Chapter Text
“Did you get enough to eat, Nanako?” Ryotaro asked his daughter.
“Mm-hmm,” she replied. “Guess I’d better start the dishes.”
Yosuke jumped to his feet, nearly bumping the table in his haste. “Don’t worry about it, Nanako-chan. I’ll take care of them.”
Nanako, who’d started to stand up, slowly sank back down to her knees. “Oh. Are you sure, Yosuke-nii?”
“Totally sure. Pretty sure it’s my turn anyway.” He winked at Nanako as he quickly gathered up the dishes and trash from the table. Ryotaro casually watched him carry everything into the kitchen, stopping by the trash can to sort out the garbage from the dishes before moving to the sink. The kid placed their few dishes in the sink, reached for the tap...and hesitated.
It had only been a day since Ryotaro had come home to find blood on the kitchen floor and a nervous Yosuke hiding a bandaged hand. He still wasn’t sure why Yosuke felt the need to hide his injury, but he’d decided not to press the issue. Ryotaro figured if he gave Yosuke a little trust over something like this, the kid would be more likely to come to him over a bigger issue.
He stood up and crossed to the kitchen, leaning against the table to watch Yosuke open drawers and cabinets. “Need something?”
Yosuke jumped. “Uh...gloves?” he suggested, holding up his bandaged hand.
Ryotaro pushed away from the table and rolled up his sleeves as he approached the sink. “How about I wash and you dry?”
“Are-are you sure?” Yosuke asked. “I mean...don’t you have better things to do, Dojima-san?”
“This won’t take long,” he said. “That’s one good thing about being a terrible cook: no pots and pans to wash.”
Yosuke gave a nervous laugh. “I guess so.”
The kid had been all nerves ever since yesterday. Ryotaro hadn’t been planning on prying, but at this point he felt like they needed some kind of intervention. Some way to show Yosuke that he was still safe here, no matter what happened.
“Is that bothering you?” he asked, nodding to Yosuke’s bandaged hand as he passed him a plate.
“It’s okay,” the boy replied. He carefully dried the plate, though he nearly dropped it at one point. Ryotaro could have sworn the kid was about to bolt, so he hurried to pass him another.
“Do you need to see a doctor?”
Yosuke shook his head. “It’s just a scratch.” The plates were all dry now, and he carefully picked them up and put them away in one of the cabinets. “Thanks, though.”
“No problem.”
They worked in silence to finish the last few dishes, and Ryotaro steered Yosuke over to sit at the table as soon as they were done. “Sit here for a second, okay?”
While they kept their big first aid kit upstairs, there was a smaller one on the shelf over the washing machine. Ryotaro grabbed it and returned to the table, sitting down across from Yosuke. “Let me see?”
Yosuke hesitantly reached out across the table, palm up, showing Ryotaro the few drops of blood that had started to bleed through the gauze bandage.
“I can take care of it,” Yosuke said softly as Ryotaro started cutting away the gauze.
“It’s your dominant hand, kid,” he replied. “Just let me do it.”
There were small cuts on Yosuke’s index and ring fingers, and a gash across his palm. He’d said he got the injuries playing with a knife, but Ryotaro could instantly tell that was a lie. The gash was slightly curved and jagged, not a clean slice. More like a cut from glass, or ceramic, maybe.
“It wasn’t a knife,” Yosuke finally said.
Ryotaro glanced up at him. “I know.”
Yosuke swallowed. “You can tell, huh?”
“That, and...I’m a detective, kid. It’s kinda my job to know when people are lying.”
“Then why didn’t you….”
“What, call you on it?” He waited for Yosuke to nod before continuing. “Because I wanted to trust you,” he said simply.
“Why?”
He pretended he hadn’t heard Yosuke’s whispered question as he dug out a roll of gauze. “You’re keeping it clean, that’s good. It doesn’t look like a self-inflicted wound. I haven’t seen any signs that you’re up to anything dangerous.” Ryotaro glanced up, meeting Yosuke’s gaze. “I just want you to be safe, kid. That’s all that matters.”
Yosuke’s eyes were bright, and he was blinking rapidly like he was fighting tears. “I broke a glass,” he finally admitted. “I’m sorry, I’ll replace it, Dojima-san...I didn’t mean to.”
“I didn’t think you did,” Ryotaro replied. He finished wrapping Yosuke’s hand and applied new bandages to his fingers. “You know, Chisato—my wife—bought those glasses,” he continued. Yosuke sucked in a breath, and Ryotaro raised a hand before the boy could speak. “It was kind of a little hobby of hers. Haven’t you noticed our dishes?”
The kid half-turned in his seat to look at the row of cabinets above the counter, like he could see through them to the plates and bowls they held.
“It’s not a set,” Ryotaro explained. “Chisato bought almost all of our dishes second-hand. She’d look for sets that were missing a few pieces, or individual items. If something got broken, she’d just replace it with whatever caught her eye. Drove me a little crazy at first, but I got used to it.”
The memory brought a smile to his face. A table set with mismatched plates and bowls. Chisato happily explaining that she found the perfect bowl for little Nanako, who was just learning to feed herself. Some people thought their eclectic collection of dishes was a sign that Chisato wasn’t a good homemaker, but that wasn’t it. She was just a woman who’d bypass the neat and identical dishware sets to pick up the odds and ends that someone had discarded. A single orange bowl, a plate with a ring of daisies around the edge.
Loose ends. Leftovers. Castaways.
Maybe that was why he’d wanted to give Yosuke a place to live when his parents had been neglecting him. Maybe it was a sign from Chisato, showing him another lost piece that belonged with their family.
“Um, Dojima-san? I’ll replace the glass.”
“You don’t have to,” Ryotaro replied, shaking his head.
“No, I...I want to. Um...can I?”
He was asking for something permanent, Ryotaro realized. Something he could bring to this house, to add to the legacy Chisato had started.
“Of course you can, Yosuke,” he finally said, patting the kid’s hand before he pulled it away. “I can’t wait to see what you find.”