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His solution to the problem of having two children to care for, was to find another guy to do the job. Sadly, the only other guy that he could possibly shove these two little kids off to, was their brother who was currently picking up the third one of the bunch from a friend. So Kenjirou was left alone with the little pests, as he called them inside of his mind, since that’s apparently what they did in their free time on holidays. Taking care of Eita’s countless siblings - he had 3 and one was yet to be born - while his parents were off to some relative’s birthday.
And Kenjirou hated every goddamn second of it.
He didn’t even know when this situation got this bad. Or.. what exactly was wrong in the first place. All he knew was that one - the tinier human - was crying, while the other suddenly started to take out his crayons and draw, not only on the piece of paper that Eita suggested Kenjirou to put down to entertain the other kid, but also on the table and then suddenly, on the walls.
So of course now he stood there, he who never ever cared for a child in his whole goddamn life but was too lazy to actually go and get the boy from his friend so that Eita had to take that job. Not knowing where to start and where to go from this point.
“Taiki! Stop drawing on the walls, for christ’ sake!”, he just blurted out then, trying to find something to entertain the toddler with. Luckily, there were a few toys laying around. However the hell they got there, since Kenjirou was pretty sure that they hadn’t been there a second ago. So he took one of the plush animals, a duck or maybe something else, he wasn’t so sure, and knelt in front of the crying toddler on the couch. “Here.. uhm… l-look. Stop crying, okay? Your brother will soon be here, okay? I’ll.. eh.. Just place it… right here, okay? See. Better already.” Talking to toddlers was also something that wasn’t on his skill-list, especially since he felt utterly awkward the way the child just pouted more and more, crying further after it practically screamed at the plush-duck to just throw it to the ground again. It didn’t get far.
It did, however, cause Kenjirou to groan in annoyance and maybe desperation as he now stared at the toddler in front of him. “What do you want??”, the words came out more desperate that he intended to, and he was glad that the brain-functions of this little human were probably not that far evolved, that it would actually remember his mental breakdown. “Just tell me!” Of course the toddler, whose name was Maiko, by the way, didn’t answer and just continued crying before it apparently noticed that the one kneeling in front of her wasn’t really much of a help and decided to - rather awkwardly, from a judgmental view - crawl down the couch and waddle off into another direction.
“Oh my f- fabulous god..”, Kenjirou groaned out, amazed by how fast his migraine was getting worse the longer he seemed to be alone with these godforsaken children. He swore not to swear in front of children but the more time it took for Eita to get home, the harder it got.
A look at the clock. It was exactly 22 minutes ago since Eita left him alone to his personal hell and around 10 minutes ago before this mess started. His boyfriend had promised him to be back in around half an hour or maybe a few minutes longer. And Kenjirou swore that Eita would pay for every minute longer than 30.
Back to babysitting though. Kenjirou got off his knees and just as he decided that a toddler probably needs some time for themselves, to wrap their head around things like not being able to talk properly, he noticed that Taiki was very much missing as well.
“Oh for fucks- Taiki?! Where are you?”, his patience was at point zero or maybe even lower than that at this point. So he got out of his kneeling position to look for the older child as well. Starting with the hallway. He didn’t have to search long, however, since he suddenly heard some noises coming from the kitchen. Loud noises. Shattering or.. Clashing noises. And with that, he already jogged over there to find Taiki tiptoeing at an open drawer, pulling out a tiny handful of forks to admire them for a bit before he threw them to the ground with a loud clash as well. Kids were truly a delight.
“Taiki! No! Stop that!”, caught right in the act, the kid turned around in shock to face Kenjirou.
“Uhm..”, he started, but Kenjirou cut him off, carefully shooing him away from the drawer before he knelt down and put everything - rather messily - back into it. Throwing would be the more appropriate and fitting word though. “Save your ‘Uhm’. Why the he- hamster did you think that was a good idea?!”, he was obviously annoyed and as he looked at the kid’s face who just smiled as if it didn’t just kill every last inch of patience that he had, he grew even more annoyed. “Ugh. Whatever. Where’s your sister??”
“I don’t know.”, the elementary school-kid just shrugged again at his words, before he cockily continued. “Weren’t you just watching her a second ago?”
Oh how much Kenjirou wished for something to silence the child with. To get that crappy and cocky attitude on mute for just a minute. “Yeah, I know Sherlock.”, he groaned, finally closing the drawer with a loud BAM . “Come on.”, a simple command directed to Taiki, who seemed rather confused by that, but followed the high schooler as he walked out of the kitchen, back into the hallway and towards the kid’s rooms. Thinking about it, maybe he shouldn’t have let Maiko walk off on her own. But usually, he wasn’t known to make good decisions anyhow.
He opened the door to the girl’s room to find that she wasn’t anywhere around. Which caused his migraine to get even worse.
“She’s not here..”, he heard a voice behind him saying and as he turned around, he saw Taiki leaning a bit to the side to take a glance into the room himself.
“I can see that.”
“Then why are we still standing here?”
At least now Kenjirou knew that this sassy and cocky attitude ran in Eita’s family, and didn’t just emerge randomly in the oldest child of the clan. Kenjirou decided that he wouldn’t give a snarky remark, because he was older, supposed to be the adult with his 17 years, and because if he would start to get snarky now, he would probably not stop and cause this kid to cry as well.
So without further words, he carefully pushed the kid away from the door to close it again.
“Maiko? Where are you?”, he called out and kind of hoped that the child would come and run up to him, perfectly fine and not crying anymore. Also maybe with the ability to talk and articulate properly so that he wouldn’t need to ask like a 1000 times what she said just a moment before. Maybe that’s why she started crying.
Their way took them further through the house. Into every damn room that this house had to offer. Upstairs and downstairs. Luckily, the house wasn’t all to big and rather small and cozy as Kenjirou thought but never said, so they were soon through every room. Though he wished that he could have lingered in Eita’s for just a moment longer, just to admire all the teenage angst vibes that he got from all those posters on the walls and the things he left in his cupboards. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but Kenjirou felt that Eita had gone through a phase. At least a teeny tiny bit.
“Where is she? She has to be around here somewhere..”, Kenjirou breathed out as they got back to the living room again. His eyes still scanning the area around to find the tiniest clue of where Maiko would have run off to. There was nothing, however. And somehow Kenjirou started to wish that he just imagined a tiny toddler into this family, while in reality, he was only babysitting Taiki next to him.
“Maybe she’s outside.”, Taiki suddenly said, looking up to Kenjirou who felt like slowly losing every bit of sanity that he still had left.
Kenjirou decided to swallow that down however and just turned to look down at Taiki. “And why would that be?”, he sighed. There wasn’t much else to do at the moment.
“Because the yard-door is open.”, he said, pointing over to the kitchen again. Or at least into the direction of the hallway. Kenjirou was just aware where the door was.
He took a moment, however, to process what the child said. Then, it started to burst out of him. “What?! Why didn’t you say anything?!”, he yelled out. Not directly to the child but more in frustration as he ran towards the kitchen to see the door open wide.
“You didn’t ask!”, he heard the boy calling from the living room, but soon he also heard quick and tiny footsteps following him onto the tiled floor.
“Ah fuck!”, Kenjirou couldn’t hold it in any longer and while he ran towards the little door, he could hear Taiki behind him giggling.
“Hehe.. you said ‘fuck’.”
“No I didn't! And now shut it!”, slowly all of this was getting more and more out of hand than he actually intended to. So as he ran out into the yard, scanning the area once again for any tiny human that was running around on the grass, he could hear another one of the boy’s magnificent questions.
“By the way. Why do you cut your hair like that?”
Kenjirou was far too gone at the moment to answer, so he just groaned in annoyance to maybe shut the kid up, as he saw a tiny figure walking towards the fence door that lead to the front yard and the main street.
“Shit..”, he cursed quietly again, already jogging over to keep the toddler from running off onto the open street. “Maiko wait!”,
But just as he was only a few feet away from her, he saw a figure walking up to the fence, together with a tinier figure. Eita and his younger brother Kaito.
And while Kenjirou stopped in his jog as he saw that Eita was directly looking over to Maiko, aiming for the door and opening it instead of going through the front door, Kenjirou felt his face heat up in an uncomfortable manner. This couldn’t possibly be true. Maiko, however, seemed to be quite delighted by the face and the open arms of her older brother, who quickly scooped her off the ground.
Kaito didn’t see the need to stay any longer and just walked past all of them and into the house. Oh how much Kenjirou wished to have picked him up instead of babysitting here at the Semi residence.
“What are you doing out here?”, Eita asked, looking at Maiko but very much meaning his boyfriend, as he slightly glanced over to him as the toddler, after being bounced for a moment, hugged her older brother in an awkward manner.
“Nothing.”, Kenjirou breathed out. Trying to sound as confident as ever but in reality he very much knew that he was a mess. That he was talking and looking like trash probably.
“Ken-chan said ‘fuck’!”, Taiki suddenly exclaimed happily next to Kenjirou and at this moment, Kenjirou stared down at him as if his eyes would shoot flaming daggers. Needless to say, the instincts of the boy ticked in and he ‘ran for his life’ back into the safety of his home. Kenjirou groaned.
“So… everything was good then, hm?”, Eita asked with a smirk forming on his lips as he walked over to his boyfriend, whose hair had probably never been so messy before.
“Just fan-fricking-tastic.”, he groaned but snuggled his cheek against Eita’s free hand against his cheek. Closing his eyes in the process.
“Mhm, I can see that.”
“Ah shut it, you prick. You better make up for this.”
At that, Eita just laughed a bit, now leaning forward awkwardly with the kid on his arms to press a small kiss on his boyfriends forehead with a smirk. “Was planning on it anyway.”