A Friend That Matters Most
Chapter. 5

​​Kirby knows what Star Warriors are.

Dad told him stories in bed, when it was dark and he needed to sleep. Saviors of the galaxy, he said, heroes who tried to keep balance. Kirby never heard much about them, but they were cool.

Kirby asked if he was one of them once. Dad would always look kind of funny about it. He had a fancy golden sword and he fought monsters, so that meant he was one, right?

He never said.

“Get out of the way Kes.”

Kirby loves his dad. His dad is the best. He’s so cool, even if he makes Kirby brush his teeth and eat vegetables.

He doesn’t get it.

“Meta Knight. What are you doing.”

His dad is the best.

He doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Kesuk. Please. Take Kirby and out of the way. You know what I have to do.”

His dad is the best.

Why is this happening?

“You point your blade at your family, Knight.”

His dad is--

(What did he do wrong?)

“That thing isn’t family, Kes. You know that. Get out of the way.”



Kirby doesn’t understand.



The whole forest is frozen. Ice covers every little bit, from the leaves to the grass to the flowers, and he’d think it were winter if he didn’t know any better. His mom looks the worst, though – she has ice all over, arms and legs, feet, hair, extending out of her fingers and toes like giant beast claws.

She’s got him huddled close in her back, and it’s hard because just staying in her hair is cold, ice-tipped and frozen, and he can’t move. His terrified breath comes out in frantic puffs of frost so thick he can barely see through it.

She keeps him there and the ice won’t make him move one bit. She’d grabbed him, he remembers, still feels the cold against his arms where she’d yanked him from his dad’s hand and run. His throat hurts from screaming, but maybe that’s the ice too.

Ice. Ice everywhere. Jutting out in sharp spikes, circling them like a wall, growing as the seconds go by, keeping everything out. 

His mom is cool. His mom is a warrior, like his dad. He’d always wanted to see what she was like that way.

Kirby doesn’t want to see it anymore.

Kirby looks over, as hard as it is to move. Right beside him, Gooey is tucked close, and his body shakes hard with more than just the cold. Gooey’s afraid. Gooey’s crying, and Kirby is too, and both of their faces are stiff and crusty with ice.

Gooey saw a sword about to swing down at him and got scared. Gooey had tried to show the large man he was good, he was kind, he was a friend. Gooey had tried. He’s sorry. He’s sorry, he--

“You threaten a child.”

Mom’s voice makes them both jerk. It’s okay. It’s okay. (It’s not okay.) Gooey didn’t do anything wrong. Kirby almost go hurt. It’s his fault. It--

His head hurts.

“Kes. I would never hurt Kirby.”

“Your blade says otherwise.”

“To protect him.”

Gooey presses against Kirby’s wing and hisses. Leave them alone, go away, they’re sorry! 

Kirby knows his dad. 

Kirby’s dad is a bit mean, always making him eat his vegetables and go to bed on time, but he tells cool jokes and he’s really cool when he fights. He’d always wanted to see him fight.

His dad is the best.

But this doesn’t seem like his dad. It can’t be. He sounds too different. And--

Gooey shudders and huddles closer, against Kes and Kirby himself. He’s shaking, and Kirby knows that it’s because dad pointed a sword at him. Because dad is scary and wants him gone.

Kirby doesn’t understand.

He still sees it in his head, still feels it in his arms and burning chest. Running as quick as he could to get his mother, because dad wasn’t acting right, and he’d trusted his dad because dad was cool and a good person.

Feeling scared. The entire time. His heart pounding in his chest because Gooey was scared. The entire time. It never stopped.

Seeing Galaxia, pointing at his friend. The only friend he has. Screaming his lungs out because that’s his friend. Why? Why? He hadn’t done anything wrong. He’s scared. Gooey’s scared. They’re scared. They’re sorry.

Gooey nudges him. Sorry.

Kirby shakes his head and shuffles, quietly, quickly against the bulk of his mom’s pelt-like hair, fighting to see past where she had practically shoveled them against her back, away from Meta Knight’s weapon. Even as Gooey’s tongue reaches to try and pull him back with a buzz of panic, Kirby pushes against mom’s hold and the ice that forces him still.

Meta Knight is still standing there where Kirby found him, and Kirby’s wings bristle when he sees that Galaxia – golden, cool, shining, covered-in-frost Galaxia – is pointed at Kirby’s mother. He points it like he wants to swing it, like he wants to and can’t, and it scares him.

Meta Knight’s eyes are narrow, and his hand squeezes the handle tight. Why. Why? Stop, he wants to tell him. What’s the problem? That’s mom! He’s scary! He’s sorry! Please!

“Kes,” Meta Knight says, and his voice bites almost as much as the ice around them. “Please, listen. I get it – that thing is cute, and it acts like Kirby’s friend. You both came at a bad time. But you know that it isn’t his friend. I told you what Dark Matter was. They—They don’t feel anything. They just act like it. I have to get rid of it before it kills us.”

Kirby feels his friend shudder and shivers himself with the terror that settles in his gut, reaching to draw him in closer. Kirby saw it. He saw what was going to happen.

Gooey hadn’t done anything wrong. Gooey was his friend. And Gooey, he— he had heard of, Meta Knight had said--

“Yet you would raise your blade even against Kirby when he chooses to stand against you. You raise your blade against one you had sworn to guard and protect. Were you of South Nova, we would have cast you to the beasts for such a disgrace.” 

Her voice is harsh, worse than Kirby’s ever heard it, and both children shudder behind her for it. 

“Do you see yourself?” She says, “Are you certain you are not the monster pretending to be a person, here and now?”

“Don’t flip this back on me, Kes! If Kirby hadn’t come back, none of this would have even happened.”

All at once Kirby sees Meta Knight’s eyes land on him.

He’s cold. He’s cold and he can’t breathe. There’s a lump in his throat that he can’t swallow. Dad, who’s the best. The large man, out to kill him. He can’t think. He--

Gooey burbles an unintelligible sigh and presses close, and something settles, in his chest. Sorry, Kirby thinks to himself unbidden.

Meta Knight’s eyes narrow. The cold bristles like a buzz, and Kirby feels the temperature drop more.

“Kes,” Meta Knight speaks low. “Take Kirby back inside. I’m sorry that it wound up like this. I’d never hurt him. Just take him home, and I’ll face whatever judgement you’ve got when the Dark Matter is gone.”

Dark Matter. Dark Matter. It rings a bell that Kirby’s never heard. Gooey huddles closer.

What is it? Dad keeps calling it bad, that it doesn’t feel anything, but there’s nothing around like that. Just him, mom, dad, and…

Kirby looks at Gooey. Gooey looks right back, wide-eyed and scared, really really scared. There had been something sharp pointed at him. He was going to get hurt. Kirby can’t leave him.

…Gooey? Does dad think Dark Matter is Gooey?

Gooey’s eyes list to the side.

Kirby doesn’t get that. Gooey can feel just fine. He’s nice; he brought gifts, he said sorry to him, they played games together. He’s no Dark Matter or demon beast or anything. He’s just Gooey. And Gooey wouldn’t hurt a fly, Kirby knows that.

Dad has it all wrong. Dad is confused. If Kirby could just explain, then maybe he’d calm down, and everything would be fine again. His dad wouldn’t hurt anyone but monsters, and he thinks Gooey is a monster, and that’s not true at all. Kirby can fix it.

His dad is the best. He’s just confused.

“Dad,” Kirby speaks up, ignoring the alarm-fear-stop at his side. “Gooey’s not a monster! He gave me presents, remember? That fish, that big melon! He even—He helped when Marx was being a bully! I don’t think monsters do that.”

“Kirby.” Mom bites. It’d have gotten him moving really quick, usually.

It goes ignored, though, as Kirby pulls himself further out, into the open, away from her hair and her hold. “Gooey wouldn’t hurt anyone!” He says, and his voice burgeons with the conviction, as hoarse and frozen as it is. Loud and insistent. “A-Are you scared? I know Gooey looks funny, but that doesn’t mean he’s bad. It’s okay!”

“Kirby—”

“Please, dad? You’re being kind of scary right now!”

Meta Knight stares.

It isn’t a look that Kirby knows what to do with.

His heart pounds.

“Kes,” Meta Knight says. “Take Kirby and go home.”

“Meta—”

“Take him home.”

Fear fear fear. His heart stops. His heart drops. His breath hitches, and he thinks he might be shaking, but he doesn’t know. His dad’s never been like this.

He can’t leave. He can’t go home right now. Dad’s going to hurt him. Dad’s going to hurt him--

Kirby’s head turns.

Gooey shakes as he stares at him, tears frozen down his face, and the fear Kirby feels is Gooey’s too. Dad had said so many bad things. Dad had said Gooey didn’t feel anything. They echo against each other, bouncing from here to there and back again, and Kirby can’t breathe, all of a sudden. His chest feels funny.

This is wrong. This is all wrong.

Gooey never did anything wrong. And Kirby knows he wouldn’t ever do anything wrong, either. That’s his friend, and even if they just met, Kirby knows it, that he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He knows it.

And dad is scaring the pants off of Gooey and him too for something that wouldn’t ever happen.



“You’re stupid.”



How to explain the silence that dips over the clearing. The frozen expressions of parents who had not once heard their child speak with such an animosity as to be a demon beast himself.

Kirby doesn’t notice any of this. There’s a hot, boiling feeling in his gut, drawing his frozen breath tight. His wings shake and he thinks he shakes too, and not from the cold. He glares, as hard as he can, and opens his mouth.

“You’re stupid!” It’s a shriek, louder than anyone has ever heard him, an animal with a bite. “Gooey’s my friend! It’s not my fault you think everything’s a monster!”

Something is tugging at him frantically, something like panic that he feels, and it just makes it all worse. He ignores it. His dad is stupid. This is stupid!

Kirby never had a cool friend before Gooey showed up. Kirby never had anything but his parents and his dumb toys. Gooey is great! Gooey is his friend! And his dad and his dumb sword is going to just take it away!

The best. The best. He’s not. He’s the worst.



And he wants his dad to hurt just as much as he does.

“Kirby—”

“…You will understand when you’re older, Kirby. Do not take that tone with me.”

“Stupid!”

“Kirby—”

“Stupid!”

Kirby steps right out fully from his mother’s back and yells it, shrieks it, beyond the point of reason, hot and cold, scared and so very angry, all at once. Why him? Why him? Why his dad? Why?

A hand brushes his wings gently, cool in its touch. He doesn’t see the way Meta Knight’s expression goes blank, dull and blunt. He doesn’t know anything but a bad, bad pain in his chest and the burn in his eyes, trailing frozen down his cheeks.

“Dark Matter aren’t your friends, Kirby.” Meta Knight speaks, even as Kirby doesn’t hear him. “They’ll use you, no matter how friendly they are.

“You’ll learn when you’re older. I’m sorry, Kirby.”

And Kirby--

Meta Knight is raising his blade. His mother is yelling. The ice is growing colder. Kirby can’t breathe. He opens his mouth to yell, to scream, and he launches forward to— do something to save the one friend he has, to run, get away, go--

Galaxia freezes mid-air.

Kirby doesn’t realize it at first, running at a sprint with a cry on his lips and reaching to grab his father’s side in small fists. His focus is narrowed into a tunnel point, everything a buzz in his ears. It all turns to a haze in the face of something he can’t control.

Meta Knight’s free hand lands on Kirby’s head automatically. His voice is distant.

“…It’s gone.”

What’s gone? What is it? Gooey, he needs to protect Gooey. He needs to get away. He needs to…

“You can’t. I won’t let you. You can’t—”

“Kirby,” And, soft, even further away, “Gooey’s not here.”

Kirby sniffs and looks over, bleary-eyed and shivering.

Gooey isn’t there. He’d been hiding right against his mom, and now he isn’t, and Kirby knows immediately that he won’t see him even if his mom turns around and shows what’s behind her. 

Gooey’s gone.

His first real buddy. And his dumb dad made him run away.

“…I hate you.”

​
---------------------------------



Everything’s a blur after that.

Kirby loses awareness of most stuff that happens. He knows his mom comes over and picks him up. He knows she says something, and so does dad, and she says something mean and buries him in her shoulder.

He knows they go home, and there’s dinner waiting for them at the table. Dinner that, he notices only after he sits at the table, was made from stuff that Gooey gave him.

Gooey. Who’s gone.

He’s going to be sick.

“Kirby,” A soft voice whispers beside him. “Why don’t we eat somewhere else, hm?”

“Kes.”

Kirby lets himself be guided, bowl and drink and all, away from the table and, as he discovers, right out of the house. Mom’s work shed is her own little space, a place not meant for children who might get hurt, she’d once told him teasingly. He was still allowed to visit, but it was her spot.

He never thought he’d be eating here. But his mother was, so he guessed that meant he could too. It didn’t matter. Gooey wasn’t there.t

It all goes by in a blur anyway.

…

Dark Matter. 

Kirby pokes his plate.

It sounds scary. Dad sure hated them. What. They play pretend? They don’t feel anything? That doesn’t make sense. Everyone feels something, even demon beasts, he’s sure. Nobody can feel nothing.

Dad had said Gooey was Dark Matter. Dad said Dark Matter didn’t care about anything. But that meant Gooey wasn’t Dark Matter, because Gooey felt just as much as Kirby did. Gooey cried and laughed and played. That was feeling in his book.

Gooey protected him. Gooey played with him better than Marx ever did. Gooey apologized for making him mad, and then they were just…best friends! Gooey was good.

Dad was wrong. He just was.

Mom knew it too. Mom knew it so much that she’d protected Gooey and took Kirby into her shed to eat. To eat! You don’t eat in the shed!

Kirby almost wants to ask her about it. She’s right there. But she hadn’t said anything since they came in, and he knows she and dad had argued really, really badly about it. He doesn’t think he should.

So, Kirby keeps quiet, and thinks, and thinks. And time passes, and time blurs, and then mom is taking his hand to lead him back inside, to go to bed. It’s already night out.

He can walk himself in. He’s not a baby. Mom won’t let him.

Kirby doesn’t want to go inside anyway. He doesn’t want to see his dad. His dad is angry, and stupid, and scary. It’s scary.

He still sees his dad in the forest.

Kirby still sees him, and he feels his hands get all cold and clammy and he feels his throat tighten. He looks down at the ground and everything keeps moving on.

Bed. He’s going to bed. He doesn’t hear, doesn’t want to hear, his dad’s voice calling out to him, or the bite in his mom’s voice in response. They are going to his room.

It’s nighttime. He’s in his room, and he’s in his bed. He’s tucked in, and he can feel the blanket under his hands, soft and warm.

The ceiling winks down at him, little stick-on stars aglow in the dark. They look too happy, he thinks, and his chest wells and gets tight. His throat gets tighter.

His dad says this. His mom says that. Gooey didn’t do anything wrong and couldn’t say anything one way or another.

Dad’s a cool hero. Dad’s travelled the universe. Dad would know everything. Kirby thought he did.

But Gooey is Gooey. Gooey wouldn’t. Gooey couldn’t. Kirby knows it. That’s his friend.

His eyes burn, and eventually so do his cheeks. They’re wet, and finally a breath leaves his throat in a strangled sort of noise. More crying, and he’s really, really tired of crying.

Kirby turns and buries his face into the stuffed animals beside him to hide himself from the world, or maybe just to hide himself from how happy they look. They don’t deserve to be happy.

It’s not fair. Kirby doesn’t get anything. Kirby doesn’t even want anything. He just wants a friend. He just wants his dad to come and hug him. He just wants his mom to kiss his head and sing him something.

He just wants--

He just wants his friend back.

-End Chapter-

<< Chapter 4 | Chapter 6 >>

---

---

​​​​​​Artist Comment:
​

-----------------

--
The literature written for this illustration was commissioned by my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess) ^v^ 

---

---

Species © Nintendo/ HAL Laboratory
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem