Pick Up The Pieces and Forge Ahead

I hear the alarm on Shinichi’s his phone go off.

He finally wakes up and turns the alarm off.

He gets up and wanders to the bathroom and gets the thermometer.

I look at the result: 37.9’C, a lot better than last night but, he doesn’t know that.

He goes back to the the bed, gets his phone and makes a call.

“Hello? It’s Kitaji. I have a really bad cold so I need to take today off…I’m at 37.9 so it’s probably best to stay home for a day at least…OK…Thank you very much. I will rest up and should be able to come in tomorrow.”

He ends the call, collapses back on the bed and falls asleep.

Good, he’s going to stay home to rest up.

I know in the past he would have just gone where ever he wanted anyway regardless of his health until a doctor would finally make him stay home.

Oh yeah, I should check on Hiroko to figure out what Demon Lord said.

I close my eyes, think of Hiroko and go to where Hiroko is at.

I open my eyes and I am in Hiroki’s bedroom again.

I see her here but Hiroki is not.

“Hi Hiroko. How are things going here?”

“Oh! Michiru-san I did not expect to see you so soon. What brings you to see me?”

“I wanted to see how Hiroki was doing. Has there been any more bad dreams or fever spikes since you beat the crap out of that kappa?”

“You do not have to say it like that. It is rather embarrassing. As for Hiroki I have not noticed any issues physically. He is rather healthy at the moment.”

“That’s great! I am glad to hear that. So why are you here and not with him?”

“Oh, I was just looking at what he has and noticed that he has toys which is fine and healthy for a child. I don’t see any edutainment toys though. He seems to be behind developmentally.”

“I see, aren’t Hiroki’s grandparents helping raise him?”

“Yes, but they are rather on in years. I mean yes, they have the basics of course. They did raise three children but, that was over three decades ago. They are in the twilight of their years. They should not have to be burdened with raising another child.”

“Yeah, they should be spoiling him and then giving him back to his parents like normal grandparents.”

“I did not get the chance to be his mother but, I am trying my what I can but, I feel like I’m more overwhelmed than most living mothers.”

“I would think so.”

I put my index finger on my chin and start thinking.

“Did you have an epiphany?”

“Maybe, I’ll be right back.”

I fast travel back to my old bedroom.

Good it doesn’t look like my parents have started packing everything up yet.

I go into my closet, grab a box and open it.

Here it is.

I go back to Hiroki’s room.

“Here, try this.”

I hand Hiroko a small stack of books.

“What are these books?”

“These are books that helped me when I was about his age. You wouldn’t know it but I had some speech problems early on. My parents got these for me and they helped me not just with my speech but also it was probably when I fell in love with books.”

“Oh, I cannot take…”

“Don’t you even say you can’t take these. These were going to be for when Shinichi and I had a child together but, they were probably going to be sold or worse since my parents are going to convert my room into an office.”

“You could give them to Shinichi for when he has a child.”

“You’re gonna make your senpai angry if you don’t take them.”

“I’m sorry, thank you very much for your help.” She says as she bows to me.

“Alright then. I’ll leave you to it. I need to head back and see how Shinichi’s fever is.”

“Oh! I hope is fine.”

“He just got a cold from being in that storm yesterday. So, I encountered something like the kappa that you fought while he was running a high fever. You should probably keep an eye open for any sort of relapse. The Demon Lord I fought said ‘I may have failed but we still have the child.’ So, I don’t know if there is still something or he was unaware of what you did.”

“A Demon Lord?! Oh my! That sounds dreadful.”

“It’s ok now. We took care of him but, that final line he said stuck in my head. Hiroki is the only ‘child’ I know about and if he means Takahiro then that doesn’t make sense since he’s an adult now.”

“I see, I will have to remain more vigilant around Hiroki from now on. Thank you for the warning and for the teaching aids.”

“Oh, hey you wouldn’t happen to have any sports drink here, would you?”

“I believe there is some in the refrigerator.”

“You wouldn’t mind if I grab a bottle, would you?”

“That would be no problem at all. It is the least I can with everything you have done for me so far. Let me get you a bottle.”

She disappears and then almost as soon as she left, she returns and hands me the bottle.

“Here you go. I hope Shinichi recovers well.”

“Thanks, he’ll be fine. His fever has already gone down.”

“That is good to hear.”

“I gonna head back to him now so, take care and good luck.”

“You take care as well.”

She waves to me as I go back to check on Shinichi.

Once I get back to Shinichi’s apartment, I see him still resting.

I put the bottle of sports drink next to his bed.

I grab book five and fast travel to the empty apartment next door.

I occupy space by the wall that separates the two apartments so that I’m able to poke my head through and I can keep an eye on him.

He gets up to use the bathroom and, on his way, back he notices the bottle sitting next to his bed.

He cocks his head and says, “When did I? Never mind.”

He grabs the bottle and drinks about half of it, sets it back down and goes back to sleep.

Once I finish the fifth book, I place it back on the shelf and grab the next book and continue reading it next door.

Finally, I caught up to the new books, well new to me that is.

I really wanna know what happens next.

As I’m reading night finally comes and I see him starting to stir and wake up.

He finishes up the sports drink, puts on some clothes and a mask and heads out the door.

Where could he be going?

I guess I could follow him.

I put the sixth book back on the shelf and follow him out the door.

He heads down the street and I realize just where he’s heading now, the convenience store.

Well, I assume it’s probably for more sports drink but I guess I can see what else he’s looking at.

I follow him into the store and he heads to the drink section.

He grabs a large bottle of sports drink, one of the 750 mL type, and then stops by the manga section.

He picks up a couple of them and puts them back not too impressed with them.

Eventually he picks up one, a monthly called “Mid-day” and spends quite some time on it.

He decides to take it with him to the counter.

“Will this be all?”

“Uh, I’ll get the kara-age as well.”

“Okay, one sports drink, one manga and one kara-age will be seven hundred eighty-two Yen.”

Shinichi pulls out a 1000-Yen bill from his pants pocket and places it on the plastic tray in front of the cashier.

“Out of one thousand Yen, your change is two hundred and eighteen Yen.”

The cashier bows and says, “Thank you for coming.”

Shinichi grabs his bag, puts the change in his pants pocket and heads back to his apartment.

We walk back to his apartment and he munches down on his kara-age along the way.

Once we get to his apartment, he finishes off the food and tosses the wrapper in the trash.

He takes the manga and sports drink to his bed and settles back in.

He starts reading the manga occasionally taking large drinks from the sports drink.

Eventually he stops reading, puts the manga down by the sports drink and falls asleep.

Well, it’s night time what should I do?

I know, I’ll get that suit!

But, where?

How about one of those expensive Italian ones actually from Italy.

I could go there and grab what I need and pop back.

Maybe that’s a bit too much plus I heard they need to be tailored and I can’t exactly ask them to do that let alone speak Italian.

Simplest is the best, I guess.

I don’t recall a shop at the shopping arcade that sold normal suits, the kind you’d see the typical office worker wear.

Department store it is then.

I grab the waist and inseam measurements from a few of his pants that he uses for work.

I hold my hands up, close my eyes and think of a department store that I would go to with my parents or Shinichi.

I open my eyes and I am here at the department store by the men’s wear section.

Browsing through the shirts, bottoms and jackets I quickly get one of each of the correct sizes.

Right, the easy part is done now the item that ties it all together, the tie.

A dad joke?

I don’t make dad jokes, that’s Shinichi’s area of expertise.

Whatever, back to the ties.

There’s a bunch of choices here.

Solid color and if so what color?

How about one with a pattern but what pattern and then also what color?

Tie, clip-on or zip up?

Wide or skinny?

Sheesh, one accessory that’s important to the whole suit but, can represent the person’s individuality.

I guess that’s why it’s so difficult to choose just one.

Hmm, maybe I’ll get a red one.

He always liked the color red.

What’s this?

I notice a small section of clearance ties.

Most are just ugly and probably why they’re here but one of these are not like the others.

I reach out and pick up a leather tie.

Wow, now this, this is different.

It’s black, has a skinny shape and is a zip up type.

From a distance it looks like a normal black tie but once you get up close it hits you all stealth like.

The fact that it is leather is odd.

You don’t see many of them if at all.

Maybe some rocker ordered it and didn’t pick it up.

Who cares, it’s mine now!

Or should I say soon to be Shinichi’s.

OK, one suit ready to go.

I’ll keep it in the empty apartment for the time being.

I think the timing is going to be important.

One more day before he goes to see Takahiro’s project and it’s getting close to morning so I’ll just wait for him to wake up and then I’ll keep reading until the next night and then pay him a visit in his dreams.

Well, one to last temperature check before he gets up.

I put the thermometer in his mouth and wait for the result.

37.3, just a little high but okay.

He’ll be fine today.

I wait around by his bed keeping an eye on him until, 7:30 finally comes and his alarm goes off.

He wakes up does his own temperature check and then does his morning routine.

After he leaves, I grab book six and continue reading it.

Over the course of the day, I finish off book six and start on book seven.

Wow, it’s gotten really good I can’t wait to see how this story finally ends.

I get about a third of the way through and see it is about time for Shinichi to get home.