Come back

Chapter 26

Shania's P.O.V.

"Yes dad, everything's fine now. No I don't want to go back at the moment," Hiroki sighed while I watched him worriedly out of the corner of my eye.

We were coming back from helping Emilie's dad settle in at her place, and Hiroki had gotten a call from his dad, who apparently wanted to check up on him and asked when he'd be going back to Japan. Hiroki's answer surprised me however. I knew that he had missed his parents a lot during all these years, and I could see, despite my sadness at him having left me for some time, that it did him a lot of good to see his family again. I guess we would have to talk about this, as I did also want to meet his parents someday. We had been together for quite long, and he had met my parents, but I hadn't met his for obvious reasons and it pained me. I was pretty sure that they were nice people, if they helped my Hiroki get better now, despite whatever mistakes they committed before. However, while I was driving was not the time to talk about this.

Hiroki hung up on his dad and leant against the window. He didn't look unhappy but he didn't look happy either, and I didn't like that at all.

"What are you thinking about?"

He looked at me and smiled. "Nothing much, my parents want me to go back, because apparently we didn't get enough time to catch up."

Well, I guessed that we would indeed be having the conversation in the car.

"Do you want to go back?"

"I... yes? I mean, I do want to see my parents and the rest of my family. But I don't want to leave you alone again..." he sighed.

Didn't he realise at all that I could go with him? Or did he think I wouldn't want to?

"Well then, I'd just have to go with you. Unless you don't want me to meet your family?" I hesitated a bit before adding that last part, afraid that that was really the case. What if he for some weird reason didn't want me to meet his family? What if he was ashamed? I tried to think of anything I could have done that would him ashamed of me in front of his family, but couldn't come up with anything.

"No no! I do want you to meet them!" He hurried to reassure me. "I just didn't think of that possibility... but you're right! We could go both of us and then you can meet my family and you can also visit Japan and I can show all the places I like and all the touristy places as well and then you can buy all those touristy things that people seem to like and I can take you to eat real Japanese food and then you can just fall in love with Japan!"

I stared at him for a full minute before getting out of the car and going to open his door. Did he really want me to go to Japan that badly?

"That sounds great! Now, why don't you tell your parents that we could both go there? And ask them when would be convenient for them? Meanwhile, I'll cook us some dinner and then you can tell me all about what you want us to do together in Japan, okay?"

At that, he nodded excitedly and ran into the flat, completely ignoring my sigh and the one million times I told him not to run inside. However, this also made me happy because I hadn't seen him run excitedly in too long, and it meant that my little boy was maybe coming back. I loved big Hiroki just as much as I loved little Hiroki, but I had missed the latter quite a lot lately.

I missed when he'd come up behind me and spontaneously hugging me while whispering a soft "mommy".

I missed listening and watching him play with his stuffies while I was doing something else, and I missed playing with him as well.

I missed the cuddle time we'd have while watching different animated films, and how he knew all the dialogues and songs by heart in his favourite ones, one of which was of course My Neighbour Totoro.

I missed his excited squeals when he saw something cute or that he liked.

I wanted my little boy to come back so I could take care of him properly.

Sighing, I washed my hands and went to the kitchen to figure out what I could cook. Looking through our cupboards, I realised that we had forgotten to buy food today, so I just went with the different pasta rests and the pesto sauce we also had available. I smiled sadly at how one of the said pasta rests was colourful Disney Princess pasta. Maybe it would push Hiroki to become little? Or would it upset him? Should I just cook with the rest? I didn't want to accidentally upset him by doing something wrong, not when he was becoming so much happier.

While I was thinking about this, I suddenly heard some steps behind me and, before I could turn around, some arms wrapped around me tightly. I froze, not knowing how to react. Where my earlier thoughts answered?

"Mommy!"