This short story is slightly connected with the first one, but I can't really give a specific extra-context for it. I can't remember why and when I wrote this very little one-shot. I feel like I wrote it after having felt inspired from some twitter friend, because we all so often talk about Junzumi on there…And we also talk about my fankids, which is what this will be about. Actually Miranda (whose nicknames are Ran and Mimì) is the second kid of my Junzumi fanchildren. She is Here is 8, while Junpei is 42, instead. Ah, son! Ah son! Don't grow up so fast!
Context: Junpei is teaching Ran japanese writing because they are going to move to Japan soon. The kids can speak japanese of course, because that's the language they speak in their daily family life, but they can't write and read in japanese that well. Ran especially.
XXX
{ Their little tempest }
Occasionally, he pretended to be giving a furtive glance at the clock of the living room before quickly diving in his scores, hoping not to be spotted by lively green eyes seeming to be more interested in the nothingness of the air than the book they were in front of.
He went through that small ritual again, but this time he couldn't keep a couple of chuckles from escaping from his chest and making the whole table tremble at the consequent movements of his belly.
"Ehm, it's not me you should be looking at, you know?" Despite being aware he had been caught, he still managed to gobble those muffled hiccups down and wear the most rigid mask he could find. "You have got a long list of hiragana to pay attention to, Signorina . Su, su. "
" Va bene...Shibayama-Sensei," The girl made her orbs roll, the utter boredom laced with her voice sounding like being crawling on the wood surface along with her elbows.
Junpei silently sighed, his broad back relaxing against the chair and his chocolate-filled spheres descending on pages of notes and chaotic scribbles.
Peace seemed to have been restored in the atmosphere, but he knew he was just fooling himself, -at which he apparently happened to still be a master-. Actually, he started counting the passing seconds on the tips of his fingers until he arrived on his pinkie and…
"Do you think it's better to go to the park in the morning or in the evening ? Or in the afternoon because it's when the Sun isn't that high and won't make them feel too hot?"
"Ran".
"Once Zio Takuya told me flowers can take fire if out there it's too hot. It might be dangerous for them. Remember when Kou played football on the sand and burnt his feet? I don't want them to burn their…Their…What do you call butterflies' feet?"
"Ran, if you don't focus on your homework, we won't go anywhere," Just like this conversation isn't , He mentally slapped himself, so near to doing it for real due to her stubbornness. Where had she taken that attitude from?, He would often ask himself, before starting staring at the wall with a blank expression.
Hell if he didn't know who used to own, indeed, still owned a head that was made of a material as hard as bricks.
"You can't call them feet because they're like sticks."
"Miranda…"
She eventually huffed, more than just annoyed, a rebel blonde lock of hers flying onto her head before falling again.
"Oh, c'mon, Papà. You can't fool me," She winked at him, slipping closer while repeatedly blinking on purpose…And almost risking to fall on his lap, her chair following her by dangerously swinging in Junpei's direction. "You can't keep the Shibayama-Sensei act for more than two minutes."
He tried his best to look like if he was ignoring her words, attempting to grab onto the memory of a mad Izumi telling him he needed to be sterner to their daughter, much sterner.
…
…
" Otherwise she will start acting like a Ranamon, or worse, like a Calamaramon ! You remember what they were like, don't you ?" She had warned him on the phone, -in the middle of the night because timezones were so hard for them to deal with-. After he had told her about how the week had gone, the woman had flown off the handle.
" Uhm, no, our sweet fairy princess is not comparable with those creatures… "
" She will soon be if you keep on pampering her and doing whatever she asks you to do!"
…
…
"Moreover, it's Sunday, Papà," The girl highlighted, waking him up from grotesque images of humanoid frogs and cuttlefishes wearing make-up. He reluctantly followed her slender index falling on his musical scores, every trait of his comically contorting as he tried resisting to her attempts. "And you have been stuck on the same page since this lesson started."
She wasn't really that wrong about that, either, he had to admit: with a wince, he scanned the page before him and the random geometrical shapes he had doodled here and there. Like father, like daughter.
"Ah…! You got me! Okay, I give up. Who wants to study or, worse, work on Sunday? This is an universal sin," He exclaimed with too much emphasis and dramaticity, dropping the little book on the table with a thud.
"And this is not homework from school. It's not even fair," She closed hers with a satisfied smug.
Then, she approached him again and reached out. He held his breath without a specific reason and closed his eyes while her small hands pressed his round nose and ears.
"Ran, what-"
"Done! Now it's much better."
He blinked in confusion at his surroundings feeling slightly different and only understood what the kid had done when she waved the item she had grabbed in his face.
"I like you better when you are yourself, Papà," She chirped with sincerity giving him his glasses back. "You look like another person with your glasses on. I don't like it, okay? At all."
For some seconds, the corner of his lips trembled at that genuine outpouring he should have been used to after eight years. Ran really had no filters when it came to externating her opinions, no matter how blunt she could sound to others. Due to, -or thanks to?, He let himself wonder with affection-, that personality of hers, their days had never been the same. They had been a spinning wheel of thousand colourful shades, passing from the calmest blue to the most raging red. There were no doubts even Izumi adored the chaos Ran had turned their life in along with the trouble their other children didn't hesitate to stir up now and then.
He didn't want her to change in the slightest.
"You don't like me with glasses on," He mumbled with an amused smile.
"No, no. I hate you with glasses on because you remind me of when Zio Tomoki visits us and scolds me. Shibayama Sensei isn't Papà and Papà isn't Shibayama Sensei. That's it!"
"And it's a valid opinion, I guess," He sniggered as she patted her foot on the floor with determination.
"It absolutely is!" She did it again, probably feeling like he didn't really agree about what she had said. Well, Tomoki was a dear friend of his. He might be a bit stern, maybe even more than Izumi could be at times, but he wasn't sure about how he should feel at those comments. It wasn't like he could make Ran change her mind, though. He…Knew it from experience.
Therefore, what he could only do was to welcome her in the embrace of his arms, tacitly inviting her to sit on his thighs. She was too eager to go to the park and look at butterflies to accept that sudden cuddly moment, but she didn't complain, for his surprise.
"You know, Mimì," A chill delicately running up his spine, he shifted onto the sweeter nickname he himself had picked for her some days after she was born; Ran had been chosen by both Izumi and Kou because its characters both held the strength of a tempest and the kindness of a breeze. He prepared himself to say what he was about to, another row of chills, more intense than the first, taking over his huge body. Some memories…From Digiworld were still so vivid in his mind. "It's okay. You'll still be my fairy princess even if you'll start acting as a Ranamon or, worse, a Calamaramon. You might not like me with glasses on but I'm your Papà and I'll always love every aspect of yours".
"…Papà," Ran giggled under the weight of his chin. "This is why you don't study on Sundays. Mamma always says it too. Your brain will start working in a weird way, as if you have baked it in an oven!"
And Izumi might be right on that. That day having disagreed with her once had been too much for him.
XXX
Notes-
-" Signorina, su, su": Little Miss, chop chop.
- "Va bene": Fine.
- "Zio": Uncle.
