Zucchini Memories

Higgy cracks open the door into the dim, cramped room. Inside, Nicky sits hunched in his chair over a blank piece of paper. He taps a pencil against his head.

“Got anything written down yet?” Higgy asks.

“Nope… this song’s a lot slower than what we’re normally given.” the blond doesn’t lift his eyes off of the paper, instead giving it a small frown.

His friend sighs, knowing how Nicky can get when struck with writer’s block. Besides, it’s not hard to be gloomy when cooped up in a dark room like that. Higgy decides he needs some sunlight.

“Yo Nick, wanna come down to the kitchen?”

“We’re making tempura!” A certain freckled face loomed uncomfortably close over Higgy’s shoulder.

“Toni. A few steps back.”

The brown haired child obeys his leader’s order without question. 

“Doumo.” Higgy’s thanks is no doubt undermined by the annoyance in his voice. He doesn’t care, though. The only thing he’s concerned with is who told Toni he could get so close in the first place.

“Tempura?” Nicky’s head bobs up. “What are you making it with?”

“We got broccoli, gobou, onions, and mushrooms, I think? Benji told me we could use them all as long as we didn’t go hog wild with it.” Higgy feels like he’s forgetting something. “...Oh yeah! Benji meant to pick up some squash, but he got a zucchini instead. Kenji acted like you were allergic to it or something, so we can cook that last.”

“He-He said not to tell Nicky about it...” Toni adds quietly. He sounds a lot farther away than Higgy expected him to be.

“Oh no, I’m not allergic.” The lyricist’s frown turns upside down. “Kenji must be thinking about Sid.”

“Who’s Sid?” Higgy wonders aloud. He also wants to know how Kenji could misremember his own brother having allergies.

Nicky stands up from his chair, towering over the small desk and anyone else in the vicinity. “I’ll tell you guys on the way down.”

With Higgy in the lead, the trio makes their way into the hall. He would be walking much faster, but he manages to stick close to Nicky. At least, Higgy’s definition of close, which is still an arm’s length away.

“Me and Toni are having trouble coming up with a routine for this song, too.” he muses. “I’m wondering if…”

“Wondering if what?” Nicky questions.

The choreographer wonders if he should skip a dance routine altogether for this song, but he doesn’t say it out loud. Not with Toni around. Currently, he’s bumping shoulders with Nicky while looking like the picture of innocence. The youngest member hasn’t been trouble so far, but it’s still too early for him to be trusted. 

“I’ll tell you later. Who’s this Sid guy?” the shorter boy changes the subject.

“Sid…” Nicky repeats, looking into the distance. “Sid was… an old friend of mine.”

Nicky’s acting way too dramatic to be serious right now. Higgy shakes his head, chuckling. “C’mon Nicky, tell us who he really was.”

Nicky drops his act. “Hahaha, you got me! In actuality, Sid was,” he clenches his fist, even more dramatically, “...my really good friend!”

Toni gasps, pretending to be thoroughly shocked. He also slaps his face so hard, Higgy winces.

“Ow!” Toni removes his hand to reveal a bright red mark on his cheek. His other one probably looks the same.

“You okay?” asks Nicky. “Daijoubu?”

“Oh, yes! It even says so on my clothes!” He turns to the other two, pointing at the front of his sweater. “See? ‘Oh, Yes!’”

“Oh, yes! I see!” the blond responds.

“Don’t hurt yourself.” warns Higgy. “Especially not your face, since it’ll be on camera.”

“Oh. Y-yes, Senpai… Suggoku gomen ne.” Toni quiets down as he apologizes, almost fearfully. Higgy doesn’t understand how his advice could be taken as threatening. He chalks it up to Toni’s overall strangeness.

“I really liked vegetables as a kid.” Nicky begins out of nowhere. Before Higgy even has a chance to question where that came from, he continues. “Being able to eat things that come from the ground, isn’t that cool?”

“Yeah… I guess it is cool!” Toni agrees. “I never thought about it before!”

“I liked vegetables as a kid, too. Still do.” The dark-haired member still has no idea where Nicky is going with this.

“I was such a big fan of vegetables, I pretended to be a potato! They stay all warm and cozy underground; it’s so easy to be a potato. You don’t have to do homework when you’re a potato...”

“Yeah…” agrees Toni, as if this make any sense at all.

“But Kenji said I should be a zucchini, ‘cause they’re long, like me! And also they’re yellow, which I’m super into!”

“Yeah, you’re like a zucchini!” Toni continues to accept whatever’s going on. “What vegetable am I like?”

“Hmmmm!” Nicky presses a finger to his chin, thinking hard. “You’re like a red bell pepper, because you’re small and sweet.”

Toni covers his face. “Thank you~! As long as it’s not the green ones.” He sticks his tongue out in disgust.

“What are you talking about? The green ones are good.” Higgy defends.

Toni almost jumps out of his skin, then gives Higgy a sheepish expression. “You can have them, I guess…”

“Thanks.You can... not like them, you know.” Cheering people up isn’t the shorter boy’s strong suit, but he doesn’t want Toni to be too afraid of him, even if he has bad taste.

“Higgy’s like a beet.” Nicky continues. “He’s very small but makes a big impression.”

“That’s right.” Higgy flips his bang.

Nicky begins to walk backwards. “Anyway, where was I?” He lifts up a finger. “Oh yeah! I got really into zucchinis, and wanted to grow my own to eat one day. Luckily, my uncle had a garden with them.”

“But didn’t Mr. Kenji say your family lives in Hawaii?” asks Toni.

“Our legal relatives. Though if friends being family is illegal, then consider us all criminals!”

“Dangerous…” The freckled newcomer covers his mouth with his fists.

“Bad to the bone.” Nicky tries--and fails--at looking tough. “My parents were able to convince him to let me be in charge of my very own zucchini, and every day after school, I’d go and take care of it.”

“Awwww…” Toni now presses his fists to his cheeks as Higgy turns Nicky around so he doesn’t fall down the approaching staircase. 

Higgy descends first. “What does all this have to do with Sid?”

“I’m getting to that~” Nicky replies, almost melodically. “In a minute.”

The tall blond stops talking and begins to shimmy down the steps.

Moments later, he speaks again. “Sid was the name of my zucchini.”

Higgy stops in his tracks, realizing what Nicky has just done. “Did you wait a full minute to tell us that?”

The tall boy only smiles in reply. “I loved Sid… I felt so happy hanging out with him and spending time together. He made me feel like a zucchini.”

“What does that feel like?” Toni drags his hand along the wall for balance.

“Like a zucchini…” replies Nicky, as if that clarifies anything. “In fact, Sid was so much like a brother to me, I thought I was a zucchini!”

Higgy would ask how, but he knows he’ll just end up with more questions.

Toni doesn’t, though. “But you’re a-- you are...” He switches over to Japanese. “But you’re a human, Nicky.”

Nicky looks ahead wistfully. “I knew that, but deep down… deep down my six-year-old heart was convinced that we were one in the same! We had a special bond, him and me. No one could take that away from us.” He leans on a window in one of the hallways. “I used to tell Mickey and Vick lot about him, I don’t think I met Toby yet, but I can ask him about it if we pass by my old band on the way down. I wish they could’ve met him, but...” He trails off in a sigh.

“Oh no!” Toni turns around, revealing the words ‘Oh no!’ on the back of his sweater. “Did something happen to the zucchini?”

The blond solemnly nods. “Something did happen…” He collapses against the window, as if the weight of his memories are bearing down on him. “I still remember the day we took him home. Like it was yesterday!”

“Yesterday…”

Higgy continues walking. “C’mon Nick, you can reminisce on the way.”

“He sat in my lap on the drive home.” By the time he catches up to Higgy, Nicky’s cradling a potted plant in his arms. He strokes it lovingly. “We had the future ahead of us. It was as bright as his golden skin, sprawling like the gentle Horseshoe Lake. We couldn’t have known that heartbreak was around the corner.”

The eldest stares at the plant in his friend’s hands. “Put that thing back, Kenji’s gonna kill us if he sees you parading it around!”

“Good thinking, Higgy!” Nicky pats the greenery once more, before placing it on a nearby table. “I shouldn’t offend its plant-like sensibilities with my gloomy story. It just… reminded me so much of Sid, I couldn’t help but say aloe!”

The shortest member begins walking even faster, pretending not to hear that last part. Toni giggles.

“Speaking of Kenji,” Nicky ignores Higgy ignoring him, “he and my parents were still under the impression that I wanted to cook him. They had no knowledge of our plans.”

“What exactly were you gonna do with it if you weren’t gonna eat it anyway?” asks the dark-haired leader.

The tallest member shrugs. “I’d tell you, but we didn’t really know our plans, either! But none of that mattered in the end… Mom said she was going to wash him off, and I was like ‘Aww, a bath? That’s nice.’” He erupts into fake tears, collapsing to the ground. “It wasn’t nice! The next time I saw him he was cut up and served to me on a plate!”

“Oh nooo!!” Toni runs over to fling his arms around Nicky. “That’s so sad...”

“Thank you Toni.” The blond sniffles.

“Did someone move my aloe plant?”

A little ways ahead of the others, Nicky’s brother stands with a stack of papers in hand. 

“Oh yeah, that was me.” the younger Kezwick lifts a hand. 

“Oh yes!” Toni motions to his sweater.

“It’s supposed to stay in direct sunlight.” Kenji sets the papers down and places the plant on a farther table. “Nicholas. Why are you on the floor?”

“Nicky was telling us about his zucchini friend.” The youngest continues patting Nicky on the back. “I can’t believe you ate him!”

“Ah… I see he’s telling you that story.” The teacher retrieves his stack of papers, chuckling. “None of us knew what to do when you broke down crying at the table.”

“I was horrified! You ate my best friend! What if you guys ended up deciding I was food?”

He shakes his head. “Nickolai, that’s ridiculous!”

“It wasn’t to me!” Nicky defends. “Who gets to decide what’s food and what’s not? If we can eat something like Sid, what’s stopping us from eating each other?”

“Cannibalism.” responds Higgy.

Kenji nods. “Higgy’s right. Besides, you said you were going to swear off vegetables and only eat meat.”

“You were going to be a reverse-vegetarian?” asks the choreographer.

Toni looks horrified. “But you’d be eating animals!”

“I made the mistake of telling him that.” Kenji shakes his head. “Then he tried going on a full hunger strike, it was a mess.”

“Oh no!” the youngest teen spins around to show everyone the back of his sweater.

Nicky speaks up. “Then I got too hungry and had to eat something, so in the end, I just swore off zucchini. But…” He stands. “Now that I’ve had time to grow and learn, I realized just now that eating Sid would’ve been the right thing to do.”

“What??” This appears to shock Toni. “But he was your friend!” 

“I know. He’ll always be my friend, but he died for us, and to not eat him would let his sacrifice go to waste.”

Higgy looks to Kenji, hoping to find an answer the nonsense spouting out of Nicky’s mouth, but the teacher just smiles nervously.

“Well I’m glad you’ve found peace with eating zucchinis.” Kenji picks up his papers. “Besides, the actual zucchini is just the fruit of the plant--”

“I thought it was a vegetable.” Nicky interrupts.

“I mean, cooking wise, yes, but botanically speaking-- Anyway! If you had called the zucchini plant Sid, then you wouldn’t have had to worry about the heartbreak of us eating your friend.”

Hope lights up the taller brother’s eyes. “So Sid’s still alive??”

“Well, no.” Kenji glances away from his sibling’s disappointed face. “Zucchini plants only last a few seasons. I’m… sorry for your loss?” He begins inching away from the conversation. “Now if you all will excuse me, I have work to do.”

“Bye Kenji.” Nicky waves. “I forgive you!”

“Thanks…?” The manager returns one more awkward glance before power-striding away.

With Kenji gone, the other three continued walking to the kitchen, when suddenly Nicky stops.

“Guys, I have an idea for the song!”

“Sou da...?” Higgy looks up at the blond.

Nicky nods. “Yeah! It’s gonna be about loss. It’ll be based on what happened with me and Sid.”

Higgy quirks an eyebrow. “So we’re gonna be singing about a zucchini?” 

“Only you guys will know what it’s really about!”

His eyebrow remains quirked. “But we’re still going to be singing about a zucchini.”

“Yeah!” Nicky smiles. “Let me go back upstairs so I can get my notebook! I’ll be right back!” He runs about halfway down the hall before abruptly turning around. “And if you guys end up cooking the zucchini, make sure to save me some!”

“Hai.” The eldest lifts a hand in affirmation.

The tall boy continues running, before disappearing behind a corner. Higgy and Toni are left alone.

Higgy turns to Toni. “Nicky’s an interesting guy, isn’t he?”

Toni points at the front of his sweater.

‘Oh, yes!’

“Somehow, I thought you’d say that.”