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There’s nothing for it.
Rei sucks on his sixth cigarette of the hour and stares at his own reflection in the mirror: the ghost-white canvas of purple-green bruising dappling his forearms and biceps from grappling practice, the spare lines of his waist, the concave flatness of his chest.
He looks at himself and he thinks of Kazuki, and he knows he is everything the other man doesn’t want.
There’s nothing for it, he thinks again.
He is not soft. He is not kind. He cannot soothe with a touch, calm with his words, and he thinks that Kazuki looks for that sort of airheaded tranquility in a partner. Deserves it too, someone better at comforting than he could ever be. He wonders if the woman Kazuki is bedding tonight is anything like that, if she’ll last longer than it takes for him to bury his cock inside her body.
Somehow, he doubts it.
A knock at the bathroom door has him cursing beneath his breath, Miri’s little voice muffled against the crack of the jamb as she says, “Papa Rei?”
He tamps out the cigarette in the sink and leaves it there. Shoves his head through a nightshirt, shuffles his way into a pair of baggy sweats as he calls, “Just a minute, Miri.”
One day, maybe, he’ll quit enabling Kazuki’s lifestyle long enough to force him to find someone he can take the kid around. Someone good, someone patient, someone with better instincts than his. He is designed to kill, to take down—never to build up or boost.
That’s what the child needs.
He flicks on the vent and opens the bathroom door a crack to slip out so the smell of smoke doesn’t cling to her clothes.
Big eyes peer up at him balefully, waterline wet with tears and her nose dripping snot. He sighs and doubles back for the bathroom, tears off a strip of toilet paper and scrubs at her face with it.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t find Papa,” she says. Her gaze skitters away from his face and back; she shuffles closer, small hands gripping at the leg of his sweats. She wants up, wants to be held, and he doesn’t want to do it.
He picks her up anyways.
He’d love to track Kazuki down—easy enough to do by scent alone; he’d poured on more cologne than was necessary before finger-gunning his way out the front door. He won’t, though.
Rei will stay here, because regardless of how irresponsible Kazuki may think he is, he’s moreso than he receives credit for.
“Obviously,” he sighs. “What do you need him for? You’re supposed to be in bed.”
She rests her cheek against his shoulder, and his heart does not grow three sizes at how sweet the motion is. She tugs at a piece of his hair and sniffles. “Papa didn’t tell me a bedtime story tonight.”
Another flash of irritation, and Rei grinds his teeth hard enough his molars ache. This is Kazuki’s mess, Kazuki’s kid. Not even Kazuki’s house; the fucking freeloader’s been crashing for near six months and hasn’t so much as offered a dime towards rent.
No, he’s just… cooked and cleaned and jokingly told Rei have a good day, honey, stupid little apron cinched around that sinful waist like some sort of stacked housewife.
“Right,” he says instead of the myriad of curses he’d like to say. “Well. You’re not getting a bedtime story from me.”
Her head pops up from his shoulder. “You have to.”
“Says who?”
“Says me,” she responds. “Says—says Papa.”
“Your papa isn’t my boss, kid,” he tells her. He swipes at her nose again and stuffs the used tissue into his pocket.
“Since when? You do everything Papa wants.”
Rei is thankful for the relative darkness of the hallway. It masks the burning of his ears, the rush of blood to his cheeks. Does he? Is he that obvious in his desire to please Kazuki, unrequited as it is?
“Not true,” he argues, and then quickly realizes that arguing with a four year old is stupid. He’s an adult.
“Uh-huh,” she says, nodding. “Papa told his friend you were spanked, ‘cause you do what he wants.”
“Spanked,” Rei repeats, nonplussed. “You—you mean whipped?”
“Yeah!” she kicks her legs happily, and he muffles a grunt when her foot slams directly into his liver. “That thing that happens to kids who are bad.”
“I’m not whipped,” he says, and he carts her down the hall to the living room. He’s annoyed now, whatever wash of sadness he’d felt in the bathroom replaced by the knowledge that Kazuki has some grasp of how down bad Rei is for him. He knows and he uses it, manipulates it, and Rei lets him.
It takes one of those sweet, goofy smiles, a wink, and he’ll do whatever Kazuki wants.
Well, fuck.
He turns on the television and drops onto the couch, Miri still in his lap.
She twists to watch as he opens a streaming app and flicks through the options under the anime category.
“I’m not allowed to watch tv this late,” she says slowly. She turns back to face him, chin tipped up so she’s peering into his face. “I’ll get in trouble.”
“It’s not tv, it’s a bedtime story,” Rei tells her. “About a girl who finds a magical cat who tasks her with saving the world from evil.”
She considers that, blinks her big eyes up at him as she takes in the information and likely memorizes it for later use against Kazuki. Finally she relaxes, gives a nod and allows him to reposition her so they’re stretched horizontally across the couch.
Rei clicks the first suitable option he finds and proprs a pillow beneath his head. Despite her initial reluctance, Miri snuggles against him, head tucked securely beneath his chin as lights flash across the screen.
There’s nothing for it, he reminds himself as the intro for Sailor Moon starts up.
He’s here. And he’ll be here, until Kazuki finds someone new or gets sick of Rei hanging around like some lovesick little schoolgirl.
He doesn’t want to think about which of those will happen first.