Chapter Text
Denji waited outside the school. Blossom was falling from the trees overhead. He put out his hand and let one pink petal drift slowly down into it. Then he ate it.
“Dad!”
Denji looked up. Nayuta was walking towards him. He smiled.
“Don't eat random shit when you're picking me up,” Nayuta said.
“Language,” Denji said.
“Don't eat random crap?”
Denji nodded approvingly. He was getting really good at this parenting thing.
A teacher came out after her. A redheaded woman. Denji narrowed his eyes.
“You must be Mr Hayakawa?” the teacher said.
“Yeeeh,” Denji said, leaning back on his car. He didn't like the woman for some reason, but he also felt the need to impress her. No matter how unlikely the battered old Honda was to impress anyone, he thought if he looked slick enough he could pull it off.
“We hear a lot about you from Nayuta,” the teacher said. “I just wanted to say she's been getting along really well in drama class. She said she might stay after school sometime for the club on Wednesdays. But we need a parent's signed permission for her to be in a show.”
“How much?” Denji said.
“How much what?”
“Money. Y'know. For the club.”
“It's free.”
“Oh hell yeah,” Denji said. “If it's free she can do whatever. Wait, there any boys in the group?”
“Dad, shut the fuck up,” Nayuta said.
“Language,” Denji said again.
“Shut the... hell up?”
Denji high-fived her.
“There will be boys but... well...” the teacher said. “She's sixteen... I mean, she is a sensible girl.” The teacher blushed. “Not to say... I mean, you must have been very young when she was born, Mr Hayakawa. I don't mean—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Denji said. “I guess I was. But like... so long as they ain't perverts. But theatre kids usually are, aren't they? From what I hear.”
“You can go and have a think about it if you'd prefer,” the teacher said. “I wouldn't want to pressure you. But she seems keen. We mentioned it a couple of months ago.”
Denji side-eyed Nayuta. “Yeah, I guess I'll think about it,” he said.
~
The drive back was silent for the first few minutes.
“You didn't mention the acting thing,” Denji said.
“Yeah, I was gonna,” Nayuta said. “Like... eventually.”
“There a boy involved?”
“No, I just like doing plays and shit.”
“No boys?”
Nayuta rolled her eyes.
“What that for?”
“You shouted at that guy you thought was looking up my skirt.”
“Yeah. He was.”
“You gave him a black eye.”
“Yeah.”
Nayuta sighed. “Not everyone is a pervert, Dad.”
“Some people are.”
“What if I was a pervert who fucked about all the time?”
“You're a kid.”
“I'm sixteen.”
Denji frowned. “Are you a pervert?”
“No.”
“Right. There you are then. I can hate perverts without being a hypocrite. Especially ones who look up teenagers' skirts.”
“He wasn't looking up my skirt.”
“How do you know?”
Nayuta growled at him. “You're impossible. How do you turn me wanting to go to a drama club after school into discussing if I'm a pervert or not?”
“Hey, you can do your acting. I ain't stopping you. I just want to make sure you're safe, that's all.”
“This is why I never mentioned it!” Nayuta said. “I want to be able to make my own mistakes!”
“No you don't,” Denji said. “You think you do but you don't. You're a kid. You'll understand when you're—”
“DAD!”
Denji slammed on the brakes. He had almost gone straight through a red light into traffic. Denji put on the handbrake and sat there, staring ahead for a moment.
“Dad, just chill, okay?”
Denji nodded. “Who was that teacher anyway? The redhead.”
“Miss Sakura.”
“You like her?”
“Sure. She's okay... Light's green now.”
Denji moved off.
~
Home again.
Meowy looked up, struggled over, and was rewarded with a petting from Nayuta and a handful of catnip from Denji.
“She's getting old,” Denji said.
Nayuta shrugged and carried on petting her. “Thanks for picking me up,” she said.
“Day off,” Denji said.
“Yeah. But thanks for doing it on your day off.”
“Yeah.”
Nayuta shrugged. “I could make you sign that form, you know. For the drama class.”
“'Cos flattery ain't working for ya?”
“I could make you do it though.”
“Yeah. Like you made that boy bark like a dog.” Denji laughed, though he had intended it to sound like a rebuke. Nayuta laughed too.
“I could make you bark like a dog!”
“Don't.”
They both stopped laughing. Nayuta shrugged. “I wasn't gonna.”
“I'll sign the damn form.”
“Language, Dad!”
“Damn is fine. It's shit and fuck and stuff like that you shouldn't say.”
“And cunt?”
“Yeah. Cunt is like... mega bad.”
“Why is cock fine but cunt bad?”
“Rules is rules. I don't make them.”
“So I can go to drama?”
Denji sighed. He felt her slipping from him. She had to sometime. It was fine, he guessed. Yet...
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”
And she hugged him. His girl hugged him.
He had been the age she was now when they had met. It felt like no time had passed at all.
He hugged her back.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
~
They watched a horror film before bed. From an early age Nayuta had loved The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and refused to go to bed without watching it. Denji thought it was kind of mean-spirited, but there were boobs in it, so he guessed there was something for everyone, and it helped her sleep.
This time they watched some other thing Nayuta had been told was good by her friend. It sucked. They both agreed it sucked.
Denji tucked her in and turned off her light. He guessed he'd have to stop that at some point too.
“Love you.”
“Love you, Dad.”
He closed the door behind him and went to his bed.
He closed his eyes.
~
“Do you want to do it?”
“What?”
Himeno smiled. “Fuck.”
Makima's hand guided his to her chest...
~
Denji opened his eyes.
It was 3 a.m. He got up and made himself a coffee. People said it was meant to make you buzz, but it seemed to help chill him out. He put his hand to his chest cord.
“How you think I'm doin'?” he said. A pause. “Yeaahhh, hers is better than mine was.”
He opened her door. She was snoring lightly. He watched for a moment. Then closed the door again.
He sat at the dining table, hands over his eyes.
His chest felt hollow even though it wasn't. He'd been bummed out recently. He wasn't sure why. Since her birthday.
She was happy. That was what mattered. And he was okay.
He gulped back his coffee. Bitter.
Meowy dragged herself over to him. He fed the cat.
Once he had promised to find Power again. He thought about that sometimes. More often these days. But Nayuta still needed him. Would always need him. He didn't get how fathers could hand their daughters over in marriage. Denji wouldn't trust some dude to just... take care of her.
“If you kill the Gun Devil, I'll have sex with you...”
Old words in his mind.
Nayuta still slept with a teddy bear. She would kill him if he ever told anyone. But she was a child. Sixteen. Still a child.
Denji thought he'd probably drunk the coffee too hot 'cos his tongue was burning. He made himself another one.
In the morning he would drop her off at school again and go to work. He would make small talk with colleagues and make ends meet in the shop. He could live with that.
The idea of someone hurting her... he couldn't live with that.
A woman sat in a cellar. The rope around her wrists was tight, and chains shackled her to a chair. The rope was there to make sure she couldn't reach up to the collar around her neck.
The door opened, allowing a little light to bleed into the room. Her bloodshot eyes were so unused to light these days that she squinted at the shard that hit her.
“Understand that you cannot get out of here if you try,” a man's voice said in Russian. “Maximum security. Understand?”
She nodded, just a little.
“Okay,” the man said. “We may have a use for you. You promise to follow through, we cut deal?”
She just stared at the shadowed figure surrounded by the light. She wasn't sure. He might still be a dream.