note: this fic was made based of the memory flashbacks in the movie, not the manga. so don't yell at me if I screw something up :P have fun and be imaginative
Silent Hours
This new place seemed all too familiar, as if he'd been here before. Perhaps in younger years he had.
The walls seemed to stretch on infinitely down before him. Maybe it was his strange imagination or his child's eye view, but the whitewashed doors and armory gray walls were ominous and towering tall before him, threatening him down even smaller with a steely glare. He felt diminished, even with his hand connected to the girl next to him. She smiled down when he looked up at her, then used her free hand to brush back a loose strand of jet-black hair escaped from her choppy pigtails that just barely touched her shoulders.
He wondered where his temporary "father" was now. Their evening walk down the bustling city streets seemed longer this time, his voice more tired and uneasy then usual. For the past few days the couple he was living with began to act peculiarly, talking more quietly and making swift glances and hand gestures toward him, sitting innocently on the floor. The man was a regular stranger to him, always seeming to watch him from afar, his actions and voice distant and sad. The only thing Tetsuo could remember about him now was the way his frail hand seemed to disappear in the brawny, creased palm of the stranger's. The woman had spent her days working two jobs and trying to support the family, since the man was just recently laid off. He used to be a chairman of the mayor's and held a very prestigious title, until he was fired. And sadly his wife was recently discovered to be barren. That's when they decided to adopt a child, and unfortunately for them it was Tetsuo, who couldn't seem to ever keep a home.
Only he thought of the families who adopted him as unfortunate. They themselves were oblivious of their calamity.
It wasn't as if he didn't want a home. Tetsuo had been passed from family to family ever since he was old enough to remember his constantly changing surroundings. It hurt him on the inside when the parents decided not to keep him. It was as if his heart were made of paper, and each bout of rejection tore it's own piece away. Things would go well in the homes for weeks, three or four at the longest, and Tetsuo tried to make himself as unvoiced as possible. For as soon as something strange happened the family grew worried, frightened, even suspicious. Bad luck seemed to follow him wherever he went. It was almost as if he was doomed to be alone from the beginning.
He recalled the man suddenly gripping his wrist more tightly and leading him down an unfamiliar corner. He hadn't been paying attention and now looked up at the sky, stretching blue farther then he could see without closing his eyes against the harsh sun. Hidden out of sight was a child with careless auburn hair almost his age, hanging lazily out a window while a white curtain billowed in a quiet breeze. He looked desolate and even sullen, watching Tetsuo make his way across the asphalt and down what the children called The Black Mile. Another abandoned dog added to the pack. He smiled.
Before he could realize it the man was conversing with a young women with a brown ponytail. Suddenly, almost in slow motion, he was handed off and now stood beside the female stranger. He heard him talking, all the while looking around his shoulders of this place. Once again he was faraway, talking low and distant. What he was able to hear made his heart sink in desolation. He soon grew indifferent.
"His name is Tetsuo."
Past open doors, he found a long, dark hallway directly to the right of him. It looked like a school almost, only of what he'd seen of them before. There was an endless row of lockers and above them, tacked into a strip of corkboard hung pictures drawn in crayon by young children.
So it had come to this? Another family. Another orphanage. But somehow this was different then all the others. He recognized that he had never been here before. It was, for instance, much larger then all the others he had stayed in, and much nicer. In a way he was flattered.
There was a small tug on his arm and he looked back around slowly.
"Tetsuo Shima." He heard the man repeat, and suddenly their vision met. There was a familiar emptiness in his brown eyes that made something in Tetsuo's heart tell him that he was repentant about this, that he was regretful as he spoke.
With that his shoes scraped backward on the pavement and he turned around, beginning to tread home.
"Wave goodbye, Tetsuo." She said, and he looked at her briefly before he lifted his arm and waved to the stranger, who was becoming a dithering dot on the horizon of a hot summer day. He could still see his hands in his pockets and his head hung low.
He didn't even say goodbye. Why should I? He thought.
He was led indoors, where the air conditioning hit him cold and once more he was handed off to another girl. She smiled at him, warm and friendly, and crouched down to his eyesight where she pet his hand and told him, "My name is Michiko. This is your new home, and we want you to make you as comfortable here as possible. If you have any questions come to me…"
The words mentioned after the latter meant nothing to his ears. He stood in a bored stare. No one wants me, he thought. Wherever I go, something bad follows me. Maybe I can run away from this place. But where would I go? What…
"Tetsuo? Tetsuo, honey…" She said sweetly in concern. His eyes snapped back into focus and he resumed staring at her blankly.
He nodded to be polite but she wrapped her arms around him and rubbed his back, all without words. He sniffled quietly and shut his eyes.
But now that harsh glare at the end of the hall, one that started out as only a small speck, shone upon him in an almost heavenly light. They approached the nursery where he could hear the excited voices of children. He unconsciously squeezed Michiko's hand and looked around suspiciously.
"A new kid!" A little girl cheerfully cried from the door. "Another new kid is here!"
"Productive week." Someone said cynically.
"I saw 'im." A boy with brown hair said. He sat underneath a window. "He won't last long. And he's not as nearly as interesting as our Shotaro." He smiled at the kid who sat stretched out on the floor, far from him. "Isn't that right? Aren't you a fighter?"
He looked up from an open book on his lap, and grinned back. "Wanna make somethin' interesting of it, Hideki?"
The brown-haired boy, Hideki, slid of the large toy chest and began to stroll his way over toward him. "You're a fighter, too Shotaro?" He said, just as the little girl from the door ran in between them.
"No! No fighting!" She grabbed Shotaro by the arm and attempted to drag him out of harm's way.
Hideki eyed the boy venomously. "We'll finish this later."
He sneered, "Fine by me."
"No!" The little girl, her name was Noriko, quickly scolded he grabbed him by his shoulders. "He's going to beat you up! You're going to get hurt!"
"I know." Shotaro said stubbornly. Girls just didn't understand how important it was for a boy to stand his ground. It was all about the honor, bravery, and not going out like a coward. And besides, girls very rarely got beat up by the bullies around the orphanage. Of course if the aforementioned bully was bored, the teasing began on impact of arrival, usually after two or three days, just enough time for them to grow comfortable and let their guards down. Dolls were taken and trampled or destroyed, usually right before their eyes. Hair was pulled and names were called too. But all of this was just a regular routine at the orphanage. Still, the boys were still too scared to ever hit a girl. Other boys, on the other hand, were perfectly okay.
So how would Noriko understand any of this?
"You don't get it." He said. "They're gonna beat me up anyway. Why should I hide and make it worse?"
"Shotaro!"
"Just stay out of it and you won't get hurt either, okay?"
"Fine! I don't care!" She said in her little girl huff, storming past his shoulder. Noriko continued to mutter crossly to herself long after she left him.
Her fault for being so stubborn, he thought.
Shotaro stood alone in the middle of a wide sea of sky blue carpet like an island. He sighed to himself and turned quickly to his side when he heard footsteps and a faint female mumble coming from down the hallway, echoing off the walls. He recognized it as one of the orphanage caretakers, Michiko.
That new kid, he suddenly remembered. He hid himself alongside the wall just out of sight and watched the people pass by. It was a boy, about his age even. He looked sullen as he gave the nursery a quick sweep with his eyes and disappeared again. Shotaro waited until their footsteps were a little quieter until he peaked around the edge of the doorway and looked back at them. He could still barely hear Michiko's voice.
"I'm going to show you to your room now, okay Tetsuo?"
"Okay?"
Tetsuo's attention snapped up from his wandering. "Yeah." He said in a small voice. He wasn't sure what she had asked.
"Your room's back around here somewhere," she said, trying to keep a conversation alive. "It's funny, I'm not usually back here often. It's usually Ayame who settles everyone in—I run the nursery, in case you wanted to know." She giggled somewhat, probably to herself. "Ayame got called out though. I wonder where she is. I hope we don't get lost." She said, hanging her head around a corner and making Tetsuo stand on his toes with the sudden stretch in arm length. His hand was beginning to cramp.
She may as well have been talking to herself. Tetsuo was off in his own itinerant world, his running imagination getting the better of him once again. Rows of doors were everywhere, surrounding him. They seemed to be on three levels, the doors, and the two minuscule people stood in the middle. There seemed to be an awful lot of doors for orphans, a lot of them even redundant really.
"…See if she had told be about the guy in the first place I would've gotten the key in time. We kind of have to break in now. Heh, that's sorta exciting. I've never really broken into anything before, except for my car, but it's my own stupid fault for locking the keys inside. My dad always warned me about that." Michiko seemed to trail off in her prattle right there. Tetsuo had noticed the abrupt silence. "Where's the damn place?" She whispered to herself.
Tetsuo was staring at the doors as Michiko pulled him along by the hand. He wondered if he had to share with anyone. But then he reconsidered, since Michiko kept referring to it as "his" room. There must've been a lot of orphans here for so many doors. It was like a hotel.
"Oh! This must be it!" Michiko said excitedly. She dropped Tetsuo's hand stood in front of the door, hands on her hips. "Okay." She said to herself. "What's all this paper?" She tore one out of the hinges and scanned over it quickly, parroting back the words to herself. "Oh God…"
Michiko quickly pocketed the paper and tore a few more out of the hinges. "Alright!" She exclaimed suddenly that startled Tetsuo. "Uhm, geez how do they do it in the movies?" Referring to breaking in the room, in which she didn't have a key. "A credit card." She murmured to herself and frowned. She didn't have a credit card, not with her anyway, but she did have a plastic hospital ID that was identical to one. "Shit." She swore under her breath.
Michiko kneeled down to Tetsuo's eyelevel on one knee and touched his shoulders. "Tetsuo? I'm going to run back to the main office real quick and see if I can find the uhm, key. Do you remember where the main office is?"
He nodded.
"Okay good. I don't want you to move anywhere, understand? But if you see something that frightens you then run there, okay?"
He nodded again.
"Alright." She stood and patted her pockets again just to make sure she had nothing. Without a second look she took off in a sprint.
Tetsuo watched her disappear down the dark hallway and then his eyes drifted to the ground.
He stood alone by himself on the cold cement of the walkway, standing in front of his door littered with notes and papers. If he knew how to read a little better he'd pick up one and try to decipher it. But only Michiko knew what they where. So he stood, arms at his side, feeling strangely foreign in this place. He wondered how long it would take to get used to it. Not long, he decided. He tended to settle in fairly quickly. He then wondered where the kid before him had gone to.
A sudden screeching of tire wheels skidding harshly across the asphalt of a nearby highway pierced through the cool night and sent a chill up Tetsuo's spine. The car, he presumed it was an automobile, crashed into something that sounded like another car. There was the sound of shattering glass and crushed metal, then a car door slamming and footsteps fleeing in the night.
I bet even he has somewhere to go, he thought jadedly to himself.
The crash sent dogs barking wildly, mean sounding, almost ferocious ones. Car alarms went off to, along with someone's angry yells. All these were the sounds of the city and night, but somehow they seemed less intimidating when he was safe at someone's home, hiding underneath the covers.
He had successfully avoided thinking about a home until now. Now he realized how cold he was standing by himself in the night, how frightened he was without a presence by his side, seeming to shield him from harsh weather. Like the old saying went, you never know how good you have it until it's gone. He thought about that man and where he was now, what he was doing, and maybe, if he was thinking about the little boy.
Something prickled at the back of his eyes until he rubbed at them irritably. Then, far in the distance of the city, the sound of an ambulance whined ominous and daunting.
He realized how scared he was. He had always been afraid of the sound of ambulances for some reason. He just didn't like their sound. Tetsuo hugged himself protectively in the night. The boy briefly considered running back to the office. He could vaguely remember where it was. But he just couldn't move his feet. Maybe, back in his subconscious, he just didn't want to pass the nursery again. Isolation never bothered him though. He preferred being on his own. But he was just so tired and sick of being afraid all the time. Sometimes he wished he were as plucky as some kids were, instead of quietly secluding himself. Sometimes he wished people would look up to him instead of vice versa.
Most of all, he wished the man had given him just one reason. He wished any of the families had. But instead they disposed of him quickly, shoving him back out into the cold, back out into an remorseless city. What place could he go in a world that didn't want him?
Suddenly his eyes were wet and cold against the night wind. He brought his hands up to his face and tried to wipe his tears away, but it was too late. In an attempt to appear brave in the face of another desertion, he instead sobbed quietly in the night. He was alone. Again. And there, in his anger and frustration, he decided that he always would be.
***
Michiko stood by the window with her arms folded, looking out into the slums of Tokyo. Past balconies and backlots and laundrylines of people's clothes her thoughts rose high and remained there until she brought herself back down from the clouds. She thought morosely of Tetsuo, and the state she had found him in last night. The poor child, she thought and hung her head, biting her lip back. I shouldn't have left him alone, she berated herself. What's wrong with me? He's just a kid! He can't even be nine years old yet. Maybe not even eight. He could've gotten scared and ran off, or someone could've taken him. The creeps in this city…that's exactly what could've happened. Michiko sighed.
She turned her head and saw Tetsuo in the corner of the room, digging around disinterestedly in a toy chest. Ayame was rounding the children outside for recess and he halfheartedly disappeared among them, after much coaxing from her. Michiko was about to take a cigarette break before she saw one child left on the floor not far from where she stood gazing over the city. She briefly wondered why Ayame hadn't approached him. Putting her own desires aside, she decided to fix one wrong with a right.
"Hey Shotaro." She called.
He didn't answer her.
Michiko sat herself down on the carpet of the nursery, situated in front of the boy. He laid flat on his belly with his legs kicking lazily in the air. Around him lay scattered myriad pictures, coloring books and crayons. She couldn't see his face past his messy black hair, but that didn't stop her from making a conversation. It made her sad to see a new child separated from the rest. If he couldn't find a friend while he was here, she could be his friend until he was adopted. "Don't you want to go outside and play with the other children?"
"No."
"No?"
"I wanna stay here."
"Oh, I see." She continued to look at him, but when he showed no signs of eye contact she looked down to what he was absorbed in. In a predominantly red colored picture, he was using his little crayon to violently dig into the paper and threatened to rip a hole through the thin sheet. Michiko smiled softly and looked around her. "Can I color with you, Shotaro?"
"No." He said, coloring faster.
She couldn't help but chuckle a little. Michiko loved children too much to let their stubborn attitudes downfall her. She worked at the orphanage only a few days a week during the afternoons, but she volunteered extra time whenever she could. Half of her family had been lost in World War III, including her little brother Daisuke. An overwhelming feeling of guilt led her to this place, helping orphans who had lost their parents or those who's parents simply couldn't care for them anymore. Whatever the situation, Michiko filed the emptiness in her heart with these children's need for love.
But if seeing a child's heart broken hurt her, goodbye's made her feel even worse. They were always tearful, and each time a child found a new parent, no matter how happy for them she should've been, they always made her depressed. She berated herself for growing too attached to each child but Michiko found it nearly impossible. But she supposed leaving with a new home was better then seeing the other's leave on their own, growing old enough to realize no one wanted them. Some left when they found jobs or friends to live with. Sometimes foreign relatives came by to reunite with a lonely child. Others, sadly, ran away.
"And don't call me Shotaro."
She was startled slightly from her mental wanderings. "What?" She said, still talking to the top of his head.
"I said don't call me Shotaro. Only my mom called me that and you're not my mom so you're not allowed to call me that. No one is."
"Oh, alright." She furrowed her eyebrows somewhat. "What should I call you then?"
"Kaneda, and nothing else."
She blinked lightly. "Isn't that your last name?"
He dropped his crown impatiently and looked up at her with firm brown eyes. "Yeah." He said, as cocky as a kid's voice could get. "You got a problem with that lady?"
She tilted to the side and laughed heartily, but stopped herself before the boy could get offended. She ruffled his hair playfully and sat back on her haunches. "Not at all, Kaneda. Make yourself at home here however you want."
He resumed coloring and mumbled, "Yeah…"
Michiko looked over his pictures lying around him, thrown to the side. She used to watch him sometimes, concerned with his seclusion. Every now and then he'd throw aside a picture he'd been working on and start a new. "Do you want to be an artist when you grow up?"
He made an utterance of disgust and said snidely, "Mom says artists are the moocher's of today's society."
"Really? Because I think you'd make a very interesting one."
"I don't care about what I'm gonna be when I grow up. I'm just waiting for my mom to come back and take me home, then I won't have to be around here a second longer."
Michiko's eyes fell half-lidded. A child not being able to accept their parent's desertion was normal, but she never knew how to handle it herself. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, but she didn't want to lie to him either. It was a catch-22 situation. She changed the subject.
"I want you to make a friend while you're here, just so you won't be lonely."
"I'll do what I want when I want." He said tenaciously. "And if I wanna be alone then so be it."
"Okay, I'm sorry." She apologized. "But I've noticed you saw the new kid and caught his attention briefly. I bet he needs a friend too…"
"Alright fine!" He exclaimed suddenly and threw his crown down, storming for the exit. "I'll go outside! Are you happy!?"
He slammed the door as best he could and Michiko smiled to herself.
The glistening slick asphalt of the wide playgrounds was an unmistakable sign it had rained earlier. It was too much early in the morning for him to be awake, but lightning storms always frightened him, even in the dead stillness of the night. All the other children were asleep, but he had only been here a day. Climbing up on a high window to watch the very thing that scared him seemed to settle his nerves.
One day. Funny. It seemed longer then that, didn't it? People say kids can be so cruel. They were only snickers and giggles behind his ears but it didn't matter to him anyway. If they were too much of cowards to say anything to their face then it wasn't worth his time.
The sky was silver. A cool breeze sifted through his hair and ruffled it around as he surveyed the playground like a hawk. He watched kids of all sizes and shapes play and tease each other, from running around or staying in one place.
He classified each child by colors, because when he let his eyes relax all he saw was the colors of their shirts. Predominantly now he saw a bunch of them hoarding together of in one particular area of the playground he knew too well. He shook his head and peered in closer.
He recognized a boy wearing pale blue as the new kid, sitting by himself by an empty swing set. He watched as Hideki and his gang of hassling fourth graders approached him from behind. The bully waved his hand around lavishly and picked a toy up the boy had before him. He stood and began to back up while Hideki appeared to be occupied, but suddenly he jumped forward. So did Kaneda. He trotted across the playground and, talking a deep breath of confidence, demanded their attention,
"Yo Hideki!"
He slowly turned around and stared at Kaneda for a moment before grinning, "If it isn't Shotaro." He said snidely, tossing the toy to the ground. "Your gonna have to wait your turn."
"My name isn't' Shotaro, it's Kaneda." For a quick moment he eyed the new boy, hiding timorously behind a rough looking Hideki, and gave him an optimistic smirk. "And your gonna have to go through me first before you even lay a finger on my friend there."
"Oh yeah?" Hideki said in a condescending tone. He glanced back around and gave Tetsuo a quick once-over. "You mean a tough guy like you hangs around with this sissy?"
"He's better then the lapdogs you call friends."
Kaneda was startled to hear a collective round of giggles arise from behind him. He looked over his shoulder and gawked in surprise to find a rowdy crowd of children gathered around, the gush of a fight humming in between them excitedly. Among them was Noriko, her hands clasped together under her chin in anxious fright.
He gulped, realizing how many kids wanted to see him take Hideki down once and for all. This wasn't just for the new kid anymore, even though he was the only person he was standing up for. Damn, why do I gotta be so gutsy? He thought.
"Think so?" He laughed lowly to himself. Hideki then turned his attention back around to Tetsuo, who still stood behind him, his feet frozen in fear. "Hear that, Shima?" He didn't wait for him to answer and roughly pushed him to the ground with one shove. The introverted little boy hit the asphalt hard and sat dazed for a moment before tenderly touching his lip. The crowd gasped and looked on in anticipation. Kaneda's head recoiled; he hadn't expected that at all. He instantly grew angry.
"Hey, you'll regret that!" He said brusquely and stepped forward, inches from Hideki himself.
The bully's head whipped around from cockily smiling down at the fallen boy. "And you!" He exclaimed and without another word backhanded his fist across Kaneda's nose. He stumbled over sideways but managed to hold himself up off the ground. He heard Noriko gasp but blocked it out. Swearing to himself, Kaneda stood and sniffed loudly. "Alright," he said. "I promised ya I'd make something interesting of it."
"You don't got the guts, Shotaro."
"Your nothing but a wuss, dammit! And without all your dimwitted friends you'd be the one getting beat up!"
Hideki came at him for another swing but this time Kaneda caught him in advance and sidestepped it. The bully reeled forward, dumbfounded. Kaneda saw a perfect opening and sank his fist into Hideki's gut, then jabbed upward and uppercut him so hard the older boy fell backward.
"And I told you, my name is Kaneda."
The bully spat and glared at him from the ground. He picked himself up and took enough time to brush himself off before readying his fist again, a look of sheer vengeance burning in his eyes. Hideki straightened, cracked his knuckles and raised his eyebrow derisively. "You're going down, runt."
He swung his hand back behind his head and sent it flying toward Kaneda but he ducked quickly to the side, striking out with two punches before landing his knuckles in the middle of Hideki's face, ending the brawl. The bully was knocked clear off his feet, and this time he lay motionless on the ground, eyes shut and head lolled to the side.
He never knew he could hit so hard! Kaneda rubbed his hand and shook it out by his side before a shout from the crowd he had forgotten about startled him.
Without a word, Noriko was in his arms and hanging off his waist, exclaiming from breathless lungs. "I knew you could do it! I knew you could stand up for yourself!"
"But you said—"
She cut his sentence short by squeezing him harder. "I'm so proud of you…Kaneda." She said in a relieved sigh.
The children all gathered around Kaneda and began spewing questions, cheering him and congratulating him. But he wasn't interested in any of their adoration. Kaneda was instead searching the crowd for the kid he had stuck up for in the first place. He frowned disappointedly when he saw that the kid wasn't anywhere near the hoard of children. Suddenly then, by the swing set, something caught his eye.
Tetsuo dragged his feet across the blacktop, hugging himself protectively. No one had ever wanted to physically hurt him before. He forced back confused tears and staggered further across the playground, holding his head low, trying not to catch anyone's attention yet again.
He made a face at the coppery flavor on his tongue. He covered his mouth with his hands and, fingers shaking slightly, pulled them away to reveal some splotches of blood. Tetsuo glanced up and found a water fountain not far for where he stood. He washed his hands, then his face and finally took a long drink.
"Hey!"
He looked up, startled, and spun around to meet the face of a small boy his age with a bloody nose and ruffled hair. Tetsuo blinked in confusion, and was about to ask if the boy was all right before he stuck something out in front of him.
"This is yours." He said. Tetsuo took the toy from his hands and looked at it, then back up at the boy again, who sniffed loudly and whipped his nose. This had been the same orphan who stuck up for him. He opened his mouth to thank him but he passed his shoulders and went behind him. "They were all a bunch of whimps anyway," he said before taking a long drink from the water fountain.
He wracked his brain for something to say, something earnest or maybe something that could win over his friendship. Now when he opened his mouth he said the same thing he did to every stranger, words that had became a natural instinct. "My name is Tetsuo." He stammered shyly. "Tetsuo Shima."
The boy straightened and paused, then smiled and seemed to think about what he was going to say. I'm not Shotaro anymore, am I? "…My name is Kaneda." He said optimistically.
The morning light shone brightly on the two boys as Kaneda walked forward with no destination and Tetsuo followed, the former boy talking as luridly as the sun reflecting off the metal sheen of the slide in an isolated part of the playground, and the latter listening intently. He wasn't as attracted to the boy's rant as he was in the kid himself, a black-haired, black-eyed rogue who had a strange confidence in himself for someone so young. It struck Tetsuo as odd and fascinating all at once. This was someone who had stuck up for him, why? He remembered that and decided he wanted to know for sure. He waited patiently for Kaneda to talk a breath.
"Y-you stood up for me." He said shyly, and so quiet he thought at first Kaneda hadn't heard him. He had retrieved a volleyball that rested against a chain link fence at far end of the playground and was kicking and bouncing it around, throwing it up into the air and letting it pause in the brilliant sunlight, then fell back into gravity and was seized by a child's hands. "Why?" Tetsuo forced loudly from his throat.
Kaneda had heard him; he was looking straight at his companion. He shrugged, flinging a few strands of thin black hair from his eyes. "I guess I just hate seein' people get pushed around like that."
"You didn't have to."
He smiled and tilted his head back in a cocky manner. "Don't take it so personally. I like fighting. In fact, my dad is like, the best fighter in the world!" The ball dropped to the ground and rolled away as Kaneda threw his arms out wide, as if embracing the world himself. "He's so good some of the stuff he knows was practically passed down to me in my blood alone. What I did back there just comes to me naturally." He boasted the way little boys did.
Tetsuo stared fixedly. "Wow."
Kaneda sat on the warm asphalt and languidly sprawled his legs apart, picking up the volleyball and made as if he was talking to it. Tetsuo sat across from him. "Yeah and besides, I've only been here a few days and already Hideki's gotten on my nerves. He acts like he owns the place. I wanted to stand up for all those kids he picks on, play the hero kinda, ya know? And he deserved it. He's mean to everyone he meets and I heard that's why no one will adopt him. He's been here for a year, did you know that?"
Tetsuo decided to say something daring. He bit his lip back and murmured harmlessly, "Why are you here?"
He didn't seem too fazed. Kaneda furrowed his eyebrows and bounced the ball in his lap. "I dunno really. My mom just dropped me off a couple days ago. She seemed really upset about something and she had stuff running down her face like black tears. In fact, her hat and gloves were black too." His forehead wrinkled up as he mulled over it.
"Maybe she was going to a funeral." Tetsuo interrupted without thinking. He regretted it instantly.
"A what?" He looked at him quickly, then his eyes drifted to the ground and his startled tone faded away. "Oh, yeah. I guess that's possible. All I know is she cried and said she loved me a lot. Go figure." His voice had grown thin and cheerless. Kaneda hunched over the volleyball in his lap and hugged it contently, his eyes closed, as if he were listening very closely to something far away. The city smiled down on him and brushed his hair with a soft wind.
Tetsuo felt it was his fault for brining it up in the first place. The guilt washed over him quickly and he brought his head up from his chest and stared at Kaneda, who suddenly looked at him too. "I'll be here if you need a friend."
The volleyball rolled away, ultimately forgotten, as Kaneda stood and reached into his pocket. He opened his palms to Tetsuo to reveal some broken pieces of chalk.
The sun was crossing over the apex of the blue sky.
It was noon.
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