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Chapter Text

By the third time Fuyuha takes the food out of her mouth to squeeze it in her hands, Haruka decides she's done with dinner.

Since, well, she seems to have decided so herself.

As he waves her tiny spoon around like a magic wand, his daughter only follows it with her eyes. Haruka hums, slightly disappointed, "Oh, Fuyu. That's no good. Did you know dinner is the most important meal of the day?"

Fuyuha just blinks at him. Despite it was an innocent face that clearly didn't understand what he said, Haruka felt like she was seeing right through him.

"Alright, not popularly. People usually call breakfast that," he dwells, not gaining any new reaction from the little girl. "But I personally believe every meal of the day is the most important! For example, if your dad skips one, he'll be very hungry all day. That's why I always have snacks in between!"

This time Fuyuha smiles. He feels his heart squeeze inside his chest, and giving up, Haruka grabs a napkin to clean her hands,

"Alright. No dinner then, I guess..." he sighs in defeat, struggling to clean in between her chubby fingers (especially since she kept trying to grab onto the napkin), and nodding to Fuyuha's babbles.

He supposes it'll be okay. It's not like she refused to eat since the beginning, so her stomach isn't really empty. That goes without mentioning that she'll probably be nursed to sleep later, so...

Oh, but it feels so lonely to eat his dinner by himself. With Fuyuha refusing to eat and Takane eating at work, he has to enjoy his meal alone. And everyone knows meals aren't as yummy when you're alone.

That's what Haruka rants about to Fuyuha as he turned around to do the dishes, but she seemed much more interested in the napkin he ended up allowing her to play with. She examined it thoroughly, even though it's definitely an object she's very, very familiar with.

She also made small talk to it, consisting of very eloquent words like "ough", "aaaah" and various other baby sounds of the like. Haruka considered them very interesting.

Not really, but he was very sleepy. He loves his daughter and he thinks she's a fun girl, but she still is an eight months old baby. That is to say, their conversations were one-sided and that didn't help him keep him awake right now.

Fuyuha was rubbing her eyes too, of course, as it was ticking closer to her bedtime. She still needed to take a bath though, but Haruka didn't think it was a problem, as she usually gets really relaxed during that time and practically falls asleep in the water.

Not that putting her to sleep is ever a problem. She took approximately a hundred naps today, just like everyday. Despite how energetic she is when awake, Fuyuha just really appreciated her naps, much like her mother and Haruka himself.

That was good though. They've read and heard horror stories of parents spending horrid nights with their children, trying to get them to fall asleep. Takane and him don't go through that, luckily. Which wasn't only good for the obvious reasons, but also because their trouble falling asleep at night was already booked on checking if Fuyuha was still breathing.

So Fuyuha refusing to sleep would definitely be... horrible, to say the least.

There weren't many things to wash, so he's done fairly quickly. His daughter yawns, which of course sends a yawn his way too.

Well, he wanted to wait for Takane, but if Fuyuha was sleepy now...

Conveniently, the sound of the front door is next to draw their attention. Haruka locks eyes with Fuyuha, so he gasps dramatically, "Is that your beautiful mother, Fuyu?"

This time, Fuyuha does answer. She makes a delighted exclamation that was something in between an "oh" and an "ah".

"I'm home..."

And when Takane's lazy announcement rings from the living room, Fuyuha's face drastically changes. The sleepiness is out of her features in a matter of seconds, she starts kicking the air and slamming her hands against the table of her highchair, as she usually does when she demands to get out of it. Also making more excited "oh" sounds.

And obviously, since he shared the happiness, Haruka claps his hands together, "Welcome home, mommy!"

Takane appears by the kitchen door quickly enough, wearing a tired frown and bags under her eyes. That is to say she looks as beautiful as ever.

"Stop calling me mommy, it's creepy."

Haruka just smiles, feeling his chest fill up with the warmth one would feel after seeing their wife for the first time in days. That's how it felt even if he had just seen her this morning, "How was your day?"

"Eh, the usual. Slow. Boring. I just wanted to come back to you guys."

Hearing that sort of stings, because he doesn't want Takane to have a bad time, but he guesses it can't be helped.

Unlike Takane, Haruka works from home drawing and painting, and simultaneously stays with Fuyuha and takes care of daily chores. He does his best so when his hardworking wife is home, everything is nice and clean for her.

Takane's tired face brightens up when her gaze drops on Fuyuha. She greets her, in Haruka's opinion, with the cutest voice ever, "Hi there, you filthy little sack of fat!"

Her words weren't the sweetest though, but that was the usual. Takane refers to Fuyuha with mean words and a cooing voice.

"Did she eat?"

"Well, not really. She refused dinner."

"Ah, she's a disgrace to the Kokonose name then."

"Aw, don't say that, Takane!"

Fuyuha makes grabby hands at her very enthusiastically, so it wasn't like she was offended. Haruka rolls his eyes, amused, as Takane limited herself with kissing the girl's cheek despite she very clearly wanted her mom to pick her up.

So when she doesn't, the baby doesn't take it well. As soon as Takane straightens up again and Fuyuha realizes she wasn't going to be held, she starts kicking and grunting.

Haruka rests his head on his hand, finding it too funny that a kiss on the cheek made Fuyuha so angry. He could relate to that, at least; how dare she only give a kiss in the cheek? Unacceptable. "She's demanding you hold her, you know."

"Yeah, but I wanna wash my hands first," Takane simply says, attempting to make her way to the bathroom. Problem is that the bathroom, of course, isn't in the kitchen, and as soon as she disappeared from here, Fuyuha's already angry face pauses with absolute betrayal.

Haruka's calmness turns to worry when he sees that face, because he knows it far too well. It's the face Fuyuha makes when anyone walks past her when she's kindly handing them whatever random object she's grabbed or when Haruka won't give her the non-baby food in his meal, among other inane things. Of course, it also is the face she makes when mom comes home and she doesn't immediately pick her up.

Fuyuha starts screaming, dramatic tears quickly bursting from her eyes as if she had gotten hurt. If Haruka didn't know how much of a drama queen his daughter was, he wouldn't believe this was the same baby who had been laughing at a paper napkin three minutes ago.

Obviously, the fuss makes Takane immediately come back (she barely made it out of the kitchen), voicing Haruka's thoughts, "Jesus, dramatic much!"

At the sight of her, Fuyuha makes a sound that could only compare to a trademark "hmph" from Takane, and stops screaming. Her face was red, her cheeks were puffed up and she was pouting in a way that if it had been directed to Haruka, he would've given her anything she asked for.

She makes grabby hands again, and sighing, Takane seems to have no choice but comply. Fuyuha's pouty, full of sorrow face becomes a bright sleepy smile when she's finally in her mother's arms.

"You're an actress, aren't you?" Takane says, as Fuyuha sleepily nuzzles the crook of her neck. "You smell bad, you shrimp."

"Will you ever call our daughter by her name instead of those horrible nicknames?"

"Hmmm, no," Takane amusedly glares at him before directing her eyes back to Fuyuha, "Ugly, smelly baby. That's what you are."

Fuyuha stares back at her for a second before offering a giggly smile, as if flattered.

In order to avoid melting as he watched his wife and daughter snuggle, he walks over to them to finally greet Takane properly.

She kisses him back absently, being far more interested in fixing Fuyuha's hair, "What's with the twintails, seriously?"

"Ehh? I think she looks cute," Haruka justifies, as he plays with one of Fuyuha's short ponytails. He was so glad their kid had so much hair even as a baby; this way he can play with it all he wants, giving her different hairstyles everyday and tiny mohawks in the bath. However, twintails were what he went for most days. "Like the ones young mommy used to wear!"

"Excuse me," his wife glares again, but it's not really intimidating while a baby plays with her hair. "Are you saying I'm old now?"

Haruka hums teasingly, "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about the gray hair I found in your head the other night."

"What do you know? You entered your twenties with a gray head already," she teases back, despite both knew his gray hair wasn't because of old age. Fuyuha makes more baby noises, to which Takane says, "Everything he says is a lie, dear daughter."

Laughing again as Fuyuha answered with more noises and Takane nodded as if she had used coherent words, Haruka avoids mentioning the joy he feels when he remembers he'll grow old next to the love of his life. He sighs lovingly, shaking the thought away, "Fuyu needs a bath before bed. The water's already warm."

A bath for himself sure sounded nice, but he had one when Fuyuha was having her morning nap. Ah, but a second one just sounded so warm and nice.

"Okay," Takane answers, not paying attention to him as she squished Fuyuha's cheeks together to make her look like a fish. "I need a bath too, I'll just bring her with me."

"Alright~ But that makes me jealous of my own daughter, just so you know."

"Shut up, dumbass."

Haruka loves how Takane never fails to continue blushing at the dumb comments he always makes. He giggles when she turns her back on him with a huff, but soon realizes she was going to have a bath and he wasn't going to see her for approximately twenty minutes or so.

That was a lot, and it was very tragic. He already spent the entire day away from her, so Haruka's quick to rush after Takane, "Wait, Mommy!"

"I already told you to stop calling me mommy," she complains again, turning around only to receive her husband's lips against hers by surprise.

It was just a peck, of course, but Haruka decided he needed it, "I love you, mommy!"

Despite she had been embarrassed seconds ago, Takane smiles back at him, ignoring Fuyuha's hand coming up to feel her face, "Yeah, I love you too, but I won't call you daddy."

"Then how will Fuyu know how to call me?"

Takane turns around with an eye roll, "I'm still not calling you daddy!"

He laughs to himself as she disappears upstairs. With a satisfied smile on his face, Haruka makes his way back to the kitchen to finish tidying up.

Man, he hates drying. He 100% prefers washing the dishes. Usually, Takane dries as he washes, but it couldn't be helped since she was stuck at work until late today.

The laziest part of him wanted to leave everything in the sink; he had already washed it anyway, right? But if he did that, he'll just have to do it tomorrow morning and he knows himself far too well to know that he'll feel even more lazy than now. But he had already skipped it after lunch too, so even if they were clean things, they were piling up already.

So despite his yawns, Haruka opens the cabinet to put everything back in its place.

After that, he cleans up Fuyuha's highchair. Its table seemed to have consumed more dinner than Fuyuha herself, and the chair was covered in cookie crumbs.

This was yet another thing Takane usually did. Haruka doesn't mind, of course; extra hours are tough, after all.

"Alright," he contently says to himself, happy that the kitchen was done for the night. His future self of tomorrow morning will be very thankful when making breakfast.

He tries checking if there's anything else he needs to do downstairs, but everything seems alright; he had picked up Fuyuha's toys earlier, and the clean laundry hasn't dried yet. Haruka decides it's fine to go upstairs to get ready for the night.

Except that... Well, Takane seemed really, really sleepy, and it's a lot like her to forget grabbing clean clothes and towels when she gets in the bath. That's why Haruka checks the dressing area of the bathroom, to make sure Takane had grabbed some clothes beforehand. He hears Fuyuha's joyful splashes and babbles coming from behind the door.

And yup, just as imagined. There were the clothes they had been wearing earlier in the laundry basket; Takane's work uniform and Fuyuha's fashionable sushi-patterned onesie. But there were no new ones, so confirming his suspicions, his sleepy wife had forgotten to grab a change of clothes.

Gosh, lucky he checked, because otherwise they would have been so cold when getting out! He can't allow that.

So no problem! Her husband was gonna take care of it!

Fuyuha's room is right next to the bathroom, so it's his first stop. Usually, when he's the one getting her ready for bed, he likes to show her the options for pajamas and the first one she reaches out to will be what she'll wear. But since Fuyuha was too busy splashing water in Takane's face, Haruka makes the choice by himself.

He picks a dinosaur themed one. It's what Fuyuha would've wanted.

(She has too many of those, Takane always says, but it's not Haruka's fault that there are so many baby things themed around dinosaurs).

He also picks up warm socks and a first layer of clothes, just in case. It was a rather cold night. He tidies up her crib for later, and picks up a few toys he tripped with when he came in, and then goes to his and Takane's room.

As always, Takane's side of the wardrobe is a mess. Haruka tells her that's no good, and what kind of example to follow is that for their daughter? Takane just cackles when he says that, but that if it means so much to him, she promises she'll start folding her clothes once Fuyuha becomes old enough to understand the concept of folding clothes. He was happy with that.

After taking the chance to get into his sleeping clothes as well, Haruka chooses warm pajamas for Takane too. She doesn't have an extended collection like Fuyuha, of course, but Haruka still makes sure to grab the cozy and soft one he gifted to her himself. She says it's dorky, because the t-shirt has a sleepy cat saying "go away" and Haruka insists it looks exactly like her.

(Takane wears it anyway).

He almost forgets to grab some underwear for her; he's glad to know which knickers are the most comfortable to her. He doesn't even know how he knows, but ah, he just does. The important thing is his wife needs to be as comfortable as possible!

As he made his way back, he was already hearing Takane's voice talking to Fuyuha. Wait, was she done? For how long were they in the bath?

Checking the time in his phone, he sees it's been almost an hour since Takane got home. Wow.

With the clothes in hand, he stands by the bathroom's dressing area with the intention of saying something to let Takane know he's coming in, but he's unable to act upon it as he hears her albeit muffled, soft voice speaking behind the door,

"Isn't it freaky to be such a tiny being? You're very tiny. You're so tiny. It's kinda messed up," she cooed, as if that was something sweet to say. Haruka giggled to himself. "You're a small tiny shrimp. You're an ugly tiny shrimp! You're ugly and small like mommy!"

That's followed by kissing noises and Fuyuha's cackles, which Haruka found himself melting over. He isn't sure if Takane knows he's aware of how dorky she sounds when she's alone (or thinks she is) with Fuyuha, but he loves it so much. It's not like she's cold when there's people around or something, but she clearly limits herself a little.

"Ohhh! I'm just kidding! You're the cutest! And especially now that you're so clean! You're really the cutest because you're just like daddy!"

...For example, she wouldn't be caught dead saying that in front of someone. She'd die of embarrassment, he's sure.

That's why he waits a few more seconds to come in, so she's not uncomfortable about him overhearing, despite he really wanted to rub on her face that she absolutely called him daddy, and even called herself mommy.

Takane, only wearing a towel, was holding Fuyuha's little feet as she laid on her changing table. She immediately jumps when she sees him, "HEY! Don't you knock?!"

"Ohh, sorry, hands are busy!"

"Then how did you open?! And you're just holding clothes!" Takane retorts, before noticing what that meant. She looks at the laundry basket and then back at him, quickly changing her demeanor, "Shoot, I totally forgot to bring a change. Thanks..."

"No problem," he shoots her a smile, and wanting to be a part of the interaction, Fuyuha starts making sounds consisting of "abababa". Haruka nods, "That's a very interesting story, Fuyu."

Takane, on the other hand, took care of grabbing Fuyuha's hand to avoid letting her put it in her mouth, "No hand in mouth. That's gross. You're a gross tiny human. You're a gross small goblin."

Fuyuha giggles, and Haruka rolls his eyes again. He hands Takane the clothes he bought for her, "Here, wifey. I can take care of dressing Fuyu."

"Ehh, okay... I can do it, though..."

"It's fine!" Haruka shoos her away from the changing station, where Fuyuha tried to roll over to escape. Haruka makes sure to grab her because he knows she's more than capable of doing so. "Meanwhile you can just get dressed."

"Yeah, okay."

Obviously, Takane was okay with that. Haruka already noticed how much she hates getting Fuyuha dressed.

The reason for that is that Fuyuha hates getting her clothes changed, and cries the whole time she's at it. She especially hates it when her arms have to go inside the clothes.

And Takane, well, she just can't take it when Fuyuha cries. More than once Haruka's found her sobbing with the baby as she dressed her because it just made her so upset to see her cry. And seeing his wife and daughter cry makes him want to cry too so, boy, it's lucky Fuyuha isn't a crybaby because that would be a ride.

She was relaxed and nice while he put her in the new diaper, but as soon as he grabs the clothes, she immediately starts squirming and whimpering. He has to distract her with kisses and faces so she laughs instead, and it takes a while this way, but at least Fuyuha doesn't cry as much.

"Ah, Takane, I think I gave you one of Fuyu's socks with your clothes by accident."

"Hm? ...Oh, yeah, it's here."

When Haruka turns around to grab it, of course keeping a hand on Fuyuha's stomach so she doesn't roll over, his face is suddenly covered by Takane's towel.

"Don't turn around, I'm getting dressed!"

Despite he thought it was quite ridiculous, Haruka turns his head back to Fuyuha's direction, the towel getting snatched from his face by Takane as fast as it was thrown. He snickers, "Takane, I've seen you getting dressed and undressed like a million times."

"Whatever! Just take the sock!"

Still chuckling, he repeats and turns around to grab what Takane was handing him. She was covering herself with the towel now, so he can't help saying, "There's nothing under the towel I haven't seen, you know?"

As he goes back to Fuyuha to put her missing sock on, he hears Takane take a breath as if to scream at him, but all it comes out of her is a tiny and giggly, "Shut up."

Hearing her joyful tone sends a smile to his face. Or, well, a bigger one than the smile he already had. He leans towards Fuyuha when she starts complaining again, "Your mommy is the most beautiful woman in the world, Fuyu."

"Shut it, Haruka."

"I'm daddy."

"Stop."

Haruka laughs again, and now that Fuyuha was fully dressed, he sits her up on the table. He gives her the bottle of baby powder so she's entertained, and quickly enough, Fuyuha started examining it as if it wasn't an object she was given for distraction all the time. As she's at it, Haruka takes the blow dryer from one of the drawers of the table.

Fuyuha's hair curls at the end, and he believes it's the cutest thing ever. Much like his, it sticks to a million different directions no matter how much you brush it. It's okay, though. Messy hair doesn't stop Haruka from giving her cute hairstyles.

Her hair is dry quickly enough, and it's soft and it smells of the baby shampoo he's in love with. He has to cuddle her a lot when he finally picks her up because she's just so... well, cuddly.

"Okaaay, ready for bed~" he announces, taking the baby powder from Fuyuha to put it back in its place. He hands the blow dryer to Takane next. "And mommy has to dry her hair too, because we don't want her to catch a cold."

Even if she rolls her eyes, Takane takes it. Haruka kisses her before making his way out, because apparently kissing her before leaving any room is a rule of his.

Fuyuha, again, loves sleeping, so bedtime is never a problem. When she's sleepy, if she's in arms, she'll just go straight to the point and fall asleep by herself. She likes lullabies and being rocked to sleep like any baby, but she's not waiting for anything or anyone if she's sleepy.

That's why, even if the loud blow dryer could be heard from the room Takane was, Fuyuha had laid her head against the crook of his neck as soon as stepped out.

Haruka, mostly because he felt like it was too soon to stop cuddling his daughter, decides to take her with him to his and Takane's room. There wasn't any dad-sized furniture in Fuyuha's room after all, and he felt his eyes shutting by themselves already.

And, gosh, their covers and blankets are so soft and warm. He keeps Fuyuha in his chest even laying down in the bed, despite he knew she wouldn't complain if he put her next to him instead.

He keeps the lights on so he doesn't fall asleep that easily, since he still should put Fuyuha in her crib later. He and Takane are a little too crazy about it, and usually sleep with Fuyuha in between them, but they've decided they should cut that out. As much as Haruka loved to cuddle them at the same time, he recognizes it might not be the best parenting move to refuse their child to get used to sleep by themselves.

But having her like this is so, so reassuring. He feels her breathing against his skin, and her eyelashes tenderly tickle his neck as she comfortably slept. Her tiny arms fall on his sides as if she were hugging him, and Haruka feels her tiny heart beating right against his chest.

His eyes feel heavy, and his heart feels happy.

It takes him a moment to process that he's just woken up. And if he just woke up, that means he fell asleep... Dang.

He feels the warmth of Fuyuha's body on his chest, but the weight of it is no longer there.

Haruka brings his hand to her, but she's not laying on him anymore. He shoots up from the bed, blinking the sleep away, as utter panic filled his entire body.

Before he could check beside the bed to see if she fell or something (he didn't hear crying, so that was unlikely, but he's just panicking), Haruka sees Takane is sitting up on her side of the bed, nursing Fuyuha.

There he realizes the lights are off now, except for Takane's bedside lamp. She was on her phone with the one free hand she had, and currently looked back at him with concern in her eyes, "What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?"

Blinking at her, it takes Haruka a few seconds to let out a breath of relief, "No, I just... for how long did I sleep?"

"Eh? Well, when I came to bed you and Fuyuha were asleep," she says, accommodating Fuyuha's position just slightly. "That was like... two hours ago?"

"What?" he keeps a low tone of voice, since Fuyuha was being nursed to sleep. "Ahh, it feels like I just blinked..."

"Oh, that's the worst," Takane giggles, bringing her hand to his after locking her phone. "You can go back to sleep though."

He squeezes her hand back, caressing her wedding ring with his thumb, "But I didn't get my good night kiss yet."

Haruka can already see her rolling her eyes even before she does it. He giggles, and seeing no complaints from her part, he straightens up to give her yet another kiss.

It's a short one, but that's enough to let Haruka go back to sleep with the biggest smile on his face. Except that when they break apart, Takane looks a little off; in a way that Haruka could only describe as melancholic.

He caressed soothing circles on her hand, "Something the matter?"

"No," she shakes her head, her voice filled with emotion. "I just love my life in a way I never thought I could."

She shoots him the tiniest of smiles before returning her attention to Fuyuha, cooing her without talking. Haruka, not for the first or last time, feels how his heart is filled by the unmistakable feeling of love.

He related to her words, honestly. Haruka himself felt overwhelmed with the happiness he felt on a daily basis, as he never knew the feeling of joy could be as strong as this.

Honestly, he'd say something if he could, but there's just so much to say that he simply stays quiet. He brings her hand to his lips, pressing a small kiss to it, and Takane smiles to him again.

She mouthes a small, "I love you," and he does the same before lying down again. Haruka falls asleep staring at their matching rings and to the thought of happiness.

He can't wait for tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Takane makes sure to close the door very softly when she gets home.

Don't get her wrong. Of course she loves that her kids run up to her yelling in excitement when they hear her arrive. It always made her feel like, at least, she was doing a good job at the mom thing. But... she had a very long day, and having two toddlers clinging to her for dear life as she tries to finish getting home didn't sound so fun right now. Especially since there was more work to do next.

Dinner, bath, bedtime... and not even hers.

Takane takes in a breath. She loves her kids, but oh does she look forward to the moment they can do things by themselves. And even with that mindset she just went and had a second one, absolutely voluntarily and like a fool. What is wrong with her.

(Usually, she would blame it on Haruka's stupid face and how she can't say no to him, but since she was so tired right now, she found it very difficult to lie to herself like that. She wanted that damn second baby as much as he did and she knows this).

So she just breathes in, pressing her forehead against the door. She already heard Haruka's voice talking from the living room, and their daughter was happily answering. Hearing their voices was therapeutic in itself, and her mind already felt lighter from just that, but she still wants to take a moment.

She takes a few steps back until she reaches the small step at the entrance, sitting herself on it to take off her shoes. She looks to the side, glancing at her children's ridiculously small ones. It gets her to smile, because... tiny humans with tiny feet are always a thing to smile about, apparently.

When she thinks things like this, Takane really lets sink in just how much she has changed. Her sixteen year old self would barf right here and now if she saw herself being so easily entertained in the future. Honestly, she would just barf from finding out she ends up marrying her stupid classmate and laughing with him about tiny shoes.

"I have an idea," she suddenly hears her five year old daughter, Fuyuha, speak up with determination, which catches Takane's attention.

"Oh, what is it?" Haruka's joyful voice is quick to question her, sounding very interested. Takane hears Fuyuha clear her throat in anticipation of just how good her idea was; as if she was telling her dad to brace himself because this was the idea of the century.

"I think we should call mom. On the phone," Fuyuha starts, for some reason having the need to clarify how they'd be calling her. "And... ask her to buy ice cream on the way home!"

She can't help getting a fond smile, despite she had brought no ice cream home, but her face quickly changes into annoyance once she remembers what this implies.

"That is genius, Fuyuha!" he says, because of course he says that. Takane, indeed, is greatly annoyed by this.

Why? Oh, because that makes her the bad guy.

Haruka will say yes to the ice cream, because he is Haruka, and then she'll have to be the meanie who says no to it. And yes, she has to say no to it. They have way too much ice cream in this family, and as good as ice cream was, it wasn't the best parenting move.

But it's not her fault that she lives with puppy eyed ice cream loving creatures that out number her! ...Well, it's kind of her fault because she lives with the man she chose to marry and with the children she chose to have, so...

Whatever, though! Point is that ice cream is a big no-no because it'd be the second time they'd buy ice cream this week, so it's gonna be fun to be the bad guy today too, huh?

Before Takane could silently groan and get up to do that, Haruka finishes speaking, "Sorry, Fuyu. Maybe next time."

Takane's not sure if she's hearing correctly.

Kokonose Haruka, saying no to ice cream just like that?

And thus, just like she had done with herself a second ago, she thinks how sixteen year old Haruka would feel about this. No, not even sixteen. Just... before children Haruka. He'd be disappointed in himself.

Takane, however, is very pleased, and she finds herself smiling at it.

"...Yeah, okay," Fuyuha spoke with a sigh of defeat, apparently having seen that answer coming. She wasn't dumb, after all. Just as Takane felt ready to go on now, the girl continues, "Oh, right! About mom!"

That just... makes her stop in her tracks. Takane sits back down, and feels her stomach turn. She guesses any mom would be kind of excited to listen in on their kids when they say "about mom" so excitedly, but Takane? Oh, Takane wants to crawl into a hole and die in it. She does not want to hear this.

Now, yeah. Even if her kids basically throw a party everytime she's home from work, there's the never ending concern of... them secretly hating her. She knew that sounded stupid, but she sure did hate her mom at five already, so why couldn't Fuyuha, huh?

She doesn't know what kind of mental issue she has that is the one responsible for those thoughts, but they're there, alright? And yeah, she's aware she's being dumb. She just can't help it.

"Yeah, what about her?" Haruka sounded kind of distracted by now, and she heard the sound of paper turning, so there was a big chance he was drawing as he spoke to Fuyuha.

At this point, Takane's aware she's just eavesdropping, especially since she was being mentioned, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Then again, she's not one to care about something like this in the first place.

Takane finally gets up, but she still can't bring herself to simply go in. If she's gonna eavesdrop she's gonna commit, okay?

She just rests her body against the wall next to the door, where the light of the living room came in. She heard Fuyuha's crayons, because she's a fan of using them all at once and press them very hard against the paper, so yes, she heard them. And as she starts speaking, Takane feels even more nervous,

"Nothing. At school everyone was talking about how their parents met."

And then Takane's reminded that Fuyuha's the most innocent creature alive. Her asking how her parents met is... a little more plausible than her sharing her secret hatred for her mother, isn't it?

"Ah, and you wanna know how mom and I met?"

"Yes!"

"Oh. Well, we met at school."

Haruka sounded casual, and again, distracted. He was obviously still listening to her, but he very clearly didn't consider the question interesting. And honestly, neither would Takane. She wasn't expecting Haruka to get all nostalgic, look up with heart eyes and say something dumb like "oh~ we met at school~" because that was stupid.

They met at school, under very special circumstances she's not sure they'll ever even mention to their kids, and that was that. They didn't even date then, so there were no love letters or a confession in the roof. Nope. It was all very...

I don't want to say "tragic", but... it feels difficult to find another word to describe it.

And obviously, that dull answer seemed to bother Fuyuha, "But... that's boring."

She sounded so incredibly disappointed, it was kind of funny.

"Well, it's the truth. Mom and I were classmates in highschool," Haruka went on. "We didn't date then, though. But I like to think we would've liked to–"

"It's boring!" Fuyuha insists, clearly not interested in Haruka's analysis. Takane herself isn't sure that would've been good, though. She was too busy denying her feelings and being angry while Haruka was too busy... well, to be brief; he was busy at the hospital.

You know what? I don't want to think about highschool.

"But it's the truth!" Haruka also insisted, laughing. "Mom and I were classmates! What kind of answer were you expecting?"

"I don't know," Fuyuha said, sounding pouty. "I thought maybe mom saved you from a dragon or something..."

Everytime Takane thinks Fuyuha's finally telling fiction and reality apart, she comes up with these things. She thinks it's kind of silly, but Haruka always reminds her that Fuyuha's only five and this was fun. But even like this, she's sure even Haruka should giggle and calmly explain to Fuyuha how it is not possible for her to fight a dragon because one, those don't exist, and two, even if they did, her mom is a very small woman who would rather be far away from said creature. But Haruka's answer is,

"That would've been so much cooler," and he says it with genuine admiration in his voice, as if he actually would've loved that scenario. "Like, mom fighting a dragon and coming to rescue me at a tower?"

"Yes!" Fuyuha said, excited again. "But mom didn't fight the dragon, she made friends with her instead! So Mrs. dragon helped her fly up to the tower and saved you! So actually you were saved by the dragon and mom."

"Ah, I see. And if we are friends with the dragon then, why does she never visit?"

"She works abroad! You write letters to each other," Fuyuha answers in a heartbeat, and Haruka burts into laughter,

"H – how do you even know what that means? And why letters?"

"Her claws are too pointy for phones and there aren't phones big enough either..." as Haruka continued laughing, Fuyuha quickly nagged, "It's not funny, daddy! It's hard for her to find a pen that's big enough so she can write to you!"

As Takane sighed over the topic and how silly their daughter's imagination could be, a small car toy made its way into the room she was in. It rolled slowly, but apparently fast enough to make it to the wall and hit it. Takane stares at it for a second, confused, because it sounded like Fuyuha was at the table with Haruka, not playing with her cars.

Before she could think anything else though, a wobbly shadow appears in the light coming from the living room, and then it clicks to Takane who was playing with the car. Konoha makes his way in, in all his one year old baby glory.

Takane immediately feels herself smile once she sees his dumb little body going after the car.

He started walking just last week, so he still wasn't... a pro, not exactly. To be honest, he walked exactly like a penguin, which actually was Haruka and Takane's favourite thing, so as excited she'll be once he masters it, she'll kind of miss the penguin walk.

(She's sure she and Haruka will continue to make fun of it even after that. Even Fuyuha chimed in when she saw them imitating his penguin walk. Konoha only laughed though, simply taking the whole thing as encouragement to keep going).

(And yes, she and Haruka do imitate the funny things their children do. No, she's not going into details).

If Takane were to define her son, she'd say... he's like a very, very dumb cat.

Cats, usually, are alerted with anything and they're always very focused. But on one thing at a time. Cats do get fightened very easily because they were too busy staring at that bug to even notice you were in the room, right? Well, Konoha is a lot like that.

Because he walks in, directly towards the car, and ducks down in the cutest fucking way ever to pick it up. It was just... kind of difficult to explain how it was cute. He just grabbed it with one of his stupid chubby hands while lifting the other hand in his side as if to keep balance. Either way, he never realizes his mom is literally standing right there like a creep.

But he'd have to be kind of, well, blind not to notice her when he turns around to come back.

She knows she purposefully stayed here to avoid getting bombarded with affection so suddenly, but the smile that slowly appeared in Konoha's face was just the most priceless thing in the world. She knew she must sound silly and literally like any parent would, but she didn't care.

Konoha was... very calm. With very unfunny irony he resembled the real Konoha an awful lot, which everyone always made a priority to point out everytime they saw him. Haruka and her always dance around the subject because it's clearly an elephant in the room they don't want to address. But... yes, Konoha is very Konoha.

So he doesn't... do much with his face. He's very quiet and calm, and he's very smiley too, but his smiles are usually small and always there. However, there are occasions where he offers very, very big smiles. Two occasions, to be exact. One is when he's getting food, and the other one is when...

"Ah, mama!"

She immediately gets down to his height to receive the hug he immediately runs for, promptly dropping the car he just picked up. All while Konoha continued to say with that small voice of his the only word he can say. Mama.

"Mapa" was also a word he said, because he called Haruka "mama" as well in his failed attempt to say papa. "Mapa" is the closest he ever gets, which Haruka takes as a win anyway. Because the one other thing that gets Konoha to make that big smile is seeing her. And her specifically.

Sure, he got excited with Haruka too; he always made sure to send her texts freaking out about how cute he looked when he woke up that morning and smiled when he saw him (which always makes Takane want to drop everything to go home to her boys). But, unlike Fuyuha, Konoha already showed a clear preference with his parents.

In an attempt to make him feel better, Takane insists to Haruka it's because Konoha's just used to him being home, whereas she's at work for half of the day. He's not even awake when she leaves with Fuyuha to drop her off at school and go to work herself, so that's why he wants no one but her when she's around.

Haruka, however, continues to stick his tongue out at them, picking up Fuyuha and saying "we can have fun without you!" (Fuyuha, not knowing what's going on, is always on board anyway).

Takane, for the most part, tried not to encourage that adoration Konoha had for her, but...

It feels kind of nice.

It's true Fuyuha never showed a favourite, but... she clearly had more things in common with Haruka, both in interests and personality, and generally seemed to follow him more than her. So Takane might as well cuddle her son a lot, who cares. It wasn't like Konoha didn't want to be with Haruka or something. He just likes his mommy a lot.

When Konoha decides he's done with the hug, he pulls away, looks for her hand, and grabs onto it. Because you will not catch Konoha walking by himself if his mom is around, no no. He wants to be holding her hand. That was the number one (and only) rule Konoha silently settled when he started to walk.

And just like that, he guides her to the living room, smile still plastered on his face as he happily announces, "Mama!"

...Yeah. Don't expect him to say much more.

Fuyuha nearly falls on her face in her excited attempt of getting down from her chair, having gasped at the sight of Takane like it was such a surprise she was here. Haruka looked pretty surprised too, but only for a second. He just sends a smile her way, calmly getting up as well.

"Mom! Mommy, you're home!" Fuyuha also screams, crashing into a hug. Thing is, Takane can't hug her back because Fuyuha had her tiny arms wrapped around her legs, and well, that meant she'd have a hard time ducking. Fuyuha looks up at her with expectant eyes, "Let's buy ice cream?"

Ah. Of course.

Takane smiles at her, "Nope."

Fuyuha pouts, and looks at Konoha, "It was worth the try."

Konoha just goes "buh". Takane would think he's booing her if it wasn't because Konoha is only one and "buh" is actually what most of his answers consist of. Suddenly excited again, Fuyuha lets go of her to go towards her brother,

"Oh, mommy, look what I taught Konoha to do!" she said, quickly looking over her shoulder at Haruka. "Well, daddy helped but I did most of the work."

Before Takane could comment (probably to make fun of Haruka), Fuyuha held her hand down to Konoha. He looked at it for a second... and then two, and then three, and then he was just looking at her hand without doing anything. Fuyuha huffs, her shoulders shrugging down in disappointment, "Aw, Konoha... let's show mommy what we practiced!"

Now that she was able to, Takane ducks, looking in between her children to analyse the situation. When she was properly next to him, Konoha just hugs her, which marks the end of whatever Fuyuha was trying, which only makes the little girl sigh.

"Did you teach him to high five?" Takane asks, since that's what the whole thing seemed to be; Fuyuha nodded.

"Yeah, and he was super good at it!" she insisted, worried she wouldn't believe her. "He went like this!"

She went to Haruka, and made him show her his hand to start slapping it in some kind of continuous high five, so Takane can't help but laugh.

"That's... that's okay! I'm sure he'll remember how to do it."

Konoha probably thought he was clapping with someone else's hands, since he's fond of clapping. He claps for himself when he's learning to do something new and when food is coming, and since she and Haruka thought his clapping was the cutest thing they always cheer on him for doing it, which only encourages him to do it more. So Konoha indeed clapped a lot.

When Fuyuha decides to stop slapping her father's hand, it's like she's possessed by another idea, because Fuyuha was just like that. It was one thing after the other with her; no pauses allowed. Konoha seemed to be her subject this time too, just like it has been ever since he was born.

"Konoha!" she said, grabbing his small hand and getting him away from Takane. Konoha doesn't complain though, because when does he ever complain. "Come with me!"

And just like that, she drags Konoha to the kitchen with her. Takane's first instinct is to go after them, but of course, as soon as she takes the first step, Haruka is suddenly on her way. She looks up at him with a glare, "Are we just letting them unsupervised in the room with knives?"

"It sounds very wrong if you say it like that," Haruka speaks with a soft voice, looking down at her with those fond eyes of his, and that wasn't helping the case. She's a thirty one year old lady melting because her husband is looking at her like this; just how in the world has she became so pathetic? "You know the drawers have the child proof locks. I would know. It's been five years and I keep forgetting how to open them... Ah, by the way, hello."

"Hey," she quickly said, looking away. Haruka always complained when she didn't properly say hi, so she saw this coming. He places a hand on her shoulder, using the other one to push a lock of her hair behind her ear. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like that," Takane simply says, finally bringing herself to look back at him. Big mistake, because she immediately smiles. "Like all dopey and dumb."

"Can't I watch my wife with loving eyes because she's so beautiful?"

"Oh, god, shut up."

Haruka giggled, and just when she thought they were ready to go check if they kids were dead (they weren't; she heard Fuyuha speaking to Konoha about sugar), he says,

"We didn't hear you come in," Haruka sounded iffy, and before Takane could come up with an excuse, he goes on. "Did you have a long day?"

Her breath stops for just a second. A second in which she was about to question herself "how did he know?", but the thing is... she remembers who she's talking with. Of course Haruka would figure it out quickly. There was no need to even wonder how did he know.

So just like that, Takane thumps her head against his chest, quietly whining out, "I'm so tired."

As if on automatic, his arms immediately wrap around her, and as stupid as it sounded, this gesture alone was enough to start recharging her energy. Especially when he starts running his fingers through her hair, which of course get tangled, but neither of them could care about that at the moment. He presses a kiss on her head.

"Well, don't worry," he gently said. "The kids are already bathed and I can take care of putting them to sleep so you can go to bed early. How about it?"

She knew he couldn't see her face in this position, but she feels the discomfort in her expression. It was sweet of him to suggest that, but... it didn't feel like a solution at all. At first, she had avoided announcing she was home so the kids wouldn't straight-up assault her first thing, but the welcoming had done nothing but fill her heart with love and if anything, it helped her cheer up from her day.

I just continue to be stubborn, huh?

Maybe she wasn't trying to hide because she had a long day. Maybe, she just wanted to hide because she had became such a plain person, and she didn't want a reminder. The reminder being: coming home and feeling like everything was okay because she was seeing her kids and husband. That was just too conventional. Too normal. Too unlike her.

But that was the thing. It wasn't unlike her now, and that infuriated her.

Shaking the thought away, Takane tries to think of something else. Really, she hasn't seen them all day, and she already feels guilty as it is for letting Haruka do all the house and kids work, so she quickly finds herself shaking her head. She looks up at him with a soft smile, which quickly changes his confused expression with a mirror of her own.

"No, it's okay. I just wanted to come home to you guys."

Haruka laughs, "That's the same thing you always say when you come home."

That, however, does get her smile to go away. She rolls her eyes in embarrassment, like the loser she is, "Th – that's not true..."

"Well, you don't say it everytime but you do say it pretty often," he giggled. "Often enough so I can point it out."

"Shut it."

"Why are you getting embarrassed? Isn't that such a nice thing to say to your family~?"

Takane was about to pointlessly argue back, but Haruka kisses her before she could. And she's glad he does, because she would have said something pointless indeed. She knew that kiss was coming anyway, since Haruka couldn't simply say "hi" when she comes home. No, no; it wasn't a proper welcome without a kiss. And really, it wasn't like she didn't like it.

Usually it's only a peck, but today was so long and so boring that she just wants it to last a little more. It felt liberating, after all, because kissing and hugging Haruka meant home.

Of course Haruka was also used to the "welcome home" kiss being only a peck, so she does feel him try to casually pull away after said peck. He doesn't show any signs of reluctance when she simply wraps her arms around his neck though.

Maybe going to bed early wouldn't be such a bad thing if that meant she could cuddle with him. That really did sound nice. Perhaps, like that, she could even catch up with some of her games.

She still heard Fuyuha's voice narrating her every movement to Konoha, so she wasn't all that worried about them. According to her instructions, they were getting a drawing that was on the kitchen, but they were just getting distracted with every little thing they saw, because Fuyuha kept insisting to explain everything to her little brother.

For example, right now she was explaining to him what the fridge is, probably for the fifth time in the day and millionth time in general. She took her role as a big sister very seriously.

Before long Haruka does pull away, to which she shows great vexation to. She immediately groans, but he just laughs, "Ta... Takane, what are you doing?"

She raises an eyebrow, "...What does it look like I'm doing?"

"The kids are here," he simply answers, but it doesn't clear out her question. She was about to go with a "so?", but Haruka continued, "We can go on when they're asleep if you want, but–"

"Wh – what?" she immediately steps back from him, suddenly feeling her face heat up. She keeps her voice low, "Jesus, you thought I was...? I wasn't trying to– The kids are here, why would I–!? It... it was just a kiss!"

Haruka looks at her with a knowing smile, which was bullshit, because there was nothing to know. He watched her as if he was expecting her to come clean or something. Since she does not say anything, because her only intention was genuinely to only kiss him, Haruka amusedly rolls his eyes, "Okay, if you say so."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He simply offers another snarky smile, and that wasn't good. Her face felt terribly hot and she's sure that's showing in color as well, which didn't help her case at all. It only worked in Haruka's favour, and she could tell because his smirk was only worse.

"I wasn't trying to do that!"

"I believe you."

"You don't!"

"I do," he tells her, leaning to kiss her nose, which only infuriated her more. It felt like he was calling her cute for denying it. He takes a step back as well, towards the kitchen, but before going in he says, "It's not like I'm your husband and I can totally tell the difference between an innocent kiss and a non innocent kiss of yours!"

And with no further question, he makes his way inside the kitchen. Takane, usually, would follow him and absolutely obliterate him (well, in reality she's not sure what she'd do, but she sure as hell would be angry), but as soon as Haruka goes in the kitchen she hears Fuyuha's excited voice speaking to him, and she has to let it go.

Groaning in embarrassment, and probably with a steaming head, she follows him in defeat.

Even if she tried though, Takane couldn't bring herself to be actually angry.

"Ah, here, mommy!" Fuyuha quickly ran up to her, finally holding the drawing she came to get. "I drew everyone! Konoha colored it."

She could tell, because the color was everywhere except in the four little people Fuyuha had drawn.

Takane takes in a breath. It really wasn't all that bad that she had ended up having such a conventional life, huh? She can't see something bad with it if she gets to live things like this.

So what if she gets heartwarmed over the most cliché thing a child could do? She did, and she couldn't help it and she didn't need to hate it.

As Konoha glued himself to her leg again and Fuyuha handed her the drawing, Takane simply continued to smile, "It's... wonderful, Fuyuha. I love it."

"Oh, you do?" Fuyuha, getting all shy, simply tilted her head to the side with a smile. "I'm glad~ Daddy liked it too...! He liked it so much he cried. I thought he hated it, but turns out you can cry because you're happy! That's what daddy said earlier."

Takane looks over at Haruka, and that just marked his turn to be embarrassed. He only shrugged with a sheepish smile.

Sometimes, she needed to remind herself that it wasn't bad that she ended up being someone's wife, and it wasn't bad that she had children. It wasn't bad that this life is something she wanted and something she's happy with, despite the fact this entire thing was what she saw her personal hell as when she was a teenager.

Kissing Konoha's cheek before standing up again, she goes straight to Haruka. He winces for a second, because she had gone so quickly towards him that he probably thought she was gonna yell at him for getting smart with her earlier. But since she only kisses him, he ends up having that ridiculously cute confused face in the end.

He blinks at her, but apparently can't bring himself to be completely confused. If Takane were to guess, it's probably because she seemed in a good mood and as he always said, that was always good no matter what. Takane turns to Fuyuha, who was sticking her tongue out in disgust at seeing her parents kiss, and smiled at her. Like a loser, she felt tears threatening to come out of her eyes.

It wouldn't be the first time Takane cries of happiness, and she's sure it wouldn't be the last.

It was overwhelming, but that was fine. Takane likes it. Takane likes this.

"Hey, Fuyuha, let's go buy ice cream!"

"What, really!?"

As Fuyuha absolutely rejoiced, Haruka started to excitedly ask what's gotten into her, while Konoha simply started to clap because everyone seemed happy and he considered that was worth some claps.

Takane likes her life.

Chapter Text

"We're home!" he hears Fuyuha's loud announcement short after hearing the front door open, and Haruka smiles to himself. This was his very favourite part of the day.

Evenings are the best, in his opinion. His children get home from school as he makes dinner, then his wonderful wife arrives from work, and then they all eat together as the happy family they are, marking yet another beautiful day in his beautiful life.

He turns down the heat of the oven, and makes his way out of the kitchen to go greet his kids, "Welcome home~"

However, there's something different today.

Fuyuha's showing off that big smile of hers, already asking about dessert despite they haven't even had dinner yet. So clearly, she wasn't the problem. She's the same as always. Her younger brother, however...

Haruka notices something's wrong as soon as Konoha steps in.

He's a very reserved kid in general, and a very hard one to read as well, but he doesn't think it's a problem. He's just particularly quiet and calm, and he makes up for it with his infinite kindness and sweet personality.

Although silent, Konoha always offers smiles. That's why Haruka notices something's off.

The boy seems to be... sulking. He was looking down, tightly grabbing on the straps of his backpack, very visibly upset. Haruka felt something in his stomach stir from just seeing his son like that.

Alas, he knows him well enough to know that a "what's wrong" won't cut it. Konoha won't say anything even if he asks.

Alright... Haruka thinks to himself, determined. I need to come up with something, then.

"God, I have so much homework, it's a pain~" Fuyuha casually chatted, kicking off her shoes a lot like her mother tends to do. Konoha, on his part, took off his own shoes in painful slowness. "Will you help me do it, dad?"

"Well, of course!" Haruka tells her, focusing on her for a moment, "Is it math?"

Fuyuha pouts, "Yes! Weekend is: RUINED!"

"Oh, don't say that!" he hurries to say. "We can just start right now, while dinner's cooking!"

"Ehh? No way, I'm tired of school stuff!" Fuyuha crossed her arms at him. "Tomorrow, tomorrow! I wanna play now!"

Haruka can't help smiling despite her whims. It's like listening to Takane talking...

"Hmm, wouldn't now be better, though?" he insists, but Fuyuha doesn't seem to be anywhere near a change of mind. He elaborates, "Does Fuyu really wanna spend her saturday afternoon doing math?"

"No," in an instant, Fuyuha gets very serious, like she had just been told something very tragic. She shakes her head desperately, "She does not."

"Well! If you finish it now, then you'll be free the rest of the weekend and that won't happen," he concludes, and is very happy to see Fuyuha quickly nodding.

"That makes so much sense!" she says, genuinely impressed with her father's very simple reasoning. She grabs her backpack again, "I'll go get stuff ready!"

"W – wait, wash your hands first, will you? ...Ah," he was about to say the same to Konoha, but when he looks at the spot he was previously sitting and taking off his shoes, he's nowhere to be seen. He looks over to the living room, and sees Konoha slowly making his way to the bathroom. Haruka sighs, and calls after him, "Y – you too, Konoha! Wash your hands!"

Konoha turns around for a second, only to offer a nod. Haruka smiles awkwardly as the boy went inside the bathroom.

Fuyuha was about to follow after him, which probably wasn't a very good idea, because she hates waiting and usually attempts to wash her hands at the same time as Konoha and, well... in short, they always make a mess.

Not only because of that, but also because Haruka decides she's his best chance right now, that he gently grabs on her shoulder to stop her. The girl looks up at him with curiosity, and before she can ask, Haruka crouches down to her height, "H – hey, Fuyu..."

"Yeah?"

"Did something..." he makes sure to avoid being too loud, although he doubts Konoha could listen anyway. "Did something happen to your brother? He seems a little down."

"Oh. Hmmm," Fuyuha looks up for a second to think. She's quickly smiling again, though, "No idea, hehe!"

Haruka hums, unsure, before realizing the obvious; yes, of course Fuyuha won't know. She never notices anything, really. Once, when she and Konoha were younger, Konoha took some crayons scribbled on a wall for god knows how long. Fuyuha had been right next to him, simply watching a show, and when questioned by Haruka and Takane about why she didn't say anything, she said,

"Hmm? Ah. Didn't see that."

She didn't even say that she didn't want to be a snitch or something. No, no. Straight to the point; she wasn't paying attention.

Haruka sighs, watching Fuyuha happily skip her way to the bathroom. Oh, well...

He guesses that whatever is happening can wait a little. It's not like Konoha will tell him what's wrong, anyway. He better just wait until Takane gets home for that, because if Konoha is opening up to either of his parents about something he's going through, that is going to be mommy.

She's the favourite, after all~

That's what Haruka thinks with a smile as he watches over the food cooking. He really didn't feel jealous, after all. Who could blame Konoha for having Takane as his favourite parent?

Ah, Takane. He hasn't seen her since this morning and that already feels like an eternity... He can only imagine when she gets home like she does everyday, and she'll happily greet everybody despite how tired she is. She'll give him kisses, too, he's sure! And if she doesn't, well, he'll be the one giving her kisses instead. The thought made him giggle lovingly.

His daydreams about his wife are promptly interrupted by noises behind him, and when he turns around, Haruka sees Konoha quietly taking things out of his school bag. Haruka, albeit surprised, talks to him with a welcoming voice,

"Oh, you're also doing your homework now?" he asks, as Konoha comfortably settled himself on the kitchen table. He nodded. "Hehe, that's weird! Usually, you'd wait for mom to do it with her...!"

Konoha looks away, despite he hasn't been looking at him in the first place. He taps on his pencil case, and shrugs a little, "I wanna do my homework with dad today."

Despite he had just thought about how not jealous he is of Takane for being Konoha's favourite, Haruka seriously can't deny his heart had just melted inside of him just now. Having been charmed to the core, he feels his cheeks warm up with happiness and stretch up with a smile, "Oh! I see, I see! Well, that makes me really happy~"

Konoha only nods, apparently not needing help for now as he starts to scribble down answers in a worksheet. It had silly drawings printed on them, trying to make it a little more cheerful for children. Fuyuha's worksheets weren't like that anymore, Haruka thinks with nostalgia.

However, as he sees him focus, Haruka decides to at least give it a shot, "Hey, Konoha?"

His son hums as an answer, stopping to look up at him. Haruka smiles,

"Is everything alright?"

Konoha looked a little taken back for a moment, and it's worth mentioning he immediately looks away when the question was out. Even so, he quickly nodded. Haruka tries again,

"Are you sure?" he asks. Konoha seemed as normal as ever this morning, so he tries asking, "Did something happen at school?"

Konoha shakes his head.

"W – well," Haruka sighs, deciding this was leading nowhere. He still makes sure to say, "If... if something does happen at school or anywhere else, please do tell me, alright? Or... or mom, or perhaps a teacher you like... um, that is, if something happened. Okay?"

"AHH, MATH!" however, Konoha can't say anything to his dad as his loud sister walks into the kitchen. Groaning, Fuyuha thumps her bag on the table, and lets herself fall on a chair, "Math. Horrible, horrible math..."

Haruka, trying to come back to a lighter mood, only laughs, "It's fine, Fuyu! You'll see it's not that difficult. You just have to pay attention."

"Eugh..." Fuyuha tiredly starts taking her things out of the bag, "That's too much work..."

He was about to try and encourage her again, but the sound of the front door opening for a second time interrupts the activity. Both Fuyuha and Konoha shake in their seats, turning to look at the direction the sound came from. They almost looked like cats...

Takane's unmistakable voice rings with a tired tone, "I'm home..."

Ah, she's home early...

Fuyuha dashes out of the kitchen in about a second, yelling, "Mom! Hello!"

Haruka knows Fuyuha would do that in a normal day, but he's sure her math homework had something to do with the speed she left to go greet her mother. But still, he has something more important to worry about: Konoha hadn't gotten up of his chair.

He had attempted to, even smiling that typical smile of his. But before his feet touched the floor, he seemed to take a pause, hesitating... and he had decided to stay put. Haruka felt concern twisting his insides. This really just confirms it; something's wrong with Konoha.

Because Konoha, as quiet and calm he is, allows himself a very, very excited and out of character moment when Takane comes home. He isn't only fast, but he's loud. He runs, doesn't matter if he was in the bathroom or sleeping or doing whatever, he runs to his mother while yelling, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" non stop until he reaches her.

However, tonight he doesn't.

Haruka tries not to let his worry influence his smile as he says, "Ko – Konoha, aren't you going to say hi to mom?"

Konoha looks at him, but his question apparently makes him feel worse. He looked down at his homework with a face that Haruka could only compare to the time he and Takane didn't allow him to keep an ant colony as a pet. That is, a very sad face.

Haruka fidgets in his spot, not sure what to do. Soon, he hears his wife's voice speaking once Fuyuha finally stopped talking,

"Where's your brother?" she asked, because of course she asked that. Takane, much like Haruka himself, had found Konoha's absence at the front door strange. "Is he napping or something?"

"No, he's in the kitchen with dad."

"Oh? Is... is dad making... barbecue or something?"

That was a funny thought, really. Takane's thought process was "well, if he didn't come greet me then something more important must be going on!"

But no, when Takane pops into the kitchen with Fuyuha following like a duckling, Konoha's only sitting there. Haruka can practically see the feeling of oddness Takane gets, but even so, she offers a smile, "Hello hello."

"Hi! Welcome home," Haruka attempts to act casual as well, but that was sort of impossible to do with Konoha's lack of answer. "H – how was work~?"

"...It was okay," she nods, but her gaze is still glued to the small boy. "Konoha? Hey?"

Konoha immediately flinches as if startled, refusing eye contact as he forced himself to keep staring at his assignments. Takane sighs,

"Aren't you going to say hello?" she tells him, but she doesn't sound angry. If anything, she sounded confused, "Isn't that kind of rude?"

He quickly looks up at her in panic, letting out a small "ah" sound, apparently realizing that yeah, not saying hello might actually be pretty rude. Even so, he's quick to drive his gaze back down as he says, "H – hello..."

That seems to leave Takane pretty satisfied, because soon enough, she has a smile traced on her face. Haruka blinks, dumbfounded. Did she really think that was over?! There's clearly something wrong with their son right now!

He keeps staring at her, in hopes she would get the memo and do something, but Takane was already distracted with Fuyuha,

"So, why are you guys doing your homework now?"

"Dad says that we should do it as soon as possible so we get more free time later!"

"Ehh? Isn't it the same though? Whether you do it now or later you'll have the same amount of free time–" Takane starts saying, but her eyes finally lock with Haruka's as she talked. She nervously looks back at Fuyuha, who seemed to be seriously considering her mother's words, "I – I mean! Dad's right! He used to have the best grades in our class so he's clearly the one you should listen to."

"Whaaat? Really? Dad was at the top of the class?"

"Yeah but I mean, not to discredit him or anything but it was a rather small class. There weren't that many students," Takane says, laughing, despite she knew Fuyuha wouldn't be able to spot the funny thing. When she looks over at him again, since he was the one who would understand the joke, her smile becomes a confused one.

After all, Haruka was approaching her, and he's sure he looked as apprehensive as he felt. Takane's quick to get up, and the children don't seem to bother when their parents walk out of the kitchen together.

In the living room, Haruka looks back to make sure the kids were distracted; Konoha was scribbling down and Fuyuha miserably tried to understand math problems. He's going to help her later, but right now, he needs to talk to Takane.

Takane, who had her arms crossed and looked at him with an annoyed but concerned face. Yeah, that was a weird mix, but a trademark of Takane's.

"You don't have to get like this, jeez," she tells him, and before Haruka could question her, she carries on, "It was just a joke~ I'm sure that if we would've been in a regular class you still would've been top of the class–"

"What? No, it's not that," he laughs, and Takane raises an eyebrow. Haruka gently puts his hands on her shoulders, "Just– okay, well, first of all, hello!"

He pecks her quickly, because to him it's not a proper greeting until they kiss, and when he leans away he's instantly charmed with Takane's smile. She rolls her eyes playfully, "You made me come here just for that?"

"No, it's just a bonus!" he tells her, gaining yet another of Takane's wonderful giggles. Still, coming back to the main subject, Haruka returns to a worried face, "Actually, what I wanted to say is that... doesn't Konoha seem weird?"

Takane moves her head in a weird way, as if she couldn't decide between shaking it no and nodding. "Well, I mean, yeah I did find it a little weird that he didn't say hi to me."

"Not only that, but he didn't run all the way to do it!"

"Well, you can't expect him to do that forever," Takane laughed, and Haruka blinked at her. "He's six already! The whole "mommy, mommy!" thing was gonna end at some point. I knew that one day I would get home and he just wouldn't do it. He's just growing up!"

"That... actually makes sense," he admits, and Takane nods proudly, with that face she makes when she knows she's right. Even so, it was remarkable how well Takane was taking it.

Konoha stopped breastfeeding when he was six months. He simply didn't want to do it anymore, and constantly pointed at the food they would eat instead. He demanded to be fed solids already. He was not happy about the mushed food either, but he had no choice but put up with that one.

Back then, Takane had felt like that meant he didn't need her anymore and cried for an entire week. So yeah, Haruka found it weird that she talked about her baby growing up like it was nothing.

"...Still, isn't it strange he didn't say hello until you called him out? And I mean, he's been looking kind of upset ever since he came in."

"Maybe he's just tired?" Takane offers, and before Haruka could argue, she continues, "Hey, I understand where this comes from, but maybe it's nothing! You know Konoha gets like a zombie when he's sleepy."

"W – well, yeah, but..." Haruka looks down, realizing that yeah, maybe he's being too much of a worrywart. He still insists, "But when I asked him if everything was okay, he still looked so off!"

"What did he say, though?"

"...He said he was okay," Haruka says, and Takane makes a "there it is" face. He sighs, "Or, well. Nodded when I asked him if things were alright. And shook his head when I asked him if something happened at school."

"Okay, Haruka," Takane smiles, and grabs his hands. Haruka pouts, "Look, if something's actually wrong, maybe he wants a little space right now. We can try asking him again tomorrow if he's still acting off, alright? But I don't think you should stress out like this. Aside from him not clinging to my leg right now, I don't see anything weird going on."

Haruka, seeing no other option, only nods.

After all, Konoha is hard to read. Just because there are very tiny details that can easily be explained with "he's sleepy" and "he's growing up" and Haruka has a hunch something is wrong, doesn't mean something is actually wrong.

"Okay, well..." Haruka sighs in defeat. "Try asking him, though... maybe when you're tucking him in? If he's gonna tell either of us, then I'm sure that's you..."

Takane nods back at him, "Yeah, okay. But let's go back in there before you burn the food and Fuyuha realizes doing homework right after school is the worst."

At first, Haruka laughs, but after actually remembering the food, he runs back into the kitchen in a panic. He distractedly hears Takane giggling,

"Okay~ while dad makes sure he's not burning the house down, I can help with homework."

"Eh. I thought mom was really bad at school..."

"H – hey, that doesn't mean I can't do fifth grade math!" Takane defends herself of Fuyuha's words, but the girl just laughed. Taking her notebook, Takane takes a quick glance of it before going, "Hm. Actually, I'm not sure I can."

"Mom."

"I'm kidding!"

Meanwhile, Haruka sees how Konoha seemed to be paused, looking down at the paper like he didn't know what to do next. Maybe he wasn't understanding something...

Takane, on her part, seems to notice the same, because quickly enough she's saying, "Konoha? Do you need help with anything?"

Konoha shakes his head, his voice sounding as casual as ever when he announces, "Yes. But I don't want mom to help me. I want dad."

And right there, it's when it feels like lightning had just hit the kitchen. Almost robotically, Haruka turns to see Takane, and she looks like she had stopped functioning for a second. On the other hand, Fuyuha loudly voiced her opinion,

"WOW! Cold much!" she said, laughing a little too much. "Is dad gonna be your favourite now? Jeez, make up your mind~"

Before Haruka had the chance to say anything, Takane quietly clears her throat, simply going, "A – alright then."

When they went to bed last night, nothing Haruka said was able to cheer Takane up. But it's not like he could blame her.

After dinner, Konoha had not only continued to unsubtly avoid his mom, but he had also announced he didn't want her to tuck him in, sticking by Haruka's side the entire time instead. Needless to say, Takane was slightly more preoccupied about Konoha than when she arrived home.

In the end, Haruka kind of convinced her that maybe Konoha would come back to normal the next day. But seeing the current situation, where Takane miserably kneeled down next to Konoha, Haruka couldn't bring himself to not feel ashamed of his own words.

"Ko – Konoha, hey?"

When he hears Takane hesitantly call the boy for what it seems like the first time in forever, Konoha looks at her rather uninterestedly. That, already, wasn't a good sign.

"What?"

"Are you... um," Takane fidgeted around with her fingers, looking a little too nervous to be talking to her six year old son of all people. Haruka can only stare in silence. "Are you mad at me?"

He thought that maybe, Konoha would pause, or he would question as to why she's asking this, or simply say yes and finally give a reason. But none of those things happen; instead, and almost instantly, Konoha shakes his head, "No."

"Because if you are," Takane insists, despite he already gave his answer. "You should tell me why, so I can apologize and not do it again! Y – you know, grown ups make mistakes, too, so..."

"I'm not mad at mom, though."

Because of course, Haruka was wrong. Konoha didn't go back to normal today.

When Konoha woke up he wasn't not only still avoiding Takane, but he's also been going out of his way to announce the activities he was doing that didn't involve her.

"I'm going to draw but I won't give the drawing to mom."

"I'm going to the bathroom and I don't need mom's help."

"I'm going to eat this cookie but I won't sit next to mom."

And everytime he said something like that, it seemed Takane shook in red and more of her HP was taken down. Haruka stared at the scene, and as Konoha calmly climbed the stairs to go back to his room, Takane was throwing herself on the couch.

"Ah, uuum, Takane?" Haruka calls her, nervously looking at Konoha going away. Once he was out of sight, he tries approaching his wife.

Takane was laying face down, pressed against the cushions like she wanted to suffocate herself, which is why her voice sounds muffled when she says, "He hates me."

"Wh – what!" Haruka, scandalized, quickly crouches down next to her, in between the couch and the coffee table. He screams in a whisper, despite Konoha was probably inside his room by now, "Of course he doesn't hate you!"

Takane just groans sadly against the cushions, so he tries again,

"He's just being a little strange, that's all! It also didn't seem like I'm his new favourite at all, if that's what's worrying you! It's more like I'm a replacement and he's just sticking with me for the sake of not being with y– AH, wait that's super badly worded!"

She turns around this time, to lay on her back, and based on her expression, it didn't seem that his words were what made her move.

"Takane?"

"He..." she begins, but takes a pause to take in a breath. "You know, he hasn't been calling me mommy."

"Wh – what?"

"I know I said it's just normal and I wasn't expecting him to be clingy his entire life, but..." she covered her face with her hands, making her voice sound muffled again. She sounded at the verge of tears, actually. "This is so sudden! It's so unfair! I – I thought I was doing a good job!"

"Ah, hey, don't get like that! You are doing a good job!" Haruka quickly hovers over her to hug her, pressing his head against her chest. "You're a wonderful mommy!"

"Yeah, mom, you're cool!"

Fuyuha's voice creeping from the side of the armrest makes both of them jump in surprise. The girl only stares, confused, as her parents try to properly sit up.

Takane's the first to say something about it, "Jeez! Fuyuha, don't just show up like that!"

"How else am I supposed to show up?" Fuyuha innocently questions, but quickly moves on without expecting an answer. "I want cookies!"

Haruka sighs, and glances at Takane to see if it was okay. She simply shrugs, and lays back against the couch, which makes Haruka feel like pouting. He couldn't bear to see her this heartbroken, really. He leans in to peck her before standing up.

Fuyuha happily skips behind him towards the kitchen, "Hey, dad, is mom still sad because Konoha doesn't like her anymore?"

Haruka turns around in a dash, shushing her almost immediately. Fuyuha stops, confused, as he checked to see if Takane heard her. She didn't, thank god. Hearing something like that would be like a stab on the head to her.

That's why Haruka makes sure to speak in a low tone as he answers her, "That's not true! He does like her! He's just... um..."

"He's just being a big baby!" Fuyuha finishes, confident in her words. He's not sure why he had to come here as well, since Fuyuha seemed to be doing well, grabbing a plate and serving the cookies by herself. "I tell him he's a mommy's boy once and he gets like this. Jeez~"

Haruka pauses for a second, finally feeling a little bit of clarity in his mind, but he's quick to stop Fuyuha from getting away, "Wa – wait, don't go yet! What do you mean you told him that? When?"

"Ehh? Yesterday, in the way back home from school," Fuyuha answers, and casually munches on a cookie. Haruka sighs. He loves his daughter so, so much, but she somehow had managed to take after Takane's most frustrating traits. One of these being; her eternal obliviousness.

"When I asked you if something happened to your brother you said you didn't know."

"Well, I don't know," she tells him. "What does that have to do with him being a mommy's boy? He asked me if I thought he was too clingy to mom and I said yes."

"Fuyu!"

"What! He is!"

"No, it's– jeez, why didn't you say so?" he complains, but Fuyuha didn't seem to understand why she was supposed to mention this. Okay, fair. She doesn't have anything to do with it, so he wasn't going to nag at her for this. Sighing, Haruka tries to carry on, "Okay, well, do you know why he asked?"

"Eh? Well, no..."

Okay, that was fine. Because at least he knows one thing now, and it means it's a step closer to solving the problem. So with a smile, Haruka nods, "Alright. Thanks, Fuyu!"

"You're welcome?" she says, obviously still not sure why she's being thanked. "Does this mean I can go eat these in my bedroom?"

"Nope!" Haruka tells her, as he walks back into the living room. Really, he would allow Fuyuha to do that because he used to do it and there's nothing better than eating in bed, but Takane doesn't allow it. Hmph, like she and him didn't share romantic moments eating takeout in bed when they were younger!

Takane, meanwhile, had gone back to make misery sounds against cushions during the minute he was gone. He leans in, nervously,

"Um, Takane? I'm going to try and talk to Konoha again."

"Be careful to not give out your heart," Takane turns her head to the side to speak. "He will take it and spit it out when he's done."

He can't even bring himself to humor her with a laugh. It was straight up heartbreaking to hear her like this.

Haruka hurriedly starts climbing the stairs, but he does hear Fuyuha's voice fondly going, "Do you want a cookie, mom?"

The bedroom doors were open, as neither Fuyuha or Konoha had the habit of closing them, at least for now. Fuyuha's room is kind of messy, like always, and he sees the tablet on her bed. She must've been playing that rhythm game again, the one with way too many idols...

Before he walks into Konoha's bedroom, he's promptly held back by a first peek. It's really not like him to spy on his kids, oh, never, but from simply seeing how concentrated Konoha was as he organized his stuffed animals around his small play table, Haruka felt sorry about having to interrupt him.

So reluctantly, Haruka knocks on the door. Konoha immediately looks up at him, just as he was placing down one of his triceratops plushies.

(He has three of them. One, Haruka bought when he was still a baby, the second one used to be Fuyuha's (also bought when she was a baby), and the third one Konoha himself wanted it. Turns out, he loves triceratops too, the little copycat).

"Hi, dad," Konoha greets him, but quickly shifts his attention back to the matter at hand. "We are solving a mystery here."

"Oh, are you?" Haruka lets himself in, and luckily there are no objections from Konoha. He sits next to one of the plushies, a yellow bunny, whose name is Tamagoyaki, if Haruka remembers correctly. "What happened?"

"Somebody ate Mr. Tonkatsu's dessert," Konoha gestures at the big pig plushie sitting on his bed, as if supervising the meeting. Haruka still thinks it's sort of distasteful that he had decided to name a stuffed pig after a pork dish, but oh well... "Biggest suspect is Hakumai-san."

Hakumai-san is a very big stuffed ice bear, who at the moment had a silly hat on her for some reason. Haruka hums, "Well, she does look particularly sketchy this afternoon."

Konoha nods, happy that he noticed that detail. His entire imagination made Haruka smile, almost charmed enough to have forgotten about why he came here in the first place. Almost.

"Konoha," he calls him, and the boy quickly looks at him again. "Um, come here, will you?"

Haruka pats the spot next to him in the soft carpeted floor, but Konoha doesn't go there. He sits across from him of the play table, and waits. Haruka awkwardly clears his throat,

"So, um," he begins, but Konoha's blank stare didn't really encourage him to follow. "Fuyu... Fuyu told me you asked her if she thought you were too clingy to mom?"

Konoha nods, a certain air of sadness filling his expression, "Yes."

"Well then," happy with his honesty (not that he was expecting Konoha to lie), Haruka continues, "Why did you feel like you had to ask her that?"

He looks down, quiet this time.

When it's obvious Konoha wasn't going to answer, Haruka sighs, deciding that enough is enough. It was fine if Konoha didn't want to be seen as too clingy anymore, but going out of his way to avoid his mother was ridiculous and it made everyone involved miserable, so Haruka wasn't going to dance around the subject with him.

"Okay, Konoha, listen," he begins, and Konoha doesn't budge. "You are acting like you're angry with mom when she hasn't done anything to you. That's very unfair, and it makes her feel sad."

It's not like he wants to guilt trip him or something of the sort. Dear god, no. But he needs to know the consequence of this; if he wanted to solve it, then Konoha was going to have to hear about the effect his actions had on Takane.

Konoha immediately looks at him with panic, "B – but! I – I didn't... I didn't want to make mommy sad! I... um..."

Haruka gives him a second, but he stays quiet again. Worriedly, he insists, "Konoha, please tell me what happened."

He blushes a little, his eyes suddenly getting teary eyed. Before Haruka could freak out about it, Konoha gets up from his spot. At first, he thought he was going to run away, but the boy only makes his way towards his school bag at the corner of the room. Confused, but still a little excited this seemed to be progressing, Haruka waits patiently.

Konoha comes back to him with a notebook in hand, and quietly sits next to him to start flipping the pages, until he finds the one he wanted. He moves over the notebook so his dad can see it, and Haruka immediately sees it's a normal page with activities. This one seemed to be graded, so he happily points out the smiley face at the top of the paper,

"Oh, Konoha, you did well!" he tells him, but Konoha groans a little. "I'm glad~"

"You need to read it."

"Huh?"

"You need to read it!"

Albeit confused, Haruka sees no other option but do as told. He wasn't looking forward to it, really, because figuring out a child's handwriting and all the teacher's corrections on top of it probably wasn't good for his sight.

However, as soon as he finishes reading the assignment, he quickly realizes where it was going. Haruka feels inevitable nostalgia once he reads the word "hero", but he tries to keep focused.

Who is your hero and why? Write at least three reasons and justify them with "because".

My mommy is my hero because she is smart. She is smart because she knows how to bake birthday cakes.
She is my hero because she is brave. She is brave because she isn't afraid of scary movies.
She is my hero because she is nice. She is nice because she always plays with me and makes me feel better when I'm sad.

But most of all, my mommy is wonderful. She is wonderful because she smiles everyday.

Despite the very simple words and reasons, Haruka had to ignore the urge to cry of endearment. Because one way or another, this was apparently the cause of the problem.

And to think this kind of thing is the cause of the situation felt almost ridiculous. He doesn't know how a paper that's filled with so much love can be the cause of any kind of trouble.

"Everyone wrote about singers and stuff," Konoha told him, and Haruka glances up from the essay to look at him. "Shion wrote it about, uuum, Nancy Drew, I think... She got mad when I said I didn't know her..."

"I – I see," Haruka nods, a little confused as to why Seto and Mary's daughter even knows about Nancy Drew, but keeps himself on topic. "So, you wrote this, and...?"

"And my teacher corrected them in class," he went on. "Sh – she really liked mine, because I was the only one who wrote about a relative. So..."

Konoha's eyes filled with tears as he continued speaking, and Haruka, already imagining the rest, quickly puts a hand on his back.

"So she read it out loud, and..." he sniffed, and Haruka couldn't help grimacing. Oh, god. Don't say it. Please, don't say it. "Everyone made fun of me."

Oh, he said it. He said it. Suddenly, Haruka feels like the air was sucked out of his lungs. Oh god, he wanted (needed) Takane here. He doesn't know how to handle this.

"Shion pushed Tanaka-kun in the playground," Konoha continued, as Haruka internally freaked out. "Because he kept calling me a mommy's boy. Then, Shion said, "yeah, so what!?""

"Oh, well–"

"And then she got in trouble because of me! And she also thinks I'm a mommy's boy. And so does big sis and my teacher and everyone," Konoha crossed his arms, pouting. "So I won't be anymore!"

Oh, dear. There was a lot to unpack here. His head was spinning over now having to talk with the teacher, possibly the other kids' parents if they don't leave him alone, Seto and Mary too see what consequences Shion got–

So, sighing, Haruka forced a smile for his son, reassuringly patting his back, "Well, first of all, it's very important that you told me this. Whenever something like this is going on, you have to tell somebody, okay?"

Konoha nods, but doesn't seem to be doing better. Haruka carries on,

"You... really shouldn't be worried about being too clingy to mom or anything," Haruka tells him. "You know! It's really nice that you admire her so much. Mom– well, she hasn't been always appreciated like she deserved. It makes me happy she's receiving proper love now, and it certainly makes her happy as well."

Slightly surprised, Konoha blinks at him, "O – oh..."

Haruka nods, "Don't worry, we'll take care of your classmates teasing you. But please know that they're wrong when they use that to make fun of you. Shion-chan and Fuyu might've agreed that you're clingy to mom, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it? Why would it be bad?"

"I... I don't know..." Konoha's about to wipe his eyes with his sleeve, but Haruka quickly stops him. He didn't have any tissues to offer him though, so he uses his own sleeve instead, putting it against his thumb to do it gently. "I guess you're right..."

"Yep!" Haruka happily says. "So! Um, basically, you don't need to continue being clingy if you don't want to, but please don't be cold with mom, okay? There's really nothing wrong with being close with her."

"Y – yeah," Konoha agrees, staring down at his notebook. Which reminds him–

"And... well, you don't need to show it to her, but I'm sure she'd be happy to read your essay," Haruka offers, but Konoha nervously covers his notebook with his hands, as if protectively. He giggles, "Okay, okay~ don't worry, do whatever you want. Just, please do apologize to mommy, alright?"

"Alright..."

He's glad to see Konoha giving a small smile, one of his typical ones that Haruka was already missing to see. Smiling back, he gets up from the floor, and leaves his side only after gently ruffling his hair.

He steals a last glance of Konoha before getting out of the room.

"Whaaat! Mom, you're super good at this!" Fuyuha's excited voice is the first thing Haruka hears as he makes his way back downstairs, plus a cheerful idol song he knows from her games. "That's a bigger combo than any I've ever made! That's unfair!"

Both sitting on the couch, Takane and Fuyuha apparently played together. Haruka saw Takane holding the tablet he previously saw in Fuyuha's room. Hm, seems she went to get it at some point while he talked to Konoha, and was currently making Takane play the idols game with her.

"Well~ I happen to be skilled at every game I play~"

"Then why do you waste your time with those horrible shooting ones? Yuck!"

"Why do you waste your time with these rhythm games, yuck!"

Ah... it's like they're discussing with a mirror, but somehow they're so different.

Haruka giggles to himself at the sight of them, but before he could say anything to join them, Konoha's suddenly walking past him.

Fuyuha and Takane quickly look at him in confusion, although Fuyuha's pretty quick to decide she wasn't interested. She takes the tablet after realizing her mom wasn't going to keep playing, and once her hands are free, Konoha quietly hands her his notebook, open in the same page of his essay.

Haruka can't see Takane's face from here, since she's sitting on the couch and it wasn't facing his direction, but he sees her shiver a little once she grabs the notebook.

"I'm sorry, mommy."

Smiling, Haruka leans against the door frame of the kitchen, happy to see Takane and Konoha quietly embrace.

"Are you STUPID? Just what were you thinking, reading a child's personal essay like that, without even asking if he was okay with it?!"

As Takane (loudly) made her points, Haruka calmly blew over the steam of the small cup of coffee he was offered in the classroom. Konoha's teacher, a woman around their age, nervously tried to defend herself from the other side of the desk,

"W – well, I just thought it was very sweet of him t – to write about you, so that's why I did it..."

"You do realize that's a garbage reason, right?"

"Mrs. Kokonose, I find that slightly disrespectful–"

"Did you read any of the other essays out loud?"

"W – well, no, but..."

"But what? You literally just took one of your students and threw him into a pit of bullying. What's wrong with you! Are you kidding? How are you even licensed to be a teacher?"

"O – okay, well, we should discuss this as civilized people rather than just–"

"I tried to discuss it as a civilized person and you kept, and keep, simply answering "oh I just thought it was cute that's why I did it!"" Takane hisses, venom in her words as she made a high pitched voice to imitate the teacher. The other woman simply blushes. "Seriously, how is it that you can't even admit you're wrong? You better call every single one of the parents of the children who bullied my son so I can DISSECT THEM–"

"Takane."

Takane clears her throat, "Discuss. Things with them."

The teacher helplessly looks over at Haruka after she sees how easily he got her to change her wording, "S – sir, could you please calm down your wife?"

Oh, man. She really shouldn't have said that. Haruka only sends a sorrowful smile her way, almost feeling sorry for her. Takane, pretty much possessed by this point, looks at her as raging fury darkened her eyes, "Oh, so the man has to calm his hysterical wife down, huh?"

"Oh, well–"

And like that, Haruka quietly sipped on his coffee as Takane continued to practically spit fire on a teacher's face.

Chapter Text

Fuyuha loves sleeping.

Sure, it's a nightmare to actually get her to bed (ha! Get it? Nightmare! Because the subject is sleep!) but that's just because she has a really good time playing and hanging out when she's awake. It's not her fault!

However, as soon as she gets tucked in, she is gone to the world. Sleep time is sacred! Everyone agrees!

And with this being the case, then this dumb storm shouldn't prevent her from getting rest at all, right?

Wrong.

Fuyuha's sure it's been like an entire hour since her bed time, and she's still rolling around in bed trying to sleep. Ugh.

Her dumb window won't stop shaking against the strong wind, and there's thunder and the rain is incredibly loud. She thought it'd be over by now, but the storm was being really persistent.

Not that she's scared, though. She really isn't. She's seven already! She's not afraid of storms or anything of the like because she's mature enough now. But, god are they loud.

She lets out a breath of frustration as she once again rolls over in her bed, covering her head with her pillow to cancel out the noises and just fall asleep already.

But that's when she hears a pretty creepy sound; a door creaking open. Her door creaking open.

Now, sure, the thunder is loud, but it's just thunder. Her dad explained to her how it works, and thunder isn't out to hurt anyone. Not on purpose, anyway! It's just rain and it makes lightning in the sky which is pretty cool. She really likes when the sky flashes in white before going BOOM! with some lightning.

But her door creaking open? Yeek, that's some scary stuff. It's most likely her parents coming to check on her or something, but not being able to think clearly, she can't help the shiver coming up her spine. Doors creaking open were all over that horror movie her mom totally didn't watch with her behind her dad's back after he said "there's no way Fuyu's watching that, she's too little." If anyone asks, mom absolutely didn't tell Fuyuha that dad's a wet blanket and way too scared of horror movies himself.

Anyway, in that movie she totally didn't watch with her mom, there's a lot of creaking doors. It's... a scary sound.

So Fuyuha can't help holding tightly on the pillow that was already over her head, her body jumping slightly after the door closes again.

"Big sis?"

And then, a voice.

A very, very unthreatening voice.

Fuyuha immediately sits up, getting the pillow off her face, "Konoha?"

Surely enough, her three year old brother is standing in front of the closed door, tightly holding his stuffed triceratops against his chest and holding a little blankey around himself, including his head, making him look like a tiny nun... a tiny nun with a dinosaur themed robe. He looked down.

Her face immediately softens, quickly realizing what might be wrong. Unlike her, Konoha is little, so he must be scared of all the noise the sky was making.

"Are you scared of the rain, Konoha?" she questions him, and he immediately nods. "Why didn't you go to mom and dad's room instead?"

She's not sure that's an insensitive question or not. Not that she really thinks about it, though. It just seemed weird he'd opt for her room rather than mom and dad's.

"It's..." Konoha begins, his voice small. He buries half of his face on the plushie, making his voice muffled, "It's too far away."

"Ahh..." Fuyuha nods. Well, that was fair. Mom and dad's room is all the way to the end of the hall, whereas her room is right next to Konoha's. It's not like it's a long hall, but with Konoha's baby steps it must be huge. Also, it's pretty dark out there.

Hmph. Well, it seems like it's Fuyuha's time to shine as the amazing big sister she is.

"Well, do you wanna stay here with me?" she moves aside, and pats the space next to her in bed.

Konoha immediately nods, since he's a man of few words, but seeing how he quickly brightens up as he hurries to climb her bed, Fuyuha sees he's thankful.

She tucks him in next to her with her own blankets, despite the fact Konoha and his triceratops took a big part of her mattress now. It doesn't matter, it's a big sister's sacrifice after all! Also, Konoha's super warm and maybe it'll help her sleep as well.

"Y – you don't have a night light, big sis?"

Ah, so demanding.

"Of course I don't! I'm not a baby anymore, Konoha," she lays back next to him, teasing him the usual way. Normally, at this, Konoha would puff up his cheeks and start insisting he is not a baby! But instead, he simply pulls the covers higher on his face, and he makes a sound that reminds her of a puppy crying.

She frowns. He must be really scared...

On top of that, he adds, "But it's so dark..."

Ahhh! Then say no more! It really is her duty to take care of her little brother. Fuyuha leans over Konoha to reach her bedside table, and opens her drawer. He watches her with attention, and his puppy face gets turned around when he sees her holding up a flashlight, "Whoa, big sis, that's so cool!"

"I know, right! Mom and dad let me keep it after that camping trip," praying for the batteries to not have ran out, Fuyuha presses the button, and to the pleasure of both the flashlight turns on. Konoha sits up with her, and beams, "See!"

Almost on an instinct, Fuyuha points the light at the wall, putting her free hand in front of it. The shadow quickly shows it, and when she closes her hand in a way it looked like it was talking, Konoha giggles.

"See, now it's a dog!" she says, holding up her index and pinky to make the ears. "Woof, woof, woof!"

Konoha, apparently forgetting all about how scared he was, seemed to find that absolutely hilarious. Oh, young children and their silly humor, seven year old Fuyuha thinks.

"Can you make a shadow dinosaur, big sis?"

"Ah, um... errr..." as Fuyuha tried to figure out how could she make her hand do a shadow dinosaur, a particularly loud strike of lightning shakes up the sky, making even her jump in surprise.

Konoha immediately wraps himself in all the covers he can take, as Fuyuha looked out her window in shock.

"Wooow, the wind is so strong outside!" she pressed her face against the glass in amazement. "There's even leaves and stuff flying around! You know! One of my friends at school told me a storm blew down a tree close to her house!"

"Ahhh!" Konoha whines, reminding her that he's not as fond of the cool storm as she is. Well, not that she's really fond either. It's not letting her sleep, after all. "What if it blows away our  house!"

"Hehehe, don't be silly, houses can't be blown away!" Fuyuha says, but then considers it. She puts her hand on her chin for a thinking pose. "Hm. Well, maybe they can!"

Konoha, most probably crying, whines again inside of the ball of covers he's made.

But Fuyuha was still thinking about whether the house blowing away is possible or not, "Hmm, guess we should ask mom and dad."

And that seemed to make Konoha realize there's a request he should've made since the beginning: "B – big sis, take me to mom and dad!"

"Oh!" Fuyuha lets go of the window, and shoots him a smile. "Alright then! Let's go, big sister Fuyu is taking you to them!"

She takes her flashlight in one hand, and Konoha's own on the other, helping him off the bed. Somehow, he did not let go at all of his blankey nor plushie. And so, the siblings are off on the quest of finding their parents! Who are simply at the end of the hall!

Konoha follows her closely behind as she opens and closes the door, illuminating the way for both of them. She thinks that's funny, because if anything, being behind is probably scarier! If there was a monster luring in the darkness, it'd take Konoha first! She was about to share that helpful thought that would obviously not horrorize her little brother, but Konoha's faster to talk,

"Wh – what's that sound?" he whispers, and Fuyuha rolls her eyes.

"Well, the rain, duh!"

"B – but it doesn't sound like rain."

She was about to tell him he was probably imagining things, but then she hears it as well. Footsteps– and water flushing down. Oh, wow! Maybe the house did get blown away! And right now they're flying in some sort of water tornado!

Fuyuha was also about to share this very non alarming thought that wouldn't have terrorized Konoha even more either, when a door next to them swings open, and scares the absolute soul out of them.

And also the person behind the door. Everyone screams. That is, including their mother. Who was just stepping out of the toilet and probably wasn't expecting to see two tiny people creeping around in the dark hall.

"Oh! See, Konoha! It was just the toilet!" Fuyuha helpfully clarifies, as she calmed down pretty quickly. Takane, however, didn't take it as easily. 

She places a hand over the left side of her chest, most likely feeling the rush her heart was in, "Jesus christ, you two almost gave me a heart attack! Wh – what are you doing out of bed!?"

She turns the lights on, making Fuyuha reluctantly turn off her flashlight. Now that the light was on, Konoha seemed to regain the confidence to smile.

"Mommy!" he wastes no time, and immediately lets his plushie and blankey hit the floor as he charged for his mother. "Mommy, the rain is so loud!"

"A – ahhh..." Takane quickly places her hands over Konoha's head, leaning over a little bit, but clearly not being able to duck because of how tightly the little boy held on her legs. "You're also scared of the storm?"

"Yes!"

Fuyuha raises an eyebrow. What does she mean by "also"?

Suddenly, another loud discharge of lightning rings through the house, and even if it made Fuyuha jump as well, it doesn't compare to the way her mother crumbles down to the floor to also suffocate Konoha back with a hug.

Konoha, most likely believing the hug to be protective, just hugs her back as he trembles, not noticing how she was also trembling herself. Fuyuha, however, does notice.

And as any sensitive daughter would do, she exposes her mother's weakness to her little brother, "Konoha, I think mom's as scared of the storm as you are!"

"Huh?" with teary eyes, Konoha pulls away from his mommy just slightly. "B – but she's old."

"Hm. That's true. Mom, how can you be scared of the storm if you're so old?"

"First of all, shut up. Second of all," Takane runs a hand across her face, tiredly. "I am not scared."

"Ehhh!? You were shaking and stuff!"

"I – I was just pretending..." she says, but Fuyuha and Konoha just stare at her. Without smiles and without knowing eyes, they simply stare with poker faces. Seeming more nervous by the second, that seemed to be enough for Takane to let out a sigh of defeat, "Fine. Okay. Mom's a little scared."

"But how! You're so o–"

"Stop calling me old! There's no age to feel scared, you know?"

"Ahh, really?" Fuyuha felt herself get lost in thought. "Then... how come I'm not scared? Is it not because I'm a big sister?"

"N – no, Fuyuha's probably brave on her own," Takane mumbles, and Fuyuha immediately feels her confidence boost to a million. She already had a lot of confidence, too, so that says something.

Awww, jeez, alright! If it's this way, it's not like she has any other choice but to take care of her mom and her little brother~ Hehehe...

Hm, thinking of how old mom is, she probably has her own ways of dealing with scary storms, right? She's got years of experience! Lots and lots of them. So, Fuyuha guesses it makes sense to simply ask mom what she usually does so Konoha can do it too, and everyone will be happy!

"Mom, what do you usually do to be not so scared of the storm?"

"I ask your dad to make his Tamaki Suoh impression so I can laugh."

"What."

"Nothing," mom just hugs Konoha again, this time to pick him up, which he seems to greatly enjoy. He immediately lays his head on the crook of her neck. "All there is to do is sleep until it goes away."

Fuyuha hums, displeased with the boring answer, when there's suddenly a second door opening. The one at the end of the hall.

"Oh," finally making an appearance, dad just smiles from the door of the bedroom. "I see everyone's awake."

Fuyuha points an accusing finger at her brother and mom, "Mom and Konoha are chickens."

"Very mature, Fuyuha."

"I know that, that's why I got worried when mommy took so long to come back to bed!"

"Don't encourage her, Haruka."

"Well, either way, I think all of us are past our bed times," Haruka starts, and Fuyuha can't help feeling confusion. Jeez, so adults can get scared of storms and have bed times? ...Growing up doesn't seem fun at all! "So, let's get going to bed. I'm guessing we'll have two intrudors in our room tonight?"

"Huh? Me?" Fuyuha crosses her arms. "No way! I'm not scared of some rain! I'm too big to be sleeping in my parents' bed!"

"As you wish, Mrs. Mature girl," Takane, without paying that much attention, simply strolled back to the bedroom with Konoha in her arms, who sleepily repeats "Mws. Matuwe giwl" himself.

Hmph, that's right, she is a mature girl. Who cares her parents' bed is super comfy and it's really warm to cuddle with them and it's probably gonna be way easier to sleep there than in her own room with all this noise outside... who cares!

Haruka stares at Fuyuha stubbornly walking back to her own bedroom, and he's unable to avoid feeling worried. He thinks for a second, before seemingly coming up with an idea.

"Hey, Fuyu?"

She turns around to see her dad ducking down (also holding the blankey and plushie Konoha dropped earlier), intrigued by the way he was whispering. Fuyuha really doesn't think about how it's obvious her mom was probably listening anyway, "Hmm?"

"Mommy and Konoha are a handful... it's too much for me alone to take care of them!" he says, and if Fuyuha wasn't so busy seeing his point she would've made fun of the way dad still calls mom "mommy" when talking to her, as if Fuyuha was a baby who calls her mom mommy. "Won't you come here and help me? I bet they'll find it easier to sleep if they know you're safe and sound!"

Hm...

Hmmmm...

Well, her dad is a goof most of the time, but she can't deny he's making a very logical point there. So, just this once, out of logic and the protection of her family– Fuyuha guesses it's alright.

Just this once.

"Okay, coming!"