Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Asuga, who are you carrying?” Karen straightened up from the tub of laundry, speaking in Japanese to the small girl who’d just rounded the corner.

“A boy I found. I wanna keep him.”

“You can’t talk about a boy like he’s a pet,” Karen chided, walking over to get a look at the kid her little sister had hoisted onto her back. He wasn’t much to look at. 4 or 5 years old and dirty as a dog, with masses of tangled green hair falling around his round face. The hair was so long that Karen doubted her sister’s judgement. “Are you sure it’s a boy?”

“Of course!” She said, offended. “I’m not dumb!”

“Fine, just put him down now. He’s filthy.”

Asuga obliged, shifting the little boy off her back and holding him by the hand so he could stand upright. “There you go! Hey, Karen, I’m bringing him home.”

“You’re young to bring a boy home to your parents,” Karen’s joke went over Asuga’s head. “I don’t think mother would like someone like him around. He looks sick.” The little boy did indeed look sick, and his tiny limbs were gaunt and bony as if he’d never had a proper meal in his life, but his eyes blazed with incongruent joy and he smiled winningly. He’d been smiling the whole time, Karen realized. Even though he looked so bad, that smile just about overshadowed everything else. “What’s his name, anyways?”

“I dunno.” Asuga didn’t need to know names to make friends. “He speaks English, so how am I supposed to ask him?”

Karen looked back at the stray boy and switched from Japanese to English. “What’s your name?”

He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Dunno…I don’t think I have one.”

“What do people call you, then?”

“Um…’pup,’ sometimes. And, and sometimes they call me ‘bastard.’ They say that a lot.”

Karen frowned. “That’s not a name. It’s a not-nice word that just means you don’t have a daddy.”

“Ohh.” The little boy nodded seriously, then went back to smiling. “You’re pretty. What’s your name?”

“I’m Karen, and this is Asuga,” Karen indicated her sister, who was unable to follow the conversation in that language. “She speaks Japanese, by the way. You know any Japanese?”

He didn’t even know what Japanese was, and shook his head. “Ah, well, if you stick around her you’re sure to pick some up,” Karen continued. “And maybe her English will get better because of you. Who knows.”

After that, Asuga got bored of listening to them speak in a strange language and grabbed the boy’s hand again. “Let’s go play!” she cried. “I know a cool place that I bet you’ve never seen before!”

Karen watched them leave. “Don’t take him in the house, Asuga!”

“Okaay!” her voice floated back, diluted by the distance as they ran down a bright, sunny alley. Karen returned to her laundry job. It seemed that a bit of that boy’s bright smile had stayed behind, and she found herself in a sudden good mood. She hummed a song as she worked.

“Ho ho hotaru koi atchi no mizu wa nigai zo kotchi no mizu wa amai zo ho ho hotaru koi…”

The sun had travelled to the far side of the sky, casting rosy shadows over the slipshod buildings. The two children had finally returned to the front of the house, and Karen watched them from a pile of wood near an unfinished window.

Asuga and the nameless boy played games that transcended the language barrier, like catch and tag and chaotic games that they thought up on the spur of the moment. She went inside and grabbed just enough food so that mother wouldn’t wonder about it and brought it out and they shared rice and stew from the night before.

“Hey, Karen, doesn’t he eat like a cat?” Asuga pointed out how fast and fiercely the boy wolfed the food he’d been given.

“Um…I guess it’s like a cat, yeah.”

“See, because he eats really fast and chomps hard.” She imitated him, and he stared at her with amusement. “Is that a game too?” he asked, and kept eating, and she kept imitating, until finally they collapsed in helpless giggles.

Just before the sun began to truly set, Asuga and the boy looked over her collection of pretty stones. The boy had a few of his own in the pockets of his tattered coat, and she squealed over them. “Ooh! This one’s so shiny, like a gem! Hey Karen, maybe it IS a jewel, and we’ll be rich!”

She made her sister return the rock. “It’s not a jewel, and don’t steal from your friend unless you want him to get mad.” The little boy looked far from mad. He was pleased by Asuga’s enjoyment of his treasures and had a sweet grin on his dusty face.

“Hmm…you smile so much, it looks like you’re always ready to snap a picture,” Asuga mused. She mimed holding a camera and made snapshot noises. “Ni-co! Kachang! Ni-co! Kachang! Mou ichido, ni-co! Kachang! Wish we had a camera. Hey!” an idea struck her, and she turned to her big sister. “Karen, let’s name him Nico!”

“We can’t just give him a name.”

“We can too! He doesn’t have one, and everybody needs a name! Plus he smiles all the time, so Nico is a good name!” She turned to the little boy and asked “You wanna be named Nico?”

He looked a little self-conscious at being addressed in the foreign tongue, but he remembered her making that sound when they were playing cameras, so he imitated her and agreed “Nico!”

“See? I’ll call him Nico!”

“Stop treating him like a pet,” Karen said, but couldn’t help laughing. “Okay kid, do you want to be named Nico? Do you like that name?”

He thought it over for a moment, then nodded again. “Yeah!” He said the new name a few times, trying out the feel of it, and lit up with joy, his sunny smile spreading even wider. It was a really good name. And he really liked these people who handled him softly and didn’t yell.

Asuga jumped in place, grabbing Nico’s hands. “Ni-co! Ni-co! Yay!” she crowed in delight.