The day is Sunday. Golden rays of sunlight enters the room, creating a sort of fan-shape image on the walls. The air is lovely and the birds are singing. It's a perfect day in the Kamitani household. Well, at least until the sound of the doorbell made the ants panic, they started to flood out of their nest on the wall. The crickets stopped singing and the rats started to squeal.

It's really interesting how a single artificial sound can completely disrupt the harmony of the building's ecosystem.

"Hayato, go and open the door!" exclaimed Shizuka. "My hands are full right now." With the metallic sound of the pans interjecting between those requests.

Hayato lazily got up, "Who in their right mind would come to our house at 6.30 in the morning, plus the fact that it's Sunday." As he walked to the front door, thoughts and scenarios were constructed in his head, I swear if it's that annoying sales guy again I'll rip open his jaw.

Once again, the doorbell rang, "I'm coming-eh?"

"Ah, Kamitani, good morning."

At that moment, Hayato's senses started to ring – his legs began to feel weak. "Da-I mean Hebihara-sensei, what're you doing here?"

"HEBIHARA-SENSEI?" The kitchen is just to the right of the front door, and although sounds of bacon being seared on the pan was quite loud, that name turned her ears into that of a bat.

"May I come in?" said the man in a trench coat. Hayato didn't budge, he just glared at the pair of small irises in front of him. "You haven't answered my question yet," asked him sharply.

Taizou kept their eyes at a standoff, and said, "I've informed your mother of the visit. You can ask her later. Now if you'll excuse me, would you mind stopping that arrogant glare of yours and let me in."

Unexpectedly, Taizou finds the door slammed right in front of him as his oldest son proceeds to ask his mother whether or not to let him in. His eyes wandered around the front yard. The morning sunlight perfectly highlights the many different types of plants there. The first one to catch his sight was the plethora of Coleus plants embedded into the ground – and it comes in multiple colors, green-purple-white, blue-pink, black-violet, and many more. He remembered how Shizuka insisted on planting only Coleus plants when she was pregnant with Taka.

"Ahem"

That woke him up, followed by him quickly turning around to face the door again.

"The old lady said you can come in."

Taizou nodded and carefully took of his shoes.

"Ojama Shimasu"

His words were of to no avail to the residents. He was about to sit when a sudden voice interrupted his rhythm.

"Hebihara-sensei, you should've told me when you were coming. You're lucky that it's Sunday morning and we're home. What if we weren't? You'll be wasting your time." Shizuka stated in annoyance.

"Well I-

"MISTAH CAT!"

The tension was quickly interrupted, and now – all the eyes are on the little boy wearing dino pajamas.

"How ya'know my house?" The boy exclaimed.

Taizou tried his best to change his expressionless face, focusing hard to curl his lips into a smile. "As you already knew, your mother and I are co-workers. A couple of days ago, I did her a favor, and now she's returning the favor."

Taka's eyes widen. Favor? In his head, he can picture mommy borrowing money from Mr. Cat – and now, he's going to force mommy to give it back or he'll take this house.

The boy's curious expression quickly turned into an angry one, his face reddening. Turns out, he's been carrying his special sword and putting it behind his back all this time. "Mr. Cat!"

One of the man's brow was lifted, "Yes?"

"I'm not letting ya take mommy, now take this!" Shouted Taka. He proceeds to sprint to the man and began swinging his blade to his leg. "Get out or you'll get hurt!" He was yelling even louder now.

Initially, Taizou thought of this as normal and wanted to let Taka have his fun for a while. Until one of the swings hit his shinbone, and no matter how strong a man is – getting hit right in the shinbone is never nice. He stepped back and quickly picked up the half-crying kid.

As he stared at Taka with those slender eyes of his, the boy's expression changed to that of horror. Tears started to flood his face, "UWAAAAAHH". Eventually, the liquid starts to spray into his brand-new trench coat, and seemingly on cue, his face started to make an even more scary face. The blue-haired kid cried even harder, "PUT ME DOWN! NII-CHA, HELP ME!"

Swiftly, the usually lazy Hayato took his brother out of his hand, "You idiot, he's not here to do anything to mom. Now just sit down and don't make a noise."

Taizou sighed and walked to the kitchen counter, "I brought some ohagi, do whatever you want with it," he said coldly. Shizuka just nodded, not even looking him in the eye. He starts to question what their relationship status currently are. Yeah, they're divorced, but they're still co-workers. Surely they're supposed to treat each other more nicely, be it only for work-related reasons.

Once again, he turned his gaze to his youngest son. Taka is currently drinking his glass of milk. But after the first sip, his face turned angry. He spits out the milk and started complaining, "I don't like this one. It tastes bad. I want the one in the yellow box!"

As per usual, Hayato just smacked his brother on the head, "Oi Stupid, stop whining and drink your damn milk."

Taka was about to cry when Taizou interrupted the brotherly dynamic, "How ungrateful. That brand of milk is one of the most expensive in Japan, it's extracted directly from cows in Uganda, who are some of the most well-fed cows in the world."

Tears began to well up in his eyes, "Hmph, Mistah Cat STOOPID!"

Taizou was taken aback by that sudden remark, he was about to get mad when he realized that he's not here to scold his kid. He took a deep breath and signaled Taka to come to him. The teary-eyed kid was surprised when this strange man suddenly starts patting his head. "I apologize, perhaps I've gone overboard – but regardless, you should always be grateful of things given to you. Now then, you want to see something cool?"

At that moment, Taka's eyes began to sparkle. Though he had been monitoring him from afar all these years, Taka's ability to change between moods in such a short amount of times will still always surprise him.

He grabbed the glass of milk that Taka was supposed to drink and poured it into a glass bowl. He squeezed some dish soap from the counter, and some cotton buds from his pocket. Lastly, he reached into his bag and brought out small bottles of food coloring.

"Old man, do you always carry those around?" asked Hayato.

"It's called being submerged into your field of study."

Hayato just rolled his eyes at his father's antics, it's the same when he still lived here. He used to bring ph testers, calorimeters, and even a Bunsen Burner in his bag.

Droplets of different colors started to appear on the surface of the milk. Red, blue, yellow, black, and purple were placed meticulously in order to avoid any of them from combining. "Okay, now dip the cotton bud in the dish soap first," ordered Taizou, which was swiftly done by a very curious Taka.

"Now try and dip the cotton bud into one of the colors, which one do you want first?"

"Taka held his cotton bud near his face, "Hmm…My favorite color is red! So, I choose red!"

All the eyes in the room focused on the tip of the cotton bud. Taka was curious, but he's still smart enough to be patient as to not mess this up. As soon as the tip of the cotton bud touched the red dot, the dot bursts, creating a circle of red surrounding the center. "That…..was…so…cool!" Taka shouted and brought the bowl to Shizuka, "Mommy look! The little red circle exploded and make a big red circle!"

She leaned forward and smiled, "Great job! Now quick, do it again before it disappears."

Taka was confused, "Dis-Dipasears?" Right on cue, the big red circle dissolved, leaving him with one less red dot.

"HUWAAAAHH! IS GONE! PLEASE COME BACK!" The teary-eyed Taka pointed the cotton bud to Taizou, "Mistah, it's gone. How to make it again?"

He just smiled, "It disappeared because there were not enough dish soap for the effect to last longer than that. Now, try to dip it in dish soap, make sure you get as much as you could."

"Okey!"

Taka made sure he got a big chunk of dish soap and started dipping them one by one. A burst of blue, red, purple, and yellow created a spectacle of colors harmonizing, like fireworks in the sky. He was so hyped that he accidentally splashed some of it to the floor, which prompted Hayato to smack him.

"Cool right, basically the molecules in the dish soap are attracted to the fat molecules in the milk. As soon as you introduce the soap to the milk/coloring mixture the molecules race arou-Ow!"

"Stupid! Do you not realize that he doesn't care about all these scientific stuffs? He finds it cool that the colors burst and can be swirled around. Let him enjoy it idiot!" Exclaimed the mother. This is what she finds annoying about him. He's kind of a genius when it comes to science and mathematics, but he doesn't know anything about handling children.

A couple of minutes passed by and after a couple of swirls and giggles, Taka presented his new milk painting to everyone. "Look at this. The blue one is niichan, the yellow one is mommy, and the big strong red one is…ME!"

"Whew, I didn't expect that from you, how about you take a picture with it to show your friends tomorrow?" asked Shizuka proudly.

"Oi that's cool and all, but why am I smaller than you?"

"Hehe, that's because Aniki is a bad kid so God made you small and weak!"

Seeing his son's so happy about his first experiment warmed his heart. But something just isn't right. I get it, it's a picture of their family – happily smiling as they stood next to each other. Taka has a caring mother, and a strict but strong brother. The three of them are more than capable by themselves. Why would he want a random man to disrupt their harmony? Telling him that he is his father. A father that never even so much as visited him to say hello. He looks down at the stained floor, they don't need me.

"Alright! It's time for breakfast!" Shizuka exclaimed, motioning Hayato and Taka to clean up the table. "Hebihara-sensei, since you made Taka happy today, how about having breakfast with us? I made some tamagoyaki."

Standing in front of the very house he had once lived in, he just sighed. This reminded me of that time, when I left this house the first time. He turned his gaze back to the road and was just about to step out.

"Hebihara-sensei, umm thanks again for today! Here, I packed you some tamagoyaki, I made a lot today." Shizuka had brought with her a yellow Tupperware which seems too full for his liking.

"Oh no, it's fine. It was just by chance that I got the idea."

An air of annoyance flowed from her. By chance my ass! Who has bottles of food coloring by chance?

"Umm, you seem to like it and I don't want to throw it away, so please accept it!"

He nodded and gently grabbed it from her hands, carefully trying not to make unwanted contact with her. "Alright, I'll be going now." He turned around and waved goodbye.

"Wait!"

"Huh?"

"How do I put it? Taka really likes you, if you want to – come visit us again, okay?"

The spontaneous question brought to life a change on his emotionless face. He smirked, "I can't guarantee that, but I'll try."

Perhaps they will never me as a member of their family. But as long as I can see the three of them smiling like they did, I'm fine with being an outsider.

Author's Note

HELP! I DON'T KNOW HOW TO WRITE IN BABY LANGUAGE!