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Kirigiri Kyouko may only be nine years old, but she comes from a family of detectives and is incredibly perceptive even by their standards. So that explains why nothing can happen in her family home without her noticing it.
She knows everything about her father and his boyfriend. She knows how Father overworks himself and how his workplace seems to treat him more like a figurehead than an actual authority figure and how he is scared of spiders and how he is bisexual, which she actually worked out before he even came out. And with Kizakura Koichi, Father’s boyfriend, she knows he works at the same place her father does and that his family disowned him and that he is gay and, and that he is an alcoholic in denial. Most of all, she knows that both of them are messed up and she feels sorry for them.
All in all, Kyouko knows everything about them. Including how worried her father is about Koichi. Worried that her father is worried, Kyouko has spent the last few weeks investigating Koichi and his alcoholism symptoms, writing down his drinking habits and symptoms in her notebook. She hopes that, once she has acquired enough data, her and Father can stage an intervention for Koichi before he gets even worse.
He may not be her father, but Kyouko worries about him almost as much as she does Kirigiri Jin.
---
Jin has known Koichi for ten years, and he adores him. He has always been by his side, through life at work to babysitting Kyouko to helping Jin through the grief when his dear wife died, both as a friend and, more recently, as a romantic partner. Koichi means the world to Jin, and loves waking up beside him every morning.
However, there is a problem. Koichi has always liked a drink (to be fair, so has Jin), and has been known to get pissed on a work night or drink at inappropriate times. But… these last few months, things have changed. It seems like Koichi has become less of an irresponsible drinker, to someone who has alcoholism.
He doesn’t want to think about it this way, but it makes sense. Kyouko has been collecting notes for him about Koichi’s drinking habits and things like that, and it doesn’t look good. After all, yesterday’s log is just awful.
Tuesday 6th May
7am: Overheard Koichi vomiting in the bathroom. When he emerged, his face was pale and clammy and he shielded his eyes.
8:30am: Koichi has a hangover, flinching at loud sounds and looking nauseated. When I ask he denies he has a hangover, but I can tell.
4pm: After school, I crept into the house without Koichi or Father noticing and spied on Koichi. I found he has a stash of whiskey under the bed in the spare bedroom. When he went into the kitchen, he poured a large amount of whiskey into his coffee when Father wasn’t looking.
6pm: Koichi has been urinating far more often than Father, despite them drinking approximately the same amount of liquids. I can only assume he drinks a lot of alcohol in secret. Also, alcohol is a diuretic, adding more to my theory.
And most of the logs Kyouko has written look this way. His partner is being secretive and has clearly fallen into alcoholism, and Jin doesn’t know what to do.
What should he do?
---
“Koichi?” she says, approaching her father’s boyfriend one morning before she has to go to school.
Koichi flinches, wiping a hand down his face, and slips his hipflask back in his pocket. “Yeah?”
“I was wondering something. May I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead,” he says, closing his eyes.
“I observed you at 6:20am when you emerged from the bathroom,” Kyouko says, glancing down at her notes. “You looked pale, nauseated and dizzy, and I assume you had a hangover. However, that was two hours ago, and your hangover his vanished. I can only assume from this that you drank alcohol to rid yourself of the hangover. Is that correct?”
“Um, yeah,” Koichi says. “Having a drink gets rid of a hangover nice and easy. Anything else, little miss detective?”
“No, that is more than sufficient,” she says, writing down some more notes as she walks away.
Seriously, this is troubling. But… what is she going to do about him?
---
His head pounding, his hands shaking and his legs wobbling, Koichi gets into bed and pulls the blankets up over his head. He feels so sick, too sick to even go and brush his teeth and go to the bathroom before going to bed. He just needs to sleep. He always feels better in his sleep.
“Koichi, what are you doing?” Jin says, walking into the room.
“Sleeping,” he mumbles.
“No, you’re not. Look, Koichi,” he says, sitting down on the bed beside him. “I was talking to Kyouko earlier. She said you were drinking whiskey at half past eight this morning. Is that true?”
His stomach clenches, but it’s not the nausea. “Um, yeah.”
“That… isn’t normal, is it?”
“I dunno, Jin. Lots of people drink in the mornings.”
“Do they, though?”
“Look, I don’t wanna fight,” Koichi says, sighing. “I’m too tired.”
“But… is that because you’re drunk?” Jin says.
Despite his fatigue and dizziness, Koichi sits up and pulls the blankets from his head. “Jin, I am not drunk.”
“I know you’re not drunk the way you get when we go out to a bar and you binge drink, but you are still drunk. I can tell. I may not be one, but I come from a family of detectives, Koichi. I know about this sort of him.”
Koichi sighs and wraps his arms around himself. “Jin… you don’t need to worry. Really. If there was a problem, I’d tell you.”
Jin doesn’t look convinced, and doesn’t kiss him when he turns out the lights. Koichi curls up under the blankets, his stomach clenching again.
The thing is, he was telling the truth. He may drink more often than usual, but there isn’t a problem. There can’t be.
Despite feeling crappy, Koichi manages to fall asleep quite quickly. In his sleep, he dreams about sailing with Jin on a huge yacht, and everything is so awesome and happy and fun. Even when he falls overboard, the dream doesn’t turn dark. No, he bobs in the warm water and laughs, and everything is so warm and wet and…
---
Always a light sleeper, Jin awakes easily. Not sure what awoke him, he lies still on his back, straining his ears. And then he hears it: Koichi letting out a slow, loud breath. Just what is his partner doing in his sleep to make that kind of relaxed noise; he must be having a pleasant dream.
He feels rather bad for not giving Koichi a kiss goodnight (although his frustration is simply born of worry), so Jin shuffles across the bed, planning to spoon Koichi. But when he puts his hand on the bed by Koichi’s ass to pull himself closer, he finds the bed sheets damp. Damp?
Oh shit.
Jin snaps the lamp on and pulls the blankets back, and stares.
Just as he feared, Koichi’s pyjama pants, the blankets and the sheets are all wet with a huge amount of urine. And the damp patch continues to spread across Koichi’s pants in his sleep, his sleeping face calm and totally unaware of what is happening.
He has to do something about this. Jin jumps out of bed and rushes around to Koichi’s side of the bed. And, putting a hand on his partner’s shoulder, he shakes it and says, “Wake up, Koichi.”
Koichi jumps and wakes up, eyes half-open as he stares at Jin. And then his bloodshot eyes open fully, and he whispers, “Oh, fuck. Have I…?”
Jin nods. “Yes. You have wet the bed.”
“Oh, shit, I’m so, oh shit,” Koichi mumbles, clamping a hand over the crotch of his sopping pants and flushing a dark shade of red. “Shit shit shit. Sorry, Jin, but, but, oh fuck, I’m still going. I can’t stop!”
“Calm down, Koichi,” Jin says. “You might as well finish now. All right?”
Koichi sniffs and screws his eyes up, continuing to piss into his soaked pyjamas. Just how full was his bladder to produce this much urine? And why did a grown man without a bedwetting problem wet the bed?
“I’m sorry,” Koichi mumbles again and again, face flushed with humiliation. “I, I’m finished. Jin, I…”
“Stop it,” he says. “Calm down.”
“But… what sh-should I do?”
“Just... let me help you,” Jin says. “Can you sit up?”
Koichi nods and then groans, suggesting he has a headache, and eases himself upright.
“Good. Now, take your soiled clothes off whilst still sitting on the bed.”
“O-Okay.”
His hands trembling, Koichi pulls off his pants and underpants, placing the soaking fabric on the bed beside him. His shirt is also soiled at the bottom, so he takes that off too, and ends up totally naked. Koichi covers his wet genitals with his hand, staring at the floor.
“Good,” Jin says again. “Now—”
“What is going on in here?”
They both jump when Kyouko sticks her head around the door, peering into their bedroom. Koichi pulls the wet blankets over his lap to make himself decent, whilst Jin’s heart races and he turns to face his daughter.
“Nothing, darling. Go back to bed.”
Kyouko tilts her head slightly, thinking hard. “Did Koichi wet the bed?”
Behind him, Koichi makes a whining sound.
“Uh, yes,” Jin says, knowing hiding this from her will be impossible. “But can you leave please, Kyouko? Koichi needs his privacy.”
“I understand,” Kyouko says, and she mouths, “Notebook.”
Jin nods, and she disappears.
“Shit, that was close,” Koichi says, starting to shiver.
As his partner shivers and looks like he might cry with embarrassment, Jin gets him to stand up and puts a hand on Koichi’s elbow.
“Come on, you need a shower,” he says, and Koichi smiles weakly.
He leads his naked partner across the landing (grateful Kyouko has gone back to bed), and into the bathroom. There, he turns on the shower and Koichi steps into it, sliding the door shut.
Whilst Koichi showers, Jin strips the bed and shoves the sheets, blankets and Koichi’s clothes into the washing machine, along with the mattress protector (thanks to that thing, the mattress is only slightly damp, and he should be able to fix this problem with some soap and water). Once he is done, Jin leaves a towel and clean clothes in the bathroom, and waits for Koichi to finish.
And the whole time, his stomach twists with anxiety, because he just remembered something. Bedwetting is far more common when you are very drunk. Why did Koichi have to lie to him?
And what is he going to do? He and Kyouko need to stage their intervention, lest Koichi end up… seriously ill. He can’t lose Koichi to this sickness, he just can’t. The thought of just mentioning it terrifies him, but he knows he can’t deny it; Koichi is an alcoholic, and he needs to help him before it is too late.