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neko_kirin3104Title: Captain Chesuto and the Underpants of Doom (2/8)
Group/Main Pairing: Arashi/Yama Pair (Ohno/Sho)
Side Pairing: Aiba/Becky + Mabo/Nagase (maybe?) + Ohno/Kyoko
Prompts: fail!superhero Sho and Tomoyasu Hotei’s Battle Without Honor or Humanity
Word Count: 13,018
Rating: PG-13 (for this chapter)
Genre: Superhero AU/Humor/Romance
Summary: Sho Sakurai is about to become a superhero. God save the rest of us.
Note: written for the Jukebox Roulette Ficcon @![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
murasakinoyume.
Warnings: mentions of minor character death, evil!Nino, and sporadic silliness all around. xD
Chapter Summary: A look into the beginnings of Tempest City and what really happened ten years ago.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
Satoshi Ohno
Actor, Zeus Agency
Do you know the story of the raven who knew only one word?
I don’t know it either. I just happened to play the part once in a stage play organized by my mom to raise funds for the community theater renovations.
I was only four and hardly understood what the man I was acting with was going on about. He kept calling out to a woman he had supposedly lost, and kept asking me questions like he seriously expected a bird to answer him back.
And as I, all decked up in my black tights and cardboard beak and wings, kept repeating my one line to him over and over, he got more and more devastated. Crazier. Like maybe he was finally realizing he was actually talking to a bird. And that the wily bird was messing with his head, cawing the same answer like a curse. Or mocking laughter. Or both.
Nevermore. Nevermore. Nevermore.
I really grew to like that word. I was using it in excess long before I understood what it meant. I would say it in a tiny voice, a growly voice, a hissy voice; low, grating, cute and mean, while crossing my eyes or squishing my cheeks, or making up all other sorts of funny faces, all for the sake of making my mom laugh until she’s close to tears.
And every time, she would be so stoked that she’d scoop me into her arms and tell me she loved me while showering my face with kisses. That was the best part of it.
At four years old, Mom’s kisses were all the happiness I ever needed.
My mom. You might have already heard about her. She was pretty famous back in the days.
To everybody else she was Ryoko Yonekura, multi-awarded stage and movie actress. To me, she was just Mom. Absolute queen of my world. I lived to make her happy, and in my naive innocence believed that she was the only reason why I was alive.
It's not like I never knew my dad. He just wasn't around all that much to leave a lasting impression. Aside maybe from his name.
Sometimes, I did wonder why he even bothered. Mom was enough. Mom was all I needed.
But then I had to learn about life and death one late afternoon when I was five—
I remember crying in my mom’s lap that night, unable to fall asleep. Asking her what was the point of everything, when right after helping a chipmunk that got stuck in our backyard fence, after getting bitten and scratched by it for my efforts, the chipmunk still ran away and got hit by a car. It all seemed so... unfair.
Mom never once tried to paint the world in better colors for me. She had always trusted her little boy to be man enough to take the truth. So she flat-out told me that life wasn’t supposed to be fair. That you just do whatever you have to do for others, for the ones you love, whatever feels right at any given moment, for as long as you still had the chance.
I lost my mom four years later. One morning she just did not wake up. It was an aneurysm, but I did not understand it then. All I knew was that my mom was gone. I was never gonna see her again, hear her laugh, or see her smile, or feel her holding me in my sleep. She was never gonna tell me she loved me, or shower my face with kisses, or say I was the most special boy in the world—
My mom was gone. Just like that.
And I suddenly remembered that man I acted with on stage all those years ago. Finally understood how he felt. I must’ve been a total asshole telling him “Nevermore” over and over in his grief, huh?
Then again, looking at it from the raven’s perspective—or me as the raven at least... Would there have been any cause for grief if I had only done everything I could to prevent it?
I should’ve saved that chipmunk from the car...
I shouldn’t have let Mom fall asleep the previous night...
I should’ve done something. Anything. Everything I could to make things right and keep them that way.
Then again, what could a boy do, really?
It was also the summer I was nine when I moved to Tempest and met Sho-chan.
And Sho-chan... He has always been special. A lot like how my mom was special, but then also a lot different.
He was eight, but he looked like he was six, and was always so lively (and occasionally annoying) as a four-year-old. He gave new meaning to my life, though. But it took me five years before I was finally able to understand and accept just how deep that meaning was.
It was also on that exact same day that the accident happened.
And it wasn’t at all as simple as Sho-chan has been led to believe. It did not even involve a car. There was just him, and me, and Aiba-chan’s Grandpa Ken. And that one other boy. All of us drawn together into a chaotic mess right at the heart of Mimura Forest.
It all seemed so surreal to me even until now. Everything that happened there... I would never have believed any of it if I hadn’t been there to see for myself.
It did, however, make one thing clear to me. Gave greater significance to the words my mom said when I was five—
“You’re a brave boy, Satoshi,” she said. “I don’t ever want you to let a little pain change the beat of your heart.”
I can no longer do anything for that chipmunk. I can grieve forever, but my mom won’t ever come back.
But Sho-chan’s still here. Even after everything that happened, even after what I had seen him do. And, damn! Even after what he did to me, my heart still beats the same for him. It’s never going to change.
For him I’ll be a total asshole again, and like that raven in the play say, over and over and over, until it becomes clear to anyone and anything that would ever dare take this little chipmunk away—
Nevermore.
Nevermore.
Never-fucking-more.
Satoshi Ohno’s last memory of pain was also his worst one.
One moment he was just calling out to Sho in a bold attempt to distract the boy long enough for Grandpa Ken to subdue him. The next, he was all wrapped up in a vicious bolt of energy that dug into every inch of his skin like a hundred thousand bee stings striking him all at once. It burned and tore him apart from the inside until his whole body ached and shook and just begged to bleed and burst. He could not even hear himself screaming. He doubted he was even able to scream.
Dying in his teens had never once crossed his mind. Dying at the hands of the very person he had just been meaning to confess to was just absurd. Brutal. He was only fourteen, for god’s sake!
He met Sho’s gaze a split-second before he finally lost his battle with unconsciousness. And it was the younger boy’s purely malicious, bloodshot eyes that struck the deepest cut in Satoshi’s heart, making him bleed and burst all the way into limbo.
Death would’ve been a better punishment than this...
“No!” Satoshi was losing it. How many times did he have to say that word before he could make these people understand enough to leave them alone?
“I don’t get why you’re being difficult about this, Ohno-kun,” Junichi Okada said before taking a huge bite from his quarter pounder. There was a catsup stain on the left chest of his shirt that he did not seem to mind at all. “You always knew he was never yours to keep.”
Satoshi’s scowl deepened. He didn’t like the sound of that at all.
Okada’s father, who was then the assistant head at the now abandoned Keio Research Center, once proposed to get Sho neutralized for being a potential threat to the entire city. Even after Grandpa Ken, who was Keio’s head, had already assured them that Sho was no more a threat to anyone than a moth that had had its wings removed, the older Okada still rallied his cause and eventually convinced a few of his colleagues to side with him. His son and Satoshi’s former friend quickly followed suit.
Okada had since then shown such spiteful aggression towards Sho that constantly put him on the wrong end of Satoshi’s fists. The last time they had seen each other, the man had nearly emptied a fully-loaded airsoft rifle on a cornered and squealing Sho in what was supposed to be a friendly close quarter battle. It had taken the combined brute forces of Matsuoka, Nagase, Aiba and Police Chief Takashima to pull him back from completely breaking Okada’s face.
Satoshi shook his head in disgust as Okada pulled out a second quarter pounder from his take-out bag. He had not seen this man for close to five years. He didn’t think a person could change so much in just five years. Junichi Okada may have been occasionally impulsive, but he was never sloppy. Nor this much of a food addict. And since when did the man develop this much taste for fast food?
“Ohno-kun,” the other unwelcomed guest in his living room said. Norito Yashima was one of the former researchers at Keio and was now the director of the newer research facility in the Kawaguchiko area. He sounded too gentle, too condescending that he might as well be talking to a child. “We’ve talked about this before, right?
They had. Satoshi wasn’t particularly fond of that memory. “You weren’t even going to let him live!” he snarled under his breath, mindful of the fact that Sho was just in the other room. “You even called Grandpa Ken mad for taking my side!”
“I know, and we’re sorry,” Yashima bowed his head. “We really are. But we don’t really have much time for this now, Ohno-kun. We have to tell Sakurai-kun the truth. We need his help—”
“No.” Satoshi was seriously losing it now. He clenched his hands into tight fists. “No, I’m not giving him to you.” He was close to spitting fire from his mouth when he turned to Okada still busily munching on his food. “I’m not giving Sho-chan to you.” He wished there was a way he could just throw these men out of his apartment without being too rude about it.
“Don’t be unreasonable, Ohno,” Okada spoke in a tone he obviously thought was threatening. It just grated on Satoshi’s nerves even more. “Ryoko-san did not raise you to be like this—”
“My mom raised me to be a braver man than you’ll ever be, Okada.” He was already seeing shades of red and livid on Okada’s face. “Don’t you even dare say her name again!” The last time Satoshi had felt this much rage, they had also been talking about Sho. And his mom’s name had also been mentioned somewhere by none other than Okada’s father. He could not believe history was repeating itself too soon. “Please, leave. Just leave.”
“Fine,” Okada sighed. His gaze, however, clearly said that this was far from over.
“But, Ohno-kun. Please do think about this, okay?” Yashima tried to appeal over his shoulder, even as the two men headed for the door. “It’s an entire city’s life that’s at stake here—!”
“Sho-chan owes this city nothing.” Satoshi’s voice was deep, cold, all raw anger. But when Okada glanced back at him with as much raw sharpness in his eyes, Satoshi’s breath caught in his throat. He felt like a hand had just reached in to choke the life out of his brain. He blacked out on his feet for a second, barely even hearing the door close.
“Satoshi-kun?”
Satoshi shook himself out of the trance and turned to the familiar voice. Sho was peering through a small crack on their bedroom door, cautious and unsure.
“Can I come out now?”
Satoshi did not even realize he had slumped down on the couch. He quickly rubbed his hands to his face, trying to get rid of as much trace of fury as possible. “Y-Yeah.”
Sho stepped out of the room and sat down beside him. For a while they remained that way, losing themselves in their own thoughts. One had a dozen questions to ask, while the other had all the answers he wasn’t willing to give.
They both barely slept last night, spending the rest of it in bed just holding each other in silence. Satoshi could feel the commotion in Sho’s heart, the clutter of confusion in Sho’s head, in the way his partner’s body had trembled till dawn. Satoshi himself was in complete disarray. It could very well be just another earthquake. But then again, it could also be something else. Having been privy to the secrets of Tempest once, he felt like nothing could surprise him about this place anymore.
There was also the matter of Sho losing himself again the way he did ten years ago. The angered look in those eyes that did not quite belong. He would be lying if he said it didn't scare him one bit. Especially when Sho grabbed him by his shirt and effortlessly dragged him to the edge of the roof with all the intention of hurting him. Killing him.
Sho had also been able to fly again. Like a re-hashed nightmare Satoshi had hoped never to have to face, but always knew he was going to have to deal with sooner or later.
Sooner or later, like now.
Seeing that image of Lake Totoro in the morning news a while ago, it’s previously calm surface now covered in a thick layer of steam, only heightened the choking dread Satoshi had already been feeling in excess. It brought back every painful detail of that day ten years ago when Sho himself blasted that dent on the ground.
There had fortunately been nothing about anyone seeing them fall the previous night. But Okada and Yashima appearing at his door shortly afterwards just confirmed what he had been trying to block out of his mind.
“Hey...” Sho said in a small voice, his gaze fixed on the wall right across the room. “What happened last night?”
Satoshi thought there was no use denying it. But he didn’t bother confirming it either. He fixed his gaze on his own piece of wall.
“I heard what you were talking about.”
It was a statement rather than a question this time. Satoshi knew Sho had been listening. He didn’t even bother nodding.
“What do I have to do, Satoshi-kun?”
“Nothing,” Satoshi’s reply was quick, sharp. He slid his fingers through Sho’s and gripped his partner’s hand tight. “Nothing, Sho-chan. You just have to stay here with me.”
“Yeah. But... what do they need my help for?"
"Nothing that they can't take care of themselves,” he practically growled, knowing he sounded like a selfish little boy who didn't want to share and not really giving a damn. “Just stay here with me, Sho-chan. Just stay.”
But Sho had never been one to be easily persuaded, especially when it came to upholding his rights. “What the hell happened last night, Satoshi-kun? How the hell am I able to fly?!” His partner’s voice rose with the panic and disbelief the man had been holding back since last night.
“Sho...”
“Don’t I need to know—?!”
“Please—”
“Don’t I need to do something—?!”
“Stop!” Satoshi grabbed his partner’s face with both hands, pressing his thumbs on those stubborn lips. “Stop, Sho-chan.” He brushed a kiss on Sho’s furrowed brows, wanting to brush the thought away from that equally stubborn mind. He fisted his hands in his partner’s hair and pulled the man’s face close to his chest. “Just stay. Please. For now, just stay.”
“All right...” Sho’s shoulders heaved with each calming breath as he shifted and leaned, fully trusting, into Satoshi’s embrace. “All right, Satoshi...”
For a long time none of them moved. Not one of them spoke another word. Like they both somehow knew this was going to be the last of their peaceful days, and that they might as well savor it for as long as they could.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Yashima’s desperate measure came that very afternoon in the form of the man he knew Satoshi could never say No to. Takeshi Kaga appeared at their door as both city mayor and Satoshi’s loving grandfather. And as soon as Satoshi saw his old man, he knew he could no longer delay the inevitable. Especially when he caught sight of Masaki Aiba, too.
“Oh-chan...” Aiba forced a smile. It looked pathetic and only made Satoshi want to slam the door close on the man’s face. Even though his friend was just a trainee at the Kawaguchiko Facility, being Ken Shimura’s grandson made him knowledgeable about the Mimura incident more than anyone else. Even more than Satoshi himself.
“May we come in, Satoshi?” Grandpa Takeshi said calmly, his face somehow managing to show both sympathy and distress. The old man had personally been checking up on his people since last night, especially those in the area nearest Mimura Forest, who felt the brunt of the quake. It made Satoshi feel a little embarrassed for adding his bullheadedness to the mayor’s concerns. But he was also grateful it wasn’t Masahiro Matsuoka, the only other man who could make him tremble in his breeches.
Although his mom’s childhood friend had famously said, “If you mess with Yone’s kid, you mess with me,” Matsuoka was also not above messing Satoshi up himself if he saw a need for it. He was the father-figure Satoshi wished, and sometimes did not wish, to have. It seemed that Yashima had yet to catch up on that. Satoshi hoped for the older man's eternal cluelessness.
It did not even take more than five minutes for Grandpa Takeshi to talk all the much needed sense into Satoshi’s head, and for all of them to come to a compromise.
“For now, why don’t we let Masaki-kun tell Sho-kun the truth,” Grandpa Takeshi said with both authority and paternal warmth. “And then we’ll let Sho-kun decide what he wants to do from there.”
“I want to know, Satoshi...” Sho pleaded at once, turning to Grandpa Takeshi, "Please..." and Aiba, "Please..." and back again.
Satoshi held his partner’s hand. Held it tighter when he saw his grandfather looking. If the old man had any objection to it, it did not show anywhere on his face. Satoshi nodded and turned to Aiba. “Okay..."
“Yosh!” Aiba heaved one huge sigh. “Now, where do we begin...?”
Tempest City was not a perfect city, though its ice-cream-on-a-cone shape would try to beg and disagree. With just a little over 200 years of history behind it, it had already gone through more disastrous episodes than most older, larger cities would’ve been able to survive.
A good ten-hour’s drive away from the capital city of O-Ren, Tempest wasn’t too far behind when it came to industrial and commercial progress. Its urban development came thick and fast, but not without a price. In the deep, dark folds of its metropolitan landscape and areas of unsullied beauty, lurked a chronic ache that had given rise to numerous acts of vengeance against the city’s very existence.
And like any story of grief, greed and betrayal that you’ve probably already heard a hundred times before, this one also centered on a woman. Well, sort of.
When rowing sensation Hikaru Nishimura won the long stretch of land on which a quarter of Tempest City now stands (not in a rowing championship, but in an earnest game of poker; armed with nothing but a perpetual scowl and a rich, thick wallop of beginner’s luck), he really had no great plans for it other than to build a home for himself and his future wife. And maybe a rowing school and dormitory for his future champions.
He was going to name it Poker Town, too. An idea that made Harumi Edo grin sweetly at him and exclaim, “That’s amazing-guu!” while flashing two approving thumbs up.
His best friend, Johnny Kitagawa, wasn’t as impressed, though. More by the inclusion of “Town” than the name itself. And so, overly ambitious and richer than God that he was, Johnny did not waste time at all and bought the adjacent patch of land that now formed the larger part of the city: the ice cream on the cone.
Now, Hikaru had no intention at all to found a whole city, what more run it. He was happy enough to be left alone with his stretch of land, thank you very much! But since Johnny had been desperate enough to even let him name the city they were supposedly building together, he finally relented and decided on the name of the last rowing team that took him to a championship: Tempest.
Hikaru became the city’s first mayor, and Harumi, his first and last lady. A turn of events that greatly devastated Johnny, because he had always envisioned himself running the city alongside his best friend—among other things.
But Johnny’s confession had come a little too late, and a little too strong for Hikaru’s liking. It also did not help that Harumi had been there to see everything-guu. The devastated first lady disappeared the following day, and Hikaru took it all out on Johnny, blindly banishing his former best friend from the city built to the last brick by Kitagawa money.
Johnny left without a fight. Took a break to mend his heart. Then launched his first vengeful assault that shook Tempest nearly off its trenches. His goal was to take over, rather than destroy. But Tempest City put up such a good fight that Johnny eventually decided to hell with it! He was going to raze the entire place to the ground. Sink it into the ocean. Blast it off to space. Anything to wipe the despicable city off the face of the earth.
His pain and hatred so consumed Johnny that his attacks eventually became more crazed, reckless, and expensive.
And each time, Tempest had been ready to clash with him head on, their ways and means not as costly, but oddly more efficient. Because, really, since when did evil win against good?
Keio Research Center was built primarily to anticipate and diffuse every one of Johnny’s gold-plated, diamond-encrusted onslaughts. And if there was anything anyone in there regretted, it was that they had never really been able to defeat the man himself. No. That honor went to a sneaky heart attack one late evening in spring.
Johnny may have had all the money to buy the entire universe ten times over, but immortality was sadly not yet for sale. And when he died, Tempest thought they were finally safe. That at last, they could enjoy life without having to constantly watch out for strange floating objects in the sky bearing Johnny’s name in giant print.
There was finally going to be peace in Tempest.
Tempest could never have been more wrong...
One of Johnny’s descendants managed to infiltrate Keio and put together an elaborate secret plan to destroy Tempest City from within. He called it Project Totoro. The objective was to create super soldiers out of his own sperm and the human egg cells he had purchased on discount from E-bay.
The goal was, of course, total annihilation.
But Noriyuki Higashiyama soon realized that between shipping the vials of egg cells from that questionable lab in Hotei to that P.O. box he rented several towns away, only two good ones managed to make it to his petri dish.
The gamma radiation he was going to expose the fertilized eggs to had also gone a little wonky before he could even use it. There were a couple of other things that went wrong along the way, but despite such glaring setbacks, Higashi just kept moving forward.
Johnny’s iron-willed blood flowed strong and proud through his nerves, after all. It was all the reason and none of the excuse he needed to succeed.
So he watched over his boys as closely as he could without compromising his job at Keio. From the dish to the test tubes, and eventually to the egg-shaped incubators he himself had designed and put together, he tended to them like an overly fussy mother hen. Fixing up things as soon as they showed the slightest sign of crapping all over his boys. His masterpieces.
Perhaps never once showing them motherly warmth, or even the most reluctant fatherly concern, but he was proud enough of them to put all his efforts into molding them into their destined fates.
And from there, everything went on smoothly. His boys grew up as beautifully as he had hoped, and as cunning as they needed to be in order to do what had to be done. The powers did not manifest right away, though. Or at least, not all at once...
Higashi had not known happiness until he saw his boys fall out for the first time at the tender age of three, almost breaking each other’s bones in the process and chipping off about a quarter of their secret cabin, secluded deep in the unexplored corners of Mimura forest.
Everything was perfect. His boys were growing up into powerful and merciless weapons of destruction. Johnny Kitagawa was finally going to get his revenge.
But then, Satoshi Ohno just had to come live in Tempest, and Higashi’s almighty plan was toast.
His mom’s death threw Satoshi’s whole world off its axis for days and weeks on end. He wasn’t talking, was barely eating, and was practically afraid to close his eyes. He was hardly even aware when his mom’s stepdad, whom he had only ever seen once, came to pick him up from his friend Machida’s house about a week later.
Takeshi Kaga readily took custody of him despite the fact that they weren’t even related by blood. And just as he loved Ryoko like his own daughter, Grandpa Takeshi also doted on Satoshi like his own grandson. The grieving boy had his first peaceful sleep in days after crying in his grandfather’s arms while they shared their fondest memories of his mother.
Being around people who loved Ryoko and generously extended that love to him, helped nine-year-old Satoshi gradually heal and open himself up to the rest of the world again. Or at least, the rest of Tempest for starters.
But it was one particular encounter at Mimura Forest that would eventually bring Satoshi back to the boy that he once was, and give him all the reasons he needed to grow into the kind of man that he was fated to be.
For several days after their first meeting, Satoshi was convinced Sho was a wood fairy, who very generously showed him the way back when he wandered too far off into the trees.
And for several days he took to the habit of riding his bike all the way to Mimura Forest right after school, making up all sorts of excuses to ditch his friend, Aiba, who would really rather spend his time chasing after Satoshi’s other friend, Becky.
He didn’t know why he felt like he needed to see the boy with the huge, round eyes again. Maybe he wanted to prove that he didn’t just dream it all up, like what Grandpa Ken had suggested. Maybe he just wanted to see a real wood fairy up close.
Or maybe he really just wanted to see, period.
He would stay in the clearing where he first saw the boy until the mosquitoes started biting. He would sit on a rock off to the side and doodle on his notepad, talking on and on like he thought the boy was watching him secretly from one of the trees.
A couple of weeks later, when he was just about to give up and accept Grandpa Ken’s suggestion for what it’s worth, right after he said that he was leaving and was probably never coming back anymore, the boy finally stepped out from behind the sakura tree that had been beside Satoshi all this time. It was also at this same distance that he had seen the boy before, cautiously keeping to the trees like a secret shadow, while very patiently guiding him out of the forest.
“Hey...” Satoshi said in a quiet voice, like he was afraid a louder one would topple the pint-sized boy off his feet. He suddenly felt too big for his age. “I’m Satoshi.”
“I know,” the boy said in a tiny voice, his gaze fixed on his feet. “I’m Sho.”
“Nice to meet you, Sho-kun.”
The boy did not answer, did not even make any move to run away or approach.
“You’ve been here all along, huh?” Satoshi grinned. “Maa, you heard everything I’ve been saying all this time.” He thought he saw a smile at the tip of the boy’s lips. He couldn’t be sure, because it was gone just as quickly. “Just so you know, I don’t wet my bed anymore. I don’t think Grandpa knows how to wash my sheets.”
“Kazu wets our bed all the time. I only did once when I ate too many tangerines.” Sho finally looked up and offered him a shy smile. “Dad doesn’t know how to wash our sheets either. But Kazu does.”
“Kazu?”
“My brother.”
“Aahh... So you’re not a wood fairy?”
“What? No!” A snorty giggle escaped Sho’s throat. “Why would you even think that?”
Satoshi shrugged. It didn’t feel as disappointing as he had thought. “You just look it.”
Sho frowned. “Is it because I’m small?”
“No.” Satoshi shook his head vigorously. “It’s just that you look...” The first word that came to his mind was cute, but he didn’t think it was an appropriate word to use on a boy by another boy.
“I look what?”
“Nice...” Satoshi sat on his rock again. Sho sat beside him, no longer wary. But much too close that Satoshi found himself drowning in the boy’s doe-eyed gaze. He looked away and made a great show of reaching out for his backpack on the ground. “Where do you live, Sho-kun?”
Sho frowned, curious rather than suspicious. “Why?”
“I thought, maybe, we can walk home together...?” Satoshi stood up and slung his bag on his shoulders. He was still feeling a little flushed for saying that one word. Nice? Who the hell told a boy he looked nice? Satoshi had not even told Becky she looked nice! Although, that’s probably because Aiba had already given him fair warning.
“I’ll walk with you.” Sho jumped to his feet.
And Satoshi’s heart skipped in his chest. He had already figured that Sho was small, but standing side by side now and seeing that the boy was a full head and a half shorter than he was stirred a sort of protective instinct in him. He was suddenly remembering that chipmunk from when he was five.
“You go here, right?” Sho pointed to the path between the trees straight ahead, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I go the other way.”
“Then shouldn’t I walk you home?” What kind of an ass would Satoshi be if he let this boy walk with him, then go all the way back on his little munchkin legs? Were those legs even allowed to walk yet?!
Sho shook his head. “You can’t. Dad won’t like it.”
“Why not?”
“Coz you’re a stranger.”
Satoshi almost burst out laughing at the way Sho was glaring at him like the boy thought he was the most threatening thing on earth. He certainly wasn’t. Satoshi doubted he would ever be.
They decided to meet here the next day, with nobody walking anybody anywhere. Satoshi picked his bike up and got ready to leave.
“I’ll see you, Satoshi-kun.”
Satoshi glanced back and for a moment wondered why he even had to go. To this day, he would close his eyes and still remember the way Sho had smiled at him like he was the best thing that ever happened to the boy’s life, and his heart would start racing the same way it did back then.
“Satoshi-kun, what’s a mom?”
Satoshi turned to Sho in utter disbelief. “You don’t know what a mom is?”
“No.” Sho pouted like he was feeling stupid. Satoshi’s heart swelled like he could almost smile.
He had been in a serious funk the entire weekend, hounded by memories of his mom while he was down with the flu. He had never before felt a stronger urge to come to Mimura and be with Sho. He had almost torn his tendons off pedaling. Yet, he had already been here for close to an hour and all he’d been able to say was, “I miss my mom,” before slumping down flat on the ground and fixing his gaze to the skies.
Sho had given him space, like the boy somehow understood what he needed without words being said. His question had come at just the right timing, too. A little bit earlier and Satoshi would’ve deliberately ignored him. A little later and Satoshi would’ve already fallen asleep—
“A mom is like a dad, only warmer. And prettier.”
“Eeeh... I wish I had a mom.” Sho’s voice was soft and wishful and blended naturally with the afternoon breeze. “How was your mom like, Satoshi-kun?”
The candid interest in those huge, round eyes just pulled the words out from Satoshi’s lips, besides the fact that talking about his mom was one of Satoshi’s favorite things. Everything that she was to him, everything that he loved about her, he shared them all with Sho. And it warmed him up to see that Sho was taking everything he was saying to heart. You could easily just lose yourself in that gaze.
“Hey, maybe I can be your mom!”
The eagerness surprised Satoshi more than the words. It was so unexpected and silly that his lips began to slacken into a smile. “Are you serious?”
“See! I’m already making you smile. That’s a start!”
Satoshi’s smile turned into full blown laughter. “You can’t be a mom, Sho-chan!”
“Why not?!” Sho sat up and pouted. “I can learn your favorite songs, too! And we’ll sing them together while I hold your hand.” Sho grabbed Satoshi’s hand with both of his. “See? I can do this.”
Satoshi frowned, not really quite sure what to make of this whole deal. He felt like he should punch Sho for even thinking about taking over his mother’s place. But seeing how the boy’s smile was all hopeful cluelessness, whatever trace of annoyance he thought he should be feeling just melted.“You’re weird.”
Sho gripped his hand and stared into his eyes deeply enough to burn his cheeks. “But I can still be your mom, right?”
Satoshi looked away, but did not stop his fingers from folding around Sho’s hand. Sho’s palm felt warm and nice against his. “It’s okay to just be Sho-chan, you know...”
“Okay,” Sho said, his cheeks turning a faint shade of pink. “I’ll be your Sho-chan then.”
Satoshi knew then that he might have done something right. Because how else could a boy even deserve meeting two special persons in a single lifetime?
continued in next page>>>>>
Group/Main Pairing: Arashi/Yama Pair (Ohno/Sho)
Side Pairing: Aiba/Becky + Mabo/Nagase (maybe?) + Ohno/Kyoko
Prompts: fail!superhero Sho and Tomoyasu Hotei’s Battle Without Honor or Humanity
Word Count: 13,018
Rating: PG-13 (for this chapter)
Genre: Superhero AU/Humor/Romance
Summary: Sho Sakurai is about to become a superhero. God save the rest of us.
Note: written for the Jukebox Roulette Ficcon @
murasakinoyume. Warnings: mentions of minor character death, evil!Nino, and sporadic silliness all around. xD
Chapter Summary: A look into the beginnings of Tempest City and what really happened ten years ago.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
Two: Keio Boy
Satoshi Ohno
Actor, Zeus Agency
Do you know the story of the raven who knew only one word?
I don’t know it either. I just happened to play the part once in a stage play organized by my mom to raise funds for the community theater renovations.
I was only four and hardly understood what the man I was acting with was going on about. He kept calling out to a woman he had supposedly lost, and kept asking me questions like he seriously expected a bird to answer him back.
And as I, all decked up in my black tights and cardboard beak and wings, kept repeating my one line to him over and over, he got more and more devastated. Crazier. Like maybe he was finally realizing he was actually talking to a bird. And that the wily bird was messing with his head, cawing the same answer like a curse. Or mocking laughter. Or both.
Nevermore. Nevermore. Nevermore.
I really grew to like that word. I was using it in excess long before I understood what it meant. I would say it in a tiny voice, a growly voice, a hissy voice; low, grating, cute and mean, while crossing my eyes or squishing my cheeks, or making up all other sorts of funny faces, all for the sake of making my mom laugh until she’s close to tears.
And every time, she would be so stoked that she’d scoop me into her arms and tell me she loved me while showering my face with kisses. That was the best part of it.
At four years old, Mom’s kisses were all the happiness I ever needed.
My mom. You might have already heard about her. She was pretty famous back in the days.
To everybody else she was Ryoko Yonekura, multi-awarded stage and movie actress. To me, she was just Mom. Absolute queen of my world. I lived to make her happy, and in my naive innocence believed that she was the only reason why I was alive.
It's not like I never knew my dad. He just wasn't around all that much to leave a lasting impression. Aside maybe from his name.
Sometimes, I did wonder why he even bothered. Mom was enough. Mom was all I needed.
But then I had to learn about life and death one late afternoon when I was five—
I remember crying in my mom’s lap that night, unable to fall asleep. Asking her what was the point of everything, when right after helping a chipmunk that got stuck in our backyard fence, after getting bitten and scratched by it for my efforts, the chipmunk still ran away and got hit by a car. It all seemed so... unfair.
Mom never once tried to paint the world in better colors for me. She had always trusted her little boy to be man enough to take the truth. So she flat-out told me that life wasn’t supposed to be fair. That you just do whatever you have to do for others, for the ones you love, whatever feels right at any given moment, for as long as you still had the chance.
I lost my mom four years later. One morning she just did not wake up. It was an aneurysm, but I did not understand it then. All I knew was that my mom was gone. I was never gonna see her again, hear her laugh, or see her smile, or feel her holding me in my sleep. She was never gonna tell me she loved me, or shower my face with kisses, or say I was the most special boy in the world—
My mom was gone. Just like that.
And I suddenly remembered that man I acted with on stage all those years ago. Finally understood how he felt. I must’ve been a total asshole telling him “Nevermore” over and over in his grief, huh?
Then again, looking at it from the raven’s perspective—or me as the raven at least... Would there have been any cause for grief if I had only done everything I could to prevent it?
I should’ve saved that chipmunk from the car...
I shouldn’t have let Mom fall asleep the previous night...
I should’ve done something. Anything. Everything I could to make things right and keep them that way.
Then again, what could a boy do, really?
It was also the summer I was nine when I moved to Tempest and met Sho-chan.
And Sho-chan... He has always been special. A lot like how my mom was special, but then also a lot different.
He was eight, but he looked like he was six, and was always so lively (and occasionally annoying) as a four-year-old. He gave new meaning to my life, though. But it took me five years before I was finally able to understand and accept just how deep that meaning was.
It was also on that exact same day that the accident happened.
And it wasn’t at all as simple as Sho-chan has been led to believe. It did not even involve a car. There was just him, and me, and Aiba-chan’s Grandpa Ken. And that one other boy. All of us drawn together into a chaotic mess right at the heart of Mimura Forest.
It all seemed so surreal to me even until now. Everything that happened there... I would never have believed any of it if I hadn’t been there to see for myself.
It did, however, make one thing clear to me. Gave greater significance to the words my mom said when I was five—
“You’re a brave boy, Satoshi,” she said. “I don’t ever want you to let a little pain change the beat of your heart.”
I can no longer do anything for that chipmunk. I can grieve forever, but my mom won’t ever come back.
But Sho-chan’s still here. Even after everything that happened, even after what I had seen him do. And, damn! Even after what he did to me, my heart still beats the same for him. It’s never going to change.
For him I’ll be a total asshole again, and like that raven in the play say, over and over and over, until it becomes clear to anyone and anything that would ever dare take this little chipmunk away—
Nevermore.
Nevermore.
Never-fucking-more.
Satoshi Ohno’s last memory of pain was also his worst one.
One moment he was just calling out to Sho in a bold attempt to distract the boy long enough for Grandpa Ken to subdue him. The next, he was all wrapped up in a vicious bolt of energy that dug into every inch of his skin like a hundred thousand bee stings striking him all at once. It burned and tore him apart from the inside until his whole body ached and shook and just begged to bleed and burst. He could not even hear himself screaming. He doubted he was even able to scream.
Dying in his teens had never once crossed his mind. Dying at the hands of the very person he had just been meaning to confess to was just absurd. Brutal. He was only fourteen, for god’s sake!
He met Sho’s gaze a split-second before he finally lost his battle with unconsciousness. And it was the younger boy’s purely malicious, bloodshot eyes that struck the deepest cut in Satoshi’s heart, making him bleed and burst all the way into limbo.
Death would’ve been a better punishment than this...
◄~ Ж ~►
Present day...
“No!” Satoshi was losing it. How many times did he have to say that word before he could make these people understand enough to leave them alone?
“I don’t get why you’re being difficult about this, Ohno-kun,” Junichi Okada said before taking a huge bite from his quarter pounder. There was a catsup stain on the left chest of his shirt that he did not seem to mind at all. “You always knew he was never yours to keep.”
Satoshi’s scowl deepened. He didn’t like the sound of that at all.
Okada’s father, who was then the assistant head at the now abandoned Keio Research Center, once proposed to get Sho neutralized for being a potential threat to the entire city. Even after Grandpa Ken, who was Keio’s head, had already assured them that Sho was no more a threat to anyone than a moth that had had its wings removed, the older Okada still rallied his cause and eventually convinced a few of his colleagues to side with him. His son and Satoshi’s former friend quickly followed suit.
Okada had since then shown such spiteful aggression towards Sho that constantly put him on the wrong end of Satoshi’s fists. The last time they had seen each other, the man had nearly emptied a fully-loaded airsoft rifle on a cornered and squealing Sho in what was supposed to be a friendly close quarter battle. It had taken the combined brute forces of Matsuoka, Nagase, Aiba and Police Chief Takashima to pull him back from completely breaking Okada’s face.
Satoshi shook his head in disgust as Okada pulled out a second quarter pounder from his take-out bag. He had not seen this man for close to five years. He didn’t think a person could change so much in just five years. Junichi Okada may have been occasionally impulsive, but he was never sloppy. Nor this much of a food addict. And since when did the man develop this much taste for fast food?
“Ohno-kun,” the other unwelcomed guest in his living room said. Norito Yashima was one of the former researchers at Keio and was now the director of the newer research facility in the Kawaguchiko area. He sounded too gentle, too condescending that he might as well be talking to a child. “We’ve talked about this before, right?
They had. Satoshi wasn’t particularly fond of that memory. “You weren’t even going to let him live!” he snarled under his breath, mindful of the fact that Sho was just in the other room. “You even called Grandpa Ken mad for taking my side!”
“I know, and we’re sorry,” Yashima bowed his head. “We really are. But we don’t really have much time for this now, Ohno-kun. We have to tell Sakurai-kun the truth. We need his help—”
“No.” Satoshi was seriously losing it now. He clenched his hands into tight fists. “No, I’m not giving him to you.” He was close to spitting fire from his mouth when he turned to Okada still busily munching on his food. “I’m not giving Sho-chan to you.” He wished there was a way he could just throw these men out of his apartment without being too rude about it.
“Don’t be unreasonable, Ohno,” Okada spoke in a tone he obviously thought was threatening. It just grated on Satoshi’s nerves even more. “Ryoko-san did not raise you to be like this—”
“My mom raised me to be a braver man than you’ll ever be, Okada.” He was already seeing shades of red and livid on Okada’s face. “Don’t you even dare say her name again!” The last time Satoshi had felt this much rage, they had also been talking about Sho. And his mom’s name had also been mentioned somewhere by none other than Okada’s father. He could not believe history was repeating itself too soon. “Please, leave. Just leave.”
“Fine,” Okada sighed. His gaze, however, clearly said that this was far from over.
“But, Ohno-kun. Please do think about this, okay?” Yashima tried to appeal over his shoulder, even as the two men headed for the door. “It’s an entire city’s life that’s at stake here—!”
“Sho-chan owes this city nothing.” Satoshi’s voice was deep, cold, all raw anger. But when Okada glanced back at him with as much raw sharpness in his eyes, Satoshi’s breath caught in his throat. He felt like a hand had just reached in to choke the life out of his brain. He blacked out on his feet for a second, barely even hearing the door close.
“Satoshi-kun?”
Satoshi shook himself out of the trance and turned to the familiar voice. Sho was peering through a small crack on their bedroom door, cautious and unsure.
“Can I come out now?”
Satoshi did not even realize he had slumped down on the couch. He quickly rubbed his hands to his face, trying to get rid of as much trace of fury as possible. “Y-Yeah.”
Sho stepped out of the room and sat down beside him. For a while they remained that way, losing themselves in their own thoughts. One had a dozen questions to ask, while the other had all the answers he wasn’t willing to give.
They both barely slept last night, spending the rest of it in bed just holding each other in silence. Satoshi could feel the commotion in Sho’s heart, the clutter of confusion in Sho’s head, in the way his partner’s body had trembled till dawn. Satoshi himself was in complete disarray. It could very well be just another earthquake. But then again, it could also be something else. Having been privy to the secrets of Tempest once, he felt like nothing could surprise him about this place anymore.
There was also the matter of Sho losing himself again the way he did ten years ago. The angered look in those eyes that did not quite belong. He would be lying if he said it didn't scare him one bit. Especially when Sho grabbed him by his shirt and effortlessly dragged him to the edge of the roof with all the intention of hurting him. Killing him.
Sho had also been able to fly again. Like a re-hashed nightmare Satoshi had hoped never to have to face, but always knew he was going to have to deal with sooner or later.
Sooner or later, like now.
Seeing that image of Lake Totoro in the morning news a while ago, it’s previously calm surface now covered in a thick layer of steam, only heightened the choking dread Satoshi had already been feeling in excess. It brought back every painful detail of that day ten years ago when Sho himself blasted that dent on the ground.
There had fortunately been nothing about anyone seeing them fall the previous night. But Okada and Yashima appearing at his door shortly afterwards just confirmed what he had been trying to block out of his mind.
“Hey...” Sho said in a small voice, his gaze fixed on the wall right across the room. “What happened last night?”
Satoshi thought there was no use denying it. But he didn’t bother confirming it either. He fixed his gaze on his own piece of wall.
“I heard what you were talking about.”
It was a statement rather than a question this time. Satoshi knew Sho had been listening. He didn’t even bother nodding.
“What do I have to do, Satoshi-kun?”
“Nothing,” Satoshi’s reply was quick, sharp. He slid his fingers through Sho’s and gripped his partner’s hand tight. “Nothing, Sho-chan. You just have to stay here with me.”
“Yeah. But... what do they need my help for?"
"Nothing that they can't take care of themselves,” he practically growled, knowing he sounded like a selfish little boy who didn't want to share and not really giving a damn. “Just stay here with me, Sho-chan. Just stay.”
But Sho had never been one to be easily persuaded, especially when it came to upholding his rights. “What the hell happened last night, Satoshi-kun? How the hell am I able to fly?!” His partner’s voice rose with the panic and disbelief the man had been holding back since last night.
“Sho...”
“Don’t I need to know—?!”
“Please—”
“Don’t I need to do something—?!”
“Stop!” Satoshi grabbed his partner’s face with both hands, pressing his thumbs on those stubborn lips. “Stop, Sho-chan.” He brushed a kiss on Sho’s furrowed brows, wanting to brush the thought away from that equally stubborn mind. He fisted his hands in his partner’s hair and pulled the man’s face close to his chest. “Just stay. Please. For now, just stay.”
“All right...” Sho’s shoulders heaved with each calming breath as he shifted and leaned, fully trusting, into Satoshi’s embrace. “All right, Satoshi...”
For a long time none of them moved. Not one of them spoke another word. Like they both somehow knew this was going to be the last of their peaceful days, and that they might as well savor it for as long as they could.
◄~ Ж ~►
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Yashima’s desperate measure came that very afternoon in the form of the man he knew Satoshi could never say No to. Takeshi Kaga appeared at their door as both city mayor and Satoshi’s loving grandfather. And as soon as Satoshi saw his old man, he knew he could no longer delay the inevitable. Especially when he caught sight of Masaki Aiba, too.
“Oh-chan...” Aiba forced a smile. It looked pathetic and only made Satoshi want to slam the door close on the man’s face. Even though his friend was just a trainee at the Kawaguchiko Facility, being Ken Shimura’s grandson made him knowledgeable about the Mimura incident more than anyone else. Even more than Satoshi himself.
“May we come in, Satoshi?” Grandpa Takeshi said calmly, his face somehow managing to show both sympathy and distress. The old man had personally been checking up on his people since last night, especially those in the area nearest Mimura Forest, who felt the brunt of the quake. It made Satoshi feel a little embarrassed for adding his bullheadedness to the mayor’s concerns. But he was also grateful it wasn’t Masahiro Matsuoka, the only other man who could make him tremble in his breeches.
Although his mom’s childhood friend had famously said, “If you mess with Yone’s kid, you mess with me,” Matsuoka was also not above messing Satoshi up himself if he saw a need for it. He was the father-figure Satoshi wished, and sometimes did not wish, to have. It seemed that Yashima had yet to catch up on that. Satoshi hoped for the older man's eternal cluelessness.
It did not even take more than five minutes for Grandpa Takeshi to talk all the much needed sense into Satoshi’s head, and for all of them to come to a compromise.
“For now, why don’t we let Masaki-kun tell Sho-kun the truth,” Grandpa Takeshi said with both authority and paternal warmth. “And then we’ll let Sho-kun decide what he wants to do from there.”
“I want to know, Satoshi...” Sho pleaded at once, turning to Grandpa Takeshi, "Please..." and Aiba, "Please..." and back again.
Satoshi held his partner’s hand. Held it tighter when he saw his grandfather looking. If the old man had any objection to it, it did not show anywhere on his face. Satoshi nodded and turned to Aiba. “Okay..."
“Yosh!” Aiba heaved one huge sigh. “Now, where do we begin...?”
◄~ Ж ~►
Tempest City was not a perfect city, though its ice-cream-on-a-cone shape would try to beg and disagree. With just a little over 200 years of history behind it, it had already gone through more disastrous episodes than most older, larger cities would’ve been able to survive.
A good ten-hour’s drive away from the capital city of O-Ren, Tempest wasn’t too far behind when it came to industrial and commercial progress. Its urban development came thick and fast, but not without a price. In the deep, dark folds of its metropolitan landscape and areas of unsullied beauty, lurked a chronic ache that had given rise to numerous acts of vengeance against the city’s very existence.
And like any story of grief, greed and betrayal that you’ve probably already heard a hundred times before, this one also centered on a woman. Well, sort of.
When rowing sensation Hikaru Nishimura won the long stretch of land on which a quarter of Tempest City now stands (not in a rowing championship, but in an earnest game of poker; armed with nothing but a perpetual scowl and a rich, thick wallop of beginner’s luck), he really had no great plans for it other than to build a home for himself and his future wife. And maybe a rowing school and dormitory for his future champions.
He was going to name it Poker Town, too. An idea that made Harumi Edo grin sweetly at him and exclaim, “That’s amazing-guu!” while flashing two approving thumbs up.
His best friend, Johnny Kitagawa, wasn’t as impressed, though. More by the inclusion of “Town” than the name itself. And so, overly ambitious and richer than God that he was, Johnny did not waste time at all and bought the adjacent patch of land that now formed the larger part of the city: the ice cream on the cone.
Now, Hikaru had no intention at all to found a whole city, what more run it. He was happy enough to be left alone with his stretch of land, thank you very much! But since Johnny had been desperate enough to even let him name the city they were supposedly building together, he finally relented and decided on the name of the last rowing team that took him to a championship: Tempest.
Hikaru became the city’s first mayor, and Harumi, his first and last lady. A turn of events that greatly devastated Johnny, because he had always envisioned himself running the city alongside his best friend—among other things.
But Johnny’s confession had come a little too late, and a little too strong for Hikaru’s liking. It also did not help that Harumi had been there to see everything-guu. The devastated first lady disappeared the following day, and Hikaru took it all out on Johnny, blindly banishing his former best friend from the city built to the last brick by Kitagawa money.
Johnny left without a fight. Took a break to mend his heart. Then launched his first vengeful assault that shook Tempest nearly off its trenches. His goal was to take over, rather than destroy. But Tempest City put up such a good fight that Johnny eventually decided to hell with it! He was going to raze the entire place to the ground. Sink it into the ocean. Blast it off to space. Anything to wipe the despicable city off the face of the earth.
His pain and hatred so consumed Johnny that his attacks eventually became more crazed, reckless, and expensive.
And each time, Tempest had been ready to clash with him head on, their ways and means not as costly, but oddly more efficient. Because, really, since when did evil win against good?
Keio Research Center was built primarily to anticipate and diffuse every one of Johnny’s gold-plated, diamond-encrusted onslaughts. And if there was anything anyone in there regretted, it was that they had never really been able to defeat the man himself. No. That honor went to a sneaky heart attack one late evening in spring.
Johnny may have had all the money to buy the entire universe ten times over, but immortality was sadly not yet for sale. And when he died, Tempest thought they were finally safe. That at last, they could enjoy life without having to constantly watch out for strange floating objects in the sky bearing Johnny’s name in giant print.
There was finally going to be peace in Tempest.
Tempest could never have been more wrong...
One of Johnny’s descendants managed to infiltrate Keio and put together an elaborate secret plan to destroy Tempest City from within. He called it Project Totoro. The objective was to create super soldiers out of his own sperm and the human egg cells he had purchased on discount from E-bay.
The goal was, of course, total annihilation.
But Noriyuki Higashiyama soon realized that between shipping the vials of egg cells from that questionable lab in Hotei to that P.O. box he rented several towns away, only two good ones managed to make it to his petri dish.
The gamma radiation he was going to expose the fertilized eggs to had also gone a little wonky before he could even use it. There were a couple of other things that went wrong along the way, but despite such glaring setbacks, Higashi just kept moving forward.
Johnny’s iron-willed blood flowed strong and proud through his nerves, after all. It was all the reason and none of the excuse he needed to succeed.
So he watched over his boys as closely as he could without compromising his job at Keio. From the dish to the test tubes, and eventually to the egg-shaped incubators he himself had designed and put together, he tended to them like an overly fussy mother hen. Fixing up things as soon as they showed the slightest sign of crapping all over his boys. His masterpieces.
Perhaps never once showing them motherly warmth, or even the most reluctant fatherly concern, but he was proud enough of them to put all his efforts into molding them into their destined fates.
And from there, everything went on smoothly. His boys grew up as beautifully as he had hoped, and as cunning as they needed to be in order to do what had to be done. The powers did not manifest right away, though. Or at least, not all at once...
Higashi had not known happiness until he saw his boys fall out for the first time at the tender age of three, almost breaking each other’s bones in the process and chipping off about a quarter of their secret cabin, secluded deep in the unexplored corners of Mimura forest.
Everything was perfect. His boys were growing up into powerful and merciless weapons of destruction. Johnny Kitagawa was finally going to get his revenge.
But then, Satoshi Ohno just had to come live in Tempest, and Higashi’s almighty plan was toast.
◄~ Ж ~►
His mom’s death threw Satoshi’s whole world off its axis for days and weeks on end. He wasn’t talking, was barely eating, and was practically afraid to close his eyes. He was hardly even aware when his mom’s stepdad, whom he had only ever seen once, came to pick him up from his friend Machida’s house about a week later.
Takeshi Kaga readily took custody of him despite the fact that they weren’t even related by blood. And just as he loved Ryoko like his own daughter, Grandpa Takeshi also doted on Satoshi like his own grandson. The grieving boy had his first peaceful sleep in days after crying in his grandfather’s arms while they shared their fondest memories of his mother.
Being around people who loved Ryoko and generously extended that love to him, helped nine-year-old Satoshi gradually heal and open himself up to the rest of the world again. Or at least, the rest of Tempest for starters.
But it was one particular encounter at Mimura Forest that would eventually bring Satoshi back to the boy that he once was, and give him all the reasons he needed to grow into the kind of man that he was fated to be.
◄~ Ж ~►
For several days after their first meeting, Satoshi was convinced Sho was a wood fairy, who very generously showed him the way back when he wandered too far off into the trees.
And for several days he took to the habit of riding his bike all the way to Mimura Forest right after school, making up all sorts of excuses to ditch his friend, Aiba, who would really rather spend his time chasing after Satoshi’s other friend, Becky.
He didn’t know why he felt like he needed to see the boy with the huge, round eyes again. Maybe he wanted to prove that he didn’t just dream it all up, like what Grandpa Ken had suggested. Maybe he just wanted to see a real wood fairy up close.
Or maybe he really just wanted to see, period.
He would stay in the clearing where he first saw the boy until the mosquitoes started biting. He would sit on a rock off to the side and doodle on his notepad, talking on and on like he thought the boy was watching him secretly from one of the trees.
A couple of weeks later, when he was just about to give up and accept Grandpa Ken’s suggestion for what it’s worth, right after he said that he was leaving and was probably never coming back anymore, the boy finally stepped out from behind the sakura tree that had been beside Satoshi all this time. It was also at this same distance that he had seen the boy before, cautiously keeping to the trees like a secret shadow, while very patiently guiding him out of the forest.
“Hey...” Satoshi said in a quiet voice, like he was afraid a louder one would topple the pint-sized boy off his feet. He suddenly felt too big for his age. “I’m Satoshi.”
“I know,” the boy said in a tiny voice, his gaze fixed on his feet. “I’m Sho.”
“Nice to meet you, Sho-kun.”
The boy did not answer, did not even make any move to run away or approach.
“You’ve been here all along, huh?” Satoshi grinned. “Maa, you heard everything I’ve been saying all this time.” He thought he saw a smile at the tip of the boy’s lips. He couldn’t be sure, because it was gone just as quickly. “Just so you know, I don’t wet my bed anymore. I don’t think Grandpa knows how to wash my sheets.”
“Kazu wets our bed all the time. I only did once when I ate too many tangerines.” Sho finally looked up and offered him a shy smile. “Dad doesn’t know how to wash our sheets either. But Kazu does.”
“Kazu?”
“My brother.”
“Aahh... So you’re not a wood fairy?”
“What? No!” A snorty giggle escaped Sho’s throat. “Why would you even think that?”
Satoshi shrugged. It didn’t feel as disappointing as he had thought. “You just look it.”
Sho frowned. “Is it because I’m small?”
“No.” Satoshi shook his head vigorously. “It’s just that you look...” The first word that came to his mind was cute, but he didn’t think it was an appropriate word to use on a boy by another boy.
“I look what?”
“Nice...” Satoshi sat on his rock again. Sho sat beside him, no longer wary. But much too close that Satoshi found himself drowning in the boy’s doe-eyed gaze. He looked away and made a great show of reaching out for his backpack on the ground. “Where do you live, Sho-kun?”
Sho frowned, curious rather than suspicious. “Why?”
“I thought, maybe, we can walk home together...?” Satoshi stood up and slung his bag on his shoulders. He was still feeling a little flushed for saying that one word. Nice? Who the hell told a boy he looked nice? Satoshi had not even told Becky she looked nice! Although, that’s probably because Aiba had already given him fair warning.
“I’ll walk with you.” Sho jumped to his feet.
And Satoshi’s heart skipped in his chest. He had already figured that Sho was small, but standing side by side now and seeing that the boy was a full head and a half shorter than he was stirred a sort of protective instinct in him. He was suddenly remembering that chipmunk from when he was five.
“You go here, right?” Sho pointed to the path between the trees straight ahead, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I go the other way.”
“Then shouldn’t I walk you home?” What kind of an ass would Satoshi be if he let this boy walk with him, then go all the way back on his little munchkin legs? Were those legs even allowed to walk yet?!
Sho shook his head. “You can’t. Dad won’t like it.”
“Why not?”
“Coz you’re a stranger.”
Satoshi almost burst out laughing at the way Sho was glaring at him like the boy thought he was the most threatening thing on earth. He certainly wasn’t. Satoshi doubted he would ever be.
They decided to meet here the next day, with nobody walking anybody anywhere. Satoshi picked his bike up and got ready to leave.
“I’ll see you, Satoshi-kun.”
Satoshi glanced back and for a moment wondered why he even had to go. To this day, he would close his eyes and still remember the way Sho had smiled at him like he was the best thing that ever happened to the boy’s life, and his heart would start racing the same way it did back then.
◄~ Ж ~►
“Satoshi-kun, what’s a mom?”
Satoshi turned to Sho in utter disbelief. “You don’t know what a mom is?”
“No.” Sho pouted like he was feeling stupid. Satoshi’s heart swelled like he could almost smile.
He had been in a serious funk the entire weekend, hounded by memories of his mom while he was down with the flu. He had never before felt a stronger urge to come to Mimura and be with Sho. He had almost torn his tendons off pedaling. Yet, he had already been here for close to an hour and all he’d been able to say was, “I miss my mom,” before slumping down flat on the ground and fixing his gaze to the skies.
Sho had given him space, like the boy somehow understood what he needed without words being said. His question had come at just the right timing, too. A little bit earlier and Satoshi would’ve deliberately ignored him. A little later and Satoshi would’ve already fallen asleep—
“A mom is like a dad, only warmer. And prettier.”
“Eeeh... I wish I had a mom.” Sho’s voice was soft and wishful and blended naturally with the afternoon breeze. “How was your mom like, Satoshi-kun?”
The candid interest in those huge, round eyes just pulled the words out from Satoshi’s lips, besides the fact that talking about his mom was one of Satoshi’s favorite things. Everything that she was to him, everything that he loved about her, he shared them all with Sho. And it warmed him up to see that Sho was taking everything he was saying to heart. You could easily just lose yourself in that gaze.
“Hey, maybe I can be your mom!”
The eagerness surprised Satoshi more than the words. It was so unexpected and silly that his lips began to slacken into a smile. “Are you serious?”
“See! I’m already making you smile. That’s a start!”
Satoshi’s smile turned into full blown laughter. “You can’t be a mom, Sho-chan!”
“Why not?!” Sho sat up and pouted. “I can learn your favorite songs, too! And we’ll sing them together while I hold your hand.” Sho grabbed Satoshi’s hand with both of his. “See? I can do this.”
Satoshi frowned, not really quite sure what to make of this whole deal. He felt like he should punch Sho for even thinking about taking over his mother’s place. But seeing how the boy’s smile was all hopeful cluelessness, whatever trace of annoyance he thought he should be feeling just melted.“You’re weird.”
Sho gripped his hand and stared into his eyes deeply enough to burn his cheeks. “But I can still be your mom, right?”
Satoshi looked away, but did not stop his fingers from folding around Sho’s hand. Sho’s palm felt warm and nice against his. “It’s okay to just be Sho-chan, you know...”
“Okay,” Sho said, his cheeks turning a faint shade of pink. “I’ll be your Sho-chan then.”
Satoshi knew then that he might have done something right. Because how else could a boy even deserve meeting two special persons in a single lifetime?
continued in next page>>>>>
