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“Alright Jolyne, what do we do when Mr. Okuyasu gets here?” Josuke crouched down to eye level with his great-niece, who stared back at him starry-eyed.
“Say hello real nice!” The firecracker of a five-year-old jumped up with excitement as she spoke. She’d been like this all day, ever since Jotaro had dropped her off to get some work done on his thesis. Apparently she’d been singing and demanding dessert at the Morioh Hotel too, which wasn’t helping with Jotaro’s research.
Luckily the sweet little thing loved Josuke, and Josuke loved her back. Although it was his first time babysitting, Josuke had savored every little conversation and morning spent distracting Jolyne with snacks and games in Morioh Hotel. In fact, Josuke Higashikata just loved kids in general. Once his mom had told him that he was naturally good with little ones due to his empathy and gentle demeanor, which got him thinking that maybe he could be a teacher just like her. Too bad he was shit at school as a student.
“Good, you’ll say hello! And what else? This is the real important thing, remember?” Josuke prodded for an answer with a waiting smile. Okuyasu would be over any minute to meet little Jolyne for the first time, and he did not want to accidentally upset his boyfriend.
“Aaaand don’t stare at his weird face!” Little Jolyne beamed proudly, waiting for positive reinforcement. Although ‘weird face’ was a bit much, and definitely not the term he’d used to describe Okuyasu’s symmetrical facial scars that often left people staring, he’d take it.
“Yep, no staring! Great!”
The doorbell rang. Typically, Okuyasu simply barged in (Mom had given him a house key, after all) but today he wanted to make a big deal of introducing himself to Josuke’s great-niece.
“D’you think she’ll like me, Josuke? Kids are so cuuute but I never talked to one before ‘cept that Hayato kid!” He could clearly remember Okuyasu bouncing on his heels, disproportionally excited to help babysit. It was so cute that Josuke couldn’t help giving him a kiss there and then.
Now, when Josuke picked up Jolyne, held her up by his waist, and got the door, Okuyasu was just as excited… but there was something stilted about his demeanor. His bright smile seemed a bit too forced, a bit too much of an attempt to be non-threatening. “Hiiii I’m Okuyasu I couldn’t wait to meetcha I brought snacks and I’m gonna be here for the sleepover!” As soon as he caught his breath, that fake ear-to-ear grin returned. Okuyasu held up a few bags of barbecue chips he’d bought at Owson the day before.
“Umm, wow! Isn’t that neat, Jolyne?” Josuke glanced expectantly at the little girl in his arms, who responded with widened eyes.
“H-h-hi, Mr. Okuyasu sir…” Jolyne’s typically boisterous tone turned quiet and wavering. Her eyes had locked on to Okuyasu’s scarred face. Shit, she was doing precisely what Josuke had warned against. “Er, I, wuh…” She squirmed in Josuke’s grip, tears starting to form now. “I wanna go!”
As soon as Josuke released her, the little girl ran to the other room and hid under a blanket.
Okuyasu’s smile faded. “What’d I do wrong, Josuke? I brought food and everythin’!”
“It’s ok, man. She’s just being a kid. Just take off your shoes and put the chips away while I talk to her.” With a serious nod, Okuyasu took to his shoes as Josuke headed to the living room, where Jolyne was lying face down on the couch with her face buried in a pillow.
Josuke crouched down beside the arm of the couch. “What’s wrong, butterfly?” He’d taken to calling her that ever since she’d told him it was her favorite animal. It always seemed to calm her down in the past, at least.
“He’s big and scary! And he kept making that weird face.”
Josuke had to admit that Okuyasu’s ‘non-threatening’ smile was pretty damn creepy looking. He searched for a response that’d quell her fears. “Hey, I’m even bigger than him! And I’m not scary, right? He just makes that face cuz, uh… he had to fart!”
Although the mere mention of bodily functions left Jolyne in stitches and surprisingly calmed down, she still had one concern. “What about his big scars? Did Mr. Okuyasu kill a gu-” Her last sentence was practically a screech, leaving Josuke no option but to cover her mouth near the end. Hopefully that wasn’t too audible from the kitchen, where Okuyasu had plodded over to with his chips a moment ago.
“No, he’s the nicest in the whole world, okay? If I like him then that means he’s special, so trust me!”
Jolyne seemed to turn it over in her head before nodding resolutely. “Okay, for uncle Josuke!”
“Thanks, Jolyne. I’m proud of ya.” The little girl blushed. Jotaro had (somewhat angrily) mentioned her having a crush on her uncle in passing, but Josuke hadn’t thought anything of it until now. It was kind of sweet, really.
She looked at him with mushy sweet eyes for a moment before snapping out of it to ask “Hey, what’s that sound?”
Josuke listened closely before realizing there were faint sobs coming from the kitchen. There was only one person that could be coming from, since his mom was out of town and giving him free reign over the house.
“Shit. Okuyasu,” he muttered before running to the kitchen.
As he sat beside his teary-eyed boyfriend, whose back was against the fridge, Josuke could faintly hear his great-niece call out “Uncle Josuke said the shit word!” He’d worry about Jolyne’s swearing later. Now was the time for another pep talk.
“I’m not really that gross, am I Josuke? Not really that ugly…” Between his gasps and sobs, Okuyasu’s words were barely comprehensible. He was prone to feel down on himself like this, especially when people stared. Josuke, sadly, was still trying to figure out how to comfort his boyfriend.
“Noo, you look perfect, dude! You’re like a model!” Josuke offered a toothy smile, but his joking seemed lost on Okuyasu.
“Then why’re kids so scared of me?”
“Jolyne just-“
“We both know it’s not jus’ her, Josuke!” Okuyasu bit his quivering lip. He was right. Kids did like to stare at (or worse, run from) Okuyasu when they went to out and about. If only strangers knew he was such a big marshmallow inside.
“They just don’t know how cute you are…” Resting his head on Okuyasu’s shoulder, Josuke knew he wasn’t being much help. There were no magic words that would fix the way people saw his beautiful boyfriend. “I know what will help.”
“Nothin’ will fix me…” Okuyasu whimpered, pawing at the tears staining his cheeks.
“Then we’ll fix other people’s attitudes, come on!” He grabbed his boyfriend’s hand and pulled him up. Reluctantly, Okuyasu stood. “All you gotta do, Oku, is act like you do around me. Don’t act, ok?”
“But if I’m myself I’m even scarier!”
“No, no, no. You’re great how you are. Don’t worry about how you look. Just be you and say hi to Jolyne like Okuyasu would, okay?”
“I’ll try…” Okuyasu pouted. Sometimes he was just as stubborn as the child Josuke was babysitting.
When the pair entered the living room, Jolyne smiled up at them with sparkling eyes before hopping down from the couch to hug tightly at Okuyasu’s leg. “Sorry I made you sad, Mr. Oku!”
Immediately, the boy’s face curled up into a genuine (if surprised) smile. He peeked over at Josuke as if to ask if he could believe this, and his boyfriend simply smirked back and nodded.
“Do you like Sesame Street?” Jolyne sat down on the couch but continued to beam up at her new friend.
The random, sudden sort of question typical to children caught Okuyasu off guard. Yet, he answered nonetheless. “Yeah, I like the puppets… I think.”
“Wow! We’re gonna be best friends! UNCLE JOSUKE! I wanna watch Sesame Street!”
Okuyasu had joined Jolyne on the couch and decided to join in for the fun of it. “Yeah! Put on the Sesame Street!”
After a few more screams of ‘Sesame Street!!’ from the two of them, Josuke put in the VHS tape. As soon as the theme song began to run, Jolyne cooled down immediately. Somehow, she’d ended up sitting on Okuyasu’s lap.
“Alright guys, while you watch your show I’m gonna take a shower.” Josuke needed that quiet time alone after all of this goddamn emotional labor. Okuyasu could handle the kid for a while, or at least he hoped so.
“Okaaaay,” Jolyne called out before returning her attention to the television. As Josuke grabbed a towel from the linen closet, he could hear her chattering to his boyfriend: “We both have two hair colors! Cooool.”
“Yeah, but mine’s cooler!” Okuyasu exclaimed.
“No way, buttbrain,” Jolyne laughed.
“YOU’RE the buttbrain!”
Josuke rolled his eyes. Yep, Okuyasu definitely had this handled.
—
When he emerged from one of his signature forty-five minute showers, Josuke entered the living room to find Okuyasu and Jolyne sleeping in a cuddly pile on the couch, Jolyne sprawled across the teen’s lap. With a tinge of jealousy at how quickly they’d gotten on, he considered waking the pair. No, that would be awful.
Instead, he just planted a kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead, then Jolyne’s, and shut off the lights. “See Okuyasu, kids really do love you.”