The hardest part of all of this was not scratching.

Really. He could take the pain of it, he could take the fact that he was a lot worse at doing tattoos than he was about drawing, and he could even take everyone bothering him whenever he tried to be alone so he could work on…well everything that he had started. The one thing that he could not take was the itching. Scratching….he wanted to scratch. He wanted to dig his nails into his skin and scratch until he didn't have any skin to scratch anymore. This was the worst. This was the worst but…

Well it was worth it.

Because when he was done these were going to look so cool! He was going to look cool and then Shimazaki was going to think that he was cool, also that he knew what he was doing, and then he was going to be able to do a tattoo for Shimazaki for his birthday…and it would all be so…it would be great! The whole thing would be great and…and it would all end up being totally worth it. The pain, the itching, everything.

He just had to stop scratching.

But it was hard. He had done all that he could to make it better. He had put lotion on and everything just like he'd seen Shimazaki do. This was supposed to be itchy, maybe, because he had been poking ink into his skin. That was normal. That was normal and this was normal. Tattoos were supposed to be red and itchy and raised up. He had seen Shimazaki after he'd been getting worked on for hours. That was just how they looked. Sho was not worried. They'd look great when he was done and then everyone would tell Shimazaki that they looked great….and then everything would be great.

He just had to figure out a way to stop scratching.

Lying in bed was making it worse, he decided, because not only was his shirt subbing up against all of his work but his bed and blanket, too. Maybe he just needed to sit up for the whole night…people could sleep sitting up…right? People knew how to sleep sitting up and…well he could figure it out. Or maybe he could learn to hang from the ceiling fan like a bat. He knew how to get up there with his powers…so maybe all he had to do was learn to use his powers in his sleep…or something. That would be…well it sounded hard but…well not any harder than trying not to scratch his skin off! Seriously! How was he supposed to deal with this?!

He sat up.

"Damn it!" whispered Sho as he scratched his arm. His arm was the worst of it…but his other arm itched too, and his stomach, and he had started working on his leg too. He had been working on a bunch of different projects at once…and maybe when he finally finished something then it would stop being so itchy. Doing tattoos was not like drawing pictures. He had a million pages in his sketchbooks that he had started and stopped over the years and…well those weren't attached to him. He just couldn't help it, though, because doing tattoos was so boring. It was like he stated on one thing and then once he got not even half was through he had a new idea because he got bored and then it was the whole thing over and over and over again.

But he'd finish…eventually.

These were meant to be done in steps anyway. Shimazaki said that he must have spent at least a week of his life all together getting all covered in tattoos and stuff. Also it took a million hours, or something, to become a master. Well then that was what Sho was going to do. He was going to sit for a million hours, which was probably a week or two of his life, and become not only a master but also a living work of art!

As soon as his skin stopped itching so much!

"God!" whispered Sho as he scratched a little too hard. He didn't have to roll up his sleeve to know that he had made a mistake. That was the first one he had ever started on, the dragon, and it was also the reddest. The ink looked bad too…and he didn't want to have to start on it again…but he also didn't want to have to go through life with a messed up tattoo. If he wound up messing up on himself then people would tell Shimazaki not to let Sho tattoo him because he didn't know what he was doing….but he totally knew what he was doing! He had Googled! He knew exactly what he was doing!

He was just a little bit itchy, that was all.

He hadn't messed up his actual work. What he had done to mess up, though, was to scratch. The internet said not to scratch. Scratching ruined the ink and Sho…well he did not like to ruin his art. He knew that he was messing up but he just could not stop scratching. He just…it felt like his skin was trying to crawl off of him and leave! It felt like…like he didn't even know what! He just…he hated his skin and…and he hated how bad, not that he was bad, but he just…he wished that he was better at doing tattoos!

And also he wished that he had been quieter.

"Sho? What's wrong?" asked big sis. She yawned and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. It was late. It was late and she was tired. He had no idea what she had done all day, she had said that she had to stay home because she had messed up something but she wouldn't tell him what, but she still must have been tired. He knew that he was. He had been doing his back all day with his powers…and somehow doing it with his powers was even more tiring than doing it by hand…or maybe he was just tired because he hadn't been sleeping at night.

Not that he could tell her why he hadn't been sleeping at night.

If he told her then she would just get worried. He was ten, he knew that he should not have been doing this, and he knew that people wouldn't understand. That was why nobody could know until he was done and then they saw how awesome he was. It was his body and if he wanted to do a bunch of tattoos then he could do a bunch of tattoos. It was his skin, it wasn't like he was chasing people down and covering their skin in tattoos, so….so there!

Big sis wouldn't understand. She liked to worry.

"Nothing. Go back to sleep." Said Sho. She didn't go back to sleep. She sat up and she was looking at him. It was dark but there was still light coming in from the outside, light enough that she could see him, and he wondered if it would be suspicious if he closed the blinds. He just needed to scratch and he knew that if he started scratching she would notice, because she was his sister and she noticed everything, and then he would have to lie to her again…and he just…he hated lying. He hated laying but also he hated being told what to do. This was his skin and he would do whatever he wanted with it even though he was only ten…and stuff. He just…it was his skin and he should have been able to tattoo it however he wanted….and also he should have been able to scratch it whenever he wanted to…whenever he needed to….

He crossed his arms.

Sho crossed his arms and tried his best to scratch without her noticing. She was watching him like she was studying him or something. Like she was suspicious of him or something. Well she had nothing to be suspicious about. He hadn't done anything to make her…..well he had done a lot of things, actually, but…well she had her own stuff to worry about. She said that she had messed up real bad so maybe she should have been focusing on the way that she messed up and not on the way that he had messed up….and he hadn't messed up!

He knew what he was doing…mostly.

"But….you keep on moving around. If you're too hot I can make it colder…or you could just wear a short sleeved shirt if you want. I know you have scars, I don't mind them." Said big sis. Crap. She knew what he had been doing too. She knew and…and now she was suspicious. She was going to start asking him questions and she wouldn't stop until she got to the truth and-no, wait, that was dad. Dad was the one who never stopped asking questions. She was the one who loved him and took care of him…and stuff. She was the one who cared about him and…and well he was the one who was going to have to lie to her…

But for her own good.

Because she didn't need stress. Dad had told him, before, that big sis didn't need any stress in her life. Sometimes even the biggest jerks in the world could be right about stuff. Big sis had a lot to worry about, girls had it really bad according to what he had read, and he didn't want to make stuff worse on her. He also didn't want to lie to her so…so he had to make one of those pragmatic choices that Fukuda had told him about. He had to lie, again, to his sister.'

For her own good.

"I'm fine the way I am. Go back to sleep. I just…need something to drink." Said Sho. He got out of bed before she could say anything else. Sliding out of bed like that made the thing on his leg itch…and it hadn't been that itchy but now it was…and he just…he needed more lotion. He knew that he shouldn't have been taking her lotion, it was girl lotion and he wasn't a girl, but the internet had said that lotion would help. Well the internet had said that lotion without any smell would help best but she didn't have any lotion like that.

But that was ok.

He just picked the one that smelled the least like anything. She had a bunch of lotions and other stuff too, girls were weird like that, so she wouldn't miss if he used just a little bit of her plain vanilla kind. Just a little because it smelled the least like anything. Vanilla was honestly a terrible smell and flavor, too. Vanilla ice cream hardly tasted like anything, and neither did vanilla candles too…well aside from gross but he would never tell Shimazaki that, and vanilla lotion smelled like nothing…but also tasted terrible….not that he went around eating the stuff. No, he just…wanted to know if it tasted like anything so he just…tried it one day…

Bad. It tasted bad.

But it smelled like nothing and that was why he had gone right to the bathroom. If big sis asked then he could tell her that he had been drinking out of the bathroom sink. He did that sometimes and he had no idea what was supposed to be so gross about it. Water was water. It wasn't like he had been drinking out of the toilet like a dog. Big sis was so weird sometimes….well all people were. He didn't know. Maybe he was.

Maybe the whole world was just made up of weirdos.

Maybe everyone in the world thought that they were the normal ones and everyone else was weird. Like how in Japan he looked weird but when he went to places like England and America he looked normal…but he couldn't enjoy that because people there thought that big sis looked weird and he didn't want anyone to think that way about his sister…but then when they got back to Japan she was the normal looking one. Maybe everyone thought that they were normal all the time, or like normal was just a state of mind, or something. Maybe even dad thought that he was normal. Dad, the guy who was going to take over the world someday like it was just a normal thing that people got up and did, thought in his brain that he was normal and that everyone else was weirdos.

Yeah, that would make sense.

He thought that Sho was a weirdo, anyway. He was always talking about how he would never be able to understand him and stuff. About how he was always doing stuff that didn't matter or that was weird or stupid or tiresome or quarrelsome…or whatever. He didn't care what dad thought. He didn't care if dad, mean and crazy as he was, thought he was the most normal guy in the world. Sho didn't even care if, yes, he actually was the biggest weirdo ever.

He only cared about making the itching stop.

He pulled his shirt up over his head quickly and turned on the light…and it wasn't that bad. It itched like it was something terrible but, really, it could have been a lot worse. So what if a lot of what he had done was turning red and he couldn't see some of the lines that he had done so well anymore? Touch ups were a thing. Shimazaki had told him, before, that he needed other people to tell him when his stuff was fading and he needed a touch up. He said that ink broke down in skin or something, colored ink especially, and that he liked to get fixed up whenever he could. The only thing worse than no tattoo at all was a bad tattoo. Sho…well he wanted people to tell Shimazaki that he looked cool…that way he could be Shimazaki's tattoo guy…and that way he wouldn't have to wait to come to Tokyo to get fixed up.

That was what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Well he knew that, when he grew up, he was going to have to be the ruler of the world or whatever…but people could have two job! He could be the ruler of the world and also Shimazaki's tattoo guy. He could…well if he could do that then he and Shimazaki would be able to be together forever and nobody would think that he was weird. Not dad or big sis, well she never thought that anything he did was weird, but….well other people who would think that wanting to spend his life with another guy was weird. Especially his girlfriend….she might have a problem with that….a really big problem…

He started covering himself in lotion.

There. Now the itching was better, not all the way better, but a little bit better. It would be all the way better once he got all of these done. Then the ink would settle and his skin would heal and…and then he would be better. Yeah. Also the lotion thing was what you were supposed to do for a tattoo. He had seen Shimazaki do that a thousand times. It was good for the skin…and stuff. Yeah! That was the same reason that big sis had so many bottles of this stuff.

It was important to take care of your skin.

So that was what he was doing, taking care of his skin, and he was doing a good job of it too. He hadn't messed up. He knew what he was doing…and he was doing a good job. He picked up big sis's hand mirror with his powers and looked at his back. His tree was coming along nicely. Well what little parts that he had managed to get done. He forgot sometimes, not being able to stare at his own back, just how big the tree was. Just how much of his back it took up. He remembered….it burned…and then his whole body had been all stiff and twitchy at the same time…and then…well and then he had been…well not ok but…it had been over.

He put the hand mirror down.

He remembered using his powers to jab it with the safety pin. That was how he had gotten his new tree. His old tree…out with the old and in with the new. That was a thing that people said. He wanted this tree. He wanted this tree and that was why he had spent hours and hours and hours stabbing himself in the back with a safety pin. He had always wanted this tree. That was why…it had hurt. It had hurt like…like burning and…and he had wanted that, too. He had wanted the tree before and he wanted it now…for a new reason. Out with the old and in with the new.

And on with the lotion.

His powers were useful for this. He spread the lotion onto his back good and thick. He spread it across the pin pricks up and down his arms, they were dragons and portraits and misspelled words, now, and then across his new tree and then onto his legs…it had been hot and then cold and then hot again and he hadn't had any way of getting out and….and now those scars would be…something else. Something entire new. Out with the old and in with the new. Out with his old skin, all scarred up and gross, and in with the new skin, all covered in super badass tattoos! Yeah…he was so cool…and he was going to be so cool…and Shimazaki had already said that he was so cool but…but he wanted him to say so again….and he would…once everyone told him how cool Sho looked….

They'd definitely say that he looked cool, definitely, once he was done…and all of these stopped being itchy!