A/N: I'm so glad you all seem to be enjoying this little prequel as much as you are! I asked my followers on tumblr if they had any questions about this 'verse they might like answered in this story, and I extend the question to you all here, too! Let me know what you're curious about.


The last thing Yoshi expected was for Leonardo to warm to him the fastest of the four, and yet that seemed to be the case. The blue-eyed child was never without his youngest brother in tow, but every time he pushed open the restaurant's heavy front door, and spotted Yoshi in his now-usual seat at the counter, his young face lit up with a joy that wrapped fingers around Yoshi's heart and held fast to it.

"He's really taken to you," Murakami said in his easy-going way, with a hint of amusement Yoshi could only pick out after having spent so much time around him. "I'm glad. Children his age are still so impressionable, and he could have done a lot worse for a role model than you."

Given what Yoshi knew of the boys' situation at home—or the lack thereof, and really, that was what kept him up at night—Leonardo didn't have much of anyone to look up to, and a whole lot of little someones to look after. Maybe it shouldn't have come as such a surprise, after all, that he would grow so attached, in the easy manner children did, in so short a time.

"Hi, Hamato-san," he greeted eagerly, hand in hand with little Michelangelo, whose overlarge scarf had come unwound, and trailed behind him like a shabby orange tail. "Did you eat already?"

"I was waiting for you," he replied warmly, for the sake of watching Leonardo's face, flushed and red with cold, split in a smile that made him look his age. Michelangelo tugged away from Leonardo and made a beeline straight for Yoshi, and Yoshi didn't need to think to stoop and open his arms for him. "You've been working very hard," the man continued, rocking Michelangelo back and forth in a way that made him giggle. "Have you been getting enough rest?"

"Sure," Leonardo said, gathering up the dragging end of his brother's scarf. "We all sleep together. It helps keep Raph warm, and Donnie and Mikey are scared of the dark."

Michelangelo chimed in with a cheerful, "nuh-uh!" but Yoshi felt a nudge of concern. Raphael should not have still been sick if he was getting the rest and medicine he needed. "It is cold where you sleep?"

"Kinda. There isn't any power, all we have is flashlights and a little electric lantern. Donnie says we have to save the batteries, 'cause he only found a few more."

Murakami was silent as he set about making their lunch. Yoshi struggled to keep his voice light.

"Do you have blankets? Or winter coats? Warm things to wear at night?"

Leonardo blinked down at his hands, rolling the scarf between his fingers. "Yes," he said, and Yoshi thought he knew him well enough to pick out the lie. He sat back, while Mikey poked curiously through his coat pockets, and considered his next words carefully.

The last thing he wanted was to cross a line, and give the doors in those wide ocean eyes any excuse to close.

"I only ask," Yoshi added slowly, before the tentative trust Leo had in him could be expunged by any verbal misstep, "because I have some extra things at home. I run a school for the martial arts from my estate, and over the years I've amassed quite the lost-and-found collection. Since I've no need for any of it myself, it would really be doing me a favor if you could take one or two things off my hands."

And like magic, Leonardo's face grew light again, a window opening wide to let in the sun.

"You run a martial arts school?"

Yoshi managed to keep his bone-wracking relief to himself, covering his sigh with a smile. "I manage the business end of things. I don't teach anymore, myself—" and for a reason, perhaps, the boys did not need to know "—but the techniques are my family's, passed down through generations. I'll have to show you the dojo sometime."

And before he left that evening, Yoshi pressed a small prepaid cellphone into Leonardo's hands. Prepared for the way Leonardo tensed and tried to shove it back at him, and having none of it.

"If you need anything," he said, very clearly, so that Leonardo had no choice but to listen to every word, "and you can't come to Murakami-san, for whatever reason—then call me. I will be here for you."

The warm interior of Murakami's restaurant, where Yoshi first saw the boys, and since had been coming to meet them like clockwork for the better part of a month, drove the idea home; Yoshi was a constant to them now. Someone familiar, and—ever so timidly—someone they could trust.

Leonardo had curled his fingers around the phone for a long moment that stretched between them like something physical, then crammed it into the pocket of his jacket, with a murmured word of thanks. And Yoshi didn't worry at the way Leonardo couldn't meet his eyes, because at a glance, he knew the difference between wounded pride and gratitude so fierce it shook you like a storm. He had felt both.

And he felt better for it, glad that if they needed help, those brave, dear children had a way to reach him—

But when he got that first phone call, several nights later at close to one o'clock in the morning, it all but froze his heart. Leonardo's voice in his ear, soft and hushed and so, so afraid, propelled Yoshi out of the peaceful dim of his personal rooms and into his shoes and coat in record time, rushing to his car with the phone still pressed to his ear.

"Hamato-san? It's it's Leo. I'm sorry it's so late, but you said call if I need help, and and Raph's gotten worse."