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If there’s one thing Kojiro’s learned in his three years of parenthood, it’s that silence is bad. Babbling or giggling? Great, perfect. Screaming or crying? Not ideal, but handleable. But silence?
Silence is when Kojiro knows there’s trouble at hand.
This is something that, despite how well-known of a lesson it is to him by now, is just now reoccurring to Kojiro. He jolts up from where he’s been reclined on the couch, eyes closed and a children’s book held loosely in his grasp—just resting his eyes for a minute, he’d told himself after Kokoro had slipped off his lap and abandoned said book. He’s not sure just how long that ‘minute’ ended up lasting, but at some point in his state of subconsciousness his parental instinct evidently kicked in, setting off alarm bells and informing him that it was way too quiet.
Sure enough, before him on the ground he finds another dozen or so picture books, various toy foods, and a stuffed bunny, but no kid in sight. And, to make matters worse, Kojiro realizes with horror as he glances over at the playpen that there’s no baby in sight either.
“Koko?” he immediately calls out, standing and glancing around the room. After receiving no response, he ducks behind the couch, around the corner, and once quickly down the hall before making his way into the kitchen. When he doesn’t find them playing in the cupboards or trying to use the ice machine, he feels his heart rate pick up just a bit despite common sense telling him not to panic. This isn’t the first time the kids have hidden away somewhere, and it’s not like there are many places to check in their apartment; besides, everything is insanely baby-proofed. Kaoru had even gone so far as to implement a child safety feature in Carla before they’d first brought Kokoro home. Which reminds Kojiro—
“Carla?” he asks into the open air.
“Yes, Kojiro?” Carla responds, the purple LEDs of their home sound system lighting up.
“Where did you last see the kids?”
There’s a pause, then Carla says, “Home security footage last shows Kokoro and Kota in the living room.”
Kojiro huffs. “Yeah, no shit…” he mumbles, running a hand through his hair. But that at least means they didn’t go into either of their rooms and didn’t make some grand escape outside.
“Would you like me to call Master?” Carla suddenly says, making Kojiro jump.
“No! No, no, no, I got this,” he quickly says, though he’s not sure he even believes himself. He moves through the other rooms, looking in the kids’ usual hiding spots and occasionally calling, “Kokoro? Kota? Hellooo?” He checks his and Kaoru’s room, behind all the clothes in their closet, in the bathroom, and, briefly, in both the kids' rooms, not fully trusting Kaoru’s robot to have caught the kids on the baby cams in there. Standing back in the hall, he puts his hands on his hips, panic slowly rising. He hasn’t heard a single sound from either of the kids this entire time, let alone a response to his calls, and he’s checked every place he knows that they could hide or get stuck or hurt in.
His heart skips a beat when he glances up the hall, noticing the closed door at the end that he almost never goes in, and realizes that there is one room he hasn’t looked in yet.
“...Carla,” he says again, nervous.
“Yes, Kojiro?”
“Could you unlock the door to Kaoru’s studio for me?”
Again, a brief pause, and then, “The door to Master Kaoru’s studio is already unlocked.”
“Shit,” Kojiro curses, quickly crossing the hall and swinging open the door to Kaoru’s calligraphy studio, his soul immediately leaving his body at the sight he finds within.
Well. The good news is both kids are there, alive and well. The bad news is. Everything else.
“...Ohhhhh, guys,” Kojiro says slowly, the dad within him forcing him to laugh because literally what else can he do at this point. “What have you done?”
Kokoro turns to him, eyes wide. She smiles slowly, the kind of smile that means she knows she’s done something bad and been caught, before giggling a little. “I colored Kota.”
“Yeah, you sure did,” says incredulously, running a hand over his face because sure enough, Kota is sitting up on the floor in front of a kneeling Kokoro, sucking on the tail of his stuffed cat, waving an arm toward Kojiro, and absolutely drenched in calligraphy ink. His shirt, also soaked in ink stains, has been taken off and discarded onto the tatami mat, which is also covered in ink. Kojiro notes that several of Kaoru’s ink sticks are also littered around the pair, ditched in favor of the premade inks, along with quite a few brushes—Kokoro has always been incredibly thorough with her arts and crafts projects, and this, it seems, was no exception.
“Ahhh, your daddy’s gonna kill me,” Kojiro chuckles, quickly pulling out his phone to snap a picture of Kokoro’s guiltily sweet expression before entering the room, squatting down to fully inspect the damage. If his kid was gonna execute her own creative project on her little brother, the least Kojiro could do was admire the artwork. “What’ve we got here, Koko?” he asks, gesturing to Kota. “Explain your vision.”
“I did a sun, like you,” Kokoro says, pointing to the extra-large smear of ink covering the entirety of Kota’s left shoulder as if it’s obvious.
“Ahhh, I see,” Kojiro says, nodding. Suddenly the discarded shirt makes sense, but the extra ink staining both of his childrens’ hair, faces, and clothes still does not. Nevertheless, Kojiro can’t help the way he feels his heart melt a little at his daughter’s imitation of him, regardless of how he is definitely going to be sleeping on the couch tonight for it. “So you wanted to give Kota a tattoo, like mine?”
Kokoro grins, bouncing up and down a little on her knees, thrilled at her dad’s comprehension. “Yeah!”
“Well, I think it looks great,” Kojiro says, before turning to Kota. “What do you think, little man? You think your sister’s cut out for the tattoo industry?”
Kota merely shoves his stuffed cat further into his mouth, his large pink eyes staring up at Kojiro blankly.
“Oh wow,” Kojiro says, turning back to Kokoro. “He says he loves it so much he’s gonna tip you extra.”
Kokoro giggles once again, fisting hands into her skirt and staining the fabric with even more ink, which reminds Kojiro of the fatherly duties he should probably be carrying out. “Well hey, I love the vision, love the creativity here. But are we supposed to come into Daddy’s studio?”
Kokoro looks up at him. “Noooo,” she says, her eyebrows furrowing.
“And are we supposed to play with Daddy’s brushes and inks?”
“Nuh-uh,” Kokoro says, surveying the room with a frown. “Daddy gonna be so sad!”
“Yup, Daddy will be so sad because he really loves his inks and doesn’t like making a mess with them, huh? ‘Cause then you have to clean it up,” Kojiro explains, putting on his ‘patient and caring father’ voice that Kaoru always makes fun of.
“Yeah… we gotta clean the mess. ‘Cause Daddy get so sad and then we can’t, we can’t—” Kokoro starts, before devolving into a long tangent of toddler babble, gesturing around the room.
Kojiro waits for her to finish, still not totally sure what she said, before saying, “Right. So can you help me clean this up? Then we gotta give the both of you a bath before Daddy gets home.”
“Clean up!” Kokoro says, springing up and starting to gather up the brushes scattered around the mat.
Kojiro sighs before getting to work on cleaning the very expensive ink out of the very expensive brushes and very expensive mat. Kaoru’s home studio is solely for personal pieces, so he keeps all of his non-traditional supplies there—the stuff that’s too rare or personalized to regularly use on commissions. Kojiro doesn’t quite know how big of a loss each of the few inks Kokoro used is going to be, but he knows Kaoru won’t exactly be happy to hear how much of his personal supply got washed down the drain.
Ah, well, Kojiro thinks as he runs the bathtub and does his best making sure his kids don’t track ink anywhere else in the apartment. Kaoru’s put up with Kojiro’s clownery for decades at this point, what’s a little more? It’ll probably be fine.
Probably.
- - -
Kojiro glances up from where he’s reading Kokoro yet another book when he hears the door open. “Ah, hey baby!” he calls. Kokoro, who until then had barely been keeping herself awake in Kojiro’s arms, brightens up instantly and slides away from Kojiro to go bolting through the apartment straight into Kaoru’s arms.
“Daddyyyyyy!” she squeals as Kaoru lifts her up.
“Hi, sweet one,” Kaoru coos, setting his skateboard aside so he can brush the hair from Kokoro’s face. “Did you have fun with Dad today?”
Kokoro nods enthusiastically.
“Yeah? What’d you get up to?”
Kojiro takes that as he cue to push himself off the couch and join them. “Oh, just the usual. Books, toys, TV, cooking,” he intervenes as he takes Kaoru’s skateboard and plugs her- it- in before leaning in to kiss Kaoru’s cheek. “How ‘bout you? How’d it go today?”
“It went well, nothing too out of the ordinary,” Kaoru says, which Kojiro mentally celebrates because that at least meant Kaoru isn’t already grouchy.
“Dad made dinner,” Kokoro informs Kaoru matter-of-factly.
Kaoru chuckles at that—Kojiro always makes dinner. “That’s good,” he comments before carrying her into the kitchen, Kojiro trailing tentatively after them.
Kaoru pauses when he sees the skillet sitting on the stove, turning to raise his eyebrows at Kojiro. “Carbonara?”
Kojiro just smiles awkwardly; he’s never been stellar at subtlety.
Kaoru sets Kokoro down, telling her to go play while they get dinner ready, before turning back to Kojiro and crossing his arms. “What happened.”
Kojiro breaks immediately. “So, the kids are fine! Carla’s fine!” he starts explaining. “I already put Kota down for bed and Kokoro’s all good. No one’s, uh, hurt or anything. Carla isn’t, like, broken.”
“It’s impossible to physically break her because she’s an AI not a robot , but sure. Continue,” Kaoru says, expression growing sterner.
“So. Um. The kids may have. Gotten into your calligraphy stuff.”
“What? ” Kaoru hisses, quiet enough that Kokoro won’t hear but forceful enough to make Kojiro cower a bit.
“Koko… wanted to give Kota a tattoo to match mine. So she used your ink. And brushes. And. Stuff.”
Kaoru breezes past Kojiro in an instant, sights set on his studio. Kojiro chews his lip for just a second before following after, accepting his fate.
The most obvious and immediate evidence of the crime is the ink staining the tatami where, try as he might, Kojiro couldn’t quite get the marks all the way out. Kaoru pinches the bridge of his nose at the sight, exhaling heavily.
Kojiro steps carefully past him and over to a table where he’s laid out all the supplies Kokoro had used, figuring Kaoru would want to know.
“So…” he starts gently, and Kaoru pins him with a glare, a vein on his forehead already popping. Kojiro holds up the first bottle, explaining, “She used this ink.”
“Oh my god.”
“And this one…”
“Oh my god. ”
“And this brush...”
“Oh my god. ”
“And… Well, you get the picture. She used these.”
Kaoru steps next to Kojiro, quickly taking in the stock of things Kokoro has tainted before asking, incredulously, “How did they even get in here!?”
“The door wasn’t locked,” Kojiro answers simply.
“And where were you?”
“Well, so you know how last night Kota wouldn’t sleep? And so I kept getting up for him, and so I didn’t really sleep much either, so I was really tired today, and-”
“Oh my god, I’m divorcing you,” Kaoru interrupts, eyebrows raised at Kojiro.
“I’m so sorry Kaoru,” Kojiro says, hoping his tone conveys the guilt he sincerely feels. “I know how much this stuff means to you, and most of it’s like, irreplaceable. I should’ve kept a better eye on the kids, they never should have gotten here in the first place, let alone used so much of your nice stuff…”
Kaoru remains unimpressed, staring at Kojiro. When it’s clear he doesn’t have a response, Kojiro rubs his neck and tries, “They were really cute, though. I took a picture, if you wanna see…’
Kaoru’s scowl deepens for a moment, but eventually he huffs and holds out his hand. “Show me.”
Kojiro scrambles to take his phone out of his pocket, swiping to find the picture he’d snapped of the two kids on the floor, covered in ink, Kokoro with brush still in hand.
“Oh, that’s so much ink,” is Kaoru’s immediate response, and Kojiro’s starting to think showing him the picture may have actually been a mistake when Kaoru also asserts, “That’s cute. Send it to me.”
Kojiro grins, tapping at his screen to text Kaoru the photo.
“I’m still divorcing you though,” Kaoru says.
Kojiro slips his phone back in his pocket, taking Kaoru gently by the shoulders and running his hands down Kaoru’s biceps. “I know, baby. I really am sorry… I made you carbonara.”
Kaoru’s eyes narrow, but then he huffs, reluctant. “It better be the best god damn carbonara you’ve ever made me.”
And Kojiro isn’t so sure about that. But it does the trick well enough.