Chapter Text
“Mom, where are my sneakers?!” Kunikuzishi yelled.
“I don't know. Go look for them. It's your fault if they’re lost.”
Kunikuzushi huffed. “I can't be late to school! Albedo’s waiting for me outside. Help me find them instead of calling your stupid girlfriend.”
Ei leaned over from her office chair and briefly glanced into the hallway. “Kuni, they're by the front door. Did you even look?”
Kunikuzushi huffed. “I looked… you just saw them after I found them.” He lied. He slipped on his shoes and ran out the door without tying his shoelaces. 5th grade was almost over and he needed to soak in all the fun he could in elementary school before he went to middle school. As he stumbled out the door and saw his perfect best friend with blonde hair and light yellow backpack strapped onto his back. Kunikuzushi slowed down to meet Albedo’s side and looked down at his own clothes which had holes in them, unlike Albedo’s which looked clean and crisp. He knew they didn't look like they belonged together. Albedo never wore clothes with anything cool on them or distressed print on his jeans.
“Hey, Kunikuzushi, are you ready for school?”
He nodded. “Yeah, my mom was being a b-word, but you know how that is.”
Albedo furrowed his brow. “What did your mother do now?” He asked as they started to walk to school together.
“Oh, she wouldn’t help me get ready for school and was yapping to f-ing Yae Miko.”
“Ah,” Albedo nodded. “Do you not get ready yourself? My aunt rarely helps me other than waking me up on time if my alarm doesn't go off and she makes me breakfast if I have time for it.”
Kunikuzushi scoffed. “I can get ready by myself, it's just my mom doesn’t act like a good one. She hid my shoes on purpose this morning because she’s that dumb.” He fibbed and tried not to look like an idiot. They were going to middle school soon and all he needed was to look like a pathetic baby who couldn’t get ready for school all by himself. “If my dad didn’t die three years ago, then I bet he’d treat me better. It’s not like my mom would let me see him. She moved on as soon as she sent the divorce papers. She didn’t care if he was in a coma or not. Heartless b-word.”
Albedo uncomfortably swallowed from the conversation and changed the subject. “Did you have breakfast today?”
Kunikuzushi looked away. “No…” He felt embarrassed. Albedo sounded like he had everything together and he could barely get out of the house on time.
“Wonderful!” Albedo clapped his hands together and swung his backpack over his shoulder. “I made you a toaster strudel.”
Kunikuzushi was in awe. “Wait, I don't want your breakfast.”
“Oh, it's not my breakfast. I know quite often you have said you haven't eaten breakfast and many say you should eat it. I find it helps me when school can be so tiresome, plus I made this by hand with my aunt!”
“Uh, yeah.” Kunikuzushi stood awkwardly beside his wonderful best friend, who handed him a clear plastic box. He opened the tupperware and saw a flaky pastry with little stars and hearts decorating the top with frosting. He wasn’t sure how to act. He held back saying something rude about the frosting. It looked girly how the stars and hearts were drawn, but food was food. Albedo made this for him.
“Thanks.” He said as he walked with Albedo to school while eating the delicious snack.
Albedo happily spoke as they walked. Kunikuzushi tried to listen, but he was tired. He hadn’t slept well the night before. His nightmare bothered him. He dreamed Albedo wasn’t going to the same school as him the next year. What if they didn't stay friends? They had been together since preschool. They had sleepovers. What if this was it? He wasn’t sure if he was ready to ask Albedo what school he was going to for middle school, but he knew he should ask soon.
“Kunikuzushi, is something on your mind?” Albedo interrupted his thoughts.
“Uh, yeah.” Kunikuzushi stared at the half-eaten pastry. “Which middle school are you going to?”
Albedo paused before he answered. “East Edge Middle School. Why? We are in the same school district. Are you not going there?”
Kunikuzushi shook off the bad feeling. “Yeah, I'm going there. I was making sure, you know, because I don't want to be a lone loser in middle school if you weren’t going there.”
“Mhm, this makes sense.” Albedo agreed. “I would rather hang out with you than meet new people or worse have no one while bullies surround me.”
Kunikuzushi felt heat rush to his face. He thought by now he wouldn’t have reactions like that anymore. Albedo was a friend. Why did he feel so weird when Albedo said things like that? He didn’t understand it.
He laughed. “Yeah, meeting new people sounds like it would suck and you’re pretty good at meeting bullies like me. Hahahaaa, I was one of them.”
“Shh.. We are close to the crosswalk. We mustn’t let the teachers hear us say language like that, or we will get in trouble.”
“Sucks isn’t a bad word.” Kunikuzushi spoke boldly.
“Yes, it is!” Albedo wispeared.
“Yeah, but it's not like fuck, ass, or shit.”
“Kunikuzushi!”
“Fine, it's not like the f-word or a-word or s-word.” He grumbled. It wasn’t like it mattered if they said a-word or ass. It was the same thing, but Albedo was a prude when it came to bad words so he tried to respect him.
Albedo nodded. “I agree, but we must listen to the teachers' rules or else you will be in detention after school and I won't be able to walk home with you.”
Kunikuzushi hadn’t been in detention too often, but when he had walked home alone, it sucked, plus he had to deal with his mom who would ground him from video games and the computer. Now wasn’t the time to lose access to fun things when summer vacation was around the corner. “Hey, could I go to your house after school today? Maybe we can have a sleepover since it's the weekend.”
Albedo frowned. “My mom is coming home because I'm graduating from elementary school.”
“What?” This was news to him. He had never met Albedo’s mom, but he heard lots about her. He remembered all the times Albedo cried about her never being home since his aunt took care of him. Then he tried to put on a brave face if his mom skipped visiting for the holidays as he got older, but Kunikuzushi knew he was a crybaby just like in preschool. Each time his mom disappointed him, he would come to school in a disheveled state. His clothes wrinkled, forgetting his homework and lunch, and staying silent. She never came to things other than important holidays. He could count on his hands how many times she had actually come home to see Albedo. He should call his Aunt Alice his mom because she actually acted like one.
“Yes, my mother said that graduating from elementary school is extremely important. She said she wishes to be there. So she is arriving tomorrow since graduation is on Wednesday. I get four days with her, Kunikuzushi…”
“But what if she doesn’t come?” Kunikuzushi grumbled as he ate the last bite of strudel.
“She will.” Albedo spoke with more vigor. “She promised.”
Kunikuzushi realized how callous he may have sounded when he said that. “Hey, I didn’t mean to…”
“She's coming this weekend. We can't have a sleepover.” Albedo repeated.
It was quiet for the rest of the walk. They went to class and Kunikuzushi was left alone with his thoughts.
The lessons were a mess since there wasn’t anything to teach. They had just finished all their testing and the teacher was done with her lesson plan so she was scrambling by having them do crossword worksheets and puzzles as group projects.
He thought about the next week. They were going on a field trip to tour a middle school by shadowing a student on Monday. Then Tuesday they were having a field day, and Wednesday they would be cleaning the classroom and graduating from elementary school. It felt like the days were going by too quickly. He wouldn’t even get a chance to hang out with Albedo before they were 6th graders at this point. Sure, they had summer vacation, but Albedo always went to some cool science summer camp and then his aunt would take him out of town on vacation afterwards, so he barely had any time to hang out with him.
He was barely paying attention to class until the teacher on the phone called for Albedo to come to the front of the classroom.
All of a sudden Kunikuzushi watched Albedo as he stepped forward and took the school phone into his hands. Kunikuzushi couldn’t hear what was being said. His classmates were being way too noisy, but he could see Albedo slowly nodding to whatever was being spoken on the other end of the line. His lips parted as he spoke into the receiver. Devastation gradually crept onto his face. Kunikuzushi had a few guesses about what this phone call was about. Either something bad happened to his aunt, or his mom wasn’t coming to the graduation.
Finally Albedo handed the phone back to the teacher and turned to go back to his seat. He looked so upset. Kunikuzushi tried to get his attention. Maybe if he waved, Albedo would notice him. He made a secret hand signal that meant they should both go to the bathroom to talk, but Albedo ignored him.
Whatever was said in that call, Albedo wasn’t taking it well. He didn’t even want to have a secret meeting in the bathroom to discuss it.
He waited until lunch when he knew he could corner Albedo alone. There was no way Albedo could squirm out of their conversation if he could let him talk freely in private. Yet when the bell for lunch rang, Albedo left without him. Kunikuzushi tried to stand in line with him to ask if they could go to their secret spot at recess to talk about what happened, but Albedo shook his head.
Kunikuzushi knew this had to be about his mom. That was the only time he got this upset. His mom never showed up to anything unless it was Christmas or Easter, and most of the time she didn’t show up. She might call him if he was lucky.
Albedo took two bites of jello and then threw his lunch away. “Wait,” Kunikuzushi called out. “You need to eat more than that.” but Albedo left him alone at the lunch table.
Kunikuzushi tried to quickly eat, but he was nervous about Albedo. He wasn’t one to throw away all of his lunch even if he didn’t eat much. He ate as fast as he could before he tossed his food tray in the trash and almost ran out the door to search for Albedo.
They needed to talk. He knew if they spoke, he could calm him down. If this was about his mom then they could have the sleepover, and Albedo could forget about his shitty mom. A few days away from home while playing video games with lots of pizza and soda always helped.
He looked at their secret spot under a tree where Albedo would usually draw at but he wasn’t there. He looked at the playset and across the basketball court, but he couldn’t find Albedo. He was about to check the bathroom when he heard a yelp.
He looked at a giant tree near the soccer fields and groaned. He saw some little kids gathering around the bottom of it and pointing at the top of the massive tree.
There was no mistaking it. He could point out that bright blonde hair anywhere. Albedo had climbed the biggest tree in the schoolyard. For not wanting to break the rules, he was breaking a big one. Climbing trees at this school could get you detention for days.
He stomped across the schoolyard until he reached the bottom of the tree and then looked up. Albedo was really up there. It wouldn’t be a first. When they were younger, they’d climbed trees after school in parks, but this was plain stupid. They were in 5th grade and about to go into middle school. They were done with climbing trees like children.
Kunikuzushi took in his surroundings and realized that he was going to be in big trouble because of Albedo if they got caught. He needed to calm down Albedo and get him down the tree fast before the teachers noticed.
He grasped a branch and used the grip of his shoes as leverage to get himself up. From there, he was climbing up, branch by branch, trying to reach the top.
“Go away!” Albedo yelled.”I came here because I don't want to talk to you.”
Kunikuzushi groaned as he pulled himself up. “Sorry, I can’t hear idiots. Maybe talk to me when you come back to your senses and stop sounding stupid.”
Finally, he reached Albedo. The branches were weak and flimsy, but Kunikuzushi held tightly onto the tree. “Albedo, come on. Let's talk under our tree. You know, our secret spot.”
“No!”
“Fine, we’ll talk here and get in trouble together. Is this about your mom?”
Albedo turned to look at him with tears in his eyes. “I don't want to talk about it.”
“Albedo, you can’t hide it from me. That phone call was about your mom not coming, right?” He shrugged. “Hey, if she's being an a-hole then we can have our own party without her by having a sleepover.”
“Kunikuzushi, go away. I don’t want to talk about it. That’s why I am up here.”
“Dude, you can tell me anything. You know that. We’re best friends.” He leaned in close, but Albedo limply kicked at him. “Go away.”
“Albedo, hey… whoah!” The tree branch he was on wobbled, but he tried to keep himself stable.
“I told you to go away.” Albedo weakly kicked at him again, and Kunikuzushi lost his balance as he dodged the kick. He tripped on his shoelace and screamed when the tree branch he gripped slipped through his fingers with a crack.
He felt his heart jump to his throat as his chest slammed into a lower branch, causing him to lose his breath. He frantically grabbed for another tree branch but scraped his arms against the bark. Each branch slipped past his hands. With a sickening crunch, he felt his arm scream in agony and flush with heat,
BAM!
until he made a resounding thud as he hit the ground. His vision was fuzzy. There was so much noise, and someone was screaming in pain like a baby.
He realized it was him. Tears ran down his face while his arm swelled up. He felt like he was going to die. He couldn’t move. His body was stiff, and everything felt like it was cut and scratched. He stared up at the leaves of the tree from being unable to move, until the face of a teacher appeared. She spoke so quickly it hurt his head. One minute he was lying on the ground in pain, and the next, he was being taken to the nurse's office by a teacher and sobbing the whole way. He didn’t see Albedo. He would have thought he would have cared that he fell from the top of a tree because he came to comfort him, but he must have hidden away in shame.
He lay on the bed in the nurse's office. The medicine the nurse claimed would help with pain had lied. This didn’t make anything feel better. He was dizzy and tired. He couldn't stop crying from the pain, even as his arm was lightly bandaged.
Once his mom appeared, she seemed bothered. “Who did this to you?”
Kunikuzushi turned his head away from her, and the room spun.”I know another boy shoved you out of a tree. The teacher told me. What's his name?”
Kunikuzushi gritted his teeth. “You didn’t care about me this morning, so stop caring now. Just get me to a doctor and make my arm stop hurting.”
This wasn’t what he planned for his Friday to be like. Albedo shoved him out of a tree because he gave a shit about him. All he wanted was to have fun with his friend before summer vacation, but if his arm was broken, then that was ruined. His summer was over before it even started. What could people do in casts? Nothing. He decided. They couldn’t do anything. Albedo destroyed his summer vacation.
Friday afternoon, he was at the doctor's and got all his injuries looked at. He was told he was lucky that he didn’t fracture or break other bones on his body, but he sure didn’t feel lucky. The only good part was that he got to pick the color on his cast, and he liked purple, so now he had a hardened purple cast on his arm that smelled weird.
Once he got home, he went to bed without dinner. The whole day made him annoyed. There wasn't even a note on his door from Albedo saying he was sorry for pushing him out of a tree. Albedo cared more about his shitty mom than his best friend.
That night, he tossed and turned in bed. Sleep was almost impossible when his body was so sore. Most of the night, he lay in bed staring at the ceiling while replaying the day before in his head.
Saturday morning wasn’t great. Kunikuzushi felt useless as he tried to get out of bed. The most he was able to do was sit and eat cereal while watching cartoons. He expected to hear a knock on the door from Albedo. He knew he had to have felt bad, so he had to show up. He knew Albedo. Whenever anything happened, he'd come to his house and talk to him, but as the day went on, he realized Albedo wasn't coming. The sun set and there was still no sign of Albedo.
Kunikuzushi’s first instinct was that Albedo was avoiding him because he hated him, but he was sure it was probably something else. Either Albedo was in big trouble, or worse, his mom came into town after saying she wouldn’t and Albedo forgot that he had pushed him out of a tree.
Whatever happened, Kunikuzushi was pissed. He stared at the TV and kicked the wall.
“Kuni, stop hitting things!” His mom yelled from the next room, but how could he control himself when he wanted to know what Albedo’s problem was?! Why hadn’t he come by? This wasn’t like him.
The next day was just as dull as Saturday. There was no sign of Albedo and Kunikuzushi’s activities were limited to simple tasks per his mom’s request and so he watched more TV. He’d get on the computer and see if Albedo was online, but his mom had been hogging it since her girlfriend went overseas for work, so he didn’t have a chance to get on it. He doubted he’d see him.
When he finally couldn’t stand it, he gathered enough courage to pick up the phone and dialed Albedo’s home number. He had memorized it by heart by the time he was in 2nd grade. If Albedo wasn’t going to come to his house to apologize or call, then he would see what the hell his problem was.
The landline was busy and that's when he felt like he was on fire. He couldn’t even call Albedo’s house. “MOM!” He hollered. “I’m going to Albedo’s house.”
Before he started to struggle getting his shoes on, Ei came into the room and locked the door. “No, you're not.”
Kunikuzushi scrunched up his face. “Yes, I am. Albedo hasn’t talked to me all weekend and we were supposed to hang out.”
Ei folded her arms across her chest. “You were supposed to hang out with Albedo on Sunday night?” She asked incredulously.
He could see how silly that sounded, but they hadn’t talked since he was kicked out of a tree and he wanted answers. Did Albedo feel bad at all?
“No, you're not leaving to go to Albedo’s. We’re having dinner and then you're going to bed.”
“I don’t want to. I'm walking to Albedo’s.” Kunikuzushi sneered.
“I don’t need this attitude, Kuni. Shit, you're not even a teenager yet. If you don’t listen to me, then you're grounded all summer.”
Kunikuzushi glared at her and grabbed his shoes. “I’m already grounded.” He indicated his cast. “Ground me forever, I don’t care. I'm visiting Albedo.” With some difficulty, he finished slipping on his shoes and pushed past his mom, who was stunned by the defiance. Kunikuzushi wasn’t going to let her tell him what to do.
“Kuni, don’t you dare leave.” As he walked out the door, his mom grabbed his arm. He screeched out in pain, which caused her to release him in urgency. “Oh… I didn’t mean to hurt you, Kuni… See what happened because you didn’t listen?! Come inside, and you can rest your arm.”
Kunikuzushi looked back at her with tears welling up in his dark eyes. “Fuck you, bitch.” He hissed under his breath before he walked out the door.
He thought she would be chasing after him with a sandal, but she was so stunned by being called a bitch to her face that she hadn’t followed him yet. It wasn’t like he was going far. Albedo was a few blocks away and he only needed to talk to him. He’d be back home in no time. Maybe his mom needed to back off. He was getting older now and he didn’t need her to hover over him when he didn’t need her. Even Albedo didn’t need help getting ready in the mornings to go to school, so why should he care about his mom trying to stop him from going to Albedo’s?
With each step, his arm throbbed. Whatever his mom did, it wasn’t healthy. He hoped it hadn't made it worse. All he needed was to go to the doctor again and have arm surgery.
He stomped down the streets until he walked up to Albero’s house. To his surprise, all the windows were dark, not even the porch light was on. This was spooky. Kunikuzushi took a deep breath. Now wasn’t the time to be afraid. They probably went to bed early. He walked up to the dark house and carefully pressed the doorbell.
Soft chimes echoed throughout the home, but no one answered the door. He grumbled curses and pounded his fist on the door. He waited a few minutes, but there was nothing. The house appeared empty. Where the hell was Albedo?
“Kuni, get in the damn car!” He looked over his shoulder and saw his mom sitting in a red Suburban. She was pissed, but then so was he. He needed to talk to Albedo, and he wasn’t home! “Kuni, get in this car this instant!”
He took one last look at the door and kicked it. “Albedo, I really needed to talk to you. I hope you're having fun being away from me.” He pretended to speak to him before he walked away from the door. “Because… best friends are supposed to care about each other…” He breathed under his breath.
That night he had a screaming match with his mom and went to bed without dinner. It didn’t happen too often, but more often than it should. Honestly, it happened less when Albedo was around. He seemed to butter up his mom while all he did was annoy her. Albedo was way better at dealing with his mother. He couldn’t understand her and she sure as hell didn't understand him.
The next day, he quickly got ready for school and waited outside his house earlier than usual. He’d make sure that he’d run into Albedo. There was no way he’d miss him if he was early, plus Alice trusted they would walk together and it was safer for him to go to school with a buddy than be alone.
It was stupid. Alice would say, ‘Albedo, remember if a stranger walks up to you and offers candy, you say stranger danger and run away!’ Albedo would sternly nod as if that would happen. Kunikuzushi didn’t believe in it. Who offered candy for free unless it was Halloween? He sure had never seen it happen to anyone he knew. So he was sure it was a lie adults made up to laugh at kids who believed in it.
He waited, and waited, and waited, and waited… He looked down at his wristwatch to see the time. “Ten minutes until school starts. What the heck? Albedo always comes early.” He mumbled to himself before he started to walk to school. He ran through what may have happened. Maybe Albedo took a different path to school, perhaps he got a ride, or he walked past his house super early before he went outside. Whatever happened, he knew Albedo would never be late to school. Today, they had a field trip, so he knew Albedo wouldn’t miss it. He had been excited about this one because he’d get to see what middle school was like and he liked school. A field trip to a school would be a dream field trip for him.
He ran to school just as the bell rang and luckily made it to class in time. He looked at the lineup of kids, but Albedo was missing. What the heck happened? Why wasn’t he here? Now Kunikuzushi wasn’t mad but confused. He tried to piece together the empty house the night before, the busy landline, not being visited by Albedo with an apology, and not being at school, but it didn’t add up. As the teacher called out students by their last names for roll call, Kunikuzushi raised his hand.
“Yes, Kunikuzushi?”
“Where’s Albedo?”
The teacher looked down at their paper and back at the lineup of kids in front of them, “Is Albedo Kreideprinz here?” It was silent. No one answered. It wasn’t like Kunikuzushi needed the teacher to call out Albedo’s name; he could see that he was missing. “Hmmm, it seems he’s absent today.” The teacher swiftly marked the attendance sheet, but Kunikuzushi raised his hand again. “Yes, Kunikuzushi?”
“Albedo should be here. He was excited to come on this field trip. Can you call his aunt and remind him to show up?”
The teacher held back a chuckle. “Ahem, unfortunately, I won’t be calling his home and asking him to show up. If he isn’t on the bus when it leaves, then he won’t be going. That's the rules. Any more questions?”
Kunikuzushi shook his head. All the rage he felt before had melted away. Albedo wouldn’t miss this field trip, and the teacher didn’t make it sound like he was in trouble for kicking him out of a tree. So he probably climbed down before anyone caught him, and no one saw the scuffle they had at the top of the tree.
He pondered over it. Why wasn’t he home the night before? Maybe he went out to eat, but now he was worried. The students shuffled on the bus, but he was sluggish. He felt like if he took his time, Albedo would show up late and would act like his normal self. He’d talk about boring stuff and about some stupid book he was reading before Kunikuzushi asked if they could play some video games after school. Then the conversation would veer into cooler stuff.
Yet as the bus left, he realized Albedo wasn’t coming, and whatever had happened, he was missing the field trip.
Shadowing a student at middle school wasn’t as cool as Albedo had made it sound a few weeks before. He basically followed a kid around during their classes. They didn’t get along. Kunikuzushi found they were more bearable to be around in silence. So he watched the guy as he worked. The kid tried to explain how middle school was different than elementary school. Starting with, instead of having one teacher, he’d have a lot more, and he could pick extra classes that were fun, but everything the kid said was everything Kunikuzushi already knew when his mom filled out his paperwork and asked what electives he wanted.
He decided to pick art since Albedo was going to be in that class. He knew there was a chance they wouldn’t have all their classes together, but that was one they could have together.
The field trip was a bust. Maybe Albedo would have had fun questioning the kid that he would have shadowed, but he sure didn’t. He felt like a stalker. Once he got back on the bus to go back to school, all his classmates were thrilled and excitedly talking amongst each other. He felt alone. Albedo still wasn’t there. He was determined now. When he walked home from school, he’d go straight to Albedo’s house again. They’d have to be home in the afternoon. There was no way Albedo’s aunt wouldn’t be home. Maybe Albedo got sick over the weekend and lasted to Monday, but he felt like his absence would have been called in, and the teacher would have known earlier that morning. He needed to get down to the bottom of this mystery and the only way to do that was by going straight to the source- Albedo’s house!