My Boss, My Hero- "For a Son"
Title: For a Son
Universe: My Boss My Hero
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: Sakaki Kiichi-centric, with MakioxJun
Warnings/Spoilers: OOC and silliness.
Word Count: 2,585
Summary: Sakaki Kiichi only wants what is best for his son.
Dedication: For thawrecka’s fic wishlist meme! Because honestly? Honestly I don’t think anyone else would do this prompt. THEREFORE IT IS CLEARLY MINE.
A/N: Okay the request was for MakioxJun but clearly that is not what this is about at all. SIGH. I honestly have no idea where this came from. It just came. I would edit it and make it better, except I think my medication suddenly kicked in, because I’m suddenly sleepy. OH WELL.
Disclaimer: The characters are very, very not mine. Unfortunately.
The night that Sakaki Makio finally faces his father while holding Sakurakoji Jun’s hand is the same night that he gets disowned from the Kantou Sharp Fang.
It’s not a very loud or violent affair like one would expect from the two of them, from niidaime and sandaime respectively; Kiichi takes one look at the pair-Jun frightened and Makio determined-and feels something twist sharply in his chest. A breath later he hears his own voice, just a little bit shaky, telling them, “Get out.”
“But…” Jun begins, big eyed and pained, only to be cut off when Makio snorts to himself.
Jun turns to him then, confused. “Makki?”
“C’mon,” Makio says softly, and gently tugs him out of the room.
Makio leaves the Sharp Fang headquarters that night on foot; Kiichi watches him walk down the front drive with another boy’s fingers laced tightly with his own.
Kiichi thinks-bitterly-that this is not what any father would choose for his son.
~~~~~
“You’re so old fashioned, Tousan,” Mikio sighs the next morning, looking dapper as ever as he pores over the finance pages of an English newspaper. “Honestly, when I saw your face last night I thought you were one of those samurais in a period drama!” He snickers to himself at the thought and flips to the next page; “Though I suppose it’s a good thing that aniki left before you said anything else.”
Kiichi eyes his second son when he hears that and Mikio just smiles back; “Niisan, ne,” he explains calmly, “would never forgive anyone who made Jun-kun cry.”
From there, they eat breakfast in silence.
~~~~~
“They wouldn’t respect him,” Kiichi grunts to Kuroi, later that afternoon.
“They already respect him,” Kuroi points out. “No one can beat him.”
“He’ll make Makio weak.”
Kuroi doesn’t say anything after that and Kiichi finds his voice growing a bit smaller, “When they’re together, Makio will be weak. You have to understand, Kuroi. This isn’t something a father wishes for his son.”
Kuroi manages a small half smile. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I think the two of them look invincible.”
~~~~~
There is an obvious gloom in the rest of the men as well that day; Kiichi tells himself it’s because Makio’s secret is out. It’s only natural that the other members of the gang can’t respect a leader who does that kind of thing in his free time.
Kiichi sees Kazu staring forlornly at an untouched caramel flan on the table in front of him sometime around four pm, Makio’s usual snack time.
“I miss aniki,” Kazu murmurs, and some of the others nod in miserable agreement.
Kiichi grunts and sends them out on a job because they might as well make themselves useful instead of mope around all day; when they hear his voice they scramble to their feet and yell, “Yes sir!” on their way out the door just like they always do.
Kiichi stares at the pudding that gets left on the table after them and wonders absently, if Makio has eaten yet today.
~~~~~
When the men get back they’re bruised and bloody; Kazu reports that they got into a fight and lost.
“If only ani…” he starts, and promptly gets elbowed in the stomach by one of the others.
He looks sheepish and manages a bow to Kiichi instead. “We’ll do better next time, sir! Our deepest apologies!” he says instead, before they excuse themselves and limp off down the hall to get their wounds treated.
Kiichi wonders if Makio knows what his absence is doing to the men who he’d sworn to protect like brothers; if he did, would he stop his foolishness and come home?
~~~~~
Mikio ambles into the house sometime the following evening looking chipper; “I’m taking niisan some of his clothes!” he chirps unabashedly, and has Kazu break out the luggage for him.
“You saw him?” Kiichi asks, and tries not to sound interested.
Mikio grins. “Un. They’re staying at Jun-kun’s house for the time being; his family is really quite nice, but niisan can hardly fit into either Jun-kun or his father’s clothes.”
After that Mikio casually instructs the gang members on what to pack and where, all while happily answering any of their eager questions about how Makio-aniki and Jun-aniki are doing.
After the closets have been virtually cleaned out Mikio breezes back outside again with Kazu, who cheerfully offers to drive him to wherever it is he’s going.
Kiichi stands in the hallway as the car drives off and looks into Makio’s empty room with a strange feeling in his chest.
~~~~~
The next morning, Kiichi’s phone rings; it’s Sakurakoji Jun.
“Um….hello?” Sakurakoji says first, cautiously. Kiichi thinks that he sounds young, too young to know exactly what he’s getting into. “Is this Sakaki Kiichi-san?”
“Yes,” Kiichi grunts, and doesn’t know what to feel about this kid.
Sakurakoji surprises him by asking, “Are you busy today?”
~~~~~
That afternoon they meet at a café Sakurakoji Jun gives him the address to; Makio isn’t there.
“He doesn’t know I contacted you; he’s um…he’s job hunting,” Sakurakoji explains, and it’s an absurd image in both of their minds.
“What would it take for you to give up on my son?” Kiichi asks suddenly, and it’s the first thing he has to say to the young man sitting in front of him.
Sakurakoji blinks, like he hadn’t quite expected that, and Kiichi hopes that all it will take is money, some promises of a high-paying job, maybe even just an expensive house or a nice car. It’s always simpler when it’s something like that.
“You’d probably have to kill me,” Sakurakoji answers solemnly a moment later, and looks very, very scared when he says it.
But he looks like means it, too.
Kiichi sighs. “I see,” he murmurs, and feels deeply disappointed somehow.
He silently stands and goes to pay for their coffee; Kuroi pulls the car in front of the shop a moment later and Kiichi leaves without a backwards glance.
~~~~~
The next day he finds himself in Tsubaki’s office, unexpectedly.
She smiles at him and serves him tea and asks what the matter is; she’s been a teacher for so long that she can read a face-anyone’s face-almost instantly.
“It’s my son…” Kiichi starts, and trails off awkwardly when he can’t find it in him to explain fully.
Tsubaki-Mizushima-sensei to both Makio and Jun- just laughs quietly. “Your son is just like you,” she tells him. “Very headstrong.”
Kiichi chuckles a little, despite himself. “Not always very smart.”
“What’s the matter?” she asks after a moment, and reaches out to pat his hand.
“After I sent him here to St. Agnes, he turned out differently than I expected him to,” he tells her. “It wasn’t what I wanted for him.”
She laughs again. “You sent him here to see the world, didn’t you?”
He nods.
“Then you can’t hold what he found in it against him, Kiichi.”
Kiichi sips his tea and thinks about that.
~~~~~
The next time Sakurakoji Jun calls him to meet it’s at the same café as before; they both order coffee.
“How is my son doing?” Kiichi asks coolly, and dunks a biscotti in his drink without actually wanting to eat it.
Jun smiles a little. “Yesterday he learned how to control traffic,” he reports. “He only almost punched someone once.”
“And what about you?” Kiichi asks next, “What did you do yesterday?”
Jun looks down at his lap and bites his bottom lip. Kiichi expects him to say, “I went to school, just like always,” or something simple like that because he’s still so young, because he doesn’t understand.
“Yesterday,” Jun replies after a moment, “yesterday I thought about what I could do so you wouldn’t hate me.”
Kiichi doesn’t notice it when the end of his biscotti breaks off; it sinks to the bottom of his mug as he gets up and pays the check.
~~~~~
The next day his men lose another fight because Makio isn’t there; Kiichi tries not to think about it but ends up sending one of the newbies to check up on Makio anyway.
Just in case.
The report he gets back is just like Sakurakoji Jun had said; Makio works at a construction site and throws around bags of cement instead of rival gangsters now.
“He’s working hard,” the new lackey reports, sounding oddly proud, “Aniki is working hard.”
Kiichi wonders if Makio knows what he’s working so hard for.
~~~~~
“There’s an apartment that we found,” Jun tells him the following week, over coffee. “I got a part time at…at a place.”
“What kind of place?”
“An investment firm. They’ll probably hire me full time once I graduate this spring.”
There is silence for a while, and Kiichi furrows his brow trying to think of something to say. “Why do you keep calling me?”
Jun laughs a little, not in a pleasant way, but not in an entirely unpleasant one either. “Why do you keep coming?”
When Kiichi goes to pay the bill this time, he finds out that Sakurakoji Jun has already taken care of it.
He wonders if the boy is trying to tell him something.
~~~~~
The next day Kiichi sends that same newbie off on the same mission, this time with a camera. He orders him to find some proof that Makio and Sakurakoji-kun are in over their heads and that they don’t understand what it is they’re doing.
The newbie doesn’t find anything of what Kiichi asked for; instead Kiichi gets pictures of shopping at discount markets together and of the backs of hands touching as the pair walks down the street side by side. In addition to that he gets an entire roll of film dedicated to the trials and tribulations of moving into a new apartment and two more rolls consisting of nothing but blatant, adoring looks passed across a flimsy dinner table.
“Aniki’s laugh,” the newbie reports, licking his lips nervously, “aniki’s laugh is really loud.”
Kiichi dismisses him and shoves the photos into his desk drawer. He tells himself that no matter how much Makio laughs, this isn’t something any father would wish upon his son.
~~~~~
The following week Kiichi surprises Sakurakoji Jun by calling him first.
They meet at the usual place and order the usual things; they sit in silence and before long, the coffee gets cold.
“Ano,” Jun begins finally, hands folded neatly in his lap, “did you want to talk to me about something, Sakaki-san?”
Kiichi sighs. “This life,” he says to Jun, voice gravely, “this life you chose for each other won’t be an easy one. You have to understand that it’s not a life that any father wants for his son.”
When Jun smiles it’s lopsided, gentle. “I know.”
After that Kiichi pays the check and starts to think that maybe Jun and Makio understand more than he thinks they do.
~~~~~
The next time he sends the newbie off it’s with a camera and a tape recorder, because Kiichi realizes he wants to hear it, that laugh of Makio’s that’s so loud.
He gets to too, later that night when he’s alone in his office and he pushes play on the voice recorder. He hears it when Makio relates a story about how his fat boss fell ass-first into wet cement that morning; Makio roars in amusement on the recorder and the sound is accompanied by Sakurakoji Jun’s soft laughter somewhere in the background, gentle and warm.
Kiichi turns off the tape when he suddenly realizes that he’s laughing right alongside them.
~~~~~
The next week no one makes any calls; they just meet.
“Um,” Jun begins after a while, after their customary silence, “on Friday nights we have Yakiniku night.”
Kiichi blinks, furrows his brow. “Excuse me?”
“On Friday,” Jun repeats, a little more loudly, a little more boldly, “we have yakiniku night. Anyone can come…all they have to do is bring some meat to share and any vegetables they want to eat. My neesan comes sometimes, and Mikki-senpai too. Sometimes Kazu and the guys, when they have the time.” He looks at Kiichi hopefully when he finishes, like he thinks that maybe something has changed between them over the past month.
Kiichi doesn’t say anything for a while, and eventually, Jun sighs and stands to go.
“All you have to bring is meat to share,” he murmurs again, and bows before going to pay the bill.
~~~~~
The following Friday night Kiichi sits at his desk and realizes that the place is quieter than usual for a weekend, that people have gone somewhere else that isn’t here. The house feels oddly empty; it has for a while now.
He thinks of Sakurakoji Jun’s quiet offer and about where the rest of his men are-where his sons are-and how there might be laughter there.
~~~~~
Later that night, when he knocks on the door to their apartment with a small package of supermarket meat in hand, it’s Sakurakoji Jun who opens the door, who smiles at him and tells him to please come in.
Kiichi hands over the meat-lamely-and when he steps into the living room from the corridor the room instantly goes dead silent.
Everyone is here, Kiichi notes, and tries not to look too horribly awkward as he stands in the hallway with his pinstripe jacket folded neatly over his arm.
“Sakaki-san brought rib-eye,” Sakurakoji chirps after a moment, before Kiichi can think twice and turn around because clearly this had all been a horrible mistake on his part. “Isn’t that nice?”
“Wonderful!” Mikio chimes in quickly, and it might (or might not) be an accident when he stomps on Kazu’s foot on the way to take his father’s jacket for him.
“Ah yeah! There’s room over here, niidaime!” Kazu quickly recovers, waving Kiichi over.
Kiichi nods absently in their general direction but his eyes are on Makio the whole time, Makio who hasn’t moved from where he’s standing over the grill, Makio who is wearing a ridiculous pink apron and wielding extra long chopsticks. His bangs are clipped out of his face with hair pins and there’s a beer in his free hand, the generic kind that barely costs two dollars a bottle.
“Uh…” Makio starts, and stares at his father like he expects something horrible to happen any second now. He doesn’t realize it when some of the pork starts to burn.
From the corner of his eye Kiichi can see Sakurakoji Jun giving Makio significant looks, and for a moment, Makio’s eyes move from his father to Jun instead.
“Makki,” Jun hisses, and gestures with his hands.
“Um…right.” Makio shakes his head and waves then, lamely. “Yo, old man. The rice is in the kitchen; you have to get it yourself.”
Kiichi manages a small smile. “Okay.”
He goes into the kitchen and gets rice; when he returns with a plate and a cup in either hand it’s Sakurakoji Jun who sits down next to him like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He even pours him tea.
They eat homemade yakiniku off of a cheap table grill in Makio and Jun’s tiny apartment that Friday night, and as Kiichi listens to Makio’s laughter-louder now than it had been on any of the tapes-he supposes to himself that in reality, this is all any father could ever really ask for.
Beside him, he can hear Sakurakoji Jun’s laughter too, soft and full of warmth.
END
EDITS PLZ.
Universe: My Boss My Hero
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: Sakaki Kiichi-centric, with MakioxJun
Warnings/Spoilers: OOC and silliness.
Word Count: 2,585
Summary: Sakaki Kiichi only wants what is best for his son.
Dedication: For thawrecka’s fic wishlist meme! Because honestly? Honestly I don’t think anyone else would do this prompt. THEREFORE IT IS CLEARLY MINE.
A/N: Okay the request was for MakioxJun but clearly that is not what this is about at all. SIGH. I honestly have no idea where this came from. It just came. I would edit it and make it better, except I think my medication suddenly kicked in, because I’m suddenly sleepy. OH WELL.
Disclaimer: The characters are very, very not mine. Unfortunately.
The night that Sakaki Makio finally faces his father while holding Sakurakoji Jun’s hand is the same night that he gets disowned from the Kantou Sharp Fang.
It’s not a very loud or violent affair like one would expect from the two of them, from niidaime and sandaime respectively; Kiichi takes one look at the pair-Jun frightened and Makio determined-and feels something twist sharply in his chest. A breath later he hears his own voice, just a little bit shaky, telling them, “Get out.”
“But…” Jun begins, big eyed and pained, only to be cut off when Makio snorts to himself.
Jun turns to him then, confused. “Makki?”
“C’mon,” Makio says softly, and gently tugs him out of the room.
Makio leaves the Sharp Fang headquarters that night on foot; Kiichi watches him walk down the front drive with another boy’s fingers laced tightly with his own.
Kiichi thinks-bitterly-that this is not what any father would choose for his son.
~~~~~
“You’re so old fashioned, Tousan,” Mikio sighs the next morning, looking dapper as ever as he pores over the finance pages of an English newspaper. “Honestly, when I saw your face last night I thought you were one of those samurais in a period drama!” He snickers to himself at the thought and flips to the next page; “Though I suppose it’s a good thing that aniki left before you said anything else.”
Kiichi eyes his second son when he hears that and Mikio just smiles back; “Niisan, ne,” he explains calmly, “would never forgive anyone who made Jun-kun cry.”
From there, they eat breakfast in silence.
~~~~~
“They wouldn’t respect him,” Kiichi grunts to Kuroi, later that afternoon.
“They already respect him,” Kuroi points out. “No one can beat him.”
“He’ll make Makio weak.”
Kuroi doesn’t say anything after that and Kiichi finds his voice growing a bit smaller, “When they’re together, Makio will be weak. You have to understand, Kuroi. This isn’t something a father wishes for his son.”
Kuroi manages a small half smile. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I think the two of them look invincible.”
~~~~~
There is an obvious gloom in the rest of the men as well that day; Kiichi tells himself it’s because Makio’s secret is out. It’s only natural that the other members of the gang can’t respect a leader who does that kind of thing in his free time.
Kiichi sees Kazu staring forlornly at an untouched caramel flan on the table in front of him sometime around four pm, Makio’s usual snack time.
“I miss aniki,” Kazu murmurs, and some of the others nod in miserable agreement.
Kiichi grunts and sends them out on a job because they might as well make themselves useful instead of mope around all day; when they hear his voice they scramble to their feet and yell, “Yes sir!” on their way out the door just like they always do.
Kiichi stares at the pudding that gets left on the table after them and wonders absently, if Makio has eaten yet today.
~~~~~
When the men get back they’re bruised and bloody; Kazu reports that they got into a fight and lost.
“If only ani…” he starts, and promptly gets elbowed in the stomach by one of the others.
He looks sheepish and manages a bow to Kiichi instead. “We’ll do better next time, sir! Our deepest apologies!” he says instead, before they excuse themselves and limp off down the hall to get their wounds treated.
Kiichi wonders if Makio knows what his absence is doing to the men who he’d sworn to protect like brothers; if he did, would he stop his foolishness and come home?
~~~~~
Mikio ambles into the house sometime the following evening looking chipper; “I’m taking niisan some of his clothes!” he chirps unabashedly, and has Kazu break out the luggage for him.
“You saw him?” Kiichi asks, and tries not to sound interested.
Mikio grins. “Un. They’re staying at Jun-kun’s house for the time being; his family is really quite nice, but niisan can hardly fit into either Jun-kun or his father’s clothes.”
After that Mikio casually instructs the gang members on what to pack and where, all while happily answering any of their eager questions about how Makio-aniki and Jun-aniki are doing.
After the closets have been virtually cleaned out Mikio breezes back outside again with Kazu, who cheerfully offers to drive him to wherever it is he’s going.
Kiichi stands in the hallway as the car drives off and looks into Makio’s empty room with a strange feeling in his chest.
~~~~~
The next morning, Kiichi’s phone rings; it’s Sakurakoji Jun.
“Um….hello?” Sakurakoji says first, cautiously. Kiichi thinks that he sounds young, too young to know exactly what he’s getting into. “Is this Sakaki Kiichi-san?”
“Yes,” Kiichi grunts, and doesn’t know what to feel about this kid.
Sakurakoji surprises him by asking, “Are you busy today?”
~~~~~
That afternoon they meet at a café Sakurakoji Jun gives him the address to; Makio isn’t there.
“He doesn’t know I contacted you; he’s um…he’s job hunting,” Sakurakoji explains, and it’s an absurd image in both of their minds.
“What would it take for you to give up on my son?” Kiichi asks suddenly, and it’s the first thing he has to say to the young man sitting in front of him.
Sakurakoji blinks, like he hadn’t quite expected that, and Kiichi hopes that all it will take is money, some promises of a high-paying job, maybe even just an expensive house or a nice car. It’s always simpler when it’s something like that.
“You’d probably have to kill me,” Sakurakoji answers solemnly a moment later, and looks very, very scared when he says it.
But he looks like means it, too.
Kiichi sighs. “I see,” he murmurs, and feels deeply disappointed somehow.
He silently stands and goes to pay for their coffee; Kuroi pulls the car in front of the shop a moment later and Kiichi leaves without a backwards glance.
~~~~~
The next day he finds himself in Tsubaki’s office, unexpectedly.
She smiles at him and serves him tea and asks what the matter is; she’s been a teacher for so long that she can read a face-anyone’s face-almost instantly.
“It’s my son…” Kiichi starts, and trails off awkwardly when he can’t find it in him to explain fully.
Tsubaki-Mizushima-sensei to both Makio and Jun- just laughs quietly. “Your son is just like you,” she tells him. “Very headstrong.”
Kiichi chuckles a little, despite himself. “Not always very smart.”
“What’s the matter?” she asks after a moment, and reaches out to pat his hand.
“After I sent him here to St. Agnes, he turned out differently than I expected him to,” he tells her. “It wasn’t what I wanted for him.”
She laughs again. “You sent him here to see the world, didn’t you?”
He nods.
“Then you can’t hold what he found in it against him, Kiichi.”
Kiichi sips his tea and thinks about that.
~~~~~
The next time Sakurakoji Jun calls him to meet it’s at the same café as before; they both order coffee.
“How is my son doing?” Kiichi asks coolly, and dunks a biscotti in his drink without actually wanting to eat it.
Jun smiles a little. “Yesterday he learned how to control traffic,” he reports. “He only almost punched someone once.”
“And what about you?” Kiichi asks next, “What did you do yesterday?”
Jun looks down at his lap and bites his bottom lip. Kiichi expects him to say, “I went to school, just like always,” or something simple like that because he’s still so young, because he doesn’t understand.
“Yesterday,” Jun replies after a moment, “yesterday I thought about what I could do so you wouldn’t hate me.”
Kiichi doesn’t notice it when the end of his biscotti breaks off; it sinks to the bottom of his mug as he gets up and pays the check.
~~~~~
The next day his men lose another fight because Makio isn’t there; Kiichi tries not to think about it but ends up sending one of the newbies to check up on Makio anyway.
Just in case.
The report he gets back is just like Sakurakoji Jun had said; Makio works at a construction site and throws around bags of cement instead of rival gangsters now.
“He’s working hard,” the new lackey reports, sounding oddly proud, “Aniki is working hard.”
Kiichi wonders if Makio knows what he’s working so hard for.
~~~~~
“There’s an apartment that we found,” Jun tells him the following week, over coffee. “I got a part time at…at a place.”
“What kind of place?”
“An investment firm. They’ll probably hire me full time once I graduate this spring.”
There is silence for a while, and Kiichi furrows his brow trying to think of something to say. “Why do you keep calling me?”
Jun laughs a little, not in a pleasant way, but not in an entirely unpleasant one either. “Why do you keep coming?”
When Kiichi goes to pay the bill this time, he finds out that Sakurakoji Jun has already taken care of it.
He wonders if the boy is trying to tell him something.
~~~~~
The next day Kiichi sends that same newbie off on the same mission, this time with a camera. He orders him to find some proof that Makio and Sakurakoji-kun are in over their heads and that they don’t understand what it is they’re doing.
The newbie doesn’t find anything of what Kiichi asked for; instead Kiichi gets pictures of shopping at discount markets together and of the backs of hands touching as the pair walks down the street side by side. In addition to that he gets an entire roll of film dedicated to the trials and tribulations of moving into a new apartment and two more rolls consisting of nothing but blatant, adoring looks passed across a flimsy dinner table.
“Aniki’s laugh,” the newbie reports, licking his lips nervously, “aniki’s laugh is really loud.”
Kiichi dismisses him and shoves the photos into his desk drawer. He tells himself that no matter how much Makio laughs, this isn’t something any father would wish upon his son.
~~~~~
The following week Kiichi surprises Sakurakoji Jun by calling him first.
They meet at the usual place and order the usual things; they sit in silence and before long, the coffee gets cold.
“Ano,” Jun begins finally, hands folded neatly in his lap, “did you want to talk to me about something, Sakaki-san?”
Kiichi sighs. “This life,” he says to Jun, voice gravely, “this life you chose for each other won’t be an easy one. You have to understand that it’s not a life that any father wants for his son.”
When Jun smiles it’s lopsided, gentle. “I know.”
After that Kiichi pays the check and starts to think that maybe Jun and Makio understand more than he thinks they do.
~~~~~
The next time he sends the newbie off it’s with a camera and a tape recorder, because Kiichi realizes he wants to hear it, that laugh of Makio’s that’s so loud.
He gets to too, later that night when he’s alone in his office and he pushes play on the voice recorder. He hears it when Makio relates a story about how his fat boss fell ass-first into wet cement that morning; Makio roars in amusement on the recorder and the sound is accompanied by Sakurakoji Jun’s soft laughter somewhere in the background, gentle and warm.
Kiichi turns off the tape when he suddenly realizes that he’s laughing right alongside them.
~~~~~
The next week no one makes any calls; they just meet.
“Um,” Jun begins after a while, after their customary silence, “on Friday nights we have Yakiniku night.”
Kiichi blinks, furrows his brow. “Excuse me?”
“On Friday,” Jun repeats, a little more loudly, a little more boldly, “we have yakiniku night. Anyone can come…all they have to do is bring some meat to share and any vegetables they want to eat. My neesan comes sometimes, and Mikki-senpai too. Sometimes Kazu and the guys, when they have the time.” He looks at Kiichi hopefully when he finishes, like he thinks that maybe something has changed between them over the past month.
Kiichi doesn’t say anything for a while, and eventually, Jun sighs and stands to go.
“All you have to bring is meat to share,” he murmurs again, and bows before going to pay the bill.
~~~~~
The following Friday night Kiichi sits at his desk and realizes that the place is quieter than usual for a weekend, that people have gone somewhere else that isn’t here. The house feels oddly empty; it has for a while now.
He thinks of Sakurakoji Jun’s quiet offer and about where the rest of his men are-where his sons are-and how there might be laughter there.
~~~~~
Later that night, when he knocks on the door to their apartment with a small package of supermarket meat in hand, it’s Sakurakoji Jun who opens the door, who smiles at him and tells him to please come in.
Kiichi hands over the meat-lamely-and when he steps into the living room from the corridor the room instantly goes dead silent.
Everyone is here, Kiichi notes, and tries not to look too horribly awkward as he stands in the hallway with his pinstripe jacket folded neatly over his arm.
“Sakaki-san brought rib-eye,” Sakurakoji chirps after a moment, before Kiichi can think twice and turn around because clearly this had all been a horrible mistake on his part. “Isn’t that nice?”
“Wonderful!” Mikio chimes in quickly, and it might (or might not) be an accident when he stomps on Kazu’s foot on the way to take his father’s jacket for him.
“Ah yeah! There’s room over here, niidaime!” Kazu quickly recovers, waving Kiichi over.
Kiichi nods absently in their general direction but his eyes are on Makio the whole time, Makio who hasn’t moved from where he’s standing over the grill, Makio who is wearing a ridiculous pink apron and wielding extra long chopsticks. His bangs are clipped out of his face with hair pins and there’s a beer in his free hand, the generic kind that barely costs two dollars a bottle.
“Uh…” Makio starts, and stares at his father like he expects something horrible to happen any second now. He doesn’t realize it when some of the pork starts to burn.
From the corner of his eye Kiichi can see Sakurakoji Jun giving Makio significant looks, and for a moment, Makio’s eyes move from his father to Jun instead.
“Makki,” Jun hisses, and gestures with his hands.
“Um…right.” Makio shakes his head and waves then, lamely. “Yo, old man. The rice is in the kitchen; you have to get it yourself.”
Kiichi manages a small smile. “Okay.”
He goes into the kitchen and gets rice; when he returns with a plate and a cup in either hand it’s Sakurakoji Jun who sits down next to him like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He even pours him tea.
They eat homemade yakiniku off of a cheap table grill in Makio and Jun’s tiny apartment that Friday night, and as Kiichi listens to Makio’s laughter-louder now than it had been on any of the tapes-he supposes to himself that in reality, this is all any father could ever really ask for.
Beside him, he can hear Sakurakoji Jun’s laughter too, soft and full of warmth.
END
EDITS PLZ.