The Shinigami Nursery 2 (Sequel)

Chapter 4 - Ronald's Fault

Undertaker poured the tea with shaking hands. A few drops spilled from the cup, landing on the saucer. But nobody noticed. Alan was only playing with William's glasses, sitting on his lap. Grell and Ronald were completely still, exchanging glances between each other every few minutes, before looking to Undertaker. Nobody spoke. Nobody breathed. Until William got annoyed and spoke up. "Aren't you going to drink that?" He snapped, gesturing to the tea. Both younger reapers picked up their cups, their hands shook just as much as Undertaker's did.

"I assume that you have...questions," Undertaker states, each word accompanied by a heavy reluctance. Ronald, with his fiery temper that rivalled Grell's, spoke up first.

"After we got old enough, why didn't you come find us?" The bi-coloured haired man asked, indicating to Undertaker irritably. Ronald still hadn't regained anything. Nothing had been sparked in the young reaper's mind. But if this man had really been his guardian for a year, then I Ronald's mind he had abandoned them. "I mean what, am I not good enough or something old man?"

"Watch it," William defended his lover, but Undertaker waved him off.

"Hey," Ronald flared at the older man. "You don't get to talk, he actually wanted you!"

"Of course he did! I'm the only one of us who has any brains!" Undertaker senses Alan's discomfort from all the yelling. He didn't like yelling himself.

"Oh leave it Will. To answer your question, young Knox, William actually did embers me. I didn't tell him, he never forgot. You had, and I didn't want to reopen old wounds," Undertaker spoke with reasoning. He had always been fascinated by human children, so he had developed a keen insight into their psychology. Reaper children actually seemed very similar in terms of development, however their maturity levels were higher at earlier ages. "I have the feeling you'll understand, in time,"

Ronald just blinked, before slamming his palm in he table and standing up. His eyes were covered by the shadow of his hair. "I'm going to call Eric," he stated, walking off into some unknown back room of the house.

*

"Uncwe Undie!"

Adrian awoke to the cries of his charge from the upstairs room, and on paternal instinct rushed to the room, slamming open the door with enough force to shake the towering funeral parlour. "What's wrong?!" He asked frantically, expecting blood. Instead Ronald was curled up in from of him, tears streaming down his chubby face, head buried into his forearms. He wasn't hurt, and the older boys looked peeved he had woken them up.

"Shut up," William groaned, rubbing his temples. "Uncle Undie Ronnie lost his bear,"

Adrian gasped and ran over, scooping the littlest child into his arms. "Aww my little Ronnie, where's you lose it huh?" He cooed. William huffed.

"If he knew that he'd know whewe it is now!" William complained. Adrian rolled his eyes.

"Ever heard of a sense of humour? You could use some,"  Adrian drawled back. "Now Ronnie baby, let's see if we can find that!"

Adrian had just began to stop using his glasses. He was training himself to see without using his eyes. Walking around with his hair in front of them, he shuffles his feet and listened. Sound waves were deceitful little bastards. What sounding like the shuffling of feet could merely have been the vibrations of other objects on the floor, brought about my movement. If you listened, really listened, then you could find things around you without knowing they were there before.

You had to have good spatial awareness, and Adrian had excellent spatial awareness.  It didn't take him long to detect the lone bear that was just under Ronald's blanket. He feigned looking around for a few minutes so as not to upset the child. "Look who I found!" He announced, lifting the bear up and covering his face with it. He mimicked a weird voice. "Hello Ronnie. It's me Teddy. I'm glad I got found, it was very stuffy under there!"

The child squealed and grabbed his hair, immediately talking to it animatedly. Adrian didn't even mind that Donald hadn't thanked him; the little boy being happy was thanks enough. "You all get back to sleep now," he warned, and, like the chemist he was, released a small dose of codeine into the surrounding air, causing all three kids to fall asleep at once.

^

Ronald seethed at the teddy bear he now held in his palm. Eric hasn't answered after three calls. He spotted the cylindrical metal bin in the corner of the mortuary, and, with a hateful sneer, threw the bear in and banged the lid down. Feeling so hurt and so betrayed.