Chapter 8 - The Show Must Go On!
The day had started same way each day beforehand did. Akira woke up and checked his phone for any notifications from his social media accounts. This was always around 9am, even on the days he stayed up to 3am. After seeing the usual video uploads and likes, he got up and went to brush his teeth and get dressed in his favourite, usual outfit.
He went back into the room to grab his phone, and noticed that Daichi was still fast asleep. For the few days before then, he had been getting up at midday and it seemed to stay the same for that day aswell. The young orange haired boy pulled back the curtains and checked himself out in the nearby mirror, fixing his hair into his desired style. He left the room as quietly as possible, leaving the door slightly opened, before going downstairs.
He strolled into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water and a pre-made ham sandwich from the fridge, before going over to the kitchen table and sitting down. He ate the sandwich slowly, enjoying every bite of it whilst scrolling through different apps to see what people were doing. He was already excited for the day ahead, since his mum had told him that this was his proper day off from school work. So when he saw that his favourite anime, Gotchaman, was starting its new season today – he was ecstatic.
He left the half eaten sandwich on the table and ran to the living room with his bottle of water, almost jumping straight onto the sofa. He placed the bottle quickly down onto the coaster on the coffee table and grabbed the nearby tv remote and he sat down next to his mother, who had been trying to read a magazine. He opened up the tv menu and started to try to find the right channel.
"What are you looking for?" Natsumi asked, looking up from the tabloid with meaningless celebrity news plastered from page to page.
"The new Gotchaman season is starting in thirty minutes!" Akira replied enthuasiastically. "I can finally know what happens to Sakura! It feels like I've been waiting for years!"
"So you're gonna watch that with Theo when he gets here?" The mother announced, smiling. Akira was stunned, his thumb wavering over the select button. He turned his head to face her.
"W-What?" He stuttered out. "Why is he coming here? He's like six! He'll ruin the premiere!" The young boy was almost shrieking at that point.
"Akira! No, he won't! Besides, he can help us with monkey catching!" Those were the last words spoken by either of the two before the doorbell softly rang out. "Oh, that should be everyone now."
The orange haired woman got up from her seat and started walking pass the kitchen and towards the front door. Akira jumped up from the sofa and followed his mother, stopping at the kitchen doorway and simply watching his mother as she typed in the keypad and opened the front door.
Almost immediately a small figure ran through the door and was excitedly looking up at Natsumi, hopping from foot to foot. His hair was mostly puffy and orange, aside from his fringe that was composed of both curly and straight strands of hair. He had wooden clubmaster like glasses over his green eyes and freckles were on his cheeks. He was wearing an oversized dusty yellow and white long-sleeved raglan t-shirt with a henley collar. His light grey jeans partially cover his black and white velcro strapped runners. He didn't bother to pull up his sleeves, he simply let them act like an extension to his hands.
"Hello miss!" The young boy with a huge smile, bringing his hands in front of his chest.
"Well hello Theo, are you having a good day today?" Natsumi asked sweetly, bending down to be at a closer height to the child.
"Yes I am! Can I sit on the sofa and watch tv, please?" He tilted his head and rubbed his hands together, with his eyes opened wide.
"Of course you can." The woman giggled and stood back up straight. Akira felt his heart fall into a deep pit in his stomach as reality hit him.
"Thank you!" The little boy shouted as his kicked off his shoes next to the door and ran to the kitchen. As he ran through the doorway, he saw Akira. "Hi 'Kira!" He greeted with an innocent smile, only to get no reply.
The older boy felt as if his entire world was ending. But in that short interaction, Akira noticed something else about the boy's appearance. On his left wrist, he had a band that seemed almost identical to the one Dawn had been given a few days before. The older boy continued to look at the front door as the younger one walked towards the living room.
Two other adults walked into the house and had started talking with Natsumi. Akira recognized them instantly, how could he not? The tall man with flowing blonde hair down to his shoulders was , and the woman with puffy reddish orange hair was Aki – both of which were Theo's parents. Dawn appeared from behind them and stood off to the side whilst the three adults talked. It was only a minute or two before the four people walked not to the kitchen, but to the laboratory. Akira sighed, knowing what he had to do. Babysitting.
"Oh my goodness!" A squeaky scream came from the living room, which no indication of what had caused it.
Akira threw himself in the direction of the voice, banging his knee on the doorframe – but that didn't matter. What mattered was not getting in trouble for letting the young child get hurt. As he dashed into the living room, he saw the small ginger sitting on the sofa with the tv remote in his hands.
"An episode of Gotchaman is gonna be on soon!"
The older boy sighed in both relief and frustration. While he was glad the child didn't somehow hurt himself, he was annoyed that he would screech like he was hurt over something like that.
He walked over to the sofa and sat next to the young boy, who was still holding the remote and moving his legs back and forth – bouncing them off the sofa. Theo had the mini menu of the channel up on the screen and seemed to be reading the synopsis of the show that had started a few minutes beforehand.
"I wanna be like Hibiki!" The young boy said, putting the remote back onto the coffee table. Akira looked bewildered, since that was one of the more minor characters of the show.
"Um, don't you mean Tatsuya? Since he's Gotchaman." The older boy asked, with a condescending look on his face.
"Nope! I'm Dawn's sidekick, so I want be a sidekick!" Theo replied cheerfully, watching the meaningless cartoon that was playing on the television.
"Did she tell you that?" Akira was practically holding in his laughter, he thought it was the funniest thing – and this child took it with pride.
"Yep!" The young boy giggled, not noticing the other boy's snickering. His focus was on the television. "Why are they in the desert?"
The older boy looked up to the screen and saw that the three characters of various sizes were walking through a sandy region. "I have no idea." The younger boy tried to get engrossed in the show, but simply couldn't and continued on with the conversation.
"I'm an artist, don't you know?" He chirped, turning his head and looking straight into Akira's eyes. His smile was like one a kitten would have.
"I even made my own super hero suit! Mama put it in this!" Theo lifted his hand up to show the device on his wrist, and Akira's earlier interpretation seemed to be correct – the band was almost identical to Dawn's, only smaller to fit onto his eight year old wrist.
Almost as if it was scripted, Charu walked through the kitchen doorway after Theo stopped speaking. She seemed calm but serious, which Akira noticed immediately – but the younger boy didn't.
"Akira, you should start to get ready. We think we found another place the monkeys are hiding out in." She directed softly. The older boy stood up and nodded with an audible hum. Before he could even move his foot, the younger boy skipped pass him.
"Yeah, cool!" He shouted.
The android moved out of the way as the small child skipped pass and went over towards the front door to get his shoes. The older boy simply walked over and continued the stroll to his shoes, with Charu following behind them for a few seconds before going into the laboratory. Akira didn't really care about the monkey business, as long as he didn't intervene on the season premiere.
As the two boys entered the room, they quickly realized it was packed. Natsumi, Hikaru and Dawn were over at the main module and Natsumi was furiously typing as per usual. Dr. Tomoki and Aki were over near the small monitors and had a laptop connected to one of the screens, resulting in nothing but static. Akira's mother seemed to be mumbling to herself under her breath, before turning to the dark red haired man.
"It's not showing us any of the monkeys head on…" She began. "Do you think it could be a member of the Freaky Monkey Five?" Hikaru's eyes opened wide and he almost immediately put his hand on Dawn's shoulder, as if to hold her back.
"What? Is that even possible?" He stammered out. The two boys had started to listen in on the conversation at that point.
"It could be. Even if it's not, we should keep an eye out for anything Specter might try to throw at us." She moved her gaze from Hikaru, and towards the two orange haired boys. "Looks like you two are going to have to go and sort it out."
"Uh, mum? What's the 'Freaky Monkey Five'?" Akira asked, throwing his hands behind his head.
"Oh, yeah. They're a group of specially chosen monkeys that are much stronger and…stranger than usual pipo monkeys." His mother replied.
"Like the dragoon gang!" Theo announced, as he started to hop from foot to foot. The older boy turned his head to look at him, with a confused look on his face – but then he put everything together.
"Oh, you mean from the show! I get you now." Akira said, and he turned to face the tool panel where Charu had been standing. "I'll have to get my club before we go, though." He chuckled a bit before running over and grabbing the open stun club from its hooks.
Natsumi turned back to module and began to type as fast as she could. Hikaru started to move away from the device with Dawn, and step closer to the door. The older boy walked back to the front of the huge machine, gripping the stun club's handle in his hand.
Theo looked curiously between the older boy, his parents and the woman at the module. And when the clunking noises of the transporter began to shake the room and the purple vortex materialized in its center, he couldn't help but to let out a very loud "Woah!".
Akira ran up the machine's steps first. The younger boy waited a second before sprinting behind the make-shift leader of the duo and trying to follow his every step. The two boys jumped into the portal body first and disappeared within an instant.
The two boys fell only a meter from the ground and landed on their feet, the younger of them finding himself dizzy as a result. The older boy looked around whilst the younger one tried to rebalance himself.
They seemed to be in theatre and they were standing on the main stage, in front of red pulled over curtains. No one was in the rows of seats behind them and room was almost completely black. That was, until, two spotlights shone on both the boys.
"Oh? Who do we have here? A prince in shining armor?" A voice announced and echoed from all directions.
Suddenly, the large curtains opened and revealed the rest of the stage. A poorly drawn background of a beach during the evening stood behind a large silhouette. Another spot light turned on and showed the figure's appearance.
The individual was extremely tall and large. It seemed to have a straw hat on it's head with a blue alarm light on the very top. Green hair poked out from the bottom of the hat, and it had piercing eyes and large lips. It had red ninja star nipples poking out of its yellow fur. On its hands, it had silk gloves. To finish off its unique outfit, it had a pink mawashi with white sagari over a short white skirt and had brown getas on its feet. The two boys stood shocked.
"I thought monkeys were meant to be skinny." Theo said, unintentionally, tilting his head to the side in confusion.
"How dare you say that to me! Don't you know who I am?" The monkey shrieked in response.
"Yeah dude, that was mean." Akira said, looking over to the younger boy.
"Oh sweet boy, you do know who I am!" The ape commented.
"What?" Akira blurted out in shock. "No I don't, I was only telling him off."
"Don't be like that, you know I'm Monkey Yellow – the best actor in the world!" As it proudly spoke, the over head lights switched on and lit up the entire stage.
"Actually," He continued. "I think you would be perfect as the role for my prince!"
"Uh, no! For one, that's a boring role!" The older boy started again.
"And you're a bad guy!" The younger boy interrupted.
"My, my, did your parents ever teach you manners?!" Monkey Yellow shrieked again. "You're trying to ruin the perfect show I wrote!"
"Because you're evil!" The young boy shouted back, waving his arms up and down.
"Well, if no one else will teach you a lesson about respect – I'll have to!" The over head lights changed to a red hue as the obese monkey twirl around on the stage.
The younger boy could only stare at it. The older boy stood for a second before realizing what was about to happen.
The monkey jumped a meter or so away from Theo in a straight line and stayed there, continuing to spin. This only kept the young boy in a trance more. He didn't even notice the lights begin to dim and the spotlights only being focused on himself and the grown monkey. Nor could he quickly process what was happening when the monkey started rushing towards him.
"Theo!" Akira shouted as he ran in front of the young boy.
He threw the stun club over his shoulder like a baseball bat and swung it as hard as he could, and just in time too. The beam of light collided with the ape's protruding belly and send it flying back a few feet, landing on its back. In shock of the sudden event, Theo fell onto his bottom. Akira turned to the young boy.
"Are you okay?" Akira asked, breathing heavily.
The boy pushed his glasses up and quickly nodded his head. The older boy looked back at the ape. The spot lights were gone and the over head lights were a normal yellow hue.
"I can't believe this! Why can't anything go the way I wanted it?" Monkey Yellow cried, beginning to stand back up.
"You can't just attack a kid or force someone into doing a play!" Akira exclaimed, throwing his arms up in front of Theo.
"I just wanted to have a bit of fun after all these years, and you had to ruin it!" The grown ape had tears in its eyes and was acting like a toddler who wasn't given chocolate. "If I can't get what I've been waiting years to do, then neither can you!" He spun on his heels and started to ran off stage.
"No, wait!" The older boy shouted as he tried to run after the monkey, but it was too late.
It's obtuse body was engulfed in a purple light before disappearing in an instant. As the last few light particles faded, Akira came to a stop with his hand still stretched out in front of him. All the lights in the viewing hall turned off, and the boys were surrounded by darkness – until both of them were covered in a familiar blue light and were brought back to the lab.
When Theo landed, he once again was left completely off balance and stumbled around the free area. Akira landed almost perfectly, and was only a bit disorientated. Aki ran over as soon as he could and embraced the young boy in a tight hug, and Dr. Tomoki walked up to the older boy and put his hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you for what you did back there, you're going to need to teach him how to stand up for himself." The father laughed, but it was clear that he was truly grateful.
"Maybe you should work on taking your own advice first." Natsumi scoffed, leaning against the main module.
"What do you mean? That stuff only applied to that weird monkey." Akira replied.
He was confused, because he hadn't really reflected too much on what he said or even what he had been doing for the last week or so.
"If you so say." His mother sighed, as she began to turn back to the monitor.
"…'Kira," Theo began to talk. "Can I be your sidekick as well? Like Tatsuya and Hibiki?" Akira just stood there for a moment, looking at the young boy. Tatsuya and Hibiki, he thought to himself. Just like in the show…
"Wait a second, the show!"
With that realization, the older boy dashed out of the lab and through the kitchen. He almost launched himself onto the empty couch in the living room and grabbed the remote that had been left there by the younger boy. He switched on the tv and was almost hyperventilating while waiting for the channel to load. As soon as it did, he brought up the mini menu for the channel – 9:28 am. He had made it back home two minutes before the show started.
He felt his anxiety dissipate and melted into the couch. He didn't even care when the younger boy ran in after him and hopped into the seat next to him. He didn't miss the show, and that's all he wanted.