Sho liked birds.
He liked them a lot. They could go wherever they wanted to go, do whatever they wanted to do, and they loved their babies so much that they threw up food into their babies mouths because they couldn't get it themselves. That was love right there. Human didn't do that. Humans just fed their babies the same way that cows did, that was what boobs were for, and that wasn't nearly the same as throwing up food from your stomach that you had taken your time finding and catching and digesting right into their mouths. No, it was different for humans and birds. They were such good animals. He loved them so much.
And he loved to climb trees and watch them.
"Be careful, you might fall….and stuff." Said Sho. Climbing trees and watching birds was one of his favorite things to do at parks. He liked it best when it was warm out and the leaves could hide him from the world. That way he could just pretend that it was him and the birds and…and the person that he was with. Usually it was Shimazaki. Not today, though, because Shimazaki had stuff to do. No, now Sho was with his new friend…
"If I fall I'll just grab a branch on the way down." Said Emmy. Sho…they were friends. They were friends because he was normal and this was normal. It was normal to want to be friends with a girl…and to like her…and stuff. You were supposed to like girls and that was what Sho did. He liked this girl. He liked her a lot. She was pretty and she liked him so he liked her. That was a good enough reason!
It really was.
He had climbed this tree with her. He hadn't set out to do this, he had gone to the park on his own because Shimazaki had ditched him to do stuff on his own, and then she had passed by after school and now they were in this tree together. He wished that there had been leaves. If there had been leaves then he could have been hidden better and nobody would have been able to see him…but that made no sense. He wanted everyone to see him. He had a girl and he liked her and she liked him and why would he want to hide that from people? It wasn't like he was doing something weird. It wasn't like she was a boy and they were kissing in a coatroom or anything like that. This was normal. This was normal and he was being normal!
"You'd break your arm if you tried that." Said Sho. He was helped her keep balance. She didn't have powers so if she fell she would be in real trouble. It was weird, being his close to someone with no aura. He could feel how warm she was and stuff. She was just warm because she liked him. When you were with someone you liked you felt all warm all over…he had heard. He hadn't like anyone before or…he liked her! He did! He had no reason not to like her!
"Well then that would be brilliant. I'd get one of those glow in the dark casts then. Maybe even some screws in my arm or something." Said Emmy
"They put screws in your arm if you break it?" asked Sho. He was so glad that he had Fukuda…even if he wasn't always the most fun guy. At least with Fukuda around nobody had to put screws through his arms or anything like that.
"Yeah, it happened to this guy in my class. He fell out of a tree and they had to screw his bones back together. It was brilliant. He had scars up and down his arm from it and everything." Said Emmy.
"Poor guy." Said Sho. Having scars sucked. When you had scars then you had to hide them from people. That got so annoying especially when it got hot out.
"Why? Scars are brilliant." Said Emmy
"What do you mean? They suck. When you have them then you have to hide them from people and you can't wear short sleeves or shorts. It sucks." Said Sho
"Are you daft? You're supposed to show scars to people. That way you can warn people not to mess with you and stuff." Said Emmy. He had heard that before, that girls liked scars, but he hadn't known that it was true. Maybe that was why girls liked him, because he was covered in scars, but that didn't make any sense because he never showed them to anyone else. He could have showed her but…but he wasn't supposed to show anyone.
"Don't talk so loud. You'll scare the bird away." said Sho. They were watching a pigeon. The pigeon was watching them. He wondered what the pigeon thought of him. Did it think that he was normal? Did it think that he was just like everyone else? That he was just a normal guy with a normal girl doing normal things? Birds must have been good judges about what was and was not normal. They flew around the whole city and saw all sorts of people. They must have been able to tell that he was a normal person and he liked a girl and he didn't like boys or a specific boy or his best friend or anything like that. He was normal.
He was the most normal.
He was hanging out with a girl. He was keeping her safe in the tree, keeping her from falling out, and that was what you were supposed to do for a girl. He was close to her and he liked being close to her. The goldfish in his stomach was just…not awake right now. That was it. The goldfish that should have been swimming around in his stomach wasn't awake but he was and he was being normal and…and stuff like that.
He was the most normal guy in the whole world.
"Wil not." Said Emmy
"Yes you would. I do this a lot. You have to be quiet or the birds can get scared off." Said Sho
"This is what you do all day? You just sit in trees and watch birds?" asked Emmy
"Yes." said Sho. He wanted to know what was so bad about that. It was better than sitting in school all day, in his opinion, but he was not going to be a jerk to her. He was not going to be a jerk because….because he was through being that sort of person. Also he wanted her to like him. That was what he was supposed to want so of course he wanted it.
"You're brilliant." Said Emmy
"You don't have to be sarcastic." Said Sho
"I'm being serious. I think that you're brilliant. That your life is brilliant and all. I mean you go all over the world and you don't go to school and also the shady things your family does. I think that it's all brilliant and that you're really lucky. I'd give anything to have what you have. I've never even left London before." Said Emmy
"Um….thanks." said Sho. He had no idea what he was supposed to say to that. He would have given anything to have what she had. A mom and dad who loved her and…and being able to be in the same place every single day. She was the lucky one, not him, but he wasn't going to say that. He wasn't going to say anything. He just kept calm and…
And his aura flared.
His aura shook the tree branches around them. For a minute he expects her to notice but…but she's a normal person and normal people can't see auras. Normal people don't even think that powers are real. He's not supposed to talk to normal people. Maybe he should just help her down from this tree and then just…never talk to her again for the rest of his life. Like dad would have wanted. Dad would have been so mad if he knew that he was hanging out with a normal girl. Maybe he should just help her down and then…
No.
He can't do that. He can't do that because he feels like he wants to do that and it's not normal for him to feel like he wants to do that so he won't do that. He hates being ten. It feels like since he had turned ten he hadn't been able to just…be himself. He felt like everything he had said and done and thought was wrong. He used to know who he was, Suzuki Sho, but now he had no idea who Suzuki Sho was these days….
But he knew that Suzuki Sho was normal and if he wasn't then…well not being normal was not an option for him.
"Aww, it's flying away. Do you want to run after it? Maybe it'll take us to it's flock. Maybe we can catch a couple and train them to be messenger pigeons and then we can, you know, send messages to each other and stuff. Only if you want to." Said Emmy
"How do messenger pigeons work? Pigeons can't talk." asked Sho. Parrots and ravens were the only birds who could talk like people and even then they just imitated what they heard. Was that her plan? To catch some birds and talk to them enough times so they could imitate messages? That was…she always had crazy plans like that. Like the time she told him that she had tried to fly away by attaching balloons to a chair like in Up and stuff. She was fun like that…and he liked fun people. Like Shimazaki. He was the most fun guy ever…not that Sho liked him like that. No, they were just best friends and that was all.
"Of course they don't talk. You attach messages to their feet and they bring them to other people. You know, so then we could talk to each other…if you wanted to talk to me like that." Said Emmy
"Why don't we just text? Wouldn't that be faster?" asked Sho
"You're asking for my phone number?" asked Emmy. There was something to her voice, there, that Sho hadn't heard before…well from other people. He'd heard that in her voice before. He thought about what he had said. Oh. Right. You were only supposed to ask for the phone numbers of the girls you liked…but that was ok. He liked her…enough.
"Yeah, I guess. If you want to give it to me that is. If not that's cool too." Said Sho. Maybe she didn't like him like that. He hoped that she didn't like him like that…and then he got angry with himself for hoping that she didn't like him like that. He was supposed to want her to like him like that. He was being such a little kid. He was ten and he was supposed to like girls already and he was getting tired at having to get mad at himself all the time for being such a weirdo.
"I don't have a phone. My mum says that I can't get a phone until secondary school." Said Emmy
"That sucks." Said Sho. Why did he feel….relieved? Maybe because if he couldn't text her then there was less of a chance that he would get caught. He wasn't supposed to talk to normal people and he…he wasn't supposed to have a normal person for a girlfriend. Dad had said so. He had said that Sho needed to find a girlfriend who was, preferably, and esper so then that way he could be sure that his kids would be espers too. So he had to keep this a secret.
Which was fine by him.
He could do this. Shimazaki said that doing the boyfriend thing was boring. So then it was normal for Sho to have been bored right now. Without a bird to watch then he was just sitting in a tree in the cold with a girl. The sun was starting to go down and stuff. He had never liked watching the sunset. Sure it was pretty but there were a million other things he could have been looking at. Maybe he was supposed to watch it, though, because girls liked that sort of stuff. The boyfriend thing was boring, Shimazaki had said so, so that meant that it was normal for him to be bored out of his mid right now.
"It does…but there's nothing that I can do. I have an email if you want to email me…you know…after you move." Said Emmy
"Yeah, I can do that. After I move." Said Sho
"….when will that be?" asked Emmy. There was something in her voice like she was sad. Sho didn't get why. So the bird had flown away. It was just a pigeon. Plenty more where that came from.
"I don't know. Nobody tells me anything. Why?" asked Sho
"Because…because you're very nice and all but…but if you're going to be gone tomorrow then…then I suppose that it would be pretty daft of me to get used to this now wouldn't it?" asked Emmy. She wiped her nose with her sleeve. Sho made sure to keep her steady. He had an arm around her waist and the other one in the branches. This was in no way comfortable for him but he had to keep her steady. He may not have wanted to marry her or anything, which made sense because he was ten and that was normal, but he didn't want to see her fall out of the tree and then end up having to have screws shoved into her arms. That would have sucked.
"Used to what? Being in a tree? You could probably get up here on your own, you know, if you practiced." Said Sho. She had asked for his help to get into this tree and he had helped her. She could have gotten up there on her own if she just practiced more…and wore pants. She had on a dress, her school made her wear it, and if Sho lived for a million years he would still never understand why girls just didn't wear pants. They were easier and more comfortable and all of that stuff.
"No I mean…can you let me down, please, I'd like to go now." Said Emmy. Sho did what she asked. She got out of the tree just fine on her own. He had no idea why she had asked him to help her up when it looked like she could climb just fine on her own. He didn't get it. Girls asked for his help when they didn't need it all the time but that was when they were trying to kiss him…but she hadn't tried to kiss him even once….but she liked him…and he was…relieved.
He was sick of being relieved.
He was sick of how weird he felt about this. He knew that he was supposed to have control over his emotions, like dad was always saying, but he had no idea how to force himself to feel the way that he was sure that he was supposed to feel. He had no idea what to do to make himself normal. All he knew was that the girl who liked him was climbing out of a tree and…and he was happy to see her go….and he was unhappy to be happy to see her go…
So he decided to do something normal.
He jumped out of the tree so he could beat her by the time she got to the bottom. He jumped out and used his powers to make sure that he didn't break any bones and end up needing screws in them or anything like that. He was fine, he had shooting pains in his legs from landing, but aside from that he was fine. He was more than fine, actually, because he was normal.
He was going to be normal.
"Whoa. Did that hurt? It looked like it hurt." Said Emmy
"Not that much. Just….did I say something or do something to make you want to go?" asked Sho. He had seen a million of big sis' stupid love movies. When the girl ran away the boy was usually the reason why. He needed to figure out what he had done so he could fic this and he had to fix this because, well, fixing this was the most normal thing that he could have done….so he was going to do the normal thing for once in his life…and just…be normal.
He was beginning to get sick of the word 'normal'…but that was weird too….because normal people didn't think that being normal was an annoying chore…or even think about being normal at all…because they just were normal.
"I'm just…sorry. I can be sort of daft sometimes. It's just that…you're really nice to me. Most people think that I'm weird and annoying but you're nice to me and…and nobody's ever called me pretty before…and I like it a lot. I like…I like you a lot." Said Emmy. Sho nodded. Well it was nice of her to confess with words instead of by chasing him around and kissing him. So that was good. She liked him. That was also good. That was what he was supposed to want. That was the thing that every guy was supposed to want all the time. Even Shimazaki used him as bate sometimes to get girls, well women, to talk to him. He would pretend to be a blind single father and then women would let him pet their dogs and also give him their phone numbers…even though he said that the boyfriend thing was boring…
That was just what you were supposed to do.
"Thanks. I like you a lot too." Said Sho. Well that wasn't so bad. He didn't know why guys on TV were always getting nosebleeds when girls talked to them and stuff. This wasn't hard at all. He had a girl who liked him and he had said that he liked her back, he might have the boyfriend thing was supposed to be boring after all, and this was….he was normal. Right now, in this moment, he was normal. He liked a girl and he was normal. He'd shown them all! All the people who had thought that he wasn't normal! Shimazaki only being forty percent sure that he liked girls…
Why did he have to think about him?
Why did he have to think about HIM of all people!? He was…Sho was his best friend and there was nothing wrong with thinking about your best friend all of the time. Nothing wrong with that at all. Big sis and Minegishi were best friends and they probably thought about each other all the time. They even had best friend bracelets. So it was ok to think about Shimazaki and how stupid he had been to only have been forty percent sure…
It was weird to think about a guy while a girl was confessing to him.
"But it's stupid to like you because you'll just…move again and then I'll never see you again. That's why….that's why I climbed out of that bloody tree. I'm sorry to have left so suddenly like that. I just…you know how I feel. It's just hard for me to like you when I know that you'll be gone soon." Said Emmy
"But I'm here now." Said Sho. He was happy to have been gone soon…and that was a dumb way to feel…but at least he could make someone else happy. He could make her happy now so what did it matter that he was going soon? That was a good thing, making someone else happy, and…and he would do that. He would make her happy while he was here and then he would have had a girlfriend and then he could finally be able to forget how weird he had been at the party and…stuff. Once he had a girlfriend, even for a little bit, then he could pretend to be normal and stuff.
"But you'll be gone soon." Said Emmy
"But I'm here now and I can like you for now and then we can have fun together for now and stuff. I mean, you want to be my girlfriend, right?" asked Sho
"Of course I do, you booger, but it's pointless if you're just going to be gone one day." Said Emmy
"How is it pointless? I mean if I can make you happy now then why is it pointless?" asked Sho. Relationships didn't have to last forever. Shimazaki had said so. He said that sometimes you met someone and it became a regular thing and sometimes it didn't. Like with big sis and Hatori. They had been together but then he had been stupid and she had broken up with him. Not everything had to last forever. Like with mom and dad. Sometimes things lasted a long time and sometimes they didn't and that was all ok.
So this was ok.
"I…I guess so." Said Emmy
"But if you don't want to then I get it." Said Sho. You were also never supposed to be pushy with girls. Shimazaki had said so. He said that the best thing to do was ask out all of them, all the ones who you liked, and then hope that they liked you. But when they told you to go away you were supposed to go away otherwise the stench of desperation would cling to you forever and then nobody would want to be around you and you'd be kicked out of society and stuff. Maybe you didn't get kicked all the way out of society but if she didn't like him, if she changed her mind, then he would never talk to her again or whatever she wanted.
"I do you. I just said that I did. I guess I could try it…or whatever. I don't know. It could be brilliant or it could be so bloody awful I have to bang my head in the car boot until I forget." Said Emmy. Sho wasn't sure what a car boot was but he was sure that he was finally normal and he liked that. He liked that and he liked her and he couldn't wait to rub it in everyone's faces that he was normal. Well everyone who could keep a secret. He wished that she had been an esper. Then he could rub it in dad's face that he could too do something right for once in his life.
"Well I hope that it's not awful." Said Sho. He smiled. She smiled too. Then she looked away. It was mostly dark out by now. That didn't mean that it was late, it just meant that it was wintertime, but she would have to go home soon. So would he. He would go home and have dinner with big sis…or with Shimazaki. Then he could rub it in his face that he had been wrong to only forty percent think that Sho was a normal person who did normal things like have a normal girlfriend in the most normal way possible. He loved that word, normal, it was his new favorite word in any language.
"So…what do we do now? I mean…nobody's ever liked me before. Liked me back I mean." Said Emmy
"Girls usually kiss me when they like me." Said Sho. He didn't NOT want to kiss her…it could be really good…if you kissed the right person…and Sho didn't want to remember that. He didn't want to remember what it had felt like to kiss the right person. He didn't want to remember how good it had felt…and then how everyone had made a big deal about it…how weird that it was…and how weird and out of place and just…not right…that he had felt afterwards.
He wanted to replace it with a better memory.
Maybe kissing her would be better. She was a lot nicer than any girl who had ever kissed him before. Mostly because she hadn't just run up and kissed him. Also she liked the same games he did, which was a plus, and also they both liked climbing trees to look at birds. He liked birds and she liked birds. They both liked birds and that was reason enough to kiss someone. That was a good reason to kiss someone. A great reason. The best reason ever!
It was a better reason than a bottle pointing at you, anyway.
"What do you mean 'usually'?" asked Emmy. Well not she looked mad…but he had no idea what she was so mad about. He had only been her boyfriend for a millisecond. He hadn't been kissing any other girls since they'd been together. Besides, people kissed all the time. What, did she expect him to have never kissed a girl before? He was ten. What kind of a ten year old had never kissed a girl before? He was normal, damn it!
"Girls chase me around and kiss me and run away. it's a game. They don't have that here?" asked Sho
"Well, yeah, in bloody nursery school. That's just odd, someone our age doing that." Said Emmy. Sho wished that he could have been born in England. Then at least the girls would have been less crazy. They were crazy everywhere but here they were sort of cool. Sort of like they could be friends. If Emmy had been born a boy or if he had been born a girl then they could have been friends. But boys and girls couldn't be friends unless they were brother and sister or something. That sucked but that was just how it went.
"Things are just different here I guess." Said Sho
"Yeah, a lot different. I'd never do anything like that. I've never…done anything like that." Said Emmy. She was looking down at the ground now. He didn't know why. Maybe she was embarrassed about being ten and having never kissed anyone. Girls weren't supposed to be embarrassed about that. Girls were just different like that. He got the feeling that they never gave each other grief about kissing and stuff like that. It was different for guys. Shimazaki was always making fun of Hatori because he'd never had a girlfriend…and Sho figured that big sis didn't count because Hatori had never kissed her…he'd better have never kissed her…but nobody ever made fun of girls for not having boyfriends and…and it was weird. The rules for boys and girls were weird and he was not going to stand there all night trying to understand them.
It was too cold out, first of all, and second of all he had a girlfriend now and when you had a girlfriend you kissed her…so that was what he was going to do…because it was just the thing you did…
"Do you want to kiss me? I mean since you like me and…stuff." Said Sho. Now he felt…weird. Sort of like when that girl had kissed him in the coatroom and stuff. Sort of like he didn't want to do this…but he wanted to do this. He had to. Maybe this would be good. Maybe it would be like when he had kissed Hideki…
Don't think about that.
"….sure. Capital…." Said Emmy. Sho knew what sure meant and he got the idea that capital meant the same as sure…so he kissed her. He leaned in and kissed her and expected to feel….good. He expected the goldfish in his stomach to wake up. He expected to feel all hot and cold all over. He expected to feel like time had stopped. He didn't. All he could feel were her chapped lips on his…which were also chapped…it was way too cold out.
He sort of wanted to go home.
There was heat there. The sun was almost all the way down and the temperature was dropping. He still kissed her. He had no idea how long he was supposed to do this for, Hideki had only kissed him for a second….and he needed to stop thinking about that because it was something that happened which was not ok and not something that he should have been thinking about…but he just couldn't help it. That had been the best kiss of his whole life. This was…just a kiss. Just him kissing someone. He didn't feel anything…but he might not have been doing it right…but he had no idea what he could have been doing wrong…
Shimazaki had kissed a lot of girls, he said he'd lost count, so he would know.
Sho doesn't want to think about Shimazaki doing this, kissing someone, so he just…stops thinking about him. He focuses on how his lips feel pressed against hers. He opens his eyes. Hers are shut. He closes his again. Is he doing this right? Maybe he's supposed to hold her hand, too. Maybe that would make this feel good. It's worth a shot.
He holds her hand.
She holds his hand back and then steps back from him. She probably needed air. He knew that he needed air. The feel of her breathing had tickled, he feel of himself breathing against her had been weird too. So he had stopped breathing. Not in the good way. Not in the way where he had forgotten how to breathe when….he needs to stop thinking about this. Her face is red. She's looking down at her backpack on the ground where she's left it.
"That was…really nice…but I have to get home. My mum…she's going to want me home for dinner. We're getting curry takeaway. Just…goodbye!" said Emmy. Then she ran away. Sho waved after her. So that had been what it was like to kiss a girlfriend….and Shimazaki had been right. The boyfriend thing was boring. So the way he felt had been normal. The boyfriend thing was boring and…and married couples on TV were always fighting with each other…and mom had run away from dad….and Fukuda had never gotten married….and big sis had broken up with Hatori….so maybe Shimazaki had been right and relationships just sucked dick in a public toilet for ten yen coins…whatever that meant….
He'd ask Shimazaki when he got home.
He'd tell him, too, that he had been wrong. Some best friend he was. He didn't need help getting girls, he could get them on his own, and Shimazaki had been wrong to say that Sho only forty percent liked girls…or that he had been forty percent sure that Sho liked girls. He had been wrong and Sho had been right and he had been normal and that…that had been the most normal thing that he had done in his whole life. He felt good, being normal, very good. That hadn't been as good as kissing Hideki but…but he wasn't going to think about this anymore. Sho had a girlfriend now, temporarily, and he had kissed her and…and she would probably want to do it again….but that was ok. He liked her, they had things in common, and she liked him too. If they had both been boys then she would have been perfect, the perfect friend, but she was a girl so they would have to be boyfriend and girlfriend…and that was ok. He could do that. He could kiss her and hold her hand and help her climb trees and all of that. He didn't mind doing any of that. Not at all….
He hoped that they just stuck to bird watching. though. He liked watching birds a lot more than kissing…but that was ok because at least he had kissed her.