Ep. 2: Sketch
Digimon: Brother Watch
“Alright listen up ya big beluga because I’m only gonna say this once...!” Gahoshiimon whips his tail into the ground, creating a loud noise that snaps Moosemon’s attention onto him.
image [https://i.ibb.co/0qyDSfM/6372147d-9096-476a-9b9a-a161db0cd786.png]
“Leave right now, or it’s open season!” Pointing his gatling straight ahead, Gahoshiimon bares his fangs.
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Pop! A pair of toasted bread slices emerges vertically from the toaster. Naomi climbs onto the counter and opens the top cupboard, grabbing two styrofoam plates. She then crawls over to the toaster and carefully places one slice of bread on each before gently lowering herself onto a stool and then the ground.
She carries the bread over to Shinya’s door, which is, curiously, open fairly early in the morning for a Saturday.
Shinya sits at his desk, with a crinkled plastic shopping bag where his repair tools would normally be, and a box of pencils dangling out of it. He squints intently at a blank page in a sketchbook, slowly putting pencil to paper.
“And, they’re just normal cat ears...?” Shinya asks as he hears Naomi’s footsteps, without looking up from the page.
“Uh...” Naomi looks to Shinya’s bed.
“Last I checked!” Sutekimon rubs one of his ears with a paw, then leans back down, resting his head on Shinya’s pillow. Naomi can’t help but notice how much smaller he looks now than he did last night; any ferocity has been completely drained out of him and he’s back to his cute, fluffy self.
image [https://i.ibb.co/YD8Vbfb/4ee9e8a4-35b5-4d68-aa32-b098d9d896d3.png]
“Yep!” Naomi answers with a smile.
“‘Kay, it’s done.” Shinya nods and holds up the drawing to the light. He isn’t usually the type to feel boastful over his work, but for some reason this is different.
“He’s quite the character... so this is Sutekimon!” Shinya turns his sketchbook so Naomi can see it.
image [https://i.ibb.co/cYTPJZT/4ee9e8a4-35b5-4d68-aa32-b098d9d896d3.png]
“WHAT!” Sutekimon sits up in bed. He then uses his arms to leap off and lands in front of the sketchbook, hissing at it. “Shinya... yoooou...” Gritting his teeth, Sutekimon’s eyes narrow onto his prey, and he leaps up, scratching Shinya in the face repeatedly. “Kira Design!!”
Naomi tilts her head as Shinya stares at her for approval. “It’s good, but it reminds me more of him as a baby.”
Shinya nods, causing Sutekimon to flop down and dig his claws into Shinya’s cheeks to hold on. “Ah, yeah. You said he went through two forms before this one right?” Shinya takes his pencil and writes ‘Jigachoomon’ on the page next to his sketch. With his free hand, he grabs a piece of toast and takes a bite.
Sutekimon leaps from Shinya’s face down onto the desk. “Hey! That’s ‘Jikochuumon!’” He folds his arms in front of himself. “WAIT WHAT AM I SAYING. I DON’T LOOK LIKE THAT SHINYA YOU IDIOT!!”
Naomi covers her ears, wincing a bit from Sutekimon’s outburst. Afterwards, she takes a bite from her own toast.
“Oh, and there was one more after ‘Sutekimon’, too.” Shinya notes. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to draw that though...”
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Moosemon lets out a low roar, as if irritated by Gahoshiimon’s request. It starts to stamp its foot into the ground, and is immediately met with a slew of bullets.
image [https://i.ibb.co/yNGmhfJ/3a95735b-15ca-4365-9baf-a2ee029aade2.png]
“Okay no warning shots because this guy freaks me out!” Gahoshiimon pulls back on the trigger with one hand and with the other, guides his cannon to keep the recoil from throwing his shots off track.
“Naomi! You and Shinya can go now, I’ve got this for real this time!” As Gahoshiimon speaks, Moosemon roars in pain, but starts a charge straight through the gunfire. Gahoshiimon is forced to stop his assault and make a leap to safety, clawing into the side of a nearby building.
Shinya feels his pulse in his fingers, as they grip his sister’s back. He feels an unplaceable wave of relief; even without seeing anything to change his mind, simply making a choice to believe in that moment fills him with an overwhelming sense of peace, as though he no longer has to fight anymore.
In contrast, for Naomi, the fight has just begun. She watches Gahoshiimon aim and fire at his foe once more, amazed at the power on display from the friend she only met hours ago.
“Naomi!” Gahoshiimon glances back at her while keeping fire on Moosemon. “Are you listening to me?? Get out of here!”
Moosemon bucks its horns to the side, opening a distortion in space. Even from across the road, the horns impact Gahoshiimon and knock him out from his perch, sending him flying.
“Sutekimon!” Naomi yells, as Shinya holds her back from rushing to his aid once more.
“Hey.” Shinya turns her around. “I believe you. I believe you.” Unable to see the carnage unfolding, Shinya instead focuses on reassuring his sister, embracing her as an apology for his actions.
“He’s in trouble... he’s fighting, but...” Naomi tries to pull away.
“Stop.” Shinya grips her tightly and shakes her to get her attention. “What’s happening? If you want to help, tell me everything.”
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“So the first one was like this!” Shinya holds out his sketchbook again.
image [https://i.ibb.co/PQ9SFSh/354c13ba-eda0-4c72-a072-b7f1b2b21e1e.png]
Naomi blinks in surprise. “Okay, that one’s pretty good!”
“That looks NOTHING like me!” Sutekimon crosses his arms and looks away.
“YukimiPunimon... then Jigashoomon... then, Sutekimon. And finally Gahoshiimon.” Shinya writes all the names down in a line as he speaks. “But, he went back down to Sutekimon afterward, you said. Do you think he’ll keep going back down or bouncing around?”
“Um...” Naomi looked to Sutekimon for an answer.
“It doesn’t work like that. I’m always gonna be Sutekimon from now on,” Sutekimon explains. “I dunno how I managed to evolve further that one time, but I think that was a fluke. It should be years before I reach the next level.”
“He says no. Just Sutekimon.” Naomi relays.
Shinya furrows his brow and looks down at Naomi, concerned. “But, in that form, he’s useless in a fight right? I mean, that’s what you said. ‘Moosemon’ was overpowering him easily.”
Naomi looks away as she hears Shinya mention Moosemon. She feels her chest tighten and puts a hand over it, checking to see if she can breathe.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, ex-nay on the oose-may, capeesh?” Sutekimon hobbles over to Naomi and wraps his soft arms around her. “She’s had it rough. Aaand you can’t hear me.” Sutekimon sighs in realization.
“I’m fine.” Naomi brushes Sutekimon aside. Shinya seems a bit concerned at hearing her sudden words. “I think... Sutekimon will protect us no matter what.”
Shinya’s eyes glaze over a bit. “That’s easy for you to say. But if wearing that watch puts you in real danger, then I need to take this seriously. If Moosemon comes back then...”
“He won’t!” Naomi blurts out.
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Naomi looks out at the makeshift battlefield. Gahoshiimon picks himself up off the ground and wipes the side of his mouth with his hand as Moosemon turns to stare at him.
“Sutekimon got big and he’s fighting the baddie. But he keeps getting knocked down,” Naomi relays to Shinya.
“So they’re fighting up close?” Shinya asks, trying to learn as much about his sister’s reality as possible.
Naomi shakes her head. “Sutekimon has lasers. But basically, Moosemon keeps hitting him and knocking him over, even though he’s REALLY far away.”
Shinya reasons that whatever’s going on in Naomi’s view must operate on some sort of logic. He looks Naomi in the eyes. “Is there anything the bad guy does before he attacks? Does he swing a weapon, or say something?” Shinya feels a tinge of humiliation as he talks as though this invisible battle is a tangible thing, but he brushes it off for his sister’s sake.
“He looks over and... he shakes his head.” Naomi demonstrates, arcing her neck around. “Does that help?”
“He shakes his head...? What does this bad guy look like?”
“Like a big scary cow!”
Shinya nods. “And is Sutekimon on two legs, or four?”
“Uh... two!" Naomi holds up two fingers.
“Okay... I need you to tell Sutekimon something for me.” Shinya places a hand on Naomi’s shoulder.
Naomi looks up at him curiously. “Why don’t you tell him?”
Shinya scrunches up his lips and blushes a bit. “That’s...” He sighs. “Fine.”
He stands up and cups his hands over his mouth, thankful that the street appears empty. “Sutekimon! Get behind the enemy! It’ll have a hard time turning around!”
Gahoshiimon turns to Shinya, surprised to be addressed at all, let alone given advice. “No one asked you!” He sputters out. “I’ve been trying to strafe around it for a while now but I can’t get around fast enough!”
“He says he’s not fast enough.”
“Then you’re going in too big of a circle!” Shinya advises. “You can rotate faster if you get closer. Don’t worry about getting hit, if you can get behind you’ll win!”
“Tch...” Gahoshiimon crinkles up his nose. “‘Don’t worry about getting hit’, he says. That’s the kind of advice you could only give if you couldn’t see what was actually happening.” Still, he cracks his neck and dashes at an angle toward Moosemon, firing some stray shots but not focusing on attacking, just getting into a better position.
As Gahoshiimon approaches, Moosemon turns to face him, trotting in place, constantly turning its horns to stay in range to see and target its enemy. However, as Gahoshiimon gets closer, Moosemon struggles to keep up and starts to falter, unable to keep pace with the feline.
“It’s working!” Gahoshiimon grins as he finally reaches Moosemon’s back and starts preparing an attack. He tugs on the handle of his gatling to line it up with Moosemon, and the barrels begin to rotate on their own. In each chamber, a red aura slowly builds up as the rotation speed increases. Then, one of the barrels turns from red light to pink, and another from red to purple. The rotation picks up speed until Gahoshiimon is forced to grab the gatling with both hands acting as stabilizers. Moosemon manages to turn part way toward its foe, just as the attack is ready.
“Take this! Color Coordinates!!” All three barrels fire at once in a spiral of energy that rams Moosemon in the side, causing it to let out a roar of pain as it skids across the road, pushed back by the immense outpouring of energy until eventually the beam lets up and Moosemon falls to the ground.
Naomi stares in awe as Gahoshiimon grins, partly from the accomplishment of such an impressive feat of strength, and partly because he can’t help but grit his teeth to keep himself standing, as his whole body is tensed and held under constant pressure.
“Now get outta here, ya heffer!” He manages to squeak out with a breath, taking a step forward only to immediately squint.
Gahoshiimon puts up a brave front as Moosemon stands up and briefly looks back at him. However, the beast hastily begins trotting briskly away down the road, leaving the site.
“Yeah, you BETTER run!”
“He did it!” Naomi smiles.
Shinya breathes a sigh of relief after watching his sister’s eyes dart around during the fight.
No sooner than Moosemon crests a hill and begins to pass out of view, Gahoshiimon lets his eyes fall shut as his body collapses onto the road.
“Oh! He fell!” Naomi runs through the gate and back out into the street. Shinya screams at her again, but she quickly returns, dragging a weightless, lifeless cat monster back with her.
Shinya shakes his head. “I told you not to do that again.”
“He got small again. He needed me,” Naomi explains. Sure enough, Sutekimon is back to being a fat house cat, not some fantastical warrior beast.
“Well either way...” Shinya is interrupted by a light out of the corner of his eye. He looks up and sees a traffic light that had gone out flickering back to its normal life. Curious, he pulls his phone out of his pocket, and sees his lock screen functioning just as it should, displaying the current time as six minutes past midnight.
When he looks back at Naomi, Shinya finds that his sister’s eyes betray her, as she blinks for seconds at a time. She holds tightly to something in one hand.
“We can talk more about this tomorrow,” Shinya relents. He then bends down and grabs the air behind Naomi. Naomi looks at Shinya’s hand curiously, noting that he’s now holding onto Sutekimon in the same way she was dragging him.
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“Here, I’ll carry you home. You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Shinya reaches a hand out to his sister and she graciously accepts his offer. He walks home carrying his sister in one arm and with his other hand dragging Sutekimon with him.
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“Okay. I gave ‘Sutekimon’ another shot. I think I really nailed it this time.” Shinya holds up his Sketchbook and then puts it back down. “Wait, just a sec.”
Naomi beams. Seeing her brother so passionate about something isn’t rare, but she rarely gets to share these moments with him. His work on electronics often goes above her head, or demands a level of focus that compels him to isolationism. Perhaps, that’s by design; but now, he’s letting her see him work up close on something that in her eyes will automatically be impressive by virtue of being his.
“Shinyaaaa...” Sutekimon, meanwhile, is less than enthused. “Don’t think I’ve forgiven you after last night...”
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Late at night, holding Naomi in one arm, Shinya looks over to the stairs leading up to his apartment and decides to take the elevator instead. Instinctively, he presses the button with his ‘free’ hand, dropping Sutekimon from his grip.
“Ah!” Shinya panics as the elevator approaches. He looks over at Naomi, sound asleep, and slowly returns his hand back to the position he was in, grabbing around a few times at the air. Feeling silly, he eventually just wraps both arms around Naomi and enters the elevator, leaving Sutekimon behind.
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“You’re cruel!!” Sutekimon bawls. “And if this depiction of me isn’t flawless, I’m moving out!!”
“What? Don’t leave!” Naomi takes the threat seriously and furrows her brow.
“Okay, I won’t.” Sutekimon shrugs.
“Alright, it’s done. For real this time.” Shinya holds out his sketchbook. “Close enough?”
image [https://i.ibb.co/XbdshZm/879350f5-642f-4ef7-8b26-1e4106fd53dc.png]
“Whoooa!” Naomi is mesmerized. “You have to teach me to draw like that big bro!!”
“Alright, I’m out.” Sutekimon walks through the open door to Shinya’s room, hands behind his head.
Shinya looks at Naomi’s smile and can’t help but smile back. He feels a little embarrassed at her praise and admiration. “Yeah? It’s that good?” He can’t help but be reminded of himself at her age, idolizing his big brother. Though, when his thoughts turn to Araki, the moment of joy is slowly replaced with doubt.
His embarrassment worsens as he realizes just how deeply he’s fallen into playing along with his sister’s game. But when he considers stopping or reversing course, he feels a deep shame and guilt for crushing her youthful spirit. Shinya finds himself caught in the middle of a cycle, not knowing whether he should be swayed by the innocent youth before him, or respect the man he had patterned his life around up to now. In a fit of embarrassed rage, he rips the paper from his sketchbook and crumples it up before tossing it into a wastebasket, all under Naomi’s shocked surveillance.
“It wasn’t any good, I know. You don’t have to pretend. I’m just too old for these types of games, Naomi... you’re better off on your own.”
“It was good!” Naomi replies. “I was happy you were able to see him for the first time, just like I can.” She frowns gently, passionately expressing her slightest disappointment.
Shinya ignores her and leans back in his chair, replaying the events from last night in his head.
Sutekimon! ...Digimon are real!
He really had said those things. In a moment of desperation, when everything was completely out of hand. And from then, he’d played Naomi’s game as much as he could, and in the end... everything worked out. Even the lights, and the phone.
Naomi had never done something like this. Sure, there were times when her imagination got the better of her, even to dangerous results--she’d leapt from a bedframe believing she could fly, only to end up with a broken arm--but she was always easily dissuaded from her delusions by outside influence, either from Shinya or their father. This was different, as Shinya had fought desperately to snap her out of her beliefs, but that only made her dig deeper. Even when he put on the watch to ‘prove’ she was wrong, she still clung to her game even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Furthermore, her vivid depictions of these creatures were worrisome. She’d even created a villainous nightmare that she herself was scared of. Or had she created anything at all? It was difficult to accept, and almost seemed too ‘exciting’ to be true, but could she have actually stumbled into a reality that Shinya was just somehow unable to see?
“What?” Naomi giggles after noticing Shinya staring at her for a long period of time, her face flushed from the attention.
Shinya shakes his head to clear his thoughts. For now, he settles on continuing to play along, not wanting to risk another dangerous outburst. “Tonight... when Dad wakes up, we’ll tell him all about the Digimon, okay? We can’t keep this from him, not after you snuck out.”
“What? But, what if he doesn’t believe us?”
Shinya’s heart sinks a little at the word ‘us.’ “Well... Dad knows what he’s talking about.”
“Whoa whoa whoa. This sounds fishy!” Sutekimon pokes his head through the door frame and Naomi turns to face him. He points a long pink claw at Shinya and growls as he walks back into the room. “You’re tryna’ set us up aren’t ya? Of course he’ll say this is ‘too dangerous’ for little Naomi and he won’t believe I’m real ‘cause he ain’t got a Digivice!”
Naomi frowns and looks at Shinya, expecting him to answer Sutekimon’s criticisms.
“Don’t pout at me, you know it’s not fair to expect me to not tell Dad about you sneaking out. You could’ve gotten seriously hurt, or kidnapped or something.” Shinya shakes his head.
“C’mon Naomi, this is a terrible idea. You can’t let him do this! This ends with that watch back in that stupid drawer again and you know it,” Sutekimon cautions.
“Shinya... you believe me, right?” Naomi asks, her words like daggers into her brother’s heart and plans.
“What? What do you mean? Of course I do.” Shinya replies in earnest.
“Okay,” Naomi replies, looking down.
Shinya looks through his door at the living room and kitchen, and past them, the door to his father’s room. In his head, he wonders if what he’s doing is right, but a twinge of fear prevents him from contemplating alternatives.
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“The screen broke a couple days ago when I dropped it, but it was working fine until last night,” A girl Shinya’s age hands him her phone, which has a big crack across the screen. “All of a sudden, the numbers started going weird? And like, my contacts were jumbled... I turned it off and on again a few times, but it only went back to normal at like... I dunno, midnight?”
Shinya nods. “I can fix the screen and see what else is wrong with it. Though, I think the problem you had last night was probably not something you need to be worried about. It happened to a lot of people, and it’s gone now.”
“Oh, really?” The girl takes her phone back. “I can get the screen fixed at a shop, thanks.” She makes a peace sign and starts to walk off.
Shinya blinks. “Um... sure. Need any-”
“Nope! Thanks, I’ll definitely recommend you to a friend though!”
Shinya sighs as she walks off. Without this client, he has nothing left to distract him while he waits for his father to sort out this mess with Naomi. He sits back down at the bench and watches people walk past him through the mall, all hurrying on their way to live out their meaningful lives. He pulls out his own phone to check his email for any new requests.
His hope rises considerably as he sees seven new messages in his inbox, but quickly discovers they’re mostly from subscriptions or online retailers and clears them all out as his eyes glaze over.
“Hey, you’re Shinya right?” Shinya is startled and looks up to see a tall, ginger girl addressing him in patchy Japanese. “My friend said you could help. Could you take a look at my watch?”
Watch? Shinya perks up, and looks at the girl’s wrist. He feels a strange sensation like this meeting will be profound and fateful.
However, he ends up staring at a rather standard-looking digital watch for an extended period of time.
Of course not... what was I thinking?
“The numbers went crazy for a while last night, and I had to reset it this morning. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”
“Oh. Uh, of course. Yeah, I can take a look.”
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Naomi kicks her legs to make the swing go higher. “See? Like this!”
“I’m tryin’, it don’t work that way kid...” Sutekimon sighs with a slight smile, hanging from the other swing. He looks over at Naomi, swinging up and down, and notices her staring off in the distance. Following her line of sight, he sees a group of other young girls bouncing a ball between them.
“Hey, why don’t you go play with them? That looks like fun.”
Naomi is startled to remember that she’s being observed. “Ah... but, I’m having fun swinging with you!” She smiles at him and giggles.
Sutekimon frowns. “You know, sometimes you act pretty grown up, Naomi.”
Naomi giggles again. “Really? Thanks!”
“Wasn’t a compliment.” Sutekimon rolls his eyes, then smirks. “Well, I’m gonna go play with that ball!”
Naomi watches in surprise as Sutekimon leaps off the swing and bounds on all fours toward the other girls. “H-hey, wait Sutekimon!”
Nervously, Naomi approaches the other girls, who all stop their game and turn to look at her. Sutekimon encircles the group, before standing up on the other side of them and smiling at her. “Well, what are ya waitin’ for? Introduce yourself!”
Naomi shuffles in place, and Sutekimon’s lips purse slightly as he sees a side of her he’d never seen before. Gone is the blissful adventurous girl who would bravely confront an unknown behemoth, and in her place stands a timid, nervous shadow desperate to speak even a single utterance.
“H-hi I’m... Aoki.”
“Hello!”
“Nice to meet you!”
“Wanna play, Aoki?”
Sutekimon beams in pride as he sees the other girls immediately welcome Naomi into their midst. Then, one of his ears twitches. He sniffs the air with his eyes closed, before opening them with predator-like pupils.
“Um... sure, I’ll play. What are we playing?” Naomi asks, her eyes staring at the ground, oblivious to Sutekimon’s movements.
The fat cat leaps up onto the top of the daycare building in one movement and surveys the surrounding area. “Alright, if I were a Digimon where would I be...”
He puts his hands on his hips. “Well, I guess I’d be right here. That doesn’t help at all ya nincompoop.”
He then raises his paws and turns around. “Hey who are you callin’ a nincompoop ya big--oh.” Sutekimon ceases arguing with himself and glances over at a nearby rooftop, where a similarly rotund Digimon sits next to a TV antenna. He hones in on the creature with his enhanced vision and studies it.
Leaning on the tiling of a suburban home with its large purple gloves as supports, a Digimon in the shape of a large mushroom sits patiently in front of the antenna, not taking his round, beady eyes off of it for a second and failing to notice Sutekimon as a result.
image [https://i.ibb.co/p00fxTv/8b6fec29-fb86-4454-a28c-7af6f6799b6f.png]
“Mushroomon...” Sutekimon mumbles to himself, instinctively getting a sense of the monster’s base personality and abilities from some unknown source. He glances down at Naomi, who’s holding the ball the other girls were playing with. After assuring her safety, he leaps over to a nearby telephone pole and runs along the wire toward the house with Mushroomon on it. When he’s nearby, he jumps for the house, but doesn’t get nearly enough distance, falling into the middle of the road and screeching as a car runs him over. When he’s recovered from the shock and remembers he’s unharmed, he climbs up the building using his claws and leaps down right in front of his target.
“Oy!” Sutekimon announces his presence with a shout, not that Mushroomon had failed to notice his ascent. The latter has stood up and stares at Sutekimon with a shy, frightened expression.
“Y-yeah? What’s the problem?”
“Problem? So there’s a problem, eh?” Sutekimon grits his fangs.
“N-no. No! No problem.” Mushroomon gulps. “You just startled me.”
“Likely story. Listen up, this is where Naomi goes to daycare. So either you get your fat lumpy body outta dodge or I’ll spend the next three hours pickin’ spores out my claws.”
“Whoa whoa whoa! What’s a Naomi? I’m just here for the food...” Mushroomon pushes his gloved palms forward in response to Sutekimon’s allegations.
“Food?” Sutekimon looks down at the antenna.
“Yeah. Every so often, data comes out. It’s delicious.” Mushroomon sighs wistfully. “B-but it’s mine! I claimed this spot so you can’t have it.”
“I don’t care about your data... though I am pretty hungry...” Sutekimon hesitates, then shakes his head. “Bottom line is, if you stick around you’ll scare Naomi so get your butt outta dodge!”
“Who’s Naomi? I don’t see anyone around. And humans don’t really come up here...”
“Are you stupid or something? She’s right over there!” Sutekimon points, and Mushroomon looks. He places a hand above his eyes and squints.
“She’s... she’s right down the street. Look, she’s in that building over there, behind that sign.”
“Uh... huh.”
“You know what? SCREW YOU! I’m gonna go check on her, and if you’re still here when I get back, you’re in big trouble pal!”
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“Naomi, are you alright?”
“I’m okay.”
A polite smile graces the lips of an older woman as she rubs Naomi’s hair gently. “Well alright. Your brother should be here to pick you up in just a few minutes now, okay?”
Naomi nods, clutching a big red ball close to her chest. The woman smiles at her again and leaves the child leaned up against the wall of the building.
As she leaves, Naomi looks up and sees two of the girls she was playing with earlier using the swings, laughing and talking about something unimportant.
“Naomi!”
Naomi perks up and looks around for the voice. “Big bro?”
“Wrong!” Sutekimon hops down from the roof. “C’mon I don’t sound like that cottonbrain. And don’t get all excited thinkin’ you’re gonna see his dumb face.”
Naomi laughs, completely ignoring Sutekimon’s words and only reacting to his presence. “You came back! Why’d you leave? I got scared.”
“There was a ba...” Sutekimon stops himself. “Uh... I was chasing a bird, but it got away.”
“Really? It must’ve been fast.”
“It better hope it is...” Sutekimon’s pupils narrow into slits briefly before returning to normal. “A-anyways, where are all your friends? They better not have done anything mean to you...”
Naomi shakes her head emphatically. “No. We played ball and it was really fun! But... then they all got bored and left, and I didn’t know who to follow, so I stayed here.”
Sutekimon frowns. “You’re a real piece of work, kid.”
“Naomi, your brother is here.”
Naomi laughs as she stands up and leaves the ball behind, rushing back inside and past the indoor play room to hug her brother by the desk.
“Hey, calm down.” Shinya feels his usual streak of embarrassment at all the daycare workers smiling at him and his little sister’s display of affection. “Let’s get going. We need to get home before Dad leaves for work, remember?”
Naomi briefly returns to her sullen expression, before settling on a determined look. “Okay,” She nods and follows her brother through the door as the pair makes the short walk home.
“Go on ahead, I got business to take care of,” Sutekimon announces, leaving the two siblings to walk home together as the sun starts to set.
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Ka-dun, ka-dun. Ka-dun, ka-dun.
The subway proceeds rapidly along the tracks, heading into the residential district
“Hey, Doris, let me see...!” A high-pitched but gravelly voice whines.
Ignoring it at first, a pale hand presses pencil to paper, then pulls it away after one final stroke. Palm brushing against the page, the hand tilts the sketchbook upward at an angle toward the voice.
image [https://i.ibb.co/rFQj3gL/0097b53e-c6c9-488a-a5eb-7764bce17ca4.png]
“Wow... it looks just like him! That’s the one we saw at the store! You’re an amazing artist, Doris!”
To Be Continued...