Chapter Text
Miri is gone. Kazuki wakes up that morning and his stomach immediately plummets when he remembers that his Miri is gone. Suddenly, he’s not so keen on getting up this morning. His head floods with the image of the small girl walking away, holding her mother’s hand tightly. Walking straight out of his life forever. Out of their lives. And, yes, Kazuki knows that this is what’s best. He knows that she’ll be safer with Misaki. But that traitorous part of his brain really believed that this would have just worked. Kazuki swears under his breath forces himself out of bed.
One torturous cold shower later, and Kazuki is wide awake and ready to…exist for the day. No daycare, no chores, no jobs…No Miri. Kazuki groans to himself as he pulls on his sweatshirt. What the hell did he even do all day before her? What did he plan his life around? It’s only his second day since she’s left, but it feels like he’s been in limbo for a hundred years. He pads his way downstairs, the cold metal of the steps feeling harsh against his bare feet.
Rei is exactly as Kazuki remembers leaving him: hunched on the couch and staring at the TV with dead, unblinking eyes. Kazuki isn’t even sure Rei’s fingers are moving anymore. The minor chords of a game over screen loops endlessly. “Rei,” Kazuki calls. No response. “ Rei.” A hum. The man snaps out of his stupor, and Kazuki sees the video game resume. The blond sighs but decides to leave it at that.
Rather than making breakfast, Kazuki can’t help but eye the box of Choco-Rings sitting high on a shelf (out of the reach of both Miri and Rei’s hands). It was easier. Less effort. Kazuki grabs the box and wordlessly fills two bowls with the sugary cereal and a bit of milk. And instead of setting it at the dining table, Kazuki doesn’t bother with the formalities. He walks into the living room and sets one bowl onto the coffee table in front of his zombie-eyed roommate. Taking a seat on the far end of the couch, he settles in and eats his own cereal. It’s disgustingly sweet. Cheap. Means to satisfy the hunger in his stomach and nothing more.
“It’ll get soggy if you don’t eat it soon,” Kazuki says, half-paying attention to the first-person shooter that Rei is currently hyper-focused on. Rei grunts and pauses the game, finally tearing his eyes from the screen. They’re red and bloodshot. Clearly Rei hadn’t slept at all.
Rei mumbles something that might have been a “thanks” as he picked up a spoonful of rings and takes a sluggish bite. Now able to confirm that Rei has eaten something, Kazuki lifts himself from his seat and heads back into the kitchen. He rinses his bowl in the sink once and leaves it to sit in the sink.
Kazuki needs to do something. His mind wanders back to Miri, and he thinks about her with her mother. So many of Miri’s things were still here. Miri needs her things. With some newfound determination, Kazuki heads back upstairs to the girl’s bedroom.
It’s odd seeing things exactly how he left them. Miri’s bed unmade, her pajamas scattered across the floor when she had excitedly changed her clothes for when they hit the town together. For the last time. Her room is like a time capsule for that final day. Kazuki curses himself for the traitorous tears that start to fall.
Not knowing what Misaki’s place even looks like, Kazuki decided he best not do too much at once. He considered the essentials. Warm clothes for Miri. Her favorite sets of pajamas. The plushies she played with the most. Her crayons and drawing pad. And, of course, her favorite bedtime stories.
Kazuki can’t keep his mind from wandering. Will Misaki know about how Miri needs two bedtime stories to help her fall asleep? Does she know that each of her stuffed animals has a name, and that the shark (Mio) and the black cat (Aiko) are never supposed to sit next to each other lest a terrible fight between them break out? Misaki doesn’t know the name of Miri’s friends at daycare, doesn’t know the trick to getting Miri to eat her vegetables, doesn’t know Miri only likes one specific shampoo and that she gets mad if it’s not the right smell.
Misaki doesn’t know anything. Kazuki spent a year learning everything.
He clenches his hands into fists as they rest in his lap. Miri had asked about her mother a few months ago, he recalls. At that time, Kazuki could have never expected to see Misaki return, much less relinquish custody of Miri to her.
It was back in September.
“Papa Kazuki?” Miri peered around the counter and into the kitchen. Kazuki was in the middle of washing dishes and muttering about Rei’s lack of help. He set down the plate in his hands, turning towards Miri. “When can I see Mama again?”
Kazuki was lucky he wasn’t holding anything because he surely would have dropped it onto the floor. “Huh? Why do you ask, Miri?” he replied, voice higher than usual. The sounds of Morio Kart in the living room suddenly paused as well.
“I haven’t seen Mama in a long time. I wanna tell her about my friends at daycare!” she explained happily. “I want her and my papas to all be together! It would be fun!”
It stung Kazuki a little bit. But he shouldn’t have been surprised. No matter what he and Rei were to Miri, they would never replace this girl’s mother. Her innocence let her believe they could all be a family. And wouldn’t that be a concept? Two hitmen and an alcoholic nightclub singer, all raising this little girl together. Yeah, right.
“Well, Miri…” Kazuki said awkwardly, squatting down to be at her eye level. What was he supposed to say? That her mother didn’t love her? That Misaki never wanted to see her again? How could he crush his little girl’s hopes and dreams like that? No, she was too young to hear the truth just yet. “Your mama is very busy nowadays. Traveling all over and singing for so many people. She…might be gone for a long time, yet.”
Miri’s face fell. Now he’d done it. “Can we go see her sing?” she asked.
Getting stabbed hurt less than this conversation. “I don’t think so,” he admitted. God, this was like tearing out his own fingernails.
“Why?” Miri demanded tearfully. Kazuki’s eyebrows knitted together and winced.
He opened his mouth, only to be interrupted by words that were not his own. “She’s currently singing in America.” Rei had suddenly materialized behind Kazuki, there to bring in the assist. “It’s too far away.”
Miri looked down at the floor. “...I miss Mama,” she mumbled in defeat. “I want to be happy with her, too.”
Rei knelt down beside Kazuki. “As long as you’re happy, then your mama will be happy, too,” he offered. And Kazuki couldn’t keep himself from turning to look at Rei in slight awe.
Ever since Rei’s birthday, Kazuki had noticed a shift in Rei’s behavior. Like he’d suddenly matured. He kept surprising Kazuki with how much more attentive towards Miri he’d gotten. How instead of silence he’d started offering his own help in times like this. It almost left Kazuki breathless.
Rei opened his arms. Miri woodenly walked forward until he could wrap his arms around her and lift her up. She sniffled, burying her face in his shoulder. “I’ll be happy for Mama,” she mumbled, voice muffled by Rei’s jacket. “I want her to smile more.” Rei carded a hand through her soft, brown hair and sighed.
“Wanna play Morio Kart?” he offered. Miri shook her head. “C’mon. I’ll teach you how to do the secret shortcut on Moonbow Motorway.” That seemed to switch something on in Miri’s brain. She snapped her head upright.
“Really?” she gasped. “Really, really?” Kazuki was awed at how easily this cheered her up. He needed to give Rei more credit – he understood Miri better than he realized. His chest swelled a little as he watched his roommate carry the girl from the kitchen and back to the couch. And then just as quickly he pushed that feeling aside, shaking his head and standing back up. The dishes needed to be finished.
Later that night, after Rei had put Miri to bed, they talked about it a bit. Something they so rarely did.
“When do you think we can tell her?” Rei asked, fiddling with the tab of his beer can. Kazuki just shook his head. “Kazuki, we’ll have to tell her eventually. She’ll just keep asking.”
“Parental abandonment isn’t exactly easy to hear about,” the blond grumbled, crumpling the empty can in his fist. He hissed when the aluminum nicked the skin of his palm. “She still believes that her mother is out there for her. How can we tell her that woman wants nothing to do with her.”
“So we keep lying to her?” Rei sounded unhappy. Which was odd, all things considered. “That doesn’t seem fair to her.”
“There’s a lot of things about this that aren’t fair to her!” he snapped. “Shouldn’t we just focus on keeping her happy as long as we can? Protect her innocence?”
Innocence, especially the innocence of a child, was something completely foreign to both of them. Though they never asked about each other’s pasts, they knew enough. A bad childhood could completely destroy a person for the rest of their life. Both of them were testament to that.
Could they risk letting Miri fall down the same path?
“I guess…there’s still plenty of time before Miri needs to hear the truth,” Rei resigned, setting his half-empty can on the coffee table.
Kazuki pretended to study the small cut on his hand. “Hey, Rei.”
“Hm?”
There were so many things Kazuki thought about saying. Something changed with Rei recently, and Kazuki wanted to ask what had caused it. Thinking back to Rei’s birthday, he remembered how he found Rei staring out out the pier. He had a dark, faraway look in his eyes that Kazuki hadn’t seen in a long time. Plus his arm was sporting a fresh cut. Rei was never shaken by a job before. Kazuki told himself he wouldn’t ask; that it trod into forbidden territory.
“You…you’re really good with Miri,” he said. He’d chickened out. Kazuki frowned to himself. “I mean–”
“I’m just doing my best,” Rei muttered, averting his gaze. “If I don’t you might run away again.”
Kazuki snorted and shook his head. “Don’t worry. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
A knock on the doorframe snaps Kazuki back to the present. He isn’t sure how long he’s been reminiscing, but he notices that all the packing he’d been doing is almost finished now. He lifts his head and wipes away the single tear that had snuck out of the corner of his eye. Rei stands there awkwardly, like he isn’t sure why he came up here.
“What’s up?” Kazuki asks, clearing his throat and finishing folding the last of Miri’s clothes to pack them away. Rei shifts from side to side. “Actually, can you give me a hand with these boxes? I just need to load them into the car and take them to the post office so they can deliver it to Misaki’s place.”
Rei’s frown deepens slightly, but he doesn’t protest. Instead, he wordlessly snatches up the roll of packing tape and seals the last open box himself. Kazuki chews on the inside of his cheek. Rei’s already stacking boxes and lifting them like they weigh nothing. “Rei.”
“Mm.”
The words he didn’t even have time to process died just as quickly as they’d come. Kazuki shakes his head, standing up with the other half of the packages. “Nevermind. Let’s go,” he says. He steps around his partner and leads the way downstairs and out the front door.
Once they get outside to where their yellow car is parked, Kazuki can more easily see how utterly exhausted Rei looks as the sun casts shadows over his face. He thinks back to that morning, the sight of Rei awake and motionless on the couch. While Rei shoves the boxes into the car, Kazuki clears his throat and tries again. “Hey, Rei.”
“What?”
“Have you…slept at all since…y’know?” he mutters. Rei looks even more tired than normal - the look only a man who hasn’t slept in over thirty-six hours would have on his face. Kazuki knows. They’ve both been there plenty of times.
Rei blinks slowly at him, like the weight is finally registering. “No.” The older man sighs.
“Rei, you should really–”
“I can’t,” he says so quietly Kazuki almost misses it. Then Rei shakes his head. “No, I mean. It’s fine. I’ve just been focused on my game.”
Clearly, Rei had let that earlier bit slip by mistake. Kazuki decides not to call attention to it. “Well, just try and get some sleep, alright? I’ll be back in half an hour,” he says as he climbs into the driver’s seat. Rei says nothing else, giving a half-assed wave over his shoulder as he heads back inside the building.
It’s like back when they first met, Kazuki thinks to himself as he starts the car. Rei had been so incapable of taking care of himself, Kazuki had to do it for him. And as much as Kazuki hates the idea of Rei relapsing into old habits, Kazuki has his own battles to fight, too. He’d dealt with losses all his life. At some point he wants to ask himself when enough is enough. Rei couldn’t possibly understand what it was like for Kazuki to have his second chance at a family so unceremoniously stolen from him yet again.
…Could he?
Shit. Everything about this is unfair. Kazuki knows, knows, that Rei must be struggling to grapple with the situation in his own way. Miri had helped Rei grow so much as a person. She took care of him, too, in her own way. But Kazuki…Kazuki couldn’t do that for him right now. He could barely handle himself. Even if Rei needs him right now…he would just have to make do.
If he spends what little energy he had left just taking care of Rei, then who would take care of him? It isn’t going to work right now.
He’ll just have to make sure Rei eats something so that he doesn’t have his roommate suddenly keel over from starvation. Everything else will have to be left up to the younger man.
Kazuki sighs heavily as the post office came into view. He wills the two conflicting voices in his head to quiet. It’s been two days. Neither of them are on their deathbed. He has no reason to feel guilty if Rei isn’t handling the grief any better than Kazuki was. With a shake of his head, Kazuki parks his car and exits. Just take things one step at a time, he reminds himself. It’s the best emotional survival tactic he knew: take things piece by piece. Don’t get lost in the uncertainty of the future. Recovery will come in its own time.
He certainly hopes so.
When Kazuki finally returns home, he enters the apartment to find Rei curled up on the couch. One of Miri’s favorite cartoons is playing on the TV, but Rei is fast asleep. Kazuki finds himself sighing in relief. He walks into the living room and plops himself into an armchair. Unexpectedly, the childish cartoon offers him some kind of comfort. Kazuki gets how Rei could fall asleep to this. A reminder of more innocent times. He wonders if Miri is watching this, too, wherever she is. And the thought is nice. Like they’re still sharing the experience together, even from such a distance.
Kazuki leans back into the chair, and his eyes droop closed. He falls asleep, listening to the bright singing of the colorful characters on their TV.