Chapter Text
“Okay,” Eijirou says, straightening his shirt. “How do I look?”
“You look fine,” Katsuki says, sounding unimpressed.
Eijirou frowns. Katsuki is being very little help—sprawled out as he is on Eijirou’s bed, preoccupied with scrolling through his phone.
“You’re not even looking!”
Katsuki very pointedly moves his phone away from his face, gives Eijirou’s outfit a cursory glance, and moves it back to block his view. “Fine.”
“Fine as in I could do better or fine as in I’ve reached the, you know, absolute peak of appropriateness for—”
“Jesus—fucking—Christ.”
Katsuki swings his legs off the bed and stands up, stalking over to Eijirou. “You look good. Unbutton your top two buttons, you’re not going to church, you’re just meeting your kid’s teacher.”
“I want to look like a good influence,” Eijirou whines, letting Katsuki aggressively molest his outfit into something approaching normalcy.
“You are the worst goddamn influence,” Katsuki says flatly. “But Keitaro’s somehow the best kid despite that, so you must have done something right. They don’t give a shit about whether you wear slacks or jeans, they care that you show up, and you are. You always have. It’s going to be fine.”
Eijirou swallows.
Katsuki steps back quickly. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not—”
“Your eyes are wet,” he argues, one arm blindly flailing for a tissue.
“Katsuki, I’m just touched, not diseased,” Eijirou says, exasperated.
“What you are is late,” Katsuki hisses, tossing one of Keitaro’s little cloth handkerchiefs at him. They have ducks patterned on them. Eijirou still uses them a lot, mainly because Keitaro brings back the worst bugs from school like no tomorrow, but also because they’re just really cute.
“What? Are you su—” He checks his watch, then, and yelps. “Why’d you let me waste all that time crying, man? I’m going to miss the entire thing!”
Eijirou pulls into the school parking lot ten minutes early.
Nervously, he signs in with the front office, checking the directions with the secretary, who politely offers to lead him to Keitaro’s homeroom teacher’s classroom.
“Ah, no, I should be fine, thank you!” Eijirou says quickly, not wanting to bother her. “I appreciate it, though.”
“Just shout if you get lost,” she teases.
Eijirou laughs. “You got it.”
It’s just around the corner, one long hallway, and then the last room on the right. Eijirou gives himself a mental fistbump for not having to actually shout for the secretary's help—that would be embarrassing—and peeks around the corner of the ajar door.
The classroom is empty, and he doesn’t hear anyone either.
He checks his watch. Three minutes to spare. Is it rude, to walk in early? Or would the teacher prefer that he just walks in, so that he has more time between Eijirou and the next parent?
He decides to wait. Keitaro’s teacher, a Monoma Neito, probably needs time to prep for the meeting as well. Those three minutes could be integral to his process! Eijirou contents himself with standing in the hallway, mentally running through his introduction.
Hi, nice to meet you.
Is that too informal?
Hello, nice to meet you.
He has not seriously said hello to anyone in his entire adult life.
Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Kirishima Eijirou, Keitaro’s dad.
Yeah. That’s right, isn’t it? It is nice to meet Monoma, his name really is Kirishima, and his son is, in fact, Keitaro.
“Okay,” he murmurs to himself. “Okay, you can do this.”
“Hello? Kirishima?”
Eijirou coughs, stumbling back. “Hi! Hi, yeah, that’s me.”
The man in the doorway smiles like he’s looking at a very stupid dog attempt to catch its own tail. “Come on in.”
Eijirou, shamefaced, follows him inside, mentally berating himself.
Honestly, how did he mess that up? He’d practiced! He was early! He was calm! He was serene! And one word out of this guy’s objectively attractive mouth and he—what—almost falls on his ass? Monoma’s going to think Eijirou’s an unfit parent, and the next thing Eijirou knows, government officials are going to be outside his door saying they think Keitaro might be better suited in a different home.
“Feel free to take a seat,” Monoma says, taking a seat at a desk and gesturing for Eijirou to do the same.
It’s a small chair, meant for a child—his knees fold up awkwardly, but so do Monoma’s, so Eijirou feels, at least, a little gratified.
Monoma is wearing a pale purple collared shirt that accentuates the cornflower blue of his eyes. His hair flops nicely over his forehead, silky-straight—Eijirou respects a guy who clearly has an extensive hair care routine. It takes a village to fight male-pattern baldness.
“Hi,” he says, reaching an arm over the table. “I’m Monoma Neito, Keitaro’s homeroom teacher. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Kirishima Eijirou,” Eijirou says faintly, shaking his hand. “It’s nice to meet you as well.”
“I’ll start by saying that Keitaro is a pleasure to have in class,” Monoma says. “He’s a good team player, and always willing to help out around the class.” His lips twitch. “I think he’s trying to set a record for the number of chairs that one kid can put away at the end of class.”
Eijirou snorts. “Yeah, he tried to do that with our dining table chairs, once. Didn’t go as well.” Nervously, he asks, “How are his grades?”
He’s well aware that it’s first grade, and it’s not really that serious—but Eijirou remembers all the trouble he had in high school and university, and he wants to spare his son that fate as much as he can by supplementing early.
“He’s performing well,” Monoma reassures. “He picks up math and science concepts well. Although he has been struggling with reading and writing, it’s nothing major. I think he just needs to get more comfortable with it.”
“Okay,” Eijirou says quickly. “How can I help? We read together every night, but I guess I worry that he’s too dependent on me being there? I want him to read by himself.”
“It’s good that you noticed that,” Monoma says. “I would continue with that, and put more of an emphasis on him sounding things out, and reading by himself. Getting him to write could also be beneficial. Maybe weekly journal entries of things that he’s done during the week, or looking forward to, or even creative writing. Just to get him into the habit of it.”
“Okay,” Eijirou says, quickly typing it into his notes app. “Journalling, got it. What else?”
Monoma pauses. “I…wanted to talk to you about something that I’ve noticed.”
“Of course,” Eijirou says, doing his best to keep his voice level, and not hint at the fact that he is two seconds away from bawling his eyes out.
“Like I said, Keitaro is a great kid, and he’s great at working with others,” Monoma says. “The thing is—some of the language Keitaro uses isn’t—exactly—appropriate.”
Eijirou blinks. “Oh.” And then, “Oh, god, he isn’t swearing at other kids, is he?”
Monoma winces. “Here, I’ve written down some examples.”
You wrote down examples of my child swearing, Eijirou wants to ask, incredulous, but he doesn’t—already feeling like he’s on thin ice, and just reads through the list on the paper Monoma hands him.
At least half of it is just Keitaro presumably yelling fuck yeah. Some of it, Eijirou can almost hear in his happy little voice. Wow, you’re fucking great at that! or Let’s fucking go!
The last one gives him pause. Hey, don’t be a jackass.
His head snaps up, already frantically bowing his head to Monoma. “Please tell me he didn’t—”
“Not to me,” Monoma says, a funny smile on his face. “To another student. Either way, it isn’t acceptable.”
“I completely understand,” Eijirou says, cheeks hot. “I’ll have a conversation with him about it, and I’ll—I’ll make sure that it stops, I promise. I don’t know where he got this from.”
“If it makes you feel better, I hear that a lot,” Monoma says. “The ‘I don’t know where they got this from,’” he clarifies, at Eijirou’s questioning look. “We’re adults, I get it, it happens.”
“No, I—I really do my best not to swear around him,” Eijirou says, desperately trying to think of a moment where he screwed up and doomed his son to a lifetime of expletives. “All my friends keep making fun of me because I default to saying, like, fudge, and snickerdoodles, now.”
“Snickerdoodles?” Monoma asks, eyes crinkling.
“It’s satisfying,” Eijirou defends. “You should try it out.”
“I’ll have to,” Monoma says.
And Eijirou just has—a weird feeling. A lurch in his gut, like his entire body is in stasis, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It feels a little like Monoma is making fun of him, in on some inside joke that Eijirou isn’t a part of.
He doesn’t say anything to Monoma about it. He shakes his hand, and chats about the upcoming fall festival the school is putting on, and asks about how to go about contacting the PTA so he can contribute.
Monoma, to his credit, is very helpful. He gives Eijirou all the right email addresses and phone numbers and dates. He asks him to please contact him if he needs anything. He tells Eijirou he’s always there if Eijirou has more questions, or even just wants to talk.
Eijirou accepts it all with a wide smile.
Katsuki's knife deftly cuts through onions, peppers, and mushrooms as Eijirou recounts the events of the parent-teacher conference.
“He said what?” Katsuki snorts, knife skittering in his hand from how hard he’s laughing. “What’d he call the kid a jackass for?”
“I don’t know,” Eijirou bemoans. “I was too busy apologizing for him calling another child a jackass!”
“Maybe they were being a jackass!”
“That still isn’t an—wait a minute.” Eijirou turns to look at him. Katsuki is pressing his lips together, overly focused on slicing an olive in half.
“It’s you!” Eijirou shouts, enraged.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re the one who’s been swearing around Kei!” Eijirou yells. “I thought—his teacher thinks I’m a bad parent and it’s all your fault!”
“Okay, first of all—” Katsuki throws an olive at him. Eijirou isn’t above catching it in his mouth, scowling at Katsuki as he chews. “First of all, the person he probably heard me calling a jackass was you, and if you hadn’t been acting like a jackass I wouldn’t have had to call you one.”
“You’re saying it’s my fault my child is calling his classmates slurs.”
“It’s not a slur—”
Eijirou ruthlessly shoves his flour-covered hands into Katsuki's hair, and he makes an undignified noise, slapping at him like an angry cat.
“I just showered, you freak—”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you poisoned my son’s growing mind—”
“You’ve already poisoned it by making him call everything manly, we went on a walk the other day and he called a dandelion manly for growing through the sidewalk cracks—”
“And he’s right, what’s your problem?”
“Eijirou, I really will call you a slur if you don’t get your fuckass hands—”
“Hey!”
Denki’s loud squawk has the both of them turning around guiltily—Eijirou’s hands still in Katsuki’s hair, Katsuki’s hands choking out his neck—to see Denki, aghast, his hands clapped over Keitaro’s ears.
“Six years old,” he scolds. “This infant child is barely six years old!”
Kei is just giggling, his small hands splayed over Kaminari’s. His face is flushed from all the fun he’d had at the park and he’s beaming up at Eijirou.
“Hi, Dad! Hi, Uncle Katsuki!”
“Fuck, move,” Katsuki mutters, immediately letting go of Eijirou to sprint for the kitchen sink—and they end up fighting each other there too, competing to be the first to wash their hands clean and hug Keitaro hello.
Katsuki beats him to it but Keitaro runs up to Eijirou when he’s done being slung over Katsuki’s shoulder, anyway, so Eijirou still counts it as a win.
“Hey, kiddo,” he says, digging his face into Keitaro’s soft cheek. Keitaro squeals, trying fruitlessly to shove him away. “You had fun at the park?”
“Yeah! We played Grounders!”
“Sounds fun,” Eijirou says, picking him up and plopping him on the kitchen island. “You want to help me and Uncle Katsuki put these pizzas together?”
“Fuck yeah!” He exclaims, slamming his fists together.
Eijirou chokes. Denki isn’t even bothering to hide his laughter, his shaking head slumped into Katsuki’s shoulder. Katsuki, for his part, looks a little too proud.
“Okay,” Eijirou says, reaching for the tomato sauce. “Okay, um, Kei, I gotta talk to you about something. You know the—uh, word that you said, just now?”
“Fuck,” Keitaro says immediately.
“Oh my god,” Denki wheezes.
“Yeah, that,” Eijirou says. “Listen, I know you, uh, hear Uncle Katsuki using it sometimes, but you can’t—say that at school, okay buddy? It’s not very nice.”
“It’s a mean word?” Keitaro asks, tilting his head. “Like stupid.”
“Yes!” Eijirou says, happy to finally be on the same page. “Yes, exactly, like stupid. If you called me that it would hurt my feelings, right? So it’s a little like that. When you use… uh, words like…”
“Jackass,” Katsuki says helpfully.
“Yes, thank you, Katsuki,” Eijirou grits out. “Those words hurt people’s feelings, so it’s better to say something else, like… like, hey, you’re not being nice right now. Okay?”
“Then why does Uncle Katsuki use it?” Keitaro asks.
“That’s a great question,” Eijirou says loudly. Katsuki’s making a little snorting noise that implies he’s trying very hard not to laugh. Eijirou wishes he had something on hand other than a knife to throw at him—that would traumatize Keitaro. “You know, it’s hard to say, kiddo. Sometimes, when adults are really good friends, we say it to each other, like—like, you know how at home, we share food with each other, but at school you can’t share food with your friends because they might have allergies?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, it’s like that. Adults are older, so we can be careful and share food with each other, but kids can’t, right? So, when you’re older, you can be careful with those words and only use them if it’s necessary, but right now, you’re little, so you can’t. Does that make sense?”
“I can’t say it at all?” Keitaro asks.
“Uncle Katsuki’s going to stop, too,” Eijirou says pointedly. He looks at the nearly empty jar of tomato sauce. It looks back at him. Lightning, like a mountaintop being graced by the Almighty strikes. He dumps the rest of the sauce out onto the last pizza, rinses it clean, and brandishes it for the kitchen to see.
“And… every time anyone says it, they have to put money—” Keitaro does not have any money, on account of him being six. “Or stickers, into the mean word jar.”
“Mean word jar,” Katsuki parrots, in disbelief.
“Even my Spider-Man stickers?” Keitaro asks, looking heartbroken.
“Only if you say mean words, kiddo,” Eijirou says. “Sound good?”
“You can’t be serious,” Katsuki says.
“As a heart attack,” Eijirou says cheerfully. “You guys want to help decorate it while the pizzas bake?”
“I, for one, think this is a great idea,” Denki says. And then, “Hey, little man, easy on the cheese! That’s my digestive tract you’re playing with!”
The first usage of the now-bedazzled swear jar—courtesy of Keitaro and his expansive sticker collection—happens only two days later, when Denki refuses to turn on the AC for Katsuki.
“It’s autumn,” Denki says. “How are you hot right now?”
“It’s only September, and global warming is killing our planet,” Katsuki argues. “Do your part.”
“Technically, I think keeping it off is helping the power grid and therefore our planet, no?”
“You fucking—”
“Mean word!” Keitaro shouts victoriously, pointing at Katsuki’s nose until he goes cross-eyed trying to glare at the offending finger. “I’ll get the jar!”
Katsuki presses his lips together. Eijirou knows that he would very much enjoy cussing him and Kaminari out until their ears went numb, but he would also rather die than yell at Keitaro, which means they all get to watch him balefully take out his wallet and drop a cheap bill into the jar.
Denki is recording the whole thing on his phone. Keitaro is grinning ear-to-ear.
“If it makes you feel better,” Eijirou teases, “I honestly thought you were going to give out sooner.”
“I don’t want to talk to any of you right now,” Katsuki says mulishly, somehow still managing to make it sound like I hope both you assholes fucking die.