Songs for Daddy- Chapter 45: The Darker Side of Me
Author: bar_ohki
Title: Songs for Daddy
Rating: This chapter is rated T.
Summary: After receiving a phone call, Hiruma abandons his job, his football team, and his friends, disappearing into nothing. After several years pass, Mamori finds a strange girl in her Kindergarten class, a girl strange enough to have the only remaining connection to the missing quarterback….
Notes: I'm not dead, here's your update. Sorry this took so long to get up. The Darker Side of Me is by Veer Union, I do not own it.
Links: To song on youtube: Video
To lyrics of song: Lyrics
To a list of chapter links: Links
To chapter 44: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Songs for Daddy
Chapter 45: Darker Side of Me
Emiko trotted into the kitchen with a groggy Hiruma behind her. She’d gotten woken up by the neighbor’s car backfiring, resulting in Hiruma being pulled out of bed half an hour earlier than he wanted to be. Anezaki could sleep through Emiko’s wake up calls and cars backfiring, or she was damn good at faking it because she was still in bed. A fact that Hiruma was quite jealous of.
Smiling, Emiko got on the little painter’s ladder they had left by the calendar for her. For once Emiko had expressed wanting to know what day of the week it was, so Hiruma showed her how to use the calendar. Every morning started off with going to the calendar and making an ‘x’ on the new day. Emiko studied her handiwork, like she normally did while Hiruma went to get the coffee pot to start working.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.” Emiko counted off days, tapping in each box on the calendar as she did.
Pause.
Hiruma rubbed his eyes again, did what kind of significance did seven days hold? Ah, it’s too fucking early for this….
“That’s a week.” Hiruma remarked lamely after a few more seconds of silence.
“One week…!” Emiko muttered in awe. “The Rice Bowl is in one week!” Emiko squealed happily.
Hiruma, on the other hand, just about dropped his coffee cup. He turned and looked at Emiko and the calendar. Sure enough, one week from today was ‘Rice Bowl’ written in Anezaki’s neat handwriting. Emiko was beaming and rightfully so. She’s been looking forward to this for some time.
For Emiko, this Rice Bowl was going to be her first live game. It was going to be the first time she saw Papa play live. It was going to be awesome, that much was certain. All Hiruma knew was that he didn’t want to face Emiko unless he won, good game or not.
“Park today!” Emiko announced, pointing at today.
“Yeah, its park day.” Hiruma smiled. It seemed like years ago since he last took Emiko to the park, this was their first time in a long time.
“Mom coming?” Emiko asked as she got down and went to sit at the kitchen table.
“No.” Hiruma answered. “This is Papa-Emiko only time.” Going to the park was something he did with Emiko and he was very protective of that father-daughter bonding time. Anezaki had understood and pointed out that he would have to allow her to take Emiko out for some Mom-Emiko time. Begrudgingly, Hiruma did agree since he knew it would be what was best for Emiko in the long term. Letting go of his domination over Emiko’s time was hard for both of them.
Emiko smiled.
After hearing the coffee pot ding, Hiruma prepared himself some much needed caffeine. He looked out at Emiko’s smiling face and found himself returning the expression. Today was going to be great, that much Hiruma already knew.
“Papa?” Emiko asked, making eye contact with the floor.
“Emiko, eye contact.” Hiruma reminded her, pointing at his eyes. Wandering brown eyes, got reigned in and bored into Hiruma’s green ones. Holding eye contact with Emiko was difficult because her face was this half-made perma-poker mask. Being her father made Hiruma very used to looking at Emiko’s face and its lack of expressions.
“Why were you and Mom making funny noises last night?”
…Maybe not such a great day after all.
“Funny noises?” Anezaki asked when she came into the kitchen with a yawn.
“Yeah! In Mom’s bedroom!” Emiko clarified.
Anezaki’s eyes widened and she turned to Hiruma, clearly mortified. Hiruma only took another sip of his coffee. Too fucking early for this.
“We were having sex.” Hiruma answered. “And I’m not going to explain anything else about it until you are older.”
“….Babies, sex makes babies?” Emiko asked herself trying to see if she recalled the facts right.
“Yes.” Hiruma answered again. Anezaki could only stare at both of them, how could they talk about such a mature and vulgar subject with ease? Before breakfast even!
“Am I a big sister?” Emiko clearly hadn’t had pregnancy explained to her, but she did know how it began and ended.
“N-no no!” Anezaki waved her hands, a little flustered.
“No?” Emiko didn’t like that. Her increased rocking said so.
“We were practicing.” Hiruma explained quickly as he discretely moved over to Anezaki and calmed her by setting his arm over her shoulders. “If you don’t practice you can’t expect the play to work.”
Emiko nodded seriously.
“If you ever feel uncomfortable with one of Emiko’s questions, just tell her you don’t want to talk about it.” Hiruma whispered his advice to Anezaki in her ear. “Or just answer her bluntly and unembellished.”
Anezaki nodded.
“Whatever you do, don’t lie to her.” Hiruma added as he walked over to where Emiko was sitting. Anezaki watched him walk in silence.
Hiruma had just reminded her again how much he had changed. A man that was once full of lies and deceit was now honest and straightforward. He was once devilish and out of control, now he was in perfect control and fatherly.
Green eyes with a hint of amused mischief in them turned and met hers.
Letting out a small giggle, Anezaki began to prepare breakfast. Hiruma’s eyes had said many things to her, the most important of which was that he was still the man she knew from high school and college. Stealing a glance at the father-daughter pair, Anezaki faintly wondered when Emiko would be introduced to that side of her father. Or did she already know?
“Oi, Mamori!” Hiruma called over from the kitchen table. “I need you to make us a picnic basket, its park day.”
“Park!” Emiko emphasized happily.
After shooting a quick glance at the calendar, Anezaki saw the scheduled event of the day and nodded. It was strange hearing him call her ‘Mamori’ as opposed to ‘fucking mother’ or ‘fucking manager’, even though this had been happening for a few months now. Still, she liked the sound of it on his lips.
“Thanks.”
Later, at the park
Football is fun.
Really fun.
Most fun thing ever!
“Square out!” Hiruma cried as he pulled back the ball and watched Emiko run out across the grassy field. She’d ran out of her shoes about an hour ago and Hiruma hadn’t bothered to try and convince her to put them on again. Instead, he let Emiko run about in the slightly muddy ground barefoot. It did make her feet and pants a mess, but that extremely bright smile made him not care. Besides, there was a towel in the car, its not like he wouldn’t have to use it anyways.
Emiko smiled and ran, her pigtails bouncing as she carefully followed the pass route. Once she had mastered the basics of throwing and receiving, Papa had taught her the pass routes. It was important for both quarterbacks and receivers to know these and Emiko was going to be a quarterback someday. This she was certain of.
Eyeing his daughter carefully, Hiruma predicted when she’d be in position and threw the ball. It would arrive at the time Emiko was in position and the spiral and speed were both appropriate for Emiko’s catching ability. That meant that actually catching it would be up to Emiko and her skill. Hiruma held his breath and watched carefully, a bit nervous. Would Emiko succeed? Would she fail? Would she get hurt?
Emiko glanced and saw the incoming ball. Good spiral, nice speed, right on course for the pass route. Putting on a hair more speed and putting her arms up as she approached the end of the pass route, Emiko mentally readied herself for the impact of the ball in her hands.
Spread your fingers to give yourself the best grip on it, thumbs together for a high throw, pinkies for a low, let your arms give and come in with the ball, trap it right away to prevent stealing, be ready to run once the ball is secure, be wary of the defense, but do not let them prevent you from catching it. These were Papa’s words, the words Papa told Emiko about catching over the course of her small life.
Hiruma let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. Emiko caught it beautifully, trapping the ball against her chest and making a quick glance around for defense. Now that she successfully caught it, Hiruma could run over and run some pass route of Emiko’s design. Today they were playing with a small ball that would be better suited to Emiko’s small hands, but they didn’t always play with a small ball. Every third time, Hiruma would bring out a full-sized, legal football. Being a girl, Emiko would always have small hands which would give her a disadvantage on the legal sized ball. So to compensate for this, Hiruma decided she would simply grow up using one. The smaller ball was for practicing things like spirals and speed control, things that were both easier with a proportional ball. The official sized ball was, for right now, just for throwing.
The progress Emiko had been making with the official sized ball was visible over time, but not enough that Emiko was satisfied with her progress. If Hiruma had brought the official sized ball there was no doubt in his mind Emiko would wind up having a bad day.
“Hail Mary.” Emiko remarked when Papa arrived, her eyes fixed on the ball in her hands. Hiruma nodded once and set off to run out a long distance. Getting into a throwing stance, Emiko had a look around to survey her ‘field’. There was a guy standing by a tree whose face was familiar. Emiko paused and looked at the guy carefully, trying to remember where she saw his face.
“Papa’s book….!” Emiko muttered in awe.
“Papa!” Emiko called out, distracted by the appearance of the man. “That guy’s in your book!”
Hiruma stopped running and turned around with a frown. What the heck was Emiko on about now? He knew she was easily distracted but….
“What book?” Hiruma asked as he ran back.
“The black one with the white bat on the cover.” Emiko answered. “I found it in the box with the guns in it in the kitchen.”
It took Hiruma exactly three seconds to realize that not only had Emiko been messing around with his guns, but knew where they were. Then, after four seconds of unexpressed panic, Hiruma realized that perhaps he should think about the book. ….Book? With a white bat on a black background?
“You wrote in it a lot!” Emiko explained some more since Papa wasn’t remembering. “And there were lots of photographs of people doing strange things! That guy was wearing a tutu!”
Hiruma followed Emiko’s pointing to see a man standing next to the tree. The man was staring back at them, sweating bullets since Emiko was speaking very loudly and he wasn’t far away to begin with. Without thinking Hiruma had begun to reach into his back pocket to pull out his threat notebook to look the man up, but the notebook wasn’t there.
Green eyes widened when the owner did recognize both the description of the book Emiko spoke of and the man. The man was Youshikuni Masato, he had a habit of wearing little girl’s used clothing, even if it broke. He had a picture of the man in a tutu in the threat notebook, a book that had been packed away with the guns and left in the kitchen during the move. A book Emiko had found and looked through.
Shit! Was the only thing Hiruma could think. The one thing in the whole world he did not want Emiko to see, she had seen. Panic was starting to set in and the man, Youshikuni, was starting to get uncomfortable. Of course Youshinkuni recognized Hiruma, who wouldn’t with those pointed ears and bleached hair? Clearly that little girl was the spawn of the devil, she’d seen the threat notebook and looked like her father far too much. Should he run before the devil decided to do something?
“Papa,” Emiko tugged on Papa’s pant leg, “what did you write about Masaki-sensei in the book?”
Blink. Oh that’s right, Emiko can’t read she can only recognize letters and a handful of words. Hiruma let out a small relieved breath, it’s a damn good thing Emiko can’t read. But her words made him think, why did he write a lot about their family doctor in the threat notebook? The man must have done something….
“I don’t remember.” Hiruma answered Emiko.
“Why is that guy in the book?” Emiko asked, still pointing.
“Because he was both stupid and creepy. Stay away from him, okay?” Hiruma did not want that creep around his daughter.
“Okay!” Emiko nodded, waved at the creepy guy then readied the football. Youshinkuni had decided to run away, not looking back to see the football game had resumed. All he knew was that Hiruma Youichi was back, with a kid, and still had that bloody book!
The Anezaki-Hiruma Residence, 4 pm
“Welcome home!” Anezaki smiled as she opened the front door to let her boyfriend and his daughter into the house. It had started raining earlier so she was not surprised the two had come home early. But she was surprised to see that Hiruma was covered in more filth than Emiko.
“Papa fell in the mud! He’s dirty he has to have a bath~!” Emiko explained loudly then pranced off into the back of the house, barely remembering to take off her shoes.
“Did you really?” Anezaki asked slightly worried. Did he hurt himself?
“Ah, it was just a low throw.” Hiruma explained. Emiko had thrown him a low bomber she claimed he couldn’t catch. He did catch it at the expense of crashing into the ground. Though he was not injured, he did get winded and covered in mud.
“…Something’s on your mind.” Anezaki whispered knowingly at Hiruma. She did this to avoid having Emiko hear.
“Papa!” Emiko cried as she came running back, “see, Masaki-sensei is in the book!”
Anezaki turned around and saw, much to her horror, the infamous threat notebook in Emiko’s hands. She had opened it to specific page that showed a small picture of Masaki, the family doctor, on it. Hiruma stepped forward and started to read the page, his serious expression alarming Anezaki. What was going on?
“Ah, yes, I need to see that.” Hiruma remarked seriously and snatched the book out of Emiko’s confused hands. He flipped through the pages quickly, saying nothing, with a blank expression.
“Y-youichi?” Anezaki asked softly, her expression and tone worried. She didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t like the way it was going….
“That fucker!” Hiruma snapped loudly, his expression absolutely venomous. “That mother fucker!”
Emiko backed away, frightened.
Papa never acted like this.
Ever.
_=_=_=_=_
Yeah, the ominous chapter ending. Sorry to disappoint with this short chapter then the horrible cliffhanger, but I was intending this chapter to be both short and suspenseful. I will warn you this is the very last arc in this story.
Title: Songs for Daddy
Rating: This chapter is rated T.
Summary: After receiving a phone call, Hiruma abandons his job, his football team, and his friends, disappearing into nothing. After several years pass, Mamori finds a strange girl in her Kindergarten class, a girl strange enough to have the only remaining connection to the missing quarterback….
Notes: I'm not dead, here's your update. Sorry this took so long to get up. The Darker Side of Me is by Veer Union, I do not own it.
Links: To song on youtube: Video
To lyrics of song: Lyrics
To a list of chapter links: Links
To chapter 44: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Songs for Daddy
Chapter 45: Darker Side of Me
Emiko trotted into the kitchen with a groggy Hiruma behind her. She’d gotten woken up by the neighbor’s car backfiring, resulting in Hiruma being pulled out of bed half an hour earlier than he wanted to be. Anezaki could sleep through Emiko’s wake up calls and cars backfiring, or she was damn good at faking it because she was still in bed. A fact that Hiruma was quite jealous of.
Smiling, Emiko got on the little painter’s ladder they had left by the calendar for her. For once Emiko had expressed wanting to know what day of the week it was, so Hiruma showed her how to use the calendar. Every morning started off with going to the calendar and making an ‘x’ on the new day. Emiko studied her handiwork, like she normally did while Hiruma went to get the coffee pot to start working.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.” Emiko counted off days, tapping in each box on the calendar as she did.
Pause.
Hiruma rubbed his eyes again, did what kind of significance did seven days hold? Ah, it’s too fucking early for this….
“That’s a week.” Hiruma remarked lamely after a few more seconds of silence.
“One week…!” Emiko muttered in awe. “The Rice Bowl is in one week!” Emiko squealed happily.
Hiruma, on the other hand, just about dropped his coffee cup. He turned and looked at Emiko and the calendar. Sure enough, one week from today was ‘Rice Bowl’ written in Anezaki’s neat handwriting. Emiko was beaming and rightfully so. She’s been looking forward to this for some time.
For Emiko, this Rice Bowl was going to be her first live game. It was going to be the first time she saw Papa play live. It was going to be awesome, that much was certain. All Hiruma knew was that he didn’t want to face Emiko unless he won, good game or not.
“Park today!” Emiko announced, pointing at today.
“Yeah, its park day.” Hiruma smiled. It seemed like years ago since he last took Emiko to the park, this was their first time in a long time.
“Mom coming?” Emiko asked as she got down and went to sit at the kitchen table.
“No.” Hiruma answered. “This is Papa-Emiko only time.” Going to the park was something he did with Emiko and he was very protective of that father-daughter bonding time. Anezaki had understood and pointed out that he would have to allow her to take Emiko out for some Mom-Emiko time. Begrudgingly, Hiruma did agree since he knew it would be what was best for Emiko in the long term. Letting go of his domination over Emiko’s time was hard for both of them.
Emiko smiled.
After hearing the coffee pot ding, Hiruma prepared himself some much needed caffeine. He looked out at Emiko’s smiling face and found himself returning the expression. Today was going to be great, that much Hiruma already knew.
“Papa?” Emiko asked, making eye contact with the floor.
“Emiko, eye contact.” Hiruma reminded her, pointing at his eyes. Wandering brown eyes, got reigned in and bored into Hiruma’s green ones. Holding eye contact with Emiko was difficult because her face was this half-made perma-poker mask. Being her father made Hiruma very used to looking at Emiko’s face and its lack of expressions.
“Why were you and Mom making funny noises last night?”
…Maybe not such a great day after all.
“Funny noises?” Anezaki asked when she came into the kitchen with a yawn.
“Yeah! In Mom’s bedroom!” Emiko clarified.
Anezaki’s eyes widened and she turned to Hiruma, clearly mortified. Hiruma only took another sip of his coffee. Too fucking early for this.
“We were having sex.” Hiruma answered. “And I’m not going to explain anything else about it until you are older.”
“….Babies, sex makes babies?” Emiko asked herself trying to see if she recalled the facts right.
“Yes.” Hiruma answered again. Anezaki could only stare at both of them, how could they talk about such a mature and vulgar subject with ease? Before breakfast even!
“Am I a big sister?” Emiko clearly hadn’t had pregnancy explained to her, but she did know how it began and ended.
“N-no no!” Anezaki waved her hands, a little flustered.
“No?” Emiko didn’t like that. Her increased rocking said so.
“We were practicing.” Hiruma explained quickly as he discretely moved over to Anezaki and calmed her by setting his arm over her shoulders. “If you don’t practice you can’t expect the play to work.”
Emiko nodded seriously.
“If you ever feel uncomfortable with one of Emiko’s questions, just tell her you don’t want to talk about it.” Hiruma whispered his advice to Anezaki in her ear. “Or just answer her bluntly and unembellished.”
Anezaki nodded.
“Whatever you do, don’t lie to her.” Hiruma added as he walked over to where Emiko was sitting. Anezaki watched him walk in silence.
Hiruma had just reminded her again how much he had changed. A man that was once full of lies and deceit was now honest and straightforward. He was once devilish and out of control, now he was in perfect control and fatherly.
Green eyes with a hint of amused mischief in them turned and met hers.
Letting out a small giggle, Anezaki began to prepare breakfast. Hiruma’s eyes had said many things to her, the most important of which was that he was still the man she knew from high school and college. Stealing a glance at the father-daughter pair, Anezaki faintly wondered when Emiko would be introduced to that side of her father. Or did she already know?
“Oi, Mamori!” Hiruma called over from the kitchen table. “I need you to make us a picnic basket, its park day.”
“Park!” Emiko emphasized happily.
After shooting a quick glance at the calendar, Anezaki saw the scheduled event of the day and nodded. It was strange hearing him call her ‘Mamori’ as opposed to ‘fucking mother’ or ‘fucking manager’, even though this had been happening for a few months now. Still, she liked the sound of it on his lips.
“Thanks.”
Later, at the park
Football is fun.
Really fun.
Most fun thing ever!
“Square out!” Hiruma cried as he pulled back the ball and watched Emiko run out across the grassy field. She’d ran out of her shoes about an hour ago and Hiruma hadn’t bothered to try and convince her to put them on again. Instead, he let Emiko run about in the slightly muddy ground barefoot. It did make her feet and pants a mess, but that extremely bright smile made him not care. Besides, there was a towel in the car, its not like he wouldn’t have to use it anyways.
Emiko smiled and ran, her pigtails bouncing as she carefully followed the pass route. Once she had mastered the basics of throwing and receiving, Papa had taught her the pass routes. It was important for both quarterbacks and receivers to know these and Emiko was going to be a quarterback someday. This she was certain of.
Eyeing his daughter carefully, Hiruma predicted when she’d be in position and threw the ball. It would arrive at the time Emiko was in position and the spiral and speed were both appropriate for Emiko’s catching ability. That meant that actually catching it would be up to Emiko and her skill. Hiruma held his breath and watched carefully, a bit nervous. Would Emiko succeed? Would she fail? Would she get hurt?
Emiko glanced and saw the incoming ball. Good spiral, nice speed, right on course for the pass route. Putting on a hair more speed and putting her arms up as she approached the end of the pass route, Emiko mentally readied herself for the impact of the ball in her hands.
Spread your fingers to give yourself the best grip on it, thumbs together for a high throw, pinkies for a low, let your arms give and come in with the ball, trap it right away to prevent stealing, be ready to run once the ball is secure, be wary of the defense, but do not let them prevent you from catching it. These were Papa’s words, the words Papa told Emiko about catching over the course of her small life.
Hiruma let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. Emiko caught it beautifully, trapping the ball against her chest and making a quick glance around for defense. Now that she successfully caught it, Hiruma could run over and run some pass route of Emiko’s design. Today they were playing with a small ball that would be better suited to Emiko’s small hands, but they didn’t always play with a small ball. Every third time, Hiruma would bring out a full-sized, legal football. Being a girl, Emiko would always have small hands which would give her a disadvantage on the legal sized ball. So to compensate for this, Hiruma decided she would simply grow up using one. The smaller ball was for practicing things like spirals and speed control, things that were both easier with a proportional ball. The official sized ball was, for right now, just for throwing.
The progress Emiko had been making with the official sized ball was visible over time, but not enough that Emiko was satisfied with her progress. If Hiruma had brought the official sized ball there was no doubt in his mind Emiko would wind up having a bad day.
“Hail Mary.” Emiko remarked when Papa arrived, her eyes fixed on the ball in her hands. Hiruma nodded once and set off to run out a long distance. Getting into a throwing stance, Emiko had a look around to survey her ‘field’. There was a guy standing by a tree whose face was familiar. Emiko paused and looked at the guy carefully, trying to remember where she saw his face.
“Papa’s book….!” Emiko muttered in awe.
“Papa!” Emiko called out, distracted by the appearance of the man. “That guy’s in your book!”
Hiruma stopped running and turned around with a frown. What the heck was Emiko on about now? He knew she was easily distracted but….
“What book?” Hiruma asked as he ran back.
“The black one with the white bat on the cover.” Emiko answered. “I found it in the box with the guns in it in the kitchen.”
It took Hiruma exactly three seconds to realize that not only had Emiko been messing around with his guns, but knew where they were. Then, after four seconds of unexpressed panic, Hiruma realized that perhaps he should think about the book. ….Book? With a white bat on a black background?
“You wrote in it a lot!” Emiko explained some more since Papa wasn’t remembering. “And there were lots of photographs of people doing strange things! That guy was wearing a tutu!”
Hiruma followed Emiko’s pointing to see a man standing next to the tree. The man was staring back at them, sweating bullets since Emiko was speaking very loudly and he wasn’t far away to begin with. Without thinking Hiruma had begun to reach into his back pocket to pull out his threat notebook to look the man up, but the notebook wasn’t there.
Green eyes widened when the owner did recognize both the description of the book Emiko spoke of and the man. The man was Youshikuni Masato, he had a habit of wearing little girl’s used clothing, even if it broke. He had a picture of the man in a tutu in the threat notebook, a book that had been packed away with the guns and left in the kitchen during the move. A book Emiko had found and looked through.
Shit! Was the only thing Hiruma could think. The one thing in the whole world he did not want Emiko to see, she had seen. Panic was starting to set in and the man, Youshikuni, was starting to get uncomfortable. Of course Youshinkuni recognized Hiruma, who wouldn’t with those pointed ears and bleached hair? Clearly that little girl was the spawn of the devil, she’d seen the threat notebook and looked like her father far too much. Should he run before the devil decided to do something?
“Papa,” Emiko tugged on Papa’s pant leg, “what did you write about Masaki-sensei in the book?”
Blink. Oh that’s right, Emiko can’t read she can only recognize letters and a handful of words. Hiruma let out a small relieved breath, it’s a damn good thing Emiko can’t read. But her words made him think, why did he write a lot about their family doctor in the threat notebook? The man must have done something….
“I don’t remember.” Hiruma answered Emiko.
“Why is that guy in the book?” Emiko asked, still pointing.
“Because he was both stupid and creepy. Stay away from him, okay?” Hiruma did not want that creep around his daughter.
“Okay!” Emiko nodded, waved at the creepy guy then readied the football. Youshinkuni had decided to run away, not looking back to see the football game had resumed. All he knew was that Hiruma Youichi was back, with a kid, and still had that bloody book!
The Anezaki-Hiruma Residence, 4 pm
“Welcome home!” Anezaki smiled as she opened the front door to let her boyfriend and his daughter into the house. It had started raining earlier so she was not surprised the two had come home early. But she was surprised to see that Hiruma was covered in more filth than Emiko.
“Papa fell in the mud! He’s dirty he has to have a bath~!” Emiko explained loudly then pranced off into the back of the house, barely remembering to take off her shoes.
“Did you really?” Anezaki asked slightly worried. Did he hurt himself?
“Ah, it was just a low throw.” Hiruma explained. Emiko had thrown him a low bomber she claimed he couldn’t catch. He did catch it at the expense of crashing into the ground. Though he was not injured, he did get winded and covered in mud.
“…Something’s on your mind.” Anezaki whispered knowingly at Hiruma. She did this to avoid having Emiko hear.
“Papa!” Emiko cried as she came running back, “see, Masaki-sensei is in the book!”
Anezaki turned around and saw, much to her horror, the infamous threat notebook in Emiko’s hands. She had opened it to specific page that showed a small picture of Masaki, the family doctor, on it. Hiruma stepped forward and started to read the page, his serious expression alarming Anezaki. What was going on?
“Ah, yes, I need to see that.” Hiruma remarked seriously and snatched the book out of Emiko’s confused hands. He flipped through the pages quickly, saying nothing, with a blank expression.
“Y-youichi?” Anezaki asked softly, her expression and tone worried. She didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t like the way it was going….
“That fucker!” Hiruma snapped loudly, his expression absolutely venomous. “That mother fucker!”
Emiko backed away, frightened.
Papa never acted like this.
Ever.
_=_=_=_=_
Yeah, the ominous chapter ending. Sorry to disappoint with this short chapter then the horrible cliffhanger, but I was intending this chapter to be both short and suspenseful. I will warn you this is the very last arc in this story.