Chapter Text
It starts on a perfect summer day, in which three year-old Tetsuya cheerfully sits in his little inflatable kiddie pool halfway full of water. The sprinkling of sunlight peeking through a tree’s crown of leaves kisses the pale skin of his shoulders; like every part of his body, his mother has carefully and diligently lathered the child with sunscreen. Tetsuya’s small tuft of soft, light blue hair, even under the tree’s shade, grows warm at the tips, before the splashes of water reach up to them and soak them like grass. His still pudgy hands reach out for his many colourful bath toys, ranging from small boats to ducks, slapping at the water and creating wave after wave as he squeals in joy. From the safety inside their humble home, Tetsuya’s mother peeks through the kitchen window and watches down at her son. With his young and wild imagination, Tetsuya thinks that the sun has become brighter and shaped itself into his mother’s crown, creating a beautiful glow that matches the smile she greets him with. His knees jerk at his mother’s attention, and this is how his grandmother finds him. She comes out of the house bearing a plate of sliced sweet potato and rice crackers, her other hand carrying his training sippy cup as blue as his eyes, cold from the watermelon juice it holds. At the sight of his afternoon treats, Tetsuya lets out an even louder cry of joy and starts kicking at the water more excitedly, some of it already spraying onto the ends of his grandmother’s skirt.
His grandmother ignores the mess he makes and carefully places his food and drink on the little table set beside the pool, making sure that her grandson has calmed down enough to not turn his crackers into a soggy blob. As the older woman straightens herself, the two mother figures can do nothing but smile down as Tetsuya grabs a cracker and slobbers onto it. When they both guarantee his contentment, his mother goes back to preparing dinner while his grandmother goes back inside to answer the ringing phone. Tetsuya is once again left alone to his own devices, his hand now reaching for a slice of sweet potato, before the summer heat persuades him to quench his tiny self with the taste of sweet watermelon.
When the three year-old goes back to playing in his pool, he fills his ears with the sound of more splashing water, as well as faintly listening to the sound of something sizzling in the kitchen, and the low voice of his grandmother speaking to someone on the phone. All that makes up the small and cosy bubble Tetsuya makes for himself, until his ears perk at the sound of rustling leaves. He turns his round head to the right, where a giant hedge barricades their house a good height from the outside world, only ending to the far left where two thick cement pillars stand guard on each side of a much shorter gate. He stares at a particular spot to the far right, where the leaves are more shaky and reminds him of ants scurrying away after he pokes at their huddle. After a few seconds, the sudden pop of a foreign, fleshy thing startles him, dropping the pink toy whale in his hand, rice cracker crumbs dirtying his once clean face. His jaw drops down to create a small “o” out of his mouth, and his round eyes mirror the shape when the thing starts wiggling wildly.
It wiggles and twitches like a wild worm—a finger, Tetsuya thinks—penetrating through the once even layer of their hedge, going round and round and creating the crude rim of a circle. Perhaps noticing that one is not enough, another digit joins the other in an attempt to loosen the small and tight space. The leaves are starting to move and give way, but it requires the use of a third finger thrusting itself in to really force themselves into the hedge, until the circle has become a small opening between the Kuroko house and the outside. Yet, it is the blur of something dark moving in place and setting its sight on the boy that Tetsuya lets out a gasp, reflexively backing away until he presses against the wet plastic of his pool.
He, who has only known the feeling of joy and dissatisfaction (the latter mostly from hunger and his grandmother’s occasional tendency to jokingly deny him the attention he seeks), starts to feel something new and foreign to him. Even with the awareness that his wet back is against the pool, he feels tiny little spider legs crawling up his spine, and in turn, he involuntarily jerks and shakes his entire body.
The eight-legged creatures then find themselves underneath his skin and start to creep and rise all over, but he is unable to move any more to scratch away at the invisible things. Instead, his big, blue eyes stare in astonishment as the thing—an eye—looks right at him. As if joyful at the attention it now holds from the boy, the eye widens and darkens.
The three year-old starts shivering, and he thinks that a ghost has most likely blown on him , and something cold drops down on him like a bucket of water. He trembles like a leaf but is confused as to why and what to do now. Has he been in the water for too long? Has the wind gotten stronger? Is there really a ghost blowing down his exposed skin? Or is it because of the eye that continues to watch him, the skin on the sides now wrinkling in mirth as it basks in the attention it receives. He finds the little boy as its form of entertainment, but Tetsuya does not want to remain as one.
Suddenly, the leaves start rustling again and Tetsuya sees the eye move away from its makeshift peephole. For a short moment, the boy feels the drop in his shoulders like when he finally has to sit in the toilet and pee, but it is short-lived. Coming out in small measures in tandem with the footsteps on the pavement, he hears the deep sound of
PO.
.HO
PO.
.HO
PO.
.HO
Clueless of what to do, Tetsuya can only follow the dark patch of something hairy that appears at the top of the hedge, walking to the left and towards the gate; even to his young self, he knows that the gate will only reveal more of the unwanted stranger that has come to watch him. As the top of its head draws closer, his little heart beats louder and faster and stronger against his chest.
PO.
.HO
PO.
.HO
PO.
.HO
The sound claws and digs itself into his head, enough so that it roots itself deep enough that it remains with him after this day. It penetrates as roughly as the fingers have done so with the hedge, making their own mark into his memories like the twisted things they are. When the intruder is just about to peek out from the corner of the right pillar, little Tetsuya realises that he has never been so small until now.
Like the child he is, he rips his mouth wide-open and lets out his loudest cry yet. He wails like an injured animal, sensing that danger must now be warded off the only way his tiny and weak self can. He cries and cries and cries, and his fair-skinned cheeks start turning apple-red, his tears mixing with the pool water clinging to his skin. Wrinkles disturb the surface of his forehead as he strains to wail even louder, his nose starting to resemble a pinched tomato, snot slowly dripping down his nose. He cries and cries and cries, until he believes his throat will go sore from it, until his own voice drowns out the hurrying steps of his guardians and worried questions as they try to reach him. Never mind that dinner is close to burning on the hot pan in the kitchen, never mind that the phone is left hanging and bobbing upside-down from its perch, never mind that the intruder immediately halts before it reveals itself and turns away, leaving Tetsuya in his misery. Instead, he cries and cries and cries some more until his tightly-shut eyes cry enough water to possibly refill his kiddie pool in an imitation of a garden hose.
He completely misses the moment his father comes home, tie slightly askew and hair dishevelled, a result from his mother’s sudden call about Tetsuya’s sudden change of mood, let alone his lack of properly communicating the cause of it. Like one of his pool toys that have been left outside for the night, Tetsuya only drifts for the rest of the night, unmindful of the taste of his dinner nor the worried glances and comfort that his family gives him.
What starts as a perfect summer day ends horribly, darkening the bright boy like a cloud of rain. Little Tetsuya sleeps in between his family in the living room, after his inability to let go of his mother’s shirt goes on for too long. His small and pudgy fingers tightly hold onto his favourite stuffed toy, its soft hair tickling his scrunched-up nose. As he cries some more in his sleep, silently fighting his nightmare of perverse fingers and warped eyes, his family can do nothing but hope that he forgets about it all.
He temporarily does.