When Sho grew up he was going to cover himself in tattoos…but for now he would just settle for drawing on himself.
Which seemed like a good way to pass the time. Just him and Shimazaki outside under the sun hanging out and drawing. Well he was drawing, on himself, Shimazaki was laying down on his back looking up at the sun. He was lucky, he didn't get sunburns, not like Sho did…but he didn't mind them. Not that much. Sunburns were better than sunscreen and Fukuda could fix them…well they would get better on their own eventually. He was ten now, ten and a half, and he could heal from his own sunburns. He didn't need Fukuda to fix them for him. He didn't need Fukuda for anything anymore.
He didn't need that traitor.
And that was what he was, a traitor. He had told dad about Emmy when he had promised, made an actual honest to whatever God was listening promise, and then he had just gone off and told dad the truth the first chance he got. He just…how could he DO something like that? Sho…he didn't want to think about this. Thinking about this made him mess up. He was going by feel. He couldn't see his own back so he was going by feel while he drew over his tree. He was drawing a tree over his tree.
Well he was trying to, anyway.
He was trying his best to cover up his tree with a drawing of a tree. He was using his good markers now, the permanent ones, so that way it would last a while. Tattoos were better than scars, Shimazaki had said so, because tattoos made people look at you like you were cool while scars made people look at you like they were sad for you. Well Sho didn't need people to be sad for him. So he had been through an Awakening experiment, that didn't matter, because it made him stronger and faster and better and cooler and more powerful. So it hadn't been a bad thing just…it had left him with a lot of scars…scars which he was not supposed to show to people.
So he covered them up with drawings.
He had copied the dragon on Shimazaki's chest already. That had been easier because he could sort of see what he was doing. Same for the picture of big sis he drew on his arm. On the other one he did a list of important dates. His birthday, big sis's birthday, mom's birthday, Shimazaki's birthday, Christmas because it was awesome, and there was space for more dates when more important stuff happened. Shimazaki had a list of important dates on his arm…and Sho only knew his birthday…and Shimazaki had said that he was too young to know a lot of those stories….and Sho didn't feel like he was too young to know…but he didn't want to piss Shimazaki off or anything like that.
That was the very last thing he wanted to do.
He wanted to be friends with Shimazaki. He wanted to be friends with him forever. He wanted to spend every day like this. The two of them together. Even if they weren't really doing anything, like now. Shimazaki was just feeling the sun and Sho was just drawing on himself and trying not to get a sunburn. They weren't doing anything cool like messing with people or climbing trees or setting the fish in aquariums free or anything else but…but he just….Sho wouldn't have traded this for anything else in the whole world…
Just him and Shimazaki all alone together.
Big sis and Minegishi were doing whatever it was that they did together and everyone else was at work. It was just him and Shimazaki and…and it was just…it was great. Just him sitting there in the grass and Shimazaki laying down on his back with his jacket like a pillow…and Sho had no idea why he even had a jacket since it was summer….but he wasn't going to argue. He just…looked so…Sho didn't know. He looked like…like it would have been…like he wanted to draw him….
He focused on what he was doing.
Well he tried to, at least. He tried to focus on taking that marker and drawing over the lines of the tree on his back. A line of brown over a line of red. He tried to feel the path it took. Across his back and up to his shoulder. He had felt this tree a thousand times since he got it. He had reached behind himself time and time and time again and felt for it, the way it went, the raised skin…and now he was doing it again…but with his marker and his powers….and he almost had it…but then Shimazaki had to move and his stupid shirt went up over his stupid stomach and the light hit him and he was just so…Sho just wanted to draw him…and he could have drawn him…but no since he had just….
He couldn't even draw a straight fucking line!
"Damn it!" said Sho. That had been a permanent marker. Now he would have to take rubbing alcohol to his back. Now he would have to fix this…and soon…and then he would have to start again…and he just…he would have to go inside then to fix it and…and then he would have to…
Damn it!
"What are you even doing over there?" asked Shimazaki running a hand through his hair. He could feel it starting to droop. God, it was so hot out but laying down and staring up at the sun was worth it. It was so…sunny? Warm. Nice. He didn't know. He'd been going pretty hard all day. He had to so he could drown out the sound of that kid's aura. Toshi was right. This thing wasn't going in the right direction. That was probably because he was at that special time in life or whatever. Well that was fine. He could feel whatever he wanted to. It wasn't going to change the outcome.
Though it would have been nice if the kid found someone else to be into.
Claw had a good male to female ratio in the sense that there weren't any women. Well there were very few, very few non guy espers in general, so the kid should have found someone else and just moved on by now. Shimazaki hadn't done a thing to encourage this. If anything he had been letting it die, like when you forgot to water your plants for a while, but the kid was some kind of stubborn desert plant or something. He just would not move on. Why? Well Shimazaki knew he had it going on but, eventually, he would have imagined that the kid would have gotten bored and fallen for someone else.
But that, obviously, was not going to be happening anytime soon.
"Drawing." Said Sho. He was glad that Shimazaki couldn't see the mess that he'd made of himself. This looked so bad and now he would have to fix it….but he could do that later. Much later. Because that would have involved going…and he just wanted to stay put…so that was what he was going to do. Stay put.
"On yourself?" asked Shimazaki as he sat up. He had sensed that the kid had been moving…and he could smell ink…sort of. It was hard to smell anything over that kid. When was the last time he'd had a bath? Someone needed to tell him that he was getting to be old enough that he had to start taking at least a shower if not a bath every single day….and that body spray was not a substitute for bathing. No, nobody needed to have to deal with another Hatori. One was more than enough.
"Yeah. It's my skin and I'll do what I want with it." Said Sho. He crossed his arms…and he hoped that the ink didn't end up getting smeared. He knew that these were supposed to be permanent but he was really sweaty…but he didn't want to go inside. He wanted to be outside. While they were outside they could think up fun outside stuff to do…and also if they went inside then Shimazaki would put his coat back on…and Sho…well he didn't care what Shimazaki did…he just…preferred that he didn't wear a coat for….reasons.
Normal people reasons.
Not love reasons…and stuff. Just for reasons which were perfectly reasonable and which Sho did not have to explain to anyone! Not that he knew who it was that he was explaining himself to…and not that he knew what he was even getting all worked up and mad about. His aura had flared. That meant that it had been loud, well to Shimazaki Sho hadn't heard a thing, and that meant that Shimazaki would hear his aura and ask what was wrong and….and nothing was wrong! Nothing that Sho wanted to explain….because there was nothing to explain! His aura was just flaring, that was all….and he could just….he had nothing to explain!
Damn it! He did it again!
"Hey, hey, I never said that you couldn't. I just wanted to know what in the hell was happening over there." said Shimazaki. Well someone was certainly getting worked up over something. That kid. That damn kid. The damn kid with the screaming aura…and it was screaming. Worse than it had before. But that made sense since he was getting older or whatever. Maybe this would get better once he got older. Shimazaki got the feeling that Sho would end up finding someone else easily when he stopped being ten. Yeah. He'd find someone who made him feel like he was the number one game in town and then he would forget about this damn crush he had…and that he'd had for years maybe even…and then this whole thing could be like a distant memory….
Yeah. And maybe Shibata would willingly hand over the waffle maker.
"You can't see me?" asked Sho. He waved his hand in front of Shimazaki's face. Why couldn't he see him? Was Shimazaki ignoring him? Did Shimazaki think that he was boring? Was he going to teleport away? Was he going to teleport away and make some other friends? Or see some of the other friends that he'd already made? Was this it? Did he want nothing more to do with Sho? Would they never be friends again? Never hang out again? Never-
"I can't see anything." Said Shimazaki with a laugh. He was the only one laughing. The kid wasn't laughing in the least bit. No, his aura was still freaking out…and Shimazaki had no clue why. God. Sad people were boring but freaked out people were exhausting. Unless they were the fun sort of freaked out…which the kid was not. God. Well not he had to fix this…this…whatever this was. Alright then. It wasn't like he had anything else to do this afternoon.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're blind. You know what I meant." Said Sho shaking his head. That hadn't been funny. Here Sho was worried sick that Shimazaki was done with their friendship but Shimazaki was just…being there and stuff. Just being there and telling jokes and acting like there was nothing at all to worry about…and maybe there wasn't. Sho turned red. Right. He had been the only one worried…so that meant that there was nothing to worry about….
And he was so glad that Shimazaki couldn't see his face.
"Well now isn't that just a kick to the balls?" asked Shimazaki with a shake of his head. The kid used to laugh more easily. He had better not have been turning into a moody teenager. He wasn't even eleven yet. Shimazaki wasn't ready to deal with a moody teenager….and the kid wasn't even a teenager yet! He was eleven, well ten and a half, so a….tween? He was a moody tween…and Shimazaki didn't want to have to deal with a moody teen or tween or kid…..because moody people were so fucking boring! And the kid did not need to be boring. There were enough boring people in the world as it was!
"What's a kick to the balls?" asked Sho. He crossed his legs. He knew what that was but he hadn't even tried to do that. You weren't supposed to kick guys there because that was fighting dirty. There was nothing wrong with fighting dirty if you owned up to it, Shimazaki had said, but Sho didn't want to give anyone any ideas in fights…because he had never been kicked there but he knew that it would hurt.
"This." said Shimazaki. He kicked Sho, well he reached over to kick him, but Sho rolled out of the way. He could feel him moving, hear the grass, and he decided to let the kid win. He was pretty committed to the whole rolling thing. He made three good rolls and a half roll before he came to a stop. He came to a stop after a half circle's worth of rolling…right beside Shimazaki. He sat up and put some distance between the two of them. He liked the kid, he really did, but he didn't see any reason to make his feelings any worse than they were.
"Too slow." said Sho. He sat up and brushed the grass from himself. Shimazaki rolled out of the way…and Sho was not going to roll after him…because that would have been weird and Sho was weird to feel like this and think like this…well the books said that this was normal…but lots of stuff was normal. That didn't mean that his best friend needed to know what he was thinking and feeling.
"Whatever. I wasn't actually going to kick you in the balls, never do that by the way, that's a low move." Said Shimazaki. He picked up some grass, Toshi would kill him later for this, and put it in the kid's hair. Hey, there was grass and he was only human.
"If I want to kick people in the balls I will." Said Sho as he shook the grass from his hair. He knew not to kick people in the balls…but he could do anything he wanted to do. He could kick anyone…well he wouldn't….but he totally could!
"Metaphorically kid, not physically." Said Shimazaki worried that he had created a monster. Yeah, he was responsible for a lot of bad shit in the world, it was his fault that you only got one sample from the ice cream place with all the flavors, but he did not need to be responsible for the kid going around and kicking people in the balls. That was just…not good. For anyone…well anyone with balls…but it still hurt if you didn't have any, right? He imagined it would. He'd ask Toshi later…well if they were in a good mood. It depended on how their day went. Hopefully it went well. Then they could spend the evening together and they could listen to a book together….and it would be great. God, he missed Toshi so much…
"What's metaphorically?" asked Sho. He could kick people however he felt like it…maybe. He didn't know. Big sis would be pissed at him if he kicked someone…and she had been pretty pissed off lately. She had flooded the whole bathroom the other night just because he drank a few sodas after eight…and she didn't even have to get upset since he hadn't even wet the bed. He'd had to stay up all night, like the times when he'd had to stay with Fukuda on their away missions, but it had been worth it to prove her wrong.
"The fact that you used to think that I was funny is a metaphorical kick to the balls, kid." Said Shimazaki shaking his head. Sun rise, sun set, and all of that. What happened to the little kid that he had met? When had he turned into…whatever this stage of life was called.
"I still think that you're funny. I think that you're the funniest person in the whole world." Said Sho. He scooted a little closer when he said that…and Shimazaki scooted away…and he had only done that so Shimazaki could hear him because it was…loud…out there. The air conditioners were loud and the birds were loud and also there were cicadas…and they were loud….and that was why he had scooted closer and no other reason than that…
And he did not feel hurt when Shimazaki scooted away.
"Thanks." Said Shimazaki. So the kid thought that he was the number one game in town…he could deal with this. He could deal with how the kid felt and Toshi was wrong. This thing was not moving in the wrong direction. There was no wrong direction. There was only…well there was a wrong direction…but the kid wasn't going in any direction…and….and Shimazaki was handling it!
"Really, I think so. I think that you're cool…and funny….and stuff." Said Sho. He just…wanted to sit near him…that was all. There wasn't anything wrong with that. He had read that you just couldn't touch anyone or kiss them without asking…and maybe all those girls who had kissed him when he had been little should have read that….but this was ok. Just wanting to be next to him and…and they were friends and friends could be near each other. Big sis and Minegishi were always sitting next to each other and painting each other's nails and sitting close to play dolls and stuff…and so this was ok…or maybe it was different for girls…girls and Minegishi….or something….
Sho didn't know. The only thing he knew was that he wanted to be near Shimazaki.
"Kid…I think you're awesome….but you stink to high hell." Said Shimazaki. There. That was a valid reason to tell the kid to put a few centimeters between the two of them. He really did stink. He stank like he hadn't even heard of a bath…and he got it. The kid had been through the awakening thing and those guys were weird about water….and also a lot of them stank to high hell…and he was pretty close to dumping a bucket of soapy water onto the kid.
"I….I do?" asked Sho. He didn't think that he smelled that bad. Sure sometimes he smelled himself and he knew that he didn't smell good….but he didn't think that he smelled bad. He smelled…like himself. He didn't need a bath. He could go another couple of days or weeks…or until big sis came into the bathroom and made him take a bath since he suspected that she was getting wise to him….and he would bathe when she made him.
"Yeah. You really do. You're almost eleven, you're just about old enough that you need to take a bath or a shower every single day. An actual bath or shower. Don't pull a Hatori and just layer on the body spray. We don't need two of him." said Shimazaki with a shudder. At some point he was going to have to take the kid cologne shopping. Cologne was better smelling than body spray in every single way. God, the kid was so lucky that he had someone to teach him the important things in life.
"I…don't like to take baths…for reasons." Said Sho. He didn't want Shimazaki to know the he was such a baby….such a whiny baby when it came to…to stuff. Stuff that had happened to him when he had been little. He had been a kid when that had happened and now…now he was an older kid…and stuff. He shouldn't have been afraid of water, or anything, but he just….was…for some reason.
"Because they drowned you?" asked Shimazaki. Well that earned him another aural scream from the kid. What? He knew that Shimazaki knew…right? That he had been drowned and electrocuted and frozen and burned and whatever else they had decided to do to try and awaken whatever powers people had dormant…even though the kid had come from Suzuki so he shouldn't have even been in one of those places in the first place…but what did he know?
"How…how did you know?" asked Sho. Sho didn't have a shirt on…but Shimazaki couldn't see scars and stuff. Sho had spent a whole afternoon telling him what kinds of scars that the different Scar guys had. Shimazaki couldn't see them…could he? Sho didn't know. He just sort of really wanted to put his shirt back on now….
"Kid, I've been in Claw for years. I know what they do to the awakened. I've been to the labs and I've seen the scars those places leave." Said Shimazaki. No kid should have had to go through that. It was torture, literal torture, and he would have thought that Suzuki would have valued his only Son more…but he would get his. Eventually. He was the most powerful esper in the world now but he would get old and he would get slow and then he would get his.
"You know I have scars?" asked Sho. Shimazaki…well he had picked him up a million times before…but he just…they were cool scars. They were cool and…and Shimazaki must have thought that they were cool…or maybe he didn't. Maybe he didn't like scars because he had covered his up with tattoos.
"Yeah, I've felt them before when I've picked you up. I'm guessing that you have all the scars the awakened have." Said Shimazaki. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say…because his aura was screaming again…and really. Come on kid. He knew that love didn't mean ownership…right? Or maybe he was too young to know…or something. Shimazaki didn't know. Kids were complicated.
"They all have trees?" asked Sho. He tried not to think about Shimazaki being close enough to someone else to touch them like that…and he tried not to think about Shimazaki just…how easy it would have been for him to just reach over and…and just….he stopped thinking about that. Nothing good would come of thinking about that.
"Trees?" asked Shimazaki. He had felt those before and they didn't feel like trees. They felt more like…vines? Or like an octopus…or something. He didn't know. He hadn't spent a lot of time feeling their scars. He didn't much like being with them in any way and he hadn't even done much of that. Not after he had realized that all of them were crazy as fuck.
"Yeah…on my back there's this thing that feels like a tree." said Sho quietly. He wanted Shimazaki to touch his back. He wanted Shimazaki to reach over and touch his back and…and he just…could not stop thinking about this. About how he could have just…reached over and touched him…and stuff.
"Huh. Show me…get it? Show me? Because you're Sho." said Shimazaki. He thought that, maybe, he could make his aura stop screaming….but that had just made it worse. Great. This kid…he loved this kid…but he could be a real headache sometimes…but he was a kid and that was just how kids were.
"Um….yeah. It's funny…and stuff. Um…here. You feel it." Said Sho. He took a deep breath and turned his back to Shimazaki. There a moment, a very long moment, when he thinks that Shimazaki is all weirded out. Where he thinks that Shimazaki is going to teleport away and hang out with someone more normal. Someone who isn't in love with him. Someone who just…isn't Sho…
But he doesn't teleport away.
Sho feels the tips of his fingers tracing his tree…and he just…he can't breathe. He feel like…like…he feels his toes curling in the grass. He feels all…he feels….he feels like running away. He feels like running away and he feels like staying forever. He doesn't know what he feels…beside good. This is…this is good…and the weird sort of good that he felt when he was near Shimazaki…but also just…sort of just…
Good…but in a weird way.
"Oh, yeah, I've felt those before. I think that they're called Lichtenberg Figures." Said Shimazaki. He felt it and then he pulled away before he had to explain something to the kid that he wasn't prepared to explain to him. He wasn't squeamish, he would just rather not get into anything that heavy right now, and also he had no idea what about…anything…was alright to explain to a ten year old.
"Yeah….I think so. I don't know. I call it my tree." Said Sho. He wanted….he wanted Shimazaki to go back to touching his back…and he wanted to put his shirt back on and hide in it until one of them died of old age.
"Ok, come on. What's with this? Why are you being like this?" asked Shimazaki. He was going to have to have a long conversation with the kid about this. You could feel however you felt about whoever you wanted to have feelings for…but jealousy was something else entirely. Love didn't mean possession….at least Shimazaki didn't think that they needed to go hand in hand. Toshi could be with whoever they wanted to. They could fuck who the wanted to and fuck who they liked…but the thought of them liking…loving someone else….well that was not a good feeling at all…so maybe he had no right to lecture the kid about being jealousy and possessive.
"….I don't know why I'm so weird about this. It happened a while ago and…and I should just…be normal." Said Sho. He wished that he knew how to forget…because he needed to forget about what happened….because he wasn't normal. He wasn't normal at all and also….also he was just…he needed a bath and if he didn't take a bath then Shimazaki…well he might have decided that he wanted to be friends with someone else. He had a whole bunch of his own friends after all. Sho…he was just one of many friends that Shimazaki had…and that was…the was ok….and it also made him feel all empty and achy inside.
"Eh, normal is overrated. Be who you are, kid, always be who you are….but please for the love of God try and take a bath." Said Shimazaki. Well that wasn't what he had been talking about…but this was also a conversation that he needed to have. He loved the kid, he really did, but he did not love the smell of however many days it had been since the kid's last bath. He got it, not liking stuff, but they were also living in a society….and Shimazaki wanted to be able to spend time with the kid but he couldn't spend time with the kid if he was hell bent on stinking to high hell.
"….I'll try…if you want me to." Said Sho. He'd do anything Shimazaki asked of him. Even something that he hated. Shimazaki would have….he would have found someone who didn't stink…and wasn't weird…if Sho didn't change…and stuff. He didn't know. He just knew that if Shimazaki wanted him to take a bath then he would take the world's longest bath in the world's biggest bathtub with a whole waterfall hitting him right over the head….if it meant that Shimazaki liked him…kept on liking him…might have even liked him…back….
Sho stops himself from even starting to think about….stuff like that.
"Thank you so fucking much. Anyway….I'm bored. Come on, put your shirt back on and we'll catch some cicadas and leave them in Hatori's bed….or something. I don't know. Any better ideas?" asked Shimazaki. Maybe a change of scenery would be better…and what was the point of being able to teleport if you couldn't just teleport away when shit got hard…and it was getting hard. Dealing with how the kid felt. Dealing with all of this growing up stuff…he had no idea how Toshi dealt with this with Mob. Now there was a horny kid…and he didn't want to have to deal with Sho when he hit that age…or life stage…or whatever….
He really needed Sho to get over him….yesterday.
Because, ok, he had it going on. He knew that he was attractive, he always had been, and most of the time he didn't have a problem with it….from adults. Kids…kids had never been into him. Kid kids, not teenager, he didn't have a problem with teenagers liking him…how the kid liked him…and he knew exactly how the kid felt. He knew how the kid felt, and he didn't want this to change the outcome, but he knew that the way the kid felt would only get more intense…and he just….he could deal with it…
But, really, Sho needed to get over him.
"N-No…that sounds…like a good idea. Let's go catch come cicadas." Said Sho. That was a good idea and…and Sho would do that. He put on his shirt and then…and then he did his best to make his aura stop flaring. He knew that when his aura flared it sounded like screaming….and he knew that eventually Shimazaki would figure out why his aura was always screaming when they were together…and he didn't want Shimazaki to ever know why….
Because it wouldn't end well.
He knew that the way he felt was normal…for other people…but he was Sho and stuff was expected of him and his dad left people in holes to die…so….yeah. This was…how he felt and…he was going to deal with it. He wasn't going to let his feelings keep him from doing fun stuff. He and Shimazaki were friends and they were going to do friend stuff today and tomorrow and over and over and over again for as long as they lived. Even when Sho grew up. When Sho grew up they'd still spend every single day together and…and they'd still mess with Hatori…and also Shimazaki and him could…do adult stuff like….like maybe Shimazaki could draw him a tattoo to cover up his scars with…and that would….
That would have been the best thing ever…but that was in the future. Right now Sho would just settle for drawing on himself. That worked too.