After Hours
Summary: Mimi returns home to realize her dream of opening an upscale coffeeshop bakery, with only two things in her way: the dive bar on its last legs in the basement, and its owner, who just so happens to be her college ex-boyfriend. Well, they won't last long. One way or another, she'll get that space, too, and expand her culinary empire even further. Mimi guarantees it.
Remember the rooftop parties
Remember the friends
Remember the way I love you now
And the way I loved you then
("Now and Then" by Lily Kershaw)
then
For as long as Mimi could remember, Sunday night family dinners inevitably entered the historical record as a remarkable failure. Something burnt, something turned, something soured or curdled. Whatever she had pictured in her mind never ended up on the plate, though her parents dutifully sampled each course with as much seriousness as they had each cup she'd present them with from her toddler's play tea set. When she'd first started putting herself in charge of Sunday dinner, she'd been soothed by their enthusiastic insistence that these mishaps were nothing but the obligatory growing pains of an aspiring chef, and while Mimi had never actually spoken the words, "I want to be a chef when I grow up," aloud, her parents believing her giftedly capable of just about anything, even the passing hobby, somehow worked itself into becoming her own opinion, too.
Which was why it continued to pain her, frustrate and aggravate her, that Sunday dinners were always such disappointments. By now, she should have learned to be better, or make something better, equipped with years of kitchen trials and practices and the breadth of her imagination. She'd spend the six days prior making notes, browsing blogs, and compiling ingredients with the logistical precision of a military strategist. Then on Sundays, regardless of whether she'd spent the day with friends or with Yamato or on campus if there was an errant assignment or exam, she'd arrive punctually to her parents' house no later than four in the afternoon to take her battle post in the kitchen.
Her parents' kitchen had a swinging door between its well-insulated space and the adjoining dining room, as well as a second hinged door for a walk-in pantry. It went without saying that everything within these enclosed walls belonged only to her the minute she entered them each Sunday, and no one was allowed to trespass into the space while she was at work—a rule she'd become quite serious about, leaving Yamato, and sometimes Takeru when he'd join them, alone with her father or mother or, often, both, until dinner was finally ready. She might have felt sorry for him if she were anyone else, but Mimi loved her parents, and didn't allow anyone but herself to complain about spending time with them.
Usually, Mimi could hear the murmuring of conversation between everyone even while ensconced in the kitchen a few rooms away. Mostly commonly, these sounds took the form of her father attempting to play for Yamato his latest record acquisition, or her mother confusedly insisting Takeru explain yet again the differences between man offense plays, or everyone—friends, too, or other visiting family—in general chatter while watching something on television. Mimi mostly ignored all of this, relying on her headphones or the kitchen radio to fill her headspace while she concentrated on the culinary experiment of the week.
That Sunday, she'd been catching up on a podcast she'd promised Yamato she'd listen to, grateful for her innate ability to drown out frightfully dull white noise no matter its source, as she hummed to herself a pop song instead. It was the sort of music she was sure he'd not be happy about her putting into his head inadvertently, so when the dining room door swung open she banished the catchy chorus from her mind at once, ready to explain herself away, except it wasn't Yamato who was standing there.
"Mama!" she coughed, swallowing too much air from the surprise.
"Mimi, darling, I do believe you're choking," observed Satoe, breezing by her daughter to the cabinet behind her.
"I—ugh, God—yes, you surprised me," Mimi pulled the headphones from her ears, putting them down on the kitchen island. "You're not supposed to be in here."
"I'm barely even in the room, dearest." Lithe with hardly the hint of a wrinkle to her round face, Satoe retrieved two short whiskey glasses and shut the cabinet again, then stopped to frown at the arrangement of mixing bowls Mimi had been bending over a few minutes earlier. "And you've barely started dinner."
"This is for the side dishes, the casserole's already in the oven." Catching Satoe attempt another peek, Mimi rushed to cover the dishes' contents with her outstretched arms. "You know the rules, Mama, no looking!"
"Look at what?" Satoe protested, waving the glasses in her hands. "I'm just looking for the glasses! And, there, I've found them, right?"
"Then go!"
"Mimi, I just told you, I'm not even here. Honestly, darling, where you get your propensity for exaggeration, I will die before understanding…."
The door opened again, and Mimi was halfway through an exasperated, "Daddy, will you please tell Mama I—," before she found her words strangled by another shout of alarm.
"You know you're choking, right?" asked Taichi, throwing her a passing glance before turning his grin back at her mother, who beamed at him.
"What are you doing here?" Mimi demanded, recovering her voice.
Satoe answered for him, taking a whiskey bottle from behind boxed cereal in the pantry (flooring Mimi with the stealth of it all) and waving it at the pair of them.
"Oh, absolutely," declared Taichi, making her mother giggle, which threw Mimi into deeper turmoil. "Mama—!"
"That's her 'I mean business' voice," Satoe said in a stage whisper, slouching her shoulders as she mimed tiptoeing to the door. "We should go before she notices we're here."
"A little late for that!" cried Mimi at the same time Taichi responded, "By all means," to Satoe as he grabbed the glasses she'd left on the counter and stepped backwards, kicking the swing door with his heel. His eyes never left her as she ducked past him, still pretending to tiptoe away from her daughter, who stood, stunned by the sight of their behavior. Dear God, was her mother blushing? Springing back to life, she rushed to the door, hands stretched before her like claws. "Yagami!"
"Slow down, slow down, now," interrupted her father, materializing on the other side of the door to usher her backwards into the kitchen.
Mimi clasped Keisuke's forearms, either for support to remain upright in what she was sure was the world turned upside down, or for emphasis as she shook him slightly. "Daddy, what is he doing here?"
"It's Sunday dinner," answered her father, with a glance around the kitchen. "Though, sweet pea, you look a little delayed in here, don't you?"
"It's—in—the oven!" She swung him around, forcing his back to the kitchen and attempting to drag him into the living room with her.
But Keisuke battered down, staying put, and looped his arms to hold her in place. "Can you make an extra plate tonight?"
"Why do I have to? Yamato's already on his way, and five place settings aren't even!" she whined before she could restrain herself, and Keisuke assumed his most fatherly posture.
"Mimi, he didn't have anywhere to go."
"He's lying—,"
"What was I going to do, leave him at the station when we got back in?"
"Yes?"
Still ignoring her, he lowered his voice to a whisper, thick eyebrows pushed up to his hairline, "I couldn't just abandon the boy."
"He's not a child! And he's definitely not your child—,"
"But he is your friend—,"
"—absolutely not—,"
"—and now he's your mother's friend—,"
Mimi choked again, "—absolutely not—,"
"—so you," and here Keisuke actually wagged his finger at her, and this gesture of admonishment, which Mimi could not remember ever having received before, silenced her retort at once, "are going to be on your best behavior."
"For him?" she sputtered.
"That's how I raised you, didn't I?" From the living room came another chorus of conversational laughter, and Keisuke's expression softened. "We help people who need it."
Mimi opened her mouth, but could think of nothing to fire back, or escape from, or try to win, this time. It's only after her father's returned to the raucous duo that she thinks up something to say, but wisely admits to herself it was safer to stay quiet. The past two weeks had endeared Taichi to Keisuke, for one reason or another. She'd tried to understand it, puzzled at first by the camaraderie that she'd stumbled into during her daily lunch trips to City Hall, and had been completely thrown off by about four days later when she'd arrived to a completely deserted office. Three attempts to call her father's cell phone resulted in an apologetic message back, assuring her that he didn't need a homemade lunch that day, because he'd decided to go get ramen with Taichi. Two days later, it was chicken burgers. Then, a lobster roll. On Friday, he'd told her on the way out the door that morning he wasn't even going to be at City Hall at all that day; that he and Taichi were going to a regional conference all weekend; and that not to worry as he'd be back for Sunday night dinner.
Mimi hadn't been worried, as none of Keisuke's conferences or work trips had ever interfered with Sunday night dinners before, and he wasn't the sort to start a habit like that, she was certain. What did worry her were all the other habits that were changing. It wasn't as though Mimi was averse to change. She knew how to adapt, and she knew how to make the most of any situation. But these weeks had been hard enough without the oddity of Taichi's constant presence. Yamato had been unusually busy, too, and while they'd gone through distant patches before, this time felt…different.
Truth be told, Mimi hadn't been quick to pass by the information Taichi'd casually dropped about his connection to her boyfriend. Yamato hadn't been forthcoming about it either, but to be fair, Yamato was rarely forthcoming. They'd been dating a month before she even knew his father lived in town, too, or that his mother was the same columnist (under another penname) her parents religiously followed in their syndicated weekly paper. She'd only recently gotten to know Takeru a bit better, having lucked out on that front by sharing the same university campus, and she did credit Takeru for their getting together at all. But Takeru more often than not talked about his mother, sharing the same writerly aspirations, and lately hadn't been around a lot either with basketball camp having started.
But no matter what else happened during the week, Yamato still joined them for Sunday night dinners twice a month, and Mimi would be damned if she was going to allow the bane of her summer ruin this, too. She just needed a plan, something to set into motion, and she had—a stolen glance at her phone told her—twenty minutes to launch, before Yamato was due to arrive, and the side dishes were due to start their turn on the stove, and the dining table was due to be set.
Okay. Twenty minutes. How many fires could she put out in twenty minutes?
And, in a seemingly auspicious answer of fate, he walked back into the kitchen, half-empty whiskey bottle still in hand.
"Thanks for dinner, Tachikawa."
"Hasn't started yet," she answered at once, ignoring his gloating, the wheels in her mind hard at work. Taichi crossed back to the cabinets where her mother had been a few minutes earlier, retrieving two more glasses. "And it's not over."
"That's sort of the point of 'hasn't started yet,' maybe?"
She finally looked at him, noting the dark denim jeans he wore under a sweatshirt bearing their university's emblem over a broad chest. He's already made himself comfortable here, has he? Her browbone twitched in annoyance, and she reminded herself to stay on goal. Returning to the kitchen island where she'd been prepping for her remaining dishes, she said, "The rule is you don't come into the kitchen."
"Just getting another glass for your dad."
"My dad does not like whiskey."
"Well, he's already had two shots with me from your mom's glass, so—,"
Her fingers tensed again, and she wrestled them around the top of a new bag of flour to give her thirst for vengeance another focus. "No matter how many lunch dates you try to take him on, you're never going to know my dad better than—,"
He wasn't listening, narrowed in on the struggle she was having with the bag's sealed opening, and took a single step forward. "Are you sure you're—,"
"The last thing I need from you," interrupted Mimi, "is a cooking less—oh!" and the bag burst at the pinched seams as a cloud of flour erupted across her face.
She could hear his grin.
"Can I just say—,"
"—shut up—,"
"—that you have never looked better."
"I hate the sound of your voice." She blinked the powder from her eyes, coughing, and Taichi, still laughing, handed her a dishtowel.
"You're really so mad I get along with your parents you're not going to admit when I'm trying to help you out?"
"The point," she breathed loudly, "of Sunday night dinners is that I do everything, without help."
"Well, everybody needs help with something, right?"
She wiped the last of the flour from her chin, crumbling the dishtowel on the counter with the heel of her wrist. "Not with this. This is just for me. My thing. I put these dinners together for my parents every week, and I get to do whatever I like."
His nose wrinkled. "Sounds ominous."
"It's actually delicious," she corrected in a huff. "Mostly."
"Uh-huh," and he tapped the whiskey glass. "Fuel for the road, then?"
"Will you leave if I do?"
He crossed his chest. "Scout's honor."
She accepted the drink, holding it up, and he clinked his glass against hers. "Thanks for this weekend."
"I didn't do anything."
"I know you're really close with your dad, and you let me spend time with him instead." He shrugged, ever casual, his voice lilting slightly. "I'm just saying, I appreciate it. I know I've not…been all that together without Sor, so, you know," and he cut himself off, shrugging in embarrassment.
"Hm," and she accepted a small sip. "Do you plan on returning the favor?"
His eyes narrowed, and his visible confusion made her laugh. "You wanna…get dinner with my parents?"
She swirled a finger at the top of his head. "Cool that big brain of yours before you short circuit, will you?"
"Funny." Taichi filled up his empty glass with another two shots of whiskey, then moving to the fridge to lean against it, his free hand find its way to the pocket of his jeans, shoulder effortlessly slouched. He shouldn't look so at home in her home, but it fit, in a way that somehow took her by surprise, the naturalness of it all.
"I want you to tell me about Hikari."
Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that. Then again, she hadn't planned on saying it until she'd already said it either.
"Ah-huh," he mused, letting the dark liquid slosh around the side of the glass. "Just 'Kari?" She just turned her chin, looking at him pointedly. Taichi shrugged, swallowing a large gulp. "Not really sure it's my place to say anything."
"Chivalry rears its rare and absent head at last, does it?"
"It was high school," he interrupted, tone notched up to communicate his cool annoyance at her teasing and the lack of interest he had in matching it, not about this. "Everyone's dumb in high school, even my sister."
"And they were…?"
His face blanched, like he was struggling to fill correctly the blanks she was drawing. "Each…other's first—?"
She shrieked, empty glass toppling to the counter and floured hands clamping over her ears, and Taichi started yelling, too, beet-faced, "Their first relationship, and completely chaste, for fuck's sake, Mimi!"
"You used the worst possible words!"
"Why the fuck would you think I would I tell you anything about my sister's first?"
She shrieked again, and Taichi swore, crossing the distance to her in less than two wide strides. He grabbed her glass, dumping in just slightly less than a full shot, and shoved it into her hands. "Shut up and drink your dirty mind away."
And, in spite of herself, she started to laugh, doubling over a little as she stumbled back from him, clutching her glass. "You're the one who put this image in my head."
He took a furious swig of his own newly poured shot and set the glass down far. "Raised by barn animals, you are." When she wouldn't, or couldn't, stop giggling, he threw her an exasperated look. "What are you even asking me all this for? You've got Adonis in your own corner."
"Hm," she shivered, liking the nickname, and knowing Yamato would hate it. She giggled again. "I was curious. We agreed not to talk about our pasts, just our future." Taichi pretended to gag, and Mimi cleared her throat louder than necessary. "Something you could probably stand to try sometime."
His face darkened, just for a moment. "What's there to try?"
She wasn't sure about the tone, or the words. Instead, she walked back to him and pinched his cheek, yanking his head to the side. "Aw, don't shutter down that pretty face just because you let the one get away already."
He pried her fingers off him. "Never let it be forgotten that you think my face is pretty."
"Of course, it is," Mimi barked out a sharp laugh, then finished her shot and returned the cup to the sink this time, signaling the end. "How's that new information?"
"Any other information you're digging out of me tonight?"
She raised a single finger, twisting her mouth with uncharacteristic nervousness. "Why they broke up?"
Taichi was genuinely puzzled this time, as though the answer were obvious. "Because it was high school, and it was barely four months long. How many high school relationships even last that?"
"My parents," Mimi answered, smug and prompt.
Taichi snorted. "Well, your parents aren't—common," he said, swapping in the understatement when her eyebrow disappeared into her hairline with an alarming quickness.
"My parents are the gold standard. And they were, actually, their one and only. That's what I'm going to have, too." She was proud of this truth, and didn't notice, at first, the odd look that crossed his face.
He recovered before she could catch it. "I mean, obviously. Handmade lunches, their own secret emoji language, and weekly Sunday night dinner invitations to boot."
"I did not invite you."
"Oh, I'm pretty sure Satoe would."
Her blood curdled. "Take my mother's name out of your mouth."
His lips pressed together in a slow smile, slick and self-assured. It was infuriating, how something she couldn't swallow caught in her throat when his tongue peeked out between wide teeth, pulling his bottom lip back. His eyebrows lifted when he saw where her gaze had settled, and her inhale was strained. "Don't," she warned, and he immediately held up both hands in a posture of open surrender.
"Don't what?" he asked with a laugh.
She didn't answer, turning around to peel off her flour-soaked sweater with one hand, and tugging down the blouse she wore underneath with the other.
"Should I just watch you, or—?"
"Oh, my God, get out, Taichi—,"
"Look, if you want to suffocate yourself in your own kitchen," and his hands came to either side of her waist, holding the hem of her blouse flat, "do it next time."
She pulled herself out of the floured sweater with much more ease than she'd ever admit to him, or herself, really, shaking her hair out of its frizzy tangle. His thumbs pressed just a sliver more pressure against her hips, his skin radiating with a pleasing heat through the cotton fabric. "Honey," he said, thoughtful.
Pawing at the stray strands that puffed excitedly from the static friction, she barely heard him. "What?"
Taichi let her go. "And shortbread. Your hair always smells like that. First thing I noticed. Do you just sweat honey?" She glowered, or tried to, and he rolled her eyes. "I can be nice when I want to."
Ignoring the compliment, she retorted, "By asking me how I sweat?"
"You literally asked me about my sister's sex life."
"No," she protested, "you readily gave it up."
"Barn animals," he repeated, shaking his head. "Honestly, all these euphemisms could make a nicer guy blush."
Mimi refused to let him get to her, or let him think that he might. "You're not nice."
"I'm not blushing, either."
"I dread," and she repeated herself for emphasis, stretching the word across multiple syllables, "dread to know what would make you blush."
He tilted his neck back, "Ah, so nice to have a reputation precede you."
"Says the guy who abandoned his best friend at our seediest bar to sleep with someone else's girlfriend." When he said nothing, she allowed the brief wave of shameful regret pass over, staying her tongue. "I'm not judging, okay? I'm just saying, there's a context here."
Taichi left his neck hanging just a moment, eyes opened to the ceiling. When he looked at her again, it was with another slow smile, but this one wasn't anything like the last. "The context is that's not even the worst thing I've done."
She made a disgusted tut, miming the three gestures of not seeing, hearing, or speaking evil in quick succession.
"One spring break, I slept through picking Sora up from the airport after she'd flown for nearly forty-four hours straight and left her wallet on the plane, plus her phone'd died, so she was actually stuck there for the whole day before I remembered. Another time, I stood up one of her friends at our junior school prom, and took Sor instead, but didn't tell either of them. Then there was the time I got her grounded for, like, three months because I panicked and hid our teacher's chemistry exam forecast in her backpack and her mother found it. And—,"
"Uh-uh," interrupted Mimi, her eyes bug wide. "You are a terrible friend."
"And she forgave all those," he went on, like he'd forgotten she was there, or that he was, "because there's also the times I'd sneak her into my room to sleep when her parents were going through it, and it got too hard for her to be at home by herself. Or the time I proved the judge to our town's public mural competition was intentionally shifting her marks, and she got her place reinstated. Won, too," he added, proud, "and the mural's still there. Plus, I only took her to junior prom because I'd overheard her boyfriend say some real dumb shit, so I made sure he'd be too late to pick her up."
When he didn't continue, she tread carefully. "I think it would be less balancing the scales and more consistent trust."
Taichi glanced at her, gaze impossibly cool. "You don't think she trusts me?"
"I mean," and she shrugged, "how many times have you had to convince her to again?"
He didn't answer right away. "I think I'm running out. I think…," he paused, "I've run out."
Mimi sighed. "Yagami, you're really weird when you're sad. You do weird things, too, like take my dad on lunch daytrips and invite yourself over to our house for dinner and basically anything to avoid having to sit at home by yourself. It's pathetic."
There's nothing to argue. "Yeah."
With another audible sigh, Mimi folded her sweater and placed it on the counter, picking up her phone. "We're going out."
Taichi looked up with surprise. "We're what?"
"You're gonna bring Kou, I'm gonna bring Yamato, and we're going out."
"Not sure Koushiro's into double-dating—,"
"Friendship dating is best in doubles," said Mimi. "Besides, this crisis is really cribbing the joy I'm supposed to be getting from picking on you, and Daddy said I had to be nice."
He rolled his wrist to mime a beholden tip of the hat. "Nice where? Because I can't show my face at the old hangout again, and the only other place that won't care about IDs isn't exactly legal about much else, either."
Mimi dismissed the concern, scrolling quickly through her phone as her last-minute plans fell into perfect place. "Yamato's dad owns a bar not too far from here."
"'Course he does." In a last-minute attempt, Taichi pointed to the oven. "And Sunday night dinner?"
"Will still be here after," she declared, firing off the last text of the night and looking up at him, victorious.
"You're just trying to get me out of hanging out with your mom, aren't you?"
Mimi shot him a transparent look, and Taichi grinned. "Okay, okay. Tell you what, I'll head home after, and I'm paying for drinks, too."
"Ooh, the chivalry's back," she said, amazed. "Zombie-like and deformed, but back."
She gave her father instructions on maintaining an even temperature on baking casserole, thunderingly commanded her mother to stay out of the kitchen, ignored both of their exclaiming confusion over the flour that was still spotting her cheeks and hair, and found Yamato on the third ring of her second phone call to him. She was in her car, with Taichi having left (amid Satoe's protests) separately to pick up an extremely confused Koushiro, when he answered.
"Sorry, Mimi, I'm still maybe ten minutes out," he said, skipping a greeting. She noted the low stretch he put to his words. "You'll have to start appetizers without me."
"Well, then good news," she said, cheerful, "because we're doing appetizers with friends."
"We have friends?"
"Hilarious. Come on, it's just a little detour. One, two drinks and then back home."
"I'm not sure we'll have enough time for a detour," said Yamato, his voice muffled by the speaker phone feature. "Not with your parents being pretty punctual with these things."
"Ten minutes, fifteen, max," she promised.
His sigh couldn't hide the smile she could hear to his voice. "All right, fifteen minutes. Where?"
She braced herself. "Your dad's?"
"Mimi—,"
"It was the only one in the middle of where everyone was coming from!"
"Your friends can't go anywhere else?"
"I already told them, and I can't go back on it now! And it'll be nice, right?" she added, earnest. "A few more visits and then maybe your dad could come over on Sunday, with Takeru, and then—,"
"Mimi, my family is not like yours."
"They don't need to be, and that's not what I'm saying." She took a breath, "It's just—it's been months now and our parents haven't met yet."
He took a moment to respond, and when he did, it was with the kind of sigh she was more used to, as it normally meant she'd gotten her way. "Any other surprises tonight?"
A perfect opening. "Taichi and Koushiro are joining us."
"Mimi—,"
"Not for dinner! We're going to dump them there after the courtesy drink or two and then be on our way."
"I don't think that's courteous—,"
"It's going to be fine, Yamato," she insisted, brazen eyes brightening with possibility. "I promise. We can still save tonight, you just have to work with me."
"Don't I always?"
"Always and always." Promising to meet him in ten minutes, Mimi used the next traffic light to text Jou about delaying their study date the next morning by an hour at least, then managed to grab the last most convenient parking spot before the four-door sedan that had been cautiously approaching could get there first.
They honked, and Mimi waved them off, ignoring them as she climbed out of her own car. She stopped to use the side-view mirror to check her appearance, then cursed her life anew when Taichi's face joined her reflection. "You park like a maniac," he declared. "Poor Kou had to slam on his brakes. You know how delicate his car is?"
"Sorry, Koushiro," she relented, to him and him alone.
The redhead smiled, locking the sedan. "He's exaggerating. And he was the one laying on the horn, not me."
"Hey!"
"You are—you always get so dramatic when you and Sora fight—,"
"Oh, I'm so glad you could come, Koushiro—,"
"Do not answer her—,"
Mimi linked her arm around Koushiro's, beaming. "Your drink is on me."
"Yeah, well this night is about me," Taichi said, stalking ahead of them. "I'm the one needing cheering up."
"From your own doing—,"
"Kou, seriously—?"
"I say what I see," said Koushiro, letting Mimi go down the staircase to the bar entrance first.
"But you won't say a thing about her," complained Taichi.
"She told me not to."
"Pick a side, Izumi—,"
"Have done," and he held the door open for Mimi, drawing another cooing pat from her and a betrayed grimace from him.
"That whiskey wasn't nearly strong enough for this," Taichi muttered loud enough for the pair to hear as he shoved past.
Koushiro stopped walking, nearly yanking Mimi back from the sudden stop. She twisted herself around to look back at him, distracted by his odd move as much as the wave of smoky alcohol hit every one of her senses. She blinked, letting her eyes adjust to the dim fog of the old tavern, but Koushiro didn't appear to notice. "You let him drink whiskey?" he asked her, surprised.
"I didn't," Mimi defended herself at once, "my parents did. It's my mom's favorite."
"Well, it's the worst for him," said Koushiro. "It just makes him—,"
"Annoying?"
"Mean." He groaned, "I gotta get his phone from him. He's definitely going to try calling Sora now, and it's not going to go well."
"Something will," suggested Mimi, finally able to taken in the scene well enough to catch where Taichi'd gone. A group of faces were huddled in the back of the bar around one of the dartboards, one of which Mimi thought seemed particularly familiar, the tightly coiled maroon hair she wore reminding her of one of the freshmen students she'd helped orient that year. Taichi apparently knew her, too, piling himself into the group of her friends.
Koushiro's lamenting intensified. "I need to stop saying yes to these things," he muttered "You sure you can't stay more than a half hour?"
Mimi patted his arm sympathetically. "Let's get you something to bear this all with," she said, walking with him to the counter.
She didn't see Hiroaki at first, as they were served by one of the assistant bartenders, a jovial looking man with a thin goatee. He poured them two pints off the tap and wiped the worn counter off with an old rag before sliding the tall beer glasses towards them, accepting Mimi's instruction to open a tab. She'd said Yamato's name in lieu of hers, as she usually did when they were out, but if the surname rang a bell, the man made no indication, or at least didn't seem to really be hearing her fully over the sounds of a moderately well sized Sunday night crowd.
She and Koushiro cheered before taking their first sips, with Koushiro asking for another half-pint for Taichi. She kept looking back at the corner, wondering if her luck had finally turned with the mildly annoying discovery that Taichi was somehow even more popular than she was, a truth she wasn't ready to admit but was willing to accept as a convenient twist to her ultimate goal of the night. Even so, she considered the events of the past few weeks and turned to Koushiro while they waited for the third order.
"So is Sora…his security blanket or something?"
He laughed, a pleasant sound. "They've been friends ages. It's bound to get bumpy when you've known someone that long."
"Just friends." She meant it to be a question, but it didn't come out as one. Koushiro seemed kind enough to ignore it, or at least didn't seem to pick up the difference.
Instead, he was thoughtful. "I guess I always thought, sometimes, she—oh, no." He slammed his glass down hard enough for the froth the slosh off the side and flicker a little towards her, and she reeled back with a gasp. Koushiro was already gone, though, pushing his way into the group and snatching the shot glass from Taichi's hand amid a chorus of protests from goading onlookers. The girl with the maroon hair seemed particularly dismayed, slinging an arm around Koushiro's shoulders and ruffling his own red hair in a tease that made his skin match.
"Can I get a napkin, please?" asked Mimi, trying to shake the droplets off her shirt, and only then, really, noticing the extent of the flour she still seemed sprinkled everywhere with. Oh, let her get this out before Yamato sees, please, please, please—
"Mimi?"
Wonderful.
He turned her around with a raised eyebrow, towering before her. "Do you have on—?"
"Flour? Yes," she sighed, dropping her arms to her sides. "Don't ask."
Yamato closed his mouth, but the smile remained. "You still look nice."
"Still?" she teased, accepting a kiss to the cheek. "How honest of you."
He declined when the assistant bartender returned to them, turning away the offer for a drink, and Mimi noted again how the man didn't seem to recognize him. Her gaze traveled the barroom again to no productive return, though it wasn't lost on her that, by the time she'd turned back to her boyfriend, he'd been looking around, too.
He shook the wristwatch he wore down to a more comfortable angle, glancing quickly. "Ten minutes, right?"
"Fifteen or twenty."
"Mimi."
"We just got here," she said, waving at her barely touched drink.
"We being where?"
Mimi tilted her head towards the corner, chin jutting casually.
"Uh-huh," he observed.
"What?"
"He really hasn't changed." There wasn't a hint of dryness to his tone, nothing at all what she might have thought, or imagined. Sometimes, she was convinced Yamato was good in ways she'd never learn to be. "Still the center of any room he's in."
"Until I came along," she said.
The smile that broke across his face lifted everything from her. "Until you came along."
She let a moment slip by, savoring every second to it, before curiosity took over. "Did you know Sora then, too?"
He didn't answer right away, blinking slowly. "That is what's missing over there, isn't it?" he said, as though only now realizing the imbalanced scene.
"Apparently they've had a fight." She hesitated, "A pretty bad one."
She half-expected him to ask for details, or prod with another question, but Yamato said nothing at all. He just kept his quiet gaze on the group in the corner. Then he leaned back, his forearms resting on the bar. "I think mourning a friendship is something beyond language."
Mimi was quiet, moving closer to rest her cheek against his shoulder. Her gaze was fixed to the booth where the others were still congregated, watching the girl gesturing along to a story she was in the middle of telling him. Taichi was sitting silent with a hand braced along the hairline of his forehead, watching with a smile on his face. But even from where she stood, Mimi could see how tense he held himself, that brief second when he blinked a little too long and his face rolled just slightly into his palm, like he was trying to hide in plain sight.
She looked away, turning her chin so that it still lay on Yamato's arm but so she could look up at him this time. "Why didn't you want to come here?"
"Not about wanting." His head lilted towards her just a little, so they could keep speaking softly between themselves. "I'm honestly surprised it's even open. He doesn't keep regular hours."
"Takeru seems to know his hours. He's the one who told me."
"He's around a lot more than I am." This remark appeared to remind Yamato of something else. His gaze dropped down now to meet hers at last, the corner of his mouth lifting a little. "I'm sorry if I've been busy."
Mimi immediately shook her head. "I know things are stretched a little with work and balancing everything else. I do miss the band, though. That last gig was really good, I thought," she added with a smile, but he didn't seem to hear her.
His brow creased, hesitant. "I don't like the idea of you waiting for me."
She thought he was going to say something else and wasn't entirely sure that the look in his eyes didn't. Suppressing a shiver of confusion, she smiled brightly, standing up straight. She brought herself on tiptoe and even then could barely reach his kiss. "Well, that's too bad, Ishida, 'cause I'm gonna do what I want." She pecked him twice more in a quick, smacking play, finally teasing out a laugh. "Plus, I won't always be waiting. It's just another year."
"Right," he answered, like she'd meant it as a question. Before she realized this, he had already returned his attention to their group at the booth. "Should we join them, or head back?" he wondered aloud, observing the group try to goad Taichi and Koushiro into throwing back the rest of their beer like a contest.
Mimi didn't want to, and in fact wanted to ask Yamato more about Hiroaki, and their parents, and what 'right' meant, but she knew what the end of a conversation with him sounded like. Chewing her instinctual response, she stood beside him, mirroring his posture, then turned when she saw a figure approaching from the corner of her eye. "You go," she said suddenly, surprised she hadn't thought of this plan sooner, "and I'll bring the next round."
"Last round," Yamato corrected, and she rolled her eyes. He kissed her head. "Is that a new shampoo?"
She pushed her bangs back, shy in only the way his full attention made her. "Nope. Same old, same old."
Yamato cocked his head to the side, appraising her just a moment, and then with another honest smile left her to put in their order. Mimi waited until she saw him slip into the crowd before scooting to the far end of the counter, holding her breath. She took a seat at the barstool by the register and cleared her throat.
Freshly emerged from the backroom, Hiroaki glanced up at the sound without raising his head. Peering at her over the top of the reading glasses he'd taken to wearing when the light wasn't good, his mouth stretched down across his chin in an almost mirror copy of his eldest son's posture when she'd catch him by the surprise, too.
"Hi, I'm Mimi," she said, nearly chirping out her greeting.
Hiroaki flipped closed his ledger book, a flicker of recognition brightening his dark eyes. "Yamato's Mimi."
"Yes, we've met a few times." She leaned over the railing, perched on the edge of her stool. "He's with me, actually. We just stopped by with some friends."
"Ah," and he nodded, slow and firm. "Well, I hope you have a nice time. Let the bartenders know if there's something else you'd like to get."
Mimi murmured with enthusiasm, inexplicably anxious. "He'll be right back, I think, to come say hi."
This time, the smile reached his brown eyes, which were so unlike Yamato's full blues. "I'd be surprised," he said. "This isn't Yamato's favorite place of mine."
"You have other bars?"
He shook his head. "Other businesses, so I'm in and out, not very consistent about it, I'm afraid. This is the only bar though."
"That's impressive."
His eyebrow raised. "You'd be the first."
"I mean it," she insisted, sincere if nothing else. "It's a hard thing, you know, running your own business. I think it's really amazing. I actually," and she held her breath, "I used to imagine I'd have one, too. Something I could make all mine, no help."
Hiroaki smiled at her, a genuine expression. "We all need help."
"Not me," announced Taichi, pressing into the space between her barstool and the next unoccupied one. "I'm heading out. That whiskey is not sitting well."
Mimi suppressed a scowl of annoyance at how he always seemed to interrupt even her best laid plans, taking great pains not to look in his direction as he fished out his wallet and Hiroaki waved over the assistant bartender. The older pair switched places, the latter waiting for Taichi to slowly count out a few bills with little interest, and Mimi kept her scowl neat on the slim curve of her mouth until after the bill had been settled. "Are you going or not?" she said, surly, when it was finished, already plotting her next attempt to get conversation time with Yamato's family.
Taichi tapped the short edge of the worn leather wallet to the top of the bar counter, letting the coins inside jingle in the inside pocket. "You're gonna stay?"
"My boyfriend's staying, isn't he?"
"Remains to be seen," and Taichi made a show of gesturing back to the booth he'd just left, the first sure sign she had that he'd succumbed to the goading after all, the beer he'd chugged settling unpleasantly with the whiskey. But he didn't leave, and instead pulled himself tiredly onto the stool next to her, heaving a sigh as he rubbed his face. "Got tired of everyone asking me where she was. Honestly, there's no place around here apart from Sor except yours," and he jerked a thumb at her.
Mimi clicked her tongue, exasperated. "This is all getting quite tedious, you know."
"Don't need to tell me. This is the longest we've been off, and I'm running on empty." Shaking his head, he rubbed his bloodshot eyes, showing her for the first time how weighed he seemed to be this close. "Do you think Sora's ever going to talk to me again?"
"Someone will," Mimi said, taking a moment to answer to study the vulnerable slope to his bent shoulders.
His smile peaked out between his fingers. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm glad you do."
"Don't be too glad," she said, bringing her nose up. "Daddy told me I had to."
"And you do everything Daddy tells you, huh?"
"I told you, stop calling him—,"
"I know, I know." A finger stretched out to poke her cheek. "Just trying to get you to relax."
"Stop," she hissed, ducking out his reach.
He chuckled, holding his hand up. "Sorry, sorry."
She smoothed back her hair, flicking the loose strands from her neck to twist around shoulder. "Shouldn't you be going?" she demanded when he still hadn't moved, staring at her.
He blinked quickly, surprised with himself. "I am. Going home tomorrow, actually, for the rest of the week."
This, she hadn't expected. "Home, home?"
"Home, home."
"Oh."
He leaned forward. "So I need you to be straight with me, Tachikawa. Am I going to come back to a job, or no?"
And in spite of herself, she smiled, the smirk too honest to miss. "For some strange and beguiling reason, Daddy really likes working with you, and I don't think I could change that if I tried."
"We've got a pretty good thing going on," Taichi admitted.
"Don't tell my mother that."
"Your parents love each other."
"And that's a bad thing?"
"For you," answered Taichi, palm upturned in a dismissive gesture.
Her smile faded, and she frowned, staring as he tilted precariously on his stool. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Y'know," said Taichi, eyes closing for a moment, "how you were talking about grand gestures that time? How romantic 'n' everything you thought it was, how your parents invented it?" Mimi said nothing, moderately surprised by his memory in such a state. "You really seem to believe yourself."
She scoffed, "I repeat: that's bad?"
"For you." Taichi opened his eyes again, raising a finger. "Because he's not like that."
Mimi followed his stare to where Yamato was, in a conversation with Koushiro. Mimi felt all the good faith she'd been trying to show Taichi disappear. "What do you know how he's like?"
"Less him, more you." With an exhausted shiver, he pulled his arms back to his chest, crossing them carefully. "'s nothing to do with high school. Or since, before you. It's you. You're just…" and he trailed off, deciding afterwards to try another approach, like he'd confused himself with the rambling, drunken loop he was trying to connect. "I'm just saying, okay, that the more you keep trying to remake your parents' love story, the worse it's going to hurt when he's not it." The silence that stretched between them felt dull, tunneling, and his head turned to the side, his ear grazing the top of his shoulder. "Kou says whiskey makes me mean. And that was mean, wasn't it?"
"Yes." If she said it aloud, she didn't hear it, or anything, really.
He shook his head, still looking sideways at her with dimmed eyes. "Well, I don't want to be mean. I want to be wrong."
"You are," said Mimi, hearing herself this time. Her voice was flat but thick, breath heavy in her chest.
"Mm-mm," and Taichi sighed, eyes closing again. He went on, casual and dismissive, and, she realized with immutable disbelief, completely obtuse to what he'd just done to her. "Anyway. I'm heading out, so your plan to ditch us to get back your Sunday dinner routine, which was incredibly transparent by the way, can go down as a success."
"Fine."
He looked at her again, then seemed to think better of it, and began to slide down the stool. Without thinking, Mimi kicked his chair, and as he tumbled off, footing lost, his head struck the metal edge of the bar railing with a dull and unpleasant pitch.
Her voice rolled, "Tai—,"
In shock, he gurgled something he couldn't have deciphered even for himself. "Nn—m—,"
She scrambled down next to him, fear seizing control of every muscle. "Taichi—,"
"—m, fuh—," he was slurring now, turning over onto his side to breathe better. He pressed his palms flat on the ground to anchor his spinning head, only to find Hiroaki there, his hand under the base of Taichi's neck, holding firmly to keep him still.
"Just relax," Hiroaki was telling him, utterly severe when he adjusted his hand to cup the side of the young man's temple, and they both saw scarlet smear across Hiroaki's palm, and Mimi's heart reached her throat. She groped the bottom of Taichi's shirt, bunching the fabric between her hands, making the collar twist and tickle his neck, the one lone sensation in this strange spinning world that he could recognize.
"Ow—," he said with a sluggish laugh, but cut himself off when he heard Mimi burst into tears beside him. "Mim—," he gasped, squinting, but she didn't let go, even after Koushiro had rushed to crouch around them, the latter already taking Taichi's other arm around his shoulder to help him up. Hiroaki motioned for Koushiro to stay, keeping a hand under Taichi chin to tilt his head up and look at him, a task that Mimi's hold didn't make easy.
"What happened?" asked Yamato, reaching Mimi's other side.
"He tripped," said Hiroaki.
"Sitting down?"
"Yamato," interrupted Koushiro, warningly, because even in this he hadn't missed Mimi's tear-streaked face, or how she wouldn't look at anyone else.
"Daddy's going to kill me if I've killed him," she said to no one specifically, until Hiroaki, helping Taichi lean his back against the bar wall, answered her, "He's going to be fine. Okay? It's just skin that's scraped off, nothing deep," before turning to Yamato. "You have your car?"
"Yes, of course."
"Good. Taichi, we're going to take you to the hospital just to be safe. Okay?"
"No," he grunted, pushing himself off the bar wall, and immediately pitching to the side, his face colliding with Koushiro's chest.
Koushiro held him steady, leaving Hiroaki plenty of room to inspect him again, "No, it's not okay; no, you don't want to go to the hospital; or no, it's not good?"
"…No." He heaved, shuddering a long breath. His tongue still felt like a wad of cotton balls, but the slurring was dimming already. "I'm…fine, I'm just—just dizzy."
"Go start the car," said Hiroaki.
"I'm going, too," Mimi told them, wiping her face.
"Let's just get him outside," said Koushiro, urgent, and between the three of them, they prodded Taichi's unsteady legs up the stairs and onto the sidewalk, reaching the curb just as Yamato's car found a rolling stop a few paces past. It took longer than she would have expected to get him inside, all while insisting she stay in the backseat with him, Hiroaki handing her clean bar rags to press carefully to his temple, and Koushiro had a difficult time convincing Taichi to not turn about too much in his disoriented stupor. The only thing that worked, in the end, was holding Taichi's head in her lap, her back to rear passenger door and a leg crossed over the seat to cradle his neck, keeping the one hand holding the towel to the side of his head, fingers digging deep into the damp curls at his temple, and the other hand under his chin to force his head still.
"Sor…a," he muttered, and a glance out the opposite passenger door passed between her and Koushiro, who pulled out his cell phone, finger pads flying across screen.
"Kou, you coming?" asked Yamato, getting back into the car.
"Yeah," and he finished the text, hurrying around the front of the hood to the other front passenger seat.
"Let me know when you get there," Hiroaki told his son before shutting the rear doors. "Ask for Dr. Kido."
"Just a sec," Yamato said to Koushiro, clearing out two books that he had lying on the seat. "Dad, can you take the coffee cup?"
"Why are you drinking coffee this late? And why is your car such a mess? Do you ne—?"
His voice turned into something Mimi had never heard from him before. "Dad."
She snapped, her tone pitched unpleasantly, making Yamato glance at her in the rearview mirror, his face an utter blank. "Stop it. He's hurt."
"He's going to be fine."
The car lurched forward, picking up speed, and her panicked arms tightened around a mumbling Taichi, protective. "How could you possibl—?"
"It's fine," interrupted Koushiro, flinching at their raised tones, nervously filling the tense silence that answered him. "Look, I can make room, the car's fine. It's nice. Or something's nice anyway. My car isn't. Taichi always says that. Right, Mimi? It's a good thing we—,"
Taichi grunted, moaning something low. Mimi leaned over him, her loose hair pooling down across his forehead, still holding the cloth to his temple. "Taichi? Can you still hear me?"
He pushed her hand back from his skin, ignoring her, or at least not speaking to her, this time. "It's Mimi," he muttered. "That's what's nice. You're honey and shortbread."
"What's he saying?" called Koushiro, twisting around in his seat to peer back at them, reaching out a hand to Taichi's knee.
Yamato turned the car onto the freeway, "Can everyone just calm down—,"
Taichi's shin hit the back of the driver's seat like he was trying to kick it, and Koushiro yanked his arm out of the way just in time. "That's what's nice. And you should know that. You should be telling her that all the time."
Mimi grabbed his knee, holding it back before it could strike Yamato's seat again, struggling with the lanky, shifting weight of his limbs. He tried one final kick, his foot lodging into the space between the seat and the door, before Mimi pulled him upright. "Just sit there," she croaked out, voice hoarse from frustration with the night had turned into, while Koushiro's phone rang, and Taichi, for once, listened to her. He stopped moving but kept his fingers laced tight between hers, the pad of his thumb drawing line after line down the side of her hand, like a nervous tic, or a tether to keep his spinning head anchored.
They'd gone several minutes before she realized he was still talking under his breath, his voice so low and unfocused that she knew no one else heard him but her, and no one else was supposed to. "He should be telling you that all the time. That's what I know. He should be telling you that all the time."
Author's Note: THIS WAS SO LONG. HOW? WHY?
I hope everyone is faring well and healthy, and wish you all a happy new year.