Chapter Text
Noise.
He just wanted to leave.
Too Much Noise.
His parents had dragged him again to a random, meaningless party hosted by his relatives. He sat in the middle of a table next to his parents as the adults talked.
Too many relatives talking at once.
“Has Moe been doing well in school?”
Talking about him.
“He’s doing great! I just wish he would focus on anything but his little drawings.”
Can’t they just shut up?
“He’ll grow out of it. He won’t be like this forever.”
JUST SHUT UP!
“...Moe?”
He looked up from his journal at that moment and took a peek at the small figure tugging at his pants leg. A small, pigtailed girl no older than 4 looked up at him with her wide eyes.
“Play with me!” Despite insisting excessively, she does so in the softest voice she can muster. The girl continuously tugs on his pants leg, causing him to drop his notebook.
Already, he wasn’t in the greatest of moods, so he definitely didn’t want to spend his time entertaining a stupid preschooler. Yet, as always, his parents had other plans.
“Moe, honey, go play with Tohru.”
“But mom-”
“It’d be good for you to do anything else, Hun.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. Even at his younger age, he already knew when his decisions were already made for him. He grabbed his stuff and irritably turned over to the young girl staring at him with a face that he couldn’t quite read, but maybe it was her being happy?
Standing up, he followed the young girl as she led him to her room. He began looking for somewhere comfortable to sit, and honestly, he had quite a few options. There were pillows thrown about the room, two comically large beanbag chairs, and a bed covered head to toe in stuffed animals. God, just looking around made his eyes feel soft. He decides to take a seat on the floor, in hopes she can entertain herself.
For a while, this plan worked; occasionally, Moe would look up to find his younger cousin doing something weird in his eyes. One such example was when, mid-doodle, he looked up to find Tohru spinning around in a circle. He’d paid no mind to it before going back to his drawing. By the time he’d finished, he’d realize that Tohru had still been spinning around.
At other points, he was forced to look up from his notebook, as Tohru took delight(?) in slamming her dolls together, as well as anything else she could get her hands on. If the sounds of the adults talking were already grating, the sounds of a little girl playing incorrectly (in his opinion) were beginning to wear him thin.
He tries to get her attention, “Tohru-”
She slams her dolls against the wall.
“Tohru, can you-” She lets the dolls fall to the floor before throwing herself against her flooring.
“TOHRU!”
Tohru finally looks up.
“Tohru, can you just- please stop! You’re getting on my nerves!”
Part of him felt bad for suddenly snapping; he’d expected her to start sobbing or scream out to his aunt, causing him to be grounded again. And yet, she didn’t; she just stood there, staring at him.
After a pause that felt like it took forever, he’d been made enough uncomfortable and looked back at his drawings. That’s when he felt it, a sudden feeling rubbing against his leg. He looked over to find Tohru slamming her head into his side, in an attempt to get comfortable.
Uncomfortable, he blurted out, “Tohru? What are you doing??”
She looks up at him, “...Whatcha doing?”
A simple question, and yet one he hadn’t expected at all, who would when he was constantly put down for doing what he was doing?
“...I’m drawing?”
She attempts to hug him, “...Drawing what?”
“I’m drawing good guys and bad guys?”
Still trying to wrap her arms around him in an effort to feel more comfortable, as if she was hugging a stuffed animal, she simply responded with a stare, and yet this one was different. When Moe looked at her, her eyes were practically glimmering, as if he’d told her he’d put the stars into place.
He lowers his notebook a bit so she can see better, and she’d begun staring at the childish drawings of heroes and villains punching each other. Her gaze wandered for a while until she eventually pointed at one of the red guys on the page.
“Oh, that's Explosions Guy! He can create explosions out of his hands, and he’s super cool and smooth!” She looked to him as if waiting for further explanation.
And Moe delivered, he began talking her ear off as she lay her head near his shoulder, a tad uncomfortable with the proximity, but he was just happy to have someone to listen to him ramble on and on.
“I want to be a comic artist when I grow up! I want to write stories of good guys and bad guys battling against each other!” He blurted out in the middle of explaining a back story. Immediately, he felt flustered, and yet it’s like it didn’t really register to his admiring cousin next to him, as if she simply wanted to hear him continue to narrate his stories, and so he did. He drew his characters, and Tohru would just watch in silence.
After a while, the feelings in his legs and fingers gave out, and he was forced to stand. Tohru got up after him, looking around for something to hold onto again. He’d suddenly spotted a smaller game console on top of Tohru’s wardrobe. Lord knows why her parents left a television in her room, but what mattered at that moment was that he could definitely play a game right about now.
“Can we use that?” He looked to his smaller cousin, who tilted her head slightly but nodded in response. Moe went about turning on the television and connecting the console, as he owned one himself.
Tohru had quite the collection of games, all rather childish and family-friendly, not exactly appealing to him. After scrolling for a bit, he caught a glance of a racing game, seemingly untouched. He decided that would be the one he wanted to play and handed Tohru a controller.
He assumed Tohru understood how to play, after all, the game was with the others. He picked his character, a rather scary enemy, and told Tohru to do the same (She picked a princess-type avatar)
When the race began, he began plowing through the rest of the CPUs, a task rather easy as they were put at the lowest difficulty. He’d just made it to the finish line when he noticed the other side of the split screen: Tohru’s racer had been slammed against a wall, moving forward as if she didn’t realize she was supposed to be on the road.
“Tohru, you’re not supposed to-”
He looked at her confused face. Had she even played the game before? Did she have someone to play with her?
“...Do you need help?”
She turned to look back at him, her eyes the same, and yet he felt as if he’d understood what she was trying to ask.
Moe paused the VS match and changed to Time Trials to teach her the basics without the stress of other characters throwing items at them. He sat behind her and had her hold the controller while he grabbed the sides.
“Okay, press the A button to move forward, and move this stick to steer.”
She’d been a bit confused, at times gripping the controller too hard and other times completely missing the buttons, but before he realized it, she could stay on the road for a while before driving back into the grass.
Soon enough, he’d let go of the controller and let Tohru try on her own. It wasn’t perfect, and yet he could see how much easier it was getting for her to understand the game. He didn’t even mind that he was no longer playing.
After a while, Tohru continued driving around her little avatar while Moe drew beside her, the two in silence, yet it was less hostile than before. Of course, nice moments don’t last long as Moe’s parents called for him to put his shoes on and say goodbye.
Moe packed his things back into his bag and waved goodbye to his younger cousin. Right before he could exit the pink room, he felt a tug on his shirt.
“C…Can we play again?” She asked softly.
“Sure,” He smiled, “I’ll play with you again, Tohru. I promise.”