FIC: Maybe Definitely, YanaKiri, NC17, 7/7
Title: Maybe Definitely (7/7)
Author: Ociwen
Wordcount: 39 000
Rating: NC17 overall
Disclaimer: Everything you can possibly think of, and then some. Spoilers for 40.5 and the entire series, including ShinTenipuri.
Warning: Girl parts, and then some. Crude humour. Misogyny. The usual.
Summary: Renji wakes up as a girl.
Author's Notes: This is a one-shot fic related to Dénoument, We'll Always Have Kanagawa, Accidentally All Right, Push/Pull, and Big Brother. The fics can be read separately, but they make more sense together.
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7]
If you like/love/loathe, please leave a comment to let me know.
Kirihara sits under the willow. He has his school uniform on. The sun is bright. The sky is translucent. Renji walks up to him. Kirihara wipes the milk moustache from his face. He lets out a long milky-smelling belch, and lies down on the grass.
"Akaya," Renji says.
Kirihara tosses his milk carton over his head. He closes his eyes.
Renji says his name louder.
Kirihara's chest rises slowly. Renji's insides burn. He touches his stomach. It's flat. His fingertips are red and sticky. A dark patch is soaking through his shirt. Renji remembers the fetus.
"No!"
He falls to his knees. The grass becomes nothingness. His body is too heavy to hold up. Renji can hardly keep his eyes open. He tries to count, he tries to list tennis line-ups, he tries to remember the numbers of π.
This isn't what is supposed to happen.
The pull is too strong. Renji closes his eyes, and sinks.
***
Death is awfully bright.
The light is brighter than the sun. It hurts. He tries to move. His body moves through jelly. His muscles forget how to function.
So this is what it's like, he thinks.
"Renji," Death says. Death touches his cheek. Death takes his hand, and squeezes it like a racket handle. "You're alive."
"I am?"
Through gluey crust Renji pries an eyelid open.
Kirihara looms three inches from his face.
He cracks open his other eye. His vision starts to sharpen. There's a window, and a track of green-tinted fluorescent lights shining behind Kirihara's head. Renji starts to sit up. Nausea yanks him down. He retches. His mouth fills with vomit. Kirihara holds a bed pan.
His body aches all over, but his middle explodes with pain. He gasps. He can't breathe through the pain. Then he reaches down.
"Where's my-"
Kirihara is quicker. He reaches past a hanging IV drip. "She's right here," he says. He picks something up from a bassinette. Renji starts to choke.
"S-she?"
Kirihara grins at the bundled thing. "Yeah, it's a her. You wanna hold her? The nurses showed me how already." He looks up. His eyes shine.
Renji tries to shake his head. His hands are slippery. The lump is warm, and not very heavy. He looks down. Kirihara's cellphone camera clicks three or four times. Renji pushes the IV tube to the side. There's a red, wrinkled face, and pink fingers, complete with tiny fingernails.
"Watch this." Kirihara sticks his finger in the palm. He starts to snicker. The fingers latch around his. "Total death grip. We'll have to teach her how to hold a racket right."
Renji glances down again.
He starts to cry.
***
Kirihara refuses to leave the room. The nurse gives up after two hours.
"They wouldn't let me come before," he says. "And I got so mad, my eyes went purple." Kirihara nods. Renji touches the back of the baby's hand. The skin is paper-thin and soft. "And then they made me see the cardiologist, which was kinda good because my blood pressure was crazy again."
Renji stiffens. "Akaya…"
Kirihara laughs. "It's okay now. They gave me drugs. It's not like…" He looks out the window. The sky is punctured with the lights from office towers. He sighs. "And you're okay, too."
Renji leans against the side of the bed. Kirihara presses his lips to Renji's forehead. His throat bobs. "You're both okay now," he whispers.
***
There is an angry slice six inches down his middle. Renji sucks in a breath. He pulls the gown back down.
The baby starts to cry. Renji picks her up. The nurse showed him what to do. It takes more than a few tries, and it feels weird. His breasts are three times the size he remembers.
The door slides open. Kirihara stops. "Oh-er…" He ducks his head. Renji says its fine. Kirihara stares at the floor. He reaches under his t-shirt. "I had to sneak it in." He hands Renji the PET bottle.
"It's the right kind," Renji says. He licks his lips. Kirihara unscrews the cap for him. Renji gives him a look.
"Sorry," Kirihara says.
Renji snorts.
"It's kinda weird seeing you do that."
He snorts again. The baby pulls away. His chest dribbles. He switches the baby with the tea, and downs it in three gulps. Renji settles back against the bed. His pillow is thin, and the mattress hard.
And his incision hurts constantly since they stopped the morphine.
On the third day, the team comes to visit. Sanada walks in first. He gives Renji a thin smile and a present wrapped in pink. Behind him, Yukimura turns green. Marui brings a cake-"You're not supposed to eat it, but shhh! It's a celebration!" Jackal brings a foil balloon. He ties it to the side of the bassinette. He picks the baby up, and babbles nonsense at her.
Yagyuu hands Renji a card. "Niou signed it, too."
"Uh…where is Niou-senpai?" Kirihara asks. Renji narrows his eyes.
Yagyuu says Niou said he was sick. Kirihara pokes at the plant Yukimura brought.
"Chrysanthemum?" Renji asks. The flowers stink. Yukimura breathes into a handkerchief, and says yes.
When they leave, Kirihara stands in front of the door.
Renji sets down his cake fork. "What did Niou do?"
"Um, Niou had a present for you, but it's really…" Kirihara shifts his eyes.
"Tasteless?"
"…yeah."
He holds up a pair of underpants. There's no crotch.
Renji clutches his middle. "Don't make me laugh," he says. "My stitches will split."
***
"So," Jackal says, "what are you guys going to call her?"
Kirihara shrugs. Renji says they have a list.
"Because you can't call her 'the baby' forever," Jackal says. "Personally, I like Adriana and Shakira and Luisana-"
"How do you even say those names?" Kirihara sounds one out. It comes out closer to Angelina.
"No foreign names," Renji says.
"So…CocoaPuff is out?" Marui asks.
Renji looks at him. Marui rolls his eyes, and calls him a traditionalist.
"You could name her after a famous tennis player?" Yukimura lists the top five female seeds. All foreign, half American.
Renji says no. Sanada stares at Yukimura with his mouth open.
***
Something normal, something not-too-old-fashioned-but-not-a-Kamen Rider-character-either ends up being Natsuko.
Renji says it three times. Kirihara went home for a shower. The baby is asleep-hopefully for a couple hours. Renji touches the novel on his lap, an old edition of Soseki Natsumi. Then he tucks the book under the birth certificate, and writes the name on the form.
***
The day after his release, the Regionals are held in Tokyo. Renji packs all of the baby's things into an old tennis bag of Kirihara's. He straps the baby to his chest in the Baby Bjorn.
His mom takes one look at him and says no.
"You're right," Renji says. He walks back upstairs. He comes back down. The baby has a little red cap over her scalp.
"You're not going out," his mom says.
Renji looks at the baby. Slate eyes are open, but unfocused on him. "She's fine."
"You have to think of her!" His mom frowns. "You shouldn't take her out of the house before she's at least a month old!"
Renji puts his sneakers on. He sucks in a breath. The incision pulls. The logical thing would be to have done this first. He lays the baby on the floor. She squirms a little. Then he straps her back in. "I'm not a child," he says.
His mom follows them to the gate. "But you have one now." She swallows. Renji's own throat feels thick. He looks away from his mother's sigh, and says he'll be back after dinner.
Cicadas swarm in zelkova canopies. Renji has a headache. His hands itch to hold a racket. The ache of his ruined stomach muscles suggests that it is not a wise idea. He looks through the seas of people. There's a shaved ice stand, and three with stick food. Fifteen tennis players line up at the cart selling takoyaki. It's barely half-past nine.
The baby, at least, is quiet. The main digital board lists the West Courts for Rikkai Dai. Kirihara hasn't answered his emails for forty-five minutes. Renji checks the time on his cellphone. "Late," he murmurs.
Urayama waves his arms. "YANAGI-SENPAI YOU'RE HERE!" His voice cracks, and he's grown 20 cm. "Did you come to watch?" He shoves a line of yellow jerseys down the bench. "You can sit here, beside the regulars."
Cheerleaders sneak over in pairs. They press thumbs into Natsuko's palm, and ask to pick her up. Renji stretches his arms. Kirihara runs half-way across the court before he comes to a stop. His face is purple. His body shines with sweat.
"I forgot...the right bus number…" He collapses onto the bench. Urayama pours a PET bottle over Kirihara's head. Kirihara shakes it off, dog-style.
"Running for two clicks counts as laps," he says.
Renji rolls his eyes. He takes the baby back from a cheerleader, and passes it to another girl.
Kirihara looks up from the roster. "Hey! Is she-?"
Renji says yes.
The onesie reads MY DAD IS NUMBRE ONE
***
He is.
***
"Yukimura is playing Atobe," Renji says. "Clearly the doubles two needs work."
Sanada says yes. Oshitari Yuushi sidles into the Rikkai stands again. Renji sticks his foot out. Oshitari steps over it. He bows his head a little at the baby. He bows his head lower at Sanada. Sanada zips his jacket up to his neck.
"Go away!" he says.
"You played very well," Oshitari says. A point is called for Atobe, followed by three for Yukimura. Oshitari stares at Sanada's tits. Sanada tells him to screw off a second time.
Oshitari squeezes onto the bench between Renji and Sanada. "Oh but I'd love to," he says. He reaches for Sanada's thigh.
Renji sniffs the air. "You need to move," he tells Oshitari. "The baby needs to be changed."
Oshitari takes one glance at the diaper, plugs his nose, and runs.
"You owe me," Renji tells Sanada.
Atobe keeps looking into the stands, too. At court switch, he throws his sweaty towel right into Sanada's lap.
Sanada flushes down to his socks. Yukimura is white-faced on the court, and it's his serve.
Atobe winks.
The presentation ceremony for the junior high players starts in fifteen minutes. Renji straps the baby back into the Baby Bjorn.
"You're on your own now," he says.
***
He'll come back to school after the summer break.
Home is boring. His mom hovers. She corrects how Renji changes diapers. She suggests he rest more. She leaves extra blankets on his bed, and turns off the a/c. She lurks outside his bedroom. Renji closes the door, and shoves a chair in front of it. Then he lifts his shirt to feed the baby.
So he brings the baby to tennis practice, along with his clipboard, and ten kilos of baby crap that he carts everywhere in the old tennis bag.
Yukimura gives him a curt nod. In a loud voice near Yagyuu, he says, "Now that is better sportsmanship than skipping all the time."
Niou hasn't come to practice in two days. On the third, Yagyuu disappears too.
The baby has a doctor's appointment in the morning. She's grown 5cm, and screams at the needle. Renji has a headache the rest of the day. He stays at home. He shuts his cellphone off. He opens a novel, but his temples throb. The baby whines all evening, and refuses to feed. His mom knocks on the door.
"Akaya-kun is here," she says.
Renji shakes his head. He turns up the a/c. He sips green tea, and tries to sleep.
He sleeps until the baby needs a new diaper. She starts to fuss. He pats her back-gas, again. Renji thinks about writing it down. Then he remembers it's been ages since he changed his pad. His underwear is caked with blood. He throws the pair in the garbage, underneath the diapers. Then he switches on the cd, a present from Sanada. Soughing rain percolates from his iPod speakers. His eyes are heavy. The baby is soundless, asleep.
Today is the last day of class before August holidays. The Nationals are in two weeks.
***
He comes to the first practice over the holidays. Yukimura and Sanada were here yesterday, and the day before that too. The weekend was record temperatures, and humid as hell. Sanada calls the senpais pussy behind their backs. Yukimura's muscles have deeper definition that draws Sanada's eyes during laps.
Yukimura is silent. His lips are pursed, and his eyes are narrow. He doesn't say hello to anyone.
Renji shrugs.
Marui plops down beside Renji. "Did you hear?" he whispers. He pops a green apple bubble.
Renji says no.
Marui whistles. "It's…big shit, dataman. I thought you'd be the first to hear!" He offers a stick of gum. Renji shakes his head.
"Niou and Yagyu-"
"MARUI!" the captain shouts. "Ass on the courts, or you won't play a single set at the Nationals!"
Marui ducks his head and runs over. Renji strokes his chin. The baby looks at him. He thinks about Niou's swollen ankles, and his frequent absences. Renji shakes his head, and thinks, No. The likelihood is too small.
He doesn't believe it until Kirihara shows up after junior high practice finishes. Kirihara takes the baby into his arms. He picks her up so her legs dangle. He bops her around, and says, "Look, she's doing a split-step!"
Renji's shoulders relish the freedom. He flexes his fingers and stretches his arms. His breasts are heavy and swollen and leaking through his shirt.
"You heard, right?"
Renji rolls his eyes. "Niou and Yagyuu had an illegitimate child and Yukimura believed it again?"
Kirihara scratches the back of his head. He laughs a little. "Uh…but they did."
He grabs Kirihara's racket. Kirihara doesn't laugh when Renji smacks him on the shin. But Renji does. "Their sense of humour is interesting."
"It's true, though."
The racket clatters. A beat passes, then the baby starts to cry. Kirihara hands her back. Yukimura runs past. The senpais are spread out under the shade of trees, with PET bottles and sweat towels draped over themselves. Even Sanada sits on a bench with a towel over his head. Yukimura is the only person on the courts. His panting echoes. His sneakers slap the ground. His form wavers in the soupy air.
"That explains a lot," Renji says.
"That's really going to fuck them up," Kirihara says. "Seriously, Yagyuu-senpai, and Niou-senpai, with a baby?"
Renji hums. He looks around. With a shrug, he unbuttons his shirt. The baby's hands are sticky on his skin.
Kirihara leans back. He sticks his feet out far. Yukimura pounds the gravel. Kirihara closes his eyes. He has a cat-like smile. "You know, maybe they'll play tennis with each other."
***
The wheels squeak. Renji glances over his shoulders. Evening insects have started to swarm overhead. The sky is purple, the colour of Heian emperors. A shitty dog barks in a gated yard.
In a house half-way down the street, lights stream from behind curtained windows. Renji leans through the gate grating. He holds his breath.
There is a distinctive mewl of a newborn.
He listens for a moment. Then he pushes the stroller past.
***
"This is a problem," Renji says.
Yukimura throws his hands into the air. "It's like the gods hate me!"
Sanada says nothing except, "Tarundoru."
Yukimura stomps around his bedroom. The baby is at home, for an hour or two. Renji's chest feels hollow and bursting at once. He glances at the digital clock by Yukimura's bed.
"Do you think you can play?" Yukimura asks.
Renji says, "I've been bleeding out my crotch for 26 days straight."
Yukimura shrinks. "That's revolting."
Renji raises his eyebrows. "I also have a 15 cm incision that has yet to fully heal."
"But your staples are out," Yukimura says. "I was playing-"
"But you didn't have a baby," Sanada says. "It's different."
Yukimura glares at Sanada. Sanada glares back. Then he snorts. Yukimura makes a noise. He paces the other direction.
"On the plus side," Renji says, "Echizen isn't in high school."
***
Kirihara's apartment is cold, and quiet. Then his sister starts to yell on the phone. Natsuko sleeps through it. Kirihara takes pictures of her. He snaps more photos when she is awake and gumming his hand. She attempts a smile. Kirihara takes thirteen more photos. "That's my girl!" he says. He tries to give her a high five. Her expression flickers. Renji frowns.
"You can change her diaper," he says.
"You can tell?"
"She makes a face, like you, when you think too hard."
Kirihara laughs. Then he thinks for a moment. His brow wrinkles. "Hey!"
Renji shrugs.
They walk to the street courts, which are empty at this hour. The baby sits in her stroller. The frogs are out, with their low bellows of gero gero. Renji takes a deep breath. His skin is sticky already, and he hasn't even unzipped his racket cover.
"You sure this is okay?" Kirhara asks. He bounces the ball. Renji nods. It hurts to bend much. He bites his lip. Kirihara serves a slow lob.
Renji jogs right, and returns the ball. Kirihara narrows his eyes. They rally: back and forth and easy. Renji listens to the sound of his panting. He scowls.
"Sorry," Kirihara mutters.
Renji swings back hard. The ball arcs into the fluorescence of the flood light. Kirihara runs to his baseline, and then into the fence. The ball slams down on the far court.
"You're out of practice." Kirihara hands Renji a PET bottle. Renji pours the water over his face.
"Thank you for reminding me."
"At this rate, I'll beat you by autumn."
"Mn."
Kirihara leans close. He smells musky, and his breath is too hot. "You are gonna keep playing tennis still, right?"
Renji looks over at the baby. Her eyes are closed. He takes a deep breath. His muscles push against the scar. The words are thick, and he can't say them.
A hand weaves under his. Kirihara brushes his nose across Renji's cheek. "You gotta help me be number one."
Renji closes his eyes. He presses his lips to Kirihara's face. Then he pulls back.
"You have to do that by yourself."
Kirihara starts to shake his head. Renji grabs him by the chin. Kirihara starts to make a face. Renji squishes Kirihara's lips together. A smile pulls at his face.
"But we'll be behind you."
***
Yagyuu comes to practice alone with a thin envelope in one hand. Yukimura notices. He runs over to the captain and Yagyuu.
"Oh…shit," Marui says.
Renji leaves the baby in her carrier by the bench. He walks over. Sanada stands nearby. His arms are folded over his chest. They share a glance. Together, they stand around the corner of the clubhouse.
Yagyuu must be bowing as low as he can. "Please," he says, "accept my resignation from the team!"
The captain says sure.
Yukimura shouts, "You can't! He's better than half your regulars combined!"
Renji leans to Sanada. "Seiichi's right."
Sanada grunts.
The captain says something to Yagyuu. Yagyuu thanks him. Renji leans further around the clubhouse to see. Yukimura grabs Yagyuu by the arm.
"If the captain's dumb enough to let you resign this year, well you're sure as hell not resigning when I'm captain next year-"
The captain gives Yukimura fifty laps.
Yagyuu's shoulders have a slight hunch. At the gate, he stops and half-turns back to the tennis courts.
They all look at each other, and no one says a word.
***
Niou's mother stands in the doorway.
"Masaharu is out," she says. A baby screams behind her-somewhere in the house.
Renji raises his eyebrows. Niou's mother touches her collar. With a frown she steps back. Renji lines his shoes up in the foyer.
"I'm the other tennis club teammate with a baby," he says.
Niou's mother relaxes a little. But her frown is carved deep. "Masaharu's upstairs."
The bedroom door to his left slams shut. A baby cries behind it. There's a frantic shuffle, then muffled silence. Renji doesn't knock.
The room smells milky and rank. Filmy light seeps through the curtains. Someone has crammed a folding crib between a desk and a wire-rack shelving unit covered in tennis gear and UFO catcher plushies. The hump of bed sheets moves. Renji peers into the crib. It's empty.
He sits across from the lump. "You do realize that your sheets aren't an invisibility cloak," he says.
Renji picks up a onesie off the floor. The front is crusted with dry spew. He tosses it down. It lands on a tennis ball.
"Yagyuu tried to resign yesterday," Renji says.
The lump doesn't move.
"Yukimura will make him play next year, though."
Niou won't come out, so Renji goes in. "It's very stuffy under here," he says.
Niou rips the sheet off. Renji doesn't recognize him. His face is bloated, and his skin a mess of zits and sweat and exhausted lines. There's something in his arms, wrapped in a pastel blanket. A tiny hand reaches for Niou's neck. Niou stares at the wall. He closes his eyes slowly, and his breath hitches.
Renji's never seen him cry before.
The baby pukes on Niou. Then it starts to scream. Renji takes the baby. He tells Niou to change his shirt while he cleans it up.
It's a boy.
Renji pats the baby on the back. He chucks a diaper into the garbage bin. The baby is smaller than Natsuko was, and bald, and angry. Niou sits on the floor, hugging his knees.
"Yagyuu's not here with you?"
Niou says nothing. Renji sets the baby in the crib. He sits yoga-style beside Niou.
"No…I don't know," Niou whispers.
"Know what?"
Niou jerks his head. "What everyone else asks."
"Neither do I," Renji says.
After a long moment, Renji stands up. He turns on a fan.
Niou lifts his head. He sighs, and his shoulders sink deep into his body. "You're the first one," he mumbles. "Nobody else has…"
Renji raises his eyebrows, but Niou closes his mouth. His back hitches again.
***
Jackal brings a casserole dish of beans. "My mom helped me make it. She said that back home, they used fry up…" He shudders. "Gross things after women have babies, but all we could get was beans and turkey bacon at the supermarket."
"That is really, really nasty," Marui says. He inches away. But he doesn't spit out his gum.
"Don't look at me!" Jackal says.
Sanada looks a bit ill. Renji pats him on the shoulder. "Niou will probably appreciate that," he says.
The wrapped package crinkles. "It's just diapers," Sanada says.
"They come in handy."
Marui snickers. "Maybe if Yagyuu wasn't silly and had wrapped his w-"
Jackal claps a hand over Marui's mouth. He gives Marui the stink eye. Marui pouts.
"Yukimura agrees with me, you know."
Jackal says Yukimura is just bitter.
"About what?"
They stop at the cross walk. Yukimura runs across the street to catch up. "What am I bitter about, Jackal?"
Jackal blushes. His eyelashes flutter as he glances away. "That…um…"
"That Sanada's not wearing that one-piece we saw in Laforet," Marui says.
Jackal nods. Then he and Sanada both say "What?"
Yukimura narrows his eyes. "Yeah…anyway, sorry, my doctor's appointment ran late. Is this going to take long? Sanada and I are going to the streetcourts at four."
"No Akaya?" Marui asks.
"Tennis practice," Renji says.
"Where we should all be now," Yukimura says.
Renji walks faster. His scar rubs against his waistband. The baby is heavy against his chest. Sweat pools at the base of his spine. There's ozone in the atmosphere, and a typhoon forecasted to hit Shizuoka prefecture in the evening.
Renji rings the buzzer. There's no answer. He rings a second time. He looks into the peephole. A shadow moves across. The door opens.
"We're here to see Masaharu."
***
It's not really a date. But it's the first time they've really been out since she was born.
Kirihara shows up after his practice is done. His hair is damp from a shower and from the heat. He's got a blue and white jinbei on, with red plastic flip-flops that he leaves in the hallway. Renji looks down at his shorts.
"You should wear something nicer," his mom says.
"Look what I brought! My mom said my sister wore it back in the dinosaur age." Kirihara holds up a baby-sized jinpbei romper, covered in bursting pink peonies.
"You should definitely dress up," Renji's sister tells him. "But not in my old yukata."
He agrees to a frilly, lacy blouse. The shorts stay. His mom takes pictures with the Kodak camera. His sister takes a snapshot of Natsuko in the jinbei. The baby makes a face.
Kirihara's smile sinks. Renji hands the baby to him. Then a clean diaper.
"Don't be too late," his mom tells them at the gate.
Kirihara waves the baby's arms bye-bye.
The sun hovers low, but it still bakes the rooftops. "The park will be packed by now," Renji says.
"I know a better place."
"Oh?"
"Yeah oh."
Kirihara offers to buy snacks in the supermarket. He tosses gyoza and tempura and congealing yakiori sticks into the basket. Renji puts them back on the shelf.
"But…you liked that stuff," Kirihara says. He sniffles.
Renji puts the gyoza back into the basket. "Not anymore." He takes three packages of mochi and two melon pans. Kirihara sneaks a bag of curry popcorn underneath.
The train is thick with people. Renji closes his eyes. His arm is bumped. His foot is stepped on. Kirihara tells an elementary school student to fucking watch out for the baby. It makes Renji's insides all hot and liquid.
They get off at a stop in the suburbs. No one else does.
Renji raises his eyebrows.
"Trust me," Kirihara says. He carries the stroller up the station stairs. Then he carries it down the stairs to the south exit. Renji lets Kirihara take his hand after. He squeezes back.
The streets weave between mid-rise apartment blocks and rows of houses. Girls shuffling in yukata and clopping geta walk in the opposite direction. One stops and says the station is that way. Kirihara rolls his eyes.
"I'm not stupid!" he says.
Her eyes drift to the stroller. She says nothing.
There's nothing around, except a seedy pachinko parlour and a run-down cluster of bars. Renji purses his lips.
"Trust me," Kirihara says, at a traffic light.
After three blocks, there's a wooden sign that says 'beach'. The sand is rocky. The ground is littered with sea weed and cigarette butts. And there's a clear view to downtown Yokohama harbour.
"See?"
Kirihara kicks aside an empty beer can. He sets a mat down. "My sister's old boyfriend told me this was a good place to bring girls to make out, but…"
"We can do that some time," Renji says.
Kirihara rubs the back of his scalp and laughs.
They eat tofu straight from the package, and the mochi and popcorn, too. Kirihara opens a carton of coffee milk. Renji swipes it. Then he chucks it at Kirihara's head.
"What was that for? You shouldn't be drinking caffeine!"
He grabs Kirihara in a headlock. Kirihara yelps. Renji slackens his arm. Kirihara lays his head in Renji's lap. He looks up. Renji touches Kirihara's hair. His lips part. He starts to lean down. His stomach bursts with a jab of pain.
Kirihara apologizes anyway.
The baby starts to cry. Kirihara changes her, makes a face. "Where's the…" He looks around. The last garbage bin Renji saw was blocks away. He waits for Kirihara, and listens to the lap of the water. Natsuko drains one breast, and leaves the other heavy and sore. Kirihara returns to another dirty diaper. He curls his lip and disappears a second time.
"I had to walk practically all the way back to the station!" he says.
Renji hands him a Pocari Sweat. Kirihara spawls on the tatami mat. He squints at the sky. The sun is magenta behind the houses. Across the water, the sky darkens.
Natsuko lies on the mat next to Kirihara. He rests on his elbow, and stares down. Renji closes his eyes. The breeze combs through his hair.
"Hey! Hey, Renji, look!"
He looks.
"Is she…?"
"Probably gas," he says.
Kirihara shakes his head. He pulls a face. He tickles her toes. Her face crinkles into something that might be a smile. Kirihara grins. He pulls out his cellphone. Her expression changes.
"You did that on purpose." Kirihara plays with her toes. She stares at him, serious and concentrating. Renji sets her in the stroller. She's asleep before he lies down.
He rests his head against Kirihara's arm pit. Kirihara touches Renji's shoulder with his fingertips. "It's crazy," he says. "A year ago, everything was different."
"Normal," Renji says.
"But this is all right." Kirihara starts to sit up. Renji pulls him back down. Kirihara sighs. "It's all right, right?"
Renji inhales the sharp smell of Kirihara's sweat, the salty sea, even their curry-stained fingers. He reaches for Kirihara's hand. He touches the hot skin where his jinbei has ridden up.
"You birthday is coming up."
Kirihara grunts.
Renji strokes the skin between Kirihara's thumb and index. A gust of cool air blows over his face. Kirihara shifts. He's hard. Renji tries not to smile. He strokes Kirihara's palm.
"Oh-oh…"
"Mn."
He rolls on top of Renji's arm. In the dying light, it's hard to make out the contours of his face. Until Kirihara is close enough to kiss.
"It'll be the best birthday."
"Better than the birthday Yukimura told you that you were a regular?"
Kirihara laughs. "Well…maybe. Definitely. Yeah."
Renji kisses him harder.
The fireworks begin at eight sharp. The northwest sky is filled with chrysanthemum blooms of gold and green, and the whirr of the rockets before they explode. Somewhere in the harbour front park in downtown Yokohama, Sanada is crammed into a yukata next to Yukimura. Marui and Jackal are probably watching from the balcony of Marui's parents' condo. Niou is home alone with the baby, and Yagyuu is with his family at the park, sullen and silent.
A heart-shaped firework bursts into the blackness. Kirihara takes a shot with his cellphone. "Neat."
"And corny."
"Both, then."
"They have them every year, Akaya."
Kirihara sits up. His face silhouettes against a dahlia of silver, surrounded by explosions of blue with willowing tails. Renji's insides feel tight. His heart presses into his ribs. The sky crackles. Kirihara's foot touches his shin.
Renji shivers.
"Akaya," he says. He swallows. "You know that I…"
Kirihara turns. His face glows from the glittery trail of a kamuro. Renji's chest bursts with fullness.
Kirihara finishes the words for him.
Author: Ociwen
Wordcount: 39 000
Rating: NC17 overall
Disclaimer: Everything you can possibly think of, and then some. Spoilers for 40.5 and the entire series, including ShinTenipuri.
Warning: Girl parts, and then some. Crude humour. Misogyny. The usual.
Summary: Renji wakes up as a girl.
Author's Notes: This is a one-shot fic related to Dénoument, We'll Always Have Kanagawa, Accidentally All Right, Push/Pull, and Big Brother. The fics can be read separately, but they make more sense together.
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7]
If you like/love/loathe, please leave a comment to let me know.
Kirihara sits under the willow. He has his school uniform on. The sun is bright. The sky is translucent. Renji walks up to him. Kirihara wipes the milk moustache from his face. He lets out a long milky-smelling belch, and lies down on the grass.
"Akaya," Renji says.
Kirihara tosses his milk carton over his head. He closes his eyes.
Renji says his name louder.
Kirihara's chest rises slowly. Renji's insides burn. He touches his stomach. It's flat. His fingertips are red and sticky. A dark patch is soaking through his shirt. Renji remembers the fetus.
"No!"
He falls to his knees. The grass becomes nothingness. His body is too heavy to hold up. Renji can hardly keep his eyes open. He tries to count, he tries to list tennis line-ups, he tries to remember the numbers of π.
This isn't what is supposed to happen.
The pull is too strong. Renji closes his eyes, and sinks.
***
Death is awfully bright.
The light is brighter than the sun. It hurts. He tries to move. His body moves through jelly. His muscles forget how to function.
So this is what it's like, he thinks.
"Renji," Death says. Death touches his cheek. Death takes his hand, and squeezes it like a racket handle. "You're alive."
"I am?"
Through gluey crust Renji pries an eyelid open.
Kirihara looms three inches from his face.
He cracks open his other eye. His vision starts to sharpen. There's a window, and a track of green-tinted fluorescent lights shining behind Kirihara's head. Renji starts to sit up. Nausea yanks him down. He retches. His mouth fills with vomit. Kirihara holds a bed pan.
His body aches all over, but his middle explodes with pain. He gasps. He can't breathe through the pain. Then he reaches down.
"Where's my-"
Kirihara is quicker. He reaches past a hanging IV drip. "She's right here," he says. He picks something up from a bassinette. Renji starts to choke.
"S-she?"
Kirihara grins at the bundled thing. "Yeah, it's a her. You wanna hold her? The nurses showed me how already." He looks up. His eyes shine.
Renji tries to shake his head. His hands are slippery. The lump is warm, and not very heavy. He looks down. Kirihara's cellphone camera clicks three or four times. Renji pushes the IV tube to the side. There's a red, wrinkled face, and pink fingers, complete with tiny fingernails.
"Watch this." Kirihara sticks his finger in the palm. He starts to snicker. The fingers latch around his. "Total death grip. We'll have to teach her how to hold a racket right."
Renji glances down again.
He starts to cry.
***
Kirihara refuses to leave the room. The nurse gives up after two hours.
"They wouldn't let me come before," he says. "And I got so mad, my eyes went purple." Kirihara nods. Renji touches the back of the baby's hand. The skin is paper-thin and soft. "And then they made me see the cardiologist, which was kinda good because my blood pressure was crazy again."
Renji stiffens. "Akaya…"
Kirihara laughs. "It's okay now. They gave me drugs. It's not like…" He looks out the window. The sky is punctured with the lights from office towers. He sighs. "And you're okay, too."
Renji leans against the side of the bed. Kirihara presses his lips to Renji's forehead. His throat bobs. "You're both okay now," he whispers.
***
There is an angry slice six inches down his middle. Renji sucks in a breath. He pulls the gown back down.
The baby starts to cry. Renji picks her up. The nurse showed him what to do. It takes more than a few tries, and it feels weird. His breasts are three times the size he remembers.
The door slides open. Kirihara stops. "Oh-er…" He ducks his head. Renji says its fine. Kirihara stares at the floor. He reaches under his t-shirt. "I had to sneak it in." He hands Renji the PET bottle.
"It's the right kind," Renji says. He licks his lips. Kirihara unscrews the cap for him. Renji gives him a look.
"Sorry," Kirihara says.
Renji snorts.
"It's kinda weird seeing you do that."
He snorts again. The baby pulls away. His chest dribbles. He switches the baby with the tea, and downs it in three gulps. Renji settles back against the bed. His pillow is thin, and the mattress hard.
And his incision hurts constantly since they stopped the morphine.
On the third day, the team comes to visit. Sanada walks in first. He gives Renji a thin smile and a present wrapped in pink. Behind him, Yukimura turns green. Marui brings a cake-"You're not supposed to eat it, but shhh! It's a celebration!" Jackal brings a foil balloon. He ties it to the side of the bassinette. He picks the baby up, and babbles nonsense at her.
Yagyuu hands Renji a card. "Niou signed it, too."
"Uh…where is Niou-senpai?" Kirihara asks. Renji narrows his eyes.
Yagyuu says Niou said he was sick. Kirihara pokes at the plant Yukimura brought.
"Chrysanthemum?" Renji asks. The flowers stink. Yukimura breathes into a handkerchief, and says yes.
When they leave, Kirihara stands in front of the door.
Renji sets down his cake fork. "What did Niou do?"
"Um, Niou had a present for you, but it's really…" Kirihara shifts his eyes.
"Tasteless?"
"…yeah."
He holds up a pair of underpants. There's no crotch.
Renji clutches his middle. "Don't make me laugh," he says. "My stitches will split."
***
"So," Jackal says, "what are you guys going to call her?"
Kirihara shrugs. Renji says they have a list.
"Because you can't call her 'the baby' forever," Jackal says. "Personally, I like Adriana and Shakira and Luisana-"
"How do you even say those names?" Kirihara sounds one out. It comes out closer to Angelina.
"No foreign names," Renji says.
"So…CocoaPuff is out?" Marui asks.
Renji looks at him. Marui rolls his eyes, and calls him a traditionalist.
"You could name her after a famous tennis player?" Yukimura lists the top five female seeds. All foreign, half American.
Renji says no. Sanada stares at Yukimura with his mouth open.
***
Something normal, something not-too-old-fashioned-but-not-a-Kamen Rider-character-either ends up being Natsuko.
Renji says it three times. Kirihara went home for a shower. The baby is asleep-hopefully for a couple hours. Renji touches the novel on his lap, an old edition of Soseki Natsumi. Then he tucks the book under the birth certificate, and writes the name on the form.
***
The day after his release, the Regionals are held in Tokyo. Renji packs all of the baby's things into an old tennis bag of Kirihara's. He straps the baby to his chest in the Baby Bjorn.
His mom takes one look at him and says no.
"You're right," Renji says. He walks back upstairs. He comes back down. The baby has a little red cap over her scalp.
"You're not going out," his mom says.
Renji looks at the baby. Slate eyes are open, but unfocused on him. "She's fine."
"You have to think of her!" His mom frowns. "You shouldn't take her out of the house before she's at least a month old!"
Renji puts his sneakers on. He sucks in a breath. The incision pulls. The logical thing would be to have done this first. He lays the baby on the floor. She squirms a little. Then he straps her back in. "I'm not a child," he says.
His mom follows them to the gate. "But you have one now." She swallows. Renji's own throat feels thick. He looks away from his mother's sigh, and says he'll be back after dinner.
Cicadas swarm in zelkova canopies. Renji has a headache. His hands itch to hold a racket. The ache of his ruined stomach muscles suggests that it is not a wise idea. He looks through the seas of people. There's a shaved ice stand, and three with stick food. Fifteen tennis players line up at the cart selling takoyaki. It's barely half-past nine.
The baby, at least, is quiet. The main digital board lists the West Courts for Rikkai Dai. Kirihara hasn't answered his emails for forty-five minutes. Renji checks the time on his cellphone. "Late," he murmurs.
Urayama waves his arms. "YANAGI-SENPAI YOU'RE HERE!" His voice cracks, and he's grown 20 cm. "Did you come to watch?" He shoves a line of yellow jerseys down the bench. "You can sit here, beside the regulars."
Cheerleaders sneak over in pairs. They press thumbs into Natsuko's palm, and ask to pick her up. Renji stretches his arms. Kirihara runs half-way across the court before he comes to a stop. His face is purple. His body shines with sweat.
"I forgot...the right bus number…" He collapses onto the bench. Urayama pours a PET bottle over Kirihara's head. Kirihara shakes it off, dog-style.
"Running for two clicks counts as laps," he says.
Renji rolls his eyes. He takes the baby back from a cheerleader, and passes it to another girl.
Kirihara looks up from the roster. "Hey! Is she-?"
Renji says yes.
The onesie reads MY DAD IS NUMBRE ONE
***
He is.
***
"Yukimura is playing Atobe," Renji says. "Clearly the doubles two needs work."
Sanada says yes. Oshitari Yuushi sidles into the Rikkai stands again. Renji sticks his foot out. Oshitari steps over it. He bows his head a little at the baby. He bows his head lower at Sanada. Sanada zips his jacket up to his neck.
"Go away!" he says.
"You played very well," Oshitari says. A point is called for Atobe, followed by three for Yukimura. Oshitari stares at Sanada's tits. Sanada tells him to screw off a second time.
Oshitari squeezes onto the bench between Renji and Sanada. "Oh but I'd love to," he says. He reaches for Sanada's thigh.
Renji sniffs the air. "You need to move," he tells Oshitari. "The baby needs to be changed."
Oshitari takes one glance at the diaper, plugs his nose, and runs.
"You owe me," Renji tells Sanada.
Atobe keeps looking into the stands, too. At court switch, he throws his sweaty towel right into Sanada's lap.
Sanada flushes down to his socks. Yukimura is white-faced on the court, and it's his serve.
Atobe winks.
The presentation ceremony for the junior high players starts in fifteen minutes. Renji straps the baby back into the Baby Bjorn.
"You're on your own now," he says.
***
He'll come back to school after the summer break.
Home is boring. His mom hovers. She corrects how Renji changes diapers. She suggests he rest more. She leaves extra blankets on his bed, and turns off the a/c. She lurks outside his bedroom. Renji closes the door, and shoves a chair in front of it. Then he lifts his shirt to feed the baby.
So he brings the baby to tennis practice, along with his clipboard, and ten kilos of baby crap that he carts everywhere in the old tennis bag.
Yukimura gives him a curt nod. In a loud voice near Yagyuu, he says, "Now that is better sportsmanship than skipping all the time."
Niou hasn't come to practice in two days. On the third, Yagyuu disappears too.
The baby has a doctor's appointment in the morning. She's grown 5cm, and screams at the needle. Renji has a headache the rest of the day. He stays at home. He shuts his cellphone off. He opens a novel, but his temples throb. The baby whines all evening, and refuses to feed. His mom knocks on the door.
"Akaya-kun is here," she says.
Renji shakes his head. He turns up the a/c. He sips green tea, and tries to sleep.
He sleeps until the baby needs a new diaper. She starts to fuss. He pats her back-gas, again. Renji thinks about writing it down. Then he remembers it's been ages since he changed his pad. His underwear is caked with blood. He throws the pair in the garbage, underneath the diapers. Then he switches on the cd, a present from Sanada. Soughing rain percolates from his iPod speakers. His eyes are heavy. The baby is soundless, asleep.
Today is the last day of class before August holidays. The Nationals are in two weeks.
***
He comes to the first practice over the holidays. Yukimura and Sanada were here yesterday, and the day before that too. The weekend was record temperatures, and humid as hell. Sanada calls the senpais pussy behind their backs. Yukimura's muscles have deeper definition that draws Sanada's eyes during laps.
Yukimura is silent. His lips are pursed, and his eyes are narrow. He doesn't say hello to anyone.
Renji shrugs.
Marui plops down beside Renji. "Did you hear?" he whispers. He pops a green apple bubble.
Renji says no.
Marui whistles. "It's…big shit, dataman. I thought you'd be the first to hear!" He offers a stick of gum. Renji shakes his head.
"Niou and Yagyu-"
"MARUI!" the captain shouts. "Ass on the courts, or you won't play a single set at the Nationals!"
Marui ducks his head and runs over. Renji strokes his chin. The baby looks at him. He thinks about Niou's swollen ankles, and his frequent absences. Renji shakes his head, and thinks, No. The likelihood is too small.
He doesn't believe it until Kirihara shows up after junior high practice finishes. Kirihara takes the baby into his arms. He picks her up so her legs dangle. He bops her around, and says, "Look, she's doing a split-step!"
Renji's shoulders relish the freedom. He flexes his fingers and stretches his arms. His breasts are heavy and swollen and leaking through his shirt.
"You heard, right?"
Renji rolls his eyes. "Niou and Yagyuu had an illegitimate child and Yukimura believed it again?"
Kirihara scratches the back of his head. He laughs a little. "Uh…but they did."
He grabs Kirihara's racket. Kirihara doesn't laugh when Renji smacks him on the shin. But Renji does. "Their sense of humour is interesting."
"It's true, though."
The racket clatters. A beat passes, then the baby starts to cry. Kirihara hands her back. Yukimura runs past. The senpais are spread out under the shade of trees, with PET bottles and sweat towels draped over themselves. Even Sanada sits on a bench with a towel over his head. Yukimura is the only person on the courts. His panting echoes. His sneakers slap the ground. His form wavers in the soupy air.
"That explains a lot," Renji says.
"That's really going to fuck them up," Kirihara says. "Seriously, Yagyuu-senpai, and Niou-senpai, with a baby?"
Renji hums. He looks around. With a shrug, he unbuttons his shirt. The baby's hands are sticky on his skin.
Kirihara leans back. He sticks his feet out far. Yukimura pounds the gravel. Kirihara closes his eyes. He has a cat-like smile. "You know, maybe they'll play tennis with each other."
***
The wheels squeak. Renji glances over his shoulders. Evening insects have started to swarm overhead. The sky is purple, the colour of Heian emperors. A shitty dog barks in a gated yard.
In a house half-way down the street, lights stream from behind curtained windows. Renji leans through the gate grating. He holds his breath.
There is a distinctive mewl of a newborn.
He listens for a moment. Then he pushes the stroller past.
***
"This is a problem," Renji says.
Yukimura throws his hands into the air. "It's like the gods hate me!"
Sanada says nothing except, "Tarundoru."
Yukimura stomps around his bedroom. The baby is at home, for an hour or two. Renji's chest feels hollow and bursting at once. He glances at the digital clock by Yukimura's bed.
"Do you think you can play?" Yukimura asks.
Renji says, "I've been bleeding out my crotch for 26 days straight."
Yukimura shrinks. "That's revolting."
Renji raises his eyebrows. "I also have a 15 cm incision that has yet to fully heal."
"But your staples are out," Yukimura says. "I was playing-"
"But you didn't have a baby," Sanada says. "It's different."
Yukimura glares at Sanada. Sanada glares back. Then he snorts. Yukimura makes a noise. He paces the other direction.
"On the plus side," Renji says, "Echizen isn't in high school."
***
Kirihara's apartment is cold, and quiet. Then his sister starts to yell on the phone. Natsuko sleeps through it. Kirihara takes pictures of her. He snaps more photos when she is awake and gumming his hand. She attempts a smile. Kirihara takes thirteen more photos. "That's my girl!" he says. He tries to give her a high five. Her expression flickers. Renji frowns.
"You can change her diaper," he says.
"You can tell?"
"She makes a face, like you, when you think too hard."
Kirihara laughs. Then he thinks for a moment. His brow wrinkles. "Hey!"
Renji shrugs.
They walk to the street courts, which are empty at this hour. The baby sits in her stroller. The frogs are out, with their low bellows of gero gero. Renji takes a deep breath. His skin is sticky already, and he hasn't even unzipped his racket cover.
"You sure this is okay?" Kirhara asks. He bounces the ball. Renji nods. It hurts to bend much. He bites his lip. Kirihara serves a slow lob.
Renji jogs right, and returns the ball. Kirihara narrows his eyes. They rally: back and forth and easy. Renji listens to the sound of his panting. He scowls.
"Sorry," Kirihara mutters.
Renji swings back hard. The ball arcs into the fluorescence of the flood light. Kirihara runs to his baseline, and then into the fence. The ball slams down on the far court.
"You're out of practice." Kirihara hands Renji a PET bottle. Renji pours the water over his face.
"Thank you for reminding me."
"At this rate, I'll beat you by autumn."
"Mn."
Kirihara leans close. He smells musky, and his breath is too hot. "You are gonna keep playing tennis still, right?"
Renji looks over at the baby. Her eyes are closed. He takes a deep breath. His muscles push against the scar. The words are thick, and he can't say them.
A hand weaves under his. Kirihara brushes his nose across Renji's cheek. "You gotta help me be number one."
Renji closes his eyes. He presses his lips to Kirihara's face. Then he pulls back.
"You have to do that by yourself."
Kirihara starts to shake his head. Renji grabs him by the chin. Kirihara starts to make a face. Renji squishes Kirihara's lips together. A smile pulls at his face.
"But we'll be behind you."
***
Yagyuu comes to practice alone with a thin envelope in one hand. Yukimura notices. He runs over to the captain and Yagyuu.
"Oh…shit," Marui says.
Renji leaves the baby in her carrier by the bench. He walks over. Sanada stands nearby. His arms are folded over his chest. They share a glance. Together, they stand around the corner of the clubhouse.
Yagyuu must be bowing as low as he can. "Please," he says, "accept my resignation from the team!"
The captain says sure.
Yukimura shouts, "You can't! He's better than half your regulars combined!"
Renji leans to Sanada. "Seiichi's right."
Sanada grunts.
The captain says something to Yagyuu. Yagyuu thanks him. Renji leans further around the clubhouse to see. Yukimura grabs Yagyuu by the arm.
"If the captain's dumb enough to let you resign this year, well you're sure as hell not resigning when I'm captain next year-"
The captain gives Yukimura fifty laps.
Yagyuu's shoulders have a slight hunch. At the gate, he stops and half-turns back to the tennis courts.
They all look at each other, and no one says a word.
***
Niou's mother stands in the doorway.
"Masaharu is out," she says. A baby screams behind her-somewhere in the house.
Renji raises his eyebrows. Niou's mother touches her collar. With a frown she steps back. Renji lines his shoes up in the foyer.
"I'm the other tennis club teammate with a baby," he says.
Niou's mother relaxes a little. But her frown is carved deep. "Masaharu's upstairs."
The bedroom door to his left slams shut. A baby cries behind it. There's a frantic shuffle, then muffled silence. Renji doesn't knock.
The room smells milky and rank. Filmy light seeps through the curtains. Someone has crammed a folding crib between a desk and a wire-rack shelving unit covered in tennis gear and UFO catcher plushies. The hump of bed sheets moves. Renji peers into the crib. It's empty.
He sits across from the lump. "You do realize that your sheets aren't an invisibility cloak," he says.
Renji picks up a onesie off the floor. The front is crusted with dry spew. He tosses it down. It lands on a tennis ball.
"Yagyuu tried to resign yesterday," Renji says.
The lump doesn't move.
"Yukimura will make him play next year, though."
Niou won't come out, so Renji goes in. "It's very stuffy under here," he says.
Niou rips the sheet off. Renji doesn't recognize him. His face is bloated, and his skin a mess of zits and sweat and exhausted lines. There's something in his arms, wrapped in a pastel blanket. A tiny hand reaches for Niou's neck. Niou stares at the wall. He closes his eyes slowly, and his breath hitches.
Renji's never seen him cry before.
The baby pukes on Niou. Then it starts to scream. Renji takes the baby. He tells Niou to change his shirt while he cleans it up.
It's a boy.
Renji pats the baby on the back. He chucks a diaper into the garbage bin. The baby is smaller than Natsuko was, and bald, and angry. Niou sits on the floor, hugging his knees.
"Yagyuu's not here with you?"
Niou says nothing. Renji sets the baby in the crib. He sits yoga-style beside Niou.
"No…I don't know," Niou whispers.
"Know what?"
Niou jerks his head. "What everyone else asks."
"Neither do I," Renji says.
After a long moment, Renji stands up. He turns on a fan.
Niou lifts his head. He sighs, and his shoulders sink deep into his body. "You're the first one," he mumbles. "Nobody else has…"
Renji raises his eyebrows, but Niou closes his mouth. His back hitches again.
***
Jackal brings a casserole dish of beans. "My mom helped me make it. She said that back home, they used fry up…" He shudders. "Gross things after women have babies, but all we could get was beans and turkey bacon at the supermarket."
"That is really, really nasty," Marui says. He inches away. But he doesn't spit out his gum.
"Don't look at me!" Jackal says.
Sanada looks a bit ill. Renji pats him on the shoulder. "Niou will probably appreciate that," he says.
The wrapped package crinkles. "It's just diapers," Sanada says.
"They come in handy."
Marui snickers. "Maybe if Yagyuu wasn't silly and had wrapped his w-"
Jackal claps a hand over Marui's mouth. He gives Marui the stink eye. Marui pouts.
"Yukimura agrees with me, you know."
Jackal says Yukimura is just bitter.
"About what?"
They stop at the cross walk. Yukimura runs across the street to catch up. "What am I bitter about, Jackal?"
Jackal blushes. His eyelashes flutter as he glances away. "That…um…"
"That Sanada's not wearing that one-piece we saw in Laforet," Marui says.
Jackal nods. Then he and Sanada both say "What?"
Yukimura narrows his eyes. "Yeah…anyway, sorry, my doctor's appointment ran late. Is this going to take long? Sanada and I are going to the streetcourts at four."
"No Akaya?" Marui asks.
"Tennis practice," Renji says.
"Where we should all be now," Yukimura says.
Renji walks faster. His scar rubs against his waistband. The baby is heavy against his chest. Sweat pools at the base of his spine. There's ozone in the atmosphere, and a typhoon forecasted to hit Shizuoka prefecture in the evening.
Renji rings the buzzer. There's no answer. He rings a second time. He looks into the peephole. A shadow moves across. The door opens.
"We're here to see Masaharu."
***
It's not really a date. But it's the first time they've really been out since she was born.
Kirihara shows up after his practice is done. His hair is damp from a shower and from the heat. He's got a blue and white jinbei on, with red plastic flip-flops that he leaves in the hallway. Renji looks down at his shorts.
"You should wear something nicer," his mom says.
"Look what I brought! My mom said my sister wore it back in the dinosaur age." Kirihara holds up a baby-sized jinpbei romper, covered in bursting pink peonies.
"You should definitely dress up," Renji's sister tells him. "But not in my old yukata."
He agrees to a frilly, lacy blouse. The shorts stay. His mom takes pictures with the Kodak camera. His sister takes a snapshot of Natsuko in the jinbei. The baby makes a face.
Kirihara's smile sinks. Renji hands the baby to him. Then a clean diaper.
"Don't be too late," his mom tells them at the gate.
Kirihara waves the baby's arms bye-bye.
The sun hovers low, but it still bakes the rooftops. "The park will be packed by now," Renji says.
"I know a better place."
"Oh?"
"Yeah oh."
Kirihara offers to buy snacks in the supermarket. He tosses gyoza and tempura and congealing yakiori sticks into the basket. Renji puts them back on the shelf.
"But…you liked that stuff," Kirihara says. He sniffles.
Renji puts the gyoza back into the basket. "Not anymore." He takes three packages of mochi and two melon pans. Kirihara sneaks a bag of curry popcorn underneath.
The train is thick with people. Renji closes his eyes. His arm is bumped. His foot is stepped on. Kirihara tells an elementary school student to fucking watch out for the baby. It makes Renji's insides all hot and liquid.
They get off at a stop in the suburbs. No one else does.
Renji raises his eyebrows.
"Trust me," Kirihara says. He carries the stroller up the station stairs. Then he carries it down the stairs to the south exit. Renji lets Kirihara take his hand after. He squeezes back.
The streets weave between mid-rise apartment blocks and rows of houses. Girls shuffling in yukata and clopping geta walk in the opposite direction. One stops and says the station is that way. Kirihara rolls his eyes.
"I'm not stupid!" he says.
Her eyes drift to the stroller. She says nothing.
There's nothing around, except a seedy pachinko parlour and a run-down cluster of bars. Renji purses his lips.
"Trust me," Kirihara says, at a traffic light.
After three blocks, there's a wooden sign that says 'beach'. The sand is rocky. The ground is littered with sea weed and cigarette butts. And there's a clear view to downtown Yokohama harbour.
"See?"
Kirihara kicks aside an empty beer can. He sets a mat down. "My sister's old boyfriend told me this was a good place to bring girls to make out, but…"
"We can do that some time," Renji says.
Kirihara rubs the back of his scalp and laughs.
They eat tofu straight from the package, and the mochi and popcorn, too. Kirihara opens a carton of coffee milk. Renji swipes it. Then he chucks it at Kirihara's head.
"What was that for? You shouldn't be drinking caffeine!"
He grabs Kirihara in a headlock. Kirihara yelps. Renji slackens his arm. Kirihara lays his head in Renji's lap. He looks up. Renji touches Kirihara's hair. His lips part. He starts to lean down. His stomach bursts with a jab of pain.
Kirihara apologizes anyway.
The baby starts to cry. Kirihara changes her, makes a face. "Where's the…" He looks around. The last garbage bin Renji saw was blocks away. He waits for Kirihara, and listens to the lap of the water. Natsuko drains one breast, and leaves the other heavy and sore. Kirihara returns to another dirty diaper. He curls his lip and disappears a second time.
"I had to walk practically all the way back to the station!" he says.
Renji hands him a Pocari Sweat. Kirihara spawls on the tatami mat. He squints at the sky. The sun is magenta behind the houses. Across the water, the sky darkens.
Natsuko lies on the mat next to Kirihara. He rests on his elbow, and stares down. Renji closes his eyes. The breeze combs through his hair.
"Hey! Hey, Renji, look!"
He looks.
"Is she…?"
"Probably gas," he says.
Kirihara shakes his head. He pulls a face. He tickles her toes. Her face crinkles into something that might be a smile. Kirihara grins. He pulls out his cellphone. Her expression changes.
"You did that on purpose." Kirihara plays with her toes. She stares at him, serious and concentrating. Renji sets her in the stroller. She's asleep before he lies down.
He rests his head against Kirihara's arm pit. Kirihara touches Renji's shoulder with his fingertips. "It's crazy," he says. "A year ago, everything was different."
"Normal," Renji says.
"But this is all right." Kirihara starts to sit up. Renji pulls him back down. Kirihara sighs. "It's all right, right?"
Renji inhales the sharp smell of Kirihara's sweat, the salty sea, even their curry-stained fingers. He reaches for Kirihara's hand. He touches the hot skin where his jinbei has ridden up.
"You birthday is coming up."
Kirihara grunts.
Renji strokes the skin between Kirihara's thumb and index. A gust of cool air blows over his face. Kirihara shifts. He's hard. Renji tries not to smile. He strokes Kirihara's palm.
"Oh-oh…"
"Mn."
He rolls on top of Renji's arm. In the dying light, it's hard to make out the contours of his face. Until Kirihara is close enough to kiss.
"It'll be the best birthday."
"Better than the birthday Yukimura told you that you were a regular?"
Kirihara laughs. "Well…maybe. Definitely. Yeah."
Renji kisses him harder.
The fireworks begin at eight sharp. The northwest sky is filled with chrysanthemum blooms of gold and green, and the whirr of the rockets before they explode. Somewhere in the harbour front park in downtown Yokohama, Sanada is crammed into a yukata next to Yukimura. Marui and Jackal are probably watching from the balcony of Marui's parents' condo. Niou is home alone with the baby, and Yagyuu is with his family at the park, sullen and silent.
A heart-shaped firework bursts into the blackness. Kirihara takes a shot with his cellphone. "Neat."
"And corny."
"Both, then."
"They have them every year, Akaya."
Kirihara sits up. His face silhouettes against a dahlia of silver, surrounded by explosions of blue with willowing tails. Renji's insides feel tight. His heart presses into his ribs. The sky crackles. Kirihara's foot touches his shin.
Renji shivers.
"Akaya," he says. He swallows. "You know that I…"
Kirihara turns. His face glows from the glittery trail of a kamuro. Renji's chest bursts with fullness.
Kirihara finishes the words for him.