Part 8

You're Katana cannot hurt me for my jimjams are like a shield of steel
Nagi came down the stairs just behind Omi with the baby in his arms. She was wide-awake despite the fact it still was quite early, and Nagi had only one eye open. Crawford and Aya were at the kitchen table looking remarkably alert as they held matching glasses of orange juice. Aya smiled when he saw the baby, standing up and taking her from Nagi's arms. "And how's Mi-chan?" He said as she gave him a great open-mouthed grin. "Is that Mi-chan?" He blew a raspberry at her, to his amusement she blew one back, waving her hands at his face, slapping her palms on his shoulders and chin. "That's Mi-chan."

"That's actually quite disturbing." Crawford said into his orange, "you've turned into a woman." He shook his head, "worse than that you've turned into a child's television presenter, garish sweater and all. And to think I was almost scared of you at one point."

"Maybe you foresaw this?" Omi said pulling down a box of sugarcoated breakfast cereal "sugar puffs?" He asked Nagi who nodded. He poured out two bowls and put them on the table.

"You just need to get to know her." Aya said, pulling faces at the baby who had managed to grab him by the ear tails and was pulling and making loud noises of delight.

Crawford stood up and looked at her. She grabbed his glasses, waving them about like a new toy. "She's just a baby." Aya said peacefully, "she doesn't know better."

Mihana made a string of strange baby syllables at him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that." Crawford said dryly, "I don't speak monkey.1"

Mihana burst out laughing again, letting Aya take the glasses and put them down on the sideboard as the baby started making the slapping motions at Crawford.

"Here," Aya said handing him the baby, "take her, and I'll make some breakfast."

Crawford looked genuinely scared for a moment as the child attacked his hair, pulling and smiling, drooling down her chin. "She's heavier than she looks." He turned around and saw Nagi, "You take her." Nagi took her and settled her on his lap; she grabbed his spoon and started banging it on the table.

"She likes you, Crawford-san." Omi said brightly. "Much better than she likes Yotan."

"Are you saying, Crawford," Aya said from behind them, "you've never held a baby before?" he sounded amused by this.

"And where did you get so good with babies?" Crawford asked, indignant.

"That, Crawford, is a very long story." Aya answered.

"That's all you're getting." Omi said, "that's all any of us have got no matter how we ask. I was thinking of hacking to find out."

"You could just ask." Aya said with a smile.

"We've all asked, Ayan," Omi answered, "you tell us it's a long story and then never tell us the story."

Aya's smile was mysterious and rather smug, "you know, don't you, Mi-chan," he said tickling the baby under the chin, "I told you because we had time, didn't we, akachan."

"K'fee." Yohji said. He was wearing a pair of pyjamas- a pair of lime green gingham pyjamas to be precise.

"Yohji," Aya asked from the stove. "What are you wearing?"

Yohji held out his hand for the cup as he sat at the table. "Omi got me some jimjams."

"They're horrible." Aya said with a tired snort.

"Don't rub it in." Yohji said climbing in beside Aya, "I don't normally wear anything to bed."

"Then why did you?" Aya answered.

"Because Nagi was here." He answered, "I worried about how this would go down, you'll kill me if I came down naked, or even just got up in the middle of the night for a pee. So these are the horrid neon green gingham pyjamas of deflection." It very almost made sense. "Your katana cannot hurt me, because my jimjams are like a shield of steel."

Aya sniggered, "They'd blind me before I got close. Omi, do you have pyjamas tucked away for me too?"

"They're all right, they're solid navy blue with black piping, if they would have fit I would have stolen them," Yohji buried his face in the coffee cup that Aya offered them, "but Ken's have puppies on them."

"I'm in a kitchen with a baby called Mi-chan, half of Schwarz." Aya said, "and a man in radioactive pyjamas, I can't complain. Crawford, would you just take photos to blackmail us with rather than kill us, or go blind from the glare of his pyjamas."

"Maybe Omi's colour-blind." Crawford said.

"No," Aya said with a grin, "Maybe he thought that it would be funny to buy you the world's ugliest pyjamas for when you were in hospital and had no choice but to wear them."

"The instant the department store opens later," Yohji said, he was as determined as a man with a mission, "I am getting nicer pyjamas."

"Anything would be better." Aya said. He put several plates on the table heaped high with western food, "If I wasn't so jaded, I'd say that I'd be scarred for life."

"Aya," Yohji said into the dark.

"Yes," Aya answered, he was looking incredibly smug.

"Shut up." Aya only laughed.

"Hey, Crawford, when you kill me, don't tell anyone he did that, and please…"

"I won't bury you in the pyjamas." Crawford said in the same smug tone.

"I was going to say let me get dressed first, imagine some hot coroner unzipping my body bag to be greeted with these." He sat up, pulling out the pyjama shirt, "the state doesn't pay enough for that. In fact I think they might be against the Geneva Convention as cruel and unusual punishment. It's worse than being found in women's underwear."

Aya laughed. "Nagi, is that enough for you?" he asked, "Yotan?" Yohji nodded. "Is Ken up?"

"Now there's a euphemism if ever I heard one." Yohji answered with a naughty leer.

Aya batted him with a dishcloth. "I'll kill you in the pyjamas, and I'll send photos out to all of your grieving widows and widowers that minna no Kudoh Yohji sleeps in toxic green pyjamas."

"That's one way to scare off the competition." Yohji said, pulling a robe over the offending clothing.

Ken came into the kitchen wearing a pair of soccer shorts and a smile. He didn't notice anyone in the kitchen, or the food on the table and bent over in the fridge rooting around for the last slice of American cheese that he knew he had left in there. "Ahem," Aya said. He turned around, "Omi?" He asked. Then blinked. "I'm blind, Yohji, do they come with a dimmer switch?" He looked around the room, "okay, I knew Nagi was here, and I kind of remember the baby, but," he did a mental countdown, "why is Crawford here in a tuxedo that looks like he fought world war two in?"

Nagi's face was perfectly straight as he said in an even tone, "he wanted to entertain you." Crawford went bright red, it only lasted a moment however. Aya sniggered.

"I don't get it." Ken said.

"When Crawford has too much to drink he sings show tunes." Aya said blithely as if it was the most natural thing in the world, "and he was singing let me entertain you."

Ken blinked, then he blinked again, and then he said, "you are now entering the twilight zone, I'm going back to bed."

"You can't," Omi said with a winning smile, "you're on morning shift."

"No, I'm not." Ken answered, "Aya is."

"Aya's not working in the shop while he's got the baby, remember." Omi said, his grin was getting rather smug Ken noticed. "And it's your turn to cover."

Ken swore. Nagi put his hands over Mihana's ears in shock.

"Crawford, why don't you go see if the shower's free, you can borrow some of my clothes." Aya said, warming water over a pan so he could feed the baby.

"They won't fit him," Ken said, "help yourself to mine, we're about the same width in the shoulders."

And so it was that when Crawford went home he was wearing a pair of Aya's jeans and a football jersey and hoping that no one he knew would ever see him.

Author's Note:

1 I know, I know this is from Lemony Snicket, but I love it, it's so cute, it's so Crawford. What you expected him to be good with children too?