Work Text:
ONE
Shin calls her from time to time after he leaves for Africa, always sporadically and often with months upon months of silence in between. For the most part, it’s okay for Kumiko. She bumps into her old Shirokin students here and there in town and Noda calls every once in awhile from Osaka where he’s trying to be a fashion designer. She’s too caught up being a passionate kindergarten teacher and she likes to think he’s being kept busy and no one needs to know she was a little disappointed when he didn’t call after she started at Kurogin – especially since Uchi and Noda had both called and Kuma surely told Shin everything. But when Minoru nervously knocks on her staircase the night Ryu takes her money and tells her it’s Shin on the other line, she has to wonder if he has the worst timing in the world or the best. At least it forces her to wipe her tears hastily away and pick up the phone. It's not in Kumiko to brood but Ryu's action had cut a little deeper than most.
They start the conversation the way they've always started their conversations; that is to say, ridiculously, and it's quite amazing how the cadences and push-pull of their words have fallen into familiar patterns, despite their infrequency. Kumiko teases him about Africa and reminding him to watch his back in case a lion is stalking him from behind, Shin drawls a dry comeback about how she can just give the lion an inspirational speech over the phone to get it to back off. It’s a little harder than normal to keep the cheerfulness in her voice but she manages it. Shin talks to her about vaccinating young children and teaching them hiragana and English, and his plans to move onto Tanzania in a few months and Kumiko listens, smiling to herself at how focused he sounds and how his voice has lost some of that lazy delinquent drawl. He sounds older, calmer and more at ease with himself, and it makes her feel both proud and, for some reason, oddly nervous.
She almost misses the change in conversation topic. “Kuma told me about the bastard who took your money.”
She's honestly surprised at this. It's not like Shin to be this explicit and the naked fury in his voice is unmistakeable, even over the phone and halfway across the world.
"What are you talking about?" she manages to laugh. "It's nothing I can't handle. I'm honestly just surprised that kids these days are getting up to such complicated things."
“You worked hard for him. He threw it back in your face.”
"I'm fine," she insists. "It’s nothing, really.”
Shin's quiet on the other end and she searches for another topic – maybe to tell him about how Kuma is doing well nowadays (though he probably knows already) or to tell him about Yabuki, the ringleader of her new class, with a hot-headed fire to him that reminds her a little of Shin, at his most sarcastic, and a lot of Uchiyama – but for some reason all she can see is his face and that searching, knowing look he used to give her, that did funny things to her stomach.
"But," he says, voice quiet and unexpectedly soft, "you sound like you've been crying."
TWO
Ryu will never tell Hayato this but he remembers the time in primary school when they'd first gotten in trouble, sitting in the principal's office after a furious scolding. Take had been crying when his mother came to pick him up at first call – four thirty in the afternoon, all worried frowns and disapproving reprimands - and then it had just been Ryu and Hayato on that cold white office with plastic chairs facing the door and waiting.
Hayato's father had stumbled in at five past six, all clumsy fury and big sweeping arms, hitting Hayato over the head with an angry, "You idiot! What the hell are you doing, picking fights eh?"
The dust from the construction site had still been on Hayato’s father’s leather jacket when he grabbd Hayato’s head in a deadlock under his armpit and Hayato had ended up bowing and apologising meekly to the principal and their homeroom teacher (who frankly looked a bit too shocked at Mr Yabuki’s actions to be accepting apologies).
Ryu had sat in his white seat, hands clenched, willing his sudden tears away because he had been calculating before and his father's secretary wouldn't get off work for at least another hour and he had really wanted Hayato by his side until then.
Perhaps he had been staring at Hayato’s back with a little too much fear in his eyes or perhaps Hayato's father had looked over just at the right moment, but Ryu had found himself in a headlock under Hayato's father's other arm and found himself choking out an apology as well.
“I’ll take this one home too,” Hayato’s father had gruffly proclaimed and no one objected so they left.
They ended up in a street side ramen shop with Hayato's father teaching Ryu the proper way to grip the fist when punching ("So ya don't get hurt next time ya hear me?") and Hayato complaining loudly about how his ramen was too spicy, with his father retaliating that Ryu was eating his ramen ‘like a man so I don’t see why you’re complaining?’ (the ramen burnt his throat but Ryu didn’t care).
Ryu had gone home with dirt at the ends of his hair, his heart and stomach full to bursting and even facing his parents hadn’t been enough to wipe the warmth away.
THREE
Take knows.
He’s known for a long time and he’s pretty sure Ryu knows he knows. He tries his best to help Ryu out in the best way he can (because he’s not brave – not like Hayato with his natural, protective leadership or Ryu, who’s quietly brave and stubborn in his own way or Tsucchi, who doesn’t give a shit about people who don’t matter, or Hyuuga who knows what he wants to do and works hard to get it) – changing the subject when they talk about going to another group date or when Tsucchi tries his best to pressure Ryu into meeting some new girl or another from the neighbouring school. Take pretends to be tired so Ryu can go home with him when Hayato brings his first girlfriend to their usual group hangout and separates Tsucchi, Hyuuga and himself from Hayato and Ryu as much as he can without arousing suspicion, because he knows Ryu treasures these quiet, private moments (always has) and is too proud to claim them for himself, even though Hayato wouldn't have denied Ryu anything. They really are two idiots.
They’re small things and it’s the only things Take has been able to do over the years, really, even though Take has honestly never seen Hayato as happy with a girl – any girl – as he is with his arm around Ryu, lagging slightly behind as their group of five walk down the path by the river. He doesn’t expect anything in return because Ryu and Hayato simply being his friends – protecting and sticking up for him ever since third grade when that kid had thrown sand at Take for being too small and weak – is thanks enough.
But he’s crying (goddamnit, he promised himself he wouldn’t) and his head is down, hands shaking because he got a seventy-three in that last exam and he wants to show his mum – with her sad eyes and scepticism and resigned workers’ hands – he can do it, he can graduate and he’s babbling nonsensical sentences and apologies in his panic, thinking of the Arakou thugs and I’m sorry I’m a coward, I’m sorry I’m letting everyone down, I’m not as brave as you but–
“Take.” Ryu stops him with both hands on his shoulder, eyes steady and intent, holding Take’s gaze. There's something in Ryu's eyes that looks like resolve but somehow makes Take feel sadder, more worried. But Ryu is not reckless. Ryu has never been reckless, but Ryu will help him fix it like he always does. “It’s okay. Leave it to me.”
It’s only when Hayato punches Ryu in the face in front of the entire school, voice cracking as he hurls insults at Ryu like arrows, and Tsucchi, Hyuuga and half the class has to hold him back and Take sees the look in Ryu’s eyes...it’s only when Ryu picks himself up off the ground, shaking as hard and as badly as Hayato, and leaves without a backward glance that Take realises this is how Ryu says thank you.
FOUR
“It’s not time yet,” Shin says slowly, whenever Kuma brings up (or even touches upon, let’s be honest) the prospect of him coming back to Japan. Kuma honestly can’t understand it because while Shin has done so much in Africa, he's been Shin's friend for more than half a decade and he knows that Shin misses home. Uchi sighs and rolls his eyes when Kuma brings this up because, no matter how much they talk about it amongst themselves – Minami, Uchi and Noda over Skype – all they know is that it’s part of the twisted and complicated relationship Shin has with Yankumi and Kuma doesn’t get it.
But there's this one night when Yankumi drops by his ramen shop, looking tired and strangely alone for all her yakuza heiress toughness (no doubt because a difficult student screwing up his life somewhere or other under her charge), and that's when Kuma really wishes Shin were there because Kuma's seen Yankumi's students come and go, and Shin remains the one who would probably know what to say to her.
Uncharacteristically, Yankumi doesn’t say much beyond greeting him and Kuma’s siblings before sitting down and asking for her usual ramen order. She sits in the back booth for a long time after she’s done, a faraway look in her eyes. It’s a busy night and Kuma, confined to the steaming kitchen, doesn’t have time to check on her. By the time he’s done with the last order for the loud, drunk group of businessmen clamouring in the small shop space, Yankumi is gone.
For some reason, Kuma thinks about that night when Shin calls Kuma a fortnight later and tells him he’s coming home.
“What changed?”
He can hear the smile in Shin’s voice. “She called me first.”