Sho knew that stealing was wrong but right now he didn't care.
Big Sis wasn't around to tell him 'no' and neither was Dad. Not that he would have listened to Dad of course. Dad could go fuck himself. Dad could smoke the lit end of a cigarette. Dad could go and die…in fact Sho wished that Dad had died. He had never wished death upon anyone before, not in any serious way anyway. There were plenty of times in his life when he'd said something like 'I'll kill you' or something like that but he had never meant it.
Now he knew what it meant to mean it.
"Hatori, I told you before that I have no interest in…" Sho could hear Dad's voice through his bedroom door. Why wasn't he gone yet? He had said, before, that he had stuff to do. He needed to go and do it already and then Sho could…well he didn't know what he'd do while Dad was gone.
Maybe smoke all of Big Sis's joints.
"Come on, can you at least read…" Dad and Hatori were fighting again. Good. Maybe Hatori would piss Dad off so bad that he'd have another heart attack and actually die this time. Or maybe Dad would get so pissed at Hatori that he'd accidentally kill him….hurt him really badly. Sho didn't actually want Hatori dead, just hurt.
This was all his fault after all.
"….to go now…" He heard more footsteps. Hatori was such an idiot sometimes, he deserved what was coming to him. Hatori was the one who'd started all of this anyway. Hatori was the reason that Shimazaki was hurt…or at least he had been hurt really bad last time Sho had seen him. Through the gaps between his fingers. Just like when he'd been nine only worse because he was twelve now and he should have been able to watch…he should have been able to help.
He wasn't strong enough to help.
Sho took another long drag off of one of the joints he'd borrowed, stolen, from Big Sis. He had stolen from her stash mainly to stop Dad from stealing from her stash…but then also he'd kind of wanted his own stash so here he was. He hardly ever smoked. It wasn't really that much fun without Big Sis. That was why he did it, for fun. She did it to calm now.
He was kind of copying her now.
"How can you still trust him! Look at what he did to Mob!" Hatori was screaming now. It was kind of funny how high his voice got…kind of really funny. Things were really funny when you smoked even when they weren't supposed to be. That was why people did this. To feel better….Sho needed to feel better. Not about Dad, no, he didn't give a fuck about Dad. When everything had happened he'd gone to his room to wait it out. He didn't care if Dad died…actually he kind of wanted….
Sho was a horrible person.
He took another long drag from the joint and tried to hold it in his lungs for longer this time. Big Sis was better at this than he was. She could hold entire clouds in her lungs and she didn't cough as much when she breathed out either. They used to smoke all the time together….but then she started hanging out with Shimazaki all the time and stuff got weird and Sho…well he'd been kind of a jerk. Not a jerk in the jerky way, not like when he used to hit her, but they hadn't spent a lot of time together since…since she started going out with Shimazaki. The whole thing was just too weird.
But it wasn't like he was still in love with Shimazaki or anything.
No. Not at all. Shimazaki wasn't the person Sho thought that he was. He wasn't nearly as brave as Sho had thought. He was afraid of Dad. He hadn't even tried to fight for Big Sis! It was one thing not to join the fight against Dad, though not joining was kind of a shitty thing to do…or not do. What was it called when it was shitty of you not to do something? It didn't matter. This wasn't the time for vocab homework…that he really should have worked on. This was the time for…right, right, another joint. Big Sis had rolled these, they were really tight. There was a lot in these. She did better than Shimazaki. Shimazaki's always fell apart….he wasn't good at rolling joints or fighting against Dad….he hadn't even fought for Big Sis!
Sho didn't think that he could ever have been in love with a guy who wouldn't fight for him.
"….read it! That is not a friend email!" Hatori could yell really loud. Well Dad wasn't going to listen. He hadn't listened to Sho when he'd yelled and he hadn't listened to Shimazaki when he yelled for mercy…Dad was just a bad listener. Maybe he was going deaf. It wasn't like he ignored you when he yelled at you, it was like he didn't even hear you at all….
Fuck Dad!
Sho just…Sho didn't know what he had done to deserve a Dad like this! A Dad who just…it was like Dad wasn't even a Dad. It was like Dad was this mean guy who lived in his house and picked other people to be his son. Hatori wasn't his son and Mukai wasn't his son…well Mukai kind of was. She was like his girl son. Well Sho was his boy son and-and-and Sho didn't even care. He didn't care if Dad lived or died and he didn't care if Dad loved him or had ever loved him or even cared if he lived or died or-or-or anything!
Sho wished that Dad had died.
Big Sis should have let him die. Maybe if she had been Big Bro then she would have. Dad didn't like boy sons, only girl sons…daughters! That was…he really needed to do his vocab homework. Dad liked daughters better than sons. Fukuda had even said so. From the very beginning, for as long as Sho could remember, Dad had liked Big Sis better. He had liked her better and treated her better and he treated Mukai better but he treated Hatori like crap so he must not have liked having sons or…or something. He really did treat Hatori like crap and he treated Sho like…like gum. Like the kind of gum you found on the bottom of your shoe. Maybe because Sho had come from him or…or something.
He was half of Dad.
He wished that he hadn't been. He wished that he had just been himself, like he just came from nothing. Like someone had found him inside of a seashell or a flower or a peach or something. Then he wouldn't have had anyone's blood in him but his own. He was half of Dad…the bad half. Fukuda had said, once, that Sho was the worst parts of Dad and…or maybe Fukuda had said that Sho was the best parts of Dad and that was why Dad thought that he was the worst or…or something. Dad didn't like him. Mom had liked him…but she was gone.
He was glad that she had left before she could have seen what he'd become.
"Nozomu! I've had enough! I have to leave now and I do not have time to listen to your wild accusations. I know Tadashi and I know that he would never even entertain what you're implying so, please, get out of my way. If you want to bother someone bother my son. God knows he needs the mental stimulation." Said Dad. He was right at the end of the hall it sounded like. Right at the top of the stairs…then all of those steps must have been Hatori trying to block his way. He was kind of like Mukai like that. She tried to stop people from going down the stairs sometimes too.
Sho was always the big brother.
There was this rumor going around that Hatori was the real heir to Claw or something. People said that he was Dad's secret son, mostly because Dad kept him around all the time, and also because of Mukai. At least that was what Big Sis had said. She was the one who paid attention to this stuff. Sho had important things to do, like plan uprisings. So far all they had was Fukuda and those two other guys…they needed more guys…but not girls because Big Sis wouldn't help, Little Sis was only three, Tsuchiya wasn't going to put Mukai in danger, and Minegishi wasn't actually a girl and also they were an asshole…no wonder Shimazaki had been cheating on them….maybe they would help just to be on opposite sides from Shimazaki…they would have been better help than Hatori. Hatori was useless. His powers were useless, unless you forgot your Netflix password, and he was almost as short as Sho was and he was afraid of everything…if they really had been brothers then Sho would have been the big brother and he would have been the little brother.
Sho wished he had a little brother…
He took it back. No! That was nearly as bad as wishing that Dad had died. Bad things happened to people who wished death on other people…so maybe he was going to get a little brother. Maybe Dad's girlfriend was going to have a baby now because he thought it! Sho rolled over and pulled his blanket up over his head. He unwished for a little brother even though it would have been kind of cool to have someone to do boy stuff with…he loved Mukai. He loved Mukai.
He loved Mukai and he didn't need a little brother because he had a little sister and-and-and Dad's girlfriend needed to close her baby factory before it was too late!
"I don't want a little brother…I love Mukai…my family is big enough…I don't want a little brother…no more babies…" muttered Sho. Now that he'd thought it, now that it was out there, it was going to happen. That was how it worked. He kept the joint clutched between his teeth as he muttered, over and over again, what he hoped were the right words to keep a little brother from appearing in their family….to keep Dad from coming back from wherever he was going with a little brother for him….
A little brother might have been nice….no!
He'd thought about it again! Sure it would have been nice to have had a little brother to teach stuff too. He'd teach his little brother how to climb trees and find bird's nests and how to draw and how to throw rocks at people so they didn't notice and how to catch stray cats and how to take care of hamster…Fukuda had fed the hamsters, right? Sho hadn't fed them last night because of what happened…he was a terrible hamster owner! He was a terrible hamster owner and he was a terrible little brother owner too! The little brother he had…the little girl brother…sister! The little sister he had was all alone…well she was with her mom but…but he was still a bad little brother and he was a bad big brother and-and he was just so bad at everything that he could feel it in his bones and his soul and his teeth and his hair and his scars and the hole in his sock and-and-and-
He took another drag.
This was supposed to make you feel better…but what if it didn't make you feel better, what if it just made you feel whatever it was that you were supposed to be feeling. What if instead of feeling better he just felt…he felt like what he was. Shimazaki had said that the words of a drunk man were the honest words of a not drunk man or…or something…something like that. So maybe the thoughts of a high person were the normal thoughts of a not high person or….or the honest thoughts or…or….or…
He exhaled.
He maybe shouldn't have been doing that from under a blanket. He maybe…he was ok. He was more than ok. He was…he needed…he needed to inhale again but this time not from under the blanket. The smoke got trapped and it got in his eyes and his lungs…well it was already in his lungs…but now it was double in his lungs! The air you breathed out was like lung throw up so did that mean that breathing your own air was like eating your own throw up? Gross…it was like in that movie he saw where the guy kept the people prisoner and made them eat throw up from dog bowls…that had been a pretty bad movie, he agreed with Big Sis…of course she was gone and he was never going to hear her opinions on movies again because Dad knew about her and Shimazaki and now she was probably going to run away with him and-and-and stuff!
Stuff that he didn't want to think about. Ever.
"Touichirou! You can't…you can't just leave! You can't just leave me…I mean Mob-I mean-" Hatori sounded scared now. What did he have to be so scare about? He wasn't the one who was going to lose his big sister. Sho knew what he would have done if he had been in Big Sis's place. If Dad had known about Ritsu, and tried to beat him up so bad that he had bones sticking out of himself, then Sho would have just taken Ritsu and run away with him. They could have lived on an island somewhere and lived on fish and coconuts or…or something. Dad didn't like beaches, he got sunburns just as easily as Sho did, and Sho didn't want sunburns but he did want to be with Ritsu…and only Ritsu. Sure the thought of running away with Shimazaki would have been a nice one if he had still been a kid but…but he wasn't a kid anymore. He knew better.
He had someone who loved him, someone who was better, and Big Sis could keep Shimazaki…but not if it meant that Sho had to lose her…
"I can and I will. Shigeko is…Shigeko. She made her choices and-" said Dad
"She's thirteen! She can't make those kinds of choices!" said Hatori
"She can and she did and there is nothing that I can do about it that I have not already done. Now move out of the way. If Shigeko comes back tell her that she's in charge, there are some things in Tokyo HQ that need to be personally overseen. If she does not come back then ask Tadashi to oversee them. If he's still being…odd…then you can oversee them." Said Dad
"Wait…you mean that I can be in charge? Like, in charge-in charge?" asked Hatori
"Yes, fine, whatever. Now get out of my path before I pick you up and throw you down the stairs. You're light and your bones are, I suspect, brittle from your steady diet of nothing but sugar. You would not survive." Said Dad
"Fuck…sure, sure….fuck….I'm in charge…." Said Hatori. Sho could hear Dad walking down the stairs. Hatori was just saying over and over again how he was in charge now…that was fine. Sho didn't care about being in charge. He was trying to take Claw down, not run it…so he didn't care. He didn't care if Hatori ran it. He was probably going to run it into the ground and…and that just made Sho's job a hell of a lot easier.
Sho didn't care what Hatori did.
Sho didn't care at all about Claw and…and so what if he was the one who was supposed to be running it. So what if Claw was his birthright. It was a bad place so it was a birth wrong. Yeah, Claw was like if…if there was a baby and it came out an adult or something or…or like with a tail. It was a birth wrong because it was wrong and…and maybe that was why Sho had been born wrong, because he had been born into a place that was bad. Maybe that was why no matter what Sho did he was always going to be wrong…he was always going to be a bad person….
He didn't care about Claw.
He didn't care and…and if Dad had left him in charge then Sho would have kicked him in the balls, even though you weren't ever supposed to kick another guy there, instead of getting all excited like Hatori was. He kept on saying it over and over and over again about how he was in charge. Sho didn't know who he was telling. Dad was gone, the front door had opened and closed, and Big Sis was still wherever she had run away to last night.
Sho didn't care about Claw and he didn't care about Hatori either.
"I'm in charge….holy shit I'm-" said Hatori
"Shut the fuck! Nobody cares that you're in charge but you!" shouted Sho. Too loud, way too loud. He opened his mouth too wide and the joint he'd been holding between his teeth fell out…and onto his pants…where they burnt right through. Sho pushed it off of himself before it could burn into his skin. He didn't need any new scars. He had enough of them on his body as it was. He had so many that he couldn't even wear short sleeved shirts anymore…or shorts….
Or these pants…but that was for a whole other reason.
"Fuck!" said Sho. Well now he had to change and get rid of these and now he had one fewer pair of pants and he didn't know how to get new pants since Big Sis bought all of the clothes and he didn't even know what size he was anymore because he'd grown and he knew that he could always check the label on these pants but what if he grew a bunch by the time he got to the store and he didn't know what his new size was!? Big Sis was the one who bought their clothes and he didn't know how to buy clothes or make dinner or hug himself when he got sad and he didn't have time to learn! He had a whole uprising to plan!
And he had to get Hatori out of his room, too.
"Sho? Can I come in?" said Hatori as he just opened Sho's door. What was the point of asking if he was just going to open his door anyway? Fuck him and fuck Dad for letting him be in charge. Dad did the same thing…and Big Sis, too, even though he told her not to because he was a guy and she wasn't a guy and it was kind of weird, well it would have been, if she caught him changing clothes or stuff like that…and it wasn't any less weird with Hatori here even though he was a guy!
Sho got the feeling that he was going to have to wear burnt pants for a while.
"You're already in…..so come more in, I guess." Said Sho as he picked the joint up off of the ground and sat back down on his bed. He wasn't going to beat Hatori up, not yet anyway. Big Sis wouldn't have liked that…even though Hatori deserved it. He was on Dad's side. He was the one who told Dad about all of the stuff with Shimazaki…it was his fault that Dad had beaten Shimazaki up so bad that his bones had stuck out of his skin. It was all his fault…
Sho didn't bother lighting the joint again. He just threw it at Hatori. He missed.
"Oh…you're smoking in here…." Said Hatori as he picked up the end of the joint. Sho forgot what it was called…but he knew that Big Sis saved those. He pulled it out of Hatori's hand with his powers and put it down on his bed. Hatori just kind of stood there in the middle of the room like he was looking for a place to sit or something.
Sho uncrossed his legs. No way was Hatori sitting on his bed.
"What do you want?" asked Sho as he pulled another joint from his hiding spot, an pencil case that he didn't like anymore. It was from when he'd been a kid and it had Judy and Nick on it. He still liked Zootopia, just not as much as he had when he'd been this little…little enough to like this pencil case…as little as Hatori was on the inside. He wasn't even tall enough to be an adult…so it was like the insides reflected the outside…sort of like the opposite of one of those eggs with the prizes inside….the chocolate ones…
Sho wondered if he had any more snacks left in his room…he'd look later, after Hatori left. No way in hell was he sharing.
"I just wanted to ask-" said Hatori
"If I knew that you were in charge? Yeah, I heard you, the whole world did. You're in charge and I'm not and Dad's gone. Who gives a fuck…" muttered Sho before he lit the joint in his hand. This one smelled different…it must have been a different kind, or maybe it was just old. He'd been stealing, borrowing, stealing these from Big Sis for a while now….
Did weed go bad? He'd look it up later. Once Hatori was gone far, far, FAR, away.
But it didn't look like he was going to be going away anytime soon. He just kept on standing there in the middle of Sho's room. Sho and Big Sis's room. So did that mean that he needed Big Sis's permission, too, to be in here? He hadn't even gotten Sho's…fuck that guy. Fuck Hatori and…wait, no, don't fuck Hatori. He wasn't even the least bit…anything. He wasn't Ritsu, first of all, he wasn't brave and he wasn't smart and he didn't even look good and he smelled weird and he spent most of his time kissing Dad's ass so of course Sho didn't want to kiss a guy who spent his whole life kissing Dad's ass! He didn't want to kiss Hatori at all and he didn't know who would. Hatori was going to die all alone without a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a they-friend.
So maybe he could get on with it already….oh no….
"Uh…yeah….I guess you heard that. I'm sure that your Dad would have left you in charge-" said Hatori
"Fuck! Oh God!" shouted Sho as he pulled the blanket over his head again. This time the lit joint fell out of his mouth and onto his sheets. He could tell where there was a hole in them and…and he didn't know how to buy new sheets. Big Sis took care of that too and now she was probably never going to come home because Sho had thought about Hatori dying alone but-but he didn't actually want Hatori to die and-
His bed moved. Something heavy was on it.
"Sho…fuck! Ok, ok, just…Sho? Are you ok? I'm….I'm trying not to freak out here but you're freaking me out and…and I'm really worried about you." Said Hatori
"Me? What in the hell are you worried about me for? Worry about yourself! You're the one who's going to die!" said Sho
"What!? What do you mean…fuck…no, no, no. I didn't piss him off that bad and even if I did he wouldn't kill me. He didn't kill Shimazaki and he slept with Mob…he's not going to kill me…" said Hatori. Sho pulled the blanket off of his head. No. There was no way in HELL Hatori was going to talk about Shimazaki!
"Shut the fuck up! You don't get to talk about him! It's your fault Dad beat him up and it's your fault Big Sis ran away and-" said Sho
"No! I mean…I mean no. It's not…I did what I had to do and if that means that Shimazaki is coming to-to kill me…shit! I didn't think of that…no, no, it doesn't matter. Mob…Mob needs me-" said Hatori
"No she doesn't, she's not in love with you anymore. If that's why you tried to break Big Sis and Shimazaki up then you're an idiot. She doesn't love you and making Dad beat up Big Sis isn't going to make her love you. That's not how girls work. I know, I used to have a girlfriend. I'm gay and I know more about girls than you do." Said Sho
"Ok…that was kind of…you're going through a lot. You're going through a lot right now and I have to act like an adult here…I am an adult. I'm twenty two years old and…and I've got this." Said Hatori
"Got what? And stop talking to yourself…it's weird. You're weird. No wonder Big Sis doesn't like you anymore. No wonder nobody likes you. No wonder you're going to die all alone-fuck! I did it again! I take it back!" shouted Sho. Hatori jumped back and nearly fell off of the bed. Sho's stuffed Judy, that he didn't sleep with anymore it just lived on his bed, fell down…he hoped it was ok….he didn't know how to get a new Judy and…and there was no replacing that one. Big Sis had gotten him that one….Big Sis who was gone…because of the asshole sitting on his bed!
"Take what back? What are you….damn it, I'm not good at this." Said Hatori
"At what specifically?" asked Sho. He wasn't good at much, he couldn't even build a Minecraft house without cheating.
"This big brother thing, I guess. I've never been a big brother, I mean I was kind of like one to Mob but she didn't need that. She needed a friend I guess and…ok, let's be friends. I mean we were already friends-" said Hatori
"Yeah, we already were friends, and we're not brothers. That's just a rumor that people made up because my Dad takes you with him all the time. Just because people say stuff doesn't mean it's true…unless you say that you want someone to die. Then it'll be true." Said Sho
"What, like in Death Note?" asked Hatori
"What's Death Note?" asked Sho
"It's this anime about this guy who has a notebook where if you write someone's name in it then they die." Said Hatori
"That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Like…like what if I wanted my Dad to die? I'd just write Suzuki Touichirou and then, when, everyone in the world named Suzuki and Touichirou would die? Because that's a lot of people! Seriously, there are a lot of people named Suzuki in the world…not sure about Touichirou…so I couldn't kill Dad like that…and I shouldn't be thinking about killing him ever!" said Sho
"Well, yeah, because that's traitor talk and he'd probably fuck you up, mess you up, really bad." Said Hatori
"No, I don't care about that. What I care about is getting a little brother!" shouted Sho
"I…don't follow." Said Hatori. Sho rolled his eyes. What, was he going to have to spell it out like he was talking to Mukai or something?
"Are you dumb or something? Dumber than normal, I mean. I thought about you dying which means that I'm a bad person which means that something bad is going to happen to me which means that I'm going to get a new little brother and then Dad's going to be even meaner to me but I don't care about that and I guess that I kind of want a little brother but not really because I have Mukai and she's like a little brother and anyway I'm a bad person because I thought about you dying! And stop looking at me like that!" said Sho. Hatori was looking at him like people looked at Shimazaki. Sho was being normal right now, he didn't need people to stare at him like this! He tried to pull the blanket up over his head again but Hatori was sitting on it like a dick hole! And who the fuck told him that he could sit on Sho's bed anyway!?
"Sho…how much have you had today?" asked Hatori
"I don't know, a lot? Why? If you want some then you can't have it! This is mine, well it used to be Big Sis's, but now it's mine because she's gone and she's never coming back and it's all because of you and your big mouth! Or…big phone! Big thumbs! Big texting thumbs that can't mind their own business and have to make shit hard for the rest of us! Harder than it was and it was already pretty fucking hard to begin with!" said Sho
"Sho….I think that you should stop smoking. It's making you…like this." Said Hatori as he reached over and took the joint from Sho's hand…well he tried to. Sho pulled his hand away, put the joint up to his lips, and took the longest drag of his life.
It had been a mistake.
Sho wasn't Big Sis, he wasn't used to this. He felt his eyes watering as soon as he started but he couldn't stop now…even though he was running out of room in is mouth. He had to push all of this smoke down into his lungs where it belonged….it burned going down…and it burned coming back up, too. It really felt like lung throw up. It felt like his lungs were throwing right up into his throat…he coughed. He coughed so hard that he felt like he was going to throw up right there on his bed…but he didn't. He just coughed up a big cloud of smoke, most of which he managed to get right into Hatori's face.
Worth it.
"Or…don't, I guess." said Hatori
"You're not the boss of me." Said Sho
"Your Dad left me in charge." Said Hatori
"That doesn't make you the boss of me. You're the boss of Claw, not the boss of me, and you're not my brother either. I don't know why you believe all those weird rumors, they're obviously not true. The only girl who ever loved my Dad is my Mom and she would have told me if I had a big brother…I mean I guess she would have, I don't know. She's…she just…fuck you for making me think about my mom and fuck you for thinking that you're in charge and fuck you for making my Dad's girlfriend have a baby! Now I'm going to be a big brother and it's all your fault!" said Sho
"Uh…ok. There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said but…..yeah. You're high and I don't think you're up to listening to me tell you why none of that is right…I mean your Dad wants to have another kid but Shiori keeps on changing her mind and I don't think that she even likes kids…or anyone, actually-" said Hatori
"Yeah, I know. Big Sis told me that she's a bitch." Said Sho
"Mob said the word 'bitch'? Seriously?" asked Hatori. Sho's eyes narrowed.
"Why do you need to know? Are you planning on telling on Big Sis for cursing like you told on her for doing it?" asked Sho. Hatori cringed when Sho said 'doing it'. Sho didn't blame him. He didn't want to think about it either. Big Sis…doing stuff. That wasn't right, and not just because he used to like Shimazaki a lot. Nobody ever wanted to think about a member of their family doing stuff like that.
It would have been less gross to eat his own throw up out of a cereal bowl with slices of cucumber on top.
"I didn't tell on her, I told on Shimazaki. Your sister didn't do anything wrong, Shimazaki's the one who did something wrong." Said Hatori
"What? You have something against Big Sis? Because if you do I'll kick your ass worse than Dad ever could." said Sho. No way was he dealing with this again. It was bad enough that Fukuda had something against Big Sis, he was NOT dealing with this from Hatori too. Even if, yeah, the thought of Big Sis and Shimazaki doing it was disgusting in every way that didn't mean that Hatori got to imply that it was gross or whatever for Shimazaki to…ok, yeah, Sho didn't want to think about this anymore…fucking Hatori making him think about gross stuff…now he was never going to be able to think about Shimazaki ever again…well he shouldn't have because he had Ritsu but Ritsu was far away and also he had no idea what Ritsu looked like naked and-and he wasn't going to think about this now! Not with Hatori sitting right there on his bed!
Fucking Hatori!
"No, it's nothing against Mob!" said Hatori with both his hands raised up like he was surrendering or something. Well that was tough. The battle was over when Sho said that it was over!
"Then what is it? Because it sure sounded like it was something against my big sister. If Fukuda's gotten to you then you'd better stop listening to him. Listen to…I don't know. Whatever kind of music you like or…or listen to Zelda soundtracks with Serizawa or something." Said Sho
"It's not about….if I have to listen to Breath of the Wild one more time….it's nothing against Mob! It's against…it's not her fault. Shimazaki…he shouldn't have taken advantage of her like that. It's his fault for being a creep and…and if someone…fuck, this is hard. Ok. If Shimazaki ever tried to sleep with you or did then it's not your fault and you should tell your Dad, or someone, because-what're you looking at me like that for?" asked Hatori. Sho couldn't help it. He wasn't going to stop looking at Hatori like he was a crazy person until he stopped talking like a crazy person. Shimazaki? Do it with him? What in the hell was Hatori smoking?
Probably something better than this.
Shimazaki didn't like him like that. He'd said so a million times before. He wasn't in love with Sho and he never would be. He thought about Sho like one of his kids and he was never going to sleep with one of his kids because that would have been too weird even for him. Sho wasn't actually one of his kids, and he said that he had a lot of them, but that didn't matter. He was never going to think about Sho like a boyfriend and that was…that was the way that things were. It wasn't like Sho cared anymore even if…even if it was happening again. Someone else liked Big Sis better than him…what was it about her that made everyone, even people who didn't think that he'd been born wrong, like her better? What was it…it didn't matter. He had Ritsu now and there was no way in hell Ritsu was ever going to pick Big Sis over him.
He was gay so it wasn't exactly a thing that could happen in life….but just to be safe they could never meet. Even when all of this was over and Dad was dead or in esper jail or he'd learned the error of his ways and turned good…or something that was likely to actually happen in real life.
"You're crazy. Shimazaki doesn't like me like that and he said that he never would. You're the one who's high, not me." Said Sho
"You're rocking back and forth in place and your eyes are red and you're squinting. You look pretty damn high to me." Said Hatori
"Well then you went crazy, like you ate a bad porkchop and now you have brain worms, that's tape worms in your brain, and now your brain is an all you can eat buffet and you're going to turn into a zombie." Said Sho
"I'm not crazy and I don't have brain worms…at least I think that I don't. We haven't had porkchops in a while…not since we went to that one place….how do you know if you have…no, not now. This isn't about brain worms…anyway! I'm worried about you. I know how much time you spend with Shimazaki and…and Fukuda. If he ever-" said Hatori. His voice got all low like he was mad. Maybe at himself for thinking crazy thoughts like that. Fukuda try and…Sho can't even finish the thought. It's both too crazy and too gross to make it out of his head.
"Fukuda's not trying to do it with me either! Nobody is, I'm twelve and a half years old! I don't do stuff like that and if I did it wouldn't be with…that's just…that's not right, Hatori. Something's wrong with you. You have brain worms or something. You probably have a whole family of them living in your head and you don't even realize it. You're going to get crazier and crazier until you start having seizures and then you die. My ex-girlfriend told me all about them and she likes…liked…likes gross stuff like that…she was so cool…I'm such an asshole….why'd you make me think about how much of an asshole I am? Don't I have enough shit to worry about!?" Said Sho
"It's nothing against you and you're not an asshole. People break up and…and I don't really have any advice for you about that so I'll just…yeah. Sho, none of this is against you. I'm just worried about you. I mean with what happened to your sister it's got me on edge…and your Dad, too, even if he doesn't show it." Said Hatori
"Dad's not on edge because of me…he's just upset that Shimazaki is in love with Big Sis. That's just how Dad's are supposed to be when guys are in love with their daughters. Brothers too but Shimazaki is my friend and I know he's a good guy-" said Sho
"He isn't! Good guys don't do stuff like that with kids your age! Good guys…good guys date girls, people! People, their own age. Shimazaki is older than I am and he shouldn't have even been thinking about your sister like that and…and if he ever tried something with you, or anyone did, then you should tell someone. It's not your fault and I know this whole thing has got to be hard for you-" said Hatori. He reached his arm out like he was going to hug Sho or something. Sho pushed him away.
Fuck Hatori.
Sho was fine…or he had been, before Hatori went and told Dad all about Shimazaki and Big Sis. Things hadn't been good, things were never good here, but they had been normal. Now everything was all…it was all crazy again. Big Sis was gone again. It felt like she had just come back…he hated it when they were apart like this. It had been better when they had been little and they had been together all the time. Before they'd had friends…he liked having friends but he liked having a sister more. He hated that it was a choice. It wasn't for other people. Sometimes he wished, or at least thought about, what it would have been like to be a normal person. To have gone to school like he had when he'd been a kid and to have had other kids he was friends with and to have been with Big Sis all the time…and to have had a Mom…but then he remembered that even if he didn't have powers Mom would still have left him all alone and Big Sis still would have had to be like Mom…that made it kind of hard to be friends…and-and he never would have met Ritsu either if he had been a normal kid since Sendai was really far away from Seasoning City and he doubted that there would have ever been another guy who could have liked him back and…and he never would have bene normal even if he was normal…
Ok, he didn't want to be normal…but he did want his sister back. He did want things back to how they'd been before…but plus Mukai because she was the best little sister in the whole world!
"You don't know anything about anything. You just…you think that you do but you don't. Shimazaki's not a bad person, he's just an asshole to you, and you deserve it. You deserve it for trying to get him in trouble and you deserve it for telling on Big Sis and making her leave and you deserve it for kissing my Dad's ass all the time like an ass kisser and you deserve it for cheating at every single videogame you've ever played and you deserve it for being annoying and you deserve it for coming into my room without my permission! Seriously! Knock next time! What the fuck is the matter with you, you dick hole! You're like a dick hole's dick hole!" said Sho. He kicked Hatori that time, not enough to send him flying off the bed but enough to send him to his feet. Big Sis would have been so mad at him if she had been here…
But Big Sis wasn't here right now.
"Ok, ok, I get it. I can see that you're not up to having this conversation now-" said Hatori as he stood up.
"Or ever. Now get the fuck out of my room and don't ever come back." Said Sho. Hatori actually looked hurt there…well that was good! He should have been hurt! He should have been the most hurt out of everyone else in the entire world! He was the one being an asshole here, not Sho! Sho was just…he hadn't wanted company, especially not company that was going to sit there and make all kinds of crazy talking…crazy claims…with talking!
"Ok…I'm going…but if you ever need to talk I'm here." Said Hatori. If he ever needed to…what the fuck did Hatori think that Sho would ever have wanted to talk to him about? They had never been good friends, he had always been more of Big Sis's friend, and anyway he'd given that up when he chose Dad above all of their years of friendship! So fuck him then!
"No you aren't because you're getting the fuck out of my room." Said Sho. That time he did throw Hatori out…with his powers. Which may not have been the best move. He had meant to throw Hatori out gently but instead he'd sent him flying…but it was Hatori's fault for being so tiny! He wasn't much taller than Sho was and Sho knew that he was short! Hatori…he sucked…and he deserved to get throw out of Sho's room!
And he deserve to have the door slammed in his face, too.
"And don't come back!" shouted Sho as he slammed the door. He slammed it so hard that the house shook and flakes of paint came down from the ceiling like snowflakes. Well fuck the ceiling, fuck Hatori, and fuck the whole world too! Fuck…fuck it all. Sho laid down and put his pillow over his face. He needed to smoke more…he didn't know what he'd done with that joint. There wasn't a lot left in the stash he'd stolen from Big Sis. Dad had been stealing, and throwing out, her stuff for a while….he was such an asshole…
And Sho was an asshole too.
He had just…he had just done what Dad would have done. Not just the stealing, that was an asshole move too, but throwing Hatori out like that…what in the hell was wrong with him? Fukuda had told him that Dad didn't like him because Dad looked at Sho and saw the worst parts of himself, which were the best parts of Sho. The way he cared about things, the way he had deep feelings for the people he loved, the way his drive and vision didn't always lead him to making the best choices…other stuff that Fukuda said that Sho could know about when he was older. Sho didn't really care about that stuff, the stuff that Fukuda was keeping from him, because he was dead wrong.
Dad didn't have a good bone in his body.
He wasn't full of deep love and caring and loyalty and creativity like Fukuda had said. He was full of guts and black stuff and eggs and ketchup. Sho was the worst parts of Dad…which were what he considered to be the best parts of himself. Sho was mean, Sho hurt people, Sho did dumb stuff….Sho was the worst. Big Sis was the good one, the one everyone loved, she was the one who had been born right and he was the one who had been born wrong.
No wonder she had left him behind.
He had gone to his room after Dad collapsed. He hadn't wanted to be a part of the rescue effort…but that didn't mean that he had wanted to be left behind. Big Sis had just left him…she'd just ran away and left him here with Dad…and then Sho had gotten so angry…but now he had smoked all of the anger out of himself. Like in that part of Alice in Wonderland where they tried to set the house on fire to smoke her out because they thought that she was a monster. Well she hadn't been…but maybe Sho was. He had been so mean…he was always so mean…but Hatori deserved it. They weren't brothers even if he thought so…even if most of Claw thought so…even if Dad acted like it…
Sho didn't need a big brother.
He was a big brother, he didn't need one, and if he'd had one then it certainly would not have been Hatori. Hatori was the worst excuse for a brother he had ever seen in his life. He was an ass kisser, he was best friends with Dad, he was annoying, and now he was talking crazy talk like he had a whole brain full of worms! Fuck him…Sho had been right to kick him out…even if…even if Big Sis would have been upset with him…but she was gone now.
It wasn't Big Sis at his door.
"Knock, knock, Sho! Let me in or I'll blow your house down!" said Mukai as she knocked on his door. Sho sat up quickly and wiped his eyes. Mukai was here. She couldn't see him like this…he looked around for the joint and found it on the floor. He made sure that it was out and put it with the stash…where there was another joint that he'd started…so when was this one from? What the…more knocking.
He opened the door with his powers.
"Sho! No, no naps for you! No naps!" shouted Mukai as she ran across the room. She launched herself into his bed and made it with just a little help from him. She was still too little to make it all the way up in one jump even with a running start…she was still the little sister…and he was still the big brother.
He was a real big brother.
"Hey Mukai, what's-what's up?" asked Sho as Mukai crawled up the bed towards him. She kicked his stuffed animals off of the bed as she crawled. Nick joined Judy on the floor. Then Stitch joined her. Then Pascal joined Stitch. Then Olaf, who was only in his bed because Big Sis had run out of room in hers, joined Stitch. After that she made her way over to him and pulled his blanket down.
It was cold.
"I told you, no naps! Wake up, Sho! Wake up, we gotta go!" said Mukai as she grabbed the front of his shirt and tried to drag him away. She was strong but not that strong. The best she could do was stretch out his collar. He pulled his shirt out of her hands before she could do just that. He couldn't go around showing off the scars on his chest…or any of his scars. Especially not to her. She was too little to know about those. If she saw them then she'd ask question…questions that he didn't know how to answer without freaking her out.
He was the big brother here, it was his job to keep his little sister safe and happy…and he needed to be able to do at least one thing right.
"Sho, come on! We got to go! Right now! Pack your bags!" said Mukai as she reached for his shirt again. He took her hands in his before she could ruin his sixth favorite long sleeved summer shirt. He didn't know where to get another one of these, Big Sis bought all of their clothes…but she was gone now and he didn't know when she was coming back…so he had to learn how to buy his clothes…
Their clothes. Mukai grew even faster than he did.
"We can't go anywhere, we have to wait for Big Sis to come back." Said Sho
"No, we gotta go! Mama said so. We gotta go back! I don't want to go back!" said Mukai
"Go back where?" asked Sho. Pretty much the whole world could have been called 'back'. Tsuchiya needed to be specific. How did she expect Mukai to be specific if she wasn't going to be specific? Did Big Sis expect them to meet her somewhere? Or was this a Dad thing? Or were they taking minivacations again…they had just gotten back to Japan. He didn't feel like leaving again. He didn't feel like going to a place where he barely spoke the language and people looked at him funny…he wanted to stay home.
Japan, all of it, was the closest thing he had to home now…though it didn't feel right at all without Big Sis.
"Back to back! We gotta back and go back to back!" said Mukai
"We're…taking more back to back trips? That's what your mom said? I don't want to…did she really say that?" asked Sho. Mukai nodded and then reached over like she was going to slap him…oh. No. She was just trying to scratch the tears off of his face with her nails…her sharp little sister nails….
"Don't cry, Sho, you're a big boy today." Said Mukai as she scratched his face. He let her. It wasn't so bad. At least if she left a scar it wouldn't be like he had to explain it to her or anything. It was better to get a scar from her, he decided, than another one from Dad.
"I'm not crying, my eyes are just watery because I'm…because I've been smoking." Said Sho. She didn't need to know what he'd been smoking, she was still too little. When she was older, like when she was ten or something, then they could smoke together. But not right now. She was too little and he'd heard from Fukuda that this stuff was bad for your brain.
"No, you're crying, I see with my eyes!" Said Mukai making goggles with her hands around her eyes just to make sure he knew what she was talking about….why could she have been this specific about other things?
"I am not crying right now, you can see it with your eyes." Said Sho making goggles with his hands too. Mukai shook her head and pushed his hands away from his eyes.
"Are too! I know, I can see! Now come on, we gotta go!" said Mukai. She managed to get her little hands around the collar of his shirt again…and he felt something rip. Damn it, this had been his sixth favorite shirt…it was hard to find shirts, Big Sis had said, that were long sleeved but also good for the summertime….but it wasn't like he was mad at Mukai or anything. It wasn't like he could have ever been mad at Mukai.
Big brothers did not get mad at their little sisters for any reason ever.
"Go where? And be specific because right now my brain doesn't work so good…it's like I have brain worms." Said Sho, not sure how else he was supposed to tell his little sister that he was high without using the word high. It was important that she didn't smoke until she was old enough to, like how Big Sis had made him wait. He didn't exactly know why, Fukuda could fix just about anything, but he knew that this was one of those things that a good older sibling did and he had to be a good older sibling. He had to be good at something…at anything….
"We gotta go back to the back, why you not listening to me? Sho, you gotta start listening with your ears. Back to the back, Sho, we gotta go back to the back….now come on! Pack up you stuff already! Don't want to go without you, you gotta come with!" said Mukai, not being any less confusing than she had been five seconds ago…but that made sense. She was only three and she didn't really know how to make sense yet…well more like three and a half, now, since it was August and she had been born in February…well it was closer to September maybe…when did you have to start rounding the months? Sho wished that he had a calendar, it would have made all of this easier…
And he wished that Mukai had been old enough to cut her own nails, too, while he was making the good kind of wishes….not the kind where people died and little brothers were born.
"But what does back to the back mean? China? Because I don't want to go back to China. We just came from China…I mean, ok, if we go to Disneyland again…but the one in Shanghai, not the one in Hongkong. The one in Hongkong sucks." Said Sho
"No, Mama said no more Disneyland for me today, she really said so, over there. We going away from here today but no more Disneyland…I want to go to Disneyland! I want to go to Mickey and Elsa and churros and Panda! Right now! But we go back to the back!" said Mukai. Well that wasn't fair. Tsuchiya was weird about going to places. Mukai asked to go to places all the time but Tsuchiya said no, and for no good reason! Sho would have understood if she had said no because people had shot at Dad again or if they were busy but most of the time she just said no because they had just gone to Disneyland or whatever…which was dumb. They weren't done with Disneyland until Mukai got sick of it.
Which looked like it was going to be never.
Back when Sho and Big Sis had been little kids they had practically lived at Disneyland. That was because they didn't have friends to do fun stuff with, they'd only had each other, and they'd been too little to have real fun. Disneyland had been fun…for two countries. It had gotten boring by the time they made it to the one in France. Mukai wasn't bored yet, though, and she wanted to go…and so did Sho. He hadn't been to Disneyland since they'd been in China and….well he could go for a churro right now…but maybe not Panda since they didn't have one in Tokyo Disneyland…
But Mukai might have just meant Chinese food and they had Chinese-ish food in Tokyo Disneyland…and he could have gone for some Chinese-ish food right about now.
"…go see Rapunzel, go and see Daisy, go and See Goofy, go and see Moana, go and see-" said Mukai
"Go and see Judy and Nick?" asked Sho. He still kind of liked Zootopia…and he didn't know what he had done with his collection of autograph books. He could always use their signatures at least, for…whatever that word was. The one for when you thought about stuff you loved when you were still young enough to love Zootopia and it made you feel all war inside? That word for how you felt all happy and good inside when you remembered how your sister gave you the shoes off of her feet when yours were too small so you could walk through the streets and push to the front of the line and get Judy and Nick's autographs before they went back to the character dimension. That feeling you got when you remembered how happy she was for you when you finished your autograph book and you got everyone you wanted…including Elsa and Anna because she loved their movie but not Olaf because he was annoying…
He really needed to do his vocab homework.
"No, Sho, no. Just told you Mama said no. Listen with your ears." Said Mukai
"I know that your mom said no but I'm saying yes. I'm kind of in charge, Dad's gone again and I'm his only son. I mean he left Hatori in charge but, come on, who the fuck is going to listen to Hatori?" said Sho
"Who the fuck!" said Mukai. Sho cringed…he needed to watch what he said around her…but fuck that! This was still a free country, Dad wasn't in charge yet, and if his little sister wanted to curse then she could curse and if his little sister wanted to go to Disneyland then they were going the fuck to Disneyland!
"Exactly! No one the fuck! Now come on, fuck packing your bags, we're going to Disneyland!" said Sho. Mukai started cheering and jumping on his bed. He let her even though she was wearing shoes. He didn't mind. They could both do whatever the fuck they wanted to do. Dad was gone and there was no one there to tell them what to do. Not even…not even Big Sis…but she might have liked being there. Not to tell them what to do, though she did like to be bossy, but to come with….
Big Sis did love Disneyland…
And he loved her. She…she had left him here but….but that didn't mean that she was gone forever. Yeah! She might have been planning on coming back this whole time, she hadn't run away from home with Shimazaki since Shimazaki was still at home, so she must have been planning on coming back…even if she had taken Minegishi with her…but whatever! She was coming back and it would have sucked if she came back to an empty house.
He knew what he had to do.
He picked his phone up off of the floor and Mukai jumped up and down on his bed. He managed to type out his message through the tiny earthquake she made…and then he waited. He didn't breathe while he waited. He couldn't. The second he'd hit send he'd been hit with a wave of….of worry. For the mistake he might have made. She might have still been upset. She might have been so upset that she and Minegishi had run away and planned on never coming back or…or something. She might have even been planning on running away from home and sending for Shimazaki later. She might have even been planning on-
-coming with.
'I'd love to come to Disneyland with you and Mukai. Bring your walking shoes and your good socks, the thick ones with no holes, and wear deodorant too even though you hate it. It's hot out today. I love you.'
"We're going to Disneyland! We're going to Disneyland!" shouted Mukai as she jumped. Sho nodded and held his phone in his hands….of course he could have texted her the whole time. Of course he had been afraid of nothing. He had just…his brain was being stupid. Crazy. Maybe he was the one with brain worms and not Hatori. He had been so afraid to text her because he'd thought that she was going to tell him that she was never coming back.
Sho needed to do more than his vocab homework….he was turning into a complete and total idiot!
"Yeah, we're going to Disneyland…with Big Sis!" said Sho. Mukai wasn't any more excited by that…but maybe that was because she was more excited now than she had ever been in her life. She was still jumping up and down on the bed…and Sho decided to join her. It wasn't like there was anyone around to tell him not to…and it wasn't like he was doing anything wrong. No, there was nothing wrong with being happy….
…and even if there had been then he wouldn't have cared.