"Mummy," Nick says gently placing the Japanese toy to the ground, taking to staring out the paper screens into Japan's wilderness. "Why does everyone think I'm younger than I am?"
"Well you age physically five times slower than you are mentally, and not many people know about you, mutant community or not, so nobody knows about this fact except for Victor and I and the few Immorals who can be bothered to see who's in their clique." Nick starts nodding halfway through hearing the same spell of words, waving his hand at the end of my words.
"I know about that," Nick says grumpily. "I just – can you please stop people giving me children's toys? I'm ten."
"Why? I find that they're fun to play with." I say as I take the toy he abandoned and play around with it. "Never too old for toys."
"And your body is so confusing," Nick says, and I look up in interest as the conversation takes a turn that hasn't occurred before. "You smile, and people mistake you for about 20 years old, you act aggressive and people think you as 30. How?"
"Fucked if I know." I shrug, thinking about it. "And-"
"And you keep on using terms and phrases I've never heard of! Fucked if I know and that's lit and awesome and weird things you keep on saying that make no sense like I've McFallen and free shavacado."
"Well," I feel a laughter swelling up in my chest at the memes he's sprouting. "I-"
"Not to mention don't speak to me and my son ever again and I will find you and I will kill you (even though you never actually do) and you say I am disgusted in a weird voice and blocked when you don't like whatever I say and triggered when someone offends you and – are you laughing?"
Nick watched in confusion as I curled into a fetus position and laughed until I couldn't make any noise, yet still continued.
"Mum?" he asks, reaching out to touch my forearm. I latch onto him, drawing the two-year-old body into my lap. I attack his sides, wriggling my fingers onto his sensitive skin. "Muh-Mum!" he giggles, chubby arms flailing.
A light knock taps the paper screens and I call "come in!" over Nick's squeals. A horrifying rip breaks the cheerful mood and both Nick and I scramble to up right ourselves and turn to look towards the source.
Victor stands next to a paper screen, face carefully blank as he stares down at his fist through the paper.
"…Shit." Victor mutters, gingerly taking his fist back out, only to nearly rip the door in two in his haste. "Shit."
He stumbles into the room, trying to distance himself from the paper screen, only to fall off the balcony and into the zen garden, disturbing the carefully drawn lines.
Nick starts giggling, tiny body drawing up the laughter from his lungs. I join in, letting go of Nick to help Victor up without disturbing the garden.
"Anyway," Victor says, carefully ignoring the mess he just created, turn is back on the view to the outside. "I came here to tell you that the celebrations for New Years is beginning."
I lean down to pick up Nick and sit him on my hip and touch my nose to his.
"You ready to celebrate shogatsu?"
"Yeah!" Nick throws his arms up into the air and we leave the little hotel room.
Outside, the streets were packed with street markets, beautiful geishas in their best kimonos and men serving both traditional food and imported food from West.
Nick had slept most of the day away, so it was no problem for him to stay awake until past midnight.
As the fireworks went off, I hug Nick and nudge Victor.
"Welcome to 1900, dudes. The turn of the century."
Fun fact: the Japanese call fireworks 火花, which literally translates to fire flower.
Shogatsu is the Japanese word for New Year's Day/New Year's/New Year's Celebrations. I can't quite remember.
Have fun in 2017, if it isn't worse than 2016.