Shimazaki Ryou did not like eye cleaning day…..but Sho loved it.
Shimazaki loved Sho. Not in the way that Sho loved him, he loved him like a son so it would have been weird as fuck, but he did love and cherish Sho and when you loved and cherished someone you put up with a lot of things…including moving eye cleaning day because your eleven year old best friend thought that staring into your empty eye sockets was the coolest thing ever.
Which, well, it was…for him.
People had always been fascinated by his eye sockets…and he had never understood it. When he'd finally been allowed out of his room and to talk to other kids they had all wanted to stick their fingers in his eye sockets. He let them, of course, little Ryou had been a lonely kid, and it had never been anything other than unpleasant. He did not like the fell of anything in his eye sockets. Not cleaner, not the glass eyes he'd had briefly when he'd been a kid, and certainly not grubby little kid fingers with sharp little kid talons.
Like the kind little Mukai had.
"OK…that's enough of that. Kid, get your sister off of me." Said Shimazaki as he pulled Mukai off of his lap. She had been pulling at his hair and poking at his face. Why? He didn't know. Two year olds were like little day trippers, it seemed, they were on a whole different wavelength and there was no point in trying to figure out what it was that motivated them. Also he was kind of on her level, physically, so….yeah.
This was what he got for sitting on the floor so, really, it was his fault and no one else's…but that didn't mean that she didn't need get her little baby fingers with their little baby talons away from his eye sockets right now.
"Come on, baby sis, don't poke Ryou in the eyes. He doesn't like that." Said Sho as he picked up Mukai. Shimazaki heard something crunching as he moved. Shibata had better not have started complaining about the state of the living room again. They were adults, they didn't have to clean up after themselves. They could do whatever the hell they wanted…though walking on a floor covered in chips or whatever Sho had spilled wasn't pleasant….not as bad as the legos, though, those little blocks were practically invisible to his perceptions and hurt like a bitch when you stepped on them.
Thank God today had not been a lego day.
This was a sit on the floor and draw day. At least Sho had said that it was. Mukai was mostly just running around doing whatever the hell she wanted. Right now she was preoccupied, or at least she had been, with trying to get Shimazaki's eyes opened. He didn't mind. She was just a kid, little more than a baby, and if kids were little drunks then babies were little day trippers and…or maybe it was more like they were those people who did way too many edibles because they didn't feel it in ten seconds….or maybe babies were more like those people who hit their heads on coconuts and couldn't be trusted to take care of themselves anymore…or maybe they were more like….
It would come to him eventually.
"Ryou eyes closed! Ryou eyes closed, Sho! Over there!" said Mukai. He could feel her pointing towards him. She was reaching out towards him with her little baby hands and her little baby aura…and she did have one. She sounded like someone was rolling a squeaky shopping cart down a cracked sidewalk in July…or maybe August, he hadn't decided yet. The point was that someone as small as her had an aura. He had no way of telling what he had been like as a baby, anyone that had known him back then was long dead, but he knew that he couldn't see with his powers until he was five or six and he couldn't rely on them until he was fourteen. They were a gifted bunch, it seemed, the Suzuki's.
Tenacious, too.
"Ryou can't open his eyes, Mukai, he doesn't have any." Said Sho coming to his rescue as he tended to do…but did not need to do. This…may have been going in the wrong direction like Toshi had said. Ryou…was not something that Sho usually called him…but the kid had been to hell and back with the Seventh Division, secret keeping, explosion, dad stepping out on his mom shit. He was all…emotionally hurt…and shit. So, yeah, Sho could call him Ryou if he wanted to. This may have been going in the wrong direction but it wasn't anything that he couldn't handle.
There was nothing in this world that Shimazaki Ryou couldn't handle.
"Ryou! Open eyes! Please and thank you!" said Mukai as she reached over for him. He shrugged. What was the worst that could happen? He freaked her out a little bit? Her mom was outside teaching Mob how to stretch again, amazingly enough Toshi wasn't all over that even though they'd been Namaste when he met them, so at least there wasn't anyone who was going to kick his ass for freaking out Suzuki's most adorable child.
"Well she did say please and thank you." Said Shimazaki before he opened his eyes…ick. Too cold in here. He was way too close to the air conditioner…and also it was always just a generally unpleasant thing to do. He wondered how this felt to sighted people. Not cold, probably, because he had mostly heard people complain about eyes being dry. Well his eye sockets would end up drying out if he did this for too long.
Not that he had any intention of doing this for too long.
"Ryou! No! You'll freak her out!" said Sho. Shimazaki…was not hurt at all by what Sho said. He knew that it was weird, and kind of freaky, and he knew how people were either morbidly fascinated with him or completely disgusted...and he knew that Sho wasn't in the disgusted category. Neither was his little sister.
"What that?" asked Mukai as she got away from Sho. Shimazaki kept his eyes opened…and he would…just so long a she kept her little talon to herself. She was reached out and now she was poking at his cheek just under his eyes.
"Mukai, be careful. Ryou doesn't like that." Said Sho
"What that? What that now?!" asked Mukai. He assumed that she was asking why he didn't have eyes. She was too little to express herself verbally…but she still tried. That was better than the usual 'what the fuck is wrong with you' that he normally got. He'd take curiosity over disgust any day.
Even if it was the sort of curiosity that ended up with him needing an unscheduled eye cleaning day.
"Ryou is blind, baby sis, blind. That means that he doesn't have eyes and he can't see." Said Sho. That…maybe was a bit too wordy for Mukai. She was saying 'blind' over and over again and still poking the space right under his eyes. She was getting closer but she was still weary, thank God, of actually sticking her sticky little fingers in his eye sockets.
Eye cleaning day would still be coming sooner rather than later though.
Sticky fingers meant dirty fingers, maybe even with something sweet, and he did not need dirty fingers anywhere near his eye sockets. They were sensitive as fuck, actually, and he did not need to deal with a full on infection while their only healer, limp prick that he was, had gone fully AWOL. He pushed Mukai's hand away….but she had two of them and now the other hand was poking around on the upper part of his other eye…and he could have teleported away…but then she would have started crying and then Toshi would have woken up.
Toshi needed their sleep.
"Blind….blind. Blind? Ryou blind. Why? Where go? Where eyes go?" asked Mukai as she poked around his face with her little baby talons. Didn't anyone ever cut this kid's nails.
"Where are your eyes?" asked Shimazaki. She, thankfully, got her little baby talons off of his face. He could feel her poking herself in the eye…bright she was not…though she was only two. He had heard the expression before, and me without a camera, and he finally got it…sort of. If there was some way to immortalize the mental…not even image. Feeling…sense…touch like sense…because he was always touching things with his aura…then he would have. That was so fucking adorable.
He couldn't believe that Toshi didn't want at least one of these.
"Eyes!" said Mukai as she poked herself. Sho reached over and took her finger off of her closed eye lid. He was a thoughtful brother like that. Someday he was going to make an amazing uncle once Mob had those ten or twenty kids that she was planning on having. None of his, though, Toshi would have been pissed at him and they were already a little pissed at him, so, yeah no need to add to that.
"Where are my eyes?" asked Shimazaki
"No have…none. None eyes." Said Mukai. She said it like she had come to some divine revelation. Like she was tripping balls and the universe had taught her the concept of none. He fucking loved this kid…most of the time. He couldn't wait until she got old enough to trip with him and Mob and Toshi. Not Sho, though, he couldn't even handle a few shots and a joint let alone acid or mushrooms or those insanity flowers Toshi grew sometimes.
"See? You have eyes and I don't." said Shimazaki. She took her finger off of her own eyes…and now she was trying her best to poke him in the eye socket without actually touching his eye socket. She was doing that annoying 'I'm not touching you' thing that Sho and Mob used to do when they'd been little and still fought like kids.
"No eyes…Ryou no have eyes! Look Sho! Over there!" said Mukai. She was grabbing at Sho, now, and pointing with her little baby talon. Shimazaki closed his eyes and…yeah. He felt gross…though that may have been just in his head….God. He did not want to do this today…but he had to. He was getting close to being due, even overdue, so…yeah. Just something that he had to take care of. Like combing his hair or brushing his teeth or shaving. Just another in the series of life's annoying and tedious grooming rituals.
"I know, baby sis, I'm the one who told you…now please stop scratching me. Your nails are sharp." Said Sho
"Sharp!" said Mukai as she scratched her brother on the face. Shimazaki felt for him, he really did, but better Sho than him.
"Yeah, sharp. Now stop scratching my face before you get me in the eyes and I go blind too." Said Sho
"Hey, if you go blind then maybe I'll finally have an excuse to teach you braille." Said Shimazaki with a shrug. He hadn't even meant it, well sort of. He did want to teach the kid braille, he was just too lazy right now, but he didn't mean it in whatever way Sho thought. Whatever way that made Sho's heart beat so loud that Shimazaki could actually hear it.
"You…you could teach me now…if you wanted to. I mean I'm not blind so I don't need it but…but I would like it if you taught me." Said Sho. There was a hitch in his voice and a breathy quality to his speech…that fucking kid. That lovesick fucking kid. He could not wait until this crush was over…or one of them died. Whichever came first.
"Blind! Ryou is blind!" said Mukai. Aw, she was conjugating now. Good for her. Almost made the whole thing worth it.
"Sorry…she doesn't know what she's saying." Said Sho
"No, I think she does. She learned a new word and now she wants to try it out….this is so fucking adorable." Said Shimazaki
"No, I mean I don't think that she wants to make you feel bad." Said Sho
"Bad? Why would I feel bad? I'm Shimazaki Ryou, I'm thirty one, I like chocolate, I love dogs, I like to chew on waxy things, and I'm blind. There. It's not that hard. Just another thing about me that there is to know." Said Shimazaki with a shrug. There was no point in feeling bad about it, not really, since this was the way that he had always been. Honestly other people making a big deal out of it was what made it all weird and shit.
"Yeah I guess…but still. I don't want her to make you feel bad. I don't ever want anyone to make you feel bad." Said Sho. Shimazaki knew that tone and…no. Nope. None of that. None of that soft tone and none of the getting closer and none of that way the muscles in his arm were tensing and his fingers were flexing like he was debating reaching over and holding his hand.
He loved Sho, he really did, and for that reason they weren't going to be having any of that.
"Come on." Said Shimazaki as he got up. Something crunched under his feet…yup. Those were chips. The floor was a chippy minefield. It was better to navigate the minefield of the floor than it was to navigate the minefield that was Sho's feelings towards him. The last thing that he wanted to do was to rip Sho's heart out…and the second to last thing he wanted to do was make Sho think that there was some kind of hope there.
There wasn't.
Sho…was not Mob. If he had been Mob then yes, by all means, hope away. Mob was older…barely…but she was just…Mob. She needed different things from him, asked different things from him, and she had always been his equal. Well if he wanted to get technical about it she was his superior. If it had been her with the unrequited feelings then…well he didn't know if they would have been requited since she was still so young, but he definitely would have gone to bed with her if she asked. Not now, still too young, maybe in a year or two. Sho…would probably kill him…but he couldn't control how he felt. Sho was like his kid.
Like his tiny, smelly, slightly annoying, lovesick kid.
"Where are we going?" asked Sho as he climbed to his feet with Mukai tugging on his coat and trying to get him to stay put.
"Going here. Going here, big brother." Said Mukai as she tugged on Sho and dug her heels into the rug. More crunching….they had better not have wasted an entire tube of tube chips…those were so good. Dip them in chocolate sauce and caramel…he needed something to eat after this. After this long, long, and did he mention long, process.
"No, going there. Going to the bathroom because I need to clean out my eye sockets and I need someone to hold my eye cleaner for me." Said Shimazaki. That…wasn't entirely a hyperbole. He did need someone to warm it up for him, putting something cold directly into his eyes was the worst, though he didn't need Mukai to come with.
But she was.
Where Sho went she went and where Shimazaki meant then Sho went. Sho had been his little shadow since…when had he met the kid? Three years ago? Or maybe four…Sho had been shorter when they'd met. He'd been about…eight. Yeah. Eight sounded right. Damn. Three whole years. He'd had Sho in his life for three years…and that crush that Sho had…it had been growing for three years. Four, maybe, closer to four. That was…a hell of a long time to have a crush on someone.
That was how long it had taken him to realize that he loved Toshi.
He heard them snoring in their room as he passed. They'd been hitting the bottle…and the Xanax…a little hard lately…but they hadn't said anything to him. They'd been through a lot, a building had fallen down on them, and their new boyfriend or whatever had been reassigned to Siberia or Antarctica or the Amazon or Mount Everest or…wherever. Toshi had a lot going on but they wouldn't just tell him about it and…he still loved them. It had taken them like three or four years to realize it but he loved them…he loved them so much that it hurt…
Like getting little baby talons in his eye sockets.
That was why he wasn't saying a word to Sho even though he was walking way too close. He smelled terrible, he was getting to that age where he needed to take a bath every single fucking day, but he still wasn't going to say a word. He couldn't stand sad people, they were boring as fuck, and sad Sho was the worst kind of sad person. Sho…was going to get over him eventually….that was how these things worked. When you ignored things for long enough then they went away.
Or they killed you.
"Don't let her drink any of this shit, it'll probably kill you." Said Shimazaki as he tossed Sho the eye cleaner. He caught it and sat at his spot at the end of the tub. Mukai busied herself tossing towels onto the floor and then rolling on them. He wasn't going to stop her, he wasn't the one who did the laundry, though he did hope that she wasn't messing with Toshi's towels. They had the fancy soft kind…he'd wash those later just to be sure.
"I know, I'm not dumb." Said Sho. He crossed his arms as he said that and stuck out his tongue. Shimazaki turned on the tap and let the water run warm. Maybe by the time it was warm enough work with Sho would be out of whatever funk he was in…and probably right into a new one. He was coming up on his moody years wasn't he? God…Sho in his moody teenage years….he was not ready. The world was not ready.
The world would never be ready.
"Not dumb!" said Mukai in defense of what might have been her only brother. There was no way to tell. Apparently Suzuki got women…who knew? Not now, no, according to Hatori Suzuki had fallen into a deep depression from whence there was no coming back because Mob kicked him out of the house…Shimazaki would have felt the same way if he had become the sort of man who was at the mercy of his twelve year old daughter.
No, that was…not the relationship that he wanted with his daughter…if he ever had one.
Toshi didn't want kids, he did, and eventually they were going to come to the end of that fight….discussion. They would probably never have kids together, Toshi didn't want kids and he would never force them into something that they didn't want to do. If he ever did have a kid with them then he was never going to end up like Suzuki. That weird…wife…daughter….relationship he had with Mob. That was weird even by his standards and he was weird as fuck. Still, though, it was nice to have someone like Suzuki around.
He looked a hell of a lot better by comparison.
"Whoa, Mukai, calm down. I never said that your brother was dumb. I actually think that he'd pretty smart." Said Shimazaki. Mukai's aura was focused on him, now, in that way that Suzuki's aura focused on people. Not in the way that Sho's aura focused, though, there was a layer of…Sho…to him when he did that…like now. Sho was all focused on him and…
Yeah. He had to watch what he said.
He wasn't used to it, watching what he said, but he maybe needed to get on that. Sho was all….well Mob had called it 'doki doki' and….yeah. Like Toshi was always saying, this whole thing was going in the wrong direction. He wished that Sho had been older, then he could have done something about this. He could have introduced him to some guys or something…shown him that there were plenty of fish in the sea or whatever. Well that only mattered if you wanted to go fishing…he was coming up to the end of this metaphor…wait, no, he wasn't. He just had to show Sho that going fishing was fun, sometimes very fun, but he was way too young for the very fun parts of fishing.
Still, fishing could be fun.
"So, you meet any cute guys lately?" asked Shimazaki as he got the sticky stuff from the outside of his eyes. That was…he had no idea what it was but it had to go. He focused on what he was doing. He needed to make this seem like not a big deal, like something that didn't even matter, even if it did matter. The last time Sho mentioned a guy he had been crying about cheating…even though he didn't even like his own girlfriend….and if you didn't like the person that you were with then go and jump back in the pool….because the pool was crowded….and…he had maybe been drinking a little too much lately….or not enough….he'd decide later.
"Wh-why would you ask me that?!" asked Sho. The room shook a little. Sho…well they were going the wrong way when it came to self-acceptance. God…kids were so much work sometimes…he could see why Toshi didn't want any…not completely but, yes, kids were a hell of a lot of work. He didn't think that his kid would be. He was a much more accepting guy than Suzuki Touichirou…and also he was a lot more honest with himself than Suzuki was. Seriously. Someone needed to take that guy, sit him down, and tell him that he wasn't as straight as he thought he was. Then he could come off of it with Sho already because this was not good for him at all.
"Just making conversation." Said Shimazaki with a shrug.
"Conversion….convert…con…" said Mukai as she tried out another new word. He focused on her…and the cute little faces she made when she tried out a new word. God…he sort of wished he could have recorded it. She was so small and cute…he wondered if Sho had ever been that small and that cute…or maybe he had just been this pissed off little guy for his entire life…like an angry little baby.
"Conversation." Said Shimazaki
"We…we don't need to….Mukai, here, take my phone!" said Sho. There was the sound of rusting as Sho dug around for his phone. He barely got it out of his pocket before Mukai grabbed his phone and ran away. Shimazaki followed the path she took with her powers. She had run into the living room and now she was hiding under a blanket and clutching the phone like she had found the Holy Grail. He…sort of wished he understood the whole phone games thing now.
Hey! Something to do when he was done with this.
"After this you can explain phone-" said Shimazaki. He wasn't going to push this, at least not now. Sho…this was still a sore point with him. Shimazaki had no idea why. It didn't count as cheating if you didn't like the person you were with…but that was a conversation for another time. At least it would have been…if Sho had let it drop….but he didn't….
So….progress?
"I don't want to talk about Ritsu….ok? So don't ask me about him because I don't want to talk about him." Said Sho in a tone that said 'yes, please, ask me about Ritsu'…whoever he was. The kid that Sho said he kissed….and also Mob had mentioned someone named Ritsu….what was it with this family and people named Ritsu?
"Are you sure? Because you sound like you want to talk about him." said Shimazaki
"I…don't know. I mean…I don't know! It's like…I try not to think about him but I want to think about him and…and I like him a lot and…and it's like….I think that I'm a bad person because….I'm a bad person." Said Sho
"Sho…you're not a bad person. What have I always told you? Fuck who you want and fuck who you like. If you like this Ritsu guy-" said Shimazaki
"I have a girlfriend! She loves me and…and I don't talk to her anymore and…and I did a bad thing…ok?" asked Sho. Shimazaki turned to face him. He didn't need to face someone to talk to them but…Sho seemed like he wanted to have one of those deep sorts of talks. God…why were Suzuki's so fucking intense all the time?
"Is this about that thing you told me about with that guy after the Seventh Division thing?" asked Shimazaki. Sho nodded.
"Yeah…I try not to think about it and stuff…and…can we talk about something else? I mean I know that I'm a bad person because dad is a bad person and I came from him….and stuff." Said Sho
"Hey, none of that. Don't compare yourself to your dad. You aren't your dad just like I'm not mine and your kid won't be you. So your dad cheated on your mom? That doesn't mean that you're him." said Shimazaki
"I kissed someone else….how am I not like dad?" asked Sho
"I don't know…um….you feel bad about it? I don't know. I'm not a relationship kind of guy…not in the way that you are, anyway, but if you ask me if you don't even like your girlfriend-" said Shimazaki
"But I do! I mean…not like she likes me but…I still hurt her and…and I don't want to talk about this." said Sho
"Ok, cool. Let's talk about something else. I think that Shibata's going to try and make more homemade soda again. I mean nobody likes it but he's taking it as a personal challenge or something-" said Shimazaki
"I mean…is it worse for me to tell her that I love her and not mean it or is it worse for me to break her heart?" asked Sho. Shimazaki sighed. Well….yeah. Alright, it looked like they were stuck in this deep conversation. Alright then. He could do this. It wasn't like anyone else was going to.
"No idea. I truly have no idea. Me, if I were you, I would just cut her loose. There have been plenty of people who've been into me but that doesn't mean that I stick with them…but you've got your own shit going on with your dad that you're not ready to deal with…so I don't know. I do know that you deserve to be happy which is why I asked. You deserve to chase after all the cute guys you want, ok?" asked Shimazaki. There. That was perfect. If Toshi had been there then they would have been all 'you did good, Ryou' or…well maybe they would have been all 'rip off the bandage already, Ryou'. It was hard to tell with them sometimes….but that was ok.
"I don't want to chase after anyone. I just…I don't know. There's just…it's like…there's someone who likes me a lot and I like him and…and I can't be with him and…he's the only guy who ever liked me…and he makes me feel so good and bad and weird and…and now I really don't want to talk about Ritsu!" said Sho. Shimazaki knew that tone. That was the 'ok, now we're done and if you ask me about this one more time then I'm going to freak out' tone. Alright then. Time to avert any further landmines.
"Well then how about less talking and more eye cleaning? How's that sound?" asked Shimazaki
"That…sounds good." Said Sho. He played with the eye cleaner in his hands. He…well he was worried….and upset….and also there was the whole 'doki doki' thing he had going on….which Shimazaki was not going to address. Nope. They were done with all of that now. Back to business.
"Good. Now last call for poking me in the eye socket. Any takers?" asked Shimazaki. Sho, thankfully, declined. He was too old for that. When he'd first asked he had said that the whole thing was so cool. He had been a lot younger then. Now he was old enough that he knew better and had other things on his mind…apparently a lot of really heavy things…well that was fine. Shimazaki could help him through those heavy things…
He really didn't like dealing with heavy things like life and love and all the shit Sho was going through…but he would help Sho with whatever he needed no matter what. He loved him like his own kid after all.