Sho's school let out before big sis' school.
A whole hour before her school let out. That meant that he and mom had a whole hour to kill before they had to be at big sis' school. Well mom said that it was more like half an hour to forty five minutes but Sho didn't care. He didn't care how long they had, just that he had some time to play with his friends…or rather kids from his class. He never went to anyone else's house and they never came to his…
Dad wouldn't like that, mom said.
He remembered when he was really little dad and mom had an argument about whether or not he and big sis should have been allowed to go to school. Dad said no because he didn't want his kids mixing with normal people. Mom said yes because she wanted him and big sis to learn how to be around people and talk to them. Mom won the fight and he and big sis were allowed to go to school.
And nothing more.
"Here, if you stand up on the swing you'll go higher." Said Sho. He was playing on the swings with a kid from his class, Akira. He was nice. They played together a lot and had snack together a lot and pushed their futons together a lot during naptime. Not that Sho actually slept, no, he just tried his best to lay very still. His best wasn't good enough a lot of the time but it was the effort that mattered.
Besides, it wasn't like he was bothering anyone.
"But what if I fall?" Akira asked. Sho shrugged as he climbed up onto the swing. Mom looked up from her phone and he smiled at her to let her know that everything was ok. He wouldn't get hurt and even if he did mom could just call Fukuda. Other kids weren't' so lucky though….
"If you start to fall just tell me and then I'll throw myself on the ground first. That way you can land on me like a crashmat." Said Sho. That seemed like as good of a plan as any. He knew that if he had been playing with big sis she would have been all 'Sho, we need to follow the rules' and 'Sho we could get really hurt' and 'Sho it's not polite to put your shoes where people sit' and so on and so forth. He wished, sometimes, that he had a big brother instead of a big sister. He wondered what that would have been like. Maybe a lot like this.
Maybe.
"But then you'll get hurt."Akira said. Sho started rocking on his swing to get some air.
"I don't care. If I get hurt then I get hurt. That's part of the fun, I think, that you could get hurt. It's less safe that way. Safe stuff is so boring." Said Sho as he tried to get some air. This was a lot easier when big sis could push him with her powers…but she was busy at big kid school so whatever. He was happy where he was, too. He didn't need her to have fun…
But he did miss her.
Playing with her was different, more boring, but there was some fun stuff to it, too. Plush he didn't get that weird, nervous, sort of feeling he got sometimes when he was around other people. There were different kinds of nervous feelings, really. There were the kinds he got when he had trouble talking, the kinds where he hid behind mom even though he wasn't supposed to, and the kind he got now. Kind of like nervous but also like he just ate a bunch of pop rocks and soda pop and then jumped on the bed for a million minutes. That was how he felt now.
He didn't know if he liked or disliked it.
"Do you really promise to break my fall?" Akira asked. Sho nodded.
"Of course. It won't be that hard. Just tell me when you're going to fall and I'll be your crashmat" said Sho. He got some air…and then he slowed down. He had to be the crashmat after all. He couldn't be the crashmat if he went super high or super fast. This was not the time to try and go over the bar. Not that he had ever been able to go over the bar on his own before. Big sis had used her powers once but that was at the much smaller swings that they had at home…and also mom said not to ever do that again because it was dangerous.
Moms worried a lot like that.
Girls in general worried a lot. Boys were more fun. They played actual games, not just dolls and house all the time, and also they liked to run and climb more. Sho was glad he was a boy. He didn't know what he would do if he was a girl. Go crazy, probably, or maybe he'd like it. Maybe if he were a girl he'd like to play with girls more and then he'd wear dresses and play house and love to be boring. Yup, he'd lose his mind.
Boys were way more fun than girls, anyway.
"It's hard to stay balanced like this!" said Akira
"That's because you're moving too much. Just rock back and forth with your body but leave your feet alone. If your feet move then you'll move too much and then you'll fall off." Said Sho
"O-Ok….but it's hard to keep my feet still. The swing keeps moving." Said Akira. Sho shook his head. It wasn't that hard if you stopped being afraid. People were too afraid sometimes. What was the worst that could happen? You fall and break your bones into a million little pieces? They could tape you back together at the hospital. Bones were easy to fix. Besides, nobody that he knew of had ever died from falling off of a swing.
"You've got to stay still or you'll fall off." Said Sho
"Do you do this a lot?" asked Akira
"Yeah, at home. I almost went over the bar like this once but then I had to stop because my mom was getting scared." Said Sho stretching the truth just a tiny bit. There was no need to mention that his big sister helped out with her psychic powers. No need to mention that at all. Besides, Sho wanted him to think that he was cool. That felt very important right now. Sho liked it when people paid attention to him and sometimes he really liked it when specific people paid attention to him.
Akira was one of those people.
Sho didn't understand why. Mom was always saying that he had to be the center of attention. She said that like it was a bad thing. Sho liked it when people paid attention to him, it wasn't like he was doing bad things. This wasn't bad, it was fun, and it got him attention. He didn't know what it meant when he only wanted a specific person's attention. He'd wonder about that later. Who cared about the why? It was the now that mattered…or something like that. Something that he had read on the back of a fortune cookie a while ago.
"Sho! Be careful over there!" said mom. Sho smiled at her again. He was being careful. He wasn't trying to go super high or jump off or anything like that. He could think of five dangerous things, more dangerous things, that he could have been doing right then and there.
"Maybe we should stop…you mom is yelling at you." Said Akira
"Her? She's fine, you know how moms are. They worry about everything." Said Sho
"Are you sure that this is safe?" asked Akira
"Is anything? I mean think about it, you could trip and fall down the stairs on your way home from school if you aren't careful…or you could choke on your lunch…or you could fall asleep and never wake up like old people do." Said Sho. Maybe that wasn't the thing to say. Maybe he had been clueless, like big sis, and now he had lost himself a very good friend…person from his class…who he liked talking to and hanging out with even though the whole thing made him feel all weird inside but also it was kind of a nice sort of weird but it was quickly turning into a not so nice sort of weird-
So he swung higher.
He swung higher in an attempt to outrun that feeling. He could hear Akira telling him that he was going to get hurt. He didn't care, he just wanted to escape that weird feeling that he was getting. It wasn't a good one and he did not want to feel it but he had no idea what to do besides outrunning it…so he did. He swung as high as he could until he couldn't swing any higher at all.
And then he jumped.
And someone caught him.
He opened his eyes. Mom. Big sis was gone and dad never came with them to the park so of course it was mom. Akira had stopped swinging and was looking at him, now. Sho tried to get out of his mom's arms. He was turning red he was so embarrassed. He looked just like a baby. He was five years old, now, much too old to have his mom pick him up and hold him like this.
"Sho! Don't ever do anything so dangerous again!" mom said as she held him close like he was going to start crying or something. He wasn't. Mom was just being weird and stuff. He was fine. He had never been in any danger and even if he had been Fukuda could have just come back to the house to put him back together. Moms. They were always overreacting. Better than dads, though, they didn't care what happened to you.
Yeah, he liked mom better…even if she did embarrass him.
"Mom, stop it. I'm fine….come on, people are looking." Said Sho as he pushed against his mom to try and get down to the ground before any more people saw this. He looked back at Akira but he had gone back to his own mother which meant that they wouldn't be able to play again until playtime tomorrow and that made that weird feeling come back but mom was holding him and he had no way to run away even though he wanted nothing more than to run away and never look back until he got way too tired to even begin to feel feelings…but that was not possible. For one thing mom wouldn't let him do that and for another thing no matter where he went his brain would follow.
Mom put him down. At least he had that going for him.
"Sho, that was dangerous. What if I hadn't been here to catch you? You aren't at home. If you get seriously hurt out here people are going to expect me to take you to a hospital…and you know that your dad doesn't like hospitals." Said mom
"I would have been fine, mom, really. You don't need to freak out like this. I'm five, not four." Said Sho. he expected mom to keep lecturing him, to go on and on until his ears got sore, but instead she just started smiling at him.
"You're right about that, Sho, you aren't four years old anymore." Said mom
"I'm not, so don't go holding me like that in front of people. It's embarrassing. Everyone saw you holding me. Akira saw you holding me. Mom, please, I'm not a baby anymore. I'm in kindergarten, now, not preschool." Said Sho. Mom kept on smiling and patted him on the head. His hair went back to standing up the minute she took her hand out of it. It just sort of did that. People thought that it was cool.
"How about this, I won't pick you up in public if you agree to never, ever, try jump from so high up ever again. Do we have a deal?" asked mom
"But I had to jump." Said Sho
"Oh? Someone twisted your arm?" asked mom
"No…I just felt weird so I had to…" said Sho quietly. Mom put her thinking face on. Sho didn't like it when mom made that face. Nothing good followed it.
"Weird how?" asked mom
"I don't know. Kind of good and bad at the same time? Kind of like…like I drank a liter of soda and then a pack of pop rocks and then I jumped on the bed a whole bunch. It was weird so I tried to do stuff until I got away from all the weird feelings…and then I jumped. So, yeah, I had a very good reason! The best reason! And I'd do it again!" said Sho stomping his foot for emphasis. Mom just smiled at him for a long time.
"Do you…do you get this feeling a lot?" asked Mom. Sho nodded yes.
"Sometimes." Said Sho
"Is it around one specific person?" asked Mom. Sho looked at the ground. He was embarrassed…and he didn't even know why.
"Right now yeah but sometimes it's around different people." Said Sho
"And was that bo-kid, was that kid one of those people?" asked mom. Sho nodded yes. He felt kind of weird, now, admitting it to mom…but that made no sense. He always told mom everything. That was what moms were for, knowing stuff about you. They were never mean to you and never made fun of you. They were kind of like big sisters except they knew how to make dinner and give baths and were allowed to boss you around all the time.
"Uh-huh…" said Sho. He looked down at his shoes now. He didn't want to look at mom or be looked at. He didn't know why he was so embarrassed, just that he was, and this was another feeling that he did not like one bit but there was no running from this feeling just like there had been no running from his other feelings. No matter where he went his feelings would follow.
So maybe he should just deal with it.
He could exorcise it like big sis could exorcise spirits. Just walk up to it and go 'hey! Knock it off!' and then they would. Yes, he'd try that. He looked up from his shoes and stared at mom. Maybe he stared her down. He wasn't sure. What he was sure of, though, was that he did not like this feeling and the he wanted it to go away.
"And I won't feel bad about that! I don't know why I feel bad about how I feel but I don't want to so I won't. My feelings aren't the boss of me, I'm the boss of me, and I say knock it off!" said Sho. Mom just stared at him for a moment before she laughed. She put her hand over her mouth and she laughed.
Sho didn't much like being laughed at.
"Sho…honey mommy's not laughing at you…you're just so adorable right now I wish I had recorded that." Said mom. Sho stuck out his tongue. No, he did not need any more embarrassing stuff recorded on mom's phone. She had so much already…like the time when he was a baby and he got spaghetti all over himself…or the time big sis put him in a dress and pretended he was a doll…or the time he got his hand stuck in that jam jar…
"….I'm not adorable. I'm big now." Said Sho s seriously as he possibly could…which just made mom laugh again. Great.
"Right, right, right. You're a big kid now and…and let's call those big kid feelings. Ok?" asked mom
"Big kid feelings?" asked Sho
"Yes, big kid feelings. You're getting older and you're going to feel…like that…about gir-people, a lot of people, and it's normal. Sometimes these feelings can be good, like you're walking on air, and sometimes these feelings make us want to jump off of the nearest tall building." Said Mom
"Yeah…they do…" said Sho
"But no matter what feeling like that is ok. It's a normal part of growing up, ok? You're ok just the way you are, Sho, remember. There is nothing wrong with…people are going to…and it's none of their god damned business…and you're right, you should never feel weird or bad about having feelings like that no matter who you're having them for…God…already. I can't believe it…oh God…it was just yesterday that I was changing your diapers and now you're-" said mom
"Mom! Stop talking about when I was a baby! You're embarrassing me!" said Sho. Mom just smiled and touched his hair again. She kept on doing that…why? He had red hair and it was spiky on it's own. She had five years to get use dot it! He knew that he had! It was one thing for strangers on the street to touch his hair but his own mother….?
"Sorry, I'm sorry. You're right, you're a big boy now. Come on, let's go pick up your sister before the school decides to keep her." said Mom. She tried to take his hand and walk with him but he pulled away. He was a big kid now, hand holding was only for crossing the street. What would people think if they saw him holding hands with his mother? What would people that he had big kid feelings about think? Nothing good. They'd be all 'Suzuki Sho is a baby who still holds his mom's hand and sleeps next to his big sister and also drunks out of a sippy cup sometimes' which would not be good at all. Dad would just say that he was weak, clinging to mom like that, because dad said that everything he did was weak and wrong. Well that was dad. He was ok the way he was, just like mom had said. Just like she was always saying.
He was Suzuki Sho and he was ok just the way he was.