Ryan was amazed at how different and yet the same John was being 14 years younger than he had been. John now idolized and thought the world of Ryan, instead of seeing him as a little twerp who he cared about, but often thought an annoying pain or a bore that he could only take in small doses. Instead John now called him the "bestest big brother in the whole wide world", and wanted nothing more than to hang out and please Ryan like an overeager puppy.
John was still athletically inclined, Ryan's memories were telling him. He already was learning to play basketball--one of the sports he had played Varsity for in High School, now he was just learning to dribble, shoot, and pass like any other eight year old just learning and eager to show off what he had learned. Basketball was now just one of his sports interests, just like soccer and baseball were. Both of which had been sports he'd also been varsity in as well. And all of which his skills had been reset to that of a little kid's--a little kid which showed a lot of promise and talent, which was clear to Ryan, but still a little kid's skill nonetheless.
John went for a shot, the ball bouncing off the hoop.
"Dang it!" exclaimed John
"My shot!" called Ryan, and he interfered, taking the ball and then with a few well thought out moves to psych John into trying to get the ball, Ryan turned, took a shot, and was surprised to see it didn't just bounce off of the back of the board. Apparently in this reality, with John being so interested in basketball, he'd taken it upon himself to play with him whenever John wanted to practice, and that practice was apparently paying off somewhat with Ryan acquiring some small skill at the game.
"That was an awesome shot!" exclaimed John excitedly.
"A lucky shot, betcha this time, I won't even get it over the rim," said Ryan as he bounced the ball once before taking aim and shooting, only to discover that he almost easily repeated the shot, taking himself by surprise.
This only led to protests from John about having Ryan teach him, to which Ryan could only say in a stunned manner that he would. For the next half hour or so, Ryan taught John what the older John had tried to teach him in the other reality, but never really succeeded that well in doing. John however seemed to understand Ryan's instructions intuitively until at long last John was making shots that were more often than not making it in.
"Great job Johnny," said Ryan, testing to see if the nickname Ryan remembered hearing John's friends call him when they thought no one was around would be acceptable to little John, and John didn't at all object.
"Come on, let's go get inside and cool down," suggested Ryan, to which John nodded, volunteering to put the basketball back in the garage.
As Ryan re-entered the house, he began to think about how nice it was to be the older brother, to have Johnny looking up to him, instead of the reverse. Ryan didn't get how John originally could have treated him like a nuisance, but then again, they also were much closer in age in this reality than the decade's difference that had existed in the other reality.
It was then that Ryan heard the front door being fiddled with as a key was inserted and turned, causing Ryan to perk up in alert, and alert which calmed when he saw it was Reece, one of John's best friends from when he was older, still older, and now coming in with what looked like an overnight bag. Reece was a leanly built college student, with hazel eyes, pale skin and shaggy red hair and the beginnings of a goatee to match in an attempt to make himself look older.
"Hey Ryan, Johnny, I'm here!" called out Reece.
"REECE!" exclaimed Johnny excitedly as he rushed in from the garage to run and meet Reece with a jump and a hug that nearly caught Reece off guard. As that happened, Ryan's memories of Reece shifted from one of his brother's best friends to that of one of their favorite babysitters, who was particularly a favorite of Johnny's, the two apparently getting along famously no matter the reality.
"Sorry little dudes, but I got caught up talking with one of my professors a little longer than I expected, but I figured a little latchkey kid time wouldn't hurt you too much," said Reece as he put Johnny down, and looked at Ryan.
"Uh... okay," said Ryan, not sure what to say to that.
Reece settled into the guest bedroom, formerly John's old room, now Ryan and Johnny shared a room since they were so close in age, and they still needed a babysitter to stay over due to how young they both were. He then set about making dinner while encouraging Johnny to go watch television. Ryan decided to work on some homework, giving himself some space to think through the changes in this reality where he started wondering if his old friends from his former life were still the same--then who were his friends now? Ryan tried thinking but apparently while Johnny wasn't purposely left out of any group or class activity, apparently Mom and Dad were worried that Johnny hadn't really formed any close friends in this reality, thus them encouraging Ryan to really "look after Johnny" more thoroughly and to include him with him and his friends.
Which was a shame, because John had had a tight nit set of friends he'd always hung out with when he had been older.