Chapter Text
Emmi was skimming through her class notes at her study desk when she heard a knock on the door. She tugged out the headphones plugging her ears and before she could even finish saying, “Come in!” the door had already swung open. Her dad stepped into her room looking unusually excited. Her eyes widened upon spotting the familiar object clutched in his hands.
“Look what I found while cleaning the attic,” Noiz said, holding up the fluffy pink bunny ears. He patted it a few times to shake off the remaining bits of dust then offered it to her.
“I totally forgot we still had this!” Emmi said. She accepted the headband and turned it over in her hands. She gave each end of the headband a few light tugs, and upon confirming that it was still quite flexible, she carefully slipped it onto her head. She expected for the ends of the headband to painfully squeeze at her temples, but to her surprise, it fit rather comfortably.
“Look, dad! I can still wear it!”
Noiz smiled, his eyes lighting up.
Emmi turned back to her desk and picked up the hand mirror sitting at the edge of it. She brought the mirror to her face and inspected her reflection. With her free hand, she pushed back a tuft of long blue hair and then reached up to fondle the slightly wilted tips of the bunny ears. “I must have had a big head as a kid if this still fits me even now.”
She placed the mirror back down on her desk and swiveled her chair back towards her dad. She froze, her face falling upon seeing her dad’s coil staring down at her from just a few feet away, the machine making a soft clicking noise as it switched to camera mode. She immediately ripped the bunny ears off her head. “Geez, dad! Can you not?”
Noiz frowned as his daughter glared at him through his coil’s display screen. “What’s wrong? I thought you liked taking pictures.”
“Not while I’m wearing embarrassing kiddy stuff!” Emmi said, exasperated. She crossed her arms and huffed, blushing faintly.
Noiz lowered his coil to his waist and fixed his daughter with a sad expression. “I just wanted something to remember this moment by. But if you really don’t want to…” His eyes fell to the floor, his shoulders sagging pitifully.
Emmi felt the seeds of guilt begin to blossom in her chest. Her dad was always so sappy and sentimental when it came to this kind of stuff. Deciding to indulge him just a bit, she reluctantly put the bunny ears back onto her head. “Don’t go crazy, okay? Just one photo.”
In the blink of an eye, Noiz perked up and had his coil poised and ready. “I’ll take the picture on three.”
As her dad counted aloud, Emmi stared down at her fingers tangled in her lap, her flushed cheeks much more prominent now. Once she heard the snap of the shutter, she quickly removed the headband and tried to return it to her dad. A few moments passed before Emmi realized her dad was preoccupied with something on his coil. “Dad?” she asked and shook the headband to get his attention.
A few more seconds passed in silence before Noiz’s mouth suddenly curved into a proud smirk. “There,” he said, in a way that made Emmi immediately suspicious.
“Dad,” she said, slitting her eyes at him, “What did you just do?”
“I uploaded the picture to the virtual family album,” Noiz replied, as though it were obvious.
Emmi’s jaw dropped in horror. “What?! Please please don’t tell me you tagged me!”
Noiz blinked. “…Should I not have?”
“Dad!” Emmi’s mortification increased tenfold. “Now all my friends from school are going to see it too! Geez, why do you have to be so embarrassing!”
The words hit Noiz like a punch in the gut. Before he knew it, Emmi had scooted him out of her room and slammed the door shut.
—————
Aoba was sitting in front of his laptop composing an email to his grandmother when he heard Noiz puncture the silence with yet another long, drawn-out sigh. He turned his neck and peered at him from over his shoulder. Noiz was sprawled on their bed, his legs lazily falling over the bottom edge. He was staring up at the ceiling with an expression that screamed I’m sad, pay attention to me.
Aoba made his over to the bed, the mattress dipping slightly as he sat atop it. “Something wrong?” Aoba asked, using his fingertips to brush the bangs from Noiz’s forehead.
Noiz bit his bottom lip and let out a sad little puff of air from his nose. “Emmi said that I embarrass her and then kicked me out of her room.”
Despite his husband’s morose disposition, Aoba couldn’t help but smile a little. It was interesting, seeing a wealthy 38-year old businessman so affected by the whims of a preteen girl. “Well, she’s at that age. It’s not unusual for her to want some space.”
“I know,” Noiz replied, but continued pouting as if to say I know, but I’m still upset.
Aoba paused for a long moment to think, then said, “It’s not as though she never wants to spend time with us. She still goes to the movies with us every Friday night and she usually spends all of Sunday with us too. That’s much better than a lot of other kids her age.”
Noiz stopped to consider his words, his expression softening. “I guess that’s true.”
Aoba chuckled and leaned down to peck him on the cheek, then returned to his desk and left Noiz to his thoughts.
—————
Noiz yawned and shuffled to the bathroom nearest the master bedroom. He froze upon seeing Emmi standing in front of the sink, brushing her teeth in her silky pink pajamas. Nervous that his daughter might still be annoyed with him, he began to retreat from the doorway, but stopped when Emmi caught sight of his reflection on the bathroom mirror. She took a small step to the side, as though to make space for him at the sink.
The tension in Noiz’s shoulders eased a bit as he took his place beside her. He grabbed his toothbrush from its container near the faucet and was careful to grab the tube of plain toothpaste. The pink glitter toothpaste belonged exclusively to Emmi, who furrowed her brows and cutely puffed her cheeks like an angry blowfish when he even so much as touched her special princess glitter toothpaste—an artifact from her childhood that she was still unable to let go of.
“Did you finish all your homework?” Noiz asked as he squeezed a glob of toothpaste onto the bristles of his toothbrush.
Emmi spat and washed the spittle down the drain before answering. “Yup. I finished writing my article draft for the school newspaper too.”
As Noiz began to brush his teeth, Emmi rinsed her mouth and washed her brush, then stood on the tips of her toes to give Noiz a kiss on the cheek. “Good night, dad.”
Noiz felt the weight in his chest lift then dissipate all together. After he finished brushing, he made his way to Emmi’s room in order to say good night in return. He knocked lightly on the door, and upon receiving no response, he slowly creaked the door open and peeked inside. Emmi was already asleep on her bed. She had left the lights in her room open and had a couple notebooks laid out at the foot of the mattress.
Noiz started to put the notebooks away when he spotted the bunny headband in the corner of his eyes. Emmi had carefully placed it on her bedstand, right between her alarm clock and the framed photo of the three of them at the water park on her 5th birthday.
Noiz felt a sweet stinging sensation at the corners of his eyes. Setting the notebooks aside, he blinked the moisture away and tucked Emmi into bed. She stirred slightly from the sudden movement and Noiz kissed her on the forehead to calm her.
He turned to give her once last look before flipping the light switch and closing the door shut behind him.