Chapter Text
“Another loss? Come on,” Rinne groaned, reaching into the pocket of his pants for his wallet. He cracked it open, finding only a couple loose coins and a singular dollar bill.
Niki was going to kill him when he got home.
He looked around the crowded pachinko parlor, sighing. At the very least, Niki would be working until late tonight, so if Rinne headed home now, he could whip up some dessert as an apology. He may be mediocre at baking at best, but food was the way to Niki’s heart, so he’d just have to try his best. If he failed, Niki would refuse to cook for him for the next few weeks, which was the last thing Rinne wanted. Worse still, he’d probably have to sleep on the couch. Yeah, that thing was rock solid, so he’d like to avoid that.
Heaving yet another long sigh, Rinne pushed to his feet, picking up his bag.
Someone a few seats down shouted in victory as cheerful music celebrated with him. Colorful lights that Rinne had grown accustomed to suddenly seemed blinding.
Rinne passed by, merely another loser in a sea of gamblers, a nobody who would soon be forgotten by all who caught a glimpse of him. Funny, how a guy who was once an idol could end up like this.
He pushed open the door, greeting by the sound of rain and dreary gray skies. Even better.
Putting a hand out beyond the cover of the pachinko parlor’s awning, Rinne watched several droplets hit his hand, rolling off in a delicate cascade.
He wouldn’t say he regretted leaving home. Quite the opposite, really. He was thrilled, ecstatic, even, to be free from the oppressive lifestyle he’d been forced to live in his hometown. Here in the city, everything was brighter, more exciting, and so free. But it was true that life here hadn’t been all he had dreamed of, and the reality was that he and Niki were struggling to make ends meet.
Niki was pulling most of the weight financially- the house they lived in was under his name, and he had a full-time job at a restaurant a few minutes away from home. Without him, Rinne didn’t know where he’d be. Probably homeless on the streets somewhere, eating out of a dumpster. Instead, he had a roof above his head and got to eat three delicious meals a day, because Niki had decided to take him in. Even better, somehow the guy had managed to fall in love with him, something Rinne was eternally grateful for.
Rinne did his best to contribute and repay Niki somehow, working three part-time jobs between idol auditions, but said idol auditions were going poorly, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to re-debut. Maybe it was about time he found something else to do.
Rinne stepped out into the rain, letting it flatten his wild red hair, and took the all-too familiar route home. If only Lady Luck were on his side today, maybe he would have been able to triple today’s earnings. Instead, he’d lost it all.
Yeah, Niki really was going to kill him.
He arrived at a small house in a humble suburban neighborhood, taking the key out of his pocket and letting himself inside. He didn’t have an umbrella, so a puddle rapidly formed at his feet, and Rinne took a mental reminder to dry the floors once he was done taking a shower.
His head snapped up as he heard a familiar sound. Something was sizzling on a pan.
Shit, Niki was home early.
“Niki?”
“Oh, Rinne-kun! Back already?”
Rinne walked further into the house, finding Niki in the kitchen. “Yeah. I thought you’d be out ‘till midnight tonight?” he asked. He walked over for a kiss, which he was denied.
“I got out early thanks to the storm. Go take a shower, geez. You’re getting the floors all wet! What am I going to do if the wood warps, huh?”
Rinne put his hands up in surrender with a laugh that made it obvious that he was very much not sorry. “Okay, okay! I better get my welcome back kiss after!”
“Not until my floors are dry,” Niki’s playful voice followed him down the hallway into the bedroom.
And even as Rinne retreated into the room, his smile didn’t die. Because somehow, with Niki by his side, he felt that maybe everything would be alright.
Even if Niki was going to kill him once he admitted all his money had been fed into a pachinko machine.
🐝˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚
An hour later, Rinne started on the dishes while Niki put a foreign cooking show on the TV. As expected, dinner was delicious, and now they had a few hours to relax before they had to go to bed.
“Why do you have to watch a cooking show of all things?” Rinne complained over the sound of running water, “Dont’cha already know everythin’ there is to know about cooking?”
“Of course not!” Niki replied, “I’ll never know everything there is to know about cooking, not even if I spend my entire life trying.”
“Which you will,” Rinne supplied helpfully.
Niki huffed indignantly. “Exactly. If you get it, then come join me on the couch already.”
“Oh? Does this mean you’ve forgiven me?”
“No, definitely not. I can’t believe you gambled all your money away. Again.”
Rinne dried off the last plate, then walked over and flopped onto the couch next to his boyfriend with an overly dramatic pout. “But you still love me, right, Niki-kyun~?”
Niki hit his arm lightly with an annoyed grunt. “Unfortunately, yes. But you better watch yourself!”
Thunder boomed outside the window.
“It’s really coming down, huh?” Niki muttered, watching as rain pelted into the glass of the window. “It’s a good thing you got back before it got too bad.”
Just as Rinne opened his mouth to speak, the doorbell went off.
“What? Who could be here at this hour?” Niki wondered aloud, standing up. Rinne followed him to the door, an eyebrow raised in vague confusion. It was raining hard. Nobody would want to go out in this weather, not even those annoyingly persistent door-to-door salesmen that had been pestering them lately.
Niki quickly unlocked and opened the door, and they were both immediately hit by a powerful gust of wind. Luckily, they weren’t hit by the rain thanks to the porch, but it was clearly pretty bad outside.
For a second Rinne didn’t see anyone, and wondered if maybe a flying piece of debris had hit the doorbell. That was, until he looked down.
Standing on the porch, barefoot and wearing ragged, positively soaked clothes, was a little boy. He must’ve been at most seven or eight, with messy pink hair, round cheeks, and wide amethyst eyes that looked way too determined for a kid his age.
The little boy looked up at them, desperate and soaked, and said, “Please let me inside.”
“Of course,” Niki answered immediately, opening the door wider. “Goodness, you’re drenched! Rinne-kun, go grab a towel.”
Rinne complied, running off to the linen closet. When he returned a few moments later, Niki had led the kid to the living room where he was now sitting on the couch, leaving the cushions wet and dirty. Rinne handed Niki the towel, and his boyfriend gently started drying off the child.
“What were you doing out in the storm? Where are your parents?” Niki asked quietly.
The child was silent for a moment before slowly answering, “Hopefully they’re dead.”
Rinne choked on air. That was the last response he had been expecting from a kid who looked like he still sucked his thumb.
Niki’s gentle hand faltered for a brief moment. “You shouldn’t say that. I don’t know what your parents are like, but-”
“‘Course you don’t,” the boy sniffed immediately, “If you knew, you’d wish they were gone, too. I just hope ma sisters are doin’ okay… If one of them…”
Immediately, tears welled in his eyes, and he muttered, “They said not to look back, but I dunno… I could’ve helped. Maybe we all coulda escaped together.”
“So you ran away from home?” Niki asked carefully.
“Mhm. My sisters covered for me to help me escape. ‘Cause I’m the youngest.”
Niki started drying the child’s light pink hair, and the boy made a small squeak of complaint. He reached with small hands to take over control of the towel from Niki.
“... Can do it myself,” he said, and started drying his own hair.
“Okay, great! Then while you do that, Rinne-kun here will watch over you, and I’ll go heat up something for you to eat. How does that sound?”
The kid nodded, and Niki got up, heading into the kitchen to raid the fridge. Meanwhile, Rinne took a seat next to him.
“So? Here’s the real question. What’s your name, squirt?” Rinne asked.
The boy looked at him petulantly, cheeks puffing up slightly. “It’s Kohaku.”
Rinne put a hand over the towel in his hair, messing it up. Kohaku squirmed away, making noises of complaint all the while.
“Nice ta meetcha, Kohaku-chan! I’m Rinne, and that’s Niki. This place is Niki’s house and I’m just a humble freeloader~ ☆” Rinne reached out his hand, and Kohaku took it in a rigid and surprisingly firm handshake.
“Nice to meet ya… Rinne-han. I appre… appreci… apprecia…?”
“Appreciate?” Rinne supplied, and Kohaku nodded.
“Appreciate your assistance,” he finished resolutely. “I’ve been lookin’ for help for… mmm… three weeks now.”
“Three weeks?!” Niki cried, nearly dropping the plate of leftovers he’d heated up while they were talking.
“Yes. Twenty-one days and nights,” Kohaku confirmed.
“The kid can do math! I was thinkin’ your vocab was advanced, too,” Rinne said. “Are ya some sort of super genius?!”
Kohaku rolled his eyes. So much sass for such a little guy. “No. I was educated by my family’s tutors. An Oukawa must never disgrace the family name with ignorance.”
The sentence sounded like some sort of mantra, a saying that must have been repeated to him many, many times.
Rinne knew, because it was all too familiar to him. Back when he still lived in his hometown, being raised to become the next monarch, he’d heard something similar from his own tutors.
“Are you an Oukawa, then?” Niki asked, setting the plate on the coffee table and motioning for Kohaku to eat.
“Yes,” Kohaku confirmed. He reached forward, taking the provided chopsticks and beginning to eat. His posture was perfect, the chopsticks held with a grace and precision that Rinne wouldn’t normally attribute to a kid his age. “But I don’t wanna be an Oukawa anymore. Bein’ an Oukawa means hurtin’ people and gettin’ hurt, and I don’t wanna do that anymore. It’s scary.”
Rinne and Niki exchanged glances.
“What do you mean by that, Kohaku-chan?” Niki pushed gently.
The child only shook his head, eating his food. After swallowing, he murmured, “I shouldn’t say any more than that…”
“If someone’s being mean to you, that’s a problem, you know? We just want to help,” Niki pushed again.
“Mm… But I think… You’d be mad if I told you,” Kohaku said. He ate some more, before putting his chopsticks down with a frown. “Full.”
“What?! You barely ate!” Niki cried, eyes trained on the still mostly untouched plate. He gasped, a hand clutching at his heart. “Does it taste bad?!”
Kohaku immediately shook his head, eyes wide. “No, it’s good! It’s yummy!”
“Then eat some more,” Niki insisted, pushing the plate slightly closer, “You barely ate any.”
Kohaku slowly picked at the rice. “It’s a lot of food.”
Rinne raised an eyebrow. It was a normal-sized plate with a kid-sized serving on it. All things considered, it was a decently small portion.
“It’s not that much. You could eat that in like five bites,” he said.
Kohaku just shrugged, then went back to eating diligently. A few bites later, he conceded once more, flopping backwards onto the couch. “Full,” he said again.
Niki sighed, taking the plate. “At least you tried. Well, if you’ve been out and about for three weeks, it probably messed with your appetite. What have you been eating?”
“Rations,” Kohaku answered. “Twice a day.”
“Well, for however long you end up staying in my house, I’ll make sure you get three full meals a day! Is that clear?” Niki replied.
“Okay.”
Rinne raised an eyebrow at his boyfriend. “How long d’ya think he’ll be here? We need to find his parents,” he said quietly, following Niki into the kitchen while Kohaku kicked his legs back and forth idly.
“I know. But we have no idea where he came from, and in the first place, I don’t know if it’s safe to give him back to his parents.”
“Yeah… Sounds suspicious,” Rinne mused. “But ya never know. Kids can be dramatic. Active imaginations and all ‘at.”
“I know. We’ll try to get a hold of his family at some point. But at the very least, for tonight, the weather’s bad, so we’ve gotta let him stay the night,” Niki replied. “I hope he doesn’t mind the couch…”
“That thing’s so uncomfortable, there’s no way we’re sticking him on the couch,” Rinne grumbled.
“There’s no other choice. There’s only one bedroom since we turned the other one into an office.”
“That was the shittiest idea we’ve ever had. No one uses the office, we should’ve kept it as a guest room.”
“Yeah, well, hindsight is 20/20,” Niki grumbled. “We sold the mattress, so there’s nothing to be done about it.”
“Well, I’d rather sleep on the floor then stick the kid on the couch.”
Niki’s eyes lit up a bit. “Okay, then that’s what we’ll do! Kohaku-chan can take the bed, you take the floor, and I’ll take the couch~.”
“Huh, I guess that would work.”
“No.”
Rinne nearly jumped out of his skin, seeing Kohaku was now standing right next to him. When the hell had he gotten up off the couch? Rinne hadn’t noticed his approach at all.
“Gah! Ya scared me, Kohaku-chan! Where did you come from?”
“I can sleep anywhere. I can sleep on the floor.” Kohaku ignored his question, tugging at his sleeve lightly. “Don’t worry ‘bout me.”
“You’re like… five. Why wouldn’t I worry about you?” Rinne asked in return with a snort.
“I am seven,” Kohaku replied with a huff, “And I could probably take you in a fight if I wanted to.”
Rinne let out a hearty laugh. “Oh, that’s funny, kid. You’re barely even four feet tall.”
“I’m tellin’ the truth.”
“Okay, okay, no fights in my house,” Niki cut in. He knelt down in front of Kohaku, giving his best kind-hearted smile. “Listen, Kohaku-chan. We just want you to be comfortable. But if you really don’t want to take the bed, you can just sleep on the couch, okay? And we’ll bring you some pillows and blankets so you’ll be nice and comfy.”
“Okay…”
“Now, let’s get you into some dry clothes. Unfortunately we don’t have anything even close to your size. Why don’t you come with me to look for something you might like in my closet?”
He held out his hand and Kohaku took it apprehensively. Together, the pair made their way to the bedroom, leaving Rinne in the kitchen. Figuring he might as well make himself useful, Rinne went to the linen closet for some pillows and blankets.
Some time later, after Rinne had finished setting up the couch, Niki and Kohaku walked back out. Kohaku was wearing an oversized sweater, practically drowning in the baggy fabric. It was one of Niki’s, a patterned jacket with yellow accents. It was quite a loud design and Rinne had forgotten Niki even owned it since he almost never wore it. In addition to the jacket, he was wearing fuzzy socks, though they were too big and bunched up at the ankles. It looked like Niki had taken an actual hair dryer to the kid’s hair, as well as a brush, because the once matted pink strands now looked soft and neat.
Kohaku looked over at the couch hesitantly. “I get to sleep there?” he asked.
“Yup. Sorry, it’s not much, but it should be fine for the night.”
“I like it,” Kohaku replied, and he clambered up onto the couch, pulling up the blankets with a contented smile. How he could look so cozy on their rock-hard couch that they’d bought at a garage sale, Rinne didn’t know.
“In that case, you should get to bed,” Rinne said. “We’re gonna turn in for the night, too. We can talk some more in the morning, yeah?”
“Mkay,” Kohaku responded quietly. His eyes were drifting closed. But before he could fully fall asleep, he looked up at the couple and asked, “Can you be my new parents?”
Rinne and Niki were silent for a beat before Niki replied smoothly, “Aw, I wish we could Kohaku-chan, but that’s not how it works.”
Rinne was thankful, because he had no idea how to respond to that. The kid sounded so sincere and so sad. He had to wonder what Kohaku’s life was like, that a seven-year-old could sound like he’d seen all the horrors the world could offer.
“Okay…”
Kohaku pulled the blankets a little more snugly around his shoulders, then turned to face the back of the couch, appearing to be nothing more than a pile of blankets.
Rinne sighed. He hated to disappoint the kid, but it wasn’t as if they could just suddenly become his parents. He barely even knew Kohaku, anyway. For all he knew, he might have a loving family. This could be some elaborate roleplay.
“Good night, Kohaku-chan,” he said, and he started off towards the bedroom with Niki not far behind.
“... Good night.”