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Although he was truly grateful to have an Omega and pups, a little family of his own, as Kim searched the house for his oldest stepson, he thought parenting was truly one of the hardest things he’d ever experienced. He never realized just how stressful being a parent could be. His grandparents had made it seem so easy when he was a kid.
Of course, he absolutely loved having Kenta and the two pups in his life. But sometimes he thought it might kill him, how worried the boys could make him. Buddy’s habit of sleeping so deeply in nests that it looked like he wasn’t breathing, and Taro having once run away… Kim couldn’t help but worry. Especially when he couldn’t find Taro anywhere. It’d just been the two of them at home, and Kim couldn’t believe he’d somehow lost track of the eleven-year-old. He had a bad feeling that he’d missed a major warning sign that morning, right before he’d told Kenta he’d stay home to look after Taro while his mate took Buddy out to go get new school supplies.
Taro had been acting off that morning, quiet and barely responding to his little brother. He’d been fine when Kenta woke him up, but shortly after breakfast he’d started to look rather down. Kim had assumed he didn’t feel good, that the boy had a headache or stomachache of some kind when he didn’t have any kind of fever, and offered to stay home with him.
But before Taro had run away, they’d mistaken his distance and bad mood as an illness as well. Kim had already checked to see if Taro had packed up anything or taken a scooter or bike out of the garage, but everything was still in place. Still, Taro had managed to slip out the first time when the whole pack was over. Surely the pup could figure out how to cover his tracks if he’d truly run off for a second time when there was no one around but Kim.
Just as he convinced himself that the pup had really run off and he’d have to break the news to Kenta and Buddy over the phone while going out to search for Taro, Kim heard quiet sniffling. It was a relief at first to hear the sound and realize Taro hadn’t run away. But then it just brought up a whole new wave of worry. Taro was hiding in a distant room by himself and crying. Something was wrong.
His first thought was that Taro had managed to hurt himself again. Though the boy’s destructive outbursts had become a rarity as he settled into the pack, occasionally Taro fell back on old habits and broke the reflective surfaces in the house. So he pushed right into the room, in case Taro was hiding bleeding, scraped up hands. A hospital trip to remove glass from his knuckles had occurred once before, and Kim was not going to delay another if necessary.
There was no sign or scent of blood as he burst in on the pup. Taro was simply sitting down with his knees to his chest in the corner of the room, tears falling from his eyes. His hands were free of any injury. Well, the pup wasn’t quite sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, Kim realized as he went right to the boy’s side. Taro had his favorite toy held to his chest, the Bonsly plushie squished tight. The Pokémon toy was something that Taro was very fond of, so it was nice to see that he’d gone for the toy for comfort and self-soothing instead of lashing out.
Sitting next to the pup, Kim put an arm around him and asked, “What’s wrong, Taro?”
Taro buried his face against his plushie and turned away. Kim waited, and after some more sniffling, the pup couldn’t keep up trying to hide and lifted his head enough to grumble, “It’s stupid.” Then he dropped his face back down.
“It can’t be, if it’s bothering you this much.” The pup mumbled something that sounded like a ‘it is’ against the toy. But Taro was crying, so even if it was over something small, Kim was going to take it seriously. “Did something happen this morning?”
He got a nod, but then the pup insisted again, “But it’s dumb.”
“If something upsets you, it’s not dumb. No matter what it is.” Kim patted the pup’s soft black hair. Taro clammed up, so Kim pulled him a little closer. The pup didn’t try to push him away, so Kim knew from experience that it’d be best to just stay holding him until he was ready to offer up more information. He was a lot like Kenta in that regard, keeping things bottled up until he had someone in his space waiting for him to talk. Though he wanted to just find out right away what had upset the pup so he could make Taro feel better as soon as possible, his instincts hating to see one of his pups sad, Kim didn’t push it.
And then he saw two other toys in the room that looked like they’d been tossed away from Taro. He blinked at them, confused. They weren’t supposed to be able to be physically separated, attached by a pull cord between them. But there was no sign of the cord. Although the big Bonsly plush was Taro’s favorite, he knew the boy was very fond of the attached Bonsly and Sudowoodo plushies as well. “Oh, your hugging toy… what happened to it? Did the cord break?”
He briefly left Taro’s side to shuffle over and grab the two toys. The pull cord between them was completely gone, so the two plushies weren’t tied together and couldn’t be played with as intended. Buddy and Taro loved pulling the two so that they’d go back together and ‘hug,’ but now they would have to be held or placed together. Taro lifted his head to look at the two toys, green eyes wet with fresh tears, frowning miserably at them.
Though Taro was looking at the plushies, he also wasn’t. His gaze was distant, unfocused, the pup clearly lost in his own head.
Kim pulled him onto his lap to try to ground him. “No one’s going to be upset that it broke. I can get you plenty of toys, hm? I win all those podiums now so I can take care of you guys.” He hoped Taro didn’t think he’d be mad that one of the toys he’d bought for him had been broken.
“I know… it’s just… Bobo grabbed them this morning, and P’Alan tried to save them, but Bobo shook it and the cord broke when they were pulling it. So P’Alan cut the rest of it off.”
Alan’s Great Dane was usually quite good about not damaging the kids’ toys. Kim had heard the older Alpha scolding the dog to drop something earlier, as well as Buddy exclaiming, but he’d been in the kitchen watching Kenta make breakfast. He’d just assumed the dog had grabbed a shoe or taken a snack from someone’s hand or something. Buddy hadn’t sounded upset, just surprised.
“I’m sure the dog just thought he and Alan were playing. I can order you a new one to replace this, okay?”
“That’s not… Bobo didn’t mean it. He’s a dog. I don’t care about that,” the pup sniffled quietly.
He’d thought he’d nailed it. But apparently not. Taro somehow looked even more miserable. Kim pressed a kiss to the top of his stepson’s head. “So what’s wrong, cub?”
“It’s… they’re-“ Taro choked back a sob. He squeezed his plushie tighter. “They’re separated. Like… like…”
“Oh.”
Kim distinctly remembered that after giving Taro the toy and demonstrating how it worked, the pup had gone to his younger brother to show him. While showing Buddy how the two Pokémon could hug each other, he’d happily described the Bonsly and Sudowoodo as a pup and daddy Pokémon, family just like Buddy and their dad. Taro seemed to be very attached to his Bonsly plushie. He’d refer to it as being the older brother of Buddy’s toys when they played together, and Kim knew Taro was still getting over feeling like he was a tool or some kind of collection piece for his grandfather, like all the bonsai in the Foundation. So after being given a toy that was a tired looking baby bonsai, it was no wonder that Taro had seen himself in it.
So with him seeing Buddy and Kenta when he looked at the hugging pair, or maybe even himself and his dad, of course it had hit Taro hard to see the toys separated.
Kenta, Taro, and Buddy did not do well with separation. It’d happened too many times to them. Taro never talked about it much, but Kenta had opened up about his nightmares. Tony had no trouble ripping the pups away from their dad, and no trouble with snatching them away in the night when they weren’t expecting it. It’d been an easy way for him to punish Kenta’s failures, taking Buddy away. And Taro had been useful, able to make problems go away by taking information with his power that had developed so quickly, so he’d be fetched on occasion as well..
It was hard on the pups to be apart from Kenta, though they’d gotten better at it with Buddy attending school and Kenta working at the garage. Buddy still had his moments where he’d be afraid of his dad or brother leaving him behind, and Taro could get anxious if he didn’t know where they were.
Finally, what was actually bothering Taro came spilling out. “Everything gets taken away from me,” he sobbed, and Kim knew he didn’t mean the toy. He meant all the times he’d been separated from Kenta and Buddy, how all the other kids in the Foundation had been sent to new families, even how he’d lost the only home he’d ever known despite how horrible it’d been. And he probably missed his grandfather somewhat as well, even after everything, since it hadn’t been all bad. Kenta still struggled with the loss of his father, and he hadn’t been a favorite like his children. Of course Taro had taken it hard. The broken toy had simply brought up all kinds of nasty memories to the surface, memories that Taro tried so hard to ignore, since he couldn’t use his power on himself to make them go away. Kim squeezed the pup tighter.
“I won’t let anyone take anything from you again, Taro. You, Kenta, and Buddy are safe now. I promise.”
It took a while for Taro to calm down, even with plenty of assurances, like he’d been really building up for it for a while and was finally letting everything out now that he was tucked against Kim. But eventually the boy sat up and let Kim wipe his tears. He watched as Kim ordered a replacement toy on his phone, and made a small noise of agreement when Kim suggested that they give the broken ones to Martin the next time he visited with his parents.
“How about we get you cleaned up and go join Kenta and Buddy? I’ll call your dad and see where they’re at.” Taro nodded wordlessly, looking small and fragile. It’d do him good to be with Kenta and Buddy again. Helping Buddy pick out new school stuff and getting to see that their family was safe and sound was sure to get his mind off of bad thoughts.
After helping Taro scrub his face clean, Kim fixed the boy’s messy hair. His bangs had gone all awry from being pressed against his chest for so long. They made a stop at the kitchen to get some water, Kim gently nagging the pup to start drinking it so he wouldn’t dehydrate. Then he called Kenta to ask where they’d be driving to.
“Taro feels better already?” Kenta asked, skeptical as Kim told him how they were ready to join them.
“He wasn’t sick. He was just having a rough morning, that’s all. We’re both eager to see you two again.”
“Oh… Buddy’s kind of sulking without you two as well,” Kenta admitted. “He’s only picked out a single box of crayons…” And Kim was sure Kenta had been worrying about them the whole time as well.
The pups were definitely happy to see each other once Kim and Kenta managed to find each other in the store. Taro brightened right up and rushed over to his little brother, and the two held hands for the rest of the outing. Buddy was much more eager to select new school supplies with Taro and Kim there to offer their input and encouragement respectively.
“You can get anything you like, Buddy,” Kim told the little pup, smiling down at him.
“Anything?” Buddy echoed.
“The next thing on the list is a notebook,” Kenta prompted instead, looking at the list of items they actually needed. “They’re in the next aisle.”
The list did not stop Kim from convincing the pups to add other items into the cart. He coaxed Taro into getting new things as well, even though the boy had all the supplies he needed at their guest house for his online schooling. He insisted they stop at a book section to find even more children’s books for him to read to Buddy before they left when Kenta started steering them towards check-out. Kenta eyed him suspiciously as he led the way to the right section, since Kim had not ever mentioned where he’d found the first few children’s books he read to Buddy.
They left the store with Taro on Kim’s back, the older boy drained from his difficult morning and walking around a store, and Buddy on Kenta’s hip. Both kids were placed into Kenta’s car, and Kim sighed as he realized that by bringing Taro late to join the two and make it a full family outing, that meant he had to drive home alone in his car.
-
As Kim had suggested, the next time Pete and Way brought Martin over to Alan’s for a playdate with Buddy, Taro handed over the two split Pokémon plushies. The youngest pack pup beamed as he was given gifts from his cousins, and after loudly thanking Taro and Buddy, he darted off to go show his parents.
“We’re getting a new one, so- hmph. He ditched us again,” Taro complained to his brother, back to his usual self. Buddy nodded solemnly, then giggled quietly. “You can show him your new stuff once he’s done talking to his mom.”
“That’ll take forever.”
“Definitely. P’Way won’t even know what they are. Martin has to explain them to him again.”
“We can get more snacks while Martin tells his mama about them,” Buddy suggested, tugging on his brother’s hand.
Taro let his brother tug him towards the kitchen. “You’ve had so many already.”
“P'Kim says Buddy needs to eat a lot to grow big like Daddy.”
“P’Kim does say that, I guess. Okay.”
Way couldn’t even react to the fact that Kenta’s pups were technically making fun of him. Martin ran right up to him, waving the toys up at him and going, “Mama, look! Look!”
“I’m looking-”
“P’Taro and Buddy gave me toys!” Martin interrupted.
Way tried desperately to remember what the toys were. Kim had bought his pups a videogame console with the game on it the toys were from, and Martin loved watching his cousins play it. It’d been all he talked about after the last time Alan had watched the three pups. “Yes, it’s uh… Pokey-man.” Martin’s arm waving slowed down. “Um- they’re Woody and Seed…ly? Right?”
All of Martin’s excitement vanished. “No!” he cried.
Pete coughed to avoid laughing. “Sudowoodo and Bonsly, baby,” he whispered to Way between coughs. “Pokémon.”
“Isn’t that what I said?”