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The first time Satoshi felt anger for Sho’s sake was when he discovered the litter of bruises under his friend’s shirt. He had already noticed that the boy was not feeling well, judging by the way Sho had been trying not to wince, and not succeeding much, with every slight movement.
But it wouldn’t be until after he got the sudden, naughty urge to tease his insanely ticklish friend that Sho’s attempts to look and act okay crumbled at their feet.
Sho folded on his knees and held up a hand to Satoshi, gasping and wincing as he pressed his other hand to his side. “Please stop, Satoshi-kun. I can’t laugh anymore. It hurts!”
“What’s wrong? Let me see.” He was no longer in a teasing mood and seeing the way Sho had not even tried to protest, he knew it was clearly showing on his face. He pulled his friend’s shirt up, saw the vivid black and blue stains that looked especially sinister on the boy’s fair skin, and just about turned livid himself. “Where’d you get these?!”
“It’s nothing. Just a little accident at home.” Sho pulled his shirt down and tried to reassure him with a forced chuckle that just ended in another wince. “You’ve already seen how clumsy I can get.”
Satoshi’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. His fists curled so tightly, his knuckles almost popped. “What happened this time?”
“I fell off...”
“From where?”
Sho’s eyes were unsteady, unsure. Almost scared. “The bed...?”
Satoshi doubted that. He wasn’t stupid. Boys didn’t just fall off the bed and ended up with bruises the size and shape of beyblades and pokeballs. Not unless the floor suddenly grew limbs and punched and kicked Sho around. In which case that piss-ass floor was going to have to answer to Satoshi—
But Satoshi decided not to say anything more, even though his whole body was already trembling with rage so thick it was almost physical.
Sho’s hands felt warm and distracting around his fists. “Please don’t cause trouble, Satoshi-kun. Please...”
And he had yet to upgrade his defenses against those pleading round eyes, too. “All right.” He wrapped his arms around Sho and pulled his friend as close to himself as he dared. Sho felt so small and fragile in his arms.
This was all he remembered of that day and it had been enough.
He just turned ten, but he already knew what the rest of his life was all about.
The next time Satoshi came to see Sho, his friend was not alone. There was another boy, and the two of them were running around the clearing, flapping their arms wildly like they thought they could fly. They were having so much fun, Satoshi suddenly felt like an intruder.
“Satoshi-kun!” Sho called out and waved him over. The other boy just glared at him like he was a pest.
He ran to them, smiling at Sho and ignoring the other boy. “What are you doing?”
“We’re flying,” Sho said, then pointed to his companion. “Ah, this is Kazu, my brother. He’s a little shy, but he’s a good boy.”
“We’re twins.” Kazu ignored Satoshi’s extended hand. “Sho-chan’s older. He doesn’t act like it.”
“Shut up, Kazu.”
Satoshi had trouble swallowing back his chuckles. This time Sho glared at him and Kazu began to smile.
But the thing that Satoshi would soon learn was that Kazu was a truly cunning boy. Frighteningly so. He might seem weak, almost sickly, and might always have a ready smile for Satoshi whenever Sho was around, but as soon as his brother wasn’t looking, for every brief moment that Sho would turn his back on them, Kazu’s eyes would just as quickly put on the malevolent sharpness he had first regarded Satoshi with.
The boy did not like him, this much Satoshi could tell. He had also already figured he didn’t like Kazu all that much either. But they both valued Sho enough to try and put up with each other. Satoshi could, at least, appreciate that about the boy.
“Sho-chan’s tired,” Kazu said once when Sho ended up asleep on the ground ten minutes into their playtime.
Satoshi looked at the way Kazu was brushing the hair off Sho’s forehead and wished he was the one doing that. He should be the one doing that. But he kept his hands to himself as he watched Kazu take his backpack off and carefully slip it under Sho’s head. Sho barely stirred in his sleep. His friend was really out of it. “You really like that backpack, huh?”
“Dad gave it to me.” It was a simple school bag, bright yellow and big enough to fit a couple of books in. Satoshi had one just like it in blue, a birthday gift from Matsuoka. Kazu tapped on the sharpie’d image of what looked like a hairy snowman on the backpack’s outside pocket. Satoshi’s bag didn’t have that feature. “See here. Sho-chan drew this. It’s a totoro.”
“What’s a totoro?”
Kazu tapped on the image again and scowled like he thought Satoshi was stupid. “This is a totoro. It’s my Totoro Backpack. I never go anywhere without it.”
Satoshi decided that a totoro might be a strange kind of animal that only existed in Tempest and let the matter go. He was also starting to get annoyed with how Kazu was talking to him like he was the dumbest kid in the world. He needed to calm down and get a hold of himself.
“I don’t like you.”
But then there it was, plain as day. Kazu’s sentiments spelled out to him in full.
“It’s okay,” he said. It was a good thing that Becky had been helping him take better control of his temper. “You’re Sho-chan’s brother, so it’s okay.”
“Stay away from my ‘nii-chan. Please don’t take him away...”
Kazu’s words, his pleading, almost choked-up tone surprised Satoshi. “Kazu, I’m not—”
“Or I swear you’re going to regret it.”
Something about the way Kazu had glared at him made Satoshi’s breath catch in his throat. He felt like a hand had just reached into his head to throttle his brain. He blacked out.
When he shook himself out of the trance, Sho and Kazu were gone. He bolted to his feet and looked around, his heart racing for many different reasons. What was that just now? Where were Sho and Kazu? What the hell was going on?!
He slumped on his rock to catch his breath and try to think things through.
Kazu’s sharp eyes would haunt his dreams later that night.
Satoshi emerged from Mimura Forest one day to find Grandpa Ken waiting for him on the bench beside the nearby Keio Research Center. He only had a vague sense of it then, but he now knew this was when things began to fall apart.
“Are you still looking for that wood fairy, Ohno-kun?” Grandpa Ken’s smile made Satoshi feel wary, though it was an already familiar fixture on the old man’s face.
“No.” He felt like running back into the trees.
“You’ve been coming here often.” Grandpa Ken patted the space beside him on the bench. “Come sit with me for a while.”
Satoshi wheeled his bike over and sat down, taking care not to meet the old man’s eyes. His heart was beating fast, like it could already sense then what was yet to happen several days later.
“What have you been doing in there, kiddo? Masaki tells me he hardly sees you these days.”
If there was anything Satoshi regretted in his life at all, it wasn’t that he got easily wheedled into telling Grandpa Ken about Sho and his brother. But rather that he hadn’t thought of telling the old man sooner.
When Grandpa Ken came with Satoshi to the clearing the next day, Sho was terrified. He instantly backed away and shielded Kazu with himself. Kazu, for his part, looked alarmed, but never really lost the spiteful edge in his eyes.
“Satoshi!” Sho’s voice cracked with agitation. Satoshi had never seen anyone look so betrayed. Sho did tell him not to tell anyone else about them if he didn’t want to cause trouble.
“It’s all right, Sho-chan. He’s my friend.” He was starting to doubt the soundness of Grandpa Ken’s mind, his own reliability. “He’s okay.”
“Let’s go home, Sho-chan. Let’s just go home,” Kazu mumbled, pulling desperately at his brother’s shirt.
But Sho was already beginning to relax by then, and in a small voice, so soft that Satoshi almost missed it, said, “It’s all right, Kazu. I trust Satoshi-kun.”
Sho’s confident smile had a calming effect on Satoshi, too. ‘Over the moon’ could not even begin to describe how high his heart had soared that day.
But Grandpa Ken would have to betray all of them a week later.
And he would do so for a legitimately good cause.
Grandpa Ken wasn’t usually a suspicious man. But there was something about Noriyuki Higashiyama that just struck him the wrong way. The young man was always so polite, so diligent and so clean. Grandpa Ken didn’t have a single complaint about him, couldn’t find fault in his works. Higashi was too careful. Too perfect. Too good to be true. Like he was taking all possible efforts to hide the smell of his own fart.
And Grandpa Ken could easily get wary of such a man. So he had been digging, and had known for quite a while now about Higashi’s connection to Johnny. As to what the young man was doing in Keio, or in Tempest for that matter, Grandpa Ken had had his hunch. But he needed to be sure.
Seeing the two boys in Mimura Forest, stalking them home later to find Higashi’s secret cabin in the woods, and hearing Higashi himself scold Sho for not trying hard enough to learn to fly, was all the confirmation Grandpa Ken needed to pull the rug from under Higashi’s sneaky revenge plot. And with the help of his good friend, Kaga Takeshi, then Adviser to the city mayor, they arranged to have the vengeful scientist quietly sent away to a heavily secured cell at the Uda Uda Asylum in the remote island of Ishii.
Grandpa Ken took the twins to Keio and personally kept a close eye on them while he tried to make sense of Higashi’s files and journals. And Satoshi would come charging there every single day to fight tooth and nail to see his friend.
“Sho-chan will never hurt me! Let me see him, Grandpa Ken!” he insisted each time, varying the words but never losing his grit, his desperation mounting. “Please! I just wanna see him!”
No matter how many times Granpa Ken tried in vain to make him understand that Sho and Kazu were no ordinary kids, he heard none of it. He didn’t care about any of it. They even once had to call Matsuoka to pry him off Grandpa Ken’s office table, give him a full-blown whack on the head worthy of a grown man, and demand that he explain himself on the ride back home.
“What the hell is this all about, Ohno?!”
“I think I did something wrong, Matsu-nii.” He sobbed and wiped the back of his hand to his eyes. He felt embarrassed for crying like a baby, but was just too upset to help himself. “I think I did something wrong. And now I can’t see Sho-chan anymore.”
“Is crying gonna make things any different?” Nagase asked, like he was talking to a drinking buddy he was starting to get annoyed with. Satoshi had barely even noticed he was there. Or that Matsuoka’s constant companion had been driving. “If there’s something you should be doing to make things right, then do it smartly. You don’t just wing your temper around and expect people to give you what you want.”
“Exactly what Yone would say,” Matsuoka agreed.
Satoshi didn’t doubt that at all. But his mom would at least hold and comfort him and try to take the edge out of those words. He guessed that was just too much to ask from an almost-dad. Or two. He sniffed. “I’m just a boy. What else can I do?”
“You’re almost eleven.” Matsuoka turned to him from the passenger’s seat. The older man’s eyes looked almost mild behind his clear glasses. “If you can’t be man enough to fight for what you want now, then when are you gonna start?”
It was on Nagase’s hard-body pickup truck, aptly named Black Mamba, that Satoshi made his first decision as a man.
The next time he went to see Grandpa Ken, he did so after checking his temper and childish delusions of entitlement at the door.
“I’m not gonna ask you to let me see Sho-chan anymore. I just need you to promise me one thing.”
Grandpa Ken clutched his hands together on the table and leaned forward, giving Satoshi his full attention, like a man would to another man. “All right, Ohno-kun.”
Satoshi took a deep breath and clenched his fists on his thighs. “Grandpa Ken, promise me that you’ll take good care of him,” he said without squeaking like he had been afraid he might. “...and his brother,” he found it appropriate to add as an afterthought. “Because Sho-chan loves Kazu very much. And Kazu is really a good kid, he’s just a little shy. And he really, really hates my guts, but that’s okay ‘coz he’s Sho-chan’s brother. So please take good care of him, too.”
“I will.” A small smile touched Grandpa Ken’s lips, but his eyes did not lose the sincere interest that Satoshi needed to keep going.
“Promise me that they’re never going to get hurt, not by you or by anybody else, okay?”
“Sho-kun is a nice boy,” Grandpa Ken said. “He keeps Kazunari-kun under control as well. They’re both going to be all right, Ohno-kun. I’ll make sure of that.” The old man held Satoshi’s gaze and in that small space both men knew they understood each other on the same level.
“I have one other thing to ask.”
“Yes, kiddo?”
“Please tell Sho-chan I’ll be waiting for him.” It was actually more a warning of sorts for the old man than anything else.
“Okay, Ohno-kun.” Granda Ken gave him a full smile this time. “I promise you’ll see him again. Baka Tono’s Honor!”
Satoshi snorted on a reflexive chuckle when the old man swiped his hand under his chin and jutted out his jaw while saying, “Aiin!”
Grandpa Ken’s sudden spurts of humor had always felt oddly reassuring. Satoshi decided it did not matter how long he would have to wait.
Knowing that he wouldn’t be waiting in vain was good enough.
Satoshi was twelve when Grandpa Ken finally made good on his promise.
Aiba came to school one day with Sho and Kazu in tow. The brothers were all dressed up and ready for their classes, though they both looked like they’d much rather be somewhere else. Kazu still had his Totoro Backpack with him, and Sho still had the uncanny ability to strike Satoshi dumb. He could not even decide what to do first, or what to feel first for that matter. Sho gave him a wary smile and he came close to tearing up.
“Grandpa said you’ll help me get them settled, Oh-chan,” he thought he heard Aiba say.
He also thought he heard Aya and Becky fawning excitedly all over their new friends.
There were a lot of things he thought was happening around him that did not really matter. All he wanted to do at that point was hold Sho’s hand and pull the boy aside, talk and laugh with him like they used to. But Sho would not even meet his eyes.
Did his friend resent him for what he did? Because he could clearly tell from Kazu’s stolen glances that the sullen boy did. If Sho felt the same, he would understand. And he would apologize and make up for it until he was forgiven. Until he could be friends with Sho again.
“It’s... not that at all... Satoshi-kun...” Sho stuttered when they finally got the chance to break away from everyone else at lunch. “I’m not mad or anything. I’m just... do you really... do you still really want to be my friend? I mean...”
Satoshi reached out for Sho’s hand and felt a minute ache in his chest when Sho flinched and tried to pull away. He just held on tighter. “Look at me. Come on look.”
Sho kept his head low. Satoshi pulled the boy’s face up gently by the chin and moved his own head to chase after Sho’s elusive gaze. He jutted his chin out and changed his voice, pulled off a few other shticks he used to do to make his mom laugh, and a couple of the new ones he learned from Grandpa Ken, until Sho was finally doubling over in laughter.
“It’s gonna be okay, Sho-chan,” Satoshi said as soon as their eyes met and their fingers interlaced. “We’re gonna be okay.”
They had about two years of okay.
Sho adjusted fairly well to his new life. And aside from going into a full-scale panic attack whenever he saw a swarm of girls heading his way, regardless of whether or not they were after him, he was mostly normal. He did well in school. Showed such naive interest and passion for it that always gave Aya and Becky an excuse to tease Satoshi and Aiba for being school bums by comparison.
Sho had a tendency to beat himself up over the tiniest mistakes, though; would often go into a whole different scale of panic attack when things did not go as he had planned; and could sometimes be quite the smarty pants, who had more than once narrowly escaped getting beaten into a bloody pulp by Satoshi’s constant presence beside him.
Kazu, on the other hand, kept mostly to himself. He did what he could in school, but generally rejected any other kind of interactions with everybody else aside from his brother. The first and only time they saw him smile was when he had his first taste of hamburger and fries at the Kinki Kids Diner. Aiba had also once given Kazu a pair of Doraemon underpants as a birthday present, hoping to get a laugh out of the boy, or any other reaction, really, that did not involve grimacing and calling Aiba a moron.
“Doesn’t he look like that thing on your backpack?”
Kazu matched his enthusiasm with the customary grimace. “It’s Totoro.”
“Right. Well, this is his cousin, Doraemon. See?”
“He’s blue!”
“Yeah. That’s because he’s male.”
“What?!”
“He’d be female if he was pink, right?”
“You’re a moron!” Kazu grunted, but snatched the underpants from Aiba’s hand anyway and stuffed it into his backpack.
Aiba was the closest thing to a friend Kazu ever had.
Kyoko Fukada’s family moved to Tempest the year Satoshi was fourteen. And while every other boy in school fell head over heels for her, she in turn took interest in the one boy who never once looked at her that way.
She wasn’t usually so bold, but being in a new place, a new environment, she thought she’d try to have more spunk and go for the things she liked without giving in to hesitation.
She wasn’t the first girl Satoshi had rejected, but she was the only one who asked, “Why?” and actually showed sincere interest in what Satoshi had to say.
“I... sort of have someone...”
“Sort of?”
“It’s just that... I’m not sure if it’s... if this person is okay with this... you know.”
Kyoko smiled. “Is it Kyupi?”
“His name’s Sho-chan!” The angered edge in his own voice surprised Satoshi. He knew Kyoko was just teasing, but it did not make the word sound any less offensive to him.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that, they call him by a lot of names.”
“Well, he annoys a lot of people.”
“I think he’s cute, though.” Kyoko was taking this so well that Satoshi started wondering if he had just dreamed about her confession. “And the way you’ve been protecting him is what I like the most about you. I wish I could have someone like that.”
“You’ll find him.” He didn’t think it was the right thing to say, but he did feel that if things were any different, he wouldn’t find it hard at all to like Kyoko back.
“I’m only fifteen, after all. No need to rush, right?” Kyoko sighed, then narrowed her eyes at Satoshi. “But you already have the person you like right in front of you, what’s keeping you from confessing to him, Ohno-kun?”
“It’s a little complicated...”
“Tell him. I think you owe me that much for breaking my heart.”
Satoshi looked at Kyoko and just had to smile at how the girl could both be encouraging and teasing at the same time. She wouldn’t have trouble at all fitting in with Aya and Becky.
He waited a few minutes after Kyoko left before stepping out of the music room.
And the very moment he saw Sho, he found himself wondering, Hell, why not?
Kyoko’s sweet sixteen birthday soiree gave them all a reason to dress up, and Satoshi the perfect setting to finally tell Sho how he felt.
They all crowded around Ai Haruna’s Jidai Boutique in the afternoon, trying out the dresses and suits Ai and her mother had drafted out for them a week earlier. Ai squealed all over them as she made the final adjustments to their outfits.
Afterward, Mrs. Ohnishi took Aya and Becky to another room to fix their hair and dab their faces with a little color. While Aiba kept himself busy fooling around and relentlessly teasing Ai, their new-half friend, with her birth name.
“I told you not to call me Kenji anymore! Mou!” Ai screamed as she chased the snickering Aiba, wielding a rolled up newspaper all over the place.
Sho was laughing so hard at the sight of it, he looked like his spleen could burst at any moment and he wouldn't even realized it.
Beside him, all decked in a black suit and a perpetual scowl, Kazu looked like a mini funeral parlor director with the charm and enthusiasm of a corpse.
Satoshi, for his part, kept his mesmerized gaze glued on the image of himself and Sho on the mirror right across from them.
They had both opted for a suit vest over a white dress shirt. Satoshi’s was black and Sho’s was gray. Sho had a red necktie on while he had a blue one. He could not get over how good they looked just standing right beside each other like that. He felt a pleasant fluttering in his chest over it, making him want to reach out and take Sho's hand.
But Kazu had already pulled the startled Sho away and was already dragging him out through the back door.
Satoshi heard Ai clicking her tongue beside him. “That boy is not gonna make things easy for you, Ohno-kun.”
Aiba, in his ruffled dress shirt and light green suit, crossed his arms and leaned on Satoshi’s other side. “That boy’s got serious issues. I think he needs therapy.”
“Your outfit screams ‘I need therapy’, Aiba-kun,” Ai teased.
“Why don’t we all go together then, Kenji?”
Satoshi sighed and fixed his gaze to the back door as Ai and Aiba chased each other around the shop all over again.
An odd mix of excitement and anxiety suddenly began to build up inside him, making his heart skip, his throat clench, and his head spin—
He was out cold before he even hit the floor.
Despite what happened to Satoshi at the boutique and Kazu running off screaming, "I've had enough of this! I'm going home!", the rest of them made it just in time for Kyoko’s party that evening.
But unlike their three friends, Satoshi did not really like this type of fancy gathering. He liked it even less when Sho did not show much interest in it either.
“Is something bothering you?” he whispered close to Sho’s ear. There wasn’t really much noise around and the music was pretty subdued. He just wanted an excuse to get as close to Sho as possible. Tonight was going to be the night after all. Or so he hoped.
“It’s Kazu,” Sho mumbled, like he was having second thoughts about whether or not to tell.
“Don’t worry about him. He knows his way home. Grandpa Ken will take care of him.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Sho could no longer keep his agitation. “Kazu, he... he went back home to Mimura.”
“Why would he do that?!”
“I don’t know if I should tell you... I didn’t think it would matter—”
Satoshi gripped Sho’s hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Tell me.”
Sho took a deep breath. “Grandpa Ken told us this morning that Dad died in prison yesterday.”
“What?”
“Kazu’s pretty devastated.”
“I’m sorry.” Satoshi felt cold and numb all of a sudden. He could not help thinking he was to blame.
“It’s okay.” Sho rubbed a thumb on Satoshi’s hand, like he thought Satoshi was the one who needed to be comforted. “Please don’t think me heartless or anything, but it’s really okay. Kazu’s always been the one closest to our dad.”
Satoshi did not say anything, didn’t really think he should. He was remembering that time he saw the bruises on Sho and his hand tightened instantly around his friend’s.
“Dad’s always been hard on me,” Sho said with a wry smile. “And what he’s been telling us were all lies. Tempest is not a bad city. Everybody has been nice to us. But Kazu still thinks Dad’s right. And now he’s very angry.”
“He’ll come around,” Satoshi offered.
Sho shook his head slowly. “What happened to you back there, at Ai-san’s dress shop, Kazu did that.”
“It was heatstroke—”
“It was Kazu,” Sho insisted. “He threatened to hurt you, and he did. I didn’t know he could do things like that. But he’s been using his powers in secret despite Grandpa Ken’s warnings. He’s been harnessing it. I’m afraid he’s gonna do something.”
“What exactly can Kazu do?” Satoshi had never thought it was appropriate to ask, but now he felt like he should know.
“He controls minds. But he’s getting stronger. He can do a whole lot of other stuffs I’ve never seen him do before.”
“And... what about you? What can you do, Sho-chan?”
Sho bowed his head, lowered his voice. “Not much. I flew once, but that was that. I got so scared the first time, I never wanted to do it again. It had always pissed Dad off.”
“You can fly?” Satoshi was having a hard time wrapping his mind around all of this. “Like, really fly?”
“Not anymore.” Sho pointed the forefinger of his free hand up and added, “I once shot a bolt of energy from this finger and it hurt Kazu pretty badly, so I didn’t want to do that again, either. I just want to be a normal kid.”
A small sob escaped Sho’s lips and Satoshi’s arms instantly went around his friend. He felt like he should tell someone else about this. Someone older. But the last time he did that, he ended up not seeing Sho for more than a year.
So, no. He was going to have to fix this on his own. He was already starting to itch in his suit too, and any excuse to get out this place would be worth all the trouble.
“Let’s go talk to Kazu, all right?” he said. “I’ll come with you. We’ll take my bike.”
How many ways could you say ‘I love you’ when it really mattered?
That night, Satoshi realized you’d hardly even have time to get a single word out.
As soon as they made it to the clearing, an unseen force barreled right into them and threw them back into the trees. The impact took a wheel off Satoshi’s bike and brought the taste of blood to his mouth. His back hurt and there was a deafening buzz in his ears that’s making it impossible to regain his balance. He tripped and landed on his face for the third time. He could not find Sho anywhere.
“Sho!” he called out, pulling himself forward along the ground. He snapped his head to the faint voices to his left, yanked himself up against a tree, and could just about make out Sho and Kazu in the clearing. Kazu still had his party outfit minus the black suit. He must’ve left his Totoro Backpack somewhere.
“Kazu, stop!” Sho pleaded. His back was on Satoshi, palms stretched out in front of him in an apparently lost bid to keep Kazu from advancing into the trees.
“Dad warned us about this place!” Kazu snarled. Dirt and small pieces of rocks made the air billowing around him visible. “You didn’t listen to him! You never listened to him!” He flicked his wrist and threw a bigger chunk of rock at Sho. Sho parried it away with his arm. Kazu flicked his wrist again and again, one after the other, sending a shower of rocks on Sho as he kept up with his angry tirade, driving his brother closer and closer to the trees. “That idiot has turned you against us! You betrayed us, Sho! It’s your fault Dad’s dead! You and that idiot you call your friend!”
Satoshi staggered towards the clearing, pawning strength and support from the trunks lining his path. Every step he took sent a scorching rush of pain shooting through his spine. He didn’t care. He had to get to Sho fast.
“I’m sorry. Kazu, please! I’m sorry! Don’t hurt him, please! STOP!”
The moment Kazu’s gaze met his, Satoshi knew he was screwed. Kazu threw his arm back and lifted a boulder the size of a bean bag chair from behind him. Satoshi only had a moment to watch it sail towards him before he glimpsed a red beam coming his way. It rammed into his chest like a sledgehammer and threw him back and out of the way of Kazu’s boulder. His back hit a tree trunk, knocking the air out of his lungs.
“Satoshi!” he thought he heard Sho call out as he tried to shake himself out of a dizzy spell. He could feel a trickle of blood at the corner of his lips. He wiped it away with his hand as he struggled to his feet.
“You suck!” Kazu said with sinister delight. “Who knew your poor aim could actually be of use? Maybe I’ll just have you kill him for me, O-nii-cha-n!”
“I’m begging you, please Kazu! Stop this—!”
Kazu waved his hand and sent Sho hurtling a yard away behind him. “Then again, I’d rather you watch me do it.” He sent another boulder flying towards Satoshi in the same breath.
Satoshi stepped back instinctively and froze. He knew it was too late. He could hear Sho screaming. Then he felt a weight plow into him. He hit the ground with a grunt and was forced to roll a couple of times as the boulder cracked against the tree.
“You’re heavy,” Grandpa Ken groaned from under him. He took a moment to figure out what happened before pulling away and helping the old man up, wanting to say thanks but just not finding the time for it now.
There was a full-scale commotion happening in the clearing at this point. Satoshi could not even begin figuring out who was doing what, or what exactly was being done, but he could tell that things were just getting started and were on their way to becoming worse.
Grandpa Ken pulled him behind a tree. Satoshi fell to his knees as the world suddenly began spinning. The air was rife with the anger and desperation being fought out in the field in ways and means that would've only looked normal if they were in a comic book universe where the laws of gravity and sanity held no sway.
The late night breeze was making Satoshi shiver and ache all over too, so bad that it wouldn't have been an exaggeration to think he was dying and was merely seeing things that weren't really there.
How could Sho and Nino even move that fast? Where were those bolts of electricity zit-zapping around coming from? Was he still alive or had he already died and went straight to anime heaven. Or hell—?
His thoughts were abruptly cut by Grandpa Ken kneeling down beside him and holding up a pistol-type syringe to his face. It had a stainless steel sleeve around a glass barrel filled to the last gradient with a yellow liquid. Satoshi had seen this before. The old man had already told him what it could do.
He gasped. “No.” The dread was already chasing all his pains away.
“It’s for Kazunari, Ohno-kun,” Grandpa Ken said, as though to reassure him. Like that could make him feel better. “We have no other choice. I need your help. Can you stand?”
Satoshi nodded, even though he had yet to figure out how to do that. He pulled his suit vest and tie off and took Grandpa Ken’s offered support. A tree burst into flames behind them. Another one to their left just fell over as though in a faint.
They were only able to take a couple of steps before the air around them began to roar and they were suddenly being sucked by the same vicious force that had just uprooted a couple of trees nearby. They hid behind the nearest tree, anchoring themselves to it as they shared an unspoken prayer that it would not hand them over to whatever it was that seemed to be gulping down bits and pieces of Mimura. Dust swirled all around them. The leaves were rustling desperately to be spared.
“YOU CAN SAVE THAT IDIOT! BUT CAN YOU SAVE A WHOLE CITY, SHO-CHAN?!”
The ground began to shake. Satoshi thought he heard Sho’s voice calling out to his brother. He dared a peak around their tree-shield and saw what looked like a wormhole yawning angrily in the middle of the clearing. Kazu was standing before it, Sho before his brother. Their feet weren’t even touching the ground. Satoshi heard their tree creak and felt it lean forward, like it couldn’t wait to join its brethrens that had already crossed over through the hole.
For a moment Satoshi thought he was dreaming. He hoped he was dreaming. He should really stop reading those mangas Aiba had been passing to him in class.
But he was still here when he opened his eyes. The ground was still shaking. The air was still roaring. And Sho was still in the brink of danger and he had yet to do something about it.
Grandpa Ken pulled him back when he tried to slip out of their hiding place. He only took a couple of seconds to look at the old man to protest before a deafening explosion and then a loud, bloodcurdling scream echoed through the forest.
Then the ground stopped shaking. The air suddenly grew calm. Satoshi peered around the tree again just in time to see a red dome-shaped force field fade away to reveal a deep wide dent where the clearing used to be. He rushed towards it limping.
“Sho!” His voice cracked with fear. He could hear Grandpa Ken calling out behind him, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He saw Sho right in the middle of the dent, doubled over and groaning in pain. Kazu was nowhere in sight. So was the wormhole.
Satoshi didn’t even stop to think how he was going to get to his friend. He just threw himself into gravity’s mercy and slid and rolled down the slope.
“Sho-chan!” He wrapped his arms around his friend at once. Sho was shaking violently and was grabbing his head. “Sho-chan, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m here. It’s okay—”
“Get out of here, Satoshi-kun,” Sho sounded like he was choking. His next words came out in a mere gasp. “Get out.”
“Let’s go.” Satoshi tried to pull Sho up to his feet. Sho did not even budge. He was a lot heavier now than Satoshi remembered. Stronger.
“I can’t—Satoshi-kun, please! I can’t—stop it—anymore—Get away—” Sho let out one final squeal. And then he was gone.
Or at least, the Sho that Satoshi knew was gone. The one that took his place was controlled by a mindless rage that took Satoshi by the collar with one hand and threw him off without another thought. Satoshi saw no recognition in his friend’s bloodshot eyes. Only a cold, vicious will to cause pain and destroy everything in sight.
Sho shot bolts of energy from his hands in rapid-fire. It took all of Satoshi’s blind, adrenaline-fueled will to dodge every one of them, running around and rolling on the slopes. He wanted to attack Sho, to hold his friend down and bring some sense back into him, but Satoshi could not even get a foot closer to the rampaging boy.
Then he caught sight of Grandpa Ken on top of the dent. Sho followed his gaze and shot a bolt in the direction of the old man. Grandpa Ken ducked and rolled out of the way. Satoshi did not waste a second and barreled right into Sho, shoving the boy to the ground.
Sho reacted quickly by pushing him away with such brute strength that stunned him out of focus. He lay on the ground for far too long, giving Sho a chance to kick his side and punch his face twice. The pain reverberated all the way to his soul. There was no way he could ever hurt Sho like that. But how was he going to make this right without causing a little pain?
Satoshi caught Sho’s fist and used the boy’s own momentum and a kick to the hip to send Sho sprawling beside him. He flipped to his feet and felt his chest clench as he caught sight of Grandpa Ken again. This time the old man was holding out the syringe with an unspoken plea. We have no choice, Ohno-kun.
That was when he first felt the wrath of Sho’s energy bolts, red tendrils of malice snaking around his limbs, making every nerve ending it passed burst into white-hot pain. Satoshi screamed and fell to his knees. He heard Grandpa Ken calling out to him, “We have to do this Ohno-kun—!”
He heard the old man’s breath hitch. Saw Sho floating off the ground towards the old man, his hands aimed for the kill. Satoshi grabbed Sho’s leg and gave it a forceful yank, startling Sho out of his flight. The growling boy fell on top of him.
“Ohno-kun!” Grandpa Ken called out again, this time with more authority. “If Sho-kun makes it out of here like this, we won’t be able to protect him anymore! You’ve got to help me out here, kiddo!”
Satoshi thought he had already lost his heart a couple of minutes ago, but he realized it was still beating painfully inside his chest. Sho pulled him up by his collar and threw him off again. Grandpa Ken slid down the slope, determined to do what needed to be done, with or without Satoshi’s consent.
Sho turned to the old man. Satoshi sucked in a deep breath to keep his tears from falling. He stood up and screamed, “Sho-chan!”
Sho’s attention turned to him. He saw Sho raise his hands and shoot out bolts of energy at him again. They wrapped him up tight and thick, digging into his skin like a hundred thousand bee stings striking him all at once. It made his blood boil, his flesh sizzle, his whole body shake in a desperate attempt to keep itself together.
He met Sho’s gaze a split-second before he finally lost his battle with unconsciousness. The last sight he saw was that of Sho’s purely malicious, bloodshot eyes. The last sound he remembered hearing was Sho’s anguished screams.
He woke up a month later to the sight of Sho, looking at him as though the boy could almost remember everything that they had been to each other. But Satoshi knew better. Sho would never again remember everything that happened before. It was the side effect of the serum injected into him by Grandpa Ken to mess his brains up enough to take his powers away—or at least, block his perceptions of it.
It was the unfortunate price Satoshi had to pay to keep Sho by his side, even more than losing his ability to feel physical pain.
He didn’t think he could ever survive going through all of that a second time.
“It was never written in Higashi’s journals,” Aiba explained, turning to Satoshi and then to Sho. “But it didn’t really take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened to you, Sho-chan. You have always been the stronger twin, but your own reluctance to use your powers took a toll on you and you were hardly able to contain and control the sudden burst of energy you used to save Tempest from your own brother. It made you mad and brought you back to the raw instincts inculcated into you by your father: Tempest is a bad city. All people in it are bad. Sho-chan and Kazu-chan live for only one purpose: destroy Tempest. This line was written on the walls of your cabin. You and Kazu have written it yourselves. Over and over until it’s imprinted deep into your minds.”
Satoshi felt Sho’s grip loosen, saw his partner’s mouth slacken into a look of utter dread. “I did this to you?”
“It wasn’t your fault, Sho-chan.” Satoshi squeezed his partner’s hand. “I never blamed you for it, so don’t even start.”
Sho turned to Grandpa Takeshi, who gave him a nod and a reassuring smile. But Sho’s eyes still shone with restrained tears, and an unyielding determination to set things right. “I need to do something I want to do something.”
Satoshi closed his eyes tight and wished this was all just a dream. A very, very bad nightmare. He really should lay-off those spicy foods he’d been stuffing his face with of late.
But he was still here. And he was still holding Sho’s hand. And Sho had really just said those words like he didn’t care at all about the consequences.
“Then we’re going to have to get you ready,” Aiba was saying, but Satoshi was only barely listening at this point. “To face your brother.”
This was the worst case of déjà vu. Ever.
tbc~
***The raven story mentioned was Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven.
◄~ Ж ~►
The first time Satoshi felt anger for Sho’s sake was when he discovered the litter of bruises under his friend’s shirt. He had already noticed that the boy was not feeling well, judging by the way Sho had been trying not to wince, and not succeeding much, with every slight movement.
But it wouldn’t be until after he got the sudden, naughty urge to tease his insanely ticklish friend that Sho’s attempts to look and act okay crumbled at their feet.
Sho folded on his knees and held up a hand to Satoshi, gasping and wincing as he pressed his other hand to his side. “Please stop, Satoshi-kun. I can’t laugh anymore. It hurts!”
“What’s wrong? Let me see.” He was no longer in a teasing mood and seeing the way Sho had not even tried to protest, he knew it was clearly showing on his face. He pulled his friend’s shirt up, saw the vivid black and blue stains that looked especially sinister on the boy’s fair skin, and just about turned livid himself. “Where’d you get these?!”
“It’s nothing. Just a little accident at home.” Sho pulled his shirt down and tried to reassure him with a forced chuckle that just ended in another wince. “You’ve already seen how clumsy I can get.”
Satoshi’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. His fists curled so tightly, his knuckles almost popped. “What happened this time?”
“I fell off...”
“From where?”
Sho’s eyes were unsteady, unsure. Almost scared. “The bed...?”
Satoshi doubted that. He wasn’t stupid. Boys didn’t just fall off the bed and ended up with bruises the size and shape of beyblades and pokeballs. Not unless the floor suddenly grew limbs and punched and kicked Sho around. In which case that piss-ass floor was going to have to answer to Satoshi—
But Satoshi decided not to say anything more, even though his whole body was already trembling with rage so thick it was almost physical.
Sho’s hands felt warm and distracting around his fists. “Please don’t cause trouble, Satoshi-kun. Please...”
And he had yet to upgrade his defenses against those pleading round eyes, too. “All right.” He wrapped his arms around Sho and pulled his friend as close to himself as he dared. Sho felt so small and fragile in his arms.
This was all he remembered of that day and it had been enough.
He just turned ten, but he already knew what the rest of his life was all about.
◄~ Ж ~►
The next time Satoshi came to see Sho, his friend was not alone. There was another boy, and the two of them were running around the clearing, flapping their arms wildly like they thought they could fly. They were having so much fun, Satoshi suddenly felt like an intruder.
“Satoshi-kun!” Sho called out and waved him over. The other boy just glared at him like he was a pest.
He ran to them, smiling at Sho and ignoring the other boy. “What are you doing?”
“We’re flying,” Sho said, then pointed to his companion. “Ah, this is Kazu, my brother. He’s a little shy, but he’s a good boy.”
“We’re twins.” Kazu ignored Satoshi’s extended hand. “Sho-chan’s older. He doesn’t act like it.”
“Shut up, Kazu.”
Satoshi had trouble swallowing back his chuckles. This time Sho glared at him and Kazu began to smile.
But the thing that Satoshi would soon learn was that Kazu was a truly cunning boy. Frighteningly so. He might seem weak, almost sickly, and might always have a ready smile for Satoshi whenever Sho was around, but as soon as his brother wasn’t looking, for every brief moment that Sho would turn his back on them, Kazu’s eyes would just as quickly put on the malevolent sharpness he had first regarded Satoshi with.
The boy did not like him, this much Satoshi could tell. He had also already figured he didn’t like Kazu all that much either. But they both valued Sho enough to try and put up with each other. Satoshi could, at least, appreciate that about the boy.
“Sho-chan’s tired,” Kazu said once when Sho ended up asleep on the ground ten minutes into their playtime.
Satoshi looked at the way Kazu was brushing the hair off Sho’s forehead and wished he was the one doing that. He should be the one doing that. But he kept his hands to himself as he watched Kazu take his backpack off and carefully slip it under Sho’s head. Sho barely stirred in his sleep. His friend was really out of it. “You really like that backpack, huh?”
“Dad gave it to me.” It was a simple school bag, bright yellow and big enough to fit a couple of books in. Satoshi had one just like it in blue, a birthday gift from Matsuoka. Kazu tapped on the sharpie’d image of what looked like a hairy snowman on the backpack’s outside pocket. Satoshi’s bag didn’t have that feature. “See here. Sho-chan drew this. It’s a totoro.”
“What’s a totoro?”
Kazu tapped on the image again and scowled like he thought Satoshi was stupid. “This is a totoro. It’s my Totoro Backpack. I never go anywhere without it.”
Satoshi decided that a totoro might be a strange kind of animal that only existed in Tempest and let the matter go. He was also starting to get annoyed with how Kazu was talking to him like he was the dumbest kid in the world. He needed to calm down and get a hold of himself.
“I don’t like you.”
But then there it was, plain as day. Kazu’s sentiments spelled out to him in full.
“It’s okay,” he said. It was a good thing that Becky had been helping him take better control of his temper. “You’re Sho-chan’s brother, so it’s okay.”
“Stay away from my ‘nii-chan. Please don’t take him away...”
Kazu’s words, his pleading, almost choked-up tone surprised Satoshi. “Kazu, I’m not—”
“Or I swear you’re going to regret it.”
Something about the way Kazu had glared at him made Satoshi’s breath catch in his throat. He felt like a hand had just reached into his head to throttle his brain. He blacked out.
When he shook himself out of the trance, Sho and Kazu were gone. He bolted to his feet and looked around, his heart racing for many different reasons. What was that just now? Where were Sho and Kazu? What the hell was going on?!
He slumped on his rock to catch his breath and try to think things through.
Kazu’s sharp eyes would haunt his dreams later that night.
◄~ Ж ~►
Satoshi emerged from Mimura Forest one day to find Grandpa Ken waiting for him on the bench beside the nearby Keio Research Center. He only had a vague sense of it then, but he now knew this was when things began to fall apart.
“Are you still looking for that wood fairy, Ohno-kun?” Grandpa Ken’s smile made Satoshi feel wary, though it was an already familiar fixture on the old man’s face.
“No.” He felt like running back into the trees.
“You’ve been coming here often.” Grandpa Ken patted the space beside him on the bench. “Come sit with me for a while.”
Satoshi wheeled his bike over and sat down, taking care not to meet the old man’s eyes. His heart was beating fast, like it could already sense then what was yet to happen several days later.
“What have you been doing in there, kiddo? Masaki tells me he hardly sees you these days.”
If there was anything Satoshi regretted in his life at all, it wasn’t that he got easily wheedled into telling Grandpa Ken about Sho and his brother. But rather that he hadn’t thought of telling the old man sooner.
When Grandpa Ken came with Satoshi to the clearing the next day, Sho was terrified. He instantly backed away and shielded Kazu with himself. Kazu, for his part, looked alarmed, but never really lost the spiteful edge in his eyes.
“Satoshi!” Sho’s voice cracked with agitation. Satoshi had never seen anyone look so betrayed. Sho did tell him not to tell anyone else about them if he didn’t want to cause trouble.
“It’s all right, Sho-chan. He’s my friend.” He was starting to doubt the soundness of Grandpa Ken’s mind, his own reliability. “He’s okay.”
“Let’s go home, Sho-chan. Let’s just go home,” Kazu mumbled, pulling desperately at his brother’s shirt.
But Sho was already beginning to relax by then, and in a small voice, so soft that Satoshi almost missed it, said, “It’s all right, Kazu. I trust Satoshi-kun.”
Sho’s confident smile had a calming effect on Satoshi, too. ‘Over the moon’ could not even begin to describe how high his heart had soared that day.
But Grandpa Ken would have to betray all of them a week later.
And he would do so for a legitimately good cause.
◄~ Ж ~►
Grandpa Ken wasn’t usually a suspicious man. But there was something about Noriyuki Higashiyama that just struck him the wrong way. The young man was always so polite, so diligent and so clean. Grandpa Ken didn’t have a single complaint about him, couldn’t find fault in his works. Higashi was too careful. Too perfect. Too good to be true. Like he was taking all possible efforts to hide the smell of his own fart.
And Grandpa Ken could easily get wary of such a man. So he had been digging, and had known for quite a while now about Higashi’s connection to Johnny. As to what the young man was doing in Keio, or in Tempest for that matter, Grandpa Ken had had his hunch. But he needed to be sure.
Seeing the two boys in Mimura Forest, stalking them home later to find Higashi’s secret cabin in the woods, and hearing Higashi himself scold Sho for not trying hard enough to learn to fly, was all the confirmation Grandpa Ken needed to pull the rug from under Higashi’s sneaky revenge plot. And with the help of his good friend, Kaga Takeshi, then Adviser to the city mayor, they arranged to have the vengeful scientist quietly sent away to a heavily secured cell at the Uda Uda Asylum in the remote island of Ishii.
Grandpa Ken took the twins to Keio and personally kept a close eye on them while he tried to make sense of Higashi’s files and journals. And Satoshi would come charging there every single day to fight tooth and nail to see his friend.
“Sho-chan will never hurt me! Let me see him, Grandpa Ken!” he insisted each time, varying the words but never losing his grit, his desperation mounting. “Please! I just wanna see him!”
No matter how many times Granpa Ken tried in vain to make him understand that Sho and Kazu were no ordinary kids, he heard none of it. He didn’t care about any of it. They even once had to call Matsuoka to pry him off Grandpa Ken’s office table, give him a full-blown whack on the head worthy of a grown man, and demand that he explain himself on the ride back home.
“What the hell is this all about, Ohno?!”
“I think I did something wrong, Matsu-nii.” He sobbed and wiped the back of his hand to his eyes. He felt embarrassed for crying like a baby, but was just too upset to help himself. “I think I did something wrong. And now I can’t see Sho-chan anymore.”
“Is crying gonna make things any different?” Nagase asked, like he was talking to a drinking buddy he was starting to get annoyed with. Satoshi had barely even noticed he was there. Or that Matsuoka’s constant companion had been driving. “If there’s something you should be doing to make things right, then do it smartly. You don’t just wing your temper around and expect people to give you what you want.”
“Exactly what Yone would say,” Matsuoka agreed.
Satoshi didn’t doubt that at all. But his mom would at least hold and comfort him and try to take the edge out of those words. He guessed that was just too much to ask from an almost-dad. Or two. He sniffed. “I’m just a boy. What else can I do?”
“You’re almost eleven.” Matsuoka turned to him from the passenger’s seat. The older man’s eyes looked almost mild behind his clear glasses. “If you can’t be man enough to fight for what you want now, then when are you gonna start?”
It was on Nagase’s hard-body pickup truck, aptly named Black Mamba, that Satoshi made his first decision as a man.
◄~ Ж ~►
The next time he went to see Grandpa Ken, he did so after checking his temper and childish delusions of entitlement at the door.
“I’m not gonna ask you to let me see Sho-chan anymore. I just need you to promise me one thing.”
Grandpa Ken clutched his hands together on the table and leaned forward, giving Satoshi his full attention, like a man would to another man. “All right, Ohno-kun.”
Satoshi took a deep breath and clenched his fists on his thighs. “Grandpa Ken, promise me that you’ll take good care of him,” he said without squeaking like he had been afraid he might. “...and his brother,” he found it appropriate to add as an afterthought. “Because Sho-chan loves Kazu very much. And Kazu is really a good kid, he’s just a little shy. And he really, really hates my guts, but that’s okay ‘coz he’s Sho-chan’s brother. So please take good care of him, too.”
“I will.” A small smile touched Grandpa Ken’s lips, but his eyes did not lose the sincere interest that Satoshi needed to keep going.
“Promise me that they’re never going to get hurt, not by you or by anybody else, okay?”
“Sho-kun is a nice boy,” Grandpa Ken said. “He keeps Kazunari-kun under control as well. They’re both going to be all right, Ohno-kun. I’ll make sure of that.” The old man held Satoshi’s gaze and in that small space both men knew they understood each other on the same level.
“I have one other thing to ask.”
“Yes, kiddo?”
“Please tell Sho-chan I’ll be waiting for him.” It was actually more a warning of sorts for the old man than anything else.
“Okay, Ohno-kun.” Granda Ken gave him a full smile this time. “I promise you’ll see him again. Baka Tono’s Honor!”
Satoshi snorted on a reflexive chuckle when the old man swiped his hand under his chin and jutted out his jaw while saying, “Aiin!”
Grandpa Ken’s sudden spurts of humor had always felt oddly reassuring. Satoshi decided it did not matter how long he would have to wait.
Knowing that he wouldn’t be waiting in vain was good enough.
◄~ Ж ~►
Satoshi was twelve when Grandpa Ken finally made good on his promise.
Aiba came to school one day with Sho and Kazu in tow. The brothers were all dressed up and ready for their classes, though they both looked like they’d much rather be somewhere else. Kazu still had his Totoro Backpack with him, and Sho still had the uncanny ability to strike Satoshi dumb. He could not even decide what to do first, or what to feel first for that matter. Sho gave him a wary smile and he came close to tearing up.
“Grandpa said you’ll help me get them settled, Oh-chan,” he thought he heard Aiba say.
He also thought he heard Aya and Becky fawning excitedly all over their new friends.
There were a lot of things he thought was happening around him that did not really matter. All he wanted to do at that point was hold Sho’s hand and pull the boy aside, talk and laugh with him like they used to. But Sho would not even meet his eyes.
Did his friend resent him for what he did? Because he could clearly tell from Kazu’s stolen glances that the sullen boy did. If Sho felt the same, he would understand. And he would apologize and make up for it until he was forgiven. Until he could be friends with Sho again.
“It’s... not that at all... Satoshi-kun...” Sho stuttered when they finally got the chance to break away from everyone else at lunch. “I’m not mad or anything. I’m just... do you really... do you still really want to be my friend? I mean...”
Satoshi reached out for Sho’s hand and felt a minute ache in his chest when Sho flinched and tried to pull away. He just held on tighter. “Look at me. Come on look.”
Sho kept his head low. Satoshi pulled the boy’s face up gently by the chin and moved his own head to chase after Sho’s elusive gaze. He jutted his chin out and changed his voice, pulled off a few other shticks he used to do to make his mom laugh, and a couple of the new ones he learned from Grandpa Ken, until Sho was finally doubling over in laughter.
“It’s gonna be okay, Sho-chan,” Satoshi said as soon as their eyes met and their fingers interlaced. “We’re gonna be okay.”
◄~ Ж ~►
They had about two years of okay.
Sho adjusted fairly well to his new life. And aside from going into a full-scale panic attack whenever he saw a swarm of girls heading his way, regardless of whether or not they were after him, he was mostly normal. He did well in school. Showed such naive interest and passion for it that always gave Aya and Becky an excuse to tease Satoshi and Aiba for being school bums by comparison.
Sho had a tendency to beat himself up over the tiniest mistakes, though; would often go into a whole different scale of panic attack when things did not go as he had planned; and could sometimes be quite the smarty pants, who had more than once narrowly escaped getting beaten into a bloody pulp by Satoshi’s constant presence beside him.
Kazu, on the other hand, kept mostly to himself. He did what he could in school, but generally rejected any other kind of interactions with everybody else aside from his brother. The first and only time they saw him smile was when he had his first taste of hamburger and fries at the Kinki Kids Diner. Aiba had also once given Kazu a pair of Doraemon underpants as a birthday present, hoping to get a laugh out of the boy, or any other reaction, really, that did not involve grimacing and calling Aiba a moron.
“Doesn’t he look like that thing on your backpack?”
Kazu matched his enthusiasm with the customary grimace. “It’s Totoro.”
“Right. Well, this is his cousin, Doraemon. See?”
“He’s blue!”
“Yeah. That’s because he’s male.”
“What?!”
“He’d be female if he was pink, right?”
“You’re a moron!” Kazu grunted, but snatched the underpants from Aiba’s hand anyway and stuffed it into his backpack.
Aiba was the closest thing to a friend Kazu ever had.
◄~ Ж ~►
Kyoko Fukada’s family moved to Tempest the year Satoshi was fourteen. And while every other boy in school fell head over heels for her, she in turn took interest in the one boy who never once looked at her that way.
She wasn’t usually so bold, but being in a new place, a new environment, she thought she’d try to have more spunk and go for the things she liked without giving in to hesitation.
She wasn’t the first girl Satoshi had rejected, but she was the only one who asked, “Why?” and actually showed sincere interest in what Satoshi had to say.
“I... sort of have someone...”
“Sort of?”
“It’s just that... I’m not sure if it’s... if this person is okay with this... you know.”
Kyoko smiled. “Is it Kyupi?”
“His name’s Sho-chan!” The angered edge in his own voice surprised Satoshi. He knew Kyoko was just teasing, but it did not make the word sound any less offensive to him.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that, they call him by a lot of names.”
“Well, he annoys a lot of people.”
“I think he’s cute, though.” Kyoko was taking this so well that Satoshi started wondering if he had just dreamed about her confession. “And the way you’ve been protecting him is what I like the most about you. I wish I could have someone like that.”
“You’ll find him.” He didn’t think it was the right thing to say, but he did feel that if things were any different, he wouldn’t find it hard at all to like Kyoko back.
“I’m only fifteen, after all. No need to rush, right?” Kyoko sighed, then narrowed her eyes at Satoshi. “But you already have the person you like right in front of you, what’s keeping you from confessing to him, Ohno-kun?”
“It’s a little complicated...”
“Tell him. I think you owe me that much for breaking my heart.”
Satoshi looked at Kyoko and just had to smile at how the girl could both be encouraging and teasing at the same time. She wouldn’t have trouble at all fitting in with Aya and Becky.
He waited a few minutes after Kyoko left before stepping out of the music room.
And the very moment he saw Sho, he found himself wondering, Hell, why not?
◄~ Ж ~►
Kyoko’s sweet sixteen birthday soiree gave them all a reason to dress up, and Satoshi the perfect setting to finally tell Sho how he felt.
They all crowded around Ai Haruna’s Jidai Boutique in the afternoon, trying out the dresses and suits Ai and her mother had drafted out for them a week earlier. Ai squealed all over them as she made the final adjustments to their outfits.
Afterward, Mrs. Ohnishi took Aya and Becky to another room to fix their hair and dab their faces with a little color. While Aiba kept himself busy fooling around and relentlessly teasing Ai, their new-half friend, with her birth name.
“I told you not to call me Kenji anymore! Mou!” Ai screamed as she chased the snickering Aiba, wielding a rolled up newspaper all over the place.
Sho was laughing so hard at the sight of it, he looked like his spleen could burst at any moment and he wouldn't even realized it.
Beside him, all decked in a black suit and a perpetual scowl, Kazu looked like a mini funeral parlor director with the charm and enthusiasm of a corpse.
Satoshi, for his part, kept his mesmerized gaze glued on the image of himself and Sho on the mirror right across from them.
They had both opted for a suit vest over a white dress shirt. Satoshi’s was black and Sho’s was gray. Sho had a red necktie on while he had a blue one. He could not get over how good they looked just standing right beside each other like that. He felt a pleasant fluttering in his chest over it, making him want to reach out and take Sho's hand.
But Kazu had already pulled the startled Sho away and was already dragging him out through the back door.
Satoshi heard Ai clicking her tongue beside him. “That boy is not gonna make things easy for you, Ohno-kun.”
Aiba, in his ruffled dress shirt and light green suit, crossed his arms and leaned on Satoshi’s other side. “That boy’s got serious issues. I think he needs therapy.”
“Your outfit screams ‘I need therapy’, Aiba-kun,” Ai teased.
“Why don’t we all go together then, Kenji?”
Satoshi sighed and fixed his gaze to the back door as Ai and Aiba chased each other around the shop all over again.
An odd mix of excitement and anxiety suddenly began to build up inside him, making his heart skip, his throat clench, and his head spin—
He was out cold before he even hit the floor.
◄~ Ж ~►
Despite what happened to Satoshi at the boutique and Kazu running off screaming, "I've had enough of this! I'm going home!", the rest of them made it just in time for Kyoko’s party that evening.
But unlike their three friends, Satoshi did not really like this type of fancy gathering. He liked it even less when Sho did not show much interest in it either.
“Is something bothering you?” he whispered close to Sho’s ear. There wasn’t really much noise around and the music was pretty subdued. He just wanted an excuse to get as close to Sho as possible. Tonight was going to be the night after all. Or so he hoped.
“It’s Kazu,” Sho mumbled, like he was having second thoughts about whether or not to tell.
“Don’t worry about him. He knows his way home. Grandpa Ken will take care of him.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Sho could no longer keep his agitation. “Kazu, he... he went back home to Mimura.”
“Why would he do that?!”
“I don’t know if I should tell you... I didn’t think it would matter—”
Satoshi gripped Sho’s hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Tell me.”
Sho took a deep breath. “Grandpa Ken told us this morning that Dad died in prison yesterday.”
“What?”
“Kazu’s pretty devastated.”
“I’m sorry.” Satoshi felt cold and numb all of a sudden. He could not help thinking he was to blame.
“It’s okay.” Sho rubbed a thumb on Satoshi’s hand, like he thought Satoshi was the one who needed to be comforted. “Please don’t think me heartless or anything, but it’s really okay. Kazu’s always been the one closest to our dad.”
Satoshi did not say anything, didn’t really think he should. He was remembering that time he saw the bruises on Sho and his hand tightened instantly around his friend’s.
“Dad’s always been hard on me,” Sho said with a wry smile. “And what he’s been telling us were all lies. Tempest is not a bad city. Everybody has been nice to us. But Kazu still thinks Dad’s right. And now he’s very angry.”
“He’ll come around,” Satoshi offered.
Sho shook his head slowly. “What happened to you back there, at Ai-san’s dress shop, Kazu did that.”
“It was heatstroke—”
“It was Kazu,” Sho insisted. “He threatened to hurt you, and he did. I didn’t know he could do things like that. But he’s been using his powers in secret despite Grandpa Ken’s warnings. He’s been harnessing it. I’m afraid he’s gonna do something.”
“What exactly can Kazu do?” Satoshi had never thought it was appropriate to ask, but now he felt like he should know.
“He controls minds. But he’s getting stronger. He can do a whole lot of other stuffs I’ve never seen him do before.”
“And... what about you? What can you do, Sho-chan?”
Sho bowed his head, lowered his voice. “Not much. I flew once, but that was that. I got so scared the first time, I never wanted to do it again. It had always pissed Dad off.”
“You can fly?” Satoshi was having a hard time wrapping his mind around all of this. “Like, really fly?”
“Not anymore.” Sho pointed the forefinger of his free hand up and added, “I once shot a bolt of energy from this finger and it hurt Kazu pretty badly, so I didn’t want to do that again, either. I just want to be a normal kid.”
A small sob escaped Sho’s lips and Satoshi’s arms instantly went around his friend. He felt like he should tell someone else about this. Someone older. But the last time he did that, he ended up not seeing Sho for more than a year.
So, no. He was going to have to fix this on his own. He was already starting to itch in his suit too, and any excuse to get out this place would be worth all the trouble.
“Let’s go talk to Kazu, all right?” he said. “I’ll come with you. We’ll take my bike.”
◄~ Ж ~►
How many ways could you say ‘I love you’ when it really mattered?
That night, Satoshi realized you’d hardly even have time to get a single word out.
As soon as they made it to the clearing, an unseen force barreled right into them and threw them back into the trees. The impact took a wheel off Satoshi’s bike and brought the taste of blood to his mouth. His back hurt and there was a deafening buzz in his ears that’s making it impossible to regain his balance. He tripped and landed on his face for the third time. He could not find Sho anywhere.
“Sho!” he called out, pulling himself forward along the ground. He snapped his head to the faint voices to his left, yanked himself up against a tree, and could just about make out Sho and Kazu in the clearing. Kazu still had his party outfit minus the black suit. He must’ve left his Totoro Backpack somewhere.
“Kazu, stop!” Sho pleaded. His back was on Satoshi, palms stretched out in front of him in an apparently lost bid to keep Kazu from advancing into the trees.
“Dad warned us about this place!” Kazu snarled. Dirt and small pieces of rocks made the air billowing around him visible. “You didn’t listen to him! You never listened to him!” He flicked his wrist and threw a bigger chunk of rock at Sho. Sho parried it away with his arm. Kazu flicked his wrist again and again, one after the other, sending a shower of rocks on Sho as he kept up with his angry tirade, driving his brother closer and closer to the trees. “That idiot has turned you against us! You betrayed us, Sho! It’s your fault Dad’s dead! You and that idiot you call your friend!”
Satoshi staggered towards the clearing, pawning strength and support from the trunks lining his path. Every step he took sent a scorching rush of pain shooting through his spine. He didn’t care. He had to get to Sho fast.
“I’m sorry. Kazu, please! I’m sorry! Don’t hurt him, please! STOP!”
The moment Kazu’s gaze met his, Satoshi knew he was screwed. Kazu threw his arm back and lifted a boulder the size of a bean bag chair from behind him. Satoshi only had a moment to watch it sail towards him before he glimpsed a red beam coming his way. It rammed into his chest like a sledgehammer and threw him back and out of the way of Kazu’s boulder. His back hit a tree trunk, knocking the air out of his lungs.
“Satoshi!” he thought he heard Sho call out as he tried to shake himself out of a dizzy spell. He could feel a trickle of blood at the corner of his lips. He wiped it away with his hand as he struggled to his feet.
“You suck!” Kazu said with sinister delight. “Who knew your poor aim could actually be of use? Maybe I’ll just have you kill him for me, O-nii-cha-n!”
“I’m begging you, please Kazu! Stop this—!”
Kazu waved his hand and sent Sho hurtling a yard away behind him. “Then again, I’d rather you watch me do it.” He sent another boulder flying towards Satoshi in the same breath.
Satoshi stepped back instinctively and froze. He knew it was too late. He could hear Sho screaming. Then he felt a weight plow into him. He hit the ground with a grunt and was forced to roll a couple of times as the boulder cracked against the tree.
“You’re heavy,” Grandpa Ken groaned from under him. He took a moment to figure out what happened before pulling away and helping the old man up, wanting to say thanks but just not finding the time for it now.
There was a full-scale commotion happening in the clearing at this point. Satoshi could not even begin figuring out who was doing what, or what exactly was being done, but he could tell that things were just getting started and were on their way to becoming worse.
Grandpa Ken pulled him behind a tree. Satoshi fell to his knees as the world suddenly began spinning. The air was rife with the anger and desperation being fought out in the field in ways and means that would've only looked normal if they were in a comic book universe where the laws of gravity and sanity held no sway.
The late night breeze was making Satoshi shiver and ache all over too, so bad that it wouldn't have been an exaggeration to think he was dying and was merely seeing things that weren't really there.
How could Sho and Nino even move that fast? Where were those bolts of electricity zit-zapping around coming from? Was he still alive or had he already died and went straight to anime heaven. Or hell—?
His thoughts were abruptly cut by Grandpa Ken kneeling down beside him and holding up a pistol-type syringe to his face. It had a stainless steel sleeve around a glass barrel filled to the last gradient with a yellow liquid. Satoshi had seen this before. The old man had already told him what it could do.
He gasped. “No.” The dread was already chasing all his pains away.
“It’s for Kazunari, Ohno-kun,” Grandpa Ken said, as though to reassure him. Like that could make him feel better. “We have no other choice. I need your help. Can you stand?”
Satoshi nodded, even though he had yet to figure out how to do that. He pulled his suit vest and tie off and took Grandpa Ken’s offered support. A tree burst into flames behind them. Another one to their left just fell over as though in a faint.
They were only able to take a couple of steps before the air around them began to roar and they were suddenly being sucked by the same vicious force that had just uprooted a couple of trees nearby. They hid behind the nearest tree, anchoring themselves to it as they shared an unspoken prayer that it would not hand them over to whatever it was that seemed to be gulping down bits and pieces of Mimura. Dust swirled all around them. The leaves were rustling desperately to be spared.
“YOU CAN SAVE THAT IDIOT! BUT CAN YOU SAVE A WHOLE CITY, SHO-CHAN?!”
The ground began to shake. Satoshi thought he heard Sho’s voice calling out to his brother. He dared a peak around their tree-shield and saw what looked like a wormhole yawning angrily in the middle of the clearing. Kazu was standing before it, Sho before his brother. Their feet weren’t even touching the ground. Satoshi heard their tree creak and felt it lean forward, like it couldn’t wait to join its brethrens that had already crossed over through the hole.
For a moment Satoshi thought he was dreaming. He hoped he was dreaming. He should really stop reading those mangas Aiba had been passing to him in class.
But he was still here when he opened his eyes. The ground was still shaking. The air was still roaring. And Sho was still in the brink of danger and he had yet to do something about it.
Grandpa Ken pulled him back when he tried to slip out of their hiding place. He only took a couple of seconds to look at the old man to protest before a deafening explosion and then a loud, bloodcurdling scream echoed through the forest.
Then the ground stopped shaking. The air suddenly grew calm. Satoshi peered around the tree again just in time to see a red dome-shaped force field fade away to reveal a deep wide dent where the clearing used to be. He rushed towards it limping.
“Sho!” His voice cracked with fear. He could hear Grandpa Ken calling out behind him, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He saw Sho right in the middle of the dent, doubled over and groaning in pain. Kazu was nowhere in sight. So was the wormhole.
Satoshi didn’t even stop to think how he was going to get to his friend. He just threw himself into gravity’s mercy and slid and rolled down the slope.
“Sho-chan!” He wrapped his arms around his friend at once. Sho was shaking violently and was grabbing his head. “Sho-chan, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m here. It’s okay—”
“Get out of here, Satoshi-kun,” Sho sounded like he was choking. His next words came out in a mere gasp. “Get out.”
“Let’s go.” Satoshi tried to pull Sho up to his feet. Sho did not even budge. He was a lot heavier now than Satoshi remembered. Stronger.
“I can’t—Satoshi-kun, please! I can’t—stop it—anymore—Get away—” Sho let out one final squeal. And then he was gone.
Or at least, the Sho that Satoshi knew was gone. The one that took his place was controlled by a mindless rage that took Satoshi by the collar with one hand and threw him off without another thought. Satoshi saw no recognition in his friend’s bloodshot eyes. Only a cold, vicious will to cause pain and destroy everything in sight.
Sho shot bolts of energy from his hands in rapid-fire. It took all of Satoshi’s blind, adrenaline-fueled will to dodge every one of them, running around and rolling on the slopes. He wanted to attack Sho, to hold his friend down and bring some sense back into him, but Satoshi could not even get a foot closer to the rampaging boy.
Then he caught sight of Grandpa Ken on top of the dent. Sho followed his gaze and shot a bolt in the direction of the old man. Grandpa Ken ducked and rolled out of the way. Satoshi did not waste a second and barreled right into Sho, shoving the boy to the ground.
Sho reacted quickly by pushing him away with such brute strength that stunned him out of focus. He lay on the ground for far too long, giving Sho a chance to kick his side and punch his face twice. The pain reverberated all the way to his soul. There was no way he could ever hurt Sho like that. But how was he going to make this right without causing a little pain?
Satoshi caught Sho’s fist and used the boy’s own momentum and a kick to the hip to send Sho sprawling beside him. He flipped to his feet and felt his chest clench as he caught sight of Grandpa Ken again. This time the old man was holding out the syringe with an unspoken plea. We have no choice, Ohno-kun.
That was when he first felt the wrath of Sho’s energy bolts, red tendrils of malice snaking around his limbs, making every nerve ending it passed burst into white-hot pain. Satoshi screamed and fell to his knees. He heard Grandpa Ken calling out to him, “We have to do this Ohno-kun—!”
He heard the old man’s breath hitch. Saw Sho floating off the ground towards the old man, his hands aimed for the kill. Satoshi grabbed Sho’s leg and gave it a forceful yank, startling Sho out of his flight. The growling boy fell on top of him.
“Ohno-kun!” Grandpa Ken called out again, this time with more authority. “If Sho-kun makes it out of here like this, we won’t be able to protect him anymore! You’ve got to help me out here, kiddo!”
Satoshi thought he had already lost his heart a couple of minutes ago, but he realized it was still beating painfully inside his chest. Sho pulled him up by his collar and threw him off again. Grandpa Ken slid down the slope, determined to do what needed to be done, with or without Satoshi’s consent.
Sho turned to the old man. Satoshi sucked in a deep breath to keep his tears from falling. He stood up and screamed, “Sho-chan!”
Sho’s attention turned to him. He saw Sho raise his hands and shoot out bolts of energy at him again. They wrapped him up tight and thick, digging into his skin like a hundred thousand bee stings striking him all at once. It made his blood boil, his flesh sizzle, his whole body shake in a desperate attempt to keep itself together.
He met Sho’s gaze a split-second before he finally lost his battle with unconsciousness. The last sight he saw was that of Sho’s purely malicious, bloodshot eyes. The last sound he remembered hearing was Sho’s anguished screams.
He woke up a month later to the sight of Sho, looking at him as though the boy could almost remember everything that they had been to each other. But Satoshi knew better. Sho would never again remember everything that happened before. It was the side effect of the serum injected into him by Grandpa Ken to mess his brains up enough to take his powers away—or at least, block his perceptions of it.
It was the unfortunate price Satoshi had to pay to keep Sho by his side, even more than losing his ability to feel physical pain.
He didn’t think he could ever survive going through all of that a second time.
◄~ Ж ~►
Present day...
“It was never written in Higashi’s journals,” Aiba explained, turning to Satoshi and then to Sho. “But it didn’t really take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened to you, Sho-chan. You have always been the stronger twin, but your own reluctance to use your powers took a toll on you and you were hardly able to contain and control the sudden burst of energy you used to save Tempest from your own brother. It made you mad and brought you back to the raw instincts inculcated into you by your father: Tempest is a bad city. All people in it are bad. Sho-chan and Kazu-chan live for only one purpose: destroy Tempest. This line was written on the walls of your cabin. You and Kazu have written it yourselves. Over and over until it’s imprinted deep into your minds.”
Satoshi felt Sho’s grip loosen, saw his partner’s mouth slacken into a look of utter dread. “I did this to you?”
“It wasn’t your fault, Sho-chan.” Satoshi squeezed his partner’s hand. “I never blamed you for it, so don’t even start.”
Sho turned to Grandpa Takeshi, who gave him a nod and a reassuring smile. But Sho’s eyes still shone with restrained tears, and an unyielding determination to set things right. “I need to do something I want to do something.”
Satoshi closed his eyes tight and wished this was all just a dream. A very, very bad nightmare. He really should lay-off those spicy foods he’d been stuffing his face with of late.
But he was still here. And he was still holding Sho’s hand. And Sho had really just said those words like he didn’t care at all about the consequences.
“Then we’re going to have to get you ready,” Aiba was saying, but Satoshi was only barely listening at this point. “To face your brother.”
This was the worst case of déjà vu. Ever.
[D-Day Countdown: T-Minus 11 Days]
tbc~
***The raven story mentioned was Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven.
