Ryan didn't wake up on his own. He was woken up by the clatter of dishes and drawers from in the kitchen. He is half hanging off the couch when his eyes open, and drool is staining the throw pillow he was lying on. Ryan groans, holding his head and pushing himself up onto his elbow. He peers over the couch, managing to get just a glimpse into the kitchen. He can't quite see who is in there, even if he had his glasses on.
After sitting up and stretching, Ryan slips on his glasses and walks to the kitchen. He stands hesitantly in the doorway to see his dad preparing breakfast. His father always found time to get food made for all the kids, despite how many of them there were, and that he still had his own job to attend to. Ryan's stomach twists as he watches his dad work, though his dad's back is turned to him.
"Are you just gonna stand there?" his dad asks, giving a quick glance over his shoulder. "First time you're home in almost two years."
"Oh. Yeah," Ryan murmurs, glancing down at the ground. "Um. How've you been, Dad?"
"Good." He starts mixing up some pancake mix in a bowl.
Ryan scuffs his shoes against the ground and crosses his arms. He leans in the doorway and looks anywhere but his dad. "I can, uh, leave? Just needed a place to stay back in town."
"No, no, stay. Your mother will be happy to see you," his dad says. "Besides. You think I still make pancakes every morning? This is a special occasion."
Ryan looks back up and smiles a bit. "Yeah?"
His dad nods and gives him a smile. "Want to help me cook?"
Ryan's heart does a little dance in his chest. He hasn't helped his dad cook breakfast since he was younger, and that turned out-messy. When he got older, he was too focused on music to try and help his dad with any kind of cooking. It almost feels like a nostalgic kind of activity now. "Uh-yeah, sure, dad."
"I'll need a pan and some oil." He continues mixing up the batter while Ryan goes to grab the items.
The oil was easy to find, but the pans aren't in the place they always were. Ryan frowns and checks the next cabinet, finding nothing there either.
"They're in top cabinets now," his dad says. "Over the stove. Easier to grab that way."
"Oh. Yeah, that, that makes sense." Ryan moves to that cabinet and grabs a larger pan from it. "It seems like a lot has changed since I left."
His dad shrugs. "Well you had a central room in the house. Your mom was excited to get things moved around once there were a few rooms opened up after you and your sisters moved out."
'Moved out' wasn't exactly an apt description for Ryan. His was more like 'got out'. He says, "So she rearranged like everything in the house?"
"Just about. I keep forgetting that she moved the sock drawer in our room." His dad laughs.
Ryan pours some oil into the pan and turns on the stove, letting it heat up. He watches it closely so the oil doesn't pop. It also gives him something else to focus on. Something other than his dad, or this kitchen, or how different this house has become in the time that he's been gone.
"Y'know, I was surprised you didn't call on your birthday," Ryan's dad says. "I would have expected that you would have wanted to come back and ask me to throw you a few bucks so you could celebrate."
Ryan is quiet for a long minute. His birthday. Yeah. His birthday passed. They were gone for months and he was only a month away from turning nineteen when he took Min onto the train. He wanted to celebrate with Min. He wanted their nineteenth birthday to be special together, on the road, in New York. He kind of got what he wished for, but not in the way that he actually wanted. It never even crossed their minds that their birthday passed.
He finally finds his words and he says, "Oh, well. Y'know. I was doing okay on my own and all. Got busy and stuff."
His dad nods as he steps up beside him. He pours some of the batter into the pan and it sizzles as the batter starts to cook. "Well you're home in time for Tommy's birthday next week. Are you sticking around that long?"
Ryan chews his lip. He has been doing a lot in the past year and a half. Not even counting the train. It might be good if he takes a bit of time to stay at home and collect himself before he hits out on the road again. That is...
"Would I be able to?" Ryan asks hesitantly.
His father gives him a weird look and then laughs. He pats Ryan's back. "Of course. Just. Don't be weird while you're here."
Weird. Right.
"Are you making pancakes?" a familiar voice laughs. Ryan looks over his shoulder just as his mother enters the room. She somehow looks so much older just in the last year and a half he's been gone. He notices more prominent wrinkles and she's stopped dyeing her hair so some grays are being shown at the roots. She stares at her son for a moment, like her mind is catching up to what it is that she is seeing in her kitchen. "Ryan. You're home."
Ryan smiles sheepishly. "Uh. Yeah. I came by last night .I got in pretty, uh-pretty late."
She nods slowly. Her expression adjusts and it looks like she has accepted the circumstances. "It's nice to have you home. Did Mark let you in?"
"Yeah." Ryan looks down at his brother's pajamas he's wearing. "He let me get cleaned and everything."
"Good of him," Ryan's dad says. "I'm sure he and Tommy will be up later into the morning, so it'll just be the three of us eating breakfast this morning."
Oh. Great.
"Come on, Ryan," his mother says, gesturing for him to come and sit at the kitchen table with her. "How have things been on the road? We got your cassette."
"You've got some pretty good ones on there," his dad adds.
Ryan's eyes widen. "You-You listened to it?"
"I think you could clean up a few songs," Ryan's dad adds. "But you've definitely got potential. I bet you could really make it if you applied yourself."
"I do. I am!" Ryan promises. "It's been really fun touring around the place." Even if it hasn't been exactly successful.
"What sorts of places have you performed?" his mother asks.
His dad chimes in, "Anywhere really cool? Any big gigs?"
Ryan feels embarrassment burn on his cheeks. "Oh. No, nothing super special. Mostly just open mics and casual parties and stuff. It takes a while to get noticed. Once I get an album made, I'm sure that I'll really start to make it."
His mother pats her hand on Ryan's hand, in that way that she always did when she was comforting one of the kids that was crying over something silly. It makes Ryan's stomach turns over like the pancakes that his father was flipping.
"I hope you...enjoyed your time on the road," his mother says. "And didn't get into any trouble."
Ryan wants to force a smile on his face the same way Min does, but he can't bring himself to. "Yeah. I was-I got a girlfriend actually. Uh. Three, actually."
"Three?" His father whistles and grins wide. His mother also smiles at that. "Looks like you inherited the same genes as your dad after all."
"Oh hush," his mother huffs.
"C'mon Yui, I know that you fell for me because I made you jealous with all my arm candy," he teases.
She rolls her eyes. "You were the one who begged me to go on a date with you for half a year. I just wanted to see how long you would try."
Ryan watches his parents banter. He wants to enjoy it. He always enjoyed seeing his parents talk like this when he was younger-even if some of the lovey-dovey stuff was gross-but it just makes him feel sick now. They don't want to acknowledge any of it beyond vague references and hopeful glimpses at his love life. Nobody wants the queer kid as their son.
The pancakes are served on the table after they are finished cooking. Ryan silently takes a couple and douses them in syrup, choosing to skip the butter. He's had plenty of that for a lifetime.
"Hey," Ryan says quietly, "Dad, when you were a kid, did you get served like. Super nasty food in America?"
His mother gives a grossed-out moan. "Did you find out about American post-war food? What a travesty."
"Hey, it was delicious," his dad insists. "I still think that if you would just let me throw some bologna on the grill-"
"Absolutely not," she says, shaking her head. "You grew up in an era where everything was stuck inside of gelatin."
"It wasn't the brightly colored sugary mess that it is now!"
"Still a crime," she says simply.
Ryan chuckles. "I tried cooking some of that," he says. "It was a disaster. The only thing I could make was brownies."
That makes Ryan's dad smile. "Now what were you doing trying to cook post-war recipes?"
"Oh. Just, y'know, I was um. Thinking about home. I wanted to give it a shot."
"Well if there's something you didn't inherit from your father, it was your cooking skills," his mom said. "You really made it all on your own?"
"Min-Gi helped," Ryan promises.
His parents grow quiet for a minute. Ryan pauses, his fork almost to his mouth, as he looks at his parents inquisitively. His mother is the first to speak. "The Parks called us a few months ago asking about Min-Gi. You were with him?"
"Oh, yeah, we-we went to New York together. For a gig thing." Ryan looks down at his plate. "I kinda made him."
His mother gives a disappointed sigh. "You should have let his parents know. Or just not made him. They were out of their minds. They bothered us for almost two months. We kept telling them that it was probably fine, but after a while we started to get worried too."
"You wouldn't answer your phone when we tried to call too," his father points out.
His mother nods. "You should have put more thought into things."
Ryan picks at his pancakes, losing his appetite with every passing minute. "Yeah. I guess I didn't really think about it at all. Sorry."
"Well so long as Min-Gi is back, then that's all that matters," his mother says.
Ryan nods a bit. He sets his fork down. "I'm actually not that hungry. I think I'm going to just go for a walk for a while."
His father laughs. "A walk? I would have thought that you would want to go for a drive. Sick of staying in that van after so long?"
Ryan's cheeks flush an embarrassed red. He had never exactly planned on going back home, so the van was never something that he planned to...
He clears his throat and says, "I kind of, uh. Don't have the van."
"You-" His father blinks a couple times. "You don't have the van?"
"It's, um, it-Y'know, a long story, but-"
"Ryan!" his mother cries.
"Are you kidding me? You lost my van?" his father demands.
"It was-um-It was my van. You gave it to me," Ryan stammers.
His father shakes his head vigorously. "Under the assumption that you wouldn't lose it, Ryan! How do you just lose a van?" He groans and holds his head in his hands. "Actually, no. It was probably t hat you were just being foolish and weren't thinking."
"I'm...I'm sorry, Dad."
"You know what?" He sighs and stands up, picking up his plate. "It's a good thing you're staying here for a while, Ryan. You need to apply yourself. Get a real job. Stop messing around and actually apply yourself."
Ryan stands up too, feeling his face burning hot with shame. "You-No, I. I don't have to stay here."
"You're going to pay me back for that van," his father snaps. "I lent it to you on the assumption that you would be responsible, Ryan. Instead you come back with nothing to show for it, and you have lost a van! You are going to stop all of this messing around you did in high school. You're going to get a job and-and be more like Min-Gi! Learn to be responsible!"
Ryan's chest is pulled so tight it feels like he's going to tear in half. He has to swallow several times before the lump in his throat is pushed down far enough that he can speak. "I'm going for a walk."
He doesn't give his parents a moment to protest. He grabs his jacket from the couch and jams on his shoes and leaves. He doesn't care that he's still dressed in pajamas or that his heels are sticking out of the back of his shoes so they clop as he hurries down the sidewalk. He just has to get out of there, as fast as he can.
Ryan is hunched forward as he walks, feeling anger begin to fester in his gut as the anxiety of facing his angry parents starts to subside. He mutters under his breath to the tune of his song My Dad's Van. "What does my dad love more than anything? My dad's van, my dad's van." He kicks a rock and it goes skittering across the pavement. "What gets more attention even though I went missing? My dad's van, my dad's van."
He comes to a stop and lets out a loud groan. "Gee Ryan!" he shouts to the sky. "It's great that you're home! We missed you so much, we thought about you every day! We didn't change your room because we wanted to make sure you had a place to stay when you finally visited home. We've accepted you fully and realized that we were foolish for how we treated you before you left! We'll never be so mean to you again!"
He sighs and lets his head fall back forward, defeated. "Get a job," he mutters. "I'm nineteen and I have no job experience and they expect that I can get a job just like that, huh?" He crosses his arms. "...Maybe I can get a job at Dumpty's with Min-Gi? Wait. Does he still work there?" He remembers how Min threw the Dumpty keys out of the castle. Yeah. No way is he still employed there.
"Oh yeah. We're nineteen now," Ryan says softly to himself. They didn't get to celebrate anything when they were on the train. Maybe they can have a late celebration. Ryan has no money to his name, but if he gets a job, then maybe... He groans again. "Fine. But Dad isn't getting my first paycheck."