The rain fell in merciless sheets. Benji looked to his left toward the window, watching as water pelted the glass. Thoughts of 'what if' and 'if only' continued to plague his mind, and the storm was doing nothing to help him.
He had to stop this. Shutting his eyes, he sniffed and tried to return his thoughts to Sunny. Ren and June were surely doing everything they could to make sure something like their encounter with the Lurker didn't happen again. Perhaps it was his fault she ended up the way she had. If he had tried harder to dissuade her, then maybe—
No, he reasoned, she would've gone it alone, then. And if she had, then…
A came at his window, and he turned his head toward it. A long nail and an accompanying furry hand was tapping the glass.
Oh no! He gasped.
How could he have forgotten? He threw his legs over the side of his bed and ran to the windowsill. G clung to the wall with a dopey grin on his face.
Glancing over his shoulder, Benji pushed the window open, allowing a light blanket of rain to hit the carpet in front of him. G reached over, extending a folded piece of paper. Benji pocketed it while G perched on the windowsill. The wood squeaked, and Benji hissed through his teeth, scared that it would break at any moment.
"Uhh, why don't you come in?" Benji said, standing to the side and gesturing. G stumbled forward, digging deep grooves into the wood on his way in Benji cringed, looking over his shoulder at the door. "J-Just a sec." He jogged over, opened the door for any sign of Lyro, then quietly shut it and turned the lock.
Benji breathed a sigh of relief, then shut the window and drew the curtains. He and the Denizen sat on the carpet across from one another. As Benji opened his mouth, G crossed his legs and tucked his hands between them.
"Feel bad," G stated. G tilted his head, then nudged Benji with a bit more force than he'd expected. He'd nearly pitched him to the side. Maybe he could tell something was wrong with him. "Feel bad."
Benji blinked and rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, uhhh… my dad's just a jerk." Part of him was hoping Kiska would show up soon. He wasn't sure how long he could talk to G and pretend like the night with the Lurkers had never happened. "Just some idiot who thought he could fix years of abandonment."
"Food," G said, blinking.
"Oh, right," he said, feeling stupid, "I did promise you food, didn't I?" Going down there right now wasn't something he could do. Emotionally, he couldn't handle it. On top of that, he hadn't expected Lyro to come home. He'd have to be more careful than he thought. "Sorry. I'll get you some later, okay?"
G seemed to understand. He patted Benji on the shoulder, and Benji gently maneuvered to his side. Dang, that hurt.
"You telling me not to worry?" Benji asked. When G didn't respond, he continued. "I'm glad you have someone who's there for ya, G. Kiska seems like family to you." He bowed his head. He had plenty of people he could depend on, but it would've been nice if there were some family members in there too.
G hummed. "Family."
"Yeah. My mom was my family. It was usually just the two of us most of the time, but we had a lot of good times." Benji plucked fibers from the carpet while he recollected the peaceful mornings when he and his mom would wake up and have breakfast together. He smiled wryly. "I don't know if you've had a mom, or if you know what that even means, but she was very special to me. She'd always watch Gori Gori and the Gravemakers with me on TV. Ever seen it?"
G scratched the side of his head, then sniffed himself.
"It was so awesome, dude," Benji whispered. "I loved their music. I still remember sitting on the floor with my mini table, peeling my orange and eating cereal before school." He paused to examine G. He wasn't sure why he was spilling his guts out to a Denizen who could barely talk, but somehow it felt… therapeutic. So he continued. "Those small tables are great, you can eat anywhere you want." He sniffed. "Mom had a habit of doing the same stuff every day. Sometimes, that wasn't a good thing, though." He sighed.
The rain was dying down. A shame. The petrichor helped him concentrate, offering a semblance of white noise when his thoughts were erratic. As his mind clung to memories of his mother, he shook his mind and decided to broach another topic instead.
"'G' is kinda a weird name, don't you think?" He stared at the necklace around G's neck. From what Kiska had explained, that was the only identifier she could use to name him. G didn't seem to care one way or the other, but reducing him to a single letter felt weird. "We should give you a better name."
G leaned forward and tucked at the front of Benji's shirt with a nail. Benji gently pushed it away, which took more effort than expected. To his dismay, G had managed to poke a tiny hole in his shirt.
So sharp.
"What if we called you Gori?" Benji said. Perhaps it'd be a bit on the nose, but who cared?
"Gori," the Denizen said, seeming to take a liking to the sound. "Gori. Gori. Gori Gori."
"You seem to like it," Benji laughed nervously. "Gori Gori, then?"
"Gori! Gori!"
Benji smiled. "Then it's settled. From this day forth, you're Gori Gori."
G—or, Gori Gori, as he now was named—rocked back and forth with a toothy grin, hands on his forelegs. "Gori Gori," he growled. "Gori Gori."
Benji stood up and made his way over to a bedside drawer behind Gori Gori. "Well, if that's the case, then we need to make sure you can represent the Gravemakers properly." He fished through clothes, tickets and CDs—many of which were composed by Taylor Crush—and found an old comic book at the bottom featuring Gori Gori and the Gravemakers.
"Here," Benji said, sitting in front of Gori Gori. He proffered the comic book, and Gori Gori took it with minor hesitation in his movement. To his surprise, the Denizen was delicate with the comic, and opened it up to the first page. "These guys were heroes. They would fight crime, and their music made people happy. You can read it in your spare time if you want. I don't need it anymore."
The necklace caught the gentle light of the lamp. It looked terrible, like a dog's collar. As if Gori Gori was a pet or a slave. It made him feel uncomfortable, so he leaned forward and yanked the necklace off of Gori Gori's neck. Gori Gori grunted, tilting his head in confusion. Perhaps that was his way of asking a question without knowing how to pronounce it.
"It seemed cruel to me," Benji explained. "What kinda person just wraps a necklace around someone like that?" It was worn, bitten into, frayed and tight—almost like a collar. Whoever did this had malicious intentions.
Gori Gori smiled wide, rocking back and forth with his new comic book. He licked one nail tenderly before using it to turn the page. Maybe he saw someone do that before. There was a sort of gentle giant air about him, and Benji found that charming. "Sunny's working hard to find her dad. Why don't we be heroes and help her out like the Gravemakers would?"
Gori Gori set the comic on the floor beside him and reached over to embrace Benji in a hug. It was warm and kind, soft and strangely comforting considering what Gori Gori could do to Lurkers. As it went on, however, Gori Gori continued to increase his strength, and the scent of wet fur was growing oppressive.
"Ack! Gotta… gotta let go!" Benji wheezed.
"Oooh!" Gori Gori released him and pulled away.
"Jeez, you're strong." Benji coughed and tapped his chest with his palm.
"Ooooh." Gori Gori nodded, then resumed his time with the comic.
With that out of the way, it was time to see what Sunny had written on the note. Benji plucked the note from his pocket, and mouthed the words.
June said I can go back to school again. I found out that the goopy stuff we found is called NEON. It's all over the news! We need to investigate this!
Lyro's sudden interest to involve himself would complicate issues. As far as Benji knew, Lyro was still home, and that made the task of getting Gori Gori to disappear a little more difficult. In any event, this had to be followed up somehow. While he wasn't sure what that would look like, he could at least write back.
Benji returned to the bedside drawer and extracted a pen and a slip of paper. He set it down and began to pen his response.
Yes! Lyro's being a bit of a…
Benji scratched it out and rewrote it.
Lyro's being a huge pain right now. He's watching me, and he even made dinner! He never does that! We should probably do most of our investigating at school, and through Gori Gori and Kiska. Oh, that's right. I gave G a real name. It felt too simple, really strange to just have a letter for a name. So he might respond to that. He seems to like it.
Benji folded the piece of paper and tucked it into his hoodie pocket before sitting back down in front of Gori Gori. He was halfway through the comic now, and Benji liked to imagine Gori Gori liked how colorful and impactful the pictures were.
Now what?