The houses were really small here.
Sho didn't know what he had been expecting. Mom had left the Castle, run away in the middle of the night, so of course she wouldn't want to move into a house as big as the Castle. She had probably wanted to forget the whole thing. She had probably wanted to forget Dad and…and him and Big Sis and…and Fukuda, too.
Sho sure wished that he could have forgotten Fukuda.
He squeezed Ritsu's hand. There wasn't anyone out on the street to give them weird looks and if there had been then Sho would have fought them. Yeah, he would have beaten them up so bad that they wouldn't have thought of ever looking at him weird ever again even if he was being weird and walking down the street holding hands with the love of his life who was a guy and…and even if it was Mom who he passed, Mom who looked at him funny, Mom who…who…who didn't like Ritsu or the fact that he was gay or….or….or whatever! Even if it was her he'd fight her or…or yell at her since you weren't supposed to fight girls or…or…or…or maybe not yell at her….talk to her?
But what could he even say?
"It's this way…I think. I don't know." said Sho as he checked his phone with his free hand. This wasn't too far, really, from the woods the base were in. He wondered how she had managed to hide for this long. Sho knew that Dad had sent everyone to look for her, everyone he could, but nobody had been able to find her. Maybe this was that hiding in plain sight thing that people talked about sometimes. Maybe that would be something to talk about with her. Maybe they could talk about how she managed to beat all of Claw and not…and not why she had wanted, decided, to get away from him and never come back and why she didn't love him and-and-and-
-and something was bothering Ritsu.
"Ritsu?" asked Sho. Maybe Ritsu was tired. Maybe the walking and flying had tired him out. Maybe he needed to rest. Maybe he needed to carry Ritsu home and put him to bed and take a long nap with him. Maybe one of those naps where you woke up and it had been fifty years or something…something like that.
Mom would have been in her nineties by then, right? So she wouldn't have been…and that was a horrible thought to have about his own mother!
"Wait…I know where we're going." Said Ritsu, slowing down. He looked around. He knew where he was. Home was that way. He never went this way, there wasn't anyone he knew who lived this way and the bus stop was in the opposite direction, but now that he got closer to the Hirai house he knew where he was…he was in his own neighborhood!
This was bad.
"What do you mean?" asked Sho
"This is my neighborhood. My house is that way." Said Ritsu, pointing to the left. He was close to home, which meant that he was close to mom and dad, which meant that at any time they could have walked over and dragged him home…well no, actually, they couldn't. He had powers after all and they didn't…and they probably didn't even want him to come home. They were probably trying to have another kid by now and if anyone asked, probably just Reigen or Tsubomi since nobody else really cared about him, they'd just say that he died or something. That seemed to be their go-to lie when they had to get rid of one of their kids. Yeah, they probably didn't even care about him at all anymore.
So why was he still worried?
"Oh…" said Sho, looking around. Sho remembered how it had felt, coming back to the Castle after being gone for years, and it must have been the same for Ritsu…but Ritsu had an actual home to go back to. Not an empty, dusty, echoing house.
"But I'm not going home so stop worrying about that. You have enough to worry about." Said Ritsu quickly. He had spent enough time with Sho to know what it meant when he got that look on his face.
"Yeah, I know." said Sho quietly. He got back to walking, eyeing the phone in his free hand the whole time. He didn't know what was wrong with him. Here he was thinking that Ritsu would run away and that was after hoping that he fell asleep for fifty years so he could wake up and his mom would have died from old age! Something was wrong with him, very wrong, incredibly wrong…
Well, he was Dad's son after all.
He caught sight of his reflection in a car's mirror. He wondered if he looked like Dad when he was sad…and he had been sad. When he lost it all. When he lost to Big Sis. Maybe Sho even knew how he felt. It felt, anyway, like he had lost it all even though he had gotten everything that he had ever wanted. Dad was gone, Ritsu was his, he had found Mom, and Claw was…maybe he had always wanted Claw but just didn't want to admit it…whatever. He should have been happy right now. He should have been the kind of happy that a person was when they got everything that they had ever wished for.
Or maybe this was what people meant when they told you to be careful what you wished for because you just might get it.
They crossed the street. He saw Ritsu's aura for a second. Something was bothering him. Probably being home. He probably missed his mom and dad even if they were liars and bad people. Only bad people would have gotten rid of one of their kids and told everyone that their kid died. He couldn't have imagined anyone getting rid of Big Sis. Sure she was kind of weird sometimes, and bossy, and she was always treating him like a baby…well she had said that she wasn't going to be doing that anymore but still! She was still Big Sis and she didn't deserve that from a bunch of assholes! Maybe, Sho thought, it would have been better to go to Ritsu's house and give them a piece of his mind since she wasn't around and was too nice to do it herself!
Or maybe not. It all depended on what Ritsu wanted.
"Hey-" said Sho
"Wait…there's no way…" said Ritsu
"What do you mean?" asked Sho, wondering for a second if Ritsu could read minds this whole time and had been keeping it a secret.
"This is…is this the house? That one?" asked Ritsu as he pointed to the house…the Hirai house. He knew it well. He had been there plenty of times before. This was where the youngest esper he knew, besides Sho's little sister, lived. This was….it would have made sense, really, since Sho was an esper to have a mom who…who had…
There was no way. He must have been losing it.
"This is the address Hatori gave me and I don't think he'd lie…not about this, I mean, he can be kind of an asshole sometimes but I don't know why he'd lie about this." Said Sho. He hadn't gone to Fukuda for the address, no way, the last thing he wanted was for Fukuda to start talking about how they could be a family or whatever. Hatori knew everything that everyone else knew, or at least had on their phones, and Sho hadn't even had to threaten him to get the address he needed. And now here he was. His feet had carried him here while his head had been too busy worrying.
This was Mom's house.
It was small, it was white, there was an apple tree in the front yard, all the curtains were closed, and there wasn't even a wall around it. He didn't know how she was supposed to be safe without any walls. That was why the Castle had walls, Dad had said, because Mom was a normal person and didn't have any way to defend herself. She was…she wasn't safe here. Anyone could have found her at any time! So why was she here?
He really didn't know.
"This is…I know who's house this is." Said Ritsu. Sho looked weirdly terrified and angry at the same time. Ritsu sighed. Great. He knew what was coming now. He loved Sho, he really did, but he could be a lot sometimes…and Ritsu had to be nice. This whole thing was a lot. They were both going through a lot right now…though Ritsu thought that he was taking it all a little bit better than Sho was.
"Yeah, my mom's….wait. Do you know my mom? Did you know my mom this whole time? Did you just…have you been keeping this whole thing a secret this whole time?" asked Sho. Ritsu glared at him and let go of his hand.
"No. Obviously not. Why would I keep something like that a secret." Said Ritsu, crossing his arms. Sho at least had the decency to look embarrassed.
"…I don't know….it's just that sometimes people keep secrets." Said Sho quietly. Yeah, ok, that had been dumb. Sho loved Ritsu and Ritsu loved him back. When you loved someone, the real kind of love, you didn't keep any secrets from them. Ever.
"Well I'm obviously not so just go ring the bell already and tell your mom off or whatever." said Ritsu
"I'm not going to tell her off!" said Sho
"I would if I were you." said Ritsu
"But I'm not you and…and ok, maybe I should yell at her and tell her off but…but also she's my mom so…so I don't think that I'm going to do that." Said Sho
"Then what are you going to do?" asked Ritsu
"…I'm not…not…" said Sho. He really didn't know. Part of him wanted to yell at her, to demand to know what had made her leave and why she hadn't come back, but another part of him just wanted to see her and hug her and…and probably cry like a little kid. But then there was the other part of him that just wanted to go home and boss the Awakened around some more. All the parts inside of him felt like they were fighting and he had no idea who was winning!
But someone had to win, and soon, because Ritsu was really starting to look annoyed.
"Well do something." said Ritsu. He didn't want to be out here. Not when he knew Mom and Dad were near. Not when he knew that they were either going to drag him back home or ignore him and pretend that he was dead. He didn't really want to be in the middle of an awkward scene between Sho and his mom, either, even if he did kind of want to know how Missus Hirai could have been Missus Suzuki too…Teru would have loved this, and Reigen too, even if he probably would have told them to mind their own business…
He wondered if they had made it home alright.
"Fine, I'll do something, I'll do something right now!" said Sho as he reached out and rang the bell. One second passed, then two, and then once the third second hit he decided that maybe she wasn't home. So the best thing to do was to jump into her bushes and go home.
Bushes that had thorns. Great.
"What are you doing?" asked Ritsu
"I'm going home, duh." Said Sho
"You're going to live in that bush?" asked Ritsu
"No, I mean…I could if I wanted to. There's berries and-hey! Why's there a frisbee in here?" asked Sho
"That's-" said Ritsu
"She probably just…just has a dog or something. Yeah, that makes sense. Mom loves animals. She's probably got a bunch of dogs in there and she's out walking them and…and she's not home so we should just go and…and…" said Sho
"She doesn't have a dog, if it's pink it's Madoka's and if it's blue it's Juro's." said Ritsu
"Wait…so she has..roomates?" asked Sho
"Just…here. The car's gone but Hirai-san takes it to work. She's probably home." Said Ritsu before he hit the bell again….and then again and again and again once more until he knew that he was definitely being annoying. If Teru had been there he would have told him to have some manners…but Teru wasn't there. Ritsu hit the doorbell a few more times before he heard footsteps. He stopped just in time for the door to open.
And for Sho to duck down into the bushes.
"Seriously?" asked Ritsu as the door opened. This was Sho's mom, not his, he was the one who should have been there. Sho was…probably going to be very hurt when he figured it all out. A cold feeling gripped Ritsu. It was like someone had shoved a snowball down the back of his shirt. This was Sho's mom…Sho's mom who'd had a whole other family and…and…and….
…and what, did all parents just automatically suck!?
"He-" said Ritsu, trying his best to sound polite…even though he didn't want to. Sho probably wouldn't have wanted him to make this any more painful than it had to be…even though, really, if she was going to be as much of a liar as his parents she deserved all the pain she had coming to her and more. Or at least enough that she stopped looking so annoyed at him.
"Who the hell-oh. Kageyama-chan. They aren't home and I don't know if or…or when they're coming back so how about you go and make some friends your own age?" said Masami, her eyes narrowing. She had thought…well, it didn't matter what she had thought because what she had thought had been wrong. It wasn't Eiji back to tell her that he'd been a fool and he was ready to come home and get them back to their normal lives. It wasn't Fukuda there to throw himself at her mercy for ruining her life. It wasn't even some messenger bearing news from wherever Touichirou had been taken telling her that he was dead or…or whatever and she could finally live her life. No. It was that kid again.
That damn kid again.
"I'm not-" said Ritsu
"This really isn't a good time, alright? So why don't you go and play with your other friend?" said Masami as she began to close the door. Ritsu reached his hand out and stopped her, stopped the door right in it's path, and no matter how much she pulled it wouldn't move. She had no idea how that tiny little boy…well, not so little but still pretty tiny kid, could have been so much stronger than her.
"Wait! You can't close the door! Not yet!" said Ritsu
"Now you stop that or I'll call your parents and then you can explain to them what's happened. Do you want that? I don't think you'd want that. Now I won't say it again, let go of my door and leave." Said Masami as she tried to best to get it to budge. It didn't.
"Wait, can you just-Sho! Come out of the bush!" said Ritsu. She stopped pulling on the door. In fact she stopped moving all together. She just stood there with her eyes wide and her mouth opened. Ritsu let go of the door. The bush started to shake and move as Sho crawled out of it. He stepped to the side and let Sho pull himself up and onto the stairs.
Maybe he should have kept moving.
He felt like he had walked into something awkward, like the time he had walked in on Mom and Dad kissing in the kitchen…only this time was somehow worse. Sho was looking at his Mom, his Mom was looking back at him, and Ritsu didn't know where he was supposed to look. Maybe at them and…oh. How had he not noticed how much this lady looked like Sho. Her hair color was all wrong, he couldn't imagine Sho with black hair, but her eyes and the shape of her face…and somehow that made it worse. Maybe it would have been better if they had been wrong and she was just some random lady with a random family. Not Sho's mom, another lying parent, with a secret family that she had probably been lying to…so much lying! What was it with parents, no, adults and lying? Mom and Dad, Sho's parents, Reigen…wait, no, that wasn't fair.
At least Reigen had, eventually, come clean…and anyway it wasn't like Ritsu had ever believed him…and Reigen wasn't one of his parents, either, so it wasn't as bad…as bad as this…
Poor Sho.
"Mom?" asked Sho. That was…that looked like Mom, kind of. She had black hair, and it was cut shorter than Sho had ever seen it in his life, and she was a lot fatter than she used to be and she had more lines in her face…but this was Mom. His Mom. This was his Mom and…and this was her house and…and that was her frisbee in the bushes and…and he could see other things, too, inside of her house. Backpacks and shoes…ones that were too small to be…to be hers…
He could see his aura.
His lungs weren't working.
He was shaking.
His eyes were burning.
That was his mom.
"Sho?" asked Masami, her voice coming out as more of a croak than anything. That was…that was an older boy, a teenager. Taller than Kageyama. His bright red hair sprung out in all directions. Freckles, more than she could count, dotted his face. Spots too, but that made sense, he was at that age. He still-still liked green. A green hoodie and blue jeans. The jeans were ripped. His sneakers were scuffed. She could see scars at the tops of his hands…they looked like old burns. He hadn't had those when she'd last seen him…he had changed since she'd last seen him.
No matter how much he'd changed over the years she could have recognized her baby anywhere…and that anywhere was her front porch.
The hair on the back of her neck was standing up.
There was an icy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Her eyes were burning.
Her legs felt weak.
That was her son.
"Mom!" shouted Sho. He didn't know what had happened. One minute he was seeing her, the next he was yelling at her, and now he was hugging her. At some point his feet had carried him forward. At some point his arms had decided to wrap themselves around her waist. After that his eyes had decided to be annoying and let all the tears he'd been holding in out. He tasted salt. He smelled…he smelled her, her lotion or soap or whatever, the stuff she had used to smell like 'mom'. That was…he had never thought that he'd ever be able to smell her again. Or touch her. Or see her. Or hear her. Hell! If it hadn't been weird he would have tasted her just to make sure that she was real!
But he didn't. He wasn't going to break this hug no matter what.
"Sho…" said Masami. Sho was holding her, hugging her, crushing her…when had he gotten this strong? And this tall…he was up to her collar bone now. He was…he didn't smell good at all. He needed a bath. When was the last time he'd even had a bath? Did he still like those slime green bath bombs? Did he still only take baths with his plastic animals? Did he and Shigeko still bathe together? And where was Shigeko? She…she wondered what that said about her that she was now, of all times, wondering about her children's wellbeing. It was like no time had passed at all…
But time had passed. A lot of it. Enough of it for Sho to grow up tall and strong.
"Mom…mom! Mom! Mama! Where did-why did-how did-mom!" cried Sho as he held her tighter. She had tried to take a step back. No. He wasn't going to let her get away, not again. He had wanted to yell at her and…and maybe tell her off but now he didn't care! He just wanted her there with him where she belonged! He just needed his mom!
"Sho…Sho…Sho!" said Masami as she tried to pull away. He was too strong. He was too big. She was being crushed. He was just…there. He was there, right in front of her, and he was holding her and…and she needed room to breathe. She needed air. No matter how much she tried she just couldn't manage to draw breath. Not with him, there, in front of her…holding her…having been delivered to her…
….by that really annoying little boy who wouldn't leave her kids alone.
"Uh…Sho? I think you should let go now…"said Ritsu as she started glaring at him. He reached out and tried to pry Sho off of her. He telekinetically pushed him away. Ritsu slid a couple of centimeters before stopping himself. That had been…Sho had never pushed him before…
"I'm not letting go! I'm not letting her go again! You don't get it, no one gets it! I am never, ever, EVER letting my mom go for as long as I live! So fuck you! Fuck you and fuck-" said Sho before he felt something pushing hard against his chest…Mom. She was pushing him away…he looked up. She looked pissed.
He let go.
"Mom….?" Asked Sho
"No…" said Masami
"No what? What the fuck did I do? Just tell me what the fuck I did and I won't-" said Sho
"What did you just…no! No, you do not day things like that!" said Masami. This boy was older. This boy was scruffier. This boy was taller. This boy was stronger. This boy was still her son. The Sho in her mind was still only six years old…and her baby boy would never had said anything like that! This was…this was her boy…but maybe not her baby anymore….
He hadn't been for a while.
"What the hell?!" yelled Sho. Ritsu took a step back. So did Mom. He didn't care. He wiped his eyes. She was…she was there. She had pushed him away and now…now…now she thought that she could tell him what to do?!
"Seriously? What the hell? No! You do not get to tell me what the fuck I can and can't say! Big Sis doesn't even do that anymore and she's-she's Big Sis!" yelled Sho
"Stop yelling, you're scaring you're mom." Said Ritsu. She really did look scared. Ritsu almost felt bad for her. Almost. But he didn't think he could have felt bad for someone who'd hurt Sho.
"I'm not yelling! I'm just…talking loudly!" yelled Sho. Fine, alright, maybe he was being a little loud but-but still! Ritsu just didn't get it…nobody got it. Nobody got it and nobody ever would!
"Well can you stop it? My parents live around here and…and whatever, it's not about me, it's about you. I thought you wanted to see your mom again, well there she is, and she isn't going to want to see you if you keep on yelling at her." said Ritsu
"This isn't about me, it's about you, and…and don't pretend that it's about me!" yelled Sho
"Don't yell at me!" shouted Ritsu. He wasn't the bad guy here and-and-and Sho just…Ritsu didn't like this. He didn't need this. He needed Sho to be there for him, not the other way around, even though that was so selfish.
"I-I'm sorry…I don't know why I yelled at you and…and I'm sorry. I never should have…I yelled at you and I'm sorry…but I think that I'll do it again if you stay." Said Sho. He didn't want to yell at Ritsu. He didn't want to hurt the people he loved…he didn't want to become Dad.
"Warning me that you're going to yell at me again isn't going to make it ok." Said Ritsu, rolling his eyes. This he could deal with. Sho being ridiculous, not yelling at him, he didn't think that he could ever deal with the yelling again.
"I know and I wasn't trying to do that. Just…just go back to the base, alright? I'm just going to keep yelling at you and I'm just going to keep hurting you and…and if I hurt you you'll want to leave and…and even if you don't leave I'll still have hurt you and I don't think I could live with that." Said Sho
"Fine…but don't get hurt. I don't think that I could live with myself if you got hurt and I wasn't there. Or if you did something stupid because you got hurt." Said Ritsu
"I won't, alright? I'll-I'll be ok…ok?" asked Sho. Ritsu nodded and took his hand.
"Ok." Said Ritsu. Leaving…leaving was best. He had to be there for Sho but this was just…too much and too awkward and…and he had his own parents to deal with, he didn't need to add this crazy stuff with Sho's mom to everything else. He didn't need to see it firsthand, he already knew that parents were untrustworthy.
"I love you." said Sho as Ritsu let go. His eyes watched Ritsu as he walked down the stairs and away from the house…away from him. Now it was just him and mom. He could feel Mom's eyes on the back of his head. He could hear her breathing. If he hadn't known any better he would have said that he could feel her aura, too. This was what he had always wanted, right? Mom back? Well here she was.
"Sho…do you want to come in? I think…I think that we have a few things we need to talk about." Said Masami
"Yeah, I think….I mean yeah." Said Sho as he followed his mom through the opened door. This was her house…her house….the same two words rang through his mind as he slipped his shoes off. This was her house. The genkan was wrong, he thought, the floor should have been stone, not wood. Because the genkan was still part of the outside of the house but also the inside. There weren't any cabinets here either for their…for her winter clothes. She had a lot of hooks though.
He didn't want to think about what was hanging on those hooks.
Tiny coats and sweaters. He knew better than to think that those were doll clothes. Not after what Ritsu had told him. He had found mom when he had been looking for other espers…and he had found….Sho didn't want to think about it. Mom, this house, how badly he wanted to yell at her and break things…how much he didn't want to be here. She closed the door behind him. He started to itch. That happened sometimes, his scars got itchy, especially when it was hot out. It must have been a thousand degrees in this house. He wanted to take his hoodie off. Somehow it was warmer than the coat…he missed his coat. He missed the way it felt against his arms. His missed the way he could unzip it if he had to. He missed the way it smelled. Kind of like Shimazaki even though he hadn't worn it since he'd been Sho's age. He needed his coat…because he was way too hot. He couldn't take his hoodie off…if he did then she'd see his scars.
Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.
"Come…come here, we can talk in the living room." said Masami as she kicked some toys out of the way. Sho was balling his hands into fists. She could see how tense he was even through that baggy hoodie. The hair on the back of her neck and arms was still standing up. He was angry with her. She wished that she knew…well she did know why but also…also she had no idea what it was that Fukuda had been telling him. There was no predicting Fukuda's actions. Apparently she didn't know him as well as she thought she had. He could have told Sho all kinds of lies…
But she was here to dispel them.
Sho silently followed her to the living room and threw himself onto the couch. He was crossing his arms now. Defensive. Closed off. She had never seen him like this before. Back when he had been…when he'd been small he had worn his heart on his sleeve. He would have been standing on that couch and yelling at her, getting in her face and telling her everything that was bothering him, he would have been all energy and enthusiasm…but that was then and this was now…and now her little boy was a teenager.
An angry, surly, teenager.
"There's a lot of junk in here." Said Sho as he pushed a stuffed dog off of the couch. It squeaked when it hit the ground. Maybe it was a dog toy…no, he knew better than to lie to himself like that. Not when the truth was right there. It was a kid's toy, the kind of thing that Mukai would have played with…Mukai would have loved this room. There were toys everywhere.
"I haven't had the chance to clean in a…in a while. I wasn't expecting company." Said Masami
"Ritsu says that you have a husband now and other kids." Said Sho
"I…how do you know Ritsu?" asked Masami
"It's a long story." Said Sho
"Can you tell me? I mean…I mean do you have…" asked Masami. She didn't know how to ask him if he had school today. This was her son, she should have known that about him, she should have known what school he went to and…and who his friends were and…and a lot of other things…but it wasn't like she could have asked him. It wasn't like it had been safe…it wasn't as though Touichirou would have let her get away with contacting Sho.
It just wouldn't have been possible.
"I don't have anything else to do today…anything important, anyway." Said Sho. He had a lot to do today, actually. He had to boss the Awakened around and make sure he got the lists for the living and the dead done and figure out where everyone was going to live and what they were going to do with all the stuff that Dad and Big Sis had destroyed in their fight and…and a lot of other things that came with running Claw…but this was more important.
Even though he didn't really want to be here either.
"So can you tell me how you met him and…and any of your other friends, too. Just…let's get caught up." said Masami. Sho gave her a sour look. She didn't blame him. That had come out wrong. What, was he a distant cousin or something?
"Like I said, it's a long story." Muttered Sho
"You also said that you didn't have anything to do today." Said Masami
"Yeah, well it's going to take more than a day to tell you my life's story!" shouted Sho. Mom gasped and sat back. She was looking at him almost like she was afraid of him…but moms could never be afraid of their kids. That was why they were moms.
"Don't shout at me. I'm your mother." Said Masami, trying to regain her composure as best as she could. Sho was still her little boy even if he was a lot bigger and louder now. She wasn't afraid of her son…that wasn't how things worked.
"Are you still my mom? Because it looks like you'd rather be everyone else's mom instead." Said Sho, motioning towards the pictures on the walls. There were kids there, two kids and a baby, and before that there was one baby and then two. So either the kids had grown from the babies or mom just….he didn't even know. She just had a bunch of kids from that new guy and…and Sho had been thoroughly replaced.
"That…I don't deserve that. I don't know what Fukuda's been telling you but I never…I never stopped being your mother. Not a day's gone by that I haven't thought about you, Sho." said Masami as she reached for his hands. He crossed his arms and glared at her.
"Fukuda didn't tell me anything. He just said that he knew where you were and he wanted to run away and be a family with you…he didn't tell me that you already had a family. Ritsu had to tell me." said Sho, crossing his arms and trying not to yell…even though he wanted to. Mom was shocked now. Why? Because her secret was out? Well that was how secrets worked, wasn't it? You could only hold onto them for so long before they got out?
"Fukuda said that?" asked Masami, taking a deep breath. Fukuda wanted…she didn't even know how to begin to address that. Sho knew…something. She had no idea what Fukuda had been stupid enough to tell him. Sho was young, there was no way he could understand why Masami did the things she did and Fukuda…he seemed to have been much more invested in their relationship than she had ever been.
"You're the liar, not me." said Sho
"I never lied! I…I always meant to send for you. Fukuda was supposed to bring you when I got settled and your father had to leave the country again. That was the plan but your father had to ruin it by taking you with him. We never thought that he would have taken you with. We thought…we thought that your father wouldn't want you around when he was working…but I guess that Fukuda…I guess that he and I didn't know your father as well as we thought we did." Said Masami
"Well yeah, dad's a weirdo. Even Shiori thinks so." Scoffed Sho
"Shiori?" asked Masami. That was a woman's name…
"Yeah, Dad's new girlfriend. Well I think they were going to get married but Dad's in jail now so I guess she's back to being his girlfriend." Said Sho
"Your father…met someone?" asked Masami. She…she had no name for this feeling. Touichirou had met someone else. That was…well she had no claim over him, not really, and she didn't want one….so was this worry? For the other woman? Someone young, probably, inappropriately young and naïve…yes, she could picture her now. No one with sense would have had anything to do with Touichirou. She wanted to…to save this woman? Or…no, that was it. That must have been.
"Yeah, I just said. Shiori. She's really cool. She runs Osaka, well she did the last time I was there, and she can lift people with her powers and throw them hard enough to-" said Sho
"Another psychic?" asked Masami
"Yeah. Why do you even care? You hate Dad. That's why you left, right? Because it was Dad…it was him that you hated?" asked Sho
"I don't…I didn't leave your father because I hated him. I never hated him." said Masami. Even now thinking of Touichirou brought up feelings of fear and pain but not hatred. If she had hated him then she would have been invested in making him fail, making him suffer, taking from him what he had taken from her for all of those years. She didn't hate him or anyone…but Sho seemed to know the feeling well. He may have even hated her. His hands were balled up into fists. His eyes were darting around the room. He was showing his teeth….some primal part of her wanted to get up off the couch and run away while she still could…but that was stupid. This was her son. There was no way that her son would ever have done anything to hurt her.
"Then-then who the hell did you hate!? Who did you hate enough to make you leave us!?" shouted Sho, his voice breaking apart towards the end. She was just sitting there like-like all of this was normal! Like she had a good reason for leaving! If she hadn't left because of Dad then-then what was it?! Dad was horrible, Dad was a dickhole, Dad was the worst person to ever live. He understood hating Dad so much that you would abandon everyone you loved to get away from him…at least he would have if he hadn't had Big Sis…but if Mom hadn't left because she hated Dad then….then who was left for her to hate?
"I didn't leave because I hated anyone, Sho, I left because I loved you." said Masami quietly. Sho wasn't shaking with rage anymore, that was good. He wasn't even glaring. He was giving her a quizzical look. He got in close and looked her right in the eye…uncomfortably close.
"Mom…are you high right now?" asked Sho as he tried to see if she was. Her eyes were red and glassy but she didn't smell like smoking. Unless she liked pens, of course, some of those didn't smell. The good ones. She didn't have that chemically smell the bad ones had to them either. Her face was really red, though, so maybe she'd been drinking that day
"Suzuki Sho! That is NOT the kind of question you ask your mother! And how do you even know what that word means!?" gasped Masami, her hand going to her heart. He was thirteen years old. She hadn't even heard of drugs until…well, it was a different time back then! Sho was just a baby! He shouldn't have known what those things were let alone accused her of doing them!
"Or drunk, you're kind of acting drunk too." Said Sho. Mom put both hands over her heart now. If her heart was beating weird then it might have been molly. Or coke. But she wasn't moving around enough for coke and she wasn't hugging him enough for molly…actually it was impossible to be sad on molly and she seemed sad…kind of really sad.
"Sho…baby, that's not ok. Ok? I don't know what possessed you to accuse me of those things, or how you even know what they mean, but it's not ok to even mention those kinds of thing." Said Masami in the same tone she used to correct the kids…her kids. Her other kids…but Sho was older. He was a teenager now. Had…had he done any of those things? Were there really drugs in the middle schools? Had all of that not just been sensationalist reporting?
"Well that's the only reason I can think of why you'd say something so crazy! You don't leave people when you love them! You stay with them! I mean sometimes you go places but you always come back! You don't run away from home!" said Sho
"I never ran away! I ran…I ran to a new home. I ran because you needed a new home. Your father…your father is a very bad man-" said Masami
"Yeah, and water's wet." Said Sho, rolling his eyes.
"-and I knew that having you grow up with him would…would be bad for you. I didn't want you to end up…I didn't want you to get hurt. Your father…he…every day with him…every day I could feel a little more of myself fading away. I didn't want the same thing to happen to you and…and I didn't want you to grow up to be like him. So I saved up some money and asked Fukuda to help me escape. The plan was always for you to come back. Things just…they just fell apart when your Father brought you with. They fell apart and…and I knew that it wouldn't be safe for me if I went back or…or if we tried something. I'm not sure if you know this or if you're ready to hear this but your father has…he's had people killed." Said Masami. To her surprise Sho laughed…he laughed! And not a nervous laugh either, no, he laughed like this was the funniest thing in the world!
"Seriously!" laughed Sho. He had never known that Mom, his Mom, was funny…or just really dumb. Did she really think that Sho needed someone to explain to him that Dad was an evil asshole? After everything he'd seen? After everything he'd been through? After everything that Dad and Big Sis had done to this city?
"I don't see what's so funny." grumbled Masami. Sho needed to take this seriously. She had no idea how much Touichirou had actually done but…but at least it seemed like Fukuda had done a good job of protecting Sho from the worst of it. So maybe he was alright after all…aside from the fact that he'd just ruined her life and taken her family from her, that is.
"You think…you think I didn't know that Dad had people killed? Come on, I've seen the traitor holes! I've seen the place where they burn the bodies! Hell, my best friend used to kill people just because Dad didn't like them!" laughed Sho. He wished that Shimazaki could have been there. He had some great stories. Like the guy who wouldn't stop chewing gum during meetings, or the guy who accidentally stepped on Dad's shoe, or the thing with the paperclips. So much had happened before Sho had even joined Dad…Shimazaki had such good stories. He would have gotten a kick out of the face Mom was making, too, it was so weird and contorted that even he could have sensed it.
"I…" said Masami. Sho had…he'd seen…she had never known the extent of it and…and she didn't need to have the concept of the 'traitor hole' explained to her…but the best friend comment…what had Fukuda been doing for all of those years! He was supposed to have been keeping Sho safe. Not exposing him to all of that!
"And anyway Dad would never have killed you. He really loves you, well he did before he met Shiori, he even used to cry at night about you. At least Big Sis said so. I've never seen him do it but I try to stay as far away from Dad as I can." Said Sho
"That's…Sho, your Father…you don't know him the way I know him. I know that he never would have let me get away with what I had done if I went back." Said Masami
"Well yeah, he probably would have moved the house to an island in the middle of nowhere and had people watch us all the time and maybe put you on a leash so you couldn't run away but nothing too bad. I know Dad. He never would have hurt you. If he didn't hurt Big Sis after everything she did then he wouldn't have hurt you either." Said Sho
"A leash? Sho, I need you to listen to yourself right now. You're not a little boy anymore and I just…I just need you to see it from my point of view. I know that my actions may not have been ideal but everything I did I did for you." said Masami. Sho narrowed his eyes…did she even want to know what he was thinking right now?
"So replaced me for me?" asked Sho
"I didn't replace you. Your sister…you have two sisters and a brother. Their names are Madoka, Juro, and Mari. They…they're your siblings." Said Mom
"Yeah, I heard you the first time. I'm not dumb, you know." said Sho
"I mean…I mean I want you to meet them. I want you to be a part of their lives and I want them to be a part of yours." Said Masami
"That's weird. If you wanted me to be a part of their lives then you could have just called. I mean you have Fukuda's number, right? He hasn't changed it. He knew where you were. You could have just told him to tell me and then I could have been a part of their lives. I mean it's not like I don't have any other…it's not like I'm not used to this." Said Sho
"What do you mean?" asked Masami
"Dad had another kid. Her name's Mukai." Said Sho
"How did…your father had a child with that Shiori woman?" asked Masami. Touichirou had…other children. There were other children out in the world and…and she was afraid for the world, of course, worried for the world. Of course he had moved on. That was what she had wanted. She hadn't wanted him to think about what he'd done, to have been consumed by the weight of his mistakes, all the actions he'd taken to drive her away. He had moved on and so had she and…and only one of them, really, had any right to move on…for the sake of the world, of course.
"No, her mom's a different lady. She ran away and Mukai has a new mom." Said Sho
"A new…so there were other women?" asked Masami. Touichirou…had never been bad looking and that was just how it went with powerful men, right? There were always women out there willing to throw themselves at them. Yes…that must have been it. So maybe he hadn't moved on at all. Maybe he had just moved from one woman to another trying to find…trying to find what it was that he had lost…so maybe he had learned something after all…not that it even mattered to her. Touichirou was nothing to her but a bad memory and the reason Seasoning City didn't have a Cultural Tower anymore.
"Yeah? I mean I don't know. I don't really ask Dad who he's doing it with." Said Sho
"Sho!" gasped Masami, her hand flying over her mouth. How did he…he was too little to know about…about anything having to do with that! He was only six…thirteen. He was thirteen and it was…it was normal for him to know about those sorts of things at his age…but still! It was highly inappropriate for him to talk about them!
"What? I don't. That would be a really weird thing for me to ask him about. Kind of gross, too, like if I asked Big Sis who she was doing it with…I mean I know, everyone knows, but….fuck! Now I'm grossed out!" shuddered Sho. Why did Mom have to be so weird? Why did she want to talk about people they knew banging!? It was wrong…so wrong….
"Shigeko…Shigeko is having sex?" asked Masami. She wondered if this was what it felt like to have a heart attack. Her chest was tight, she was shaking, the room was starting to spin…maybe this was how she died. It would have made sense. Shigeko having sex…that was enough to kill her. Shigeko was seven…no, she was fourteen…but that didn't help at all! Fourteen was too young! Masami had been fifteen and…and fifteen back then was much different than fifteen today and…and Shigeko was too young for those sorts of things! Just what had Fukuda been doing all these years? Sitting on his ass while the children ran wild?! Sitting around looking more deeply into their relationship, no, into their affair than there even-even-god! Had he spent these past seven years just twiddling his thumbs and imagining the two of them playing house together or something?!
"Right now? Maybe, I don't know, that'd be a really weird thing to ask my sister. Why do you even care? People bang, it's what they do. Cats do it, dogs do it, birds do it, bees do it….birds and bees do it together for some reason. Everybody bangs. It's normal." Said Sho. He wondered if there was a world record for saying 'bang' to your mom….if there was he didn't want to win it.
"Wait…" said Masami, the cold feeling intensifying. Sho had shown up with Kageyama Ritsu. That annoying boy who wouldn't leave her family alone…and he normally came with another boy. A boy who was much too clean with too much care put into his outfits. A boy who Eiji had said, multiple times, might have 'preferred the company of men' as it went…
And now that little blond boy with a fondness for cologne and designer labels was nowhere to be seen.
"For what? I've been waiting my whole life to talk to you and now, what, you want me to wait some more?" asked Sho. What was there to wait for…his eyes wandered to the pictures on the walls. Did she want him to wait for her new family to come home from wherever they were and…and then what? She'd introduce him and then they could all act like…he didn't even know. Like everything was normal and they were a normal family or…or something?
Nope.
If those people walked through the door then he was throwing himself out the window. There was no way he was going to even talk to those people. He had a Dad, he didn't need a new one, and he had sisters. He didn't need new ones. He didn't have any brothers, Hatori barely counted, and…and Hatori was enough. His family was full. He didn't need to add a bunch of…of people that Mom clearly liked better and…and…and…
And if those people showed up he was leaving and Mom could talk about banging all on her own.
"And are you…you and that boy…" asked Masami. She didn't have the words. This was…this was not the sort of thing that a mother asked her son. She had no problem with Sho being gay, of course, she had known for her entire life that he was but…but there was a difference between being attracted to a boy and….and doing things that he was much too young to do.
"Mom! Gross! I'm not banging Ritsu and even if I was I wouldn't tell you about it! I mean I love him and stuff but I just…why do you care if I banging him or not?" asked Sho, wondering if it would have pissed her off if he threw up all over his living room…well, even if he did it wasn't like she hadn't been asking for this making him talk about all this weird stuff.
"Can you please stop using that word?" sighed Masami
"You're the one who won't stop bringing it up." said Sho
"I'm sorry. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around this whole situation." Said Masami
"What the fuck do you think I'm doing? You ran away from home and…and I thought…I don't know what I thought. I thought that you were dead. I thought that you hated me. I thought that you hated Dad. I thought that something had happened to you. I thought….it doesn't matter what I thought because now I know the truth. You ran away from home because you didn't like Dad even though you-you were married to him! You didn't realize that he was a jerk before you married him and had me and-and-and then what!?" yelled Sho
"Things with your father…they moved quickly. I didn't have time to get to know your father before you…before you came along. After we were married things…they were never as bad as…as they had gotten towards the end. Things had become unbearable. You were only six years old. I know that you were too young to notice but things were bad. Your father was out of the country for longer and longer stretches of time-" said Masami
"Wait, you didn't like him but you wanted him home?" asked Sho. For as long as he could remember Dad had told him that there was no point in trying to understand women, that they were puzzles, that their brains were as alien as the brains of actual aliens. He had thought that Dad was just a weirdo but now….now he kind of got it. Talking to Mom was like talking to an alien. Everything she said made sense to her but no sense to him, none at all, and it never would…Sho was so glad that he was gay.
"No! I mean…I wanted a husband, Sho, a real one and I got someone who…your father is a cold man. Alright? He's cold and…and just…unpleasant! I wanted to have a real life with someone. You're just a kid, you don't understand. Being married is…it's different then whatever you have with that boy-" said Masami. He could not begin to understand how she had suffered with Touichirou. He was a child. A relationship to him was all passing notes and holding hands. He didn't understand what it was like when someone who was supposed to love you didn't. He didn't understand what it was like to wake up to someone and know that they felt nothing for you. To know that you had voluntarily stepped into a gilded cage for someone who saw you as little more than a nanny, maid, cook, and call girl...and she hoped that he never did.
"Ritsu. His name is Ritsu and I don't see how it's so different aside from the banging. I love him, he loves me, we live together now…what else is there?" asked Sho. They were pretty much married…the thought makes him smile and shake at the same time. Ritsu was his and he was Ritsu's and…and he wanted Ritsu. He looked to the left. He knew that Ritsu wasn't there next to him. He kind of wished that he hadn't sent Ritsu away like that. Ritsu…he would have at least made him feel better…
Because Mom was making feel worse than he'd ever felt in years.
"How can you possibly live together? You're thirteen." Scoffed Masami. Fukuda had clearly dropped the ball but there was no way he would have allowed that…right? And even if he had she knew the Kageyama's. They were perfectly normal, reasonable, human beings.
"Dad's in prison and Big Sis left me in charge, I can do whatever I want and what I want is to be with Ritsu….and I would never run away from him and he would never run away from me…and anyway there's no reason to run away from someone or…or to cheat on them." said Sho. Mom turned white. The kind of white that people turned when they were scared. Good…not good. Well, she had been cheating on Dad when she had these kids, Sho knew how to do math even if he wasn't good at it and Dad…he might have been a jerk but cheating was wrong and…and at least it was with this guy and not with Fukuda. That was a relief. So Fukuda had just been weirdly in love with her like that guy from that movie that followed that lady around until he kidnapped her and chained her up in his secret room. Sho decided that he could live with that.
"Hey, now you have no right-" said Masami. Sho Fukuda had told him….so Fukuda had completely betrayed her. Sho was just a child! He didn't need to know about those things. Why had Fukuda…to humiliate her? To make her son think that she was some kind of…well that was just underhanded. She wished that she had powers in that moment. Then she could have found Fukuda and taught him a lesson…and maybe taught Sho how to speak to his mother.
"You were still married to Dad when you had those kids, right? I remember when Dad divorced you, it was years after you ran away. So you cheated on Dad with whatever the guy's name is and now you have all those kids." Said Sho
"You're thirteen. You do not get to act superior right now. You haven't been around long enough to understand anything about anything. You're a child, Sho, and you do not get to lecture me on what's right." Said Masami
"I never ran away from home and I never cheated on anyone and I never will." Said Sho
"You don't know what the future will bring…and you don't know…you're a child, I can't expect you to understand everything that I went through. That your father put me through." Said Masami
"I don't understand….I don't under-fucking-stand!? I don't even understand what there even is to understand" screamed Sho. He hadn't meant to scream like that, it had just come out, and once it came out he couldn't put it back in. Sho knew it was wrong to yell at his mom but his mom…she was saying things that made no sense at all. Dad hadn't done anything to her. Dad had been telling him for his entire life that it was wrong to hit girls, even though he hit big sis, and…and anyway Dad loved Mom. Sho had never even once heard Dad say anything mean to her. He had never once made Mom feel like…like she was nothing. Like she was the gum on the bottom of his shoe…so why was she acting like she had!?
"You don't! You're just a child!" screamed Masami, matching his tone…and that was all, it was just instinct. He was the one who had started it, the screaming, and she…she was at her wits end. Fukuda must have told him things that simply weren't true, either that or he didn't have the ability as his age to understand, either way he did not get to lecture her like this. He did not get to try and dismiss everything she had been through like it was nothing.
"I don't….no, you don't understand! You don't understand what dad put me through…you don't understand what YOU put me through! You! You did it! You left me and Big Sis alone with him!" shouted Sho
"I was always planning on coming back for you." said Masami
"And Big Sis? You keep on only saying me. What about her? Were you just going to leave her with Dad?" asked Sho
"Shigeko….your father would have never let Shigeko go. I'm not sure if he's told you this but Shigeko isn't…she isn't your sister. We adopted her when she was two." Said Masami. Sho's eyes darkened. He shoved his arms into his hoodie pockets. She moved back just…just enough put some distance between them…and then went back to where she belonged.
This was Sho. He never would have done anything to her…right?
"Fuck you." said Sho. Something he never should have said to his Mom….but something that she deserved. How dare she say something like that about Big Sis. She was his sister even if she had come from other parents! And she was…she was better at being Mom than Mom had ever been!
"I'm telling the truth." Said Masami
"Yeah. I never called you a liar, I said fuck you because fuck you! Fuck you a million times! Big Sis is my sister even though she has other parents! She's been there for me my whole life! Even if she's bossy and treats me like a baby she's still my sister! She's always been there to-to put me to bed at night and-and to take a bath with me back when we were little and…and she always made sure I had enough to eat and…and that I got knew clothes and she always made Disneyland fun even though we went enough times that it was boring! She always made sure that I brushed my teeth and combed my hair and…and she never once yelled at me or hit me even when I was being an asshole and she always shares her pen with me and her cigarettes and-and she never made me feel bad for being gay or-" said Sho
"You're smoking?" asked Masami. She had thought she had reached her shock limit for that day but this….SMOKING?! What…how did he even get his hands on….how had…..SMOKING?!
"….I just told you that I was gay and you have a problem with the smoking thing?" asked Sho
"I've always known that you were gay, Sho, it was so obvious even your father should have been able to tell. I never in my life thought you would have started smoking. Don't you know what that does to your health? Don't you know-" said Masami
"Big Sis says that I can." Said Sho
"Shigeko is not your mother. I am your mother and I am telling you to stop smoking." Said Masami. Sho looked her right in the eye. He held eye contact as his right hand slid it's way into his hoodie's pocket.
"No." said Sho as he pulled out his cigarette box. Mom shook her head. She looked mad…good. He shook one out and brought it to his mouth.
"Suzuki Sho don't you dare." Said Masami as she watched her son hold a cigarette between his teeth.
"You're not the boss of me." said Sho through clenched teeth, He held it between his teeth and just watched her. She was so mad she was red…good. She deserved to be mad after what she did. She deserved to spend the rest of her life as mad as she was now…if not madder.
"I am your MOTHER, Sho, and I will always-" said Masami
"You're not my mom, not anymore. You're just…just the lady who made me. If you were my mom you would have stuck around. If you were my mom you would have taken care of me. If you were my mom you wouldn't have ever thought about leaving me and-" said Sho before he felt pain. A sudden, sharp pain right there on his left cheek. Mom's hand was close to his face. She was breathing heavy. She was shaking.
So was he.
"I am your mother whether you like it or not and you are my son and as your mother I am ordering you to never smoke again! You are thirteen years old, Sho, you do not get to make these-these idiotic decisions!" said Masami. He hair on her neck was really standing up now. She felt something akin to static electricity dancing across her face. Sho wasn't moving. He was just staring at her, a red handprint forming on his cheek, his cigarette rolling down the front of his hoodie.
"….you hit me…" said Sho quietly. He couldn't hit her. She was…she had been his mom. She was still a girl. He couldn't hit her. If he hit her then he was back to being the jerk he'd been all those years ago. If he hit her then Big Sis would never have forgiven him. If he hit her then he was no better than Dad…and he was better than Dad. Just because he was Dad's son that didn't mean that he was cursed to…to become just like him.
"I had to." Said Masami
"I'm not going to hit you back." Said Sho
"Of course you aren't, that's not the sort of person you are." Said Masami as she sat back. She didn't know why she was so relieved. She knew her son. She knew that he would never have done anything to hurt her. She knew that somewhere deep down the Sho she knew was still in there.
"I'm not Dad." Said Sho
"Of course you aren't. You're worth so much more than he is." Said Masami
"But I want to hit you. I want to…because you hit me. I want to hit you like I want to hit Dad…he hit me, you know? He hit me a lot." Said Sho
"I…was aware that your father and I didn't always see eye to eye on discipline…" said Masami. She knew that Touichirou hit the children, he'd slap and spank them, no worse than they had gotten when they themselves had been children. She had always been in favor of more modern methods and had never hit them herself before this…but all that had been years ago. There was no way Touichirou would have still been hitting them. They were teenagers now. You didn't spank a teenager.
"He hit me a lot, you know, even more after you left. He kind of went crazy after you left." Said Sho
"Your father has always been a short tempered man." Said Masami
"Yeah, he was…he'd hit me if I talked about you or if I talked to loud or if I played too loud or if I breathed too loud or if I breathed at all." said Sho
"Your father….he was never good with small children." Said Masami. Touichirou had kept it up after she'd left. That was…it wasn't so odd to spank a six and seven year old…
"He'd throw me a lot, too. Sometimes I'd get really hurt. Sometimes I'd try and put up a barrier but mine was never as good as Big Sis's…she did a lot to keep me safe." Said Sho
"Your sister…your sister…" said Masami. She didn't know what she was supposed to say on the subject of Shigeko. She had spent so many years trying not to think of her and yet…and yet she couldn't help it. Wonder what it had been like and why Sho…why this still bothered him. Her own father had been fond of the belt and her mother had been quick with the wooden spoon…but that had been years ago when she'd been a small child.
"But then one day she told Dad that if he ever hit me again she'd take me and we'd leave…so I guess people can run away sometimes." Said Sho
"You…ran away from home?" asked Masami. That was…she had tried that a few times when she'd been small. She'd never gotten much farther than the playground. Kids…they did that sometimes, that was normal, it had been when she'd been young and she didn't think that children had changed so very much in forty years.
"No, it never got that bad. Dad stopped. He stopped hitting me or caring about me at all…and all she had to do was threaten to leave and take me with her…she would have taken me with her. Why couldn't you?" asked Sho
"Because I was a grown woman, not a child, and I had to actually think things through." Said Masami
"I don't believe you. I think…I think that maybe you ran away because Fukuda was in love with you. I think that maybe you wanted to get away from him and…and you fell in love with this new guy and you didn't think of me once. I think…I think that you don't care about me at all. You definitely don't care about Big Sis." Said Sho
"You're just not seeing it from my perspective." Said Masami
"I think that you're not seeing it from mine. You left me alone with Dad and…and he hit me…he hit me a lot…" said Sho
"Your father has some very old fashioned ideas about discipline, you're thirteen years old now. You must see-" said Masami
"Do you see this." Said Sho as he pulled his hoodie off. It did that thing where it caught his shirt. He left his shirt come off too. He would keep his pants on, though, because he didn't want to sit naked in his mom's…in a stranger's house. That was what she was now, a stranger. This wasn't the mom he knew. This wasn't the mom he remembered. This was just…just some lady with black hair that was using his mom's name and voice. That wasn't his mom at all.
He didn't feel bad.
It was weird. It was like all of his feelings had just left. Run away like his mom had run away all those years ago. He felt weirdly light, not light like how he'd felt after he'd gotten everything he'd ever wanted, but more like when he'd been carrying something heavy without his powers for a while. Mom…mom was gone, this lady was here, and now she knew…now she knew what had happened to him. He knew what had happened to her.
And now they were done.
"Oh my…oh my God!" screamed Masami, her voice tearing through her throat and leaving it raw. Sho…that wasn't Sho! It couldn't have been! That boy…what had happened to her boy! He stood up and…and now it looked worse! There was…were those burns? And…and…and had he been stabbed? And…and what….what was on his ARMS?!
"There's a cool tree on my back. Ritsu called it a Lichtenberg figure…I like to call it a tree though, because it looks like a tree." said Sho as he turned around. He could still hear mom…her gasping. She was freaking out. Good…good? It should have felt good but…but he couldn't feel anything at all….
Was this what it was like to be Dad?
"How…how did….who did this to you!?" screamed Masami as she reached out to touch the ugliest thing she had ever seen in her life. Sho's whole back was covered in a series of red marks…they looked more like veins to her, ugly exposed red veins…they stood out against his pale back. He still had reckless there, too, and…and if not for those freckles she didn't know if she ever would have believed that this was her son.
"Dad. Well, scientists, but they were Dad's scientists." Said Sho
"Your Father…your father had this done to you?" asked Masami
"Yeah, he had a lot of things done to me." said Sho as he turned around and pulled his shirt and hoodie back on. She was holding her stomach now like she was going to be sick…he didn't blame her. They were really gross scars…he was…he was…
He was fine.
"It's hard to awaken someone, you know? Get their powers to come out. A lot of Awakened don't even make it. They die and then their bodies are put in these big wheelbarrow things and burned or buried or used as plant food. I saw this movie once where they turned dead people into food but even Dad never went that far." Said Sho
"Your father…" said Masami
"Yeah, Dad's kind of smart about some stuff. Mostly outer space, Minecraft, and hurting people. He's really good at hurting people, almost as good as he is at Minecraft." Said Sho
"What are you…" said Masami
"You have to hurt people to Awaken them. I think it's your powers trying to protect you or something, I don't know, I'm not a scientist. All I know is that you have to drown people and freeze them and bake them and stab them and shock them…sometimes more than one at the same time…and you can't let them sleep. That's…that's an important part." Said Sho
"I…" said Masami. She reached out to him. She had to make sure that this was real, that he was real, that the things that he was telling her were real. He was…he was describing torture. He was telling her that Touichirou had tortured him to…she didn't even why. He had powers. He had, when she had left, been able to make toys fly across the room…and that was amazing in and of it's self…what else was there?
"Yeah! It's like…it's not like you even can sleep in those Awakening Chambers, you know, because you're standing up in them and also all the pain but…but if they see you're trying to fall asleep they shock you awake or turn on alarms or…or sometimes they…they do this thing where it's like it's every kind of hurt at once and it's under your skin and…and you don't want to sleep after that or…or eat. You can't eat either, you know…no food and no sleep but…but lots of water. Water…water up over your head…and even if you swim you can't get out and…and you can't even open the door and…and…." Said Sho
"I don't…" said Masami
"And you know the fucked up thing? I wanted…I ASKED Dad to do that to me? Can you believe it! I wanted to be something, to be worth something, so badly to him that I asked for that to happen! And…and he did it. He did it and…and I just wanted someone to think I was worth something…me!" said Sho
"You ARE worth something! Sho, Sho, don't you ever forget that!" said Masami. She jumped to her feet and took his face in her hands. He put his hands over hers and took a step back.
"If I was worth something to you then you would have stayed. If I was worth something to you then you would have protected me from Dad…Big Sis did, did you know that? She found me in the Awakening Chamber and she destroyed the entire fucking division to get me out. That's why…that's why the Divisions go from Seven to Nine. Big Sis completely destroyed the Eighth Division and…and she took Dad down, then, too or at least by surprise….she took him on when we were eight to protect me and…and she took Dad on again and beat him…because I'm actually worth something to her." said Sho
"Sho…no…no!" said Masami as she pulled her hands free from his. He…he had no right…he had no right!
"You do NOT get to-to lecture me! I am NOT your sister! I don't have psychic powers! I'm not even a little psychic let alone a goddamned prodigy like she is! There is nothing I could have done to stop your father if he had decided to do that to you at ANY point in your life, not just when I was away! Your father…your father is evil, pure evil, and instead of blaming me for doing what I had to do you need to blame him for being evil and doing evil and-and your grandparents for not-not smothering him forty seven years ago! I am NOT the bad guy here and it's insulting that you would even compare me to that-that-that monster!" shouted Masami. Sho didn't seem to care. He looked at her like…like she wasn't there. He looked at her the same way he would have looked at a pebble in the road…the same way that Touichirou would have looked at her…he was the spitting image, in that moment, of his father.
She couldn't see herself within him at all.
"I'm sorry for…for losing my temper." Said Masami. That didn't fix it. He was still looking at her like he was Touichirou and she was nothing. She tried to take a step forward. His back was to the coffee table. He had nowhere to go. They would…they would hug and make up, that was it. They would hug and make up and then they'd make up for lost time. Everything was out in the open, everything that he needed to know, and now the healing could begin-
-or he could use his powers to throw the coffee table across the room.
"That looked expensive, I'll have the Awakened bring you a new one." Said Sho before he used his powers to send him flying over the couch and back to the door. He needed to get out of her because he broke something else…someone else. Before he broke who he wanted to break.
He wasn't Dad.
"Sho, wait!" called Masami as she chased after him, nearly twisting her ankle on another one of those goddamned toys. He was leaving….he was NOT going to leave! There was no way he was walking out that door! There was no way-
-there was no way for her to move.
"Stop following me. My control is a lot better than Big Sis's but it's not perfect and…and I want to hurt you. I want to throw you until your break. I want to but I won't because I'm not Dad and I don't do that to people…so just let me go." Said Sho as he slipped his shoes on. They were on the wrong feet. He didn't care.
"You can't leave! We can…I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry for leaving you. Just tell me what I can do to fix this and I will." Said Masami. Sho looked up. There was a burst of static electricity and she could move again. She didn't dare take a step forward. If looks could kill then she would have been dead right there on the spot.
"Build a fucking time machine." Said Sho before he ripped the door out of the wall and left. He hadn't meant to break her house, and maybe he should have felt bad about it, but he didn't. He didn't feel bad about leaving or being mean to her either. She asked what she could have done to fix things and that was the only thing that he could think of.
Because there was no way to fix this.
He pulled his sleeves up and looked at the scars on his arms. These were never going away. What had happened, happened, and now there was no way to fix it. No way besides going back in time and telling himself to never ask to be Awakened. To never want to be worth anything to Dad…to tell himself that no matter what he did he would always be worthless to Dad. To tell himself that Mom was around and…and she was a liar. Sho…if he had been worth something to her then she would never have left. But she had left and Sho…he had…he had….
He felt the energy around him shift.
Part of him was being pulled towards the destruction downtown. Another part of him was being pulled towards the Division…towards home. Because home was wherever she was, wherever Big Sis was, wherever the person who cared most about him in the world was. Ritsu was there too…Ritsu who loved him more than anyone else in the world. His friends…his friends were there too and of course he was worth something to them. So that was where he went, home, back to the people who actually cared about him…the people who cared about him most of all.
It was way too small and cramped here for him, anyway.