Work Text:
The baby just. Would not. Sleep. Which meant that Tomoko was awake in the middle of the night when her father showed up with the exhausted little boy.
She was cradling fussy little Josuke on the couch, sleepily mumbling her way through all of the lullabies she could remember and praying that he’d stay down for more than two hours this time, when she heard the key in the front door. Officer Ryohei Higashikata often worked unpredictable hours, and she wasn’t surprised that he was coming home this late. What did surprise her, though, was the child he was carrying, tiny arms flung around his neck and face buried against his shoulder.
“Hi, Dad,” Tomoko said softly, careful not to rouse her drifting-off son. “Who’s this little guy?”
Ryohei squinted into the dim light of the living room, illuminated only by the streetlight outside. “This is Rohan,” he said. Rohan raised his head at the sound of his name, glanced at Tomoko, and buried it against Ryohei’s shoulder again. “He’s had a rough night and he needs somewhere to stay until we can locate his parents.”
This was the first time he’d ever had to bring his work home with him in this way, as far as Tomoko could remember. Sure, he’d done paperwork in the den, and had taken phone calls during family dinner, but he’d never brought an entire kid to the house. “That’s fine,” she said, astounded by the general situation. “I’m in the baby’s room tonight anyway, we can have a sleepover.” This kid at least looked like he’d sleep through the night. “What happened?”
Her father shot a meaningful glance at the child in his arms and soundlessly mouthed, “It’s bad.” Tomoko noticed for the first time how shaken he was, how obviously disturbed he was by the incident that had produced one poor lost little soul. Policing in Morioh was generally a mild occupation - a vandal here, a traffic scofflaw there. Whatever had happened tonight was something particularly terrible and unexpected.
They brought both sleeping boys to the nursery, Ryohei gently depositing Rohan onto Tomoko’s futon and wrestling out the spare while Tomoko put Joskue in his crib and said another prayer to any gods who were listening for him to just sleep already. “Gotta get back,” her father whispered, “I’ll… I’m not sure when I’ll be home.” She nodded and watched him leave, then flopped down on the spare futon to finally get some rest.
There was a tiny pair of eyes watching her. “Reimi threw me out the window,” said Rohan, in a small, tired voice.
“Oh yeah?” she said. Was that what had happened? Up close, she could see the scratches and bruises on his pale skin, smell the unmistakable odor of the industrial soap they used down at the police station. “Why’d she do that?”
Rohan stared at her and thought. “There was something scary,” he finally said, and Tomoko felt her blood run cold. The look on her father’s face, the condition this child is in. Something very, very bad had happened tonight.
“Are you going to throw me out the window?” he said suspiciously.
“Kiddo, if there’s something scary in here, we’re all going out the window, and we’ll go get my dad.” Rohan wasn’t an actual target, was he? She couldn’t think about this right now, she needed to sleep before her brain imploded. Fortunately, Rohan seemed satisfied by her answer.
“Okay,” he said, and closed his eyes, instantly falling asleep.
Her first thought when she woke up was Wow, Josuke’s getting big. He’d rolled around during the night so that he was now sprawled across both futons, his heel lodged rather painfully between two of her ribs. And how did he get out of his crib?
Tomoko’s eyes snapped open. Right, that Rohan kid. Her own child was, in fact, still safe in his crib, wiggling his fat little legs and probably working his way up to a good morning’s fuss. And once he started wailing, he’d definitely wake up their guest, so it was best to go grab him now. She carefully extracted herself from the pile of child and tiptoed over to the crib, where her son gave her a coo of recognition that, as always, made her melt inside. He was a snuggly little bundle that she would have loved to cuddle more if he didn’t so urgently need a diaper change.
Changing table, old diaper off, baby wipes, talcum powder, new diaper on. So much of parenting was just the daily repetition of small rituals. Warming the bottles, singing the songs, catching quick naps while the baby snoozed. Lots of little things that somehow added up to an entire day with no time to herself. Why hadn’t anyone told her this was going to be so hard? Not that she would have changed her mind about the whole thing, but it would have been nice to have a warning. She dug into the pile of unfolded laundry by the changing table for a clean onesie and nearly jumped out of her skin when the other kid piped up behind her.
“Why’s he so pink?”
”So pink.” “My, he’s fair-skinned, isn’t he?” “Wow, he’s pale! Was his father a Westerner?” Tomoko hadn’t missed the deliberate past tense in that last one, spoken by nosy Fujita-san in the New Moms Group at the hospital the week after Josuke was born. They’d all apparently noticed that the only man to visit the new baby had been her own father, that Tomoko would not only be raising a conspicuously Different child, she’d be doing it on her own. But screw the busybodies, he was the cutest kid Tomoko had ever seen, and nearly twice as heavy as the smallest infant in the maternity ward. He was going to be big and handsome like his father, and that would serve him well, especially if he’d also inherited his mother’s short temper.
Which it looked like he had, unfortunately. Or, at least, it felt that way lately. He’d cry with no apparent cause, he was furious if he was awake and not being held, he was especially upset now that Tomoko was reminiscing and not picking him up, making the grumbly little whine that preceded a full-on scream. She hastily scooped him up and explained to the other child in her care: “His father’s from America.” Rohan stared at her blankly. “Do you know what America is?”
“Yes,” he said, in his too-serious-for-a-toddler tone of voice. “You have to ride on a plane to get there.” He thought for a moment, and then volunteered, “My daddy rode on a plane to China.”
Oh crap, Tomoko thought, are his parents in China? Her dad was a pretty good cop, but how was he supposed to track someone down in one of the world’s largest countries? But the kid continued: “He brought me back a panda doll. What’s for breakfast?”
Phew. But- good question, what was for breakfast? When dad was home, he liked rice and miso soup, and was usually the one to prepare it, when it was just her, she had toast and coffee and Josuke had his bottle in both cases. She’d hoped she could figure out the “cooking for another person” thing sometime before her son started on solid foods. Okay, eggs, she could do eggs. Kids liked eggs. “Eggs?” she tried, and Rohan just stared at her again, so she guessed that was okay. Hell, she could even try her hand at an omelette while the bottle was heating up, a little awkwardly, to be sure, with a wiggling kid in her arms, and the end result looked more like a sad yellow lump than a five star meal, but it was an actual home cooked breakfast.
“Where’s the face?” said Rohan disdainfully when she set the plate before him, sitting there at the dining room table with his tiny feet dangling from an adult-sized chair.
“What?”
“My mommy always draws a face with sauce,” he explained in a how did you not know this? tone of voice. Okay, fine, sauce. Geez. She rummaged in the fridge for a bottle of HP sauce and squirted two dot eyes and a shaky grin on the kid’s breakfast; he glanced at her as if to say “finally” and tucked in. There, that was one kid fed. Now on to Josuke, who was grunting out some grumpy sobs and kneeing her in the ribs as he squirmed around. The bottle could probably use another minute warming but she didn’t want him to get too fussy to eat, and regardless of the temperature, he latched on hungrily.
He really was cute like this, when he was calm and content, with his chubby pink cheeks and sky blue eyes and messy shock of black hair. Eating well so he could grow up strong, or at least grow out of this cranky phase that-
“I have to use the potty.”
She turned to little Rohan, finished with his breakfast with half a plate eaten. “Do you,” uh, “uh. Need help?”
“No,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I need to know where it is.”
“First door on the left.” He stared at her. Oh wait, do kids his age know ‘right’ and ‘left’? “Over there,” she pointed. He hopped off his chair and shuffled off towards the bathroom with the gait of a child who had only just noticed that he really, really needed to pee. The Fundamentals of Development class she’d taken as a requirement for her major had had a lecture about how it took a while for children to understand what their bodies were telling them; maybe she could get a practicum credit for real-world observation. And extra credit for the exciting case of the World’s Fussiest Baby, who’d just finished his bottle and was devastated by this fact.
Or maybe uncomfortable from having eaten far too quickly? The kid ate like food was about to be outlawed. She hefted him over one shoulder, bounced him gently and patted his back. There. That seemed to be helping. He burped mid-wail and was momentarily quiet, as if surprised, then smacked his lips and hiccuped up a throat full of warm formula down his mother’s back.
Oh God. At least she had nowhere to go today.
She set Josuke down in his carrier, which set off another bout of whining, got a dish towel wet and tried to clean herself off as best she could. Did other parents have to deal with things like this? You’d think she would have noticed a pack of zombie-like exhausted adults, clothes stained with baby spit-up, staggering around between pediatrician’s appointments and daycare interviews and playdates. At the very least, the doctor assured her that his regular regurgitation was normal, as was the constant, neverending, unrelenting, incessant crying. He was perfectly healthy, and often, babies just go through a fussy phase. At times like this, she was thankful that Josuke was so incredibly cute; otherwise, she’d have left him out with the recycling.
As if on cue, Kid Number Two returned from the bathroom, frowning at the little banshee who was squirming away in his carrier seat. “Why does he cry so much?” he said, with equal parts suspicion and annoyance.
“I don’t know!” Tomoko answered, in an almost singsong voice. “Sometimes a baby is dry and has enough to eat and is warm and comfortable and entertained and they just cry and there’s no reason! They cry for days and days and never give you a break and you think you’re going to lose your mind!”
Rohan stared at her, eyes wide. She’d gone too far, what she really needed was another adult to talk to before she really went crazy. “Oh,” he finally said, even more suspicious than before. Somebody who understands what it’s like, to be stuck in this world of feeding and cleaning and holding without so much as five minutes to yourself. And now she was getting it from two sides, the squalling infant and the… the kid who’d had a really awful night, probably scared and lonely and haunted by what he’d seen. The kid who needed a sense of safety, and a whole lot of love.
“Do you want to watch cartoons?” she offered.
“Yeah!” His face lit up, and he followed her to the living room, crawled onto the couch and settled in to watch something with colorful talking animals and gentle music. Totally entranced within seconds, it was almost eerie. Tomoko made a mental note of the powers of television for when Josuke was old enough and left Rohan sitting there, mindlessly chewing on one thumb, while she mentally reviewed her to-do list for the day.
Call the pediatrician. Call her own doctor, for a followup on the uncomfortable aftermath of having given birth to Japan’s largest baby. Interview to schedule with the day care she’d picked out. See if she could get an extension on her senior thesis. See if she could even get any work done on her senior thesis, she’d pictured herself quietly writing away while the baby slept, but mostly she’d been living life as a series of naps in between child maintenance activities. It was, of course, too much to hope that Josuke would be quiet and happy while all of this was going on, but at least Rohan was sufficiently mesmerized.
She’d made it through two and a half phonecalls and one diaper change when she felt a tiny hand grip her knee. There was Kid Two, still chewing on his thumb and looking a little dazed. Tomoko cupped her hand over the receiver and whispered, “Are you okay?”
“Cartoons are over,” he mumbled around his thumb.
So much for that plan. She hastily finished up her conversation, transferred squirmy Josuke from one arm to the other, and wracked her brain for some activity to occupy a preschooler. Aha! Notebook paper, pencil. Rohan stumbled along after her, still with a death grip on her knee. Josuke wiggled and grunted. “You can draw, if you want.” That turned out to be the best idea she’d had all day, he climbed into the chair like a major league batter approaching the plate and earnestly began to scribble.
A house, a tree, a big sun with long rays spiking out from its perimeter. A dog, or maybe a horse, judging by its relative size. “Hey, you’re pretty good,” she said with genuine admiration. Sure, his drawing was obviously a child’s, but he had the skill of a seven or eight year old at the very least; most kids his age were still in the “messy circles and squares” stage of art.
“I like to draw,” he said, with a small, satisfied smile, his first of the day. Tomoko watched in fascination as he added individual blades of grass to the lawn. He could be great at this if he keeps it up, she thought. The generic toddler she’d been watching over all morning was starting to come into focus as an actual little person, with his own strengths and interests. And some day, the little infant who was currently falling asleep against her shoulder would blossom that way too -- he wasn’t always going to be an angry little poop machine. She suddenly couldn’t wait to see who he’d become.
But for now- maybe it was a good idea to try to use the bathroom while he was conked out. Slowly, quietly, gently, she lowered him into his carrier, where… apparently his aura alerted him that he was in his Least Favorite Place, and he woke up and started wailing like a siren. Damn. “Just… can you keep an eye on him for a minute?” she said to the surprised Rohan, and trotted off to the one room in the house where she was guaranteed some privacy.
Visual privacy, that is. She buried her face in her hands, sitting there on the toilet, as the crying increased in both volume and urgency. Josuke, please, she attempted to telepathically beg him, just be quiet for five minutes. He hiccuped with rage and continued. PLEASE. And… stopped? Actual silence? A miracle, in her own home? She stood up, half in shock, flushed and washed her hands. Why did he stop crying? Was he okay? She shouldn’t have left him with a preschooler, something terrible must have happened, she was the world’s worst mother, how could she have-
Tomoko dashed out of the bathroom, back into the kitchen, to see her beloved only child not only perfectly well, but… laughing? And Rohan grinning ear-to-ear. He turned his beaming face to her, and explained: “He was crying again, so I went like this,” he demonstrated by sticking out his tongue, “and it was funny.” Josuke stopped giggling to take a breath and Rohan grimaced at him again, with a tiny “nyeeh!” Uproarious. Her child’s first laugh, and he was really getting into it. And, maybe, his first friend? The day before her seemed a lot easier from now on. Rohan was laughing now, too, the two of them setting each other off, a beautiful chorus joined by the sound of her father’s key in the door, and-
“Mommy! Daddy!” Rohan jumped down from the table and ran into the arms of the man being escorted into the house by Officer Higashikata.
“My sweet baby,” said Mrs. Kishibe, drawing close to her husband to ruffle her son’s hair. And to Tomoko, “Thank you so much for watching him, I hope he wasn’t any trouble.”
“No problem at all,” and it was only a little bit of a lie. Looking back on it, the morning had actually gone pretty well. Maybe she could handle this ‘motherhood’ thing after all? “He was a big help with the baby.”
“You were?” said Mr. Kishibe to his son, slightly astonished.
“Yeah!” Rohan chirped. “He’s funny, I like him!”
The mangaka Rohan Kishibe was jolted out of his inking session by the sound of his alarm. Good thing he’d thought to set it, he could really get carried away working on those nighttime scenes, and he wouldn’t want to miss his chance. He put down the pen, stretched his fingers, and stood up slowly, careful not to disturb his work area. School clubs would have gotten out fifteen minutes ago, so by his calculations, those three would be rounding the corner within seconds.
He strode to the window, took a deep breath, and raised the blind and sash. Perfect. There he was.
“I hate you, Josuke Higashikata!” he yelled. The boy on the sidewalk halted his conversation with Koichi and what’s-his-name, that other friend of his, and looked up at Rohan. “I will always hate you, and I always have hated you.” Satisfied, he slammed the window shut.
“Sure, thanks, Rohan,” said Josuke, turning back to Koichi and Okuyasu. “See ya around.”