Chapter Text
1. you're just like your father
It’s two days after the fact, but Rin doesn’t mind at all. He runs around the Matsuoka house, whooping nonsense sounds until Gou starts crying. She’s younger, and she’s such a crybaby.
“You should calm down,” his mother advises him, but there are laugh lines scrunching at the corners of her eyes. Gou sniffles and squirms in her lap as she sits on the steps. “You’ll be tired before he even gets into port.”
“No I won’t!” he declares, thundering from the kitchen into the stone foyer. He’s yanking his rain boots out of the cubby, and after a thought, Gou’s too. When he advances, his mother stops his with a hand to his forehead. Red hair musses into his eyes.
“Gentle, gentle,” she reminds him.
“I know, I know!” he huffs, and his mother laughs at him. He helps his sister put on her boots, and oh my god, it takes forever. He’s practically vibrating by the time his mother is standing up and stretching.
“Now where did I put my umbrella…” she muses slowly.
“It’s in the thingy!”
“The what?”
“The umbrella holder! That’s where the umbrellas go!”
“Oh?” His mother places Gou onto her tottery feet, and instead of retrieving the umbrella from the stand, right where Rin can see it, she starts to turn around, hand on the bannister. “I’m pretty sure I left it upstairs…”
Rin grabs the umbrella from the stand, and pokes her right in the butt with it. Gou shrieks and giggles. His mother whirls around, shock and amusement on her face.
“You’re such a little brat!” she crows, grabbing him up. He yells in delight, dropping the umbrella. Gou picks it up, admiring the pink polka dots and mumbling to herself. She doesn’t talk a lot, mostly because Rin is always talking – which is exactly what he does as they finally make their way out of the house, and towards the docks.
His mother walks slowly, Gou in one hand, the umbrella in the other. That’s fine, because he wants to be able to slosh through all the mud first. His hood is flipped up, shielding bright, determined red eyes from the rain. “I’m gonna show him how full my bug jar is first, and then the stickers that I got from Garaki-sensei, and then we can watch the aurorora tape – ”
“Aurora,” his mother corrects lightly.
“ – aurora tape, and then Gou can give me her present first, and then we can have cake – ”
“Wait, what?” His mother snorts, helping his sister navigate a slippery patch of sidewalk. “Why don’t you want to open all your presents together?”
“So there’s more time getting presents,” Rin explains. Sometimes, his mother doesn’t think things through very seriously. She even laughs like she's a little girl, which Rin likes, but honestly. “Anyway, after the cake, we can have dinner, and then ice cream. And then more presents.”
“Who says I got you ice cream?”
“Gou says,” Rin replies easily, and his mother gasps in shock at his sister’s obvious betrayal of trust. Which definitely happened. “She told me. I didn’t look in the freezer.”
“No,” she replies very steadily, “of course you wouldn’t. You’re a good boy.”
“Tell dad that!” he barks. Sometimes, he feels like he has to work extra hard at it, so it’s important for his father to know that he’s trying. “…But don’t tell him about the frog cup.”
A hip bumps his shoulder, all of a sudden. His mother and sister are walking at his side, now. They slop through the mud together, three in a row. “What frog cup? I don’t know anything about a frog cup. I have never even heard of a frog cup.”
Rin flushes. He can’t believe she forgot already, it was his dad’s favorite coffee mug. “The one I broke because of accidents and buried in the back yard and then you said stop crying we can fix it but we couldn’t fix it and so I buried it again.”
“Ah,” his mother replies, quite solemn. It’s about time she remembered! “That cup. I won’t mention it, Rin-Rin.”
“You promise?”
“I triple promise.”
“Okay. – Look! Mom!”
“I see it, baby,” she hums back, and she always sounds happier when she sees his dad’s boat in the harbor. Rin quiets down after that, because he’s happy when his mom is happy, and he’s happy his dad is coming home for a while.
They wait for a few more agonizing minutes, while ropes are tied and men shout at each other across the deck. When men in silly, bright orange overalls start pouring down the gangway, Gou yells, “Daddy!” and Rin wants to yell too, but his voice feels stuck in his throat.
He didn’t cry when his father wasn’t there, two days ago, when he really turned seven. He doesn’t cry at all anymore when his father is away at sea, because then Gou will cry, and he’s a big brother now, which means he shouldn’t do anything that would make his sister cry. He’s growing up, and he’s trying to not be a crybaby anymore.
But when he sees his dad grin – with funny, pointy teeth, just like the ones he’s painfully growing in – Rin suddenly starts hiccupping shallowly and presses his face into his mother’s coat. He doesn’t come out, even when he hears the kiss and warm words his parents exchange overhead, and the distressed squeal from his sister.
“What, are you not happy to see me, Rin?” laughs a deep voice right next to him. He wipes his snotty nose all over his mom’s cute yellow coat as he shakes his head no, no that’s not it. It’s stupid, because he’s not even sad, he’s really happy to see his dad again, and to be having a birthday party with him soon, but it feels like all too much and his chest hurts a bit with it.
“I w-w-want to sh-show you my b-bug jar,” he burbles out, and his father scoops him up to the sound of his mother's laughter. He loves the way she laughs, and he loves the way his dad picks him up like he's nothing.
“You got more bugs, huh?” Big hands wipe his tears away. “And I get to see them? Is it my birthday?”
“No, it’s my birthday!” he shouts back, and his dad is laughing. He smiles, and the ache in his chest goes away, just like that.
“Oho, that’s right! It is, isn’t it? Well, happy birthday, Rin.”
And, it is.