Red light, green light was a lot more fun when you could shoot people.
Most things in life were. Dad had always said that a gun was a coward's weapon but Dad said a lot of other things, too, that of course weren't true. A gun wasn't a coward's weapon. A coward wouldn't even use a weapon. He'd just have someone else fight for him, or dig a hole and fill it with sharp rocks and glass, or….or jump out and scare someone…or something…the point was the Sho was not a coward or any of the other stupid shit that Dad said about him!
Good or bad.
"Green light!" shouted Mukai as she turned around. He could tell that she was peaking but he knew better than to say anything. That would have just made her feel like shit and the last thing that he wanted to do was make her feel like shit. He wasn't Dad, he didn't like making people feel bad…wait, no, that wasn't it.
That would have required Dad to actually care about him.
Dad just didn't care if he made Sho feel like shit or not. Dad didn't even care about Sho. Well Sho cared about Mukai and that was what mattered. Dad could go choke on an omelet and die somewhere, and Hatori could cry over his dead body. Sho didn't care if Dad cared about him or not, though the not caring was better than when he pretended that he actually cared.
Even when Sho did good work it wasn't like Dad actually gave a fuck about him.
"Be ready, Sho, be ready." Said Mukai. She was good at this game, and Sho meant it. She was doing that thing where she waited a while so the Awakened would get more comfortable running. Once they really started to go fast then she'd say 'red light' and he'd shoot them all. Not for real, of course, because that would have been wrong.
Another way he was different from, better than, Dad.
"Did you hear me, be ready? Aye, aye, captain!" said Mukai
"I am ready, Mukai, you just be ready to trip those guys up." said Sho
"Say the thing." Said Mukai. Sho smiled and sighed.
"Aye, aye, captain." Said Sho. They had been watching a lot of TV in other languages lately. Mukai only spoke Japanese and that kind of sucked. Only knowing one language made it a lot harder to do fun stuff in other countries and when this was over he was totally taking her around the world but to all the good places. Every single Disney World and Universal, The North Pole, the M&M's store, that place where they made candy people, indoor sledding…all the fun stuff that he'd either done or wanted to do when he had been little. She'd have a much better time of it than he had since she wasn't going to have to deal with Dad or Fukuda.
When this was all over, that is.
"See? I'm ready, now you be ready. Those guys are getting way too close to the finish line." Said Sho
"I'm always ready, I'm the most ready person in the whole world." Said Mukai like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She wasn't always ready, Sho could have brought up the time just that morning where it had taken her almost fifteen minutes to find her other shoe, or the day before that where they couldn't leave the house because she had important things to watch on her phone, but he didn't. He wasn't going to be an asshole to Mukai.
He wasn't going to be an asshole end of discussion.
"Really?" asked Sho
"It's not a discussion, Sho." said Mukai, trying her best to sound like her mom. She wound up sounding like his, or maybe that was just the way all moms sounded. Mom used to tell him all the time that things weren't a discussion. Taking a bath wasn't a discussion, brushing his teeth wasn't a discussion, putting on school clothes wasn't a discussion. He wished that it had gone both ways, then he would have told her that leaving wasn't a discussion…
It didn't matter anymore.
Mom was gone and he didn't even know why he had been thinking about her so much lately. Maybe because he had been able to save Shiori but not her. Maybe because he had actually known that Shiori had been kidnapped and Mom…where she'd gone was still a mystery. Or maybe it was because that he'd pulled the same kind of disappearing act on Ritsu that Mom had on him. He hadn't told Ritsu where or when he was going, he had just left like a dickhole…but he'd had to leave…
At least he'd had an excuse.
"They moved, Sho! Shoot them all! Shoot them dead!" shouted Mukai as she pointed out at the Awakened. Sho checked his ammo. He wasn't going to shoot anyone dead, he didn't have it in him to kill anyone, but he would shoot them with these really hard darts. That's what they got for moving….wait, hang on.
"You forgot to say 'red light'." Said Sho. Mukai gasped and turned around.
"Hey! Green light! I mean red light! I mean everybody stop it right now or else!" shouted Mukai. Everyone stopped. A few people fell down. They got shot. Sho had played this game back when he had been Mukai's age in preschool, though there hadn't been any shooting. Mukai's version was better. Tsuchiya didn't like her watching that show, even though it helped with her Korean, but Sho wasn't going to stop her. It was fun and educational.
He never would have thought to have added guns to red light, green light, when he had been her age after all.
"You heard her, time to die." Said Sho as he aimed down his sights and shot anyone who had moved. This wasn't exactly like the show. Everyone was dressed wrong, they didn't have a big enough space to really play, and Sho didn't shoot that well. He missed a few times but that was just because this gun sucked! This was the same gun that he'd played target practice with when he had been a kid and even back then it hadn't worked that well.
He hadn't meant to get Big Sis in the eye quite so many times back then.
"Yeah, time to die…um…six o'clock!" said Mukai checking the time on her phone. She still couldn't tell time, even when the numbers were right there, but Sho wasn't going to say anything about that. Besides, what did Mukai need to be able to tell time for? She was only four years old, it wasn't like she had a job or anything like that. Hell, even the Awakened didn't need to be able to tell time and they all had jobs.
Jobs that maybe Big Sis wanted them to get back to…if she had shit that needed to be done then she would tell him.
She was right upstairs after all. She and Minegishi were hiding out in the girl's bathroom again for some reason. He didn't know, bathrooms weren't good places for clubhouses in his opinion, but he wasn't a girl. He wasn't playing clubhouse anyway, he was playing red light and green light, and right now he had a job to do. He shot at the Awakened on the floor…and missed. The dart pulled to the left.
It sucked for him but it was good for the Awakened…or maybe it sucked for them too.
"Please, sir, have mercy! I have a family! I have to make enough money to send my mother to the hospital and stop my daughter from moving to the U.S. and…um…the yakuza are after me!" shouted the Awakened sprawled out on the floor. The guy that he had fallen on top of gave him a look.
"No you don't, you've never even kissed a girl and your Mom ran away with the mailman when you were five." Said the Awakened. The guy on top of him hit him over the head.
"He did Shimazaki off, though, and he's pretty much still a member of the yakuza!" shouted another Awakened. Mukai pointed at him and made a shooting motion with her hand.
"Less talking, more dying…and no telling lies, either!" Said Mukai
"I-I wasn't lying, I was just doing the thing from the show. I was being the main guy, you know?" said the Awakened
"You're not the main guy, you're one of the random tracksuit guys at best, and now you're going to die." Said Sho before he shot him right between the eyes. That time his shot had been good. Maybe it wasn't the gun, maybe it was just him. It had been a while since he'd used people as target practice, not since he had been little and kind of an asshole…but he wasn't an asshole now.
It didn't count as being an asshole is everyone agreed to play the game.
"You're out, and you're out, and you're out, and…and that's a lot of people who are out." Said Mukai pointing to the Awakened as Sho shot them.
"Want to just restart the game?" asked Sho
"No, no restarts. Go and find more player. We need…a hundred, like in the show." Said Mukai. Sho looked around. He didn't think that this hallway could hold a hundred people let alone as many as had been in the show. They needed a bigger room. Maybe he could talk Big Sis into building a game island for them, but without the death and organ stealing, that would have been too much like something Dad would have done.
"We don't have that much room." said Sho
"So then we make that much room." said Mukai, rolling her eyes at him. She hadn't ever done that before. Maybe she was growing up. She was four now, in nine years she'd be his age, and then he'd be twenty two….he'd be Hatori's age. Sho didn't know what he'd do when he was that age and he didn't really want to think about it. He didn't know where he'd be living or what he'd be doing or if…if there would be a Claw or…or anything.
He didn't know if he'd still be playing red light, green light with Mukai in nine years so maybe it was best to just focus on what was happening right now. Nine years was still along way away, anyway.
"How in the hell are we supposed to do that?" asked Sho
"We knock down walls and then we set fires to the walls and then we make marshmallows on the fires and then we can play some more but only when the marshmallows are done. Then we can find a hundred, hundred, million people to play with us. Then we can have juice." Said Mukai
"Wait! You can't bring more people in! Not when we're in the middle of the game!" shouted an Awakened
"I can do whatever I want, I'm the Mukai, and…and you're out!" said Mukai. She pointed at him. Sho didn't need to be told twice. Of course he was going to shoot anyone who was mean to his little sister like that, it was his job as a big brother.
"Anyone else got a problem with the plan?" asked Sho, cocking the gun. Everyone who was still in, and a few people passing through too, shook their heads 'no' really fast.
"Good. Ok Mukai, do your thing." Said Sho
"Wait! All you people are in now! You in the red pajamas and you in the blue ribbon and-and you too, Joseph, stop hiding! This isn't hide and seek, you have to play the game we're all playing. Otherwise you're a dickhole's dickhole." Said Mukai. Sho nodded and pointed his gun right at Joseph. He had been crouched low trying to hide behind a bigger guy. What a dickhole. He had no idea what Big Sis saw in that guy.
"You heard her." said Sho. Everyone but Joseph ran to the back of the line.
"Hey Suzuki-san and Suzuki-chan. How's it going?" asked Joseph as he walked over. He had a cigarette in his mouth and he was ashing all over the floor. Sho was going to ask Big Sis, next time he saw her, why everyone but him was allowed to smoke wherever they wanted and whenever they wanted. He was only allowed to smoke outside and with her, cigarettes anyway, and it wasn't fair!
"Come and play with us already! It's red light, green light like in the show!" said Mukai
"Oh yeah, that thing. You guys are really into it, huh?" asked Joseph. Sho shrugged.
"Who isn't? Now come on, we need to get through at least one game or Mukai's going to get pissed off." Said Sho
"I'm getting pissed off right now." said Mukai, glaring at Joseph. He kept on walking…right up to them. If he thought that he was getting special treatment just because Big Sis liked hanging out with him then he had another thing coming.
"Me too, get in back like everyone else." Said Sho. Some of the Awakened were agreeing with him. Good. He didn't need more people arguing with him. Didn't they know who he was? What he could have had done to them if he wanted to? He could have…he could have done a lot of things but he wasn't going to even think about those things. He wasn't Dad, he wasn't an asshole, and he was never going to be an asshole. Not again.
"I don't really have time to play. I was just about to get some…some stuff, done." Said Joseph, his eyes shifting to the side.
"What stuff? Big Sis never has anything that needs doing. She's not Dad." Said Sho
"Just some things…hey, just out of curiosity where is your sister? I haven't seen her for a while and I was just wondering how she was doing." Said Joseph
"Give me one of those cigarettes and I'll tell you whatever you want to know." said Sho. He could hear people grumbling and mumbling. They had better have been making noise about the game and not the fact that he was smoking. He could smoke if he wanted to, and he did want to. He just…did. He knew what Fukuda had said, once you started it was very hard to stop, but Sho knew himself and he knew that he could stop whenever he wanted to. He just didn't want to.
"So…where's your sister?" asked Joseph
"She's hiding in the bathroom with Minegishi, I think it's a club or something." said Sho as he flipped his cigarette between his fingers like Shimazaki did sometimes. This one smelled weird and was shorter than the ones Big Sis smoked. He liked those the best, or at least he thought he did, he wasn't sure. He didn't know what all the different kinds were like.
"Is she doing ok? Has she mentioned-" said Joseph
"Mama says not to smoke, she says it's bad." said Mukai as Joseph handed him a cigarette and held out his electric lighter.
"She's not my mom." Said Sho before he lit his cigarette. Joseph's had pink smoke, like his aura. Sho's smoke was normal colored…kind of disappointing, anyway.
"But I'm your sister, now play! Everyone has to play right now or we'll shoot you! We'll shoot you for real!" said Mukai. Sho hated how everyone's auras were the same. Instead of a room full of people being scared it felt like it was one giant person who was scared at him…and that person felt just like Dad. Sho let his own aura show. He was glad that he had kept his own aura's color after he came out of the awakening lab, he didn't know what he would have done if he had wound up as a clone of Dad.
"We're not doing that, we don't even have real guns." Said Sho, mostly to calm the Awakened down. The last thing he needed was for people to think that he would actually hurt him. He wasn't Dad, he didn't hurt people. Not for real.
"Ryou does! Hang on, I'll tell him to bring us real guns and then we can shoot everyone for real!" said Mukai. Another wave of fear…real fear. What was the matter with people? Did they think that he was really capable of shooting people? He wasn't. Even Dad didn't shoot people. He thought that a gun was a coward's weapon. He would have used his powers if he had been planning on killing anyone. Sho would have too…but he wasn't going to kill anyone!
"Yeah, uh, you two can count me out. I doubt there's enough prize money to make it worthwhile." Said Joseph as Mukai shouted Shimazaki's name over and over again at the top of her lungs. She could be really loud when she wanted to be….not that he minded, no, he loved her. He just had to be a better big brother and tell her that just because something happened on TV it didn't mean that it had to happen in real life.
"We're not going to shoot-" said Sho as the energy around them shifted.
"You rang?" said Shimazaki as he teleported in front of them. Joseph took a step back.
"No, Mukai just called you because-" said Sho
"I've got to go, have fun you two." Said Joseph as he turned around and ran away. He was probably scared of Shimazaki, he was glaring at him pretty hard with his aura.
"Me too!" shouted a bunch of the Awakened before they ran away like the cowards they were. Or maybe they were more like a bunch of morons than a bunch of cowards. They were dumb enough to think that Sho would have actually shot them after all. Not Even Dad shot people and he was the worst person to ever live.
"You're all losers! Sho, shoot them with real guns! Shimazaki, bring us real guns! And also some blue juice and giant cookies." Said Mukai. Shimazaki shrugged, his jacket squeaked as he moved…oh. He was all wet, or at least his jacket was…and he smelled kind of like blood.
"Hmm…yeah, no, not happening. You can't have real guns until I know I can trust you not to shoot yourselves on accident." Said Shimazaki
"I'm not going to shoot myself! Or anyone! And…and we don't need them." said Sho
"Don't listen to Sho. Cover your ears." Said Mukai, covering her ears. Sho wanted to uncover her ears but he didn't, that would have been mean, even though she was kind of being mean first…but she was four so it didn't count.
"…wasn't going to shoot myself on accident…" muttered Sho
"That's what every idiot says before he shoots himself on accident." Laughed Shimazaki. Sho wanted to push him, or at least hit him, but he didn't. He was proud of himself, a little, for not being an asshole. The real kind of proud, not whatever Dad thought he felt when he said he was proud.
"Yeah, Sho's an idiot!" laughed Mukai. She tugged at his coat and pointed at him, jabbing him in the stomach. Her nails were sharp like claws. He could feel them all the way up to his heart.
"Hey, that's not-" said Sho. It wasn't nice. She was too little to know that it wasn't nice and he had to tell her…but then wouldn't he have been just like Fukuda? Always telling him 'language' and what to say and do and just…be. He didn't want people telling him what to be but he didn't want Mukai to end up like him.
"We're all idiots here, according to Toshi anyway. So, do you guys want to be idiots here or do you want to be idiots with me and kick the asses of some bigger idiots?" asked Shimazaki, his aura on Sho's.
"Kick some asses!" said Mukai. Sho wanted to tell her that they had been playing…but kicking some asses did sound good. He looked down at the gun in his hands. It had been fun but…but it was done, now….and he kind of felt like kicking some ass…well he always felt like kicking some ass…
Mostly his own.
He didn't know why he always felt like kicking his own ass. Maybe because he had left Ritsu, maybe because he wasn't good at anything, or maybe because he was good at things but nobody could tell. Nobody believed him…Dad was nobody…but Dad said that he was proud of him…but he had been lying. Right? He didn't know if Dad had been lying or telling the truth. He didn't know what would have been worse. He didn't know what he wanted…Mukai tugged at his coat. He knew what he wanted.
He wanted to do whatever she wanted to do…but not shoot people, that was wrong.