Chapter Text
Shigeo plodded along on the sidewalk, one hand secure in his mother’s larger one and his other squeezing Ritsu’s. His legs were tired, and his feet were a little achy from all the walking, but he was having a very good time. The aquarium had left him awestruck. The shimmer of the lights on the fish scales, the neon glow of the dark tank jellyfish, the way the eels had lurked in their shadowed burrows, only peeking out far enough for their gaping mouths to be seen…
The turtles had been the best though. Shigeo waited so patiently in that long line and got to touch one of the baby sea turtles. It had been cold and smooth and small enough to fit in his cupped hands. It bumped its snout against one of his thumbs and he fell in love. It had taken his mother quite a few times calling his name for him to realize it was time to go.
“Mama! Mama, did you see the swordfish? It's called a Marlin! It's so fast. The second fastest fish in the world. It goes eighty kilometers an hour!”
It was getting hard to hold onto Ritsu’s hand. His little brother was skipping and bouncing around in his excitement, rattling on endlessly about everything he had learned.
“And- and flounders hatch with their eyes on different sides of their heads and then they just- They move! They move their eyeballs to the same side so they can hide in the sand and still see! Isn’t that so cool? I can’t move my eyes like that-“
Shigeo vaguely recalled a staff member talking about eye migration, but he was busy tracing the outlines of all the starfish on the glass. There had been so many…
“My goodness, Ritsu, I’m glad people’s eyes don’t do that." Their mother shuddered before hitching a smile back on her face. “Why don’t you save some of those fish facts for Daddy, hmm? He is going to meet us for lunch downtown.”
“He is?” Ritsu gasped. “Yay!”
Shigeo smiled, delight curling in his chest. Dad was taking lunch off to come eat with them? That was a wonderful surprise. He gripped his mother’s fingers tighter, suddenly much more eager to keep walking.
It was a good thing the weather was holding off. The restaurant his parents agreed to meet at was crowded today, the only table available being outside. Hopefully the rain would wait until they were home again to make its appearance.
A warm wind ruffled Shigeo’s hair, smelling of the oncoming storm.
“Can we go again? Daddy can come this time and I can show him the shark and the seals? Please, please, please?” Ritsu bounced on his knees in his chair, just a bit too short to be able to sit normally.
Their father laughed, using his chopsticks to point at his youngest.
“We’ll have to go back, I guess. I do like seals. Did they do any tricks?”
Ritsu’s mouth was too full to answer, his cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk, so Shigeo answered for him.
“No. But we got to see the penguins eat some fish.”
“Oh yeah? That must have been ni-“
Shigeo didn’t hear the rest. His stomach felt funny, but not the kind of funny it felt when he was in the car too long. Or the kind when he ate too much candy. Or the kind when he was really hungry and kind of dizzy and hadn’t had his vitamins.
He put his chopsticks down and reached for his milk, confused. This kind of bellyache made his heart beat faster.
The milk didn’t help.
A breeze washed over them, heavy with the oncoming rain… and something else. Whatever it was made the hair on his arms stand up. Sent a cold prickle over his scalp.
His family chattered on in front of him, eating their lunch and smiling like nothing was wrong.
Shigeo curled into his seat, peering around nervously. The rest of the patio looked like it did before. A dozen or so tables of customers went about their business, waiters taking orders and dropping off checks. One of them excused herself, leaning over a table to crank open the umbrella in the middle.
The sky was growing dark with slate colored clouds. Only a few streaks of blue managed to peek through between them.
Twisting his hands in his lap, Shigeo bit his lip. He didn’t feel good. He didn’t like this feeling. The bellyache felt like something scary. Something to run from. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. Not even whimper.
And then he caught a smudge of movement out of the corner of his eye.
It had too many legs. A dark reddish-brown smear of malice, long and distorted in the fading sunlight. It slunk over the wall of the courtyard, its eyes a marbled grey.
His breath hitched.
“Mom…” His voice came out too quiet, even to his own ears.
The spirit crept between tables, its legs phasing through solid objects like they were the ones that were incorporeal. No one else paid the horror any mind. Shigeo couldn’t look away from it, eyes wide with fear.
“Mom…?” This time louder, but quavering.
His brother laughed, a high, childish giggle, and the sound seemed to echo across the patio, warped and sluggish. Time moved too slowly as Shigeo watched the spirit raise its front, tipping to one side.
No, no, nonono it was coming this way.
“Mommy!”
Now that was loud enough. The conversation at the table came to a halt, three pairs of eyes turning to him in concern.
“Shige?”
“Shigeo, you okay? You look kind of pale there, bud.” His father leaned over to slide his hand under his bangs.
Shigeo felt pinned in place, those milky eyes getting closer and closer.
“Baby, what’s the matter? Can you look at me?”
His father went to pull his hand away, but Shigeo grabbed his arm, small fingers digging into the fabric. His heart was pounding. He didn’t want to be here anymore.
“What’s got you all freaked out? Come here, Shige.” His father scooted his chair back and lifted Shigeo right into his lap.
“Saburo, don’t do that, he’s seven. You’re going to spoil him rotten…”
“I don’t like it,” Shigeo managed to gasp out. The spirit was only a few tables away, stalking towards them. A sickly aura oozed around it. “I want to go home.”
“Home? What- Shigeo what are you looking at?” His mother craned her neck to follow his gaze. When she saw nothing, a bit of unease settled into the lines on her face. “Is there something there?”
Shigeo nodded. He pressed himself into his father’s arms, eyes glued to the approaching spirit.
“It's bad. I don’t like it we need to go home it's bad it's scary-“ he babbled.
Ritsu looked back and forth between his brother and his parents, shoulders raising towards his ears. He dropped his chopsticks.
“Mama, I want to go home too…” he said.
Their mother suddenly stood, gaze snapping from her son to the oncoming threat she could not find.
“I’m going to flag down our waiter.”
That wasn’t going to be fast enough. Shigeo whined, his power itching under his skin.
“It's right there, please. I want to go.” He scrambled for a better grip on his father’s shoulders when the man rose from his own seat and reached for Ritsu’s hand.
“Just throw some money on the table, we can come back later say we had an emergency.”
“But-“
The spirit was officially too close. It reared up again, numerous legs coming down to click against the back of Ritsu’s chair. That was not okay.
“Leave us alone!” Shigeo squeaked, waving his hand like he could shoo the monstrous thing away.
It jerked back, legs catching on the metal of the chair and tipping it back. Ritsu let out a frightened cry at the sudden movement and lurched out of the chair. He grabbed his father’s extended hand and hid behind his leg.
Shigeo had no idea why the spirit could affect its surroundings now, but he did not like it at all. He hated that he was the only one who could see this thing.
“What the heck was that?” Their mother stumbled back, unable to see what had moved her child’s seat.
They were causing a scene. The tables around them had fallen silent, a wide circle of concerned onlookers.
The spirit was not deterred, slipping forward to reach out for Ritsu once more.
Terror choking him, Shigeo didn’t know what else to do. With everything he had, he set his small hand out as if to block the attack, and he pushed.
Hard.
In a blaze of pink blue purple, everything on the table rocketed backwards and clattered to the ground. The table snapped up and off the stone, tipping for a second before slamming back down. One of the chairs went tumbling into a neighboring table, the occupants screaming and scrambling out of the way. Their closed umbrella popped loose and dropped with a crash to the patio floor.
The spirit rippled and then swelled unnaturally before, to Shigeo’s surprise, it burst. Colors exploded, swirling through the air and scattering into droplets that hung there for a moment, and then they dwindled into nothingness.
It was gone.
Shigeo blinked, his chest heaving. The oppressive aura dissipated and the bellyache faded.
It was gone?
“Woah…” Ritsu peeked out from behind his father’s leg, eyes wide with wonder.
His mother was the next to stir.
“Shige…? What, what was all that? What did you do?”
Shigeo sat back up from where he had been leaning out of his father’s arms. He didn’t… He didn’t really know what he just did. But everything felt a lot better now, and the spirit was gone, and he had done that.
“I… I made it go away?” he answered.
His mother gaped.
“Go away like it ran off, or like its gone for good?” his father prompted, tightening his grip on both sons.
“It was going to get Ritsu.” Shigeo was a little dazed, still staring at the destroyed lunch table. He hadn’t meant to do that. Was he going to be in trouble?
“Well shit. You think you exorcized it, kiddo?” His father ignored the whispered admonishment from their mother.
Exorcism. Shigeo had heard of that. Powerful psychics getting rid of evil spirits. They did it so that the spirits couldn’t do bad things to anyone, and that was okay. So was he not going to get in trouble for… I mean…He kind of killed it? Did it count if it was already dead? Maybe not.
“I think so.”
A staff member edged towards them, a stack of menus clutched to her chest.
“Ah… Is everything alright?” The woman sounded shaken.
Shigeo’s father looked around at the mess, his mouth pulling into a grim line.
“I suppose you can add this to our bill.”