ʏᴀɴɴɪ | ᴏ.ꜱʜᴏᴛᴀʀᴏ

-Pain, Pain, Go Away-

"Hm?" Shotaro tilted his head slightly to the side. "Who told you the same thing?"

You blinked, staring back down at the table as you tried to conjure an answer and your nail scratched against the pill bottle's cap.

"Don't worry about it..."

"Oh..." It took a couple of seconds for Shotaro to slowly nod his head, not wanting to press you. "Okay. Well, you want something to drink?"

"Ain't legal yet..."

"It doesn't have to be alcohol, silly." He chuckled. "Get whatever you want. I know I'm getting me a beer..."

While you scanned through the menus on the table, you turned your head to look down at your palm, watching the pill bottle slide out of your sleeve. You flicked the cap off and poured two capsules into your hand.

"Is that a treble clef tatt on your neck?"

You looked up at Shotaro again. "What?"

He pointed to the side of his neck, and you mimicked his movements, your fingers brushing over the slightly raised scarring from your relatively new tattoo. "Yeah..."

"You got any more tatts?"

Though you still felt a little uncomfortable with your current surroundings, talking with this boy seemed to take your mind off of it...you think – the feelings stirring in you were a mix of ones you already knew, and ones you think you might've known, but forgot about.

For lack of better words, you felt weird, and you couldn't tell if that was good or bad...maybe even both...

"I got some on my arms, one right here..." You pointed about an inch below your collarbone. "That's it."

"Dope." Shotaro smiled. "So, you got any questions you wanna ask me? About anything?"

"Do you want me to ask you somethin'?"

"Lowkey, yes..." He giggled. "I'm an open book."

"Mmm." Your tongue drew a circle on the inside of your cheek before you threw back the two pills in your hand in a haste, swallowing them with a soft sigh. "You runnin' shit in Japan, so are you from there?"

"...Y-Yeah, actually, I am." He let out a chuckle. "How'd you tell?"

You shrugged a shoulder. "Shot in the dark, I guess..."

You almost wanted to chuckle at his reaction to you answering him in Japanese – wide eyes, damn near laughing out loud had it not been for the atmosphere. "You're fluent?!"

"I'm mixed; Mom was Japanese..."

His facial expression faltered a bit. "Was?"

"Yeah..." You sighed, feeling the effects of the pills kick in. "She got shot earlier."

Then Shotaro's face dropped completely. "And she...didn't-..."

"Nope."

"Fuck..." He hissed. "What about your dad? Where's he?"

Shotaro started to notice how your eyes were glazing over the more the two of you made eye contact, and he heard you scoff lowly.

"Good question." You leaned against the table. "Wondered that my whole life...Where is that nigga? Where he run off to...?"

You had your eyes set on the floor but they soon floated back up to Shotaro. "I never knew that man."

"...You didn't...?"

"Mm-mm." You shook your head.

"S-So, you're on your own now...You don't have any friends you can stay with?"