Sometimes Serizawa didn't want the others to come back.

It wasn't that he didn't miss his friends, of course he did, he had just been enjoying his solitude. He always felt better on his own, It was leftover from his days locked away in his room, and he knew that this wasn't healthy... but he was happy. Also, it wasn't like he was alone, he had his cat for company. Well, not his cat, Fukuda's cat...but Fukuda was away. So the cat was kind of like Serizawa's cat.

It wasn't like Meow-Meow had anyone else to take care of him.

"There you go, Meow-Meow, one cup of steamed fish and one cup of raw. I put new water in your bowl, too, and I made sure it was the right temperature. After this I'll brush you, alright?" asked Serizawa as he sat the cat down. He had double and triple checked his work. He had gotten it right. Now his cat, the cat, Fukuda's cat wouldn't starve.

Serizawa would never have let one of his friends starve.

Technically dog was man's best friend, but Cat was a close second period. They were so soft and fluffy, and they purred when you petted them... dogs, didn't know how to purr, not even when you petted them. At least Serizawa assumed that dogs didn't purr. He had never had a dog before, he had never been able to have a pet before, it just hadn't been safe. He had been too dangerous when he had been a kid. That was why Mom had never been able to get any kind of pet and she had loved animals...he hoped that Mom had finally got some kind of a pet. A bird like she had always wanted. He hoped that she was going out to new places, and making new friends, and doing all the things that she should have been able to do if he had never been born. She was probably so much happier now that he had left. Now she didn't have to wish that Serizawa had never been born, as he assumed she had, now she could pretend that she had never even had a son to begin with.

She was better off without him.

Maybe all of his friends were better off without him. Maybe that was why they had all been gone for so long, for a month now, much longer than they had said that they'd be gone for. Hatori had texted him before and said that everything was going wrong, but then right, but then wrong again….so he had an excuse…not that he needed any of his friends to make excuses! People had lives outside of him and…and even if they had all realized that they were better off without him then he should have been happy. He should have been happy that all of his friends had been happy.

What could he have wanted more than his friend's happiness?

Meow-Meow sniffed his food and then looked at it for a while. Serizawa clutched his umbrella in his hand. He had tried his best and…and what if he messed up? What if his cat, if Fukuda's cat, starved because of him? Why had he thought that he could do this right? He couldn't. He was the worst at everything and now Miss Suzuki would be mad at him because she had trusted him to do this for her and he had messed up and she would probably….probably wish that she had never met him and…and maybe it was better that way…it would have been better for her if she'd never met him. Then she wouldn't have wasted her time with-

Meow-Meow started eating!

"Thank you! I didn't know if you liked it and I was thinking that maybe I had messed up but…but you're a cat and you have no idea what I'm saying and…and I shouldn't disturb you. I should just let you eat." Said Serizawa. He didn't like it when people spoke to him while he was eating so he assumed that cats would have felt the same way. He was kind of like a cat, he preferred to be alone, and also he used to take a lot of naps.

He wondered what sort of cat he would have been if he had been born a cat.

He would have definitely been a fluffy one. Maybe a big one too. He hadn't realized, before leaving his room, just how much bigger he was than most people. He knew that he had gotten taller during his time in his room but somehow he had always figured that he was roughly the same size as everyone else. He hadn't spent a lot of time looking at himself in the mirror, anyway, and the only person he'd had to compare himself to was Mom and he so rarely saw her…it had been better that way. Now she could share her life with someone else, something else, like a big fluffy cat or a bird or…or maybe she could even have another son and…and she could call him Katsuya and then she could get it right that time and then…and then Serizawa would be all alone like he had always wanted…

No.

He didn't want to be alone! He wanted…he wanted to calm down. He wanted…he had to tell Miss Suzuki that Meow-Meow wasn't starving to death. So that was what he did. He still didn't have Fukuda's phone number and…and he didn't really want it. Everyone said that Fukuda was mean and…and that wasn't the only reason. If he had Fukuda's number then Serizawa wouldn't have had any excuse to text Miss Suzuki. Calling her would have been better, it had been so long since he'd heard someone else's voice aside from his own, but she was very busy and he shouldn't have even been thinking of bothering her like that. She had done so much for him and the last thing he needed to do was call her and ruin her day-

-but if she called him that was ok.

As soon as he sent her the text his phone started to ring. He dropped his umbrella…and Meow-Meow ran away. Well of course he had, of course Serizawa would have messed up, and now Meow-Meow would starve because of him and he would have to tell Miss Suzuki how he'd messed up and he didn't want to have to confess what he had done to her and-and his phone was still ringing and he couldn't just ignore her because then she definitely wouldn't have wanted to be his friend anymore and then without her there would have been no him and-and-and-

-he picked up the phone.

"Serizawa, that was such a good-" said Miss Suzuki. Her voice sounded so good after all of this silence…he would have closed his eyes and enjoyed it…if he hadn't messed up. He could have just closed his eyes and leaned his head back and imagined that she had been right there with him. When she was near him it felt like everything in the world was going to be ok. That he was safe and happy and…and nothing could hurt him and he couldn't hurt anyone else. Like grabbing a star but in reverse…but he had messed up and when you messed up you had to own up to it.

Even if you didn't want to.

"Miss Suzuki! I'm sorry but I messed up! I scared the cat and then he ran away and now he's going to starve to death and it's all my fault and I can't believe that I let you down like this! Miss Suzuki, please find it in your heart to forgive me…but if not then I understand. What I did was unforgivable and if you never want to speak to me again then I completely understand." Said Serizawa. There was silence on the other end of the phone…a deafening sort of silence. What was she doing? Was she…was she thinking about how she didn't want to be his friend anymore? Was she imagining what a life without him would have been like? Well it made sense. He had messed up and now she was going to….

Laugh?

"He calls that unforgivable?" laughed…oh….oh! Serizawa was an idiot. That wasn't Miss Suzuki laughing at him, that was Shimazaki, and he didn't know how he could have thought for one second that she ever would have laughed at him…and also she had a girl's voice.

"Ryou, be nice. Serizawa is very fragile." Said Miss Suzuki. She sounded….happy? But not normal happy. She had a bunch of different kinds of happy. There was when she was just a little bit happy, like when she had a glass of strawberry milk but it wasn't cold enough. There was when she was very happy, like when she was playing with her brother and sister, and then there was that in between sort of happy when she smiled but only enough so you could see her eye teeth. There was also the kind of happy she was when she smoked.

He felt like this might have been smoking happy…but that was a good thing. He just wanted her to be happy, he didn't care what kind it was.

"So maybe leave him alone before he breaks." Said Shimazaki

"I-I won't break! I mean I won't break anything! I mean…I mean I'm ok, Miss Suzuki." Said Serizawa

"See? You're ok…ok! Serizawa, there is nothing that you can do that will ever make me stop wanting to be your friend so don't you start talking like that and…and also I miss you a lot and-RYOU! I'm on the phone!" said Miss Suzuki

"So? It's not a videocall, is it?" asked Shimazaki. There was a sound he couldn't place. A wet, smacky, sort of sound. Like eating a ring pop or…or something. Something that made Serizawa think that maybe this wasn't something that he should have been listening to.

"N-No…oh….it's not but-but-I'm on still on the phone!" said Miss Suzuki. She laughed, too, but a different sort of laugh…one that he also thought maybe wasn't for him to hear….

"So? Tell him you'll call him back later." Said Shimazaki between smacky sounds…something that he shouldn't have heard…he knew deep inside that he shouldn't have been listening to this….

"I-I can call you back later, Miss Suzuki! I mean you can call me. I mean since we're in different time zones. I mean I can look up what time it is in Okinawa but just because it's daytime doesn't mean that you aren't busy and-" said Serizawa. He didn't know what he was hearing but he knew that it felt weird, like he had walked in on something he wasn't supposed to see, and he wasn't even seeing anything! Hearing was more than enough.

"Serizawa, I'm never too busy for you, and also I'm not in Okinawa. I'm in New York city right now, we came here to see Cats and…and now I know what I was going to ask you! Ryou, not now….Ok! I wanted to know if you wanted to come and see Cats with us? Remember how we all saw it together before?" asked Miss Suzuki

"If he's seen it already then he probably doesn't want to see it again." said Shimazaki. He was right, of course, Serizawa didn't want to see it again. He didn't know if he even could fly without Miss Suzuki…there was so much that could go wrong….and also Meow-Meow couldn't make his own food….and….and maybe she would be able to come and get him but then she would have had to take time out of her own day and that was the last thing that he wanted. He didn't want to be a burden on her, anymore than he was now, and that…that was a good excuse. It wasn't a selfish excuse like….like telling her that he couldn't do things without her…

"We've seen it before and we just saw it again now. We've also seen Frozen the Musical and we saw it again…it's still amazing. We haven't seen the musical of Tangled though or Brave…but I don't like that movie since Merida isn't a good big sister….and we haven't seen-" said Miss Suzuki

"You-you don't have to invite me! I mean I won't come! I mean…this is coming out wrong. I mean that I have to stay here and take care of the cat so I can't come." Said Serizawa

"Oh…right, right, right. I forgot…even though that's why you texted me. I saw that you had texted me and then I thought 'hey, Serizawa likes cats' and then I thought 'Cats is about cats' and then I thought about what a jellicle cat was but then I thought that you might know, since you're good at knowing things like how you find glitches for speed runs-" said Miss Suzuki

"You-you remember?" asked Serizawa. She had been on her phone when he'd explained it all to her….

"Yeah, of course I do. I was there. You showed me how to find the rocket that lets you skip the world in Mario, but the second one and not the first one, in the first one you showed me how to run over the world, and then also in Mario typing you showed me-Ryou, I'm still on the phone!" said Miss Suzuki

"I'm not doing anything." Said Shimazaki in a singsong voice.

"You just took off….I'm on the phone and now I can't even remember what I was talking about…oh. My socks feel nice…they're new. They're Cats socks but they aren't made of cats which is nice." Said Miss Suzuki

"That…that would have been weird, if they had made your socks from cats…cats aren't for clothes and…and you were talking about how you remembered me doing my speed runs and…and I didn't think that you did. I mean it's not interesting-" said Serizawa

"It is interesting, though, everything about you is interesting. I love how you know a lot about games. I love how you remember all kinds of things about me….and also how you're always so nice to me. I love that about you….I wish that I was more like you. You would never have done half the things that I've done…" said Miss Suzuki

"I-I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong. I can't imagine you ever doing anything wrong. You're one of the nicest people, no, you're the nicest person that I've ever met and…and I really miss you and…and um…." Said Serizawa. He wanted her to come back. He couldn't tell her that, of course, because then she would have come back. If she came back then…well if she came back then she would have been with him but also she would have had to leave where she was and it sounded like she was having all kinds of fun without him. He would never have asked her to leave her life to come…to come sit in a room with him and watch him speed run games. He didn't even know why he'd gotten into all of that…it wasn't like he'd been short on time or anything like that….

"I miss you too. I miss everyone. I miss…I miss how things used to be. Maybe I should come home…Ryou, later….maybe I should go back and then-" said Miss Suzuki

"No, please, don't come back because of me. I don't know if I ever….I don't know if I could ever forgive myself for ruining your fun." Said Serizawa

"That's the thing…I don't know if I'm having fun. Seeing Cats and Frozen again made me feel happy but…but it's not…this place isn't making me feel happy. I thought it would but…but maybe it's not a place that would make me feel better. I mean wherever I go my feelings follow me because they live inside of me…" said Miss Suzuki. She sounded so sad there….she never should have sounded like that. She was Miss Suzuki, if anyone in the world deserved to be happy then it was her. He was her friend and it was his job to make her feel better when she was feeling down but…but how? When he felt bad he went to his room and closed all the curtains. He was happiest in his own in the dark….but she wasn't like him. She liked being outside and in the light…because she was kind of like light. She was so bright…but in a good way….

"Have…have you ever…I mean have you ever thought about finding a place where you're happy? I mean…I mean I'm happiest in my room but I know that you're not like me. You like to be outside and around people and…and that's very different from what I like…" said Serizawa

"Where I'm happiest…." Said Miss Suzuki

"Why don't we just go to Disneyland then? It's the happiest place on Earth." Said Shimazaki

"That's a good idea, Ryou…and Serizawa too. That's where we'll go next, if you want to." Said Miss Suzuki

"You know where I want to go…" said Shimazaki in a voice that Serizawa had never heard before…and he never wanted to hear again.

"To Disneyland?" asked Miss Suzuki

"Hang up and I'll tell you." Said Shimazaki

"But that wouldn't be nice…." Said Miss Suzuki

"You….you can hang up, I won't mind." Said Serizawa. He wasn't lying, if she had to hang up then she could. He got the feeling that Shimazaki wanted her to hang up. The way he had been talking…he didn't want to think about it. The way he'd sounded….Serizawa didn't want to hear him talk like that ever again. It just…the whole thing sounded like something that was none of Serizawa's business!

"Um…ok, if you're sure. It was nice talking to-to you…bye!" said Miss Suzuki

"Bye." Said Serizawa. She had hung up already…that was alright. He just wanted her to be happy. That was all he ever wanted and…and he did miss her…but she was happy, that was what mattered. She was going to where she was happies and he…well maybe he could do the same. Meow-Meow wouldn't eat if he kept on being a bother and…and his room…it would have been so nice…

But she would have wanted better from him.

She always made effort go get him out of his room and if she came back and found him living in the dark…well he would have to go home…but not immediately. He sat down at the table and pulled his DS from his pocket. He would have just been playing this in his room and….and really it didn't matter where he was. His room, Fukuda's kitchen so…so this was ok. Also he had to make sure that the cat ate…so he had a reason…even though making Miss Suzuki happy should have been reason enough for him. He needed to be a better friend to her. He needed to be a better person in general and…and he would start now.

He was alone, so it was easy to be on his own…though it would be a lot easier while the others were gone….everyone but Miss Suzuki. Things were always better when she was around.