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Gakushuu looked up when he heard a car park in the driveway. That would be a perfectly normal thing (or maybe not, given the hour) if he had been at his own house. But he wasn’t, he was at Karma’s house, and the redhead had left to get snacks at the konbini while he finished his homework. Obviously, it wasn’t Karma coming back, he didn’t have a car. He got up and moved to the opposite bedroom to peer outside the window (Karma’s bedroom’s window overlooked the garden). His eyebrows shot up. The car was actually a brightly decorated van, and two people were coming out of it, dragging overflowing bags and suitcases with them.
It took the man unlocking the front door for Gakushuu to register who they probably were.
Karma’s parents.
Crap. What was he supposed to do? Stay hidden? They definitely were Karma’s parents, they had the keys, the man had bright red hair, and the whole van and endless luggage thing fit well with what Karma told him of them.
“Woohoo! Karma, we are home, dear!” he heard, making him wince more, and retreat back to the bedroom.
He took out his phone and quickly shot his boyfriend a text. “I think your parents are here,” He didn’t have to wait long for the reply. “I know. Look behind you,” Gakushuu turned around and raised unimpressed eyebrows upon seeing Karma at the window. He strode over to him to open it, letting him in. “It’s not because you followed a non-standard curriculum in middle school that you should scale every building you see,” he scolded.
“Didn’t want to go through the front door. What a pain, couldn’t they just stay gone for a couple more years?” he hissed.
“Do they...Not warn you before coming back? Didn’t you know?”
“They probably did but I bin all their postcards, and we don’t really call or text. They like the concept of letters over instant communication. Whatever, they’ll be gone in a couple of weeks or so. Last time I managed to get them to go earlier, but I did read their cards back then, so I had time to prepare…” He mindlessly nibbled on the tip of his thumb, eyebrows furrowed. Gakushuu wasn’t sure he wanted to know what he did to ‘get them to go earlier’, especially with time to prepare. He wouldn’t put it past him to booby-trap the entire house.
Karma looked up, golden eyes focused on Gakushuu. He seemed to take in all his features, the grinding of his mind’s gears almost audible.
“Shuu, would you do something for me?” he asked with a widening grin.
“...What would that something be?”
“Buy me some time. Pretend to be me,”
“What? We don’t look that much like each other, and I can’t act like you, and-”
“But that’s the glorious part, Shuu! Picture this, you are an absent parent, you are back home after four years of being gone, the last time you saw your kid he was 12, and you barely saw him because you were too busy dealing with the grasshoppers. And before that, you were gone for three years, and the last time you saw him he was 9 and in the hospital. You-”
“They left while you were still in the hospital? From your meningitis, when you lost your hearing? Wait, and what grasshoppers?”
Karma waved it all off.
“Not relevant, Shuu. So anyway, you come home, and there’s this super stern kid, and you are sure it’s not your kid, but he calls you mum and dad and acts like he is your kid. You don’t have a single picture on your phone where your kid is older than 9 so you can’t check. What would you do? You can’t actually ask him to prove he is your kid, come on, that would just be the final nail in your worthless parent coffin. What proof can they even ask for? ‘Tell us about a common memory we all have’? I would barely be able to answer this question. Come on, Shuu, just for a bit while I draw a battle plan!”
Karma gave him his brightest smile and Gakushuu felt the little resolve he had waver. They could always say it was a prank afterwards, it wasn’t like he was risking anything…
“Fine, what will you do in the meantime?”
“Obviously not order 3 000 live grasshoppers, the shipping delay is too long, so I need to think about it. Keep them busy until you think the gig is up for sure, or until I give you a signal, alright?”
Gakushuu decided he definitely didn’t want to hear about that grasshoppers thing.
“Karma! We were starting to think you didn’t want to come and greet us!”
Gakushuu froze as Karma’s parents turned towards him upon hearing him come downstairs. They stared at him in confusion and he felt like he had to say something.
“Uh, yes, I didn’t want to, but here we are now so...Hello, father, mother,”
What did Karma even call his parents?
Karma’s mother’s face lit up, completely glossing over him saying he didn’t want to greet them...And also over the fact that he wasn’t their son. She came to him and he recoiled but that didn’t deter her, patting his cheek affectively.
“Growing out of your teenage moods already! Right, Tada? Remember the last time? Calling us ‘Miiko’ and ‘Tadahisa’ with his little glare!” she laughed and he pulled away from her, as she hadn’t stopped the incessant tapping of his cheek.
“Yes, right, yes, well, it was time, wasn’t it? Growing up, maturing, it’s a good thing Karma. Though, hm, have you...Done something to your hair?”
It was both the most stupid and the less stupid thing he has heard from Karma’s parents so far and Gakushuu wasn’t too sure how he should reply. Wait, maybe they were pranking him? Maybe they were fully aware he wasn’t Karma, but pretending to believe it for fun? Maybe Karma got it from them after all...Though he hardly saw how he could have gotten anything from parents he saw an average of two weeks every three years at best.
“No,” he finally answered.
“...Ah. Your, well, your eyes though...You are wearing lenses, aren’t you? Aah, wait, I see what it is,” Akabane father wagged his finger at him playfully. “It’s all a prank, isn’t it?”
The gig was up sooner than Karma thought it would be, it seemed.
“Ooh, yes!” Akabane mother seemed to have a sudden realisation. “Wearing lenses and changing your hair to mess with us! But don’t think I would have forgotten about your beautiful golden eyes, Karma!”
Mother, you have literally forgotten about my entire face and personality.
Gakushuu bit his tongue so he wouldn’t say that, and just let out an awkward laugh.
“Yeah...Good prank, isn’t it?” he deadpanned.
They stared and he stared and an uncomfortable silence settled around them as they obviously expected him to take off his lenses and maybe wig if he was wearing one. Obviously, he couldn’t do either, so he just stared back.
The silence got to Karma’s mother who clapped her hands together. “Well! We should keep unpacking aaaand Tada, why don’t you tell Karma...The thing,” she winked at her husband, who winked back. “Oh. Right. Yes. The thing,”
It was wild how demonstrative and seemingly full of love they were, while being absolutely unable to recognize their own son. He was fairly sure that even if he put on golden lenses and a red wig, their teacher wouldn’t be fooled, let alone their friends. Karma and he simply didn’t have the same face, and certainly not the same body language, voice… General way of being.
He supposed there were many shades of shitty parents.
He recoiled again when Karma’s father tried to wrap his arm around his shoulders, and the man gave up easily.
“See, Karma, you’re sixteen now, all grown up, all mature, independent...Pretty much a little adult already, yes? So your mother and I were thinking...You could come with us. On our next trip, you could come. No worries about your school, we’d find a way, distance learning, whatever, you are a smart boy, I don’t doubt for a second you will-”
“No!”
Gakushuu paled at what he just said. It came out quicker than he could think it, but he didn’t mean to take such an important decision for Karma. Of course, he didn’t want the redhead to leave, but... Fuck. What if Karma had wanted to say yes? Surely that was still fixable. He doubted Karma would say yes but maybe…
“I need to think about it, I’ll be in my room,” he finally said before escaping, not leaving any time for the man to say anything.
He pretty much burst into the room, making Karma raise his eyebrows as he looked over his laptop’s screen.
“Busted?” the redhead asked. “Good timing anyway, I was finishing,”
“No, they did not bust me, though they think I’m you but disguised. So I guess they have your hair and eyes colour memorised,”
“A warm wave of love washes over me,” Karma said flatly.
“They want you to come, next time,”
That made Karma pause.
“It was just an offer, but I didn’t really want to take that decision for you...Actually I said no at first, then that I needed to think, so hopefully I didn’t-”
“Should have stuck with the no, Shuu. Why would I want to go? I’ve been to Space, they can hardly take me anywhere more impressive than that,” Karma laughed. “Besides, what would you possibly do without me? I don’t want to feel responsible for your inevitable descent into boredom and unleashed arrogance if I’m gone, so alas I have to say. What a shame, uh?” his grin certainly didn’t seem to think it was a shame. “Anyway, I need one more favour, if you allow me...Think you could keep some of my things at your house for a bit? Probably just...A week or two. For safekeeping,”
Gakushuu discreetly breathed out. He resented the assumption that he would ‘descend into boredom and unleashed arrogance’, but at least Karma was staying. Stupid of him to have thought otherwise anyway.
And he certainly didn’t want to know what the redhead was planning to need his things to be kept elsewhere. The less he’d know, the better. Plausible deniability and all of that.
“Alright,” he nodded.
Karma grinned even wider if that was possible, and leaned in to kiss the tip of his nose, making his cheeks burn. “You’re the best,”