but the boy was taking something out of his pocket. He pulled out a baby blue cell phone–Teddie's cell phone–and held it out to him. "Tell Hanamura that you'll meet him at the train station."
Teddie almost shivered from how cold his voice sounded, but he was quick to take his cell from him. Sho turned his back and began walking again. Not wanting to be left behind, Teddie trailed after him. As he kept up with his savior, Teddie opened his phone and saw that he had missed a call from Yosuke, and he couldn't help but smile: his supervisor WAS worried about him!
His happy moment was interrupted when Sho spoke again. He wasn't facing Teddie, but his voice was clear over the rest of the noise around them. "After you're done, call Amagi. Let her know where we're going."
The command was short, but again Teddie noticed the hint of sadness in his voice when he mentioned Yuki-chan.
Nothing else was said as they walked, with Teddie having to take three or four steps to match every one of Sho's long strides. He disliked the silence, but he felt that there was nothing else he could do except call Yosuke. As he pulled up his friend's number, Teddie noticed Sho turning his head occasionally at the passing crowd.
When he last got involved in an alleyway fight, things were messier. Back then, the people Sho had encountered weren't a bunch of bored high school students. Although he had beat them all the same, those guys had fought with a sense of ruthlessness that only a hard life on the streets could teach. But putting that difference aside, both groups shared a common interest: ganging up on people smaller than them.
When the bear was seconds away from being punched, Sho saw another boy in his place, shorter and dark-haired, face-down on the pavement and curled up into a ball. The memory of that person's thin frame shaking with every kick to his stomach kept Sho from leaving Fuzz-for-Brains on his own, but the thought of Amagi gave him that final push off the roof.
He didn't like the memories that his ambush brought up, so he looked ahead as he walked with the bear following behind. He was talking to Hanamura, whose undiluted rage came through the static of the phone and the city traffic. No explanation or weepy apology seemed to have worked, and when the call ended, the bear was sniffling. Annoyed as he was, Sho held his tongue and let the little idiot have his one-person pity party.
Thankfully it wasn't long until the sniffling stopped, or at least slowed down, and the bear was psyching himself up again. "Okay, that's done. Now it's time to call Yuki-chan!"
Anxiety dug its sharp points into Sho as he heard Fuzz-for-Brains calling up Amagi, but he kept walking. As they neared the train station, he subconsciously searched for the inn worker, nervous yet wanting to see her there.
"Hiiiiiiii, Yuki-chan! It's your Teddie!"
His breath caught in his throat and his shoulders tensed, but when Amagi didn't appear, he realized that the bear was talking into his phone at a volume for all to hear. "Uh-huh…no…yes…I know, I'm sorry! I just got off the phone with Yosuke and he's going to pick me up."
They reached the bottom of the escalators. Café Chagall was within his sight now, but he still didn't see any trace of Amagi. Any relief he felt was buried under the weight of his disappointment. Sho tried to shrug it off but failed, and his steps were heavy as he moved onto the moving stairs. He continued to look ahead of him while every word of the bear's conversation filled his ears whether he wanted them to or not.
"Yep, I'm on the way to the station right now! Oh, and Souji's with me!"
Sho's heart pounded in his chest and he held his breath again, the muscles in his arms and legs locking up as he strained to hear Amagi. Unlike Hanamura, she wasn't yelling into the phone.
But of course, Sho had no problem hearing the bear. "Well, some bullies dragged me into an alley, and Souji DROPPED in!"
He silently appreciated the pun, stepping onto the stone platform from the escalator. He heard the bear's light footsteps close behind him, followed by his bright laugh. "No, no, he really did! He fell from the sky and landed right behind the leader without making a sound! Just like a superhero!"
Sho spotted an empty bench nearby the area where the passengers would be arriving through the turnstiles. As he walked toward it, the bear's voice grew louder and more animated, like the idiot was narrating a scene from an action movie. The entire Investigation Team knew that the bear had a tendency to exaggerate, so Sho didn't stop him as he took a seat on the bench. As long as he didn't wander off again, Sho didn't care about the tall tales he'd tell Amagi. Now that she knew that her little friend was safe, nothing else could make her worried.
"I'm telling you, Yuki-chan, he was unstoppable! They even had knives!"
…except for that, maybe.
As soon as the bear sat next to him, Sho kicked him in the shins as a warning. The bear uttered a pained cry, looking at him in accusation and covering the phone with one hand. "Ouch! Why'd you do that?!"
"You've said enough!"
"B-but I'm trying to make you sound like a hero!"
"I. Don't. CARE! Just tell Amagi to come here and get off your phone!"
The bear pursed his lips in a pout, and the offended look never left his eyes as he spoke into his phone again. "Sorry about that, Yuki-chan. SOME people are just plain rude!" There was another pause and then curiosity took over the bear's features. "Hm, just a second." He turned his gaze on Sho again, moving his head up and down. "He looks okay. No cuts or bruises or anything!"
Even now, she was worried enough to ask about him. As the weight of his guilt grew heavier on his shoulders, Sho did his best to look unaffected, not wanting to give the bear anything to report back to Amagi. But for how hard as he tried, his efforts failed when the bear was exchanging his good-byes.
"Yep, at the station. So hurry, Yuki-chan! Your noble princes are waiting with bated breath to receive you—"
The absurd mention of "princes" was more than Sho could stand. He broke out of his act and grabbed the phone out of the blonde boy's fingers. He thought he heard Amagi's soft voice from the other line, but he quickly shut the lid, finally ending the call. His ears burning from under his wig, he looked at the bear with animosity. "Are you TRYING to be a pain?"
He had the nerve to look hurt, and it almost looked convincing. "What do you mean?"
"Quit spouting lies to Amagi!" Sho tried to ignore the uncomfortable heat that tickled his neck, his knuckles white around the cell phone he held. "I just gave those guys what they deserved. It wasn't even a real fight, so quit talking it up like it was one!"
"But…I did that for you, Sho-boy."
He was too stunned by his answer to reprimand the bear for slipping up on his name. More confusing still was that the hurt look on the smaller boy's face actually looked genuine. "I wasn't lying at all. You really were strong, and I wanted to make sure Yuki-chan knew it!"
"Why the hell would you want that?"
"So then you wouldn't be afraid anymore."
There wasn't any malice in what the bear had said, but Sho felt challenged by it nonetheless. The bear's cell still in his hand, Sho thought about either chucking it at him or breaking it in his grip. But before he could give into either temptation, the bear went on. "You said earlier that Yuki-chan wouldn't want to talk to you after today. Well, you can banish that fear from your pain-wracked heart!"
The blonde idiot gave a wide smile, and once again, Sho swore he saw golden sparks shimmering around him. "Because of my thrilling narration, Yuki-chan has been won over by your exploits of bravery! When she shows up, she'll HAVE to ask you everything about what happened!" Grabbing up the torn pages of his comic, the bear hugged them to his chest as he continued showering himself in praise. "It's such a brilliant plan, isn't it? You're so lucky, sitting in the presence of beauty and brains!"
This particular act was too stupid to be fake, but although the little idiot's enthusiasm was genuine, Sho didn't share it at all. He trained his eyes on the functioning escalators, absentmindedly watching all the people who arrived on the platform.
"It's not gonna make a difference."
"It will so!" The bear insisted with a stubborn look. "How can she NOT want to talk to you after my dramatic retelling?"
"Because nothing you say will change the fact that I ditched her, and if you really think she doesn't have any hard feelings over that, you're dumber than I thought!" Sho said, cynicism coloring his every word. Minazuki's sad, all-knowing smile appeared in his mind, and everything he said that Sho had so vehemently denied began to gnaw at him. "Even if she did want to talk, what am I supposed to say?"
"Oh, oh, I know, I know!" The torn comic shuffled loudly in the bear's hand as he waved it around in excitement. "It's 'sorry'! You say sorry, and you have to mean it!"
Out of all the drivel the bear has uttered today, this was by far the dumbest. Did Fuzz-for-Brains really think that Sho was stupid enough to believe that one word could fix things?
But in the face of Sho's ever-growing skepticism, the bear prattled on with an expression so bright that it was practically blinding. "Yuki-chan can be reaaaally scary sometimes, especially when she's mad, but she has a big heart! Besides, I know that she'll listen if you talk to her. I've seen the way she looks at you!"
A cold jolt went through him, and his doubts and the echoes of Minazuki's disheartening words fell back from his mind. Out of all the noise in that crowded station, the only voice he could hear was the one that belonged to the creature with the young, cheerful face. "Back at the café, you were the only person Yuki-chan really saw." He hugged his comic to his chest again, his eyes shining with the grandeur of his foolish daydreams. "I remember it vividly: the tenderness in her eyes, the smile that graced her lips, the lovely shade of pink she turned when she blushed! I'll admit that it was distressing to see her fall for you, but I won't deny that I was moved by her quiet displays of affection!"
It all sounded too stupid to be lies, but Sho continued to look at him warily with silent outrage and disbelief. The runt that was sitting next to him him…had he really been a Shadow? Minazuki had called him an abomination, and in some ways Sho could understand why. The image on his TV had been fuzzy during that particular battle with the bear's Shadow, but Sho would never forget its colossal shape or the way its menacing eyes hung in the darkness behind the cracks in its face. Had it not been for Narukami's leadership or the help of that idol, the bear's Shadow could've wiped out the Investigation Team. Its strength had been primal, driven only by the single-minded desire to kill everything in its path. It didn't have doubts to get hung up on, or irrational fears that it had to bury deep down.
"You were better off as a Shadow."
His imagination no longer keeping him hostage, the bear's blue eyes widened in surprise, and Sho couldn't stop the rest of his thoughts from tumbling out. "Out here, no one ever means what they say, and if they do, they change their minds about it later."
He turned away from the other boy, training his eyes on the ground. The black strands of his wig hung over his glasses like real hair, but Sho wasn't annoyed by it. "Whatever you try to do, people manage to mess it up. And when you think that they're on your side, they either tie you down with their own baggage or they leave you behind."
He wasn't really seeing the designs etched on the stone tiles under his feet. In his mind, he saw Ikutsuki watching him with indifference as his lab workers dragged Sho from him. The lab disappeared and then he was in front of the café again. Amagi was staring at him with a pained look in her eyes that hit him right in the chest and that has stayed with him for the entire afternoon.
"Until Adachi started screwing around, you didn't have to worry about people getting in your way. You had it pretty easy, so why give it up to be human?"
The bear's face screwed up in concentration, and Sho thought he may have actually hurt himself. When it finally looked like he had an answer, his eyes lit up against his serious expression. "Have you ever been really, really hungry?"
Sho stared at him, not knowing how food had anything to do with his question. The bear just kept speaking, like he wasn't aware of how moronic he sounded. "I have. One day I had to do a double shift at Junes because some workers had called off, and we were so busy that we didn't even have time for a lunch break! Yosuke and I worked straight until closing time though, and his dad ordered dinner for us. I was so hungry that I didn't think I'd ever get full, but after my 20th cheeseburger, I was wrong!"
As if he needed to keep his legs from falling asleep, the blonde boy's feet swayed over the edge of the bench, like he was on a swing and getting ready to do a high jump. "For me, being a Shadow was like always being hungry and never being full. Whenever I heard people from the other side, all I could think about was how empty I was, and then one day, I got sad over how I felt...it was awful."
His legs slowed to a stop, and he looked at Sho with clear eyes and a guileless smile. "After I met Sensei and the others, I was so happy that I finally had friends. They helped me grow, and every day I get to spend with them is special to me. Even the bad ones!"
The sheer honesty of what he said astounded Sho just as much as it irritated him. Because he had such a hard time making sense of his own feelings, he envied how open the bear was with his, like his animosity for Sho and his attachment to Amagi. Sho felt that the bear had beaten him at something, but for some reason, he didn't feel ashamed by the loss.
Despite this unexpected turn in conversation, he decided that he had his fill of sentimental garbage. Wanting to make a clean break of it, he tossed the bear's cell phone into the air without warning. "Enough sugar-coating, runt. I can feel the teeth rotting in my head."
With a cry of alarm, the bear scrambled in his seat to catch his phone. The panic didn't leave his face until the phone landed in his hands, and then the shorter boy stared daggers at him. "How rude! Don't insult me because you can't appreciate the beautiful complexities of human emotions!"
Sho sat back and crossed his arms. Although he was relieved that things were returning to normal, he was too tired to trade barbs. "Whatever, Fuzz-for-Brains. How 'bout you make yourself useful and keep a lookout for Hanamura? He's more open to your touchy-feely crap than I am."
The bear huffed and crossed his thin arms. "Rude, I say!" He repeated, but surprisingly he did as Sho said, standing up on the bench after putting his phone away in his pocket. He rolled the comics into a cylinder and pointed it towards the turnstiles, placing one end over his right eye and looking through it like a spyglass. The bear's awkward stance caught a few stares, but they didn't bother Sho. He was too engrossed in his own doubts to notice.
He always had a habit of imagining the worst possible outcome, believing that doing so would toughen him up. But when he imagined Amagi saying that she didn't want him to be her boyfriend anymore, his chest tightened and his hands shook.
Although he couldn't stop himself from feeling anxious, Sho decided that he wouldn't run away again. He would sit next to the bear and wait for Amagi, no matter how long it took. And if she was angry and wanted to yell at him for what he had done, he would take it if it meant seeing her one last time.
As he watched the escalator, he held onto the small foolish hope that the bear had given Sho when he described how Amagi looked at him.
Writer's Note(s): Thank you everyone for reading and reviewing and reading! I'm sorry that this is later than usual, but here it is, and just before the new year! My plans for the holidays crumbled the way plans usually do, so I've been running around without much time to write (which was the original plan, and failed: coincidence?!). This chapter was also challenging because it took on a shape that I wasn't expecting, and when it did, I decided to go for it.
1) Last chapter brought on a lot of "Dang it, Teddies", and rightfully so! Teddie annoyed me sometimes, but he had his cute/funny moments and he was my second-best healer. I'd think a Shadow who wanted to be human could have some interesting conversations with a human who hated other humans.
2) What's in the box, Yukiko? What's in the booox?!
3) Have you ever been so mad that you start talking to people who look like your best friend and who may or may exist? It's the worst! But really, poor Sho. It won't be the last time.
4) Looks like the site's been fixed! Whoo!
That's it for now. Hope you guys are enjoying the holidays. Happy New Year, and I'll see you then!