bored411: This fic is going to reach soap opera levels of drama, no worries. Thanks for the review!
Akari Wolf Princess: Pretty much! Kyoya still isn't happy at it, but he's reached a kind of acceptance now. Not at the point where it doesn't still sting, but at the point where he can focus less on the unfairness/disappointment/bitterness and more on how to make the most of the situation. Obvs romantic feelings don't just evaporate like that, but it's progress. Thanks!
Nana-san14: Thanks for all your reviews! Answers are coming, along with truckloads of drama. This is going to be a long fic and I'd say we've just barely gotten a third through it.
"We have to go home."
Minami and Hitsuji are holding onto both of her hands when Kosuke stops, so abruptly that they are jostled backwards. Minami makes a little annoyed sound, but Hitsuji just blinks up at Kosuke, the tip of his index finger tucked between his lips. His hair has grown into an unruly bush again, and Minami's is almost too long to tame now. Even Kosuke could use a trim, but she'd refused to schedule any haircuts today.
Today was The Day. THEIR Day. Fun Day. Big Day. Everything Day. The day that was all about them, the day where there would be no parties, no shopping, no responsibilities—just the three of them out and having fun.
They'd called it so many things throughout the week, fast with excitement, smiling and fidgeting in their seats for it as though it were a gift beneath the Christmas tree. All week, when Kosuke asked, This'll be fun, huh? Hitsuji had answered, Uh-huh! When she said, Are you excited? He had exclaimed, Yeah!
Now they are exactly sixteen steps into it and he wants to go home.
Kosuke bends down to him, feeling his forehead and finding no heat. "Do you feel bad?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Did you forget something at home?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Then why do you want to go back?"
He shrugs.
Kosuke nibbles on the inside of her cheek but tries to do nothing else. She has seen many phases between him and Minami, probably more than Emiko or Marti had ever seen. There has been Hitsuji's Everything is a Coloring Page phase, Minami's Refuse to Wear Matching Shoes phase, and of course, on-again off-again Sass Machine Phases.
Now Hitsuji is in a particularly rough phase that Kosuke had dubbed the My Way phase.
It manifests in many ways. He may not be using a crayon, but Minami can't use it, either. Kosuke will be on the phone and Hitsuji will tell her to stop talking. Minami asks to have orange juice instead of apple juice, and Hitsuji tells her no, she can't. No why—just do it.
Where did this love for making demands come from? Kosuke doesn't know, but she's counting the seconds until it is over. It almost always ends in a tantrum when his subjects do not obey, and today is also No Tantrum Day.
"You want to miss going to the zoo?"
He shuffles. "No."
"Then we should go to the zoo, huh? That'll be fun, right?"
"Yeah."
"If we go home, then we can't go to the zoo. So we can't go home."
Hitsuji accepts this with a stomp and a harumph! This is the only tantrum alternative, and Kosuke takes it happily.
"This'll be fun, Hitsuji," Minami tells him in her best big-sister voice. She's the first to start walking again, tugging the chain of siblings forward. "Are we almost there?"
"Almost!" Kosuke unfolds her map with one hand, trying not to bounce too much. She thinks she's more excited than they are.
Since coming to Shigeo's mansion, there has been no shortage of new responsibilities for Kosuke, but Hitsuji and Minami always come first and foremost. It's a relief that they're enjoying school. It's a relief that they're making friends. And it was a relief that when they took their weekend trip back home, they did not protest when they left.
Even so, Kosuke had been hit with an ironic realization during a particularly long night of homework: that even though her siblings were the reason she even agreed to all of this in the first place, she'd hardly been spending time with them. At least when their lives were stuck on a downhill slope, they were united. Her job at the grocery store did not require many hours, and the only homework to speak of were multiplication tables on one-sided sheets. Now they spend maybe two or three hours together each evening, if that.
Kosuke refused to give up hope, though, and thus had put this fantastical day on her calendar—in stone.
First they were going to go to the Miyake Zoo, then to a five-star restaurant that sold desserts bigger than their heads, and then to ferry that would take them around the Tokyo Bay. The only hurtle Kosuke is expecting today is dragging two half-asleep children back into their beds at the end.
"Look, there it is! There it is!"
Hitsuji and Minami take off, and Kosuke almost calls out for them, but then thinks why not? and just joins them. At the gate of the zoo, great copper animals stand sentry—a galloping zebra, a roaring lion, an elephant rearing its trunk back. Hitsuji pushes his head between the lion's gilded fangs, and Minami tries to do an elephant trumpet—bfphrrr! bfphrrr!—as she whips her arm-slash-trunk through the air.
"I can't do it right," she complains to Kosuke. Her lips are wet with spit. "How do you do it again?"
Kosuke trumpets the best that she can, the same trumpet that would make the newborn Minami shriek with delight when Kosuke bounced her elephant stuffie in front of her. Now Minami tries to imitate her, and Hitsuji, too, until saliva is exploding into the air, sounding less like elephants and more like balloons losing oxygen. Kosuke laughs until she sees a family walking by, staring at them with wide eyes, the mother even pulling her youngest closer to her.
"Okay, okay, that's enough." Kosuke reaches into her backpack for her wallet. "Now remember we have to stick together, okay? No running off."
"I'm going to lead!"
Suddenly Hitsuji takes off and bullets through the turnstile. He's about to turn a corner, out of sight and to who knows where—Kosuke tries to be stern, tries to be authoritative, but she knows the only thing in her voice is fear when she calls his name.
He stops, but stomps his foot, whines high-pitched and warning. "I'm going to lead!"
"We have to buy tickets, Hitsuji. Come over here."
Hitsuji barely comes closer, but stays still while Kosuke pays—the security guard watching her with nothing but judgement. The millisecond she and Minami are on the other side, Hitsuji turns right back around and marches forward to lead them into battle. "Now I'm going to lead."
In the next ten minutes he walks too far ahead five times, and each time when Kosuke calls for him to slow down, that yes he can lead but he can't go that far, he lets out another whine. Kosuke might drop if it she wasn't certain he'd run the perimeter of the globe once loose.
Minami stays by her side, and when Hitsuji is close enough to not get a warning but far enough not to hear, she whispers to Kosuke, "Maybe we should go home after this. He isn't in a good mood today."
It honestly breaks Kosuke's heart, not that Minami is too busy worrying to relish the zoo, sacred land to all children, but how mature she sounds about it. Not I don't want him to ruin the fun, but I'd rather go home than deal with the trouble.
"Don't worry." Kosuke squeezes Minami's hand and stops for just a second to snag a map from a stand. Each enclosure on the map marks when her siblings will laugh and be happy and be the children they are meant to be. "He'll be in a good mood reaaaal soon."
Hitsuji does not get into a good mood at all.
Neither does Kosuke. Or Minami.
"Not again!"
Minami presses her hands to the glass with such cinematic despair that it would've been funny if Kosuke wasn't doing the exact same thing. On the other side of the glass there are boulders and tall grass and a rock-lined pond. There is not a lion inside, but a lion's tail, just barely peeking out from behind one of the boulders and lazily swishing about in slumber. The lion on the DID YOU KNOW? board looks livelier.
It was the same with the monkeys, the giraffes, and the tigers. The most excitement they'd gotten so far was when a gorilla, far in the distance, flopped over to lay on its other side. Even in the reptile house, the snakes were no more than scaly curls tucked into the corners. They had come right in the middle of the zoo-wide naptime. Perhaps the otters, Minami's personal favorite, would have been awake—if their tanks were not empty to be cleaned, which just seemed like a twist of the knife.
Hitsuji starts to pound his fists on the glass, and Kosuke pulls him away. "No, no, hon, don't do that."
"He isn't doing anything," he bemoans, utterly betrayed.
"Well, let's give him a minute." A minute goes by. The tail disappears behind the boulder, too. "Oh, come on."
Hitsuji plops down on the ground and pouts ferociously. Harumph! Minami keeps her nose pressed to the glass but finds no answers to her prayers. Kosuke is tempted to join them for a little pity-party. An hour of walking around in this heat and barely a feather or a tail to show for it.
"Maybe we just came on a bad day! At least the next time we come, we'll know where everything is!"
No response from Hitsuji, and Minami's is just an acknowledging glance.
Yeah. It's supposed to be The Big Day, not The Big Maybe Next Time. Kosuke starts turning in circles, desperate. There is no way a zoo can be this miserable. She'd take a common bird picking crumbs off the walkway at this point.
Finally! There, down the path, Kosuke sees pink feathers, S-shaped necks, and long legs. "Hey, guys! Look! The flamingos!"
That perks Minami right up. She springs off the glass, fists already pumping, mouth already smiling.
"I don't like flamingos."
Minami skids to a stop. Not sighing is a hard battle for Kosuke to win. She knows this state. The state of Nothing can make me happy now, let me just be miserable. The absolute last state that any child should be in at the zoo, period, but especially not Kosuke's little brother, and especially not today.
"You don't want to just look at them for a little? They're the only animals that are really doing anything."
"No!"
Minami is squeezing her fingers around her wrist, and that just makes Kosuke's stomach plummet another hundred feet. It is how Minami waves her white flag.
"Well, Minami wants to look at the flamingos, and I do, too. Just come over and you can sit down while we look."
"I'm leading!" Hitsuji stands up at last, but only to stomp his foot again. He stands so sure, so determined, like he's the powerful hero standing up to the villain and not a five-year-old wearing his camouflage sneakers. "We're not going to the flamingos!"
In Kosuke's chest, anger sparks a fire and sends smoke up her throat. It'd be so easy to let that smoke out, as easy as every other time—when she found the wall covered in crayon again, when he tried to grab her phone while she was talking with Haruhi. Kosuke could come down on him like hellfire. Call him spoiled, call him a brat, tell him that she's sick and tired of him acting like this. Guardianship has given her the power of a god.
Instead of a volcanic eruption, though, Kosuke is only allowed a wisp of smoke. They are not children. He is a child and she is an adult.
Just as she's about to let that wisp out, to tell him that this all-hail-Hitsuji behavior ends here and now, Minami says, "It's okay. I don't like flamingos, either. Can we go to the gift store now?"
Hitsuji gives his permission, and charges forth once again.
Kosuke doesn't know what to be more upset about: this absolute flop of a zoo trip, or that Hitsuji's inflated five-year-old ego just got another pump. She looks down at Minami, unamused.
Minami is already sighing, "The rest of the day can still be fun."
Kosuke is absolutely not going to let this slide, but she has to choose the battleground, not the battle. Keep going and let Minami be disappointed, or go back to the flamingos and have Hitsuji squall for eternity?
Did Mom and Dad ever have to deal with this? Did I ever make them?
"Alright. Come on." Kosuke twines their fingers again. "But don't do that again, alright? He's going to think he'll win every time he does that."
Minami says nothing. Disagreeing, maybe, but Kosuke can't reply without something to reply to. Inside the gift shop the tension melts away. Minami and Hitsuji fly between the stuffed animals and the safari hats and even the keychains. Minami is forgiving and Hitsuji is forgetful. In the end they walk out with a safari hat, a snowglobe, and a lemur that clings to Hitsuji's neck with Velcro hands.
"Where are we going now?" asks Minami, code for I'm hungry. Kosuke had been steering them away from popcorn and ice cream all morning, knowing their stomachs had to be empty for the titanic desserts at the restaurant.
"Well, who's hungry?"
Minami and Hitsuji stretch their fingers to the sky. "Me!" "I am!"
"Okay, but how hungry are you? I need you guys to be reeeeaaally hungry."
Hitsuji spreads out his arms as wide as he can, straining with the effort and smacking against a light pole. "I'm this hungry!"
"Minami?" She does the same. "Fantastic. It's just a little walk away from here."
The relief is intoxicating. Kosuke wants to bottle this feeling so she can drink it later. The day isn't ruined; it's just off to a rough start. Marti used to say that a bad day makes for a good story, and though Kosuke will make sure this day is fantastic, she knows Hitsuji and Minami will adore telling their classmates of how every animal at the zoo was asleep, every one, even the lions!
Besides. How could a lunch at one of the best restaurants in Tokyo possibly go wrong?
"Reservation?"
"Yes, ma'am. Which name was it under?"
Kosuke looks away from the host—the host?!—through the open door behind him, wondering if this is what sinners experience when they can see heaven just behind the golden gates.
Past the ivy and the cobblestone, there is the smell of fresh bread and warm sugar, the sound of porcelain cups on saucers. Everything is in colors of honey and gold, a slice of autumn in the summer. A waiter passes by with a platter of the largest cupcakes Kosuke has ever seen, topped with strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries, all so fresh they seem to be growing right out from the buttercream.
The children see it, and start dancing in place—in awe, in wonder, in total ignorance to what a reh-zer-vay-shun even is.
"No, I've—I've been reading the website all week, it never said anything about needing a reservation."
"Oh, it does! But it's in teeny-tiny text right at the bottom!" The host laughs—like this is funny—and squeezes his index finger and thumb together. "This isn't the first time this has happened!"
"Then don't you think you should change that?"
"Oh, you know!" He waves a hand. Kosuke thinks her eyes are about to roll out of her skull. "Unfortunately, I'm afraid a reservation is the only way you're going to be able to dine with us."
All of Kosuke's organs have turned into cement. This is impossible. She's not that stupid, is she? All the photos and the reviews for the restaurant made it seem glorious, a classy but family-friendly restaurant…but nothing had implied it was reservation-level classy.
Inside, a tinkling bell chimes, and to Kosuke it sounds like the restaurant is laughing at her. Hitsuji's dancing has turned to squirming. He looks at Kosuke and the door and back again, curls flying.
"Is there any way we could manage to get in today?"
"Hold on." The host flips through the book spread out on the podium. "There is one slot today that hasn't been filled yet."
"Oh, that's wonderful! When is it?"
"Midnight tonight!"
The host keep smiling. Kosuke does not.
"I can't help but feel like you're enjoying this."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but if you have no reservation then we won't be able to serve you today. Could you please step out of the line?"
He gestures behind her, and the "line" consists of two older women, maybe sisters. Kosuke steps aside, the children with her, but the women are glaring at her, like how dare she make them wait fifteen seconds, how dare she not have a reservation? Kosuke glares right back at them, and the godforsaken host while she's at it. Then she leads the children away from heaven's gates.
Fine. Fine! It probably wouldn't have been fun to eat at such a stuffy place anyway. What kind of host delights in pissing off a potential customer? And why would that reservation notice be so small? And why say 'we have an open reservation today' and then say it's at midnight?! MIDNIGHT IS TOMORROW!
The further they walk away, the faster Hitsuji's head turns until his neck is almost doing a full 360. "Why're we walking away?!"
"Listen, you two." Kosuke pulls the two of them before her. Her best look-at-me voice doesn't work. Hitsuji's eyes only look back at her to marvel at how stupid his sister is, can't she see that the best place on earth is behind her? "I made a mistake. I'm sorry. We're not going to be able to eat there today."
"Why?" Minami asks through the knot twisting her face together.
Kosuke tries to explain, tries to say, "You have to tell them way ahead of time that you're coming," but Hitsuji drowns her out with a wail of despair. "But I wanna eat there!"
"I do, too, buddy, but we just can't, okay? I'm sorry. We just have to find somewhere else to eat. There are tons of places around! Maybe someplace even better!"
Hitsuji crosses his arms. Harumph!
Kosuke chews on her lip until it's like to bruise, but she can't blame him. If only she hadn't let him get a look inside first. She feels cruel for it, like shaking a treat at a dog and then throwing the treat in the trash. She'd be ticked off at herself.
Stupid restaurant, stupid host, stupid reservation. This day was supposed to be 100% Fun and so far it has barely reached a meager 6%.
"It'll be fun." Minami's optimism sends a shock through Kosuke. She should be silent with misery, not chirping with hope. "We can find a whole new restaurant! Like an adventure."
Harumph!
Minami and Kosuke exchange a look, which is as comforting as it is unnerving to Kosuke, that her eight-year-old sister is also her comrade. They start to walk—Minami and Kosuke, that is. Hitsuji stays rooted. So Kosuke picks him up and carries him. He doesn't even protest that Minami is leading now, because leading means surrendering.
They wander the streets, restaurant after restaurant, until Kosuke's feet begin ache and her stomach growls in warning. Time and again Minami stops and points past a canopied window or a chalkboard sign and asks, "What about this one?" Hitsuji does not say a word, glowering into the crook of Kosuke's neck, and they keep walking.
They make it to number seven, a small Italian place with a smiling mustachioed man stenciled on the door, and Kosuke's hunger, exhaustion, and patience finally lose. Hitsuji harumphs as they go in, harumphs as they sit down, harumphs when the waitress asks what the 'little guy' wants and harumphs when Kosuke orders for him. His harumphing only stops when the food comes and his mouth is too busy to pout, his hands too busy to cross.
It's not bad. It's tasty, and the children love Italian any day. But the tablecloths are sticky, the chittara battente music too loud, and the smell of garlic and tomato quickly sours from appetizing to nauseating. They serve exactly one dessert of tiramisu, and once they hear that, the children shake their heads vehemently, because they know that means coffee and coffee is rat poison. No gigantic cupcakes today.
Some kind of dessert is needed, though, so they stop at an ice cream cart not far from the restaurant. Hitsuji wants an orange cream pop and Minami wants the same.
"No," Hitsuji protests, "you have to get something different!"
Kosuke's head snakes back on her shoulders. "Minami can get one, too, Hitsuji. It doesn't matter."
"No! We can't get the same thing!"
Quick as a bullet, Minami tells the vendor, "Can I get a strawberry popsicle?"
Kosuke stands there, blinking and stupid and useless. Minami is waiting, Hitsuji is preening, and the vendor is watching her—and for some reason Kosuke prefers the zoo guard's judgmental glower than this vendor's pitying frown. Kosuke is a sight that makes people both angry and sad—a young parent trying but failing to control her children.
Kosuke asks for a peach popsicle, still angry at that stuffy restaurant, angry at the sleeping animals in the zoo, and angry at Hitsuji but only because of the teeny-tiny, very petty reason that she also wanted an orange cream pop. She is frustrated with his behavior—not frustrated, angry—because being angry at your young child can be a very slippery slope.
They sit on a bench to eat, and no one complains, but that is such a low bar they might as well be crying.
Some of this is out of your control, Kosuke tells herself as she chews on the cold popsicle stick, wood mixing with peach, but some of this was on you. Should've accounted for the animals being asleep, should've seen the reservation notice…
Maybe she's scared that this day is just the manifestation of their lives right now. Rich but not happy, safe but not having fun, together but distant. Sometimes when it rains Kosuke prays for a flood, and prays that Shigeo's endless mansion will have the electrical integrity of all Karuizawa homes and go dark at the first raindrop. Then they'd have No Lights.
Kosuke shakes her head so suddenly and quickly that Minami asks, "What's wrong?" and Kosuke says, "There was a bee," and Hitsuji asks, "Can I have your stick?" and Kosuke says "Sure," and Hitsuji licks up the last bit of peach juice and Minami says, "Ew," and Hitsuji says, "What?" And Kosuke laughs.
The day is not ruined. She wishes she could stand in front of her own body just so she can slap herself, shake herself by the collar. The day is not ruined! It is only miserable if she lets it be miserable! A pity party is not in the itinerary!
"Alright, are you guys ready to get going again?"
Minami stands to her feet. Hitsuji hops off the bench with such ferocity he almost launches right into the street, and a heart attack was also not in Kosuke's itinerary, but here they are.
While Kosuke is still recovering, Minami asks, "Now what are we doing?"
"Can we go back to the zoo?" Hitsuji pets his little lemur stuffie. Orange cream has fallen right above its big cartoony smile. "I want to see if the animals are awake now."
"No, we'll go back to the zoo another day."
"But I want to go back today."
This time Kosuke ignores him, in high hopes a good attitude will make him forget. "Do you guys know what a ferry is?"
They both stick their hands way up, eager for teacher to call on them, but Hitsuji can't wait. "It's a little person with wings!"
"Well, yes! You're not wrong!" Kosuke ruffles up his curls. "But I mean the other kind of ferry. Minami, do you know it?"
"It's a little boat, right?"
"Mm-hm! We're going to go on one!"
Kosuke starts walking, and the children follow suit until Hitsuji realizes he's following suit and charges ahead to make his sisters follow suit instead. As his little legs march, he calls to Kosuke, "Where's the boat taking us?"
"All over the bay."
Hitsuji stops still. "Are we going to see pirates?!"
Frozen with fear, Kosuke looks left and right, looking for the hook hand and the eyepatch. She can only muster up the courage to whisper, "Maybe."
Hitsuji is quaking in his shoes, a bundle of terror and excitement, and if he actually knew where they're going, Kosuke is positive he'd be unstoppable. For now Kosuke watches him writhe on an invisible leash, and when Minami asks, "I thought pirates weren't real?" Kosuke gently shushes her.
Honestly, out of everything else today, this was something Kosuke had been looking forward to the most. They'd been on a ferry ride before, but back when Minami and Hitsuji were too young to even say ferry and not feh-wee. She remembers holding Minami on the seat so she could see the waves better, how the floor swayed beneath their feet, Marti holding his son with one arm and using the other to squeeze his wife's hand.
This day is about all three of them. It's about spending time together as a family, having fun and making memories—and more than that, it's about proving that all the hardships they've endured have failed to divide them.
Today is about proving something else, though, and Kosuke isn't proud to even think it because she should be confident in it by now.
She needs to prove that she's doing this right. Years from now, when Minami and Hitsuji are adults setting out on their own paths, she doesn't want them to look back on this and only remember how often Kosuke wasn't there, or awkward it was when she tried to be. She doesn't just want them to know that she was trying, Kosuke wants to succeed.
So maybe going on the ferry will prove that to her. When they stand on the swaying floor and grieve that their parents are not there holding hands, they will grieve together. When they marvel at the crests and the salty spray, they will marvel together.
"Oh, no. Oh, no—Minami, you and Hitsuji stay here for a second."
Kosuke leaves them in the shade of a tree and runs like running will change anything, like she's trying to defuse a bomb before a countdown, not like she's watching a uniformed worker drag a chain across the pier, a chain with a wind-beaten sign reading FERRY OUT OF SERVICE.
"Excuse me!" The worker hooks the chain into place as she barrels forward. It's just like the restaurant; it's right there. But of course the worker does not know her desperation, only that a young woman is charging for him as if to push him out of the way of an oncoming bus. "Excuse me! I'm—I'm sorry, but why is the ferry out of service?"
He tugs the brim of his hat, gives her an up-and-down look, and gestures behind him. The sea stretches on and on in a dark blue infinity. Tokyo hugs it all the way to the horizon, where the skyscrapers seem to shoot up right from the depths. It's a beautiful sight, one of the only things that make leaving their home in Karuizawa bearable, but that's not what the worker is pointing to. He's pointing to the sky above, where the clouds, which have been snowy white all day long, are beginning to saturate with gray.
"It's a safety regulation, ma'am. Ferries can't be out on the water with impending hazardous weather."
Maybe Kosuke should have accounted for the animals at the zoo not being awake. Maybe Kosuke should've made a reservation for the restaurant. But she studied the weather radar religiously.
"No, the weather forecast said the chance of rain today was ten percent!"
The worker responds by pointing at the storm clouds that did not magically disappear at her words, which…okay.
But not okay. No, not okay. This can't be happening.
"Is there—I mean, if the rain blows over soon, is there a chance the ferry will be running again?"
"We've been instructed to shut down operations for the day. I'm sorry."
Well, maybe you can just try another ferry service.
No, idiot, if one of them closed down for weather, then they ALL closed down.
We could all go to the beach for a minute, then.
So you can get caught in the downpour? Sure.
Kosuke starts pulling at her hair until her scalp is aching and her braided bangs start coming loose. The worker leaves her be, and Kosuke thinks she's going crazy, because she hated that the zoo guard was judging her and she hated that the ice cream vendor was pitying her and now she hates that this ferry worker feels nothing for her whatsoever.
Kosuke knows she can't ask the world to stop moving for her, but it would be nice if it gave her a goddamned break.
Though she stands still on the dock, Kosuke feels instead like she's walking through a maze and only finding dead ends. The park? No, it's about to rain. A restaurant? They just ate. Shopping? No, shopping isn't 'fun'.
She's so wrapped up in her own head that she forgets that Minami and Hitsuji are still waiting for her. She turns her back to the ocean and walks back to them, and that somehow makes her feel more outraged than before—that she and she alone has to break the bad news.
"Um. Okay. Listen." Kosuke bends down, and Minami deflates then and there. She already knows. "It's about to start raining soon, and when it rains the water can get pretty dangerous to be in, so the ferry isn't running. We'll have to…find something else to do."
But Hitsuji can only hear the far-off blasts of cannon fire and the cackling of mad pirates, the clash of cutlass against cutlass. One step forward, and he asks, "What about the ferry?"
"We can't go on the ferry today. It's closed."
He looks like this is the dumbest joke he's ever heard, because the boat is right there, in the water, where boats are supposed to be. "But! But!"
"I know, Hitsuji, I'm sorry. We just can't."
Kosuke tries to pretend that the salty wind is filling her ears, but the sound that Hitsuji makes—a long, high-pitched whine like a siren—cuts through crisp and clear. Zoo, strike one. Restaurant, strike two. Ferry, strike three. Kosuke's out.
The more they walk, the more sounds Hitsuji makes. Anyone would say that Kosuke should be comforting him, but if she fixes this then she won't have to comfort him. There are a million and one things to do in Tokyo, there has to be—there has to be something!
Kiddy Land is all the way on the other side of the bay, that's too far. Any theme park will probably be closed for rain, too, not to mention it's too late to get much done. A museum might be good, but what's the nearest one, and when does it close? It's already late in the afternoon now…
Eventually Kosuke can't even hear her own thoughts, not with Hitsuji's death throes right at her side. That this little winding back alley is vacant of passerby is the only thing she can be grateful for right now. Someone might call protective services on her for ignoring her child's agony.
Suddenly Minami says (raising her voice over the cacophony), "I need to go to the bathroom!"
She says this as they pass by one, a squat brick structure on a street corner. Maybe Kosuke should count her blessings that they haven't had to do a toilet hunt today—it's the thing she fears most when taking the kids out.
Kosuke lets go of Hitsuji's vice-like grip to open the door and give the cleanliness a quick scan. "Alright, go ahead."
She and Minami both startle when Hitsuji stomps his foot down so hard the sole of his sneaker cracks against the ground. "No!"
A tantrum. The culmination of the Best Day, the Big Day, the Fun Day…is a tantrum.
Kosuke is guilty, so guilty she feels like a criminal, but she also just…can't do this right now. Kosuke can't do anything, and Hitsuji wants her to do something. He doesn't want comfort and apologies, he wants the animals to wake up and the restaurant to let them in and the ferry to go out to the pirates.
"You don't have to go if you don't need to, Hitsuji. We'll just wait here for Minami."
"No!"
It takes a second, but Kosuke realizes that this is his way of coping, by fleeing to the thrill of bossing his sisters around.
Minami steps away from the stall. "I can wait—"
"Uh-uh. No." Kosuke nudges her back, feeling a flare of anger at her, too, a flare that she can contain but not deny. She knows that giving in every time will only make Hitsuji's dictatorship worse, just as she knows that Minami is only trying to help. "Go to the bathroom. We'll wait out here."
Her little sister ducks inside, less for the bathroom and more for cover from the impending mushroom cloud. It comes in a growl so raw that Kosuke's throat clenches.
"Hey!" Hitsuji doesn't even look at her. Once again, folding his arms. Once again, pouting. "Stop that!"
Harumph! "This is the worst day ever!"
All she can do is hope that the sound of her heart snapping in half isn't as loud as she thinks it is. The Worst Day. The Small Day. The Not-Fun-at-All Day.
Congratulations, Kosuke. You failed as badly as you could.
Here's her white flag, world. Do you see it? Can you stop now?
If only to get a Band-Aid on the gushing wound, Kosuke shrugs off her backpack to pull her city map out. "We're still going to do something fun. I just need to figure out what."
"I want to go on a boat!"
"We can't go on any boat, Hitsuji; it's going to rain."
Seeing her kneeling beside her backpack, Hitsuji sees the opportunity to be taller, to glower over her, and so he storms over to do just that. Never before has Hitsuji looked down at her like a bug beneath his shoe, and Kosuke almost stands just to wipe that look off his face.
"We're going on a boat!"
The way he repeats this, emphasizes this—like Kosuke is stupid, like Kosuke doesn't get that what he says goes. It gets right under Kosuke's skin, right into the marrow of her bones. She hates calling it disrespect, hates that when he was just her little brother he could be bratty, but now that he's her child he's disrespectful, as if caring for him has made her a royal and him her subject.
Brattiness or disrespect, Kosuke had enough of this the day it began. Slowly and calmly—because she wants him to realize that he's a child and she's an adult—she answers, "No, we're not."
"Yes. We. AAAARE!"
He screeches it, the sound ripping out of his throat, so high it could shatter glass, and Kosuke feels something that was already brittle inside of her snap.
She shoots up to her feet, surging over him, and breathes fire.
"That is ENOUGH! You do not make the rules, you do not tell me or Minami what to do, and you do not EVER scream at me like that, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"
And then,
of course,
Hitsuji cries.
It starts with a tiny sound, a quiet whine at the back of his throat that breaks with a sob. His whole face crumples like paper, his confidence broken just like the dam behind his eyes, and all that might he had falls apart and leaves nothing but a red flush and a flood of tears behind.
Oh, how delicious the power had been. How satisfying it was to see those narrowed eyes go wide, to watch those hip-planted fists fall down and those small sneakers cower back. So almighty, she'd been.
But now, but now…
She's not his parent, she's his sister. His sister, but also his caregiver. His caregiver, but not a god. It is her job to help him grow and learn right from wrong and guide him when he needs guidance. It's not the job she's supposed to have, but that is her job—not smiting him down when he dares to anger her.
Kosuke knows that his behavior has been unacceptable, but she also knows that she should have cut it down right when it was sprouting, not let Minami encourage it, not let it fester inside of her until this happened. Kosuke knows that she has to correct him, but she also knows that right now her little brother is crying and it's because of her.
What breaks her heart more? The sound of his sobs in her ear, or that he doesn't push away when she pulls him to her? He is hurt by her fury, angered by her disobedience, yet when Big Sister hugs him, he hugs her back.
"I'm sorry," Kosuke tells him as his tears fall into her T-shirt, as the popsicle-stained lemur tickles her neck. "I shouldn't have yelled at you like that, I'm sorry."
Kosuke stays kneeling until her calves ache, until she's positive Hitsuji is smearing snot into her collar, and she's not angry at that. She isn't even angry at the universe, for doing this to her—putting her in this position she wasn't supposed to be in. She's just angry at herself for not being better at it.
She used to push them away. Used to refuse them when they asked to be held, turned away when they asked her to play with them. They wanted her and she refused. Now they need her and she can't provide.
She must be insane, to almost wish that she'd raged for no reason and have to grovel for forgiveness. Even now, as she's holding Hitsuji close to her broken heart, she's afraid. Afraid that by apologizing, he'll think he was right. Afraid that she had to rage, because a stern voice and pointing finger wouldn't have cut it.
If Kosuke is like this now, after just over a year, then maybe her parents were driven insane long ago and she just never realized it.
She holds Hitsuji until the sobs calm down into hiccups, and the hiccups into sniffles. Then she pulls him back and wipes away the tears from his eyes.
"I'm sorry I yelled," she says again. She talks as slowly and tediously as someone stacking a house of cards. "I didn't mean to scare you. But you've been acting mean to me and Minami lately, and I need you to stop. Alright? I won't scream at you again, so I need you not to scream at me. Can you do that?"
He nods, unable to speak, and that's okay. Kosuke brushes away a curl that's stuck to his cheek with tears.
"Okay. You're okay."
She doesn't know if she takes Hitsuji's hand or if he takes hers, but either way their fingers stay connected when she stands back up again, Hitsuji using his other hand to wipe away at the tears and snot. Kosuke reaches into her backpack to get him a tissue, and only then does Minami walk out of the bathroom. There's not a doubt in Kosuke's mind that she heard everything, from the screech to the snap to the tears, and had hidden until the coast was clear.
Minami seems to look more at her forehead than her eyes. She'd do the same thing to Emiko or Marti after they got done scolding Hitsuji, too, or even Kosuke. Kosuke had never been in that position; by the time Minami was old enough to be scolded, she was a teenager. So she could only guess that Minami was feeling too many things at once—fear at being snapped at too, a want to defend her brother, discomfit in the tense atmosphere.
"Hey," Kosuke says anyway, maybe desperate to prove she isn't angry.
Minami just stands and waits for them to keep moving, and Kosuke remembers that she was looking at the map for just that answer. Her fingers barely brush the paper when those on the other hand are squeezed, and Hitsuji whimpers, "Can we go home now?"
There isn't even a hint of protest from Minami. Kosuke doesn't realize that it's a lost cause, because she's already realized it. Determination can be admirable, she supposes, until it becomes delusional. Minami feels awkward, Hitsuji's breakdown has sapped the life out of him, and Kosuke is out of ideas.
"Yeah, we can go home now."
She zips up the backpack, takes her siblings' hands, and walks. Hitsuji does not try to lead this time. At the very least Kosuke can find them a bench, or a store to duck into, until the chauffer arrives. She wants to make things better just as much as she wants to stop embarrassing herself.
Kosuke is reaching for her phone right when it begins to buzz. A call is coming in from the last person she'd expect to talk to today.
"Hello?"
"Kosuke? Can you hear me?"
Kyoya's voice is nearly consumed by some of the loudest, fastest, and sugary music she has ever heard. She hasn't a clue where he is, but somehow she knows it's filled with neon colors and flashing lights. "Yeah, I can hear you just fine. Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I can—yes, Tamaki, I will." She thinks he sighs but the music eats the sound. "Tamaki says hello."
"Tell him I said hi, too?"
"Not now."
Kosuke feels the first raindrop on her shoulder. The clouds had swooped in much faster than she'd expected. She ushers the kids towards a convenience store—figuring maybe letting them buy as many snacks and candies as they want will help. Maybe. A bit.
"Are you and Tamaki okay? You sound like you're trapped in a five-year-old's dreamland."
"Tamaki wanted to go to a…robot-alien-animal café. I'm their hundredth customer of the day; they're in the middle of my celebration parade."
"That explains the volume."
"No, it sounded exactly the same before I walked in. I'm—"
His voice cuts off entirely, but the music keeps going, zapping and zinging and in general sounding like a computer having an aneurism. Kosuke is, for some reason, afraid for him.
"Kyoya? Kyoya, can you hear me?"
The beat is marred with some shuffling and bumping around. "I'm sorry. A giant robot panda pulled me into a dance."
Kosuke can't help it. The idea of Kyoya, as straight edged as cube, dancing around with a mechanical panda makes her laugh. Only Minami looks at her—Hitsuji is looking at the candy section, and she soon joins him.
"So did you call me just to brag? Because you win. I'm jealous."
"No, that's not why I'm calling you. Are you and your siblings still having your…what did you call it, Big Day?"
For a moment Kosuke considers popping off like a bottle of champagne to him, about the zoo, the restaurant, the ferry…She thinks just hearing someone agree, That sucks, would help. But Kyoya didn't call so she could unload on him. (And Kyoya would never say the words That sucks, anyway.)
"We were just finishing up."
He pauses. "If you don't mind me saying so, you sound tired."
"It's been a long day." Then, realizing that she might as well have just screamed YEAH TODAY WAS AWFUL ASK ME ABOUT IT SO I'LL VENT, she adds, "We've just had a lot of fun, that's all."
"I see. Well, even if you're finishing up, I think I might have something that would be of more use to you than me."
As they were talking, Hitsuji and Minami came up, begging for coins for the little toy machines. Kosuke's brow furrow at Kyoya's words, but neither of her siblings notice, taking off so fast their sneakers squeak on the floor.
"What's that?"
"Apparently, every day when the hundredth customer arrives, this café opens the…Super Ultra Mega Surprise Box." Kosuke tries not to laugh at how grim he sounds as a high-pitched voice in the background shrills, IT'S TIME TO PAAAAR-TEEEEEE! "They gave me three tickets to the Star Sky Cinema. I believe that's near where you said you'd be."
It's not joy that hits Kosuke. Instead, humiliation.
How in the hell did she forget movie theaters were a thing?
Gratitude doesn't even have time to be registered. Fumbling, Kosuke protests, "Y-Yeah, but those are yours! You should keep them for yourself."
"I don't much care for theaters. Perhaps Tamaki can see the appeal in oversalted popcorn and having your eardrums implode, but I can't."
For some reason Kosuke's mouth won't move. It seems the heavens have sent her a blessing, but she hesitates to grab it. Maybe she thinks it's strange because Kyoya hasn't even really met Minami and Hitsuji yet, but perhaps not—he has three tickets he won't use, there are three people who will, it's that simple.
…Or maybe Kosuke is reeling because this is something that friends do, and she hadn't even considered if her and Kyoya are friends. They've been getting along well, have had some pleasant times together, and Hurricane Amaya had given them a kind of camaraderie only forged in disasters, but she hadn't realized they were to the point where Kyoya would not only gift her tickets he didn't want, but to add to an important day she'd mentioned.
Even then, that's not so much a big deal. Being friends isn't a big deal, either. She's confused, maybe, at the possibility that they had become friends and she hadn't even realized it.
"Kosuke? If you don't want them, that's fine, I just thought I'd offer—"
"No! I mean, yes!"
"I'm sorry?"
"I mean…" Kosuke pulls her phone away so Kyoya doesn't hear her blow a raspberry. "That's really nice, and I really appreciate it, but I don't think you're anywhere near us…"
"The tickets say you can register them online and email them to someone else. I am aware, for the record, that you could very easily buy your own tickets at no cost to yourself, possibly every seat in the theater if you desired, but you are very adamant about not throwing away usable items just because they're of no use to you personally, so—"
"Yes, I—I wouldn't mind that. I would like that. If you sent us the tickets. Thank you."
"I'll send them to you as soon as I can get out of here. Let me just—Tamaki says hello to Minami and Hitsuji, too. No, I'm not going to dance with the alien. No."
"Okay. Well…Thanks again. Thanks a lot."
"You're welcome." He pauses again, and it's hard to say if it's from lack of anything else to say, or if the technicolor wasteland he's trapped in has thrown another horror his way. "Goodbye."
"Bye."
Kosuke stares at her phone for a second—still stunned that today's conga line of misfortune has ended—but pulls herself together quickly. She trots over to the children, who are catching the little toy-holding pods with eager hands.
"Hey, guys?" Minami gives her full attention. Hitsuji tries and fails to rip his mini action figure free. "I know we were about to head home, and we can still do that if you guys want to. I know we're all tired. If you guys want to, though, we could go see a movie. It's up to you."
The instant duet of yeah! is a cold glass of water after a long walk through the desert.
They make it to the movie theater with ten minutes to spare before the only children's film showing—Kyoya's tickets pinging to Kosuke's phone not thirty seconds before they come to the door. At the concession stand they buy popcorn and drinks. Minami asks for the same thing as Hitsuji, and his struggle is visible to all, but he keeps his protests to himself. When they sit down, there is confusion about whose cup holder is whose, and Hitsuji tells Kosuke very comfortingly that she can have whichever one she wants.
As the lights dim, Kosuke recalls what Kyoya said and wonders why she did not agree. He could have kept his won tickets and she could have bought her own—with her now-unlimited finances, they might as well have been free. She supposes she wanted to accept his kindness, that deep down, under the shock, she was elated by it.
Through the rest of the movie, Minami leans on her arm, and when Kosuke runs out of her drink, Hitsuji lets her share his. The children laugh and giggle as the funny cartoon animals do their funny cartoon slapstick. Kosuke only wishes that children's films were longer, so they could have an excuse not to go back to the place they were struggling not to call 'home'.
Kosuke refuses to worry about it, though, refusing to let the later soil the now. She thinks that today was a good story kind of bad. She thinks that years from now, the three of them—herself, her sister, and her brother—will be laughing about it together.