Home 4

“Remember back when things were simpler?” Conza asks

“Things were never simple, Conza. We were just oblivious.” Nick replies back. He sighs and shuffled around in his seat. He was out to dinner with a group of his friends. It was himself, Conza, Jay and Anampo. They went to a buffet that Jay got a big discount on, due to his manager. Funny that they never got to meet her. Jay just talked on the phone with her every once in a while. Nick overhead him once mumbling about something big. He bit into a forkful of meat shucked from an oyster. “We just begin to open our eyes to greater things.”

“I understand…” Conza finishes his plate. “I’m stuffed.” He looks over to Jay. “Thanks for the discount, Jay.” He gave his friend a smile. “You doing okay?”

“Im six plates in, how do you think Im doing?” Jay snapped back with a slightly snarky attitude.

“N-No. I mean with your life. Nick says you’ve reconnected with your…Adoptive mothers.” The small man had no other way to really say it.

Jay looks over to Nick, then to Anampo. He sighs. “Lets go get some dessert. I’ll tell you how I feel.” He gets up and starts to walk with Conza to the other side of the restaurant. Nick smiles and shakes his head. “Its good to see that he’s starting to open up. Though he does it only on a one to one level. This dinner is better than the dinner I had with your parents the other day, Anampo.”

“What…” The rabbit says, looking at Nick with a face of fear. “T-They’re here already? In Japan? In the city?! What did you talk about over dinner? What did you say to them, Nick?” She asks, looking ready to spring up and run away. “Nick…Did you guys talk about…. Us?”

Nick shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his plate. “I had to. They kept asking. And I couldn’t sit there and lie to them. Not with my parents in the room…And when I told them…”

“Your parents were there? And you lied?”

“My dad was proud…He said that I’d been holding back on him, a-and my mother giggled.” Nick shook his head. “I should have just told the truth.”

Anampo sat back in her chair, slumping In it even. “So…My parents think you and I are still together, even though I kinda…Sorta told them about Ryan.”

“What? But then how did they think that I was with you? Or did they know I was lying?” Nick groans and lowers his head. “And what am I going to tell my parents? My dad is going to give me a stern talking to. I can hear it already…”

“What are you and the Brit talking about?” Jay asks as he and Conza sit back down with a few bowls of ice cream each.

Nick tilted his head and looked at Jay with a funny glare. “You call me British?” Nick had a small accent, sure. But it was definitely not British. Nick was not from the United Kingdom. But Jay payed it no mind as he dug a spoon into his ice cream.

“Sure. You’ve got the accent and shit. Why wouldn’t I--”

“Im not from England, stupid. Maybe if youd gone to school more, you would know better.” Nick clears his throat. “New York, New York. The Bronx. The 347. It’s a New Yok accent, you half-wit.” Nick growls. He didn’t want to really say all of that, but it annoyed him when Jay kept forgetting where Nick lived before moving to the smaller, quieter town they all met in. Shaking his head, he continues with: “I must have told you a lot of times now.”

“…So why did you move?” Conza asks, breaking the tension and finishing up his ice cream a lot faster than Jay would have. Or any human should for that matter.

“My dad is always looking for better work. Moving at a young age affected me a lot. But we moved around about 4 times. New York City is just where I spent my infantry. Before I was born, he moved like twice before that. I don’t really like to talk all that much about it.”


Later that night, Nick was being driven around by Juniper, who he filled in on the situation. “…And that’s the bulk of it all. What should I do to help Anampo?”

“Nothing.” Juniper looks in her mirror before changing lanes. “You already screwed her a bit when you lied about still being with her. Her parents probably know you lied. But more importantly…YOU DATED HER? You actually had a girlfriend and you two split up? What happened there?”

“I don’t like to talk about it. Neither does she.”

“Come on, pops. You cant tell your adopted daughter a story?”

“We just…Liked different things, alright? It was mutual. We didn’t want to pursue anything, and we’ve both moved on from it in a healthy way.”

“Right, because she moved on and got a boyfriend. And you moved on to…” Juniper seethed in saying it. “Becoming familiar with the various powerful women of the AFW and discovering a masochistic side to yourself.” That garners a look of shock from Nick. Before he could ask, Juniper answers. “And yes, its really that easy to notice. You lost your fight with that short German woman so quickly, you’d have to be blind not to see it.”

Nick stays quiet for a moment. “…You’re right. But look. Ive moved on to discover more about myself and explore. She didn’t do that. Leading to the shy woman she is today. She’ll probably remain that way for a long time. Just take me home, alright?”

Juniper scoffed and shook her head. “Yeah, home.” She said sarcastically. “Home in not so sunny Japan…”