Chapter Text
“Hey Masamune, could you do me a favor?”
Kido sighed, whatever Rindo wanted, it couldn’t be a good thing. “What do you want?”
A nervous chuckle came from the other end of the phone call. “Well, y’know how I told the members of Tamakoma that we’d be able to go on vacation for a month while the rank wars are off?”
He did not like where this was going. “Yes?”
“So I checked Hyuse and Yuma’s records within the government and uh… they don’t have any paperwork. Which makes sense. But, because they don’t have any legal papers, they can’t get passports. So..”
He did not like where this was going.
“You want me to babysit the Neighbors.” He finished for Rindo, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Yes-” A crash sounded on the other end followed by some shouting.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah uh- speak of the devil, Hyuse just fell down the stairs and crashed into something. I’m sure he’s fine.”
“...he fell down the stairs??”
“Yeah, it’s a fairly common occurrence.”
Kido was at a loss for words. How was that a common occurrence?
“So will you help me or not?”
Kido dragged a hand down his face. If it was just Yuma, he’d consider it (as he was Yuugo’s son) but with Hyuse there too…
“What will I get out of this?”
“Other than a stronger relationship with the Neighbors that might make them willing to give you more information? A whole lot of fun and stress relief.”
“Stress relief?” Not being able to go down stairs without falling didn’t sound like stress relief.
“You’d be surprised how easily those two can make you laugh. They’re really good for making you forget about stuff you’re stressing over. Especially if you give them kids’ toys. They love kids’ toys.”
“What…?”
“I think it’s because they don’t have anything like them in the neighborhood, but they love children’s toys. Like legos and kinetic sand - Hyuse actually has a stockpile of teething rings because he chews on stuff when he’s bored - and stuff like that.”
“Uh-huh…”
That was… odd.
“There’s no way I’d be able to watch them for a month, I’m a very busy man.”
“I’m not asking that you look after them 24/7. If you truly can’t take care of them for a few days, maybe see if someone else could take them for those days. They’re actually really low maintenance and can take perfectly good care of themselves. It’s just that… well… their mental states are rocky at best and we want at least one other person around them just in case they try to uh… run away… or…”
Kido continued to interrogate Rindo as to why he should accept the job, even as he checked on his guest room to see if it had everything it needed. It was only one bed, but it was very large. It could easily fit both of them.
“Kido, I’ll be paying you for this, no doubt about that. I can cover all you spend on them for food and if they break anything I can cover it- just please take them for the month.”
“Fine. I’ll do it. When do you need me to be ready by?”
“Friday afternoon, the end of the week.”
Friday, it was currently Wednesday evening. That was doable. “Okay.”
“Oh my god Kido you are a lifesaver. Thank you so much, really. I- I’ll make sure that they pack everything so they don’t have to bother you for anything. I’ll let you go now-”
The line dropped and so did Kido’s arm. Great, now he had to clean up his house a bit. ‘Well,’ he figured, ‘I suppose I’ve actually been meaning to clean this place up for a while. Might as well let this be the reason.’
He rolled his left shoulder, which had been aching lately, and set to work.
-
Around 9:30, he finally finished and sat down in a chair. Leader of Border or not, he was still 42 and a bit past his prime. He looked around his living room, his house was fairly large, but it would feel really weird to have two more beings with him.
Plus the fact that they were both powerful Neighbors didn’t ease his worries at all. He could probably beat them… hopefully… Either way, he shook his head, neither of them should have any direct reason to hate him. It was Jin who caught Hyuse and told Yuma to join Border.
Oh god, did he even have any idea how to take care of teenagers? Granted, these teenagers were probably more like dead inside young adults, but still! How was he even going to take care of them? Should he be strict? Make sure they - well at least Hyuse - got at least 8 hours of sleep?
Should he be doing home cooked meals? Would takeout be better? Sit-down restaurants?? He was used to eating most of his meals at Border, with the occasional home made pancakes for breakfast, but with two other people? Just how was he going to do this?
‘Right.’ He thought to himself, ‘I still have tomorrow and most of the day after to mentally prepare myself and make plans. I need to go to bed, tomorrow is a relatively laid back day, I can write down ideas then.’
With that self assurance laid out firmly in his mind, he stood up and went to bed.
.
.
.
Those two days weren’t supposed to go this quickly! He barely had an hour left before Hyuse and Yuma would be done with their daily training, and he had only a few ideas on how to take care of them.
He had reached out to Rindo again for tips, but he wasn’t much help either as his response was “Don’t worry about them so much, they’ll be fine.”
He had cleaned up his guest bedroom and bathroom, along with a little organization around the entire house. He was planning on going to the grocery store with both of them after work to pick up some foods that they’d like, so they’d be good on food for a couple weeks. But he was still worried he was missing something.
He’d only babysitted a few times before in his life, but those were for at most 12 hours while the parents were doing stuff, and that was also 25 years ago. So this was going to be a gigantic learning experience for him.
He took a deep breath. He was currently alone in the meeting room, all the other executives having already gone home or were doing other work in some other room (or in Rindo’s case, packing for a plane ride with the rest of Tamakoma) He wasn’t going to let himself get stressed over something like looking after two Neighbors for a week.
At least that’s what he’d been telling himself since he accepted Rindo’s begging.
55 minutes.
He stood up, cracking his knuckles and leaving the meeting room, turning off the lights. He was going to collect his bag and go find the kids. He could discuss plans with them then to hopefully ease his worries slightly. They were both mature, right? They could definitely talk plans if their battle strategies were anything to go by.
Kido opened the door to the executive lounge, where they kept their belongings.
He grabbed his bag and picked up his stuff from around the room, throwing away an empty cup of coffee and emptying the cigarette ashtray. He picked up his leisure reading book, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a charm Yuugo had given to him when they were young, and a note from Rindo on his locker.
‘Dear Kido Masamune,
I do apologize for the inconvenience. I made sure Hyuse packed up a couple of teething rings so he doesn’t try to chew anything in your house, like blankets or pillows. Because trust me, he will chew on basically anything if he’s bored enough. I learned that the hard way when I walked into his room once and saw him chewing his arm raw, it was actually bleeding.
It was quite a disturbing sight. That’s where the teething rings started. It was actually later that Yuma and Michael told me chewing and biting on things were just a part of Aftokratian nature as they have fangs and chewing on them keeps them sharper.
Kido snorted, ‘Like some kind of dog…’
‘Anyway, Yuma doesn’t have anything weird like that other than the fact he can’t sleep. So he just likes to stare at the stars all night. He’ll be content with just staring out a window. But he does eat quite a bit in order to keep his body… alive isn’t quite the right word. Sustained? Yeah we’ll go with that.
You’ll be surprised at how much he can eat at supper.
And speaking of food, Hyuse absolutely adores taiyaki. Yuma is also a big fan of wasabi and other spicy foods. I hope that helps you a bit.
Anyway have fun!!’
Kido stared down at the paper in his hand. Well, that was certainly some information, whether or not it was helpful or not he didn’t quite know. He shrugged and put the note into his bag as well. Hoisting the bag strap over his shoulder he left the room and headed to a room above the cafeteria.
35 minutes.
He sat down and surveyed the cafeteria, waiting for the albino and… was Hyuse a brunet or a blond? Let’s just go with dusty-blond. They were told to wait in the cafeteria, so all he had to do was wait for them. Their personal training should be done, but they might have friends to talk to. Well… Yuma might have friends to talk to. Hyuse probably just refuses to interact with people unless absolutely necessary.
Just as he expected, Hyuse walked into the cafeteria, still in uniform. It drew a few stares as it was very uncommon to keep your trigger activated outside of training and battles, but it wasn’t unheard of. Kido watched as he chose a table near a window and sat down, staring out into the city below.
‘I wonder what he’s thinking about…’
So he sat and waited for a while longer before the familiar mop of white hair came bouncing over to Hyuse. He watched the two talk for a few minutes before Yuma sat down.
Well, he might as well go talk to them about plans now.
10 minutes.
The walk down the stairs and through the hallways returning and receiving greetings from basically everyone took a little longer than he expected. He thought he would get there with 5 minutes to spare, but he arrived exactly on time.
He walked over to the table with the two neighbors, both of his hands were behind his back as he had left his bag in the room overlooking the cafeteria.
“Good afternoon, Kuga, Hyuse.”
While Yuma returned the greeting, Hyuse just stared blankly at him. Kido noted that neither of them had their bags, but judging by the carefree look on at least Yuma’s face, they probably had them stored somewhere.
Not sure what else to do, Kido sat down opposite of them, ignoring the stares he got from quite a few of the squads who knew the origin of Hyuse.
“As I am unsure of what you two will eat, I have decided that we will go to the store after we leave here and you can pick out things you like to eat.”
“Okay.”
Kido silently watched Yuma. He was really just a tiny albino Yuugo. They acted the same, their facial expressions were the same, hell, even the way they fought was similar. Hyuse… Hyuse was kind of weird. Kido understood that he grew up in a much different place than anyone else, and that some things that seem weird to him were perfectly normal there, but it was still weird communicating with or even just watching him sometimes.
He acted like an adult but also like a child. His demeanor was mature but reasoning childish. He cared little for his own safety but almost worshiped his teacher in the Aftokratian military. In short, he just didn’t make much sense to Kido.
“So uh… what do you want us to do right now?”
Kido stopped staring and cleared his throat. “Go grab your bags, we will meet in the front parking lot in fifteen minutes. Understood?”
“Understood.” They nodded simultaneously.
-
Kido stood outside, checking his watch once more. They knew where the front parking lot was… right? …Right?
Oh who was he kidding, they were both probably lost. Just as he was about to call someone to find them, he heard someone shouting in the distance.
“Sorry we’re late! We got messed up in one of the hallways… the architecture here is kind of confusing.”
Kido stared at the figures approaching in the distance from the doors. Yuma looked genuinely apologetic and Hyuse looked… like he always does. Uninterested in the current situation.
“I don’t see how it’s confusing, there are signs everywhere… Ah.” Right, they can’t read.
“Yeah… And I thought that the castles on Kion and Calvaria were confusing. At least I could read the stuff there.”
Kido rolled his eyes and turned around. Starting to walk towards his car. Hyuse and Yuma followed closely behind, one on each side of him. The only Meedenite in the trio noted with slight amusement that they looked like bodyguards in a sense. Really young, skinny bodyguards.
“Alright, get in. Let’s go get food and then we’ll go to my house. I will lay down the ground rules when we get there.”
Hyuse got in with some difficulty, he had deactivated his trion body and his horn got stuck on the seatbelt for a second. Yuma, of course, laughed at that. Kido just sighed in exasperation and started on the road to the local grocery store.
-
So, neither of them were really much help in the store. All Hyuse did was grab a large package of taiyaki and was indifferent to everything else. Yuma tried to help, at least, listing the foods they commonly had in Tamakoma. Kido wasn’t the best cook though, so they came up with an agreement to get simple food and eat out every once in a while if they were really craving something.
As they pulled into Kido’s driveway, Hyuse - who was already chewing on a taiyaki - momentarily froze at the sight of the semi-large house. Yuma was also surprised but didn’t freeze up.
“You live here??”
“Yes, I do.”
“Damn…”
Yuma snickered, picking up his bag and opening the car door. “What, are you surprised there are people that don’t live in an old sewage treatment plant?”
“Shut up.” Hyuse also got out of the car, still staring up at the house.
Kido opened the door and got out, stretching. “I don’t see what the surprise is, this really isn’t a fancy house.”
Hyuse looked at him, taiyaki firmly held in his hand but he had stopped eating. “What do you mean this isn’t a fancy house?”
“I mean compared to quite a few other houses in Mikato City, this is really quite a regular house.”
“I have an extremely hard time believing that.”
The albino stood next to Hyuse, looking between the Aftokratian, Kido, and the house.
“Well, you said that you’d lay out the ground rules once we got here. And here we are… so…”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “One: listen to what I say and do what you’re told. Two: Hyuse, don’t chew on my stuff. Three: Yuma I don’t care if you look at the night sky out of the living room window as long as you don’t make loud noises that could wake me. Four: I am very busy so when I’m working, only disturb me if absolutely necessary.
I will give you both a tour when we get in, you should listen as I don’t feel like repeating myself today. Now let’s go.”
Without waiting for either Neighbor, Kido turned around and got out his keys, locking his car and unlocking his house. After giving the basic drawl about where to put coats and shoes, he led the two up the stairs, outlining the locations of important rooms. I.E. bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room, and Kido’s office.
After everyone had settled down a bit, Kido put some frozen food in the oven and set a timer. When he walked into the living room, he saw the two neighbors heavily inspecting a brass ornamental german shepherd.
“What is this?”
“A dog.”
“What’s a dog?”
Kido blinked a few times. Then picked up a tablet and got a few pictures of dogs loaded up for the neighbors to look at. Hyuse seemed to be interested, a small shock for Kido. He watched them carefully as the Aftokratian looked between a picture of a small fluffy white dog and Yuma.
“He looks like this one.”
Kido looked over their shoulders at the picture. Yeah, he could see the resemblance. Yuma sat right next to the tablet, smiling with his trademarked duck face and tilting his head like the dog in the photo.
He only stopped when Hyuse hit him on the head a few times, telling him to stop ruining the moment for him.
Yuma crawled off to go stare out the window at Kido’s yard, most likely trying to find something interesting. Hyuse just kept looking at the dogs, stone faced. Eventually he turned to Kido. “What purpose do these ‘dog’ things serve?”
“Uhh… mainly just as pets I guess. Here,” he grabbed the tablet, going onto youtube for a few videos of domesticated breeds, eventually he found some random compilation titled along the lines of ‘cute dogs that will make your day’ and handed it back to Hyuse. “This stuff right here are videos from people who own dogs. This is why so many people like to have them as pets.”
He left Hyuse to watch the videos. Yuma was staring at the sky, head slightly tilted, humming to himself.
“What are you looking at?”
“What’s this stuff?”
Kido looked up at the sky, raised his eyebrows, then looked back down to the albino. “That’s snow, Yuma.”
“Snow?”
“Mhm. Frozen rain.”
“So… ice.”
“Yes, but not quite.” He was about to go on to explain the differences when his phone rang, so he excused himself to a corner of the room, watching the two. “Kido speaking.”
“Hey, Kido.” Great, it was Rindo. “How’s it going? I hope they aren’t causing too much trouble.”
“Well…” He started, taking a moment to structure his sentence in his mind before he spoke. “They honestly act like children. Neither of them knew what a dog was, nor what snow was. Is it just because something got lost in translation or…?”
“Ah, yeah, uh… neither of them were taught very much as a child other than to fight. What they find out, they find out, what they don’t, they don’t. That’s my guess as to how Neighborhood teaching works. They teach in a way that optimizes what they know will be used, and put everything else second.
As there’s no guarantee someone will become something, they don’t teach anything about it unless said person shows interest in it. Say, a writer, for example. There’s no way to tell if someone will ever use their writing skills, so unless they express a direct desire to be a writer, they won’t be able to write very well.
Sure they’re taught the very basics of writing a bit more intermediate levels of reading, but never something advanced. Hyuse’s role in the Neighborhood was that of a dedicated soldier, he had no use for knowledge on things like that so…”
Kido cut him off before he could ramble much more. “I get it, I get it. So what you’re saying is that I have two academically stunted teenagers with me.”
“Pretty much.”
“Lovely.”
“They’re also pretty socially stunted too, neither have great people skills.”
“I’ve noticed that on my own, thank you.”
“Alright, alright. I was just calling quickly between flights to check up on you, show a little compassion. I got to go now though, bye.”
“Goodbye.”
He sighed, looking up at the ceiling. He looked back down at Hyuse, who was very much absorbed in the world of dogs, even happily bouncing one of his legs. Was this really the epitome of a dedicated soldier of war? Sure, he seemed extremely loyal to his teacher, but that was his teacher, not his nation.
He looked between both of the neighbors. Both were once frontliners, putting their lives on the line for the good of the nation they fought for, but they were both also just kids. Still unaware of much of the world or how it works. Sure, they knew every little thing about the inner workings of their militaries and the positions they were assigned, but other than that… It was like they were toddlers. They couldn’t read or write in Japanese, but from what Kido had seen and been told, they could barely even write in their own language either.
Was this what a strict military did to children? What was Border doing for them? The answer, unfortunately, was other than trying to strip away their weapons and make them ‘safe’... very very little.
Kido was broken out of the depressing spiral of the Neighbor’s lives by the beeping coming from his oven. He took out the pizza and set it on a cooling rack. The neighbors seemed oblivious to the food so far so Kido took out a pizza cutter and cut it into pieces, accidentally making some larger and some smaller.
Deciding not to alert them until it had cooled off some, Kido just stared over the counter. Yuma turned around, probably sensing that someone was looking at him. He walked over to the counter, barely making any noise. Even so, the minimal noise was enough to alert Hyuse. He paused whatever he was watching and looked at Kido over the back of the couch.
Yuma sat down on a stool, motioning for Hyuse to do the same. Kido handed them plates and a glass of water each. Supper was a rather uneventful affair. Everyone ate in silence, and Kido was, as Rindo said, surprised by how much food Yuma ate. He was expecting to have at least a little left over, but nope. Kido ate his fill, and once he walked away to rinse off his plate, Hyuse and Yuma started to eat like they were wild animals that had been starved for weeks. When was the last time they had eaten?? They ate two thirds of a large pizza by themselves.
Good God, what had he gotten himself into?
After supper, and after Kido calmed down a bit from the confusion of the duo eating twice as much as him, they just sat around the living room for a while. Yuma was content with just laying on the floor with his eyes closed, probably resting. Hyuse had a book out, but as it was in Aftokratian, he hadn’t the slightest clue what it was about. He was also chewing on one of the baby teething rings.
Oddly enough, it had been less eventful than he thought it would be. Sure, he was surprised about a few things, but they were the things Rindo warned him about in advance. He thought he was lying about the fact that Hyuse chewed on stuff, but he did. And he had a massive scar on one of his arms that he guessed was from when he was chewing on it in Tamakoma’s basement. He thought he was lying that he had teething rings, yet here he was. Calmly reading while chewing on a frozen teething ring.
He sorely underestimated the amount those two ate. Yuma had quietly assured him after that they wouldn’t eat nearly as much tomorrow, just that they both had a single day a week where they ate a lot and then they didn’t eat much at all the rest of the week. He didn’t quite understand the eating pattern, but oh well.
He took a deep breath, sinking into the cushion of his chair. Just when he was getting ready to just space out for a while, his phone rang. So it was with great annoyance that he picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Kido! Mind putting me on speaker?” He did just that.
“Okay, you’re on.”
“Hyuse? Yuma? Can you hear me?”
“Hello, Rindo!”
Hyuse remained silent.
“Good, good. I hope you two haven’t been causing any trouble.”
“They haven’t.” Kido huffed, holding his arm out so the phone was closer to the neighbors.
“Okay. We’re at our rental house for the vacation, so I was calling to check up on everything. Osamu and Chika also wanted to say a couple things to Hyuse and Yuma, so I’ll hand the phone off to them soon.
Anyway, I’ll be buying some souvenirs for you two, so is there anything you want?”
“Hmm…” The albino started, taking a few seconds to think. “I don’t really need or want anything. Not that I can think of anyway. I’ve never really been drawn to that kind of stuff.”
“Okay, I’ll just pick something I think you’ll like then. What about you, Hyuse?”
Hyuse turned a page of his book, shrugging. “He doesn’t know either.”
“Oh… okay I’ll do the same for you then.”
Kido took the phone off of speaker and walked into another room. Hyuse and Yuma went back to what they were doing before. Yuma looked curious but didn’t ask any questions. “I have an idea for Hyuse.”
“You? You know something that Hyuse would like?”
“Yeah, he discovered dogs today. He seems to really like them.”
“Really now…”
Kido rolled his eyes. “Why would I lie about something like that? I’m being serious, he spent a good 35 minutes watching dog videos before we ate. I don’t know what Yuma would like, though. He hasn’t really shown a strong interest in anything yet. But he also doesn’t seem extremely sentimental, either.
He just takes things how they are. He doesn’t dig into the ‘why’ of why something has to happen. Just simply accepting it. So I was thinking of some kind of framed group picture but with how he views people’s lives, I don’t know if he would like that.”
“Hm… well I’ll certainly take those into consideration. But yeah, Yuma isn’t very materialistic. Anyway, I'll hand the phone off to Osamu and Chika, so if you could hand yours off to those two it’d be appreciated.”
Kido made a noise of acknowledgement and walked back into his living room, setting the phone down on his coffee table between the two Neighbors.
After a minute or so, Osamu’s voice came through the speakers, drawing the attention from everyone in the room.
“Hello?”
“Hi Osamu! How’s T- Th… uh…”
“Thailand?”
“Yeah, how’s Thailand?”
“Well, we haven’t seen much as we just arrived a little over an hour ago. We’ve spent most of our time thus far exploring the house and unpacking. But from what little I’ve seen, it’s pretty cool.”
Hyuse rolled his eyes and Yuma elbowed him.
“How’s Chika?” Yuma asked, glaring at Hyuse.
“I’m doing fine, Yuma. How are you two? Settling in okay?”
Yuma turned back to the phone. “Yeah, we’re good. Had some pizza for supper. I learned what snow and dogs are too!”
“Snow?” She asked, “Did it start snowing?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“Awww…” She mumbled. “I love seeing the first snowfall of the year.”
“It’s okay Chika, there’s always more years after this one. Missing one year won’t be that bad when you compile decades together. Besides, you guys really do deserve a vacation. You and Osamu have really worked hard this year to help Hyuse and I in the rank wars.”
“I don’t see how that’s working hard when we’re the ones that score the points-”
“Hyuse!”
“-but Yuma is right. You have improved significantly and grown in both your combat and ability to strategize while mid-battle. Chika is slowly getting used to shooting trion bodies, and Osamu is being a decent support.”
Yuma smiled, then playfully punched one of Hyuse’s legs. “Yeah! There you go, that's how you compliment people you work with! You’re also getting better at socializing with people. Sure, you’re still a little rude and standoffish, but you’ve relaxed a lot since you first joined us.”
Chika giggled from the other side of the phone. She was glad her teammates were getting along together. She knew they were both silently thankful that the other was there. They were happy that they had another Neighbor that they could chat with.
And she was happy that they were happy. But boy, was she ready for a break and a nice, fun day at the beach. Shooting people took a lot out of her, but she was, just as Hyuse said, slowly getting used to it. Granted, it was extremely slowly, but it was still progress.
Osamu, who was standing next to Chika, was smiling. It wasn’t very often that Hyuse complimented him. Yes, it was kind of a low complement, but that was still the most the trio of the original Tamakoma-2 was able to force out of the Aftokratian. He personally would consider it a win.
“Well, we should finish unpacking and eat something. We’re now two hours ahead of you two, so we’ll have to wake up 2 hours earlier too. So we’re probably going to go to bed early. It was nice talking to you guys, we’ll call you a couple times a week, how about that?”
Yuma nodded, shifting his weight from one leg to the other with his arms crossed. “Mhm, bye Osamu, Chika, we’ll talk to you later.”
“Farewell.”
“Goodbye, you two.”
“Bye!”
The phone line dropped and Kido picked his phone back up, checking the time. 9:17. He usually went to bed soon, and he was starting to feel the fatigue of the day building up on him.
“Well, I’m also going to go brush my teeth and head to bed. You two should think about doing the same.”
“And I can look out this window, right?”
“Yes, just don’t make any loud noises.”
“Okay, goodnight Commander Kido.” Hyuse nodded, closing his book. Emphasizing he was also bidding Masamune goodnight.
“Goodnight, you two.”
With that, he left for his bathroom. He brushed his teeth and splashed some water on his face, cleaning it off with a towel. After getting any last grime from the day off of his face, he set down the towel and turned off the light. His room and bathroom were connected, so he didn’t have to walk far. He quickly threw on a pair of pajama pants, not really caring about his image. When he was in his room, his house, he wasn’t Commander Kido, HQ Director, or any of that. He was simply Masamune Kido.
A graying man who had lost too many that were precious to him to let in any more. He allowed himself to look improper, to look like any other 40 year old, as it was his home. He didn’t need to be commanding or domineering. He could just simply exist. He could think about future plans, or nothing at all.
He could do whatever he wanted. And that night, he chose to think.
Yuugo. He left one day, never to return. Well, he had returned, just as a ring on his son’s finger. A son he never mentioned to anyone before. And now, said son was staying with him along with another Neighbor.
Both of them were messed up in the head a bit, but in some way, their childish level of knowledge made Kido slightly more at ease around them. It reminded him that these weren’t just front line soldiers through and through. Yes, they were certainly soldiers, that was just a fact.
But…
They were also kids. Boys who had their childhoods robbed from them to meet the never ending demand for violence and expansion the Neighborhood coveted. They had barely experienced the world outside of their militaries. Yuma had, but he was constantly traveling, rarely taking time to just live and calm down for a while.
And after his father died… he didn’t seem to have any reason to just enjoy living. Hyuse’s sole purpose was to do what his master and teacher wanted of him. To Hyuse, that was his life, his purpose.
Both were content with their lives, but Kido wondered if that was simply because neither of them had lived another way. Actually lived, not just survived. He could see it in how they acted. They were on guard 24/7 and never allowed themselves to believe something would actually last.
The way Hyuse remained so obviously detached from this place even though he was treated so much better here than he was probably treated on Aftokrator. He was quite literally forcing himself to reject a place just so he could remain whole-heartedly loyal to his home country.
The way Yuma seemingly enjoyed and laughed along with the friends he had made but once they left his expression would slip into something of a grim, empty stare. Kido recognized that look, it was the exact same look Yuugo always had whenever he, as he had told Kido, “Needed to remind himself that nothing is forever”. The face of someone so hellbent on trying to protect themself from further emotional harm they completely cut ties with their life.
Kido had never liked that stare, and the fact the son had inherited it told him that it was most definitely part of Yuugo’s teachings. Why someone would teach a child to block themselves off completely just on the off chance something bad happened, he didn’t know.
Either way he slipped into unconsciousness soon after these thoughts. As well as the question of how well the three of them would be able to co-exist. He hoped they'd be able to get along just for the ease of still being able to have a peaceful house.