17. Cuddle
Alicia Blade
492 words
"What do you mean you never had a teddy bear?" Usagi asked, disturbed.
"It isn't that hard to believe, Odango," Mamoru muttered, not sure if he was irritated that the girl was still following him (even though their typical argument would have ended six blocks ago), or amused by her antics. The fact that she found such a simple fact so impossible to believe was just like her, of course, but he couldn't grasp what the big deal was. "It's just a teddy bear, Usagi. Trust me, it was the last thing on my list of things deemed missing from my childhood."
Usagi scowled, not sure what he meant by that, and not sure she wanted to know. "So what did you use? Did you have another kind of stuffed animal?"
"Nope. No teddy bears, no stuffed anything. Why are you still following me?"
"So what did you do when you were sick? Or when there was a lightning storm? Weren't you ever scared?"
He sighed. "Don't you think it's a bit irrational that kids are so dependent on inanimate objects? It's cloth and stuffing! It's not like these toys are set up to ward off a burglar or something."
"No, but they're meant to ward off fear and loneliness. I can't believe you never had a teddy bear. It's abnormal." She sulked quietly for awhile, still walking by his side as his apartment building came into view. For a moment he thought her endless questions had finally abated, before she piped up with, "Don't you ever get nightmares?"
"Of course I do, Odango," he said, but dared not admit how frequently he woke up to the echos of screaming in his ears and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. "But then I drink a glass of water and go back to bed. They're just dreams. Look, this is my apartment. You're not going to follow me in, are you?"
She looked up at the apartment, then back down the street, surprised she'd walked so far with him. "Oh. No…"
"Good. Goodbye, Odango."
"Don't call me that, you teddy-bear-less jerk!" she screamed as he disappeared through the building's revolving doors.
…
The next day Mamoru came home from work to a little brown teddy bear sitting innocently in front of his apartment door, a note tied to its wrist.
Maybe having someone to cuddle with when you have nightmares will keep you from being such a jerk all the time.
His name is Kuma. Be nice to him.
Usagi
He smirked and took it inside, knowing that the poor thing would end up in a closet the next time he had company. But for the time being he figured it couldn't hurt for Kuma to have a premium spot beside his pillow. And while he wasn't sure how much it helped with how big of a jerk he could be, he found it did help a little with the nightmares.