This was another treasure room.
It was sort of like the one that he and big sis had found back at the Castle. Back when they had been little. Back when things had been….well back when things had been easier. But he wasn't little anymore and things weren't easy. He was ten and a half and things were hard, very hard, and sometimes it felt like….like they would only get harder. He felt…sort of like he wanted to go back to bed even though it was still the morning. He felt like he wanted to just lay down in bed and wait for tomorrow to happen…and then he had no idea what he would do when tomorrow happened but he did know that…that it would happen.
Tomorrow would be another day.
And he had no idea what he would do with it. Go home? He just…he didn't want to. Home had dad in it. Home had big sis too but…but it also had dad. If home had just been him and big sis then…then things could have been easier. He wouldn't have had to ever see dad or talk to him or…or anything like that. He could have just been….
Better than he was now.
He didn't even know how he was now. Sad, maybe, or maybe just tired. Tired like he could have slept for days and days and days. Sort of like mom and how she had been really tired all the time. Maybe she had gotten sick, too. He didn't know. Mom never did the things that he did. She had just gotten sick one day and not even Fukuda, traitor that he was, could fix her. Maybe he was sick too. Maybe he would just get sicker and sicker and sicker until he couldn't get out of bed and then he'd spend the whole day in his pajamas….
His own, not Shimazaki's.
He pulled up his pants as he looked around. The room was nothing but boxes and…and some furniture under sheets like they'd had at the Castle. Maybe one of those boxes had pants that could fit him. Shimazaki's shorts were too big even with the drawstring pulled as tight as he could get it. His shirt was too big, too. It went down over one shoulder. He could see the scar, there, and the one on his chest. He needed to wear his own clothes and be back at his own house but…but even without dad being home his house still…it was still dad's house and he could come back at any time and Sho…he just…did not want to be around his dad.
He would rather have spent the rest of his life in one of these boxes all sealed up and smelling like dust than be with dad for even one whole second.
"Well, what do you think?" asked Shimazaki. He wasn't sure what reaction he had been expected but he knew that this was not it. This was a non-reaction and he needed some kind of a reaction…or something. The kid should have been all of over this. He loved exploring! That was one of their things! They teleported places and they explored and the kid did not mope around like a mopey lump and…and he needed to figure out how to fix this sooner rather than later.
"Smells like dust." Said Sho as he wrinkled his nose. The treasure room at the old house had smelled like dust, too. Maybe that was just what memories smelled like, like dust. That was what a treasure room was, it felt like, a graveyard for memories. Dad had kept his stuff from when he had been a kid in the treasure room, the memory of when he had been little, and maybe this was where Shimazaki kept his memories of being little, too. It was a nice thought, a warm sort of thought, that Shimazaki used to be a kid like he used to be a kid…but he also didn't want to start thinking those thoughts. Thoughts like that would have just led him to thinking thoughts like…like if he and Shimazaki would have been friends if they had been kids together…and if they could have been…well things that he knew not to think about. He didn't want to think like that. He just…he wanted….he wanted to go to bed again. Maybe if he slept enough all of these thoughts would get bored and then go off into someone else's head….or something. He didn't know.
Maybe he could make a treasure room in his head and hide all of the thoughts that he didn't like to have in there….only he would never show them to anyone.
"Well someone's not impressed." Said Shimazaki. He flicked Sho over the head. He swatted his hand away. Good. Well at least the kid wasn't a complete mopey lump. He would have thought that Sho could have gotten a kick out this. It was a storage until filled with toys! Well toys, clothes, family pictures, records, the old Hi-Fi, and other assorted junk…but still. Sho should have loved this. He loved to explore and he loved to get into things, that was how they had gotten into this mess in the first place, and he would have thought that Sho would have been diving head first into those boxes the second he saw them…but he wasn't. He was just standing there being all boring and mopey and shit…and that did not suit him at all.
Nope. Not at all.
"I'm impressed…..I mean I will be once you tell me what's supposed to be so impressive. It's just a treasure room. We had one in the house I lived in when I was little." Said Sho. He didn't much want to look around through stuff. Looking through stuff was how he had ended up like this in the first place. He would gladly help Shimazaki find whatever it was that he needed to find, it was easier a lot of the time to have Sho find stuff for him, but he wasn't going to just go and look in all the boxes.
Looking through stuff hadn't ended so well the last time he had tried it.
"Oh, it's just a treasure room, he says. We have one when I lived in my old house, he says. Ryou, why did you bring me here, he says." Said Shimazaki
"I never asked you why you brought me here…but yeah, why did you bring me here?" asked Sho
"Because you've been a real sad sack lately and I won't have it. I tried everything, well I thought that I had tried everything, but then I thought…and this is a completely original thought that came from my own brilliant mind, that I should treat you more like a kid. I figured that you liked toys, and you liked exploring, and also boxes are pretty damn awesome, and we're in Tokyo so…you know….why not bring you to where I store my old childhood stuff. Well the stuff that I had put in storage before my house burnt down…which was an unfortunate accident and not a purposeful act of arson." Said Shimazaki
"You put metal in the microwave on purpose. You told me that story before." Said Sho
"Yeah, to see what would happen….and anyway the arson investigator ruled it an accident so that's one crime that I didn't commit." Said Shimazaki
"If you say so." Said Sho
"Yeah I do…come on. Just start looking through boxes until you find something that you want to play with or whatever. You can play with anything you find, some of it you can keep, and some of it I think you'll really like. I have no idea." Said Shimazaki
"You know that I have toys at home, right? More toys than I know what to do with?" asked Sho
"I do but I thought you'd like some of mine. I don't know. I've been saving these for my kid and you're kind of like my kid so, you know, have at them." Said Shimazaki. He still wasn't sure if he wanted his own actual kid. He loved Toshi but they didn't want one and…and also they raised some very good points. The kid, Sho, he had a lot of problems due to having been fathered by Suzuki and not literally any other man in the world, but Shimazaki had no clue how to deal with these problems. If he ever had a son, or a daughter, or gender neutral kid since he figured at least one of his kids would take after their moth-parent who carried and birthed them, he knew that his kid would have problems…and he knew that as the dad he would be the one who had to help fix these problems…and he only knew how to fix his problems one way…
Mostly by pushing away all the bad thoughts and feelings….
And that might not have been the best for his kids. Some of them, yes, but not all. After all Mob and Sho were siblings from the same parents but the difference between the two of them was like night and dad. Mob…she could handle her shit. She had been handling her shit since she had been eight. She had even managed to have a good trip that time they took acid together…and she had pulled him out of hat spiral thank God…but Sho…he was another person entirely. Shimazaki got mopey after coming down from MDMA, everyone did, but the kid seemed to get especially mopey…and no amount of sleep or food or smoking or drinking seemed to be able to fix it…
And Shimazaki was running out of ideas.
"Oh…ok." Said Sho. He went over to the closest box and opened it up. He didn't want to think about that. The weird….just the fact that he was being weird. The fact that he didn't want Shimazaki to think of him as his kid but also…also it was kind of nice. Dad had never even told him about the treasure room at the old house. He and big sis had found it on their own and dad…well he just told them that they could have all of his old toys because he didn't need them anymore. That was it. He never just…told Sho that there even WAS a treasure room and he just….he had been saving them for Sho….or maybe not…
Maybe he was just a packrat.
Maybe that was why he had built the Castle for his family. Maybe he just needed a place to store all of his old stuff. Maybe he just couldn't throw anything away so he just…kept it all. It would have made sense. Maybe that was why he kept on stealing so many of Sho's drawings, too. Maybe he just had to hold on to everything….and stuff. Maybe that was it. Sho…he didn't care that dad had never told him that he had saved all of that stuff for his son…or anything. Maybe he had been, the son that he had wanted, and Sho…he knew that he was not that person…
And he didn't care about being that person.
He didn't care about anything but…but what was in that box and…and it was…dusty. There was a layer of dust on top. This whole room was dusty. Dusty and…and stale. He knew this smell. A lot of the rooms in the Castle had this stale smell. The ones that he and big sis used to play hide and seek in. The ones that had furniture with white sheets thrown over them…those were good for hide and seek…or the room with their old baby stuff in it….old rooms like that. Rooms that had been empty for years. Rooms that had dust so thick on the floors that he and big sis had been able to make footprints. They had been able to make footprints and then…and then they had come back later to see how much their feet had grown…
He wondered what their footprints would look like now.
Not that he would ever be able to go back to the Castle. Those times were over now. The whole house probably had that same stale smell that the old rooms had gotten. That this room had. This wasn't a room like the ones in the Castle, no, the ones in the Castle had wooden floors and walls painted white or blue…and a couple had been yellow…but this room was all concrete. Concrete floors and concrete blocks and just….a lot of concrete. He didn't know why. This was built more like a fortress, like a castle, than the actual Castle that he had lived in before. This was nothing like the Castle….
Aside from the dust.
It got up his nose and made him sneeze as he opened the big, heavy looking box. On the inside he found…books. Sho had nothing against books, they could be downright useful sometimes, but he was not a reader. Apparently Shimazaki was…and he had seen Shimazaki reading before…but he mostly listened to books but these were…these were books in braille…and Sho had no idea what these books were. He wanted to know. He had…back when he had been little…and still now…had no idea what any of the stuff in the treasure room had been. He had been so little that he had just been happy to have found toys….and it had been weird knowing that those had been dad's toys….but now that he was older he knew that there must have been stories behind those toys….
There were stories behind his toys.
Most of them. Like his dart guns. He had gotten those when he had been seven and…and he actually didn't want to think about those. No. He didn't want to think about how he had used big sis as target practice…he had been such an asshole back then…but he was better now. He would probably get rid of those since they had a bad story behind them….and he wouldn't give them to the kids that he had no choice in having….he didn't want to think about that either. He didn't want to think about the life ha d would have to have…the one that would make dad proud of him…and he didn't want to think about how one day his kids would find a treasure room with his old junk and…and hopefully they didn't hurt each other even on accident like the time that he had smacked big sis in the face with the kendo sword and…and he hoped that….
He hoped that his kids would be happier than he had been….and would be….because if they had to exist he at least wanted them to be happy…and stuff.
He was happy….sometimes. This was not one of those times. This was…he had been happy before and…and he would be happy now. Happy that Shimazaki was sharing all of this with him. This was more than anyone else had done for him….well aside from big sis, she showed him things that were important to her all the time and also…..also Fukuda had done the same thing. Fukuda had shown him stuff that…that he had told Sho was important to know about…and stuff. Stuff that Sho had never asked to know about….and stuff that he hadn't really wanted to know about and…and he felt sort of like Fukuda had done that more for himself than he had for Sho….not like what Shimazaki was doing now. He had said that he was trying to make Sho feel better…and he had been trying to make Sho feel better for days now…but Sho just…he didn't know how to feel better. He didn't know how to just snap out of this…this….whatever this was. This sadness…..
So he just kept on looking through the box.
He ran his hands across the spines of the books…and there were a lot of them. Some of them were super thick like school books and some of them were thin like kid's books…and some of them were kid's books that he recognized. He picked up a thin book. This one had dots printed over the regular words. This was…he knew this book. Mom had read this to him and big sis when they had been little. They had called it Kiki the Witch but it was really called-
"Hey, Kiki's Delivery Service. Man, I haven't read this since I was a kid." Said Shimazaki. He hadn't meant to sneak up behind Sho, that was why he had been walking instead of teleporting, but apparently he had. The kid's whole aura yelped….and also the room shook just a little. Just enough to send some dust falling….and they were ok. Nobody was around to open up this storage room and ask him what the hell he thought that he was doing showing his face around here again. Nope. He would be fine and the kid would be fine…and if things did get bad the he could just teleport them away or whatever.
They'd be fine.
"I read it too…well my mom read it to me." Said Sho. He looked around as he said 'mom'. Like if he said the word 'mom' loud enough it would summon dad and then dad would teach him, again, what happened when you talked about mom…when you talked about a traitor. He had said, before, that mom was a traitor because she had left. She had defected from the family and…and Sho knew that she had defected from the family but…but it was hard to think of the person who loved him most in the world…the person who had read him this book….not this book specifically but…but the person who had held him in her lap and read him this book….as a traitor. It was hard.
Almost as hard as thinking of Fukuda as a traitor.
He was a traitor. He had betrayed Sho, told his secrets, and gone back on his word. He was more of a traitor than mom was. For all he knew mom was just wandering around lost in the world somewhere or something. Fukuda had made a choice to betray him. He had….he was the same person who had played with him and read to him and carried him on his shoulders and then…and then he had just betrayed him. Well Sho…he didn't need him anymore.
He could read to himself now.
"Yours too?" asked Shimazaki. Well, obviously, his mother had read to him. That was what they did. They sat up on your bed with you and let you put one hand in their hair and the other hand on the page and they read and you read and the world, your world, which had been so small and claustrophobic, it had been claustrophobic before you even knew the word for your world, got even smaller but it was ok because she was there and she loved you….she loved you in the best way that she could…and in getting older you thought to yourself that…that maybe it had been enough…but also maybe it had been more than you had ever deserved.
"Yeah…she read me a lot of books. This one was alright. My sister liked it better than I did." Said Sho. He would be in mom's lap and big sis would be sitting in her bed and she would always ask to see the pictures and Sho wanted her to see them because he had already seen these pictures and he wanted to read his animal book but mom liked this and big sis liked this and that was what they had read and…and the world had been so…it had been before he knew how big the world could be….but the world had been nice and small. Him, his mom, his sister, his room, and a book.
"I used to love this book. My mom would read it to me, too. She used to read it to me and put my fingers on the words so I could follow along….yeah. If not for Kiki's Delivery Service I might have grown up to be a complete illiterate." Said Shimazaki. He reached over Sho's shoulder and ran his hands over the words. Damn. It had been a long time. Maybe Sho wanted to be read to. Toshi had said to treat him like a kid…and also Shimazaki was out of stories at this point. He had told the kid everything of note that had ever happened in his life. He was making shit up at this point…so yeah. Reading a book or something might have been good.
"My mom called it Kiki the Witch…when she read it to me and my sister…but she never made us read along. That was for reading practice time." Said Sho. He let Shimazaki lean over him. He could feel the leather of his coat against his shoulder. He wanted to put his own clothes back on but they were in the dryer. He wanted….well he wanted a lot of things. His own clothes. To lean back into Shimazaki. To be there with him. To be somewhere on his own. He wanted and wanted and wanted but also…also he had no idea what he wanted.
Besides to be ok again…but that was something that he had been wanting for a while now.
"God, reading practice time….don't remind me. I used to love it when she would come and see me, when dad would let her come and see me, but I hated reading practice time. It was so…tedious and boring. I mean I loved her…still love her…" said Shimazaki. Something he and Sho had in common. Conflicting feelings about their dead mothers…and Sho's mother was most likely dead. An away from home…that was the kind of shit they told you when your dog died. Nope. One day the kid would figure out the truth…and then he would be even sadder than he was now. Hopefully that day never came. It was always a bad feeling when you realized that you'd never see your mom again….because she had loved you…and even though she had let bad things happen to you she still loved you and you were still her kid…even if some really bad things had happened to you….
Not the thing to be thinking about right now.
He was here to cheer the kid up. He needed the kid to get up onto his level, he didn't need to get down onto the kid's level, because then they both would have just fed into each other…and not in the good way. They would have just spiraled down into the depths of heavy, depressed feelings…and Shimazaki didn't want that. He could never want that.
Not for Sho and especially not for himself….he had wasted enough of his life feeling sorry for himself.
"Me too….I mean I love mom and…and I didn't really like reading practice. Reading and writing practice…she used to make us do a lot of that…when she was around." Said Sho. He expected, had been expecting, and still expected to get it. To look over and not even have time to see it before he got hit on the side of the head or something. He could see…he could only see the black of the jacket that Shimazaki always wore no matter how hot it was outside. Not the blue of the same suit that dad had been wearing day in and day out for as long as Sho could remember. Dad wasn't there, dad had no idea where he was, and he didn't care either way. Sho was fine. He was safe and he was fine and…and he could talk about mom….and talking about mom…..talking about her and how she had been and how it had been when she had been around….
He couldn't remember the last time he had done this.
"My mom was the same way. I guess she knew that I wouldn't be spending the rest of my life in that room…yeah." Said Shimazaki. He reached over and patted the kid on the head. He didn't want to read that book all of a sudden. He didn't want to read any of those books. There were some primers in there, he didn't have to look to know, and also there was a book of fairytales, a set of encyclopedias, a dictionary, and also several books about dragons….because they were neat…and mom had named him…well his name supposedly had the character for dragon in it. Mom had picked it out for it's meaning or whatever. Mom had wanted the best for him…but she had still let dad lock him away…and she had still let dad leave him out in the woods to die….and she had still let dad just sit there and pretend that he didn't even exist…and he had stilt let dad shoot…
He gave Sho some space. Sho needed the space, not him.
"Moms are like that….I think. They always want to do stuff that's good for you. I mean my mom was like that." Said Sho. He wanted to talk about mom. He wanted to tell Shimazaki everything that he remembered about mom. About how she liked yellow. About how she liked cats. About how she would pick him up and hold him. About how sometimes she let him take out more than the five allowed books from the library. About how she been able to kiss anything better. About how she had always smelled like cinnamon. About how….how she was the best mom that anyone ever could have had…even if she had went away and even if…even if she was never coming back….
"Yeah…where we would be without our moms?" asked Shimazaki. He knew where he would have been. He would have been dead. He would have been dead before he had even realized that he had been alive…but that was his own shit that he was not going to take out on or bring up with Sho. He had his own problems in his life and he did not need Shimazaki's. He was capable of thinking of other people, contrary to popular belief, he just didn't like to. It was hard and it made him stop and think and those were the two things he hated most in the world….
Stopping was the worst and the thoughts that he had while he stopped…he just did not know what in the hell he was even supposed to do with them.
"Here. We'd be here….like we are now." Said Sho. He didn't have a mom anymore. That was why he was here. Dad never would have brought him with if he'd still had a mom. He would have been home with mom and big sis…and he would have gone to school and had other friends…and he never would have met Shimazaki. Part of him wished that he had never met Shimazaki, part of him wished that he could have gone his whole life without having any clue at all what love was or what it felt like, but the rest of him was happy that he had met Shimazaki. Happy that he had made such a good friend…even if he had more than friendly feelings for him…and part of him just….was so happy to be there…
Part of him was starting to feel better…and also wished that Shimazaki hadn't put space between them.
"Yeah, here…in this storage unit….cool. Anyway come here. I found something I think you'll like." Said Shimazaki as he walked through the narrow walkway to one of his many toy boxes. Mom had saved everything, it seemed, everything from when he had been born up until the time she died. She had taken it all out of the old house and had it brought here. This room wasn't all his stuff, there was a lot of junk from the old house, and maybe mom had been able to see the future or something. Maybe she had seen that he would accidentally burn the old house to the ground…
And it had been an accident.
If it had been on purpose he would have waited until dad had come home. It was before he'd had it in him to truly kill the bastard. It had been back when he had been in this terrible limbo space where he did and did not want dad to love him. He wondered what mom had wanted for him…besides not living that life. She had said, before, that she was grateful that he had been born the way he had been born. At least that meant that he would never live dad's life, never die young, never have to cross every single line imaginable…and to this day he wondered why his parents had ever even gotten married if she hated the yakuza life so much. Maybe because dad had loved her…or whatever.
He didn't know and it wasn't like he was about to dig his parents up and ask them so….yeah.
He would much rather have been digging through these dusty old boxes anyway. He didn't have any one thing in particular to show Sho, no, he just wanted him out of his book box. Those….those would stay here. Those would stay here until the book moths got to them or whatever. He didn't know. He had read those books cover to cover and…and if Sho wanted to hear those stories then he'd find the audio book version. Yeah. That was just….audio books were a hell of a lot simpler to read…not that he needed help reading. Not that he need someone's hands over his guiding him page by page….here are the sounds Ryou…mi….mo….mu….ta…chi…tsu….
He knew the sounds. He knew the dots. He knew how to read. He didn't need help anymore.
He felt Sho coming up beside him. The spring was coming back to his step. Toshi had been right. Toshi was always, well almost always, right. Toshi…would have made a hell of a parent. They didn't even like Sho but they had been right about him…about what he needed. About how he had just needed someone to treat him like a kid…like an actual kid. Not like how Ryou had wanted to have been treated when he had been a kid. He didn't know if he had ever been a kid, not really, but he did know that he liked…he liked this. The way Sho was….
How happy he was…and what kid wouldn't have been happy being elbow deep in a box of the greatest toys known to mankind?
"Pretty great, huh Sho?" asked Shimazaki. Sho could have those. Let him have as much as Shimazaki had. That was better than just letting them gather dust in here until the end of time.
"It's…a lot of instruments…mostly." Said Sho as he picked up a tambourine. Shimazaki reached over and gave it a hard whack. It almost went flying from Sho's hands. He felt Shimazaki's aura looking around. Sho had no idea what he was even looking for. Of course they were allowed to be here. This was Shimazaki's treasure room. Why wouldn't he have been allowed in his own treasure room?
"Yeah, I made a lot of noise as a kid. It drove my dad insane but, hey, that's what I do. I drive people insane." Said Shimazaki as he put the tambourine back in the box. Oh yeah dad had hated that thing. He reached down past Sho. He could feel….there was his triangle without the stick…and his slide whistle….and his piccolo…and his flute…and his xylophone without the stick…and his drum also without he sticks…and maybe it was better without the sticks. Maybe it was better that they didn't put up a racket. He was here to cheer Sho up, not freak him out when they got shot at for being here, well when Shimazaki got shot at for being here. He was deep within the family's territory now. This was near both the old house and the new…and he was not allowed anywhere near here….and he didn't give a damn if he got shot at or whatever but he did not need the kid to have to deal with all of that.
"You don't drive me insane." Said Sho. It was true. Sho drove himself insane. Even now. It was like…like he just couldn't shut off his brain. Shimazaki was there and he was being so nice to him…he was always so nice to him…and he didn't need Sho treating him like this…well not treating him like anything but thinking about him like…like this…and stuff…
"Well then I guess that I haven't been trying hard enough." Said Shimazaki. He reached over Sho and felt around…and he knew that he had felt it before…and he found it. He pulled out one of his sticks with the long things at the end and tapped Sho over the head with it. One, two, three. One, and two, and then three.
It was more fun with all three.
He used to….well when he had been small…he used to play devil sticks with these. It had always amazed mom how he could do that without being able to see. She had thought that he had just been keeping up with the beat of it. The sticks going up and down. One, two, three she had counted as she tapped her fingers against her leg…and she hadn't believed him when he said that he could see her moving. When he said that he could see the sticks moving. One in each hand and the one he had been sending flying into the air. Movement…that had been the first thing that he had been able to see…and it had been slow coming….he was a natural esper but he was still human…and his name wasn't Suzuki. He had been born with his powers but they had come slowly. He hadn't been anywhere near the level of prodigy that Suzuki's kids were…
And maybe if he had been, if he had been able to start out seeing more than the long things at the end of this stick flying, that maybe his life would have been different somehow…not better….not worse….but at least….different.
"I'm not insane yet….and also that's a girl's toy." Said Sho. He didn't laugh. Big sis had those when they had been little. She had pink devil sticks with tassels on the end and he had blue ones without. Pink was a girl's color…and Shimazaki's had been pink. With sparkly things and tassels…and this was enough to make him smile and…and he hadn't smiled in a while…but he was smiling again and…and it was a good feeling.
He had really missed this feeling.
"It's not." Said Shimazaki. He knew what girls' toys were. Dolls and play kitchens and tiny irons and ovens and all of that other boring sounding stuff….well not the oven. He had wanted an easy bake oven since he had first heard the ad…and not just because mom sometimes didn't get a chance to feed him. He just liked the smell of baking…and also chocolate cake whenever he wanted it would have been pretty sweet….heh. Because sweets….he was funny in his head.
"Yes it is. My sister had devil sticks just like these. They're pink and have tassels so that means that they're for girls." Said Sho. He was not going to laugh at the fact that someone had tricked Shimazaki into playing with a girl's toy. Nope. That was mean, tricking a blind guy like that, but also it was a little funny…funny enough to make him laugh a little bit…inside of his head….or wherever. Not outside of his head…
Even though he really wanted to.
"Ok first of all pink means nothing to me. Second of all the tassels helped me see the stupid stick. Third of all it's the twenty first century. There are no boy's toys or girl's toys so stop cracking up over there." said Shimazaki. Well at least the kid was happy again…and how many of his toys had been for girls? He had no idea….and it didn't matter…but it was just….seriously mom? Girl's toys?
"I'm not cracking up…you just have a lot of girl's toys in here." Said Sho as he picked up a yellow horse with butterflies on it's butt and really long hair. This was like something that big sis would have played with when they had been little. This was so girly that even Shimazaki must have been able to see….or feel. He reached over and felt the hair and then dragged his finger down to the butterflies.
"This is Butterscotch and she is not a girl's toy. She's a general. She rallies the other horses to war." Said Shimazaki. He hadn't played with this in years…not since he had been younger than Sho was now. The long war of dragons and ponies…and it had still been going on when he had come back to his room to have found his stuff all gone but…but it had been for the best. Better mom hide his stuff than dad destroy it.
"Shimazaki, I know that you're blind but this is so obviously a girl's toy. It's a horse with long hair and stickers on it's butt. There is no way a guy would ever play with something like this." said Sho. There were others in the box. He picked them up with telekinesis and lined them up on a low table with a white sheet over it. Shimazaki out the yellow horse down and ran his hands over the others.
"Butterscotch….Applejack….Blossom…Minty….Blue Bell…Snuzzles…..there should be more in there. God, I used to love these things…and how are these for girls? They're horses. I didn't know that having a dick made it impossible to like horses." Said Shimazaki as he ran his hands over some old friends. Poor Snuzzles…cut down so soon in the war of dragons and ponies…which of course meant that he had accidentally dropped this one in the piss bucket…but mom had cleaned her off with lemon and ammonia so she was good as new…smelled terrible though…and that was why she had stayed in the pony graveyard.
"I have horses. These are girly horses. I mean they have girl eyes and they're in girl colors and-" said Sho. He would have kept going if Shimazaki hadn't turned to face him with both of his eyes opened.
"Kid, color means nothing to me. Get that through your head already." Said Shimazaki
"Sorry. I just forget, sometimes, that you don't know what color is…that's all." said Sho
"No, it's ok…and fine. They're girly horses…but I will have you know that they are also fierce warriors. They fought valiantly in the war against the dragons for control of the left side of the room." Said Shimazaki
"Why only the left side?" asked Sho
"Because the right side had my Hi-Fi and record collection. Well mostly records, I have some cassettes and eight tracks. No CDs, though, since those were crazy expensive back then. Besides, you get a better sound from vinyl anyway. I wouldn't have risked that side of the room for the dragon and horse war. They fought on the side with the piss bucket." Said Shimazaki. He wondered if that bucket was still in here…and he hoped that it wasn't. God he hated that bucket…but it was ok. He would never have to piss where he slept ever again. Not unless he was REALLY fucked up.
"How could dragons and horses even have wars? Dragons have fire breath and also they can fly. What can horses do?" asked Sho. He didn't ask about the bucket. Shimazaki did not like to talk about the bucket so he would not be asking him about the bucket.
"Because horses have a complex society, guns, and also magic…and some of them can fly, too. There should be some horses with wings in there…and a shit ton of dragons…or maybe in another box." Said Shimazaki before he went over and helped Sho look. The rest of his horses and the dragons weren't in the first box they had looked through, or the second, box, not. They were in the third. Shimazaki found the ones he could and then he lined them up on his own night stand after he took the sheet off. He let his fingers linger on the top before he got everyone into battle formation.
The crack was still there.
He had hit his head on that and…and the top had cracked. It was a superficial crack, this whole thing was light and cheap, and the crack was mostly in the paint…but it had still hurt like hell. He had been…well not as old as Sho…around eight or nine when that had happened. When he had been jumping on the bed and the next thing he knew he had been standing on the ceiling…and then he had fallen down and hit his head…and then he threw up….and the rest of that day was a blur…he was pretty sure looking back that he had been concussed….
But that was in the past. Now it was time for war.
"So can you explain to me how a bunch of pretty horses with super long hair are going to fight fire breathing dragons?" asked Sho as Shimazaki lined the dragons up just right. His fingers went over all of them. They were all different. The colors and sparkles meant nothing to him but the spikes and scales…and some of them had different pieces of cloth tied around them…those meant something to him. He was as careful with them as Sho was with his artist's pencils…and it was nice…
He felt like he was seeing something that…that not a lot of people got to see.
"Well first of all don't knock their hair, it's fun to brush, and second of all just watch." Said Shimazaki. God, he felt like a kid again…but in a good way. Not the way that made him swear that he could smell piss or whatever. No, this was one of his good memories of being small…of being smaller than Sho…and of having almost infinite playtime...
Sort of like he did now.
He had near infinite time to just dick around all day every day. He could play with Sho all day and then hang out with Toshi and then play with him all day and…and life was good. Life was so good now that he didn't have to dwell on how not good life had been before. He didn't have to dwell on how these had been his only friends…how one day he had come back from a rare trip to the yard and found all of his friends gone…and about how mom had told him that it was for the best. About how dad didn't want him in there talking to himself and jumping around and making a racket….and about how once mom had been called away, when she had been in for it for letting him rest his head on her lap and for letting him cry, he had turned the radio on the Hi-Fi up as high as it would go…because it was so big that it took up part of his room and there was no way anyone was getting it out of there…and he could even remember the song order. It had been….it had gone….a bunch of top of the charts shit. That Yah Yah Yah thing…some Madonna since she had still been big…that Kiss Me thing that they never stopped playing….Bye For Now…..all of that…and he could almost hear it…
But he couldn't hear it and he wasn't going to hear it and he was going to show Sho the best toys in the history of mankind…that was what he was going to do.
"I'm watching." Said Sho. There was nothing fun about watching other people play. When he had been a kid mom would put him in time out on his bed or in the corner of his room and he would watch big sis play and it had been the worse…but this didn't feel like that. Mainly because he wasn't being punished for anything and also….also he wanted to be here. With Shimazaki. Watching him have fun….even if his aura kept cycling from happy to sad and then to mad and then back to happy…it was still nice to just…watch him…and stuff…..
"You have encroached on our territory for the last time elder pointy back! We of the pony nation shall not stand by and take this disrespect. I warn you now, Buttersctoch, that the dragon nation shall bring war to you! First! Because you guys suck!" said Shimazaki before he made them fight…which was a lot of throwing and sound effects and…and it may not have been the best game but it had really helped him learn how to see things.
Like Sho.
Sho was beside him now. He was kneeling there beside on the concrete and he was taking the side of the horses and…and he was pretty good at this game…as good as someone could be at this game. He was better, maybe, even than Shimazaki had been since he had an incredible amount of fine control over his telekinesis….which made for some great flying scenes…
And for some great throwing as well.
"See? What did I tell you? Aren't these the best toys in the whole fucking world?" asked Shimazaki as Sho collected the thrown toys and deposited them back into the box. That had been fun. He had no idea how long they had been playing for, and he had no idea how loud they had been, but he did know that they had just had more fun than they'd had in days. Sho was even smiling again. He didn't even have to focus very hard to be able to tell. Sho was happy and if Sho was happy then he was happy….and maybe he hadn't been happy in a while, either.
He could too take care of a kid.
He loved Sho like his own kid and…and Toshi had been right. Treating Sho like an actual kid, like he had never been treated, had worked. Because Sho was a kid…and while he had his problems he was not Shimazaki. He had his own shit going on in life and all but…but his shit was not Shimazaki's shit and…and he felt good about this. About how he had helped Sho. He was not useless, he was not worthless, he was not a mistake, and he was not invisible. He was Shimazaki Ryou, he was awesome, and he knew a thing or two about raising kids…
Now all he had to do was get Toshi on team have an open but committed relationship, have a kid or seven, and then live with him in domestic bliss.
"I guess….whatever even is some of this stuff?" asked Sho as he put the dragons and girls ponies back in their box. There was so much…so much to look through. Shimazaki had a lot of toys…and some of his toys didn't even look like toys. He picked up a cube with different fabrics on each side. There were little squares all over the cube. He could see felt and silk and leather and yarn and…also cardboard and cling wrap and tin foil…..and he didn't get it at all.
"Pass it over, let me see." Said Shimazaki. Sho had been holding a cube…and a lot of his toys had been cubes. Mom had made him most of his toys, either from scratch or she had bought toys and made them fun for him and…and the minute Sho put the cube in his hands he knew that this wasn't one of his building blocks or his shaking cubes. This was….oh God he remembered this….
"It's for feeling?" asked Sho as he watched Shimazaki drag his fingers across all of the squares…and now he felt like an idiot. He felt like the biggest idiot in the whole, wide, world. Of course it was for feeling. These were Shimazaki's toys. What else could he do with them? God, Sho had ruined everything. They had been having so much fun but then he'd had to go and ruin it all….he sucked. He sucked as a friend and as a person and-
"Hey, hey, calm down. Don't get so worked up over a Rubik's cube. It's alright if you can't solve it. My mom made me this back when I was like four or five and I still haven't been able to solve this to this day….and that's why it lives in here." Said Shimazaki. Nope. Not that thing again. This had been the source of so many tears when he had been little….solving this thing was impossible. Every time you turned it the whole thing just got more and more and more mixed up….he felt each square…
It was more fun to feel the damn thing than to try and solve it.
"I've seen those before….but they have different colors. Sorry. I know, color means nothing to you." Said Sho softly as Shimazaki ran his fingers over the different squares. He looked over at Sho, he could feel his aura on him, and then he reached out and took Sho's hand in his. Sho had to remember how breathing worked, he had to remind himself that he had to breathe, and he had to tell the goldfish in his stomach that this was no time to wake up, finally, and he had to stop thinking about how close Shimazaki was and how warm he was and…and other stuff….
"Here, this is actually kind of fun sometimes. My mom covered it in cloth and leather and plastic and other stuff for me. You just have to turn the sides until they all line up…and this must be solvable since they've been making these since before I was born." Said Shimazaki. One the one hand the kid was getting back to normal and on the other hand…the kid was getting back to normal. Normal meaning his usual aural giggles and lovesick nervousness….and he couldn't help that. He was getting to that age when he only had enough blood in his body for either his brain or his dick, not both, and everyone knew which would win in that battle over resources….
But he would gladly take lovesick Sho over mopey and depressed Sho any day of the week.
"Um….this is fun….I guess." Said Sho as he moved the squares around…and Shimazaki had been right. This was hard. This was complicated and the more he moved the squares around the more he messed them up. He managed to get a whole top row of leather squares but the next row had ne leather and two silk…and he focused on the cube and not on how near Shimazaki was…and how he should not have cared if Shimazaki was near or far or…or anything like that…
He kept on turning the cube.
He managed to get two silks in a row when he turned the topside too hard and he felt some of the leather come off under his fingers. He gasped. Shimazaki looked up from the box that he had been in. He had a paddle ball in his hands and started to paddle as he looked over at Sho. He tried to make words as Shimazaki focused on him. He had broken…he had broken something that Shimazaki had played with…something that he had been holding onto since he had been a kid….something that his mom had made him….
Things from moms were special.
Mom…his mom hadn't really made him things aside from dinner…but if he could have saved something that she had made then he would have. He would have saved it forever just to have proof that he'd had a mom. That she had been there. That she had been there and she had been his mom and…and so that he could have had something from her….because sometimes it felt like she was dead. Sometimes it felt like she had died even though she had only run away….and Shimazaki's mom had actually died. She had died and…and it had been bad. It had been so bad that Shimazaki hadn't even told him what happened…it had been that bad….
And he had gone and ruined something that Shimazaki's dead mom had made for him….he was a terrible friend…
"What are you freaking out about over there?" asked Shimazaki. The kid had better not have been about to get sad again. He did not want to have to deal with him being sad again….and he didn't have any more storage rooms full of toys for the kid to mess around in.
"I-I'm sorry. One of the pieces is all….coming off now…and I didn't mean to!" said Sho. He wanted to kowtow. He wanted to beg Shimazaki's forgiveness. He wanted to run away from here even though he had no clue where 'here' even was. He had messed up and now Shimazaki would never want to hang out with him again and they would stop being friends and….and stuff….and he just….
A hand was in his hair.
Shimazaki hadn't been far away. He had bene close enough that he had been able to reach over and run his hand through Sho's hair…and now he had so many feelings that he didn't even know how to name them all. He felt bad for ruining one of Shimazaki's toys but also…also he had this weird feeling running all up and down his spine, light lightening, before settling in his stomach as Shimazaki touched his hair and…and he hated himself for feeling like this…but also he liked feeling like this because….because it was a good feeling…even though he shouldn't have been feeling a good feeling…..and it was just….
Shimazaki's hand in his hair.
"Give it here." Said Shimazaki as he took his hand from Sho's hair. The kid needed to wash his hair, and had needed to for some time, but he was back to normal…and that was good. It was good but also a little annoying, because he didn't much care for this crush at all, but still. The kid wasn't all mopey…well he was getting there again…and he had no reason to be.
"Oh. Yeah, these come off all the time. This glue is at least twenty years old, don't kick yourself even if it is one of the leather patches." Said Shimazaki. The kid was practically shaking…and he hoped that it was from worry and not lovesickness….because he was not looking forward to the return of the lovesickness. He knew that he should have just told the kid to his face that he was aware of his feelings, that there was nothing wrong with how he felt, but that he needed to stop feeling that way right now and move on because nothing could ever come of it. He was a good kid, he was a nice kid, and in Shimazaki's mind he would always be a kid…and not only a kid but his kid….
For all intents and purposes Sho was his kid…and he needed to do a good job of this.
"But…the leather pieces…..you like leather the best…and I'm sorry." said Sho. Shimazaki shook his head and tossed the cube back in the box. Sho wanted to say sorry again. Not just for the cube but also for….for everything. The way he had been these past couple of days. The way he felt about Shimazaki. The way he knew that he might never stop feeling about Shimazaki. That he didn't know if he really wanted to stop feeling about Shimazaki….because they weren't bad feelings….they were just feelings that he should not have had about his best friend…or any guy….because even if something was ok for other people that didn't mean that it was ok for him…because dad would have hated him for the rest of his life…more than he hated him now….
No. Dad was proud of him now.
"Don't freak yourself out over a twenty five year old toy. My mom made me a million leather things…hang on. I just remembered something that I think that you'll really get a kick out of." Said Shimazaki. He knew that he had saved it. He had asked mom, specifically, to hide it in a place that dad would never find. A place where he would never find it and ruin it like he found and ruined everything else in Shimazaki's life…and he knew that mom would have put it with everything else…but he wished that he had asked her where it was specifically.
But he wasn't a medium and he wasn't about to dig her up and ask her corpse so, yeah, he was going to look himself.
He expanded his aura out and felt everything. Walls, boxes, all of it meant nothing to him. He was looking for silk and leather, ribbons and beads, velvet and velveteen, and also….also he was looking for himself. He was looking for his own aura, the ghost of it, the feeling that he got from an object that he had poured his heart and soul into loving before he had even been aware of what it was to put his heart and soul into something. Back before he realized that the sound he heard, the one that followed him everywhere, had been his own aura. The sound that he got, the feeling that he got, when he pressed his ear to his blanket when he hurt…when he had been so hurt…when he had been alone…when he had been hungry…when the world had been something loud and quiet and big and small and mom had been gone and….and where had been mom and…and mom had been gone and…and he had been so hungry and so tired and so alone and….and….
And there, in that box, with some other clothes.
This time he did teleport. He teleported because, well, he had to. He had to remind himself that he could. That the boundaries of walls, floors, buildings, all of it…distance meant nothing. Walls meant nothing. Locked doors meant absolutely nothing. He could go where he wanted to go and do what he wanted to do and he could be who he wanted to be and right now he wanted to be the guy who could do whatever he wanted to do and go where he wanted to go and…and he needed to dig through this box and he needed to find….he needed to show…he needed to show this to Sho because…because someone had to see this. This room…this dust filled room…this dust filled room was just….he didn't know. He just….
Had to dig through this box.
"And….here. Sho, come here and close your eyes." Said Shimazaki. He could feel Sho doing what he said….though not in the order that he had asked Sho to do that in. He was attempting to navigate this space with it's tight corners and narrow walkways with his eyes closed…and Shimazaki helped him. Every so often he gave Sho a telekinetic nudge until he had made it close enough for Shimazaki to take him by the hand…and ignore that aural giggle….and bring it over to the best thing that mom had ever made for him.
"It's a….blanket? I mean a patch blanket…a quilt?" asked Sho. He felt around. There was leather and silk and velvet and cotton and….and he'd had a quilt before….and he could feel…Shimazaki took his hand. He took his hand and left it on the leather part and…and it wasn't a patch. No, it was a shape. It was a….a rectangle and…and a circle and…and hills? No, not hills. There was a part at the end and…and he could feel silk and…and that was hair ribbon, like the ones that big sis wore and…and he followed the path of the ribbon until he felt….he felt….velvet? Yeah. That was velvet but….but also….what WAS IT?
He opened his eyes.
Oh. It was a blanket. He pulled his hand back. A blanket would have been nice because…because he felt sort of cold. Chilled. Touching that had been….sort of like touching Shimazaki…but also…also something else. Something that made the hairs on his arms stand up….and not in a good way. No…that was…it felt sort of like….like he didn't know. He focused on the way it looked, not how it felt. He focused on the piece of leather on the front that looked like a dragon…the sky was blue…towel? It looked like it had been made of towel. The ground was green velvet. There was fire made of silk hair ribbons. The dragon had breads on the spikes and….and he didn't even know the other fabrics. There were fake flowers on the ground and cottons balls sewn into the sky and….
And Sho had been allowed to touch it.
"My mom made me this a while ago…back when I was a baby. She made me this after I was born…because my name has the character for dragon in it or something….so it's kind of something that….that's been with me my whole life and I thought that you would get a kick out of it….or whatever….and please don't tell me that this is girly, too, because if you do then you're walking home…and it's a long walk home." Said Shimazaki. The kid had pulled back…and he knew why. He could feel it, the ghost of his own emotion and energy, and it must have been even worse for the kid because his energy was not a part of him…and he wondered how his own kid would have reacted…if he had a kid. If he had a kid that he had made himself…well with Toshi…but also Sho was his kid…in a lot of ways…all the ways but blood…
But what was the point of blood, anyway? It was sticky, it smelled like iron, and it pissed Toshi off five to seven days a month. Blood didn't matter.
"It's…it's not girly. It's cool. It's really cool. I like it." Said Sho. He liked it but he didn't want to touch it. He didn't want to ruin it. He didn't want to knock off one of the beads or the clouds or the flowers…and it was fraying, too, at the edges. It was old special and he didn't want to ruin it…and that was why he didn't want to touch it. That was all. It had nothing to do with how…how if he closed his eyes it felt…it felt like a part of Shimazaki….
A sad part that he had never seen or felt before…a sad part…a scared part….a mad part….a part that he had never wanted to know that his best friend had to him.
"I figured you would." Said Shimazaki. The kid was shaking…he put his blanket away. He had wanted to show the kid and that was all. He…well part of him wanted to give this to the kid. This kid might as well have been his kid and…and he really should have done something with this blanket besides letting it rot in a box…and the kid was cold. He was like an ice cube, almost, over there. Like he had been standing out in the cold or the ice or something and…and a blanket would have really fixed that right up but…
But he just…
He put it back. It folded it up, put the tissue paper back around it, and put it back in the box. Even if Sho had been his own son…even if he had slept with his mom ten years ago and Sho was his secret son or something, he would not have given this to him. He knew that it was pointless, keeping a perfectly good blanket away from a cold kid, but this was….this was his and…and he was being more of a kid than the actual kid. He put the blanket back and…and his hand brushed something. He felt…a seam. A seam and then another on a leather sleeve….
This he would give away.
"What the hell?" asked Sho as something landed on his head. For a moment, just a moment, the whole world had gone black. Just him there….and his aura…and Shimazaki's aura…and then he pulled this thing off of his head and it was a…jacket?
"See if that fits." Said Shimzaki. He felt Sho hesitate for a moment before he pulled on that ancient jacket. Shimazaki had practically lived in that jacket between the ages of twelve and fourteen. The leather sleeves….it had bene one of the rare times when mom took him out in the world and…and he had picked that jacket out himself because of those leather sleeves….and he had worn the hell out of that jacket until he turned fifteen and got himself an all leather one…
The kid could have that one. He had outgrown that thing half a lifetime ago.
"It's kind of big." Said Sho as he rolled up the sleeves. He liked this coat. It had been Shimazaki's. It smelled like….well he had been expecting it to smell like him but it mostly just smelled like dust….but it was still nice. It was hard to imagine Shimazaki wearing this at any point in his life. He mostly wore black and dark colored but this was green with red sleeves and a lightning bolt on the side…and Sho got the feeling that it was from something but he didn't know what…but he did know better than to ask Shimazaki about the color. Color meant nothing to him…it meant a lot to Sho, he thought that the white and the green went together, but he knew that Shimazaki didn't even know what colors were and Sho didn't think that he could explain it.
"You'll grow. Well at least I hope you will. It would really suck if you stayed that size for the rest of your life….or maybe not. You'll be able to order off the kid's menu for the rest of your life." Said Shimazaki with a shrug. He could see that it didn't fit…but it hadn't fit him when he had first gotten it either. He had been constantly snagging the sleeves and rolling them up….but he had grown. He had grown and the kid would grow too. He would grow up and he would grow out of it and then Shimazaki would give him this coat if it survived long enough. Or maybe he could go and take the kid to pick out his own coat when he got old enough. Yeah, he could teach him how to pick out a coat and stuff. That was what you were supposed to do with kids, teach them all of the important things in life…and Sho was practically his kid anyway….
"Wait…you're giving me this?" asked Sho as he finished rolling up the sleeves. The second he rolled them up they just went down over his hands again…this coat was way too big. It was way too big and also it was summer outside and also…also this was Shimazaki's. He needed….well he already had a coat. One that was all leather and one that fit him. This was too big for Sho but also too small for Shimazaki…
He had worn this when he'd been a kid.
He had been a kid, before, back before Sho had even been born…and Sho wondered….what kind of kid had he been? Well he knew that his parents had been jerks to him, even bigger jerks than dad was now, and he knew that Shimazaki had done a lot of bad stuff after his mom had died…and also a lot of cool stuff…but he also played with toys and read books and listened to music and…and other stuff and Sho…he would have liked to have met Shimazaki when he had been a kid…
And maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have fallen in love with him if he had known him back then…or something.
"Yeah. You're shivering like crazy over there so, hey, I'm not cruel. If I let you freeze to death then what kind of a friend would I be?" asked Shimazaki. He reached over and folded the sleeves up. The kid had been pushing them up. They wouldn't stay up that way. Folding wasn't good for the sleeves, they were real leather, but also the kid needed use of his hands and use of his hands was more important than the wellbeing of the sleeves of a twenty something year old jacket.
"A really fucking shitty one." said Sho sticking out his tongue. He didn't need any help. He took his arms away and folded up his own sleeves. He wasn't a little kid. He could fold up his own sleeves and take care of himself. He was Shimazaki's friend, not his kid, and he knew how to take care of himself.
"Damn straight…and watch your fucking mouth." Said Shimazaki. He flicked the kid on the top of the head. There he was. That was the kid he knew and loved. God, Toshi was so smart. They really had a way with kids even if they liked to pretend that they didn't.
"No, you watch your fucking mouth you mother fucker." Said Sho. He reached up and tried to flick him over the head. Shimazaki grabbed his hand and shook his head.
"Shut your filthy mouth you goddamned mother fucking bastard." Said Shimazaki as Sho took his hand back. Well then. Look who was all grown up.
"As soon as you shut yours you fucking bitch." Said Sho putting his hands on is hips. He could feel the sleeves of the jacket, of his new jacket, coming down over his hands. He used his powers to roll them up again. He was not little. He was not a little kid and Shimazaki needed to stop treating him like he was a kid, like he was his kid, because they were friends. They were just friends and….and that was fine being just friends was better than being nothing at all and…and he was happy with what he had…..
And he was happy to be able to be happy again.
"For the last time, stop calling me a bitch. I'm a guy, I'm a bastard!" said Shimazaki with a laugh and a shake of his head. This kid…he had been teaching the kid how to curse for a year now but he just couldn't get it into his head that, no, you did not call a guy a bitch. Also Shimazaki was not a bitch anyway. He was a bastard, an asshole, and pretty fucking annoying but he was not a bitch.
"Ok then, you're a bastard." Said Sho sticking out his tongue. Shimazaki tried to flick him over the head again but he dodged, the jacket tried to come down over his shoulder. It was too big. All of Shimazaki's clothes were too big on him. He's borrowed these gym shorts, this t-shirt, and this jacket….no. The jacket was not borrowed. This was his now. This was his, it was too big, but it was his and….and stuff.
"Why you little….fine. This round goes to you. Anyway want to see if your clothes are dry yet? And then maybe go to the park and pet some dogs?" asked Shimazaki. The kid was back to normal, they were friends once again, and the world could keep on turning as it had since the beginning of time. Now that things were back to normal they could get back to normal, back out in the world, and back out of this ancient dust trap.
"Ok…but only if we can go to the store later and change the channel on all the TVs." Said Sho. They were back to normal again. He felt…better. He felt better and…and not all the way back to normal but…but he felt better. He felt better and he wanted….he wanted things to get back to normal. He just…wanted to get back to all the things that they always did.
"Fine, but only if we can go to the pet store and let all the birds free." Said Shimazaki. They hadn't done that yet. They had been talking about that for months now but they had never done that…but maybe this was the time for all of that. Maybe they should finally do all of those crazy ideas that they had just been spitting into the wind for a while now. Maybe it was time to make new memories. Memories that wouldn't end up rotting in a box somewhere.
"Ok…but only if we can switch the labels for cat food and tuna at the grocery store." Said Sho. He had thought that one up a while ago…and they could do that. They could do anything that they wanted to do. They were friends and part of being friends was having someone there to go along with all of your crazy, stupid, and maybe a little mean but totally hilarious ideas. They were friends. They were friends and they were just friends and that…that was fine. That was better than fine. That was better than sitting around being sad and trying as hard as you could not to be sad but failing because, yeah, it was hard to make yourself not be sad….
But it was easier when you had help.
"Hmm….well I guess we could do that….but after we get some worms, cover them with noodles, and then let someone think that we made them spaghetti." Said Shimazaki. He and Sho had done that to Hatori a few times. Sho's idea…a good one. Even if it was immature…but who cared if he was immature sometimes. Well Toshi cared. Toshi had this idea that he and Sho were a negative feedback machine when they were together…and he knew that they were a feedback machine but he got the feeling that they were a positive one. Because they had fun and…and Toshi was the smartest person that he had ever met but…but he liked what he and Sho got up to when they were together…
And he wanted them to get back to normal…and now they were.
"Shimazaki….you're awesome." Said Sho. He felt….well the goldfish was there and…and he had missed it just a little bit. He had been weirdly sad, so sad that he wanted to just go to bed and sleep all day and all night and…and now he felt better. Not all the way better but…but not as bad. He was happy to have Shimazaki as his friend and…and he was happy to have had someone in his life besides his sister who cared about him and wanted him to be happy and stuff….
And also he was happy to have had someone in his life who went along with all of his great ideas.
"I know it. Now come on, the day awaits!" said Shimazaki. He picked Sho up and teleported him back home. He would pat himself on the back later for his A+ best friending/practice parenting. Toshi thought that their kid would be screwed over with him and them as parents but this was one of the rare times when they were wrong. Shimazaki may have made some mistakes with Sho, more than a few mistakes in their time together, but he always fixed them and that was more than his own parents had done…and that must have counted for something…
He didn't know what but it counted for something.
He would figure it out later. The kid was in a better mood and he had to keep this momentum going. That was what mattered. The kid. He wasn't all sad and boring anymore…and he himself wasn't all sad and boring anymore….and now they were ok. He was ok, the kid was ok, and this day was going to be ok. It was fixed. And all it had taken to fix it was a very dusty trip down memory lane in a very crowded storage room…no, wait, what had the kid called it? A treasure room. All it had taken to fix all of this was a trip to a very dusty and crowded treasure room.
Why couldn't ever thing in life be that simple?