raptornest | [PSL] meet your new neighbor

[PSL] meet your new neighbor

He’s been told his name is Yoki Hisakawa. He’s ten years old, he’s suffering from “severe retrograde amnesia”, and, as of a few days before he was found, he is an orphan.

According to the hospital, he’s “okay, but should be careful”. His ankle and head are almost healed, but his left eye had to be removed. He’s not supposed to be running any marathons or climbing any trees, but he’s been declared healthy enough to be released from the hospital.

In a way, he misses it already. Or… maybe he just misses when he first got there. Before they tracked down his mother’s body, buried in rain-loosened mud and stone a couple miles from where he was found, nobody could be quite sure who he was. One of the nurses was Japanese - like his mother, he’s been told, though he was born here in England - and, looking at his white hair and pale blue-green eye, took to affectionately calling him “Ginko”.

He misses that. Each time someone calls him “Yoki”, it takes him a few moments to remember who that is. Looking at pictures doesn’t help; if he looks at a picture, then a mirror, he can’t deny they look similar, but-- how can he be someone he doesn’t remember being?

The people he’s being sent to live call him Yoki, too, but he guesses they seem nice enough. He’s been told they’ll be taking him shopping tomorrow, so he’ll have more than just the one change of clothes he was given as he left the hospital, and to make himself at home, and that dinner will be ready in a few hours.

He’s not totally sure how to go about ‘making himself at home’, so, in the meantime, he’s substituted wandering into the backyard, lying down in the grass, and staring up at the summer sky above him.

Close enough.

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There's a new kid in the house next door.

Dagger is the one who'd noticed it first, when he was supposed to be studying but instead looking out the window with his fingers spinning around his pencil. Maybe it's not surprising, considering he's always been the one who's had the sharpest eye. With how they gossip among each other, worse than a chatter of sparrows, well, it had taken less than a minute for the whole group of them to crowd around the window watching as the pale and subdued boy had been guided from the car to the home.

Everyone has their own opinions, right off the bat. Doll wants to know if he could be friendly, Peter is dismissive and snappish, Jumbo had noted with quiet concern that he'd seemed unwell, on and on and on. Chatty as sparrows. It had taken a little bit of wrangling for him to get all of his siblings back to doing things around the house like they were supposed to be, whether that was a chore or study, but he'd done it in the end. If he's to be the "big brother" in this ragtag family of theirs, in a home that feels too big and empty when he looks past them all, well, he's going to do it best he can.

Him? Well, he's in the backyard digging at weeds and such, which means he's in the perfect position to year the sound of a door opening and closing from past the fence. He pauses, ears keen, but there's hardly any sound at all. Just grass rustling, and hardly that. Did he hear anything at all? With dirt underneath his nails, he pushes himself up onto his feet and follows his own curiosity. When he'd lived out on the street, watching over a bunch of other kids that needed him and bereft of a mother that didn't care where he went or what he did anyway, he'd run around a lot more. It's easy to hop up a little, good hand digging into the top and hauling him up. With no prosthetic today- maybe one day he'll either stop breaking them or they'll stop being cheap bullshit- he has to practically drape himself over the top of the fence.

Yep. It's the same kid from earlier, who they'd been staring down at past glass.

Well, no one has ever accused him of not being friendly. "'Ey." Even in a single syllable, his accent is thick as hell, notable even in England. "Ain' seen ya before."

Ginko doesn't sit up; he just turns, after a moment of hesitation, to look at the fence from where he lies. For the moment, his expression seems... well, pretty close to entirely blank. Like he's not just reserving judgment on this strange boy talking to him over the fence, he just... doesn't have an opinion.

Which might not be inaccurate.

"...I just got here."

He could probably gather that, Ginko.

"Yea, I saw." Well, he's not being reacted to negatively, so he figures it's just fine if he goes tumbling over the fence entirely. He rolls with the movement, feet thumping into the grass, and he turns around with a relaxed lazy grin.

"Live nex' door. Call me Joker." It's not his legal name, but that's never stopped it from responding to it or putting it on everything he owns. "Yerself?"

Well, watching this strange boy just kind of drop into the yard at least gets Ginko to sit up. He tilts his head slightly, regarding Joker like a slightly disoriented cat.

"Uh... G--" He hesitates for a moment, wondering if he should give his "real" name. But... he didn't say Joker was his real name, and it doesn't really sound like one. It's just what to call him, right? So, if he answers in turn...

"Ginko."

'Ginko' sounds about as foreign as the boy looks, but that's only to be expected, he guesses. It's common sense, really. Patting his pants free of dirt and whatever other nonsense go on it on his landing, Joker hums.

"Ginko." Sounds pretty nice, if he says so. "Well, Ginko, wha' were ya doin'?"

Ginko just... stares at Joker for a moment. Then he turns and stares at the grass, looking sort of... concerned, maybe? Almost worried.

The truth is, now that he thinks about it, he's not sure how to explain what he was doing. Or... even if he was doing anything. "I... don't know. Nothing, maybe."

...Ah. Well, that's a concerning reaction- more from how Ginko had reacted than anything else. It's the lost kind of look of someone who doesn't know what to say, or even what to do, necessarily. Well, he wouldn't be the first kid Joker has approached...

So he does, offering his one good hand. "Well, if yer not doin' anyfin', why don't I show ya around the place?"

Once again, he just stares at Joker's hand for a moment - it might be evident by now that he tends to be kind of slow to react, in general. But he finally reaches out to sort of... not take hold of the offered hand so much as just rest his fingers on it.

"Around the... house?"

Joker doesn't immediately grip the fingers resting feather light in his palm. Instead, he lets them rest there, allowing the other boy to adjust to the warmth of him. Sometimes, you couldn't rush with people. Joker knows even that much, with as many siblings as he has.

"Nah, around the neighborhood. Ever climb a fence?"

What is "asking for permission"?

Asking for permission sounds super fake. And... well, Ginko remembers he was told not to "exert himself". But climbing a fence doesn't sound too hard.

He shakes his head, but tightens his hold on Joker's hand slightly while he stands up. "Dunno. But I can try."

"There we go~." Joker heaves him up with a wide grin, satisfied. The backyard on his end is in pretty good shape, he figures. He can leave it for a little while. Instead, he starts to lead Ginko to the back of the yard.

"I'll go up firs', and help ya up afer ta make sure. Yeah?"

Ginko nods, and follows close by Joker. Even as he walks, he's silently gauging the condition of his ankle. It seems like it should be alright for climbing to him, not that he's... any kind of a medical professional. Or, you know, anything other than a ten-year-old with amnesia.

"Okay." He'll stand and wait by the fence while Joker climbs, balling up his hands in the fabric of his t-shirt as he watches.

At least Joker is used to climbing, going up very much the same way as he'd done the other fence. This time, he balances himself on it, and braces the foot opposite of his arm against the fence. It'll help him with balancing even when he hauls Ginko up, he figures.

"Alright, c'mon then." Leaning down as much as he can, with all things considered, he offers his palm again.

That is... simultaneously impressive and sort of terrifying to watch from where Ginko is standing. His hands tighten and twist in his shirt as he stares at Joker, half-expecting him to go toppling off the fence at any second. He had only vaguely noticed that he only had one arm before, but-- now he's wondering if this might not be a good idea after all.

But he reaches up to take Joker's hand, and braces his uninjured foot against the fence in preparation to climb.

Oof- Joker digs his heel in a little more, jaw tightening. He's heavier than Peter or Wendy, and Doll too, he thinks, but... Maybe about near where Peter weighs? And Joker has managed just fine then, at least so he tells himself.

"Ready, then?"

"Mm-hm."

When Joker pulls him up, he grabs onto the top of the fence as soon as he can to lift more of his own weight, hooking his arm over it to hold himself up. For a moment, he braces himself for the dizziness that kept hitting him in the days after he first woke up - but it doesn't come. So far, so good.

As soon as Ginko is up onto the fence, Joker is snapping his hand out to grab onto the fence himself to make up for the upset of his balance. "Whoo-!" Straightening up, he grins down at Ginko. "There ya go. Na' so bad, yeah?"

"I... guess so, yeah. Are you okay?" It doesn't look like he's toppling off the fence, but Ginko looks him over anyway while he hauls himself up more comfortably. Up close, and with his hair ruffled a bit from scrambling up here, it's probably easier to see the white string of the medical eye patch hidden under his bangs.

"Yeah, I'm fine." With only one hand, he can't exactly wave dismissively, but he can at least carelessly shrug. "I do fis sor'a stuff all the time. Usually, I got my ofer arm, but s'always breakin'-" Or, to be more accurate, he's always breaking it, but he pauses before he goes anywhere else with that.

"Oi, are ya alright? Did ya hurt yerself?"

It takes Ginko a moment to process that; honestly, all he can really imagine at first is just... an actual fleshy human arm that Joker... somehow doesn't have at the moment? Which makes the "breaking" part a little disturbing.

Then he finally remembers something from the hospital. "A... prosthetic?" The reply is a little stilted, with sort of an implied "is that right" built into it that he doesn't think to vocalize.

Ginko blinks at Joker, seemingly uncomprehending, and gives a small, hesitant shake of his head. He looks down at his self, as if to make sure he didn't manage to scrape himself up on the fence. His head and ankle still feel alright, so it can't be that. "I... don't think so. Why?"

Absentmindedly, Joker nods his head. That's the word, but he hates saying it. It feels too clunky on his tongue; there's always that feeling that he's saying it wrong. With his level of education, he knows what people will think if he messes up even that much. Best to keep what he does know to himself, and just keep playing as he does.

But that's not what he's focused on right now. "Yer eye. Fere's a eyepatch on it, yeah?"

It hasn't yet occurred to Ginko that mispronouncing things might make people think less of him - which might have to do with just having come out of a hospital where he was recovering from a severe head injury. So far, most adults acted relieved that he was talking at all.

They seemed to want him to do it a little more than he was sure he could, though.

He lifts a hand to the patch, as if he just remembered it. "--Oh. That's from before. Th' doctor said it was infected, so they took it out."

Y'know. No big deal, probably.

"Ah." With the way Joker nods, simple as you please, it really doesn't seem to be a big deal at all. It's a little like what happened with their Doll, then... Although not exactly the same, probably.

Still, he would have been a lot more careful if he'd known that. Well, all he can do is continue onwards. "You'll say if ya s'art feelin' dizzy or havin' a headache, right?" A pause, and he looks back towards the house. "Do ya need medicine or have ya taken it already for the day?" If he's sitting out in the grass, just relaxing, Joker would say the latter... but you never know.

Best to be careful with these kinds of things.

"...Mm-hm. I already took it." That had been made sure of before he so much as left the hospital. He tilts his head slightly, studying Joker again. "D'you know a lot about that?"

"Good." Satisfied, he gives a nod of his head. "Well, my family has, ha, we're a bit of a patchwork lot. So I know a lot about fings like that." He's the big brother, after all. With them so often having to take care of themselves, well, what else can he do?

Slipping off of the fence to the other side, he lands well enough and positions himself beneath Ginko. "C'mon, I'll help ya down. When yer missin' an eye, everyfin' goes wonky, s'what I heard."

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