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Every day for the past several years since he moved to the city by himself, Aki’s breakfast was always a cup of coffee, and his meals cycled through the same three dishes. Every day he would walk through the halls of his apartment, his footsteps bouncing off of the empty, gray walls. Every day he would stop by the corner store, buy a pack of cigarettes, go to his nine-to-five, listen to his manager Makima berate him for smoking at nineteen, then go home.
Aki was happy, he was happy he could choose what to eat for lunch and dinner, he was happy he earned the money he put into his bank account, and he was happy his clothes fit him well. He was happy about many things, and he had plenty of time to himself to notice this. But that meant he also noticed other things; the empty chairs of his table, the space left on his sofa, and the quiet rides to and from work.
To wind down, Aki picked up hobbies like puzzles, sewing, and drawing. He would spend a few days on them at most, then he realized he would finish and be more tired than he was when he first started. He tried, over and over and over again, but the materials always found their way back to his shelves. It wasn’t good to be tired on days he should be recuperating. Yet, he knew the hypocrisy of it, because on days he’s drifting around in his apartment, he would get a call from his co-worker Himeno, inviting him to join the team for dinner, and that dinner would progress to bottles and bottles and bottles of beer, and depending on her mood, Himeno would stay over at his or he would stay at hers. Those affairs left him lying in bed with an empty head, crying bones and burning skin. Like the smoking he couldn’t drop, he would take a pull and forget the bitter taste it left in his mouth.
Then one day, Himeno said there were some people he had to meet and she led him to Makima’s office, where he was immediately hit with a balled up paper. That was the day they crashed into his life; Denji, a boy with a mop of wheat-colored hair and Power, a girl with poorly dyed tresses that were too long for her to possibly manage. Immediately, he wanted to be a mile away from the two, then Himeno gestured towards them and then he regretted coming to work. All that was said to him was that the two had no living relatives and nowhere to go, and for whatever reason that they did not want to disclose, their company was going to be hiring the two and Aki was going to be their mentor. Immediately, he filed away the complaints he had, then Makima handed him a thick envelope saying it was their allowance and then he really regretted coming to work.
They let him off early that day, which Aki was grateful for because he spent the next hour trying to convince the two that riding a train was not going to kill them, and then the entire ride trying to stop them from playing monkey bars on the grab handles. Every attempt to ignore the two would fail each time one of them opened their mouth; Denji kept making jabs at his hairdo and Power kept complaining he smelled like smoke. The other passengers’ gazes bore into his skin and Aki never wanted to throw himself into a railway track as badly as he did then.
Accommodations had to be made, and none of them were easy. Fortunately, the two got along well and didn’t mind sharing a bed. Unfortunately, the only room big enough for the two of them was his own, so Aki was unceremoniously kicked out of his bedroom and migrated to the guest room that was half the size. When he cooked dinner for them, Denji choked from how fast he was inhaling the food, and Power spit out her first spoonful and complained it was too bitter. They had peculiarities that quickly became evident. One time, he saw Denji eating the skin of the oranges Aki had peeled, straight from the trash bin. The conversation that ensued was cut short when Aki realized Denji didn’t think eating from the trash was unsanitary. Another time during a team meeting, Aki noted how easily Power’s eyes would begin to wander the room, how easily she lost interest. He saw how her eyes would jump back to focus and how her body twitched every time one of the men would speak.
At some point, Makima handed him a file detailing their backgrounds. In it, he read that Denji was an orphan who grew up in a shed for a house and Power was a trafficked amnesiac. Aki stopped reading after the ninth blanked out word in Power’s profile. Later, Makima called him to say that she enrolled them in a high school, and because it was a little far he was going to get compensation. The compensation came in the form of a small car parked innocently in front of his apartment complex. If acclimatizing the two to riding trains was difficult, driving them to school made Aki want to rip out his hair. On their first day, Power put her feet up on the back of the passenger seat where Denji sat, then he turned around and pulled on her legs, then she pulled on his hair, then Aki got a ticket for stopping in the highway because Denji hit the steering wheel and they nearly rammed into another car.
During work one day, Himeno asked him if he was getting enough sleep, and when he responded with a raised brow, she pointed under her eyes. Aki looked at a window and saw the deep pools gathering under his own. He shrugged and expected her to drop it, but she tucked her hair behind her ear and she didn’t. That night, he got nine missed calls from Denji and Power. When he came back to his apartment the next morning, he fell straight onto the sofa, then he was roused from sleep by a nagging Denji saying the two didn’t know how to get to work because Aki always drove them. So with heavy limbs, he picked himself up.
Somehow, Power got herself a mini skirt and she wanted to wear it to work that day, so Aki had to explain the concept of dress code in the workplace. Power being herself, she kept pouting and shaking her head. Tired of her antics and last night, Aki snapped. He couldn’t remember what he said, but whatever it was it made Power shut her mouth so fast he heard a click and she locked herself up in her and Denji’s room. The pit in his stomach grew with every minute that passed without a response despite his soft words or proffered sweets. And for each minute, regret clawed at his chest and squeezed his lungs and kept him from meeting Denji’s eyes, who stood just a few feet away. That night, he lied on the couch and watched the dinner he cooked grow cold in front of the door, then it creaked open and dainty hands accepted the olive branch. After two days of the same cycle, Power came out and never spoke about it, so Aki didn’t say anything either. The next time she asked to wear the mini skirt again, Aki stopped by the mall and bought her a pair of leggings to wear under them.
Whenever Denji and Power began to ruffle each other’s feathers in public, Aki would pull out chewing gum and suddenly they were arguing at an acceptable noise level. Initially, they lagged behind in performance both at school and at work, which Aki knew to expect, but their refusal to listen was giving him white hairs. Then Power would gleefully pick them out, and Aki would remember the file, then he would breathe in and out, in and out, until he gathered his bearings. Afternoons were spent touring them around the city, evenings tutoring them even when he struggled himself. Later, Aki found dust collected on his puzzle pieces, needle and threads, and pencils and papers.
Himeno came up behind him during one of their lunch breaks and asked why he was watching food tutorials. He explained his dilemma of having to satisfy a pair of teenagers with the pickiness of a five year-old and the appetite of a weightlifter. She giggled, put a hair behind her ear, then offered him to stay over for the night. Aki’s breath hitched, and he heard himself say he promised to cook dinner for the two. Himeno paused for a moment, and in that moment, the dread he felt was inexplicably worse than when Power locked herself up. Himeno asked him if he was sure, and Aki’s mouth was moving but nothing was coming out. He bit his tongue until he tore into the muscle and tasted iron, then he nodded his head. The morning after, Aki woke up in the pair’s room, the smell of his homemade ramen drifting from Power's open mouth. Sunrays bled into the curtains and into his eyes, and the cold of dawn seeped under their blanket, but their warmth enveloped him, and he forgot what it felt like to not wake up tired.
Around a year after the pair moved in with him, Aki invited a friend from work, Angel. Before he could tell them to behave, the second they stepped past the threshold, Power complained Aki smelled of cologne and it irritated her nose. When Angel glanced at him, Aki turned his head the other way. After introductions, Angel walked around, taking in the place, and eventually he became fixated on the drawings haphazardly pasted on the walls. Aki stood beside him and began to point and explain the design process of each one. Then he reached his favorite, the one Power had drawn with Denji over lunch, but one of them spilled soy sauce over it and it stained the paper brown, so the finished product was a sketch of the front of their apartment complex, their small car being a very detailed rectangle. Angel laughed, tucked his hair behind his ear, and said the two of them should be artists.
The morning after, Aki prepared pancakes and eggs for breakfast, and the sweet and savory smell hugged the walls. He opened Denji’s patchworked curtains and stirred the pair with light shakes, then ushered them into the bathroom. Angel slept on the couch, his light hair splayed around him like a halo. Aki woke him up too and convinced him to join them for breakfast. On the way to work, Aki stopped by the corner store and bought each of them an ice cream bar. When they arrived, their grinning mouths covered in sticky cream, Makima asked him why they were late, and Aki only bowed his head, saying it didn’t hurt to indulge every once in a while.