It was an Accident (Part 15)
CookiesSummary:Sho and Masaki notice that their mother and Jun are barely around. Meanwhile, Ohno takes them to the amusement park.
“Mom’s not here again… You think she’s with Jun-san again?”
Sho shrugged. It might be a possibility, for all he knew. For two whole weeks, both of them rarely saw their mother except during breakfast or when she came home before seven o’clock at night. The same goes for Jun; he rarely paid them a visit. Well, except for Ohno-san, their house doctor and unexpectedly older friend, who bothered to visit them at least three times a week. Today, for instance, was one of those days.
It was a Saturday when Ohno phoned them both, telling them to dress up comfortably. He didn’t tell them where they were going, but the both of them got dressed anyway. By the time they were finished grooming themselves, Ohno was at the their front door step.
“Where are we going?” Masaki asked as they followed Ohno to his small blue sedan. Ohno, on the other hand, refused to answer except with an ominous grin on his face.
“You’ll see when we get there,” he told them vaguely before getting on the driver’s seat.
It was a pretty long ride that Sho could see his brother’s head nodding off from the rearview mirror. He had the strong urge to bother the heck out of him by poking his leg, but he let his brother be. After all, they spent the whole week studying non-stop for their final exams next week.
“Masaki is special to you, I can tell.”
Sho quickly glanced over his shoulder, wondering why he did that when Ohno spoke, and saw that his brother was already fast asleep.
“Uh… yeah. He’s my little brother, I love him.”
“That’s good. I noticed that you two barely fight.”
“Yeah…” What was Ohno trying to get at? Sure, they were very good brothers to each other and Masaki was really important to him, but Ohno already knew that. What’s his point?
“I’ll get to the point, Sho-kun…” All of a sudden, Sho saw a different Ohno. He was more serious and he expressed it as he held the wheel tight until his knuckles almost turned white. He usually saw a sleepy doctor who made Sho doubt the doctor’s abilities, and Ohno was usually always jubilant and aloof. “I noticed the way you look at your brother and, well… there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just warning you, though, not to make things worse for him. You don’t want to lose Masaki, am I right?”
“What? What do you mean the way I look at him? Or how I’m going to make things worse for him? Of course I don’t want to lose him!” Sho raised his voice, but he lowered it down as soon as he heard Masaki shift in his seat. “I don’t want to lose him…” Sho said a little quieter this time.
“Good. Just keep things the way they are.”
Sho narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t answer my questions, Ohno-san. What did you--”
“We’re here,” Ohno cut him off at the same time he turned the engine off. “Masaki-kun, time to wake up.” It was as if the conversation they had earlier never happened and Ohno turned back to his usual self.
“We’re here already?” Masaki asked groggily as he sat up and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands. “Where are we?”
“Come out and you’ll see.”
“Okay…”
Once the three of them were out of the car, Sho heard a loud gasp from his brother.
“N-no way! Ohno-san…”
“Yup,” the doctor grinned and handed them both their tickets. “Your mother kept telling us about how you wanted to go to Happyland for the longest time, and since you two have been studying all week, I might as well take you kids out.”
“Thank you!” Masaki exclaimed as he pulled the doctor in for a bear hug. “Thank you! Thank you!”
“Wait…” Sho mumbled once Masaki went on ahead without them. “You’ve talked to my mom?”
Ohno rubbed the back of his neck and looked away from Sho’s eyes. “No… She told me this last month.”
Why do I have a feeling he’s hiding something? Heck, why do I have a feeling something’s not right?
“Come on, nii-chan!” Masaki piped up as he ran back to them, grabbed Sho by the arm and pulled him towards the amusement park’s entrance. “I can’t wait!”
Masaki was well aware of his fear of heights, but Sho tagged along with him in almost every ride non-stop until Sho begged Masaki not to let him go anymore. Masaki agreed, but he said that it’ll be a short break before they go again. Well, at least his brother was being kind to him, even if it was only for a short break.
“I want to ride The Dragon again,” Masaki told him but Sho just shook his head right away.
“No, definitely not. I’m not going up a thousand feet again. Once was enough.” He exaggerated on the height, but that’s what it definitely felt like to him.
Masaki pouted and Sho always hated it when his brother did that because Masaki always won. Sho sighed. He did survive The Dragon ride and it was kind of fun because of the feeling in his stomach, but he was at his limits of riding roller coasters. After all, they’ve already ridden all of the roller coasters. But when he took one look at Masaki’s pouting face and his brown begging eyes, Sho sighed in defeat. “Okay. Only this once, and no more roller coasters.”
“Yay!”
Sho wondered what Ohno was up to because he went off to do his own thing at the amusement park. But why should it matter? It wasn’t his business. But when he thought about Ohno, he recalled the conversation they had earlier in his car. What did Ohno mean by making whatever it is worse for his brother? And what was so weird about the way he looked at Masaki?
“Oh! Nii-chan, look!” Sho snapped from his thoughts and saw that Masaki was pointing at a red balloon floating towards the sun. “Someone’s balloon floated away into the sky.”
“Remember when that used to happen a lot to you?” Sho asked in amusement as they watched the red balloon become smaller.
“Yeah. I was always sad,” Masaki told him with a frown on his face, but he immediately brightened back up when he turned to face Sho. “But you always get me a new one after that, and it made me happy.”
Sho smiled as he remembered Masaki’s balloon tragedies (it’s what Masaki called it). Whenever there was a free balloon day Masaki was always ecstatic to get one. However, his happiness didn’t last long when he would suddenly let go because he was easily distracted by so many things around him. So Sho ran back with Masaki to the man handing out free balloons and got him one so Masaki would smile again.
“Hey, nii-chan…” Masaki poked him slightly and turned away when Sho gave him his attention. “Before we go back home, can we ride the ferris wheel?”
“Yeah, sure,” Sho grinned, wondering why his brother was suddenly quiet and shy. But he shrugged it off when their nachos were finally ready to be consumed by them.
It was already getting late and the had ridden almost everything except for the ferris wheel. They only had about an hour left before they were supposed to meet up, so they immediately went to the ride just in case the line was long. Surprisingly, it wasn’t. As soon as they got there, they were the first in line. Sho gulped as he stared at the fenced box before him, thinking of many possible ways he might fall from it, but when he felt Masaki’s arm wrap around his own arm, somehow he felt completely reassured. If Masaki weren’t here, he wouldn’t have ridden all those rides in the first place, or even have the courage to.
“Only two?” The staff asked as a red box came to a stop in front of them.
“Un,” Masaki nodded his head. “Two.”
“Okay,” the staff said before opening the door for the both of them. “Have fun.”
Once they were both seated and the door was closed, all that was left for was the wait. It took a couple more minutes as people rushed into other empty boxes as well. Strange how it suddenly became packed after they came. Sho, on the other hand, kept fidgeting nervously in his seat. How bad could this be? It’s not like there were going to be drops, or anything, and they were safely behind fenced windows. All there was to be worried of was the height…
“Going up!” He heard another staff member yell and soon they felt the ride budge.
It was a slow ride going up and Sho was fine until he looked down. He saw the whole amusement park underneath them and he swore he could hear the box creaking as if it was ready to fall off anytime. However, as they slowly made their way back down, the ride suddenly came to a stop and all the lights around it were turned off.
“What?!” Sho yelled. “Don’t tell me we’re stuck!”
“I’m sorry about this, but the ride suddenly malfunctioned,” they heard a staff shouting with a megaphone from down below. “Don’t worry, you guys. We’ll figure it out as soon as we can and you’ll be down soon. We’re sorry this happened.”
Meanwhile, Sho was getting all the more nervous. Their box, of all the friggin boxes, were at the top most and they were a far drop down. He took a deep breathe in and feared for the worst until he felt warm, comforting arms wrap around him. All of a sudden, his worries were gone and the height no longer seemed as dangerous than he thought before.
“Nii-san… I don’t know anymore.”
“Masaki?”
“I feel happy around you all the time and I’m really, really glad that your by my side. But Nii-san… I feel strange. I--”
Masaki was cut off when they heard noises coming from the box behind them. When they turned to look, they saw a couple making out so intimately that they were both each other’s names. Sho quickly looked away when he saw the guy’s hand snaking up to her , as did Masaki who gulped loudly.
“Uh…” Sho mumbled awkwardly, trying his best to block out the coming from the couple. “I hope they fix it soon…”
“Nii-san…”
Sho turned to look at his brother, thinking that Masaki was going to say something awkward about the couple, but then his heart stopped when he felt Masaki’s red lips on his own. He sat there, frozen and shocked and his eyes began to dry when he didn’t blink. They hadn’t made a move until Masaki pulled away with a gasp and he covered his mouth with his own hands.
“I’m sorry! I-I was going to kiss your cheek. I-I didn’t mean to!” He ran away from Sho to the other side of the box and looked away. “I’m sorry…” he mumbled quietly. But before Sho could even react or say anything at all, the lights turned back on, the couple in the other box stopped making out, and they were descending back down to ground level. Once their ride was over, Masaki was the first to head out and ran at a fast speed. Sho, on the other hand, just stared after his brother’s disappearing back as he touched his lips. He couldn’t deny the flutter in his stomach and how his heart raced against his chest. Only this time, it wasn’t the ride that caused it.
TBC
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