Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Broken Telephone

"Yotsuba, you give this to Asagi," Jumbo says, handling the child a small, exceptionally fragrant rose. "That's the oldest girl. Got it?" He adds, for safekeeping.

"Got it!" The child says, smiling wide. "Yotsuba will give it to the oldest girl!"

Jumbo rubs the back of his neck. "Guess I'm kinda infatuated, huh?" He blushes and giggles like an idiot, drifting into a world of his own.

Minutes later, Mrs. Ayase's standing at her doorway, holding a rose and thoroughly confused.

"This is from Jumbo!" Yotsuba had said. "He says is infected!"

She eyes the beautiful flower warily.

Giraffe-san….? Infected…?

Chapter Text

Genius Loci

With her characteristically self-composed and sensible temperament, Ena is like a guardian angel of the Ayase household. Or rather, she is the genius loci of its domestic spaces and possessions, protecting the family's karmic balance against Humanity's sins. Because what goes around comes around – be it environmental overexploitation or the historical array of objectionable vices –, Ena prefers to live her life in grace and charity: she recycles, turns off the AC and never, ever eats the strawberry on top of another's cake.

As Mom would put it, she is the house's kind, benign safeguard against the evil influence of demon spawns.

Chapter Text

Solar Curry

"Now, Yotsuba," Koiwai says, handling his five-year-old a pair of dark-lensed cardboard glasses. "Don't forget to put these on, ok?"

Yotsuba takes them, examining the alien instrument with great care. "Yotsuba knows this… 3D glasses, right?"

Koiwai sighs. "I guess you wouldn't know, would you." He points at the eclipse-viewing spectacles. "See, these are like sunglasses. They keep your eyes safe from solar light, so you can look at–"

"It's starting!" Fuuka says.

For three whole minutes, Yotsuba's mouth goes O-shaped, eyes starry with excitement as the moons slides slowly into the sun, like curry into one huge white plate.

Chapter Text

Confortable Silences

Despite what people might believe, the truth is that Mrs. Ayase married out of love. Sure, they come across as a somewhat ill-assorted couple, what with the wife's impish nature opposing her husband's John Doe-like invisibility. But under that deceivingly average man, there's the only lover Mrs. Ayase ever comfortably enjoyed the silence with.

That's why, if a cursory glance at their domestic routines—when one is reading the morning newspaper while the other watches TV—would effortlessly file them under the "alienated middle-aged couple" category, well… it would be wrong! That's just what they're about. And isn't that special?

Chapter Text

At the Pool; or, Mitigating Circumstances

Maybe one could blame it on the excruciating mugginess of the Japanese summer. On the effects of overheated air on the central nervous system, or the potentially life-threatening consequences of high-humidity levels. But whether he was suffering from heatstroke or hypoxia, Jumbo still found himself with a troublesome, rather salacious inclination towards Ayase Fuuka's bikini-covered (and, apropos, underage) bosom. He watched with blissful joy as droplets of pool water travelled down through smooth, dune-like expanses of skin into the breas–

"Think not of them," comes Koiwai's voice from Jumbo's side, biblical stoicism all over it as he nonchalantly turns another magazine page.

Chapter Text

Winter awkwardness

"See you later, onee-san!"

"Later, Miura-chan!"

Cold air comes in as Fuuka opens the door for Miura, who picks up an umbrella resting against the jamb.

"Miura-chan," Fuuka says, surprised. "Do you wear an umbrella in the snow?"

Miura deadpans. "So?"

"…Isn't that kinda girly?"

"I am a girl". Annoyance-meter reaches yellow.

"This is sleet, it tends to melt on conta–"

"Of course," Fuuka cuts short, smiling. "I don't know what got into me."

They stare at each other.

"Later." Miura says, and exists.

Inside, Fuuka rests her back against the closed door.

Stupid Jumbo, getting into my head.