All you need is love.
That was the first thing that he could remember. Like…ok. The very first thing that he could remember was something itchy and a place that was loud, he assumed that he remembered his birth, but the first thing that he remembered that was an actual memory with a beginning and a middle and an end was all you need is love. Not even the song just…the words….ok, so the memory didn't have a beginning and all of that other shit. So he mostly just remembered mom. She was warm and she smelled nice and she had been holding him and that was what she had said.
All you need is love.
"All you need is love! Love is all you need!" shouted Mukai. Shimazaki reached over and pulled her away from his laptop. She did not need to mess with this. He was close to…whatever this was. Whatever he had been looking for…and he had been looking for something.
But not Sho's phone.
"Come on, baby sis, tell me what you did with it…please? I'll give you a cookie if you tell me." Said Sho. Shimazaki let go of Mukai. She ran right over to his laptop. She was too little to climb up onto the counter and pull it down. Banished to the kitchen…a sort of self-banishment. Toshi hadn't said anything to him when they came back…well with all the bars he fed them they wouldn't be saying anything for a while.
Poor Toshi.
Toshi….had been through a lot. He didn't know what they had been through exactly, they had been pretty scant on the details and Mob hadn't wanted to talk about it…but he knew that it must have been a lot. They had…well they had thought that they'd needed to run…and it was all his fault. He'd done something and…and he hated hating himself…he hated making mistakes…but he had made one…because he was a mistake, he wasn't good for anything…he just…he shook his head. Mukai reached up and put her hands over his eyes.
Kids were good distractions.
"Jojo." Said Mukai. She said it with an air of finality, like she had just come to some kind of great conclusion…and maybe she had. He just had no idea what she had been thinking about. Being her age meant a lot of thinking, he figured, since the world made no sense. Like…he knew that he was in the kitchen enjoying the smell of a cake in the oven….but what did she know? She just knew that she was in a place that smelled good with some very good company…and also something about Jojo…Jojo….
What the fuck was wrong with him?! How had he forgotten Jojo!?
"Who?" asked Sho. Shimazaki tsked…at least he thought he did. He hadn't ever done that before. Tsking had been Toshi's department…but they were currently trying to regulate their nervous system or brain system or whatever so the task of tsking had been left to him…not that they would have backed him up with this. They, for some reason, did not care for his taste in music…
Which was fine. If they wanted him to put something else on for once then he would. He could change it up for them…he could change for them. They only had to ask.
"Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner but he knew it couldn't last." Sang Shimazaki. He thought that he'd done a pretty good job. That was all that there was to Jojo so he had to do the man justice. Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner but it couldn't last so he moved to Arizona but then he was out of place and he had to get back but there was no way to get back because he'd burned, no, he'd nuked every single bridge behind him. Even if he threw himself down into the kowtow of his life, sliced all the important fingers off of both of his hands, and didn't even take the bandage afterwards….yeah, that part of his life was over…so there was nowhere to go but forward…
But not alone.
Because, you see, Jojo only thought that he was a loner. He thought that he had been happy living from day to day and moving from place to place with no thought to the past or the future…and Jojo couldn't lie, it had been pretty fucking amazing, but it was even more amazing living like that with someone else. His other piece. The person he was going to visit an octopuses' garden with….wrong song…but he would have liked to be under the sea with…well no, because Toshi hated swimming because of the tits thing…but they could just keep their shirt on…or not. They didn't have to go under the sea to an octopuses' garden. Even if they could sing and dance around because they wouldn't be found….if Toshi didn't want to go then….then he wouldn't go…
He would go wherever Toshi wanted to go.
If they didn't want to be in the shade of an octopuses' garden…even if they could be so happy…happy and safe…nobody to tell them what to do….he would go wherever Toshi wanted to go and he would do whatever Toshi wanted to do. He had been…he had been needy…like Toshi had said. He had been needy and pushy and…and he shouldn't have been thinking about the future. He wasn't a loner, no, but he…was not a future…person. He was a nowhere man…no…he was here but…but he would always be here. He existed only in this time…in this place….in this here…with Toshi. He had finally found someone he wanted to see the future out with…and he would…whatever Toshi wanted…
Anything that they wanted…even if they wanted to….
"Get back!" shouted Mukai. He jumped. Right. He…needed to just…stop taking whatever it was that he'd taken. It had been round…that didn't help anything at all….but it had been round and bitter….he was fine, though, maybe a little spacey. Apparently Mukai had been carrying the whole tune on her own…
Well that had been rude of him now hadn't it been?
"Get back to where you once belonged." Said Shimazaki. He maybe should have sang it…but there was no time for a take two. Mukai's little face was all scrunched up. At least he could still focus on the world around him…though it did get kind of fuzzy once he tried to look past Sho. Tsuchiya was….still moving her stuff into the spare room…and Shibata was getting his room ready for Hatori….and Toshi was asleep….but Mob….he couldn't see Mob….
But she was still there. He knew that she would never leave him.
"Jojo….Jojo get back…'Zona!" said Mukai. She nodded at the end of that. She was pleased with herself, it seemed, and she had every reason to be. How in the hell did someone like Suzuki not only convince women to bear his children but also…how did he make such great kids!? Shimazaki…well he had actual kids, he knew that statistically at least one of his swimmers had reached home plate…did baseball work in this metaphor? His sperm must have, at some point, reached someone's egg and he knew that, statistically, here in Tokyo there had to have been at least one new addition to his bloodline running around…but he wasn't about to go looking up every single women he'd ever been careless with…so he'd have to make do with the kids he had now…and no others.
Toshi didn't want kids. No more asking them.
"…what?" asked Sho. Shimazaki, if he had been feeling less gracious, would have slapped him upside the head for his blasphemy….but he didn't have it in him to smack Sho or any kid around really. If he ever met any of his probable kids then he wasn't going to smack them around even if they said something terrible like he had shit taste in music and they liked boy bands….or extra loud and annoying death metal…or…whatever the fuck Ono Yoko was on these days….nope. He loved all of his kids both real and pseudo.
Even if they did disappoint him at every turn.
"And you call yourself my son." Sighed Shimazaki as only he could sigh. Sho…he had been teaching Sho about good music for as long as he'd known the kid…but of course Sho had probably been too busy mentally undressing him to absorb much of anything. No matter, no matter, there was still hope for the next generation….
Or maybe Sho and Mukai were the same generation….he wasn't sure how that even worked now that he thought about it…this seemed like one of those things that Toshi would have known about.
"Jojo get back now!" shouted Mukai. She poked him in the side of the head when she said that…he was so fucking proud of her!
"Ok, ok, for you…my new daughter." Said Shimazaki. He put her down and got up. He could have held her while he did this, put her song on for her, but then she would have fucked with his laptop. She liked fucking with other people's things…he kind of wished that he was Eskimo brothers with Suzuki. At least that could have put him in the running for whoever was this kid's dad…though he knew that the matter was closed. She had red hair like Sho did. He had no idea what red was but he knew that it was rare. Suzuki had it too…heh. It was like nature's paternity test…
Fuck nature's paternity test! Next time Suzuki fucked someone he was going in next. Like, right afterwards! Like she wasn't even going to have time to clean up he was going to be in there so fast…
Toshi didn't want kids…and he couldn't want kids since they didn't want any. They had never gone over it, never put it in the rules, but if he went in raw after Suzuki they would probably have had a problem with that. Him making people….well it wasn't like making a cake. Babies didn't smell good…well sometimes they did, their heads did, but…well babies weren't cakes and…and….was that cake done yet?
Obviously not since Sho was sitting on the kitchen floor like a little sack of sadness.
"…she can remember all of that but she can't remember what she did with my phone?" asked Sho. He was sitting all scrunched up with his legs crossed and his head in his hands. His knees were digging into his elbows…or maybe his elbows were digging into his knees. Either way it could not have been healthy for someone to sit like that for too long…and also sad people were boring.
"Unlike you she has her priorities straight." Said Shimazaki as he nudged Sho into a less…sad…sitting positon. Sho straightened out…but his aura still sounded sad. Like that depressing song about the piano man…what was that song? This was going to drive him crazy…crazy like Mukai who he was ignoring, maybe if he ignored her for long enough then she would stop pulling his hair…
One kid at a time. He was going to worry about one kid at a time.
"I-I have all my priorities straight! I have a lot of priorities." Said Sho. Shimazaki flicked him over the head. He had been about to sit all closed up and sad…which was not good at all. They couldn't both be sad…not that he was sad….but he might have wound up catching Sho's sadness…or something….
"Such as?" asked Shimazaki. Maybe if he pissed Sho off then he could catch that instead of sadness. He would rather have been pissed off than sad…well what he really wanted was to be happy…but that did not at all seem like an option at this point…
"Finding my phone so I can text my girlfriend so she doesn't get sad." Said Sho
"Why are you even bothering with this girl?" asked Shimazaki. There. Now that was one hell of a distraction, the train wreck that was Sho's romantic life. Really. This kid. He was gay, he knew it, Shimazaki knew it, the whole world aside from Suzuki knew it. Shimazaki had no clue how Sho could live like that. Shimazaki…well he'd never lived like that….but he had always been his own man. Since the day he'd realized that he was a man he'd been his own man…well he'd fought to be his own man…but Sho liked fighting!
"Because she's in love with me….and…well I can't hurt her. It hurts when you love someone and they don't love you back." Said Sho. Well someone was still salty as hell. Maybe the coming cake would make him sweet…or at least less…like this. What did Sho even want from him?! Well…he knew exactly what Sho wanted from him…and he wasn't going to give it! Sho was…he was Sho! He wasn't like Mob, he wasn't going to get more appealing with age, so even if Shimazaki had wanted to help Sho get it out of his system….well obviously that wasn't going to happen!
Unrequited love was a bitch….but not so much of a bitch that Shimazaki was going to make all of Sho's dreams come true.
"All you need is love! Jojo!" said Mukai. She slapped him on the back when she said that…she was such a smart kid. Ok, this was Suzuki's kid. Apparently he was some kind of genius or something. Well Mukai was a baby genius…and that movie was not terrible in the least bit. He wondered if any of his kids were that smart…well not with him as a dad. If he and Toshi'd had a kid then their kid would have been smart…since Toshi was smart…
He had these kids and they were enough.
"She does have a point." Said Shimazaki as he sat Mukai down in his lap. He was not a fan of little baby slaps even if those little baby…or maybe toddler…slaps had been well earned. She had a point. All you needed was love. Sho needed more love in his life. Actual love, not whatever he felt for Shimazaki. Sho needed a boyfriend…or at least someone to hook up with…or whatever it was kids his age did with one another.
"All that Jojo guy needed was love?" asked Sho. He had a point, all Jojo needed was love. But that was not the point that needed to be made.
"No…well yes. If he'd been loved more then he wouldn't have had to go to Arizona…wherever the hell that is…but for you all you need is love. With a guy your age. Not with me and not with that girl who you took things WAY too far with. Find a guy your own age-" said Shimazaki
"I told you about him already….and anyway I can't see him again so there's no point in…talking…about stuff." Said Sho
"What about someone else? Anyone else? I worry about you. I hurt you, I know I did, and it hurts me….and you know how I hate feeling pain or any other kind of negative emotion." Said Shimazaki. He shrugged….and then Mukai made her escape. She ran over to the counter….and she was reaching for his laptop. She was reaching with her aura. Huh. Well it wasn't like she could do anything, she was still way too young for her powers to come in.
"Stop worrying about me. I'm fine. I don't care if I'll never see Ritsu again and I don't care if dad's coming back….and if Fukuda's coming back…and if big sis won't come out of our room…and I don't even care that…that…that Mukai's going to break your laptop." Said Sho
"No she's not." Said Shimazaki
"No she's not." Said Mukai. She sat right down on the floor as she said that…and that wasn't fair at all. Why did Suzuki get all the cute kids? Shimazaki had no idea if any of his kids were cute…well he knew that his and Toshi's would have been….but he wasn't going to start bothering Toshi about kids. No, they needed their rest and shit…and they needed a rest…a break…from him.
"See? Even she agrees." Said Shimazaki
"She agrees with everyone. I don't even know if she knows what she's saying…sorry. Sorry baby sis, I was kind of an asshole to you…sorry." said Sho
"I forgive you! Now! Over there!" shouted Mukai
"Don't beat yourself up. In the grand scheme of assholery you're like the eleven year old virgin you are." Said Shimazaki
"Huh?" asked Sho. Oh. Right, he didn't know what stuff was….well Shimazaki wasn't in the mood to explain the ins and outs of the ins and outs to him. No way was he giving Sho any more ideas. Sho…he had enough ideas as it was. Shimazaki wasn't an idiot, he knew that Sho hadn't gotten rid of that damn sketchbook and he probably copied all the pictures from Toshi's phone, too. No need to give him more shit to…whatever it was he did…over.
"Right, sorry, I forgot that you don't know what things are yet. You'll know when you get older…not from me, obviously, but you'll figure it out." Said Shimazaki
"Figure what out?" asked Sho
"Not telling you. If I tell you then you're going to scream, probably make a weird face, and run out of the room. Then Mukai's going to run away and then who in the hell am I going to sit here enjoying kitchen smells and music with?" asked Shimazaki
"I don't know. You're theyfriend." Said Sho. Well if words could kill then that would have been a fatality. Like how that game went 'fatality' really loud. The one Sho liked. Sho…damn it, Sho, come on already!
"Nah, Toshi's still too out of it." Said Shimazaki with a shrug. No. They were not getting into the whole Toshi thing. He didn't want to…well he didn't want to start up with all of that. He was trying to avoid getting sad and shit….not talk about sad shit and just…deal with sad shit….and…and shit…
Someone was tugging on his hair. Mukai.
"Good. I hope they sleep for the rest of the day and then for all of tomorrow too. That's what they're good at, sleeping, and being mean." Said Sho
"Well someone's feeling green." Said Shimazaki. Jealousy was NOT a good feeling…he knew. It was a powerful one…the sort of thing that could make a person do stupid shit….like drive the love of his life away…and shit…shit….
"Sho green shirt…Sho wearing green shirt…over there!" shouted Mukai. Perceptive as always…she was such a great kid…they were all such great kids!
"Green as in jealous, my pseudo daughter, green as in jealous." Said Shimazaki
"I'm not jealous…why would I be jealous of them? They're mean and boring and….and they're…them! I would never be jealous of them…and I don't know why you like them so much. They ran away from you. I wouldn't ever…" said Sho
"Toshi has their own shit they deal with, ok? And don't be badmouthing Toshi. That's one of the few things in this world that'll get me pissed off at you." Said Shimazaki
"….sorry." said Sho. Fuck…he shouldn't have been so hard on him. He…he let Mukai go. He didn't pick Sho up, no, he would have taken that in the wrong way…the most wrong way possible.
"Hey…don't be like that…come on." Said Shimazaki. He put his hand on Sho's shoulder…that was ok…there was no way that he was going to take that the wrong way….right? Right? Well….this was Sho…and Sho….well Sho could take anything in the worst way…
Yup. There it was. The blushing and the…whole….turned on…thing.
"I'm not being anything." Said Sho
"Sho sad…Sho being sad…over there." said Mukai. She even pointed…she was so fucking smart….
"See? Even she can tell that you're sad and she has the emotional range of one of those little sugar spoons they put in with tea sets." Said Shimazaki
"I'm not sad." Said Sho
"Fine you're not sad…you're just painfully sober. How about you and I get really fucking stoned and then eat the hell out of that 'welcome home' cake when it's done?" asked Shimazaki
"Cake! I want cake! Cake now please and thank you!" shouted Mukai. She banged on the oven…yup. He was with her. No more dep feleingsy talk! Cake please and thank you!
"Yeah, you can get in on this. Second hand for her only, though, I'm not teaching a two year old how to smoke. That's too much even for me." Said Shimazaki
"But big sis said-" said Sho
"Mob…she means well. She loves you and she doesn't want you to grow up to be a little stoner like her but, you know what? Fuck Mob." Said Shimazaki. That may not have been the best choice of words judging by how murderous Sho's aura felt…and sounded. He was like the ch-ch-ch or maybe it was more like tschuh….or shush? The music that came up when the Halloween killer was near. That was what Sho's aura sounded like right now…
Yeah, maybe all of that had come out kind of….wrong.
"Being mean to my sister is the one thing that's going to get me mad at you." Said Sho
"You're a little ball of barely repressed rage, there are about twenty things that I can do right now that would piss you off and probably enough to hit me." Said Shimazaki
"Well just…don't talk like that about my sister!" said Sho
"Shush! No talking!" said Mukai. She even put her little finger to her lips…even Toshi would have thought that she was cute….not that he was going to open the kid discussion…so why was he even thinking about it? What he wanted…it didn't matter….not if he was going to lose Toshi….
"Ok, ok, I surrender….and anyway I didn't mean fuck Mob like…fuck you, Mob….or like I want to fuck-" said Shimazaki
"Don't be gross." Said Sho. He had no idea what Sho was so grossed out about. Mob was really nice and she was pretty as hell….well he assumed that she was pretty….but Sho couldn't tell. He was gay, first of all, and second of all Mob was his sister and guys, normal guys, didn't think that way about their sisters. Not outside of that weird shit Hatori watched with the volume up way too high…
How so many stepsisters somehow got stuck in washing machines and then decided that fucking their stepbrothers was the best course of action he would never know.
"Yuck!" said Mukai. She had the right idea. She covered her nose. Such a smart kid…he was getting her something nice for Christmas….maybe a phone of her own or a laptop or one of the many other things she was hell bent on stealing from people, hiding, and ultimately breaking.
"What? I said that I didn't mean it like I wanted to fuck her. I just meant it like…fuck what she says. You're your own man…little boy…not so little boy, actually, so maybe take a bath more than once a week and use that deodorant and cologne I got you." Said Shimazaki
"I smell fine." Said Sho
"Sho smells bad." Said Mukai
"Thank you, pseudo daughter. See? From the mouths of babes." Said Shimazaki. Truth be told Sho smelled like a locker room had a baby with a wet towel that you forgot about under your bed with a couple of weeks…and then that baby decided to exclusively wear sweaty gym socks, the cheap kind. He knew why Sho hated baths…but, really, he needed to figure out some kind of alternative. Even the smell of a baking cake wasn't enough to drown out the stench of unwashed not even teenage boy.
"…fine….I'll take a bath in a day or two…but I hate the rest of that stuff! It smells bad." Said Sho
"Well then we'll go to a store and steal you something that you like…but after we get god and stoned. Not high, no, we are getting stoned and I won't hear a word against it. Mob loves you but at some point you're going to have to start being your own man and not your sister's little brother. Men don't take shit, not from anyone, not if we can avoid it." Said Shimazaki
"But….I'm not a man. I'm eleven." Said Sho
"Eh, you're a short little man with a high pitched voice. You certainly smell like one." said Shimazaki
"Sho smells really bad." Said Mukai as she pulled her shirt up over her nose.
"Shut up….Shimazaki….and stop saying stuff….baby sis. I don't smell bad…I smell…normal." Said Sho
"Well you're about to smell like weed, like a hell of a lot weed, so you just sit tight." Said Shimazaki before he teleported away. It wasn't a long trip to his and Toshi's room, he could have walked it, but if he walked it then he could have woken them. He would have had to open the door…and then they would have woken up….and that was the last thing he wanted….
Or maybe he did want that.
They were sleeping. He made sure to teleport to the quietest part of the room. It was cool in here…he couldn't feel the sun…the blinds were down. He…he couldn't tell. He couldn't tell anything besides the fact that Toshi was there and sleeping…all curled up…they were curled up into a ball. That was sad sleeping…and he wasn't in the mood for sadness….he was never in the mood for sadness….
He teleported over to Toshi.
He made sure not to wake them…they were dead to the world it felt like. He lifted their arm just a little…just enough to uncurl them. Toshi….Toshi snored…he wiped their mouth. They hated waking up with drool…they said that it made them feel like a baby….he didn't mind them when they drooled…he never minded them….he loved them….
He raised their arm up.
He raised it up just enough that he could slip in there next to him. This bed…it was warm…they were warm. They were so warm…and soft. He let their arm down. They hardly ever spooned him, he was always the spooner and they were the spoony…but right now…well this…this was ok…he just…he was not sad. He just needed a minute. Toshi…Toshi was back and he loved them and…and….and love was all he needed.
Well love and to get stoned with his favorite eleven year old in the world…actually he needed the love more.