Chapter Text
"She WHAT?" Joji Kuroo boomed over the house phone at the kitchen table which was covered in papers that were in desperate need of grading. He unknowingly startled his son Tetsurou who was playing just outside with his new volleyball in their backyard beyond the open sliding doors. A summer afternoon breeze wafted into the traditional home and ruffled the papers at the low table, slightly disorganizing them in front of dark eyes that didn't notice.
"Hamano-san, you can't be serious… Why the… How in the…"
Joji was trying very hard not to curse in front of his son who he knew was listening outside because A) Tetsurou was always listening and B) he did not want to be called into another parent/teacher conference to explain why "shit" was in the vocabulary of his nine year old. Thank god that was all he had said in class because the little smarty pants knew a hell of a lot more than that. After the embarrassing meeting, they had discussed why it wasn't okay for him to say those words because they were adult-only words. If he needed special child-friendly expletives then he’d have to stick with "poop," "sugar," "that stinks," or really any other number of non-explicitly offensive words. He could use his imagination if he wanted alternatives.
The closest Tetsurou had gotten to cursing after his warning was saying "darn it" in front of his obaachan when she won a game of shogi off him. Luckily, she was cool and only admonished her own son after Tetsu had run off to play.
"Yes, I understand that but… But how? I thought we had tied all of this up? How can she come back now and… Yes. Yes. This is such bull—" Joji stopped himself as he heard the soft plunking of the volleyball come to a halt.
He lowered his voice.
"Yes, I get that, but she had her chance Hamano-san. Didn't she? She's the one who gave up and signed the papers. We all agreed on full-custody with me and no further involvement beyond—Well, yes. But that shouldn't matter now, right? ...You're joking. Seriously? Fucking hell, of course she did..."
Whelp, he tried.
Joji Kuroo was not a perfect man and he'd be the first to admit it. So if his son repeated that to anyone anytime soon he would be embarrassed again for sure, but it may very well be worth it because he was furious right now. Livid even. He wanted to be a good example as much as he could, but this call with his lawyer was destroying him from the inside out and it wasn't even half over yet.
Joji sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose under his glasses and wild black waves of bedhead.
"Could you… could you hold on a second? I know. Yes, he is, that's why I'm asking," the distressed father sighed again. He covered the phone with his hand and lowered it.
"Tetsurou!"
The sound of shuffling outside in the grass and dirt could be heard before his son's equally messy black bedhead popped up from beyond the porch deck.
"Yea, dad?" He asked innocently, as if he hadn't just been eavesdropping.
"Kiddo, why don't you go play next door for a little while?" Joji offered, his tone softened from the tension he had just moments before. "I heard Kenma-kun got a new game. Maybe you can go check it out."
He really hoped he would take the bait. Tetsurou had a tendency to question everything, which was both the blessing and the curse of being a science professor's son. It often made Joji proud, but almost equally as often made things harder because he had to explain, argue, or defend his decisions as a parent far more than it seemed like others had to do. Miki Kozume next door never had trouble with her son Kenma in that department. That kid was quiet, reserved, but sharp and also very sweet. He did as his mother told him to (at least that's how it seemed from the time they'd lived here and been neighbors), and he hoped his own offspring would take a page from the Kozume book and just do as he was told for once.
"But why?"
Of course but why. It was always but why.
"Because dad has some important, boring adult stuff he needs to discuss on the phone now," Joji said simply.
Please god, let that work. Lawyers were very expensive to put on hold, but he really needed his son to leave so that he didn't catch any more than he already had from the tense conversation.
"I'll be quiet," Tetsurou promised, blinking a few times like he wasn't sure if he had done something wrong to be "kicked out" of the house or not. Usually Joji only asked him to leave when he was at his wit's end or it was nice enough outside that his kid should be out doing things anyway.
"Just for a little bit bud. You didn't do anything, I just need to have a grown up talk with some quiet time, okay?" Kuroo senior explained gently.
Tetsurou seemed relieved that he wasn't in trouble. He grabbed his volleyball from the yard and took off running around the house. Joji heard the fence gate swing open and lock shut again. He sighed in relief, but immediately felt the horrible sense of doom settling back inside him.
"Are you still there Hamano-san? Okay, good. Please tell me you have a plan to get us out of this."
—
"Hey Kenma! Kenma! Kennnnnmmmaaaaa!"
Tetsurou threw another tiny rock up at the second story side window of his next door neighbors' house. It plinked harmlessly against the glass and fell back to the ground. He scrambled over to retrieve it from the bushes for another go, when he heard the familiar sliding sound above.
The little roosterhead peered up with a wide, dirt-smudged grin.
"Hi!" Tetsurou called brightly.
"Hi," his friend said softly down from his bedroom. "What're you doing?"
"Trying to get you to open your window, duh!" Tetsurou laughed, biting his chapped lip with his last baby canine. His grin was currently partially toothless thanks to a few recent lucky wiggles.
"Well, you did it," Kenma stated blankly. His head turned to the side making his black chin length hair hang away from his face. "What do you want?"
"Do you wanna play?" The boisterous little neighbor asked him instead.
"I have a new game," Kenma held up his equally new Game Boy Advance SP that he must have interrupted him playing because Kuroo's sharp ears could faintly hear the blips of 8-bit electronic music lilting out of the window above.
"Yea, that's cool, but I got a new volleyball!"
He held up the already dirt-covered blue and yellow Mikasa VUL-500, youth-weighted, microfiber composite ball of awesomeness.
His friend frowned and lowered his game.
"But it's Zelda…" Kenma said quietly as if that made any difference at all to his non-video game literate friend. Kuroo understood Virtua Fighter and that was about it.
"But Kennnnmmmaaa," Tetsurou whined, slumping his shoulders and dropping the ball from above his head. He looked pretty pathetic down there all by himself.
"Okay, fine…" huffed the eight year old gamer.
"Woohoo! Meet you around back!" The suntanned and bandage-patched kid shouted as he broke for the gate to the Kozume backyard. He loved hanging out with his neighbor buddy now that they had gotten to know each other over the past year. Kuroo didn't dare say it aloud for fear of jinxing it, but they were becoming such good friends that Kenma was close to qualifying for best friend material if he played his cards right.
A few minutes later the Kozume boy came downstairs and padded out to his own backyard porch where he promptly sat down and booted up his game again.
Tetsurou groaned when he realized Kenma had zero intentions of playing with him right now.
"Can't you just do that later?" Little Kuroo asked petulantly as he tossed his ball up and down.
"I could ask you the same thing," Kenma said without looking up from his button-mashing fight with a pesky forest monster.
"We can't play ball when it's dark out!" Tetsurou whined as he began to throw it higher into the air and bump it back up with his forearms. They were already slightly bruised and dirty from earlier.
"Yea, well I can't play my game at night either."
"That is BS Kenma, I can see the glow from your screen at night all the way from my house," Kuroo said, smacking the ball at an off angle and sending it flying off into the yard.
"What's BS mean?" Kenma looked up with a furrowed brow. "And why are you watching me from your room? That's so creepy..."
Tetsu fumbled the ball. He chased after it some more then re-centered himself near his friend again.
"BS is bullsugar," he explained matter-of-factly as he reset his practice solo ball bumping.
"Bullsugar?" Kenma still looked very confused. "What's that even mean?"
"Like, not true."
"...Are you calling me a liar?"
"NO, I'm just saying we all know you play your games at night even after lights out."
"Wow," Kenma said simply, shaking his head and turning back to his game.
"Wow, what?" Now Tetsurou was confused.
"You totally are stalking me," Kenma mused as he hacked and slashed his way through tall grasses to get rupees.
"What's that mean? Stalking?" Kuroo scrunched up his smudged nose as he caught the ball with all ten mostly undamaged fingers.
Kenma cracked the tiniest ornery smile, but didn't break his concentration with the device. For once he knew a word that Kuroo didn't.
"You should know because you're a stalker."
"Come on, Kenma! Just tell me!"
"It means you follow someone around without them really knowing about it. Like a spy, but it's not a good thing. It's creepy," the little gamer explained as he shoved a sword through the heart of an annoying carnivorous plant.
"I'm not doing that!" Tetsurou spat as he frowned deeply at his preoccupied friend. "I can see your window when I'm working with my telescope at night is all... I can't help it," he admitted feeling a bit guilty that this bothered his friend. He didn't even fully realize he was doing it.
Kuroo then bounced the ball up so high he became nervous it would end up on the roof like last time, but instead his mind became distracted by a mysterious noise. Beyond the fence that the Kozume and Kuroo families shared, the children heard the unmistakable sound of someone crying.
The dirty volleyball thudded to the ground.
"Wha… what's that..?" Kenma asked in a hush as he slowly leaned up from his handheld game. His black bangs parting a clear startled look of golden wide-eyed concern and shock. The fighting sounds were drowned out by the game's electronic character death music and the low, heaving sobs that were still echoing up in waves from over the fence.
Tetsurou gulped as he glanced hesitantly and slightly open-mouthed over at the Kozumes' blooming blue and purple hydrangeas along the fence.
It was his father.
And he was definitely, unmistakably upset.
The strange, unfamiliar sounds of sorrow were mixed with the deafening chorus of cicadas and other summer afternoon insects as the sun sank lower in the pink orange clouded sky.
The little roosterhead had no idea why his dad was crying outside in their backyard. Tetsurou had only ever seen his dad cry once before, and that was when he told him that he was divorcing his mother and they had to move. Immediately. It scared him to know there were other things that could scare his dad enough to cry. The Kuroos were not generally criers (because they were laughers), but his dad had always made it clear that it was okay to cry, even if you were a boy. Because boys have feelings too and that's okay.
"Uhm… maybe I should… go check on him," Kuroo glanced over at his friend who was still staring in wide-eyed horror at the fence where the low, soft sniffles and shudders beyond were not letting up.
Kuroo ran at full speed back over to his house, leaving the forgotten volleyball in the Kozumes' backyard.
"...Dad?" Tetsurou ventured cautiously as he padded over dusty, grass-stained, and barefoot to the open sliding door out the back of their house. His father was sitting on the edge of the wooden porch and glanced over immediately when he heard the small voice.
"Tetsu-chan…" His dad said brightly and with slight relief. He palmed off some of his tears, glasses in hand, and smiled, which reassured him just the tiniest bit. "Come sit with me bud."
Tetsurou walked out into the warm, gentle breeze of summer and plunked down on the ledge next to his dad who immediately leaned a lanky arm around him, pulling him into a big side hug. His father sniffed, but squeezed him tight—his large experiment-calloused and healed over fingers pressing into the scrawny tanning arm of his child.
"Sorry about that kiddo. Guess I wasn't as quiet as I thought I was, huh? Dad's just a little… a little emotional today," he sniffed again trying to wipe off more moisture, but gave up and just ran his fingers through his crazed black tresses.
"Why are you sorry? You said it was okay for boys to cry," Tetsu cocked an eyebrow up at him suspiciously, but this actually made his father laugh.
"I suppose I did, didn't I? I'm glad you listen to me sometimes," Kuroo senior ruffled his son's messy black bedhead which was mirroring his own so much more these days. "I did mean that Tetsurou. You don't have to be ashamed ever for that, okay? Crying just means you're human."
The nine year old peered up at his old man who still had drying tears on his face. He seemed more calm now that he was with him, but he still didn't understand.
"What happened dad?" Little Kuroo asked quietly, resting a small hand on his father's knee. It's what his dad always did to comfort him if he had to tell him something hard like explaining how he'd gotten a B on a science test even though he knew he knew it all. Kuroos didn't get B's in science, they were MEN of science as his dad always proudly proclaimed.
Truth be told, Joji didn't care that he had gotten a B. It just warmed his heart to know that his son did care and wanted to be just like him one day.
Right now, however, it was hard for him to look at his child who so innocently stared up at him with eyes just like his own. He was trying to think of the best way to explain to him that no, he would not be attending science camp next week OR coach Nekomata's youth volleyball camp with his friend the following week OR their annual camping trip they had planned on doing together the weekend after that. Instead he had to figure out a child-friendly way to say that his bitch of an ex-wife had goddamn boomed them in court to somehow get the right to have Tetsurou for practically the entirety of summer break regardless of legal custody agreements or what their son wanted or what he had already planned to do with one of his last precious childhood summers.
Fucking hell.
"Why don't we go make dinner, huh?" His dad said instead, trying to buy himself more time.
"But dad—"
"Tetsu-chan, how many times do I have to tell you I'm not a Butt Dad? Maybe a Science Dad or a Nerd Dad or a Weird Dad, but never a Butt Dad!" Joji laughed as he leaned one large hand against the wooden deck, quickly kissed his son's scruffy black hair, then mussed it up even more with an affectionate ruffle.
Tetsurou cracked that wide half toothless signature grin of his and tried to shove the offending hand off.
"Come on, bud. We'll make whatever you want tonight," his dad offered, getting up stiffly.
"Can we have fish tacos?" Tetsu's dark eyes went wide as he scrambled to his feet to chase his father inside.
"You really liked them the other day on campus, didn't you?" Kuroo senior asked with his own signature grin as he opened the freezer door. "Who knew one cheap food truck meal could be so influential," he laughed pulling out some cod that could maybe work.
"What's that word mean?" Tetsurou asked as he washed his little hands in the sink. He always tried to help out with cooking, and if he didn't help he liked watching his dad cut, chop, season, grill, sauté, roast, and prepare their food. Asking questions and learning about what sorts of things were happening chemically to make the ingredients change form into something that tasted so good.
"What does influential mean?" His dad pondered as he pulled out some veggies, marinade, and seasonings. "That's a good question. It means something that has a lot of impact. Something important that has a big effect on something else."
"Like an experiment?"
"Kind of. But it doesn't have to be an experiment. It could be a person or a place or something that happens to you."
"Oh. Okay."
Joji Kuroo's heart sank to the pit of his stomach again as he washed his hands and thawed the fish in the microwave.
This summer would be influential to his son whether he liked it or not. It might even change the person he ends up being in the future because of that wreck of a woman. She already lost full custody of him once, why wasn't that enough? Why did they have to keep giving her second chances when she did nothing to show that she deserved them?
Joji was nervous. Very nervous. But he wanted at least one more blissful summer night before he had to break his son's heart and probably his trust in him too. He felt like a failure for not being able to do more to stop this kind of thing from happening. He honestly thought he HAD done enough, but that clearly wasn’t the case in court.
So they made fish tacos together and laughed about how they tasted nothing like the food truck's, but that was okay because they were decent in their own right. They were Kuroo-style tacos.
Joji Kuroo would make codfish tacos for many years that way as he held onto the memory of his eager nine year old who so earnestly wanted to learn everything he could ever teach him. It would be the last time he remembered seeing the innocent wonder and sparkle reflected in the dark eyes that were so much like his own when they cooked together. Quite honestly, he believed this was because food meant something different to his son after the horrible events of that summer.