Poke

Poke

“Ken, did you die?”

Waking up, the first thing he saw were golden, beady eyes looking curiously at him while feeling a poke on both of his cheeks.

"You're alive!" Himiko shouted, jumping up while spreading her body to look like a starfish.

Ken sat up and observed that the sun was at its highest point and that the weather was noticeably hotter than before.

Some kids were playing on the rusty swings while others ran around, occasionally falling on the old wood chips that then lodged themselves inside their skin.

“Time.”

Himiko unconsciously put her finger to her mouth, letting out a few Hmm's before saying,

“It was 7 when I left, but it's been a couple of hours.”

'‘If you don’t know, then why answer!' That was Ken's initial thought before he calmed himself.

‘The sun, when compared to yesterday's peak, means it should be around 12…sigh barely even 4 hours of sleep.’

Looking up, he saw an expectant Himiko, obviously brimming with energy.

He'd bet she got a full amount of rest.

“So…do you need something?”

“Welllll picture the scene. I'm at home bored out of my mind, so I come to my favorite park hoping to play. But all of a sudden, I see my best friend, Ken, lying on a bench, looking like he’s dead.”

‘I did have a good sleep despite the lack of amount.’

Ken rubbed his face, trying to remove the bench marks that had temporarily etched themselves onto his skin.

“So, I tried to wake him up. I poked his face for 5 whole minutes before he finally woke up.”

Ken looked at her haughty expression, which once again was asking for praise.

“Did you read some plays recently?”

“N-No.” She said this, averting her eyes.

‘She definitely did.’

“What do you want to play?” Her eyes shone.

She looked around, noting all the objects that could be used for playing.

After a quick glance, she went into a serious thinking pose, putting her hand under her chin, apparently taking this quite seriously.

‘I’ll need to tire her out before I can properly think. Besides, with my quirk, how hard could it be?’

.

.

Astronomically so.

That was the answer Ken found to his previous rhetorical question.

She didn't tire.

Ken knew her quirk wasn’t physically related, as he had asked her, but she managed to somehow never get tired.

They had played tag for HOURS!

Switching who was and wasn’t ‘it’.

Ken used his brain, spots in trees, and anything high up as a hiding spot to get away from her, yet she was unnaturally resilient.

Something he attributed to her childlike body.

The problem came from the fact that he was also a child, yet he still felt signs of fatigue.

She found him whenever she needed him and always ran fast—so fast that he couldn’t slack when trying to ‘tag’ her, and her craftiness was overwhelming.

Creating traps to trip him, lying about this being the last round if she lets him tag her, etc.

She made his plan of ‘easily’ getting rid of her as simple as finding the meaning of life.

‘Why don’t I just go?’

The question was valid; he could just leave.

There was nothing she could do to stop him, yet...his mind didn’t want to.

The desire to have a kinship, someone to talk to, to wind down with, a friend he could come to and be himself with.

‘Futile.’

‘I Know.’

He didn’t even know when it was ‘that’ voice who was commenting or if it was him answering his own question in a self-deprecating way.

He’s experienced it personally; connections to others result in devastation.

Those who have a bond with someone else end up hurt when the other person struggles, adding to their burdens.

‘It’s stupid.’ Being friends with her.

He was a 25-year-old, soon to be a 26-year-old when adding his ages!

Yet the more he lived, the more he became uncertain: ‘Maybe age and wisdom were not stackable?’

He made some dumb decisions these past months—ones an adult wouldn’t make.

Yet it didn’t feel wrong to make them.

Ken was more and more uncertain about things as life progressed.

What does he really want?

What is Himiko to him?

What should he do for the future?

All of these thoughts constantly collided, threatening to expl-

“Hey Ken, found you.”

An upside-down Himiko head appeared at the exit to the tube slide he was inside.

She climbed in and found a seat right next to him, with the overhead plastic covering them, making the space rather cramped.

‘It’s quiet.’

Ken finally noticed the lack of sound, and with the time being only 2, it was odd.

“When we were playing, everyone got spooked, and so everyone left?”

‘Wha-? Wait, that makes sense; a maniacal Himiko who couldn’t hold in demonic laughs chasing some ‘poor’ kid around the park surely would scare some children. Not to mention it’s lunchtime.’

Himiko looked at his face, scrutinizing it as if she wanted to burn the image into her mind.

Ken tried to crawl out of the space, planning on climbing up the slide as Himiko’s body had blocked the other end.

“No!”

Grabbing Ken’s hand, Himiko pulled on him, forcing him to sit back down from his crawling position.

“Himiko-”

“You’ll run away if I let you out." Ken let out an exasperated sigh at that.

She was unbelievably stubborn and perceptive; he knew she would surely keep her word.

“What is it you want, Child of the Sun?"

She looked secretly happy at his choice of words to refer to her, but her expression quickly morphed into one of worry.

“I want to know what's wrong with you.”

“Nothing.” A curt answer flowed out of Ken's mouth.

“Your face says otherwise.”

Ken was bemused at that; he always had the same impassive look on his face.

Himiko once again fell into a thinking spat, unsure of what words to use to describe Ken’s face today.

“Ano~”

Then, with a eureka expression, she said, “If before, when we played, you looked like a grumpy cat, now you look like one who's been neutered by the vet.”

‘What the hell is that analogy?!'

“So what's wrong?” Her pensive stare once again landed on his face.

Ken was torn; this was a simple dilemma, his mind told him. Simply tell her a lie—maybe that he was constipated or that he received an unsatisfactory grade on a test.

A simple, unverifiable lie would be an easy answer.

Yet again, his heart didn’t want to agree.

He didn’t want to have to lie.

He wanted to be truthful, to follow the scarcely believed policy of honesty.

But there were many logical reasons against it, Danger of information being used against him, willingly given by the provider or not.

Involving her in a situation she didn’t need to be, etc.

There was a mountain of logic which refuted the feeling that sprouted in his heart.

Yet his feelings were undaunted.

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