Yamato
Later, after the dog was kicked outside again, and Taichi had managed to get me off the floor, after Hiroshi had apologized forty-seven times, I counted, and my stitches where found to be intact, thankfully, I was informed that I got to pick out a room. And since Hiroshi's was upstairs, I wanted one downstairs. I still haven't even been upstairs, but that didn't matter. After peeking in both rooms, I discovered that they locked. Both of them. So I had gone upstairs, to look at all four bedroom's up here. They all locked, too.
"Do we have to?" Takeru is asking as I'm on my way down the stairs.
"Yes, Takeru." Yuuko says.
"Why can't I stay?"
"Because your brother needs to get settled, you'll see him again on Friday." Yuuko promises. Takeru stays silent, and I watch from place halfway down the stairs. Taichi and Yuuko are both still in bare feet.
Taichi notices me first, and grins at me. "Did you pick a room?" He asks. I shake my head.
"I don't like them." Taichi rolls his eyes.
"Picky. I like the big one that looks out onto the garden," He tells me. I finish my decent down the stairs and head back to the room Taichi said he liked. He follows me.
"You can have it, then." I tell him. "I'll sleep in the living room."
"I don't think it works like that," Taichi says with a little laugh. "But I totally would take this room if I was allowed." Taichi crosses the room to look out into the backyard. Kali is prancing around outside, exploring. "I wonder what it's like to be a dog," Tai says suddenly.
I stare at him silently from my spot of safety by the door. He turns to look at me. "Well, we could not be friends if you were a dog." I tell him. "Because you'd be more hyper then she is, and, well, obviously I can't stand her, so.." He frowns at my words, but then his mother calls him, and he crosses the room again to pass me and go see what she wants.
I guess this room isn't too bad. Maybe I can convince Hiroshi to let me take the lock off the door. I turn to leave the room, and Hiroshi, Yuuko, Taichi and the others are coming back towards me. I guess their leaving. Takeru jumps on me to give me a hug., one which I return, despite the throb of something that says nononono, when he touches me. I watch them leave from my spot in the bedroom door I never quite managed to get away from.
When Hiroshi comes back this way he eyes me, but doesn't say anything. I follow him towards the living room.
"Hungry?" He asks. I don't answer. He knows I'm not. There's something else. I follow Hiroshi as he moves into the kitchen. I don't go past the basement door, though. If I lean against the wall about a foot away from the door I can see everything in the kitchen anyway.
"The door doesn't bite, Yamato." He says. Again, I don't answer. It's not the actual door I'm worried about.
"Can.. uh-" I start to ask, before stopping. Hiroshi turns to look at me.
"Can..what?" He asks, when I don't continue.
"Can you take the locks off the inside doors?" There's a long pause before he finally nods.
"Soon as I find the right tool, which is somewhere in the living room, I'm sure."
"Uhm..thanks." I say, before heading back towards my bedroom. I stare at the empty space, notice Kali staring in at me wagging her butt at the window. "Stupid dog." I say quietly to myself. Kali doesn't hear, obviously, she just continues to stare at me.
"Yamato," Hiroshi says my name, and I jump, jerk. "Sorry." He says gently. "Help me move your stuff in here. At the very least your bed."
I follow him back to the living room where the majority of his stuff is placed. And the few things I own. He just starts handing me boxes, and I place them in their rooms. I mean, really it's only bathroom, Hiroshi's, or mine. When he clears a path to my bed, we move that too, just kind of throwing it in a corner on the floor.
"We'll get you a proper frame and headboard." Hiroshi promises. I follow him back out of the room, and we take all two of my boxes into my room. Followed by a dresser, and that's everything for my room. Hiroshi frowns at he looks at me space. "Maybe we'll get you a desk. And a TV stand, and some other things, too.." He seems to be mostly talking to himself, so I don't answer.
For the next few hours I simply move boxes around the house. After one of the many trips up the stairs, and back down from Hiroshi's master bedroom, or the bathroom, I hear him go "Aha!" and I nearly jump out of my skin, again.
"What happened?" I ask from the bottom step. He waves something back and forth too fast for me to make out what it is. "Uhm.."
"It's the screw driver I need to get the lock off your door," He says.
Oh, right. That's why we started looking through this mess, wasn't it? "Oh. Good." I say, because he's staring at me.
"After this will stop to eat." He says, motioning towards the backdoor. To my surprise, it's become dark outside. I can just see Kali sitting at the window, watching us.
"Okay." I say, even though I'm not all that hungry. Hiroshi marches past me with a determined look on his face. I count his footsteps until he stops in front of my door. Once I hear him working on the door, I hop off the last step and collapse onto the couch. I curl up in the seat against the arm, and watch Kali. She tears off suddenly, probably after a bird, and it's almost amusing. I don't see her come back.
"Yamato." Hiroshi's voice is soft, and he touches my hand. My eyes snap open. I'm still sitting on the couch. He offers me a glass of water, and my medication. I take them and offer him the glass back, which he takes. "Go back to sleep," He says. So I do.
I wake up stretched out on a couch. There's a blanket that is kind of familiar thrown over me, and I stare out the sliding glass door trying to figure out where the hell I am. It's pitch black outside. As I sit up, slowly, it comes back.
And then my stomach grumbles, and I'm starving. I peek around the room, expecting to see Hiroshi hovering somewhere, but he's not. I climb to my feet, and find that the hallway light is on, and it's exactly enough light for me to see the living room, and the small hallway that will lead me to the kitchen and food. But will also take me past the basement door. The thought of any basement makes me skin crawl, but I figure since the house is all silent, and I'm really, really, really hungry, I can take the chance of something happen.
I pad softly across the living room, and stop a foot away from the stupid door, and then I run. I try to stop, and slide on the floor, slipping, my body makes a thud as I land. But the basement didn't open. I hear Kali bark upstairs and cringe.
"Please don't come downstairs." I whisper. I listen intently for the sound of Kali's paws, but there's nothing. I climb to my feet, and start digging around the kitchen for food. Thankfully, Hiroshi left dinner in a container in the fridge for me, because I couldn't cook to save my life. I'd probably burn the house down. I am, however capable of reheating food, so I do that.
After my food is sufficiently warm, I just sit on the floor leaning against the cupboards to eat. It gives me a view of the doorway, in case Kali comes in again. I hear someone on the stairs, and decide it has to be my foster parent, because Kali would move much faster then that. Then, Hiroshi appears in the doorway. His eyes catch me and he glances at the basement door.
"Are you...watching the door?" He asks. He looks mostly asleep. I raise my eyebrows at him.
"Uhm. No. I was watching for your dog." Dog peeks around Hiroshi's legs to look at me. I pull back fast enough that my head smacks into the cupboard. Hiroshi pushes her away with his feet.
"Get, Kali." He says. I hear her heavy feet pad away. "You're eating finally." He says, noticing finally that I'm stuffing my face.
"Yeah." I say, because he seems to be expecting me to say something. Hiroshi comes into the kitchen, walks past me. I slide closer towards the fridge to give me more sight in case Kali doesn't listen. Not that there's anywhere for me to go if she did decide to come say hi again.
Hiroshi rustles around, turns the tap on. I hear the sound of a glass filling.
"Hiroshi?" I startle myself probably as much as him. It's the first time I've said his name, and it taste funny.
"Eh?" He answers, after a long stretch of silence.
"Why did you pick this house? It's so...big."
There's another long stretch of silence, this one longer then the first.
"Well. I own it. So..it made sense." At first I think that's going to be. He answered my question. He owns the house, so there's no reason to rent a different one. "My wife and I lived here when we fostered, and we needed the space."
I open my mouth to ask you have a wife? before clamping it shut without any words coming out. Obviously, he doesn't have a wife anymore, or I would've met her already. I opt to not say anything. What the hell could I say? Did she die, or leave you? But also, I don't really want to know. It's not my business. I probably won't be here long enough for me to learn the truth. If he wanted me to know, he would've already supplied me with the information. I finish eating, and the silence lasts. As I stand, to drop my container into the sink, I'm surprised to find Hiroshi had been watching me. He takes the dishes out of my hand, and places them in the sink.
"You should go back to bed," He says. "You have a doctors appointment for your stitches, and a counselling session tomorrow. Err, later today."
I frown at his words. More counselling? Why? It's never helped with anything before now. "Do I really get to see Takeru again on Friday?" I ask. Today, being that it's after midnight, is Thursday.
"Yeah. Yuuko invited us for dinner."
"Oh." I say, before heading towards the living room, and then freezing at the sight of the basement door. "Uhm." I say, looking back at Hiroshi. He raises his eyebrows at me. "What about Dog?"
Hiroshi sighs before moving away from the counter, and following me. I scamper past the basement door with him, so he doesn't notice that the dog is not what's bothering me. "Her name is Kali." He tells me.
"Okay." I agree, before snatching my blanket off the couch, and heading down the hallway to my new room. I shut the door behind me, but then have to double check that Hiroshi took the lock off before I'm comfortable enough to turn the light out.
I throw myself onto the bed, and nestle into the blanket. I lay awake, staring up out the window until it starts to get light out, before finally falling back asleep..
When Hiroshi wakes me up again, it's much brighter, and Kali is outside my window look in on me.
"You need to eat," Hiroshi says, so I sit up, choosing to ignore the dog for now. I dig through the boxes, dumping everything else out on the floor to be dealt with later. Once I have clothes gathered in my arms, I leave the room, and freeze. All the doors in the hallway are closed. I chew my lip as I try to remember which way the bathroom is away from my bedroom.
When I can't, I just start checking doors. I find it behind the second door, and make a mental note of it's position. Then there's no towels, so I have to go find Hiroshi, who simply throws one at me. I head back to the bathroom. I fiddle with the taps to make warm water come out, and it takes a few tries, but eventually I get the perfect temperature.
Once ready for the day, which I hope desperately is short, I head back towards the kitchen, making the dash across the basement door.
"You can't just cancel, though." Hiroshi is saying, he sounds pissed.
"Cancel what?" I ask, before I notice he's on the phone. I stand on my tiptoes to peer into the frying pan on the stove without getting too close. "Pancakes?" I ask before I can stop myself.
Hiroshi spares me a quick questioning glance, before returning to his argument on the phone. I tune him out. Obviously one of my appointments has cancelled. So, whatever, fine. I can deal with that. My stitches feel fine, and I'm not entirely thrilled about going to see a shrink. Either way, it's a win-win for me. Although let's be honest, I secretly hope it's the shrink.
Hiroshi's sigh draws my attention back to him. Instead of saying anything about his conversation, he turns his attention to me. "Never had pancakes before, huh?"
I''m temporarily floored by this statement. How on earth could he possibly know that? I asked a one-worded question. Then, he must have dealt with kids that aren't used to common foods more often then I thought. "No," I finally answer. "I try to stay away from sweet food. Hurts my mouth."
"Hmmm." Hiroshi says, like I've given him some great mystery of life for him to solve or something. He dishes up the pancakes, and puts a tiny bit of something the bottle tells me is syrup on it. He makes a second plate, and then marches into the living room. I follow him, again making sure I rush past the basement door. Hiroshi doesn't say anything if he notices.
"Do you want the locks off all the doors, or just your bedroom?" He asks as he sits on the couch. I take the plate he offers me, and sit on the floor against the wall, giving me a view of the sliding door, for Kali, of Hiroshi and the stairs, and the basement door.
"Just my room." I answer. I stare at the pancakes for a few minutes, and watch Hiroshi eat out of the corner of my eye.
Eventually though, I have to try it, and when I do, I regret it instantly. Pain shoots through my mouth, and drop the plate as my hands jump to cover my face. "Yamato?" Hiroshi says, alarmed. I groan in response.