Helpful Hade is Home!

This antique, oversized single tube, super sized binocular was so much heavier than I thought it would be! Walking home with it was a chore my poor arms couldn't bear for long. But I kept creeping my way back home, inch by inch, like a man posed to carry the heavy burden of another…which was exactly the case.

Once I hit my front door I knew the journey was almost over. There was still a staircase that needed to be climbed, and afterwards it would find its provisional resting place in my room.

“Mom, I’m home!” I announced, a slight huff in my tone as I temporarily set down the telescope. She didn’t respond, which irked me the wrong way. The TV was probably playing too loudly, so she couldn’t hear me over it. “Mom!” I shouted.

“Dinners in the fridge…” mom responded, half hearted and half asleep in the other room, likely exhausted from another day at work. “Eat up honey… It’s your favourite…WcDonalds…” her voice became more distant with each word.

We had my employee discount to thank for that meal. If working there kept food on the table, I wasn’t going to complain about getting my hands dirty with fryer grease. But one day I planned to hire my own cook to make us as many meals as we could stomach.

“Yeah, I’ll get to it. Thanks for picking it up at the restaurant.” I took a moment to raise the blanket over her, then got right back to lugging that equipment upstairs.

“Finally…” I breathed as I set it down in front of my room's window. “I can’t believe Meda-san was strong enough to carry this alone…”

I must have been a weak wimp if she showed me up! But like King Arthur, or H*-man, all the best heroes have a scrawny origin. Obviously I was no exception. A few facedown pictures on my night stand would have made that a lot more real to me, but I didn’t want to explore the memory.

As I sat on my bed to recover my sore arms, I gave the telescope another look, and then compared it to the rest of my room. It was an old antique, for sure, and didn’t quite fit the modern minimalist, black theme of everything around it. The only thing that seemed to jive with it was the radio tucked in the corner of my shelf next to an anime figure of Elvis. It was old, but worked just as well as anything else.

If you guessed it was my prized possession, you’d be right, dear audience. Would you all believe I got it cheap at a yard sale? Old folks sell anything for double digits.

That was one reason I chose to take care of Meda’s old telescope. Even if she’d just recently started using it, it meant a lot to her and I knew the value something like this carried. By all means it may have been junk to everyone else with all the new fancy bells and whistles on the market, but to us these were the things that inspired our dreams.

How many hours did I waste just laying on my bed as a kid, listening to radio shows and music? It’s no surprise that I was going down the path I was.

“Something like this deserves a little care,” I said, staring at the telescope.

It was driving me mad to see it so dingy looking, so…

With some of my cleaning supplies, I spent a little of my precious time clearing all the dirt and grime. I found cobwebs hidden in crevices, and some sort of crust I forced myself to not think about while wiping it away.

Taking care of this telescope reminded me how diligent Mimi was.

She always got to the broadcast center early to clean things up and do maintenance, sacrificing a little of her own free time to do it too. I always liked to take the long way around the school to get as much hype and attention built as I could muster, so I never saw her struggle making preparations.

Maybe I could show up a little early tomorrow to help her get ready for the show for once?

Suddenly the pain in my jaw reminded me I wasn’t going to be performing. So I didn’t ‘need’ to show up. But even still, before meeting with Blondy and handing this back to her, it wouldn’t kill me to make a stop in the center first just to help out. Mimi was doing me a solid, after all.

“All done!” I said, enjoying the fresh sparkle and lemon scent on the telescope. I could even see my own reflection on that thing now. “Looks great! The telescope’s nice too.”

I chuckled to myself, fairly proud of the hard work I put in for it. But then my empty belly was demanding I fill it with cheap Wcnuggets, and I wasn’t about to leave it unsatisfied...

📻🎤👑

The next day of school came and went and I found myself getting to the broadcast room long before the final bell rang. I was so much earlier than Mimi that the lights were off and the blinds were shut. The room looked so…luminal… It gave me the shivers.

But I wasn’t afraid of any ghosts and stepped in. Now, where did she keep the cleaning supplies…?

...

So far so good! This place really needed a freshening up!

“Hade?” Mimi uttered as she stepped through the doors. “What are you doing here?”

“Ahh, Mimi!” I whipped the sweat off my brow. “I figured I’d stop by early and give you a hand setting up.”

“Oh no…” she dropped her bags, scurried over and scrambled her hands across the sound board, making sure everything was in order. “Y-you actually set it up right.” She looked at me in bewilderment. “Well, right enough.”

She immediately pressed her hand to my forehead.

“Uh, what’s up, Mimi-chan?” I asked.

“No fever,” she confirmed. “Did that injury do something to your head, Hade?” she asked.

“No.” I chuckled. “I’m still the wonderful man you know and love.”

“Love is pushing it,” she said, pulling me out of her seat. “Thanks for the help. You saved me some time, and I appreciate it. But I’ll take it from here. Also, what’s with the telescope?” she pointed to the observing device in the corner of the room.

“That’s something I’m holding for someone,” I said, not sure if I should give her the whole complicated story. I mean, I could have, but that was a few chapters worth of its own to explain. “Hope you don’t mind if I leave it here for now.”

“Look at you, being helpful like you tell others to be,” she smiled. “Hade, I don’t know what this is about, but you're being really cool today.”

She thought being helpful is cool? Everyone called me cool. But for some reason, hearing her say that just then felt genuine.

“Helpful Hade aims to please, milady.” I bowed to her, playfully .

“At ease, squire,” she giggled. “Alright. I’m on in ten, so I need a few minutes to get myself ready. Are you going to stick around?”

“Actually, I have to meet up with someone in a few to deliver that telescope.”

Her smile sank like the titanic.

“Wait, let me guess…” she sighed. “A girl?”

“Y-” I was going to say ‘yes,’ but I got the vibe that she thought it would be a date. “W-well, yeah. But, it’s not a date or anything,” I clarified.

“Right…” She did not look convinced. “Hade is who Hade is.”

She’d recently been saying that about me whenever she was upset, but not angry. It usually wasn’t a bother, but for some reason this time it kinda’ hit me faintly in the feels.

“Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my head. “I guess I’ll be seeing you then.” I grabbed the telescope and started lugging it out of the room. “Good luck today, Mimi-chan. You’ll do great, as always.”

“That’s the plan,” she nodded. “You have fun too on your ‘not date.’” she said with air quotes.