Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 35: Gar: Hello, Friend

"I'm not sure how much I really understand about what happened next," Gar told Robin. "I mean, Rose and Kitaro didn't witness any of it from inside the house, much less inside the story. If it was Raven there instead of me, she probably be able to say 'Oh, this was happening in the spirit realm while that was going on on the physical plane,' but it was me, not her. We three did talk about it afterward, and as best we could tell, I got sucked into things because I was being a cat and at the same time, I was a kid. Just like Toshio and Mar were, because they were sort of stuck together. It seemed like I was part of them. Either that or because there was a place for a cat in the story and I was a cat, I had to be that cat. Anyway, I was seeing both the real world and what was going on with Ms. Kuwano and Kayako at the same time…"

Had Kayako been born when her parents were young and actively trying to have a family, nearly thirty years before, all would very likely have been well, but she was not. They were set in their ways and tired; at their time of life, a baby was an inconvenience and not a joy. Why should they disrupt their comfortable, quiet lives to accommodate this squalling, messy little creature? And so although she was never deprived of any necessity or mistreated in any way, neither did her parents make any effort on her behalf. It was neglect, but it was a benign neglect.

No play dates with other children in the neighborhood, no trips to the park or the museum, the library or the swimming pool. On rare occasions, she would accompany her mother to the store, but not often because she cried and shook with terror at being in a strange place. She was brought up to be quiet and well behaved, and as long as she was quiet and well behaved, they were happy.

It seemed like this playthrough of her life would follow the pattern of all the others, but then when she was four…

A new family moved in next door. Now when she looked out her bedroom window, she could see a few toys on the windowsill of the house opposite. A couple of days later, when she looked, someone looked back. Another little girl! The girl smiled shyly and waved. Kayako didn't know what to do. She dropped down to the floor and hid.

Later that day, her parents summoned her. The new neighbors had come to visit. They had two little girls, Haruko, who was a newborn, and Yukime, who was exactly Kayako's age. "Would it not be ideal if they became playmates?" asked the stranger lady, the girl's mother.

"Oh, I don't know," Kayako's mother hesitated. "The noise and the running around, the mess…"

"There will be no trouble about that," the stranger lady said. "Our Yukie has a medical condition and can't run around very much. She will be quiet and good—and surely if they play outside or at our house, they won't be troublesome."

"In that case…" Their first play date was the next day. Going into a strange house was not so bad, since all the houses on their street were nearly identical. But it smelled different, and the colors were different. The stranger lady led her to the other little girl's room and left her there. The other little girl was lying on the floor drawing a picture with crayons. "Hello, friend," she said, and scooted over to make room. "I'm drawing trees. You draw the sky."

Kayako sat down and looked at the crayons. Draw the sky? Why not something easy? In books the sky was always blue, which was wrong. The sky was sometimes blue and sometimes grey and other times red and orange and pink, even yellow or purple, and when it was about to storm, sort of a dirty greenish yellow. But then she saw that the girl was drawing apples on the trees, and the apples were yellow and green and red, like real apples, not just red like in books. So Kayako took a pink crayon and started drawing the sky.

In the real world, Yukie had sagged to the floor, supported by Slade, who was stripping off her hat and her scarf. Her hair spilled over his arm, and her color had gone paler, bloodless. He touched her face, felt her neck for her pulse. Deathstroke himself was shiny-faced with sweat. Well, it was swelteringly hot in there.