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The Tanaka-Tsukishima household is about as hectic as you'd expect. Two sets of siblings, the elders connected through romance and the younger connected through something a little different, and one small child.
Sometimes it's more quiet and peaceful, but most mornings it's spent with reminders yelled across the townhouse and the smell of bleach and breakfast; a combination that sounds disgusting but is more comfort than anything after all these years. Usually.
“Kei, how many times have we told you not to bleach at the table?” Ryuunosuke drawls teasingly as he enters the kitchen, adjusting his sweater as he passes. Kei will never understand why he wears such nice clothing if he works with bleach and dye all day, but he supposes that he wouldn't want someone touching his hair if they dressed like a bum.
The man in question just shrugged before taking another bite of toast. What a sight to behold, Tsukishima Kei sitting at a breakfast table wearing a ratty bleach-stained Rolling Stones shirt and sweatpants, with a showercap full of bleach to top off the look. Not to mention that he was currently squinting at everything without his glasses. (“It'll bleach my frames and that looks tacky.”)
A half-hearted “don't call me that” slips from his mouth without thinking, as he continues eating his breakfast. He had work in an hour, and he was not going in with roots showing. He had a carefully crafted image since childhood; everyone thought he and his family were natural blondes, and he wanted to keep it that way.
He hears a call of “Kei, Kei!” and he feels the furrows in his face relax a little, though that might not be the correct term; Ryuunosuke once pointed out that the face he makes when he sees Saulė looks a little like fear. Kei couldn't exactly say the assumption was wrong. He isn't quite sure if the fluttering feeling is supposed to be happiness or pride, but it lodges itself in his throat and he wants to run away, but he doesn't. He lets her small hand grab his and she climbs up onto his lap because she's somehow learned that Kei always did prefer her to be more calm.
Hair tickles below his chin, the short mop of pink and black the result of buzzing her hair in an attempt to emulate her father, but she long since learned she prefers being able to color it. The five year old leans forward to pick at his remaining eggs and he lets her, with a soft murmur of “careful, mergyte”. She snacks, babbling a bit to her father as he walks around the kitchen, weaving in and out from Japanese to Lithuanian.
Despite ten or so years of knowing the Tanakas, and five or so years of living in the bilingual house, Kei still doesn't have a good grasp on Lithuanian, and can only really nod along and offer interested sounding encouragements, like “oh?” and “really.” Eventually, he feels the need to disrupt the peaceful moment to stand up, picking up Saulė princess-style on the way. “I should go wash out the bleach now.”
“Kei, bučkis!” The giggling bundle lets out a squeal, wiggling around to reach her face up to plant a kiss on his chin. The way Kei's face scrunches up only ends up causing another giggling fit, and amber eyes roll before he relents and drops a kiss on her forehead. He holds out his arms to hand her to her dad, who takes her with a snicker of his own.
“Yeah, Kei, bučkis.” He can barely get the words out before Ryuunosuke lands an obnoxiously loud kiss somewhere between his cheekbone and his temple, careful of the bleach still in his hair. A quiet displeased noise comes out of his throat as he turns away from the pair laughing at his expense and walks through the living room to get to the stairs, hearing Akiteru and Saeko talking on the way to one of the bathrooms.
The too-full house has never been quiet, and even though this is far from what he'd consider ideal, he doubts he could leave at this point.