Chapter Text
Yashiro had a cat as a young child.
He was definitely allergic to the damn thing – got a runny nose and sneezed the entire time he went outside to feed it – and it was damn allergic to him. More than once he had a swollen nose walking home at the age of eight, having gotten smacked across the face with a yowl.
It was a little black thing, an exciting white stripe down its back like an exclamation mark. And it was mean.
He adored it.
-
“Sensei-”
“Quit calling me that, kid.” Yashiro grunts, and keeps walking. Jogamine ignores him, keeps talking and droning on. He naturally tunes her out after she starts to share about her new girly magazine.
They’re walking by an alley and there’s movement in the corner of his eye. Naturally, he stops, careening over in front of Jogamine (and when did that become natural?) and puts his hand on the gun in his right holster. Before either of them can open their mouths to speak, there’s an ear piercing yowl, and something knocks Yashiro right off of his feet.
Landing on his nose, he hears it crack and curses sharply. Jogamine yells (like always), and crouches by him, rolling him over.
“What the fuck was that?” He curses, sitting up. Reaches up to tap at his nose with a wince.
“Your nose is broken, Sensei.”
“I can tell.” Yashiro groans. Sniffles, and pain shoots up into his brain. Takes his hand away from his face and watches the red drip off of his fingertips. “God, what the fuck was that?” He asks again, seething this time, and turns into the alley.
There’s nothing there, and he curses, sitting forward to get to his knees.
He slips on the puddle from recent rain and sighs. Beside him, Jogamine holds out a hand. As he holds out his hand to grab it, a droplet falls on his wrist. Looking up, it starts to rain.
Again.
“For fucks sake.” He exhales through his mouth, hissing, and cups underneath his nose.
“It looks broken.” Jogamine says, and Yashiro glances at her. She’s staring at his nose, eyes duller than usual. Her hair is flattening against her forehead, and she looks like a wet cat.
She looks like Neko.
-
“Neko!” He calls, and there’s a yowl from deep in the alley. “A fitting name, I know, but you don’t gotta fuckin’ complain about it. I have food for you.” He plops the can down, and there’s a quick black paw, and then there’s searing pain that he yelps from, falls back on his ass.
-
She’s staring up at him, and he stares back down.
Her school uniform is getting soaked, and he watches her shiver.
He shrugs off his coat, turning slightly brown in the rain, and drapes it over her shoulder. There’s blood on the lapel that he ignores.
“You can keep it Sensei, I don-”
“Hmph.” Yashiro grunts at her, and after a second, her eyes sparkle up at him. He inhales and winces. “ God , my fucking nose.”
Jogamine’s laugh is clear as he sends her home, watching her walk up the school gates.
-
Joe watches with a placid face as he takes Yashiro’s nose between his index and middle finger and puts it back in the right place.
“ Fuck- ” Yashiro yells, tearing his head away from Joe’s grip, and there’s a clatter from the kitchen of Ed’s bar.
“Watch your fucking language when the customers are in!”
“...fucking shit-” Yashiro hisses, and Joe takes his face in his hands, pulling him back. His huge thumbs span all the way to the tops of his cheeks. He turns him from side to side, checking him over.
“And how did this happen again?” Joe smirks, turning him from side to side.
If Yashiro felt that sort of thing, he think he might’ve swooned. “Tripped over an animal, I think.” He admits, and Joe pauses. Yashiro blinks rapidly. “Fuck, no, I like. Totally broke my nose fighting a rabid bear. Big one too.”
“Hm.” Joe lets go of his face, one of his stupid smiles on his face. “And why didn’t I see this on the news?”
“Because I took it out quickly.” Yashiro prods at his nostrils, and Joe smacks his hand away.
“Okay, well, the bear took your jacket too. What the bear about yea-high? Sparkly eyes? Ponytail?” Joe swipes his hand at about Yashiro’s shoulder.
He scowls. “Shut up, Joe.”
He turns to go when Joe grabs him by the shoulder, turning him around.
“I’m serious, Yash. It’s okay to care for someone. Those girls need someone to care for them.” Yashiro stares up at him. Joe watches him back, sincere. Then Joe cracks a smile, his silver tooth showing in the low light of the back room. “Since you don’t feel anything else, and all that-”
Yashiro rolls his eyes. “Shut the fuck up, Joe.” He says, but there’s a small smile leaking across his face.
“Hey.” Joe holds up both of his hands. “No judgement on my part.”
Yashiro sighs, and goes for the door. Joe stumbles out after him, and they both ignore the saucy whistles they get.
-
He stumbles across Indo in a supermarket.
He hit his nose on the door jamb this morning trying to cool his drunken forehead against the cool wood, forgetting he broke his goddamn nose, and almost got a damn concussion pulling away and cracking the back of his head against the other side of the door jamb.
He’s yawning, eyes almost closed, when he swerves around the corner of the pharmacy.
And nearly goes head over heels knocking into the basket on the floor. He skids to a stop, a twinge going through his ankle as he balances on one leg. He decides to ignore whoever is on the floor until-
“Yashiro?” A soft voice says, and he looks down. Indo is looking up at him, her hair pulled back into a tiny little ponytail at the base of her neck. She’s staring up at him, and her face is twisted.
“Indo.” He whispers, and he tips his head. “I thought the academy provided food and goods..” he trails off, then looks down into the basket. He freezes for half a second. “Oh.”
“What happened to your nose?”
“Broke it.” He says, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’m sure Jogamine told you.”
“No.” Indo whispers, and stands, grabbing her basket. “What are you here for, Sensei?”
“Same as you.” He says, and she doesn’t even pause.
“You’re here for tampons?”
He pauses dead in his tracks. “No, painkillers.” He stutters into walking again. “My nose fucking aches.”
“Oh.” Indo glances down at the white and pink bottle in her basket. “The Midol are for Sara.” She says simply, and follows him to the end of the aisle, where he plucks a thing of Tylenol off of the shelf. He turns and starts to walk towards check-out. Until Indo starts to veer off to the side and he follows on instinct. She glances up at him but doesn’t mention anything.
Quietly, they shop together.
Yashiro keeps his painkillers in his pocket, watches Indo go about her choices. Ramen – the good kind – and some seaweed. They only speak once at the chocolate aisle, in which he points at the bag of dark chocolate.
“No.” Indo says simply, and grabs a bag of milk chocolate Hershey’s.
“It tastes like plastic.” He says simply, and Indo shakes her head.
“No.”
Yashiro watches with mild distaste as she walks away, but follows nonetheless.
They swing by the clothes department. Indo grabs a few packs of socks, a new mug, and then they’re at the self-checkout.
Before he can even take his money out of his pocket, about to scan his Tylenol, there’s a slight flash of green and she scans it, then quickly scans her own stuff.
She smacks the box into his palm, and he gapes at her as she quickly scans through her stuff and pays for it, with a few fresh Yen.
“Th-thanks.” He grumbles, and then opens the box, popping one out of the white pills and taking it dry.
“Hey, sir, you can’t-”
Indo flashes the receipt in front of the cashier’s face, who looks at it with a raised brow. Then, she looks at Indo imploringly.
“Honey, you shouldn’t go around buying drugs for the homeless.”
Yashiro gapes down at her, and Indo makes a sound in her throat. Yashiro watches as she turns and walks away.
Yashiro follows after her, still gaping. He doesn’t look….that bad does he?
-
He doesn’t talk to the girls for a long two weeks. Even if Jogamine texts him incessantly about her grades and Sara’s weird eating habits at lunch, and Indo kicking her ass (his words, definitely not Jogamine’s) in sword training.
He plays Tragic the Together with Joe, Malt and Ishino, and manages to win a measely 800 yen.
He has cold, leftover pizza in his fridge that he munches on before he runs out, and has to scrounge up some more.
All in all, a good few weeks.
Until-
There’s a dripping wet Sara at his doorstep, bleeding from the chin and shoulder.
“Whoa.” He mumbles, still half asleep, turning to the side to let her in.
(Look. He might be an asshole. And he might be coming to the conclusion that he just might, maybe, slightly, be starting to care for these three girls. So he lets her in.)
She stands awkwardly in his apartment for a moment, shuffling from side to side.
“Take your shoes off and put these on.” He hops from one foot to the next, toeing off his slippers. “And hang your jacket on the peg. I’ll go get a towel.”
He goes down the short hallway to the bathroom. He rustles under the sink cabinet for the one of the two towels he has. Fishing it out, he stands up and glances out the door towards the front door. Sara stands, hair sticking to her shoulders, arms crossed and shivering.
-
“I need to give you a box-” Yashiro reaches out, shaking slightly. Neko yowls at him, but it’s kinder now. More pathetic. Yashiro shuffles into the alleyway. Neko has moved two alleyways closer to his house. Yashiro takes off his jacket and cups it on the ground, under an apartment overhang. Neko has her ears flattened to her head, and when Yashiro sits down -
She curls into his side.
Yashiro wakes up in the morning sneezing, cold and shivering.
Neko is leaving the alleyway, dry and warm.
-
Sara accepts the towel graciously.
“Sorry.” She says, and he waves her off.
“Fine.” He whispers softly, and looks her over again. Her stupid academy shirt is soaked through, the high shorts they wear under their skirts clinging to her like a second skin. She wraps the towel around her hair, scrubbing furiously. “I’ll go get you something dry to change into before you go home.”
Sara stops moving for half a second before she continues moving slightly.
Yashiro watches her in the corner of his eye. “You’re not going home.” He says, and tries to say it matter-of-factly. Sara shifts from foot to foot, barely. “You’re not going home, Sara.”
-
Yashiro remembers getting smacked.
He remembers his father’s hand, huge compared to his own, smacking him swiftly to the side.
He remembers running away, finding a nearly empty vial of E2 on the ground of a dirty alleyway.
He doesn’t remember what else happened.
-
“Here.” He murmurs, and drops a few of his smallest shirts, and a pair of shorts and boxers with elastic bands in them on the kitchen stool. Just laying there, folded next to her, they look far to big for her. That’s something he’s coming to terms with recently. Being close friends with Joe since we was young, he’s gotten used to being the smaller one. But he isn’t a small man exactly, so these clothes are definitely going to be large for her. “Sorry if they’re big.”
Sara stares at them in silence. Then- “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He murmurs back, and watches her pick up the clothes. “Just hang up your clothes in the bathroom after you take a shower.” He says, and then goes to get his phone out of his pants pocket on the floor where he kicked them earlier.
It’s only then that he realizes he’s in his boxers, with only a tank top on. He sighs, and crouches carefully, fishing his phone out of his pocket before standing, equally carefully.
And Sara is still standing there, blinking wildly at him.
“What?” He says, dialing the phone for the pizza place he knows is still open.
Sara turns swiftly, going into the bathroom. He hears a click of a lock. Smart.
He orders a simple cheese pizza, and then a sausage and bacon for himself. Then glances at his wallet and purses his lips.
“And some breadsticks too, please.”