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“Nii-san, you promised!”
Emma Sano pads across the living room on bare feet, angry tears welling in her eyes and two small fists clenched at her sides.
Frowning, Mikey sighs, one sandal already slipped on. He doesn’t actually look sad— no, he’s just inconvenienced. Emma can see the expression clear on his face.
Still, she doesn’t give up.
“You said that you would take me with you next time!” she demands, letting her voice carry through their empty house.
There’s a pause where Mikey internally debates, though what really goes on in that empty head of his is a mystery to her.
But then the cracked front door opens wider and another voice speaks up.
“Probably shouldn’t leave your baby sister home alone, you know?”
Her lips part, tears frozen just before the fall.
The taller boy smiles in victory as Mikey groans, gesturing for her to hurry up and follow them.
They ride bicycles all the way to Shinichiro’s shop and she gets to hang over her eldest brother’s shoulders as he teaches Mikey’s friend the basics of a V-twin.
It becomes one of her favorite days of all time.
It’s the day she met Ryuguji Ken.
The first time she’s alone with Ken, they’re at her house.
Her grandpa is in his room for the evening and Mikey is supposed to be here, according to Ken, but Emma hasn’t seen him since this morning before school.
Shinichiro is normally home by now, but she figures he’s either still at his shop or maybe even with Mikey. Either way, she’s alone with her brother’s friend who’s been around more and more over the last year or two.
“Um, would you like some tea?”
Ken blinks down at her, standing in the engawa. His fresh tattoo is still a little pink at the edges and slowly forming a scab. She imagines it itches.
“You know how to make tea?”
Definitely not pouting , she crosses her arms over her chest. “Now why would you assume I can’t?!”
“No!” He throws up both of his hands, waving them frantically— placatingly. “That’s not it at all! I just meant, well, I don’t know how and I’m older than you are.”
She whips away from him, refusing to let him see her flustered.
“Well, don’t just go around assuming things about people like that,” she tells him over her shoulder. “It’s rude.”
“Ye-yeah. Okay, sure.”
The hesitancy in his voice is unexpected.
Sweet.
She stops at the corner of the kitchen, touching a hand to the wall and turning back to him. “Are you coming?”
“Huh?” He drops his arms mechanically, frozen in place.
Emma laughs, waving him forward. “Come on. Now you’ve gotta help me figure out how to make tea.”
Ken halts one step into the house, jaw dropping and a glint of exasperation in his eyes.
“Wait, what-!”
It takes another six months to work up the courage to ask him to hang out with her.
She’s spent countless hours with him at this point between the newly minted Toman meetings she crashes occasionally, random outings for lunch or cafe trips, and even the somewhat regular sleepovers that always end with her lying in bed at night knowing Ken is just down the hall from her.
This, however, is different.
This is without Mikey.
Mikey, who despite being consistently apathetic or almost annoyed by Emma’s sheer presence, is rather protective of both her and his close friends— Ken especially.
She waits for the most opportune moment.
It’s the morning after one of their sleepovers and she knows that Ken has to leave early, before breakfast, to help out with something at home. He won’t bother trying to wake Mikey and will likely try to slip out unnoticed.
She bides her time in the kitchen, collecting ingredients to start on breakfast. Grandpa will be up soon and then she’ll be tasked with dragging Mikey to the table.
But an unknown factor appears.
“Up already?”
Shinichiro ruffles her hair with a hand, sending a jolt of surprise down her spine.
“Aniki!” She adjusts the fish and eggs laying out on the counter, restlessly moving the rice cooker closer. “I didn’t know you were here.”
Her eldest brother leans on the fridge, casting a strange look down at her. “You didn’t know I would be here? I do live here too, you know.”
“Right! Yeah, of course,” she mutters back, hyper aware of the empty hall behind him where Ken will eventually emerge.
Shinichiro knocks his head against the door. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much what with the shop and all-”
“No, no!” She waves frenetic hands, barely noticing the knife she’s holding in time to set it down on the counter with a shaking breath. “It’s fine,” she chuckles dryly. “Really.”
He frowns at her, opening his mouth to say more, but that’s the exact moment Ken chooses to stroll out from Mikey’s room. There’s a particularly avoidant look on his face as he attempts to make it to the front door unnoticed.
Too bad Emma has been painstakingly waiting.
She darts up on her toes to kiss Shinichiro’s cheek. “Love you!” she calls as she hastily follows Ken to the genkan.
He’s barely made it one step out of the house when she’s caught up and slipping out behind him before pulling the door shut for privacy.
Ken quirks a brow at her in the soft light of dawn. His hair is a little disheveled from sleep, his braid peeking out in a few places.
“Emma?”
She swallows, fiddling with her hands.
“Will you hang out with me, Ken?”
His expression flickers with confusion before his eyes widen and a slow pink mists over his cheeks. He turns to look toward the horizon— it makes his eyes glow warm.
“Like… the two of us?”
At first, she nods, but then she realizes he’s not looking at her.
“Yeah,” she says, voice suddenly soft. “We could go to some food stalls or, um, a movie or something.”
Ken is frozen for a moment and then two, but he turns back to her with a resolute nod.
“Okay. Tonight?”
Emma feels her heartbeat through her ribs, skin tingling. She smiles.
“Sounds good.”
And then, the best thing happens— Ken smiles back at her.
“I’ll pick you up.”
“I’ll be here,” she tells him, waving when he does before hopping on his motorcycle to head home.
She stays on the doorstep for too long, caught up in watching the gate of the property where Ken disappeared into the sunrise.
A familiar hand falls on her shoulder and then Shinichiro is there, hugging her into his side.
“Draken, huh?”
She sighs, a blush peppering over the bridge of her nose.
Her brother laughs, light and teasing.
Ken takes her on long rides at sunset after that.
He’ll pick her up after an early dinner before they go to this specific shrine on the edge of town that has an accompanying garden. They walk together, sometimes talking and sometimes not, until the sun begins to descend on the horizon.
Then Ken leads her back to his bike and takes her on a scenic route back home— one where they can watch the sunset paint the riverside in violets and pinks and a burned caramel color.
He hasn’t held her hand yet, but she knows he will.
Someday.
And then Ken is hurt.
He’d invited her to the festival. Everything was perfect.
Stabbed. He’d been stabbed.
The doctors all said it was a minor wound and he hadn’t needed surgery, but he was still unconscious from the exhaustion of fighting with blood loss. Shinichiro arrived in the waiting room before Mikey did, and Emma’s grateful he was there to reel in his island of a brother to sit with the both of them.
When visitors were allowed in two at a time, Mikey and Emma stood.
No one argued.
He looks so soft, so much like that early morning when she’d asked him to spend time with her. She huddles closer to him, cautious of his bandages on the opposite hip. Tears settle on the brim of her eyes, but she presses her face into his shoulder.
Mikey sits in a chair by the wall, watching.
“You and Ken-chin, hm?”
Emma doesn’t look at him. She’s not sure what she’ll see in his face.
Still, she whispers, “I love him.”
Mikey doesn’t answer, but he also never questions them ever again.
On her fifteenth birthday, Shinichiro asks her to stop by his shop for a surprise.
She’s excited; Shinichiro is a thoughtful gift-giver and Emma adores him. Still, she hopes that this doesn’t mean he’s going to try to give her a bike like he did for Mikey.
When the shop comes into view, Shinichiro isn’t the one waiting for her.
Ken is leaning against the clear glass storefront, dressed in nice pants and his usual haori in black and white checkers.
Something unfurls in her chest at the sight, growing and taking root.
He turns to her and his expression changes, sending her pulse stuttering a little faster.
“You waited for me, Ken?”
His eyes flicker over her for a second too long before he answers.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
And then it happens— he lifts a hand, extending it toward her.
“Have dinner with me?” he says softly, his fingers shaking a bit in the evening light. “As my girlfriend?”
She lunges into him, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. They stay close for the rest of the night and when Ken finally walks her home, Mikey and Shinichiro are waiting at the engawa.
“‘Bout time.”
“I love you,” he tells her on a Wednesday.
They’re at a redlight on the way home from a Toman meeting. Mikey and Takemichi are behind them and Baji and Chifuyu behind them.
Ken’s voice is a whisper, barely audible over the roaring hum of his bike’s motor. She tightens her hold on him, laying her cheek against his back as he draws a hand away from the clutch to settle it on hers.
“I know I should have told you sooner,” he continues, the smell of leather and oil strong on his jacket. “But I wanted to make sure that you know— I love you, Emma.”
She doesn’t answer, doesn’t say it back.
Something tells her he already knows.
Their wedding is simple and held in April, in time for the blossoming sakura trees. Rows of motorcycles line the road leading up to the shrine they’ve chosen. Shinichiro walks her to meet Ken, standing with Mikey and the priest at the end of a procession of Toman members and friends she’s gathered over the years.
His hair is down and back to his natural black, eyes gleaming in the afternoon sun.
Her cheeks hurt and her traditional kimono is uncomfortable and Shinichiro is stiff and slow at her side, but Ken is right there.
They’re not supposed to speak yet, not until prompted by the priest, but there’s a crawling in her skin and an electricity in her heart.
She trips lunging for him at the steps.
Ken catches her— of course he does.
“Emma,” he says, just a whisper. His palm rises to her face, thumb brushing away a warm tear. “You’re crying.”
She smiles at him— wide and bright.
“I’m so happy I met you all those years ago, Ryuguji Ken.”
“Emma! We’re here!”
Shit. She yanks away her burning thumb from the pan, the soft sizzle of fish covers her curse and she turns toward the front door.
“Come in! Put your things wherever!”
There’s a shuffle of Mikey throwing his things wherever he pleases and hushed whispers of more feet following him inside.
“Did you bring Mitchy?” she calls out, salvaging the main dish and checking on the miso broth.
Mikey tsks as he walks by. “Of course I did. He’s my husband.”
She rolls her eyes at him without looking.
A figure appears at her side and she sketches a quick glance at Chifuyu who smiles at her.
“Can I help?”
“Oh, you don’t have to!”
But Chifuyu only huffs. “It’s okay. Your daughter’s already stolen Baji from me.”
Her grin is automatic and unbidden.
“Okay, then set the table? It’s almost ready.”
He disappears and she opens the rice cooker. The soup is ready and waiting to be set in bowls and with a flick of her wrist, the fire’s off on the stove and the fish is left to sear.
Strong arms snake around her waist, a familiar weight settling on her shoulder.
“Thank you,” Ken whispers, his lips brushing against her neck.
She leans into him. “I cook all the time. It’s fine.”
“No,” he says against her skin, his breath sending a warm chill up her spine. “Thank you for this— all of this. Thank you for giving me a family.”
She sucks in a heady breath, turning to meet his vulnerable eyes.
“Thank you for loving me, Ryuguji Ken.”