This was the most awkward Christmas ever.

And, yes, Reigen was counting that one time in University. This, sitting here at this table, was worse than all of his drunken antics at his dorm's Christmas party. Honestly that was better even if he did run his mouth a little bit, bite the RA, salt the room, and declare himself to be the greatest lawyer of the Twenty First Century. Hell, even the part where he took off and lost his pants was a hell of a lot less awkward than Christmas dinner at the Kageyama's.

Maybe he should have faked a cold or the flu or that thing he saw on the world channel where your skin fell off, anything to get him out of the middle of this.

"Reigen, can you please ask Ritsu to pass the chicken." Said Teru. Reigen sighed. This had been going on all night and showed no signs of stopping. Obviously the kids were mad at each other, who wouldn't have been? Apparently Teru found out that Ritsu was still pining after the redheaded kid so he went and slept with the redheaded kid's older sister to get back at Ritsu. Also apparently there was kissing involved on Ritsu's side and full on…things that he'd dragged Teru kicking and screaming to clinic about….on Teru's side. It was like a daytime drama but the cast wasn't even in middle school yet!

Kids these days. There was something wrong with these kids these days.

"Ritsu, can you please pass Teru the chicken?" asked Reigen. Ritsu glared at Teru, the soda in his wine glass nearly bubbling upwards and outwards. That wasn't like him, losing control like that, but it made sense. Ritsu had been hurt in the worst way possible. Reigen wasn't about to take sides, of course, he had a vested interest in keeping both of the kids alive and out of Claw's hands, but Teru was really the one in the wrong here. First of all he should not have been having sex, that was a given, and he shouldn't have been cheating either. Ritsu…well he had been pining for the redheaded kid and there were kisses and visits that Reigen wasn't aware of but two wrongs did not make a right…and ok, he had known Ritsu for longer but….but still!

This was getting to be way too much.

"I would pass Teru the chicken but I'm afraid he's going to do something stupid with it." Said Ritsu

"Can you tell Ritsu that I know what I'm doing and that I don't need a lecture on doing something stupid from him?" said Teru

"Reigen, please tell Teru that I'll stop lecturing him about being stupid when he stops being so stupid." Said Ritsu

"If you'd be so kind could you tell Ritsu that obviously since I haven't choked yet I'm not going to and that it doesn't matter because it's not like I'll ever eat chicken again?" said Teru

"Reigen, not to trouble you but-" said Ritsu

"Boys, there's more than enough chicken to go around and if you're so worried about…bones…or whatever then take sensible bites!" said Hana. Ichimaro patted her hand with his left and covered his mouth with his right. Ok, this was kind of funny from an outside perspective. Reigen wished he had an outside perspective. He had the perfect top down view of the whole thing. This wasn't two kids being weird, this was two very hurt people trying to get through this as best as they could. This would have been a lot for someone Reigen's age. He couldn't imagine the hurt and pain those two were going through. They hid it well, he thought, aside from the cryptic conversation and constant glaring they were almost normal.

Almost.

Ritsu was glaring at Teru, Teru was glaring at Ritsu, and between the two of them the Kageyama's just shared perplexed glances. Ichimaro had stopped laughing and now he and Hana were having one of those silent conversations parents could have amongst themselves. Reigen wasn't a parent, Teru was more of a long term houseguest than an adopted son, so he wasn't in on whatever the Kageyama's were discussing. He made sure to mirror them when he had to, of course. He couldn't let them know that he knew why Ritsu and Teru had been in a fight for God only knew how long now. It was nobody's business but Ritsu and Teru's….even though they seemed hellbent on putting Reigen right in the middle of it.

The very last place he wanted to be.

"This is really good chicken, isn't it? KFC does the best dinners." Said Ichimaro. His words couldn't break through the glaring contest that Ritsu and Teru had started. Both of their plates shook just a little, just enough that you'd notice but not enough that someone would start questioning the existence of psychic powers. Or maybe the Kageyama's would chock it up to ghosts before anything else. They were spiritual in that way, not that there was anything wrong with that. No, ghosts and spirits were really quite real. Though he doubted that Ritsu's big sister was sitting invisibly in the room eating the offering that had been made at her shrine, a saucer of milk and some Christmas cookies, since this would have been even too awkward for the dead he figured.

"I can't believe you managed to pick this up on such short notice. Remember last year you were too late and we had to get chicken from the Family Mart? You remember, right Ritsu?" asked Hana

"I can remember a lot of things." Said Ritsu, his eyes never leaving Teru's, They were eating now, the both of them, while staring each other down. With every move of his arm Ritsu was in more and more danger of knocking his glass over. Reigen almost wished that he would have, the minor crisis might break the kids out of…whatever the hell that was. The two of them staring each other down and eating KFC. A fight without words. The kind couples had, adult couples had, all the time. The kind of thing that Reigen didn't want to be in the middle of….but he had no choice…yes he did. He just had to get everyone away from this…somehow.

"When I was a kid we never had KFC for Christmas dinner. My mom always cooked a full dinner herself, and always ham. That was the way they did it in the old country, I guess. Poor old woman, never did let go of her old ways. God rest her soul…eventually." Said Reigen. There. All eyes on him, no eyes left for glaring, and a nice little subject change from Ritsu and Teru's silent war.

"Oh, your mother is still with us?" asked Hana

"Yup, mom's still alive and kicking." Said Reigen. And smoking, he couldn't believe he left out the smoking. That was all mom wanted to spent her golden years doing. Smoking, tending to her garden, and occasionally calling Reigen up and asking where her grandkids were. Maybe he should have gone over to mom's. He could have avoided all of this and maybe tried to pass Teru off as his illegitimate son...yeah, that might have worked, even, mom wasn't the best at math…why did the best ideas always come to him after the fact?

"That's nice to hear, Reigen, maybe next year you could bring her over. I'd love to meet the woman who raised you, maybe see if the apple fell far from the tree." Said Hana. She laughed a little at her own joke, Reigen followed suit even though the thought of his mother as a spectator to all of this filled him with a sort of terror that he had never felt before in his life. It was worse than a bad report card, getting caught smoking, the time he stole the neighbor's department store catalog, and the salt incident all rolled into one.

"Yeah, that would be…great…uh…great wine, by the way. What is this? Some kind of vintage?" asked Reigen. He knew nothing of wine, nothing at all, but he was confident that he could fake his way through a conversation about it if he needed to. That was it. Confidence was key.

"It's just a white wine from Costco, nothing special really." Said Hana

"Don't sell yourself short, Hana, it gets the job done." Said Ichimaro before he downed his entire glass. Hana actually clutched her necklace. Not pearls, no, that would have been Reigen's mother. Hana wore a gold chain. A thin thing with a tiny pendant on the end, a gift from Teru. They'd spent over an hour at the mall, the good mall of course which was Teru speak for the far away mall that was unnecessarily expensive, finding that necklace. Reigen had told Teru that even the most perfect gift in the world wouldn't have made it up to them. He did kind of cheat on their son, and with a girl nonetheless. This was not the kind of thing that just went away. Teru, of course, hadn't listened.

That kid never listened.

Had Reigen been like that when he'd been twelve? Or maybe that was what he would have been like if he'd been living on his own without anyone to raise him, to make sure that he grew into a halfway decent adult. He should have done something about Teru sooner. These weren't his kids, Ritsu at least had parents, but he was involved and being involved with all of this now. He should have been looking after Teru, then none of this would have happened…well he was looking after him now. His parents hadn't even noticed that Teru had moved out of his apartment. Hell, they hadn't even so much as called him on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. If Reigen ever got a hold of those…he didn't even have a bad enough word for them, then he….

He needed a drink.

"Ichimaro!" said Hana. Reigen took a sip of his wine quickly while she was distracted. She was the one who'd poured him this glass but it just didn't feel right drinking in front of a mom. Even if she wasn't his mom it still didn't really feel right. Almost as wrong as drinking in front of the kids…not that they were paying attention. They were still in the middle of their silent war.

"Come on, Hana, it's Christmas. You know what they say, have a Merry Christmas, and I'm making merry. Someone at this table should be earry, I think." Said Ichimaro as he poured himself another glass of wine.

"Don't overdo it like you did at your mothers." Said Hana

"I did not overdo it at mom's place. I was perfectly sober the whole time. Wasn't I son? Son?" asked Ichimaro. Ritsu didn't even look at his father, no, his eyes were still locked with Teru's. Reigen could feel the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Auras. He couldn't see them but he could feel them if they were powerful enough. The table rattled a little, just a little, just enough that it could be explained away. Reigen hoped that those two weren't planning on doing anything that not even Reigen could explain away. This was not the time to be dropping big bombshells on people like that.

"Tell Teru I said Merry Christmas." Said Ritsu, his eyes boring right into Teru's. Teru stabbed into the pile of potatoes on his plate but never took his eyes off of Ritsu's.

"Uh….Ritsu says Merry Christmas." Said Reigen. He shifted away from them. He had been emotionally in the middle of this but now…now he got the feeling that he was about to be physically in the middle as well. He didn't know if he could have pulled the two of them apart if they'd been normal kids, they were getting bigger and he had always been a somewhat small man, but with psychic powers in the mix he knew that he didn't stand a chance.

"Tell Ritsu I said have a Happy New Year." Said Teru like he had the right to…not taking sides, this was none of his business and he was not going to take sides. Even though Teru should have been doing some heavy duty apologizing instead of instigating whatever the hell he was trying to instigate.

"Teru says have a happy New Year, alright? Now how about the two of you drop this and-" Said Reigen

"Tell Teru I said-" said Ritsu. Of course he wasn't going to drop this. This was Ritsu Kageyama, he never dropped anything, ever, no matter how much it was in his best interests. Reigen knew that he was still planning on going after Claw, that he still had feelings for that redheaded kid, and that he was probably going to get into an actual fight with Teru. Reigen didn't blame him, he knew how much it must have hurt, but…but this was why these problems were for adults only. If they had been older then they could have handled this in a mature manner away from the table and the two people who did NOT need to know that psychic powers were real and that their son was involved in trying to take down an evil organization and…well everything about the redheaded kid, whatever his name had been. Reigen needed to do something, he needed to intervene.

"So, how's-" said Reigen

"Who wants dessert?" asked Hana quickly. He decided to leave this to a professional. Hana knew Ritsu better, in some ways, than he did. She was his mother after all. Ritsu immediately turned away from Teru and stood up. Reigen wiped the sweat from his forehead. Hopefully everyone just thought that it had to do with the fact that the Kageyama's keep the heat turned up as high as it would go and not because of the crisis that had just been averted.

"I do!" said Ichimaro

"I'll clear the table, mom." Said Ritsu as he grabbed Reigen's plate. He hadn't been done with that but he wasn't going to break the uneasy truce that had broken out. Teru was up too…and he was helping…but they weren't glaring at each other and Reigen was going to count that as progress. Maybe he could look into becoming a relationship counsellor. If anything those two needed one…and they weren't even teenagers yet. What a world….

"And I'll help, Frau Kageyama." Said Teru. He took Hana's plate…at the same time Ritsu did. There was a brief tug-of-war in which Ritsu won, or maybe Teru just knew when to make a strategic retreat. Now if only he could retreat back to his chair…nope. Not happening. He was following Ritsu into the kitchen….

"How many people does it take to carry in a cake?" asked Ichimaro. Hana shook her head.

"Don't start with them, Ichimaro, you remember what happened last time." Said Hana

"I'm this close to just asking the boys what the problem is. I mean it can't possibly be that bad…right? I'm getting tired of living like this. They either need to hash this thing out or get over it, one of the two, before they drive us to drink…more so than we are now." Said Ichimaro. Reigen wanted to down his entire glass of wine at the mention of a drink. He knew better, of course, he had never been able to hold his liquor. When he got drunk he tended to run his mouth and right now that was the last thing he needed to do. He picked up his eggnog cup and downed it. Non-alcoholic, so the kids could have some…a terrible part of Reigen considered spiking it just to calm those two down.

"I'm beginning to wish we'd picked up the other kind….or maybe just another bottle of wine." Said Hana as she refilled Reigen's eggnog the second he put it down on the table. He wondered if Hana specifically had precognition powers or if it was just a skill that moms developed once they had kids.

"For them, you mean." Said Ichimaro as he gestured to the kitchen…where Ritsu and Teru were arguing in shushed tones. Ritsu was winning, it looked like, he had managed to get Teru of all people on the defensive. He had his arms crossed and he was taking a step back. It served him right…was what Reigen would have said if he had a dog in this race. This wasn't his relationship and he wasn't going to jump in and start taking sides. They had to figure these things out on their own like everyone else did…even if they were a little young to have even known what it was that they were planning on figuring out.

"Ichi, come on. You know that would be a bad idea. We both know that Ritsu would be a mean drunk." Said Hana. Both Reigen and Ichimaro did a double take.

"Hana!" said Ichimaro

"Drinking makes you stupid, Reigen said so!" shouted Ritsu from the kitchen.

"Way to listen, Ritsu!" said Reigen. He pushed his wine glass away. Right. He had said that, hadn't he?

"Sure, he listens to you, but when I tell him to put his clothes in the hamper, nothing." Said Hana

"Well everyone's like that at his age. Some of us never grew out of it." Said Reigen with a laugh. He really hadn't. The floor was not a hamper, as mom and now Teru said. It wasn't natural for a kid to be as clean as Teru was. He had a system for arranging the dirty laundry….the honest to God dirty laundry. He had his own four compartment laundry hamper and Reigen got the feeling that there was one for him waiting under the tree. Ritsu was, apparently, the normal amount of messy. Maybe it was better that Ritsu and Teru went back to just being friends. Even if they got over the cheating they were so different…and also these two were too young for all of this.

"I for one cannot wait until Ritsu grows out of it. Every morning is a treasure hunt. I don't know what he's planning on doing when he gets to middle school and has to take care of his uniform." Said Hana

"If he's anything like he he'll ball it up at the back of his closet and pretend he lost it." Said Reigen

"He's a bright boy, he'll probably just wash it in hot water a few times until it doesn't fit anymore. Takes about three washes, at least it did back in my day." Said Ichimaro

"Ichi! Don't give him ideas! Uniforms are going to be expensive enough as it is without us having to replace his every week." Said Hana

"For Salt? No way, there have got to be some used ones floating around somewhere. I mean it's just the black gakuran with the school's logo on the buttons. Do you think that they even check the buttons? You know mine was black when I was his age and he's about the same size I was." Said Ichimaro

"He can have mine, too, I never want to look at that thing ever again." said Reigen

"Middle school." Said Ichimaro with a shudder with Reigen matched. There was no greater torture than middle school. Reigen hadn't even had that bad of an experience. Sure he'd been lonely but it was nothing like what Ritsu and Teru were going to go through. Sure the world had gotten a lot more tolerant than it had been when Reigen was a kid but middle schoolers never changed. Ritsu and Teru were going to have a hard go of it…and that was without whatever relationship drama was happening in the kitchen.

"He's not going to Salt, remember? He said that he wanted to go to Black Vinegar with Teru…at least that was the plan. Before the boys got into their fight." Said Hana

"We're not fighting!" shouted Ritsu before he and Teru got back to whispering angrily amongst themselves.

"They're not fighting…and he's not going to Black Vinegar. They don't give scholarships, Hana, and we don't have two million yen a year to spend on school." Said Ichimaro

"Two million?!" sputtered Reigen. He knew that Teru came from money, anyone who'd seen his wardrobe would have been able to tell, but to be able to spend two million yen a year on MIDDLE SCHOOL was just…these people had two million yen to spend on middle school but they couldn't spring for a nanny or a bodyguard or at least someone to knock on Teru's door once a week to make sure that he hadn't been kidnapped?

"See? Reigen agrees. That's an insane amount to spend on middle school." Said Ichimaro

"We can't put a price on our son's education. I know it's a lot but we can tighten our belts." Said Hana

"Hana, if my belt was any tighter it'd be cutting off my circulation. If my circulation gets cut off then I'm going to have to go to the hospital and then we'll lose my earning power and then Ritsu's going to grow up to go dance for ten yen coins on the train platform…and he probably won't be that good at it since he hates music." Said Ichimaro. Reigen decided not to laugh at that one. Hana was glaring at him, now. Reigen could see where Ritsu got it from.

"Are you done?" asked Hana

"Just about." Said Ichimaro

"I know it's going to be expensive but Ritsu…I think that it would be good for him to have a friend once he gets to middle school. I mean Tsubomi is going to go to Salt but…well Teru and Ritsu are a different sort of friends. At least I thought that they were." Said Hana

"They're still…friends…Hana, this is just how boys are. They just needed to beat each other up a little and then they'll be good as new." Said Ichimaro

"I'm not sure if violence is really the answer, here. I mean the kids are going through a lot right now…a lot of normal things. Kid things. Normal kid things." Said Reigen quickly. The last thing that Ritsu and Teru needed right now was to be encouraged to beat each other up. They were close enough to that point as it was. Also they were still a couple and Reigen knew that only the biggest losers in the world went around hitting their wives/girlfriends so it must have translated to same sex relationships too. No, Ritsu and Teru didn't need to pour any more gasoline on this tire fire.

Nobody needed to.

Ritsu and Teru were still in the kitchen. They had managed to figure out how to turn cutting a cake into a silent fight. Reigen was tempted to take that knife away from them. They had psychic powers so, really, the knife wasn't that bad…but it was sharp and they were both holding it at once. Tugging on it…this wasn't…he needed to get up and put a stop to this before someone got cut. Then someone might have wound up spending Christmas in the emergency room…maybe he could have been the lucky guy…

A look from both Hana and Ichimaro. He immediately thought of nothing just in case parents actually could read minds.

"Reigen…about the kids…" said Ichimaro

"Kids these days, am I right? Why can't they be like we were, or I guess like I was. Perfect in every way…heh….this is good eggnog, really good eggnog" asked Reigen before he took a swig of eggnog. There now he had time to think. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. Was it getting hotter in here? He needed…he needed to think.

"They're going through a lot, it looks like." Said Ichimaro

"What…what are they going through, exactly? Ritsu isn't going to tell us, we're his parents, but this has been going on for a while now and it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon….so if it's something that we need to know about I'd like to know." Said Hana

"The kids….they're…they're…." said Reigen. He needed to think up a lie. This was his specialty, wasn't it? Whipping up lies on the fly? He could have told them that Ritsu and Teru were just having growing pains, maybe, or maybe he could have just said that someone had come between them….which was close enough to the truth that he wouldn't have had to remember any kind of a story…but then that was too close to the truth. Nobody needed to know about the cheating and the clinic visit and the long and awkward lecture.

Especially not the Kageyama's.

He couldn't lose Ritsu's trust. Ritsu needed him, he needed someone to watch him, he needed someone to stop him from doing truly stupid things. Like going after Claw. Or falling in love with someone who was entrenched in it. Or stabbing his actual boyfriend….ok, the knife was down. The knife was on the counter and the cake slices had been plated up and were being carried in. He needed to come up with something.

Anything.

"Ritsu and Teru have been going through some normal growing pains but they can work through it and-" said Reigen

"They can hear you guys from the kitchen. We're fine. We aren't fighting and everything's fine. We're working through our problems and we're not going to break up. Ever. No matter what Teru does." Said Ritsu. He managed to hold eye contact with Teru while he slammed each cake plate down as hard as he could.

"We're fine, really, and we're not breaking up…no matter how much Ritsu likes to blow things out of proportion….and how hypocritical-" said Teru

"I am not being-" said Ritsu

"Wow, this cake is amazing! What is this? Chocolate peppermint?! I love it!" said Reigen as he dug into his cake. That was the thing. Now everyone, every adult, was talking about the cake and not Ritsu and Teru's relationship….what was left of it. He had no idea what the future held for these two but he did know that this didn't need to be hashed out right now on Christmas.

This was supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year….not the most awkward.