Children tend to learn by example, don't they?

Oneshot, please pardon errors.

Little Ryo never cared much for manners or protocol, things that little Alice often nagged him on and on about. He was raised by strangers and sailors, men that Alice probably didn't deem "proper", and all he knew to do was look at the men around him, and mimic how they talked, and walked, and did things.

"Ryo-kun!" Little Alice excitedly burst through the pub doors, with a hop and a skip and a melody in her voice that Ryo was growing used to by now. "Hello! Missed me?"

"And how am I going to miss you when you're here everyday?" Ryo said, after delivering a steaming plate of food to one of the tables. "It's the lunch rush, honey. Can't you pick a better hour to drop by?"

"R-Ryo-kun!" Alice pouted, her cheeks turning red. "I told you not to call me by such impolite names!"

Ryo paused, as if genuinely confused for a moment and trying to think back on what he said. Oh. That. "Oh, babe. That was not impolite. I could call you worse things--not that I will, though."

"Geez! Ryo-kun, just be a proper young man and call me 'miss'! Didn't anyone ever teach you that?"

He unconsciously looked around the pub, at the chaos of the locals and sailors noisily eating their lunch and brazenly drinking alcohol in broad daylight.

"No, not really," he answered Alice. "I don't think it matters, either. Manners ain't gonna do anything to help my cooking."

In this world, being polite was a sign of weakness, an almost certain way to get stepped over. Despite being a boy, Ryo learned to assert himself, even if it meant yelling at men many times his age, and talking smack at them.

Alice gave a mighty big pout at this, the one that often reminded Ryo of a pufferfish. "Ryo! You're so mean! You'll never be a proper boy if you're like this. How are you going to be fit to be my aide?"

Ryo scowled. "What, that again? I don't recall signing up for that. And besides, you're not much of a proper girl yourself, Alice," he said.

The accusation made Alice gasp. "If you're a proper little lass," Ryo said, "what are you doing hanging out in a place like this, huh?"

"Ryo! How dare you? Take that back!" Alice whined, grabbing onto his arm and pouting right at his face. "You should be grateful I even visit you!"

Ryo just laughed at her, and in that moment, it sounded as if the rest of the pub laughed too.

Alice dragged him with her family the next weekend, to visit a local aquarium. Ryo groaned that he saw enough fish already at work, but there was no saying no to Alice Nakiri.

"Ooohh, what fish is that, Ryo-kun?" she asked, with wide eyes, pointing at the aquarium.

"That's a croaker," Ryo said, after getting a careful look at where Alice pointed. This was the third time Alice was asking this. It almost seemed like she was quizzing him, but Ryo didn't mind.

"Atlantic croaker... Micropogonis Undulatus," Soe Nakiri said, walking with his wife Leonora, behind Ryo and Alice.

Ryo was a little confused. He wasn't sure what the man was saying. Maybe he was translating the fish names into some weird foreign language, Ryo thought.

"Oh! Oh! What about this one? What's this one, Ryo-kun?" Alice jumped a bit, now pointing at another fish.

"That's a herring," Ryo said, "That should be simple enough, even for you, Alice."

Alice simply giggled at him. Ryo had the impression she knew what fish it was, and was just testing him.

"Pacific, or Atlantic?" Leonora suddenly asked. Ryo turned around, realizing she was asking her husband.

"Atlantic, obviously," Soe said. "Stop quizzing me, dear."

Leonora playfully slapped a hand onto Soe's arm, and laughed. "I was just wondering who knew more about fish between you and Ryo-kun! You can't have a little boy upstage you."

"I have a few dozen years of a leg up against Ryo-kun, don't you think? That's not a fair competition."

"Let's do it," Ryo immediately said. The idea that someone looked down on him for his age was something he was not going to let go.

But Alice immediately crushed his ego when she pointed to a non-edible sea creature, and he had no idea what it was. The fishermen didn't haul it over, and he had no familiarity with fish that didn't go on a chopping board.

"We should get you a book, if you want to learn more about sea creatures," Soe told him, smiling kindly. "They probably have a store around here, so let's go find it."

"Ohh! Ohh!" Alice jumped up and down excitedly. "A sea creature book! Like, 'The Little Mermaid'."

Her parents giggled. "That's... not what I had in mind, Alice, but we could get that too, I suppose. Let's get going, then," Soe said, walking ahead to hold open the door for his wife.

"Aww, Nassan, you're such a proper gentleman," Leonora said, sounding happy and pleased.

Ryo's ears almost perked up when he heard this. The proper gentleman...

A proper gentleman is how Soe Nakiri treated his wife.

Ryo only had one example in his life when it came to being a proper gentleman--that was, Alice's father. He commanded respect, even if he was not as rough or as much of a brute as the usual male folk that went to Ryo's tavern.

Leonora Nakiri almost always sounded so pleased with him, so he must be doing something right--unlike the quarreling couples Ryo often sees at the bar.

If Alice wanted this "proper gentleman", Ryo thought, she probably knew what it meant because of her father.

"We're going to a fancy dinner, Ryo!" Alice yelled, barging into Ryo's room without so much a knock or warning. He lived at their house now, which meant Alice was always just there, in the next room, and saw it fit to bother him whenever she wanted to.

"Huh? What's the occasion?" Ryo asked, as Alice walked straight to his dresser, and chucked out plain black shirt after plain black shirt. "Alice, I just folded that," he moaned.

"Don't you have something like, with buttons?" Alice asked, digging around the dresser some more. "There's no occasion, we're just gonna go out to eat! People do that once in a while, you know."

He didn't feel inclined to tell her that Leonora bought him a blue button-down shirt a few days ago, but she found it anyway, along with a pair of dress pants that he was never going to wear because it looked too nice. She thrusted the clothes into his arms. "It's a fancy place, so we have to look nice and proper, okay? Mom said we leave in an hour, go get dressed, ok?"

Without waiting for a response, Alice left, humming excitedly to herself as she did.

Ryo groaned, but put on the clothes as asked anyway. He was also curious about what a 'fancy' dinner was like.

When the car stopped right outside the restaurant, Ryo had to admit he felt relieved that he put on the clothes Alice asked him to--they were on the expensive side of town, where ordinarily he wouldn't even think about stepping onto. The restaurant before them was in such a well-kept building, with an equally well-manicured lawn and garden, and people in equally expensive cars trying to find a parking spot. He was stunned at how much of a different world it was.

"The waiting list to get a table takes like, forever," Leonora said, fixing her hair as she looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror. "Thank goodness one of my friends gave me their reservation slot! We should give them something nice in return, Nassan."

"I'll bring something back from my next trip to Japan," Soe said, finally finding a spot and hitting the car into park. "Alice, Ryo, we're here now."

The next thing Ryo knew is he heard the sound of the car door unlocking, and then the click of the seatbelt being unbuckled. Then something inside him clicked, and he also unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car.

The next thing Soe Nakiri knew is that as he got up to open the car door for his wife, he saw young Ryo do the same for Alice.

Alice looked every bit confused. "Huh? Ryo-kun?"

Ryo held out a hand to her. And then he said, almost begrudgingly:

"Let's go... miss."

Alice smiled widely, and took his hand. He helped her carefully hop down from the car, and didn't let go of her until she was steady on her feet.

"...Where did he learn how to do that?" Soe asked himself, watching the two children carefully, Alice undoubtedly teasing her playmate.

"Gee, I wonder where," Leonora said, as she took the hand Soe offered her, and she stepped down from their car and shut the door behind her.

end.

a/n:

Belated! Happy Fathers' Day chapter too y'all.

Back when soe wasn't revealed as a character yet and was just a vague silhoutte in Leonora's food reaction my bf said he suspiciously looked like Ryo. He's convinced it was intentional. My bf will die on that hill.

It gets even sussier that timeskip! Alice and Ryo adopt hairstyles closer to Leonora and Soe--hers much longer and his much shorter.

This fic has no schedule for updates. It has no apparent end in sight. It will just randomly resurrect from the dead now and then when I get a random aliryo brainrot.