"You're back late, sweetheart, is everything okay?" His mother was on him the second he walked into the kitchen, placing his books on the breakfast bar and bag at the foot of the stall. Immediately, she took a glass down from the cupboard above the sink and filled him a glass of water, adding two ice-cubes for good measure and handing it to him with a soft maternal smile. Toshiro took the glass with a 'thank you' and sipped at it.
"Sorry, yeah, we … we got a lot done and I lost track of time." He lied, not wanting to admit they'd accomplished nothing as of yet, that Yukio was reluctant and fighting him despite knowing the consequences.
"So you're making good progress?" His mother returned to the stove where she continued to stir the contents of a pot with a wooden spoon. A car pulled into the driveway, headlights blaring through the living room window and illuminating the photos on the wall behind the sofa, faces smiling and bright. Back in the kitchen, Toshiro finished his water whilst thinking of a believable response.
"Absolutely, yeah, I thought it would be hell but it's alright." He winced as he waited for her to either give him a sceptical look or smile, but instead she listened to the keys in the front door and then the heavy footfalls approaching. As the man rounded the corner and walked in, another glass of water and ice was ready waiting for him, along with a chaste kiss on the cheek.
"That's wonderful, your father and I were a little worried you'd be wasting your time." His mother turned back to him, watching as he swirled the ice cubes.
"Not at all, Yukio will be passing with flying colours in no time." He laughed nervously, never being all too good at lying and anxious that they'd catch him out, but neither seemed to notice and his father walked away up the stairs to change out of his suit and into something more comfortable.
He'd always admired his father, and it was his ambition to be as hard working and dedicated as him, always had been, and yet as much as that was true he also wanted to one up him. It was no secret between the two of them that Toshiro wanted to better his father and the pride that instilled in him masked the insult, because at the end of the day what mattered was that his son had his motivation to achieve greatness, and he had no doubt in his mind that he would do just that.
Some ten minutes later, his father re-joined them in the kitchen and picked back up the conversation, as it seemed Toshiro had fallen quiet in his absence, just listening to his mother ramble about the flowers she's watered earlier that day.
"So if this Yukio boy is so smart, why did he need a tutor in the first place?" He queried, catching Toshiro somewhat off-guard as he floundered briefly before replying in a jerky fashion.
"He just … well, h-he has attention issues, I suppose?" He choked out, watching with relief as his father nodded. He was quickly becoming flustered with all the white lies he'd told that evening. "So all I really have to do is make sure he doesn't wander off." He finished quickly, glancing away from his father and toward whatever was under the grill.
"You're a champ for helping out, though you should've arranged to be paid for it." The man swooped a kiss from his wife who smiled gingerly at the affection, while Toshiro slipped off the stool and round the bar into the kitchen.
"I'm doing it out of the goodness of my own heart, don't make me seem cheap!" He stated, kneeling down to rummage in the bottom cupboards for something to eat until dinner. His mother laughed a tinkling tune and ruffled his hair.
"No, you're not! We know Mr Kaysen had to bribe you." She said with a knowing look, to which her son pursed his lips and resumed his scavenging.
"I like to think of it more as incentive, than a bribe." Toshiro pouted, finally fishing out and fingering the top edge of a packet of sweets, pulling it open and putting one in his mouth. There was a shuffling of pots and pans and the woman dodged and weaved around as he sat on the floor, her shin-length 60's styled dress brushing against his knees on her way past. On her last trip past him however, she stopped and looked down.
"Don't snack on that, dinner's ready!" Reaching down and pulling the bag out of his hands, he pulled a face. "Don't pout at me either, young man." She scolded, pointing to the dining room table for him to get up and sit at, which he did, reluctantly.
"What are we having?" He asked, taking the seat at the head of the table, glancing briefly at his father in the chair to his right folding a newspaper and slotting it between the leg of the chair and the table. His mother glided over with all the grace of a ballerina, a plate in either hand.
"We are having," As she drew up to the table, she paused for suspense, before lowering the plates down in front of the boys. "Grilled Cilantro-lime chicken with avocado salsa and a side of brined dill potatoes, and for desert strawberry cheesecakeadillas!" She chimed, looking to each of them in turn for their reactions. When they both gave her the thumbs up, she went to retrieve her own plate.
"What's a cheesecakeadilla?" Toshiro asked as she got back and sat down opposite her husband. She beamed at the question, delighted that someone should ask.
"Well, I was playing around in the kitchen earlier, and I couldn't decide between having this meal set, or quesadillas and cheesecake so I fiddled around and tweaked the recipe and created a sweet sugary desert … thing?" She caught the sceptical look he gave. "Don't look so put out, Darling, I'm sure it's lovely." She assured, smiling encouragingly.
"…Sure." He replied, starting on his food, making extra care to eat slower so that he could avoid the questionable dessert as long as possible. His father however seemed to be on a very different wavelength.
"Everything your mother makes is a culinary delight." He said graciously, the flattery making the woman beam brightly, just baring visibly pearly white teeth between slicked scarlet lips.
"It is, but … I'd have preferred just cheesecake." Toshiro rolled his eyes at the display of affection, and continued to chew a mouthful with perhaps more force than necessary.
"Come now, Toshiro, where's your sense of adventure?" His mother reached across and swept a piece of fringe away from his face, but he was quick to shake it back where it was. He didn't much enjoy it when she did things like that, fixing his hair and pinching his cheek and telling him what to wear on the occasion. It make him feel very much still like a child sometimes, to the point where he honestly believed she forgot he wasn't.
"Buried deep down with my distaste for anything fun related, apparently." He replied impassively, ducking away when she tried again.
"So how was college today?" His father interrupted the squabble, watching amusedly as his wife tutted and gave up, though she continued to eye it with a frown. Toshiro was thankful however, that he could continue eating in peace.
"Same as ever, but I have a test in a few days I should study a little more for." He confessed, pushing a vegetable to the edge of his plate.
"Is it not a subject this other boy is taking too? You could study together?" Toshiro resisted the urge to scoff at the idea of actually studying with Yukio. He knew all too well that it would end badly. Trying to get that boy to do work was like trying to soak up the ocean with a sponge.
"No, it's one of the extras I picked up for Uni." In between getting up from his chair and reaching across the table for another potato, his mother drew a sharp intake of breath that startled him into sitting back down, seemingly forgetting the desire for additional food. "What?" He asked, voice a nervous waver as he took in her distress.
"We're just … really proud of you." She whined, voice tight and shrill. She held a hand up to her chest whilst the other mopped delicately at her eye as if she were wiping away tears, though he was pretty sure there weren't any, she just liked to be dramatic. "It seems like just yesterday you were a toddler, but my baby's all grown up and going to university next year." A dry sob wracked her shoulders and her husband was quick to reach across the table to her, cupping the hand on her chest and bringing it back down to the table. Toshiro on the other hand, suddenly didn't feel so hungry anymore, his appetite lost under the dramatics.
"Mum, I'm seventeen not twenty-five, don't get emotional about it." He muttered, and wondered why she had to be like that. Was she really that emotionally swayed by him or did she just like to make him feel like she cared all the time. If he was honest, it was a little overbearing.
"Yeah, he's not a man just yet." His father smiled, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb comfortingly. Toshiro watched the display and inwardly groaned.
"Of course he is! Look at him, handsome and intelligent and-." She began to rattle off a list, face growing red and if he looked close enough, to his surprise, her face did seem a little wet. Perhaps she really was upset, though that only served to make him feel guilty about leaving, after all, he loved his parents and would do anything to please them.
"Can you not? You're embarrassing me…" He interrupted her, if only to make himself feel better. Again his father was quick to brighten things.
"No sign of a girlfriend yet though." He teased, catching him a little off-guard with a piece of food in his mouth, causing him to choke somewhat.
"Momo is a lovely girl and I'm still convinced-."His mother seemed to instantly recover at the topic of girls, and gave no hesitation at bringing up his best friend. 'Of course she wouldn't' Toshiro thought sarcastically 'she was obsessed with it.'
"Momo is not my girlfriend, Mum, honestly you've been pushing for that to happen for the past four years." He sighed, though he had to commend her persistence. "I have brilliant grades because of the lack of distractions I have, I prefer to keep it that way for the time being." He explained, though she didn't seem to have listened.
"Late bloomer, it's okay." She smiled fondly at him. "I was like that too, didn't meet your father till I was at least in my twenties." Gazing lovingly at her husband, she offered him her other hand as well.
"You had boyfriends before me though, surely?" He laughed, refusing to believe that someone as beautiful as her had managed to dodge attention until her twenties.
"Not serious ones, no. I wasn't ready for a committed relationship." She giggled girlishly, and gave him a coy smile.
It wasn't long before Toshiro tuned out of the sickly sweet conversation his parents went on to have about when they were young, and after he'd finished dessert – which turned out to not be quite as awful as he'd expected – he excused himself to his room, but not before ducking into the kitchen and swiping the bag of sweets his mother had confiscated.
In his bedroom, he dropped his bag and books down on his desk and fished out his phone, unlocking it and scrolling through contacts until he reached the right one. Falling back into his bed, he listened to the dialing tone and waited for her to pick up. He knew she would, she could only be doing homework at that time, and sure enough on the second ring, she did.
"Hey, how's that rabbit you stole?" Toshiro smirked into the phone, listening to her bristle as he still didn't acknowledge her act of heroism.
"I didn't steal him, I saved him!" She bit back, sounds of her fiddling around with bits of paper rang through the line.
"You stole it, and we both know that." He laughed at the sounds of protest and continued on with a little more interest this time around, after all, he had helped in her theft. "So have you named it yet?" There was a brief lapse in activity as Momo struggled to process his question, she had thought he didn't care about it.
"His name is Jack." She finally said, pushing the glasses up her nose and leaning back in her desk chair, pulling her knees up to her chest, feet on the edge. She listened to him laugh for a good minute before finally choking out a sentence.
"Jack? As in, Jackrabbit?" He pulled a pillow from the head of his bed and placed it in his lap to lean on, still giggling quietly at the stupid name. He had imagined she'd call it something cutesy like she did with every other pet she'd ever owned, and yet Jack the rabbit had been the outcome.
"Yes, fun don't you think?" Momo quipped back, sounding all too proud with herself for coming up with it. Toshiro merely snorted at her.
"I think that's not creative at all." He reached for the bag of sweets he'd brought up with him and placed one in his mouth.
"It's a pun!" Momo felt the need to clarify. "Because, he's not a Jackrabbit." Getting up out of her chair, she padded across the peachy pink carpet of her bedroom to the large rabbit cage her parents had splashed out on after hearing about how she'd 'saved' him. Her mother was very much on the same wavelength as she was, and her father couldn't deny two lots of puppy eyes.
Just as Toshiro was about to make a witty comment of his own, there was a series of small knocks on his door, followed by his mother opening it and poking her head round, shoulder-length fair hair wavy and immaculate as always, despite having just cooked dinner and washed up.
"Is that Momo?" She chimed, motioning to the mobile phone in his hand. Toshiro sighed, shifting around on his bed to look at her irritably.
"Yes, mum." He rolled his eyes, knowing she was going to ask him to invite her over for dinner or something equally silly and unnecessary. Try as she may, she would not set them up, he was adamant of that fact.
"Say hello for me, and tell her she's welcome to come over any time she likes, It's an awful shame we haven't seen her for a while." She proclaimed, frowning daintily and staring pointedly at him as if in plea to bring her back. The boy continued to look at her in disbelief.
"She was here at the weekend." He said, raising an eyebrow, lip curled slightly at her pushy behaviour.
"Do invite her back, sweetheart." She grinned, completely missing the disinterest on her son's face.
"Yes, mum." He replied, only half listening, as Momo was busy snorting with laughter on the other end of the phone. After his assurance that she'd be over again sometime that week, his mother practically skipped out of the room, sheer delight in every step. The click of the door closing prompted the girl to speak up again after her bout of laughter.
"I can practically hear her writing wedding invites already." The thought probably wasn't far off the truth, since the pair had been friends since they were both small and it was no secret his mother thought they were perfect for one another. He shuddered at thought.
"Hilarious." He countered sarcastically, throwing the pillow onto the floor and sliding down onto it. He never sat still whilst on the phone.
"Just because you know I'm funnier than you are." Momo quipped back. In the time it took for Toshiro's mother to interrupt and suggest her coming over again, she'd taken Jack from his cage and had him sat contentedly in her lap, feeding him treats every now and again.
"Humour is of little consequence when I'm earning big money and living in the lap of luxury." His self-assurance was admirable, and yet Momo scoffed at the brazen attitude.
"I thought that sort of lifestyle didn't suit you." She interjected, remembering all the complaints he'd made so far after having started tutoring. "After all, your reactions to Yukio's limousine and house weren't all that positive I seem to recall."
"Yukio was born into wealth, it's different." He replied sharply, defensively even, defending his own ambition and wanting to separate himself as much as possible from inherited wealth. He was fortunate of course, he couldn't deny, his family wasn't poor and he certainly never went hungry, but he wasn't born into wealth like Yukio, and as such he had a very singular view of that type of affluence. She made a noise as if to convey being on the fence about that particular statement, in other words, she didn't see the difference. "Yukio's a lazy layabout who hasn't worked a day in his life to earn anything, it's all just been served up and given to him on a silver platter." He explained indignantly. "I'm going to earn it. That's why it's different." Momo nodded before realizing she'd have to verbally convey her understanding, not that she did understand. Not really. She didn't see why it was so important for him to distance himself like that, money was money at the end of the day, why should it matter so much where it came from if it was yours.
"Whatever you say." She was quick to change the topic however, not wanting to have to listen to a full blown rant. She'd made that mistake before, countless times, and wasn't keen on a re-run. "So how is it going anyway, the tutoring?" She heard him move around irritably, shuffling into a different position before grumbling out a response.
"Awful." Toshiro lay on his stomach on the floor, using the pillow to rest his elbows on and moving the phone to the other ear.
"He's not listening to you?" Momo enquired, twirling strands of sweet cola hair around her fingers.
"He's just so frustrating! It's like talking to a brick wall; he won't look at the books I give him, he won't read the notes I make, he won't even sit still for long enough. He fidgets all the time." Toshiro squawked, apparently having that complaint kept to himself was too much, but Momo held little sympathy.
"Well you knew what you were getting into when you agreed to do it, so you can't complain." She mused, cooing at Jack, who'd hopped out of her lap and was making his way around the room. The boy snorted unpleasantly.
"Hardly, I presumed he'd just be a little reluctant, but he disappears for hour long breaks and comes back off his face. How am I supposed to deal with that?" Resigning himself to a sigh, he glanced up at the desk where he'd deposited his books and knew he had to study.
"Off his face on what?" Her voice brought him back to the call and he scrunched his nose in distaste.
"Half drunk and high, honestly he doesn't even care that he could be expelled!" He still couldn't fathom how Yukio could care so little about his education. Thinking briefly that maybe it was a rich kid thing, he almost missed Momo's suggestion.
"Why don't you tell him that he can't have breaks then?" Blinking, he thought about it, but the more he did so, the less he could see that having any kind of effect. Yukio didn't listen to him, after all.
"He'd take them anyway." He concluded, breathing out a sigh at coming full circle back to square one. Momo simply continued her idea, or plan as it was becoming.
"Then tell him you quit, you won't help him out anymore if he can't listen to simple instructions." She smiled to herself, pushing up her glasses and then petting Jack – who had wandered back over – whilst listening to the disgruntled noises her friend was making. "But you're not really going to quit of course, you're just going to tell him that to spook him into thinking that his last chance is slipping through his fingers."
"That's a little cruel, you think it would work?" A sadistic kind of hope flittered like an ember in the pit of Toshiro's stomach as he mulled over the potential for success of a plan so deceptive. He wondered if he'd feel comfortable lying, especially since it hadn't gone unnoticed how lonely Yukio actually appeared to be after he'd taken the time to look. Earlier on, he'd practically begged him to stay.
"There's no harm in trying it, surely? I mean, his parents would be disappointed in him if he got expelled, wouldn't they?" Momo chirped, pressed the mobile cautiously between her ear and shoulder as she picked Jack up and lowered him back into his cage for the evening. She'd give him another run around in the morning.
"I don't know, they haven't been around when I've been there." Toshiro confessed, only really thinking about the lack of clear parental figures just then. He thought it a little strange, but then they had to be around somewhere, there was no way that Yukio lived alone in a house that size.
"Maybe he has daddy issues?" Momo thought aloud, recalling learning something on the topic in a class the pair both took the year before. The boy furrowed his brows and scratched at his chin, wondering how on earth she'd come to that conclusion.
"He's not a porn star, Momo." He declared, sarcasm laced in his voice and a tired smirk curling his lip.
"That's not the only result of parental issues! Don't be so close-minded!" She chided, puffing out her cheeks and flushing mildly. Of course he'd jump straight to that, teenage boys were all the same in the end. "Don't you remember, in Psychology we learnt that problem behaviour in children can often come from a root surrounding parental neglect, like they act up to get attention." He made a noise of either agreement or acknowledgement, she wasn't sure which, neither was she sure it really mattered. "All I'm saying is that you should try to hit him where it hurts to enforce the idea that you will stop going if he doesn't stop acting up." It was a devilish plan, and a little mean if he was honest, but he felt like he'd give anything a try once.
"Yeah, maybe I'll try it on Friday." He said, rubbing a hand over his eyes. It was worth a try.
"Tell me how it goes when you get back." Momo interjected, glad that she'd been of some use. "Well, I have a bit of Chemistry homework left to write up, so I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?" Moving back to her desk, she sat back heavily onto the chair and let it roll a little before pulling it in.
"Yeah, have you studied for the Latin test?" He queried quickly, wanting to know if he should bother doing a little that evening if he could skip out and do some the next day.
"All week." Momo replied, much to Toshiro's displeasure. He began to get up, but she continued. "But I still have a few things to go over, want to meet me in the library in the morning? We can go over them before class?" Sinking back down, he silently thanked her for spending time with the rabbit instead of focusing as much as usual.
"Thanks, I feel like I'm slipping behind." Yawning, he checked his clock on the bedside table. It wasn't late yet, barely gracing nine, and yet he felt as though it were much later. Momo giggled softly through the line, her voice terribly gentle at the realization he was so spent.
"You're the smartest person I know, Toshiro. Trust me, you'll be fine." She knew he hated flattery, he disliked the ambiguousness of either being kind or trying to suck up, but she supposed from her it would be alright. He knew she was sincere, but still he couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"As if. See you tomorrow." His voice by then was a little raspy as tiredness has slipped over him rather too quickly as he'd gotten comfortable on the floor, and the girl shook her head affectionately at the knowledge that he could've probably fallen asleep on the phone without too much trouble. He'd done it before, albeit a long time ago. Only ever with her though, he only ever let himself be so laid back with her.
"Night." She said softly, and then static filled the line briefly before it went dead. Rolling over onto his back, he sat up and locked his phone, and it was a few minutes still after that before he finally got up and padded back to his bed, pillow in hand.
He was tired, exhausted even, but at least he had a half-formed plan in the works. Maybe he'd be able to get somewhere after all. With that thought in mind, he dropped the pillow back at the head of the bed and pattered off to the bathroom, he'd get an early night and wake up in, hopefully, a better mood.
