With dad, big sis, and all their friends gone Sho was finally allowed to have someone over.
He had wanted this for a while. He remembered back when he'd been little, in preschool, that he'd had this really good friend…or at least he'd wanted to be friends with him. Probably more than friends, actually, since he'd given him Valentine's Day chocolates…he'd been so stupid when he'd been a kid…and not cute, like mom had thought…so maybe it was good that she hadn't let him have friends over. That he hadn't been allowed to have kids over. He probably would have ended up doing something else stupid.
There wasn't any danger of that now.
"How have you got so many guns? This is brilliant! My mum won't let me have any more because I kept on shooting my sister….but she deserved it for getting in the way of my darts." Said Emmy as she went through his old box of nerf guns. Without big sis being with him there was a lot more room for his stuff. He hadn't played with these in a while, since he'd stopped shooting big sis, and they'd mostly just lived in this box for the past few years. Moving from house to house just collecting dust…
Good thing that one of them thought that they were brilliant.
"I don't really play with them either. I mean I used to use big sis as target practice too…but I stopped doing that." Said Sho. He didn't want to get into why he had decided to stop using big sis as target practice. He didn't want to get into why…well he didn't want to get into a lot of whys. She could be here,, that was fine, but she couldn't know anything. That made sense. Nobody was allowed to know anything until the day came when they took over the world. If normal people knew about them before they took over the world then, well, the whole thing would be ruined then….and he couldn't let that happen.
That was the day his whole life was leading up to.
Well the day that dad's whole life was leading up to. He was the one who had decided, back when he had been a kid, that he had wanted to take over the world. Sho was only there because he needed someone to inherit it. If they'd been normal people then dad would have stopped at big sis. She was the one that he liked anyway. Sho was just this kid that was there in the house with him who had to have so that more people named Suzuki would be in the world and stuff. That was it…why he was there….and…well he was who he was and what he was…and dad may have been a jerk but Sho…well he was here to rule the world one day…and that was his life…
Not everyone got to pick their lives.
Not everyone got to just…wake up in the morning and decide what they were going to do with their lives. Not everyone got to be all, my life is my own, and then just do and be…whatever. The things that they wanted to be. Maybe if Sho hadn't been born a Suzuki, or had been born to other people called Suzuki since it was a very popular family name, then he could have been an artist when he grew up or a tattooer or in the yakuza…and then if he'd been in the yakuza he and Shimazaki could have been friends…and then they could have….
Well a lot of things could have been different but there was no point in thinking about that now.
He had a friend over for the first time in his life and he wasn't going to mess this up. He could play with her for a couple of hours until she had to go home for dinner. She was supposed to be at school now studying in the library for a test, normal kid stuff like that, but she was here and she was risking getting in trouble to be with him…and he was going to be a good host. He had no idea how to be a host, he had offered her snacks and taken her coat and stuff, and now they were playing with his toys….well she was looking through his toys….but she was having fun and that was what mattered.
What mattered the most was how she felt. His feelings didn't matter at all.
"Hey Sho, you're dead." Said Emmy as she shot him in the forehead with his biggest gun…well she almost did. He put up a barrier at the last second and it went off to the left…and she was staring. He…he was fine. He just…ok. So he had lost control but…she didn't notice…right?
Right?
She was looking at the gun now. She was looking down the barrel of it in the way that Shimazaki had always told him never to do. People shot at dad all the time. Mostly in Tokyo but back in Seoul, too, and also sometimes in Hong Kong. Shimazaki collected their guns before they could even shoot sometimes. He'd let Sho hold one once…it had been way too heavy…and Shimazaki had shown him how to turn the safety off and where the bullets went in…and it had been cool…but Sho was going to stick to nerf guns from now on.
Especially with the stories that Shimazaki told him.
He had said, once, about this guy he knew who had shot himself in the face. One time when he'd been a kid, but a teenager-kid not a kid-kid like Sho was, he and his friends had been drinking and messing around shooting guns in the woods and his one friend's gun jammed so he looked down the barrel and then he was dead. The sound was like filling a watermelon with dynamite, not fireworks, and then letting it explode he had said….and Sho figured that it must not have been a very good sound at all….
Maybe if he told that story then it would distract Emmy from what she had just seen.
"Mine pulls to the right too. Did you also use this as a bat? That's how I ruined mine. I didn't have a cricket bat and I thought, hey, this is bat sized so I brought it down to the pitch like a booger and ruined my best gun. After that my mum said no more guns and….oh. Sorry." said Emmy. She put the gun down and now she was looking at her feet. She reached up like she was going to pull her helmet down over her eyes but instead she just ended up grabbing some of her hair. Her helmet was hanging up in the hallway with her coat…and it was weird seeing her without her coat on…well this whole thing was weird…
And it was about to get weirder if he didn't do something about his powers.
"It's ok, you can shoot at me if you want to…just…um….yeah. A lot of my guns are broken like that. That's why I stopped playing with them." Said Sho. Another lie…but what was one more lie in the bucket of lies that was their whole entire relationship?
"No, I meant…well here I am going on and on about my mum for ages when you don't even have one…sorry." said Emmy. Sho…was fine. That was a fact. He didn't have a mom. His mom was gone. She went away. She had gotten up one day, put on her shoes, and then left the house. She never came back. She was off somewhere in the world all on her own without him and big sis…and he could understand leaving dad….but leaving them was….she had been gone for years. She had been gone from his life since he had been six. He was eleven now. He had been without his mom for almost half of his life and….and that was ok. She….he was ok with this and he loved her and she was gone and…
And he was not going to take this out on Emmy.
Even though he wanted to yell at her not to talk about his mom if even to be sorry. Even if he wanted to tell her that she had to leave the room, now, because he had to make another Swiss cheese wall…and he hadn't done that in a very long time….and he just…his aura was being all…like this…and he just…she loved him. She was a girl and she loved him and he was…
He was fine.
"It's fine, I'm fine. She's gone. I love her and she left…and I'm not allowed to talk about her. My dad said so." Said Sho. He felt…well he felt like he had eaten a cigarette. Like the time that Shimazaki had given him all of those gross beers and then tricked him into eating a cigarette….he had said that it was a candy cigarette. Like they used to make when he was a kid. What he had before he had been able to smoke on his own, when he'd been younger than Sho, and Sho had been all 'give me that I'm not a baby' and then he ate it and it had been so gross….
Gross like talking about how dad….had been the one to tell him not to talk about mom.
"That's….what? Why? She was your mum. How can he just tell you that you're not allowed to talk about your own mum like that?" asked Emmy. Sho…did not shout. The first thing that he had wanted to do was shout at her…so he turned away. That had been in that book that Minegishi had gotten him for his birthday a couple years ago. When something made you mad then the first thing that you were supposed to do was not look at it or think about it…so he turned around.
He turned his back to her.
There. He knew that he was being rude but at least…well at least he hadn't yelled at her. The bookshelf…there was nothing on the bookshelf to make him mad. Well there were the books that Minegishi had gotten him, another good thing about dad being gone was that he could put his books on the shelves and not under his bed, and some of his manga and his sketchbooks….and a lot of space, too, because that bookshelf had been big sis's and she had a lot of manga. She collected it. Her stories about people falling in love and kissing and being in school and having school adventures….dumb stuff like that. Her stuff. Her stuff was gone and she was gone….and she was never coming back….and he knew that he could go to her but….but it felt like she was never coming back because that was just what people did sometimes…they left and they never came back….
A hand in his.
"I really am sorry, Sho. Sometimes I don't know when to shut my mouth….and I'm sorry." said Emmy
"That's….that's ok um…do you…want to look at my drawings?" asked Sho as his eyes danced around the bookshelf. There, the bottom half of it, was made up of his old sketchbooks. He could finally put them up instead of stacking them on the floor…and maybe when he rejoined the others he could tell dad to give him and sis a junk room for all of their stuff or they could divide the room up better or something….because he liked looking at his stuff….and looking through his old drawings. Some people had photo albums but taking pictures was just…it was like looking through a window. Like you could see but also there was this layer of…picture…between yourself and what you were seeing. Drawing was like…like being there and seeing stuff all over again…
So maybe Emmy would like to see what he'd seen…and maybe it would make her stop talking finally…
"Do you want to look at my sketchbooks? I mean you said that you liked me drawings, the ones I send you pictures of…so…yeah? Do you want to look at my drawings?" asked Sho
"That's be brilliant….and I really am so-" said Emmy
"Here, come sit down." Said Sho as he took her by the hand, well more like he just didn't let go of her hand, and led her to his bed. She looked at him, and then at it, and then she smiled and sat down. She brushed her skirt down as she sat down like big sis did. She didn't normally do that. Emmy always just sort of sat down. She was looking at her feet, too, and she was all red….and he didn't get it. What? Was she still embarrassed about wearing shoes in the house?
That hadn't been so bad.
She had been the one who had made a big deal out of it. Fukuda hadn't even said anything. He had just told Sho to be polite and take her coat. Sho hadn't made a big deal out of it anyway. She wore shoes in the house, that was what British people did, and she couldn't help doing the things that she did. Also this was her country and really they should have been the ones to have been embarrassed since they were the ones that weren't fitting in….even though wearing shoes in the house was gross….and not in a cool way….
Still not worth getting so embarrassed over, though.
He grabbed the first sketchbook that he saw, the one on top that he had been working on earlier that day. This one was the newest and she hadn't seen any of the stuff in there before, that was good, because then maybe she wouldn't talk so much. He didn't normally mind it when she talked, he wasn't going to demand silence like dad did all the time, but she had been talking about mom and he…well even if dad hadn't told him not to talk about mom he didn't want to talk about her with Emmy. Big sis or Fukuda maybe, people who had known her, or Shimazaki since they could talk to each other about anything, but not her. She wasn't a part of that…part…of his life…and stuff….but she was a part of this part of his life.
So he sat down next to her and opened up his sketchbook.
She scooted away from him, and then towards him, and then away, and then towards…and then she scooted around in place for a while. He didn't know what was up with her. Was she itchy or something? Was his bed that uncomfortable? Was she sitting on a stuffed animal or something? He didn't know. Girls were so weird sometimes.
Or maybe he was the weird one…or something….
"Are you ok? If you're sitting on a stuffed animal then you can just toss it on the floor or whatever. I'm not like my sister, I don't care if they get dirty." Said Sho. Emmy….why was she being like this? She went to look at him and then she looked back down at her feet….but at least she had stopped scooting around like she had ants under her skin or something….which was something that happened. She had been the one who told him about them. They got in your wounds and then moved around under your skin, sort of like the bugs that laid eggs in your wounds, and….why couldn't she have talked about something cool like that instead of talking about his mom like…like that was something that he would have wanted to talk about…and stuff….
"I-I'm not….sitting on one of your stuffies I mean…you have a lot of them but I'm not sitting on any…um….I'm alright." Said Emmy
"Are you sure? Do you need water or soda or something? We have-" said Sho
"I'm fine, really, it's just…I've never been in a boy's house before…or in his room…or on his bed. I mean…nothing. I'm just being weird." Said Emmy
"You're always weird." Said Sho without thinking. She was the weirdest girl he had ever met…and sometimes she could be cool weird. Like when she dig graves for dead birds or showed him pictures of gross bugs that lived in people's skin or spat mouthfuls of sugar on the ground for ants…and also she could not weird-weird like how she was being now. What was so weird about this? He hadn't ever had anyone over either but he wasn't being all….like this….
But he had been a jerk.
Her face had gotten all scrunchy and her eyes were doing that thing that they did when she got sad…and he needed to work on talking to her. He was so clueless, almost as clueless as dad and big sis, and that made sense since they were all in the same family….but…well he didn't want to be like dad. Mom, he remembered back when he'd been little, had been talking to Fukuda. Back when they'd lived in the Castle and she had been sick all the time….and Fukuda had come over all the time to help her out and hang out with her. She had told him that talking to dad was like talking to a clueless wall…and Sho didn't want to be a wall or clueless or a clueless wall….and maybe he wasn't…since he had figured out how he'd messed up and all.
And he had messed up.
"But I like that about you. You're like…cool weird. You're the coolest girl that I've ever met…and you're pretty too. You're really fucking pretty." Said Sho. He did that thing she liked, too, where he brushed her hair behind her ear. He had gotten that from one of big sis's movies. Girls liked stuff like this for some reason….and maybe he would have liked it, too, if he had been a girl…or if his hair didn't grow straight up in spikes. Like if his hair grew downwards…like Shimazaki's. Like how he had to comb it with that pomade and stuff to make it stand up…like…if Shimazaki wanted to comb his hair for him then…that would have been….
That would have been…
He would have….
He would have been….
He maybe would have made the same face that Emmy was making now.
"Th-thank you…um….can I see your drawings now?" asked Emmy. He knew that face. She had told him, before, that she had a goldfish in her stomach like he got when he was with Shimazaki. He was the person who made her goldfish swim and…and he was supposed to be that person to her. He was her boyfriend after all and that was what boyfriends did. They made their girlfriend's goldfish swim…
Even if they didn't really want to.
"Sure. Here…um….oh! This is one that I just finished the other day. That's my sister….but you knew that…um…." Said Sho. He was having some trouble with words right now. He couldn't stop thinking about the fact that she had a goldfish in her stomach and it was swimming for him. She had told him about that before but…they had never been this…alone…together. She was holding his hand now…and she'd wan to kiss him soon….and they'd done that before….they'd kissed like normal…
But what if she wanted to kiss…not like normal?
They were all alone in this room…and if he had been alone with any other girl…like if he'd been alone with big sis's friend then she would have been trying to cram her tongue in his mouth and…and that was so gross. That was just….so not…what he wanted. What he could do. He…could kiss a girl the normal way but that was all…weird….and not in a good way. He knew that Emmy and Minori were different people…even if Emmy had started wearing makeup for some reason….they were different. So what if he made the goldfish in her stomach swim? She wasn't going to just try and shove her tongue down his throat…
She would ask first…she was nice like that….
So he kept on talking. He flipped around in his sketchbook and he talked and talked and talked even though he was repeating himself a lot. He had to. He just…he trusted her…that she would ask but…well if he just kept on talking and talking and talking then she wouldn't even get the chance to ask. Her hand was in his, and he was ok with that, and she was resting her head on his shoulder, and he was ok with that, and she'd want him to kiss her the normal way, and he was ok with that…but he would not be ok with…all the other stuff that girlfriend's expected him to do. Maybe when he was older and he just…had more time to get used to it…all of it. The stuff that he was sure that she wanted him to do….
All that adult stuff that he was mostly sure that he was way too young for….at least that was what he would say if she ever asked.
"Sho?" asked Emmy
"Hai? I-I mean, yes?" asked Sho. She wasn't….she was. She was going to ask him to kiss her like big sis's friend kept on trying to kiss him and then he would have to kiss her like that and then her tongue would be in his mouth and it would be all…there would be spit…and her spit would be in his mouth and his spit would be in her mouth…and she might have wanted to do even more than that….all that stuff that he knew for a fact that he did not want to do with her or anyone else….well not that he could even do that stuff with the person that he liked since they were both…
Whatever Emmy wanted to do he would do. Her feelings were the ones that mattered the most. Not his.
"Hai…that means yes…sorry." said Emmy with a laugh. Not a mean one, no, a nervous one…and he didn't get what she was so nervous about. She knew that he wouldn't ask her do to any of the things that were on her mind.
"Are you ok?" asked Sho. He didn't want her to not be ok…but he did want…well if she wasn't ok then he would have had to help her out…and if he was helping her out then he might have been able to do that from farther away…or in another room…or something.
"Just…" said Emmy
"What's up?" asked Sho. Did she need food? Water? To go home now…he shouldn't have wanted that last one….so he made himself stop wanting it. Her happiness was all that he wanted…all he could want.
"Why haven't you got any drawings of me?" asked Emmy
"What?" asked Sho. Well he hadn't been expecting that…and he sort of wished that she had asked to cram her tongue down his throat now. At least then he wouldn't have been expected to say anything. What could he even tell her? That he wasn't in love with her and he only drew pictures of her to make her happy? That he started his drawings as doodles and they turned into who they turned into? That a lot of the time they turned into the person he loved the most in the world? Or his sister? Or ninja hamsters?
"You haven't got any drawings of me in here. You have your sister and your friends…and mostly your blind master friend….but none of me. I mean sometimes you send me drawings that you did of me…so maybe I'm just being daft but…well there aren't any of me in here…so I guess that they're in the others…sorry. I'm just being daft." Said Emmy. She was calling herself names now…and he shouldn't have made her say mean things to herself. Her feelings mattered. Her feelings mattered the most and…and he was being a terrible boyfriend right now….
And he needed to do better. Right now.
"I can draw you now, if you want. I just…well I know what you look like…I mean…I have pictures of you but….I can draw you right now if you want." Said Sho. She…well she was all red again…and he wished that she would just tell him what to do to make her be all…normal…like when they met…and stuff. Not all….like this…but this was his fault. He was the one who had made her fall in love with him and he was the one who made the goldfish in her stomach swim…
And now he was the one who had to deal with it.
"Sure! I mean brilliant! I mean…um….what do I have to…do?" asked Emmy. Do? What did she mean but 'do'? He never made people do anything when he drew them….did she want him to draw her from life right now? He could do that. He didn't do that very often, it was hard to get people to sit for drawings, but if she wanted that then he was all over that.
People had to sit still and be quiet when they sat for pictures.
"Nothing. You can just sit there and I can draw you. It won't take that long, I draw fast." Said Sho. He let go of her hand and scooted to the end of the bed. He sat cross legged and faced her. She turned to face him and she smiled…she went through a bunch of different smiles actually, like she was big sis talking a picture. Good, that meant that she liked this…right? Girls liked having their pictures taken….right?
He wished that big sis had been there. She would have known what to do….and also it would have been weird to kiss his girlfriend in front of his sister so then whatever Emmy was thinking about would have had zero chance at all of happening.
"Is this right?" asked Emmy as she played with the chain hanging from her neck. She was wearing the ring chain on the outside now, she didn't have to hide it here, and…and she would expect to see it in the drawing…and he would have to draw it. Her ring…the one that he'd gotten…he'd gotten it for her. He wondered about the person who had lost that tooth. He wondered what it was like to have your tooth as a ring?
Maybe easier than having a girlfriend who loved you and wanted to marry you…and stuff.
"You're fine….just don't move or talk or anything." Said Sho. She listened to him…and he was happy that she had listened…and he shouldn't have been happy about that. He should have wanted to talk to her and stuff like that…but talking…well talking led to more than talking and…and he wasn't in the mood for more than talking.
He was in the mood for drawing.
He was always in the mood for drawing. He was always in the mood to put a pen or a pencil or a crayon or marker or…well….anything, to paper. To turn an empty sheet of paper into something else. That was why so many notebooks were filled with his drawings. He had his drawings in this sketchbook and so many others….and this was what he was good at. Drawing pictures. Mom had said that he was gifted, that he could draw just about anything, and she was right. He could draw anything and…and he could even draw pictures of things that he didn't much want to draw pictures of….not that he didn't…
He was a good boyfriend.
Good boyfriends wanted to draw pictures of their boyfriends…girlfriends! He wanted to draw his girlfriend and that was what he was doing. Like in that movie that made Shibata and big sis cry. When the rich girl told the poor guy to draw her like one of his French girls...which meant with no clothes on…and thankfully Emmy hadn't asked him to draw her like she was a French girl…because he wasn't…he didn't want to draw her like that…or anyone…
Any girl, anyway.
If Shimazaki had asked Sho to draw him like a French girl then…well he'd dreamt about that before…the ones that left him feeling all weird when he woke up…and now. He was thinking about that, about drawing Shimazaki like that, and it didn't even make sense! That would never happen, first of all, and second of all he already had a whole secret sketchbook where he had a bunch of pictures of Shimazaki not all the way dressed and-
And he kept on drawing.
He kept on drawing even though…even though his brain kept on trying to make him think about Shimazaki. About how good it felt to draw him. Drawing Emmy right now…it was like taking a picture of her with his phone. Just…one line and then another and then shading and light…and those were the fun parts but even now….now it was like a bunch of just…just things on a list that he had to do. When he drew Shimazaki he felt all warm and happy and…and kind of like he had eaten a battery and it shocked the goldfish in his stomach….and he wished that he could have felt that way when he drew Emmy. He wished that he could have felt, for once in his life, what he was supposed to feel….
But that was not how this worked.
He was a good boyfriend and that was what mattered. He loved…well who cared who he loved? Who cared who he wished that he had been drawing? Who cared why he wanted to do…what he wanted to do. He just wanted….he didn't know what he wanted. To be able to do what he wanted? To be able to want to do what he had to do? Or just to have been able to have fun with what he was going now? He just…he didn't know. He didn't know so he just…stopped asking questions….and kept on drawing.
Her feelings were the ones that mattered, after all, not his…which was why she had even come over in the first place.