OBLINE, KUSUO SAIKI.

✶. you crying?

✶ . . . YOU HAD GONE OUT THAT morning to take out the trash and then returned with a child.

A very grumpy, spiky-haired child who was intent on pretending he didn't understand Japanese, apparently.

"Oi, are you deaf? I asked if you wanted to drink anything."

"No." Megumi was tapping on his Nintendo 3DS with all of the enthusiasm of a middle-aged man at work.

You made a face at Megumi behind your fridge door. "Spiky-headed ass."

"Blind old man," Megumi returned without missing a beat.

"Virus."

"Visually impaired."

"Tongari."

"Oreo glasses."

You whipped out a carton of juice and drank directly from it in rage. What kind of kid was this? You hadn't even said anything when you had passed by Toji this morning. He'd looked a little haggard, his hands on his hips as he watched his wife and daughter drive off.

"Hey, kid, are you busy?" he'd called.

Your heart had nearly stopped. It was eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning. You just wanted to relax.

"Uh, no?"

"Good. You can watch my kid then. Does fifteen thousand yen sound okay?"

You were no great lover of children, but money was money, so you'd taken Megumi from Toji and herded him inside your house. Both of your parents were out for the day, and Megumi was pretty quiet. It was easy money.

But that was before Megumi had revealed himself to be a fifty-year-old trapped in a five-year-old's body. The kid didn't like sweets. Didn't like toys. Didn't like dinosaurs, or sharks, or lions, or any animals at all. He was already so jaded that you didn't want to know what he'd be like once he got older.

Whatever. If Megumi didn't want to do anything, that was up to him. You had to finish a paper for English anyway.

You put your laptop and notebook opposite Megumi at the kitchen table. You were just finishing up your second paragraph when Megumi said, "Your handwriting is so messy."

"Hey, who said you could look at my stuff?" You yanked your notebook back from Megumi's grubby fingers.

"I couldn't look at anything. It barely looks like writing."

"Shut up. You don't even know how to read. Leave me alone. I'm trying to work."

"You weren't even working. You're just playing with your pen."

You twirled your pen contemptuously in his face. "You wish you could do this, Tongari."

With surprising swiftness, Megumi took the pen from your fingers. You snickered when he dropped it on his first few tries, but soon he was actually spinning the pen.

"Go play with your 3DS," you snapped, snatching the pen back. You weren't going to say you felt threatened by a kid, but pen-twirling was your thing.

Megumi shrugged and opened his 3DS back up. You pointedly set down the pen and stared at your laptop.

Seven hundred words was way too much for an essay. You had already said everything you'd wanted to say. What else could you yap about?

A cold finger of dread dragged down your spine. You whipped your head around. Megumi gave you a strange look, but you lurched out of your seat when the dread became stronger.

No, not dread. Foreboding.

Kusuo? Is that you?

He didn't reply. Had that been Kusuo? You hadn't known he could communicate long-distance but maybe that was just because he'd never needed to.