Chapter Text
You are Sonia Nevermind, a bright, enthusiastic, and wonderful five year-old little girl, and someone new has just moved in on the block.
It’s been a while since someone else moved in down here: you kind of know everyone, and everyone knows you, and you take great pride in that. Nobody has moved in since you were four, when a brunette boy with big green eyes moved in across the street from you. But when you come home from kindergarten around noon, there’s a moving truck at the end of the cul-de-sac, and you are immediately curious. Right after you finish your sandwich for lunch you bolt out the front door, excitedly crossing the street to find one of your best friends (one of many) on the sidewalk watching the truck unload.
She’s just about your age and seems to know a lot of things, things that you didn’t know yourself. You like going over to her house and watching TV with her, because that’s when she seems to have the most to say. She’s very quiet, otherwise, but you know that you two are really close. “Chiaki,” you exclaim, hoping to catch her attention. She seems very focused on that truck.
“Hi,” she responds softly, then turns to you. “Who’s that…?”
“I’unno,” you grin back, and that seems to be it. She isn’t really one for talking but that’s alright. Together, the two of you shuffle a bit down the sidewalk to get a better view of the whole situation. When you squint, you see a tall man in the front seat of the truck, and after another few steps, there’s a woman standing outside of it holding the hand of a little boy. He doesn’t see you at first, but he looks sad. He’s got shaggy black hair hanging in his eyes and a blue scarf around his neck. You turn to Chiaki to say something about him, but your mother calls for you by your front door. Politely, just as you were taught, you say goodbye to Chiaki and run to her side.
Your mother takes your tiny hand in hers and tells you that it isn’t nice to stare at people, especially the ones you don’t know. You nod and tell her you understand, but you still wonder about that boy you saw. You don’t go outside for the rest of the day, instead spending your time either watching TV, practicing your writing, or looking out the window until the moving truck leaves.
You are Gundam Tanaka, a quiet, intelligent, and alone five year-old little boy, and you are moving into your new house.
Hopefully, this will be your last house, considering the amount of moving you’ve been doing lately. Your mother hates moving, but your father hates staying in one place. You think this is your fifth house, but you aren’t sure. You usually go to your mother when you have questions to ask. Avoiding your father as much as you could became routine a while ago.
While your father watches over the movers, your mother holds your hand and tells you in that soft voice of hers that this is a very nice neighborhood. She says that there are a lot of children your age that you should get along with nicely. You tell her gruffly that you always liked animals better than people, anyways, so it didn’t matter where you lived.
Just as she gently squeezes your hand and tells you to lighten up, you take the liberty to stretch a bit and see out of your scarf and look around. There are people watching the truck from the sidewalk. They’re girls, and they’re staring right at you. You flush and hide in your hair and scarf, scooting closer to your mother. She smiles down at you, and you stay close to her until the little girls run away.
When you go inside there are boxes strewn everywhere, but your father ignores all of them and heads straight for the new bedroom he shares with your mother. He shouts something as he ascends the stairs about starting to unpack, insisting that both you and your mother get to work. You hate unpacking because you’re well aware that everything will be in a box again soon enough, but your mother starts opening boxes and you don’t want her to be alone. While you work, you hesitantly ask her if you could get another dog soon, preferably a retriever (or really anything other than the Pomeranian you reluctantly loved. Your father made you get rid of him when you moved last time). She tells you to be patient and wait for a while and then you would see; there are more important things at the moment, she admits a bit hesitantly. You worry about her a lot, but she tells you you’re too young to worry. Sometimes, after they think you’ve fallen asleep, you can hear your father’s voice booming and the sound of her crying. Your mother always wears long sleeves, but you never ask why and you aren’t sure you want to know.
Tomorrow, she tells you over dinner (which doesn’t taste too good as usual, you note), is your first official day at your new school. Your family only has one car, and since your father uses it to go to work, it leaves you and your mother to take the bus. She tells you the school bus comes at eight o’clock every morning at the end of the street, and that she could walk you if you wanted. You protest, insisting that since you’re turning six soon that you should have a bit more freedom. She smiles warmly at you and ruffles your hair, and though you know she didn’t take that seriously, you appreciate the attention. She always smiles just for you.
In the morning, your father drives you to school and kisses you on the forehead as goodbye, and you bound excitedly out of the car. This week you’ve been focusing on colors and how to make them. Your teacher told you yesterday that you would be finger-painting today, so you race inside the school and into your classroom. She’s already setting up when you arrive.
There are smocks on little hooks by your cubbies, one for each of you. During the first week of the year you all customized your smocks, and everyone was very impressed with yours. It had handprints with every color you could find, and your name sprawled across the chest. After stuffing your bag into your cubby, you head back to your seat and join the other two at your table, Chiaki and Akane. The fourth seat has been empty the whole year, so it’s an all-girls table, you’re happy to admit.
Before you begin, your teacher tells you as your classmates settle in, there’s a new student. You scan the room, looking for this so-called new student before you spot him, up at the front of the class, nestled quietly into a deep blue scarf. Chiaki turns to you. “...That looks like the boy we saw yesterday.”
“Ohh,” you nod, everything becoming clear to you. Akane leans in and whispers something to Chiaki and they start to speak back and forth, probably explaining who he is. You turn your attention back to the teacher only to find that the boy doesn’t want to introduce himself, so he goes to pick a seat instead. Akane mumbles something about that empty seat at your table, and you hear the chair squeal as she protectively wraps a leg around it.
But the boy ignores your table and chooses the table closest to the cubbies, a table where no one sits. Your teacher is a bit taken off guard, but she says nothing and lets him stay in the corner by himself. You and Chiaki begin to talk as she passes out paper to everyone. “Why is he by himself?” you start.
“I don’t know,” she hums quietly, “maybe...he likes it that way.”
That’s kind of thought provoking, you realize: wanting to be alone. You’ve never really thought about being alone on purpose, because you didn’t really think that was a thing. You’re really only alone when you’re sleepy or angry, but you don’t feel either of those things very often. You think about it as the teacher dismisses tables one at a time to get their smocks and you think about it when you’re mushing colors together on the paper to make a muddy rainbow. She lets you all make as many papers as you want, and by the time of your snack break, you’ve made four. But you keep thinking about that boy in the corner by himself, and while Chiaki and Akane share a baggie of pretzels, you slip out of your seat and head over to his table.
As far as first days of school go, this one has probably been the easiest. You should know: you’ve been through this three or four times by now. You’ve never come in on something so relaxing, though, and you hope that the rest of the year will be this simple. Your new teacher is very sweet, but you don’t tell the class your name. They’re all too busy talking to each other and waiting to paint. You don’t want to make yourself known because you know all too well that you will be packing soon, though your mother insists that this time you’re staying put.
The teacher sets down three cups of paint, a cup of water, and a stack of paper on your table and asks if you know about primary and secondary colors (to which you proudly respond of course you do). She then tells you that today is about the colors and that you could paint whatever you wanted. You start with blue, swirling your fingers around the paper and creating lines like wind. You do that a couple of times with red and yellow, and then you mix them, finding that you like purple the best. By the time you’re done, there are papers covering your table. Your teacher returns and tells you it’s snack break, so you could move around and talk if you wanted. You don’t, of course.
You continue to dab your fingers in blue and red, mixing to purple, then draw animals on the few papers you have left. The chatter of the room is almost comforting, a pleasant humming in your ears. You almost don’t notice the sound of the chair next to you screeching against the tile floor.
A pleasant and high voice greets your ears. “Hello,” it says, and when you turn, it’s a blonde girl sitting next to you and smiling. You recognize her as one of the two girls that was staring at you yesterday while you held your mother’s hand. She looks down at the table and sees your drawings. “Wow…did you make all of these?” Carefully, she reaches across the surface of the wooden table and lifts one up to look at: the first one you made.
Her eyes burn into you, and eventually you have to look away from your work, cleaning your fingers in the cup of water at your side. “It’s nothing,” you scoff, and her face lights up at your voice. “You can have that one. I didn’t like it anyway.” A total lie, of course, but the way she looks at you is very much worth it.
“Wooow, really? That’s so cool! Thank you!” You think that’s it, but she proves you wrong, instead scooting closer. As she inspects the blue swirls on the paper, you watch her, wiping what’s left of the paint onto your nameless smock. Out of nowhere, she looks up and grins at you, and you notice that two of her bottom teeth are missing. “So why are you alone over here anyways?”
While this attention is somewhat flattering, you feel best if you stay alone. You figure you can achieve this by making conversation as small as possible. “Because,” you shrug. There. That should do it.
“Because why?” She prods, and you realize things probably won’t get easier. You flush a bit and pull up your scarf with your clean hand.
“I like it that way,” you admit, watching her when you tell her. She nods and looks as if everything wrong with the world has suddenly been righted. Her feet kick underneath the chair excitedly and she grins.
“You should sit with me,” she offers, “me ‘n Chiaki ‘n Akane. It’s an all-girls table, but I don’t think they care. Well, Akane might, but that isn’t important. I’m sure they’d really like you once they got to know you! I mean, I have to, too, but you seem pretty nice ‘n all…”
“Thank you,” you say, the red of your face hidden in your scarf, “but I like being over here.”
“Oh,” is all she says, and guilt seeps into your chest. Her face falls for a minute, but the next she’s smiling again. “Okay! I’ll see you later, then. Oh, and I’m Sonia.” She gives you another toothy grin and jumps out of the chair, leaving you alone again. Fittingly, the teacher then calls for snack break to end and to keep painting.
When she walks by you again, you ask for white paint and black paint. She gives you a bit of a confused look but brings you two cups with each color in them. You get to work, seeing what white does with red, then blue, and then you mix with yellow and red and white. You decide that you like yellow and white best, maybe even better than purple. You look up. It looks like that girl’s hair.
You like her. This isn’t good. Liking people leads to nothing but bad dreams and getting made fun of. Not to mention that if you got attached to her you would probably end up moving away even faster. Nobody has to know that you like her. But you think you do. Maybe.
Your father picks you up when kindergarten is over during his lunch break. The moment you climb into the backseat, you practically burst with excitement, telling him about all the cute things that you painted that are nestled in your bag right now. You continue, barely stopping to breathe, and tell him about the new boy in your class and that he’s your new neighbor. He laughs and tells you to calm down, one thing at a time. Although it’s hard, you manage to get things out one by one until both of you have the whole story clear. He tells you that he’s happy for you but insists that you get something for lunch before you show him your paintings.
As he cuts you an apple you lay your artwork out on the table, but notice that something important is missing. That picture that the boy gave you. Where did you leave it? You could have sworn it was in your pocket. Or was it your bag? You frown, accepting the apple slices from your father as he admires all of your hard work. You frown and tell him the most important one isn’t there.
Just then, the doorbell chimes throughout your home, and alongside your dad you head to the door. As it opens you’re face to face with the new kid in class who never told you his name. He’s completely alone, standing in the middle of your porch and looking intimidated, but he thrusts a paper into your hands and says, “You forgot it.” Without another word, he leaves, simply walking himself home.
In the corner of the paper, a name is scribbled in permanent marker. After some careful time, you realize it’s his signature. His name is Gundam.
She talks to you the next morning before class starts. She tells you more than once that you should consider sitting with her and whoever the other two girls are, but you keep saying no. You don’t want to make the other two girls upset, considering that Sonia is the only person in your new neighborhood that has spoken a word to you. After denying her for maybe the tenth time, she frowns and hurries back to her own table.
You figure that you blew your only chance of making a friend and now she’s gone to tell everyone else about how hard you are to talk to. It wouldn’t be the first time. It seems like that’s what she’s doing; she’s leaned over her table, whispering to the other two girls there, and she points a finger in your direction. The brown-haired one looks at you with a weird face and after a moment all three girls stand and crowd around you.
Sonia speaks first, standing in the middle of them and looking like the star. “Gundam, we’ve talked it over, and…well,” she bites her lip, looking at the other two girls excitedly.
“We don’t mind if you sit with us,” the brunette finishes for her, and she grins at you, revealing her snaggletooth mouth. “I’m Akane.”
“I’m Chiaki,” the third one says, looking at you with a far-away expression. She seems to be the most relaxed out of the three of them. “You seem okay. From what Sonia has said...we really don’t mind. If you want to.”
It’s a little odd, you realize, being pressured to make a decision like this like you’ve never done before. All of them are staring at you with their wide, little girl eyes, stressing you out until you (being the gentleman you are) have no choice but to accept. The teacher smiles when she sees you move, and Sonia shares some of her snack with you later on. You smile a little bit, but you make sure its quick enough that no one really sees.