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“Rin, you're coming hiking with us, right?” Futaba's sharp, clever voice makes her friend jump, her pen skittering over the crossword puzzle she's completing.
Behind the counter of Leblanc’s, the owner tuts. “Futaba! What did I tell you about startling the girl?”
“Sorry.” To apologise, Futaba hugs her friend, braining her with her headphones instead.
“I don't think I should interfere with your trip.” sighs Rin, known troublemaker.
“Don't be silly. It won't be a trip without you, right Sojiro?” Two pairs of female eyes cast themselves over at the so named, Futaba's innocent and direct, Rin’s sly and obscured by Futaba's sleeves.
Blushing is not something that should afflict a man in his forties, but Sojiro's cheeks apparently didn't get the memo. To be fair, he's subject to special circumstances. “That’s right. Besides, I paid for three tickets.”
Discussion closed, two members of the Phantom Thieves scurry upstairs to take a look at the special circumstances where she sleeps peacefully in her sunflower decorated crib. As always, upon catching sight of the baby, her sister, Futaba enters a meditative crouch over the tiny form, resting her chin in her hands, content to simply look at the child. And as always, Rin goes about her business without speaking. Despite Futaba's undoubted intelligence, her eccentricity makes it difficult to gauge whether she entirely understands where the child came from. Obviously she does. It's impossible that she doesn't, but so in turn Rin can't understand how she is still keen to hang out with her.
“Is this secure enough?” Sojiro asks early the next morning, plucking at and adjusting the baby carrier strapped to his ward's chest. Former ward, current complicationship.
“You said it's the strongest one they have.”
“I did.”
From inside the carrier, baby Himari gurgles and coos, seriously tempting her father to break character and hug all three females out of existence in the middle of the street. Somehow he resists.
“Futaba, we won't be stopping at every place that comes along, alright?” Throwing his arm along the back of the seat, the man of the house reverses his Porsche down a narrow alleyway, handily able to stare his adopted daughter in the face in the process.
“Maybe Rin needs to pee at every place though?” says Futaba, 'innocently'.
The ambient temperature of the car greatly increases, the driver suffering a coughing fit.
Rin suffers nothing. “That's a pregnancy thing.”
Her friend's chin lands on the seat, right between the parents, the unmarried parents. “Soooo, you're not pregnant again then?”
At that, Sojiro, who hasn't even managed to leave the road he lives on yet, brakes hard and shoots his daughter an angry look in the rear view mirror. “Futaba! Mind your own business.”
“Alright, alright. I was just wondering, cause, you know, you guys are weird.” The artificially ginger girl waves a hand and sits back, raising her portable gaming console. Beside her, Himari coos.
"I agree, flower ball. They're so emo."
Sighs rebound around the vehicle all the way to the mountain of choice, sighs generated by the only male in the vicinity.
🌻💛🌻
Hiking is less enjoyable for Sojiro than it should be, and not only because seemingly all of Tokyo has had the same idea, but because his daughter reminded him of his shame and failure. Rin’s parents, that dismal pair of delinquents, refused him permission to marry their daughter despite disowning her once they heard the news of her pregnancy, and he doesn't hold out much hope that the girl herself will agree to his proposal once she turns eighteen -a number rapidly approaching- not since he made several bad mistakes alongside the original one. Once upon a time he would have laughed at the idea of getting married, to anyone, but it's the only way to redeem and correct the situation. And also…also it's the only surefire way to keep the mother of his child in his life. Not to mention, Futaba asked for it as a present for the next fifty Christmases.
Ahead of him Futaba herself, like the squirrels in the trees, gambols off the leafy path while Rin sticks to it, her eyes studying the fiery autumnal colours with an intensity that is somehow detached, superior to it all. She always looks like that, until she swoops and snatches, flying away with the object of her interest. That's how it happened between her and Sojiro. One second they were sassing each other as usual, the next she'd backed him up against a fridge. Never again, he told himself. Never again…however fridges became a favourite place for him to loiter. He won't need to lie to himself, feel terrible, and make excuses for standing around in the kitchen if he can slip a ring on her finger.
“Rin.” he says, coming up behind her. Actually, not quite behind her, but from the side, so she’s alerted to his approach. He's no psychologist, and he doesn't know what caused it, but he's done a little research and is aware of what's wrong with her.
“Hmm?”
“Ah…it’s a lovely day.”
“Yeah. I never thought I’d be hanging out in nature with you, ‘Jiro. Where’s my warning not to trip over logs or else suffer your evicting wrath?”
“You know it’s pointless for me to use those threats at this stage, Rinnie.” Only that nickname used by him in a soft tone of voice is guaranteed to make the Joker shut up and blush, and in this Sojiro has no mercy.
“...” Rin shoots him a silent look over her shoulder, a look that keeps hope aflame.
At a cafe near the summit the trio, plus baby, stop to refuel. “Here, one ruined cup of joe.” smiling, Sojiro slides a mug of coffee across a table top, a heavy flotilla of cream wobbling on the surface of its black sea.
The target of the beverage looks up from the happy baby on her lap, her dark gaze made softer by her glasses. “Thank you. That looks delish.”
“Hehe.” Futaba giggles behind her hand, her own drink nothing but the most intense neon milkshake imaginable. When Rin gets up to use the loo, leaving her child with its daddy, she pounces. “I can't wait for you guys to sort your shit out. It's going to be epic.”
“Futaba, shush.” Using a baby as a shield is unmanly, but Sojiro lifts the infant higher in his arms anyway.
“If you like, you can give me Himari and go sort it out right now?”
“That’s not how it works. The situation is complicated. And I shouldn't be talking with you about this anyway.”
“I can ask her for you-”
“Futaba, quiet now.”
“My proposal would be so cool, man.” A fabulous play full of anime characters and aliens fills Futaba's skull. Somewhere in there is a pretty ring. With a laser rock.