Title: Mama's Boy
Summary: Whether you want her to be or not, Mom is always there for you.
Word Count: 759
A/N: I decided to upload something for Mother's Day, since I do it for Father's Day (that was seriously my rationale for this, I'm not kidding). So, you get a drabble in honor of the day.
For all the mommies out there. Enjoy.
He's still hungover when his mother calls him at eleven and starts babbling about how happy she is for him.
No more challenging the old man to a drinking contest, Saitou decides, holding a pack of ice to his aching head as he sits on the side of his bed, the blinds tightly drawn because today, light of any and all kinds is his mortal enemy.
"Oh Haji-chan, I've been going to the temple and praying for something like this for you for the last year," his mother gushes.
He sighs quietly, his manly pride taking a direct hit at being called by his childhood nickname. But he doesn't say anything, because this woman is his mother, and he supposes—though he is not entirely happy to admit this even to himself—that she is entitled to use the nickname after spending an entire day in labor with him while he decided whether or not to come out of his own volition.
Revenge of a motherly slant, if you will.
"Something like what, Mom?" he asks, feeling tired and queasy and not really up to a conversation, but ignoring a phone call from his mother just didn't happen.
He's not quite a mama's boy (like Okita, for example), but he's pretty damn close.
"Tokio-san, silly boy."
Time kindly pauses while Saitou's head explodes.
"What?" he asks after a few stunned seconds; the ice pack has fallen on his foot, but since he's got bigger concerns than a slowly-developing case of frostbite right now, he ignores it.
"Tokio-san," his mother says, uncertain now. "That is her name, isn't it? I'm positive that's the name your father told me—"
"Whoa, wait a second, what are you talking about?"
"That nice girl you're seeing," his mother says, the uncertainty more present in her voice.
"I'm not seeing anyone, Mom," he says.
"Well then who's Tokio-san?" his mother asks, now completely bewildered.
"She's a friend of mine," he says, rubbing a hand over his face.
"Your father said she sounded like more than a friend," his mother replies.
"Dad's crazy, Mom," he says flatly.
"Hajime," she chides.
"Look, Mom, trust me, I'd tell you," he says.
"Would you?"
He decides to ignore her suspicious tone—she knows him better than anyone else, so the doubt is entirely justified.
"Yes, Mom," he says patiently.
"Oh," she says, then sighs, and Saitou feels a pang of regret for bursting her bubble; if he didn't know for a fact that she'd demand he bring Tokio to the house for dinner that very night, he'd have let her live on in blissful ignorance.
"I'm sorry Mom," he feels compelled to say.
"Oh you don't have to apologize Haji-chan," she says, voice warm. "I'm just disappointed for your sake—it's about time you found a nice girl."
"I'll look harder," he says, though he knows he won't—he's already found a nice girl that he knows his mother would love, and not just because it's been a while since he brought a girl home to meet his parents.
His mother laughs, and he grins a little.
"I'm sure you will," she says. "And I'll keep praying at the temple for you."
"Mom," he whines (though he will never admit that he does, in fact, whine on occasion, and usually with his mother).
"Haji-chan, you need all the help you can get," his mother says.
The fact that his mother is a very sweet woman who doesn't mean for that to sound as horrible as it comes out keeps him from being hurt.
Much, anyway.
Despite that, he offers to take her out to lunch, even though his head is still killing him and the mere thought of food makes him gag—his parents don't go out to eat much, and he doesn't mind spending the money on the woman who changed his diapers for the first year of his life. And he keeps his peace about the temple thing; it's a little embarrassing that his mother is praying for a wife for him, but he decides he can deal with the embarrassment (so long as no one outside family knows about it, and even then, he'd prefer that the family not know—this was perfect blackmail material).
It gives her something to do, and it's not like he believes that crap actually works anyway.
He's willing to concede, a year later, that there may be something to the hokum when Tokio finally starts taking his advances seriously.
Mothers did tend to know about these things, after all.