Yours to Hold (An OHSHC fanfic) [Completed]

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“...hello.”

I leaned closer to the screen, staring at it in disbelief. The boy that had appeared in front of the woman in question was small, so small that I second guessed myself for a moment. At the same time, there were obvious feature to match him to the Takashi I knew. His messy black hair was in almost exactly the same style that it was in now. He stood stiffly and rather straight, not slouched like a normal child would have typically done.

Then there was the boy’s mother. A bright colored hat was settled firmly on her head, but unable to cover up the fact she didn’t have but a few, thin strands of hair. The woman was slightly pale, extremely thin, but wearing a bright smile.

She perfectly fit the image of the Morinozuka woman that I knew very little about- beyond that she’d died when Mori and Satoshi were young.

“She’s just a girl, she won’t bite,” his mother commented, amused. “You can speak a little louder, Takashi.”

The younger me stepped forward leaned towards him curiously.

“Are you really a boy? I’m taller than you and I’m not taller than anyone.”

“Nao!”

A voice that was a bit louder than the the others caught by the camera called out and my breath caught in my throat. The camera moved closer to the scene within a moment and an arm came into view, sitting on my head before both me and the arm disappeared from the camera’s view.

“I’m a boy…” Takashi mumbled.

“Sorry, she’s still learning to use her manners,” the voice continued, sounding slightly embarrassed. “She has them, but… well, as you can see, she’s a bit blunt anyways.”

Takashi’s mother laughed, shaking her head just a little.

“It’s fine. Children are children.”

“Well, I guess girly-boys are pretty,” the younger me announced. “I’m Nao, and I’ve decided what I’m going to call you. You can be Taka-chan.”

I scrambled for the remote and hit stop. Thoughts  and memories were crashing through my mind, entirely too quick for me to keep up with them. The sound of my mother’s voice, which I had almost forgotten, prompted tears to my eyes that I just barely managed to beat back.

All of them seemed like they’d heard of me before when I visited Honey’s house.

Mori seemed to know a lot about me.

Of course, if we’d met once he might have actually picked up those articles when they’d come out. When he read them, he would have learned those simple things I’d found interesting that he knew.

He’s surprisingly good at dance.

Perhaps he’d developed an interest because of his mother.

‘How about Taka-kun?’

I shook my head when Honey’s mother’s question pushed past the other memories.

How could I not remember that?

Even as I asked the question of myself, I knew the answer. When you combined how young I’d been at the time with the falling off the playset later that week, the memory just wasn’t clear. Racking my mind as I was, I couldn’t pull up the actual moment.

Hell, I hadn’t recognized him even faintly when I first saw Mori at school. Although, I suppose I hadn’t been paying much attention to other people in the last year. Perhaps if the contact had come at some other time I would have at least thought he looked familiar.