Chapter Text
Huracan swooped through the window and circled Mink's head, while Ren padded towards Aoba, his fur rigid and his tail wagging furiously. Before long, there were the children's voices: one of them was whimpering, and the other heaving.
Aoba and Mink exchanged glances, and the latter, after wiping his hands, headed outside and onto the porch. He called for Mink when he saw one child needing to support the other.
Keihi's back was bowed that his brown hair nearly covered his eyes, and behind his shoulder flashed the teeth of his sister, whom he'd must have been carrying for some time. She—Cauac—was kicking in the air and shifting her weight between her hips while she looked for another spot of Keihi's skin to bite.
"Enough!" Aoba cried, picking Cauac up and off Keihi's back. Her light-colored hair was pointing in all directions, and there was large gash along her leg, blood trailing down to stain her socks. Aoba looked to Keihi, who sat on the steps of the porch, delicately touching his side as if feeling for wounds. "What in the world happened to you?"
"Put me down!" Cauac screeched, beating Aoba's arms with her fists. "Pa, put me down!"
"Give her here," came Mink's rumbling voice, and Aoba, his forearms beginning to sting with pain, handed Cauac over to him before kneeling in front of Keihi to help him pull up his shirt. There was a patch of skin below one of his rib that was darker than the rest, where the bruise would form. He then rushed inside ("I'm not scared of you, Dad!" came Cauac's voice from behind him) to get a compress, the ice box, and a first aid kit.
Mink carefully planted Cauac on her feet, and kept his shoulders tense should she fall. And when she did—she tried to sprint for the house, but her injured leg wouldn't cooperate—he scooped her up and folded her against him. "You're hurt, too," he whispered to her, and immediately her voice and her body stilled.
"There was a group of boys, older than Keihi," Huracan narrated as Aoba laid Keihi on the sofa. "They seemed to know of our...situation, and meant to provoke him."
"Then Cauac came, and she provoked them," Keihi whined. "I keep telling her to leave them alone, but she started pushing them, and..." he paused, biting his lip. "Papa, why won't Cauac listen to me? Am I doing something wrong?"
"She doesn't listen to me, either," Aoba sighed as he rubbed the edge of an ice cube against Keihi's bruise, "but it's not your fault. Let Daddy take care of Cauac for now."
"He's the only one who can," Huracan attempted to joke, but Aoba only sighed again. "She's not a bad girl, but a girl nonetheless. She may be more sensitive about us than we ourselves are."
"But there's nothing to be ashamed about!" Keihi retorts, "Papa and Daddy love her," and with a furious blush, "and me, too. Keihi's tenderness never fails to warm Aoba's heart, and he rubbed Keihi's head.
"It's not shame," came Ren, who leapt onto Aoba's lap. "Consider, Keihi, that Cauac cares for you very much, that she doesn't want you to get hurt. She cares for Aoba and Mink, too, because she reacts when people say hurtful things about them. She fights because she doesn't want harm coming to any of us."
Huracan gave a reflective hum, before adding, "Mink would do the same. Perhaps that's why she respects him."
"So would we!" Keihi thumped the fabric of the sofa. "Why can't we be the ones fighting for her?"
With a chuckle, Aoba kisses Keihi's cheek. "You'll have your chance."
"Your papa will be upset again," Mink remarked as he taped the gauze over Cauac's wound. "He would know the story by now."
Sitting on the bed while knelt at its foot, Cauac's cheeks inflated, "Do I have to say sorry this time, too?"
Mink lifted himself to his feet, and bent forward to lift a strand of Cauac's long hair in his fingers. "Only if you regret what you've done."
"They were saying mean things!" Cauac's grey eyes sparked. "About Keihi! Papa! And you, too! They had it coming! I wasn't gonna let them mess with us!"
Mink was silent. He had given up forcing people to his will a lifetime ago. And now his daughter would pick the habit up. He couldn't resist smirking.
He sat beside her on the bed, resting his back against the headboard, took a lock from her hair in his hands, and began to braid. With a huff, she turned away from him. "You're always there for Keihi," he began, "but will you let him do the same for you?"
With an exaggerated heave of her shoulders, Cauac replied, "And why would he even do that? All he ever does is tell me what to do, or make me. He doesn't care about what I want. Papa, too. No wonder they stick together."
"Hnn." Mink reached for a feather to tie off the finished braid. "Your papa commanded me once. It saved my life." He felt Cauac freeze, and watched her fist—hard, but still quite small—clench. "He is why I'm here, and that is why I'm with him. With Keihi, we promised to give others life. And with you..." he propped Cauac to his lap, caressing her hair, her beautiful hair, "we promised to give each other life, through good and bad. Cauac," At the mention of her name, Cauac curled in his arms, "I will never break that promise. And trust that neither will your papa. Or Keihi."
Without a word about how each partner dealt with their child, Mink and Aoba watched as their children squawked to each other. Though incoherent, to them, the message was transparent.
That evening, Mink complied with silence when Keihi laid a blanket over Cauac, who had fallen asleep while reading against the man's shoulder.
When she was transferred to her futon, Aoba brought Keihi just outside their bedroom to overhear Cauac's prayers ("I want Cauac and Papa to understand me like Daddy does.") before allowing Mink to tuck her to sleep "again".
And finally, after Keihi had closed the door to their room, Aoba and Mink let their bodies communicate their relief and gratitude to each other, for this.