#nnht kids: kenshiro

[ask-the-nanahito-kids]

what's your favorite thing(s) about mama and papa? 🫶

Kenshiro (5 years old): Mama knows a lot of songs to sing to me. Papa asks him "where did you learn this?" and Mama says "on the 'ternet". He sings me songs about fish and rocks and how I love my body from my head to my toes. Papa sings too, sometimes. He buys me suits so we're twins. He always tells me he's proud of me, and I'm proud of him too, 'cause he's so cool, and if he says we're twins, then that means I'm cool too.

Mayu (5 years old): Mama hugs me so tight I can't breathe. But it's okay, I don't mind. When I asked for a pink dress, he said yes and that I'm so so pretty, even though I'm a boy. No boy at school wears a dress, but Mama said I'm allowed and he showed me lots of pictures of boys and grown ups in dresses. Mama even told me he used to wear skirts, and I said he should do it again, so we can be twins, like Papa and Kenshin. Papa also says I'm pretty. I think he's pretty too, when he cooks with his pink apron. He makes crepes and pancakes and waffles on special days. Sometimes we only eat crepes for dinner! But not every day. When I'm sad, Papa takes me to places where I can have tons of desserts, and then I'm not sad anymore.

Juri (5 years old): Mama plays with me all the time in the garden and the jungle gym! He teaches me how to climb rope and make big jumps. He pushes me so high on the swing and we chase bubbles together. Sometimes Papa says to be careful, but I don't cry when I fall and scrape my knee. Papa lets me sit in his lap when he writes on important papers, and he teaches me how to read. I already know how to read a lot and I can write my own name and Mama's name and Papa's name and Mayu's name and Kenshin's name! I can't wait to write on important papers at school.

Yuren (5 years old): I love to draw with Mama. Sometimes he lets me draw on his face and on his arms, and I always color in the lines. I drew on a wall one time, but Mama says I can't do it again. I cried because I thought my drawing was ugly, but he said it's beautiful. Then Mama told me he drew on the walls too, but Papa prefers clean walls, and I can't draw on walls at school either. But if Mama puts my drawings in frames and puts them on the walls, Papa says that's okay. Papa reads the best bedtime stories, and sometimes Mama joins in when there's two characters talking. But Papa says bedtime story must be a quiet time, so it's not really like a show. Papa's books have nice pictures too, and it's so interesting but I always fall asleep before the end.

[ask-the-nanahito-kids]

Kenshiro, what was your hardest mission as a sorcerer?

The hardest missions are when the curses look and sound a little too human. If they only look human, it's fine. But sometimes they'll look nothing like us yet you realize they make sense when they talk and you start to think they have a point.

Papa told me that Mama used to be very different before I was born. I know what he did to humans, and only being half-human myself, it never really affected me. I mean, he was a curse, born from human hatred at that, it's not like he knew any better. My point is, the only Mahito I've ever known is my Mama. So I can't know for sure if a curse reminds me of him, but my imagination works against me. 

Being a sorcerer despite my cursed side, I've been called a traitor often by curses articulate enough to realize I'm one of them. I'm used to it.

But the hardest mission I ever had was one of my first, when I was just fifteen. Mayu had just come home as a curse, and I was still shaken by having to kill them when they were human. And the curse I had to exorcize with my classmates and teacher, the one we knew had killed multiple people already, the one it was obvious there was no chance to reason with — they looked and sounded so much like Mayu. Maybe it was because the memory of killing them was still fresh in my mind, maybe the curse didn't really look like my sibling that much, but all I could think of was that I was killing them again. I got distracted, they hurt me, and I spent the rest of the fight curled up on the ground and sobbing while the rest of my class finished them off. 

Now that I think about Mama, and how Papa was successful in reasoning him, it got me spiralling into the same thoughts I had when Mayu almost killed me when they ran away, and how I killed them, and how they'd almost killed Mama, and— I just didn't know if I'd done the right thing. I just couldn't see the point in being a sorcerer anymore.

I called my parents while I was in the nurse's office and begged them to not go to school the next day. Thankfully they understood and I got a week off at home with Mayu and Juri. I didn't tell Mayu what had happened for a long time after that. I don't know why. I guess I just didn't want them to feel guilty anymore.

Papa and I had a long talk about how sorcerers were here to protect ordinary people, like my baby sister. But he also told me I didn't have to go back to school and pursue this career if I didn't want to. 

So I gave Mayu and Juri a big hug and went back to school.

(picrew)