[October 17 Prompt: ...this is a little hard to explain, but this prompt was a picture of Uncle Sam and the Russian bear on a seesaw over the world. I kind of...went off in a different direction with this one.]
Adults probably didn't know it, but the playground was a complicated place. You couldn't just play wherever you liked. That was how Ivan understood it. The jungle gym had already been claimed by Arthur and Francis. The swings had been taken over by Gilbert and Ludwig. The slide belonged to Feliks and Toris. Ivan wasn't allowed in any of those places. He knew, because when he tried to climb on the jungle gym or play on the swing or go down the slide, the other kids would glare at him. Sometimes Gilbert threw wood chips if he didn't leave right away. Once Feliks told him he was too fat to play with them, and Ivan had to run away very fast before he started to cry in front of everybody.
But that was okay. The other kids could have the jungle gym and the swings and the slide. The seesaw belonged to Ivan. He wasn't lonely, not even a teeny tiny bit. He had the whole the seesaw all to himself. He could do whatever he liked with it! He could...he could sit on one end and make the other end go up. And then he could run around to the other side and sit on that to make the opposite side go up! That was pretty fun, wasn't it? And he could play in the wood chips all around the seesaw too. On the first day he claimed the seesaw, Ivan set to work digging a moat in the wood chips all around it, to keep it safe from invaders. But it wasn't very deep, and he couldn't find any water to dump in it (pouring his juice box in hadn't been very effective) so it probably wouldn't work as well as the moats he saw on castles in his picture books. Still, it was a statement. 'The seesaw is Ivan's. Keep Out.'
The moat must have worked, because the others left Ivan alone after that. They didn't make faces at him or call him names. They didn't even look his way. It was better like that. Ivan didn't need anyone else to play with. He was six years old, almost a grown up. Grown ups didn't need friends.
The days passed, each almost identical to the last. That was before the new boy appeared. Ivan had seen him a few days before, golden haired and blue eyed, always climbing trees by himself, higher and higher as if he hoped to reach the sky. Ivan wondered if he was lonely up there. Not that Ivan himself was, but not everyone could deal with being on their own as well as Ivan could. A few times Ivan almost, almost thought about going over to the boy's tree to talk to him, but that idea was always aborted at the last minute. It would end just as badly as his prior attempts at making friends.
Ivan had nearly succeeded in putting that boy out of his mind, until the day they truly met. Ivan had been sitting on one of the seesaw seats, debating whether or not he should bring his toy bear tomorrow and try to balance him in the far seat, when he heard a squeak. Suddenly his side of the seesaw began to move, raising him several inches. Ivan's head snapped up. There were fingers hanging off the far opposite seat. Someone was trying to steal Ivan's seesaw!
"Hi!" said a voice, presumably the owner of the fingers. "Are you all by yourself? Move over, I wanna get on too!"
"Let go!" Ivan cried, bouncing in his seat to shake the intruder off. "This is mine!"
The fingers disappeared, but instead of being good and leaving Ivan alone, the intruder stomped around to Ivan's side with his hands on his hips. It was the boy! Ivan stared. The boy had very blue eyes. They were even more blue than Natalia's favorite blueberry lollipops. At that moment, those blue eyes were narrowed sharply.
"You can't boss me around!" he said, shaking his head so that his pronounced cowlick swayed back and forth. "It doesn't belong to you!"
"It does too!" Ivan insisted, crossing his arms across his chest. "I got here first. That makes it mine."
"Does not!"
"Does too!"
"Does not!"
"Does too!"
"Does not!" The boy stomped his foot, scattering wood chips, and marched back around to the other side of the seesaw. "And I'm gonna play on it no matter what you say!"
There was a scuffle as he jumped up to reach, and Ivan saw his fingers reappear.
There was only one thing to do, the surefire way to make the boy let go. Without giving it another thought, Ivan hopped off, the sudden shift in weight causing the boy's side to slam back down. The boy fell hard into the wood chips with a pained cry that quickly evolved into a wail. Ivan bit his lip guiltily and hurried over. The boy was sitting on the ground, holding his right knee with one hand and scrubbing at his eyes with the other.
"I-I hate you!" he sobbed, and Ivan suddenly felt cold all over. "I just w-wanted to play wi-with you, but I don't wanna anymore!"
Ivan froze. The boy wanted to play together? No one ever wanted to play with him, except for his sisters, but Katyusha was almost always busy with homework and Natalia only ever wanted to play House. Someone had wanted to play with him, and he had ruined everything. Ivan sniffled. The boy's tears were horribly contagious.
"I di-didn't mean to hurt you," he hiccuped.
"I don't care!" the boy bawled, pulling both wounded and unwounded knee to his chest. "I hate you!"
Ivan's eyes blurred as he walked away. He didn't feel like playing on his seesaw anymore. It wasn't fair. He wanted to have friends too. The seesaw and his toy bear weren't company enough. He wanted to play with the blue-eyed boy. He didn't want to be alone anymore. Ivan wiped at his cheeks with his shirt as the tears spilled over, gulping back a whimper. If only there was a way to make this right.
Inspiration struck suddenly. If Ivan's life had been a cartoon, a light bulb would have appeared over his head. It probably would have made a 'ding' sound too. He dug his hands into his pockets, digging and hunting until he found what he needed: a band-aid. Katyusha made him always keep one on hand, as he was prone to grass cuts and stubbed toes. This time it would go to a much more worthy cause.
He inched back around the seesaw, trying to muster up the nerve. The boy hadn't budged from the spot, still hiding his face behind his knees and trembling quietly. Ivan took one more deep breath for courage and walked up to the boy's side.
"I-I got you a band-aid," Ivan whispered, shuffling his feet shyly.
No response.
"It's got a sunflower on it."
The boy let one watery, red eye peek past the protective wall of his knees. "Flowers are for sissies."
Ivan wilted. This wasn't working as well as he hoped. "I'm not a sissy. It's just a band-aid. It'll make you better."
A second eye appeared, and after a truly agonizing wait, the boy stretched his leg out, offering the bloody knee to Ivan. With all the steady caution of a surgeon, Ivan peeled away the backing on the band-aid, positioned it over the wound and, careful to not push too hard, smoothed it down into place. To finish the job, Ivan pressed a quick kiss over the band-aid.
"What'd you do that for?" the boy asked with a tip of his head.
"It makes booboos heal faster," Ivan explained solemnly. There was no doubt in his mind that this was an absolute scientific fact. It certainly worked when his Katyusha did it for him.
The boy flexed his leg thoughtfully. "Huh. It does feel a little better now. Um. Thanks."
"You don't have to say thanks," Ivan mumbled. "I-I'm sorry I made you fall down. I didn't know you wanted to play together."
The boy wrinkled his nose. "You're weird. Why would I want to get on the seesaw if I didn't want to play with you?"
Ivan absently dug a little hole in the wood chips, avoiding the boy's eyes. "I thought you wanted to take my seesaw all for yourself."
"That's dumb. What's the point of having a seesaw if you don't have anyone else to play with? That's boring!"
Ivan allowed himself a tiny smile. "It is boring."
"So can I play on your seesaw with you?"
A blush spread across Ivan's cheeks. "Uh. I-if you want to. If you don't hate me anymore."
"Nope, I don't hate you. We can be friends, if you want."
Ivan's face lit up. "I-I do want! My name is Ivan!"
"And my name's Alfred!"
Alfred's eyes looked even bluer when he smiled, and Ivan felt something very warm spreading in his chest.
In the end, Ivan found that he didn't mind sharing his seesaw one bit.