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By the time Akira is released from prison, Kawakami has put away the maid outfit for good.
She would’ve burned it if she could, if she had the space and wouldn’t set off her building’s fire alarm, but she had to settle for slicing it into pieces with her best pair of scissors. The destruction in itself was satisfying, so much so that she prolonged throwing away the costume for months. After a long day of work, she’d sit in front of the trash can and slice off finger-wide strips of those lace ribbons, and it hit better than any cigarette ever could.
That being said, she’s still a Caregiver, and there’s a part of her nature that she can’t deny.
Mainly a weakness to the puppy dog eyes.
“Please? They said they wouldn’t accept a group as big as ours without a registered Caregiver to sign off on it.”
Akira had trudged into her office after school let out. There’s something quieter about him now, a subdued glimmer in his eyes that never goes away, but it’s less present when he’s half-regressed.
It would be almost comical. The nervous stance, the pleading eyes. Akira is someone who knows how to get what he wants.
“Why can’t you ask your guardian to do it, then?” If it were just him, Kawakami would’ve said yes in a heartbeat. But a big group is a hard sell for one Caregiver, especially when she only knows a handful of them.
“He has to work.” Akira lowers his chin, just to make it clear that yes, he’s begging. “All you’ll have to do is sign us in. We self-govern just fine.”
Kawakami sighs, the biggest, faux-annoyed sigh she can manage. She doesn’t even want to remind him that that’s part of the problem. They shouldn’t have to. “This is troublesome, you know.”
“I’ll even buy you lunch?”
Kawakami rolls her eyes. “No need to turn out your pockets. Just tell me where and when.”
Once upon a time, she could swear she wasn’t this much of a pushover.
And so Kawakami spends her only day off babysitting a group of Littles.
She meets them there, and immediately she can see why the owner wouldn’t let them in unattended. Not only are Takamaki and Sakamoto with him, but Okumura and Niijima as well. Then a redheaded girl she doesn’t recognize, a tall boy she also doesn’t know… and she doesn’t miss Goro pretending not to see her.
“Hello, Ms. Kawakami,” Niijima greets. “Thank you again for agreeing to do this. It means a lot.”
“Of course,” Kawakami replies. Niijima’s guardian is a Baseline, not to mention a workaholic. Her eyes trace around the group again. There really were no other choices for them, were there?
Once inside, she’s immediately hit by a wall of sound. Shrieks of joy and laughter. Her Caregiver instincts settle, but the noise undoes that progress in an instant. As long as they’re happy, she supposes. Maybe she can take a breather outside.
The receptionist peers up over the rim of his glasses as she approaches the counter. “Name?”
“We put it under your name,” Sakamoto says quietly.
The little jerks knew she was going to say yes from the start, didn’t they?
And while she balks at the price, it isn’t long before there’s another hand tugging at her sleeve. One by one, they all place money on the counter.
The receptionist collects the money, counting it out with a grimace. She can hardly blame him, seeing how much has been doled out in change.
“Alright. Eight Littles and one adult. Littles get blue bracelets, Caregivers get red. These are only good for today but you can leave the building if you want.” He slides a sheet of paper bracelets over the table. “Don’t climb on top of the slides and don’t throw up in the ball pit.”
“Thank you.” Kawakami speaks around a grimace, unable to divorce his bored tone from her own. It’s an exhausting job, she knows, but even she could break out the perky voice for a little bit.
She takes the sheet, tearing along the perforations until she has eight blue strips. Only after she’s done does she remember that’s not her job.
“Okay!” Takamaki chirps, clapping her hands together. “Everyone get your buddy!”
Slowly, they shuffle into pairs. Akira with Okumura. The tall boy with Takamaki. The redhead with Niijima. And finally, Sakamoto with Goro, though he doesn’t look too happy about it. They fasten one another’s bracelets, sure to thank Kawakami for holding them as they take them from her.
“Alright, Yu-Yu, let’s go take our shoes off and then we can play hide-and-seek!” Takamaki says. The tall boy gives a grateful smile and nod, and just like that, they’re off.
There’s a small cubby for shoes right by the entrance, leading into a padded play area. Tubes and secret passageways coil up to the ceiling, culminating in the biggest slide Kawakami’s ever seen.
“Let’s go up the big slide, Futaba!” Niijima says. The shy redhead nods, slipping her hand into Niijima’s, and they too take off.
That’s when Kawakami finally gets it. The younger ones all paired up with an older one. Someone to guide them out of their shells and nudge them in the direction of fun. No one gets lost or left behind. They really are too good at self-governing.
“Whaddya think about the arcade?” Sakamoto asks. He nods in the opposite direction of the play area, where a small cluster of arcade cabinets sit.
“That’s fine,” Goro mutters. He’s speaking more to the floor than to Sakamoto, but apparently that’s a fine answer regardless.
Once they’re gone, Kawakami allows herself a breath. There’s a bench area for Caregivers to watch from a distance. She’s just glad she doesn’t have to chase after anyone. Her ankles are killing her from being on her feet all day yesterday.
“Why don’t we ask her?” Okumura suggests. Akira still has a hand fisted in her sleeve, his gaze quiet and pleading. Okumura steps forward, head high, shoulders square. “Ms. Kawakami, Baby Kira was worried that the waiting area might be too boring. We were gonna look at the fishies if you wanna join us?”
“I actually have some grading I need to catch up on…” Kawakami trails off, knowing resistance is futile with one glance at Akira’s puppy eyes. Besides, she has evenings free now. Sometimes that’s hard to remember. “But I suppose I’m overdue for a break.”
It's not like she was going to get any work done anyway. So long as she doesn’t have to go crawling through those tubes, she’s perfectly happy.
“Kira and I like the fishies best,” Haru explains. She leads Kawakami away from the padded area, to a backroom where the light is much less harsh. “We usually go to the aquarium when Mako-chan can take us, but when we come here, we always see the fishies.”
“Not a fan of the playground stuff?” Kawakami asks.
Haru shakes her head. “It’s too loud for Kira, but that’s okay because that means we get to see the fishies together!” A brief look of surprise crosses her face. “But you can’t tell the others that Kira doesn’t like it here, because otherwise we’ll stop going and Ryu and Sissy will be sad.”
Kawakami frowns. She hasn’t forgotten last time she saw Kira, when he was tiny and alone and isolated. She heard from Sojiro that everything had been worked out, but allow her heart some worrying. It’s a disturbingly common theme for Akira to put the needs of others above his own.
There isn’t much to the aquarium section, unsurprisingly. Kawakami would be stunned if they had a giant indoor playground and a full-fledged aquarium crammed into one tiny building. Still, she can understand why it had to be here. Takase-kun would’ve liked this place too.
There’s a touch tank and a large tank behind it. Enough that kids can feed the fish and pet a few, but not much more than that. Kawakami can’t see this being more than novelty for most regressors, but based on how young Akira’s headspace is, the movement alone is probably enough to entrance him.
“There’s my favorite duo!” a woman chirps. She straightens up from over the touch tank and beams.
“Ms. Aiko!” Haru says. While Akira doesn’t say anything, his lips bend up into a hesitant smile.
“I was wondering when I’d see you two again,” Ms. Aiko continues. Her eyes flit to Kawakami, clearly trying to place her as mother or sister. “You’re a new face.”
“I’m their teacher,” she explains. “They like the fish, huh?”
“Are you kidding? With how much they come here, they could probably give the tour for me,” Aiko jokes. “You know the drill, kiddos.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Haru says. She and Akira are already rolling up their sleeves.
Aiko only keeps half an eye on them as they wait for fish to approach, and Kawakami can see why. She had a feeling they’d be well-behaved, but even the most well-behaved Littles can forget the rules sometimes. But these two have had multiple visits to reinforce the steps, and neither nudge a toe out of line.
“Teacher, huh?”
“No one else would sign for them,” Kawakami responds. “It’s a big group.”
Aiko shrugs. “Doesn’t mean you had to say yes. None of my teachers would’ve taken me to an indoor playground when I was in high school.”
Those are the teachers she wants to be better than. And she used to be, back before Takase-kun. Now she’s scrambling for lost time, trying desperately to be the shining example she used to be.
“I can’t blame you, though,” Aiko continues. “They’re good kids.”
And despite all the testimony she’s heard to the contrary, Kawakami knows it’s the truth. They look out for each other, they make sure no one gets left behind, and they’re far more responsible than kids their age should be. It makes her as proud as it does concerned.
“Here, watch this.” Aiko nods at Haru and Akira, both enraptured with the fish.
They haven’t had any takers yet, but some fish are inching closer. It’s only a matter of time, and Akira is anything if not patient.
“Kira, sweetie?” Once Aiko has his attention, she grins and points to a pair of fish swimming nearby. “Can you tell Ms. Kawakami what kinds of fishies those are?”
“Rice fish,” Akira answers. “They glow in the dark.”
“And how long have we been raising them in aquariums?”
Akira thinks on that for a second. “Seventeenth century.”
“Yes!” Aiko claps her praises, which Haru joins in on. “Good job!”
Kawakami grins. That explains why he does so well in his biology class.
“We don’t have much here, but I work at the aquarium too, so I get to see these kids a lot.”
Kawakami nods. “That makes sense. I doubt the aquarium would have the same restrictions on large groups.”
Aiko’s smile falters. “Oh no. It’s not their whole group, usually. Just the two of them.”
Just the two of them, huh? Something about that pings her Caregiver senses, the ones she can no longer bother to push aside. She’s gotten attached, plain and simple. No use denying it.
But just Akira and Haru? Sure, they’re the quiet kids, but Kawakami gets the feeling that there’s something more to it than that. Part of her wants to pry, another part knows it’s none of her business. And a secret third part knows it could be if she let it.
She turns her attention to them one more time. A fish has finally shown enough courage to slink over Haru’s fingers, and she smiles as she touches Akira’s arm. The two of them look perfectly happy, but there’s something missing. Kawakami is only just remembering the way Littles’ faces light up when they’re really truly happy, and now that she can see it, she can also notice its absence.
Kawakami sidles up on his other side. “Aki-chan, can I ask you something?”
Akira turns his head to her, and while he doesn’t say anything, the worry in his eyes is clear. Poor kid’s just waiting for something to go wrong, isn’t he?
“Why don’t we go somewhere quieter, huh?” It’s a long shot, asking him to leave his friends, but she might as well try.
As expected, Akira’s face sours. Sours, then twists with panic. He looks to Haru, but she’s just as uncertain as he is, made worse by the idea that the offer is tempting.
“I just don’t think it’s fair your friends get to have fun and you don’t,” Kawakami says. Her lip juts out in a sympathetic pout.
“I can’t leave them,” Akira replies. The very notion has sparked his latent anxiety.
The why goes unsaid, but Kawakami can get his meaning well enough. It’s a promise, unspoken or otherwise, that he won’t turn himself over to the police or run off when he’s not feeling well.
Why did she even offer? She knew exactly what kind of answer she’d get. But maybe that just meant she had to change tactics…
“Okay, how about this? Why don’t you and Haru-chan and I go to the aquarium on your next day off?” she offers. “I know you go to the aquarium in Shinagawa, but what about the Tokyo Sea Life Park? They have the cutest penguins.”
Haru and Akira share a look, confirming that penguins are a very tempting offer.
Knowing she has them, Kawakami ups the ante. “If you score well on your next test, I’ll buy you whatever you want from the gift shop.”
Akira shakes his head. “Get something for Haru.”
Haru’s face burns red. “No, no! I can buy my own things. Get something nice for Akira.”
Kawakami only grins. “If Haru-chan does good enough on her tests, I’ll get you both something.”
Honestly, she’d pay for them anyway. Money isn’t so tight anymore, and she’d much rather be buying trinkets for her students than paying back Takase-kun’s ungrateful guardians. Haru’s richer than she ever will be, but she knows there’s a difference when it comes to paying for your own stuff versus getting a gift.
Consider it penance, consider it a fresh start.
She’s going to be better with her students, and that’s that.