I take the last glazed doughnut from the very last box of doughnuts that we've bought, stand up with it, and step out into the sun, outside of the cool shade of the sakura tree.
"Okay, girls, I've got the last one!" I announce, which instantly gets every one of our little girls' attention. Their cute little faces all zoom towards me like a field of sunflowers snapping at the sun. "We're gonna go on the Tour de Japan! Whoever's the first one to catch me at the end gets the last doughnut!" And with that, I sprint away to embark on the little race we've come to call the "Tour de Japan".
By the way, just as a warning, no sane father in his right mind should attempt to do this. I'm the only qualified father in the world who can pull off a life-threatening stunt like this because I've survived multiple attempts on my life from the overdose of Poi.
The girls start squealing and barking, which also gets the dogs' attention too, so no sooner than two and a half seconds into my run, I feel a large bullet in the form of a screaming Sandachi pummel square into my back, trying to take me down. Sandachi very often confuses "race" with "hunt", and whether she does this on purpose or not, I've never quite understood. Maybe she just doesn't care what's happening or what she's supposed to do and just does whatever she feels like. But being the strong father I am who knows the strength of the Poi vested into my twin daughters, I forge on, running with Sandachi dragging her legs along the grass with Yuudahachi and Harukyu close behind and Haruni and Kirisame toddling after us with the dogs, who are also barking their tails off.
Allow me to explain the "Tour de Japan": the grass field is roughly the same size as the nearby baseball field. It's just an amateur baseball field, nowhere near the size of an actual professional baseball field, but even still, it's fairly sizable. The Tour de Japan takes place all on this grass field, and the sakura tree where we've been hanging out and relaxing and having a doughnut picnic is in the very center of it. To participate in the Tour de Japan, one must run from the sakura tree down south to the vending machines from which Tangan-san got the drinks, around the dirt path that leads to the fountains where all the birds in the neighborhood like to hang out during the day for the cool water, then down the jogging path that borders the grass field all the way around, back to the vending machines, all the way across the grass field through the sakura tree, back around to the fountains, to the bleachers that are past the fountains on the right side of the baseball field, all the way around the baseball field, down the road that leads to the playground next to the grass field, to the outer jogging path of the grass field, and then back to the sakura tree. And that's the Tour de Japan.
I remember when we first made up this race, I was able to beat my twins at it simply because I was just making up really weird turns along the way. But somehow, the twins remembered this, so the race stuck around. We got Kirisame and the other girls to join in too, but really only Sandachi and Yuudahachi finish it, with Harukyu being able to finish consistently as well, since the other girls have nowhere near the energy as these three do.
But the problem is, almost every single time, Yuudachi decides it's a good idea for her to join too, and she's by far the fastest among us all. So about five seconds into the race, Yuudachi outruns me with those long, rapid strides of hers, and Sandachi, excited by the sight of her mother also participating, lets go of my waist just as we hit the dirt path and starts bolting at full speed after her. We can hear Shigure and Harusame cheering us on from the sakura tree, and soon it just becomes a family footrace with me, Sandachi, and Yuudahachi. Yuudachi just pulls ahead with those augmented legs of hers that lets her run far faster than any regular human can.
"Yuudachi, you don't count!" I yell after her, but she isn't listening.
On the way back to the vending machines, I see Kirisame sitting on the path in front of the vending machine, breathing pretty hard. It looks like she's given up, so I slow down to pick her up.
"Let's finish together, okay?" I tell my niece, who just gives me a tired smile. Yuudahachi and Sandachi take advantage of the situation and pull forward, and with Kirisame riding on my shoulders, I know I won't finish with them. But I finish the Tour de Japan regardless, and Yuudachi bounds up to me, all proud that she finished.
"I finished first, Colonel!" Yuudachi's face sparkles even in the daytime with her pure, unadulterated happiness. "Now I want that last doughnut!"
"Hey, hey, now, you're an adult, a mother of two, no less," I tell her through my hard panting to catch my breath. "Aren't you supposed to leave the last one for the kids?"
"But I want the doughnut!" Yuudachi whines. Honestly, I don't know how Yuudachi's been such a good mother to our kids so far with a mentality like that. "Speaking of which, where is it? You had it in your hand when we started, right?"
I point up to Kirisame on my shoulders, and her lips are frosted with a bit of glaze.
"It's too late; I already gave it to her," I tell my family, and Kirisame smiles a bit of a guilty smile.
Yuudachi's hair flaps press down like a dejected dog's, and she starts slapping my chest with her hands.
"Meanie! Liar! Meanie! Liar!" she wails, accusing me of breaking the rules. "You promised, you promised!"
To make my life worse, Sandachi and Yuudahachi, also disappointed by the unfair loss of the doughnut, also tug on the bottom of my shirt.
"Yeah, Dad's a meanie, meanie, meanie!" Yuudahachi cries.
"You gotta buy us more when we go back home then, Tou-san!" Sandachi also adds fuel to the fire.
"I can't, we have to eat dinner properly when we go back home - " I try to defend myself, but my family of Poi's isn't having any of it, so I quickly hand Kirisame back to her mother to get her out of the crossfire. Then, Sandachi thinks it's a good idea to start tugging on my shirt even harder, and with her strength that's far more than what a six-year-old should have, she successfully drags me backwards onto the ground, and I fall flat on my back on the grass. It's at that exact moment when my family, including our two puppies, somehow unanimously decide that it's time for a Poi pile, like they're all hooked up to the same hive mind, or the Poi Mind, as I've come to call it. So thus, Yuudachi hurls herself onto me, her breasts pressing down on my chest first, and then Sandachi and Yuudahachi fwumps onto any part of my torso or upper body that their mother isn't covering. Ishii and Hisashi start jumping on my legs like they're trampolines, barking like mad.
"Yuudachi, girls, don't do this to m - "
The flood of Poi is too much. Yuudachi readjusts her position so that her chest smashes into my face, and Sandachi throws her rear down onto my stomach, further torturing me with Poi. To top things off, Yuudachi starts yelling "Poi! Poi! Poooooi!" and gets our daughters on the Poi train too, and our puppies keep shrieking and barking all the way. Even Shigure's dog Tameichi-san, the St. Bernard puppy, walks over and starts licking my face.
"I'm really glad that I'm not in your shoes, Tokashiki-san," Tangan-san calls out loudly so that I can hear him, "that looks like a living hell."
"THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS!" I yell back, over the squealing and cries of my family of Poi's. "DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS FOR ME TO HOLD ALL THESE POI'S?!"
"That's your problem, isn't it?" my brother calls back. "See, Tangan-san, we're the responsible ones. We raise our children properly, and they're nice, obedient little girls. You reap what you sow, you know."
"At least you understand. Well said."
"ARE YOU TWO CONSPIRING AGAINST ME OR WHAT?! ARE YOU TWO JEALOUS? I BET YOU ARE! YOU'RE JEALOUS THAT YOUR OWN WIVES AND DAUGHTERS DON'T LOVE YOU LIKE THIS!" I manage to sit up, somehow finding the strength in me to lift Yuudachi up off me too in the process. "You two aren't man enough to handle a wife like mine and kids like mine! If we swapped places for a day, neither 'a you would survive until the end of the day! The fact that I've been able to raise my daughters to the point is proof that I am, in fact, more of a man than both of you combined!"
Surprisingly, Yuudachi comes to my aid. "Yeah, my husband's the best husband in the world, poi!" Yuudachi barks defensively, putting the "poi" for extra emphasis. "He deals with everything that I throw at him, and he puts up with everything our kids do, too!"
"Hey, hey, Yuudachi, that makes it sound like you've intentionally been screwing with me..."
Yuudachi unapologetically turns to me and grins. "Because it's funny to see your reactions whenever I jump on you, poi!"
"Idiot, Yuudachi, you weren't supposed to say that to me!"
Shintaro's just trying his very best not to start laughing out loud, because Shigure is throwing daggers at him with her eyes, and Tangan-san just rolls his eyes, like he's just saying, yeah, whatever.
"Tou-san, Tou-san!" Sandachi looks up at me.
"Yeah, Sandachi?"
"Can we do the horse carriage? Please, poi?!"
My heart sinks. The horse carriage is something the twins do that involves them dragging me by the back of the collar of my shirt and running with me in tow around the grass field a couple times, depending on how enthusiastic they are.
"Yeah, that's a good idea, let's do it, poi!" Yuudahachi also agrees, cheering.
"No, it's not a good idea, I'm gonna die!" I protest.
"So moe, you're gonna die?" Shintaro finally laughs, silenced quickly by Shigure's slap on his head.
"No, I'm gonna die 'cause it's actually dangero - "
But when the twins make up their mind about something, they won't let go of it. So they place Marisa the cat on my stomach, who just purrs at me, like she's asking me what the heck's going on, grab my collar, and start horse carriaging me around the grass field amidst my screams for help to my wife, but Yuudachi just waves at me and goes,
"Have a nice trip, poi!"
"YUUDACHI, WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME TO DIEEEEEEEEEE..."
So I'm forced to spend the next five minutes getting dragged around the grass field at the hands of my own daughters, with the puppies chasing after me, nipping at my shoes while the others watch me with amusement.
It takes a lot of commitment and willpower from a man to marry and raise a family. I like to think that the moment a boy becomes a father, that's the moment when he also becomes an adult. Obviously that's just a very general way to put things, but it's undeniable that having a child brings a lot of responsibility to the father. However, I just want to point out that raising a family of Poi's is much different than raising a normal family, because you have to deal with your own kids doing something like this to you every weekend.
But even still...
I REGRET NOTHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING