Chapter Text
Louis was a social worker. He’d taken a small break from it, but now since he could afford it, was on part time hours. It was hard to go back, when he was too busy grieving his own family to be involved in other families, but this was what he wanted to be pretty much his entire life. It was never easier, remembering Daisuke was gone, but the grief changed.
So, as a social worker, he was good in professional settings, and in meetings, and crisis control, but it was hard to pin down what this whole thing could be defined as.
Today, he would be confronting that grief head on. He and Curly had been messaging back and forth basically as long as Curly could work a tablet, and he had been following Curly's addition to the now closed lawsuit through television, but this would be the first time he’d seen Curly in person since he’d stood horrified, mouth gaped, at the man in the cryopod.
He’d just stumbled away from…that awful sight, couldn't look, couldn't change… he’d failed in the worst way he could have. And there was Curly in the pod. He hadn't been able to look at that sight for long either, the misery of it.
Chie visited Curly in the hospital frequently, but Louis never could. It was just too…it wasn't Curly's appearance, just what him surviving but nobody else represented.
But today he was putting on his big boy shoes. He was in his mid-40s now, he could face the music.
It was easier for Louis to travel, which found him knocking at Curly's front door. The dog he'd been warned about started barking at the door immediately.
The door opened shortly after, and Louis had the dog doing circles around him on the porch.
Curly gave a sharp knock on the doorframe and the dog skidded to a halt. Must be a trained command, but Louis didn't know enough about dogs to really say for sure.
Louis didn't have much experience with animals. They never had any family pets, and Louis himself never saw the point of getting an animal when he was out of the apartment so often. Since Chie had moved in, she had gotten a few fish. Lately, because she (and Daisuke, even if he was frozen in time) was closer to 30 then 20 now, and seemed to truly be staying,she had been talking lately about getting a couple kittens, and they'd visited the shelter a few times to get accustomed. But dogs? Louis would have to learn.
Curly waved at him, and Louis nodded as he stepped inside, the dog following with a little ‘ruff’ sound once it noticed Curly moving further into the house. Louis closed the door behind them.
He glanced around a little bit. “Nice place…” Louis wasn't usually good with small talk. It's why he liked working with kids. Even the shyest and most traumatized children would get talking with just the right prompting. Adults needed to do a whole song and dance just to get to the point.
And it really was a nice place. Curly might have owned it before all this, because there were stairs, and a chair lift had been installed. He followed Curly to the dining room where Curly had set up a few snacks already, and various boxes of tea sitting in front of a steaming kettle.
Curly grabbed his tablet from the table, and typed, then pressed the speak tab. “One of my friends got me into the habit of preparing food ahead of time for guests.” He explained, and while it wasn't the voice he had met Curly with all those years ago, it still suited him.
“It's definitely polite. We can order something later.” Louis sat down, and humorously quirked “Don't trust me with the stove, never got the hang of not losing a bunch of time because my phone was more interesting.” Or even as simple as a piece of drifting dust. It was a miracle he'd made it out of college alive.
Curly nodded and sat down in the chair across from him, both settling into a certain silence as they grabbed their respective prefered tea of the bunch.
Louis studied the kettle for a moment, before grabbing the handle, admiring its design. It was on a moving base, so all he had to do was tip it down towards the cup. That must have made it much easier on Curly, although Louis had never lost a limb before so he didn't know how good prosthetics were at lifting and tilting.
Neither seemed to be ready to break the silence. And really, who would want to talk about what they had agreed to meet for?
Louis reached for the sugar, and Curly made the first move with the introduction of a little snort by his second large scoop. “I see being a fiend for sweet things is a family trait.”
He stirred his sugary tea until it was blended. “Basically. I once actually failed a test in college because I thought I could eat half of a jumbo tub of sour candy and not have a horrible crashout afterwards. It turned out I was human with human limits. Luckily mama was able to…encourage the school to let me retake the test.” She had been furious with him, but stern and reasonable. “... which lead to everyone being allowed to retake the test because my dad further investigated and found that almost nobody had passed. Professor was a shit teacher, who knew.”
“College. That feels so long ago.”
“Much better than high school. You could take away my family fortune and the only way to get it back was to go back to high school, and I still wouldn't go.”
“Cheers to that.” They didn't clink mugs but there was a slight tilt of comradery.
They sipped at their drinks, letting the lessening awkward atmosphere take them, but they couldn't avoid it all day. Curly finally broke.
“So, you have it.”
Louis put his mug down, “yeah…”
He’d brought an overnight bag, just one spare change of clothing. The bag was still heavy, as he'd brought something even more precious with him.
It was a folder, corners of colorful pages slipping out despite how much he’d tried to neatly stack them.
Last week Curly had asked about Daisuke’s art. ‘The kid mentioned it a few times but never specified what exactly he did’ so Louis was here to set the record straight.
And if one more person could appreciate the art of the universe’s future prettiest star in this lifetime, Daisuke’s life truly meant something more then just the world.