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What if they were friends?
A question you can ask but never answer.
Shouma Stomach grows up alone, with his mother and stories of a world where they could be happy. Jeebh and Shiita Stomach grow up alone, with each other and a promise to stay together.
Inoue Michiru hates this world, hates the people, but one day she sees two puppies watching her and welcomes them in.
“We don’t need dirty humans!” Shiita exclaims. Her words don’t stick. They’re already moving.
Shouma hides behind his mother, just a little scared of them already. He doesn’t want to be alone but they don’t want to take his hand.
“W-want to color?” He asks. “Mom’s telling me about human foods.”
“And what’s so good about that?” Jeebh asks.
And Michiru is not a perfect woman. When she can’t wait for Shouma to fall asleep before she cries, when she… when that monster… sometimes she thinks herself a very weak woman indeed.
But she is not a cruel woman.
And her son shouldn’t be alone the way she is.
“Would you like me to tell you?” Michiru asks.
They stay.
“They were nice to us,” Jeebh says softly, curled up against his sister that night. It’s rare they aren’t touching, at this age.
“Who cares,” Shiita says. “They’re humans. I just need you.”
“And I just need you,” Jeebh says. “But wouldn’t it be nice to have fun with father’s pet sometimes? The colors are so bright!”
Shiita looks away.
“Go to sleep,” she says.
But they do come back. Over and over. It may be hard to admit why, for they are two neglected puppies, but they begin to… see.
The woman is not a monster. The runt is friendly.
Their father… hurts her.
“Why does he even keep her then?” Shiita sneers.
“Mom can’t leave,” Shouma says. “It’s not fair… I don’t want her to get hurt… I don’t want to be weak!”
And it’s the first time they’ve ever seen him as anything but too-sweet and too-weak.
They look at each other, and they decide to take a risk.
Hand in hand, they offer the third to Shouma.
“We could teach you to fight.”
Shouma can’t summon minions. But he’s strong. That’s what they tell him. Strong, and pretty in an alien way.
He still wants to leave with his mom, but with the support of the twins, he’s begun to feel like a member of the family.
He doesn’t know how to feel about it. He wants to run with his mom, but isn’t this safer? Better?
He asks her.
“I think if it makes you happy, I’m happy,” his mom says. “Those kids… he’s terrible to them too.”
“I’ll become strong enough to protect you, mom,” Shouma says. “They’ll help, too.”
The twins get human disguises. Michiru teaches them how to take care of their hair. She runs her hands through it and smiles softly.
“I want it to be short,” Shiita says. “But I want to match Jeebh.”
“I want to do fancy braids,” Jeebh says.
“Then I want to learn too,” Shiita replies.
And Michiru aches, because she knows what they are doing now. But they’re still like puppies to her. Like Shouma is a puppy. They’re why he isn’t alone now, even. They can’t run any more than she could.
She wants to make them run. Their human faces will make them monsters as much as the rest of the family, one day.
When the twins take over procurement, they arrive with gummies, and this is where it all changes.
“For you,” Jeebh says.
“If you want,” Shiita says, arms crossed.
Michiru smiles, and hands the first packet to Shouma.
You know what comes next.