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In The Melodies and The Memories (CA - Saber & Ulric)

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Lee followed the boy’s gaze toward the dining room entrance and knew what he was wanting, but the adults were busy at that moment. It seemed like he was definitely failing at this babysitting thing, and could already hear his friend's voice in his head mocking him for it- not like his friend could do much better.

Lee knew he was pretty clingy to his mother when he was younger too, and tried hard to remember what that was like; He couldn’t recall much.

“ Did you want to wait here for your parents then?” He asked softly, his voice slipping out before the words could be thought over.

 

Ulric did not at first reply. He looked down, then at the window. His eyes trailed from the consideration of one careful thought to another as they crossed the room back to Lee's face. 

Something Lee said stirred up a conflict inside him. The simplest answer tempted Ulric most - which was to simply acknowledge the word without explanation and insist on the most prominent comfort presently available to him. But some duty-bound conflict would not let the boy rest upon the simple solution. He felt obligated in the spirit of honesty to give full disclosure and make the following necessary correction. 

"My parents aren't here." He said. Unsure what else he could say to make the statement more true, he simply said nothing more.

“ Oh,” was all Lee said as he gave a quick glance back at the entrance to the dinning hall, before turning back to the boy. “ I’m sorry,” he quietly apologized as his eyes fell to the floor, realizing his mistake. He felt like his mother might’ve already mentioned it to him earlier telling him to be polite and avoid the subject, unfortunately he didn’t remember it in time if she had.

Lee now went silent, his eyes drifting off to look at anywhere other than Ulric's eyes, his hand slowly grabbing the end of his shirt and pulling it slightly.

 

Ulric was also silent, but now that he had said something he felt relieved. So, after another sweeping glance about the room, and a soft sigh, he extended his hand to Lee. It was with the intention of leading or being led to the couch that Ulric did this.

Lee looked at Ulric’s hand in confusion. He wasn’t entirely sure what the boy wanted, beyond maybe the comfort holding hands seemed to give young children.

He took his hand before looking at the entrance of the dining room once more, hearing the adult’s voices grow a little loud. Then he began to gently pull the boy along towards the stairs to go to his room.

The stairs were not the intended route to the couch. Nonetheless, there was indeed something comforting in holding another person's hand, so Ulric allowed Lee to lead him.

Lee went up the stairs slowly to make sure the young boy could keep up, his brows now furrowing from the inward storm that had started to brew inside him. Hearing his mother laugh with the other adults only seemed to grow the anger he tried to hide on his face.

“ My father died before I was born and my mother is hardly ever home, so it’s like I don’t have parents either.” He said quietly as they were about to make it to the top.

The hallway they entered had the lights off, with one door ajar being the only light that pierced the subtle darkness. Lee maneuvered around boxes that lay in the hallway towards the door, still moving slowly to make sure Ulric could keep up. He pushed open the door into what again looked too clean to have been lived in much, the papers on his desk to the right side of the room and their mild messiness being the only indicator of such.

Lee let go of Ulric’s hand and moved over to his closet, opening it up and pulling out a large bucket with a lid tightly sealing it labeled “ Toys.”

“ It’s okay if you don’t want to play with them, but these are the toys I brought with me when me and my mom moved.” He said, opening the lid revealing a large variety of toys, though half of them were mostly action figures of popular characters.

 

Ulric peered into the deep wide bin, - deep and wide at least for him. He looked down through the army of toy characters, action heroes, and popular cultural icons, not knowing a single one by name. To him, each was an unfamiliar face in a sea of people entirely foreign. Some had kind faces, while others grimaced and grinned (from these he steered away.) There were bright colors and interesting shapes, each alluring in its own way. Each teased a curious mind to pluck it out and take it for a while. But Ulric simply set his hands one on top of the other on the side of the toy bin, and searched them with a glance.

"Do you still play with your toys?" The little boy asked, staring down into the bin. "Where did your mom and you move from?"

Lee was now over at his desk grabbing papers and organizing the space as Ulric peered into the vast bucket of toys. “ No, I don’t really play with them much,” he said as he straightened a picture of him and a group of friends that was displayed on the desk.

“ My mom thought we needed a bigger house so we moved, but we were living in Pinerich in our last house, it was just a different neighborhood.”

 

"Oh..." The boy murmured in reply. He continued to study the toys, now venturing to poke at and push a few aside. Then, he saw something with the semblance of familiarity: A dark sunscreen visor, peering at him like the large black eye of an animal through a hollow in the bin. It was an extravehicular mobility unit; or, in other words, an astronaut in a white spacewalk suit. Ulric took the toy out, handling it with care, and traced his finger over the spherical helmet that caught his attention.

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