twenty seven

little dove

After dinner, I stood silently in the kitchen doorway, watching contentedly as Fujio and Nakagoshi shoved each other around the sink while trying to wash dishes, Yasushi and Tsukasa in some strange competition while they tried to put everything away. Yumeko and I were like that once. Before everything changed.

"When you said you got your life back together, I didn't realize you meant that you adopted four teenage delinquents from the worst part of town." Odajima joked, coming up behind me. He had taken his hair out of the clumsy bun it was usually in, falling freely around his face. His sunglasses hung limply from the chain around his neck, his eyes red and puffy. "You don't happen to have my old prescription lying around here somewhere, do you?"

I chuckled, shaking my head before turning back to the kids. "Oi, don't let Fujio touch anything breakable!" I said before opening the cupboard where I kept all my insomnia-related pills, tablets and sleep aids. Digging around for a bit, I managed to find the small bottle of eye drops. It was almost eight years old, so I had no idea what good they still were, but Odajima wasn't really in any position to turn them away.

"You heard the lady!" Nakagoshi said, flicking soap bubbles at Fujio "Begone, thot!"

Odajima laughed, shaking his head as he uncapped the eyedrops. When we were fifteen, he was diagnosed with an eye disease, which is why he always had to wear sunglasses, as one of the side effects was an extreme light sensitivity. "Those kids really are something else."

"I didn't adopt them." I said, drumming my fingers against the pink glass I was holding. "They found me. And they're the best thing that's happened to me in a long time."

I still hadn't told Odajima what had happened with Doubt. I'd told the story too many times lately to tell it again, but I figured he'd need to know at some point.

When the kids were finished in the kitchen, we all gathered in the living room. Nakagoshi sat on the floor next to me, his head heavy on my shoulder as I used watercolor brush pens to draw on his arm. Over my other shoulder, Yasushi was watching with a burning intensity as I went in with a slightly darker red to add depth to the rose I had drawn.

On the couch across from me, Odajima was scrolling through the gallery on his phone, smiling widely when he found what it was he was looking for. "Do you guys want to see this poster from when Midori used to fight?"

Nakagoshi perked up, the sudden movement leaving a streak of paint on his arm. "Yes please."

"You used to fight?" Fujio asked

I nodded "Pro circuit, from when I was fifteen to a few weeks before I left for college."

Odajima passed Murayama the phone. Once it was in his possession, the boy chuckled, showing it to the full timers.

"What the hell happened to your hair?" Tsukasa managed to get out between laughs

"And I thought you were my favourite!" I said, reaching for the phone to see exactly which poster Odajima had shown them

In the picture, taken right after a fight, my hair was falling down my head, standing up in some places and sticking to my face in strands, green dye smeared all over the side of my face. I had dyed my hair two days before the fight, a terrible decision really. I had a wavering smile on my face- that fight had been ten minutes too long and I was shaky on my feet from dehydration.

"Seriously?" I said, looking at the blond "You picked this one to show the kids?"

Odajima threw his hands up in mock surrender "Hey, my mom was cleaning out the garage and happened to find it."

I cast the phone aside, getting to my feet and lunging for Odajima. The Yuken boy stumbled to his feet, taking off back towards the kitchen at a run, both of us laughing at the top of our lungs.

"Children!" Masaki called in a mocking tone "Don't kill each other please!"

"Is the Oya-Housen rivalry about to reignite in the middle of Midori Yamada's living room?" Fujio began to narrate like a sportscaster on live television "Keep watching to find out!"

"What about my tattoo!?" Nakagoshi shouted as I chased Odajima back into the living room and collapsed on the couch.

"I'll finish it in a minute." I breathed, shaking my head

Sitting up properly on the couch, I rested most of my body weight against Murayama as I uncapped the crimson brush pen and went back to the painting on Nakagoshi's arm.

"Did you draw that?" Hiroto asked, nodding towards a framed drawing on the wall

All the heads in the room seemed to turn towards the frame. Inside, was a slightly faded sheet of watercolor paper divided into six, with intricate drawings of ball gowns, each painted in a different pastel watercolor shade.

I nodded. "One of my best works. It was a junior class project."

Odajima nodded "I remember that. Didn't Shuntaro almost spill his coffee on it?"

"No, Yuken. That was you."

"Oh yeah. It was. Sorry about that."

"It's incredible." Murayama said, wrapping his arms around me while still trying not to constrict the movement of the arm I needed to work on Nakagoshi's fake tattoo.

"The only thing I ever did that my mom liked." I said sadly. "My mom and I never really connected. It was a hard pregnancy, she had a lot of post-partum depression afterwards, as like a side effect. She found it really hard to connect with me, emotionally. For the longest time, I thought she just didn't love me. When Yumeko was born, it was much easier on my mom in terms of carrying her and going into labor. Yumeko got all the love, the attention. When I was fourteen, my dad sat me down and explained to me why my mom was so distant. She still is, even more since I left home."

"That's heavy." Tsukasa said, staring at the ground

"My mom had the same thing." Nakagoshi said "When I was five, and she didn't think I needed her anymore, she threw herself off the balcony. My dad's been trying the best he can, but it's like he's not whole anymore."

"My dad died in a car accident when I was ten." Fujio offered.

"Well, if we're talking about screwed up home lives, my dad's in prison." Yasushi said quietly. "Armed robbery. My mom lost her psychology license a few years after for sleeping with her boss. Now she drinks herself half to death and has a new man every week. It's me and my sister against the world."

"You have a sister?" I asked, trying to make the conversation veer back into more comfortable territory

"Yeah. Sei. She's seven." The boy smiled "She's got her whole life ahead of her. If only we could get out of Hope Hills."

I turned to the one Hope Hills kid who hadn't spoken yet. "Tsukasa, do you want to say anything? Anything you want to get off your chest?"

The blond sighed "My dad left before I was born, my brother is the only one who remembers him. My mom works three jobs, trying to save enough money to put me through college, and now she needs to help pay for my brother's wedding, and he just got fired again. My life is a mess."

"It seems like all of ours are." I said with a small laugh

"My parents were alright, when they were around. I see them more now that my dad's retired." Odajima offered

I threw a throw pillow at him, which he caught. "Shut up, Odajima. Your parents were the best. Remember that boat trip your dad took us on in junior year? When he pushed Tatsumi off the boat for talking too much?"

Odajima laughed, smirks and small smiles popping up on other faces around the room. "I've never seen that kid look more betrayed. I'm never gonna forget his face when he climbed back up, man."

___

A few hours later, all the kids had fallen asleep. I had expressly forbid them from leaving the house, not wanting them to go back to Hope Hills so late at night, in an area where anything could happen.

It was quite the sight: Fujio sprawled across most of the couch, his head slumped on to Nakagoshi's shoulder. Tsukasa took up the least space on the other end of the couch, half his body seeming to hang over the edge. And last but certainly not least, Yasushi was sprawled out over all three of them. Depsite being tiny, the boy took up a lot of space.

Odajima missed the last train to Torau City, so I put him up in Yumeko's old room. Masaki and Hiroto had gotten into a fist fight over who got my parents' room, which I eventually gave to Masaki to stop the petty fighting. Begrudgingly, Hiroto had set himself up on the other couch.

With a small smile, I took my phone out of the pocket of my flannel pajama pants, snapping a picture of the slumbering teenagers, as they'd likely be back at each others throats in the morning, despite all the progress we had made in getting them to like each other.

"Dori-chan!" Murayama chortled from behind me "Come on, it's past eleven. You need sleep."

I waved my hand nonchalantly, as if to say it was all fine. "I'll be there in a minute, just let me fuss over the kids a little longer."

Murayama rolled his eyes, a small grin on his face. "You can do that in the morning."

There was the slamming of a door in the kitchen, Noboru quickly limping towards the door. He could walk without the cane now, but not super far.

"Is everything okay?" I asked the other boy as he pulled on a leather jacket.

"I just got off the phone with Yamato. You know that tourist that's been staying with Tetsu, Gillian?"

I nodded, remembering the hassle at the last S.W.O.R.D meeting.

"Well, Hyuga and his guys have been sending her death threats."

"Oh my god, is she okay?"

Noboru nodded "I think so. Tetz called us all over there."

"If you don't come back, we know who to go after." I said jokingly as he left, shutting the door behind him.

Murayama yawned "Well, that's enough excitement for one day. I don't know about you, but I'm going to sleep." He said before gently grabbing my waist and pulling me in for a kiss.

I smiled. "I'll be there in a second."

Once the boy had left, I grabbed a pile of blankets that had been knocked off the couch and unfolded them, gently laying the soft fabric across the sleeping teenagers, pressing gentle kisses to their foreheads.

"Dori-chan! I think I broke the diffuser!"

NOTES!

1825 words of more wholesomeness. i really enjoyed trying to go a little more in depth into the full-timers and their backstories, because we only really get insight into fujios family life, and the concept of big brother yasushi gives me life, and will be explored more in 'pictures'. i know this dinner seems to be stretching across too many chapters, but as things are about to get more chaotic i wanted to do something wholesome