POV Midorima
London, Mexico, and Madrid head back without us. Quentin is disappointed again, but when I step along side of him, he smiles and cocks his head to one side.
"Dinner?" he asks. That's one word I always understand, and I am hungry. I nod.
"Come with me," he offers, and I follow him to the train station. Occasionally, I point to something and he says the word. It helps to hear his accent and the repetition of sounds my tongue has never seriously considered making before. His name is the largest of my challenges.
"Senpai, how do you say that in English?" I point to a pastry in the display on our way to the train.
"Donut." He grins and purchases two of them for us. Mine has pink icing on the top; it is sweet and sticky, but tastes very much like dango. "Our secret," he says and makes a shushing gesture with his finger. I nod.
"Hey? What does senpai mean in English?" he asks as we take the train boarding on the first platform. We sit across from each other and he licks frosting off his fingers.
"Senpai," I say, trying to think of an English word that makes as much sense, but if there is I don't know it.
"Person with more…" I stumble with my words, lost.
"You're doing good," he encourages. He is easier to understand with every sentence and I wish he'd talk more and let me listen.
"Example," I offer, "First year student is kouhai, student second year is senpai."
He considers this information.
"Only for students?"
"No," I say. "Player first year is kouhai, player second year is senpai." I should have begun with that example, but every English sentence that spills awkwardly off my tongue is practice.
"So, I'm older than you and I have more experience on the team, so I'm senpai?"
"Yes! Experience. Person with more experience." I am so utterly exhausted from trying to explain, that I sag back into the seat and he laughs.
We exit at the first station and take the stairs to street level. We pass a myriad of restaurants, and I even spy one in the distance called Ichiban, the name written in golden kanji. I don't care what it serves as long as the staff speaks Japanese, but we don't go that way.
He uses keys to unlock a door and holds it open for me, then stops in the hallway and gathers mail from a locked box. I'm nervous now; I've never been to a home in America and I don't know what is expected of me. I have no gift. I follow him up the stairs and when he walks into the apartment the first thing he does is take off his shoes. I can do that; I do that and place them next to his. I mutter a quick, "excuse the intrusion." I must ask Takao how to say this phrase in English the next time we speak.
"Where are my girls?" he calls out and I hear a chorus of giggles. As he leaves the hallway and enters into the larger open living room, someone rushes past him, and there is a hail of orange and blue foam darts sailing through the air. He ducks, bobs, and weaves and I am struck in the chest with a dart. It bounces and I snatch it out of the air before it hits the ground. Quentin tackles the sniper and is quickly hit with a barrage of pink darts from behind the couch. I stand in the doorway and watch the family play the game.
"Oh, Zave baby," says the woman he's pinned to the couch with tickles. She is struggling to get away from his fingers.
"I bring home a friend and this is how you treat me?" He chuckles and stands up enough to reach over the back of the couch and pick up the child behind him, flipping her over his shoulder and carrying her upside down.
"Midorima," he begins. He pronounces my name May-door-ra-ma, but since I can't say his any better, I don't correct him. "This is my wife Roxanne and this," he continues, spinning around so that the little girl's toes are at eye level, "is my brat Elizabeth."
"Good evening," I greet them, trying out a new phrase I have been practicing.
"Welcome, welcome," Roxanne says.
"Put me down, Daddy," Elizabeth cries.
"Midorima doesn't speak a lot of English, so we're going to help him practice," Quentin says and claps his hands.
POV Takao
I arrived home late from classes to find Kaori sitting on the front step, waiting for me. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, and I stopped, one foot hovering above the ground.
"What?" I demanded, probably sharper than I should have. "What's going on?"
"I miss Shintarō!" she said, and began sobbing.
"Oh," I said, exhaling and putting my foot down.
"He calls you. Why doesn't he call me?" she demanded in a whisper.
"He thinks you're still mad at him," I said, kneeling down so that I was on her level and patted her hair. "He asks about you, every time we speak. 'Has Kaori come out of her room?' he asks. He's hurt you haven't answered his emails."
Her head snapped up, and her green eyes, so much like his, held that same lost, awkward expression Shin-chan often has when complex emotions are the subject of conversation.
"What do you think he's doing now?" she asked, and rubbed her nose on the back of her sleeve.
"Can we talk about this inside, Kaori-chan? I've had an hour's commute, and I really want something to eat."
"Okay. Mommy made a plate for you."
"Awesome," I said. Kaori followed me into the house, shadowing my every step from the door, to the bedroom, up to, but not inside the bathroom, and then to the kitchen. I could feel her small hand, pressed against my back, and I wondered what Shin-chan had been like at thirteen. He'd been as tall then as I was now. He'd said, on more than one occasion, that I wouldn't have been friends with him at that age; I knew he was wrong. How old would he have been at her current height?
I sat down at the counter and unwrapped the plate of tonkatsu.
"Itadakimasu," I said, and dug in.
Kaori stared at me from her place across the counter. She had a can of red bean soup in her hand, and she was taking small, painful - if the expression was any indication – sips from it.
"You hate red bean soup," I said, "Why are you drinking it?"
"Because Shin-chan loves it," she said, and I watched her delicate fingers clutch at the can.
"Then do him a favor, and save those for when he gets home. Just leave it, and I'll finish it later."
"Okay," she said, bravely putting the can down. I'd drink it, because just like her, I wanted – no, craved – being close to him, and the taste of the soup would remind me of the taste of his lips.
"Can we talk while you eat?"
"Yes," I said.
"What do you think he's doing now?" she asked again.
"Well," I said, looking at the watch on my wrist which was set to New York time so I wouldn't have to do conversions. "It's about 7:30 in the morning on Tuesday. He's probably at breakfast."
"It's strange thinking that he's still in yesterday."
"Why haven't you answered his emails? He's said he's sent you one every day."
"I don't like his emails. They sound too impersonal."
"Here," I said, and handed her my phone. "He'll be calling soon. He always does on his way from breakfast to practice. He'll be happy to hear your voice. Just tell him I'll email him."
She took my phone as if it were something breakable and precious and held it with two hands. I continued trying to eat the dinner that until a minute ago had seemed so tasty, but now was dull and unappetizing in my mouth. Four minutes later, the ring tone for Shin-chan's New York phone, "Super Shooter" by RIP SLYME, loudly sounded in the silent kitchen. I hurt, down in the pit of my stomach, like someone had kicked me in the balls.
"Moshi, moshi," she answered, hesitantly. I could hear his surprised tone, but not his words as she talked over him. "Takao-kun said I could talk to you this morning…"
I took the dishes to the sink, and as I turned to leave, I saw Okasan standing in the doorway.
"You're an amazing young man," she said, and smiled. "You're great with emotional young girls and grumpy teenage boys."
"I've had a lot of practice, but yeah, I feel like an amazing jerk right now, because I want to take that phone out of her hand… so badly," I admitted.
"It was a huge sacrifice, letting Kaori spend those precious few moments with him, but you did the right thing." She came over and put her arms around me, pulling me into a tight embrace. I sighed into her hair, inhaling the crisp, clean scent of the same camellia and ginseng shampoo that she and Shin-chan used.
"I know," I said. "I'm a sucker for a Midorima, especially the green-eyed ones."
She pulled back and kissed me on the cheek. She smiled until I returned the gesture, and then let me go.
"Do you have a second?" I asked, as she turned to leave.
"I always have time for one of my children."
We went into the garden and sat on the bench in front of the koi pond. I kicked at the reeds and thought about what to say. With three moody teenagers under her roof, I wondered what Okasan was like as a younger woman, raising her first three children. But her age, her experience, her wisdom was what I needed. A younger woman wouldn't have been helpful in this situation.
"I'm failing a class," I admitted, and waited for the insults and attacks that never came.
"Which class?" she asked, and there was a gentleness in her voice that mingled with concern. I'd never heard a mother's voice speak like that before.
"Introduction to Sport's Management. It's like… the professor is speaking Korean. I know enough of the words where I should understand, but he's speaking in idioms that just don't make any sense."
"You're an excellent student, so this must be a very difficult class. What have you done about the situation?"
"I've talked to the professor, I've gone to the study groups, I've revised and studied, and I just haven't made any progress," I said, and kicked a small pebble into the pond. The three fish, Higuchi, Yoshihito, and Nomata, all came to the surface to investigate the disturbance.
"What do you think you should do?" she asked. She dropped fish food pellets into the water and three hungry set of lips fought over the little morsels.
"I have until Friday to drop the class, after that, if I don't bring the grade up, it will affect my scholarships."
"Drop it," she said, brushing the pellet dust off her hands, and closing the container.
"But I need this class if I'm going to be a Sports Management major." There was an ugly whine in my voice.
"If you don't like it, and you're not good at it, why are you forcing yourself into that major?"
"Because it will be help –"
"No," she said, turned towards me, and put a hand on each side of my face. "You can't live your life for Shintarō, any more than he can live his for you. If you don't do what you love, he won't be happy no matter what he's doing."
"But…"
"What would he say if he were here, right this moment."
"Baka," I mumbled, looking down at her lap. She let go of my face and crossed her arms across her chest, just like Shin-chan does when he's pretending to be mean.
"'Baka, how can I be happy, if you're not?'" she said, in a perfect imitation of his style and intonation. I snorted.
"That is what gives Shintarō strength," she said, pointing at my smirk.
"It will be okay?" I asked, "I've never had to drop a class. I've never gotten a bad grade before."
"You'll survive, Kazu-kun, and you'll find something you want to do that you love."
"Thank you," I said, as I sagged onto her shoulder. We watched the fish until Kaori brought me my phone.
"He said he'd text you during his lunch break," she said. She was so much like Shin-chan that I could tell by the flutter of her eyelids that she was happy. "Thanks, Oniisan."
Thank you to bkwrmnlvnit, for beta reading in the "clutch!"