Work Text:
“This is a bad idea . . .”
The tiled wall was cold against her skin. It was still dark within the kitchen, but the rising sun cast long and warm shadows through the huge windows, and the rays of light gave a wondrous glow to the young boy in the high-chair. There was enough light to see the green in his eyes, as well as the flush to his chubby cheeks, and his small hands clapped together in a clumsy and irregular rhythm, as he chanted: ‘Da, Da, Da’. Jacqueline watched from afar.
Mantaro carefully turned the high-chair, so that Masaru was perfectly positioned. A photograph lay underneath a refrigerator magnet, one just behind his little head, and it depicted Mantaro at the same youthful age in the same high-chair and in the same kitchen. The two both bore the same brown locks, along with similar masks, but the main difference between them was the difference in expressions. Mantaro always smiled when there was little to smile about, masking his pain with good humour, but there was something sharper in Masaru, something colder . . .
He seemed to watch the world with a calculating interest, and – even with his youth – there was an intelligence that could match any adult. At present, Masaru was casting his eyes between the bowl of spaghetti held by his father and the folded arms of his mother . . . look to one, look to the other . . . look to one, look to the other . . . it was as if he were aware of the discrepancy in their expressions. Jacqueline suppressed a smile, even as Mantaro finally settled on the position of the high-chair and moved to adjust the camera on the tripod with his one free hand.
The bowl of spaghetti – still in his other hand – lingered near Masaru. A spark lit itself in those green eyes, as the chant of ‘Da, Da, Da’ grew louder, and a chubby set of fingers slowly reached itself toward the bowl . . . they paused a few inches from the ceramic . . . Masaru looked at the face of his father, smirked, and carried on forward. He was almost touching the spaghetti when Mantaro noticed him and snatched the bowl away with a huffed:
“Hey, it’s not time yet!”
Masaru glared. It was a look beyond his years, as his green eyes narrowed and cheeks puffed out, and – placing his hands on his hips, as if in an approximation of Mayumi – pointed towards the bowl of spaghetti and said in a loud voice: ‘hungry’. Mantaro glared back. The expression lasted maybe a second or two at most, before his shoulders sagged and his head dropped forward, and his free hand came up to massage at his temple. Jacqueline smiled, as Mantaro fought to win the Mexican standoff against a toddler to whom he could never say ‘no’.
“You know it won’t work,” said Jacqueline.
“Of course it’ll work!” Mantaro beamed. “I have a photograph at his exact age of me throwing a bowl of spaghetti over my head, so it’s got to be something kids do. Maybe I can coax him into doing it? He’s a clever kid, it’d be easy to teach him to do something like that.”
“Don’t even think about it, Mantaro! I still like going to restaurants and visiting family; I’m not forfeiting a social life because you taught our son to wear his food instead of eating it, especially when there isn’t much chance he’ll throw it over his head otherwise. He inherited your appetite and my intelligence; he’s too hungry and clever to waste food.”
Jacqueline walked near to the highchair. Masaru shifted gears, as his eyes went wide and his lip trembled, and – with forced hiccup sounds – pointed a trembling finger towards the bowl of spaghetti and whispered: ‘food’? It would have broken a weaker person. A high-pitched sound of pain broke from Mantaro, who jumped from foot to foot and thrust the bowl towards their son and back again, as if genuinely torn between stopping the puppy-dog eyes and continuing his quest for the perfect picture. Jacqueline bit her lip to hold back a smile. Mantaro mumbled:
“Well . . . what if he does it all by himself?”
“If he does it himself, fine,” replied Jacqueline. “Just grab a photograph and don’t make a big deal about it, in case he thinks you’re encouraging him, but I know our son pretty well. He’s only going to take handfuls and try to eat it normally . . . no pouring it over his head.”
“He might . . .”
“He won’t.”
“Yeah, but he might.”
“Yes, but he won’t.”
“Look, we all agreed we’d get photographs of our kids doing the stuff we did as kids. It’ll be such a great gift for everyone on Mother’s Day! It wouldn’t be such a big deal if Momma hadn’t invited Natsuko and Alisa and Mari around, but with everyone here -? We need to do something way better than our normal gifts and cards! They’re going to freak when they see the side-by-side framed photos of our kids doing the stuff that we did. It’ll be so cool!”
“Okay, I understand the principal of what you guys are doing,” said Jacqueline. “It’s honestly sweet that your parents will get the double-whammy of your old baby photos and new pictures of the grandchildren, but it’s just not practical and it’s too messy, that’s all.”
Mantaro dropped the bowl of spaghetti onto the highchair. He spun around with his finger raised, as he opened his mouth to make an argument for his case, but – no sooner did he look to Jacqueline – Masaru grabbed handfuls of spaghetti and shoved them into his mouth. The toddler made the expected mess, but at no point did the bowl go over his head. A series of yelps and squeals echoed out, along with the word ‘yum’ spoken over and over, and Mantaro dropped his eyes to the floor, as an obvious pout stole across his thick lips. Jacqueline smiled and said:
“See, I told you.”
“Well, sorry that I wanted to do something super awesome.” Mantaro huffed. “I mean everyone does that thing of recreating their baby photos as adults, and it’s basically a cliché at this point, but who gets their kids to recreate those photos instead and does a compare-and-contrast?”
“No one,” said Jacqueline. “There’s a reason for that.”
Mantaro opened his mouth again. He stopped. A half-smirk pulled at his mouth, as he slowly turned his head to cast his gaze towards their son, and – with a cheeky grin – reached with very tentative hands towards that bowl and chuckled as he got ever closer and closer. It was a look that very few knew how to decipher, but one familiar enough that Jacqueline instinctively stepped between her son and husband, as her arms folded beneath her chest. The painted lips pursed into a fine line, as she locked eyes with Mantaro and spat out:
“Don’t you dare!”
“Aw, come on, he won’t –”
“You are not pouring spaghetti over my baby’s head!”
“Hey, he’s our baby and –”
“He’s only ‘our’ baby when you’re not giving him a spaghetti marinara bath!”
Jacqueline spun around and hoisted Masaru into her arms. The boy rested nicely against her hip, with his mouth and face bright red from the tomato sauce, and even his little suit – gifted by Ikemen – was stained like something from a crime-scene. He bounced happily while babbling the incoherent words that only a baby could comprehend, and leaned as far as he could towards the large bowl of spaghetti with great flexibility and determination.
It took effort and concentration to keep him from the bowl, while still being close enough to Mantaro for a serious conversation, but – despite all her attempts – every word that came close to falling from her lips was broken with ‘hungry’ and ‘food’. The beating of her heart picked up speed, as she continually turned to keep Masaru from the bowl and Mantaro in sight, and her nostrils flared with every breath, as the vein in her temple throbbed. After so many aborted sentences and increasingly terse exclamations, her attention finally waned just too much.
Masaru grabbed at the spaghetti bowl. The loud cry of ‘mine’ was the last thing she heard, before the bowl of spaghetti came flying towards her and landed upside-down upon her head. The world turned crimson for a brief second. A warm mixture of marinara and spaghetti soaked into her hair and soaked into her clothes, while meatballs dropped and bounced all around the floor, and Masaru – squealing with laughter – clapped his hands and yelled out ‘Mama monster’.
Mantaro laughed.
He grabbed at his camera and stole a photograph, all while doubled over with laughter, and that laughter brought more laughter from Masaru, until it went on and on and on in an endless cacophony that pierced her eardrums and boiled in her veins. The adrenaline coursed through every inch of her body, as her knuckled turned white and eyes narrowed into mere slits, and each breath was hissed and shallow and cold. Jacqueline slid Masaru back into his highchair, before she carefully placed her hands on her hips and said in a slow voice:
“You have five seconds to run, Mantaro. Five, four, three –”
Mantaro ran. The chuckles and giggles followed him into the corridor, where – with his usual predictability – he ran straight towards the bedroom door of his parents. Jacqueline turned back to Masaru for a brief second, only to turn back when a memory flooded her senses: ‘we can’t babysit today, sweetie, as we need some alone time’. A dark smile brought a blush to her cheeks, as she took out her phone and switched to camera mode and playfully shushed Masaru.
A quick wave of the hand brought over a servant, who took Masaru into their arms and swept him away, and – after draping a towel over her shoulders – she sneaked out into the hallway and retraced Mantaro’s footsteps, until she was hidden around a corner just out of sight. Jacqueline aimed the camera towards an oblivious Mantaro, who knocked loudly on the bedroom door and bounced on the balls of his feet. There was no response from inside. Mantaro frowned and knocked again, as he waved his camera above his head and called out through the door:
“Hey, Pops, you’ll never guess what photograph I’ve got!”
He waited outside. The servants were absent from the corridor, which was suspiciously quiet aside from the occasional groans from inside the master bedroom, and Jacqueline – shifting herself to get a good look at both husband and door – prepared to take the perfect photograph of both his reaction and the inside of the bedroom. Mantaro was visibly tense, with his muscles tight and tendon in his neck thick, but he simply tapped his foot against the immaculately kept floorboards and knocked again. This time he shouted with obvious frustration:
“Are you ignoring me? Sheesh!”
He opened the bedroom door. It was difficult to discern the strange shape inside at first, with an eerie mass of limbs and flesh occupying the floor before the four-poster bed, but soon her eyes focused and so did the lens of the camera. Suguru was on all fours, while Bibimba knelt behind him in a Buffaloman costume (complete with a perm and temporary dye-job), and wearing a leather harness that kept a certain something in place as they ‘wrestled’.
Mantaro screamed.
It took a good second or two for the scream to be expelled, as – initially – he was frozen in place with his eyes locked on the explicit tableaux, but soon the cry penetrated the air and echoed all around the corridor. He slammed shut the bedroom door, just as Suguru and Bibimba turned with white faces and opened mouth to look in his direction. He winced. He retched. A pair of hands swiped at his face and covered his eyes, while Jacqueline snapped a few more shots.
Mantaro eventually stopped, while he chanted out: ‘ew, ew, ew’. It was Jacqueline’s turn to laugh. The sound broke through the panicked cries from within the bedroom of ‘it’s not what it looks like’, along with the sobbing sounds of a disgusted young man, and soon a few servants poked their heads into the corridor, only to signal the guards away from the apparent family drama. The guards appeared regardless. Mantaro waved a hand to keep them away, even as he dragged his feet over to Jacqueline and spat her tongue out with a childish face. He shouted:
“Don’t say it!”
“Say what?”
“You know what! Just don’t.”
“Hmm, you mean like how we’re not the ones recreating old memories?” Jacqueline teased. “Is it just like you remembered? Do they still have the cardboard cut-out of a referee and pretend ring all set-up? You know, I never pictured the king of Planet Kinniku being into pegging, but I guess some things must run in the family; like father, like son!”
Mantaro gagged again. Jacqueline took one final picture, even as the marinara dripped down her face like streaks of blood, and captured the perfect expression of pure horror just as Suguru and Bibimba burst out of their bedroom door still in costume. Jacqueline darted halfway down her corridor, so that the royal couple would not see her present, and waved her camera in the air much like how Mantaro waved his just a few minutes earlier. Mantaro looked with wide-eyes to her, but she only winked and spat her tongue out in turn, as she chirped:
“Now we’re even!”