7. Between Family, Fireworks, and Fate.

Haru swoons.

"How are you so good at that?"

Rei sighs longsufferingly. "I raised my girls for a few years on my own. I can tie three hundred obis with my eyes closed. Please," he adjusts the ribbon on Kyoko's back, standing up with a satisfied sigh.

He moves on to help Sae, fastening the obi and clipping on a ribbon. His younger sisters had long black hair, so yukatas definitely looked wonderful on them. It's the natural beauty of the Japanese spirit, Yamato Nadeshiko or something.

Haru helps the girls do their hair, and Kyoko looks through the boxes for accessories. It's honestly very jarring how much stuff their father has in the storeroom. (Why does a single father have an assortment of makeup, costumes, and shoes for women, anyways? On second thought, let's not jump to conclusions.) Rei could live comfortably if they sold all of it, except Dad just kept them for sentimentality or something.

At least he had enough to go around to share with Kyoko, Haru, Bianchi, and even I-pin. Though the latter two left ahead with Fuuta for the festival, to help with some chaos Reborn planned.

"Red for Sae-chan, blue for Sui-chan. Then there's an orange one for Kyoko and a pink one for me," Haru lists off, "they're all so pretty! Your family really likes to colour code things, huh, Rei-san?"

Rei hums. He wasn't sure how the genetics distributed, with him and his siblings all having different eye colours, but he'd dismissed it as anime logic a long time ago. (Dad had blue eyes, and Kuma-sensei had green eyes, so Sae must be the main character since she has red eyes?)

The colour-coding all started with Rei struggling to make sure there was enough of everything with Sae and Sui. Getting one red and one blue of everything just helped to delegate what stuff belonged to who, and the green was just the natural course of things. Dad came back and continued the trend.

"Oh? Sui, you finally managed to decide the yukata you want to wear?"

Sui's half-shrouded in the blue yukata, but she holds up a green haori, eyes twinkling.

"Rei-chan should look pretty, too."

Rei pauses.

He lifts his head to his father, who's peeking out of the dining room with a wig.

There's an intense moment of absolutely serious conversation. Father and son debated pensively, strictly internally, occasionally glancing at Sui as if to prove the point.

Rei glances at Kyoko, who smiles indulgently at the sight. Sui stares at Rei expectantly, but Sae and Haru haven't noticed what's going on yet— they need to get that ponytail perfect, after all.

Rei sighs longsufferingly.

"Ten bucks the boys notice immediately."

And Kyoko happily chimes in, "fifty or you're a coward."

-

DAD:

Try not to meet Kazumasa.
He might shoot you.

REI:

What?
Who's Kamamono
tamazusamaru

DAD:

Kunomasu, dear.
I now understand why you kids
all call him 'Kuma'...

REI:

Kuma-sensei??
And no

Rei ponders upon the implications of his doctor being the one to shoot him dead on the streets, but he doesn't get to linger on that discovery. He chances upon Dino, because of course the boss is here to meet his sworn brother and gets lost.

Do your goddamn job, Romario.

"Oh! I'm sorry, little lady," he begins, when they accidentally bump into each other, "you wouldn't happen to know where the Sawada Household is?"

You go there every other week. How do you still not have a natural compass to it?

"You're in the wrong neighbourhood," he says.

And Dino deflates, "am I?"

"But Tsuna's not home now, anyways..." Rei wonders if it would be a good idea to take Dino to the festival. He might kill himself on a skewer stick. "I'll call him."

He glances up to notice Dino staring.

"What?"

"Ah, no, just..." Dino's flustered, "I have a feeling I've seen you somewhere before, that's all."

Rei's honestly very offended. All he did was get longer hair, pin it up with the silver kanzashi Kyoko gave him, and put on a haori— not even a proper yukata like the girls. He's not even wearing it properly— he's simply stylized it like a jacket over a white top and hakama pants. Sure, this is more like how boyish girls would dress, but come on.

"Maybe it's a coincidence?" Rei diverts. He's going to owe Kyoko so much money.

"Yeah," Dino chuckles, warmly. "I mean, I've not been in Japan until recently. Maybe it's the whole Japanese, because I'm thinking of someone I once met in Italy. Or maybe it was Russia? Ah, I remember her haori was similar to this, but it was yellow."

Rei freezes at that.

Dino isn't thinking of Rei at all. Who is Dino thinking of, that Rei apparently resembles? Italy? Russia? Yeah, maybe it's just a very jarring coincidence. Maybe dad crossdressed on one of his worktrips around the globe.

(But that's not right.)

(In the family colour code, Dad is purple.)

(Who's yellow?)

-

Rei makes it all the way to the front steps of the shrine before Dino finally connects the dots. And if it's not because Kyoko jumps to loop her arm around his, it's because Hibari Kyouya walks back, spits out a disgusted, "Squirrel" at him, and leaves without even biting anyone to death.

Dino's shocked speechless.

"No way."

"Yeah," Rei says, "I owe you fifty, Kyoko."

"For now," she sings, sweetly. She clings to his arm like a sweet little girlfriend. "Come on, Rei-kun. Haru already brought your sisters up ahead of us."

"Joy."

Dino's still dumbfounded. "But..."

Rei grins at him, "don't worry about it. Being good at deception apparently runs in the family."

Along the way, Rei encounters more of his classmates. Most recognize him instantly, though a few did double takes at the very unexpected state of dress. Always-in-hoodies-and-baggy-clothes Rei in something fashionable? Preposterous.

Each time, Rei wonders if Kyoko will wring him dry of his savings and he'll have to start an IOU for owing a debt to Kyoko for the rest of his life.

They find the boys at a stall selling choco-bananas, and of course, they're doing horribly.

Sae is showcasing Rei like a masterpiece, dramatically posed and everything, to every passer-by coming through. It would be embarrassing if Rei had skin any thinner. They giggle at him, some recognized and waved, and Sae kept fishing for compliments on Rei's behalf.

"Isn't Rei-chan so pretty today?! Sae and Sui did that!" she would boast, and they would pat her on the head completely enchanted.

Technically, dad did the updo and the makeup and the styling— but well, he wouldn't mind his daughters taking the credit.

(Come to think of it, dad's always around, but he's never out in public during events. What an antisocial guy...)

"You really do look great," someone says. "I wonder if you guys had a mother, she'd look like you. Since Sae and Sui have black hair, your brown hair must be from your mother's side, right?"

Rei pauses in surprise.

Ah, why didn't he think of that?

Sae and Sui also seemed confused, so Rei assures quickly, "well, I wouldn't know," he affixes. "Thanks. You guys all look nice, too. Is that yukata a rental?"

He changes the topic.

Everyone knows the Ninomiya don't have a mother, but he'd like it if no one felt obligated to walk around eggshells on them. They've never had a woman in the house, and they can't miss what they don't have.

However, Rei can't help but feel a little bitter as they made their way back to the stall, where Dino had just bought the girls some choco-bananas.

"HEY, Green thing!" Gokudera yells. "BUY SOMETHING!" He waves his bombs at them, and Rei has to take a moment to realize the crunched lollipop with the dented stick in Gokudera's mouth is a clear sign he'd been reprimanded not to smoke while selling food.

"Uhhh," Rei looks over the selection as Kyoko buys something. "Okay."

"Oh wow, Rei, you look great!" Yamamoto turns to him bright and beaming, a contrast to Tsuna who's still trying to stutter out half a compliment to Kyoko. "It's rare to see you dolled up outside of your Haru streams."

Ah, the Haru streams. They do everything from circus plays to full gymnastic sequences, all in full makeup and costume.

They haven't done one of those in a while... Kuma-sensei hasn't given him the clearance for strenuous activity recently. He's been pretty adamant recently, which kind of sucks.

"R- Rei-kun?!" Tsuna squeaks, looking him up and down, clearly not knowing where his eyes should land. "Seriously?? I couldn't tell!"

Kyoko sighs, "two losses and a win for me. Now you only owe me a hundred."

"Stop being greedy."

"Maybe you can be my wallet for this festival and I'll count it even?"

"That's a good idea," Rei says, picking out his phone and taking a few choice selfies around the choco-banana booth. "Free advertising for you guys, and I might as well make some money off this. I'll go conquer the game booths."

"You're such a businessman even at a festival, Rei-kun," Tsuna sighs. "Can't you just relax?"

For content creators, seasonal activities are the opposite of vacation. It's peak entertainment season. Why wouldn't he capitalize this?

"Sae-chan wants to go on a food tour, so I'll be taking her along!" Haru calls, "Bianchi-san, let's go!"

"Yeah!" Sae cheers, holding firmly to her hand.

Sui clings to Rei's side, however, and Kyoko decides she'll stay here with adult I-pin to help with the stall. Can't go wrong with a cute sales girl, after all.

"Should I be your cameraman, then?" Dino asks.

He chuckles.

Well, beggars can't be choosers.

"If you actually keep me in frame?" Rei's skeptical.

"Don't worry, my subordinates are wandering the festival now, always within 50m radius of me. So, I'm safe. Won't launch your phone into the nearest out-of-place mud pile."

The fact that Dino knows what to expect otherwise is alarming. "Why couldn't they do that earlier? Or rather, all the time?"

"Well, today's their day off."

That's fair. And so, Rei decides to enjoy the summer festival to the fullest. Sui by his side and Dino following on a camera, the crossdressing booth-conqueror Stream begins.

-

The staple of a circus is knife throwing. Rei feels the movements come to him smoothly, breathing as if he were the girl he once was— with three smooth thucks against the rapidly spinning wheel, the owner had to ring the bell for a grand prize after tallying up the points.

The gigantic otter plushie fits awkwardly against Sui's height, but she clearly loved it enough to clutch it firmly. At some point, Dino had to contribute to holding some of the smaller ones— and then, one of his viewers came by with a little pull-cart for him to fit all his winnings.

"What'll I do with all this? Well, I'll keep the ones my friends want..." Rei murmurs through the cotton candy stuck on his teeth, looking around the festival masks. He bypasses the fox one and picks out the bear one instead. "The rest of them... uhm, any suggestions?"

The chat flooded through.

"Oh, donating them's a good idea!"

He puts on the bear mask around his head, and grins.

"Alright, let's do super-ball scooping next," he hums. "I saw Katanuki down the street, we can do that afterward."

Dino sighs fondly, following after him obediently with camera in hand. He's usually the boss, so working for someone else even for a short time is a new experience. While Dino is much closer to Tsuna than any of his other friends, he's been caught up in spars against Hibari (for trespassing) and he knows Gokudera a normal amount— it's Rei that always intrigues him.

Rei's just a civilian, but as Tsuna's Family/Guardian candidate, he stands out. He's notorious even in the underworld simply because of his videos. It's not just because his content is fascinating, naive— it's always the way he sets off a certain alarm in everyone's head, but no one can quite understand what it is.

It reminds them of novel, peaceful mundanity, and they treasure it.

But at the same time, they can't help but feel as if Rei should be someone they keep close tabs on. Just in case.

(Ah, that's it.)

(Even though Dino is filming him, his sincere heart, showing his true smile to the world— deep inside, Dino feels like he can't really see him.)

(He's right there, and yet, there's the sense that he's not actually real. That's they're not actually seeing who he is on the other side of the coin. As if his smiles are layered upon by another foreboding something— and it throws them off, even if it doesn't feel like a threat.)

(It's unknown if Rei even knows he does that to people. That's why Dino can't take his eyes off him at all.)

Dino stumbles across a water balloon on the ground with a yelp.

A kid must have accidentally dropped theirs, from the yo-yo fishing game. Dino gathers himself and looks up at the person he nearly crashed into, an apology at his lips.

"Oh, my bad!" he calls, straightening the camera.

"Ah, it's fine."

Dino moves on, not thinking much of it.

Not thinking much of the woman in the yellow haori, reaching for the fox mask on the festival booths. And definitely not noticing the way her green eyes followed Dino as he melded back into the crowd trying to catch up to Rei.

-

"Becoming the Terrorizer of NamiNatsu Fest —with @DONvalentino" video by @GRE3NH0USE

[Video ID—

The shooting gallery is crowded, and the camera has a perfect view of Rei aiming that toy rifle carefully for everything on the shelf.

"Please have mercy on me," the shopkeeper's praying.

Mercilessly, Rei fired all of his bullets successively. It's a gimmick gun, so he's perfectly good at it, thank you— a real gun would break his arms. And he hits everything he wants, luck doing the rest.

He falters at the final shot for the largest bunny toy that didn't seem it'd be taken down by a cork gun— but it falls, and he seems mildly surprised before shrugging it off as a blessing from the gods.

"That'll be all, then," he decides.

The shopkeeper fails, "you took everything expensive!"

Rei beams. "Yes, aren't I amazing?"

Incoherent sobbing.

"Okay, Sui, that one's for Sae," Rei orders, "go take it."

"And that's so weird," the shopkeeper whines, tearfully taking down the bunny doll, "I didn't intend to lose this one. I had it propped up in a hidden stand and everything."

Rei laughs, "dude, this is being recorded you know?"

"You already won, what's the point... everyone knows these booths are scams. But every once in a while, people like you come by and ruin my record anyways. Hasn't happened in years since that sniper-totting young couple came by..." he sighs again. "It's always teenagers."

"You don't need to tell the world that," Rei clarifies, very necessarily. "But I guess my hunch was right... I didn't think I'd gotten that bunny at first, either. It was way too heavy for your faultily-loaded rifle."

The shopkeeper blinks. Sui, hugging two dolls now, seems content.

"Eh? Then how'd you do it?"

"Hmmm..." Rei contemplates his answer. "I'd tell you, but you know, a magician never reveals his secrets!"

—End ID]

1,312,450 Views

Liked by @lostintheplanets, @go_forte_urself, and 100k others.

@UMAFINDER || Hayato left a comment: "stop breaking the laws of physics"

@pompadoursuperior || Kusakabe T. left a comment: "please report scam booths next time, Kyou-san would like to have a word with them"

-

Often Rei looks back at that video.

To this day, he doesn't know why the toy fell. It was almost like a perfect wind blew just then, swaying the toy just a little off, until just the lightest cork was enough to tilt it off balance. Gravity did the rest of the work.

He never comes to understand exactly what happened, then. Nothing he learns in the future, either, manages to explain it to him

But he'll just look at it as some god-bestowed plot convenience and leave it be.

-

Rei wanders into a... gangfight, is the best he can describe it all to be.

Tsuna chased after someone that stole all their earnings of the day— is led into a trap, surrounded, and then Gokudera and Yamamoto come to his rescue. Of course Hibari is here, he has a nose for trouble in his territory.

Somehow— they're at the center of the battle, backs to each other, fighting together against a common enemy.

"Ohh, so this would be the first time those four actually fight as one, wouldn't it?" Dino marvels at the sight. "What a cohesive Family. You chose well, Reborn."

Reborn chuckles, "of course I did."

Dino doesn't step in, they seem to be doing just fine. Sui watches from beside Rei, and he pats her on the head.

Lifting his phone's camera, Rei starts up a new stream.

"Now, the surprise stream just before midnight— the great festival brawl begins!" he steps forward and declares, bright and beaming. He catches the exact moment eyes turn to him with surprise, recognition, and astonishment. "Oh."

He smiles, lifting his eyes from the camera.

"I just got photographic evidence of all of you hooligans. So many adults outnumbering a few teenagers would make this self-defense, right?"

"Rei, don't just stand there!"

Takeshi calls out, a rare show of anger— but Tsuna launches himself, Dying Will Mode, clean over the heads of dozens of them, snatching Rei up by the waist and dragging him off as would a beast, scampering to safety.

Rei barks out a laugh.

The gang that missed him stumble— and that second it enough for swords, bombs, and tonfas to knock at least a dozen of them down, and in their attempt to recover, half a dozen are stricken as well.

Tsuna spins back around and plants a heel in someone that tries to jump them, and then he runs right back into the fray.

Rei whistles.

"Aren't they so cool?"

Reborn lands on his shoulder.

"Oh, you wanna join me?" Rei asks. "It's free content. Look at the views on this thing. I'm going viral in less than five minutes."

Reborn chuckles. "If that's what you want to call it, then go ahead. I'm sure you can be a distraction, if nothing else."

Rei runs into the fray once more, adoring the way that one of the four would come to his aid every time someone gets even close to him. He easily dodges past the most obvious eyes, and when he finds himself back to back with the four of them, he can't help but feel complete.

He feels like he's having the best time of his life.

"Oy, you relatively harmless green weakling," Gokudera snarls, and Rei brightens at the idea that he's been promoted in the nickname scale, "don't blame us if you up and die."

"Please don't collapse," Takeshi says. "But if you do, I'll carry you back."

Hibari, however, scoffs. "Might as well lock this weak animal in the hospital, it's incapable of life outdoors."

Tsuna, still in Dying Will Mode, roars, "FINISH THIS FIGHT BEFORE REI DIES!"

"I'm not going to die!" Rei protests.

But there's laughter tinged in his tone, and when they fight again, Rei is alongside them. People lunge for him, trying to get the camera off, but they never succeed.

-

"Damn that kid," Kuma-sensei growls into his phone, watching the stream. "It's like he has no self-preservation skills."

And it puts him in a bad mood.

"Then again, what did I expect from Yuuichirou's kid?" he sighed.

He wanders the festival in his doctor's coat, a lollipop lolling from one cheek to the other as he tries to figure out where the fight was happening.

He finds himself staring at Rei, when the camera is passed from Takeshi to Gokudera, so Rei can leap and use his attackers as stepping stones. His steps are light and elegant, as if he were weightless, and when he pranced around avoiding grabbing hands, he laughed. He gets picked up by Tsuna, and in the same move he swings out his feet in a split to take out two assailants on either side.

He's beautiful.

The wig's firmly pinned on Rei's head, jostled but not at all coming off. The long brown hair spun in the air, but he's careful not to let it get grabbed. The bear festival mask sits lopsided on his head. He straightens it, and carries on.

"When he's like that, he looks just like..."

Kuma-sensei sighs, deeply miserable, and he can't finish the sentence. He clutches his first aid kit firmly, and for this moment, the stickers from the pediatric department just seem silly and out of place for a man with no family, no children of his own.

He thinks of Yuuichirou, who comes home for his children, and yet, never leaves the house. Because he's fought so hard for his happiness, but he's not allowed to enjoy it. He's made a family, but he has no place in it.

He looks at Rei again, and wonders if Rei can keep this— a Family that dives to protect him, fights alongside him, and laughs with him, cares for him.

(Or is everyone with this blood in their veins fated to end up alone?)

Kuma-sensei looks up to the crescent moon in the sky, and maybe he's too old to be grieving not the first time about the mistakes he's made in life.

He chose to stay alone. He's fine with it. He doesn't deserve anything else.

"Are you happy too?"

He asks, into the air, and receives no reply.

"Because I don't think you and I deserve that. We gave it up once, you threw it all away once... so, I don't understand."

He turns around fully, to the Katanuki booth three paces behind him.

The woman sitting at the forefront is working on her sugar candy, carefully carving out the figure of a heart with the needle. The fox festival mask sits fully over her face, obscuring her vision, but it doesn't hide any of the light brown hair cascading down either sides of her face.

The yellow haori, the white top, the hakama pants— it's as if she knew beforehand exactly what Rei chose to wear today.

He wouldn't put it past her to have figured it out quickly. She has the greatest information broker in the world at her beck and call, after all.

"Why are you here, Kazane? Don't give me any bull that you're here to enjoy the festival or see your kids. We all know you don't care about any of that."

Slowly, she lifts her mask from her face, revealing the slightly blank, yet undeniably forlorn look on her face.

"Do I need a reason to come home, once in a while?"

Kuma-sensei tries his best to not snap, to not raise his voice. They're in her trance— people do not care for their conversation at the moment, there's so many people around them but their conversation is drawing no attention. A shout would change that, and he doesn't want that.

So he says, as calmly as he can.

"You burned down your home a long time ago. There is no place for you here, or anywhere else in the world. You did that to yourself."

She looks down at that, almost sadly. Setting down the needle after messing up her candy carving, she toys with her fingers, lingering.

"You'll never forgive me, will you, Kazumasa?"

His fists tighten.

His next words are forced out of him, choked through an emotion he can liken to sheer disappointment, dragged out from a soul that still remembers a love that he's long lost.

"Do you think either of us deserve forgiveness?"

They're not saints. They're not even decent human beings.

"You abandoned your family, Kazane," his words are full of pain. "Don't you dare crawl back here, pretending to help. I refuse to lose him again—"

"Please remember, Kazu. Rei isn't a replacement for Naomasa."

When Kazane says that, so simply, so nonchalantly— something inside of him just instantly snapped.

And the anger rips out of him.

"JUST LEAVE!"

There's a violent updraft, and she really did vanish the next he'd opened his eyes. The crowd had been startled by the wind, but they'd dismissed it as one of the coolers or fans from a stall making it out of the booths.

Kuma-sensei catches his breath, looking at his trembling hands and taking in the light indents of blood he'd carved in with his nails. He can't even move, right now, just taking in the entire interaction.

It'd been like a fever dream. She's gone, like a gust of wind, past him before he could register it, and quickly forgotten.

The only sign she left was the Katanuki caramel, sitting broken on the workspace. The heart had been split haphazardly down the center, and half of it was gone.

Kuma-sensei leans down, picks up the other half of the heart— and with a sigh, he slips it into his mouth, and savors the caramel taste between his lollipop.

If only to make sure there were truly no traces left.

When he continues his way toward where Rei and his friends are fighting— he doesn't look back, not even once.

It would be like nothing ever happened, and that's what he prefers.

-

"I brought you an oxygen tank."

"That's too much!"

Kuma-sensei stares him down, the tank in hand.

Rei protests, but he takes it anyway, setting the gas mask over his face and taking a session of just breathing well and properly again.

Yamamoto sits beside him, trying not to look this way but very clearly making sure Rei had no opportunity to stand up and run off again. Tsuna's exhausted and in his boxers, Gokudera lays defeatedly over a safe— something about barely protecting it from being confiscated by Hibari— and the girls were coming right by to join them for the fireworks.

"You can't do that, Rei-niichan!" Fuuta scolds him, holding up a book, "see? You're first in the ranks of people in the mafiosi involvement that will die suddenly from organ failure in the middle of battle. You can't risk it like that!"

"That's a very specific ranking you have there, Fuuta."

"All the other candidates on the list are senior veterans and retired bosses, You're in a worse state than old people, Rei-niichan!"

"Wow, that's absolutely worrying."

With a sigh, he stands at the side with Romario and Reborn. He had to stand and pause, when he first saw Rei and took in for not the first time just how much his nephew looked like his mother.

But Rei probably didn't care about that. DIdn't even want to acknowledge that.

And Kuma-sensei will respect that. If he could, he would never let them meet. Alas— Rei dipped his hands in the inevitable underworld, just like his mother chased the allure of it so long ago— and he helplessly felt his loved ones slip from his hands once again.

"Perhaps it's because he's been ill his whole life," Reborn says. "He quite likes to test the borders of what he can try and what he can't. I call that stupidity, but maybe someone more eloquent will call it dying will."

Kuma-sensei huffs.

"Whatever it is, it runs in the family," he says. "It's incurable, sorry about that."

Reborn snorts at that.

Whatever path Rei chooses— Kuma-sensei will be right behind him. He will find a cure, and find a way for Rei to live on with all the love and kindness he has found. He'll live, long and as long as he can, so he can give it all back and continue to enjoy it forever.

"Don't you think you're putting too much pressure on him?" Romario sighs. "It's one thing for Tsunayoshi and Dino... Rei is just a normal child, weighed down by his health, isn't he? I can't help but feel he's always been just doing what other people have asked of him."

(Dino used to be like that. Tsuna is vehemently against that.)

Reborn and Kuma-sensei had nothing to say for that.

They just looked toward Rei, Fuuta in his lap, Sae and Sui on either side as they all perused the big ranking book. Yamamoto listens. Gokudera is sifting through Rei's carnival toy haul, and Tsuna's getting his wound briefly mended by Kyoko and Haru. Bianchi is trying to feed him a corrosive cake, and Dino's fighting for his younger brother's life.

Rei's never been a difficult or selfish child.

Not since he first collapsed and his lung condition got worse. He raised his sisters when Yuuichirou didn't, and even before then— he's never made a fuss about anything.

He's never cried. Except that one time, when Yuuichirou came home.

He's never complained about being sick. He runs out and has fun, but he always returns when told. He pushes the boundaries of his vitality, but it's only ever at risk of himself.

Huh, Kuma-sensei wonders. Just this one part of him is nothing like her. Instead, it's just like... no, he shouldn't.

Rei is his own person. He can't keep projecting someone else onto him. Rei can't keep living a life that someone else decided for him— one day, he'll have to branch out and find his own way of living.

A way of living that is truly his, and his own.

He can't keep letting ghosts dictate his life.

"He'll find his way out of it," Kuma-sensei says. "He's a strong boy. He can make it... you two oughta worry about your own, instead. Rei will be fine. And even if he isn't, that's what this new Family is for."

Because Rei has a family.

Family sticks together, no matter what.

-

Rei peruses the rankings with interest. Fuuta's been showing him the rankings he's prominent in— most of which Fuuta himself didn't quite understand.

Best Fighters in Namimori at #16, Ninomiya Rei. Potential to become a Great Hitman at #4, Ninomiya Rei. Most Wanted Mafia member at an astounding #3, Ninomiya Rei.

He didn't understand a lot of them. He's never fought anyone at school seriously before— but if fighting wasn't just a fistfight and also took into account mobility and tactics... well, Rei had no reason to doubt the ranks. His parkour training gave him an edge in weird spaces.

As for Most Wanted, he saw Hibari at #1, but Rei couldn't be sure if this 'wanted' was a good or bad kind of wanted. Either way, he did not like it at all.

"We can look at more of them at the Greenhouse tomorrow," Rei suggests, when Fuuta starts getting hyperfixated. The fireworks would start soon.

"Ah– that's right! Uncle Yuuichirou's stats! I never got a chance to look at them last time," he says, "he's so mysterious! But all I ranked last time I was there was you. Can I rank him when I go there?"

"You'll have to ask him."

"Okay! Then, tomorrow, first thing in the morning!"

"Of course."

The morning after the lovely fireworks show, Rei felt he could still see the glare of the sparklers beneath his eyelids. He's so exhausted, but he drags his body out of bed, greets his father, makes breakfast— and waits.

Fuuta never shows up at the Greenhouse.