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“I can’t believe it. My little baby boy, all grown up and moving away!” Mrs Rodriguez wiped tears from her eyes.
“Mama, please don’t cry. I mean, this isn’t the first time I’ve been out of the house.”
“Si, but that was college. You would always come back for summer and the holidays. Now… you’re going to be in another city. Are you sure you don’t want to stay here?”
“Sorry” Hero said “but there’s just not enough demand for new food trucks here in Far Away.”
“Not yet, anyway” Mari added as she set down an empty box "but if we make enough for a brick and mortar place, we might move back here."
“You’re moving out, and Kel is going off to college… it’s going to be so strange to just have Sally to take care of. Mari, promise me you’ll take care of my baby, okay?”
“Of course, Mrs Rodriguez” Mari smiled.
“Ah, Mrs Rodriguez!” Hero’s mother exclaimed “Come on, you’ve known me long enough to call me Elena… or maybe someday soon you could call me mom.”
“Mama!” Hero cried out.
“I’m serious, chico” Elena turned to her son “I don’t want you two living in sin for too long. You better treat Mari right too, you got it?”
“Si, mama.”
"As much as I would love to stand here and tease Hero all day, I think we need to start getting packed” Mari winked.
“I’ll leave you two to it, then” Elena laughed and walked off.
“Keep or toss?” Mari held up a light blue shirt. Hero examined the collar – it was stretched and deformed.
“Toss” he sighed “I liked that one too.”
Mari had learned a lot about Hero in the decade-and-a-half they’d known each other. One of those things was that Hero was lowkey a hoarder. One look around his room told you that, the walls festooned with various trophies, certificates and medals. But in the closet, beneath the bed and throughout the various drawers and shelves, the situation was even worse. Hero was a sentimental man, and he didn’t like to throw things away if he didn’t have to. It wasn’t too bad, until they actually had to go through everything. Mari grabbed a few books from Hero’s bookshelf – a handful of old novels he would probably want to keep – when something caught her eye.
“Hey, what’s this?” Mari pulled a laminated restaurant menu off Hero’s bookshelf. “The Mustard Sub… wait, wasn’t that the place by the beach? Why do you have this?”
Hero smiled at the memory. “Well…”
“Yoink!” A soft, white hand reached down and pulled a good 50% of Hero’s side dish off his plate.
“Hey! My French fries!”
Mari giggled “I think you mean our French fries.”
“I ordered them!”
“But Heeeeroooo! I’m huuuungry! And you promised you would never let me go hungry!” Mari pouted adorably. It was almost enough to break Hero’s resolve. Almost.
“No, I promised that I would cook for you, not that you could steal all my food. Besides, you should have ordered more than a salad.”
“But it’s swimsuit season! I need to lose weight!”
“Okay, first of all, if you’re worried about that, stop eating my French fries!”
“Silly Hero! Calories don’t count when your boyfriend orders them!” Mari smiled.
“B-boyfriend!?” Hero’s face flushed as red as the ketchup on his food. It was the first time either of them had put a label on their relationship out loud. Sure, they were spending time together, but they’d been doing that for years.
“Wait, what was the second thing you wanted to say?” Mari tilted her head.
“Uh, I… uh… um…”
“Are you alright?” Mari asked with genuine concern. Hero took a deep breath.
“It’s just that I already think you look great!”
Mari was silent for a moment. Then her face broke into a beautiful smile. “Aw, Hero… you always know just what to say to charm me, don’t you?”
At that moment, Hero made up his mind. If this was what it would be like having Mari as his girlfriend was, she could steal as much of his food as she wanted.
“So, you kept it because it reminded you of when our relationship became official?”
“Yeah!” Hero nodded “I know it’s kind of silly, but… that moment meant a lot to me back then.”
“No, I understand. It’s not silly. I’m not sure we need it hanging around the new apartment, though.”
“Hm… I don’t want to get rid of it, either. And there are a few other things like that as well. Oh! What if we get a box for things to go in storage? A box for memories!”
Mari thought for a moment. “That sounds wonderful, dear” she smiled. “I can’t wait to find all the keepsakes you have in here.
“Oof. These are a blast from the past” Hero pulled out a pair of old jogging shoes. “My first pair of jogging shoes.”
“Well, I’ve always appreciated that you keep yourself in shape” Mari said, looking over Hero’s body. He’d never been one for muscle-building, but cardio was a different story.
“Oh, does senora like what she sees?”
“She sure does, good looking” Mari licked her lips playfully and put an arm around Hero’s waist. “Come to mama.”
“Mari” Hero laughed “not while my mother is in the next room!”
“You’re right” Mari joined her boyfriend in laughter “We’ll have plenty of time for that when we finish our move.”
“Good morning, Mari!” Hero waved to his girlfriend. She waved back slowly. She’d never been a morning person, and the earlier wake up that high school required did little to help her mood.
“It’s not fair” she grumbled once he had reached the bus stop. “You’re not supposed to be so chipper in the mornings.”
“Well, maybe you’d feel better if you did morning jogs with me?” Hero suggested.
“and get up even earlier? No thank you. Besides, some of us have to go through morning routines, mr ‘I wake up with perfect bed head every damn day’.”
“Sorry… wait, what do you mean perfect bed head?"
“I’ve seen it ever sleepover. Your hair just seems to shape itself into that adorable mess on your head.”
“It’s not that cute, is it?”
“Hey Daphne!” Mari called to her classmate “do you think Hero’s hair is cute?”
“I suppose so” Daphne called back “from an aesthetic point of view.”
“See” Mari smiled smugly.
“Alright, point taken” Hero conceded.
“Oh. My. God. Hey Hero, looooook what I found!”
Hero turned his head. His jaw dropped. “I… I thought I’d gotten rid of those years ago!”
In Mari’s hand was a vhs cassette in a clamshell box. The colors were washed out and the images on the box were grainy, but the pink kanji were unmistakable.
“You remember this, Hero-san?” Mari smiled smugly.
“Nooooooo…” Hero whined.
“Ohio goosemas, Mari-sama!”
“I… what?!” Mari stared at Hero like he’d grown a second head.
“I know your dad doesn’t like me, but I came up with a great plan to impress him! I’ve been studying Japanese by watching the original dub of Sweetheart!”
“Wait, so you meant to say ‘ohayo gozaimasu’?”
“I didn’t mean to say it, I said it! Ohio goosemas!”
Mari sighed. Why did this dork have to be so cute and charming? “That isn’t how you pronounce it, and anyway that’s the formal greeting for people that aren’t friends or family!”
“But I-“
“You can’t just learn Japanese and Japanese culture by watching anime!” Mari huffed and began to walk away.
“Wait!” Mari turned back to see Hero fumbling with a slip of paper. “Before you go” he said “I wanted to read this to you.”
“Roses are red, lilies white”
“My girlfriend is pretty and kind”
“It’s snowing on mount Fuji”
Mari stared slack jawed. “Well, uh… did you like it?” Hero asked, anxiously.
“It was certainly a… unique… haiku. Uh, can I see the paper?”
Hero nodded and handed Mari the sheet with the poem on it. Without hesitation, Mari tore the paper into pieces, threw them onto the ground, and stomped on them.
“Mari!”
“Hero, that was, and I don’t way this lightly, the worst haiku… no, the worst thing I have ever heard.”
“I just wanted to impress you and your family…” Hero whimpered.
“You already impressed me” Mari embraced him “I like you the way you are! And if my dad can’t see that… well, that’s his problem!”
“I… you really mean that?”
“Of course I do!”
“Thanks Mari” Hero said. “I guess… I guess it was a pretty stupid poem…”
“It was sweet, but yeah. Not your best work” Mari playfully punched Hero in the shoulder “maybe stick to cooking? And if you wanted to learn Japanese, you could have just asked me!”
“Ashitemasu, Mari-Sama” Hero leaned over and kissed Mari.
“God, you’re still such a weeb” Mari snorted.
“Hello pot, my name is kettle” Hero grinned.
“Oh yeah, and you know you love me for it.”
“I love you for a lot of things” Hero said “but yes, that is one of them.”
“Whoa. Hey, Mari!” Hero called from deep within the closet.
Mari turned and squealed in excitement at what Hero produced. “Boss!”
Mari grabbed the purple horned plushie out of her boyfriend’s hands. “I’d been wondering where you went! He must have gotten left here at a sleepover or something.”
“I still remember the day I gave him to you” Hero mused.
“H-hi, Mari… how are you doing?”
“Ugh… not… not great” Mari groaned. Hero gulped. It was tough to see his energetic, active best friend confined to a hospital bed. He’d never been more worried than when she had collapsed in the middle of the softball game.
“Will you be alright?”
“She’ll need surgery” Hana, Mari’s mother said solemnly. “And she probably won’t be doing sports in the future.”
“Oh no!” Hero knew how much it meant for Mari to be able to compete. “Don’t worry Mari” he grabbed her hand. Hana raised an eyebrow. “We’ll find something else you can do! I… I’ll be here as long as you need me!”
“You seem to have things under control” Hana smiled “I’ll leave you two alone, alright?”
“O-okay.”
Hero was silent as Hana left. “I… I brought you something…” Hero set a bag on Mari’s bed.
“For me? You shouldn’t have!” Mari tore into the package. She pulled out the contents – a round purple plushie in blue overalls. Her eyes went wide.
“I love him!” Mari squeezed the plushie.
“H-he’s supposed to keep you safe… at least… that’s what the tags say.”
“Like a dungeon boss! Ooh, that’ll be his name, Boss!”
“I can’t believe I lost him!” Mari squeezed the plushie the same way she had in the hospital over a decade ago. “Well” she looked up at Hero “maybe I just didn’t need him to protect me anymore. Not when I have you. Actually, do you know what I’ll always remember Boss for?”
“Uh, no? Something good, I hope” Hero answered.
“Something very good. When you told me you would be beside me as long as I needed, and you gave me Boss to protect me… that was the first time… the first time I thought ‘I love this boy. I am in love with Hero Rodriguez’. I think I’d known before that, but that was when it really hit. I don’t know, maybe it was the opiates, maybe it was the plushie… but it made me realize how I felt about you.”
Hero was speechless. He’d always thought he had been the first to fall in their relationship. To learn that it had been the other way around… it was almost unbelievable.
“So all the times you flirted with me between the hospital and the day I asked you out on a date…”
“I was trying to send signals to your thick, handsome skull. Sometimes you and Kel really are the same.”
“Sorry” Hero shrugged. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because that’s not how it’s supposed to go!” Mari giggled “the boy has to make the first move! I mean, I know that’s bull now, but back then…”
“Well, I apologize for keeping you waiting” Hero brought Mari close and dipped her down.
“You better start making up for it, handsome” Mari’s eyes sparkled.
“Gladly” Hero lower his head and kissed his beautiful, talented, caring and amazing girlfriend.
“Well, that’s that” Mari brushed her hands together. “It took us all day, but we finally packed.
“So many things” Hero looked over the boxes “so many memories. Like souvenirs of our relationship.”
“Are you nervous about this move?” Mari asked.
“Are you?”
“Yeah” she admitted “I’m definitely nervous about it. But I’m also excited.”
“Then let’s focus on that” Hero wrapped an arm around Mari’s shoulder. “Remember, I’ll be with you…”
“Every step of the way, I know” Mari said. “I wonder how many boxes of memories we’ll make in our new home.”
“I’m hoping for at least a dozen” Hero said.
“At least” Mari agreed.