The walls were very thin here.

Serizawa had never had to deal with this before, thin walls. The walls of the old house had been very thick...or maybe mom had just been very quiet, either way he'd never had to deal with this before. The noise. He had been hearing the noises every single day and night since he had moved in here. It wasn't so bad during the day. The only person who was home during the day was Miss Suzuki's best friend Minegishi and they were very quiet. Sometimes Shimazaki was home too with Miss Suzuki's little brother. They were nice people….well from what he had seen when he'd met them. They had been nice enough to him….and he should have been nicer to them…

He should have been nicer to the rest of the house in general.

He should have just come out of his room and introduced himself properly to them like a normal person. He should have been able to do that…to just introduce himself….it should have been easy. Miss Suzuki could do it and the rest of the house could do it…and he should have been able to do it too. He was out of his house and now he was here in a place where everyone was like him and he had the support of his first friend ever…but he just couldn't. He had barely been able to sit in the kitchen with people who weren't Miss Suzuki let alone introduce himself, let alone leave this room and say 'hi' or…something.

Or telling the rest of the house to keep it down.

He had his own volume on low. He knew that these walls were thin and he didn't want to bother anyone…at least that was what he told himself. He told himself that he didn't want to bother anyone, to wake them up, even though they were already awake. It was the middle of the night and everyone was awake and…and he could hear them all and…and hearing everyone didn't bother him. Neither did being heard. He certainly didn't feel like, if he could hear everyone, they were in the room with him and it certainly didn't make him want to put his game controller down and run and hide….

He didn't want to do that at all.

"It's not that I think that you're a child, Ryou, it's that you act like one and it drives me insane sometimes."

"Toshi, I'm sorry, ok? Sometimes I can be an idiot but come on….I'm your idiot."

Serizawa turned the volume on his TV up another tic. From ten to eleven. He didn't want to make his TV too loud. He didn't want to bother anyone. He didn't want to be heard. He didn't want anyone to know that he was in there….which made no sense because of course they knew that he was in there. This was his room and he hardly ever left it. They all knew that he was in there and they all knew him and he didn't know them and…and he just….he focused on what he was doing.

"Yeah, alright, you're my idiot….but try and me less of one. Ryou you can be a lot…but so can I…"

"I don't mind. I love you, Toshi, even if you do hog the bed."

Up. Down. Left. Right. That was what he did. That was what he focused on. The maze. He was in the maze and he had to keep from exploding, he had to avoid everyone else or he would explode. There weren't any enemies in this game, no, just people minding their own business. In this game he was the enemy. He was the one who moved through their maze. He moved through the maze and tried his best to collect treasure without being noticed. Up. Down. Left. Right. Avoid, avoid, avoid, always avoid. It wasn't a difficult game to play, the controls were simple, and he knew what he was doing. He had been doing this for the last fifteen years of his life after all.

"I do not hog the bed, you're the one who can't stop tossing and turning…and the talking. Don't even get me started on the talking."

"I don't talk that much in my sleep."

He did. Avoid. He really did. Avoid. Serizawa had woken up many a time in the middle of the night to another voice calling out into the darkness. A voice calling out for help, a voice calling out for his mother, a voice calling someone a bastard, a voice telling his partner that he loved them, a voice telling someone named John that he was sorry for not saving him. He spoke in his sleep, and loudly, and it had woken Serizawa up….he didn't much like waking up to human voices…and it would have been easier if he could have just stayed on owl time…but Miss Suzuki had told him to fix his sleeping schedule…so that was what he did. He did what she asked of him. She had done so much for him already he owed her that much.

"So I just imagined you telling John Lennon to turn around and begging his forgiveness for not saving him?"

"Fine, alright, I talk in my sleep…but so do you."

They did talk in their sleep. Avoid. They really did. Avoid. They cried. Avoid. They cried and sometimes they asked someone, he didn't know who, why. He didn't know 'why' what. He didn't ask. It wouldn't have been right to ask. He didn't even know them, he had never met them, but he did want to ask them what they were so sad about…and he wanted to make them feel better…even though he knew that there was nothing that he could do. He couldn't even make himself feel better so, of course, he couldn't do anything for another person. Especially another person who he had never even said two words to. Someone who was friends with his only friend but was not his friend…and someone who would never be his friend even though he wanted…he had always wanted friends…..he had always seen people with their friends, in life when he'd been able to leave his room and on TV when he'd locked himself away. He had always wanted someone who just…who could be there for him…and who he could have been there for him return. Someone who he could talk to. Someone who he could be with without fear. Fear of hurting them….fear of them leaving him….someone who he knew could never hurt him or leave him…someone who understood him. Someone like….someone like the person who he had now…his only friend.

"I don't talk."

"You do. You do and I talk back."

He wanted friends so badly. He wanted someone to talk back to him when he woke up all alone in the night…feeling small and scared….even though he wasn't small and he had no reason to be scared. He could feel his umbrella near him, it was starting to feel like him, and he could feel Miss Suzuki near him too. She was in her own house. She was right next door and….and he needed her near him…and he could have picked up his phone and called him….since he had someone to call now…but he didn't. She had been with him before and…and this was her time with her father. He had never had a father before but he knew that it was important to spend time with them….and he wouldn't bring her from her family. Family was important. Family and friends were very important.

"I'm awake when you talk back to me. I just act like I'm asleep so I can hear all the sappy things you say."

"No, I know when you're awake. That's when I bring out the big guns. That's when I know that you need to hear me the most."

He should not have been listening to that. He should not have been listening to the two of them, the couple on the other side of the wall, talking about this. They were talking to each other and saying things that he knew that he was not meant to hear. They must not have realized how thin the walls were. They must not have realized that he could hear everything that they said. He shouldn't have been listening. He should have put his headphones on. This wasn't meant for him. This was couple talk. This was the sort of thing that someone like him should have been just….ignoring….even though it was hard.

"What do I need to hear the most then? If you know me so well, Ryou."

"I tell you that you're safe. I tell you that you're Minegishi Toshiki and that you don't need to be afraid of anyone. I tell you that, if anything, whoever you're talking to should be afraid of you. I tell you that I'm waiting off on the side if you need me to tag in. Stuff like that. Stuff to keep your nightmares away."

Friends were important. Family was important. Love was important. He had no idea what any of that was like. Well….he'd had his mom…and he had Miss Suzuki as a friend….but he'd never been in love before. Not for real. Actresses and characters didn't count. He'd never been in love with a girl for real…and he'd never had a friend for real before a few weeks ago…and his family had always just been him and mom. He had no idea how anything worked…not really.

"It helps…so I guess that you're not a complete idiot….but you are sappy as hell though. When did you get so sappy on me?"

"When I realized that you had my heart in your hand and I was happy to have given it to you to have and hold and squeeze and chew on and do whatever else you wanted with it. Like my heart was made of silly putty or something."

They loved each other….and even if he had been able to speak to them then he wouldn't have gotten up, paused his game, and told them to quiet down. Even though he really did not want to hear this. He wanted…well he wanted….he wanted the people around him to be happy and to leave him alone…not that anyone was doing anything to him at all…but he felt like….he didn't know what he felt like. With every word it felt like they were getting closer and closer to him but also…also he knew from their colors that they were far away. The green aura was all around him since the house was like a plant jungle but the red aura was very close to the person that it was attached to and that person was right on the other side of that wall. He knew that he was alone and he knew that he was happy to be alone…and he knew that he should not have been happy to have been alone. He knew that he should have wanted to be near people…and maybe he wanted that…and maybe he knew better than to want that…or maybe he had no idea what he wanted.

"Ryou…you're a sappy idiot and I think that you just want to chew on some silly putty right now. Either that or something similar in texture."

"Maybe. I'm always up to chew on stuff…or do other things with my mouth that I now you'd find a hell of a lot less objectionable."

He wanted that…well not that specifically. He didn't want to have someone beside him talking loudly and….and he did but also he didn't. All of that…he had no idea how all of that worked….and he was barely even good at being a friend. He wasn't good at relationships, any kind, and he just….he wanted everyone to be quiet. He wanted to go back to being able to pretend that his entire world was made up of these four walls. He wanted to go back to his room….but he was in his room. This was his room now but it was not his world. His world was not this room. His world was….it was that same world that all the other people in this house lived in. This world was for everyone, even people like him, and he needed to learn how to live in it….and how to live with other people….and he had no idea how to learn…but he wanted to…so that he could have all the thing that they, the other people in the world, had. The things that he had never even known that he wanted.

"You know, Ryou, you can add that your list of powers."

"Being able to make you see God just with my-"

"No, being able to make me forget just how truly idiotic you can be."

"Well give me ten minutes and I can make you forget your own name."

Serizawa pulled his sweatshirt over his head and closed his eyes. He knew what was coming next. He needed headphones. Now. This was….he knew that this was a thing that people did. He'd had a computer for most of his life and mom never cared what he did on the internet. He knew what adults did. Just….he knew what they did and he had seen it before, both with people and animated, but he didn't need to hear it right on the other side of his wall. He knew that this was something that NOBODY was meant to hear….and he hoped that if it ever came out that he had been able to hear this that the people on the other side of the wall would be able to forgive him.

And he hoped that he would be able to forgive himself.

He felt like the worst sort of person for having had heard any of that. Just because he would never have that did not mean that he had the right to hear it, to listen in on it, and he just…he reached for his headphones. He reached for his headphones and put them on before things got even louder than they had been before. That was not for him. The walls…they were so thin and…and he hadn't set out to hear that…even though he had no idea who it was that he was even arguing with inside of his mind. He knew that he hadn't set out to hear that….and he didn't want to….and he just…

He wanted to be alone.

He wanted to be all alone in the world. Not just the house but the entire world. He had spent so much time on his own. He had spent years of his life in his room and it had been so easy to pretend that he was the only person in the world, the last man on Earth, someone pulled into a place where time and space had no meaning at all. Well he wasn't in that world anymore. He was in the same world as everyone else and….and he wanted to be all alone again. At least then, when he'd been all alone, he didn't have to sit there and listen to everything that he had missed out on. Not just what was happening on the other side of that wall but…but what was happening all around him. He wouldn't have had to know what it was like to have friends or a family or someone to love….and he didn't know….not really…

Miss Suzuki was his friend.

Miss Suzuki was his friend and she…she took care of him but…but he knew that he wasn't friends with her like she was friends with the others. He knew that things between them were different. She took care of him. She sat with him when he was scared and helped him move through the house and…and he should have been able to do that on his own. He should have been able to be more normal, to be a better friend, and he should have been better at being everything else that he had to be. He should have been a better son to mom, he should have been close to her like Miss Suzuki was with her dad, and he should have been a better son to his father too. Maybe if he had been a better son then his dad would have stayed and not left when he was still inside of mom's stomach. Maybe if he had been a better person then he never would have been cursed….

Miss Suzuki said that his powers were not a curse.

His powers were partially genetics and partially fate. That was how she had explained it. Sometimes people were born with powers. Sometimes the powers came from parents and something they were a complete mystery. They weren't a curse, though, he had been clear about that…but they had been a curse to him. They had been a curse since the first time he had ever thrown a table across the room because he had been small and hadn't liked what mom had made him for dinner. He had been cursed…he had turned his powers into a curse it felt like….and he was a terrible friend for feeling like that. Miss Suzuki had been very clear on how he should feel about his powers but he…was being a terrible friend. Because of his powers he was being a terrible friend. If he hadn't had these powers then….then he could have had everything that he had ever wanted.

He thought that he had everything that he had ever wanted.

He thought that this was what he wanted. He had thought that if he had been in a place where everyone was like him, if he had been in a place where people understood him and what he could do, and if he could get out of the hell that was his room then everything could have been better….but it wasn't. No matter where he went, no matter what he did, he would always follow himself. His mind and his powers would always go with…and he had to live with that…with himself. He was the only one keeping himself from what he wanted. From being able to be a good friend. From being able to be a good son. From being able to find someone who could love him. He, his mind and his powers kept him from all of that…

And he needed to get better.

He needed to get better for his own sake…and because Miss Suzuki wanted him to. She wanted him to get better, to be the kind of friend that she needed, to be a friend to her like her other friends were….and he had to work harder…someone. Sometimes it felt like it took everything out of him just to get out of bed in the morning….like that was all the trying that he could do…but he had to do better. If he did better then….then he could have everything he ever wanted. He could have everything that the people outside of these walls had. The things that he wished more than anything else that he could have had.

Family. Love. Friendship.

All the things that he had never imagined that he could have had. He pulled his sweater down. He picked up his controller. He closed his eyes. He felt…across the way…and he could tell that he was going to the next house…he could feel her. Miss Suzuki. The person who had told him that he could have everything…the person who he wanted more than anything to be with…the person who kept him safe and made him happy. He wanted so badly to be with his only friend…to have heard her voice instead of….all of that. To have heard her telling him, again, how good things would be when he got better. How he would have everything that he ever wanted…how if he got better he could have it. Friends. Family. Love. All of it. All of the things that he had ever wanted. All of the things that he could have had if he had been better….if he had never been cursed….all the things that the people on the other side of that wall had…that they took for granted…that he would never take for granted. The things that were on the other side of these walls.

These very thin walls.