[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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"Yeah, by takin' me down wif ya!" Despite the words, he's laughing more than scolding, and Joker tries to shift a little bit. "Hold on, lemme jus'... get the weight all settled." It takes him a minute or two, but finally he stills.

"Alright, le's try again."

Ginko nods, and, this time, he goes quiet, following Joker's direction more carefully to get safely to the ground. He guesses he should just... do that, and not try to figure things out on his own, since that doesn't seem to be working? Functioning as a person is hard.

"There we go.... There, aaaaan'...." It takes a second, Joker grunting as he helps guide Ginko's weight down, and he practically thumps down onto the grass. "Woof! Yer really heavy." Leaning back on his good hand, he grins up at Ginko.

"What got yer attention so much anyway, huh?"

Ginko lands with a quiet oof, then pulls his knees up to his chest, holding them close. "...No'm not." The doctor said he's "slightly underweight", he's PRETTY sure that means he can't be heavy.

He looks up, at the surrounding trees, as if suddenly remembering why he ended up out here to begin with. "I heard something. Maybe an animal."

"Well, I'm the one carryin' ya, so." He says Ginko is heavy. Then again, maybe that was the "jumping out a tree part"... Dusting himself off, Joker follows the direction of Ginko's eyes.

"What kind?"

"Dunno. Whatever it was, it was fast."

Ginko stands up, not bothering to brush the dirt and leaves off his clothes, still looking up into the leaves for a moment before his gaze drops to the underbrush.

It's fine, it's fine. Without thinking half of it, Joker reaches over to brush Ginko down a little bit.

"Y'know we were supposed ta catch frogs, right?" he asks idly. "If yer interested in animals."

Weirdly enough, just being reached for is enough for Ginko to tense up a little, his hands clutching little fistfuls of his shirt hem. But he doesn't pull away or protest; just waits until Joker stops before letting himself move again.

"Mm-hm. But I wanted to see what it was." So there. He doesn't see why they have to be mutually exclusive!

Oh- Well, that's a reaction which is hard for him to miss. Joker draws his hands back to himself, and takes a step back for good measure. Right, he's always to handsy. It's something he's been scolded for in the past, more from other people than from the person calling himself a father.

"Alright." And because he should know for the future- "Did I bug ya when I touched ya?"

"...No." He... thinks that's not a lie? But he's not totally sure. Anyway, if he's not sure it bothered him, it seems best to say it didn't.

"Jus' checkin'." It's true, after all. If that's what he says, however, then Joker guesses there's no point in pressing or being nosy. He just leads the way back to the creek, even as he adds over his shoulder, "I thought ya got a lil' stiff, and I didn't want ta scare ya off."

Ginko sticks close by him, still holding fistfuls of his shirt. "I was just... surprised." That seems like the closest word. "I don't-- know what to do, usually..."

He trails off as if he was going to add more to that sentence, but... that's it. It's gone.

Don't know what to do, huh? Joker considers what he knows about the other kid, even as the creek and his bucket come back into sight. "Dunno, huh? Well... Do ya mean when ya were at the hospital or whatnot?"

It seems like the most likely situation that he would have had to deal with, after all. At least, one where people have touched him a lot. As someone who has a problem of his own, well, he's seen plenty of doctors for himself alone.

"Mm-hm. And after that." The latter just having been the last few hours, but... the fact is, he doesn't feel any less lost now.

"Well, we can work on that whenever. There, get the bucket and dip it ina stream." They're here for frog and tadpoles, after all. Or toads. Really, any kind of amphibian, he guesses. Lizards wouldn't be a bad thing either.

"There's no rush figurin' on people, or what ta do about 'em. Yeah? And ya can practice until then."

Ginko nods; that part, he can do easily enough. He picks up the bucket and kneels down by the stream, dipping the rim under the water. He listens quietly, watching Joker out of the corner of his eye, before looking back to the stream. "...I guess so. Feels like there's a rush."

Every second that he can't talk to someone right, that he can't look at them or think of what to say, just feels like another moment that he's making himself look worse.

Feels like there's a rush, huh? Clumsily rolling up his pants leg, Joker makes a small noise of acknowledgment. "Yeah, I can understand that." Maybe not in the exact way as Ginko, but that unspoken demand hanging in the air on why can't he just do something faster, or why- well, anything, when it comes to his family.

"Wanna talk about why?"

"...I dunno." He's very rarely sure if he wants to talk about... anything. Except bugs and lizards and stuff. "Don't know if I know why."

"Thas'fine." Okay, that will... probably stay up and not roll down and fall into the water. Joker is vaguely certain of that. Maybe. Time to work on the next one. "Sometimes, folks just aren't sure about much, until they're sayin' it out loud ta folks. Or, well. Just sayin' it out loud at all. But ya don't have ta if ya don't wanna. Nuffin' works for everyone."

"...Okay."

Aaaand it seems that that's all he's saying on that for now. Instead he just watches Joker roll up his pants legs. "Should I do that, too?"

Hey, some people take their time. Joker can understand that. He just lets the silence fall in naturally. Helps him focus on his pants, anyway, at least until Ginko speaks and he looks up again.

"Prolly a good idea. We're lookin' for things that live in the water, af'r all."

Ginko nods, and sets the bucket aside for the moment while he goes to pull off his shoes and roll up his own pants legs.

"There anything special we have to do to look for them?" Stirring up mud, checking under rocks... he doesn't know, stuff like that.

"Well, they're fairly simple, I think." Ah, he lost the roll- Joker sticks his tongue out and tries again. He's done this before, but it never seems to get easier sometimes.

"They're prefer ta be in shallow water, not the deep stuff. So lil' holes in the bank away from the movin' water, or near the shore... Places like that. Then we'll scoop 'em up."

He leans over to watch, tilting his head slightly. "...Do you need help?" He basically seems to have it under control, but... Ginko guesses it might be worth asking.

That gets another nod, and, with his shoes set aside and his pants rolled, Ginko picks the bucket up again. "Okay. And they go in the bucket of water?"

"S'fine," Joker assures him, half because he's a little stubborn sometimes. He knows the other kid doesn't mean anything by it besides genuine well wishes. Unlike some people, Ginko comes off as too... open and plain for anything else. But after years of dealing with people who aren't, who are maybe a little condescending sometimes, well... He can't help wanting to help himself when he can.

It really is fine, anyway. It's just his pants leg.

Once it's off, he can shuck off his shoes, and things are much easier then. "Yup, that's right! And then we can take care of 'em until they grow inta frogs. Or keep 'em permanently, I guess, but ya would wanna get somefin' better in that case."

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